[411] That bulicamë: The stream of boiling blood is probably named from the bulicamë, or hot spring, best known to Dante—that near Viterbo (see Inf. xiv. 79). And it may be that the mention of the bulicamë suggests the reference at line 119.
[412] In God’s house: Literally, ‘In the bosom of God.’ The shade is that of Guy, son of Simon of Montfort and Vicar in Tuscany of Charles of Anjou. In 1271 he stabbed, in the Cathedral of Viterbo, Henry, son of Richard of Cornwall and cousin of Edward I. of England. The motive of the murder was to revenge the death of his father, Simon, at Evesham. The body of the young prince was conveyed to England, and the heart was placed in a vase upon the tomb of the Confessor. The shade of Guy stands up to the chin in blood among the worst of the tyrants, and alone, because of the enormity of his crime.
[413] Here took we passage: Dante on Nessus’ back. Virgil has fallen behind to allow the Centaur to act as guide; and how he crosses the stream Dante does not see.
[414] Attila: King of the Huns, who invaded part of Italy in the fifth century; and who, according to the mistaken belief of Dante’s age, was the devastator of Florence.
[415] Pyrrhus: King of Epirus. Sextus: Son of Pompey; a great sea-captain who fought against the Triumvirs. The crime of the first, in Dante’s eyes, is that he fought with Rome; of the second, that he opposed Augustus.
[416] Rinier of Corneto: Who in Dante’s time disturbed the coast of the States of the Church by his robberies and violence.
[417] Rinier Pazzo: Of the great family of the Pazzi of Val d’Arno, was excommunicated in 1269 for robbing ecclesiastics.