CHAPTER I
OF THE INCONSTANCY OF OUR ACTIONS
CHAPTER II
OF DRUNKENNESS
CHAPTER III
A CUSTOM OF THE ISLE OF CEA
CHAPTER IV
TO-MORROW'S A NEW DAY
CHAPTER V
OF CONSCIENCE
CHAPTER VI
USE MAKES PERFECT
CHAPTER VII
OF RECOMPENSES OF HONOUR
CHAPTER VIII
OF THE AFFECTION OF FATHERS TO THEIR CHILDREN
CHAPTER IX
OF THE ARMS OF THE PARTHIANS
CHAPTER X
OF BOOKS
CHAPTER XI
OF CRUELTY
CHAPTER XIII
OF JUDGING OF THE DEATH OF ANOTHER
CHAPTER XIV
THAT OUR MIND HINDERS ITSELF
CHAPTER XV
THAT OUR DESIRES ARE AUGMENTED BY DIFFICULTY
CHAPTER XVI
OF GLORY
CHAPTER XVII
OF PRESUMPTION
CHAPTER XVIII
OF GIVING THE LIE
CHAPTER XIX
OF LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE
CHAPTER XX
THAT WE TASTE NOTHING PURE
CHAPTER XXI
AGAINST IDLENESS
CHAPTER XXII
OF POSTING
CHAPTER XXIII
OF ILL MEANS EMPLOYED TO A GOOD END
CHAPTER XXIV
OF THE ROMAN GRANDEUR
CHAPTER XXV
NOT TO COUNTERFEIT BEING SICK
CHAPTER XXVI
OF THUMBS
CHAPTER XXVII
COWARDICE THE MOTHER OF CRUELTY
CHAPTER XXVIII
ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR SEASON
CHAPTER XXIX
OF VIRTUE
CHAPTER XXX
OF A MONSTROUS CHILD
CHAPTER XXXI
OF ANGER
CHAPTER XXXII
DEFENCE OF SENECA AND PLUTARCH
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE STORY OF SPURINA
CHAPTER XXXIV
OBSERVATION ON A WAR ACCORDING TO JULIUS CAESAR
CHAPTER XXXV
OF THREE GOOD WOMEN
CHAPTER XXXVI
OF THE MOST EXCELLENT MEN
CHAPTER XXXVII
OF THE RESEMBLANCE OF CHILDREN TO THEIR FATHERS
BOOK THE SECOND
CHAPTER I——OF THE INCONSTANCY OF OUR ACTIONS
Such as make it their business to oversee human actions, do not find
themselves in anything so much perplexed as to reconcile them and bring
them into the world's eye with the same lustre and reputation; for they
commonly so strangely contradict one another that it seems impossible
they should proceed from one and the same person. We find the younger
Marius one while a son of Mars and another a son of Venus. Pope Boniface
VIII. entered, it is said, into his Papacy like a fox, behaved himself
in it like a lion, and died like a dog; and who could believe it to be
the same Nero, the perfect image of all cruelty, who, having the
sentence of a condemned man brought to him to sign, as was the custom,
cried out, "O that I had never been taught to write!" so much it went to
his heart to condemn a man to death. All story is full of such examples,
and every man is able to produce so many to himself, or out of his own
practice or observation, that I sometimes wonder to see men of
understanding give themselves the trouble of sorting these pieces,
considering that irresolution appears to me to be the most common and
manifest vice of our nature witness the famous verse of the player
Publius:
"Malum consilium est, quod mutari non potest."
["'Tis evil counsel that will admit no change."
—Pub. Mim., ex Aul. Gell., xvii. 14.]
There seems some reason in forming a judgment of a man from the most
usual methods of his life; but, considering the natural instability of
our manners and opinions, I have often thought even the best authors a
little out in so obstinately endeavouring to make of us any constant and
solid contexture; they choose a general air of a man, and according to
that interpret all his actions, of which, if they cannot bend some to a
uniformity with the rest, they are presently imputed to dissimulation.
Augustus has escaped them, for there was in him so apparent, sudden, and
continual variety of actions all the whole course of his life, that he
has slipped away clear and undecided from the most daring critics. I can
more hardly believe a man's constancy than any other virtue, and believe
nothing sooner than the contrary. He that would judge of a man in detail
and distinctly, bit by bit, would oftener be able to speak the truth. It
is a hard matter, from all antiquity, to pick out a dozen men who have
formed their lives to one certain and constant course, which is the
principal design of wisdom; for to comprise it all in one word, says one
of the ancients, and to contract all the rules of human life into one,
"it is to will, and not to will, always one and the same thing: I will
not vouchsafe," says he, "to add, provided the will be just, for if it
be not just, it is impossible it should be always one." I have indeed
formerly learned that vice is nothing but irregularity, and want of
measure, and therefore 'tis impossible to fix constancy to it. 'Tis a
saying of. Demosthenes, "that the beginning oh all virtue is
consultation and deliberation; the end and perfection, constancy." If we
would resolve on any certain course by reason, we should pitch upon the
best, but nobody has thought on't:
"Quod petit, spernit; repetit, quod nuper omisit;
AEstuat, et vitae disconvenit ordine toto."
["That which he sought he despises; what he lately lost, he seeks
again. He fluctuates, and is inconsistent in the whole order of
life."—Horace, Ep., i. I, 98.]
Our ordinary practice is to follow the inclinations of our appetite,
be it to the left or right, upwards or downwards, according as we are
wafted by the breath of occasion. We never meditate what we would have
till the instant we have a mind to have it; and change like that little
creature which receives its colour from what it is laid upon. What we
but just now proposed to ourselves we immediately alter, and presently
return again to it; 'tis nothing but shifting and inconsistency:
"Ducimur, ut nervis alienis mobile lignum."
["We are turned about like the top with the thong of others."
—Idem, Sat., ii. 7, 82.]
We do not go, we are driven; like things that float, now leisurely,
then with violence, according to the gentleness or rapidity of the
current:
"Nonne videmus,
Quid sibi quisque velit, nescire, et quaerere semper
Commutare locum, quasi onus deponere possit?"
["Do we not see them, uncertain what they want, and always asking
for something new, as if they could get rid of the burthen."
—Lucretius, iii. 1070.]
Every day a new whimsy, and our humours keep motion with the time.
"Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali pater ipse
Juppiter auctificas lustravit lumine terras."
["Such are the minds of men, that they change as the light with
which father Jupiter himself has illumined the increasing earth."
—Cicero, Frag. Poet, lib. x.]
We fluctuate betwixt various inclinations; we will nothing freely,
nothing absolutely, nothing constantly. In any one who had prescribed
and established determinate laws and rules in his head for his own
conduct, we should perceive an equality of manners, an order and an
infallible relation of one thing or action to another, shine through his
whole life; Empedocles observed this discrepancy in the Agrigentines,
that they gave themselves up to delights, as if every day was their
last, and built as if they had been to live for ever. The judgment would
not be hard to make, as is very evident in the younger Cato; he who
therein has found one step, it will lead him to all the rest; 'tis a
harmony of very according sounds, that cannot jar. But with us 't is
quite contrary; every particular action requires a particular judgment.
The surest way to steer, in my opinion, would be to take our measures
from the nearest allied circumstances, without engaging in a longer
inquisition, or without concluding any other consequence. I was told,
during the civil disorders of our poor kingdom, that a maid, hard by the
place where I then was, had thrown herself out of a window to avoid
being forced by a common soldier who was quartered in the house; she was
not killed by the fall, and therefore, repeating her attempt would have
cut her own throat, had she not been prevented; but having,
nevertheless, wounded herself to some show of danger, she voluntarily
confessed that the soldier had not as yet importuned her otherwise; than
by courtship, earnest solicitation, and presents; but that she was
afraid that in the end he would have proceeded to violence, all which
she delivered with such a countenance and accent, and withal embrued in
her own blood, the highest testimony of her virtue, that she appeared
another Lucretia; and yet I have since been very well assured that both
before and after she was not so difficult a piece. And, according to my
host's tale in Ariosto, be as handsome a man and as worthy a gentleman
as you will, do not conclude too much upon your mistress's inviolable
chastity for having been repulsed; you do not know but she may have a
better stomach to your muleteer.
Antigonus, having taken one of his soldiers into a great degree of
favour and esteem for his valour, gave his physicians strict charge to
cure him of a long and inward disease under which he had a great while
languished, and observing that, after his cure, he went much more coldly
to work than before, he asked him what had so altered and cowed him:
"Yourself, sir," replied the other, "by having eased me of the pains
that made me weary of my life." Lucullus's soldier having been rifled by
the enemy, performed upon them in revenge a brave exploit, by which
having made himself a gainer, Lucullus, who had conceived a good opinion
of him from that action, went about to engage him in some enterprise of
very great danger, with all the plausible persuasions and promises he
could think of;
"Verbis, quae timido quoque possent addere mentem"
["Words which might add courage to any timid man."
—Horace, Ep., ii. 2, 1, 2.]
"Pray employ," answered he, "some miserable plundered soldier in that
affair":
"Quantumvis rusticus, ibit,
Ibit eo, quo vis, qui zonam perdidit, inquit;"
["Some poor fellow, who has lost his purse, will go whither you
wish, said he."—Horace, Ep., ii. 2, 39.]
and flatly refused to go. When we read that Mahomet having furiously
rated Chasan, Bassa of the Janissaries, because he had seen the
Hungarians break into his squadrons, and himself behave very ill in the
business, and that Chasan, instead of any other answer, rushed furiously
alone, scimitar in hand, into the first body of the enemy, where he was
presently cut to pieces, we are not to look upon that action,
peradventure, so much as vindication as a turn of mind, not so much
natural valour as a sudden despite. The man you saw yesterday so
adventurous and brave, you must not think it strange to see him as great
a poltroon the next: anger, necessity, company, wine, or the sound of
the trumpet had roused his spirits; this is no valour formed and
established by reason, but accidentally created by such circumstances,
and therefore it is no wonder if by contrary circumstances it appear
quite another thing.
These supple variations and contradictions so manifest in us, have
given occasion to some to believe that man has two souls; other two
distinct powers that always accompany and incline us, the one towards
good and the other towards ill, according to their own nature and
propension; so abrupt a variety not being imaginable to flow from one
and the same source.
For my part, the puff of every accident not only carries me along
with it according to its own proclivity, but moreover I discompose and
trouble myself by the instability of my own posture; and whoever will
look narrowly into his own bosom, will hardly find himself twice in the
same condition. I give to my soul sometimes one face and sometimes
another, according to the side I turn her to. If I speak variously of
myself, it is because I consider myself variously; all the contrarieties
are there to be found in one corner or another; after one fashion or
another: bashful, insolent; chaste, lustful; prating, silent; laborious,
delicate; ingenious, heavy; melancholic, pleasant; lying, true; knowing,
ignorant; liberal, covetous, and prodigal: I find all this in myself,
more or less, according as I turn myself about; and whoever will sift
himself to the bottom, will find in himself, and even in his own
judgment, this volubility and discordance. I have nothing to say of
myself entirely, simply, and solidly without mixture and confusion.
'Distinguo' is the most universal member of my logic. Though I always
intend to speak well of good things, and rather to interpret such things
as fall out in the best sense than otherwise, yet such is the
strangeness of our condition, that we are often pushed on to do well
even by vice itself, if well-doing were not judged by the intention
only. One gallant action, therefore, ought not to conclude a man
valiant; if a man were brave indeed, he would be always so, and upon all
occasions. If it were a habit of valour and not a sally, it would render
a man equally resolute in all accidents; the same alone as in company;
the same in lists as in a battle: for, let them say what they will,
there is not one valour for the pavement and another for the field; he
would bear a sickness in his bed as bravely as a wound in the field, and
no more fear death in his own house than at an assault. We should not
then see the same man charge into a breach with a brave assurance, and
afterwards torment himself like a woman for the loss of a trial at law
or the death of a child; when, being an infamous coward, he is firm in
the necessities of poverty; when he shrinks at the sight of a barber's
razor, and rushes fearless upon the swords of the enemy, the action is
commendable, not the man.
Many of the Greeks, says Cicero,—[Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., ii. 27.]—
cannot endure the sight of an enemy, and yet are courageous in sickness;
the Cimbrians and Celtiberians quite contrary;
"Nihil enim potest esse aequabile,
quod non a certa ratione proficiscatur."
["Nothing can be regular that does not proceed from a fixed ground
of reason."—Idem, ibid., c. 26.]
No valour can be more extreme in its kind than that of Alexander: but
it is of but one kind, nor full enough throughout, nor universal.
Incomparable as it is, it has yet some blemishes; of which his being so
often at his wits' end upon every light suspicion of his captains
conspiring against his life, and the carrying himself in that
inquisition with so much vehemence and indiscreet injustice, and with a
fear that subverted his natural reason, is one pregnant instance. The
superstition, also, with which he was so much tainted, carries along
with it some image of pusillanimity; and the excess of his penitence for
the murder of Clytus is also a testimony of the unevenness of his
courage. All we perform is no other than a cento, as a man may say, of
several pieces, and we would acquire honour by a false title. Virtue
cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her
mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again. 'Tis a
vivid and strong tincture which, when the soul has once thoroughly
imbibed it, will not out but with the piece. And, therefore, to make a
right judgment of a man, we are long and very observingly to follow his
trace: if constancy does not there stand firm upon her own proper base,
"Cui vivendi via considerata atque provisa est,"
["If the way of his life is thoroughly considered and traced out."
—Cicero, Paradox, v. 1.]
if the variety of occurrences makes him alter his pace (his path, I
mean, for the pace may be faster or slower) let him go; such an one runs
before the wind, "Avau le dent," as the motto of our Talebot has it.
'Tis no wonder, says one of the ancients, that chance has so great a
dominion over us, since it is by chance we live. It is not possible for
any one who has not designed his life for some certain end, it is
impossible for any one to arrange the pieces, who has not the whole form
already contrived in his imagination. Of what use are colours to him
that knows not what he is to paint? No one lays down a certain design
for his life, and we only deliberate thereof by pieces. The archer ought
first to know at what he is to aim, and then accommodate his arm, bow,
string, shaft, and motion to it; our counsels deviate and wander,
because not levelled to any determinate end. No wind serves him who
addresses his voyage to no certain, port. I cannot acquiesce in the
judgment given by one in the behalf of Sophocles, who concluded him
capable of the management of domestic affairs, against the accusation of
his son, from having read one of his tragedies.
Neither do I allow of the conjecture of the Parians, sent to regulate
the Milesians sufficient for such a consequence as they from thence
derived coming to visit the island, they took notice of such grounds as
were best husbanded, and such country-houses as were best governed; and
having taken the names of the owners, when they had assembled the
citizens, they appointed these farmers for new governors and
magistrates; concluding that they, who had been so provident in their
own private concerns, would be so of the public too. We are all lumps,
and of so various and inform a contexture, that every piece plays, every
moment, its own game, and there is as much difference betwixt us and
ourselves as betwixt us and others:
"Magnam rem puta, unum hominem agere."
["Esteem it a great thing always to act as one and the same
man."—Seneca, Ep., 150.]
Since ambition can teach man valour, temperance, and liberality, and
even justice too; seeing that avarice can inspire the courage of a
shop-boy, bred and nursed up in obscurity and ease, with the assurance
to expose himself so far from the fireside to the mercy of the waves and
angry Neptune in a frail boat; that she further teaches discretion and
prudence; and that even Venus can inflate boys under the discipline of
the rod with boldness and resolution, and infuse masculine courage into
the heart of tender virgins in their mothers' arms:
"Hac duce, custodes furtim transgressa jacentes,
Ad juvenem tenebris sola puella venit:"
["She leading, the maiden, furtively passing by the recumbent
guards, goes alone in the darkness to the youth."
—Tibullus, ii. 2, 75.]
'tis not all the understanding has to do, simply to judge us by our
outward actions; it must penetrate the very soul, and there discover by
what springs the motion is guided. But that being a high and hazardous
undertaking, I could wish that fewer would attempt it.
CHAPTER II——OF DRUNKENNESS
The world is nothing but variety and disemblance, vices are all
alike, as they are vices, and peradventure the Stoics understand them
so; but although they are equally vices, yet they are not all equal
vices; and he who has transgressed the ordinary bounds a hundred paces:
"Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum,"
["Beyond or within which the right cannot exist."
—Horace, Sat., i, 1, 107.]
should not be in a worse condition than he that has advanced but ten,
is not to be believed; or that sacrilege is not worse than stealing a
cabbage:
"Nec vincet ratio hoc, tantumdem ut peccet, idemque,
Qui teneros caules alieni fregerit horti,
Et qui nocturnus divum sacra legerit."
There is in this as great diversity as in anything whatever. The
confounding of the order and measure of sins is dangerous: murderers,
traitors, and tyrants get too much by it, and it is not reasonable they
should flatter their consciences, because another man is idle,
lascivious, or not assiduous at his devotion. Every one overrates the
offence of his companions, but extenuates his own. Our very instructors
themselves rank them sometimes, in my opinion, very ill. As Socrates
said that the principal office of wisdom was to distinguish good from
evil, we, the best of whom are vicious, ought also to say the same of
the science of distinguishing betwixt vice and vice, without which, and
that very exactly performed, the virtuous and the wicked will remain
confounded and unrecognised.
Now, amongst the rest, drunkenness seems to me to be a gross and
brutish vice. The soul has greater part in the rest, and there are some
vices that have something, if a man may so say, of generous in them;
there are vices wherein there is a mixture of knowledge, diligence,
valour, prudence, dexterity, and address; this one is totally corporeal
and earthly. And the rudest nation this day in Europe is that alone
where it is in fashion. Other vices discompose the understanding: this
totally overthrows it and renders the body stupid:
"Cum vini vis penetravit . . .
Consequitur gravitas membrorum, praepediuntur
Crura vacillanti, tardescit lingua, madet mens,
Nant oculi; clamor, singultus, jurgia, gliscunt."
["When the power of wine has penetrated us, a heaviness of the limbs
follows, the legs of the tottering person are impeded; the tongue
grows torpid, the mind is dimmed, the eyes swim; noise, hiccup, and
quarrels arise.—"Lucretius, i. 3, 475.]
The worst state of man is that wherein he loses the knowledge and
government of himself. And 'tis said amongst other things upon this
subject, that, as the must fermenting in a vessel, works up to the top
whatever it has in the bottom, so wine, in those who have drunk beyond
measure, vents the most inward secrets:
"Tu sapientum
Curas et arcanum jocoso
Consilium retegis Lyaeo."
["Thou disclosest to the merry Lyacus the cares and secret
counsel of the wise."—Horace, Od., xxi. 1, 114.]
[Lyacus, a name given to Bacchus.]
Josephus tells us that by giving an ambassador the enemy had sent to
him his full dose of liquor, he wormed out his secrets. And yet,
Augustus, committing the most inward secrets of his affairs to Lucius
Piso, who conquered Thrace, never found him faulty in the least, no more
than Tiberias did Cossus, with whom he intrusted his whole counsels,
though we know they were both so given to drink that they have often
been fain to carry both the one and the other drunk out of the Senate:
"Hesterno inflatum venas ut semper, Lyaeo."
["Their veins full, as usual, of yesterday's wine."
—Virgil, Egl., vi. 15.]
And the design of killing Caesar was as safely communicated to
Cimber, though he would often be drunk, as to Cassius, who drank nothing
but water.
[As to which Cassius pleasantly said: "What, shall I bear
a tyrant, I who cannot bear wine?"]
We see our Germans, when drunk as the devil, know their post,
remember the word, and keep to their ranks:
"Nec facilis victoria de madidis, et
Blaesis, atque mero titubantibus."
["Nor is a victory easily obtained over men so drunk, they can
scarce speak or stand."—Juvenal, Sat., xv. 47.]
I could not have believed there had been so profound, senseless, and
dead a degree of drunkenness had I not read in history that Attalus
having, to put a notable affront upon him, invited to supper the same
Pausanias, who upon the very same occasion afterwards killed Philip of
Macedon, a king who by his excellent qualities gave sufficient testimony
of his education in the house and company of Epaminondas, made him drink
to such a pitch that he could after abandon his beauty, as of a hedge
strumpet, to the muleteers and servants of the basest office in the
house. And I have been further told by a lady whom I highly honour and
esteem, that near Bordeaux and about Castres where she lives, a country
woman, a widow of chaste repute, perceiving in herself the first
symptoms of breeding, innocently told her neighbours that if she had a
husband she should think herself with child; but the causes of suspicion
every day more and more increasing, and at last growing up to a manifest
proof, the poor woman was reduced to the necessity of causing it to be
proclaimed in her parish church, that whoever had done that deed and
would frankly confess it, she did not only promise to forgive, but
moreover to marry him, if he liked the motion; whereupon a young fellow
that served her in the quality of a labourer, encouraged by this
proclamation, declared that he had one holiday found her, having taken
too much of the bottle, so fast asleep by the chimney and in so indecent
a posture, that he could conveniently do his business without waking
her; and they yet live together man and wife.
It is true that antiquity has not much decried this vice; the
writings even of several philosophers speak very tenderly of it, and
even amongst the Stoics there are some who advise folks to give
themselves sometimes the liberty to drink, nay, to drunkenness, to
refresh the soul:
"Hoc quoque virtutum quondam certamine, magnum
Socratem palmam promeruisse ferunt."
["In this trial of power formerly they relate that the great
Socrates deserved the palm."—Cornet. Gallus, Ep., i. 47.]
That censor and reprover of others, Cato, was reproached that he was
a hard drinker:
"Narratur et prisci Catonis
Saepe mero caluisse virtus."
["And of old Cato it is said, that his courage was often warmed with
wine."—Horace, Od., xxi. 3, 11.—Cato the Elder.]
Cyrus, that so renowned king, amongst the other qualities by which he
claimed to be preferred before his brother Artaxerxes, urged this
excellence, that he could drink a great deal more than he. And in the
best governed nations this trial of skill in drinking is very much in
use. I have heard Silvius, an excellent physician of Paris, say that
lest the digestive faculties of the stomach should grow idle, it were
not amiss once a month to rouse them by this excess, and to spur them
lest they should grow dull and rusty; and one author tells us that the
Persians used to consult about their most important affairs after being
well warmed with wine.
My taste and constitution are greater enemies to this vice than my
discourse; for besides that I easily submit my belief to the authority
of ancient opinions, I look upon it indeed as an unmanly and stupid
vice, but less malicious and hurtful than the others, which, almost all,
more directly jostle public society. And if we cannot please ourselves
but it must cost us something, as they hold, I find this vice costs a
man's conscience less than the others, besides that it is of no
difficult preparation, nor hard to be found, a consideration not
altogether to be despised. A man well advanced both in dignity and age,
amongst three principal commodities that he said remained to him of
life, reckoned to me this for one, and where would a man more justly
find it than amongst the natural conveniences? But he did not take it
right, for delicacy and the curious choice of wines is therein to be
avoided. If you found your pleasure upon drinking of the best, you
condemn yourself to the penance of drinking of the worst. Your taste
must be more indifferent and free; so delicate a palate is not required
to make a good toper. The Germans drink almost indifferently of all
wines with delight; their business is to pour down and not to taste; and
it's so much the better for them: their pleasure is so much the more
plentiful and nearer at hand.
Secondly, to drink, after the French fashion, but at two meals, and
then very moderately, is to be too sparing of the favours of the god.
There is more time and constancy required than so. The ancients spent
whole nights in this exercise, and ofttimes added the day following to
eke it out, and therefore we are to take greater liberty and stick
closer to our work. I have seen a great lord of my time, a man of high
enterprise and famous success, that without setting himself to't, and
after his ordinary rate of drinking at meals, drank not much less than
five quarts of wine, and at his going away appeared but too wise and
discreet, to the detriment of our affairs. The pleasure we hold in
esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our
time dedicated to it; we should, like shopboys and labourers, refuse no
occasion nor omit any opportunity of drinking, and always have it in our
minds. Methinks we every day abridge and curtail the use of wine, and
that the after breakfasts, dinner snatches, and collations I used to see
in my father's house, when I was a boy, were more usual and frequent
then than now.
Is it that we pretend to a reformation? Truly, no: but it may be we
are more addicted to Venus than our fathers were. They are two exercises
that thwart and hinder one another in their vigour. Lechery weakens our
stomach on the one side; and on the other sobriety renders us more
spruce and amorous for the exercise of love.
'Tis wonderful what strange stories I have heard my father tell of
the chastity of that age wherein he lived. It was for him to say it,
being both by art and nature cut out and finished for the service of
ladies. He spoke well and little: ever mixing his language with some
illustration out of authors most in use, especially in Spanish, and
among the Spanish he whom they called Marcus Aurelius—[ Guevara's Golden
Book of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.]—was ordinarily in his mouth. His
behaviour was gently grave, humble, and very modest; he was very
solicitous of neatness and propriety both in his person and clothes,
whether on horseback or afoot, he was monstrously punctual in his word;
and of a conscience and religion generally tending rather towards
superstition than otherwise. For a man of little stature, very strong,
well proportioned, and well knit; of a pleasing countenance inclining to
brown, and very adroit in all noble exercises. I have yet in the house
to be seen canes poured full of lead, with which they say he exercised
his arms for throwing the bar or the stone, or in fencing; and shoes
with leaden soles to make him lighter for running or leaping. Of his
vaulting he has left little miracles behind him: I have seen him when
past three score laugh at our exercises, and throw himself in his furred
gown into the saddle, make the tour of a table upon his thumbs and
scarce ever mount the stairs into his chamber without taking three or
four steps at a time. But as to what I was speaking of before; he said
there was scarce one woman of quality of ill fame in the whole province:
he would tell of strange confidences, and some of them his own, with
virtuous women, free from any manner of suspicion of ill, and for his
own part solemnly swore he was a virgin at his marriage; and yet it was
after a long practice of arms beyond the mountains, of which wars he
left us a journal under his own hand, wherein he has given a precise
account from point to point of all passages, both relating to the public
and to himself. And he was, moreover, married at a well advanced
maturity, in the year 1528, the three-and-thirtieth year of his age,
upon his way home from Italy. But let us return to our bottles.
The incommodities of old age, that stand in need of some refreshment
and support, might with reason beget in me a desire of this faculty, it
being as it were the last pleasure the course of years deprives us of.
The natural heat, say the good-fellows, first seats itself in the feet:
that concerns infancy; thence it mounts into the middle region, where it
makes a long abode and produces, in my opinion, the sole true pleasures
of human life; all other pleasures in comparison sleep; towards the end,
like a vapour that still mounts upward, it arrives at the throat, where
it makes its final residence, and concludes the progress. I do not,
nevertheless, understand how a man can extend the pleasure of drinking
beyond thirst, and forge in his imagination an appetite artificial and
against nature; my stomach would not proceed so far; it has enough to do
to deal with what it takes in for its necessity. My constitution is not
to care for drink but as following eating and washing down my meat, and
for that reason my last draught is always the greatest. And seeing that
in old age we have our palate furred with phlegms or depraved by some
other ill constitution, the wine tastes better to us as the pores are
cleaner washed and laid more open. At least, I seldom taste the first
glass well. Anacharsis wondered that the Greeks drank in greater glasses
towards the end of a meal than at the beginning; which was, I suppose,
for the same reason the Germans do the same, who then begin the battle
of drink.
Plato forbids children wine till eighteen years of age, and to get
drunk till forty; but, after forty, gives them leave to please
themselves, and to mix a little liberally in their feasts the influence
of Dionysos, that good deity who restores to younger men their gaiety
and to old men their youth; who mollifies the passions of the soul, as
iron is softened by fire; and in his Lazes allows such merry meetings,
provided they have a discreet chief to govern and keep them in order, as
good and of great utility; drunkenness being, he says, a true and
certain trial of every one's nature, and, withal, fit to inspire old men
with mettle to divert themselves in dancing and music; things of great
use, and that they dare not attempt when sober. He, moreover, says that
wine is able to supply the soul with temperance and the body with
health. Nevertheless, these restrictions, in part borrowed from the
Carthaginians, please him: that men forbear excesses in the expeditions
of war; that every judge and magistrate abstain from it when about the
administrations of his place or the consultations of the public affairs;
that the day is not to be employed with it, that being a time due to
other occupations, nor the night on which a man intends to get children.
'Tis said that the philosopher Stilpo, when oppressed with age,
purposely hastened his end by drinking pure wine. The same thing, but
not designed by him, despatched also the philosopher Arcesilaus.
But 'tis an old and pleasant question, whether the soul of a wise man
can be overcome by the strength of wine?
"Si munitae adhibet vim sapientiae."
To what vanity does the good opinion we have of ourselves push us?
The most regular and most perfect soul in the world has but too much to
do to keep itself upright, and from being overthrown by its own
weakness. There is not one of a thousand that is right and settled so
much as one minute in a whole life, and that may not very well doubt,
whether according to her natural condition she ever can be; but to join
constancy to it is her utmost perfection; I mean when nothing should
jostle and discompose her, which a thousand accidents may do. 'Tis to
much purpose that the great poet Lucretius keeps such a clatter with his
philosophy, when, behold! he goes mad with a love philtre. Is it to be
imagined that an apoplexy will not stun Socrates as well as a porter?
Some men have forgotten their own names by the violence of a disease;
and a slight wound has turned the judgment of others topsy-turvy. Let
him be as wise as he will, after all he is but a man; and than that what
is there more frail, more miserable, or more nothing? Wisdom does not
force our natural dispositions,
"Sudores itaque, et pallorem exsistere toto
Corpore, et infringi linguam, vocemque aboriri,
Caligare oculos, sonere aures, succidere artus,
Demque concidere, ex animi terrore, videmus."
["Sweat and paleness come over the whole body, the tongue is
rendered powerless, the voice dies away, the eyes are darkened,
there is ringing in the ears, the limbs sink under us by the
influence of fear."—Lucretius, iii. 155.]
he must shut his eyes against the blow that threatens him; he must
tremble upon the margin of a precipice, like a child; nature having
reserved these light marks of her authority, not to be forced by our
reason and the stoic virtue, to teach man his mortality and our
weakness; he turns pale with fear, red with shame, and groans with the
cholic, if not with desperate outcry, at least with hoarse and broken
voice:
"Humani a se nihil alienum putet."
["Let him not think himself exempt from that which is incidental to
men in general."—Terence, Heauton, i. 1, 25.]
The poets, that feign all things at pleasure, dare not acquit their
greatest heroes of tears:
"Sic fatur lacrymans, classique immittit habenas."
["Thus he speaks, weeping, and then sets sail with his fleet."
—Aeneid, vi. i.]
'Tis sufficient for a man to curb and moderate his inclinations, for
totally to suppress them is not in him to do. Even our great Plutarch,
that excellent and perfect judge of human actions, when he sees Brutus
and Torquatus kill their children, begins to doubt whether virtue could
proceed so far, and to question whether these persons had not rather
been stimulated by some other passion.—[Plutarch, Life of Publicola, c.
3.] —All actions exceeding the ordinary bounds are liable to sinister
interpretation, for as much as our liking no more holds with what is
above than with what is below it.
Let us leave that other sect, that sets up an express profession of
scornful superiority—[The Stoics.]—: but when even in that sect, reputed
the most quiet and gentle, we hear these rhodomontades of Metrodorus:
"Occupavi te, Fortuna, atque cepi: omnesque aditus tuos
interclusi ut ad me aspirare non posses;"
["Fortune, I have got the better of thee, and have made all the
avenues so sure thou canst not come at me."
—Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 9.]
when Anaxarchus, by command of Nicocreon the tyrant of Cyprus, was
put into a stone mortar, and laid upon with mauls of iron, ceases not to
say, "Strike, batter, break; 'tis not Anaxarchus, 'tis but his sheath
that you pound and bray so"; when we hear our martyrs cry out to the
tyrant from the middle of the flame, "This side is roasted enough, fall
to and eat, it is enough done; fall to work with the other;" when we
hear the child in Josephus' torn piece-meal with pincers, defying
Antiochus, and crying out with a constant and assured voice: "Tyrant,
thou losest thy labour, I am still at ease; where is the pain, where are
the torments with which thou didst so threaten me? Is this all thou
canst do? My constancy torments thee more than thy cruelty does me. O
pitiful coward, thou faintest, and I grow stronger; make me complain,
make me bend, make me yield if thou canst; encourage thy guards, cheer
up thy executioners; see, see they faint, and can do no more; arm them,
flesh them anew, spur them up"; truly, a man must confess that there is
some phrenzy, some fury, how holy soever, that at that time possesses
those souls. When we come to these Stoical sallies: "I had rather be mad
than voluptuous," a saying of Antisthenes. When Sextius tells us, "he
had rather be fettered with affliction than pleasure": when Epicurus
takes upon him to play with his gout, and, refusing health and ease,
defies all torments, and despising the lesser pains, as disdaining to
contend with them, he covets and calls out for others sharper, more
violent, and more worthy of him;
"Spumantemque dari, pecora inter inertia, votis
Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem:"
["And instead of timid beasts, wishes the foaming boar or tawny lion
would come from the mountain."—AEneid, iv. 158.]
who but must conclude that these are wild sallies pushed on by a
courage that has broken loose from its place? Our soul cannot from her
own seat reach so high; 'tis necessary she must leave it, raise herself
up, and, taking the bridle in her teeth, transport her man so far that
he shall afterwards himself be astonished at what he has done; as, in
war, the heat of battle impels generous soldiers to perform things of so
infinite danger, as afterwards, recollecting them, they themselves are
the first to wonder at; as it also fares with the poets, who are often
rapt with admiration of their own writings, and know not where again to
find the track through which they performed so fine a Career; which also
is in them called fury and rapture. And as Plato says, 'tis to no
purpose for a sober-minded man to knock at the door of poesy: so
Aristotle says, that no excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of
madness; and he has reason to call all transports, how commendable
soever, that surpass our own judgment and understanding, madness;
forasmuch as wisdom is a regular government of the soul, which is
carried on with measure and proportion, and for which she is to herself
responsible. Plato argues thus, that the faculty of prophesying is so
far above us, that we must be out of ourselves when we meddle with it,
and our prudence must either be obstructed by sleep or sickness, or
lifted from her place by some celestial rapture.
CHAPTER III——A CUSTOM OF THE ISLE OF CEA
[Cos. Cea is the form of the name given by Pliny]
If to philosophise be, as 'tis defined, to doubt, much more to write
at random and play the fool, as I do, ought to be reputed doubting, for
it is for novices and freshmen to inquire and to dispute, and for the
chairman to moderate and determine.
My moderator is the authority of the divine will, that governs us
without contradiction, and that is seated above these human and vain
contestations.
Philip having forcibly entered into Peloponnesus, and some one saying
to Damidas that the Lacedaemonians were likely very much to suffer if
they did not in time reconcile themselves to his favour: "Why, you
pitiful fellow," replied he, "what can they suffer who do not fear to
die?" It being also asked of Agis, which way a man might live free?
"Why," said he, "by despising death." These, and a thousand other
sayings to the same purpose, distinctly sound of something more than the
patient attending the stroke of death when it shall come; for there are
several accidents in life far worse to suffer than death itself. Witness
the Lacedaemonian boy taken by Antigonus, and sold for a slave, who
being by his master commanded to some base employment: "Thou shalt see,"
says the boy, "whom thou hast bought; it would be a shame for me to
serve, being so near the reach of liberty," and having so said, threw
himself from the top of the house. Antipater severely threatening the
Lacedaemonians, that he might the better incline them to acquiesce in a
certain demand of his: "If thou threatenest us with more than death,"
replied they, "we shall the more willingly die"; and to Philip, having
written them word that he would frustrate all their enterprises: "What,
wilt thou also hinder us from dying?" This is the meaning of the
sentence, "That the wise man lives as long as he ought, not so long as
he can; and that the most obliging present Nature has made us, and which
takes from us all colour of complaint of our condition, is to have
delivered into our own custody the keys of life; she has only ordered,
one door into life, but a hundred thousand ways out. We may be
straitened for earth to live upon, but earth sufficient to die upon can
never be wanting, as Boiocalus answered the Romans."—[Tacitus, Annal.,
xiii. 56.]—Why dost thou complain of this world? it detains thee not;
thy own cowardice is the cause, if thou livest in pain. There needs no
more to die but to will to die:
"Ubique mors est; optime hoc cavit deus.
Eripere vitam nemo non homini potest;
At nemo mortem; mille ad hanc aditus patent."
["Death is everywhere: heaven has well provided for that. Any one
may deprive us of life; no one can deprive us of death. To death
there are a thousand avenues."—Seneca, Theb:, i, I, 151.]
Neither is it a recipe for one disease only; death is the infallible
cure of all; 'tis a most assured port that is never to be feared, and
very often to be sought. It comes all to one, whether a man give himself
his end, or stays to receive it by some other means; whether he pays
before his day, or stay till his day of payment come; from whencesoever
it comes, it is still his; in what part soever the thread breaks,
there's the end of the clue. The most voluntary death is the finest.
Life depends upon the pleasure of others; death upon our own. We ought
not to accommodate ourselves to our own humour in anything so much as in
this. Reputation is not concerned in such an enterprise; 'tis folly to
be concerned by any such apprehension. Living is slavery if the liberty
of dying be wanting. The ordinary method of cure is carried on at the
expense of life; they torment us with caustics, incisions, and
amputations of limbs; they interdict aliment and exhaust our blood; one
step farther and we are cured indeed and effectually. Why is not the
jugular vein as much at our disposal as the median vein? For a desperate
disease a desperate cure. Servius the grammarian, being tormented with
the gout, could think of no better remedy than to apply poison to his
legs, to deprive them of their sense; let them be gouty at their will,
so they were insensible of pain. God gives us leave enough to go when He
is pleased to reduce us to such a condition that to live is far worse
than to die. 'Tis weakness to truckle under infirmities, but it's
madness to nourish them. The Stoics say, that it is living according to
nature in a wise man to, take his leave of life, even in the height of
prosperity, if he do it opportunely; and in a fool to prolong it, though
he be miserable, provided he be not indigent of those things which they
repute to be according to nature. As I do not offend the law against
thieves when I embezzle my own money and cut my own purse; nor that
against incendiaries when I burn my own wood; so am I not under the lash
of those made against murderers for having deprived myself of my own
life. Hegesias said, that as the condition of life did, so the condition
of death ought to depend upon our own choice. And Diogenes meeting the
philosopher Speusippus, so blown up with an inveterate dropsy that he
was fain to be carried in a litter, and by him saluted with the
compliment, "I wish you good health." "No health to thee," replied the
other, "who art content to live in such a condition."
And in fact, not long after, Speusippus, weary of so languishing a
state of life, found a means to die.
But this does not pass without admitting a dispute: for many are of
opinion that we cannot quit this garrison of the world without the
express command of Him who has placed us in it; and that it appertains
to God who has placed us here, not for ourselves only but for His Glory
and the service of others, to dismiss us when it shall best please Him,
and not for us to depart without His licence: that we are not born for
ourselves only, but for our country also, the laws of which require an
account from us upon the score of their own interest, and have an action
of manslaughter good against us; and if these fail to take cognisance of
the fact, we are punished in the other world as deserters of our duty:
"Proxima deinde tenent maesti loca, qui sibi letum
Insontes peperere manu, lucemque perosi
Proiecere animas."
["Thence the sad ones occupy the next abodes, who, though free
from guilt, were by their own hands slain, and, hating light,
sought death."—AEneid, vi. 434.]
There is more constancy in suffering the chain we are tied to than in
breaking it, and more pregnant evidence of fortitude in Regulus than in
Cato; 'tis indiscretion and impatience that push us on to these
precipices: no accidents can make true virtue turn her back; she seeks
and requires evils, pains, and grief, as the things by which she is
nourished and supported; the menaces of tyrants, racks, and tortures
serve only to animate and rouse her:
"Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus
Nigrae feraci frondis in Algido,
Per damma, percmdes, ab ipso
Ducit opes, animumque ferro."
["As in Mount Algidus, the sturdy oak even from the axe itself
derives new vigour and life."—Horace, Od., iv. 4, 57.]
And as another says:
"Non est, ut putas, virtus, pater,
Timere vitam; sed malis ingentibus
Obstare, nec se vertere, ac retro dare."
["Father, 'tis no virtue to fear life, but to withstand great
misfortunes, nor turn back from them."—Seneca, Theb., i. 190.]
Or as this:
"Rebus in adversis facile est contemnere mortem
Fortius ille facit, qui miser esse potest."
["It is easy in adversity to despise death; but he acts more
bravely, who can live wretched."—Martial, xi. 56, 15.]
'Tis cowardice, not virtue, to lie squat in a furrow, under a tomb,
to evade the blows of fortune; virtue never stops nor goes out of her
path, for the greatest storm that blows:
"Si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidum ferient ruinae."
["Should the world's axis crack, the ruins will but crush
a fearless head."—Horace, Od., iii. 3, 7.]
For the most part, the flying from other inconveniences brings us to
this; nay, endeavouring to evade death, we often run into its very
mouth:
"Hic, rogo, non furor est, ne moriare, mori?"
["Tell me, is it not madness, that one should die for fear
of dying?"—Martial, ii. 80, 2.]
like those who, from fear of a precipice, throw themselves headlong
into it;
"Multos in summa pericula misfit
Venturi timor ipse mali: fortissimus ille est,
Qui promptus metuenda pati, si cominus instent,
Et differre potest."
["The fear of future ills often makes men run into extreme danger;
he is truly brave who boldly dares withstand the mischiefs he
apprehends, when they confront him and can be deferred."
—Lucan, vii. 104.]
"Usque adeo, mortis formidine, vitae
Percipit humanos odium, lucisque videndae,
Ut sibi consciscant moerenti pectore lethum
Obliti fontem curarum hunc esse timorem."
["Death to that degree so frightens some men, that causing them to
hate both life and light, they kill themselves, miserably forgetting
that this same fear is the fountain of their cares."
—Lucretius, iii. 79.]
Plato, in his Laws, assigns an ignominious sepulture to him who has
deprived his nearest and best friend, namely himself, of life and his
destined course, being neither compelled so to do by public judgment, by
any sad and inevitable accident of fortune, nor by any insupportable
disgrace, but merely pushed on by cowardice and the imbecility of a
timorous soul. And the opinion that makes so little of life, is
ridiculous; for it is our being, 'tis all we have. Things of a nobler
and more elevated being may, indeed, reproach ours; but it is against
nature for us to contemn and make little account of ourselves; 'tis a
disease particular to man, and not discerned in any other creatures, to
hate and despise itself. And it is a vanity of the same stamp to desire
to be something else than what we are; the effect of such a desire does
not at all touch us, forasmuch as it is contradicted and hindered in
itself. He that desires of a man to be made an angel, does nothing for
himself; he would be never the better for it; for, being no more, who
shall rejoice or be sensible of this benefit for him.
"Debet enim, misere cui forti, aegreque futurum est,
Ipse quoque esse in eo turn tempore, cum male possit
Accidere."
["For he to whom misery and pain are to be in the future, must
himself then exist, when these ills befall him."
—Idem, ibid., 874.]
Security, indolence, impassability, the privation of the evils of
this life, which we pretend to purchase at the price of dying, are of no
manner of advantage to us: that man evades war to very little purpose
who can have no fruition of peace; and as little to the purpose does he
avoid trouble who cannot enjoy repose.
Amongst those of the first of these two opinions, there has been
great debate, what occasions are sufficient to justify the meditation of
self-murder, which they call "A reasonable exit."—[ Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Zeno.]—For though they say that men must often die for trivial
causes, seeing those that detain us in life are of no very great weight,
yet there is to be some limit. There are fantastic and senseless humours
that have prompted not only individual men, but whole nations to destroy
themselves, of which I have elsewhere given some examples; and we
further read of the Milesian virgins, that by a frantic compact they
hanged themselves one after another till the magistrate took order in
it, enacting that the bodies of such as should be found so hanged should
be drawn by the same halter stark naked through the city. When Therykion
tried to persuade Cleomenes to despatch himself, by reason of the ill
posture of his affairs, and, having missed a death of more honour in the
battle he had lost, to accept of this the second in honour to it, and
not to give the conquerors leisure to make him undergo either an
ignominious death or an infamous life; Cleomenes, with a courage truly
Stoic and Lacedaemonian, rejected his counsel as unmanly and mean;
"that," said he, "is a remedy that can never be wanting, but which a man
is never to make use of, whilst there is an inch of hope remaining":
telling him, "that it was sometimes constancy and valour to live; that
he would that even his death should be of use to his country, and would
make of it an act of honour and virtue." Therykion, notwithstanding,
thought himself in the right, and did his own business; and Cleomenes
afterwards did the same, but not till he had first tried the utmost
malevolence of fortune. All the inconveniences in the world are not
considerable enough that a man should die to evade them; and, besides,
there being so many, so sudden and unexpected changes in human things,
it is hard rightly to judge when we are at the end of our hope:
"Sperat et in saeva victus gladiator arena,
Sit licet infesto pollice turba minax."
["The gladiator conquered in the lists hopes on, though the
menacing spectators, turning their thumb, order him to die."
—Pentadius, De Spe, ap. Virgilii Catadecta.]
All things, says an old adage, are to be hoped for by a man whilst he
lives; ay, but, replies Seneca, why should this rather be always running
in a man's head that fortune can do all things for the living man, than
this, that fortune has no power over him that knows how to die?
Josephus, when engaged in so near and apparent danger, a whole people
being violently bent against him, that there was no visible means of
escape, nevertheless, being, as he himself says, in this extremity
counselled by one of his friends to despatch himself, it was well for
him that he yet maintained himself in hope, for fortune diverted the
accident beyond all human expectation, so that he saw himself delivered
without any manner of inconvenience. Whereas Brutus and Cassius, on the
contrary, threw away the remains of the Roman liberty, of which they
were the sole protectors, by the precipitation and temerity wherewith
they killed themselves before the due time and a just occasion. Monsieur
d'Anguien, at the battle of Serisolles, twice attempted to run himself
through, despairing of the fortune of the day, which went indeed very
untowardly on that side of the field where he was engaged, and by that
precipitation was very near depriving himself of the enjoyment of so
brave a victory. I have seen a hundred hares escape out of the very
teeth of the greyhounds:
"Aliquis carnifici suo superstes fuit."
["Some have survived their executioners."—Seneca, Ep., 13.]
"Multa dies, variusque labor mutabilis nevi
Rettulit in melius; multos alterna revisens
Lusit, et in solido rursus fortuna locavit."
["Length of days, and the various labour of changeful time, have
brought things to a better state; fortune turning, shews a reverse
face, and again restores men to prosperity."—AEneid, xi. 425.]
Piny says there are but three sorts of diseases, to escape which a
man has good title to destroy himself; the worst of which is the stone
in the bladder, when the urine is suppressed.
["In the quarto edition of these essays, in 1588, Pliny is said to
mention two more, viz., a pain in the stomach and a headache, which,
he says (lib. xxv. c. 9.), were the only three distempers almost
for which men killed themselves."]
Seneca says those only which for a long time are discomposing the
functions of the soul. And some there have been who, to avoid a worse
death, have chosen one to their own liking. Democritus, general of the
AEtolians, being brought prisoner to Rome, found means to make his
escape by night: but close pursued by his keepers, rather than suffer
himself to be retaken, he fell upon his own sword and died. Antinous and
Theodotus, their city of Epirus being reduced by the Romans to the last
extremity, gave the people counsel universally to kill themselves; but,
these preferring to give themselves up to the enemy, the two chiefs went
to seek the death they desired, rushing furiously upon the enemy, with
intention to strike home but not to ward a blow. The Island of Gozzo
being taken some years ago by the Turks, a Sicilian, who had two
beautiful daughters marriageable, killed them both with his own hand,
and their mother, running in to save them, to boot, which having done,
sallying out of the house with a cross-bow and harquebus, with two shots
he killed two of the Turks nearest to his door, and drawing his sword,
charged furiously in amongst the rest, where he was suddenly enclosed
and cut to pieces, by that means delivering his family and himself from
slavery and dishonour. The Jewish women, after having circumcised their
children, threw them and themselves down a precipice to avoid the
cruelty of Antigonus. I have been told of a person of condition in one
of our prisons, that his friends, being informed that he would certainly
be condemned, to avoid the ignominy of such a death suborned a priest to
tell him that the only means of his deliverance was to recommend himself
to such a saint, under such and such vows, and to fast eight days
together without taking any manner of nourishment, what weakness or
faintness soever he might find in himself during the time; he followed
their advice, and by that means destroyed himself before he was aware,
not dreaming of death or any danger in the experiment. Scribonia
advising her nephew Libo to kill himself rather than await the stroke of
justice, told him that it was to do other people's business to preserve
his life to put it after into the hands of those who within three or
four days would fetch him to execution, and that it was to serve his
enemies to keep his blood to gratify their malice.
We read in the Bible that Nicanor, the persecutor of the law of God,
having sent his soldiers to seize upon the good old man Razis, surnamed
in honour of his virtue the father of the Jews: the good man, seeing no
other remedy, his gates burned down, and the enemies ready to seize him,
choosing rather to die nobly than to fall into the hands of his wicked
adversaries and suffer himself to be cruelly butchered by them, contrary
to the honour of his rank and quality, stabbed himself with his own
sword, but the blow, for haste, not having been given home, he ran and
threw himself from the top of a wall headlong among them, who separating
themselves and making room, he pitched directly upon his head;
notwithstanding which, feeling yet in himself some remains of life, he
renewed his courage, and starting up upon his feet all bloody and
wounded as he was, and making his way through the crowd to a precipitous
rock, there, through one of his wounds, drew out his bowels, which,
tearing and pulling to pieces with both his hands, he threw amongst his
pursuers, all the while attesting and invoking the Divine vengeance upon
them for their cruelty and injustice.
Of violences offered to the conscience, that against the chastity of
woman is, in my opinion, most to be avoided, forasmuch as there is a
certain pleasure naturally mixed with it, and for that reason the
dissent therein cannot be sufficiently perfect and entire, so that the
violence seems to be mixed with a little consent of the forced party.
The ecclesiastical history has several examples of devout persons who
have embraced death to secure them from the outrages prepared by tyrants
against their religion and honour. Pelagia and Sophronia, both
canonised, the first of these precipitated herself with her mother and
sisters into the river to avoid being forced by some soldiers, and the
last also killed herself to avoid being ravished by the Emperor
Maxentius.
It may, peradventure, be an honour to us in future ages, that a learned
author of this present time, and a Parisian, takes a great deal of pains
to persuade the ladies of our age rather to take any other course than to
enter into the horrid meditation of such a despair. I am sorry he had
never heard, that he might have inserted it amongst his other stories,
the saying of a woman, which was told me at Toulouse, who had passed
through the handling of some soldiers: "God be praised," said she, "that
once at least in my life I have had my fill without sin." In truth,
these cruelties are very unworthy the French good nature, and also, God
be thanked, our air is very well purged of them since this good advice:
'tis enough that they say "no" in doing it, according to the rule of the
good Marot.
"Un doulx nenny, avec un doulx sourire
Est tant honneste."—Marot.
History is everywhere full of those who by a thousand ways have
exchanged a painful and irksome life for death. Lucius Aruntius killed
himself, to fly, he said, both the future and the past. Granius Silvanus
and Statius Proximus, after having been pardoned by Nero, killed
themselves; either disdaining to live by the favour of so wicked a man,
or that they might not be troubled, at some other time, to obtain a
second pardon, considering the proclivity of his nature to suspect and
credit accusations against worthy men. Spargapises, son of Queen
Tomyris, being a prisoner of war to Cyrus, made use of the first favour
Cyrus shewed him, in commanding him to be unbound, to kill himself,
having pretended to no other benefit of liberty, but only to be revenged
of himself for the disgrace of being taken. Boges, governor in Eion for
King Xerxes, being besieged by the Athenian army under the conduct of
Cimon, refused the conditions offered, that he might safe return into
Asia with all his wealth, impatient to survive the loss of a place his
master had given him to keep; wherefore, having defended the city to the
last extremity, nothing being left to eat, he first threw all the gold
and whatever else the enemy could make booty of into the river Strymon,
and then causing a great pile to be set on fire, and the throats of all
the women, children, concubines, and servants to be cut, he threw their
bodies into the fire, and at last leaped into it himself.
Ninachetuen, an Indian lord, so soon as he heard the first whisper of
the Portuguese Viceroy's determination to dispossess him, without any
apparent cause, of his command in Malacca, to transfer it to the King of
Campar, he took this resolution with himself: he caused a scaffold, more
long than broad, to be erected, supported by columns royally adorned
with tapestry and strewed with flowers and abundance of perfumes; all
which being prepared, in a robe of cloth of gold, set full of jewels of
great value, he came out into the street, and mounted the steps to the
scaffold, at one corner of which he had a pile lighted of aromatic wood.
Everybody ran to see to what end these unusual preparations were made;
when Ninachetuen, with a manly but displeased countenance, set forth how
much he had obliged the Portuguese nation, and with how unspotted
fidelity he had carried himself in his charge; that having so often,
sword in hand, manifested in the behalf of others, that honour was much
more dear to him than life, he was not to abandon the concern of it for
himself: that fortune denying him all means of opposing the affront
designed to be put upon him, his courage at least enjoined him to free
himself from the sense of it, and not to serve for a fable to the
people, nor for a triumph to men less deserving than himself; which
having said he leaped into the fire.
Sextilia, wife of Scaurus, and Paxaea, wife of Labeo, to encourage
their husbands to avoid the dangers that pressed upon them, wherein they
had no other share than conjugal affection, voluntarily sacrificed their
own lives to serve them in this extreme necessity for company and
example. What they did for their husbands, Cocceius Nerva did for his
country, with less utility though with equal affection: this great
lawyer, flourishing in health, riches, reputation, and favour with the
Emperor, had no other cause to kill himself but the sole compassion of
the miserable state of the Roman Republic. Nothing can be added to the
beauty of the death of the wife of Fulvius, a familiar favourite of
Augustus: Augustus having discovered that he had vented an important
secret he had entrusted him withal, one morning that he came to make his
court, received him very coldly and looked frowningly upon him. He
returned home, full of, despair, where he sorrowfully told his wife
that, having fallen into this misfortune, he was resolved to kill
himself: to which she roundly replied, "'tis but reason you should,
seeing that having so often experienced the incontinence of my tongue,
you could not take warning: but let me kill myself first," and without
any more saying ran herself through the body with a sword. Vibius
Virrius, despairing of the safety of his city besieged by the Romans and
of their mercy, in the last deliberation of his city's senate, after
many arguments conducing to that end, concluded that the most noble
means to escape fortune was by their own hands: telling them that the
enemy would have them in honour, and Hannibal would be sensible how many
faithful friends he had abandoned; inviting those who approved of his
advice to come to a good supper he had ready at home, where after they
had eaten well, they would drink together of what he had prepared; a
beverage, said he, that will deliver our bodies from torments, our souls
from insult, and our eyes and ears from the sense of so many hateful
mischiefs, as the conquered suffer from cruel and implacable conquerors.
I have, said he, taken order for fit persons to throw our bodies into a
funeral pile before my door so soon as we are dead. Many enough approved
this high resolution, but few imitated it; seven-and-twenty senators
followed him, who, after having tried to drown the thought of this fatal
determination in wine, ended the feast with the mortal mess; and
embracing one another, after they had jointly deplored the misfortune of
their country, some retired home to their own houses, others stayed to
be burned with Vibius in his funeral pyre; and were all of them so long
in dying, the vapour of the wine having prepossessed the veins, and by
that means deferred the effect of poison, that some of them were within
an hour of seeing the enemy inside the walls of Capua, which was taken
the next morning, and of undergoing the miseries they had at so dear a
rate endeavoured to avoid. Jubellius Taurea, another citizen of the same
country, the Consul Fulvius returning from the shameful butchery he had
made of two hundred and twenty-five senators, called him back fiercely
by name, and having made him stop: "Give the word," said he, "that
somebody may dispatch me after the massacre of so many others, that thou
mayest boast to have killed a much more valiant man than thyself."
Fulvius, disdaining him as a man out of his wits, and also having
received letters from Rome censuring the inhumanity of his execution
which tied his hands, Jubellius proceeded: "Since my country has been
taken, my friends dead, and having with my own hands slain my wife and
children to rescue them from the desolation of this ruin, I am denied to
die the death of my fellow-citizens, let me borrow from virtue vengeance
on this hated life," and therewithal drawing a short sword he carried
concealed about him, he ran it through his own bosom, falling down
backward, and expiring at the consul's feet.
Alexander, laying siege to a city of the Indies, those within,
finding themselves very hardly set, put on a vigorous resolution to
deprive him of the pleasure of his victory, and accordingly burned
themselves in general, together with their city, in despite of his
humanity: a new kind of war, where the enemies sought to save them, and
they to destroy themselves, doing to make themselves sure of death, all
that men do to secure life.
Astapa, a city of Spain, finding itself weak in walls and defence to
withstand the Romans, the inhabitants made a heap of all their riches
and furniture in the public place; and, having ranged upon this heap all
the women and children, and piled them round with wood and other
combustible matter to take sudden fire, and left fifty of their young
men for the execution of that whereon they had resolved, they made a
desperate sally, where for want of power to overcome, they caused
themselves to be every man slain. The fifty, after having massacred
every living soul throughout the whole city, and put fire to this pile,
threw themselves lastly into it, finishing their generous liberty,
rather after an insensible, than after a sorrowful and disgraceful
manner, giving the enemy to understand, that if fortune had been so
pleased, they had as well the courage to snatch from them victory as
they had to frustrate and render it dreadful, and even mortal to those
who, allured by the splendour of the gold melting in this flame, having
approached it, a great number were there suffocated and burned, being
kept from retiring by the crowd that followed after.
The Abydeans, being pressed by King Philip, put on the same
resolution; but, not having time, they could not put it 'in effect. The
king, who was struck with horror at the rash precipitation of this
execution (the treasure and movables that they had condemned to the
flames being first seized), drawing off his soldiers, granted them three
days' time to kill themselves in, that they might do it with more order
and at greater ease: which time they filled with blood and slaughter
beyond the utmost excess of all hostile cruelty, so that not so much as
any one soul was left alive that had power to destroy itself. There are
infinite examples of like popular resolutions which seem the more fierce
and cruel in proportion as the effect is more universal, and yet are
really less so than when singly executed; what arguments and persuasion
cannot do with individual men, they can do with all, the ardour of
society ravishing particular judgments.
The condemned who would live to be executed in the reign of Tiberius,
forfeited their goods and were denied the rites of sepulture; those who,
by killing themselves, anticipated it, were interred, and had liberty to
dispose of their estates by will.
But men sometimes covet death out of hope of a greater good. "I
desire," says St. Paul, "to be with Christ," and "who shall rid me of
these bands?" Cleombrotus of Ambracia, having read Plato's Pheedo,
entered into so great a desire of the life to come that, without any
other occasion, he threw himself into the sea. By which it appears how
improperly we call this voluntary dissolution, despair, to which the
eagerness of hope often inclines us, and, often, a calm and temperate
desire proceeding from a mature and deliberate judgment. Jacques du
Chastel, bishop of Soissons, in St. Louis's foreign expedition, seeing
the king and whole army upon the point of returning into France, leaving
the affairs of religion imperfect, took a resolution rather to go into
Paradise; wherefore, having taken solemn leave of his friends, he
charged alone, in the sight of every one, into the enemy's army, where
he was presently cut to pieces. In a certain kingdom of the new
discovered world, upon a day of solemn procession, when the idol they
adore is drawn about in public upon a chariot of marvellous greatness;
besides that many are then seen cutting off pieces of their flesh to
offer to him, there are a number of others who prostrate themselves upon
the place, causing themselves to be crushed and broken to pieces under
the weighty wheels, to obtain the veneration of sanctity after death,
which is accordingly paid them. The death of the bishop, sword in hand,
has more of magnanimity in it, and less of sentiment, the ardour of
combat taking away part of the latter.
There are some governments who have taken upon them to regulate the
justice and opportunity of voluntary death. In former times there was
kept in our city of Marseilles a poison prepared out of hemlock, at the
public charge, for those who had a mind to hasten their end, having
first, before the six hundred, who were their senate, given account of
the reasons and motives of their design, and it was not otherwise
lawful, than by leave from the magistrate and upon just occasion to do
violence to themselves.—[Valerius Maximus, ii. 6, 7.]—The same law was
also in use in other places.
Sextus Pompeius, in his expedition into Asia, touched at the isle of
Cea in Negropont: it happened whilst he was there, as we have it from
one that was with him, that a woman of great quality, having given an
account to her citizens why she was resolved to put an end to her life,
invited Pompeius to her death, to render it the more honourable, an
invitation that he accepted; and having long tried in vain by the power
of his eloquence, which was very great, and persuasion, to divert her
from that design, he acquiesced in the end in her own will. She had
passed the age of four score and ten in a very happy state, both of body
and mind; being then laid upon her bed, better dressed than ordinary and
leaning upon her elbow, "The gods," said she, "O Sextus Pompeius, and
rather those I leave than those I go to seek, reward thee, for that thou
hast not disdained to be both the counsellor of my life and the witness
of my death. For my part, having always experienced the smiles of
fortune, for fear lest the desire of living too long may make me see a
contrary face, I am going, by a happy end, to dismiss the remains of my
soul, leaving behind two daughters of my body and a legion of nephews";
which having said, with some exhortations to her family to live in
peace, she divided amongst them her goods, and recommending her domestic
gods to her eldest daughter, she boldly took the bowl that contained the
poison, and having made her vows and prayers to Mercury to conduct her
to some happy abode in the other world, she roundly swallowed the mortal
poison. This being done, she entertained the company with the progress
of its operation, and how the cold by degrees seized the several parts
of her body one after another, till having in the end told them it began
to seize upon her heart and bowels, she called her daughters to do the
last office and close her eyes.
Pliny tells us of a certain Hyperborean nation where, by reason of
the sweet temperature of the air, lives rarely ended but by the
voluntary surrender of the inhabitants, who, being weary of and satiated
with living, had the custom, at a very old age, after having made good
cheer, to precipitate themselves into the sea from the top of a certain
rock, assigned for that service. Pain and the fear of a worse death seem
to me the most excusable incitements.
CHAPTER IV——TO-MORROW'S A NEW DAY
I give, as it seems to me, with good reason the palm to Jacques Amyot
of all our French writers, not only for the simplicity and purity of his
language, wherein he excels all others, nor for his constancy in going
through so long a work, nor for the depth of his knowledge, having been
able so successfully to smooth and unravel so knotty and intricate an
author (for let people tell me what they will, I understand nothing of
Greek; but I meet with sense so well united and maintained throughout
his whole translation, that certainly he either knew the true fancy of
the author, or having, by being long conversant with him, imprinted a
vivid and general idea of that of Plutarch in his soul, he has delivered
us nothing that either derogates from or contradicts him), but above
all, I am the most taken with him for having made so discreet a choice
of a book so worthy and of so great utility wherewith to present his
country. We ignorant fellows had been lost, had not this book raised us
out of the dirt; by this favour of his we dare now speak and write; the
ladies are able to read to schoolmasters; 'tis our breviary. If this
good man be yet living, I would recommend to him Xenophon, to do as much
by that; 'tis a much more easy task than the other, and consequently
more proper for his age. And, besides, though I know not how, methinks
he does briskly—and clearly enough trip over steps another would have
stumbled at, yet nevertheless his style seems to be more his own where
he does not encounter those difficulties, and rolls away at his own
ease.
I was just now reading this passage where Plutarch says of himself,
that Rusticus being present at a declamation of his at Rome, there
received a packet from the emperor, and deferred to open it till all was
done: for which, says he, all the company highly applauded the gravity
of this person. 'Tis true, that being upon the subject of curiosity and
of that eager passion for news, which makes us with so much indiscretion
and impatience leave all to entertain a newcomer, and without any manner
of respect or outcry, tear open on a sudden, in what company soever, the
letters that are delivered to us, he had reason to applaud the gravity
of Rusticus upon this occasion; and might moreover have added to it the
commendation of his civility and courtesy, that would not interrupt the
current of his declamation. But I doubt whether any one can commend his
prudence; for receiving unexpected letters, and especially from an
emperor, it might have fallen out that the deferring to read them might
have been of great prejudice. The vice opposite to curiosity is
negligence, to which I naturally incline, and wherein I have seen some
men so extreme that one might have found letters sent them three or four
days before, still sealed up in their pockets.
I never open any letters directed to another; not only those
intrusted with me, but even such as fortune has guided to my hand; and
am angry with myself if my eyes unawares steal any contents of letters
of importance he is reading when I stand near a great man. Never was man
less inquisitive or less prying into other men's affairs than I.
In our fathers' days, Monsieur de Boutieres had like to have lost
Turin from having, while engaged in good company at supper, delayed to
read information that was sent him of the treason plotted against that
city where he commanded. And this very Plutarch has given me to
understand, that Julius Caesar had preserved himself, if, going to the
Senate the day he was assassinated by the conspirators, he had read a
note which was presented to him by, the way. He tells also the story of
Archias, the tyrant of Thebes, that the night before the execution of
the design Pelopidas had plotted to kill him to restore his country to
liberty, he had a full account sent him in writing by another Archias,
an Athenian, of the whole conspiracy, and that, this packet having been
delivered to him while he sat at supper, he deferred the opening of it,
saying, which afterwards turned to a proverb in Greece, "Business
to-morrow."
A wise man may, I think, out of respect to another, as not to disturb
the company, as Rusticus did, or not to break off another affair of
importance in hand, defer to read or hear any new thing that is brought
him; but for his own interest or particular pleasure, especially if he
be a public minister, that he will not interrupt his dinner or break his
sleep is inexcusable. And there was anciently at Rome, the consular
place, as they called it, which was the most honourable at the table, as
being a place of most liberty, and of more convenient access to those
who came in to speak to the person seated there; by which it appears,
that being at meat, they did not totally abandon the concern of other
affairs and incidents. But when all is said, it is very hard in human
actions to give so exact a rule upon moral reasons, that fortune will
not therein maintain her own right.
CHAPTER V——OF CONSCIENCE
The Sieur de la Brousse, my brother, and I, travelling one day
together during the time of our civil wars, met a gentleman of good
sort. He was of the contrary party, though I did not know so much, for
he pretended otherwise: and the mischief on't is, that in this sort of
war the cards are so shuffled, your enemy not being distinguished from
yourself by any apparent mark either of language or habit, and being
nourished under the same law, air, and manners, it is very hard to avoid
disorder and confusion. This made me afraid myself of meeting any of our
troops in a place where I was not known, that I might not be in fear to
tell my name, and peradventure of something worse; as it had befallen me
before, where, by such a mistake, I lost both men and horses, and
amongst others an Italian gentleman my page, whom I bred with the
greatest care and affection, was miserably slain, in whom a youth of
great promise and expectation was extinguished. But the gentleman my
brother and I met had so desperate, half-dead a fear upon him at meeting
with any horse, or passing by any of the towns that held for the King,
that I at last discovered it to be alarms of conscience. It seemed to
the poor man as if through his visor and the crosses upon his cassock,
one would have penetrated into his bosom and read the most secret
intentions of his heart; so wonderful is the power of conscience. It
makes us betray, accuse, and fight against ourselves, and for want of
other witnesses, to give evidence against ourselves:
"Occultum quatiens animo tortore flagellum."
["The torturer of the soul brandishing a sharp scourge within."
—Juvenal, iii. 195.]
This story is in every child's mouth: Bessus the Paeonian, being
reproached for wantonly pulling down a nest of young sparrows and
killing them, replied, that he had reason to do so, seeing that those
little birds never ceased falsely to accuse him of the murder of his
father. This parricide had till then been concealed and unknown, but the
revenging fury of conscience caused it to be discovered by him himself,
who was to suffer for it. Hesiod corrects the saying of Plato, that
punishment closely follows sin, it being, as he says, born at the same
time with it. Whoever expects punishment already suffers it, and whoever
has deserved it expects it. Wickedness contrives torments against
itself:
"Malum consilium consultori pessimum."
