Beatrice sends Virgil out of love. In Canto II, Dante hesitates before entering the path, not because he doubts the journey, but because he doubts his own right to it, and Virgil, to lift him out of cowardice, tells how he was called: a blessed and beautiful lady called him in Limbo and said, "I am Beatrice, the one who makes you go; I come from the place to which I long to return; love moved me, which makes me speak."
Dante's doubt comes from comparing himself with two who went alive to the other world, Aeneas and Paul, each with a reason that made him worthy. He asks why he should go, and who grants it. Virgil replies that his soul is wounded by cowardice, and that this cowardice turns a man away from an honorable enterprise, as a beast is frightened by a shadow.
Virgil's argument is a chain of three ladies of heaven. A gentle lady, whom the poem does not name, takes pity on Dante's plight and asks Lucia to help him; Lucia goes to Beatrice, seated with the ancient Rachel, and rebukes her for not helping one who loved her so much that he came out for her from the vulgar crowd; Beatrice then descends to Limbo. She explains further that only what has the power to harm others should be feared, and that, made by God, she is not touched by the misery of those below.
With the news that three ladies of heaven care for him, Dante rises like a flower opened by the sun and takes Virgil as his guide, lord and master.