Page:The kingdom and people of Siam - with a narrative of the mission to that country in 1855 (IA b29352447 0001).pdf/214

 is one of the thirty judges in hell, who relieve each other alternately, and was once a king on earth,] and thereafter may I fall into the lowest pit of hell. Or if these miseries should not ensue, may I after death migrate into the body of a slave, and suffer all the hardships and pains attending the worst state of such a being during a period of years measured by the sands of the four seas: or may I animate the body of an animal or beast during five hundred genera- tions; or be born an hermaphrodite five hundred times; or endure in the body of a deaf, blind, dumb, houseless beggar, every species of loathsome disease during the same number of generations: and then may I be hurried to narok [or hell], and then be crucified by P'hreea Yom [one of the kings of hell]."* The codes contain many lessons to the judges, recommending them to enforce the claims of justice; to be impartial; to resist plausible and sophistical arguments; to follow the example of an illustrious rajah, a king of the Dog nation, who compelled his subjects to stuff their ears with cotton, lest they should be stunned when their country was invaded by the king of the nation of Lions. An unjust judge is to be cut on the forehead with a sword; to be ex- posed in the pillory; and if he shall falsify any docu- ment, to be imprisoned in chains. The King is re- quired to furnish any ignorant judge with copies of the codes, so that he may not plead his unacquaintance with the law as an apology for his errors. * The Siamese text of this oath is in Jones' Grammatical Notices of the Siamese Language, p. 68-71. It is extracted from a native volume on the Law of Evidence,