Shakespeare's Montaigne by Michel de Montaigne
Bear on my feet, and stand, without staff in my hand. [159]
We had need to be solicited and tickled by some biting agitation as this is. See but what youth, vigor, and jollity it restored unto wise Anacreon. And Socrates, when he was elder than I am, speaking of an amourous object: “Leaning” (says he) “shoulder to shoulder, and approaching my head unto his, as we were both together looking upon a book, I felt, in truth, a sudden tingling or prickling in my shoulder, like the biting of some beast, which more then five days after tickled me, whereby a continual itching glided into my heart.” But a casual touch, and that but in a shoulder, to enflame, to distemper, and to distract a mind enfeebled, tamed, and cooled through age; and of all human minds the most reformed. And why not I pray you? Socrates was but a man and would neither be nor seem to be other.
Philosophy contends not against natural delights, so that due measure be joined therewith and alloweth the moderation, not the shunning, of them. The efforts of her resistance are employed against strange and bastard or lawless ones. She sayeth that the body’s appetites ought not to be increased by the mind. And wittily adviseth us that we should not excite our hunger by satiety; not to stuff instead of filling our bellies; to avoid all jouissance that may bring us to want; and shun all meat and drink which may make us hungry or thirsty. As in the service of love, she appoints us to take an object that only may satisfy the body’s need without once moving the mind, which is not there to have any doing but only to follow and simply to assist the body.
But have I not reason to think that these precepts, which (in mine opinion are elsewhere somewhat rigorous) have reference unto a body which doth his office; and that a dejected one, as a weakened stomach, may be excused if he cherish and sustain the same by art, and by the intercourse of fancy to restore [to] it the desires, the delights, and blithnesse which of itself it hath lost?
May we not say that there is nothing in us during this earthly prison, simply corporal or purely spiritual, and that injuriously we dismember a living man? That there is reason we should carry ourselves in the use of pleasure, at least as favourably as we do in the pangs of grief? For example, it [160] was vehement even unto perfection in the souls of saints, by repentance. The body had naturally a part therein, by the right of their combination, and yet might have but little share in the cause. And were not contented that it should simply follow and assist the afflicted soul; they have tormented the body itself with convenient and sharp punishments, to the end that, one with the other, the body and the soul might avie [161] plunge man into sorrow, so much the more saving by how much the more smarting.
In like case, in corporal pleasures, is it not injustice to quell and cool the mind and say it must thereunto be entrained, [162] as unto a forced bond or servile necessity? She should rather hatch and cherish them [163] and offer and invite itself unto them, the charge of swaying rightly belonging to her. Even as, in my conceit, it is her part in her proper delights to inspire and infuse into the body all sense or feeling which his condition may bear, and endeavor that they may be both sweet and healthy for him. For, as they say, t’is good reason that the body follow not his appetites to the mind’s prejudice or domage. [164] But why is it not likewise reason that the mind should not follow hers to the body’s danger and hurt?
I have no other passion that keeps me in breath. What avarice, ambition, quarrels, suits in law, or other contentions work an effect in others who, as myself, have no assigned vocation or certain leisure, love would perform more commodiously. It would restore me the vigilancy, sobriety, grace, and care of my person and assure my countenance against the wrinkled frowns of age (those deformed and wretched frowns) which else would blemish and deface the same. It would reduce me to serious, to sound and wise studies, whereby I might procure more love and purchase more estimation. It would purge my mind from despair of itself and of its use, acquainting the same again with itself. It would divert me from thousands of irksome tedious thoughts, and melancholy carking [165] cares, wherewith the doting idleness and crazed condition of our age doth charge and comber [166] us. It would restore and heat, though but in a dream, the blood which nature forsaketh. It would uphold the drooping chin and somewhat strengthen or lengthen the shrunken sinnowes, [167] decayed vigor, and dulled lives-blitheness [168] of silly-wretched man, who gallops apace to his ruin.
But I am not ignorant how hard a matter it is to attain to such a commodity. [169] Through weakness and long experience our taste is grown more tender, more choice, and more exquisite. We challenge most when we bring least; we are most desirous to choose when we least deserve to be accepted. And knowing ourselves to be such, we are less hardy and more distrustful. Nothing can assure us to be beloved, seeing our condition and their quality. I am ashamed to be in the company of this green, blooming, and boiling youth.
Cuius in indomito constantior inguine nervus,
Quam nova collibus arbor inhæret. [170]
Why should we present our wretchedness amid this their jollity?
Possint ut iuvenes visere fervidi
Multo non sine risu,
Dilapsam in cineres facem.
