What has power to harm
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Temer si dee di sole quelle cose c’ hanno potenza di fare altrui male; de l’ altre no, ché non son paurose.
One should fear only those things that have power to do harm; not the rest, for they are not to be feared.
One must fear only those things that have power to do harm; not the rest, which are not to be feared.
Beatrice states a small, clean philosophy of fear. Only what can actually injure you deserves dread; everything else is a phantom, unworthy of it. It is the same lesson Virgil aimed at Dante's shadow-startled cowardice, now given a general form.
By this measure Hell holds nothing she need fear, because — as the next tercet explains — God has made her such that its misery cannot touch her. The doctrine quietly rebukes Dante too: most of what stopped him had no power to harm at all.
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