Francesca da Rimini

“ D'Annunzio's Francesca da Rimini is glorified melodrama. It is unnecessary to revert to the plays, poems, books, pictures, symphonies, that have been made with the unhappy loves of Francesca and Paolo as a theme. From the day when the great Florentine exile sang in Canto V of his Hell, "In its leaves that day we read no more," Dante inspired painters, poets, sculptors,—Rodin not among the least,—musicians, and playwrights. Leigh Hunt wrote The Story of Rimini; there is George Boker's commonplace play, in which Lawrence Barrett, Louis James, Otis Skinner, and others have appeared ”

“ FRANCESCA. What ails Ritta?
GUIDO. The ailing of your sex, a running tongue.
Francesca, 'tis too late to beat retreat:
Old Malatesta has me—you, too, child—
Safe in his clutch. If you are not content,
I must unclose Ravenna, and allow
His son to take you. Poh, poh! have a soul
Equal with your estate. A prince's child
Cannot choose husbands. Her desires must aim,
Not at herself, but at the public good. ”

“ It is by "Francesca da Rimini" that Boker is best remembered. In a letter to Stoddard, March 3, 1853, he writes:
You will laugh at this, but the thing is so. "Francesca da Rimini" is the title. Of course you know the story,—everyone does; but you nor any one else, do not know it as I have treated it. I have great faith in the successful issue of this new attempt. I think all day, and write all night. This is one of my peculiarities, by the bye: a subject seizes me soul and body, which accounts for the rapidity of my execution. ”

“ Vol. XXV, no. 2, June, 1917, of the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, for statements as to Boker's "profits" from the stage.
After Otis Skinner's revival of "Francesca da Rimini," it was played for a while by Frederick Ward and Louis James in association (1893) and by Frank C. Bangs in 1892.
Hosts of dramas have been written on "Francesca da Rimini," and every poet has essayed at one time or another to surpass Dante's incomparable lines. Music scores have glorified this passionate love story, while marble and canvas have caught the external expression of it. ”

“ PAOLO. [Preventing him.] Hold, homicide!
LANCIOTTO. But think,
You and Francesca may live happily,
After my death, as only lovers can.
PAOLO. Live happily, after a deed like this!
LANCIOTTO. Now, look ye! there is not one hour of life
Among us three. Paolo, you are armed—
You have a sword, I but a dagger: see!
I mean to kill you.
FRANCESCA. [Whispers to PAOLO.] Give thy sword to me.
PAOLO. Away! thou'rt frantic. I will never lift
This wicked hand against thee.
LANCIOTTO. Coward, slave! ”

“ In his Portraits et Souvenirs Saint-Saëns has given the following description of this concert, and I cannot refrain from interrupting my narrative in order to quote what the French composer says of my brother’s Francesca.
“Piquant charms and dazzling fireworks abound in Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini, which bristles with difficulties, and shrinks from no violence of effect. The gentlest and kindest of men has let loose a whirlwind in this work, and shows as little pity for his interpreters and hearers as Satan for sinners. ”

“ PAOLO. Conquer for yourself.
Two captains share one honour: keep it all.
What if I ask to share the spoils?
LANCIOTTO. [Laughing.] Ha! ha!
I'll trust you, brother. Let us go to her:
Francesca is neglected while we jest.
I know not how it is, but your fair face,
And noble figure, always cheer me up,
More than your words; there's healing in them, too,
For my worst griefs. Dear brother, let us in. [Exeunt.
SCENE II. The Same. A Chamber in the Same. FRANCESCA and RITTA discovered at the bridal toilet.
RITTA. [Sings.]
Ring high, ring high! to earth and sky;
A lady goes a-wedding ”

“ RITTA. In Count Paolo, lady,
Perchance there was no meditated fraud.
FRANCESCA. How, dare you plead for him?
RITTA. I but suppose:
Though in your father—O! I dare not say.
FRANCESCA. I dare. It was ill usage, gross abuse,
Treason to duty, meanness, craft—dishonour!
What if I'd thrown my heart before the feet
Of this sham husband! cast my love away
Upon a counterfeit! I was prepared
To force affection upon any man
Called Lanciotto. ”

