CANTO IV
v. 6. Between two deer]
Tigris ut auditis, diversa valle duorum
Extimulata fame, mugitibus armentorum
Neseit utro potius ruat, et ruere ardet utroque.
Ovid, Metam. 1. v. 166
v. 13. Daniel.] See Daniel, c. ii.
v. 24. Plato.] [GREEK HERE] Plato Timaeus v. ix. p. 326. Edit. Bip. “The Creator, when he had framed the universe, distributed to the stars an equal number of souls, appointing to each soul its several star.”
v. 27. Of that.] Plato’s opinion.
v. 34. The first circle.] The empyrean.
v. 48. Him who made Tobias whole.]
Raphael, the sociable spirit, that deign’d
To travel with Tobias, and secur’d
His marriage with the sev’n times wedded maid,
Milton, P. L. b. v. 223.
v. 67. That to the eye of man.] “That the ways of divine justice are often inscrutable to man, ought rather to be a motive to faith than an inducement to heresy.” Such appears to me the most satisfactory explanation of the passage.
v. 82. Laurence.] Who suffered martyrdom in the third century.
v. 82. Scaevola.] See Liv. Hist. D. 1. 1. ii. 12.
v. 100. Alcmaeon.] Ovid, Met. 1. ix. f. 10.
—Ultusque parente parentem
Natus, erit facto pius et sceleratus eodem.
v. 107. Of will.] “What Piccarda asserts of Constance, that she retained her affection to the monastic life, is said absolutely and without relation to circumstances; and that which I affirm is spoken of the will conditionally and respectively: so that our apparent difference is without any disagreement.” v. 119. That truth.] The light of divine truth.