N. 31. - Inscription at SAN GIOVANNI on the pavement at the side of the Duomo:
Reading edition
Se mai continga che il poema sacro, Al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra Sì che m’ha fatto per più anni macro, Vinca la crudeltà, che fuor mi serra Del bello ovile, ov’io dormii agnello Nimico ai lupi che gli danno guerra; Con altra voce ormai, con altro vello Ritornerò poeta, ed in sul fonte Del mio battes mo prenderò il cappello. DANTE, Paradiso, XXV, 1–9. If e’er it happen that the sacred Poem, To which both heaven and earth have set their hand, So that it many a year has made me lean, O’ercome the cruelty that bars me out From that fair sheep-fold, where a lamb I slumbered, An enemy to the wolves that war upon it, With other voice forthwith, with other fleece Poet will I return, and at my font Baptismal will I take the laurel crown. Longfellow’s translation.
The verses form the beginning of the 25th Canto wherein St. James questions Dante concerning Hope. It appears from one of his “Epistles”, that about 1316 Dante had the option given him of returning to Florence on the ignominious terms of paying a fine, and of making a public avowal of his offence.—It may perhaps be in reference to this offer, which he indignantly rejected, that he promises himself, he shall one day return “in other guise and, standing up at his baptismal font, shall claim the wreath due to the poet’s temples”.—His fame at that time had spread so far and the glory, which his Poem had gained him was such, that he himself declares in the treatise “De Vulgaris Eloquentia”, it had in some measure reconciled him even to his banishment.