“ GUIDO. Is he so ugly?
RITTA. Ugly! he is worse
Than Pilate on the hangings.
GUIDO. Hold your tongue
Here, and at Rimini, about the Count,
And you shall prosper.
RITTA. Am I not to boil?
GUIDO. No, child. But be discreet at Rimini.
Old Malatesta is a dreadful man—
Far worse than I—he bakes his people, Ritta;
Lards them, like geese, and bakes them in an oven.
RITTA. Fire is my fate, I see that.
GUIDO. Have a care
It do not follow you beyond this world.
Where is your mistress?
RITTA. In her room, my lord.
After I told her of the Count Paolo,
She flew to have an interview with you ”

“ Boker's "Francesca da Rimini" will stand largely because, in structure and in directness, it is strikingly effective for the stage.
[Footnote A: Duyckinck recalls that, in 1862, R.T. Conrad's
"Devotional Poems" were published, edited by Boker.]
[Footnote B: We find a record of Mrs. John Drew having, as Francesca, supported Davenport when the play was taken to Philadelphia.] ”

“ Your strength, your courage, your renown—by heaven,
We'd e'en change persons, to the finest hair.
LANCIOTTO. You should be flatterer to an emperor.
PAOLO. I am but just. Let me beseech you, brother.
To look with greater favour on yourself;
Nor suffer misty phantoms of your brain
To take the place of sound realities.
Go to Ravenna, wed your bride, and lull
Your cruel delusions in domestic peace.
Ghosts fly a fireside; 'tis their wont to stalk
Through empty houses, and through empty hearts.
I know Francesca will be proud of you.
Women admire you heroes. ”

“ I tell you, Lanciotto, you and I
Must have a patent for our foolery!
"She smiled; he kissed her full upon the mouth!"—
There's the beginning; where's the end of it?
O poesy! debauch thee only once,
And thou'rt the greatest wanton in the world!
O cousin Lanciotto—ho, ho, ho! [Laughing.]
Can a man die of laughter? Here we sat;
Mistress Francesca so demure and calm;
Paolo grand, poetical, sublime!—
Eh! what is this? Paolo's dagger? Good! ”

“ This is something beyond even heavenly rigour; and so I proceed to my own destruction, with the proud consciousness that, at all events, it is my own act. À propos, have you ever read the English acting copy of my "Calaynos"? A viler thing was never concocted from like materials.
Whether or not the play, "The Bankrupt," preceded or followed the writing of "Francesca da Rimini" in 1853, we have no way of determining; but it would seem that it progressed no further in its stage career than in manuscript form, it being the only play on a modern theme attempted by Boker. ”

“ Dante's last and most magnanimous patron was Guido Novello da Polenta, lord of Ravenna, who was himself a poet, and a munificent benefactor of men of letters. This nobleman was the father of Francesca di Rimini, whose fatal love has given her a place on the most splendid page of the "Divina Commedia;" no other episode being told with equal beauty and pathos: yet so brief and simple is the narrative, that, even if the circumstances were as unexceptionably pure as they are insidiously delicate, translation ought hardly to be attempted; for the labour would be fruitless. ”

“ ACT IV SCENE I. The Same. An Apartment in the Castle. Enter LANCIOTTO. LANCIOTTO. It cannot be that I have duped myself,
That my desire has played into the hand
Of my belief; yet such a thing might be.
We palm more frauds upon our simple selves
Than knavery puts upon us. Could I trust
The open candour of an angel's brow,
I must believe Francesca's. ”

“ Exeunt PAOLO and FRANCESCA, with PAGES.
RITTA. O! misery, misery!—it is plain as day—
She loves Paolo! Why will those I love
Forever get themselves ensnared, and heaven
Forever call on me to succor them? ”

“ Paolo returns from knightly deeds in Asia, to find his father dead—the Malatesta Verucchio who died in 1312, twenty-seven years after Giovanni committed the murder; therefore Pellico gives to the deformed brother the power that history does not wholly accord. The dramatist would avoid the indelicacy he finds in the reading incident, recounting it only in a situation during which Francesca holds aloof in a wild effort to stifle her love. Throughout the play, there is this ruthless twisting, in a desire to conceal wrong and unpardonable sin. ”

