14.2.10

Francesca and Farida


Paulo and she read through Lancelot, and a page was enough for them to know how they felt. It often is instant. Like dust in eyes, though, it can hurt. It did. But, it did not stop them.

Dante further immortalised them in his Divine Comedy:

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.

(Translated by H.W.Longfellow)

As for Farida, she just sang a song like many others have done. I don’t know what she felt, but despite others having sung it, her version remains with me.

Sajan Laagi Tori Lagan – Farida Khanum

11 comments:

  1. Thanks for the lit. lesson, FV. Went and looked up Francesca, Paolo, Princess G. and Sir Lancelot.

    http://tinyurl.com/y854ko7

    I should have paid more attention in class instead of drawing caricatures of the teacher, but too late now.

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  2. And a Happy Valentine's day. I belatedly noticed the keywords "event" and "celebration"...always a little slow about such things. :-)

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  3. FV
    Happy Valnetine's Day.
    I dunno if you celebrate it or not? or even beleive in it???

    Since, I do believe in it, celebrate it and do share it with everyone I love. I thought to give a bit of share by expressing my admiration for this blog. No doubt I feel at home whenever I need a bit of peace of mind under this blog's shade.

    Quote:
    [To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down."
    - Woody Allen,]
    circle

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  4. Al:

    Does it mean you fall asleep reading here?

    Oh, the tags were just added in case people thought it was worth it. There was no hurry, so being slow is just fine :)

    Circle:

    Thank you so much...I can imagine all this stressful writing here can make anyone feel at peace with themselves! Much appreciate your thoughts and reciprocate with a genuine feeling of appreciation for being around this long, with a few breaks...

    I celebrate anything that is not tied down to an ideology I do not believe in, so this one's good...and belated wishes to you to.

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  5. FV wrote:

    "Does it mean you fall asleep reading here?"

    Not sure why you said that :) but I will admit that I paid a lot of attention to grammar and style and completely ignored prose and poetry, especially all the "classics" like Dante's Inferno and stuff. I will admit I cannot comprehend most literature that talks about heaven or hell because it does not compute for me.

    But I did fall asleep (sometimes literally with a lot of sound effects) in Lit. class in college decades ago...that and Civics class were more boring that watching paint dry. Now when there are no teachers and exams and pressure, all the subjects I hated in school are making more sense, like history and civics. Always loved Geography.

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  6. Ah, next time I shall try and write geo-graphic poetry.

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  7. FV, That would be luverly if you could write geo-graphic poetry, not least because it sounds less intimidating than graphic geo-poetry.

    I would gladly settle for plain graphic poetry from you, if not geo-graphic Poetry. :-)

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  8. Graphic=detailed. Geo=earth. Therefore, detailed about the earth or earthly things in poetic form.

    Is it better than details about poetry of the earth?!

    It's all in the details.

    PS: You have not once commented on my poems...

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  9. "Is it better than details about poetry of the earth?! It's all in the details."

    True that about the details being important.

    "PS: You have not once commented on my poems..."

    Yes, true. I don't trust myself to say anything useful or insightful about things prose and poetry.

    Would rather be silent than you read my idiotic opinions on poetry and think I was being critical in a bad way.

    I do not know enough about poetry to be critical but I can understand the various shades of meaning the poet usually tries to get across and that's good enough for me.

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  10. I did comprehend some of the "keh do" poems that you wrote earlier -- I got 6.5 out of 10. And that too after having to look up the meanings of quite a lot of words that I used to know in school. I think I would contribute a lot more by shutting up rather than commenting on Urdu and Hindi poetry.

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  11. Thanks, and I just mentioned it without expectations. Btw, I also knowing little bit English to write poem in the language. Sometimes just try for fun's sake, okay?

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