Fitting favor
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Però, se l’ avversario d’ ogne male cortese i fu, pensando l’ alto effetto ch’ uscir dovea di lui, e ’l chi e ’l quale
And so, if the Adversary of all evil was gracious to him — considering the lofty effect that was to spring from him, and both the who and the what of it —
Dante reasons that if God, the adversary of all evil, was gracious to Aeneas, it was fitting — given the great effect that was to come from him, and the who and the what of it.
God is named by his role: <i>l'avversario d'ogne male</i>, the enemy of every evil. Even He, Dante argues, granted Aeneas this favor, and it was <i>cortese</i>, courteous, fitting — because of what would come of the journey.
The compressed <i>e 'l chi e 'l quale</i> — the who and the what — points to Rome and its empire, the vast historical consequence Aeneas's descent set in motion. Dante is assembling a legal-sounding argument for why some journeys into the dead are sanctioned, and edging toward the question of whether his own could be.
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