Page:The Earliest Lives of Dante (Smith 1901).djvu/45

Rh keep their names eternal; even as now, published throughout the world, they make the cities known to those who have never seen them. Thou alone, blinded by I know not what infatuation, hast chosen a different course, and, as if full glorious in thyself, hast not cared for this splendor. Thou alone, as if the Camilli, the Publicoli, the Torquati, the Fabricii, the Fabii, the Catos, and the Scipios had been thine, and by their splendid deeds had made thee famous, not only hast suffered thine ancient citizen Claudian to fall from thy hands, but hast neglected thy present poet and hast driven him from thee, banished him, and wouldst have deprived him, had it been possible, of thy name. I cannot escape being ashamed in thy behalf.

But lo! not fortune, but the natural course of things, has been so favorable to thy vicious appetite that it has performed by its eternal law what thou in brutal eagerness wouldst willingly have done, if he had fallen into thy hands—slain him. Dead is thy Dante Alighieri in that exile to which thou, jealous of his worth, didst unjustly condemn him. O crime immemorable, that the mother should envy the virtue of any of her sons! Now at last art thou free from anxiety. Now by reason of his death thou livest secure in thy faults, and canst end thy long and unjust persecutions. He cannot, dead, do that to thee which, living, he never would have done. He lies beneath another sky than thine, nor mayst thou think ever to see him more, save on that day when thou shalt see all thy citizens examined and punished by a just judge.

If then hatred, anger, and enmities cease at the death of any one, as is believed, begin to return to thyself and thy right mind. Begin to be ashamed of having acted contrary to thine ancient humanity. Begin to wish to appear a mother, and no longer a foe. Pay the debt of weeping to thy son. Proffer him thy maternal pity, and him whom thou didst cast out when he was alive, yea, didst banish as a suspect, desire at least to recover now that he is dead. Restore thy citizenship, thy bosom, thy favor to his memory. Verily,