the-prince

prove fatal. Castruccio, therefore, called Pagolo Guinigi to
him, and addressed him as follows:
‘If I could have believed that Fortune would have cut me
off in the midst of the career which was leading to that glory
which all my successes promised, I should have laboured
less, and I should have left thee, if a smaller state, at least
with fewer enemies and perils, because I should have been
content with the governorships of Lucca and Pisa. I should
neither have subjugated the Pistoians, nor outraged the
Florentines with so many injuries. But I would have made
both these peoples my friends, and I should have lived,
if no longer, at least more peacefully, and have left you a
state without a doubt smaller, but one more secure and established
on a surer foundation. But Fortune, who insists
upon having the arbitrament of human affairs, did not endow
me with sufficient judgment to recognize this from the
first, nor the time to surmount it. Thou hast heard, for many
have told thee, and I have never concealed it, how I entered
the house of thy father whilst yet a boy—a stranger to all
those ambitions which every generous soul should feel—
and how I was brought up by him, and loved as though I
had been born of his blood; how under his governance I
learned to be valiant and capable of availing myself of all
that fortune, of which thou hast been witness. When thy
good father came to die, he committed thee and all his possessions
to my care, and I have brought thee up with that
love, and increased thy estate with that care, which I was
bound to show. And in order that thou shouldst not only
possess the estate which thy father left, but also that which
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The Prince