| |
(From Inferno, Canto XXXIII) Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
HIS mouth uplifted from his grim repast | |
| That sinner, wiping it upon the hair | |
| Of the same head that he behind had wasted. | |
| Then he began: “Thou wilt that I renew | |
| The desperate grief, which wrings my heart already | 5 |
| To think of only, ere I speak of it; | |
| But if my words be seed that may bear fruit | |
| Of infamy to the traitor whom I gnaw, | |
| Speaking and weeping shalt thou see together. | |
| I know not who thou art, nor by what mode | 10 |
| Thou hast come down here; but a Florentine | |
| Thou seemest to me truly, when I hear thee. | |
| Thou hast to know I was Count Ugolino, | |
| And this one was Ruggieri the Archbishop; | |
| Now I will tell thee why I am such a neighbor. | 15 |
| That, by effect of his malicious thoughts, | |
| Trusting in him I was made prisoner, | |
| And after put to death, I need not say; | |
| But ne’ertheless what thou canst not have heard, | |
| That is to say, how cruel was my death, | 20 |
| Hear shalt thou, and shalt know if he has wronged me. | |
| A narrow perforation in the mew, | |
| Which bears because of me the title of Famine, | |
| And in which others still must be locked up, | |
| Had shown me through its opening many moons | 25 |
| Already, when I dreamed the evil dream | |
| Which of the future rent for me the veil. | |
| This one appeared to me as lord and master, | |
| Hunting the wolf and whelps upon the mountain | |
| For which the Pisans cannot Lucca see. | 30 |
| With sleuth-hounds gaunt, and eager, and well-trained, | |
| Gualandi with Sismondi and Lanfranchi | |
| He had sent out before him to the front. | |
| After brief course seemed unto me forespent | |
| The father and the sons, and with sharp tushes | 35 |
| It seemed to me I saw their flanks ripped open. | |
| When I before the morrow was awake, | |
| Moaning amid their sleep I heard my sons | |
| Who with me were, and asking after bread. | |
| Cruel indeed art thou, if yet thou grieve not, | 40 |
| Thinking of what my heart foreboded me, | |
| And weep’st thou not, what art thou wont to weep at? | |
| They were awake now, and the hour drew nigh | |
| At which our food used to be brought to us, | |
| And through his dream was each one apprehensive; | 45 |
| And I heard locking up the under door | |
| Of the horrible tower; whereat without a word | |
| I gazed into the faces of my sons. | |
| I wept not, I within so turned to stone; | |
| They wept; and darling little Anselm mine | 50 |
| Said: ‘Thou dost gaze so, father, what doth ail thee?’ | |
| Still not a tear I shed, nor answer made | |
| All of that day, nor yet the night thereafter, | |
| Until another sun rose on the world. | |
| As now a little glimmer made its way | 55 |
| Into the dolorous prison, and I saw | |
| Upon four faces my own very aspect, | |
| Both of my hands in agony I bit; | |
| And, thinking that I did it from desire | |
| Of eating, on a sudden they uprose, | 60 |
| And said they: ‘Father, much less pain ’t will give us | |
| If thou do eat of us; thyself didst clothe us | |
| With this poor flesh, and do thou strip it off.’ | |
| I calmed me then, not to make them more sad. | |
| That day we all were silent, and the next. | 65 |
| Ah! obdurate earth, wherefore didst thou not open? | |
| When we had come unto the fourth day, Gaddo | |
| Threw himself down outstretched before my feet, | |
| Saying, ‘My father, why dost thou not help me?’ | |
| And there he died; and, as thou seest me, | 70 |
| I saw the three fall, one by one, between | |
| The fifth day and the sixth; whence I betook me, | |
| Already blind, to groping over each, | |
| And three days called them after they were dead; | |
| Then hunger did what sorrow could not do.” | 75 |
| When he had said this, with his eyes distorted, | |
| The wretched skull resumed he with his teeth, | |
| Which, as a dog’s upon the bone were strong. | |
| Ah! Pisa, thou opprobrium of the people | |
| Of the fair land there where the Sì doth sound, | 80 |
| Since slow to punish thee thy neighbors are, | |
| Let the Capraia and Gorgona move, | |
| And make a hedge across the mouth of Arno | |
| That every person in thee it may drown! | |
| For if Count Ugolino had the fame | 85 |
| Of having in thy castles thee betrayed, | |
| Thou shouldst not on such cross have put his sons. | |
| Guiltless of any crime, thou modern Thebes! | |
| Their youth made Uguccione and Brigata, | |
| And the other two my song doth name above! | 90 |
| |
