{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/judex-judicatus",
 "title": "Judex Judicatus",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "book_slug": "black-beetles-in-amber",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 82,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1892,
  "venue": "Black Beetles in Amber (1892)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "black-beetles-in-amber.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12977",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 41,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Judge Armstrong, when the poor have sought your aid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be released from vows that they have made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In haste, and leisurely repented, you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As stern as Rhadamanthus (Minos too,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Aeacus) have drawn your fierce brows down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And petrified them with a moral frown!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With iron-faced rigor you have made them run",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The gauntlet of publicity⁠—each Hun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or Vandal of the public press allowed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To throw their households open to the crowd",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bawl their secret bickerings aloud.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When Wealth before you suppliant appears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bang! go the doors and open fly your ears!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The blinds are drawn, the lights diminished burn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lest eyes too curious should look and learn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That gold refines not, sweetens not, a life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of conjugal brutality and strife⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That vice is vulgar, though it gilded shine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the curve of a judicial spine.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The veiled complainant’s whispered evidence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The plain collusion and the no defense,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sealed exhibits and the secret plea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The unrecorded and unseen decree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The midnight signature and⁠—chink! chink! chink!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nay, pardon, upright Judge, I did but think",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I heard that sound abhorred of honest men;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No doubt it was the scratching of your pen.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O California! long-enduring land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where Judges fawn upon the Golden Hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Proud of such service to that rascal thing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As slaves would blush to render to a king⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Judges, of judgment destitute and heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of conscience conscious only by the smart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the recoil (with caution-bump enlarged)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of duty accidentally discharged⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Invoking still a “song o’ sixpence” from",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Scottish fiddle of each lusty palm⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy Judges, California, skilled to play",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This silent music, through the livelong day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perform obsequious before the rich,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And still the more they scratch the more they itch!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}