Acrobats (detail), Japanese handscroll, nineteenth century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Henry J. Bernheim, 1945.
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The Hindu Laws of Manu advises a ruler to act so that “his subjects thrill with joy in him as human beings do at the sight of the full moon.” In ancient times a king secured justice with the help of a divine Rod of Punishment. “Properly wielded,” the text explains, the rod “makes all the subjects happy; but inflicted without due consideration, it destroys everything.”
I had rather be in a state of misery and envied for my supposed happiness than in a state of happiness and pitied for my supposed misery.
—Elizabeth Inchbald, 1793
