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Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary2 8 5“feed and live on the sickness of others” and “promise the good” where noneis to be had (I.46–57). 13 The preponderance of such terms leaves little doubtas to the sort of man, and the precise vocation, the figure of the charlatan ismeant to represent.Any lingering doubts on this score are dispelled by the denouementof the story. Having employed his remedies and recommended a series ofprecautions the charlatan declares his “patient” cured. And for more than amonth the youth is indeed held back from his inclination by “reverence andawe” (I.72). In the end, however, his nature triumphs over his reverence andawe and when he sees the Via Larga, “so straight and spacious,” nothing canprevent him from returning to his “old [antico] pleasure” (I.78). The “impulseto run…that swirling in his mind never rests” (I.81) returns in full force and,dropping his cloak, the young man declares, “Here Christ will not hold me”and off he runs. “From then on he ran forever, while he was alive” (I.84–85).Priestcraft, founded upon the ostensible power of Christ, promises a totalconversion of the nature of man. Such a conversion is not forthcoming. Thisis because “our mind, always understood after its natural fashion, does notallow us any defense against its habit or nature” (I.88–90). Human natureis nontransformable. But human nature is double. There are those who bynature follow nature, the “runners,” or potential philosophers, and those whoby nature are disposed to follow “habit,” that is, convention and conventionalhabituation, the “walkers,” or nonphilosophers. One cannot turn a sow’s earinto a silk purse, nor, as the story has it, vice versa. Horace, the ancient poet,is correct and Christian doctrine false. The implicit denial of miracle here isperhaps too obvious to dwell on, as is Machiavelli’s agreement with ancientphilosophy on these points. 14Machiavelli reiterates this distinction between those whose natures aredisposed to follow nature and those whose natures are disposed to followconvention in speaking, on one hand, of himself and his inalterable inclinations(I.91–108) and, on the other, of the asinine and theirs (I.109–17). It isMachiavelli’s disposition to observe others’ defects or to speak ill, particularlyof a “time so spiteful and sad” (I.97). He is an incurable “critic”; whereasit is the disposition, as previously noted, of the asinine to drive these rare13He concludes his remarks with the observation that the father “was not in the least doubt…becausehe believed in the words of this man” (I.49–57).14Machiavelli’s agreement with ancient philosophy in regard to the permanence of class-kind distinctionsand the impossibility of the miraculous transformation of nature implies his further agreementin regard to the issue of the eternity of the world (Discourses, 2.5).