on: DANTE'S TOMB]

"So Jacopo and Piero, sons of Dante, both of them poets in rhyme,
moved thereto by certain of their friends, had taken it into their
minds to attempt to supplement the parental work, as far as in them
lay, that it might not remain imperfect, when to Jacopo, who was far
more zealous than the other in this work, there appeared a wondrous
vision, which not only checked his foolish presumption but showed him
where were the thirteen cantos which were wanting to this Divine
Comedy and which they had not known where to find. A worthy man of
Ravenna whose name was Piero Giardino, long time a disciple of
Dante's, related how, when eight months had passed after the death of
his master, the aforesaid Jacopo came to him one night near to the
hour that we call matins, and told him that that same night a little
before that hour he, in his sleep, had seen his father, Dante,
approach him, clad in whitest garment, and his face shining with an
unwonted light; whom he seemed to ask if he were yet living, and to
hear in reply that he was, but in the true life, not in ours. Whereon
he seemed further to ask him if he had finished his work or ever he
passed to that true life; and if he had finished it, where was the
missing part, which they had never been able to find. To this he
seemed to hear again in answer, 'Yea! I finished it.' Whereon it
seemed that he took him by the hand and led him to that chamber where
he was wont to sleep when he was living in this life; and touching a
certain spot said, 'Here is that which ye so long have sought.' And no
sooner was uttered that word than it seemed that both Dante and sleep
departed from him at the same moment. Wherefore he averred that he
could not hold but come and signify what he had seen, that they might
go together and search in the place indicated to him, which he held
most perfectly stamped in his memory, to see whether a true spirit or
a false delusion had shown it him. Wherefore since a great piece of
the night still remained, they departed together and went to the place
indicated, and there found a mat fixed to the wall, which they lightly
raised and found a recess in the wall which neither of them had ever
seen, nor knew that it was there; and there they found certain
writings all mouldy with the damp of the wall and ready to rot had
they stayed there much longer; and when they had carefully removed the
mould and read, they saw that they contained the thirteen cantos s