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 afterwards I was a Cordelier (i.e., a Grey Friar girded with, the cord of St. Francis), trusting thus cinctured to make amends, and assuredly my trust was on its way to fulfilment, had it not been for the Great Priest (Pope Boniface VIII.), whom may evil seize, who put me back into my former errors; and how, and why, I wish thee to hear from me."

He says his trust was in process of being fulfilled, giving the force of the imperfect tense. It is like a passage at the beginning of the Iliad (I., 5), where Homer says that the will of Jove was being accomplished (""). In this exordium Guide has given Dante a brief summary of what he has got to tell him. He was first a warrior, then a penitent, then a monk; he had reached a state of salvation, was thrown back into sin, and by the Pope; he is now going to relate how it all came about, and in what manner the sin was caused (come e quare). He first deals with the quare, i.e., the " why." Why did the Pope turn specially to him for counsel? Because of his world-renowned craft.

While I was the form of bones and flesh that my mother gave me (i.e., when I was alive), my deeds were not those of the lion, but of the fox. The subtle wiles and the covert ways, I knew them all; and so applied their art, that to the far end of the earth the sound went forth. When I saw myself come to that period of my age, when everyone ought to lower the sails and gather in the tackle (i.e., give oneself up to God), that which before had pleased me, then gave me remorse, and. after repentance and confession I dedicated myself (to God by becoming a friar). Ah! hapless me! and it would have availed!

The late Professor and philologist Nannucci told my father (Lord Vernon), being his Secretary at the time, that rendersi, by itself, means "to become a monk,"