v. 56. Where the sun in silence rests.] Hence Milton appears to have taken his idea in the Samson Agonistes:
The sun to me is dark
And silent as the moon, &c
The same metaphor will recur, Canto V. v. 29.
Into a place I came
Where light was silent all.
v. 65. When the power of Julius.] This is explained by the commentators to mean “Although it was rather late with respect to my birth before Julius Caesar assumed the supreme authority, and made himself perpetual dictator.”
v. 98. That greyhound.] This passage is intended as an eulogium on the liberal spirit of his Veronese patron Can Grande della Scala.
v. 102. ’Twizt either Feltro.] Verona, the country of Can della Scala, is situated between Feltro, a city in the Marca Trivigiana, and Monte Feltro, a city in the territory of Urbino.
v. 103. Italia’s plains.] “Umile Italia,” from Virgil, Aen lib.
iii. 522.
Humilemque videmus