FOOTNOTES:
[797] A baby speech: ‘A tongue that cries mamma and papa’ For his present purpose, he complains, he has not in Italian an adequate supply of rough high-sounding rhymes; but at least he will use only the best words that can be found. In another work (De Vulg. El. ii. 7) he instances mamma and babbo as words of a kind to be avoided by all who would write nobly in Italian.
[798] Amphion: Who with his music charmed rocks from the mountain and heaped them in order for walls to Thebes.
[799] The giant’s feet: Antæus. A bank slopes from where the giants stand inside the wall down to the pit which is filled with the frozen Cocytus. This is the Ninth and inmost Circle, and is divided into four concentric rings—Caïna, Antenora, Ptolomæa, and Judecca—where traitors of different kinds are punished.
[800] Thy steps: Dante alone is addressed, the speaker having seen him set heavily down upon the ice by Antæus.
[801] A frozen lake: Cocytus. See Inf. xiv. 119.
[802] Tabernicch: It is not certain what mountain is here meant; probably Yavornick near Adelsberg in Carniola. It is mentioned, not for its size, but the harshness of its name.
[803] Pietrapana: A mountain between Modena and Lucca, visible from Pisa: Petra Apuana.
[804] Time of year: At harvest-time, when in the warm summer nights the wearied gleaner dreams of her day’s work.
[805] To where we blush: The bodies of the shades are seen buried in the clear glassy ice, out of which their heads and necks stand free—as much as ‘shows shame,’ that is, blushes.
[806] With breast, etc.: As could be seen through the clear ice.
[807] Fettered fast: Binding up their eyes. In the punishment of traitors is symbolised the hardness and coldness of their hearts to all the claims of blood, country, or friendship.
[808] Their father Albert’s: Albert, of the family of the Counts Alberti, lord of the upper valley of the Bisenzio, near Florence. His sons, Alexander and Napoleon, slew one another in a quarrel regarding their inheritance.
[809] Caïna: The outer ring of the Ninth Circle, and that in which are punished those treacherous to their kindred.—Here a place is reserved for Gianciotto Malatesta, the husband of Francesca (Inf. v. 107).
[810] Arthur’s lance: Mordred, natural son of King Arthur, was slain by him in battle as a rebel and traitor. ‘And the history says that after the lance-thrust Girflet plainly saw a ray of the sun pass through the hole of the wound.’—Lancelot du Lac.
[811] Focaccia: A member of the Pistoiese family of Cancellieri, in whose domestic feuds the parties of Whites and Blacks took rise. He assassinated one of his relatives and cut off the hand of another.
[812] Sassol Mascheroni: Of the Florentine family of the Toschi. He murdered his nephew, of whom by some accounts he was the guardian. For this crime he was punished by being rolled through the streets of Florence in a cask and then beheaded. Every Tuscan would be familiar with the story of such a punishment.
[813] Camicion de’ Pazzi: To distinguish the Pazzi to whom Camicione belonged from the Pazzi of Florence they were called the Pazzi of Valdarno, where their possessions lay. Like his fellow-traitors he had slain a kinsman.
[814] Carlin: Also one of the Pazzi of Valdarno. Like all the spirits in this circle Camicione is eager to betray the treachery of others, and prophesies the guilt of his still living relative, which is to cast his own villany into the shade. In 1302 or 1303 Carlino held the castle of Piano de Trevigne in Valdarno, where many of the exiled Whites of Florence had taken refuge, and for a bribe he betrayed it to the enemy.
[815] The centre: The bottom of Inferno is the centre of the earth, and, on the system of Ptolemy, the central point of the universe.
[816] Montaperti: See Inf. x. 86. The speaker is Bocca, of the great Florentine family of the Abati, who served as one of the Florentine cavaliers at Montaperti. When the enemy was charging towards the standard of the Republican cavalry Bocca aimed a blow at the arm of the knight who bore it and cut off his hand. The sudden fall of the flag disheartened the Florentines, and in great measure contributed to the defeat.
[817] Cleared of doubt: The mention of Montaperti in this place of traitors suggests to Dante the thought of Bocca. He would fain be sure as to whether he has the traitor at his feet. Montaperti was never very far from the thoughts of the Florentine of that day. It is never out of Bocca’s mind.
[818] Antenora: The second ring of the Ninth Circle, where traitors to their country are punished, named after Antenor the Trojan prince who, according to the belief of the middle ages, betrayed his native city to the Greeks.
[819] Should I thy name, etc.: ‘Should I put thy name among the other notes.’ It is the last time that Dante is to offer such a bribe; and here the offer is most probably ironical.
