CICERO dit que Philosopher ce n’est autre chose que s’aprester à la mort. C’est d’autant que l’estude et la contemplation retirent aucunement nostre ame hors de nous, et l’embesongnent à part du corps, qui est quelque apprentissage et ressemblance de la mort: ou bien, c’est que toute la sagesse et discours du monde se resoult en fin à ce point, de nous apprendre à ne craindre point à mourir. De vray, ou la raison se mocque, ou elle ne doit viser qu’à nostre contentement, et tout son trauail tendre en somme à nous faire bien viure, et à nostre aise, comme dict la Sainte Escriture.
Cicero says that to philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death. This is because study and contemplation draw our soul somewhat outside us and keep it busy apart from the body, which is a kind of apprenticeship and likeness of death. Or else it is because all the wisdom and reasoning in the world come down in the end to this point: to teach us not to be afraid to die. Indeed, either reason is mocking us, or it must aim solely at our contentment, and all its labor must tend, in sum, to make us live well and at our ease, as Holy Scripture says.
Toutes les opinions du monde en sont là, que le plaisir est nostre but, quoy qu’elles en prennent diuers moyens; autrement on les chasseroit d’arriuée. Car qui escouteroit celuy, qui pour sa fin establiroit nostre peine et mesaise? Les dissentions des sectes Philosophiques en ce cas, sont verbales. Transcurramus solertissimas nugas. Il y a plus d’opiniastreté et de picoterie, qu’il n’appartient à vne si saincte profession. Mais quelque personnage que l’homme entrepreigne, il iouë tousiours le sien parmy.
All the opinions in the world agree on this—that pleasure is our goal—though they take different means to it; otherwise they would be thrown out at once. For who would listen to a man who set up our pain and discomfort as his end? The disagreements of the philosophical sects on this point are merely verbal. Let us skip over these most ingenious trifles. There is more stubbornness and bickering than befits so holy a calling. But whatever role a man takes on, he always plays his own along with it.
Quoy qu’ils dient, en la vertu mesme, le dernier but de nostre visee, c’est la volupté. Il me plaist de battre leurs oreilles de ce mot, qui leur est si fort à contrecœur: et s’il signifie quelque supreme plaisir, et excessif contentement, il est mieux deu à l’assistance de la vertu, qu’à nulle autre assistance. Cette volupté pour estre plus gaillarde, nerueuse, robuste, virile, n’en est que plus serieusement voluptueuse. Et luy deuions donner le nom du plaisir, plus fauorable, plus doux et naturel: non celuy de la vigueur, duquel nous l’auons denommee. Cette autre volupté plus basse, si elle meritoit ce beau nom: ce deuoit estre en concurrence, non par priuilege. Ie la trouue moins pure d’incommoditez et de trauerses, que n’est la vertu.
Whatever they say, even in virtue the ultimate goal we aim at is pleasure. I like to din this word into their ears, since they find it so distasteful. And if it means some supreme delight and surpassing contentment, it is owed more to the help of virtue than to any other help. This pleasure, for being more lusty, sinewy, robust and manly, is only the more seriously pleasurable. We ought to have given virtue the name of pleasure, a kindlier, sweeter and more natural name, not that of vigor, from which we have named it. That other, baser pleasure, if it deserved this fine name, should have had it in competition, not by privilege. I find it less free of drawbacks and obstacles than virtue is.
Outre que son goust est plus momentanee, fluide et caduque, elle a ses veilles, ses ieusnes, et ses trauaux, et la sueur et le sang. Et en outre particulierement, ses passions trenchantes de tant de sortes; et à son costé vne satieté si lourde, qu’elle equipolle à penitence. Nous auons grand tort d’estimer que ses incommoditez luy seruent d’aiguillon et de condiment à sa douceur, comme en nature le contraire se viuifie par son contraire: et de dire, quand nous venons à la vertu, que pareilles suittes et difficultez l’accablent, la rendent austere et inacessible.
Besides the fact that its savor is more fleeting, fluid and perishable, it has its vigils, its fasts and its labors, its sweat and its blood; and in particular, moreover, its sharp passions of so many kinds, and at its side a satiety so heavy that it amounts to a penance. We are very wrong to think that its drawbacks serve it as a spur and a seasoning to its sweetness, as in nature one contrary is quickened by its contrary—and then to say, when we come to virtue, that similar consequences and difficulties overwhelm it and make it austere and inaccessible.
Là où beaucoup plus proprement qu’à la volupté, elles anoblissent, aiguisent, et rehaussent le plaisir diuin et parfaict, qu’elle nous moienne. Celuy la est certes bien indigne de son accointance, qui contrepoise son coust, à son fruict: et n’en cognoist ny les graces ny l’vsage. Ceux qui nous vont instruisant, que sa queste est scabreuse et laborieuse, sa iouïssance agréable: que nous disent-ils par là, sinon qu’elle est tousiours desagreable? Car quel moien humain arriua iamais à sa iouïssance? Les plus parfaits se sont bien contentez d’y aspirer, et de l’approcher, sans la posseder. Mais ils se trompent; veu que de tous les plaisirs que nous cognoissons, la poursuite mesme en est plaisante.
On the contrary: far more fittingly than with pleasure, they ennoble, sharpen and heighten the divine and perfect pleasure that virtue procures for us. A man is certainly unworthy of its acquaintance if he weighs its cost against its fruit; he knows neither its graces nor its use. Those who keep telling us that the quest for it is rugged and laborious, and the enjoyment of it pleasant—what are they telling us, except that it is always unpleasant? For what human means ever reached the enjoyment of it? The most perfect men have been content to aspire to it and to approach it, without possessing it. But they are wrong, seeing that of all the pleasures we know, the very pursuit is pleasant.
L’entreprise se sent de la qualité de la chose qu’elle regarde: car c’est vne bonne portion de l’effect, et consubstancielle. L’heur et la beatitude qui reluit en la vertu, remplit toutes ses appartenances et auenues, iusques à la premiere entree et extreme barriere.
An undertaking takes on the quality of the thing it aims at, for it is a good part of the effect and of one substance with it. The happiness and bliss that shine in virtue fill all its approaches and avenues, right up to the first entrance and the outermost barrier.
Or des principaux bienfaicts de la vertu, c’est le mepris de la mort, moyen qui fournit nostre vie d’vne molle tranquillité, et nous en donne le goust pur et amiable: sans qui toute autre volupté est esteinte. Voyla pourquoy toutes les regles se rencontrent et conuiennent à cet article.
Now one of the chief benefits of virtue is contempt for death. It is the means that furnishes our life with a gentle tranquility and gives us a pure and pleasant taste of it; without it, all other pleasure is snuffed out. That is why all the rules meet and agree on this article.
Et combien qu’elles nous conduisent aussi toutes d’vn commun accord à mespriser la douleur, la pauureté, et autres accidens, à quoy la vie humaine est subiecte, ce n’est pas d’vn pareil soing: tant par ce que ces accidens ne sont pas de telle necessité, la pluspart des hommes passent leur vie sans gouster de la pauureté, et tels encore sans sentiment de douleur et de maladie, comme Xenophilus le Musicien, qui vescut cent et six ans d’vne entiere santé: qu’aussi d’autant qu’au pis aller, la mort peut mettre fin, quand il nous plaira, et coupper broche à tous autres inconuenients. Mais quant à la mort, elle est ineuitable.
