I turn'd me to Beatrice; and she heard Ere I had spoken, smiling, an assent, That to my will gave wings; and I began
"To each among your tribe, what time ye kenn'd The nature, in whom naught unequal dwells, Wisdom and love were in one measure dealt;
For that they are so equal in the sun,
From whence ye drew your radiance and your heat, As makes all likeness scant. But will and means,
In mortals, for the cause ye well discern, With unlike wings are fledge. A mortal I Experience inequality like this,
And therefore give no thanks, but in the heart, For thy paternal greeting. This howe'er
I pray thee, living topaz! that ingemm'st
This precious jewel, let me hear thy name."
"I am thy root, O leaf ! whom to expect
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Even, hath pleas'd me:" thus the prompt reply
Prefacing, next it added; "he, of whom
Thy kindred appellation comes, and who,
These hundred years and more, on its first ledge
Hath circuited the mountain, was my son And thy great grandsire. Well befits, his long Endurance should be shorten'd by thy deeds.
"Florence, within her ancient limit-mark,
Which calls her still to matin prayers and noon, Was chaste and sober, and abode in peace.
She had no armlets and no head-tires then,
No purfled dames, no zone, that caught the eye More than the person did. Time was not yet, When at his daughter's birth the sire grew pale. For fear the age and dowry should exceed
On each side just proportion. House was none Void of its family; nor yet had come Hardanapalus, to exhibit feats
Of chamber prowess. Montemalo yet O'er our suburban turret rose; as much To be surpass in fall, as in its rising.
I saw Bellincione Berti walk abroad
In leathern girdle and a clasp of bone;
And, with no artful colouring on her cheeks, His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw
Of Nerli and of Vecchio well content
With unrob'd jerkin; and their good dames handling
The spindle and the flax; O happy they!
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Each sure of burial in her native land, And none left desolate a-bed for France! One wak'd to tend the cradle, hushing it With sounds that lull'd the parent's infancy: Another, with her maidens, drawing off
The tresses from the distaff, lectur'd them
Old tales of Troy and Fesole and Rome. A Salterello and Cianghella we
Had held as strange a marvel, as ye would
A Cincinnatus or Cornelia now.
"In such compos'd and seemly fellowship, Such faithful and such fair equality,
In so sweet household, Mary at my birth Bestow'd me, call'd on with loud cries; and there In your old baptistery, I was made
Christian at once and Cacciaguida; as were
My brethren, Eliseo and Moronto.
"From Valdipado came to me my spouse, And hence thy surname grew. I follow'd then The Emperor Conrad; and his knighthood he Did gird on me; in such good part he took
My valiant service. After him I went
To testify against that evil law,
Whose people, by the shepherd's fault, possess Your right, usurping. There, by that foul crew Was I releas'd from the deceitful world,
Whose base affection many a spirit soils,
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And from the martyrdom came to this peace."
CANTO XVI
O slight respect of man's nobility! I never shall account it marvelous, That our infirm affection here below
Thou mov'st to boasting, when I could not choose, E'en in that region of unwarp'd desire,
In heav'n itself, but make my vaunt in thee!
Yet cloak thou art soon shorten'd, for that time, Unless thou be eked out from day to day,
Goes round thee with his shears. Resuming then With greeting such, as Rome, was first to bear, But since hath disaccustom'd I began;
And Beatrice, that a little space
Was sever'd, smil'd reminding me of her, Whose cough embolden'd (as the story holds) To first offence the doubting Guenever.
"You are my sire," said I, "you give me heart
Freely to speak my thought: above myself
You raise me. Through so many streams with joy
My soul is fill'd, that gladness wells from it;
So that it bears the mighty tide, and bursts not
Say then, my honour'd stem! what ancestors
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Where those you sprang from, and what years were mark'd
In your first childhood? Tell me of the fold,
That hath Saint John for guardian, what was then
Its state, and who in it were highest seated?"
As embers, at the breathing of the wind, Their flame enliven, so that light I saw Shine at my blandishments; and, as it grew
More fair to look on, so with voice more sweet, Yet not in this our modern phrase, forthwith
It answer'd: "From the day, when it was said
'Hail Virgin!' to the throes, by which my mother, Who now is sainted, lighten'd her of me
Whom she was heavy with, this fire had come, Five hundred fifty times and thrice, its beams To reilumine underneath the foot
Of its own lion. They, of whom I sprang,
And I, had there our birth-place, where the last
Partition of our city first is reach'd
By him, that runs her annual game. Thus much
Suffice of my forefathers: who they were,
And whence they hither came, more honourable
It is to pass in silence than to tell.
All those, who in that time were there from Mars
Until the Baptist, fit to carry arms,
Were but the fifth of them this day alive.
But then the citizen's blood, that now is mix'd
From Campi and Certaldo and Fighine,
Ran purely through the last mechanic's veins.
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O how much better were it, that these people Were neighbours to you, and that at Galluzzo And at Trespiano, ye should have your bound'ry, Than to have them within, and bear the stench Of Aguglione's hind, and Signa's, him,
That hath his eye already keen for bart'ring! Had not the people, which of all the world Degenerates most, been stepdame unto Caesar, But, as a mother, gracious to her son;
Such one, as hath become a Florentine,
And trades and traffics, had been turn'd adrift
To Simifonte, where his grandsire ply'd
The beggar's craft. The Conti were possess'd
Of Montemurlo still: the Cerchi still Were in Acone's parish; nor had haply From Valdigrieve past the Buondelmonte. The city's malady hath ever source
In the confusion of its persons, as