“Now canst thou judge of such as those whom I accused above, and of their crimes, which are the cause of all your ills. To the public ensign one opposes the yellow lilies,[1] and the other appropriates it to a party, so that it is hard to see which is most at fault. Let the Ghibellines practice, let them practice their art under another ensign, for he ever follows it ill who parts justice and it. And let not this new Charles[2] strike it down with his Guelphs, but let him fear its talons, which from a loftier lion have stripped the fell. Often ere now the sons have wept for the sin of the father; and let him not believe that for his lilies Goa win change His arms.
[1] The fleur-de-lys of France.
[2] Charles II., King of Apulia, son of Charles of Anjou.
“This little star is furnished with good spirits who have been active in order that honor and fame may follow them. And when the desires thus straying mount here, it must needs be that the rays of the true love mount upward less living.[1] But in the commeasuring of our wages with our desert is part of our joy, because we see them neither less nor greater. Hereby the living Justice so sweetens the affection in us, that it can never be bent aside to any wrong. Diverse voices make sweet notes; thus in our life diverse benches[2] render sweet harmony among these wheels.
[1] The desire for fame interferes with, though it may not wholly prevent, the true love of God.
[2] The different grades of the blessed.
“And within the present pearl shines the light of Romeo, whose great and beautiful work was ill rewarded. But the Provencals who wrought against him are not smiling; and forsooth he goes an ill road who makes harm for himself of another's good deed.[1] Four daughters, and each a queen, had Raymond Berenger, and Romeo, a humble person and a pilgrim, did this[2] for him. And then crooked words moved him to demand a reckoning of this just man, who rendered to him seven and five for ten. Then he departed, poor and old, and if the world but knew the heart he had, while begging his livelihood bit by bit, much as it lauds him it would laud him more.”
[1] According to Giovanni Villani (vi. 90), one Romeo, a pilgrim, came to the court of Raymond Berenger IV., Count of Provence (who died, in 1245), and winning the count's favor, served him with such wisdom and fidelity that by his means his master's revenues were greatly increased, and his four daughters married to four kings,—Margaret, to Louis IX. of France, St. Louis; Eleanor, to Henry III. of England; Sanzia, to Richard, Earl of Cornwall (brother of Henry III.), elected King of the Romans; and Beatrice, to Charles of Anjou (brother of Louis IX.), King of Apulia and Sicily. The Provencal nobles, jealous of Romeo, procured his dismissal, and he departed, with his mule and his pilgrim's staff and scrip, and was never seen more.
[2] The making each a queen.