HERE BEGINS THE MONK’S TALE OF THE FALL OF ILLUSTRIOUS PERSONS: “I will bewail, in the manner of tragedy, the hardships of those who held high place but fell so far that there was no way of bringing them out of their adversity. For, certainly, when Fortune wishes to run away, no man can check her course. Let no man trust in blind prosperity; be warned by these old and true examples.”

[The Knight does not permit the Monk to recount all of the hundred tragedies which he has in his cell, but the latter does manage to present seventeen examples to fit his definition of tragedy and to warn the company against placing blind faith in prosperity. The list of celebrated individuals whose downfall the Monk treats is as follows: Lucifer, Adam, Samson, Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Zenobia, King Pedro of Spain, King Peter of Cyprus, Barnabo of Lombardy, Count Ugolino of Pisa, Nero, Holofernes, Antiochus, Alexander, Julius Caesar, and Croesus. A translation of the Monk’s account of Ugolino is given below as representative of this collection of tragedies.]

CONCERNING UGOLINO, COUNT OF PISA: No tongue, for pity, can tell about the wasting away of Earl Ugolino of Pisa. A tower stands just a little way outside of Pisa; he was put into this tower as a prisoner, and with him his three small children, the eldest of whom was scarcely five years old. Alas, Fortune! It was great cruelty to put such birds into that kind of a cage! He was condemned to die in that prison because Roger, Bishop of Pisa, had accused him falsely. As a result, the people rose against Ugolino and put him into prison, just as you have heard. He had so little food and drink—and that little was poor and bad—that it scarcely sufficed.

Then one day it happened, at the usual hour for his food to be brought, that the jailer shut the gates to the tower. Ugolino heard them close, but said nothing. Yet the suspicion that his enemies wished to kill him by hunger at once came into his mind. “Alas,” he said, “alas, that I was born!” And the tears fell from his eyes.

His young son, who was three years old, said to him: “Father, why are you crying? When will the jailer bring our soup? Is there no little piece of bread which you have kept back? I am so hungry that I cannot sleep. Now would God that I might sleep forever! Then hunger would not creep into my stomach; there is nothing, except bread, which I would rather have.”

Thus, day by day, this child cried, until he sank down upon his father’s bosom and said, “Farewell, Father, I must die!” And he kissed his father and died the same day.

And when the woebegone father saw the child dead, he began to bite his arms in grief, saying, “Alas, Fortune, woe unto me! I blame your false wheel for all my woe.”

His children thought that he gnawed his arms from hunger rather than from grief, and said: “Father, don’t do that, alas! Eat our flesh instead. You gave us our flesh; take our flesh and eat enough.” They spoke to him thus, and then, within a day or two, they lay down in his lap and died. He himself died from despair and hunger; thus ended the mighty Earl of Pisa.

Fortune cut this man away from his high station. That should be enough of this tragedy; whoever wishes to learn further details of it can read the great Italian poet named Dante, who has explained it fully, point by point, without missing one word.