The Essays Chapter 37

(1, p. 96-97).Michel de MontaigneC137 Du ieune CatonMontaigne - Essais, Éd de Bordeaux, 1.djvuMontaigne - Essais, Éd de Bordeaux, 1.djvu/196-97
Chapitre 37 :
Du Jeune Caton

IE n’ay point cette erreur commune de juger d’un
autre selon que je suis. J’en croy aysément des choses diverses à
moy.

Ma foiblesse n’altere aucunement les opinions que je dois avoir de la
force et vigueur de ceux qui le meritent.

Rampant au limon de la terre, je ne laisse pas de remerquer, jusques
dans les nues, la hauteur inimitable d’aucunes ames heroïques. C’est
beaucoup pour moy d’avoir le jugement reglé, si les effects ne le
peuvent estre, et maintenir au moins cette maistresse partie exempte de
corruption. C’est quelque chose d’avoir la
volonté bonne, quand les jambes me faillent. Ce siècle auquel nous
vivons, au moins pour nostre climat, est si plombé que, je ne dis pas
l’execution, mais l’imagination mesme de la vertu en est à dire ; et
semble que ce ne soit autre chose qu’un jargon de colliege :
virtutem verba putant, ut Lucum ligna.

Il ne se recognoit plus d’action vertueuse : celles qui en portent le
visage, elles n’en ont pas pourtant l’essence, car le profit, la
gloire,
la crainte, l’accoutumance et autres telles causes estrangeres nous
acheminent à les produire. La justice, la vaillance, la
debonnaireté,
que nous exerçons lors, elles peuvent estre ainsi nommées pour la
consideration d’autruy, et du visage qu’elles portent en public, mais,
chez l’ouvrier, ce n’est aucunement vertu ; il y a une autre fin
proposée,

Or la vertu n’advoue rien que ce qui se faict par elle et pour elle
seule.

ils le font ou par malice, ou par ce vice de ramener leur creance à
leur portée, dequoy je viens de parler, ou, comme je pense plustost,
pour n’avoir pas la veue assez forte et assez nette pour concevoir la
splendeur de la vertu en sa pureté naifve, ny dressée à cela : comme
Plutarque dict que, de son temps, aucuns attribuoient la cause de la
mort du jeune Caton à la crainte qu’il avoit eu de Caesar : dequoy il
se picque avecques raison ; et peut on juger par là combien il se fut
encore plus offencé de ceux qui l’ont attribuée à l’ambition.

Ce personnage là fut veritablement un patron que nature choisit
pour
montrer jusques où l’humaine vertu et fermeté pouvoit atteindre.
Mais je ne suis pas icy à mesmes pour traicter ce riche argument.
Je
veux seulement faire luiter ensemble les traits de cinq poetes Latins
sur la louange de Caton,

Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel Caesare major,

dict l’un.

Et invictum, devicta morte, Catonem,

dict l’autre. Et l’autre, parlant des
guerres
civiles d’entre Caesar et Pompeius,

Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.
Et le quatriesme, sur les louanges de Caesar : Et cuncta terrarum subacta,
Praeter atrocem animum Catonis.

Et le
maistre du chœur, apres avoir étalé les noms des plus grands
Romains en sa peinture, finit en cette maniere :

his dantem jura Catonem.

Chapter XXXVII. That we laugh and cry for the same thing.

When we read in history that Antigonus was very much displeased with his

son for presenting him the head of King Pyrrhus his enemy, but newly

slain fighting against him, and that seeing it, he wept; and that Rene,

Duke of Lorraine, also lamented the death of Charles, Duke of Burgundy,

whom he had himself defeated, and appeared in mourning at his funeral;

and that in the battle of D'Auray (which Count Montfort obtained over

Charles de Blois, his competitor for the duchy of Brittany), the

conqueror meeting the dead body of his enemy, was very much afflicted at

his death, we must not presently cry out:

"E cosi avven, the l'animo ciascuna

Sua passion sotto 'l contrario manto,

Ricopre, con la vista or'chiara, or'bruna."

