Note 470 — CANTO XV.
James Romanes Sibbald translation
He hears, etc.: Of all the interpretations of this somewhat obscure sentence that seems the best which applies it to Virgil’s Quicquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est—‘Whatever shall happen, every fate is to be vanquished by endurance’ (Æn. v. 710). Taking this way of it, we have in the form of Dante’s profession of indifference to all the adverse fortune that may be in store for him a refined compliment to his Guide; and in Virgil’s gesture and words an equally delicate revelation of himself to Brunetto, in which is conveyed an answer to the question at line 48, ‘Who is this that shows the way?’—Otherwise, the words convey Virgil’s approbation of Dante’s having so well attended to his advice to store Farinata’s prophecy in his memory (Inf. x.127).