[820] Not silent keep, etc.: Like all the other traitors Bocca finds his only pleasure in betraying his neighbours.
[821] The Frenchmen’s money: He who had betrayed the name of Bocca was Buoso of Duera, one of the Ghibeline chiefs of Cremona. When Guy of Montfort was leading an army across Lombardy to recruit Charles of Anjou in his war against Manfred in 1265 (Inf. xxviii. 16 and Purg. iii.), Buoso, who had been left to guard the passage of the Oglio, took a bribe to let the French army pass.
[822] Beccheria: Tesauro of the Pavian family Beccheria, Abbot of Vallombrosa and legate in Florence of Pope Alexander IV. He was accused of conspiring against the Commonwealth along with the exiled Ghibelines (1258). All Europe was shocked to hear that a great churchman had been tortured and beheaded by the Florentines. The city was placed under Papal interdict, proclaimed by the Archbishop of Pisa from the tower of S. Pietro in Vincoli at Rome. Villani seems to think the Abbot was innocent of the charge brought against him (Cron. vi. 65), but he always leans to the indulgent view when a priest is concerned.
[823] Soldanieri: Deserted from the Florentine Ghibelines after the defeat of Manfred.
[824] Ganellon: Whose treacherous counsel led to the defeat of Roland at Roncesvalles.
[825] Tribaldello: A noble of Faenza, who, as one account says, to revenge himself for the loss of a pig, sent a cast of the key of the city gate to John of Apia, then prowling about Romagna in the interest of the French Pope, Martin IV. He was slain at the battle of Forlì in 1282 (Inf. xxvii. 43).
[826] Frozen in a hole, etc.: The two are the Count Ugolino and the Archbishop Roger.
[827] Tydeus: One of the Seven against Thebes, who, having been mortally wounded by Menalippus the Theban, whom he slew, got his friends to bring him the head of his foe and gnawed at it with his teeth. Dante found the incident in his favourite author Statius (Theb. viii.).
[828] I in the world, etc.: Dante has learned from Bocca that the prospect of having their memory refreshed on earth has no charm for the sinners met with here. The bribe he offers is that of loading the name of a foe with ignominy—but only if from the tale it shall be plain that the ignominy is deserved.
CANTO XXXIII.
His mouth uplifting from the savage feast,
The sinner[829] rubbed and wiped it free of gore
On the hair of the head he from behind laid waste;
And then began: ‘Thou’dst have me wake once more
A desperate grief, of which to think alone,
Ere I have spoken, wrings me to the core.
But if my words shall be as seed that sown
May fructify unto the traitor’s shame
Whom thus I gnaw, I mingle speech[830] and groan.
Of how thou earnest hither or thy name10
I nothing know, but that a Florentine[831]
In very sooth thou art, thy words proclaim.
Thou then must know I was Count Ugolin,
The Archbishop Roger[832] he. Now hearken well
Why I prove such a neighbour. How in fine,
And flowing from his ill designs, it fell
That I, confiding in his words, was caught
Then done to death, were waste of time[833] to tell.
But that of which as yet thou heardest nought
Is how the death was cruel which I met:20
Hearken and judge if wrong to me he wrought.
Scant window in the mew whose epithet
Of Famine[834] came from me its resident,
And cooped in which shall many languish yet,
Had shown me through its slit how there were spent
Full many moons,[835] ere that bad dream I dreamed
When of my future was the curtain rent.
Lord of the hunt and master this one seemed,
Chasing the wolf and wolf-cubs on the height[836]
By which from Pisan eyes is Lucca hemmed.30
With famished hounds well trained and swift of flight,
Lanfranchi[837] and Gualandi in the van,
And Sismond he had set. Within my sight
Both sire and sons—nor long the chase—began
To grow (so seemed it) weary as they fled;
Then through their flanks fangs sharp and eager ran.
When I awoke before the morning spread
I heard my sons[838] all weeping in their sleep—
For they were with me—and they asked for bread.
Ah! cruel if thou canst from pity keep40
At the bare thought of what my heart foreknew;
And if thou weep’st not, what could make thee weep?
Now were they ’wake, and near the moment drew
At which ’twas used to bring us our repast;
But each was fearful[839] lest his dream came true.
And then I heard the under gate[840] made fast
Of the horrible tower, and thereupon I gazed
In my sons’ faces, silent and aghast.
I did not weep, for I to stone was dazed:
They wept, and darling Anselm me besought:50
“What ails thee, father? Wherefore thus amazed?”
