Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/560

 524 Readings in European History Dante excuses himself for a certain obscurity which he has introduced into his Banquet, with the hope of giving it some dignity in the eyes of the many Italians who had seen him during his wanderings, and perhaps had formed a low estimate of him. Alas ! would that it might have pleased the Dispenser of the Universe that the cause of my excuse might never have been, that others might neither have sinned against me, nor I have suffered punishment unjustly; the punishment, I say, of exile and poverty ! Since it was the pleasure of the citizens of the most beautiful and the most famous daughter of Rome, Florence, to cast me out from her most sweet bosom (wherein I was born and nourished even to the height of my life, and in which, with her good will, I desire with all my heart to repose my weary soul, and to end the time which is given to me), I have gone through almost all the land in which this language lives a pilgrim, almost a mendicant showing forth against my will the wound of Fortune, with which the ruined man is often unjustly reproached. Truly I have been a ship without a sail and without a rudder, borne to divers ports and lands and shores by the dry wind which blows from grievous poverty ; and I have appeared vile in the eyes of many, who perhaps through some report may have imaged me in other form. In the sight of whom not only my person became vile, but my work was held to be of less value, both that already done and that which remained still to do. Petrarch well knew how to describe himself and his aspirations. He writes thus to posterity : Greeting. It is possible that some word of me may have come to you, though even this is doubtful, since an insignificant and obscure name will scarcely penetrate far in either time or space. If, however, you should have heard of me, you may desire to know what manner of man