Sec. 53.

54.

55.

CHAPTER VII.

"MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM."

Jurisdiction of Athenian Laws.

Parent and Child, under Greek Law.

Parent's right of Infanticide, by Athenian Law.

56. Pleading for Fee.

57. Parent's Consent to Child's Marriage.

58. Limitation of Municipal Law.

Sec. 53.

Jurisdiction of Athenian laws.

"Lys. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me Hermia. I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and she hath no child;

From Athens is her house remote seven leagues,
And she respects me as her only son.

There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;

And to that place the sharp Athenian law cannot pursue us."

771

This reference to the "widow aunt," it is believed, is not so much to show a guardian, who could consent to the marriage, as to state the fact that her home would furnish a haven, beyond the jurisdiction of the law of Athens. If the residence of the widow aunt, was, as stated, a distance equivalent to seven English leagues, it would be about twenty-one miles from Athens and this distance would no doubt have carried Lysander and Hermia into another district, where different laws obtained. For it must be remembered that the free states of Greece were merely cities with their districts, and each district possessed its own constitution and had exclusive management of its own concerns. The different states of Attica, for instance, had their respective heads, or presidents, and the different peoples or tribes adopted their own laws and regulations in so far as they did not con

Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I, Scene I.

3 St. John's Manner & Customs of Ancient Greece. 76, 77: Schoman's Dissertation on the Assemblies of the Athenians. 346. 356, 358.

flict with the general laws of the State. So if the distance to be traveled would carry the lovers into another district of the state, it was no doubt, true, as the Poet states, that the "sharp Athenian law" could not pursue them.

Sec. 54. Parent and child, under Greek law.—

"Ege.

And, my gracious duke,
Be it so she will not here, before your grace,
Consent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens;
As she is mine, I may dispose of her;
Which shall be either to this gentleman,
Or to her death; according to our law,
Immediately provided in that case."

Egeus here claimed the law, as it was known to exist, not only in ancient Greece, but in Egypt, Persia and Rome, as well. According to the "ancient privilege of Athens," the child was regarded more as the property of the parent than as an independent rational being, and a father was allowed a very absolute dominion over the child. The Twelve Tables, of the Romans, were no doubt taken by the deputies from the laws of ancient Greece and the fourth of these tables gave the father not only the power of sale, but the power of life and death, as well, over his children. After the expulsion of Tarquin,

'Hereen, on Political History of Ancient Greece (Oxford ed.),

1834.

2 Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I, Scene I.

'St. John's Hist. Manners & Customs Anc. Greece, i, 120-125; 2 Kent's Comm. (12 ed.), 204 and note.

Taylors, Elem. Civ. Law, 395, 402; Caesar, de Bel. Gal. lib. 6, c. 19; 2 Kent's Comm. (12 ed.), 204 and note.

Livy, b. 6, c. 1; Heineccii Hist. Juris Civilis, lib. 1, sec. 26; Cicero, Orat. in Cat, 3, 4; Niebuhr, Roman Hist. ii, 235 (edPhil. 1835); 2 Hooke's Roman Hist., c. 27; Gravina, de Ortu et Prog. J. C. 32; 1 Arnold's Hist. of Rome, 284.

6 Gravina, De Jura, Naturalia Gentium et XII Tabularum; 2 Kent's Comm. (12 ed.) 520, 521, and note.

Rome suffered from an absence of written laws and the Twelve Tables were prepared by a commission, after a visit to Athens to learn the laws and study the institutions of that country. The laws prepared or transcribed by this commission were engraven on tablets of brass, and they continued in effect until the time of the Emperor Hadrian.3

Sec. 55. Parent's right of infanticide by Athenian law.For you, fair Hermia, look you arm your

"The.

self

To fit your fancies to your father's will;
Or else the law of Athens yield you up
(Which by no means we may extenuate)
To death, or to a vow of single life."

774

Under Draco's laws, death in Athens was appointed for almost all offenses. Those convicted of idleness or the theft of a cabbage or an apple were made to suffer the same penalties as criminals who committed sacrilege or murder, according to Plutarch. (Plutarch's Life of Solon.)

From the most authentic sources it is established that the laws permitting the sale or murder of daughters, by fathers or brothers, stood in Athens, until such barbarous ordinances were repealed, along with the law which permitted the creditor to take the person of his debtor as his security for a debt owing to him, by the wise Solon.

