Inferno: Canto XXXIII
His mouth uplifted
from his grim repast,
That
sinner, wiping it upon the hair
Of the same head that he behind had wasted.
Then he began:
"Thou wilt that I renew
The
desperate grief, which wrings my heart already
To think of only, ere I speak of it;
But if my words be
seed that may bear fruit
Of
infamy to the traitor whom I gnaw,
Speaking and weeping shalt thou see together.
I know not who thou
art, nor by what mode
Thou
hast come down here; but a Florentine
Thou seemest to me truly, when I hear thee.
Thou hast to know I
was Count Ugolino,
And
this one was Ruggieri the Archbishop;
Now I will tell thee why I am such a neighbour.
That, by effect of
his malicious thoughts,
Trusting
in him I was made prisoner,
And after put to death, I need not say;
But ne'ertheless
what thou canst not have heard,
That
is to say, how cruel was my death,
Hear shalt thou, and shalt know if he has wronged me.
A narrow
perforation in the mew,
Which
bears because of me the title of Famine,
And in which others still must be locked up,
Had shown me
through its opening many moons
Already,
when I dreamed the evil dream
Which of the future rent for me the veil.
This one appeared
to me as lord and master,
Hunting
the wolf and whelps upon the mountain
For which the Pisans cannot Lucca see.
With sleuth-hounds
gaunt, and eager, and well trained,
Gualandi
with Sismondi and Lanfianchi
He had sent out before him to the front.
After brief course
seemed unto me forespent
The
father and the sons, and with sharp tushes
It seemed to me I saw their flanks ripped open.
When I before the
morrow was awake,
Moaning
amid their sleep I heard my sons
Who with me were, and asking after bread.
Cruel indeed art
thou, if yet thou grieve not,
Thinking
of what my heart foreboded me,
And weep'st thou not, what art thou wont to weep at?
They were awake
now, and the hour drew nigh
At
which our food used to be brought to us,
And through his dream was each one apprehensive;
And I heard locking
up the under door
Of
the horrible tower; whereat without a word
I gazed into the faces of my sons.
I wept not, I
within so turned to stone;
They
wept; and darling little Anselm mine
Said: 'Thou dost gaze so, father, what doth ail thee?'
Still not a tear I
shed, nor answer made
All
of that day, nor yet the night thereafter,
Until another sun rose on the world.
As now a little
glimmer made its way
Into
the dolorous prison, and I saw
Upon four faces my own very aspect,
Both of my hands in
agony I bit;
And,
thinking that I did it from desire
Of eating, on a sudden they uprose,
And said they:
'Father, much less pain 'twill give us
If
thou do eat of us; thyself didst clothe us
With this poor flesh, and do thou strip it off.'
I calmed me then,
not to make them more sad.
That
day we all were silent, and the next.
Ah! obdurate earth, wherefore didst thou not open?
When we had come
unto the fourth day, Gaddo
Threw
himself down outstretched before my feet,
Saying, 'My father, why dost thou not help me?'
And there he died;
and, as thou seest me,
I
saw the three fall, one by one, between
The fifth day and the sixth; whence I betook me,
Already blind, to
groping over each,
And
three days called them after they were dead;
Then hunger did what sorrow could not do."
When he had said
this, with his eyes distorted,
The
wretched skull resumed he with his teeth,
Which, as a dog's, upon the bone were strong.
Ah! Pisa, thou
opprobrium of the people
Of
the fair land there where the 'Si' doth sound,
Since slow to punish thee thy neighbours are,
Let the Capraia and
Gorgona move,
And
make a hedge across the mouth of Arno
That every person in thee it may drown!
For if Count
Ugolino had the fame
Of
having in thy castles thee betrayed,
Thou shouldst not on such cross have put his sons.
Guiltless of any
crime, thou modern Thebes!
Their
youth made Uguccione and Brigata,
And the other two my song doth name above!
We passed still
farther onward, where the ice
Another
people ruggedly enswathes,
Not downward turned, but all of them reversed.
Weeping itself
there does not let them weep,
And
grief that finds a barrier in the eyes
Turns itself inward to increase the anguish;
Because the
earliest tears a cluster form,
And,
in the manner of a crystal visor,
Fill all the cup beneath the eyebrow full.
And notwithstanding
that, as in a callus,
Because
of cold all sensibility
Its station had abandoned in my face,
Still it appeared
to me I felt some wind;
Whence
I: "My Master, who sets this in motion?
Is not below here every vapour quenched?"
Whence he to me:
"Full soon shalt thou be where
Thine
eye shall answer make to thee of this,
Seeing the cause which raineth down the blast."
And one of the
wretches of the frozen crust
Cried
out to us: "O souls so merciless
That the last post is given unto you,
Lift from mine eyes
the rigid veils, that I
May
vent the sorrow which impregns my heart
A little, e'er the weeping recongeal."
Whence I to him:
"If thou wouldst have me help thee
Say
who thou wast; and if I free thee not,
May I go to the bottom of the ice."
Then he replied: "I
am Friar Alberigo;
He
am I of the fruit of the bad garden,
Who here a date am getting for my fig."
"O," said I to him,
"now art thou, too, dead?"
And
he to me: "How may my body fare
Up in the world, no knowledge I possess.
Such an advantage
has this Ptolomaea,
That
oftentimes the soul descendeth here
Sooner than Atropos in motion sets it.
And, that thou
mayest more willingly remove
From
off my countenance these glassy tears,
Know that as soon as any soul betrays
As I have done, his
body by a demon
Is
taken from him, who thereafter rules it,
Until his time has wholly been revolved.
Itself down rushes
into such a cistern;
And
still perchance above appears the body
Of yonder shade, that winters here behind me.
This thou shouldst
know, if thou hast just come down;
It
is Ser Branca d' Oria, and many years
Have passed away since he was thus locked up."
"I think," said I
to him, "thou dost deceive me;
For
Branca d' Oria is not dead as yet,
And eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and puts on clothes."
"In moat above,"
said he, "of Malebranche,
There
where is boiling the tenacious pitch,
As yet had Michel Zanche not arrived,
When this one left
a devil in his stead
In
his own body and one near of kin,
Who made together with him the betrayal.
But hitherward
stretch out thy hand forthwith,
Open
mine eyes;"--and open them I did not,
And to be rude to him was courtesy.
Ah, Genoese! ye men
at variance
With
every virtue, full of every vice
Wherefore are ye not scattered from the world?
For with the vilest
spirit of Romagna
I
found of you one such, who for his deeds
In soul already in Cocytus bathes,
And still above in
body seems alive!