ciples of society;
to this "high argument" "The Prince" contributes but little. Machiavelli
always refused to write either of men or of governments otherwise than
as he found them, and he writes with such skill and insight that his
work is of abiding value. But what invests "The Prince" with more than
a merely artistic or historical interest is the incontrovertible truth
that it deals with the great principles which still guide nations and
rulers in their relationship with each other and their neighbours.

In translating "The Prince" my aim has been to achieve at all costs an
exact literal rendering of the original, rather than a fluent paraphrase
adapted to the modern notions of style and expression. Machiavelli was
no facile phrasemonger; the conditions under which he wrote obliged him
to weigh every word; his themes were lofty, his substance grave, his
manner nobly plain and serious. "Quis eo fuit unquam in partiundis
rebus, in definiendis, in explanandis pressior?" In "The Prince," it may
be truly said, there is reason assignable, not only for every word, but
for the position of every word. To an Englishman of Shakespeare's time
the translation of such a treatise was in some ways a comparatively easy
task, for in those times the genius of the English more nearly resembled
that of the Italian 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
fidelity to the sense. If the result be an occasional asperity I can
only hope that the reader, in his eagerness to reach the author's
meaning, may overlook the roughness of the road that leads him to it.

The following is a list of the works of Machiavelli:

Principal works. Discorso sopra le cose di Pisa, 1499; Del modo di
trattare i popoli della Valdichiana ribellati, 1502; Del modo tenuto