175 The other turned the earth with curved plough.
These, when in course of time they brought their gifts
To Him who thunders, offered—as their sense
Prompted them—fruits unlike. The elder one
Offered the first-fruits of the fertile glebes:
180 The other pays his vows with gentle lamb,
Bearing in hand the entrails pure, and fat
Snow-white; and to the Lord, who pious vows
Beholds, is instantly acceptable.
Wherefore with anger cold did Cain glow;
185 With whom God deigns to talk, and thus begins:
“Tell Me, if thou live rightly, and discern
Things hurtful, couldst thou not then pass thine age
Pure from contracted guilt? Cease to essay
With gnawing sense thy brother’s ruin, who,
190 Subject to thee as lord, his neck shall yield.”
Not e’en thus softened, he unto the fields
Conducts his brother; whom when overta’en
In lonely mead he saw, with his twin palms
Bruising his pious throat, he crushed life out.
195 Which deed the Lord espying from high heaven,
Straitly demands “where Abel is on earth? ”
He says “he will not as his brother’s guard
Be set.” Then God outspeaks to him again:
“Doth not the sound of his blood’s voice, sent up
200 To Me, ascend unto heaven’s lofty pole?
Learn, therefore, for so great a crime what doom
Shall wait thee. Earth, which with thy kinsman’s blood
Hath reeked but now, shall to thy hateful hand
Refuse to render back the cursed seeds
205 Entrusted her; nor shall, if set with herbs,
Produce her fruit: that, torpid, thou shalt dash
Thy limbs against each other with much fear.”……