• Beaumont and Fletcher, The Laws of Candy , IV 1:⁠— “Seldom despairing men look up to heaven, Although it still speak to ’em in its glories; For when sad thoughts perplex the mind of man, There is a plummet in the heart that weighs And pulls us, living, to the dust we came from.” ↩
• In this canto is described the ascent to the Third Circle of the mountain. The hour indicated by the peculiarly Dantesque introduction is three hours before sunset, or the beginning of that division of the canonical day called Vespers. Dante states this simple fact with curious circumlocution, as if he would imitate the celestial sphere in this scherzoso movement. The beginning of the day is sunrise; consequently the end of the third hour, three hours after sunrise, is represented by an arc of the celestial sphere measuring forty-five degrees. The sun had still an equal space to pass over before his setting. This would make it afternoon in Purgatory, and midnight in Tuscany, where Dante was writing the poem. ↩
• From a perpendicular. ↩
• Matthew 5:7:⁠— “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”; —sung by the spirits that remained behind. See note 758 . ↩