QVAND nous rencontrons dans les histoires, qu’Antigonus sçeut tres-mauuais gré à son fils de luy auoir presenté la teste du Roy Pyrrhus son ennemy, qui venoit sur l’heure mesme d’estre tué combatant contre luy: et que l’ayant veuë il se print bien fort à pleurer: et que le Duc René de Lorraine, pleingnit aussi la mort du Duc Charles de Bourgoigne, qu’il venoit de deffaire, et en porta le deuil en son enterrement: et qu’en la bataille d’Auroy (que le Comte de Montfort gaigna contre Charles de Blois sa partie, pour le Duché de Bretaigne) le victorieux rencontrant le corps de son ennemy trespassé, en mena grand deuil, il ne faut pas s’escrier soudain, Et cosi auen che l’animo ciascuna / Sua passion sotto el contrario manto / Ricopre, con la vista hor’ chiara, hor bruna. Quand on presenta à Cæsar la teste de Pompeius, les histoires disent qu’il en destourna sa veuë, comme d’vn vilain et mal plaisant spectacle.
When we come across in the histories that Antigonus was very displeased with his son for presenting him with the head of King Pyrrhus, his enemy, who had just been killed fighting against him, and that on seeing it he burst into tears; and that Duke René of Lorraine likewise lamented the death of Duke Charles of Burgundy, whom he had just defeated, and wore mourning at his funeral; and that at the battle of Auray (which the Count of Montfort won against Charles of Blois, his rival for the duchy of Brittany) the victor, coming upon the body of his dead enemy, mourned him greatly—we must not immediately exclaim: And so it happens that the mind hides each / of its passions beneath a contrary cloak, / with a face now bright, now dark. When Caesar was presented with Pompey’s head, the histories say he turned his eyes away as from an ugly and unpleasant sight.
Il y auoit eu entr’eux vne si longue intelligence, et societé au maniement des affaires publiques, tant de communauté de fortunes, tant d’offices reciproques et d’alliance, qu’il ne faut pas croire que cette contenance fust toute fauce et contrefaicte, comme estime cet autre: Tutúmque putauit / Iam bonus esse socer, lacrymas non sponte cadentes / Effudit, gemitúsque expressit pectore læto. Car bien qu’à la verité la pluspart de nos actions ne soient que masque et fard, et qu’il puisse quelquefois estre vray, Heredis fletus sub persona risus est. si est-ce qu’au iugement de ces accidens, il faut considerer, comme nos ames se trouuent souuent agitees de diuerses passions.
There had been between them such a long understanding and partnership in managing public affairs, so much sharing of fortunes, so many mutual services and ties of kinship, that we must not believe this countenance was entirely false and feigned, as this other poet thinks: And thinking it now safe / to be a good father-in-law, he shed tears that did not fall of themselves, / and forced groans from a glad heart. For although in truth most of our actions are nothing but mask and paint, and it may sometimes be true that The heir’s weeping is laughter behind a mask, still, in judging these events we must consider how our souls are often stirred by different passions.
Et tout ainsi qu’en nos corps ils disent qu’il y a vne assemblee de diuerses humeurs, desquelles celle là est maistresse, qui commande le plus ordinairement en nous, selon nos complexions: aussi en nostre ame, bien qu’il y ait diuers mouuements, qui l’agitent, si faut-il qu’il y en ayt vn à qui le champ demeure. Mais ce n’est pas auec si entier auantage, que pour la volubilité et soupplesse de nostre ame, les plus foibles par occasion ne regaignent encores la place, et ne facent vne courte charge à leur tour.
And just as they say that in our bodies there is a gathering of different humors, of which the master is the one that most usually commands in us, according to our constitutions, so in our soul, although various impulses stir it, one of them must hold the field. But not with so complete an advantage that, because of the volatility and suppleness of our soul, the weaker ones do not on occasion regain ground and make a brief charge in their turn.
D’où nous voyons non seulement les enfans, qui vont tout naifuement apres la nature, pleurer et rire souuent de mesme chose: mais nul d’entre nous ne se peut vanter, quelque voyage qu’il face à son souhait, qu’encore au départir de sa famille, et de ses amis, il ne se sente frissonner le courage: et si les larmes ne luy en eschappent tout à faict, au moins met-il le pied à l’estrié d’vn visage morne et contristé.
Hence we see not only children, who follow nature quite artlessly, often crying and laughing at the same thing; but none of us can boast that, however much he may want the journey he is setting out on, he does not still feel his heart quiver at parting from his family and friends. And if tears do not quite escape him, at least he puts his foot in the stirrup with a gloomy and saddened face.
Et quelque gentille flamme qui eschauffe le cœur des filles bien nees, encore les despend on à force du col de leurs meres, pour les rendre à leur espoux: quoy que die ce bon compagnon, Estne nouis nuptis odio Venus, ánne parentum / Frustrantur falsis gaudia lacrymulis, / Vbertim thalami quas intra limina fundunt? / Non, ita me diui, vera gemunt, iuuerint. Ainsin il n’est pas estrange de plaindre celuy-là mort, qu’on ne voudroit aucunement estre en vie.
And whatever noble flame warms the hearts of well-born girls, still they have to be pried by force from their mothers’ necks to be handed over to their husbands, whatever this good fellow may say: Do new brides hate Venus, or do they cheat / their parents’ joy with false little tears / which they shed in floods inside the bedroom door? / No, so help me the gods, their groans are not true. So it is not strange to lament the death of a man whom one would by no means want alive.
