EIGHT Dismemberement and price list

EIGHT Dismemberement and price list
Note:8@@@@@@@@@@@@

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The oath of a twelve-hundred man is worth the oaths of 6 ceorls (churls);
Note:TRASFORMAZIONE

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the number-based status
Note:NUMERO

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enlivened by reminding what the numbers stood for?
Note:ARIDITÀ DEL NUMERO

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the provision was meant to assert the nonnegotiability of the price.
Note:VALORE NN NEGOZ

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a thegn's oath, in a lawsuit, is worth six times the oath of a churl.
Note:IN TRIBUNALE

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Having a high wergeld did not, however, always work to your benefit.
Note:NN SEMPRE UN BENE

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it could also be the price you had to pay to redeem yourself from punishment,
Note:cccccccc

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A perfect example cones from Hain- murabi's laws, which provided that a commoner had to pay less for being cured by a physician
Note:COSTO DEL MEDICO

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Slave
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Monetizing human worth makes us nervous,
Note:MONETIZZARE

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touch on our beliefs about fundamental human dignity and value,
Note:DIGNITÀ

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Talking about humans as money or property is not, we feel, consistent with certain pieties we have regarding the proper way to talk about the immeasurable
Note:INCOMMENSURABILE

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A free man in Alfred's kingdom risked being captured in war and sold across the sea. That is what Vikings pretty much did
Note:ESSERE VENDUTI

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Selling humans was a lucrative business

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Wergeld was a price with a higher "value"; it was the price of free people.
Note:IL TALIONE E GLI SCHIAVI

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An Icelandic law shows free people's value measured in terms of slave value

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TRASFORMAZ

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a betrothal was not legal unless the woman was actually worth the brideprice
Note:PREZZO DELLA MOGLIE

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ill health,

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failings or defects.""

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it might be necessary to think of the free as virtual slaves, so as better to get at their true worth.14
Note:CONTINUITÀ TRA SCHIAVISMO E LIBERTÀ

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in some respects the talion is an idea that is risky for hierarchical societies to generalize too widely.
Note:IL TALIONE MINACCIA LA GERARCHIA

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it was an eye for an eye in Hammurabi among awilus, but not between an awilu and a commoner
Note:COMPARTIMENTI STAGNI

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The
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Imagine that you are going to write down the first laws for your society. Would you devote roughly half of the ninety you pen to what follows?"
Note:COSTITUZIONE

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grabbing of hair

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baring of a hone

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If notching jor cutting] of a hone

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If the outer covering of the skull is broken,

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If a shoulder is lamed,

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If either ear cannot hear,

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If the ear is struck off,

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If an ear is pierced,

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If an ear is gashed,

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If an eye is out,

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If the mouth or the eye is disfigured,

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If the nose is pierced,

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If it [the piercing] is on one cheek,

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For the four front teeth,

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If speech is damaged,

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If the collarbone is broken,

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He who stabs through an arm

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If an arm is broken,

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If (one/ strikes off f a thumb,

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If a person destroys the generative "limb"

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Why such a schedule? What does it mean?

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the prices of body parts,

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what sense can we make of the relative valuation?
Note:PERCHÈ LE PARTI?

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The schedule of prices for personal injury just presented follows upon sections devoted to compensation amounts for theft,
Note:SEGUE IL FURTO

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The primal form of a law may not take the form "thou shalt not," but has instead the form "for X pay Y,"
Note:NO PROIBIZIONISMO

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Once the personal-injury section concludes with toenails the laws move on to marriage,
Note:DALL UNGHIA DEI PIEDI AL MATRIMONIO

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The code concludes with servants and slaves, whose being commoditized does not surprise us.
Note:SCHIAVI E SERVI

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run not just head to toe but head to toenails. Even some of the apparent deviations make sense.
Note:DAI CAPELLI ALL UNGHIA DEL PIEDE

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top-to-bottom ordering

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the cost to the thief was the value of the stolen property multiplied by a multiple geared to the status of its owner;
Note:FURTO E STATUS

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The free thief who steals from a priest pays ninefold the value;
Note:FURTO AI PRETI

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He can't even pay with his body, for it is not his
Note:COME RIPAGA LO SCHIAVO?

