"But this is much worse than his original offence," cried the judge. "That is your affair," said Dante. "He is my neighbour, I commend him to you." The consequence was, that the young gallant had a much heavier instead of a lighter sentence, though the poet thought no more of it. The story deserves to be true, so characteristic is it of the visionary straightforwardness of the man.
Whether it was for personal reasons such as this, or for more purely political motives, it is certain that there was quite a special inveteracy in the condemnation of Dante. He was sentenced to be burnt if taken—an unusual aggravation; and all his passionate and often-repeated efforts never got him again within the gates, which were thus rigorously shut against him. From the moment of his sentence he never relinquished this attempt. Night and day he would seem to have thundered at those closed gates, seeking admittance by fair means or foul, appealing with sufficiently little discrimination to every possible saviour. The emperor, the adventurer, the chances of war, the papal advocate for peace—the exile was not too proud to seek the assistance of all these in turn; but none of them were successful. The only possibility of return which was ever within his reach came in the later years of his banishment, when it was proposed to him to come back to Florence humbly as a penitent, making avowal of guilt—a humiliation to which Dante, by this time acknowledged as the great poet of Italy, would not submit. Thus it happened that he remained fuori, "outside," all the rest of his life, joined now and then by his elder children, but never again possessing a settled home.
This life of exile and disappointment was not, it may be supposed, a happy one. He has himself described, in