And although they also all lead us with one accord to despise pain, poverty and the other accidents to which human life is subject, they do not do so with equal care. This is partly because those accidents are not so inevitable—most men spend their lives without tasting poverty, and some even without feeling pain or sickness, like Xenophilus the musician, who lived a hundred and six years in perfect health—and partly because, at worst, death can put an end to them whenever we please and cut short all our other troubles. But death itself is inevitable.
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium / Versatur vrna, serius ocius / Sors exitura, et nos in æter- / Num exitium impositura cymbæ. Et par consequent, si elle nous faict peur, c’est vn subiect continuel de tourment, et qui ne se peut aucunement soulager. Il n’est lieu d’où elle ne nous vienne. Nous pouuons tourner sans cesse la teste çà et là, comme en pays suspect: quæ quasi saxum Tantalo semper impendet. Nos parlemens renuoyent souuent executer les criminels au lieu où le crime est commis: durant le chemin, promenez les par de belles maisons, faictes leur tant de bonne chere, qu’il vous plaira, non Siculæ dapes / Dulcem elaborabunt saporem, / Non auium, cytharæque cantus / Somnum reducent. Pensez vous qu’ils s’en puissent resiouir?
We are all driven to the same place; the lot of each / is tossed in the urn, and sooner or later / it will come out and put us aboard / the boat bound for eternal ruin. And consequently, if death frightens us, it is a continual source of torment, and one that cannot be relieved in any way. There is no place from which it may not come at us. We can keep turning our heads this way and that, as in hostile country: it hangs over us always, like the rock over Tantalus. Our parlements often send criminals back to be executed at the place where the crime was committed. On the way, take them past fine houses, give them as good a time as you please—no Sicilian feasts / will produce a sweet savor for them, / nor will the song of birds and the lyre / bring back their sleep. Do you think they can enjoy it?
et que la finale intention de leur voyage leur estant ordinairement deuant les yeux, ne leur ayt alteré et affadi le goust à toutes ces commoditez? Audit iter, numerátque dies, spatiòque viarum / Metitur vitam, torquetur peste futura.
Do you not think that the final purpose of their journey, constantly before their eyes, has spoiled and dulled their taste for all these comforts? He asks about the road, counts the days, measures his life by the length / of the way, tormented by the doom to come.
Le but de nostre carriere c’est la mort, c’est l’obiect necessaire de nostre visee: si elle nous effraye, comme est-il possible d’aller vn pas auant sans fiebure? Le remede du vulgaire c’est de n’y penser pas. Mais de quelle brutale stupidité luy peut venir vn si grossier aueuglement? Il luy faut faire brider l’asne par la queuë, Qui capite ipse suo instituit vestigia retro. Ce n’est pas de merueille s’il est si souuent pris au piege. On fait peur à nos gens seulement de nommer la mort, et la pluspart s’en seignent, comme du nom du diable. Et par-ce qu’il s’en faict mention aux testamens, ne vous attendez pas qu’ils y mettent la main, que le Medecin ne leur ayt donné l’extreme sentence.
The goal of our course is death; it is the necessary object of our aim. If it frightens us, how is it possible to take one step forward without a fever? The remedy of ordinary people is not to think about it. But from what brutish stupidity can so gross a blindness come to them? They must be made to bridle the donkey by the tail, like one who has taken it into his head to walk backward. No wonder they are so often caught in the trap. You frighten our people merely by naming death, and most of them cross themselves as at the name of the devil. And because it is mentioned in wills, don’t expect them to put their hand to one until the doctor has pronounced the final sentence.
Et Dieu sçait lors entre la douleur et la frayeur, de quel bon iugement ils vous le patissent.
And God knows, between pain and fright, with what sound judgment they knead it together for you.
Par ce que cette syllabe frappoit trop rudement leurs oreilles, et que cette voix leur sembloit malencontreuse, les Romains auoient apris de l’amollir ou l’estendre en perifrazes. Au lieu de dire, il est mort; il a cessé de viure, disent-ils, il a vescu. Pourueu que ce soit vie, soit elle passee, ils se consolent. Nous en auons emprunté, nostre feu Maistre-Iehan. A l’aduenture est-ce, que comme on dict, le terme vaut l’argent. Ie nasquis entre vnze heures et midi le dernier iour de Feburier, mil cinq cens trente trois: comme nous contons à cette heure, commençant l’an en Ianuier. Il n’y a iustement que quinze iours que i’ay franchy trente neuf ans, il m’en faut pour le moins encore autant.
Because this syllable struck their ears too harshly and the word seemed ill-omened to them, the Romans had learned to soften it or stretch it out into circumlocutions. Instead of saying “he is dead,” they say “he has ceased to live,” “he has lived.” As long as it is life, even life past, they take comfort. From this we have borrowed our “the late Master John.” Perhaps, as the saying goes, a delay is as good as cash. I was born between eleven o’clock and noon on the last day of February, 1533, by our present reckoning, which begins the year in January. It is just two weeks since I passed thirty-nine; I need at least as many years again.
Ce pendant s’empescher du pensement de chose si esloignee, ce seroit folie. Mais quoy? les ieunes et les vieux laissent la vie de mesme condition. Nul n’en sort autrement que si tout presentement il y entroit, ioinct qu’il n’est homme si décrepite tant qu’il voit Mathusalem deuant, qui ne pense auoir encore vingt ans dans le corps. D’auantage, pauure fol que tu es, qui t’a estably les termes de ta vie? Tu te fondes sur les contes des Medecins. Regarde plustost l’effect et l’experience. Par le commun train des choses, tu vis pieça par faueur extraordinaire.
Meanwhile, to trouble oneself with the thought of something so far off would be folly. But what of it? Young and old leave life in the same condition. No one leaves it otherwise than as if he were just entering it. Besides, there is no man so decrepit that, as long as he sees Methuselah ahead of him, he does not think he still has twenty years in his body. Furthermore, poor fool that you are, who has fixed the limits of your life? You rely on the tales of doctors. Look rather at the facts and at experience. By the common course of things, you have long been living by extraordinary favor.
Tu as passé les termes accoustumez de viure: et qu’il soit ainsi, conte de tes cognoissans, combien il en est mort auant ton aage, plus qu’il n’en y a qui l’ayent atteint: et de ceux mesme qui ont annobli leur vie par renommee, fais en registre, et l’entreray en gageure d’en trouuer plus qui sont morts, auant, qu’apres trente cinq ans. Il est plein de raison, et de pieté, de prendre exemple de l’humanité mesme de Iesus-Christ. Or il finit sa vie à trente et trois ans. Le plus grand homme, simplement homme, Alexandre, mourut aussi à ce terme.
You have passed the customary limits of life. To see that this is so, count among your acquaintances how many have died before your age: more than have reached it. Even among those who have ennobled their lives by renown, make a list, and I will wager to find more who died before thirty-five than after. It is full of reason and piety to take our example from the humanity of Jesus Christ himself. Now he ended his life at thirty-three. The greatest man who was simply a man, Alexander, also died at that age.
Combien a la mort de façons de surprise? Quid quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis / Cautum est in horas. Ie laisse à part les fiebures et les pleuresies. Qui eust iamais pensé qu’vn Duc de Bretaigne deust estre estouffé de la presse, comme fut celuy là à l’entree du Pape Clement mon voisin, à Lyon? N’as tu pas veu tuer vn de nos Roys en se iouant? et vn de ses ancestres mourut il pas choqué par vn pourceau?
