33/50 31, 1514) he says: 'Il duca Valentino, l' opere del quale io imiterei sempre quando fossi principe nuove. The chapter which is entitled 'How princes ought to keep their word' is one of the most brilliantly composed and thoroughly Machiavellian of the whole treatise. He starts with the assertion that to fight the battles of life in accordance with law is human, to depend on force is brutal; yet when the former method is insufficient, the latter must be adopted. A prince should know how to combine the natures of the man and of the beast; and this is the meaning of the mythus of Cheiron, who was made the tutor of Achilles. |