Cotali uscir de la schiera ov'è Dido,
A noi venendo per l'aer maligno,
Sì forte fu l'affettuoso grido."
As doves, drawn home from where they circled still,
Set firm their open wings, and through the air
Come sweeping, wafted by their pure good-will
So broke from Dido's flock that gentle pair,
Cleaving, to where we stood, the air malign,
Such strength to bring them had a loving prayer. ]
[Footnote 12: Francesca is to be conceived telling her story in anxious intermitting sentences—now all tenderness for her lover, now angry at their slayer; watching the poet's face, to see what he thinks, and at times averting her own. I take this excellent direction from Ugo Foscolo.]
[Footnote 13:
"Nessun maggior dolore,
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Ne la miseria." ]
[Footnote 14:
"Per più fiate gli occhi ci sospinse Quella lettura." "To look at one another," says Boccaccio; and his interpretation has been followed by Cary and Foscolo; but, with deference to such authorities, I beg leave to think that the poet meant no more than he says, namely, that their eyes were simply "suspended"—hung, as it were, over the book, without being able to read on; which is what I intended to express (if I may allude to a production of which both those critics were pleased to speak well), when, in my youthful attempt to enlarge this story, I wrote "And o'er the book they hung, and nothing said, And every lingering page grew longer as they read."
Story of Rimini.]
[Footnote 15: