BOOK IV.--The description of the unhappy position of Ferrara, "the lady

city," for which both Guelf and Ghibelline contended, opens the fourth book. Sordello is here with Palma. He has seen the dreadful condition of the people, and has espoused their cause. Here, in the midst of carnage and ruin, Sordello learns his altruism. He appeals to Taurello Salinguerra, but nothing comes of it. The more he sees of the misery of the people, the more he vows himself to an effort to raise them. The soldiers ask him to sing at their camp-fire. He sings, and Palma hears and takes him back to Taurello Salinguerra. The poet here describes the chief and tells his story. He is the doer, as contrasted with Sordello the visionary; but he has led a life of misfortune and adventure. At the burning of Vicenza he lost wife and child; he embraced the cause of Eccelin and the Ghibellines. As Eccelin had gone into a monastery, all Taurello's plans were disarranged. He ponders as to whom shall be given the Emperor's badge of the prefectship; and what shall he do with his prisoner Richard; Sordello asks Palma what are the laws at work which explain Ghibellinism. He feels he has been a recreant to his race: Taurello has the people's interest at heart; all that Sordello _should_ have done he _does_. Are Guelfs as bad as Ghibellines, or better? Both these do worse than nothing, is a reflection which comforts the do-nothing poet. What if there were a Cause higher and nobler than either, and he (Sordello) were to be its true discoverer? A soldier, at this point, suggests to Sordello a subject for a ballad: a tale of a dead worthy long ago consul of Rome, Crescentius Nomentanus, who--

"From his brain, Gave Rome out on its ancient place again."

Sordello resolves to build up Rome again--a Rome which should mean the rights of mankind, the realisation of the People's cause.