Nor more voraciously did Tydeus tear

The front of Menalippus, in his rage,

Than on that head and brain th' assailant prey'd.

"O thou!" I cried, who show'st by such brute token Hatred to him whom thou devourest, say,

Why dost thou so?—I ask on this condition,
That knowing who thou art, and what his crime,
If thou have cause of wrong against thy victim,
I yet may right thee in the upper world,
Should that with which I speak be not dried up."
Dell' Inferno, canto xxxii.
The sinner paused amidst his dire repast,
And wiped his mouth upon the hairy scalp
Of him whose head he raven'd on behind,
Then answer'd:-

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Thou wouldst have me to renew
Horrible pangs, of which the very thought

So wrings my heart, I scarce find power for utterance:
Yet if my words prove seed, of which the traitor,
Whom thus I gnaw, may reap th' accursed fruit,
Thou shalt behold me weep and speak at once.
"I know not who thou art, nor by what means
Thou hast come hither, but a Florentine,
By speech, I deem thee.-Know me, then,
Count Ugolino,-this, th' Archbishop Ruggier,

And why I'm such a neighbour thou shalt hear.

I need not say how, by his foul devices,

Reposing on his faith, I was ensnared,

And murder'd:-but, what cannot have been told thee, How cruel was that murder, thou shalt know;

Then judge if he have injured me or not.

"When the small casement of that dungeon cage, Which hath from me the name of Famine,'-where

Others may yet be left like me to perish,—
Through its dim aperture, had more than once
Shown the new moon, an evil sleep fell on me,
Which from the future rent the veil.

*STATIUS, Theb. 1. vii.

-Methought

This wretch, as lord and master of the field,
Hunted a he-wolf and his whelps along
The mountain which from Pisa shadows Lucca.
With meager, staunch, and noble-blooded hounds,
Gualandi, and Sismondi, and Lanfranchi
Swept on before him.-After a short chase,
Parent and young fell, fainting from fatigue,
And with keen fangs I saw them torn to pieces.
"When I awoke at day-break,-in their sleep,
I heard my children moan, and ask for bread
(For they were with me);-cruel is thine heart
If it grieves not for what mine then foreboded,
And if thou weep'st not now, what wilt thou weep for?
-Ere long they woke; the hour drew nigh when food
Was wont to be brought to us; but in each
Secret misgivings from his dream arose ;
And of the horrible tower, I heard the portal
Lock'd underneath our cell. Thereat I look'd
Full on my children, but spake not a word,

Nor wept, so petrified I felt within.

They wept, and little Anselm said to me,

You look so, father! Ah! what mean those looks?'

Still I wept not, nor answer'd all that day,

Nor the next night.

At sun-rise on the morrow,

When a faint ray gleam'd through our doleful prison,
And in four haggard faces show'd me mine,

I worried both my hands with agony :
They, thinking that I did so in the rage
Of hunger, all together rose and cried,
'Father! 'twill hurt us less if you will feed

On us; you clothed these limbs with suffering flesh,
Now strip them!'

Then I quieted myself,

Not to make them more wretched.-All that day,

And all the next, we sat, and held our peace;

Ah! earth, hard earth! why didst thou not then open?

"When we had linger'd on till the fourth day,
My Gaddo threw himself down at my feet,
Crying, 'My father! why do you not help me?'
Then died. As plainly as thou seest me now,
I saw the other three fall, one by one,

Between the fifth day and the sixth. Then blind
I groped about to feel and clasp their bodies;

Three days I call'd them by their names, though dead,
Then famine did for me what grief could not."

Dell' Inferno, canto xxxiii.

MAESTRO ADAMO.

The hideously comic interview and adventure with Maestro Adamo (Master Adam,) the coiner,-in another of the lower rounds of the infernal gulf, where traitors of the baser sort are tormented with unappeasable thirst, in various diseases that excite it,—is thoroughly Dantesque, but in the poet's coarser vein. It may form a singular companion-piece to the fearfully sublime, but simply told and tenderly affecting, narrative of Count Ugolino.

