ished.]

[Footnote 215: _i.e._ my censors.]

But, ere I come to make answer to any of them, it pleaseth me, in mine
own defence, to relate, not an entire story,--lest it should seem I
would fain mingle mine own stories with those of so commendable a
company as that which I have presented to you,--but a part of
one,--that so its very default [of completeness] may attest that it is
none of those,--and accordingly, speaking to my assailants, I say that
in our city, a good while agone, there was a townsman, by name Filippo
Balducci, a man of mean enough extraction, but rich and well addressed
and versed in such matters as his condition comported. He had a wife,
whom he loved with an exceeding love, as she him, and they lived a
peaceful life together, studying nothing so much as wholly to please
one another. In course of time it came to pass, as it cometh to pass
of all, that the good lady departed this life and left Filippo nought
of herself but one only son, begotten of him and maybe two years old.
Filippo for the death of his lady abode as disconsolate as ever man
might, having lost a beloved one, and seeing himself left alone and
forlorn of that company which most he loved, he resolved to be no more
of the world, but to give himself altogether to the service of God and
do the like with his little son. Wherefore, bestowing all his good for
the love of God,[216] he repaired without delay to the top of Mount
Asinajo, where he took up his abode with his son in a little hut and
there living with him upon alms, in the practice of fasts and prayers,
straitly guarded himself from discoursing whereas the boy was, of any
temporal thing, neither suffered him see aught thereof, lest this
should divert him from the service aforesaid, but still bespoke him of
the glories of life eternal and of God and the saints, teaching him
nought but pious orisons; and in this way of life he kept him many
years, never suffering him go forth of the hermitage nor showing him
aught other than himself.

[Footnote 216: _i.e._ in alms.]

Now the good man was used to come whiles into Florence, where being
succoured, according to his occasions, of the friends of God, he
returned to his hut, and it chanced one day that, his son being now
eighteen years old and Filippo an old man, the lad asked him whither
he went. Filippo told him and the boy said, "Father mine, you are now
an old man and can ill endure fatigue; why do you not whiles carry me
to Floren