1. Machiavelli and Thoreau
Under close scrutiny, The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli is seen to be a mind-baffling construct of many levels of meaning, and, many might say, enigmatically so. It is hard to determine where Machiavelli is writing in earnest and where in sarcasm or self-condemnation. As John Plamenatz says, the perverse Machiavelli "likes to make himself out worse than he is. He likes at times to shock his contemporaries." No doubt he succeeds. The important message here, though, is that the reader can never be positive of Machiavelli's real views. The same is true in considering the significance of the terms virtu and fortuna (and their several translations), so often used by Machiavelli to drive home his points. But by looking at many possibilities for their frequent and seemingly suggestive usages, and at some of the ancient thought with which Machiavelli was supremely familiar, we can arrive at a satisfactory speculation, we can discuss the web weaved by Machiavelli in his profes!.
sions.
The first, most obvious purpose of The Prince is stated by the author himself, addressing Lorenzo de' Medici:.
If you will read [this book] over and study it carefully, you will recognize in it my most earnest desire that you may achieve that summit of grandeur to which your happy destiny and your other capacities predestine you. And if from that summit Your Magnificence will occasionally glance down at these humble places, you will recognize how unjustly I suffer the bitter and sustained malignity of fortune.
Clearly there is a sizeable amount of cajolery occurring here (and also foreshadows the following discussion of fortune and virtue), and this same stroking of Lorenzo's ego continues through the book, with slight references to how fit to rule this prince is, how "virtuous," how fated to be the incredible Prince for whom Machiavelli writes. It could easily be said that with this book the author may have trying to ingratiate himself to all the local nobility; on the other hand, knowing what follows might also suggest that Machiavelli was really attempting to play off the nobility's fears of chaos and insecurity, guaranteeing safety if they read his short piece.