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| Gustave Dore |
I don't remember who said
it. I read the quotation somewhere along the line. Someone
important. You know, like all quotations. At least the ones we
remember.
Anyway, whoever the important person was, he said that the lines from Canto 33 of L'Inferno in which Count Ugolino recounts his story, between chomps at the back of Ruggieri's head, are the most beautiful lines in poetry. Or else, that's how I remember the quotation going.
Whatever the quotation, though, and whoever said it, you are the only judge who counts.
From the Longfellow translation –
Anyway, whoever the important person was, he said that the lines from Canto 33 of L'Inferno in which Count Ugolino recounts his story, between chomps at the back of Ruggieri's head, are the most beautiful lines in poetry. Or else, that's how I remember the quotation going.
Whatever the quotation, though, and whoever said it, you are the only judge who counts.
From the Longfellow translation –
“Thou hast to know I was Count
Ugolino,
And this one was Ruggieri
the Archbishop;
Now I will tell thee why
I am such a neighbour.
That, by effect of his malicious
thoughts,
Trusting in him I was
made prisoner,
And after put to death, I
need not say;
But ne'ertheless what thou
canst not have heard,
That is to say, how cruel
was my death,
Hear shalt thou, and
shalt know if he has wronged me.
A narrow perforation in the mew,
Which bears because of me
the title of Famine,
And in which others still
must be locked up,
Had shown me through its opening
many moons
Already, when I dreamed
the evil dream
Which of the future rent
for me the veil.
This one appeared to me as lord
and master,
Hunting the wolf and
whelps upon the mountain
For which the Pisans
cannot Lucca see.
With sleuth-hounds gaunt, and
eager, and well trained,
Gualandi with Sismondi
and Lanfianchi
He had sent out before
him to the front.
After brief course seemed unto
me forespent
The father and the sons,
and with sharp tushes
It seemed to me I saw
their flanks ripped open.
When I before the morrow was
awake,
Moaning amid their sleep
I heard my sons
Who with me were, and
asking after bread.
Cruel indeed art thou, if yet
thou grieve not,
Thinking of what my heart
foreboded me,
And weep'st thou not,
what art thou wont to weep at?
They were awake now, and the
hour drew nigh
At which our food used to
be brought to us,
And through his dream was
each one apprehensive;
And I heard locking up the under
door
Of the horrible tower;
whereat without a word
I gazed into the faces of
my sons.
I wept not, I within so turned
to stone;
They wept; and darling
little Anselm mine
Said: 'Thou dost gaze so,
father, what doth ail thee?'
Still not a tear I shed, nor
answer made
All of that day, nor yet
the night thereafter,
Until another sun rose on
the world.
As now a little glimmer made its
way
Into the dolorous prison,
and I saw
Upon four faces my own
very aspect,
Both of my hands in agony I bit;
And, thinking that I did
it from desire
Of eating, on a sudden
they uprose,
And said they: 'Father, much
less pain 'twill give us
If thou do eat of us;
thyself didst clothe us
With this poor flesh, and
do thou strip it off.'
I calmed me then, not to make
them more sad.
That day we all were
silent, and the next.
Ah! obdurate earth,
wherefore didst thou not open?
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."
