The Curse of Canaan

R. S. Gwynn · #1 03-22-2004, 07:01 PM

The Curse of Canaan

It seems unjust that Canaan bore the curse
for Ham's transgression. Deep in Noah's cave
Ham saw his father's nakedness - or worse.
But it was Canaan who was made a slave,
and all his generations after him:
Canaan, Ham's son, who wasn't even there.
We can't conceive why punishment so grim
should fall on those unborn and unaware.
And yet we know a trespass in the dark,
an unreflective father's secret crime,
can stain his child and all his children, mark
his progeny until the end of time.
It happens, harm our pity can't undo.
The story isn't just; it's merely true.

This is a good analogy which fits nicely into the 8/6 structure of the sonnet form. My only problem is that it seems to be marking time in lines 4-6, more or less repeating what the opening three lines have already said. In such a tight form as a sonnet, it's important to keep moving, and this one comes to a stop after only six lines. I'm not sure how "unreflective" is supposed to work here. It strikes me that if the father is indeed trespassing (a term that's fairly vague about what he's doing unless you think of the biblical synonym with "sin"), he would surely be aware that he's doing it. When one "reflects," one looks back, not into the future.

Janet Kenny · #2 03-23-2004, 10:08 PM

The sins of the fathers etc. A good point.
This could be a metaphor for many things but line 3 seems to be about sexual abuse.

The meter seems rather pedestrian to this ear. The philosophical point is so strong I wanted some livelier writing to embody it.

I find "unreflective" OK in this sense. I gather the father has not reflected upon the likely consequences of his actions. That seems an acceptable idiomatic use of the word.

I find this poem worthy but a little drab.
Janet

diprinzio · #3 03-27-2004, 08:19 PM

I like the effect created by this writer by setting off "mark" like that, like a mark. Also, I like the pun on "mark" as in, observe his progeny...

Also, this poem deals with an important theological question. I can live with, but am not crazy about, how it deals with that question at the end, which seems like a "duh" moment. Yeah, we know it's true, but why is it true?

diprinzio · #4 03-27-2004, 08:34 PM

That wasn't so fair of me. Let me continue to make a folo of myself.

...We don't know it's true, we know the Bible says it's true. I guess the poem is a profession of some kind of twisted faith.

What is it about the 13th line that bothers me so much? I think it's this: It says that God is less virtuous than us because he doesn't pity like we do.

The story isn't just---the story isn't just to our sense of justice---right, it isn't. The way the speaker dogmatically describes the event, as if he knows it's a true story... ok, so the story isn't just, but neither is the action of the God in the story...

dinner's ready, gotta go LOL

Julie Steiner · #5 03-28-2004, 01:26 AM

This was my favorite of the bunch. (Wild Bill?) I thought the poet had an interesting premise and wrapped it up nicely. It made me think of a playmate of my daughters--a little girl who was a former crack baby, and who will have a lifelong struggle with attention difficulties and other problems as a direct result of her birth mother's alcohol and drug use. How utterly unfair!

In a society that viewed illness or undesirable physical traits as the results of divine retribution, the idea of multigenerational curses and punishments took the place of our modern understanding of genetics or congenital diseases. It's unfair that an innocent child should have a deformity or disability no matter how it is explained, but that's just the way it is (as the poet states so simply in the final line of this sonnet).

A physical manifestation of divine retribution could well be passed along "even down to the seventh generation"--by which time the gene may have been watered down enough not to show up so frequently. Later, some American slaveowners used the story of Noah and his sons to state that this particular punishment was inescapable: even one drop of Negro blood (although Canaan's descendants weren't technically Negroid--see below) would activate the Biblical curse of natural suitability for slavery in a mixed-race person. Noah's curse was deemed to be in effect even without the physical manifestation of Negroid features or skin tone.

The original story appears at Genesis 9:18-29, which is short enough for me to quote here (St. Joseph version).

Quote:

18 The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from them the whole earth was peopled.

(Hmmm, Sam, that's a bit redundant, too!

Okay, I'll grant you that it's not a sonnet, either.)

Quote:

20 Now Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. 22 When he drank some of the wine, he became drunk and lay naked inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness, and he told his two brothers outside about it. 23 Shem and Japheth, however, took a robe, and holding it on their backs, they walked backwards and covered their father's nakedness; since their faces were turned the other way, they did not see their father's nakedness. 24 When Noah woke up from his drunkenness and learned what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said:

"Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
shall he be to his brothers."

