IE ne vis iamais pere, pour bossé ou teigneux que fust son fils, qui laissast de l’aduoüer: non pourtant, s’il n’est du tout enyuré de cet’ affection, qu’il ne s’apperçoiue de sa defaillance: mais tant y a qu’il est sien. Aussi moy, ie voy mieux que tout autre, que ce ne sont icy que resueries d’homme, qui n’a gousté des sciences que la crouste premiere en son enfance, et n’en a retenu qu’vn general et informe visage: vn peu de chaque chose, et rien du tout, à la Françoise. Car en somme, ie sçay qu’il y a vne Medecine, vne Iurisprudence, quatre parties en la Mathematique, et grossierement ce à quoy elles visent.
I never saw a father, however hunchbacked or scabby his son might be, who would refuse to acknowledge him. Not that he fails to perceive the boy’s defect, unless he is utterly drunk with that affection; but the fact remains that the boy is his. So I too see better than anyone that these are only the musings of a man who in his childhood tasted only the outer crust of the sciences, and has kept only a general, shapeless picture of them: a little of everything and nothing at all, in the French manner. For in short, I know that there is such a thing as medicine, and jurisprudence, and that mathematics has four parts, and roughly what they aim at.
Et à l’aduenture encore sçay-ie la pretention des sciences en general, au seruice de nostre vie: mais d’y enfoncer plus auant, de m’estre rongé les ongles à l’estude d’Aristote monarque de la doctrine moderne, ou opiniatré apres quelque science, ie ne l’ay iamais faict: ny n’est art dequoy ie peusse peindre seulement les premiers lineaments. Et n’est enfant des classes moyennes, qui ne se puisse dire plus sçauant que moy: qui n’ay seulement pas dequoy l’examiner sur sa premiere leçon. Et si l’on m’y force, ie suis contraint assez ineptement, d’en tirer quelque matiere de propos vniuersel, sur quoy i’examine son iugement naturel: leçon, qui leur est autant incognue, comme à moy la leur.
And perhaps I also know what the sciences in general claim to do in the service of our life. But as for plunging in deeper, gnawing my nails over the study of Aristotle, monarch of modern learning, or stubbornly pursuing some science—I have never done it. Nor is there any art of which I could sketch even the first outlines. There is no child in the middle forms who could not call himself more learned than I, who do not even know enough to examine him on his first lesson. And if I am forced to, I am obliged, rather ineptly, to draw from it some matter of general discussion, on which I examine his natural judgment: a lesson as unknown to them as theirs is to me.
Ie n’ay dressé commerce auec aucun liure solide, sinon Plutarche et Seneque, où ie puyse comme les Danaïdes, remplissant et versant sans cesse. I’en attache quelque chose à ce papier, à moy, si peu que rien. L’histoire, c’est mon gibier en matiere de liures, ou la poësie, que i’ayme d’vne particuliere inclination: car, comme disoit Cleanthes, tout ainsi que la voix contrainte dans l’étroit canal d’vne trompette sort plus aigue et plus forte: ainsi me semble il que la sentence pressee aux pieds nombreux de la poësie, s’eslance bien plus brusquement, et me fiert d’vne plus viue secousse.
I have struck up an acquaintance with no solid book except Plutarch and Seneca, from whom I draw like the Danaids, endlessly filling and pouring out. Something of it sticks to this paper; to me, next to nothing. History is my quarry in the matter of books, or poetry, which I love with a particular inclination. For, as Cleanthes said, just as the voice forced through the narrow channel of a trumpet comes out sharper and stronger, so it seems to me that a thought pressed into the measured feet of poetry springs forth much more abruptly and strikes me with a livelier jolt.
Quant aux facultez naturelles qui sont en moy, dequoy c’est icy l’essay, ie les sens flechir sous la charge: mes conceptions et mon iugement ne marche qu’à tastons, chancelant, bronchant et chopant: et quand ie suis allé le plus auant que ie puis, si ne me suis-ie aucunement satisfaict. Ie voy encore du païs au delà: mais d’vne veüe trouble, et en nuage, que ie ne puis demesler.
As for the natural faculties that are in me, of which this is the trial, I feel them bending under the load. My conceptions and my judgment move only by groping, staggering, stumbling and tripping; and when I have gone as far as I can, I am still not at all satisfied. I can see more country beyond, but with a dim and clouded sight that I cannot clear.
Et entreprenant de parler indifferemment de tout ce qui se presente à ma fantasie, et n’y employant que mes propres et naturels moyens, s’il m’aduient, comme il faict souuent, de rencontrer de fortune dans les bons autheurs ces mesmes lieux, que i’ay entrepris de traiter, comme ie vien de faire chez Plutarque tout presentement, son discours de la force de l’imagination: à me recognoistre au prix de ces gens là, si foible et si chetif, si poisant et si endormy, ie me fay pitié, ou desdain à moy mesmes. Si me gratifie-ie de cecy, que mes opinions ont cet honneur de rencontrer souuent aux leurs, et que ie vays au moins de loing apres, disant que voire.
I undertake to speak indiscriminately of whatever comes into my fancy, using only my own natural means. And if I happen, as I often do, to come across by chance in the good authors those very topics I have undertaken to treat—as I have just now done in Plutarch, with his discussion of the power of the imagination—then, seeing myself so weak and puny, so heavy and sluggish compared with those men, I feel pity or disdain for myself. Still, I please myself with this: that my opinions have the honor of often coinciding with theirs, and that I at least follow behind at a distance, saying “Quite so.”
Aussi que i’ay cela, que chacun n’a pas, de cognoistre l’extreme difference d’entre-eux et moy: et laisse ce neant-moins courir mes inuentions ainsi foibles et basses, comme ie les ay produites, sans en replastrer et recoudre les defaux que cette comparaison m’y a descouuert.
Also, I have this, which not everyone has: I recognize the extreme difference between them and me. And nonetheless I let my inventions run on, weak and lowly as they are, just as I produced them, without plastering over and patching up the defects this comparison has revealed to me.
Il faut auoir les reins bien fermes pour entreprendre de marcher front à front auec ces gens là. Les escriuains indiscrets de nostre siecle, qui parmy leurs ouurages de neant, vont semant des lieux entiers des anciens autheurs, pour se faire honneur, font le contraire. Car cett’ infinie dissemblance de lustres rend vn visage si pasle, si terni, et si laid à ce qui est leur, qu’ils y perdent beaucoup plus qu’ils n’y gaignent. C’estoient deux contraires fantasies. Le Philosophe Chrysippus mesloit à ses liures, non les passages seulement, mais des ouurages entiers d’autres autheurs: et en vn la Medee d’Eurypides: et disoit Apollodorus, que, qui en retrancheroit ce qu’il y auoit d’estranger, son papier demeureroit en blanc.
You need a very strong back to undertake to march abreast of those men. The indiscreet writers of our century, who go sowing whole passages of the ancient authors among their worthless works to do themselves honor, do the opposite. For this infinite difference in brilliance makes what is their own look so pale, so tarnished and so ugly that they lose much more than they gain. There were two contrary notions on this. The philosopher Chrysippus mixed into his books not just passages but whole works of other authors, in one of them the Medea of Euripides; and Apollodorus said that if you cut out everything borrowed, his paper would be left blank.
Epicurus au rebours, en trois cents volumes qu’il laissa, n’auoit pas mis vne seule allegation.
Epicurus, on the contrary, in the three hundred volumes he left, had not put a single quotation.
Il m’aduint l’autre iour de tomber sur vn tel passage: I’auois trainé languissant apres des parolles Françoises, si exangues, si descharnees, et si vuides de matiere et de sens, que ce n’estoient voirement que parolles Françoises: au bout d’vn long et ennuyeux chemin, ie vins à rencontrer vne piece haute, riche et esleuee iusques aux nües: si i’eusse trouué la pente douce, et la montee vn peu alongee, cela eust esté excusable: c’estoit vn precipice si droit et si coupé que des six premieres parolles ie cogneuz que ie m’enuolois en l’autre monde: de là ie descouuris la fondriere d’où ie venois, si basse et si profonde, que ie n’eus oncques puis le cœur de m’y raualer.
The other day I happened to come upon such a passage. I had been dragging along languidly after French words so bloodless, so fleshless, so empty of matter and sense, that they really were nothing but French words. At the end of a long and tedious road I came upon a piece that was lofty, rich and raised to the clouds. If I had found the slope gentle and the climb a little gradual, it would have been excusable; but it was a precipice so sheer and so abrupt that from the first six words I knew I was flying off into another world. From there I saw the bog I had come from, so low and so deep that I never afterward had the heart to go down into it again.
Si i’estoffois l’vn de mes discours de ces riches despouilles, il esclaireroit par trop la bestise des autres. Reprendre en autruy mes propres fautes, ne me semble non plus incompatible, que de reprendre, comme ie fay souuent, celles d’autruy en moy. Il les faut accuser par tout, et leur oster tout lieu de franchise. Si sçay ie, combien audacieusement i’entreprens moy-mesmes à tous coups, de m’egaler à mes larrecins, d’aller pair à pair quand et eux: non sans vne temeraire esperance, que ie puisse tromper les yeux des iuges à les discerner. Mais c’est autant par le benefice de mon application, que par le benefice de mon inuention et de ma force.
If I stuffed one of my discourses with these rich spoils, it would show up the stupidity of the others all too clearly. To reprove my own faults in others seems to me no more inconsistent than to reprove, as I often do, the faults of others in myself. They must be denounced everywhere, and every sanctuary taken from them. Yet I know how boldly I myself try at every turn to match my thefts, to keep pace with them side by side, not without a rash hope that I may deceive the eyes of the judges who would tell them apart. But this is as much thanks to my skill in applying them as to my invention and my strength.
Et puis, ie ne luitte point en gros ces vieux champions là, et corps à corps: c’est par reprinses, menues et legeres attaintes. Ie ne m’y aheurte pas: ie ne fay que les taster: et ne vay point tant, comme ie marchande d’aller. Si ie leur pouuoy tenir palot, ie serois honneste homme: car ie ne les entreprens, que par où ils sont les plus roides.
And then, I do not wrestle with those old champions wholesale and body to body. It is by bouts, with slight and light touches. I do not charge into them; I only feel them out. And I don’t so much advance as haggle about advancing. If I could hold my own against them, I would be a man of some worth; for I take them on only where they are stiffest.
De faire ce que i’ay decouuert d’aucuns, se couurir des armes d’autruy, iusques à ne montrer pas seulement le bout de ses doigts: conduire son dessein (comme il est aysé aux sçauans en vne matiere commune) sous les inuentions anciennes, rappiecees par cy par là: à ceux qui les veulent cacher et faire propres, c’est premierement iniustice et lascheté, que n’ayans rien en leur vaillant, par où se produire, ils cherchent à se presenter par vne valeur purement estrangere: et puis, grande sottise, se contentant par piperie de s’acquerir l’ignorante approbation du vulgaire, se descrier enuers les gents d’entendement, qui hochent du nez cette incrustation empruntee: desquels seuls la louange a du poids. De ma part il n’est rien que ie vueille moins faire.
As for doing what I have found some people do—covering themselves in other men’s armor until not even their fingertips show, and carrying out their design (as is easy for the learned in a common subject) under ancient inventions patched together here and there—for those who want to hide these borrowings and make them their own, it is first of all injustice and cowardice. Having nothing of their own worth showing, they seek to present themselves by a merit wholly foreign to them. And then it is great foolishness: contenting themselves with winning by trickery the ignorant approval of the common crowd, they discredit themselves with men of understanding, who turn up their noses at this borrowed incrustation—and theirs is the only praise that has any weight. For my part, there is nothing I would less wish to do.
Ie ne dis les autres, sinon pour d’autant plus me dire. Cecy ne touche pas les centons, qui se publient pour centons: et i’en ay veu de tres-ingenieux en mon temps: entre-autres vn, sous le nom de Capilupus: outre les anciens. Ce sont des esprits, qui se font veoir, et par ailleurs, et par là, comme Lipsius en ce docte et laborieux tissu de ses Politiques.
I speak of others only in order to speak all the more of myself. This does not concern centos that are published as centos; and I have seen some very ingenious ones in my time, among others one under the name of Capilupus, not to mention the ancients. These are minds that show themselves both elsewhere and in this, as Lipsius does in that learned and laborious web, his Politics.
Quoy qu’il en soit, veux-ie dire, et quelles que soient ces inepties, ie n’ay pas deliberé de les cacher, non plus qu’vn mien pourtraict chauue et grisonnant, où le peintre auroit mis non vn visage parfaict, mais le mien. Car aussi ce sont icy mes humeurs et opinions: ie les donne, pour ce qui est en ma creance, non pour ce qui est à croire. Ie ne vise icy qu’à decouurir moy-mesmes, qui seray par aduenture autre demain, si nouuel apprentissage me change. Ie n’ay point l’authorité d’estre creu, ny ne le desire, me sentant trop mal instruit pour instruire autruy.
Be that as it may, I mean to say, and whatever these absurdities may be, I have not resolved to hide them, any more than I would a portrait of myself, bald and graying, in which the painter had put not a perfect face but mine. For these too are my own temperament and opinions. I give them as what I believe, not as what is to be believed. My only aim here is to reveal myself, who may be different tomorrow if some new learning changes me. I have no authority to be believed, nor do I wish for it, feeling myself too ill instructed to instruct others.
To the Countess of Gurson
Montaigne offers his one notion on educating her expected son.
Quelcun doncq’ ayant veu l’article precedant, me disoit chez moy l’autre iour, que ie me deuoys estre vn petit estendu sur le discours de l’institution des enfans. Or Madame si i’auoy quelque suffisance en ce subiect, ie ne pourroy la mieux employer que d’en faire vn present à ce petit homme, qui vous menasse de faire tantost vne belle sortie de chez vous (vous estes trop genereuse pour commencer autrement que par vn masle).
Someone, then, having seen the preceding chapter, told me at my house the other day that I should have expanded a little on the subject of the education of children. Now, Madame, if I had any competence in this subject, I could put it to no better use than to make a present of it to that little man who threatens soon to make a fine exit from your premises (you are too generous to begin otherwise than with a male).
Car ayant eu tant de part à la conduite de vostre mariage, i’ay quelque droit et interest à la grandeur et prosperité de tout ce qui en viendra: outre ce que l’ancienne possession que vous auez sur ma seruitude, m’oblige assez à desirer honneur, bien et aduantage à tout ce qui vous touche. Mais à la verité ie n’y entens sinon cela, que la plus grande difficulté et importance de l’humaine science semble estre en cet endroit, où il se traitte de la nourriture et institution des enfans. Tout ainsi qu’en l’agriculture, les façons, qui vont deuant le planter, sont certaines et aysees, et le planter mesme.
For having had so large a part in arranging your marriage, I have some right and interest in the greatness and prosperity of all that comes of it; besides which, the long-standing claim you have on my service obliges me well enough to wish honor, good and advantage to all that concerns you. But in truth I understand nothing about it except this: that the greatest difficulty and importance in human knowledge seems to lie in the area that deals with the rearing and education of children. Just as in agriculture the tasks that come before planting are sure and easy, and so is the planting itself,
Mais depuis que ce qui est planté, vient à prendre vie: à l’esleuer, il y a vne grande varieté de façons, et difficulté: pareillement aux hommes, il y a peu d’industrie à les planter: mais depuis qu’ils sont naiz, on se charge d’vn soing diuers, plein d’embesoignement et de crainte, à les dresser et nourrir. La montre de leurs inclinations est si tendre en ce bas aage, et si obscure, les promesses si incertaines et fauces, qu’il est mal-aisé d’y establir aucun solide iugement. Voyez Cimon, voyez Themistocles et mille autres, combien ils se sont disconuenuz à eux mesmes.
but once what has been planted comes to life, there is a great variety of methods, and great difficulty, in raising it; so too with men: there is little skill in planting them, but once they are born, we take on a manifold care, full of bustle and fear, in training and rearing them. The signs of their inclinations are so faint at that early age, and so obscure, and the promises so uncertain and deceptive, that it is hard to base any solid judgment on them. Look at Cimon, look at Themistocles and a thousand others: how unlike their early selves they turned out!
Les petits des ours, et des chiens, montrent leur inclination naturelle; mais les hommes se iettans incontinent en des accoustumances, en des opinions, en des loix, se changent ou se deguisent facilement. Si est-il difficile de forcer les propensions naturelles. D’où il aduient que par faute d’auoir bien choisi leur route, pour neant se trauaille on souuent, et employe lon beaucoup d’aage, à dresser des enfans aux choses, ausquelles ils ne peuuent prendre pied. Toutesfois en cette difficulté mon opinion est, de les acheminer tousiours aux meilleures choses et plus profitables; et qu’on se doit peu appliquer à ces legeres diuinations et prognostiques, que nous prenons des mouuemens de leur enfance. Platon en sa republique, me semble leur donner trop d’autorité.
The young of bears and dogs show their natural inclination; but men, throwing themselves straight into habits, opinions and laws, easily change or disguise themselves. Yet it is hard to force natural propensities. Hence it happens that, for want of having chosen their road well, people often toil in vain and spend many years training children for things in which they cannot get a footing. Nevertheless, in this difficulty, my opinion is that we should always steer them toward the best and most profitable things, and pay little attention to those trivial divinations and prognostications we draw from the movements of their childhood. Plato, in his Republic, seems to me to give them too much authority.
