Take, for instance, in the story just mentioned, the way in which he communicates to the reader, by means of his description of the old singer's methods, his own conception of the genesis of the Homeric poems. When a king requests the old man to sing, but to let it be the truth that he sings, he answers: "What I know of the heroes I have from my father, who learned it from the Muses themselves; for of old the Muses were wont to visit the divine singers in caves and woods. I shall mingle no lies with the old histories." And the author adds: "He spoke thus from prudence. For to the songs which he had learned in his childhood he was in the habit of adding verses which he had taken from other songs or found within himself. _But he did not confess this, fearing Jest he should be blamed for it_. The chieftains almost always asked for the old tales, which they believed to have been dictated by a divinity, and mistrusted the new songs. Therefore he carefully concealed the origin of those which he had composed himself. _And as he was a very good poet, and carefully observed the established customs, his verses were in no wise distinguishable from those of his forefathers_; they resembled them in form and beauty, and from the moment of their conception were worthy of immortal fame." The singer is, we observe, praised, in the spirit of the age, for the quality which, according to modern ideas, detracts from his worth. In precisely the same manner is the dialogue entitled _Farinata degli Uberti_ thrown into relief. With his unerring critical instinct France has selected the most interesting of all the figures in Dante's _Inferno_. And this figure has for us one element of interest in addition to those which it possessed for Dante? namely, the diametrical opposition between Farinata's views and ours. In our days it is a very honourable thing to fight for one's countrymen against foreign troops, and an abominable thing to stir up civil war. When Farinata is justifying himself for having fought on the side of Siena against his Florentine fellow countrymen, he says: "Undoubtedly it would have been better for us Florentines to have fought out the quarrel amongst ourselves. Civil war is such a fine and noble thing, a thing of such delicacy, that the implication of foreigners in it ought, if possible, to be avoided.... I do not maintain the same of wars with other States. They are useful, at times necessary, enterprises, undertaken to defend or to extend the frontiers of a country or to further its commerce. But as a rule there is neither much advantage nor much honour to be gained by fighting in these vulgar wars. For them a sensible people prefers to employ mercenary troops, under experienced leaders, who can do a great deal with a small force."