y knucklebones.

Next a very illustrious Doctor of Law, who was one of the Judges, got up
and said:

"Giovanni, it behoves you to subscribe consent to the sentence
condemning you, for being pronounced in the name of the city, it is
pronounced by yourself, inasmuch as you are part and parcel of the
city. You have an honourable part in it, as citizen, and I will convince
you that you ought to be well content to be strangled by the city's
judgment.

"Know this, the satisfaction of the whole comprehends and embraces the
satisfaction of the parts, and seeing you are a part--a vile and
miserable part, yet still a part--of the noble city of Viterbo, your
condemnation which satisfies the community should be no less
satisfactory to yourself.

"And I will further prove you that you should rightly consider death
doom agreeable and fitting. For there is no other thing so useful and
becoming as is the law, which is the just measure of things, and you
ought to be pleased to have received this same just and proper measure.
In accordance with the rules stablished by Caesar Justinian, you have got
your due. Your condemnation is just, and therefore a pleasant and a good
thing. But, were it unjust and tainted and contaminated with ignorance
and iniquity (which God forbid), still it would be incumbent on you to
approve the same.

"For an unjust sentence, when it is pronounced in the prescribed forms
of law, participates in the virtue of the said forms and through them
continues august, efficacious and of high merit. What it contains of
wrong is temporary and of little consequence, and concerns only the
particular instance, whereas the good in it derives from the fixity and
permanence of the organization of the laws, and therefore is it
agreeable to the general dictates of justice. Wherefore Papinian
declares it is better to give false judgment than none at all, seeing
how men without justice are no better than wild beasts in the woods,
whereas by justice is made manifest their nobleness and dignity, as is
seen by the example of the Judges of the Areopagus, who were held in
special honour among the Athenians. So, seeing it is necessary and
profitable to give judgment, and that it is not possible to do so
without fault or mistake, it follows that mistake and faultiness are
comprised in the excellence of Justice and participate in the said
excellence. Accordingly, supposing you deemed your sentence unfair, you
should find satisfaction