[3] Beatrice stands a little aside, theology having no part in this colloquy. She smiles, not reproachfully, at Dante's vainglory.
[4] The Dame de Malehault, who coughed at seeing the first kiss given by Lancelot to Guenever. The incident is not told in any of the printed versions of the Romance of Lancelot, but it has been found by Mr. Paget Toynbee in several of the manuscripts.
[5] Rejoices that it has capacity to endure such great joy.
[6] Florence, whose patron saint was St. John the Baptist.
As a coal quickens to flame at the blowing of the winds, so I saw that light become resplendent at my blandishments, and as it became more beautiful to my eyes, so with voice more dulcet and soft, but not with this modern speech, it said to me, “From that clay on which Ave was said, unto the birth in which my mother, who. now is sainted, was lightened of me with whom she was burdened, this fire had come to its Lion[1] five hundred, fifty, and thirty times to reinflame itself beneath his paw.[2] My ancestors and I were born in the place where the last ward is first found by him who runs in your annual game.[3] Let it suffice to hear this of my elders. Who they were, and whence they came thither, it is more becoming to leave untold than to recount.
[1]—Mars
As he glow'd like a ruddy shield on the Lion's breast.—Maud, part III. The Lion is the sign Leo in the Zodiac, appropriate to Mars by supposed conformity of disposition.
[2] Five hundred and eighty revolutions of Mars are accomplished in a little more than ten hundred and ninety years.
[3] The place designated was the boundary of the division of the city called that of “the Gate of St. Peter,” where the Corso passes by the Mercato Vecchio or Old Market. The races were run along the Corso on the 24th June, the festival of St. John the Baptist.
“All those able to bear arms who at that time were there, between Mars and the Baptist,[1] were the fifth of them who are living. But the citizenship, which is now mixed with Campi and with Certaldo and with Figghine,[2] was to be seen pure in the lowest artisan. Oh, how much better it would be that those folk of whom I speak were neighbors, and to have your confine at Galluzzo and at Trespiano,[3] than to have them within, and to endure the stench of the churl of Aguglione,[4] and of him of Signa, who already has his eye sharp for barratry!
[1] Between the Ponte Vecchio, at the head of which stood the statue of Mars, and the Baptistery,—two points marking the circuit of the ancient walls.