"For him that steals, or borrows and returns not, a book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw at his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not. And when at last he goes to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him for ever."
Inscription at the library of the San Pedro monastery in Barcelona, from The Island of Lost Maps, A True Story of Cartographic Crime, by Miles Harvey.
Don't you think they should inscribe this on overdue notices?
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4 comments:
no! we'd all end up as lepers eventually.
you're in Ann Arbor?? at UM? that's like an hour and a half away from me!
(I need more time to blog-read; I'd know these things)
yeah! you should come visit!
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