v. 17. The king of Athens.] Theseus, who was enabled, by the instructions of Ariadne, the sister of the Minotaur, to destroy that monster.
v. 21. Like to a bull.] [GREEK HERE] Homer Il. xvii 522
As when some vig’rous youth with sharpen’d axe
A pastur’d bullock smites behind the horns
And hews the muscle through; he, at the stroke
Springs forth and falls.
Cowper’s Translation.
v. 36. He arriv’d.] Our Saviour, who, according to Dante, when he ascended from hell, carried with him the souls of the patriarchs, and other just men, out of the first circle. See Canto IV.
v. 96. Nessus.] Our poet was probably induced, by the following
line in Ovid, to assign to Nessus the task of conducting them
over the ford:
Nessus edit membrisque valens scitusque vadorum.