Guido and I had scarcely taken cover when Messer Brunetto came into view
on the lip of the bridge. He was talking as he walked, but he walked and
talked alone, for unperceived by him Dante had lagged behind and stood
with his elbows rested on the parapet looking down at Arno below him.
Messer Brunetto was discoursing very learnedly about Messer Virgilius,
and how he did, in a measure, form and model himself upon Messer
Homerus, when he suddenly became aware that he was wasting his periods
upon empty air--for of us where we lurked he knew nothing. Turning
round, he saw where Dante stood pensive, and called to him sharply,
asking him why he dawdled.
Dante, thus addressed, raised his head from the cup of his palms and his
elbows from the parapet, and, with a pleasant smile on his face, came
down to where Messer Brunetto had halted. I have never known a man's
face that could be blither than Dante's when he smiled, and in those
days, when he and I were young together, before that happened which was
so soon to happen, I had seen him smile many a time, though for the most
part his countenance had a great air of gravity. Now he and Messer
Brunetto stood in talk, and from where I lay hid I could catch most of
the words these two spoke, and my wit was nimble enough to piece out the
rest at my convenience; and you must take it with a good will that what
I set down was spoken or might be spoken by my friend. And the first I
heard him say was this, in a grave voice, "Forgive me for lingering,
Master; I was listening to the Song of the River."
And Messer Brunetto echoed, in surprise: "The Song of the River! What in
the name of all the ancients is the Song of the River?"
Messer Dante seemed to muse for a while, and then I heard him answer his
master in that strong voice of his, that even then was deep and full,
and always brought to my mind the sound of a bell.
"The Song of the River, the Song of Life. I cannot sing you the Song of
the River. If I could tell you its meaning, I should be a greater poet
than Virgilius."
Messer Brunetto held up his hands in a horror that was only part
pretended. "Do not blaspheme!" he cried. Dante smiled for a moment at
his whimsical vehemence, and then went on with his own thoughts, talking
as one that mused aloud.
"It must be glorious to be a great poet, to weave one's dreams into
wonderful words that live in men's hearts forever. Master, I would
rather be a great poet than be the Emperor of Rome."
Then the elder looked at the younger with a smile and shook his head at
his ambition. "It is given to few to be great poets; there have been
fewer great poets than emperors since the world began."
But my friend was not to be so put off. I knew him ever to be persistent
when once his mind was made up, and it may be that he knew well enough
that such warnings had been addressed idly to all the great poets in
their youth. He answered Messer Brunetto slowly.
"My mother, who died young--I cannot remember her--dreamed a strange
dream of me. She dreamed that I stood a shepherd beneath a laurel-tree,
and strove to gather the leaves thereof, and failed in my strivings and
fell, and rose again, and lo! no longer a man, but a peacock, a glory of
gold and purple."
The youth paused for a moment as if he lingered lovingly over the
bequeathed vision, then he questioned Messer Brunetto. "What could this
dream mean, Master?"
Messer Brunetto looked sour. "Who shall say? Who shall guess?" he
answered, fretfully. "Your peacock is a vain bird with a harsh voice."
Dante seemed to pay no heed to the impatience or the disdain of his
master. He went on talking as if he were talking to himself, or to some
congenial companion such as I would be.
"Sometimes I dream of that laurel-tree, and then I wake with joy in my
heart and verses humming in my brain. They vanish when I try to set them
down, but they sweeten the leave of the day."
I think Messer Brunetto did not like the turn which his pupil's thoughts
had taken. "Dreams are but dreams," he answered, impatiently. "Wisdom,
philosophy, these are the true treasures. There is no harm in a Latin
ode after the manner of Messer Ovidius, but for the most part poets or
those that call themselves such are foolish fellows enough, and keep
very bad company. Ply your book, my son, and avoid them."
"Messer Guido Cavalcanti is a poet," Dante objected, firmly, yet gently,
for he was speaking to his elder, and to a very great and famous man,
and he always carried himself with a becoming reverence to those that
should be revered.
