Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/355

Rh

Himself dispeired eke for hunger starf.

Thus ended is this mighty Erl of Pise:

From high estat fortune away him carf.

Of this tragedie it ought ynough suffice;

Who so wol here it in a longer wise,

Redeth the grete poete of Itaille,

That highte Dante, for he can it devise

Fro point to point, not o word wol he faille."

Buti, Commento, says: "After eight days they were removed from prison and carried wrapped in matting to the church of the Minor Friars at San Francesco, and buried in the monument, which is on the side of the steps leading into the church near the gate of the cloister, with irons on their legs, which irons I myself saw taken out of the monument."

22. The remains of this tower," says Napier, Florentine History, I. 319, note, "still exist in the Piazza de' Cavalieri, on the right of the archway as the spectator looks toward the clock." According to Buti it was called the Mew, "because the eagles of the Commune were kept there to moult."

Shelley thus sings of it, Poems, III. 91:—

30. Monte San Giuliano, between and.

Shelley, Poems, III. 166:—

31. The hounds are the Pisan mob; the hunters, the Pisan noblemen here mentioned; the wolf and whelps, Ugolino and his sons.

46. It is a question whether in this line chiavar is to be rendered nailed up or locked. Villani and Benvenuto say the tower was locked, and the keys thrown into the Arno; and I believe most of the commentators interpret the line in this way. But the locking of a prison door, which must have been a daily occurrence, could hardly have caused the dismay here portrayed, unless it can be shown that the lower door of the tower was usually left unlocked.

"The thirty lines from Ed io senti'