Inferno: Canto V
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Dante Alighieri and Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
And she to me: “There is no greater sorrow Than to be mindful of the happy time In misery, and that thy Teacher knows.
But, if to recognise the earliest root Of love in us thou hast so great desire, I will do even as he who weeps and speaks.
One day we reading were for our delight Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral. Alone we were and without any fear.
Full many a time our eyes together drew That reading, and drove the colour from our faces; But one point only was it that o’ercame us.
When as we read of the much-longed-for smile Being by such a noble lover kissed, This one, who ne’er from me shall be divided,
Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating. Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it. That day no farther did we read therein.”
And all the while one spirit uttered this, The other one did weep so, that, for pity, I swooned away as if I had been dying,
And fell, even as a dead body falls.