Essais Chapitre 40

(1, p. 103v-106).Michel de MontaigneC140 Consideration sur CicéronMontaigne - Essais, Éd de Bordeaux, 1.djvuMontaigne - Essais, Éd de Bordeaux, 1.djvu/1103v-106
Chapitre 40 :
Consideration sur Cicéron

ENcor’ un traict à la comparaison de ces couples. Il se tire des escris de Cicero et de ce Pline (peu retirant, à mon advis, aux humeurs de son oncle), infinis tesmoignages de nature outre mesure ambitieuse : entre autres qu’ils sollicitent, au sceu de tout le monde, les historiens de leur temps de ne les oublier
en leurs registres ; et la fortune, comme par despit, a faict durer
jusques à nous la vanité de ces requestes, et pieça faict perdre
ces histoires. Mais cecy surpasse toute bassesse de cœur, en personnes de tel rang, d’avoir voulu tirer quelque principale gloire du caquet et de la
parlerie, jusques à y employer les lettres privées écriptes à
leurs amis : en maniere que, aucunes ayant failly leur saison pour
estre
envoyées, ils les font ce neantmoins publier avec cette digne excuse
qu’ils n’ont pas voulu perdre leur travail et veillées. Sied-il pas
bien à deux consuls Romains, souverains magistrats de la chose
publique emperiere du monde, d’employer leur loisir à ordonner et
fagoter gentiment une belle missive, pour en tirer la reputation de
bien entendre le langage de leur nourrisse ? Que feroit pis un simple
maistre d’école qui en gaignat sa vie ? Si les gestes de Xenophon et
de Caesar n’eussent de bien loing surpassé leur eloquence, je ne croy
pas qu’ils les eussent jamais escris. Ils ont cherché à
recommander
non leur dire, mais leur faire. Et, si la
perfection du bien parler pouvoit apporter quelque gloire sortable à
un grand personnage, certainement Scipion et Laelius n’eussent pas
resigné l’honneur de leurs comedies et toutes les mignardises et
delices du langage Latin à un serf Afriquain : car, que cet ouvrage
soit leur, sa beauté et son excellence le maintient assez, et
Terence
l’advoue luy mesme.

C’est une espece de mocquerie et d’injure de vouloir faire valoir un
homme par des qualitez mes-advenantes à son rang, quoy qu’elles soient
autrement louables, et par les qualitez aussi qui ne doivent pas estre
les siennes principales : comme qui loueroit un Roy d’estre bon
peintre, ou bon architecte, ou encore bon arquebouzier, ou bon coureur
de bague ; ces louanges ne font honneur, si elles ne sont presentées en
foule, et à la suite de celles qui luy sont propres : à sçavoir de
la
justice et de la science de conduire son peuple en paix et en guerre.
De cette façon faict honneur à Cyrus l’agriculture, et à
Charlemaigne l’eloquence et connoissance des bonnes lettres.

Imperet bellante prior, jacentem
Lenis in hostem.

Ce n’est pas sa profession
de sçavoir ou bien chasser ou bien dancer,

Orabunt causas alii, caelique meatus
Describent radio, et fulgentia sidera dicent ;
Hic regere imperio populos sciat.

Plutarque dict d’avantage, que de paroistre si excellent en ces
parties moins necessaires, c’est produire contre soy le tesmoignage
d’avoir mal dispencé son loisir et l’estude, qui devoit estre employé
à choses plus necessaires et utiles. De façon que Philippus, Roy
de Macedoine, ayant ouy ce grand Alexandre, son fils, chanter en un
festin à l’envy des meilleurs musiciens : N’as tu pas honte, luy
dict-il, de chanter si bien ? Et, à ce mesme Philippus, un
musicien
contre lequel il debatoit de son art : Ja à Dieu ne plaise, Sire,
dit-il, qu’il t’advienne jamais tant de mal que tu entendes ces
choses là mieux que moy.

Et Antisthenes print pour argument de peu de valeur en Ismenias,
dequoy on le vantoit d’estre excellent joueur de flutes.

Les sages disent que, pour le regard du sçavoir, il n’est que la
philosophie, et, pour le regard des effets, que la vertu, qui
generalement soit propre à tous degrez et à tous ordres.
Il y a quelque chose de pareil en ces autres deux philosophes, car ils
promettent aussi eternité aux lettres qu’ils escrivent à leurs amis ;
mais c’est
d’autre façon, et s’accommodant pour une bonne fin à la
vanité d’autruy : car ils leur mandent que si le soing de se faire
connoistre aux siecles advenir et de la renommée les arreste encore
au
maniement des affaires, et leur fait craindre la solitude et la
retraicte où ils les veulent appeller, qu’ils ne s’en donnent plus
de
peine : d’autant qu’ils ont assez de credit avec la posterité pour
leur
respondre que, ne fut que par les lettres qu’ils leur escrivent, ils
rendront leur nom aussi conneu et fameus que pourroient faire leurs
actions publiques. Et, outre cette difference, encore ne sont ce pas
lettres vuides et descharnées, qui ne se soutiennent que par un
delicat chois de mots, entassez et rangez à une juste cadence, ains
farcies et pleines de beaux discours de sapience, par lesquelles on se
rend non plus eloquent, mais plus sage, et qui nous apprennent non à
bien dire, mais à bien faire. Fy de l’eloquence qui nous laisse
envie
de soy, non des choses ; si ce n’est qu’on die que celle de Cicero,
estant
en si extreme perfection, se donne corps elle mesme.
J’adjousteray encore un conte que nous lisons de luy à ce propos,
pour nous faire toucher au doigt son naturel. Il avoit à orer en
public, et estoit un peu pressé du temps pour se preparer à son aise.
Eros, l’un de ses serfs, le vint advertir que l’audience estoit
remise
au lendemain. Il en fut si aise qu’il luy donna liberté pour
cette
bonne nouvelle.

