His mouth lifted from the savage meal
that sinner, wiping away the hair
of the head, the back of which he had gnawed.

Then he began: "You want me to relive the
desperate sorrow that presses on my heart
let me think before I speak of it.

But if my words are seeds
what infamous fruits are the traitor’s I’m eating,
you will see words and tears combined.

I don't know who you are or how
you came down here; but a Florentine
you truly seem to me, your speech betrays you.

You know that I was Count Ugolino,
and this is Archbishop Ruggieri:
now I will tell you why we are neighbours.

That, as a result of his evil thoughts,
trusting him, I was taken
and after died, it is not necessary to tell you;

but what you cannot have understood
is that as my death was cruel,
you will hear, and you will know how he offended me.

A small opening inside the Mew tower,
which for me has the name of Famine,
and where it is also fitting that others are still confined,

It had already shown me 
many moons, when I had the nightmare
that the veil over my future was torn apart.

He seemed to me lord and master,
hunting the wolf and wolf-cubs in the mountains
that block Pisans’ view of Lucca.

With skinny, crafty hounds and count
Gualandi with Sismondi and with Lanfranchi
standing in front of him.

In a short time they seemed tired,
the father and sons, and watching closely
it seemed to me that teeth tore at their flanks.

When I was awake before the dawn,
and hearing my children, who were with me,
weeping in their sleep and asking for bread.

You are very cruel, if you do not already grieve
thinking of what my heart predicted;
and if you don't weep, what can make you cry?

They were already awake, and the hour was approaching
when food used to be handed out,
and each disturbed by his dream;

And I heard the gate locked from below
the horrible tower from which I watched
the faces of my children without making a sound.

I didn't cry, inside I still prayed:
they wept; and my little Anselmo
said: "You stare at us, father! what is wrong?".

Therefore no tears, no answer
all that day nor the night after,
until another sun leaves the world.

When a glimmer of light stole
into the doleful prison, and I saw
on the four faces my own appearance,

I bit both my hands in anguish;
and they, thinking that I wished
to eat, suddenly rose

and said: "Father, there would be less anguish
if you eat of us: you clothed us
in this wretched flesh, and now you may strip us of it."

I calmed myself lest I made them sadder;
After he said it, the next day we were all silent;
Ah, pitiless earth, why didn't you open yourself?

When we were in the fourth day,
Gaddo threw himself at my feet,
saying, "My Father, why do you not help me?"

There he died; and as you see me now,
I saw them fall, all three, by one by one
between the fifth day and the sixth; when I stirred,

already blind, groping for each one,
and for two days I called them, but they were dead.
then starvation more than sadness held fast."

When he had said this, with writhing eyes
took up again the wretched skull with his teeth
that were strengthened on bones, like a dog’s.

Ah, Pisa! scandal of the people
of the beautiful country where “sì” is heard,
since the neighbouring towns are slow to punish you,

move the Capraia and Gorgona islands,
and block up the mouth of the Arno,
so that it drowns every person in the city!