[834] _Whose epithet of Famine_: It was called the Tower of Famine. Its site is now built over. Buti, the old Pisan commentator of Dante, says it was called the Mew because the eagles of the Republic were kept in it at moulting-time. But this may have been an after-thought to give local truth to Dante's verse, which it does at the expense of the poetry. [835] _Many moons_: The imprisonment having already lasted for eight months. [836] _The height, etc._: Lucca is about twelve miles from Pisa, Mount Giuliano rising between them. [837] _Lanfranchi, etc._: In the dream, these, the chief Ghibeline families of Pisa, are the huntsmen, Roger being master of the hunt, and the populace the hounds. Ugo and his sons and grandsons are the wolf and wolf-cubs. In Ugo's dream of himself as a wolf there may be an allusion to his having engaged in the Guelf interest. [838] _My sons_: According to Dante, taken literally, four of Ugo were imprisoned with him. It would have hampered him to explain that two were grandsons--Anselmuccio and Nino, called the Brigata at line 89, grandsons by their mother of King Enzo, natural son of Frederick II.--the sons being Gaddo and Uguccione, the latter Ugo's youngest son. [839] _Each was fearful, etc._: All the sons had been troubled by dreams of famine. Had their rations been already reduced? [840] _The under gate, etc._: The word translated _made fast_ (_chiavare_) may signify either to nail up or to lock. The commentators and chroniclers differ as to whether the door was locked, nailed, or built up. I would suggest that the lower part of the tower was occupied by a guard, and that the captives had not been used to hear the main door locked. Now, when they hear the great key creaking in the lock, they know that the tower is deserted. [841] _The four faces, etc._: Despairing like his own, or possibly that, wasted by famine, the faces of the young men had become liker than ever to Ugo's own time-worn face. [842] _Famine, etc._: This line, quite without reason, has been held to mean that Ugo was driven by hunger to eat the flesh of his children. The meaning is, that poignant though his grief was it did not shorten his sufferings from famine. [843] _Where the Si, etc._: Italy, _Si_ being the Italian for _Yes_. In his _De Vulg. El._, i. 8, Dante distinguishes the Latin languages--French, Italian, etc.--by their words of affirmation, and so terms Italian the language of _Si_. But Tuscany may here be meant, where, as a Tuscan commentator says, the _Si_ is more sweetly pronounced than in any other part of Italy. In Canto xviii. 61 the Bolognese are distinguished as the people who say _Sipa_. If Pisa be taken as being specially the opprobrium of Tuscany the outburst against Genoa at the close of the Canto gains in distinctness and force. [844] _Gorgona and Capraia_: Islands not far from the mouth of the Arno.