our best authority. FOOTNOTES: [1] Otho Fris., _Annales_, v. 36. [2] A useful list, with some account of the authors cited by Dante, is given by Mr. J. S. Black, in a volume entitled _Dante_; _Illustrations and Notes_, privately printed by Messrs. T. & A. Constable, at Edinburgh, 1890. He does not, however, include (save in one or two cases, and those rather doubtful) authors of whom Dante’s knowledge rests on inference only. [3] I do not forget Ulysses and Penelope, Hector and Andromache, or Ovid’s _Heroïdes_; but the love of husband and wife is another matter altogether. The only instance in classical literature that I can recall of what may be termed the modern view of the subject is that of Hæmon and Antigone. See, on this subject, and in connection with these paragraphs generally, Symonds, _Introduction to the Study of Dante_, ch. viii. [4] This must be taken as referring only to European literature. Such a passage as Canticles ii. 10-14 shows that Oriental poets felt the sentiment from very early times. Is it possible that contact with the East evoked it in Europeans? [5] “When the summer was come, and the flowers sprang joyously up through the grass, right there the birds were singing; thither came I, on my way over a long meadow where a clear well gushed forth; its course was by the wood where the nightingale sang.” [6] “It was summer time, the month of May, when the days are warm, and long, and clear, and the nights still and serene. Nicolete lay one night on her bed, and saw the moon shine clear through a window, yea, and heard the nightingale sing in the garden, so she minded her of Aucassin, her lover, whom she loved so well” (Lang’s translation). [7] Lud = song; semlokest = seemliest; he = she; in hire baundoun = at her command. CHAPTER II. GUELFS AND GHIBELINES[8] Mention was made, in the last chapter, of the “Guelf” party, and this, with its opposite, the party of the “Ghibelines,” fills the entire field of Italian politics during Dante’s life, and indeed for long afterwards. It would be impossible in the space of these pages to follow up all the tangled threads which have attached themselves to those famous names; but since we may be, to use a picturesque phrase of Carlyle’s, “thankful for any hook whatever on which to hang half-an-acre of thrums in fixed position,” a few of the more prominent points in the early history of the great conflict shall be noted here. As every one knows, the names originally came from Germany, and to that country we must turn for a short time to know their import.