Quand ie tance auec mon valet, ie tance du meilleur courage que i’aye: ce sont vrayes et non feintes imprecations: mais cette fumee passee, qu’il ayt besoing de moy, ie luy bien-feray volontiers, ie tourne à l’instant le fueillet. Quand ie l’appelle vn badin, vn veau: ie n’entrepren pas de luy coudre à iamais ces titres: ny ne pense me desdire, pour le nommer honeste homme tantost apres. Nulle qualité nous embrasse purement et vniuersellement. Si ce n’estoit la contenance d’vn fol, de parler seul, il n’est iour ny heure à peine, en laquelle on ne m’ouist gronder en moy-mesme, et contre moy, Bren du fat: et si n’enten pas, que ce soit ma definition.
When I scold my valet, I scold him with all the heart I have; these are real curses, not feigned. But once that smoke has passed, let him need me and I will gladly do him good: I turn the page instantly. When I call him a buffoon, a dull calf, I do not undertake to stitch those titles on him forever; nor do I think I am contradicting myself when I call him a decent fellow shortly after. No quality embraces us purely and universally. If talking to oneself were not the mark of a fool, there is hardly a day or an hour when I would not be heard grumbling to myself and against myself, “Dung on the fool!”—and yet I do not mean that as my definition.
Qui pour me voir vne mine tantost froide, tantost amoureuse enuers ma femme, estime que l’vne ou l’autre soit feinte, il est vn sot. Neron prenant congé de sa mere, qu’il enuoioit noyer, sentit toutefois l’émotion de cet adieu maternel: et en eust horreur et pitié. On dit que la lumiere du Soleil, n’est pas d’vne piece continuë: mais qu’il nous élance si dru sans cesse nouueaux rayons les vns sur les autres, que nous n’en pouuons apperceuoir l’entre deux. Largus enim liquidi fons luminis, ætherius sol / Inrigat assiduè cœlum candore recenti, / Suppeditátque nouo confestim lumine lumen: ainsin eslance nostre ame ses pointes diuersement et imperceptiblement.
Anyone who, seeing me look now cold, now loving toward my wife, thinks that one or the other is feigned, is a fool. Nero, taking leave of his mother, whom he was sending to be drowned, nevertheless felt the emotion of that maternal farewell, and was struck with horror and pity. They say that the sun’s light is not one continuous piece, but that the sun darts new rays at us so thickly and incessantly, one upon another, that we cannot perceive the gap between them. For the sun in the heavens, abundant fountain of liquid light, / constantly floods the sky with fresh brightness, / and instantly supplies light with new light. In the same way our soul darts out its points variously and imperceptibly.
Artabanus surprint Xerxes son nepueu, et le tança de la mutation soudaine de sa contenance. Il estoit à considerer la grandeur desmesurée de ses forces, au passage de l’Hellespont, pour l’entreprinse de la Grece. Il luy print premierement vn tressaillement d’aise, à veoir tant de milliers d’hommes à son seruice, et le tesmoigna par l’allegresse et feste de son visage. Et tout soudain en mesme instant, sa pensée luy suggerant, comme tant de vies auoient à defaillir au plus loing, dans vn siecle, il refroigna son front, et s’attrista iusques aux larmes.
Artabanus caught his nephew Xerxes off guard and chided him for the sudden change in his countenance. Xerxes was surveying the immeasurable size of his forces at the crossing of the Hellespont for the expedition against Greece. First a thrill of joy came over him at seeing so many thousands of men in his service, and he showed it by the gladness and festivity of his face. And all of a sudden, in the same instant, as his thoughts suggested to him that so many lives would have to perish within a century at most, he knit his brow and grew sad to the point of tears.
Nous auons poursuiuy auec resoluë volonté la vengeance d’vne iniure, et ressenty vn singulier contentement de la victoire; nous en pleurons pourtant: ce n’est pas de cela que nous pleurons: il n’y a rien de changé; mais nostre ame regarde la chose d’vn autre œil, et se la represente par vn autre visage: car chasque chose a plusieurs biais et plusieurs lustres.
We have pursued revenge for an injury with resolute will, and felt singular satisfaction at our victory; and yet we weep over it. It is not that we weep for; nothing has changed. But our soul looks at the thing with a different eye and pictures it to itself with a different face; for each thing has many angles and many lights.
La parenté, les anciennes accointances et amitiez, saisissent nostre imagination, et la passionnent pour l’heure, selon leur condition; mais le contour en est si brusque, qu’il nous eschappe. Nil adeo fieri celeri ratione videtur, / Quàm si mens fieri proponit, et inchoat ipsa / Ocius ergo animus, quàm res se perciet vlla, / Ante oculos quarum in promptu natura videtur. Et à cette cause, voulans de toute cette suitte continuer vn corps, nous nous trompons. Quand Timoleon pleure le meurtre qu’il auoit commis d’vne si meure et genereuse deliberation, il ne pleure pas la liberté rendue à sa patrie, il ne pleure pas le Tyran, mais il pleure son frere. L’vne partie de son deuoir est iouée, laissons luy en iouer l’autre.
Kinship, old acquaintances and friendships seize our imagination and stir it for the moment according to their nature; but the turn is so abrupt that it escapes us. Nothing seems to happen as swiftly / as what the mind proposes and itself begins. / So the mind stirs itself more swiftly than any of the things / whose nature we see plainly before our eyes. And for this reason, when we try to make one continuous body out of this whole sequence, we deceive ourselves. When Timoleon weeps for the murder he had committed after such mature and noble deliberation, he does not weep for the liberty restored to his country, he does not weep for the tyrant; he weeps for his brother. One part of his duty has been played; let us let him play the other.