[524] Thy clear accents: Not broken with sobs like his own and those of his companions.
[525] Whatever, etc.: Different accounts seem to have been current about the affair of Ghisola.
[526] ’Tween Reno, etc.: The Reno and Savena are streams that flow past Bologna. Sipa is Bolognese for Maybe, or for Yes. So Dante describes Tuscany as the country where Si is heard (Inf. xxxiii. 80). With regard to the vices of the Bolognese, Benvenuto says: ‘Dante had studied in Bologna, and had seen and observed all these things.’
[527] To the right: This is only an apparent departure from their leftward course. Moving as they were to the left along the edge of the Bolgia, they required to turn to the right to cross the bridge that spanned it.
[528] Those eternal circles: The meaning is not clear; perhaps it only is that they have now done with the outer stream of sinners in this Bolgia, left by them engaged in endless procession round and round.
[529] Medea: When the Argonauts landed on Lemnos, they found it without any males, the women, incited by Venus, having put them all to death, with the exception of Thoas, saved by his daughter Hypsipyle. When Jason deserted her he sailed for Colchis, and with the assistance of Medea won the Golden Fleece. Medea, who accompanied him from Colchis, was in turn deserted by him.
[530] Who in the next Bolgia wailed: The flatterers in the Second Bolgia.
[531] Alessio Interminei: Of the Great Lucchese family of the Interminelli, to which the famous Castruccio Castrucani belonged. Alessio is know to have been living in 1295. Dante may have known him personally. Benvenuto says he was so liberal of his flattery that he spent it even on menial servants.
[532] Thais: In the Eunuch of Terence, Thraso, the lover of that courtesan, asks Gnatho, their go-between, if she really sent him many thanks for the present of a slave-girl he had sent her. ‘Enormous!’ says Gnatho. It proves what great store Dante set on ancient instances when he thought this worth citing.
[533] Enough, etc.: Most readers will agree with Virgil.