Ruggieri. Why I neighbour him so close,
Now list. That through effect of his ill thoughts
In him my trust reposing, I was ta'en
And after murder'd, need is not I tell.

What therefore thou canst not have heard, that is,
How cruel was the murder, shalt thou hear,
And know if he have wrong'd me.
A small grate
Within that mew, which for my sake the name
Of famine bears, where others yet must pine,
Already through its opening several moons1
Had shown me, when I slept the evil sleep
That from the future tore the curtain off.
This one, methought, as master of the sport,
Rode forth to chase the gaunt wolf, and his whelps,
Unto the mountain2 which forbids the sight
Of Lucca to the Pisan. With lean brachs
Inquisitive and keen, before him ranged
Lanfranchi with Sismondi and Gualandi.
After short course the father and the sons
Seem'd tired and lagging, and methought I saw
The sharp tusks gore their sides. When I awoke,
Before the dawn, amid their sleep I heard
My sons (for they were with me) weep and ask
For bread. Right cruel art thou, if no pang
Thou feel at thinking what my heart foretold;
And if not now, why use thy tears to flow?
Now had they waken'd; and the hour drew near
When they were wont to bring us food; the mind
Of each misgave him through his dream, and I
Heard, at its outlet underneath lock'd up
The horrible tower: whence, uttering not a word
I look'd upon the visage of my sons.

I wept not so all stone I felt within3.

Veltro Allegorico di Dante. Ed. 1826, p. 28, 9. This would render a conjecture, which the same writer elsewhere hazards, still more improbable; that the story might have been written by Dante when the facts were yet recent, and afterwards introduced into his poem. Ibid. p. 96.

Chaucer has briefly told Ugolino's story. See Monke's Tale, Hugeline of Pise.

1 Several moons.] Many editions, and the greater part of the MSS. instead of " più lune," read " più lume" according to which reading Ugolino would say, that the day had broke, and shone through the grated window of the prison, before he fell asleep.

2 Unto the mountain.] The mountain S. Giuliano between Pisa and Lucca.

3 All stone I felt within.] "My heart is turn'd to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand." Shakspeare, Othello, act iv. sc.1.

They wept and one, my little Anselm, cried,
'Thou lookest so! Father, what ails thee?'
I shed no tear, nor answer'd all that day
Nor the next night, until another sun

Yet

Came out upon the world. When a faint beam
Had to our doleful prison made its way,
And in four countenances I descried
The image of my own, on either hand
Through agony I bit; and they, who thought
I did it through desire of feeding, rose

O' the sudden, and cried, 'Father, we should grieve
Far less, if thou wouldst eat of us: thou gavest1
'These weeds of miserable flesh we wear;

And do thou strip them off from us again.'

Then, not to make them sadder, I kept down
My spirit in stillness. That day and the next
We all were silent. Ah, obdurate earth!
Why open'dst not upon us? When we came
To the fourth day, then Gaddo at my feet

Outstretch'd did fling him, crying, Hast no help

For me, my father!' There he died; and e'en Plainly as thou seest me, saw I the three Fall one by one 'twixt the fifth day and sixth : Whence I betook me, now grown blind, to grope Over them all, and for three days aloud Call'd on them who were dead. Then, fasting got The mastery of grief." Thus having spoke, Once more upon the wretched skull his teeth He fasten'd like a mastiff's 'gainst the bone, Firm and unyielding. Oh, thou Pisa! shame Of all the people, who their dwelling make In that fair region2, where the Italian voice

Queste misere carni, e tu le spoglia.

Imitated by Filicaja, Canz. iii.

Di questa Imperial caduca spoglia

Tu, Signor, me vestisti e tu mi spoglia:
Ben puoi 'l Regno me tor tu che me 'l desti.

And by Maffei in the Merope :

Tu disciogleste

Queste misere membra e tu le annodi.

2 In that fair region.]

Del bel paese là, dove 'l sì suona.

Italy, as explained by Dante himself, in his treatise De Vulg. Eloq. lib. i. cap. 8. "Qui autem Si dicunt a prædictis finibus (Januensium) Orientalem (Meridionalis Europæ partem) tenent: videlicet usque ad promontorium illud Italiæ, qua sinus Adriatici maris incipit et Siciliam."

Is heard; since that thy neighbours are so slack
To punish, from their deep foundations rise
Capraia and Gorgona1, and dam up

The mouth of Arno; that each soul in thee
May perish in the waters. What if fame
Reported that thy castles were betray'd
By Ugolino, yet no right hadst thou

To stretch his children on the rack. For them,
Brigata, Uguccione, and the pair

Of gentle ones, of whom my song hath told,
Their tender years, thou modern Thebes, did make
Uncapable of guilt. Onward we pass'd,

Where others, skarf'd in rugged folds of ice,
Not on their feet were turn'd, but each reversed.
There, very weeping suffers not to weep2;
For, at their eyes, grief, seeking passage, finds
Impediment, and rolling inward turns

For increase of sharp anguish the first tears
Hang cluster'd, and like crystal vizors show,
Under the socket brimming all the cup.

