Difference between revisions of "Talk:Cain"

Latest revision as of 17:24, 23 March 2007

tcm: There's also this, which I found more than a little interesting, but it might fall under the heading of "shenanigans" because I'm not sure if our characters have access to this text (hence why it is only in the talk section):

           So times were pleasant for the people there
    100  until finally one, a fiend out of hell,
         began to work his evil in the world.
         Grendel was the name of this grim demon
         haunting the marches, marauding round the heath
         and the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time
    105  in misery among the banished monsters,
         Cain's clan, whom the Creator had outlawed
         and condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel
         the Eternal Lord had exacted a price:
         Cain got no good from commiting that murder
    110  because the Almighty made him anathema
         and out of the curse of his exile there sprang
         ogres and elves and evil phantoms
         and the giants too who strove with God
         time and again until He gave them their reward.
         
         ...
         
                           Grendel's mother,
         monstrous hell-bride, brooded on her wrongs.
    1260 She had been forced down into fearful waters,
         the cold depths, after Cain had killed
         his father's son, felled his own
         brother with a sword. Branded an outlaw,
         marked by having murdered, he moved into the wilds,
    1265 shunned company and joy. And from Cain there sprang
         misbegotten spirits, among them Grendel,
         the banished and accursed,...

The text of Beowulf (which chronicles many of the Wolf of Bees' adventures) says in no uncertain terms that the Grendel was a descendant of Cain, and that he is but one of many, making Cain a sort of Judeo-Christian Echidna. It also says that elves and giants are descendants of Cain, something I've never heard of before. And finally, Grendel's mother, who's been around since the time "Cain had killed his father's son," was "forced down into the fearful waters, the cold depths" after Cain killed Abel. Is there a casual relationship there, or is the timing merely coincedence? And if she was forced into the waters, that makes her one of them. Does that make Cain one of them too (cause that would be bad)?

And just to make things more interesting, the Zohar says:

    Furthermore, we read that Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and
    called his name Seth (Gen, v., 3), denoting that the first children of Adam had no
    resemblance to him either physically or morally. This was the opinion of Rabbi Yeba the
    aged as given by Rabbi Simeon. The first children brought forth by Eve were begotten by
    Somoal who appeared to her riding on the back of a serpent, and were therefore not endowed
    with the human body.

The Internets seem devoid of information on this "Somoal" character, but if he's riding on the back of a serpent, he might be Satan. The important bit here is that maybe Cain is not Adam's son after all, but this is just a bunch of crazy Jews talking, so who knows? I can't seem to find any of the Jewish texts online that are searchable like the Bible at biblegateway.com or the Qu'ran on many different sites. I've looked at versions of the Midrash, the Talmud, the Zohar, and the Kabbalah on sacred-texts.com, but without a search function, I'm just looking for a needle in a haystack in the dark while grabbing my ankles during the whole process.

tcm: Stop the presses, people! Apparently, "Somoal" is just a crazy spelling of Samael, who I'm intimately aware of (well, not as intimately as Eve, but, you know, I know things). He is the Angel of Death, the Venom of God, and the King of the Demons. He is said to have coupled with Lilith after she left Adam, much like Cain himself is said to have done. So, if Samael is Cain's daddy, then Cain is a demon/monster himself, and his propagation of monsters on the world (as Beowulf tells us) makes more sense. "Cain's children" now has a more sinister connotation.

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaqi, or simply Rashi (who won't be born for another 52 years, so this is definitely shenanigans) wrote annotations to the Torah, in which he says:

    Verse 15: "Therefore, whoever kills [Cain]:"
    
    This is one of those verses in which words are brief and its meaning is only hinted
    without elaborating. [The proper explanation is:] Therefore, [the words,] "Whoever kills
    [Cain]" convey a stern threat: thus will be done to him, such and such will be his
    punishment, without specifying what his punishment will be. 
    
    "Revenge will be taken on him sevenfold."
    
    "I do not wish to take vengeance from [Cain] now, [but, rather] at the end of seven
    generations I will take my vengeance from him whereby his descendant Lemech will rise up
    and kill him. The words at the end of the verse refers to the avenging of [Abel] from
    [Cain]. This teaches that the beginning of the verse is a stern threat that no creature
    injure him.

Since Cain is still alive, Lemech (his great-great-great grandson) obviously did not kill him... or at least hasn't yet. There are other stories about how Cain's house fell on him and he died, but those are obviously false as well.

If Cain was supposed to "be a restless wanderer on the earth (Gen. 4:12)," how come he settles in Nod, and how come he's been living inside this mountain for about ten years? That doesn't sound like restless wandering to me.

Hal: Ten years? Is that how long you think he's been in there?

tcm: Upon closer inspection of The Chronicles of Heloise, it turns out 986 is only two years ago, and not ten (I can't do math). Regardless, sitting on your duff in a dungeon for two years still does not ring of "restless wandering" to me. Either God's curse didn't stick, or there are shenanigans about.

Hal: Well, I guess it's something you can ask Cain about during the awkward small-talk part of the encounter.