Literary notes about Divination (AI summary)
The term “divination” appears frequently in literature as a multifaceted symbol of humanity’s quest to glimpse the unknown. In works chronicling ancient customs and statecraft, such as those by Frazer and Strabo, divination is portrayed as an essential ritual closely tied to prophecy and sovereignty [1, 2, 3, 4]. Classical authors like Diogenes Laertius and Livy recount detailed practices ranging from auguries and auspices to more arcane rituals [5, 6, 7], while writers such as Rabelais and Pushkin use the concept to illustrate both the lighter, almost playful side of fortune-telling and its more serious, dogmatic aspects [8, 9, 10]. Even Montesquieu’s reflections on the subject, echoed by Montaigne and Cicero, underscore divination’s enduring role in illustrating the interplay between divine inspiration and human folly [11, 12, 13]. Through these diverse references, literature underscores divination as both a historical practice and a symbolic device for exploring the boundaries of knowledge and fate.
- In other words, its usual manifestations are divination and prophecy rather than miracles.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - According to the fable, the contest did not relate to skill in divination only, but also to sovereignty.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) by Strabo - But we may be pretty sure that this is one of the cases in which magic has dwindled into divination.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - I have mentioned them in speaking of Calchas, and of the contest between Calchas and Mopsus respecting their skill in divination.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) by Strabo - He used to practise divination, as far as auguries and auspices go, but not by means of burnt offerings, except only the burning of frankincense.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius - When he had tried the matter by divination, he affirmed it certainly could.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy - In other works, he discards divination; and also in his Little Epitome.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius - Divination, or the telling of fortunes by various expedients, is the favourite pastime on these occasions.
— from Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin - Nevertheless, quoth Pantagruel, Cicero hath written I know not what to the same purpose in his Second Book of Divination.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais - For you must know, my beloved, that by wine we become divine; neither can there be a surer argument or a less deceitful divination.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais - And herein is a proof that God has given the art of divination not to the wisdom, but to the foolishness of man.
— from Timaeus by Plato - [“These things are so far reciprocal that if there be divination, there must be deities; and if deities, divination.”—Cicero, De Divin., i. 6.]
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne - But whence comes that divination?
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations by Marcus Tullius Cicero
