The Portable Machiavelli

by Niccolo Machiavelli

  Curtain

  ACT II

  SCENE 1

  LIGURIO, MESSER NICIA, SIRO

  LIGURIO: As I was telling you, I believe God has sent us this man to help you fulfill your wish. He has had a great deal of experience in Paris, but do not be surprised if he has not practiced medicine in Florence. He does not need to for two reasons: first, he is rich; and second, he may be returning to Paris at any time now.

  NICIA: That’s what concerns me—I don’t want him to get me in a pickle and then leave me holding the bag.

  LIGURIO: Don’t worry about that; just worry about the possibility of his not taking your case. But if he does take it, he will not abandon you until he sees it through to the end.

  NICIA: I’ll leave that problem to you. As for his qualifications, as soon as I speak to him I shall be able to tell if he is competent or not. I am not the kind of man that can be taken in!

  LIGURIO: It’s precisely because you are the person I know you to be that I am taking you to meet him. And if you do not think that he is an able man after examining him, his learning, and his manner of speech, then I am no longer an honest man!

  NICIA: Well, for God’s sake, let’s get on with it! Where does he live?

  LIGURIO: He lives right here in this square, through that door facing you.

  NICIA: Good. You knock.

  LIGURIO (knocks): There you are.

  SIRO: Who is it?

  LIGURIO: Is Callimaco in?

  SIRO: Yes, he is.

  NICIA: Why don’t you call him Doctor Callimaco?

  LIGURIO: He’s not concerned with such trifles.

  NICIA: Don’t say that! Use his proper title. If he doesn’t like it, that’s tough!

  SCENE 2

  CALLIMACO, MESSER NICIA, LIGURIO, SIRO

  CALLIMACO: Who is it that wants to see me?

  NICIA: Bona dies, domine magister.81

  CALLIMACO: Et vobis bona, domine doctor.82

  LIGURIO: What do you say to that?

  NICIA: Christ, what a doctor!

  LIGURIO: If you two want me to stay here, speak so that I can understand you; otherwise we won’t get anywhere.

  CALLIMACO: What brings you here?

  NICIA: I don’t know where to begin. I am looking for two things that most men would avoid—to bring trouble to myself and to others. I don’t have children and I want them, and to bring this trouble on myself I have come to trouble you.

  CALLIMACO: It never troubles me to serve men of merit and breeding like yourself. I did not spend so many years in Paris learning my art for any other reason than to serve you and your peers.

  NICIA: I am very grateful. Whenever you need my professional skill I’ll help you gladly. But let us return ad rem nostra.83 Have you decided which bath would be good to encourage my wife to become pregnant. I know that Ligurio here has told you our problem.

  CALLIMACO: That is true, but in order to fulfill your desire it is first necessary to know why your wife is sterile, since there are many possible causes. Nam causae sterilitatis sunt: aut in semine, aut in matrice, aut in instrumentis seminariis, aut in virga, aut in causa extrinseca.84

  NICIA: My God, this is the best doctor in the world!

  CALLIMACO : Besides these possibilities, her sterility could be caused by your own impotence; if this were the case, there would be no remedy.

  NICIA: Me, impotent? Don’t make me laugh. I’m the healthiest and most virile man in Florence.

  CALLIMACO: If that is true, then rest assured that we shall find a remedy.

  NICIA: Can’t we find something besides the baths? I don’t want the inconvenience, and my wife will leave Florence only against her will.

  LIGURIO: Yes, there is one—I’ll answer that question myself. The good doctor is sometimes so polite that he never gets down to business. Callimaco, haven’t you told me that you can mix certain potions that guarantee pregnancy?

  CALLIMACO: Yes, I have. But I am careful about discussing them with people I don’t know well, since they might take me for a charlatan.

  NICIA: You can rely on me—you have impressed me so much that I would believe anything you say or do.

  LIGURIO : I think you will have to take a urine sample.

  CALLIMACO : Of course, you can’t do without that.

  LIGURIO: Call Siro. He can go home with the counselor and get it; we’ll wait for him here. (Enter Siro.)

  CALLIMACO: Siro, go with him. Messer Nicia, come back as soon as possible, if it suits you, and we’ll think of a solution to the problem.

