COMME si nous auions l’attouchement infect, nous corrompons par nostre maniement les choses qui d’elles mesmes sont belles et bonnes. Nous pouuons saisir la vertu, de façon qu’elle en deuiendra vicieuse: si nous l’embrassons d’vn desir trop aspre et violant. Ceux qui disent qu’il n’y a iamais d’exces en la vertu, d’autant que ce n’est plus vertu, si l’exces y est, se iouent des paroles. Insani sapiens nomen ferat, æquus iniqui, / Vltra quàm satis est, virtutem si petat ipsam. C’est vne subtile consideration de la philosophie. On peut et trop aymer la vertu, et se porter excessiuement en vne action iuste. A ce biaiz s’accommode la voix diuine, Ne soyez pas plus sages qu’il ne faut, mais soyez sobrement sages.
AS if our touch were infected, we corrupt by our handling things that are fine and good in themselves. We can grasp virtue in such a way that it becomes vicious, if we embrace it with too fierce and violent a desire. Those who say that there is never excess in virtue, since it is no longer virtue if there is excess in it, are playing with words. Let the wise man bear the name of madman, and the just man of unjust, / If he pursues virtue itself beyond what is enough. This is a subtle reflection of philosophy. One can both love virtue too much and behave excessively in a just action. The divine word fits this view: “Be not wiser than you should be, but be soberly wise.”
I’ay veu tel grand, blesser la reputation de sa religion, pour se montrer religieux outre tout exemple des hommes de sa sorte. I’ayme des natures temperees et moyennes. L’immoderation vers le bien mesme, si elle ne m’offense, elle m’estonne, et me met en peine de la baptizer. Ny la mere de Pausanias, qui donna la premiere instruction, et porta la premiere pierre à la mort de son fils: ny le dictateur Posthumius, qui feit mourir le sien, que l’ardeur de ieunesse auoit heureusement poussé sur les ennemis, vn peu auant son reng, ne me semble si iuste, comme estrange. Et n’ayme ny à conseiller, ny à suiure vne vertu si sauuage et si chere.
I have seen a certain great man damage the reputation of his religion by showing himself religious beyond every example of men of his kind. I like natures that are temperate and middling. Immoderation even in the direction of good, if it does not offend me, astonishes me, and leaves me at a loss what to call it. Neither the mother of Pausanias, who gave the first information against her son and carried the first stone for his death, nor the dictator Postumius, who put to death his own son, whom the ardor of youth had carried successfully against the enemy a little ahead of his rank, seems to me so much just as strange. And I like neither to advise nor to follow a virtue so fierce and so costly.
L’archer qui outrepasse le blanc, faut comme celuy, qui n’y arriue pas. Et les yeux me troublent à monter à coup, vers vne grande lumiere également comme à deualler à l’ombre.
The archer who overshoots the target misses just as much as the one who falls short of it. And my eyes are as troubled by climbing suddenly toward a great light as by going down into the dark.
Calliclez en Platon dit, l’extremité de la philosophie estre dommageable: et conseille de ne s’y enfoncer outre les bornes du profit: que prinse auec moderation, elle est plaisante et commode: mais qu’en fin elle rend vn homme sauuage et vicieux: desdaigneux des religions, et loix communes: ennemy de la conuersation ciuile: ennemy des voluptez humaines: incapable de toute administration politique, et de secourir autruy, et de se secourir soy-mesme: propre à estre impunement souffletté. Il dit vray: car en son exces, elle esclaue nostre naturelle franchise: et nous desuoye par vne importune subtilité, du beau et plain chemin, que nature nous trace.
Callicles in Plato says that philosophy carried to the extreme is harmful, and advises us not to plunge into it beyond the bounds of profit. Taken in moderation, he says, it is pleasant and useful; but in the end it makes a man uncouth and vicious, contemptuous of religion and the common laws, an enemy of civil society, an enemy of human pleasures, incapable of any political administration and of helping others or helping himself, fit to be slapped in the face with impunity. He is right: for in its excess it enslaves our natural freedom, and by a troublesome subtlety leads us astray from the fine, level road that nature marks out for us.
