Part 57

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. 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.”

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.”

“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.