The God of Love

by Justin H. McCarthy

These bellicose words of Messer Simone found their immediate echo in the hearts of all men present; for to do us Florentines justice, we have never loved frolicking so much that we did not like fighting a great deal better, and we have never had private business or private pleasure which we were not ready at a moment's notice to thrust on one side when the great bell of the city sounded its warning of danger to the Republic. So for the immediate time Messer Simone was the hour's hero, and dancing and banqueting and laughing and love-making were clean forgotten, and every youth and every mature man there present, and, for that matter, every elder, too, was eager to ring himself in steel and to teach the devils of Arezzo of what stuff a Florentine citizen was made. I must honestly and soberly confess that I myself was so readily intoxicated with the heady wine of the excitement about me that I found myself cheering and shouting as lustily as the rest, for the which I do not blame myself, and that I found myself for the moment regarding Messer Simone dei Bardi as a kind of hero, for the which I severely blame myself even now, after all this lapse of years.

When Messer Simone found that he had got the company, so to speak, in the hollow of his hands, he was silent for a little while, looking about him sharply, as if he were making sure of the courage and enthusiasm of his fellow-citizens, and seeking to find in the press of flushed and eager faces any countenance that seemed unwilling to answer to his call. All about him the elders of the city were gathered giving and taking counsel, giving, I think for the most part, more readily than taking, and hurriedly revolving in their minds what were best to do for the city in the crisis that Messer Simone had made plain to them. While these deliberations went on, we that had been dancing danced no longer, nor had desire to dance, and though some talked among themselves, the main kept silence, for the most part waiting upon events. By this time, my wits having grown cooler and my old distrust of Messer Simone being resuscitated, I scrutinized him closely as he stood there in his steel coats, the centre figure of the assembly.

As I looked at Messer Simone where he stood there, girt with strength in every line of his body, in every curl of his crisp hair and short beard, in the watchful ferocity of his eyes, he seemed to me a kind of symbol of what man may be who is unlifted by any inspiration of divinity or tincture of letters from the common herd. In him brute strength, brutish desires, brutal passions were presented, so it seemed to my fancy, as a kind of warning to others of what man may be that is content to be merely man, with no higher thought in him than the gratification of his instincts and his impulses. I have heard tell in travellers' tales of strange lands, beneath fiercer suns than ours, where naked savages disport themselves with the lawless assurance of wild beasts, and it seemed to me—being always given to speculation—that Messer Simone, if he found himself in such a company, would never be at a loss, but would straightway be admitted to their ruffian fellowship. I think, indeed, he would be better suited for such companionship than for citizenship of the fair, the wise, the gifted, the civilized queen-city of Florence. But even as such savages are reported to have, in place of a higher wit, such natural craft as Providence has implanted in the hearts of foxes and hyenas and other such wild beasts, so Messer Simone, for all his bestiality, could be cunning enough when it served his ends, as you shall presently learn.

In a little while Messer Simone began to speak again, and to tell his hearers of the plan which he had formed for the service of Florence and the confusion of her enemies. This plan, as you already know, was to be furthered by the enrollment of all such among the youth of Florence as desired to prove themselves true patriots into a body which was to be known by the high-sounding name of the Company of Death, the meaning of this title being that those who so enrolled themselves were prepared at any moment to give their lives for the advantage of the mother-city. Messer Simone's plan had, as we now learned, been applauded by all the magnates, such as Messer Corso Donati and Messer Vieri dei Cerchi, and had received the approval of the priors of the city. As the scheme was due to Messer Simone, it was agreed on all hands that he should be its leader so long as the Republic of Florence was in a state of war. Whoever had taught him his lesson, Messer Simone had learned it creditably enough. He talked well, and while you listened to him it was hard not to feel that the Company of Death was indeed a very noble and hopeful thought, and that it might very well be the duty of all honorable patriots to join it. But such thoughts might have cooled off under reflection and deliberation if Messer Simone had not been at the pains to prevent reflection and deliberation by a cunning stroke of policy.

