Book 8

1. The bereaved sacrilegious woman after the noose. Let the magistrate exact punishment of a woman who has confessed. A certain woman, having lost her husband along with two of her children, hanged herself. A third son cut the noose for her. When a sacrilege had been committed and the sacrilegious person was being sought, she told the magistrate that she had committed the sacrilege. The magistrate wishes to exact punishment of her as of one who has confessed; her son speaks against it.

I do in the forum, judges, what I did at home: I keep my mother from dying. "How did you do it?" he says. "In what place did you hide what you had carried off?" She faltered, and knew nothing of sacrilege but its penalty. Having lost two children, she seemed to herself sacrilegious because she lived. I have come, not to plead beside her, but to save her. Others entreat for defendants; I shall entreat for a defendant. The accuser has no witness except on my benches. There is no confession except when the accuser digs out the truth, the defendant denies, the torturer forces it out. It is said that a certain woman, on seeing her son beyond hope, expired. If great joy drives mothers to death, what does great grief do? Mother, you have no slight solace: you see that even the gods lose something. The wretched worship the gods more than the fortunate. The woman did not commit the sacrilege; the old woman did not; the bereaved did not; she who is being guarded did not; she who confesses did not. "Angry at the gods," he says, "she could commit sacrilege." The spirit is broken in the calamitous, and unhappiness itself condemns itself; and the human condition has even this for its worst, that fortune makes those it has made wretched superstitious too. The gods are worshipped more carefully by the angry. Who, then, did it? How can I know, who was guarding my mother? I plead the cause of the laws, that the executioner with which they threaten the sacrilegious they may not bring against the calamitous. She worshipped the gods so as to fear so much for so many.

The other side. Confession is the voice of a guilty conscience. Confession is the word of one compelled, and of one acknowledging what she did. The voice of all was: "The sacrilege cannot lie hidden; whoever it is, he will not himself make a good end, nor any of his own; and if there be no accuser, he will tell of it himself." Roused, she came forward, as though the gods themselves were pursuing her; "I did it," she said. Let us men exact punishment even now of the woman of whom the gods long ago began to exact it. By the majesty of the violated divinities she was driven both to wish to die, and to deserve it, and not to be able. The noose was cut for her. Did you think, sacrilegious woman, that you could die in secret? She did everything to keep silent, who, that she might not confess, even wished to die. If you seek the crime, the sacrilege was committed; if the sacrilegious one, she confesses. Do you seek the cause of the deed? If before she lost her children, greed; if after she lost them, anger.

2. Phidias with his hands cut off. Let a sacrilegious man's hands be cut off. The Eleans received Phidias from the Athenians, to make for them the Olympian Jupiter, a compact being made that they should give back either Phidias or a hundred talents. When the Jupiter was finished, the Eleans said that Phidias had stolen the gold, and cut off his hands as a sacrilegious man, and give him back mutilated to the Athenians. The Athenians demand the hundred talents. The Eleans speak against it.

I can no longer lend you Phidias. That majesty can be expressed only when the mind has foreseen the work and the hands have drawn it. He made Jupiter for himself before he made him for the work. You are the sacrilegious ones, who cut off consecrated hands. The first blood the god saw was his own craftsman's. I call to witness Jupiter, now Phidias's own god. Art sustains others in misery; you it has made most miserable. The compact had been made by the hands that made Phidias what he was. Do you think we shall take back Phidias without that without which you would not have received him? We lent one who could make gods; we have taken back one who cannot even worship them. Are you not ashamed to owe a Jupiter to a sacrilegious man? The man survives, but the craftsman has perished. You give us back the penalty of Phidias, not Phidias. Hands that were wont to make gods now cannot even beg of men. He made such a Jupiter that the Eleans wished this to be his last work. We lent hands, we demand hands back. The Elean is witness, the Elean accuser, the Elean judge, the Athenian only defendant. I invoke the gods, both those whom Phidias made and those he could have made. We have taken back Phidias — I confess it, if we can lend him.

The other side. We had gold once sacred, we had ivory; for the sacred material we sought a craftsman. We had indeed arranged that Phidias should make images for other temples too, but it was not so necessary to adorn the gods as to avenge them.

