[348] {317} [Dante, in his Inferno (Canto V. lines 97-142), places Francesca and her lover Paolo among the lustful in the second circle of Hell. Francesca, daughter of Guido Vecchio da Polenta, Lord of Ravenna, married (circ. 1275) Gianciotto, second son of Malatesta da Verrucchio, Lord of Rimini. According to Boccaccio (Il Comento sopra la Commedia, 1863, i. 476, sq.), Gianciotto was "hideously deformed in countenance and figure," and determined to woo and marry Francesca by proxy. He accordingly "sent, as his representative, his younger brother Paolo, the handsomest and most accomplished man in all Italy. Francesca saw Paolo arrive, and imagined she beheld her future husband. That mistake was the commencement of her passion." A day came when the lovers were surprised together, and Gianciotto slew both his brother and his wife.]

[349] ["On arrive à Ravenne en longeant une forèt de pins qui a sept lieues de long, et qui me semblait un immense bois funèbre servant d'avenue au sépulcre commun de ces deux grandes puissances. A peine y a-t-il place pour d'autres souvenirs à côté de leur mémoire. Cependant d'autres noms poétiques sont attachés à la Pineta de Ravenne. Naguère lord Byron y évoquait les fantastiques récits empruntés par Dryden à Boccace, et lui-même est maintenant une figure du passé, errante dans ce lieu mélancolique. Je songeais, en le traversant, que le chantre du désespoir avait chevauché sur cette plage lugubre, foulée avant lui par le pas grave et lent du poëte de l'Enfer....

"Il suffit de jeter les yeux sur une carte pour reconnaitre l'exactitude topographique de cette dernière expression. En effet, dans toute la partie supérieure de son cours, le Po reçoit une foule d'affluents qui convergent vers son lit; ce sont le Tésin, l'Adda, l'Olio, le Mincio, la Trebbia, la Bormida, le Taro...."—La Grèce, Rome, et Dante ("Voyage Dantesque"), par M. J. J. Ampère, 1850, pp. 311-313.]

[350] [The meaning is that she was despoiled of her beauty by death, and that the manner of her death excites her indignation still. "Among Lord Byron's unpublished letters we find the following varied readings of the translation from Dante:—

Seized him for the fair person, which in its

Bloom was ta'en from me, yet the mode offends.

or,

Seized him for the fair form, of which in its

Bloom I was reft, and yet the mode offends.

Love, which to none beloved to love remits,

Seized me { with mutual wish to please wish of pleasing him with the desire to please } so strong,

That, as thou see'st, not yet that passion quits, etc.

You will find these readings vary from the MS. I sent you. They are closer, but rougher: take which is liked best; or, if you like, print them as variations. They are all close to the text."—Works of Lord Byron, 1832, xii. 5, note 2.]

[351] {318} ["The man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man."—S. T. Coleridge, Table Talk, July 23, 1827.]

[352] [Caïna is the first belt of Cocytus, that is, circle ix. of the Inferno, in which fratricides and betrayers of their kindred are immersed up to the neck.]

[353] [Virgil.]

[co] {319}

Is to recall to mind our happy days.

In misery, and this thy teacher knows.—[MS.]

[354] [The sentiment is derived from Boethius: "In omni adversitate fortunæ infelicissimum genus est infortunii, fuisse felicem."—De Consolat. Philos. Lib. II. Prosa 4. The earlier commentators (e.g. Venturi and Biagioli), relying on a passage in the Convito (ii. 16), assume that the "teacher" (line 27) is the author of the sentence, but later authorities point out that "mio dottore" can only apply to Virgil (v. 70), who then and there in the world of shades was suffering the bitter experience of having "known better days." Compare—

"For of fortunes sharp adversitee

The worst kinde of infortune is this,

A man to have ben in prosperitee,

And it remembren whan it passéd is."

Troilus and Criseyde, Bk. III. stanza ccxxxiii. lines 1-4.

"E perché rimembrare il ben perduto

Fa più meschino lo stato presente."

Fortiguerra's Ricciardetto, Canto XI. stanza lxxxiii.

Compare, too—

"A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."

Tennyson's Locksley Hall.]

[cp] I will relate as he who weeps and says.—[MS.] (The sense is, I will do even as one who relates while weeping.)