Madame c’est vn grand ornement que la science, et vn vtil de merueilleux seruice, notamment aux personnes esleuees en tel degré de fortune, comme vous estes. A la verité elle n’a point son vray vsage en mains viles et basses. Elle est bien plus fiere, de prester ses moyens à conduire vne guerre, à commander vn peuple, à pratiquer l’amitié d’vn Prince, ou d’vne nation estrangere, qu’à dresser vn argument dialectique, ou à plaider vn appel, ou ordonner vne masse de pillules.
Madame, learning is a great ornament and a tool of marvelous service, notably to persons raised to such a degree of fortune as yours. In truth it does not find its true use in base and low hands. It is much prouder to lend its means to conducting a war, governing a people, or cultivating the friendship of a prince or a foreign nation, than to constructing a dialectical argument, pleading an appeal, or prescribing a mass of pills.
Ainsi Madame, par ce que ie croy que vous n’oublierez pas cette partie en l’institution des vostres, vous qui en auez sauouré la douceur, et qui estes d’vne race lettree (car nous auons encore les escrits de ces anciens Comtes de Foix, d’où Monsieur le Comte vostre mary et vous, estes descendus: et François Monsieur de Candale, vostre oncle, en faict naistre tous les iours d’autres, qui estendront la cognoissance de cette qualité de vostre famille, à plusieurs siecles) ie vous veux dire là dessus vne seule fantasie, que i’ay contraire au commun vsage. C’est tout ce que ie puis conferer à vostre seruice en cela.
So, Madame, since I believe you will not forget this part in the education of your children—you who have tasted its sweetness and who come of a lettered race (for we still have the writings of those ancient Counts of Foix from whom the Count your husband and you are descended; and your uncle François, Monsieur de Candale, brings forth others every day, which will spread the knowledge of this quality of your family for many centuries)—I want to tell you one notion of mine on this subject, which runs contrary to common practice. That is all I can contribute to your service in this matter.
La charge du gouuerneur, que vous luy donrez, du chois duquel depend tout l’effect de son institution, elle a plusieurs autres grandes parties, mais ie n’y touche point, pour n’y sçauoir rien apporter qui vaille: et de cet article, sur lequel ie me mesle de luy donner aduis, il m’en croira autant qu’il y verra d’apparence.
The duties of the tutor you will give him, on whose choice the whole effect of his education depends, have many other important parts; but I do not touch on them, since I could contribute nothing of value there. And on the one point on which I take it upon myself to advise him, he will believe me as far as he finds it plausible.
A well-made head
The tutor should make the pupil judge for himself, weigh every opinion, and make what he learns his own.
A vn enfant de maison, qui recherche les lettres, non pour le gaing (car vne fin si abiecte, est indigne de la grace et faueur des Muses, et puis elle regarde et depend d’autruy) ny tant pour les commoditez externes, que pour les sienes propres, et pour s’en enrichir et parer au dedans, ayant plustost enuie d’en reussir habil’homme, qu’homme sçauant, ie voudrois aussi qu’on fust soigneux de luy choisir vn conducteur, qui eust plustost la teste bien faicte, que bien pleine: et qu’on y requist tous les deux, mais plus les mœurs et l’entendement que la science: et qu’il se conduisist en sa charge d’vne nouuelle maniere.
Consider a child of good family who seeks letters not for gain (for so abject an aim is unworthy of the grace and favor of the Muses, and besides, it looks to others and depends on them), nor so much for outward advantages as for his own, to enrich and adorn himself inwardly with them, wanting to turn out an able man rather than a learned one. For such a child I would also want care to be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head; that both be required of him, but more character and understanding than learning; and that he conduct himself in his charge in a new way.
On ne cesse de criailler à nos oreilles, comme qui verseroit dans vn antonnoir; et nostre charge ce n’est que redire ce qu’on nous a dit. Ie voudrois qu’il corrigeast cette partie; et que de belle arriuee, selon la portee de l’ame, qu’il a en main, il commençast à la mettre sur la montre, luy faisant gouster les choses, les choisir, et discerner d’elle mesme. Quelquefois luy ouurant le chemin, quelquefois le luy laissant ouurir. Ie ne veux pas qu’il inuente, et parle seul: ie veux qu’il escoute son disciple parler à son tour. Socrates, et depuis Arcesilaus, faisoient premierement parler leurs disciples, et puis ils parloient à eux.
People never stop bawling into our ears, as though pouring into a funnel, and our task is only to repeat what we have been told. I would want the tutor to correct this practice. From the very start, according to the capacity of the mind in his hands, he should begin to put it through its paces, letting it taste things, choose them and discern them by itself: sometimes opening the way for it, sometimes letting it open the way for itself. I do not want him to think up everything and do all the talking; I want him to listen to his pupil speak in his turn. Socrates, and later Arcesilaus, first had their pupils speak, and then they spoke to them.
Obest plerumque ijs, qui discere volunt, auctoritas eorum, qui docent. Il est bon qu’il le face trotter deuant luy, pour iuger de son train: et iuger iusques à quel point il se doibt raualler, pour s’accommoder à sa force. A faute de cette proportion, nous gastons tout. Et de la sçauoir choisir, et s’y conduire bien mesurément, c’est vne des plus ardues besongnes que ie sache. Et est l’effect d’vne haute ame et bien forte, sçauoir condescendre à ses allures pueriles, et les guider. Ie marche plus ferme et plus seur, à mont qu’à val.
The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn. It is good that he should make the boy trot ahead of him, to judge his pace and judge how far he must come down to adapt himself to the boy’s strength. For want of this proportion we spoil everything. And to know how to find it and keep within it with good measure is one of the hardest tasks I know. It is the work of a lofty and very strong soul to know how to come down to a child’s gait and guide it. I walk more firmly and surely uphill than down.
Ceux qui, comme nostre vsage porte, entreprenent d’vne mesme leçon et pareille mesure de conduite, regenter plusieurs esprits de si diuerses mesures et formes: ce n’est pas merueille, si en tout vn peuple d’enfants, ils en rencontrent à peine deux ou trois, qui rapportent quelque iuste fruit de leur discipline. Qu’il ne luy demande pas seulement compte des mots de sa leçon, mais du sens et de la substance. Et qu’il iuge du profit qu’il aura fait, non par le tesmoignage de sa memoire, mais de sa vie.
Those who, as our custom has it, undertake to school many minds of such different capacities and forms with the same lesson and the same measure of guidance—no wonder if, in a whole crowd of children, they scarcely find two or three who bear any proper fruit from their teaching. Let the tutor ask his pupil for an account not only of the words of his lesson but of its sense and substance. And let him judge the profit the boy has made not by the testimony of his memory but by that of his life.
Que ce qu’il viendra d’apprendre, il le luy face mettre en cent visages, et accommoder à autant de diuers subiets, pour voir s’il l’a encore bien pris et bien faict sien, prenant l’instruction à son progrez, des paidagogismes de Platon. C’est tesmoignage de crudité et indigestion que de regorger la viande comme on l’a auallee: l’estomach n’a pas faict son operation, s’il n’a faict changer la façon et la forme, à ce qu’on luy auoit donné à cuire. Nostre ame ne branle qu’à credit, liee et contrainte à l’appetit des fantasies d’autruy, serue et captiuee soubs l’authorité de leur leçon. On nous a tant assubiectis aux cordes, que nous n’auons plus de franches alleures: nostre vigueur et liberté est esteinte.
Let him have the boy put what he has just learned into a hundred shapes and adapt it to as many different subjects, to see whether he has really grasped it and made it his own, taking guidance for the boy’s progress from Plato’s methods of teaching. It is a sign of rawness and indigestion to throw up food just as it was swallowed. The stomach has not done its work if it has not changed the condition and form of what was given it to cook. Our soul moves only on credit, bound and constrained to the appetite of other men’s notions, enslaved and captive under the authority of their teaching. We have been held so long in leading strings that we no longer have a free gait. Our vigor and liberty are extinguished.
Nunquam tutelæ suæ fiunt. Ie vy priuément à Pise vn honneste homme, mais si Aristotelicien, que le plus general de ses dogmes est: Que la touche et regle de toutes imaginations solides, et de toute verité, c’est la conformité à la doctrine d’Aristote: que hors de là, ce ne sont que chimeres et inanité: qu’il a tout veu et tout dict. Cette sienne proposition, pour auoir esté vn peu trop largement et iniquement interpretee, le mit autrefois et tint long temps en grand accessoire à l’inquisition à Rome.
They never become their own guardians. At Pisa I knew well a decent man, but such an Aristotelian that the most general of his dogmas is this: that the touchstone and rule of all solid ideas and of all truth is conformity to the teaching of Aristotle; that outside of it there is nothing but chimeras and emptiness; that Aristotle saw everything and said everything. This proposition of his, for having been interpreted a little too broadly and unfairly, once landed him, and long kept him, in serious trouble with the Inquisition in Rome.
Qu’il luy face tout passer par l’estamine, et ne loge rien en sa teste par simple authorité, et à credit. Les principes d’Aristote ne luy soyent principes, non plus que ceux des Stoiciens ou Epicuriens. Qu’on luy propose cette diuersité de iugemens, il choisira s’il peut: sinon il en demeurera en doubte. Che non men che saper dubbiar m’aggrada. Car s’il embrasse les opinions de Xenophon et de Platon, par son propre discours, ce ne seront plus les leurs, ce seront les siennes. Qui suit vn autre, il ne suit rien: il ne trouue rien: voire il ne cerche rien. Non sumus sub rege, sibi quisque se vindicet. Qu’il sache, qu’il sçait, au moins. Il faut qu’il imboiue leurs humeurs, non qu’il apprenne leurs preceptes.
Let him make the boy pass everything through a sieve, and lodge nothing in his head on mere authority and trust. Let Aristotle’s principles not be principles to him, any more than those of the Stoics or Epicureans. Let this diversity of judgments be set before him: he will choose if he can; if not, he will remain in doubt. For doubting pleases me no less than knowing. For if he embraces the opinions of Xenophon and Plato by his own reasoning, they will no longer be theirs; they will be his. Whoever follows another follows nothing. He finds nothing—indeed, he seeks nothing. We are not under a king; let each man claim his own freedom. Let him at least know that he knows. He must absorb their temperament, not learn their precepts.
Et qu’il oublie hardiment s’il veut, d’où il les tient, mais qu’il se les sache approprier. La verité et la raison sont communes à vn chacun, et ne sont non plus à qui les a dites premierement, qu’à qui les dit apres. Ce n’est non plus selon Platon, que selon moy: puis que luy et moy l’entendons et voyons de mesme. Les abeilles pillotent deçà delà les fleurs, mais elles en font apres le miel, qui est tout leur; ce n’est plus thin, ny mariolaine. Ainsi les pieces empruntees d’autruy, il les transformera et confondra, pour en faire vn ouurage tout sien: à sçauoir son iugement, son institution, son trauail et estude ne vise qu’à le former.
And let him boldly forget, if he likes, where he got them, but let him know how to make them his own. Truth and reason are common to everyone, and belong no more to the one who said them first than to the one who says them after. It is no more according to Plato than according to me, since he and I understand it and see it alike. The bees plunder the flowers here and there, but afterward they make of them honey, which is all their own; it is no longer thyme or marjoram. So he will transform and blend the pieces borrowed from others to make a work all his own: namely, his judgment. His education, his labor and his study aim only at forming it.
Qu’il cele tout ce dequoy il a esté secouru, et ne produise que ce qu’il en a faict. Les pilleurs, les emprunteurs, mettent en parade leurs bastiments, leurs achapts, non pas ce qu’ils tirent d’autruy. Vous ne voyez pas les espices d’vn homme de parlement: vous voyez les alliances qu’il a gaignees, et honneurs à ses enfants. Nul ne met en compte publique sa recette: chacun y met son acquest.
Let him conceal everything that has helped him, and show only what he has made of it. Plunderers and borrowers put their buildings and their purchases on display, not what they take from others. You do not see the fees a member of the Parlement receives; you see the alliances he has gained and the honors for his children. No one makes public his receipts; everyone makes public his acquisitions.
Le guain de nostre estude, c’est en estre deuenu meilleur et plus sage. C’est, disoit Epicharmus, l’entendement qui voyt et qui oyt: c’est l’entendement qui approfite tout, qui dispose tout, qui agit, qui domine et qui regne: toutes autres choses sont aueugles, sourdes et sans ame. Certes nous le rendons seruile et coüard, pour ne luy laisser la liberté de rien faire de soy. Qui demanda iamais à son disciple ce qu’il luy semble de la Rhetorique et de la Grammaire, de telle ou telle sentence de Ciceron? On nous les placque en la memoire toutes empennees, comme des oracles, où les lettres et les syllabes sont de la substance de la chose.
The gain from our study is to have become better and wiser by it. It is the understanding, said Epicharmus, that sees and hears; it is the understanding that profits by everything, disposes everything, acts, dominates and reigns; all other things are blind, deaf and soulless. Truly, we make it servile and cowardly by not leaving it the freedom to do anything by itself. Who ever asked his pupil what he thinks of rhetoric and grammar, or of this or that saying of Cicero? They are stuck into our memory fully fledged, like oracles in which the letters and syllables are the substance of the thing.
Sçauoir par cœur n’est pas sçauoir: c’est tenir ce qu’on a donné en garde à sa memoire. Ce qu’on sçait droittement, on en dispose, sans regarder au patron, sans tourner les yeux vers son liure. Fascheuse suffisance, qu’vne suffisance pure liuresque! Ie m’attens qu’elle serue d’ornement, non de fondement: suiuant l’aduis de Platon, qui dit, la fermeté, la foy, la sincerité, estre la vraye philosophie: les autres sciences, et qui visent ailleurs, n’estre que fard.
To know by heart is not to know; it is to retain what we have given our memory to keep. What we know rightly we can make use of without looking at the model, without turning our eyes to our book. A sorry competence, a purely bookish competence! I expect it to serve as ornament, not as foundation, following the opinion of Plato, who says that steadfastness, faith and sincerity are the true philosophy, and that the other sciences, which aim elsewhere, are mere cosmetics.
Ie voudrois que le Paluël ou Pompee, ces beaux danseurs de mon temps, apprinsent des caprioles à les voir seulement faire, sans nous bouger de nos places, comme ceux-cy veulent instruire nostre entendement, sans l’esbranler: ou qu’on nous apprinst à manier vn cheual, ou vne pique, ou vn luth, ou la voix, sans nous y exercer: comme ceux icy nous veulent apprendre à bien iuger, et à bien parler, sans nous exercer à parler ny à iuger. Or à cet apprentissage tout ce qui se presente à nos yeux, sert de liure suffisant: la malice d’vn page, la sottise d’vn valet, vn propos de table, ce sont autant de nouuelles matieres.
I would like to see Paluel or Pompey, those fine dancers of my day, teach us capers just by our watching them, without our stirring from our seats—the way these people want to train our understanding without setting it in motion. Or to see us taught to handle a horse, a pike, a lute or our voice without practicing—the way these people want to teach us to judge well and speak well without exercising us in speaking or judging. Now for this apprenticeship, everything that comes before our eyes is book enough: a page’s prank, a valet’s blunder, a remark at table—these are so much new material.
The world as schoolbook
Travel, company and histories train the judgment; the great world is the pupil’s mirror.
A cette cause le commerce des hommes y est merueilleusement propre, et la visite des pays estrangers: non pour en rapporter seulement, à la mode de nostre noblesse Françoise, combien de pas a Santa rotonda, ou la richesse de calessons de la Signora Liuia, ou comme d’autres, combien le visage de Neron, de quelque vieille ruyne de là, est plus long ou plus large, que celuy de quelque pareille medaille.
For this purpose, mixing with men is marvelously suited, and so is visiting foreign countries—not merely to bring back, in the fashion of our French nobility, how many paces Santa Rotonda measures, or how rich Signora Livia’s drawers are, or, like others, how much longer or wider Nero’s face is on some old ruin there than on some similar medal,
Mais pour en rapporter principalement les humeurs de ces nations et leurs façons: et pour frotter et limer nostre ceruelle contre celle d’autruy, ie voudrois qu’on commençast à le promener dés sa tendre enfance: et premierement, pour faire d’vne pierre deux coups, par les nations voisines, où le langage est plus esloigné du nostre, et auquel si vous ne la formez de bon’heure, la langue ne se peut plier.
but chiefly to bring back the temperament and ways of those nations, and to rub and polish our brains against those of others. I would have him taken traveling from his tender childhood; and first, to kill two birds with one stone, among the neighboring nations whose language is farthest from ours, to which the tongue cannot bend unless you train it early.
Aussi bien est-ce vne opinion receuë d’vn chacun, que ce n’est pas raison de nourrir vn enfant au giron de ses parens. Cette amour naturelle les attendrit trop, et relasche, voire les plus sages: ils ne sont capables ny de chastier ses fautes, ny de le voir nourry grossierement comme il faut, et hasardeusement. Ils ne le sçauroient souffrir reuenir suant et poudreux de son exercice, boire chaud, boire froid, ny le voir sur vn cheual rebours, ny contre vn rude tireur le floret au poing, ou la premiere harquebuse.