26 He also said:

"Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem!
Let Canaan be his slave.
27 May God expand Japheth,
so that he dwells among the tents of Shem;
and let Canaan be his slave."

28 Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood. 29 The whole life-time of Noah was nine hundred and fifty years; then he died.

Part of the apparent injustice of the curse comes from the punishment of the wrong person, since Canaan wasn't even there (as the poet emphasizes so beautifully with the metrical substitution at the beginning of L6); but the assignment of the punishment was also pretty random, since Ham had three other sons (Cush, Mizraim, and Put) who apparently escaped the curse entirely.

Why did Noah single out Canaan? Was it just because he was the youngest son of his youngest son, and this would somehow put Ham in a similar situation to Noah's?

The particulars of the curse seem pretty harsh for the crime, too. What exactly had Ham "done to him" that was so terrible as to justify generations of slavery? The passage doesn't say that Ham mocked or disrespected Noah for his drunken nakedness, only that he didn't do anything to remedy the situation himself, and then mentioned the situation to others. I guess it's wise to watch one's step when God's just wiped out most of humanity with a flood.

I think the poet is justified in using the "redundant" real estate to emphasize the bewildering nature of the punishment.

One of the things I liked most about this poem was the switcheroo that makes Noah, and not Ham, the REAL guilty father in this scenario. The "nakedness--or worse" witnessed in the cave suggests some enormity unmentioned in the Biblical account that would explain the gravity of the consequences. Then again, the poet's use of "cave" instead of "tent" reminded me of Lot's drunken incest with his daughters (Genesis 19:30-38), and in that case the children were the instigators, so the mystery remains.

Julie Stoner

PS--More on the slavery note:

The next chapter, Genesis 10, is devoted to tracing the descendants of Noah's three sons "according to their clans and languages, by their lands and nations". Canaan's three brothers were associated with peoples in Mesopotamia and north and east Africa; Canaan's own descendants spread to the area later given to Abraham and reoccupied by the Israelites after their 40-year wander to "the Promised Land" or "the land of Canaan" from their own slavery in Egypt.

Canaan's descendants thus wouldn't appear to be the sub-Saharan Africans enslaved and sent to the Americas, which explains why the reference to African slaves was to "sons of Ham" rather than to "sons of Canaan." In which case, the curse was considered to be on Ham and his descendants, not just on Canaan and his.

[This message has been edited by Julie Stoner (edited March 28, 2004).]

Tim Murphy · #6 03-28-2004, 08:52 AM

Shrewd guess on Wild Bill. I might have mistaken it for his. But Daugherty is a convert to the Lutheran Church, and this professor, who teaches the Bible, is a convert to the Catholic Church. Because most Catholics don't read the Old Testament, I'm always a little cowed by people who know it inside out, poets like Mezey, Julie Stoner, and the author of this fine sonnet.

Wild Bill · #7 04-01-2004, 12:52 PM

I'm sorry to be so late coming to this. I'm very flattered that Richard's fine poem might be attributed to me. I can only say: I wish.

Something not mentioned by Julie, but certainly at work here, is the the awesome power invested in the spoken word in the Bible. This is particularly true of the word of a father exercising authority over his sons. At the time of the flood, Noah was 600 years old; he begot Shem, Ham and Japheth in the 100 years preceding the flood. So these were grown men.

The Bible is not explicit but I think the curse on Canaan, through Ham, sets the stage for the expulsion of the Canaanites by Israel. Noah also pronounced a blessing on Shem, from whom Abraham, Isaac and Jacob descended. (Julie is quite right that sub-Saharan people are not in the line Canaan.) The central questions that Richard returns to is: "Is this just?" For believers, the only response possible is an acknowledgment of the mystery: God is soveriegn, does as He pleases and is pleased with what He does.

Just a note, Tim: I'm not a Lutheran per se. I said I was a Protestant in the Lutheran sense: raised Catholic, wearied of the hierarchical intervention of the church between me and my God, and went for a direct relationship with Jesus Christ through faith, prayer and the teachings of the scriptures.

It's a wonderful, richly textured poem, Richard.

Brian Jones · #8 04-01-2004, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Julie Stoner:

Why did Noah single out Canaan? Was it just because he was the youngest son of his youngest son, and this would somehow put Ham in a similar situation to Noah's?

