The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Chronicles #30 ｜ The Mandrake with Stelios Panagiotou

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome to this episode of Chronicles, where today we're going to be talking all about

00:00:18.320 The Mandrake by Niccolo Machiavelli. Yes, that Machiavelli. He also, it turns out,

00:00:25.320 wrote plays, comedies, in fact. And here today, joining me to talk all about the comedy of Machiavelli

00:00:32.980 is Stelios. Thank you for joining me, sir. You're welcome. I'm really looking forward to it. I have

00:00:38.580 to say that I hadn't read the play, and you suggested us to do it, and I said yes. Yes,

00:00:44.480 you did. And I really enjoyed it. It's great, isn't it? Well, I find that it's a facet of

00:00:50.580 Machiavelli that is really underappreciated. Obviously, you know, not saying that the stuff

00:00:56.780 that he's most well known for, the discourses and the prints and the art of war, that these things

00:01:01.540 aren't remarkable, you know, in their own right. But the fact that he also was able to write,

00:01:08.120 and also the thing to bear in mind, not just that he was able to write theatre, but theatre

00:01:13.120 that was successful. This sold really well. Lots and lots of people went to go and see

00:01:18.920 The Mandrake. It was performed for, got many, many years of performance out of it, even after

00:01:25.020 Machiavelli died. It was a very, very popular play. And, you know, it was quite a wit, that

00:01:31.400 Machiavelli. He was always cracking jokes. And that's a sign of intelligence. If you can make

00:01:36.380 it in two different, if you can make it in some cases, it's a sign that, you know, something's

00:01:42.000 going right, something's going well. But if you can make it in several genres, that's a

00:01:48.680 sign of intelligence. Right. And what's more as well, Machiavelli, at the time of this play,

00:01:54.320 had many personal reasons for doing all of the writing that he did. Because so historians and,

00:02:02.100 you know, people who still do this sort of thing professionally, generally concur that the play

00:02:08.560 was written any time between 1504 and 1518. Now, I actually think we can narrow that down a little

00:02:17.000 bit more. Because there are certain parts of the play that are very, very similar to a play called

00:02:25.800 The Calandria, which was published in 1513. And it seems far more likely that Machiavelli saw this,

00:02:33.720 performed at Urbino, and was perhaps inspired by it, than it was that the guy who wrote Calandria

00:02:40.220 just got to check in on what Machiavelli was working on. Right. So actually, that would make

00:02:47.020 sense. And what's more as well, we'll talk about when I read an extract, it seems that

00:02:51.640 Machiavelli wrote this play as a bit of a distraction for himself as well from the misfortune

00:02:59.020 that he was currently going through after the fall of the Florentine Republic under Pierre

00:03:05.220 Sodorini and the Medicis coming back into power, the head of the Spanish army, and obviously that

00:03:13.560 cratering Machiavelli's political career. And so he was right. Most of his writing came from that

00:03:20.540 period, of course, and the Mandrake seems to have been one of those such pieces.

00:03:26.000 I mean, you can get why he would want to do that. First of all, I think he was a kind of man of

00:03:31.840 affairs, but also a man of letters. So he was involved in diplomacy, unless I'm horribly

00:03:37.940 misremembering. Yeah, he was, yeah.

00:03:40.460 He was involved in the Florentine Republic, as you said. And people know, link Machiavelli with the

00:03:46.920 Prince. And the Prince is a sort of different, it isn't particularly Republican, a particularly

00:03:52.920 Republican text. But then he also has discourses on Livy, which is very Republican in several

00:04:00.760 respects. And there are several people who are saying that most probably Machiavelli was

00:04:07.100 a Republican at heart. He did have this realist perspective and this cold scientific approach

00:04:15.140 with respect to, you know, give me the time and a place and I'll tell you what you need to do.

00:04:20.720 Maybe you have a principality, maybe you have a republic. But it looks like discourses of Livy

00:04:28.240 is where his heart was, where his sentiments were. And he was involved in the Florentine Republic.

00:04:34.540 And then he had a tough time with the Medici's, I think. I think at some point he was tortured.

