• Jeremiah 5:6:⁠— “Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces.” ↩
• Worldly Pleasure; and politically Florence, with its factions of Bianchi and Neri. ↩
• Più volte volto. Dante delights in a play upon words as much as Shakespeare. ↩
• The stars of Aries. Some philosophers and fathers think the world was created in Spring. ↩
• Ambition; and politically the royal house of France. ↩
• Some editions read temesse , others tremesse . ↩
• Avarice; and politically the Court of Rome, or temporal power of the Popes. ↩
• Dante as a Ghibelline and Imperialist is in opposition to the Guelfs, Pope Boniface VIII , and the King of France, Philip the Fair, and is banished from Florence, out of the sunshine, and into “the dry wind that blows from dolorous poverty.” Cato speaks of the “silent moon” in De Re Rustica , XXIX , Evehito luna silenti ; and XL , Vites inseri luna silenti . Also Pliny, XVI 39, has Silens luna ; and Milton, in Samson Agonistes “Silent as the moon.” ↩