Chapter XL. That the relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them.

Men (says an ancient Greek sentence)

are tormented with the opinions they have of things and not by the things

themselves. It were a great victory obtained for the relief of our

miserable human condition, could this proposition be established for

certain and true throughout. For if evils have no admission into us but

by the judgment we ourselves make of them, it should seem that it is,

then, in our own power to despise them or to turn them to good. If

things surrender themselves to our mercy, why do we not convert and

accommodate them to our advantage? If what we call evil and torment is

neither evil nor torment of itself, but only that our fancy gives it that

quality, it is in us to change it, and it being in our own choice, if

there be no constraint upon us, we must certainly be very strange fools

to take arms for that side which is most offensive to us, and to give

sickness, want, and contempt a bitter and nauseous taste, if it be in our

power to give them a pleasant relish, and if, fortune simply providing

the matter, 'tis for us to give it the form. Now, that what we call evil

is not so of itself, or at least to that degree that we make it, and that

it depends upon us to give it another taste and complexion (for all comes

to one), let us examine how that can be maintained.

If the original being of those things we fear had power to lodge itself

in us by its own authority, it would then lodge itself alike, and in like

manner, in all; for men are all of the same kind, and saving in greater

and less proportions, are all provided with the same utensils and

instruments to conceive and to judge; but the diversity of opinions we

have of those things clearly evidences that they only enter us by

composition; one person, peradventure, admits them in their true being,

but a thousand others give them a new and contrary being in them. We

hold death, poverty, and pain for our principal enemies; now, this death,

which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, who does not

know that others call it the only secure harbour from the storms and

tempests of life, the sovereign good of nature, the sole support of

liberty, and the common and prompt remedy of all evils? And as the one

expect it with fear and trembling, the others support it with greater

ease than life. That one complains of its facility:

"Mors! utinam pavidos vitae subducere nolles.

Sed virtus to sola daret!"

Now, let us leave these boastful courages. Theodorus answered

Lysimachus, who threatened to kill him, "Thou wilt do a brave feat," said

he, "to attain the force of a cantharides." The majority of philosophers

are observed to have either purposely anticipated, or hastened and

assisted their own death. How many ordinary people do we see led to

execution, and that not to a simple death, but mixed with shame and

sometimes with grievous torments, appear with such assurance, whether

through firm courage or natural simplicity, that a man can discover no

change from their ordinary condition; settling their domestic affairs,

commending themselves to their friends, singing, preaching, and

addressing the people, nay, sometimes sallying into jests, and drinking

to their companions, quite as well as Socrates?

One that they were leading to the gallows told them they must not take

him through such a street, lest a merchant who lived there should arrest

him by the way for an old debt. Another told the hangman he must not

touch his neck for fear of making him laugh, he was so ticklish. Another

answered his confessor, who promised him he should that day sup with our

Lord, "Do you go then," said he, "in my room ; for I for my part

keep fast to-day." Another having called for drink, and the hangman

having drunk first, said he would not drink after him, for fear of

catching some evil disease. Everybody has heard the tale of the Picard,

to whom, being upon the ladder, they presented a common wench, telling

him (as our law does some times permit) that if he would marry her they

would save his life; he, having a while considered her and perceiving

that she halted: "Come, tie up, tie up," said he, "she limps." And they

tell another story of the same kind of a fellow in Denmark, who being

condemned to lose his head, and the like condition being proposed to him

upon the scaffold, refused it, by reason the girl they offered him had

hollow cheeks and too sharp a nose. A servant at Toulouse being accused

of heresy, for the sum of his belief referred himself to that of his

master, a young student, prisoner with him, choosing rather to die than

suffer himself to be persuaded that his master could err. We read that

of the inhabitants of Arras, when Louis XI. took that city, a great many

let themselves be hanged rather than they would say, "God save the King."

And amongst that mean-souled race of men, the buffoons, there have been

some who would not leave their fooling at the very moment of death. One

that the hang man was turning off the ladder cried: "Launch the galley,"

an ordinary saying of his. Another, whom at the point of death his

friends had laid upon a bed of straw before the fire, the physician

asking him where his pain lay: "Betwixt the bench and the fire," said he,

and the priest, to give him extreme unction, groping for his feet which

his pain had made him pull up to him: "You will find them," said he, "at

the end of my legs." To one who being present exhorted him to recommend

himself to God: "Why, who goes thither?" said he; and the other

replying: "It will presently be yourself, if it be His good pleasure."

"Shall I be sure to be there by to-morrow night?" said he. "Do, but

recommend yourself to Him," said the other, "and you will soon be there."

"I were best then," said he, "to carry my recommendations myself."

