OV que ie vueille donner, il me faut forcer quelque barriere de la coustume, tant ell’a soigneusement bridé toutes nos auenues. Ie deuisoy en cette saison frilleuse, si la façon d’aller tout nud de ces nations dernierement trouuees, est vne façon forcee par la chaude temperature de l’air, comme nous disons des Indiens, et des Mores, ou si c’est l’originelle des hommes. Les gens d’entendement, d’autant que tout ce qui est soubs le ciel, comme dit la saincte Parole, est subiect à mesmes loix, ont accoustumé en pareilles considerations à celles icy, où il faut distinguer les loix naturelles des controuuees, de recourir à la generale police du monde, où il n’y peut auoir rien de contrefaict.
WHEREVER I want to turn, I have to force some barrier of custom, so carefully has it bridled all our approaches. In this chilly season I was pondering whether the habit of going completely naked among those recently discovered nations is forced on them by the hot temperature of the air, as we say of the Indians and the Moors, or whether it is the original way of mankind. Men of understanding, since everything under heaven, as Holy Scripture says, is subject to the same laws, are accustomed, in considerations like these, where natural laws must be distinguished from invented ones, to have recourse to the general order of the world, in which there can be nothing counterfeit.
Or tout estant exactement fourny ailleurs de filet et d’éguille, pour maintenir son estre, il est mécreable, que nous soyons seuls produits en estat deffectueux et indigent, et en estat qui ne se puisse maintenir sans secours estranger. Ainsi ie tiens que comme les plantes, arbres, animaux, et tout ce qui vit, se treuue naturellement equippé de suffisante couuerture, pour se deffendre de l’iniure du temps, Proptereáque ferè res omnes, aut corio sunt, / Aut seta, aut conchis, aut callo, aut cortice, tectæ, aussi estions nous: mais comme ceux qui esteignent par artificielle lumiere celle du iour, nous auons esteint nos propres moyens, par les moyens empruntez.
Now since everything else is precisely furnished with needle and thread to maintain its being, it is unbelievable that we alone should have been produced in a defective and needy state, a state that cannot be maintained without outside help. So I hold that, just as plants, trees, animals and everything that lives are naturally equipped with enough covering to protect themselves from the harshness of the weather, And so almost all things are covered with hide, / Or bristles, or shells, or callus, or bark, so were we too. But like those who blot out the light of day with artificial light, we have blotted out our own means with borrowed ones.
Et est aisé à voir que c’est la coustume qui nous fait impossible ce qui ne l’est pas. Car de ces nations qui n’ont aucune cognoissance de vestemens, il s’en trouue d’assises enuiron soubs mesme ciel, que le nostre, et soubs bien plus rude ciel que le nostre. Et puis la plus delicate partie de nous est celle qui se tient tousiours descouuerte: les yeux, la bouche, le nez, les oreilles; à noz contadins, comme à noz ayeulx, la partie pectorale et le ventre.
And it is easy to see that it is custom that makes impossible for us what is not impossible. For among those nations that have no knowledge of clothing, some are situated under roughly the same sky as ours, and some under a much harsher sky than ours. And then, the most delicate part of us is the part that is always left uncovered: the eyes, the mouth, the nose, the ears; and for our peasants, as for our forefathers, the chest and the belly.
Si nous fussions nez auec condition de cotillons et de greguesques, il ne faut faire doubte, que nature n’eust armé d’vne peau plus espoisse ce qu’elle eust abandonné à la baterie des saisons, comme elle a faict le bout des doigts et plante des pieds. Pourquoy semble il difficile à croire? entre ma façon d’estre vestu, et celle du païsan de mon païs, ie trouue bien plus de distance, qu’il n’y a de sa façon, à celle d’vn homme, qui n’est vestu que de sa peau. Combien d’hommes, et en Turchie sur tout, vont nuds par deuotion?
If we had been born needing petticoats and breeches, there is no doubt that nature would have armed with a thicker skin whatever she left exposed to the battering of the seasons, as she has done with our fingertips and the soles of our feet. Why does this seem hard to believe? Between my way of dressing and that of a peasant of my region, I find far more distance than there is between his way and that of a man dressed in nothing but his skin. How many men, especially in Turkey, go naked out of religious devotion?
