In Canto 19, Virgil hugs Dante to his chest to carry him out of the 3rd bolgia and they progress to the 4th bolgia in the 8th circle of Hell. In the eighth circle Fraud is punished and each bolgia (pocket, ravine, ditch) punishes a different kind of Fraud. Canto 20 is the 4th bolgia where the sin of divinity and false prophecy are punished.
Isaiah 44:24-26 (NKJV) 24 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,
And He who formed you from the womb:
“I am the Lord, who makes all things,
Who stretches out the heavens all alone,
Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself;
25 Who frustrates the signs of the babblers,
And drives diviners mad;
Who turns wise men backward,
And makes their knowledge foolishness;
26 Who confirms the word of His servant,
And performs the counsel of His messengers;
Same passage, but different translation
Isaiah 44:24-26 (NIV) 24 “This is what the Lord says—
your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb:
I am the Lord,
the Maker of all things,
who stretches out the heavens,
who spreads out the earth by myself,
25 who foils the signs of false prophets
and makes fools of diviners,
who overthrows the learning of the wise
and turns it into nonsense,
26 who carries out the words of his servants
and fulfills the predictions of his messengers,
Readying myself at the cliff’s brink, I looked down
Into the canyon my master had revealed
And saw that it was watered by tears of pain:
All through the circular valley I beheld
A host of people coming, weeping but mute,
They walked at a solemn pace that would be called
Liturgical here above. But as my sight
Moved down their bodies, I sensed a strange distortion
That made the angle of the chin and chest not right –
The head was twisted backwards; some cruel torsion
Forced face toward kidneys, and the people strode
Backwards, because deprived of forward vision.
Perhaps some time a palsy has wrung the head
Of a man straight back like these, or a terrible stroke –
But I’ve never seen one do so, and doubt it could.
Reader (God grant you benefit of this book)
Try to imagine, yourself, how I could have kept
Tears of my own from falling for the sake
Of our human image so grotesquely reshaped,
Contorted so the eye’s tears fell to wet
The buttocks at the cleft. Truly I wept,
Dante, the poet, lived in a time where magic, alchemy, astrology, divination were hot topics.
Magic – consisted of helpful (white) magic and harmful (black) magic. Medical and protective magic was considered helpful and white magic. Sorcery was black magic and had the purpose of harming someone, having evil intentions. Magic would include using herbs, incantations, charms, rituals to bring about a desired result. Some were as innocent as using healing herbs and saying prayers over them and administering to the sick. Some were as complicated as drawing blood from the neck of the ill, pour it into running water, spit 3 times and recite a spell. It could be as innocent as laying hands on the sick and praying to exorcisms. Or it could be adjurations to an elf and following a complex ritual to reward the elf for causing someone’s death (just an example). If a woman couldn’t have children, she might get desperate and try to find some magic to help her conceive. If a man wanted to marry a certain woman and she was in love with someone else, he might look for some magic potion or spell to change her mind or kill off the other man. It was manipulative, controlling and dangerous. Satan and his demons love to get people in bondage to evil things like this. So satan may make it work one time so the person becomes a believer in the magic or spell. But the end result is certainly not for good as satan is evil. People prefer to bypass God and try to do things their own way. They will even collaborate with satan to try to attain power and control.
Alchemy – medieval forerunner of chemistry; an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and proto-scientific tradition practiced throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia, originating in Greco-Roman Egypt in the first few centuries AD. Alchemists tried to purify, mature and perfect certain materials. Many “alchemists” tried to turn a base metal into gold or silver such as lead or tin. Some tried to find a way to immortality, youthfulness (the so-called “fountain of youth”), or cures. Alchemists tried to discover new ways to exploit nature as God had given it. They thought they could find ways to do what only God can do. If they could find the secret ways, then they could bypass God altogether. They could reach perfection, immortality, riches, and strength without God. It can be seen as early chemistry and medicine but also charlatanism. Some didn’t see it that way, they saw themselves as finding secrets of God to make them more like God intended and wanted them to be. These were “mystics” and “spiritualists” who indulged in some heresy with the justification of “getting closer to God” and being more “spiritual”. The base of it was really to become like God, to be God, and thus bypassing the one true God to embrace things only God can give. Heresy.
The alchemists were obsessed with secrecy for several reasons. They wanted the end results for themselves and to control who would benefit. Let’s face it, if we could turn base metal into gold, gold would become worthless as it would be so plentiful. That defeats the purpose. If they could discover the way to immortality and gave it to everyone, the earth would soon become overpopulated and where do you go when there is no more room on earth? If you found a cure for disease, what would happen to the medical profession that makes it’s money on disease? This selfishness, greed, pride and desire to control are the base sins built on the desire to be God. An alchemist might want to live forever but they don’t necessarily want YOU to live forever, at least unless they get something in return for it. They would soon be overwhelmed with human beings wanting to live forever. Sort of like when a ship goes down and there is only 1 lifeboat. All those swimming and drowning in the water want in the lifeboat. In their desperation they will collapse the lifeboat meaning no one is saved from the sinking ship.
Astrology – Arabic astrology was transmitted to Europe starting around the 11th century. Astrology that arose from pagan religions, combined with the Christian church, saw astrologers become a respected, scholarly group. Astrologers believed that the movements of the stars influenced numerous things on earth, from the weather and the growth of crops to the personalities of newborn babies and the inner workings of the human body. It became a combination of astronomy (the science of studying the stars), magic, divination. They believed that the stars dictated everything. Studying the stars with the attitude of praise and worship for their Creator is one thing. But it is quite another when you worship the stars rather than the Creator and when you try to bypass God altogether. They think, “Who needs God when I can just read the stars?” Did you know that a lot of leaders during those times didn’t want anyone to know their birthdays because someone could make a star chart and advise an enemy when is the best time to attack according to the stars.
Divination – the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers; the practice of attempting to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge by occult or supernatural means; augury; prophecy; the effort to obtain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process, or ritual. To engage in divination is to reveal mysterious knowledge by supernatural practices. It is correlated with the occult and involves fortune-telling or soothsaying. Once again, people trying to bypass God and get what only God has, knowledge of the future.
