I Wept Not - Prologue

Inferno, Canto XXXIII (lines 13-78) by Dante Alighieri

'Take note that I was Count Ugolino,
and he Archbishop Ruggieri. Let me
tell you why I'm such a neighbor to him.
'How, as consummation of his malicious schemes,
after I'd lodged my trust in him, he had me seized
and put to death, there is no need to tell.
'But when you learn what you cannot have heard --
that is to say, the cruelty of my death --
then you shall know if he has wronged me.
'A little spyhole in the Mew, which now
on my account is called the Tower of Hunger,
where others yet shall be imprisoned,
'had through its opening shown me several moons,
when, in a dreadful dream,
the veil was rent, and I foresaw the future.
'This man appeared to be the lord and master,
hunting the wolf and wolfcubs on the mountain
that hides Lucca from the sight of Pisans.
'Along with well-trained hounds, lean and eager,
he had ranged in his front rank
Gualandi, Sismondi, and Lanfranchi.
'Father and sons, after a brief pursuit,
seemed to be flagging, and it seemed to me I saw
the flesh torn from their flanks by sharp incisors.
'When I awoke before the dawn of day
I heard my children, in that prison with me,
weep in their sleep and ask for bread.
'You are cruel indeed, thinking what my heart
foretold, if you remain untouched by grief,
and if you weep not, what can make you weep?
'Now they were awake, and the hour drew near
at which our food was brought to us.
Each of us was troubled by his dream.
'Down below I heard them nailing shut
the entry to the dreadful tower. I looked
my children in the face, without a word.
I was so turned to stone inside I did not weep.
But they were weeping, and my little Anselm
said: "You look so strange, father, what's wrong?"
'Even then I shed no tear, and made no answer
all that day, and all the night that followed
until the next day's sun came forth upon the world.
'As soon as some few rays had made their way
into the woeful prison, and I discerned
four other faces stamped with my expression,
'the sorrow of it made me gnaw my hands.
And they, imagining I was doing this
from hunger, rose at once, saying:
'"Father, we would suffer less
if you would feed on us: you clothed us
in this wretched flesh -- now strip it off."
'Then, not to increase their grief, I calmed myself.
That day and the next we did not speak a word.
O hard earth, why did you not engulf us?
'When we had come as far as the fourth day
my Gaddo threw himself on the ground before me,
crying, "O father, why won't you help me?"
'There he died; and even as you see me now
I watched the other three die, one by one,
on the fifth day and the sixth. And I began,
'already blind, to grope over their bodies,
and for two days called to them, though they were dead.
Then fasting had more power than grief.'
Having said this, with maddened eyes he seized
that wretched skull again between his teeth
and clenched them on the bone just like a dog.

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Links:
I Wept Not - Prologue
 
Princeton Dante Project
Dartmouth Dante Project
The World of Dante
Inferno (Dante) - Wikipedia
Ugolino della Gherardesca - Wikipedia
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