The Gossiper’s Violin

Technical description

Medieval engineers designed a tool called the Gossiper’s Violin, shaped like said instrument, with holes for the arms and the head. Hands that are bound this way take on a prayer pose.
Some models provide simultaneous conclusion for two women who, as expected, begin cursing each other after mere minutes of torture. Thus, the desired reconciliation is received, as spending a long time in the violin had the tempered lady falling apart with fatigue. Moreover, a pointy leaking feeling can be felt throughout the joints and muscles in the moment of recirculation. 

Fiction description

What do you suppose, how severe should punishment be in response to spreading lies?

This elderly tradeswoman decided to better her affairs, feeling dismayed upon hearing that her competitor is cheating people. In court it was ruled the opposite, and now she must atone for her guilt. A few days spent in ‘The Gossiper’s Violin” will serve as a good lesson to her. Her arms are folded together and constrained vertically, and due to the squeeze of a cervical clamp she is forced to look at them and not turn away. What does she think about, what is she sensing: fear, offense, anger towards the injustice in this world? Or, just the same, maybe she feels that she’s not completely helpless? Maybe she understands that her pose symbolically represents a need to repent? Very soon an aching pain will settle into her elbow joints. Her fingers and hands, on the contrary, become numb from the lack of blood flow. The woman will look over her own arms and understand that they do not belong to her. She is wrought with the fear that she will become disabled for life. She will ask for her bonds to be undone, beg that they not deprive her of her hands. She will forget about hunger and thirst, and near the end of the allotted term, begin praying sincerely with tears in her eyes. When the “Violin” is undone, the gossiper is awaiting the unforgettable moment when her blood will come rushing back, millions of tiny needles piercing every bit of her numbed muscles.

Such punishment awaits the musician who befouls the ears of the nobles with a poor performance on an instrument. In contrast to the “Violin”, however, the “Flute of Shame” is equipped with a mechanism of painful, сompressing fingers.