00:04:38.860 Yes, he was. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

00:04:40.120 Yes. And he was, I think he definitely had this burning desire to get involved into politics.

00:04:48.320 He was a participatory spirit. And even when the Republic fell, after a period he did want

00:04:56.080 to come back and say, right, it may not be my ideal thing, form of political organization,

00:05:03.600 but I do want to be present and give advice to the Medici's. But what is interesting, and I've always

00:05:11.840 found interesting with Machiavelli, and I won't bore you with this, is that the prince is always

00:05:19.400 supposed to be this handbook for how to gain power and maintain it. But the people he gives there as

00:05:26.080 examples of, you know, how to rule.

00:05:28.020 Like Cesare Borgia.

00:05:29.020 Yeah, I think he died like 36 years old.

00:05:31.440 Yeah. In a siege.

00:05:33.800 Yes.

00:05:34.160 Yeah.

00:05:34.600 Yeah.

00:05:34.960 So you kind of have to wonder whether he was actually sincere in the advice he was giving,

00:05:42.240 or whether he was actually saying, right, I'm going to give terrible advice to people,

00:05:47.180 so they become resentful.

00:05:48.320 Well, I do think that, obviously, as well, Machiavelli seems to have had his own personal

00:05:54.720 ambitions, right, his own personal sense of direction that he wanted to see not just Florence,

00:06:00.200 but the whole of Italy move into. And obviously, a lot of that was drawn up in the volatility

00:06:06.920 of Italy, you know, at the end of the 15th century, at the beginning of the 16th century,

00:06:12.600 with the Habsburgs preying down on them, and the French armies, you know, and all sorts

00:06:19.680 of betrayals that were going on. And obviously, Machiavelli is looking at that, he's looking

00:06:23.740 back towards antiquity, and the greatness of what he saw as a Roman Republic.

00:06:30.120 Yeah.

00:06:30.280 And obviously, I think that's where his Republican sympathies come from. And also just looking

00:06:36.160 at wanting a united Italy, but also just to do away with unworthy rulers, right? He's tired

00:06:46.660 of watching all of these great cities being let down by mediocrities.

00:06:52.320 Yeah.

00:06:52.720 Yeah.

00:06:53.200 That's a very interesting discussion here, because where exactly Republicanism features

00:06:58.340 in the history of ideas, especially post-Reformation, is a huge question. And if you look at the

00:07:05.640 language he uses when he talks about antiquity, it's very personal. So for instance, in the

00:07:10.600 very beginning of Discourses on Livy, he says, I think I can't wait to go back to my house

00:07:17.340 and just spend a few hours at night reading about antiquity. And he was saying that reading

00:07:23.880 about antiquity isn't just reading about something that will in any way will come back. It's reading

00:07:31.420 about something that you can actually exercise in the world of today.

00:07:35.800 Yes.

00:07:36.240 But when it comes to the world of the post-Reformation, and the Reformation started a bit later.

00:07:43.320 He was alive, but it's a bit later. It's a bit, you know, 1520 or something. 1517 was

00:07:48.540 towards the very end of his life.

00:07:50.220 Yes. But Machiavelli is insanely skeptical of wealth. It's understandable because in his own

00:07:58.540 mind, it was the Medici's who were, in a sense, part of the downfall of the Florentine Republic

00:08:05.480 and also part of corruption. And I think in the Mandrake, we do see this skepticism of wealth.

00:08:10.820 Very much so.

00:08:12.020 And what I'm saying so is that people go back to Machiavelli speaking pro-Republicanism,

00:08:17.100 but Machiavelli is also someone who is very much anti-wealth in some respects. He doesn't want

00:08:23.820 massive, you know, discrepancies of wealth or something. He does have, in a sense, some of

00:08:30.520 the old, you know, old Cato sentiment that wealth is what destroyed the Republic ultimately.

