Now when my rest before the dawn had fled,
I heard my children crying in their sleep,
(They were with me,) and asking after bread.
Cruel thou art, if thou from sorrow keep,

At thinking what my heart foreboded here,
And if thou weep not, when art used to weep?
I wept, and now the hour was drawing near

At which our food was brought us commonly,
And each was by his dream involved in fear.
Whenas I heard the turning of the key

Below the horrid tower, mine eyes I throw
Upon my sons, but never word spoke we.
I wept not, so like stone I 'gan to grow,
But they did weep, and little Anselm said,
'Father, what ails thee, that thou starest so?'
Nath'less I did not weep, nor answer made
That day, nor all the night after the day,
Till on the world another sun was shed.
Whenas a gleam of light had made its way

Into the doleful dungeon, and I saw

Four faces that my very face portray;

Then did I both my hands for fury gnaw.

But they perceiving me, rose up amain, Believing I had done so for my maw,

And said, 'O father, it shall be less pain

If thou do feed on us; thou having drest In miserable flesh, strip us again.'

I held my peace, to make not more distrest;

That day, and all the next day, we were dumb; 65 Ah savage ground, why didst not ope thy breast?

But when unto the fourth day we had come,

Prone fell down Gaddo at my feet, and he

Cried, 'O my father, wilt thou not give some
Comfort?' then died, and as thou look'st on me
I saw, before the two next days were out,
Fall, one upon another, all my three.

Then blinded I began to grope about,

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And three days called them, lying dead and prone,

And hunger then put anguish to the rout."

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And thus when he had ceased, his teeth were thrown

Upon the miserable skull again;

As hard they fell, as teeth of hound on bone.

O Pisa, that dost every nation stain

In that fair land, whose language sounds the Sì,

If thee to punish neighbors are not fain,

Then may Gorgona move, with Capraey,

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And hedge the mouth of Arno, till he swell,

And stifle every soul that lives in thee.

For though in ill report Count Hugo fell,

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That of thy castles he had thee betrayed,

Shouldst thou have pained his children so as well? Newness of life, O thou new Thebes, had made

Innocent La Brigate and little Hugh,

And those two others, whom my rhyme hath said. 90 We past on further, where another crew

We saw the ice in savage swathings keep; Not downwards bent, but quite inverted too. There very weeping gives not room to weep,

And sorrow, finding on the eyes a stay, Turns in again to make annoy more deep;

Because the tears, which outward first make way,

Freeze up, and like a crystal vizor all

The round beneath the eyelid overlay.

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And though by this the cold, as from a scall,

The remnant of sensation had expelled

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From my numbed countenance, yet methought withal
That I perceived some touch of wind that swelled.
"And whence, O master, cometh it?" I askt,
"Are not all vapors in this bottom quelled?"
Then he replied, "Thou shortly wilt have past,
Where to thine eye thou mayst the answer trust,
Seeing the cause which raineth out this blast."
Thereat a caitiff in the icy crust

Cried out, "O spirits of such cruelty,

That you into the neathmost hold are thrust,
Take off my face the hardened veils, that I

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May vent this anguish which impregns my heart, Somewhile before my tears be frozen dry."

"If thou wouldst have my help," I said, “impart

To

Thy name, and if I loose thee not, I pray

go down to the ice's lowest part."

"My name's Monk Alberic," he answered, "yea,

'Twas I that evil garden's fruit supplied,

And here with dates for figs I have to pay."

"O art thou dead already?" I replied;

"I have no knowledge," he in answer said, "What may my body on the earth betide.

This Ptolemæa stands in such good stead,

That oftentimes the spirit raineth here
Before it hath by Atropos been sped;
And that more willingly thou mayest clear
This glassy-frozen weeping from my face,
Learn now, that when the soul a bond so dear
Betrays, as I have done, straight in her place
A fiend takes up the body's governing,
Until its time has run the apportion'd space.
She to a such like tank falls tempesting;

And still may seem on earth, for all I know,
That shade, who toward my right is wintering,
Thou mayst perchance tell, if just come below.
Ser Branca d'Oria's he, and many a year
Has past away since he is pent up so."
"Methinks," I answered, "thou deceiv❜st me here,

For Branca d'Oria never ceased to be,

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But drinks, and eats, and sleeps, and dons his gear."