Note 795 — CANTO XXXI.

Tityus, etc.: These were other giants, stated by Lucan to be less strong than Antæus. This introduction of their names is therefore a piece of flattery to the monster. A light contemptuous turn is given by Virgil to his flattery when in the following sentence he bids Antæus not curl his snout, but at once comply with the demand for aid. There is something genuinely Italian in the picture given of the giants in this Canto, as of creatures whose intellect bears no proportion to their bulk and brute strength. Mighty hunters like Nimrod, skilled in sounding the horn but feeble in reasoned speech, Frisians with great thews and long of limb, and German men-at-arms who traded in their rude valour, to the subtle Florentine in whom the ferment of the Renaissance was beginning to work were all specimens of Nature’s handicraft that had better have been left unmade, were it not that wiser people could use them as tools.