Noi veggiam, come quei, ch' ha mala luce, Le cose,' disse, 'che ne son lontano; Cotaato ancor ne splende 'l sommo duce: Quando 's appressano, o son, tutto è vano Nostro 'ntelletto, e s' altri non ci apporta, Nulla sapem di vostro stato umano. Però comprender puoi, che tutta morta Fia nostra conoscenza da quel punto, Che del futuro fia chiusa la porta.' Allor, come di mia colpa compunto, Dissi; 'Or direte dunque a quel caduto, Che 'l suo nato è coi vivi ancor congiunto; E s' io io' dinanzi alla risposta muto, Fat' ei saper, che 'l fei, perchè pensava Già nell' error, che m' avete soluto."] [Footnote 26: There are few instances (notwithstanding his tremendous denunciations against bodies of men, the inhabitants of whole cities or states) in which Dante forgets courtesy towards individual sufferers; and, in general, he expresses the most honourable sympathy towards his very enemies, when he finds them such. In the case of Bocca degli Abati, who, at the battle of Monte Aperto, traitorously smote off the right hand of the Florentine standard-bearer, the patriotic poet shows no mercy; but having accidentally kicked him in the face as he stood wedged up to the chin in ice, he afterwards tears the locks from the wretch's head to make him tell his name;--forgetting, by the way, that in every other case the spirits were intangible by him, though they appeared to be bodily tormented.--Dell' Inferno, XXXII. And towards the friar Alberigo de' Manfredi, who, having quarrelled with some of his brethren, under pretence of desiring to be reconciled, invited them and others to a feast, towards the conclusion of which, at the signal of the fruit being brought in, a band of hired assassins rushed upon the guests and murdered the selected victims on the spot; whence arose a saying, when a person had been stabbed, that he had been served with some of Alberigo's fruit:--towards this wretch Dante (by an ambiguous oath and promise to relieve him from a crust of tears which had been frozen like a mask over his face), having obtained his name, behaves with deliberate inhumanity, leaving him as he found him, with this cool excuse,-- "E cortesia fu lui esser villano." "'Twas courtesy to play the knave to him." _Dell' Inferno_, canto XXXIII.] PETRARCH