Hospitality, Poem by Félix Arvers

Poem by Félix Arvers Period 19th century

In immortal verses that you surely know,
Dante, accepting from a prince both roof and support,
With the sorrows of exile drunk drop by drop,
Showed us his heart all filled with a dark weariness;
And how bitter it is, for the one who tastes it,
The bread of the stranger, and all that it costs
To go up and down another’s staircase…
I, who am not his equal, have found better than he.
Here, despite these verses of funereal omen,
I found the bread good, and better still the face,
And opulent well-being and permitted pleasures.
It is that Dante, straying in spheres too high,
Had a protector, and that I have hosts;
It is that he had a master and that I have friends.

Arvers Félix

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