How many ways death has of taking us by surprise! Man can never take care enough / from hour to hour of what he should avoid. I leave aside fevers and pleurisies. Who would ever have thought that a Duke of Brittany would be crushed to death in a crowd, as that one was at the entry into Lyon of Pope Clement, my neighbor? Have you not seen one of our kings killed at play? And did not one of his ancestors die from a collision with a pig?
Æschylus menassé de la cheute d’vne maison, a beau se tenir à l’airte, le voyla assommé d’vn toict de tortue, qui eschappa des pattes d’vn aigle en l’air: l’autre mourut d’vn grain de raisin: vn Empereur de l’egratigneure d’vn peigne en se testonnant: Æmylius Lepidus pour auoir heurté du pied contre le seuil de son huis: et Aufidius pour auoir choqué en entrant contre la porte de la chambre du conseil. Et entre les cuisses des femmes Cornelius Gallus Preteur, Tigillinus Capitaine du guet à Rome, Ludouic fils de Guy de Gonsague, Marquis de Mantoüe. Et d’vn encore pire exemple, Speusippus Philosophe Platonicien, et l’vn de nos Papes.
Aeschylus, warned that a falling house would kill him, may keep on his guard all he likes: there he is, knocked dead by a tortoise shell that slipped from the claws of an eagle in the air. Another died of a grape seed; an emperor, from the scratch of a comb while doing his hair; Aemilius Lepidus, from stubbing his foot on his own threshold; and Aufidius, from bumping into the door of the council chamber as he went in. And between women’s thighs: Cornelius Gallus, praetor; Tigellinus, captain of the watch at Rome; Ludovico, son of Guido Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. And, an even worse example, Speusippus, the Platonist philosopher, and one of our popes.
Le pauure Bebius, Iuge, cependant qu’il donne delay de huictaine à vne partie, le voyla saisi, le sien de viure estant expiré: et Caius Iulius Medecin gressant les yeux d’vn patient, voyla la mort qui clost les siens. Et s’il m’y faut mesler, vn mien frere le Capitaine S. Martin, aagé de vingt trois ans, qui auoit desia faict assez bonne preuue de sa valeur, iouant à la paume, reçeut vn coup d’esteuf, qui l’assena vn peu au dessus de l’oreille droitte, sans aucune apparence de contusion, ny de blessure: il ne s’en assit, n’y reposa: mais cinq ou six heures apres il mourut d’vne Apoplexie que ce coup luy causa.
Poor Baebius, a judge, while granting a litigant a week’s adjournment, is seized himself, his own term of life having expired. And Caius Julius, a doctor, while anointing a patient’s eyes—there is death closing his own. And if I may bring in my own family: a brother of mine, Captain Saint-Martin, twenty-three years old, who had already given good proof of his valor, was struck while playing tennis by a ball that hit him a little above the right ear, without any sign of bruise or wound. He did not sit down or rest; but five or six hours later he died of an apoplexy caused by that blow.
Ces exemples si frequents et si ordinaires nous passans deuant les yeux, comme est-il possible qu’on se puisse deffaire du pensement de la mort, et qu’à chasque instant il ne nous semble qu’elle nous tienne au collet? Qu’importe-il, me direz vous, comment que ce soit, pourueu qu’on ne s’en donne point de peine? Ie suis de cet aduis: et en quelque maniere qu’on se puisse mettre à l’abri des coups, fust ce soubs la peau d’vn veau, ie ne suis pas homme qui y reculast: car il me suffit de passer à mon aise, et le meilleur ieu que ie me puisse donner, ie le prens, si peu glorieux au reste et exemplaire que vous voudrez.
With such frequent and ordinary examples passing before our eyes, how can we possibly rid ourselves of the thought of death, or help feeling at every moment that it has us by the collar? “What does it matter,” you will tell me, “how it happens, as long as we don’t worry about it?” I am of that opinion. Whatever way one could find to shelter from the blows, even under a calf’s hide, I am not the man to shrink from it. For it is enough for me to get through life at my ease; and the best game I can give myself, I take, however inglorious and unexemplary you may think it.
prætulerim delirus inérsque videri, / Dum mea delectent mala me, vel denique fallant, / Quàm sapere et ringi.
I would rather be thought a fool and a sluggard, / so long as my failings please me, or at least deceive me, / than be wise and gnash my teeth.
Mais c’est folie d’y penser arriuer par là. Ils vont, ils viennent, ils trottent, ils dansent, de mort nulles nouuelles. Tout cela est beau: mais aussi quand elle arriue, ou à eux ou à leurs femmes, enfans et amis, les surprenant en dessoude et au descouuert, quels tourmens, quels cris, quelle rage et quel desespoir les accable? Vistes vous iamais rien si rabaissé, si changé, si confus? Il y faut prouuoir de meilleure heure: et cette nonchalance bestiale, quand elle pourroit loger en la teste d’vn homme d’entendement, ce que ie trouue entierement impossible, nous vend trop cher ses denrees.
But it is folly to think of getting there that way. They come, they go, they trot, they dance—of death, no news. All that is very fine. But then, when it does come, to them or to their wives, children or friends, catching them unawares and unprotected, what torments, what cries, what rage and what despair overwhelm them! Did you ever see anything so crushed, so changed, so confused? We must make provision for it earlier. And this brutish indifference, even if it could lodge in the head of a man of understanding—which I find entirely impossible—sells us its wares too dear.
Si c’estoit ennemy qui se peust euiter, ie conseillerois d’emprunter les armes de la coüardise: mais puis qu’il ne se peut; puis qu’il vous attrappe fuyant et poltron aussi bien qu’honeste homme, Nempe et fugacem persequitur virum, / Nec parcit imbellis iuuentæ / Poplitibus, timidoque tergo. et que nulle trampe de cuirasse vous couure, Ille licet ferro cautus se condat in ære, / Mors tamen inclusum protrahet inde caput. aprenons à le soustenir de pied ferme, et à le combatre: Et pour commencer à luy oster son plus grand aduantage contre nous, prenons voye toute contraire à la commune.
If it were an enemy that could be avoided, I would advise borrowing the weapons of cowardice. But since it cannot be; since it catches you just the same whether you run away like a coward or stand like an honorable man—Indeed, it pursues the man who flees, / and does not spare the hamstrings or the timid backs / of unwarlike youth—and since no temper of breastplate can protect you—Though he hide himself cautiously in iron and bronze, / death will still drag his head out of its shelter—let us learn to meet it steadfastly and to fight it. And to begin by depriving it of its greatest advantage over us, let us take a road quite contrary to the common one.
Getting used to death
Strip death of its strangeness by keeping it always in mind, even at feasts.
Ostons luy l’estrangeté, pratiquons le, accoustumons le, n’ayons rien si souuent en la teste que la mort: à tous instans representons la à nostre imagination et en tous visages. Au broncher d’vn cheual, à la cheute d’vne tuille, à la moindre piqueure d’espeingle, remachons soudain, Et bien quand ce seroit la mort mesme? et là dessus, roidissons nous, et nous efforçons. Parmy les festes et la ioye, ayons tousiours ce refrein de la souuenance de nostre condition, et ne nous laissons pas si fort emporter au plaisir, que par fois il ne nous repasse en la memoire, en combien de sortes cette nostre allegresse est en butte à la mort, et de combien de prinses elle la menasse.
