stir enough.[1] For it would be a startling innovation on the neglect into which poets and poetry have fallen. But how should I venture into the turbulent and hostile Bologna? Would it not be better to await my recall to my native city and there assume the crown?
Perini.Better indeed! But time flies. A second academic generation of friends and students already finds you lingering in Ravenna.
Dante.Ah, but when the Paradiso becomes known, surely I shall be recalled and crowned (compare Paradiso, XXV. 1-9). If indeed, Del Virgilio will sanction my receiving such an honour in virtue of my poor Italian verse!
Perini.What are we to do to convince him?
Dante.My mind is teeming with the matter of the Paradiso, which is already taking shape, and I will presently send ten cantos to Del Virgilio, in which, mayhap, he will find after all 'something for students,' clad in vesture not wholly 'unworthy of the Muses.'
Meanwhile Perini had better attend to his humble duties, and learn to be content with his meagre fare.
*** The numbering of the lines follows the original.
ECLOGUE I
In letters black, upon receptive white,
I saw the modulations milked for me
From the Pierian bosom. As it chanced,
Telling, as is our wont, our pastured goats,
- ↑ I abandon with some hesitation the suggestion put forward on p. 225 of Dante and Giovanni del Virgilio (see note on p. 385 of this volume).
