- See also: Chant of Light
Codex text
Those who had been cast down,
The demons who would be gods,
Began to whisper to men from their tombs within the earth.
And the men of Tevinter heard and raised altars
To the pretender-gods once more,
And in return were given, in hushed whispers,
The secrets of darkest magic.
—Canticle of Threnodies 5:11
The fifth stanza of Threnodies is a complete retelling of the creation story appearing in Stanza One. The authors are clearly different, with notable disagreements on the nature of spirits and the ultimate cause of the Second Sin. This stanza lays the blame for mankind's corruption squarely on the Old Gods rather than on a flaw inherent to human nature; therefore, historians believe a Tevinter author, perhaps even Archon Hessarian himself, wrote it.
In the eleventh verse, we see this illustrated most clearly. "The demons who would be gods," can be no one but the Old Gods; they are credited here not only with broaching the Golden City, but with gifting the secrets of magic to humankind. The implication is that without this instruction, these "hushed whispers," no magic would exist.
—From The Chant of Light: Literary Analysis and History by Sister Tessaria