FOOTNOTES:
[630] Aquarius: The sun is in the constellation of Aquarius from the end of January till the end of February; and already, say in the middle of February, the day is nearly as long as the night.
[631] Where I ailed, etc.: As the peasant is in despair at seeing the earth white with what he thinks is snow, so was Dante at the signs of trouble on Virgil’s face. He has mistaken anger at the cheat for perplexity as to how they are to escape from the Bolgia; and his Master’s smile is grateful and reassuring to him as the spectacle of the green earth to the despairing shepherd.
[632] The broken bridge: They are about to escape from the bottom of the Sixth Bolgia by climbing the wall between it and the Seventh, at the point where the confused fragments of the bridge Friar Catalano told them of (Inf. xxiii. 133) lie piled up against the wall, and yield something of a practicable way.
[633] The heavy cowled: He finds his illustration on the spot, his mind being still full of the grievously burdened hypocrites.
[634] But Malebolge, etc.: Each Bolgia in turn lies at a lower level than the one before it, and consequently the inner side of each dividing ridge or wall is higher than the outer; or, to put it otherwise, in each Bolgia the wall they come to last—that nearest the centre of the Inferno, is lower than that they first reach—the one enclosing the Bolgia.
[635] The topmost stone: The stone that had formed the beginning of the arch at this end of it.
[636] A loftier flight: When he ascends the Mount of Purgatory.