Other grandees, who gave the indignant wanderer an occasional asylum from the blasts of persecution, were the marchese Malespina, who, though belonging to the antagonist party, cordially entertained him in Lunigiana; the conte Guido Salvatico, of Cassentino; the signori della Faggiuolo, among the mountains of Urbino; and also the fathers of the monastery of Santa Croce di Fonte Avellana, in the district of Gubbio. In this romantic retreat, according to the Latin inscription under a marble bust of him against a wall in one of the chambers, Dante is recorded to have written a considerable portion of the "Divina Commedia." In a tower belonging to the conti Falucci, in the same territory, there is a tradition that he was often employed in the like manner. At the castle of Tulmino, the residence of the patriarch of Aquileia, a rock has been pointed out as a favourite resort of the inspired poet, while engaged in that marvellous and melancholy composition.
"There, nobly pensive, Dante sat and thought."
Marius, banished from his country, and resting upon the ruins of Carthage, may have appeared a more august and mournful object; but Dante, in exile, want, and degradation, on a lonely crag, meditating thoughts, combining images, and creating a language for both in which they should for ever speak, presents a far more sublime and touching spectacle of fallen grandeur renovating itself under decay. Marius, having "mewed his mighty youth," flew back to Rome like the eagle to his quarry, surfeited himself with vengeance, and died in a debauch of blood, leaving a name to be execrated through all generations: Dante did not return to Florence; living or dead he did not return; but his name, cast out and abhorred as it had been, stands the earliest and the greatest of a long line of Tuscan poets, rivalling the most illustrious of their country, not excepting those of even Rome and Ferrara.
Dante's last and most magnanimous patron was Guido Novello da Polenta, lord of Ravenna, who was himself a poet, and a munificent benefactor of men of letters. This nobleman was the father of Francesca di Rimini, whose fatal love has given her a place on the most splendid page of the "Divina Commedia;" no other episode being told with equal beauty and pathos: yet so brief and simple is the narrative, that, even if the circumstances were as unexceptionably pure as they are insidiously delicate, translation ought hardly to be attempted; for the labour would be fruitless. Dante himself could not have given his masterpiece in precisely corresponding terms in another language; though, had any other been his own, it need not be doubted that in it he would have found words to tell his tale as well. It is not what a poet finds a language to be, but what he makes it, that constitutes the charm, not to be imitated, of his style. This is the despair of translators, though few seem to have suspected the existence of such a secret.
The mental sufferings of the poet during his nineteen years of banishment, ending in death, oftener find utterance, through his writings, in bitter invectives and prophetic denunciations against his enemies and traducers, than in strains of lamentation; yet would his wounds bleed afresh, and the anguish of his spirit be renewed with all the tenderness of wronged but passionate attachment, at every endeared recollection of the land of his nativity;—the city where he had been cradled and had grown up—where Beatrice was born, beloved, and buried—where he had himself attained the highest honours of the state, and, in his own esteem, deserved the lasting gratitude of his fellow-citizens, instead of experiencing their implacable hatred. Haughty yet humbled, vindictive yet forgiving, it is manifest, even in his darkest moods, that his heart yearned for reconciliation; that he pined in home-sickness wherever he went, and would gladly have renounced all his wrath, and submitted to any self-denial consistent with honour, to be received back into his country. For, much as he loved the latter,—nay, madly as he loved it in his paroxysms of exasperation,—he wrapt himself up tighter in the mantle of his integrity as the storm raged more vehemently; and, as the conflict went harder against him, grasped his honour, like his sword, never to be surrendered but with life: to preserve these, he submitted to lose all beside.
Boccaccio says, that, at a certain time, some friend obtained from the Florentine government leave for Dante to return, on condition that he should remain a while in prison, then do penance at the principal church during a festival solemnity, and afterwards be exempt from further punishment for his offences against the state. As might be expected, he spurned the ignominious terms. A letter, preserved in the Laurentian library[14], seems to refer to this circumstance, which, till the modern discovery of that document, required stronger testimony than the random verbiage of Boccaccio to confirm its credibility. It is addressed to a correspondent at Florence, whom the writer styles "father." The following are extracts; the original is in Latin. Having alluded to some overtures for pardon and return, nearly corresponding with those above mentioned, he proceeds:—
"Can such a recall to his country, after fifteen years' exile, be glorious to Dante Alighieri? Has innocence, which is manifest to every one,—have toil and fatigue in perpetuated studies, merited this? Away from the man trained up in philosophy, the dastard humiliation of an earth-born heart, that, like some petty pretender to knowledge, or other base wretch, he should endure to be delivered up in chains! Away from the man who demands justice, the thought that, after having suffered wrong, he should make terms by his money with those who have injured him, as though they had done righteously!—No, father! this is not the way of return to my country for me. Yet, if you, or any body else, can find another which shall not compromise the fame and the honour of Dante, I will not be slow to take it. But if by such an one he may not return to Florence,—to Florence he will never return. What then? May I not every where behold the sun and the stars? Can I not every where under heaven meditate on the most noble and delightful truths, without first rendering myself inglorious, aye infamous, before the people and city of Florence,—and this, for fear I should want bread!"
Far different return to Florence, and far other scene in his favourite church there, had he sometimes ventured to anticipate as possible. This we learn from the opening of the twenty-fifth canto of the "Paradiso," where, even in the presence of Beatrice and St. Peter, he thus unbosoms the long-cherished hope; conscious of high desert, as well as grievous injustice, which he would nevertheless most fervently forgive, could restoration to his country be obtained on terms "consistent with the fame and honour of Dante."
"If e'er the sacred song, which heaven arid earth
Have lent a hand to frame,—which, many a year,
Hath kept me lean with thought,—o'ercome the rage
That bars re-entrance to the lovely fold,
Where, like a lamb, I slept; the foe of wolves,
Waging inveterate war against its life;
With other voice, with other fleece, will I
Return, a poet, and receive the laurel
At that baptismal font, where I was brought
Into the faith which makes souls dear to God."[15]
In the same church here alluded to (San Giovanni), at Florence, there remained till lately a stone-remembrancer of Dante, in his prosperous days, scarcely less likely than "storied urn or animated bust," to awaken that sweet and voluntary sadness by which we love to associate dead things with the memory of those who once have lived. This was no other than an ancient bench of masonry which ran along the wall,