SOURCE: “The Topos of the Tormentor Tormented in Ælfric's Passio Sancti Vincentii Martyris,” in Ball State University Forum, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1984, pp. 3-13.

In the following essay, Tkacz examines Ælfric's treatment of the traditional theme of the tormentor tormented and contrasts it with the ways several other writers have handled the same subject.

The topos of the “tormentor tormented” by the same punishments he sought to inflict on an innocent hero was popular in Judeo-Christian culture long before Hamlet, foreshadowing the fate of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, first gloated that “'tis the sport to have the engineer / Hoist with his own petar” (III.iv.210-11).² Such poetic justice derives much of its popularity from the dictum of the Mosaic Law:

Qui percusserit, et occiderit hominem, morte moriatur. …

Qui irrogaverit maculam cuilibet civium suorum: sicut fecit, sic fiet ei:

Fracturam pro fractura, oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente, restituet:

Qualem inflixerit...