3597. 'Chaucer himself has referred us to Dante for the original of this
tragedy: see Inferno, canto xxxiii.'--Tyrwhitt. An account of Count Ugolino
is given in a note to Cary's Dante, from Villani, lib. vii. capp. 120-127.
This account is different from Dante's, and represents him as very
treacherous. He made himself master of Pisa in July 1288, but in the
following March was seized by the Pisans, who threw him, with his two sons,
and two of his grandsons, into a prison, where they perished of hunger in a
few days. Chaucer says _three sons_, the eldest being five years of age.
Dante says _four sons_.
3606. _Roger_; i. e. the Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini, who was
Ugolino's enemy.
3616. This line is imperfect at the caesura; accent _but_. Tyrwhitt
actually turns _herde_ into _hered_, to make it dissyllabic; but such an
'emendation' is not legitimate. The Harl. MS. has--'He herd it wel, but he
_saugh_ it nought'; where Mr. Jephson inserts _ne_ before _saugh_ without
any comment. Perhaps read--he [ne] spak.
'The hour drew near
When they were wont to bring us food; the mind
Of each misgave him through his dream, and I
Heard, at its outlet underneath, lock'd up
The horrible tower: whence, _uttering not a word_,
I look'd upon the visage of my sons.
I wept not: so all stone I felt within.
They wept: and one, my little Anselm, cried,
"Thou lookest so! Father, what ails thee?"' &c.
Cary's Dante.
3621. Dante does not mention the ages; but he says that the son named Gaddo
died on the fourth day, and the other three on the fifth and sixth days.
Observe that Chaucer's tender lines, ll. 3623-8, are _his own_.
3624. _Morsel breed_, morsel of bread; cf. _barel ale_ for barrel of ale,
B. 3083.--M.
3636. 'I may lay the blame of all my woe upon thy false wheel.' Cf. B.
3860.
3640. _two_; there were now but two survivors, the youngest, according to
Chaucer, being dead.
'They, who thought
I did it through desire of feeding, rose
O' the sudden, and cried, "Father, we should grieve
Far less, if thou wouldst eat of us: thou gavest
These weeds of miserable flesh we wear,
And do thou strip them off from us again."'
Cary's Dante.
[242]
3651. _Dant_; i. e. Dante Alighieri, the great poet of Italy, born in 1265,
died Sept. 14, 1321. Chaucer mentions him again in his House of Fame, book
i., as the author of the Inferno, in the Prologue to the Legend of Good
Women, l. 360, and in the Wyf of Bathes Tale, D. 1126.