Envy is the sin that "looks with grudging hatred upon other men's gifts and good fortune, taking every opportunity to run them down or deprive them of their happiness" (in contrast to covetousness, the excessive desire to have things like money) As one of the envious souls on this terrace says:
"My blood was so afire with envy that, when I had seen a man becoming happy, the lividness in me was plain to see."
On entering the terrace of the envious, Dante and Virgil first hear voices on the air telling stories of generosity, the opposite virtue. There is, as in all the other terraces, an episode from the life of the Virgin Mary. This time, the scene from the Life of the Virgin is the Wedding at Cana, in which she expresses her joy for the newly married couple and encourages Christ to perform his first miracle. There is also a classical story (the friendship between Orestes and Pylades), and Jesus' saying "Love your enemies."
The souls of the envious wear penitential grey cloaks, and have their eyes sewn shut, resembling the way a falconer sews shut the eyes of a falcon in order to train it – hence the need for audible, rather than visual, examples here (Canto XIII).
Cain's jealousy of his brother Abel is Dante's Biblical example of envy. Painting by James Tissot, Canto 14.The souls of the envious include Guido del Duca, who speaks bitterly about the ethics of people in towns along the River Arno:
"That river starts its miserable course among foul hogs, more fit for acorns than for food devised to serve the needs of man.
Then, as that stream descends, it comes on curs that, though their force is feeble, snap and snarl; scornful of them, it swerves its snout away.
And, downward, it flows on; and when that ditch, ill-fated and accursed, grows wider, it finds, more and more, the dogs becoming wolves.
Descending then through many dark ravines, it comes on foxes so full of deceit there is no trap that they cannot defeat."
The voices on the air also include examples of envy. The classical example is Aglauros, who (according to Ovid) was turned to stone because she was jealous of Hermes' love for her sister Herse. The Biblical example is Cain, mentioned here not for his act of fratricide, but for the jealousy that led to it (Canto XIV).
As he is leaving the terrace, the dazzling light of the terrace's angel causes Dante to reveal his scientific knowledge, observing that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection "as theory and experiment will show" (Canto XV).
"My blood was so afire with envy that,
when I had seen a man becoming happy,
the lividness in me was plain to see."
On entering the terrace of the envious, Dante and Virgil first hear voices on the air telling stories of generosity, the opposite virtue. There is, as in all the other terraces, an episode from the life of the Virgin Mary. This time, the scene from the Life of the Virgin is the Wedding at Cana, in which she expresses her joy for the newly married couple and encourages Christ to perform his first miracle. There is also a classical story (the friendship between Orestes and Pylades), and Jesus' saying "Love your enemies."
The souls of the envious wear penitential grey cloaks, and have their eyes sewn shut, resembling the way a falconer sews shut the eyes of a falcon in order to train it – hence the need for audible, rather than visual, examples here (Canto XIII).
Cain's jealousy of his brother Abel is Dante's Biblical example of envy. Painting by James Tissot, Canto 14.The souls of the envious include Guido del Duca, who speaks bitterly about the ethics of people in towns along the River Arno:
"That river starts its miserable course
among foul hogs, more fit for acorns than
for food devised to serve the needs of man.
Then, as that stream descends, it comes on curs
that, though their force is feeble, snap and snarl;
scornful of them, it swerves its snout away.
And, downward, it flows on; and when that ditch,
ill-fated and accursed, grows wider, it
finds, more and more, the dogs becoming wolves.
Descending then through many dark ravines,
it comes on foxes so full of deceit
there is no trap that they cannot defeat."
The voices on the air also include examples of envy. The classical example is Aglauros, who (according to Ovid) was turned to stone because she was jealous of Hermes' love for her sister Herse. The Biblical example is Cain, mentioned here not for his act of fratricide, but for the jealousy that led to it (Canto XIV).
As he is leaving the terrace, the dazzling light of the terrace's angel causes Dante to reveal his scientific knowledge, observing that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection "as theory and experiment will show" (Canto XV).