In the kingdom of Narsingah to this day the wives of their priests are

buried alive with the bodies of their husbands; all other wives are burnt

at their husbands' funerals, which they not only firmly but cheerfully

undergo. At the death of their king, his wives and concubines, his

favourites, all his officers, and domestic servants, who make up a whole

people, present themselves so gaily to the fire where his body is burnt,

that they seem to take it for a singular honour to accompany their master

in death. During our late wars of Milan, where there happened so many

takings and retakings of towns, the people, impatient of so many changes

of fortune, took such a resolution to die, that I have heard my father

say he there saw a list taken of five-and-twenty masters of families who

made themselves away in one week's time: an incident somewhat resembling

that of the Xanthians, who being besieged by Brutus, fell - men, women,

and children - into such a furious appetite of dying, that nothing can be

done to evade death which they did not to avoid life; insomuch that

Brutus had much difficulty in saving a very small number.

Every opinion is of force enough to cause itself to be espoused at the

expense of life. The first article of that valiant oath that Greece took

and observed in the Median war, was that every one should sooner exchange

life for death, than their own laws for those of Persia. What a world of

people do we see in the wars betwixt the Turks and the Greeks, rather

embrace a cruel death than uncircumcise themselves to admit of baptism?

An example of which no sort of religion is incapable.

The kings of Castile having banished the Jews out of their dominions,

John, King of Portugal, in consideration of eight crowns a head, sold

them a retreat into his for a certain limited time, upon condition that

the time fixed coming to expire they should begone, and he to furnish

them with shipping to transport them into Africa. The day comes, which

once lapsed they were given to understand that such as were afterward

found in the kingdom should remain slaves; vessels were very slenderly

provided; and those who embarked in them were rudely and villainously

used by the passengers, who, besides other indignities, kept them

cruising upon the sea, one while forwards and another backwards, till

they had spent all their provisions, and were constrained to buy of them

at so dear a rate and so long withal, that they set them not on shore

till they were all stripped to the very shirts. The news of this inhuman

usage being brought to those who remained behind, the greater part of

them resolved upon slavery and some made a show of changing religion.

Emmanuel, the successor of John, being come to the crown, first set them

at liberty, and afterwards altering his mind, ordered them to depart his

country, assigning three ports for their passage. He hoped, says Bishop

Osorius, no contemptible Latin historian of these later times, that the

favour of the liberty he had given them having failed of converting them

to Christianity, yet the difficulty of committing themselves to the mercy

of the mariners and of abandoning a country they were now habituated to

and were grown very rich in, to go and expose themselves in strange and

unknown regions, would certainly do it. But finding himself deceived in

his expectation, and that they were all resolved upon the voyage, he cut

off two of the three ports he had promised them, to the end that the

length and incommodity of the passage might reduce some, or that he might

have opportunity, by crowding them all into one place, the more

conveniently to execute what he had designed, which was to force all the

children under fourteen years of age from the arms of their fathers and

mothers, to transport them from their sight and conversation, into a

place where they might be instructed and brought up in our religion. He

says that this produced a most horrid spectacle the natural affection

betwixt the parents and their children, and moreover their zeal to their

ancient belief, contending against this violent decree, fathers and

mothers were commonly seen making themselves away, and by a yet much more

rigorous example, precipitating out of love and compassion their young

children into wells and pits, to avoid the severity of this law. As to

the remainder of them, the time that had been prefixed being expired,

for want of means to transport them they again returned into slavery.

Some also turned Christians, upon whose faith, as also that of their

posterity, even to this day, which is a hundred years since, few

Portuguese can yet rely; though custom and length of time are much more

powerful counsellors in such changes than all other constraints whatever.

In the town of Castelnaudari, fifty heretic Albigeois at one time

suffered themselves to be burned alive in one fire rather than they would

renounce their opinions.

"Quoties non modo ductores nostri, sed universi etiam exercitus,

ad non dubiam mortem concurrerunt?"

I have seen an intimate friend of mine run headlong upon death with a

real affection, and that was rooted in his heart by divers plausible

arguments which he would never permit me to dispossess him of, and upon

the first honourable occasion that offered itself to him, precipitate

himself into it, without any manner of visible reason, with an obstinate

and ardent desire of dying. We have several examples in our own times of

persons, even young children, who for fear of some little inconvenience

have despatched themselves. And what shall we not fear, says one of the

ancients to this purpose, if we dread that which

cowardice itself has chosen for its refuge?

Should I here produce a long catalogue of those, of all sexes and

conditions and sects, even in the most happy ages, who have either with

great constancy looked death in the face, or voluntarily sought it, and

sought it not only to avoid the evils of this life, but some purely to

avoid the satiety of living, and others for the hope of a better

condition elsewhere, I should never have done. Nay, the number is so

infinite that in truth I should have a better bargain on't to reckon up

those who have feared it. This one therefore shall serve for all:

Pyrrho the philosopher being one day in a boat in a very great tempest,

shewed to those he saw the most affrighted about him, and encouraged

them, by the example of a hog that was there, nothing at all concerned at

the storm. Shall we then dare to say that this advantage of reason, of

which we so much boast, and upon the account of which we think ourselves

masters and emperors over the rest of all creation, was given us for a

torment? To what end serves the knowledge of things if it renders us

more unmanly? if we thereby lose the tranquillity and repose we should

enjoy without it? and if it put us into a worse condition than Pyrrho's

hog? Shall we employ the understanding that was conferred upon us for

our greatest good to our own ruin; setting ourselves against the design

of nature and the universal order of things, which intend that every one

should make use of the faculties, members, and means he has to his own

best advantage?

But it may, peradventure, be objected against me: Your rule is true

enough as to what concerns death; but what will you say of indigence?

