Messer Polo, at their return, did not rise, and they were astonished, and one of them said: O Messer, alack, is this the courtesy you show? When strangers come to your city, do you show them no honour?
And Messer Polo replied: pardon me, gentle sirs, if I do not rise save for the bridge that rose for me.
Then the knights made much of him.
One of the knights died, and the other two sawed off the third of the bench on which they sat, when the third was dead, because in all Romagna they could not find any knight who was worthy to sit in his place.
[1] Paolo, or Paul. The Traversaro family was one of the principal families of Ravenna. See Dante, Purg. XIV, 98 and 107. Also Boccaccio, Decameron, Giorno X, Nov. 8. [↑]
[2] Following the reading of Biagi. [↑]