《君主论·第三章·混合君主国》第10节
The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men always do so when they can, and for this they will be praised not blamed; but when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means, then there is folly and blame. Therefore, if France could have attacked Naples with her own forces she ought to have done so; if she could not, then she ought not to have divided it. And if the partition which she made with the Venetians in Lombardy was justified by the excuse that by it she got a foothold in Italy, this other partition merited blame, for it had not the excuse of that necessity. Therefore Louis made these five errors: he destroyed the minor powers, he increased the strength of one of the greater powers in Italy, he brought in a foreign power, he did not settle in the country, he did not send colonies. Which errors, had he lived, were not enough to injure him had he not made a sixth by taking away their dominions from the Venetians; because, had he not aggrandized the Church, nor brought Spain into Italy, it would have been very reasonable and necessary to humble them; but having first taken these steps, he ought never to have consented to their ruin, for they, being powerful, would always have kept off others from designs on Lombardy, to which the Venetians would never have consented except to become masters themselves there; also because the others would not wish to take Lombardy from France in order to give it to the Venetians, and to run counter to both they would not have had the courage.
注释摘要
在这一段里，马基雅维利把路易十二在意大利的整个冒险作了一次总结性的清算。他先提出一个通则：想要获取更多领土，本身就是人之常情，只要力所能及，这样做不但不会被指责，反而会赢得赞誉；真正愚蠢且该受谴责的，是明明力量不够，却还不择手段硬要去夺取。他用这把尺子来衡量路易十二的两桩大买卖：一桩是在伦巴第与威尼斯人瓜分米兰公国，另一桩是在那不勒斯与西班牙国王瓜分王国。…