Follow me
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Ond’ io per lo tuo me’ penso e discerno che tu mi segui, e io sarò tua guida, e trarrotti di qui per loco etterno;
So, for your own good, I think and judge that you should follow me, and I will be your guide, and lead you out of here through an eternal place;
Therefore Virgil judges it best that Dante follow him, and he will guide him through the eternal place.
The offer is made plainly at last: <i>tu mi segui, e io sarò tua guida</i> — you follow, I will guide. Virgil frames it as reasoned judgment for Dante's benefit, not command. The great journey of the poem begins as a piece of careful advice.
<i>Loco etterno</i>, the eternal place, is Hell, named for the first time as their route. What was a lost man's nightmare becomes a planned passage with a companion. The terror has not gone, but it now has a shape and a guide.
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Inferno 1.112 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/dante-inferno/1.112/