00:08:35.940 Yeah. What you were saying as well about Machiavelli wanting to sort of rehabilitate

00:08:42.140 the old Roman virtues as well, and the Roman practice of doing things, that is very much

00:08:48.640 reflected formally in the Mandrake as a play, because it adheres to the classical style of

00:08:57.560 writing. You know, it appeals to the Aristotelian unities of time, place and action. All of it happens

00:09:04.080 within 24 hours. All of it happens within basically the same location. You don't need to have lots of

00:09:10.040 changeovers and sets. And so all those things that I was actually talking about in the last Chronicles,

00:09:15.700 the way that Lopez Vega, the Spaniard, deconstructed those things and moved away from them. You can see

00:09:20.980 here Machiavelli adhering to that old classical form quite rigidly because of his love for it and all of

00:09:29.300 these sorts of things. So let's start talking about the play itself, shall we? Did you enjoy it?

00:09:35.060 Yes, I did. It was very funny. And I laughed and I very rarely laugh when I'm reading.

00:09:44.660 Yeah, I get that. Some people are a bit more... It comes easier to them, more naturally. But when

00:09:52.180 I'm reading, I usually don't laugh. And I did laugh in several places.

00:09:56.740 Right. Well, yeah, that's one thing to say. It is genuinely very funny. Everything is funny about it.

00:10:04.340 The premise of the play is funny. The characters themselves are funny. Machiavelli has... It's a five-act play,

00:10:10.980 but actually having said it's five-act, I'm not talking like Hamlet. It's actually quite a short play.

00:10:16.340 The different scenes are very, very brief. It kind of skips along and you can read it all in about two

00:10:22.100 hours. So let's start talking about what happens in Machiavelli's Mandrake. So you have this young man,

00:10:29.700 Calamaco, who is probably about 30. You know, he's in his early 30s. And he's lived... He is Italian by

00:10:38.020 birth. But he has lived for a many number of years over in Paris. And so he's been gone for a long time.

00:10:47.220 And actually, he was very, very happy in Paris. He was living off of some inherited wealth, but he was...

00:10:54.260 He was med-maxing. You know, he was just sort of like kicking his feet a bit. You know, he was doing a bit of study here,

00:10:59.540 a bit of work there. But, you know, he wasn't really... I think the point is that he wasn't pursuing

00:11:05.540 really anything in life single-mindedly. He wasn't really intensely trying to create a career or trying to really do anything.

00:11:15.060 The thing that makes Calamaco lock in is that he hears from a local Italian that this woman, 0.66

00:11:26.100 this noble woman, Lucrezia, is apparently the most beautiful woman to have ever lived. You know,

00:11:32.180 she is the modern Helen of Troy. You know, their contemporary Helen. And so Calamaco basically just

00:11:39.380 drops everything, decides to return to Florence so that he can see this woman for himself. And then on

00:11:45.860 seeing that, yeah, she's an absolute 10 out of 10, he begins to devise this entire plan to basically

00:11:54.580 figure out a way to sleep with her. That is a part of the play. He has noble motives.

00:12:00.420 Well, you know, he has understandable motives. He has understandable motives. The catch is,

00:12:07.620 of course, that this noble lady, Lucrezia, is not single. She's married to Mr. Nysia,

00:12:18.340 I think that's how you pronounce it, who is a lawyer, is an educated man, and he's a total oath,

00:12:25.620 right? He's genuinely one of the dimmest men you've ever seen, right? He's dry, he's humorless,

00:12:31.940 he's entirely without charisma. He's basically, I think the point that Machiavelli is trying to make

00:12:37.380 is that she is wasted on him, right? She is wasted on him. He goes full stupid. Yeah. Yeah, he goes full,

00:12:45.940 full retard. And so in order to help him with all of this, Calamaco has his actual servant, 0.97

00:12:55.380 Ciro, who I think is quite a nice character. You know, Machiavelli gets a lot of humor out of him,

00:13:00.900 to say he's one of the more minor characters. And also, most importantly, Ligurio, who is

00:13:09.460 kind of a fixer. You know, he's someone who is willing to... He's facilitating.