["Ill designs are worst to the contriver."
—Apud Aul. Gellium, iv. 5.]
as the wasp stings and hurts another, but most of all itself, for it
there loses its sting and its use for ever,
"Vitasque in vulnere ponunt."
["And leave their own lives in the wound."
—Virgil, Geo., iv. 238.]
Cantharides have somewhere about them, by a contrariety of nature, a
counterpoison against their poison. In like manner, at the same time
that men take delight in vice, there springs in the conscience a
displeasure that afflicts us sleeping and waking with various tormenting
imaginations:
"Quippe ubi se multi, per somnia saepe loquentes,
Aut morbo delirantes, protraxe ferantur,
Et celata diu in medium peccata dedisse."
["Surely where many, often talking in their sleep, or raving in
disease, are said to have betrayed themselves, and to have given
publicity to offences long concealed."—Lucretius, v. 1157.]
Apollodorus dreamed that he saw himself flayed by the Scythians and
afterwards boiled in a cauldron, and that his heart muttered these words
"I am the cause of all these mischiefs that have befallen thee."
Epicurus said that no hiding-hole could conceal the wicked, since they
could never assure themselves of being hid whilst their conscience
discovered them to themselves.
"Prima est haec ultio, quod se
Judice nemo nocens absohitur."
["Tis the first punishment of sin that no man absolves himself." or:
"This is the highest revenge, that by its judgment no offender is
absolved."—Juvenal, xiii. 2.]
As an ill conscience fills us with fear, so a good one gives us
greater confidence and assurance; and I can truly say that I have gone
through several hazards with a more steady pace in consideration of the
secret knowledge I had of my own will and the innocence of my
intentions:
"Conscia mens ut cuique sua est, ita concipit intra
Pectora pro facto spemque metumque suo."
["As a man's conscience is, so within hope or fear prevails, suiting
to his design."—Ovid, Fast., i. 485.]
Of this are a thousand examples; but it will be enough to instance
three of one and the same person. Scipio, being one day accused before
the people of Rome of some crimes of a very high nature, instead of
excusing himself or flattering his judges: "It will become you well,"
said he, "to sit in judgment upon a head, by whose means you have the
power to judge all the world." Another time, all the answer he gave to
several impeachments brought against him by a tribune of the people,
instead of making his defence: "Let us go, citizens," said he, "let us
go render thanks to the gods for the victory they gave me over the
Carthaginians as this day," and advancing himself before towards the
Temple, he had presently all the assembly and his very accuser himself
following at his heels. And Petilius, having been set on by Cato to
demand an account of the money that had passed through his hands in the
province of Antioch, Scipio being come into the senate to that purpose,
produced a book from under his robe, wherein he told them was an exact
account of his receipts and disbursements; but being required to deliver
it to the prothonotary to be examined, he refused, saying, he would not
do himself so great a disgrace; and in the presence of the whole senate
tore the book with his own hands to pieces. I do not believe that the
most seared conscience could have counterfeited so great an assurance.
He had naturally too high a spirit and was accustomed to too high a
fortune, says Titius Livius, to know how to be criminal, and to lower
himself to the meanness of defending his innocence. The putting men to
the rack is a dangerous invention, and seems to be rather a trial of
patience than of truth. Both he who has the fortitude to endure it
conceals the truth, and he who has not: for why should pain sooner make
me confess what really is, than force me to say what is not? And, on the
contrary, if he who is not guilty of that whereof he is accused, has the
courage to undergo those torments, why should not he who is guilty have
the same, so fair a reward as life being in his prospect? I believe the
ground of this invention proceeds from the consideration of the force of
conscience: for, to the guilty, it seems to assist the rack to make him
confess his fault and to shake his resolution; and, on the other side,
that it fortifies the innocent against the torture. But when all is
done, 'tis, in plain truth, a trial full of uncertainty and danger what
would not a man say, what would not a man do, to avoid so intolerable
torments?
"Etiam innocentes cogit mentiri dolor."
["Pain will make even the innocent lie."—Publius Syrus, De Dolore.]
Whence it comes to pass, that him whom the judge has racked that he
may not die innocent, he makes him die both innocent and racked. A
thousand and a thousand have charged their own heads by false
confessions, amongst whom I place Philotas, considering the
circumstances of the trial Alexander put upon him and the progress of
his torture. But so it is that some say it is the least evil human
weakness could invent; very inhumanly, notwithstanding, and to very
little purpose, in my opinion.
Many nations less barbarous in this than the Greeks and Romans who
call them so, repute it horrible and cruel to torment and pull a man to
pieces for a fault of which they are yet in doubt. How can he help your
ignorance? Are not you unjust, that, not to kill him without cause, do
worse than kill him? And that this is so, do but observe how often men
prefer to die without reason than undergo this examination, more painful
than execution itself; and that oft-times by its extremity anticipates
execution, and perform it. I know not where I had this story, but it
exactly matches the conscience of our justice in this particular. A
country-woman, to a general of a very severe discipline, accused one of
his soldiers that he had taken from her children the little soup meat
she had left to nourish them withal, the army having consumed all the
rest; but of this proof there was none. The general, after having
cautioned the woman to take good heed to what she said, for that she
would make herself guilty of a false accusation if she told a lie, and
she persisting, he presently caused the soldier's belly to be ripped up
to clear the truth of the fact, and the woman was found to be right. An
instructive sentence.
CHAPTER VI——USE MAKES PERFECT
'Tis not to be expected that argument and instruction, though we
never so voluntarily surrender our belief to what is read to us, should
be of force to lead us on so far as to action, if we do not, over and
above, exercise and form the soul by experience to the course for which
we design it; it will, otherwise, doubtless find itself at a loss when
it comes to the pinch of the business. This is the reason why those
amongst the philosophers who were ambitious to attain to a greater
excellence, were not contented to await the severities of fortune in the
retirement and repose of their own habitations, lest he should have
surprised them raw and inexpert in the combat, but sallied out to meet
her, and purposely threw themselves into the proof of difficulties. Some
of them abandoned riches to exercise themselves in a voluntary poverty;
others sought out labour and an austerity of life, to inure them to
hardships and inconveniences; others have deprived themselves of their
dearest members, as of sight, and of the instruments of generation, lest
their too delightful and effeminate service should soften and debauch
the stability of their souls.
But in dying, which is the greatest work we have to do, practice can
give us no assistance at all. A man may by custom fortify himself
against pain, shame, necessity, and such-like accidents, but as to
death, we can experiment it but once, and are all apprentices when we
come to it. There have, anciently, been men so excellent managers of
their time that they have tried even in death itself to relish and taste
it, and who have bent their utmost faculties of mind to discover what
this passage is, but they are none of them come back to tell us the
news:
"Nemo expergitus exstat,
Frigida quern semel est vitai pausa sequuta."
["No one wakes who has once fallen into the cold sleep of death."
—Lucretius, iii. 942]
Julius Canus, a noble Roman, of singular constancy and virtue, having
been condemned to die by that worthless fellow Caligula, besides many
marvellous testimonies that he gave of his resolution, as he was just
going to receive the stroke of the executioner, was asked by a
philosopher, a friend of his: "Well, Canus, whereabout is your soul now?
what is she doing? What are you thinking of?"—"I was thinking," replied
the other, "to keep myself ready, and the faculties of my mind full
settled and fixed, to try if in this short and quick instant of death, I
could perceive the motion of the soul when she parts from the body, and
whether she has any sentiment at the separation, that I may after come
again if I can, to acquaint my friends with it." This man philosophises
not unto death only, but in death itself. What a strange assurance was
this, and what bravery of courage, to desire his death should be a
lesson to him, and to have leisure to think of other things in so great
an affair:
"Jus hoc animi morientis habebat."
["This mighty power of mind he had dying."-Lucan, viii. 636.]
And yet I fancy, there is a certain way of making it familiar to us,
and in some sort of making trial what it is. We may gain experience, if
not entire and perfect, yet such, at least, as shall not be totally
useless to us, and that may render us more confident and more assured.
If we cannot overtake it, we may approach it and view it, and if we do
not advance so far as the fort, we may at least discover and make
ourselves acquainted with the avenues. It is not without reason that we
are taught to consider sleep as a resemblance of death: with how great
facility do we pass from waking to sleeping, and with how little concern
do we lose the knowledge of light and of ourselves. Peradventure, the
faculty of sleeping would seem useless and contrary to nature, since it
deprives us of all action and sentiment, were it not that by it nature
instructs us that she has equally made us to die as to live; and in life
presents to us the eternal state she reserves for us after it, to
accustom us to it and to take from us the fear of it. But such as have
by violent accident fallen into a swoon, and in it have lost all sense,
these, methinks, have been very near seeing the true and natural face of
death; for as to the moment of the passage, it is not to be feared that
it brings with it any pain or displeasure, forasmuch as we can have no
feeling without leisure; our sufferings require time, which in death is
so short, and so precipitous, that it must necessarily be insensible.
They are the approaches that we are to fear, and these may fall within
the limits of experience.
Many things seem greater by imagination than they are in effect; I
have passed a good part of my life in a perfect and entire health; I
say, not only entire, but, moreover, sprightly and wanton. This state,
so full of verdure, jollity, and vigour, made the consideration of
sickness so formidable to me, that when I came to experience it, I found
the attacks faint and easy in comparison with what I had apprehended. Of
this I have daily experience; if I am under the shelter of a warm room,
in a stormy and tempestuous night, I wonder how people can live abroad,
and am afflicted for those who are out in the fields: if I am there
myself, I do not wish to be anywhere else. This one thing of being
always shut up in a chamber I fancied insupportable: but I was presently
inured to be so imprisoned a week, nay a month together, in a very weak,
disordered, and sad condition; and I have found that, in the time of my
health, I much more pitied the sick, than I think myself to be pitied
when I am so, and that the force of my imagination enhances near
one-half of the essence and reality of the thing. I hope that when I
come to die I shall find it the same, and that, after all, it is not
worth the pains I take, so much preparation and so much assistance as I
call in, to undergo the stroke. But, at all events, we cannot give
ourselves too much advantage.
In the time of our third or second troubles (I do not well remember
which), going one day abroad to take the air, about a league from my own
house, which is seated in the very centre of all the bustle and mischief
of the late civil wars in France; thinking myself in all security and so
near to my retreat that I stood in need of no better equipage, I had
taken a horse that went very easy upon his pace, but was not very
strong. Being upon my return home, a sudden occasion falling out to make
use of this horse in a kind of service that he was not accustomed to,
one of my train, a lusty, tall fellow, mounted upon a strong German
horse, that had a very ill mouth, fresh and vigorous, to play the brave
and set on ahead of his fellows, comes thundering full speed in the very
track where I was, rushing like a Colossus upon the little man and the
little horse, with such a career of strength and weight, that he turned
us both over and over, topsy-turvy with our heels in the air: so that
there lay the horse overthrown and stunned with the fall, and I ten or
twelve paces from him stretched out at length, with my face all battered
and broken, my sword which I had had in my hand, above ten paces beyond
that, and my belt broken all to pieces, without motion or sense any more
than a stock. 'Twas the only swoon I was ever in till that hour in my
life. Those who were with me, after having used all the means they could
to bring me to myself, concluding me dead, took me up in their arms, and
carried me with very much difficulty home to my house, which was about
half a French league from thence. On the way, having been for more than
two hours given over for a dead man, I began to move and to fetch my
breath; for so great abundance of blood was fallen into my stomach, that
nature had need to rouse her forces to discharge it. They then raised me
upon my feet, where I threw off a whole bucket of clots of blood, as
this I did also several times by the way. This gave me so much ease,
that I began to recover a little life, but so leisurely and by so small
advances, that my first sentiments were much nearer the approaches of
death than life:
"Perche, dubbiosa ancor del suo ritorno,
Non s'assicura attonita la mente."
["For the soul, doubtful as to its return, could not compose itself"
—Tasso, Gierus. Lib., xii. 74.]
The remembrance of this accident, which is very well imprinted in my
memory, so naturally representing to me the image and idea of death, has
in some sort reconciled me to that untoward adventure. When I first
began to open my eyes, it was with so perplexed, so weak and dead a
sight, that I could yet distinguish nothing but only discern the light:
"Come quel ch'or apre, or'chiude
Gli occhi, mezzo tra'l sonno e l'esser desto."
["As a man that now opens, now shuts his eyes, between sleep
and waking."—Tasso, Gierus. Lib., viii., 26.]
As to the functions of the soul, they advanced with the same pace and
measure with those of the body. I saw myself all bloody, my doublet
being stained all over with the blood I had vomited. The first thought
that came into my mind was that I had a harquebuss shot in my head, and
indeed, at the time there were a great many fired round about us.
Methought my life but just hung upon my, lips: and I shut my eyes, to
help, methought, to thrust it out, and took a pleasure in languishing
and letting myself go. It was an imagination that only superficially
floated upon my soul, as tender and weak as all the rest, but really,
not only exempt from anything displeasing, but mixed with that sweetness
that people feel when they glide into a slumber.
I believe it is the very same condition those people are in, whom we
see swoon with weakness in the agony of death we pity them without
cause, supposing them agitated with grievous dolours, or that their
souls suffer under painful thoughts. It has ever been my belief,
contrary to the opinion of many, and particularly of La Boetie, that
those whom we see so subdued and stupefied at the approaches of their
end, or oppressed with the length of the disease, or by accident of an
apoplexy or falling sickness,
"Vi morbi saepe coactus
Ante oculos aliquis nostros, ut fulminis ictu,
Concidit, et spumas agit; ingemit, et tremit artus;
Desipit, extentat nervos, torquetur, anhelat,
Inconstanter, et in jactando membra fatigat;"
["Often, compelled by the force of disease, some one as
thunderstruck falls under our eyes, and foams, groans, and trembles,
stretches, twists, breathes irregularly, and in paroxysms wears out
his strength."—Lucretius, iii. 485.]
or hurt in the head, whom we hear to mutter, and by fits to utter
grievous groans; though we gather from these signs by which it seems as
if they had some remains of consciousness, and that there are movements
of the body; I have always believed, I say, both the body and the soul
benumbed and asleep,
"Vivit, et est vitae nescius ipse suae,"
["He lives, and does not know that he is alive."
—Ovid, Trist., i. 3, 12.]
and could not believe that in so great a stupefaction of the members
and so great a defection of the senses, the soul could maintain any
force within to take cognisance of herself, and that, therefore, they
had no tormenting reflections to make them consider and be sensible of
the misery of their condition, and consequently were not much to be
pitied.
I can, for my part, think of no state so insupportable and dreadful,
as to have the soul vivid and afflicted, without means to declare
itself; as one should say of such as are sent to execution with their
tongues first cut out (were it not that in this kind of dying, the most
silent seems to me the most graceful, if accompanied with a grave and
constant countenance); or if those miserable prisoners, who fall into
the hands of the base hangman soldiers of this age, by whom they are
tormented with all sorts of inhuman usage to compel them to some
excessive and impossible ransom; kept, in the meantime, in such
condition and place, where they have no means of expressing or
signifying their thoughts and their misery. The poets have feigned some
gods who favour the deliverance of such as suffer under a languishing
death:
"Hunc ego Diti
Sacrum jussa fero, teque isto corpore solvo."
["I bidden offer this sacred thing to Pluto, and from that body
dismiss thee."—AEneid, iv. 782.]
both the interrupted words, and the short and irregular answers one
gets from them sometimes, by bawling and keeping a clutter about them;
or the motions which seem to yield some consent to what we would have
them do, are no testimony, nevertheless, that they live, an entire life
at least. So it happens to us in the yawning of sleep, before it has
fully possessed us, to perceive, as in a dream, what is done about us,
and to follow the last things that are said with a perplexed and
uncertain hearing which seems but to touch upon the borders of the soul;
and to make answers to the last words that have been spoken to us, which
have more in them of chance than sense.
Now seeing I have in effect tried it, I have no doubt but I have
hitherto made a right judgment; for first, being in a swoon, I laboured
to rip open the buttons of my doublet with my nails, for my sword was
gone; and yet I felt nothing in my imagination that hurt me; for we have
many motions in us that do not proceed from our direction;
"Semianimesque micant digiti, ferrumque retractant;"
["Half-dead fingers grope about, and grasp again the sword."
—AEneid, x. 396.]
so falling people extend their arms before them by a natural impulse,
which prompts our limbs to offices and motions without any commission
from our reason.
"Falciferos memorant currus abscindere membra . . .
Ut tremere in terra videatur ab artubus id quod
Decidit abscissum; cum mens tamen atque hominis vis
Mobilitate mali, non quit sentire dolorem."
["They relate that scythe-bearing chariots mow off limbs, so that
they quiver on the ground; and yet the mind of him from whom the
limb is taken by the swiftness of the blow feels no pain."
—Lucretius, iii. 642.]
My stomach was so oppressed with the coagulated blood, that my hands
moved to that part, of their own voluntary motion, as they frequently do
to the part that itches, without being directed by our will. There are
several animals, and even men, in whom one may perceive the muscles to
stir and tremble after they are dead. Every one experimentally knows
that there are some members which grow stiff and flag without his leave.
Now, those passions which only touch the outward bark of us, cannot be
said to be ours: to make them so, there must be a concurrence of the
whole man; and the pains which are felt by the hand or the foot while we
are sleeping, are none of ours.
As I drew near my own house, where the alarm of my fall was already
got before me, and my family were come out to meet me, with the hubbub
usual in such cases, not only did I make some little answer to some
questions which were asked me; but they moreover tell me, that I was
sufficiently collected to order them to bring a horse to my wife whom on
the road, I saw struggling and tiring herself which is hilly and rugged.
This should seem to proceed from a soul its functions; but it was
nothing so with me. I knew not what I said or did, and they were nothing
but idle thoughts in the clouds, that were stirred up by the senses of
the eyes and ears, and proceeded not from me. I knew not for all that,
whence I came or whither I went, neither was I capable to weigh and
consider what was said to me: these were light effects, that the senses
produced of themselves as of custom; what the soul contributed was in a
dream, lightly touched, licked and bedewed by the soft impression of the
senses. Notwithstanding, my condition was, in truth, very easy and
quiet; I had no affliction upon me, either for others or myself; it was
an extreme languor and weakness, without any manner of pain. I saw my
own house, but knew it not. When they had put me to bed I found an
inexpressible sweetness in that repose; for I had been desperately
tugged and lugged by those poor people who had taken the pains to carry
me upon their arms a very great and a very rough way, and had in so
doing all quite tired out themselves, twice or thrice one after another.
They offered me several remedies, but I would take none, certainly
believing that I was mortally wounded in the head. And, in earnest, it
had been a very happy death, for the weakness of my understanding
deprived me of the faculty of discerning, and that of my body of the
sense of feeling; I was suffering myself to glide away so sweetly and
after so soft and easy a manner, that I scarce find any other action
less troublesome than that was. But when I came again to myself and to
resume my faculties:
"Ut tandem sensus convaluere mei,"
["When at length my lost senses again returned."
—Ovid, Trist., i. 3, 14.]
which was two or three hours after, I felt myself on a sudden
involved in terrible pain, having my limbs battered and ground with my
fall, and was. so ill for two or three nights after, that I thought I
was once more dying again, but a more painful death, having concluded
myself as good as dead before, and to this hour am sensible of the
bruises of that terrible shock. I will not here omit, that the last
thing I could make them beat into my head, was the memory of this
accident, and I had it over and over again repeated to me, whither I was
going, from whence I came, and at what time of the day this mischance
befell me, before I could comprehend it. As to the manner of my fall,
that was concealed from me in favour to him who had been the occasion,
and other flim-flams were invented. But a long time after, and the very
next day that my memory began to return and to represent to me the state
wherein I was, at the instant that I perceived this horse coming full
drive upon me (for I had seen him at my heels, and gave myself for gone,
but this thought had been so sudden, that fear had had no leisure to
introduce itself) it seemed to me like a flash of lightning that had
pierced my soul, and that I came from the other world.
This long story of so light an accident would appear vain enough,
were it not for the knowledge I have gained by it for my own use; for I
do really find, that to get acquainted with death, needs no more but
nearly to approach it. Every one, as Pliny says, is a good doctrine to
himself, provided he be capable of discovering himself near at hand.
Here, this is not my doctrine, 'tis my study; and is not the lesson of
another, but my own; and if I communicate it, it ought not to be ill
taken, for that which is of use to me, may also, peradventure, be useful
to another. As to the rest, I spoil nothing, I make use of nothing but
my own; and if I play the fool, 'tis at my own expense, and nobody else
is concerned in't; for 'tis a folly that will die with me, and that no
one is to inherit. We hear but of two or three of the ancients, who have
beaten this path, and yet I cannot say if it was after this manner,
knowing no more of them but their names. No one since has followed the
track: 'tis a rugged road, more so than it seems, to follow a pace so
rambling and uncertain, as that of the soul; to penetrate the dark
profundities of its intricate internal windings; to choose and lay hold
of so many little nimble motions; 'tis a new and extraordinary
undertaking, and that withdraws us from the common and most recommended
employments of the world. 'Tis now many years since that my thoughts
have had no other aim and level than myself, and that I have only pried
into and studied myself: or, if I study any other thing, 'tis to apply
it to or rather in myself. And yet I do not think it a fault, if, as
others do by other much less profitable sciences, I communicate what I
have learned in this, though I am not very well pleased with my own
progress. There is no description so difficult, nor doubtless of so
great utility, as that of a man's self: and withal, a man must curl his
hair and set out and adjust himself, to appear in public: now I am
perpetually tricking myself out, for I am eternally upon my own
description. Custom has made all speaking of a man's self vicious, and
positively interdicts it, in hatred to the boasting that seems
inseparable from the testimony men give of themselves:
"In vitium ducit culpae fuga."
["The avoiding a mere fault often leads us into a greater."
Or: "The escape from a fault leads into a vice"
—Horace, De Arte Poetics, verse 31.]
Instead of blowing the child's nose, this is to take his nose off
altogether. I think the remedy worse than the disease. But, allowing it
to be true that it must of necessity be presumption to entertain people
with discourses of one's self, I ought not, pursuing my general design,
to forbear an action that publishes this infirmity of mine, nor conceal
the fault which I not only practise but profess. Notwithstanding, to
speak my thought freely, I think that the custom of condemning wine,
because some people will be drunk, is itself to be condemned; a man
cannot abuse anything but what is good in itself; and I believe that
this rule has only regard to the popular vice. They are bits for calves,
with which neither the saints whom we hear speak so highly of
themselves, nor the philosophers, nor the divines will be curbed;
neither will I, who am as little the one as the other, If they do not
write of it expressly, at all events, when the occasions arise, they
don't hesitate to put themselves on the public highway. Of what does
Socrates treat more largely than of himself? To what does he more direct
and address the discourses of his disciples, than to speak of
themselves, not of the lesson in their book, but of the essence and
motion of their souls? We confess ourselves religiously to God and our
confessor; as our neighbours, do to all the people. But some will answer
that we there speak nothing but accusation against ourselves; why then,
we say all; for our very virtue itself is faulty and penetrable. My
trade and art is to live; he that forbids me to speak according to my
own sense, experience, and practice, may as well enjoin an architect not
to speak of building according to his own knowledge, but according to
that of his neighbour; according to the knowledge of another, and not
according to his own. If it be vainglory for a man to publish his own
virtues, why does not Cicero prefer the eloquence of Hortensius, and
Hortensius that of Cicero? Peradventure they mean that I should give
testimony of myself by works and effects, not barely by words. I chiefly
paint my thoughts, a subject void of form and incapable of operative
production; 'tis all that I can do to couch it in this airy body of the
voice; the wisest and devoutest men have lived in the greatest care to
avoid all apparent effects. Effects would more speak of fortune than of
me; they manifest their own office and not mine, but uncertainly and by
conjecture; patterns of some one particular virtue. I expose myself
entire; 'tis a body where, at one view, the veins, muscles, and tendons
are apparent, every of them in its proper place; here the effects of a
cold; there of the heart beating, very dubiously. I do not write my own
acts, but myself and my essence.
I am of opinion that a man must be very cautious how he values
himself, and equally conscientious to give a true report, be it better
or worse, impartially. If I thought myself perfectly good and wise, I
would rattle it out to some purpose. To speak less of one's self than
what one really is is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current
pay which is under a man's value is pusillanimity and cowardice,
according to, Aristotle. No virtue assists itself with falsehood; truth
is never matter of error. To speak more of one's self than is really
true is not always mere presumption; 'tis, moreover, very often folly;
to, be immeasurably pleased with what one is, and to fall into an
indiscreet self-love, is in my opinion the substance of this vice. The
most sovereign remedy to cure it, is to do quite contrary to what these
people direct who, in forbidding men to speak of themselves,
consequently, at the same time, interdict thinking of themselves too.
Pride dwells in the thought; the tongue can have but a very little share
in it.
They fancy that to think of one's self is to be delighted with one's
self; to frequent and converse with one's self, to be overindulgent; but
this excess springs only in those who take but a superficial view of
themselves, and dedicate their main inspection to their affairs; who
call it mere reverie and idleness to occupy one's self with one's self,
and the building one's self up a mere building of castles in the air;
who look upon themselves as a third person only, a stranger. If any one
be in rapture with his own knowledge, looking only on those below him,
let him but turn his eye upward towards past ages, and his pride will be
abated, when he shall there find so many thousand wits that trample him
under foot. If he enter into a flattering presumption of his personal
valour, let him but recollect the lives of Scipio, Epaminondas; so many
armies, so many nations, that leave him so far behind them. No
particular quality can make any man proud, that will at the same time
put the many other weak and imperfect ones he has in the other scale,
and the nothingness of human condition to make up the weight. Because
Socrates had alone digested to purpose the precept of his god, "to know
himself," and by that study arrived at the perfection of setting himself
at nought, he only was reputed worthy the title of a sage. Whosoever
shall so know himself, let him boldly speak it out.
CHAPTER VII——OF RECOMPENSES OF HONOUR
They who write the life of Augustus Caesar,—[Suetonius, Life of
Augustus, c. 25.]—observe this in his military discipline, that he was
wonderfully liberal of gifts to men of merit, but that as to the true
recompenses of honour he was as sparing; yet he himself had been
gratified by his uncle with all the military recompenses before he had
ever been in the field. It was a pretty invention, and received into
most governments of the world, to institute certain vain and in
themselves valueless distinctions to honour and recompense virtue, such
as the crowns of laurel, oak, and myrtle, the particular fashion of some
garment, the privilege to ride in a coach in the city, or at night with
a torch, some peculiar place assigned in public assemblies, the
prerogative of certain additional names and titles, certain distinctions
in the bearing of coats of arms, and the like, the use of which,
according to the several humours of nations, has been variously
received, and yet continues.
We in France, as also several of our neighbours, have orders of
knighthood that are instituted only for this end. And 'tis, in earnest,
a very good and profitable custom to find out an acknowledgment for the
worth of rare and excellent men, and to satisfy them with rewards that
are not at all chargeable either to prince or people. And that which has
always been found by ancient experience, and which we have heretofore
observed among ourselves, that men of quality have ever been more
jealous of such recompenses than of those wherein there was gain and
profit, is not without very good ground and reason. If with the reward,
which ought to be simply a recompense of honour, they should mix other
commodities and add riches, this mixture, instead of procuring an
increase of estimation, would debase and abate it. The Order of St.
Michael, which has been so long in repute amongst us, had no greater
commodity than that it had no communication with any other commodity,
which produced this effect, that formerly there was no office or title
whatever to which the gentry pretended with so great desire and
affection as they did to that; no quality that carried with it more
respect and grandeur, valour and worth more willingly embracing and with
greater ambition aspiring to a recompense purely its own, and rather
glorious than profitable. For, in truth, other gifts have not so great a
dignity of usage, by reason they are laid out upon all sorts of
occasions; with money a man pays the wages of a servant, the diligence
of a courier, dancing, vaulting, speaking, and the meanest offices we
receive; nay, and reward vice with it too, as flattery, treachery, and
pimping; and therefore 'tis no wonder if virtue less desires and less
willingly receives this common sort of payment, than that which is
proper and peculiar to her, throughout generous and noble. Augustus had
reason to be more sparing of this than the other, insomuch that honour
is a privilege which derives its principal essence from rarity; and so
virtue itself:
"Cui malus est nemo, quis bonus esse potest?"
["To whom no one is ill who can be good?"-Martial, xii. 82.]
We do not intend it for a commendation when we say that such a one is
careful in the education of his children, by reason it is a common act,
how just and well done soever; no more than we commend a great tree,
where the whole forest is the same. I do not think that any citizen of
Sparta glorified himself much upon his valour, it being the universal
virtue of the whole nation; and as little upon his fidelity and contempt
of riches. There is no recompense becomes virtue, how great soever, that
is once passed into a custom; and I know not withal whether we can ever
call it great, being common.
Seeing, then, that these remunerations of honour have no other value
and estimation but only this, that few people enjoy them, 'tis but to be
liberal of them to bring them down to nothing. And though there should
be now more men found than in former times worthy of our order, the
estimation of it nevertheless should not be abated, nor the honour made
cheap; and it may easily happen that more may merit it; for there is no
virtue that so easily spreads as that of military valour. There is
another virtue, true, perfect, and philosophical, of which I do not
speak, and only make use of the word in our common acceptation, much
greater than this and more full, which is a force and assurance of the
soul, equally despising all sorts of adverse accidents, equable,
uniform, and constant, of which ours is no more than one little ray.
Use, education, example, and custom can do all in all to the
establishment of that whereof I am speaking, and with great facility
render it common, as by the experience of our civil wars is manifest
enough; and whoever could at this time unite us all, Catholic and
Huguenot, into one body, and set us upon some brave common enterprise,
we should again make our ancient military reputation flourish. It is
most certain that in times past the recompense of this order had not
only a regard to valour, but had a further prospect; it never was the
reward of a valiant soldier but of a great captain; the science of
obeying was not reputed worthy of so honourable a guerdon. There was
therein a more universal military expertness required, and that
comprehended the most and the greatest qualities of a military man:
"Neque enim eaedem militares et imperatorix artes sunt,"
["For the arts of soldiery and generalship are not the same."
—Livy, xxv. 19.]
as also, besides, a condition suitable to such a dignity. But, I say,
though more men were worthy than formerly, yet ought it not to be more
liberally distributed, and it were better to fall short in not giving it
at all to whom it should be due, than for ever to lose, as we have
lately done, the fruit of so profitable an invention. No man of spirit
will deign to advantage himself with what is in common with many; and
such of the present time as have least merited this recompense
themselves make the greater show of disdaining it, in order thereby to
be ranked with those to whom so much wrong has been done by the unworthy
conferring and debasing the distinction which was their particular
right.
Now, to expect that in obliterating and abolishing this, suddenly to
create and bring into credit a like institution, is not a proper attempt
for so licentious and so sick a time as this wherein we now are; and it
will fall out that the last will from its birth incur the same
inconveniences that have ruined the other.—[Montaigne refers to the
Order of the Saint-Esprit, instituted by Henry III. in 1578.]—The rules
for dispensing this new order had need to be extremely clipt and bound
under great restrictions, to give it authority; and this tumultuous
season is incapable of such a curb: besides that, before this can be
brought into repute, 'tis necessary that the memory of the first, and of
the contempt into which it is fallen, be buried in oblivion.
This place might naturally enough admit of some discourse upon the
consideration of valour, and the difference of this virtue from others;
but, Plutarch having so often handled this subject, I should give myself
an unnecessary trouble to repeat what he has said. But this is worth
considering: that our nation places valour, vaillance, in the highest
degree of virtue, as its very word evidences, being derived from valeur,
and that, according to our use, when we say a man of high worth a good
man, in our court style—'tis to say a valiant man, after the Roman way;
for the general appellation of virtue with them takes etymology from
vis, force. The proper, sole, and essential profession of, the French
noblesse is that of arms: and 'tis likely that the first virtue that
discovered itself amongst men and has given to some advantage over
others, was that by which the strongest and most valiant have mastered
the weaker, and acquired a particular authority and reputation, whence
came to it that dignified appellation; or else, that these nations,
being very warlike, gave the pre-eminence to that of the virtues which
was most familiar to them; just as our passion and the feverish
solicitude we have of the chastity of women occasions that to say, a
good woman, a woman of worth, a woman of honour and virtue, signifies
merely a chaste woman as if, to oblige them to that one duty, we were
indifferent as to all the rest, and gave them the reins in all other
faults whatever to compound for that one of incontinence.
CHAPTER VIII——OF THE AFFECTION OF FATHERS TO THEIR CHILDREN
To Madame D'Estissac.
MADAM, if the strangeness and novelty of my subject, which are wont
to give value to things, do not save me, I shall never come off with
honour from this foolish attempt: but 'tis so fantastic, and carries a
face so unlike the common use, that this, peradventure, may make it
pass. 'Tis a melancholic humour, and consequently a humour very much an
enemy to my natural complexion, engendered by the pensiveness of the
solitude into which for some years past I have retired myself, that
first put into my head this idle fancy of writing. Wherein, finding
myself totally unprovided and empty of other matter, I presented myself
to myself for argument and subject. 'Tis the only book in the world of
its kind, and of a wild and extravagant design. There is nothing worth
remark in this affair but that extravagancy: for in a subject so vain
and frivolous, the best workman in the world could not have given it a
form fit to recommend it to any manner of esteem.
Now, madam, having to draw my own picture to the life, I had omitted
one important feature, had I not therein represented the honour I have
ever had for you and your merits; which I have purposely chosen to say
in the beginning of this chapter, by reason that amongst the many other
excellent qualities you are mistress of, that of the tender love you
have manifested to your children, is seated in one of the highest
places. Whoever knows at what age Monsieur D'Estissac, your husband,
left you a widow, the great and honourable matches that have since been
offered to you, as many as to any lady of your condition in France, the
constancy and steadiness wherewith, for so many years, you have
sustained so many sharp difficulties, the burden and conduct of affairs,
which have persecuted you in every corner of the kingdom, and are not
yet weary of tormenting you, and the happy direction you have given to
all these, by your sole prudence or good fortune, will easily conclude
with me that we have not so vivid an example as yours of maternal
affection in our times. I praise God, madam, that it has been so well
employed; for the great hopes Monsieur D'Estissac, your son, gives of
himself, render sufficient assurance that when he comes of age you will
reap from him all the obedience and gratitude of a very good man. But,
forasmuch as by reason of his tender years, he has not been capable of
taking notice of those offices of extremest value he has in so great
number received from you, I will, if these papers shall one day happen
to fall into his hands, when I shall neither have mouth nor speech left
to deliver it to him, that he shall receive from me a true account of
those things, which shall be more effectually manifested to him by their
own effects, by which he will understand that there is not a gentleman
in France who stands more indebted to a mother's care; and that he
cannot, in the future, give a better nor more certain testimony of his
own worth and virtue than by acknowledging you for that excellent mother
you are.
If there be any law truly natural, that is to say, any instinct that
is seen universally and perpetually imprinted in both beasts and men
(which is not without controversy), I can say, that in my opinion, next
to the care every animal has of its own preservation, and to avoid that
which may hurt him, the affection that the begetter bears to his
offspring holds the second place in this rank. And seeing that nature
appears to have recommended it to us, having regard to the extension and
progression of the successive pieces of this machine of hers, 'tis no
wonder if, on the contrary, that of children towards their parents is
not so great. To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration,
that he who confers a benefit on any one, loves him better than he is
beloved by him again: that he to whom is owing, loves better than he who
owes; and that every artificer is fonder of his work, than, if that work
had sense, it would be of him; by reason that it is dear to us to be,
and to be consists in movement and action; therefore every one has in
some sort a being in his work. He who confers a benefit exercises a fine
and honest action; he who receives it exercises the useful only. Now the
useful is much less lovable than the honest; the honest is stable and
permanent, supplying him who has done it with a continual gratification.
The useful loses itself, easily slides away, and the memory of it is
neither so fresh nor so pleasing. Those things are dearest to us that
have cost us most, and giving is more chargeable than receiving.
Since it has pleased God to endue us with some capacity of reason, to
the end we may not, like brutes, be servilely subject and enslaved to
the laws common to both, but that we should by judgment and a voluntary
liberty apply ourselves to them, we ought, indeed, something to yield to
the simple authority of nature, but not suffer ourselves to be
tyrannically hurried away and transported by her; reason alone should
have the conduct of our inclinations. I, for my part, have a strange
disgust for those propensions that are started in us without the
mediation and direction of the judgment, as, upon the subject I am
speaking of, I cannot entertain that passion of dandling and caressing
infants scarcely born, having as yet neither motion of soul nor shape of
body distinguishable, by which they can render themselves amiable, and
have not willingly suffered them to be nursed near me. A true and
regular affection ought to spring and increase with the knowledge they
give us of themselves, and then, if they are worthy of it, the natural
propension walking hand in hand with reason, to cherish them with a
truly paternal love; and so to judge, also, if they be otherwise, still
rendering ourselves to reason, notwithstanding the inclination of
nature. 'Tis oft-times quite otherwise; and, most commonly, we find
ourselves more taken with the running up and down, the games, and
puerile simplicities of our children, than we do, afterwards, with their
most complete actions; as if we had loved them for our sport, like
monkeys, and not as men; and some there are, who are very liberal in
buying them balls to play withal, who are very close-handed for the
least necessary expense when they come to age. Nay, it looks as if the
jealousy of seeing them appear in and enjoy the world when we are about
to leave it, rendered us more niggardly and stingy towards them; it
vexes us that they tread upon our heels, as if to solicit us to go out;
if this were to be feared, since the order of things will have it so
that they cannot, to speak the truth, be nor live, but at the expense of
our being and life, we should never meddle with being fathers at all.
For my part, I think it cruelty and injustice not to receive them
into the share and society of our goods, and not to make them partakers
in the intelligence of our domestic affairs when they are capable, and
not to lessen and contract our own expenses to make the more room for
theirs, seeing we beget them to that effect. 'Tis unjust that an old
fellow, broken and half dead, should alone, in a corner of the chimney,
enjoy the money that would suffice for the maintenance and advancement
of many children, and suffer them, in the meantime, to lose their' best
years for want of means to advance themselves in the public service and
the knowledge of men. A man by this course drives them to despair, and
to seek out by any means, how unjust or dishonourable soever, to provide
for their own support: as I have, in my time, seen several young men of
good extraction so addicted to stealing, that no correction could cure
them of it. I know one of a very good family, to whom, at the request of
a brother of his, a very honest and brave gentleman, I once spoke on
this account, who made answer, and confessed to me roundly, that he had
been put upon this paltry practice by the severity and avarice of his
father; but that he was now so accustomed to it he could not leave it
off. And, at that very time, he was trapped stealing a lady's rings,
having come into her chamber, as she was dressing with several others.
He put me in mind of a story I had heard of another gentleman, so
perfect and accomplished in this fine trade in his youth, that, after he
came to his estate and resolved to give it over, he could not hold his
hands, nevertheless, if he passed by a shop where he saw anything he
liked, from catching it up, though it put him to the shame of sending
afterwards to pay for it. And I have myself seen several so habituated
to this quality that even amongst their comrades they could not forbear
filching, though with intent to restore what they had taken. I am a
Gascon, and yet there is no vice I so little understand as that; I hate
it something more by disposition than I condemn it by reason; I do not
so much as desire anything of another man's. This province of ours is,
in plain truth, a little more decried than the other parts of the
kingdom; and yet we have several times seen, in our times, men of good
families of other provinces, in the hands of justice, convicted of
abominable thefts. I fear this vice is, in some sort, to be attributed
to the fore-mentioned vice of the fathers.
And if a man should tell me, as a lord of very good understanding
once did, that "he hoarded up wealth, not to extract any other fruit and
use from his parsimony, but to make himself honoured and sought after by
his relations; and that age having deprived him of all other power, it
was the only remaining remedy to maintain his authority in his family,
and to keep him from being neglected and despised by all around," in
truth, not only old age, but all other imbecility, according to
Aristotle, is the promoter of avarice; that is something, but it is
physic for a disease that a man should prevent the birth of. A father is
very miserable who has no other hold on his children's affection than
the need they have of his assistance, if that can be called affection;
he must render himself worthy to be respected by his virtue and wisdom,
and beloved by his kindness and the sweetness of his manners; even the
very ashes of a rich matter have their value; and we are wont to have
the bones and relics of worthy men in regard and reverence. No old age
can be so decrepid in a man who has passed his life in honour, but it
must be venerable, especially to his children, whose soul he must have
trained up to their duty by reason, not by necessity and the need they
have of him, nor by harshness and compulsion:
"Et errat longe mea quidem sententia
Qui imperium credat esse gravius, aut stabilius,
Vi quod fit, quam illud, quod amicitia adjungitur."
["He wanders far from the truth, in my opinion, who thinks that
government more absolute and durable which is acquired by force than
that which is attached to friendship."—Terence, Adelph., i. I, 40.]
I condemn all violence in the education of a tender soul that is
designed for honour and liberty. There is I know not what of servile in
rigour and constraint; and I am of opinion that what is not to be done
by reason, prudence, and address, is never to be affected by force. I
myself was brought up after that manner; and they tell me that in all my
first age I never felt the rod but twice, and then very slightly. I
practised the same method with my children, who all of them died at
nurse, except Leonora, my only daughter, and who arrived to the age of
five years and upward without other correction for her childish faults
(her mother's indulgence easily concurring) than words only, and those
very gentle; in which kind of proceeding, though my end and expectation
should be both frustrated, there are other causes enough to lay the
fault on without blaming my discipline, which I know to be natural and
just, and I should, in this, have yet been more religious towards the
males, as less born to subjection and more free; and I should have made
it my business to fill their hearts with ingenuousness and freedom. I
have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more
cowardly, or more wilfully obstinate.
Do we desire to be beloved of our children? Will we remove from them
all occasion of wishing our death though no occasion of so horrid a wish
can either be just or excusable?
"Nullum scelus rationem habet."
["No wickedness has reason."—Livy, xxviii. 28]
Let us reasonably accommodate their lives with what is in our power.
In order to this, we should not marry so young that our age shall in a
manner be confounded with theirs; for this inconvenience plunges us into
many very great difficulties, and especially the gentry of the nation,
who are of a condition wherein they have little to do, and who live upon
their rents only: for elsewhere, with people who live by their labour,
the plurality and company of children is an increase to the common
stock; they are so many new tools and instruments wherewith to grow
rich.
I married at three-and-thirty years of age, and concur in the opinion
of thirty-five, which is said to be that of Aristotle. Plato will have
nobody marry before thirty; but he has reason to laugh at those who
undertook the work of marriage after five-and-fifty, and condemns their
offspring as unworthy of aliment and life. Thales gave the truest
limits, who, young and being importuned by his mother to marry,
answered, "That it was too soon," and, being grown into years and urged
again, "That it was too late." A man must deny opportunity to every
inopportune action. The ancient Gauls' looked upon it as a very horrid
thing for a man to have society with a woman before he was twenty years
of age, and strictly recommended to the men who designed themselves for
war the keeping their virginity till well grown in years, forasmuch as
courage is abated and diverted by intercourse with women:
"Ma, or congiunto a giovinetta sposa,
E lieto omai de' figli, era invilito
Negli affetti di padre et di marito."
["Now, married to a young wife and happy in children, he was
demoralised by his love as father and husband."
—Tasso, Gierus., x. 39.]
Muley Hassam, king of Tunis, he whom the Emperor Charles V. restored
to his kingdom, reproached the memory of his father Mahomet with the
frequentation of women, styling him loose, effeminate, and a getter of
children.—[Of whom he had thirty-four.]—The Greek history observes of
Iccus the Tarentine, of Chryso, Astyllus, Diopompos, and others, that to
keep their bodies in order for the Olympic games and such like
exercises, they denied themselves during that preparation all commerce
with Venus. In a certain country of the Spanish Indies men were not
permitted to marry till after forty age, and yet the girls were allowed
at ten. 'Tis not time for a gentleman of thirty years old to give place
to his son who is twenty; he is himself in a condition to serve both in
the expeditions of war and in the court of his prince; has need of all
his appurtenances; and yet, doubtless, he ought to surrender a share,
but not so great an one as to forget himself for others; and for such an
one the answer that fathers have ordinarily in their mouths, "I will not
put off my clothes, before I go to bed," serves well.
But a father worn out with age and infirmities, and deprived by
weakness and want of health of the common society of men, wrongs himself
and his to amass a great heap of treasure. He has lived long enough, if
he be wise, to have a mind to strip himself to go to bed, not to his
very shirt, I confess, but to that and a good, warm dressing-gown; the
remaining pomps, of which he has no further use, he ought voluntarily to
surrender to those, to whom by the order of nature they belong. 'Tis
reason he should refer the use of those things to them, seeing that
nature has reduced him to such a state that he cannot enjoy them
himself; otherwise there is doubtless malice and envy in the case. The
greatest act of the Emperor Charles V. was that when, in imitation of
some of the ancients of his own quality, confessing it but reason to
strip ourselves when our clothes encumber and grow too heavy for us, and
to lie down when our legs begin to fail us, he resigned his possessions,
grandeur, and power to his son, when he found himself failing in vigour,
and steadiness for the conduct of his affairs suitable with the glory he
had therein acquired:
"Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne
Peccet ad extremum ridendus, et ilia ducat."
["Dismiss the old horse in good time, lest, failing in the lists,
the spectators laugh."—Horace, Epist., i., I, 8.]
This fault of not perceiving betimes and of not being sensible of the
feebleness and extreme alteration that age naturally brings both upon
body and mind, which, in my opinion, is equal, if indeed the soul has
not more than half, has lost the reputation of most of the great men in
the world. I have known in my time, and been intimately acquainted with
persons of great authority, whom one might easily discern marvellously
lapsed from the sufficiency I knew they were once endued with, by the
reputation they had acquired in their former years, whom I could
heartily, for their own sakes, have wished at home at their ease,
discharged of their public or military employments, which were now grown
too heavy for their shoulders. I have formerly been very familiar in a
gentleman's house, a widower and very old, though healthy and cheerful
enough: this gentleman had several daughters to marry and a son already
of ripe age, which brought upon him many visitors, and a great expense,
neither of which well pleased him, not only out of consideration of
frugality, but yet more for having, by reason of his age, entered into a
course of life far differing from ours. I told him one day a little
boldly, as I used to do, that he would do better to give us younger folk
room, and to leave his principal house (for he had but that well placed
and furnished) to his son, and himself retire to an estate he had hard
by, where nobody would trouble his repose, seeing he could not otherwise
avoid being importuned by us, the condition of his children considered.
He took my advice afterwards, and found an advantage in so doing.
I do not mean that a man should so instal them as not to reserve to
himself a liberty to retract; I, who am now arrived to the age wherein
such things are fit to be done, would resign to them the enjoyment of my
house and goods, but with a power of revocation if they should give me
cause to alter my mind; I would leave to them the use, that being no
longer convenient for me; and, of the general authority and power over
all, would reserve as much as—I thought good to myself; having always
held that it must needs be a great satisfaction to an aged father
himself to put his children into the way of governing his affairs, and
to have power during his own life to control their behaviour, supplying
them with instruction and advice from his own experience, and himself to
transfer the ancient honour and order of his house into the hands of
those who are to succeed him, and by that means to satisfy himself as to
the hopes he may conceive of their future conduct. And in order to this
I would not avoid their company; I would observe them near at hand, and
partake, according to the condition of my age, of their feasts and
jollities. If I did not live absolutely amongst them, which I could not
do without annoying them and their friends, by reason of the morosity of
my age and the restlessness of my infirmities, and without violating
also the rules and order of living I should then have set down to
myself, I would, at least, live near them in some retired part of my
house, not the best in show, but the most commodious. Nor as I saw some
years ago, a dean of St. Hilary of Poitiers given up to such a solitude,
that at the time I came into his chamber it had been two and twenty
years that he had not stepped one foot out of it, and yet had all his
motions free and easy, and was in good health, saving a cold that fell
upon his lungs; he would, hardly once in a week, suffer any one to come
in to see him; he always kept himself shut up in his chamber alone,
except that a servant brought him, once a day, something to eat, and did
then but just come in and go out again. His employment was to walk up
and down, and read some book, for he was a bit of a scholar; but, as to
the rest, obstinately bent to die in this retirement, as he soon after
did. I would endeavour by pleasant conversation to create in my children
a warm and unfeigned friendship and good-will towards me, which in
well-descended natures is not hard to do; for if they be furious brutes,
of which this age of ours produces thousands, we are then to hate and
avoid them as such.
I am angry at the custom of forbidding children to call their father
by the name of father, and to enjoin them another, as more full of
respect and reverence, as if nature had not sufficiently provided for
our authority. We call Almighty God Father, and disdain to have our
children call us so; I have reformed this error in my family.—[As did
Henry IV. of France]—And 'tis also folly and injustice to deprive
children, when grown up, of familiarity with their father, and to carry
a scornful and austere countenance toward them, thinking by that to keep
them in awe and obedience; for it is a very idle farce that, instead of
producing the effect designed, renders fathers distasteful, and, which
is worse, ridiculous to their own children. They have youth and vigour
in possession, and consequently the breath and favour of the world; and
therefore receive these fierce and tyrannical looks—mere scarecrows— of
a man without blood, either in his heart or veins, with mockery and
contempt. Though I could make myself feared, I had yet much rather make
myself beloved: there are so many sorts of defects in old age, so much
imbecility, and it is so liable to contempt, that the best acquisition a
man can make is the kindness and affection of his own family; command
and fear are no longer his weapons. Such an one I have known who, having
been very imperious in his youth, when he came to be old, though he
might have lived at his full ease, would ever strike, rant, swear, and
curse: the most violent householder in France: fretting himself with
unnecessary suspicion and vigilance. And all this rumble and clutter but
to make his family cheat him the more; of his barn, his kitchen, cellar,
nay, and his very purse too, others had the greatest use and share,
whilst he keeps his keys in his pocket much more carefully than his
eyes. Whilst he hugs himself with the pitiful frugality of a niggard
table, everything goes to rack and ruin in every corner of his house, in
play, drink, all sorts of profusion, making sport in their junkets with
his vain anger and fruitless parsimony. Every one is a sentinel against
him, and if, by accident, any wretched fellow that serves him is of
another humour, and will not join with the rest, he is presently
rendered suspected to him, a bait that old age very easily bites at of
itself. How often has this gentleman boasted to me in how great awe he
kept his family, and how exact an obedience and reverence they paid him!
How clearly he saw into his own affairs!
"Ille solos nescit omnia."
["He alone is ignorant of all that is passing."
—Terence, Adelph., iv. 2, 9.]
I do not know any one that can muster more parts, both natural and
acquired, proper to maintain dominion, than he; yet he is fallen from it
like a child. For this reason it is that I have picked out him, amongst
several others that I know of the same humour, for the greatest example.
It were matter for a question in the schools, whether he is better thus
or otherwise. In his presence, all submit to and bow to him, and give so
much way to his vanity that nobody ever resists him; he has his fill of
assents, of seeming fear, submission, and respect. Does he turn away a
servant? he packs up his bundle, and is gone; but 'tis no further than
just out of his sight: the steps of old age are so slow, the senses so
troubled, that he will live and do his old office in the same house a
year together without being perceived.
And after a fit interval of time, letters are pretended to come from
a great way off; very humble, suppliant; and full of promises of
amendment, by virtue of which he is again received into favour. Does
Monsieur make any bargain, or prepare any despatch that does not please?
'tis suppressed, and causes afterwards forged to excuse the want of
execution in the one or answer in the other. No letters being first
brought to him, he never sees any but those that shall seem fit for his
knowledge. If by accident they fall first into his own hand, being used
to trust somebody to read them to him; he reads extempore what he thinks
fit, and often makes such a one ask him pardon who abuses and rails at
him in his letter. In short, he sees nothing, but by an image prepared
and designed beforehand and the most satisfactory they can invent, not
to rouse and awaken his ill humour and choler. I have seen, under
various aspects, enough of these modes of domestic government,
long-enduring, constant, to the like effect.
Women are evermore addicted to cross their husbands: they lay hold
with both hands on all occasions to contradict and oppose them; the
first excuse serves for a plenary justification. I have seen one who
robbed her husband wholesale, that, as she told her confessor, she might
distribute the more liberal alms. Let who will trust to that religious
dispensation. No management of affairs seems to them of sufficient
dignity, if proceeding from the husband's assent; they must usurp it
either by insolence or cunning, and always injuriously, or else it has
not the grace and authority they desire. When, as in the case I am
speaking of, 'tis against a poor old man and for the children, then they
make use of this title to serve their passion with glory; and, as for a
common service, easily cabal, and combine against his government and
dominion. If they be males grown up in full and flourishing health, they
presently corrupt, either by force or favour, steward, receivers, and
all the rout. Such as have neither wife nor son do not so easily fall
into this misfortune; but withal more cruelly and unworthily. Cato the
elder in his time said: So many servants, so many enemies; consider,
then, whether according to the vast difference between the purity of the
age he lived in and the corruption of this of ours, he does not seem to
shew us that wife, son, and servant, are so many enemies to us? 'Tis
well for old age that it is always accompanied by want of observation,
ignorance, and a proneness to being deceived. For should we see how we
are used and would not acquiesce, what would become of us? especially in
such an age as this, where the very judges who are to determine our
controversies are usually partisans to the young, and interested in the
cause. In case the discovery of this cheating escape me, I cannot at
least fail to discern that I am very fit to be cheated. And can a man
ever enough exalt the value of a friend, in comparison with these civil
ties? The very image of it which I see in beasts, so pure and
uncorrupted, how religiously do I respect it! If others deceive me, yet
do I not, at least, deceive myself in thinking I am able to defend
myself from them, or in cudgelling my brains to make myself so. I
protect myself from such treasons in my own bosom, not by an unquiet and
tumultuous curiosity, but rather by diversion and resolution. When I
hear talk of any one's condition, I never trouble myself to think of
him; I presently turn my eyes upon myself to see in what condition I am;
whatever concerns another relates to me; the accident that has befallen
him gives me caution, and rouses me to turn my defence that way. We
every day and every hour say things of another that we might properly
say of ourselves, could we but apply our observation to our own
concerns, as well as extend it to others. And several authors have in
this manner prejudiced their own cause by running headlong upon those
they attack, and darting those shafts against their enemies, that are
more properly, and with greater advantage, to be turned upon themselves.
The late Mareschal de Montluc having lost his son, who died in the
island of Madeira, in truth a very worthy gentleman and of great
expectation, did to me, amongst his other regrets, very much insist upon
what a sorrow and heart-breaking it was that he had never made himself
familiar with him; and by that humour of paternal gravity and grimace to
have lost the opportunity of having an insight into and of well knowing,
his son, as also of letting him know the extreme affection he had for
him, and the worthy opinion he had of his virtue. "That poor boy," said
he, "never saw in me other than a stern and disdainful countenance, and
is gone in a belief that I neither knew how to love him nor esteem him
according to his desert. For whom did I reserve the discovery of that
singular affection I had for him in my soul? Was it not he himself, who
ought to have had all the pleasure of it, and all the obligation? I
constrained and racked myself to put on, and maintain this vain
disguise, and have by that means deprived myself of the pleasure of his
conversation, and, I doubt, in some measure, his affection, which could
not but be very cold to me, having never other from me than austerity,
nor felt other than a tyrannical manner of proceeding."
[Madame de Sevigne tells us that she never read this passage without
tears in her eyes. "My God!" she exclaims, "how full is this book
of good sense!" Ed.]
I find this complaint to be rational and rightly apprehended: for, as
I myself know by too certain experience, there is no so sweet
consolation in the loss of friends as the conscience of having had no
reserve or secret for them, and to have had with them a perfect and
entire communication. Oh my friend,—[La Boetie.] am I the better for
being sensible of this; or am I the worse? I am, doubtless, much the
better. I am consoled and honoured, in the sorrow for his death. Is it
not a pious and a pleasing office of my life to be always upon my
friend's obsequies? Can there be any joy equal to this privation?
I open myself to my family, as much as I can, and very willingly let
them know the state of my opinion and good will towards them, as I do to
everybody else: I make haste to bring out and present myself to them;
for I will not have them mistaken in me, in anything. Amongst other
particular customs of our ancient Gauls, this, as Caesar reports,—[De
Bello Gall., vi. r8.]—was one, that the sons never presented themselves
before their fathers, nor durst ever appear in their company in public,
till they began to bear arms; as if they would intimate by this, that it
was also time for their fathers to receive them into their familiarity
and acquaintance.
I have observed yet another sort of indiscretion in fathers of my
time, that, not contented with having deprived their children, during
their own long lives, of the share they naturally ought to have had in
their fortunes, they afterwards leave to their wives the same authority
over their estates, and liberty to dispose of them according to their
own fancy. And I have known a certain lord, one of the principal
officers of the crown, who, having in reversion above fifty thousand
crowns yearly revenue, died necessitous and overwhelmed with debt at
above fifty years of age; his mother in her extremest decrepitude being
yet in possession of all his property by the will of his father, who
had, for his part, lived till near fourscore years old. This appears to
me by no means reasonable. And therefore I think it of very little
advantage to a man, whose affairs are well enough, to seek a wife who
encumbers his estate with a very great fortune; there is no sort of
foreign debt that brings more ruin to families than this: my
predecessors have ever been aware of that danger and provided against
it, and so have I. But those who dissuade us from rich wives, for fear
they should be less tractable and kind, are out in their advice to make
a man lose a real commodity for so frivolous a conjecture. It costs an
unreasonable woman no more to pass over one reason than another; they
cherish themselves most where they are most wrong. Injustice allures
them, as the honour of their virtuous actions does the good; and the
more riches they bring with them, they are so much the more
good-natured, as women, who are handsome, are all the more inclined and
proud to be chaste.
'Tis reasonable to leave the administration of affairs to the
mothers, till the children are old enough, according to law, to manage
them; but the father has brought them, up very ill, if he cannot hope
that, when they come to maturity, they will have more wisdom and ability
in the management of affairs than his wife, considering the ordinary
weakness of the sex. It were, notwithstanding, to say the truth, more
against nature to make the mothers depend upon the discretion of their
children; they ought to be plentifully provided for, to maintain
themselves according to their quality and age, by reason that necessity
and indigence are much more unbecoming and insupportable to them than to
men; the son should rather be cut short than the mother.
In general, the most judicious distribution of our goods, when we
come to die, is, in my opinion, to let them be distributed according to
the custom of the country; the laws have considered the matter better
than we know how to do, and 'tis wiser to let them fail in their
appointment, than rashly to run the hazard of miscarrying in ours. Nor
are the goods properly ours, since, by civil prescription and without
us, they are all destined to certain successors. And although we have
some liberty beyond that, yet I think we ought not, without great and
manifest cause, to take away that from one which his fortune has
allotted him, and to which the public equity gives him title; and that
it is against reason to abuse this liberty, in making it serve our own
frivolous and private fancies. My destiny has been kind to me in not
presenting me with occasions to tempt me and divert my affection from
the common and legitimate institution. I see many with whom 'tis time
lost to employ a long exercise of good offices: a word ill taken
obliterates ten years' merit; he is happy who is in a position to oil
their goodwill at this last passage. The last action carries it, not the
best and most frequent offices, but the most recent and present do the
work. These are people that play with their wills as with apples or
rods, to gratify or chastise every action of those who pretend to an
interest in their care. 'Tis a thing of too great weight and consequence
to be so tumbled and tossed and altered every moment, and wherein the
wise determine once for all, having above all things regard to reason
and the public observance. We lay these masculine substitutions too much
to heart, proposing a ridiculous eternity to our names. We are,
moreover, too superstitious in vain conjectures as to the future, that
we derive from the words and actions of children. Peradventure they
might have done me an injustice, in dispossessing me of my right, for
having been the most dull and heavy, the most slow and unwilling at my
book, not of all my brothers only, but of all the boys in the whole
province: whether about learning my lesson, or about any bodily
exercise. 'Tis a folly to make an election out of the ordinary course
upon the credit of these divinations wherein we are so often deceived.
If the ordinary rule of descent were to be violated, and the destinies
corrected in the choice they have made of our heirs, one might more
plausibly do it upon the account of some remarkable and enormous
personal deformity, a permanent and incorrigible defect, and in the
opinion of us French, who are great admirers of beauty, an important
prejudice.
The pleasant dialogue betwixt Plato's legislator and his citizens
will be an ornament to this place, "What," said they, feeling themselves
about to die, "may we not dispose of our own to whom we please? God!
what cruelty that it shall not be lawful for us, according as we have
been served and attended in our sickness, in our old age, in our
affairs, to give more or less to those whom we have found most diligent
about us, at our own fancy and discretion!" To which the legislator
answers thus:
"My friends, who are now, without question, very soon to die, it is
hard for you in the condition you are, either to know yourselves, or
what is yours, according to the delphic inscription. I, who make the
laws, am of opinion, that you neither are yourselves your own, nor is
that yours of which you are possessed. Both your goods and you belong to
your families, as well those past as those to come; but, further, both
your family and goods much more appertain to the public. Wherefore, lest
any flatterer in your old age or in your sickness, or any passion of
your own, should unseasonably prevail with you to make an unjust will, I
shall take care to prevent that inconvenience; but, having respect both
to the universal interests of the city and that of your particular
family, I shall establish laws, and make it by good reasons appear, that
private convenience ought to give place to the common benefit. Go then
cheerfully where human necessity calls you. It is for me, who regard no
more the one thing than the other, and who, as much as in me lies, am
provident of the public interest, to have a care as to what you leave
behind you."
To return to my subject: it appears to me that women are very rarely
born, to whom the prerogative over men, the maternal and natural
excepted, is in any sort due, unless it be for the punishment of such,
as in some amorous fever have voluntarily submitted themselves to them:
but that in no way concerns the old ones, of whom we are now speaking.
This consideration it is which has made us so willingly to enact and
give force to that law, which was never yet seen by any one, by which
women are excluded the succession to our crown: and there is hardly a
government in the world where it is not pleaded, as it is here, by the
probability of reason that authorises it, though fortune has given it
more credit in some places than in others. 'Tis dangerous to leave the
disposal of our succession to their judgment, according to the choice
they shall make of children, which is often fantastic and unjust; for
the irregular appetites and depraved tastes they have during the time of
their being with child, they have at all other times in the mind. We
commonly see them fond of the most weak, ricketty, and deformed
children; or of those, if they have such, as are still hanging at the
breast. For, not having sufficient force of reason to choose and embrace
that which is most worthy, they the more willingly suffer themselves to
be carried away, where the impressions of nature are most alone; like
animals that know their young no longer than they give them suck. As to
the rest, it is easy by experience to be discerned that this natural
affection to which we give so great authority has but very weak roots.
For a very little profit, we every day tear their own children out of
the mothers' arms, and make them take ours in their room: we make them
abandon their own to some pitiful nurse, to whom we disdain to commit
ours, or to some she-goat, forbidding them, not only to give them suck,
what danger soever they run thereby, but, moreover, to take any manner
of care of them, that they may wholly be occupied with the care of and
attendance upon ours; and we see in most of them an adulterate
affection, more vehement than the natural, begotten by custom toward the
foster children, and a greater solicitude for the preservation of those
they have taken charge of, than of their own. And that which I was
saying of goats was upon this account; that it is ordinary all about
where I live, to see the countrywomen, when they want milk of their own
for their children, to call goats to their assistance; and I have at
this hour two men-servants that never sucked women's milk more than
eight days after they were born. These goats are immediately taught to
come to suckle the little children, know their voices when they cry, and
come running to them. If any other than this foster-child be presented
to them, they refuse to let it suck; and the child in like manner will
refuse to suck another goat. I saw one the other day from whom they had
taken away the goat that used to nourish it, by reason the father had
only borrowed it of a neighbour; the child would not touch any other
they could bring, and died, doubtless of hunger. Beasts as easily alter
and corrupt their natural affection as we: I believe that in what
Herodotus relates of a certain district of Lybia, there are many
mistakes; he says that the women are there in common; but that the
child, so soon as it can go, finds him out in the crowd for his father,
to whom he is first led by his natural inclination.
Now, to consider this simple reason for loving our children, that we
have begot them, therefore calling them our second selves, it appears,
methinks, that there is another kind of production proceeding from us,
that is of no less recommendation: for that which we engender by the
soul, the issue of our understanding, courage, and abilities, springs
from nobler parts than those of the body, and that are much more our
own: we are both father and mother in this generation. These cost us a
great deal more and bring us more honour, if they have anything of good
in them. For the value of our other children is much more theirs than
ours; the share we have in them is very little; but of these all the
beauty, all the grace and value, are ours; and also they more vividly
represent us than the others. Plato adds, that these are immortal
children that immortalise and deify their fathers, as Lycurgus, Solon,
Minos. Now, histories being full of examples of the common affection of
fathers to their children, it seems not altogether improper to introduce
some few of this other kind. Heliodorus, that good bishop of Trikka,
rather chose to lose the dignity, profit, and devotion of so venerable a
prelacy, than to lose his daughter; a daughter that continues to this
day very graceful and comely; but, peradventure, a little too curiously
and wantonly tricked, and too amorous for an ecclesiastical and
sacerdotal daughter. There was one Labienus at Rome, a man of great
worth and authority, and amongst other qualities excellent in all sorts
of literature, who was, as I take it, the son of that great Labienus,
the chief of Caesar's captains in the wars of Gaul; and who, afterwards,
siding with Pompey the great, so valiantly maintained his cause, till he
was by Caesar defeated in Spain. This Labienus, of whom I am now
speaking, had several enemies, envious of his good qualities, and, tis
likely, the courtiers and minions of the emperors of his time who were
very angry at his freedom and the paternal humour which he yet retained
against tyranny, with which it is to be supposed he had tinctured his
books and writings. His adversaries prosecuted several pieces he had
published before the magistrates at Rome, and prevailed so far against
him, as to have them condemned to the fire. It was in him that this new
example of punishment was begun, which was afterwards continued against
others at Rome, to punish even writing and studies with death. There
would not be means and matter enough of cruelty, did we not mix with
them things that nature has exempted from all sense and suffering, as
reputation and the products of the mind, and did we not communicate
corporal punishments to the teachings and monuments of the Muses. Now,
Labienus could not suffer this loss, nor survive these his so dear
issue, and therefore caused himself to be conveyed and shut up alive in
the monument of his ancestors, where he made shift to kill and bury
himself at once. 'Tis hard to shew a more vehement paternal affection
than this. Cassius Severus, a man of great eloquence and his very
intimate friend, seeing his books burned, cried out that by the same
sentence they should as well condemn him to the fire too, seeing that he
carried in his memory all that they contained. The like accident befel
Cremutius Cordus, who being accused of having in his books commended
Brutus and Cassius, that dirty, servile, and corrupt Senate, worthy a
worse master than Tiberius, condemned his writings to the flame. He was
willing to bear them company, and killed himself with fasting. The good
Lucan, being condemned by that rascal Nero, at the last gasp of his
life, when the greater part of his blood was already spent through the
veins of his arms, which he had caused his physician to open to make him
die, and when the cold had seized upon all his extremities, and began to
approach his vital parts, the last thing he had in his memory was some
of the verses of his Battle of Phaysalia, which he recited, dying with
them in his mouth. What was this, but taking a tender and paternal leave
of his children, in imitation of the valedictions and embraces,
wherewith we part from ours, when we come to die, and an effect of that
natural inclination, that suggests to our remembrance in this extremity
those things which were dearest to us during the time of our life?
