Machiavelli and The Prince by Gary Graves
This Play is the copyright of the Author and may not be performed, copied or sold without the Author's prior consent
Characters
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI: diplomat, writer, exile, about 45.
LORENZO DI MEDICI II: the new duke of Florence, grandson of Lorenzo
the Magnificent, about 35.
The action of the play takes place in a private audience chamber of
the Old Palace in Florence, in the year 1516.
The characters wear modern, contemporary suits.
LIGHTS UP: afternoon sunlight beams in through a window. A desk and
chair at one end of the room.
MACHIAVELLI waits. He wears a rumpled black suit, and holds an
ordinary composition book in hand.
He looks out a window at the city outside, and smiles.
LORENZO enters, wearing a classy black suit.
A beat, as the two see each other, stop, and smile.
MACHIAVELLI: Lorenzino.
LORENZO (raises a correcting finger): Aht.
MACHIAVELLI (correcting himself): Forgive me. Your Excellency.
(kneels on one knee and bows his head)
LORENZO: No, no, no, please. (raises him up, and regards him) Master
Machiavelli.
They embrace.
They look at each other.
LORENZO: It's good to see you.
MACHIAVELLI: It's good to be here. Thank you. My God, how
you've grown. And handsome, too. The spitting image of your
grandfather. My God. It's amazing.
LORENZO: Twenty years, no?
MACHIAVELLI: Is that possible?
LORENZO: Twenty.
MACHIAVELLI: I can't believe it. Here in this room. Do you
remember?
LORENZO: I'll never forget it.
MACHIAVELLI (calling, in Latin): Disce quasi semper victurus [Learn
as if always going to live;]
LORENZO (the reply, in Latin): Vive quasi cras moriturus. [live as
if tomorrow going to die.]
They laugh together.
LORENZO: My God, I hated Latin.
MACHIAVELLI: But you remembered.
LORENZO: Well, you were a good teacher.
MACHIAVELLI: You were a good student.
LORENZO: I liked your history lessons more than my Latin studies.
MACHIAVELLI: To tell you the truth, so did I.
LORENZO: And I can still remember that passage from Lucretius—how
did it go? Something about… Ah: "Man is far from master of all,
as he so vainly believes; he is rather a victim of Nature and Fortune.
Born naked and bawling, his cries fill the air, he alone among all
the animals is capable of boundless cruelty to his own kind, yet none
other is possessed of such limitless desire to live, nor such a
burning thirst for—and need of—the eternal and the infinite."
MACHIAVELLI: A fine student indeed.
LORENZO: Twenty years.
MACHIAVELLI: Florence is fortunate.
LORENZO: You're very kind.
MACHIAVELLI: I mean it. Very fortunate.
He looks out the window.
LORENZO: Have you missed the old place?
MACHIAVELLI: Have I missed it? As a man dying in the desert misses
the taste of water. This palace. The city. My life is here. It's
been difficult…being away.
LORENZO: I understand. Believe me. Welcome back. I hope we can
put all the misfortunes of the past to rest.
MACHIAVELLI: I do, as well. Thank you. Your Excellency. This is
for you.
Gives him the composition book.
LORENZO: For me?
MACHIAVELLI: A gift. A humble gift, from a humble man. A small
token of my appreciation. I just finished it. No one else has even
laid eyes on it. It's for you, and you alone. Of all that I have
in this world, this is the dearest thing I possess. So I wanted to
give it to you. I hope you find in it that which may be, in some
small way, of use to you, in the great challenges that lie ahead.
LORENZO (browsing through it): Hm.
MACHIAVELLI: It's a study of the actions of men. Gained through
my personal experience in political affairs, and extensive readings
about figures from the past. The great heroes and infamous villains
of our own time, and that of antiquity.
LORENZO: And I'm the first to read it?
MACHIAVELLI: The very first.
LORENZO: I'm honored.
MACHIAVELLI: You're too kind.
LORENZO: Not at all. I look forward eagerly to giving it a careful
read.
MACHIAVELLI: Thank you, your Excellency.
LORENZO sits and thinks, setting the book aside.
MACHIAVELLI: May I congratulate you?
LORENZO: Hm?
MACHIAVELLI: On your investiture.
LORENZO: Oh.
MACHIAVELLI: His Holiness has made a wise choice.
LORENZO: Did he?
