Abstract
The law also feeds on poetry. When asked about the interpretation of a bequest - whether a table, even a silver one, qualifies as household furniture, or as silverware ? - Papinien, a profound and demanding jurist, invokes one of the most famous and moving episodes in Western literature : that of Odysseus and Penelope's bed, built around a living olive tree, the secret sign that finally allowed the spouses, separated for twenty years, to be recognized.
With this evocation, Papinien makes his point : what defines domestic furnishings is the function of the objects, not the material of which they are made. But there's also an underlying criticism of luxury from Greece.
Between allegory, metaphor and the interpretation of words, legal reasoning transforms poetry into a common ground from which to classify the world - and read its history.
