"Sweet hour of twilight!—in the solitude
Of the pine forest, and the silent shore
Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood,
Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er,
To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,
Ever-green forest! which Boccaccio's lore
And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me,
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!
"The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,
Making their summer lives one ceaseless song,
Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine,
And vesper-bell's that rose the boughs along;
The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,
His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng,
Which learned from this example not to fly
From a true lover, shadowed my mind's eye."
Dryden's Theodore and Honoria begins with these words:—
"Of all the cities in Romanian lands,
The chief, and most renowned, Ravenna stands,
Adorned in ancient times with arms and arts,
And rich inhabitants, with generous hearts."
It was at Ravenna that Dante passed the last years of his life, and there he died and was buried.
41. The arms of Guido da Polenta, Lord of Ravenna, Dante's friend, and father (or nephew) of Francesca da Rimini, were an eagle half white in a field of azure, and half red in a field of gold. Cervia is a small town some twelve miles from Ravenna.
43. The city of Forlì, where Guido da Montefeltro defeated and slaughtered the French in 1282. See Canto XX. Note 118.
45. A Green Lion was the coat of arms of the Ordelaffi, then Lords of Forlì.
46. Malatesta, father and son, tyrants of Rimini, who murdered Montagna, a Ghibelline leader. Verrucchio was their castle, near the city. Of this family were the husband and lover of Francesca. Dante calls them mastiffs, because of their fierceness, making "wimbles of their teeth" in tearing and devouring.
49. The cities of Faenza on the Lamone, and Imola on the Santerno. They were ruled by Mainardo, surnamed "the Devil," whose coat of arms was a lion azure in a white field.
52. The city of Cesena.
67. Milton, Parad. Lost, III. 479:—
"Dying put on the weeds of Dominic,
Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised."
70. Boniface VIII., who in line 85 is called "the Prince of the new Pharisees."
81. Dante, Convito, IV. 28, quoting Cicero, says; "Natural death is as it were a haven and rest to us after long navigation. And the noble soul is like a good mariner; for he, when he draws near the port, lowers his sails, and enters it softly with feeble steerage."
86. This Papal war, which was waged against Christians, and not against pagan Saracens, nor unbelieving Jews, nor against the renegades who had helped them at the siege of Acre, or given them aid and comfort by traffic, is
