IE me suis souuent despité en mon enfance, de voir és comedies Italiennes, tousiours vn pedante pour badin, et le surnom de magister, n’auoir guere plus honorable signification parmi nous. Car leur estant donné en gouuernement, que pouuois-ie moins faire que d’estre ialoux de leur reputation? Ie cherchois bien de les excuser par la disconuenance naturelle qu’il y a entre le vulgaire, et les personnes rares et excellentes en iugement, et en sçauoir: d’autant qu’ils vont vn train entierement contraire les vns des autres.
In my childhood I was often vexed to see the pedant always cast as the clown in Italian comedies, and the title “magister” hardly more honorable among us. For since I had been put in the charge of such men, what less could I do than be jealous of their reputation? I did try to excuse them by the natural incompatibility between ordinary people and persons rare and excellent in judgment and learning, since the two go entirely opposite ways.
Mais en cecy perdois-ie mon latin: que les plus galans hommes c’estoient ceux qui les auoyent le plus à mespris, tesmoing nostre bon du Bellay: Mais ie hay par sur tout vn sçauoir pedantesque. Et est cette coustume ancienne: car Plutarque dit que Grec et Escolier, estoient mots de reproche entre les Romains, et de mespris. Depuis auec l’aage i’ay trouué qu’on auoit vne grandissime raison, et que magis magnos clericos non sunt magis magnos sapientes.
But here my Latin failed me: the finest gentlemen were the very ones who held them most in contempt. Witness our good du Bellay: But above all I hate pedantic learning. And this custom is ancient, for Plutarch says that “Greek” and “scholar” were words of reproach and contempt among the Romans. Since then, with age, I have found that people had very good reason, and that the most great clerks are not the most great wise men.
Mais d’où il puisse aduenir qu’vne ame riche de la cognoissance de tant de choses, n’en deuienne pas plus viue, et plus esueillée; et qu’vn esprit grossier et vulgaire puisse loger en soy, sans s’amender, les discours et les iugemens des plus excellens esprits, que le monde ait porté, i’en suis encore en doute. A receuoir tant de ceruelles estrangeres, et si fortes, et si grandes, il est necessaire, me disoit vne fille, la premiere de nos Princesses, parlant de quelqu’vn, que la sienne se foule, se contraigne et rappetisse, pour faire place aux autres.
But how it can happen that a soul rich in the knowledge of so many things does not become livelier and more awake for it, and that a coarse and common mind can lodge within itself, without being improved, the reasonings and judgments of the most excellent minds the world has produced, I am still in doubt. “To take in so many other people’s brains, so strong and so great,” a young lady, the first of our princesses, once said to me of someone, “his own must be crushed, cramped and shrunk to make room for the others.”
Ie dirois volontiers, que comme les plantes s’estouffent de trop d’humeur, et les lampes de trop d’huile, aussi faict l’action de l’esprit par trop d’estude et de matiere: lequel occupé et embarassé d’vne grande diuersité de choses, perde le moyen de se demesler. Et que cette charge le tienne courbe et croupy. Mais il en va autrement; car nostre ame s’eslargit d’autant plus qu’elle se remplit. Et aux exemples des vieux temps, il se voit tout au rebours, des suffisans hommes aux maniemens des choses publiques, des grands Capitaines, et grands conseillers aux affaires d’Estat, auoir esté ensemble tressçauans.
I would readily say that just as plants are stifled by too much moisture and lamps by too much oil, so is the action of the mind by too much study and matter. Occupied and encumbered with a great diversity of things, it would lose the means of disentangling itself, and this load would keep it bent and stooping. But it is otherwise, for our soul expands the more it is filled. And in the examples of olden times we see quite the reverse: men capable in the handling of public affairs, great captains and great counselors in affairs of state, were at the same time very learned.
Et quant aux Philosophes retirez de toute occupation publique, ils ont esté aussi quelque fois à la verité mesprisez, par la liberté Comique de leur temps, leurs opinions et façons les rendans ridicules. Les voulez vous faire iuges des droits d’vn procés, des actions d’vn homme? Ils en sont bien prests! Ils cerchent encore s’il y a vie, s’il y a mouuement, si l’homme est autre chose qu’vn bœuf: que c’est qu’agir et souffrir, quelles bestes ce sont, que loix et iustice. Parlent-ils du magistrat, ou parlent-ils à luy? c’est d’vne liberté irreuerente et inciuile. Oyent-ils louer vn Prince ou vn Roy? c’est vn pastre pour eux, oisif comme vn pastre, occupé à pressurer et tondre ses bestes: mais bien plus rudement.
As for the philosophers who withdrew from all public occupation, it is true that they too were sometimes scorned by the comic license of their time, their opinions and ways making them ridiculous. Would you make them judges of the rights of a lawsuit, or of a man’s actions? They are just the men for it! They are still inquiring whether there is life, whether there is motion, whether man is anything other than an ox; what acting and suffering are; what sort of beasts law and justice are. Do they speak of the magistrate, or to him? It is with an irreverent and uncivil freedom. Do they hear a prince or a king praised? To them he is a shepherd, idle as a shepherd, busy squeezing and shearing his flock, only far more roughly.
En estimez vous quelqu’vn plus grand, pour posseder deux mille arpents de terre? eux s’en moquent, accoustumés d’embrasser tout le monde, comme leur possession. Vous ventez vous de vostre noblesse, pour compter sept ayeulx riches? ils vous estiment de peu, ne conceuant l’image vniuerselle de nature, et combien chascun de nous a eu de predecesseurs, riches, pauures, Roys, valets, Grecs, Barbares. Et quand vous seriez cinquantiesme descendant de Hercules, ils vous trouuent vain, de faire valoir ce present de la fortune. Ainsi les desdeignoit le vulgaire, comme ignorants les premieres choses et communes, et comme presomptueux et insolents.
