Miss Addams, you disappointed me with your last answer. Oddly, it was wrong.
The correct answer to my last riddle was ‘The Judge’s House.’ Dark, dreadful, deliciously fitting for you, don’t you think? Wrong or not, you wear mystery like a second skin. Let’s test it further—riddle me this:
"Deception in bloom, a potion to drink,
A woman’s fate sealed with a wink.
Not power, not crown, but desire’s disguise—
Tell me, Addams, in which tale the trick lies?"
I've been paying attention to your blog, reading each post carefully. Here's a riddle based on one of your favorite writers: Machiavelli.
Machiavelli fascinates me. So adored for The Prince—a manual of power, of masks and daggers—but his truest self lies hidden in his lesser works. Plays, discourses, little essays where he slips the veil and shows what he really believed: that humanity bends so easily to deceit, because it wants to.
Now tell me, Addams—do you know which tale I speak of?
Do enjoy your moment of triumph; it reveals more about your need to be right than it does about my infallibility.
The answer, of course, is La Mandragola, Machiavelli's comedy of lust and deceit. Hardly subtle, but effective in its illustration of how desire rots judgment quicker than poison.
If you expected me to falter again, you underestimate me. That, as Machiavelli himself might warn you, is a fatal mistake.
I look forward to seeing the point in all of this. Tick tock.
