PLVTARQVE dit en quelque lieu, qu’il ne trouue point si grande distance de beste à beste, comme il trouue d’homme à homme. Il parle de la suffisance de l’ame et qualitez internes. A la verité ie trouue si loing d’Epaminundas, comme ie l’imagine, iusques à tel que ie cognois, ie dy capable de sens commun, que i’encherirois volontiers sur Plutarque: et dirois qu’il y a plus de distance de tel à tel homme, qu’il n’y a de tel homme à telle beste: Hem! vir viro quid præstat! et qu’il y a autant de degrez d’esprits, qu’il y a d’icy au ciel de brasses, et autant innumerables.
PLUTARCH says somewhere that he does not find so great a distance between beast and beast as he finds between man and man. He is speaking of the ability of the soul and inner qualities. In truth, I find so great a distance between Epaminondas, as I imagine him, and some men I know (men capable of common sense, I mean) that I would gladly go further than Plutarch and say that there is more distance between one man and another than there is between some men and some beasts. Ah! how one man surpasses another! And I would say that there are as many degrees of minds as there are fathoms from here to heaven, and just as innumerable.
Mais à propos de l’estimation des hommes, c’est merueille que sauf nous, aucune chose ne s’estime que par ses propres qualitez. Nous loüons vn cheual de ce qu’il est vigoureux et adroit, Volucrem / Sic laudamus equum, facili cui plurima palma / Feruet, et exultat rauco victoria circo, non de son harnois: vn leurier, de sa vistesse, non de son colier: vn oyseau, de son aile, non de ses longes et sonnettes. Pourquoy de mesmes n’estimons nous vn homme par ce qui est sien? Il a vn grand train, vn beau palais, tant de credit, tant de rente: tout cela est autour de luy, non en luy.
But speaking of how men are valued, it is a marvel that, except for ourselves, nothing is valued except by its own qualities. We praise a horse for being vigorous and nimble, Thus we praise / The swift horse, for whom many palms / Glow from easy wins, and victory exults in the roaring circus, not for its harness; a greyhound for its speed, not for its collar; a bird for its wing, not for its jesses and bells. Why do we not likewise value a man by what is his own? He has a large retinue, a fine palace, so much influence, so much income: all that is around him, not in him.
Vous n’achetez pas vn chat en poche: si vous marchandez vn cheual, vous luy ostez ses bardes, vous le voyez nud et à descouuert. Ou s’il est couuert, comme on les presentoit anciennement aux Princes à vendre, c’est par les parties moins necessaires, à fin que vous ne vous amusiez pas à la beauté de son poil, ou largeur de sa croupe, et que vous vous arrestiez principalement à considerer les iambes, les yeux, et le pied, qui sont les membres les plus vtiles, Regibus hic mos est: vbi equos mercantur, opertos / Inspiciunt; ne si facies, vt sæpe, decora / Molli fulta pede est, emptorem inducat hiantem, / Quôd pulchræ clunes, breue quôd caput, ardua ceruix. Pourquoy estimant vn homme l’estimez vous tout enueloppé et empacqueté?
You do not buy a pig in a poke. If you are bargaining for a horse, you take off its trappings and see it bare and uncovered. Or if it is covered, as horses were presented for sale to princes in former times, it is covered in the less necessary parts, so that you will not be distracted by the beauty of its coat or the breadth of its rump, and will dwell chiefly on examining the legs, the eyes and the hooves, which are the most useful members. This is the custom of kings: when they buy horses, they inspect them / Covered, lest, if a handsome forequarter, as often, / Is propped on a weak hoof, it should take in the gaping buyer / Because the haunches are fine, the head small, the neck high. Why, when you value a man, do you value him all wrapped up and packaged?
Il ne nous faict montre que des parties, qui ne sont aucunement siennes: et nous cache celles, par lesquelles seules on peut vrayement iuger de son estimation. C’est le prix de l’espée que vous cerchez, non de la guaine: vous n’en donnerez à l’aduenture pas vn quatrain, si vous l’auez despouillée. Il le faut iuger par luy mesme, non par ses atours. Et comme dit tres-plaisamment vn ancien: Sçauez vous pourquoy vous l’estimez grand? vous y comptez la hauteur de ses patins. La base n’est pas de la statue. Mesurez le sans ses eschaces. Qu’il mette à part ses richesses et honneurs, qu’il se presente en chemise. A il le corps propre à ses functions, sain et allegre? Quelle ame a il?
He shows us only the parts that are in no way his own, and hides from us those by which alone one can truly judge his worth. It is the value of the sword you are after, not of the scabbard; perhaps you would not give a penny for it once you had stripped it. He must be judged by himself, not by his finery. And as one of the ancients says very wittily: “Do you know why you think him tall? You are counting the height of his thick soles.” The pedestal is no part of the statue. Measure him without his stilts. Let him put aside his riches and honors, and present himself in his shirt. Has he a body fit for its functions, healthy and lively? What kind of soul has he?
