Frog's aren't that mean

But as the saying has it, one must go
With Boozers in the tavern and saints in the church.

Canto XXII (13-14)



When I read the notes for this chapter the notes said that this is the most satirical chapter of the entire book. Assuming that is correct I think what Dante is implying here is actually with "saints in the tavern and boozers in the church." Dante unlike the rest of the world at the time is in earnest opposed to what the church does. Dante is not opposed to what the church represents but rather who takes refuge under the church and who uses the church. In this specific chapter Dante refers to politicians that pay for things to happen. I think that the church is another one of those political places of honor that Dante is referring to. So although this thought is just a saying in the book I think it bears truth that Dante chose to write as a satirical comment.

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The present fracas turned my mind

To Aesop's fable of the frog and mouse:
Now and this moment are not more similar
Than did the tale resemble the newer case,

Canto XXIII (3-6)

I have always known that this story is an allegory. Here Dante chooses to prove this fact to his readers by likening his journey through 'The Inferno' to that of a fable. I know we are told not to moralize the literature we read, but in fact I think that is exactly what Dante wants us to do. In the fable, as the book notes describe, it is very possible that Dante is providing evidence that the mouse(Dante and Virgil) will die along their journey. That is ironic because they are dying where the undead live. But what is most intriguing about Dante's choice to pose his possible death, is that it parallels his own life's journey. Dante's possible death, may come in the metaphorical inferno, as well as in life, as well as actually in the Inferno once he is dead. Another possibility for why Dante included this fable is that he fears that the voyage across the river as in Aesop's Fable is his voyage to write this book. Dante knows that writing this book especially in Italian is somewhat risky like the mouse asking the frog to take it across the river.