And yet I did not weep, and answered not
The whole day, and that night made answer none,
Till on the world another sun shone out.
Soon as a feeble ray of light had won
Into our doleful prison, made aware
Of the four faces[841] featured like my own,
Both of my hands I bit at in despair;
And they, imagining that I was fain
To eat, arose before me with the prayer:60
“O father, ’twere for us an easier pain
If thou wouldst eat us. Thou didst us array
In this poor flesh: unclothe us now again.”
I calmed me, not to swell their woe. That day
And the next day no single word we said.
Ah! pitiless earth, that didst unyawning stay!
When we had reached the fourth day, Gaddo, spread
Out at my feet, fell prone; and made demand:
“Why, O my father, offering us no aid?”
There died he. Plain as I before thee stand70
I saw the three as one by one they failed,
The fifth day and the sixth; then with my hand,
Blind now, I groped for each of them, and wailed
On them for two days after they were gone.
Famine[842] at last, more strong than grief, prevailed,’
When he had uttered this, his eyes all thrown
Awry, upon the hapless skull he fell
With teeth that, dog-like, rasped upon the bone.
Ah, Pisa! byword of the folk that dwell
In the sweet country where the Si[843] doth sound,80
Since slow thy neighbours to reward thee well
Let now Gorgona and Capraia[844] mound
Themselves where Arno with the sea is blent,
Till every one within thy walls be drowned.
For though report of Ugolino went
That he betrayed[845] thy castles, thou didst wrong
Thus cruelly his children to torment.
These were not guilty, for they were but young,
Thou modern Thebes![846] Brigata and young Hugh,
And the other twain of whom above ’tis sung.90
We onward passed to where another crew[847]
Of shades the thick-ribbed ice doth fettered keep;
Their heads not downward these, but backward threw.
Their very weeping will not let them weep,
And grief, encountering barriers at their eyes,
Swells, flowing inward, their affliction deep;
For the first tears that issue crystallise,
And fill, like vizor fashioned out of glass,
The hollow cup o’er which the eyebrows rise.
And though, as ’twere a callus, now my face100
By reason of the frost was wholly grown
Benumbed and dead to feeling, I could trace
(So it appeared), a breeze against it blown,
And asked: ‘O Master, whence comes this? So low
As where we are is any vapour[848] known?’
And he replied: ‘Thou ere long while shalt go
Where touching this thine eye shall answer true,
Discovering that which makes the wind to blow.’
Then from the cold crust one of that sad crew
Demanded loud: ‘Spirits, for whom they hold110
The inmost room, so truculent were you,
Back from my face let these hard veils be rolled,
That I may vent the woe which chokes my heart,
Ere tears again solidify with cold.’
And I to him: ‘First tell me who thou art
If thou’dst have help; then if I help not quick
To the bottom[849] of the ice let me depart.’
He answered: ‘I am Friar Alberic[850]—
He of the fruit grown in the orchard fell—
And here am I repaid with date for fig.’120
‘Ah!’ said I to him, ‘art thou dead as well?’
‘How now my body fares,’ he answered me,
‘Up in the world, I have no skill to tell;
For Ptolomæa[851] has this quality—
The soul oft plunges hither to its place
Ere it has been by Atropos[852] set free.
And that more willingly from off my face
Thou mayst remove the glassy tears, know, soon
As ever any soul of man betrays
As I betrayed, the body once his own130
A demon takes and governs until all
The span allotted for his life be run.
Into this tank headlong the soul doth fall;
And on the earth his body yet may show
Whose shade behind me wintry frosts enthral.
But thou canst tell, if newly come below:
It is Ser Branca d’Oria,[853] and complete
Is many a year since he was fettered so.’
‘It seems,’ I answered, ‘that thou wouldst me cheat,
For Branca d’Oria never can have died:140
He sleeps, puts clothes on, swallows drink and meat.’
‘Or e’er to the tenacious pitchy tide
Which boils in Malebranche’s moat had come
The shade of Michael Zanche,’ he replied,
‘That soul had left a devil in its room
Within its body; of his kinsmen one[854]
Treacherous with him experienced equal doom.
But stretch thy hand and be its work begun
Of setting free mine eyes.’ This did not I.
Twas highest courtesy to yield him none.[855]150
Ah, Genoese,[856] strange to morality!
Ye men infected with all sorts of sin!
Out of the world ’tis time that ye should die.
Here, to Romagna’s blackest soul[857] akin,
I chanced on one of you; for doing ill
His soul o’erwhelmed Cocytus’ floods within,
Though in the flesh he seems surviving still.