[439] The wretched hands: The dance, named in the original the tresca, was one in which the performers followed a leader and imitated him in all his gestures, waving their hands as he did, up and down, and from side to side. The simile is caught straight from common life.
[440] At the gate: Of the city of Dis (Inf. viii. 82).
[441] Was slain, etc.: Capaneus, one of the Seven Kings, as told below, when storming the walls of Thebes, taunted the other gods with impunity, but his blasphemy against Jupiter was answered by a fatal bolt.
[442] Mongibello: A popular name of Etna, under which mountain was situated the smithy of Vulcan and the Cyclopes.
[443] Phlegra: Where the giants fought with the gods.
[444] Fit ornament, etc.: Even if untouched by the pain he affects to despise, he would yet suffer enough from the mad hatred of God that rages in his breast. Capaneus is the nearest approach to the Satan of Milton found in the Inferno. From the need of getting law enough by which to try the heathen Dante is led into some inconsistency. After condemning the virtuous heathen to Limbo for their ignorance of the one true God, he now condemns the wicked heathen to this circle for despising false gods. Jupiter here stands for, as need scarcely be said, the Supreme Ruler; and in that sense he is termed God (line 69). But it remains remarkable that the one instance of blasphemous defiance of God should be taken from classical fable.
[445] The forest fence: They do not trust themselves so much as to step upon the sand, but look out on it from the verge of the forest which encircles it, and which as they travel they have on the left hand.
[446] Bulicamë: A hot sulphur spring a couple of miles from Viterbo, greatly frequented for baths in the Middle Ages; and, it is said, especially by light women. The water boils up into a large pool, whence it flows by narrow channels; sometimes by one and sometimes by another, as the purposes of the neighbouring peasants require. Sulphurous fumes rise from the water as it runs. The incrustation of the bottom, sides, and edges of those channels gives them the air of being solidly built.
[447] The passage: On each edge of the canal there is a flat pathway of solid stone; and Dante sees that only by following one of these can a passage be gained across the desert, for to set foot on the sand is impossible for him owing to the falling flakes of fire. There may be found in his description of the solid and flawless masonry of the canal a trace of the pleasure taken in good building by the contemporaries of Arnolfo. Nor is it without meaning that the sterile sands, the abode of such as despised honest labour, is crossed by a perfect work of art which they are forbidden ever to set foot upon.
[448] The gateway: At the entrance to Inferno.