1

His firm abutment rears, then might the vein
Of fancy rise full springing: but not mine
Such measures, and with faltering awe I touch
The mighty theme; for to describe the depth
Of all the universe, is no emprize

To jest with, and demands a tongue not used
To infant babbling'. But let them assist
My song, the tuneful maidens, by whose aid
Amphion wall'd in Thebes; so with the truth
My speech shall best accord. Oh ill-starr'd folk,
Beyond all others wretched! who abide

In such a mansion, as scarce thought finds words
To speak of, better had ye here on earth

Take

Been flocks, or mountain goats. As down we stood
In the dark pit beneath the giants' feet,
But lower far than they, and I did gaze
Still on the lofty battlement, a voice
Bespake me thus: "Look how thou walkest.
Good heed, thy soles do tread not on the heads
Of thy poor brethren." Thereupon I turn'd,
And saw before and underneath my feet
A lake, whose frozen surface liker seem'd
To glass than water. Not so thick a veil
In winter e'er hath Austrian Danube spread
O'er his still course, nor Tanais far remote
Under the chilling sky. Roll'd o'er that mass
Had Tabernich or Pietrapana3 fallen,

A tongue not used

To infant babbling.] Nè da lingua, che chiami mamma, o babbo. Dante in his treatise "De Vulg. Eloq." speaking of words not admissible in the loftier, or, as he calls it, tragic style of poetry, says "In quorum numero nec puerilia propter suam simplicitatem ut Mamma et Babbo," lib. 1. c. vii.

A lake.] The same torment is introduced into the Edda, compiled in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. See the "Song of the Sun," translated by the Rev. James Beresford, London, 1805; and compare Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poetry, v. i. dissert. i. and Gray's Posthumous Works, edited by Mr. Mathias, v. ii. p. 106. Indeed, as an escape from "the penalty of Adam, the season's difference," forms one of the most natural topics of consolation for the loss of life, so does a renewal of that suffering in its fiercest extremes of heat and cold bring before the imagination of men in general (except indeed the terrors of a self-accusing conscience) the liveliest idea of future punishment. Refer to Shakspeare and Milton in the notes to Canto iii. 82; and see Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, 8vo. 1807, v. i. p. 182. 3 Tabernich or Pietrapana.] The one a mountain in Sclavonia, the other in that tract of country called the Garfagnana, not far from Lucca.

M

Not e'en its rim had creak'd. As peeps the frog
Croaking above the wave, what time in dreams
The village gleaner oft pursues her toil,
So, to where modest shame appears1, thus low
Blue pinch'd and shrined in ice the spirits stood,
Moving their teeth in shrill note like the stork 2.
His face each downward held; their mouth the cold,
Their eyes express'd the dolour of their heart.
A space I look'd around, then at my feet
Saw two so strictly join'd, that of their head
The very hairs were mingled. "Tell me ye,
Whose bosoms thus together press," said I,

"Who are ye?" At that sound their necks they bent;
And when their looks were lifted up to me,
Straightway their eyes, before all moist within,
Distill'd upon their lips, and the frost bound
The tears betwixt those orbs, and held them there.
Plank unto plank hath never cramp closed up
So stoutly. Whence, like two enraged goats,
They clash'd together: them such fury seized.

And one, from whom the cold both ears had reft,
Exclaim'd, still looking downward: "Why on us
Dost speculate so long? If thou wouldst know
Who are these two3, the valley, whence his wave
Bisenzio slopes, did for its master own
Their sire Alberto, and next him themselves.
They from one body issued: and throughout
Caïna thou mayst search, nor find a shade
More worthy in congealment to be fix'd;

Not him, whose breast and shadow Arthur's hand
At that one blow dissever'd; not Focaccia 5;

1 To where modest shame appears.] "As high as to the face."
• Moving their teeth in shrill note like the stork.]

Mettendo i denti in nota di cicogna.

