“And she who with her loose tresses covers her breasts, which thou dost not see, and has on that side all her hairy skin, was Manto,[1] who sought through many lands, then settled there where I was born; whereof it pleases me that thou listen a little to me. After her father had departed from life, and the city of Bacchus had become enslaved, long while she wandered through the world. Up in fair Italy lies a lake, at foot of the alp that shuts in Germany above Tyrol, and it is called Benaco.[2] Through a thousand founts, I think, and more, between Garda and Val Camonica, the Apennine is bathed by the water which settles in that lake. Midway is a place where the Trentine Pastor and he of Brescia and the Veronese might each give his blessing if he took that road.[3] Peschiera, fortress fair and strong, sits to confront the Brescians and Bergamasques, where the shore round about is lowest. Thither needs must fall all that which in the lap of Benaco cannot stay, and it becomes a river down through the verdant pastures. Soon as the water gathers head to run, no longer is it called Benaco, but Mincio, far as Governo, where it falls into the Po. No long course it hath before it finds a plain, on which it spreads, and makes a marsh, and is wont in summer sometimes to be noisome. Passing that way, the cruel virgin saw a land in the middle of the fen without culture and bare of inhabitants. There, to avoid all human fellowship, she stayed with her servants to practice her arts, and lived, and left there her empty body. Afterward the men who were scattered round about gathered to that place, which was strong because of the fen which surrounded it. They built the city over those dead hones, and for her, who first had chosen the place, they called it Mantua, without other augury. Of old its people were more thick within it, before the stupidity of Casalodi had been tricked by Pinamonte.[4] Therefore I warn thee, that if thou ever hearest otherwise the origin of my town, no falsehood may defraud the truth.” [1] The daughter of Tiresias, of whom Statius, Ovid, and Virgil all tell. [2] Now Lago di Garda. [3] Where the three dioceses meet. [4] The Count of Casalodi, being lord of Mantua about 1276, gave ear to the treacherous counsels of Messer Pinamonte de Buonacorsi, and was driven, with his friends, from the city. And I, “Master, thy discourses are so certain to me, and so lay hold on my faith, that the others would be to me as dead embers. But tell me of the people who are passing, if thou seest any one of them worthy of note; for only unto that my mind reverts.”