messer Cesare, that the things which you wish the prince to do are very
great and worthy of much praise; but you ought to understand that if he
does not know that which I have said he ought to know, and has not
formed his mind after that pattern and directed it to the path of
virtue, he will hardly know how to be magnanimous, generous, just,
courageous, foreseeing, or to possess any of those other qualities that
are looked for in him. Nor yet would I have him such merely for the sake
of being able to exercise these qualities: for just as those who build
are not all good architects, so those who give are not all generous;
because virtue never harms any man, and there are many who rob in order
to give away, and thus are generous with the property of others; some
give to those they ought not, and leave in misfortune and distress those
to whom they are beholden; others give with a certain bad grace and
almost spite, so that men see they do so on compulsion; others not only
make no secret of it, but call witnesses and almost proclaim their
generosities; others foolishly empty the fountain of their generosity at
a draught, so that it can be no more used again.
[Illustration:
PRINCE HENRY OF WALES
AFTERWARDS HENRY VIII OF ENGLAND
1491-1547
]
Reduced from Walker and Boutall’s photograph of an anonymous portrait
(no. 157) in the National Portrait Gallery at London. Painted on
copper, and formerly owned by Mr. Barrett at Lee Priory, Kent, the
picture was acquired by the Gallery from the Messrs. Graves in 1863.
40.—“Hence in this, as in other things, it is needful to know and to
govern one’s self with that foresight which is the necessary companion
of all the virtues; which being midway are near the two extremes—that
is, the vices; and thus he who does not know, easily runs into them. For
just as it is difficult to find the central point in a circle, which is
the mean, so is it difficult to find the point of virtue set midway
between the two extremes (vicious, the one because of excess, the other
because of deficiency); and to these we are inclined, sometimes to one
and sometimes to the other. We perceive this in the pleasure or
displeasure that we feel within us, for by reason of the one we do that
which we ought not, and by reason of the other we fail to do that which
we ought; but the pleasure is much the more dangerous, because our
judgment allows itself to be easily corrupted by it.
“But since it is a difficult thing to perceive how far a man is from the
central point of virtue, we ought of our own accord to withdraw step by
step in the direction opposite to the extreme towards which we perceive
ourselves to be inclined, as those do who straighten crooked timbers;
for in such wise we approximate to virtue, which (as I have said)
consists in that central point. Hence it happens that we err in many
ways and perform our office and duty in only one way, just like archers,
who hit the mark by one way only and miss the target by many. Thus, in
his wish to be humane and affable, one prince often does countless
things beneath his dignity, and so abases himself that he is despised;
another, to preserve his grave majesty with becoming authority, becomes
austere and intolerable; another, to be held eloquent, strays into a
thousand strange fashions and long mazes of affected words, listening to
himself to such a degree that others cannot listen to him for weariness.
41.—“Therefore do not call anything a trifle, messer Cesare, that can
improve a prince in any particular, however slight it be; nor must you
suppose that I think you disparage my precepts when you say that by them
a good governor would be fashioned rather than a good prince; for
perhaps no greater or more fitting praise can be given to a prince than
to call him a good governor. Hence if it lay with me to instruct him, I
would have him take care to heed not only the matters already mentioned,
but those which are much smaller, and as far as possible understand all
details affecting his people, nor ever so believe or trust any one of
his ministers as to confide to that one alone the bridle and control of
all his government. For there is no man who is very apt for all things,
and much greater harm arises from the credulity of lords than from their
incredulity, which not only sometimes does no harm, but often is of the
greatest advantage: albeit in this matter there is need of good judgment
in the prince, to perceive who deserves to be believed and who does not.
“I would have him take care to understand the acts and be the overseer
of his ministers; to settle and shorten disputes among his subjects; to
be the means of making peace among them, and of allying them in
marriage; to have his city all united and agreed in friendship like a
private family, populous, not poor, peaceful, full of good artificers;
to favour merchants and even to aid them with money; to be generous and
splendid in hospitality towards foreigners and ecclesiastics; to
moderate all superfluities, for through the errours that are committed
in these matters, small though they seem, cities often come to ruin.