Est elle belle, capable, et heureusement pourueue de toutes ses pieces? Est elle riche du sien, ou de l’autruy? La fortune n’y a elle que voir? Si les yeux ouuerts elle attend les espées traites: s’il ne luy chaut par où luy sorte la vie, par la bouche, ou par le gosier: si elle est rassise, equable et contente: c’est ce qu’il faut veoir, et iuger par là les extremes differences qui sont entre nous.
Is it beautiful, capable, and happily furnished with all its parts? Is it rich with its own goods or with others’? Has Fortune nothing to do with it? Does it await drawn swords with open eyes? Does it care nothing by what way its life goes out, by the mouth or by the throat? Is it settled, even and content? That is what we must see, and by that judge the extreme differences between us.
Est-il sapiens, sibique imperiosus; / Quem neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent; / Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores / Fortis; et in seipso totus teres atque rotundus, / Externi ne quid valeat per læue morari, / In quem manca ruit semper fortuna? Vn tel homme est cinq cens brasses au dessus des Royaumes et des Duchez: il est luy mesmes à soy son empire. Sapiens, pol! ipse fingit fortunam sibi. Que luy reste il à desirer?
Is he wise, and master of himself; / Whom neither poverty nor death nor chains dismay; / Who is strong to defy his desires, to scorn honors, / And complete in himself, smooth and round, / So that nothing outside can cling to his polished surface; / Against whom Fortune always charges and falls lame? Such a man is five hundred fathoms above kingdoms and duchies: he is his own empire to himself. The wise man, by Pollux, shapes his own fortune. What is left for him to desire?
Nónne videmus, / Nil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi vt quoi / Corpore seiunctus dolor absit, mente fruatur / Iucundo sensu, cura semotus metúque? Comparez luy la tourbe de nos hommes, stupide, basse, seruile, instable, et continuellement flotante en l’orage des passions diuerses, qui la poussent et repoussent, pendant toute d’autruy: il y a plus d’esloignement que du ciel à la terre: et toutefois l’aueuglement de nostre vsage est tel, que nous en faisons peu ou point d’estat.
Do we not see / That nature clamors for nothing but that pain / Be absent and kept from the body, and that the mind enjoy / A pleasant feeling, free from care and fear? Compare with him the rabble of our men, stupid, base, servile, unstable, and continually tossed on the storm of conflicting passions that drive them back and forth, wholly dependent on others: there is more distance than from heaven to earth. And yet the blindness of our custom is such that we take little or no account of it.
Kings are only men
Royal pomp hides an ordinary man, subject to fever, fear and passion like anyone.
Là où, si nous considerons vn paisan et vn Roy, vn noble et vn villain, vn magistrat et vn homme priué, vn riche et vn pauure, il se presente soudain à nos yeux vn’ extreme disparité, qui ne sont differents par maniere de dire qu’en leurs chausses. En Thrace, le Roy estoit distingué de son peuple d’vne plaisante maniere, et bien r’encherie. Il auoit vne religion à part: vn Dieu tout à luy, qu’il n’appartenoit à ses subiects d’adorer: c’estoit Mercure. Et luy, dedaignoit les leurs, Mars, Bacchus, Diane. Ce ne sont pourtant que peintures, qui ne font aucune dissemblance essentielle.
Whereas if we consider a peasant and a king, a noble and a commoner, a magistrate and a private man, a rich man and a poor one, an extreme disparity at once presents itself to our eyes, though they differ, so to speak, only in their breeches. In Thrace the king was distinguished from his people in an amusing and very far-fetched way. He had a religion of his own, a god all to himself, whom his subjects had no right to worship: it was Mercury. And he disdained theirs: Mars, Bacchus, Diana. Yet these are only paintings, which make no essential difference.
Car comme les ioüeurs de comedie, vous les voyez sur l’eschaffaut faire vne mine de Duc et d’Empereur, mais tantost apres, les voyla deuenuz valets et crocheteurs miserables, qui est leur nayfue et originelle condition: aussi l’Empereur, duquel la pompe vous esblouit en public: Scilicet et grandes viridi cum luce smaragdi / Auro includuntur, teritúrque thalassina vestis / Assiduè, et Veneris sudorem exercita potat, voyez le derriere le rideau, ce n’est rien qu’vn homme commun, et à l’aduenture plus vil que le moindre de ses subiects.
Take actors in a comedy: you see them on the stage putting on the airs of a duke or an emperor, but a moment later there they are, turned back into wretched valets and porters, which is their natural and original condition. So too with the emperor whose pomp dazzles you in public, Indeed, great emeralds with their green light / Are set in gold for him, and he constantly wears / The sea-green robe, which, much used, drinks up the sweat of Venus: see him behind the curtain, and he is nothing but an ordinary man, perhaps more base than the least of his subjects.
