The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain neutrality in times of moral crisis 

Then I stretched out my hand a little before me and plucked a small branch from a great thornbush; and its stem cried out: "Why do you split me?" \Vhen it had become dark with blood, it beg:m again: "Why do YOll pluck me? Have you no spirit of pity at all? We were men, and now we have become plants: tmly your hand should be more merciful had we been the souls of serpents." As when a green log is burnt at one end, from the other it drips and sputters as air escapes: so from the broken stump came forth words and blood together, and I let the tip fall and stood like one afraid. "If he could have believed first," replied my sage, "0 wounded soul, what he has seen only in my rhymes, he would not have stretched out his hand against you; but the incredible thing made me induce him to do what pains me as well. But tell him who you were, so that as a kind of amends he may refresh your fame in the world above, where he is permitted to return."