THE KING'S MIRROR 



257 



an outlaw because of transgression ? Let his sons follow 

 him to the death. But whereas he shall have hope of 

 mercy and leniency and of a return to the possessions 

 which he has now forfeited, let his sons be recalled with 

 him through a new covenant." And when sentence had 

 been passed in Adam's case, the sisters all came to a 

 friendly agreement; Mercy and Truth embraced while 

 Justice and Peace kissed each other with loving ges- 

 tures.* 



Now every king ought to have these two things fre- 

 quently in mind : how God appeased His anger toward 

 the man and the woman for breaking the law, and what 

 judges He called in, lest His punishment should be too 



* The story of the court proceedings in Paradise after the fall of man and the 

 discussion between Mercy and Peace on the one side and Truth and Justice 

 on the other was widely current in the thirteenth century. It made an impor- 

 tant scene in certain types of mystery plays, and it seems quite likely that the 

 source of the version given in the King's Mirror must be sought in some dra- 

 matic representation of the creation story. The account of the trial was made 

 the theme of two poems in Old French which have been attributed to the 

 English ecclesiastics Archbishop Langton and Bishop Grosseteste, both of 

 whom were contemporaries of our Norwegian author. 



Homilies were written on this theme in the -twelfth century by St. Bernard 

 of Clairvaux (Migne, Patrologia Latina, CLXXXIII, 770) and by Hugh of St. 

 Victor (ibid., CLXXVII, 623-626). There is a still earlier version of the story 

 in a homily attributed, though for no good reason, to the Venerable Bede. 

 According to this story a man has a son and four daughters named Mercy, 

 Truth, Peace, and Justice. He also has a servant whom he wishes to try by 

 giving him an easy task. The servant fails and is handed over to the 

 executioner. The daughters now come into violent disagreement, but the son 

 finds a way out of the difficulty: he saves the servant and succeeds in bring- 

 ing the sisters into agreement. Ibid., XCIV, 505-507. 



W. Scherer, in Zeitschrift fur deutsche Altertumskunde, N. F., IX, 414-416, 

 finds traces of the legend in Talmudic sources. In the Hebrew story, however, 

 the disagreement is over the expediency of creating man, Mercy favoring and 

 Truth opposing the project. The ultimate source appears to be Psalms, 

 Ixxxv, 10: "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace 

 have kissed each other." 



For bibliographical information see L. Petit du Juleville, Les Mysteres, 

 II, 359. 



