Originall of Speech. The Invention of Printing, though ingenious, compared with the Speech. invention of Letters, is no great matter. But who was the first that found the use of Letters, is not known. He that first brought them into Greece, men say was Cadmus, the sonne of Agenor, King of Phaenicia. A profitable Invention for continuing the memory of time past, and the conjunction of mankind, dispersed into so many, and distant regions of the Earth; and with all difficult, as proceeding from a watchfull observation of the divers motions of the Tongue, Palat, Lips, and other organs of Speech; whereby to make as many differences of characters, to remember them. But the most noble and profitable invention of all other, was that of Speech, consisting of Names or Appellations, and their Connexion; whereby men register their Thoughts; recall them when they are past; and also declare them one to another for mutuall utility and conversation; without which, there had been amongst men, neither Common-wealth, nor Society, nor Contract, nor Peace, no more than amongst Lyons, Bears, and Wolves. The first author of Speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as he presented to his sight; For the Scripture goeth no further in this matter.

Liberty what.

Liberty, or Freedome, signifieth (properly) the absence of Opposition; (by Opposition, I mean externall Impediments of motion;) and may be applyed no lesse to Irrationall, and Inanimate creatures, than to Rationall. For whatsoever is so tyed, or environed, as it cannot move, but within a certain space, which space is determined by the opposition of some externall body, we say it hath not Liberty to go further. And so of all living creatures, whilest they are imprisoned, or restrained, with walls, or chayns; and of the water whilest it is kept in by banks, or vessels, that otherwise would spread it selfe into a larger space, we use to say, they are not at Liberty, to move in such manner, as without those externall impediments they would. But when the impediment of motion, is in the constitution of the thing it selfe, we use not to say, it wants the Liberty; but the Power to move; as when a stone lyeth still, or a man is fastned to his bed by sicknesse.

What it is to be Free.

And according to this proper, and generally received meaning of the word, A Free-Man, is he, that in those thing?, which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindred to doe what he has a will to.

The definition of Punishment.

A Punishment, is an Evill inflicted by publique Authorityy on him that hath done, or omitted that which is Judged by the same Authority to be a Transgression of the Law; to the end that the will of men may thereby the better be disposed to obedience.

Right to Punish whence derived.

Before I inferre any thing from this definition, there is a question to be answered, of much importance; which is, by what door the Right, or Authority of Punishing in any case, came in. For by that which has been said before, no man is supposed bound by Covenant, not to resist violence; and consequently it cannot be intended, that he gave any right to another to lay violent hands upon his person. In the making of a Common-wealth, every man giveth away the right of defending another; but not of defending himselfe. Also he obligeth himselfe, to assist him that hath the Soveraignty, in the Punishing of another; but of himselfe not. But to covenant to assist the Soveraign, in doing hurt to another, unlesse he that so covenanteth have a right to doe it himselfe, is not to give him a Right to Punish. It is manifest therefore that the Right which the Common-wealth (that is, he, or they that represent it) hath to Punish, is not grounded on any concession, or gift of the Subjects.

Three parts of the Office of Christ

We find in Holy Scripture three parts of the Office of the Messiah: The first of a Redeemer, or Saviour. The second of a Pastor, Counsellor, or Teacher, that is, of a Prophet sent from God, to convert such as God hath elected to Salvation: The third of a King, an eternall King, but under his Father, as Moses and the High Priests were in their severall times. And to these three parts are correspondent three times. For our Redemption he *wrought it* at his first coming, by the Sacrifice, wherein he offered up himself for our sinnes upon the Crosse: our Conversion he wrought partly then in his own Person; and partly worketh now by his Ministers; and will continue to work till his coming again. And after his coming again, shall begin that his glorious *Reign* over his elect, which is to last eternally.

His Office as a Redeemer

To the Office of a Redeemer, that is, of one that payeth the Ransome of Sin, (which Ransome is Death,) it appertaineth, that he was Sacrificed, and thereby bare upon his own head, and carryed away from us our iniquities, in such sort as God had required. Not that the death of one man, though without sinne, can satisfie for the offences of all men, in the rigour of Justice, but in the Mercy of God, that ordained such Sacrifices for sin, as he was pleased in his mercy to accept.

Religion, in Man onely

Seeing there are no signes, nor fruit of Religion, but in Man onely; there is no cause to doubt, but that the seed of Religion, is also onely in Man; and consisteth in some peculiar quality, or at least in some eminent degree thereof, not to be found in other Living creatures.

First, from his desire of knowing Causes

And first, it is peculiar to the nature of Man, to be inquisitive into the Causes of the Events they see, some more, some lesse; but all men so much, as to be curious in the search of the causes of their own good and evill fortune.

From the consideration of the Begining of things

Secondly, upon the sight of any thing that hath a Beginning, to think also it had a cause, which determined the same to begin, then when it did, rather than sooner or later.

From his observation of the Sequell of things

Thirdly, whereas there is no other Felicity of Beasts, but the enjoying of their quotidian Food, Ease, and Lusts; as having little, or no foresight of the time to come, for want of observation, and memory of the order, consequence, and dependance of the things they see; Man observeth how one Event hath been produced by another; and remembreth in them Antecedence and Consequence; And when he cannot assure himselfe of the true causes of things, (for the causes of good and evill fortune for the most part are invisible,) he supposes causes of them, either such as his own fancy suggesteth; or trusteth to the Authority of other men, such as he thinks to be his friends, and wiser than himselfe.

