Page 193 - the-prince

many superfluous words, he said to him: ‘When you have
another request to make, send someone else to make it.’
Having been wearied by a similar man with a long oration
who wound up by saying: ‘Perhaps I have fatigued you by
speaking so long,’ Castruccio said: ‘You have not, because I
have not listened to a word you said.’ He used to say of one
who had been a beautiful child and who afterwards became
a fine man, that he was dangerous, because he first took the
husbands from the wives and now he took the wives from
their husbands. To an envious man who laughed, he said:
‘Do you laugh because you are successful or because anoth-
er is unfortunate?’ Whilst he was still in the charge of
Messer Francesco Guinigi, one of his companions said to
him: ‘What shall I give you if you will let me give you a blow
on the nose?’ Castruccio answered: ‘A helmet.’ Having put
to death a citizen of Lucca who had been instrumental in
raising him to power, and being told that he had done wrong
to kill one of his old friends, he answered that people de-
ceived themselves; he had only killed a new enemy.
Castruccio praised greatly those men who intended to take
a wife and then did not do so, saying that they were like men
who said they would go to sea, and then refused when the
time came. He said that it always struck him with surprise
that whilst men in buying an earthen or glass vase would
sound it first to learn if it were good, yet in choosing a wife
they were content with only looking at her. He was once
asked in what manner he would wish to be buried when he
died, and answered: ‘With the face turned downwards, for I
know when I am gone this country will be turned upside

1 The Prince