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,10 well content

With unrobed jerkin; and their good dames handling
The spindle and the flax: O happy they!
Each" sure of burial in her native land,
And none left desolate a-bed for France.
One waked 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, lectured 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 composed 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.

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14

15

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,

16

Whose people, by the Shepherd's fault, possess
Your right usurp'd. There I by that foul crew

10 Two opulent families in Florence. 11 "Each." None fearful either of dying in banishment or of being deserted by her husband on scheme of traffic in France.

a

12 The latter a shameless woman of the family of Tosa, married to Lito degli Alidosi of Imola: the former Lapo Salterello, a lawyer, with whom Dante was at variance. We should have held an abandoned character, like these, as a great wonder, as ye would the contrary now."

18" Mary." The Virgin was invoked in the pains of child-birth. 'Purgatory," Canto xx. 21.

14 Cacciaguida's wife, whose family name was Alighieri, came from Ferrara, called Val di Pado, from its being watered by the Po.

15" Conrad." The Emperor Conrad III, who died in 1152.

16 The Mohammedans, who were left in the possession of the Holy Land, through the supineness of the Pope. See Canto iv. 123.

Was disentangled from the treacherous world
Whose base affection many a spirit soils;
And from the martyrdom came to this peace."

CANTO XVI

ARGUMENT.-Cacciaguida relates the time of his birth; and, describing the extent of Florence when he lived there, recounts the names of the chief families who then inhabited it. Its degeneracy, and subsequent disgrace, he attributes to the introduction of families from the neighboring country and villages, and to their mixture with the primitive citizens.

SLIGHT respect of man's nobility!

I never shall account it marvellous,
That our infirm affection here below

Thou movest to boasting; when I could not chuse,
E'en in that region of unwarp'd desire,

In Heaven 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 greeting1 such as Rome was first to bear,
But since hath disaccustom'd, I began:

And Beatrice, that a little space

Was sever'd, smiled; reminding me of her,
Whose cough embolden'd (as the story holds)
To first offence the doubting Guenever."

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"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

Were those you sprang from, and what years were mark'd
In your first childhood? Tell me of the fold,3

1" With greeting." The Poet, who had addressed the spirit, not knowing him to be his ancestor, with a plain "Thou." now uses more ceremony, and calls him "You," according to a custom of the Romans in the latter times of the empire.

2 Beatrice's smile reminded him of the female servant who, by her coughing, emboldened Queen Guenever to encourage Lancelot. See "Hell," Canto v. 124.

3 Florence, of which John the Baptist was the patron saint.

12-VOL. XX

HC

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 times and fourscore, to relume
Its radiance underneath the burning 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 at that time were there, betwixt
Mars and 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.
O how much better were it, that these people'
Were neighbours to you; and that at Galluzzo
And at Trespiano ye should have your boundary;
Than to have them within, and bear the stench
Of Aguglione's hind, and Signa's, him,
That hath his eye already keen for bartering.

From the incarnation of our Lord to the birth of Cacciaguida, the planet Mars had returned 580 times to the constellation of Leo, with which it is supposed to have a congenial influence. As Mars then completed his revolution in a period of forty-three days short of two years, Cacciaguida was born about 1090.

The city was divided into four Compartments. The Elisei, the ancestors of Dante, resided near the

entrance of that named from the Porta S. Piero, which was the last reached by the competitor in the annual race at Florence.

Country places near Florence.

7 That the inhabitants of the abovementioned places had not been mixed with the citizens; nor the limits of Florence extended beyond Galluzzo and Trespiano.

8 Baldo of Aguglione, and Bonifazio of Signa.

Had not the people,' which of all the world
Degenerates most, been stepdame unto Cæsar,
But, as a mother to her son, been kind,
Such one, as hath become a Florentine,
And trades and traffics, hath been turn'd adrift
To Simifonte,10 where his grandsire plied
The beggar's craft: the Conti were possest
Of Montemurlo" still: the Cerchi still
Were in Acone's parish: nor had haply
From Valdigreve passed the Buondelmonti.
The city's malady hath ever source
In the confusion of its persons, as

The body's, in variety of food:

And the blind bull falls with a steeper plunge,
Than the blind lamb: and oftentimes one sword
Doth more and better execution,

Than five. Mark Luni; Urbisaglia" mark;
How they are gone; and after them how go
Chiusi and Sinigaglia !' and 'twill seem
No longer new, or strange to thee, to hear
That families fail, when cities have their end.
All things that appertain to ye, like yourselves,
Are mortal: but mortality in some

Ye mark not; they endure so long, and you
Pass by so suddenly. And as the moon
Doth, by the rolling of her heavenly sphere,
Hide and reveal the strand unceasingly;

So fortune deals with Florence. Hence admire not
At what of them I tell thee, whose renown
Time covers, the first Florentines. I saw
The Ughi, Catilini, and Filippi,
The Alberichi, Greci, and Ormanni,
Now in their wane, illustrious citizens;
And great as ancient, of Sannella him,
With him of Arca saw, and Soldanieri,

If Rome had continued in her allegiance to the Emperor, and the Guelfi-Ghibelline factions had thus been prevented, Florence would not have been polluted by a race of upstarts, nor lost her best element.

10 A castle dismantled by the Flor

entines. The person is not known. 11 The Conti Guidi, unable to defend their castle from the Pistoians, sold it to the State of Florence.

12 Cities formerly of importance, but then fallen to decay.

13 The same.

And Ardinghi, and Bostichi. At the poop"
That now is laden with new felony

So cumbrous it may speedily sink the bark,
The Ravignani sat, of whom is sprung
The County Guido, and whoso hath since
His title from the famed Bellincion ta'en.
Fair governance was yet an art well prized
By him of Pressa: Galigaio show'd

16

The gilded hilt and pommel," in his house:
The column, clothed with verrey, still was seen
Unshaken; the Sacchetti still were great,

Giuochi, Fifanti, Galli, and Barucci,

17

With them" who blush to hear the bushel named.
Of the Calfucci still the branchy trunk

Was in its strength: and, to the curule chairs,
Sizii and Arrigucci" yet were drawn.

18

20

How mighty them" I saw, whom, since, their pride
Hath undone! And in all their goodly deeds
Florence was, by the bullets of bright gold,
O'erflourish'd. Such the sires of those,
21 who now,
As surely as your church is vacant, flock
Into her consistory, and at leisure

There stall them and grow fat. The o'erweening brood,
That plays the dragon after him that flees,
But unto such as turn and show the tooth,
Ay or the purse, is gentle as a lamb,
Was on its rise, but yet so slight esteem'd,
That Ubertino of Donati grudged

His father-in-law should yoke him to its tribe.
Already Caponsacco had descended

22

21 Of the Visdomini, the Tosinghi, and the Cortigiani, who, being sprung from the founders of the bishopric of Florence, are the curators of its revenues, which they do not spare, whenever it becomes vacant.

22 This family was so little esteemed that Ubertino Donato, of the same stock as his wife, was offended with his father-in-law, Bellincion Berti, for giving another daughter to one of them.

23 The Caponsacchi, who had removed from Fiesole.