Jephthah

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Jephthah is recalled by Dante in Canto V of the Paradiso, in which the verse "come Ieptè a la sua prima mancia" places him alongside the classical example of Agamemnon, cited immediately after. According to the notes to the canto, the episode to which Dante alludes is narrated in the Book of Judges: Jephthah, leader of the Israelites, made a vow to God to sacrifice the first person who came out to meet him on his return, and the first to come out was his daughter, who mourned her virginity upon the mountains for two months before being immolated. The note specifies that it is precisely this detail of the mourning that Dante transfers to Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, saying that she wept for her beauty. Jephthah is presented as an emblematic case of a reckless vow: it would have been better to acknowledge the foolishness of the promise than to commit a worse sin by keeping it.