Francesca is one of the souls of the second circle, that of the lustful, in Canto V. She tells Dante that love bound her to her companion and that a kiss, when they read together the story of Lancelot, overcame them; for that reason she is in the storm that never stops. She does not say her own name: she introduces herself by the land where she was born, by the seashore, and it is Dante who calls her Francesca.
Dante descends to the second circle, where Minos judges the souls, and sees a windstorm dragging those who subjected reason to desire. Moved by pity, he asks to speak with two who go together. They come like doves, and Francesca speaks, while the other spirit weeps. The name of the companion, Paolo, and that of the city, Rimini, come from the tradition of the commentaries, not from the poem.
What is most discussed is the way she tells it. In the central tercets the subject is always Love: he seizes, he does not spare the one who is loved, he does not abandon her. She attributes the kiss to the book, "Galeotto was the book," and the death to whoever killed them, who awaits in Caina. Two readings: the frankness of one who was overcome, or a shifting of the decision outside herself.
Dante falls like a dead body, out of pity. The scene opens the question that runs through the cantica: what the pilgrim feels before the sin of others, and whether the poem approves what he feels. Three cantos later he wishes to see Filippo Argenti sunk in the mud.