Lehal Library

Necessity. Must. Have to. Inevitably. Bound to. These are the words that recur insistently throughout The Prince. And then again: success, victory, prestige, achievement, and, on the other hand: loss, failure, defeat, death. These opposites are linked together by an almost obsessive use of because, so that, hence, therefore, as a result, as a consequence. From start to finish we have a vision of man manoeuvring precariously in a suffocating net of cause and effect. What is at stake is survival. Anything extra is luxury. The Prince was written by a ­forty-­four-­year-­old diplomat facing ruin. After fourteen years of influence and prestige, a change of regime had led to his dismissal. Suspected of conspiring against the new government, he was imprisoned and tortured. The rapid reversal of fortunes could not have been more devastating. Found innocent and released, he left town to live with his wife and family on a small farm. For a worldly man and compulsive womanizer, used to being at the frenetic heart of public life, this too felt like punishment. Idle and bitter, he tramped the hills by day and, in the long, empty evenings, began to write down some considerations on how to win power and, above all, how to hold on to it, how not to be a victim of