Wherefore it is reasonable that the prince should set a limit upon the
too sumptuous houses of private folk, upon feasts, upon the excessive
doweries of women, upon their luxury, upon their display in jewels and
vesture, which is naught but a proof of their folly; for besides often
wasting their husbands’ goods and substance through the ambition and the
envy which they bear one another, they sometimes sell their honour to
anyone who will buy it, for the sake of a trinket or some other like
trifle.”
[Illustration:
FEDERICO GONZAGA
MARQUESS AND AFTERWARDS DUKE OF MANTUA
1500-1540
]
Enlarged from a cast, kindly furnished by M. Pierre Valton, of an
anonymous and probably unique medal in his collection at Paris. See
Armand’s _Les Médailleurs Italiens_, ii, 155, no. 1.
42.—Then messer Bernardo Bibbiena said, laughing:
“My lord Ottaviano, you are taking sides with my lord Gaspar and
Frisio.”
My lord Ottaviano replied, also laughing:
“The dispute is finished, and I am far from wishing to renew it; so I
shall say no more of women, but return to my prince.”
Frisio replied:
“You can very well leave him now, and rest content that he should be
such as you have described him. For without doubt it would be easier to
find a lady with the qualities mentioned by my lord Magnifico, than a
prince with the qualities mentioned by you; hence I fear that he is like
Plato’s Republic, and that we are never to see his equal, unless perhaps
in Heaven.”
My lord Ottaviano replied:
“Although they be difficult, things that are possible may still be hoped
to come to pass. Therefore we shall in our times perhaps yet see him on
earth; for although the heavens are so chary of producing excellent
princes that hardly one is seen in many centuries, this good fortune may
fall to us.”
Then Count Ludovico said:
“I certainly trust that it may be so; for, besides those three great
princes whom we have named, to whom we may look for that which has been
said to befit the highest type of a perfect prince,—there are also to be
found in Italy to-day several princes’ sons, who, although they are not
likely to have such great power, will perhaps fill its place with worth.
And the one among them all who shows the best natural bent, and gives
greater promise than any of the others, seems to me to be my lord
Federico Gonzaga, eldest son of the Marquess of Mantua and nephew to our
lady Duchess here.[463] For besides the gentleness of behaviour and the
discretion which he shows at such a tender age, those who have charge of
him tell wonderful things of his capacity, eagerness for honour,
magnanimity, courtesy, generosity, love of justice; so that from so good
a beginning we cannot but hope for the best of ends.”
Then Frisio said:
“No more of this at present; we will pray God that we may see this hope
of yours fulfilled.”
43.—Here my lord Ottaviano, turning to my lady Duchess with an air of
having finished his discourse, said:
“There, my Lady, is what occurs to me to say about the aim of the
Courtier; wherein, if I shall not have wholly given satisfaction, it
will at least be enough for me to have shown that some further
perfection could be given him in addition to the things mentioned by
these gentlemen; who, methinks, omitted both this and all that I might
say, not because they did not know it better than I, but in order to
save themselves trouble; therefore I will leave them to continue, if
they have anything left to say.”
Then my lady Duchess said:
“Not only is the hour so late that it will soon be time to stop for the
evening, but it seems to me that we ought not to mingle any other
discourse with this; wherein you have gathered so many different and
beautiful things, that we may say (touching the aim of Courtiership) not
only that you are the perfect Courtier whom we seek, and competent to
instruct your prince rightly, but if fortune shall be favourable to you,
that you ought also to be an admirable prince, which would be of great
advantage to your country.”[464]
My lord Ottaviano laughed, and said:
“If I held such rank, my Lady, perhaps it would be with me as it is wont
to be with many others, who know better how to speak than to act.”
