Guido, I would that Lapo, thou and I, Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend A magic ship, whose charmèd sails should fly, With winds at will where'er our thoughts might wend, And that no change, nor any evil chance Should mar our joyous voyage; but it might be, That even satiety should still enhance Between our hearts their strict community: And that the bounteous wizard then would place Vanna and Bice and my gentle love, Companions of our wandering, and would grace With passionate talk, wherever we might rove, Our time, and each were as content and free As I believe that thou and I should be. As a sample of Guido Cavalcanti's own poetical skill we may take the following sonnet, translated by Cary: Whatso is fair in lady's face or mind, And gentle knights caparison'd and gay, Singing of sweet birds unto love inclined, And gallant barks that cut the watery way; The white snow falling without any wind, The cloudless sky at break of early day, The crystal stream, with flowers the meadow lined, Silver, and gold, and azure for array: To him that sees the beauty and the worth Whose power doth meet and in my lady dwell, All seem as vile, their price and lustre gone. And, as the heaven is higher than the earth, So she in knowledge doth each one excel, Not slow to good in nature like her own. It is with Dante alone, however, that we can busy ourselves here, for in him are summed up all the various tendencies and characteristics of his predecessors and contemporaries. The figure of Dante Alighieri is one of the saddest in literary history; his life seemed to contain all the sorrow that can fall to the lot of humankind. An exile from his native city, separated from family and friends, deprived of his property, and thus forced to live in poverty or become the recipient of charity, disappointed in his patriotic hopes, the only thing left him to do was to turn his eyes inward and to build up out of his very sufferings and sorrow, his immortal poem: "Ah! from what agony of heart and brain, What exultations trampling on despair, What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, Uprose this poem of the earth and air,-- This medieval miracle of song." We see, then, that even more important than in the case of other poets is some knowledge of the great Florentine.