Canto XXIII

Silent, alone, sans escort, with one behind/ And one before, as Friars Minor use,/ We journeyed. The present fracas turned my mind To Aesop’s fable of the frog and the mouse:/Now and this moment are not more similar/Than did the tale resemble the newer case,

If one is conscientious to compare/Their ends and their beginning, Then as one thought/ Springs from one before it, this now bore

Another which redoubled my terror: that-/ Having been fooled because of us, with wounds/ And mockery to make them the more irate With anger added to their malice- the fiends/ More fiercely than a dog attacks a hare,/ Would soon come after us.