44.—Here the matter having been debated back and forth awhile among the
whole company, with some little contradiction albeit in praise of what
had been said, and it being suggested that it was not yet time to go to
rest, the Magnifico Giuliano said, laughing:
“My Lady, I am so great an enemy to guile, that I am forced to
contradict my lord Ottaviano, who, from having (as I fear) conspired
secretly with my lord Gaspar against women, has fallen into two errours
to my thinking very grave: one of which is, that in order to set this
Courtier above the Court Lady and make him transcend the bounds that she
can reach, my lord Ottaviano has set the Courtier also above the prince,
which is most unseemly; the other is in setting him such a goal that it
is always difficult, and sometimes impossible for him to reach it, and
that even when he does reach it, he ought not to be called a Courtier.”
“I do not understand,” said my lady Emilia, “how it should be so
difficult or impossible for the Courtier to reach this goal of his, nor
yet how my lord Ottaviano has set him above the prince.”[465]
“Do not grant him these things,” replied my lord Ottaviano, “for I have
not set the Courtier above the prince, nor do I think I have fallen into
any errour touching the aim of Courtiership.”
Then the Magnifico Giuliano replied:
“You cannot say, my lord Ottaviano, that the cause which gives a certain
quality to a result, does not always have more of that quality than its
result has. Thus the Courtier, through whose instruction the prince is
to become so excellent, must needs be more excellent than his prince;
and in this way he will also be of greater dignity than the prince
himself, which is most unseemly.
“Then, as for the aim of Courtiership, what you said may be true when
the prince’s age is little different from the Courtier’s, but still not
without difficulty, for where there is small difference in age, it is
natural that there should be small difference in knowledge also; while
if the prince is old and the Courtier young, it is fitting that the old
prince should know more than the young Courtier; and if this does not
always happen, it happens sometimes, and then the goal which you set the
Courtier is impossible. Again, if the prince is young and the Courtier
old, the Courtier can hardly win the prince’s mind by means of those
accomplishments that you have ascribed to him. For to say the truth,
jousting and other exercises of the person belong to young men and do
not befit old men, and music and dancing and festivals and games and
love-making are ridiculous in old age; and methinks they would be very
ill-befitting a director of the prince’s life and behaviour, who ought
to be a very sober person of authority, mature in years and experience,
and (if possible) a good philosopher, a good commander, and ought to
know almost everything.
“Therefore I think that whoever instructs the prince ought not to be
called a Courtier, but deserves a far higher and more honoured name. So
pardon me, my lord Ottaviano, if I have exposed your fallacy; for
methinks I am bound to do so for the honour of my Lady, whom you,
forsooth, would have of less dignity than this Courtier of yours, and I
will not allow it.”
45.—My lord Ottaviano laughed, and said:
“My lord Magnifico, it would be more praise to the Court Lady to exalt
her until she equalled the Courtier, than to abase the Courtier until he
equalled the Court Lady; for it would be by no means forbidden the Lady
to teach the mistress also, and with her to tend towards that aim of
Courtiership which I said befits the Courtier with the prince. But you
seek more to censure the Courtier than to praise the Court Lady; hence I
too shall be allowed to take the Courtier’s part.
“To reply, then, to your objections, I declare I did not say that the
Courtier’s instruction ought to be the sole cause of making the prince
such as we would have him. For if he were not by nature inclined and
fitted to be so, all the Courtier’s care and reminders would be in vain:
just as any good husbandman also would labour in vain if he were to set
about cultivating barren sea-sand and sowing it with excellent seed,
because such barrenness is natural in that place; but when to good seed
in fertile soil, and to mildness of climate and rains suited to the
season, there is added also the diligence of human culture, very
abundant crops are always found to spring up plenteously. Nor is it on
that account true that the husbandman alone is the cause of this,
although without him all the other things would avail little or nothing.
Thus there are many princes who would be good if their minds were
rightly cultivated; and it is of these that I am speaking, not of those
who are like barren ground, and by nature so alien to good behaviour
that no training avails to lead their minds in the straight path.
