[1] Bocca degli Abati, the most noted of Florentine traitors, who in the heat of the battle of Mont’ Aperti, in 1260, cut off the hand of the standard-bearer of the cavalry, so that the standard fell, and the Guelphs of Florence, disheartened thereby, were put to rout with frightful slaughter.
[2] Buoso da Duera of Cremona, who, for a bribe, let pass near Parma, without resistance, the cavalry of Charles of Anjou, led by Gui de Montfort to the conquest of Naples in 1265.
[3] Tesauro de’ Beccheria, Abbot of Vallombrosa, and Papal Legato, beheaded by the Florentines in 1258, because of his treacherous dealings with the exiled Ghibellines.
[4] A Ghibelline leader, who, after the defeat of Manfred in 1266, plotted against his own party.
[5] Ganellon, the traitor who brought about the defeat at Roncesvalles.
[6] He betrayed Faenza to the French, in 1282.
We had now parted from him when I saw two frozen in one hole, so that the head of one was a hood for the other. And as bread is devoured in hunger, so the uppermost one set his teeth upon the other where the brain joins with the nape. Not otherwise Tydeus gnawed for spite the temples of Menalippus than this one did the skull and the other parts. “O thou! that by so bestial a sign showest hatred against him whom thou dost eat, tell me the wherefore,” said I, “with this compact, that if thou rightfully of him complainest, I, knowing who ye are, and his sin, may yet recompense thee for it in the world above, if that with which I speak be not dried up.”
CANTO XXXIII.
Ninth circle: traitors. Second ring: Antenora.—Count Ugolino.—Third ring Ptolomaea.—Brother Alberigo. Branca d’ Oria.
From his savage repast that sinner raised his mouth, wiping it with the hair of the head that he had spoiled behind: then he began, “Thou willest that I renew a desperate grief that oppresses my heart already only in thinking ere I speak of it. But, if my words are to be seed that may bear fruit of infamy for the traitor whom I gnaw, thou shalt see me speak and weep at once. I know not who thou art, nor by what mode thou art come down hither, but Florentine thou seemest to me truly when I hear thee. Thou hast to know that I was the Count Ugolino and he the Archbishop Ruggieri.[1] Now will I tell thee why I am such a neighbor. That by the effect of his evil thoughts, I, trusting to him, was taken and then put to death, there is no need to tell. But that which thou canst not have heard, namely, how cruel was my death, thou shalt hear, and shalt know if he hath wronged me.