V/3 Via a succession of three bird images Dante gradually isolates his chosen representatives of carnal sin, Paolo and Francesca. The initial flock of starlings, the straggling line of cranes come from varying sources; the starlings from an RSPB Journal, the cranes from a travel article in a Sunday Times Colour Supplement. The doves 'with wings held high and motionless' are taken appropriately from Muybridge's Animals in Motion and are the first two of seven suspended movements in a single flap of a pigeon's wings. The fact that they are one and the same bird seemed particularly apposite as an epitome of the idea of 'one flesh'. The colours are improvised from the original black and white photos. Muybridge's step-motion photographs are also the source of the figure in XV/4 which provides another link (cf. note to Canto V/1) to that canto. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.