QVANT aux oracles, il est certain que bonne piece auant la venue de Iesus Christ, ils auoyent commencé à perdre leur credit: car nous voyons que Cicero se met en peine de trouuer la cause de leur defaillance.
As for oracles, it is certain that a good while before the coming of Jesus Christ they had begun to lose their credit; for we see Cicero taking pains to find the cause of their decline.
Et ces mots sont à luy: Cur isto modo iam oracula Delphis non eduntur, non modò nostra ætate, sed iamdiu, vt nihil possit esse contemptius? Mais quant aux autres prognostiques, qui se tiroyent de l’anatomie des bestes aux sacrifices, ausquels Platon attribue en partie la constitution naturelle des membres internes d’icelles, du trepignement des poulets, du vol des oyseaux, Aues quasdam rerum augurandarum causa natas esse putamus, des fouldres, du tournoyement des riuieres, Multa cernunt aruspices: multa augures prouident: multa oraculis declarantur: multa vaticinationibus: multa somniis: multa portentis, et autres sur lesquels l’ancienneté appuyoit la pluspart des entreprises, tant publicques que priuées; nostre Religion les a abolies.
These are his words: Why are oracles no longer delivered at Delphi in this way, not only in our own age but for a long time now, so that nothing could be more despised? But as for the other kinds of prognostication—drawn from the anatomy of animals at sacrifices (to which Plato partly attributes the natural structure of their internal organs), from the stamping of chickens, from the flight of birds (We think certain birds were born for the purpose of augury), from thunderbolts, from the eddying of rivers (The haruspices see many things, the augurs foresee many; many are revealed by oracles, many by prophecies, many by dreams, many by portents), and others on which antiquity based most of its undertakings, public and private—our religion has abolished them.
Et encore qu’il reste entre nous quelques moyens de diuination és astres, és esprits, és figures du corps, és songes, et ailleurs: notable exemple de la forcenée curiosité de nostre nature, s’amusant à preoccuper les choses futures, comme si elle n’auoit pas assez affaire à digerer les presentes: cur hanc tibi rector Olympi / Sollicitis visum mortalibus addere curam, / Noscant venturas vt dira per omina clades? / Sit subitum quodcunque paras, sit cæca futuri / Mens hominum fati, liceat sperare timenti:
And although there remain among us some means of divination by the stars, by spirits, by the shapes of the body, by dreams, and in other ways—a notable example of the frenzied curiosity of our nature, which busies itself anticipating future things as if it did not have enough to do digesting present ones: Why, ruler of Olympus, did it please you / to add this care to anxious mortals, / that they should learn of coming disasters through dire omens? / Let whatever you are preparing come suddenly; let men’s minds be blind / to future fate; let the fearful be allowed to hope—
Ne vtile quidem est scire quid futurum sit: Miserum est enim nihil proficientem angi: si est-ce qu’elle est de beaucoup moindre auctorité. Voylà pourquoy l’exemple de François Marquis de Sallusse m’a semblé remerquable: car Lieutenant du Roy François en son armée delà les monts, infiniment fauorisé de nostre cour, et obligé au Roy du Marquisat mesmes, qui auoit esté confisqué de son frere:
It is not even useful to know what is going to happen; for it is wretched to be tormented to no purpose—still, such divination carries far less authority now. That is why the example of Francesco, Marquis of Saluzzo, has struck me as remarkable. He was King Francis’s lieutenant in his army beyond the Alps, infinitely favored by our court, and indebted to the King for the very marquisate, which had been confiscated from his brother;
au reste ne se presentant occasion de le faire, son affection mesme y contredisant, se laissa si fort espouuanter, comme il a esté adueré, aux belles prognostications qu’on faisoit lors courir de tous costez à l’aduantage de l’Empereur Charles cinquiesme, et à nostre desauantage (mesmes en Italie, où ces folles propheties auoyent trouué tant de place, qu’à Rome fut baillée grande somme d’argent au change, pour cette opinion de nostre ruine) qu’apres s’estre souuent condolu à ses priuez, des maux qu’il voyoit ineuitablement preparez à la couronne de France, et aux amis qu’il y auoit, se reuolta, et changea de party: à son grand dommage pourtant, quelque constellation qu’il y eust.
and though no occasion for doing so presented itself, and his own affection was against it, he let himself be so badly frightened—as has been established—by the fine prognostications then being spread on all sides in favor of the Emperor Charles V and to our disadvantage (especially in Italy, where these mad prophecies had found so much room that in Rome large sums of money were wagered on this belief in our ruin), that after often lamenting to his intimates the evils he saw inevitably in store for the crown of France and for the friends he had there, he revolted and changed sides. To his great loss, however, whatever constellation there may have been.