In those days, it was very dangerous to draw attention to oneself by anything that could look like witchcraft, sorcery, magic. Let’s say that you know certain herbs can bring relief and healing to certain ailments. Many medicines today are made from plants. We take vitamins and herbs all the time. But back then, it could be seen as “witchcraft” and “demonic”. If you had tried to help people in your community by using your knowledge of herbs, you ran the risk of the accusation of being a witch. What if a bad storm came and destroyed people’s homes or farms, someone could accuse the local “witch” of practising black magic and next thing you know, they are burning you at the stake. Even if you did good things, people were so superstitious and afraid, they could inflate anything into an accusation. On the other hand, there were very real people who did try to use illicit “powers” with of evil motivations as discussed above. People do it today by participating in satanism, voodoo, witchcraft. They also do it today by filling capsules with sand and selling it as a cure-all vitamin. Or they try to find their fortune by finding the cure for cancer (or not, as the cure for cancer would destroy a profitable industry). People still read their horoscopes and make decisions based on the stars. Whenever we are ready to trust anything and everything BUT God, we are in trouble. If I read my horoscope to know how to make decisions for the day, but I don’t pray and ask God to help me with my decisions for the day… I’m bypassing God. When I take a handful of vitamins and herbs to help me get through the day and feel better but I’m not praying to God and asking Him to help me get through the day and feel better… I’m bypassing God. When I read the tea leaves of the stock market in order to make decisions about my investments and I don’t pray and ask God how to invest my money… I’m bypassing God. If I go to a plastic surgeon and doctors for my health and to look young again and I don’t pray and ask God to give me health and strength… I’m bypassing God. God wants a relationship with us which means daily dialogue with Him. He tells us to pray about all things. He asks us to trust Him for all things. But, for some reason, this is too hard so we run everywhere else and trust anything else for what we want. God may direct me to take vitamins, go to the doctor, take medicine, read a book on investments. God then will use those to guide me in making decisions. But if I’m ignoring God and relying and trusting on anything else, I’m in trouble. I need to get into relationship with God. I need to keep that relationship current. I need to pray about all things, trust Him when He leads me and obey. My life is summarized by those last 3 sentences. I’m trying to do it. I struggle with it as you will. But I’m trying. Those who try to bypass God and then present their prophesies, cures, magic, formulae, rituals, star charts as the answer to people’s dilemma’s are fraudsters, charlatans, magic-bean sellers.
Let’s look at what the Bible has to say about such these things.
Deuteronomy 18:9-12 (ESV, parenthesis mine) “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering (human sacrifice, child sacrifice), anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.
Leviticus 19:31 (ESV) “You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord. “Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, lest the land fall into prostitution and the land become full of depravity. You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.”
Leviticus 20:27 (ESV) “A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.”
Isaiah 8:19 (ESV) And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?
2 Kings 21:6 (ESV) And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.
Acts 16:16-19 (NLT) 16 One day as we were going down to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit that enabled her to tell the future. She earned a lot of money for her masters by telling fortunes. 17 She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, and they have come to tell you how to be saved.”
18 This went on day after day until Paul got so exasperated that he turned and said to the demon within her, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And instantly it left her.
19 Her masters’ hopes of wealth were now shattered, so they grabbed Paul and Silas and dragged them before the authorities at the marketplace.
Acts 19:8-20 (NLT) 8 Then Paul went to the synagogue and preached boldly for the next three months, arguing persuasively about the Kingdom of God. 9 But some became stubborn, rejecting his message and publicly speaking against the Way. So Paul left the synagogue and took the believers with him. Then he held daily discussions at the lecture hall of Tyrannus. 10 This went on for the next two years, so that people throughout the province of Asia—both Jews and Greeks—heard the word of the Lord.
11 God gave Paul the power to perform unusual miracles. 12 When handkerchiefs or aprons that had merely touched his skin were placed on sick people, they were healed of their diseases, and evil spirits were expelled.
13 A group of Jews was traveling from town to town casting out evil spirits. They tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus in their incantation, saying, “I command you in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, to come out!” 14 Seven sons of Sceva, a leading priest, were doing this. 15 But one time when they tried it, the evil spirit replied, “I know Jesus, and I know Paul, but who are you?” 16 Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, overpowered them, and attacked them with such violence that they fled from the house, naked and battered.
17 The story of what happened spread quickly all through Ephesus, to Jews and Greeks alike. A solemn fear descended on the city, and the name of the Lord Jesus was greatly honored. 18 Many who became believers confessed their sinful practices. 19 A number of them who had been practicing sorcery brought their incantation books and burned them at a public bonfire. The value of the books was several million dollars. 20 So the message about the Lord spread widely and had a powerful effect.
Daniel 2:1-6;14-19;24-28 (BSB) 1 In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams that troubled his spirit, and sleep escaped him. 2 So the king gave orders to summon the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers to explain his dreams. When they came and stood before the king, 3 he said to them, “I have had a dream, and my spirit is anxious to understand it.”
4 Then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic, “O king, may you live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will give the interpretation.”
5 The king replied to the astrologers, “My word is final: If you do not tell me the dream and its interpretation, you will be cut into pieces and your houses will be reduced to rubble. 6 But if you tell me the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and its interpretation.”…
14 When Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, had gone out to execute the wise men of Babylon, Daniel replied with discretion and tact. 15 “Why is the decree from the king so harsh?” he asked.
At this time Arioch explained the situation to Daniel. 16 So Daniel went in and asked the king to give him some time, so that he could give him the interpretation.
17 Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, 18 urging them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his friends would not be killed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
19 During the night, the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision, and he blessed the God of heaven…
24 Therefore Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, “Do not execute the wise men of Babylon! Bring me before the king, and I will give him the interpretation.”
25 Arioch hastily brought Daniel before the king and said to him, “I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who will tell the king the interpretation.”
26 The king responded to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to tell me what I saw in the dream, as well as its interpretation?”
27 Daniel answered the king, “No wise man, enchanter, medium, or magician can explain to the king the mystery of which he inquires. 28 But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the latter days. Your dream and the visions that came into your mind as you lay on your bed were these: (and Daniel tells the king the dream and it’s interpretation)
Acts 13:6-12 (NLT) 6 Afterward they traveled from town to town across the entire island until finally they reached Paphos, where they met a Jewish sorcerer, a false prophet named Bar-Jesus. 7 He had attached himself to the governor, Sergius Paulus, who was an intelligent man. The governor invited Barnabas and Saul to visit him, for he wanted to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas, the sorcerer (as his name means in Greek), interfered and urged the governor to pay no attention to what Barnabas and Saul said. He was trying to keep the governor from believing.