A Miracle is a work that causeth Admiration.

By Miracles are signified the Admirable works of God: & therefore they are also called Wonders. And because they are for the most part, done, for a signification of his commandement, in such occasions, as without them, men are apt to doubt, (following their private naturall reasoning,) what he hath commanded, and what not, they are commonly in Holy Scripture, called Signes, in the same sense, as they are called by the Latines, Ostenta, and Portenta, from shewing, and foresignifying that, which the Almighty is about to bring to passe.

And must therefore be rare, and whereof there is no naturall cause known.

To understand therefore what is a Miracle, we must first understand what works they are, which men wonder at, and call Admirable. And there be but two things which make men wonder at any event: The one is, if it be strange, that is to say, such, as the like of it hath never, or very rarely been produced: The other is, if when it is produced, we cannot imagine it to have been done by naturall means, but onely by the immediate hand of God. But when wee see some possible, naturall cause of it, how rarely soever the like has been done; or if the like have been often done, how impossible soever it be to imagine a naturall means thereof, we no more wonder, nor esteem it for a Miracle.

‘He shut the lions' mouths, and they did not harm me, for in his sight righteousness was found in me.’

At the beginning of this work it was proposed to inquire into three questions, within the limits allowed by the subject-matter; the first two of them have been dealt with sufficiently, I believe, in the previous books. Now it remains to deal with the third, the truth of which cannot be brought to light without putting certain people to shame, and will therefore perhaps be a cause of some resentment against me. But since truth from its unchangeable throne implores us, and Solomon too, entering the forest of Proverbs, teaches us by his own example to meditate on truth and loathe wickedness; and since our authority on morals, Aristotle, urges us to destroy what touches us closely for the sake of maintaining truth; then having taken heart from the words of Daniel cited above, in which divine power is said to be a shield of the defenders of truth, and putting on ‘the breast-plate of faith’ as Paul exhorts us, afire with that burning coal which one of the seraphim took from the heavenly altar to touch Isaiah's lips, I shall enter the present arena, and, by his arm who freed us from the power of darkness with his blood, before the eyes of the world I shall cast out the wicked and the lying from the ring.

‘Why have the nations raged, and the peoples meditated vain things? The kings of the earth have arisen, and the princes have gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. Let us burst their chains and cast their yoke from us.’

When confronted with an unfamiliar phenomenon whose cause we do not comprehend we usually feel amazement; and equally, when we do understand the cause, we look down almost mockingly on those who continue to be amazed. For my own part, I used once to be amazed that the Roman people had set themselves as rulers over the whole world without encountering any resistance, for I looked at the matter only in a superficial way and I thought that they had attained their supremacy not by right but only by force of arms. But when I penetrated with my mind's eye to the heart of the matter and understood through unmistakable signs that this was the work of divine providence, my amazement faded and a kind of scornful derision took its place, on seeing how the nations raged against the supremacy of the Roman people, on seeing the peoples meditate vain things, as I myself once did; and I grieved too that kings and princes should be united only in this one thing: in opposing their Lord and his Anointed, the Roman prince.

The translation

The difficulties posed by translating a text like the Monarchy are considerable. Dante's language is concise and vigorous, yet dense with philosophical implications: to find a balance between literal translation and explanatory paraphrase is a constant challenge. I have tried to keep as close to the original text as seemed consistent with modern English usage, preferring to clarify in notes rather than to stray too far from Dante's formulations, and avoiding (I hope) the ponderousness (and even occasional opacity) of some earlier versions, qualities which seem to me entirely alien to Dante's style.

The translation is based on the Latin text printed in the Cambridge Medieval Classics edition of the Monarchia, which in its turn is based on the text established by Pier Giorgio Ricci in his 1965 edition of the treatise, emended in some forty odd places. Most of these emendations do not affect the meaning: a small group of substantive changes (concentrated at the end of Book II, chapter x) is described in ‘Some proposed emendations to the text of Dante's Monarchica’, in Italian Studies 50, 1995, pp. 1–8. Where Ricci's text diverges from Rostagno's earlier edition (see Bibliographical note), the present translation will differ from earlier English versions. The critical edition of the Latin text of the Monarchy which I am currently preparing, and which will be published under the auspices of the Società Dantesca Italiana, will include a full critical apparatus and an exhaustive discussion of the textual situation.

Why read the Monarchy, Dante's treatise on political theory? A minor work by one of the world's great poets, written in the moribund language which he wisely rejected in favour of the vernacular when writing at full creative pressure, argued in a manner which can seem needlessly pedantic and repetitive in its procedures and its formulations, it expresses ideas which have been described as backward-looking, Utopian and even fanatical. Yet a recent book on the political thought of the period can unselfconsciously refer to the Monarchy as a masterpiece, and it is surely a text of remarkable interest. The originality and power of the political vision it embodies, the passion with which that vision is experienced and expressed, shine through the alien language and the alienating methodology. The small effort the text requires of its modern readers is amply repaid by the sense it conveys of a man passionately engaged in the political debates of his age, but equally passionate in his determination that the pressure of present concerns should not blind us to underlying principles. Only a grasp of universal truths about human beings and human life will furnish an answer to the fundamental question of how people should live together and what form of political organization best suits human nature.

The attempt to argue from first principles is one of the most strikingly original aspects of the Monarchy, but it is not a work of ivory-tower idealism, of theory divorced from political experience.