What will you, moreover, say of pain, which Aristippus, Hieronimus, and

most of the sages have reputed the worst of evils; and those who have

denied it by word of mouth have, however, confessed it in effect?

Posidonius being extremely tormented with a sharp and painful disease,

Pompeius came to visit him, excusing himself that he had taken so

unseasonable a time to come to hear him discourse of philosophy.

"The gods forbid," said Posidonius to him, "that pain should ever have

the power to hinder me from talking," and thereupon fell immediately upon

a discourse of the contempt of pain: but, in the meantime, his own

infirmity was playing his part, and plagued him to purpose; to which he

cried out, "Thou mayest work thy will, pain, and torment me with all the

power thou hast, but thou shalt never make me say that thou art an evil."

This story that they make such a clutter withal, what has it to do,

I fain would know, with the contempt of pain? He only fights it with

words, and in the meantime, if the shootings and dolours he felt did not

move him, why did he interrupt his discourse? Why did he fancy he did so

great a thing in forbearing to confess it an evil? All does not here

consist in the imagination; our fancies may work upon other things: but

here is the certain science that is playing its part, of which our senses

themselves are judges:

"Qui nisi sunt veri, ratio quoque falsa sit omnis."

Shall we persuade our skins that the jerks of a whip agreeably tickle us,

or our taste that a potion of aloes is vin de Graves? Pyrrho's hog is

here in the same predicament with us; he is not afraid of death, 'tis

true, but if you beat him he will cry out to some purpose. Shall we

force the general law of nature, which in every living creature under

heaven is seen to tremble under pain? The very trees seem to groan under

the blows they receive. Death is only felt by reason, forasmuch as it is

the motion of an instant;

"Aut fuit, aut veniet; nihil est praesentis in illa."

"Morsque minus poenae, quam mora mortis, habet;"

a thousand beasts, a thousand men, are sooner dead than threatened. That

also which we principally pretend to fear in death is pain, its ordinary

forerunner: yet, if we may believe a holy father:

"Malam mortem non facit, nisi quod sequitur mortem."

And I should yet say, more probably, that neither that which goes before

nor that which follows after is at all of the appurtenances of death.

We excuse ourselves falsely: and I find by experience that it is rather

the impatience of the imagination of death that makes us impatient of

pain, and that we find it doubly grievous as it threatens us with death.

But reason accusing our cowardice for fearing a thing so sudden, so

inevitable, and so insensible, we take the other as the more excusable

pretence. All ills that carry no other danger along with them but simply

the evils themselves, we treat as things of no danger: the toothache or

the gout, painful as they are, yet being not reputed mortal, who reckons

them in the catalogue of diseases?

But let us presuppose that in death we principally regard the pain; as

also there is nothing to be feared in poverty but the miseries it brings

along with it of thirst, hunger, cold, heat, watching, and the other

inconveniences it makes us suffer, still we have nothing to do with

anything but pain. I will grant, and very willingly, that it is the

worst incident of our being (for I am the man upon earth who the most

hates and avoids it, considering that hitherto, I thank God, I have had

so little traffic with it), but still it is in us, if not to annihilate,

at least to lessen it by patience; and though the body and the reason

should mutiny, to maintain the soul, nevertheless, in good condition.

Were it not so, who had ever given reputation to virtue; valour, force,

magnanimity, and resolution? where were their parts to be played if

there were no pain to be defied?

"Avida est periculi virtus."

Were there no lying upon the hard ground, no enduring, armed at all

points, the meridional heats, no feeding upon the flesh of horses and

asses, no seeing a man's self hacked and hewed to pieces, no suffering a

bullet to be pulled out from amongst the shattered bones, no sewing up,

cauterising and searching of wounds, by what means were the advantage we

covet to have over the vulgar to be acquired? 'Tis far from flying evil

and pain, what the sages say, that of actions equally good, a man should

most covet to perform that wherein there is greater labour and pain.

"Non est enim hilaritate, nec lascivia, nec risu, aut joco

comite levitatis, sed saepe etiam tristes firmitate et

constantia sunt beati."

And for this reason it has ever been impossible to persuade our

forefathers but that the victories obtained by dint of force and the

hazard of war were not more honourable than those performed in great

security by stratagem or practice:

"Laetius est, quoties magno sibi constat honestum."

Besides, this ought to be our comfort, that naturally, if the pain be

violent, 'tis but short; and if long, nothing violent:

"Si gravis, brevis;

Si longus, levis."

Thou wilt not feel it long if thou feelest it too much; it will either

put an end to itself or to thee; it comes to the same thing; if thou

canst not support it, it will export thee:

That which makes us suffer pain with so much impatience is the not being

accustomed to repose our chiefest contentment in the soul; that we do not

enough rely upon her who is the sole and sovereign mistress of our

condition. The body, saving in the greater or less proportion, has but

one and the same bent and bias; whereas the soul is variable into all

sorts of forms; and subject to herself and to her own empire, all things

whatsoever, both the senses of the body and all other accidents: and

therefore it is that we ought to study her, to inquire into her, and to

rouse up all her powerful faculties. There is neither reason, force, nor

prescription that can anything prevail against her inclination and

choice. Of so many thousands of biases that she has at her disposal, let

us give her one proper to our repose and conversation, and then we shall

not only be sheltered and secured from all manner of injury and offence,

but moreover gratified and obliged, if she will, with evils and offences.

