The very small children in patched clothing,
Being smitten with an unusual wisdom,
Stopped in their play as she passed them
And cried up from their cobbles:
Guarda! Ahi, guarda! ch’ è be’a![A]
But three years after this
I heard the young Dante, whose last name I do not know—
For there are, in Sirmione, twenty-eight young
Dantes and thirty-four Catulli;
And there had been a great catch of sardines,
And his elders
Were packing them in the great wooden boxes
For the market in Brescia, and he
Leapt about, snatching at the bright fish
And getting in both of their ways;
And in vain they commanded him to sta fermo!
And when they would not let him arrange
The fish in the boxes
He stroked those which were already arranged,
Murmuring for his own satisfaction
This identical phrase:
Ch’ è be’a.
And at this I was mildly abashed.
[A] Bella.
The Bellaires
Aus meinen grossen Schmerzen
Mach’ ich die kleinen Lieder.
The good Bellaires
Do not understand the conduct of this world’s affairs.
In fact they understood them so badly
That they have had to cross the Channel.
Nine lawyers, four counsels, five judges and three proctors of the King,
Together with the respective wives, husbands, sisters and heterogeneous connections of the good Bellaires,
Met to discuss their affairs;
But the good Bellaires have so little understood their affairs
That now there is no one at all
Who can understand any affair of theirs. Yet
Fourteen hunters still eat in the stables of
The good Squire Bellaire;
But these may not suffer attainder,
For they may not belong to the good Squire Bellaire
But to his wife.
On the contrary, if they do not belong to his wife,
He will plead
A “freedom from attainder”
For twelve horses and also for twelve boarhounds
From Charles the Fourth;
And a further freedom for the remainder
Of horses, from Henry the Fourth.
But the judges,
Being free of mediæval scholarship,
Will pay no attention to this,
And there will be only the more confusion,
Replevin, estoppel, espavin and what not.