IE n’ay point cette erreur commune, de iuger d’vn autre selon que ie suis. I’en croy aysément des choses diuerses à moy. Pour me sentir engagé à vne forme, ie n’y oblige pas le monde, comme chascun fait, et croy, et conçoy mille contraires façons de vie: et au rebours du commun, reçoy plus facilement la difference, que la ressemblance en nous. Ie descharge tant qu’on veut, vn autre estre, de mes conditions et principes: et le considere simplement en luy mesme, sans relation, l’estoffant sur son propre modelle. Pour n’estre continent, ie ne laisse d’aduoüer sincerement, la continence des Feuillans et des Capuchins, et de bien trouuer l’air de leur train.
I do not share that common error of judging another by what I am. I readily believe that others have qualities different from mine. Though I feel myself committed to one form, I do not oblige everyone else to follow it, as everyone does. I believe in and can conceive a thousand contrary ways of life; and, unlike most people, I more readily accept the difference between us than the likeness. I relieve another being, as much as you like, of my own qualities and principles, and consider him simply in himself, without relation to me, shaping him on his own model. Though I am not continent myself, I still sincerely acknowledge the continence of the Feuillants and the Capuchins, and think well of their way of life.
Ie m’insinue par imagination fort bien en leur place: et les ayme et les honore d’autant plus, qu’ils sont autres que moy. Ie desire singulierement, qu’on nous iuge chascun à part soy: et qu’on ne me tire en consequence des communs exemples. Ma foiblesse n’altere aucunement les opinions que ie dois auoir de la force et vigueur de ceux qui le méritent. Sunt, qui nihil suadent, quàm quod se imitari posse confidunt. Rampant au limon de la terre, ie ne laisse pas de remarquer iusques dans les nuës la hauteur inimitable d’aucunes ames heroïques. C’est beaucoup pour moy d’auoir le iugement reglé, si les effects ne le peuuent estre, et maintenir au moins cette maistresse partie, exempte de corruption.
I slip very easily in imagination into their place, and I love and honor them all the more because they are different from me. I particularly want each of us to be judged on his own, and not to be measured by the common run. My weakness in no way alters the opinions I ought to have of the strength and vigor of those who deserve it. There are those who recommend nothing but what they are confident they can imitate themselves. Crawling in the slime of the earth, I still note, up in the clouds, the inimitable loftiness of certain heroic souls. It is a great deal for me to have my judgment well ordered, if my actions cannot be, and to keep at least this sovereign part free from corruption.
C’est quelque chose d’auoir la volonté bonne, quand les iambes me faillent.
It is something to have good will, when my legs fail me.
Ce siecle, auquel nous viuons, au moins pour nostre climat, est si plombé, que ie ne dis pas l’execution, mais l’imagination mesme de la vertu en est à dire: et semble que ce ne soit autre chose qu’vn iargon de college. Virtutem verba putant, vt / Lucum ligna; quam vereri deberent, etiam si percipere non possent. C’est vn affiquet à pendre en vn cabinet, ou au bout de la langue, comme au bout de l’oreille, pour parement.
This age we live in, at least in our part of the world, is so leaden that not merely the practice but even the idea of virtue is lacking, and it seems to be nothing but schoolroom jargon. They think virtue is mere words, as / a sacred grove is mere wood; yet they ought to revere it even if they could not grasp it. It is a trinket to hang in a cabinet, or on the tip of the tongue, as on the tip of an ear, for ornament.
Il ne se recognoist plus d’action vertueuse: celles qui en portent le visage, elles n’en ont pas pourtant l’essence: car le profit, la gloire, la crainte, l’accoutumance, et autres telles causes estrangeres nous acheminent à les produire. La iustice, la vaillance, la debonnaireté, que nous exerçons lors, elles peuuent estre ainsi nommees, pour la consideration d’autruy, et du visage qu’elles portent en public: mais chez l’ouurier, ce n’est aucunement vertu. Il y a vne autre fin proposee, autre cause mouuante. Or la vertu n’aduoüe rien, que ce qui se faict par elle, et pour elle seule.
Virtuous action is no longer to be found: the actions that wear its face do not have its essence, for profit, glory, fear, habit and other such outside causes lead us to perform them. The justice, valor and kindness we then exercise may be called so in the eyes of others and for the face they wear in public; but in the doer it is in no way virtue. There is another end in view, another moving cause. Now virtue acknowledges nothing but what is done by it and for it alone.
En cette grande bataille de Potidee, que les Grecs sous Pausanias gaignerent contre Mardonius, et les Perses: les victorieux suiuant leur coustume, venants à partir entre eux la gloire de l’exploit, attribuerent à la nation Spartiate la precellence de valeur en ce combat. Les Spartiates excellents iuges de la vertu, quand ils vindrent à decider, à quel particulier de leur nation debuoit demeurer l’honneur d’auoir le mieux faict en cette iournee, trouuerent qu’Aristodemus s’estoit le plus courageusement hasardé: mais pourtant ils ne luy en donnerent point de prix, par ce que sa vertu auoit esté incitee du desir de se purger du reproche, qu’il auoit encouru au faict des Thermopyles: et d’vn appetit de mourir courageusement, pour garantir sa honte passee.
