Paolo and Francesca V Canto Divine Comedy Translation
After I just heard my guide in this trip
Speaking of ancient women and of knights,
Pity I felt, then had loss to outstrip.
I began: “Poet , desire now me incites
To speak with those two going in a pair
Looking so light up in the wind their flights”.
And he to me: “You will then see on air
When they will be closer; and them you pray
For the same love that drives, and they will bear”.
So when the wind made them closer to stay,
I moved my voice: “Oh souls in such a pain,
Come here and speak, if none is to delay!”
As doves which called by a deep desire plain
With raised and steady wings to the sweet nest
Come by the air, driven by will of brain;
So they left Dido’s rank flying abreast,
Coming to us through the malignant air,
So strongly was the loving call addressed.
“Oh living being, so gracious and fair
Who are going to visit around the air lost
We who shed blood on the world unfair,
If universal king we could accost,
We would pray him to give you peace,
Since for our bad evil you suffer most.
Any hearing or speaking what you please
We will now hear and tell to you indeed,
While wind, as acting now, its noise will cease.
The land where I was born and had my breed
Is close to sea there where Po river falls
To stay behind with effluents to lead.
Love, which the gentle heart rapidly calls
Strong captured him about the body nice
Got out of me, and way offense recalls.
Love, which does not let lovers to entice,
Took me for him so strongly pleasure lust
That, as you see, still here cannot decease.
Love then led both us to a death cussed.
Caina expects whom our lives turned out”.
These words by them were proffered to us just.
When I heard those souls hurted with no doubt,
I bowed my face and moved it so much low,
Until the poet told me: “Which is your thought?”
Answering, I started: “Weary I go,
How many sweet thoughts, and how much desire
To such a painful handoff could them throw!”
Then I turned to them and was to enquire,
So I started: ”Francesca, torments yours
My piteous sorrow and cry require.
But say: at time of sweet breaths on your corps,
Which was the cause and which the way love won
So that unfair desires reached your cores?”.
And she to me: “Any worse pain is none
Than recalling now the joyousness time
Being in troubles; your guide knows the dawn.
But if to understand the deep root prime
Of our love your heart to a such extent,
I will tell my story while crying I’m.
We were reading one day with joy intent
Of Lancelot by love under the grip;
We were alone and no suspect we meant.
Several times our eyes to joining slip
That reading made, blanching indeed our face;
But only a point then our strength could strip.
When we had read that the lip desired grace
Was kissed indeed by such a lover slap,
This, whom none from me ever will displace,
Kissed my mouth while he was all trembling flap,
Guilty was that book and who wrote it: too
We then could read no more in that day gap”
While one of the souls went the story through,
The other cried; so much a mercy led
That I lost senses, like to death me drew
And I fell down as falls a body dead.
Copyright © Mario De Paz | Year Posted 2014
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