Ie ne sçay qui demandoit à vn de nos gueux, qu’il voyoit en chemise en plein hyuer, aussi scarbillat que tel qui se tient ammitonné dans les martes iusques aux oreilles, comme il pouuoit auoir patience: Et vous monsieur, respondit-il, vous auez bien la face descouuerte: or moy ie suis tout face. Les Italiens content du fol du Duc de Florence, ce me semble, que son maistre s’enquerant comment ainsi mal vestu, il pouuoit porter le froid, à quoy il estoit bien empesché luy-mesme: Suiuez, dit-il, ma recepte de charger sur vous tous vos accoustrements, comme ie fay les miens, vous n’en souffrirez non plus que moy.
Someone, I forget who, saw one of our beggars in nothing but his shirt in the depth of winter, as lively as any man muffled up to the ears in marten fur, and asked him how he could bear it. “And you, sir,” he replied, “you keep your face uncovered; well, I am all face.” The Italians tell a story, I believe, about the Duke of Florence’s fool. His master asked him how, so poorly dressed, he could stand the cold, which the Duke himself found hard to bear. “Follow my recipe,” said the fool, “and pile on all the clothes you have, as I do with mine, and you will suffer from the cold no more than I do.”
Le Roy Massinissa iusques à l’extreme vieillesse, ne peut estre induit à aller la teste couuerte par froid, orage, et pluye qu’il fist, ce qu’on dit aussi de l’Empereur Seuerus. Aux batailles donnees entre les Ægyptiens et les Perses, Herodote dit auoir esté remarqué et par d’autres, et par luy, que de ceux qui y demeuroient morts, le test estoit sans comparaison plus dur aux Ægyptiens qu’aux Perses: à raison que ceux cy portent tousiours leurs testes couuertes de beguins, et puis de turbans: ceux la rases des l’enfance et descouuertes. Et le Roy Agesilaus obserua iusques à sa decrepitude, de porter pareille vesture en hyuer qu’en esté.
King Masinissa, even in extreme old age, could not be persuaded to go about with his head covered, whatever cold, storm or rain there might be; the same is said of the Emperor Severus. In the battles fought between the Egyptians and the Persians, Herodotus says it was noticed both by others and by himself that among those left dead on the field, the skulls of the Egyptians were incomparably harder than those of the Persians. The reason was that the Persians always kept their heads covered, first with caps and then with turbans, while the Egyptians were shaved from childhood and went bareheaded. And King Agesilaus kept up, into his decrepit old age, the practice of wearing the same clothes in winter as in summer.
Cæsar, dit Suetone, marchoit tousiours deuant sa troupe, et le plus souuent à pied, la teste descouuerte, soit qu’il fist Soleil, ou qu’il pleust, et autant en dit-on de Hannibal, tum vertice nudo / Excipere insanos imbres, cælique ruinam. Vn Venitien, qui s’y est tenu long temps, et qui ne fait que d’en venir, escrit qu’au Royaume du Pegu, les autres parties du corps vestues, les hommes et les femmes vont tousiours les pieds nuds, mesme à cheual. Et Platon conseille merueilleusement pour la santé de tout le corps, de ne donner aux pieds et à la teste autre couuerture, que celle que nature y a mise.
Caesar, says Suetonius, always marched at the head of his troops, most often on foot and bareheaded, whether it was sunny or raining; and the same is said of Hannibal: then, with bare head, / to take the raging downpours and the collapse of the sky. A Venetian who lived there a long time and has only just come back writes that in the kingdom of Pegu, though the other parts of the body are clothed, men and women always go barefoot, even on horseback. And Plato strongly advises, for the health of the whole body, that we give the feet and the head no covering other than the one nature has put there.
Celuy que les Polonnois ont choisi pour leur Roy, apres le nostre, qui est à la verité l’vn des plus grands Princes de nostre siecle, ne porte iamais gands, ny ne change pour hyuer et temps qu’il face, le mesme bonnet qu’il porte au couuert. Comme ie ne puis souffrir d’aller deboutonné et destaché, les laboureurs de mon voisinage se sentiroient entrauez de l’estre. Varro tient, que quand on ordonna que nous tinsions la teste descouuerte, en presence des Dieux ou du Magistrat, on le fit plus pour nostre santé, et nous fermir contre les iniures du temps, que pour compte de la reuerence.
The man the Poles chose as their king after ours, who is truly one of the greatest princes of our age, never wears gloves, nor does he change, whatever the winter or the weather, the cap he wears indoors. Just as I cannot bear to go about unbuttoned and untrussed, the farm laborers of my neighborhood would feel hobbled if they were buttoned up. Varro holds that when it was decreed that we should uncover our heads in the presence of the gods or of the magistrate, it was done more for our health, and to toughen us against the harshness of the weather, than out of reverence.