L’amitié que nous portons à nos femmes, elle est tres-legitime: la Theologie ne laisse pas de la brider pourtant, et de la restraindre. Il me semble auoir leu autresfois chez S. Thomas, en vn endroit où il condamne les mariages des parans és degrez deffendus, cette raison parmy les autres: Qu’il y a danger que l’amitié qu’on porte à vne telle femme soit immoderée: car si l’affection maritale s’y trouue entiere et parfaicte, comme elle doit; et qu’on la surcharge encore de celle qu’on doit à la parentele, il n’y a point de doubte, que ce surcroist n’emporte vn tel mary hors les barrieres de la raison.
The love we bear our wives is entirely lawful; theology nonetheless curbs and restrains it. I seem to have read once in Saint Thomas, in a passage where he condemns marriages between relatives within the forbidden degrees, this reason among others: that there is a danger that the love one bears such a wife may be immoderate. For if marital affection is found there whole and perfect, as it should be, and one loads on top of it the affection owed to kinship as well, there is no doubt that this surplus will carry such a husband beyond the barriers of reason.
Les sciences qui reglent les mœurs des hommes, comme la Theologie et la Philosophie, elles se meslent de tout. Il n’est action si priuée et secrette, qui se desrobbe de leur cognoissance et iurisdiction. Bien apprentis sont ceux qui syndiquent leur liberté. Ce sont les femmes qui communiquent tant qu’on veut leurs pieces à garçonner: à medeciner, la honte le deffend. Ie veux donc de leur part apprendre cecy aux maris, s’il s’en trouue encore qui y soient trop acharnez: c’est que les plaisirs mesmes qu’ils ont à l’accointance de leurs femmes, sont reprouuez, si la moderation n’y est obseruée: et qu’il y a dequoy faillir en licence et desbordement en ce subiect là, comme en vn subiect illegitime.
The sciences that regulate men’s morals, such as theology and philosophy, meddle in everything. There is no action so private and secret that it escapes their knowledge and jurisdiction. Those who find fault with this freedom of theirs are mere novices. It is women who will share their private parts as freely as you please for lovemaking; for doctoring, shame forbids it. So on their behalf I want to teach husbands this, if there are still any who are too intent on it: that even the pleasures they take in intimacy with their wives are condemned if moderation is not observed, and that one can sin through license and excess in this matter as in an unlawful one.
Ces encheriments deshontez, que la chaleur premiere nous suggere en ce ieu, sont non indecemment seulement, mais dommageablement employez enuers noz femmes. Qu’elles apprennent l’impudence au moins d’vne autre main. Elles sont tousiours assés esueillées pour nostre besoing. Ie ne m’y suis seruy que de l’instruction naturelle et simple.
Those shameless refinements that the first heat suggests to us in this game are employed with our wives not only indecently but harmfully. Let them learn shamelessness at least from another hand. They are always wide enough awake for our needs. For my part I have used only nature’s simple instruction.
C’est vne religieuse liaison et deuote que le mariage: voyla pourquoy le plaisir qu’on en tire, ce doit estre vn plaisir retenu, serieux et meslé à quelque seuerité: ce doit estre vne volupté aucunement prudente et consciencieuse. Et par ce que sa principale fin c’est la generation, il y en a qui mettent en doubte, si lors que nous sommes sans l’esperance de ce fruict, comme quand elles sont hors d’aage, ou enceintes, il est permis d’en rechercher l’embrassement. C’est vn homicide à la mode de Platon. Certaines nations, et entre autres la Mahumetane, abominent la conionction auec les femmes enceintes. Plusieurs aussi auec celles qui ont leurs flueurs.
Marriage is a religious and devout bond: that is why the pleasure one takes from it should be a restrained, serious pleasure, mixed with some severity; it should be a pleasure that is in some measure prudent and conscientious. And because its principal end is procreation, there are those who question whether, when we have no hope of that fruit—as when women are past the age, or pregnant—it is permitted to seek their embrace. It is homicide, after the fashion of Plato. Certain nations, among others the Muslims, abhor intercourse with pregnant women. Many also abhor it with women who are having their periods.
