Vengeance

“ For this purpose I will preserve my life: to execute this dear revenge, will I again behold the sun, and tread the green herbage of earth, which otherwise should vanish from my eyes for ever. And I call on you, spirits of the dead; and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work. Let the cursed and hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him feel the despair that now torments me. ”

“ The spirit of vengeance spoke from her lips. "In vain wilt thou stretch forth thy dying hands after a son, in vain fancy thou art grasping the warm hands of thy Charles,—he will never more stand by thy bedside." ”

“ O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth, thou God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.
2 Arise, thou Judge of the world: and reward the proud after their deserving.
3 Lord, how long shall the ungodly: how long shall the ungodly triumph?
4 How long shall all wicked doers speak so disdainfully: and make such proud boasting?
5 They smite down thy people, O Lord: and trouble thine heritage.
6 They murder the widow and the stranger: and put the fatherless to death. ”

“ It seems to me as if I saw the genius of this city stand before God, lifting his hands in agony to heaven, crying for mercy on woman, insulted and trodden down, for vengeance on man, who treads her thus infamously into the dust. The vengeance comes, not the mercy. ”

“ But, 'tis reveng'd, and now my work is done. Yet, ere I fall, be it one part of vengeance To force thee to confess that I am just.— Thou seest a prince, whose father thou hast slain, Whose native country thou hast laid in blood, Whose sacred person (oh!) thou hast profan'd, Whose reign extinguish'd—what was left to me, So highly born? No kingdom, but revenge; No treasure, but thy tortures and thy groans. If men should ask who brought thee to thy end, Tell them, the Moor, and they will not despise thee. ”

“ Somewhere, perhaps on God's earth he wanders outcast, forsaken, loveless. I have my vengeance, but it is like Dead Sea fruit, all bitter ashes to the taste. I am a miserable, heart-weary wreck,—a woman with fame, without love.
"Vengeance is an arrow that often falleth and smiteth the hand of him that sent it." ”

“ And in a while, having read these papers, I laid them by and rising, stumbled towards the open casement.
"Well, my lord?" says she in strange, breathless fashion, "And what now?"
"Why now," says I, wearily, "it seems my vengeance is yet to seek."
"Vengeance?" she cried, "Ah, God pity thee! Doth life hold for thee nought better?"
"Nought!"
"Vengeance is a consuming fire!"
"So seek I vengeance!"
"O Martin Conisby, bethink you! Vengeance is but a sickness of the mind—a wasting disease—"
"So seek I vengeance!" ”

“ Why should an innocent, happy family be crushed along with those monsters? To satisfy thy blind vengeance, I was forced to bury them beneath stones and falling timbers. Judge and avenger at the same time, thou hadst not thought of this. Consider now all the consequences of thy delirium and thy folly; cast thine eyes along the whole chain, extending to the remotest posterity, and then sink beneath the terrible survey. Did I not once tell thee that man is much more rash in his decisions and in his vengeance, than the Devil is in the accomplishment of wickedness? ”

“ Vengeance spoke in those ropes and in the carefully spread-out cards, and murder in the smothering pillow. The vengeance of one who had watched her corroding influence eat the life out of my honour and whose love for our little Roger was such that any deed which ensured his continued presence in the home appeared not only warrantable but obligatory. ”

“ But oblivion is destined to swallow up all!”
“Let this outlaw live,” cried the lady, starting from the chair, and clasping her husband’s hands. “Shed no blood that may cry from the ground against us. Vengeance is the prerogative of Heaven alone. We who are in the midst of sorrow, who have no prospects but dark ones, we should excel in deeds of mercy. Let him live, keep him captive all his days, but shed no blood. ”

“ Of vengeance that follows, remorse that stings
Messmates remember though crime is done,
In the lonest spot beneath the sun,
Where footstep of man has never trod,
It's under the eye of an avenging God. ”

“ If the revolt and treachery of all most dear to him, the hatred of his very flesh and blood, the unceasing enmity of his own sons, a miserable old age, and a heart-broken death-bed—if these things may be deemed Heaven’s vengeance upon murder—then, of a surety, that murder was avenged! ”