Et puis que nous sommes sur le froid, et François accoustumez à nous biguarrer, (non pas moy, car ie ne m’habille guiere que de noir ou de blanc, à l’imitation de mon pere) adioustons d’vne autre piece, que le Capitaine Martin du Bellay recite, au voyage de Luxembourg, auoir veu les gelees si aspres, que le vin de la munition se coupoit à coups de hache et de coignee, se debitoit aux soldats par poix, et qu’ils l’emportoient dans des panniers: et Ouide, Nudáque consistunt, formam seruantia testæ, / Vina; nec hausta meri, sed data frusta, bibunt. Les gelees sont si aspres en l’emboucheure des Palus Mæotides, qu’en la mesme place où le Lieutenant de Mithridates auoit liuré bataille aux ennemis à pied sec, et les y auoit desfaicts, l’esté venu, il y gaigna contre eux encore vne bataille naualle.
And since we are on the subject of cold, and since we French are used to dressing in motley (not I, for I dress almost only in black or white, in imitation of my father), let us stitch on another piece. Captain Martin du Bellay relates that on the Luxembourg campaign he saw frosts so severe that the army’s wine supply was cut with axes and hatchets and handed out to the soldiers by weight, and they carried it off in baskets. And Ovid: The wine stands bare, keeping the shape of the jar; / they drink not draughts of it but chunks handed out. The frosts are so severe at the mouth of the Maeotian marshes that in the very place where Mithridates’ lieutenant had fought the enemy on dry ground and defeated them, when summer came he won another battle against them there, this time at sea.
Les Romains souffrirent grand desaduantage au combat qu’ils eurent contre les Carthaginois pres de Plaisance, de ce qu’ils allerent à la charge, le sang figé, et les membres contreints de froid: là où Hannibal auoit faict espandre du feu par tout son ost, pour eschaufer ses soldats: et distribuer de l’huyle par les bandes, afin que s’oignants, ils rendissent leurs nerfs plus souples et desgourdis, et encroustassent les pores contre les coups de l’air et du vent gelé, qui couroit lors. La retraitte des Grecs, de Babylone en leurs païs, est fameuse des difficultez et mesaises, qu’ils eurent à surmonter.
The Romans were at a great disadvantage in the battle they fought against the Carthaginians near Piacenza, because they went into the charge with their blood congealed and their limbs stiff with cold. Hannibal, by contrast, had had fires lit throughout his camp to warm his soldiers, and oil handed out among the companies so that, by rubbing it on, they would make their sinews more supple and limber and coat over their pores against the blasts of air and the freezing wind that was blowing then. The retreat of the Greeks from Babylon to their own country is famous for the hardships and difficulties they had to overcome.
Cette cy en fut, qu’accueillis aux montaignes d’Armenie d’vn horrible rauage de neiges, ils en perdirent la cognoissance du païs et des chemins: et en estants assiegés tout court, furent vn iour et vne nuict, sans boire et sans manger, la plus part de leurs bestes mortes: d’entre eux plusieurs morts, plusieurs aueugles du coup du gresil, et lueur de la neige: plusieurs estropiés par les extremitez: plusieurs roides transis et immobiles de froid, ayants encore le sens entier. Alexandre veit vne nation en laquelle on enterre les arbres fruitiers en hyuer pour les defendre de la gelee: et nous en pouuons aussi voir.
This was one of them: caught in the mountains of Armenia by a terrible onslaught of snow, they lost all sense of the country and the roads. Hemmed in by it, they went a day and a night without eating or drinking, most of their animals dead; and of the men, many died, many were blinded by the sting of the sleet and the glare of the snow, many were maimed in their hands and feet, many were stiff, frozen and unable to move from the cold while still fully conscious. Alexander saw a nation where fruit trees are buried in winter to protect them from the frost; and we can see this too.
Sur le subiect de vestir, le Roy de la Mexique changeoit quatre fois par iour d’accoustremens, iamais ne les reiteroit, employant sa desferre à ses continuelles liberalitez et recompenses: comme aussi ny pot, ny plat, ny vtensile de sa cuisine, et de sa table, ne luy estoient seruis à deux fois.
On the subject of dress: the king of Mexico changed his clothes four times a day and never wore them again, using his castoffs for his continual gifts and rewards; likewise no pot, no dish, no utensil of his kitchen or his table was ever served to him twice.