CANTO XIII
v. 26. They have no wine.] John, ii. 3. These words of the Virgin are referred to as an instance of charity.
v. 29. Orestes] Alluding to his friendship with Pylades
v. 32. Love ye those have wrong’d you.] Matt. c. v. 44.
v. 33. The scourge.] “The chastisement of envy consists in hearing examples of the opposite virtue, charity. As a curb and restraint on this vice, you will presently hear very different sounds, those of threatening and punishment.”
v. 87. Citizens Of one true city.] “For here we have no continuing city, but we seek to come.” Heb. C. xiii. 14.
v. 101. Sapia.] A lady of Sienna, who, living in exile at Colle, was so overjoyed at a defeat which her countrymen sustained near that place that she declared nothing more was wanting to make her die contented.
v. 114. The merlin.] The story of the merlin is that having been induced by a gleam of fine weather in the winter to escape from his master, he was soon oppressed by the rigour of the season.
v. 119. The hermit Piero.] Piero Pettinagno, a holy hermit of Florence.
v. 141. That vain multitude.] The Siennese. See Hell, Canto XXIX. 117. “Their acquisition of Telamone, a seaport on the confines of the Maremma, has led them to conceive hopes of becoming a naval power: but this scheme will prove as chimerical as their former plan for the discovery of a subterraneous stream under their city.” Why they gave the appellation of Diana to the imagined stream, Venturi says he leaves it to the antiquaries of Sienna to conjecture.