The Game of Chess

Hate falsehood at all times, as Solomon says here: "Truth original: "Warhait" is contemplated by my throat and my lips, rejecting the unrighteous." A paraphrase of Proverbs 8:7: "For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips." And since the king original: "chüungt" in his office is like unto God, so should he be noted for virtues and for constant integrity. warhait: In this context, it refers not just to "truth" in speech, but to "truth" in character—reliability, keeping one's word, and moral consistency.

Thus did Alexander [the Great], as Valerius Valerius Maximus, a 1st-century Roman author whose collection of historical anecdotes was a standard textbook for moral education in the Middle Ages. writes of him: that he had earnestly intended to destroy a city named Lampsacus. original: "Lappacus." Lampsacus was an ancient Greek city on the Hellespont. And when he came before the city with a great army, there went out of the city a great master named Anaximenes, who had previously been his teacher, and he wanted to plead with him for the city, that he might forget his anger toward it.

And before he [the master] could make his request, the king wanted to thwart the petition, and he swore that whatever the master might ask of him, he would not grant it. Immediately, the master asked the king that he should break and destroy the city. And since the king had sworn that he would grant him nothing, he immediately departed from the city and became merciful to it again, for he did not want to violate his word. original: "sein warhait nicht vberuaren"

And regarding this, Quintilian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, a Roman rhetorician. says that for a high-ranking man and a prince, a single word unvältig wort: a simple, straightforward promise or statement that he breaks is a worse thing than a merchant [breaking] an oath. And for the third thing, the king should [be/have] his good...