Canto XXXIII
Canto XXXIII
English Edition, translated by Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow
| 1 | His mouth uplifted from his grim repast, |
| 2 | That sinner, wiping it upon the hair |
| 3 | Of the same head that he behind had wasted. |
| 4 | Then he began: Thou wilt that I renew |
| 5 | The desperate grief, which wrings my heart already |
| 6 | To think of only, ere I speak of it; |
| 7 | But if my words be seed that may bear fruit |
| 8 | Of infamy to the traitor whom I gnaw, |
| 9 | Speaking and weeping shalt thou see together. |
| 10 | I know not who thou art, nor by what mode |
| 11 | Thou hast come down here; but a Florentine |
| 12 | Thou seemest to me truly, when I hear thee. |
| 13 | Thou hast to know I was Count Ugolino, |
| 14 | And this one was Ruggieri the Archbishop; |
| 15 | Now I will tell thee why I am such a neighbour. |
| 16 | That, by effect of his malicious thoughts |
| 17 | Trusting in him I was made prisoner, |
| 18 | And after put to death, I need not say; |
| 19 | But ne'ertheless what thou canst not have heard, |
| 20 | That is to say, how cruel was my death, |
| 21 | Hear shalt thou, and shalt know if he has wronged me. |
| 22 | A narrow perforation in the mew, |
| 23 | Which bears because of me the title of Famine, |
| 24 | And in which others still must be locked up, |
| 25 | Had shown me through its opening many moons |
| 26 | Already, when I dreamed the evil dream |
| 27 | Which of the future rent for me the veil. |
| 28 | This one appeared to me as lord and master, |
| 29 | Hunting the wolf and whelps upon the mountain |
| 30 | For which the Pisans cannot Lucca see. |
| 31 | With sleuth-hounds gaunt, and eager, and well trained, |
| 32 | Gualandi with Sismondi and Lanfranchi |
| 33 | He had sent out before him to the front |
| 34 | After brief course seemed unto me forespent |
| 35 | The father and the sons, and with sharp tushes |
| 36 | It seemed to me I saw their flanks ripped open. |
| 37 | When I before the morrow was awake, |
| 38 | Moaning amid their sleep I heard my sons |
| 39 | Who with me were, and asking after bread. |
| 40 | Cruel indeed art thou, if yet thou grieve not, |
| 41 | Thinking of what my heart foreboded me, |
| 42 | And weep'st thou not, what art thou wont to weep at? |
| 43 | They were awake now, and the hour drew nigh |
| 44 | At which our food used to be brought to us, |
| 45 | And through his dream was each one apprehensive; |
| 46 | And I heard locking up the under door |
| 47 | Of the horrible tower; whereat without a word |
| 48 | I gazed into the faces of my sons. |
| 49 | I wept not, I within so turned to stone; |
| 50 | They wept; and darling little Anselm mine |
| 51 | Said:'Thou dost gaze so, father, what doth ail thee?' |
| 52 | Still not a tear I shed, nor answer made |
| 53 | All of that day, nor yet the night thereafter, |
| 54 | Until another sun rose on the world. |
| 55 | As now a little glimmer made its way |
| 56 | Into the dolorous prison, and I saw |
| 57 | Upon four faces my own very aspect |
| 58 | Both of my hands in agony I bit, |
| 59 | And, thinking that I did it from desire |
| 60 | Of eating, on a sudden they uprose, |
| 61 | And said they:'Father, much less pain 'twill give us |
| 62 | If thou do eat of us; thyself didst clothe us |
| 63 | With this poor flesh, and do thou strip it off.' |
| 64 | I calmed me then, not to make them more sad. |
| 65 | That day we all were silent, and the next. |
| 66 | Ah!obdurate earth, wherefore didst thou not open? |
| 67 | When we had come unto the fourth day, Gaddo |
| 68 | Threw himself down outstretched before my feet, |
| 69 | Saying,'My father, why dost thou not help me?' |
| 70 | And there he died; and, as thou seest me, |
| 71 | I saw the three fall, one by one, between |
| 72 | The fifth day and the sixth; whence I betook me, |
| 73 | Already blind,to groping over each, |
| 74 | And three days called them after they were dead; |
| 75 | Then hunger did what sorrow could not do. |
| 76 | When he had said this, with his eyes distorted, |
| 77 | The wretched skull resumed he with his teeth, |