Let us take away its strangeness, get to know it, get used to it. Let us have nothing so often in our minds as death. At every moment let us picture it in our imagination, in all its guises. At the stumble of a horse, at the fall of a tile, at the slightest pinprick, let us promptly chew on this: “Well, what if it were death itself?” And thereupon let us steel ourselves and make an effort. Amid feasting and gaiety, let us always keep this refrain, the remembrance of our condition, and not let ourselves be so carried away by pleasure that it does not now and then come back to mind in how many ways this gaiety of ours is exposed to death, and with how many holds death threatens it.
Ainsi faisoient les Egyptiens, qui au milieu de leurs festins et parmy leur meilleure chere, faisoient apporter l’Anatomie seche d’vn homme, pour seruir d’auertissement aux conuiez. Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum, / Grata superueniet, quæ non sperabitur hora.
So did the Egyptians, who in the middle of their banquets and amid their best cheer had the dried skeleton of a man brought in, as a warning to the guests. Believe that every day that has dawned for you is your last; / the hour you do not hope for will come as a welcome gift.
Il est incertain où la mort nous attende, attendons la par tout. La premeditation de la mort, est premeditation de la liberté. Qui a apris à mourir, il a desapris à seruir. Il n’y a rien de mal en la vie, pour celuy qui a bien comprins, que la priuation de la vie n’est pas mal. Le sçauoir mourir nous afranchit de toute subiection et contraincte. Paulus Æmylius respondit à celuy, que ce miserable Roy de Macedoine son prisonnier luy enuoyoit, pour le prier de ne le mener pas en son triomphe, Qu’il en face la requeste à soy mesme.
It is uncertain where death awaits us; let us await it everywhere. Premeditation of death is premeditation of freedom. He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. There is nothing evil in life for the man who has fully understood that losing life is not an evil. Knowing how to die frees us from all subjection and constraint. Paulus Aemilius replied to the man sent by that wretched King of Macedonia, his prisoner, to beg him not to lead him in his triumph: “Let him make that request of himself.”
A la verité en toutes choses si nature ne preste vn peu, il est mal-aysé que l’art et l’industrie aillent guiere auant. Ie suis de moy-mesme non melancholique, mais songecreux: il n’est rien dequoy ie me soye des tousiours plus entretenu que des imaginations de la mort; voire en la saison la plus licentieuse de mon aage, Iucundum cùm ætas florida ver ageret. Parmy les dames et les ieux, tel me pensoit empesché à digerer à part moy quelque ialousie, ou l’incertitude de quelque esperance, cependant que ie m’entretenois de ie ne sçay qui surpris les iours precedens d’vne fieure chaude, et de sa fin au partir d’vne feste pareille, et la teste pleine d’oisiueté, d’amour et de bon temps, comme moy: et qu’autant m’en pendoit à l’oreille.
In truth, in all things, unless nature lends a little help, it is hard for art and effort to get very far. I am by nature not melancholy, but given to daydreaming. There is nothing I have always occupied myself with more than imaginings of death, even in the most licentious season of my life, when my blooming youth was enjoying its pleasant spring. Among the ladies and the games, someone would think me busy digesting some jealousy or the uncertainty of some hope, while I was actually thinking about some fellow or other who had been seized a few days before by a high fever and had died on the way home from a party just like this one, his head full of idleness, love and good times, like mine—and the same thing could happen to me.
Iam fuerit, nec post vnquam reuocare licebit. Ie ne ridois non plus le front de ce pensement là, que d’vn autre.
Soon it will have been, and we shall never be able to call it back. That thought furrowed my brow no more than any other.
Il est impossible que d’arriuee nous ne sentions des piqueures de telles imaginations: mais en les maniant et repassant, au long aller, on les appriuoise sans doubte: autrement de ma part ie fusse en continuelle frayeur et frenesie: car iamais homme ne se défia tant de sa vie, iamais homme ne feit moins d’estat de sa duree. Ny la santé, que i’ay iouy iusques à present tresuigoureuse et peu souuent interrompue, ne m’en alonge l’esperance, ny les maladies ne me l’acourcissent. A chaque minute il me semble que ie m’eschappe. Et me rechante sans cesse, Tout ce qui peut estre faict vn autre iour, le peut estre auiourd’huy.
It is impossible not to feel the stings of such imaginings at first. But by handling them and going over them, in the long run we no doubt tame them. Otherwise, for my part, I would be in continual fright and frenzy; for never did a man so distrust his life, never did a man set less store by its duration. Neither my health, which so far has been very vigorous and seldom interrupted, lengthens my hope of it, nor do illnesses shorten it. Every minute I feel I am slipping away. And I keep singing to myself: “Whatever can be done another day can be done today.”
De vray les hazards et dangiers nous approchent peu ou rien de nostre fin: et si nous pensons, combien il en reste, sans cet accident qui semble nous menasser le plus, de millions d’autres sur nos testes, nous trouuerons que gaillars et fieureux, en la mer et en nos maisons, en la bataille et en repos elle nous est égallement pres. Nemo altero fragilior est: nemo in crastinum sui certior.
In truth, chances and dangers bring us little or no nearer to our end. And if we think how many millions of other accidents remain hanging over our heads, besides the one that seems to threaten us most, we shall find that, in vigor or in fever, at sea or at home, in battle or at rest, death is equally near us. No man is more fragile than another; no man more certain of tomorrow.
Ce que i’ay affaire auant mourir, pour l’acheuer tout loisir me semble court, fust ce d’vne heure. Quelcun feuilletant l’autre iour mes tablettes, trouua vn memoire de quelque chose, que ie vouloys estre faite apres ma mort: ie luy dy, comme il estoit vray, que n’estant qu’à vne lieuë de ma maison, et sain et gaillard, ie m’estoy hasté de l’escrire là, pour ne m’asseurer point d’arriuer iusques chez moy. Comme celuy, qui continuellement me couue de mes pensees, et les couche en moy: ie suis à toute heure preparé enuiron ce que ie le puis estre: et ne m’aduertira de rien de nouueau la suruenance de la mort.
To finish what I have to do before I die, any amount of time seems short to me, even if the task is only an hour’s work. The other day someone leafing through my notebooks found a memorandum about something I wanted done after my death. I told him, and it was true, that though I was only a league from my house, and healthy and in good spirits, I had hurried to write it down there because I was not sure of getting as far as home. As a man who is constantly brooding over my thoughts and laying them up within me, I am at all times about as ready as I can be; and the arrival of death will tell me nothing new.
Il faut estre tousiours botté et prest à partir, en tant que en nous est, et sur tout se garder qu’on n’aye lors affaire qu’à soy. Quid breui fortes iaculamur æuo / Multa? Car nous y aurons assez de besongne, sans autre surcrois. L’vn se pleint plus que de la mort, dequoy elle luy rompt le train d’vne belle victoire: l’autre qu’il luy faut desloger auant qu’auoir marié sa fille, ou contrerolé l’institution de ses enfans: l’vn pleint la compagnie de sa femme, l’autre de son fils, comme commoditez principales de son estre.