3. The man defamed concerning his daughter-in-law. The father of two young men gave one of them a wife; and while he was abroad, the father-in-law began to be defamed concerning the daughter-in-law. The husband, on returning, took off his wife's slave-girl and tortured her. She perished under torture. The husband, uncertain what he had been inquiring into, hanged himself. The father orders the other son to marry the same woman; when he refuses, he disowns him.

"Marry," he says, "your brother's wife." If this can be done, the brother found an adulterer. This is for me the cause of disowning, which for my brother was the cause of death. "Marry," he says, "your brother's wife." I believed, if there is any faith to be had, that I was being tested. Woman, if you can marry a man in mourning, you make all things be believed of you. I am compelled to marry the woman who is for me the cause of disowning, for the people of rumour, for my brother of death. I have already chosen a wife who, if travel abroad befall, would wish to travel with me; who, if anything befall her husband, would not wish to marry another. Those who hear that I am being disowned think my brother suspected something of me.

The other side. You have charged me with the utmost abomination, and one that a man who merely suspected it was unwilling to live with. At your urging my brother tortured the slave-girl, and because he found nothing, he expiated his false suspicions by death.

4. The man who killed himself. Let a homicide be cast out unburied. A certain man killed himself; it is demanded that he be cast out unburied. There is opposition.

He was driven to lay hands on himself by unrelenting ills. The sum of his misfortunes he removed in this, that he thought it was permitted a wretched man to die. Most unhappy young man, when I see you barred even from burial, I cease to wonder that you perished. You have such enemies that they pursue you even dead. Fortune conquers the wretched more easily than the wicked. Did you take up this blade, Cato — and how hateful it is, that you killed Cato? Curtius, you would have lost burial, had you not found it in death. What is more wretched in life than to wish to die? What in death than not to be able to be buried? Who would wonder that he wished to die, whom fortune pursues even in flight? Nature has given burial to all: the same wave that casts out the shipwrecked buries them; the bodies of those fixed to crosses flow down into their own burial; those who are burned alive are entombed by their punishment. Be angry at the slayer, but pity the slain. "He is a homicide," he says, "because he killed himself." Are you angry at this man? On whose behalf are you angry? Nothing else gave Mucius the name Scaevola, and left liberty to the city when he was captured before King Porsenna, but the cheapness in which he held himself; nothing else gave Codrus to the rest of generals as an example, but that, laying aside the insignia of a general, he ran to death, and was no greater general in anything than that he lied in saying he was not the general. I do not ask that it be glorious to die, but that it be safe. Those who kill men who wish to live are no more cruel than those who do not allow men who wish to die. Curtius, by casting himself into a chasm, mingled the destiny of burial with his fate; let Cato be celebrated: let only this be unpunished for this most wretched man, that he made some not ignoble decision about his own life. Even the wounds of the unhappy are scrutinized for a charge. Judge whether he was permitted to live, who was not even permitted to die.

The other side. It is an unworthy deed, if hands are found to bury the man whom their own killed. He took up the sword; I see his burning eyes — against whom, I do not know; this only I know, he is plotting a crime. Conscious of some crime I know not, he took refuge in death — a man among whose crimes is even this, that he cannot be condemned. Against such men it has been devised that those who do not fear death should fear something after death. He would have dared anything who could kill himself.

5. The brave man unwilling to return to his brave father. A certain man disowned his son; the son kept silent. He did a brave deed; he sought his return to his father as a reward; the father spoke against it. Afterwards the father did a brave deed; he seeks his son's return to him; the son speaks against it.

I am the braver: after your battle we fought, after mine we conquered. Return; I have made the house worthy of you. These eyes are mine, these hands are mine, this stubbornness is mine. If I deserve the reward, give it to me; if I do not deserve it, give him his own. "I," he says, "did not take a reward under the same law." This is why you were disowned, that you think there is no difference between you and your father. After deeds so alike, if you were only a fellow-soldier, you ought to have adopted me as your father. I warn you, young man: he who had refused this reward now seeks it. "I fear you will disown me again." Do you think I will let it come about that I beg twice? I fought in a graver war, in which even old men had to serve, in which even those who had been brave in the former war could not be brave. He exercised his own years; I conquered mine. You broke the war; I ended it. How great an exhortation to the young I was, a brave old man! Give back to each of us his reward. I served as an old man, I served drained of blood, I served when I had already given a substitute. Each of us, when he is asked, scorns it; when he is forsaken, asks for it. Why do you force us to suspect, in that you will not come into your father's house except by your own reward? It was disgraceful that a brave man should not be received except by a father compelled to it.

