Fyrst to be periured was headyng: for they thought it a double offence. One
in regarde of conscience not kept toward God, and an other in gyuynge
occasion to destroy credite among men, whiche is the chiefest bonde of
their felowship. If any wayfarying man shuld espy a man sette vppon with
thieues, or otherwyse to be wronged, and dyd not to his power succour and
ayde hym, he was gyltie of death. If he ware not able to succour and to
reskewe hym, then was he bounde to vtter the thieues, and to prosecute the
matter to enditement. And he that so dyd not, was punyshed with a certayne
nombre of stripes, and was kept thre days without meate. He that shuld
accuse any man wrongfully, if he fortuned afterward to be broughte into
iudgement, he suffered the punishement ordeyned for false accusers. All the
Egyptians ware compelled to brynge euery man their names to the chiefe
Iustices, and the facultie or science wherby they liued. In the which
behalfe if any man lyed, or lyued with vnlaufull meanes, he felle into
penalitie of death. If any man willyngly had slaine any man free or bond,
the lawes condemned hym to die, not regardynge the state of the man, but
the malicious pourpose of the diede. Wherby they made men afrayd to doe
mischief, and death beynge executed for the death of a bondman, the free
myght goe in more sauftie. For the fathers that slewe their chyldren, there
was no punyshement of death appoynted, but an iniunction that they shoulde
stande thre daies and thre nyghtes togither at the graue of the deade,
accompanied with a common warde of the people to see the thyng done.
Neyther dyd it sieme them iuste, that he that gaue life to the childe,
should lose his life for the childes death, but rather be put to continual
sorowe, and to be pyned with the repentance of the diede, that other myght
ther by the withdrawen from the like wyckednes. But for the chyld that
kylled either father or mother, they deuised this kynd of synguler torment.
They thruste hym through with riedes sharpned for the nones, in euery ioynt
all ouer his body, and caused hym quicke to be throwen vpon a heape of