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.