Shakespeare's Montaigne by Michel de Montaigne
Cum morosa vago singultiet inguine vena,
Coniicito humorem collectum in corpora quæque.
When raging lust excites a panting tumor,
To diverse parts send that collected humor. [30]
And look to it in time, lest it vex you, if it have once seized on you.
Si non prima novis conturbes vulnera plagis,
Volgiuagaque vagus Venere ante recentia cures.
Unless the first wounds with new wounds you mix,
And, ranging, cure the fresh with common tricks. [31]
I was once nearly touched with a heavy displeasure, [32] according to my complexion, [33] and yet more just than heavy. I had peradventure lost myself in it had I only relied upon mine own strength. Needing a vehement diversion to withdraw me from it, I did by art and study make myself a lover, whereto my age assisted me. Love discharged and diverted me from the inconvenience, which good will and amity had caused in me.
So is it in all things else. A sharp conceit possesseth and a violent imagination holdeth me; I find it a shorter course to alter and divert than to tame and vanquish the same. If I cannot substitute a contrary unto it, at least I present another unto it. Change ever easeth, variety dissolveth, and shifting dissipateth. If I cannot buckle with [34] it, I slip from it; and in shunning it, I stray and double from it. Shifting of place, exercise, and company, I save myself amid the throng of other studies and amusements, where it loseth my track, and so I slip away.
Nature proceedeth thus by the benefit of inconstancy. For the time it hath bestowed on us, as a sovereign physician of our passions, chiefly obtains his purpose that way: when fraughting [35] our conceits with other and different affairs, it dissolveth and corrupteth [36] that first apprehension, how forcible soever it be. A wise man seeth little less his friend dying at the end of five and twenty years than at the beginning of the first year. [37] And according to Epicurus, nothing less, for he ascribed no qualification of perplexities either to the foresight [38] or antiquity of them. But so many other cogitations cross this that it languisheth and in the end groweth weary.
To divert the inclination of vulgar reports, Alcibiades cut off his fair dog’s ears and tail and so drove him into the marketplace, that giving this subject of prattle to the people, they might not meddle with his other actions. I have also seen some women, who to divert the opinions and conjectures of the babbling people and to divert the fond tattling of some, did by counterfeit and dissembled affections overshadow and cloak true affections. Amongst which I have noted some who, in dissembling and counterfeiting, have suffered themselves to be entrapped wittingly and in good earnest, quitting their true and original humor for the feigned. [39] Of whom I learn that such as find themselves well seated are very fools to yield unto that mask. The common greetings and public entertainments being reserved unto that set or appointed servant, believe [40] there is little sufficiency in him if in the end he usurp not your room and send you unto his. This is properly to cut out and stitch up a shoe for another to put on.
A little thing doth divert and turn us, for a small thing holds us. We do not much respect subjects in gross and alone; they are circumstances or small and superficial images that move and touch us, and vain rinds which rebound from subjects. [41]
Folliculos ut nunc teretes æstate cicadæ
Linguunt.
As grasshoppers in summer now forsake
The round-grown sheafs, which they in time should take. [42]
Plutarch himself bewails his daughter by the fopperies of her childhood. The remembrance of a farewell, of an action, of a particular grace, or of a last commendation afflict us. Caesar’s gown disquieted all Rome, which his death had not done. The very sound of names, which gingleth [43] in our ears as, “Oh, my poor master”; or, “Alas, my dear friend”; “Oh, my good father”; or, “Alas, my sweet daughter.” When such like repetitions pinch me, and that I look more nearly to them, I find them but grammatical laments. The word and the tune wound me—even as preachers’ exclamations do often move their auditory [44] more than their reasons, [45] and as the pitiful groan of a beast yearneth us, though it be killed for our use—without poising [46] or entering therewhilst into the true and massy [47] essence of my subject.
His se stimulis dolor ipse lacessit.
Grief by these provocations,
Puts itself in more passions. [48]
They are the foundations of our mourning.