46.—“And since, as we have already said, our habits are what our actions
make them, and virtue consists in action, it is not impossible or
marvellous that the Courtier should turn the prince to many virtues,
like justice, generosity, magnanimity, the practice whereof the prince
by his greatness can easily put in use and convert into habit; which the
Courtier cannot do, because he has not the means to practise them; and
thus the prince, allured to virtue by the Courtier, may become more
virtuous than the Courtier. Moreover you must know that the whetstone,
although it cuts nothing, yet makes iron sharp. Hence it seems to me
that although the Courtier instructs the prince, he need not on that
account be said to be of more dignity than the prince.
“That the aim of this Courtiership is difficult and sometimes
impossible, and that even when the Courtier attains it, he ought not to
be called a Courtier, but deserves a greater name,—I say that I do not
deny this difficulty, since it is not less difficult to find so
excellent a Courtier than to attain such an end. Yet methinks there is
no impossibility, even in the case that you cited: for if the Courtier
is too young to know that which we have said he ought to know, we need
not speak of him, since he is not the Courtier we are presupposing, nor
is it possible that one who has to know so many things should be very
young.
“And if, indeed, the prince shall chance to be so wise and good by
nature that he has no need of precepts and counsel from others (although
everyone knows how difficult this is), it will be enough for the
Courtier to be such a man as could make the prince virtuous if he had
need of it. And then the Courtier will be at least able to perform the
other part of his duty,—not to allow his prince to be deceived, always
to make known the truth about everything, and to set himself against
flatterers and slanderers and all those who plot to debase his prince’s
mind with unworthy pleasures. And in this way he will also attain his
end in great part, although he cannot put everything in practice: which
will not be a reason for finding fault with him, since he refrains
therefrom for so good a cause. For if an excellent physician were to
find himself in a place where everyone was in health, it would not for
that reason be right to say that this physician failed in his aim,
although he healed no sick. Thus, just as the physician’s aim ought to
be men’s health, so the Courtier’s ought to be his prince’s virtue; and
it is enough for them both to have their aim latent within their power,
if their failure to attain it openly in acts arises from the subject to
which the aim is directed.
“But if the Courtier were so old that it would not become him to
practise music, festivals, games, arms, and the other personal
accomplishments, still we cannot say that it is impossible for him to
win his prince’s favour by that road. For if his age prevents his
practising those things, it does not prevent his understanding them, and
if he has practised them in his youth, it does not prevent his having
the more perfect judgment regarding them, and his knowing the more
perfectly how to teach them to his prince, in proportion as years and
experience bring more knowledge of everything. Thus, although the old
Courtier does not practise the accomplishments ascribed to him, he will
yet attain his aim of instructing his prince rightly.
47.—“And if you are unwilling to call him Courtier, it does not trouble
me; for nature has not set such limit upon human dignities that a man
may not mount from one to another. Thus, common soldiers often become
captains; private persons, kings; and priests, popes; and pupils,
masters; and thus, together with the dignity, they acquire the name
also. Hence perhaps we might say that to become his prince’s instructor
was the Courtier’s aim. However, I do not know who would refuse this
name of perfect Courtier, which in my opinion is worthy of very great
praise. And it seems to me that just as Homer described two most
excellent men as patterns of human life,—the one in deeds (which was
Achilles), the other in sufferings and endurance (which was Ulysses),—so
also he described a perfect Courtier (which was Phœnix), who, after
narrating his loves and many other youthful affairs, says that he was
sent to Achilles by the latter’s father, Peleus, as a companion and to
teach the youth how to speak and act: which is naught else but the aim
which we have marked out for our Courtier.[466]
“Nor do I think that Aristotle and Plato would have scorned the name of
perfect Courtier, for we clearly see that they performed the works of
Courtiership and wrought to this end,—the one with Alexander the Great,
the other with the kings of Sicily. And since the office of a good
Courtier is to know the prince’s character and inclinations, and thus to
enter tactfully into his favour according to need and opportunity, as we
have said, by those ways that afford safe access, and then to lead him
towards virtue,—Aristotle so well knew the character of Alexander, and
tactfully fostered it so well, that he was loved and honoured more than
a father by Alexander.[467] Thus, among many other tokens that Alexander
gave him of good will, the king ordered the rebuilding of his native
city, Stagira, which had been destroyed;[468] and besides directing
Alexander to that most glorious aim,—which was the desire to make the
world as one single universal country, and all men as a single people to
live in amity and mutual concord under a single government and a single
law, which should shine equally on all like the light of the
sun,[469]—Aristotle so instructed him in the natural sciences and in the
virtues of the mind as to make him most wise, brave, continent, and a
true moral philosopher, not only in words but in deeds; for a nobler
philosophy cannot be imagined than to bring into civilized living such
savage people as those who inhabited Bactria and Caucasia, India,
Scythia;[470] and to teach them marriage, agriculture, honour to their
fathers, abstention from rapine, murder and other evil ways; to build so
many very noble cities in distant lands;—so that countless men were by
his laws reduced from savage life to civilization. And of these
achievements of Alexander the author was Aristotle, using the means of a
good Courtier: which Callisthenes knew not how to do, although Aristotle
showed him;[471] for in his wish to be a pure philosopher and austere
minister of naked truth, without mingling Courtiership therewith, he
lost his life and brought not help but rather infamy to Alexander.
