"My leader took me up at once, and did as would a mother awakened by a noise who sees the flames around her, and takers her child." Canto XXIII line 34
I find it interesting to compare Virgil to a mother her love not because Virgil is a man but because it has been speculated that he was gay. Dante was married and had a thing for Beatrice but this creation of love between two men, one who is a homosexual seems odd to me. Could this be a sign that Dante himself has homosexual thoughts. After a little research I have found that Dante has no direct area of Hell for homosexuals, he has an area for sodomites, but not homosexuals specifically. Could this be him protecting himself or at least a group he feels are okay and the church disagrees with.
"To Aesop's fable of the frog and mouse" Canto XXIII line 187
I went ahead and read Aesop's fable of the frog and mouse and if what happens in the fable Dante would not be in a good situation. The fable says that the frog was teaching the mouse how to dive in the water so it tied its leg to that of the mouse. However, when the frog dived the mouse drowned. Then a bird sees the floating mouse and thinks its a good easy meal and when it picks it up it also gets the frog because they are tied together. So now the frog and the mouse are both dead, and the bird is full. In this situation it is obvious that Dante is the mouse and Virgil the frog but I don't understand why Dante is having these dismal thoughts. Virgil was guiding him to what could be his death but Virgil is incapable of dying as well because he is already dead. I think it is an odd story to make an analogy to in the situation.
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