THE SECOND
BOOK OF THE COURTIER
TO ALFONSO ARIOSTO
I HAVE many times asked myself, not without wonder, the source of a certain error which, since it is committed by all the old without exception, can be believed to be proper and natural to man: namely, that they nearly all praise the past and blame the present, revile our actions and behaviour and everything which they themselves did not do when they were young, and affirm, too, that every good custom and way of life, every virtue and, in short, all things imaginable are always going from bad to worse. And truly it seems against all reason and a cause for astonishment that maturity of age, which, with its long experience, in all other respects usually perfects a man’s judgement, in this matter corrupts it so much that he does not realize that, if the world were always growing worse and if fathers were generally better than their sons, we would long since have become so rotten that no further deterioration would be possible. However, we see that not only in our own times but also in the past this fault was always peculiar to old age; this can be clearly understood from the writings of many of the earliest authors, and especially the writers of comedy who, more than the others, reflect the nature of human life. For myself, I think that the reason for this faulty judgement in the old is that the passing years rob them of many of the favourable conditions of life, among other things depriving the blood of a great part of its vitality; and in consequence the physical constitution changes and the organs through which the soul exercises its power grow feeble. Thus in old age the gay flowers of contentment fall from our hearts, just as in autumn the leaves fall from the trees; and in place of bright and clear thoughts the soul is possessed by a dark and confused melancholy attended by endless distress. Thus the mind as well as the body grows weak; it retains only a faint impression of past pleasures, and only the image of those precious hours of youth, when, so long as they last, heaven and earth and the whole of creation seem to be rejoicing and smiling as we look, and a gay springtime of happiness seems to flower in our thoughts as in a delightful and lovely garden. So when cold winter comes to our lives and the sun starts to go down in the west it would be well, as our pleasures fade, if we always lost the memory of them, and discovered, as Themistocles said, the secret of forgetfulness.1 For our bodily senses are so untrustworthy that they often confuse our judgement as well. Because of this, it seems to me that the old resemble those who, as they sail from harbour, keep their eyes on the land and imagine that their ship is motionless whereas the shore is receding, though the contrary is true. For, like the harbour, time and the pleasures of life stay the same while we, sailing away in the ship of mortality, cross the stormy sea which engulfs and swallows us up one by one; nor are we ever permitted to regain the land but, constantly assailed by hostile winds, eventually we come to grief upon a rock. Since, therefore, the senile spirit is an unsuitable vessel for many of the pleasures of life, it cannot enjoy them; and just as even rare and delicate wines taste sour to those whose palates are spoilt through sickness, so to old people because of their incapacity (which does not, however, lack desire) pleasures seem cold and insipid and very different from those they recall having once enjoyed, although the pleasures themselves are the same. In consequence, feeling themselves deprived, they grumble and condemn the present as evil, not appreciating that the change is in themselves and not in the times; and on the other hand, when they remember the pleasures of the past they also recall the time when they enjoyed them, and they praise it as good because it seems to carry with it the savour of what they felt when it was present. For the truth is that our minds detest all the things that have accompanied our sorrows and love all those that have accompanied our joys. So we find that a lover sometimes rejoices to look at a window, even though it is shuttered, because it was there that he once was favoured by the sight of his lady; and similarly he rejoices to see a ring or a letter, a garden or some other place, or anything whatever that may seem to him to have been a conscious witness of his pleasures. On the other hand, often the most ornate and beautiful room will be obnoxious to one who has been held a prisoner or suffered some other unhappiness there. And I have known people to refuse ever to drink again from a cup used for their medicine when they were ill. To one man, a window or a ring or a letter provides the joyful memory that gives him so much pleasure and seems therefore to have been part of his enjoyment; to another, in the same way, the room or the cup seems to bring back the memory of his captivity or his sickness. And these are the reasons, I think, why old people praise the past and blame the present.
