Listening, I bent down my face; and one of them, not he who was speaking, twisted himself under the weight that hampers him; and he saw me, and recognized me and called out, keeping his eyes with effort fixed on me, who was going along all stooping with him.[1] “Oh,” said I to him, “art thou not Oderisi, the honor of Gubbio, and the honor of that art which in Paris is called illumination?” “Brother,” said he, “more smiling are the leaves that Franco of Bologna pencils; the honor is now all his, and mine in part.[2] Truly I should not have been so courteous while I lived, because of the great desire of excelling whereon my heart was intent. Of such pride here is paid the fee; and yet I should not be here, were it not that, still having power to sin, I turned me unto God. Oh vainglory of human powers! how little lasts the green upon the top, if it be not followed by dull ages.[3] Cimabue thought to hold the field in painting, and now Giotto has the cry, so that the fame of him is obscured. In like manner one Guido hath taken from the other the glory of the language; and he perhaps is born who shall drive both one and the other from the nest.[4] Worldly renown is naught but a breath of wind, which now comes hence and now comes thence, and changes name because it changes quarter. What more fame shalt thou have, if thou strippest old flesh from thee, than if thou hadst died ere thou hadst left the pap and the chink,[5] before a thousand years have passed?—which is a shorter space compared to the eternal than a movement of the eyelids to the circle that is slowest turned in Heaven. With him who takes so little of the road in front of me, all Tuscany resounded, and now he scarce is lisped of in Siena, where he was lord when the Florentine rage was destroyed,[6] which at that time was proud, as now it is prostitute. Your reputation is color of grass that comes and goes, and he[7] discolors it through whom it came up fresh from the earth.” And I to him, “Thy true speech brings good humility to my heart, and thou allayest a great swelling in me; but who is he of whom thou now wast speaking?” “He is,” he answered, “Provinzan Salvani;[8] and he is here, because he was presumptuous in bringing all Siena to his hands. He has gone thus—and he goes without repose—ever since he died: such money doth he pay in satisfaction, who is on earth too daring.” And I, “If that spirit who awaits the verge of life ere he repents abides there below, and unless good prayer further him ascends not hither, ere as much time pass us he lived, how has this coining been granted unto him?” “When he was living most renowned,” said he, “laying aside all shame, of his own accord he planted himself in the Campo of Siena,[9] and there, to draw his friend from the punishment he was enduring in the prison of Charles, brought himself to tremble in every vein. More I will not say, and I know that I speak darkly; but little time will pass, before thy neighbors will so act