from Dante Études: Book Three: In My Youth Not Unstaind

[Étude from the Fourth Treatise of the Convivio, Chapter XXVII] In my youth, not unstaind and in much ignoble;   in manhood, struggling to ring true   yet knowing often my defection from these graces Dante lists proper to Man:   temperance, courage, love, courtesy, and loyalty.   I speak still to sustain his meaning in my own. And, in you, whatever I have known of grace comes through to me. Now, upon old age:“Our life has a fixt course and a simple path” I would not avoid,“that of our right nature” —then Dante adds, himself quoting: “and in every part of our life place is given for certain things