Poet, look at my strength
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Io cominciai: « Poeta che mi guidi, guarda la mia virtù s’ ell’ è possente, prima ch’ a l’ alto passo tu mi fidi.
I began: “Poet who guide me, weigh my strength — whether it is equal to this — before you trust me to the deep crossing.
The pilgrim speaks to Virgil for the first time in this canto, asking him to weigh whether he is strong enough before trusting him to so deep a passage.
Dante's first words to his guide are not eagerness but hesitation. He asks Virgil to <i>guarda</i>, to examine, whether his <i>virtù</i> — his moral and physical fitness — can bear the <i>alto passo</i>, the high, deep passage into Hell.
The request is humble and shrewd at once. He will spend this whole canto talking himself out of the journey and being talked back into it, and here he plants the seed of doubt that the rest of the canto exists to answer.
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