I turn’d me to Beatrice; and she heard
Ere I had spoken, smiling, an assent,
That to my will gave wings; and I began
“To each among your tribe, what time ye kenn’d
The nature, in whom naught unequal dwells,
Wisdom and love were in one measure dealt;
For that they are so equal in the sun,
From whence ye drew your radiance and your heat,
As makes all likeness scant. But will and means,
In mortals, for the cause ye well discern,
With unlike wings are fledge. A mortal I
Experience inequality like this,
And therefore give no thanks, but in the heart,
For thy paternal greeting. This howe’er
I pray thee, living topaz! that ingemm’st
This precious jewel, let me hear thy name.”
“I am thy root, O leaf! whom to expect
Even, hath pleas’d me:” thus the prompt reply
Prefacing, next it added; “he, of whom
Thy kindred appellation comes, and who,
These hundred years and more, on its first ledge
Hath circuited the mountain, was my son
And thy great grandsire. Well befits, his long
Endurance should be shorten’d by thy deeds.
“Florence, within her ancient limit-mark,
Which calls her still to matin prayers and noon,
Was chaste and sober, and abode in peace.
She had no armlets and no head-tires then,
No purfled dames, no zone, that caught the eye
More than the person did. Time was not yet,
When at his daughter’s birth the sire grew pale.
For fear the age and dowry should exceed
On each side just proportion. House was none
Void of its family; nor yet had come
Hardanapalus, to exhibit feats
Of chamber prowess. Montemalo yet
O’er our suburban turret rose; as much
To be surpass in fall, as in its rising.
I saw Bellincione Berti walk abroad
In leathern girdle and a clasp of bone;
And, with no artful colouring on her cheeks,
His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw
Of Nerli and of Vecchio well content
With unrob’d jerkin; and their good dames handling
The spindle and the flax; O happy they!
Each sure of burial in her native land,
And none left desolate a-bed for France!
One wak’d to tend the cradle, hushing it
With sounds that lull’d the parent’s infancy:
Another, with her maidens, drawing off
The tresses from the distaff, lectur’d them
Old tales of Troy and Fesole and Rome.
A Salterello and Cianghella we
Had held as strange a marvel, as ye would
A Cincinnatus or Cornelia now.
“In such compos’d and seemly fellowship,
Such faithful and such fair equality,
In so sweet household, Mary at my birth
Bestow’d me, call’d on with loud cries; and there
In your old baptistery, I was made
Christian at once and Cacciaguida; as were
My brethren, Eliseo and Moronto.
“From Valdipado came to me my spouse,
And hence thy surname grew. I follow’d then
The Emperor Conrad; and his knighthood he
Did gird on me; in such good part he took
My valiant service. After him I went
To testify against that evil law,
Whose people, by the shepherd’s fault, possess
Your right, usurping. There, by that foul crew
Was I releas’d from the deceitful world,
Whose base affection many a spirit soils,
And from the martyrdom came to this peace.”
CANTO XVI
O slight respect of man’s nobility!
I never shall account it marvelous,
That our infirm affection here below
Thou mov’st to boasting, when I could not choose,
E’en in that region of unwarp’d desire,
In heav’n itself, but make my vaunt in thee!
Yet cloak thou art soon shorten’d, for that time,
Unless thou be eked out from day to day,
Goes round thee with his shears. Resuming then
With greeting such, as Rome, was first to bear,
But since hath disaccustom’d I began;
And Beatrice, that a little space
Was sever’d, smil’d reminding me of her,
Whose cough embolden’d (as the story holds)
To first offence the doubting Guenever.
“You are my sire,” said I, “you give me heart
Freely to speak my thought: above myself
You raise me. Through so many streams with joy
My soul is fill’d, that gladness wells from it;
So that it bears the mighty tide, and bursts not
Say then, my honour’d stem! what ancestors
Where those you sprang from, and what years were mark’d
In your first childhood? Tell me of the fold,
That hath Saint John for guardian, what was then
Its state, and who in it were highest seated?”
As embers, at the breathing of the wind,
Their flame enliven, so that light I saw
Shine at my blandishments; and, as it grew
More fair to look on, so with voice more sweet,
Yet not in this our modern phrase, forthwith
It answer’d: “From the day, when it was said
‘Hail Virgin!’ to the throes, by which my mother,
Who now is sainted, lighten’d her of me
Whom she was heavy with, this fire had come,
Five hundred fifty times and thrice, its beams
To reilumine underneath the foot
Of its own lion. They, of whom I sprang,
And I, had there our birth-place, where the last
Partition of our city first is reach’d
By him, that runs her annual game. Thus much
Suffice of my forefathers: who they were,
And whence they hither came, more honourable
It is to pass in silence than to tell.
