THE RAVEN. 



171 



ness was heard, silence, in consequence of the wicked- 

 ness of their inhabitants, was to prevail, interrupted 

 only by the scream of the cormorant, and the croaking 

 of the raven. 



Solomon says, " The eye that mocketh at his father, 

 and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the 

 valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat 

 it." Some light will be cast on this passage, by remem- 

 bering that it was a common punishment in the East, 

 and one which the Orientals dreaded above all others, 

 to expose the bodies of evil-doers that had suffered by 

 the outraged laws of their country, to be devoured by 

 the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven. An old 

 man in Aristophanes deprecates being given as a ban- 

 quet to the ravens ; and Horace represents such a pu- 

 nishment as the most degraded of all. It has, therefore, 

 been conjectured, that Solomon alluded to the valley of 

 Tophet, in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which the 

 prophet Jeremiah calls the valley of the dead bodies, 

 because those of criminals were cast into it, and there 

 they remained without burial, till they were devoured 

 by flocks of ravens, which collected for that purpose 

 from the surrounding country. Should this conclusion 

 be correct, the meaning of Solomon will be — He who 

 disobeys his parents, exposes himself to an infamous 



