Brewer's: Parisina

the beautiful young wife of Azo. She falls in love with Hugo, her stepson, and betrays herself to her husband in a dream. Azo condemns his son to be executed, but the fate of Parisina, says Byron, is unknown. (Parisina.)

Frizzi, in his History of Ferrara, tells us that Parisina Malatesta was the second wife of Niccolo, Marquis of Este; that she fell in love with Ogo, her stepson, and that the infidelity of Parisina was revealed by a servant named Zoese. He says that both Ogo and Parisina were beheaded, and that the marquis commanded all the faithless wives he knew to be beheaded to the Moloch of his passion.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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