Page:The Contrasts in Dante.djvu/23

 "città, cartel murato." Virgil uses terrae in the Aeneid in the sense of "fortified towns." The late Sir James Lacaita told me ten years ago, that in the South of Italy one fellow-citizen will say to another about the chief town in their district (capoluogo in Italian and chef-lieu in French) "Andiamo alia terra," meaning, "let us go to the city." The error of rendering terra as "land" to entirely due to certain English translators, who are by far greater culprits than those of any other nationality. One of them actually translates the two first lines of Inf. X,, "By a secret path, between the wall of the land and the torments," instead of "By a retired path between the wall of the city (of Dis) and the torments."


 * The old Mastiff of Vernicchio, and the young one, who wrought the ill-usage on Montagna, there, where they have been wont, make an auger of their teeth.

The city of Rimini was at that time groaning under the tyranny of the two Malateaia, father and son, called Mastiffs (Mastini) on account of their ferocity, and notably so as recently exercised upon Messer Montagna de' Parcitati, a young man of noble family, the head of the Ghibelline faction in Rimini, and whom they put to a cruel death. Their castle was Verrucchio. The elder of the two was the father of Gianciotto and Paolo, the husband and the brother-in-law of the hapless Francesca da Rimini. Another reason perhaps for their being styled mastiffs was because there was a dog displayed upon their coat-of-arms.

Dante next mentions the cities of Faenza, Imola, and Cesena, the two first under the dominion of Maghinardo de' Pagani di Suainana, (whose arms were a Lion, Azure, upon a field, Argent), while the latter city, Cesena, was having alternate experience of tyranny and freedom.


 * The cities of Lamone and Santerno the young lion on the white lair (lit. nest) governs, who changes sides from the summer to the winter.