"You Must Include These Two..."

…someone recently said to me. “After all, they fell in love through reading, So sweet.” Dante says they fell in lust, these two married-to-others, reading about Lancelot and Guinevere one day and inspired by their love for each other. So the poet consigned them to be blown forever through Hell in a hot “whirling cyclone” of unbridled passion. Poor Paolo and Francesca, shown here (c.1860) by the master engraver Gustave Doré. (They were later murdered, too: hence her wound). Awful. At least they have each other.... And later, their reputations were rehabilitated by the Romantics. So we can close the book on them with some compassion?