[355] [Byron affixed the following note to line 126 of the Italian: "In some of the editions it is 'dirò,' in others 'faro;'—an essential difference between 'saying' and 'doing' which I know not how to decide—Ask Foscolo—the damned editions drive me mad." In La Divina Commedia, Firenze, 1892, and the Opere de Dante, Oxford, 1897, the reading is faro.]

[cq] {321}——wholly overthrew.—[MS.]

[cr] When we read the desired-for smile of her. [MS, Alternative reading.]

[cs]—by such a fervent lover.—[MS.]

[356] ["A Gallehault was the book and he who wrote it" (A. J. Butler). "Writer and book were Gallehault to our will" (E. J. Plumptre). The book which the lovers were reading is entitled L'Illustre et Famosa Historia di Lancilotto del Lago. The "one point" of the original runs thus: "Et la reina ... lo piglia per il mento, et lo bacia davanti a Gallehault, assai lungamente."—Venice, 1558, Lib. Prim. cap. lxvi. vol. i. p. 229. The Gallehault of the Lancilotto, the shameless "purveyor," must not be confounded with the stainless Galahad of the Morte d'Arthur.']

[357] [Dante was in his twentieth, or twenty-first year when the tragedy of Francesca and Paolo was enacted, not at Rimini, but at Pesaro. Some acquaintance he may have had with her, through his friend Guido (not her father, but probably her nephew), enough to account for the peculiar emotion caused by her sanguinary doom.]

[358]

Alternative Versions Transcribed by Mrs. Shelley.

March 20, 1820.

line 4: Love, which too soon the soft heart apprehends,

Seized him for the fair form, the which was there

Torn from me, and even yet the mode offends.

line 8: Remits, seized him for me with joy so strong—

line 12: These were the words then uttered—

Since I had first perceived these souls offended,

I bowed my visage and so kept it till—

"What think'st thou?" said the bard, whom I (sic)

And then commenced—"Alas unto such ill—

line 18: Led these? "and then I turned me to them still

And spoke, "Francesca, thy sad destinies

Have made me sad and tender even to tears,

But tell me, in the season of sweet sighs,

By what and how Love overcame your fears,

So ye might recognize his dim desires?"

Then she to me, "No greater grief appears

Than, when the time of happiness expires,

To recollect, and this your teacher knows.

But if to find the first root of our—

Thou seek'st with such a sympathy in woes,

I will do even as he who weeps and speaks.

We read one day for pleasure, sitting close,

Of Launcelot, where forth his passion breaks.

We were alone and we suspected nought,

But oft our eyes exchanged, and changed our cheeks.

When we read the desiring smile of her

Who to be kissed by such true lover sought,

He who from me can be divided ne'er

All tremulously kissed my trembling mouth.

Accursed the book and he who wrote it were—

That day no further did we read in sooth."

While the one spirit in this manner spoke

The other wept, so that, for very ruth,

I felt as if my trembling heart had broke,

To see the misery which both enthralls:

So that I swooned as dying with the stroke,—

And fell down even as a dead body falls.

Another version of the same.

line 21: Have made me sad even until the tears arise—

line 27: In wretchedness, and that your teacher knows.

line 31: We read one day for pleasure—

Of Launcelot, how passion shook his frame.

We were alone all unsuspiciously.

But oft our eyes met and our cheeks the same,

Pale and discoloured by that reading were;

But one part only wholly overcame;

When we read the desiring smile of her

Who sought the kiss of such devoted lover;

He who from me can be divided ne'er

Kissed my mouth, trembling to that kiss all over!

Accurséd was that book and he who wrote—

That day we did no further page uncover."

While thus—etc.

line 45: I swooned to death with sympathetic thought—

[Another version.]

line 33: We were alone, and we suspected nought.

But oft our meeting eyes made pale our cheeks,

Urged by that reading for our ruin wrought;

But one point only wholly overcame:

When we read the desiring smile which sought

By such true lover to be kissed—the same

Who from my side can be divided ne'er

Kissed my mouth, trembling o'er all his frame!

Accurst the book, etc., etc.

[Another version.]

line 33: We were alone and—etc.

But one point only 'twas our ruin wrought.

When we read the desiring smile of her

Who to be kissed of such true lover sought;

He who for me, etc., etc.