On the importance of using parentheses

It happened in the 13th century that the Hungarian king (Andreas II) was on a crusade in Jerusalem, and in his absence his wife (Gertrudis) was in control. She was a foreigner and the Hungarian aristocrats hated her for favoring Germans and Italians over locals at the royal court. But the worst thing she did was helping to cover up when her brother (Othon) raped the palatin's wife (Melinda). The palatin (Bánk) was supposed to be second after the king in the chain of command, and he decided to take revenge by plotting to kill the queen. Before taking action, however, he wanted to know how the archbishop (John, 3d in the chain of command) felt about his plan. He sent him a letter and requested a written response.

The archbishop felt very unconfortable about the question, since in the absence of the king the palatin was the boss, but it was clear that upon his return the king may retaliate. So he sent back the following sentence:

"REGINAM OCCIDERE NOLITE TIMERE BONUM EST SI OMNES CONSENTIUNT EGO NON CONTRADICO."

Conveniently, he "forgot" about punctuation marks. Here is my attempt of an English translation:

"Kill Queen you must not fear will be good if all agree I do not oppose."

Of course there are two possible readings, one for the palatin, the other for the king:

1. "REGINAM OCCIDERE, NOLITE TIMERE, BONUM EST SI OMNES CONSENTIUNT, EGO NON CONTRADICO."

("Kill Queen, you must not fear, will be good if all agree, I do not oppose.")

2. "REGINAM OCCIDERE NOLITE, TIMERE BONUM EST, SI OMNES CONSENTIUNT EGO NON, CONTRADICO."

("Kill Queen you must not, fear will be good, if all agree I do not, oppose.")

Don't be surprised, if the sentence strikes you as familiar. While looking for the Latin sentence on the Web, I came accross a research paper by a historian who claimed that this ambigous sentence was common intellectual treasure of entire medieval Europe. The famous French historian Michel Druon quotes it in a completely different (alleged) historic context, in his book on "Cursed kings".

Epilogue

If you care to know what happened next in the Hungarian story, here you go: the palatin and his fellow plotters killed the queen and the returning king turned out to be too weak to be able to do anything about it. He was even forced to issue a Golden Bull guaranteeing the rights of the Hungarian noble class. All subsequent kings were supposed to make an oath at coronation to observe this Bull. The Bull even provided a "resistance clause" according to which a king not keeping his oath could be removed from office by armed insurrection. It became the duty of the archbishop to determine whether such a situation arose. The "resistance clause" was never used, but even the Habsburgs (foreign rulers of Hungary from the late 16th century till 1918) had to live with it for 200 years before finally getting it removed from the constitution.

In the early 19th century playwright József Katona made a drama ("Bánk bán") from the story (ending with the killing of the queen) which was interpreted as an expression of anti-Habsburg sentiments. Later a Hungarian composer, Ferenc Erkel composed an opera (Verdi-style) using Katona's scenario. The "moral" of these works of art is sometimes summarized in the following ironic sentence:

"If your wife gets raped, you should have your revenge by killing the seducer's older sister."