Canto VII

who in look doth comfort him, Governed the region where the water springs, The Moldau bears the Elbe, and Elbe the sea. His name was Ottocar; and in swaddling-clothes Far better he than bearded Winceslaus His son, who feeds in luxury and ease. And the small-nosed, who close in council seems With him that has an aspect so benign, Died fleeing and disflowering the lily; Look there, how he is beating at his breast! Behold the other one, who for his cheek Sighing has made of his own palm a bed; Father and father-in-law of France’s Pest Are they, and know his vicious life and lewd, And hence proceeds the grief that so doth pierce them. He who appears so stalwart, and chimes in, Singing, with that one of the manly nose, The cord of every valor wore begirt; And if as King had after him remained The stripling who in rear of him is sitting, Well had the valor passed from vase to vase, Which cannot of the other heirs be said. Frederick and Jacomo possess the realms, But none the better heritage possesses. Not oftentimes upriseth through the branches The probity of man; and this He wills Who gives it, so that we may ask of Him. Eke to the large-nosed reach my words, no less Than to the other, Pier, who with him sings; Whence Provence and Apulia grieve already The plant is as inferior to its seed, As more than Beatrice and Margaret Costanza boasteth of her husband still. Behold the monarch of the simple life, Harry of England, sitting there alone; He in his branches has a better issue. He who the lowest on the ground among them Sits looking upward, is the Marquis William, For whose sake Alessandria and her war Make Monferrat and Canavese weep.”