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re are punished differently panders, seducers, flatterers, simonists, magicians, cheats, hypocrites, thieves, evil-counsellors, forgers. In the ninth circle, the abode of traitors, which comprises four divisions, named respectively after Cain (Caina), Antenor of Troy (Antenora), Ptolemy of Jericho (Tolomea), and Judas Iscariot (Giudecca), Dante sees in the second division, Antenora, the shade of the traitor Ugolino imprisoned in ice with his enemy, Archbishop Ruggieri, by whom he was betrayed. Ugolino, with his two sons and two grandsons, were locked in the Tower of Famine at Pisa, the key of the prison was thrown into the river and the prisoners began their term of starvation ending in death. The story of the imprisonment and the death of the five prisoners is one of the most tragic recitals in the domain of literature. In the passage I quote, Ugolino is relating his feelings when he finds himself imprisoned with his sons and grandsons in the Tower of Famine. "When I awoke before the morn, that day, I heard my little sons, who shared my cell, For bread, even in their slumber, moaning pray; Hard art thou, if unmoved thou hearest me tell The message that my heart had guessed too well! If this thou feel not, what can make thee feel? And when we all were risen, the hour befell At which was brought to us the morning meal, Yet each one doubted sore what might their dreams reveal. And as the locking of the gate I heard Beneath that terrible tower, I gazed alone Into my children's faces, without a word. I wept not, for within I turned to stone; But saw that they were weeping every one; 'Twas then my darling little Anselm cried: 'You look so, father! Say, what have they done?' Still not a tear I shed, nor word replied That day, nor till that night in next day's dawning died. And as there shot into this prison drear A little sunbeam, by whose light I caught My look upon four faces mirrored clear; Both of my hands I bit, by grief o'erwrought. Then suddenly they rose as if they thought I did it hungering; 'Less our misery,' They cried, 'Should'st thou on us feed, who are nought But creatures vested in our flesh by thee: Then strip away the weeds that still thine own must be.' It calmed me to make them feel less their fate; Two days we spent in silence all forlorn; Earth, Earth, oh wherefore wert thou obdurate, And would'st not open! On the following m
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