While Messer Folco spoke, he did not look at Messer Dante at all, but
seemed to address himself solely to Messer Guido, as being the man of
most standing present among his antagonists, and he began to reprove
Messer Guido very sharply for such brawling and riotous conduct. But
Messer Guido answered him very plainly and courteously that he was there
present merely as a friend of his friend, and that it was for Messer
Dante and not for him to speak as to the reasons for what he had done.
Then Dante cried out in a loud voice to those about him, saying: "Oh,
Florentines, I am here to demand justice of the Republic! For this lady
and I were troth-pledged, and she has only been persuaded to marry my
enemy through a lying tale of my death."
At these words of Dante's, the clamor and tumult that had lulled for a
moment broke out afresh, every man striving to say his say at the same
time, with the result that no man was anywise audible in the great din
that followed. It seemed likely that Florence would see again enacted
one of those bloody public feuds such as had not now, for some time,
desolated her hearths and distracted her streets. People were beginning
to divide on this unexpected quarrel and take this side or that, as
their fancy or their allegiance might lead them, and I think that the
most part of the public took sides with Dante, partly because he was
young and a lover, and partly because he was one of the victors in the
fight against the Aretines, and fresh from the field of triumph, and
partly, too, out of a very general dislike to Messer Simone. But Simone
had plenty of followers too, that were very ready to draw sword and to
strike for him, and Messer Folco Portinari had his friends and his
kinsfolk, who shared his indignation at the wrong which, as they
conceived, was thus publicly put upon him.
The object of Messer Folco's friends was to take away Beatrice from
Dante, by whose side she now stood, very pale and calm and determined.
The object of Messer Simone was now, if by any means he could compass
it, to kill Dante where he stood, and as many of his friends as were
with him, and so get rid of this troublesome young opponent once for
all. Therefore, many swords were raised in the air, and many voices
screamed old war-cries that had not vexed the winds of Florence for long
enough, and enemy taunted enemy, and antagonist challenged antagonist,
and it needed but a little thing to set fire to the torch of civic war.
But before any sword could strike against another, and before those
zealous champions of peace, that were running as fast as they could to
the Signory to summon the city authorities to intervene and stay strife,
could gain their end, there came an unexpected interruption to the
threatened conflict.
It was Beatrice herself who held back the hostile forces and stayed the
lifted swords. She moved from her place by the side of her lover and
stood a little ways apart from him, at about an equal distance between
him and her father, and she raised her voice to speak to the people of
her city; and those about her, seeing what she meant to do, were
instantly silent, and the silence spread over all the assembled crowd;
and when Beatrice spoke she was heard by all who were present. It was a
rare and a strange thing for a Florentine woman thus to address a
turbulent assemblage of citizens that seemed bent on immediate battle.
Yet the lady Beatrice spoke to all those fierce and eager people as
sweetly and as quietly as if she had been welcoming her father's guests
in her father's house. What she said was to the effect that she
entreated all those that were about her to have patience, even as she
would have patience. She further said that a great wrong had been done
to her, for it was indeed true that she had plighted her troth to Messer
Dante there present, though this had been done in secret, for which
secrecy she now asked her father's forgiveness, but that when her father
desired her to marry Messer Simone, she had refused to wed another than
the man she loved, whatever might come of it. Then she said she had been
told of Dante's death, and had no further strength left in her to
disobey her father's wishes, seeing that if her lover were indeed dead,
she had no care for what might become of her. Now she appealed to her
father and to the people of her city to take her strange and sad case
into their hands, and to protect her until it was made plain that she
had been wrought upon by fraud and cunning, and forced by false
representations into a marriage that should never have taken place and
should now be annulled.
All the people marvelled to hear her speak so calmly and so wisely, and
the most part of them applauded her when she had done speaking, and
Messer Folco, for all his anger and his wounded pride, was touched by
her words, and extended his hand to her, and she came to him and stood
by his side. But Messer Simone and Messer Simone's people would have
none of the proposal, and shouted loudly against it, and it seemed as if
the brawl were likely to begin again on the instant, and I am very sure
it would have done so had it not been for the arrival of the Priors of
the city with an armed following. These kept the two opposing parties
asunder, and the Captain of the People of the city demanded to know the
meaning of what had happened, and Messer Guido Cavalcanti began to tell
him the tale.
Now, while he did so, and while all were listening to him in silence,
Messer Dante, who was standing very still and stern, with his hands
resting upon the hilt of his sword, felt that one plucked him by the
garment, and, turning, found that a woman stood at his side with a hood
drawn closely over her face. This woman told him, in a low voice that
seemed to him familiar, that if he was alive in that hour it was no
thanks to Messer Simone, who had sold him to Griffo, and had, as he
believed, sent him and his companions to a certain and treacherous
death, and that he would have perished if Messer Griffo had not been
persuaded to play an honorable part and be faithful to the city of
Florence. When the woman had done speaking she slipped away from Dante
and disappeared into the crowd, and Dante, with that strange story
humming in his brain, waited with little patience till Messer Guido had
finished saying his say to the listening authorities. Then he sprang
forward toward the Captain of the People, declaring, in a loud voice,
that Messer Simone was a traitor to the city, inasmuch as to gratify a
private hate, he had sent him and his fellows to perish in an ambuscade.