  NICIA: What do you mean “if it suits me”? I’ll be back in no time at all. I have more faith in you than a Hun in his sword! (Exeunt Callimaco and Ligurio.)

  SCENE 3

  MESSER NICIA, SIRO

  NICIA: Your master is truly a worthy man.

  SIRO: More than you know.

  NICIA: The King of France must hold him in great esteem.

  SIRO: Indeed.

  NICIA: That must make him happy to live in France.

  SIRO: Yes, it does.

  NICIA: He has the right idea. Here all we have are block-heads who have no idea how to appreciate talent. If he lived here, no one would even notice him. I know what I’m talking about—I had to shit blood to learn a few legal terms; if I had to live on that I’d be in bad trouble, I tell you!

  SIRO: Do you earn a hundred ducats a year?

  NICIA: Ducats—not even a hundred lire! Listen—if you’re not working for the government in this town you won’t even find a dog that’ll bark at you! Here men of learning are good for nothing but funerals, weddings, or hanging around all day at the courthouse. But I’m not dependent on anyone, and it doesn’t bother me, since others are worse off than myself. I wouldn’t want what I am saying to get around, or I might get some new tax slapped on me or some other trouble that would really make me sweat. SIRO: Don’t worry about me.

  NICIA: We’re home—wait here. I’ll be right back.

  SIRO: Go right ahead. (Exit Messer Nicia.)

  SCENE 4

  SIRO

  SIRO: If all educated men were like that one, we would all go mad! It looks like that rascal Ligurio and my crazy master are leading Messer Nicia to disaster. I’m all for it, as long as I know we’ll get away with it; but if we get caught, my skin is in danger as well as my master’s life and goods. He has already become a doctor of medicine—who knows what his plan is or where it will lead. But here’s the lawyer with a urine bottle in his hand. Who wouldn’t laugh at this trick?

  SCENE 5

  MESSER NICIA, SIRO

  NICIA (talking to himself as if to Lucrezia): I always did everything your way; now I want you to do it my way. If I had known I wouldn’t have children when I married you, I would have chosen a peasant woman. Oh, Siro, there you are! Follow me. What a job it was to get that silly woman to give me this urine! I don’t mean that she doesn’t want children—she wants them more than I—but whenever I try to do something about it, she gives me a hard time!

  SIRO: Have patience—with sweet words you can make a woman do anything you want.

  NICIA: Sweet words, you say? She’s driving me crazy! Get going, and tell your master and Ligurio I’m here.

  SIRO: Here they are now. (Enter Ligurio and Callimaco.)

  SCENE 6

  LIGURIO, CALLIMACO, MESSER NICIA

  LIGURIO (aside to Callimaco): The lawyer will be easy to persuade, but his wife will be a problem. I think I have a way.

  CALLIMACO: Do you have the specimen?

  NICIA: Siro has it covered.

  CALLIMACO: Give it here. Ah, this urine shows a weak kidney.

  NICIA: It does look a bit cloudy, but she just passed it a moment ago.

  CALLIMACO: Don’t be surprised by its appearance. Nam mulieris urinae sunt semper maloris grossitiei et albedinis et minoris pulchritudinis quam virorum. Huius autem, in caetera, causa est amplitudo canalium, mixtio eorum quae ex matrice exeunt cum urina.85

  NICIA: Oh, in the name of Saint Puccio�
��s cunt! This fellow really knows how to talk—the more I know him, the smarter he gets!

  CALLIMACO: I am afraid that your wife is not well covered at night, and that’s why her urine is cloudy.

  NICIA: She usually wears a long nightgown, but before she comes to bed she’s like an animal out in the cold—four hours on her knees muttering “Our fathers.”

  CALLIMACO: Well, counselor, either you trust me or you don’t; either I give you a sure cure or not. If you trust me, you’ll take the cure, and if your wife doesn’t have a son in her arms within the year, I’ll give you two thousand ducats.

  NICIA: Go on and tell me. I’ll do anything you say. I trust you more than my confessor.