Besides, everyone holds that it is not right to bring up a child in his parents’ lap. That natural love makes them too tender and too lax, even the wisest of them. They are capable neither of punishing his faults nor of seeing him brought up roughly, as he should be, and among risks. They could not bear to see him come back sweaty and dusty from his exercise, drinking hot, drinking cold, nor see him on a restive horse, or foil in hand against a tough fencer, or with his first arquebus.
Car il n’y a remede, qui en veut faire vn homme de bien, sans doubte il ne le faut espargner en cette ieunesse: et faut souuent choquer les regles de la medecine: Vitámque sub dio et trepidis agat / In rebus. Ce n’est pas assez de luy roidir l’ame, il luy faut aussi roidir les muscles; elle est trop pressee, si elle n’est secondee; et a trop à faire, de seule fournir à deux offices. Ie sçay combien ahanne la mienne en compagnie d’vn corps si tendre, si sensible, qui se laisse si fort aller sur elle.
For there is no help for it: whoever wants to make a good man of him must certainly not spare him in his youth, and must often go against the rules of medicine: Let him live under the open sky / and amid dangers. It is not enough to toughen his soul; we must also toughen his muscles. The soul is too hard pressed if it is not seconded, and has too much to do in meeting two duties alone. I know how much mine labors in company with a body so tender and so sensitive, which leans so heavily on it.
Et apperçoy souuent en ma leçon, qu’en leurs escrits, mes maistres font valoir pour magnanimité et force de courage, des exemples, qui tiennent volontiers plus de l’espessissure de la peau et durté des os.
And in my reading I often notice that my masters, in their writings, cite as magnanimity and strength of courage examples that have more to do with thickness of skin and hardness of bones.
I’ay veu des hommes, des femmes et des enfans, ainsi nays, qu’une bastonade leur est moins qu’à moy vne chiquenaude; qui ne remuent ny langue ny sourcil, aux coups qu’on leur donne. Quand les athletes contrefont les Philosophes en patience, c’est plustost vigueur de nerfs que de cœur. Or l’accoustumance à porter le trauail, est accoustumance à porter la douleur: labor collum obducit dolori. Il le faut rompre à la peine, et aspreté des exercices, pour le dresser à la peine, et aspreté de la dislocation, de la colique, du caustere: et de la geaule aussi, et de la torture. Car de ces derniers icy, encore peut-il estre en prinse, qui regardent les bons, selon le temps, comme les meschants. Nous en sommes à l’espreuue.
I have seen men, women and children so made that a beating is less to them than a flick of the finger is to me, and who move neither tongue nor eyebrow at the blows they are given. When athletes imitate the philosophers in endurance, it is strength of sinew rather than of heart. Now, being used to bearing toil is being used to bearing pain: toil grows a callus against pain. The boy must be broken in to the hardship and harshness of exercise, to train him for the hardship and harshness of dislocation, colic and cautery—and of prison too, and of torture. For these last may also catch him, since, as times go, they threaten the good as well as the wicked. We are living through it.
Quiconque combat les loix, menace les gents de bien d’escourgees et de la corde. Et puis, l’authorité du gouuerneur, qui doit estre souueraine sur luy, s’interrompt et s’empesche par la presence des parents. Ioint que ce respect que la famille luy porte, la cognoissance des moyens et grandeurs de sa maison, ce ne sont à mon opinion pas legeres incommoditez en cet aage.
Whoever fights the laws threatens good men with the whip and the rope. And then, the tutor’s authority, which ought to be sovereign over the boy, is interrupted and hampered by the presence of the parents. Besides, the respect the household pays him and his awareness of the wealth and greatness of his house are, in my opinion, no slight drawbacks at that age.
En cette escole du commerce des hommes, i’ay souuent remarqué ce vice, qu’au lieu de prendre cognoissance d’autruy, nous ne trauaillons qu’à la donner de nous: et sommes plus en peine d’emploiter nostre marchandise, que d’en acquerir de nouuelle. Le silence et la modestie sont qualitez tres-commodes à la conuersation. On dressera cet enfant à estre espargnant et mesnager de sa suffisance, quand il l’aura acquise, à ne se formalizer point des sottises et fables qui se diront en sa presence: car c’est vne inciuile importunité de choquer tout ce qui n’est pas de nostre appetit. Qu’il se contente de se corriger soy mesme. Et ne semble pas reprocher à autruy, tout ce qu’il refuse à faire: ny contraster aux mœurs publiques.
In this school of human dealings I have often noticed a fault: instead of getting to know others, we work only at making ourselves known, and we take more trouble to sell off our own goods than to acquire new ones. Silence and modesty are very useful qualities in conversation. This child will be trained to be sparing and thrifty with his ability once he has acquired it, and not to take offense at the foolish remarks and tall tales told in his presence; for it is a rude nuisance to attack everything that is not to our taste. Let him be content to correct himself, and not seem to reproach others for everything he declines to do himself, nor set himself against public customs.
Licet sapere sine pompa, sine inuidia. Fuie ces images regenteuses du monde, et inciuiles: et cette puerile ambition, de vouloir paroistre plus fin, pour estre autre; et comme si ce fust marchandise malaizee, que reprehensions et nouuelletez, vouloir tirer de là, nom de quelque peculiere valeur. Comme il n’affiert qu’aux grands Poëtes, d’vser des licences de l’art: aussi n’est-il supportable, qu’aux grandes ames et illustres de se priuilegier au dessus de la coustume.
One may be wise without ostentation and without arousing envy. Let him shun those schoolmasterly and uncivil poses toward the world, and that childish ambition of wanting to seem cleverer by being different. Let him not, as if fault-finding and novelties were wares hard to come by, try to win from them a name for some special merit. Just as only great poets are entitled to use the licenses of their art, so only great and illustrious souls may be allowed to grant themselves privileges above custom.
Si quid Socrates et Aristippus contra morem et consuetudinem fecerunt, idem sibi ne arbitretur licere: magnis enim illi et diuinis bonis hanc licentiam assequebantur. On luy apprendra de n’entrer en discours et contestation, que là où il verra vn champion digne de sa lute: et là mesmes à n’emploier pas tous les tours qui luy peuuent seruir, mais ceux-là seulement qui luy peuuent le plus seruir. Qu’on le rende delicat au chois et triage de ses raisons, et aymant la pertinence, et par consequent la briefueté. Qu’on l’instruise sur tout à se rendre, et à quitter les armes à la verité, tout aussi tost qu’il l’apperceura: soit qu’elle naisse és mains de son aduersaire, soit qu’elle naisse en luy-mesmes par quelque rauisement.
If Socrates and Aristippus did anything contrary to custom and usage, let him not think the same is permitted to him; for they earned this license by great and divine qualities. He will be taught not to enter into discussion and dispute except where he sees a champion worthy of wrestling with him; and even there not to use every move that might serve him, but only those that can serve him best. Let him be made fastidious in choosing and sorting his arguments, and fond of relevance, and therefore of brevity. Above all, let him be taught to surrender and lay down his arms to truth as soon as he perceives it, whether it springs up in his opponent’s hands or within himself through some second thought.
Car il ne sera pas mis en chaise pour dire vn rolle prescript, il n’est engagé à aucune cause, que par ce qu’il l’appreuue. Ny ne sera du mestier, où se vend à purs deniers contans, la liberté de se pouuoir repentir et recognoistre. Neque, vt omnia, quæ præscripta et imperata sint, defendat, necessitate vlla cogitur.
For he will not be set up in a professor’s chair to recite a prescribed part; he is committed to no cause except because he approves of it. Nor will he belong to the trade in which the freedom to change one’s mind and admit one’s mistakes is sold for ready cash. Nor is he forced by any necessity to defend everything that has been prescribed and commanded.
Si son gouuerneur tient de mon humeur, il luy formera la volonté à estre tres-loyal seruiteur de son Prince, et tres-affectionné, et tres-courageux: mais il luy refroidira l’enuie de s’y attacher autrement que par vn deuoir publique. Outre plusieurs autres inconuenients, qui blessent nostre liberté, par ces obligations particulieres, le iugement d’vn homme gagé et achetté, ou il est moins entier et moins libre, ou il est taché et d’imprudence et d’ingratitude. Vn pur courtisan ne peut auoir ny loy ny volonté, de dire et penser que fauorablement d’vn maistre, qui parmi tant de milliers d’autres subiects, l’a choisi pour le nourrir et eleuer de sa main. Cette faueur et vtilité corrompent non sans quelque raison, sa franchise, et l’esblouissent.
If his tutor is of my temperament, he will shape his will to be a very loyal servant of his prince, very devoted and very brave; but he will cool in him any desire to attach himself to the prince otherwise than by public duty. Besides several other drawbacks of such private obligations, which wound our freedom, the judgment of a man who is hired and bought is either less whole and less free, or else tainted with both imprudence and ingratitude. A pure courtier can have neither the right nor the will to speak or think anything but favorably of a master who, among so many thousands of other subjects, has chosen him to nourish and raise up with his own hand. This favor and advantage corrupt his frankness, not without some reason, and dazzle it.
Pourtant void on coustumierement, le langage de ces gens là, diuers à tout autre langage, en vn estat, et de peu de foy en telle matiere.
That is why we commonly see the language of such people differ from all other language in a state, and deserve little trust in such matters.
Que sa conscience et sa vertu reluisent en son parler, et n’ayent que la raison pour conduite. Qu’on luy face entendre, que de confesser la faute qu’il descouurira en son propre discours, encore qu’elle ne soit apperceuë que par luy, c’est vn effet de iugement et de sincerité, qui sont les principales parties qu’il cherche. Que l’opiniatrer et contester, sont qualitez communes: plus apparentes aux plus basses ames. Que se r’aduiser et se corriger, abandonner vn mauuais party, sur le cours de son ardeur, ce sont qualitez rares, fortes, et philosophiques.
Let his conscience and his virtue shine in his speech, and have only reason as their guide. Let him be made to understand that to confess a fault he discovers in his own argument, even if no one but himself has noticed it, is an effect of judgment and sincerity, which are the chief qualities he is seeking. That obstinacy and contentiousness are common qualities, most visible in the basest souls. That to think again and correct oneself, to abandon a bad position in the very heat of one’s ardor—these are rare, strong and philosophical qualities.
On l’aduertira, estant en compagnie, d’auoir les yeux par tout: car ie trouue que les premiers sieges sont communement saisis par les hommes moins capables, et que les grandeurs de fortune ne se trouuent gueres meslees à la suffisance. I’ay veu ce pendant qu’on s’entretenoit au bout d’vne table, de la beauté d’vne tapisserie, ou du goust de la maluoisie, se perdre beaucoup de beaux traicts à l’autre bout. Il sondera la portee d’vn chacun: vn bouuier, un masson, vn passant, il faut tout mettre en besongne, et emprunter chacun selon sa marchandise: car tout sert en mesnage: la sottise mesmes, et foiblesse d’autruy luy sera instruction. A contreroller les graces et façons d’vn chacun, il s’engendrera enuie des bonnes, et mespris des mauuaises.
He will be advised, when in company, to keep his eyes everywhere; for I find that the chief seats are commonly taken by the least capable men, and that greatness of fortune is seldom found combined with ability. I have seen, while people at one end of a table talked about the beauty of a tapestry or the taste of the malmsey, many fine sayings lost at the other end. He will sound out the depth of each person: a cowherd, a mason, a passer-by. He must put everything to use, and borrow from each according to his wares, for everything is useful in a household; even other people’s stupidity and weakness will be instruction to him. By observing the graces and manners of each person, he will breed in himself a desire for the good ones and a contempt for the bad.
Qu’on luy mette en fantasie vne honneste curiosité de s’enquerir de toutes choses: tout ce qu’il y aura de singulier autour de luy, il le verra: vn bastiment, vne fontaine, vn homme, le lieu d’vne bataille ancienne, le passage de Cæsar ou de Charlemaigne. Quæ tellus sit lenta gelu, quæ putris ab æstu, / Ventus in Italiam quis bene vela ferat. Il s’enquerra des mœurs, des moyens et des alliances de ce Prince, et de celuy-là. Ce sont choses tres-plaisantes à apprendre, et tres-vtiles à sçauoir.
Let a decent curiosity be put into his head to inquire into all things. Whatever is remarkable around him, he will see: a building, a fountain, a man, the site of an ancient battle, the places where Caesar or Charlemagne passed. What land is stiff with frost, what land crumbles in the heat, / What wind bears sails well to Italy. He will inquire into the customs, the resources and the alliances of this prince and that. These are things very pleasant to learn and very useful to know.
En cette practique des hommes, i’entens y comprendre, et principalement, ceux qui ne viuent qu’en la memoire des liures. Il praticquera par le moyen des histoires, ces grandes ames des meilleurs siecles. C’est vn vain estude qui veut: mais qui veut aussi c’est vn estude de fruit estimable: et le seul estude, comme dit Platon, que les Lacedemoniens eussent reserué à leur part. Quel profit ne fera-il en cette part là, à la lecture des vies de nostre Plutarque?
In this frequenting of men I mean to include—and principally—those who live only in the memory of books. By means of histories he will frequent those great souls of the best ages. It is a vain study if you like; but, if you like, it is also a study of inestimable fruit, and, as Plato says, the only study the Lacedaemonians had kept for themselves. What profit will he not draw in this field from reading the Lives of our Plutarch?
Mais que mon guide se souuienne où vise sa charge; et qu’il n’imprime pas tant à son disciple, la date de la ruine de Carthage, que les mœurs de Hannibal et de Scipion: ny tant où mourut Marcellus, que pourquoy il fut indigne de son deuoir, qu’il mourust là. Qu’il ne luy apprenne pas tant les histoires, qu’à en iuger. C’est à mon gré, entre toutes, la matiere à laquelle nos esprits s’appliquent de plus diuerse mesure. I’ay leu en Tite Liue cent choses que tel n’y a pas leu. Plutarche y en a leu cent; outre ce que i’y ay sçeu lire: et à l’aduenture outre ce que l’autheur y auoit mis.
But let my guide remember what his charge is aiming at, and let him not imprint on his pupil so much the date of the destruction of Carthage as the characters of Hannibal and Scipio; nor so much where Marcellus died as why it was unworthy of his duty that he died there. Let him teach him not so much the histories as how to judge them. In my opinion, of all subjects this is the one to which our minds apply themselves in the most varying measure. I have read in Livy a hundred things that another man has not read there. Plutarch read a hundred there beyond what I could read, and perhaps beyond what the author had put there.
A d’aucuns c’est vn pur estude grammairien: à d’autres, l’anatomie de la Philosophie, par laquelle les plus abstruses parties de nostre nature se penetrent. Il y a dans Plutarque beaucoup de discours estendus tres-dignes d’estre sçeus: car à mon gré c’est le maistre ouurier de telle besongne: mais il y en a mille qu’il n’a que touché simplement: il guigne seulement du doigt par où nous irons, s’il nous plaist, et se contente quelquefois de ne donner qu’vne atteinte dans le plus vif d’vn propos. Il les faut arracher de là, et mettre en place marchande.
For some it is a purely grammatical study; for others, the anatomy of philosophy, by which the most hidden parts of our nature are penetrated. In Plutarch there are many extended discussions well worth knowing, for in my opinion he is the master craftsman of that kind of work; but there are a thousand that he has merely touched on. He just points with his finger the way we are to go, if we like, and is sometimes content to give a single thrust at the very heart of a subject. We must pull these out of there and put them on the market.
Comme ce sien mot, Que les habitans d’Asie seruoient à vn seul, pour ne sçauoir prononcer vne seule syllable, qui est, Non, donna peut estre, la matiere, et l’occasion à la Boœtie, de sa Seruitude volontaire. Cela mesme de luy voir trier vne legiere action en la vie d’vn homme, ou vn mot, qui semble ne porter pas cela, c’est vn discours. C’est dommage que les gens d’entendement, ayment tant la briefueté: sans doubte leur reputation en vaut mieux, mais nous en valons moins. Plutarque ayme mieux que nous le vantions de son iugement, que de son sçauoir: il ayme mieux nous laisser desir de soy, que satieté.
Like that saying of his, that the inhabitants of Asia served a single man because they could not pronounce a single syllable, namely “No”—which perhaps gave La Boétie the matter and the occasion for his Voluntary Servitude. The mere fact of seeing him pick out a slight action in a man’s life, or a word that seems not to carry such weight, is a discourse in itself. It is a pity that men of understanding are so fond of brevity: no doubt their reputation is the better for it, but we are the worse. Plutarch would rather we praised him for his judgment than for his learning; he would rather leave us wanting more of him than sated.
Il sçauoit qu’és choses bonnes mesmes on peut trop dire, et que Alexandridas reprocha iustement, à celuy qui tenoit aux Ephores des bons propos, mais trop longs: O estranger, tu dis ce qu’il faut, autrement qu’il ne faut. Ceux qui ont le corps gresle, le grossissent d’embourrures: ceux qui ont la matiere exile, l’enflent de paroles.
He knew that even in good things one can say too much, and that Alexandridas was right to reproach a man who was making good but overlong speeches to the ephors: “Stranger, you say what you should, otherwise than you should.” Those with thin bodies fill them out with padding; those with slender matter puff it out with words.
