“Machiavellian” Instruction: Why Hesiod’s Ainos Has No Moral

Abstract

Hesiod’s fable (ainos) of the hawk and the nightingale, addressed to kings, notoriously has no moral. Its depiction of a hawk carrying off a nightingale, preaching the futility of either resistance or pleading, appears to communicate the counsel, commonly designated as “Machiavellian,” that a ruler must know how to imitate a beast as well as a man. Such instruction—which advises that unjust actions are justifiable and necessary for a ruler—is clearly at odds with Hesiod’s explicit exhortations to his brother Perses to work hard and avoid hubris, and his caution that unjust kings or lords (basileis) will be punished by Zeus. I argue that Hesiod’s addressing the fable to kings “who themselves have understanding” explains the lack of a moral. To substantiate my claim I compare Hesiod’s and Machiavelli’s ranking of intellects, and illuminate Hesiod’s position with particular reference to and comparison with Machiavelli’s Prince, and examples drawn from the Old Testament and Old Irish law.

Keywords:

• Hesiod
• Works and Days
• kingship
• justice
• Machiavelli
• ancient and modern comparison

Notes

1. Hesiod, Works and Days, lines 202–12; hereafter line numbers will be cited in the text (WD = Works and Days; Th. = Theogony).

2. Note the terribleness of Echidna and Cerberus, at Theogony 300, 311, is emblemized in the epithet “[raw] flesh-eating” (ōmēstēs). For an enlightening treatment of the Hesiodic “catalogue of monsters” (Th. 270–336), see Clay, “Generation of Monsters in Hesiod.” 105–16.

3. Hubbard emphasizes that “the basileis to whom Perses turns are not really ‘kings’ but local aristocrats to whom judicial matters might be referred.” Hubbard, “Hesiod’s Fable of the Hawk,” 161–71. In his reading, Perses is the nightingale, and his offence and the reason the basileis have turned or will turn on him is his having considered himself on their level. A difficulty however is that this does not account for why Hesiod explicitly addresses the fable to basileis. For more on the meaning of this term and related terms in Greek, see Antonaccio, “Religion, Basileis and Heroes,” 381–95.

4. This is particularly interesting if one considers that human beings, especially those in the position of Hesiod’s archaic farmers, may gain important knowledge from the study of animals, and that gained from study of the birds—in two distinct though perhaps related senses—is emphasized in WD. One can well imagine the scene described in the fable (a hawk carrying off its prey) as one regularly witnessed in nature; were one to distil some wisdom about the natural world from witnessing such scenes, it is likely that it would be that, in circumstances where retribution by the weaker party is impossible, might is indeed right. The poem ends with the lines: “Happy and blessed is he who knows all these things and does his work without giving offense to the immortals, distinguishing the birds (ornithas krinōn) and avoiding trespasses” (WD 826–28). This may certainly reference augury or ornithomancy, which is recommended in seeking a wife (WD 800–801), but it also reminds us of the farmer’s observation of birds in marking the relay of the seasons and the attendant work: the swallow announces the commencement of spring (WD 568); the crane’s appearance marks the time for plowing with the advent of winter (WD 448–51); and the cuckoo is the signal for the late plowman to begin plowing (WD 486). Note also how knowing the ways of birds and animals is essential to good farming—Hesiod reminds us that someone must follow the one sowing grain to cover the seed and deter birds from eating it (WD 470).

5. Machiavelli, Il Principe, 37–38; The Prince, 61. References to Machiavelli’s works other than The Prince are from this Italian edition. The advice quite intentionally inverts Cicero, De Officiis I.39–41, as another famous declaration of Machiavelli’s, “amo la patria mia più dell’anima,” in the letter to Francesco Vettori of April 16, 1527 (Tutte le opere, 977), unintentionally echoes the orator: “Etenim, si mecum patria, quae mihi vita mea multo est carior” (In Catilinam I.27.11).

