Having spoke thus, he seiz'd with fiery eyes
That wretch again, his feast and sacrifice,
And fasten'd on the skull, over a groan,
With teeth as strong as mastiff's on a bone.
Ah, Pisa! thou that shame and scandal be
To the sweet land that speaks the tongue of Sì.[1]
Since Florence spareth thy vile neck the yoke,
Would that the very isles would rise, and choke
Thy river, and drown every soul within
Thy loathsome walls. What if this Ugolin
Did play the traitor, and give up (for so
The rumour runs) thy castles to the foe,
Thou hadst no right to put to rack like this
His children. Childhood innocency is.
But that same innocence, and that man's name,
Have damn'd thee, Pisa, to a Theban fame?[2]
* * * * *
REAL STORY OF UGOLINO,
AND CHAUCER'S FEELING RESPECTING THE POEM.
Chaucer has told the greater part of this story beautifully in his "Canterbury Tales;" but he had not the heart to finish it. He refers for the conclusion to his original, hight "Dant," the "grete poete of Itaille;" adding, that Dante will not fail his readers a single word—that is to say, not an atom of the cruelty.
Our great gentle-hearted countryman, who tells Fortune that it was
"great cruelty
Such birdes for to put in such a cage,"
adds a touch of pathos in the behaviour of one of the children, which Dante does not seem to have thought of:
"There day by day this child began to cry,
Till in his father's barme (lap) adown he lay;
And said, 'Farewell, father, I muste die,'
And kiss'd his father, and died the same day."