O courteous Mantuan soul
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“ O anima cortese mantoana, di cui la fama ancor nel mondo dura, e durerà quanto ’l mondo lontana,
“O courteous Mantuan soul, whose fame still endures in the world, and will endure as long as the world itself lasts,
Beatrice addresses Virgil: O courteous Mantuan soul, whose fame still lasts in the world and will last as long as the world itself.
Beatrice greets Virgil first by his gift and his city — <i>anima cortese mantoana</i> — honoring the poet before asking anything of him. The praise is precise: his <i>fama</i> will last as long as the world.
It is a striking courtesy from Heaven to a soul in Limbo. Before she names Dante's need, she gives Virgil the one thing eternity had seemed to withhold from him: worth, acknowledged from above.
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Inferno 2.58 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/dante-inferno/2.58/