10

THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.

the Piagnoni: the name mattered little^ the thing existed
through century after century. When it was not two par-
ties which contended for the mastery, it was two families,
a still worse kind of faction. The reader will not expect,
nor we trust desire, a recapitulation and description for the
hundredth time of the political faith of the Guelfs and the
Ghibellines. Probably at their beginning, as we have al-
ready said, the former were supposed to be on the side of
the church as the grand arbitrator of all national concerns
in Europe, and the latter to look to the emperor as holding
Guided I was to answer full and right,
So clear I read his meaning and his name.
‘ How saidst thou?—was ? Ah, lives he then no more ?
Strikes his dear eyes no more the blessed light? ’
When he perceived me pause, and I forebore
Unto this question any quick reply,
Prostrate he dropped, and thence appeared no more.
But that heroic shade whose prison I
Had first approached and by whom still remained,
Unchanged in aspect and in gesture high,
Moved not, but the first argument maintained.
‘ If,’ said he, ‘ they have badly learned that art,
By that, more than this bed, my soul is pained.
But ere the queen who rules this gloomy part
Shall fifty times uplift her gleaming face,
That lesson, hard to learn, shall crush thy heart,
If in the sweet world thou wouldst e’er find grace,
Tell me why thus ’gainst all who bear my name
The people rage, and hard laws curse and chase.’
I answered him: ‘ The bitter strife and shame
That dyed the flowing Arbia crimson-red
Has in our temple raised such height of blame.’
Sighing, he said and, shook his mournful head:
* In these things was not I alone, nor could,
Without grave reason, be by others led
But I stood sole, when all consenting would
Have swept off Florence from the earth; alone
And openly in her defense I stood.’ ”