She makes her profit indifferently of all things; error, dreams, serve

her to good use, as loyal matter to lodge us in safety and contentment.

'Tis plain enough to be seen that 'tis the sharpness of our mind that

gives the edge to our pains and pleasures: beasts that have no such

thing, leave to their bodies their own free and natural sentiments, and

consequently in every kind very near the same, as appears by the

resembling application of their motions. If we would not disturb in our

members the jurisdiction that appertains to them in this, 'tis to be

believed it would be the better for us, and that nature has given them a

just and moderate temper both to pleasure and pain; neither can it fail

of being just, being equal and common. But seeing we have enfranchised

ourselves from her rules to give ourselves up to the rambling liberty of

our own fancies, let us at least help to incline them to the most

agreeable side. Plato fears our too vehemently engaging ourselves with

pain and pleasure, forasmuch as these too much knit and ally the soul to

the body; whereas I rather, quite contrary, by reason it too much

separates and disunites them. As an enemy is made more fierce by our

flight, so pain grows proud to see us truckle under her. She will

surrender upon much better terms to them who make head against her: a man

must oppose and stoutly set himself against her. In retiring and giving

ground, we invite and pull upon ourselves the ruin that threatens us. As

the body is more firm in an encounter, the more stiffly and obstinately

it applies itself to it, so is it with the soul.

But let us come to examples, which are the proper game of folks of such

feeble force as myself; where we shall find that it is with pain as with

stones, that receive a brighter or a duller lustre according to the foil

they are set in, and that it has no more room in us than we are pleased

to allow it:

"Tantum doluerunt, quantum doloribus se inseruerunt."

We are more sensible of one little touch of a surgeon's lancet than of

twenty wounds with a sword in the heat of fight. The pains of

childbearing, said by the physicians and by God himself to be great, and

which we pass through with so many ceremonies - there are whole nations

that make nothing of them. I set aside the Lacedaemonian women, but what

else do you find in the Swiss among our foot-soldiers, if not that, as

they trot after their husbands, you see them to-day carry the child at

their necks that they carried yesterday in their bellies? The

counterfeit Egyptians we have amongst us go themselves to wash theirs,

so soon as they come into the world, and bathe in the first river they

meet. Besides so many wenches as daily drop their children by stealth,

as they conceived them, that fair and noble wife of Sabinus, a patrician

of Rome, for another's interest, endured alone, without help, without

crying out, or so much as a groan, the bearing of twins. A poor simple boy of Lacedaemon having stolen a fox (for

they more fear the shame of stupidity in stealing than we do the

punishment of the knavery), and having got it under his coat, rather

endured the tearing out of his bowels than he would discover his theft.

And another offering incense at a sacrifice, suffered himself to be

burned to the bone by a coal that fell into his sleeve, rather than

disturb the ceremony. And there have been a great number, for a sole

trial of virtue, following their institutions, who have at seven years

old endured to be whipped to death without changing their countenance.

And Cicero has seen them fight in parties, with fists, feet, and teeth,

till they have fainted and sunk down, rather than confess themselves

overcome:

Every one knows the story of Scaevola, that having slipped into the

enemy's camp to kill their general, and having missed his blow, to repair

his fault, by a more strange invention and to deliver his country, he

boldly confessed to Porsenna, who was the king he had a purpose to kill,

not only his design, but moreover added that there were then in the camp

a great number of Romans, his accomplices in the enterprise, as good men

as he; and to show what a one he himself was, having caused a pan of

burning coals to be brought, he saw and endured his arm to broil and

roast, till the king himself, conceiving horror at the sight, commanded

the pan to be taken away. What would you say of him that would not

vouchsafe to respite his reading in a book whilst he was under incision?

And of the other that persisted to mock and laugh in contempt of the

pains inflicted upon him; so that the provoked cruelty of the

executioners that had him in handling, and all the inventions of tortures

redoubled upon him, one after another, spent in vain, gave him the

bucklers? But he was a philosopher. But what! a gladiator of Caesar's

endured, laughing all the while, his wounds to be searched, lanced, and

laid open:

Let us bring in the women too. Who has not heard at Paris of her that

caused her face to be flayed only for the fresher complexion of a new

skin? There are who have drawn good and sound teeth to make their voices

more soft and sweet, or to place the other teeth in better order. How

many examples of the contempt of pain have we in that sex? What can they

not do, what do they fear to do, for never so little hope of an addition

to their beauty?

"Vallere queis cura est albos a stirpe capillos,

Et faciem, dempta pelle, referre novam."

I have seen some of them swallow sand, ashes, and do their utmost to

destroy their stomachs to get pale complexions. To make a fine Spanish

body, what racks will they not endure of girding and bracing, till they

have notches in their sides cut into the very quick, and sometimes to

death?

