My discourse seems to have withdrawn somewhat far from its purpose, but, in very truth, it bears closely upon the real issue. For if — and this is what thus far it is establishing — you are the soul of the state and the state your body, you see, I think, how requisite is mercy; for you are merciful to yourself when you are seemingly merciful to another. And so even reprobate citizens should have mercy as being the weak members of the body, and if there should ever be need to let blood, the hand must be held under control to keep it from cutting deeper than may be necessary. The quality of mercy, then, as I was saying, is indeed for all men in accordance with nature, but in rulers it has an especial comeliness inasmuch as with them it finds more to save, and exhibits itself amid ampler opportunities. For how small the harm the cruelty of a private citizen can do! But when princes rage there is war. Though, moreover, the virtues are at harmony with each other, and no one of them is better or more noble than another, yet to certain people a certain virtue will be more suited. Greatness of soul is a virtue that is seemly for every human being, even for him who is the lowliest of the lowly. For what is greater or braver than to beat down misfortune? Yet this greatness of soul has freer play under circumstances of good fortune, and is shown to better advantage upon the judge’s bench than on the floor.
Every house that mercy enters she will render peaceful and happy, but in the palace she is more wonderful, in that she is rarer. For what is more remarkable than that he whose anger nothing can withstand, to whose sentence, too heavy though it be, even the victims bow the head, whom, if he is very greatly incensed, no one will venture to gainsay, nay, even to entreat — that this man should lay a restraining hand upon himself, and use his power to better and more peaceful ends when he reflects, “Any one can violate the law to kill, none but I, to save”? A lofty spirit befits a lofty station, and if it does not rise to thee level of its station and even stand above it, the other, too, is dragged downward to the ground. Moreover, the peculiar marks of a lofty spirit are mildness and composure, and the lofty disregard of injustice and wrongs. It is for woman to rage in anger, for wild beasts doubtless — and yet not even the noble sort of these — to bite and worry their prostrate victims. Elephants and lions pass by what they have stricken down; it is the ignoble beast that is relentless. Cruel and inexorable anger is not seemly for a king, for thus he does not rise much above the other man, toward whose own level he descends by being angry at him. But if he grants life, if he grants position to those who have imperiled and deserve to lose them, he does what none but a sovereign may; for one may take the life even of a superior, but not give it ever except to an inferior. To save life is the peculiar privilege of exalted station, which never has a right to greater admiration than when it has the good fortune to have the same power as the gods, by whose kindness we all, the evil as well as the good, are brought forth into the light. Let a prince, therefore, appropriating to himself the spirit of the gods, look with pleasure upon one class of his citizens because they are useful and good; others let him leave to make up the count; let him be glad that some of them live, some let him merely endure.