wn house,
where for a while, as I think, authority kept a wary eye upon him. If he
would not do this, then the Captain of the People had the right to clap
him into prison and keep him there till he was of a more reasonable and
pacific mood of mind. All of which serves to show how excellent were our
laws and customs, and how intelligently and discriminatingly they were
administered.

Well, our Captain and Priors put the Peace of the City upon Messer
Simone dei Bardi, that was on one side of the quarrel, and on Messer
Dante dei Alighieri, that was on the other side of the quarrel. Messer
Simone took the peace because he could not very well help doing so at
that time and in that place, being, as it were, in a tight corner. He
was outnumbered for the moment; the feeling of the fickle public was
against him, taken, as it naturally was and rightly was, by the
love-tale and Dante's youth and daring, and Beatrice's beauty and her
sadness and her courage. So, with a sour smile enough, the bull-faced
fellow flung out his right hand to the Captain of the People and gave
the clasp of peace, and then drew back a little, very sullen and
scowling, yet for the nonce tame enough. Then Dante in his turn came
forward to give and take the pressure of peace, and all we that looked
upon him and loved him, Messer Guido and I and others of our age and
company, thought that we had never beheld him show more noble. His
spirit, that had been tempered in conflict, gave an elder's dignity to
his youth; his anger had set him in a splendid sternness, while his love
had invested him with the raiment of a no less splendid serenity. It was
a brave and chivalrous soldier that stood there in the sight of all
Florence, a figure infinitely better to my eyes than the scholar who
dogged the footsteps of Brunetto Latini, or even than the poet whose
songs had enchanted the city. For a scholar is often a thing of naught,
and a poet, as I know, may be little enough, but our Dante, as he stood
there and gave the pledge of peace, was indeed a man.

So it was for the time arranged and settled. Madonna Beatrice, she that
was a wife and yet no wife, went with her father to her father's house,
there to abide until such time as a decision might be come to as to her
case. Messer Simone, in high dudgeon, withdrew to his dwelling-place
with his friends about him. As for Messer Dante, he was for going to his
lodging, very lonely and stern and silent, but I would not have i