SELECTIONS FROM THE DIVINE COMEDY.
COUNT UGOLINO.
In the frozen lake of Cocytus in the ninth circle of the Inferno, where
were punished the traitors to kindred, country, friends, or benefactors,
the poets beheld Count Ugolino, a Guelph, who, because of his treachery,
was taken prisoner by the people with his sons and grandsons and thrust
into a tower, where they were left to starve. Ugolino was frozen in the
ice, where he forever gnawed the head of the Archbishop Ruggieri, his
enemy. At the request of Dante he stopped to tell his story.
"Thy will 'tis I renew
A desperate sorrow that doth crush my heart
Even before my lips its tale impart.
But if my words may be a seed that, sowed,
Shall fruit of infamy to this traitor bear,
Then, though I weep, speech too shall be my care.
"Who thou may'st be I know not, nor what mode
Hath brought thee here below, but then I glean,
From words of thine, thou art a Florentine.
That I Count Ugolino was, know thou,
And this the Archbishop Ruggieri. Why
I will thee tell we are such neighbors nigh.
Needs not to say that him I did allow
A friend's own trusts, but so his treachery wrought;
That first my liberty, then my life, it sought.
"But that which thou canst not have hitherto learned
That is, how cruel was my death, I thee
Will tell; judge thou if he offended me.
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