“ Oh, my God! when the justice of Heaven permits the Evil one to carry out a scheme of vengeance—when its execution is committed to the lost and terrible victim of sin, who owes his own ruin to the man, the very man, whom he is commissioned to pursue—then, indeed, the torments and terrors of hell are anticipated on earth. ”

“ The former fear hath warped thy judgment. Vengeance calls vengeance forth; slaughter calls for slaughter, but the gods give respite from affliction, holding in their own hands each thing's allotted end. ”

“ I leave, however, behind, whether dead or absent, this legacy of vengeance, and so fulfil a promise I made to my own heart to destroy those who would long since have murdered me, but that I had fenced myself round with safeguards which they dared not despise. ”

“ How is it possible to conceive that men whose wounds were always bleeding, who had always acts of vengeance to execute, vengeances to dread, could at a certain epoch impose silence upon their animosities, so as tranquilly to sit beside a mortal enemy? ”

“ Think ye that Heaven will long withhold its vengeance from atrocities that cry aloud to it night and day—that the innocent blood ye have spilt will sink, unavenged, into the earth? Fear and tremble, for the hour of wrath and woe is at hand! ”

“ He had been always taught from childhood that a just vengeance was a holy thing;—that women might sit down and weep, but that men should scorch their tears up with a dagger's flash and the smoke of blood justly shed. ”

“ Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I never
Had liv'd to put on this; so had you saved
The noble Imogen to repent, and struck
Me, wretch more worth your vengeance. But alack,
You snatch some hence for little faults; that's love,
To have them fall no more. You some permit
To second ills with ills, each elder worse,
And make them dread it, to the doer's thrift.
But Imogen is your own. Do your best wills,
And make me blest to obey. I am brought hither
Among th' Italian gentry, and to fight
Against my lady's kingdom. 'Tis enough
That, Britain, I have kill'd thy mistress; peace! ”

“ The lean clenched hand, thrown upwards in a savage gesture, the blazing eyes, the livid, furrowed face, the writhen mouth, the furious, jarring voice, leave little doubt of the vengeance that will be wreaked when he shall track down the murderer. ”

“ Know for certain, that that God whom I have served, and for whose cause I now suffer, will avenge me; for vengeance is the Lord’s, and he will repay it one way or other, except thou speedily repentest.’ At this saying the justice began to tremble, and crying out, said, ‘I will do you no more hurt than I will do my own soul. ”

“ Classic vows of vengeance were all very well in the days when a Medea rode upon flying dragons and slaughtered her children upon principle; but a certain inspired teacher, writing a very long time after that much-to-be-regretted classic age, has declared that vengeance is the right of divinity alone, and far too terrible an attribute to be tampered with by fallible mortals, blindly hurling the bolts of Heaven against each other’s earthly heads. ”

“ Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, Blood and revenge are hammering in my head. ”

“ I've laid my hands upon his rayless eyes, And on their vacant orbits sworn a vow Of vengeance, only to be cooled in blood. STAUFFACHER. Speak not of vengeance. We are here to meet The threatened evil, not to avenge the past. Now tell me what you've done, and what secured, To aid the common cause in Unterwald. How stands the peasantry disposed, and how Yourself escaped the wiles of treachery? ”

“ Since then, popular vengeance has considerably relaxed and the devising of painful forms of punishment has become almost a lost art. The new-born science, with its first powers of articulation, loudly repeat the words of Revelation, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." ”

“ What sweetness would there be in vengeance if the avenger, as he plunged the dagger in his victim's bosom, might not hiss in his ear, 'Remember!' As well find satisfaction in torturing an idiot or mutilating a corpse. I am not talking now of brutish fellows, who would kick a stock or stone which they stumbled over, but of men intelligent enough to understand what vengeance is. ”

“ And swept the storm of vengeance o'er the world!
Yet, oh! stern GOD! if ever conscious right,
If ever justice arm'd thee for the fight;
If e'er fair truth approv'd thy dread career,
Smil'd on thy track and curb'd thy deathful spear ”