Do you think a man greater for owning two thousand acres of land? They laugh at it, used as they are to embracing the whole world as their possession. Do you boast of your nobility because you can count seven rich ancestors? They think little of you, for not grasping the universal picture of nature, and how many forebears each of us has had: rich, poor, kings, servants, Greeks, barbarians. And were you the fiftieth descendant of Hercules, they would think you vain for making much of this gift of Fortune. So the common people disdained them, as ignorant of the first and most ordinary things, and as presumptuous and insolent.
Mais cette peinture Platonique est bien esloignée de celle qu’il faut à noz hommes. On enuioit ceux-là comme estans au dessus de la commune façon, comme mesprisans les actions publiques, comme ayans dressé vne vie particuliere et inimitable, reglée à certains discours hautains et hors d’vsage: ceux-cy on les desdeigne, comme estans au dessoubs de la commune façon, comme incapables des charges publiques, comme trainans vne vie et des meurs basses et viles apres le vulgaire. Odi homines ignaua opera, Philosopha sententia.
But this Platonic portrait is far removed from the one that fits our men. Those philosophers were envied as being above the common way, as despising public actions, as having set up a private and inimitable life, ruled by certain lofty and unusual principles. These men of ours are disdained as being beneath the common way, as incapable of public office, as dragging out a low and vile life and low and vile habits in the wake of the common people. I hate men who are idle in deed and philosophical in speech.
Quant à ces Philosophes, dis-ie, comme ils estoient grands en science, ils estoient encore plus grands en toute action. Et tout ainsi qu’on dit de ce Geometrien de Syracuse, lequel ayant esté destourné de sa contemplation, pour en mettre quelque chose en pratique, à la deffence de son païs, qu’il mit soudain en train des engins espouuentables, et des effects surpassans toute creance humaine; desdaignant toutefois luy mesme toute cette sienne manufacture, et pensant en cela auoir corrompu la dignité de son art, de laquelle ses ouurages n’estoient que l’apprentissage et le iouet.
As for those philosophers, I say, great as they were in learning, they were still greater in every kind of action. They say of that geometer of Syracuse that, when he was diverted from his contemplation to put some of it into practice in the defense of his country, he at once set going terrifying engines and effects surpassing all human belief. Yet he himself disdained all this handiwork of his, thinking that he had thereby debased the dignity of his art, of which these works were only the apprenticeship and the plaything.
Aussi eux, si quelquefois on les a mis à la preuue de l’action, on les a veu voler d’vne aisle si haulte, qu’il paroissoit bien, leur cœur et leur ame s’estre merueilleusement grossie et enrichie par l’intelligence des choses. Mais aucuns voyants la place du gouuernement politique saisie par hommes incapables, s’en sont reculés. Et celuy qui demanda à Crates, iusques à quand il faudroit philosopher, en receut cette responce: Iusques à tant que ce ne soient plus des asniers, qui conduisent noz armées. Heraclitus resigna la Royauté à son frere. Et aux Ephesiens, qui luy reprochoient, qu’il passoit son temps à ioüer auec les enfans deuant le temple: Vaut-il pas mieux faire cecy, que gouuerner les affaires en vostre compagnie?
So too with them: whenever they were put to the test of action, they were seen to fly on so lofty a wing that it was plain their hearts and souls had been wonderfully enlarged and enriched by the understanding of things. But some, seeing the seat of political government seized by incapable men, drew back from it. The man who asked Crates how long one must go on philosophizing received this answer: “Until it is no longer donkey drivers who lead our armies.” Heraclitus resigned the kingship to his brother. And to the Ephesians, who reproached him for spending his time playing with the children in front of the temple, he said: “Is it not better to do this than to govern affairs in your company?”
D’autres ayans leur imagination logée au dessus de la fortune et du monde, trouuerent les sieges de la iustice, et les thrones mesmes des Roys, bas et viles. Et refusa Empedocles la royauté, que les Agrigentins luy offrirent. Thales accusant quelquefois le soing du mesnage et de s’enrichir, on luy reprocha que c’estoit à la mode du renard, pour n’y pouuoir aduenir. Il luy print enuie par passe-temps d’en montrer l’experience, et ayant pour ce coup raualé son sçauoir au seruice du proffit et du gain, dressa vne trafique, qui dans vn an rapporta telles richesses, qu’à peine en toute leur vie, les plus experimentez de ce mestier là, en pouuoient faire de pareilles.
Others, with their imagination lodged above Fortune and the world, found the seats of justice, and even the thrones of kings, low and vile. And Empedocles refused the kingship that the people of Agrigentum offered him. When Thales once criticized the concern with household management and getting rich, he was reproached with doing it like the fox, because he could not manage it himself. He took a fancy, as a pastime, to show the contrary by experiment. Lowering his knowledge for once to the service of profit and gain, he set up a business that in one year brought in such riches that the most experienced in that trade could hardly have made as much in their whole lives.
Ce qu’Aristote recite d’aucuns, qui appelloyent et celuy là et Anaxagoras, et leurs semblables, sages et non prudents, pour n’auoir assez de soin des choses plus vtiles: outre ce que ie ne digere pas bien cette difference de mots, cela ne sert point d’excuse à mes gents, et à voir la basse et necessiteuse fortune, dequoy ils se payent, nous aurions plustost occasion de prononcer tous les deux, qu’ils sont, et non sages, et non prudents.
Aristotle reports that some people called both Thales and Anaxagoras, and others like them, wise but not prudent, for not caring enough about the more useful things. Besides the fact that I do not quite digest this distinction between words, it is no excuse for the men I am speaking of. Seeing the low and needy fortune they are content with, we would rather have reason to declare both: that they are neither wise nor prudent.
Learning without judgment
Schools fill the memory and leave understanding empty; pedants make their pupils worse.
Ie quitte cette premiere raison, et croy qu’il vaut mieux dire, que ce mal vienne de leur mauuaise façon de se prendre aux sciences: et qu’à la mode dequoy nous sommes instruicts, il n’est pas merueille, si ny les escoliers, ny les maistres n’en deuiennent pas plus habiles, quoy qu’ils s’y facent plus doctes. De vray le soing et la despence de nos peres, ne vise qu’à nous meubler la teste de science: du iugement et de la vertu, peu de nouuelles. Criez d’vn passant à nostre peuple: O le sçauant homme! Et d’vn autre, O le bon homme! Il ne faudra pas à destourner les yeux et son respect vers le premier. Il y faudroit vn tiers crieur: O les lourdes testes!