Can we believe that Epicurus who, as he says himself, dying of the
intolerable pain of the stone, had all his consolation in the beauty of
the doctrine he left behind him, could have received the same
satisfaction from many children, though never so well-conditioned and
brought up, had he had them, as he did from the production of so many
rich writings? Or that, had it been in his choice to have left behind
him a deformed and untoward child or a foolish and ridiculous book, he,
or any other man of his understanding, would not rather have chosen to
have run the first misfortune than the other? It had been, for example,
peradventure, an impiety in St. Augustin, if, on the one hand, it had
been proposed to him to bury his writings, from which religion has
received so great fruit, or on the other to bury his children, had he
had them, had he not rather chosen to bury his children. And I know not
whether I had not much rather have begot a very beautiful one, through
society with the Muses, than by lying with my wife. To this, such as it
is, what I give it I give absolutely and irrevocably, as men do to their
bodily children. That little I have done for it, is no more at my own
disposal; it may know many things that are gone from me, and from me
hold that which I have not retained; and which, as well as a stranger, I
should borrow thence, should I stand in need. If I am wiser than my
book, it is richer than I. There are few men addicted to poetry, who
would not be much prouder to be the father to the AEneid than to the
handsomest youth of Rome; and who would not much better bear the loss of
the one than of the other. For according to Aristotle, the poet, of all
artificers, is the fondest of his work. 'Tis hard to believe that
Epaminondas, who boasted that in lieu of all posterity he left two
daughters behind him that would one day do their father honour (meaning
the two victories he obtained over the Lacedaemonians), would willingly
have consented to exchange these for the most beautiful creatures of all
Greece; or that Alexander or Caesar ever wished to be deprived of the
grandeur of their glorious exploits in war, for the convenience of
children and heirs, how perfect and accomplished soever. Nay, I make a
great question, whether Phidias or any other excellent sculptor would be
so solicitous of the preservation and continuance of his natural
children, as he would be of a rare statue, which with long labour and
study he had perfected according to art. And to those furious and
irregular passions that have sometimes inflamed fathers towards their
own daughters, and mothers towards their own sons, the like is also
found in this other sort of parentage: witness what is related of
Pygmalion who, having made the statue of a woman of singular beauty,
fell so passionately in love with this work of his, that the gods in
favour of his passion inspired it with life.
"Tentatum mollescit ebur, positoque rigore,
Subsidit digitis."
["The ivory grows soft under his touch and yields to his fingers."
—Ovid, Metam., x. 283.]
CHAPTER IX——OF THE ARMS OF THE PARTHIANS
'Tis an ill custom and unmanly that the gentlemen of our time have
got, not to put on arms but just upon the point of the most extreme
necessity, and to lay them by again, so soon as ever there is any show
of the danger being over; hence many disorders arise; for every one
bustling and running to his arms just when he should go to charge, has
his cuirass to buckle on when his companions are already put to rout.
Our ancestors were wont to give their head-piece, lance and gauntlets to
be carried, but never put off the other pieces so long as there was any
work to be done. Our troops are now cumbered and rendered unsightly with
the clutter of baggage and servants who cannot be from their masters, by
reason they carry their arms. Titus Livius speaking of our nation:
"Intolerantissima laboris corpora vix arma humeris gerebant."
["Bodies most impatient of labour could scarce endure to wear
their arms on their shoulders."—Livy, x. 28.]
Many nations do yet, and did anciently, go to war without defensive
arms, or with such, at least, as were of very little proof:
"Tegmina queis capitum, raptus de subere cortex."
["To whom the coverings of the heads were the bark of the
cork-tree."—AEneid, vii. 742.]
Alexander, the most adventurous captain that ever was, very seldom
wore armour, and such amongst us as slight it, do not by that much harm
to the main concern; for if we see some killed for want of it, there are
few less whom the lumber of arms helps to destroy, either by being
overburthened, crushed, and cramped with their weight, by a rude shock,
or otherwise. For, in plain truth, to observe the weight and thickness
of the armour we have now in use, it seems as if we only sought to
defend ourselves, and are rather loaded than secured by it. We have
enough to do to support its weight, being so manacled and immured, as if
we were only to contend with our own arms, and as if we had not the same
obligation to defend them, that they have to defend us. Tacitus gives a
pleasant description of the men-at-arms among our ancient Gauls, who
were so armed as only to be able to stand, without power to harm or to
be harmed, or to rise again if once struck down. Lucullus, seeing
certain soldiers of the Medes, who formed the van of Tigranes' army,
heavily armed and very uneasy, as if in prisons of iron, thence
conceived hopes with great ease to defeat them, and by them began his
charge and victory. And now that our musketeers are in credit, I believe
some invention will be found out to immure us for our safety, and to
draw us to the war in castles, such as those the ancients loaded their
elephants withal.
This humour is far differing from that of the younger Scipio, who
sharply reprehended his soldiers for having planted caltrops under
water, in a ditch by which those of the town he held besieged might
sally out upon him; saying, that those who assaulted should think of
attacking, and not to fear; suspecting, with good reason, that this stop
they had put to the enemies, would make themselves less vigilant upon
their guard. He said also to a young man, who showed him a fine buckler
he had, that he was very proud of, "It is a very fine buckler indeed,
but a Roman soldier ought to repose greater confidence in his right hand
than in his left."
Now 'tis nothing but the not being used to wear it that makes the
weight of our armour so intolerable:
"L'usbergo in dosso haveano, et l'elmo in testa,
Due di questi guerrier, de' quali io canto;
Ne notte o di, d' appoi ch' entraro in questa
Stanza, gl'haveano mai messi da canto;
Che facile a portar come la vesta
Era lor, perche in uso l'havean tanto:"
["Two of the warriors, of whom I sing, had on their backs their
cuirass and on their heads their casque, and never had night or day
once laid them by, whilst here they were; those arms, by long
practice, were grown as light to bear as a garment"
—Ariosto, Cant., MI. 30.]
the Emperor Caracalla was wont to march on foot, completely armed, at
the head of his army. The Roman infantry always carried not only a
morion, a sword, and a shield (for as to arms, says Cicero, they were so
accustomed to have them always on, that they were no more trouble to
them than their own limbs):
"Arma enim membra militis esse dicunt."
but, moreover, fifteen days' provision, together with a certain
number of stakes, wherewith to fortify their camp, sixty pounds in
weight. And Marius' soldiers, laden at the same rate, were inured to
march in order of battle five leagues in five hours, and sometimes, upon
any urgent occasion, six.
Their military discipline was much ruder than ours, and accordingly
produced much greater effects. The younger Scipio, reforming his army in
Spain, ordered his soldiers to eat standing, and nothing that was drest.
The jeer that was given a Lacedaemonian soldier is marvellously pat to
this purpose, who, in an expedition of war, was reproached for having
been seen under the roof of a house: they were so inured to hardship
that, let the weather be what it would, it was a shame to be seen under
any other cover than the roof of heaven. We should not march our people
very far at that rate.
As to what remains, Marcellinus, a man bred up in the Roman wars,
curiously observes the manner of the Parthians arming themselves, and
the rather, for being so different from that of the Romans. "They had,"
says he, "armour so woven as to have all the scales fall over one
another like so many little feathers; which did nothing hinder the
motion of the body, and yet were of such resistance, that our darts
hitting upon them, would rebound" (these were the coats of mail our
forefathers were so constantly wont to use). And in another place: "they
had," says he, "strong and able horses, covered with thick tanned hides
of leather, and were themselves armed 'cap-a-pie' with great plates of
iron, so artificially ordered, that in all parts of the limbs, which
required bending, they lent themselves to the motion. One would have
said, that they had been men of iron; having armour for the head so
neatly fitted, and so naturally representing the form of a face, that
they were nowhere vulnerable, save at two little round holes, that gave
them a little light, corresponding with their eyes, and certain small
chinks about their nostrils, through which they, with great difficulty,
breathed,"
"Flexilis inductis animatur lamina membris,
Horribilis visu; credas simulacra moveri
Ferrea, cognatoque viros spirare metallo.
Par vestitus equis: ferrata fronte minantur,
Ferratosque movent, securi vulneris, armos."
["Plates of steel are placed over the body, so flexible that,
dreadful to be seen, you would think these not living men, but
moving images. The horses are similarly armed, and, secured from
wounds, move their iron shoulders."—Claud, In Ruf., ii. 358.]
'Tis a description drawing very near resembling the equipage of the
men-at-arms in France, with their barded horses. Plutarch says, that
Demetrius caused two complete suits of armour to be made for himself and
for Alcimus, a captain of the greatest note and authority about him, of
six score pounds weight each, whereas the ordinary suits weighed but
half as much.
CHAPTER X——OF BOOKS
I make no doubt but that I often happen to speak of things that are
much better and more truly handled by those who are masters of the
trade. You have here purely an essay of my natural parts, and not of
those acquired: and whoever shall catch me tripping in ignorance, will
not in any sort get the better of me; for I should be very unwilling to
become responsible to another for my writings, who am not so to myself,
nor satisfied with them. Whoever goes in quest of knowledge, let him
fish for it where it is to be found; there is nothing I so little
profess. These are fancies of my own, by which I do not pretend to
discover things but to lay open myself; they may, peradventure, one day
be known to me, or have formerly been, according as fortune has been
able to bring me in place where they have been explained; but I have
utterly forgotten it; and if I am a man of some reading, I am a man of
no retention; so that I can promise no certainty, more than to make
known to what point the knowledge I now have has risen. Therefore, let
none lay stress upon the matter I write, but upon my method in writing
it. Let them observe, in what I borrow, if I have known how to choose
what is proper to raise or help the invention, which is always my own.
For I make others say for me, not before but after me, what, either for
want of language or want of sense, I cannot myself so well express. I do
not number my borrowings, I weigh them; and had I designed to raise
their value by number, I had made them twice as many; they are all, or
within a very few, so famed and ancient authors, that they seem,
methinks, themselves sufficiently to tell who they are, without giving
me the trouble. In reasons, comparisons, and arguments, if I transplant
any into my own soil, and confound them amongst my own, I purposely
conceal the author, to awe the temerity of those precipitate censors who
fall upon all sorts of writings, particularly the late ones, of men yet
living; and in the vulgar tongue which puts every one into a capacity of
criticising and which seem to convict the conception and design as
vulgar also. I will have them give Plutarch a fillip on my nose, and
rail against Seneca when they think they rail at me. I must shelter my
own weakness under these great reputations. I shall love any one that
can unplume me, that is, by clearness of understanding and judgment, and
by the sole distinction of the force and beauty of the discourse. For I
who, for want of memory, am at every turn at a loss to, pick them out of
their national livery, am yet wise enough to know, by the measure of my
own abilities, that my soil is incapable of producing any of those rich
flowers that I there find growing; and that all the fruits of my own
growth are not worth any one of them. For this, indeed, I hold myself
responsible; if I get in my own way; if there be any vanity and defect
in my writings which I do not of myself perceive nor can discern, when
pointed out to me by another; for many faults escape our eye, but the
infirmity of judgment consists in not being able to discern them, when
by another laid open to us. Knowledge and truth may be in us without
judgment, and judgment also without them; but the confession of
ignorance is one of the finest and surest testimonies of judgment that I
know. I have no other officer to put my writings in rank and file, but
only fortune. As things come into my head, I heap them one upon another;
sometimes they advance in whole bodies, sometimes in single file. I
would that every one should see my natural and ordinary pace, irregular
as it is; I suffer myself to jog on at my own rate. Neither are these
subjects which a man is not permitted to be ignorant in, or casually and
at a venture, to discourse of. I could wish to have a more perfect
knowledge of things, but I will not buy it so dear as it costs. My
design is to pass over easily, and not laboriously, the remainder of my
life; there is nothing that I will cudgel my brains about; no, not even
knowledge, of what value soever.
I seek, in the reading of books, only to please myself by an honest
diversion; or, if I study, 'tis for no other science than what treats of
the knowledge of myself, and instructs me how to die and how to live
well.
"Has meus ad metas sudet oportet equus."
["My horse must work according to my step."
—Propertius, iv.]
I do not bite my nails about the difficulties I meet with in my
reading; after a charge or two, I give them over. Should I insist upon
them, I should both lose myself and time; for I have an impatient
understanding, that must be satisfied at first: what I do not discern at
once is by persistence rendered more obscure. I do nothing without
gaiety; continuation and a too obstinate endeavour, darkens, stupefies,
and tires my judgment. My sight is confounded and dissipated with
poring; I must withdraw it, and refer my discovery to new attempts; just
as, to judge rightly of the lustre of scarlet, we are taught to pass the
eye lightly over it, and again to run it over at several sudden and
reiterated glances. If one book do not please me, I take another; and I
never meddle with any, but at such times as I am weary of doing nothing.
I care not much for new ones, because the old seem fuller and stronger;
neither do I converse much with Greek authors, because my judgment
cannot do its work with imperfect intelligence of the material.
Amongst books that are simply pleasant, of the moderns, Boccaccio's
Decameron, Rabelais, and the Basia of Johannes Secundus (if those may be
ranged under the title) are worth reading for amusement. As to the
Amadis, and such kind of stuff, they had not the credit of arresting
even my childhood. And I will, moreover, say, whether boldly or rashly,
that this old, heavy soul of mine is now no longer tickled with Ariosto,
no, nor with the worthy Ovid; his facility and inventions, with which I
was formerly so ravished, are now of no more relish, and I can hardly
have the patience to read them. I speak my opinion freely of all things,
even of those that, perhaps, exceed my capacity, and that I do not
conceive to be, in any wise, under my jurisdiction. And, accordingly,
the judgment I deliver, is to show the measure of my own sight, and not
of the things I make so bold to criticise. When I find myself disgusted
with Plato's 'Axiochus', as with a work, with due respect to such an
author be it spoken, without force, my judgment does not believe itself:
it is not so arrogant as to oppose the authority of so many other famous
judgments of antiquity, which it considers as its tutors and masters,
and with whom it is rather content to err; in such a case, it condemns
itself either to stop at the outward bark, not being able to penetrate
to the heart, or to consider it by sortie false light. It is content
with only securing itself from trouble and disorder; as to its own
weakness, it frankly acknowledges and confesses it. It thinks it gives a
just interpretation to the appearances by its conceptions presented to
it; but they are weak and imperfect. Most of the fables of AEsop have
diverse senses and meanings, of which the mythologists chose some one
that quadrates well to the fable; but, for the most part, 'tis but the
first face that presents itself and is superficial only; there yet
remain others more vivid, essential, and profound, into which they have
not been able to penetrate; and just so 'tis with me.
But, to pursue the business of this essay, I have always thought
that, in poesy, Virgil, Lucretius, Catullus, and Horace by many degrees
excel the rest; and signally, Virgil in his Georgics, which I look upon
as the most accomplished piece in poetry; and in comparison of which a
man may easily discern that there are some places in his AEneids, to
which the author would have given a little more of the file, had he had
leisure: and the fifth book of his AEneids seems to me the most perfect.
I also love Lucan, and willingly read him, not so much for his style, as
for his own worth, and the truth and solidity of his opinions and
judgments. As for good Terence, the refined elegance and grace of the
Latin tongue, I find him admirable in his vivid representation of our
manners and the movements of the soul; our actions throw me at every
turn upon him; and I cannot read him so often that I do not still
discover some new grace and beauty. Such as lived near Virgil's time
complained that some should compare Lucretius to him. I am of opinion
that the comparison is, in truth, very unequal: a belief that,
nevertheless, I have much ado to assure myself in, when I come upon some
excellent passage in Lucretius. But if they were so angry at this
comparison, what would they say to the brutish and barbarous stupidity
of those who, nowadays, compare him with Ariosto? Would not Ariosto
himself say?
"O seclum insipiens et inficetum!"
["O stupid and tasteless age."—Catullus, xliii. 8.]
I think the ancients had more reason to be angry with those who
compared Plautus with Terence, though much nearer the mark, than
Lucretius with Virgil. It makes much for the estimation and preference
of Terence, that the father of Roman eloquence has him so often, and
alone of his class, in his mouth; and the opinion that the best judge of
Roman poets —[Horace, De Art. Poetica, 279.]—has passed upon his
companion. I have often observed that those of our times, who take upon
them to write comedies (in imitation of the Italians, who are happy
enough in that way of writing), take three or four plots of those of
Plautus or Terence to make one of their own, and , crowd five or six of
Boccaccio's novels into one single comedy. That which makes them so load
themselves with matter is the diffidence they have of being able to
support themselves with their own strength. They must find out something
to lean to; and not having of their own stuff wherewith to entertain us,
they bring in the story to supply the defect of language. It is quite
otherwise with my author; the elegance and perfection of his way of
speaking makes us lose the appetite of his plot; his refined grace and
elegance of diction everywhere occupy us: he is so pleasant throughout,
"Liquidus, puroque simillimus amni,"
["Liquid, and likest the pure river."
—Horace, Ep., ii. s, 120.]
and so possesses the soul with his graces that we forget those of his
fable. This same consideration carries me further: I observe that the
best of the ancient poets have avoided affectation and the hunting
after, not only fantastic Spanish and Petrarchic elevations, but even
the softer and more gentle touches, which are the ornament of all
succeeding poesy. And yet there is no good judgment that will condemn
this in the ancients, and that does not incomparably more admire the
equal polish, and that perpetual sweetness and flourishing beauty of
Catullus's epigrams, than all the stings with which Martial arms the
tails of his. This is by the same reason that I gave before, and as
Martial says of himself:
"Minus illi ingenio laborandum fuit,
in cujus locum materia successerat:"
["He had the less for his wit to do that the subject itself
supplied what was necessary."—Martial, praef. ad lib. viii.]
The first, without being moved, or without getting angry, make
themselves sufficiently felt; they have matter enough of laughter
throughout, they need not tickle themselves; the others have need of
foreign assistance; as they have the less wit they must have the more
body; they mount on horseback, because they are not able to stand on
their own legs. As in our balls, those mean fellows who teach to dance,
not being able to represent the presence and dignity of our noblesse,
are fain to put themselves forward with dangerous jumping, and other
strange motions and tumblers tricks; and the ladies are less put to it
in dance; where there are various coupees, changes, and quick motions of
body, than in some other of a more sedate kind, where they are only to
move a natural pace, and to represent their ordinary grace and presence.
And so I have seen good drolls, when in their own everyday clothes, and
with the same face they always wear, give us all the pleasure of their
art, when their apprentices, not yet arrived at such a pitch of
perfection, are fain to meal their faces, put themselves into ridiculous
disguises, and make a hundred grotesque faces to give us whereat to
laugh. This conception of mine is nowhere more demonstrable than in
comparing the AEneid with Orlando Furioso; of which we see the first, by
dint of wing, flying in a brave and lofty place, and always following
his point: the latter, fluttering and hopping from tale to tale, as from
branch to branch, not daring to trust his wings but in very short
flights, and perching at every turn, lest his breath and strength should
fail.
"Excursusque breves tentat."
["And he attempts short excursions."
—Virgil, Georgics, iv. 194.]
These, then, as to this sort of subjects, are the authors that best
please me.
As to what concerns my other reading, that mixes a little more profit
with the pleasure, and whence I learn how to marshal my opinions and
conditions, the books that serve me to this purpose are Plutarch, since
he has been translated into French, and Seneca. Both of these have this
notable convenience suited to my humour, that the knowledge I there seek
is discoursed in loose pieces, that do not require from me any trouble
of reading long, of which I am incapable. Such are the minor works of
the first and the epistles of the latter, which are the best and most
profiting of all their writings. 'Tis no great attempt to take one of
them in hand, and I give over at pleasure; for they have no sequence or
dependence upon one another. These authors, for the most part, concur in
useful and true opinions; and there is this parallel betwixt them, that
fortune brought them into the world about the same century: they were
both tutors to two Roman emperors: both sought out from foreign
countries: both rich and both great men. Their instruction is the cream
of philosophy, and delivered after a plain and pertinent manner.
Plutarch is more uniform and constant; Seneca more various and waving:
the last toiled and bent his whole strength to fortify virtue against
weakness, fear, and vicious appetites; the other seems more to slight
their power, and to disdain to alter his pace and to stand upon his
guard. Plutarch's opinions are Platonic, gentle, and accommodated to
civil society; those of the other are Stoical and Epicurean, more remote
from the common use, but, in my opinion, more individually commodious
and more firm. Seneca seems to lean a little to the tyranny of the
emperors of his time, and only seems; for I take it for certain that he
speaks against his judgment when he condemns the action of the generous
murderers of Caesar. Plutarch is frank throughout: Seneca abounds with
brisk touches and sallies; Plutarch with things that warm and move you
more; this contents and pays you better: he guides us, the other pushes
us on.
As to Cicero, his works that are most useful to my design are they
that treat of manners and rules of our life. But boldly to confess the
truth (for since one has passed the barriers of impudence, there is no
bridle), his way of writing appears to me negligent and uninviting: for
his prefaces, definitions, divisions, and etymologies take up the
greatest part of his work: whatever there is of life and marrow is
smothered and lost in the long preparation. When I have spent an hour in
reading him, which is a great deal for me, and try to recollect what I
have thence extracted of juice and substance, for the most part I find
nothing but wind; for he is not yet come to the arguments that serve to
his purpose, and to the reasons that properly help to form the knot I
seek. For me, who only desire to become more wise, not more learned or
eloquent, these logical and Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no
use. I would have a man begin with the main proposition. I know well
enough what death and pleasure are; let no man give himself the trouble
to anatomise them to me. I look for good and solid reasons, at the first
dash, to instruct me how to stand their shock, for which purpose neither
grammatical subtleties nor the quaint contexture of words and
argumentations are of any use at all. I am for discourses that give the
first charge into the heart of the redoubt; his languish about the
subject; they are proper for the schools, for the bar, and for the
pulpit, where we have leisure to nod, and may awake, a quarter of an
hour after, time enough to find again the thread of the discourse. It is
necessary to speak after this manner to judges, whom a man has a design
to gain over, right or wrong, to children and common people, to whom a
man must say all, and see what will come of it. I would not have an
author make it his business to render me attentive: or that he should
cry out fifty times Oyez! as the heralds do. The Romans, in their
religious exercises, began with 'Hoc age' as we in ours do with 'Sursum
corda'; these are so many words lost to me: I come already fully
prepared from my chamber. I need no allurement, no invitation, no sauce;
I eat the meat raw, so that, instead of whetting my appetite by these
preparatives, they tire and pall it. Will the licence of the time excuse
my sacrilegious boldness if I censure the dialogism of Plato himself as
also dull and heavy, too much stifling the matter, and lament so much
time lost by a man, who had so many better things to say, in so many
long and needless preliminary interlocutions? My ignorance will better
excuse me in that I understand not Greek so well as to discern the
beauty of his language. I generally choose books that use sciences, not
such as only lead to them. The two first, and Pliny, and their like,
have nothing of this Hoc age; they will have to do with men already
instructed; or if they have, 'tis a substantial Hoc age; and that has a
body by itself. I also delight in reading the Epistles to Atticus, not
only because they contain a great deal of the history and affairs of his
time, but much more because I therein discover much of his own private
humours; for I have a singular curiosity, as I have said elsewhere, to
pry into the souls and the natural and true opinions of the authors,
with whom I converse. A man may indeed judge of their parts, but not of
their manners nor of themselves, by the writings they exhibit upon the
theatre of the world. I have a thousand times lamented the loss of the
treatise Brutus wrote upon Virtue, for it is well to learn the theory
from those who best know the practice.
But seeing the matter preached and the preacher are different things,
I would as willingly see Brutus in Plutarch, as in a book of his own. I
would rather choose to be certainly informed of the conference he had in
his tent with some particular friends of his the night before a battle,
than of the harangue he made the next day to his army; and of what he
did in his closet and his chamber, than what he did in the public square
and in the senate. As to Cicero, I am of the common opinion that,
learning excepted, he had no great natural excellence. He was a good
citizen, of an affable nature, as all fat, heavy men, such as he was,
usually are; but given to ease, and had, in truth, a mighty share of
vanity and ambition. Neither do I know how to excuse him for thinking
his poetry fit to be published; 'tis no great imperfection to make ill
verses, but it is an imperfection not to be able to judge how unworthy
his verses were of the glory of his name. For what concerns his
eloquence, that is totally out of all comparison, and I believe it will
never be equalled. The younger Cicero, who resembled his father in
nothing but in name, whilst commanding in Asia, had several strangers
one day at his table, and, amongst the rest, Cestius seated at the lower
end, as men often intrude to the open tables of the great. Cicero asked
one of his people who that man was, who presently told him his name; but
he, as one who had his thoughts taken up with something else, and who
had forgotten the answer made him, asking three or four times, over and
over again; the same question, the fellow, to deliver himself from so
many answers and to make him know him by some particular circumstance;
"'tis that Cestius," said he, "of whom it was told you, that he makes no
great account of your father's eloquence in comparison of his own." At
which Cicero, being suddenly nettled, commanded poor Cestius presently
to be seized, and caused him to be very well whipped in his own
presence; a very discourteous entertainer! Yet even amongst those, who,
all things considered, have reputed his, eloquence incomparable, there
have been some, who have not stuck to observe some faults in it: as that
great Brutus his friend, for example, who said 'twas a broken and feeble
eloquence, 'fyactam et elumbem'. The orators also, nearest to the age
wherein he lived, reprehended in him the care he had of a certain long
cadence in his periods, and particularly took notice of these words,
'esse videatur', which he there so often makes use of. For my part, I
more approve of a shorter style, and that comes more roundly off. He
does, though, sometimes shuffle his parts more briskly together, but
'tis very seldom. I have myself taken notice of this one passage:
"Ego vero me minus diu senem mallem,
quam esse senem, antequam essem."
["I had rather be old a brief time, than be old before old age.
—"Cicero, De Senect., c. 10.]
The historians are my right ball, for they are pleasant and easy, and
where man, in general, the knowledge of whom I hunt after, appears more
vividly and entire than anywhere else:
[The easiest of my amusements, the right ball at tennis being that
which coming to the player from the right hand, is much easier
played with.—Coste.]
the variety and truth of his internal qualities, in gross and
piecemeal, the diversity of means by which he is united and knit, and
the accidents that threaten him. Now those that write lives, by reason
they insist more upon counsels than events, more upon what sallies from
within, than upon what happens without, are the most proper for my
reading; and, therefore, above all others, Plutarch is the man for me. I
am very sorry we have not a dozen Laertii,—[Diogenes Laertius, who wrote
the Lives of the Philosophers]—or that he was not further extended; for
I am equally curious to know the lives and fortunes of these great
instructors of the world, as to know the diversities of their doctrines
and opinions. In this kind of study of histories, a man must tumble
over, without distinction, all sorts of authors, old and new, French or
foreign, there to know the things of which they variously treat. But
Caesar, in my opinion, particularly deserves to be studied, not for the
knowledge of the history only, but for himself, so great an excellence
and perfection he has above all the rest, though Sallust be one of the
number. In earnest, I read this author with more reverence and respect
than is usually allowed to human writings; one while considering him in
his person, by his actions and miraculous greatness, and another in the
purity and inimitable polish of his language, wherein he not only excels
all other historians, as Cicero confesses, but, peradventure, even
Cicero himself; speaking of his enemies with so much sincerity in his
judgment, that, the false colours with which he strives to palliate his
evil cause, and the ordure of his pestilent ambition excepted, I think
there is no fault to be objected against him, saving this, that he
speaks too sparingly of himself, seeing so many great things could not
have been performed under his conduct, but that his own personal acts
must necessarily have had a greater share in them than he attributes to
them.
I love historians, whether of the simple sort, or of the higher
order. The simple, who have nothing of their own to mix with it, and who
only make it their business to collect all that comes to their
knowledge, and faithfully to record all things, without choice or
discrimination, leave to us the entire judgment of discerning the truth.
Such, for example, amongst others, is honest Froissart, who has
proceeded in his undertaking with so frank a plainness that, having
committed an error, he is not ashamed to confess and correct it in the
place where the finger has been laid, and who represents to us even the
variety of rumours that were then spread abroad, and the different
reports that were made to him; 'tis the naked and inform matter of
history, and of which every one may make his profit, according to his
understanding. The more excellent sort of historians have judgment to
pick out what is most worthy to be known; and, of two reports, to
examine which is the most likely to be true: from the condition of
princes and their humours, they conclude their counsels, and attribute
to them words proper for the occasion; such have title to assume the
authority of regulating our belief to what they themselves believe; but
certainly, this privilege belongs to very few. For the middle sort of
historians, of which the most part are, they spoil all; they will chew
our meat for us; they take upon them to judge of, and consequently, to
incline the history to their own fancy; for if the judgment lean to one
side, a man cannot avoid wresting and writhing his narrative to that
bias; they undertake to select things worthy to be known, and yet often
conceal from us such a word, such a private action, as would much better
instruct us; omit, as incredible, such things as they do not understand,
and peradventure some, because they cannot express good French or Latin.
Let them display their eloquence and intelligence, and judge according
to their own fancy: but let them, withal, leave us something to judge of
after them, and neither alter nor disguise, by their abridgments and at
their own choice, anything of the substance of the matter, but deliver
it to us pure and entire in all its dimensions.
For the most part, and especially in these latter ages, persons are
culled out for this work from amongst the common people, upon the sole
consideration of well-speaking, as if we were to learn grammar from
them; and the men so chosen have fair reason, being hired for no other
end and pretending to nothing but babble, not to be very solicitous of
any part but that, and so, with a fine jingle of words, prepare us a
pretty contexture of reports they pick up in the streets. The only good
histories are those that have been written themselves who held command
in the affairs whereof they write, or who participated in the conduct of
them, or, at least, who have had the conduct of others of the same
nature. Such are almost all the Greek and Roman histories: for, several
eye-witnesses having written of the same subject, in the time when
grandeur and learning commonly met in the same person, if there happen
to be an error, it must of necessity be a very slight one, and upon a
very doubtful incident. What can a man expect from a physician who
writes of war, or from a mere scholar, treating of the designs of
princes? If we could take notice how scrupulous the Romans were in this,
there would need but this example: Asinius Pollio found in the histories
of Caesar himself something misreported, a mistake occasioned; either by
reason he could not have his eye in all parts of his army at once and
had given credit to some individual persons who had not delivered him a
very true account; or else, for not having had too perfect notice given
him by his lieutenants of what they had done in his absence.—[Suetonius,
Life of Caesar, c. 56.]—By which we may see, whether the inquisition
after truth be not very delicate, when a man cannot believe the report
of a battle from the knowledge of him who there commanded, nor from the
soldiers who were engaged in it, unless, after the method of a judicial
inquiry, the witnesses be confronted and objections considered upon the
proof of the least detail of every incident. In good earnest the
knowledge we have of our own affairs, is much more obscure: but that has
been sufficiently handled by Bodin, and according to my own sentiment
—[In the work by jean Bodin, entitled "Methodus ad facilem historiarum
cognitionem." 1566.]—A little to aid the weakness of my memory (so
extreme that it has happened to me more than once, to take books again
into my hand as new and unseen, that I had carefully read over a few
years before, and scribbled with my notes) I have adopted a custom of
late, to note at the end of every book (that is, of those I never intend
to read again) the time when I made an end on't, and the judgment I had
made of it, to the end that this might, at least, represent to me the
character and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it;
and I will here transcribe some of those annotations.
I wrote this, some ten years ago, in my Guicciardini (of what
language soever my books speak to me in, I always speak to them in my
own): "He is a diligent historiographer, from whom, in my opinion, a man
may learn the truth of the affairs of his time, as exactly as from any
other; in the most of which he was himself also a personal actor, and in
honourable command. There is no appearance that he disguised anything,
either upon the account of hatred, favour, or vanity; of which the free
censures he passes upon the great ones, and particularly those by whom
he was advanced and employed in commands of great trust and honour, as
Pope Clement VII., give ample testimony. As to that part which he thinks
himself the best at, namely, his digressions and discourses, he has
indeed some very good, and enriched with fine features; but he is too
fond of them: for, to leave nothing unsaid, having a subject so full,
ample, almost infinite, he degenerates into pedantry and smacks a little
of scholastic prattle. I have also observed this in him, that of so many
souls and so many effects, so many motives and so many counsels as he
judges, he never attributes any one to virtue, religion, or conscience,
as if all these were utterly extinct in the world: and of all the
actions, how brave soever in outward show they appear in themselves, he
always refers the cause and motive to some vicious occasion or some
prospect of profit. It is impossible to imagine but that, amongst such
an infinite number of actions as he makes mention of, there must be some
one produced by the way of honest reason. No corruption could so
universally have infected men that some one would not escape the
contagion which makes me suspect that his own taste was vicious, whence
it might happen that he judged other men by himself."
In my Philip de Commines there is this written: "You will here find
the language sweet and delightful, of a natural simplicity, the
narration pure, with the good faith of the author conspicuous therein;
free from vanity, when speaking of himself, and from affection or envy,
when speaking of others: his discourses and exhortations rather
accompanied with zeal and truth, than with any exquisite sufficiency;
and, throughout, authority and gravity, which bespeak him a man of good
extraction, and brought up in great affairs."
Upon the Memoirs of Monsieur du Bellay I find this: "'Tis always
pleasant to read things written by those that have experienced how they
ought to be carried on; but withal, it cannot be denied but there is a
manifest decadence in these two lords—[Martin du Bellay and Guillaume de
Langey, brothers, who jointly wrote the Memoirs.]—from the freedom and
liberty of writing that shine in the elder historians, such as the Sire
de Joinville, the familiar companion of St. Louis; Eginhard, chancellor
to Charlemagne; and of later date, Philip de Commines. What we have here
is rather an apology for King Francis, against the Emperor Charles V.,
than history. I will not believe that they have falsified anything, as
to matter of fact; but they make a common practice of twisting the
judgment of events, very often contrary to reason, to our advantage, and
of omitting whatsoever is ticklish to be handled in the life of their
master; witness the proceedings of Messieurs de Montmorency and de
Biron, which are here omitted: nay, so much as the very name of Madame
d'Estampes is not here to be found. Secret actions an historian may
conceal; but to pass over in silence what all the world knows and things
that have drawn after them public and such high consequences, is an
inexcusable defect. In fine, whoever has a mind to have a perfect
knowledge of King Francis and the events of his reign, let him seek it
elsewhere, if my advice may prevail. The only profit a man can reap from
these Memoirs is in the special narrative of battles and other exploits
of war wherein these gentlemen were personally engaged; in some words
and private actions of the princes of their time, and in the treaties
and negotiations carried on by the Seigneur de Langey, where there are
everywhere things worthy to be known, and discourses above the vulgar
strain."
CHAPTER XI——OF CRUELTY
I fancy virtue to be something else, and something more noble, than
good nature, and the mere propension to goodness, that we are born into
the world withal. Well-disposed and well-descended souls pursue, indeed,
the same methods, and represent in their actions the same face that
virtue itself does: but the word virtue imports, I know not what, more
great and active than merely for a man to suffer himself, by a happy
disposition, to be gently and quietly drawn to the rule of reason. He
who, by a natural sweetness and facility, should despise injuries
received, would doubtless do a very fine and laudable thing; but he who,
provoked and nettled to the quick by an offence, should fortify himself
with the arms of reason against the furious appetite of revenge, and
after a great conflict, master his own passion, would certainly do a
great deal more. The first would do well; the latter virtuously: one
action might be called goodness, and the other virtue; for methinks, the
very name of virtue presupposes difficulty and contention, and cannot be
exercised without an opponent. 'Tis for this reason, perhaps, that we
call God good, mighty, liberal and just; but we do not call Him
virtuous, being that all His operations are natural and without
endeavour.—[Rousseau, in his Emile, book v., adopts this passage almost
in the same words.]— It has been the opinion of many philosophers, not
only Stoics, but Epicureans—and this addition—
["Montaigne stops here to make his excuse for thus naming the
Epicureans with the Stoics, in conformity to the general opinion
that the Epicureans were not so rigid in their morals as the Stoics,
which is not true in the main, as he demonstrates at one view. This
involved Montaigne in a tedious parenthesis, during which it is
proper that the reader be attentive, that he may not entirely lose
the thread of the argument. In some later editions of this author,
it has been attempted to remedy this inconvenience, but without
observing that Montaigne's argument is rendered more feeble and
obscure by such vain repetitions: it is a licence that ought not to
be taken, because he who publishes the work of another, ought to
give it as the other composed ft. But, in Mr Cotton's translation,
he was so puzzled with this enormous parenthesis that he has quite
left it out"—Coste.]
I borrow from the vulgar opinion, which is false, notwithstanding the
witty conceit of Arcesilaus in answer to one, who, being reproached that
many scholars went from his school to the Epicurean, but never any from
thence to his school, said in answer, "I believe it indeed; numbers of
capons being made out of cocks, but never any cocks out of capons."
—[Diogenes Laertius, Life of Archesilaus, lib. iv., 43.]—For, in truth,
the Epicurean sect is not at all inferior to the Stoic in steadiness,
and the rigour of opinions and precepts. And a certain Stoic, showing
more honesty than those disputants, who, in order to quarrel with
Epicurus, and to throw the game into their hands, make him say what he
never thought, putting a wrong construction upon his words, clothing his
sentences, by the strict rules of grammar, with another meaning, and a
different opinion from that which they knew he entertained in his mind
and in his morals, the Stoic, I say, declared that he abandoned the
Epicurean sect, upon this among other considerations, that he thought
their road too lofty and inaccessible;
["And those are called lovers of pleasure, being in effect
lovers of honour and justice, who cultivate and observe all
the virtues."—Cicero, Ep. Fam., xv. i, 19.]
These philosophers say that it is not enough to have the soul seated
in a good place, of a good temper, and well disposed to virtue; it is
not enough to have our resolutions and our reasoning fixed above all the
power of fortune, but that we are, moreover, to seek occasions wherein
to put them to the proof: they would seek pain, necessity, and contempt
to contend with them and to keep the soul in breath:
"Multum sibi adjicit virtus lacessita."
["Virtue is much strengthened by combats."
or: "Virtue attacked adds to its own force."
—Seneca, Ep., 13.]
'Tis one of the reasons why Epaminondas, who was yet of a third sect,
—[The Pythagorean.]—refused the riches fortune presented to him by very
lawful means; because, said he, I am to contend with poverty, in which
extreme he maintained himself to the last. Socrates put himself,
methinks, upon a ruder trial, keeping for his exercise a confounded
scolding wife, which was fighting at sharps. Metellus having, of all the
Roman senators, alone attempted, by the power of virtue, to withstand
the violence of Saturninus, tribune of the people at Rome, who would, by
all means, cause an unjust law to pass in favour of the commons, and, by
so doing, having incurred the capital penalties that Saturninus had
established against the dissentient, entertained those who, in this
extremity, led him to execution with words to this effect: That it was a
thing too easy and too base to do ill; and that to do well where there
was no danger was a common thing; but that to do well where there was
danger was the proper office of a man of virtue. These words of Metellus
very clearly represent to us what I would make out, viz., that virtue
refuses facility for a companion; and that the easy, smooth, and
descending way by which the regular steps of a sweet disposition of
nature are conducted is not that of a true virtue; she requires a rough
and stormy passage; she will have either exotic difficulties to wrestle
with, like that of Metellus, by means whereof fortune delights to
interrupt the speed of her career, or internal difficulties, that the
inordinate appetites and imperfections of our condition introduce to
disturb her.
I am come thus far at my ease; but here it comes into my head that
the soul of Socrates, the most perfect that ever came to my knowledge,
should by this rule be of very little recommendation; for I cannot
conceive in that person any the least motion of a vicious inclination: I
cannot imagine there could be any difficulty or constraint in the course
of his virtue: I know his reason to be so powerful and sovereign over
him that she would never have suffered a vicious appetite so much as to
spring in him. To a virtue so elevated as his, I have nothing to oppose.
Methinks I see him march, with a victorious and triumphant pace, in pomp
and at his ease, without opposition or disturbance. If virtue cannot
shine bright, but by the conflict of contrary appetites, shall we then
say that she cannot subsist without the assistance of vice, and that it
is from her that she derives her reputation and honour? What then, also,
would become of that brave and generous Epicurean pleasure, which makes
account that it nourishes virtue tenderly in her lap, and there makes it
play and wanton, giving it for toys to play withal, shame, fevers,
poverty, death, and torments? If I presuppose that a perfect virtue
manifests itself in contending, in patient enduring of pain, and
undergoing the uttermost extremity of the gout; without being moved in
her seat; if I give her troubles and difficulty for her necessary
objects: what will become of a virtue elevated to such a degree, as not
only to despise pain, but, moreover, to rejoice in it, and to be tickled
with the throes of a sharp colic, such as the Epicureans have
established, and of which many of them, by their actions, have given
most manifest proofs? As have several others, who I find to have
surpassed in effects even the very rules of their discipline. Witness
the younger Cato: When I see him die, and tearing out his own bowels, I
am not satisfied simply to believe that he had then his soul totally
exempt from all trouble and horror: I cannot think that he only
maintained himself in the steadiness that the Stoical rules prescribed
him; temperate, without emotion, and imperturbed. There was, methinks,
something in the virtue of this man too sprightly and fresh to stop
there; I believe that, without doubt, he felt a pleasure and delight in
so noble an action, and was more pleased in it than in any other of his
life:
"Sic abiit a vita, ut causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet."
["He quitted life rejoicing that a reason for dying had arisen."
—Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 30.]
I believe it so thoroughly that I question whether he would have been
content to have been deprived of the occasion of so brave an exploit;
and if the goodness that made him embrace the public concern more than
his own, withheld me not, I should easily fall into an opinion that he
thought himself obliged to fortune for having put his virtue upon so
brave a trial, and for having favoured that theif—[Caesar]—in treading
underfoot the ancient liberty of his country. Methinks I read in this
action I know not what exaltation in his soul, and an extraordinary and
manly emotion of pleasure, when he looked upon the generosity and height
of his enterprise:
"Deliberate morte ferocior,"
["The more courageous from the deliberation to die."
—Horace, Od., i. 37, 29.]
not stimulated with any hope of glory, as the popular and effeminate
judgments of some have concluded (for that consideration was too mean
and low to possess so generous, so haughty, and so determined a heart as
his), but for the very beauty of the thing in itself, which he who had
the handling of the springs discerned more clearly and in its perfection
than we are able to do. Philosophy has obliged me in determining that so
brave an action had been indecently placed in any other life than that
of Cato; and that it only appertained to his to end so; notwithstanding,
and according to reason, he commanded his son and the senators who
accompanied him to take another course in their affairs:
"Catoni, quum incredibilem natura tribuisset gravitatem,
eamque ipse perpetue constantia roboravisset, semperque
in proposito consilio permansisset, moriendum potius,
quam tyranni vultus aspiciendus, erat."
["Cato, whom nature had given incredible dignity, which he had
fortified by perpetual constancy, ever remaining of his
predetermined opinion, preferred to die rather than to look
on the countenance of a tyrant."—Cicero, De Ofc., i. 31.]
Every death ought to hold proportion with the life before it; we do
not become others for dying. I always interpret the death by the life
preceding; and if any one tell me of a death strong and constant in
appearance, annexed to a feeble life, I conclude it produced by some
feeble cause, and suitable to the life before. The easiness then of his
death and the facility of dying he had acquired by the vigour of his
soul; shall we say that it ought to abate anything of the lustre of his
virtue? And who, that has his brain never so little tinctured with the
true philosophy, can be content to imagine Socrates only free from fear
and passion in the accident of his prison, fetters, and condemnation?
and that will not discover in him not only firmness and constancy (which
was his ordinary condition), but, moreover, I know not what new
satisfaction, and a frolic cheerfulness in his last words and actions?
In the start he gave with the pleasure of scratching his leg when his
irons were taken off, does he not discover an equal serenity and joy in
his soul for being freed from past inconveniences, and at the same time
to enter into the knowledge of the things to come? Cato shall pardon me,
if he please; his death indeed is more tragical and more lingering; but
yet this is, I know not how, methinks, finer. Aristippus, to one that
was lamenting this death: "The gods grant me such an one," said he. A
man discerns in the soul of these two great men and their imitators (for
I very much doubt whether there were ever their equals) so perfect a
habitude to virtue, that it was turned to a complexion. It is no longer
a laborious virtue, nor the precepts of reason, to maintain which the
soul is so racked, but the very essence of their soul, its natural and
ordinary habit; they have rendered it such by a long practice of
philosophical precepts having lit upon a rich and fine nature; the
vicious passions that spring in us can find no entrance into them; the
force and vigour of their soul stifle and extinguish irregular desires,
so soon as they begin to move.
Now, that it is not more noble, by a high and divine resolution, to
hinder the birth of temptations, and to be so formed to virtue, that the
very seeds of vice are rooted out, than to hinder by main force their
progress; and, having suffered ourselves to be surprised with the first
motions of the passions, to arm ourselves and to stand firm to oppose
their progress, and overcome them; and that this second effect is not
also much more generous than to be simply endowed with a facile and
affable nature, of itself disaffected to debauchery and vice, I do not
think can be doubted; for this third and last sort of virtue seems to
render a man innocent, but not virtuous; free from doing ill, but not
apt enough to do well: considering also, that this condition is so near
neighbour to imperfection and cowardice, that I know not very well how
to separate the confines and distinguish them: the very names of
goodness and innocence are, for this reason, in some sort grown into
contempt. I very well know that several virtues, as chastity, sobriety,
and temperance, may come to a man through personal defects. Constancy in
danger, if it must be so called, the contempt of death, and patience in
misfortunes, may ofttimes be found in men for want of well judging of
such accidents, and not apprehending them for such as they are. Want of
apprehension and stupidity sometimes counterfeit virtuous effects as I
have often seen it happen, that men have been commended for what really
merited blame. An Italian lord once said this, in my presence, to the
disadvantage of his own nation: that the subtlety of the Italians, and
the vivacity of their conceptions were so great, and they foresaw the
dangers and accidents that might befall them so far off, that it was not
to be thought strange, if they were often, in war, observed to provide
for their safety, even before they had discovered the peril; that we
French and the Spaniards, who were not so cunning, went on further, and
that we must be made to see and feel the danger before we would take the
alarm; but that even then we could not stick to it. But the Germans and
Swiss, more gross and heavy, had not the sense to look about them, even
when the blows were falling about their ears. Peradventure, he only
talked so for mirth's sake; and yet it is most certain that in war raw
soldiers rush into dangers with more precipitancy than after they have
been cudgelled*—(The original has eschauldex—scalded)
"Haud ignarus . . . . quantum nova gloria in armis,
Et praedulce decus, primo certamine possit."
["Not ignorant how much power the fresh glory of arms and sweetest
honour possess in the first contest."—AEneid, xi. 154]
For this reason it is that, when we judge of a particular action, we
are to consider the circumstances, and the whole man by whom it is
performed, before we give it a name.
To instance in myself: I have sometimes known my friends call that
prudence in me, which was merely fortune; and repute that courage and
patience, which was judgment and opinion; and attribute to me one title
for another, sometimes to my advantage and sometimes otherwise. As to
the rest, I am so far from being arrived at the first and most perfect
degree of excellence, where virtue is turned into habit, that even of
the second I have made no great proofs. I have not been very solicitous
to curb the desires by which I have been importuned. My virtue is a
virtue, or rather an innocence, casual and accidental. If I had been
born of a more irregular complexion, I am afraid I should have made
scurvy work; for I never observed any great stability in my soul to
resist passions, if they were never so little vehement: I know not how
to nourish quarrels and debates in my own bosom, and, consequently, owe
myself no great thanks that I am free from several vices:
"Si vitiis mediocribus et mea paucis
Mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si
Egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos:"
["If my nature be disfigured only with slight and few vices, and is
otherwise just, it is as if you should blame moles on a fair body."
—Horatius, Sat., i. 6, 65.]
I owe it rather to my fortune than my reason. She has caused me to be
descended of a race famous for integrity and of a very good father; I
know not whether or no he has infused into me part of his humours, or
whether domestic examples and the good education of my infancy have
insensibly assisted in the work, or, if I was otherwise born so:
"Seu Libra, seu me Scorpius adspicit
Formidolosus, pars violentior
Natalis hors, seu tyrannus
Hesperive Capricornus undae:"
["Whether the Balance or dread Scorpio, more potent over my natal
hour, aspects me, or Capricorn, supreme over the Hesperian sea."
—Horace, Od., ii. 117.]
but so it is, that I have naturally a horror for most vices. The
answer of Antisthenes to him who asked him, which was the best
apprenticeship "to unlearn evil," seems to point at this. I have them in
horror, I say, with a detestation so natural, and so much my own, that
the same instinct and impression I brought of them with me from my
nurse, I yet retain, and no temptation whatever has had the power to
make me alter it. Not so much as my own discourses, which in some things
lashing out of the common road might seem easily to license me to
actions that my natural inclination makes me hate. I will say a
prodigious thing, but I will say it, however: I find myself in many
things more under reputation by my manners than by my opinion, and my
concupiscence less debauched than my reason. Aristippus instituted
opinions so bold in favour of pleasure and riches as set all the
philosophers against him: but as to his manners, Dionysius the tyrant,
having presented three beautiful women before him, to take his choice;
he made answer, that he would choose them all, and that Paris got
himself into trouble for having preferred one before the other two: but,
having taken them home to his house, he sent them back untouched. His
servant finding himself overladen upon the way, with the money he
carried after him, he ordered him to pour out and throw away that which
troubled him. And Epicurus, whose doctrines were so irreligious and
effeminate, was in his life very laborious and devout; he wrote to a
friend of his that he lived only upon biscuit and water, entreating him
to send him a little cheese, to lie by him against he had a mind to make
a feast. Must it be true, that to be a perfect good man, we must be so
by an occult, natural, and universal propriety, without law, reason, or
example? The debauches wherein I have been engaged, have not been, I
thank God, of the worst sort, and I have condemned them in myself, for
my judgment was never infected by them; on the contrary, I accuse them
more severely in myself than in any other; but that is all, for, as to
the rest. I oppose too little resistance and suffer myself to incline
too much to the other side of the balance, excepting that I moderate
them, and prevent them from mixing with other vices, which for the most
part will cling together, if a man have not a care. I have contracted
and curtailed mine, to make them as single and as simple as I can:
"Nec ultra
Errorem foveo."
["Nor do I cherish error further."
or: "Nor carry wrong further."
—Juvenal, viii. 164.]
For as to the opinion of the Stoics, who say, "That the wise man when
he works, works by all the virtues together, though one be most
apparent, according to the nature of the action"; and herein the
similitude of a human body might serve them somewhat, for the action of
anger cannot work, unless all the humours assist it, though choler
predominate; —if they will thence draw a like consequence, that when the
wicked man does wickedly, he does it by all the vices together, I do not
believe it to be so, or else I understand them not, for I by effect find
the contrary. These are sharp, unsubstantial subleties, with which
philosophy sometimes amuses itself. I follow some vices, but I fly
others as much as a saint would do. The Peripatetics also disown this
indissoluble connection; and Aristotle is of opinion that a prudent and
just man may be intemperate and inconsistent. Socrates confessed to some
who had discovered a certain inclination to vice in his physiognomy,
that it was, in truth, his natural propension, but that he had by
discipline corrected it. And such as were familiar with the philosopher
Stilpo said, that being born with addiction to wine and women, he had by
study rendered himself very abstinent both from the one and the other.
What I have in me of good, I have, quite contrary, by the chance of
my birth; and hold it not either by law, precept, or any other
instruction; the innocence that is in me is a simple one; little vigour
and no art. Amongst other vices, I mortally hate cruelty, both by nature
and judgment, as the very extreme of all vices: nay, with so much
tenderness that I cannot see a chicken's neck pulled off without
trouble, and cannot without impatience endure the cry of a hare in my
dog's teeth, though the chase be a violent pleasure. Such as have
sensuality to encounter, freely make use of this argument, to shew that
it is altogether "vicious and unreasonable; that when it is at the
height, it masters us to that degree that a man's reason can have no
access," and instance our own experience in the act of love,
"Quum jam praesagit gaudia corpus,
Atque in eo est Venus,
ut muliebria conserat arva."
[None of the translators of the old editions used for this etext
have been willing to translate this passage from Lucretius, iv.
1099; they take a cop out by bashfully saying: "The sense is in the
preceding passage of the text." D.W.]
wherein they conceive that the pleasure so transports us, that our
reason cannot perform its office, whilst we are in such ecstasy and
rapture. I know very well it may be otherwise, and that a man may
sometimes, if he will, gain this point over himself to sway his soul,
even in the critical moment, to think of something else; but then he
must ply it to that bent. I know that a man may triumph over the utmost
effort of this pleasure: I have experienced it in myself, and have not
found Venus so imperious a goddess, as many, and much more virtuous men
than I, declare. I do not consider it a miracle, as the Queen of Navarre
does in one of the Tales of her Heptameron—["Vu gentil liure pour son
estoffe."]—(which is a very pretty book of its kind), nor for a thing of
extreme difficulty, to pass whole nights, where a man has all the
convenience and liberty he can desire, with a long-coveted mistress, and
yet be true to the pledge first given to satisfy himself with kisses and
suchlike endearments, without pressing any further. I conceive that the
example of the pleasure of the chase would be more proper; wherein
though the pleasure be less, there is the higher excitement of
unexpected joy, giving no time for the reason, taken by surprise, to
prepare itself for the encounter, when after a long quest the beast
starts up on a sudden in a place where, peradventure, we least expected
it; the shock and the ardour of the shouts and cries of the hunters so
strike us, that it would be hard for those who love this lesser chase,
to turn their thoughts upon the instant another way; and the poets make
Diana triumph over the torch and shafts of Cupid:
"Quis non malarum, quas amor curas habet,
Haec inter obliviscitur?"
["Who, amongst such delights would not remove out of his thoughts
the anxious cares of love."—Horace, Epod., ii. 37.]
To return to what I was saying before, I am tenderly compassionate of
others' afflictions, and should readily cry for company, if, upon any
occasion whatever, I could cry at all. Nothing tempts my tears but
tears, and not only those that are real and true, but whatever they are,
feigned or painted. I do not much lament the dead, and should envy them
rather; but I very much lament the dying. The savages do not so much
offend me, in roasting and eating the bodies of the dead, as they do who
torment and persecute the living. Nay, I cannot look so much as upon the
ordinary executions of justice, how reasonable soever, with a steady
eye. Some one having to give testimony of Julius Caesar's clemency; "he
was," says he, "mild in his revenges. Having compelled the pirates to
yield by whom he had before been taken prisoner and put to ransom;
forasmuch as he had threatened them with the cross, he indeed condemned
them to it, but it was after they had been first strangled. He punished
his secretary Philemon, who had attempted to poison him, with no greater
severity than mere death." Without naming that Latin author,—[Suetonius,
Life of Casay, c. 74.]—who thus dares to allege as a testimony of mercy
the killing only of those by whom we have been offended; it is easy to
guess that he was struck with the horrid and inhuman examples of cruelty
practised by the Roman tyrants.
For my part, even in justice itself, all that exceeds a simple death
appears to me pure cruelty; especially in us who ought, having regard to
their souls, to dismiss them in a good and calm condition; which cannot
be, when we have agitated them by insufferable torments. Not long since,
a soldier who was a prisoner, perceiving from a tower where he was shut
up, that the people began to assemble to the place of execution, and
that the carpenters were busy erecting a scaffold, he presently
concluded that the preparation was for him, and therefore entered into a
resolution to kill himself, but could find no instrument to assist him
in his design except an old rusty cart-nail that fortune presented to
him; with this he first gave himself two great wounds about his throat,
but finding these would not do, he presently afterwards gave himself a
third in the belly, where he left the nail sticking up to the head. The
first of his keepers who came in found him in this condition: yet alive,
but sunk down and exhausted by his wounds. To make use of time,
therefore, before he should die, they made haste to read his sentence;
which having done, and he hearing that he was only condemned to be
beheaded, he seemed to take new courage, accepted wine which he had
before refused, and thanked his judges for the unhoped-for mildness of
their sentence; saying, that he had taken a resolution to despatch
himself for fear of a more severe and insupportable death, having
entertained an opinion, by the preparations he had seen in the place,
that they were resolved to torment him with some horrible execution, and
seemed to be delivered from death in having it changed from what he
apprehended.
I should advise that those examples of severity by which 'tis
designed to retain the people in their duty, might be exercised upon the
dead bodies of criminals; for to see them deprived of sepulture, to see
them boiled and divided into quarters, would almost work as much upon
the vulgar, as the pain they make the living endure; though that in
effect be little or nothing, as God himself says, "Who kill the body,
and after that have no more that they can do;"—[Luke, xii. 4.]—and the
poets singularly dwell upon the horrors of this picture, as something
worse than death:
"Heu! reliquias semiustas regis, denudatis ossibus,
Per terram sanie delibutas foede divexarier."
["Alas! that the half-burnt remains of the king, exposing his bones,
should be foully dragged along the ground besmeared with gore."
—Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 44.]
I happened to come by one day accidentally at Rome, just as they were
upon executing Catena, a notorious robber: he was strangled without any
emotion of the spectators, but when they came to cut him in quarters,
the hangman gave not a blow that the people did not follow with a
doleful cry and exclamation, as if every one had lent his sense of
feeling to the miserable carcase. Those inhuman excesses ought to be
exercised upon the bark, and not upon the quick. Artaxerxes, in almost a
like case, moderated the severity of the ancient laws of Persia,
ordaining that the nobility who had committed a fault, instead of being
whipped, as they were used to be, should be stripped only and their
clothes whipped for them; and that whereas they were wont to tear off
their hair, they should only take off their high-crowned
tiara.'—[Plutarch, Notable Sayings of the Ancient King.]—The so devout
Egyptians thought they sufficiently satisfied the divine justice by
sacrificing hogs in effigy and representation; a bold invention to pay
God so essential a substance in picture only and in show.
I live in a time wherein we abound in incredible examples of this
vice, through the licence of our civil wars; and we see nothing in
ancient histories more extreme than what we have proof of every day, but
I cannot, any the more, get used to it. I could hardly persuade myself,
before I saw it with my eyes, that there could be found souls so cruel
and fell, who, for the sole pleasure of murder, would commit it; would
hack and lop off the limbs of others; sharpen their wits to invent
unusual torments and new kinds of death, without hatred, without profit,
and for no other end but only to enjoy the pleasant spectacle of the
gestures and motions, the lamentable groans and cries of a man dying in
anguish. For this is the utmost point to which cruelty can arrive:
"Ut homo hominem, non iratus, non timens,
tantum spectaturus, occidat."
["That a man should kill a man, not being angry, not in fear, only
for the sake of the spectacle."—Seneca, Ep., 90.]
For my own part, I cannot without grief see so much as an innocent
beast pursued and killed that has no defence, and from which we have
received no offence at all; and that which frequently happens, that the
stag we hunt, finding himself weak and out of breath, and seeing no
other remedy, surrenders himself to us who pursue him, imploring mercy
by his tears:
"Questuque cruentus,
Atque imploranti similis,"
["Who, bleeding, by his tears seems to crave mercy."
—AEnead, vii. 501.]
has ever been to me a very unpleasing sight; and I hardly ever take a
beast alive that I do not presently turn out again. Pythagoras bought
them of fishermen and fowlers to do the same:
"Primoque a caede ferarum,
Incaluisse puto maculatum sanguine ferrum."
["I think 'twas slaughter of wild beasts that first stained the
steel of man with blood."—Ovid, Met., xv. 106.]
Those natures that are sanguinary towards beasts discover a natural
proneness to cruelty. After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to
spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the
slaughter of men, of gladiators. Nature has herself, I fear, imprinted
in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity; nobody takes pleasure in seeing
beasts play with and caress one another, but every one is delighted with
seeing them dismember, and tear one another to pieces. And that I may
not be laughed at for the sympathy I have with them, theology itself
enjoins us some favour in their behalf; and considering that one and the
same master has lodged us together in this palace for his service, and
that they, as well as we, are of his family, it has reason to enjoin us
some affection and regard to them. Pythagoras borrowed the
metempsychosis from the Egyptians; but it has since been received by
several nations, and particularly by our Druids:
"Morte carent animae; semperque, priore relicts
Sede, novis domibus vivunt, habitantque receptae."
["Souls never die, but, having left their former seat, live
and are received into new homes."—Ovid, Met., xv. 158.]
The religion of our ancient Gauls maintained that souls, being
eternal, never ceased to remove and shift their places from one body to
another; mixing moreover with this fancy some consideration of divine
justice; for according to the deportments of the soul, whilst it had
been in Alexander, they said that God assigned it another body to
inhabit, more or less painful, and proper for its condition:
"Muta ferarum
Cogit vincla pati; truculentos ingerit ursis,
Praedonesque lupis; fallaces vulpibus addit:
Atque ubi per varios annos, per mille figuras
Egit, Lethaeo purgatos flumine, tandem
Rursus ad humanae revocat primordia formae:"
["He makes them wear the silent chains of brutes, the bloodthirsty
souls he encloses in bears, the thieves in wolves, the deceivers in
foxes; where, after successive years and a thousand forms, man had
spent his life, and after purgation in Lethe's flood, at last he
restores them to the primordial human shapes."
—Claudian, In Ruf., ii. 482.]
If it had been valiant, he lodged it in the body of a lion; if
voluptuous, in that of a hog; if timorous, in that of a hart or hare; if
malicious, in that of a fox, and so of the rest, till having purified it
by this chastisement, it again entered into the body of some other man:
"Ipse ego nam memini, Trojani, tempore belli
Panthoides Euphorbus eram."
["For I myself remember that, in the days of the Trojan war, I was
Euphorbus, son of Pantheus."—Ovid, Met., xv. 160; and see Diogenes
Laertius, Life of Pythagoras.]
As to the relationship betwixt us and beasts, I do not much admit of
it; nor of that which several nations, and those among the most ancient
and most noble, have practised, who have not only received brutes into
their society and companionship, but have given them a rank infinitely
above themselves, esteeming them one while familiars and favourites of
the gods, and having them in more than human reverence and respect;
others acknowledged no other god or divinity than they:
"Bellux a barbaris propter beneficium consecratae."
["Beasts, out of opinion of some benefit received by them, were
consecrated by barbarians"—Cicero, De Natura Deor., i. 36.]
"Crocodilon adorat
Pars haec; illa pavet saturam serpentibus ibin:
Effigies sacri hic nitet aurea cercopitheci;
Hic piscem flumints, illic
Oppida tota canem venerantur."
["This place adores the crocodile; another dreads the ibis, feeder
on serpents; here shines the golden image of the sacred ape; here
men venerate the fish of the river; there whole towns worship a
dog."—Juvenal, xv. 2.]
And the very interpretation that Plutarch, gives to this error, which
is very well conceived, is advantageous to them: for he says that it was
not the cat or the ox, for example, that the Egyptians adored: but that
they, in those beasts, adored some image of the divine faculties; in
this, patience and utility: in that, vivacity, or, as with our
neighbours the Burgundians and all the Germans, impatience to see
themselves shut up; by which they represented liberty, which they loved
and adored above all other godlike attributes, and so of the rest. But
when, amongst the more moderate opinions, I meet with arguments that
endeavour to demonstrate the near resemblance betwixt us and animals,
how large a share they have in our greatest privileges, and with how
much probability they compare us together, truly I abate a great deal of
our presumption, and willingly resign that imaginary sovereignty that is
attributed to us over other creatures.
But supposing all this were not true, there is nevertheless a certain
respect, a general duty of humanity, not only to beasts that have life
and sense, but even to trees, and plants. We owe justice to men, and
graciousness and benignity to other creatures that are capable of it;
there is a certain commerce and mutual obligation betwixt them and us.
Nor shall I be afraid to confess the tenderness of my nature so
childish, that I cannot well refuse to play with my dog, when he the
most unseasonably importunes me to do so. The Turks have alms and
hospitals for beasts. The Romans had public care to the nourishment of
geese, by whose vigilance their Capitol had been preserved. The
Athenians made a decree that the mules and moyls which had served at the
building of the temple called Hecatompedon should be free and suffered
to pasture at their own choice, without hindrance. The Agrigentines had
a common use solemnly to inter the beasts they had a kindness for, as
horses of some rare quality, dogs, and useful birds, and even those that
had only been kept to divert their children; and the magnificence that
was ordinary with them in all other things, also particularly appeared
in the sumptuosity and numbers of monuments erected to this end, and
which remained in their beauty several ages after. The Egyptians buried
wolves, bears, crocodiles, dogs, and cats in sacred places, embalmed
their bodies, and put on mourning at their death. Cimon gave an
honourable sepulture to the mares with which he had three times gained
the prize of the course at the Olympic Games. The ancient Xantippus
caused his dog to be interred on an eminence near the sea, which has
ever since retained the name, and Plutarch says, that he had a scruple
about selling for a small profit to the slaughterer an ox that had been
long in his service.
CHAPTER XIII——OF JUDGING OF THE DEATH OF ANOTHER
When we judge of another's assurance in death, which, without doubt,
is the most remarkable action of human life, we are to take heed of one
thing, which is that men very hardly believe themselves to have arrived
to that period. Few men come to die in the opinion that it is their
latest hour; and there is nothing wherein the flattery of hope more
deludes us; It never ceases to whisper in our ears, "Others have been
much sicker without dying; your condition is not so desperate as 'tis
thought; and, at the worst, God has done other miracles." Which happens
by reason that we set too much value upon ourselves; it seems as if the
universality of things were in some measure to suffer by our
dissolution, and that it commiserates our condition, forasmuch as our
disturbed sight represents things to itself erroneously, and that we are
of opinion they stand in as much need of us as we do of them, like
people at sea, to whom mountains, fields, cities, heaven and earth are
tossed at the same rate as they are:
"Provehimur portu, terraeque urbesque recedunt:"
["We sail out of port, and cities and lands recede."
—AEneid, iii. 72.]
Whoever saw old age that did not applaud the past and condemn the
present time, laying the fault of his misery and discontent upon the
world and the manners of men?
"Jamque caput quassans, grandis suspirat arator.
Et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert
Praeteritis, laudat fortunas saepe parentis,
Et crepat antiquum genus ut pietate repletum."
["Now the old ploughman, shaking his head, sighs, and compares
present times with past, often praises his parents' happiness, and
talks of the old race as full of piety."—Lucretius, ii. 1165.]
We will make all things go along with us; whence it follows that we
consider our death as a very great thing, and that does not so easily
pass, nor without the solemn consultation of the stars:
"Tot circa unum caput tumultuantes dens,"
["All the gods to agitation about one man."
—Seneca, Suasor, i. 4.]
and so much the more think it as we more value ourselves. "What,
shall so much knowledge be lost, with so much damage to the world,
without a particular concern of the destinies? Does so rare and
exemplary a soul cost no more the killing than one that is common and of
no use to the public? This life, that protects so many others, upon
which so many other lives depend, that employs so vast a number of men
in his service, that fills so many places, shall it drop off like one
that hangs but by its own simple thread? None of us lays it enough to
heart that he is but one: thence proceeded those words of Caesar to his
pilot, more tumid than the sea that threatened him:
"Italiam si coelo auctore recusas,
Me pete: sola tibi causa est haec justa timoris,
Vectorem non nosce tuum; perrumpe procellas,
Tutela secure mea."
["If you decline to sail to Italy under the God's protection, trust
to mine; the only just cause you have to fear is, that you do not
know your passenger; sail on, secure in my guardianship."
—Lucan, V. 579.]
And these:
"Credit jam digna pericula Caesar
Fatis esse suis; tantusne evertere, dixit,
Me superis labor est, parva quern puppe sedentem,
Tam magno petiere mari;"
["Caesar now deemed these dangers worthy of his destiny: 'What!'
said he, 'is it for the gods so great a task to overthrow me, that
they must be fain to assail me with great seas in a poor little
bark.'"—Lucan, v. 653.]
and that idle fancy of the public, that the sun bore on his face
mourning for his death a whole year:
"Ille etiam extincto miseratus Caesare Romam,
Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit:"
["Caesar being dead, the sun in mourning clouds, pitying Rome,
clothed himself."—Virgil, Georg., i. 466.]
and a thousand of the like, wherewith the world suffers itself to be
so easily imposed upon, believing that our interests affect the heavens,
and that their infinity is concerned at our ordinary actions:
"Non tanta caelo societas nobiscum est, ut nostro
fato mortalis sit ille quoque siderum fulgor."
