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                      PAOLO AND FRANCESCA

                                         from the Italian of 

                                        Dante  Alighieri

                                (Inferno, Canto 5, lines 115-142)

                                              Version 1

                                              Version 2

 

VERSION 1
 

PAOLO AND FRANCESCA

 
Then spake I to them as I turned again,
     starting, ‘Francesca, thou in torment dost
     wring tears from me of pity and of pain.
 
Tell me how, in that time of sighing, just
     how love could it have been with you allied
     when you drank the dubieties of lust.’
 
And she to me: ‘No greater pangs betide
     than to recall the happiest of years
     in wretchedness, as knoweth well thy guide.
 
‘But if thou wouldst discern with thine own ears
     the way the love-root made in us its bed,
     I will speak as a person must in tears.
 
‘One day for pastime in a book we read
     of Lancelot, whom love caught and enraged.
     Alone we were and knew not where this led.
 
‘Many the time our eyes met as we paged
     the story, and blushing both confided—
     but one particular moment us engaged.
 
‘When we read how a loving smile confided
     was kissed by such an honest paramour,
     the man, who from me ne’er will be divided
 
‘Whilst the one spirit spake with troubled look
    the other wept and pity smote my brain
    to swooning, as if body life forsook;
  
and fell I as with baleful damage slain.
 
 
(translated by Alan Marshfield)                    (back)


                                            (VERSIONS 2)
      Dante’s Paolo and Francesca
 

Then I turned
turning
turned.
 
your torment
ache
of bodily desire

Began:
 
 
 
guts me

“Francesca!
 
 
with pain
and pity.

“Tell me
   how
   it
 
   was there

could
have been
that
 
when
you drank
deep

Love
 
 
of the dubieties of
lust.”

And she
to me:
 
the happiest
of times

“No greater
pain exists
 
when one
is nothing
empty.

than to
recall
 
Your analyst
knows this.

“But if
you want
to know
 
that rooted
rutted
in us

with your
own ears
 
 
I will
try, will try
through tears

the kind
of love
 
 
I can’t
keep back
to tell.

“One day
one time
one day
 

of Lancelot and
the adulterous
Guivevere

with nothing
else
to do
 

who were caught up
in passion’s
snare.

Paolo
he and I, we two
began to read
 
We did not know
where this
was leading to.

“Our eyes
his eyes
my eyes
 
 
We blushed
but
(blushing)

met,
 

 
 
ONE
one moment
in the tale

turned as
we turned
the pages
turned.
 
nailed us
to the
moment
nailed, transfixed.

“We read
  how
  Guinevere’s
 
and
Paolo
then

too-lingering
smile
towards her lover
 
(whose soul
  for all
  eternity
  all time
  all time

was kissed
by
him
 
is fixed
in mine)

turned
trembled
quivering
turned
 
had set
us up,
had led us on
to this.

and kissed
me on
my mouth!
 
 
We read

That book
and dreadful
author
 
 
no more
that day
no more
that day.”

I shook

quite
ill with
pity

at
the
scene

This version intentionally omits the final tercet and jumps from the penultimate tercet to the solitary last line. 

(translated by Alan Marshfield)
                                                                 (back)
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