MACHIAVELLI: Yes, he did. Florence is in desperate need of a man
like you.
LORENZO: Well, it's in desperate need, I'll give you that.
MACHIAVELLI: Leadership. That's what the old place needs. I
don't think things have ever been worse.
LORENZO: There's no plague.
MACHIAVELLI: That's true. The Black Plague was worse, but that
was long before either one of us was here. I mean, as far back as I
can personally remember. Oh, it was bad under Savanarola. But these
days—my God—what with this mess in Pisa. Now Arezzo. And still the
French. Still the Spaniards. Now the Germans. And the poor. I've
never seen so many beggars in the streets. The filth out there. The
stink is awful. Is it my imagination, or is the north wall of the
palace crumbling?
LORENZO: It's not your imagination.
MACHIAVELLI: The streets, the squares, the water system,
everything's falling apart. Everything's broken. I'm sorry,
perhaps I'm overstating things, I only took a short walk through the
city on my way in, I'm sure it's not as bad as all that—
LORENZO: Yes, it's as bad as all that. The place is in ruins.
MACHIAVELLI: What's become of the general fund?
LORENZO: There no longer is a general fund.
MACHIAVELLI: Ah.
LORENZO: Yes, there are many problems. (looks out the window)
MACHIAVELLI: May I ask you something? Your Excellency.
LORENZO: What?
MACHIAVELLI: What happened to your brother?
LORENZO: He has abdicated.
MACHIAVELLI: Ah. Good.
LORENZO: Good?
MACHIAVELLI: No. I only mean… no one seems to know… I just
feared…that he might have been…well, you know.
LORENZO: No. He just…left.
MACHIAVELLI: Hm.
LORENZO: Bit of a surprise to all of us.
MACHIAVELLI: Yes, I'm sure it must have been. Why exactly?
LORENZO: Hm?
MACHIAVELLI: Why did he abdicate?
LORENZO: I don't know. I suppose you'd have to ask him.
MACHIAVELLI: Ah. I see. Where did he go?
LORENZO: What?
MACHIAVELLI: Where did he go? He seems to have just…disappeared.
LORENZO: He has not disappeared.
MACHIAVELLI: Back to Rome?
LORENZO: No.
MACHIAVELLI: Off on a lark somewhere? He was inclined to slip off
from time to time and raise a little—
LORENZO: He's entered the monastery of St. Michael.
MACHIAVELLI: Ah.
LORENZO: Let's just leave it at that.
MACHIAVELLI: The contemplative life. A good choice for Giuliano.
Hard to imagine him taking a vow of chastity though—
LORENZO: Please.
MACHIAVELLI: Hm?
LORENZO: I'm not interested in discussing Giuliano's abdication.
He's gone. His problems are my problems now. And there are plenty
of them.
MACHIAVELLI: Yes.
LORENZO (pours himself a glass of water): I'm thirsty. Would you
care for a drink of water?
MACHIAVELLI: Yes, thank you. (pours a glass for himself) Just as
well.
LORENZO: Hm?
MACHIAVELLI: Oh, nothing.
LORENZO: What did you say?
MACHIAVELLI: Nothing, just that—well, I was just thinking—that
it's just as well that your brother abdicated since… But we have
other things to discuss, and I don't want to—
LORENZO: No, say what you were going to say.
MACHIAVELLI: Well, Giuliano wasn't really cut out for the job.
Was he?
Beat.
LORENZO: No, he wasn't.
MACHIAVELLI: So it's just as well.
LORENZO: Perhaps.
MACHIAVELLI: But good fortune is often that way, isn't it?
Suddenly, out of the blue…and everything changes. One day despair,
the next triumph. And the next? Who knows? Fortune is a woman, eh?
Who can predict what she will do next? Who she favors, and who she
scorns. Why? Take me for instance. She despises me. Why? What
have I done to deserve the enmity of Fortune? Year after year she
persecutes me. Why? What must I do? Shall I hang myself? Is that
what she wants? Well then, I tell myself, that's just what I
won't do, just to scorn her in return. I refuse to hang myself, so
take that, you great bawdy bitch!
(He laughs.)
And then what happens? Out of the blue…comes a letter from the new
duke of Florence, my old student, Lorenzino de Medici. The most
gifted student I ever set a history book down in front of. And
suddenly, everything is different. Everything has changed. Why? God
knows. Eh?
[end of extract]
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