So old people talk about Courts in the same way as they talk about everything else and affirm that those which they remember from the past were far more excellent and full of outstanding men than those we know today; and as soon as the subject is being discussed, they begin to praise to the skies the courtiers of Duke Filippo or Duke Borso; they repeat the sayings of Niccolò Piccinino;2 they remind us that in those days there were no murders (or only very rarely), there were no fights or plots or treacheries, but only a certain loyal and loving goodwill among all men, and complete truth; and they recall that in the Courts in those days so many good customs prevailed along with such worthiness that courtiers were all like monks, and woe betide anyone who spoke a bad word to another or acted less than honourably towards a woman. Then, on the other hand, they say that nowadays everything is the opposite; and that not only have brotherly affection and good customs disappeared among courtiers but in the Courts nothing prevails except envy and ill-will, wicked customs, dissolute living and every kind of vice: the women lascivious and shameless and the men effeminate. They also condemn modern dress as indecent and luxurious. In short, they condemn all and everything, including, to be sure, many things which deserve censure, for it cannot be denied that there are many evil and wicked men among us or that our age is far more degenerate than the times they praise. However, I am quite sure that they fail to discern the cause of the difference and that they are being very foolish, for they would have the world contain only good things and nothing evil, and this is impossible. For (since evil is the opposite of good and good of evil) the one must always sustain and reinforce the other, and if the one diminishes or increases, the other, as its necessary counter-force, must do the same. We all know that there would be no justice in the world if there were no wrongs; no magnanimity if no one were pusillanimous; no continence without incontinence; no health without sickness; no truth without falsehood; and no happiness without misfortune. Thus Socrates is very right when he wonders, as Plato describes, why Aesop did not write a fable pretending that, since He had never been able to unite them, God had joined pain and pleasure end to end, so that the beginning of one should be the end of the other. For we find that we are never allowed pleasure without pain beforehand. And who can enjoy his rest unless he has felt the burden of fatigue? Who enjoys eating, drinking and sleeping unless he has first known hunger, thirst and sleeplessness? I believe, therefore, that sickness and suffering were given to man by Nature, not chiefly to make him subject to them, since the source of every good would hardly inflict so many miseries on us deliberately, but because the health, happiness and other blessings of Nature were necessarily followed by sickness, suffering and other misfortunes. Thus when the world was favoured by Nature with the gift of all the virtues, these were inevitably accompanied, because of the linking of opposites, by all the vices, and in consequence as the former grow or diminish so must the latter.
Therefore when our old men praise the Courts of the past, on the grounds that they did not have in them men as vicious as some we have now, they do not realize that neither did they have men as virtuous as some we have today. And this is not surprising, since there is no evil so bad as that which grows from the corrupted seed of good; and so as Nature nowadays produces men far more capable than in the past, those who turn to good do far better than they did in the past just as those who turn to evil do far worse. Hence we must not say that those who refrained from doing evil be
cause they did not know how deserve any praise for it; because, granted that they did very little evil, they still did the worst they could. And that the men of those times were, generally speaking, far less capable than those of today is fully apparent from the work they have left for us to see, in letters as well as in pictures, statues, buildings and everything else. These old men also blame us for many things, in themselves neither good nor bad, simply because they did not do them; and they complain that it is not right for young men to ride about the city on horseback, and especially wearing pumps, or to wear fur coats or long robes in winter, or to wear a hat before the age of eighteen at least, and other such things. But to be sure they are deceiving themselves in saying all this, because these fashions, besides being useful and convenient, have been established by usage and are universally acceptable, just as it was once perfectly acceptable to go about in sumptuous dress with uncovered breeches and polished shoes and, in order to cut a figure, always to carry a sparrow hawk on the wrist to no purpose; to dance without touching the lady’s hand; and to adopt many other customs as highly regarded then as they would be thought ludicrous today. So let us also be allowed to follow the customs of our day and age without being slandered by these old men who, wanting to praise themselves, will often say:
‘When I was twenty years old, I was still sleeping with my mother and sisters, and it was a long time after that before I even knew what women were, but now young people have scarcely been christened before they know more wickedness than grown men did in those days.’
In saying this, they don’t realize that they are confirming that young people nowadays are far brighter and more capable than their old men used to be. So they should stop condemning the present as being full of vices, since if they removed the vices they would have to let the virtues go with them; and they should also remember that there were many rascals to be found among the fine men of the ancient world, at a time when the world was full of virtuous and exalted spirits and men of exceptional genius. And if these were still alive today, they would outdo our evil men in wickedness just as the good men of that age would excel those of today. And all history is a witness to this.
But I think enough has now been said to refute these old men. So we shall end this argument, which has surely gone on too long but was not, I hope, altogether beside the point. And since it is enough to have shown that the Courts of our own time are no less praiseworthy than those the old men praise so much, we shall now go back to the discussion concerning the courtier, from which can readily be understood the standing of the Court of Urbino among other Courts, what manner of prince and lady they were who were served by such noble spirits, and how fortunate those could be called who lived in such a society.
The following day, therefore, many and various discussions were held among the ladies and gentlemen of the Court concerning what had been debated the previous evening; and this was chiefly because the Prefect, eager to discover what had been said, questioned almost everyone only to receive, as usually happens, the most diverse replies. For some praised one thing and others another, and many also disagreed as to what the Count’s opinion had really been, since no one fully remembered all that had been said. Almost the whole day was taken up with this discussion; and then when night began to fall the Prefect decided that they should eat, and led all the gentlemen into supper. As soon as this was over, he went to the rooms of the Duchess; and when she saw the arrival of so many people, earlier than was customary, she said:
‘Federico, it seems to me that a very heavy burden has been placed on your shoulders, and that you have to live up to some very high expectations.’
At this, not waiting for Federico to answer, the Unico Aretino remarked:
‘But what is this great burden? Who is so foolish, when he knows how to do something, as not to do it in his own good time?’