Mais il s’y conduisit en homme combatu de diuerses passions: car ayant et villes et forces en sa main, l’armee ennemie soubs Antoine de Leue à trois pas de luy, et nous sans soupçon de son faict, il estoit en luy de faire pis qu’il ne fit. Car pour sa trahison nous ne perdismes ny homme, ny ville que Fossan: encore apres l’auoir long temps contestee. Prudens futuri temporis exitum / Caliginosa nocte premit Deus, / Ridétque si mortalis vltra / Fas trepidat. / Ille potens sui / Lætúsque deget, cui licet in diem / Dixisse, vixi; cras vel atra / Nube polum pater occupato, / Vel sole puro. / Lætus in præsens animus, quod vltra est, / Oderit curare.
But he behaved in this like a man torn by conflicting passions. He had both towns and forces in his hand, the enemy army under Antonio de Leyva was a few steps away, and we had no suspicion of what he was doing, so it was in his power to do worse than he did. For through his treachery we lost neither a man nor a town, except Fossano, and that only after contesting it for a long time. The outcome of the future a prudent god / buries in murky night, / and laughs if a mortal beyond / what is right takes fright. / He will live master of himself / and happy, who can say each day, / “I have lived”; tomorrow let the Father fill the sky / with black cloud / or with clear sun. / A mind glad in the present will refuse to care / for what lies beyond.
Et ceux qui croyent ce mot au contraire, le croyent à tort. Ista sic reciprocantur, vt et si diuinatio sit, dij sint: et si dij sint, sit diuinatio. Beaucoup plus sagement Pacuuius, Nam istis qui linguam auium intelligunt, / Plúsque ex alieno iecore sapiunt, quàm ex suo, / Magis audiendum quàm auscultandum censeo.
And those who take this saying the other way round are wrong to do so. These things are so reciprocal that if there is divination, there are gods; and if there are gods, there is divination. Much more wisely Pacuvius: As for those who understand the language of birds / and learn more from another creature’s liver than from their own, / I think they should be heard rather than heeded.
Cette tant celebree art de deuiner des Toscans nasquit ainsin. Vn laboureur perçant de son coultre profondement la terre, en veid sourdre Tages demi-dieu, d’vn visage enfantin, mais de senile prudence. Chacun y accourut, et furent ses paroles et science recueillie et conseruee à plusieurs siecles, contenant les principes et moyens de cette art. Naissance conforme à son progrez. I’aymerois bien mieux regler mes affaires par le sort des dez que par ces songes. Et de vray en toutes republiques on a tousiours laissé bonne part d’auctorité au sort. Platon en la police qu’il forge à discretion, luy attribue la decision de plusieurs effects d’importance, et veut entre autres choses, que les mariages se facent par sort entre les bons.
This much-celebrated Tuscan art of divination was born like this. A ploughman, driving his ploughshare deep into the earth, saw Tages, a demigod, spring up out of it, with a child’s face but an old man’s wisdom. Everyone came running, and his words and his knowledge, which contained the principles and methods of this art, were gathered up and preserved for many centuries. A birth in keeping with its later progress. I would much rather regulate my affairs by a throw of the dice than by these dreams. And indeed, in all commonwealths a good share of authority has always been left to lot. Plato, in the government he shapes as he pleases, assigns to it the decision of several important matters, and wants, among other things, marriages among the good to be arranged by lot.
Et donne si grand poids à cette election fortuite, que les enfans qui en naissent, il ordonne qu’ils soyent nourris au païs: ceux qui naissent des mauuais, en soyent mis hors: toutesfois si quelqu’vn de ces bannis venoit par cas d’aduenture à montrer en croissant quelque bonne esperance de soy, qu’on le puisse rappeller, et exiler aussi celuy d’entre les retenus, qui montrera peu d’esperance de son adolescence.
And he gives such weight to this chance selection that he orders the children born of these marriages to be brought up in the country, and those born of the bad to be put out of it. Yet if one of these exiles should happen, as he grows, to show some good promise of himself, he may be called back; and likewise one of those kept at home may be banished if he shows little promise in his youth.
I’en voy qui estudient et glosent leurs Almanacs, et nous en alleguent l’authorité aux choses qui se passent. A tant dire, il faut qu’ils dient et la verité et le mensonge. Quis est enim, qui totum diem iaculans, non aliquando conlineet? Ie ne les estime de rien mieux, pour les voir tomber en quelque rencontre. Ce seroit plus de certitude s’il y auoit regle et verité à mentir tousiours. Ioint que personne ne tient registre de leurs mescontes, d’autant qu’ils sont ordinaires et infinis: et fait-on valoir leurs diuinations de ce qu’elles sont rares, incroiables, et prodigieuses.
I see some people who study and annotate their almanacs, and cite their authority to us about whatever happens. Saying so much, they are bound to say both truth and falsehood. For who is there who, throwing his javelin all day long, does not sometimes hit the mark? I think none the better of them for seeing them hit it now and then. There would be more certainty if there were a rule and a truth in always lying. Besides, nobody keeps a record of their misses, since they are common and countless; and their predictions are prized for being rare, incredible and prodigious.
