When we had come unto the fourth day, Gaddo Threw himself down outstretched before my feet, Saying, 'My father, why dost thou not help me?' And there he died; and, as thou seest me, I saw the three fall one by one, between The fifth day and the sixth; whence I betook me, Already blind, to groping over each, And three days called them after they were dead; Then hunger did what sorrow could not do." When he had said this, with his eyes distorted, The wretched skull resumed he with his teeth, Ah! Pisa, thou opprobium of the people Of the fair land there where the Si doth sound, Let the Capraia and Gorgona move, And make a hedge across the mouth of Arno, For if Count Ugolino had the fame Of having in thy castles thee betrayed, Thou shouldst not on such cross have put his sons. Guiltless of any crime, thou modern Thebes! Their youth made Uguccione and Brigata, 70 75 80 85 90 We passed still farther onward, where the ice Another people ruggedly enswathes, Not downward turned, but all of them reversed. Weeping itself there does not let them weep, And grief that finds a barrier in the eyes Turns itself inward to increase the anguish ; Because the earliest tears a cluster form, And, in the manner of a crystal visor, Fill all the cup beneath the eyebrow full. And notwithstanding that, as in a callus, Because of cold all sensibility Its station had abandoned in my face, Still it appeared to me I felt some wind; 95 100 105 Whence I: "My Master, who sets this in motion ? Is not below here every vapor quenched?" Whence he to me: "Full soon shalt thou be where Thine eye shall answer make to thee of this, Seeing the cause which raineth down the blast. And one of the wretches of the frozen crust Cried out to us: "O souls so merciless That the last post is given unto you, Lift from mine eyes the rigid veils, that I May vent the sorrow which impregns my heart 110 Whence I to him: "If thou wouldst have me help thee, 115 Say who thou wast; and if I free thee not, Then he replied: "I am Friar Alberigo; He am I of the fruit of the bad garden, Such an advantage has this Ptolomæa, That oftentimes the soul descendeth here As I have done, his body by a demon Is taken from him, who thereafter rules it, Itself down rushes into such a cistern; And still perchance above appears the body Of yonder shade, that winters here behind me. This thou shouldst know, if thou hast just come down; It is Ser Branca d' Oria, and many years Have passed away since he was thus locked up. 120 125 130 135 "I think," said I to him, "thou dost deceive me; For Branca d' Oria is not dead as yet, 140 And eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and puts on clothes." "In moat above," said he, "of Malebranche, There where is boiling the tenacious pitch, As yet had Michel Zanche not arrived, When this one left a devil in his stead In his own body and one near of kin, Open mine eyes"; and open them I did not, And to be rude to him was courtesy. Ah, Genoese! ye men at variance With every virtue, full of every vice! Wherefore are ye not scattered from the world? For with the vilest spirit of Romagna I found of you one such, who for his deeds In soul already in Cocytus bathes, And still above in body seems alive! 145 150 155 CANTO XXXIV. 66 VEXILLA Regis prodeunt Inferni Towards us; therefore look in front of thee," And, for the wind, I drew myself behind There where the shades were wholly covered up, Some prone are lying, others stand erect, This with the head, and that one with the soles; When in advance so far we had proceeded, That it my Master pleased to show to me The creature who once had the beauteous semblance, |