Whate'er now pleases thee to hear or say We listen to, or tell, at your demand;[266] While yet the wind, as now, doth silent stay. My native city[267] lies upon the strand Where to the sea descends the river Po For peace, with all his tributary band. Love, in a generous heart set soon aglow, 100 Seized him for the fair form was mine above; And still it irks me to have lost it so.[268] Love, which absolves[269] no one beloved from love, So strong a passion for him in me wrought That, as thou seest, I still its mastery prove. Love led us where we in one death were caught. For him who slew us waits Caïna[270] now.' Unto our ears these words from them were brought. When I had heard these troubled souls, my brow I downward bent, and long while musing stayed, 110 Until the Poet asked: 'What thinkest thou?' And when I answered him, 'Alas!' I said, 'Sweet thoughts how many, and what strong desire, These to their sad catastrophe betrayed!' Then, turned once more to them, I to inquire Began: 'Francesca, these thine agonies Me with compassion unto tears inspire. But tell me, at the season of sweet sighs What sign made love, and what the means he chose To strip your dubious longings of disguise?' 120 And she to me: 'The bitterest of woes Is to remember in the midst of pain A happy past; as well thy teacher[271] knows. Yet none the less, and since thou art so fain The first occasion of our love to hear, Like one I speak that cannot tears restrain. As we for pastime one day reading were How Lancelot[272] by love was fettered fast-- All by ourselves and without any fear-- Moved by the tale our eyes we often cast 130 On one another, and our colour fled; But one word was it, vanquished us at last. When how the smile, long wearied for, we read Was kissed by him who loved like none before, This one, who henceforth never leaves me, laid A kiss on my mouth, trembling the while all o'er. The book was Galahad,[273] and he as well Who wrote the book. That day we read no more.' And while one shade continued thus to tell, The other wept so bitterly, I swooned 140 Away for pity, and as dead I fell: Yea, as a corpse falls, fell I on the ground. FOOTNOTES: [248] _The Second_: The Second Circle of the Inferno, and the first of punishment. The lower the circle, the more rigorous the penalty endured in it. Here is punished carnal sin. [249] _Minos_: Son of Jupiter and King of Crete, so severely just as to be made after death one of the judges of the under world. He is degraded by Dante, as many other noble persons of the old mythology are by him, into a demon. Unlike the fallen angels of Milton, Dante's devils have no interest of their own. Their only function is to help in working out human destinies.