The Vision, or Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise of Dante Alighieri . ls from it ;So that it bears the mighty tide, and bursts not. 20 Say then, my honoured stem ! what ancestorsWere those you sprang from, and what years were markedIn your first childhood ? Tell me of the hath Saint John for guardian, what M^as thenIts state, and who in it were highest seated ! As embers, at the breathing of the wind,Their flame enliven ; so that light I saw 294 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xvi Shine at my blandishments ; and, as it grew More fair to look on, so with voice more sweet, Yet not in this our m
The Vision, or Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise of Dante Alighieri . ls from it ;So that it bears the mighty tide, and bursts not. 20 Say then, my honoured stem ! what ancestorsWere those you sprang from, and what years were markedIn your first childhood ? Tell me of the hath Saint John for guardian, what M^as thenIts state, and who in it were highest seated ! As embers, at the breathing of the wind,Their flame enliven ; so that light I saw 294 THE VISION OF DANTE [Canto xvi 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 3® It answered : From the day, when it was said Hail Virgin ! to the throes by which my mother. Who now is sainted, lightened 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 reached By him that runs her annual game. Thus much 40. 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 citizens blood, that now is mixed From Campi and Certaldo and Fighine, Ran purely through the last mechanics 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 Agugliones hind, and Signas, him. That hath his eye already keen for bartering. 50 Lines 28-104] PARADISE 295 Had not the people, which of all the world Degenerates most, been stepdame unto Caesar, But, as a mother to her son, been kind, Such one, as hath become a Florentine, And trades and traffics, had been turned adrift 60 To Simifonti, where his grand
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