"Solon forbade the sale of daughters or sisters into slavery by fathers or brothers, a prohibition which shows how much females had before been looked upon as articles of property." 3 Grote's Greece, 99, 135, 140; Plutarch's Life of Solon.

The names of Theseus and Demetrius, in this play, are no doubt selected by the Poet for Theseus, king of Attica, who first established the political power of Athens and made it the metropolis and Demetrius Phalereus or Demetrius Poliorcetes, who restored the constitution of Athens, after Antipater's oligarchy of wealth. Grote's Greece, vol. 12, p. 324.

11 Kent's Comm. (12 ed.), 520.

2 Cicero, Orat. in Cat. 3, 4; 1 Kent's Comm. (12 ed.), 525. 2 Kent's Comm. (12 ed.), 204.

'Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I, Scene I.

Theseus here but proclaimed the law of Athens, as it existed at a period anterior to the time of Solon, for at this period in the world's history, the people generally carried the power of the parent over the person and liberty of the child to an atrocious extent and not only in Greece, but in Persia, Egypt, Gaul and Rome, infanticide was tolerated and the lives and liberty of the children were placed in the hands of the father. In Rome the In Rome the power of life and death over the child was not regarded as an absolute license of the parent, but was a species of domestic jurisdiction, recognized as a lawful right of the parent. This power, in Rome, was weakened a great deal in the time of Augustus, but it was perhaps not until Valentinian and Valens made the offense of killing infants a capital crime, that the practice was abolished in Rome.

In Greece, at the time of the play, the Poet makes this horrible practice still within the power of a parent and no doubt this is correct, for prior to the time of Solon, under the ordinances of Draco, the right was recognized as within the lawful power of a parent, which Theseus declines to "extenuate."

Sec. 56. Pleading for fee.

"Puck. Captain of our fairy band,

Helena is here at hand.

And the youth, mistook by me,

'Taylor's Elements of Civil Law, 395, 402; 1 St. John's Hist. Manners & Customs of Ancient Greece, 120-125; Voyage du Anarcharis en Grece, fil, c. 26; Justinian's Inst. 1, 9; Caesar de Bel. Gal. lib. 6, c. 19; Sallust, Bel. Cat. c. 39: De Patria Potestate; Heinneccius, Syntagma Ant. Rome, etc., lib. 1, tit. 9, Opera iv: Rynkershoek's Opusculum, de jure, etc.. Opera 1, 346; Noodt, de Partus Expositione et Nice apud Veteres. Infanticide was the horrible vice of all antiquity. III Gibbon's History, 55-57. The Roman authors termed this power of the father patria majestas. Heinneccius, Syntagma Antiq. Rome. Jur. lib. 1, tit. 9, Opera iv; 7 Am. Law Rev. 61.

2

Taylor's Elements Civil Law. 403-406; 2 Kent's Comm. (12 ed.) 204.

Plutarch's Life of Solon; 3 Grote's Greece, 99, 135.

Demetrius is here placed in the attitude of a lawyer pleading for his fee. In law, the fee is usually a recompense for the pleading. In other words, a reward given to the counselor or attorney, for the execution of his office. or by way of recompense for his professional services." Fees differ from costs, in that the former are a recompense for the services rendered, while the latter are but an indemnity for money expended or laid out.3

'Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III, Scene II.

According to Halliwell-Phillipps, the phrase had the specific meaning of "three kisses." Rolfe's Midsummer Night's Dream, p. 182, notes.

The grasping quality of some attorneys is referred to, in All's Well That Ends Well (Act II, Scene II), as follows: "Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney."

now

Richard tells Anne, in King Richard III: "Glo.. thy beauty is propos'd my fee, My proud heart sues and prompts my tongue to speak." (Act I, Scene II.)

On promising to circulate the false rumor of his brother's bastardy, Buckingham tells Gloster, in King Richard III: “Buck. Doubt not, my lord; I'll play the orator, As if the golden fee, for which I plead, Were for myself." (Act III, Scene V.)

Ulysses said, in Troilus and Cressida. that "supple knees feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees." (Act III, Scene III.)

In the dialogue between Mercutio and Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet, in his reference to Queen Mab, Mercutio, after describing her state, said: "And in this state she gallops, night by night, Through lovers' brains and then they dream of love; O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees." (Act I. Scene IV.)

Tamora, in Titus Andronicus, considers the rape of Lavinia. as the fee due her sons, when she denies her interference to save her, in these words:

"Tam. So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee:

No. let them satisfy their lust on thee." (Act II, Scene III.)