When Pompey's head was presented to Caesar, the histories tell us that he

turned away his face, as from a sad and unpleasing object. There had

been so long an intelligence and society betwixt them in the management

of the public affairs, so great a community of fortunes, so many mutual

offices, and so near an alliance, that this countenance of his ought not

to suffer under any misinterpretation, or to be suspected for either

false or counterfeit, as this other seems to believe:

"Tutumque putavit

Jam bonus esse socer; lacrymae non sponte cadentes,

Effudit, gemitusque expressit pectore laeto;"

for though it be true that the greatest part of our actions are no other

than visor and disguise, and that it may sometimes be true that

"Haeredis fletus sub persona rises est,"

yet, in judging of these accidents, we are to consider how much our souls

are oftentimes agitated with divers passions. And as they say that in

our bodies there is a congregation of divers humours, of which that is

the sovereign which, according to the complexion we are of, is commonly

most predominant in us: so, though the soul have in it divers motions to

give it agitation, yet must there of necessity be one to overrule all the

rest, though not with so necessary and absolute a dominion but that

through the flexibility and inconstancy of the soul, those of less

authority may upon occasion reassume their place and make a little sally

in turn. Thence it is, that we see not only children, who innocently

obey and follow nature, often laugh and cry at the same thing, but not

one of us can boast, what journey soever he may have in hand that he has

the most set his heart upon, but when he comes to part with his family

and friends, he will find something that troubles him within; and though

he refrain his tears yet he puts foot in the stirrup with a sad and

cloudy countenance. And what gentle flame soever may warm the heart of

modest and wellborn virgins, yet are they fain to be forced from about

their mothers' necks to be put to bed to their husbands, whatever this

boon companion is pleased to say:

"Estne novis nuptis odio Venus? anne parentum

Frustrantur falsis gaudia lachrymulis,

Ubertim thalami quasi intra limina fundunt?

Non, ita me divi, vera gemunt, juverint."

Neither is it strange to lament a person dead whom a man would by no

means should be alive. When I rattle my man, I do it with all the mettle

I have, and load him with no feigned, but downright real curses; but the

heat being over, if he should stand in need of me, I should be very ready

to do him good: for I instantly turn the leaf. When I call him calf and

coxcomb, I do not pretend to entail those titles upon him for ever;

neither do I think I give myself the lie in calling him an honest fellow

presently after. No one quality engrosses us purely and universally.

Were it not the sign of a fool to talk to one's self, there would hardly

be a day or hour wherein I might not be heard to grumble and mutter to

myself and against myself, "Confound the fool!" and yet I do not think

that to be my definition. Who for seeing me one while cold and presently

very fond towards my wife, believes the one or the other to be

counterfeited, is an ass. Nero, taking leave of his mother whom he was

sending to be drowned, was nevertheless sensible of some emotion at this

farewell, and was struck with horror and pity. 'Tis said, that the light

of the sun is not one continuous thing, but that he darts new rays so

thick one upon another that we cannot perceive the intermission:

"Largus enim liquidi fons luminis, aetherius sol,

Irrigat assidue coelum candore recenti,

Suppeditatque novo confestim lumine lumen."

Just so the soul variously and imperceptibly darts out her passions.

Artabanus coming by surprise once upon his nephew Xerxes, chid him for

the sudden alteration of his countenance. He was considering the

immeasurable greatness of his forces passing over the Hellespont for the

Grecian expedition: he was first seized with a palpitation of joy, to see

so many millions of men under his command, and this appeared in the

gaiety of his looks: but his thoughts at the same instant suggesting to

him that of so many lives, within a century at most, there would not be

one left, he presently knit his brows and grew sad, even to tears.

We have resolutely pursued the revenge of an injury received, and been

sensible of a singular contentment for the victory; but we shall weep

notwithstanding. 'Tis not for the victory, though, that we shall weep:

there is nothing altered in that but the soul looks upon things with

another eye and represents them to itself with another kind of face; for

everything has many faces and several aspects.

Relations, old acquaintances, and friendships, possess our imaginations

and make them tender for the time, according to their condition; but the

turn is so quick, that 'tis gone in a moment:

"Nil adeo fieri celeri ratione videtur,

Quam si mens fieri proponit, et inchoat ipsa,

Ocius ergo animus, quam res se perciet ulla,

Ante oculos quorum in promptu natura videtur;"

and therefore, if we would make one continued thing of all this

succession of passions, we deceive ourselves. When Timoleon laments the

murder he had committed upon so mature and generous deliberation, he does

not lament the liberty restored to his country, he does not lament the

tyrant; but he laments his brother: one part of his duty is performed;

let us give him leave to perform the other.