All those, who in that time were there from Mars
Until the Baptist, fit to carry arms,
Were but the fifth of them this day alive.
But then the citizen’s blood, that now is mix’d
From Campi and Certaldo and Fighine,
Ran purely through the last mechanic’s veins.
O how much better were it, that these people
Were neighbours to you, and that at Galluzzo
And at Trespiano, ye should have your bound’ry,
Than to have them within, and bear the stench
Of Aguglione’s hind, and Signa’s, him,
That hath his eye already keen for bart’ring!
Had not the people, which of all the world
Degenerates most, been stepdame unto Caesar,
But, as a mother, gracious to her son;
Such one, as hath become a Florentine,
And trades and traffics, had been turn’d adrift
To Simifonte, where his grandsire ply’d
The beggar’s craft. The Conti were possess’d
Of Montemurlo still: the Cerchi still
Were in Acone’s parish; nor had haply
From Valdigrieve past the Buondelmonte.
The city’s malady hath ever source
In the confusion of its persons, as
The body’s, in variety of food:
And the blind bull falls with a steeper plunge,
Than the blind lamb; and oftentimes one sword
Doth more and better execution,
Than five. Mark Luni, Urbisaglia mark,
How they are gone, and after them how go
Chiusi and Sinigaglia; and ’twill seem
No longer new or strange to thee to hear,
That families fail, when cities have their end.
All things, that appertain t’ ye, like yourselves,
Are mortal: but mortality in some
Ye mark not, they endure so long, and you
Pass by so suddenly. And as the moon
Doth, by the rolling of her heav’nly sphere,
Hide and reveal the strand unceasingly;
So fortune deals with Florence. Hence admire not
At what of them I tell thee, whose renown
Time covers, the first Florentines. I saw
The Ughi, Catilini and Filippi,
The Alberichi, Greci and Ormanni,
Now in their wane, illustrious citizens:
And great as ancient, of Sannella him,
With him of Arca saw, and Soldanieri
And Ardinghi, and Bostichi. At the poop,
That now is laden with new felony,
So cumb’rous it may speedily sink the bark,
The Ravignani sat, of whom is sprung
The County Guido, and whoso hath since
His title from the fam’d Bellincione ta’en.
Fair governance was yet an art well priz’d
By him of Pressa: Galigaio show’d
The gilded hilt and pommel, in his house.
The column, cloth’d with verrey, still was seen
Unshaken: the Sacchetti still were great,
Giouchi, Sifanti, Galli and Barucci,
With them who blush to hear the bushel nam’d.
Of the Calfucci still the branchy trunk
Was in its strength: and to the curule chairs
Sizii and Arigucci yet were drawn.
How mighty them I saw, whom since their pride
Hath undone! and in all her goodly deeds
Florence was by the bullets of bright gold
O’erflourish’d. Such the sires of those, who now,
As surely as your church is vacant, flock
Into her consistory, and at leisure
There stall them and grow fat. The o’erweening brood,
That plays the dragon after him that flees,
But unto such, as turn and show the tooth,
Ay or the purse, is gentle as a lamb,
Was on its rise, but yet so slight esteem’d,
That Ubertino of Donati grudg’d
His father-in-law should yoke him to its tribe.
Already Caponsacco had descended
Into the mart from Fesole: and Giuda
And Infangato were good citizens.
A thing incredible I tell, tho’ true:
The gateway, named from those of Pera, led
Into the narrow circuit of your walls.
Each one, who bears the sightly quarterings
Of the great Baron (he whose name and worth
The festival of Thomas still revives)
His knighthood and his privilege retain’d;
Albeit one, who borders them With gold,
This day is mingled with the common herd.
In Borgo yet the Gualterotti dwelt,
And Importuni: well for its repose
Had it still lack’d of newer neighbourhood.
The house, from whence your tears have had their spring,
Through the just anger that hath murder’d ye
And put a period to your gladsome days,
Was honour’d, it, and those consorted with it.
O Buondelmonte! what ill counseling
Prevail’d on thee to break the plighted bond
Many, who now are weeping, would rejoice,
Had God to Ema giv’n thee, the first time
Thou near our city cam’st. But so was doom’d:
On that maim’d stone set up to guard the bridge,
At thy last peace, the victim, Florence! fell.
With these and others like to them, I saw
Florence in such assur’d tranquility,
She had no cause at which to grieve: with these
Saw her so glorious and so just, that ne’er
The lily from the lance had hung reverse,
Or through division been with vermeil dyed.”