["There is no such alliance betwixt us and heaven, that the
brightness of the stars should be made also mortal by our death."
—Pliny, Nat. Hist., ii. 8.]
Now, to judge of constancy and resolution in a man who does not yet
believe himself to be certainly in danger, though he really is, is not
reason; and 'tis not enough that he die in this posture, unless he
purposely put himself into it for this effect. It commonly falls out in
most men that they set a good face upon the matter and speak with great
indifference, to acquire reputation, which they hope afterwards, living,
to enjoy. Of all whom I have seen die, fortune has disposed their
countenances and no design of theirs; and even of those who in ancient
times have made away with themselves, there is much to be considered
whether it were a sudden or a lingering death. That cruel Roman Emperor
would say of his prisoners, that he would make them feel death, and if
any one killed himself in prison, "That fellow has made an escape from
me"; he would prolong death and make it felt by torments:
"Vidimus et toto quamvis in corpore caeso
Nil anima lethale datum, moremque nefandae,
Durum saevitix, pereuntis parcere morti."
["We have seen in tortured bodies, amongst the wounds, none that
have been mortal, inhuman mode of dire cruelty, that means to kill,
but will not let men die."—Lucan, iv. i. 78.]
In plain truth, it is no such great matter for a man in health and in
a temperate state of mind to resolve to kill himself; it is very easy to
play the villain before one comes to the point, insomuch that
Heliogabalus, the most effeminate man in the world, amongst his lowest
sensualities, could forecast to make himself die delicately, when he
should be forced thereto; and that his death might not give the lie to
the rest of his life, had purposely built a sumptuous tower, the front
and base of which were covered with planks enriched with gold and
precious stones, thence to precipitate himself; and also caused cords
twisted with gold and crimson silk to be made, wherewith to strangle
himself; and a sword with the blade of gold to be hammered out to fall
upon; and kept poison in vessels of emerald and topaz wherewith to
poison himself according as he should like to choose one of these ways
of dying:
"Impiger. . . ad letum et fortis virtute coacta."
["Resolute and brave in the face of death by a forced courage.
—"Lucan, iv. 798.]
Yet in respect of this person, the effeminacy of his preparations
makes it more likely that he would have thought better on't, had he been
put to the test. But in those who with greater resolution have
determined to despatch themselves, we must examine whether it were with
one blow which took away the leisure of feeling the effect for it is to
be questioned whether, perceiving life, by little and little, to steal
away the sentiment of the body mixing itself with that of the soul, and
the means of repenting being offered, whether, I say, constancy and
obstinacy in so dangerous an intention would have been found.
In the civil wars of Caesar, Lucius Domitius, being taken in the
Abruzzi, and thereupon poisoning himself, afterwards repented. It has
happened in our time that a certain person, being resolved to die and
not having gone deep enough at the first thrust, the sensibility of the
flesh opposing his arm, gave himself two or three wounds more, but could
never prevail upon himself to thrust home. Whilst Plautius Silvanus was
upon his trial, Urgulania, his grandmother, sent him a poniard with
which, not being able to kill himself, he made his servants cut his
veins. Albucilla in Tiberius time having, to kill himself, struck with
too much tenderness, gave his adversaries opportunity to imprison and
put him to death their own way.' And that great leader, Demosthenes,
after his rout in Sicily, did the same; and C. Fimbria, having struck
himself too weakly, entreated his servant to despatch him. On the
contrary, Ostorius, who could not make use of his own arm, disdained to
employ that of his servant to any other use but only to hold the poniard
straight and firm; and bringing his throat to it, thrust himself
through. 'Tis, in truth, a morsel that is to be swallowed without
chewing, unless a man be thoroughly resolved; and yet Adrian the emperor
made his physician mark and encircle on his pap the mortal place wherein
he was to stab to whom he had given orders to kill him. For this reason
it was that Caesar, being asked what death he thought to be the most
desired, made answer, "The least premeditated and the
shortest."—[Tacitus, Annals, xvi. 15]— If Caesar dared to say it, it is
no cowardice in me to believe it." A short death," says Pliny, "is the
sovereign good hap of human life. "People do not much care to recognise
it. No one can say that he is resolute for death who fears to deal with
it and cannot undergo it with his eyes open: they whom we see in
criminal punishments run to their death and hasten and press their
execution, do it not out of resolution, but because they will not give
them selves leisure to consider it; it does not trouble them to be dead,
but to die:
"Emodi nolo, sed me esse mortem nihil astigmia:"
["I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead."
—Epicharmus, apud Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 8.]
'tis a degree of constancy to which I have experimented, that I can
arrive, like those who plunge into dangers, as into the sea, with their
eyes shut.
There is nothing, in my opinion, more illustrious in the life of
Socrates, than that he had thirty whole days wherein to ruminate upon
the sentence of his death, to have digested it all that time with a most
assured hope, without care, and without alteration, and with a series of
words and actions rather careless and indifferent than any way stirred
or discomposed by the weight of such a thought.
That Pomponius Atticus, to whom Cicero writes so often, being sick,
caused Agrippa, his son-in-law, and two or three more of his friends, to
be called to him, and told them, that having found all means practised
upon him for his recovery to be in vain, and that all he did to prolong
his life also prolonged and augmented his pain, he was resolved to put
an end both to the one and the other, desiring them to approve of his
determination, or at least not to lose their labour in endeavouring to
dissuade him. Now, having chosen to destroy himself by abstinence, his
disease was thereby cured: the remedy that he had made use of to kill
himself restored him to health. His physicians and friends, rejoicing at
so happy an event, and coming to congratulate him, found themselves very
much deceived, it being impossible for them to make him alter his
purpose, he telling them, that as he must one day die, and was now so
far on his way, he would save himself the labour of beginning another
time. This man, having surveyed death at leisure, was not only not
discouraged at its approach, but eagerly sought it; for being content
that he had engaged in the combat, he made it a point of bravery to see
the end; 'tis far beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it.
The story of the philosopher Cleanthes is very like this: he had his
gums swollen and rotten; his physicians advised him to great abstinence:
having fasted two days, he was so much better that they pronounced him
cured, and permitted him to return to his ordinary course of diet; he,
on the contrary, already tasting some sweetness in this faintness of
his, would not be persuaded to go back, but resolved to proceed, and to
finish what he had so far advanced.
Tullius Marcellinus, a young man of Rome, having a mind to anticipate
the hour of his destiny, to be rid of a disease that was more trouble to
him than he was willing to endure, though his physicians assured him of
a certain, though not sudden, cure, called a council of his friends to
deliberate about it; of whom some, says Seneca, gave him the counsel
that out of unmanliness they would have taken themselves; others, out of
flattery, such as they thought he would best like; but a Stoic said this
to him: "Do not concern thyself, Marcellinus, as if thou didst
deliberate of a thing of importance; 'tis no great matter to live; thy
servants and beasts live; but it is a great thing to die handsomely,
wisely, and firmly. Do but think how long thou hast done the same
things, eat, drink, and sleep, drink, sleep, and eat: we incessantly
wheel in the same circle. Not only ill and insupportable accidents, but
even the satiety of living, inclines a man to desire to die."
Marcellinus did not stand in need of a man to advise, but of a man to
assist him; his servants were afraid to meddle in the business, but this
philosopher gave them to under stand that domestics are suspected even
when it is in doubt whether the death of the master were voluntary or
no; otherwise, that it would be of as ill example to hinder him as to
kill him, forasmuch as:
"Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti."
["He who makes a man live against his will, 'tis as cruel
as to kill him."—Horat., De Arte Poet., 467]
He then told Marcellinus that it would not be unbecoming, as what is
left on the tables when we have eaten is given to the attendants, so,
life being ended, to distribute something to those who have been our
servants. Now Marcellinus was of a free and liberal spirit; he,
therefore, divided a certain sum of money amongst his servants, and
consoled them. As to the rest, he had no need of steel nor of blood: he
resolved to go out of this life and not to run out of it; not to escape
from death, but to essay it. And to give himself leisure to deal with
it, having forsaken all manner of nourishment, the third day following,
after having caused himself to be sprinkled with warm water, he fainted
by degrees, and not without some kind of pleasure, as he himself
declared.
In fact, such as have been acquainted with these faintings,
proceeding from weakness, say that they are therein sensible of no
manner of pain, but rather feel a kind of delight, as in the passage to
sleep and best. These are studied and digested deaths.
But to the end that Cato only may furnish out the whole example of
virtue, it seems as if his good with which the leisure to confront and
struggle with death, reinforcing his destiny had put his ill one into
the hand he gave himself the blow, seeing he had courage in the danger,
instead of letting it go less. And if I had had to represent him in his
supreme station, I should have done it in the posture of tearing out his
bloody bowels, rather than with his sword in his hand, as did the
statuaries of his time, for this second murder was much more furious
than the first.
CHAPTER XIV——THAT OUR MIND HINDERS ITSELF
'Tis a pleasant imagination to fancy a mind exactly balanced betwixt
two equal desires: for, doubtless, it can never pitch upon either,
forasmuch as the choice and application would manifest an inequality of
esteem; and were we set betwixt the bottle and the ham, with an equal
appetite to drink and eat, there would doubtless be no remedy, but we
must die of thirst and hunger. To provide against this inconvenience,
the Stoics, when they are asked whence the election in the soul of two
indifferent things proceeds, and that makes us, out of a great number of
crowns, rather take one than another, they being all alike, and there
being no reason to incline us to such a preference, make answer, that
this movement of the soul is extraordinary and irregular, entering into
us by a foreign, accidental, and fortuitous impulse. It might rather,
methinks, he said, that nothing presents itself to us wherein there is
not some difference, how little soever; and that, either by the sight or
touch, there is always some choice that, though it be imperceptibly,
tempts and attracts us; so, whoever shall presuppose a packthread
equally strong throughout, it is utterly impossible it should break;
for, where will you have the breaking to begin? and that it should break
altogether is not in nature. Whoever, also, should hereunto join the
geometrical propositions that, by the certainty of their demonstrations,
conclude the contained to be greater than the containing, the centre to
be as great as its circumference, and that find out two lines
incessantly approaching each other, which yet can never meet, and the
philosopher's stone, and the quadrature of the circle, where the reason
and the effect are so opposite, might, peradventure, find some argument
to second this bold saying of Pliny:
"Solum certum nihil esse certi,
et homine nihil miserius ant superbius."
["It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing
is more miserable or more proud than man."—Nat. Hist., ii. 7.]
CHAPTER XV——THAT OUR DESIRES ARE AUGMENTED BY DIFFICULTY
There is no reason that has not its contrary, say the wisest of the
philosophers. I was just now ruminating on the excellent saying one of
the ancients alleges for the contempt of life: "No good can bring
pleasure, unless it be that for the loss of which we are beforehand
prepared."
"In aequo est dolor amissae rei, et timor amittendae,"
["The grief of losing a thing, and the fear of losing it,
are equal."—Seneca, Ep., 98.]
meaning by this that the fruition of life cannot be truly pleasant to
us if we are in fear of losing it. It might, however, be said, on the
contrary, that we hug and embrace this good so much the more earnestly,
and with so much greater affection, by how much we see it the less
assured and fear to have it taken from us: for it is evident, as fire
burns with greater fury when cold comes to mix with it, that our will is
more obstinate by being opposed:
"Si nunquam Danaen habuisset ahenea turris,
Non esses, Danae, de Jove facta parens;"
["If a brazen tower had not held Danae, you would not, Danae, have
been made a mother by Jove."—Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 27.]
and that there is nothing naturally so contrary to our taste as
satiety which proceeds from facility; nor anything that so much whets it
as rarity and difficulty:
"Omnium rerum voluptas ipso, quo debet fugare, periculo crescit."
["The pleasure of all things increases by the same danger that
should deter it."—Seneca, De Benef., vii. 9.]
"Galla, nega; satiatur amor, nisi gaudia torquent."
["Galla, refuse me; love is glutted with joys that are not attended
with trouble."—Martial, iv. 37.]
To keep love in breath, Lycurgus made a decree that the married
people of Lacedaemon should never enjoy one another but by stealth; and
that it should be as great a shame to take them in bed together as
committing with others. The difficulty of assignations, the danger of
surprise, the shame of the morning,
"Et languor, et silentium,
Et latere petitus imo Spiritus:"
["And languor, and silence, and sighs, coming from the innermost
heart."—Hor., Epod., xi. 9.]
these are what give the piquancy to the sauce. How many very wantonly
pleasant sports spring from the most decent and modest language of the
works on love? Pleasure itself seeks to be heightened with pain; it is
much sweeter when it smarts and has the skin rippled. The courtesan
Flora said she never lay with Pompey but that she made him wear the
prints of her teeth.—[Plutarch, Life of Pompey, c. i.]
"Quod petiere, premunt arcte, faciuntque dolorem
Corporis, et dentes inlidunt saepe labellis . . .
Et stimuli subsunt, qui instigant laedere ad ipsum,
Quodcunque est, rabies unde illae germina surgunt."
["What they have sought they dress closely, and cause pain; on the
lips fix the teeth, and every kiss indents: urged by latent stimulus
the part to wound"—Lucretius, i. 4.]
And so it is in everything: difficulty gives all things their
estimation; the people of the march of Ancona more readily make their
vows to St. James, and those of Galicia to Our Lady of Loreto; they make
wonderful to-do at Liege about the baths of Lucca, and in Tuscany about
those of Aspa: there are few Romans seen in the fencing school of Rome,
which is full of French. That great Cato also, as much as us, nauseated
his wife whilst she was his, and longed for her when in the possession
of another. I was fain to turn out into the paddock an old horse, as he
was not to be governed when he smelt a mare: the facility presently
sated him as towards his own, but towards strange mares, and the first
that passed by the pale of his pasture, he would again fall to his
importunate neighings and his furious heats as before. Our appetite
contemns and passes by what it has in possession, to run after that it
has not:
"Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat."
["He slights her who is close at hand, and runs after her
who flees from him."—Horace, Sat., i. 2, 108.]
To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to't:
"Nisi to servare puellam
Incipis, incipiet desinere esse mea:"
["Unless you begin to guard your mistress, she will soon begin
to be no longer mine."—Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 47.]
to give it wholly up to us is to beget in us contempt. Want and
abundance fall into the same inconvenience:
"Tibi quod superest, mihi quod desit, dolet."
["Your superfluities trouble you, and what I want
troubles me.—"Terence, Phoym., i. 3, 9.]
Desire and fruition equally afflict us. The rigors of mistresses are
troublesome, but facility, to say truth, still more so; forasmuch as
discontent and anger spring from the esteem we have of the thing
desired, heat and actuate love, but satiety begets disgust; 'tis a
blunt, dull, stupid, tired, and slothful passion:
"Si qua volet regnare diu, contemnat amantem."
["She who would long retain her power must use her lover ill."
—Ovid, Amor., ii. 19, 33]
"Contemnite, amantes:
Sic hodie veniet, si qua negavit heri."
["Slight your mistress; she will to-day come who denied you
yesterday.—"Propertius, ii. 14, 19.]
Why did Poppea invent the use of a mask to hide the beauties of her
face, but to enhance it to her lovers? Why have they veiled, even below
the heels, those beauties that every one desires to show, and that every
one desires to see? Why do they cover with so many hindrances, one over
another, the parts where our desires and their own have their principal
seat? And to what serve those great bastion farthingales, with which our
ladies fortify their haunches, but to allure our appetite and to draw us
on by removing them farther from us?
"Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri."
["She flies to the osiers, and desires beforehand to be seen going."
—Virgil, Eclog., iii. 65.]
"Interdum tunica duxit operta moram."
["The hidden robe has sometimes checked love."
—Propertius, ii. 15, 6.]
To what use serves the artifice of this virgin modesty, this grave
coldness, this severe countenance, this professing to be ignorant of
things that they know better than we who instruct them in them, but to
increase in us the desire to overcome, control, and trample underfoot at
pleasure all this ceremony and all these obstacles? For there is not
only pleasure, but, moreover, glory, in conquering and debauching that
soft sweetness and that childish modesty, and to reduce a cold and
matronlike gravity to the mercy of our ardent desires: 'tis a glory, say
they, to triumph over modesty, chastity, and temperance; and whoever
dissuades ladies from those qualities, betrays both them and himself. We
are to believe that their hearts tremble with affright, that the very
sound of our words offends the purity of their ears, that they hate us
for talking so, and only yield to our importunity by a compulsive force.
Beauty, all powerful as it is, has not wherewithal to make itself
relished without the mediation of these little arts. Look into Italy,
where there is the most and the finest beauty to be sold, how it is
necessitated to have recourse to extrinsic means and other artifices to
render itself charming, and yet, in truth, whatever it may do, being
venal and public, it remains feeble and languishing. Even so in virtue
itself, of two like effects, we notwithstanding look upon that as the
fairest and most worthy, wherein the most trouble and hazard are set
before us.
'Tis an effect of the divine Providence to suffer the holy Church to
be afflicted, as we see it, with so many storms and troubles, by this
opposition to rouse pious souls, and to awaken them from that drowsy
lethargy wherein, by so long tranquillity, they had been immerged. If we
should lay the loss we have sustained in the number of those who have
gone astray, in the balance against the benefit we have had by being
again put in breath, and by having our zeal and strength revived by
reason of this opposition, I know not whether the utility would not
surmount the damage.
We have thought to tie the nuptial knot of our marriages more fast
and firm by having taken away all means of dissolving it, but the knot
of the will and affection is so much the more slackened and made loose,
by how much that of constraint is drawn closer; and, on the contrary,
that which kept the marriages at Rome so long in honour and inviolate,
was the liberty every one who so desired had to break them; they kept
their wives the better, because they might part with them, if they
would; and, in the full liberty of divorce, five hundred years and more
passed away before any one made use on't.
"Quod licet, ingratum est; quod non licet, acrius urit."
["What you may, is displeasing; what is forbidden, whets the
appetite.—"Ovid, Amor., ii. 19.]
We might here introduce the opinion of an ancient upon this occasion,
"that executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices: that they do
not beget the care of doing well, that being the work of reason and
discipline, but only a care not to be taken in doing ill:"
"Latius excisae pestis contagia serpunt."
["The plague-sore being lanced, the infection spreads all the more."
—Rutilius, Itinerar. 1, 397.]
I do not know that this is true; but I experimentally know, that
never civil government was by that means reformed; the order and regimen
of manners depend upon some other expedient.
The Greek histories make mention of the Argippians, neighbours to
Scythia, who live without either rod or stick for offence; where not
only no one attempts to attack them, but whoever can fly thither is
safe, by reason of their virtue and sanctity of life, and no one is so
bold as to lay hands upon them; and they have applications made to them
to determine the controversies that arise betwixt men of other
countries. There is a certain nation, where the enclosures of gardens
and fields they would preserve, are made only of a string of cotton;
and, so fenced, is more firm and secure than by our hedges and ditches.
"Furem signata sollicitant . . .
aperta effractarius praeterit."
["Things sealed, up invite a thief: the housebreaker
passes by open doors."—Seneca, Epist., 68.]
Peradventure, the facility of entering my house, amongst other
things, has been a means to preserve it from the violence of our civil
wars: defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy. I
enervated the soldiers' design by depriving the exploit of danger and
all manner of military glory, which is wont to serve them for pretence
and excuse: whatever is bravely, is ever honourably, done, at a time
when justice is dead. I render them the conquest of my house cowardly
and base; it is never shut to any one that knocks; my gate has no other
guard than a porter, and he of ancient custom and ceremony; who does not
so much serve to defend it as to offer it with more decorum and grace; I
have no other guard nor sentinel than the stars. A gentleman would play
the fool to make a show of defence, if he be not really in a condition
to defend himself. He who lies open on one side, is everywhere so; our
ancestors did not think of building frontier garrisons. The means of
assaulting, I mean without battery or army, and of surprising our
houses, increases every day more and more beyond the means to guard
them; men's wits are generally bent that way; in invasion every one is
concerned: none but the rich in defence. Mine was strong for the time
when it was built; I have added nothing to it of that kind, and should
fear that its strength might turn against myself; to which we are to
consider that a peaceable time would require it should be dismantled.
There is danger never to be able to regain it, and it would be very hard
to keep; for in intestine dissensions, your man may be of the party you
fear; and where religion is the pretext, even a man's nearest relations
become unreliable, with some colour of justice. The public exchequer
will not maintain our domestic garrisons; they would exhaust it: we
ourselves have not the means to do it without ruin, or, which is more
inconvenient and injurious, without ruining the people. The condition of
my loss would be scarcely worse. As to the rest, you there lose all; and
even your friends will be more ready to accuse your want of vigilance
and your improvidence, and your ignorance of and indifference to your
own business, than to pity you. That so many garrisoned houses have been
undone whereas this of mine remains, makes me apt to believe that they
were only lost by being guarded; this gives an enemy both an invitation
and colour of reason; all defence shows a face of war. Let who will come
to me in God's name; but I shall not invite them; 'tis the retirement I
have chosen for my repose from war. I endeavour to withdraw this corner
from the public tempest, as I also do another corner in my soul. Our war
may put on what forms it will, multiply and diversify itself into new
parties; for my part, I stir not. Amongst so many garrisoned houses,
myself alone amongst those of my rank, so far as I know, in France, have
trusted purely to Heaven for the protection of mine, and have never
removed plate, deeds, or hangings. I will neither fear nor save myself
by halves. If a full acknowledgment acquires the Divine favour, it will
stay with me to the end: if not, I have still continued long enough to
render my continuance remarkable and fit to be recorded. How? Why, there
are thirty years that I have thus lived.
CHAPTER XVI——OF GLORY
There is the name and the thing: the name is a voice which denotes
and signifies the thing; the name is no part of the thing, nor of the
substance; 'tis a foreign piece joined to the thing, and outside it.
God, who is all fulness in Himself and the height of all perfection,
cannot augment or add anything to Himself within; but His name may be
augmented and increased by the blessing and praise we attribute to His
exterior works: which praise, seeing we cannot incorporate it in Him,
forasmuch as He can have no accession of good, we attribute to His name,
which is the part out of Him that is nearest to us. Thus is it that to
God alone glory and honour appertain; and there is nothing so remote
from reason as that we should go in quest of it for ourselves; for,
being indigent and necessitous within, our essence being imperfect, and
having continual need of amelioration, 'tis to that we ought to employ
all our endeavour. We are all hollow and empty; 'tis not with wind and
voice that we are to fill ourselves; we want a more solid substance to
repair us: a man starving with hunger would be very simple to seek
rather to provide himself with a gay garment than with a good meal: we
are to look after that whereof we have most need. As we have it in our
ordinary prayers:
"Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus."
We are in want of beauty, health, wisdom, virtue, and such like
essential qualities: exterior ornaments should, be looked after when we
have made provision for necessary things. Divinity treats amply and more
pertinently of this subject, but I am not much versed in it.
Chrysippus and Diogenes were the earliest and firmest advocates of
the contempt of glory; and maintained that, amongst all pleasures, there
was none more dangerous nor more to be avoided than that which proceeds
from the approbation of others. And, in truth, experience makes us
sensible of many very hurtful treasons in it. There is nothing that so
poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily
obtain credit and favour with them; nor panderism so apt and so usually
made use of to corrupt the chastity of women as to wheedle and entertain
them with their own praises. The first charm the Syrens made use of to
allure Ulysses is of this nature:
"Deca vers nous, deca, o tres-louable Ulysse,
Et le plus grand honneur don't la Grece fleurisse."
["Come hither to us, O admirable Ulysses, come hither, thou greatest
ornament and pride of Greece."—Homer, Odysseus, xii. 184.]
These philosophers said, that all the glory of the world was not
worth an understanding man's holding out his finger to obtain it:
"Gloria quantalibet quid erit, si gloria tantum est?"
["What is glory, be it as glorious as it may be, if it be no more
than glory?"—Juvenal, Sat., vii. 81.]
I say for it alone; for it often brings several commodities along
with it, for which it may justly be desired: it acquires us good-will,
and renders us less subject and exposed to insult and offence from
others, and the like. It was also one of the principal doctrines of
Epicurus; for this precept of his sect, Conceal thy life, that forbids
men to encumber themselves with public negotiations and offices, also
necessarily presupposes a contempt of glory, which is the world's
approbation of those actions we produce in public.—[Plutarch, Whether
the saying, Conceal thy life, is well said.]—He that bids us conceal
ourselves, and to have no other concern but for ourselves, and who will
not have us known to others, would much less have us honoured and
glorified; and so advises Idomeneus not in any sort to regulate his
actions by the common reputation or opinion, except so as to avoid the
other accidental inconveniences that the contempt of men might bring
upon him.
These discourses are, in my opinion, very true and rational; but we
are, I know not how, double in ourselves, which is the cause that what
we believe we do not believe, and cannot disengage ourselves from what
we condemn. Let us see the last and dying words of Epicurus; they are
grand, and worthy of such a philosopher, and yet they carry some touches
of the recommendation of his name and of that humour he had decried by
his precepts. Here is a letter that he dictated a little before his last
gasp:
"EPICUYUS TO HEYMACHUS, health.
"Whilst I was passing over the happy and last day of my life, I
write this, but, at the same time, afflicted with such pain in my
bladder and bowels that nothing can be greater, but it was
recompensed with the pleasure the remembrance of my inventions and
doctrines brought to my soul. Now, as the affection thou hast ever
from thy infancy borne towards me and philosophy requires, take upon
thee the protection of Metrodorus' children."
This is the letter. And that which makes me interpret that the
pleasure he says he had in his soul concerning his inventions, has some
reference to the reputation he hoped for thence after his death, is the
manner of his will, in which he gives order that Amynomachus and
Timocrates, his heirs, should, every January, defray the expense of the
celebration of his birthday as Hermachus should appoint; and also the
expense that should be made the twentieth of every moon in entertaining
the philosophers, his friends, who should assemble in honour of the
memory of him and of Metrodorus.—[Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 30.]
Carneades was head of the contrary opinion, and maintained that glory
was to be desired for itself, even as we embrace our posthumous issue
for themselves, having no knowledge nor enjoyment of them. This opinion
has not failed to be the more universally followed, as those commonly
are that are most suitable to our inclinations. Aristotle gives it the
first place amongst external goods; and avoids, as too extreme vices,
the immoderate either seeking or evading it. I believe that, if we had
the books Cicero wrote upon this subject, we should there find pretty
stories; for he was so possessed with this passion, that, if he had
dared, I think he could willingly have fallen into the excess that
others did, that virtue itself was not to be coveted, but upon the
account of the honour that always attends it:
"Paulum sepultae distat inertiae
Celata virtus:"
["Virtue concealed little differs from dead sloth."
—Horace, Od., iv. 9, 29.]
which is an opinion so false, that I am vexed it could ever enter
into the understanding of a man that was honoured with the name of
philosopher.
If this were true, men need not be virtuous but in public; and we
should be no further concerned to keep the operations of the soul, which
is the true seat of virtue, regular and in order, than as they are to
arrive at the knowledge of others. Is there no more in it, then, but
only slily and with circumspection to do ill? "If thou knowest," says
Carneades, "of a serpent lurking in a place where, without suspicion, a
person is going to sit down, by whose death thou expectest an advantage,
thou dost ill if thou dost not give him caution of his danger; and so
much the more because the action is to be known by none but thyself." If
we do not take up of ourselves the rule of well-doing, if impunity pass
with us for justice, to how many sorts of wickedness shall we every day
abandon ourselves? I do not find what Sextus Peduceus did, in faithfully
restoring the treasure that C. Plotius had committed to his sole secrecy
and trust, a thing that I have often done myself, so commendable, as I
should think it an execrable baseness, had we done otherwise; and I
think it of good use in our days to recall the example of P. Sextilius
Rufus, whom Cicero accuses to have entered upon an inheritance contrary
to his conscience, not only not against law, but even by the
determination of the laws themselves; and M. Crassus and Hortensius,
who, by reason of their authority and power, having been called in by a
stranger to share in the succession of a forged will, that so he might
secure his own part, satisfied themselves with having no hand in the
forgery, and refused not to make their advantage and to come in for a
share: secure enough, if they could shroud themselves from accusations,
witnesses, and the cognisance of the laws:
"Meminerint Deum se habere testem, id est (ut ego arbitror)
mentem suam."
["Let them consider they have God to witness, that is (as I
interpret it), their own consciences."—Cicero, De Offic., iii. 10.]
Virtue is a very vain and frivolous thing if it derive its
recommendation from glory; and 'tis to no purpose that we endeavour to
give it a station by itself, and separate it from fortune; for what is
more accidental than reputation?
"Profecto fortuna in omni re dominatur: ea res cunctas ex
libidine magis, quhm ex vero, celebrat, obscuratque."
["Fortune rules in all things; it advances and depresses things
more out of its own will than of right and justice."
—Sallust, Catilina, c. 8.]
So to order it that actions may be known and seen is purely the work
of fortune; 'tis chance that helps us to glory, according to its own
temerity. I have often seen her go before merit, and often very much
outstrip it. He who first likened glory to a shadow did better than he
was aware of; they are both of them things pre-eminently vain glory
also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in
length infinitely exceeds it. They who instruct gentlemen only to employ
their valour for the obtaining of honour:
"Quasi non sit honestum, quod nobilitatum non sit;"
["As though it were not a virtue, unless celebrated"
—Cicero De Offic. iii. 10.]
what do they intend by that but to instruct them never to hazard
themselves if they are not seen, and to observe well if there be
witnesses present who may carry news of their valour, whereas a thousand
occasions of well-doing present themselves which cannot be taken notice
of? How many brave individual actions are buried in the crowd of a
battle? Whoever shall take upon him to watch another's behaviour in such
a confusion is not very busy himself, and the testimony he shall give of
his companions' deportment will be evidence against himself:
"Vera et sapiens animi magnitudo, honestum illud,
quod maxime naturam sequitur, in factis positum,
non in gloria, judicat."
["The true and wise magnanimity judges that the bravery which most
follows nature more consists in act than glory."
—Cicero, De Offic. i. 19.]
All the glory that I pretend to derive from my life is that I have
lived it in quiet; in quiet, not according to Metrodorus, or Arcesilaus,
or Aristippus, but according to myself. For seeing philosophy has not
been able to find out any way to tranquillity that is good in common,
let every one seek it in particular.
To what do Caesar and Alexander owe the infinite grandeur of their
renown but to fortune? How many men has she extinguished in the
beginning of their progress, of whom we have no knowledge, who brought
as much courage to the work as they, if their adverse hap had not cut
them off in the first sally of their arms? Amongst so many and so great
dangers I do not remember I have anywhere read that Caesar was ever
wounded; a thousand have fallen in less dangers than the least of those
he went through. An infinite number of brave actions must be performed
without witness and lost, before one turns to account. A man is not
always on the top of a breach, or at the head of an army, in the sight
of his general, as upon a scaffold; a man is often surprised betwixt the
hedge and the ditch; he must run the hazard of his life against a
henroost; he must dislodge four rascally musketeers out of a barn; he
must prick out single from his party, and alone make some attempts,
according as necessity will have it. And whoever will observe will, I
believe, find it experimentally true, that occasions of the least lustre
are ever the most dangerous; and that in the wars of our own times there
have more brave men been lost in occasions of little moment, and in the
dispute about some little paltry fort, than in places of greatest
importance, and where their valour might have been more honourably
employed.
Who thinks his death achieved to ill purpose if he do not fall on
some signal occasion, instead of illustrating his death, wilfully
obscures his life, suffering in the meantime many very just occasions of
hazarding himself to slip out of his hands; and every just one is
illustrious enough, every man's conscience being a sufficient trumpet to
him.
"Gloria nostra est testimonium conscientiae nostrae."
["For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience."
—Corinthians, i. I.]
He who is only a good man that men may know it, and that he may be
the better esteemed when 'tis known; who will not do well but upon
condition that his virtue may be known to men: is one from whom much
service is not to be expected:
"Credo ch 'el reste di quel verno, cose
Facesse degne di tener ne conto;
Ma fur fin' a quel tempo si nascose,
Che non a colpa mia s' hor 'non le conto
Perche Orlando a far l'opre virtuose
Piu ch'a narrar le poi sempre era pronto;
Ne mai fu alcun' de'suoi fatti espresso,
Se non quando ebbe i testimonii appresso."
["The rest of the winter, I believe, was spent in actions worthy of
narration, but they were done so secretly that if I do not tell them
I am not to blame, for Orlando was more bent to do great acts than
to boast of them, so that no deeds of his were ever known but those
that had witnesses."—Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, xi. 81.]
A man must go to the war upon the account of duty, and expect the
recompense that never fails brave and worthy actions, how private
soever, or even virtuous thoughts-the satisfaction that a well-disposed
conscience receives in itself in doing well. A man must be valiant for
himself, and upon account of the advantage it is to him to have his
courage seated in a firm and secure place against the assaults of
fortune:
"Virtus, repulsaa nescia sordidx
Intaminatis fulget honoribus
Nec sumit, aut ponit secures
Arbitrio popularis aura."
["Virtue, repudiating all base repulse, shines in taintless
honours, nor takes nor leaves dignity at the mere will of the
vulgar."—Horace, Od., iii. 2, 17.]
It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part, but for
ourselves within, where no eyes can pierce but our own; there she
defends us from the fear of death, of pain, of shame itself: there she
arms us against the loss of our children, friends, and fortunes: and
when opportunity presents itself, she leads us on to the hazards of war:
"Non emolumento aliquo, sed ipsius honestatis decore."
["Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself."
—Cicero, De Finib., i. 10.]
This profit is of much greater advantage, and more worthy to be
coveted and hoped for, than, honour and glory, which are no other than a
favourable judgment given of us.
A dozen men must be called out of a whole nation to judge about an
acre of land; and the judgment of our inclinations and actions, the most
difficult and most important matter that is, we refer to the voice and
determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance, injustice, and
inconstancy. Is it reasonable that the life of a wise man should depend
upon the judgment of fools?
"An quidquam stultius, quam, quos singulos contemnas,
eos aliquid putare esse universes?"
["Can anything be more foolish than to think that those you despise
singly, can be anything else in general."
—Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 36.]
He that makes it his business to please them, will have enough to do
and never have done; 'tis a mark that can never be aimed at or hit:
"Nil tam inaestimabile est, quam animi multitudinis."
["Nothing is to be so little understood as the minds of the
multitude."—Livy, xxxi. 34.]
Demetrius pleasantly said of the voice of the people, that he made no
more account of that which came from above than of that which came from
below. He [Cicero] says more:
"Ego hoc judico, si quando turpe non sit, tamen non
esse non turpe, quum id a multitudine laudatur."
["I am of opinion, that though a thing be not foul in itself,
yet it cannot but become so when commended by the multitude."
—Cicero, De Finib., ii. 15.]
No art, no activity of wit, could conduct our steps so as to follow
so wandering and so irregular a guide; in this windy confusion of the
noise of vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on, no way worth
anything can be chosen. Let us not propose to ourselves so floating and
wavering an end; let us follow constantly after reason; let the public
approbation follow us there, if it will; and as it wholly depends upon
fortune, we have no reason sooner to expect it by any other way than
that. Even though I would not follow the right way because it is right,
I should, however, follow it as having experimentally found that, at the
end of the reckoning, 'tis commonly the most happy and of greatest
utility.
"Dedit hoc providentia hominibus munus,
ut honesta magis juvarent."
["This gift Providence has given to men, that honest things should
be the most agreeable."—Quintilian, Inst. Orat., i. 12.]
The mariner of old said thus to Neptune, in a great tempest: "O God,
thou wilt save me if thou wilt, and if thou choosest, thou wilt destroy
me; but, however, I will hold my rudder straight."—[Seneca, Ep., 85.]— I
have seen in my time a thousand men supple, halfbred, ambiguous, whom no
one doubted to be more worldly-wise than I, lose themselves, where I
have saved myself:
"Risi successus posse carere dolos."
["I have laughed to see cunning fail of success."
—Ovid, Heroid, i. 18.]
Paulus AEmilius, going on the glorious expedition of Macedonia, above
all things charged the people of Rome not to speak of his actions during
his absence. Oh, the license of judgments is a great disturbance to
great affairs! forasmuch as every one has not the firmness of Fabius
against common, adverse, and injurious tongues, who rather suffered his
authority to be dissected by the vain fancies of men, than to do less
well in his charge with a favourable reputation and the popular
applause.
There is I know not what natural sweetness in hearing one's self
commended; but we are a great deal too fond of it:
"Laudari metuam, neque enim mihi cornea fibra est
Sed recti finemque extremumque esse recuso
Euge tuum, et belle."
["I should fear to be praised, for my heart is not made of horn;
but I deny that 'excellent—admirably done,' are the terms and
final aim of virtue."—Persius, i. 47.]
I care not so much what I am in the opinions of others, as what I am
in my own; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing. Strangers
see nothing but events and outward appearances; everybody can set a good
face on the matter, when they have trembling and terror within: they do
not see my heart, they see but my countenance. One is right in decrying
the hypocrisy that is in war; for what is more easy to an old soldier
than to shift in a time of danger, and to counterfeit the brave when he
has no more heart than a chicken? There are so many ways to avoid
hazarding a man's own person, that we have deceived the world a thousand
times before we come to be engaged in a real danger: and even then,
finding ourselves in an inevitable necessity of doing something, we can
make shift for that time to conceal our apprehensions by setting a good
face on the business, though the heart beats within; and whoever had the
use of the Platonic ring, which renders those invisible that wear it, if
turned inward towards the palm of the hand, a great many would very
often hide themselves when they ought most to appear, and would repent
being placed in so honourable a post, where necessity must make them
bold.
"Falsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret
Quem nisi mendosum et mendacem?"
["False honour pleases, and calumny affrights, the guilty
and the sick."—Horace, Ep., i. 16, 89.]
Thus we see how all the judgments that are founded upon external
appearances, are marvellously uncertain and doubtful; and that there is
no so certain testimony as every one is to himself. In these, how many
soldiers' boys are companions of our glory? he who stands firm in an
open trench, what does he in that more than fifty poor pioneers who open
to him the way and cover it with their own bodies for fivepence a day
pay, do before him?
"Non quicquid turbida Roma
Elevet, accedas; examenque improbum in illa
Castiges trutina: nec to quaesiveris extra."
["Do not, if turbulent Rome disparage anything, accede; nor correct
a false balance by that scale; nor seek anything beyond thyself."
—Persius, Sat., i. 5.]
The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call
making them more great; we will have them there well received, and that
this increase turn to their advantage, which is all that can be
excusable in this design. But the excess of this disease proceeds so far
that many covet to have a name, be it what it will. Trogus Pompeius says
of Herostratus, and Titus Livius of Manlius Capitolinus, that they were
more ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one. This is very
common; we are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they
speak; and it is enough for us that our names are often mentioned, be it
after what manner it will. It should seem that to be known, is in some
sort to have a man's life and its duration in others' keeping. I, for my
part, hold that I am not, but in myself; and of that other life of mine
which lies in the knowledge of my friends, to consider it naked and
simply in itself, I know very well that I am sensible of no fruit nor
enjoyment from it but by the vanity of a fantastic opinion; and when I
shall be dead, I shall be still and much less sensible of it; and shall,
withal, absolutely lose the use of those real advantages that sometimes
accidentally follow it.
I shall have no more handle whereby to take hold of reputation,
neither shall it have any whereby to take hold of or to cleave to me;
for to expect that my name should be advanced by it, in the first place,
I have no name that is enough my own; of two that I have, one is common
to all my race, and indeed to others also; there are two families at
Paris and Montpellier, whose surname is Montaigne, another in Brittany,
and one in Xaintonge, De La Montaigne. The transposition of one syllable
only would suffice so to ravel our affairs, that I shall share in their
glory, and they peradventure will partake of my discredit; and,
moreover, my ancestors have formerly been surnamed, Eyquem,—[Eyquem was
the patronymic.]—a name wherein a family well known in England is at
this day concerned. As to my other name, every one may take it that
will, and so, perhaps, I may honour a porter in my own stead. And
besides, though I had a particular distinction by myself, what can it
distinguish, when I am no more? Can it point out and favour inanity?
"Non levior cippus nunc imprimit ossa?
Laudat posteritas! Nunc non e manibus illis,
Nunc non a tumulo fortunataque favilla,
Nascentur violae?"
["Does the tomb press with less weight upon my bones? Do comrades
praise? Not from my manes, not from the tomb, not from the ashes
will violets grow."—Persius, Sat., i. 37.]
but of this I have spoken elsewhere. As to what remains, in a great
battle where ten thousand men are maimed or killed, there are not
fifteen who are taken notice of; it must be some very eminent greatness,
or some consequence of great importance that fortune has added to it,
that signalises a private action, not of a harquebuser only, but of a
great captain; for to kill a man, or two, or ten: to expose a man's self
bravely to the utmost peril of death, is indeed something in every one
of us, because we there hazard all; but for the world's concern, they
are things so ordinary, and so many of them are every day seen, and
there must of necessity be so many of the same kind to produce any
notable effect, that we cannot expect any particular renown from it:
"Casus multis hic cognitus, ac jam
Tritus, et a medio fortunae ductus acervo."
["The accident is known to many, and now trite; and drawn from the
midst of Fortune's heap."—Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 9.]
Of so many thousands of valiant men who have died within these
fifteen hundred years in France with their swords in their hands, not a
hundred have come to our knowledge. The memory, not of the commanders
only, but of battles and victories, is buried and gone; the fortunes of
above half of the world, for want of a record, stir not from their
place, and vanish without duration. If I had unknown events in my
possession, I should think with great ease to out-do those that are
recorded, in all sorts of examples. Is it not strange that even of the
Greeks and Romans, with so many writers and witnesses, and so many rare
and noble exploits, so few are arrived at our knowledge:
"Ad nos vix tenuis famx perlabitur aura."
["An obscure rumour scarce is hither come."—AEneid, vii. 646.]
It will be much if, a hundred years hence, it be remembered in
general that in our times there were civil wars in France. The
Lacedaemonians, entering into battle, sacrificed to the Muses, to the
end that their actions might be well and worthily written, looking upon
it as a divine and no common favour, that brave acts should find
witnesses that could give them life and memory. Do we expect that at
every musket-shot we receive, and at every hazard we run, there must be
a register ready to record it? and, besides, a hundred registers may
enrol them whose commentaries will not last above three days, and will
never come to the sight of any one. We have not the thousandth part of
ancient writings; 'tis fortune that gives them a shorter or longer life,
according to her favour; and 'tis permissible to doubt whether those we
have be not the worst, not having seen the rest. Men do not write
histories of things of so little moment: a man must have been general in
the conquest of an empire or a kingdom; he must have won two-and-fifty
set battles, and always the weaker in number, as Caesar did: ten
thousand brave fellows and many great captains lost their lives
valiantly in his service, whose names lasted no longer than their wives
and children lived:
"Quos fama obscura recondit."
["Whom an obscure reputation conceals."—AEneid, v. 302.]
Even those whom we see behave themselves well, three months or three
years after they have departed hence, are no more mentioned than if they
had never been. Whoever will justly consider, and with due proportion,
of what kind of men and of what sort of actions the glory sustains
itself in the records of history, will find that there are very few
actions and very few persons of our times who can there pretend any
right. How many worthy men have we known to survive their own
reputation, who have seen and suffered the honour and glory most justly
acquired in their youth, extinguished in their own presence? And for
three years of this fantastic and imaginary life we must go and throw
away our true and essential life, and engage ourselves in a perpetual
death! The sages propose to themselves a nobler and more just end in so
important an enterprise:
"Recte facti, fecisse merces est: officii fructus,
ipsum officium est."
["The reward of a thing well done is to have done it; the fruit
of a good service is the service itself."—Seneca, Ep., 8.]
It were, peradventure, excusable in a painter or other artisan, or in
a rhetorician or a grammarian, to endeavour to raise himself a name by
his works; but the actions of virtue are too noble in themselves to seek
any other reward than from their own value, and especially to seek it in
the vanity of human judgments.
If this false opinion, nevertheless, be of such use to the public as
to keep men in their duty; if the people are thereby stirred up to
virtue; if princes are touched to see the world bless the memory of
Trajan, and abominate that of Nero; if it moves them to see the name of
that great beast, once so terrible and feared, so freely cursed and
reviled by every schoolboy, let it by all means increase, and be as much
as possible nursed up and cherished amongst us; and Plato, bending his
whole endeavour to make his citizens virtuous, also advises them not to
despise the good repute and esteem of the people; and says it falls out,
by a certain Divine inspiration, that even the wicked themselves
oft-times, as well by word as opinion, can rightly distinguish the
virtuous from the wicked. This person and his tutor are both marvellous
and bold artificers everywhere to add divine operations and revelations
where human force is wanting:
"Ut tragici poetae confugiunt ad deum,
cum explicare argumenti exitum non possunt:"
["As tragic poets fly to some god when they cannot explain
the issue of their argument."—Cicero, De Nat. Deor., i. 20.]
and peradventure, for this reason it was that Timon, railing at him,
called him the great forger of miracles. Seeing that men, by their
insufficiency, cannot pay themselves well enough with current money, let
the counterfeit be superadded. 'Tis a way that has been practised by all
the legislators: and there is no government that has not some mixture
either of ceremonial vanity or of false opinion, that serves for a curb
to keep the people in their duty. 'Tis for this that most of them have
their originals and beginnings fabulous, and enriched with supernatural
mysteries; 'tis this that has given credit to bastard religions, and
caused them to be countenanced by men of understanding; and for this,
that Numa and Sertorius, to possess their men with a better opinion of
them, fed them with this foppery; one, that the nymph Egeria, the other
that his white hind, brought them all their counsels from the gods. And
the authority that Numa gave to his laws, under the title of the
patronage of this goddess, Zoroaster, legislator of the Bactrians and
Persians, gave to his under the name of the God Oromazis: Trismegistus,
legislator of the Egyptians, under that of Mercury; Xamolxis, legislator
of the Scythians, under that of Vesta; Charondas, legislator of the
Chalcidians, under that of Saturn; Minos, legislator of the Candiots,
under that of Jupiter; Lycurgus, legislator of the Lacedaemonians, under
that of Apollo; and Draco and Solon, legislators of the Athenians, under
that of Minerva. And every government has a god at the head of it; the
others falsely, that truly, which Moses set over the Jews at their
departure out of Egypt. The religion of the Bedouins, as the Sire de
Joinville reports, amongst other things, enjoined a belief that the soul
of him amongst them who died for his prince, went into another body more
happy, more beautiful, and more robust than the former; by which means
they much more willingly ventured their lives:
"In ferrum mens prona viris, animaeque capaces
Mortis, et ignavum est rediturae parcere vitae."
["Men's minds are prone to the sword, and their souls able to bear
death; and it is base to spare a life that will be renewed."
—Lucan, i. 461.]
This is a very comfortable belief, however erroneous. Every nation
has many such examples of its own; but this subject would require a
treatise by itself.
To add one word more to my former discourse, I would advise the
ladies no longer to call that honour which is but their duty:
"Ut enim consuetudo loquitur, id solum dicitur
honestum, quod est populari fama gloriosum;"
["As custom puts it, that only is called honest which is
glorious by the public voice."—Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 15.]
their duty is the mark, their honour but the outward rind. Neither
would I advise them to give this excuse for payment of their denial: for
I presuppose that their intentions, their desire, and will, which are
things wherein their honour is not at all concerned, forasmuch as
nothing thereof appears without, are much better regulated than the
effects:
"Qux quia non liceat, non facit, illa facit:"
["She who only refuses, because 'tis forbidden, consents."
—Ovid, Amor., ii. 4, 4.]
The offence, both towards God and in the conscience, would be as
great to desire as to do it; and, besides, they are actions so private
and secret of themselves, as would be easily enough kept from the
knowledge of others, wherein the honour consists, if they had not
another respect to their duty, and the affection they bear to chastity,
for itself. Every woman of honour will much rather choose to lose her
honour than to hurt her conscience.
CHAPTER XVII——OF PRESUMPTION
There is another sort of glory, which is the having too good an
opinion of our own worth. 'Tis an inconsiderate affection with which we
flatter ourselves, and that represents us to ourselves other than we
truly are: like the passion of love, that lends beauties and graces to
the object, and makes those who are caught by it, with a depraved and
corrupt judgment, consider the thing which they love other and more
perfect than it is.
I would not, nevertheless, for fear of failing on this side, that a
man should not know himself aright, or think himself less than he is;
the judgment ought in all things to maintain its rights; 'tis all the
reason in the world he should discern in himself, as well as in others,
what truth sets before him; if it be Caesar, let him boldly think
himself the greatest captain in the world. We are nothing but ceremony:
ceremony carries us away, and we leave the substance of things: we hold
by the branches, and quit the trunk and the body; we have taught the
ladies to blush when they hear that but named which they are not at all
afraid to do: we dare not call our members by their right names, yet are
not afraid to employ them in all sorts of debauchery: ceremony forbids
us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey
it: reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys
it. I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony; for it neither
permits a man to speak well of himself, nor ill: we will leave her there
for this time.
They whom fortune (call it good or ill) has made to, pass their lives
in some eminent degree, may by their public actions manifest what they
are; but they whom she has only employed in the crowd, and of whom
nobody will say a word unless they speak themselves, are to be excused
if they take the boldness to speak of themselves to such as are
interested to know them; by the example of Lucilius:
"Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris, neque si male cesserat, usquam
Decurrens alio, neque si bene: quo fit, ut omnis,
Votiva pateat veluri descripta tabella
Vita senis;"
["He formerly confided his secret thoughts to his books, as to tried
friends, and for good and evil, resorted not elsewhere: hence it
came to pass, that the old man's life is there all seen as on a
votive tablet."—Horace, Sat., ii. I, 30.]
he always committed to paper his actions and thoughts, and there
portrayed himself such as he found himself to be:
"Nec id Rutilio et Scauro citra fidem; aut obtrectationi fuit."
["Nor was this considered a breach of good faith or a disparagement
to Rutilius or Scaurus."—Tacitus, Agricola, c. I.]
I remember, then, that from my infancy there was observed in me I
know not what kind of carriage and behaviour, that seemed to relish of
pride and arrogance. I will say this, by the way, that it is not
unreasonable to suppose that we have qualities and inclinations so much
our own, and so incorporate in us, that we have not the means to feel
and recognise them: and of such natural inclinations the body will
retain a certain bent, without our knowledge or consent. It was an
affectation conformable with his beauty that made Alexander carry his
head on one side, and caused Alcibiades to lisp; Julius Caesar scratched
his head with one finger, which is the fashion of a man full of
troublesome thoughts; and Cicero, as I remember, was wont to pucker up
his nose, a sign of a man given to scoffing; such motions as these may
imperceptibly happen in us. There are other artificial ones which I
meddle not with, as salutations and congees, by which men acquire, for
the most part unjustly, the reputation of being humble and courteous:
one may be humble out of pride. I am prodigal enough of my hat,
especially in summer, and never am so saluted but that I pay it again
from persons of what quality soever, unless they be in my own service. I
should make it my request to some princes whom I know, that they would
be more sparing of that ceremony, and bestow that courtesy where it is
more due; for being so indiscreetly and indifferently conferred on all,
it is thrown away to no purpose; if it be without respect of persons, it
loses its effect. Amongst irregular deportment, let us not forget that
haughty one of the Emperor Constantius, who always in public held his
head upright and stiff, without bending or turning on either side, not
so much as to look upon those who saluted him on one side, planting his
body in a rigid immovable posture, without suffering it to yield to the
motion of his coach, not daring so much as to spit, blow his nose, or
wipe his face before people. I know not whether the gestures that were
observed in me were of this first quality, and whether I had really any
occult proneness to this vice, as it might well be; and I cannot be
responsible for the motions of the body; but as to the motions of the
soul, I must here confess what I think of the matter.
This glory consists of two parts; the one in setting too great a
value upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon
others. As to the one, methinks these considerations ought, in the first
place, to be of some force: I feel myself importuned by an error of the
soul that displeases me, both as it is unjust, and still more as it is
troublesome; I attempt to correct it, but I cannot root it out; and this
is, that I lessen the just value of things that I possess, and overvalue
things, because they are foreign, absent, and none of mine; this humour
spreads very far. As the prerogative of the authority makes husbands
look upon their own wives with a vicious disdain, and many fathers their
children; so I, betwixt two equal merits, should always be swayed
against my own; not so much that the jealousy of my advancement and
bettering troubles my judgment, and hinders me from satisfying myself,
as that of itself possession begets a contempt of what it holds and
rules. Foreign governments, manners, and languages insinuate themselves
into my esteem; and I am sensible that Latin allures me by the favour of
its dignity to value it above its due, as it does with children, and the
common sort of people: the domestic government, house, horse, of my
neighbour, though no better than my own, I prize above my own, because
they are not mine. Besides that I am very ignorant in my own affairs, I
am struck by the assurance that every one has of himself: whereas there
is scarcely anything that I am sure I know, or that I dare be
responsible to myself that I can do: I have not my means of doing
anything in condition and ready, and am only instructed therein after
the effect; as doubtful of my own force as I am of another's. Whence it
comes to pass that if I happen to do anything commendable, I attribute
it more to my fortune than industry, forasmuch as I design everything by
chance and in fear. I have this, also, in general, that of all the
opinions antiquity has held of men in gross, I most willingly embrace
and adhere to those that most contemn and undervalue us, and most push
us to naught; methinks, philosophy has never so fair a game to play as
when it falls upon our vanity and presumption; when it most lays open
our irresolution, weakness, and ignorance. I look upon the too good
opinion that man has of himself to be the nursing mother of all the most
false opinions, both public and private. Those people who ride astride
upon the epicycle of Mercury, who see so far into the heavens, are worse
to me than a tooth-drawer that comes to draw my teeth; for in my study,
the subject of which is man, finding so great a variety of judgments, so
profound a labyrinth of difficulties, one upon another, so great
diversity and uncertainty, even in the school of wisdom itself, you may
judge, seeing these people could not resolve upon the knowledge of
themselves and their own condition, which is continually before their
eyes, and within them, seeing they do not know how that moves which they
themselves move, nor how to give us a description of the springs they
themselves govern and make use of, how can I believe them about the
ebbing and flowing of the Nile? The curiosity of knowing things has been
given to man for a scourge, says the Holy Scripture.
But to return to what concerns myself; I think it would be very
difficult for any other man to have a meaner opinion of himself; nay,
for any other to have a meaner opinion of me than of myself: I look upon
myself as one of the common sort, saving in this, that I have no better
an opinion of myself; guilty of the meanest and most popular defects,
but not disowning or excusing them; and I do not value myself upon any
other account than because I know my own value. If there be any vanity
in the case, 'tis superficially infused into me by the treachery of my
complexion, and has no body that my judgment can discern: I am
sprinkled, but not dyed. For in truth, as to the effects of the mind,
there is no part of me, be it what it will, with which I am satisfied;
and the approbation of others makes me not think the better of myself.
My judgment is tender and nice, especially in things that concern
myself.
I ever repudiate myself, and feel myself float and waver by reason of
my weakness. I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment. My
sight is clear and regular enough, but, at working, it is apt to dazzle;
as I most manifestly find in poetry: I love it infinitely, and am able
to give a tolerable judgment of other men's works; but, in good earnest,
when I apply myself to it, I play the child, and am not able to endure
myself. A man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry;
"Mediocribus esse poetis
Non dii, non homines, non concessere columnae."
["Neither men, nor gods, nor the pillars (on which the poets
offered their writings) permit mediocrity in poets."
—Horace, De Arte Poet., 372.]
I would to God this sentence was written over the doors of all our
printers, to forbid the entrance of so many rhymesters!
"Verum
Nihil securius est malo poetae."
["The truth is, that nothing is more confident than a bad poet."
—Martial, xii. 63, 13.]
Why have not we such people?—[As those about to be mentioned.]—
Dionysius the father valued himself upon nothing so much as his poetry;
at the Olympic games, with chariots surpassing all the others in
magnificence, he sent also poets and musicians to present his verses,
with tent and pavilions royally gilt and hung with tapestry. When his
verses came to be recited, the excellence of the delivery at first
attracted the attention of the people; but when they afterwards came to
poise the meanness of the composition, they first entered into disdain,
and continuing to nettle their judgments, presently proceeded to fury,
and ran to pull down and tear to pieces all his pavilions: and, that his
chariots neither performed anything to purpose in the race, and that the
ship which brought back his people failed of making Sicily, and was by
the tempest driven and wrecked upon the coast of Tarentum, they
certainly believed was through the anger of the gods, incensed, as they
themselves were, against the paltry Poem; and even the mariners who
escaped from the wreck seconded this opinion of the people: to which
also the oracle that foretold his death seemed to subscribe; which was,
"that Dionysius should be near his end, when he should have overcome
those who were better than himself," which he interpreted of the
Carthaginians, who surpassed him in power; and having war with them,
often declined the victory, not to incur the sense of this prediction;
but he understood it ill; for the god indicated the time of the
advantage, that by favour and injustice he obtained at Athens over the
tragic poets, better than himself, having caused his own play called the
Leneians to be acted in emulation; presently after which victory he
died, and partly of the excessive joy he conceived at the success.
[Diodorus Siculus, xv. 7.—The play, however, was called the
"Ransom of Hector." It was the games at which it was acted that
were called Leneian; they were one of the four Dionysiac festivals.]
What I find tolerable of mine, is not so really and in itself, but in
comparison of other worse things, that I see well enough received. I
envy the happiness of those who can please and hug themselves in what
they do; for 'tis an easy thing to be so pleased, because a man extracts
that pleasure from himself, especially if he be constant in his
self-conceit. I know a poet, against whom the intelligent and the
ignorant, abroad and at home, both heaven and earth exclaim that he has
but very little notion of it; and yet, for all that, he has never a whit
the worse opinion of himself; but is always falling upon some new piece,
always contriving some new invention, and still persists in his opinion,
by so much the more obstinately, as it only concerns him to maintain it.
My works are so far from pleasing me, that as often as I review them,
they disgust me:
"Cum relego, scripsisse pudet; quia plurima cerno,
Me quoque, qui feci, judice, digna lini."
["When I reperuse, I blush at what I have written; I ever see one
passage after another that I, the author, being the judge, consider
should be erased."—Ovid, De Ponto, i. 5, 15.]
I have always an idea in my soul, and a sort of disturbed image which
presents me as in a dream with a better form than that I have made use
of; but I cannot catch it nor fit it to my purpose; and even that idea
is but of the meaner sort. Hence I conclude that the productions of
those great and rich souls of former times are very much beyond the
utmost stretch of my imagination or my wish; their writings do not only
satisfy and fill me, but they astound me, and ravish me with admiration;
I judge of their beauty; I see it, if not to the utmost, yet so far at
least as 'tis possible for me to aspire. Whatever I undertake, I owe a
sacrifice to the Graces, as Plutarch says of some one, to conciliate
their favour:
"Si quid enim placet,
Si quid dulce horninum sensibus influit,
Debentur lepidis omnia Gratiis."
["If anything please that I write, if it infuse delight into men's
minds, all is due to the charming Graces." The verses are probably
by some modern poet.]
They abandon me throughout; all I write is rude; polish and beauty
are wanting: I cannot set things off to any advantage; my handling adds
nothing to the matter; for which reason I must have it forcible, very
full, and that has lustre of its own. If I pitch upon subjects that are
popular and gay, 'tis to follow my own inclination, who do not affect a
grave and ceremonious wisdom, as the world does; and to make myself more
sprightly, but not my style more wanton, which would rather have them
grave and severe; at least if I may call that a style which is an inform
and irregular way of speaking, a popular jargon, a proceeding without
definition, division, conclusion, perplexed like that Amafanius and
Rabirius.—[Cicero, Acad., i. 2.]—I can neither please nor delight, nor
even tickle my readers: the best story in the world is spoiled by my
handling, and becomes flat; I cannot speak but in rough earnest, and am
totally unprovided of that facility which I observe in many of my
acquaintance, of entertaining the first comers and keeping a whole
company in breath, or taking up the ear of a prince with all sorts of
discourse without wearying themselves: they never want matter by reason
of the faculty and grace they have in taking hold of the first thing
that starts up, and accommodating it to the humour and capacity of those
with whom they have to do. Princes do not much affect solid discourses,
nor I to tell stories. The first and easiest reasons, which are commonly
the best taken, I know not how to employ: I am an ill orator to the
common sort. I am apt of everything to say the extremest that I know.
Cicero is of opinion that in treatises of philosophy the exordium is the
hardest part; if this be true, I am wise in sticking to the conclusion.
And yet we are to know how to wind the string to all notes, and the
sharpest is that which is the most seldom touched. There is at least as
much perfection in elevating an empty as in supporting a weighty thing.
A man must sometimes superficially handle things, and sometimes push
them home. I know very well that most men keep themselves in this lower
form from not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark; but
I likewise know that the greatest masters, and Xenophon and Plato are
often seen to stoop to this low and popular manner of speaking and
treating of things, but supporting it with graces which never fail them.
Farther, my language has nothing in it that is facile and polished;
'tis rough, free, and irregular, and as such pleases, if not my
judgment, at all events my inclination, but I very well perceive that I
sometimes give myself too much rein, and that by endeavouring to avoid
art and affectation I fall into the other inconvenience:
"Brevis esse laboro,
Obscurus fio."
[ Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure."
—Hor., Art. Poet., 25.]
Plato says, that the long or the short are not properties, that
either take away or give value to language. Should I attempt to follow
the other more moderate, united, and regular style, I should never
attain to it; and though the short round periods of Sallust best suit
with my humour, yet I find Caesar much grander and harder to imitate;
and though my inclination would rather prompt me to imitate Seneca's way
of writing, yet I do nevertheless more esteem that of Plutarch. Both in
doing and speaking I simply follow my own natural way; whence,
peradventure, it falls out that I am better at speaking than writing.
Motion and action animate words, especially in those who lay about them
briskly, as I do, and grow hot. The comportment, the countenance; the
voice, the robe, the place, will set off some things that of themselves
would appear no better than prating. Messalla complains in Tacitus of
the straitness of some garments in his time, and of the fashion of the
benches where the orators were to declaim, that were a disadvantage to
their eloquence.
My French tongue is corrupted, both in the pronunciation and
otherwise, by the barbarism of my country. I never saw a man who was a
native of any of the provinces on this side of the kingdom who had not a
twang of his place of birth, and that was not offensive to ears that
were purely French. And yet it is not that I am so perfect in my
Perigordin: for I can no more speak it than High Dutch, nor do I much
care. 'Tis a language (as the rest about me on every side, of Poitou,
Xaintonge, Angoumousin, Limousin, Auvergne), a poor, drawling, scurvy
language. There is, indeed, above us towards the mountains a sort of
Gascon spoken, that I am mightily taken with: blunt, brief, significant,
and in truth a more manly and military language than any other I am
acquainted with, as sinewy, powerful, and pertinent as the French is
graceful, neat, and luxuriant.
As to the Latin, which was given me for my mother tongue, I have by
discontinuance lost the use of speaking it, and, indeed, of writing it
too, wherein I formerly had a particular reputation, by which you may
see how inconsiderable I am on that side.
Beauty is a thing of great recommendation in the correspondence
amongst men; 'tis the first means of acquiring the favour and good
liking of one another, and no man is so barbarous and morose as not to
perceive himself in some sort struck with its attraction. The body has a
great share in our being, has an eminent place there, and therefore its
structure and composition are of very just consideration. They who go
about to disunite and separate our two principal parts from one another
are to blame; we must, on the contrary, reunite and rejoin them. We must
command the soul not to withdraw and entertain itself apart, not to
despise and abandon the body (neither can she do it but by some apish
counterfeit), but to unite herself close to it, to embrace, cherish,
assist, govern, and advise it, and to bring it back and set it into the
true way when it wanders; in sum, to espouse and be a husband to it, so
that their effects may not appear to be diverse and contrary, but
uniform and concurring. Christians have a particular instruction
concerning this connection, for they know that the Divine justice
embraces this society and juncture of body and soul, even to the making
the body capable of eternal rewards; and that God has an eye to the
whole man's ways, and wills that he receive entire chastisement or
reward according to his demerits or merits. The sect of the
Peripatetics, of all sects the most sociable, attribute to wisdom this
sole care equally to provide for the good of these two associate parts:
and the other sects, in not sufficiently applying themselves to the
consideration of this mixture, show themselves to be divided, one for
the body and the other for the soul, with equal error, and to have lost
sight of their subject, which is Man, and their guide, which they
generally confess to be Nature. The first distinction that ever was
amongst men, and the first consideration that gave some pre-eminence
over others, 'tis likely was the advantage of beauty:
"Agros divisere atque dedere
Pro facie cujusque, et viribus ingenioque;
Nam facies multum valuit, viresque vigebant."
["They distributed and conferred the lands to every man according
to his beauty and strength and understanding, for beauty was much
esteemed and strength was in favour."—Lucretius, V. 1109.]
Now I am of something lower than the middle stature, a defect that
not only borders upon deformity, but carries withal a great deal of
inconvenience along with it, especially for those who are in office and
command; for the authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien
beget is wanting. C. Marius did not willingly enlist any soldiers who
were not six feet high. The Courtier has, indeed, reason to desire a
moderate stature in the gentlemen he is setting forth, rather than any
other, and to reject all strangeness that should make him be pointed at.
But if I were to choose whether this medium must be rather below than
above the common standard, I would not have it so in a soldier. Little
men, says Aristotle, are pretty, but not handsome; and greatness of soul
is discovered in a great body, as beauty is in a conspicuous stature:
the Ethiopians and Indians, says he, in choosing their kings and
magistrates, had regard to the beauty and stature of their persons. They
had reason; for it creates respect in those who follow them, and is a
terror to the enemy, to see a leader of a brave and goodly stature march
at the head of a battalion:
"Ipse inter primos praestanti corpore Turnus
Vertitur arma, tenens, et toto vertice supra est."
["In the first rank marches Turnus, brandishing his weapon,
taller by a head than all the rest."—Virgil, AEneid, vii. 783.]
Our holy and heavenly king, of whom every circumstance is most
carefully and with the greatest religion and reverence to be observed,
has not himself rejected bodily recommendation,
"Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum."
["He is fairer than the children of men."—Psalm xiv. 3.]
And Plato, together with temperance and fortitude, requires beauty in
the conservators of his republic. It would vex you that a man should
apply himself to you amongst your servants to inquire where Monsieur is,
and that you should only have the remainder of the compliment of the hat
that is made to your barber or your secretary; as it happened to poor
Philopoemen, who arriving the first of all his company at an inn where
he was expected, the hostess, who knew him not, and saw him an unsightly
fellow, employed him to go help her maids a little to draw water, and
make a fire against Philopoemen's coming; the gentlemen of his train
arriving presently after, and surprised to see him busy in this fine
employment, for he failed not to obey his landlady's command, asked him
what he was doing there: "I am," said he, "paying the penalty of my
ugliness." The other beauties belong to women; the beauty of stature is
the only beauty of men. Where there is a contemptible stature, neither
the largeness and roundness of the forehead, nor the whiteness and
sweetness of the eyes, nor the moderate proportion of the nose, nor the
littleness of the ears and mouth, nor the evenness and whiteness of the
teeth, nor the thickness of a well-set brown beard, shining like the
husk of a chestnut, nor curled hair, nor the just proportion of the
head, nor a fresh complexion, nor a pleasing air of a face, nor a body
without any offensive scent, nor the just proportion of limbs, can make
a handsome man. I am, as to the rest, strong and well knit; my face is
not puffed, but full, and my complexion betwixt jovial and melancholic,
moderately sanguine and hot,
"Unde rigent setis mihi crura, et pectora villis;"
["Whence 'tis my legs and breast bristle with hair."
