Inferno
Count Ugolino and the Archbishop Ruggieri. The Death of Count Ugolino's Sons. Third Division of the Ninth Circle, Ptolomaea: Traitors to their Friends. Friar Alberigo. Branco d'Oria.
That sinner lifted his mouth from his grim feast,
wiping it clean on the hair of the very head
he had been devouring from behind.
Then he began: "You want me to renew
this desperate grief that crushes my heart
just to think of it, before I even speak.
But if my words can plant seeds
that will bear fruit of infamy
for this traitor I gnaw upon,
you'll see me speak and weep together.
I don't know who you are, or how
you've come down to this place,
but you sound truly Florentine when you speak.
Know that I was Count Ugolino,
and this is Archbishop Ruggieri.
Now I'll tell you why I am his neighbor here.
How, through his malicious scheming,
I trusted him and was made prisoner,
then put to death—this needs no telling.
But what you could not have heard,
how cruel my death was,
you shall hear, and know if he has wronged me.
A narrow opening in that prison
which bears my name—the Tower of Famine—
and where others must still be locked away,
had already shown me many moons
through its slit, when I dreamed the evil dream
that tore away the veil of the future.
This one appeared as lord and master,
hunting the wolf and her cubs on the mountain
that blocks the Pisans' view of Lucca.
With hounds lean, eager, and well-trained—
Gualandi with Sismondi and Lanfranchi—
he had sent before him to the front.
After a brief chase, the father and sons
seemed to me exhausted, and I saw
sharp fangs ripping open their flanks.
When I awoke before dawn,
I heard my sons, who were there with me,
moaning in their sleep and crying for bread.
You are cruel indeed if you don't grieve now,
thinking what my heart foresaw—
and if you don't weep at this, what moves you to tears?
They woke, and the hour approached
when food was usually brought to us,
and each was troubled by his dream.
Then I heard them lock the door below
of that horrible tower, and without a word
I stared into my sons' faces.
I did not weep—I had turned to stone within.
They wept, and my dear little Anselm said:
'Father, you stare so—what's wrong?'
Still I shed no tear and gave no answer
all that day, nor the following night,
until another sun rose on the world.
When a thin ray of light
entered that prison of sorrow, and I saw
my own expression reflected in four faces,
I bit both my hands in anguish.
And they, thinking I did it from hunger,
suddenly rose up and said:
'Father, it would cause us much less pain
if you ate of us instead—you clothed us
with this wretched flesh, now strip it away.'
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UGOLINO
“with this wretched flesh, now strip it away.'”
I calmed myself then, not to sadden them more.
That day and the next, we all stayed silent.
Cruel earth! Why didn't you open up?
When the fourth day came, Gaddo
threw himself down at my feet,
saying, 'Father, why don't you help me?'
And there he died. Just as you see me now,
I watched the other three fall one by one
between the fifth and sixth days.
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UGOLINO AND GADDO
“Cruel earth! Why didn't you open up? / When the fourth day came, Gaddo / threw himself down at my feet,”
Then I, already blind, began
groping over each of them,
and for three days called their names after they were dead.
Then hunger accomplished what grief could not."
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UGOLINO
“groping over each of them,”
When he finished speaking, his eyes twisted,
he seized that wretched skull again with his teeth,
which were strong as a dog's upon the bone.
Ah, Pisa! You shame of all the peoples
of that fair land where 'si' is spoken—
since your neighbors are slow to punish you,
let Capraia and Gorgona drift
and dam the mouth of the Arno
so every person in you drowns!
For even if Count Ugolino was known
for betraying your fortresses,
you should not have put his sons on such a cross.
Their youth made Uguccione and Brigata innocent,
and the other two my song names above,
you modern Thebes!
We moved on farther, where the ice
roughly encases another group of people,
not facing downward but completely upside down.
Weeping itself prevents them from weeping here,
and grief that finds the eyes blocked
turns inward to increase the anguish,
because the first tears form a cluster
and, like a crystal visor,
fill the whole socket beneath the brow.
And though all feeling had abandoned
its post in my face because of the cold,
as if it were callused, still it seemed
I felt some wind stirring.
"Master," I said, "what sets this in motion?
Isn't every vapor extinguished down here?"
"Soon you'll be where your eyes
will answer this for you," he replied,
"seeing the cause that rains down this blast."
One of the wretches in the frozen crust
cried out to us: "Souls so merciless
that you're given the lowest station of all,
lift these rigid veils from my eyes
so I can vent the sorrow that fills my heart
a little, before the tears freeze again."
"If you want me to help you," I said,
"tell me who you were. And if I don't free you,
may I go to the bottom of the ice."
"I am Friar Alberigo," he replied,
"the one who gave the fruit from the evil garden—
here I'm getting a date in return for my fig."
"Oh!" I said, "are you dead too, then?"
"How my body fares up in the world,"
he answered, "I have no knowledge.
This Ptolomea has such advantage
that often the soul falls here
before Atropos cuts its thread.
And so you'll more willingly scrape
these glassy tears from my face,
know this: as soon as any soul betrays
as I did, a demon takes his body
and rules it until his allotted time
has completely run out.
The soul plunges into this cistern,
and perhaps the body still appears above
of that shade who winters behind me.
You should know this, if you've just come down—
he is Branca d'Oria, and many years
have passed since he was locked up here."
"I think you're lying to me," I said,
"for Branca d'Oria is not yet dead—
he eats and drinks and sleeps and wears clothes."
"In the ditch of the Malebranche above,"
he said, "where the sticky pitch boils,
Michele Zanche had not yet arrived
when this one left a devil in his place
in his own body, and in his kinsman's too,
who joined him in the betrayal.
But stretch out your hand now,
open my eyes—"
And I did not open them.
To be rude to him was courtesy.
Ah, Genoese! You men estranged
from every virtue, full of every vice—
why aren't you scattered from the world?
For with the vilest spirit of Romagna
I found one of yours, who for his deeds
already bathes in Cocytus in soul
while still appearing alive in body above.