Revenge (synonym
vengeance) is a harmful action against a person or group as a response to a (real or perceived) grievance. Although many aspects of revenge resemble the concept of
justiceJustice is the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, fairness, or equity.-Concept of justice:Justice... concerns the proper ordering of things and persons within a society. As a concept it has been subject to philosophical, legal, and theological reflection and...
, revenge connotes a more injurious and
punitivePunishment is the practice of imposing something unpleasant or aversive on a person or animal, usually in response to disobedience, defiance, or behavior deemed morally wrong by individual, governmental, or religious principles.-Etymology:...
focus as opposed to a harmonious and restorative one. Whereas justice generally implies actions undertaken and supported by a legitimate judicial system, by a system of ethics, or on behalf of an ethical majority, revenge generally implies actions undertaken by an individual or narrowly defined group outside the boundaries of judicial or ethical conduct.
Somebody once wrote, "Revenge is a dish that has to be eaten cold." Hot as you are, you're liable to end up with indigestion.
Ryan (Lee Van Cleef|Lee Van Cleef), Death Rides a Horse (Da uomo a uomo) (1968)
The desire for revenge keeps one's wounds open.
Leonid S. Sukhorukov, All About Everything (2005)
"Crom|Crom, I have never prayed to you before, I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad, why we fought or how we died. No, all that matters, is that few stood against many. That's what's important. Valor pleases you, Crom, so grant me one request: grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then to hell with you!"
Conan the Barbarian|Conan, W:Conan the Barbarian (film)|Conan the Barbarian (1982).
"Revenge is the prime ingredient in the fountain of youth."
Clockwerk, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
"Revenge is like a poison. It can take you over, before you know it, it had turn you into something ugly."
Aunt Mary, W:Spider-man 3|Spider-man 3
"If you wish for revenge, an equally hard blow will be dealt back to yourself."
Yūko Ichihara, W:xxxHOLIC|xxxHOLIC
"In certain, extreme situations, the law is inadequate. In order to shame its inadequacy, it is necessary to act outside the law. To pursue - natural justice. This is not vengeance. Revenge is not a valid motive, it's an emotional response. No, not vengeance. Punishment."
Frank Castle, The Punisher
Revenge (synonym
vengeance) is a harmful action against a person or group as a response to a (real or perceived) grievance. Although many aspects of revenge resemble the concept of
justiceJustice is the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, fairness, or equity.-Concept of justice:Justice... concerns the proper ordering of things and persons within a society. As a concept it has been subject to philosophical, legal, and theological reflection and...
, revenge connotes a more injurious and
punitivePunishment is the practice of imposing something unpleasant or aversive on a person or animal, usually in response to disobedience, defiance, or behavior deemed morally wrong by individual, governmental, or religious principles.-Etymology:...
focus as opposed to a harmonious and restorative one. Whereas justice generally implies actions undertaken and supported by a legitimate judicial system, by a system of ethics, or on behalf of an ethical majority, revenge generally implies actions undertaken by an individual or narrowly defined group outside the boundaries of judicial or ethical conduct. The goal of revenge usually consists of forcing the
perceived wrongdoer to suffer the same or greater pain than that which was originally inflicted.
Function in society
In some societies, it is believed that the punishment in revenge should be more than the original injury, as a punitive measure. The
Old TestamentIn Christianity, the Old Testament is the collection of books that form the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions. In the Eastern Orthodox Church the comparable texts are known as the Septuagint, from the...
doctrine of "
an eye for an eyeThe phrase "an eye for an eye", , is a quotation from several passages of the Bible in which a person who has injured the eye of another is instructed to give his or her own eye in compensation. At the root of this principle is that one of the purposes of the law is to provide equitable...
" (cf. Exodus 21:24) tried to moderate the allowed damage, in order to avoid a
vendettaA feud is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often, through guilt by association, groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another...
or series of violent acts that could spiral out of control
—instead of 'tenfold' vengeance, there would be a simple 'equality of suffering'. Detractors argue that revenge is a simple logical fallacy, of the same design as "
two wrongs make a rightTwo wrongs make a right is a logical fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that if one wrong is committed, another wrong will cancel it out. Like many fallacies, it typically appears as the hidden major premise in an enthymeme—an unstated assumption which must be true for the premises to...
."
Of the psychological, moral, and cultural foundation for revenge, philosopher
Martha NussbaumMartha Nussbaum is an American philosopher with a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics....
has written: "The primitive sense of the just
—remarkably constant from several ancient cultures to modern institutions...—starts from the notion that a human life...is a vulnerable thing, a thing that can be invaded, wounded, violated by another's act in many ways. For this penetration, the only remedy that seems appropriate is a counter invasion, equally deliberate, equally grave. And to right the balance truly, the
retributionRetributive justice is a theory of justice that considers that punishment, if proportionate, is a morally acceptable response to crime, with an eye to the satisfaction and psychological benefits it can bestow to the aggrieved party, its intimates and society....
must be exactly, strictly proportional to the original encroachment. It differs from the original act only in the sequence of time and in the fact that it is response rather than original act
—a fact frequently obscured if there is a long sequence of acts and counteracts".
History of revenge
In ancient societies, in particular those with weak central justice systems, the method for deterring murder was to allow the victim's family to avenge the killing. However, if the families of the killer and victim disagreed in their moral assessment of the killing, they would most likely disagree as well in their assessment of any revenge actions which were taken, and a
blood feudA feud is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often, through guilt by association, groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another...
might ensue.
Vendettas or "blood feuds" are cycles of provocation and retaliation, fuelled by a burning desire for revenge and carried out over long period of time by familial or tribal groups; they were an important part of many
pre-industrial societiesPre-industrial society refers to specific social attributes and forms of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution.- Some attributes of the pre-industrial societies:...
, especially in the Mediterranean region, and still persist in some areas. During the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
, most would not regard an insult or injury as settled until it was avenged, or, at the least, paid for — hence, the extensive Anglo-Saxon system of "wergild" (literally, "man-price") payments, which placed a certain monetary value upon certain acts of violence in an attempt to limit the spiral of revenge by codifying the responsibility of a malefactor. The story of Wimund the Bishop illustrates the typical implacability of the time: its hero, though blinded and imprisoned, would avenge himself against his enemies "if he had even but the eye of a sparrow".
In Japan's feudal past, the
Samuraiis the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
class upheld the honor of their family, clan, or their lord through the practice of revenge killings, or "katakiuchi" (敵討ち). These killings could also involve the relatives of an offender. Today, katakiuchi is most often pursued by peaceful means, but revenge remains an important part of Japanese culture.
The motto of
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, '
Nemo Me Impune LacessitNemo me impune lacessit is the Latin motto of the Order of the Thistle and of three Scottish regiments of the British Army. The motto also appears, in conjunction with the collar of the Order of the Thistle, in later versions of the Royal coat of arms of the Kingdom of Scotland and subsequently in...
', is Latin for 'None shall provoke/injure me with impunity'. The origin of the motto reflects the feudal
clanScottish clans , give a sense of identity and shared descent to people in Scotland and to their relations throughout the world, with a formal structure of Clan Chiefs officially registered with the court of the Lord Lyon, King of Arms which controls the heraldry and Coat of Arms...
system of ancient Scotland, particularly the
HighlandsThe Scottish Highlands include the rugged and mountainous regions of Scotland north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east...
.
The goal of some legal systems is limited to "just" revenge — in the fashion of the
contrapassoContrapasso is the process by which souls serve penance in Dante's Inferno according to the nature of their sins in life. A literal translation would be "counter-suffering"...
punishments awaiting those consigned to
Dante's InfernoThe Divine Comedy , written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative and allegorical vision of the Christian afterlife is a...
