Any one who shrinks from avenging himself--a milder disposition, perhaps, or a tincture of philosophy, giving him something of Hamlet's hesitancy--is allowed no rest by his relations, and all his acquaintances upbraid him with pusillanimity. To reproach a man for suffering an injury to remain unavenged is called _rimbeccare_. The old Genoese statute punished the _rimbecco_ as incitation to murder. The law runs thus, in the nineteenth chapter of these statutes:-- "Of those who upbraid, or say _rimbecco_.--If any one upbraids or says _rimbecco_ to another, because that other has not avenged the death of his father, or of his brother, or of any other blood-relation, or because he has not taken vengeance on account of other injuries and insults done upon himself, the person so upbraiding shall be fined in from twenty-five to fifty lire for each time, according to the judgment of the magistrate, and regard being had to the quality of the person, and to other circumstances; and if he does not pay forthwith, or cannot pay within eight days, then shall he be banished from the island for one year, or the corda shall be put upon him once, according to the judgment of the magistrate." In the year 1581, the severity of the law was so far increased, that the tongue of any one saying _rimbecco_ was publicly pierced. Now, it is especially the women who incite the men to revenge, in their dirges over the corpse of the person who has been slain, and by exhibiting the bloody shirt. The mother fastens a bloody rag of the father's shirt to the dress of her son, as a perpetual admonition to him that he has to effect vengeance. The passions of these people have a frightful, a demoniac glow. In former times the Corsicans practised the chivalrous custom of previously _proclaiming_ the war of the Vendetta, and also to what degree of consanguinity the vengeance was to extend. The custom has fallen into disuse. Owing to the close relationship between various families, the Vendetta, of course, crosses and recrosses from one to another, and the Vendetta that thus arises is called in Corsica, _Vendetta transversale_.