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 name 10 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 keep 40 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 stand 70 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 face 100 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 hold 110 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 own 130 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.

NOTE ON THE COUNT UGOLINO.

Ugolino della Gherardesca, Count of Donoratico, a wealthy noble and a man fertile in political resource, was deeply engaged in the affairs of Pisa at a critical period of her history. He was born in the first half of the thirteenth century. By giving one of his daughters in marriage to the head of the Visconti of Pisa--not to be confounded with those of Milan--he came under the suspicion of being Guelf in his sympathies; the general opinion of Pisa being then, as it always had been, strongly Ghibeline. When driven into exile, as he was along with the Visconti, he improved the occasion by entering into close relations with the leading Guelfs of Tuscany, and in 1278 a free return for him to Pisa was made by them a condition of peace with that city. He commanded one of the divisions of the Pisan fleet at the disastrous battle of Meloria in 1284, when Genoa wrested from her rival the supremacy of the Western Mediterranean, and carried thousands of Pisan citizens into a captivity which lasted many years. Isolated from her Ghibeline allies, and for the time almost sunk in despair, the city called him to the government with wellnigh dictatorial powers; and by dint of crafty negotiations in detail with the members of the league formed against Pisa, helped as was believed by lavish bribery, he had the glory of saving the Commonwealth from destruction though he could not wholly save it from loss. This was in 1285. He soon came to be suspected of being in a secret alliance with Florence and of being lukewarm in the negotiations for the return of the prisoners in Genoa, all with a view to depress the Ghibeline element in the city that he might establish himself as an absolute tyrant with the greater ease. In order still further to strengthen his position he entered into a family compact with his Guelf grandson Nino (_Purg._ viii. 53), now at the head of the Visconti. But without the support of the people it was impossible for him to hold his ground against the Ghibeline nobles, who resented the arrogance of his manners and were embittered by the loss of their own share in the government; and these contrived that month by month the charges of treachery brought against him should increase in virulence. He had, by deserting his post, caused the defeat at Meloria, it was said; and had bribed the other Tuscan cities to favour him, by ceding to them distant Pisan strongholds. His fate was sealed when, having quarrelled with his grandson Nino, he sought alliance with the Archbishop Roger who now led the Ghibeline opposition. With Ugo's connivance an onslaught was planned upon the Guelfs. To preserve an appearance of impartiality he left the city for a neighbouring villa. On returning to enjoy his riddance from a rival he was invited to a conference, at which he resisted a proposal that he should admit partners with him in the government. On this the Archbishop's party raised the cry of treachery; the bells rang out for a street battle, in which he was worsted; and with his sons he had to take refuge in the Palace of the People. There he stood a short siege against the Ghibeline families and the angry mob; and in the same palace he was kept prisoner for twenty days. Then, with his sons and grandsons, he was carried in chains to the tower of the Gualandi, which stood where seven ways met in the heart of Pisa. This was in July 1288. The imprisonment lasted for months, and seems to have been thus prolonged with the view of extorting a heavy ransom. It was only in the following March that the Archbishop ordered his victims to be starved to death; for, being a churchman, says one account, he would not shed blood. Not even a confessor was allowed to Ugo and his sons. After the door of the tower had been kept closed for eight days it was opened, and the corpses, still fettered, were huddled into a tomb in the Franciscan church.--The original authorities are far from being agreed as to the details of Ugo's overthrow and death.--For the matter of this note I am chiefly indebted to the careful epitome of the Pisan history of that time by Philalethes in his note on this Canto (_Göttliche Comödie_).

FOOTNOTES:

[829] _The sinner_: Count Ugolino. See note at the end of the Canto.

[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?

[840] _The under gate, etc._: The word translated _made fast_ (_chiavare_) may signify either to nail up or to lock. The commentators and chroniclers differ as to whether the door was locked, nailed, or built up. I would suggest that the lower part of the tower was occupied by a guard, and that the captives had not been used to hear the main door locked. Now, when they hear the great key creaking in the lock, they know that the tower is deserted.

[841] _The four faces, etc._: Despairing like his own, or possibly that, wasted by famine, the faces of the young men had become liker than ever to Ugo's own time-worn face.

[842] _Famine, etc._: This line, quite without reason, has been held to mean that Ugo was driven by hunger to eat the flesh of his children. The meaning is, that poignant though his grief was it did not shorten his sufferings from famine.