So, talking of this, everyone sat down in his usual place and order, eagerly awaiting the proposed discussion.
Federico then turned to the Unico Aretino and said:
‘So, signor Unico, you do not believe that I have been given a challenging task and a heavy burden this evening, in having to show how, and in what way, and when the courtier ought to use his good qualities and practise the things that have been declared appropriate to him?’
‘It seems no great thing to me,’ replied the Unico. ‘And all that need be said, I think, is that the courtier should possess good judgement, the need for which was rightly mentioned by the Count yesterday evening. If he does have it, then he needs no other instructions about how to practise what he knows at the right time and in the proper manner. To attempt to provide him with more precise rules would be too difficult and surely superfluous. For I do not know who would be so inept as to want to take up arms when others are attending to music; or to do a morris-dance in the streets, no matter how good he is at it; or comfort a mother for the loss of her son by laughing and joking. I’m sure no gentleman would do such things, unless he were completely out of his wits.’
‘It seems to me, signor Unico,’ replied Federico, ‘that you are taking things to the extreme. For sometimes people are inept in ways that are not quite so obvious, and the mistakes they make are not all of the same kind. And it can happen that a man will refrain from some only too obvious, public folly, such as dancing around the square in the way you mention, and yet will not know how to refrain from singing his own praises at quite the wrong time, from indulging in tiresome arrogance, or from sometimes saying something meant to raise a laugh which is so out of place that it falls completely flat. Often these mistakes are veiled in such a way that the one who makes them, unless he watches out very carefully, fails to perceive what is happening. And although there are many reasons why our vision is limited, it is clouded chiefly by over-ambition. For everyone shows off in regard to what, rightly or wrongly, he has persuaded himself he knows. So it seems to me that in this matter the correct rule of behaviour is to observe a certain prudence and wise discrimination, and to understand the exact emphasis to give to various actions so that they may always be done seasonably. The courtier may be so judicious that he can discern these distinctions; but it will surely be easier for him to achieve the end he seeks if his mind is broadened by some precept, and if he is shown the way forward and, so to speak, the foundations on which to build, than if he relies solely on general principles.
‘Yesterday evening, the Count spoke about courtiership so eloquently and agreeably as to arouse in me no little fear and doubt whether I should be able to satisfy this noble gathering with what I have to say, as well as he did with his contribution. However, in order to share as much as possible in the praise he won, and to be sure of making no mistakes regarding this aspect of the subject at least, I shall not contradict anything he has said. So, agreeing with the Count’s opinions, including those he gave concerning the courtier’s noble birth, talents, physical constitution and graceful appearance, I say that to be praiseworthy and highly thought of by everyone, and to secure the goodwill of the rulers whom he serves, the courtier should know how to order his whole life and to exploit his good qualities generally, no matter with whom he associates, without exciting envy. And just how difficult this is may be seen from the few who are successful; for indeed we are all instinctively more prone to condemn mistakes than to praise what is well done, and it seems that, out of some kind of innate malice, many men, even when they see what is clearly good, strive with all their might and main to find fault or at least what looks like a fault. Thus in everything he does our courtier must be cautious, and he must always act and speak with prudence; and he should not only strive to perfect his various attributes and qualities but also make sure that the tenor of his life is such that it corresponds with those qualities, is always and everywhere consistent in itself, and is perfectly of a piece with all his fine attributes. In consequence, in everything he does he should, as the Stoics maintain is the duty or purpose of the wise man, be inspired by and express all the virtues; and though e
ach act is always dominated by a particular virtue, yet all the virtues are so linked that they tend to the same end and they can all contribute to and assist every purpose. Therefore the courtier must know how to avail himself of the virtues, and sometimes set one in contrast or opposition to another in order to draw more attention to it. This is what a good painter does when by the use of shadow he distinguishes clearly the lights on his reliefs, and similarly by the use of light deepens the shadows of plane surfaces and brings different colours together in such a way that each one is brought out more sharply through the contrast; and the placing of figures in opposition to each other assists the painter in his purpose. In the same way, gentleness is most impressive in a man who is a capable and courageous warrior; and just as his boldness is magnified by his modesty, so his modesty is enhanced and more apparent on account of his boldness. Hence to talk little and to do much, and not to praise oneself for praiseworthy deeds but to dissimulate them politely, serve to enhance both these virtues in anyone who knows how to employ this method discreetly; and the same holds true for all the other good qualities. Then in everything he does or says I should like our courtier to follow certain general rules which, I think, contain the essence of all I have to tell you. And first and most important, he should (as the Count so rightly advised yesterday evening) above all avoid affectation. Next let him consider well whatever he does or says, the place where he does it, in whose presence, its timing, why he is doing it, his own age, his profession, the end he is aiming at, and the means that are suitable; and so, bearing all these points in mind, let him prepare himself discreetly for all he wishes to do or say.’
The Book of the Courtier Page 12