• Divination by fire, and other childish fancies about sparks, such as wishes for golden sequins, and nuns going into a chapel. Cowper, “Names of Little Note in the Biogr. Brit. ”:⁠— “So when a child, as playful children use, Has burnt to tinder a stale last year’s news, The flame extinct, he views the roving fire⁠— There goes my lady, and there goes the squire, There goes the parson, O illustrious spark! And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!” ↩
• In this eagle, the symbol of Imperialism, Dante displays his political faith. Among just rulers, this is the shape in which the true government of the world appears to him. In the invective against Pope Boniface VIII , with which the canto closes, he gives still further expression of his intense Imperialism. ↩
• The simplest interpretation of this line seems to me preferable to the mystic meaning which some commentators lend it. The Architect who built the heavens teaches the bird how to build its nest after the same model;⁠— “The Power which built the starry dome on high, And poised the vaulted rafters of the sky, Teaches the linnet with unconscious breast To round the inverted heaven of her nest.” ↩
• The other group of beatified spirits. ↩