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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: language; to the Englishman of to-day it is not so simple. To take a
single example: the word "intrattenere," employed by Machiavelli to
indicate the policy adopted by the Roman Senate towards the weaker
states of Greece, would by an Elizabethan be correctly rendered
"entertain," and every contemporary reader would understand what was
meant by saying that "Rome entertained the Aetolians and the Achaeans
without augmenting their power." But to-day such a phrase would seem
obsolete and ambiguous, if not unmeaning: we are compelled to say that
"Rome maintained friendly relations with the Aetolians," etc., using
four words to do the work of one. I have tried to preserve the pithy
brevity of the Italian so far as was consistent with an absolute
The Prince |
