Animal suffering plays a central role in shifting our modes of relating to non-human species. As Erica Fudge puts it, “to recognize an animal’s sentience is also to begin to contemplate its capacity for suffering, and so observation - so often an objectifying act - can also produce a new assessment of the subject status of the observed thing.’ (Cockram & Wells 2018: xvii). Research into the role of compassion in interspecies relations for the early modern period has mainly focused on dogs, horses, and cats (with special attention to Montaigne’s cat). These domestic companion species invite compassion more easily than others. In this paper, I heed Lucinda Cole’s recent call for research into affective relations with “the zoological outcasts with whom identification is rarely possible or desired” – I explore the question whether early moderns experienced compassion with snails.