Zenobia ne receuoit son mary que pour vne charge; et cela fait elle le laissoit courir tout le temps de sa conception, luy donnant lors seulement loy de recommencer: braue et genereux exemple de mariage. C’est de quelque poëte disetteux et affamé de ce deduit, que Platon emprunta cette narration: Que Iuppiter fit à sa femme vne si chaleureuse charge vn iour, que ne pouuant auoir patience qu’elle eust gaigné son lict, il la versa sur le plancher: et par la vehemence du plaisir, oublia les resolutions grandes et importantes, qu’il venoit de prendre auec les autres Dieux en sa cour celeste: se ventant qu’il l’auoit trouué aussi bon ce coup là, que lors que premierement il la depucella à cachette de leurs parents.
Zenobia received her husband only for a single bout, and that done she let him roam all the while she was carrying the child, giving him leave to begin again only then: a brave and noble example of marriage. It was from some poet, needy and starved of this sport, that Plato borrowed this story: that Jupiter one day made so heated a charge on his wife that, unable to wait until she had reached her bed, he tumbled her onto the floor; and in the violence of his pleasure he forgot the great and weighty resolutions he had just taken with the other gods in his heavenly court, boasting that he had found it as good that time as when he first deflowered her behind their parents’ backs.
Les Roys de Perse appelloient leurs femmes à la compagnie de leurs festins, mais quand le vin venoit à les eschauffer en bon escient, et qu’il falloit tout à fait, lascher la bride à la volupté, ils les r’enuoioient en leur priué; pour ne les faire participantes de leurs appetits immoderez; et faisoient venir en leur lieu, des femmes, ausquelles ils n’eussent point cette obligation de respect. Tous plaisirs et toutes gratifications ne sont pas bien logées en toutes gens. Epaminondas auoit fait emprisonner vn garçon desbauché; Pelopidas le pria de le mettre en liberté en sa faueur; il l’en refusa, et l’accorda à vne sienne garse, qui aussi l’en pria: disant, que c’estoit vne gratification deuë à vne amie, non à vn Capitaine.
The kings of Persia invited their wives to keep them company at their feasts; but when the wine began to heat them in earnest, and they had to give pleasure free rein altogether, they sent the wives back to their private quarters, so as not to make them share in their immoderate appetites, and had other women brought in their place, to whom they owed no such duty of respect. Not all pleasures and all favors are fitly bestowed on all people. Epaminondas had had a dissolute young man imprisoned; Pelopidas begged him to set him free as a favor to himself; he refused, and granted it to a girl of his who also begged it of him, saying that it was a favor due to a lady friend, not to a captain.
Sophocles estant compagnon en la Preture auec Pericles, voyant de cas de fortune passer vn beau garçon: O le beau garçon que voyla! feit-il à Pericles. Cela seroit bon à vn autre qu’à vn Preteur, luy dit Pericles; qui doit auoir non les mains seulement, mais aussi les yeux chastes. Ælius Verus l’Empereur respondit à sa femme comme elle se plaignoit, dequoy il se laissoit aller à l’amour d’autres femmes; qu’il le faisoit par occasion consciencieuse, d’autant que le mariage estoit vn nom d’honneur et dignité, non de folastre et lasciue concupiscence. Et nostre histoire Ecclesiastique a conserué auec honneur la memoire de cette femme, qui repudia son mary, pour ne vouloir seconder et soustenir ses attouchemens trop insolens et desbordez.
Sophocles, sharing the praetorship with Pericles, happened to see a handsome boy go by. “Oh, what a handsome boy!” he said to Pericles. “That would be fine for anyone but a praetor,” Pericles told him, “who must keep not only his hands but his eyes chaste.” The emperor Aelius Verus, when his wife complained that he let himself go in love affairs with other women, answered that he did it for reasons of conscience, since marriage was a name of honor and dignity, not of playful and lascivious lust. And our ecclesiastical history has preserved with honor the memory of the woman who repudiated her husband because she would not second and put up with his too insolent and unbridled caresses.
Il n’est en somme aucune si iuste volupté, en laquelle l’excez et l’intemperance ne nous soit reprochable. Mais à parler en bon escient, est-ce pas vn miserable animal que l’homme? A peine est-il en son pouuoir par sa condition naturelle, de gouster vn seul plaisir entier et pur, encore se met-il en peine de le retrancher par discours: il n’est pas assez chetif, si par art et par estude il n’augmente sa misere, Fortunæ miseras auximus arte vias.
