matter. This is no easy task, I can tell you. If your general is to
succeed he must prove himself an arch-plotter, a king of craft, full
of deceits and stratagems, a cheat, a thief, and a robber, defrauding
and overreaching his opponent at every turn."

"Heavens!" said Cyrus, and burst out laughing, "is this the kind of
man you want your son to be!" "I want him to be," said the father, "as
just and upright and law-abiding as any man who ever lived." [28] "But
how comes it," said his son, "that the lessons you taught us in
boyhood and youth were exactly opposed to what you teach me now?"
"Ah," said the father, "those lessons were for friends and fellow-
citizens, and for them they still hold good, but for your enemies--do
you not remember that you were also taught to do much harm?"

"No, father," he answered, "I should say certainly not."

"Then why were you taught to shoot? Or to hurl the javelin? Or to trap
wild-boars? Or to snare stags with cords and caltrops? And why did you
never meet the lion or the bear or the leopard in fair fight on equal
terms, but were always trying to steal some advantage over them? Can
you deny that all that was craft and deceit and fraud and greed?"

[29] "Why, of course," answered the young man, "in dealing with
animals, but with human beings it was different; if I was ever
suspected of a wish to cheat another, I was punished, I know, with
many stripes."

"True," said the father, "and for the matter of that we did not permit
you to draw bow or hurl javelin against human beings; we taught you
merely to aim at a mark. But why did we teach you that? Not so that