Page:The Earliest Lives of Dante (Smith 1901).djvu/17

Rh whereon I touched above, but that it has turned its feet in quite the opposite direction. Wherefore it seems manifest that if we and others who live contrary to the above-cited maxim of Solon remain on our feet without falling, the reason must be that the nature of things has changed, as we often notice, through long operation, or that God unexpectedly and miraculously sustains us through the merits of some action of our past; or else, perchance, his patience awaits our repentance. If this in due time does not follow, let none doubt that his wrath, which with slow pace moves to vengeance, reserves for us treatment so much the more grievous as fully to compensate for his delay.

But inasmuch as we should not only flee evil deeds, albeit they seem to go unpunished, but also by right action should strive to amend them, I, although not fitted for so great a task, will try to do according to my little talent what the city should have done with magnificence, but has not. For I recognize that I am a part, though a small one, of that same city whereof Dante Alighieri, if his merits, his nobleness, and his virtue be considered, was a very great part, and that for this reason I, like every other citizen, am personally responsible for the honors due him. Not with a statue shall I honor him, nor with splendid obsequies—which customs no longer hold among us, nor would my powers suffice therefor—but with words I shall honor him, feeble though they be for so great an undertaking. Of these I have, and of these will I give, that other nations may not say that his native land, both as a whole and in part, has been equally ungrateful to so great a poet.

And I shall write in a style full light and humble, for higher my art does not permit me; and in the Florentine idiom, that it may not differ from that which Dante used in the greater part of his writings. I shall first record those things about which he himself preserved a modest silence, namely the nobleness of his birth, his life, his studies, and his habits. Afterwards I shall gather under one head the works he composed, whereby he has rendered Rh