I give up this first reason, and I think it better to say that this evil comes from their bad way of going about the sciences. Given the way we are taught, it is no wonder if neither pupils nor masters become any more able, though they do become more learned. Indeed, all the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge; of judgment and virtue, very little news. Cry out to our people about one passerby, “Oh, what a learned man!” and about another, “Oh, what a good man!” They will not fail to turn their eyes and their respect toward the first. There ought to be a third crier: “Oh, what blockheads!”
Nous nous enquerons volontiers, Sçait-il du Grec ou du Latin? escrit-il en vers ou en prose? mais, s’il est deuenu meilleur ou plus aduisé, c’estoit le principal, et c’est ce qui demeure derriere. Il falloit s’enquerir qui est mieux sçauant, non qui est plus sçauant.
We readily ask, “Does he know Greek or Latin? Does he write in verse or in prose?” But whether he has become better or wiser, which was the main thing, is what gets left behind. We ought to have asked who is better learned, not who is more learned.
Nous ne trauaillons qu’à remplir la memoire, et laissons l’entendement et la conscience vuide. Tout ainsi que les oyseaux vont quelquefois à la queste du grain, et le portent au bec sans le taster, pour en faire bechée à leurs petits: ainsi nos pedantes vont pillotans la science dans les liures, et ne la logent qu’au bout de leurs léures, pour la dégorger seulement, et mettre au vent. C’est merueille combien proprement la sottise se loge sur mon exemple. Est-ce pas faire de mesme, ce que ie fay en la plus part de cette composition?
We work only to fill the memory, and leave the understanding and the conscience empty. Birds sometimes go in search of grain and carry it in their beaks without tasting it, to feed it to their young. In just the same way our pedants go pilfering knowledge from books and lodge it only on the tips of their lips, merely to spit it out again and scatter it to the wind. It is remarkable how neatly this folly fits my own case. Is not what I am doing in most of this book the very same thing?
Ie m’en vay escornifflant par-cy par-là, des liures, les sentences qui me plaisent; non pour les garder, car ie n’ay point de gardoire, mais pour les transporter en cettuy-cy; où, à vray dire, elles ne sont non plus miennes, qu’en leur premiere place. Nous ne sommes, ce croy-ie, sçauants, que de la science presente: non de la passée, aussi peu que de la future. Mais qui pis est, leurs escoliers et leurs petits ne s’en nourrissent et alimentent non plus, ains elle passe de main en main, pour cette seule fin, d’en faire parade, d’en entretenir autruy, et d’en faire des comptes, comme vne vaine monnoye inutile à tout autre vsage et emploite, qu’à compter et ietter. *Apud alios loqui didicerunt, non ipsi secum.
I go about cadging from books, here and there, the sayings that please me. I do not do it to keep them, for I have no storehouse, but to carry them over into this book, where, to tell the truth, they are no more mine than they were in their first place. We are learned, I believe, only in present knowledge, not in past knowledge, any more than in future. But what is worse, their pupils and their little ones do not feed or nourish themselves on it either. Instead it passes from hand to hand for this sole purpose: to make a show of it, to entertain others with it, and to tell tales with it, like a worthless coin of no other use or employment than counting and casting accounts. *They have learned to speak with others, not with themselves.
Non est loquendum, sed gubernandum. Nature, pour montrer qu’il n’y a rien de sauuage en ce qu’elle conduit, faict naistre souuent és nations moins cultiuées par art, des productions d’esprit, qui luittent les plus artistes productions. Comme sur mon propos, le prouerbe Gascon tiré d’vne chalemie, est-il delicat, Bouha prou bouha, mas à remuda lous dits qu’em*. Souffler prou souffler, mais à remuer les doits, nous en sommes là. Nous sçauons dire, Cicero dit ainsi, voila les meurs de Platon, ce sont les mots mesmes d’Aristote: mais nous que disons nous nous mesmes? que faisons nous? que iugeons nous? Autant en diroit bien vn perroquet.
What matters is not speaking but steering. Nature, to show that there is nothing uncouth in what she guides, often brings forth, in nations less cultivated by art, productions of the mind that rival the most artful ones. Apropos of my subject, how delicate is the Gascon proverb drawn from a reed pipe: Bouha prou bouha, mas à remuda lous dits qu’em*: “Blow away, blow all you like, but when it comes to moving the fingers, there we are stuck.” We know how to say, “Cicero says this,” “These are Plato’s morals,” “These are the very words of Aristotle.” But what do we ourselves say? What do we do? What do we judge? A parrot could say as much.
Cette façon me faict souuenir de ce riche Romain, qui auoit esté soigneux à fort grande despence, de recouurer des hommes suffisans en tout genre de science, qu’il tenoit continuellement autour de luy, affin que quand il escheoit entre ses amis, quelque occasion de parler d’vne chose ou d’autre, ils suppleassent en sa place, et fussent tous prests à luy fournir, qui d’vn discours, qui d’vn vers d’Homere, chacun selon son gibier: et pensoit ce sçauoir estre sien, par ce qu’il estoit en la teste de ses gens. Et comme font aussi ceux, desquels la suffisance loge en leurs somptueuses librairies.
This way of doing things reminds me of that rich Roman who had taken care, at very great expense, to procure men capable in every kind of learning. He kept them continually around him, so that whenever an occasion arose among his friends to speak of one thing or another, they might fill in for him and be all ready to supply him, one with a speech, another with a line of Homer, each in his own field. And he thought this knowledge was his because it was in the heads of his people. So too do those whose ability resides in their sumptuous libraries.
I’en cognoy, à qui quand ie demande ce qu’il sçait, il me demande vn liure pour le montrer: et n’oseroit me dire, qu’il a le derriere galeux, s’il ne va sur le champ estudier en son lexicon que c’est que galeux, et que c’est que derriere.
