<Snipped quote by OldManWong>
Its "Its better to be loved and feared, but if you had to choose one, its better to be feared". However the Italian word used for fear was temuto, from the latin timuerunt, that doesn't translate well to fear, after all, its common in latin countries to say that word in relation to their devotion to god. Its not a fear in the sense of "My liege is cruel and will behead me" its like "My liege is wise and bad things will happen if I stray from his way"
t.Person who made a whole work about this crap in college
If I could read in Latin, I would. For now, I'll have to settle with the arbitrary English translation.
Fear itself, I feel is an extremely broad term that could encompass both fear of cruelty and fear of competency; however, I also agree the meaning was somewhat lost in the translation.
I'm assuming that the kind of fear 'temuto' is may be closer to the 'fear of God' as meant in 'piety' - it is not 'I'm scared of God 'cause he's cruel and will behead me' but more 'God is wise and bad things will happen if I stray from his way'.
But it would have been weird if they translated it as 'have piety towards your King' due to the religious connotations around that word int he English tongue. In other languages 'piety' can in fact be used with regards to temporal, non-spiritual things.
