A worthier soul
Read the full text in our reader
A le quai poi se tu vorrai salire, anima fia a ciò più di me degna: con lei ti lascerò nel mio partire;
To whom, if you then wish to rise, there will be a soul worthier than I for that: with her I will leave you when I depart;
If Dante wishes to rise to the blessed, a soul worthier than Virgil will lead him there when Virgil departs.
Virgil names his own limit. He can lead Dante through Hell and up Purgatory, but not into Heaven — for that a worthier soul must take over. That soul, unnamed here, is Beatrice, and the hand-off is already being arranged in the first canto.
<i>Più di me degna</i>, worthier than I: the greatest of the pagan poets acknowledges, without bitterness, where his authority ends. Reason can carry a person very far, but the last ascent belongs to love and grace, which he was born too early to know.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Inferno 1.121 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Inferno — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Inferno 1.121 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/dante-inferno/1.121/