In that great battle of Potidaea, which the Greeks under Pausanias won against Mardonius and the Persians, the victors, following their custom, came to share out among themselves the glory of the exploit, and awarded the Spartan nation preeminence for valor in that battle. The Spartans, excellent judges of virtue, when they came to decide which individual of their nation should have the honor of having done best that day, found that Aristodemus had risked himself most courageously. Yet they gave him no prize for it, because his valor had been stirred by the desire to clear himself of the reproach he had incurred over Thermopylae, and by a longing to die courageously to redeem his past shame.
Nos iugemens sont encores malades, et suyuent la deprauation de nos mœurs. Ie voy la pluspart des esprits de mon temps faire les ingenieux à obscurcir la gloire des belles et genereuses actions anciennes, leur donnant quelque interpretation vile, et leur controuuant des occasions et des causes vaines. Grande subtilité. Qu’on me donne l’action la plus excellente et pure, ie m’en vois y fournir vraysemblablement cinquante vitieuses intentions. Dieu sçait, à qui les veut estendre, quelle diuersité d’images ne souffre nostre interne volonté. Ils ne font pas tant malitieusement, que lourdement et grossierement, les ingenieux, à tout leur mesdisance.
Our judgments are still sick, and follow the depravity of our morals. I see most of the minds of my time showing off their cleverness by obscuring the glory of the fine and noble deeds of antiquity, giving them some base interpretation and inventing vain occasions and causes for them. Great subtlety! Give me the most excellent and pure action, and I will supply it with fifty plausible vicious intentions. God knows, for anyone who wants to stretch them, what a variety of images our inner will allows. These clever fellows, for all their slander, act not so much maliciously as clumsily and crudely.
La mesme peine, qu’on prent à detracter de ces grands noms, et la mesme licence, ie la prendroye volontiers à leur prester quelque tour d’espaule pour les hausser. Ces rares figures, et triees pour l’exemple du monde, par le consentement des sages, ie ne me feindroy pas de les recharger d’honneur, autant que mon inuention pourroit, en interpretation et fauorable circonstance. Et il faut croire, que les efforts de nostre inuention sont loing au dessous de leur merite. C’est l’office des gents de bien, de peindre la vertu la plus belle qui se puisse. Et ne messieroit pas, quand la passion nous transporteroit à la faueur de si sainctes formes.
The same pains people take to detract from these great names, and the same license, I would gladly take to lend them a shoulder and lift them higher. These rare figures, picked out by the consent of the wise as examples for the world, I would not hesitate to load with fresh honor, as far as my invention could, by interpretation and favorable circumstance. And we must believe that the efforts of our invention fall far below their merit. It is the office of good men to portray virtue as beautiful as it can be. And it would not be unseemly if passion should carry us away in favor of such holy forms.
Ce que ceux cy font au contraire, ils le font ou par malice, ou par ce vice de ramener leur creance à leur portee, dequoy ie viens de parler: ou comme ie pense plustost, pour n’auoir pas la veuë assez forte et assez nette ny dressee à conceuoir la splendeur de la vertu en sa pureté naifue. Comme Plutarque dit, que de son temps, aucuns attribuoient la cause de la mort du ieune Caton, à la crainte qu’il auoit eu de Cæsar: dequoy il se picque auecques raison: et peut on iuger par là, combien il se fust encore plus offencé de ceux qui l’ont attribuee à l’ambition. Sottes gents.
What these people do to the contrary, they do either from malice, or from that vice I have just spoken of, of bringing their belief down to their own level; or, as I rather think, because their sight is not strong enough, clear enough or trained to conceive the splendor of virtue in its natural purity. So Plutarch says that in his time some attributed the cause of the younger Cato’s death to the fear he had of Caesar; and he is rightly indignant at this. We can judge from that how much more offended he would have been by those who attributed it to ambition. Foolish people!
Il eust bien faict vne belle action, genereuse et iuste plustost auec ignominie, que pour la gloire. Ce personnage là fut veritablement vn patron, que nature choisit, pour montrer iusques où l’humaine vertu et fermeté pouuoit atteindre.
He would have done a fine, noble and just deed in disgrace rather than for glory. That man was truly a model whom nature chose to show how far human virtue and firmness could reach.
