Buondelmonti had not come to take up their abode in it.

[25] The Amidei, who were the source of much of the misery of
Florence, through their long and bitter feud with the
Buondelmonti, by which the whole city was divided.

[26] The quarrel between the Amidei and the Buondelmonti arose
from the slighting by Buondelmonto dei Buondelmonti of a daughter
of the former house, to whom he was betrothed, for a daughter of
the Donati, induced thereto by her mother. This was in 1215.

[27] The Ema, a little stream that has to be crossed in coming
from Montebuono, the home of the Buondelmonti, to Florence.

[28] That victim was Buondelmonte himself, slain by the outraged
Amidei, at the foot of the mutilated statue of Mars, which stood
at the end of the Ponte Vecchio.


"With these families, and with others with them, I saw Florence
in such repose that she had no occasion why she should weep. With
these families I saw her people so glorious and so just, that the
lily was never set reversed upon the staff, nor had it been made
blood-red by division."[1]

[1] The banner of Florence had never fallen into the hands of her
enemies, to be reversed by them in scoff. Of old it had borne a
white lily in a red field, but in 1250, when the Ghibellines
were expelled, the Guelphs adopted a red lily in a white field,
and this became the ensign of the Commune.



CANTO XVII. Dante questions Cacciaguida as to his fortunes.--
Cacciaguida replies, foretelling the exile of Dante, and the
renown of his Poem.

As he who still makes fathers chary toward their sons[1] came to
Clymene, to ascertain concerning that which he had heard against
himself; such was I, and such was I perceived to be both by
Beatrice, and by the holy lamp which first for my sake had
changed its station. Whereon my Lady said to me, "Send forth
the flame of thy desire so that it may issue sealed well by the
internal stamp; not in order that our knowledge may increase
through thy speech, but that thou accustom thyself to tell thy
thirst, so that one may give thee drink."

[1] Phaethon, son of Clymene by Apollo, having been told that
Apollo was not his father, went to his mother to ascertain the
truth.


"O dear plant of me, who so upliftest thyself that, even as
earthly minds see that two obtuse angles are not contained in a
triangle, so thou, gazing upon the point to which all times are
present, seest contingent things, ere in themselves they are;
while I was conjoined with Virgil up over the
mountain which cures the souls, and while descending in the world
of the dead, grave words were said to me of my future life;
although I feel myself truly four-square against the blows of
chance. Wherefore my wish would be content by hearing what sort
of fortune is drawing near me; for arrow foreseen comes more
slack." Thus said I unto that same light which before had spoken
to me, and as Beatrice willed was my wish confessed.

Not with ambiguous terms in which the foolish folk erst were
entangled,[1] ere yet the Lamb of God which taketh away sins had
been slain, but with clear words and with distinct speech that
paternal love, hid and apparent by his own proper smile, made
answer: "Contingency, which extends not outside the volume of
your matter, is all depicted in the eternal aspect. Therefrom,
however, it takes not necessity, more than from the eye in which
it is mirrored does a ship which descends with the downward
current. Thence, even as sweet harmony comes to the ear from an
organ, comes to my sight the time that is preparing for thee. As
Hippolytus departed from Athens, by reason of his pitiless and
perfidious stepmother, so out from Florence thou must needs
depart. This is willed, this is already sought for, and soon it
shall be brought to pass, by him I who designs it there where
every day Christ is bought and sold. The blame will follow the
injured party, in outcry, as it is wont; but the vengeance will
be testimony to the truth which dispenses it. Thou shalt leave
everything beloved most dearly; and this is the arrow which the
bow of exile first shoots. Thou shalt prove how the bread of
others savors of salt, and how the descending and the mounting of
another's stairs is a hard path. And that which will heaviest
weigh upon thy shoulders will be the evil and foolish company[2]
with which into this valley thou shalt fall; which all
ungrateful, all senseless, and impious will turn against thee;
but short while after, it, not thou, shall have the forehead red
therefor. Of its bestiality, its own procedure will give the
proof; so that it will be seemly for thee to have made thyself a
party by thyself.

[1] Not with riddles such as the oracles gave out before they
fell silent at the coming of Christ.

[2] Boniface VIII.

[3] The other Florentine exiles of the party of the Whites.


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