Read "The Judge and the Robber" by Tomás de Iriarte online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A villain was by hands of justice caught, / Just as of cash, and even of his life, / At the sharp point of murderous knife, / A luckless wayfarer to rob, he sought / The Judge upbraids him with his crime -- / He answered: "Sir, from earliest time / I've been a rogue, practised in petty theft; / When buckles, watches, trunks and cloaks, / And swords, I stole from other folks.
Then, fairly launched upon my wild career, / I houses sacked. Now -- no compunction left -- / On the highways I rob, without a fear.
Let not your worship, then, make such a stir, / That I should rob and slay a traveller -- / Nor of the matter make a charge so sore!
I've done such things these forty years, and more."
Do we the bandit's wretched plea allow?
Yet writers give no worthier excuse, / Who justify, by argument of use, / Errors of speech or of expression low -- / Urging the long-lived blunders of the past / Against the verdict by sound critics cast.