Love, who to none beloved to love again

Remits, seized me with wish to please, so strong,1
That, as thou see'st, yet, yet it doth remain.
Love to one death conducted us along,

But Caina 2 waits for him our life who ended:"
These were the accents uttered by her tongue.—
Since I first listened to these Souls offended,

I bowed my visage, and so kept it till—

ΙΟ

'What think'st thou?' said the bard;3 when I unbended, And recommenced: 'Alas! unto such ill

How many sweet thoughts, what strong ecstacies,
Led these their evil fortune to fulfill !'
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,
So as his dim desires to recognize ?'
Then she to me: 'The greatest of all woes
Is to remind us of our happy days. 4
In misery, and that thy teacher knows.
But if to learn our Passion's first root preys
Upon thy spirit with such Sympathy,
I will do even as he who weeps and says."

i. Is to recall to mind our happy days.

In misery, and this thy teacher knows.-[MS.] ii. I will relate as he who weeps and says.—[MS.]

(The sense is, I will do even as one who relates while weeping.

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.]

20

30

5. [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.]

Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona,
Mi prese del costui piacer sì forte,

Che, come vedi, ancor non mi abbandona.
Amor condusse noi ad una morte:

Caino attende chi vita ci spense.'
Queste parole da lor ci fur porte.
Da che io intesi quelle anime offense
Chinai 'l viso, e tanto il tenni basso,
Finchè il Poeta mi disse: 'Che pense?'
Quando risposi, cominciai: 'O lasso!
Quanti dolci pensier, quanto disio
Menò costoro al doloroso passo !'
Poi mi rivolsi a loro, e parla' io,

E cominciai: 'Francesca, i tuoi martiri
A lagrimar mi fanno tristo e pio.
Ma dimmi: al tempo de' dolci sospiri
A che e come concedette Amore,
Che conoscesti i dubbiosi desiri ?'
Ed ella a me: 'Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria; e ciò sa il tuo dottore.
Ma se a conoscer la prima radice

ΤΟ

20

Del nostro amor tu hai cotanto affetto
Farò come colui che piange e dice.

30

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.]

1. ["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.]

2. [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.]

3. [Virgil.]

4. The sentiment is derived from Boethius: "In omni adversitate fortuna 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

Love, who to none beloved to love again

Remits, seized me with wish to please, so strong,1
That, as thou see'st, yet, yet it doth remain.
Love to one death conducted us along,

But Caina 2 waits for him our life who ended:'
These were the accents uttered by her tongue.—
Since I first listened to these Souls offended,

I bowed my visage, and so kept it till

ΙΟ

'What think'st thou?' said the bard;3 when I unbended, And recommenced: 'Alas! unto such ill

How many sweet thoughts, what strong ecstacies,
Led these their evil fortune to fulfill!'

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,
So as his dim desires to recognize ?'
Then she to me: 'The greatest of all woes
Is to remind us of our happy days.
i. 4
In misery, and that thy teacher knows.
But if to learn our Passion's first root preys
Upon thy spirit with such Sympathy,
I will do even as he who

weeps

20

and says."

30

i. Is to recall to mind our happy days.

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

ii. I will relate as he who weeps and says.-[MS.]

(The sense is, I will do even as one who relates while weeping.

A man to have ben in prosperitee,

And it remembren whan 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.]

5. [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.]

Noi leggevamo un giorno per diletto
Di Lancelotto, come Amor lo strinse :
Soli eravamo, e senza alcun sospetto.
Per più fiate gli occhi ci sospinse

Quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso:
Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse.
Quando leggemmo il disiato riso

Esser baciato da cotanto amante,
Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,
La bocca mi baciò tutto tremante :

Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse-
Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante
Mentre che l' uno spirto questo disse,
L'altro piangeva sì che di pietade

Io venni meno così com' io morisse ;
E caddi, come corpo morto cade.

40

1. ["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" veyor," must not be confounded with the stainless Galahad of the Morte d' Arthur.]

pur

2. [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.]

3. ALTERNATIVE VERSIONS TRANSCRIBED BY MRS. SHELLEY.

line 4:

line 8: line 12:

line 18:

March 20, 1820.

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.
Remits, seized him for me with joy so strong-
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-

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,

We read one day for pastime, seated nigh,

Of Lancilot, how Love enchained him too.
We were alone, quite unsuspiciously.
But oft our eyes met, and our Cheeks in hue
All o'er discoloured by that reading were;
But one point only wholly us o'erthrew ; i
When we read the long-sighed-for smile of her,il
To be thus kissed by such devoted lover,iii.
He, who from me can be divided ne'er,
Kissed my mouth, trembling in the act all over: 40
Accurséd was the book and he who wrote! 1
That day no further leaf we did uncover.'
While thus one Spirit told us of their lot,

The other wept, so that with Pity's thralls
I swooned, as if by Death I had been smote,2
And fell down even as a dead body falls." 3

March 20, 1820.

i.

wholly overthrew.-[MS.]

ii. When we read the desired-for smile of her.

iii.

[MS. Alternative reading.] by such a fervent lover.-[MS.]

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.

VOL. IV.