So Boccaccio, G. viii. N. 7. "Lo scolar cattivello quasi cicogna divenuto si forte batteva i denti." 3 Who are these two.] Alessandro and Napoleone, sons of Alberto Alberti, who murdered each other. They were proprietors of the valley of Falterona, where the Bisenzio has its source, a river that falls into the Arno about six miles from Florence. Not him.] Mordrec, son of King Arthur. In the romance of Lancelot of the Lake, Arthur, having discovered the traitorous intentions of his son, pierces him through with the stroke of his lance, so that the sunbeam passes through the body of Mordrec; and this disruption of the shadow is no doubt what our Poet alludes to in the text. Focaccia.] Focaccia of Cancellieri,

No, not this spirit, whose o'erjutting head
Obstructs my onward view: he bore the name
Of Mascheroni1: Tuscan if thou be,

Well knowest who he was. And to cut short
All further question, in my form behold
What once was Camiccione 2. I await
Carlino3 here my kinsman, whose deep guilt
Shall wash out mine." A thousand visages
Then mark'd I, which the keen and eager cold
Had shaped into a doggish grin; whence creeps
A shivering horror o'er me, at the thought
Of those frore shallows. While we journey'd on
Toward the middle, at whose point unites
All heavy substance, and I trembling went
Through that eternal chilness, I know not
If will it were, or destiny, or chance,

But, passing 'midst the heads, my foot did strike
With violent blow against the face of one.

"Wherefore dost bruise me?" weeping he exclaim'd.
"Unless thy errand be some fresh revenge
For Montaperto 5, wherefore troublest me?"

I thus: "Instructor, now await me here,
That I through him may rid me of my doubt:
Thenceforth what haste thou wilt." The teacher paused;
And to that shade I spake, who bitterly

Still cursed me in his wrath. "What art thou, speak,
That railest thus on others?" He replied:
"Now who art thou, that smiting others' cheeks,

(the Pistoian family,) whose atrocious act of revenge against his uncle is said to have given rise to the parties of the Bianchi and Neri, in the year 1300. See G. Villani, Hist. lib. viii. c. xxxvii. and Macchiavelli, Hist. lib. ii. The account of the latter writer differs much from that given by Landino in his Commentary. Mascheroni.] Sassol Mascheroni, a Florentine, who also murdered his uncle. 2 Camiccione.] Camiccione de' Pazzi of Valdarno, by whom his kinsman Ubertino was treacherously put to death.

Carlino.] One of the same family. He betrayed the Castel di Piano Travigne, in Valdarno, to the Florentines, after the refugees of the Bianca and Ghibelline party had defended it against a siege for twenty-nine days, in the summer of 1302. See G. Villani, lib. viii. c. lii. and Dino Compagni, lib. ii. If will.] Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate.

Milton, P. L. b. i. 133.

5 Montaperto.] The defeat of the Guelfi at Montaperto, occasioned by the treachery of Bocca degli Abbati, who, during the engagement, cut off the hand of Giacopo del Vacca de' Pazzi, bearer of the Florentine standard. G. Villani, lib. vi, c. lxxx. and notes to Canto x. This event happened in 1260

Through Antenora roamest, with such force
As were past sufferance, wert thou living still?”
"And I am living, to thy joy perchance,"
Was my reply, "if fame be dear to thee,
That with the rest I may thy name enrol."
"The contrary of what I covet most,"

Said he, "thou tender'st: hence! nor vex me more.
Ill knowest thou to flatter in this vale."

