The Prince

The Prince (Italian: Il Principe [il ˈprintʃipe]) is a 16th-century political treatise by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From correspondence a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, De Principatibus (About Principalities). However, the printed version was not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. This was done with the permission of the Medici pope Clement VII, but "long before then, in fact since the first appearance of The Prince in manuscript, controversy had swirled about his writings".

Although it was written as if it were a traditional work in the mirrors for princes style, it is generally agreed that it was especially innovative. This is only partly because it was written in the vernacular Italian rather than Latin, a practice which had become increasingly popular since the publication of Dante's Divine Comedy and other works of Renaissance literature.

The Prince is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, especially modern political philosophy, in which the effective truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal. It was also in direct conflict with the dominant Catholic and scholastic doctrines of the time concerning how to consider politics and ethics.

The Prince (1996 film)

The Prince is a 1996 Malayalam film starring Mohanlal. It was Tamil director Suresh Krishna's debut in the Malayalam industry and his next venture after the Tamil blockbuster Baasha. After three consecutive blockbusters with Tamil superstar Rajinikanth, Suresh Krishna wanted to direct Malayalam superstar Mohanlal, and Mohanlal agreed to do the film. However, the film was a miserable failure at the box office. The music was scored by Deva.

Plot

It was a story of the other side of a Mafia family. Jeeva (Mohanlal), son of a Don (Girish Karnad), falls in love with Swarna, daughter of a famous Carnatic singer named Vishwanath. He hides the truth of his family background from her to win her love. But then one fine day she comes to know and shocked beyond disbelief, uses silence as her weapon to bring him to confess his situation. How Jeeva goes through trials and tribulations of saving his love on one side and law of the mafia on the other side forms the theme of the film. Prakash Raj plays the role of the villan.

The Prince (song)

"The Prince" is a song by British ska/pop band Madness. It was written by Lee Thompson, and was the band's first single. On 10 August 1979 the single was released through 2 Tone Records and peaked at number 16 in the UK Singles Chart, spending a total of 11 weeks in the charts.

Although bearing similarities to Willie Dixon's "Howlin' for My Baby" as performed by Howlin' Wolf, "The Prince" is a tribute to Jamaican ska singer Prince Buster who highly influenced Madness (the band took their name from one of his songs, "Madness", which they covered on the b-side of "The Prince").

Music video

As this was the band's first single, they were relatively unknown prior to the release. Due to this fact, no music video was filmed for the single. However, the band later bought the rights to a performance on Top of the Pops from 6 September 1979. This performance has since become associated with the single, and has featured on compilations featuring the band's music videos.

Different recordings