That hot young men may go and see,
Not without sport and merry glee,
Their fire-brands turn’d to ashes be. [171]
They have both strength and reason on their side: let us give them place; we have no longer hold fast. [172]
This bloom of budding beauty loves not to be handled by such numbed and so clumsy hands, nor would it be dealt with by the means or material of ordinary stuff. For, as that ancient philosopher answered one that mocked him because he could not obtain the favour of a youngling whom he suingly pursued: My friend (quoth he) the hook bites not at such fresh cheese. [173]
It is a commerce needing relation and mutual correspondency. Other pleasures that we receive may be requited by recompenses of different nature, but this cannot be repaid but with the very same kind of coin. Verily, the pleasure I do others in this sport doth more sweetly tickle my imagination than that is done unto me. Now if no generous mind can receive pleasure where he returneth none, it is a base mind that would have all duty and delights to feed with conference those under whose charge he remaineth. There is no beauty nor favour nor familiarity so exquisite which a gallant mind should desire at this rate. Now if women can do us no good but in pity, I had much rather not to live at all than to live by alms. I would I had the privilege to demand of them in the same style I have heard some beg in Italy: Fate beno per voi. Do some good for yourself; or after the manner that Cyrus exhorted his soldiers: Whosoever loveth me, let him follow me. [174]
Consort yourself, will some say to me, with those of your own condition, whom the company of like fortune will yield of more easy access. Oh sottish and wallowish composition! [175]
——nolo
Barbam vellere mortito leoni.
I will not pull (though not afeard),
When he is dead a Lion’s beard. [176]
Xenophon useth for an objection and accusation against Menon that in his love he dealt with fading objects. I take more sensual pleasure by only viewing the mutual, even-proportioned, and delicate commixture of two young beauties, or only to consider the same in mine imagination, than if myself should be second in a lumpish, sad, and disproportioned conjunction. I resign such distasted and fantastical appetites unto the Emperour Galba, who meddled with none but cast, worn, hard-old flesh; and to that poor slave:
O ego di’ faciant talem te cernere possim,
Charaque mutatis oscula ferre comis,
Amplectique meis corpus non pingue lacertis.
Gods grant I may behold thee in such case,
And kiss thy chang’d locks with my dearest grace,
And with mine arms thy limbs not fat embrace. [177]
And amongst blemishing-deformities, I deem artificial and forced beauty to be of the chiefest. Emonez, a young lad of Chios, supposing by gorgeous attires to purchase the beauty which nature denied him, came to the philo
Shall I boldly speak it, and not have my throat cut for my labour? Love is not properly nor naturally in season but in the age next unto infancy.
Quam si puellarum insereres choro,
Mille sagaces falleret hospites,
Discrimen obscurum, solutis
Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu.
Whom if you should in crew of wenches place,
With hair loose-hanging, and ambiguous face,
Strangely the undiscern’d distinction might
Deceive a thousand strangers of sharpe sight. [178]
No more is perfect beauty. For whereas Homer extends it until such time as the chin begins to bud, Plato himself hath noted the same for very rare. And the cause for which the sophister Dion termed youth’s budding hairs Aristogitons and Harmodii is notoriously known. [179] In manhood I find it already to be somewhat out of date, much more in old age:
Importunus enim transvolat aridas
Qærcus.
Importune [180] love doth over-fly
The oaks with withered old-age dry. [181]
And Margaret Queen of Navarre lengthens much (like a woman) the privilege of women: ordaining thirty yeares to be the season for them to change the title of fair into good.
The shorter possession we allow it [182] over our lives, the better for us. Behold its behaviour: it is a princock boy. [183] Who in his school knows not how far one proceeds against all order? Study, exercise, custom, and practice are paths to insufficiency; there novices bear all the sway: Amor ordinem nescit. Love knows or keeps no order. Surely its course hath more garb [184] when it is commixed with unadvisedness and trouble; faults and contrary successes give it edge and grace. So it be eager and hungry, it little importeth whether it be prudent. Observe but how he staggers, stumbleth, and fooleth; you fetter and shackle him when you guide him by art and discretion, and you force his sacred liberty when you submit him to those bearded, grim, and tough-hard hands.
Moreover, I often hear them [185] display this intelligence as absolutely spiritual, disdaining to draw into consideration the interest which all the senses have in the same. All serveth to the purpose. But I may say that I have often seen some of us excuse the weakness of their minds in favour of their corporal beauties; but I never saw them yet that, in behalf of the mind’s-beauties, how sound and ripe soever they were, would afford an helping hand unto a body that never so little falleth into declination. Why doth not some one of them long to produce that noble Socratical brood, or breed that precious gem between the body and the mind, purchasing with the price of her thighs a philosophical and spiritual breed and intelligence, which is the highest rate she can possibly value them at? Plato appointeth in his Laws that he who performeth a notable and worthy exploit in war during the time of that expedition should not be denied a kiss or refused any other amorous favour, of whomsoever he shall please to desire it, without respect either of his ill-favouredness, deformity, or age. What he deemeth so just and allowable in commendation of military valour may not the same be thought as lawful in commendation of some other worth? And why is not one of them possessed with the humor to preoccupate [186] on her companions the glory of this chaste love? Chaste I may well say:
——nam si quando ad prælia ventum est,
Ut quondam stipulis magnus sine viribus ignis
In cassum furit.