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One suspects that most all these multiples are the stuff of hierarchical ideology or fantasy,
Note:IL MULTIPLO

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two substantive principles at work that help determine the price of the damage: one is utilitarian
Note:UTILITARISMO

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The other principle of valuation is about "looks" and thus directly about honor and shame.
Note:APPARENZA REPUTAZIONE

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To have one's front teeth knocked out

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in which about ten people go at it pretty good. Some lose a few incisors; some get their ears bit off, an eye gets poked out here, an arm broken there, a scalp lacerated, and a lot of cuts and bruises. In honor societies such occurrences are fraught with all kinds of disruptive possibility. There is the legal morass: every injured party, or the kin of any who got killed, has a claim for the harm he suffered and liability for what he inflicted.
Note:RISSA... POSSIBILE DERIVA DISTRUTTIVA

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The more numerous and messier the claims, the more likely it was that the whole incident would he submitted to arbitrators who would dictate a settlement. Instead of ten or more suits, they would all he joined in a single arbitration.
Note:ARBITRO

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The sagas show people in the heat of a battle actually keeping a running account of the damage they were inflicting, deducting the damage they were suffering.
Note:CONTABILITÀ NELLE RISSE

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There was a poetry to such awards, an art to balancing who against whom, whose what against whose what.
Note:ARTE CONTABILE

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A-:thelberht's schedules might have served more as an aid to arbitrators,
Note:AIUTO AGLI ARBITRI

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But maybe the schedules were not really meant to be used. Felix Liebermann, the great editor of the Anglo-Saxon laws, considered these body-part schedules "wohl nur juristische Theorie," a lawyerly fantasy of precision and order.;
Note:SOLO TEORIA?

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The Icelanders had no schedule of body-part prices and yet were masterful at balancing injuries
Note:ISLANDESI

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perhaps this was a way of introducing clarity
Note:CHIAREZZA

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Prices could look stable in the blood-and-body-parts market,

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DOMANDA E OFFERTA NN PESANO

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I remember offers of dismemberment insurance that were given to us as grade-school children that we were to take home to our parents. These listed what our parents would get in dollars if we lost an eye or a leg on the playground.
Note:ASSICURAZIONI MODERNE

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Flipping
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Consider the hand, which unlike the foot in §69 is not dealt with as a whole, but as the sum of the thumb and fingers:
Note:LA MANO E LE SUE DITA.... MINIERA D INF

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The opposable thumb
Note:CIÒ CHE CI RENDE UMANI

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Montaigne devotes an essay to the thumb,

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Not until I broke my little finger pretty near off trying to tackle my then ten-year-old son
Note:IMPORTANZA DEL MIGNOLO

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I realize the functional value of the little finger. Muchof the gripping force of the hand depends on it,
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The job the index finger does can be assumed by the middle finger
Note:SOSTITUTI

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The ring finger cannot, however, substitute for the baby finger.
Note:INSOST

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The little finger, because it is the little finger after all, can play a symbolic role too.
Note:SIMBOLISMO DEL MIGNOLO

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"truncetur minimus digitus in signum," have their little finger truncated as a sign. No need to destroy nearly all their economic value
Note:SCHIAVI PRESI A RUBARE

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the middle finger? Why so low? Could it be that it was a taboo finger back then too?
Note:LO SCARSO VALORE DEL MEDIO

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routinely available for nonreproductive sexual work and not much else,
Note:SESSO NN RIPRODITTOVO

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a. indexh. impudicusc. anularisd. auricularis
Note:DENOMINAZIONE

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The middle finger is priced the lowest because it is a dirty finger. It is a finger of insult. It can curse.
Note:SPORCO

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Note:PENE

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Note:NO MESSA

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Note:CLASSIFICA

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Note:FETICISMO DELLA DONNA

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Note:PIEDI E OCCHI

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Note:PERCHÈ COSÌ TANTO?

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MEMORIA E FERITE@@@@@@@@@@

Il trionfo della misericordia

A POUND OF FLESH - EYE FOR AN EYE BY WILLIAM IAN MILLER

La trama de “Il mercante di Venezia”.

Venezia, XVI secolo. Bassanio, giovane gentiluomo veneziano, vorrebbe la mano di Porzia, ricca ereditiera di Belmonte. Per corteggiare degnamente Porzia, Bassanio chiede al suo carissimo amico Antonio 3.000 ducati in prestito. Antonio, pur amando Bassanio, non può prestargli il denaro, poiché lo ha interamente investito nei traffici marittimi. Tuttavia Antonio decide di garantire per lui presso Shylock, ricco usuraio ebreo. Shylock è disprezzato dai cristiani, e ricambia questo sentimento. Soprattutto non sopporta Antonio, il mercante di Venezia, che presta denaro gratuitamente, facendo abbassare il tasso d'interesse nella città, e che lo umilia pubblicamente con pesanti insulti.

Nonostante ciò, Shylock accorda il prestito a Bassanio, con Antonio come garante. L'ebreo stabilisce che in caso di mancato pagamento, Antonio debba pagare con una libbra di carne dal proprio corpo. Bassanio cerca di far desistere Antonio dall'accettare l'offerta, ma costui è sicuro di poter saldare il debito, dato che tre navi sono in viaggio per riportare a Venezia ricchezze nove volte più grandi di quanto abbia investito. Il tempo concesso per il saldo del prestito è di tre mesi, e le navi ne impiegheranno solo due. Bassanio si reca a Belmonte; secondo la volontà del defunto padre di Porzia, i suoi pretendenti sposi dovranno scegliere lo scrigno giusto tra tre differenti possibilità (oro, argento, piombo). Il principe del Marocco sceglie lo scrigno d'oro (che non è quello giusto), e il principe d'Aragona sceglie lo scrigno d'argento (e nemmeno questo è quello giusto), mentre Bassanio sceglie lo scrigno di piombo, il meno pregiato dei tre, e ottiene il diritto di sposare Porzia, già precedentemente innamorata di lui. L'amico di Bassanio, Graziano, sposa l'ancella di Porzia, Nerissa.

Intanto la sfortuna si accanisce su Shylock: sua figlia Jessica infatti, aiutata da Lancillotto, fugge di casa sposando un cristiano di nome Lorenzo, amico di Antonio e Bassanio. La ragazza è fuggita portando con sé 2.000 ducati e soprattutto uno scrigno contenente l'anello donato a Shylock dalla defunta moglie. L'unica consolazione di Shylock deriva dalla pari sfortuna di Antonio: infatti le sue tre navi sono disperse in mare, per cui egli non potrà più saldare il debito. Nel frattempo Porzia e Nerissa donano ai rispettivi mariti, Bassanio e Graziano, un anello, segno del loro amore. Stringono una promessa, che loro non dovranno mai separarsene finché l'amore li legherà alle loro consorti.

Shylock decide di portare Antonio di fronte al Doge e alla corte, chiedendo di far valere i suoi diritti. Porzia, che viene a sapere del processo in arrivo, si traveste da avvocato, all'insaputa di tutti, per salvare Antonio. Nerissa la segue vestendosi da scrivano.

Giunta in tribunale, Porzia, travestita, esibisce la lettera del Dottor Bellario, giurista e consulente del Doge, in cui si spiega che al processo sarebbe stato presente il suo sostituto, il giovane avvocato Baldassarre (cioè lei stessa). Al processo assistono anche Bassanio e Graziano.

Porzia/Baldassarre invita Shylock ad accettare i 6000 ducati offerti da Bassanio, ormai ricco per avere sposato Porzia, al fine di estinguere il debito dell'amico. L'odio di Shylock verso i cristiani, fomentato dall'abbandono della figlia, gli impedisce di accettare. Al contrario, chiede a gran voce che gli sia pagato il debito con la libbra di carne di Antonio, come da accordo. Nonostante la crudeltà della proposta, il Doge, dice Baldassarre, deve necessariamente applicare la legge e permettere a Shylock di prendersi la libbra di carne, perché in caso contrario si creerebbe un precedente dannoso per lo stato.

Baldassarre invita Shylock a procedere, ma gli comunica che, dato che il contratto parla solo di carne, se avesse versato anche una sola goccia di sangue, sarebbe stato considerato colpevole di aver attentato alla vita di un cittadino veneziano, e quindi i suoi beni sarebbero stati confiscati e divisi tra Antonio e lo stato, e lui condannato a morte. Il Doge gli concede in grazia la vita e Shylock rinuncia alla sua parte purché venga ceduta, alla sua morte, in eredità alla figlia Jessica. Inoltre si stabilisce che Shylock debba convertirsi al cristianesimo, pena assai più pesante per l'usuraio. In queste condizioni, Shylock, sconfitto, rinuncia ai suoi propositi.

Bassanio si complimenta con Baldassarre per aver salvato il suo amico e gli chiede come possa ringraziarlo. Il finto avvocato gli chiede solo il suo anello. Bassanio esita, a causa del valore affettivo dell'anello, ma spinto dall'onore e dalla gratitudine finisce per cederlo. Lo stesso è obbligato a fare Graziano per lo scrivano/Nerissa.

Quando tutti i cristiani giungono a Belmonte, Porzia e Nerissa chiedono ai mariti gli anelli, ma entrambi spiegano l'accaduto. Quindi le due donne fanno credere di aver trascorso una notte con i nuovi possessori dell'anello, Baldassarre e lo scrivano, per riottenere gli anelli, prima di rivelar loro la vera identità dell'avvocato e del suo assistente. Antonio fa di nuovo da garante per Bassanio che giura di non separarsi mai più dal suo anello. Successivamente Nerissa riferirà a Lorenzo che i beni di Shylock diventeranno suoi e di Jessica dopo la morte dell'usuraio.

Nel frattempo si scopre che le tre navi di Antonio sono tornate sane e salve in porto.

***MISERICORDIA FRAUDOLENTA***

There are body parts and human flesh acting as a money substance; we have scales, knives, justice, revenge; measuring and meting.

Note:NEL MERCANTE DI VENEZIA LA CARNE SI FA MONETA

After seeing Edmund Kean in 18 16 break with convention to play Shylock as more substantial than the usual one-dimensional stock Jew-villain, Harlitt wrote, "Certainly our sympathies are much oftener with him than with his enemies. He is honest in his vices; they are hypocrites in their virtues."'

Note:WILLIAM HAZLITT PRIMO DIFENSORE DI SHYLOCK: ONESTO NEI SUOI VIZI

Shylock's speeches on revenge and Christian hypocrisy are unnervingly forceful and nearly untraversable even for those inclined to favor the mercy party, who, it is to he noted, never do outargue or outreason Shylock but must resort to arguments ad hominem and force majeure to defeat him.

Note:LA GIUSTA VENDETTA DEL NON MISERICORDIOSO

We do know that Antonio lends at zero percent interest; no hypocrisy there. But we surely do not see him borrowing at the same low rate. That he must seek out Shylock indicates the market for zero-percent loans could hardly exist as anything more than a pipe dream. No Christians, it seems, are willing to lend to Antonio at the rate Antonio lends to Bassanio.

Note:L' UTOPIA DELL' INTERESSE ZERO

Even Antonio, the only person we actually see lending gratis, appears to he motivated in his lending practices more by hate, by the pleasure he takes in harassing Shylock on the Rialto, than by charity

Note:ANTONIO: PRESTA A ZERO PER DISPETTO

There is Portia, Lady Justice herself. No figurative blindfold prevents her from making out like a bandit, saving her own assets by having her husband's debts paid off with money expropriated from Shylock.

Note:PORZIA. SIMBOLO FRAUDOLENTO DELLA GIUSTIZIA MISERICORDIOSA

The transmutation of Jews into Christians will increase consumption of pigs and drive down the price of money in relation to pigs.

Note:I CRISTIANI SANNO DIVENTARE ABILI ECONOMISTI QUANDO CONVIENE

What happens when there are no Jews left to plunder?

Note:CHE SUCCEDEREBBE SENZA IL CATTIVONE SHYLOCK? LA VITA SAREBBE MIGLIORE? PENSATECI.

Hints of (human) flesh eating lurk about the play. Shylock hints at it by denying it: "A pound of man's flesh taken from a man, / Is not so estimable, profitable neither / As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats ..." (1-3.161-163)… Torah's word for usury - neshekh - which means "bite." Graziano views Shylock as a ravenous man-eating wolf.

   Note:LO SPECULATORE COME UN CANNIBALE

And hints of the easy exchangeability of edible and money-like sheep and goats with money-like (and edible) humans arise subtly and casually, as when Shylock alludes to the story of Jacob acquiring his birthright.

Note:DENARO PECORA (PECUNIA)... FINO ALLA CARNE DI ANTONIO

***PIETÀ L'È MORTA***

Antonio's flesh is the only specie that can satisfy the debt, a debt Antonio owes in Shylock's mind, not for the 3,000 ducats he advanced to fund Bassanio's heiress-hunt but for the debt Antonio raised by treating Shylock like a dog.

Note:LA CARNE DI ANTONIO È INESTIMABILE PE SHYLCK. NULLA LO FARÀ RECEDERE DAL SUO DIRITTO DI AVERLA

Shylock is not speaking figuratively when he enumerates Antonio's ways of treating him. Antonio berates him in public spaces while Shylock is doing business; he calls him a "misbeliever, cut-throat dog," spits on his "Jewish gabardine," and kicks him (1.3.101-1 zg).

Note:I MALTRATTAMENTI CHE ANTONIO HA RISERVATO A SHYLOCK

Antonio promises to repay Shylock's loan upon Shylock's body with spit, phlegm, and kicks even before Shylock has agreed to lend and well before Shylock has decided to waive interest in lieu of a fleshly forfeiture.

Note:LA PROMESSA DI ANTONIO. PERCHÈ NON DOVREBBE ESSERE VINCOLANTE?

the idea of equivalences among people, sheep, and money runs deep in the play's diction and melodies. Thus the repeated pun of "luwes," Shakespeare's spelling for Jews, "ewes," and "use" (the word for interest).'

Note:GIOCHI DI PAROLE SULLE EQUIVALENZE

Piously, we are to believe that the play reveals the triumph of mercy over justice, though justice hardly gets a fair shake in the play, and mercy, well, spare me such mercy.

Note:TRIONFO DELLA MISERICORDIA SULLA GIUSTIZIA. QUESTO IL MESSAGGIO PER MOLTI

The knife-wielding Jew, though, is more than a parody of Lady justice; he is the Christian nightmare image of the circumciser; he is The Flesh Exciser incarnate, so to speak. Christians never were quite sure what Jews actually did to their eight-day-old boys. They fantasized the whole kit and caboodle got snipped:

Note:SCHYLOCK: IL TIPICO GIUDEO PER I CRISTIANI

It has been pointed out, quite correctly, that Shylock is being nastily witty in choosing to take the flesh from "nearest his heart," for the heart is where St. Paul says a Christian is to he circumcised.

Note:LA CARNE CHE DESIDERA SHYLOCK

Shylock simply asks for the rights in his bond, which, as the givens of the play demand, is deemed by all to he enforceable. He is not engaging in any lawyerly tricks; he does not overinterpret or require counterintuitive readings of his bond.

Note:SHYLOCK: L'INSOPPORTABILE ANTILEGULEIO. TROPPA CHIAREZZA È INSOPPORTABILE

Christianity connives with a nearly timeless antilawyerly sentiment to make the Law an object of ridicule, as well as of fear and loathing. The Law, in parts of Paul and in one important strand of the Christian exegetical tradition, becomes a tainted word, a somewhat politer way of referring to the Jewish dispensation, the benighted world before Jesus came to fulfill, perfect, and transcend it.1

Note:IL CATTIVO RAPPORTO DEI CRISTIANI CON LA LEGGE

Some things have to be too small for the law to care about if it is not going to get hogged down with trivial harms. A rough rule, captured by the maxim de minimis non curat lex (the law does not regard little things), is necessary to provide the needed wiggle room in the normal administration of the law so that the law does not become an object of contempt.

Note:L'IMPERFEZIONE DELLA LEGGE. ECCO IL PARADISO DEI CAVILLOSI CRISTIANI MISERICORDIOSI

Now enter Portia, who determines the outcome of Shylock's case by abrogating the de minimis rule as a practical matter by setting its boundary at such a ridiculously small amount - one grain, or one hair's breadth.

Note:IL LETTERALISMO DELLA CAVILLOSA PORTIA COME SEME DI MISERICORDIA. I CHIARI DIRITTI DELLO SPORCO EBREO POSSONO ESSERE CONCULCATI

Yet, as we have seen, the hold biblical statement of the talion makes a powerful claim for evenness and equivalence and states it in a way that makes equivalence masquerade as identity. But we all know, and that includes the authors of the Covenant Code in Exodus, that my eye

Note:TALIONE: OCCHIO PER OCCHIO. MA NON LO STESSO STESSO OCCHIO! IL PERFETTISMO CHE PARALIZZA LA GIUSTIZIA

Consider in this light the ironies in Portia insisting on exactitude as a way of undoing the practical possibility of justice. She will have no play in the joints, or so little as not to allow the necessary flexibility for the system to work effectively.

Note:IL PERFEZIONISMO DEI NULLAFACENTI

Exactitude and evenness are all:nor cut thou less nor more But just a pound of flesh: if thou tak'st more Or less than a just pound, he it but so much As makes it light or heavy in the substance, Or the division of the twentieth part Of one poor scruple, nay, if the scale do turn But in the estimation of a hair, Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.

Note:L 'ARRINGA DI PORTIA: ESEMPIO PLASTICO DEL CAVILLARE GESUITICO

Portia plays with the word just, so that "just a pound," which should mean no more than a pound, is interpreted to mean no more and no less than, so that "just a pound" becomes "a just pound," meaning an exact pound.

Note:NON DI PIÙ NON DI MENO. L'ESATTEZZA IMPOSSIBILE

Her brand of mercy to Antonio is funded by a perfect requiting and plundering of Shylock; her mercy is but revenge in sheep's clothing, and she cannot disguise her delight in exacting from Shylock everything she could exact: property, faith, dignity, and manhood.

Note:LA MISERICORDIA FA SEMPRE VITTTIME. NON FA NULLA, PURCHE’ SIANO SACRIFICI SOCIALMENTE ACCETTABILI

We now, with the scales fallen from our eyes, can see what is wrong with mercy: it plays favorites. Mercy here comes at Shylock's expense. And even were it to function in good faith, if mercy has to play more than a rare role it is not a good sign for the state of the law or of the polity.

Note:LA MSERICORDIA FA FAVORITISMI

***L'UMANITÀ DELLA VENDETTA***

Shylock represents the Old Law, and the Old Law is made synonymous with merciless revenge on the one hand, and with an obsessive concern with ritual rather than spirit, form for form's sake, on the other: an eye for an eye rather than mercy,

Note:OCCHIO PER OCCHIO VS MSERICORDIA

In the Christian view, the Old Law is opposed to mercy

Note:L' OPPOSIZIONE

in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy ...

Note:LA SALVEZZA NON VIENE DALLA GIUSTIZIA (PAROLE DI PORZIA)

Mercy, though, did not come for free in the Christian tradition. It was funded by Christ's sacrifice. The Old Law still set the rules of the game, and by its demands for repayment the treasury of mercy was funded. One can see in Shylock's funding of the mercifully good times at Belmont a blasphemous parody of how the Jewish flesh of Jesus, the humiliation of the Jew Jesus, funds the entire Christian mercy system, good times for the elect.

Note:SHYLOCK COME CRISTO: IL SACRIFICATO IN NOME DELLA MISERICORDIA

Shylock: To bait fish withal, - if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge; he hath disgrac'd me, and hind'red me half a million,laugh'd at my losses, mock'ed my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, - and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? - if you prick us do we not bleed? if you tickle us do we not laugh? if you poison us do we not die? and if you wrong us shall we not revenge? - if we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? revenge! If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance he by Christian example? - why revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

Note:MA A CHE SERVE QUEL PEZZO DI CARNE A SHYLOCK? A CHE SERVE LA GIUSTIZIA A UN UOMO? RISPONDE SHYLOCK IN PERSONA

Says Hazlitt of Shylock; "In all his answers and retorts upon his adversaries, he has the best not only of the argument but of the question, reasoning on their own principles and practice";

Note:LA RAGIONE È CON SHYLOCK, DIFFICILE NEGARE

Jew lose because their words don't count.

Note:NON  È ALLORA LA MANCANZA DI ARGOMENTI, E’ ALTRO  A RENDERLO PERDENTE...

We must assent, even against our better desires, should we have such desires, or against our conscience, should our conscience instruct us to forgo revenge. The Jew assents because he cheers Shylock on; the Christian assents because he has assent forced upon him by the facts. Christians are expert avengers, especially when it is a Jew who wrongs them.

Note:RINUNCIARE ALLA VENDETTA È RINUNCIARE ALL' UMANITÁ

Says Montaigne, "Christians excel at hating enemies. Our zeal works wonders when it strengthens our tendency towards hatred, enmity, ambition, avarice, evil-speaking.""

Note:DIETRO LA MSERICORDIA SPESSO SI CELA UNA VENDETTA IN FORMA IPOCRITA. I MIGLIORI NELL'AMORE SONO I MIGLIORI ANCHE NELL'ODIO

Le radici non cristiane dell'europa

THE TALION – EYE FOR AN EYE BY WILLIAM IAN MILLER

The image of the scales suggests it needn't be all that hard to figure out; the instrument will provide an answer. It is merely a mechanical operation. But what are we to weigh against what?

Note:LA GIUSTIZIA È UNA BILANCIA

*** ANDARE A PARI***

Consider our own use of what it means to get even: if you get even by bringing the pan on the left hack up to its neutral position, by one account you are back to where you started, hack to zero;

Note:ANDARE A ZERO

if the debt is of honor, the wrongdoer enjoyed a certain amount of time indulging in the pleasures of looking down on you and of gloating at your humiliation;

Note:MISURARE L' ONORE

Fair compensation requires this: you had me down, and now it is my turn to have you down, to witness and delight in your humiliation as you delighted in mine.

Note:IL GIUSTO COMPENSO

I should get not only my ox hack, but also the rental value of the ox for the time you had it.

Note:COMPENSARE CAPITALE E RENDITA

the notion of getting even is understood to embody a hostile intention to make the other feel your pain, to get him down, if not to obliterate him.

Note:PARIFICARE I DOLORI

It is merely squaring the account… Pieties as old, even older than Socrates' - along the lines of two wrongs do not make a right - beg the question, for the second "wrong" of recompense is not a wrong but merely what justice demands.

Note:L' ERRORE DI CHI DICE "DUE MALI NON FANNO UN BENE"

Edgar Allan Poe puts the idea nicely: "What can be more soothing, at once to a man's Pride and to his Conscience, than the conviction that, in taking vengeance on his enemies for injustice done him, he has simply to do them justice in return?"'

Note:LA VENDETTA RILASSA

And if the incident is but one round in a continuing hostile relationship, what then?

Note:IL PROBLEMA DELLA CATENA DI VENDETTE

Antitalionic arguments were available and regularly made. One did not have to wait for Christianity to appear on the scene to make them... all kinds of reasons why forgiveness and forgetfulness were good ideas.

Note:ARGOMENTI CONTRO IL TALIONE. PERDONO E MISERICORDIA

Thucydides records an instance, and the sagas are full of them.; They were also readily made by third parties pressing the interests of the wider community in peace.

Note:TEUCIDIDE E LE SAGHE

That said, it was still the case that in talionic cultures the demands of payback were the default position, the initial presumption, and the matter to be addressed.

Note:MA LA NOSTRA RESTA UNA CULTURA DEL TALIONE NON DELLA MISERICORDIA

The worry about how hard it is to come up with equivalences is at the core of primitive systems of justice, and it is hardly something we have adequately resolved today.

Note:L'EQUIVALENZA IMPOSSIBILE

dispute endlessly which measure of damages will best capture the real damage so as to make the victim "whole." Though we do not officially make criminal punition compensatory, we have not rid ourselves of the idea that it too is a payment, a discharge of something owed by the criminal,

Note:UN PROBLEMA ATTUALE. CONCEZIONE RETRIBUTIVA DELLA PENA

We thus worry about proportionality within a grid of punishments, which mostly comes down to assigning various numbers of years to different offenses depending on their badness, years thus providing the means and measure of payment, rather than eyes, teeth, lives, or money.4

LA PROPORZIONALITÀ AL CENTRO

Consider the law of the talion, the law of retaliation, of tit for tat, whose classic formulation is the biblical eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

Note:IL TALIONE. VIENE DA LÌ IL NOSTRO SENSO DI GIUSTIZIA

We take the talion as a classic statement of irrational revenge, as an emblem of a society so blind to good sense as to prefer two one-eyed people to one.'

Note:EPPURE OGGI IL TALIONE È DISPREZZATO

The embarrassment of some people drives them to attempt to rescueGod's word from charges of cruelty and vulgarity by arguing that in its historical and cultural setting the talion was a limitation on revenge and bloodfeud... it also sets a bottom limit - no less than one eye or one life, either. No letting your cowardice, that is, incline you to he forgiving.

Note:SCOPO DEL TALIONE: LIMITARE LA VENDETTA

Others have argued that the biblical formulation of the talion was a rejection of the vicarious liability - hitting X for the wrongs that Y did - that accompanied the earliest formulation of the talion in the Mesopotamian laws, where, for instance, if one were to injure the son of man, it was the injurer's son who was the object of expiation.

Note:TALIONE PRELUDIO ALLA RESPONSABILITÀ PERSONALE

Leviticus and Deuteronomy are clear that this is the case, but Exodus is rather less so, for we still have God insisting in the chapter before the Exodus talion that He is "a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me" (Ex. zo.5).

Note:LEVITICO DEUTERONOMIO ESODO. CONCEZIONI DIFFERENTI DEL DEUTERONOMIO

talion can he read as a strong statement of treating people equally,

Note:TALIONE PRODROMO DELL'EGUAGLIANZA

The Israelite society reflected in the Book of the Covenant (Ex. 20-22-z3-33), however, lacked the different juridical classes of free men of Hammurahi, recognizing, like saga Iceland, only two distinctions: slave and free.

Note:SOLO DUE DISTINZIONI: SCHIAVI E LIBERI

Those who advocate the equality reading argue that the talionic legislation - an innovation in Hammurabi's code and later adopted by the ancient Israelite codes - was an attempt to have the polity criminalize what before were private matters, and thus to make sure the wealthy could no longer buy themselves out of suffering mutilation for the harms they had inflicted.'

Note:TALIONE: LA GIUSTIZIA NON SI COMPRA. MISSIONE MPOSSIBILE

Not having sheep to pay his debts he now has his body or body parts.

Note:QUANDO SI PAGA COL CORPO ANCHE I POVERI POSSONO PAGARE

You must be wondering, but what good does your eye do me?

Note:COSA ME NE VIENE DAL SACRIFICIO DEL TUO OCCHIO?

one of the goals of tort law is to make the victim whole (recall that the root of shalom also involves the concept of restoring wholeness), but, as we will see, we do it on the cheap. Talionic cultures were invariably honor cultures,

Note:L'ONORE RIPRISTINATO. RETRIBUZIONE E ONORE VIAGGIANO INSIEME

If I can rightly take your eye, you will be scared of me. That is worth something; it makes the compensatory regime of the talion one that cannot help but keep honor firmly in its sights,

Note:E PRODUCE ANCHE DETERRENZA

Honor has an extraordinary transformative power: it can make currency of no value, a worthless dead eye, into something of great value.

Note:L'AONORE EDIFICA LA CIVILTÀ

***COMPENSARE COMPENSARE COMPENSARE***

revenge was not just an ethic but an aesthetic, the aesthetic of proportion and balance.

Note:IL LATO ESTETICO DELLA GIUSTIZIA

A man who went postal and took excessive revenge was understood to be acting not only without right but also without taste.

Note:LA VENDETTA ECCESSIVA COME MANCANZA DI GUSTO

The Norse even had a proverb to that effect: "Short is the life of the immoderate.""

Note:MODERAZIONE

The politics of disputing focused on three main issues: one, what the precise medium was to be employed to repay the obligation and in what amount; two, a corollary of the preceding, whom to hit on the other side; and three, when to pay it over.

Note:I TRE CARDINI PER GIUDICARE UNA LITE

Taking blood was no less compensatory than taking money.

Note:SANGUE E MONETA

revenge systems gave way to compensation systems, which then paved the way for state-delivered justice, amidst general rejoicing at the progress. The fact is that revenge in blood invariably coexisted with means of paying off the avenger by transfers of property

Note:VENDETTA: CARDINE DELLA COMPENSAZIONE E DELLA CIVILTÀ

The problem for early talionic culture was not the conceptual one of being too primitive to understand notions of exchange, but the practical one of how to measure value

Note:IL PROBLEMA NN È IL TALIONE MA LA MISURAZIONE DEI VALORI

Remember that the classic formulation of the talion arose before coinage was general, before there was easy and ready money that was of a given weight and purity and whose value was clear...And even after coinage came into existence - first appearing in Lydia in the sixth century B.C. - it was often in short supply.

Note::IL TALIONE PRECEDE IL CONIO

There was a presumption that blood was the noblest form of specie, or at least the most poetic.

Note:POESIA DEL SANGUE

***ARMONIA DELLA VENDETTA***

why did the ancient Hebrew legislator not prescribe, as the seventh-to eleventh-century Germanic codes would do, an eye for 50 shillings, a tooth for 6, a middle finger for 4,

Note:MONETIZZARE LA CARNE. INVENZIONE GERMANICA

Was it that the biblical lawgiver liked the cadence and elegance of such a tough-minded statement of pure equivalence, of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?"

Note:LA MONETA INQUINA L'ELEGANZA DELLE PROPORZIONI. L'ELEGANZA POETICA DELLA LEGGE

The biblical formulations are not limited to eyes and teeth. It is as if the legislator and compiler got too excited to stop, especially in Exodus: "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

Note:SLANCIO POETICO

Daube has argued that Jesus knew that the talion as stated was not literally applied in his time.

Note:TALIONE DA SEMPRE DISAPPLICATO NELLA SUA LETTERA

Two centuries earlier the rabbis had already interpreted the talion to mean that money compensation was what the rule required.

Note:MONETIZZAZIONE GIÀ IN ATTO DA SUBITO

In Daube's view, Jesus is thus using the talionic formulation more generally to argue against merely suing for money damages for the insult of having one's face slapped. He is urging that one endure the shame with stoic passivity. Turn the other cheek; do not seek to collect damages in a lawsuit. He was rejecting the root idea of seeking any kind of compensation, whether blood or money, for injuries of humiliation and dishonor in this world."

Note:GESÙ CONTRO LA COMPENSAZIONE

if Daube is right, it means that Jesus used the abridged talionic formulation solely because of the terrible beauty with which it states the principle of compensation, of getting even. Jesus was thus drawn to the graphic statement of the talion in the same way we are, because it has a compelling ring to it, because it perfectly states a general principle of just recompense that he is arguing should be rejected even in the softened form to which the rabbis had reduced it.

LA TERRIBILE ELEGANZA CHE ATTERRÌ GESÙ