Page:The Earliest Lives of Dante (Smith 1901).djvu/36



In such wise, then, Dante left that city whereof not only he was a citizen, but of which his ancestors had been the rebuilders. He left his wife there, together with his children, whose youthful age ill adapted them for flight. At ease concerning his wife, for he knew that she was related to one of the leaders of the opposing faction, but uncertain of his own course, he wandered now here, now there, throughout Tuscany. Under the title of her dowry, his wife with difficulty defended a small portion of his possessions from the fury of the citizens, and from the fruits thereof obtained a meagre support for herself and her little children. Therefore Dante in poverty was forced to get his living by a kind of industry to which he was a stranger.

O what righteous indignation must he repress, more bitter than death for him to bear, while hope promised him that his exile would be short—and then the return! But, after leaving Verona, whither he had first fled and where he had been graciously received by Messer Alberto della Scala, he tarried year after year, contrary to his expectation, first with the Count Salvatico in the Casentino, then with the Marquis Moruello Malaspina in Lunigiana, and finally with the della Faggiuola in the mountains near Urbino, most suitably honored in each case according to the times and the means of his host. Thence he later departed to Bologna, and from there, after