The other side. Why do you wish to make me a captive out of a free man? Why do you subject a brave man to disgrace? Why do you bring it about that he can be disowned? "You are my son," he says. What need of a reward, if I am yours?

6. The poor shipwrecked man, the rich man's father-in-law. Let a violated woman seek either the death of her violator or marriage without a dowry. A rich man solicited a poor man three times about marriage with his daughter; three times the poor man refused. Setting out with his daughter, he was cast by shipwreck onto the rich man's estate; the rich man approached him about marriage with his daughter; the poor man kept silent and wept. The rich man held the wedding. They returned to the city. The poor man wishes to bring the girl forward to the magistrate. The rich man speaks against it.

Let the girl be brought forward to the magistrate. What do you fear? Surely she is your wife. You will not even be able to complain of death, if the girl chooses it. No ravisher ever perished later. As I recognized the shore, shipwrecked, I swam out to sea. What do you fear, if you won her father over? He came to me first; "I wish," he said, "to marry your daughter." I did not weep; for then it was permitted to refuse. I wept over my daughter's wedding as over my own shipwreck. Shipwrecked, I complain more of the shore. Between the shipwreck and the wedding not even one night intervened. Put off the wedding until the father-in-law leaves off weeping. He thinks I have already entrusted my daughter to him, when this man does not yet entrust himself to a wife. I come with tears flowing among my words: such was I at my daughter's wedding too. If she was ravished, why do you refuse her the choice? If she is a wife, why do you fear? I speak as soon as it is permitted. I had left my country far out of sight, yet I had not yet passed the rich man's estate; suddenly the sea bristled with waves, and the winds, at strife, blew to our destruction; night was sent down from the sky, and the day is given back only by lightnings; between sky and earth we hung in doubt. Yet so far, judges, we sail well; a greater shipwreck awaits on shore. There was, on the highest of the mountain ridges, the rich man's lofty watchtower: there he reckoned up the leavings of shipwrecks, there his unhappy revenue, and how much the angry sea gave back to him. I am asked about my daughter's wedding, while still the wave beat upon my ears; I did what I ought: captive and shipwrecked, I refused the defilement to my enemy with tears. A delicate rich man, who can love even amid shipwrecks. You hide the celebration of a marriage in the corner of a remote countryside; there you hold the wedding where no one comes but the shipwrecked. A tear is always the sign of an unwished-for thing; tears are the pledges of the unwilling, and the face is the index of a resisting mind. No one ever weeps over what he longed for. Tears are the bursting forth of a grief forced within the breast and of an intolerable silence. So he who weeps over his patrimony upon its ashes hates the fire; so he who weeps over a shipwreck detests the seas. Weeping is the modest cursing of human necessities. Now the part is yours, girl; I withdraw, and what I did before, I keep silent. If you are wedded, you have what to choose; if violated, what to command.

The other side. A shipwrecked man two things most sacred among men received: hospitality and kinship; the one I gave, the other I even asked for. The marriage being offered by the reconciling of fortune, I asked for it often, as a lover; I did not put it off, as one in haste. What of the ravisher is here, except that I married her without a dowry? The father-in-law errs who thinks the girl will be dearer to me if she can kill me. For what is left? My prayers, which I employed so often, or this man's tears, which I moved? My enemy can charge me with nothing but the marriage. Great is the love that comes from pity. We poured forth tears out of repentance for our former parting, and minds taken up with joys did not suffer either me to say more or him to answer more. No integrity, however well proved to itself, has so much confidence as to wish to plead its cause. If you question your daughter, you will be charging her with part of the law; if you do not question her, with the law. If he meant to give his son-in-law life, he would even have left him his innocence. Do you ask what he did while he wept? He did not refuse; and he was wont to refuse, if he were unwilling. He will choose death; for he cannot want those parts of the law that he has.