“ When thou art gone, thou'lt flatter thy weak heart
With hopes and speculations; and thou'lt swear
I suffer naught, because thou dost not see.
I will not live to bear it!
PAOLO. Die,—'twere best;
Tis the last desperate comfort of our sin.
FRANCESCA. I'll kill myself!
PAOLO. And so would I, with joy;
But crime has made a craven of me. O!
For some good cause to perish in! Something
A man might die for, looking in God's face;
Not slinking out of life with guilt like mine
Piled on the shoulders of a suicide!
FRANCESCA. Where wilt thou go?
PAOLO. I care not ”

“ It has become the inspiration for Maeterlinck in "Pelléas and Mélisande," who has viewed the Italian passion through a mirage of mysticism.
Into "The Divine Comedy," the account of Francesca and Paolo is dropped, keen, sensitive and delicate, as though the poet, a friend of those concerned, wished to cover the hard fact of illicit love in an ecstacy of human feeling. Dante, the supreme master of his age, the incomparable lover of Beatrice, differentiated this tragedy from countless incidents of like character which marked his age. ”

“ Before the Gates of the City. The walls hung with banners, flowers, etc., and crowded with citizens. At the side of the scene is a canopied dais, with chairs of state upon it. Music, bells, shouts, and other sounds of rejoicing, are occasionally heard. Enter GUIDO, the CARDINAL, NOBLEMEN, KNIGHTS, GUARDS, etc., with banners, arms, etc.
GUIDO. My lord, I'll have it so. You talk in vain.
Paolo is a marvel in his way:
I've seen him often. If Francesca take
A fancy to his beauty, all the better;
For she may think that he and Lanciotto
Are like as blossoms of one parent branch. ”

“ But the revitalizing power that was given Shakespeare, has been bequeathed to none who have followed Dante. The one beauty of the Francesca story is the simple element that permeates the dark motive. The genius required to deal with it lies in this: to make one conscious of the tragedy in a touch that recalls the beauty of spring.
It is strange that no other poet than Dante has succeeded in catching this beauty. No poet, writing directly on the theme, has the subtle feeling which may be compared with that of the Italian. Richard Le Gallienne is infinitely superior to Hunt ”

“ Stephen Phillips, in his Francesca drama, ignores altogether Italian temperament; save for the fact that he occasionally mentions the Tyrant of Rimini, Pesaro and Florence, and that he adheres to historic names, there is more of the English hamlet romance in the piece, than Italian passion. And that cannot be said of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." Perhaps one may claim for Phillips some of the simplicity of Dante, but there is not the humanity. Undeniably, the English poet is happy in phrase and imagery, but his genius is not so dramatic as it is poetic ”

“ A striking point is to be noted in the strong vein of Catholicism that colours many of the speeches.
Paolo's wife, Orabile, moves through the D'Annunzio play with only slight mention—to show the husband's avoidance of her—to draw attention to her deep-rooted aversion to Francesca. Mr. Crawford also brings her on the scene, and has Paolo the cause of her death, wittingly distorting history, since Orabile died many years after the murder of her husband.
The only American drama on the subject is that by Boker ”

“ So Paolo came to Ravenna with a brilliant train of gentlemen to celebrate the wedding festivities; and as he crossed the courtyard of the palace on the morning of his arrival, a maid who knew him pointed him out to Francesca through the open window, saying: "That is he who is to be your husband." This Francesca believed, as she had no reason to think otherwise, so skilfully was the marriage ceremony arranged, and it was not until her arrival at Rimini that she knew her fate. ”

“ Where every bosom heateth with a star—
At Rimini, anigh that crumbling strand
The Adriatic filcheth near and far—
In that same past where Dante's dream-days are,
That one Francesca gave her youthful gold
Unto an aged carle to bolt and bar;
Though all the love which great young hearts can hold,
How could she give that love unto a miser old?
Nay! but young Paolo was the happy lad,
A youth of dreaming eye yet dauntless foot,
Who all Francesca's wealth of loving had;
One brave to scale a wall and steal the fruit,
Nor fear because some dotard owned the root ”

“ But, in truth, we have no inclination to cut up with the small knives the poem of Rimini. Let us hasten to take one glance at the real business of the piece,—the incest of Paolo and Francesca. All the preparations for the actual sin are invented by our Poet "in his own fine free way." The scene is in a little antique temple adorned by sculpture, and had Mr Hunt filled his freezes with funeral processions, or with the agonies of Orestes, or the despair of Œdipus, we might indeed have acknowledged that there was some propriety in his fancy. ”