IE suis des plus exempts de cette passion, et ne l’ayme ny l’estime: quoy que le monde ayt entrepris, comme à prix faict, de l’honorer de faueur particuliere. Ils en habillent la sagesse, la vertu, la conscience. Sot et vilain ornement. Les Italiens ont plus sortablement baptisé de son nom la malignité. Car c’est vne qualité tousiours nuisible, tousiours folle: et comme tousiours couarde et basse, les Stoïciens en defendent le sentiment à leurs sages.
I am among those most free from this passion, and I neither love nor esteem it, although the world has undertaken, as if by agreement, to honor it with special favor. They dress up wisdom, virtue and conscience in it: a foolish and ugly ornament. The Italians have more fittingly given its name to malignity. For it is a quality always harmful, always mad; and since it is always cowardly and base, the Stoics forbid their sages to feel it.
Mais le conte dit que Psammenitus Roy d’Ægypte, ayant esté deffait et pris par Cambysez Roy de Perse, voyant passer deuant luy sa fille prisonniere habillee en seruante, qu’on enuoyoit puiser de l’eau, tous ses amis pleurans et lamentans autour de luy, se tint coy sans mot dire, les yeux fichez en terre: et voyant encore tantost qu’on menoit son fils à la mort, se maintint en cette mesme contenance: mais qu’ayant apperçeu vn de ses domestiques conduit entre les captifs, il se mit à battre sa teste, et mener vn dueil extreme.
But the story goes that Psammenitus, king of Egypt, having been defeated and captured by Cambyses, king of Persia, saw his daughter pass before him as a prisoner, dressed as a servant and sent to draw water. While all his friends wept and lamented around him, he stayed still without a word, his eyes fixed on the ground; and seeing soon after that his son was being led to his death, he kept the same countenance. But when he caught sight of one of his household servants being led among the captives, he began to beat his head and show extreme grief.
Cecy se pourroit apparier à ce qu’on vid dernierement d’vn Prince des nostres, qui ayant ouy à Trente, où il estoit, nouuelles de la mort de son frere aisné, mais vn frere en qui consistoit l’appuy et l’honneur de toute sa maison, et bien tost apres d’vn puisné, sa seconde esperance, et ayant soustenu ces deux charges d’vne constance exemplaire, comme quelques iours apres vn de ses gens vint à mourir, il se laissa emporter à ce dernier accident; et quitant sa resolution, s’abandonna au dueil et aux regrets; en maniere qu’aucuns en prindrene argument, qu’il n’auoit esté touché au vif que de cette derniere secousse: mais à la verité ce fut, qu’estant d’ailleurs plein et comblé de tristesse, la moindre sur-charge brisa les barrieres de la patience.
This might be paired with what we saw recently of one of our princes. At Trent, where he was, he heard news of the death of his elder brother—a brother on whom rested the support and honor of his whole house—and soon after of a younger brother, his second hope. He bore these two blows with exemplary constancy; but when, a few days later, one of his servants happened to die, he let himself be carried away by this last incident and, abandoning his resolution, gave himself up to grief and lamentation, so much so that some concluded from it that he had been touched to the quick only by this last shock. But in truth it was that, being otherwise full and brimming with sorrow, the least extra burden broke down the barriers of his endurance.
Il s’en pourroit, di-ie, autant iuger de nostre histoire, n’estoit qu’elle adiouste, que Cambyses s’enquerant à Psammenitus, pourquoy ne s’estant esmeu au malheur de son filz et de sa fille, il portoit si impatiemment celuy de ses amis: C’est, respondit-il, que ce seul dernier desplaisir se peut signifier par larmes, les deux premiers surpassans de bien loin tout moyen de se pouuoir exprimer.
The same judgment, I say, might be made of our story, were it not that it adds that when Cambyses asked Psammenitus why, having been unmoved by the misfortune of his son and daughter, he bore that of his friend so impatiently, he answered: “Because only this last sorrow can be expressed by tears; the first two far surpass any means of expression.”
