The Florentine then informed Sapia how he came thither, which, she said, was a great sign that God loved him; and she begged his prayers. The conversation excited the curiosity of two spirits who overheard it; and one of them, Guido del Duca, a noble Romagnese, asked the poet of what country he was. Dante, without mentioning the name of the river, intimated that he came from the banks of the Arno; upon which the other spirit, Rinier da Calboli, asked his friend why the stranger suppressed the name, as though it was something horrible. Guido said he well might; for the river, throughout its course, beheld none but bad men and persecutors of virtue. First, he said, it made its petty way by the sties of those brutal hogs, the people of Casentino, and then arrived at the dignity of watering the kennels of the curs of Arezzo, who excelled more in barking than in biting; then, growing unluckier as it grew larger, like the cursed and miserable ditch that it was, it found in Florence the dogs become wolves; and finally, ere it went into the sea, it passed the den of those foxes, the Pisans, who were full of such cunning that they held traps in contempt.
"It will be well," continued Guido, "for this man to remember what he hears;" and then, after prophesying evil to Florence, and confessing to Dante his sin of envy, which used to make him pale when any one looked happy, he added, "This is Rinieri, the glory of that house of Calboli which now inherits not a spark of it. Not a spark of it, did I say, in the house of Calboli? Where is there a spark in all Romagna? Where is the good Lizio?--where Manardi, Traversaro, Carpigna? The Romagnese have all become bastards. A mechanic founds a house in Bologna! a Bernardin di Fosco finds his dog-grass become a tree in Faenza! Wonder not, Tuscan, to see me weep, when I think of the noble spirits that we have lived with--of the Guidos of Prata, and the Ugolins of Azzo--of Federigo Tignoso and his band--of the Traversaros and Anastagios, families now ruined--and all the ladies and the cavaliers, the alternate employments and delights which wrapped us in a round of love and courtesy, where now there is nothing but ill-will! O castle of Brettinoro! why dost thou not fall? Well has the lord of Bagnacavallo done, who will have no more children. Who would propagate a race of Counties from such blood as the Castrocaros and the Conios? Is not the son of Pagani called the Demon? and would it not be better that such a son were swept out of the family? Nay, let him live to chew to what a pitch of villany it has arrived. Ubaldini alone is blest, for his name is good, and he is too old to leave a child after him. Go, Tuscan--go; for I would be left to my tears."