It is an ordinary thing with several nations at this day to wound

themselves in good earnest to gain credit to what they profess; of which

our king, relates notable examples of what he has seen in Poland and done

towards himself. But besides this, which I know to have

been imitated by some in France, when I came from that famous assembly of

the Estates at Blois, I had a little before seen a maid in Picardy, who

to manifest the ardour of her promises, as also her constancy, give

herself, with a bodkin she wore in her hair, four or five good lusty

stabs in the arm, till the blood gushed out to some purpose. The Turks

give themselves great scars in honour of their mistresses, and to the end

they may the longer remain, they presently clap fire to the wound, where

they hold it an incredible time to stop the blood and form the cicatrice;

people that have been eyewitnesses of it have both written and sworn it

to me. But for ten aspers there

are there every day fellows to be found that will give themselves a good

deep slash in the arms or thighs. I am willing, however, to have the

testimonies nearest to us when we have most need of them; for Christendom

furnishes us with enough. After the example of our blessed Guide there

have been many who have crucified themselves. We learn by testimony very

worthy of belief, that King St. Louis wore a hair-shirt till in his old

age his confessor gave him a dispensation to leave it off; and that every

Friday he caused his shoulders to be drubbed by his priest with five

small chains of iron which were always carried about amongst his night

accoutrements for that purpose.

William, our last Duke of Guienne, the father of that Eleanor who

transmitted that duchy to the houses of France and England, continually

for the last ten or twelve years of his life wore a suit of armour under

a religious habit by way of penance. Foulke, Count of Anjou, went as far

as Jerusalem, there to cause himself to be whipped by two of his

servants, with a rope about his neck, before the sepulchre of our Lord.

But do we not, moreover, every Good Friday, in various places, see great

numbers of men and women beat and whip themselves till they lacerate and

cut the flesh to the very bones? I have often seen it, and 'tis without

any enchantment; and it was said there were some amongst them (for they

go disguised) who for money undertook by this means to save harmless the

religion of others, by a contempt of pain, so much the greater, as the

incentives of devotion are more effectual than those of avarice.

Q. Maximus buried his son when he was a consul, and M. Cato his when

praetor elect, and L. Paulus both his, within a few days one after

another, with such a countenance as expressed no manner of grief. I said

once merrily of a certain person, that he had disappointed the divine

justice; for the violent death of three grown-up children of his being

one day sent him, for a severe scourge, as it is to be supposed, he was

so far from being afflicted at the accident, that he rather took it for a

particular grace and favour of heaven. I do not follow these monstrous

humours, though I lost two or three at nurse, if not without grief, at

least without repining, and yet there is hardly any accident that pierces

nearer to the quick. I see a great many other occasions of sorrow, that

should they happen to me I should hardly feel; and have despised some,

when they have befallen me, to which the world has given so terrible a

figure that I should blush to boast of my constancy:

"Ex quo intelligitur, non in natura, sed in opinione,

esse aegritudinem."

Opinion is a powerful party, bold, and without measure. Who ever so

greedily hunted after security and repose as Alexander and Caesar did

after disturbance and difficulties? Teres, the father of Sitalces, was

wont to say that "when he had no wars, he fancied there was no difference

betwixt him and his groom." Cato the consul, to secure some cities of

Spain from revolt, only interdicting the inhabitants from wearing arms, a

great many killed themselves:

"Ferox gens, nullam vitam rati sine armis esse."

How many do we know who have forsaken the calm and sweetness of a quiet

life at home amongst their acquaintance, to seek out the horror of

unhabitable deserts; and having precipitated themselves into so abject a

condition as to become the scorn and contempt of the world, have hugged

themselves with the conceit, even to affectation. Cardinal Borromeo, who

died lately at Milan, amidst all the jollity that the air of Italy, his

youth, birth, and great riches, invited him to, kept himself in so

austere a way of living, that the same robe he wore in summer served him

for winter too; he had only straw for his bed, and his hours of leisure

from affairs he continually spent in study upon his knees, having a

little bread and a glass of water set by his book, which was all the

provision of his repast, and all the time he spent in eating.

I know some who consentingly have acquired both profit and advancement

from cuckoldom, of which the bare name only affrights so many people.

If the sight be not the most necessary of all our senses, 'tis at least

the most pleasant; but the most pleasant and most useful of all our

members seem to be those of generation; and yet a great many have

conceived a mortal hatred against them only for this, that they were too

pleasant, and have deprived themselves of them only for their value:

as much thought he of his eyes that put them out. The generality and

more solid sort of men look upon abundance of children as a great

blessing; I, and some others, think it as great a benefit to be without

them. And when you ask Thales why he does not marry, he tells you,

because he has no mind to leave any posterity behind him.

That our opinion gives the value to things is very manifest in the great

number of those which we do, not so much prizing them, as ourselves, and

never considering either their virtues or their use, but only how dear

they cost us, as though that were a part of their substance; and we only

repute for value in them, not what they bring to us, but what we add to

them. By which I understand that we are great economisers of our

expense: as it weighs, it serves for so much as it weighs. Our opinion

will never suffer it to want of its value: the price gives value to the

diamond; difficulty to virtue; suffering to devotion; and griping to

physic. A certain person, to be poor, threw his crowns into the same sea

to which so many come, in all parts of the world, to fish for riches.

Epicurus says that to be rich is no relief, but only an alteration, of

affairs. In truth, it is not want, but rather abundance, that creates

avarice. I will deliver my own experience concerning this affair.

