School of Suspicion

Tag: Boons and Curses

Promises granted before the request is heard, and words that bind a family or a land: the rash oaths to Phaethon and Semele, Shiva’s boon to Vṛkāsura, Noah’s curse on Canaan, the curse Rebekah claims for herself.

  • Vṛkāsura — Flesh for Power

    Vṛkāsura — Flesh for Power

    An asura named Wolf cuts the flesh from his own body to win a boon from Shiva, asks for a hand that kills whatever head it touches, and tries it first on the god. Vishnu saves Shiva with a lie. Read beside Simon’s offer to buy the laying on of hands, Ovid’s Midas, the devil’s…

  • Noah — Prophet and Builder

    Noah — Prophet and Builder

    Lamech named his son for rest. Noah built a chest sealed with the letters of atonement, fed every creature in it for a year, sent out the dove, and woke from his wine to curse a grandson. Read beside the giants of 1 Enoch, the birds of Gilgamesh, Peter’s eight souls, the dove at the…

  • Phaethon — Chariot of the Sun

    Phaethon — Chariot of the Sun

    Epaphus tells Phaethon that his father is a picture his mother made up, and the boy goes to the Sun for proof. Read beside Herod’s oath, the chariots of the sun that Josiah burned, Plato’s Egyptian priest and Peter’s fire, with Lucian’s boatmen on the Eridanus, who had never heard of him.

  • Cassandra and Jesus — Prophets of a Doomed City

    Cassandra and Jesus — Prophets of a Doomed City

    Apollo gave Cassandra true sight and took away belief. Jesus wept over a city that would not hear him. Aeschylus and the Gospels side by side, with Ovid’s Paris taking her fire for love, Josephus’s other Jesus crying woe on the walls, the Locrian girls sent to Troy for a thousand years and the lampstand…

  • Cain and Abel — The Farmer and the Shepherd

    Cain and Abel — The Farmer and the Shepherd

    Eve says she has gotten a man from the LORD. He ploughs, his brother keeps sheep, and God looks at one offering only. Read beside Josephus on the plough, the Targum’s argument in the field, the smiths called Cain and Romulus at his wall, with the prodigal’s elder brother, seventy times seven and Pilate’s basin.