VN Gentil-homme des nostres merueilleusement subiect à la goutte, estant pressé par les Medecins de laisser du tout l’vsage des viandes salees, auoit accoustumé de respondre plaisamment, que sur les efforts et tourments du mal, il vouloit auoir à qui s’en prendre; et que s’escriant et maudissant tantost le ceruelat, tantost la langue de bœuf et le iambon, il s’en sentoit d’autant allegé.
A gentleman of our country, marvelously subject to gout, being urged by his doctors to give up salted meats altogether, used to reply humorously that in the attacks and torments of the disease he wanted to have something to blame; and that by shouting and cursing now the sausage, now the ox tongue and the ham, he felt that much relieved.
Mais en bon escient, comme le bras estant haussé pour frapper, il nous deult si le coup ne rencontre, et qu’il aille au vent: aussi que pour rendre vne veuë plaisante, il ne faut pas qu’elle soit perduë et escartee dans le vague de l’air, ains qu’elle ayt butte pour la soustenir à raisonnable distance. Ventus vt amittit vires, nisi robore densæ / Occurrant siluæ spatio diffusus inani. De mesme il semble que l’ame esbranlee et esmeuë se perde en soy-mesme, si on ne luy donne prinse: et faut tousiours luy fournir d’obiect où elle s’abutte et agisse.
But in earnest: just as an arm raised to strike hurts us if the blow does not land and goes into the wind; and just as, to make a view pleasant, it must not be lost and scattered in the emptiness of the air, but must have a mark to hold it at a reasonable distance—As the wind loses its strength, scattered in empty space, / Unless dense forests stand in its way—so it seems that the soul, shaken and stirred, loses itself in itself if it is not given something to grip; and it must always be supplied with an object to aim at and act upon.
Plutarque dit à propos de ceux qui s’affectionnent aux guenons et petits chiens, que la partie amoureuse qui est en nous, à faute de prise legitime, plustost que de demeurer en vain, s’en forge ainsin vne faulce et friuole. Et nous voyons que l’ame en ses passions se pipe plustost elle mesme, se dressant vn faux subiect et fantastique, voire contre sa propre creance, que de n’agir contre quelque chose. Ainsin emporte les bestes leur rage à s’attaquer à la pierre et au fer, qui les a blessees: et à se venger à belles dents sur soy-mesmes du mal qu’elles sentent.
Plutarch says, of those who grow fond of monkeys and little dogs, that the loving part in us, for lack of a legitimate object, rather than remain idle, forges a false and frivolous one for itself in this way. And we see that the soul, in its passions, would rather deceive itself, setting up a false and fanciful object, even against its own belief, than not act against something. Thus beasts are carried by their rage to attack the stone or the steel that has wounded them, and to take revenge on themselves with their teeth for the pain they feel.
Pannonis haud aliter post ictum sæuior vrsa / Cui iaculum parua Lybis amentauit habena, / Se rotat in vulnus, telumque irata receptum / Impetit, et secum fugientem circuit hastam.
Just so the Pannonian she-bear, fiercer after the blow / Of the javelin the Libyan has hurled with its slender thong, / Whirls round upon her wound and, raging, attacks / The dart she has taken, and circles after the spear that flees with her.
Quelles causes n’inuentons nous des malheurs qui nous aduiennent? à quoy ne nous prenons nous à tort ou à droit, pour auoir où nous escrimer? Ce ne sont pas ces tresses blondes, que tu deschires, ny la blancheur de cette poictrine, que despitée tu bats si cruellement, qui ont perdu d’vn malheureux plomb ce frere bien aymé: prens t’en ailleurs. Liuius parlant de l’armee Romaine en Espaigne, apres la perte des deux freres ses grands Capitaines, Flere omnes repente, et offensare capita: c’est vn vsage commun. Et le Philosophe Bion, de ce Roy, qui de dueil s’arrachoit le poil, fut plaisant, Cetuy-cy pense-il que la pelade soulage le dueil?
