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From the Italian by Lord Byron
From the “Divina Commedia: Inferno”
AND then I turned unto their side my eyes, | |
| And said,—“Francesca, thy sad destinies | |
| Have made me sorrow till the tears arise. | |
| But tell me, in the season of sweet sighs, | |
| By what and how thy love to passion rose, | 5 |
| So as his dim desires to recognize.” | |
| Then she to me: “The greatest of all woes | |
| Is, to remind us of our happy days | |
| In misery; and that thy teacher knows. | |
| But if to learn our passion’s first root preys | 10 |
| Upon thy spirit with such sympathy, | |
| I will do even as he who weeps and says. | |
| We read one day for pastime, seated nigh, | |
| Of Lancilot, how Love enchained him too. | |
| We were alone, quite unsuspiciously. | 15 |
| But oft our eyes met, and our cheeks in hue | |
| All o’er discolored by that reading were; | |
| But one point only wholly us o’erthrew: | |
| When we read the long sighed-for smile of her, | |
| To be thus kissed by such devoted lover, | 20 |
| He who from me can be divided ne’er | |
| Kissed my mouth, trembling in the act all over. | |
| Accursèd was the book and he who wrote! | |
| That day no further leaf we did uncover.” | |
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