9 Saul, also known as Paul, was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he looked the sorcerer in the eye. 10 Then he said, “You son of the devil, full of every sort of deceit and fraud, and enemy of all that is good! Will you never stop perverting the true ways of the Lord? 11 Watch now, for the Lord has laid his hand of punishment upon you, and you will be struck blind. You will not see the sunlight for some time.” Instantly mist and darkness came over the man’s eyes, and he began groping around begging for someone to take his hand and lead him.
12 When the governor saw what had happened, he became a believer, for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord.
Isaiah 47:5-7 (NLT) 5 “O beautiful Babylon, sit now in darkness and silence.
Never again will you be known as the queen of kingdoms.
6 For I was angry with my chosen people
and punished them by letting them fall into your hands.
But you, Babylon, showed them no mercy.
You oppressed even the elderly.
7 You said, ‘I will reign forever as queen of the world!’
You did not reflect on your actions
or think about their consequences…
10 “You felt secure in your wickedness.
‘No one sees me,’ you said.
But your ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ have led you astray,
and you said, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other.’
11 So disaster will overtake you,
and you won’t be able to charm it away.
Calamity will fall upon you,
and you won’t be able to buy your way out.
A catastrophe will strike you suddenly,
one for which you are not prepared.
12 “Now use your magical charms!
Use the spells you have worked at all these years!
Maybe they will do you some good.
Maybe they can make someone afraid of you.
13 All the advice you receive has made you tired.
Where are all your astrologers,
those stargazers who make predictions each month?
Let them stand up and save you from what the future holds.
14 But they are like straw burning in a fire;
they cannot save themselves from the flame.
You will get no help from them at all;
their hearth is no place to sit for warmth.
15 And all your friends,
those with whom you’ve done business since childhood,
will go their own ways,
turning a deaf ear to your cries.
The Bible is very specific, once again, about how sinful these practises were. The reason they were sinful was because people were trying to ignore God and get things only God can give and doing so for evil purposes. Their pride, enrichment, selfishness, greed were the motivators. It wasn’t for the common good by any means. Besides, we should be dependent on God. Daniel was depending on God to reveal what needed to be revealed and to save them from execution. God had given the king a dream. Daniel asked God to interpret the dream. God wouldn’t have given the dream if He didn’t want the interpretation to be known. But it wasn’t the other wise men who could tell the king the dream and it’s interpretation. Why? Because they would not have gone to God to ask Him for it. They would have tried to use their own intelligence, skills, abilities, formulae, spells, readings of the stars, etc. Bypassing God.
Dante, the poet himself, showed interest in astrology and it may be why he feels such empathy with these sinners. These sinners tried to use their God-given intelligence to bypass God and learn the future and the mysteries that could give them what they wanted. They tried to see into the future but now are relegated to only seeing backwards. They are crying, “contorted so the eye’s tears fell to wet the buttocks at the cleft”, so their vision is impaired and blurred by tears. They sought to tell the future but now their necks are twisted so they can no longer say anything.
Virgil rebukes Dante for having sympathy for these sinners.
And my master spoke to me: “Do you suppose
You are above with the other fools even yet?
Here, pity lives when it is dead to these.
Who could be more impious than one who’d dare
To sorrow at the judgment God decrees?”
Virgil is asking has Dante not learned his lessons yet? Is he still as clueless as he was when he started on this journey? Doesn’t he realize yet that these punishments could have been avoided by any and all if they had turned to Jesus Christ? Doesn’t he realize they made their own hell by their own choices? Doesn’t he realize God’s judgment is perfect and righteous? God provided a way of escape but these sinners refused to take it. We would all be in Hell if it weren’t for Jesus Christ. And rightly so, as we are sinners. But Jesus came to provide a way of escape from God’s righteous judgment. He took the punishment for us so we could be saved and not have to go to Hell. Virgil emphasizes how all of the suffering in hell is part of God’s divine justice. To weep at what God has rightly judged is wicked. God’s punishment is perfect and fits the sin. But God is also a loving, merciful and gracious God because He provided a way of escape from judgment.
“Raise your head – raise it and see one walking near
For whom the earth split open before the eyes
Of all the Thebans. ‘Why are you leaving the war,
Amphiaraus,’ the others shouted, ‘what place
Are you rushing to?’ as he plunged down the crevice
To Minos, who seizes all. See Amphiaraus
Making his shoulders his breast; because his purpose
Was seeing too far ahead, he looks behind
And stumbles backwards.”
The canto focuses on four classical diviners associated with four great classical texts: Amphiaraus from Statius’ Thebaid, Tiresias from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Arruns from Lucan’s Pharsalia, and Manto from Virgil’s Aeneid. Each example is taken from one of the great epic poems of classical antiquity. For trying to see too far ahead, they can now only see behind them. For trying to tell the future, they can now say nothing.
Amphiaraus was the king of Argos along with Adrastus and Iphis. Amphiaraus was the son of Oecles (or Apollo) and Hypermnestra. Amphiaraus and Eriphyle were the parents of Alcmaeon and Amphilochus. Alcmaeon’s son, Klytios, was the founder of the Klytidiai, a clan of seers in Elis who interpreted the oracles of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Amphiaraus was a seer, and greatly honored in his time. Both Zeus and Apollo favored him, and Zeus gave him his oracular talent. He was one of the Seven Against Thebes. The two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, decided to share the rule of Thebes after their father abdicated the throne. Each brother was supposed to rule for a year and then allow the other brother to take the throne for a year. But after ruling for a year, Eteocles refused to step down from the throne and allow Polynices his turn. Therefore, Polynices raised an army and marched against Thebes and his brother. Eriphyle was persuaded by Polynices, who offered her the necklace of Harmonia, daughter of Aphrodite, once part of the bride-price of Cadmus, as a bribe. So Eriphyle persuaded Amphiaraus to take part in the raiding venture, against his better judgment, for he knew he would die. Amphiaraus tried to hide but his wife revealed him and he reluctantly agreed to join the doomed undertaking, but aware of his wife’s corruption, asked his sons, Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, to avenge his inevitable death by killing her, should he not return. He repeatedly warned the others the mission would fail. Despite this, he was possibly the greatest leader in the attack. During the battle, Amphiaraus killed Melanippus. In the battle, Amphiaraus sought to flee from Periclymenus, the “very famous” son of Poseidon, who wanted to kill him, but Zeus threw his thunderbolt, and the earth opened to swallow Amphiaraus together with his chariot. He was judged by Minos who, according to Dante, sent him to this circle of Hell and into this ditch. In a sanctuary at the Amphiareion of Oropos, northwest of Attica, Amphiaraus was worshipped with a hero cult. He was considered a healing and fortune-telling god and was associated with Asclepius. The healing and fortune-telling aspect of Amphiaraus came from his ancestry: he descended from the great seer Melampus. – Wikipedia
All this is reversed by Dante. The Thebans when they see him sink into the earth cry after him:
‘“Whither rushest thou,
Amphiaräus? Why dost leave the war?”’ –
a taunt for his former concealment of himself. Instead of rising again to divine honours as an oracle, Dante represents him as continuing his headlong rush into the earth as far as Minos, the judge of every sinner. While in the world above men build temples to him and consult him as a god who knows the future, here below he walks his weary backward path, with his head reversed, and eyes that see no way but behind. – John S. Carroll
“And here is Tiresias –
The seer who changed from male to female, unmanned
Through all his body until the day he struck
A second time with his staff at serpents entwined
And resumed his manly plumage.”