The scholar smiled a little acidly. "He is of a noble house, and he may
divert himself with such trifles and no harm done."
Then I saw Dante raise his head, and his eyes flashed and his cheeks
flushed. "I, too, am of a noble house," he asserted, proudly; and indeed
this was true, for he could claim descent from people of very pretty
genealogy. "I, too, am of a noble house," he insisted. "I derive from
the Alighieri of Ferrara, the Frangipani of Rome. Heaven my witness,
that matters little, but to be a great poet would matter much."
Messer Brunetto patted my Dante very kindly on the shoulder, and looked
at him with the look that old men wear when they are advising young men.
"I have better hopes for you," he declared, "for I swear you have in you
the makings of a pretty scholar."
He smiled as he spoke, paternally, as one that feels he has spoken the
last word that has any need to be spoken on any matter of dispute.
But Dante seemed to be little impressed by his advice, and he showed his
own thoughts in his words, for when he spoke it was rather as if he were
speaking to himself than to his companion. "Am I a fool to feel these
stirrings of the spirit? God knows. But my dreams are full of stars and
angels, and the sound of sweet words like many winds and many waters.
And then I wake in an exultation and the words die on my lips."
Messer Brunette lifted his hands in protest. "Thank Heaven they do die.
It must needs be so. Purge yourself of such folly. Poetry died with the
ancients. Virtue, my young friend, not verses. Will you dine with me? We
will eat beans and defy Pythagoras."
Dante shook his head.
"I thank you," he answered, slowly, and I supposed it grieved him a
little to deny so wise a man, "but I may not. I keep a tryst here."
Messer Brunetto instantly assumed an air of alarm, and he allowed his
voice to tremble as he said, "With no woman, I hope."
Dante looked at him squarely. "With no woman, I swear. I have no more to
do with women. What woman is as fair as philosophy, as winsome as
wisdom?"
Messer Brunetto beamed on him with an admiring smile.
"Right, my son, right!" he cried, delighted. "Better Seneca for you than
sensuality; Virgilius than venery. When you are as ripe as I, you may
trifle awhile if you like with lightness." Here I, listening, sniggered,
for it was blown about the city that Messer Brunetto had his passions or
fancies or vagaries, call them what you will, and humored them out of
school hours. "For the present," he went on, "read deep and lie chaste,
and so farewell."
He patted Dante again paternally on the shoulder and wished him
good-day, and went off down the street, muttering to himself, as I make
very little doubt, his wonder that any could be found so foolish as to
wish to string rhymes together when they might be studying the divine
philosophies of the ancients. As for Messer Dante, he stood for a while
where his master had left him, as one that was deep in thought, and we,
though we had a mind to spring out and accost him, yet refrained, for I
knew of old that when my friend was deep in his reflections he was
sometimes inclined to be vexed with those that disturbed him. So we
still lingered and peeped, and presently Dante sighed and went over to
where the bookstall stood and began turning over some of the parchments
that lay on the board. As he did so the bookseller popped his head out
at him from the booth, as a tortoise from his shell, and I never beheld
tortoise yet so crisp and withered as this human. Messer Cecco Bartolo
was his name. And Dante addressed him. "Gaffer Bookman, Gaffer Bookman,
have you any new wares?"
The bookseller dived into the darkness of his shop again and came out in
a twinkling with an armful of papers, which he flung down on the board
before Dante. "There," he said. "There lie some manuscripts that came in
a chest I bought last week. Is there one of them to your taste?"
We watched Dante examining the manuscripts eagerly, and putting the most
part of them impatiently aside. One seemed to attract his attention, for
he gave it a second and more careful glance, and then addressed the
bookseller. "This seems to be a knightly tale," he said, extending the
volume. "What do you ask for it?"
The bookseller took the manuscript from him, glanced at it, and then
handed it back to him. "Take it or leave it, three florins is its
price."