The obstinacy of the stone, [49] namely in the yard, [50] hath some times for three or four days together so stopped my urine and brought me so near death’s door that it had been mere folly in me to hope, nay to desire, to avoid the same, considering what cruel pangs that painful plight did seize me with. Oh, how cunning a master in the murdering art or hangman’s trade was that good Emperor, [51] who caused malefactors’ yards to be fast-tied that so he might make them die for want of pissing. In which tears finding myself, I considered by how slight causes and frivolous objects imagination nourished in me the grief to lose my life; with what atoms the consequence and difficulty of my dislodging was contrived in my mind; to what idle conceits and frivolous cogitations we give place in so weighty a case or important affair. A dog, a horse, a hare, a glass, and whatnot were counted in my loss. To others, their ambitious hopes, their purse, their learning—in my mind as sottishly. [52] I view death carelessly when I behold it universally as the end of life. I overwhelm and contemn it thus in great; by retail, it spoils and proules [53] me. [54] The tears of a lackey, [55] the distributing of my cast suits, [56] the touch of a known hand, an ordinary consolation doth disconsolate and entender me. [57]
So do the plaints and fables of trouble vex our minds, and the wailing laments of Dido and Ariadne passionate [58] even those that believe them not in Virgil nor in Catullus. It is an argument of an obstinate nature and indurate [59] heart not to be moved therewith; as for a wonder, they report of Polemon, who was not so much as appalled at the biting of a dog who took away the brawn or calf of his leg. And no wisdom goeth so far as by due judgement to conceive aright the evident cause of a sorrow and grief too lively and wholly. That it suffer or admit no accession [except] by presence, when eyes and ears have their share therein, parts that cannot be agitated but by vain accidents. [60]
Is it reason that even arts should serve their purposes, and make their profit of our imbecility and natural blockishness? [61] An orator, (sayeth Rhetoric), in the play of his pleading, shall be moved at the sound of his own voice and by his feigned agitations, and suffer himself to be cozened by the passion he representeth. Imprinting a lively and essential sorrow by the juggling [62] he acteth, to transfer it into the judges, whom of the two it concerneth less. As the persons hired at our funerals who, to aid the ceremony of mourning, make sale of their tears by measure and of their sorrow by weight. For although they strive to act it in a borrowed form, yet by habituating and ordering their countenance, it is certain they are often wholly transported into it and entertain the impression of a true and unfeigned melancholy.
I assisted amongst diverse others of his friends to convey the dead corpse of the Lord of Grammont from the siege of Lafere, where he was untimely slain, to Soissons. I noted that everywhere as we passed along we filled with lamentations and tears all the people we met by the only show of our convoy’s mourning attire, for the deceased man’s name was not so much as known or heard of about those quarters.
Quintilian reporteth to have seen comedians [63] so far engaged in a sorrowful part that they wept after being come to their lodgings; and of himself, that having undertaken to move a certain passion in another, he had found himself surprised, not only with shedding of tears but with a paleness of countenance and behaviour of a man truly dejected with grief. [64]
In a country near our mountains, the women say and unsay, weep and laugh with one breath, as Martin the priest. [65] For as for their lost husbands they entreat their waymentings [66] by repetition of the good and graceful parts they were endowed with, therewitha
If one demand that fellow what interest he hath in such a siege, “The interest of example” (will he say), “and common obedience of the prince; I nor look nor pretend any benefit thereby; and of glory I know how small a portion cometh to the share of a private man, such as I am. I have neither passion nor quarrel in the matter.” Yet the next day shall you see him all changed, and chafing, boiling, and blushing with rage in his rank of battle, ready for the assault. It is the glaring reflecting of so much steel, the flashing thundering of the cannon, the clang of trumpets, and the rattling of drums that have infused this new fury and rancor in his swelling veins.
A frivolous cause, will you say. How a cause? There needeth none to excite our mind: a doting humour without body, without substance overswayeth and tosseth it up and down. Let me think of building castles in Spain, my imagination will forge me commodities and afford me means and delights wherewith my mind is really tickled and essentially gladded. How often do we pester our spirits with anger or sadness by such shadows and entangle ourselves into fantastical passions which alter both our mind and body? What astonished, flearing, [68] and confused mumps and mows [69] doth this dotage stir up in our visages! What skippings [70] and agitations of members and voice! Seems it not by this man, alone, that he hath false visions of a multitude of other men with whom he doth negotiate, or some inward goblin that torments him?
Inquire of yourself, where is the object of this alteration? Is there anything but us in nature, except subsisting nullity, over whom it hath any power?
Because Cambyses dreamed that his brother should be King of Persia, he put him to death—a brother whom he loved and ever trusted. Aristodemus, King of the Messenians, killed himself upon a conceit he took of some ill presage [71] by I know not what howling of his dogs. And King Midas did as much, being troubled and vexed by a certain unpleasing dream of his own. It is the right way to prize one’s life at the right worth of it, to forgo it for a dream. [72]
Hear, notwithstanding, our mind triumph over the body’s weaknesses and misery, in that it [73] is the prey and mark [74] of all wrongs and alterations to feed on and aim at. It hath surely much reason to speak of it.
O prima infælix fingenti terra Prometheo?
Ille parum cauti pectoris egit opus.
Corpora disponens, mentem non vidit in arte?
Recta animi primum debuit esse via.
Unhappy earth first by Prometheus formed,
Who of small providence a work performed.
He, framing bodies, saw in art no mind;
The mind’s way first should rightly be assign’d. [75]
Upon Some Verses of Virgil
(selections)
3.5
I HATE a wayward and sad disposition that glideth over the pleasures of his life, and fastens and feeds on miseries. As flies that cannot cleave to smooth and sleek bodies, but seize and hold on rugged and uneven places. Or as cupping-glasses [1] that affect and suck none but the worst blood. For my part I am resoluted to dare speak whatsoever I dare do. And am displeased with thoughts not to be published. The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch them. Every one is wary in the confession; we should be as heedy [2] in the action. The boldness of offending is somewhat recompensed and restrained by the boldness of confessing.
