INFERNO, Episode 28. The Case For Francesca: Inferno, Canto V, Lines 88 - 142

Standing out so vividly from Canto V of Dante’s INFERNO, Francesca has for ages been a subject of fierce debate. Romantic heroine? Damned temptress?

Maybe the truth of the matter is that she's actually bigger than her sin. And maybe—even more threateningly—she escapes the very poet who gave her a voice.

In this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE, I’ll explore Francesca's speech to build a case FOR her. Maybe she does the ultimate that a character can ever do: she pulls the curtain back to reveal her creator, standing there in all his ambivalence, his sorrow, and his unfulfilled desire.

Francesca may well escape her damnation as she escapes the very text built to imprison her.

As in the last episode of this podcast, here again is my English translation for 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 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.