E mette 'nfra la gente
Assempri di mal fare.
Ma questo lascio stare,
Chè tocca a ta' persone,
Che non è mia ragione
Di dirne lungamente."
Chaucer, Persones Tale, speaks thus of Simony:—
"Certes simonie is cleped of Simon Magus, that wold have bought for temporel catel the yefte that God had yeven by the holy gost to Seint Peter, and to the Apostles: and therfore understond ye, that both he that selleth and he that byeth thinges spirituel ben called Simoniackes, be it by catel, be it by procuring, or by fleshly praier of his frendes, fleshly frendes, or spirituel frendes, fleshly in two maners, as by kinrede or other frendes: sothly, if they pray for him that is not worthy and able, it is simonie, if he take the benefice: and if he be worthy and able, ther is non."
5. Gower, Confes. Amant. I.:—
"A trompe with a sterne breth,
Which was cleped the trompe of deth.
·····
He shall this dredfull trompe blowe
To-fore his gate and make it knowe,
How that the jugement is yive
Of deth, which shall nought be foryive."
19. Lami, in his Deliciæ Eruditorum, makes a strange blunder in reference to this passage. He says: "Not long ago the baptismal font, which stood in the middle of Saint John's at Florence, was removed; and in the pavement may still be seen the octagonal shape of its ample outline. Dante says, that, when a boy, he fell into it and was near drowning; or rather he fell into one of the circular basins of water, which surrounded the principal font." Upon this Arrivabeni, Comento Storico, p. 588, where I find this extract, remarks: "Not Dante, but Lami, staring at the moon, fell into the hole."
20. Dante's enemies had accused him of committing this act through impiety. He takes this occasion to vindicate himself.
33. Probably an allusion to the red stockings worn by the Popes.
50. Burying alive with the head downward and the feet in the air was the inhuman punishment of hired assassins, "according to justice and the municipal law in Florence," says the Ottimo. It was called Propagginare, to plant in the manner of vine-stocks.
Dante stood bowed down like the confessor called back by the criminal in order to delay the moment of his death.
53. Benedetto Gaetani, Pope Boniface VIII. Gower, Conf. Amant. II., calls him
"Thou Boneface, thou proude clerke,
Misleder of the papacie."
This is the Boniface who frightened Celestine from the papacy, and persecuted him to death after his resignation. "The lovely Lady" is the Church. The fraud was his collusion with Charles II. of Naples. "He went to King Charles by night, secretly, and with few attendants," says Villani,VIII. ch. 6, "and said to him: 'King, thy Pope Celestine had the will and the power to serve thee in thy Sicilian