“By these same means of Courtiership, Plato schooled Dio of
Syracuse;[472] and having afterwards found the tyrant Dionysius like a
book all full of faults and errours and in need of complete erasure
rather than of any change or correction (since it was not possible to
remove from him that tinge of tyranny wherewith he had so long been
stained), Plato was unwilling to practise the ways of Courtiership upon
him, thinking that they all would surely be in vain. Which our Courtier
also ought to do, if by chance he finds himself in the service of a
prince of so evil a disposition as to be inveterate in vice, like
consumptives in their malady; for in such case he ought to escape that
bondage, in order not to receive blame for his lord’s evil deeds, and in
order not to feel that distress which all good men feel who serve the
wicked.”
48.—Here my lord Ottaviano having ceased speaking, my lord Gaspar said:
“I did not in the least suspect that our Courtier was so honoured; but
since Aristotle and Plato are his fellows, I think that no one ought
henceforth to scorn this name. Still I am far from sure whether I
believe that Aristotle and Plato ever danced or made music in their
lives, or performed any other acts of chivalry.”
My lord Ottaviano replied:
“It is hardly permitted to think that these two divine spirits did not
know everything, and hence we may believe that they practised what
pertains to Courtiership, for on occasion they write of it in such
fashion that the very masters of the subjects written of by them
perceive that they understood the same to the marrow and deepest roots.
Wherefore there is no ground for saying that all the accomplishments
ascribed to him by these gentlemen do not befit a Courtier (or
instructor of the prince, as you like to call him) who contributes to
that good end which we have mentioned, even though he were a very stern
philosopher and most saintly in his behaviour, because they are not at
variance with goodness, discretion, wisdom, worth, at every age and in
every time and place.”
49.—Then my lord Gaspar said:
“I remember that in discussing the accomplishments of the Courtier last
evening, these gentlemen desired that he should be in love; and since,
by reviewing what has thus far been said, we might conclude that a
Courtier who has to allure his prince to virtue by his worth and
authority, must almost of necessity be old (because knowledge very
rarely comes before years, and especially in those things that are
learned by experience),—I do not know how becoming it is for him (being
advanced in age) to be in love. For as has been said this evening, love
does not sit well upon old men, and those things which in young men are
delights, courtesies and elegances very pleasing to women, in old men
are extravagances and ridiculous incongruities, and for him who
practises them win hatred from women and derision from others.
“So if your friend Aristotle, the old Courtier, were in love, and did
those things which young lovers do, like some whom we have seen in our
days,—I fear he would forget to instruct his prince, and perhaps
children would mock at him behind his back, and women would get little
pleasure from him except to deride him.”
Then my lord Ottaviano said:
“As all the other accomplishments ascribed to the Courtier befit him
although he be old, methinks we ought by no means to deprive him of this
enjoyment of loving.”
“Nay,” said my lord Gaspar, “to deprive him of love is to give him an
added perfection, and to make him live at ease remote from misery and
calamity.”
50.—Messer Pietro Bembo said: