• These men, say some of the commentators, were as swords that mutilated and distorted the Scriptures. Others, that in them the features of the Scriptures were distorted, as the features of a man reflected in the grooved or concave surface of a sword. ↩
• Names used to indicate any common simpletons and gossips. ↩
• In writing this line Dante had evidently in mind the beautiful wise words of St. Francis:⁠— “What every one is in the eyes of God, that he is, and no more.” Mr. Wright, in the notes to his translation, here quotes the well-known lines of Burns, “Address to the Unco Guid”:⁠— “Then gently scan your brother man, Still gentler sister woman; Though they may gang a kennin wrang, To step aside is human: One point must still be greatly dark, The moving why they do it: And just as lamely can ye mark How far perhaps they rue it. “Who made the heart, ’tis He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord its various tone, Each spring its various bias. Then at the balance let’s be mute; We never can adjust it; What’s done we partly may compute, But know not what’s resisted.” ↩