“ Your punishments—your vengeance ought to fall on me alone!'
'Sir,' said Dr. Middleton, calmly, 'I perceive that whatever else you may have learned in the course of your education, you have not been taught the meaning of the word punishment. Punishment and vengeance do not with us mean the same thing. Punishment is pain given, with the reasonable hope of preventing those on whom it is inflicted from doing, in future, what will hurt themselves or others. Vengeance never looks to the future, but is the expression of anger for an injury that is past. ”

“ And it is He who has wrested from you your wealth, and clothed you in misery, and has aided your enemies against you. And His vengeance has fallen upon you, and is not yet accomplished. And I fear lest punishment descend upon thee if thou wert one of the oppressors, and that with thee it also embrace me, for of a truth when vengeance comes it comprehends all. ”

“ Thou seest, that content is for ever banished the heart; quiet for ever driven from the habitations of those miserable wretches on whose minds I have indelibly engraved the scorn, the infamy, the chastisement which they deserve. But, no! thine eyes cannot sustain the tragic spectacle of my vengeance. ”

“ Remember him, the villain, righteous heaven, In thy great day of vengeance! Blast the traitor And his pernicious counsels; who, for wealth, For pow'r, the pride of greatness, or revenge, Would plunge his native land in civil wars! ”

“ The wicked, even murderers, sometimes live, become old, yea, are mighty in power; for the day of vengeance is to come in the other world, the great day of wrath; and though some are made examples of in this world, to prove that there is a God and a providence, yet many are left unpunished, to prove that there is a judgment to come. ”

“ The great city, the head of it, shall be quite ruined. Her foundations have fallen, and therefore her walls are thrown down; for how can the walls stand when divine vengeance is at the door and shakes the very foundations? It is the vengeance of the Lord, which nothing can contend with either in law or battle. ”

“ Of that ill plant, whose shade such poison sheds
O'er all the Christian land, that seldom thence
Good fruit is gather'd. Vengeance soon should come,
Had Ghent and Douay, Lille and Bruges power;
And vengeance I of heav'n's great Judge implore. ”

“ Clearly then the vengeance apprehended was not that of a disembodied spirit entreating the gods to act on its behalf or appearing in visions to its surviving kinsfolk and urging them to requite the murderer, but the vengeance of a bodily revenant with feet swift to pursue and hands strong to strike. On no other grounds is the mutilation of the dead body intelligible. ”

“ Instance after instance did the youth hear of men who had sacrificed brother and sister, wife and concubine,—nay, sometimes even father and mother,—to carry out some just vengeance, and who had died happy because they survived the satisfactory end of their vendetta long enough to cast one glance of exulting victory upon the dead or dying body of their victim. ”

“ Ay, and even then, on that spot which coming death might have sanctified, in that moment when even fiendish vengeance can turn away and leave its victim at liberty to utter a last prayer in peace, even then, these wretches devised an anguish greater than all death could compass. ”

“ We are told in the revelation I have just read, that vengeance cometh speedily upon the inhabitants of the earth; that it is a day of wrath, burning, desolation, weeping, mourning and lamentation, and that as a whirlwind these things shall come upon the inhabitants of all the earth. ”

“ No hunting down the adversary, no trampling upon him, no tearing away the suckling from the breast, for the sweetness of being revenged, have characterized our doings. Vengeance have we repudiated, or rather, I should say, not dared to handle, being, as we conceive, an attribute belonging solely to God, and too fearful to be entrusted to fallen man. ”

“ But so did the divine vengeance rage against the persecutors of the martyr, that in a short time, being carried away from the midst, they nowhere appeared. And some, without confession, or the viaticum, were suddenly snatched away; others tearing piecemeal their own fingers or tongues; others pining with hunger, and corrupting in their whole body, and racked with unheard-of tortures before their death, and broken up by paralysis; others bereft of their intellects ”

“ I wished to preserve my senses—to carry out my client's wishes. As God lives, I did not know he meant to carry his revenge so far. Mercy! Mer—"
But the hands which clutched him were the hands of murderers, and the lawyer's puny figure could not stand up against the avalanche of human terror, relentless fury and mad vengeance which now rolled in upon it. ”