  CALLIMACO: Then you have to understand this: nothing is more certain to make a woman pregnant than to give her a potion to drink made from the mandrake root. This is a tried and true remedy I’ve used several times and have always found successful, and if it were not so the Queen of France would still be sterile, not to mention an infinite number of other noble ladies of that country.

  NICIA: Is this possible?

  CALLIMACO: It’s a fact. And Fortune has smiled on you, for I just happen to have with me all that I need to mix the potion, and you can have it anytime.

  NICIA: When should she drink it?

  CALLIMACO: This evening after supper, since the moon is just right and there couldn’t be a better moment.

  NICIA: Prepare the potion, and I’ll make her take it—there won’t be any problems.

  CALLIMACO : There’s only one catch—the man who first sleeps with a woman who has taken this medicine will die within eight days, and nobody can save him.

  NICIA: Oh bloody shit! I won’t touch that crap! You’re not going to pull that on me. You’ve really fixed me up fine!

  CALLIMACO: Calm yourself—there is a way.

  NICIA: What is it?

  CALLIMACO: Make someone else sleep with her so that, being with her one night, he will draw out the poison of the mandrake on himself.

  NICIA: I wouldn’t do that.

  CALLIMACO: Why?

  NICIA: Because I don’t want to turn my wife into a whore and myself into a cuckold.

  CALLIMACO: What are you saying, counselor? I took you for a smarter man. You mean to say that you hesitate to follow the King of France and most of the French nobility in these affairs?

  NICIA: But who do you think I could find to do such a crazy thing? If I warn him, he won’t agree; if I don’t say anything, I shall trick him and commit a criminal offense. I don’t want to get into any trouble.

  CALLIMACO: If that’s all that worries you, leave everything to me.

  NICIA: How will you arrange it?

  CALLIMACO: I’ll tell you. I’ll give you the potion this evening after supper; you give it to her to drink and put her to bed immediately, about four hours after dark. Then you, Ligurio, Siro, and I will disguise ourselves and go looking in the New Market and the Old Market and around here for the first likely young loafer to come along. We’ll gag him and force him into your house and into your bedroom in the dark. Then we’ll put him in the bed, tell him what to do, and there won’t be any trouble at all. Then in the morning we’ll send him off before dawn, wash up your wife, and you can use her as you wish without danger.

  NICIA: I’m glad that you say kings and princes and noblemen use this method, but, more than that, I’m glad that no one will find out about it.

  CALLIMACO: Who would tell?

  NICIA: One important obstacle still remains.

  CALLIMACO: What’s that?

  NICIA: To persuade my wife. I’m not sure she’ll ever agree to it.

  CALLIMACO: You are right. But I wouldn’t call myself a husband if I couldn’t dominate my own wife.

  LIGURIO: I have thought of a solution.

  NICIA: What is it?

  LIGURIO: Her confessor.

  CALLIMACO: But who will convince him?

  LIGURIO: You, me, money, human nature, and the way priests are.

  NICIA: I’m afraid that if I suggest it she won’t go to talk to her confessor.

  LIGURIO: There is even a remedy for that.

  CALLIMACO: Tell me.

  LIGURIO : Have her mother take her.

  NICIA: She trusts her mother.

  LIGURIO: And I know that her mother thinks the way we do. Come on, let’s hurry—it’s getting late. Callimaco, you take a walk, but be sure to meet us with the potion at home two hours after dusk. Messer Nicia and I shall go to persuade her mother, since I know her well. Then we’ll go see the priest and let you know what we have done. CALLIMACO (aside to Ligurio): Please, don’t leave me alone.

  LIGURIO: You really seem in bad shape.

  CALLIMACO: Where can I go at this hour?

  LIGURIO: Here, there, anywhere—Florence is a big place!

  CALLIMACO: I can’t stand it.

  Curtain

  ACT III

  SCENE 1

  SOSTRATA, MESSER NICIA, LIGURIO

  SOSTRATA: I have often heard that a wise man chooses the lesser of two evils. If there is no other way to have children, then you must choose this method if it does not bother your conscience.

  NICIA: That’s right.

  LIGURIO: You go find your daughter, and your son-in-law and I will find Brother Timoteo, her confessor, and tell him of the problem so that you will not have to. Then we’ll see what he tells you.