Il se tire vne merueilleuse clarté pour le iugement humain, de la frequentation du monde. Nous sommes tous contraints et amoncellez en nous, et auons la veuë racourcie à la longueur de nostre nez. On demandoit à Socrates d’où il estoit, il ne respondit pas, d’Athenes, mais, du monde. Luy qui auoit l’imagination plus plaine et plus estanduë, embrassoit l’vniuers, comme sa ville, iettoit ses cognoissances, sa societé et ses affections à tout le genre humain: non pas comme nous, qui ne regardons que sous nous. Quand les vignes gelent en mon village, mon prebstre en argumente l’ire de Dieu sur la race humaine, et iuge que la pepie en tienne des-ia les Cannibales.
Human judgment draws a marvelous clarity from frequenting the world. We are all cramped and huddled up within ourselves, and our sight is shortened to the length of our nose. Socrates was asked where he came from; he did not answer “Athens,” but “the world.” He, whose imagination was fuller and broader, embraced the universe as his city, and cast his knowledge, his fellowship and his affections over the whole human race—not like us, who look only at what lies under our feet. When the vines freeze in my village, my priest argues from it the wrath of God upon the human race, and judges that the Cannibals must already be parched with thirst.
A voir nos guerres ciuiles, qui ne crie que cette machine se bouleuerse, et que le iour du iugement nous prent au collet: sans s’auiser que plusieurs pires choses se sont veuës, et que les dix mille parts du monde ne laissent pas de galler le bon temps cependant? Moy, selon leur licence et impunité, admire de les voir si douces et molles. A qui il gresle sur la teste, tout l’hemisphere semble estre en tempeste et orage. Et disoit le Sauoïard, que si ce sot de Roy de France, eut sçeu bien conduire sa fortune, il estoit homme pour deuenir maistre d’hostel de son Duc. Son imagination ne conceuoit autre plus esleuee grandeur, que celle de son maistre.
Seeing our civil wars, who does not cry out that the whole machine is being turned upside down and that the Day of Judgment has us by the collar—without reflecting that many worse things have been seen, and that ten thousand parts of the world go on having a merry time all the while? As for me, considering how lawless and unpunished these wars are, I marvel to see them so mild and soft. When it hails on a man’s head, the whole hemisphere seems to be in tempest and storm. And the Savoyard said that if that fool of a King of France had known how to manage his fortune well, he was the sort of man who might have become his Duke’s steward. His imagination could conceive no greater height than his master’s.
Nous sommes insensiblement touts en cette erreur: erreur de grande suitte et preiudice. Mais qui se presente comme dans vn tableau, cette grande image de nostre mere nature, en son entiere maiesté: qui lit en son visage, vne si generale et constante varieté: qui se remarque là dedans, et non soy, mais tout vn royaume, comme vn traict d’vne pointe tres-delicate, celuy-là seul estime les choses selon leur iuste grandeur.
We are all imperceptibly in this error—an error of great consequence and harm. But whoever pictures to himself, as in a painting, that great image of our mother nature in her full majesty; whoever reads in her face so universal and constant a variety; whoever sees himself in it—and not himself only, but a whole kingdom—as a dot made with a very fine point: he alone judges things at their true size.
Ce grand monde, que les vns multiplient encore comme especes soubs vn genre, c’est le miroüer, où il nous faut regarder, pour nous cognoistre de bon biais. Somme ie veux que ce soit le liure de mon escolier. Tant d’humeurs, de sectes, de iugemens, d’opinions, de loix, et de coustumes, nous apprennent à iuger sainement des nostres, et apprennent nostre iugement à recognoistre son imperfection et sa naturelle foiblesse: qui n’est pas vn legier apprentissage. Tant de remuements d’estat, et changements de fortune publique, nous instruisent à ne faire pas grand miracle de la nostre.
This great world, which some multiply further, like species under one genus, is the mirror in which we must look at ourselves to know ourselves from the right angle. In short, I want it to be my pupil’s book. So many temperaments, sects, judgments, opinions, laws and customs teach us to judge our own soundly, and teach our judgment to recognize its imperfection and its natural weakness—which is no small apprenticeship. So many upheavals of state and changes of public fortune teach us not to make a great wonder of our own.
Tant de noms, tant de victoires et conquestes enseuelies soubs l’oubliance, rendent ridicule l’esperance d’eterniser nostre nom par la prise de dix argoulets, et d’vn pouillier, qui n’est cognu que de sa cheute. L’orgueil et la fiereté de tant de pompes estrangeres, la maiesté si enflee de tant de cours et de grandeurs, nous fermit et asseure la veüe, à soustenir l’esclat des nostres, sans siller les yeux. Tant de milliasses d’hommes enterrez auant nous, nous encouragent à ne craindre d’aller trouuer si bonne compagnie en l’autre monde: ainsi du reste. Nostre vie, disoit Pythagoras, retire à la grande et populeuse assemblee des ieux Olympiques.
So many names, so many victories and conquests buried in oblivion, make ridiculous the hope of immortalizing our name by capturing ten light horsemen and some henhouse of a fort known only from its fall. The pride and arrogance of so many foreign pageants, the swollen majesty of so many courts and grandeurs, steady and strengthen our gaze to bear the brilliance of our own without blinking. So many millions of men buried before us encourage us not to fear going to join such good company in the other world. And so with the rest. Our life, said Pythagoras, resembles the great and crowded assembly of the Olympic Games.
Les vns exercent le corps, pour en acquerir la gloire des ieux: d’autres y portent des marchandises à vendre, pour le gain. Il en est, et qui ne sont pas les pires, lesquels n’y cherchent aucun fruict, que de regarder comment et pourquoy chasque chose se faict: et estre spectateurs de la vie des autres hommes, pour en iuger et regler la leur.
Some exercise their bodies there to win glory in the games; others bring goods to sell, for profit. There are some—and not the worst—who seek no other fruit there than to watch how and why each thing is done, and to be spectators of other men’s lives in order to judge and regulate their own.
Aux exemples se pourront proprement assortir tous les plus profitables discours de la philosophie, à laquelle se doiuent toucher les actions humaines, comme à leur regle. On luy dira, quid fas optare, quid asper / Vtile nummus habet, patriæ charisque propinquis / Quantum elargiri deceat, quem te Deus esse / Iussit, et humana qua parte locatus es in re, / Quid sumus, aut quidnam victuri gignimur: Que c’est que scauoir et ignorer, qui doit estre le but de l’estude: que c’est que vaillance, temperance, et iustice: ce qu’il y a à dire entre l’ambition et l’auarice: la seruitude et la subiection, la licence et la liberté: à quelles marques on congnoit le vray et solide contentement: iusques où il faut craindre la mort, la douleur et la honte.
With these examples may fittingly be matched all the most profitable discourses of philosophy, by which human actions must be measured as by their rule. He will be told what it is right to wish for, what use / Hard coin has, how much it is fitting to bestow / On one’s country and dear kin, what God has ordered / You to be, and in what part of human affairs you are placed, / What we are, and for what life we are born: what it is to know and not to know, which should be the aim of study; what valor, temperance and justice are; what difference there is between ambition and greed, servitude and subjection, license and liberty; by what marks one recognizes true and solid contentment; how far one should fear death, pain and disgrace.
Et quo quemque modo fugiátque ferátque laborem. Quels ressors nous meuuent, et le moyen de tant diuers branles en nous. Car il me semble que les premiers discours, dequoy on luy doit abreuuer l’entendement, ce doiuent estre ceux, qui reglent ses mœurs et son sens, qui luy apprendront à se cognoistre, et à sçauoir bien mourir et bien viure.
And how he may avoid or bear each hardship. What springs move us, and the cause of so many different stirrings in us. For it seems to me that the first discourses with which his understanding should be steeped must be those that regulate his conduct and his sense, that will teach him to know himself, and to know how to die well and to live well.
Entre les arts liberaux, commençons par l’art qui nous faict libres. Elles seruent toutes voirement en quelque maniere à l’instruction de nostre vie, et à son vsage: comme toutes autres choses y seruent en quelque maniere aussi. Mais choisissons celle qui y sert directement et professoirement. Si nous sçauions restraindre les appartenances de nostre vie à leurs iustes et naturels limites, nous trouuerions, que la meilleure part des sciences, qui sont en vsage, est hors de nostre vsage. Et en celles mesmes qui le sont, qu’il y a des estendues et enfonceures tres-inutiles, que nous ferions mieux de laisser là: et suiuant l’institution de Socrates, borner le cours de nostre estude en icelles, où faut l’vtilité.
Among the liberal arts, let us begin with the art that makes us free. They all serve in some way, it is true, to instruct our life and its use, as all other things also serve it in some way. But let us choose the one that serves it directly and expressly. If we knew how to confine what pertains to our life within its just and natural limits, we would find that most of the sciences in use are of no use to us; and that even in those that are, there are stretches and depths quite useless, which we would do better to leave alone, and, following Socrates’ teaching, stop the course of our study in them where usefulness ends.
sapere aude, / Incipe: Viuendi qui rectè prorogat horam, / Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis, at ille / Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis æuum. C’est vne grande simplesse d’aprendre à nos enfans, Quid moueant pisces, animosáque signa leonis, / Lotus et Hesperia quid capricornus aqua; la science des astres et le mouuement de la huictiesme sphere, auant que les leurs propres. τι πλειαδεσσι καμοι, / τι δ’αστρασιν βοωτεω. Anaximenes escriuant à Pythagoras: De quel sens puis ie m’amuser aux secrets des estoilles, ayant la mort ou la seruitude touiours presente aux yeux? Car lors les Roys de Perse preparoient la guerre contre son pays. Chacun doit dire ainsin.
Dare to be wise; / Begin! He who postpones the hour of living rightly / Is the rustic waiting for the river to run by; but it / Glides on, and will glide on, rolling, through all time. It is great foolishness to teach our children What influence the Fishes have, and the fiery signs of the Lion, / And Capricorn, bathed in the Hesperian sea, the science of the stars and the movement of the eighth sphere, before their own. What are the Pleiades to me, / What the stars of Boötes? Anaximenes, writing to Pythagoras: “What sense can I have in amusing myself with the secrets of the stars, when I have death or slavery always before my eyes?” For at that time the kings of Persia were preparing war against his country. Everyone ought to say the same.
Estant battu d’ambition, d’auarice, de temerité, de superstition: et ayant au dedans tels autres ennemis de la vie: iray-ie songer au bransle du monde?
Beset by ambition, greed, rashness and superstition, and having within me other such enemies of life, shall I go dreaming about the motion of the world?
Apres qu’on luy aura appris ce qui sert à le faire plus sage et meilleur, on l’entretiendra que c’est que Logique, Physique, Geometrie, Rhetorique: et la science qu’il choisira, ayant desia le iugement formé, il en viendra bien tost à bout. Sa leçon se fera tantost par deuis, tantost par liure: tantost son gouuerneur luy fournira de l’autheur mesme propre à cette fin de son institution: tantost il luy en donnera la moelle, et la substance toute maschee.
After he has been taught what serves to make him wiser and better, he will be told what logic, physics, geometry and rhetoric are; and whatever science he chooses, his judgment being already formed, he will soon master it. His lessons will be given sometimes by conversation, sometimes by books. Sometimes his tutor will provide him with the very author suited to this purpose of his education; sometimes he will give him its marrow and substance all ready chewed.
Et si de soy mesme il n’est assez familier des liures, pour y trouuer tant de beaux discours qui y sont, pour l’effect de son dessein, on luy pourra ioindre quelque homme de lettres, qui à chaque besoing fournisse les munitions qu’il faudra, pour les distribuer et dispenser à son nourrisson. Et que cette leçon ne soit plus aisee, et naturelle que celle de Gaza, qui y peut faire doute? Ce sont là preceptes espineux et mal plaisans, et des mots vains et descharnez, où il n’y a point de prise, rien qui vous esueille l’esprit: en cette cy l’ame trouue où mordre, où se paistre. Ce fruict est plus grand sans comparaison, et si sera plustost meury.
And if the tutor is not himself familiar enough with books to find in them all the fine discourses they contain for the purpose of his design, some man of letters can be joined to him to supply, at each need, the ammunition required, for him to distribute and dispense to his charge. And who can doubt that this lesson is easier and more natural than Gaza’s? That is all thorny, unpleasant precepts and empty, fleshless words, with nothing to take hold of, nothing to wake up your mind; in this one the mind finds something to bite on and feed on. This fruit is incomparably greater, and yet it will ripen sooner.
Philosophy’s cheerful face
Philosophy is not grim but gay, and its virtue is reached by pleasant, easy paths.
C’est grand cas que les choses en soyent là en nostre siecle, que la philosophie soit iusques aux gens d’entendement, vn nom vain et fantastique, qui se treuue de nul vsage, et de nul pris par opinion et par effect. Ie croy que ces ergotismes en sont cause, qui ont saisi ses auenues. On a grand tort de la peindre inaccessible aux enfans, et d’vn visage renfroigné, sourcilleux et terrible: qui me l’a masquee de ce faux visage pasle et hideux? Il n’est rien plus gay, plus gaillard, plus enioué, et à peu que ie ne die follastre. Elle ne presche que feste et bon temps. Vne mine triste et transie, montre que ce n’est pas là son giste.
It is a strange thing that matters have come to such a pass in our age that philosophy, even for men of understanding, is an empty and fanciful name, of no use and no value, both in opinion and in fact. I think the cause is all that logic-chopping which has taken over its approaches. It is very wrong to portray it as inaccessible to children, with a frowning, beetle-browed and terrifying face. Who has masked it for me with this false face, pale and hideous? There is nothing more cheerful, more lively, more sprightly, and I would almost say more frolicsome. It preaches nothing but feasting and good times. A sad and downcast look shows that it does not dwell there.
Demetrius le Grammairien rencontrant dans le temple de Delphes vne troupe de Philosophes assis ensemble, il leur dit: Ou ie me trompe, ou à vous voir la contenance si paisible et si gaye, vous n’estes pas en grand discours entre vous. A quoy l’vn d’eux, Heracleon le Megarien, respondit: C’est à faire à ceux qui cherchent si le futur du verbe βαλλω a double λ, ou qui cherchent la deriuation des comparatifs χειρον et βελτιον, et des superlatifs χειριστον et βελτιστον, qu’il faut rider le front s’entretenant de leur science: mais quant aux discours de la philosophie, ils ont accoustumé d’esgayer et resiouïr ceux qui les traictent, non les renfroigner et contrister.
Demetrius the grammarian, coming upon a group of philosophers sitting together in the temple at Delphi, said to them: “Either I am mistaken, or, judging by your peaceful and cheerful faces, you are not engaged in any deep discussion.” To which one of them, Heracleon of Megara, replied: “It is for those who inquire whether the future of the verb βαλλω has a double λ, or who seek the derivation of the comparatives χειρον and βελτιον and the superlatives χειριστον and βελτιστον, to furrow their brows while discussing their science. But as for the discussions of philosophy, they usually cheer and delight those who engage in them, not make them frown and grow sad.”
Deprendas animi tormenta latentis in ægro / Corpore, deprendas et gaudia, sumit vtrumque / Inde habitum facies. L’ame qui loge la philosophie, doit par sa santé rendre sain encores le corps: elle doit faire luyre iusques au dehors son repos, et son aise: doit former à son moule le port exterieur, et l’armer par consequent d’vne gratieuse fierté, d’vn maintien actif, et allaigre, et d’vne contenance contante et debonnaire. La plus expresse marque de la sagesse, c’est vne esiouissance constante: son estat est comme des choses au dessus de la lune, tousiours serein. C’est Baroco et Baralipton, qui rendent leurs supposts ainsi crotez et enfumez; ce n’est pas elle, ils ne la cognoissent que par ouyr dire. Comment?
You can detect the torments of the mind concealed in a sick / Body, and you can detect its joys; the face takes on either / Look from that source. The soul that houses philosophy must by its health make even the body healthy. It must make its repose and its ease shine out even on the outside; it must shape the outward bearing to its own mold, and so arm it with a gracious pride, an active and lively demeanor, and a contented and kindly countenance. The surest sign of wisdom is a constant cheerfulness; its state is like that of things above the moon, always serene. It is Baroco and Baralipton that make their followers so mud-spattered and smoke-begrimed; it is not philosophy; they know it only by hearsay. What?
elle faict estat de sereiner les tempestes de l’ame, et d’apprendre la faim et les fiebures à rire: non par quelques Epicycles imaginaires, mais par raisons naturelles et palpables. Elle a pour son but, la vertu: qui n’est pas, comme dit l’eschole, plantée à la teste d’vn mont coupé, rabotteux et inaccessible. Ceux qui l’ont approchée, la tiennent au rebours, logée dans vne belle plaine fertile et fleurissante: d’où elle void bien souz soy toutes choses; mais si peut on y arriuer, qui en sçait l’addresse, par des routtes ombrageuses, gazonnées, et doux fleurantes; plaisamment, et d’vne pante facile et polie, comme est celle des voutes celestes.