I have since my emergence from childhood lived in three sorts of

conditions. The first, which continued for some twenty years, I passed

over without any other means but what were casual and depending upon the

allowance and assistance of others, without stint, but without certain

revenue. I then spent my money so much the more cheerfully, and with so

much the less care how it went, as it wholly depended upon my

overconfidence of fortune. I never lived more at my ease; I never had

the repulse of finding the purse of any of my friends shut against me,

having enjoined myself this necessity above all other necessities

whatever, by no means to fail of payment at the appointed time, which

also they have a thousand times respited, seeing how careful I was to

satisfy them; so that I practised at once a thrifty, and withal a kind of

alluring, honesty. I naturally feel a kind of pleasure in paying, as if

I eased my shoulders of a troublesome weight and freed myself from an

image of slavery; as also that I find a ravishing kind of satisfaction in

pleasing another and doing a just action. I except payments where the

trouble of bargaining and reckoning is required; and in such cases; where

I can meet with nobody to ease me of that charge, I delay them, how

scandalously and injuriously soever, all I possibly can, for fear of the

wranglings for which both my humour and way of speaking are so totally

improper and unfit. There is nothing I hate so much as driving a

bargain; 'tis a mere traffic of cozenage and impudence, where, after an

hour's cheapening and hesitating, both parties abandon their word and

oath for five sols' abatement. Yet I always borrowed at great

disadvantage; for, wanting the confidence to speak to the person myself,

I committed my request to the persuasion of a letter, which usually is no

very successful advocate, and is of very great advantage to him who has a

mind to deny. I, in those days, more jocundly and freely referred the

conduct of my affairs to the stars, than I have since done to my own

providence and judgment. Most good managers look upon it as a horrible

thing to live always thus in uncertainty, and do not consider, in the

first place, that the greatest part of the world live so: how many worthy

men have wholly abandoned their own certainties, and yet daily do it, to

the winds, to trust to the inconstant favour of princes and of fortune?

Caesar ran above a million of gold, more than he was worth, in debt to

become Caesar; and how many merchants have begun their traffic by the

sale of their farms, which they sent into the Indies,

"Tot per impotentia freta."

In so great a siccity of devotion as we see in these days, we have a

thousand and a thousand colleges that pass it over commodiously enough,

expecting every day their dinner from the liberality of Heaven.

Secondly, they do not take notice that this certitude upon which they so

much rely is not much less uncertain and hazardous than hazard itself.

I see misery as near beyond two thousand crowns a year as if it stood

close by me; for besides that it is in the power of chance to make a

hundred breaches to poverty through the greatest strength of our riches - there being very often no mean betwixt the highest and the lowest

fortune:

"Fortuna vitrea est: turn, quum splendet, frangitur,"

and to turn all our barricadoes and bulwarks topsy-turvy, I find that, by

divers causes, indigence is as frequently seen to inhabit with those who

have estates as with those that have none; and that, peradventure, it is

then far less grievous when alone than when accompanied with riches.

These flow more from good management than from revenue;

"Faber est suae quisque fortunae"

and an uneasy, necessitous, busy, rich man seems to me more miserable

than he that is simply poor.

"In divitiis mopes, quod genus egestatis gravissimum est."

The greatest and most wealthy princes are by poverty and want driven to

the most extreme necessity; for can there be any more extreme than to

become tyrants and unjust usurpers of their subjects' goods and estates?

My second condition of life was to have money of my own, wherein I so

ordered the matter that I had soon laid up a very notable sum out of a

mean fortune, considering with myself that that only was to be reputed

having which a man reserves from his ordinary expense, and that a man

cannot absolutely rely upon revenue he hopes to receive, how clear soever

the hope may be. For what, said I, if I should be surprised by such or

such an accident? And after such-like vain and vicious imaginations,

would very learnedly, by this hoarding of money, provide against all

inconveniences; and could, moreover, answer such as objected to me that

the number of these was too infinite, that if I could not lay up for all,

I could, however, do it at least for some and for many. Yet was not this

done without a great deal of solicitude and anxiety of mind; I kept it

very close, and though I dare talk so boldly of myself, never spoke of my

money, but falsely, as others do, who being rich, pretend to be poor, and

being poor, pretend to be rich, dispensing their consciences from ever

telling sincerely what they have: a ridiculous and shameful prudence.

Was I going a journey? Methought I was never enough provided: and the

more I loaded myself with money, the more also was I loaded with fear,

one while of the danger of the roads, another of the fidelity of him who

had the charge of my baggage, of whom, as some others that I know, I was

never sufficiently secure if I had him not always in my eye. If I

chanced to leave my cash-box behind me, O, what strange suspicions and

anxiety of mind did I enter into, and, which was worse, without daring to

acquaint anybody with it. My mind was eternally taken up with such

things as these, so that, all things considered, there is more trouble in

keeping money than in getting it. And if I did not altogether so much as

I say, or was not really so scandalously solicitous of my money as I have

made myself out to be, yet it cost me something at least to restrain

myself from being so. I reaped little or no advantage by what I had, and

my expenses seemed nothing less to me for having the more to spend; for,

as Bion said, the hairy men are as angry as the bald to be pulled; and

after you are once accustomed to it and have once set your heart upon

your heap, it is no more at your service; you cannot find in your heart

to break it: 'tis a building that you will fancy must of necessity all

tumble down to ruin if you stir but the least pebble; necessity must

first take you by the throat before you can prevail upon yourself to

touch it; and I would sooner have pawned anything I had, or sold a horse,

and with much less constraint upon myself, than have made the least

breach in that beloved purse I had so carefully laid by. But the danger

was that a man cannot easily prescribe certain limits to this desire

(they are hard to find in things that a man conceives to be good), and to

stint this good husbandry so that it may not degenerate into avarice: men

still are intent upon adding to the heap and increasing the stock from

sum to sum, till at last they vilely deprive themselves of the enjoyment

of their own proper goods, and throw all into reserve, without making any

use of them at all. According to this rule, they are the richest people

in the world who are set to guard the walls and gates of a wealthy city.

