If Luni thou regard

Some who turn Florentines, and trade and discount,
  Would have gone back again to Simifonte
  There where their grandsires went about as beggars.

At Montemurlo still would be the Counts,
  The Cerchi in the parish of Acone,
  Perhaps in Valdigrieve the Buondelmonti.

Ever the intermingling of the people
  Has been the source of malady in cities,
  As in the body food it surfeits on;

And a blind bull more headlong plunges down
  Than a blind lamb; and very often cuts
  Better and more a single sword than five.

If Luni thou regard, and Urbisaglia,
  How they have passed away, and how are passing
  Chiusi and Sinigaglia after them,

To hear how races waste themselves away,
  Will seem to thee no novel thing nor hard,
  Seeing that even cities have an end.

All things of yours have their mortality,
  Even as yourselves; but it is hidden in some
  That a long while endure, and lives are short;

And as the turning of the lunar heaven
  Covers and bares the shores without a pause,
  In the like manner fortune does with Florence.

Therefore should not appear a marvellous thing
  What I shall say of the great Florentines
  Of whom the fame is hidden in the Past.