Pagina 173 de 310

4. Without doubt princes become great when they overcome the

difficulties and obstacles by which they are confronted, and

therefore fortune, especially when she desires to make a new

prince great, who has a greater necessity to earn renown than an

hereditary one, causes enemies to arise and form designs against

him, in order that he may have the opportunity of overcoming

them, and by them to mount higher, as by a ladder which his

enemies have raised. For this reason many consider that a wise

prince, when he has the opportunity, ought with craft to foster

some animosity against himself, so that, having crushed it, his

renown may rise higher.