Then what do you consider the thing to be done?
You’re very far from understanding me
if you gather I’m suggesting you should be less
responsive to the promptings of divinity
by which kings reign, princes decree justice.
But the heavens do not hear such oaths as are forced.
What you must call the truth could have never been told,
else you’d have died an unnatural death.
It’s simply in line with what you wished to teach them –
how to build, through precepts, a harmony of state,
how to reward the good, punish the bad,
and decree in accordance with great principles.
Think of it as the very summit of your thought –
nay, the axle-rod of your ambition:
to tell a lie with perfect equanimity.
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