"Know you not, we are worms
Born to compose the angelic butterfly,
That flies to heaven when freed from what deforms?"
[Footnote 23:
"Più ridon le carte
Che penelleggia Franco Bolognese:
L'onore è tutto or suo, e mio in parte."
[Footnote 24: The "new Guido" is his friend Guido Cavalcante (now dead); the "first" is Guido Guinicelli, for whose writings Dante had an esteem; and the poet, who is to "chase them from the nest," caccerà di nido (as the not very friendly metaphor states it), is with good reason supposed to be himself! He was right; but was the statement becoming? It was certainly not necessary. Dante, notwithstanding his friendship with Guido, appears to have had a grudge against both the Cavalcanti, probably for some scorn they had shewn to his superstition; far they could be proud themselves; and the son has the reputation of scepticism, as well as the father. See the Decameron, Giorn. vi. Nov. 9.]
[Footnote 25: This is the passage from which it is conjectured that Dante knew what it was to "tremble in every vein," from the awful necessity of begging. Mr. Cary, with some other commentators, thinks that the "trembling" implies fear of being refused. But does it not rather mean the agony of the humiliation? In Salvani's case it certainly does; for it was in consideration of the pang to his pride, that the good deed rescued him from worse punishment.]
[Footnote 26: The reader will have noticed the extraordinary mixture of Paganism and the Bible in this passage, especially the introduction of such fables as Niobe and Arachne. It would be difficult not to suppose it intended to work out some half sceptical purpose, if we did not call to mind the grave authority given to fables in the poet's treatise on Monarchy, and the whole strange spirit, at once logical and gratuitous, of the learning of his age, when the acuter the mind, the subtler became the reconcilement with absurdity.]
[Footnote 27: Beati pauperes spiritu. "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"—one of the beautiful passages of the beautiful sermon on the Mount. How could the great poet read and admire such passages, and yet fill his books so full of all which they renounced? "Oh," say his idolators, "he did it out of his very love for them, and his impatience to see them triumph." So said the Inquisition. The evil was continued for the sake of the good which it prevented! The result in the long-run may be so, but not for the reasons they supposed, or from blindness to the indulgence of their bad passions.]
[Footnote 28:
"Sàvia non fui, avvegna che Sapìa Fosse chiamata." The pun is poorer even than it sounds in English: for though the Italian name may possibly remind its readers of sapienza (sapience), there is the difference of a v in the adjective savia, which is also accented on the first syllable. It is almost as bad as if she had said in English, "Sophist I found myself, though Sophia is my name." It is pleasant, however, to see the great saturnine poet among the punsters.—It appears, from the commentators, that Sapia was in exile at the time of the battle, but they do not say for what; probably from some zeal of faction]
[Footnote 29: We are here let into Dante's confessions. He owns to a little envy, but far more pride: