HKB
And therefore who I am thou askest not, And why I seem more joyous unto thee Than any other of this gladsome crowd.
Thou think’st the truth; because the small and great Of this existence look into the mirror Wherein, before thou think’st, thy thought thou showest.
But that the sacred love, in which I watch With sight perpetual, and which makes me thirst With sweet desire, may better be fulfilled,
Now let thy voice secure and frank and glad Proclaim the wishes, the desire proclaim, To which my answer is decreed already.”
To Beatrice I turned me, and she heard Before I spake, and smiled to me a sign, That made the wings of my desire increase;
Then in this wise began I: “Love and knowledge, When on you dawned the first Equality, Of the same weight for each of you became;
For in the Sun, which lighted you and burned With heat and radiance, they so equal are, That all similitudes are insufficient.
But among mortals will and argument, For reason that to you is manifest, Diversely feathered in their pinions are.
Whence I, who mortal am, feel in myself This inequality; so give not thanks, Save in my heart, for this paternal welcome.
Truly do I entreat thee, living topaz! Set in this precious jewel as a gem, That thou wilt satisfy me with thy name.”
“O leaf of mine, in whom I pleasure took E’en while awaiting, I was thine own root!” Such a beginning he in answer made me.
Then said to me: “That one from whom is named Thy race, and who a hundred years and more Has circled round the mount on the first cornice,
A son of mine and thy great-grandsire was; Well it behoves thee that the long fatigue Thou shouldst for him make shorter with thy works.
Florence, within the ancient boundary From which she taketh still her tierce and nones, Abode in quiet, temperate and chaste.
No golden chain she had, nor coronal, Nor ladies shod with sandal shoon, nor girdle That caught the eye more than the person did.
Not yet the daughter at her birth struck fear Into the father, for the time and dower Did not o’errun this side or that the measure.
No houses had she void of families, Not yet had thither come Sardanapalus To show what in a chamber can be done;
Not yet surpassed had Montemalo been By your Uccellatojo, which surpassed Shall in its downfall be as in its rise.
Bellincion Berti saw I go begirt With leather and with bone, and from the mirror His dame depart without a painted face;
And him of Nerli saw, and him of Vecchio, Contented with their simple suits of buff And with the spindle and the flax their dames.
O fortunate women! and each one was certain Of her own burial-place, and none as yet For sake of France was in her bed deserted.
One o’er the cradle kept her studious watch, And in her lullaby the language used That first delights the fathers and the mothers;
Another, drawing tresses from her distaff, Told o’er among her family the tales Of Trojans and of Fesole and Rome.
As great a marvel then would have been held A Lapo Salterello, a Cianghella, As Cincinnatus or Cornelia now.
To such a quiet, such a beautiful Life of the citizen, to such a safe Community, and to so sweet an inn,
Did Mary give me, with loud cries invoked, And in your ancient Baptistery at once Christian and Cacciaguida I became.
Moronto was my brother, and Eliseo; From Val di Pado came to me my wife, And from that place thy surname was derived.
I followed afterward the Emperor Conrad, And he begirt me of his chivalry, So much I pleased him with my noble deeds.
I followed in his train against that law’s Iniquity, whose people doth usurp Your just possession, through your Pastor’s fault.