I know one man who, when I ask him what he knows, asks me for a book so that he can show me. He would not dare tell me that he has a mangy backside without going at once to look up in his lexicon what “mangy” is and what “backside” is.
Nous prenons en garde les opinions et le sçauoir d’autruy, et puis c’est tout: il les faut faire nostres. Nous semblons proprement celuy, qui ayant besoing de feu, en iroit querir chez son voisin, et y en ayant trouué vn beau et grand, s’arresteroit là à se chauffer, sans plus se souuenir d’en raporter chez soy. Que nous sert-il d’auoir la panse pleine de viande, si elle ne se digere, si elle ne se transforme en nous? si elle ne nous augmente et fortifie? Pensons nous que Lucullus, que les lettres rendirent et formerent si grand capitaine sans experience, les eust prises à nostre mode? Nous nous laissons si fort aller sur les bras d’autruy, que nous aneantissons nos forces.
We take the opinions and knowledge of others into our keeping, and that is all. We must make them our own. We are just like the man who, needing fire, went to fetch some from his neighbor’s, found a fine big one there, and stayed there warming himself, without remembering to bring any back home. What good does it do us to have our bellies full of food if it is not digested, if it is not transformed into us, if it does not make us bigger and stronger? Do we think that Lucullus, whom letters shaped into so great a captain without experience, took them in our way? We lean so heavily on others’ arms that we destroy our own strength.
Me veux-ie armer contre la crainte de la mort? c’est aux despens de Seneca. Veux-ie tirer de la consolation pour moy, ou pour vn autre? ie l’emprunte de Cicero: ie l’eusse prise en moy-mesme, si on m’y eust exercé. Ie n’ayme point cette suffisance relatiue et mendiée. Quand bien nous pourrions estre sçauans du sçauoir d’autruy, au moins sages ne pouuons nous estre que de nostre propre sagesse. μισω σοφιστην, ὁστις ουχ αυτω σοφος. Ex quo Ennius: Nequidquam sapere sapientem, qui ipse sibi prodesse non quiret. si cupidus, si / Vanus, et Euganea quantumuis vilior agna. Non enim paranda nobis solum, sed fruenda sapientia est.
Do I want to arm myself against the fear of death? I do it at Seneca’s expense. Do I want to draw consolation for myself or for another? I borrow it from Cicero. I would have drawn it from myself if I had been trained to. I do not like this borrowed, begged ability. Even if we could be learned with another’s learning, at least we can be wise only with our own wisdom. I hate the wise man who is not wise for himself. Hence Ennius: Vain is the wisdom of the wise man who cannot profit himself. If he is greedy, if / vain, and more worthless than any Euganean lamb. For wisdom is not only to be acquired but to be enjoyed.
Dionysius se moquoit des Grammariens, qui ont soin de s’enquerir des maux d’Vlysses, et ignorent les propres: des musiciens, qui accordent leurs fleutes, et n’accordent pas leurs mœurs: des orateurs qui estudient à dire iustice, non à la faire. Si nostre ame n’en va vn meilleur bransle, si nous n’en auons le iugement plus sain, i’aymerois aussi cher que mon escolier eut passé le temps à ioüer à la paume, au moins le corps en seroit plus allegre. Voyez le reuenir de là, apres quinze ou seize ans employez, il n’est rien si mal propre à mettre en besongne, tout ce que vous y recognoissez d’auantage, c’est que son Latin et son Grec l’ont rendu plus sot et presumptueux qu’il n’estoit party de la maison.
Dionysius mocked the grammarians who take care to inquire into the ills of Ulysses and know nothing of their own; the musicians who tune their flutes and do not tune their morals; the orators who study how to speak of justice, not how to do it. If our soul does not move better for it, if our judgment is not made sounder by it, I would just as soon my pupil had spent the time playing tennis; at least his body would be the nimbler for it. Look at him coming back from school after fifteen or sixteen years spent there: nothing is so unfit to be put to work. All the difference you can see in him is that his Latin and his Greek have made him more foolish and presumptuous than when he left home.
Il en deuoit rapporter l’ame pleine, il ne l’en rapporte que bouffie: et l’a seulement enflée, en lieu de la grossir.
He ought to have brought his soul back full; he brings it back only bloated. He has merely puffed it up instead of enlarging it.
Ces maistres icy, comme Platon dit des Sophistes, leurs germains, sont de tous les hommes, ceux qui promettent d’estre les plus vtiles aux hommes, et seuls entre tous les hommes, qui non seulement n’amendent point ce qu’on leur commet, comme faict vn charpentier et vn masson: mais l’empirent, et se font payer de l’auoir empiré. Si la loy que Protagoras proposoit à ses disciples, estoit suiuie: ou qu’ils le payassent selon son mot, ou qu’ils iurassent au temple, combien ils estimoient le profit qu’ils auoient receu de sa discipline, et selon iceluy satisfissent sa peine: mes pedagogues se trouueroient chouez, s’estans remis au serment de mon experience.
These masters, as Plato says of the Sophists, their first cousins, are of all men the ones who promise to be most useful to men. Yet they alone of all men not only fail to improve what is entrusted to them, as a carpenter or a mason does, but make it worse, and get paid for having made it worse. Protagoras proposed this rule to his pupils: either they paid him his price, or they swore in the temple how much they valued the profit they had received from his teaching, and paid him for his trouble accordingly. If that rule were followed, my pedagogues would find themselves left high and dry, if they relied on the oath of my experience.
Mon vulgaire Perigordin appelle fort plaisamment Lettre ferits, ces sçauanteaux, comme si vous disiez Lettre-ferus, ausquels les lettres ont donné vn coup de marteau, comme on dit. De vray le plus souuent ils semblent estre raualez, mesmes du sens commun. Car le païsant et le cordonnier vous leur voyez aller simplement et naïuement leur train, parlant de ce qu’ils sçauent: ceux-cy pour se vouloir esleuer et gendarmer de ce sçauoir, qui nage en la superficie de leur ceruelle, vont s’embarrassant, et empetrant sans cesse.
