Ugolino and His Children

Quitting the traitor Bocca's barking soul,
We saw two more, so iced up in one hole.
That the one's visage capp'd the other's head ;
And as a famish'd man devoureth bread,
So rent the top one's teeth the skull below
'Twixt nape and brain. Tydeus, as stories show,
Thus to the brain of Menalippus ate : —
" O thou ! " I cried, " showing such bestial hate
To him thou tearest, read us whence it rose ;
That, if thy cause be juster than thy foe's,
The world, when I return, knowing the truth,
May of thy story have the greater ruth."

His mouth he lifted from his dreadful fare,
That sinner, wiping it with the gray hair
Whose roots he had laid waste ; and thus he said : —
" A desperate thing thou askest ; what I dread
Even to think of. Yet, to sow a seed
Of infamy to him on whom I feed,
Tell it I will : — ay, and thine eyes shall see
Mine own weep all the while for misery.
Who thou mayst be, I know not ; nor can dream
How thou cam'st hither; but thy tongue doth seem
To show thee, of a surety, Florentine.
Know then, that I was once Count Ugoline,
And this man was Ruggieri, the archpriest.
Still thou mayst wonder at my raging feast ;
For though his snares be known, and how his key
He turn'd upon my trust, and murder'd me.
Yet what the murder was, of what strange sort
And cruel, few have had the true report.

Hear then, and judge. — In the tower, called since then
The Tower of Famine, I had lain and seen
Full many a moon fade through the narrow bars,
When, in a dream one night, mine evil stars
Show'd me the future with its dreadful face.
Methought this man led a great lordly chase
Against a wolf and cubs, across the height
Which barreth Lucca from the Pisan's sight.
Lean were the hounds, high-bred, and sharp for blood ;
And foremost in the press Gualandi rode,
Lanfranchi, and Sismondi. Soon were seen
The father and his sons, those wolves I mean,
Limping, and by the hounds all crush'd and torn :
And as the cry awoke me in the morn,
I heard my children, while they dozed in bed
(For they were with me), wail, and ask for bread.
Full cruel, if it move thee not, thou art,
To think what thoughts then rush'd into my heart.
What wouldst thou weep at, weeping not at this ? —
All had now waked, and something seem'd amiss,
For 'twas the time they used to bring us bread.
And from our dreams had grown a horrid dread.
I listen'd ; and a key, down stairs, I heard
Lock up the dreadful turret. Not a word
I spoke, but look'd my children in the face :
No tear I shed, so firmly did I brace
My soul ; but they did ; and my Anselm said,
' Father, you look so ! — Wont they bring us bread ?
E'en then I wept not, nor did answer word
All day, nor the next night. And now was stirr'd,
Upon the world without, another day ;
And of its light there came a little ray,
Which mingled with the gloom of our sad jail ;
And looking to my children's bed, full pale,
In four small faces mine own face I saw.
Oh, then both hands for misery did I gnaw ;
And they, thinking I did it, being mad
For food, said, ' Father, we should be less sad
If you would feed on us. Children, they say,
Are their own father's flesh. Starve not to-day.'
Thenceforth they saw me shake not, hand nor foot.
That day, and next, we all continued mute.
O thou hard Earth ! why opened'st thou not ? —
Next day (it was the fourth in our sad lot)
My Gaddo stretch'd him at my feet, and cried,
' Dear father, wont you help me ? ' and he died.
And surely as thou seest me here undone,
I saw my whole four children, one by one.
Between the fifth day and the sixth, all die.
I became blind ; and in my misery
Went groping for them, as I knelt and crawl'd
About the room ; and for three days I call'd
Upon their names, as though they could speak too,
Till famine did what grief had fail'd to do."

Having spoke thus, he seiz'd with fiery eyes
That wretch again, his feast and sacrifice,
And fasten'd on the skull, over a groan,
With teeth as strong as mastiff's on a bone.

Ah, Pisa ! thou that shame and scandal be
To the sweet land that speaks the tongue of Si,
Since Florence spareth thy vile neck the yoke,
Would that the very isles would rise, and choke
Thy river, and drown every soul within
Thy loathsome walls. What if this Ugolin
Did play the traitor, and give up (for so
The rumour runs) thy castles to the foe,
Thou hadst no right to put to rack like this
His children. Childhood innocency is.
But that same innocence, and that man's name,
Have damn'd thee, Pisa, to a Theban fame.