| 78 | Which, as a dog's, upon the bone were strong. |
| 79 | Ah! Pisa, thou opprobrium of the people |
| 80 | Of the fair land there where the Si doth sound, |
| 81 | Since slow to punish thee thy neighbours are, |
| 82 | Let the Capraia and Gorgona move, |
| 83 | And make a hedge across the mouth of Arno |
| 84 | That every person in thee it may drown! |
| 85 | For if Count Ugolino had the fame |
| 86 | Of having in thy castles thee betrayed, |
| 87 | Thou shouldst not on such cross have put his sons. |
| 88 | Guiltless of any crime, thou modern Thebes! |
| 89 | Their youth made Uguccione and Brigata, |
| 90 | And the other two my song doth name above! |
| 91 | We passed still farther onward, where the ice |
| 92 | Another people ruggedly enswathes, |
| 93 | Not downward turned, but all of them reversed. |
| 94 | Weeping itself there does not let them weep, |
| 95 | An(l grief that finds a barrier in the eyes |
| 96 | Turns itself inward to increase the anguish; |
| 97 | Because the earliest tears a cluster form, |
| 98 | And, in the manner of a crystal visor, |
| 99 | Fill all the cup beneath the eyebrow full. |
| 100 | And notwithstanding that, as in a callus, |
| 101 | Because of cold all sensibility |
| 102 | Its station had abandoned in my face, |
| 103 | Still it appeared to me I felt some wind; |
| 104 | Whence I: My Master, who sets this in motion? |
| 105 | Is not below here every vapour quenched? |
| 106 | Whence he to me: Full soon shalt thou be where |
| 107 | Thine eye shall answer make to thee of this, |
| 108 | Seeing the cause which raineth down the blast. |
| 109 | And one of the wretches of the frozen crust |
| 110 | Cried out to us: O souls so merciless |
| 111 | That the last post is given unto you, |
| 112 | Lift from mine eyes the rigid veils, that I |
| 113 | May vent the sorrow which impregns my heart |
| 114 | A little, e'er the weeping recongeal. |
| 115 | Whence I to him: If thou wouldst have me help thee |
| 116 | Say who thou wast; and if I free thee not, |
| 117 | May I go to the bottom of the ice. |
| 118 | Then he replied: I am Friar Alberigo; |
| 119 | He am I of the fruit of the bad garden, |
| 120 | Who here a date am getting for my fig. |
| 121 | O,said I to him, now art thou, too, dead? |
| 122 | And he to me: How may my body fare |
| 123 | Up in the world, no knowledge I possess. |
| 124 | Such an advantage has this Ptolomaea, |
| 125 | That oftentimes the soul descendeth here |
| 126 | Sooner than Atropos in motion sets it. |
| 127 | And, that thou mayest more willingly remove |
| 128 | From off my countenance these glassy tears, |
| 129 | Know that as soon as any soul betrays |
| 130 | As I have done, his body by a demon |
| 131 | Is taken from him, who thereafter rules it, |
| 132 | Until his time has wholly been revolved. |
| 133 | Itself down rushes into such a cistern; |
| 134 | And still perchance above appears the body |
| 135 | Of yonder shade, that winters here behind me. |
| 136 | This thou shouldst know, if thou hast just come down; |
| 137 | It is Ser Branca d' Oria, and many years |
| 138 | Have passed away since he was thus locked up. |
| 139 | I think, said I to him,thou dost deceive me; |
| 140 | For Branca d' Oria is not dead as yet, |
| 141 | And eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and puts on clothes. |
| 142 | In moat above,said he,of Malebranche, |
| 143 | There where is boiling the tenacious pitch, |
| 144 | As yet had Michel Zanche not arrived, |
| 145 | When this one left a devil in his stead |
| 146 | In his own body and one near of kin, |
| 147 | Who made together with him the betrayal. |
| 148 | But hitherward stretch out thy hand forthwith, |
| 149 | Open mine eyes ;--and open them I did not, |
| 150 | And to be rude to him was courtesy. |
| 151 | Ah, Genoese ! ye men at variance |
| 152 | With every virtue, full of every vice |
| 153 | Wherefore are ye not scattered from the world |
| 154 | For with the vilest spirit of Romagna |
| 155 | I found of you one such, who for his deeds |
| 156 | In soul already in Cocytus bathes, |
| 157 | And still above in body seems alive! |