Tiresias was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance. According to the mythographic compendium Bibliotheke, different stories were told of the cause of his blindness, the most direct being that he was simply blinded by the gods for revealing their secrets. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo. Like other oracles, how Tiresias obtained his information varied: sometimes, he would receive visions; other times he would listen for the songs of birds, or ask for a description of visions and pictures appearing within the smoke of burnt offerings or entrails, and so interpret them. Pliny the Elder credits Tiresias with the invention of augury. Augury is the practice from ancient Roman religion of interpreting omens from the observed behavior of birds. On Mount Cyllene in the Peloponnese, as Tiresias came upon a pair of copulating snakes, he hit the pair with his stick. Hera was displeased, and she punished Tiresias by transforming him into a woman. As a woman, Tiresias became a priestess of Hera, married and had children, including Manto, who also possessed the gift of prophecy. After seven years as a woman, Tiresias again found mating snakes; depending on the myth, either she made sure to leave the snakes alone this time, or, according to Hyginus, trampled on them. As a result, Tiresias was released from his sentence and permitted to regain his masculinity. In Hellenistic and Roman times Tiresias’ sex-change was embellished and expanded into seven episodes, with appropriate amours in each. He is said to have understood the language of birds and could divine the future from indications in a fire, or smoke. However, it was the communications of the dead he relied on the most, menacing them when they were late to attend him. Tiresias died after drinking water from the tainted spring Tilphussa, where he was impaled by an arrow of Apollo. – Wikipedia
In his case too the classical myth is reversed. Homer represents him as the only soul in Hades who retains his intellect unimpaired; he still carries his soothsayer’s golden staff, and foretells to Odysseus the course of his future wanderings. But Dante strips him of all this: so far from foreseeing the future, he cannot now see even the present [Odyssey, x. 495; xi. 90-151]. – John S. Carroll
In Virgil’s Aeneid, Camilla of the Volsci is the daughter of King Metabus and Casmilla. Driven from his throne, Metabus is chased into the wilderness by armed Volsci, his infant daughter in his hands. The river Amasenus blocked his path, and, fearing for the child’s welfare, Metabus bound her to a spear. He promised Diana that Camilla would be her servant, a warrior virgin. He then safely threw her to the other side, and swam across to retrieve her. The baby Camilla was suckled by a mare, and once her “first firm steps had [been] taken, the small palms were armed with a keen javelin; her sire a bow and quiver from her shoulder slung.” She was raised in her childhood to be a huntress and kept the companionship of her father and the shepherds in the hills and woods. In the Aeneid, she helped her ally, King Turnus of the Rutuli, fight Aeneas and the Trojans in the war sparked by the courting of Princess Lavinia. Arruns, a Trojan ally, stalked Camilla on the battlefield, and, when she was opportunely distracted by her pursuit of Chloreus, killed her. Diana, as Camilla’s patron goddess, orders her handmaid, Opis, to kill the one who kills Camilla. Diana’s servant Opis draws an arrow, takes aim, and shoots, killing Arruns for killing Camilla.
“He with his back
Shoved nose to the other’s front is called Aruns.
Living on the slopes the Carrarese work
From villages below, he had clear vistas:
From his cave among white marble he could scan
The stars, or gaze at waves below in the distance.”
The story of Arruns murder of Camilla in Virgil’s epic poem, Aeneid.
One Arruns, a man marked by fate, rode wide
Around Camilla, javelin at the ready,
Waiting his chance, ahead of her in cunning.
Wherever in the melee the girl rode
In her wild forays, Arruns kept behind,
Silently stalking her; when she turned back
Blooded from the enemy, he drew rein
In stealth and swung his nimble mount away.
Now this way, looking for an opening,
Now that, he shadowed her, going about
A circuit on all sides, the dangerous man,
Dead shot, hefting clear his pointed shaft.
By chance Chloreus, Mount Cybelus’ votary,
Once a priest, came shining from far off
In Phrygian gear. He spurred a foaming mount
In a saddle-cloth of hide with scales of bronze
As thick as plumage, interlinked with gold.
The man himself, splendid in rust and purple
Out of the strange East, drew a Lycian bow
To shoot Gortynian arrows: at his shoulder
Golden was the bow and golden too
The helmet of the seer, and tawny gold
The brooch that pinned his cloak as it belled out
And snapped in the wind, a chlamys, crocus-yellow.
Tunic and trousers, too, both Eastern style,
Were brilliant with embroidery. Camilla
Began to track this man, her heart’s desire
Either to fit luxurious Trojan gear
On a temple door, or else herself to flaunt
That a temple door, or else herself to flaunt
That golden plunder. Blindly, as a huntress,
Following him, and him alone, of all
Who took part in the battle, she rode on
Through a whole scattered squadron, recklessly,
In a girl’s love of finery.
Now at length
From where he lurked, seeing the time had come,
Arruns went into action, let his javelin
Come alive, and prayed aloud to heaven:
“Supreme god, holy Soracte’s guardian,
Above all others we are blest in thee,
For whom the pine-chips’ glowing pile is fed.
Assured by our devotion, in thy cult
We step through beds of embers without harm.
Mighty Apollo, grant that we wipe out with arms this ignominy. I want no spoils,
No trophy of a beaten girl. My actions
Elsewhere will bring me honor. May this dire
Scourge of battle perish, when hit by me.