Now at these words, of course, the brawling was renewed a thousandfold
worse than before, every man screaming at the top of his voice and
gesticulating, as if in the hope that pantomime might succeed in
conveying his opinions where words indeed must fail in the hubbub. Under
cover of the clamor, men of the Red party and men of the Yellow party
challenged one another to the arbitrament of steel, and what with the
shouting and counter-shouting and the clatter of weapons, and the
stamping of many feet on the cobbles, there was such a din set up as
seemed to some of us, in our bewilderment, likely to last forever. Words
would speedily have become blows and blows brought blood, and all the
place become a battle-field very presently, if it had not been for the
presence of the Captain of the People and the Priors of the city, whose
dignity indeed counted for nothing to allay the tumult, but whose strong
escort of armed men served the turn better by keeping the would-be
combatants apart, that were so lusting to be upon one another. After a
while, for want of a better settlement, this composition was agreed
upon, or, rather, was decided upon by the Priors, that were enabled to
enforce their authority by their showing of armed force.
What they did was to put the Peace of Florence, as the custom was in
those days, upon the belligerent disputants. According to this custom,
each of the parties to any quarrel that threatened to become such a
public brawl as might cause disturbance to the state was called upon to
clasp the hand of the Captain of the People, and swear to keep the Peace
of the City. If he did this, he was suffered to go to his own house,
where for a while, as I think, authority kept a wary eye upon him. If he
would not do this, then the Captain of the People had the right to clap
him into prison and keep him there till he was of a more reasonable and
pacific mood of mind. All of which serves to show how excellent were our
laws and customs, and how intelligently and discriminatingly they were
administered.
Well, our Captain and Priors put the Peace of the City upon Messer
Simone dei Bardi, that was on one side of the quarrel, and on Messer
Dante dei Alighieri, that was on the other side of the quarrel. Messer
Simone took the peace because he could not very well help doing so at
that time and in that place, being, as it were, in a tight corner. He
was outnumbered for the moment; the feeling of the fickle public was
against him, taken, as it naturally was and rightly was, by the
love-tale and Dante's youth and daring, and Beatrice's beauty and her
sadness and her courage. So, with a sour smile enough, the bull-faced
fellow flung out his right hand to the Captain of the People and gave
the clasp of peace, and then drew back a little, very sullen and
scowling, yet for the nonce tame enough. Then Dante in his turn came
forward to give and take the pressure of peace, and all we that looked
upon him and loved him, Messer Guido and I and others of our age and
company, thought that we had never beheld him show more noble. His
spirit, that had been tempered in conflict, gave an elder's dignity to
his youth; his anger had set him in a splendid sternness, while his love
had invested him with the raiment of a no less splendid serenity. It was
a brave and chivalrous soldier that stood there in the sight of all
Florence, a figure infinitely better to my eyes than the scholar who
dogged the footsteps of Brunetto Latini, or even than the poet whose
songs had enchanted the city. For a scholar is often a thing of naught,
and a poet, as I know, may be little enough, but our Dante, as he stood
there and gave the pledge of peace, was indeed a man.
So it was for the time arranged and settled. Madonna Beatrice, she that
was a wife and yet no wife, went with her father to her father's house,
there to abide until such time as a decision might be come to as to her
case. Messer Simone, in high dudgeon, withdrew to his dwelling-place
with his friends about him. As for Messer Dante, he was for going to his
lodging, very lonely and stern and silent, but I would not have it so.
For I could guess, being, after all, no fool, how bad it might be for
one of so sensitive a disposition as my friend to fret his spirit in
isolation. So I persuaded him--and indeed I think in the end he was not
sorry to be so persuaded--to take up his quarters with me.
Mine were merry rooms in a merry house of a merry neighborhood, and
therein I installed him, and did my best to cheer him, and in the end
persuaded him to talk a little, but not much. For he was one of those
that will spin out the secret of his heart in rhymes for all the world
to read, but is inclined to be sullenly mumchance if invited to open his
bosom to a sympathetic listener. But anyways I sang to him; I had a
mellow voice in those days, and even now, though I ought not to say it,
Brother Lappentarius is as good as another, and perhaps better, when it
comes to chanting a hymn. I pressed food and wine upon him, of which,
however, he would taste but little, for the which lack of
good-fellowship I was obliged to make amends myself, that was ever a
good trencherman, by eating and drinking for the pair of us. Which I
did, as I am pleased to believe, very honestly and thoroughly. But I
think, on the whole, I was glad, as I sat and watched him sitting there
by my hearth, with the brooding look on his face that was already so
eagle-like, that my love-affairs had not conducted me to such great
stresses of the soul. I had enjoyed myself very much. I was, as I am
pleased to record, to enjoy myself even more in the years that
followed. But my pastimes had never cost me, and never did cost me, an
hour's sleep for any cares that they brought me, and I never had to
strive with the great ones of the earth for the smiles of any she. While
here was my Dante, very unhappy, in a position of great danger, menaced
by mighty enemies, threatened by an infinity of perils, and all for a
woman. "All for _the_ woman!" he would have answered me, rebuking me, if
I had been so unwise as to set my views of life and love before him on
that day.
I was not so unwise. I merely babbled and chanted to divert him from his
distress, and was careful to keep my thoughts to myself. In my heart I
wondered how it was all to end for him, that was so young and so little
rich, pitted against such powerful interests. At least I could read in
his face, and in those lines which destiny was already tracing with iron
pencil on his springtime's flesh, that he would face his dangers and his
difficulties with a dauntless spirit, and that no enemy or bunch of
enemies would ever get the better of that so long as it still held a
lodging within the carnal house. If I was glad, on the whole, that I was
not in Messer Dante's shoes, I may say very truly that I did not think
any the better of myself then, and do not think any the better of myself
now, for being so glad. But it is well to know one's own boundaries, and
I knew very well that I was never made for Dante's loves or Dante's
hates or Dante's adventures on life's highway. Well, if there must be
knights-errant, there must also be more easy-going, flower-picking
pilgrims in the pageant of life.