♦ ♦ ♦
Even from their [women’s] infancy we frame them to the sports of love. Their instruction, behaviour, attire, grace, learning, and all their words aimeth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them than the loveliness of love, were it but by continually presenting the same unto them to distaste them of it. [3] My daughter (all the children I have) is of the age wherein the laws excuse [4] the forwardest [5] to marry. She is of a slow, [6] nice, and mild complexion, and hath accordingly been brought up by her mother in a retired and particular manner: so that she beginneth but now to put off childish simplicity.
She was one day reading a French book before me. An obscene word [7] came in her way (more bawdy in sound than in effect, it signifieth the name of a tree and another thing). The woman that looks to her staid her presently and somewhat churlishly making her step over [8] the same. I let her alone because I would not cross their rules, for I meddle nothing with this government: women’s policy hath a mystical proceeding; we must be content to leave it to them. But if I be not deceived, the conversation of twenty lackeys could not in six months have settled in her thoughts the understanding, the use, and consequences of the sound belonging to those filthy syllables as did that good old woman by her check and interdiction.
Motus doceri gaudet Ionicos
Natura virgo, et frangitur artubus
Iam nunc, et incestos amores
De tenero meditatur ungui.
Maids marriage-ripe straight to be taught delight
Ionique dances, fram’d by art aright
In every joint, and ev’n from their first hair
Incestuous loves in meditation bear. [9]
Let them somewhat dispense with ceremonies, let them fall into free liberty of speech; we are but children, we are but gulls in respect of them about any such subject. Hear them relate how we sue, how we woo, how we solicit, and how we entertain them, they will soon give you to understand that we can say, that we can do, and that we can bring them nothing but what they already knew and had long before digested without us. May it be (as Plato sayeth) because they have one time or other been themselves wanton, licentious, and amorous lads? [10]
♦ ♦ ♦
Besides the fear of God and the reward of so rare a glory, which should incite them to preserve themselves, the corruption of our age enforceth them unto it. And were I in their clothes, there is nothing but I would rather do than commit my reputation into so dangerous hands. In my time the pleasure of reporting and blabbing what one hath done (a pleasure not much short of the act itself in sweetness) was only allowed to such as had some assured, trusty, and singular friend. Whereas nowadays the ordinary entertainments and familiar discourses of meetings and at tables are the boastings of favors received, graces obtained, and secret liberalities of ladies. Verily, it is too great an objection and argueth a baseness of heart so fiercely to suffer those tender, dainty, delicious joys to be persecuted, pelted, and foraged by persons so ungrateful, so undiscreet, and so giddy-headed.
This our immoderate and lawless exasperation against this vice proceedeth and is bred of jealousy, the most vain and turbulent infirmity that may afflict man’s mind.
Quis vetat apposito lumen de lumine sumi?
Dent licet assidue, nil tamen inde perit.
To borrow light of light, who would deny?
Though still they give, nothing is lost thereby. [11]
That [12] and envy her sister are (in mine opinion) the fondest [13] of the troupe. Of the latter, I cannot say much: a passion which how effectual and powerful soever they set forth, of her good favour she meddleth not with me. As for the other, I know it only by sight. Beasts have some feeling of it: the shepherd Cratis, being fallen in love with a she-goat, her buck for jealousy beat out his brains as he lay asleep. We have raised to the highest strain the excess of this moody fever, after the example of some barbarous nations. The best disciplined have therewith been tainted, it is reason, but not carried away by it:
Ense maritali nemo conf[o]ssus adulter,
Purpureo stygias sanguine tinxit aquas.
With husband’s sword yet no adulter [14] slain,
With purple blood did Stygian waters stain. [15]
Lucullus, Caesar, Pompey, Anthony, Cato, and diverse other gallant men were cuckolds and knew it, though they made no stir about it. There was in all that time but one gullish coxcomb Lepidus that died with the anguish of it.
Ah tum te miserum malique fati,
Quæm attractis pedibus patente porta.
Percurrent mugilesque raphanique.
Ah, thee, then wretched, of accursed fate
Whom fish-wives, radish-wives of base estate,
Shall scoffing over-run in open gate. [16]
And the god of our poet’s, [17] when he surprised one of his companions napping with his wife, was contented but to shame them:
Atque aliquis de Diis non tristibus optat,
Sic fieri turpis.
Some of the merrier gods doth wish in heart,
To share their shame, of pleasure to take part. [18]
And yet forbeareth not to be enflamed with the gentle dalliances and amorous blandishments she offereth him, complaining that for so slight a matter he should distrust her to him dear-dear affection:
Quid causas petis ex alto? fiducia cessit
Quo tibi Diva mei?
So far why fetch you your plea’s pedigree?
Whither is fled the trust you had in me? [19]
And which is more, she becomes a suitor to him in the behalf of a bastard of hers,
Arma rogo genitrix nato.
A mother for a son, I crave,
An armor he of you may have. [20]
Which is freely granted her. And Vulcan speaks honourably of Aeneas:
Arma acri facienda viro.
An armor must be hammered-out,
For one of courage stern and stout. [21]