catch him in all these blunders?"

"Simply because both you and he are bound to be often in some such case;
both of you must take your meals sometime; both of you must sleep; your
men must scatter in the morning to satisfy the needs of nature, and,
for better for worse, whatever the roads are like, you will be forced
to make use of them. All these necessities you must lay to heart, and
wherever you are weaker, there you must be most on your guard, and
wherever your foe is most assailable, there you must press the attack."

[37] Then Cyrus asked, "And are these the only cases where one can apply
the great principle of greed, or are there others?"

"Oh, yes, there are many more; indeed in these simple cases any general
will be sure to keep good watch, knowing how necessary it is. But your
true cheat and prince of swindlers is he who can lure the enemy on
and throw him off his guard, suffer himself to be pursued and get the
pursuers into disorder, lead the foe into difficult ground and then
attack him there. [38] Indeed, as an ardent student, you must not
confine yourself to the lessons you have learnt; you must show yourself
a creator and discoverer, you must invent stratagems against the foe;
just as a real musician is not content with the mere elements of his
art, but sets himself to compose new themes. And if in music it is the
novel melody, the flower-like freshness, that wins popularity, still
more in military matters it is the newest contrivance that stands the
highest, for the simple reason that such will give you the best chance
of outwitting your opponent. [39] And yet, my son, I must say that if
you did no more than apply against human beings the devices you learnt
to use against the smallest game, you would have made considerable
progress in this art of overreaching. Do you not think so yourself?
Why, to snare birds you would get up by night in the depth of winter
and tramp off in the cold; your nets were laid before the creatures were
astir, and your tracks completely covered and you actually had birds of
your own, trained to serve you and decoy their kith and kin, while you
yourself lay in some hiding-place, seeing yet unseen, and you had learnt
by long practice to jerk in the net before the birds could fly away.
[40] Or you might be out after hares, and for a hare you had two breeds
of dogs, one to track her out by scent, because she feeds in the dusk
and takes to her form by day, and another to cut off her