So he pitched his loud voice some notes higher, bellowing like a bull of Bashan as he rolled off sonorous sentences very deftly learned and remembered, in which glory and the service of the state and the example of old Rome were cleverly compounded into a most patriotic pasty. Even as he was in the thick of his speaking there came a flourish of trumpets at the door, and to the sound of that music there came into the room a brace of pages that were habited in cloth of gold, and that bore on their breasts the badge that showed them to be the servants of Messer Simone. This pair of pages carried between them a mighty gold charger, and on this charger lay a huge book of white vellum that was bound and clasped in gold. These pages were followed by other two pages, one of whom carried ink in a great golden ink-horn and sand in a golden basin, while the other bore a kind of golden quiver that was stuffed full, not indeed of arrows, but of quills of the gray goose. When this little company of pages had come anigh to Messer Simone, who seemed to greet their approach with great satisfaction, the pages that carried the book stood before their master, and Simone, stooping to the charger, unclasped the great book and flung it open and showed that its leaves were white and fair. The book-bearers supported the book so open, on the charger, making themselves into a living desk, and he that carried the ink and sand and he that carried the quills came alongside of them, and stood quietly, waiting for their work to begin.

Then Messer Simone struck with his open palm upon the smooth, fair parchment, and cried aloud that in time to come this book would prove to be one of the city's most precious possessions, for it was to be the abiding record of those noble-souled patriots who had enrolled their names upon the roll-call of the Company of Death. And he said again that such a book would be, indeed, a catalogue of heroes; and after much more talk to this purpose, he called upon all those present that had high hearts and loved their mother-city to come forward and inscribe their names, to their own eternal honor, upon the pages of the there presented volume.

Now at this there came a great shout of applause from many that listened to Messer Simone, and because men in such an assemblage, at such an hour, in such a mood of merry-making, are little likely to prove thoughtful critics of what may be said by a big voice using big words, it seemed to many of those there standing that Messer Simone's scheme of the Company of Death was the best that had ever been schemed for the salvation of the city, and that to write one's name on the pages of Messer Simone's book was the noblest duty and proudest privilege of a true citizen.

There was a great hurrying and scurrying on the part of those that stood around to get to the book and borrow quill and ink from the attendant pages, and be among the earliest to deserve the honorable immortality that Messer Simone promised. There were certain restrictions, so Messer Simone explained, attendant upon the formation of the Company of Death. Its members must be young men of no less than eighteen and no more than thirty years of age. You will bear in mind that Messer Dante was but just turned eighteen, and that Messer Guido was in his eight-and-twentieth year. But no one thought of that at the time, not even I, though it showed plain enough to me afterward. Furthermore, the Companions were to be all unmarried men, such as therefore were free to dedicate their lives to the cause of their country with a readiness that was not to be expected or called for from men that had wives and families.

While Messer Simone thus explained, youth after youth of the young gentlemen of Florence, both of the Reds and of the Yellows, came forward and wrote their names with great zeal and many flourishes on the smooth, white parchment, and soon the white leaves began to be covered thick with names, and still the would-be votaries came crowding about the ink-bearer and the pen-bearer, and catching at the quills and dipping them in the ink. As fast as a sheet was filled the attendant would spill a stream of golden sand over the wet inscription and make ready a fresh sheet for the feverish enthusiasm of the signatories.

After a while Messer Simone called a halt in the business of signing, and now he began to speak anew, and though his voice was rough and harsh from all the talk that he had talked before, and though he rather growled his words than gave them liberal utterance, yet what he said was what he wanted to say, and came from his black heart with a very damnable aptness. He was speaking in the praise of those Florentine youths that had first enrolled their names in the book of the Company of Death, and he was praising them ostentatiously for their valor and their patriotism, and yet while he praised, I, listening, thought that his praises were not very good to get, though some share of them was due to me who had written my name on the pages of the big book, partly because I had drunk much wine, and partly because I could never resist the contagion of any enthusiasm, and partly because the pretty girl that was by my side—I forget her name now—egged me on to the folly.