My Périgord common folk very amusingly call these smatterers Lettre ferits, as you might say “letter-struck”: men whom letters have hit with a hammer, as the saying goes. Truly, most of the time they seem to have sunk below even common sense. For the peasant and the shoemaker, you see them going about their business simply and naturally, speaking of what they know. These men, wanting to raise themselves up and swagger with this knowledge that floats on the surface of their brains, keep getting themselves tangled up and bogged down.
Il leur eschappe de belles parolles, mais qu’vn autre les accommode: ils cognoissent bien Galien, mais nullement le malade: ils vous ont des-ia rempli la teste de loix, et si n’ont encore conçeu le neud de la cause: ils sçauent la Theorique de toutes choses, cherchez qui la mette en practique
Fine words escape them, but let someone else put them to use. They know Galen well, but not the patient at all. They have already filled your head with laws, and yet they have not grasped the crux of the case. They know the theory of everything; go and find someone to put it into practice.
I’ay veu chez moy vn mien amy, par maniere de passetemps, ayant affaire à vn de ceux-cy, contrefaire vn iargon de Galimatias, propos sans suitte, tissu de pieces rapportées, sauf qu’il estoit souuent entrelardé de mots propres à leur dispute, amuser ainsi tout vn iour ce sot à debattre, pensant tousiours respondre aux obiections qu’on luy faisoit. Et si estoit homme de lettres et de reputation, et qui auoit vne belle robbe.
I once saw a friend of mine at my house, by way of pastime, deal with one of these men by putting on a gibberish jargon: talk with no thread to it, a fabric of patched-together pieces, except that it was often larded with terms proper to their disputes. In this way he kept the fool amused and arguing for a whole day, the man always thinking he was answering the objections put to him. And yet he was a man of letters and of reputation, and he wore a fine gown.
Vos ô patritius sanguis quos viuere par est / Occipiti cæco, posticæ occurrite sannæ. Qui regardera de bien pres à ce genre de gens, qui s’estend bien loing, il trouuera comme moy, que le plus souuent ils ne s’entendent, ny autruy, et qu’ils ont la souuenance assez pleine, mais le iugement entierement creux: sinon que leur nature d’elle mesme le leur ait autrement façonné. Comme i’ay veu Adrianus Turnebus, qui n’ayant faict autre profession que de lettres, en laquelle c’estoit, à mon opinion, le plus grand homme, qui fust il y a mil ans, n’ayant toutesfois rien de pedantesque que le port de sa robbe, et quelque façon externe, qui pouuoit n’estre pas ciuilisée à la courtisane: qui sont choses de neant.
You of patrician blood, whose lot is to live with no eyes in the back of your head, / turn round and face the mockery behind you. Whoever looks very closely at this kind of people, and it is a widespread kind, will find, as I do, that most often they understand neither themselves nor anyone else, and that their memories are full enough but their judgment entirely hollow—unless their nature has of itself fashioned it otherwise. So it was with Adrianus Turnebus, as I saw. He professed nothing but letters, and in that field he was, in my opinion, the greatest man there has been in a thousand years; yet he had nothing of the pedant about him except the way he wore his gown and a certain outward manner that was perhaps not polished in the courtier’s fashion. These are things of no account.
Et hay nos gens qui supportent plus mal-aysement vne robbe qu’vne ame de trauers: et regardent à sa reuerence, à son maintien et à ses bottes, quel homme il est. Car au dedans c’estoit l’ame la plus polie du monde. Ie l’ay souuent à mon escient ietté en propos eslongnez de son vsage, il y voyoit si cler, d’vne apprehension si prompte, d’vn iugement si sain, qu’il sembloit, qu’il n’eust iamais faict autre mestier que la guerre, et affaires d’Estat. Ce sont natures belles et fortes: queis arte benigna / Et meliore luto finxit præcordia Titan, qui se maintiennent au trauers d’vne mauuaise institution. Or ce n’est pas assez que nostre institution ne nous gaste pas, il faut qu’elle nous change en mieux.
And I hate people who find a gown worn askew harder to tolerate than a soul askew, and who judge what sort of man someone is by his bow, his bearing and his boots. For within, his was the most polished soul in the world. I often deliberately drew him into talk far removed from his own field, and he saw into it so clearly, with so quick an apprehension and so sound a judgment, that it seemed he had never followed any other trade than war and affairs of state. These are fine, strong natures, whose hearts the Titan fashioned with kindly art / and of a better clay, which hold their own through a bad education. Now it is not enough that our education should not spoil us; it must change us for the better.
Il y a aucuns de noz Parlemens, quand ils ont à receuoir des officiers, qui les examinent seulement sur la science: les autres y adioustent encores l’essay du sens, en leur presentant le iugement de quelque cause. Ceux-cy me semblent auoir vn beaucoup meilleur stile. Et encore que ces deux pieces soyent necessaires, et qu’il faille qu’elles s’y trouuent toutes deux: si est-ce qu’à la verité celle du sçauoir est moins prisable, que celle du iugement; cette-cy se peut passer de l’autre, et non l’autre de cette cy. Car comme dict ce vers Grec, ως ουδεν ἡ μαθησις, ην μη νους παρη. A quoy faire la science, si l’entendement n’y est?
Some of our Parlements, when they have to admit officers, examine them only on their learning; others also add a test of their sense by giving them some case to judge. The latter seem to me to have a much better method. And although both these parts are necessary, and both must be present, still in truth learning is less to be prized than judgment. Judgment can do without learning, but not learning without judgment. For as the Greek verse says, Learning is nothing, unless there is a mind to go with it. What use is learning if understanding is not there?
Pleust à Dieu que pour le bien de nostre iustice ces compagnies là se trouuassent aussi bien fournies d’entendement et de conscience, comme elles sont encore de science. Non vitæ, sed scholæ discimus. Or il ne faut pas attacher le sçauoir à l’ame, il l’y faut incorporer: il ne l’en faut pas arrouser, il l’en faut teindre; et s’il ne la change, et meliore son estat imparfaict, certainement il vaut beaucoup mieux le laisser là. C’est vn dangereux glaiue, et qui empesche et offence son maistre s’il est en main foible, et qui n’en sçache l’vsage: vt fuerit melius non didicisse.
