MASTERPIECE #3251

/// Paolo, (Francesca’s brother-in-law),
kissed his brother’s wife right on her jaw.
They’d been reading a book,
and this chance Paolo took
brought them grief because her husband saw.

/// The girl’s marriage was loveless— arranged.
Now Francesca’s allegiance had changed.
Paolo’s handsome and younger,
which ignited a hunger.
From her old, deformed spouse she’s estranged.

/// Fran and Paolo had started as friends,
but their carnal attraction transcends.
Here they read the romance
between Guinie and Lance;
never got to how that affair ends.

/// Their adulterous love was forbidden.
For their safety, it had to be hidden.
They were taking big chances,
outside reading romances,
when her husband appeared there unbidden.

/// He is mad for her; she feels the same,
but she’s learned, her emotions, to tame.
They’re outdoors in the light,
in full view and plain sight,
and her husband is just out of frame!

/// They are hard to see, and very small.
And yet, at the far left (on that wall),
though ‘twas cropped, something lingers.
Just the tips of his fingers.
Gianciotto’s here, ready to brawl.

/// Dante wrote about meeting this pair,
and in hell’s second circle is where
they are scourged for all time.
It seems Lust was their crime.
They’d been murdered— it hardly seems fair!

/// Those souls punished for lust feel no fire;
they were deemed much too hot-blooded prior.
Here gale winds shriek and moan—
they’re eternally blown,
(but not in the way he would desire).

/// “The Inferno” where, by God’s design,
Satan will, mankind’s sinners, confine.
Endless tortures await
these two lovers. Their fate
is no Comedy (and not Divine).