It makes it its business to calm the storms of the soul, and to teach hunger and fevers to laugh—not by some imaginary epicycles, but by natural and palpable reasons. Its aim is virtue, which is not, as the schools say, planted on the top of a steep, rugged and inaccessible mountain. Those who have approached her hold, on the contrary, that she dwells on a fine plain, fertile and flowering, from which she sees all things well beneath her; yet anyone who knows the way can get there by shady, grassy, sweet-smelling paths, pleasantly, by an easy and smooth slope, like that of the vaults of heaven.
Pour n’auoir hanté cette vertu supreme, belle, triumphante, amoureuse, delicieuse pareillement et courageuse, ennemie professe et irreconciliable d’aigreur, de desplaisir, de crainte, et de contrainte, ayant pour guide nature, fortune et volupté pour compagnes: ils sont allez selon leur foiblesse, faindre cette sotte image, triste, querelleuse, despite, menaceuse, mineuse, et la placer sur vn rocher à l’escart, emmy des ronces: fantosme à estonner les gents.
Because they have never frequented this supreme virtue—beautiful, triumphant, loving, delightful and courageous alike, the professed and irreconcilable enemy of sourness, displeasure, fear and constraint, with nature for her guide and fortune and pleasure for her companions—they have gone and, in their weakness, invented this foolish image, sad, quarrelsome, sullen, threatening, scowling, and set it on a rock apart, among brambles: a phantom to stun people.
Mon gouuerneur qui cognoist deuoir remplir la volonté de son disciple, autant ou plus d’affection, que de reuerence enuers la vertu, luy sçaura dire, que les poëtes suiuent les humeurs communes: et luy faire toucher au doigt, que les Dieux ont mis plustost la sueur aux aduenues des cabinetz de Venus que de Pallas. Et quand il commencera de se sentir, luy presentant Bradamant ou Angelique, pour maistresse à ioüir: et d’vne beauté naïue, actiue, genereuse, non hommasse, mais virile, au prix d’vne beauté molle, affettée, delicate, artificielle; l’vne trauestie en garçon, coiffée d’vn morrion luisant: l’autre vestue en garce, coiffée d’vn attiffet emperlé: il iugera masle son amour mesme, s’il choisit tout diuersement à cet effeminé pasteur de Phrygie.
My tutor, who knows he must fill his pupil’s will with as much love for virtue as reverence, or more, will be able to tell him that the poets follow common temperaments, and make him see plainly that the gods have put sweat on the approaches to the chambers of Venus rather than of Pallas. And when he begins to feel his manhood, he will present him with Bradamante or Angelica as a mistress to enjoy: a natural, active, generous beauty, not mannish but manly, set against a soft, affected, delicate, artificial beauty; the one disguised as a boy, wearing a shining helmet, the other dressed as a girl, in a pearl-studded headdress. He will judge his love itself manly if he chooses quite differently from that soft shepherd of Phrygia.
Il luy fera cette nouuelle leçon, que le prix et hauteur de la vraye vertu, est en la facilité, vtilité et plaisir de son exercice: si esloigné de difficulté, que les enfans y peuuent comme les hommes, les simples comme les subtilz. Le reglement c’est son vtil, non pas la force. Socrates son premier mignon, quitte à escient sa force, pour glisser en la naïueté et aisance de son progrés. C’est la mere nourrice des plaisirs humains. En les rendant iustes, elle les rend seurs et purs. Les moderant, elle les tient en haleine et en appetit.
He will give him this new lesson: that the value and height of true virtue lie in the ease, usefulness and pleasure of its exercise, which is so far from difficult that children can manage it as well as men, the simple as well as the subtle. Measure is its instrument, not force. Socrates, her first favorite, deliberately gives up force, to glide into the naturalness and ease of her progress. She is the nursing mother of human pleasures. By making them just, she makes them safe and pure. By moderating them, she keeps them fresh and keen.
Retranchant ceux qu’elle refuse, elle nous aiguise enuers ceux qu’elle nous laisse: et nous laisse abondamment tous ceux que veut nature: et iusques à la satieté, sinon iusques à la lasseté; maternellement: si d’aduenture nous ne voulons dire, que le regime, qui arreste le beuueur auant l’yuresse, le mangeur auant la crudité, le paillard auant la pelade, soit ennemy de noz plaisirs. Si la fortune commune luy faut, elle luy eschappe; ou elle s’en passe, et s’en forge vne autre toute sienne: non plus flottante et roulante: elle sçait estre riche, et puissante, et sçauante, et coucher en des matelats musquez. Elle aime la vie, elle aime la beauté, la gloire, et la santé.
By cutting out those she rejects, she sharpens our appetite for those she leaves us; and she leaves us, abundantly, all those that nature wants, and to the point of satiety, if not of weariness—like a mother. Unless perhaps we mean to say that the regimen that stops the drinker before drunkenness, the eater before indigestion, the lecher before he loses his hair, is an enemy of our pleasures. If common fortune fails her, she escapes it, or does without it, and forges another wholly her own, no longer fluctuating and unstable. She knows how to be rich and powerful and learned, and to sleep on musk-scented mattresses. She loves life; she loves beauty, glory and health.
Mais son office propre et particulier, c’est sçauoir vser de ces biens là regléement, et les sçauoir perdre constamment: office bien plus noble qu’aspre, sans lequel tout cours de vie est desnaturé, turbulent et difforme: et y peut-on iustement attacher ces escueils, ces haliers, et ces monstres.
But her proper and particular office is to know how to use these goods with moderation, and how to lose them with constancy—an office far more noble than harsh, without which every course of life is unnatural, turbulent and deformed; and to that kind of life one may rightly attach those reefs, those thickets and those monsters.
Si ce disciple se rencontre de si diuerse condition, qu’il aime mieux ouyr vne fable, que la narration d’vn beau voyage, ou vn sage propos, quand il l’entendra. Qui au son du tabourin, qui arme la ieune ardeur de ses compagnons, se destourne à vn autre, qui l’appelle au ieu des batteleurs. Qui par souhait ne trouue plus plaisant et plus doux, reuenir poudreux et victorieux d’un combat, que de la paulme ou du bal, auec le prix de cet exercice: ie n’y trouue autre remede, sinon qu’on le mette patissier dans quelque bonne ville: fust il fils d’vn Duc: suiuant le precepte de Platon, qu’il faut colloquer les enfans, non selon les facultez de leur pere, mais selon les facultez de leur ame.
Suppose this pupil turns out to be of such a different disposition that he would rather hear a fairy tale than the account of a fine voyage or a wise discourse when he hears one; that at the sound of the drum that arms the young ardor of his companions, he turns aside to another drum that calls him to the tumblers’ show; that by his own wish he does not find it more pleasant and sweet to come back dusty and victorious from a battle than from tennis or a ball with the prize for that exercise. I see no other remedy than to apprentice him to a pastry cook in some good town, were he the son of a duke—following Plato’s precept that children should be placed not according to their father’s faculties but according to the faculties of their soul.
Puis que la Philosophie est celle qui nous instruict à viure, et que l’enfance y a sa leçon, comme les autres aages, pourquoy ne la luy communique lon? Vdum et molle lutum est, nunc nunc properandus, et acri / Fingendus sine fine rota. On nous apprent à viure, quand la vie est passée. Cent escoliers ont pris la verolle auant que d’estre arriuez à leur leçon d’Aristote de la temperance. Cicero disoit, que quand il viuroit la vie de deux hommes, il ne prendroit pas le loisir d’estudier les Poëtes Lyriques. Et ie trouue ces ergotistes plus tristement encores inutiles.
Since it is philosophy that teaches us to live, and since childhood has its lesson there like the other ages, why is it not imparted to children? The clay is moist and soft: now, now we must hurry, and shape it / Without end on the swift wheel. We are taught to live when life is over. A hundred schoolboys have caught the pox before getting to their lesson on Aristotle’s temperance. Cicero said that even if he lived the lives of two men, he would not take the time to study the lyric poets. And I find these logic-choppers even more sadly useless.
Nostre enfant est bien plus pressé: il ne doit au paidagogisme que les premiers quinze ou seize ans de sa vie: le demeurant est deu à l’action. Employons vn temps si court aux instructions necessaires. Ce sont abus, ostez toutes ces subtilitez espineuses de la Dialectique, dequoy nostre vie ne se peut amender, prenez les simples discours de la philosophie, sçachez les choisir et traitter à point, ils sont plus aisez à conceuoir qu’vn conte de Boccace. Vn enfant en est capable au partir de la nourrisse, beaucoup mieux que d’apprendre à lire ou escrire. La philosophie a des discours pour la naissance des hommes, comme pour la decrepitude.
Our child is in much more of a hurry: he owes to schooling only the first fifteen or sixteen years of his life; the rest is owed to action. Let us use so short a time for the necessary teachings. These are abuses: get rid of all those thorny subtleties of dialectic, which cannot make our lives any better; take the simple discourses of philosophy, know how to choose them and handle them aptly; they are easier to grasp than a tale of Boccaccio. A child is capable of them as soon as he leaves his nurse, much more than of learning to read or write. Philosophy has discourses for the birth of men as well as for their decrepitude.
Ie suis de l’aduis de Plutarque, qu’Aristote n’amusa pas tant son grand disciple à l’artifice de composer syllogismes, ou aux principes de Geometrie, comme à l’instruire des bons preceptes, touchant la vaillance, proüesse, la magnanimité et temperance, et l’asseurance de ne rien craindre: et auec cette munition, il l’enuoya encores enfant subiuguer l’empire du monde à tout 30000. hommes de pied, 4000. cheuaulx, et quarante deux mille escuz seulement. Les autres arts et sciences, dit-il, Alexandre les honoroit bien, et loüoit leur excellence et gentilesse, mais pour plaisir qu’il y prist, il n’estoit pas facile à se laisser surprendre à l’affection de les vouloir exercer.
I am of Plutarch’s opinion, that Aristotle did not occupy his great pupil so much with the craft of composing syllogisms or with the principles of geometry as with instructing him in good precepts concerning valor, prowess, magnanimity and temperance, and the assurance that fears nothing. And with this provision he sent him off, still a boy, to subdue the empire of the world with only 30,000 foot soldiers, 4,000 horse and forty-two thousand crowns. The other arts and sciences, he says, Alexander honored well enough, and praised their excellence and refinement; but for all the pleasure he took in them, he was not easily caught by a desire to practice them.
Petite hinc iuuenésque senésque / Finem animo certum, miserique viatica canis. C’est ce que disoit Epicurus au commencement de sa lettre à Meniceus: Ny le plus ieune refuie à philosopher, ny le plus vieil s’y lasse. Qui fait autrement, il semble dire, ou qu’il n’est pas encores saison d’heureusement viure: ou qu’il n’en est plus saison. Pour tout cecy, ie ne veux pas qu’on emprisonne ce garçon, ie ne veux pas qu’on l’abandonne à la colere et humeur melancholique d’vn furieux maistre d’escole: ie ne veux pas corrompre son esprit, à le tenir à la gehenne et au trauail, à la mode des autres, quatorze ou quinze heures par iour, comme vn portefaiz.
Seek here, young and old, / A sure goal for your mind, and provision for wretched gray hairs. That is what Epicurus said at the beginning of his letter to Menoeceus: “Let neither the youngest shrink from philosophizing nor the oldest grow weary of it.” Whoever does otherwise seems to be saying either that it is not yet the season for living happily, or that it is no longer the season. For all that, I do not want this boy imprisoned; I do not want him abandoned to the anger and melancholy temper of a raging schoolmaster; I do not want to corrupt his mind by keeping him on the rack and at hard labor, as others do, fourteen or fifteen hours a day, like a porter.
Ny ne trouueroys bon, quand par quelque complexion solitaire et melancholique, on le verroit adonné d’vne application trop indiscrette à l’estude des liures, qu’on la luy nourrist. Cela les rend ineptes à la conuersation ciuile, et les destourne de meilleures occupations. Et combien ay-ie veu de mon temps, d’hommes abestis, par temeraire auidité de science? Carneades s’en trouua si affollé, qu’il n’eut plus le loisir de se faire le poil et les ongles. Ny ne veux gaster ses meurs genereuses par l’inciuilité et barbarie d’autruy. La sagesse Françoise a esté anciennement en prouerbe, pour vne sagesse qui prenoit de bon’heure, et n’auoit gueres de tenue.
Nor would I think it right, if through some solitary and melancholy disposition he were seen to be given to the study of books with too immoderate an application, that this should be encouraged in him. It makes them unfit for civil conversation and turns them away from better occupations. And how many men have I seen in my time made stupid by a reckless greed for learning? Carneades was so crazed by it that he no longer had time to trim his hair and nails. Nor do I want to spoil his noble manners by the incivility and barbarism of others. French wisdom was proverbial in ancient times as a wisdom that took hold early and had hardly any staying power.
A la verité nous voyons encores qu’il n’est rien si gentil que les petits enfans en France: mais ordinairement ils trompent l’esperance qu’on en a conceuë, et hommes faicts, on n’y voit aucune excellence. I’ay ouy tenir à gens d’entendement, que ces colleges où on les enuoie, dequoy ils ont foison, les abrutissent ainsin.
In truth we still see that there is nothing so delightful as little children in France; but as a rule they disappoint the hopes placed in them, and as grown men they show no excellence. I have heard men of understanding maintain that it is these colleges they are sent to, of which there are plenty, that brutalize them so.
Au nostre, vn cabinet, vn iardin, la table, et le lict, la solitude, la compagnie, le matin et le vespre, toutes heures luy seront vnes: toutes places luy seront estude: car la philosophie, qui, comme formatrice des iugements et des meurs, sera sa principale leçon, a ce priuilege, de se mesler par tout. Isocrates l’orateur estant prié en vn festin de parler de son art, chacun trouue qu’il eut raison de respondre: Il n’est pas maintenant temps, de ce que ie sçay faire, et ce dequoy il est maintenant temps, ie ne le sçay pas faire. Car de presenter des harangues ou des disputes de rhetorique, à vne compagnie assemblée pour rire et faire bonne chere, ce seroit vn meslange de trop mauuais accord.
For our boy, a study, a garden, the table and the bed, solitude and company, morning and evening, all hours will be the same, all places will be his schoolroom; for philosophy, which, as the shaper of judgment and manners, will be his principal lesson, has the privilege of mixing in everywhere. When Isocrates the orator was asked at a banquet to speak about his art, everyone agrees he was right to answer: “This is not the time for what I know how to do, and what this is the time for, I do not know how to do.” For to offer speeches or rhetorical disputations to a company gathered to laugh and make merry would be far too discordant a mixture.
Et autant en pourroit-on dire de toutes les autres sciences. Mais quant à la philosophie, en la partie où elle traicte de l’homme et de ses deuoirs et offices, ç’a esté le iugement commun de tous les sages, que pour la douceur de sa conuersation, elle ne deuoit estre refusée, ny aux festins, ny aux ieux. Et Platon l’ayant inuitée à son conuiue, nous voyons comme elle entretient l’assistence d’vne façon molle, et accommodée au temps et au lieu, quoy que ce soit de ses plus hauts discours et plus salutaires. Æquè pauperibus prodest, locupletibus æquè, / Et neglecta æquè pueris senibúsque nocebit.
And as much could be said of all the other sciences. But as for philosophy, in the part that deals with man and his duties and obligations, it has been the common judgment of all the wise that, because of the pleasantness of its company, it should be refused neither at banquets nor at games. And when Plato invited it to his Symposium, we see how it entertains the gathering in a gentle manner suited to the time and place, though these are among its loftiest and most salutary discourses. It benefits the poor and the rich alike; / Neglected, it will harm young and old alike.
Ainsi sans doubte il choumera moins, que les autres. Mais comme les pas que nous employons à nous promener dans vne galerie, quoy qu’il y en ait trois fois autant, ne nous lassent pas, comme ceux que nous mettons à quelque chemin dessigné: aussi nostre leçon se passant comme par rencontre, sans obligation de temps et de lieu, et se meslant à toutes noz actions, se coulera sans se faire sentir. Les ieux mesmes et les exercices seront vne bonne partie de l’estude: la course, la lucte, la musique, la danse, la chasse, le maniement des cheuaux et des armes. Ie veux que la bien-seance exterieure, et l’entre-gent, et la disposition de la personne se façonne quant et quant l’ame.
In this way, no doubt, he will be idle less than the others. But just as the steps we take strolling in a gallery, even if there are three times as many, do not tire us like those we spend on some set journey, so our lesson, happening as if by chance, bound to no time or place and mingling with all our actions, will slip by without being felt. Even games and exercises will be a good part of his study: running, wrestling, music, dancing, hunting, the handling of horses and arms. I want his outward decorum, his social ease and his bodily bearing to be fashioned along with his soul.
Ce n’est pas vne ame, ce n’est pas vn corps qu’on dresse, c’est vn homme, il n’en faut pas faire à deux. Et comme dit Platon, il ne faut pas les dresser l’vn sans l’autre, mais les conduire également, comme vne couple de cheuaux attelez à mesme timon. Et à l’oüir semble il pas prester plus de temps et de solicitude, aux exercices du corps: et estimer que l’esprit s’en exerce quant et quant, et non au contraire?
It is not a soul, it is not a body that we are training: it is a man; we must not make two of him. And as Plato says, we must not train one without the other, but drive them equally, like a pair of horses harnessed to the same shaft. And to hear him, does he not seem to give more time and care to bodily exercises, and to think that the mind gets its exercise along with them, and not the other way around?
Au demeurant, cette institution se doit conduire par vne seuere douceur, non comme il se fait. Au lieu de conuier les enfans aux lettres, on ne leur presente à la verité, qu’horreur et cruauté. Ostez moy la violence et la force; il n’est rien à mon aduis qui abatardisse et estourdisse si fort vne nature bien née. Si vous auez enuie qu’il craigne la honte et le chastiement, ne l’y endurcissez pas. Endurcissez le à la sueur et au froid, au vent, au soleil et aux hazards qu’il luy faut mespriser.
For the rest, this education must be conducted with a stern gentleness, not as it is now done. Instead of inviting children to letters, they are in truth offered nothing but horror and cruelty. Away with violence and force! There is nothing, in my opinion, that so debases and stupefies a well-born nature. If you want him to fear shame and punishment, do not harden him to them. Harden him to sweat and cold, to wind and sun, and to the dangers he must learn to despise.
Ostez luy toute mollesse et delicatesse au vestir et coucher, au manger et au boire: accoustumez le à tout: que ce ne soit pas vn beau garçon et dameret, mais vn garçon vert et vigoureux. Enfant, homme, vieil, i’ay tousiours creu et iugé de mesme. Mais entre autres choses, cette police de la plus part de noz colleges, m’a tousiours despleu. On eust failly à l’aduenture moins dommageablement, s’inclinant vers l’indulgence. C’est vne vraye geaule de ieunesse captiue. On la rend desbauchée, l’en punissant auant qu’elle le soit. Arriuez y sur le point de leur office; vous n’oyez que cris, et d’enfans suppliciez, et de maistres enyurez en leur cholere.
Rid him of all softness and daintiness in dress and bed, in eating and drinking; accustom him to everything. Let him not be a pretty boy and a ladies’ man, but a lusty, vigorous lad. As a child, as a man, as an old man, I have always believed and judged the same. But among other things, the discipline of most of our colleges has always displeased me. They might have erred less harmfully by leaning toward indulgence. They are real jails for captive youth. They make the young debauched by punishing them for it before they are. Go there at lesson time: you hear nothing but cries, from children being tortured and from masters drunk with anger.
Quelle maniere, pour esueiller l’appetit enuers leur leçon, à ces tendres ames, et craintiues, de les y guider d’vne troigne effroyable, les mains armées de fouets? Inique et pernicieuse forme. Ioint ce que Quintilian en a tres-bien remarqué, que cette imperieuse authorité, tire des suittes perilleuses: et nommément à nostre façon de chastiement. Combien leurs classes seroient plus decemment ionchées de fleurs et de feuillées, que de tronçons d’osiers sanglants? l’y feroy pourtraire la ioye, l’allegresse, et Flora, et les Graces: comme fit en son eschole le philosophe Speusippus. Où est leur profit, que là fust aussi leur esbat. On doit ensucrer les viandes salubres à l’enfant: et enfieller celles qui luy sont nuisibles.
What a way to awaken a taste for their lessons in those tender and timid souls—to lead them to it with a fearsome scowl and hands armed with whips! An unjust and pernicious method. Not to mention what Quintilian has very rightly observed, that this imperious authority has dangerous consequences, and especially our manner of punishment. How much more fittingly their classrooms would be strewn with flowers and leaves than with bloody stumps of willow rods! I would have joy and gladness painted there, and Flora and the Graces, as the philosopher Speusippus did in his school. Where their profit is, let their pleasure be also. Wholesome foods should be sweetened for the child, and harmful ones dosed with gall.
C’est merueille combien Platon se montre soigneux en ses loix, de la gayeté et passetemps de la ieunesse de sa cité: et combien il s’arreste à leurs courses, ieux, chansons, saults et danses: desquelles il dit, que l’antiquité a donné la conduitte et le patronnage aux Dieux mesmes, Apollon, aux Muses et Minerue. Il s’estend à mille preceptes pour ses gymnases. Pour les sciences lettrées, il s’y amuse fort peu: et semble ne recommander particulierement la poësie, que pour la musique.
It is remarkable how careful Plato shows himself in his Laws about the gaiety and pastimes of the youth of his city, and how much he dwells on their races, games, songs, leaps and dances, the direction and patronage of which, he says, antiquity gave to the gods themselves: Apollo, the Muses and Minerva. He goes into a thousand precepts for his gymnasiums. On literary studies he spends very little time, and seems to recommend poetry in particular only for the sake of music.
Toute estrangeté et particularité en noz mœurs et conditions est euitable, comme ennemie de societé. Qui ne s’estonneroit de la complexion de Demophon, maistre d’hostel d’Alexandre, qui suoit à l’ombre, et trembloit au soleil? I’en ay veu fuir la senteur des pommes, plus que les harquebuzades; d’autres s’effrayer pour vne souris: d’autres rendre la gorge à voir de la cresme: d’autres à voir brasser vn lict de plume: comme Germanicus ne pouuoit souffrir ny la veuë ny le chant des cocqs. Il y peut auoir à l’aduanture à cela quelque proprieté occulte, mais on l’esteindroit, à mon aduis, qui s’y prendroit de bon’heure.
All oddity and peculiarity in our manners and ways should be avoided as hostile to social life. Who would not be astonished at the constitution of Demophon, Alexander’s steward, who sweated in the shade and shivered in the sun? I have seen men flee the smell of apples more than arquebus fire; others take fright at a mouse; others throw up at the sight of cream; others at seeing a feather bed shaken up; just as Germanicus could bear neither the sight nor the crowing of cocks. There may perhaps be some hidden property in this; but in my opinion it could be stamped out if one went about it early.
L’institution a gaigné cela sur moy, il est vray que ce n’a point esté sans quelque soing, que sauf la biere, mon appetit est accommodable indifferemment à toutes choses, dequoy on se paist.
Education has won this much from me—true, not without some effort—that, except for beer, my appetite adapts itself indifferently to everything people eat.
Le corps est encore souple, on le doit à cette cause plier à toutes façons et coustumes: et pourueu qu’on puisse tenir l’appetit, et la volonté soubs boucle, qu’on rende hardiment vn ieune homme commode à toutes nations et compagnies, voire au desreglement et aux excés, si besoing est. Son exercitation suiue l’vsage. Qu’il puisse faire toutes choses, et n’ayme à faire que les bonnes. Les philosophes mesmes ne trouuent pas louable en Callisthenes, d’auoir perdu la bonne grace du grand Alexandre son maistre, pour n’auoir voulu boire d’autant à luy. Il rira, il follastrera, il se desbauchera auec son Prince.
The body is still supple; for that reason it should be bent to all fashions and customs. And provided appetite and will can be kept in check, let a young man boldly be made fit for all nations and all company, even for disorder and excess, if need be. Let his training follow usage. Let him be able to do all things, and love to do only the good. The philosophers themselves do not find it praiseworthy in Callisthenes that he lost the favor of his master, the great Alexander, by refusing to match him drink for drink. He will laugh, he will frolic, he will carouse with his prince.
Ie veux qu’en la desbauche mesme, il surpasse en vigueur et en fermeté ses compagnons, et qu’il ne laisse à faire le mal, ny à faute de force ny de science, mais à faute de volonté. Multum interest, vtrum peccare quis nolit, aut nesciat. Ie pensois faire honneur à vn Seigneur aussi eslongné de ces debordemens, qu’il en soit en France, de m’enquerir à luy en bonne compagnie, combien de fois en sa vie il s’estoit enyuré, pour la necessité des affaires du Roy en Allemaigne: il le print de cette façon, et me respondit que c’estoit trois fois, lesquelles il recita. I’en sçay, qui à faute de cette faculté, se sont mis en grand peine, ayans à pratiquer cette nation.
I want him, even in carousing, to outdo his companions in vigor and firmness, and to refrain from doing wrong not for lack of strength or knowledge, but for lack of will. There is a great difference between not wanting to do wrong and not knowing how. I thought I was paying honor to a lord as far removed from such excesses as anyone in France when I asked him, in good company, how many times in his life he had got drunk out of necessity in the King’s business in Germany. He took it in that spirit, and answered that it was three times, and told us about them. I know some who, for lack of this ability, have got into great difficulty when they had to deal with that nation.
I’ay souuent remarqué auec grande admiration la merueilleuse nature d’Alcibiades, de se transformer si aisément à façons si diuerses, sans interest de sa santé; surpassant tantost la sumptuosité et pompe Persienne, tantost l’austerité et frugalité Lacedemonienne; autant reformé en Sparte, comme voluptueux en Ionie. Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status et res. Tel voudrois-ie former mon disciple, Quem duplici panno patientia velat, / Mirabor, vitæ via si conuersa decebit, / Personamque feret non inconcinnus vtramque.
I have often noted with great admiration the marvelous nature of Alcibiades, who could transform himself so easily to such different ways without harm to his health: outdoing now the sumptuousness and pomp of the Persians, now the austerity and frugality of the Lacedaemonians; as reformed in Sparta as voluptuous in Ionia. Every color, every state and circumstance became Aristippus. That is how I would like to shape my pupil: Him whom patience clothes in a doubled rag, / I shall admire if he carries a changed way of life well, / And plays both parts not without grace.
Voicy mes leçons: Celuy-là y a mieux proffité, qui les fait, que qui les sçait. Si vous le voyez, vous l’oyez: si vous l’oyez, vous le voyez. Ia à Dieu ne plaise, dit quelqu’vn en Platon, que philosopher ce soit apprendre plusieurs choses, et traitter les arts. Hanc amplissimam omnium artium bene viuendi disciplinam, vita magis quàm literis persequuti sunt. Leon Prince des Phliasiens, s’enquerant à Heraclides Ponticus, de quelle science, de quelle art il faisoit profession: Ie ne sçay, dit-il, ny art, ny science: mais ie suis Philosophe. On reprochoit à Diogenes, comment, estant ignorant, il se mesloit de la Philosophie: Ie m’en mesle, dit-il, d’autant mieux à propos.
These are my lessons: the one who does them has profited from them more than the one who knows them. If you see him, you hear him; if you hear him, you see him. “God forbid,” says someone in Plato, “that philosophizing should mean learning many things and dabbling in the arts.” This discipline of living well, the greatest of all the arts, they pursued in their lives rather than in their reading. Leon, prince of the Phliasians, asked Heraclides Ponticus what science, what art he professed. “I know neither art nor science,” he said, “but I am a philosopher.” Diogenes was reproached for meddling with philosophy when he was ignorant. “I meddle with it,” he said, “all the more fittingly.”
Hegesias le prioit de luy lire quelque liure: Vous estes plaisant, luy respondit il: vous choisissés les figues vrayes et naturelles, non peintes: que ne choisissez vous aussi les exercitations naturelles, vrayes, et non escrites?
Hegesias begged him to read him some book. “You are funny,” he answered. “You choose real, natural figs, not painted ones; why do you not also choose natural, real exercises, not written ones?”
Il ne dira pas tant sa leçon, comme il la fera. Il la repetera en ses actions. On verra s’il y a de la prudence en ses entreprises: s’il y a de la bonté, de la iustice en ses deportements: s’il a du iugement et de la grace en son parler: de la vigueur en ses maladies: de la modestie en ses ieux: de la temperance en ses voluptez: de l’ordre en son œconomie: de l’indifference en son goust, soit chair, poisson, vin ou eau. Qui disciplinam suam non ostentationem scientiæ, sed legem vitæ putet: quique obtemperet ipse sibi, et decretis pareat. Le vray miroir de nos discours, est le cours de nos vies.
He will not so much recite his lesson as do it. He will repeat it in his actions. We shall see whether there is prudence in his undertakings, goodness and justice in his conduct, judgment and grace in his speech, fortitude in his illnesses, modesty in his games, temperance in his pleasures, order in the management of his household, indifference in his taste, whether for meat or fish, wine or water. One who regards his learning not as a display of knowledge but as a law of life, and who obeys himself and follows his own principles. The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives.
Zeuxidamus respondit à vn qui luy demanda pourquoy les Lacedemoniens ne redigeoient par escrit les ordonnances de la prouesse, et ne les donnoient à lire à leurs ieunes gens; que c’estoit parce qu’ils les vouloient accoustumer aux faits, non pas aux parolles. Comparez au bout de 15. ou 16. ans, à cettuy-cy, vn de ces latineurs de college, qui aura mis autant de temps à n’apprendre simplement qu’à parler. Le monde n’est que babil, et ne vis iamais homme, qui ne die plustost plus, que moins qu’il ne doit: toutesfois la moitié de nostre aage s’en va là.
Someone asked Zeuxidamus why the Lacedaemonians did not put the rules of valor into writing and give them to their young people to read; he answered that it was because they wanted to accustom them to deeds, not words. Compare with this pupil, after fifteen or sixteen years, one of those college Latinizers who will have spent as long merely learning to talk. The world is nothing but chatter, and I never saw a man who did not say more rather than less than he should; yet half our life goes into it.
On nous tient quatre ou cinq ans à entendre les mots et les coudre en clauses, encores autant à en proportionner vn grand corps estendu en quatre ou cinq parties, autres cinq pour le moins à les sçauoir brefuement mesler et entrelasser de quelque subtile façon. Laissons le à ceux qui en font profession expresse.
They keep us four or five years learning to understand words and stitch them into sentences; as many again to shape them into a great body laid out in four or five parts; and another five at least to learn how to mix and weave them together concisely in some subtle fashion. Let us leave that to those who make it their express profession.
Allant vn iour à Orleans, ie trouuay dans cette plaine au deça de Clery, deux regents qui venoyent à Bourdeaux, enuiron à cinquante pas l’vn de l’autre: plus loing derriere eux, ie voyois vne trouppe, et vn maistre en teste, qui estoit feu Monsieur le Comte de la Rochefoucaut: vn de mes gens s’enquit au premier de ces regents, qui estoit ce Gentil’homme qui venoit apres luy: luy qui n’auoit pas veu ce train qui le suiuoit, et qui pensoit qu’on luy parlast de son compagnon, respondit plaisamment, Il n’est pas Gentil’homme, c’est vn grammairien, et ie suis logicien.
Going to Orléans one day, I met, on that plain this side of Cléry, two college teachers on their way to Bordeaux, about fifty paces apart. Farther behind them I saw a troop of riders with a master at its head, who was the late Count de La Rochefoucauld. One of my men asked the first of these teachers who the gentleman was who was coming along behind him. He had not seen the retinue following him, and thought he was being asked about his companion; he answered amusingly: “He is not a gentleman; he is a grammarian, and I am a logician.”
Or nous qui cherchons icy au rebours, de former non vn grammairien ou logicien, mais vn Gentil’homme, laissons les abuser de leur loisir: nous auons affaire ailleurs.
Now we, who on the contrary are trying here to form not a grammarian or a logician but a gentleman, let us leave them to misuse their leisure: we have business elsewhere.
Matter before words
With clear ideas, words follow of themselves; Montaigne praises plain, vigorous speech.
Mais que notre disciple soit bien pourueu de choses, les parolles ne suiuront que trop: il les trainera, si elles ne veulent suiure. I’en oy qui s’excusent de ne se pouuoir exprimer; et font contenance d’auoir la teste pleine de plusieurs belles choses, mais à faute d’eloquence, ne les pouuoir mettre en euidence: c’est vne baye. Sçauez vous à mon aduis que c’est que cela? ce sont des ombrages, qui leur viennent de quelques conceptions informes, qu’ils ne peuuent démesler et esclarcir au dedans, ny par consequent produire au dehors.
But let our pupil be well supplied with matter, and the words will follow only too readily; if they will not follow, he will drag them along. I hear some people excuse themselves for not being able to express themselves. They make a show of having their heads full of many fine things, but say that for lack of eloquence they cannot bring them out. That is a sham. Do you know what I think it is? It is shadows that come to them from some shapeless notions, which they cannot sort out and clarify within, and so cannot bring forth without.
Ils ne s’entendent pas encore eux mesmes: et voyez les vn peu begayer sur le point de l’enfanter, vous iugez que leur trauail n’est point à l’accouchement, mais à la conception, et qu’ils ne font que lecher encores cette matiere imparfaicte. De ma part, ie tiens, et Socrates ordonne, que qui a dans l’esprit vne viue imagination et claire, il la produira, soit en Bergamasque, soit par mines, s’il est muet: Verbâque præuisam rem non inuita sequentur. Et comme disoit celuy-là, aussi poëtiquement en sa prose, cùm res animum occupauere, verba ambiunt. Et cest autre: ipsæ res verbas rapiunt.
They do not yet understand themselves. Watch them stammer a little as they are about to give birth, and you will judge that their labor is not in the delivery but in the conception, and that they are still only licking this half-formed matter into shape. For my part, I hold, and Socrates prescribes, that whoever has a vivid and clear idea in his mind will bring it out, whether in the dialect of Bergamo or, if he is mute, by gestures: Once the matter is foreseen, the words will follow willingly. And as that other said, just as poetically in his prose, when things have taken hold of the mind, words come crowding. And this other: the things themselves carry off the words.