  SOSTRATA: Let’s do that. You go that way, and I’ll look for Lucrezia and take her to speak to the priest and see what happens. (Exit Sostrata.)

  SCENE 2

  MESSER NICIA, LIGURIO

  NICIA: Perhaps you are surprised, Ligurio, that I have to go to so much trouble to persuade my wife, but if you knew everything you wouldn’t be.

  LIGURIO: I think it’s because women are suspicious by nature.

  NICIA: It’s not just that. She used to be the sweetest, most docile person in the world, but since one of her neighbors told her that if she vowed to hear the first morning mass for forty days in a row she would conceive, she swore to do so and she attended mass about twenty times. Well, then—one of those horny priests began to pester her so much that she didn’t want to go back. It’s too bad that those who should set us good examples are like that. Don’t you think I’m right?

  LIGURIO: You’re right as the devil!

  NICIA: Since that time she has been as nervous as a hare. Suggest something to her and she’ll find a thousand objections.

  LIGURIO: I’m not surprised, but how did she fulfill her vow?

  NICIA: She had herself dispensed from it.

  LIGURIO: Good. But tell me, do you have twenty-five ducats, because in these matters you have to spend a bit in order to make this priest our friend and to encourage him to hope for more.

  NICIA: Take them—money’s no problem; I’ll get them back somewhere else.

  LIGURIO: These priests are astute and very clever; it’s only natural, since they know both our sins and their own. If you’re not experienced and if you don’t know how to get them to help you, they can trick you. I don’t want you to spoil everything by talking, because a man of your learning may spend all day in his study with his books, but he may not know how to manage more worldly affairs. (Aside): This guy is such an idiot that I am afraid he’ll spoil everything.

  NICIA: Just tell me what I should do.

  LIGURIO: Leave the talking to me, and don’t say anything unless I give you a sign.

  NICIA: Agreed, but what sign will you give me? LIGURIO: I’ll wink and bite my lip. No, that won’t work. Say, how long has it been since you spoke to this priest? NICIA: More than ten years.

  LIGURIO: Good. I’ll say that you have become deaf, and you are not to answer or to say anything unless we shout at you.

  NICIA: I’ll do just that.

  LIGURIO: Don’t get upset if I say something that appears to be beside the point; I know what I’m doing.

  NICIA: Well, until then. (Exeunt Nicia and Ligurio.)

  SCENE
3

  BROTHER TIMOTEO, A LADY

  TIMOTEO: If you want to confess, I am ready to serve you. LADY: Not today, thanks. I have an appointment. I just wanted to get a few things off my chest by chatting with you this way. By the way, have you said those masses to Our Lady?

  TIMOTEO: Yes, I have.

  LADY: Take this florin and say the mass of the dead every Monday for two months in the name of my late husband. Even though he was a brute, the flesh is weak, and when I remember him sometimes I can’t help but feel a shiver ... But do you really think he is in purgatory? TIMOTEO: Beyond any shadow of a doubt.

  LADY: I’m not so sure. You know very well what he did to me sometimes. Oh, how tired I am of bothering you about him! I kept away from him as much as I could, but he was so insistent. Oh, Our Lord in Heaven!

  TIMOTEO: Don’t worry. Great is God’s mercy: if a man’s will is not lacking, there is always time for him to repent. LADY: Do you think the Turks will invade Italy this year?

  TIMOTEO: They will if you don’t say your prayers.

  LADY: My faith! God preserve us from those devils! I have a very great fear of being impaled by these Turks! I see a friend of mine here in church who has something for me. I’ll have to go meet her. Good day to you. (Exit.) TIMOTEO: Go in God’s name.

  SCENE 4

  TIMOTEO, LIGURIO, MESSER NICIA

  TIMOTEO: Women are the most charitable creatures in the world—and also the most troublesome. If you avoid them, you avoid problems, but you also avoid certain advantages; but if you deal with them, you have both the advantages and the problems. I suppose it is true that you cannot have honey without flies. (Enter Nicia and Ligurio.) But what brings you here, gentlemen? Don’t I recognize Messer Nicia?

  LIGURIO: Speak louder. He has become so deaf that he can’t hear a word.