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Take him then as a poser: give him, for the argument's sake, Boccace to his company, Cino; give him our Pulci, give him Ariosto, give him Lorenzo, Politian; give him Tasso for aught I care; you have no one left but the sugar-cured Guarino. The fellow is such a sturdy pagan we must e'en forgive him some of his quirks.
La Ferrignosa she was called of old, but it is the last title that fits her now, for the clank of her irons has long been silent, and nothing any longer disturbs the quiet of her days. S. Atto is her saint, and it is by his street that you enter the city, walled still, coming at last into the Piazza Cino, Cino da Pistoja, one of the sweetest and least fortunate of Tuscan poets.
Nicoletta had a lover of her own, a most proper poet, who had got far beyond the mere accidence of the science where Cino was fumbling now; you might say that he was at theory. Nicoletta, moreover, was sixteen years old, a marriageable age, an age indeed at which not to have a lover would have been a disgrace.
But jesting apart, thus I answer them, that never to the end of my life shall I deem it shameful to me to pleasure those to whom Guido Cavalcanti and Dante Alighieri in their old age, and Messer Cino da Pistoia in extreme old age, accounted it an honour and found it a delight to minister gratification.
"You are a light to my eyes and a lantern to my feet," Cino murmured: but she did not seem to hear. "Do you mean," she went on, "that you are not prepared to be to be my my betrothed?" It was done: now let the heavens fall!
Moreover, there are not wanting in these poems instances of the term signore, or lord, applied to the beloved lady; which is one of the many periphrastical expressions used by the Romance poets to indicate their mistress." It is true that Cino compares his lady in one sonnet to a knight who has carried off the prize of beauty in the lists of love and grace by her elegant dancing.
But confronted with this toppled Madonna, Cino was speechless, wholly unprepared by jurisprudence or the less exact science of love for such a pass. As he knew himself, he could have written eloquently and done justice to the piercing theme; but love, as he and his fellows understood it, had no spoken language. I do not see, however, that Selvaggia is to be blamed for being ignorant of this.
You cannot form the slightest idea of the excitement; it was a burst of enthusiasm, and the reception of Cavour was as warm. We threw a perfect shower of flowers over him, which the Marchesa had provided for the occasion; and her youngest son Cino, a nice lad, went himself to present his bouquet to the King, who seemed quite pleased with the boy.
A brisk little passage, a rally of words, with a bite in some of them, should have warned him; but no, the stage he had reached was out of range of the longest shots. Said Ugolino at supper: "Messer Giurisconsulto, will you have a red pepper?" "Thank you, Messere," replied Cino, "it is over hot for my tongue." The huge Ridolfo threw his head back to laugh.
There at the door stood Selvaggia in a crimson cloak; for the rest, a picture of the Tragic Muse, so woebegone, so white, so ringed with dark she was. Cino, on his feet, muttered a prayer to himself. He covered his scarred mouth, but not before the girl had caught sight of it. She set to wringing her hands, and began a low wailing cry. "Ah, terrible ah, terrible!
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