Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses/Aeolus/133

Annotations
'la tua pace ... si tace'   (Italian) Stephen recalls the closing words of lines 92 and 94 and all of line 96 in Canto 5 of Dante's Inferno:

The speakers are the adulterers Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini.

Joyce's ''. . . .mentreche has been emended to Mentre che'' in Gabler's corrected text.

He saw them three by three ... underdarkneath the night   Following the allusion to Dante's Inferno, Stephen now conflates two episodes from the remaining parts of the Divine Comedy: the Divine Pageant (or Mystic Procession) in the 29th canto of the Purgatorio, and the vision of the Virgin Mary in the 31st canto of the Paradiso.

He saw them three by three   Dante, who employed terza rima in his Divine Comedy.

three by three   This phrase does not occur in the passages Stephen conflates. Gifford mistranslates Purgatorio 29:110 tre e tre as three by three, believing it refers to the three approaching ladies, but tre e tre means three and three, and refers to the first three and final three of the seven bands in the Divine Pageant: twenty-four elders, representing the books of the Old Testament; the four Living Creatures of the Apocalypse, representing the four Gospels; the three ladies, representing the three Theological Virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity; four dancers, representing the four Cardinal Virtues, Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude; two old men, representing the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of Saint Paul; four humble men, representing the Epistles of Saints Peter, James, John and Jude; and one old man, representing the Book of Revelation. Stephen, however, is still thinking of the terza rima Dante employs in his Comedy, in which the rhymes occur three by three.

entwining   Stephen is thinking of the manner in which the rhymes are entwined in Dante's terza rima.

per l'aere perso   (Italian) through the murky air. In his Convivio, Dante defines perse as a colour mingled of purple and of black, but the black predominates. See the quotation from Dante's Inferno 5:89 above.

quella pacifica oriafiamma   (Italian) that peaceful Oriflamme. See the quotation from Dante's Paradiso 31:127 above. The Oriflamme was the battle standard of the kings of France.

di rimirar fè più ardenti   (Italian) made [my eyes] more eager to regaze. See the quotation from Dante's Paradiso 31:142 above. These are the closing words of the canto.

But I old men   Dante saw his rhymes three by three as colourful girls, but Stephen sees the rhymes he employed in the quatrain he wrote in Proteus as pairs of old men. See 127.20-23.