Then to the cities of my ancestors
With no pretence of glory I’ll return.”
Phoebus heard, and felt disposed to grant
His prayer in part; the rest he gave the winds
To blow away. Granted, Arruns should fell
Camilla in the shock of death; denied
That Arruns’ land should see the man return:
That plea the gale winds wafted to the South.
So when the javelin whistled from his hand
The Volscians to a man, fiercely intent,
Looked toward their queen. Oblivious of the air
Around her, of the whistling shaft, the weapon
Gliding from the high heaven, she remained
Until the javelin swooped and thudded home
Beneath her naked breast. There, driven deep,
The shaft drank the girl’s blood. In consternation
Fellow troopers gathered on the run
To catch and hold their captain as she dropped.
But Arruns on the instant galloped off
In a daze, in fearful joy; he put no further
Trust in his lance nor in himself to meet
The warrior girl in arms.
The third Diviner is Aruns, the Etruscan, who foretold the issue of the war between Caesar and Pompey. He lived in a cave of the white marbles of Carrara, from which he could behold without obstruction the stars and sea, a reference perhaps to his practice of astrology. – John S. Carroll
Reading Dante’s Stars By Alison Cornish on Google Books:
Among the various pagan prophets and diviners of note, Dante has Virgil point out the aged seer Arruns, who discerned terrifying omens of civil war at the start of Lucan’s Pharsalia. In the Roman epic, Arruns’ expertise is primarily in the Etruscan arts of extispicy (the inspection of animal’s entrails), augury, and the interpretation of lightening bolts, leaving the “secrets of heaven” and the astrological prediction to the learned Figulus.
So they decided to follow the ancient custom and summon
Seers from Etruris: the eldest of these, named Arruns,
Lived in the otherwise abandoned city of Luca.
This was a man well schooled in the interpretation of omens –
Motions of thunderbolts and veins, still throbbing, of entrails,
Also the warnings of birds by special flight or behavior
.
Whereas Lucan imagined Arruns holed up within the walls of a deserted Etruscan city, Dante depicts his dwelling as a cave in the mountains. The tight, dark ditch, or bolgia, around which the seer now trudges, with his head contorted over his rear end, contrasts with the magnificent panorama of sea and sky he once had from up there:…
Omitting the examination of entrails, Dante prefers to characterize Arruns’ divinatory activity as a prolonged gaze into the stars and over the sea.
“And she, whose loose hair covers her breasts unseen
On the side away from you, where other hair grows,
Was Manto – who searched through many lands, and then
Settled in the place where I was born. Of this
Hear me awhile: her father dead, and Bacchus’s
City enslaved, she for a long time chose
To roam the world. Where a wall of mountains rises
To form fair Italy’s border above Tirolo
Lie Lake Benaco, fed by a thousand sources:
Garda and Val Camonica and Pennino
Are watered by streams that settle in that lake.
The island amid it the pastors of Trentino,
Brescia, or Verona might bless, if they should take
A way that leads there. At the shore’s low place,
Peschiera’s splendid fortress towers make
Their challenge to the Brescians and Bergamese.
There, all the cascades Benaco cannot contain
Within its bosom join in one river that flows
Through rich green pasture. As soon as it starts to run
The water, Benaco no more, is Mincio instead,
And joining the Po at Governolo, it soon
Spreads to a marsh – in summer, sometimes fetic.
There Manto the savage virgin saw in mid-fen
A stretch of dry land, untilled, uninhabited:
And there she stayed and lived, where she could shun
All humans to ply her arts in a place she shared
Only with servants. And when her life was gone
And her soul descended, there its shell was interred.
Afterward, families scattered about that country
Gathered where marsh on all sides made a ward
Against attackers. And when they built their city
Over her bones, with no lots or divination
They named it Mantua. Before fool Casalodi
Was deceived by Pinamonte, its population
Was larger. So let no other history,
I charge you, belie my city’s true inception.”
Virgil tells one story of the origin of his birthplace in the Aeneid. In the Aeneid, Manto has a son who founds the city in her name. But now he tells Dante the “real” truth about the origins of Mantua.
“Dante now makes his maestro ed autore recant the fiction that he himself had devised. (Virgil’s commentators themselves had wondered how the Greek Manto could have come to Italy in order to found her city, since Virgil’s poem is the only text to contain this claim.)” – Robert Hollander
In Greek mythology, Manto was the daughter of the prophet Tiresias. Tiresias was a Theban oracle who, according to tradition, was changed into a woman after striking a pair of copulating snakes with a rod, and was thereafter a priestess of Hera. During the War of the Epigoni, a later myth relates, Manto was brought to Delphi as a war prize. Apollo made her his priestess and sent her to Colophon to found an oracle devoted to him. She had a son named Mopsus by Apollo. According to the Bibliotheca, she had two children by Alcmaeon, Amphilochus and Tisiphone. In Roman myth, Manto went to Italy and gave birth to Ocnus (father: Tiberinus, the genius of the river Tiber). Ocnus founded Mantua and named it after his mother. It was said that Manto’s abilities in prophecy were much greater than her father’s.
“Virgilio now tells the story of Manto — who is connected to Erichtho by her identity as a classical sorceress… significantly and negatively altering the earlier account in the tenth book of the Aeneid. The Latin poem relates that the prophetess bears a child, Ocnus, who founds the city and gives it his mother’s name… The Commedia, on the other hand, relates that Manto, childless and indeed a ‘savage vergin’ (‘la vergine cruda’ [Inf. 20.82]), settled and died in a spot later chosen by men from the surrounding regions as suitable for a city: ‘Fer la città sovra quell’ossa morte’ (They built a city over her dead bones [Inf. 20.91]). Virgilio’s correction of the text of the Aeneid with respect to Manto constitutes another authorial self-correction of the sort that Dante-poet imposed upon Virgilio at the end of Inferno 14, where Virgilio must explain that the river Lethe is not in Hell but in Purgatory, a contradiction of the description of the underworld in Aeneid 6. In the Aeneid Manto is fertile and sutured to local history, bearing a son who founds a city in her name. In the Commedia Manto is cut off from civilization, a vergine cruda who left no son but only her bones to mark the place where she had lived… At the end of Virgilio’s speech detailing the founding of Mantova, he instructs the pilgrim to disregard all other accounts of his birthplace: ‘la mia terra’ (Inf. 20.98). The only true version of the founding of Mantova is the one he has just heard, says Virgilio. In fact, the pilgrim must ‘let no lie defraud the truth’, in other words he must reject all other accounts as false. Here we find a programmatic undermining of the Aeneid: ‘But in what source could Dante find the story of ‘mia terra’ told ‘altrimenti, if not in the Aeneid? According to Vergil’s own statement then, the Aeneid is a text that — like the false prophets of this bolgia — is capable of defrauding the truth’ (Dante’s Poets, p. 217).
