, at the time of those sweet sighs,
By what and in what manner Love conceded
That you should know your dubious desires?'
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 recognize 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 enthrall.
Alone we were, and without any fear.
Full many a time our eyes together drew
That reading, and drove the color from our faces;
But one point was it that o'ercame us.
Whenas 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."

Dr. Parsons:--

"Then, turning round to them, I thus began:
'Francesca! tears must overflow mine eyes:
My pitying soul thy martyr-throes unman;
But tell me,--in the time of happy sighs,
Your vague desires how gave Love utterance first?"
And she to me: "The mightiest of all woes
Is, in the midst of misery, to be cursed
With bliss remembered,--this thy teacher knows.
Yet, wouldst thou learn our passion's root and head,
As one may speak whose eyes with tears are dim,
So will I speak. Together once we read
The tale of Lancelot,--how Love bound him.
Alone we were without suspecting aught:
Oft in perusal paled our cheeks their hue,
And oft our eyes each other's glances caught;
But one sole passage 't was which both o'erthrew.
At reading of the longed-for smile,--to be
By such a lover's kissing so much blest,
This dearest--never shalt thou part from me!
His lips to mine, to mine, all trembling, pressed.
The writer was our Galeot with his book:--
That day we read no further on." She stopped:
Meanwhile he moaned so that compassion took
My sense away, and like a corse I dropped.

Observe that Dr. Parsons has put Dante's twenty-eight lines of eleven
syllables into twenty-four lines of ten syllables; and this without
losing a drop of the precious stream he undertakes to pour. But why
does