A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

The Jurors 201
For first when rising from bed in the morn, to the criminal court betimes
I trudge,
Great six-foot fellows are there at the rails, in anxious haste to salute
their judge.
And the delicate hand, which has dipt so deep in the public purse, he
claps mtomme,
_
And he bows before me and makes his prayer, and softens his voice
Various
1 ^ classes o*
offenders.
to a pitiful whine. . . .
So when they have begged and implored me enough, and my angry
temper is wiped away,
I enter in and take my seat; and then I do none of the things I say. . .
Some vow they are needy and friendless men, and over their poverty
wail and whine.
And reckon up hardships false and true, till they make them out to be
equal to mine.
Some tell
a legend of days gone by, or a joke from ^sop witty and
sage,
Or jest and banter, to make me laugh, that so I may forget my
terrible rage.
And if all this fails, and I stand unmoved, he leads by the hands his
little ones near.
He brings his girls and he brings his boys; and I the judge am com-
posed to hear.
They huddle together with piteous bleats: while trembling above
them he prays to me.
Prays as to God his accounts to pass, to give him acquittance, and
A common
^"^to '^
leave him free.
But the nicest and pleasantest part of it all is this, which I had His salary
wholly forgotten to say,
'Tis when with my fee in my wallet I come, returning home at the tion.
close of the day,
Oh then what a welcome I get for its sake; my daughter, the darhng,
is foremost of all,
And she washes my feet and anoints them with care and above them
she stoops and a kiss lets fall.
Till at last by the pretty Papas of her tongue, she angles withal my
three obols away.
Then my dear little wife, she sets on the board nice manchets of
bread in a tempting array,
_
FaMly^affec^