And one who had lost both his ears through the cold, still with his face downward, said to me, “Why dost thou so mirror thyself on us? If thou wouldst know who are these two, the valley whence the Bisenzio descends belonged to their father Albert, and to them.[1] From one body they issued, and all Caina[2] thou mayst search, and thou wilt not find shade more worthy to be fixed in ice; not he whose breast and shadow were broken by one and the same blow by the hand of Arthur;[3] not Focaccia;[4] not he who encumbers me with his head, so that I cannot see beyond, and was named Sassol Mascheroni:[5] if thou art Tuscan, well knowest thou now who he was. And that thou mayst not put me to more speech, know that I was Camicion de’ Pazzi,[6] and I await Carlino that he may exonerate me.” [1] They were of the Alberti, counts of Mangona, in Tuscany, and had killed each other. [2] The first division of this ninth and lowest circle of Hell. [3] Mordred, the traitorous son of Arthur. [4] From the crimes of Focaccia, a member of the great Cancellieri family of Pistoia, began the feud of the Black and the White factions, which long raged in Pistoia and in Florence. [5] A Florentine who murdered his nephew for an inheritance. [6] A murderer of one of his kinsmen, whose crime was surpassed by that of Carlino de’ Pazzi, who, in 1302, betrayed a band of the Florentine exiles who had taken refuge in a stronghold of his in Valdarno. Then I saw a thousand faces made currish by the cold, whence shuddering comes to me, and will always come, at frozen pools. And while we were going toward the centre[1] to which tends every weight, and I was trembling in the eternal shade, whether it was will or destiny, or fortune I know not, but, walking among the heads, I struck my foot hard in the face of one. Wailing he cried out to me, “Why dost thou trample me? If thou comest not to increase the vengeance of Mont’ Aperti, why dost thou molest me?” And I, “My Master, now wait here for me, so that I may free me from a doubt by means of this one, then thou shalt make me hasten as much as thou wilt.” The Leader stopped, and I said to that shade who was bitterly blaspheming still, “Who art thou that thus railest at another?” “Now thou, who art thou, that goest through the Antenora,”[2] he answered, “smiting the cheeks of others, so that if thou wert alive, it would be too much?” “Alive I am, and it may be dear to thee,” was my reply, “if thou demandest fame, that I should set thy name amid the other notes.” And he to me, “For the contrary do I long; take thyself hence, and give me no more trouble, for ill thou knowest to flatter on this plain.” Then I took him by the hair of the crown, and said, “It shall needs be that thou name thyself, or that not a hair remain upon thee here.” Whereon he to me, “Though thou strip me of hair, I will not tell thee who I am, nor will I show it to thee if a thousand times thou fallest on my head.” [1] The centre of the earth.