ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Give thanks! Give thanks! ~ Beatrice
T
hank you, dear reader, whoever you are! I appreciate you allowing me to share with you those things about the Comedy that I find tremendously helpful and encouraging. I pray the time you spend here will be worth your while. Before you go further, you need to know that all the textual notes presented in this volume would not be possible without Charles S. Singleton’s magnificent commentary on the Italian text. All of the references to the works of Virgil, Ovid, Statius, Lucan, and other authors, as well as the historical context of names and events, are straight from his notes. My debt to his immense scholarship is too great to enumerate. And so I state it here at the very beginning, before you have the chance to think I am smarter than I really am. The commentaries of H. F. Tozer, Durling and Martinez, and Robert Hollendar, were also of great help, though I turned to their notes less often than I did to those of Singleton. Much gratitude is due to those who helped bring this to the finish line. Many thanks to Trudy Carlson for reading over the manuscript and offering suggestions. (Thanks Mom!) ix