I already had his hair twisted in my hand, and had pulled out more than one shock, he barking, with his eyes kept close down, when another cried out, "What ails thee, Bocca?[1] Is it not enough for thee to make music with thy jaws, but thou must bark? What devil has hold of thee?" "Now," said I, "I would not have thee speak, accursed traitor, for to thy shame will I carry true news of thee." "Begone," he answered, "and relate what thou wilt, but be not silent, if from here within thou goest forth, of him who now had his tongue so ready. He weeps here the money of the French; I saw, thou canst say, him of Duera,[2] there where the sinners stand cooling. Shouldst thou be asked who else was there, thou hast at thy side that Beccheria [3] whose gorget Florence cut. Gianni dcl Soldanier [4] I think is farther on with Ganellon[5] and Tribaldello,[6] who openedFaenza when it was sleeping."
[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.
[1] In July, 1288, Ugolino della Gherardesca, Count of Donoratico, head of a faction of the Guelphs in Pisa, in order to deprive Nino of Gallura, head of the opposing faction, of the lordship of the city, treacherously joined forces with the Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini, head of the Ghibellines, and drove Nino and his followers from the city. The archbishop thereupon took advantage of the weakening of the Guelphs and excited the populace against Ugolino, charging him with having for a bribe restored to Florence and Lucca some of their towns of which the Pisans had made themselves masters. He, with his followers, attacked Count Ugolino in his house, took him prisoner, with two of his sons and two of his grandsons, and shut them up in the Tower of the Gualandi, where in the following March, on the arrival of Count Guido da Montefeltro (see Canto xvii), as Captain of Pisa, they were starved to death.
"A narrow slit in the mew, which from me has the name of Famine, and in which others yet must be shut up, had already shown me through its opening many moons, when I had the bad dream that rent for me the veil of the future. "This one appeared to me master and lord, chasing the wolf and his whelps upon the mountain[1] for which the Pisans cannot seeLucca. With lean, eager, and trained hounds, Gualandi with Sismondi and with Lanfranchi[2] he had put before him at the front. After short course, the father and his sons seemed to me weary, and it seemed to me I saw their flanks torn by the sharp fangs.
[1] Monte San Giuliano.
[2] Three powerful Ghibelline families of Pisa.
