Damage done to growing crop by sheeps 58
Damage done to growing crop by sheeps 58. If, after the sheep have come up out of the meadows and havepassed into the common fold at the city gate, a shepherd has placed hisheep in a field and caused his sheep to feed in the field, the shepherdshall keep the field he has grazed, and, at harvest-time, he shall measureout to the owner sixty gur of corn for each gan of land
Cutting down a tree without permission Rent of a gardenplots 59. If a man without the consent of the owner has cut down a tree in anorchard, he shall weigh out half a mina of silver
Cutting down a tree without permission Rent of a gardenplotss 60, 61. If a man has given a field to a gardener to plant a garden andthe gardener has planted the garden, he shall train the garden four yearsin the fifth year the owner of the garden and the gardener shall share thegarden equally, the owner of the garden shall gather his share and takeit [61]. If the gardener, in planting the garden, has not planted all, buthas left a bare patch, he shall reckon the bare patch in his share
Cutting down a tree without permission Rent of a gardenplots62. If he has not planted the field which was given him as a garden,then, if it was arable land, the gardener shall measure out to the owner ofthe field an average rent for the years that were neglected, and shall perform the stipulated work on the field (iE, make it into a garden), and return it to the owner of the field
Cutting down a tree without permission Rent of a gardenplots63. If the land was uncultivated, he shall do the stipulated work on thefield, and return to the owner of the field and shall measure out for eachyear ten gur of corn for each gan.
Garden rented on sharess64. If a man has given his garden to a gardener to farm, the gardener,as long as he holds the garden, shall give the owner of the garden two-thirds of the produce of the garden and shall take one-third himself
Garden rented on shares 65. If the gardener has not tilled the garden and has diminished theyield, the gardener shall pay an average rent.
Three of five erased columnsHere came the five erased columns, of which the three following sectionsare restored from copies in Ashurbanipal's library
Obligations of owner to gather a date-crop assigned for debtsX. [If a man has borrowed money of a merchant and has given a dategrove] to the merchant and has said to him, "Take the dates that are inmy grove for your money; that merchant shall not consent, the owner ofthe grove shall take the dates that are in the grove and shall answer tohe merchant for the money and its interest, according to the tenor of hisagreement, and the owner of the grove shall take the surplus of the datesthat are in the grove
Eviction of house-tenantsY. [If a man has let a house] and the tenant has paid to the owner of thehouse the full rent for a term of years, and if the owner of the house hasordered the tenant to leave before his time is up, the owner of the house,because he has ordered his tenant to leave before his time is up, [shall re-Pay a proportionate amount] from what the tenant has paid him.
Acceptance of goods in payment of debt, in default of moneyor cornsZ. If a man has borrowed money of a merchant and has not com ormoney wherewith [to payl but has goods; whatever is in his hands, heshall give to the merchant, before the elders. The merchant shall not ob-ect: he shall receive it.
CommentsThis is not the place to write a commentary on the Code, but there are afew necessary cautions. One of the first is that most clauses are permissive rather than positive. The verb"shall"is not an imperative, but afuture. Doubtless in case of heinous crimes the death-penalty had to beinflicted. But there was always a trial, and proof was demanded on oathIn many cases the"shall is only permissive, as when the Code says awidow"shall" marry again. There is no proof that the jury decided onlyfacts and found the prisoner guilty or not, leaving the judge no optionbut to inflict the extreme penalty. The judge, on the contrary, seems tohave had much legislative power. When this view is taken, the Code ap-pears no more severe than those of the Middle Ages, or even of recenttimes, when a man was hanged for sheep-stealing. There are many hu-manitarian clauses and much protection is given the weak and the help-less. One of the best proofs of its inherent excellence is that it helped tobuild up an empire, which lasted many centuries and was regarded withreverence almost to the end
THE PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO THE CODE OFHAMMURABIThe prologue and epilogue of the Code are very difficult to translateOften the phrases are simply stock expressions which occur in most ofthe royal inscriptions. The meanings of many of these have degeneratedto mere titles of courtesy and their original significance is obscure. Butearly translators found no difficulty in guessing the most complimentarysings to say, and more recent scholars in their efforts to be exact becomegrotesque. When an ancient king called himself a"rabid buffalo itdoubtless gave him satisfaction, but it would be very rude for us to doso. On the other hand. it is very tiresome to an English reader to read asentence of three hundred lines in length before coming to a prindpalverb. Such a sentence, a string of epithets and participles, is here brokenup into short clauses and the participles turned into finite verbs. This isdone, not because the translator is entirely ignorant of grammar, but inpity for the reader. This further necessitates turning the third person singular, in which the king speaks of himself, ike a modern acceptance ofan invitation to dinner, into the more simple direct narration in the firstperson. Anyone who wishes to compare this translation with the originalwill please recall that this is done for case in understanding, not becausethe original was misunderstood.A more serious difficulty is, that, as it was customary to apply thesame honorific titles to both a god and the king, it is often uncertain towhich the original meant to apply them. This may have been left inten-tionally vague. Some translators have taken on themselves to settle towhich they will refer the epithet, to the god or to the king. Such translations are only interesting as a record of private opinions. They settleothing, do not even give a presumption in favor of anything. It is morehonest to leave the translation as vague as the original. when this can bedone. This part of the stele is full of rare words, or what is just as bad,words which invariably occur in the same context. If a king calls himselfby some strange honorific title, it is no assistance to understanding themeaning of it that a score of successors should do the same. Of manyords,all we can conjecture is that the king was honored by them. Thereis nothing to indicate what they really meant. In some cases"mighty iseither rendering. Both can hardly be right, neithe why we should preferas likelv to be correct as"wise There is no reasormay really be Somding may once have prided himself on being an expert potter, as a mod-ern monarch might on being a photographer. If he called himself on amonument a"superb potter, " all his successors would keep the title,though they never made a pot in their lives. We have only to peruse thetitles of modern monarchs to be sure of the fact. It is, therefore, to behoped that no one will build any far-reaching theories upon logical deductions from the translations given here or elsewhere of such honorific
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