1But these things will be better said in their own place. 1Now I shall divide this whole subject into three parts. 1The first will be on remission; 1the second, one that will show the nature and character of clemency: for since there are certain vices that imitate virtues, they cannot be told apart unless you have stamped on them marks by which they may be distinguished; 1in the third place we shall ask how the mind may be led to this virtue, how it may strengthen it and by practice make it its own. 2That no virtue of them all is more fitting for a human being, since none is more humane, must be agreed not only among us, who wish man to be regarded as a social animal born for the common good, but also among those who give man over to pleasure, whose every word and deed looks to their own advantage; 2for if he seeks quiet and leisure, he has found in this virtue one suited to his nature, which loves peace and restrains the hand.
3Yet clemency befits no one of all more than a king or a prince. 3For great strength is an honour and a glory only if its power is beneficial; 3for it is a pestilent strength that is strong for harm. 3His greatness alone is stable and well founded whom all know to be as much for them as above them, whose care they find every day keeping watch for the safety of each and all, at whose approach they do not scatter, as though some evil or harmful animal had sprung from its lair, but fly eagerly to him as to a bright and beneficent star. 3Most ready to throw themselves in his defence against the daggers of plotters, and to lay down their bodies beneath him if his road to safety must be built through human slaughter, they guard his sleep with night watches, defend his flanks by standing before and around him, and set themselves against the dangers that rush upon him.
4Not without reason is there this agreement among peoples and cities to protect and love their kings in this way, and to fling themselves and all they have wherever the safety of their ruler has required it; 4nor is it cheapness of self or madness for so many thousands to meet the sword for one head, and with many deaths to ransom a single life, sometimes that of an old and feeble man. 5Just as the whole body serves the mind, and although the body is so much larger and so much more splendid, while the mind remains hidden, slight, and uncertain in what seat it lurks, yet hands, feet and eyes do its business, this skin protects it, at its command we lie still or run restlessly about, and when it has given the order, if it is a greedy master, we search the sea for gain, if an ambitious one, we have long since thrust our right hand into the flames or leapt willingly into the earth; so this immense multitude, surrounding a single life, is ruled by his breath and guided by his reason, and would crush and shatter itself by its own strength were it not upheld by his wisdom.