In short, there is no pleasure so legitimate that excess and intemperance in it are not open to reproach. But, to speak in earnest, is not man a wretched animal? Scarcely is it in his power, by his natural condition, to taste a single whole and pure pleasure, and still he goes to the trouble of cutting it back by reasoning. He is not wretched enough unless he increases his misery by art and study: By art we have added to the miseries of Fortune’s paths.
La sagesse humaine faict bien sottement l’ingenieuse, de s’exercer à rabattre le nombre et la douceur des voluptez, qui nous appartiennent: comme elle faict fauorablement et industrieusement, d’employer ses artifices à nous peigner et farder les maux, et en alleger le sentiment. Si i’eusse esté chef de part, i’eusse prins autre voye plus naturelle: qui est à dire, vraye, commode et saincte: et me fusse peut estre rendu assez fort pour la borner. Quoy que noz medecins spirituels et corporels, comme par complot faict entre eux, ne trouuent aucune voye à la guerison, ny remede aux maladies du corps et de l’ame, que par le tourment, la douleur et la peine.
Human wisdom very foolishly plays the clever one when it exerts itself to reduce the number and sweetness of the pleasures that belong to us, just as it acts kindly and ingeniously when it uses its artifices to comb and paint over our ills and lighten our feeling of them. If I had been the head of a sect, I would have taken another, more natural path—that is to say, true, comfortable and holy—and perhaps I would have made myself strong enough to keep it within bounds. As it is, our physicians of the soul and of the body, as if by a plot agreed among them, find no road to healing and no remedy for the diseases of body and soul except through torment, pain and suffering.
Les veilles, les ieusnes, les haires, les exils lointains et solitaires, les prisons perpetuelles, les verges et autres afflictions, ont esté introduites pour cela. Mais en telle condition, que ce soyent veritablement afflictions, et qu’il y ait de l’aigreur poignante: et qu’il n’en aduienne point comme à vn Gallio, lequel ayant esté enuoyé en exil en l’isle de Lesbos, on fut aduerty à Rome qu’il s’y donnoit du bon temps, et que ce qu’on luy auoit enioint pour peine, luy tournoit à commodité. Parquoy ils se rauiserent de le r’appeler pres de sa femme, et en sa maison; et luy ordonnerent de s’y tenir, pour accommoder leur punition à son ressentiment.
Vigils, fasts, hair shirts, distant and solitary exiles, perpetual imprisonment, the rod and other afflictions have been introduced for that purpose. But on condition that they truly be afflictions, with a sharp, stinging bitterness in them, and that it not turn out as with one Gallio. He had been sent into exile on the island of Lesbos, and word came to Rome that he was having a fine time there, and that what had been imposed on him as a penalty was turning to his comfort. So they changed their minds and recalled him to his wife and his home, and ordered him to stay there, in order to suit their punishment to his feelings.
Car à qui le ieune aiguiseroit la santé et l’allegresse, à qui le poisson seroit plus appetissant que la chair, ce ne seroit plus recepte salutaire: non plus qu’en l’autre medecine, les drogues n’ont point d’effect à l’endroit de celuy qui les prent auec appetit et plaisir. L’amertume et la difficulté sont circonstances seruants à leur operation. Le naturel qui accepteroit la rubarbe comme familiere, en corromproit l’vsage: il faut que ce soit chose qui blesse nostre estomac pour le guerir: et icy faut la regle commune, que les choses se guerissent par leurs contraires: car le mal y guerit le mal.
For if fasting were to sharpen a man’s health and cheerfulness, if fish were more appetizing to him than meat, it would no longer be a salutary prescription; any more than, in the other kind of medicine, drugs have any effect on someone who takes them with appetite and pleasure. Bitterness and difficulty are circumstances that serve their working. A constitution that took to rhubarb as something familiar would spoil its use: it has to be something that hurts our stomach in order to cure it. And here the common rule fails, that things are cured by their contraries; for here ill cures ill.
