Out of the whirlwind of carnal sinners buffeted about like starlings in winter, a separate flock emerges, flying in single file and wailing mournfully, like cranes "chanting." Their poetic lament and the way in which they follow one another distinguish them from the random horde. These are literary lovers, drawn from the great tradition of ancient epic and medieval romance: Helen of Troy, Dido, and other "knights and ladies of great antiquity," all of whom died for love. In the name of love, Dante calls out to Francesca and Paolo. They descend like doves to the nest, and Francesca tells their story.
The first part of her story describes their love in the cliches of medieval literature: a unique and irresistible passion, kindled on sight, swept them to their death. The second part of her story seems to contradict this: in fact, she confesses, their love was neither spontaneous nor predestined. It was suggested by their reading of the romance of Lancelot. In Hell, Francesca seems to be disabused of her romantic illusions. What appeared to be love at first sight was in fact love by the book. Book and author seduced the lovers, just as Lancelot and Guinevere were seduced into adultery by the traitor Gallehault.
The damned in Dido's train bear witness to the power of literature more than to the irresistibility of love. They were literary characters who sinned and yet claimed to be blameless because of love potions, betrayals, or overpowering love at first sight. In his early poetry, Dante had insisted upon the inevitability of such love for those with "gentle hearts." The second part of Francesca's story exposes the bad faith of such claims. Hers is a cautionary tale, warning the suggestible reader about the dangers of romance, but it is also a palinode, Dante's second thoughts on his own theory of love and the gentle heart.
The episode portrays Francesca as a deluded victim of medieval romance, like a thirteenth-century Madame Bovary, but it also creates one more heroine in love's canon. It is therefore just as seductive as the literature against which it warns. Francesca's name would have been out of place in this company, being that of a provincial adulteress mentioned only in the chronicles, swirling about with these literary legends, had Dante not transformed into their equal, a rival of Helen or of Dido the queen. In spite of the moralizing intent of the story, its effect is to show Dante's mastery of the genre he condemns. (John Freccero)
2.) Each circle of Hell, which is shaped approximately like a funnel, girdles a smaller space than the one above it.
3.) Minos is a mythological king and judge. Virgil casts him in the Aeneid as a judge of the underworld, and it is Dante who transforms him into a demonic creature.
33-36.) The souls punished here in the whirlwind are those of the lustful. Like all the souls consigned to the first five circles of Hell (Cantos I-VIII) their sin--in a concept derived from Aristotle--arises from incontinence, or lack of restraint, which is intellectual as well as physical. Dante seems concerned with their reason mastered by desire, as is embodied by their situation buffeted helplessly by the wind, rather than simply with their sexual behavior itself. Reason, in the Augustinian moral system, is not mere logic-chopping but the quality of mind capable of perceiving truth. Ideally, reason's perceptions guide and anchor desire, which in itself can be as wild and aimless as the whirlwind.
50-51.) The ancient Assyrian queen Semiramis became legendary for sexual excess; one legend says she legalized incest, to justify her own behavior.
52-54.) She who died: Dido is the Carthaginian queen who kills herself for love of Aeneas in Virgil's epic. The widow of the murdered Sychaeus, she broke her vow / to [his] ashes by becoming Aeneas' lover.
55.) Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, was the lover of both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Helen caused the rift that led to the Trojan war when she eloped with Paris (line 58).
57.) The line that Achilles died for the love of the Trojan Polyxena was popular in the Middle Ages, but does not come from Homer.
58.) Tristan is a hero from medieval French romances, the lover of Iseult, the wife of his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall.
65.) Those two are Paolo and Francesca, historical contemporaries of Dante. Francesca was the wife of Gianciotto Malatesta of Rimini, but she fell in love with his brother, Paolo. Gianciotto murdered the lovers when they were discovered. The murder caused enormous scandal, and although Dante does not use Paolo's name at all, or Francesca's until line 103, there can be no doubt as to the identity of these lovers. The encounter that follows, in which Francesca tells Dante their sad tale, is one of the most celebrated passages in the Commedia.
71.) Another: Again the direct mention of God is avoided in Hell.
87.) The city is Ravenna, on Italy's Adriatic (eastern) coast, Francesca's home.
96.) Caina, in the ninth circle of Hell, contains the spirits of those who betrayed their kin. Francesca assumes that when Gianciotto--who was still living in 1300--dies, he will be sent there for murdering his wife and brother.
113.) Lancelot is a worthy knight in the Arthurian romances. He betrays King Arthur, becoming the lover of Arthur's wife, Guinevere.
122.) Galeotto, or, in French, Gallehault, acted as messenger between Lancelot and Guinevere. The French version of his name has become a synonym for "pander" or "go-between."