“Now, accursed traitor, betrayer of thy country’s standard,” said Dante, “be dumb if thou wilt; for I shall tell thy name to the world.”

“Tell and begone!” said Bocca; “but carry the name of this babbler with thee; ’tis Buoso, who left the pass open to the enemy between Piedmont and Parma; and near him is the traitor for the pope, Beccaria; and Ganellone, who betrayed Charlemagne; and Tribaldello, who opened Faenza to the enemy at night-time.”

The pilgrims went on, and beheld two other spirits so closely locked up together in one hole of the ice, that the head of one was right over the other’s, like a cowl; and Dante, to his horror, saw that the upper head was devouring the lower with all the eagerness of a man who is famished.  The poet asked what could possibly make him skew a hate so brutal; adding, that if there were any ground for it, he would tell the story to the world.[48]

The sinner raised his head from the dire repast, and after wiping his jaws with the hair of it, said, “You ask a thing which it shakes me to the heart to think of.  It is a story to renew all my misery.  But since it will produce this wretch his due infamy, hear it, and you shall see me speak and weep at the same time.  How thou tamest hither I know not; but I perceive by thy speech that thou art Florentine.

“Learn, then, that I was the Count Ugolino, and this man was Ruggieri the Archbishop.  How I trusted him, and was betrayed into prison, there is no need to relate; but of his treatment of me there, and how cruel a death I underwent, bear; and then judge if he has offended me.

“I had been imprisoned with my children a long time in the tower which has since been called from me the Tower of Famine; and many a new moon had I seen through the hole that served us for a window, when I dreamt a dream that foreshadowed to me what was coming.  Methought that this man headed a great chase against the wolf, in the mountains between Pisa and Lucca.  Among the foremost in his party were Gualandi, Sismondi, and Lanfranchi, and the hounds were thin and eager, and high-bred; and in a little while I saw the hounds fasten on the flanks of the wolf and the wolf’s children, and tear them.  At that moment I awoke with the voices of my own children in my ears, asking for bread.  Truly cruel must thou be, if thy heart does not ache to think of what I thought then.  If thou feel not for a pang like that, what is it for which thou art accustomed to feel?  We were now all awake; and the time was at hand when they brought us bread, and we had all dreamt dreams which made us anxious.  At that moment I heard the key of the horrible tower turn in the lock of the door below, and fasten it.  I looked at my children, and said not a word.  I did not weep.  I made a strong effort upon the soul within me.  But my little Anselm said, ’Father, why do you look so?  Is any thing the matter?’ Nevertheless I did not weep, nor say a word all the day, nor the night that followed.  In the morning