“Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.”
~ Machiavelli, The Prince
I’ve dipped my toes into Machiavelli via Dr. Maurizio Viroli. Here is an adaptation of the proverb that inspired the above line in The Prince.
The birds chirped in their cage in the corner as the evening sun shined through the single window of this simple country cottage. They fell silent as the red clay walls reflected a dire hue over the familiar scene they knew would soon unfold. The birds huddled together in their cage, quietly awaiting the return of the farmer.
Every day, for as long as the birds could recall, the farmer would return in the evening and retrieve a single bird from the cage in the corner of the room. He would walk to the other corner of the room, perfectly lit in the red light of the setting sun, and strangle the bird to death. This evening would be no different.
The farmer returned, set his coat on the back of the one chair at this table, and walked over the cage of birds in the corner of the room. As he had done for as long as the birds could remember, he gently unlatched and opened the cage, tenderly grasped a single bird, then closed and latched the cage as gently as he had opened it. He walked to the far corner of the room, and adopted the practiced, firm stance facing the window that framed perfectly the setting sun. With his hands around the bird’s tiny neck he leaned in as his shoulders drew forward and his arms tensed.
The birds in the cage watched helplessly as they had many times before. They asked one another the same questions: “How does he choose? Is it random? Will I be next?” But on this evening, a new thought, not quite a question, arose from one of the younger birds.
“He weeps! Look at his eyes. He’s crying. The poor man.” The birds noted the tears streaming down the rough skin of the farmer’s face. They discussed the teary eyed farmer, how terrible this task must be for him, how burdened he must be. They were taken with compassion for this man who must be only a servant to some greater purpose.
A free bird had flown in to perch at the open window. “Yet look at his hands,” said the free bird. “Indeed he is crying, and appears goodly natured, but let us judge him by the work of his hands.”