—Martial, ii. 36, 5.]
my health vigorous and sprightly, even to a well advanced age, and
rarely troubled with sickness. Such I was, for I do not now make any
account of myself, now that I am engaged in the avenues of old age,
being already past forty:
"Minutatim vires et robur adultum
Frangit, et in partem pejorem liquitur aetas:"
["Time by degrees breaks our strength and makes us grow feeble.
—"Lucretius, ii. 1131.]
what shall be from this time forward, will be but a half-being, and
no more me: I every day escape and steal away from myself:
"Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes."
["Of the fleeting years each steals something from me."
—Horace, Ep., ii. 2.]
Agility and address I never had, and yet am the son of a very active
and sprightly father, who continued to be so to an extreme old age. I
have scarce known any man of his condition, his equal in all bodily
exercises, as I have seldom met with any who have not excelled me,
except in running, at which I was pretty good. In music or singing, for
which I have a very unfit voice, or to play on any sort of instrument,
they could never teach me anything. In dancing, tennis, or wrestling, I
could never arrive to more than an ordinary pitch; in swimming, fencing,
vaulting, and leaping, to none at all. My hands are so clumsy that I
cannot even write so as to read it myself, so that I had rather do what
I have scribbled over again, than take upon me the trouble to make it
out. I do not read much better than I write, and feel that I weary my
auditors otherwise (I am) not a bad clerk. I cannot decently fold up a
letter, nor could ever make a pen, or carve at table worth a pin, nor
saddle a horse, nor carry a hawk and fly her, nor hunt the dogs, nor
lure a hawk, nor speak to a horse. In fine, my bodily qualities are very
well suited to those of my soul; there is nothing sprightly, only a full
and firm vigour: I am patient enough of labour and pains, but it is only
when I go voluntary to work, and only so long as my own desire prompts
me to it:
"Molliter austerum studio fallente laborem."
["Study softly beguiling severe labour."
—Horace, Sat., ii. 2, 12.]
otherwise, if I am not allured with some pleasure, or have other
guide than my own pure and free inclination, I am good for nothing: for
I am of a humour that, life and health excepted, there is nothing for
which I will bite my nails, and that I will purchase at the price of
torment of mind and constraint:
"Tanti mihi non sit opaci
Omnis arena Tagi, quodque in mare volvitur aurum."
["I would not buy rich Tagus sands so dear, nor all the gold that
lies in the sea."—Juvenal, Sat., iii. 54.]
Extremely idle, extremely given up to my own inclination both by
nature and art, I would as willingly lend a man my blood as my pains. I
have a soul free and entirely its own, and accustomed to guide itself
after its own fashion; having hitherto never had either master or
governor imposed upon me: I have walked as far as I would, and at the
pace that best pleased myself; this is it that has rendered me unfit for
the service of others, and has made me of no use to any one but myself.
Nor was there any need of forcing my heavy and lazy disposition; for
being born to such a fortune as I had reason to be contented with (a
reason, nevertheless, that a thousand others of my acquaintance would
have rather made use of for a plank upon which to pass over in search of
higher fortune, to tumult and disquiet), and with as much intelligence
as I required, I sought for no more, and also got no more:
"Non agimur tumidis velis Aquilone secundo,
Non tamen adversis aetatem ducimus Austris
Viribus, ingenio, specie, virtute, loco, re,
Extremi primorum, extremis usque priores."
["The northern wind does not agitate our sails; nor Auster trouble
our course with storms. In strength, talent, figure, virtue,
honour, wealth, we are short of the foremost, but before the last."
—Horace, Ep., ii. 2, 201.]
I had only need of what was sufficient to content me: which
nevertheless is a government of soul, to take it right, equally
difficult in all sorts of conditions, and that, of custom, we see more
easily found in want than in abundance: forasmuch, peradventure, as
according to the course of our other passions, the desire of riches is
more sharpened by their use than by the need of them: and the virtue of
moderation more rare than that of patience; and I never had anything to
desire, but happily to enjoy the estate that God by His bounty had put
into my hands. I have never known anything of trouble, and have had
little to do in anything but the management of my own affairs: or, if I
have, it has been upon condition to do it at my own leisure and after my
own method; committed to my trust by such as had a confidence in me, who
did not importune me, and who knew my humour; for good horsemen will
make shift to get service out of a rusty and broken-winded jade.
Even my infancy was trained up after a gentle and free manner, and
exempt from any rigorous subjection. All this has helped me to a
complexion delicate and incapable of solicitude, even to that degree
that I love to have my losses and the disorders wherein I am concerned,
concealed from me. In the account of my expenses, I put down what my
negligence costs me in feeding and maintaining it;
"Haec nempe supersunt,
Quae dominum fallunt, quae prosunt furibus."
["That overplus, which the owner knows not of,
but which benefits the thieves"—Horace, Ep., i. 645]
I love not to know what I have, that I may be less sensible of my
loss; I entreat those who serve me, where affection and integrity are
absent, to deceive me with something like a decent appearance. For want
of constancy enough to support the shock of adverse accidents to which
we are subject, and of patience seriously to apply myself to the
management of my affairs, I nourish as much as I can this in myself,
wholly leaving all to fortune "to take all things at the worst, and to
resolve to bear that worst with temper and patience"; that is the only
thing I aim at, and to which I apply my whole meditation. In a danger, I
do not so much consider how I shall escape it, as of how little
importance it is, whether I escape it or no: should I be left dead upon
the place, what matter? Not being able to govern events, I govern
myself, and apply myself to them, if they will not apply themselves to
me. I have no great art to evade, escape from or force fortune, and by
prudence to guide and incline things to my own bias. I have still less
patience to undergo the troublesome and painful care therein required;
and the most uneasy condition for me is to be suspended on urgent
occasions, and to be agitated betwixt hope and fear.
Deliberation, even in things of lightest moment, is very troublesome
to me; and I find my mind more put to it to undergo the various
tumblings and tossings of doubt and consultation, than to set up its
rest and to acquiesce in whatever shall happen after the die is thrown.
Few passions break my sleep, but of deliberations, the least will do it.
As in roads, I preferably avoid those that are sloping and slippery, and
put myself into the beaten track how dirty or deep soever, where I can
fall no lower, and there seek my safety: so I love misfortunes that are
purely so, that do not torment and tease me with the uncertainty of
their growing better; but that at the first push plunge me directly into
the worst that can be expected
"Dubia plus torquent mala."
["Doubtful ills plague us worst."
—Seneca, Agamemnon, iii. 1, 29.]
In events I carry myself like a man; in conduct, like a child. The
fear of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself. The game is not
worth the candle. The covetous man fares worse with his passion than the
poor, and the jealous man than the cuckold; and a man ofttimes loses
more by defending his vineyard than if he gave it up. The lowest walk is
the safest; 'tis the seat of constancy; you have there need of no one
but yourself; 'tis there founded and wholly stands upon its own basis.
Has not this example of a gentleman very well known, some air of
philosophy in it? He married, being well advanced in years, having spent
his youth in good fellowship, a great talker and a great jeerer, calling
to mind how much the subject of cuckoldry had given him occasion to talk
and scoff at others. To prevent them from paying him in his own coin, he
married a wife from a place where any one finds what he wants for his
money: "Good morrow, strumpet"; "Good morrow, cuckold"; and there was
not anything wherewith he more commonly and openly entertained those who
came to see him than with this design of his, by which he stopped the
private chattering of mockers, and blunted all the point from this
reproach.
As to ambition, which is neighbour, or rather daughter, to
presumption, fortune, to advance me, must have come and taken me by the
hand; for to trouble myself for an uncertain hope, and to have submitted
myself to all the difficulties that accompany those who endeavour to
bring themselves into credit in the beginning of their progress, I could
never have done it:
"Spem pretio non emo."
["I will not purchase hope with ready money," (or),
"I do not purchase hope at a price."
—Terence, Adelphi, ii. 3, 11.]
I apply myself to what I see and to what I have in my hand, and go
not very far from the shore,
"Alter remus aquas, alter tibi radat arenas:"
["One oar plunging into the sea, the other raking the sands."
—Propertius, iii. 3, 23.]
and besides, a man rarely arrives at these advancements but in first
hazarding what he has of his own; and I am of opinion that if a man have
sufficient to maintain him in the condition wherein he was born and
brought up, 'tis a great folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of
augmenting it. He to whom fortune has denied whereon to set his foot,
and to settle a quiet and composed way of living, is to be excused if he
venture what he has, because, happen what will, necessity puts him upon
shifting for himself:
"Capienda rebus in malis praeceps via est:"
["A course is to be taken in bad cases." (or),
"A desperate case must have a desperate course."
—-Seneca, Agamemnon, ii. 1, 47.]
and I rather excuse a younger brother for exposing what his friends
have left him to the courtesy of fortune, than him with whom the honour
of his family is entrusted, who cannot be necessitous but by his own
fault. I have found a much shorter and more easy way, by the advice of
the good friends I had in my younger days, to free myself from any such
ambition, and to sit still:
"Cui sit conditio dulcis sine pulvere palmae:"
["What condition can compare with that where one has gained the
palm without the dust of the course."—Horace, Ep., i. I, 51.]
judging rightly enough of my own strength, that it was not capable of
any great matters; and calling to mind the saying of the late Chancellor
Olivier, that the French were like monkeys that swarm up a tree from
branch to branch, and never stop till they come to the highest, and
there shew their breech.
"Turpe est, quod nequeas, capiti committere pondus,
Et pressum inflexo mox dare terga genu."
["It is a shame to load the head so that it cannot bear the
burthen, and the knees give way."—Propertius, iii. 9, 5.]
I should find the best qualities I have useless in this age; the
facility of my manners would have been called weakness and negligence;
my faith and conscience, scrupulosity and superstition; my liberty and
freedom would have been reputed troublesome, inconsiderate, and rash.
Ill luck is good for something. It is good to be born in a very depraved
age; for so, in comparison of others, you shall be reputed virtuous good
cheap; he who in our days is but a parricide and a sacrilegious person
is an honest man and a man of honour:
"Nunc, si depositum non inficiatur amicus,
Si reddat veterem cum tota aerugine follem,
Prodigiosa fides, et Tuscis digna libellis,
Quaeque coronata lustrari debeat agna:"
["Now, if a friend does not deny his trust, but restores the old
purse with all its rust; 'tis a prodigious faith, worthy to be
enrolled in amongst the Tuscan annals, and a crowned lamb should be
sacrificed to such exemplary integrity."—Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 611.]
and never was time or place wherein princes might propose to
themselves more assured or greater rewards for virtue and justice. The
first who shall make it his business to get himself into favour and
esteem by those ways, I am much deceived if he do not and by the best
title outstrip his competitors: force and violence can do something, but
not always all. We see merchants, country justices, and artisans go
cheek by jowl with the best gentry in valour and military knowledge:
they perform honourable actions, both in public engagements and private
quarrels; they fight duels, they defend towns in our present wars; a
prince stifles his special recommendation, renown, in this crowd; let
him shine bright in humanity, truth, loyalty, temperance, and especially
injustice; marks rare, unknown, and exiled; 'tis by no other means but
by the sole goodwill of the people that he can do his business; and no
other qualities can attract their goodwill like those, as being of the
greatest utility to them:
"Nil est tam populare, quam bonitas."
["Nothing is so popular as an agreeable manner (goodness)."
—Cicero, Pro Ligar., c. 12.]
By this standard I had been great and rare, just as I find myself now
pigmy and vulgar by the standard of some past ages, wherein, if no other
better qualities concurred, it was ordinary and common to see a man
moderate in his revenges, gentle in resenting injuries, religious of his
word, neither double nor supple, nor accommodating his faith to the will
of others, or the turns of the times: I would rather see all affairs go
to wreck and ruin than falsify my faith to secure them. For as to this
new virtue of feigning and dissimulation, which is now in so great
credit, I mortally hate it; and of all vices find none that evidences so
much baseness and meanness of spirit. 'Tis a cowardly and servile humour
to hide and disguise a man's self under a visor, and not to dare to show
himself what he is; 'tis by this our servants are trained up to
treachery; being brought up to speak what is not true, they make no
conscience of a lie. A generous heart ought not to belie its own
thoughts; it will make itself seen within; all there is good, or at
least human. Aristotle reputes it the office of magnanimity openly and
professedly to love and hate; to judge and speak with all freedom; and
not to value the approbation or dislike of others in comparison of
truth. Apollonius said it was for slaves to lie, and for freemen to
speak truth: 'tis the chief and fundamental part of virtue; we must love
it for itself. He who speaks truth because he is obliged so to do, and
because it serves him, and who is not afraid to lie when it signifies
nothing to anybody, is not sufficiently true. My soul naturally
abominates lying, and hates the very thought of it. I have an inward
shame and a sharp remorse, if sometimes a lie escapes me: as sometimes
it does, being surprised by occasions that allow me no premeditation. A
man must not always tell all, for that were folly: but what a man says
should be what he thinks, otherwise 'tis knavery. I do not know what
advantage men pretend to by eternally counterfeiting and dissembling, if
not never to be believed when they speak the truth; it may once or twice
pass with men; but to profess the concealing their thought, and to brag,
as some of our princes have done, that they would burn their shirts if
they knew their true intentions, which was a saying of the ancient
Metellius of Macedon; and that they who know not how to dissemble know
not how to rule, is to give warning to all who have anything to do with
them, that all they say is nothing but lying and deceit:
"Quo quis versutior et callidior est, hoc invisior et
suspectior, detracto opinione probitatis:"
["By how much any one is more subtle and cunning, by so much is he
hated and suspected, the opinion of his integrity being withdrawn."
—Cicero, De Off., ii. 9.]
it were a great simplicity in any one to lay any stress either on the
countenance or word of a man who has put on a resolution to be always
another thing without than he is within, as Tiberius did; and I cannot
conceive what part such persons can have in conversation with men,
seeing they produce nothing that is received as true: whoever is
disloyal to truth is the same to falsehood also.
Those of our time who have considered in the establishment of the
duty of a prince the good of his affairs only, and have preferred that
to the care of his faith and conscience, might have something to say to
a prince whose affairs fortune had put into such a posture that he might
for ever establish them by only once breaking his word: but it will not
go so; they often buy in the same market; they make more than one peace
and enter into more than one treaty in their lives. Gain tempts to the
first breach of faith, and almost always presents itself, as in all
other ill acts, sacrileges, murders, rebellions, treasons, as being
undertaken for some kind of advantage; but this first gain has infinite
mischievous consequences, throwing this prince out of all correspondence
and negotiation, by this example of infidelity. Soliman, of the Ottoman
race, a race not very solicitous of keeping their words or compacts,
when, in my infancy, he made his army land at Otranto, being informed
that Mercurino de' Gratinare and the inhabitants of Castro were detained
prisoners, after having surrendered the place, contrary to the articles
of their capitulation, sent orders to have them set at liberty, saying,
that having other great enterprises in hand in those parts, the
disloyalty, though it carried a show of present utility, would for the
future bring on him a disrepute and distrust of infinite prejudice.
Now, for my part, I had rather be troublesome and indiscreet than a
flatterer and a dissembler. I confess that there may be some mixture of
pride and obstinacy in keeping myself so upright and open as I do,
without any consideration of others; and methinks I am a little too
free, where I ought least to be so, and that I grow hot by the
opposition of respect; and it may be also, that I suffer myself to
follow the propension of my own nature for want of art; using the same
liberty, speech, and countenance towards great persons, that I bring
with me from my own house: I am sensible how much it declines towards
incivility and indiscretion but, besides that I am so bred, I have not a
wit supple enough to evade a sudden question, and to escape by some
evasion, nor to feign a truth, nor memory enough to retain it so
feigned; nor, truly, assurance enough to maintain it, and so play the
brave out of weakness. And therefore it is that I abandon myself to
candour, always to speak as I think, both by complexion and design,
leaving the event to fortune. Aristippus was wont to say, that the
principal benefit he had extracted from philosophy was that he spoke
freely and openly to all.
Memory is a faculty of wonderful use, and without which the judgment
can very hardly perform its office: for my part I have none at all. What
any one will propound to me, he must do it piecemeal, for to answer a
speech consisting of several heads I am not able. I could not receive a
commission by word of mouth without a note-book. And when I have a
speech of consequence to make, if it be long, I am reduced to the
miserable necessity of getting by heart word for word, what I am to say;
I should otherwise have neither method nor assurance, being in fear that
my memory would play me a slippery trick. But this way is no less
difficult to me than the other; I must have three hours to learn three
verses. And besides, in a work of a man's own, the liberty and authority
of altering the order, of changing a word, incessantly varying the
matter, makes it harder to stick in the memory of the author. The more I
mistrust it the worse it is; it serves me best by chance; I must solicit
it negligently; for if I press it, 'tis confused, and after it once
begins to stagger, the more I sound it, the more it is perplexed; it
serves me at its own hour, not at mine.
And the same defect I find in my memory, I find also in several other
parts. I fly command, obligation, and constraint; that which I can
otherwise naturally and easily do, if I impose it upon myself by an
express and strict injunction, I cannot do it. Even the members of my
body, which have a more particular jurisdiction of their own, sometimes
refuse to obey me, if I enjoin them a necessary service at a certain
hour. This tyrannical and compulsive appointment baffles them; they
shrink up either through fear or spite, and fall into a trance. Being
once in a place where it is looked upon as barbarous discourtesy not to
pledge those who drink to you, though I had there all liberty allowed
me, I tried to play the good fellow, out of respect to the ladies who
were there, according to the custom of the country; but there was sport
enough for this pressure and preparation, to force myself contrary to my
custom and inclination, so stopped my throat that I could not swallow
one drop, and was deprived of drinking so much as with my meat; I found
myself gorged, and my, thirst quenched by the quantity of drink that my
imagination had swallowed. This effect is most manifest in such as have
the most vehement and powerful imagination: but it is natural,
notwithstanding, and there is no one who does not in some measure feel
it. They offered an excellent archer, condemned to die, to save his
life, if he would show some notable proof of his art, but he refused to
try, fearing lest the too great contention of his will should make him
shoot wide, and that instead of saving his life, he should also lose the
reputation he had got of being a good marksman. A man who thinks of
something else, will not fail to take over and over again the same
number and measure of steps, even to an inch, in the place where he
walks; but if he made it his business to measure and count them, he will
find that what he did by nature and accident, he cannot so exactly do by
design.
My library, which is a fine one among those of the village type, is
situated in a corner of my house; if anything comes into my head that I
have a mind to search or to write, lest I should forget it in but going
across the court, I am fain to commit it to the memory of some other. If
I venture in speaking to digress never so little from my subject, I am
infallibly lost, which is the reason that I keep myself, in discourse,
strictly close. I am forced to call the men who serve me either by the
names of their offices or their country; for names are very hard for me
to remember. I can tell indeed that there are three syllables, that it
has a harsh sound, and that it begins or ends with such a letter; but
that's all; and if I should live long, I do not doubt but I should
forget my own name, as some others have done. Messala Corvinus was two
years without any trace of memory, which is also said of Georgius
Trapezuntius. For my own interest, I often meditate what a kind of life
theirs was, and if, without this faculty, I should have enough left to
support me with any manner of ease; and prying narrowly into it, I fear
that this privation, if absolute, destroys all the other functions of
the soul:
"Plenus rimarum sum, hac atque iliac perfluo."
["I'm full of chinks, and leak out every way."
—Ter., Eunuchus, ii. 2, 23.]
It has befallen me more than once to forget the watchword I had three
hours before given or received, and to forget where I had hidden my
purse; whatever Cicero is pleased to say, I help myself to lose what I
have a particular care to lock safe up:
"Memoria certe non modo Philosophiam sed omnis
vitae usum, omnesque artes, una maxime continet."
["It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy,
but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life."
—Cicero, Acad., ii. 7.]
Memory is the receptacle and case of science: and therefore mine
being so treacherous, if I know little, I cannot much complain. I know,
in general, the names of the arts, and of what they treat, but nothing
more. I turn over books; I do not study them. What I retain I no longer
recognise as another's; 'tis only what my judgment has made its
advantage of, the discourses and imaginations in which it has been
instructed: the author, place, words, and other circumstances, I
immediately forget; and I am so excellent at forgetting, that I no less
forget my own writings and compositions than the rest. I am very often
quoted to myself, and am not aware of it. Whoever should inquire of me
where I had the verses and examples, that I have here huddled together,
would puzzle me to tell him, and yet I have not borrowed them but from
famous and known authors, not contenting myself that they were rich, if
I, moreover, had them not from rich and honourable hands, where there is
a concurrence of authority with reason. It is no great wonder if my book
run the same fortune that other books do, if my memory lose what I have
written as well as what I have read, and what I give, as well as what I
receive.
Besides the defect of memory, I have others which very much
contribute to my ignorance; I have a slow and heavy wit, the least cloud
stops its progress, so that, for example, I never propose to it any
never so easy a riddle that it could find out; there is not the least
idle subtlety that will not gravel me; in games, where wit is required,
as chess, draughts, and the like, I understand no more than the common
movements. I have a slow and perplexed apprehension, but what it once
apprehends, it apprehends well, for the time it retains it. My sight is
perfect, entire, and discovers at a very great distance, but is soon
weary and heavy at work, which occasions that I cannot read long, but am
forced to have one to read to me. The younger Pliny can inform such as
have not experimented it themselves, how important an impediment this is
to those who devote themselves to this employment.
There is no so wretched and coarse a soul, wherein some particular
faculty is not seen to shine; no soul so buried in sloth and ignorance,
but it will sally at one end or another; and how it comes to pass that a
man blind and asleep to everything else, shall be found sprightly,
clear, and excellent in some one particular effect, we are to inquire of
our masters: but the beautiful souls are they that are universal, open,
and ready for all things; if not instructed, at least capable of being
so; which I say to accuse my own; for whether it be through infirmity or
negligence (and to neglect that which lies at our feet, which we have in
our hands, and what nearest concerns the use of life, is far from my
doctrine) there is not a soul in the world so awkward as mine, and so
ignorant of many common things, and such as a man cannot without shame
fail to know. I must give some examples.
I was born and bred up in the country, and amongst husbandmen; I have
had business and husbandry in my own hands ever since my predecessors,
who were lords of the estate I now enjoy, left me to succeed them; and
yet I can neither cast accounts, nor reckon my counters: most of our
current money I do not know, nor the difference betwixt one grain and
another, either growing or in the barn, if it be not too apparent, and
scarcely can distinguish between the cabbage and lettuce in my garden. I
do not so much as understand the names of the chief instruments of
husbandry, nor the most ordinary elements of agriculture, which the very
children know: much less the mechanic arts, traffic, merchandise, the
variety and nature of fruits, wines, and viands, nor how to make a hawk
fly, nor to physic a horse or a dog. And, since I must publish my whole
shame, 'tis not above a month ago, that I was trapped in my ignorance of
the use of leaven to make bread, or to what end it was to keep wine in
the vat. They conjectured of old at Athens, an aptitude for the
mathematics in him they saw ingeniously bavin up a burthen of brushwood.
In earnest, they would draw a quite contrary conclusion from me, for
give me the whole provision and necessaries of a kitchen, I should
starve. By these features of my confession men may imagine others to my
prejudice: but whatever I deliver myself to be, provided it be such as I
really am, I have my end; neither will I make any excuse for committing
to paper such mean and frivolous things as these: the meanness of the
subject compells me to it. They may, if they please, accuse my project,
but not my progress: so it is, that without anybody's needing to tell
me, I sufficiently see of how little weight and value all this is, and
the folly of my design: 'tis enough that my judgment does not contradict
itself, of which these are the essays.
"Nasutus sis usque licet, sis denique nasus,
Quantum noluerit ferre rogatus Atlas;
Et possis ipsum to deridere Latinum,
Non potes in nugas dicere plura mess,
Ipse ego quam dixi: quid dentem dente juvabit
Rodere? carne opus est, si satur esse velis.
Ne perdas operam; qui se mirantur, in illos
Virus habe; nos haec novimus esse nihil."
["Let your nose be as keen as it will, be all nose, and even a nose
so great that Atlas will refuse to bear it: if asked, Could you even
excel Latinus in scoffing; against my trifles you could say no more
than I myself have said: then to what end contend tooth against
tooth? You must have flesh, if you want to be full; lose not your
labour then; cast your venom upon those that admire themselves; I
know already that these things are worthless."—Mart., xiii. 2.]
I am not obliged not to utter absurdities, provided I am not deceived
in them and know them to be such: and to trip knowingly, is so ordinary
with me, that I seldom do it otherwise, and rarely trip by chance. 'Tis
no great matter to add ridiculous actions to the temerity of my humour,
since I cannot ordinarily help supplying it with those that are vicious.
I was present one day at Barleduc, when King Francis II., for a
memorial of Rene, king of Sicily, was presented with a portrait he had
drawn of himself: why is it not in like manner lawful for every one to
draw himself with a pen, as he did with a crayon? I will not, therefore,
omit this blemish though very unfit to be published, which is
irresolution; a very great effect and very incommodious in the
negotiations of the affairs of the world; in doubtful enterprises, I
know not which to choose:
"Ne si, ne no, nel cor mi suona intero."
["My heart does not tell me either yes or no."—Petrarch.]
I can maintain an opinion, but I cannot choose one. By reason that in
human things, to what sect soever we incline, many appearances present
themselves that confirm us in it; and the philosopher Chrysippus said,
that he would of Zeno and Cleanthes, his masters, learn their doctrines
only; for, as to proofs and reasons, he should find enough of his own.
Which way soever I turn, I still furnish myself with causes, and
likelihood enough to fix me there; which makes me detain doubt and the
liberty of choosing, till occasion presses; and then, to confess the
truth, I, for the most part, throw the feather into the wind, as the
saying is, and commit myself to the mercy of fortune; a very light
inclination and circumstance carries me along with it.
"Dum in dubio est animus, paulo momento huc atque
Illuc impellitur."
["While the mind is in doubt, in a short time it is impelled this
way and that."—Terence, Andr., i. 6, 32.]
The uncertainty of my judgment is so equally balanced in most
occurrences, that I could willingly refer it to be decided by the chance
of a die: and I observe, with great consideration of our human
infirmity, the examples that the divine history itself has left us of
this custom of referring to fortune and chance the determination of
election in doubtful things:
"Sors cecidit super Matthiam."
["The lot fell upon Matthew."—Acts i. 26.]
Human reason is a two-edged and dangerous sword: observe in the hands
of Socrates, her most intimate and familiar friend, how many several
points it has. I am thus good for nothing but to follow and suffer
myself to be easily carried away with the crowd; I have not confidence
enough in my own strength to take upon me to command and lead; I am very
glad to find the way beaten before me by others. If I must run the
hazard of an uncertain choice, I am rather willing to have it under such
a one as is more confident in his opinions than I am in mine, whose
ground and foundation I find to be very slippery and unsure.
Yet I do not easily change, by reason that I discern the same
weakness in contrary opinions:
"Ipsa consuetudo assentiendi periculosa
esse videtur, et lubrica;"
["The very custom of assenting seems to be dangerous
and slippery."—Cicero, Acad., ii. 21.]
especially in political affairs, there is a large field open for
changes and contestation:
"Justa pari premitur veluti cum pondere libra,
Prona, nec hac plus pane sedet, nec surgit ab illa."
["As a just balance, pressed with equal weight, neither dips
nor rises on either side."—Tibullus, iv. 41.]
Machiavelli's writings, for example, were solid enough for the
subject, yet were they easy enough to be controverted; and they who have
done so, have left as great a facility of controverting theirs; there
was never wanting in that kind of argument replies and replies upon
replies, and as infinite a contexture of debates as our wrangling
lawyers have extended in favour of long suits:
"Caedimur et totidem plagis consumimus hostem;"
["We are slain, and with as many blows kill the enemy" (or),
"It is a fight wherein we exhaust each other by mutual wounds."
—Horace, Epist., ii. 2, 97.]
the reasons have little other foundation than experience, and the
variety of human events presenting us with infinite examples of all
sorts of forms. An understanding person of our times says: That whoever
would, in contradiction to our almanacs, write cold where they say hot,
and wet where they say dry, and always put the contrary to what they
foretell; if he were to lay a wager, he would not care which side he
took, excepting where no uncertainty could fall out, as to promise
excessive heats at Christmas, or extremity of cold at Midsummer. I have
the same opinion of these political controversies; be on which side you
will, you have as fair a game to play as your adversary, provided you do
not proceed so far as to shock principles that are broad and manifest.
And yet, in my conceit, in public affairs, there is no government so
ill, provided it be ancient and has been constant, that is not better
than change and alteration.
Our manners are infinitely corrupt, and wonderfully incline to the
worse; of our laws and customs there are many that are barbarous and
monstrous nevertheless, by reason of the difficulty of reformation, and
the danger of stirring things, if I could put something under to stop
the wheel, and keep it where it is, I would do it with all my heart:
"Numquam adeo foedis, adeoque pudendis
Utimur exemplis, ut non pejora supersint."
["The examples we use are not so shameful and foul
but that worse remain behind."—Juvenal, viii. 183.]
The worst thing I find in our state is instability, and that our
laws, no more than our clothes, cannot settle in any certain form. It is
very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things
are full of it: it is very easy to beget in a people a contempt of
ancient observances; never any man undertook it but he did it; but to
establish a better regimen in the stead of that which a man has
overthrown, many who have attempted it have foundered. I very little
consult my prudence in my conduct; I am willing to let it be guided by
the public rule. Happy the people who do what they are commanded, better
than they who command, without tormenting themselves as to the causes;
who suffer themselves gently to roll after the celestial revolution!
Obedience is never pure nor calm in him who reasons and disputes.
In fine, to return to myself: the only thing by which I something
esteem myself, is that wherein never any man thought himself to be
defective; my recommendation is vulgar, common, and popular; for who
ever thought he wanted sense? It would be a proposition that would imply
a contradiction in itself; 'tis a disease that never is where it is
discerned; 'tis tenacious and strong, but what the first ray of the
patient's sight nevertheless pierces through and disperses, as the beams
of the sun do thick and obscure mists; to accuse one's self would be to
excuse in this case, and to condemn, to absolve. There never was porter
or the silliest girl, that did not think they had sense enough to do
their business. We easily enough confess in others an advantage of
courage, strength, experience, activity, and beauty, but an advantage in
judgment we yield to none; and the reasons that proceed simply from the
natural conclusions of others, we think, if we had but turned our
thoughts that way, we should ourselves have found out as well as they.
Knowledge, style, and such parts as we see in others' works, we are soon
aware of, if they excel our own: but for the simple products of the
understanding, every one thinks he could have found out the like in
himself, and is hardly sensible of the weight and difficulty, if not
(and then with much ado) in an extreme and incomparable distance. And
whoever should be able clearly to discern the height of another's
judgment, would be also able to raise his own to the same pitch. So that
it is a sort of exercise, from which a man is to expect very little
praise; a kind of composition of small repute. And, besides, for whom do
you write? The learned, to whom the authority appertains of judging
books, know no other value but that of learning, and allow of no other
proceeding of wit but that of erudition and art: if you have mistaken
one of the Scipios for another, what is all the rest you have to say
worth? Whoever is ignorant of Aristotle, according to their rule, is in
some sort ignorant of himself; vulgar souls cannot discern the grace and
force of a lofty and delicate style. Now these two sorts of men take up
the world. The third sort into whose hands you fall, of souls that are
regular and strong of themselves, is so rare, that it justly has neither
name nor place amongst us; and 'tis so much time lost to aspire unto it,
or to endeavour to please it.
'Tis commonly said that the justest portion Nature has given us of
her favours is that of sense; for there is no one who is not contented
with his share: is it not reason? whoever should see beyond that, would
see beyond his sight. I think my opinions are good and sound, but who
does not think the same of his own? One of the best proofs I have that
mine are so is the small esteem I have of myself; for had they not been
very well assured, they would easily have suffered themselves to have
been deceived by the peculiar affection I have to myself, as one that
places it almost wholly in myself, and do not let much run out. All that
others distribute amongst an infinite number of friends and
acquaintance, to their glory and grandeur, I dedicate to the repose of
my own mind and to myself; that which escapes thence is not properly by
my direction:
"Mihi nempe valere et vivere doctus."
["To live and to do well for myself."
—Lucretius, v. 959.]
Now I find my opinions very bold and constant in condemning my own
imperfection. And, to say the truth, 'tis a subject upon which I
exercise my judgment as much as upon any other. The world looks always
opposite; I turn my sight inwards, and there fix and employ it. I have
no other business but myself, I am eternally meditating upon myself,
considering and tasting myself. Other men's thoughts are ever wandering
abroad, if they will but see it; they are still going forward:
"Nemo in sese tentat descendere;"
["No one thinks of descending into himself."
—Persius, iv. 23.]
for my part, I circulate in myself. This capacity of trying the
truth, whatever it be, in myself, and this free humour of not over
easily subjecting my belief, I owe principally to myself; for the
strongest and most general imaginations I have are those that, as a man
may say, were born with me; they are natural and entirely my own. I
produced them crude and simple, with a strong and bold production, but a
little troubled and imperfect; I have since established and fortified
them with the authority of others and the sound examples of the
ancients, whom I have found of the same judgment: they have given me
faster hold, and a more manifest fruition and possession of that I had
before embraced. The reputation that every one pretends to of vivacity
and promptness of wit, I seek in regularity; the glory they pretend to
from a striking and signal action, or some particular excellence, I
claim from order, correspondence, and tranquillity of opinions and
manners:
"Omnino si quidquam est decorum, nihil est profecto magis, quam
aequabilitas universae vitae, tum singularum actionum, quam
conservare non possis, si, aliorum naturam imitans, omittas tuam."
["If anything be entirely decorous, nothing certainly can be more so
than an equability alike in the whole life and in every particular
action; which thou canst not possibly observe if, imitating other
men's natures, thou layest aside thy own."—Cicero, De Of., i. 31.]
Here, then, you see to what degree I find myself guilty of this first
part, that I said was the vice of presumption. As to the second, which
consists in not having a sufficient esteem for others, I know not
whether or no I can so well excuse myself; but whatever comes on't I am
resolved to speak the truth. And whether, peradventure, it be that the
continual frequentation I have had with the humours of the ancients, and
the idea of those great souls of past ages, put me out of taste both
with others and myself, or that, in truth, the age we live in produces
but very indifferent things, yet so it is that I see nothing worthy of
any great admiration. Neither, indeed, have I so great an intimacy with
many men as is requisite to make a right judgment of them; and those
with whom my condition makes me the most frequent, are, for the most
part, men who have little care of the culture of the soul, but that look
upon honour as the sum of all blessings, and valour as the height of all
perfection.
What I see that is fine in others I very readily commend and esteem:
nay, I often say more in their commendation than I think they really
deserve, and give myself so far leave to lie, for I cannot invent a
false subject: my testimony is never wanting to my friends in what I
conceive deserves praise, and where a foot is due I am willing to give
them a foot and a half; but to attribute to them qualities that they
have not, I cannot do it, nor openly defend their imperfections. Nay, I
frankly give my very enemies their due testimony of honour; my affection
alters, my judgment does not, and I never confound my animosity with
other circumstances that are foreign to it; and I am so jealous of the
liberty of my judgment that I can very hardly part with it for any
passion whatever. I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of
whom I tell a lie. This commendable and generous custom is observed of
the Persian nation, that they spoke of their mortal enemies and with
whom they were at deadly war, as honourably and justly as their virtues
deserved.
I know men enough that have several fine parts; one wit, another
courage, another address, another conscience, another language: one
science, another, another; but a generally great man, and who has all
these brave parts together, or any one of them to such a degree of
excellence that we should admire him or compare him with those we honour
of times past, my fortune never brought me acquainted with; and the
greatest I ever knew, I mean for the natural parts of the soul, was
Etienne De la Boetie; his was a full soul indeed, and that had every way
a beautiful aspect: a soul of the old stamp, and that had produced great
effects had his fortune been so pleased, having added much to those
great natural parts by learning and study.
But how it comes to pass I know not, and yet it is certainly so,
there is as much vanity and weakness of judgment in those who profess
the greatest abilities, who take upon them learned callings and bookish
employments as in any other sort of men whatever; either because more is
required and expected from them, and that common defects are excusable
in them, or because the opinion they have of their own learning makes
them more bold to expose and lay themselves too open, by which they lose
and betray themselves. As an artificer more manifests his want of skill
in a rich matter he has in hand, if he disgrace the work by ill handling
and contrary to the rules required, than in a matter of less value; and
men are more displeased at a disproportion in a statue of gold than in
one of plaster; so do these when they advance things that in themselves
and in their place would be good; for they make use of them without
discretion, honouring their memories at the expense of their
understandings, and making themselves ridiculous by honouring Cicero,
Galen, Ulpian, and St. Jerome alike.
I willingly fall again into the discourse of the vanity of our
education, the end of which is not to render us good and wise, but
learned, and she has obtained it. She has not taught us to follow and
embrace virtue and prudence, but she has imprinted in us their
derivation and etymology; we know how to decline Virtue, if we know not
how to love it; if we do not know what prudence is really and in effect,
and by experience, we have it however by jargon and heart: we are not
content to know the extraction, kindred, and alliances of our
neighbours; we desire, moreover, to have them our friends and to
establish a correspondence and intelligence with them; but this
education of ours has taught us definitions, divisions, and partitions
of virtue, as so many surnames and branches of a genealogy, without any
further care of establishing any familiarity or intimacy betwixt her and
us. It has culled out for our initiatory instruction not such books as
contain the soundest and truest opinions, but those that speak the best
Greek and Latin, and by their fine words has instilled into our fancy
the vainest humours of antiquity.
A good education alters the judgment and manners; as it happened to
Polemon, a lewd and debauched young Greek, who going by chance to hear
one of Xenocrates' lectures, did not only observe the eloquence and
learning of the reader, and not only brought away, the knowledge of some
fine matter, but a more manifest and more solid profit, which was the
sudden change and reformation of his former life. Whoever found such an
effect of our discipline?
"Faciasne, quod olim
Mutatus Polemon? ponas insignia morbi
Fasciolas, cubital, focalia; potus ut ille
Dicitur ex collo furtim carpsisse coronas,
Postquam est impransi correptus voce magistri?"
["Will you do what reformed Polemon did of old? will you lay aside
the joys of your disease, your garters, capuchin, muffler, as he in
his cups is said to have secretly torn off his garlands from his
neck when he heard what that temperate teacher said?"
—Horace, Sat., ii. 3, 253]
That seems to me to be the least contemptible condition of men, which
by its plainness and simplicity is seated in the lowest degree, and
invites us to a more regular course. I find the rude manners and
language of country people commonly better suited to the rule and
prescription of true philosophy, than those of our philosophers
themselves:
"Plus sapit vulgus, quia tantum, quantum opus est, sapit."
["The vulgar are so much the wiser, because they only know what
is needful for them to know."—Lactantms, Instit. Div., iii. 5.]
The most remarkable men, as I have judged by outward appearance (for
to judge of them according to my own method, I must penetrate a great
deal deeper), for soldiers and military conduct, were the Duc de Guise,
who died at Orleans, and the late Marshal Strozzi; and for men of great
ability and no common virtue, Olivier and De l'Hospital, Chancellors of
France. Poetry, too, in my opinion, has flourished in this age of ours;
we have abundance of very good artificers in the trade: D'Aurat, Beza,
Buchanan, L'Hospital, Montdore, Turnebus; as to the French poets, I
believe they raised their art to the highest pitch to which it can ever
arrive; and in those parts of it wherein Ronsard and Du Bellay excel, I
find them little inferior to the ancient perfection. Adrian Turnebus
knew more, and what he did know, better than any man of his time, or
long before him. The lives of the last Duke of Alva, and of our
Constable de Montmorency, were both of them great and noble, and that
had many rare resemblances of fortune; but the beauty and glory of the
death of the last, in the sight of Paris and of his king, in their
service, against his nearest relations, at the head of an army through
his conduct victorious, and by a sudden stroke, in so extreme old age,
merits methinks to be recorded amongst the most remarkable events of our
times. As also the constant goodness, sweetness of manners, and
conscientious facility of Monsieur de la Noue, in so great an injustice
of armed parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, and robbery),
wherein he always kept up the reputation of a great and experienced
captain.
I have taken a delight to publish in several places the hopes I have
of Marie de Gournay le Jars,
[She was adopted by him in 1588. See Leon Feugere's Mademoiselle
de Gournay: 'Etude sur sa Vie et ses Ouvrages'.]
my adopted daughter; and certainly beloved by me more than
paternally, and enveloped in my retirement and solitude as one of the
best parts of my own being: I have no longer regard to anything in this
world but her. And if a man may presage from her youth, her soul will
one day be capable of very great things; and amongst others, of the
perfection of that sacred friendship, to which we do not read that any
of her sex could ever yet arrive; the sincerity and solidity of her
manners are already sufficient for it, and her affection towards me more
than superabundant, and such, in short, as that there is nothing more to
be wished, if not that the apprehension she has of my end, being now
five-and-fifty years old, might not so much afflict her. The judgment
she made of my first Essays, being a woman, so young, and in this age,
and alone in her own country; and the famous vehemence wherewith she
loved me, and desired my acquaintance solely from the esteem she had
thence of me, before she ever saw my face, is an incident very worthy of
consideration.
Other virtues have had little or no credit in this age; but valour is
become popular by our civil wars; and in this, we have souls brave even
to perfection, and in so great number that the choice is impossible to
make.
This is all of extraordinary and uncommon grandeur that has hitherto
arrived at my knowledge.
CHAPTER XVIII——OF GIVING THE LIE
Well, but some one will say to me, this design of making a man's self
the subject of his writing, were indeed excusable in rare and famous
men, who by their reputation had given others a curiosity to be fully
informed of them. It is most true, I confess and know very well, that a
mechanic will scarce lift his eyes from his work to look at an ordinary
man, whereas a man will forsake his business and his shop to stare at an
eminent person when he comes into a town. It misbecomes any other to
give his own character, but him who has qualities worthy of imitation,
and whose life and opinions may serve for example: Caesar and Xenophon
had a just and solid foundation whereon to found their narrations, the
greatness of their own performances; and were to be wished that we had
the journals of Alexander the Great, the commentaries that Augustus,
Cato, Sylla, Brutus, and others left of their actions; of such persons
men love and contemplate the very statues even in copper and marble.
This remonstrance is very true; but it very little concerns me:
"Non recito cuiquam, nisi amicis, idque coactus;
Non ubivis, coramve quibuslibet, in medio qui
Scripta foro recitant, sunt multi, quique lavantes."
["I repeat my poems only to my friends, and when bound to do so;
not before every one and everywhere; there are plenty of reciters
in the open market-place and at the baths."—Horace, sat. i. 4, 73.]
I do not here form a statue to erect in the great square of a city,
in a church, or any public place:
"Non equidem hoc studeo, bullatis ut mihi nugis,
Pagina turgescat......
Secreti loquimur:"
["I study not to make my pages swell with empty trifles;
you and I are talking in private."—Persius, Sat., v. 19.]
'tis for some corner of a library, or to entertain a neighbour, a
kinsman, a friend, who has a mind to renew his acquaintance and
familiarity with me in this image of myself. Others have been encouraged
to speak of themselves, because they found the subject worthy and rich;
I, on the contrary, am the bolder, by reason the subject is so poor and
sterile that I cannot be suspected of ostentation. I judge freely of the
actions of others; I give little of my own to judge of, because they are
nothing: I do not find so much good in myself, that I cannot tell it
without blushing.
What contentment would it not be to me to hear any one thus relate to
me the manners, faces, countenances, the ordinary words and fortunes of
my ancestors? how attentively should I listen to it! In earnest, it
would be evil nature to despise so much as the pictures of our friends
and predecessors, the fashion of their clothes and arms. I preserve
their writing, seal, and a particular sword they wore, and have not
thrown the long staves my father used to carry in his hand, out of my
closet.
"Paterna vestis, et annulus, tanto charior est
posteris, quanto erga parentes major affectus."
["A father's garment and ring is by so much dearer to his posterity,
as there is the greater affection towards parents."
—St. Aug., De Civat. Dei, i. 13.]
If my posterity, nevertheless, shall be of another mind, I shall be
avenged on them; for they cannot care less for me than I shall then do
for them. All the traffic that I have in this with the public is, that I
borrow their utensils of writing, which are more easy and most at hand;
and in recompense shall, peradventure, keep a pound of butter in the
market from melting in the sun:—[Montaigne semi-seriously speculates on
the possibility of his MS. being used to wrap up butter.]
"Ne toga cordyllis, ne penula desit olivis;
Et laxas scombris saepe dabo tunicas;"
["Let not wrappers be wanting to tunny-fish, nor olives;
and I shall supply loose coverings to mackerel."
—Martial, xiii. I, I.]
And though nobody should read me, have I wasted time in entertaining
myself so many idle hours in so pleasing and useful thoughts? In
moulding this figure upon myself, I have been so often constrained to
temper and compose myself in a right posture, that the copy is truly
taken, and has in some sort formed itself; painting myself for others, I
represent myself in a better colouring than my own natural complexion. I
have no more made my book than my book has made me: 'tis a book
consubstantial with the author, of a peculiar design, a parcel of my
life, and whose business is not designed for others, as that of all
other books is. In giving myself so continual and so exact an account of
myself, have I lost my time? For they who sometimes cursorily survey
themselves only, do not so strictly examine themselves, nor penetrate so
deep, as he who makes it his business, his study, and his employment,
who intends a lasting record, with all his fidelity, and with all his
force: The most delicious pleasures digested within, avoid leaving any
trace of themselves, and avoid the sight not only of the people, but of
any other person. How often has this work diverted me from troublesome
thoughts? and all that are frivolous should be reputed so. Nature has
presented us with a large faculty of entertaining ourselves alone; and
often calls us to it, to teach us that we owe ourselves in part to
society, but chiefly and mostly to ourselves. That I may habituate my
fancy even to meditate in some method and to some end, and to keep it
from losing itself and roving at random, 'tis but to give to body and to
record all the little thoughts that present themselves to it. I give ear
to my whimsies, because I am to record them. It often falls out, that
being displeased at some action that civility and reason will not permit
me openly to reprove, I here disgorge myself, not without design of
public instruction: and also these poetical lashes,
"Zon zur l'oeil, ion sur le groin,
Zon zur le dos du Sagoin,"
["A slap on his eye, a slap on his snout, a slap on Sagoin's
back."—Marot. Fripelippes, Valet de Marot a Sagoin.]
imprint themselves better upon paper than upon the flesh. What if I
listen to books a little more attentively than ordinary, since I watch
if I can purloin anything that may adorn or support my own? I have not
at all studied to make a book; but I have in some sort studied because I
had made it; if it be studying to scratch and pinch now one author, and
then another, either by the head or foot, not with any design to form
opinions from them, but to assist, second, and fortify those I already
have embraced. But whom shall we believe in the report he makes of
himself in so corrupt an age? considering there are so few, if, any at
all, whom we can believe when speaking of others, where there is less
interest to lie. The first thing done in the corruption of manners is
banishing truth; for, as Pindar says, to be true is the beginning of a
great virtue, and the first article that Plato requires in the governor
of his Republic. The truth of these days is not that which really is,
but what every man persuades another man to believe; as we generally
give the name of money not only to pieces of the dust alloy, but even to
the false also, if they will pass. Our nation has long been reproached
with this vice; for Salvianus of Marseilles, who lived in the time of
the Emperor Valentinian, says that lying and forswearing themselves is
with the French not a vice, but a way of speaking. He who would enhance
this testimony, might say that it is now a virtue in them; men form and
fashion themselves to it as to an exercise of honour; for dissimulation
is one of the most notable qualities of this age.
I have often considered whence this custom that we so religiously
observe should spring, of being more highly offended with the reproach
of a vice so familiar to us than with any other, and that it should be
the highest insult that can in words be done us to reproach us with a
lie. Upon examination, I find that it is natural most to defend the
defects with which we are most tainted. It seems as if by resenting and
being moved at the accusation, we in some sort acquit ourselves of the
fault; though we have it in effect, we condemn it in outward appearance.
May it not also be that this reproach seems to imply cowardice and
feebleness of heart? of which can there be a more manifest sign than to
eat a man's own words—nay, to lie against a man's own knowledge? Lying
is a base vice; a vice that one of the ancients portrays in the most
odious colours when he says, "that it is to manifest a contempt of God,
and withal a fear of men." It is not possible more fully to represent
the horror, baseness, and irregularity of it; for what can a man imagine
more hateful and contemptible than to be a coward towards men, and
valiant against his Maker? Our intelligence being by no other way
communicable to one another but by a particular word, he who falsifies
that betrays public society. 'Tis the only way by which we communicate
our thoughts and wills; 'tis the interpreter of the soul, and if it
deceive us, we no longer know nor have further tie upon one another; if
that deceive us, it breaks all our correspondence, and dissolves all the
ties of government. Certain nations of the newly discovered Indies (I
need not give them names, seeing they are no more; for, by wonderful and
unheardof example, the desolation of that conquest has extended to the
utter abolition of names and the ancient knowledge of places) offered to
their gods human blood, but only such as was drawn from the tongue and
ears, to expiate for the sin of lying, as well heard as pronounced. That
good fellow of Greece—[Plutarch, Life of Lysander, c. 4.]—said that
children are amused with toys and men with words.
As to our diverse usages of giving the lie, and the laws of honour in
that case, and the alteration they have received, I defer saying what I
know of them to another time, and shall learn, if I can, in the
meanwhile, at what time the custom took beginning of so exactly weighing
and measuring words, and of making our honour interested in them; for it
is easy to judge that it was not anciently amongst the Romans and
Greeks. And it has often seemed to me strange to see them rail at and
give one another the lie without any quarrel. Their laws of duty steered
some other course than ours. Caesar is sometimes called thief, and
sometimes drunkard, to his teeth. We see the liberty of invective they
practised upon one another, I mean the greatest chiefs of war of both
nations, where words are only revenged with words, and do not proceed
any farther.
CHAPTER XIX——OF LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE
'Tis usual to see good intentions, if carried on without moderation,
push men on to very vicious effects. In this dispute which has at this
time engaged France in a civil war, the better and the soundest cause no
doubt is that which maintains the ancient religion and government of the
kingdom. Nevertheless, amongst the good men of that party (for I do not
speak of those who only make a pretence of it, either to execute their
own particular revenges or to gratify their avarice, or to conciliate
the favour of princes, but of those who engage in the quarrel out of
true zeal to religion and a holy desire to maintain the peace and
government of their country), of these, I say, we see many whom passion
transports beyond the bounds of reason, and sometimes inspires with
counsels that are unjust and violent, and, moreover, rash.
It is certain that in those first times, when our religion began to
gain authority with the laws, zeal armed many against all sorts of pagan
books, by which the learned suffered an exceeding great loss, a disorder
that I conceive to have done more prejudice to letters than all the
flames of the barbarians. Of this Cornelius Tacitus is a very good
testimony; for though the Emperor Tacitus, his kinsman, had, by express
order, furnished all the libraries in the world with it, nevertheless
one entire copy could not escape the curious examination of those who
desired to abolish it for only five or six idle clauses that were
contrary to our belief.
They had also the trick easily to lend undue praises to all the
emperors who made for us, and universally to condemn all the actions of
those who were adversaries, as is evidently manifest in the Emperor
Julian, surnamed the Apostate,
[The character of the Emperor Julian was censured, when Montaigne
was at Rome in 1581, by the Master of the Sacred Palace, who,
however, as Montaigne tells us in his journal (ii. 35), referred it
to his conscience to alter what he should think in bad taste. This
Montaigne did not do, and this chapter supplied Voltaire with the
greater part of the praises he bestowed upon the Emperor.—Leclerc.]
who was, in truth, a very great and rare man, a man in whose soul
philosophy was imprinted in the best characters, by which he professed
to govern all his actions; and, in truth, there is no sort of virtue of
which he has not left behind him very notable examples: in chastity (of
which the whole of his life gave manifest proof) we read the same of him
that was said of Alexander and Scipio, that being in the flower of his
age, for he was slain by the Parthians at one-and-thirty, of a great
many very beautiful captives, he would not so much as look upon one. As
to his justice, he took himself the pains to hear the parties, and
although he would out of curiosity inquire what religion they were of,
nevertheless, the antipathy he had to ours never gave any counterpoise
to the balance. He made himself several good laws, and repealed a great
part of the subsidies and taxes levied by his predecessors.
We have two good historians who were eyewitnesses of his actions: one
of whom, Marcellinus, in several places of his history sharply reproves
an edict of his whereby he interdicted all Christian rhetoricians and
grammarians to keep school or to teach, and says he could wish that act
of his had been buried in silence: it is probable that had he done any
more severe thing against us, he, so affectionate as he was to our
party, would not have passed it over in silence. He was indeed sharp
against us, but yet no cruel enemy; for our own people tell this story
of him, that one day, walking about the city of Chalcedon, Maris, bishop
of the place; was so bold as to tell him that he was impious, and an
enemy to Christ, at which, they say, he was no further moved than to
reply, "Go, poor wretch, and lament the loss of thy eyes," to which the
bishop replied again, "I thank Jesus Christ for taking away my sight,
that I may not see thy impudent visage," affecting in that, they say, a
philosophical patience. But this action of his bears no comparison to
the cruelty that he is said to have exercised against us. "He was," says
Eutropius, my other witness, "an enemy to Christianity, but without
putting his hand to blood." And, to return to his justice, there is
nothing in that whereof he can be accused, the severity excepted he
practised in the beginning of his reign against those who had followed
the party of Constantius, his predecessor. As to his sobriety, he lived
always a soldier-like life; and observed a diet and routine, like one
that prepared and inured himself to the austerities of war. His
vigilance was such, that he divided the night into three or four parts,
of which the least was dedicated to sleep; the rest was spent either in
visiting the state of his army and guards in person, or in study; for
amongst other rare qualities, he was very excellent in all sorts of
learning. 'Tis said of Alexander the Great, that being in bed, for fear
lest sleep should divert him from his thoughts and studies, he had
always a basin set by his bedside, and held one of his hands out with a
ball of copper in it, to the end, that, beginning to fall asleep, and
his fingers leaving their hold, the ball by falling into the basin,
might awake him. But the other had his soul so bent upon what he had a
mind to do, and so little disturbed with fumes by reason of his singular
abstinence, that he had no need of any such invention. As to his
military experience, he was excellent in all the qualities of a great
captain, as it was likely he should, being almost all his life in a
continual exercise of war, and most of that time with us in France,
against the Germans and Franks: we hardly read of any man who ever saw
more dangers, or who made more frequent proofs of his personal valour.
His death has something in it parallel with that of Epaminondas, for
he was wounded with an arrow, and tried to pull it out, and had done so,
but that, being edged, it cut and disabled his hand. He incessantly
called out that they should carry him again into the heat of the battle,
to encourage his soldiers, who very bravely disputed the fight without
him, till night parted the armies. He stood obliged to his philosophy
for the singular contempt he had for his life and all human things. He
had a firm belief of the immortality of souls.
In matter of religion he was wrong throughout, and was surnamed the
Apostate for having relinquished ours: nevertheless, the opinion seems
to me more probable, that he had never thoroughly embraced it, but had
dissembled out of obedience to the laws, till he came to the empire. He
was in his own so superstitious, that he was laughed at for it by those
of his own time, of the same opinion, who jeeringly said, that had he
got the victory over the Parthians, he had destroyed the breed of oxen
in the world to supply his sacrifices. He was, moreover, besotted with
the art of divination, and gave authority to all sorts of predictions.
He said, amongst other things at his death, that he was obliged to the
gods, and thanked them, in that they would not cut him off by surprise,
having long before advertised him of the place and hour of his death,
nor by a mean and unmanly death, more becoming lazy and delicate people;
nor by a death that was languishing, long, and painful; and that they
had thought him worthy to die after that noble manner, in the progress
of his victories, in the flower of his glory. He had a vision like that
of Marcus Brutus, that first threatened him in Gaul, and afterward
appeared to him in Persia just before his death. These words that some
make him say when he felt himself wounded: "Thou hast overcome,
Nazarene"; or as others, "Content thyself, Nazarene"; would hardly have
been omitted, had they been believed, by my witnesses, who, being
present in the army, have set down to the least motions and words of his
end; no more than certain other miracles that are reported about it.
And to return to my subject, he long nourished, says Marcellinus,
paganism in his heart; but all his army being Christians, he durst not
own it. But in the end, seeing himself strong enough to dare to discover
himself, he caused the temples of the gods to be thrown open, and did
his uttermost to set on foot and to encourage idolatry. Which the better
to effect, having at Constantinople found the people disunited, and also
the prelates of the church divided amongst themselves, having convened
them all before him, he earnestly admonished them to calm those civil
dissensions, and that every one might freely, and without fear, follow
his own religion. Which he the more sedulously solicited, in hope that
this licence would augment the schisms and factions of their division,
and hinder the people from reuniting, and consequently fortifying
themselves against him by their unanimous intelligence and concord;
having experienced by the cruelty of some Christians, that there is no
beast in the world so much to be feared by man as man; these are very
nearly his words.
Wherein this is very worthy of consideration, that the Emperor Julian
made use of the same receipt of liberty of conscience to inflame the
civil dissensions that our kings do to extinguish them. So that a man
may say on one side, that to give the people the reins to entertain
every man his own opinion, is to scatter and sow division, and, as it
were, to lend a hand to augment it, there being no legal impediment or
restraint to stop or hinder their career; but, on the other side, a man
may also say, that to give the people the reins to entertain every man
his own opinion, is to mollify and appease them by facility and
toleration, and to dull the point which is whetted and made sharper by
singularity, novelty, and difficulty: and I think it is better for the
honour of the devotion of our kings, that not having been able to do
what they would, they have made a show of being willing to do what they
could.
CHAPTER XX——THAT WE TASTE NOTHING PURE
The feebleness of our condition is such that things cannot, in their
natural simplicity and purity, fall into our use; the elements that we
enjoy are changed, and so 'tis with metals; and gold must be debased
with some other matter to fit it for our service. Neither has virtue, so
simple as that which Aristo, Pyrrho, and also the Stoics, made the end
of life; nor the Cyrenaic and Aristippic pleasure, been without mixture
useful to it. Of the pleasure and goods that we enjoy, there is not one
exempt from some mixture of ill and inconvenience:
"Medio de fonte leporum,
Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis fioribus angat."
["From the very fountain of our pleasure, something rises that is
bitter, which even in flowers destroys."—Lucretius, iv. 1130.]
Our extremest pleasure has some sort of groaning and complaining in
it; would you not say that it is dying of pain? Nay, when we frame the
image of it in its full excellence, we stuff it with sickly and painful
epithets and qualities, languor, softness, feebleness, faintness,
'morbidezza': a great testimony of their consanguinity and
consubstantiality. The most profound joy has more of severity than
gaiety, in it. The highest and fullest contentment offers more of the
grave than of the merry:
"Ipsa felicitas, se nisi temperat, premit."
["Even felicity, unless it moderate itself, oppresses?"
—Seneca, Ep. 74.]
Pleasure chews and grinds us; according to the old Greek verse, which
says that the gods sell us all the goods they give us; that is to say,
that they give us nothing pure and perfect, and that we do not purchase
but at the price of some evil.
Labour and pleasure, very unlike in nature, associate, nevertheless,
by I know not what natural conjunction. Socrates says, that some god
tried to mix in one mass and to confound pain and pleasure, but not
being able to do it; he bethought him at least to couple them by the
tail. Metrodorus said, that in sorrow there is some mixture of pleasure.
I know not whether or no he intended anything else by that saying; but
for my part, I am of opinion that there is design, consent, and
complacency in giving a man's self up to melancholy. I say, that besides
ambition, which may also have a stroke in the business, there is some
shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in
the very lap of melancholy. Are there not some constitutions that feed
upon it?
"Est quaedam flere voluptas;"
["'Tis a certain kind of pleasure to weep."
—Ovid, Trist., iv. 3, 27.]
and one Attalus in Seneca says, that the memory of our lost friends
is as grateful to us, as bitterness in wine, when too old, is to the
palate:
"Minister vetuli, puer, Falerni
Inger' mi calices amariores"—
["Boy, when you pour out old Falernian wine, the bitterest put
into my bowl."—Catullus, xxvii. I.]
and as apples that have a sweet tartness.
Nature discovers this confusion to us; painters hold that the same
motions and grimaces of the face that serve for weeping; serve for
laughter too; and indeed, before the one or the other be finished, do
but observe the painter's manner of handling, and you will be in doubt
to which of the two the design tends; and the extreme of laughter does
at last bring tears:
"Nullum sine auctoramento malum est."
["No evil is without its compensation."—Seneca, Ep., 69.]
When I imagine man abounding with all the conveniences that are to be
desired (let us put the case that all his members were always seized
with a pleasure like that of generation, in its most excessive height) I
feel him melting under the weight of his delight, and see him utterly
unable to support so pure, so continual, and so universal a pleasure.
Indeed, he is running away whilst he is there, and naturally makes haste
to escape, as from a place where he cannot stand firm, and where he is
afraid of sinking.
When I religiously confess myself to myself, I find that the best
virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice; and I am afraid that
Plato, in his purest virtue (I, who am as sincere and loyal a lover of
virtue of that stamp as any other whatever), if he had listened and laid
his ear close to himself and he did so no doubt—would have heard some
jarring note of human mixture, but faint and only perceptible to
himself. Man is wholly and throughout but patch and motley. Even the
laws of justice themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice;
insomuch that Plato says, they undertake to cut off the hydra's head,
who pretend to clear the law of all inconveniences:
"Omne magnum exemplum habet aliquid ex iniquo,
quod contra singulos utilitate publics rependitur,"
["Every great example has in it some mixture of injustice, which
recompenses the wrong done to particular men by the public utility."
—Annals, xiv. 44.]
says Tacitus.
It is likewise true, that for the use of life and the service of
public commerce, there may be some excesses in the purity and
perspicacity of our minds; that penetrating light has in it too much of
subtlety and curiosity: we must a little stupefy and blunt them to
render them more obedient to example and practice, and a little veil and
obscure them, the better to proportion them to this dark and earthly
life. And therefore common and less speculative souls are found to be
more proper for and more successful in the management of affairs, and
the elevated and exquisite opinions of philosophy unfit for business.
This sharp vivacity of soul, and the supple and restless volubility
attending it, disturb our negotiations. We are to manage human
enterprises more superficially and roughly, and leave a great part to
fortune; it is not necessary to examine affairs with so much subtlety
and so deep: a man loses himself in the consideration of many contrary
lustres, and so many various forms:
"Volutantibus res inter se pugnantes, obtorpuerunt.... animi."
["Whilst they considered of things so indifferent in themselves,
they were astonished, and knew not what to do."—Livy, xxxii. 20.]
'Tis what the ancients say of Simonides, that by reason his
imagination suggested to him, upon the question King Hiero had put to
him—[What God was.—Cicero, De Nat. Deor., i. 22.]—(to answer which he
had had many days for thought), several sharp and subtle considerations,
whilst he doubted which was the most likely, he totally despaired of the
truth.
He who dives into and in his inquisition comprehends all
circumstances and consequences, hinders his election: a little engine
well handled is sufficient for executions, whether of less or greater
weight. The best managers are those who can worst give account how they
are so; while the greatest talkers, for the most part, do nothing to
purpose; I know one of this sort of men, and a most excellent discourser
upon all sorts of good husbandry, who has miserably let a hundred
thousand livres yearly revenue slip through his hands; I know another
who talks, who better advises than any man of his counsel, and there is
not in the world a fairer show of soul and understanding than he has;
nevertheless, when he comes to the test, his servants find him quite
another thing; not to make any mention of his misfortunes.
CHAPTER XXI——AGAINST IDLENESS
The Emperor Vespasian, being sick of the disease whereof he died, did
not for all that neglect to inquire after the state of the empire, and
even in bed continually despatched very many affairs of great
consequence; for which, being reproved by his physician, as a thing
prejudicial to his health, "An emperor," said he, "must die standing." A
fine saying, in my opinion, and worthy a great prince. The Emperor
Adrian since made use of the same words, and kings should be often put
in mind of them, to make them know that the great office conferred upon
them of the command of so many men, is not an employment of ease; and
that there is nothing can so justly disgust a subject, and make him
unwilling to expose himself to labour and danger for the service of his
prince, than to see him, in the meantime, devoted to his ease and
frivolous amusement, and to be solicitous of his preservation who so
much neglects that of his people.
Whoever will take upon him to maintain that 'tis better for a prince
to carry on his wars by others, than in his own person, fortune will
furnish him with examples enough of those whose lieutenants have brought
great enterprises to a happy issue, and of those also whose presence has
done more hurt than good: but no virtuous and valiant prince can with
patience endure so dishonourable councils. Under colour of saving his
head, like the statue of a saint, for the happiness of his kingdom, they
degrade him from and declare him incapable of his office, which is
military throughout: I know one—[Probably Henry IV.]—who had much rather
be beaten, than to sleep whilst another fights for him; and who never
without jealousy heard of any brave thing done even by his own officers
in his absence. And Soliman I. said, with very good reason, in my
opinion, that victories obtained without the master were never complete.
Much more would he have said that that master ought to blush for shame,
to pretend to any share in the honour, having contributed nothing to the
work, but his voice and thought; nor even so much as these, considering
that in such work as that, the direction and command that deserve honour
are only such as are given upon the spot, and in the heat of the
business. No pilot performs his office by standing still. The princes of
the Ottoman family, the chiefest in the world in military fortune, have
warmly embraced this opinion, and Bajazet II., with his son, who swerved
from it, spending their time in science and other retired employments,
gave great blows to their empire; and Amurath III., now reigning,
following their example, begins to find the same. Was it not Edward
III., King of England, who said this of our Charles V.: "There never was
king who so seldom put on his armour, and yet never king who gave me so
much to do." He had reason to think it strange, as an effect of chance
more than of reason. And let those seek out some other to join with them
than me, who will reckon the Kings of Castile and Portugal amongst the
warlike and magnanimous conquerors, because at the distance of twelve
hundred leagues from their lazy abode, by the conduct of their captains,
they made themselves masters of both Indies; of which it has to be known
if they would have had even the courage to go and in person enjoy them.
The Emperor Julian said yet further, that a philosopher and a brave
man ought not so much as to breathe; that is to say, not to allow any
more to bodily necessities than what we cannot refuse; keeping the soul
and body still intent and busy about honourable, great, and virtuous
things. He was ashamed if any one in public saw him spit, or sweat
(which is said by some, also, of the Lacedaemonian young men, and which
Xenophon says of the Persian), forasmuch as he conceived that exercise,
continual labour, and sobriety, ought to have dried up all those
superfluities. What Seneca says will not be unfit for this place; which
is, that the ancient Romans kept their youth always standing, and taught
them nothing that they were to learn sitting.
'Tis a generous desire to wish to die usefully and like a man, but
the effect lies not so much in our resolution as in our good fortune; a
thousand have proposed to themselves in battle, either to overcome or to
die, who have failed both in the one and the other, wounds and
imprisonment crossing their design and compelling them to live against
their will. There are diseases that overthrow even our desires, and our
knowledge. Fortune ought not to second the vanity of the Roman legions,
who bound themselves by oath, either to overcome or die:
"Victor, Marce Fabi, revertar ex acie: si fallo, Jovem patrem,
Gradivumque Martem aliosque iratos invoco deos."