00:13:14.900 Yes. Yeah, he's a facilitator. He's a facilitator, yeah. Yeah, he's pimping for Calamaco. And the three

00:13:24.820 of them are going to work together to basically trick Nysia into allowing Calamaco to sleep with his 0.94

00:13:34.420 wife. Yeah. That's the entire premise of the play. Now, one thing to say about all of this is that

00:13:44.260 though the play works as a very, very raucous and, you know, immoral, let's just say it,

00:13:51.620 immoral comedy, there is, I think the way that Machiavelli portrays it, an added allegorical layer

00:13:58.420 to it. And this is, I'm not the first person to have this opinion. It's one that is debated,

00:14:05.860 but you know, that has definitely been posited. I mean, interestingly enough, if I just go to

00:14:11.460 my quotes section here, Peter Bondinello, who translated this particular copy that I have,

00:14:22.820 he, talking about this particular thing, said, although some critics have attempted to reduce

00:14:28.740 this marvellous comedy to the status of a political allegory, none of Machiavelli's contemporaries,

00:14:35.220 i.e. those best qualified to notice any allegorical content, viewed the play in this light. They all

00:14:42.340 considered it as an exemplary neoclassical comedy, intended solely to delight without containing a

00:14:49.540 political message. So they saw it as just pure apolitical comedy, you know, hearkening back to

00:14:55.700 those great ancient days of Terence and Plautus and all those sorts of plays. But did you read political

00:15:03.620 overlay to it? I saw more social layers to it than political, because he definitely talks about

00:15:11.060 corruption and hints at corrupt institutions and corrupt people, but it doesn't give any kind

00:15:19.140 of answer to questions such as, you know, what's the best form of organizations or political

00:15:26.020 organization to have. So on that basis, I found it to be a much more social thing. He did say that,

00:15:33.780 for instance, some priests are corrupt. Yeah, he definitely did. Or that some family members

00:15:40.740 go about loving their children in a weird way. But I didn't see any overt political messages.

00:15:49.620 Yeah. But all of the characters in this play...

00:15:56.100 You could say there could be an implicit one in that, for instance, he could say, well,

00:16:02.020 we were virtuous before. And for him, virtue means something different to the classical national

00:16:09.300 virtue. It doesn't have the justice part of the four cardinal virtues, but it does have identification

00:16:14.580 with the republic and placing the common good of the republic above your own good as a personal,

00:16:21.460 as an individual. He could be saying that, well, now that we're not a republic anymore,

00:16:29.620 everyone's corrupt, even the priest. I don't know if he was that naive, because I don't think that in

00:16:36.100 the Florentine Republic, there wasn't such a thing as corruption or something. No, no, definitely not.

00:16:40.820 Very unlikely. But it's not something that it's beyond... It's not particularly weird if he made that argument.

00:16:49.860 Hmm. And well, one thing to actually say about that as well, and whether or not it's critiquing

00:16:55.300 the Florentine Republic or the Medici oligarchy, is that the play itself is actually set in 1504.

00:17:03.060 So it's set during the time of the republic, though, of course, there are obvious reasons

00:17:07.460 Machiavelli might be doing that just to distance himself from any critiques that he may have of the

00:17:13.140 Medici's. And all of the characters within this play are all motivated entirely by self-interest,

00:17:21.060 entirely by self-interest. And not only are they all motivated by self-interest, there is not really

00:17:29.220 any reflection from those characters or pause for thought on whether or not they should pivot or change

00:17:38.340 course against what they're doing. Kalimako, outside of concern for the consequences of what

00:17:47.220 should happen to him if it were to go wrong, never really has any moral question about what he's doing.

00:17:55.540 As far as he's concerned, this is a beautiful woman. She's wasted on him. I am,

00:18:01.300 you know, I am the prince, right? Kalimako kind of embodies a lot of the qualities that Machiavelli

00:18:09.300 speaks about in the prince. In that way, I think the Mandrake is kind of a dark comedy companion piece

00:18:17.220 to the prince in some ways. If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters,

00:18:22.420 head to our website where you can find more.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - January 17, 2026

PREVIEW： Chronicles #30 ｜ The Mandrake with Stelios Panagiotou

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