We must always have our boots on and be ready to leave, as far as it lies in us, and above all take care that by then we have no business with anyone but ourselves. Why in our brief life do we boldly aim / at so many things? For we shall have quite enough to do then without any further load. One man complains, more than of death itself, that it breaks off the course of a fine victory; another, that he must move out before marrying off his daughter or seeing to the education of his children. One mourns his wife’s company, another his son’s, as the chief comforts of his existence.
Ie suis pour cette heure en tel estat, Dieu mercy, que ie puis desloger quand il luy plaira, sans regret de chose quelconque: ie me desnoue par tout: mes adieux sont tantost prins de chascun, sauf de moy. Iamais homme ne se prepara à quiter le monde plus purement et pleinement, et ne s’en desprint plus vniuersellement que ie m’attens de faire. Les plus mortes morts sont les plus saines. miser ô miser (aiunt) omnia ademit / Vna dies infesta mihi tot præmia vitæ: et le bastisseur, manent (dict-il) opera interrupta, minæque / Murorum ingentes. Il ne faut rien designer de si longue haleine, ou au moins auec telle intention de se passionner pour en voir la fin.
I am at present in such a state, thank God, that I can move out whenever it pleases him, without regretting anything whatsoever. I am untying myself everywhere; my farewells to everyone are nearly taken, except to myself. Never did a man prepare to leave the world more purely and fully, or detach himself from it more completely, than I expect to do. The deadest deaths are the soundest. Wretch, O wretch that I am (they say), one hateful day / has robbed me of all the many rewards of life; and the builder: The works remain (he says) broken off, and the huge threat / of the walls. We must not plan anything of such long breath, or at least not with so passionate a wish to see it finished.
Nous sommes nés pour agir: Cùm moriar, medium soluar et inter opus. Ie veux qu’on agisse, et qu’on allonge les offices de la vie, tant qu’on peut: et que la mort me treuue plantant mes choux; mais nonchallant d’elle, et encore plus de mon iardin imparfait. I’en vis mourir vn, qui estant à l’extremité se pleignoit incessamment, dequoy sa destinee coupoit le fil de l’histoire qu’il auoit en main, sur le quinziesme ou seixiesme de nos Roys. Illud in his rebus non addunt, nec tibi earum / Iam desiderium rerum super insidet vna.
We are born to act: When I die, may it be in the midst of my work. I want us to act and to prolong the duties of life as long as we can; and I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but caring little about it, and still less about my unfinished garden. I saw one man die who, at the very end, kept complaining that his destiny was cutting the thread of the history he had in hand, at the fifteenth or sixteenth of our kings. But they do not add this: that no longer / will any longing for these things remain with you.
Il faut se descharger de ces humeurs vulgaires et nuisibles. Tout ainsi qu’on a planté nos cimetieres ioignant les Eglises, et aux lieux les plus frequentez de la ville, pour accoustumer, disoit Lycurgus, le bas populaire, les femmes et les enfans à ne s’effaroucher point de voir vn homme mort: et affin que ce continuel spectacle d’ossemens, de tombeaux, et de conuois nous aduertisse de nostre condition. Quin etiam exhilarare viris conuiuia cæde / Mos olim, et miscere epulis spectacula dira / Certantum ferro, sæpe et super ipsa cadentum / Pocula, respersis non parco sanguine mensis.
We must rid ourselves of these common and harmful notions. Just as our cemeteries have been placed next to churches and in the busiest parts of town, in order, as Lycurgus said, to accustom the common people, women and children not to be alarmed at the sight of a dead man, and so that this continual spectacle of bones, tombs and funeral processions may remind us of our condition: Moreover, it was once the custom to enliven banquets with slaughter, / and to mix with the feast the grim spectacle / of men fighting with the sword, who often fell among the very / cups, spattering the tables with abundant blood.
Et comme les Egyptiens apres leurs festins, faisoient presenter aux assistans vne grande image de la mort, par vn qui leur crioit: Boy, et t’esiouy, car mort tu seras tel: aussi ay-ie pris en coustume, d’auoir non seulement en l’imagination, mais continuellement la mort en la bouche. Et n’est rien dequoy ie m’informe si volontiers, que de la mort des hommes: quelle parole, quel visage, quelle contenance ils y ont eu: ny endroit des histoires, que ie remarque si attentifuement. Il y paroist, à la farcissure de mes exemples: et que i’ay en particuliere affection cette matiere. Si i’estoy faiseur de liures, ie feroy vn registre commenté des morts diuerses: qui apprendroit les hommes à mourir, leur apprendroit à viure.
And as the Egyptians, after their banquets, had a large image of death shown to the guests by a man who cried out to them, “Drink and be merry, for when you are dead you will be like this,” so I have made it my custom to have death not only in my imagination but constantly in my mouth. There is nothing I inquire about so willingly as men’s deaths: what words, what face, what bearing they had; nor any passage in the histories that I note so attentively. It shows in the way I stuff my pages with examples, and that I have a particular fondness for this subject. If I were a maker of books, I would compile a register, with commentary, of various deaths. Whoever taught men to die would teach them to live.
Dicearchus en feit vn de pareil titre, mais d’autre et moins vtile fin.
Dicaearchus wrote a book with a similar title, but with another and less useful aim.
On me dira, que l’effect surmonte de si loing la pensee, qu’il n’y a si belle escrime, qui ne se perde, quand on en vient là: laissez les dire; le premediter donne sans doubte grand auantage: et puis n’est-ce rien, d’aller au moins iusques là sans alteration et sans fiéure? Il y a plus: nature mesme nous preste la main, et nous donne courage. Si c’est vne mort courte et violente, nous n’avons pas loisir de la craindre: si elle est autre, ie m’apperçois qu’à mesure que ie m’engage dans la maladie, i’entre naturellement en quelque desdain de la vie.
People will tell me that the reality so far exceeds the thought of it that no fencing skill is so fine that it is not lost when it comes to that point. Let them talk. Premeditation undoubtedly gives a great advantage. And then, is it nothing to get at least that far without agitation and without fever? There is more: nature herself lends us a hand and gives us courage. If it is a short and violent death, we have no time to fear it. If it is otherwise, I notice that as I sink further into illness I naturally come to feel a certain disdain for life.
Ie trouue que i’ay bien plus affaire à digerer cette resolution de mourir, quand ie suis en santé, que ie n’ay quand ie suis en fiéure: d’autant que ie ne tiens plus si fort aux commoditez de la vie, à raison que ie commance à en perdre l’vsage et le plaisir, i’en voy la mort d’vne veuë beaucoup moins effrayee. Cela me faict esperer, que plus ie m’eslongneray de celle-là, et approcheray de cette-cy, plus aysément i’entreray en composition de leur eschange.
I find that I have much more trouble digesting this resolution to die when I am healthy than when I am feverish. Since I no longer cling so strongly to the comforts of life, as I begin to lose the use and pleasure of them, I look on death with far less frightened eyes. This makes me hope that the farther I move from the one and the nearer I come to the other, the more easily I shall come to terms over exchanging them.
Tout ainsi que i’ay essayé en plusieurs autres occurrences, ce que dit Cesar, que les choses nous paroissent souuent plus grandes de loing que de pres: i’ay trouué que sain i’auois eu les maladies beaucoup plus en horreur, que lors que ie les ay senties. L’alegresse où ie suis, le plaisir et la force, me font paroistre l’autre estat si disproportionné à celuy-là, que par imagination ie grossis ces incommoditez de la moitié, et les conçoy plus poisantes, que ie ne les trouue, quand ie les ay sur les espaules. I’espere qu’il m’en aduiendra ainsi de la mort.
