Scene 3
“Love. Real love.” Francesca replied. “I
knew I was not to have Paolo but it hurt so much to be denied that. It was one
day when a friend loaned me the book on King Arthur. In it was the tale of
Guinevere who loved another knight while she was wedded to the King. The knight
was Lancelot. He fought next to Arthur, lent his sword, and was wounded by the
enemies not of his but the King’s. Lancelot had one dream, that was to be with Guinevere
but how could one take on another’s man’s lover. It was a long quest, and
finally, they took the plunge themselves. It as if we were standing before the
high cliffs and knowing only by leaping to their death could they remain
united.”
“I shared the book with Paolo. There was
a place where we will meet. We were
alone, reading it aloud, and so many parts of the book seemed to tell of their
love. It was inseparable, and we held each other hands. His was warm like mine.
He had hard hands then. I caressed it and asked if I could kiss it well. He
nodded and I did that to his hands. He then held up his hands to my face.”
“Your face looks sad. Will a kiss make it smile? Paolo had
asked. I wanted to say no but the words stopped at my lips. I could only look
into his eyes, and he knew my answer. We kissed, and the book was forgotten. We
read no more that day."
“It was our fate, I guess. We knew that only a cruel death awaits
us but what’s deemed to be crueler was to be denied our real love.” Francesca
confessed her sacrifice. “I had to give up on my vows, my beliefs in God’s
punishment and above all, stepped to the sins of adultery. I was a good girl
raised by a strict family.”
“The winds may have separated us here
but the bonds of our love transcend the punishment here. I am still in love
with Paolo. Every time, I reached out for a hand, I hoped it was Paolo.”
“I pray you, Francesca.” Dante bowed his
head. “Paolo will be you one day.”
“Do for me and also the others out
there. They are all sinners like me, but not all of us were to suffer the guilt
of it. Some of us had no choice. The ultimate sacrifice was our soul to be
banished here.”
“Whom have you met?” Dante asked. “Give
me their names and when I can, I will seek forgiveness for them.”
“There is Cleopatra. She was wedded to
Caesar but she belonged to Mark Anthony. There are many like myself but we
await when judgment day recedes and we can be wholesome again. There is also
Helen of Troy. She was fought over her love or her body. Paris did love her but
did the Greek King. Are we to be barter like the animals or the boundaries of
state?”
“I must go now. I feared I may lose
Paolo if I stayed on. I will whirl and twirl in there until I find my true
love.” With that Francesca stepped off the opening and was soon enveloped by
the winds. There was only Dante and Virgil there with the hovering orb.
“How do you read this, Dante? Since we
sat here, I wondered if you are a man of words with the passion to record the
events that you experienced or perhaps the traveler here to explore and learn.
The realm of Hell and Heaven are two diverse entities to take on a journey.
Perhaps I was wrong to bring you here?’
“Francesca is passionate, certainly capable of sin, and certainly
guilty of sin, but she represents the woman whose only concern is for the man
she loves, not her immortal soul. She found her only happiness, and now her
misery, in Paolo's love. Her love was her heaven; it is now her hell.” Dante
gave his view. “In Hell, sinners retain all those qualities for which they were
damned, and they remain the same throughout eternity; that is, the soul is
depicted in Hell with the exact characteristics that condemned it to Hell in
the first place. Consequently, as Francesca loved Paolo in the human world,
throughout eternity she will love him in Hell. But, the lovers are damned
because they will not change, and because they will never cease to love, they
can never be redeemed. Dante represents this fact metaphorically by placing
Paolo close to Francesca and by having the two of them being buffeted about
together through this circle of Hell for eternity.” An adapted passage from https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/d/the-divine-comedy-inferno/summary-and-analysis/canto-v )
“Francesca is not perhaps truly representative of the sin of this
circle, and "carnal lust" seems a harsh term for her feelings, but
the sin here is a sin of incontinence, weakness of will, and falling from grace
through the inaction of conscience. I can relate to her plight. I was like once
but the years of reading told me the boundary of it. I did not step off the
cliff.” Dante concluded. “We all have a choice. I included and what we choose,
will be ours to let others judged in the afterlife.”
Dante then wept out his emotions. Virgil reached out to touch
Dante but he could not feel the other. He was after all dead. He looked at the orb.
“I hovered inside of you. It was my way to get close to you.” The
orb replied. “You can be close to Dante. All you need is to be with him. Be his
conscience or at times the skeptic. He needs it.”
It was then winds funnel in with ferocity as if it discovered a
new passage and when there was none, it sucked everything out including Dante
and Virgil.
Dante screamed out his voice and then he felt darkness.
And silence.
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