k he has done wrong, then you must not copy him."

"But surely," said Cyrus, "the best way to avoid copying the wrongdoer
is to practise what is right?"

"True enough," answered the prince.

"Then on your own reasoning, I am bound to punish your father, if it is
right to punish wrong."

"But would you wish your vengeance to do you harm instead of good?"

"Nay," said Cyrus, "for then my vengeance would fall upon myself."

[16] "Even so," said Tigranes, "and you will do yourself the greatest
harm if you put your own subjects to death just when they are most
valuable to you."

"Can they have any value," asked Cyrus, "when they are detected doing
wrong?"

"Yes," answered Tigranes, "if that is when they turn to good and learn
sobriety. For it is my belief, Cyrus, that without this virtue all
others are in vain. What good will you get from a strong man or a brave
if he lack sobriety, be he never so good a horseman, never so rich,
never so powerful in the state? But with sobriety every friend is a
friend in need and every servant a blessing."

[17] "I take your meaning," answered Cyrus; "your father, you would have
me think, has been changed in this one day from a fool into a wise and
sober-minded man?"

"Exactly," said the prince.

"Then you would call sober-mindedness a condition of our nature, such
as pain, not a matter of reason that can be learnt? For certainly, if
he who is to be sober-minded must learn wisdom first, he could not be
converted from folly in a day."

[18] "Nay, but, Cyrus," said the prince, "surely you yourself have
known one man at least who out of sheer folly has set himself to fight
a stronger man than he, and on the day of defeat his senselessness has
been cured. And surely you have known a city ere now that has marshalled
her battalions against a rival state, but with defeat she changes
suddenly and is willing to obey and not resist?"

[19] "But what defeat," said Cyrus, "can you find in your father's case
to make you so sure that he has come to a sober mind?"

"A defeat," answered the young man, "of which he is well aware in the
secret chambers of his soul. He set his heart on liberty, and he has
found himself a slave as never before: he had designs that needed
stealth and speed and force, and not one of them has he been able to
carry through. With you he knows that design and fulfilment went hand
in hand; when you wished to outwit him, outwit him you did, as though he
had been blin