Inferno: Canto XXXIII

His mouth that sinner from his fierce repast
Uplifted then, and wiped it on the hair
Of that same head that he behind laid waste,

And then began: " Anew thou bidd'st me bear
The desperate sorrows on my heart that weigh,'
Even in thought, while I from speech forbear;

But, if my words as seed their part shall play
To bear the fruit of shame to him I eat.
My tears and words shall mingled find their way.

I know not who thou art, nor how thy feet
Are led below, but, as thy speech I hear,
Thou seem'st to me a Florentine complete.

Know then thou see'st Count Ugolino here.
And this the Archbishop Ruggieri is;
Now list why such a neighbour I appear.

That I by work of evil thoughts of his.
Trusting to him, was first a prisoner made,
And after killed, no need to tell thee this;

But what before thee cannot have been laid,
That is, how sharp and dread my death has been,
Thou now shalt hear; then let my wrongs be weighed.

A little window, that hawk's-cage within,
Which now through me as Hunger's Tower is known
(And others too its gates shall enter in).

Through its small aperture to me had shown
Full many a moon, when I dreamt ill dream true,
In which the future's veil aside was thrown.

I saw this lord and chief his prey pursue,
Chasing the wolf and wolf-cubs on the hill
Which hideth Lucca from the Pisans' view,

With hungry hounds well-trained, of eager will:
Gualandi and Lanfranchi and Sismond'
He had there set the foremost place to fill.

A little while, and sire and sons were found,
So seemed it, wearied out; fangs sharp and dread
Upon their flanks made many a horrid wound.

When I awoke, ere yet the night had fled,
Still in their sleep I heard my children wail,
Who there were with me, crying out for bread.

Full hard art thou, if grief shall not prevail
To touch thee, thinking what my heart did cry;
When canst thou weep, if now to weep thou fail?

Already they had waked; the hour drew nigh
Till which they had been wont for food to wait,
And each one's dream brought sore perplexity.

I heard the locking of the lower gate
Of that dread tower, and then awhile I stared
In my sons' faces, speechless, desolate.

I wept not; all within as stone grew hard.
They wept, and then my Anselmuccio said,
'What ails thee, father? Why this fixed regard?'

And still I shed no tear, nor answer made
All that long day, nor yet the following night,
Till the next sun was o'er the world displayed;

And when there came a little ray of light
Into the dolorous prison, and I knew
My own face by four faces' piteous plight;

Then both my hands in anguish I gnawed through.
And they, who deemed that hunger did constrain
To eat, rose up with one accord to sue,

And said, 'O father, less will be our pain
If thou eat us; thou didst these frames array
With this poor flesh, now strip it off again.

I calmed me then their anguish to allay;
That day, and then the next, we all were dumb:
Hard earth, why opened not thy depths that day?

And when unto the fourth day we had come,
Gaddo lay stretched before my feet, and cried,
'Why, father, help'st thou not?' and there, in sum.

He died; and as thou see'st me, so I eyed
The three fall down, and perish one by one,
The fifth day and the sixth, and then I tried.

Already blind, to grope o'er them alone.
And three days called them after they were dead;
Then even grief by hunger was outdone.""

Then, with his eyes askance, as this he said.
On that poor skull he gripped his teeth full well,
Which, like a dog's, upon the bare bone fed.

Ah Pisa! shame and blot of all that dwell
In that fair country where the Si doth sound;
Since neighbour states work not their vengeance fell,

Let Caprai' and Gorgona shift their ground,
And make a dam for Arno's issuing tide,
So that each living soul in thee be drowned!

For e'en if Ugolino rumour wide
Did charge with guilt of citadels betrayed.
Not by such torture should his sons have died.

Guiltless of crimes their tender age them made,
(O thou new Thebes!), Brigat', Uguccion,
And those whose names my song above hath said.

Then by the frozen pool our steps passed on.
Where it binds fast another people yet.
Not downward bent, but upward turned each one.

Weeping itself makes them to weep forget.
And grief, which finds a barrier in their eyes,
Is turned within new anguish to beget;

For the first tears that flow grow cluster-wise.
And, like a visor all of crystal made,
Fill all the socket whence the eyebrows rise,

And though, with horny numbness overlaid
Through the sharp cold, the very nerves of sense
Seemed all from out my countenance to fade.

Yet thought I that I felt a wind somewhence.
So I: " O Master, who this air doth move?
Are not all vapours banished far from hence?"

Then he to me: " Full soon thine eyes shall prove,
Thyself being there, the very answer true.
Beholding what this wind doth stir above."

And one of that ice-bound and wretched crew
Cried to us; " O ye spirits harsh and proud,
So that the lowest place is given to you,

Lift for me from mine eyes this icy cloud.
A moment let my burdened heart find vent,
Before my tears renew their frozen shroud."

Then I: "If thou upon my help are bent,
Say who thou art; unless I free thine eye,
May I go down this ice-pool's deep descent!"

Then he replied: " Fra Alberigo I,
Known by the fruits in evil garden bred,
Now date for fig is paid me where I lie."

"Oh!" said I to him, "now art thou too dead?"
And he to me: " How my poor carcase fares
Up in the world, all knowledge now hath fled.

This privilege our Ptolomaea bears,
That oftentimes the spirit falls below,
Ere Atropos hath plied her fatal shears.

And that thou may'st more willingly bid flow
The frozen tears, and scrape them from my face,
Learn that as soon as men deal treacherous blow.

As I have done, their frame is seized apace
By demon's power, who henceforth it doth guide,
Till life has measured its appointed space:

To such a pit as this it then doth glide;
And so, perchance, his body still is seen
Above, whose soul is freezing at my side.

This, if thou'rt just come down, thou know'st, I ween;
Ser Branca d'Oria he, and many a year
Has passed since he a prisoner here hath been."

"I trow," said I, " that thou deceiv'st me here.
For Branca d'Oria is as yet not dead;
He eats and drinks and sleeps and clothes doth wear."

"In moat above of Malebranche dread,"
Said he, "where clammy pitch doth boil alway.
Not yet had Michael Zanche shown his head.

When this man in his place left fiend to stay
In his own body, and a kinsman's too,
Who with him chose the traitor's part to play.

But hither stretch thine hand to me who sue;
Open mine eyes." And I — I oped them not,
For to cheat him was chivalrous and true.

Ha! ha! ye Genoese, ye strange bad lot,
Ill-mannered, full of every purpose vile.
Why doth the world not cast you out to rot?

For with Romagna's soul most steeped in guile.
One of yourselves, yea, such an one I found,
Whose soul now in Cocytus bathes, the while

He seems in flesh to live above the ground.