Then seizing on his hinder scalp I cried:
"Name thee, or not a hair shall tarry here."
"Rend all away," he answer'd, "yet for that
I will not tell, nor show thee, who I am,
Though at my head thou pluck a thousand times."
Now I had grasp'd his tresses, and stript off
More than one tuft, he barking, with his eyes
Drawn in and downward, when another cried,
"What ails thee, Bocca? Sound not loud enough
Thy chattering teeth, but thou must bark outright?
What devil wrings thee ?"-"Now," said I, "be dumb,
Accursed traitor! To thy shame, of thee

True tidings will I bear."-" Off!" he replied;
"Tell what thou list: but, as thou scape from hence,
To speak of him whose tongue hath been so glib,
Forget not here he wails the Frenchman's gold.
'Him of Duera2,' thou canst say, 'I mark'd,

'Where the starved sinners pine.' If thou be ask'd
What other shade was with them, at thy side

Is Beccaria3, whose red gorge distain'd
The biting axe of Florence. Further on,
If I misdeem not, Soldanieri 4 bides,

1 Antenora.] "So called from Antenor, who, according to Dictys Cretensis (de Bello Troj. lib. v.) and Dares Phrygius (De Excidio Troja) betrayed Troy his country." Lombardi. See note on Purg. Canto v. 75. Antenor acts this part in Boccaccio's Filostrato, and in Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide. 2 Him of Duera.] Buoso of Cremona, of the family of Duera, who was bribed by Guy de Montfort, to leave a pass between Piedmont and Parma, with the defence of which he had been intrusted by the Ghibellines, oper to the army of Charles of Anjou, A. D. 1265, at which the people of Cremona were so enraged, that they extirpated the whole family. G. Villani, lib. vii. c. iv. 3 Beccaria.] Abbot of Vallombrosa, who was the Pope's Legate at Florence, where his intrigues in favour of the Ghibellines being discovered, he was beheaded. I do not find the occurrence in Villani, nor do the commentators say to what Pope he was legate. By Landino he is reported to have been from Parma; by Vellutello, from Pavia. • Soldanieri.]

With Ganellon1, and Tribaldello2, him
Who oped Faenza when the people slept."
We now had left him, passing on our way,
When I beheld two spirits by the ice
Pent in one hollow, that the head of one
Was cowl unto the other; and as bread
Is raven'd up through hunger, the uppermost
Did so apply his fangs to the other's brain,
Where the spine joins it. Not more furiously
On Menalippus' temples Tydeus3 gnawed,
Than on that skull and on its garbage he.

"O thou! who show'st so beastly sign of hate
'Gainst him thou prey'st on, let me hear," said I,
"The cause, on such condition, that if right
Warrant thy grievance, knowing who ye are,
And what the colour of his sinning was,
I may repay thee in the world above,

If that, wherewith I speak, be moist so long."

CANTO XXXIII.

ARGUMENT.

The Poet is told by Count Ugolino de' Gherardeschi of the cruel manner in which he and his children were famished in the tower at Pisa, by command of the Archbishop Ruggieri. He next discourses of the third round, called Ptolomea, wherein those are punished who have betrayed others under the semblance of kindness; and among these he finds the Friar Alberigo de' Manfredi, who tells him of one whose soul was already tormented in that place, though his body appeared still to be alive upon the earth, being yielded up to the governance of a fiend.

"Gianni Soldanieri," says Villani, Hist. lib. vii. c. xiv. " put himself at the head of the people, in the hopes of rising into power, not aware that the result would be mischief to the Ghibelline party, and his own ruin; an event which seems ever to have befallen him who has headed the populace in Florence."-A. D. 1266. Ganellon.] The betrayer? of Charlemain, mentioned by Archbishop Turpin. He is a common instance of treachery with the poets of the middle ages.

Trop son fol e mal pensant,

Pis Valent que Guenelon. Thibaut, Roi de Navarre.
O new Scariot and new Ganilion,

O false dissembler, &c. Chaucer, Nonne's Prieste's Tale.

And in the Monke's Tale, Peter of Spaine.

3

2 Tribaldello. Tribaldello de' Manfredi, who was bribed to betray the city of Faenza, A. D. 1282. G. Villani, lib. vii. c. lxxx. Tydeus.] See Statius, Theb. lib. viii ad finem.