I have tested on several other occasions what Caesar says, that things often look bigger to us from far off than close at hand; in the same way I have found that when healthy I dreaded illnesses much more than when I actually felt them. The cheerfulness I am in, my pleasure and my strength, make the other state seem so out of proportion to this one that in imagination I magnify those discomforts by half, and conceive them as heavier than I find them when I have them on my shoulders. I hope it will be the same for me with death.
Voyons à ces mutations et declinaisons ordinaires que nous souffrons, comme nature nous desrobe la veuë de nostre perte et empirement. Que reste-il à vn vieillard de la vigueur de sa ieunesse, et de sa vie passee? Heu senibus vitæ portio quanta manet! Cesar à vn soldat de sa garde recreu et cassé, qui vint en la ruë, luy demander congé de se faire mourir: regardant son maintien decrepite, respondit plaisamment: Tu penses donc estre en vie.
Let us see how, in the ordinary changes and declines we undergo, nature hides from us the sight of our loss and deterioration. What does an old man have left of the vigor of his youth and his past life? Alas, how small a portion of life remains to the old! When a soldier of Caesar’s guard, worn out and broken, came up to him in the street to ask leave to kill himself, Caesar looked at his decrepit appearance and answered with a joke: “So you think you are alive?”
Qui y tomberoit tout à vn coup, ie ne crois pas que nous fussions capables de porter vn tel changement: mais conduicts par sa main, d’vne douce pente et comme insensible, peu à peu, de degré en degré, elle nous roule dans ce miserable estat, et nous y appriuoise. Si que nous ne sentons aucune secousse, quand la ieunesse meurt en nous: qui est en essence et en verité, vne mort plus dure, que n’est la mort entiere d’vne vie languissante; et que n’est la mort de la vieillesse: d’autant que le sault n’est pas si lourd du mal estre au non estre, comme il est d’vn estre doux et fleurissant, à vn estre penible et douloureux.
If we fell into it all at once, I do not think we could bear such a change. But nature leads us by the hand down a gentle and almost imperceptible slope, little by little, step by step; she rolls us into this wretched state and makes us used to it. So we feel no jolt when youth dies in us—which in essence and in truth is a harder death than the complete death of a languishing life, or the death of old age. For the leap is not so heavy from ill-being to non-being as it is from a sweet and flourishing being to a painful and grievous one.
Le corps courbe et plié a moins de force à soustenir un fais, aussi a nostre ame. Il la faut dresser et esleuer contre l’effort de cet aduersaire. Car comme il est impossible, qu’elle se mette en repos pendant qu’elle le craint: si elle s’en asseure aussi, elle se peut vanter, qui est chose comme surpassant l’humaine condition, qu’il est impossible que l’inquietude, le tourment, et la peur, non le moindre desplaisir loge en elle. Non vultus instantis tyranni / Mente quatit solida, neque Auster / Dux inquieti turbidus Adriæ, / Nec fulminantis magna Iouis manus. Elle est renduë maistresse de ses passions et concupiscences; maistresse de l’indigence, de la honte, de la pauureté, et de toutes autres iniures de fortune.
A bent and stooping body has less strength to carry a load; so does our soul. We must straighten it and raise it up against the onslaught of this adversary. For just as it cannot be at rest while it fears death, so, if it can make itself secure against it, it can boast—something almost beyond the human condition—that it is impossible for anxiety, torment or fear, or even the slightest displeasure, to lodge in it. Not the face of a threatening tyrant / shakes his firm mind, nor the South Wind, / stormy lord of the restless Adriatic, / nor the mighty hand of thundering Jove. It becomes mistress of its passions and cravings; mistress of want, shame and poverty, and of all the other injuries of Fortune.
Gagnons cet aduantage qui pourra: c’est icy la vraye et souueraine liberté, qui nous donne dequoy faire la figue à la force, et à l’iniustice, et nous moquer des prisons et des fers. in manicis, et / Compedibus, sæuo te sub custode tenebo. / Ipse Deus simul atque volam, me soluet: opinor, / Hoc sentit, moriar: mors vltima linea rerum est. Nostre religion n’a point eu de plus asseuré fondement humain, que le mespris de la vie. Non seulement le discours de la raison nous y appelle; car pourquoy craindrions nous de perdre vne chose, laquelle perduë ne peut estre regrettée?
Let whoever can gain this advantage. Here is the true and sovereign freedom, which enables us to thumb our noses at force and injustice and to laugh at prisons and chains. “In handcuffs and / in shackles I will keep you, under a cruel jailer.” / “God himself will set me free the moment I wish.” I think / he means: “I will die.” Death is the final line of things. Our religion has had no surer human foundation than contempt for life. Not only does rational argument call us to it—for why should we fear to lose a thing which, once lost, cannot be regretted?—
mais aussi puis que nous sommes menacez de tant de façons de mort, n’y a il pas plus de mal à les craindre toutes, qu’à en soustenir vne? Que chaut-il, quand ce soit, puis qu’elle est ineuitable? A celuy qui disoit à Socrates; Les trente tyrans t’ont condamné à la mort: Et nature, eux, respondit-il. Quelle sottise, de nous peiner, sur le point du passage à l’exemption de toute peine? Comme nostre naissance nous apporta la naissance de toutes choses: aussi fera la mort de toutes choses, nostre mort. Parquoy c’est pareille folie de pleurer de ce que d’icy à cent ans nous ne viurons pas, que de pleurer de ce que nous ne viuions pas, il y a cent ans.
but also, since we are threatened by so many kinds of death, is there not more harm in fearing them all than in suffering one? What does it matter when it comes, since it is inevitable? To the man who told Socrates, “The Thirty Tyrants have condemned you to death,” he replied, “And nature has condemned them.” What foolishness to torment ourselves at the very moment of passing into freedom from all torment! As our birth brought us the birth of all things, so our death will bring the death of all things. Therefore it is as foolish to weep because a hundred years from now we shall not be alive as to weep because we were not alive a hundred years ago.
La mort est origine d’vne autre vie: ainsi pleurasmes nous, et ainsi nous cousta-il d’entrer en cette-cy: ainsi nous despouillasmes nous de nostre ancien voile, en y entrant. Rien ne peut estre grief, qui n’est qu’vne fois. Est-ce raison de craindre si long temps, chose de si brief temps? Le long temps viure, et le peu de temps viure est rendu tout vn par la mort. Car le long et le court n’est point aux choses qui ne sont plus. Aristote dit, qu’il y a des petites bestes sur la riuiere Hypanis, qui ne viuent qu’vn iour. Celle qui meurt à huict heures du matin, elle meurt en ieunesse: celle qui meurt à cinq heures du soir, meurt en sa decrepitude.
Death is the origin of another life. So we wept, so it cost us to enter this one; so we stripped off our former veil as we entered it. Nothing can be grievous that happens only once. Is it reasonable to fear for so long a thing that lasts so short a time? Living a long time and living a short time are made all one by death. For long and short do not apply to things that no longer exist. Aristotle says that there are little creatures on the river Hypanis that live only one day. The one that dies at eight in the morning dies in its youth; the one that dies at five in the evening dies in its decrepitude.