Ainsi respondit Diagoras, qui fut surnommé l’Athee, estant en la Samothrace, à celuy qui en luy montrant au Temple force vœuz et tableaux de ceux qui auoyent eschapé le naufrage, luy dit: Et bien vous, qui pensez que les Dieux mettent à nonchaloir les choses humaines, que dittes vous de tant d’hommes sauuez par leur grace? Il se fait ainsi, respondit-il: ceux là ne sont pas peints qui sont demeurez noyez, en bien plus grand nombre.
That was how Diagoras, nicknamed the Atheist, answered when he was in Samothrace and a man showed him in the temple a great many votive offerings and pictures of people who had escaped shipwreck, and said to him: “Well now, you who think the gods do not care about human affairs, what do you say to all these men saved by their grace?” “It happens like this,” he answered: “those who were drowned, and they are far more numerous, are not painted.”
Cicero dit, que le seul Xenophanes Colophonien entre tous les Philosophes, qui ont aduoué les Dieux, a essayé de desraciner toute sorte de diuination. D’autant est-il moins de merueille, si nous auons veu par fois à leur dommage, aucunes de nos ames principesques s’arrester à ces vanitez. Ie voudrois bien auoir reconnu de mes yeux ces deux merueilles, du liure de Ioachim Abbé Calabrois, qui predisoit tous les Papes futurs; leurs noms et formes; et celuy de Leon l’Empereur qui predisoit les Empereurs et Patriarches de Grece.
Cicero says that, of all the philosophers who acknowledged the gods, Xenophanes of Colophon alone tried to uproot every kind of divination. It is all the less surprising, then, if we have sometimes seen some of our princely souls dwell on these vanities, to their cost. I would very much like to have seen with my own eyes those two marvels: the book of Joachim, the Calabrian abbot, which foretold all the future popes, their names and their forms; and that of the Emperor Leo, which foretold the emperors and patriarchs of Greece.
Cecy ay-ie reconnu de mes yeux, qu’és confusions publiques, les hommes estonnez de leur fortune, se vont reiettant, comme à toute superstition, à rechercher au ciel les causes et menaces anciennes de leur malheur: et y sont si estrangement heureux de mon temps, qu’ils m’ont persuadé, qu’ainsi que c’est vn amusement d’esprits aiguz et oisifs, ceux qui sont duicts à ceste subtilité de les replier et desnouër, seroyent en tous escrits capables de trouuer tout ce qu’ils y demandent. Mais sur tout leur preste beau ieu, le parler obscur, ambigu et fantastique du iargon prophetique, auquel leurs autheurs ne donnent aucun sens clair, afin que la posterité y en puisse appliquer de tel qu’il luy plaira.
This I have seen with my own eyes: that in times of public turmoil, men stunned by their fortune throw themselves back, as on any superstition, on searching the heavens for the ancient causes and portents of their misfortune. And in my time they have been so strangely lucky at it that they have persuaded me of this: since it is a pastime for sharp and idle minds, those who are trained in this subtle art of folding and unfolding such writings would be able to find in any text whatever they look for. But what gives them most scope is the obscure, ambiguous and fanciful language of prophetic jargon, to which its authors give no clear meaning, so that posterity can apply to it whatever meaning it likes.
Le demon de Socrates estoit à l’aduanture certaine impulsion de volonté, qui se presentoit à luy sans le conseil de son discours. En vne ame bien espuree, comme la sienne, et preparee par continu exercice de sagesse et de vertu, il est vray-semblable que ces inclinations, quoy que temeraires et indigestes, estoyent tousiours importantes et dignes d’estre suiuies. Chacun sent en soy quelque image de telles agitations d’vne opinion prompte, vehemente et fortuite. C’est à moy de leur donner quelque authorité, qui en donne si peu à nostre prudence.
The daemon of Socrates was perhaps a certain impulse of the will that came to him without the counsel of his reasoning. In a soul as well refined as his, and prepared by continual exercise of wisdom and virtue, it is likely that these inclinations, though rash and unconsidered, were always important and worth following. Everyone feels within himself some semblance of such stirrings of a sudden, vehement and chance opinion. It is for me to give them some authority, I who give so little to our prudence.
Et en ay eu de pareillement foibles en raison, et violentes en persuasion, ou en dissuasion, qui estoit plus ordinaire à Socrates, ausquelles ie me laissay emporter si vtilement et heureusement, qu’elles pourroyent estre iugees tenir quelque chose d’inspiration diuine.
And I have had some that were equally weak in reason and violent in persuasion—or in dissuasion, which was more usual with Socrates—and I let myself be carried away by them so profitably and so happily that they might be judged to hold something of divine inspiration.