" Giordano
exclaims:
Impious race! you've chosen Rome for shepherd
A cruel barbarian, and even his name
Tortures our ears.
_Arnaldo._ I never care to ask
Where popes are born; and from long suffering,
You, Romans, before heaven, should have learnt
That priests can have no country....
I know this man; his father was a thrall,
And he is fit to be a slave. He made
Friends with the Norman that enslaves his country;
A wandering beggar to Avignon's cloisters
He came in boyhood and was known to do
All abject services; there those false monks
He with astute humility cajoled;
He learned their arts, and 'mid intrigues and hates
He rose at last out of his native filth
A tyrant of the vile.
The cardinals, confounded by Arnaldo's presence and invectives,
withdraw, but leave one of their party to work on the fears of the
Romans, and make them return to their allegiance by pictures of the
desolating war which Barbarossa, now approaching Rome to support
Adrian, has waged upon the rebellious Lombards at Rosate and
elsewhere. Arnaldo replies:--
Romans,
I will tell all the things that he has hid;
I know not how to cheat you. Yes, Rosate
A ruin is, from which the smoke ascends.
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