Il ne sçait pas ablatif, coniunctif, substantif, ny la grammaire; ne faict pas son laquais, ou vne harangere de Petit pont: et si vous entretiendront tout vostre soul, si vous en auez enuie, et se desferreront aussi peu, à l’aduenture, aux regles de leur langage, que le meilleur maistre és arts de France. Il ne sçait pas la rhetorique, ny pour auant-jeu capter la beneuolence du candide lecteur, ny ne luy chaut de le sçauoir. De vray, toute cette belle peinture s’efface aisément par le lustre d’vne verité simple et naifue. Ces gentilesses ne seruent que pour amuser le vulgaire, incapable de prendre la viande plus massiue et plus ferme; comme Afer montre bien clairement chez Tacitus.
He does not know the ablative, the subjunctive, the substantive, or grammar; nor does his lackey, or a fishwife of the Petit-Pont. And yet they will talk with you to your heart’s content, if you wish, and will perhaps trip up over the rules of their language as little as the best master of arts in France. He does not know rhetoric, nor how to capture the goodwill of the candid reader by way of a preamble, nor does he care to know it. In truth, all this fine painting is easily outshone by the luster of a simple, natural truth. These niceties serve only to amuse the common people, who cannot take more solid and firmer meat, as Afer shows very clearly in Tacitus.
Les Ambassadeurs de Samos estoyent venus à Cleomenes Roy de Sparte, preparez d’vne belle et longue oraison, pour l’esmouuoir à la guerre contre le tyran Polycrates: apres qu’il les eut bien laissez dire, il leur respondit: Quant à vostre commencement, et exorde, il ne m’en souuient plus, ny par consequent du milieu; et quant à vostre conclusion, ie n’en veux rien faire. Voila vne belle responce, ce me semble, et des harangueurs bien camus. Et quoy cet autre?
The ambassadors of Samos had come to Cleomenes, king of Sparta, armed with a fine long oration to stir him to war against the tyrant Polycrates. After he had let them say their piece, he answered: “As for your beginning and exordium, I no longer remember it, nor therefore the middle; and as for your conclusion, I will have none of it.” That is a fine answer, it seems to me, and a pair of orators thoroughly put out of countenance. And what about this other?
Les Atheniens estoient à choisir de deux architectes, à conduire vne grande fabrique; le premier plus affeté, se presenta auec vn beau discours premedité sur le subiect de cette besongne, et tiroit le iugement du peuple à sa faueur: mais l’autre en trois mots: Seigneurs Atheniens, ce que cettuy a dict, ie le feray. Au fort de l’eloquence de Cicero, plusieurs en entroient en admiration, mais Caton n’en faisant que rire: Nous auons, disoit-il, vn plaisant Consul. Aille deuant ou apres: vne vtile sentence, vn beau traict est tousiours de saison. S’il n’est pas bien à ce qui va deuant, ny à ce qui vient apres, il est bien en soy.
The Athenians had to choose between two architects to direct a great building project. The first, more polished, presented himself with a fine prepared speech on the subject of the work, and was drawing the people’s judgment his way. But the other said, in three words: “Lords of Athens, what this man has said, I will do.” At the height of Cicero’s eloquence, many were struck with admiration, but Cato only laughed at it: “We have,” he said, “an amusing consul.” Whether it comes before or after, a useful maxim or a fine stroke is always in season. If it does not fit well with what goes before or what comes after, it is good in itself.
Ie ne suis pas de ceux qui pensent la bonne rythme faire le bon poëme: laissez luy allonger vne courte syllabe s’il veut, pour cela non force; si les inuentions y rient, si l’esprit et le iugement y ont bien faict leur office: voyla vn bon poëte, diray-ie, mais vn mauuais versificateur, Emunctæ naris, durus componere versus. Qu’on face, dit Horace, perdre à son ouurage toutes ses coustures et mesures, Tempora certa modósque, et quod prius ordine verbum est, / Posterius facias, præponens vltima primis, / Inuenias etiam disiecti membra poetæ: il ne se dementira point pour cela: les pieces mesmes en seront belles.
I am not one of those who think that good rhyme makes a good poem. Let him lengthen a short syllable if he likes; no matter. If the inventions are delightful, if wit and judgment have done their work well, I will say: there is a good poet but a bad versifier, A man of keen wit, but harsh in composing verse. Let someone, says Horace, strip his work of all its seams and measures—Take away the fixed beats and meters, put the word that comes first in order / Last, and set the final words before the first, / You would still find the limbs of the dismembered poet—he will not belie himself for all that; even the pieces will be beautiful.
C’est ce que respondit Menander, comme on le tensast, approchant le iour, auquel il auoit promis vne comedie, dequoy il n’y auoit encore mis la main: elle est composée et preste, il ne reste qu’à y adiouster les vers. Ayant les choses et la matiere disposée en l’ame, il mettoit en peu de compte le demeurant. Depuis que Ronsard et du Bellay ont donné credit à nostre poësie Françoise, ie ne vois si petit apprenti, qui n’enfle des mots, qui ne renge les cadences à peu pres, comme eux.
That is what Menander replied when he was scolded because the day was approaching on which he had promised a comedy, and he had not yet set his hand to it: “It is composed and ready; all that remains is to add the verses.” Having the substance and the matter arranged in his mind, he made little account of the rest. Since Ronsard and du Bellay have brought our French poetry into credit, I see no apprentice so petty that he does not puff up his words and arrange his cadences more or less as they do.
Plus sonat quàm valet. Pour le vulgaire, il ne fut iamais tant de poëtes: mais comme il leur a esté bien aisé de representer leurs rythmes, ils demeurent bien aussi court à imiter les riches descriptions de l’vn, et les délicates inuentions de l’autre.
More sound than substance. In the common view, there were never so many poets. But just as it has been easy for them to reproduce their rhymes, so they fall well short of imitating the rich descriptions of the one and the delicate inventions of the other.
Voire mais que fera-il, si on le presse de la subtilité sophistique de quelque syllogisme? Le iambon fait boire, le boire desaltere, parquoi le iambon desaltere. Qu’il s’en mocque. Il est plus subtil de s’en mocquer, que d’y respondre. Qu’il emprunte d’Aristippus cette plaisante contrefinesse: Pourquoy le deslieray-ie, puis que tout lié il m’empesche? Quelqu’vn proposoit contre Cleanthes des finesses dialectiques: à qui Chrysippus dit, Iouë toy de ces battelages auec les enfans, et ne destourne à cela les pensées serieuses d’vn homme d’aage. Si ces sottes arguties, contorta et aculeata sophismata, luy doiuent persuader vne mensonge, cela est dangereux: mais si elles demeurent sans effect, et ne l’esmeuuent qu’à rire, ie ne voy pas pourquoy il s’en doiue donner garde.
Yes, but what will he do if someone presses him with the sophistical subtlety of some syllogism? “Ham makes you drink; drinking quenches thirst; therefore ham quenches thirst.” Let him laugh at it. It is subtler to laugh at it than to answer it. Let him borrow from Aristippus this amusing counter-trick: “Why should I untie it, since even tied up it gives me trouble?” Someone was propounding dialectical tricks against Cleanthes, and Chrysippus said to him: “Play these conjuring games with children, and do not divert the serious thoughts of a grown man to them.” If these foolish quibbles, twisted and prickly sophisms, are to persuade him of a lie, that is dangerous; but if they remain without effect and move him only to laughter, I do not see why he should be on his guard against them.
Il en est de si sots, qu’ils se destournent de leur voye vn quart de lieuë, pour courir apres vn beau mot: aut qui non verba rebus aptant, sed res extrinsecus arcessunt, quibus verba conueniant. Et l’autre: Qui alicuius verbi decore placentis vocentur ad id quod non proposuerant scribere. Ie tors bien plus volontiers vne belle sentence, pour la coudre sur moy, que ie ne destors mon fil, pour l’aller querir. Au rebours, c’est aux paroles à seruir et à suiure, et que le Gascon y arriue, si le François n’y peut aller. Ie veux que les choses surmontent, et qu’elles remplissent de façon l’imagination de celuy qui escoute, qu’il n’aye aucune souuenance des mots.
There are some so foolish that they go a quarter of a league out of their way to chase after a fine word: or who do not fit words to things, but fetch from outside things that the words may suit. And the other: who, charmed by the beauty of some word, are drawn on to write what they had not meant to. I am much more willing to twist a fine saying to sew it onto myself than to twist my thread out of line to go and fetch it. On the contrary, it is for words to serve and follow; and let Gascon get there if French cannot. I want the things to prevail, and to fill the imagination of the listener in such a way that he has no memory of the words.
Le parler que i’ayme, c’est vn parler simple et naif, tel sur le papier qu’à la bouche: vn parler succulent et nerueux, court et serré, non tant delicat et peigné, comme vehement et brusque. Hæc demum sapiet dictio, quæ feriet. Plustost difficile qu’ennuieux, esloigné d’affectation: desreglé, descousu, et hardy: chaque loppin y face son corps: non pedantesque, non fratesque, non pleideresque, mais plustost soldatesque, comme Suetone appelle celuy de Iulius Cæsar. Et si ne sens pas bien, pourquoy il l’en appelle.
The speech I love is simple and natural, the same on paper as in the mouth: a speech succulent and sinewy, brief and compact, not so much dainty and well-combed as vehement and abrupt. Only that speech will have savor which strikes home. Rather difficult than tedious, far from affectation; irregular, disjointed and bold; each piece making a body of its own; not pedantic, not friarly, not lawyerly, but rather soldierly, as Suetonius calls that of Julius Caesar. And yet I do not quite see why he calls it that.
I’ay volontiers imité cette desbauche qui se voit en nostre ieunesse, au port de leurs vestemens. Vn manteau en escharpe, la cape sur vne espaule, vn bas mal tendu, qui represente vne fierté desdaigneuse de ces paremens estrangers, et nonchallante de l’art: mais ie la trouue encore mieux employée en la forme du parler. Toute affectation, nommément en la gayeté et liberté Françoise, est mesaduenante au courtisan. Et en vne Monarchie, tout Gentil’homme doit estre dressé au port d’vn courtisan. Parquoy nous faisons bien de gauchir vn peu sur le naif et mesprisant. Ie n’ayme point de tissure, où les liaisons et les coustures paroissent: tout ainsi qu’en vn beau corps, il ne faut qu’on y puisse compter les os et les veines.
I have gladly imitated that carelessness seen in our young men in the way they wear their clothes: a cloak worn like a sash, the cape over one shoulder, a stocking loosely pulled up, which displays a pride disdainful of these extraneous trappings and careless of art. But I find it even better employed in the manner of speaking. All affectation, especially given French gaiety and freedom, is unbecoming in a courtier. And in a monarchy every gentleman should be trained to the bearing of a courtier. So we do well to lean a little toward the natural and the disdainful. I do not like a fabric in which the joins and seams show; just as in a beautiful body one should not be able to count the bones and veins.
Quæ veritati operam dat oratio, incomposita sit et simplex. Quis accuratè loquitur, nisi qui vult putidè loqui? L’eloquence faict iniure aux choses, qui nous destourne à soy. Comme aux accoustremens, c’est pusillanimité, de se vouloir marquer par quelque façon particuliere et inusitée. De mesme au langage, la recherche des frases nouuelles, et des mots peu cogneuz, vient d’vne ambition scholastique et puerile. Peusse-ie ne me seruir que de ceux qui seruent aux hales à Paris! Aristophanes le Grammairien n’y entendoit rien, de reprendre en Epicurus la simplicité de ses mots: et la fin de son art oratoire, qui estoit, perspicuité de langage seulement. L’imitation du parler, par sa facilité, suit incontinent tout vn peuple. L’imitation du iuger, de l’inuenter, ne va pas si viste.
The speech that serves truth should be plain and unadorned. Who speaks with care unless he wants to speak affectedly? Eloquence that draws us to itself does injury to the substance. As in dress it is small-mindedness to want to mark oneself out by some peculiar and unusual fashion, so in language the hunt for new phrases and little-known words comes from a schoolboyish, childish ambition. Would that I could use only the words that are used in the markets of Paris! Aristophanes the grammarian knew nothing about it when he criticized Epicurus for the simplicity of his words, and for the aim of his art of oratory, which was simply clarity of language. The imitation of speech, because it is easy, is promptly taken up by a whole people. The imitation of judgment and invention does not go so fast.
La plus part des lecteurs, pour auoir trouué vne pareille robbe, pensent tresfaucement tenir vn pareil corps. La force et les nerfs, ne s’empruntent point: les atours et le manteau s’empruntent. La plus part de ceux qui me hantent, parlent de mesmes les Essais: mais ie ne sçay, s’ils pensent de mesmes. Les Atheniens, dit Platon, ont pour leur part, le soing de l’abondance et elegance du parler, les Lacedemoniens de la briefueté, et ceux de Crete, de la fecundité des conceptions, plus que du langage: ceux-cy sont les meilleurs. Zenon disoit qu’il auoit deux sortes de disciples: les vns qu’il nommoit φιλολóγους, curieux d’apprendre les choses, qui estoient ses mignons: les autres λογοφιλους, qui n’auoyent soing que du langage.
Most readers, because they have found a similar robe, very wrongly think they hold a similar body. Strength and sinews cannot be borrowed; finery and cloak can. Most of those who frequent me talk like the Essays; but I do not know whether they think like them. The Athenians, says Plato, have as their share the care for abundance and elegance of speech, the Spartans for brevity, and the Cretans for fertility of ideas rather than of language: these last are the best. Zeno said he had two kinds of disciples: those he called φιλολóγους, eager to learn things, who were his favorites; and the others, λογοφιλους, who cared only for language.
Ce n’est pas à dire que ce ne soit vne belle et bonne chose que le bien dire: mais non pas si bonne qu’on la faict, et suis despit dequoy nostre vie s’embesongne toute à cela. Ie voudrois premierement bien sçauoir ma langue, et celle de mes voisins, où i’ay plus ordinaire commerce.
This is not to say that speaking well is not a fine and good thing; but it is not so good as people make it out, and I am vexed that our whole life is taken up with it. I would want first to know my own language well, and that of my neighbors, with whom I have the most frequent dealings.
Montaigne’s own education
His father had him taught Latin as a mother tongue, then sent him to the Collège de Guyenne.
C’est vn bel et grand agencement sans doubte, que le Grec et Latin, mais on l’achepte trop cher. Ie diray icy vne façon d’en auoir meilleur marché que de coustume, qui a esté essayée en moy-mesmes; s’en seruira qui voudra. Feu mon pere, ayant faict toutes les recherches qu’homme peut faire, parmy les gens sçauans et d’entendement, d’vne forme d’institution exquise; fut aduisé de cet inconuenient, qui estoit en vsage: et luy disoit-on que cette longueur que nous mettions à apprendre les langues qui ne leur coustoient rien, est la seule cause, pourquoy nous ne pouuons arriuer à la grandeur d’ame et de cognoissance des anciens Grecs et Romains. Ie ne croy pas que c’en soit la seule cause.
Greek and Latin are without doubt a fine and great accomplishment, but they are bought too dear. I will describe here a way of getting them more cheaply than usual, which was tried out on me myself; anyone who likes may use it. My late father, having made all the inquiries a man can make among learned and intelligent people about an excellent form of education, was made aware of this drawback then in practice. He was told that the long time we spent learning languages that cost the ancients nothing was the sole reason why we cannot attain the greatness of soul and of knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans. I do not believe it is the only reason.
Tant y a que l’expedient que mon pere y trouua, ce fut qu’en nourrice, et auant le premier desnouement de ma langue, il me donna en charge à vn Allemand, qui depuis est mort fameux medecin en France, du tout ignorant de nostre langue, et tresbien versé en la Latine. Cettuy-cy, qu’il auoit fait venir expres, et qui estoit bien cherement gagé, m’auoit continuellement entre les bras. Il en eut aussi auec luy deux autres moindres en sçauoir, pour me suiure, et soulager le premier: ceux-cy ne m’entretenoient d’autre langue que Latine.
Be that as it may, the expedient my father hit upon was this. While I was still at nurse and before my tongue was first loosened, he put me in the charge of a German, who has since died a famous doctor in France, wholly ignorant of our language and very well versed in Latin. This man, whom he had sent for expressly and who was very highly paid, had me constantly in his arms. He also had two others with him, less learned, to attend me and relieve the first; these spoke to me in no language but Latin.
Quant au reste de sa maison, c’estoit vne regle inuiolable, que ny luy mesme, ny ma mere, ny valet, ny chambriere, ne parloient en ma compagnie, qu’autant de mots de Latin, que chacun auoit appris pour iargonner auec moy. C’est merueille du fruict que chacun y fit: mon pere et ma mere y apprindrent assez de Latin pour l’entendre, et en acquirent à suffisance, pour s’en seruir à la necessité, comme firent aussi les autres domestiques, qui estoient plus attachez à mon seruice. Somme, nous nous latinizames tant, qu’il en regorgea iusques à nos villages tout autour, où il y a encores, et ont pris pied par l’vsage, plusieurs appellations Latines d’artisans et d’vtils.
As for the rest of his household, it was an inviolable rule that neither he himself, nor my mother, nor valet, nor chambermaid, spoke in my presence anything but as many words of Latin as each had learned in order to jabber with me. It is wonderful what profit everyone drew from it. My father and mother learned enough Latin to understand it, and acquired enough to use it when necessary, as did the other servants who were most attached to my service. In short, we Latinized ourselves so much that it overflowed into the villages all around, where there still remain, having taken root through use, several Latin names for craftsmen and their tools.