["I will return, Marcus Fabius, a conqueror, from the fight:
and if I fail, I invoke Father Jove, Mars Gradivus, and the
other angry gods."—Livy, ii. 45.]
The Portuguese say that in a certain place of their conquest of the
Indies, they met with soldiers who had condemned themselves, with
horrible execrations, to enter into no other composition but either to
cause themselves to be slain, or to remain victorious; and had their
heads and beards shaved in token of this vow. 'Tis to much purpose for
us to hazard ourselves and to be obstinate: it seems as if blows avoided
those who present themselves too briskly to them, and do not willingly
fall upon those who too willingly seek them, and so defeat them of their
design. Such there have been, who, after having tried all ways, not
having been able with all their endeavour to obtain the favour of dying
by the hand of the enemy, have been constrained, to make good their
resolution of bringing home the honour of victory or of losing their
lives, to kill themselves even in the heat of battle. Of which there are
other examples, but this is one: Philistus, general of the naval army of
Dionysius the younger against the Syracusans, presented them battle
which was sharply disputed, their forces being equal: in this
engagement, he had the better at the first, through his own valour: but
the Syracusans drawing about his gally to environ him, after having done
great things in his own person to disengage himself and hoping for no
relief, with his own hand he took away the life he had so liberally, and
in vain, exposed to the enemy.
Mule Moloch, king of Fez, who lately won against Sebastian, king of
Portugal, the battle so famous for the death of three kings, and for the
transmission of that great kingdom to the crown of Castile, was
extremely sick when the Portuguese entered in an hostile manner into his
dominions; and from that day forward grew worse and worse, still drawing
nearer to and foreseeing his end; yet never did man better employ his
own sufficiency more vigorously and bravely than he did upon this
occasion. He found himself too weak to undergo the pomp and ceremony of
entering. into his camp, which after their manner is very magnificent,
and therefore resigned that honour to his brother; but this was all of
the office of a general that he resigned; all the rest of greatest
utility and necessity he most, exactly and gloriously performed in his
own person; his body lying upon a couch, but his judgment and courage
upright and firm to his last gasp, and in some sort beyond it. He might
have wasted his enemy, indiscreetly advanced into his dominions, without
striking a blow; and it was a very unhappy occurrence, that for want of
a little life or somebody to substitute in the conduct of this war and
the affairs of a troubled state, he was compelled to seek a doubtful and
bloody victory, having another by a better and surer way already in his
hands. Notwithstanding, he wonderfully managed the continuance of his
sickness in consuming the enemy, and in drawing them far from the
assistance of the navy and the ports they had on the coast of Africa,
even till the last day of his life, which he designedly reserved for
this great battle. He arranged his battalions in a circular form,
environing the Portuguese army on every side, which round circle coming
to close in and to draw up close together, not only hindered them in the
conflict (which was very sharp through the valour of the young invading
king), considering that they had every way to present a front, but
prevented their flight after the defeat, so that finding all passages
possessed and shut up by the enemy, they were constrained to close up
together again:
"Coacerventurque non solum caede, sed etiam fuga,"
["Piled up not only in slaughter but in flight."]
and there they were slain in heaps upon one another, leaving to the
conqueror a very bloody and entire victory. Dying, he caused himself to
be carried and hurried from place to place where most need was, and
passing along the files, encouraged the captains and soldiers one after
another; but a corner of his main battalions being broken, he was not to
be held from mounting on horseback with his sword in his hand; he did
his utmost to break from those about him, and to rush into the thickest
of the battle, they all the while withholding him, some by the bridle,
some by his robe, and others by his stirrups. This last effort totally
overwhelmed the little life he had left; they again laid him upon his
bed; but coming to himself, and starting as it were out of his swoon,
all other faculties failing, to give his people notice that they were to
conceal his death the most necessary command he had then to give, that
his soldiers might not be discouraged (with the news) he expired with
his finger upon his mouth, the ordinary sign of keeping silence. Who
ever lived so long and so far into death? whoever died so erect, or more
like a man?
The most extreme degree of courageously treating death, and the most
natural, is to look upon it not only without astonishment but without
care, continuing the wonted course of life even into it, as Cato did,
who entertained himself in study, and went to sleep, having a violent
and bloody death in his heart, and the weapon in his hand with which he
was resolved to despatch himself.
CHAPTER XXII——OF POSTING
I have been none of the least able in this exercise, which is proper
for men of my pitch, well-knit and short; but I give it over; it shakes
us too much to continue it long. I was at this moment reading, that King
Cyrus, the better to have news brought him from all parts of the empire,
which was of a vast extent, caused it to be tried how far a horse could
go in a day without baiting, and at that distance appointed men, whose
business it was to have horses always in readiness, to mount those who
were despatched to him; and some say, that this swift way of posting is
equal to that of the flight of cranes.
Caesar says, that Lucius Vibullius Rufus, being in great haste to
carry intelligence to Pompey, rode night and day, still taking fresh
horses for the greater diligence and speed; and he himself, as Suetonius
reports, travelled a hundred miles a day in a hired coach; but he was a
furious courier, for where the rivers stopped his way he passed them by
swimming, without turning out of his way to look for either bridge or
ford. Tiberius Nero, going to see his brother Drusus, who was sick in
Germany, travelled two hundred miles in four-and-twenty hours, having
three coaches. In the war of the Romans against King Antiochus, T.
Sempronius Gracchus, says Livy:
"Per dispositos equos prope incredibili celeritate
ab Amphissa tertio die Pellam pervenit."
["By pre-arranged relays of horses, he, with an almost incredible
speed, rode in three days from Amphissa to Pella."
—Livy, xxxvii. 7.]
And it appears that they were established posts, and not horses
purposely laid in upon this occasion.
Cecina's invention to send back news to his family was much more
quick, for he took swallows along with him from home, and turned them
out towards their nests when he would send back any news; setting a mark
of some colour upon them to signify his meaning, according to what he
and his people had before agreed upon.
At the theatre at Rome masters of families carried pigeons in their
bosoms to which they tied letters when they had a mind to send any
orders to their people at home; and the pigeons were trained up to bring
back an answer. D. Brutus made use of the same device when besieged in
Modena, and others elsewhere have done the same.
In Peru they rode post upon men, who took them upon their shoulders
in a certain kind of litters made for that purpose, and ran with such
agility that, in their full speed, the first couriers transferred their
load to the second without making any stop.
I understand that the Wallachians, the grand Signior's couriers,
perform wonderful journeys, by reason they have liberty to dismount the
first person they meet upon the road, giving him their own tired horses;
and that to preserve themselves from being weary, they gird themselves
straight about the middle with a broad girdle; but I could never find
any benefit from this.
CHAPTER XXIII——OF ILL MEANS EMPLOYED TO A GOOD END
There is wonderful relation and correspondence in this universal
government of the works of nature, which very well makes it appear that
it is neither accidental nor carried on by divers masters. The diseases
and conditions of our bodies are, in like manner, manifest in states and
governments; kingdoms and republics are founded, flourish, and decay
with age as we do. We are subject to a repletion of humours, useless and
dangerous: whether of those that are good (for even those the physicians
are afraid of; and seeing we have nothing in us that is stable, they say
that a too brisk and vigorous perfection of health must be abated by
art, lest our nature, unable to rest in any certain condition, and not
having whither to rise to mend itself, make too sudden and too
disorderly a retreat; and therefore prescribe wrestlers to purge and
bleed, to qualify that superabundant health), or else a repletion of
evil humours, which is the ordinary cause of sickness. States are very
often sick of the like repletion, and various sorts of purgations have
commonly been applied. Some times a great multitude of families are
turned out to clear the country, who seek out new abodes elsewhere and
encroach upon others. After this manner our ancient Franks came from the
remotest part of Germany to seize upon Gaul, and to drive thence the
first inhabitants; so was that infinite deluge of men made up who came
into Italy under the conduct of Brennus and others; so the Goths and
Vandals, and also the people who now possess Greece, left their native
country to go settle elsewhere, where they might have more room; and
there are scarce two or three little corners in the world that have not
felt the effect of such removals. The Romans by this means erected their
colonies; for, perceiving their city to grow immeasurably populous, they
eased it of the most unnecessary people, and sent them to inhabit and
cultivate the lands conquered by them; sometimes also they purposely
maintained wars with some of their enemies, not only to keep their own
men in action, for fear lest idleness, the mother of corruption, should
bring upon them some worse inconvenience:
"Et patimur longae pacis mala; saevior armis
Luxuria incumbit."
["And we suffer the ills of a long peace; luxury is more pernicious
than war."—Juvenal, vi. 291.]
but also to serve for a blood-letting to their Republic, and a little
to evaporate the too vehement heat of their youth, to prune and clear
the branches from the stock too luxuriant in wood; and to this end it
was that they maintained so long a war with Carthage.
In the treaty of Bretigny, Edward III., king of England, would not,
in the general peace he then made with our king, comprehend the
controversy about the Duchy of Brittany, that he might have a place
wherein to discharge himself of his soldiers, and that the vast number
of English he had brought over to serve him in his expedition here might
not return back into England. And this also was one reason why our King
Philip consented to send his son John upon a foreign expedition, that he
might take along with him a great number of hot young men who were then
in his pay.
There—are many in our times who talk at this rate, wishing that this
hot emotion that is now amongst us might discharge itself in some
neighbouring war, for fear lest all the peccant humours that now reign
in this politic body of ours may diffuse themselves farther, keep the
fever still in the height, and at last cause our total ruin; and, in
truth, a foreign is much more supportable than a civil war, but I do not
believe that God will favour so unjust a design as to offend and quarrel
with others for our own advantage:
"Nil mihi tam valde placeat, Rhamnusia virgo,
Quod temere invitis suscipiatur heris."
["Rhamnusian virgin, let nothing ever so greatly please me which is
taken without justice from the unwilling owners"
—Catullus, lxviii. 77.]
And yet the weakness of our condition often pushes us upon the
necessity of making use of ill means to a good end. Lycurgus, the most
perfect legislator that ever was, virtuous and invented this very unjust
practice of making the helots, who were their slaves, drunk by force, to
the end that the Spartans, seeing them so lost and buried in wine, might
abhor the excess of this vice. And yet those were still more to blame
who of old gave leave that criminals, to what sort of death soever
condemned, should be cut up alive by the physicians, that they might
make a true discovery of our inward parts, and build their art upon
greater certainty; for, if we must run into excesses, it is more
excusable to do it for the health of the soul than that of the body; as
the Romans trained up the people to valour and the contempt of dangers
and death by those furious spectacles of gladiators and fencers, who,
having to fight it out to the last, cut, mangled, and killed one another
in their presence:
"Quid vesani aliud sibi vult ars impia ludi,
Quid mortes juvenum, quid sanguine pasta voluptas?"
["What other end does the impious art of the gladiators propose to
itself, what the slaughter of young men, what pleasure fed with
blood."—Prudentius, Contra Symmachum, ii. 643.]
and this custom continued till the Emperor Theodosius' time:
"Arripe dilatam tua, dux, in tempora famam,
Quodque patris superest, successor laudis habeto
Nullus in urbe cadat, cujus sit poena voluptas....
Jam solis contenta feris, infamis arena
Nulla cruentatis homicidia ludat in armis."
["Prince, take the honours delayed for thy reign, and be successor
to thy fathers; henceforth let none at Rome be slain for sport. Let
beasts' blood stain the infamous arena, and no more homicides be
there acted."—Prudentius, Contra Symmachum, ii. 643.]
It was, in truth, a wonderful example, and of great advantage for the
training up the people, to see every day before their eyes a hundred;
two hundred, nay, a thousand couples of men armed against one another,
cut one another to pieces with so great a constancy of courage, that
they were never heard to utter so much as one syllable of weakness or
commiseration; never seen to turn their backs, nor so much as to make
one cowardly step to evade a blow, but rather exposed their necks to the
adversary's sword and presented themselves to receive the stroke; and
many of them, when wounded to death, have sent to ask the spectators if
they were satisfied with their behaviour, before they lay down to die
upon the place. It was not enough for them to fight and to die bravely,
but cheerfully too; insomuch that they were hissed and cursed if they
made any hesitation about receiving their death. The very girls
themselves set them on:
"Consurgit ad ictus,
Et, quoties victor ferrum jugulo inserit, illa
Delicias ait esse suas, pectusque jacentis
Virgo modesta jubet converso pollice rumpi."
["The modest virgin is so delighted with the sport, that she
applauds the blow, and when the victor bathes his sword in his
fellow's throat, she says it is her pleasure, and with turned thumb
orders him to rip up the bosom of the prostrate victim."
—Prudentius, Contra Symmachum, ii. 617.]
The first Romans only condemned criminals to this example: but they
afterwards employed innocent slaves in the work, and even freemen too,
who sold themselves to this purpose, nay, moreover, senators and knights
of Rome, and also women:
"Nunc caput in mortem vendunt, et funus arena,
Atque hostem sibi quisque parat, cum bella quiescunt."
["They sell themselves to death and the circus, and, since the wars
are ceased, each for himself a foe prepares."
—Manilius, Astron., iv. 225.]
"Hos inter fremitus novosque lusus....
Stat sexus rudis insciusque ferri,
Et pugnas capit improbus viriles;"
["Amidst these tumults and new sports, the tender sex, unskilled in
arms, immodestly engaged in manly fights."
—Statius, Sylv., i. 6, 51.]
which I should think strange and incredible, if we were not
accustomed every day to see in our own wars many thousands of men of
other nations, for money to stake their blood and their lives in
quarrels wherein they have no manner of concern.
CHAPTER XXIV——OF THE ROMAN GRANDEUR
I will only say a word or two of this infinite argument, to show the
simplicity of those who compare the pitiful greatness of these times
with that of Rome. In the seventh book of Cicero's Familiar Epistles
(and let the grammarians put out that surname of familiar if they
please, for in truth it is not very suitable; and they who, instead of
familiar, have substituted "ad Familiares," may gather something to
justify them for so doing out of what Suetonius says in the Life of
Caesar, that there was a volume of letters of his "ad Familiares ")
there is one directed to Caesar, then in Gaul, wherein Cicero repeats
these words, which were in the end of another letter that Caesar had
written to him: "As to what concerns Marcus Furius, whom you have
recommended to me, I will make him king of Gaul, and if you would have
me advance any other friend of yours send him to me." It was no new
thing for a simple citizen of Rome, as Caesar then was, to dispose of
kingdoms, for he took away that of King Deiotarus from him to give it to
a gentleman of the city of Pergamus, called Mithridates; and they who
wrote his Life record several cities sold by him; and Suetonius says,
that he had once from King Ptolemy three millions and six hundred
thousand crowns, which was very like selling him his own kingdom:
"Tot Galatae, tot Pontus, tot Lydia, nummis."
["So much for Galatia, so much for Pontus,
so much for Lydia."—Claudius in Eutrop., i. 203.]
Marcus Antonius said, that the greatness of the people of Rome was
not so much seen in what they took, as in what they gave; and, indeed,
some ages before Antonius, they had dethroned one amongst the rest with
so wonderful authority, that in all the Roman history I have not
observed anything that more denotes the height of their power. Antiochus
possessed all Egypt, and was, moreover, ready to conquer Cyprus and
other appendages of that empire: when being upon the progress of his
victories, C. Popilius came to him from the Senate, and at their first
meeting refused to take him by the hand, till he had first read his
letters, which after the king had read, and told him he would consider
of them, Popilius made a circle about him with his cane, saying:—"Return
me an answer, that I may carry it back to the Senate, before thou
stirrest out of this circle." Antiochus, astonished at the roughness of
so positive a command, after a little pause, replied, "I will obey the
Senate's command." Then Popilius saluted him as friend of the Roman
people. To have renounced claim to so great a monarchy, and a course of
such successful fortune, from the effects of three lines in writing!
Truly he had reason, as he afterwards did, to send the Senate word by
his ambassadors, that he had received their order with the same respect
as if it had come from the immortal gods.
All the kingdoms that Augustus gained by the right of war, he either
restored to those who had lost them or presented them to strangers. And
Tacitus, in reference to this, speaking of Cogidunus, king of England,
gives us, by a marvellous touch, an instance of that infinite power: the
Romans, says he, were from all antiquity accustomed to leave the kings
they had subdued in possession of their kingdoms under their authority.
"Ut haberent instruments servitutis et reges."
["That they might have even kings to be their slaves."
—Livy, xlv. 13.]
'Tis probable that Solyman, whom we have seen make a gift of Hungary
and other principalities, had therein more respect to this consideration
than to that he was wont to allege, viz., that he was glutted and
overcharged with so many monarchies and so much dominion, as his own
valour and that of his ancestors had acquired.
CHAPTER XXV——NOT TO COUNTERFEIT BEING SICK
There is an epigram in Martial, and one of the very good ones—for he
has of all sorts—where he pleasantly tells the story of Caelius, who, to
avoid making his court to some great men of Rome, to wait their rising,
and to attend them abroad, pretended to have the gout; and the better to
colour this anointed his legs, and had them lapped up in a great many
swathings, and perfectly counterfeited both the gesture and countenance
of a gouty person; till in the end, Fortune did him the kindness to make
him one indeed:
"Quantum curs potest et ars doloris
Desiit fingere Caelius podagram."
["How great is the power of counterfeiting pain: Caelius has ceased
to feign the gout; he has got it."—Martial, Ep., vii. 39, 8.]
I think I have read somewhere in Appian a story like this, of one who
to escape the proscriptions of the triumvirs of Rome, and the better to
be concealed from the discovery of those who pursued him, having hidden
himself in a disguise, would yet add this invention, to counterfeit
having but one eye; but when he came to have a little more liberty, and
went to take off the plaster he had a great while worn over his eye, he
found he had totally lost the sight of it indeed, and that it was
absolutely gone. 'Tis possible that the action of sight was dulled from
having been so long without exercise, and that the optic power was
wholly retired into the other eye: for we evidently perceive that the
eye we keep shut sends some part of its virtue to its fellow, so that it
will swell and grow bigger; and so inaction, with the heat of ligatures
and, plasters, might very well have brought some gouty humour upon the
counterfeiter in Martial.
Reading in Froissart the vow of a troop of young English gentlemen,
to keep their left eyes bound up till they had arrived in France and
performed some notable exploit upon us, I have often been tickled with
this thought, that it might have befallen them as it did those others,
and they might have returned with but an eye a-piece to their
mistresses, for whose sakes they had made this ridiculous vow.
Mothers have reason to rebuke their children when they counterfeit
having but one eye, squinting, lameness, or any other personal defect;
for, besides that their bodies being then so tender, may be subject to
take an ill bent, fortune, I know not how, sometimes seems to delight in
taking us at our word; and I have heard several examples related of
people who have become really sick, by only feigning to be so. I have
always used, whether on horseback or on foot, to carry a stick in my
hand, and even to affect doing it with an elegant air; many have
threatened that this fancy would one day be turned into necessity: if
so, I should be the first of my family to have the gout.
But let us a little lengthen this chapter, and add another anecdote
concerning blindness. Pliny reports of one who, dreaming he was blind,
found himself so indeed in the morning without any preceding infirmity
in his eyes. The force of imagination might assist in this case, as I
have said elsewhere, and Pliny seems to be of the same opinion; but it
is more likely that the motions which the body felt within, of which
physicians, if they please, may find out the cause, taking away his
sight, were the occasion of his dream.
Let us add another story, not very improper for this subject, which
Seneca relates in one of his epistles: "You know," says he, writing to
Lucilius, "that Harpaste, my wife's fool, is thrown upon me as an
hereditary charge, for I have naturally an aversion to those monsters;
and if I have a mind to laugh at a fool, I need not seek him far; I can
laugh at myself. This fool has suddenly lost her sight: I tell you a
strange, but a very true thing she is not sensible that she is blind,
but eternally importunes her keeper to take her abroad, because she says
the house is dark. That what we laugh at in her, I pray you to believe,
happens to every one of us: no one knows himself to be avaricious or
grasping; and, again, the blind call for a guide, while we stray of our
own accord. I am not ambitious, we say; but a man cannot live otherwise
at Rome; I am not wasteful, but the city requires a great outlay; 'tis
not my fault if I am choleric—if I have not yet established any certain
course of life: 'tis the fault of youth. Let us not seek our disease out
of ourselves; 'tis in us, and planted in our bowels; and the mere fact
that we do not perceive ourselves to be sick, renders us more hard to be
cured. If we do not betimes begin to see to ourselves, when shall we
have provided for so many wounds and evils wherewith we abound? And yet
we have a most sweet and charming medicine in philosophy; for of all the
rest we are sensible of no pleasure till after the cure: this pleases
and heals at once." This is what Seneca says, that has carried me from
my subject, but there is advantage in the change.
CHAPTER XXVI——OF THUMBS
Tacitus reports, that amongst certain barbarian kings their manner
was, when they would make a firm obligation, to join their right hands
close to one another, and intertwist their thumbs; and when, by force of
straining the blood, it appeared in the ends, they lightly pricked them
with some sharp instrument, and mutually sucked them.
Physicians say that the thumbs are the master fingers of the hand,
and that their Latin etymology is derived from "pollere." The Greeks
called them 'Avtixeip', as who should say, another hand. And it seems
that the Latins also sometimes take it in this sense for the whole hand:
"Sed nec vocibus excitata blandis,
Molli pollici nec rogata, surgit."
["Neither to be excited by soft words or by the thumb."
—Mart., xii. 98, 8.]
It was at Rome a signification of favour to depress and turn in the
thumbs:
"Fautor utroque tuum laudabit pollice ludum:"
["Thy patron will applaud thy sport with both thumbs"
—Horace.]
and of disfavour to elevate and thrust them outward:
"Converso pollice vulgi,
Quemlibet occidunt populariter."
["The populace, with inverted thumbs, kill all that
come before them."—Juvenal, iii. 36]
The Romans exempted from war all such as were maimed in the thumbs,
as having no more sufficient strength to hold their weapons. Augustus
confiscated the estate of a Roman knight who had maliciously cut off the
thumbs of two young children he had, to excuse them from going into the
armies; and, before him, the Senate, in the time of the Italic war, had
condemned Caius Vatienus to perpetual imprisonment, and confiscated all
his goods, for having purposely cut off the thumb of his left hand, to
exempt himself from that expedition. Some one, I have forgotten who,
having won a naval battle, cut off the thumbs of all his vanquished
enemies, to render them incapable of fighting and of handling the oar.
The Athenians also caused the thumbs of the AEginatans to be cut off, to
deprive them of the superiority in the art of navigation.
In Lacedaemon, pedagogues chastised their scholars by biting their
thumbs.
CHAPTER XXVII——COWARDICE THE MOTHER OF CRUELTY
I have often heard it said that cowardice is the mother of cruelty;
and I have found by experience that malicious and inhuman animosity and
fierceness are usually accompanied with feminine weakness. I have seen
the most cruel people, and upon frivolous occasions, apt to cry.
Alexander, the tyrant of Pheres, durst not be a spectator of tragedies
in the theatre, for fear lest his citizens should see him weep at the
misfortunes of Hecuba and Andromache, who himself without pity caused so
many people every day to be murdered. Is it not meanness of spirit that
renders them so pliable to all extremities? Valour, whose effect is only
to be exercised against resistance—
"Nec nisi bellantis gaudet cervice juvenci"—
["Nor delights in killing a bull unless he resists."
—Claudius, Ep. ad Hadrianum, v. 39.]
stops when it sees the enemy at its mercy; but pusillanimity, to say
that it was also in the game, not having dared to meddle in the first
act of danger, takes as its part the second, of blood and massacre. The
murders in victories are commonly performed by the rascality and
hangers-on of an army, and that which causes so many unheard of
cruelties in domestic wars is, that this canaille makes war in imbruing
itself up to the elbows in blood, and ripping up a body that lies
prostrate at its feet, having no sense of any other valour:
"Et lupus, et turpes instant morientibus ursi,
Et quaecunque minor nobilitate fera est:"
["Wolves and the filthy bears, and all the baser beasts,
fall upon the dying."—Ovid, Trist., iii. 5, 35.]
like cowardly dogs, that in the house worry and tear the skins of
wild beasts, they durst not come near in the field. What is it in these
times of ours that makes our quarrels mortal; and that, whereas our
fathers had some degrees of revenge, we now begin with the last in ours,
and at the first meeting nothing is to be said but, kill? What is this
but cowardice?
Every one is sensible that there is more bravery and disdain in
subduing an enemy, than in cutting, his throat; and in making him yield,
than in putting him to the sword: besides that the appetite of revenge
is better satisfied and pleased because its only aim is to make itself
felt: And this is the reason why we do not fall upon a beast or a stone
when they hurt us, because they are not capable of being sensible of our
revenge; and to kill a man is to save him from the injury and offence we
intend him. And as Bias cried out to a wicked fellow, "I know that
sooner or later thou wilt have thy reward, but I am afraid I shall not
see it"; —[Plutarch, on the Delay in Divine Justice, c. 2.]—and pitied
the Orchomenians that the penitence of Lyciscus for the treason
committed against them, came at a season when there was no one remaining
alive of those who had been interested in the offence, and whom the
pleasure of this penitence should affect: so revenge is to be pitied,
when the person on whom it is executed is deprived of means of suffering
under it: for as the avenger will look on to enjoy the pleasure of his
revenge, so the person on whom he takes revenge should be a spectator
too, to be afflicted and to repent. "He will repent it," we say, and
because we have given him a pistol-shot through the head, do we imagine
he will repent? On the contrary, if we but observe, we shall find, that
he makes mouths at us in falling, and is so far from penitency, that he
does not so much as repine at us; and we do him the kindest office of
life, which is to make him die insensibly, and soon: we are afterwards
to hide ourselves, and to shift and fly from the officers of justice,
who pursue us, whilst he is at rest. Killing is good to frustrate an
offence to come, not to revenge one that is already past; and more an
act of fear than of bravery; of precaution than of courage; of defence
than of enterprise. It is manifest that by it we lose both the true end
of revenge and the care of our reputation; we are afraid, if he lives he
will do us another injury as great as the first; 'tis not out of
animosity to him, but care of thyself, that thou gettest rid of him.
In the kingdom of Narsingah this expedient would be useless to us,
where not only soldiers, but tradesmen also, end their differences by
the sword. The king never denies the field to any who wish to fight; and
when they are persons of quality; he looks on, rewarding the victor with
a chain of gold,—for which any one who pleases may fight with him again,
so that, by having come off from one combat, he has engaged himself in
many.
If we thought by virtue to be always masters of our enemies, and to
triumph over them at pleasure, we should be sorry they should escape
from us as they do, by dying: but we have a mind to conquer, more with
safety than honour, and, in our quarrel, more pursue the end than the
glory.
Asnius Pollio, who, as being a worthy man, was the less to be
excused, committed a like, error, when, having written a libel against
Plancus, he forbore to publish it till he was dead; which is to bite
one's thumb at a blind man, to rail at one who is deaf, to wound a man
who has no feeling, rather than to run the hazard of his resentment. And
it was also said of him that it was only for hobgoblins to wrestle with
the dead.
He who stays to see the author die, whose writings he intends to
question, what does he say but that he is weak in his aggressiveness? It
was told to Aristotle that some one had spoken ill of him: "Let him do
more," said he; "let him whip me too, provided I am not there."
Our fathers contented themselves with revenging an insult with the
lie, the lie with a box of the ear, and so forward; they were valiant
enough not to fear their adversaries, living and provoked we tremble for
fear so soon as we see them on foot. And that this is so, does not our
noble practice of these days, equally to prosecute to death both him
that has offended us and him we have offended, make it out? 'Tis also a
kind of cowardice that has introduced the custom of having seconds,
thirds, and fourths in our duels; they were formerly duels; they are now
skirmishes, rencontres, and battles. Solitude was, doubtless, terrible
to those who were the first inventors of this practice:
"Quum in se cuique minimum fiduciae esset,"
for naturally any company whatever is consolatory in danger. Third
persons were formerly called in to prevent disorder and foul play only,
and to be witness of the fortune of the combat; but now they have
brought it to this pass that the witnesses themselves engage; whoever is
invited cannot handsomely stand by as an idle spectator, for fear of
being suspected either of want of affection or of courage. Besides the
injustice and unworthiness of such an action, of engaging other strength
and valour in the protection of your honour than your own, I conceive it
a disadvantage to a brave man, and who wholly relies upon himself, to
shuffle his fortune with that of a second; every one runs hazard enough
himself without hazarding for another, and has enough to do to assure
himself in his own valour for the defence of his life, without
intrusting a thing so dear in a third man's hand. For, if it be not
expressly agreed upon before to the contrary, 'tis a combined party of
all four, and if your second be killed, you have two to deal withal,
with good reason; and to say that it is foul play, it is so indeed, as
it is, well armed, to attack a man who has but the hilt of a broken
sword in his hand, or, clear and untouched, a man who is desperately
wounded: but if these be advantages you have got by fighting, you may
make use of them without reproach. The disparity and inequality are only
weighed and considered from the condition of the combatants when they
began; as to the rest, you must take your chance: and though you had,
alone, three enemies upon you at once, your two companions being killed,
you have no more wrong done you, than I should do in a battle, by
running a man through whom I should see engaged with one of our own men,
with the like advantage. The nature of society will have it so that
where there is troop against troop, as where our Duke of Orleans
challenged Henry, king of England, a hundred against a hundred; three
hundred against as many, as the Argians against the Lacedaemonians;
three to three, as the Horatii against the Curiatii, the multitude on
either side is considered but as one single man: the hazard, wherever
there is company, being confused and mixed.
I have a domestic interest in this discourse; for my brother, the
Sieur de Mattecoulom, was at Rome asked by a gentleman with whom he had
no great acquaintance, and who was a defendant challenged by another, to
be his second; in this duel he found himself matched with a gentleman
much better known to him. (I would fain have an explanation of these
rules of honour, which so often shock and confound those of reason.)
After having despatched his man, seeing the two principals still on foot
and sound, he ran in to disengage his friend. What could he do less?
should he have stood still, and if chance would have ordered it so, have
seen him he was come thither to defend killed before his face? what he
had hitherto done helped not the business; the quarrel was yet
undecided. The courtesy that you can, and certainly ought to shew to
your enemy, when you have reduced him to an ill condition and have a
great advantage over him, I do not see how you can do it, where the
interest of another is concerned, where you are only called in as an
assistant, and the quarrel is none of yours: he could neither be just
nor courteous, at the hazard of him he was there to serve. And he was
therefore enlarged from the prisons of Italy at the speedy and solemn
request of our king. Indiscreet nation! we are not content to make our
vices and follies known to the world by report only, but we must go into
foreign countries, there to show them what fools we are. Put three
Frenchmen into the deserts of Libya, they will not live a month together
without fighting; so that you would say this peregrination were a thing
purposely designed to give foreigners the pleasure of our tragedies,
and, for the most part, to such as rejoice and laugh at our miseries. We
go into Italy to learn to fence, and exercise the art at the expense of
our lives before we have learned it; and yet, by the rule of discipline,
we should put the theory before the practice. We discover ourselves to
be but learners:
"Primitae juvenum miserae, bellique futuri
Dura rudimenta."
["Wretched the elementary trials of youth, and hard the
rudiments of approaching war."—Virgil, AEneid, xi. 156.]
I know that fencing is an art very useful to its end (in a duel
betwixt two princes, cousin-germans, in Spain, the elder, says Livy, by
his skill and dexterity in arms, easily overcoming the greater and more
awkward strength of the younger), and of which the knowledge, as I
experimentally know, has inspired some with courage above their natural
measure; but this is not properly valour, because it supports itself
upon address, and is founded upon something besides itself. The honour
of combat consists in the jealousy of courage, and not of skill; and
therefore I have known a friend of mine, famed as a great master in this
exercise, in his quarrels make choice of such arms as might deprive him
of this advantage and that wholly depended upon fortune and assurance,
that they might not attribute his victory rather to his skill in fencing
than his valour. When I was young, gentlemen avoided the reputation of
good fencers as injurious to them, and learned to fence with all
imaginable privacy as a trade of subtlety, derogating from true and
natural valour:
"Non schivar non parar, non ritirarsi,
Voglion costor, ne qui destrezza ha parte;
Non danno i colpi or finti, or pieni, or scarsi!
Toglie l'ira a il furor l'uso de l'arte.
Odi le spade orribilmente utarsi
A mezzo il ferro; il pie d'orma non parte,
Sempre a il pie fermo, a la man sempre in moto;
Ne scende taglio in van, ne punta a voto."
["They neither shrank, nor vantage sought of ground,
They travers'd not, nor skipt from part to part,
Their blows were neither false, nor feigned found:
In fight, their rage would let them use no art.
Their swords together clash with dreadful sound,
Their feet stand fast, and neither stir nor start,
They move their hands, steadfast their feet remain.
Nor blow nor foin they strook, or thrust in vain."
—Tasso, Gierus. Lib., c. 12, st. 55, Fairfax's translation.]
Butts, tilting, and barriers, the feint of warlike fights, were the
exercises of our forefathers: this other exercise is so much the less
noble, as it only respects a private end; that teaches us to destroy one
another against law and justice, and that every way always produces very
ill effects. It is much more worthy and more becoming to exercise
ourselves in things that strengthen than that weaken our government and
that tend to the public safety and common glory. The consul, Publius
Rutilius, was the first who taught the soldiers to handle their arms
with skill, and joined art with valour, not for the rise of private
quarrel, but for war and the quarrels of the people of Rome; a popular
and civil defence. And besides the example of Caesar, who commanded his
men to shoot chiefly at the face of Pompey's soldiers in the battle of
Pharsalia, a thousand other commanders have also bethought them to
invent new forms of weapons and new ways of striking and defending,
according as occasion should require.
But as Philopoemen condemned wrestling, wherein he excelled, because
the preparatives that were therein employed were differing from those
that appertain to military discipline, to which alone he conceived men
of honour ought wholly to apply themselves; so it seems to me that this
address to which we form our limbs, those writhings and motions young
men are taught in this new school, are not only of no use, but rather
contrary and hurtful to the practice of fight in battle; and also our
people commonly make use of particular weapons, and peculiarly designed
for duel; and I have seen, when it has been disapproved, that a
gentleman challenged to fight with rapier and poignard appeared in the
array of a man-at-arms, and that another should take his cloak instead
of his poignard. It is worthy of consideration that Laches in Plato,
speaking of learning to fence after our manner, says that he never knew
any great soldier come out of that school, especially the masters of it:
and, indeed, as to them, our experience tells as much. As to the rest,
we may at least conclude that they are qualities of no relation or
correspondence; and in the education of the children of his government,
Plato interdicts the art of boxing, introduced by Amycus and Epeius, and
that of wrestling, by Antaeus and Cercyo, because they have another end
than to render youth fit for the service of war and contribute nothing
to it. But I see that I have somewhat strayed from my theme.
The Emperor Mauricius, being advertised by dreams and several
prognostics, that one Phocas, an obscure soldier, should kill him,
questioned his son-in-law, Philip, who this Phocas was, and what were
his nature, qualities, and manners; and so soon as Philip, amongst other
things, had told him that he was cowardly and timorous, the emperor
immediately concluded then that he was a murderer and cruel. What is it
that makes tyrants so sanguinary? 'Tis only the solicitude for their own
safety, and that their faint hearts can furnish them with no other means
of securing themselves than in exterminating those who may hurt them,
even so much as women, for fear of a scratch:
"Cuncta ferit, dum cuncta timer."
["He strikes at all who fears all."
—Claudius, in Eutrop., i. 182.]
The first cruelties are exercised for themselves thence springs the
fear of a just revenge, which afterwards produces a series of new
cruelties, to obliterate one another. Philip, king of Macedon, who had
so much to do with the people of Rome, agitated with the horror of so
many murders committed by his order, and doubting of being able to keep
himself secure from so many families, at divers times mortally injured
and offended by him, resolved to seize all the children of those he had
caused to be slain, to despatch them daily one after another, and so to
establish his own repose.
Fine matter is never impertinent, however placed; and therefore I,
who more consider the weight and utility of what I deliver than its
order and connection, need not fear in this place to bring in an
excellent story, though it be a little by-the-by; for when they are rich
in their own native beauty, and are able to justify themselves, the
least end of a hair will serve to draw them into my discourse.
Amongst others condemned by Philip, had been one Herodicus, prince of
Thessaly; he had, moreover, after him caused his two sons-in-law to be
put to death, each leaving a son very young behind him. Theoxena and
Archo were their two widows. Theoxena, though highly courted to it,
could not be persuaded to marry again: Archo married Poris, the greatest
man among the AEnians, and by him had a great many children, whom she,
dying, left at a very tender age. Theoxena, moved with a maternal
charity towards her nephews, that she might have them under her own eyes
and in her own protection, married Poris: when presently comes a
proclamation of the king's edict. This brave-spirited mother, suspecting
the cruelty of Philip, and afraid of the insolence of the soldiers
towards these charming and tender children was so bold as to declare hat
she would rather kill them with her own hands than deliver them. Poris,
startled at this protestation, promised her to steal them away, and to
transport them to Athens, and there commit them to the custody of some
faithful friends of his. They took, therefore, the opportunity of an
annual feast which was celebrated at AEnia in honour of AEneas, and
thither they went. Having appeared by day at the public ceremonies and
banquet, they stole the night following into a vessel laid ready for the
purpose, to escape away by sea. The wind proved contrary, and finding
themselves in the morning within sight of the land whence they had
launched overnight, and being pursued by the guards of the port, Poris
perceiving this, laboured all he could to make the mariners do their
utmost to escape from the pursuers. But Theoxena, frantic with affection
and revenge, in pursuance of her former resolution, prepared both
weapons and poison, and exposing them before them; "Go to, my children,"
said she, "death is now the only means of your defence and liberty, and
shall administer occasion to the gods to exercise their sacred justice:
these sharp swords, and these full cups, will open you the way into it;
courage, fear nothing! And thou, my son, who art the eldest, take this
steel into thy hand, that thou mayest the more bravely die." The
children having on one side so powerful a counsellor, and the enemy at
their throats on the other, run all of them eagerly upon what was next
to hand; and, half dead, were thrown into the sea. Theoxena, proud of
having so gloriously provided for the safety of her children, clasping
her arms with great affection about her husband's neck. "Let us, my
friend," said she, "follow these boys, and enjoy the same sepulchre they
do"; and so, having embraced, they threw themselves headlong into the
sea; so that the ship was carried—back without the owners into the
harbour.
Tyrants, at once both to kill and to make their anger felt, have
employed their capacity to invent the most lingering deaths. They will
have their enemies despatched, but not so fast that they may not have
leisure to taste their vengeance. And therein they are mightily
perplexed; for if the torments they inflict are violent, they are short;
if long, they are not then so painful as they desire; and thus plague
themselves in choice of the greatest cruelty. Of this we have a thousand
examples in antiquity, and I know not whether we, unawares, do not
retain some traces of this barbarity.
All that exceeds a simple death appears to me absolute cruelty. Our
justice cannot expect that he, whom the fear of dying by being beheaded
or hanged will not restrain, should be any more awed by the imagination
of a languishing fire, pincers, or the wheel. And I know not, in the
meantime, whether we do not throw them into despair; for in what
condition can be the soul of a man, expecting four-and-twenty hours
together to be broken upon a wheel, or after the old way, nailed to a
cross? Josephus relates that in the time of the war the Romans made in
Judaea, happening to pass by where they had three days before crucified
certain Jews, he amongst them knew three of his own friends, and
obtained the favour of having them taken down, of whom two, he says,
died; the third lived a great while after.
Chalcondylas, a writer of good credit, in the records he has left
behind him of things that happened in his time, and near him, tells us,
as of the most excessive torment, of that the Emperor Mohammed very
often practised, of cutting off men in the middle by the diaphragm with
one blow of a scimitar, whence it followed that they died as it were two
deaths at once; and both the one part, says he, and the other, were seen
to stir and strive a great while after in very great torment. I do not
think there was any great suffering in this motion the torments that are
the most dreadful to look on are not always the greatest to endure; and
I find those that other historians relate to have been practised by him
upon the Epirot lords, are more horrid and cruel, where they were
condemned to be flayed alive piecemeal, after so malicious a manner that
they continued fifteen days in that misery.
And these other two: Croesus, having caused a gentleman, the
favourite of his brother Pantaleon, to be seized, carried him into a
fuller's shop, where he caused him to be scratched and carded with the
cards and combs belonging to that trade, till he died. George Sechel,
chief commander of the peasants of Poland, who committed so many
mischiefs under the title of the Crusade, being defeated in battle and
taken bu the Vayvode of Transylvania, was three days bound naked upon
the rack exposed to all sorts of torments that any one could contrive
against him: during which time many other prisoners were kept fasting;
in the end, he living and looking on, they made his beloved brother
Lucat, for whom alone he entreated, taking on himself the blame of all
their evil actions drink his blood, and caused twenty of his most
favoured captains to feed upon him, tearing his flesh in pieces with
their teeth, and swallowing the morsels. The remainder of his body and
his bowels, so soon as he was dead, were boiled, and others of his
followers compelled to eat them.
CHAPTER XXVIII——ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR SEASON
Such as compare Cato the Censor with the younger Cato, who killed
himself, compare two beautiful natures, much resembling one another. The
first acquired his reputation several ways, and excels in military
exploits and the utility of his public employments; but the virtue of
the younger, besides that it were blasphemy to compare any to it in
vigour, was much more pure and unblemished. For who could absolve that
of the Censor from envy and ambition, having dared to attack the honour
of Scipio, a man in goodness and all other excellent qualities
infinitely beyond him or any other of his time?
That which they, report of him, amongst other things, that in his
extreme old age he put himself upon learning the Greek tongue with so
greedy an appetite, as if to quench a long thirst, does not seem to me
to make much for his honour; it being properly what we call falling into
second childhood. All things have their seasons, even good ones, and I
may say my Paternoster out of time; as they accused T. Quintus
Flaminius, that being general of an army, he was seen praying apart in
the time of a battle that he won.
"Imponit finem sapiens et rebus honestis."
["The wise man limits even honest things."—Juvenal, vi. 444]
Eudemonidas, seeing Xenocrates when very old, still very intent upon
his school lectures: "When will this man be wise," said he, "if he is
yet learning?" And Philopaemen, to those who extolled King Ptolemy for
every day inuring his person to the exercise of arms: "It is not," said
he, "commendable in a king of his age to exercise himself in these
things; he ought now really to employ them." The young are to make their
preparations, the old to enjoy them, say the sages: and the greatest
vice they observe in us is that our desires incessantly grow young
again; we are always re-beginning to live.
Our studies and desires should sometime be sensible of age; yet we
have one foot in the grave and still our appetites and pursuits spring
every day anew within us:
"Tu secanda marmora
Locas sub ipsum funus, et, sepulcri
Immemor, struis domos."
["You against the time of death have marble cut for use, and,
forgetful of the tomb, build houses."—Horace, Od., ii. 18, 17.]
The longest of my designs is not of above a year's extent; I think of
nothing now but ending; rid myself of all new hopes and enterprises;
take my last leave of every place I depart from, and every day
dispossess myself of what I have.
"Olim jam nec perit quicquam mihi, nec acquiritur....
plus superest viatici quam viae."
["Henceforward I will neither lose, nor expect to get: I have more
wherewith to defray my journey, than I have way to go." (Or):
"Hitherto nothing of me has been lost or gained; more remains to pay
the way than there is way."—Seneca, Ep., 77. (The sense seems to
be that so far he had met his expenses, but that for the future he
was likely to have more than he required.)]
"Vixi, et, quem dederat cursum fortuna, peregi."
["I have lived and finished the career Fortune placed before me."
—AEneid, iv. 653.]
'Tis indeed the only comfort I find in my old age, that it mortifies
in me several cares and desires wherewith my life has been disturbed;
the care how the world goes, the care of riches, of grandeur, of
knowledge, of health, of myself. There are men who are learning to speak
at a time when they should learn to be silent for ever. A man may always
study, but he must not always go to school what a contemptible thing is
an old Abecedarian!—[Seneca, Ep. 36]
"Diversos diversa juvant; non omnibus annis
Omnia conveniunt."
["Various things delight various men; all things are not
for all ages."—Gall., Eleg., i. 104.]
If we must study, let us study what is suitable to our present
condition, that we may answer as he did, who being asked to what end he
studied in his decrepit age, "that I may go out better," said he, "and
at greater ease." Such a study was that of the younger Cato, feeling his
end approach, and which he met with in Plato's Discourse of the Eternity
of the Soul: not, as we are to believe, that he was not long before
furnished with all sorts of provision for such a departure; for of
assurance, an established will and instruction, he had more than Plato
had in all his writings; his knowledge and courage were in this respect
above philosophy; he applied himself to this study, not for the service
of his death; but, as a man whose sleeps were never disturbed in the
importance of such a deliberation, he also, without choice or change,
continued his studies with the other accustomary actions of his life.
The night that he was denied the praetorship he spent in play; that
wherein he was to die he spent in reading. The loss either of life or of
office was all one to him.
CHAPTER XXIX——OF VIRTUE
I find by experience, that there is a good deal to be said betwixt
the flights and emotions of the soul or a resolute and constant habit;
and very well perceive that there is nothing we may not do, nay, even to
the surpassing the Divinity itself, says a certain person, forasmuch as
it is more to render a man's self impassible by his own study and
industry, than to be so by his natural condition; and even to be able to
conjoin to man's imbecility and frailty a God-like resolution and
assurance; but it is by fits and starts; and in the lives of those
heroes of times past there are sometimes miraculous impulses, and that
seem infinitely to exceed our natural force; but they are indeed only
impulses: and 'tis hard to believe, that these so elevated qualities in
a man can so thoroughly tinct and imbue the soul that they should become
ordinary, and, as it were, natural in him. It accidentally happens even
to us, who are but abortive births of men, sometimes to launch our
souls, when roused by the discourses or examples of others, much beyond
their ordinary stretch; but 'tis a kind of passion which pushes and
agitates them, and in some sort ravishes them from themselves: but, this
perturbation once overcome, we see that they insensibly flag and slacken
of themselves, if not to the lowest degree, at least so as to be no more
the same; insomuch as that upon every trivial occasion, the losing of a
bird, or the breaking, of a glass, we suffer ourselves to be moved
little less than one of the common people. I am of opinion, that order,
moderation, and constancy excepted, all things are to be done by a man
that is very imperfect and defective in general. Therefore it is, say
the Sages, that to make a right judgment of a man, you are chiefly to
pry into his common actions, and surprise him in his everyday habit.
Pyrrho, he who erected so pleasant a knowledge upon ignorance,
endeavoured, as all the rest who were really philosophers did, to make
his life correspond with his doctrine. And because he maintained the
imbecility of human judgment to be so extreme as to be incapable of any
choice or inclination, and would have it perpetually wavering and
suspended, considering and receiving all things as indifferent, 'tis
said, that he always comforted himself after the same manner and
countenance: if he had begun a discourse, he would always end what he
had to say, though the person he was speaking to had gone away: if he
walked, he never stopped for any impediment that stood in his way, being
preserved from precipices, collision with carts, and other like
accidents, by the care of his friends: for, to fear or to avoid
anything, had been to shock his own propositions, which deprived the
senses themselves of all election and certainty. Sometimes he suffered
incision and cauteries with so great constancy as never to be seen so
much as to wince. 'Tis something to bring the soul to these
imaginations; 'tis more to join the effects, and yet not impossible; but
to conjoin them with such perseverance and constancy as to make them
habitual, is certainly, in attempts so remote from the common usage,
almost incredible to be done. Therefore it was, that being sometime
taken in his house sharply scolding with his sister, and being
reproached that he therein transgressed his own rules of indifference:
"What!" said he, "must this bit of a woman also serve for a testimony to
my rules?" Another time, being seen to defend himself against a dog: "It
is," said he, "very hard totally to put off man; and we must endeavour
and force ourselves to resist and encounter things, first by effects,
but at least by reason and argument."
About seven or eight years since, a husbandman yet living, but two
leagues from my house, having long been tormented with his wife's
jealousy, coming one day home from his work, and she welcoming him with
her accustomed railing, entered into so great fury that with a sickle he
had yet in his hand, he totally cut off all those parts that she was
jealous of and threw them in her face. And, 'tis said that a young
gentleman of our nation, brisk and amorous, having by his perseverance
at last mollified the heart of a fair mistress, enraged, that upon the
point of fruition he found himself unable to perform, and that,
"Nec viriliter
Iners senile penis extulit caput."
[(The 19th or 20th century translators leave this phrase
untranslated and with no explanation. D.W.)
—Tibullus, Priap. Carm., 84.]
as soon as ever he came home he deprived himself of the rebellious
member, and sent it to his mistress, a cruel and bloody victim for the
expiation of his offence. If this had been done upon mature
consideration, and upon the account of religion, as the priests of
Cybele did, what should we say of so high an action?
A few days since, at Bergerac, five leagues from my house, up the
river Dordogne, a woman having overnight been beaten and abused by her
husband, a choleric ill-conditioned fellow, resolved to escape from his
ill-usage at the price of her life; and going so soon as she was up the
next morning to visit her neighbours, as she was wont to do, and having
let some words fall in recommendation of her affairs, she took a sister
of hers by the hand, and led her to the bridge; whither being come, and
having taken leave of her, in jest as it were, without any manner of
alteration in her countenance, she threw herself headlong from the top
into the river, and was there drowned. That which is the most remarkable
in this is, that this resolution was a whole night forming in her head.
It is quite another thing with the Indian women for it being the
custom there for the men to have many wives, and the best beloved of
them to kill herself at her husband's decease, every one of them makes
it the business of her whole life to obtain this privilege and gain this
advantage over her companions; and the good offices they do their
husbands aim at no other recompense but to be preferred in accompanying
him in death:
"Ubi mortifero jacta est fax ultima lecto,
Uxorum fusis stat pia turba comis
Et certamen habent lethi, quae viva sequatur
Conjugium: pudor est non licuisse mori.
Ardent victrices, et flammae pectora praebent,
Imponuntque suis ora perusta viris."
["For when they threw the torch on the funeral bed, the pious wives
with hair dishevelled, stand around striving, which, living, shall
accompany her spouse; and are ashamed that they may not die; they
who are preferred expose their breasts to the flame, and they lay
their scorched lips on those of their husbands."
—Propertius, iii. 13, 17.]
A certain author of our times reports that he has seen in those
Oriental nations this custom in practice, that not only the wives bury
themselves with their husbands, but even the slaves he has enjoyed also;
which is done after this manner: The husband being dead, the widow may
if she will (but few will) demand two or three months' respite wherein
to order her affairs. The day being come, she mounts on horseback,
dressed as fine as at her wedding, and with a cheerful countenance says
she is going to sleep with her spouse, holding a looking-glass in her
left hand and an arrow in the other. Being thus conducted in pomp,
accompanied with her kindred and friends and a great concourse of people
in great joy, she is at last brought to the public place appointed for
such spectacles: this is a great space, in the midst of which is a pit
full of wood, and adjoining to it a mount raised four or five steps,
upon which she is brought and served with a magnificent repast; which
being done, she falls to dancing and singing, and gives order, when she
thinks fit, to kindle the fire. This being done, she descends, and
taking the nearest of her husband's relations by the hand, they walk to
the river close by, where she strips herself stark naked, and having
distributed her clothes and jewels to her friends, plunges herself into
the water, as if there to cleanse herself from her sins; coming out
thence, she wraps herself in a yellow linen of five-and-twenty ells
long, and again giving her hand to this kinsman of her husband's, they
return back to the mount, where she makes a speech to the people, and
recommends her children to them, if she have any. Betwixt the pit and
the mount there is commonly a curtain drawn to screen the burning
furnace from their sight, which some of them, to manifest the greater
courage, forbid. Having ended what she has to say, a woman presents her
with a vessel of oil, wherewith to anoint her head and her whole body,
which when done with she throws into the fire, and in an instant
precipitates herself after. Immediately, the people throw a good many
billets and logs upon her that she may not be long in dying, and convert
all their joy into sorrow and mourning. If they are persons of meaner
condition, the body of the defunct is carried to the place of sepulture,
and there placed sitting, the widow kneeling before him, embracing the
dead body; and they continue in this posture whilst the people build a
wall about them, which so soon as it is raised to the height of the
woman's shoulders, one of her relations comes behind her, and taking
hold of her head, twists her neck; so soon as she is dead, the wall is
presently raised up, and closed, and there they remain entombed.
There was, in this same country, something like this in their
gymnosophists; for not by constraint of others nor by the impetuosity of
a sudden humour, but by the express profession of their order, their
custom was, as soon as they arrived at a certain age, or that they saw
themselves threatened by any disease, to cause a funeral pile to be
erected for them, and on the top a stately bed, where, after having
joyfully feasted their friends and acquaintance, they laid them down
with so great resolution, that fire being applied to it, they were never
seen to stir either hand or foot; and after this manner, one of them,
Calanus by name; expired in the presence of the whole army of Alexander
the Great. And he was neither reputed holy nor happy amongst them who
did not thus destroy himself, dismissing his soul purged and purified by
the fire, after having consumed all that was earthly and mortal. This
constant premeditation of the whole life is that which makes the wonder.
Amongst our other controversies, that of 'Fatum' has also crept in;
and to tie things to come, and even our own wills, to a certain and
inevitable necessity, we are yet upon this argument of time past: "Since
God foresees that all things shall so fall out, as doubtless He does, it
must then necessarily follow, that they must so fall out": to which our
masters reply: "that the seeing anything come to pass, as we do, and as
God Himself also does (for all things being present with him, He rather
sees, than foresees), is not to compel an event: that is, we see because
things do fall out, but things do not fall out because we see: events
cause knowledge, but knowledge does not cause events. That which we see
happen, does happen; but it might have happened otherwise: and God, in
the catalogue of the causes of events which He has in His prescience,
has also those which we call accidental and voluntary, depending upon
the liberty. He has given our free will, and knows that we do amiss
because we would do so."
I have seen a great many commanders encourage their soldiers with
this fatal necessity; for if our time be limited to a certain hour,
neither the enemies' shot nor our own boldness, nor our flight and
cowardice, can either shorten or prolong our lives. This is easily said,
but see who will be so easily persuaded; and if it be so that a strong
and lively faith draws along with it actions of the same kind, certainly
this faith we so much brag of, is very light in this age of ours, unless
the contempt it has of works makes it disdain their company. So it is,
that to this very purpose the Sire de Joinville, as credible a witness
as any other whatever, tells us of the Bedouins, a nation amongst the
Saracens, with whom the king St. Louis had to do in the Holy Land, that
they, in their religion, so firmly believed the number of every man's
days to be from all eternity prefixed and set down by an inevitable
decree, that they went naked to the wars, excepting a Turkish sword, and
their bodies only covered with a white linen cloth: and for the greatest
curse they could invent when they were angry, this was always in their
mouths: "Accursed be thou, as he that arms himself for fear of death."
This is a testimony of faith very much beyond ours. And of this sort is
that also that two friars of Florence gave in our fathers' days. Being
engaged in some controversy of learning, they agreed to go both of them
into the fire in the sight of all the people, each for the verification
of his argument, and all things were already prepared, and the thing
just upon the point of execution, when it was interrupted by an
unexpected accident.—[7th April 1498. Savonarola issued the challenge.
After many delays from demands and counter-demands by each side as to
the details of the fire, both parties found that they had important
business to transact in another county—both just barely escaped
assassination at the hands of the disappointed spectators. D.W.]
A young Turkish lord, having performed a notable exploit in his own
person in the sight of both armies, that of Amurath and that of
Huniades, ready to join battle, being asked by Amurath, what in such
tender and inexperienced years (for it was his first sally into arms)
had inspired him with so brave a courage, replied, that his chief tutor
for valour was a hare. "For being," said he, "one day a hunting, I found
a hare sitting, and though I had a brace of excellent greyhounds with
me, yet methought it would be best for sureness to make use of my bow;
for she sat very fair. I then fell to letting fly my arrows, and shot
forty that I had in my quiver, not only without hurting, but without
starting her from her form. At last I slipped my dogs after her, but to
no more purpose than I had shot: by which I understood that she had been
secured by her destiny; and, that neither darts nor swords can wound
without the permission of fate, which we can neither hasten nor defer."
This story may serve, by the way, to let us see how flexible our reason
is to all sorts of images.
A person of great years, name, dignity, and learning boasted to me
that he had been induced to a certain very important change in his faith
by a strange and whimsical incitation, and one otherwise so inadequate,
that I thought it much stronger, taken the contrary way: he called it a
miracle, and so I look upon it, but in a different sense. The Turkish
historians say, that the persuasion those of their nation have imprinted
in them of the fatal and unalterable prescription of their days,
manifestly conduces to the giving them great assurance in dangers. And I
know a great prince who makes very fortunate use of it, whether it be
that he really believes it, or that he makes it his excuse for so
wonderfully hazarding himself: let us hope Fortune may not be too soon
weary of her favour to him.
There has not happened in our memory a more admirable effect of
resolution than in those two who conspired the death of the Prince of
Orange.
[The first of these was Jehan de Jaureguy, who wounded the Prince
18th March 1582; the second, by whom the Prince was killed 10th July
1584., was Balthazar Gerard.]
'Tis marvellous how the second who executed it, could ever be
persuaded into an attempt, wherein his companion, who had done his
utmost, had had so ill success; and after the same method, and with the
same arms, to go attack a lord, armed with so recent a late lesson of
distrust, powerful in followers and bodily strength, in his own hall,
amidst his guards, and in a city wholly at his devotion. Assuredly, he
employed a very resolute arm and a courage enflamed with furious
passion. A poignard is surer for striking home; but by reason that more
motion and force of hand is required than with a pistol, the blow is
more subject to be put by or hindered. That this man did not run to a
certain death, I make no great doubt; for the hopes any one could
flatter him withal, could not find place in any sober understanding, and
the conduct of his exploit sufficiently manifests that he had no want of
that, no more than of courage. The motives of so powerful a persuasion
may be diverse, for our fancy does what it will, both with itself and
us. The execution that was done near Orleans—[The murder of the Duke of
Guise by Poltrot.]—was nothing like this; there was in this more of
chance than vigour; the wound was not mortal, if fortune had not made it
so, and to attempt to shoot on horseback, and at a great distance, by
one whose body was in motion from the motion of his horse, was the
attempt of a man who had rather miss his blow than fail of saving
himself. This was apparent from what followed; for he was so astonished
and stupefied with the thought of so high an execution, that he totally
lost his judgment both to find his way to flight and to govern his
tongue. What needed he to have done more than to fly back to his friends
across the river? 'Tis what I have done in less dangers, and that I
think of very little hazard, how broad soever the river may be, provided
your horse have easy going in, and that you see on the other side easy
landing according to the stream. The other, —[Balthazar Gerard.]—when
they pronounced his dreadful sentence, "I was prepared for this," said
he, "beforehand, and I will make you wonder at my patience."
The Assassins, a nation bordering upon Phoenicia,
[Or in Egypt, Syria, and Persia. Derivation of 'assassin' is from
Hassan-ben-Saba, one of their early leaders, and they had an
existence for some centuries. They are classed among the secret
societies of the Middle Ages. D.W.]
are reputed amongst the Mohammedans a people of very great devotion
and purity of manners. They hold that the nearest way to gain Paradise
is to kill some one of a contrary religion; which is the reason they
have often been seen, being but one or two, and without armour, to
attempt against powerful enemies, at the price of a certain death and
without any consideration of their own danger. So was our Raymond, Count
of Tripoli, assassinated (which word is derived from their name) in the
heart of his city,—[in 1151]—during our enterprises of the Holy War: and
likewise Conrad, Marquis of Monteferrat, the murderers at their
execution bearing themselves with great pride and glory that they had
performed so brave an exploit.
CHAPTER XXX——OF A MONSTROUS CHILD
This story shall go by itself; for I will leave it to physicians to
discourse of. Two days ago I saw a child that two men and a nurse, who
said they were the father, the uncle, and the aunt of it, carried about
to get money by showing it, by reason it was so strange a creature. It
was, as to all the rest, of a common form, and could stand upon its
feet; could go and gabble much like other children of the same age; it
had never as yet taken any other nourishment but from the nurse's
breasts, and what, in my presence, they tried to put into the mouth of
it, it only chewed a little and spat it out again without swallowing;
the cry of it seemed indeed a little odd and particular, and it was just
fourteen months old. Under the breast it was joined to another child,
but without a head, and which had the spine of the back without motion,
the rest entire; for though it had one arm shorter than the other, it
had been broken by accident at their birth; they were joined breast to
breast, and as if a lesser child sought to throw its arms about the neck
of one something bigger. The juncture and thickness of the place where
they were conjoined was not above four fingers, or thereabouts, so that
if you thrust up the imperfect child you might see the navel of the
other below it, and the joining was betwixt the paps and the navel. The
navel of the imperfect child could not be seen, but all the rest of the
belly, so that all that was not joined of the imperfect one, as arms,
buttocks, thighs, and legs, hung dangling upon the other, and might
reach to the mid-leg. The nurse, moreover, told us that it urined at
both bodies, and that the members of the other were nourished, sensible,
and in the same plight with that she gave suck to, excepting that they
were shorter and less. This double body and several limbs relating to
one head might be interpreted a favourable prognostic to the
king,—[Henry III.]—of maintaining these various parts of our state under
the union of his laws; but lest the event should prove otherwise, 'tis
better to let it alone, for in things already past there needs no
divination,
"Ut quum facts sunt, tum ad conjecturam
aliqui interpretatione revocentur;"
["So as when they are come to pass, they may then by some
interpretation be recalled to conjecture"
—Cicero, De Divin., ii. 31.]
as 'tis said of Epimenides, that he always prophesied backward.
I have just seen a herdsman in Medoc, of about thirty years of age,
who has no sign of any genital parts; he has three holes by which he
incessantly voids his water; he is bearded, has desire, and seeks
contact with women.
Those that we call monsters are not so to God, who sees in the
immensity of His work the infinite forms that He has comprehended
therein; and it is to be believed that this figure which astonishes us
has relation to some other figure of the same kind unknown to man. From
His all wisdom nothing but good, common; and regular proceeds; but we do
not discern the disposition and relation:
"Quod crebro videt, non miratur, etiamsi,
cur fiat, nescit. Quod ante non vidit, id,
si evenerit, ostentum esse censet."
["What he often sees he does not admire, though he be ignorant how
it comes to pass. When a thing happens he never saw before, he
thinks that it is a portent."—Cicero, De Divin., ii. 22.]
Whatever falls out contrary to custom we say is contrary to nature,
but nothing, whatever it be, is contrary to her. Let, therefore, this
universal and natural reason expel the error and astonishment that
novelty brings along with it.
CHAPTER XXXI——OF ANGER
Plutarch is admirable throughout, but especially where he judges of
human actions. What fine things does he say in the comparison of
Lycurgus and Numa upon the subject of our great folly in abandoning
children to the care and government of their fathers? The most of our
civil governments, as Aristotle says, "leave, after the manner of the
Cyclopes, to every one the ordering of their wives and children,
according to their own foolish and indiscreet fancy; and the
Lacedaemonian and Cretan are almost the only governments that have
committed the education of children to the laws. Who does not see that
in a state all depends upon their nurture and bringing up? and yet they
are left to the mercy of parents, let them be as foolish and
ill-conditioned as they may, without any manner of discretion."
Amongst other things, how often have I, as I have passed along our
streets, had a good mind to get up a farce, to revenge the poor boys
whom I have seen hided, knocked down, and miserably beaten by some
father or mother, when in their fury and mad with rage? You shall see
them come out with fire and fury sparkling in their eyes:
"Rabie jecur incendente, feruntur,
Praecipites; ut saxa jugis abrupta, quibus mons
Subtrahitur, clivoque latus pendente recedit,"
["They are headlong borne with burning fury as great stones torn
from the mountains, by which the steep sides are left naked and
bare."—Juvenal, Sat., vi. 647.]
(and according to Hippocrates, the most dangerous maladies are they
that disfigure the countenance), with a roaring and terrible voice, very
often against those that are but newly come from nurse, and there they
are lamed and spoiled with blows, whilst our justice takes no cognisance
of it, as if these maims and dislocations were not executed upon members
of our commonwealth:
"Gratum est, quod patria; civem populoque dedisti,
Si facis, ut patrix sit idoneus, utilis agris,
Utilis et bellorum et pacis rebus agendis."
["It is well when to thy country and the people thou hast given a
citizen, provided thou make fit for his country's service; useful to
till the earth, useful in affairs of war and peace"
—Juvenal, Sat., xiv. 70.]
There is no passion that so much transports men from their right
judgment as anger. No one would demur upon punishing a judge with death
who should condemn a criminal on the account of his own choler; why,
then, should fathers and pedagogues be any more allowed to whip and
chastise children in their anger? 'Tis then no longer correction, but
revenge. Chastisement is instead of physic to children; and would we
endure a physician who should be animated against and enraged at his
patient?
We ourselves, to do well, should never lay a hand upon our servants
whilst our anger lasts. When the pulse beats, and we feel emotion in
ourselves, let us defer the business; things will indeed appear
otherwise to us when we are calm and cool. 'Tis passion that then
commands, 'tis passion that speaks, and not we. Faults seen through
passion appear much greater to us than they really are, as bodies do
when seen through a mist. He who is hungry uses meat; but he who will
make use of chastisement should have neither hunger nor thirst to it.
And, moreover, chastisements that are inflicted with weight and
discretion are much better received and with greater benefit by him who
suffers; otherwise, he will not think himself justly condemned by a man
transported with anger and fury, and will allege his master's excessive
passion, his inflamed countenance, his unwonted oaths, his emotion and
precipitous rashness, for his own justification:
"Ora tument ira, nigrescunt sanguine venae,
Lumina Gorgoneo saevius igne micant."
["Their faces swell, their veins grow black with rage, and their
eyes sparkle with Gorgonian fire."—Ovid, De Art. Amandi, iii. 503.]
Suetonius reports that Caius Rabirius having been condemned by
Caesar, the thing that most prevailed upon the people (to whom he had
appealed) to determine the cause in his favour, was the animosity and
vehemence that Caesar had manifested in that sentence.
Saying is a different thing from doing; we are to consider the sermon
apart and the preacher apart. These men lent themselves to a pretty
business who in our times have attempted to shake the truth of our
Church by the vices of her ministers; she extracts her testimony
elsewhere; 'tis a foolish way of arguing and that would throw all things
into confusion. A man whose morals are good may have false opinions, and
a wicked man may preach truth, even though he believe it not himself.
'Tis doubtless a fine harmony when doing and saying go together; and I
will not deny but that saying, when the actions follow, is not of
greater authority and efficacy, as Eudamidas said, hearing a philosopher
talk of military affairs: "These things are finely said, but he who
speaks them is not to be believed for his ears have never been used to
the sound of the trumpet." And Cleomenes, hearing an orator declaiming
upon valour, burst out into laughter, at which the other being angry; "I
should," said he to him, "do the same if it were a swallow that spoke of
this subject; but if it were an eagle I should willingly hear him." I
perceive, methinks, in the writings of the ancients, that he who speaks
what he thinks, strikes much more home than he who only feigns. Hear
Cicero speak of the love of liberty: hear Brutus speak of it, the mere
written words of this man sound as if he would purchase it at the price
of his life. Let Cicero, the father of eloquence, treat of the contempt
of death; let Seneca do the same: the first languishingly drawls it out
so you perceive he would make you resolve upon a thing on which he is
not resolved himself; he inspires you not with courage, for he himself
has none; the other animates and inflames you. I never read an author,
even of those who treat of virtue and of actions, that I do not
curiously inquire what kind of a man he was himself; for the Ephori at
Sparta, seeing a dissolute fellow propose a wholesome advice to the
people, commanded him to hold his peace, and entreated a virtuous man to
attribute to himself the invention, and to propose it. Plutarch's
writings, if well understood, sufficiently bespeak their author, and so
that I think I know him even into his soul; and yet I could wish that we
had some fuller account of his life. And I am thus far wandered from my
subject, upon the account of the obligation I have to Aulus Gellius, for
having left us in writing this story of his manners, that brings me back
to my subject of anger. A slave of his, a vicious, ill-conditioned
fellow, but who had the precepts of philosophy often ringing in his
ears, having for some offence of his been stript by Plutarch's command,
whilst he was being whipped, muttered at first, that it was without
cause and that he had done nothing to deserve it; but at last falling in
good earnest to exclaim against and rail at his master, he reproached
him that he was no philosopher, as he had boasted himself to be: that he
had often heard him say it was indecent to be angry, nay, had written a
book to that purpose; and that the causing him to be so cruelly beaten,
in the height of his rage, totally gave the lie to all his writings; to
which Plutarch calmly and coldly answered, "How, ruffian," said he, "by
what dost thou judge that I am now angry? Does either my face, my
colour, or my voice give any manifestation of my being moved? I do not
think my eyes look fierce, that my countenance appears troubled, or that
my voice is dreadful: am I red, do I foam, does any word escape my lips
I ought to repent? Do I start? Do I tremble with fury? For those, I tell
thee, are the true signs of anger." And so, turning to the fellow that
was whipping him, "Ply on thy work," said he, "whilst this gentleman and
I dispute." This is his story.
