Cader tra' buoni è pur di lode degno." -Sonnet of Dante [Canzone xx. lines 76-80, Opere di Dante, 1897, p. 171] in which he represents Right, Generosity, and Temperance as banished from among men, and seeking refuge from Love, who inhabits his basom. Ut si quis predictorum ullo tempore in fortiam dicti communis pervenerit, talis perveniens igne comburatur, sic quod moriatur." Second sentence of Florence against Dante, and the fourteen accused with him. The Latin is worthy of the sentence. [The decree (March 11, 1302) that Dante and his associates in exile should be burned, if they fell into the hands of their enemies, was first discovered, in 1772, by the Conte Ludovico Savioli.] Who long have suffered more than mortal woe, And yet being mortal still, have no repose But on the pillow of Revenge - Revenge, Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change, When we shall mount again, and they that trod Be trampled on, while Death and O'er humbled heads and severed necks Great God! Take these thoughts from me - to thy hands I yield My many wrongs, and thine Almighty rod Will fall on those who smote me, my Shield! I 20 be Their days in endless strife, and die alone; Then future thousands crowd around their tomb, And pilgrims come from climes where they have known The name of him who now is but a name, And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone, Spread his by him unheard, unheeded -fame; And mine at least hath cost me dear: to die Is nothing; but to wither thus - to tame My mind down from its own infinity To live in narrow ways with little A common sight to every common eye, A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den, But This lady, whose name was Gemma, sprung from one of the most powerful Guelph families, named Donati. Corso Donati was the principal adversary of the Ghibellines. She is described as being "Admodum morosa, ut de Xantippe Socratis philosophi conjuge scriptum esse legimus," according to Giannozzo Manetti. Lionardo Aretino is scandalised with Boccace, in his life of Dante, for saying that literary men should not marry. "Qui il Boccaccio non ha pazienza, e dice, le mogli esser contrarie agli studj; e non si ricorda che Socrate, il più nobile filosofo che mai fusse, ebbe moglie e figliuoli e uffici nella Repubblica neila sua Città; e Aristotile che, etc., etc., ebbe due moglie in vari tempi, ed ebbe figliuoli, e ricchezze assai. — É Marco Tullio - e Catone - e Varrone - e Seneca ebbero moglie," etc., etc. It is odd that honest Lionardo's examples, with the exception of Seneca, and, for anything I know, of Aristotle, are not the most felicitous. Tully's Terentia, and Socrates' Xantippe, by no means contributed to their husbands' happiness, whatever they might do to their philosophy Cato gave away his wife of Varro's we know nothing and of Seneca's, only that she was disposed to die with him, but recovered and lived several years afterwards. But, Lionardo, "L'uomo è animale civile, secondo piace a tutti i filosofi." And thence concludes that the greatest proof of the animal's civism is "la prima congiunzione, dalla quale multiplicata nasce la Città." says [There is nothing in the Divina Commedia, or elsewhere in his writings, to justify the common belief that Dante was unhappily married, unless silence may be taken to imply dislike and alienation. But with Byron, as with Boccaccio, "the wish was father to the thought," and both were glad to quote Dante as a victim to matrimony.] The unborn Earthquake yet is in the womb, The bloody Chaos yet expects Creation, But all things are disposing for thy doom; The Elements await but for the Word, "Let there be darkness!" and thou grow'st a tomb! Yes! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the sword, Thou, Italy! so fair that Paradise, Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored: Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice? Thou, Italy! whose ever golden fields, 50 Ploughed by the sunbeams solely, would suffice For the world's granary; thou, whose sky Heaven gilds With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue; Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds way; But those, the human savages, explore All paths of torture, and insatiate vet, With Ugolino hunger prowl for more. Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set; 1 91 The chiefless army of the dead, which late Beneath the traitor Prince's banner met, Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate; Had but the royal Rebel lived, perchance Thou hadst been spared, but his involved thy fate. Oh! Rome, the Spoiler or the spoil of France, From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, Oh! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po, Crush them, ye Rocks! Floods whelm them, and for ever! Why sleep the idle Avalanches so, To topple on the lonely pilgrim's head? Why doth Eridanus but overflow The peasant's harvest from his turbid bed? Were not each barbarous horde a nobler prey? Over Cambyses' host the desert spread See "Sacco di Roma," generally attributed to Guicciardini [Francesco (1482-1540).] There is another written by a Jacopo Buonaparte. [The "traitor Prince" was Charles IV., Connétable de Bourbon, Comte de Montpensier, born 1490, who was killed at the capture of Rome, May 6, 1527.] Why, Nature's self detains the Victor's car, And makes your land impregnable, if earth Could be so; but alone she will not |