not admit of our doing more than giving a mere glance at this part of the Canto, as our subject this evening is not what Dante relates to Count Guido, but what Guido relates to Dante:—
- I was still listening attentively, and bent down (over the bridge), when my Leader touched me on the side, saying: "Speak thou, this is an Italian." And I who had my answer already prepared, without delay began to speak: "Spirit, that art hidden down there, thy Romagna is not, nor ever was, without war in the hearts of her tyrants, but open (war) I recently left there none."
There were at that time at least two rival factions in every city of the Romagna, which province became the prey of a number of petty local tyrants.
In the description that follows here, of the arms of the reigning princes of Ravenna, Forlì, and Rimini, Dante has evidently intended to draw a marked distinction. The Eagle of the Da Polenta covers Ravenna and Cervia under its feathers, as a bird does its own brood, implying that the rule of the Da Polenta was a paternal and beneficent government, whereas by the rapacious claws of the Ordelaffi lion at Forlì, and by the pitiless fangs of the Malatesta mastiff at Rimini, a detestable tyranny is plainly indicated.
- The city (la terra) which not long since endured the protracted struggle (i.e., siege), and of the Frenchmen made a gory pile, still finds itself under the Green Paws.
The arms of the Ordelaffi were a Lion, Vert, on a field, Or. After a long siege (lunga prova) which the City of Forlì sustained against an army principally of Frenchmen under the leadership of the Comte Jean de Apia, sent by Pope Martin IV., Count Guido da Montefeltro led the enemy into a craftily-devised trap and defeated them with tremendous slaughter (sanguinoso mucchio). One of the meanings of terra in the Middle Ages was