[843] _Where the Si, etc._: Italy, _Si_ being the Italian for _Yes_. In his _De Vulg. El._, i. 8, Dante distinguishes the Latin languages--French, Italian, etc.--by their words of affirmation, and so terms Italian the language of _Si_. But Tuscany may here be meant, where, as a Tuscan commentator says, the _Si_ is more sweetly pronounced than in any other part of Italy. In Canto xviii. 61 the Bolognese are distinguished as the people who say _Sipa_. If Pisa be taken as being specially the opprobrium of Tuscany the outburst against Genoa at the close of the Canto gains in distinctness and force.

[844] _Gorgona and Capraia_: Islands not far from the mouth of the Arno.

[845] _That he betrayed, etc._: Dante seems here to throw doubt on the charge. At the height of her power Pisa was possessed of many hundreds of fortified stations in Italy and scattered over the Mediterranean coasts. The charge was one easy to make and difficult to refute. It seems hard on Ugo that he should get the benefit of the doubt only after he has been, for poetical ends, buried raging in Cocytus.

[846] _Modern Thebes_: As Thebes was to the race of Cadmus, so was Pisa to that of Ugolino.

[847] _Another crew_: They are in Ptolomæa, the third division of the circle, and that assigned to those treacherous to their friends, allies, or guests. Here only the faces of the shades are free of the ice.

[848] _Is any vapour_: Has the sun, so low down as this, any influence upon the temperature, producing vapours and wind? In Dante's time wind was believed to be the exhalation of a vapour.

[849] _To the bottom, etc._: Dante is going there in any case, and his promise is nothing but a quibble.

[850] _Friar Alberic_: Alberigo of the Manfredi, a gentleman of Faenza, who late in life became one of the Merry Friars. See _Inf._ xxiii. 103. In the course of a dispute with his relative Manfred he got a hearty box on the ear from him. Feigning to have forgiven the insult he invited Manfred with a youthful son to dinner in his house, having first arranged that when they had finished their meat, and he called for fruit, armed men should fall on his guests. 'The fruit of Friar Alberigo' passed into a proverb. Here he is repaid with a date for a fig--gets more than he bargained for.

[851] _Ptolomæa_: This division is named from the Hebrew Ptolemy, who slew his relatives at a banquet, they being then his guests (1 Maccab. xvi.).

[852] _Atropos_: The Fate who cuts the thread of life and sets the soul free from the body.

[853] _Branca d'Oria_: A Genoese noble who in 1275 slew his father-in-law Michael Zanche (_Inf._ xxii. 88) while the victim sat at table as his invited guest.--This mention of Branca is of some value in helping to ascertain when the _Inferno_ was finished. He was in imprisonment and exile for some time before and up to 1310. In 1311 he was one of the citizens of Genoa heartiest in welcoming the Emperor Henry to their city. Impartial as Dante was, we can scarcely think that he would have loaded with infamy one who had done what he could to help the success of Henry, on whom all Dante's hopes were long set, and by their reception of whom on his descent into Italy he continued to judge his fellow-countrymen. There is considerable reason to believe that the _Inferno_ was published in 1309; this introduction of Branca helps to prove that at least it was published before 1311. If this was so, then Branca d'Oria lived long enough to read or hear that for thirty-five years his soul had been in Hell.--It is significant of the detestation in which Dante held any breach of hospitality, that it is as a treacherous host and not as a treacherous kinsman that Branca is punished--in Ptolomæa and not in Caïna. Cast as the poet was on the hospitality of the world, any disloyalty to its obligations came home to him. For such disloyalty he has invented one of the most appalling of the fierce retributions with the vision of which he satisfied his craving for vengeance upon prosperous sin.--It may be that the idea of this demon-possession of the traitor is taken from the words, 'and after the sop Satan entered into Judas.'

[854] _Of his kinsmen one_: A cousin or nephew of Branca was engaged with him in the murder of Michael Zanche. The vengeance came on them so speedily that their souls were plunged in Ptolomæa ere Zanche breathed his last.

[855] _To yield him none_: Alberigo being so unworthy of courtesy. See note on 117. But another interpretation of the words has been suggested which saves Dante from the charge of cruelty and mean quibbling; namely, that he did not clear the ice from the sinner's eyes because then he would have been seen to be a living man--one who could take back to the world the awful news that Alberigo's body was the dwelling-place of a devil.

[856] _Ah, Genoese, etc._: The Genoese, indeed, held no good character. One of their annalists, under the date of 1293, describes the city as suffering from all kinds of crime.

[857] _Romagna's blackest soul_: Friar Alberigo.