Would to God that, for the good of our justice, those bodies were as well furnished with understanding and conscience as they still are with learning! We learn not for life but for school. Now learning must not be attached to the soul; it must be incorporated into it. The soul must not be sprinkled with it; it must be dyed in it. And if learning does not change the soul and improve its imperfect state, it is certainly much better to leave it alone. It is a dangerous sword, which hampers and wounds its master if it is in a weak hand that does not know how to use it: so that it would have been better never to have learned.
A l’aduenture est ce la cause, que et nous, et la Theologie ne requerons pas beaucoup de science aux femmes, et que François Duc de Bretaigne filz de Iean V. comme on luy parla de son mariage auec Isabeau fille d’Escosse, et qu’on luy adiousta qu’elle auoit esté nourrie simplement et sans aucune instruction de lettres, respondit, qu’il l’en aymoit mieux, et qu’vne femme estoit assez sçauante, quand elle sçauoit mettre difference entre la chemise et le pourpoint de son mary.
Perhaps this is the reason why both we and theology do not require much learning of women. And it is why Francis, Duke of Brittany, son of John V, when they spoke to him of his marriage to Isabella, a daughter of Scotland, and added that she had been brought up simply and without any instruction in letters, replied that he loved her the better for it, and that a woman was learned enough when she could tell the difference between her husband’s shirt and his doublet.
Aussi ce n’est pas si grande merueille, comme on crie, que nos ancestres n’ayent pas faict grand estat des lettres, et qu’encores auiourd’huy elles ne se trouuent que par rencontre aux principaux conseils de nos Roys: et si cette fin de s’en enrichir, qui seule nous est auiourd’huy proposée par le moyen de la Iurisprudence, de la Medecine, du pedantisme, et de la Theologie encore, ne les tenoit en credit, vous les verriez sans doubte aussi marmiteuses qu’elles furent onques. Quel dommage, si elles ne nous apprennent ny à bien penser, ny à bien faire? Postquam docti prodierunt, boni desunt. Toute autre science, est dommageable à celuy qui n’a la science de la bonté.
So it is not such a great wonder, whatever people cry, that our ancestors did not set much store by letters, and that even today they are found only by chance in the chief councils of our kings. And if the aim of growing rich by them, which is the only one held out to us today through jurisprudence, medicine, pedantry, and theology too, did not keep them in credit, you would doubtless see them as wretched as they ever were. And what a loss would that be, if they teach us neither to think well nor to act well? Since the learned have appeared, the good have vanished. All other knowledge is harmful to the man who lacks the knowledge of goodness.
Mais la raison que ie cherchoys tantost, seroit elle point aussi de là, que nostre estude en France n’ayant quasi autre but que le proufit, moins de ceux que nature a faict naistre à plus genereux offices que lucratifs, s’adonnants aux lettres, ou si courtement (retirez auant que d’en auoir pris appetit, à vne profession qui n’a rien de commun auec les liures) il ne reste plus ordinairement, pour s’engager tout à faict à l’estude, que les gents de basse fortune, qui y questent des moyens à viure? Et de ces gents-là, les ames estans et par nature, et par institution domestique et exemple, du plus bas aloy, rapportent faucement le fruit de la science.
But might not the reason I was looking for a moment ago also come from this? Since our study in France has hardly any aim but profit, fewer of those whom nature has born for nobler offices than lucrative ones devote themselves to letters, or else they do so only briefly (withdrawn, before they have acquired a taste for them, into a profession that has nothing in common with books). And so there ordinarily remain, to commit themselves wholly to study, only people of low fortune, who are hunting in it for a means of living. And since the souls of such people are of the basest alloy, both by nature and by their home upbringing and example, they yield a false fruit of learning.
Car elle n’est pas pour donner iour à l’ame qui n’en a point: ny pour faire voir vn aueugle. Son mestier est, non de luy fournir de veuë, mais de la luy dresser, de luy regler ses allures, pourueu qu’elle aye de soy les pieds, et les iambes droites et capables. C’est vne bonne drogue que la science, mais nulle drogue n’est assés forte, pour se preseruer sans alteration et corruption, selon le vice du vase qui l’estuye. Tel a la veuë claire, qui ne l’a pas droitte: et par consequent void le bien, et ne le suit pas: et void la science, et ne s’en sert pas.
For learning is not meant to give light to a soul that has none, nor to make a blind man see. Its business is not to furnish the soul with sight but to train its sight, to regulate its gait, provided it has, of its own, feet and legs that are straight and capable. Learning is a good drug; but no drug is strong enough to keep itself free of alteration and corruption, according to the defect of the vessel that holds it. A man may have clear sight who does not have straight sight; and so he sees the good and does not follow it, and sees knowledge and does not use it.
La principale ordonnance de Platon en sa republique, c’est donner à ses citoyens selon leur nature, leur charge. Nature peut tout, et fait tout. Les boiteux sont mal propres aux exercices du corps, et aux exercices de l’esprit les ames boiteuses. Les bastardes et vulgaires sont indignes de la philosophie. Quand nous voyons vn homme mal chaussé, nous disons que ce n’est pas merueille, s’il est chaussetier. De mesme il semble, que l’experience nous offre souuent, vn medecin plus mal medeciné, vn Theologien moins reformé, et coustumierement vn sçauant moins suffisant qu’vn autre.
Plato’s chief ordinance in his Republic is to give his citizens their duties according to their nature. Nature can do everything and does everything. The lame are ill fitted for bodily exercises, and lame souls for exercises of the mind. Spurious and common souls are unworthy of philosophy. When we see a man badly shod, we say it is no wonder if he is a hosier. In the same way, experience often seems to offer us a doctor worse doctored than others, a theologian less reformed, and, as a rule, a learned man less competent.
Aristo Chius auoit anciennement raison de dire, que les philosophes nuisoient aux auditeurs: d’autant que la plus part des ames ne se trouuent propres à faire leur profit de telle instruction: qui, si elle ne se met à bien, se met à mal: ασωτους ex Aristippi, acerbos ex Zenonis schola exire.
Aristo of Chios was right, long ago, to say that philosophers harmed their listeners, since most souls are not fitted to profit from such instruction, which, if it does not turn to good, turns to ill: that profligates came out of the school of Aristippus, and harsh men out of Zeno’s.
Teaching virtue, Persian and Spartan
The Persians and Spartans taught their children virtue and action rather than letters.
En cette belle institution que Xenophon preste aux Perses, nous trouuons qu’ils apprenoient la vertu à leurs enfans, comme les autres nations font les lettres. Platon dit que le fils aisné en leur succession royale, estoit ainsi nourry. Apres sa naissance, on le donnoit, non à des femmes, mais à des eunuches de la premiere authorité autour des Roys, à cause de leur vertu. Ceux-cy prenoient charge de luy rendre le corps beau et sain: et apres sept ans le duisoient à monter à cheual, et aller à la chasse. Quand il estoit arriué au quatorziesme, ils le deposoient entre les mains de quatre: le plus sage, le plus iuste, le plus temperant, le plus vaillant de la nation.
In that fine education which Xenophon lends the Persians, we find that they taught their children virtue as other nations teach letters. Plato says that the eldest son, in their royal succession, was brought up as follows. After his birth he was given not to women but to eunuchs of the highest authority about the kings, on account of their virtue. These took charge of making his body handsome and healthy, and after the age of seven they trained him to ride and to hunt. When he reached his fourteenth year, they placed him in the hands of four men: the wisest, the most just, the most temperate and the most valiant in the nation.
Le premier luy apprenoit la religion: le second, à estre tousiours veritable: le tiers, à se rendre maistre des cupidités: le quart, à ne rien craindre.
The first taught him religion; the second, to be always truthful; the third, to master his desires; the fourth, to fear nothing.
C’est chose digne de tres-grande consideration, que en cette excellente police de Lycurgus, et à la verité monstrueuse par sa perfection, si songneuse pourtant de la nourriture des enfans, comme de sa principale charge, et au giste mesmes des Muses, il s’y face si peu de mention de la doctrine: comme si cette genereuse ieunesse desdaignant tout autre ioug que de la vertu, on luy aye deu fournir, au lieu de nos maistres de science, seulement des maistres de vaillance, prudence et iustice. Exemple que Platon a suiuy en ses loix.
It is a thing well worth considering that in that excellent government of Lycurgus—truly monstrous in its perfection—so careful of the rearing of children as its principal charge, and in the very home of the Muses, there is so little mention of learning. It is as if, since those noble youths disdained every yoke but that of virtue, they had to be given, instead of our masters of learning, only masters of valor, prudence and justice. Plato followed this example in his Laws.
La façon de leur discipline, c’estoit leur faire des questions sur le iugement des hommes, et de leurs actions: et s’ils condamnoient et loüoient, ou ce personnage, ou ce faict, il falloit raisonner leur dire, et par ce moyen ils aiguisoient ensemble leur entendement, et apprenoient le droit.
Their method of teaching was to put questions to the children about how to judge men and their actions; and if they condemned or praised this person or that deed, they had to give reasons for what they said. By this means they sharpened their understanding and learned what was right, both at once.
Astyages en Xenophon, demande à Cyrus compte de sa derniere leçon; C’est, dit-il, qu’en nostre escole vn grand garçon ayant vn petit saye, le donna à l’vn de ses compagnons de plus petite taille, et luy osta son saye qui estoit plus grand: nostre precepteur m’ayant fait iuge de ce different, ie iugeay qu’il falloit laisser les choses en cet estat, et que l’vn et l’autre sembloit estre mieux accommodé en ce point: sur quoy il me remontra que i’auois mal fait: car ie m’estois arresté à considerer la bien seance, et il falloit premierement auoir proueu à la iustice, qui vouloit que nul ne fust forcé en ce qui luy appartenoit.
Astyages, in Xenophon, asks Cyrus to give an account of his last lesson. “It was this,” he says. “In our school a big boy who had a small tunic gave it to one of his companions who was smaller, and took from him his tunic, which was bigger. Our tutor made me judge of this dispute, and I judged that things should be left as they were, since each seemed better suited that way. Whereupon he showed me that I had done wrong; for I had stopped at considering what was fitting, whereas I should first have attended to justice, which required that no one be forced in what belonged to him.”
Et dit qu’il en fut fouëté, tout ainsi que nous sommes en nos villages, pour auoir oublié le premier aoriste de τυπτω. Mon regent me feroit vne belle harangue in genere demonstratiuo, auant qu’il me persuadast que son escole vaut cette-là.
And he says he was whipped for it, just as we are in our villages for having forgotten the first aorist of τυπτω. My schoolmaster would have to make me a fine speech in the demonstrative genre before he persuaded me that his school is as good as that one.
Ils ont voulu coupper chemin: et puis qu’il est ainsi que les sciences, lors mesmes qu’on les prent de droit fil, ne peuuent que nous enseigner la prudence, la preud’hommie et la resolution, ils ont voulu d’arriuée mettre leurs enfans au propre des effects, et les instruire non par ouïr dire, mais par l’essay de l’action, en les formant et moulant vifuement, non seulement de preceptes et parolles, mais principalement d’exemples et d’œuures: afin que ce ne fust pas vne science en leur ame, mais sa complexion et habitude: que ce ne fust pas vn acquest, mais vne naturelle possession. A ce propos, on demandoit à Agesilaus ce qu’il seroit d’aduis, que les enfans apprinsent: Ce qu’ils doiuent faire estans hommes, respondit-il.