66

Now though the cold had from my face dislodged Each feeling, as 't were callous, yet me seem'd Some breath of wind I felt. 'Whence cometh this," Said I, "my Master? Is not here below All vapour quench'd?". "Thou shalt be speedily," He answer'd," where thine eyes shall tell thee The cause descrying of this airy shower." [whence, Then cried out one, in the chill crust who mourn'd: "O souls! so crueì, that the farthest post Hath been assign'd you, from this face remove The harden'd veil; that I may vent the grief Impregnate at my heart, some little space, Ere it congeal again." I thus replied:

Say who thou wast, if thou wouldst have mine aid; And if I extricate thee not, far down

As to the lowest ice may I descend."

"The friar Alberigo," answer'd he,

1 Capraia and Gorgona.] Small islands near the mouth of the Arno.

2 There, very weeping suffers not to weep.]

Lo pianto stesso lì pianger non lascia.

So Giusto de' Conti. Bella Mano. Son. "Quanto il ciel." Che il troppo pianto a me pianger non lassa.

3 The friar Alberigo.] Alberigo de' Manfredi of Faenza, one of the Frati Godenti, Joyous Friars, who having quarreled with some of his brotherhood, under pretence of wishing to be reconciled, invited them to a banquet, at the conclusion of which he called for the fruit, a signal for the

Am I, who from the evil garden pluck'd

Its fruitage, and am here repaid, the date1

More luscious for my fig."-" Hah!" I exclaim'd, "Art thou too dead ?"" How in the world aloft It fareth with my body," answer'd he, "I am right ignorant. Such privilege Hath Ptolomea2, that oft-times the soul3 Drops hither, ere by Atropos divorced.

4

And that thou mayst wipe out more willingly
The glazed tear-drops that o'erlay mine eyes,
Know that the soul, that moment she betrays,
As I did, yields her body to a fiend

Who after moves and governs it at will,
Till all its time be rounded: headlong she
Falls to this cistern. And perchance above
Doth yet appear the body of a ghost,

Who here behind me winters. Him thou know'st,
If thou but newly art arrived below.

The years are many that have past away,
Since to this fastness Branca Doria 5 came."

"Now," answer'd I, "methinks thou mockest me: For Branca Doria never yet hath died, But doth all natural functions of a man,

assassins to rush in and dispatch those whom he had marked for destruction. Hence, adds Landino, it is said proverbially of one who has been stabbed, that he has had some of the friar Alberigo's fruit.

Thus Pulci. Morg. Magg. c. xxv.

Le frutte amare di frate Alberico.

1 The date.]

Come Dio rende dataro per fico.

Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo; 1. iv. cap. xix.

2 Ptolomea.] This circle is named Ptolomea from Ptolemy the son of Abubus, by whom Simon and his sons were murdered, at a great banquet he had made for them. See 1 Maccabees, ch. xvi. Or from Ptolemy, king of Egypt, the betrayer of Pompey the Great.

3 The soul.] Chaucer seems to allude to this in the Frere's Tale, where a fiend assumes the person of a yeoman, and tells the Sompnour that he shall one day come to a place where he shall understand the mystery of such possessions, Bet than Virgile, while he was on live,

Or Dant also.

See Mr. Southey's Tale of Donica.

4 The glazed tear-drops.]

sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears.

Shakspeare, Rich. II. act ii. sc. 2.

5 Branca Doria.] The family of Doria was possessed of great influence in Genoa. Branca is said to have murdered his father-in-law, Michel Zanche, introduced in Canto xxii.

P

Eats, drinks, and sleeps', and putteth raiment on."
He thus: "Not yet unto that upper foss
By th' evil talons guarded, where the pitch
Tenacious boils, had Michel Zanche reach'd,
When this one left a demon in his stead
In his own body, and of one his kin,

Who with him treachery wrought. But now put forth
Thy hand, and ope mine eyes." I oped them not.
Ill manners were best courtesy to him.

Ah Genoese! men perverse in every way, With every foulness stain'd, why from the earth Are ye not cancel'd? Such an one of yours I with Romagna's darkest spirit2 found, As, for his doings, even now in soul Is in Cocytus plunged, and yet doth seem In body still alive upon the earth.

CANTO XXXIV.

ARGUMENT.

In the fourth and last round of the ninth circle, those who have betrayed their benefactors are wholly covered with ice. And in the midst is Lucifer, at whose back Dante and Virgil ascend, till by a secret path they reach the surface of the other hemisphere of the earth, and once more obtain sight of the stars.

"THE banners of Hell's Monarch do come forth Toward us; therefore look," so spake my guide, "If thou discern him." As, when breathes a cloud Heavy and dense, or when the shades of night Fall on our hemisphere, seems view'd from far A windmill, which the blast stirs briskly round; Such was the fabric then methought I saw.

To shield me from the wind, forthwith I drew Behind my guide: no covert else was there.

1 Eats, drinks, and sleeps.]

But 'tis a spirit.

Pro. No, wench, it eats and sleeps, and hath such senses As we have, such. Shakspeare, Tempest, act i. sc. 2.

2 Romagna's darkest spirit.] The friar Alberigo.

3 The banners.]

Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni.

A parody of the first verse in a hymn that was sung by the church in praise of the cross.

4 A windmill.] The author of the Caliph Vathek, in the notes to that tale, justly observes that it is more than probable that Don Quixote's mistake of the windmills for giants was suggested to Cervantes by this simile.