for your silver broadpieces; and your playfellow, the monkey, is alone and inconsolable. I forget whether you admire or tolerate red hair, so that I rather dread showing you all that I have about me and around me in this city. Come, nevertheless,—you can pay Dante1 a morning visit, and I will undertake that Theodore and Honoria will be most happy to see you in the forest hard by. We Goths, also, of Ravenna, hope you will not despise our arch-Goth, Theodoric.2 I must leave it to these worthies to entertain you all the fore part of the day, seeing that I have none at all myself— the lark that rouses me from my slumbers being an afternoon bird. But then, all your evenings, and as much as you can give me of your nights, will be mine. Ay! and you will find me eating flesh, too, like yourself or any other cannibal, except it be upon Fridays. Then, there are more cantos (and be damned to them) of what Fleming. Among Byron's "motley household," which met Rogers at Bologna (Rogers's Italy, "Bologna "), came "Not last nor least, Battista, who, upon the moon-light sea Served, and, at parting, thrown his oar away 1. Dante died at Ravenna, September 14, 1321, and was buried in the Church of S. Francesco. (For Theodore and Honoria, see p. 321, note 1.) 2. Ravenna became the seat of the Gothic kingdom of Italy, when, after a siege of three years, it fell into the hands of Theodoric (455-526), who, after the murder of Odoacer in 493, ruled Italy till his own death in 526. Himself an Arian, he was induced, towards the close of his reign, to prosecute the orthodox Christians. He caused Boethius, the author of the Consolations of Philosophy, to be executed, as well as the philosopher's father-in-law, Symmachus (525). Remorse is said to have hastened his end. His memory is preserved at Ravenna by his palace, his mausoleum, and the churches of S. Apollinare Nuovo and Santo Spirito. |