“The three occasions on which Dante uses the genre terminology comedìa vs. tragedìa are all in Inferno:
* Inferno 16.128: the narrator swears an oath by the notes of his comedìa as he seeks to describe the not-to-be-believed arrival of Geryon, ‘maravigliosa ad ogne cor sicuro’ (enough to bring amazement to the firmest heart [Inf. 16.132])
* Inferno 20.113: toward the end of Inferno 20 Virgilio calls the Aeneid his ‘alta tragedìa’
* Inferno 21.2: soon thereafter, at the outset of Inferno 21, Dante refers to ‘la mia comedìa’, as though in reply to Virgilio’s ‘alta mia tragedìa’ at the end of the previous canto
“Dante uses this constellation of moments to define his poem in juxtaposition to Vergil’s Aeneid, the greatest poem of antiquity that he had read, through a system of associations analyzed in Dante’s Poets:
“The language of line 99, with its harsh juxtaposition of verità and menzogna, as well as the appearance in line 113 of tragedia, the Comedy’s second genre term, indicate the close ties which bind this episode to that of canto XVI: Vergil’s poem, defined as a tragedia, is, at least at times, a lie that defrauds the truth, while Dante’s poem is a truth that sometimes bears the face of a lie. Such a poetic truth is, as we already know, a comedìa, a term Dante will now use for the last time in the opening verses of canto XXI. We note the progressive unfolding of information: first the implicit association of the Aeneid with menzogna in XX, 99; then Vergil’s reference to his poem as ‘l’alta mia tragedia’ in XX, 113, which results in the alignment of menzogna and tragedia; and finally, safely distanced from the tragedies of the ancients by the boundary between cantos XX and XXI, the reference to Dante’s poem as ‘la mia comedìa’ in XXI, 2, which confirms that his poem is the opposite of the Aeneid and therefore also of menzogna.”(Dante’s Poets, pp. 217-18)
– DigitalDante.columbia.edu
Virgil told tales in his writing, false like the false prophets, magicians and astrologers in this bolgia. Dante, the poet, is wanting to present his writing as truth (although it also is a tale). He uses Virgil and his Aeneid to present the difference between a false tale and a true story to convince the reader that the Comedie is a true story despite it’s fantastical and unbelievable events and characters. This complex, but effective, device is a way to convince the reader of the truth of the Comedie. Dante is trying to keep the reader from thinking that he is a diviner but a prophet of truth. He wants the reader to understand he is not trying to be God but to relate what God has revealed to him in this experience.
“Learn from this story, Virgil thought. The theme of my story is truth. The story of the founding of Mantua is controversial, with more than one version. I am here telling the true story. Truth, of course, is something that people engaging in fraud wish to hide.
“You, Dante, must say the truth in your writing. If you tell the true story of the founding of Mantua in your Divine Comedy, you will be letting your readers know that you care about truth. You will be establishing your credibility. Because your readers will know that you care about the truth of the founding of Mantua, they will know that you are careful to report the truth about the afterlife.” – Copyright by Bruce D. Bruce DavidBruceblog.wordpress.com
They named it Mantua. Before fool Casalodi
Was deceived by Pinamonte, its population
Was larger.
Alberto di Casalodi (1230 circa – 1288) known as “Alberto the Younger” was a Guelph count of Brescia. He was Count of Casalodi and Lord of Mantua during the feuding between Guelphs and Ghibellines. His father was Count Bernardo. His grandfather was Albert I Casaloldo, “The Elder”. They derived their name from the name Casale Altum, a castle on the outskirts of Mantova, but at the time in the diocese and district of Brescia, corresponding to the current Casaloldo. Albert II must have already reached the age of majority in 1254, the year in which he is attested for the first time, as a representative of Brescia, in an act of division of the territory of Mosio, already ruled by his lineage, between the municipalities of Brescia and Mantua. After having suffered significant damage and serious loss of property and power due to the ban and confiscation of the assets of Asola and Mosio inflicted by the municipality of Brescia on his family from 1240 to 1252, he moved permanently to Mantua. In Mantua the counts’ ambition and thirst for domination regained vigor, forming a party that competed for primacy with the other main families enclosed in their respective neighborhoods: Grossolani and Bonacolsi in the Santo Stefano neighborhood; Armchairs and Arlotti in that of San Martino; Zanicalli and Gaffari in the San Leonardo. The Casalodi family, in its desire to acquire in Mantua the power it had already exercised in Brescia, found itself particularly against Pinamonte dei Bonacolsi and the new family, emerging in those years, the Gonzagas.
Pinamonte dei Buonacossi. (1206 – 7 October 1293) was the eldest son of Martino dei Bonacolsi, of Gandolfo. Allied with the powerful Casalodi family, in 1259 he was “Anziano del Popolo” of Mantua and in 1272, after having expelled the mayor Guido da Correggio from the city, he was rector of Mantua, a new government figure composed of two people introduced to limit the powers of the podestà: one of these was Pinamonte, initially assisted by Alberto da Casalodi and then by the Riva and Federico di Marcaria, of the counts of Marcaria. In these years Pinamonte laid the foundations of his noble power, buying a series of houses and palaces in the civitas vetus of Mantua, which ranged from the tower of the Zuccaro to Piazza San Pietro (now Piazza Sordello). To these buildings was added, in 1281, the purchase of the tower of the Cage. In 1276 the two offices were unified as “Captain Perpetual General” of Mantua. In his work he was supported by Antonio Corradi da Gonzaga, who fought together with the Bonacolsi in the expulsion of the Casalodi, thus allowing the future lords of Mantua to become the second most powerful family in the city. Around 1280 he began the construction of his palace (Palazzo Bonacolsi) in the old city and bought other buildings, including the Torre della Gabbia, a symbol of power over the city. From 1287 he became part of the Teutonic Order with the children. He abdicated in January 1291 in favor of his son Bardellone.
