[830] Mingle speech, etc.: A comparison of these words with those of Francesca (Inf. v. 124) will show the difference in moral tone between the Second Circle of Inferno and the Ninth.
[831] A Florentine: So Farinata (Inf. x. 25) recognises Dante by his Florentine speech. The words heard by Ugo are those at xxxii. 133.
[832] The Archbishop Roger: Ruggieri, of the Tuscan family of the Ubaldini, to which the Cardinal of Inf. x. 120 also belonged. Towards the end of his life he was summoned to Rome to give an account of his evil deeds, and on his refusal to go was declared a rebel to the Church. Ugolino was a traitor to his country; Roger, having entered into some sort of alliance with Ugolino, was a traitor to him. This has led some to suppose that while Ugolino is in Antenora he is so close to the edge of it as to be able to reach the head of Roger, who, as a traitor to his friend, is fixed in Ptolomæa. Against this view is the fact that they are described as being in the same hole (xxxii. 125), and also that in Ptolomæa the shades are set with head thrown back, and with only the face appearing above the ice, while Ugo is described as biting his foe at where the skull joins the nape. From line 91 it is clear that Ptolomæa lay further on than where Roger is. Like Ugo he is therefore here as a traitor to his country.
[833] Were waste, etc.: For Dante knows it already, all Tuscany being familiar with the story of Ugo’s fate.
[834] Whose epithet of Famine: It was called the Tower of Famine. Its site is now built over. Buti, the old Pisan commentator of Dante, says it was called the Mew because the eagles of the Republic were kept in it at moulting-time. But this may have been an after-thought to give local truth to Dante’s verse, which it does at the expense of the poetry.
[835] Many moons: The imprisonment having already lasted for eight months.
[836] The height, etc.: Lucca is about twelve miles from Pisa, Mount Giuliano rising between them.
[837] Lanfranchi, etc.: In the dream, these, the chief Ghibeline families of Pisa, are the huntsmen, Roger being master of the hunt, and the populace the hounds. Ugo and his sons and grandsons are the wolf and wolf-cubs. In Ugo’s dream of himself as a wolf there may be an allusion to his having engaged in the Guelf interest.
[838] My sons: According to Dante, taken literally, four of Ugo were imprisoned with him. It would have hampered him to explain that two were grandsons—Anselmuccio and Nino, called the Brigata at line 89, grandsons by their mother of King Enzo, natural son of Frederick II.—the sons being Gaddo and Uguccione, the latter Ugo’s youngest son.
[839] Each was fearful, etc.: All the sons had been troubled by dreams of famine. Had their rations been already reduced?