We heard Dante sigh a little, and we saw Dante smile a little, and he
answered the bookseller, humorously: "My purse is as lean as Pharaoh's
kine, but the story opens bravely, and a good tale is better than
shekels or bezants. What do you buy with your money that is worth what
you sell for it?"
The bookseller shrugged his stooped shoulders. "Food and drink and the
poor rags that Adam's transgression enforces on us."
Dante laughed at his conceit. "You are a merry peddler," he said, and
took out of his pouch a few coins, from which he counted scrupulously
the sum that the bookseller had asked, and gave it to him. Then he moved
slowly away from the stall, reading in his new purchase until he came to
the fountain that had the painted statue over it. There he sat himself
down on a stone bench in the angle of the wall and buried himself in his
book.
And by now we were resolved to address him, but again we were diverted
from our purpose, for there came by a little company of merrymakers,
youths and maidens, that were making sport as is fit for such juvenals
in that season of felicity which is named May-day. Some had pipes and
some had lutes and some had tambourines, and all were singing as loud as
they could and making as much noise as they might, and when they came
into the open space hard by the fountain they paused for a while in
their progress, and broke into as lively a morris-dance as ever I had
seen skipped. How they twisted and turned and tripped; how bravely they
made music; how lustily they sang. I recall them now, those bright
little human butterflies. I can see the pretty faces and slim figures of
the girls, the blithe carriage of the lads. The musical tumult that they
make seems to be ringing in my ears as I write, and my narrow room
widens to its harmony.
But would you believe it, no sound of all that singing and dancing
served to rouse Messer Dante for one moment from his book. Though the
air was full of shrill voices and sweet notes and the clapping of hands
and the flapping fall of dancing feet, he remained motionless, and never
once lifted up his eyes to look at the merry crowd. As for the dancers,
I do not think that they saw him, certainly they paid him no heed. Why
should such merry fellows as they take note of a book-worm while there
were songs to sing and tunes to turn and dances to dance? And by-and-by,
when they had made an end of their measure, they fell into procession
again and went away as quickly as they had come, leaving me mightily
delighted with their entertainment. As they trooped off over the bridge,
Guido and I made up our minds that now we would have speech with Dante;
so we came out from where we had lain hid and walked softly across the
space that divided us from him, and stood by his side and called his
name loudly into his ears. Then, after a while, but not at all at first
calling, Dante slowly lifted his eyes from his book and looked at us,
and the look on his face was the look of a man that is newly wakened
from a pleasurable dream. Then he smiled salutation on me, for, indeed,
I believe he always liked me, and recognizing Messer Guido, he rose and
saluted him courteously.
"Now, Heaven bless you, brother," I cried, "that you seem to sleep in
the midst of all these rumors."
Dante gazed at me with untroubled curiosity. "What rumors?" he asked,
indifferently.
"Why," replied Guido, staring at him, "here was the daintiest dancing."
Now by this I remembered that of us three present two were not known one
to the other, and I hastened to amend the matter.
"Nay," said I, "here is another that can tell you better than I. Here is
Messer Guido of the Cavalcanti that has kicked heels with me on this
ground for the wish to make your acquaintance."
Now, Messer Guido, that had stood quietly by, made speed to speak to
Dante. "It is very true," he declared. "I have heard your praises." And
as he spoke the face of Dante flushed with pleasure, for it was no small
honor to be sought in friendship by Messer Guido. So he answered him
very gladly, yet with a certain calmness that was his character in all
things.
"Messer Guido," he said, "I am honored to the top of my longing, though,
indeed, I have no greater claim to your favor than this: that I know by
root of heart every rhyme that you have written and given."
At this Messer Guido laughed joyously. "Heaven, friend," he cried, "what
better recommendation could a man have to one that writes verses?"
"Is there one in Florence," Dante asked, "that could not say as much?"
Then, as if to break away from bandying of compliments, he asked: "But
what were the rumors you spoke of?"
"Why," replied Guido, looking at him in some wonder, "here was the
daintiest festal ever devised: delicate youths and exquisite maidens
footing it to pipe and cymbal as blithely as if they would never grow
old."