O compassionate her
Read the full text in our reader
« Oh pietosa colei che mi soccorse! e te cortese ch’ ubidisti tosto a le vere parole che ti porse!
“Oh, how compassionate is she who helped me, and how courteous were you, so quick to obey the true words she gave you!
Dante answers, freed: O compassionate is she who helped me, and courteous were you, so quick to obey the true words she offered you!
Dante's first free words are thanks. He praises Beatrice's <i>pietà</i> and Virgil's <i>cortesia</i> — the two virtues, pity and courtesy, that the whole canto has celebrated, now recognized in the ones who saved him.
Gratitude is the sound of a healed soul. Where he began with self-doubt, he ends by seeing clearly the love that moved for him, and by honoring it. The turn from fear to thanks is the turn the poem needed before Hell's gate could open.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Inferno 2.133 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 2.133 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/dante-inferno/2.133/