A brief reference, without explanation, to a person, a text, a myth or a fact known outside the work, which carries with it the meaning of that other story.
In Paradise
the water I take has never been traversed; Minerva breathes, and Apollo guides me, and nine Muses show me the Bears
Minerva, Apollo and the nine Muses bring the classical poetic tradition to the beginning of the canticle. The verse names the three aids without explaining how they coexist with the Christian subject. The reader recognizes in them names from the ancient poetic tradition.
Cantos I to IV: The Moon, Dante, narrator, in the address to the reader that opens Canto II
as Hippolytus left Athens because of the pitiless and perfidious stepmother, so it behooves you to leave Florence
Cantos XVII to XX: The prophecy and the Eagle, Cacciaguida, to Dante, announcing the exile
so that I saw, beyond Gades, the mad passage of Ulysses, and on this side, near, the shore where Europa became a sweet burden
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