One-shots of fascinating, tragic, beautiful and little-known true love stories. Most are from history. Some are from legends and myths. All of them have touched my heart in some way, and I hope they touch yours too.
Oh, and I've also made a graphic...
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Time Period: 1275 CE, Northern Italy Source:Historical documentation & the Divine Comedy Song: 13th Century Song *video can be found above*
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In Dante's Divine Comedy, he encounters Paolo & Francesca in hell for adultery. Several artists and writers since then have portrayed their story in more... well, endearing terms. Dante, who was a contemporary of the real couple in 13th Century Italy, used their story as an example of sins which are punishable in hell. Talk about bad press!
Well, it turns out that even Dante, seeing them in hell, fainted in compassion after hearing the tragedy of their story. So, let's see what was so faint-worthy...
Francesca, the daughter of a Lord, was to be married to a man named Gianciotto Malatesta for political reasons. See, his family ruled all of Rimini, Italy, and marriage to him would ensure Francesca's family's political and financial success. It would also make peace between the two families, which had had some rifts in recent years. It certainly wasn't a match made out of love; it was arranged, as most marriages were in those days.
The issue was, Gianciotto was famously very ugly. In order to trick Francesca into marrying him, the families came up with a scheme that they would use Paolo, Gianciotto's handsome younger brother, as a proxy until the day of the wedding, after all the agreements had been sorted out. Paolo was threatened into agreeing with the scheme, even though he was already married at the time.
In comes the day of the wedding, after Francesca has already agreed to the marriage, thinking it is the handsome Paolo she is to marry. She stands before who she thinks is her soon-to-be-husband for the very first time and, well... sparks fly. It is an intense love at first sight that they both experience.
Francesca describes the power of love by saying "Per me si va," or "Through me one goes." To me, I think this means that through love we lose ourselves and there is nothing we can do about it. She comes to understand that she has legally married Gianciotto, not Paolo. But through love, she has already "gone". Her fate has been sealed, and she knows she will continue having feelings for Paolo and he for her, despite how forbidden it now is.
Can you imagine the kind of love-at-first-sight that seals two people's fates like this?
They continue a secret love affair for 10 years, with Paolo climbing up into Francesca's room through a ladder outside the window. Most days, when Gianciotto comes knocking on the door, Paolo flees out the window right away. But on one particular day, Paolo becomes stuck on the ladder and can't get down.
Gianciotto, furious to realize what has been happening all this time, lunges for his brother, drawing his sword toward the window to pierce him. Francesca, horrified, rushes in front of the sword so that it pierces her instead of her beloved Paolo. Gianciotto, unsatisfied, pushes the sword in further so that, through Francesca, the sword pierces Paola too (gruesome, I know). Thus, they die at the same time, and are (by some act of mercy) buried together into one tomb for all of eternity.
