HAMAN HANGED ON HIS OWN GALLOWS.
Esther vii. 10
Harbonah was one of the chamberlains of that king Ahasuerus, who reigned from India even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces. And Harbonah it was that said before the king,—when Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews’ enemy, had gone one step too far in his enmity to the Jews, and had let his vaulting ambition overleap itself in his insolent confidence in royal favour,—Harbonah it was that prompted royal vengeance with the suggestive reminder,—“Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman.” Then the king said—catching at once at the chamberlain’s suggestion—“Hang him thereon.” “So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.”
Somewhat musty is the adage that no law is more equitable than that by which the deviser of death perishes by his own device: nec lex est æquior ulla, quam necis artificem arte perire suâ. Musty it might be even in Harbonah’s days; but the chamberlain, in the excitement of so signal an example, would feel that time cannot stale, nor custom wither, the force and import of that retributive law.
Mr. de Quincey, in his memorable narrative of the revolt of the Tartars, or flight of the Kalmuck Khan and his people from the Russian territories to the frontiers of China (1771), relates in conclusion how Zebek-Dorchi, the author and originator of this great Tartar exodus, perished after a manner specially gratifying to those who compassed his ruin; the Chinese morality being exactly of that kind which approves in everything the lex talionis. “Finally, Zebek-Dorchi was invited to the imperial lodge, together with all his accomplices; and under the skilful management of the Chinese nobles in the emperor’s establishment, the murderous artifices of these Tartar chieftains were made to recoil upon themselves, and the whole of them perished by assassination at a great imperial banquet.” Iterated and reiterated in holy writ is the retributive law that the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness; that transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness; that he that seeketh mischief it shall come unto him. The presidents and princes under King Darius, who sought occasion against Daniel, and persuaded their reluctant sovereign to cast the prophet into the den of lions, who however wrought him no manner of hurt,—upon them the lex talionis vindicated its literal severity when they in their turn were cast into the lions’ den, and the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the den.
The early ballads of almost every literature delight in these retributive surprises. Genuine was the zest of our fathers for such a retort as that of William of Cloudesly on the Justice who is having him measured for his grave:—
“‘I have seen as great a marvel,’ said Cloudesly,
‘As between this and prime
He that maketh a grave for me