I SAW one shapen like a lute, had he

Been shorten'd where the man becomes a fork ;*
Enormous dropsy (which had swoln his limbs
With stagnant humours, till his ghastly cheek
But ill agreed with his unwieldy paunch)
Made him, for thirst, gasp like a hectic,-one
Lip lolling on his chin, upcurl'd the other.

"Oh! you," he cried, "that without pain (though why I know not) pass through this unhappy world,

Hear, and mark well the sorrows of Adamo;

Living, I had whatever heart could wish,

And now, alas! I lack a drop of water.

The murmuring rivulets down the verdant hills
Of Cassentino, flowing into Arno,

Which keep their little channels moist and cool,
Are ever in mine eye;—and not in vain,
For their sweet images inflame my thirst

* The strange phrase employed in the original quaintly signifies, -"if he had been shortened from the waist."

More than the malady that shrinks my visage.
The rigid justice, which torments me here,
Even from the place where I committed sin,
Draws means to mock and multiply my groans;
Romena stands before me, where I forged
The lawful coin and Baptist's seal, for which
I left my wretched body in the flames."
-Yet could I spy the woful ghost of Guido,
Of Alessandro, or their brother, here,

I would not quit the sight for Branda's fountain!
Somewhere among these pits dwells one,—if truth
Be told by those mad souls that roam at large,
But what is that to me whose limbs are bound?
Oh! were I light enough to move an inch

A century, I had set out ere now

In search of him among the hideous throng,

Through all the eleven long miles of this sad circle,

Which hath not less than half a mile in breadth !

They brought me to this family of fiends,

They tempted me to falsify the florin,

And mix it with three carats of alloy."

Then I to him:-" And who are these two wretches, That smoke like hands in winter plunged through snow, Lying close fetter'd on the right of thee?"

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I found them here, and they have never stirr❜d Since I was dropt into this ditch," he answer'd:

"One's the false woman who accused young Joseph,

And t'other Sinon, the false Greek at Troy,

Who, in the excruciate pangs of putrid fever,

Send up such steam."

That moment one of them,

Wroth to be named so ignominiously,

Struck with the fist on his distended hide,

That thunder'd like a drum ;--but Master Adam
Repaid the blow upon the assailant's face,
Not less afflictive, with his arm; exclaiming,
"Though reft of locomotion, being so large,
I have a hand at liberty for that."

To whom the other:-"Thou wert not so prompt, When thou wast going to the stake; and yet

More prompt than now when thou didst stamp the coin." "Thou speak'st the truth," the dropsical replied,

"But didst not so at Troy, when truth was ask'd thee." "False words I utter'd then, as thou false money;

If for one crime I suffer, thou art damn'd

For more than any demon here," quoth Sinon.
"Remember! perjured one, the hollow horse,
With its full belly," Adam cried, “and stand
Guilty through all the world."

"Stand guilty thou!"
The Greek retorted; "witness that huge round,
That quagmire, which engulfs thee in thyself."

The coiner then :-"Thy mouth for evil-speaking
Is quite as open as it wont to be;

If I have drought while humours swell me up,
Thou hast a burning heart and aching head,
And wouldst not need much coaxing to the task
To lap the mirror of Narcissus dry."

I stood all fix'd to hear them.-"Little more
Would make me quarrel with thee; so be-warn'd,"
Cried Virgil: when I heard him speak in warmth,
I turn'd about, and colour'd with such shame,
The very thought brings back the blush upon me.
Like one who dreams of harm befalling him,
And dreaming wishes it may be a dream,
Desiring that which is as though it were not,
So I, unable to excuse myself,

(For I stood mute,) excused myself the more,
Unwittingly. Less shame than thine might make
Atonement for a greater fault than thine,"

My Master said, "so cast away thy sadness;
And know that I am ever at thy side;

If fortune brings thee where such knaves fall out,
-To love their broils betrays a base-born mind."
Dell' Inferno, canto xxx.