time. Before Guide's return he had undertaken that embassy to Rome which bore him the bitter fruit of unjust and perpetual exile: and it will be remembered that a chief accusation against him was that of favour shown to the White party on the banishment of the factions.
Besides the various affectionate allusions to Guido in the Vita Nuova, Dante has unmistakably referred to him in at least two passages of the Commedia. One of these references is to be found in those famous lines of the Purgatory (C. xi.) where he awards him the palm of poetry over Guido Guinicelli though also of the latter he speaks elsewhere with high praise), and implies at the same time, it would seem, a consciousness of his own supremacy over both.
"Against all painters Cimabue thought
To keep the field. Now Giotto has the cry,
And so the fame o' the first wanes nigh to nought.
Thus one from other Guido took the high
Glory of language; and perhaps is born
He who from both shall bear it by-and-bye."
The other mention of Guido is in that pathetic passage of the Hell (C. x.) where Dante meets among the lost souls Cavalcante de Cavalcanti:—
"All roundabout he looked, as though he had
Desire to see if one was with me else.
But after his surmise was all extinct,
He weeping said: 'If through this dungeon blind
Thou goest by loftiness of intellect,—
Where is my son, and wherefore not with thee?'
And I to him: 'Of myself come I not:
He who there waiteth leads me thoro' here,
Whom haply in disdain your Guido had.'[1]
****
Raised upright of a sudden, cried he: 'How
- ↑ Virgil, Dante's guide through Hell. Any prejudice which Guido entertained against Virgil depended, no doubt, only on his strong desire to see the Latin language give place, in poetry and literature, to a perfected Italian idiom.