6. Cassirer, for example, insisted that Machiavelli is no fox in his writing: “If Machiavellism means deception or hypocrisy Machiavelli was no Machiavellian. He never was a hypocrite. When reading his familiar letters we are surprised to find a Machiavelli widely different from our conventional conceptions and prejudices; a man who speaks frankly, open-mindedly and with a certain ingenuousness. And what holds for the man, holds also for the author. This great teacher of political trickery and double crossing was perhaps one of the most sincere political writers. Talleyrand’s famous saying, ‘La parole a été donée à l’homme pour déguiser sa pensée,’ has often been admired as the very definition of the art of diplomacy. If this be true Machiavelli was anything but a diplomat.” Cassirer, Myth of the State, 120. Schmitt noted the same more succinctly of the erstwhile diplomat “who, had he been a Machiavellian, would sooner have written an edifying book than his ill-reputed Prince.” Schmitt, Concept of the Political, 66. By contrast, the most torturously subtle Machiavelli in history is certainly the figure who emerges from Leo Strauss’s Thoughts on Machiavelli.

7. For a summary of the varied interpretations of the fable, from omen or negative paradigm to allegorical readings, see Canevaro, Hesiod’s Works and Days, 56 n. 69.

8. This abhorrence of the false oath is consistent with the poet’s attitude in Theogony, where the breaking of the oath brings the worst of woes to human beings, and even the Olympians suffer severe punishment for the offence (Th. 231–32, 793–806). One may compare WD on this point with early Irish law and wisdom texts, where the false judgment of either a ruler (flaith) or a judge (brithem) brings dire consequences including failure of crops or cows’ milk, famine and plague. See Kelly, Guide to Early Irish Law, 18, 55; also 197. Watkins has explicitly compared the fearful consequences of violation of the “ruler’s truth” (fír flathemon, discussed by Kelly in Early Irish Law, 18) with WD 225–47 (noting also Indo-European parallels for the Old Irish concept). Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon, 206–7. The Irish law texts date mainly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and were compiled in the main between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries, but many of the laws, even those most obviously overlaid by Christian influence in the preceding three to four centuries, reference social institutions and reflect norms and beliefs of far greater antiquity (dating in some cases to the Common Celtic period, c. 1000 BCE; see Kelly, Early Irish Law, 231, 241). Hesiod, contemptuous of “gift-eating” lords, would have approved of the provision that “one of the three falsehoods which God most avenges on a túath [tribe or petty kingdom] is a false judgement secured by bribery” (Kelly, Early Irish Law, 55, 208). Kelly notes that “the best known legal decision of Irish tradition,” passed by Diarmait, King of Ireland as appointed arbiter, was repudiated by St. Colmcille (at least in later sources) as a claoinbhreith, a “crooked judgment” (239), semantically an exact equivalent of Hesiod’s skoliēisi dikēisin at WD 219, 250.

9. Compare further WD 247 with the reported fate of Hesiod’s murderers in Testimonium 2 in Most’s edition (Hesiod, 161).

10. Canevaro notes that the phrase phroneousi kai autois is difficult to construe, and was even emended by Verdenius, as it seems to indicate that the basileis know already whatever instruction the fable contains; Canevaro renders the phrase “and they consider by themselves.” (Hesiod’s Works and Days, 152). It is this difficulty we are here addressing. Hesiod seems here to anticipate a poetic topos, known from Pindar—who presents himself as a sophos, but speaking particularly to initiates, the sunetoi in his audience (Olympian II.83–86)—and echoed in Bacchylides III.85. (I owe this detail to a The European Legacy referee.)

11. There seems a clear connection between the flight to Olympus of Reverence (or Shame, Aidōs) and Nemesis, leaving Envy to stalk among men, along with the pains promised mankind, which closes the account of the iron race (WD 195–201), and the hawk’s assertion that the nightingale’s resistance will bring pain as well as disgrace or humiliation (WD 211). Only where the rapine practiced by the hawk is normalized—as in the age of iron—could defeat by a superior force be inherently and without qualification considered a disgrace. Ordinarily, not to resist in order to avoid pain would bring humiliation, while resistance would save pride (see Herodotus, Histories II.102.5); here, resistance does not alleviate humiliation. Shame, like Strife (WD 11–24), has a dual character which can harm or benefit men (WD 318); it restrains them, for example, from the rapacity which ensues when Shamelessness drives away Shame (Aidōs, WD 320–24). See too the description of the deeds of the iron race (WD 182–87) with those which are said to enrage Zeus at WD 327–34.