In 1272, Pinamonte dei Bonacolsi, a Ghibelline, tricked Casaloldo who, at the time having a leading position in the city, foolishly trusted him for his protection, expeled some of the turbulent families of the Guelph party. Pinamonte took advantage of the weakening of the opposing faction to drive him out and take power in the city. The subsequent mass exiles and summary executions depopulated the city. He took over the government of Mantua and kept it, first as rector together with Count Federico di Marcaria, a distant relative of Casaloldi, then alone with the title of captain perpetual of the city and the people and with the authority of lord. The Casaloldo family took refuge in their Gonzaga, an Italian town in the province of Mantua in Lombardy.
By the will of Pinamonte, Count Casalodi was declared an enemy of the municipality by means of a public decree. In 1274 the assets in Mantua of the Casaloldi counts, forced into perpetual exile, were confiscated and partly granted to the Bonacolsi, partly to the Gonzagas , and this because the latter were in open rivalry with the Casaloldo family for dominance over the castle of Gonzaga. The secret understanding between Pinamonte and the Gonzagas to oust the rival municipalities Casaloldi was evident. Count Alberto II, a refugee and banished from Mantua, initially withdrew with his relatives in the castle of Gonzaga; but when this last refuge in the Mantuan land was taken away from them in 1278 by a group of Mantuan people in agreement with Pinamonte, then Albert II perhaps returned to Brescia, as did Count Filippo, bishop elected of Mantua, or perhaps he retired to live in the ancestral land of Casaloldo, where he died in 1288. Alberto had a son, Count Roberto Casaloldi, married to Beatrice Casadraghi, a noble and wealthy Mantuan family, who died in Bologna in 1335, and perhaps another son named Brandano.
I: “Master, your speech inspires such uncertainty
And confidence that any contradiction
Of what you say would be dead coals to me.
But speak again of these souls in sad procession:
Are any passing below us worthy of note?
For my mind keeps turning back in that direction.”
Then he: “That one, whose beard has spread in a mat
That covers his brown shoulders, was augur when Greece
Was short of males. He divined the time to cut
The first ship’s cable at Aulis, along with Calchas.
His name, as my tragedy sings – you who know it
Entirely know the passage – is Eurypylus.
That other skinny flanks is Michael Scot,
Who truly knew the game of magic fraud.
Se Guido Bonatti; and Asdente – too late,
He wishes he’d stuck to leather and cobbler’s thread,
Repenting here his celebrated predictions.
And this wretched crowd of women all chose to trade
Loom, spindle and thimble for the telling of fortunes,
Potions, wax images, incantation and charm.
Eurypylus was a member of the Greek army that conquered Troy. The son of Telephus, sent by the Greeks to the oracle of Apollo, according to Sinon, to ask for a favourable wind to return home to Greece. The oracle replied by reminding them of the incident at Aulis, and telling them to shed blood again. Calchas was a mythical Greek seer at the time of the Trojan war, who, as augur at Aulis, determined the most propitious time for the Greek fleet to depart for Troy. At Aulis, where the Greek ships waited for a favourable wind to sail to Troy, Calchas interpreted the appearance of a snake that killed a sparrow and her eight fledglings, and then was turned to stone. It signified that Troy would be taken in the tenth year after a long struggle. He also prophesied that they must pacify Artemis by sacrificing Agamemnon’s daughter, Iphigenia. After that the north-east wind dropped and the fleet was able to set sail for Troy. Eurypylus’s trip to the oracle is described by Virgil in his Aeneid. – Source PoetryInTranslation.com
Notice how Virgil reminds Dante that he knows his Aeneid so well, “you who know it entirely know the passage”. It shows the reader that Dante honors Virgil’s writings even though he has used the device of showing the reader that the Aeneid was a tragedie of false tales.
Michael Scot (1175 – c. 1232) was a Scot famous in the European Middle Ages as an astrologer and had a popular reputation as a wizard. He was born somewhere in the border regions of Scotland or northern England. His family must have been wealthy for him to have the travels and education he had. It has been claimed that he studied first at the cathedral school of Durham and then at Oxford and Paris, devoting himself to philosophy, mathematics, and astrology. It appears that he had also studied theology and become an ordained priest, as Pope Honorius III wrote to Stephen Langton on 16 January 1223/4, urging him to confer an English benefice on Scot, and nominated Scot as archbishop of Cashel in Ireland. Scot declined this appointment, but he seems to have held benefices in Italy. He was then offered archbishop of Canterbury in 1227 by Pope Gregory IX. From Paris, Scot went to Bologna, and then after a stay at Palermo, to Toledo. He decided to take up residence in the Spanish town of Toledo, whose university was celebrated for its cultivation of the occult sciences. There he learnt Arabic well enough to study the Arabic versions of Aristotle and translated Aristotle’s 19 books on the History of Animals. A churchman who knew Latin, Greek, Arabic and Hebrew, a polyglot wandering scholar of the Middle Ages. When he was about 50, Frederick II attracted him to his court in the Kingdom of Sicily as royal astrologer. In a letter of 1227, recorded by Scot in his Liber particularis, Frederick put questions to him concerning the foundations of the earth, the geography and rulership of the heavens, what is beyond the last heaven, in which heaven God sits, and the precise locations of hell, purgatory and heavenly paradise. He also asks about the soul; and about volcanoes, rivers, and seas. Before Scott resigned his position, he predicted to the Emperor the time, place, and manner of his death; and the prophecy is said to have been exactly fulfilled in every particular detail. Scot was a pioneer in the study of physiognomy. His manuscripts dealt with astrology, alchemy and the occult sciences generally and account for his popular reputation. He went to Germany and then to England. Surviving copies of manuscripts attributed to him refer to distillation and to “aqua ardens”, the earliest name for distilled alcohol. “Every astrologer is worthy of praise and honour,” Scot wrote, “since by such a doctrine as astrology he probably knows many secrets of God, and things which few know.” At the time, performing miracles was largely done Jewish Kaballists, but Scott had “a public reputation for performing miracles that would put any self-respecting wonder working Rabbi to shame”. He was adept at inducing visions with a combination of manipulation of light and suggestion. The legendary Michael Scot used to feast his friends with dishes brought by spirits from the royal kitchens of France and Spain and other lands. He is said to have turned to stone a coven of witches, which have become the stone circle of Long Meg and Her Daughters. Scot’s reputation as a magician had already become fixed in the age immediately following his own. In 1385, Bacon was said to be capable of conjuring a bridge out of thin air to span a river. Scott was said to have split the Eildon Hills. He supposedly locked the plague in a secret vault of Glenluce castle. The date of Scot’s death remains uncertain. The efforts of Walter Scott and others to identify him with the Sir Michael Scot of Balwearie, sent in 1290 on a special embassy to Norway, have not convinced historians, though the two may have had family connections. A legend popular in the late 13th and early 14th centuries said that Scot foresaw that a small stone would strike him in the head and kill him, so he wore an iron skullcap to avoid his death. However, he removed the cap in church, only to be struck by a stone and die. – Wikipedia and Philip Coppens