Qui de nous ne se mocque de voir mettre en consideration d’heur ou de malheur, ce moment de durée? Le plus et le moins en la nostre, si nous la comparons à l’eternité, ou encores à la duree des montaignes, des riuieres, des estoilles, des arbres, et mesmes d’aucuns animaux, n’est pas moins ridicule.
Which of us would not laugh to see this moment of duration weighed in terms of happiness or unhappiness? The more and the less in our own, if we compare it with eternity, or even with the duration of mountains, rivers, stars, trees and even some animals, is no less ridiculous.
Nature’s speech on death
Nature tells us that death is part of the order of the world and nothing to fear.
Mais nature nous y force. Sortez, dit-elle, de ce monde, comme vous y estes entrez. Le mesme passage que vous fistes de la mort à la vie, sans passion et sans frayeur, refaites le de la vie à la mort. Vostre mort est vne des pieces de l’ordre de l’vniuers, c’est vne piece de la vie du monde. inter se mortales mutua viuunt, / Et quasi cursores vitaï lampada tradunt. Changeray-ie pas pour vous cette belle contexture des choses? C’est la condition de vostre creation; c’est vne partie de vous que la mort: vous vous fuyez vous mesmes. Cettuy vostre estre, que vous iouyssez, est également party à la mort et à la vie.
But nature compels us to it. Go out of this world, she says, as you entered it. The same passage you made from death to life, without feeling and without fear, make it again from life to death. Your death is one of the parts of the order of the universe; it is a part of the life of the world. Mortals live by borrowing from one another, / and like runners they hand on the torch of life. Shall I change this fine fabric of things for your sake? It is the condition of your creation; death is a part of you; you are running away from yourselves. This being of yours that you enjoy is shared equally between death and life.
Le premier iour de vostre naissance vous achemine à mourir comme à viure. Prima, quæ vitam dedit, hora, carpsit. / Nascentes morimur, finisque ab origine pendet. Tout ce que vous viués, vous le desrobés à la vie: c’est à ses despens. Le continuel ouurage de vostre vie, c’est bastir la mort. Vous estes en la mort, pendant que vous estes en vie: car vous estes apres la mort, quand vous n’estes plus en vie. Ou, si vous l’aymez mieux ainsi, vous estes mort apres la vie: mais pendant la vie, vous estes mourant: et la mort touche bien plus rudement le mourant que le mort, et plus viuement et essentiellement.
The first day of your birth sets you on the road to dying as well as to living. The first hour that gave us life took it away. / As we are born we die, and the end hangs on the beginning. All the time you live, you steal from life; it is at life’s expense. The constant work of your life is to build death. You are in death while you are in life; for you are after death when you are no longer in life. Or, if you prefer it this way, you are dead after life; but during life you are dying; and death touches the dying much more roughly than the dead, and more keenly and essentially.
Si vous auez faict vostre proufit de la vie, vous en estes repeu, allez vous en satisfaict. Cur non vt plenus vitæ conuiua recedis? Si vous n’en auez sçeu vser, si elle vous estoit inutile, que vous chaut-il de l’auoir perduë? à quoy faire la voulez vous encores? cur amplius addere quæris / Rursum quod pereat malè, et ingratum occidat omne? La vie n’est de soy ny bien ny mal: c’est la place du bien et du mal, selon que vous la leur faictes. Et si vous auez vescu vn iour, vous auez tout veu: vn iour est égal à tous iours. Il n’y a point d’autre lumiere, ny d’autre nuict.
If you have made good use of life, you have had your fill of it; go away satisfied. Why not leave like a guest who has had his fill of life? If you have not known how to use it, if it was useless to you, what does it matter to you that you have lost it? What do you still want it for? Why seek to add more, / Only to lose it badly again and have it all perish without profit? Life in itself is neither good nor evil: it is the place of good and evil, depending on the room you make for them. And if you have lived one day, you have seen everything: one day is equal to all days. There is no other light, and no other night.
Ce Soleil, cette Lune, ces Estoilles, cette disposition, c’est celle mesme que vos ayeuls ont iouye, et qui entretiendra vos arriere-nepueux. Non alium videre patres: aliumve nepotes / Aspicient. Et au pis aller, la distribution et varieté de tous les actes de ma comedie, se parfournit en vn an. Si vous auez pris garde au branle de mes quatre saisons, elles embrassent l’enfance, l’adolescence, la virilité, et la vieillesse du monde. Il a ioüé son ieu: il n’y sçait autre finesse, que de recommencer; ce sera tousiours cela mesme. versamur ibidem, atque insumus vsque, / Atque in se sua per vestigia voluitur annus. Ie ne suis pas deliberée de vous forger autres nouueaux passetemps.
This sun, this moon, these stars, this order of things, are the very same that your forefathers enjoyed and that will sustain your great-great-grandchildren. Your fathers saw no other, nor will your grandsons / Behold any other. And at worst, the distribution and variety of all the acts of my comedy is completed in a single year. If you have paid attention to the round of my four seasons, they take in the childhood, youth, manhood and old age of the world. It has played its game; it knows no other trick than to begin again; it will always be the very same thing. We turn in the same place and stay there forever, / And the year rolls back upon itself along its own tracks. I have no intention of devising other, new pastimes for you.
Nam tibi præterea quod machiner, inueniámque / Quod placeat, nihil est, eadem sunt omnia semper. Faictes place aux autres, comme d’autres vous l’ont faite. L’equalité est la premiere piece de l’equité. Qui se peut plaindre d’estre comprins où tous sont comprins? Aussi auez vous beau viure, vous n’en rabattrez rien du temps que vous auez à estre mort: c’est pour neant; aussi long temps serez vous en cet estat là, que vous craingnez, comme si vous estiez mort en nourrisse: licet, quod vis, viuendo vincere secla, / Mors æterna tamen, nihilominus illa manebit.
For there is nothing more I can contrive or invent / To please you: all things are always the same. Make room for others, as others have made room for you. Equality is the first part of equity. Who can complain of being included where all are included? Besides, live as long as you like, you will not shave anything off the time you have to be dead. It is no use: you will remain just as long in that state you fear as if you had died in your nurse’s arms. Though you may outlive as many generations as you please, / That eternal death will still be waiting for you all the same.
Et si vous mettray en tel point, auquel vous n’aurez aucun mescontentement. In vera nescis nullum fore morte alium te, / Qui possit viuus tibi te lugere peremptum, / Stánsque iacentem. Ny ne desirerez la vie que vous plaignez tant. Nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitámque requirit, / Nec desiderium nostri nos afficit vllum.
And besides, I will put you in such a state that you will feel no discontent. Do you not know that in real death there will be no other you / Still alive to mourn you dead, / Standing over you as you lie? Nor will you long for the life you lament so much. For then no one misses himself or his life, / And no longing for ourselves troubles us at all.
La mort est moins à craindre que rien, s’il y auoit quelque chose de moins, que rien. multo mortem minus ad nos esse putandum, / Si minus esse potest quàm quod nihil esse videmus. Elle ne vous concerne ny mort ny vif. Vif, par ce que vous estes: mort, par ce que vous n’estes plus. D’auantage nul ne meurt auant son heure. Ce que vous laissez de temps, n’estoit non plus vostre, que celuy qui s’est passé auant vostre naissance: et ne vous touche non plus. Respice enim quàm nil ad nos antè acta vetustas / Temporis æterni fuerit.
