[27] The Ema, a little stream that has to be crossed in coming from Montebuono, the home of the Buondelmonti, to Florence.
[28] That victim was Buondelmonte himself, slain by the outraged Amidei, at the foot of the mutilated statue of Mars, which stood at the end of the Ponte Vecchio.
“With these families, and with others with them, I saw Florence in such repose that she had no occasion why she should weep. With these families I saw her people so glorious and so just, that the lily was never set reversed upon the staff, nor had it been made blood-red by division.”[1]
[1] The banner of Florence had never fallen into the hands of her enemies, to be reversed by them in scoff. Of old it had borne a white lily in a red field, but in 1250, when the Ghibellines were expelled, the Guelphs adopted a red lily in a white field, and this became the ensign of the Commune.
CANTO XVII.
Dante questions Cacciaguida as to his fortunes.—Cacciaguida replies, foretelling the exile of Dante, and the renown of his Poem.
As he who still makes fathers chary toward their sons[1] came to Clymene, to ascertain concerning that which he had heard against himself; such was I, and such was I perceived to be both by Beatrice, and by the holy lamp which first for my sake had changed its station. Whereon my Lady said to me, “Send forth the flame of thy desire so that it may issue sealed well by the internal stamp; not in order that our knowledge may increase through thy speech, but that thou accustom thyself to tell thy thirst, so that one may give thee drink.”
[1] Phaethon, son of Clymene by Apollo, having been told that Apollo was not his father, went to his mother to ascertain the truth.
“O dear plant of me, who so upliftest thyself that, even as earthly minds see that two obtuse angles are not contained in a triangle, so thou, gazing upon the point to which all times are present, seest contingent things, ere in themselves they are; while I was conjoined with Virgil up over the mountain which cures the souls, and while descending in the world of the dead, grave words were said to me of my future life; although I feel myself truly four-square against the blows of chance. Wherefore my wish would be content by hearing what sort of fortune is drawing near me; for arrow foreseen comes more slack.” Thus said I unto that same light which before had spoken to me, and as Beatrice willed was my wish confessed.
Not with ambiguous terms in which the foolish folk erst were entangled,[1] ere yet the Lamb of God which taketh away sins had been slain, but with clear words and with distinct speech that paternal love, hid and apparent by his own proper smile, made answer: “Contingency, which extends not outside the volume of your matter, is all depicted in the eternal aspect. Therefrom, however, it takes not necessity, more than from the eye in which it is mirrored does a ship which descends with the downward current. Thence, even as sweet harmony comes to the ear from an organ, comes to my sight the time that is preparing for thee. As Hippolytus departed from Athens, by reason of his pitiless and perfidious stepmother, so out from Florence thou must needs depart. This is willed, this is already sought for, and soon it shall be brought to pass, by him I who designs it there where every day Christ is bought and sold. The blame will follow the injured party, in outcry, as it is wont; but the vengeance will be testimony to the truth which dispenses it. Thou shalt leave everything beloved most dearly; and this is the arrow which the bow of exile first shoots. Thou shalt prove how the bread of others savors of salt, and how the descending and the mounting of another's stairs is a hard path. And that which will heaviest weigh upon thy shoulders will be the evil and foolish company[2] with which into this valley thou shalt fall; which all ungrateful, all senseless, and impious will turn against thee; but short while after, it, not thou, shall have the forehead red therefor. Of its bestiality, its own procedure will give the proof; so that it will be seemly for thee to have made thyself a party by thyself.