Archytas Tarentinus, returning from a war wherein he had been
captain-general, found all things in his house in very great disorder,
and his lands quite out of tillage, through the ill husbandry of his
receiver, and having caused him to be called to him; "Go," said he, "if
I were not in anger I would soundly drub your sides." Plato likewise,
being highly offended with one of his slaves, gave Speusippus order to
chastise him, excusing himself from doing it because he was in anger.
And Carillus, a Lacedaemonian, to a Helot, who carried himself
insolently towards him: "By the gods," said he, "if I was not angry, I
would immediately cause thee to be put to death."
'Tis a passion that is pleased with and flatters itself. How often,
being moved under a false cause, if the person offending makes a good
defence and presents us with a just excuse, are we angry against truth
and innocence itself? In proof of which, I remember a marvellous example
of antiquity.
Piso, otherwise a man of very eminent virtue, being moved against a
soldier of his, for that returning alone from forage he could give him
no account where he had left a companion of his, took it for granted
that he had killed him, and presently condemned him to death. He was no
sooner mounted upon the gibbet, but, behold, his wandering companion
arrives, at which all the army were exceedingly glad, and after many
embraces of the two comrades, the hangman carried both the one and the
other into Piso's presence, all those present believing it would be a
great pleasure even to himself; but it proved quite contrary; for
through shame and spite, his fury, which was not yet cool, redoubled;
and by a subtlety which his passion suddenly suggested to him, he made
three criminals for having found one innocent, and caused them all to be
despatched: the first soldier, because sentence had passed upon him; the
second, who had lost his way, because he was the cause of his
companion's death; and the hangman, for not having obeyed the order
which had been given him. Such as have had to do with testy and
obstinate women, may have experimented into what a rage it puts them to
oppose silence and coldness to their fury, and that a man disdains to
nourish their anger. The orator Celius was wonderfully choleric by
nature; and to one who supped in his company, a man of a gentle and
sweet conversation, and who, that he might not move him, approved and
consented to all he said; he, impatient that his ill-humour should thus
spend itself without aliment: "For the love of the gods deny me
something," said he, "that we may be two." Women, in like manner, are
only angry that others may be angry again, in imitation of the laws of
love. Phocion, to one who interrupted his speaking by injurious and very
opprobrious words, made no other return than silence, and to give him
full liberty and leisure to vent his spleen; which he having accordingly
done, and the storm blown over, without any mention of this disturbance,
he proceeded in his discourse where he had left off before. No answer
can nettle a man like such a contempt.
Of the most choleric man in France (anger is always an imperfection,
but more excusable in, a soldier, for in that trade it cannot sometimes
be avoided) I often say, that he is the most patient man that I know,
and the most discreet in bridling his passions; which rise in him with
so great violence and fury,
"Magno veluti cum flamma sonore
Virgea suggeritur costis undantis ahem,
Exsultantque aatu latices, furit intus aquae vis.
Fumidus atque alte spumis exuberat amnis,
Nec jam se capit unda; volat vapor ater ad auras;"
["When with loud crackling noise, a fire of sticks is applied to the
boiling caldron's side, by the heat in frisky bells the liquor
dances; within the water rages, and high the smoky fluid in foam
overflows. Nor can the wave now contain itself; the black steam
flies all abroad."—AEneid, vii. 462.]
that he must of necessity cruelly constrain himself to moderate it.
And for my part, I know no passion which I could with so much violence
to myself attempt to cover and conceal; I would not set wisdom at so
high a price; and do not so much consider what a man does, as how much
it costs him to do no worse.
Another boasted himself to me of the regularity and gentleness of his
manners, which are to truth very singular; to whom I replied, that it
was indeed something, especially m persons of so eminent a quality as
himself, upon whom every one had their eyes, to present himself always
well-tempered to the world; but that the principal thing was to make
provision for within and for himself; and that it was not in my opinion
very well to order his business outwardly well, and to grate himself
within, which I was afraid he did, in putting on and maintaining this
mask and external appearance.
A man incorporates anger by concealing it, as Diogenes told
Demosthenes, who, for fear of being seen in a tavern, withdrew himself
the more retiredly into it: "The more you retire backward, the farther
you enter in." I would rather advise that a man should give his servant
a box of the ear a little unseasonably, than rack his fancy to present
this grave and composed countenance; and had rather discover my passions
than brood over them at my own expense; they grow less inventing and
manifesting themselves; and 'tis much better their point should wound
others without, than be turned towards ourselves within:
"Omnia vitia in aperto leviora sunt: et tunc perniciosissima,
quum simulata sanitate subsident."
["All vices are less dangerous when open to be seen, and then most
pernicious when they lurk under a dissembled good nature."
—Seneca, Ep. 56]
I admonish all those who have authority to be angry in my family, in
the first place to manage their anger and not to lavish it upon every
occasion, for that both lessens the value and hinders the effect: rash
and incessant scolding runs into custom, and renders itself despised;
and what you lay out upon a servant for a theft is not felt, because it
is the same he has seen you a hundred times employ against him for
having ill washed a glass, or set a stool out of place. Secondly, that
they be not angry to no purpose, but make sure that their reprehension
reach him with whom they are offended; for, ordinarily, they rail and
bawl before he comes into their presence, and continue scolding an age
after he is gone:
"Et secum petulans amentia certat:"
["And petulant madness contends with itself."
—Claudian in Eutrop., i. 237.]
they attack his shadow, and drive the storm in a place where no one
is either chastised or concerned, but in the clamour of their voice. I
likewise in quarrels condemn those who huff and vapour without an enemy:
those rhodomontades should be reserved to discharge upon the offending
party:
"Mugitus veluti cum prima in praelia taurus
Terrificos ciet, atque irasci in cornua tentat,
Arboris obnixus trunco, ventospue lacessit
Ictibus, et sparsa ad pugnum proludit arena."
["As when a bull to usher in the fight, makes dreadful bellowings,
and whets his horns against the trunk of a tree; with blows he beats
the air, and rehearses the fight by scattering the sand."
—AEneid, xii. 103.]
When I am angry, my anger is very sharp but withal very short, and as
private as I can; I lose myself indeed in promptness and violence, but
not in trouble; so that I throw out all sorts of injurious words at
random, and without choice, and never consider pertinently to dart my
language where I think it will deepest wound, for I commonly make use of
no other weapon than my tongue.
My servants have a better bargain of me in great occasions than in
little; the little ones surprise me; and the misfortune is, that when
you are once upon the precipice, 'tis no matter who gave you the push,
you always go to the bottom; the fall urges, moves, and makes haste of
itself. In great occasions this satisfies me, that they are so just
every one expects a reasonable indignation, and then I glorify myself in
deceiving their expectation; against these, I fortify and prepare
myself; they disturb my head, and threaten to transport me very far,
should I follow them. I can easily contain myself from entering into one
of these passions, and am strong enough, when I expect them, to repel
their violence, be the cause never so great; but if a passion once
prepossess and seize me, it carries me away, be the cause never so
small. I bargain thus with those who may contend with me when you see me
moved first, let me alone, right or wrong; I'll do the same for you. The
storm is only begot by a concurrence of angers, which easily spring from
one another, and are not born together. Let every one have his own way,
and we shall be always at peace. A profitable advice, but hard to
execute. Sometimes also it falls out that I put on a seeming anger, for
the better governing of my house, without any real emotion. As age
renders my humours more sharp, I study to oppose them, and will, if I
can, order it so, that for the future I may be so much the less peevish
and hard to please, as I have more excuse and inclination to be so,
although I have heretofore been reckoned amongst those who have the
greatest patience.
A word more to conclude this argument. Aristotle says, that anger
sometimes serves for arms to virtue and valour. That is probable;
nevertheless, they who contradict him pleasantly answer, that 'tis a
weapon of novel use, for we move all other arms, this moves us; our hand
guides it not, 'tis it that guides our hand; it holds us, we hold not
it.
CHAPTER XXXII——DEFENCE OF SENECA AND PLUTARCH
The familiarity I have with these two authors, and the assistance
they have lent to my age and to my book, wholly compiled of what I have
borrowed from them, oblige me to stand up for their honour.
As to Seneca, amongst a million of little pamphlets that those of the
so-called reformed religion disperse abroad for the defence of their
cause (and which sometimes proceed from so good a hand, that 'tis pity
his pen is not employed in a better subject), I have formerly seen one,
that to make up the parallel he would fain find out betwixt the
government of our late poor King Charles IX. and that of Nero, compares
the late Cardinal of Lorraine with Seneca; their fortunes, in having
both of them been the prime ministers in the government of their
princes, and in their manners, conditions, and deportments to have been
very near alike. Wherein, in my opinion, he does the said cardinal a
very great honour; for though I am one of those who have a very high
esteem for his wit, eloquence, and zeal to religion and the service of
his king, and his good fortune to have lived in an age wherein it was so
novel, so rare, and also so necessary for the public good to have an
ecclesiastical person of such high birth and dignity, and so sufficient
and capable of his place; yet, to confess the truth, I do not think his
capacity by many degrees near to the other, nor his virtue either so
clean, entire, or steady as that of Seneca.
Now the book whereof I speak, to bring about its design, gives a very
injurious description of Seneca, having borrowed its approaches from
Dion the historian, whose testimony I do not at all believe for besides
that he is inconsistent, that after having called Seneca one while very
wise, and again a mortal enemy to Nero's vices, makes him elsewhere
avaricious, an usurer, ambitious, effeminate, voluptuous, and a false
pretender to philosophy, his virtue appears so vivid and vigorous in his
writings, and his vindication is so clear from any of these imputations,
as of his riches and extraordinarily expensive way of living, that I
cannot believe any testimony to the contrary. And besides, it is much
more reasonable to believe the Roman historians in such things than
Greeks and foreigners. Now Tacitus and the rest speak very honourably
both of his life and death; and represent him to us a very excellent and
virtuous person in all things; and I will allege no other reproach
against Dion's report but this, which I cannot avoid, namely, that he
has so weak a judgment in the Roman affairs, that he dares to maintain
Julius Caesar's cause against Pompey [And so does this editor. D.W.],
and that of Antony against Cicero.
Let us now come to Plutarch: Jean Bodin is a good author of our
times, and a writer of much greater judgment than the rout of scribblers
of his age, and who deserves to be read and considered. I find him,
though, a little bold in this passage of his Method of history, where he
accuses Plutarch not only of ignorance (wherein I would have let him
alone: for that is beyond my criticism), but that he "often writes
things incredible, and absolutely fabulous ": these are his own words.
If he had simply said, that he had delivered things otherwise than they
really are, it had been no great reproach; for what we have not seen, we
are forced to receive from other hands, and take upon trust, and I see
that he purposely sometimes variously relates the same story; as the
judgment of the three best captains that ever were, given by Hannibal;
'tis one way in the Life of Flammius, and another in that of Pyrrhus.
But to charge him with having taken incredible and impossible things for
current pay, is to accuse the most judicious author in the world of want
of judgment. And this is his example; "as," says he, "when he relates
that a Lacedaemonian boy suffered his bowels to be torn out by a fox-cub
he had stolen, and kept it still concealed under his coat till he fell
down dead, rather than he would discover his theft." I find, in the
first place, this example ill chosen, forasmuch as it is very hard to
limit the power of the faculties of—the soul, whereas we have better
authority to limit and know the force of the bodily limbs; and
therefore, if I had been he, I should rather have chosen an example of
this second sort; and there are some of these less credible: and amongst
others, that which he refates of Pyrrhus, that "all wounded as he was,
he struck one of his enemies, who was armed from head to foot, so great
a blow with his sword, that he clave him down from his crown to his
seat, so that the body was divided into two parts." In this example I
find no great miracle, nor do I admit the excuse with which he defends
Plutarch, in having added these words, "as 'tis said," to suspend our
belief; for unless it be in things received by authority, and the
reverence to antiquity or religion, he would never have himself
admitted, or enjoined us to believe things incredible in themselves; and
that these words, "as 'tis said," are not put in this place to that
effect, is easy to be seen, because he elsewhere relates to us, upon
this subject, of the patience of the Lacedaemonian children, examples
happening in his time, more unlikely to prevail upon our faith; as what
Cicero has also testified before him, as having, as he says, been upon
the spot: that even to their times there were children found who, in the
trial of patience they were put to before the altar of Diana, suffered
themselves to be there whipped till the blood ran down all over their
bodies, not only without crying out, but without so much as a groan, and
some till they there voluntarily lost their lives: and that which
Plutarch also, amongst a hundred other witnesses, relates, that at a
sacrifice, a burning coal having fallen into the sleeve of a
Lacedaemonian boy, as he was censing, he suffered his whole arm to be
burned, till the smell of the broiling flesh was perceived by those
present. There was nothing, according to their custom, wherein their
reputation was more concerned, nor for which they were to undergo more
blame and disgrace, than in being taken in theft. I am so fully
satisfied of the greatness of those people, that this story does not
only not appear to me, as to Bodin, incredible; but I do not find it so
much as rare and strange. The Spartan history is full of a thousand more
cruel and rare examples; and is; indeed, all miracle in this respect.
Marcellinus, concerning theft, reports that in his time there was no
sort of torments which could compel the Egyptians, when taken in this
act, though a people very much addicted to it, so much as to tell their
name.
A Spanish peasant, being put to the rack as to the accomplices of the
murder of the Praetor Lucius Piso, cried out in the height of the
torment, "that his friends should not leave him, but look on in all
assurance, and that no pain had the power to force from him one word of
confession," which was all they could get the first day. The next day,
as they were leading him a second time to another trial, strongly
disengaging himself from the hands of his guards, he furiously ran his
head against a wall, and beat out his brains.
Epicharis, having tired and glutted the cruelty of Nero's satellites,
and undergone their fire, their beating, their racks, a whole day
together, without one syllable of confession of her conspiracy; being
the next day brought again to the rack, with her limbs almost torn to
pieces, conveyed the lace of her robe with a running noose over one of
the arms of her chair, and suddenly slipping her head into it, with the
weight of her own body hanged herself. Having the courage to die in that
manner, is it not to be presumed that she purposely lent her life to the
trial of her fortitude the day before, to mock the tyrant, and encourage
others to the like attempt?
And whoever will inquire of our troopers the experiences they have
had in our civil wars, will find effects of patience and obstinate
resolution in this miserable age of ours, and amongst this rabble even
more effeminate than the Egyptians, worthy to be compared with those we
have just related of the Spartan virtue.
I know there have been simple peasants amongst us who have endured
the soles of their feet to be broiled upon a gridiron, their finger-ends
to be crushed with the cock of a pistol, and their bloody eyes squeezed
out of their heads by force of a cord twisted about their brows, before
they would so much as consent to a ransom. I have seen one left stark
naked for dead in a ditch, his neck black and swollen, with a halter yet
about it with which they had dragged him all night at a horse's tail,
his body wounded in a hundred places, with stabs of daggers that had
been given him, not to kill him, but to put him to pain and to affright
him, who had endured all this, and even to being speechless and
insensible, resolved, as he himself told me, rather to die a thousand
deaths (as indeed, as to matter of suffering, he had borne one) before
he would promise anything; and yet he was one of the richest husbandmen
of all the country. How many have been seen patiently to suffer
themselves to be burnt and roasted for opinions taken upon trust from
others, and by them not at all understood? I have known a hundred and a
hundred women (for Gascony has a certain prerogative for obstinacy) whom
you might sooner have made eat fire than forsake an opinion they had
conceived in anger. They are all the more exasperated by blows and
constraint. And he that made the story of the woman who, in defiance of
all correction, threats, and bastinadoes, ceased not to call her husband
lousy knave, and who being plunged over head and ears in water, yet
lifted her hands above her head and made a sign of cracking lice,
feigned a tale of which, in truth, we every day see a manifest image in
the obstinacy of women. And obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at
least in vigour and stability.
We are not to judge what is possible and what is not, according to
what is credible and incredible to our apprehension, as I have said
elsewhere and it is a great fault, and yet one that most men are guilty
of, which, nevertheless, I do not mention with any reflection upon
Bodin, to make a difficulty of believing that in another which they
could not or would not do themselves. Every one thinks that the
sovereign stamp of human nature is imprinted in him, and that from it
all others must take their rule; and that all proceedings which are not
like his are feigned and false. Is anything of another's actions or
faculties proposed to him? the first thing he calls to the consultation
of his judgment is his own example; and as matters go with him, so they
must of necessity do with all the world besides dangerous and
intolerable folly! For my part, I consider some men as infinitely beyond
me, especially amongst the ancients, and yet, though I clearly discern
my inability to come near them by a thousand paces, I do not forbear to
keep them in sight, and to judge of what so elevates them, of which I
perceive some seeds in myself, as I also do of the extreme meanness of
some other minds, which I neither am astonished at nor yet misbelieve. I
very well perceive the turns those great souls take to raise themselves
to such a pitch, and admire their grandeur; and those flights that I
think the bravest I could be glad to imitate; where, though I want wing,
yet my judgment readily goes along with them. The other example he
introduces of "things incredible and wholly fabulous," delivered by
Plutarch, is, that "Agesilaus was fined by the Ephori for having wholly
engrossed the hearts and affections of his citizens to himself alone."
And herein I do not see what sign of falsity is to be found: clearly
Plutarch speaks of things that must needs be better known to him than to
us; and it was no new thing in Greece to see men punished and exiled for
this very thing, for being too acceptable to the people; witness the
Ostracism and Petalism.—[Ostracism at Athens was banishment for ten
years; petalism at Syracuse was banishment for five years.]
There is yet in this place another accusation laid against Plutarch
which I cannot well digest, where Bodin says that he has sincerely
paralleled Romans with Romans, and Greeks amongst themselves, but not
Romans with Greeks; witness, says he, Demosthenes and Cicero, Cato and
Aristides, Sylla and Lysander, Marcellus and Pelopidas, Pompey and
Agesilaus, holding that he has favoured the Greeks in giving them so
unequal companions. This is really to attack what in Plutarch is most
excellent and most to be commended; for in his parallels (which is the
most admirable part of all his works, and with which, in my opinion, he
is himself the most pleased) the fidelity and sincerity of his judgments
equal their depth and weight; he is a philosopher who teaches us virtue.
Let us see whether we cannot defend him from this reproach of falsity
and prevarication. All that I can imagine could give occasion to this
censure is the great and shining lustre of the Roman names which we have
in our minds; it does not seem likely to us that Demosthenes could rival
the glory of a consul, proconsul, and proctor of that great Republic;
but if a man consider the truth of the thing, and the men in themselves,
which is Plutarch's chiefest aim, and will rather balance their manners,
their natures, and parts, than their fortunes, I think, contrary to
Bodin, that Cicero and the elder Cato come far short of the men with
whom they are compared. I should sooner, for his purpose, have chosen
the example of the younger Cato compared with Phocion, for in this
couple there would have been a more likely disparity, to the Roman's
advantage. As to Marcellus, Sylla, and Pompey, I very well discern that
their exploits of war are greater and more full of pomp and glory than
those of the Greeks, whom Plutarch compares with them; but the bravest
and most virtuous actions any more in war than elsewhere, are not always
the most renowned. I often see the names of captains obscured by the
splendour of other names of less desert; witness Labienus, Ventidius,
Telesinus, and several others. And to take it by that, were I to
complain on the behalf of the Greeks, could I not say, that Camillus was
much less comparable to Themistocles, the Gracchi to Agis and Cleomenes,
and Numa to Lycurgus? But 'tis folly to judge, at one view, of things
that have so many aspects. When Plutarch compares them, he does not, for
all that, make them equal; who could more learnedly and sincerely have
marked their distinctions? Does he parallel the victories, feats of
arms, the force of the armies conducted by Pompey, and his triumphs,
with those of Agesilaus? "I do not believe," says he, "that Xenophon
himself, if he were now living, though he were allowed to write whatever
pleased him to the advantage of Agesilaus, would dare to bring them into
comparison." Does he speak of paralleling Lysander to Sylla. "There is,"
says he, "no comparison, either in the number of victories or in the
hazard of battles, for Lysander only gained two naval battles." This is
not to derogate from the Romans; for having only simply named them with
the Greeks, he can have done them no injury, what disparity soever there
may be betwixt them and Plutarch does not entirely oppose them to one
another; there is no preference in general; he only compares the pieces
and circumstances one after another, and gives of every one a particular
and separate judgment. Wherefore, if any one could convict him of
partiality, he ought to pick out some one of those particular judgments,
or say, in general, that he was mistaken in comparing such a Greek to
such a Roman, when there were others more fit and better resembling to
parallel him to.
CHAPTER XXXIII——THE STORY OF SPURINA
Philosophy thinks she has not ill employed her talent when she has
given the sovereignty of the soul and the authority of restraining our
appetites to reason. Amongst which, they who judge that there is none
more violent than those which spring from love, have this opinion also,
that they seize both body and soul, and possess the whole man, so that
even health itself depends upon them, and medicine is sometimes
constrained to pimp for them; but one might, on the contrary, also say,
that the mixture of the body brings an abatement and weakening; for such
desires are subject to satiety, and capable of material remedies.
Many, being determined to rid their soul from the continual alarms of
this appetite, have made use of incision and amputation of the rebelling
members; others have subdued their force and ardour by the frequent
application of cold things, as snow and vinegar. The sackcloths of our
ancestors were for this purpose, which is cloth woven of horse hair, of
which some of them made shirts, and others girdles, to torture and
correct their reins. A prince, not long ago, told me that in his youth
upon a solemn festival in the court of King Francis I., where everybody
was finely dressed, he would needs put on his father's hair shirt, which
was still kept in the house; but how great soever his devotion was, he
had not patience to wear it till night, and was sick a long time after;
adding withal, that he did not think there could be any youthful heat so
fierce that the use of this recipe would not mortify, and yet perhaps he
never essayed the most violent; for experience shows us, that such
emotions are often seen under rude and slovenly clothes, and that a hair
shirt does not always render those chaste who wear it.
Xenocrates proceeded with greater rigour in this affair; for his
disciples, to make trial of his continency, having slipt Lais, that
beautiful and famous courtesan, into his bed, quite naked, excepting the
arms of her beauty and her wanton allurements, her philters, finding
that, in despite of his reason and philosophical rules, his unruly flesh
began to mutiny, he caused those members of his to be burned that he
found consenting to this rebellion. Whereas the passions which wholly
reside in the soul, as ambition, avarice, and the rest, find the reason
much more to do, because it cannot there be helped but by its own means;
neither are those appetites capable of satiety, but grow sharper and
increase by fruition.
The sole example of Julius Caesar may suffice to demonstrate to us
the disparity of these appetites; for never was man more addicted to
amorous delights than he: of which one testimony is the peculiar care he
had of his person, to such a degree, as to make use of the most
lascivious means to that end then in use, as to have all the hairs of
his body twitched off, and to wipe all over with perfumes with the
extremest nicety. And he was a beautiful person in himself, of a fair
complexion, tall, and sprightly, full faced, with quick hazel eyes, if
we may believe Suetonius; for the statues of him that we see at Rome do
not in all points answer this description. Besides his wives, whom he
four times changed, without reckoning the amours of his boyhood with
Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, he had the maidenhead of the renowned
Cleopatra, queen of Egypt; witness the little Caesario whom he had by
her. He also made love to. Eunoe, queen of Mauritania, and at Rome, to
Posthumia, the wife of Servius Sulpitius; to Lollia, the wife of
Gabinius to Tertulla, the wife of Crassus, and even to Mutia, wife to
the great Pompey: which was the reason, the Roman historians say, that
she was repudiated by her husband, which Plutarch confesses to be more
than he knew; and the Curios, both father and son, afterwards reproached
Pompey, when he married Caesar's daughter, that he had made himself
son-in-law to a man who had made him cuckold, and one whom he himself
was wont to call AEgisthus. Besides all these, he entertained Servilia,
Cato's sister and mother to Marcus Brutus, whence, every one believes,
proceeded the great affection he had to Brutus, by reason that he was
born at a time when it was likely he might be his son. So that I have
reason, methinks, to take him for a man extremely given to this debauch,
and of very amorous constitution. But the other passion of ambition,
with which he was infinitely smitten, arising in him to contend with the
former, it was boon compelled to give way.
And here calling to mind Mohammed, who won Constantinople, and
finally exterminated the Grecian name, I do not know where these two
were so evenly balanced; equally an indefatigable lecher and soldier:
but where they both meet in his life and jostle one another, the
quarrelling passion always gets the better of the amorous one, and this
though it was out of its natural season never regained an absolute
sovereignty over the other till he had arrived at an extreme old age and
unable to undergo the fatigues of war.
What is related for a contrary example of Ladislaus, king of Naples,
is very remarkable; that being a great captain, valiant and ambitious,
he proposed to himself for the principal end of his ambition, the
execution of his pleasure and the enjoyment of some rare and excellent
beauty. His death sealed up all the rest: for having by a close and
tedious siege reduced the city of Florence to so great distress that the
inhabitants were compelled to capitulate about surrender, he was content
to let them alone, provided they would deliver up to him a beautiful
maid he had heard of in their city; they were forced to yield to it, and
by a private injury to avert the public ruin. She was the daughter of a
famous physician of his time, who, finding himself involved in so foul a
necessity, resolved upon a high attempt. As every one was lending a hand
to trick up his daughter and to adorn her with ornaments and jewels to
render her more agreeable to this new lover, he also gave her a
handkerchief most richly wrought, and of an exquisite perfume, an
implement they never go without in those parts, which she was to make
use of at their first approaches. This handkerchief, poisoned with his
greatest art, coming to be rubbed between the chafed flesh and open
pores, both of the one and the other, so suddenly infused the poison,
that immediately converting their warm into a cold sweat they presently
died in one another's arms.
But I return to Caesar. His pleasures never made him steal one minute
of an hour, nor go one step aside from occasions that might any way
conduce to his advancement. This passion was so sovereign in him over
all the rest, and with so absolute authority possessed his soul, that it
guided him at pleasure. In truth, this troubles me, when, as to
everything else, I consider the greatness of this man, and the wonderful
parts wherewith he was endued; learned to that degree in all sorts of
knowledge that there is hardly any one science of which he has not
written; so great an orator that many have preferred his eloquence to
that of Cicero, and he, I conceive, did not think himself inferior to
him in that particular, for his two anti-Catos were written to
counterbalance the elocution that Cicero had expended in his Cato. As to
the rest, was ever soul so vigilant, so active, and so patient of labour
as his? and, doubtless, it was embellished with many rare seeds of
virtue, lively, natural, and not put on; he was singularly sober; so far
from being delicate in his diet, that Oppius relates, how that having
one day at table set before him medicated instead of common oil in some
sauce, he ate heartily of it, that he might not put his entertainer out
of countenance. Another time he caused his baker to be whipped for
serving him with a finer than ordinary sort of bread. Cato himself was
wont to say of him, that he was the first sober man who ever made it his
business to ruin his country. And as to the same Cato's calling, him one
day drunkard, it fell out thus being both of them in the Senate, at a
time when Catiline's conspiracy was in question of which was Caesar was
suspected, one came and brought him a letter sealed up. Cato believing
that it was something the conspirators gave him notice of, required him
to deliver into his hand, which Caesar was constrained to do to avoid
further suspicion. It was by chance a love-letter that Servilia, Cato's
sister, had written to him, which Cato having read, he threw it back to
him saying, "There, drunkard." This, I say, was rather a word of disdain
and anger than an express reproach of this vice, as we often rate those
who anger us with the first injurious words that come into our mouths,
though nothing due to those we are offended at; to which may be added
that the vice with which Cato upbraided him is wonderfully near akin to
that wherein he had surprised Caesar; for Bacchus and Venus, according
to the proverb, very willingly agree; but to me Venus is much more
sprightly accompanied by sobriety. The examples of his sweetness and
clemency to those by whom he had been offended are infinite; I mean,
besides those he gave during the time of the civil wars, which, as
plainly enough appears by his writings, he practised to cajole his
enemies, and to make them less afraid of his future dominion and
victory. But I must also say, that if these examples are not sufficient
proofs of his natural sweetness, they, at least, manifest a marvellous
confidence and grandeur of courage in this person. He has often been
known to dismiss whole armies, after having overcome them, to his
enemies, without ransom, or deigning so much as to bind them by oath, if
not to favour him, at least no more to bear arms against him; he has
three or four times taken some of Pompey's captains prisoners, and as
often set them at liberty. Pompey declared all those to be enemies who
did not follow him to the war; he proclaimed all those to be his friends
who sat still and did not actually take arms against him. To such
captains of his as ran away from him to go over to the other side, he
sent, moreover, their arms, horses, and equipage: the cities he had
taken by force he left at full liberty to follow which side they
pleased, imposing no other garrison upon them but the memory of his
gentleness and clemency. He gave strict and express charge, the day of
his great battle of Pharsalia, that, without the utmost necessity, no
one should lay a hand upon the citizens of Rome. These, in my opinion,
were very hazardous proceedings, and 'tis no wonder if those in our
civil war, who, like him, fight against the ancient estate of their
country, do not follow his example; they are extraordinary means, and
that only appertain to Caesar's fortune, and to his admirable foresight
in the conduct of affairs. When I consider the incomparable grandeur of
his soul, I excuse victory that it could not disengage itself from him,
even in so unjust and so wicked a cause.
To return to his clemency: we have many striking examples in the time
of his government, when, all things being reduced to his power, he had
no more written against him which he had as sharply answered: yet he did
not soon after forbear to use his interest to make him consul. Caius
Calvus, who had composed several injurious epigrams against him, having
employed many of his friends to mediate a reconciliation with him,
Caesar voluntarily persuaded himself to write first to him. And our good
Catullus, who had so rudely ruffled him under the name of Mamurra,
coming to offer his excuses to him, he made the same day sit at his
table. Having intelligence of some who spoke ill of him, he did no more,
but only by a public oration declare that he had notice of it. He still
less feared his enemies than he hated them; some conspiracies and cabals
that were made against his life being discovered to him, he satisfied
himself in publishing by proclamation that they were known to him,
without further prosecuting the conspirators.
As to the respect he had for his friends: Caius Oppius, being with
him upon a journey, and finding himself ill, he left him the only
lodging he had for himself, and lay all night upon a hard ground in the
open air. As to what concerns his justice, he put a beloved servant of
his to death for lying with a noble Roman's wife, though there was no
complaint made. Never had man more moderation in his victory, nor more
resolution in his adverse fortune.
But all these good inclinations were stifled and spoiled by his
furious ambition, by which he suffered himself to be so transported and
misled that one may easily maintain that this passion was the rudder of
all his actions; of a liberal man, it made him a public thief to supply
this bounty and profusion, and made him utter this vile and unjust
saying, "That if the most wicked and profligate persons in the world had
been faithful in serving him towards his advancement, he would cherish
and prefer them to the utmost of his power, as much as the best of men."
It intoxicated him with so excessive a vanity, as to dare to boast in
the presence of his fellow-citizens, that he had made the great
commonwealth of Rome a name without form and without body; and to say
that his answers for the future should stand for laws; and also to
receive the body of the Senate coming to him, sitting; to suffer himself
to be adored, and to have divine honours paid to him in his own
presence. To conclude, this sole vice, in my opinion, spoiled in him the
most rich and beautiful nature that ever was, and has rendered his name
abominable to all good men, in that he would erect his glory upon the
ruins of his country and the subversion of the greatest and most
flourishing republic the world shall ever see.
There might, on the contrary, many examples be produced of great men
whom pleasures have made to neglect the conduct of their affairs, as
Mark Antony and others; but where love and ambition should be in equal
balance, and come to jostle with equal forces, I make no doubt but the
last would win the prize.
To return to my subject: 'tis much to bridle our appetites by the
argument of reason, or, by violence, to contain our members within their
duty; but to lash ourselves for our neighbour's interest, and not only
to divest ourselves of the charming passion that tickles us, of the
pleasure we feel in being agreeable to others, and courted and beloved
of every one, but also to conceive a hatred against the graces that
produce that effect, and to condemn our beauty because it inflames
others; of this, I confess, I have met with few examples. But this is
one. Spurina, a young man of Tuscany:
"Qualis gemma micat, fulvum quae dividit aurum,
Aut collo decus, aut cupiti: vel quale per artem
Inclusum buxo aut Oricia terebintho
Lucet ebur,"
["As a gem shines enchased in yellow gold, or an ornament on the
neck or head, or as ivory has lustre, set by art in boxwood or
Orician ebony."—AEneid, x. 134.]
being endowed with a singular beauty, and so excessive, that the
chastest eyes could not chastely behold its rays; not contenting himself
with leaving so much flame and fever as he everywhere kindled without
relief, entered into a furious spite against himself and those great
endowments nature had so liberally conferred upon him, as if a man were
responsible to himself for the faults of others, and purposely slashed
and disfigured, with many wounds and scars, the perfect symmetry and
proportion that nature had so curiously imprinted in his face. To give
my free opinion, I more admire than honour such actions: such excesses
are enemies to my rules. The design was conscientious and good, but
certainly a little defective in prudence. What if his deformity served
afterwards to make others guilty of the sin of hatred or contempt; or of
envy at the glory of so rare a recommendation; or of calumny,
interpreting this humour a mad ambition! Is there any form from which
vice cannot, if it will, extract occasion to exercise itself, one way or
another? It had been more just, and also more noble, to have made of
these gifts of God a subject of exemplary regularity and virtue.
They who retire themselves from the common offices, from that
infinite number of troublesome rules that fetter a man of exact honesty
in civil life, are in my opinion very discreet, what peculiar sharpness
of constraint soever they impose upon themselves in so doing. 'Tis in
some sort a kind of dying to avoid the pain of living well. They may
have another reward; but the reward of difficulty I fancy they can never
have; nor, in uneasiness, that there can be anything more or better done
than the keeping oneself upright amid the waves of the world, truly and
exactly performing all parts of our duty. 'Tis, peradventure, more easy
to keep clear of the sex than to maintain one's self aright in all
points in the society of a wife; and a man may with less trouble adapt
himself to entire abstinence than to the due dispensation of abundance.
Use, carried on according to reason, has in it more of difficulty than
abstinence; moderation is a virtue that gives more work than suffering;
the well living of Scipio has a thousand fashions, that of Diogenes but
one; this as much excels the ordinary lives in innocence as the most
accomplished excel them in utility and force.
CHAPTER XXXIV——OBSERVATION ON THE MEANS TO CARRY ON A WAR ACCORDING
TO JULIUS CAESAR
'Tis related of many great leaders that they have had certain books
in particular esteem, as Alexander the Great, Homer; Scipio Africanus,
Xenophon; Marcus Brutus, Polybius; Charles V., Philip'de Comines; and
'tis said that, in our times, Machiavelli is elsewhere still in repute;
but the late Marshal Strozzi, who had taken Caesar for his man,
doubtless made the best choice, seeing that it indeed ought to be the
breviary of every soldier, as being the true and sovereign pattern of
the military art. And, moreover, God knows with that grace and beauty he
has embellished that rich matter, with so pure, delicate, and perfect
expression, that, in my opinion, there are no writings in the world
comparable to his, as to that business.
I will set down some rare and particular passages of his wars that
remain in my memory.
His army, being in some consternation upon the rumour that was spread
of the great forces that king Juba was leading against him, instead of
abating the apprehension which his soldiers had conceived at the news
and of lessening to them the forces of the enemy, having called them all
together to encourage and reassure them, he took a quite contrary way to
what we are used to do, for he told them that they need no more trouble
themselves with inquiring after the enemy's forces, for that he was
certainly informed thereof, and then told them of a number much
surpassing both the truth and the report that was current in his army;
following the advice of Cyrus in Xenophon, forasmuch as the deception is
not of so great importance to find an enemy weaker than we expected,
than to find him really very strong, after having been made to believe
that he was weak.
It was always his use to accustom his soldiers simply to obey,
without taking upon them to control, or so much as to speak of their
captain's designs, which he never communicated to them but upon the
point of execution; and he took a delight, if they discovered anything
of what he intended, immediately to change his orders to deceive them;
and to that purpose, would often, when he had assigned his quarters in a
place, pass forward and lengthen his day's march, especially if it was
foul and rainy weather.
The Swiss, in the beginning of his wars in Gaul, having sent to him
to demand a free passage over the Roman territories, though resolved to
hinder them by force, he nevertheless spoke kindly to the messengers,
and took some respite to return an answer, to make use of that time for
the calling his army together. These silly people did not know how good
a husband he was of his time: for he often repeats that it is the best
part of a captain to know how to make use of occasions, and his
diligence in his exploits is, in truth, unheard of and incredible.
If he was not very conscientious in taking advantage of an enemy
under colour of a treaty of agreement, he was as little so in this, that
he required no other virtue in a soldier but valour only, and seldom
punished any other faults but mutiny and disobedience. He would often
after his victories turn them loose to all sorts of licence, dispensing
them for some time from the rules of military discipline, saying withal
that he had soldiers so well trained up that, powdered and perfumed,
they would run furiously to the fight. In truth, he loved to have them
richly armed, and made them wear engraved, gilded, and damasked armour,
to the end that the care of saving it might engage them to a more
obstinate defence. Speaking to them, he called them by the name of
fellow-soldiers, which we yet use; which his successor, Augustus,
reformed, supposing he had only done it upon necessity, and to cajole
those who merely followed him as volunteers:
"Rheni mihi Caesar in undis
Dux erat; hic socius; facinus quos inquinat, aequat:"
["In the waters of the Rhine Caesar was my general; here at Rome he
is my fellow. Crime levels those whom it polluted."
—Lucan, v. 289.]
but that this carriage was too mean and low for the dignity of an
emperor and general of an army, and therefore brought up the custom of
calling them soldiers only.
With this courtesy Caesar mixed great severity to keep them in awe;
the ninth legion having mutinied near Placentia, he ignominiously
cashiered them, though Pompey was then yet on foot, and received them
not again to grace till after many supplications; he quieted them more
by authority and boldness than by gentle ways.
In that place where he speaks of his, passage over the Rhine to
Germany, he says that, thinking it unworthy of the honour of the Roman
people to waft over his army in vessels, he built a bridge that they
might pass over dry-foot. There it was that he built that wonderful
bridge of which he gives so particular a description; for he nowhere so
willingly dwells upon his actions as in representing to us the subtlety
of his inventions in such kind of handiwork.
I have also observed this, that he set a great value upon his
exhortations to the soldiers before the fight; for where he would show
that he was either surprised or reduced to a necessity of fighting, he
always brings in this, that he had not so much as leisure to harangue
his army. Before that great battle with those of Tournay, "Caesar," says
he, "having given order for everything else, presently ran where fortune
carried him to encourage his people, and meeting with the tenth legion,
had no more time to say anything to them but this, that they should
remember their wonted valour; not to be astonished, but bravely sustain
the enemy's encounter; and seeing the enemy had already approached
within a dart's cast, he gave the signal for battle; and going suddenly
thence elsewhere, to encourage others, he found that they were already
engaged." Here is what he tells us in that place. His tongue, indeed,
did him notable service upon several occasions, and his military
eloquence was, in his own time, so highly reputed, that many of his army
wrote down his harangues as he spoke them, by which means there were
volumes of them collected that existed a long time after him. He had so
particular a grace in speaking, that his intimates, and Augustus amongst
others, hearing those orations read, could distinguish even to the
phrases and words that were not his.
The first time that he went out of Rome with any public command, he
arrived in eight days at the river Rhone, having with him in his coach a
secretary or two before him who were continually writing, and him who
carried his sword behind him. And certainly, though a man did nothing
but go on, he could hardly attain that promptitude with which, having
been everywhere victorious in Gaul, he left it, and, following Pompey to
Brundusium, in eighteen days' time he subdued all Italy; returned from
Brundusium to Rome; from Rome went into the very heart of Spain, where
he surmounted extreme difficulties in the war against Afranius and
Petreius, and in the long siege of Marseilles; thence he returned into
Macedonia, beat the Roman army at Pharsalia, passed thence in pursuit of
Pompey into Egypt, which he also subdued; from Egypt he went into Syria
and the territories of Pontus, where he fought Pharnaces; thence into
Africa, where he defeated Scipio and Juba; again returned through Italy,
where he defeated Pompey's sons:
"Ocyor et coeli fiammis, et tigride foeta."
["Swifter than lightning, or the cub-bearing tigress."
—Lucan, v. 405]
"Ac veluti montis saxum de, vertice praeceps
Cum ruit avulsum vento, seu turbidus imber
Proluit, aut annis solvit sublapsa vetustas,
Fertur in abruptum magno mons improbus actu,
Exultatque solo, silvas, armenta, virosque,
Involvens secum."
["And as a stone torn from the mountain's top by the wind or rain
torrents, or loosened by age, falls massive with mighty force,
bounds here and there, in its course sweeps from the earth with it
woods, herds, and men."—AEneid, xii. 684.]
Speaking of the siege of Avaricum, he says, that it, was his custom
to be night and day with the pioneers.—[Engineers. D.W.]—In all
enterprises of consequence he always reconnoitred in person, and never
brought his army into quarters till he had first viewed the place, and,
if we may believe Suetonius, when he resolved to pass over into England,
he was the first man that sounded the passage.
He was wont to say that he more valued a victory obtained by counsel
than by force, and in the war against Petreius and Afranius, fortune
presenting him with an occasion of manifest advantage, he declined it,
saying, that he hoped, with a little more time, but less hazard, to
overthrow his enemies. He there also played a notable part in commanding
his whole army to pass the river by swimming, without any manner of
necessity:
"Rapuitque ruens in praelia miles,
Quod fugiens timuisset, iter; mox uda receptis
Membra fovent armis, gelidosque a gurgite, cursu
Restituunt artus."
["The soldier rushing through a way to fight which he would have
been afraid to have taken in flight: then with their armour they
cover wet limbs, and by running restore warmth to their numbed
joints."—Lucan, iv. 151.]
I find him a little more temperate and considerate in his enterprises
than Alexander, for this man seems to seek and run headlong upon dangers
like an impetuous torrent which attacks and rushes against everything it
meets, without choice or discretion;
"Sic tauriformis volvitur Aufidus;
Qui regna Dauni perfluit Appuli,
Dum saevit, horrendamque cultis
Diluviem meditatur agris;"
["So the biforked Aufidus, which flows through the realm of the
Apulian Daunus, when raging, threatens a fearful deluge to the
tilled ground."—Horat., Od., iv. 14, 25.]
and, indeed, he was a general in the flower and first heat of his
youth, whereas Caesar took up the trade at a ripe and well advanced age;
to which may be added that Alexander was of a more sanguine, hot, and
choleric constitution, which he also inflamed with wine, from which
Caesar was very abstinent.
But where necessary occasion required, never did any man venture his
person more than he: so much so, that for my part, methinks I read in
many of his exploits a determinate resolution to throw himself away to
avoid the shame of being overcome. In his great battle with those of
Tournay, he charged up to the head of the enemies without his shield,
just as he was seeing the van of his own army beginning to give ground';
which also several other times befell him. Hearing that his people were
besieged, he passed through the enemy's army in disguise to go and
encourage them with his presence. Having crossed over to Dyrrachium with
very slender forces, and seeing the remainder of his army which he had
left to Antony's conduct slow in following him, he undertook alone to
repass the sea in a very great storms and privately stole away to fetch
the rest of his forces, the ports on the other side being seized by
Pompey, and the whole sea being in his possession. And as to what he
performed by force of hand, there are many exploits that in hazard
exceed all the rules of war; for with how small means did he undertake
to subdue the kingdom of Egypt, and afterwards to attack the forces of
Scipio and Juba, ten times greater than his own? These people had, I
know not what, more than human confidence in their fortune; and he was
wont to say that men must embark, and not deliberate, upon high
enterprises. After the battle of Pharsalia, when he had sent his army
away before him into Asia, and was passing in one single vessel the
strait of the Hellespont, he met Lucius Cassius at sea with ten tall
men-of-war, when he had the courage not only to stay his coming, but to
sail up to him and summon him to yield, which he did.
Having undertaken that furious siege of Alexia, where there were
fourscore thousand men in garrison, all Gaul being in arms to raise the
siege and having set an army on foot of a hundred and nine thousand
horse, and of two hundred and forty thousand foot, what a boldness and
vehement confidence was it in him that he would not give over his
attempt, but resolved upon two so great difficulties—which nevertheless
he overcame; and, after having won that great battle against those
without, soon reduced those within to his mercy. The same happened to
Lucullus at the siege of Tigranocerta against King Tigranes, but the
condition of the enemy was not the same, considering the effeminacy of
those with whom Lucullus had to deal. I will here set down two rare and
extraordinary events concerning this siege of Alexia; one, that the
Gauls having drawn their powers together to encounter Caesar, after they
had made a general muster of all their forces, resolved in their council
of war to dismiss a good part of this great multitude, that they might
not fall into confusion. This example of fearing to be too many is new;
but, to take it right, it stands to reason that the body of an army
should be of a moderate greatness, and regulated to certain bounds, both
out of respect to the difficulty of providing for them, and the
difficulty of governing and keeping them in order. At least it is very
easy to make it appear by example that armies monstrous in number have
seldom done anything to purpose. According to the saying of Cyrus in
Xenophon, "'Tis not the number of men, but the number of good men, that
gives the advantage": the remainder serving rather to trouble than
assist. And Bajazet principally grounded his resolution of giving
Tamerlane battle, contrary to the opinion of all his captains, upon
this, that his enemies numberless number of men gave him assured hopes
of confusion. Scanderbeg, a very good and expert judge in such matters,
was wont to say that ten or twelve thousand reliable fighting men were
sufficient to a good leader to secure his regulation in all sorts of
military occasions. The other thing I will here record, which seems to
be contrary both to the custom and rules of war, is, that Vercingetorix,
who was made general of all the parts of the revolted Gaul, should go
shut up himself in Alexia: for he who has the command of a whole country
ought never to shut himself up but in case of such last extremity that
the only place he has left is in concern, and that the only hope he has
left is in the defence of that city; otherwise he ought to keep himself
always at liberty, that he may have the means to provide, in general,
for all parts of his government.
To return to Caesar. He grew, in time, more slow and more
considerate, as his friend Oppius witnesses: conceiving that he ought
not lightly to hazard the glory of so many victories, which one blow of
fortune might deprive him of. 'Tis what the Italians say, when they
would reproach the rashness and foolhardiness of young people, calling
them Bisognosi d'onore, "necessitous of honour," and that being in so
great a want and dearth of reputation, they have reason to seek it at
what price soever, which they ought not to do who have acquired enough
already. There may reasonably be some moderation, some satiety, in this
thirst and appetite of glory, as well as in other things: and there are
enough people who practise it.
He was far remote from the religious scruples of the ancient Romans,
who would never prevail in their wars but by dint of pure and simple
valour; and yet he was more conscientious than we should be in these
days, and did not approve all sorts of means to obtain a victory. In the
war against Ariovistus, whilst he was parleying with him, there happened
some commotion between the horsemen, which was occasioned by the fault
of Ariovistus' light horse, wherein, though Caesar saw he had a very
great advantage of the enemy, he would make no use on't, lest he should
have been reproached with a treacherous proceeding.
He was always wont to wear rich garments, and of a shining colour in
battle, that he might be the more remarkable and better observed.
He always carried a stricter and tighter hand over his soldiers when
near an enemy. When the ancient Greeks would accuse any one of extreme
insufficiency, they would say, in common proverb, that he could neither
read nor swim; he was of the same opinion, that swimming was of great
use in war, and himself found it so; for when he had to use diligence,
he commonly swam over the rivers in his way; for he loved to march on
foot, as also did Alexander the Great. Being in Egypt forced, to save
himself, to go into a little boat, and so many people leaping in with
him that it was in danger of sinking, he chose rather to commit himself
to the sea, and swam to his fleet, which lay two hundred paces off,
holding in his left hand his tablets, and drawing his coatarmour in his
teeth, that it might not fall into the enemy's hand, and at this time he
was of a pretty advanced age.
Never had any general so much credit with his soldiers: in the
beginning of the civil wars, his centurions offered him to find every
one a man-at-arms at his own charge, and the foot soldiers to serve him
at their own expense; those who were most at their ease, moreover,
undertaking to defray the more necessitous. The late Admiral Chastillon
[Gaspard de Coligny, assassinated in the St. Bartholomew
massacre, 24th August 1572.]
showed us the like example in our civil wars; for the French of his
army provided money out of their own purses to pay the foreigners that
were with him. There are but rarely found examples of so ardent and so
ready an affection amongst the soldiers of elder times, who kept
themselves strictly to their rules of war: passion has a more absolute
command over us than reason; and yet it happened in the war against
Hannibal, that by the example of the people of Rome in the city, the
soldiers and captains refused their pay in the army, and in Marcellus'
camp those were branded with the name of Mercenaries who would receive
any. Having got the worst of it near Dyrrachium, his soldiers came and
offered themselves to be chastised and punished, so that there was more
need to comfort than reprove them. One single cohort of his withstood
four of Pompey's legions above four hours together, till they were
almost all killed with arrows, so that there were a hundred and thirty
thousand shafts found in the trenches. A soldier called Scaeva, who
commanded at one of the avenues, invincibly maintained his ground,
having lost an eye, with one shoulder and one thigh shot through, and
his shield hit in two hundred and thirty places. It happened that many
of his soldiers being taken prisoners, rather chose to die than promise
to join the contrary side. Granius Petronius was taken by Scipio in
Africa: Scipio having put the rest to death, sent him word that he gave
him his life, for he was a man of quality and quaestor, to whom
Petronius sent answer back, that Caesar's soldiers were wont to give
others their life, and not to receive it; and immediately with his own
hand killed himself.
Of their fidelity there are infinite examples amongst them, that
which was done by those who were besieged in Salona, a city that stood
for Caesar against Pompey, is not, for the rarity of an accident that
there happened, to be forgotten. Marcus Octavius kept them close
besieged; they within being reduced to the extremest necessity of all
things, so that to supply the want of men, most of them being either
slain or wounded, they had manumitted all their slaves, and had been
constrained to cut off all the women's hair to make ropes for their war
engines, besides a wonderful dearth of victuals, and yet continuing
resolute never to yield. After having drawn the siege to a great length,
by which Octavius was grown more negligent and less attentive to his
enterprise, they made choice of one day about noon, and having first
placed the women and children upon the walls to make a show, sallied
upon the besiegers with such fury, that having routed the first, second,
and third body, and afterwards the fourth, and the rest, and beaten them
all out of their trenches, they pursued them even to their ships, and
Octavius himself was fain to fly to Dyrrachium, where Pompey lay. I do
not at present remember that I have met with any other example where the
besieged ever gave the besieger a total defeat and won the field, nor
that a sortie ever achieved the result of a pure and entire victory.
CHAPTER XXXV——OF THREE GOOD WOMEN
They are not by the dozen, as every one knows, and especially in the
duties of marriage, for that is a bargain full of so many nice
circumstances that 'tis hard a woman's will should long endure such a
restraint; men, though their condition be something better under that
tie, have yet enough to do. The true touch and test of a happy marriage
have respect to the time of the companionship, if it has been constantly
gentle, loyal, and agreeable. In our age, women commonly reserve the
publication of their good offices, and their vehement affection towards
their husbands, until they have lost them, or at least, till then defer
the testimonies of their good will; a too slow testimony and
unseasonable. By it they rather manifest that they never loved them till
dead: their life is nothing but trouble; their death full of love and
courtesy. As fathers conceal their affection from their children, women,
likewise, conceal theirs from their husbands, to maintain a modest
respect. This mystery is not for my palate; 'tis to much purpose that
they scratch themselves and tear their hair. I whisper in a
waiting-woman's or secretary's ear: "How were they, how did they live
together?" I always have that good saying m my head:
"Jactantius moerent, quae minus dolent."
["They make the most ado who are least concerned." (Or:)
"They mourn the more ostentatiously, the less they grieve."
—Tacitus, Annal., ii. 77, writing of Germanicus.]
Their whimpering is offensive to the living and vain to the dead. We
should willingly give them leave to laugh after we are dead, provided
they will smile upon us whilst we are alive. Is it not enough to make a
man revive in pure spite, that she, who spat in my face whilst I was in
being, shall come to kiss my feet when I am no more? If there be any
honour in lamenting a husband, it only appertains to those who smiled
upon them whilst they had them; let those who wept during their lives
laugh at their deaths, as well outwardly as within. Therefore, never
regard those blubbered eyes and that pitiful voice; consider her
deportment, her complexion, the plumpness of her cheeks under all those
formal veils; 'tis there she talks plain French. There are few who do
not mend upon't, and health is a quality that cannot lie. That starched
and ceremonious countenance looks not so much back as forward, and is
rather intended to get a new husband than to lament the old. When I was
a boy, a very beautiful and virtuous lady, who is yet living, the widow
of a prince, wore somewhat more ornament in her dress than our laws of
widowhood allow, and being reproached with it, she made answer that it
was because she was resolved to have no more love affairs, and would
never marry again.
I have here, not at all dissenting from our customs, made choice of
three women, who have also expressed the utmost of their goodness and
affection about their husbands' deaths; yet are they examples of another
kind than are now m use, and so austere that they will hardly be drawn
into imitation.
The younger Pliny' had near a house of his in Italy a neighbour who
was exceedingly tormented with certain ulcers in his private parts. His
wife seeing him so long to languish, entreated that he would give her
leave to see and at leisure to consider of the condition of his disease,
and that she would freely tell him what she thought. This permission
being obtained, and she having curiously examined the business, found it
impossible he could ever be cured, and that all he had to hope for or
expect was a great while to linger out a painful and miserable life, and
therefore, as the most sure and sovereign remedy, resolutely advised him
to kill himself. But finding him a little tender and backward in so rude
an attempt: "Do not think, my friend," said she, "that the torments I
see thee endure are not as sensible to me as to thyself, and that to
deliver myself from them, I will not myself make use of the same remedy
I have prescribed to thee. I will accompany thee in the cure as I have
done in the disease; fear nothing, but believe that we shall have
pleasure in this passage that is to free us from so many miseries, and
we will go happily together." Which having said, and roused up her
husband's courage, she resolved that they should throw themselves
headlong into the sea out of a window that overlooked it, and that she
might maintain to the last the loyal and vehement affection wherewith
she had embraced him during his life, she would also have him die in her
arms; but lest they should fail, and should quit their hold in the fall
through fear, she tied herself fast to him by the waist, and so gave up
her own life to procure her husband's repose. This was a woman of mean
condition; and, amongst that class of people, 'tis no very new thing to
see some examples of rare virtue:
"Extrema per illos
Justitia excedens terris vestigia fecit."
["Justice, when she left the earth, took her last
steps among them."—Virgil, Georg., ii. 473.]
The other two were noble and rich, where examples of virtue are
rarely lodged.
Arria, the wife of Caecina Paetus, a consular person, was the mother
of another Arria, the wife of Thrasea Paetus, he whose virtue was so
renowned in the time of Nero, and by this son-in-law, the grandmother of
Fannia: for the resemblance of the names of these men and women, and
their fortunes, have led to several mistakes. This first Arria, her
husband Caecina Paetus, having been taken prisoner by some of the
Emperor Claudius' people, after Scribonianus' defeat, whose party he had
embraced in the war, begged of those who were to carry him prisoner to
Rome, that they would take her into their ship, where she would be of
much less charge and trouble to them than a great many persons they must
otherwise have to attend her husband, and that she alone would undertake
to serve him in his chamber, his kitchen, and all other offices. They
refused, whereupon she put herself into a fisher-boat she hired on the
spot, and in that manner followed him from Sclavonia. When she had come
to Rome, Junia, the widow of Scribonianus, having one day, from the
resemblance of their fortune, accosted her in the Emperor's presence;
she rudely repulsed her with these words, "I," said she, "speak to thee,
or give ear to any thing thou sayest! to thee in whose lap Scribonianus
was slain, and thou art yet alive!" These words, with several other
signs, gave her friends to understand that she would undoubtedly
despatch herself, impatient of supporting her husband's misfortune. And
Thrasea, her son-in-law, beseeching her not to throw away herself, and
saying to her, "What! if I should run the same fortune that Caecina has
done, would you that your daughter, my wife, should do the same?"—"Would
I?" replied she, "yes, yes, I would: if she had lived as long, and in as
good understanding with thee as I have done, with my husband." These
answers made them more careful of her, and to have a more watchful eye
to her proceedings. One day, having said to those who looked to her:
"Tis to much purpose that you take all this pains to prevent me; you may
indeed make me die an ill death, but to keep me from dying is not in
your power"; she in a sudden phrenzy started from a chair whereon she
sat, and with all her force dashed her head against the wall, by which
blow being laid flat in a swoon, and very much wounded, after they had
again with great ado brought her to herself: "I told you," said she,
"that if you refused me some easy way of dying, I should find out
another, how painful soever." The conclusion of so admirable a virtue
was this: her husband Paetus, not having resolution enough of his own to
despatch himself, as he was by the emperor's cruelty enjoined, one day,
amongst others, after having first employed all the reasons and
exhortations which she thought most prevalent to persuade him to it, she
snatched the poignard he wore from his side, and holding it ready in her
hand, for the conclusion of her admonitions; "Do thus, Paetus," said
she, and in the same instant giving herself a mortal stab in the breast,
and then drawing it out of the wound, presented it to him, ending her
life with this noble, generous, and immortal saying, "Paete, non
dolet"—having time to pronounce no more but those three
never-to-be-forgotten words: "Paetus, it is not painful."
"Casta suo gladium cum traderet Arria Paeto,
Quern de visceribus traxerat ipsa suis
Si qua fides, vulnus quod feci non dolet, inquit,
Sed quod to facies, id mihi, Paete, dolet."
["When the chaste Arria gave to Poetus the reeking sword she had
drawn from her breast, 'If you believe me,' she said, 'Paetus, the
wound I have made hurts not, but 'tis that which thou wilt make that
hurts me.'"—-Martial, i. 14.]
The action was much more noble in itself, and of a braver sense than
the poet expressed it: for she was so far from being deterred by the
thought of her husband's wound and death and her own, that she had been
their promotress and adviser: but having performed this high and
courageous enterprise for her husband's only convenience, she had even
in the last gasp of her life no other concern but for him, and of
dispossessing him of the fear of dying with her. Paetus presently struck
himself to the heart with the same weapon, ashamed, I suppose, to have
stood in need of so dear and precious an example.
Pompeia Paulina, a young and very noble Roman lady, had married
Seneca in his extreme old age. Nero, his fine pupil, sent his guards to
him to denounce the sentence of death, which was performed after this
manner: When the Roman emperors of those times had condemned any man of
quality, they sent to him by their officers to choose what death he
would, and to execute it within such or such a time, which was limited,
according to the degree of their indignation, to a shorter or a longer
respite, that they might therein have better leisure to dispose their
affairs, and sometimes depriving them of the means of doing it by the
shortness of the time; and if the condemned seemed unwilling to submit
to the order, they had people ready at hand to execute it either by
cutting the veins of the arms and legs, or by compelling them by force
to swallow a draught of poison. But persons of honour would not abide
this necessity, but made use of their own physicians and surgeons for
this purpose. Seneca, with a calm and steady countenance, heard their
charge, and presently called for paper to write his will, which being by
the captain refused, he turned himself towards his friends, saying to
them, "Since I cannot leave you any other acknowledgment of the
obligation I have to you, I leave you at least the best thing I have,
namely, the image of my life and manners, which I entreat you to keep in
memory of me, that by so doing you may acquire the glory of sincere and
real friends." And there withal, one while appeasing the sorrow he saw
in them with gentle words, and presently raising his voice to reprove
them: "What," said he, "are become of all our brave philosophical
precepts? What are become of all the provisions we have so many years
laid up against the accidents of fortune? Is Nero's cruelty unknown to
us? What could we expect from him who had murdered his mother and his
brother, but that he should put his tutor to death who had brought him
up?" After having spoken these words in general, he turned himself
towards his wife, and embracing her fast in his arms, as, her heart and
strength failing her, she was ready to sink down with grief, he begged
of her, for his sake, to bear this accident with a little more patience,
telling her, that now the hour was come wherein he was to show, not by
argument and discourse, but effect, the fruit he had acquired by his
studies, and that he really embraced his death, not only without grief,
but moreover with joy. "Wherefore, my dearest," said he, "do not
dishonour it with thy tears, that it may not seem as if thou lovest
thyself more than my reputation. Moderate thy grief, and comfort thyself
in the knowledge thou hast had of me and my actions, leading the
remainder of thy life in the same virtuous manner thou hast hitherto
done." To which Paulina, having a little recovered her spirits, and
warmed the magnanimity of her courage with a most generous affection,
replied,—"No, Seneca," said she, "I am not a woman to suffer you to go
alone in such a necessity: I will not have you think that the virtuous
examples of your life have not taught me how to die; and when can I ever
better or more fittingly do it, or more to my own desire, than with you?
and therefore assure yourself I will go along with you." Then Seneca,
taking this noble and generous resolution of his wife m good part, and
also willing to free himself from the fear of leaving her exposed to the
cruelty of his enemies after his death: "I have, Paulina," said he,
"instructed thee in what would serve thee happily to live; but thou more
covetest, I see, the honour of dying: in truth, I will not grudge it
thee; the constancy and resolution in our common end are the same, but
the beauty and glory of thy part are much greater." Which being said,
the surgeons, at the same time, opened the veins of both their arms, but
as those of Seneca were more shrunk up, as well with age as abstinence,
made his blood flow too slowly, he moreover commanded them to open the
veins of his thighs; and lest the torments he endured might pierce his
wife's heart, and also to free himself from the affliction of seeing her
in so sad a condition, after having taken a very affectionate leave of
her, he entreated she would suffer them to carry her into her chamber,
which they accordingly did. But all these incisions being not yet enough
to make him die, he commanded Statius Anneus, his physician, to give him
a draught of poison, which had not much better effect; for by reason of
the weakness and coldness of his limbs, it could not arrive at his
heart. Wherefore they were forced to superadd a very hot bath, and then,
feeling his end approach, whilst he had breath he continued excellent
discourses upon the subject of his present condition, which the
secretaries wrote down so long as they could hear his voice, and his
last words were long after in high honour and esteem amongst men, and it
is a great loss to us that they have not come down to our times. Then,
feeling the last pangs of death, with the bloody water of the bath he
bathed his head, saying: "This water I dedicate to Jupiter the
deliverer." Nero, being presently informed of all this, fearing lest the
death of Paulina, who was one of the best-born ladies of Rome, and
against whom he had no particular unkindness, should turn to his
reproach, sent orders in all haste to bind up her wounds, which her
attendants did without her knowledge, she being already half dead, and
without all manner of sense. Thus, though she lived contrary to her own
design, it was very honourably, and befitting her own virtue, her pale
complexion ever after manifesting how much life had run from her veins.
These are my three very true stories, which I find as entertaining
and as tragic as any of those we make out of our own heads wherewith to
amuse the common people; and I wonder that they who are addicted to such
relations, do not rather cull out ten thousand very fine stories, which
are to be found in books, that would save them the trouble of invention,
and be more useful and diverting; and he who would make a whole and
connected body of them would need to add nothing of his own, but the
connection only, as it were the solder of another metal; and might by
this means embody a great many true events of all sorts, disposing and
diversifying them according as the beauty of the work should require,
after the same manner, almost, as Ovid has made up his Metamorphoses of
the infinite number of various fables.
In the last couple, this is, moreover, worthy of consideration, that
Paulina voluntarily offered to lose her life for the love of her
husband, and that her husband had formerly also forborne to die for the
love of her. We may think there is no just counterpoise in this
exchange; but, according to his stoical humour, I fancy he thought he
had done as much for her, in prolonging his life upon her account, as if
he had died for her. In one of his letters to Lucilius, after he has
given him to understand that, being seized with an ague in Rome, he
presently took coach to go to a house he had in the country, contrary to
his wife's opinion, who would have him stay, and that he had told her
that the ague he was seized with was not a fever of the body but of the
place, it follows thus: "She let me go," says he, "giving me a strict
charge of my health. Now I, who know that her life is involved in mine,
begin to make much of myself, that I may preserve her. And I lose the
privilege my age has given me, of being more constant and resolute in
many things, when I call to mind that in this old fellow there is a
young girl who is interested in his health. And since I cannot persuade
her to love me more courageously, she makes me more solicitously love
myself: for we must allow something to honest affections, and,
sometimes, though occasions importune us to the contrary, we must call
back life, even though it be with torment: we must hold the soul fast in
our teeth, since the rule of living, amongst good men, is not so long as
they please, but as long as they ought. He that loves not his wife nor
his friend so well as to prolong his life for them, but will obstinately
die, is too delicate and too effeminate: the soul must impose this upon
itself, when the utility of our friends so requires; we must sometimes
lend ourselves to our friends, and when we would die for ourselves must
break that resolution for them. 'Tis a testimony of grandeur of courage
to return to life for the consideration of another, as many excellent
persons have done: and 'tis a mark of singular good nature to preserve
old age (of which the greatest convenience is the indifference as to its
duration, and a more stout and disdainful use of life), when a man
perceives that this office is pleasing, agreeable, and useful to some
person by whom he is very much beloved. And a man reaps by it a very
pleasing reward; for what can be more delightful than to be so dear to
his wife, as upon her account he shall become dearer to himself? Thus
has my Paulina loaded me not only with her fears, but my own; it has not
been sufficient to consider how resolutely I could die, but I have also
considered how irresolutely she would bear my death. I am enforced to
live, and sometimes to live in magnanimity." These are his own words, as
excellent as they everywhere are.
CHAPTER XXXVI——OF THE MOST EXCELLENT MEN
If I should be asked my choice among all the men who have come to my
knowledge, I should make answer, that methinks I find three more
excellent than all the rest.
One of them Homer: not that Aristotle and Varro, for example, were
not, peradventure, as learned as he; nor that possibly Virgil was not
equal to him in his own art, which I leave to be determined by such as
know them both. I who, for my part, understand but one of them, can only
say this, according to my poor talent, that I do not believe the Muses
themselves could ever go beyond the Roman:
"Tale facit carmen docta testudine, quale
Cynthius impositis temperat articulis:"
["He plays on his learned lute a verse such as Cynthian Apollo
modulates with his imposed fingers."—Propertius, ii. 34, 79.]
and yet in this judgment we are not to forget that it is chiefly from
Homer that Virgil derives his excellence, that he is guide and teacher;
and that one touch of the Iliad has supplied him with body and matter
out of which to compose his great and divine AEneid. I do not reckon
upon that, but mix several other circumstances that render to me this
poet admirable, even as it were above human condition. And, in truth, I
often wonder that he who has produced, and, by his authority, given
reputation in the world to so many deities, was not deified himself.
