shade who was bitterly blaspheming still, "Who art thou that thus
railest at another?" "Now thou, who art thou, that goest through
the Antenora,"[2] he answered, "smiting the cheeks of others, so
that if thou wert alive, it would be too much?" "Alive I am, and
it may be dear to thee," was my reply, "if thou demandest fame,
that I should set thy name amid the other notes." And he to me,
"For the contrary do I long; take thyself hence, and give me no
more trouble, for ill thou knowest to flatter on this plain."
Then I took him by the hair of the crown, and said, "It shall
needs be that thou name thyself, or that not a hair remain upon
thee here." Whereon he to me, "Though thou strip me of hair, I
will not tell thee who I am, nor will I show it to thee if a
thousand times thou fallest on my head."

[1] The centre of the earth.

[2] The second division of the ninth circle; so named after the
Trojan who, though of good repute in Homer, was charged by a
later tradition with having betrayed Troy.


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 del Soldanier [4] I think is farther on with
Ganellon[5] and Tribaldello,[6] who opened Faenza 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


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