But after, when forthright they 'gan to flow
Across the peak, whereon they had imprest
The motions of the glancing tongue below,
We heard it say, "O thou, whom I addrest

My speech to, that hast said in Lombard style, 'Now go thy ways, I thee no more molest,'

Though I come haply late upon the file,

Be pleased to stay and talk with me behind,
For me it irks not, and I burn the while.
If newly thou art fallen into this blind

Condition from that sweetest Latin land,
In which the root of all my fault I find,
At
peace or war, say, doth Romagna stand?
For there betwixt Urbino, and the chain
That Tiber leaps from, was my native land."

As still intent and leaning I remain,

My guide now touched me on the side, and said, "Speak thou, it is a Latin ghost again." Then I, who had the answer in my head, Began to speak as thus without delay : "O soul, that under there art covered,

Thy country never was, nor is this day,
Without war brewing in her tyrants' breasts,

But nought left I behind of open fray.

As she for years hath been, Ravenna rests;
There does the eagle of Polenta brood;
And Cervia with his shadowing plumes invests.
That city, which the stubborn siege withstood,

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And which the stack of bleeding Frenchmen laid, By the vert talons finds herself subdued. Verrucchio's mastiffs, the old and young, who played

Foul jailers to Montagna, still are known

To make the teeth bore where of old they made.

The cities on Santerno and Lamone

Obey that lion of the argent lair,

Who puts from spring to fall new tenets on.

And that, whose flank Cesena washes, where

The mountain and the plain incorporate,

Of tyranny and freedom so must share.
Now who thou art, I pray thee to relate;

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Be not less kind than all that have gone past,

So may thy fame on earth uphold her state?"

Then in his manner having roared, and cast
Some time his sharpened vertex either way,
The flame articulated thus his blast:

"If I but thought this knowledge to convey

To one that on the earth again would tread, My spire without more flickering might stay; But forasmuch as from this neathmost bed

Returns none ever, if the truth I hear,

I answer, and no ignominy dread.

I was a warrior, thence a Cordelier,

Thinking, so girt, my quittance to have got; And sure, my trust had been accomplished here, But the Great Priest, and evil be his lot,

To my old vices brought me to decline,

And when and wherefore I would have thee wot.

When yet that shape of bone and pulp was mine

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Which from the womb I took, my deeds were more Congenial to the fox than leonine.

All wiles and covert ways of politic lore

I mastered, and their use so well applied, That rumor bruited it from shore to shore.

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Now to that point of life when I descried

Myself approaching, where to furl his sail,
And reef his tackle, each man should provide;
That which had pleased me first was now my bale,
And penitent and confessed, I made my peace,
O wretched man, and this might now avail!
But that the prince of modern Pharisees,

Then having wars hard by the Lateran, And not with Jews or Saracens were these, Nor had he foe but was a Christian man,

That ne'er at Acra triumphed, nor in chase

Of traffic to the Soldan's country ran ;·
Not heeding sacred orders, nor high place

In his own person, nor that belt in me
Whose putters-on have been a leaner race;·
As Constantine to cure his leprosy

Required Sylvester on Soracte, so

To quell this fever of his pride, did he

Address me for his leech, and prayed to know

What I would counsel; but my tongue I held,

Because his words appeared from wine to flow.

Then said he, 'From thy heart be fear expelled; 100

This moment I absolve thee, show me how
Shall Penestrina to the ground be felled;

I can lock heaven, and unlock heaven, as thou
Art well aware; for this the keys are twain
Which my forerunner has not prized enow.'
Then did those weighty reasons me constrain
To judge, that silence my worse counsel were,
And thus I said, 'Since, father, thou art fain
To wash me from the guilt I now should bear,
Long promises, to brief performance wed,
Shall make thee triumph on thy lordly chair.'
Now Francis came for me, when I was dead,

But one among those cherubs that are black,
'Leave him, O do not wrong me,' rose and said.
'Downwards among my minions he must pack,
Because he gave that counsel fraudulent,
Since which I have been ever at his back;
For none can be absolved but who repent,

Nor can a man repent and choose in one,

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The contradicting terms will not consent.'

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