Being blind and poor, living before the sciences were reduced into rule
and certain observation, he was so well acquainted with them, that all
those who have since taken upon them to establish governments, to carry
on wars, and to write either of religion or philosophy, of what sect
soever, or of the arts, have made use of him as of a most perfect
instructor in the knowledge of all things, and of his books as of a
treasury of all sorts of learning:
"Qui, quid sit pulcrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,
Planius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit:"
["Who tells us what is good, what evil, what useful, what not, more
clearly and better than Chrysippus and Crantor?"
—Horace, Ep., i. 2, 3.]
and as this other says,
"A quo, ceu fonte perenni,
Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis"
["From which, as from a perennial spring, the lips of the poets
are moistened by Pierian waters."—Ovid, Amoy., iii. 9, 25.]
and the other,
"Adde Heliconiadum comites, quorum unus Homerus
Sceptra potitus;"
["Add the companions of the Muses, whose sceptre Homer has solely
obtained."—Lucretius, iii. 1050.]
and the other:
"Cujusque ex ore profusos
Omnis posteritas latices in carmina duxit,
Amnemque in tenues ausa est deducere rivos.
Unius foecunda bonis."
["From whose mouth all posterity has drawn out copious streams of
verse, and has made bold to turn the mighty river into its little
rivulets, fertile in the property of one man."
—Manilius, Astyon., ii. 8.]
'Tis contrary to the order of nature that he has made the most
excellent production that can possibly be; for the ordinary birth of
things is imperfect; they thrive and gather strength by growing, whereas
he rendered the infancy of poesy and several other sciences mature,
perfect, and accomplished at first. And for this reason he may be called
the first and the last of the poets, according to the fine testimony
antiquity has left us of him, "that as there was none before him whom he
could imitate, so there has been none since that could imitate him." His
words, according to Aristotle, are the only words that have motion and
action, the only substantial words. Alexander the Great, having found a
rich cabinet amongst Darius' spoils, gave order it should be reserved
for him to keep his Homer in, saying: that he was the best and most
faithful counsellor he had in his military affairs. For the same reason
it was that Cleomenes, the son of Anaxandridas, said that he was the
poet of the Lacedaemonians, for that he was an excellent master for the
discipline of war. This singular and particular commendation is also
left of him in the judgment of Plutarch, that he is the only author in
the world that never glutted nor disgusted his readers, presenting
himself always another thing, and always flourishing in some new grace.
That wanton Alcibiades, having asked one, who pretended to learning, for
a book of Homer, gave him a box of the ear because he had none, which he
thought as scandalous as we should if we found one of our priests
without a Breviary. Xenophanes complained one day to Hiero, the tyrant
of Syracuse, that he was so poor he had not wherewithal to maintain two
servants. "What!" replied he, "Homer, who was much poorer than thou art,
keeps above ten thousand, though he is dead." What did Panaetius leave
unsaid when he called Plato the Homer of the philosophers? Besides what
glory can be compared to his? Nothing is so frequent in men's mouths as
his name and works, nothing so known and received as Troy, Helen, and
the war about her, when perhaps there was never any such thing. Our
children are still called by names that he invented above three thousand
years ago; who does not know Hector and Achilles? Not only some
particular families, but most nations also seek their origin in his
inventions. Mohammed, the second of that name, emperor of the Turks,
writing to our Pope Pius II., "I am astonished," says he, "that the
Italians should appear against me, considering that we have our common
descent from the Trojans, and that it concerns me as well as it does
them to revenge the blood of Hector upon the Greeks, whom they
countenance against me." Is it not a noble farce wherein kings,
republics, and emperors have so many ages played their parts, and to
which the vast universe serves for a theatre? Seven Grecian cities
contended for his birth, so much honour even his obscurity helped him
to!
"Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenm."
The other is Alexander the Great. For whoever will consider the age
at which he began his enterprises, the small means by which he effected
so glorious a design, the authority he obtained in such mere youth with
the greatest and most experienced captains of the world, by whom he was
followed, the extraordinary favour wherewith fortune embraced and
favoured so many hazardous, not to say rash, exploits,
"Impellens quicquid sibi summa petenti
Obstaret, gaudensque viam fecisse ruins;"
["Bearing down all who sought to withstand him, and pleased
to force his way by ruin."—Lucan, i. 149.]
that greatness, to have at the age of three-and-thirty years, passed
victorious through the whole habitable earth, and in half a life to have
attained to the utmost of what human nature can do; so that you cannot
imagine its just duration and the continuation of his increase in valour
and fortune, up to a due maturity of age, but that you must withal
imagine something more than man: to have made so many royal branches to
spring from his soldiers, leaving the world, at his death, divided
amongst four successors, simple captains of his army, whose posterity so
long continued and maintained that vast possession; so many excellent
virtues as he was master of, justice, temperance, liberality, truth in
his word, love towards his own people, and humanity towards those he
overcame; for his manners, in general, seem in truth incapable of any
manner of reproach, although some particular and extraordinary actions
of his may fall under censure. But it is impossible to carry on such
great things as he did within the strict rules of justice; such as he
are to be judged in gross by the main end of their actions. The ruin of
Thebes and Persepolis, the murder of Menander and of Ephistion's
physician, the massacre of so many Persian prisoners at one time, of a
troop of Indian soldiers not without prejudice to his word, and of the
Cossians, so much as to the very children, are indeed sallies that are
not well to be excused. For, as to Clytus, the fault was more than
redeemed; and that very action, as much as any other whatever, manifests
the goodness of his nature, a nature most excellently formed to
goodness; and it was ingeniously said of him, that he had his virtues
from Nature, his vices from Fortune. As to his being a little given to
bragging, a little too impatient of hearing himself ill-spoken of, and
as to those mangers, arms, and bits he caused to be strewed in the
Indies, all those little vanities, methinks, may very well be allowed to
his youth, and the prodigious prosperity of his fortune. And who will
consider withal his so many military virtues, his diligence, foresight,
patience, discipline, subtlety, magnanimity, resolution, and good
fortune, wherein (though we had not had the authority of Hannibal to
assure us) he was the first of men, the admirable beauty and symmetry of
his person, even to a miracle, his majestic port and awful mien, in a
face so young, ruddy, and radiant:
"Qualis, ubi Oceani perfusus Lucifer unda,
Quem Venus ante alios astrorum diligit ignes,
Extulit os sacrum coelo, tenebrasque resolvit;"
["As when, bathed in the waves of Ocean, Lucifer, whom Venus loves
beyond the other stars, has displayed his sacred countenance to the
heaven, and disperses the darkness"—AEneid, iii. 589.]
the excellence of his knowledge and capacity; the duration and
grandeur of his glory, pure, clean, without spot or envy, and that long
after his death it was a religious belief that his very medals brought
good fortune to all who carried them about them; and that more kings and
princes have written his actions than other historians have written the
actions of any other king or prince whatever; and that to this very day
the Mohammedans, who despise all other histories, admit of and honour
his alone, by a special privilege: whoever, I say, will seriously
consider these particulars, will confess that, all these things put
together, I had reason to prefer him before Caesar himself, who alone
could make me doubtful in my choice: and it cannot be denied that there
was more of his own in his exploits, and more of fortune in those of
Alexander. They were in many things equal, and peradventure Caesar had
some greater qualities they were two fires, or two torrents, overrunning
the world by several ways;
"Ac velut immissi diversis partibus ignes
Arentem in silvam, et virgulta sonantia lauro
Aut ubi decursu rapido de montibus altis
Dant sonitum spumosi amnes, et in aequora currunt,
Quisque suum populatus iter:"
["And as fires applied in several parts to a dry wood and crackling
shrubs of laurel, or as with impetuous fall from the steep
mountains, foaming torrents pour down to the ocean, each clearing a
destructive course."—AEneid, xii. 521.]
but though Caesar's ambition had been more moderate, it would still
be so unhappy, having the ruin of his country and universal mischief to
the world for its abominable object, that, all things raked together and
put into the balance, I must needs incline to Alexander's side.
The third and in my opinion the most excellent, is Epaminondas. Of
glory he has not near so much as the other two (which, for that matter,
is but a part of the substance of the thing): of valour and resolution,
not of that sort which is pushed on by ambition, but of that which
wisdom and reason can plant in a regular soul, he had all that could be
imagined. Of this virtue of his, he has, in my idea, given as ample
proof as Alexander himself or Caesar: for although his warlike exploits
were neither so frequent nor so full, they were yet, if duly considered
in all their circumstances, as important, as bravely fought, and carried
with them as manifest testimony of valour and military conduct, as those
of any whatever. The Greeks have done him the honour, without
contradiction, to pronounce him the greatest man of their nation; and to
be the first of Greece, is easily to be the first of the world. As to
his knowledge, we have this ancient judgment of him, "That never any man
knew so much, and spake so little as he";—[Plutarch, On the Demon of
Socrates, c. 23.]—for he was of the Pythagorean sect; but when he did
speak, never any man spake better; an excellent orator, and of powerful
persuasion. But as to his manners and conscience, he infinitely
surpassed all men who ever undertook the management of affairs; for in
this one thing, which ought chiefly to be considered, which alone truly
denotes us for what we are, and which alone I make counterbalance all
the rest put together, he comes not short of any philosopher whatever,
not even of Socrates himself. Innocence, in this man, is a quality
peculiar, sovereign, constant, uniform, incorruptible, compared with
which, it appears in Alexander subject to something else subaltern,
uncertain, variable, effeminate, and fortuitous.
Antiquity has judged that in thoroughly sifting all the other great
captains, there is found in every one some peculiar quality that
illustrates his name: in this man only there is a full and equal virtue
throughout, that leaves nothing to be wished for in him, whether in
private or public employment, whether in peace or war; whether to live
gloriously and grandly, and to die: I do not know any form or fortune of
man that I so much honour and love.
'Tis true that I look upon his obstinate poverty, as it is set out by
his best friends, as a little too scrupulous and nice; and this is the
only feature, though high in itself and well worthy of admiration, that
I find so rugged as not to desire to imitate, to the degree it was in
him.
Scipio AEmilianus alone, could one attribute to him as brave and
magnificent an end, and as profound and universal a knowledge, might be
put into the other scale of the balance. Oh, what an injury has time
done me to deprive me of the sight of two of the most noble lives which,
by the common consent of all the world, one of the greatest of the
Greeks, and the other of the Romans, were in all Plutarch. What a
matter! what a workman!
For a man that was no saint, but, as we say, a gentleman, of civilian
and ordinary manners, and of a moderate ambition, the richest life that
I know, and full of the richest and most to be desired parts, all things
considered, is, in my opinion, that of Alcibiades.
But as to what concerns Epaminondas, I will here, for the example of
an excessive goodness, add some of his opinions: he declared, that the
greatest satisfaction he ever had in his whole life, was the contentment
he gave his father and mother by his victory at Leuctra; wherein his
deference is great, preferring their pleasure before his own, so dust
and so full of so glorious an action. He did not think it lawful, even
to restore the liberty of his country, to kill a man without knowing a
cause: which made him so cold in the enterprise of his companion
Pelopidas for the relief of Thebes. He was also of opinion that men in
battle ought to avoid the encounter of a friend who was on the contrary
side, and to spare him. And his humanity, even towards his enemies
themselves, having rendered him suspected to the Boeotians, for that,
after he had miraculously forced the Lacedaemonians to open to him the
pass which they had undertaken to defend at the entrance into the Morea,
near Corinth, he contented himself with having charged through them,
without pursuing them to the utmost, he had his commission of general
taken from him, very honourably upon such an account, and for the shame
it was to them upon necessity afterwards to restore him to his command,
and so to manifest how much upon him depended their safety and honour;
victory like a shadow attending him wherever he went; and indeed the
prosperity of his country, as being from him derived, died with him.
CHAPTER XXXVII——OF THE RESEMBLANCE OF CHILDREN TO THEIR FATHERS
This faggoting up of so many divers pieces is so done that I never
set pen to paper but when I have too much idle time, and never anywhere
but at home; so that it is compiled after divers interruptions and
intervals, occasions keeping me sometimes many months elsewhere. As to
the rest, I never correct my first by any second conceptions; I,
peradventure, may alter a word or so, but 'tis only to vary the phrase,
and not to destroy my former meaning. I have a mind to represent the
progress of my humours, and that every one may see each piece as it came
from the forge. I could wish I had begun sooner, and had taken more
notice of the course of my mutations. A servant of mine whom I employed
to transcribe for me, thought he had got a prize by stealing several
pieces from me, wherewith he was best pleased; but it is my comfort that
he will be no greater a gainer than I shall be a loser by the theft. I
am grown older by seven or eight years since I began; nor has it been
without same new acquisition: I have, in that time, by the liberality of
years, been acquainted with the stone: their commerce and long converse
do not well pass away without some such inconvenience. I could have been
glad that of other infirmities age has to present long-lived men withal,
it had chosen some one that would have been more welcome to me, for it
could not possibly have laid upon me a disease for which, even from my
infancy, I have had so great a horror; and it is, in truth, of all the
accidents of old age, that of which I have ever been most afraid. I have
often thought with myself that I went on too far, and that in so long a
voyage I should at last run myself into some disadvantage; I perceived,
and have often enough declared, that it was time to depart, and that
life should be cut off in the sound and living part, according to the
surgeon's rule in amputations; and that nature made him pay very strict
usury who did not in due time pay the principal. And yet I was so far
from being ready, that in the eighteen months' time or thereabout that I
have been in this uneasy condition, I have so inured myself to it as to
be content to live on in it; and have found wherein to comfort myself,
and to hope: so much are men enslaved to their miserable being, that
there is no condition so wretched they will not accept, provided they
may live! Hear Maecenas:
"Debilem facito manu,
Debilem pede, coxa,
Lubricos quate dentes;
Vita dum superest, bene est."
["Cripple my hand, foot, hip; shake out my loose teeth: while
there's life, 'tis well."—Apud Seneca, Ep., 101.]
And Tamerlane, with a foolish humanity, palliated the fantastic
cruelty he exercised upon lepers, when he put all he could hear of to
death, to deliver them, as he pretended, from the painful life they
lived. For there was not one of them who would not rather have been
thrice a leper than be not. And Antisthenes the Stoic, being very sick,
and crying out, "Who will deliver me from these evils?" Diogenes, who
had come to visit him, "This," said he, presenting him a knife, "soon
enough, if thou wilt."—"I do not mean from my life," he replied, "but
from my sufferings." The sufferings that only attack the mind, I am not
so sensible of as most other men; and this partly out of judgment, for
the world looks upon several things as dreadful or to be avoided at the
expense of life, that are almost indifferent to me: partly, through a
dull and insensible complexion I have in accidents which do not
point-blank hit me; and that insensibility I look upon as one of the
best parts of my natural condition; but essential and corporeal pains I
am very sensible of. And yet, having long since foreseen them, though
with a sight weak and delicate and softened with the long and happy
health and quiet that God has been pleased to give me the greatest part
of my time, I had in my imagination fancied them so insupportable, that,
in truth, I was more afraid than I have since found I had cause: by
which I am still more fortified in this belief, that most of the
faculties of the soul, as we employ them, more trouble the repose of
life than they are any way useful to it.
I am in conflict with the worst, the most sudden, the most painful,
the most mortal, and the most irremediable of all diseases; I have
already had the trial of five or six very long and very painful fits;
and yet I either flatter myself, or there is even in this state what is
very well to be endured by a man who has his soul free from the fear of
death, and of the menaces, conclusions, and consequences which physic is
ever thundering in our ears; but the effect even of pain itself is not
so sharp and intolerable as to put a man of understanding into rage and
despair. I have at least this advantage by my stone, that what I could
not hitherto prevail upon myself to resolve upon, as to reconciling and
acquainting myself with death, it will perfect; for the more it presses
upon and importunes me, I shall be so much the less afraid to die. I had
already gone so far as only to love life for life's sake, but my pain
will dissolve this intelligence; and God grant that in the end, should
the sharpness of it be once greater than I shall be able to bear, it
does not throw me into the other no less vicious extreme to desire and
wish to die!
"Summum nec metuas diem, nec optes:"
["Neither to wish, nor fear to die." (Or:)
"Thou shouldest neither fear nor desire the last day."
—Martial, x. 7.]
they are two passions to be feared; but the one has its remedy much
nearer at hand than the other.
As to the rest, I have always found the precept that so rigorously
enjoins a resolute countenance and disdainful and indifferent
comportment in the toleration of infirmities to be ceremonial. Why
should philosophy, which only has respect to life and effects, trouble
itself about these external appearances? Let us leave that care to
actors and masters of rhetoric, who set so great a value upon our
gestures. Let her allow this vocal frailty to disease, if it be neither
cordial nor stomachic, and permit the ordinary ways of expressing grief
by sighs, sobs, palpitations, and turning pale, that nature has put out
of our power; provided the courage be undaunted, and the tones not
expressive of despair, let her be satisfied. What matter the wringing of
our hands, if we do not wring our thoughts? She forms us for ourselves,
not for others; to be, not to seem; let her be satisfied with governing
our understanding, which she has taken upon her the care of instructing;
that, in the fury of the colic, she maintain the soul in a condition to
know itself, and to follow its accustomed way, contending with, and
enduring, not meanly truckling under pain; moved and heated, not subdued
and conquered, in the contention; capable of discourse and other things,
to a certain degree. In such extreme accidents, 'tis cruelty to require
so exact a composedness. 'Tis no great matter that we make a wry face,
if the mind plays its part well: if the body find itself relieved by
complaining let it complain: if agitation ease it, let it tumble and
toss at pleasure; if it seem to find the disease evaporate (as some
physicians hold that it helps women in delivery) in making loud
outcries, or if this do but divert its torments, let it roar as it will.
Let us not command this voice to sally, but stop it not. Epicurus, not
only forgives his sage for crying out in torments, but advises him to
it:
"Pugiles etiam, quum feriunt, in jactandis caestibus
ingemiscunt, quia profundenda voce omne corpus intenditur,
venitque plaga vehementior."
["Boxers also, when they strike, groan in the act, because with the
strength of voice the whole body is carried, and the blow comes with
the greater vehemence."—Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., ii. 23.]
We have enough to do to deal with the disease, without troubling
ourselves with these superfluous rules.
Which I say in excuse of those whom we ordinarily see impatient in
the assaults of this malady; for as to what concerns myself, I have
passed it over hitherto with a little better countenance, and contented
myself with groaning without roaring out; not, nevertheless, that I put
any great constraint upon myself to maintain this exterior decorum, for
I make little account of such an advantage: I allow herein as much as
the pain requires; but either my pains are not so excessive, or I have
more than ordinary patience. I complain, I confess, and am a little
impatient in a very sharp fit, but I do not arrive to such a degree of
despair as he who with:
"Ejulatu, questu, gemitu, fremitibus
Resonando, multum flebiles voces refert:"
["Howling, roaring, groaning with a thousand noises, expressing his
torment in a dismal voice." (Or:) "Wailing, complaining, groaning,
murmuring much avail lugubrious sounds."—Verses of Attius, in his
Phaloctetes, quoted by Cicero, De Finib., ii. 29; Tusc. Quaes.,
ii. 14.]
I try myself in the depth of my suffering, and have always found that
I was in a capacity to speak, think, and give a rational answer as well
as at any other time, but not so firmly, being troubled and interrupted
by the pain. When I am looked upon by my visitors to be in the greatest
torment, and that they therefore forbear to trouble me, I often essay my
own strength, and myself set some discourse on foot, the most remote I
can contrive from my present condition. I can do anything upon a sudden
endeavour, but it must not continue long. Oh, what pity 'tis I have not
the faculty of that dreamer in Cicero, who dreaming he was lying with a
wench, found he had discharged his stone in the sheets. My pains
strangely deaden my appetite that way. In the intervals from this
excessive torment, when my ureters only languish without any great
dolor, I presently feel myself in my wonted state, forasmuch as my soul
takes no other alarm but what is sensible and corporal, which I
certainly owe to the care I have had of preparing myself by meditation
against such accidents:
"Laborum,
Nulla mihi nova nunc facies inopinave surgit;
Omnia praecepi, atque animo mecum ante peregi."
["No new shape of suffering can arise new or unexpected; I have
anticipated all, and acted them over beforehand in my mind."
—AEneid, vi. 103.]
I am, however, a little roughly handled for an apprentice, and with a
sudden and sharp alteration, being fallen in an instant from a very easy
and happy condition of life into the most uneasy and painful that can be
imagined. For besides that it is a disease very much to be feared in
itself, it begins with me after a more sharp and severe manner than it
is used to do with other men. My fits come so thick upon me that I am
scarcely ever at ease; yet I have hitherto kept my mind so upright that,
provided I can still continue it, I find myself in a much better
condition of life than a thousand others, who have no fewer nor other
disease but what they create to themselves for want of meditation.
There is a certain sort of crafty humility that springs from
presumption, as this, for example, that we confess our ignorance in many
things, and are so courteous as to acknowledge that there are in the
works of nature some qualities and conditions that are imperceptible to
us, and of which our understanding cannot discover the means and causes;
by this so honest and conscientious declaration we hope to obtain that
people shall also believe us as to those that we say we do understand.
We need not trouble ourselves to seek out foreign miracles and
difficulties; methinks, amongst the things that we ordinarily see, there
are such incomprehensible wonders as surpass all difficulties of
miracles. What a wonderful thing it is that the drop of seed from which
we are produced should carry in itself the impression not only of the
bodily form, but even of the thoughts and inclinations of our fathers!
Where can that drop of fluid matter contain that infinite number of
forms? and how can they carry on these resemblances with so precarious
and irregular a process that the son shall be like his
great-grandfather, the nephew like his uncle? In the family of Lepidus
at Rome there were three, not successively but by intervals, who were
born with the same eye covered with a cartilage. At Thebes there was a
race that carried from their mother's womb the form of the head of a
lance, and he who was not born so was looked upon as illegitimate. And
Aristotle says that in a certain nation, where the women were in common,
they assigned the children to their fathers by their resemblance.
'Tis to be believed that I derive this infirmity from my father, for
he died wonderfully tormented with a great stone in his bladder; he was
never sensible of his disease till the sixty-seventh year of his age;
and before that had never felt any menace or symptoms of it, either in
his reins, sides, or any other part, and had lived, till then, in a
happy, vigorous state of health, little subject to infirmities, and he
continued seven years after in this disease, dragging on a very painful
end of life. I was born about five-and-twenty years before his disease
seized him, and in the time of his most flourishing and healthful state
of body, his third child in order of birth: where could his propension
to this malady lie lurking all that while? And he being then so far from
the infirmity, how could that small part of his substance wherewith he
made me, carry away so great an impression for its share? and how so
concealed, that till five-and-forty years after, I did not begin to be
sensible of it? being the only one to this hour, amongst so many
brothers and sisters, and all by one mother, that was ever troubled with
it. He that can satisfy me in this point, I will believe him in as many
other miracles as he pleases; always provided that, as their manner is,
he do not give me a doctrine much more intricate and fantastic than the
thing itself for current pay.
Let the physicians a little excuse the liberty I take, for by this
same infusion and fatal insinuation it is that I have received a hatred
and contempt of their doctrine; the antipathy I have against their art
is hereditary. My father lived three-score and fourteen years, my
grandfather sixty-nine, my great-grandfather almost fourscore years,
without ever tasting any sort of physic; and, with them, whatever was
not ordinary diet, was instead of a drug. Physic is grounded upon
experience and examples: so is my opinion. And is not this an express
and very advantageous experience. I do not know that they can find me in
all their records three that were born, bred, and died under the same
roof, who have lived so long by their conduct. They must here of
necessity confess, that if reason be not, fortune at least is on my
side, and with physicians fortune goes a great deal further than reason.
Let them not take me now at a disadvantage; let them not threaten me in
the subdued condition wherein I now am; that were treachery. In truth, I
have enough the better of them by these domestic examples, that they
should rest satisfied. Human things are not usually so constant; it has
been two hundred years, save eighteen, that this trial has lasted, for
the first of them was born in the year 1402: 'tis now, indeed, very good
reason that this experience should begin to fail us. Let them not,
therefore, reproach me with the infirmities under which I now suffer; is
it not enough that I for my part have lived seven-and-forty years in
good health? though it should be the end of my career; 'tis of the
longer sort.
My ancestors had an aversion to physic by some occult and natural
instinct; for the very sight of drugs was loathsome to my father. The
Seigneur de Gaviac, my uncle by the father's side, a churchman, and a
valetudinary from his birth, and yet who made that crazy life hold out
to sixty-seven years, being once fallen into a furious fever, it was
ordered by the physicians he should be plainly told that if he would not
make use of help (for so they call that which is very often an
obstacle), he would infallibly be a dead man. That good man, though
terrified with this dreadful sentence, yet replied, "I am then a dead
man." But God soon after made the prognostic false. The last of the
brothers—there were four of them—and by many years the last, the Sieur
de Bussaguet, was the only one of the family who made use of medicine,
by reason, I suppose, of the concern he had with the other arts, for he
was a councillor in the court of Parliament, and it succeeded so ill
with him, that being in outward appearance of the strongest
constitution, he yet died long before any of the rest, save the Sieur de
Saint Michel.
'Tis possible I may have derived this natural antipathy to physic
from them; but had there been no other consideration in the case, I
would have endeavoured to have overcome it; for all these conditions
that spring in us without reason, are vicious; 'tis a kind of disease
that we should wrestle with. It may be I had naturally this propension;
but I have supported and fortified it by arguments and reasons which
have established in me the opinion I am of. For I also hate the
consideration of refusing physic for the nauseous taste.
I should hardly be of that humour who hold health to be worth
purchasing by all the most painful cauteries and incisions that can be
applied. And, with Epicurus, I conceive that pleasures are to be
avoided, if greater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted,
that will terminate in greater pleasures. Health is a precious thing,
and the only one, in truth, meriting that a man should lay out, not only
his time, sweat, labour, and goods, but also his life itself to obtain
it; forasmuch as, without it, life is wearisome and injurious to us:
pleasure, wisdom, learning, and virtue, without it, wither away and
vanish; and to the most laboured and solid discourses that philosophy
would imprint in us to the contrary, we need no more but oppose the
image of Plato being struck with an epilepsy or apoplexy; and, in this
presupposition, to defy him to call the rich faculties of his soul to
his assistance. All means that conduce to health can neither be too
painful nor too dear to me. But I have some other appearances that make
me strangely suspect all this merchandise. I do not deny but that there
may be some art in it, that there are not amongst so many works of
Nature, things proper for the conservation of health: that is most
certain: I very well know there are some simples that moisten, and
others that dry; I experimentally know that radishes are windy, and
senna-leaves purging; and several other such experiences I have, as that
mutton nourishes me, and wine warms me: and Solon said "that eating was
physic against the malady hunger." I do not disapprove the use we make
of things the earth produces, nor doubt, in the least, of the power and
fertility of Nature, and of its application to our necessities: I very
well see that pikes and swallows live by her laws; but I mistrust the
inventions of our mind, our knowledge and art, to countenance which, we
have abandoned Nature and her rules, and wherein we keep no bounds nor
moderation. As we call the piling up of the first laws that fall into
our hands justice, and their practice and dispensation very often
foolish and very unjust; and as those who scoff at and accuse it, do
not, nevertheless, blame that noble virtue itself, but only condemn the
abuse and profanation of that sacred title; so in physic I very much
honour that glorious name, its propositions, its promises, so useful for
the service of mankind; but the ordinances it foists upon us, betwixt
ourselves, I neither honour nor esteem.
In the first place, experience makes me dread it; for amongst all my
acquaintance, I see no people so soon sick, and so long before they are
well, as those who take much physic; their very health is altered and
corrupted by their frequent prescriptions. Physicians are not content to
deal only with the sick, but they will moreover corrupt health itself,
for fear men should at any time escape their authority. Do they not,
from a continual and perfect health, draw the argument of some great
sickness to ensue? I have been sick often enough, and have always found
my sicknesses easy enough to be supported (though I have made trial of
almost all sorts), and as short as those of any other, without their
help, or without swallowing their ill-tasting doses. The health I have
is full and free, without other rule or discipline than my own custom
and pleasure. Every place serves me well enough to stay in, for I need
no other conveniences, when I am sick, than what I must have when I am
well. I never disturb myself that I have no physician, no apothecary,
nor any other assistance, which I see most other sick men more afflicted
at than they are with their disease. What! Do the doctors themselves
show us more felicity and duration in their own lives, that may manifest
to us some apparent effect of their skill?
There is not a nation in the world that has not been many ages
without physic; and these the first ages, that is to say, the best and
most happy; and the tenth part of the world knows nothing of it yet;
many nations are ignorant of it to this day, where men live more
healthful and longer than we do here, and even amongst us the common
people live well enough without it. The Romans were six hundred years
before they received it; and after having made trial of it, banished it
from the city at the instance of Cato the Censor, who made it appear how
easy it was to live without it, having himself lived fourscore and five
years, and kept his wife alive to an extreme old age, not without
physic, but without a physician: for everything that we find to be
healthful to life may be called physic. He kept his family in health, as
Plutarch says if I mistake not, with hare's milk; as Pliny reports, that
the Arcadians cured all manner of diseases with that of a cow; and
Herodotus says, the Lybians generally enjoy rare health, by a custom
they have, after their children are arrived to four years of age, to
burn and cauterise the veins of their head and temples, by which means
they cut off all defluxions of rheum for their whole lives. And the
country people of our province make use of nothing, in all sorts of
distempers, but the strongest wine they can get, mixed with a great deal
of saffron and spice, and always with the same success.
And to say the truth, of all this diversity and confusion of
prescriptions, what other end and effect is there after all, but to
purge the belly? which a thousand ordinary simples will do as well; and
I do not know whether such evacuations be so much to our advantage as
they pretend, and whether nature does not require a residence of her
excrements to a certain proportion, as wine does of its lees to keep it
alive: you often see healthful men fall into vomitings and fluxes of the
belly by some extrinsic accident, and make a great evacuation of
excrements, without any preceding need, or any following benefit, but
rather with hurt to their constitution. 'Tis from the great Plato, that
I lately learned, that of three sorts of motions which are natural to
us, purging is the worst, and that no man, unless he be a fool, ought to
take anything to that purpose but in the extremest necessity. Men
disturb and irritate the disease by contrary oppositions; it must be the
way of living that must gently dissolve, and bring it to its end. The
violent gripings and contest betwixt the drug and the disease are ever
to our loss, since the combat is fought within ourselves, and that the
drug is an assistant not to be trusted, being in its own nature an enemy
to our health, and by trouble having only access into our condition. Let
it alone a little; the general order of things that takes care of fleas
and moles, also takes care of men, if they will have the same patience
that fleas and moles have, to leave it to itself. 'Tis to much purpose
we cry out "Bihore,"—[A term used by the Languedoc waggoners to hasten
their horses]—'tis a way to make us hoarse, but not to hasten the
matter. 'Tis a proud and uncompassionate order: our fears, our despair
displease and stop it from, instead of inviting it to, our relief; it
owes its course to the disease, as well as to health; and will not
suffer itself to be corrupted in favour of the one to the prejudice of
the other's right, for it would then fall into disorder. Let us, in
God's name, follow it; it leads those that follow, and those who will
not follow, it drags along, both their fury and physic together. Order a
purge for your brain, it will there be much better employed than upon
your stomach.
One asking a Lacedaemonian what had made him live so long, he made
answer, "the ignorance of physic"; and the Emperor Adrian continually
exclaimed as he was dying, that the crowd of physicians had killed him.
A bad wrestler turned physician: "Courage," says Diogenes to him; "thou
hast done well, for now thou will throw those who have formerly thrown
thee." But they have this advantage, according to Nicocles, that the sun
gives light to their success and the earth covers their failures. And,
besides, they have a very advantageous way of making use of all sorts of
events: for what fortune, nature, or any other cause (of which the
number is infinite), products of good and healthful in us, it is the
privilege of physic to attribute to itself; all the happy successes that
happen to the patient, must be thence derived; the accidents that have
cured me, and a thousand others, who do not employ physicians,
physicians usurp to themselves: and as to ill accidents, they either
absolutely disown them, in laying the fault upon the patient, by such
frivolous reasons as they are never at a loss for; as "he lay with his
arms out of bed," or "he was disturbed with the rattling of a coach:"
"Rhedarum transitus arcto
Vicorum inflexu:"
["The passage of the wheels in the narrow
turning of the street"—Juvenal, iii. 236.]
or "somebody had set open the casement," or "he had lain upon his
left side," or "he had some disagreeable fancies in his head": in sum, a
word, a dream, or a look, seems to them excuse sufficient wherewith to
palliate their own errors: or, if they so please, they even make use of
our growing worse, and do their business in this way which can never
fail them: which is by buzzing us in the ear, when the disease is more
inflamed by their medicaments, that it had been much worse but for those
remedies; he, whom from an ordinary cold they have thrown into a double
tertian-ague, had but for them been in a continued fever. They do not
much care what mischief they do, since it turns to their own profit. In
earnest, they have reason to require a very favourable belief from their
patients; and, indeed, it ought to be a very easy one, to swallow things
so hard to be believed. Plato said very well, that physicians were the
only men who might lie at pleasure, since our health depends upon the
vanity and falsity of their promises.
AEsop, a most excellent author, and of whom few men discover all the
graces, pleasantly represents to us the tyrannical authority physicians
usurp over poor creatures, weakened and subdued by sickness and fear,
when he tells us, that a sick person, being asked by his physician what
operation he found of the potion he had given him: "I have sweated very
much," says the sick man. "That's good," says the physician. Another
time, having asked how he felt himself after his physic: "I have been
very cold, and have had a great shivering upon me," said he. "That is
good," replied the physician. After the third potion, he asked him again
how he did: "Why, I find myself swollen and puffed up," said he, "as if
I had a dropsy."—"That is very well," said the physician. One of his
servants coming presently after to inquire how he felt himself, "Truly,
friend," said he, "with being too well I am about to die."
There was a more just law in Egypt, by which the physician, for the
three first days, was to take charge of his patient at the patient's own
risk and cost; but, those three days being past, it was to be at his
own. For what reason is it that their patron, AEsculapius, should be
struck with thunder for restoring Hippolitus from death to life:
"Nam Pater omnipotens, aliquem indignatus ab umbris
Mortalem infernis ad lumina surgere vitae,
Ipse repertorem medicinae talis, et artis
Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas;"
["Then the Almighty Father, offended that any mortal should rise to
the light of life from the infernal shades, struck the son of
Phoebus with his forked lightning to the Stygian lake."
—AEneid, vii. 770.]
and his followers be pardoned, who send so many souls from life to
death? A physician, boasting to Nicocles that his art was of great
authority: "It is so, indeed," said Nicocles, "that can with impunity
kill so many people."
As to what remains, had I been of their counsel, I would have
rendered my discipline more sacred and mysterious; they begun well, but
they have not ended so. It was a good beginning to make gods and demons
the authors of their science, and to have used a peculiar way of
speaking and writing, notwithstanding that philosophy concludes it folly
to persuade a man to his own good by an unintelligible way: "Ut si quis
medicus imperet, ut sumat:"
"Terrigenam, herbigradam, domiportam, sanguine cassam."
["Describing it by the epithets of an animal trailing with its slime
over the herbage, without blood or bones, and carrying its house
upon its back, meaning simply a snail."—Coste]
It was a good rule in their art, and that accompanies all other vain,
fantastic, and supernatural arts, that the patient's belief should
prepossess them with good hope and assurance of their effects and
operation: a rule they hold to that degree, as to maintain that the most
inexpert and ignorant physician is more proper for a patient who has
confidence in him, than the most learned and experienced whom he is not
so acquainted with. Nay, even the very choice of most of their drugs is
in some sort mysterious and divine; the left foot of a tortoise, the
urine of a lizard, the dung of an elephant, the liver of a mole, blood
drawn from under the right wing of a white pigeon; and for us who have
the stone (so scornfully they use us in our miseries) the excrement of
rats beaten to powder, and such like trash and fooleries which rather
carry a face of magical enchantment than of any solid science. I omit
the odd number of their pills, the destination of certain days and
feasts of the year, the superstition of gathering their simples at
certain hours, and that so austere and very wise countenance and
carriage which Pliny himself so much derides. But they have, as I said,
failed in that they have not added to this fine beginning the making
their meetings and consultations more religious and secret, where no
profane person should have admission, no more than in the secret
ceremonies of AEsculapius; for by the reason of this it falls out that
their irresolution, the weakness of their arguments, divinations and
foundations, the sharpness of their disputes, full of hatred, jealousy,
and self-consideration, coming to be discovered by every one, a man must
be marvellously blind not to see that he runs a very great hazard in
their hands. Who ever saw one physician approve of another's
prescription, without taking something away, or adding something to it?
by which they sufficiently betray their tricks, and make it manifest to
us that they therein more consider their own reputation, and
consequently their profit, than their patient's interest. He was a much
wiser man of their tribe, who of old gave it as a rule, that only one
physician should undertake a sick person; for if he do nothing to
purpose, one single man's default can bring no great scandal upon the
art of medicine; and, on the contrary, the glory will be great if he
happen to have success; whereas, when there are many, they at every turn
bring a disrepute upon their calling, forasmuch as they oftener do hurt
than good. They ought to be satisfied with the perpetual disagreement
which is found in the opinions of the principal masters and ancient
authors of this science, which is only known to men well read, without
discovering to the vulgar the controversies and various judgments which
they still nourish and continue amongst themselves.
Will you have one example of the ancient controversy in physic?
Herophilus lodges the original cause of all diseases in the humours;
Erasistratus, in the blood of the arteries; Asclepiades, in the
invisible atoms of the pores; Alcmaeon, in the exuberance or defect of
our bodily strength; Diocles, in the inequality of the elements of which
the body is composed, and in the quality of the air we breathe; Strato,
in the abundance, crudity, and corruption of the nourishment we take;
and Hippocrates lodges it in the spirits. There is a certain friend of
theirs,—[Celsus, Preface to the First Book.]—whom they know better than
I, who declares upon this subject, "that the most important science in
practice amongst us, as that which is intrusted with our health and
conservation, is, by ill luck, the most uncertain, the most perplexed,
and agitated with the greatest mutations." There is no great danger in
our mistaking the height of the sun, or the fraction of some
astronomical supputation; but here, where our whole being is concerned,
'tis not wisdom to abandon ourselves to the mercy of the agitation of so
many contrary winds.
Before the Peloponnesian war there was no great talk of this science.
Hippocrates brought it into repute; whatever he established, Chrysippus
overthrew; after that, Erasistratus, Aristotle's grandson, overthrew
what Chrysippus had written; after these, the Empirics started up, who
took a quite contrary way to the ancients in the management of this art;
when the credit of these began a little to decay, Herophilus set another
sort of practice on foot, which Asclepiades in turn stood up against,
and overthrew; then, in their turn, the opinions first of Themiso, and
then of Musa, and after that those of Vectius Valens, a physician famous
through the intelligence he had with Messalina, came in vogue; the
empire of physic in Nero's time was established in Thessalus, who
abolished and condemned all that had been held till his time; this man's
doctrine was refuted by Crinas of Marseilles, who first brought all
medicinal operations under the Ephemerides and motions of the stars, and
reduced eating, sleeping, and drinking to hours that were most pleasing
to Mercury and the moon; his authority was soon after supplanted by
Charinus, a physician of the same city of Marseilles, a man who not only
controverted all the ancient methods of physic, but moreover the usage
of hot baths, that had been generally and for so many ages in common
use; he made men bathe in cold water, even in winter, and plunged his
sick patients in the natural waters of streams. No Roman till Pliny's
time had ever vouchsafed to practise physic; that office was only
performed by Greeks and foreigners, as 'tis now amongst us French, by
those who sputter Latin; for, as a very great physician says, we do not
easily accept the medicine we understand, no more than we do the drugs
we ourselves gather. If the nations whence we fetch our guaiacum,
sarsaparilla, and China wood, have physicians, how great a value must we
imagine, by the same recommendation of strangeness, rarity, and dear
purchase, do they set upon our cabbage and parsley? for who would dare
to contemn things so far fetched, and sought out at the hazard of so
long and dangerous a voyage?
Since these ancient mutations in physic, there have been infinite
others down to our own times, and, for the most part, mutations entire
and universal, as those, for example, produced by Paracelsus,
Fioravanti, and Argentier; for they, as I am told, not only alter one
recipe, but the whole contexture and rules of the body of physic,
accusing all others of ignorance and imposition who have practised
before them. At this rate, in what a condition the poor patient must be,
I leave you to judge.
If we were even assured that, when they make a mistake, that mistake
of theirs would do us no harm, though it did us no good, it were a
reasonable bargain to venture the making ourselves better without any
danger of being made worse. AEsop tells a story, that one who had bought
a Morisco slave, believing that his black complexion had arrived by
accident and the ill usage of his former master, caused him to enter
with great care into a course of baths and potions: it happened that the
Moor was nothing amended in his tawny complexion, but he wholly lost his
former health. How often do we see physicians impute the death of their
patients to one another? I remember that some years ago there was an
epidemical disease, very dangerous and for the most part mortal, that
raged in the towns about us: the storm being over which had swept away
an infinite number of men, one of the most famous physicians of all the
country, presently after published a book upon that subject, wherein,
upon better thoughts, he confesses that the letting blood in that
disease was the principal cause of so many mishaps. Moreover, their
authors hold that there is no physic that has not something hurtful in
it. And if even those of the best operation in some measure offend us,
what must those do that are totally misapplied? For my own part, though
there were nothing else in the case, I am of opinion, that to those who
loathe the taste of physic, it must needs be a dangerous and prejudicial
endeavour to force it down at so incommodious a time, and with so much
aversion, and believe that it marvellously distempers a sick person at a
time when he has so much need of repose. And more over, if we but
consider the occasions upon which they usually ground the cause of our
diseases, they are so light and nice, that I thence conclude a very
little error in the dispensation of their drugs may do a great deal of
mischief. Now, if the mistake of a physician be so dangerous, we are in
but a scurvy condition; for it is almost impossible but he must often
fall into those mistakes: he had need of too many parts, considerations,
and circumstances, rightly to level his design: he must know the sick
person's complexion, his temperament, his humours, inclinations,
actions, nay, his very thoughts and imaginations; he must be assured of
the external circumstances, of the nature of the place, the quality of
the air and season, the situation of the planets, and their influences:
he must know in the disease, the causes, prognostics, affections, and
critical days; in the drugs, the weight, the power of working, the
country, figure, age, and dispensation, and he must know how rightly to
proportion and mix them together, to beget a just and perfect symmetry;
wherein if there be the least error, if amongst so many springs there be
but any one out of order, 'tis enough to destroy us. God knows with how
great difficulty most of these things are to be understood: for (for
example) how shall the physician find out the true sign of the disease,
every disease being capable of an infinite number of indications? How
many doubts and controversies have they amongst themselves upon the
interpretation of urines? otherwise, whence should the continual debates
we see amongst them about the knowledge of the disease proceed? how
could we excuse the error they so oft fall into, of taking fox for
marten? In the diseases I have had, though there were ever so little
difficulty in the case, I never found three of one opinion: which I
instance, because I love to introduce examples wherein I am myself
concerned.
A gentleman at Paris was lately cut for the stone by order of the
physicians, in whose bladder, being accordingly so cut, there was found
no more stone than in the palm of his hand; and in the same place a
bishop, who was my particular friend, having been earnestly pressed by
the majority of the physicians whom he consulted, to suffer himself to
be cut, to which also, upon their word, I used my interest to persuade
him, when he was dead and opened, it appeared that he had no malady but
in the kidneys. They are least excusable for any error in this disease,
by reason that it is in some sort palpable; and 'tis thence that I
conclude surgery to be much more certain, by reason that it sees and
feels what it does, and so goes less upon conjecture; whereas the
physicians have no 'speculum matricis', by which to examine our brains,
lungs, and liver.
Even the very promises of physic are incredible in themselves; for,
having to provide against divers and contrary accidents that often
afflict us at one and the same time, and that have almost a necessary
relation, as the heat of the liver and the coldness of the stomach, they
will needs persuade us, that of their ingredients one will heat the
stomach and the other will cool the liver: one has its commission to go
directly to the kidneys, nay, even to the bladder, without scattering
its operations by the way, and is to retain its power and virtue through
all those turns and meanders, even to the place to the service of which
it is designed, by its own occult property this will dry-the brain; that
will moisten the lungs. Of all this bundle of things having mixed up a
potion, is it not a kind of madness to imagine or to hope that these
differing virtues should separate themselves from one another in this
mixture and confusion, to perform so many various errands? I should very
much fear that they would either lose or change their tickets, and
disturb one another's quarters. And who can imagine but that, in this
liquid confusion, these faculties must corrupt, confound, and spoil one
another? And is not the danger still more when the making up of this
medicine is entrusted to the skill and fidelity of still another, to
whose mercy we again abandon our lives?
As we have doublet and breeches-makers, distinct trades, to clothe
us, and are so much the better fitted, seeing that each of them meddles
only with his own business, and has less to trouble his head with than
the tailor who undertakes all; and as in matter of diet, great persons,
for their better convenience, and to the end they may be better served,
have cooks for the different offices, this for soups and potages, that
for roasting, instead of which if one cook should undertake the whole
service, he could not so well perform it; so also as to the cure of our
maladies. The Egyptians had reason to reject this general trade of
physician, and to divide the profession: to each disease, to each part
of the body, its particular workman; for that part was more properly and
with less confusion cared for, seeing the person looked to nothing else.
Ours are not aware that he who provides for all, provides for nothing;
and that the entire government of this microcosm is more than they are
able to undertake. Whilst they were afraid of stopping a dysentery, lest
they should put the patient into a fever, they killed me a friend,
—[Estienne de la Boetie.]—who was worth more than the whole of them.
They counterpoise their own divinations with the present evils; and
because they will not cure the brain to the prejudice of the stomach,
they injure both with their dissentient and tumultuary drugs.
As to the variety and weakness of the rationale of this art, they are
more manifest in it than in any other art; aperitive medicines are
proper for a man subject to the stone, by reason that opening and
dilating the passages they help forward the slimy matter whereof gravel
and stone are engendered, and convey that downward which begins to
harden and gather in the reins; aperitive things are dangerous for a man
subject to the stone, by reason that, opening and dilating the passages,
they help forward the matter proper to create the gravel toward the
reins, which by their own propension being apt to seize it, 'tis not to
be imagined but that a great deal of what has been conveyed thither must
remain behind; moreover, if the medicine happen to meet with anything
too large to be carried through all the narrow passages it must pass to
be expelled, that obstruction, whatever it is, being stirred by these
aperitive things and thrown into those narrow passages, coming to stop
them, will occasion a certain and most painful death. They have the like
uniformity in the counsels they give us for the regimen of life: it is
good to make water often; for we experimentally see that, in letting it
lie long in the bladder, we give it time to settle the sediment, which
will concrete into a stone; it is good not to make water often, for the
heavy excrements it carries along with it will not be voided without
violence, as we see by experience that a torrent that runs with force
washes the ground it rolls over much cleaner than the course of a slow
and tardy stream; so, it is good to have often to do with women, for
that opens the passages and helps to evacuate gravel; it is also very
ill to have often to do with women, because it heats, tires, and weakens
the reins. It is good to bathe frequently in hot water, forasmuch as
that relaxes and mollifies the places where the gravel and stone lie; it
is also ill by reason that this application of external heat helps the
reins to bake, harden, and petrify the matter so disposed. For those who
are taking baths it is most healthful. To eat little at night, to the
end that the waters they are to drink the next morning may have a better
operation upon an empty stomach; on the other hand, it is better to eat
little at dinner, that it hinder not the operation of the waters, while
it is not yet perfect, and not to oppress the stomach so soon after the
other labour, but leave the office of digestion to the night, which will
much better perform it than the day, when the body and soul are in
perpetual moving and action. Thus do they juggle and trifle in all their
discourses at our expense; and they could not give me one proposition
against which I should not know how to raise a contrary of equal force.
Let them, then, no longer exclaim against those who in this trouble of
sickness suffer themselves to be gently guided by their own appetite and
the advice of nature, and commit themselves to the common fortune.
I have seen in my travels almost all the famous baths of Christendom,
and for some years past have begun to make use of them myself: for I
look upon bathing as generally wholesome, and believe that we suffer no
little inconveniences in our health by having left off the custom that
was generally observed, in former times, almost by all nations, and is
yet in many, of bathing every day; and I cannot imagine but that we are
much the worse by, having our limbs crusted and our pores stopped with
dirt. And as to the drinking of them, fortune has in the first place
rendered them not at all unacceptable to my taste; and secondly, they
are natural and simple, which at least carry no danger with them, though
they may do us no good, of which the infinite crowd of people of all
sorts and complexions who repair thither I take to be a sufficient
warranty; and although I have not there observed any extraordinary and
miraculous effects, but that on the contrary, having more narrowly than
ordinary inquired into it, I have found all the reports of such
operations that have been spread abroad in those places ill-grounded and
false, and those that believe them (as people are willing to be gulled
in what they desire) deceived in them, yet I have seldom known any who
have been made worse by those waters, and a man cannot honestly deny but
that they beget a better appetite, help digestion, and do in some sort
revive us, if we do not go too late and in too weak a condition, which I
would dissuade every one from doing. They have not the virtue to raise
men from desperate and inveterate diseases, but they may help some light
indisposition, or prevent some threatening alteration. He who does not
bring along with him so much cheerfulness as to enjoy the pleasure of
the company he will there meet, and of the walks and exercises to which
the amenity of those places invite us, will doubtless lose the best and
surest part of their effect. For this reason I have hitherto chosen to
go to those of the most pleasant situation, where there was the best
conveniency of lodging, provision, and company, as the baths of Bagneres
in France, those of Plombieres on the frontiers of Germany and Lorraine,
those of Baden in Switzerland, those of Lucca in Tuscany, and especially
those of Della Villa, which I have the most and at various seasons
frequented.
Every nation has particular opinions touching their use, and
particular rules and methods in using them; and all of them, according
to what I have seen, almost with like effect. Drinking them is not at
all received in Germany; the Germans bathe for all diseases, and will
lie dabbling in the water almost from sun to sun; in Italy, where they
drink nine days, they bathe at least thirty, and commonly drink the
water mixed with some other drugs to make it work the better. Here we
are ordered to walk to digest it; there we are kept in bed after taking
it till it be wrought off, our stomachs and feet having continually hot
cloths applied to them all the while; and as the Germans have a
particular practice generally to use cupping and scarification in the
bath, so the Italians have their 'doccie', which are certain little
streams of this hot water brought through pipes, and with these bathe an
hour in the morning, and as much in the afternoon, for a month together,
either the head, stomach, or any other part where the evil lies. There
are infinite other varieties of customs in every country, or rather
there is no manner of resemblance to one another. By this you may see
that this little part of physic to which I have only submitted, though
the least depending upon art of all others, has yet a great share of the
confusion and uncertainty everywhere else manifest in the profession.
The poets put what they would say with greater emphasis and grace;
witness these two epigrams:
"Alcon hesterno signum Jovis attigit: ille,
Quamvis marmoreus, vim patitur medici.
Ecce hodie, jussus transferri ex aeede vetusta,
Effertur, quamvis sit Deus atque lapis."
["Alcon yesterday touched Jove's statue; he, although marble,
suffers the force of the physician: to-day ordered to be transferred
from the old temple, where it stood, it is carried out, although it
be a god and a stone."—Ausonius, Ep., 74.]
and the other:
"Lotus nobiscum est, hilaris coenavit; et idem
Inventus mane est mortuus Andragoras.
Tam subitae mortis causam, Faustine, requiris?
In somnis medicum viderat Hermocratem:"
["Andragoras bathed with us, supped gaily, and in the morning the
same was found dead. Dost thou ask, Faustinus, the cause of this so
sudden death? In his dreams he had seen the physician Hermocrates."
—Martial, vi. 53.]
upon which I will relate two stories.
The Baron de Caupene in Chalosse and I have betwixt us the advowson
of a benefice of great extent, at the foot of our mountains, called
Lahontan. It is with the inhabitants of this angle, as 'tis said of
those of the Val d'Angrougne; they lived a peculiar sort of life, their
fashions, clothes, and manners distinct from other people; ruled and
governed by certain particular laws and usages, received from father to
son, to which they submitted, without other constraint than the
reverence to custom. This little state had continued from all antiquity
in so happy a condition, that no neighbouring judge was ever put to the
trouble of inquiring into their doings; no advocate was ever retained to
give them counsel, no stranger ever called in to compose their
differences; nor was ever any of them seen to go a-begging. They avoided
all alliances and traffic with the outer world, that they might not
corrupt the purity of their own government; till, as they say, one of
them, in the memory of man, having a mind spurred on with a noble
ambition, took it into his head, to bring his name into credit and
reputation, to make one of his sons something more than ordinary, and
having put him to learn to write in a neighbouring town, made him at
last a brave village notary. This fellow, having acquired such dignity,
began to disdain their ancient customs, and to buzz into the people's
ears the pomp of the other parts of the nation; the first prank he
played was to advise a friend of his, whom somebody had offended by
sawing off the horns of one of his goats, to make his complaint to the
royal judges thereabout, and so he went on from one to another, till he
had spoiled and confounded all. In the tail of this corruption, they
say, there happened another, and of worse consequence, by means of a
physician, who, falling in love with one of their daughters, had a mind
to marry her and to live amongst them. This man first of all began to
teach them the names of fevers, colds, and imposthumes; the seat of the
heart, liver, and intestines, a science till then utterly unknown to
them; and instead of garlic, with which they were wont to cure all
manner of diseases, how painful or extreme soever, he taught them,
though it were but for a cough or any little cold, to take strange
mixtures, and began to make a trade not only of their health, but of
their lives. They swear till then they never perceived the evening air
to be offensive to the head; that to drink when they were hot was
hurtful, and that the winds of autumn were more unwholesome than those
of spring; that, since this use of physic, they find themselves
oppressed with a legion of unaccustomed diseases, and that they perceive
a general decay in their ancient vigour, and their lives are cut shorter
by the half. This is the first of my stories.
The other is, that before I was afflicted with the stone, hearing
that the blood of a he-goat was with many in very great esteem, and
looked upon as a celestial manna rained down upon these latter ages for
the good and preservation of the lives of men, and having heard it
spoken of by men of understanding for an admirable drug, and of
infallible operation; I, who have ever thought myself subject to all the
accidents that can befall other men, had a mind, in my perfect health,
to furnish myself with this miracle, and therefore gave order to have a
goat fed at home according to the recipe: for he must be taken in the
hottest month of all summer, and must only have aperitive herbs given
him to eat, and white wine to drink. I came home by chance the very day
he was to be killed; and some one came and told me that the cook had
found two or three great balls in his paunch, that rattled against one
another amongst what he had eaten. I was curious to have all his
entrails brought before me, where, having caused the skin that enclosed
them to be cut, there tumbled out three great lumps, as light as
sponges, so that they appeared to be hollow, but as to the rest, hard
and firm without, and spotted and mixed all over with various dead
colours; one was perfectly round, and of the bigness of an ordinary
ball; the other two something less, of an imperfect roundness, as
seeming not to be arrived at their, full growth. I find, by inquiry of
people accustomed to open these animals, that it is a rare and unusual
accident. 'Tis likely these are stones of the same nature with ours and
if so, it must needs be a very vain hope in those who have the stone, to
extract their cure from the blood of a beast that was himself about to
die of the same disease. For to say that the blood does not participate
of this contagion, and does not thence alter its wonted virtue, it is
rather to be believed that nothing is engendered in a body but by the
conspiracy and communication of all the parts: the whole mass works
together, though one part contributes more to the work than another,
according to the diversity of operations; wherefore it is very likely
that there was some petrifying quality in all the parts of this goat. It
was not so much for fear of the future, and for myself, that I was
curious in this experiment, but because it falls out in mine, as it does
in many other families, that the women store up such little trumperies
for the service of the people, using the same recipe in fifty several
diseases, and such a recipe as they will not take themselves, and yet
triumph when they happen to be successful.
As to what remains, I honour physicians, not according to the precept
for their necessity (for to this passage may be opposed another of the
prophet reproving King Asa for having recourse to a physician), but for
themselves, having known many very good men of that profession, and most
worthy to be beloved. I do not attack them; 'tis their art I inveigh
against, and do not much blame them for making their advantage of our
folly, for most men do the same. Many callings, both of greater and of
less dignity than theirs, have no other foundation or support than
public abuse. When I am sick I send for them if they be near, only to
have their company, and pay them as others do. I give them leave to
command me to keep myself warm, because I naturally love to do it, and
to appoint leeks or lettuce for my broth; to order me white wine or
claret; and so as to all other things, which are indifferent to my
palate and custom. I know very well that I do nothing for them in so
doing, because sharpness and strangeness are incidents of the very
essence of physic. Lycurgus ordered wine for the sick Spartans. Why?
because they abominated the drinking it when they were well; as a
gentleman, a neighbour of mine, takes it as an excellent medicine in his
fever, because naturally he mortally hates the taste of it. How many do
we see amongst them of my humour, who despise taking physic themselves,
are men of a liberal diet, and live a quite contrary sort of life to
what they prescribe others? What is this but flatly to abuse our
simplicity? for their own lives and health are no less dear to them than
ours are to us, and consequently they would accommodate their practice
to their rules, if they did not themselves know how false these are.
'Tis the fear of death and of pain, impatience of disease, and a
violent and indiscreet desire of a present cure, that so blind us: 'tis
pure cowardice that makes our belief so pliable and easy to be imposed
upon: and yet most men do not so much believe as they acquiesce and
permit; for I hear them find fault and complain as well as we; but they
resolve at last, "What should I do then?" As if impatience were of
itself a better remedy than patience. Is there any one of those who have
suffered themselves to be persuaded into this miserable subjection, who
does not equally surrender himself to all sorts of impostures? who does
not give up himself to the mercy of whoever has the impudence to promise
him a cure? The Babylonians carried their sick into the public square;
the physician was the people: every one who passed by being in humanity
and civility obliged to inquire of their condition, gave some advice
according to his own experience. We do little better; there is not so
simple a woman, whose gossips and drenches we do not make use of: and
according to my humour, if I were to take physic, I would sooner choose
to take theirs than any other, because at least, if they do no good,
they will do no harm. What Homer and Plato said of the Egyptians, that
they were all physicians, may be said of all nations; there is not a man
amongst any of them who does not boast of some rare recipe, and who will
not venture it upon his neighbour, if he will let him. I was the other
day in a company where one, I know not who, of my fraternity brought us
intelligence of a new sort of pills made up of a hundred and odd
ingredients: it made us very merry, and was a singular consolation, for
what rock could withstand so great a battery? And yet I hear from those
who have made trial of it, that the least atom of gravel deigned not to
stir fort.
I cannot take my hand from the paper before I have added a word
concerning the assurance they give us of the certainty of their drugs,
from the experiments they have made.
The greatest part, I should say above two-thirds of the medicinal
virtues, consist in the quintessence or occult property of simples, of
which we can have no other instruction than use and custom; for
quintessence is no other than a quality of which we cannot by our reason
find out the cause. In such proofs, those they pretend to have acquired
by the inspiration of some daemon, I am content to receive (for I meddle
not with miracles); and also the proofs which are drawn from things
that, upon some other account, often fall into use amongst us; as if in
the wool, wherewith we are wont to clothe ourselves, there has
accidentally some occult desiccative property been found out of curing
kibed heels, or as if in the radish we eat for food there has been found
out some aperitive operation. Galen reports, that a man happened to be
cured of a leprosy by drinking wine out of a vessel into which a viper
had crept by chance. In this example we find the means and a very likely
guide and conduct to this experience, as we also do in those that
physicians pretend to have been directed to by the example of some
beasts. But in most of their other experiments wherein they affirm they
have been conducted by fortune, and to have had no other guide than
chance, I find the progress of this information incredible. Suppose man
looking round about him upon the infinite number of things, plants,
animals, metals; I do not know where he would begin his trial; and
though his first fancy should fix him upon an elk's horn, wherein there
must be a very pliant and easy belief, he will yet find himself as
perplexed in his second operation. There are so many maladies and so
many circumstances presented to him, that before he can attain the
certainty of the point to which the perfection of his experience should
arrive, human sense will be at the end of its lesson: and before he can,
amongst this infinity of things, find out what this horn is; amongst so
many diseases, what is epilepsy; the many complexions in a melancholy
person; the many seasons in winter; the many nations in the French; the
many ages in age; the many celestial mutations in the conjunction of
Venus and Saturn; the many parts in man's body, nay, in a finger; and
being, in all this, directed neither by argument, conjecture, example,
nor divine inspirations, but merely by the sole motion of fortune, it
must be by a perfectly artificial, regular and methodical fortune. And
after the cure is performed, how can he assure himself that it was not
because the disease had arrived at its period or an effect of chance? or
the operation of something else that he had eaten, drunk, or touched
that day? or by virtue of his grandmother's prayers? And, moreover, had
this experiment been perfect, how many times was it repeated, and this
long bead-roll of haps, and concurrences strung anew by chance to
conclude a certain rule? And when the rule is concluded, by whom, I pray
you? Of so many millions, there are but three men who take upon them to
record their experiments: must fortune needs just hit one of these? What
if another, and a hundred others, have made contrary experiments? We
might, peradventure, have some light in this, were all the judgments and
arguments of men known to us; but that three witnesses, three doctors,
should lord it over all mankind, is against reason: it were necessary
that human nature should have deputed and chosen them out, and that they
were declared our comptrollers by express procuration:
"TO MADAME DE DURAS.
—[Marguerite de Grammont, widow of Jean de Durfort, Seigneur de
Duras, who was killed near Leghorn, leaving no posterity. Montaigne
seems to have been on terms of considerable intimacy with her, and
to have tendered her some very wholesome and frank advice in regard
to her relations with Henry IV.]—
"MADAME,—The last time you honoured me with a visit, you found me at
work upon this chapter, and as these trifles may one day fall into your
hands, I would also that they testify in how great honour the author
will take any favour you shall please to show them. You will there find
the same air and mien you have observed in his conversation; and though
I could have borrowed some better or more favourable garb than my own, I
would not have done it: for I require nothing more of these writings,
but to present me to your memory such as I naturally am. The same
conditions and faculties you have been pleased to frequent and receive
with much more honour and courtesy than they deserve, I would put
together (but without alteration or change) in one solid body, that may
peradventure continue some years, or some days, after I am gone; where
you may find them again when you shall please to refresh your memory,
without putting you to any greater trouble; neither are they worth it. I
desire you should continue the favour of your friendship to me, by the
same qualities by which it was acquired.
"I am not at all ambitious that any one should love and esteem me
more dead than living. The humour of Tiberius is ridiculous, but yet
common, who was more solicitous to extend his renown to posterity than
to render himself acceptable to men of his own time. If I were one of
those to whom the world could owe commendation, I would give out of it
one-half to have the other in hand; let their praises come quick and
crowding about me, more thick than long, more full than durable; and let
them cease, in God's name, with my own knowledge of them, and when the
sweet sound can no longer pierce my ears. It were an idle humour to
essay, now that I am about to forsake the commerce of men, to offer
myself to them by a new recommendation. I make no account of the goods I
could not employ in the service of my life. Such as I am, I will be
elsewhere than in paper: my art and industry have been ever directed to
render myself good for something; my studies, to teach me to do, and not
to write. I have made it my whole business to frame my life: this has
been my trade and my work; I am less a writer of books than anything
else. I have coveted understanding for the service of my present and
real conveniences, and not to lay up a stock for my posterity. He who
has anything of value in him, let him make it appear in his conduct, in
his ordinary discourses, in his courtships, and his quarrels: in play,
in bed, at table, in the management of his affairs, in his economics.
Those whom I see make good books in ill breeches, should first have
mended their breeches, if they would have been ruled by me. Ask a
Spartan whether he had rather be a good orator or a good soldier: and if
I was asked the same question, I would rather choose to be a good cook,
had I not one already to serve me. My God! Madame, how should I hate
such a recommendation of being a clever fellow at writing, and an ass
and an inanity in everything else! Yet I had rather be a fool both here
and there than to have made so ill a choice wherein to employ my talent.
And I am so far from expecting to gain any new reputation by these
follies, that I shall think I come off pretty well if I lose nothing by
them of that little I had before. For besides that this dead and mute
painting will take from my natural being, it has no resemblance to my
better condition, but is much lapsed from my former vigour and
cheerfulness, growing faded and withered: I am towards the bottom of the
barrel, which begins to taste of the lees.
"As to the rest, Madame, I should not have dared to make so bold with
the mysteries of physic, considering the esteem that you and so many
others have of it, had I not had encouragement from their own authors. I
think there are of these among the old Latin writers but two, Pliny and
Celsus if these ever fall into your hands, you will find that they speak
much more rudely of their art than I do; I but pinch it, they cut its
throat. Pliny, amongst other things, twits them with this, that when
they are at the end of their rope, they have a pretty device to save
themselves, by recommending their patients, whom they have teased and
tormented with their drugs and diets to no purpose, some to vows and
miracles, others to the hot baths. (Be not angry, Madame; he speaks not
of those in our parts, which are under the protection of your house, and
all Gramontins.) They have a third way of saving their own credit, of
ridding their hands of us and securing themselves from the reproaches we
might cast in their teeth of our little amendment, when they have had us
so long in their hands that they have not one more invention left
wherewith to amuse us, which is to send us to the better air of some
other country. This, Madame, is enough; I hope you will give me leave to
return to my discourse, from which I have so far digressed, the better
to divert you."
It was, I think, Pericles, who being asked how he did: "You may
judge," says he, "by these," showing some little scrolls of parchment he
had tied about his neck and arms. By which he would infer that he must
needs be very sick when he was reduced to a necessity of having recourse
to such idle and vain fopperies, and of suffering himself to be so
equipped. I dare not promise but that I may one day be so much a fool as
to commit my life and death to the mercy and government of physicians; I
may fall into such a frenzy; I dare not be responsible for my future
constancy: but then, if any one ask me how I do, I may also answer, as
Pericles did, "You may judge by this," shewing my hand clutching six
drachms of opium. It will be a very evident sign of a violent sickness:
my judgment will be very much out of order; if once fear and impatience
get such an advantage over me, it may very well be concluded that there
is a dreadful fever in my mind.
I have taken the pains to plead this cause, which I understand
indifferently, a little to back and support the natural aversion to
drugs and the practice of physic I have derived from my ancestors, to
the end it may not be a mere stupid and inconsiderate aversion, but have
a little more form; and also, that they who shall see me so obstinate in
my resolution against all exhortations and menaces that shall be given
me, when my infirmity shall press hardest upon me, may not think 'tis
mere obstinacy in me; or any one so ill-natured as to judge it to be any
motive of glory: for it would be a strange ambition to seek to gain
honour by an action my gardener or my groom can perform as well as I.
Certainly, I have not a heart so tumorous and windy, that I should
exchange so solid a pleasure as health for an airy and imaginary
pleasure: glory, even that of the Four Sons of Aymon, is too dear bought
by a man of my humour, if it cost him three swinging fits of the stone.
Give me health, in God's name! Such as love physic, may also have good,
great, and convincing considerations; I do not hate opinions contrary to
my own: I am so, far from being angry to see a discrepancy betwixt mine
and other men's judgments, and from rendering myself unfit for the
society of men, from being of another sense and party than mine, that on
the contrary (the most general way that nature has followed being
variety, and more in souls than bodies, forasmuch as they are of a more
supple substance, and more susceptible of forms) I find it much more
rare to see our humours and designs jump and agree. And there never
were, in the world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two
grains: their most universal quality is diversity.
