• Monster is here used in the sense of marvel or prodigy. ↩
• Now as an eagle, now as a lion. The two natures, divine and human, of Christ are reflected in Theology, or Divine Wisdom. Didron, who thinks the Griffin a symbol of the Pope, applies this to his spiritual and temporal power:⁠— “As priest he is the eagle floating in the air; as king he is a lion walking on the earth.” ↩
• The Italian Caribo , like the English Carol or Roundelay, is both song and dance. Some editions read in this line “singing,” instead of “dancing.” ↩
• A mystical canto, in which is described the tree of the forbidden fruit, and other wonderful and mysterious things. ↩
• Beatrice had been dead ten years. ↩
• Goethe, Hermann and Dorothea , Cochrane’s Tr. , p. 103:⁠— “Ev’n as the wanderer, who, ere the sun dips his orb in the ocean, One last look still takes of the day-god, fast disappearing; Then, amid rocks rude-piled, umbrageous forests, and copsewoods, Sees his similitude float, wherever he fixes his vision; Finding it glancing before him, and dancing in magical colors.” ↩