The particulars of the curse seem pretty harsh for the crime, too. What exactly had Ham "done to him" that was so terrible as to justify generations of slavery? The passage doesn't say that Ham mocked or disrespected Noah for his drunken nakedness, only that he didn't do anything to remedy the situation himself, and then mentioned the situation to others. I guess it's wise to watch one's step when God's just wiped out most of humanity with a flood. I think the poet is justified in using the "redundant" real estate to emphasize the bewildering nature of the punishment.

Why Ham? I'm certainly no scholar, but am aware of several (to me at least) interesting shades here:

1) "saw his nakedness" is, of course, what "the Man" ('adam) first did after the fall--and was promptly cursed;

2) the Hebrew phrase "saw his nakedness" is often deployed as an idiom for "exposed his nakedness (as in sex)", and certainly the Canaanites were famous for their (maddeningly enticing) carnality;

3) cynical reason: Canaan was of course the "promised land" which the Jews were granted by God, with the repeated stipulation to destroy every living soul there, in the greatest single genocide I've ever read of, before the one engulfing the Jews themselves in the last century;

4) the 'name-fate', if you will, of the three sons of Noah:

"Shem": "Name", as in innumerable puns on God's own name and naming--so he's a shoo-in for a blessing;

"Japhet": "He Shall Enlarge", as in Noah's own pun in Gen. 9:27: "He shall enlarge He-Shall-Enlarge";

"Ham": "Hot" (some think related to the southern location of the tribe, but) echoed in hamon the sun-pillar of idolatry;

"Canaan": "Humbled", "Subdued".

But the whole notion of "nakedness", as what's not to be seen, is perhaps the most telling aspect, for me, since in the Hebrew--where "nakedness" is almost synonomous with "shame"--there is a stunning wordplay at the very moment of the fall itself (I won't waste the thread's time with unpacking it here, but will reply to any request); the Hebrew looks like this:

2:25
and the two of them were naked, the Man and his woman,
and they were not ashamed.
3:1
And the nahash was the most naked of all the
animals of the field which the living God had made....

Why? Why should the seer of nakedness, who brings that sight to the innocent Man, and ends his innocence thereby, be the most naked of all God's creatures?
Why should the spoiler of Man's nakedness be the most naked?

(I use nahash instead of "serpent" because he wasn't one before the curse put on him after the fall (3:14)--the nahash is a seer (literally, a "whisperer", here of augury).

All this would seem to bear also on the passage below.

One of the things I liked most about this poem was the switcheroo that makes Noah, and not Ham, the REAL guilty father in this scenario. The "nakedness--or worse" witnessed in the cave suggests some enormity unmentioned in the Biblical account that would explain the gravity of the consequences. Then again, the poet's use of "cave" instead of "tent" reminded me of Lot's drunken incest with his daughters (Genesis 19:30-38), and in that case the children were the instigators, so the mystery remains.

Julie Stoner

PS--More on the slavery note:

The next chapter, Genesis 10, is devoted to tracing the descendants of Noah's three sons "according to their clans and languages, by their lands and nations". Canaan's three brothers were associated with peoples in Mesopotamia and north and east Africa; Canaan's own descendants spread to the area later given to Abraham and reoccupied by the Israelites after their 40-year wander to "the Promised Land" or "the land of Canaan" from their own slavery in Egypt.

Canaan's descendants thus wouldn't appear to be the sub-Saharan Africans enslaved and sent to the Americas, which explains why the reference to African slaves was to "sons of Ham" rather than to "sons of Canaan." In which case, the curse was considered to be on Ham and his descendants, not just on Canaan and his.

[This message has been edited by Brian Jones (edited April 01, 2004).]

Patricia A. Marsh · #9 04-02-2004, 06:40 AM

For more on the meaning of "father's nakedness", see Leviticus 18:8. Maybe that will answer the question?

Richard Wakefield · #10 04-02-2004, 08:02 AM

It's a great pleasure to find that this little poem has brought forth so much. These comments seem to me to enact part of my own intention in writing the poem, or part my own fascination, I guess. These stories are in some ways so simple, told with the broad strokes of fairy tales or myths, but they get stranger and more complicated as soon as we look again or try to trace out their implications. And then we find that there's no resting place! Way leads on to way, it seems.
At the same time, it seems to me one can leave out all the theology and discover some pretty compelling truths. This story, like so many others, can be taken as an effort to explain the mysterious way that misdeeds send ripples of misery down the generations, even unto those who have no idea what those misdeeds were. We suffer for what our parents did, and they for what their parents did... and our children for what we do.
Many, many thanks to those who have offered comments (and even some compliments!).
RPW