when I come to study the secret of it all, I seem to see that the real incentive to obedience lies in the praise and honour that it wins against the discredit and the chastisement which fall on the disobedient." (21) "That, my son," said the father, "is the road to the obedience of compulsion. But there is a shorter way to a nobler goal, the obedience of the will. When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship's company will listen to the pilot, how travellers will cling to the one who knows the way better, as they believe, than they do themselves. But if men think that obedience will lead them to disaster, then nothing, neither penalties, nor persuasion, nor gifts, will avail to rouse them. For no man accepts a bribe to his own destruction." (22) "You would have me understand," said Cyrus, "that the best way to secure obedience is to be thought wiser than those we rule?" "Yes," said Cambyses, "that is my belief."
"And what is the quickest way," asked Cyrus, "to win that reputation?"
"None quicker, my lad, than this: wherever you wish to seem wise, be wise. Examine as many cases as you like, and you will find that what I say is true. If you wished to be thought a good farmer, a good horseman, a good physician, a good flute-player, or anything else whatever, without really being so, just imagine what a world of devices you would need to invent, merely to keep up the outward show! And suppose you did get a following to praise you and cry you up, suppose you did burden yourself with all kinds of paraphernalia for your profession, what would come of it all? You succeed at first in a very pretty piece of deception, and then by and by the test comes, and the impostor stands revealed."
(23) "But," said Cyrus, "how can a man really and truly attain to the wisdom that will serve his turn?"
"Well, my son, it is plain that where learning is the road to wisdom, learn you must, as you learnt your battalion-drill, but when it comes to matters which are not to be learnt by mortal men, nor foreseen by mortal minds, there you can only become wiser than others by communicating with the gods through the art of divination. But, always, wherever you know that a thing ought to be done, see that it is done, and done with care; for care, not carelessness, is the mark of the wise man."
(24) "And now," said Cyrus, "to win the affection of those we rule—and there is nothing, I take it, of greater importance—surely the path to follow lies open to all who desire the love of their friends. We must, I mean, show that we do them good." "Yes, my child, but to do good really at all seasons to those we wish to help is not always possible: only one way is ever open, and that is the way of sympathy; to rejoice with the happy in the day of good things, to share their sorrow when ill befalls them, to lend a hand in all their difficulties, to fear disaster for them, and guard against it by foresight—these, rather than actual benefits, are the true signs of comradeship. (25) And so in war; if the campaign is in summer the general must show himself greedy for his share of the sun and the heat, and in winter for the cold and the frost, and in all labours for toil and fatigue. This will help to make him beloved of his followers." "You mean, father," said Cyrus, "that a commander should always be stouter-hearted in everything than those whom he commands." "Yes, my son, that is my meaning," said he; "only be well assured of this: the princely leader and the private soldier may be alike in body, but their sufferings are not the same: the pains of the leader are always lightened by the glory that is his and by the very consciousness that all his acts are done in the public eye."
(26) "But now, father, suppose the time has come, and you are satisfied that your troops are well supplied, sound in wind and limb, well able to endure fatigue, skilled in the arts of war, covetous of honour, eager to show their mettle, anxious to follow, would you not think it well to try the chance of battle without delay?" "By all means," said the father, "if you are likely to gain by the move: but if not, for my own part, the more I felt persuaded of my own superiority and the power of my troops, the more I should be inclined to stand on my guard, just as we put our greatest treasures in the safest place we have." (27) "But how can a man make sure that he will gain?" "Ah, there you come," said the father, "to a most weighty matter. This is no easy task, I can tell you. If your general is to succeed he must prove himself an arch-plotter, a king of craft, full of deceits and stratagems, a cheat, a thief, and a robber, defrauding and overreaching his opponent at every turn."
"Heavens!" said Cyrus, and burst out laughing, "is this the kind of man you want your son to be!" "I want him to be," said the father, "as just and upright and law-abiding as any man who ever lived." (28) "But how comes it," said his son, "that the lessons you taught us in boyhood and youth were exactly opposed to what you teach me now?" "Ah," said the father, "those lessons were for friends and fellow-citizens, and for them they still hold good, but for your enemies—do you not remember that you were also taught to do much harm?"
"No, father," he answered, "I should say certainly not."
"Then why were you taught to shoot? Or to hurl the javelin? Or to trap wild-boars? Or to snare stags with cords and caltrops? And why did you never meet the lion or the bear or the leopard in fair fight on equal terms, but were always trying to steal some advantage over them? Can you deny that all that was craft and deceit and fraud and greed?"
(29) "Why, of course," answered the young man, "in dealing with animals, but with human beings it was different; if I was ever suspected of a wish to cheat another, I was punished, I know, with many stripes."
"True," said the father, "and for the matter of that we did not permit you to draw bow or hurl javelin against human beings; we taught you merely to aim at a mark. But why did we teach you that? Not so that you might injure your friends, either then or now, but that in war you might have the skill to make the bodies of living men your targets. So also we taught you the arts of deceit and craft and greed and covetousness, not among men it is true, but among beasts; we did not mean you ever to turn these accomplishments against your friends, but in war we wished you to be something better than raw recruits."
(30) "But, father," Cyrus answered, "if to do men good and to do men harm were both of them things we ought to learn, surely it would have been better to teach them in actual practice?"
(31) Then the father said, "My son, we are told that in the days of our forefathers there was such a teacher once. This man did actually teach his boys righteousness in the way you suggest, to lie and not to lie, to cheat and not to cheat, to calumniate and not to calumniate, to be grasping and not grasping. He drew the distinction between our duty to friends and our duty to enemies; and he went further still; he taught men that it was just and right to deceive even a friend for his own good, or steal his property. (32) And with this he must needs teach his pupils to practise on one another what he taught them, just as the people of Hellas, we are told, teach lads in the wrestling-school to fence and to feint, and train them by their practice with one another. Now some of his scholars showed such excellent aptitudes for deception and overreaching, and perhaps no lack of taste for common money-making, that they did not even spare their friends, but used their arts on them. (33) And so an unwritten law was framed by which we still abide, bidding us teach our children as we teach our servants, simply and solely not to lie, and not to cheat, and not to covert, and if they did otherwise to punish them, hoping to make them humane and law-abiding citizens. (34) But when they came to manhood, as you have come, then, it seemed, the risk was over, and it would be time to teach them what is lawful against our enemies. For at your age we do not believe you will break out into savagery against your fellows with whom you have been knit together since childhood in ties of friendship and respect. In the same way we do not talk to the young about the mysteries of love, for if lightness were added to desire, their passion might sweep them beyond all bounds."
(35) "Then in heaven's name, father," said Cyrus, "remember that your son is but a backward scholar and a late learner in this lore of selfishness, and teach me all you can that may help me to overreach the foe."
"Well," said the father, "you must plot and you must
