The Online Library of Liberty

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• Ave Dante
• Preface
• Inferno I
• Inferno Ii
• Inferno Iii
• Inferno Iv
• Inferno V
• Inferno Vi
• Inferno Vii
• Inferno Viii
• Inferno Ix
• Inferno X
• Inferno Xi
• Inferno Xii
• Inferno Xiii
• Inferno Xiv
• Inferno Xv
• Inferno Xvi
• Inferno Xvii
• Inferno Xviii
• Inferno Xix
• Inferno Xx
• Inferno Xxi
• Inferno Xxii
• Inferno Xxiii
• Inferno Xxiv
• Inferno Xxv
• Inferno Xxvi
• Inferno Xxvii
• Inferno Xxviii
• Inferno Xxix
• Inferno Xxx
• Inferno Xxxi
• Inferno Xxxii
• Inferno Xxxiii
• Inferno Xxxiv

INFERNO XXXIII

• From his grim meal that sinner raised his mouth,
• and wiped it on the hair of that same head,
• which he had spoiled behind. He then began:

• “Thou wouldst that I renew a hopeless grief,
• the thought of which already breaks my heart,
• before I speak of it. But if my words
• are likely to be seeds, and bear the fruit
• of infamy upon the traitor whom I gnaw,
• speaking and weeping shalt thou see together.

• I know not who thou art, nor by what means
• thou ’rt come down here, but when I hear thee speak,
• thou truly seemst to me a Florentine.
• Know, then, that I Count Ugolino was,
• and this man here Ruggieri, the Archbishop;
• and now I ’ll tell thee why I ’m thus his neighbor.

• That, as the outcome of his evil thoughts,
• I, trusting him, was seized, and afterward
• was put to death, there is no need to say;
• but that which thou canst not have heard, that is,
• how cruel was my death, thou now shalt hear,
• and whether he have wronged me thou shalt know.

• A narrow slit within the moulting-tower,
• which bears, because of me, the name of Hunger,
• and in whose walls still others must be locked,
• had through its opening shown me many a moon
• already, when I had the evil dream,
• which rent apart the curtain of the future.
• This one therein a lord and huntsman seemed,
• chasing the wolf and wolfings toward the mount
• which hinders Pisans from beholding Lucca,
• with bitches lean and eager and well trained;
• for he had set before him in his van
• Gualandi with Sismondi and Lanfranchi.
• After a little run both father and sons
• seemed weary to me; then methought I saw
• their flanks torn open by sharp-pointed fangs.

• When, just before the morning, I awoke,
• I heard my children, who were with me there,
• sob in their sleep, and ask me for their bread.
• Cruel indeed thou art, if, thinking what
• my heart forebode, thou grievest not already;
• and if thou weepest not, at what art wont
• to weep? Awake they were, and now the hour
• was drawing nigh when food was brought to us,
• hence each, by reason of his dream, was worried;
• and then I heard the dread tower’s lower door
• nailed up; whereat, without a word, I looked
• my children in the face. I did not weep,

• so like a stone had I become within;
• they wept; and my poor little Anselm said:
• ‘Father, thou lookest so! What aileth thee?’
• But still I did not weep, nor did I answer
• through all that day, or through the following night,
• till on the world another sun had dawned.
• Then, when a little beam had made its way
• into our woeful prison, and I perceived
• by their four faces, how I looked myself,
• I bit in anguish both my hands. And they,
• thinking it done because I craved to eat,
• immediately stood up, and said to me:
• ‘Father, much less shall we be pained, if us
• thou eat; thou with this wretched flesh didst clothe us,
• do thou, then, strip it from us now.’ Thereat,
• to sadden them no more, I calmed myself;
• through that day and the next we all kept mute.
• Ah, why, hard earth, didst thou not open up?

• Then Gaddo, when the fourth day we had reached,
• stretched himself out at length before my feet,
• and said: “My father, why dost thou not help me?”
• And there he died; and, ev’n as thou seest me,
• between the fifth day and the sixth I saw
• the three fall one by one; and, blind already,
• I gave myself to groping over each,
• and two days called them, after they were dead;
• then fasting proved more powerful than pain.”

• When he had spoken thus, with eyes awry,
• he seized again the wretched skull with teeth,
• which for the bone were strong as are a dog’s.

• Ah, Pisa, foul reproach of those that dwell
• in that fair country where the sì is heard;
• since slow thy neighbors are to punish thee,
• then let Caprara and Gorgona move,
• and make a hedge across the Arno’s mouth,
• that every person in thee may be drowned!
• for though Count Ugolino had the name
• of traitor to thee in thy castle-towns,
• thou shouldst not thus have crucified his sons.
• Their youthful age had made, thou modern Thebes,
• Brigata and Uguccione innocent,
• and the other two my canto names above.

• Further along we went, to where the ice
• roughly enswathes another class of people,
• not downward turned, but wholly on their backs.
• Weeping itself allows not weeping there,
• and tears, which find a barrier in their eyes,
• turn back, to cause their suffering to increase;
• because the first ones form a solid block,
• and thus like crystal visors wholly fill
• the hollow cup beneath the brow. And though,
• as in a callous spot,
• because of cold
• all feeling had departed from my face,

• it seemed to me that now I felt some wind;
• whence I to him: “My Teacher, who moves this?
• Is not all moving air quenched here below?”

• And he: “Ere long shalt thou be where thine eyes,
• seeing the cause which raineth down the blast,
• will make an answer to thee as to this.”

• One of the wretches of the icy crust
• called out to us thereat: “O souls, so cruel,
• that unto you the last place is assigned,
• remove for me the hard veils on my face,
• that I may somewhat vent the pain that fills
• my heart, before the tears freeze up again.”

• Whence I to him: “If thou wouldst have me help thee,
• say who thou art; and should I not relieve thee,
• may I needs reach the bottom of the ice!”

• Then he: “I Frate Alberigo am,
• he of the evil garden’s fruit, who here
• for every fig I gave get back a date.”

• Then “Oh!” said I, “art thou already dead?”
• And he to me replied: “I have no knowledge
• how in the world above my body fares.
• Such is the privilege of this Ptolomèa,
• that frequently a soul falls into it,
• ere Atropos have caused it to move on.
• But that thou scrape more gladly from my face
• these glassy tears, know, then, that just as soon
• as any soul betrays, as I betrayed,

• its body is taken from it by a demon,
• who then takes charge of it, until its time
• be all revolved. Into a well like this
• it rushes headlong down; and so, perhaps,
• the body of the shade that winters here
• behind me, is still visible above.
• This thou shouldst know, if just come down, for he
• Ser Branca d’ Oria is, and many years
• have now gone by, since he was thus shut up.”

• “I think” said I, “that thou deceivest me,
• for Branca d’ Oria is not dead as yet,
• but eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and dons his clothes.”

• “Above us, in the Malebranche’s ditch,”
• he said, “there, where the sticky pitch is boiling,
• not yet had Michel Zanche’s soul arrived,
• when in his stead this fellow left behind
• a devil in his body, as did also
• one of his kinsmen, who with him performed
• the treachery. But stretch thy hand here now,
• and ope mine eyes!” And yet I oped them not,
• for rudeness shown to him was courtesy.

• Ah, Genoese! ye men estranged from all
• morality, and full of every vice,
• why from the earth are ye not wholly driven?
• for with the meanest spirit of Romagna,
• I found one such of you, that, for his deeds,
• in soul he bathes already in Cocytus,
• and seems in body still alive above.