The Prince

reproved by one of his friends for dancing and amusing himself with
them more than was usual in one of his station, so he said: "He who is
considered wise by day will not be considered a fool at night." A person
came to demand a favour of Castruccio, and thinking he was not listening
to his plea threw himself on his knees to the ground, and being sharply
reproved by Castruccio, said: "Thou art the reason of my acting thus for
thou hast thy ears in thy feet," whereupon he obtained double the favour
he had asked. Castruccio used to say that the way to hell was an easy
one, seeing that it was in a downward direction and you travelled
blindfolded. Being asked a favour by one who used 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 another 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 deceived
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 down." On
being asked if it had ever occurred to him to become a friar in order to
save his soul, he answered that it had not, because it appeared strange
to him that Fra Lazerone should go to Paradise and Uguccione della
Faggiuola to the Inferno. He was once asked when should a man eat to
preserve his health, and replied: "If the man be rich let him eat
when he is hungry; if he be poor, then when he can." Seeing on of his
gentlemen make a member of his family lace him up, he said to him: "I
pray God that you will let him feed you also." Seeing that someone had
written upon his house in Latin the words: "May God preserve this house
from the wicked," he said, "The owner must never go in." Passing through
one of the streets he saw a small house with a very large door, and
remarked: "That house will fly through the door." He was having a
discussion with the ambassador of the King of Naples concerning the
property of some banished nobles, when a dispute arose between them, and
the ambassador asked him if he had no fear of the king. "Is this king of
yours a bad man or a good one?" asked Castruccio, and was told that he
was a good one, whereupon he said, "Why should you suggest that I should
be afraid of a good man?"

I could recount many other stories of his sayings both witty and
weighty, but I think that the above will be sufficient testimony to
his high qualities. He lived forty-four years, and was in every way a
prince. And as he was surrounded by many evidences of his good fortune,
so he also desired to have near him some memorials of his bad fortune;
therefore the manacles with which he was chained in prison are to be
seen to this day fixed up in the tower of his residence, where they were
placed by him to testify for ever to his days of adversity. As in
his life he was inferior neither to Philip of Macedon, the father of
Alexander, nor to Scipio of Rome, so he died in the same year of his
age as they did, and he would doubtless have excelled both of them had
Fortune decreed that he should be born, not in Lucca, but in Macedonia
or Rome.