Note 681 — CANTO XXVI.
James Romanes Sibbald translation
They were Greek: Some find here an allusion to Dante’s ignorance of the Greek language and literature. But Virgil addresses them in the Lombard dialect of Italian (Inf. xxvii. 21). He acts as spokesman because those ancient Greeks were all so haughty that to a common modern mortal they would have nothing to say. He, as the author of the Æneid, has a special claim on their good-nature. It is but seldom that the shades are told who Virgil is, and never directly. Here Ulysses may infer it from the mention of the ‘lofty verse.’