The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

epub:type="noteref">1591
Not yet the daughter at her birth struck fear
Into the father, for the time and dower
Did not o’errun this side or that the measure.
No houses had she void of families,
Not yet had thither come Sardanapalus
To show what in a chamber can be done;1592
Not yet surpassed had Montemalo been1593
By your Uccellatojo, which surpassed1594
Shall in its downfall be as in its rise.
Bellincion Berti saw I go begirt1595
With leather and with bone, and from the mirror
His dame depart without a painted face;
And him of Nerli saw, and him of Vecchio,1596
Contented with their simple suits of buff
And with the spindle and the flax their dames.
O fortunate women! and each one was certain
Of her own burial-place, and none as yet
For sake of France was in her bed deserted.1597
One o’er the cradle kept her studious watch,
And in her lullaby the language used
That first delights the fathers and the mothers;
Another, drawing tresses from her distaff,
Told o’er among her family the tales
Of Trojans and of Fesole and Rome.
As great a marvel then would have been held
A Lapo Salterello, a Cianghella,1598
As Cincinnatus or Cornelia now.1599
To such a quiet, such a beautiful
Life of the citizen, to such a safe
Community, and to so sweet an inn,
Did Mary give me, with loud cries invoked,1600
And in your ancient Baptistery at once1601
Christian and Cacciaguida I became.1602
Moronto was my brother, and Eliseo;
From Val di Pado came to me my wife,1603
And from that place thy surname was derived.
I followed afterward the Emperor Conrad,1604
And he begirt me of his chivalry,1605
So much I pleased him with my noble deeds.
I followed in his train against that law’s
Iniquity, whose people doth usurp1606
Your just possession, through your Pastor’s fault.
There by that execrable race was I
Released from bonds of the fallacious world,
The love of which defileth many souls,
And came from martyrdom unto this peace.” Canto XVI

Cacciaguida’s discourse of the great Florentines.

O thou our poor nobility of blood,1607
If thou dost make the people glory in thee
Down here where our affection languishes,
A marvellous thing it ne’er will be to me;
For there where appetite is not perverted,
I say in Heaven, of thee I made a boast!
Truly thou art a cloak that quickly shortens,
So that unless we piece thee day by day
Time goeth round about thee with his shears!
With You, which Rome was first to tolerate,1608
(Wherein her family less perseveres,)
Yet once again my words beginning made;
Whence Beatrice, who stood somewhat apart,
Smiling, appeared like unto her who coughed1609
At the first failing writ of Guenever.
And I began: “You are my ancestor,
You give to me all hardihood to speak,
You lift me so that I am more than I.
So many rivulets with gladness fill
My mind, that of itself it makes a joy1610
Because it can endure this and not burst.
Then tell me, my beloved root ancestral,
Who were your ancestors, and what the years
That in your boyhood chronicled themselves?
Tell me about the sheepfold of Saint John,1611
How large it was, and who the people were
Within it worthy of the highest seats.”
As at the blowing of the winds a coal
Quickens to flame, so I beheld that light
Become resplendent at my blandishments.
And as unto mine eyes it grew more fair,
With voice more sweet and tender, but not in
This modern dialect, it said to me:1612
“From uttering of the Ave, till the birth1613
In which my mother, who is now a saint,
Of me was lightened who had been her burden,
Unto its Lion had this fire returned
Five hundred fifty times and thirty more,
To reinflame itself beneath his paw.
My ancestors and I our birthplace had
Where first is found the last ward of the city1614
By him who runneth in your annual game.1615
Suffice it of my elders to hear this;
But who they were, and whence they thither came,
Silence is more considerate than speech.
All those who at that time were there between
Mars and the Baptist, fit for bearing arms,1616
Were a fifth part of those who now are living;
But the community, that now is mixed
With Campi and Certaldo and Figghine,1617
Pure in the lowest artisan was seen.
O how much better ’twere to have as neighbors
The folk of whom I speak, and at Galluzzo1618
And at Trespiano have your boundary,
Than have them in the town, and bear the stench
Of Aguglione’s churl, and him of Signa1619
Who has sharp eyes for trickery already.
Had not the folk, which most of all the world1620
Degenerates, been a step-dame unto Caesar,
But as a mother to her son benignant,
Some who turn Florentines, and trade and discount,
Would have gone back again to Simifonte1621
There where their grandsires went about as beggars.
At Montemurlo still would be the Counts,1622
The Cerchi in the parish of Acone,1623
Perhaps in Valdigrieve the Buondelmonti.1624
Ever the intermingling of the people
Has been the source of malady in cities,
As in the body food it surfeits on;
And a blind bull more headlong plunges down1625
Than a blind lamb; and very often cuts
Better and more a single sword than five.1626
If Luni thou regard, and Urbisaglia,1627
How they have passed away, and how are passing
Chiusi and Sinigaglia after them,1628
To hear how races waste themselves