• There is a similar passage in one of the Troubadours, who, in an Elegy, commends his departed friend to the Virgin as a good singer. “He sang so well, that the nightingales grew silent with admiration, and listened to him. Therefore God took him for his own service.⁠ ⁠… If the Virgin Mary is fond of genteel young men, I advise her to take him.” ↩
• The Seraphim, clothed with six wings, as seen in the vision of the Prophet Isaiah 6:2:⁠— “Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.” ↩
• In the original, S’ io m’ intuassi come tu t’ immii ; if I in-theed myself as thou in-meest thyself. Dantesque words, like inluia , note 1398 . ↩
• The Mediterranean, the greatest of seas, except the ocean, surrounding the earth. Bryant, “Thanatopsis”:⁠— “And poured round all Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste.” ↩
• Extending eastward between Europe and Africa. Dante gives the length of the Mediterranean as ninety degrees. Modern geographers make it less than fifty. ↩