[165] See page 12 (foot-note).
[166] It is known that Tschaikowsky thought seriously of composing an opera based on the subject of "Romeo and Juliet." "The operas of Gounod and Bellini," he wrote in 1870, "do not frighten me"—Shakespeare, he truly observed, "is not to be found in them."
[167] This and the foregoing excerpt from Tschaikowsky's correspondence are from the translation by Mrs. Rosa Newmarch.
[168] This is Carlyle's concise epitome of the experience related by Dante in the fifth canto:
"The Second Circle, or proper commencement of Hell; and Minos, the Infernal Judge, at its entrance. It contains the Souls of Carnal Sinners; and their punishment consists in being driven about incessantly, in total darkness, by fierce winds. First among them comes Semiramis, the Babylonian queen. Dido, Cleopatra, Helena, Achilles, Paris, and a great multitude of others pass in succession. Dante is overcome and bewildered with pity at the sight of them, when his attention is suddenly attracted to two spirits that keep together and seem strangely light upon the wind. He is unable to speak for some time, after finding that it is Francesca da Rimini, with her lover Paolo; and falls to the ground, as if dead, after he has heard their painful story."
[169] Ravenna: "on the coast of that sea to which the Po, with all his streams from Alps to Apennines, descends to rest therein."
[170] Francesca was the daughter of Guido Vecchio da Polenta, lord of Ravenna. She was given in marriage to Giovanni (or Gianciotto) Malatesta, the eldest son of Malatesta Vecchio, tyrant of Rimini. Giovanni was called "Lo Sciancato"—"the lame," or "hipshot." Not only was he a cripple, but he was much older than Francesca, and of stern and forbidding temper. Some say that he secured Francesca for wife by trickery, she being led to suppose that Paolo ("Il Bello"), the young brother of Giovanni, "a handsome man, very pleasant and of courteous breeding," was her future husband; that she therefore permitted herself to love him, and did not learn of the deception until "the morning ensuing the marriage." Giovanni surprised his wife and his brother together, and killed them both—between the years 1287 and 1289, says Hieronymus Rubeus in the first edition of his Hist. Ravennat. (Venice, 1572); in a later edition (1603) the date is given as early in 1289. The lovers were buried in the same grave. Guido Novello, with whom Dante lived at Ravenna, was the son of Francesca's brother, Ostagio da Polenta, and from him, it is believed, Dante heard the tragic story.—L. G.
[171] "Lancelot of the Lake, in the old Romances of the Round Table, is described as the greatest knight of all the world; and his love for Queen Guenever, or Ginevra, is infinite. Galeotto, Gallehaut, or Sir Galahad, is he who gives such a detailed declaration of Lancelot's love to the queen; and is to them, in the romance, what the book and its author are here [in Dante's poem] to Francesca and Paolo."—J. A. CARLYLE.
[172] This is the culmination of the scene described by Francesca as it occurs in Mr. Stephen Phillip's drama, "Paolo and Francesca":
"FRANCESCA [Reading]. 'And Guenevere,
Turning, beheld him suddenly whom she
Loved in her thought, and even from that hour
When first she saw him; for by day, by night,
Though lying by her husband's side, did she
Weary for Launcelot, and knew full well
How ill that love, and yet that love how deep
I cannot see—the page is dim; read you.