CANTO XXIX
v. 76. Listed colours.]
Di sette liste tutte in quel colori, &c.
—a bow
Conspicuous with three listed colours gay.
Milton, P. L. b. xi. 865.
v. 79. Ten paces.] For an explanation of the allegorical meaning of this mysterious procession, Venturi refers those “who would see in the dark” to the commentaries of Landino, Vellutello, and others: and adds that it is evident the Poet has accommodated to his own fancy many sacred images in the Apocalypse. In Vasari’s Life of Giotto, we learn that Dante recommended that book to his friend, as affording fit subjects for his pencil.
v. 89. Four.] The four evangelists.
v. 96. Ezekiel.] Chap. 1. 4.
v. 101. John.] Rev. c. iv. 8.
v. 104. Gryphon.] Under the Gryphon, an imaginary creature, the forepart of which is an eagle, and the hinder a lion, is shadowed forth the union of the divine and human nature in Jesus Christ. The car is the church.
v. 115. Tellus’ prayer.] Ovid, Met. 1. ii. v. 279.
v. 116. Three nymphs.] The three evangelical virtues: the first Charity, the next Hope, and the third Faith. Faith may be produced by charity, or charity by faith, but the inducements to hope must arise either from one or other of these.
v. 125. A band quaternion.] The four moral or cardinal virtues, of whom Prudence directs the others.
v. 129. Two old men.] Saint Luke, characterized as the writer of the Arts of the Apostles and Saint Paul.
v. 133. Of the great Coan.] Hippocrates, “whom nature made for the benefit of her favourite creature, man.”
v. 138. Four others.] “The commentators,” says Venturi; “suppose these four to be the four evangelists, but I should rather take them to be four principal doctors of the church.” Yet both Landino and Vellutello expressly call them the authors of the epistles, James, Peter, John and Jude.
v. 140. One single old man.] As some say, St. John, under his character of the author of the Apocalypse. But in the poem attributed to Giacopo, the son of our Poet, which in some MSS, accompanies the original of this work, and is descriptive of its plan, this old man is said to be Moses.
E’l vecchio, ch’ era dietro a tutti loro
Fu Moyse.
And the old man, who was behind them all,
Was Moses.
See No. 3459 of the Harl. MSS. in the British Museum.