[Footnote 18: Filippo Argenti (Philip _Silver_,--so called from his shoeing his horse with the precious metal) was a Florentine remarkable for bodily strength and extreme irascibility. What a barbarous strength and confusion of ideas is there in this whole passage about him! Arrogance punished by arrogance, a Christian mother blessed for the unchristian disdainfulness of her son, revenge boasted of and enjoyed, passion arguing in a circle! Filippo himself might have written it. Dante says,
"Con piangere e con lutto Spirito maladetto, ti rimani. Via costà con gli altri cani," &c.
"Alma sdegnosa Benedetta colei che 'n te s'incinse," &c.
"Maestro, molto sarei vago Di vederlo attuffare in questa broda," &c. ]
[Footnote 19: Dis, one of the Pagan names of Pluto, here used for Satan. Within the walls of the city of Dis commence the punishments by fire.]
[Footnote 20: Farinata was a Ghibelline leader before the time of Dante, and had vanquished the poet's connexions at the battle of Montaperto.]
[Footnote 21: What would Guido have said to this? More, I suspect, than Dante would have liked to hear, or known how to answer. But he died before the verses transpired; probably before they were written; for Dante, in the chronology of his poem, assumes what times and seasons he finds most convenient.]
"Sì che la pioggia non par che 'l maturi."
This is one of the grandest passages in Dante. It was probably (as English commentators have observed) in Milton's recollection when he conceived the character of Satan.]
[Footnote 23: The satire of friarly hypocrisy is at least as fine as Ariosto's discovery of Discord in a monastery.
The monster Geryon, son of Chrysaor (_Golden-sword_), and the Ocean-nymph Callirhoe (_Fair-flowing_), was rich in the possession of sheep. His wealth, and perhaps his derivatives, rendered him this instrument of satire. The monstrosity, the mild face, the glancing point of venom, and the beautiful skin, make it as fine as can be.]
[Footnote 24: "_Malebolge_," literally Evil-Budget. _Bolgia_ is an old form of the modern _baule_, the common term for a valise or portmanteau. "Bolgia" (says the _Vocabolario della Crusca, compendiato_, Ven. 1792), "a valise; Latin, bulga, hippopera; Greek, ippopetha [Greek]. In reference to valises which open lengthways like a chest, Dante uses the word to signify those compartments which he feigns in his Hell." (Per similitudine di quelle valigie, che s'aprono per lo lungo, a guisa di cassa, significa quegli spartimenti, che Dante finge nell' Inferno.) The reader will think of the homely figurative names in Bunyan, and the contempt which great and awful states of mind have for conventional notions of rank in phraseology. It is a part, if well considered, of their grandeur.]