Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One. Данте Алигьери

comes behind, back-blown and beaten thus,

      Love’s fool, who broke her faith to Sichæus,

      Dido; and bare of all her luxury,

      Nile’s queen, who lost her realm for Antony.”

      And after these, amidst that windy train,

      Helen, who soaked in blood the Trojan plain,

      And great Achilles I saw, at last whose feet

      The same net trammelled; and Tristram, Paris, he showed;

      And thousand other along the fated road

      Whom love led deathward through disastrous things

      He pointed as they passed, until my mind

      Was wildered in this heavy pass to find

      Ladies so many, and cavaliers and kings

      Fallen, and pitying past restraint, I said,

      “Poet, those next that on the wind appear

      So light, and constant as they drive or veer

      Are parted never, I fain would speak.”

      And he,—

      “Conjure them by their love, and thou shalt see

      Their flight come hither.”

      And when the swerving blast

      Most nearly bent, I called them as they passed,

      “O wearied souls, come downward, if the Power

      That drives allow ye, for one restful hour.”

      As doves, desirous of their nest at night,

      Cleave through the dusk with swift and open flight

      Of level-lifting wings, that love makes light,

      Will-borne, so downward through the murky air

      Came those sad spirits, that not deep Hell’s despair

      Could sunder, parting from the faithless band

      That Dido led, and with one voice, as though

      One soul controlled them, spake,

      “O Animate!

      Who comest through the black malignant air,

      Benign among us who this exile bear

      For earth ensanguined, if the King of All

      Heard those who from the outer darkness call

      Entreat him would we for thy peace, that thou

      Hast pitied us condemned, misfortunate.—

      Of that which please thee, if the winds allow,

      Gladly I tell. Ravenna, on that shore

      Where Po finds rest for all his streams, we knew;

      And there love conquered. Love, in gentle heart

      So quick to take dominion, overthrew

      Him with my own fair body, and overbore

      Me with delight to please him. Love, which gives

      No pardon to the loved, so strongly in me

      Was empired, that its rule, as here ye see,

      Endureth, nor the bitter blast contrives

      To part us. Love to one death led us. The mode

      Afflicts me, shrinking, still. The place of Cain

      Awaits our slayer.”

      They ceased, and I my head

      Bowed down, and made no answer, till my guide

      Questioned, “What wouldst thou more?” and I replied,

      “Alas my thought I what sweet keen longings led

      These spirits, woeful, to their dark abode!”

      And then to them,—“Francesca, all thy pain

      Is mine. With pity and grief I weep. But say

      How, in the time of sighing, and in what way,

      Love gave you of the dubious deeds to know.”

      And she to me, “There is no greater woe

      In all Hell’s depths than cometh when those who fell

      Look back to Eden. But if thou wouldst learn

      Our love’s first root, I can but weep and tell.

      One day, and for delight in idleness,

      —Alone we were, without suspicion,—

      We read together, and chanced the page to turn

      Where Galahad tells the tale of Lancelot,

      How love constrained him. Oft our meeting eyes,

      Confessed the theme, and conscious cheeks were hot,

      Reading, but only when that instant came

      Where the surrendering lips were kissed, no less

      Desire beat in us, and whom, for all this pain,

      No hell shall sever (so great at least our gain),

      Trembling, he kissed my mouth, and all forgot,

      We read no more.”

      As thus did one confess

      Their happier days, the other wept, and I

      Grew faint with pity, and sank as those who die.