Essays on the Literary Works, edited by Vickie B. Sullivan
Introduction
Some scholars see Machiavelli as having a tragic view of life where fortune has the final say: Hanna Pitkin, Wayne A. Rebhorn, Giorgio Barberi-Squarotti. p. xii
This view is rejected by Leo Strauss and Harvey Mansfield, who see him as ushering in "new modes and orders" of modernity. p. xiii
Because Machiavelli does not recognize the invulnerability of superhuman forces that can render human life tragic and because he teachers others to scoff at high moral claims, the denial of tragedy brings a hopeful - even comedic - aspect not only to his lighter works but to his political works as well. Strauss declares that "the spirit of comedy, not to say levity, is not absent from his two most serious books" p. xiii
[Note 18: Strauss p. 40]
Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, p. 40:
Gravity and levity are combined in the Discourses and the Prince, as they were in Machiavelli himself [see his letter to Vettori, 13 Jan 1514, note 46]:
If it is true that every complete society necessarily recognizes something about which it is absolutely forbidden to laugh [note 47 - Nietszche], we may say that the determination to transgress that prohibition sanza alcuno rispetto, is of the essence of Machiavelli's intention. p. 40
Nietzsche, The Gay Science: https://philoslugs.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/the-gay-science-friedrich-nietzsche.pdf
Machiavelli encourages this divergence of view in Discourses 2.5. p. xiv
1. The Cuckold in Mandragola, by Harvey Mansfield
...as the play proceeds, it subordinates Callimaco to the childless couple and makes his desire a means to the realization of theirs. At the end both he and they get what they want. But at the beginning, Lucrezia too is prevented by the moral law against adultery from having a child by going outside her marriage for the insemination. She is persuaded that the good end of having a child excuses the evil means by which it is got. Having a child is more serious and reputable than merely making a conquest; so Callimaco's lighthearted ambition is justified by an end outside itself. The question, then, in the Mandragola is not whether we have the strength to hold to morality in a difficult situation, but whether we should even try to do so. In the play Machiavelli suggests that we have neither the strength nor the obligation. And instead of restating the opposition of love to morality, he offers a reconciliation between them. p. 3
Livy's Rape of Lucretia: her sacrifice = inspiration for a republic,
a form of government that puts lawfulness or morality ahead of advantage and tyrannical passion. In its respect for morality and the law, republican virtue breathes the spirit of chastity, a seemingly nonpolitical virtue of withdrawal. p. 3
Machiavelli refers to the rape of Lucretia as an "accident" [in the Aristotelian sense?], "error," and an "excess," and merely a pretext for Junius Brutus to overthrow the Tarquins.
Machiavelli suggests that Tarquinus Superbus could have survived had he had the wit and ruthlessness to sacrifice his son:
Butus's conspiracy to found the Roman republic could have been anticipated by a counterconspiracy to save the Tarquins. p. 4
Public morality (nomos) is what one is not permitted to laugh at in public,
Callimaco's plot is a conspiracy against society's conventions, and Machiavelli's play makes us laugh at those conventions. If we reflect, it inclines us to question them. p. 5
In the Discourses, Machiavelli says that Junius Brutus used the rape of Lucretia for the public purpose of founding the Roman republic. But he hints that Brutus also used the rape of Lucretia for the private purpose of making himself the founder of the Roman republic. (In Livy's original version of the event, Brutus's private motive is actually more explicit than in Machiavelli's account.) p. 5 [Note 18: Discourses 3. 2]
Machiavelli, Discourses 3.2: That It Is a Very Wise Thing to Simulate Craziness at the Right Time
There was never anyone so prudent nor esteemed so wise for any eminent work of his than Junius Brutus deserves to be held for his simulation of stupidity. Although Titus Livy expresses but one cause that induced him to such simulation, which was to be able to live more securely and to maintain his patrimony, nonetheless when his mode of proceeding is considered, it can be believed that he also simulated this to be less observed and to have more occasion for crushing the kings and freeing his own fatherland whenever opportunity would be given him. That he thought of this may be seen... when over the dead Lucretia he was the first among her father and husband and other relatives to draw the knife from the wound and to make the bystanders swear that they would never endure that in the future anyone should reign in Rome. Discourses 3.2 [following Livy, I 58-59]
In Mandragola, everybody gets what everybody wants:
These excellent results would not be possible if the appearances were not preserved, if Machiavelli did not reestablish the obedience of his characters to the law, in the wide sense of nomos, that they had violated. p. 6
One of his [Machiavelli's] lessons is that, contrary to the moral philosophers of our day, morality always comes in a specific version... if for no other reason than that morality needs respectability, and what is respectable varies. p. 6
The Mandragola presents a private conspiracy to "rape" Lucrezia that parallels and parodies Machiavelli's interpretation of the founding of the Roman republic. It explains why the overthrow of tyranny does not do away with tyranny but rather comes by means of tyranny and reinstates tyranny. Or is tyranny the wrong word for morality which keeps us from getting what we want? More moderately, one can say the play shows why it is necessary to overthrow an old law and its regime and to establish a new law and a new regime. It is not sufficient merely to overthrow. Machiavelli presents the case for freer sex in the Mandragola but emphatically not for a sexual revolution, in the current sense, that would overthrow all hypocritical notions of fidelity and shame. That is the meaning of the comic domestication of adultery in the play.
Yet the new regime is not the same as the old... there is a revolution in the new attitude toward trust that it portrays. p. 6-7
Trust is the theme of Mandragola. Ordinary trust is betrayed, but the trust of coconspirators holds:
When a thing does good for an individual, you have to believe that when you tell him about it, he will serve you with faith. Mandragola 1.1 [Callimaco]