NOTES TO PARADISE
CANTO 1
Verse 12. Benign Apollo.] Chaucer has imitated this invention very closely at the beginning of the Third Booke of Fame.
If, divine vertue, thou
Wilt helpe me to shewe now
That in my head ymarked is,
* * * * *
Thou shalt see me go as blive
Unto the next laurer I see,
And kisse it for it is thy tree
Now entre thou my breast anone.
v. 15. Thus for.] He appears to mean nothing more than that this part of his poem will require a greater exertion of his powers than the former.
v. 19. Marsyas.] Ovid, Met. 1. vi. fab. 7. Compare Boccaccio, II Filocopo, 1. 5. p. 25. v. ii. Ediz. Fir. 1723. “Egli nel mio petto entri,” &c. - “May he enter my bosom, and let my voice sound like his own, when he made that daring mortal deserve to come forth unsheathed from his limbs. “ v. 29. Caesar, or bard.] So Petrarch, Son. Par. Prima.
Arbor vittoriosa e trionfale,
Onor d’imperadori e di poeti.
And Spenser, F. Q. b. i. c. 1. st. 9,
The laurel, meed of mighty conquerours
And poets sage.
v. 37. Through that.] “Where the four circles, the horizon, the zodiac, the equator, and the equinoctial colure, join; the last threeintersecting each other so as to form three crosses, as may be seen in the armillary sphere.”