Where it doth lean, if chance a passing cloud Such then Antæus seem'd, as at mine ease Lightly he placed us; nor, there leaning, stay'd; CANTO XXXII ARGUMENT. This Canto treats of the first, and, in part, of the second of those rounds, into which the ninth and last, or frozen circle, is divided. In the former, called Caïna, Dante finds Camiccione de' Pazzi, who gives him an account of other sinners who are there punished; and in the next, named Antenora, he hears in like manner from Bocca degli Abbati who his fellow-sufferers are. OULD I command rough rhymes and hoarse, to suit Co His firm abutment rears, then might the vein Of fancy rise full springing: but not mine Such measures, and with faltering awe I touch To jest with, and demands a tongue not used In such a mansion, as scarce thought finds words Been flocks, or mountain goats. As down we stood Bespake me thus: "Look how thou walkest. Take Of thy poor brethren." Thereupon I turn'd, And saw before and underneath my feet Not e'en its rim had creak'd. As peeps the frog So, to where modest shame appears, thus low A space I look'd around, then at my feet Who are ye?" At that sound their necks they bent; And one, from whom the cold both ears had reft, 1 "Tabernich or Pietrapana." The one a mountain in Sclavonia, the other in that tract of country called the Garfagnana, not far from Lucca. "Who are these two." Alessandro and Napoleone, sons of Alberto Alber ti, who murdered each other. They were proprietors of the valley of Falterona, where the Bisenzio has its source, a river that falls into the Arno about six miles from Florence. Not him, whose breast and shadow Arthur's hand And to cut short But, passing 'midst the heads, my foot did strike "Wherefore dost bruise me?" weeping he exclaim'd I thus: "Instructor, now await me here, That I through him may rid me of my doubt: Thenceforth what haste thou wilt." The teacher paused Still cursed me in his wrath. "What art thou, speak, "Now who art thou, that smiting others' cheeks, "Not him." Mordrec, son of King Arthur. In the romance of "Lancelot of the Lake," Arthur having discovered the traitorous intentions of his son, pierces him through with the stroke of his lance, so that the sunbeam passes through the body of Mordrec; and this disruption of the shadow is no doubt what our Poet alludes to in the text. "Focaccia." Focaccia of Cancellieri, (the Pistoian family), whose atrocious act of revenge against his uncle is said to have given rise to the parties of the Bianchi and Neri, in the year 1300. "Mascheroni.' Sassol Mascheroni, a Florentine, who also murdered his uncle. "Camiccione." Camiccione de' Paz zi of Valdarno, by whom his kinsman Ubertino was treacherously put to death. 7" Carlino." One of the same family. He betrayed the Castel di Piano Travigne, in Valdarno, to the Florentines, after the refugees of the Bianca and Ghibelline party had defended it against a siege for twenty-nine days, in the summer of 1302. 8" Montaperto.' The defeat of the Guelfi at Montaperto, occasioned by the treachery of Bocca degli Abbati, who, during the engagement, cut_off the hand of Giacopo del Vacca de' Pazzi, bearer of the Florentine standard. This event happened in 1260. Through Antenora roamest, with such force Said he, "thou tender'st: hence! nor vex me more. Then seizing on his hinder scalp I cried: True tidings will I bear."-" Off!" he replied; "Him of Duera." Buoso of Cremona, of the family of Duera, who was bribed by Guy de Montfort, to leave a pass between Piedmont and Parma, with the defence of which he had been intrusted by the Ghibellines, open to the army of Charles of Anjou, A.D. 1265, at which the people of Cremona were so enraged that they extirpated the whole family. G. Villani, lib. vii. c. iv. 64 10 Beccaria." Abbot of Vallombrosa, who was the Pope's legate at Florence, where his intrigues in favor of the Ghibellines being discovered, he was beheaded. 11 "Soldanieri." Gianni Soldanieri," says Villani, "Hist." lib. vii. c. xiv., put himself at the head of the people, in the hopes of rising into power, not aware that the result would be mischief to the Ghibelline party, and his own ruin; an event which seems ever to have befallen him who has headed the populace in Florence."-A.D. 1266. 12 Ganellon." The betrayer of Charle magne, mentioned by Archbishop Turpin. He is a common instance of treachery with the poets of the Middle Ages. 13 Tribaldello." Tribaldello de' Manfredi, who was bribed to betray the city of Faenza, A. D. 1282. Who oped Faenza when the people slept." We now had left him, passing on our way, Pent in one hollow, that the head of one "O thou! who show'st so beastly sign of hate 'Gainst him thou prey'st on, let me hear," said I, "The cause, on such condition, that if right Warrant thy grievance, knowing who ye are, And what the color of his sinning was, I may repay thee in the world above, If that, wherewith I speak, be moist so long." CANTO XXXIII ARGUMENT.-The Poet is told by Count Ugolino de' Gherardeschi of the cruel manner in which he and his children were famished in the tower at Pisa, by command of the Archbishop Ruggieri. He next discourses of the third round, called Ptolomea, wherein those are punished who have betrayed others under the semblance of kindness; and among these he finds the Friar Alberigo de' Manfredi, who tells him of one whose soul was already tormented in that place, though his body appeared still to be alive upon the earth, being yielded up to the governance of a fiend. IS jaws uplifting from their fell repast, H' That sinner wiped them on the hairs o' the head, "Thy will obeying, I call up afresh Sorrow past cure; which, but to think of, wrings The traitor whom I gnaw at, thou at once |