Thou hast the Beccheria[822] at thy side; Across whose neck the knife at Florence fell. 120 John Soldanieri[823] may be yonder spied With Ganellon,[824] and Tribaldell[825] who threw Faenza's gates, when slept the city, wide.' Him had we left, our journey to pursue, When frozen in a hole[826] a pair I saw; One's head like the other's hat showed to the view. And, as their bread men hunger-driven gnaw, The uppermost tore fiercely at his mate Where nape and brain-pan to a junction draw. No worse by Tydeus[827] in his scornful hate 130 Were Menalippus' temples gnawed and hacked Than skull and all were torn by him irate. 'O thou who provest by such bestial act Hatred of him who by thy teeth is chewed, Declare thy motive,' said I, 'on this pact-- That if with reason thou with him hast feud, Knowing your names and manner of his crime I in the world[828] to thee will make it good; If what I speak with dry not ere the time.' FOOTNOTES: [797] _A baby speech_: 'A tongue that cries _mamma_ and _papa_' For his present purpose, he complains, he has not in Italian an adequate supply of rough high-sounding rhymes; but at least he will use only the best words that can be found. In another work (_De Vulg. El._ ii. 7) he instances _mamma_ and _babbo_ as words of a kind to be avoided by all who would write nobly in Italian. [798] _Amphion_: Who with his music charmed rocks from the mountain and heaped them in order for walls to Thebes. [799] _The giant's feet_: Antæus. A bank slopes from where the giants stand inside the wall down to the pit which is filled with the frozen Cocytus. This is the Ninth and inmost Circle, and is divided into four concentric rings--Caïna, Antenora, Ptolomæa, and Judecca--where traitors of different kinds are punished. [800] _Thy steps_: Dante alone is addressed, the speaker having seen him set heavily down upon the ice by Antæus. [801] _A frozen lake_: Cocytus. See _Inf._ xiv. 119. [802] _Tabernicch_: It is not certain what mountain is here meant; probably Yavornick near Adelsberg in Carniola. It is mentioned, not for its size, but the harshness of its name. [803] _Pietrapana_: A mountain between Modena and Lucca, visible from Pisa: Petra Apuana. [804] _Time of year_: At harvest-time, when in the warm summer nights the wearied gleaner dreams of her day's work. [805] _To where we blush_: The bodies of the shades are seen buried in the clear glassy ice, out of which their heads and necks stand free--as much as 'shows shame,' that is, blushes. [806] _With breast, etc._: As could be seen through the clear ice. [807] _Fettered fast_: Binding up their eyes. In the punishment of traitors is symbolised the hardness and coldness of their hearts to all the claims of blood, country, or friendship.