, some have attempted to turn the crime against the criminal, in clever and often gruesome ways.
Modern Western legal systems usually state as their goal the reform or
re-educationReeducation may refer to:* Brainwashing, efforts aimed at instilling certain beliefs in people against their will* Reeducation through labor, also called laojiao, a form of penal detention in China; or the Soviet gulags for "re-education of class enemies" and reintegrating them through labor into...
of a convicted criminal. Even in these systems, however, society is conceived of as the victim of a criminal's actions, and the notion of vengeance for such acts is an important part of the concept of justice — a criminal "pays his debt to society" evinced by countries such as the United States continuing the practice of capital punishment.
Interestingly, psychologists have found that the thwarted psychological expectation of revenge may lead to issues of victimhood.
The first written appearance of the proverb "revenge is a dish best served cold" is often
wrongly credited to the 18th century novel
Les liaisons dangereusesLes Liaisons dangereuses is a French epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, first published in four volumes by Durand Neveu from March 23 1782....
; it does not, in fact, appear there in any form. It is also said to have been borrowed by late 19th century British writers from the Afghan Pashtuns. However, its earliest identified appearance in European literature is in the 1841 French novel
Mathilde by Marie Joseph Eugène Sue:
la vengeance se mange très-bien froide — there italicized as if quoting a proverbial saying — published in English translation in 1846 as
revenge is very good eaten cold.
The popularly familiar wording can be attributed to
The GodfatherThe Godfather is a crime novel written by American author Mario Puzo, originally published in 1969 by G. P. Putnam's Sons. It details the story of a fictitious Sicilian Mafia family based in New York City and headed by Don Vito Corleone, who became synonymous with the Italian Mafia...
by
Mario PuzoMario Gianluigi Puzo was a two time Academy Award-winning Italian American author and screenwriter, known for his novels about the Mafia, especially The Godfather , which he later co-adapted into a film with Francis Ford Coppola.-Biography:Puzo was born in a poor family of Neapolitan immigrants...
, a major bestseller in 1969, but the 1949 film
Kind Hearts and CoronetsKind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949) English black comedy directed by Robert Hamer. It was written by John Dighton and Hamer, and loosely based upon the novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal , by Roy Horniman...
had it as
revenge is a dish which people of taste prefer to eat cold. The familiar wording more recently appears in the title sequence of the
Quentin TarantinoQuentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s he was an independent filmmaker whose films used nonlinear storylines and aestheticization of violence...
film
Kill Bill: Vol 1, accredited as an "Old
KlingonKlingons are a warrior race in the fictional Star Trek universe. They are recurring villains in the 1960s television show Star Trek: The Original Series, and have appeared in all five spin-off series and seven feature films...
Proverb", referencing its use in
Star Trek II: The Wrath of KhanStar Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 motion picture released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the second feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise. The plot features James T...
, which so cites it.
The proverb suggests that revenge is more satisfying as a considered response enacted when unexpected, or long feared, inverting the more traditional revulsion toward 'cold-blooded' violence. It is used, sometimes, to persuade another to forestall vengeance until wisdom can reassert itself.
See also
- Retributive justice
Retributive justice is a theory of justice that considers that punishment, if proportionate, is a morally acceptable response to crime, with an eye to the satisfaction and psychological benefits it can bestow to the aggrieved party, its intimates and society....
- Culture of honor
- Nemesis (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Nemesis , also called Rhamnousia/Rhamnusia at her sanctuary at Rhamnous north of Marathon, was the spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to hubris, vengeful fate personified as a remorseless goddess. The name Nemesis is related to the Greek word νέμειν, meaning...
- Lawsuit
A lawsuit is a civil action brought before a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have received damages from a defendant's actions, seeks a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
- Crime of passion
A crime of passion, in popular usage, refers to a crime in which the perpetrator commits a crime, especially assault or murder, against a spouse or other loved one because of sudden strong impulse such as a jealous rage or heartbreak rather than as a premeditated crime...