Cette impression se rapporte aucunement à cette autre si ancienne, de penser gratifier au Ciel et à la nature par nostre massacre et homicide, qui fut vniuersellement embrassée en toutes religions. Encore du temps de noz peres, Amurat en la prinse de l’Isthme, immola six cens ieunes hommes Grecs à l’ame de son pere: afin que ce sang seruist de propitiation à l’expiation des pechez du trespassé. Et en ces nouuelles terres descouuertes en nostre aage, pures encore et vierges au prix des nostres, l’vsage en est aucunement receu par tout. Toutes leurs Idoles s’abreuuent de sang humain, non sans diuers exemples d’horrible cruauté. On les brule vifs, et demy rostis on les retire du brasier, pour leur arracher le cœur et les entrailles.
This notion is somewhat related to that other very ancient one, of thinking we gratify heaven and nature by our own slaughter and killing, which was universally embraced in all religions. Even in our fathers’ time Amurat, at the taking of the Isthmus, sacrificed six hundred young Greeks to his father’s soul, so that this blood might serve as a propitiation to expiate the dead man’s sins. And in these new lands discovered in our age, still pure and virgin compared with ours, the practice is in some measure accepted everywhere. All their idols drink their fill of human blood, not without various examples of horrible cruelty. They burn the victims alive, and pull them half-roasted from the fire to tear out their hearts and entrails.
A d’autres, voire aux femmes, on les escorche vifues, et de leur peau ainsi sanglante en reuest on et masque d’autres. Et non moins d’exemples de constance et resolution. Car ces pauures gens sacrifiables, vieillars, femmes, enfans, vont quelques iours auant, questans eux mesmes les aumosnes pour l’offrande de leur sacrifice, et se presentent à la boucherie chantans et dançans auec les assistans.
Others, even women, are flayed alive, and with their skin, still bloody, they dress and mask others. And there are no fewer examples of constancy and resolve. For these poor people destined for sacrifice—old men, women, children—go about for some days beforehand begging alms themselves for the offering of their sacrifice, and present themselves at the slaughter singing and dancing with the onlookers.
Les ambassadeurs du Roy de Mexico, faisans entendre à Fernand Cortez la grandeur de leur maistre; apres luy auoir dict, qu’il auoit trente vassaux, desquels chacun pouuoit assembler cent mille combatans, et qu’il se tenoit en la plus belle et forte ville qui fust soubs le Ciel, luy adiousterent, qu’il auoit à sacrifier aux Dieux cinquante mille hommes par an. De vray, ils disent qu’il nourrissoit la guerre auec certains grands peuples voisins, non seulement pour l’exercice de la ieunesse du païs, mais principallement pour auoir dequoy fournir à ses sacrifices, par des prisonniers de guerre. Ailleurs, en certain bourg, pour la bien-venue dudit Cortez, ils sacrifierent cinquante hommes tout à la fois.
The ambassadors of the King of Mexico, explaining to Hernán Cortés the greatness of their master, told him that he had thirty vassals, each of whom could raise a hundred thousand fighting men, and that he lived in the finest and strongest city under heaven; and then they added that he had fifty thousand men a year to sacrifice to the gods. Indeed, they say that he kept up war with certain great neighboring peoples not only to exercise the youth of the country but chiefly to have prisoners of war with which to supply his sacrifices. Elsewhere, in a certain town, to welcome this same Cortés, they sacrificed fifty men all at once.
Ie diray encore ce compte: Aucuns de ces peuples ayants esté battuz par luy, enuoyerent le recognoistre et rechercher d’amitié: les messagers luy presenterent trois sortes de presens, en cette maniere: Seigneur voyla cinq esclaues: si tu és vn Dieu fier, qui te paisses de chair et de sang, mange les, et nous t’en amerrons d’auantage: si tu és vn Dieu debonnaire, voyla de l’encens et des plumes: si tu és homme, prens les oiseaux et les fruicts que voicy.
I will tell this story too. Some of these peoples, having been beaten by him, sent to acknowledge him and seek his friendship. The messengers presented him with three kinds of gifts, in this manner: “Lord, here are five slaves: if you are a fierce god who feeds on flesh and blood, eat them, and we will bring you more; if you are a kindly god, here are incense and feathers; if you are a man, take these birds and fruits.”