Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 02.pdf/198

 A Curious Version of Justinian's Institutes.

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A CURIOUS VERSION OF JUSTINIAN'S INSTITUTES. By Hon. William L. Learned. MR. IRVING BROWNE has lately given in the " Green Bag " a poetical and witty version of an old law case. Other attempts have been made to add the flowers of poetry to the dry sticks of the law. Prob ably all lawyers are familiar with, — "Tenant in fee Simple is he, - And need neither quake nor quiver, Who holdeth his lands Free from all demands To him and his heirs forever." The boldest and most successful under taking of this kind which I have seen is the version of Justinian's Institutes in Latin hexameter. It may not have fallen under the notice of all the readers of the "Green Bag," and they may be willing to see some account of it. The person who thus undertook, in the language of the address to the reader, "jus civile arduis questionibus involutum in rithmorum dulcedinem utilissime transposuisse," was John Baptist Pisacani. He appears to have been a young man, about thirty, when he wrote this book; " opus non poetici estus furore, sed ingenii acumine, solidaque amenitate natum." The work was published at Naples in 1684. The procemium begins thus: — "Qui regit imperio populos, orbemque gubernat Legibus armandus justis, decorandus et armis Tempus ut utrumque et belli pacisque regatur." The familiar beginning of the first title is thus put into metre : — "Jus cuicumque suum tribuendi firma voluntas Justitis est virtus. Jurisprudentia rerum Est hominum superumque scientia et omnis iniqui Lucida cognitio et certissima notio recti." For another specimen I give (book ii. tit. '.§0.-

"Sunt naturali cunctis communia jure Aer atque imber vastum mare, litora pontis, Ad maris hinc omnes possunt accidere litus. Dum tamen a villis, monumentis, aedibus absint, Quae non sunt juris gentis velut aequoris unda." Even the names of relationships are worked into hexameter; as, for instance (book iii. tit. 6, § 6), — "Trique avia est senis gradibus triavusque superne. Est trinepos infra, gradibusque trineptis iisdem. Abque nepos ex transverse abneptisque sororis. Fratrisque abque amita, abpatruus, fraterque sororque. Nempe abavi, atque abavunculus, abmatertera nempe Abque aviae soror et frater; quoque filia natus Propatruus quos progenuit, proavunculus atque Promatertera, proque amita." Without wearying the reader with quota tions, I will only add from book iv. tit. 17, pr.,— "Judicis officium quicumque agnoscere debet, Et judex plane in primis servare tenetur, Judicet at juxta leges, moresve statuta." A very good rule, whether expressed in prose or in poetry. Any one familiar with the size of the In stitutes and with the style will understand that the writer of this paraphrase must have spent much labor in the production of so many hexameters. How useful the labor was we cannot say. Perhaps it was only to be classed with the "laborious trifling" of anagrams and the like. With one of these, out of five prefixed to the work by some admirer, I will close, — "Apis bona sapientias canit." The reader will see that this is, as it is called, anagramma purissimum of the name Ioannes Baptista Pisacani.