A l’auenture reuiendroit à ce propos l’inuention de cet ancien peintre, lequel ayant à representer au sacrifice de Iphigenia le dueil des assistans, selon les degrez de l’interest que chacun apportoit à la mort de cette belle fille innocente, ayant espuisé les derniers efforts de son art, quand ce vint au pere de la vierge, il le peignit le visage couuert, comme si nulle contenance ne pouuoit rapporter ce degré de dueil. Voyla pourquoy les Poëtes feignent cette miserable mere Niobé, ayant perdu premierement sept filz, et puis de suite autant de filles, sur-chargee de pertes, auoir esté en fin transmuee en rocher, diriguisse malis: pour exprimer cette morne, muette et sourde stupidité, qui nous transsit, lors que les accidens nous accablent surpassans nostre portee.
Perhaps the invention of that ancient painter would fit here. He had to portray, at the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the grief of the bystanders according to the degree of concern each felt in the death of that beautiful innocent girl; and having exhausted the utmost resources of his art, when he came to the maiden’s father he painted him with his face covered, as if no countenance could convey that degree of grief. That is why the poets imagine that wretched mother Niobe—having lost first seven sons and then, in succession, as many daughters, overburdened with losses—to have been finally transformed into a rock, turned to stone by her sorrows, to express that dull, mute and deaf stupor which numbs us when events overwhelm us beyond what we can bear.
De vray, l’effort d’vn desplaisir, pour estre extreme, doit estonner toute l’ame, et luy empescher la liberté de ses actions: comme il nous aduient à la chaude alarme d’vne bien mauuaise nouuelle, de nous sentir saisis, transis, et comme perclus de tous mouuemens: de façon que l’ame se relaschant apres aux larmes et aux plaintes, semble se desprendre, se desmeller, et se mettre plus au large, et à son aise. Et via vix tandem voci laxata dolore est.
Indeed, the force of a grief, if it is to be extreme, must stun the whole soul and hinder its freedom of action. So it happens to us, at the sudden alarm of some very bad news, that we feel ourselves seized, numbed, and as it were paralyzed in all our movements; so that the soul, afterward giving way to tears and laments, seems to free itself, disentangle itself, and find more room and ease. And at last, and barely, grief opened a way for the voice.
En la guerre que le Roy Ferdinand mena contre la veufue du Roy Iean de Hongrie, autour de Bude, vn gendarme fut particulierement remerqué de chacun, pour auoir excessiuement bien faict de sa personne, en certaine meslee: et incognu, hautement loué, et plaint y estant demeuré: mais de nul tant que de Raiscïac Seigneur Allemand, esprins d’vne si rare vertu: le corps estant rapporté, cetuicy d’vne commune curiosité, s’approcha pour voir qui c’estoit: et les armes ostees au trespassé, il reconut son fils.
In the war that King Ferdinand waged against the widow of King John of Hungary, around Buda, a man-at-arms was particularly noticed by everyone for having borne himself exceedingly well in a certain skirmish; unknown, he was highly praised, and mourned when he fell there. But by none so much as by Raïsciac, a German lord, who was taken with such rare valor. When the body was brought back, this lord, out of common curiosity, went up to see who it was; and when the dead man’s armor was removed, he recognized his son.
Cela augmenta la compassion aux assistans: luy seul, sans rien dire, sans siller les yeux, se tint debout, contemplant fixement le corps de son fils: iusques à ce que la vehemence de la tristesse, aiant accablé ses esprits vitaux, le porta roide mort par terre. Chi puo dir com’ egli arde è in picciol fuoco, disent les amoureux, qui veulent representer vne passion insupportable. *misero quod omnes / Eripit sensu mihi. Nam simul te / Lesbia aspexi, nihil est superîm / Quod loquar amens.