Guido Bonatti (dates of birth and death are unknown) was an Italian mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, who was the most celebrated astrologer of the 13th century. In 1233 he is known as the winner of a dispute in Bologna with the friar Giovanni Schio from Vicenza, who maintained the non-scientific basis of astrology. Bonatti was advisor of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, Ezzelino da Romano III, Guido Novello da Polenta and Guido I da Montefeltro. He also served the communal governments of Florence, Siena and Forlì. His employers were all Ghibellines (supporters of the Holy Roman Emperor), who were in conflict with the Guelphs (supporters of the Pope), and all were excommunicated at some time or another. His most famous work was his Liber Astronomiae or ‘Book of Astronomy’, written around 1277. This remained a classic astrology textbook for two centuries. He is probably the first astrologer to have used the midpoints in astrology. He used it to refine the timing for the military campaigns for the Count of Montefeltro Bonati announced to the count that he would repulse the enemy but would be wounded in the fray. The event transpired as Bonati had predicted, and the count, who had taken with him the necessary materials to staunch his wound in case the prophecy came true, became a devout adherent of astrology. There is a tradition that Bonatti, towards the end of his life, took the friar’s habit of the Franciscan Order. This has been contested, as Bonatti expressed great disdain for Franciscans in his early period. According to the uncorroborated account of the Italian historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Bonatti was murdered by robbers whilst returning from a study trip to Paris and other Italian cities, being set upon in or near Casena, with his body left upon the road. – Wikipedia
Asdente means “toothless” and was the nickname for Maestro Benvenuto a famous medieval magician and fortune-teller of the 13th century. He was originally from Reggio Emilia (or perhaps Parma) and a shoemaker (cobbler) by profession. He predicted the defeat of Frederick II at the siege of Parma in 1248.
Virgil is saying Asdente must wish he’d stuck to making shoes rather than falling into the sins that brought him to this bolgia in Circle 8. Then he mentions anonymous women who made the mistake of leaving their normal housework in order to dabble in fortunetelling and witchcraft. They are suffering for their choices now and wished they had stayed at their humble work.
“But come: already, Cain-in-the-moon positions
Both hemispheres with his pale blue thorns, his term
Closes in the waves below Seville – the round moon
That, deep in the wood last night, brought you no harm.”
Even while he spoke the words, we were moving on.
Medieval legend held that “the man in the moon” was Cain carrying a bundle of thorns circling the earth. The thorns representing his inability to grow good crops any more. The position of the moon tells Virgil the time.
Genesis 4:1-17 (NLT) 1 Now Adam had sexual relations with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When she gave birth to Cain, she said, “With the LORD’s help, I have produced a man!” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother and named him Abel.
When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain cultivated the ground. 3 When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the LORD. 4 Abel also brought a gift—the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The LORD accepted Abel and his gift, 5 but he did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected.
6 “Why are you so angry?” the LORD asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? 7 You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.”
8 One day Cain suggested to his brother, “Let’s go out into the fields.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother, Abel, and killed him.
9 Afterward the LORD asked Cain, “Where is your brother? Where is Abel?”
“I don’t know,” Cain responded. “Am I my brother’s guardian?”
10 But the LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground! 11 Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has swallowed your brother’s blood. 12 No longer will the ground yield good crops for you, no matter how hard you work! From now on you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth.”
13 Cain replied to the LORD, “My punishment is too great for me to bear! 14 You have banished me from the land and from your presence; you have made me a homeless wanderer. Anyone who finds me will kill me!”
15 The LORD replied, “No, for I will give a sevenfold punishment to anyone who kills you.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain to warn anyone who might try to kill him. 16 So Cain left the LORD’s presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
17 Cain had sexual relations with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Then Cain founded a city, which he named Enoch, after his son.
Why didn’t God accept Cain’s offering? Because Cain offered what Cain wanted to offer NOT what God required. Remember after Adam and Eve sinned, God covered them with animal skins. That meant God had to make an offering and kill the animals to get the animal skins (Genesis 3:21). He made the offering on their behalf. Adam and Even knew this and knew it had to be a blood offering. They would have taught this to their sons. Abel brought what God required, a blood sacrifice. It had to be the best and without any blemish. Cain knew this but brought from his crops, NOT a blood sacrifice.
God gave Cain the chance to repent by asking him, “Why are you angry?” But recalcitrant Cain did NOT repent, he just shifted blame to Abel. Basically, “You love Able more than me”. Which is ridiculous. Very childish and immature. When you have a child that is obedient and a child that is disobedient, you correct them. It has nothing to do with who you love more or less, it is about correcting bad behavior. And the correction is for their good in the long run. You wouldn’t be a good parent if you didn’t try to correct bad behavior that would cause them trouble. But how often does the disobedient child, in his truculence and sullenness, come back with a silly retort like, “You love him better than me.”
Cain did not repent and Cain misplaced his anger by focusing on Abel. He became so jealous and obsessed with hate that he planned his ruse and murdered him. Premeditated murder. God could have stricken Cain down right then and there but He went to Cain again and asked him a question to try and get Cain to repent. “Where is Abel? Where is your brother? What have you done?” Cain refuses to repent and just says, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” God confronts him with truth, “Your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.” Still Cain refuses to repent. So God sentences him with the curse: “Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has swallowed your brother’s blood. No longer will the ground yield good crops for you, no matter how hard you work! From now on you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth.”
No one knows what the mark of Cain was.
A judgment on Cain and his descendants with respect to their labors. Their tillage of the ground was not to prosper, which ultimately, Bonar thinks, drove the Cainites to city-building and mechanical invention. – Pulpit Commentary
Excerpts from The Inferno are from a new translation by Robert Pinsky.
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