All moneyed men I conclude to be covetous. Plato places corporal or

human goods in this order: health, beauty, strength, riches; and riches,

says he, are not blind, but very clear-sighted, when illuminated by

prudence. Dionysius the son did a very handsome act upon this subject;

he was informed that one of the Syracusans had hid a treasure in the

earth, and thereupon sent to the man to bring it to him, which he

accordingly did, privately reserving a small part of it only to himself,

with which he went to another city, where being cured of his appetite of

hoarding, he began to live at a more liberal rate; which Dionysius

hearing, caused the rest of his treasure to be restored to him, saying,

that since he had learned to use it, he very willingly returned it back

to him.

I continued some years in this hoarding humour, when I know not what good

demon fortunately put me out of it, as he did the Syracusan, and made me

throw abroad all my reserve at random, the pleasure of a certain journey

I took at very great expense having made me spurn this fond love of money

underfoot; by which means I am now fallen into a third way of living (I

speak what I think of it), doubtless much more pleasant and regular,

which is, that I live at the height of my revenue; sometimes the one,

sometimes the other may perhaps exceed, but 'tis very little and but

rarely that they differ. I live from hand to mouth, and content myself

in having sufficient for my present and ordinary expense; for as to

extraordinary occasions, all the laying up in the world would never

suffice. And 'tis the greatest folly imaginable to expect that fortune

should ever sufficiently arm us against herself; 'tis with our own arms

that we are to fight her; accidental ones will betray us in the pinch of

the business. If I lay up, 'tis for some near and contemplated purpose;

not to purchase lands, of which I have no need, but to purchase pleasure:

"Non esse cupidum, pecunia est; non esse emacem, vertigal est."

I neither am in any great apprehension of wanting, nor in desire of any

more:

"Divinarum fructus est in copia; copiam declarat satietas."

And I am very well pleased that this reformation in me has fallen out in

an age naturally inclined to avarice, and that I see myself cleared of a

folly so common to old men, and the most ridiculous of all human follies.

Feraulez, a man that had run through both fortunes, and found that the

increase of substance was no increase of appetite either to eating or

drinking, sleeping or the enjoyment of his wife, and who on the other

side felt the care of his economics lie heavy upon his shoulders, as it

does on mine, was resolved to please a poor young man, his faithful

friend, who panted after riches, and made him a gift of all his, which

were excessively great, and, moreover, of all he was in the daily way of

getting by the liberality of Cyrus, his good master, and by the war;

conditionally that he should take care handsomely to maintain and

plentifully to entertain him as his guest and friend; which being

accordingly done, they afterwards lived very happily together, both of

them equally content with the change of their condition. 'Tis an example

that I could imitate with all my heart; and I very much approve the

fortune of the aged prelate whom I see to have so absolutely stripped

himself of his purse, his revenue, and care of his expense, committing

them one while to one trusty servant, and another while to another, that

he has spun out a long succession of years, as ignorant, by this means,

of his domestic affairs as a mere stranger.

The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's

own, and God willingly favours such a confidence. As to what concerns

him of whom I am speaking, I see nowhere a better governed house, more

nobly and constantly maintained than his. Happy to have regulated his

affairs to so just a proportion that his estate is sufficient to do it

without his care or trouble, and without any hindrance, either in the

spending or laying it up, to his other more quiet employments, and more

suitable both to his place and liking.

Plenty, then, and indigence depend upon the opinion every one has of

them; and riches no more than glory or health have other beauty or

pleasure than he lends them by whom they are possessed.

Every one is well or ill at ease, according as he so finds himself; not

he whom the world believes, but he who believes himself to be so, is

content; and in this alone belief gives itself being and reality.

Fortune does us neither good nor hurt; she only presents us the matter

and the seed, which our soul, more powerful than she, turns and applies

as she best pleases; the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own

happy or unhappy condition. All external accessions receive taste and

colour from the internal constitution, as clothes warm us, not with their

heat, but our own, which they are fit to cover and nourish; he who would

shield therewith a cold body, would do the same service for the cold, for

so snow and ice are preserved. And, certes, after the same manner that

study is a torment to an idle man, abstinence from wine to a drunkard,

frugality to the spendthrift, and exercise to a lazy, tender-bred fellow,

so it is of all the rest. The things are not so painful and difficult of

themselves, but our weakness or cowardice makes them so. To judge of

great, and high matters requires a suitable soul; otherwise we attribute

the vice to them which is really our own. A straight oar seems crooked

in the water it does not only import that we see the thing, but how and

after what manner we see it.

After all this, why, amongst so many discourses that by so many arguments

persuade men to despise death and to endure pain, can we not find out one

that helps us? And of so many sorts of imaginations as have so prevailed

upon others as to persuade them to do so, why does not every one apply

some one to himself, the most suitable to his own humour? If he cannot

digest a strong-working decoction to eradicate the evil, let him at least

take a lenitive to ease it:

As to the rest, a man does not transgress philosophy by permitting the

acrimony of pains and human frailty to prevail so much above measure; for

they constrain her to go back to her unanswerable replies: "If it be ill

to live in necessity, at least there is no necessity upon a man to live

in necessity": "No man continues ill long but by his own fault." He who

has neither the courage to die nor the heart to live, who will neither

resist nor fly, what can we do with him?