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GREETINGS.
I send you a
present which if it is not equal to the obligations that I have toward you, it
is one which without doubt the best that Niccolo Machiavelli has been able to
offer you. Because in it I have expressed what I know and what I have learned
through a long experience and a continuing study of the things of the world.
And neither you nor others being able to desire more of me, I have not offered
you more. You may well complain of the poverty of my endeavor since these
narrations of mine are poor, and of the fallacy of [my] judgement when I
deceive myself in many parts of my discussion. Which being so, I do not know
which of us should be less obligated to the other, either I to you who have
forced me to write that which by myself I would not have written, or you to me
that having written I have not satisfied you. Accept this, therefore, in that
manner that all things are taken from friends, where always the intention of
the sender is more than the quality of the thing that is sent. And believe me I
obtain satisfaction from this when I think that even if I should have been
deceived on many occasions, I know I have not erred on this one in having
selected you, to whom above all other of my friends I address [dedicate] these
Discourses; as much because in doing this it appears to me I have shown some
gratitude for the benefits I have received, as well because it appears to me I
have departed from the common usage of those writers, who usually [always]
address [dedicate] their works to some Prince, and blinded by ambition and
avarice laud him for all his virtuous qualities when they should be censuring
him for all his shameful parts. Whence I, so as not to incur this error, have
selected, not those who are Princes, but those who by their infinite good
qualities would merit to be such; [and] not to those who could load me with
rank, honors, and riches, but to those who although unable to would want to do
so. For men, when they want to judge rightly, should esteem those who are generous,
not those who are able to be so; and likewise those who govern a Kingdom, not
those who can but have not the knowledge. And writers lauded more Hiero of
Syracuse when he was a private citizen than Perseus the Macedonian when he was
King, for to Hiero nothing was lacking to be a Prince than the Principality,
and the other did not possess any part of the King than the Kingdom. Enjoy
this, therefore, whether good or bad, that you yourselves have wanted; and if
you should continue in this error that these thoughts of mine are acceptable, I
shall not fail to continue the rest of the history according as I promised you
in the beginning. Farewell.
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