Alighieri65, posted March 14, 11:45 P.M.:

RE: Dolor Iuvenilis

Good evening, gentlemen: I see
a few familiar avatars this hour
(but then again, we never sleep).
We laud the humble moderator,
ever guarding sanity and peace—
our dearest Virgil, choosing topics
from our time or back to ancient Greece—
tonight: the trials of a young Republic.
Now to my predicament—take note:
the roving eye of a wayward prince
sent us tumbling down a bloody slope.
If you bear with me, I’ll evince
the origins of a fractured peace
that rose between the Guelfs and Ghibellines.

One Easter morning, just below
the bust of Mars, young Buondelmonte
slipped from his startled palfreo—
stabbed before his body met the street;
he cursed his foes with one enduring breath
that spanned a hundred winters more
and filled two houses sworn to death:
one to restore a woman’s honor,
the other to avenge a noble’s fate;
for it seems our errant cavalier
took the ring from his rightful mate
and slid it over Ciulla’s finger—
a woman more alluring perchance,
who summoned death with a furtive glance.

At the Ponte Vecchio’s steep descent,
the killers cast the noble’s corpse
down the banks to the river’s edge,
under the gaze of the God of War
who watched the Arno darken through the night,
through endless years of waters turning red
ordained by men who whispered knife to knife,
too filled with wrath to sanctify the dead.
From Eve’s purported primal sins
the world’s calamities were falsely born
by the ancient prejudice of men.
“Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned”
should be forever writ above:
“Heaven hath no glory as a woman loved.”

‘Tis the bane of men to wage their wars
under the aegis of love or God.
Do you believe, by the poets’ lore,
fair Helen of Troy could launch abroad
one ship to sea with just her face?—
a myth handed down from sire to son.
Nor does God smile on the victor’s ranks:
he was not at Arezzo, where I’d won,
nor Montaperti, where my forebears
were crushed. The papacy survived
by spilling blood, just as the emperor
kept his seat in Rome. If Ciulla’s eyes
incited half the Florentines to war,
it was never she who took up the sword.

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MarcBrutus, posted March 15, 12:00 A.M.:

There is more of the story to tell—
or perhaps you leave the rest, to gauge
our full attention—for we in Hell
hold clearer vantage: neither grace nor age
nor time erase the horrors they commence;
their torments are our stock in trade.
Thus I recall that day in Florence:
When Mosca pulled his knife away
from Buondelmonte’s chest, he briefly saw
the head of Mars reflected in his blade,
and then heard “Cosa fatta capo ha”—
a verdict in the wind. He stood half-dazed
above the husk—for this was the lie
that roused his friends to consecrate the knife.

While Oderigo cut the young man’s throat,
Mosca scanned the pilaster above
where Buondelmonte’s words fell low
beneath the palfrey’s distant hooves.
He could not foresee, the night before,
when he deftly counseled his assassins
who gathered in a secret corridor,
Ciulla was seized by a fateful vision
as she lay sleeping with her betrothed.
She dreamt of an enormous fountain,
a crown that bled from a thousand holes
darkening the Arno’s fair complexion
where Florentines still washed their hands
and men intoned: “What’s done is done.”

At dawn, she tearfully awoke
and bade her fiancé remain in bed,
but Buondelmonte donned his hat and coat
while she relived the tableau in her head,
that mutilated stone behind the veil.
You must have known this story would evoke
my famous sin, and all my past travails.
My comrades from the Curia, who spoke
as honorable men, had plunged their daggers
deep in the myth of Julius Caesar—
with one last thrust, I finished the matter
and cut the Republic into pieces.
How different were his words: “Kai su, teknon?”
and the curse that rose from Buondelmonte’s tongue?

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