id="id00183">[1] Elect from birth to the joys of Paradise, in contrast with the ill-born, the miscreants of Hell.

[2] The March of Ancona, between the Romagna and the kingdom of Naples, then held by Charles II. of Anjou. It is Jacopo del Cassero who speaks. He was a noted and valiant member of the leading Guelph family in Fano. On his way to take the place of Podesta of Milan, in 1298, he was assassinated by the minions of Azzo VIII. of Este, whom he had offended.

[3] The life of all flesh is the blood thereof." Levit., xvii. 14. Or, according to the Vulgate, "Anima carnis in sanguine est."

[4] That is to say, in the territory of the Paduans, whose city was reputed to have been founded by Antenor.

[5] Mira is a little settlement on the bank of one of the canals of the Brenta. Why flight thither would have been safe is mere matter of conjecture.

Then said another, "Ah! so may that desire be fulfilled which draws thee to the high mountain, with good piety help thou mine. I was of Montefeltro, and am Buonconte.[1] Joan or any other has no care for me, wherefore I go among these with downcast front." And I to him, "What violence, or what chance so carried thee astray from Campaldino,[2] that thy burial place was never known?" "Oh!" replied he, "at foot of the Casentino crosses a stream, named the Archiano, which rises in the Apennine above the Hermitage.[3] Where its proper name becomes vain[4] I arrived, pierced in the throat, flying on foot, and bloodying the plain. Here I lost my sight, and I ended my speech with the name of Mary, and here I fell, and my flesh remained alone. I will tell the truth, and do thou repeat it among the living. The Angel of God took me, and he of Hell cried out, "O thou from Heaven, why dost thou rob me?[5] Thou bearest away for thyself the eternal part of him for one little tear which takes him from me; but of the rest I will make other disposal." Thou knowest well how in the air is condensed that moist vapor which turns to water soon as it rises where the cold seizes it. He joined that evil will, which seeketh only evil, with intelligence, and moved the mist and the wind by the power that his own nature gave. Then when the day was spent he covered the valley with cloud, from Pratomagno to the great chain, and made the frost above so intense that the pregnant air was turned to water. The rain fell, and to the gullies came of it what the earth did not endure, and as it gathered in great streams it rushed so swiftly towards the royal river that nothing held it back. The robust Archiano found my frozen body near its outlet, and pushed it into the Arno, and loosed on my breast the cross which I made of myself when the pain overcame me. It rolled me along its banks, and along its bottom, then with its spoil it covered and girt me."

[1] Son of Count Guido da Montefeltro, the treacherous counsellor who had told his story to Dante in Hell, Canto XXVII. Joan was his wife.

[2] The battle of Campaldino, in which Dante himself, perhaps, took part, was fought on the 11th of June, 1289, between the Florentine Guelphs and the Ghibellines of Arezzo. Buonconte was the captain of the Aretines. Campaldino is a little plain in the upper valley of the Arno.

[3] The convent of the Calmaldoli, founded by St. Romualdo of Ravenna, in 1012.

[4] Being lost at its junction with the Arno.

[5] St. Francis and one of the black Cherubim had had a similar contention, as will be remembered, over the soul of Buonconte's father.

"Ah! when thou shalt have returned unto the world, and rested from the long journey," the third spirit followed on the second, "be mindful of me, who am Pia.[1] Siena made me, Maremma unmade me; he knows it who with his gem ringed me, betrothed before."

[1] This sad Pia is supposed to have belonged to the Sienese family of the Tolomei, and to have been the wife of Nello or Paganello de' Pannocchieschi, who was reported to have had her put to death in his stronghold of Pietra in the Tuscan Maremma. Her fate seems the more pitiable that she does not pray Dante to seek for her the prayers of any living person. The last words of Pia are obscure, and are interpreted variously. Possibly the "betrothed before" hints at a source of jealousy as the motive of her murder.

CANTO VI. Ante-Purgatory.—More spirits who had deferred repentance till they were overtaken by a violent death.—Efficacy of prayer.—Sordello.—Apostrophe to Italy.

When a game of dice is broken up, he who loses remains sorrowful, repeating the throws, and, saddened, learns; with the other all the folk go along; one goes before and one plucks him from behind, and at his side one brings himself to mind. He does not stop; listens to one and the other the man to whom he reaches forth his hand presses on him no longer, and thus from the throng he defends himself. Such was I in that dense crowd, turning my face to them this way and that; and, promising, I loosed myself from them.

Here was the Aretine,[1] who from the fierce arms of Ghin di Tacco had his death; and the other who was drowned when running in pursuit. Here Federigo Novello [2] was praying with hands outstretched, and he of Pisa, who made the good Marzucco seem strong.[3] I saw Count Orso; and the soul divided from its body by spite and by envy, as it said, and not for fault committed, Pierre do la Brosse,[5] I mean; and here let the Lady of Brabant take forethought, while she is on earth, so that for this she be not of the worse flock.

[1] The Aretine was Messer Benincasa da Laterina, a learned judge, who had condemned to death for their crimes two relatives of Ghin di Tacco, the most famous freebooter of the day, whose headquarters were between Siena and Rome. Some time after, Messer Benincasa sitting as judge in Rome, Ghino entered the city with a band of his followers, made his way to the tribunal, slew Benincasa, and escaped unharmed.

[2] Another Aretine, of the Tarlati family, concerning whose death the early commentators are at variance. Benvenuto da Imola says that, hotly pursuing his enemies, his horse carried him into a marsh, from which he could not extricate himself, so that his foes turned upon him and slew him with their arrows.

[3] Federigo, son of the Count Guido Novello, of the circumstances of whose death, said to have taken place in 1291, nothing certain is known. Benvenuto says, he was multum probus, a good youth, and therefore Dante mentions him.

[4] Of him of Pisa different stories are told. Benvenuto says, "I have heard from the good Boccaccio, whom I trust more than the others, that Marzucco was a good man of the city of Pisa, whose son was beheaded by order of Count Ugolino, the tyrant, who commanded that his body should remain unburied. In the evening his father went to the Count, as a stranger unconcerned in the matter, and, without tears or other sign of grief, said, 'Surely, my lord, it would be to your honor that that poor body should be buried, and not left cruelly as food for dogs.' Then the Count, recognizing him, said astonished, 'Go, your patience overcomes my obduracy,' and immediately Marzucco went and buried his son."

[5] Of Count Orso nothing is known with certainty.

[6] Pierre de is Brosse was chamberlain and confidant of Philip the Bold of France. He lost the king's favor, and charges of wrong-doing being brought against him he was hung. It was reported that his death was brought about through jealousy by Mary of Brabant, the second wife of Philip. She lived till 1321, so that Dante's warning may have reached her ears.

When I was free from each and all those shades who prayed only that