They wanted to take a shortcut. And since it is the case that the sciences, even when taken straight, can only teach us prudence, integrity and resolution, they chose to put their children from the outset into the thick of action, and to instruct them not by hearsay but by trying out action, forming and molding them in a lively way, not only with precepts and words but chiefly with examples and deeds. The aim was that this should be not a knowledge in their soul but its very constitution and habit; not an acquisition but a natural possession. On this subject, Agesilaus was asked what he thought children should learn. “What they should do when they are men,” he answered.
Ce n’est pas merueille, si vne telle institution a produit des effects si admirables.
It is no wonder if such an education produced such admirable results.
On alloit, dit-on, aux autres villes de Grece chercher des Rhetoriciens, des Peintres, et des Musiciens: mais en Lacedemone des legislateurs, des magistrats, et Empereurs d’armée: à Athenes on aprenoit à bien dire, et icy à bien faire: là à se desmesler d’vn argument sophistique, et à rabattre l’imposture des mots captieusement entrelassez; icy à se desmesler des appats de la volupté, et à rabattre d’vn grand courage les menasses de la fortune et de la mort: ceux-là s’embesongnoient apres les parolles, ceux-cy apres les choses: là c’estoit vne continuelle exercitation de la langue, icy vne continuelle exercitation de l’ame.
People went, they say, to the other cities of Greece to look for rhetoricians, painters and musicians, but to Lacedaemon for lawgivers, magistrates and generals. At Athens they learned to speak well, and here to act well. There they learned to disentangle themselves from a sophistical argument and to beat down the imposture of words cunningly interwoven; here, to disentangle themselves from the lures of pleasure and to beat down with great courage the threats of fortune and of death. Those busied themselves with words, these with things. There it was a continual exercise of the tongue; here, a continual exercise of the soul.
Parquoy il n’est pas estrange, si Antipater leur demandant cinquante enfans pour ostages, ils respondirent tout au rebours de ce que nous ferions, qu’ils aymoient mieux donner deux fois autant d’hommes faicts; tant ils estimoient la perte de l’education de leur pays. Quand Agesilaus conuie Xenophon d’enuoyer nourrir ses enfans à Sparte, ce n’est pas pour y apprendre la Rhetorique, ou Dialectique: mais pour apprendre, ce dit-il, la plus belle science qui soit, asçauoir la science d’obeir et de commander.
So it is not strange that when Antipater demanded fifty children of them as hostages, they answered, quite the reverse of what we would do, that they would rather give twice as many grown men—so highly did they value the loss of their country’s education. When Agesilaus invites Xenophon to send his children to be brought up in Sparta, it is not for them to learn rhetoric or dialectic there, but to learn, as he says, the finest knowledge there is: namely, the knowledge of how to obey and how to command.
Il est tres-plaisant, de voir Socrates, à sa mode se moquant de Hippias, qui luy recite, comment il a gaigné, specialement en certaines petites villettes de la Sicile, bonne somme d’argent, à regenter: et qu’à Sparte il n’a gaigné pas vn sol. Que ce sont gents idiots, qui ne sçauent ny mesurer ny compter: ne font estat ny de Grammaire ny de rythme: s’amusans seulement à sçauoir la suitte des Roys, establissement et decadence des Estats, et tels fatras de comptes. Et au bout de cela, Socrates luy faisant aduouër par le menu, l’excellence de leur forme de gouuernement publique, l’heur et vertu de leur vie priuée, luy laisse deuiner la conclusion de l’inutilité de ses arts.
It is very amusing to see Socrates, in his way, mocking Hippias, who tells him how he has earned a good sum of money by teaching, especially in certain little towns in Sicily, and that at Sparta he did not earn a penny. The Spartans, he says, are simple, unlettered people who know neither how to measure nor how to count, who set no store by grammar or by rhythm, and amuse themselves only with knowing the succession of kings, the founding and decline of states, and such a jumble of tales. And at the end of all this Socrates, making him admit point by point the excellence of their form of public government and the happiness and virtue of their private life, leaves him to guess the conclusion: the uselessness of his own arts.
Les exemples nous apprennent, et en cette martiale police, et en toutes ses semblables, que l’estude des sciences amollit et effemine les courages, plus qu’il ne les fermit et aguerrit. Le plus fort Estat, qui paroisse pour le present au monde, est celuy des Turcs, peuples egalement duicts à l’estimation des armes, et mespris des lettres. Ie trouue Rome plus vaillante auant qu’elle fust sçauante. Les plus belliqueuses nations en nos iours, sont les plus grossieres et ignorantes. Les Scythes, les Parthes, Tamburlan, nous seruent à cette preuue.
Examples teach us, both in this martial state and in all those like it, that the study of the sciences softens and enfeebles hearts more than it strengthens and toughens them. The strongest state that appears in the world at present is that of the Turks, peoples trained alike to esteem arms and to despise letters. I find Rome more valiant before it became learned. The most warlike nations of our day are the crudest and most ignorant. The Scythians, the Parthians, Tamburlaine, serve us as proof of this.
Quand les Gots rauagerent la Grece, ce qui sauua toutes les librairies d’estre passées au feu, ce fut vn d’entre eux, qui sema cette opinion, qu’il failloit laisser ce meuble entier aux ennemis: propre à les destourner de l’exercice militaire, et amuser à des occupations sedentaires et oysiues. Quand nostre Roy, Charles huictieme, quasi sans tirer l’espee du fourreau, se veid maistre du Royaume de Naples, et d’vne bonne partie de la Toscane, les Seigneurs de sa suitte, attribuerent cette inesperee facilité de conqueste, à ce que les Princes et la noblesse d’Italie s’amusoient plus à se rendre ingenieux et sçauans, que vigoureux et guerriers.
When the Goths ravaged Greece, what saved all the libraries from being put to the fire was one of them who spread the opinion that these goods should be left intact for the enemy, as being apt to divert them from military exercise and keep them amused with sedentary and idle occupations. When our king, Charles VIII, almost without drawing his sword from its scabbard, found himself master of the kingdom of Naples and a good part of Tuscany, the lords of his retinue attributed this unhoped-for ease of conquest to the fact that the princes and nobility of Italy amused themselves more with becoming clever and learned than vigorous and warlike.