at was so long physician to the
Portinari family. He told me that he heard that Messer Dante was for the
time dwelling with me as my guest, and when I told him that this was so
he went on that he had come the bearer of a message to my friend, asking
him to come very instantly to the Portinari palace. When I showed some
surprise at this, Messer Tommaso Severo told me that Madonna Beatrice
desired most earnestly to speak with Dante, and that her father had
consented to this out of his great love for his child, which seemed
suddenly to have grown stronger in the midst of all these
ill-happenings. He further told me that Messer Folco had long been bound
to Simone because of large sums that ruffian had lent him from time to
time for the building of his hospitals and the like, which had swallowed
up the mass of Messer Folco's own fortune. Not that Messer Simone cared
for any such good works, but because, by doing as he did, he laid Messer
Folco under heavier obligations to him. Now, however, according to
Messer Tommaso, Folco saw more clearly the character of the man that he
had made his son-in-law, and also the character of his own daughter that
he had never understood till now, and he was now resolved to repay
Messer Simone all he owed him if he sold everything he possessed to do
so, and thereafter use all his credit among his friends at Rome, and he
had many there, to get the marriage annulled by the Holy See. Then I
went and summoned Dante, and he came out and greeted Messer Tommaso and
went away with him, going like one that moves in the grave joy of some
fair dream.

Now what chanced to Dante when he went his ways to the Portinari palace
I shall set down presently as it has come to me, seeing that I was not
present, but giving, as I believe, the substance and the truth. But when
he and Messer Tommaso had left me, I thought to myself that I would busy
my leisure with writing a sonnet or so to some merry jills of my
acquaintance. But when I had got me ink and parchment, I found, to my
surprise, that I was in no fit mood for wooing the muses, and that the
rhymes that were wont to be so ready to jig to my whistle were now most
fretfully rebellious, and would not come, for all my application. So
there I sat and stared at the unstained whiteness of my sheets and
grumbled at the sluggishness of my spirit, and presently I applied
myself pretty briskly to the wine-flask, in the hope of quickening my
spirits. But the wine proved