INFERNO, Episode 27. The Case Against Francesca: Inferno, Canto V, Lines 88 - 142

In the final passage from Canto V of INFERNO, Dante calls the two who are light on the winds of lust to float down to him. When they arrive, he finds he gets much more than he bargained for. Francesca (with Paolo in tow) proves the greatest danger yet to the pilgrim.

Francesca's self-narrated "novella" of her damnation is a master class in manipulation. Or at least so we see it in this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE, in which I build a case against her, point by point through her own words.

Seducer. Flatterer. Conniver. Francesca proves so oily, she escapes the pilgrim's grasp and pulls him to see the world her way, a damned way. There’s no way way out—except to pass out.

Here’s my English translation of Inferno, Canto V, Lines 88 - 142:

“O gracious and benevolent living creature,

Who comes in the doom-filled air to visit us,

The ones who stained the world with blood,

If the king of the universe were our friend,

We would pray he grant you peace,

Because you have displayed so much pity over our bad twists of fate.

All the things that it pleases you to speak or hear,

We really want to hear and speak with you,

While the wind has quieted, as now.

I was born in that land

Where the river Po and all its tributaries slow down

And descend to find peace in the sea.

Love, that quickly catches fire in the gentle heart,

Seized this one with me, because of my gorgeous body

That has been taken from me—and the way it was taken still hurts me.

Love, that doesn’t stop anyone loved from loving,

Seized me with such a strong passion for this guy

That, as you see, it hasn’t abandoned me yet.

Love drove both of us to one death.

Caïna waits for the man who blotted out our lives.”

These words were blown from them to us.

When I heard these scarred souls,

I bowed my head and kept it down

Until the poet said to me, “What are you thinking about?”

When I could reply, I began, “Alas,

How many sweet thoughts, how much desire,

Drove these two to the sorrowful pass!”

Then I turned to them to speak again

And began, “Francesca, all this pain

Makes me weep with sorrow and pity.

“But tell me: in the time of those sweet sighs,

By what means and how did love

Make you cognizant of your dubious desires?”

And she to me, “There is no greater sorrow

Than to remember our happy times

In the middle of misery, as your teacher knows.

“But if you really want to know the originary [first] root

Of our love that you are so drawn to,

I will tell it as one who both weeps and tells.

“One day, just for pleasure, we were reading

About how love got the better of Lancelot.

We were alone and without any suspicions.

“That reading made us lock eyes more than once

And robbed the color from our faces—

But on a single point, we were defeated.

“When we read how the much-desired smile

Was kissed by such a great lover,

This guy, who will now never be divided from me,

“Kissed me on my mouth, trembling all over.

That book and the one who wrote it were our Galeotto.

That day we didn’t read any further.”

All the time this spirit said this,

The other one beside her wailed—such that pity

Overcame me as if I’d died.

And I collapsed as a dead body collapses.