What causes do we not invent for the misfortunes that befall us? What do we not lay hold of, rightly or wrongly, so as to have something to fence with? It is not those blond tresses that you are tearing, nor the whiteness of that breast that you beat so cruelly in your distress, that killed that beloved brother with an unlucky bullet: take it out on something else. Livy, speaking of the Roman army in Spain after the loss of its two great captains, who were brothers: All at once they began to weep and beat their heads. It is a common practice. And the philosopher Bion was amusing about that king who tore out his hair in grief: “Does this man think baldness relieves grief?”
Qui n’a veu mascher et engloutir les cartes, se gorger d’vne bale de dez, pour auoir où se venger de la perte de son argent? Xerxes foita la mer, et escriuit vn cartel de deffi au mont Athos: et Cyrus amusa toute vne armee plusieurs iours à se venger de la riuiere de Gyndus, pour la peur qu’il auoit eu en la passant: et Caligula ruina vne tresbelle maison, pour le plaisir que sa mere y auoit eu.
Who has not seen people chew and swallow the cards, or gorge themselves on a mouthful of dice, so as to have something to take revenge on for the loss of their money? Xerxes whipped the sea and wrote a letter of challenge to Mount Athos; Cyrus kept a whole army busy for several days taking revenge on the river Gyndes for the fright he had had crossing it; and Caligula ruined a very beautiful house because of the pleasure his mother had had there.
Le peuple disoit en ma ieunesse, qu’vn Roy de noz voysins, ayant receu de Dieu vne bastonade, iura de s’en venger: ordonnant que de dix ans on ne le priast, ny parlast de luy, ny autant qu’il estoit en son auctorité, qu’on ne creust en luy. Par où on vouloit peindre non tant la sottise, que la gloire naturelle à la nation, dequoy estoit le compte. Ce sont vices tousiours conioincts: mais telles actions tiennent, à la verité, vn peu plus encore d’outrecuidance, que de bestise.
In my youth people used to say that a king of one of our neighboring countries, having received a beating from God, swore to take revenge: he ordered that for ten years no one should pray to Him, or speak of Him, or, as far as his authority extended, believe in Him. By this they meant to depict not so much the stupidity as the vainglory natural to the nation the story was about. These are vices that always go together; but such actions, in truth, have even a little more of presumption than of stupidity.
Augustus Cesar ayant esté battu de la tempeste sur mer, se print à deffier le Dieu Neptunus, et en la pompe des ieux Circenses fist oster son image du reng où elle estoit parmy les autres Dieux, pour se venger de luy. Enquoy il est encore moins excusable, que les precedens, et moins qu’il ne fut depuis, lors qu’ayant perdu vne bataille sous Quintilius Varus en Allemaigne, il alloit de colere et de desespoir, choquant sa teste contre la muraille, en s’escriant, Varus rens moy mes soldats: car ceux la surpassent toute follie, d’autant que l’impieté y est ioincte, qui s’en adressent à Dieu mesmes, ou à la fortune, comme si elle auoit des oreilles subiectes à nostre batterie.
Augustus Caesar, having been battered by a storm at sea, took to defying the god Neptune, and in the procession of the Circensian games had his image removed from its place among the other gods, to take revenge on him. In which he is even less excusable than the preceding, and less than he was later when, having lost a battle under Quintilius Varus in Germany, he went about in anger and despair beating his head against the wall and crying out, “Varus, give me back my soldiers!” For those who direct their attacks at God himself, or at fortune, as if she had ears open to our assault, surpass all folly, since impiety is joined to it.
A l’exemple des Thraces, qui, quand il tonne ou esclaire, se mettent à tirer contre le ciel d’vne vengeance Titanienne, pour renger Dieu à raison, à coups de fleche. Or, comme dit cet ancien Poëte chez Plutarque, Point ne se faut courroucer aux affaires. / Il ne leur chaut de toutes nos choleres. Mais nous ne dirons iamais assez d’iniures au desreglement de nostre esprit.
Like the Thracians, who, when it thunders or lightens, start shooting at the sky with a Titanic vengeance, to bring God to reason with arrows. Now, as that ancient poet in Plutarch says, We must not grow angry at events: / They care nothing for all our rages. But we shall never heap enough abuse on the unruliness of our own mind.