If once it come to handy-gripes [187] as great,
But force-less fire in stubble; so his heat
Rageth amain, [188] but all in vain. [189]
Vices smothered in one’s thought are not of the worst.
To conclude this notable commentary, escaped from me by a flux of babbling, a flux sometimes as violent as hurtful—
Ut missum sponsi furtivo munere malum,
Procurrit casto virginis e gremio:
Quod miseræ oblitæ molli sub veste locatum,
Dum adventu matris prosilit, excutitur,
Atque illud prono præceps agitur decursu,
Huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor.
As when some fruit by stealth sent from her friend,
From chaste lap of a virgin doth descend,
Which by her, under her soft apron plast, [190]
Starting at mother’s coming thence is cast;
And trilling down in haste doth headlong go,
A guilty blush in her sad face doth flow. [191]
—I say that both male and female are cast in one same mold; instruction and custom excepted, there is no great difference between them. Plato calleth them both indifferently to the society of all studies, exercises, charges, and functions of war and peace, in his commonwealth. And the philosopher Antisthenes took away all distinction between their virtue and ours. It is much more easy to accuse the one sex than to excuse the other. It is that which some say proverbially: Ill may the kiln call the oven burnt-tail. [192]
Of Coaches
3.6
IT IS EASY to verify that excellent authors, writing of causes, do not only make use of those which they imagine true but eftsoons [1] of such as themselves believe not, always provided they have some invention and beauty. They speak sufficiently, truly, and profitably, if they speak ingeniously. We cannot assure ourselves of the chief cause: we huddle up a many together, to see whether by chance it shall be found in that number:
Namque unam dicere causam,
Non satis est, verum plures, unde una tamen sit.
Enough it is not one cause to devise,
But more, whereof that one may yet arise. [2]
Will you demand of me, whence this custom ariseth to bless and say “God help” to those that sneeze? We produce three sorts of wind: that issuing from below is too undecent; that from the mouth implieth some reproach of gourmandise; [3] the third is sneezing. And because it cometh from the head and is without imputation, we thus kindly entertain it. Smile not at this subtlety; it is (as some say) Aristotle’s.
Me seemeth to have read in Plutarch (who of all the authors I know, hath best commixed art with nature and coupled judgement with learning), where he yieldeth a reason why those which travel by sea do sometimes feel such qualms and risings of the stomach, saying that it proceedeth of a kind of fear, having found out some reason by which he proveth that fear may cause such an effect. Myself, who am much subject unto it, know well that this cause doth nothing concern me. And I know it, not by argument but by necessary experience. Without alleging what some have told me, that the like doth often happen unto beasts, namely unto swine, when they are farthest from apprehending any danger; and what an acquaintance of mine hath assured me of himself and who is greatly subject unto it that twice or thrice in a tempestuous storm, being surprised with exceeding fear, all manner of desire or inclination to vomit had left him. As to that ancient good fellow: Peius vexabat quam ut periculum mihi succurreret. I was worse vexed than that danger could help me. [4] I never apprehended fear upon the water, nor anywhere else (yet have I often had just cause offered me, if death itself may give it), which either might trouble or astonie [5] me.
It proceedeth sometimes as well from want of judgement, as from lack of courage. All the dangers I have had have been when mine eyes were wide open and my sight clear, sound, and perfect. For even to fear, courage is required. It hath sometimes steaded me, in respect of others, to direct and keep my flight in order, that so it might be, if not without fear, at least without dismay and astonishment. Indeed, it [6] was moved but not amazed nor distracted.
Undaunted minds march further and represent flight, [7] not only temperate, settled, and sound but also fierce and bold. Report we that which Alcibiades relateth of Socrates his companion in arms. “I found” (sayeth he) “after the rout and discomfiture of our army, both him and Lachez in the last rank
Our people is to blame to say such a one feareth death, when it would signify that he thinks on it and doth foresee the same. Foresight doth equally belong as well to that which concerneth us in good as touch us in evil. To consider and judge danger is in some sort not to be daunted at it.
I do not find myself sufficiently strong to withstand the blow and violence of this passion of fear, or of any other impetuosity. [10] Were I once therewith vanquished and deterred, I could never safely recover myself. He that should make my mind forgo her footing could never bring her unto her place again. She doth over lively sound and over deeply search into herself. And therefore never suffers the wound which pierced the same, to be thoroughly cured and consolidated. It hath been happy for me that no infirmity could ever yet displace her. I oppose and present myself in the best ward [11] I have, against all charges and assaults that beset me. Thus the first that should bear me away would make me unrecoverable. I encounter not two: [12] which way soever spoil should enter my hold, there am I open and remedilessly drowned.