Part 11 (1/2)

[257] _The next_: Dido, perhaps not named by Virgil because to him she owed her fame. For love of aeneas she broke the vow of perpetual chast.i.ty made on the tomb of her husband.

[258] _At the last, etc._: Achilles, when about to espouse Polyxena, and when off his guard, was slain.

[259] _Paris ... and Tristram_: Paris of Troy, and the Tristram of King Arthur's Table.

[260] _So light_: Denoting the violence of the pa.s.sion to which they had succ.u.mbed.

[261] _If none_: If no Superior Power.

[262] _Doves_: The motion of the tempest-driven shades is compared to the flight of birds--starlings, cranes, and doves. This last simile prepares us for the tenderness of Francesca's tale.

[263] _Dido_: Has been already indicated, and is now named. This a.s.sociation of the two lovers with Virgil's Dido is a further delicate touch to engage our sympathy; for her love, though illicit, was the infirmity of a n.o.ble heart.

[264] _Living creature_: 'Animal.' No shade, but an animated body.

[265] _Thy peace_: Peace from all the doubts that a.s.sail him, and which have compelled him to the journey: peace, it may be, from temptation to sin cognate to her own. Even in the gloom of Inferno her great goodheartedness is left her--a consolation, if not a grace.

[266] _Your demand_: By a refinement of courtesy, Francesca, though addressing only Dante, includes Virgil in her profession of willingness to tell all they care to hear. But as almost always, he remains silent.

It is not for his good the journey is being made.

[267] _Native city_: Ravenna. The speaker is Francesca, daughter of Guido of Polenta, lord of Ravenna. About the year 1275 she was married to Gianciotto (Deformed John) Malatesta, son of the lord of Rimini; the marriage, like most of that time in the cla.s.s to which she belonged, being one of political convenience. She allowed her affections to settle on Paolo, her husband's handsome brother; and Gianciotto's suspicions having been aroused, he surprised the lovers and slew them on the spot.

This happened at Pesaro. The a.s.sociation of Francesca's name with Rimini is merely accidental. The date of her death is not known. Dante can never have set eyes on Francesca; but at the battle of Campaldino in 1289, where he was present, a troop of cavaliers from Pistoia fought on the Florentine side under the command of her brother Bernardino; and in the following year, Dante being then twenty-five years of age, her father, Guido, was Podesta in Florence. The Guido of Polenta, lord of Ravenna, whom Dante had for his last and most generous patron, was grandson of that elder Guido, and nephew of Francesca.

[268] _To have lost it so_: A husband's right and duty were too well defined in the prevalent social code for her to complain that Gianciotto avenged himself. What she does resent is that she was left no breathing-s.p.a.ce for repentance and farewells.

[269] _Which absolves, etc._: Which compels whoever is beloved to love in return. Here is the key to Dante's comparatively lenient estimate of the guilt of Francesca's sin. See line 39, and _Inf._ xi. 83. The Church allowed no distinctions with regard to the lost. Dante, for his own purposes, invents a scale of guilt; and in settling the degrees of it he is greatly influenced by human feeling--sometimes by private likes and dislikes. The vestibule of the caitiffs, _e.g._, is his own creation.

[270] _Cana_: The Division of the Ninth and lowest Circle, a.s.signed to those treacherous to their kindred (_Inf._ x.x.xii. 58). Her husband was still living in 1300.--May not the words of this line be spoken by Paolo? It is as a fratricide even more than as the slayer of his wife that Gianciotto is to find his place in Cana. The words are more in keeping with the masculine than the feminine character. They certainly jar somewhat with the gentler censure of line 102. And, immediately after, Dante speaks of what the 'souls' have said.

[271] _Thy teacher_: Boethius, one of Dante's favourite authors (_Convito_ ii. 13), says in his _De Consol. Phil._, 'The greatest misery in adverse fortune is once to have been happy.' But, granting that Dante found the idea in Boethius, it is clearly Virgil that Francesca means.

She sees that Dante's guide is a shade, and gathers from his grave pa.s.sionless aspect that he is one condemned for ever to look back with futile regret upon his happier past.

[272] _Lancelot_: King Arthur's famous knight, who was too bashful to make his love for Queen Guinivere known to her. Galahad, holding the secret of both, persuaded the Queen to make the first declaration of love at a meeting he arranged for between them. Her smile, or laugh, as she 'took Lancelot by the chin and kissed him,' a.s.sured her lover of his conquest. The Arthurian Romances were the favourite reading of the Italian n.o.bles of Dante's time.

[273] _Galahad_: From the part played by Galahad, or Galeotto, in the tale of Lancelot, his name grew to be Italian for Pander. The book, says Francesca, was that which tells of Galahad; and the author of it proved a very Galahad to us. The early editions of the _Decameron_ bear the second t.i.tle of 'The Prince Galeotto.'

CANTO VI.

When I regained my senses, which had fled At my compa.s.sion for the kindred two, Which for pure sorrow quite had turned my head, New torments and a crowd of sufferers new I see around me as I move again,[274]

Where'er I turn, where'er I bend my view.

In the Third Circle am I of the rain Which, heavy, cold, eternal, big with woe, Doth always of one kind and force remain.

Large hail and turbid water, mixed with snow, 10 Keep pouring down athwart the murky air; And from the ground they fall on, stenches grow.

The savage Cerberus,[275] a monster drear, Howls from his threefold throat with canine cries Above the people who are whelmed there.

Oily and black his beard, and red his eyes, His belly huge: claws from his fingers sprout.

The shades he flays, hooks, rends in cruel wise.

Beat by the rain these, dog-like, yelp and shout, And s.h.i.+eld themselves in turn with either side; 20 And oft[276] the wretched sinners turn about.

When we by Cerberus, great worm,[277] were spied, He oped his mouths and all his fangs he showed, While not a limb did motionless abide.

My Leader having spread his hands abroad, Filled both his fists with earth ta'en from the ground, And down the ravening gullets flung the load.

Then, as sharp set with hunger barks the hound, But is appeased when at his meat he gnaws, And, worrying it, forgets all else around; 30 So with those filthy faces there it was Of the fiend Cerberus, who deafs the crowd Of souls till they from hearing fain would pause.

We, travelling o'er the spirits who lay cowed And sorely by the grievous showers hara.s.sed, Upon their semblances[278] of bodies trod.

p.r.o.ne on the ground the whole of them were cast, Save one of them who sat upright with speed When he beheld that near to him we pa.s.sed.