But Dante has not chosen, in her case to lift the veil that hangs over her mysterious fate, as he has done in the case of Buonconte da Montefeltro.
Pia tells her sad story in a few simple sentences, hut so clearly and so tersely, that the passage has always been reputed to be one of those that demonstrates to the fullest extent Dante's marvellous power of condensed narrative.
"Deh, quando tu sarai tomato al mondo,130
E riposato della lunga via,
Seguito il terzo apirito al secondo,
"Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia:
Siena mi fe', disfecemi Maremma :
Salsi colui che innanellata, pria135
Disposanda, m'avea con la sua gemma."
"Ah, when thou shalt have returned to the world, and rested thyself from the long journey," the third spirit followed on to the second, " Remember me who am Pia: Siena made me, Maremma unmade me; that man, my husband, knows it, who, first plighting troth, had wedded me with his ring."
Some read disposata, but whichever reading be adopted, the passage is an exceedingly difficult one to translate correctly. Construe it thus: "Salsi colui, he knows it, che who pria disposando first plighting troth, innanellata m'avea had wedded me con la sua gemma with his ring." Jacopo del Caasero wishes to be remembered by the people of Fano; Buonconte by his wife, the Countess Giovanna; but Pia has no name in her domestic sanctuary, and can only rely on the compassionate feelings of Dante. Observe, too, the womanly tenderness as well as the high-bred politeness of Pia, who only begs Dante to think of her on earth, after that he shall be able to do ao without inconvenience to himself. Neither of the male spirits had made any such reservation in their eager requests that Dante would urge their friends to pray for them.
I am anxious to add to this lecture an expression of my
