e slaves are condemned; and
sometimes the repentance of the condemned, together with the unshaken
kindness of the innocent and injured person, has prevailed so far with
the Prince that he has taken off the sentence; but those that relapse
after they are once pardoned are punished with death.

Their law does not determine the punishment for other crimes; but that
is left to the Senate, to temper it according to the circumstances of
the fact. Husbands have power to correct their wives, and parents to
chastise their children, unless the fault is so great that a public
punishment is thought necessary for striking terror into others. For the
most part, slavery is the punishment even of the greatest crimes; for as
that is no less terrible to the criminals themselves than death, so they
think the preserving them in a state of servitude is more for the
interest of the commonwealth than killing them; since as their labour is
a greater benefit to the public than their death could be, so the sight
of their misery is a more lasting terror to other men than that which
would be given by their death. If their slaves rebel, and will not bear
their yoke, and submit to the labour that is enjoined them, they are
treated as wild beasts that cannot be kept in order, neither by a
prison, nor by their chains; and are at last put to death. But those who
bear their punishment patiently, and are so much wrought on by that
pressure that lies so hard on them that it appears they are really more
troubled for the crimes they have committed than for the miseries they
suffer, are not out of hope but that at last either the Prince will, by
his prerogative, or the people by their intercession, restore them again
to their liberty, or at least very much mitigate their slavery. He that
tempts a married woman to adultery, is no less severely punished than he
that commits it; for they believe that a deliberate design to commit a
crime, is equal to the fact itself: since its not taking effect does
not make the person that miscarried in his attempt at all the less
guilty.

They take great pleasure in fools, and as it is thought a base and
unbecoming thing to use them ill, so they do not think it amiss for
people to divert themselves with their folly: and, in their opinion,
this is a great advantage to the fools themselves: for if men were so
sullen and severe as not at all to please themselves with their
ridiculous behaviour and foolish sayings, which is all