thee?" And I to him, "Of myself I come not; he who waits yonder
leads me through here, whom perchance your Guido held in
scorn."[1]

[1] Guido Cavalcanti was charged with the same sin of unbelief as
his father. Dante regards this as a sin specially contrary to
right reason, typified by Virgil.


His words and the mode of the punishment had already read to me
the name of this one, wherefore my answer was so full.

Suddenly straightening up, he cried, "How didst thou say, 'he
held'? lives he not still? doth not the sweet light strike his
eyes?" When he took note of some delay that I made before
answering, he fell again supine, and forth appeared no more.

But that other magnanimous one, at whose instance I had stayed,
changed not aspect, nor moved his neck, nor bent his side. "And
if," he said, continuing his first words, "they have ill learned
that art, it torments me more than this bed. But the face of the
lady who ruleth here will not be rekindled fifty times ere thou
shalt know how much that art weighs. And, so mayest thou return
unto the sweet world, tell me wherefore is that people so
pitiless against my race in its every law?" Then I to him, "The
rout and the great carnage that colored the Arbia red cause such
orison to be made in our temple." After he had, sighing, shaken
his head, "In that I was not alone," he said, "nor surely without
cause would I have moved with the rest; but I was alone,--there
[1] where it was agreed by every one to lay Florence waste,--he