To describe the depth of all the universe is no emprise to jest with, and demands a tongue not used to infant babbling. Let the tuneful maidens assist, by whose aid Amphion walled in Thebes. Oh ill-starred folk: better had ye been flocks or mountain goats. As down they stood beneath the giants' feet, a voice: look how thou walkest. Take good heed, thy soles do tread not on the heads of thy poor brethren. Dante turns, and sees a lake whose frozen surface liker seemed to glass than water. Danube and Tanais never spread so thick a veil; a mountain rolled on that mass would not have made the rim creak. Blue pinched and shrined in ice the spirits stood, to where modest shame appears, moving their teeth like the stork. His face each downward held; their mouth the cold, their eyes the dolour of their heart.
At his feet two so strictly joined that the hairs of their head were mingled. When they lift their looks, the frost binds the tears betwixt those orbs and holds them there. Like two enraged goats they clash. One from whom the cold both ears had reft: the valley of Bisenzio owned their sire Alberto, and next him themselves. They from one body issued, and throughout Caina thou mayst search nor find a shade more worthy to be fixed. In my form behold what once was Camiccione. I await Carlino, whose deep guilt shall wash out mine. A thousand visages the cold had shaped into a doggish grin. Toward the middle, where all heavy substance unites, Dante's foot, he knows not if by will or chance, strikes the face of one. Unless thy errand be revenge for Montaperto, wherefore troublest me? Dante has the guide wait. I am living, if fame be dear to thee. The contrary of what I covet most; hence; ill knowest thou to flatter in this vale. Seizing the hinder scalp: name thee, or not a hair shall tarry here. Rend all away, yet I will not tell who I am. More than one tuft is stripped, he barking, when another cries, what ails thee, Bocca? Now be dumb, accursed traitor; to thy shame true tidings will I bear. Off, he replies; tell what thou list, but forget not him of Duera, who wails the Frenchman's gold, and those who opened Faenza when the people slept.
They leave him. Two spirits pent in one hollow, the head of one a cowl unto the other; and as bread is ravened up through hunger, the uppermost applies his fangs to the other's brain where the spine joins it. Not more furiously did Tydeus gnaw Menalippus. O thou who showest so beastly sign of hate, let me hear the cause, on such condition that if right warrant thy grievance, I may repay thee in the world above, if that wherewith I speak be moist so long.
Coming Up in Chapter 33
The gnawer will lift his jaws, wipe them on the hair of the head he has mangled, and speak. He is Count Ugolino; the skull beneath him is Archbishop Ruggieri; the tower still bears the name of famine.
