His jaws uplifting from their fell repast, that sinner wiped them on the hairs of the head he had mangled, then began. If words shall prove seed of eternal infamy to him I gnaw, thou shalt see me speak and weep. Florentine thou seemest. I was Count Ugolino, and the Archbishop he Ruggieri. That I trusted him, was taken, and after murdered, need is not I tell. What thou canst not have heard is how cruel was the murder. A small grate within that mew, which for my sake the name of famine bears, had already shown me several moons, when I slept the evil sleep that tore the curtain off the future. This one, as master of the sport, chased the gaunt wolf and his whelps; Lanfranchi, Sismondi, Gualandi ranged before him; the sharp tusks gored their sides. I awoke before the dawn and heard my sons, for they were with me, weep and ask for bread. The hour drew near when they were wont to bring us food; I heard the horrible tower locked underneath. Uttering not a word I looked upon their visages. I wept not: so all stone I felt within. They wept: and one, my little Anslem, cried, thou lookest so! Father what ails thee? Yet I shed no tear, nor answered all that day nor the next night.
When a faint beam made its way, and in four countenances I descried the image of my own, through agony I bit, and they who thought I did it through desire of feeding rose and cried: Father, we should grieve far less if thou wouldst eat of us; thou gavest these weeds of miserable flesh, and do thou strip them off from us again. Then, not to make them sadder, I kept down my spirit. That day and the next we all were silent. Ah, obdurate earth, why openedst not upon us? On the fourth day Geddo at my feet cried, hast no help for me, my father, and died; the three fell one by one 'twixt the fifth day and sixth. Grown blind I groped over them all, and for three days called on them who were dead. Then fasting got the mastery of grief. Once more upon the wretched skull his teeth he fastened, like a mastiff's against the bone. Oh thou Pisa, shame of all who dwell where the Italian voice is heard: what if thy castles were betrayed by Ugolino, yet no right hadst thou to stretch his children on the rack. Their tender years, thou modern Thebes, did make uncapable of guilt.
Onward they pass, where others in ice are reversed. There very weeping suffers not to weep: grief rolling inward hangs like crystal visors. Dante seems to feel a breath of wind. Is not here below all vapour quenched? Thou shalt be speedily, Virgil says, where thine eye shall tell thee whence. One in the chill crust: remove the hardened veil, that I may vent the grief ere it congeal again. Say who thou wast, if thou wouldst have mine aid; and if I extricate thee not, far down as to the lowest ice may I descend. The friar Alberigo am I. Hah! Art thou too dead? How it fareth with my body I am ignorant. Such privilege hath Ptolomea, that ofttimes the soul drops hither ere by Atropos divorced. The soul, that moment she betrays, yields her body to a fiend who moves it at will. Perchance above doth yet appear Branca Doria, who here behind me winters. Dante thinks he mocks: Branca Doria eats, drinks, sleeps, and putteth raiment on. Not yet had Michael Zanche reached the pitch, when this one left a demon in his stead. But now put forth thy hand, and ope mine eyes. I oped them not. Ill manners were best courtesy to him.
