• There is an air of reality about this passage, like some personal reminiscence of street gossip, which gives perhaps a little credibility to the otherwise incredible anecdotes of Dante told by Sacchetti and others;⁠—such as those of the ass-driver whom he beat, and the blacksmith whose tools he threw into the street for singing his verses amiss, and the woman who pointed him out to her companions as the man who had been in Hell and brought back tidings of it. ↩
• Some editions read in this line mezza notte , midnight, instead of prima notte , early nightfall. Of meteors Brunetto Latini, Tresor , I pt. 3, ch. 107, writes:⁠— “Likewise it often comes to pass that a dry vapor, when it has mounted so high that it takes fire from the heat which is above, falls, when thus kindled, towards the earth, until it is spent and extinguished, whence some people think it is a dragon or a star which falls.” Milton, Paradise Lost , IV 556, describing the flight of Uriel, says:⁠— “Swift as a shooting star In Autumn thwarts the night, when vapors fired Impress the air, and show the mariner From what point of his compass to beware Impetuous winds.” ↩
• Shakespeare’s “war ’twixt will and will not,” and “letting I dare not wait upon I would.” ↩