Inferno:
Canto XXXIII
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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 v
ice
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!
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