From Inferno by Dante Alighieri
(translated by Jack Murnighan)
Dante's story of Paolo and Francesca in the Inferno.
 

. . . There is no greater pain
Than to remember happy days in days
Of sadness . . .
 

But if to know the first root of our love
You have so strong a desire,
I'll do as one who weeps while he speaks.
 

One day, for pleasure simply, we were reading
Of Lancelot, and how love overpowered him;
Alone we were, and free from all suspicions.
 

Often that reading caused our eyes to meet,
And often the color from our faces went,
But it was a single passage that overcame us:
 

When we read how the desired smile was
Kissed by one so true a lover, this one,
Who from me will never be taken,
 

Kissed me, his body all trembling, on the mouth.
. . . And no more did we read that day.