314 THE KING'S MIRROR 



had promised to secure justice for him in return for the 

 fee. And the judgment was, that if he had sold justice 

 for money, he should follow the fee to destruction. You 

 heard this, too, that he was condemned to die for hav- 

 ing saved men from death by force and in defiance of 

 law. You also heard in the earlier account how the king 

 and the city of Themar perished because the king, being 

 friendly to one side and very hostile to the other, had 

 distorted a just decision. Now for such reasons those 

 four things must be excluded, lest any one of them 

 should cause a righteous doom to be distorted. 



You have also asked when the sentence should be 

 lenient and when severe, and that question can now 

 be answered in a few words. Careful account should 

 be taken of the circumstances of the man's case who 

 is accused. If a charge is brought against one who is 

 anxious to keep the peace but is driven to violence by 

 the selfishness and arrogance of another, and, regretting 

 his guilt, is anxious to atone for it, if such are the 

 circumstances, there should be lenient judgment in his 

 case. Likewise, if a man breaks the law who is ignorant 

 and does not know that he is transgressing, and would 

 not have done the deed had he known it to be contrary 

 to law, his case, too, calls for a lenient sentence. Even 

 when the ugliest cases that are known among men, such 

 as theft and robbery, come up, one should investigate 

 how the crime came about. If a man is so hard bestead 

 that he can get no food either by begging or buying 

 and cannot get work, while hunger and his physical 

 nature drive him beyond endurance, the judge should 

 be lenient with him, even though he be taken in guilt; 



