The Prince

1513

Niccolo Machiavelli

[...] 

our country, left almost without life, still waits to know who it is that is to heal her bruises, to put an end to the devastation and plunder …

[...] 

We see how she prays God to send some one to rescue her from these barbarous cruelties and oppressions. We see too how ready and eager she is to follow any standard were there only some one to raise it. But at present we see no one except in your illustrious House (pre-eminent by its virtues and good fortune, and favoured by God and by the Church whose headship it now holds), who could undertake the part of a deliverer. 

[...]

For their undertakings were not more just than this, nor more easy, nor was God more their friend than yours. The justice of the cause is conspicuous; for that war is just which is necessary, and those arms are sacred from which we derive our only hope. Everywhere there is the strongest disposition to engage in this cause; and where the disposition is strong the difficulty cannot be great … 

[...]

For those who are skillful in arms will not obey and every one thinks himself skillful, since hitherto we have had none among us so raised by merit or by fortune above his fellows that they should yield him the palm. 

[...]

Brief will be the strife
When valour arms against barbaric rage;
For the bold spirit of the bygone age
Still warms [...] hearts with life.