I’AVOIS bien veu conuenir en cecy la pluspart des anciennes opinions: Qu’il est heure de mourir lorsqu’il y a plus de mal que de bien à viure: et que de conseruer nostre vie à nostre tourment et incommodité, c’est choquer les regles mesmes de nature, comme disent ces vieilles regles, Η ζην αλυπως, η θανειν ευδαιμονως. / Καλον το θνησκειν οις hυβριν το ζην φερει. / Κρεισσον το μη ζην εστιν, η ζην αθλιως.
I HAD indeed seen most of the ancient opinions agree on this: that it is time to die when there is more ill than good in living, and that to preserve our life to our own torment and discomfort is to offend against the very rules of nature, as these old precepts say: Either a life without grief, or a happy death. / Death is good for those to whom life brings disgrace. / It is better not to live than to live in misery.
Mais de pousser le mespris de la mort iusques à tel degré, que de l’employer pour se distraire des honneurs, richesses, grandeurs, et autres faueurs et biens que nous appellons de la fortune; comme si la raison n’auoit pas assez affaire à nous persuader de les abandonner, sans y adiouster cette nouuelle recharge, ie ne l’auois veu ny commander, ny pratiquer:
But to push contempt for death so far as to use it to get away from honors, riches, high positions and the other favors and goods that we call the goods of fortune—as if reason did not have enough to do in persuading us to give them up, without adding this fresh burden—that I had never seen either prescribed or practiced,
iusques lors que ce passage de Seneca me tomba entre mains, auquel conseillant à Lucilius, personnage puissant et de grande authorité autour de l’Empereur, de changer cette vie voluptueuse et pompeuse, et de se retirer de cette ambition du monde, à quelque vie solitaire, tranquille et philosophique: sur quoy Lucilius alleguoit quelques difficultez: Ie suis d’aduis, dit-il, que tu quites cette vie là, ou la vie tout à faict: bien te conseille-ie de suiure la plus douce voye, et de destacher plustost que de rompre ce que tu as mal noüé, pourueu que s’il ne se peut autrement destacher, tu le rompes.
until this passage of Seneca fell into my hands. He is advising Lucilius, a powerful man of great authority at the emperor’s court, to change his life of pleasure and pomp and to withdraw from worldly ambition to some solitary, tranquil and philosophical life; and when Lucilius raised some difficulties, he says: My advice is that you leave that life, or life altogether. I do indeed advise you to take the gentler way, and to untie rather than break what you have badly knotted, provided that, if it cannot be untied any other way, you break it.
Il n’y a homme si coüard qui n’ayme mieux tomber vne fois, que de demeurer tousiours en bransle. I’eusse trouué ce conseil sortable à la rudesse Stoïque: mais il est plus estrange qu’il soit emprunté d’Epicurus, qui escrit à ce propos, choses toutes pareilles à Idomeneus. Si est-ce que ie pense auoir remarqué quelque traict semblable parmy nos gens, mais auec la moderation Chrestienne.
There is no man so cowardly that he would not rather fall once than stay forever teetering. I would have found this advice in keeping with Stoic harshness; but it is stranger that it is borrowed from Epicurus, who writes quite similar things on this subject to Idomeneus. Still, I think I have noticed something similar among our own people, but with Christian moderation.
Sainct Hilaire Euesque de Poitiers, ce fameux ennemy de l’heresie Arrienne, estant en Syrie fut aduerty qu’Abra sa fille vnique, qu’il auoit laissee pardeça auec sa mere, estoit poursuyuie en mariage par les plus apparens Seigneurs du païs, comme fille tres-bien nourrie, belle, riche, et en la fleur de son aage: il luy escriuit, comme nous voyons, qu’elle ostast son affection de tous ces plaisirs et aduantages qu’on luy presentoit: qu’il luy auoit trouué en son voyage vn party bien plus grand et plus digne, d’vn mary de bien autre pouuoir et magnificence, qui luy feroit presens de robes et de ioyaux, de prix inestimable. Son dessein estoit de luy faire perdre l’appetit et l’vsage des plaisirs mondains, pour la ioindre toute à Dieu.
Saint Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, that famous enemy of the Arian heresy, was in Syria when he learned that Abra, his only daughter, whom he had left at home with her mother, was being sought in marriage by the most eminent lords of the land, as a girl very well brought up, beautiful, rich, and in the flower of her youth. He wrote to her (as we can still see) that she should withdraw her affection from all these pleasures and advantages that were being offered her; that on his journey he had found her a much greater and worthier match, a husband of far greater power and magnificence, who would give her presents of robes and jewels of inestimable value. His aim was to make her lose the appetite for worldly pleasures and the habit of them, so as to join her wholly to God.
Mais à cela, le plus court et plus certain moyen luy semblant estre la mort de sa fille, il ne cessa par vœux, prieres, et oraisons, de faire requeste à Dieu de l’oster de ce monde, et de l’appeller à soy: comme il aduint: car bien-tost apres son retour, elle luy mourut, dequoy il montra vne singuliere ioye. Cettuy-cy semble encherir sur les autres, de ce qu’il s’adresse à ce moyen de prime face, lequel ils ne prennent que subsidiairement, et puis que c’est à l’endroit de sa fille vnique. Mais ie ne veux obmettre le bout de cette histoire, encore qu’il ne soit pas de mon propos.
But since the shortest and surest way to this seemed to him to be his daughter’s death, he never ceased, by vows, prayers and supplications, to petition God to take her from this world and call her to himself; and so it happened, for soon after his return she died, at which he showed a singular joy. This man seems to outdo the others, in that he turns to this means at the very outset, whereas they take it only as a last resort, and in that it concerns his only daughter. But I will not leave out the end of this story, even though it is beside my purpose.
La femme de Sainct Hilaire ayant entendu par luy, comme la mort de leur fille s’estoit conduite par son dessein et volonté, et combien elle auoit plus d’heur d’estre deslogee de ce monde, que d’y estre, print vne si viue apprehension de la beatitude eternelle et celeste, qu’elle solicita son mary auec extreme instance, d’en faire autant pour elle. Et Dieu à leurs prieres communes, l’ayant retiree à soy, bien tost apres, ce fut vne mort embrassée auec singulier contentement commun.
Saint Hilary’s wife, having learned from him how their daughter’s death had come about through his design and will, and how much happier she was to have left this world than to be in it, conceived so lively a sense of eternal and heavenly bliss that she begged her husband with the utmost insistence to do the same for her. And when God, at their joint prayers, took her to himself soon afterwards, it was a death embraced with singular contentment on both sides.