Death is less to be feared than nothing, if there were anything less than nothing. We must think death much less to us than nothing, / If there can be anything less than what we see to be nothing. It does not concern you either dead or alive: alive, because you are; dead, because you no longer are. Moreover, no one dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours than the time that passed before your birth, and it concerns you no more. Look back and see how the ages of eternal time gone by before us / Were nothing to us.
Où que vostre vie finisse, elle y est toute. L’vtilité du viure n’est pas en l’espace: elle est en l’vsage. Tel a vescu long temps, qui a peu vescu. Attendez vous y pendant que vous y estes. Il gist en vostre volonté, non au nombre des ans, que vous ayez assez vescu. Pensiez vous iamais n’arriuer là, où vous alliez sans cesse? encore n’y a-il chemin qui n’aye son issuë. Et si la compagnie vous peut soulager, le monde ne va-il pas mesme train que vous allez? omnia te vita perfuncta sequentur.
Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The usefulness of living lies not in its length but in its use. Many a man has lived long who has lived little. Give it your attention while you are in it. Whether you have lived enough depends on your will, not on the number of your years. Did you think you would never arrive where you were constantly heading? Yet there is no road that does not come to an end. And if company can comfort you, is not the world going the same way you are? All things, when your life is done, will follow you.
Tout ne branle-il pas vostre branle? y a-il chose qui ne vieillisse quant et vous? Mille hommes, mille animaux et mille autres creatures meurent en ce mesme instant que vous mourez. Nam nox nulla diem, neque noctem aurora sequuta est, / Quæ non audierit mistos vagitibus ægris / Ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri.
Does not everything move with your movement? Is there anything that does not grow old along with you? A thousand men, a thousand animals and a thousand other creatures die at the very moment you die. For no night has followed day, nor dawn followed night, / Without hearing, mingled with the sickly wailing of newborn infants, / The laments that attend death and gloomy funerals.
A quoy faire y reculez vous, si vous ne pouuez tirer arriere? Vous en auez assez veu qui se sont bien trouués de mourir, escheuant par là des grandes miseres. Mais quelqu’vn qui s’en soit mal trouué, en auez vous veu? Si est-ce grande simplesse, de condamner chose que vous n’auez esprouuée ny par vous ny par autre. Pourquoy te pleins-tu de moy et de la destinée? Te faisons nous tort? Est-ce à toy de nous gouuerner, ou à nous toy? Encore que ton aage ne soit pas acheué, ta vie l’est. Vn petit homme est homme entier comme vn grand. Ny les hommes ny leurs vies ne se mesurent à l’aune.
Why do you recoil from it, if you cannot draw back? You have seen plenty of people who were the better for dying, escaping great miseries by it. But have you ever seen anyone who was the worse for it? It is very simple-minded to condemn a thing you have never experienced, either yourself or through someone else. Why do you complain of me and of destiny? Do we wrong you? Is it for you to govern us, or for us to govern you? Though your age may not be complete, your life is. A small man is a whole man just as much as a tall one. Neither men nor their lives are measured by the yard.
Chiron refusa l’immortalité, informé des conditions d’icelle, par le Dieu mesme du temps, et de la durée, Saturne son pere. Imaginez de vray, combien seroit vne vie perdurable, moins supportable à l’homme, et plus penible, que n’est la vie que ie luy ay donnée. Si vous n’auiez la mort, vous me maudiriez sans cesse de vous en auoir priué.
Chiron refused immortality when he was told its conditions by the very god of time and duration, Saturn, his father. Just imagine how much less bearable to man, and how much more painful, an everlasting life would be than the life I have given him. If you did not have death, you would curse me endlessly for having deprived you of it.
I’y ay à escient meslé quelque peu d’amertume, pour vous empescher, voyant la commodité de son vsage, de l’embrasser trop auidement et indiscretement. Pour vous loger en cette moderation, ny de fuir la vie, ny de refuir à la mort, que ie demande de vous; i’ay temperé l’vne et l’autre entre la douceur et l’aigreur.
I have deliberately mixed a little bitterness into it, to keep you, when you see how convenient it is to use, from embracing it too greedily and rashly. To settle you in the moderation I ask of you—neither to flee life nor to run away from death—I have tempered both of them between sweetness and sourness.
I’apprins à Thales le premier de voz sages, que le viure et le mourir estoit indifferent: par où, à celuy qui luy demanda, pourquoy donc il ne mouroit, il respondit tressagement, Pour ce qu’il est indifferent. L’eau, la terre, l’air et le feu, et autres membres de ce mien bastiment, ne sont non plus instruments de ta vie, qu’instruments de ta mort. Pourquoy crains-tu ton dernier iour? Il ne confere non plus à ta mort que chascun des autres. Le dernier pas ne faict pas la lassitude: il la declaire. Tous les iours vont à la mort: le dernier y arriue. Voila les bons aduertissemens de nostre mere Nature.
I taught Thales, the first of your sages, that living and dying were all one; and so, when someone asked him why, then, he did not die, he answered very wisely: “Because it is all one.” Water, earth, air and fire, and the other parts of this building of mine, are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the weariness; it reveals it. Every day travels toward death; the last one arrives. Such are the good counsels of our mother Nature.
Taking off death’s mask
The trappings around a deathbed frighten us more than death itself.
Or i’ay pensé souuent d’où venoit cela, qu’aux guerres le visage de la mort, soit que nous la voyons en nous ou en autruy, nous semble sans comparaison moins effroyable qu’en nos maisons: autrement ce seroit vne armée de medecins et de pleurars: et elle estant tousiours vne, qu’il y ait toutes-fois beaucoup plus d’asseurance parmy les gens de village et de basse condition qu’és autres.
Now I have often wondered why it is that in war the face of death, whether we see it in ourselves or in others, seems to us incomparably less terrifying than in our homes—otherwise an army would be made up of doctors and weepers; and why, death being always the same, there is nevertheless far more composure among village folk and people of low condition than among others.
Ie croy à la verité que ce sont ces mines et appareils effroyables, dequoy nous l’entournons, qui nous font plus de peur qu’elle: vne toute nouuelle forme de viure: les cris des meres, des femmes, et des enfans: la visitation de personnes estonnees, et transies: l’assistance d’vn nombre de valets pasles et éplorés: vne chambre sans iour: des cierges allumez: nostre cheuet assiegé de medecins et de prescheurs: somme tout horreur et tout effroy autour de nous. Nous voyla des-ia enseuelis et enterrez. Les enfans ont peur de leurs amis mesmes quand ils les voyent masquez; aussi auons nous. Il faut oster le masque aussi bien des choses, que des personnes.
I truly believe it is those terrifying looks and trappings with which we surround it that frighten us more than death itself: an entirely new way of living; the cries of mothers, wives and children; visits from people dazed and numb with shock; the presence of a crowd of pale, tearful servants; a room without daylight; lighted candles; our bedside besieged by doctors and preachers; in short, nothing but horror and dread all around us. There we are, already shrouded and buried. Children are afraid even of their friends when they see them masked; so are we. We must strip the mask from things as well as from people.
Osté qu’il sera, nous ne trouuerons au dessoubs, que cette mesme mort, qu’vn valet ou simple chambriere passerent dernierement sans peur. Heureuse la mort qui oste le loisir aux apprests de tel equipage!
Once it is off, we shall find underneath only that same death which a valet or a mere chambermaid went through not long ago without fear. Happy the death that leaves no leisure for preparing such a pageant!