The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Edited with Preface and Notes by William M. Rossetti: Revised and Enlarged Edition |
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 | The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti |  |
395
X
Sonnet
He rails against Dante, who had censured his homage to Becchina
Dante Alighieri in Becchina's praiseWon't have me sing, and bears him like my lord.
He's but a pinchbeck florin, on my word;
Sugar he seems, but salt's in all his ways;
He looks like wheaten bread, who's bread of maize;
He's but a sty, though like a tower in height;
A falcon, till you find that he's a kite;
Call him a cock!—a hen's more like his case.
Go now to Florence, Sonnet of my own,
And there with dames and maids hold pretty parles,
And say that all he is doth only seem.
And I meanwhile will make him better known
Unto the Count of Provence, good King Charles;
And in this way we'll singe his skin for him.
This may be either Charles II., King of Naples and Count of Provence, or more probably his son Charles Martel, King of Hungary. We know from Dante that a friendship subsisted between himself and the latter prince, who visited Florence in 1295, and died in the same year, in his father's lifetime (Paradise, C. viii.)
| The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti | |