Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/340

166 death. The idea was, that the sounds produced by the agony of the sufferer confined within, should resemble the roaring of a bull; and thus, while nothing human struck the ear, the mind should be unimpressed by a feeling of mercy. The king highly applauded the invention, and said, "Friend, the value of thy industry is yet untried: more cruel even than the people account me, thou thyself shalt be the first victim."—Indeed, there is no law more equitable, than that the artificer of death should perish by his own devices, as Quidius has observed. (48)

My beloved, the sufferer is any evil-worker who will finally suffer for the exertion of his iniquitous practices.