FARINATA.
Paradise and hell are but the creations of our own mind. Epicurus taught this, and many since his day have known it to be true. You yourself, Fra Ambrogio, have you not read in your book: "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth Beasts; as the one dieth so dieth the other." But if, like ordinary souls, I believed in God, I would pray to him to leave the whole of me here after death, that soul and body alike might be buried in my tomb beneath the walls of my beautiful San Giovanni. All around are coffins hewn out of stone by the Romans to receive their dead. Now they are open and empty. In one of those beds I would wish to rest and sleep at last. In life I suffered bitterly in exile, and yet I was but a day's journey from Florence. Farther away I should have been more wretched still. I desire to remain for ever in my beloved city. May my descendants remain there also.
FRA AMBROGIO.
It fills me with horror to hear you blaspheme the God who created heaven and earth, the mountains of Florence and the roses of Fiesole. And that which most terrifies me, Messer Farinata degli Uberti, is that you contrive to invest evil with a certain nobility. If, contrary to the hope which I still cherish, infinite mercy were not to be vouchsafed to you, I believe you would be a credit to hell.
[THE KING DRINKS]
In the city of Troyes, in the year of grace, 1428, Canon Guillaume Chappedelaine was elected by the Chapter to be King of the Epiphany, in accordance with the custom which then prevailed throughout Christian France. For the canons were wont to choose one of their number and to designate him as king because he was to take the place of the King of kings and to gather them all round his table, until such time as Jesus Christ Himself should gather them, as they all hoped, into His holy paradise.
Sieur Guillaume Chappedelaine owed his election to his virtuous life and his generosity. He was a rich man. Both the Burgundian and the Armagnac captains, when ravaging Champagne, had spared his vineyards. For this good fortune he was indebted first to God and then to himself, to the kindness he had shown to the two factions which were at that time rending asunder the kingdom of the lilies. His wealth had contributed not a little to his election; for in that year a setier[1] of corn fetched eight francs, five-and-twenty eggs six sous, a young pig seven francs, while throughout the winter Churchmen had been reduced to eat cabbages like villeins.
Wherefore on the Feast of the Epiphany, Sieur Guillaume Chappedelaine, clothed in his dalmatica, holding in his hand a palm-branch in lieu of a sceptre, took his place in the cathedral choir, beneath a canopy of cloth of gold. Meanwhile, out in the sacristy, there came forth three canons, wearing crowns upon their heads. One was robed in white, another in red, the third in black. They stood for the three kings of the East, the Magi, and, going down to that part of the church which represents the foot of the cross, they chanted the Gospel of St. Matthew. A deacon, bearing at the end of a pole five lighted candles, to symbolize the miraculous star which led the Magi to Bethlehem, ascended the great nave and entered the choir. The three canons followed him singing, and, when they reached this passage in the gospel, Et intrantes domum, invenerunt puerum cum Maria, matre ejus, et procidentes adoraverunt eum, they stopped in front of Sieur Guillaume Chappedelaine and bowed low before him. Then came three children, bearing salt and spices, which Sieur Guillaume graciously received after the manner of the Infant King who had accepted the myrrh, the gold and the frankincense of the kings of this world. After this divine service was celebrated with due devoutness.