12. Leclerc, “L’épervier et le rossignol,” 44.

13. There is a closely related biblical narrative concerning King Ahab’s desire for the vineyard of Naboth, confiscation of which the queen Jezebel arranges through false testimony against Naboth for which this last is killed, his property passing to the King, and the subsequent punishment of Ahab’s crime (1 Kings 21ff.). In both stories, a king is party to a conspiracy against one of his subjects, with the intention of taking for himself what rightly belongs to the subject. In both cases deceit is used to destroy the subject that bars the way to the king’s desire. In both cases, a prophet is sent by Yahweh to announce his displeasure at the deed, promising retribution against the king in the destruction of his progeny. Both kings are accused directly by the prophet of having killed their loyal subject, though both pass the act of murder onto others. The life of the king himself is in each instance spared owing to his repentance, but his expiation will come in the suffering of his generations and the decline or destruction of his house.

14. Bonnafé equates the nightingale with Justice, observing symmetries between the description of the weaker bird and the image (Bonnafé says “allegory”) of weeping Justice (WD 219–24). This is called “the key” to the fable, explaining certain of its features which otherwise create difficulties. She notes that each figure weeps (the nightingale “cried piteously”), and is said to be carried or dragged off by their oppressors. The analogy however is “only apparent and temporary,” for, while the nightingale is ill served in the fable, we are told explicitly that Justice will win out in the end. Bonnafé, “Le rossignol et la justice,” 260–64.

15. Ex. 20:5, 34.6−7; Lev. 26:39; Num. 14:18, 18:1; Deut. 5:9; Lam. 5:7; Is. 65:7; Jer. 32:18; compare Neh. 9:2; Is. 14:21; Dan. 9:16. This infamous biblical assertion, which makes its first appearance with the announcement of the Decalogue, is consistent with archaic law, and is simply to be read as an articulation of the principle of attainder: the eldest male of a family in a society with a patriarchal structure rules and is responsible for a household, and he will reap the harvest of their misdeeds, as his offspring and their spouses or children will suffer for his own. The apparent specification of “the third and fourth generation” simply reflects what the writer envisages as the maximum probable number of generations living together. See Clements, Exodus: Commentary, 124. Similarly, Kelly, in Early Irish Law, notes that the derbfhine or “true kin-group” in Irish law comprises “all descendants through the male line of the same great-grandfather” (12, 157).

16. Machiavelli, Il Principe, 32; The Prince, 52.

17. Machiavelli, Il Principe, 6; The Prince, 4.

18. Machiavelli, Castruccio Castracani da Lucca, 451.

19. It is usually assumed that the most consummate prince in the book is the highborn and well-supported Cesare Borgia, and not those “criminal” princes of Chapter 8. Machiavelli’s praise of Cesare in The Prince and elsewhere notwithstanding, I believe this is wrong, not least because all of the “criminal” aspects of Oliverotto’s and Agathocles’ careers are shared by and praised in other princes discussed in the book (this has often been observed), and because the language of the chapter in fact constantly mitigates its apparent censure. Discussion of the point is of course beyond the scope of this article, but a nice detail concerning Cesare’s titles in The Prince one may find amusing and illuminating: Borgia is referred to by the popular name Duke Valentino in The Prince on occasions when he appears as the beneficiary of the policies and ambitions of Pope Alexander VI, and hence a beneficiary of Fortuna, or even as the agent or representative of his father’s interests (Il Principe, 12, 17, 27; The Prince, 14, 23, 41). In those passages where his virtue and personal ability, his willingness to conquer Fortuna, are emphasized, he bears the name Cesare Borgia and not the popular epithet (Il Principe, 22, 31, 46; The Prince, 32, 49, 75–76). That he appears occasionally reducible to an agent or a tool of his father’s ambition is reinforced by Machiavelli’s claim that one of Louis XII’s mistakes was to aid Alexander VI in conquering the Romagna (Il Principe, 11; The Prince, 12)—a campaign that was actually undertaken by Cesare Borgia. The very title “Duke Valentino,” or Duke of Valentenois, carries the mark of the favor of Louis, and hence of Cesare’s indebtedness to Fortune or the favor of others.

20. On the subject of indirect teaching, one may recall that Machiavelli, while counseling that a prince must know how to imitate beasts, asserts that ancient writers taught as much “covertly” (copertamente), for example, by having many mythical princes and heroes be taught by the legendary centaur Chiron.