Divine Comedy, Cary's Translation, Complete · Dante Alighieri
CANTO XXXIII
Events shall be the Oedipus will solve, &c. v. 67. Elsa’s numbing waters.] The Elsa, a little stream, which flows into the Arno about twenty miles below Florence, is said to possess a petrifying quality. v. 78. That one brings home his staff inwreath’d with palm.] “For the same cause that the pilgrim, returning from Palestine, brings home his staff, or bourdon, bound with palm,” that is, to show where he has been. Che si reca ’I bordon di palma cinto. “In regard to the word bourdon, why it has been applied to a pilgrim’s staff, it is not easy to guess. I believe, however that this name has been given to such sort of staves, because pilgrims usually travel and perform their pilgrimages on foot, their staves serving them instead of horses or mules, then called bourdons and burdones, by writers in the middle ages.” Mr. Johnes’s Translation of Joinville’s Memoirs. Dissertation xv, by M. du Cange p. 152. 4to. edit. The word is thrice used by Chaucer in the Romaunt of the Rose.
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