Mais ie ne suis pas icy à mesmes pour traicter ce riche argument. Ie veux seulement faire luiter ensemble, les traicts de cinq poëtes Latins, sur la louange de Caton, et pour l’interest de Caton: et par incident, pour le leur aussi. Or deura l’enfant bien nourry, trouuer au prix des autres, les deux premiers trainants. Le troisiesme, plus verd: mais qui s’est abattu par l’extrauagance de sa force. Il estimera que là il y auroit place à vn ou deux degrez d’inuention encore, pour arriuer au quatriesme, sur le point duquel il ioindra ses mains par admiration. Au dernier, premier de quelque espace: mais laquelle espace, il iurera ne pouuoir estre remplie par nul esprit humain, il s’estonnera, il se transira.
But I am in no position here to treat this rich subject. I only want to set five Latin poets wrestling together in praise of Cato—for Cato’s sake, and incidentally for their own as well. Now a well-brought-up child should find, compared with the others, the first two dragging; the third more vigorous, but brought down by the extravagance of its own strength. He will judge that there would be room for one or two more degrees of invention before reaching the fourth, at the high point of which he will clasp his hands in admiration. At the last—first by some distance, but a distance that he will swear no human mind could fill—he will be stunned, he will be awestruck.
Voicy merueilles. Nous auons bien plus de poëtes, que de iuges et interpretes de poësie. Il est plus aisé de la faire, que de la cognoistre. A certaine mesure basse, on la peut iuger par les preceptes et par art. Mais la bonne, la supreme, la diuine, est au dessus des regles et de la raison. Quiconque en discerne la beauté, d’vne veuë ferme et rassise, il ne la void pas: non plus que la splendeur d’vn esclair. Elle ne pratique point nostre iugement: elle le rauit et rauage. La fureur, qui espoinçonne celuy qui la sçait penetrer, fiert encores vn tiers, à la luy ouyr traitter et reciter.
Here is a marvel: we have far more poets than judges and interpreters of poetry. It is easier to write it than to understand it. At a certain low level, it can be judged by precepts and by skill. But the good, the supreme, the divine is above rules and reason. Whoever discerns its beauty with a firm and steady gaze does not see it, any more than the splendor of a flash of lightning. It does not work on our judgment; it ravishes and ravages it. The frenzy that goads the man who can penetrate it also strikes a third person who hears him discuss and recite it.
Comme l’aymant attire non seulement vne aiguille, mais infond encores en icelle, sa faculté d’en attirer d’autres: et il se void plus clairement aux theatres, que l’inspiration sacree des muses, ayant premierement agité le poëte à la cholere, au deuil, à la hayne, et hors de soy, où elles veulent, frappe encore par le poëte, l’acteur, et par l’acteur, consecutiuement tout vn peuple. C’est l’enfileure de noz aiguilles, suspendues l’vne de l’autre. Dés ma premiere enfance, la poësie a eu cela, de me transpercer et transporter. Mais ce ressentiment bien vif, qui est naturellement en moy, a esté diuersement manié, par diuersité de formes, non tant, plus hautes et plus basses, car c’estoient tousiours des plus hautes en chasque espece, comme differentes en couleur.
Just as the magnet not only attracts a needle but also infuses into it its own power to attract others. And it is seen more clearly in the theater that the sacred inspiration of the Muses, having first stirred the poet to anger, grief, hatred and out of himself, wherever they please, strikes through the poet the actor, and through the actor, in turn, a whole people. It is the chain of our needles, hanging one from another. From my earliest childhood, poetry has had the power to pierce me through and carry me away. But this very lively sensitivity, which is natural in me, has been variously affected by various forms—not so much higher and lower (for they were always the highest of each kind) as different in color.
Premierement, vne fluidité gaye et ingenieuse: depuis vne subtilité aiguë et releuee. En fin, vne force meure et constante. L’exemple le dira mieux. Ouide, Lucain, Vergile.
First, a gay and ingenious fluency; later, a keen and lofty subtlety; finally, a mature and steady strength. The example will say it better: Ovid, Lucan, Virgil.
Mais voyla nos gens sur la carriere. Sit Cato, dum viuit, sanè vel Cæsare maior, dit l’vn: Et inuictum, deuicta morte, Catonem, dit l’autre. Et l’autre, parlant des guerres ciuiles d’entre Cæsar et Pompeius, Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni. Et le quatriesme sur les louanges de Cæsar: Et cuncta terrarum subacta, / Præter atrocem animum Catonis. Et le maistre du cœur, apres auoir étalé les noms des plus grands Romains en sa peinture, finit en cette maniere: His dantem iura Catonem.
But here are our poets on the racecourse. Granted, let Cato in his lifetime be greater even than Caesar, says one. And Cato unconquered, having conquered death, says another. And another, speaking of the civil wars between Caesar and Pompey: The winning cause pleased the gods, but the losing cause pleased Cato. And the fourth, praising Caesar: And all the lands subdued, / except the fierce soul of Cato. And the master of the choir, after setting out in his picture the names of the greatest Romans, ends in this way: Cato giving them laws.