Quant à moy, i’auois plus de six ans, auant que i’entendisse non plus de François ou de Perigordin, que d’Arabesque: et sans art, sans liure, sans grammaire ou precepte, sans fouet, et sans larmes, i’auois appris du Latin, tout aussi pur que mon maistre d’escole le sçauoit: car ie ne le pouuois auoir meslé ny alteré. Si par essay on me vouloit donner vn theme, à la mode des colleges; on le donne aux autres en François, mais à moy il me le falloit donner en mauuais Latin, pour le tourner en bon.
As for me, I was over six years old before I understood any more French or Perigordian than Arabic. And without art, without book, without grammar or precept, without the whip and without tears, I had learned Latin quite as pure as my schoolmaster knew it, for I could not have mixed or corrupted it. If, as a test, they wanted to set me a theme in the school fashion, where others are given it in French, it had to be given to me in bad Latin, for me to turn into good.
Et Nicolas Grouchi, qui a escript de comitiis Romanorum, Guillaume Guerente, qui a commenté Aristote, George Bucanan, ce grand poëte Escossois, Marc Antoine Muret, que la France et l’Italie recognoist pour le meilleur orateur du temps, mes precepteurs domestiques, m’ont dit souuent, que i’auois ce langage en mon enfance, si prest et si à main, qu’ils craignoient à m’accoster. Bucanan, que ie vis depuis à la suitte de feu Monsieur le Mareschal de Brissac, me dit, qu’il estoit apres à escrire de l’institution des enfans: et qu’il prenoit l’exemplaire de la mienne: car il auoit lors en charge ce Comte de Brissac, que nous auons veu depuis si valeureux et si braue.
And Nicolas Grouchy, who wrote On the Assemblies of the Romans, Guillaume Guérente, who wrote commentaries on Aristotle, George Buchanan, that great Scottish poet, and Marc-Antoine Muret, whom France and Italy recognize as the best orator of the age—my private tutors—have often told me that in my childhood I had that language so ready and so much at hand that they were afraid to accost me. Buchanan, whom I later saw in the retinue of the late Marshal de Brissac, told me he was busy writing on the education of children and was taking mine as his model; for he then had in his charge that Count de Brissac whom we have since seen so valiant and so brave.
Quant au Grec, duquel ie n’ay quasi du tout point d’intelligence, mon pere desseigna me le faire apprendre par art. Mais d’vne voie nouuelle, par forme d’ébat et d’exercice: nous pelotions nos declinaisons, à la maniere de ceux qui par certains ieux de tablier apprennent l’Arithmetique et la Geometrie. Car entre autres choses, il auoit esté conseillé de me faire gouster la science et le deuoir, par vne volonté non forcée, et de mon propre desir; et d’esleuer mon ame en toute douceur et liberté, sans rigueur et contrainte.
As for Greek, of which I have almost no understanding at all, my father planned to have me taught it by art, but in a new way, as a game and exercise: we tossed our declensions back and forth like a ball, in the manner of those who learn arithmetic and geometry through certain board games. For among other things he had been advised to make me relish knowledge and duty through my own unforced will and desire, and to bring up my soul in all gentleness and freedom, without severity or constraint.
Ie dis iusques à telle superstition, que par ce qu’aucuns tiennent, que cela trouble la ceruelle tendre des enfans, de les esueiller le matin en sursaut, et de les arracher du sommeil (auquel ils sont plongez beaucoup plus que nous ne sommes) tout à coup, et par violence, il me faisoit esueiller par le son de quelque instrument, et ne fus iamais sans homme qui m’en seruist.
I may say he carried this to the point of superstition. Because some hold that it disturbs the tender brains of children to wake them in the morning with a start, and to snatch them suddenly and violently from sleep (in which they are plunged much more deeply than we are), he had me woken by the sound of some instrument, and I was never without a man to do me that service.
Cet exemple suffira pour en iuger le reste, et pour recommander aussi et la prudence et l’affection d’vn si bon pere: auquel il ne se faut prendre, s’il n’a recueilly aucuns fruits respondans à vne si exquise culture. Deux choses en furent cause: en premier, le champ sterile et incommode. Car quoy que i’eusse la santé ferme et entiere, et quant et quant vn naturel doux et traitable, i’estois parmy cela si poisant, mol et endormy, qu’on ne me pouuoit arracher de l’oisiueté, non pas pour me faire iouer. Ce que ie voyois, ie le voyois bien; et souz cette complexion lourde, nourrissois des imaginations hardies, et des opinions au dessus de mon aage.
This example will suffice to judge the rest, and also to commend both the prudence and the affection of so good a father, who is not to be blamed if he reaped no fruits answering to such exquisite cultivation. Two things were the cause. First, the field was barren and unsuitable. For though I had firm and sound health, and with it a gentle and tractable nature, I was for all that so heavy, soft and drowsy that no one could drag me out of idleness, not even to make me play. What I saw, I saw well; and beneath this sluggish constitution I nourished bold imaginings and opinions beyond my age.
L’esprit, ie l’auois lent, et qui n’alloit qu’autant qu’on le menoit: l’apprehension tardiue, l’inuention lasche, et apres tout vn incroyable defaut de memoire. De tout cela il n’est pas merueille, s’il ne sceut rien tirer qui vaille.
My mind was slow, and went only as far as it was led; my grasp was tardy, my invention feeble, and on top of all that I had an incredible lack of memory. With all this, it is no wonder he could get nothing worthwhile out of me.
Secondement, comme ceux que presse vn furieux desir de guerison, se laissent aller à toute sorte de conseil, le bon homme, ayant extreme peur de faillir en chose qu’il auoit tant à cœur, se laissa en fin emporter à l’opinion commune, qui suit tousiours ceux qui vont deuant, comme les gruës; et se rengea à la coustume, n’ayant plus autour de luy ceux qui luy auoient donné ces premieres institutions, qu’il auoit apportées d’Italie: et m’enuoya enuiron mes six ans au college de Guienne, tres-florissant pour lors, et le meilleur de France.
Secondly, just as those driven by a frantic desire to be cured let themselves follow every sort of advice, the good man, being extremely afraid of failing in a thing he had so much at heart, finally let himself be carried away by common opinion, which always follows those who go ahead, like cranes. He fell in with custom, no longer having around him those who had given him those first ideas on education, which he had brought back from Italy; and he sent me, at about six, to the Collège de Guyenne, then very flourishing and the best in France.
Et là, il n’est possible de rien adiouster au soing qu’il eut, et à me choisir des precepteurs de chambre suffisans, et à toutes les autres circonstances de ma nourriture; en laquelle il reserua plusieurs façons particulieres, contre l’vsage des colleges: mais tant y a que c’estoit tousiours college. Mon Latin s’abastardit incontinent, duquel depuis par desaccoustumance i’ay perdu tout vsage. Et ne me seruit cette mienne inaccoustumée institution, que de me faire eniamber d’arriuée aux premieres classes. Car à treize ans, que ie sortis du college, i’auois acheué mon cours (qu’ils appellent) et à la verité sans aucun fruit, que ie peusse à present mettre en compte.
And there it is impossible to add anything to the care he took, both in choosing competent private tutors for me and in all the other circumstances of my upbringing, in which he reserved several special practices contrary to the usage of the colleges. But all the same, it was still college. My Latin promptly degenerated, and since then, through disuse, I have lost all use of it. And this unusual education of mine served only to make me skip straight into the top classes on arrival. For at thirteen, when I left the college, I had finished my course (as they call it), and in truth without any fruit that I could now take into account.
Le premier goust que i’euz aux liures, il me vint du plaisir des fables de la Metamorphose d’Ouide. Car enuiron l’aage de 7. ou 8. ans, ie me desrobois de tout autre plaisir, pour les lire: d’autant que cette langue estoit la mienne maternelle; et que c’estoit le plus aisé liure, que ie cogneusse, et le plus accommodé à la foiblesse de mon aage, à cause de la matiere. Car des Lancelots du Lac, des Amadis, des Huons de Bordeaux, et tels fatras de liures, à quoy l’enfance s’amuse, ie n’en cognoissois pas seulement le nom, ny ne fais encore le corps: tant exacte estoit ma discipline. Ie m’en rendois plus nonchalant à l’estude de mes autres leçons prescrites.
My first taste for books came from the pleasure I took in the tales of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. For at about the age of seven or eight I would steal away from every other pleasure to read them, since that language was my mother tongue, and it was the easiest book I knew and, because of its subject matter, the best suited to the weakness of my age. For as to the Lancelots of the Lake, the Amadises, the Huons of Bordeaux, and such rubbishy books that amuse childhood, I did not know even their names, nor do I yet know their contents, so strict was my discipline. This made me more careless in studying my other prescribed lessons.
Là il me vint singulierement à propos, d’auoir affaire à vn homme d’entendement de precepteur, qui sceust dextrement conniuer à cette mienne desbauche, et autres pareilles. Car par là, i’enfilay tout d’vn train Vergile en l’Æneide, et puis Terence, et puis Plaute, et des comedies Italiennes, leurré tousiours par la douceur du subiect. S’il eust esté si fol de rompre ce train, i’estime que ie n’eusse rapporté du college que la haine des liures, comme fait quasi toute nostre noblesse. Il s’y gouuerna ingenieusement, faisant semblant de n’en voir rien. Il aiguisoit ma faim, ne me laissant qu’à la desrobée gourmander ces liures, et me tenant doucement en office pour les autres estudes de la regle.
Here it was singularly fortunate for me to have as tutor an intelligent man, who knew how to wink skillfully at this unruliness of mine and at others like it. For in that way I ran straight through Virgil’s Aeneid, and then Terence, and then Plautus, and some Italian comedies, lured always by the pleasure of the subject. If he had been foolish enough to break off this course, I think I would have brought nothing away from school but a hatred of books, as almost all our nobility do. He managed it ingeniously, pretending to see nothing. He sharpened my hunger, letting me gorge on these books only on the sly, and keeping me gently at my duty in the other, regular studies.
Car les principales parties que mon pere cherchoit à ceux à qui il donnoit charge de moy, c’estoit la debonnaireté et facilité de complexion. Aussi n’auoit la mienne autre vice, que langueur et paresse. Le danger n’estoit pas que ie fisse mal, mais que ie ne fisse rien. Nul ne prognostiquoit que ie deusse deuenir mauuais, mais inutile: on y preuoyoit de la faineantise, non pas de la malice. Ie sens qu’il en est aduenu comme cela. Les plaintes qui me cornent aux oreilles, sont telles: Il est oisif, froid aux offices d’amitié, et de parenté: et aux offices publiques, trop particulier, trop desdaigneux. Les plus iniurieux mesmes ne disent pas, Pourquoy a il prins, pourquoy n’a-il payé? mais, Pourquoy ne quitte-il, pourquoy ne donne-il?
For the chief qualities my father looked for in those to whom he gave charge of me were good nature and an easy temperament. And indeed mine had no other vice than languor and laziness. The danger was not that I would do ill, but that I would do nothing. No one predicted that I would become wicked, only useless; they foresaw idleness in me, not malice. I feel that this is how it has turned out. The complaints that ring in my ears are these: “He is idle; cold in the duties of friendship and kinship; and in public duties too aloof, too disdainful.” Even the most abusive do not say, “Why has he taken? Why has he not paid?” but “Why does he not forgo? Why does he not give?”
Ie receuroy à faueur, qu’on ne desirast en moy que tels effects de supererogation. Mais ils sont iniustes, d’exiger ce que ie ne doy pas, plus rigoureusement beaucoup, qu’ils n’exigent d’eux ce qu’ils doiuent. En m’y condemnant, ils effacent la gratification de l’action, et la gratitude qui m’en seroit deuë. Là où le bien faire actif, deuroit plus peser de ma main, en consideration de ce que ie n’en ay de passif nul qui soit. Ie puis d’autant plus librement disposer de ma fortune, qu’elle est plus mienne: et de moy, que ie suis plus mien.
I would take it as a favor if nothing more were wanted of me than such works of supererogation. But they are unjust to exact what I do not owe much more rigorously than they exact of themselves what they do owe. By condemning me to it, they wipe out the graciousness of the act and the gratitude that would be due me for it. Whereas the good I actively do ought to weigh more coming from my hand, considering that I have received none whatever. I can dispose of my fortune the more freely because it is more my own, and of myself because I am more my own.
Toutesfois si i’estoy grand enlumineur de mes actions, à l’aduenture rembarrerois-ie bien ces reproches; et à quelques-vns apprendrois, qu’ils ne sont pas si offensez que ie ne face pas assez: que dequoy ie puisse faire assez plus que ie ne fay.
Still, if I were a great illuminator of my own actions, I might perhaps rebuff these reproaches well enough, and teach some people that they are not so much offended that I do not do enough as that I could do a good deal more than I do.
Mon ame ne laissoit pourtant en mesme temps d’auoir à part soy des remuements fermes: et des iugements seurs et ouuerts autour des obiects qu’elle cognoissoit: et les digeroit seule, sans aucune communication. Et entre autres choses ie croy à la verité qu’elle eust esté du tout incapable de se rendre à la force et violence. Mettray-ie en compte cette faculté de mon enfance, vne asseurance de visage, et soupplesse de voix et de geste, à m’appliquer aux rolles que i’entreprenois? Car auant l’aage, Alter ab vndecimo tum me vix ceperat annus: i’ay soustenu les premiers personnages, és tragedies latines de Bucanan, de Guerente, et de Muret, qui se representerent en nostre college de Guienne auec dignité.
My soul did not fail, nevertheless, to have at the same time firm stirrings of its own, and sure and open judgments about the things it knew; and it digested them alone, without sharing them with anyone. And among other things, I truly believe it would have been wholly incapable of yielding to force and violence. Shall I count this faculty of my childhood: assurance of countenance, and suppleness of voice and gesture in applying myself to the parts I undertook? For before the usual age, I had barely entered my twelfth year, I played the leading roles in the Latin tragedies of Buchanan, Guérente and Muret, which were performed with dignity in our Collège de Guyenne.
En cela, Andreas Goueanus nostre principal, comme en toutes autres parties de sa charge, fut sans comparaison le plus grand principal de France; et m’en tenoit-on maistre ouurier. C’est vn exercice, que ie ne meslouë point aux ieunes enfans de maison; et ay veu nos Princes s’y addonner depuis, en personne, à l’exemple d’aucuns des anciens, honnestement et louablement. Il estoit loisible, mesme d’en faire mestier, aux gents d’honneur et en Grece, Aristoni tragico actori rem aperit: huic et genus et fortuna honesta erant: nec ars, quia nihil tale apud Græcos pudori est, ea deformabat.
In this, as in all other aspects of his office, Andreas Goveanus, our principal, was beyond compare the greatest principal in France; and I was considered a master craftsman at it. It is an exercise I do not disapprove of for young children of good family; and I have since seen our princes take it up in person, after the example of some of the ancients, honorably and laudably. In Greece it was even permitted for people of rank to make a profession of it: He disclosed the matter to Aristo, the tragic actor; he was a man of good birth and fortune, and his art did not disgrace these, since nothing of the kind is shameful among the Greeks.
Car i’ay tousiours accusé d’impertinence, ceux qui condemnent ces esbatemens: et d’iniustice, ceux qui refusent l’entrée de nos bonnes villes aux comediens qui le valent, et enuient au peuple ces plaisirs publiques. Les bonnes polices prennent soing d’assembler les citoyens, et les r’allier, comme aux offices serieux de la deuotion, aussi aux exercices et ieux.
For I have always accused of absurdity those who condemn these entertainments, and of injustice those who refuse entry into our good towns to actors who deserve it, and begrudge the people these public pleasures. Good governments take care to assemble the citizens and bring them together for sports and games, as they do for the serious duties of devotion.
La societé et amitié s’en augmente, et puis on ne leur sçauroit conceder des passetemps plus reglez, que ceux qui se font en presence d’vn chacun, et à la veuë mesme du magistrat: et trouuerois raisonnable que le Prince à ses despens en gratifiast quelquefois la commune, d’vne affection et bonté comme paternelle: et qu’aux villes populeuses il y eust des lieux destinez et disposez pour ces spectacles: quelque diuertissement de pires actions et occultes.
Society and friendship are increased by it; and besides, one could not grant them more orderly pastimes than those that take place in everyone’s presence and in the very sight of the magistrate. And I would think it reasonable for the prince now and then to treat the common people to them at his own expense, with an affection and kindness almost paternal; and that in populous towns there should be places designed and fitted out for these spectacles—some diversion from worse and hidden doings.
Pour reuenir à mon propos, il n’y a tel, que d’allecher l’appetit et l’affection, autrement on ne fait que des asnes chargez de liures: on leur donne à coups de foüet en garde leur pochette pleine de science. Laquelle pour bien faire, il ne faut pas seulement loger chez soy, il la faut espouser.
To return to my subject, there is nothing like whetting the appetite and the affection; otherwise all you produce is asses loaded with books. They are flogged into keeping a satchel full of learning, which, to do any good, must not merely be lodged in us; we must marry it.