This increased the bystanders’ compassion. He alone, without saying anything, without blinking, stood upright gazing fixedly at his son’s body, until the vehemence of his sorrow, having overwhelmed his vital spirits, brought him down stone-dead on the ground. He who can say how he burns is in a small fire, say the lovers who wish to represent an unbearable passion. *a thing that, wretched as I am, / Snatches all my senses from me. For the moment / I have seen you, Lesbia, nothing is left / That I can say, beside myself.
/ Lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus / Flamma dimanat, sonitu suopte / Tinniunt aures, gemina teguntur / Lumina nocte. Aussi n’est ce pas en la viue, et plus cuysante chaleur de l’accés, que nous sommes propres à desployer nos plaintes et nos persuasions: l’ame est lors aggrauee de profondes pensees, et le corps abbatu et languissant d’amour: et de là s’engendre par fois la defaillance fortuite, qui surprent les amoureux si hors de saison; et cette glace qui les saisit par la force d’vne ardeur extreme, au giron mesme de la iouïssance. Toutes passions qui se laissent gouster, et digerer, ne sont que mediocres, Curæ leues loquuntur, ingentes stupent.*
/ But my tongue grows numb, a subtle flame / Flows down through my limbs, my ears ring / With their own sound, and both my eyes are covered / In night. Nor indeed is it in the live and most burning heat of the fit that we are able to pour out our laments and our persuasions: the soul is then weighed down with deep thoughts, and the body cast down and languishing with love. And from this sometimes arises the sudden failure that takes lovers by surprise so out of season, and that chill which seizes them through the force of an extreme ardor, in the very lap of enjoyment. All passions that allow themselves to be savored and digested are only moderate. Light cares speak; great ones are struck dumb.*
La surprise d’un plaisir inesperé nous estonne de mesme. Vt me conspexit venientem, et Troïa circum / Arma amens vidit, magnis exterrita monstris, / Diriguit visu in medio, calor ossa reliquit, / Labitur, et longo vix tandem tempore fatur. Outre la femme Romaine, qui mourut surprise d’aise de voir son fils reuenu de la routte de Cannes: Sophocles et Denis le Tyran, qui trespasserent d’aise: et Talua qui mourut en Corsegue, lisant les nouuelles des honneurs que le Senat de Rome luy auoit decernez; nous tenons en nostre siecle, que le Pape Leon dixiesme ayant esté aduerty de la prinse de Milan, qu’il auoit extremement souhaittee, entra en tel excez de ioye, que la fieure l’en print, et en mourut.
The shock of an unexpected pleasure stuns us in the same way. When she saw me coming and, beside herself, saw Trojan / Arms around me, terrified by such great portents, / She froze as she looked, the warmth left her bones, / She falls, and at last, after a long while, she barely speaks. Besides the Roman woman who died from the shock of joy at seeing her son returned from the rout at Cannae; Sophocles and Dionysius the Tyrant, who died of joy; and Talva, who died in Corsica while reading the news of the honors the Roman Senate had decreed him—we hold that in our own century Pope Leo X, having been told of the capture of Milan, which he had greatly desired, fell into such an excess of joy that he was seized with fever and died of it.
Et pour vn plus notable tesmoignage de l’imbecillité humaine, il a esté remerqué par les anciens, que Diodorus le Dialecticien mourut sur le champ, espris d’vne extreme passion de honte, pour en son escole, et en public, ne se pouuoir desuelopper d’vn argument qu’on luy auoit faict. Ie suis peu en prise de ces violentes passions: i’ay l’apprehension naturellement dure; et l’encrouste et espessis tous les iours par discours.
And as a more notable testimony to human weakness, the ancients noted that Diodorus the Dialectician died on the spot, seized with an extreme passion of shame because, in his school and in public, he could not disentangle himself from an argument that had been put to him. I am little exposed to these violent passions. My capacity for feeling is naturally tough; and I harden and thicken it every day by reasoning.