Ille beatus introrsum est: istius bracteata felicitas est. La coüardise, l’irresolution, l’ambition, le despit et l’enuie l’agitent comme vn autre: Non enim gazæ, neque consularis / Summouet lictor miseros tumultus / Mentis et curas laqueata circum / Tecta volantes: et le soing et la crainte le tiennent à la gorge au milieu de ses armées. Re veráque metus hominum, curæque sequaces, / Nec metuunt sonitus armorum, nec fera tela, / Audactérque inter reges, rerúmque potentes / Versantur, neque fulgorem reuerentur ab auro. La fieubre, la migraine et la goutte l’espargnent elles non plus que nous? Quand la vieillesse luy sera sur les espaules, les archers de sa garde l’en deschargeront ils?
That man is happy within; this one’s happiness is gilt on the surface. Cowardice, irresolution, ambition, spite and envy agitate him like anyone else: For neither treasures nor the consul’s / Lictor can drive away the wretched tumults / Of the mind, nor the cares that flit around / Coffered ceilings; and care and fear hold him by the throat in the midst of his armies. And truly the fears of men and the cares that dog them / Fear neither the clash of arms nor cruel weapons; / They mingle boldly among kings and the masters of the world, / And stand in no awe of the glitter of gold. Do fever, migraine and gout spare him any more than us? When old age is on his shoulders, will the archers of his guard relieve him of it?
Quand la frayeur de la mort le transira, se r’asseurera il par l’assistance des Gentils-hommes de sa chambre? Quand il sera en ialousie et caprice, nos bonnettades le remettront elles? Ce ciel de lict tout enflé d’or et de perles, n’a aucune vertu à rappaiser les tranchées d’vne verte colique. Nec calidæ citius decedunt corpore febres, / Textilibus si in picturis ostróque rubenti / Iacteris, quàm si plebeia in veste cubandum est. Les flateurs du grand Alexandre, luy faisoyent à croire qu’il estoit fils de Iupiter: vn iour estant blessé, regardant escouler le sang de sa playe: Et bien qu’en dites vous? fit-il: est-ce pas icy vn sang vermeil, et purement humain?
When the terror of death chills him through, will he be reassured by the attendance of the gentlemen of his chamber? When he is in a fit of jealousy and caprice, will our doffings of the cap set him right again? That bed canopy all puffed out with gold and pearls has no power to soothe the gripes of a violent colic. Nor do hot fevers leave your body any sooner / If you toss on embroidered tapestries and blushing purple / Than if you must lie in a commoner’s blanket. The flatterers of Alexander the Great made him believe that he was the son of Jupiter. One day, being wounded and watching the blood flow from his wound, he said: “Well, what do you say now? Is this not red blood, and purely human?
il n’est pas de la trampe de celuy que Homere fait escouler de la playe des Dieux. Hermodorus le poëte auoit fait des vers en l’honneur d’Antigonus, où il l’appelloit fils du Soleil: et luy au contraire: Celuy, dit-il, qui vuide ma chaize percée, sçait bien qu’il n’en est rien.
It is not of the same temper as the blood that Homer makes flow from the wounds of the gods.” Hermodorus the poet had written verses in honor of Antigonus in which he called him son of the Sun; and Antigonus, on the contrary, said: “The man who empties my chamber pot knows very well that there is nothing in it.”
C’est vn homme pour tous potages. Et si de soy-mesmes c’est vn homme mal né, l’empire de l’vniuers ne le sçauroit rabiller. Puellæ / Hunc rapiant; quicquid calcauerit hic, rosa fiat. Quoy pour cela, si c’est vne ame grossiere et stupide? la volupté mesme et le bon heur, ne s’apperçoiuent point sans vigueur et sans esprit. Hæc perinde sunt, vt illius animus, qui ea possidet, / Qui vti scit, ei bona; illi qui non vtitur rectè, mala. Les biens de la fortune tous tels qu’ils sont, encores faut il auoir le sentiment propre à les sauourer. C’est le iouïr, non le posseder, qui nous rend heureux.
He is a man, and that is all. And if he is ill-born in himself, the empire of the universe could not mend him. Let the girls / Fight over him; wherever he treads, let roses spring. So what, if his is a coarse and stupid soul? Even pleasure and happiness are not perceived without vigor and intelligence. These things are as the mind of their possessor: / Good to him who knows how to use them, bad to him who does not use them rightly. The goods of fortune, such as they are, still require a sense fit to savor them. It is enjoying, not possessing, that makes us happy.
Non domus et fundus, non æris aceruus et auri, / Ægroto domini deduxit corpore febres, / Non animo curas; valeat possessor oportet, / Qui comportatis rebus benè cogitat vti. / Qui cupit, aut metuit, iuuat illum sic domus aut res, / Vt lippum pictæ tabulæ, fomenta podagram. Il est vn sot, son goust est mousse et hebeté; il n’en iouït non plus qu’vn morfondu de la douceur du vin Grec, ou qu’vn cheual de la richesse du harnois, duquel on l’a paré. Tout ainsi comme Platon dit, que la santé, la beauté, la force, les richesses, et tout ce qui s’appelle bien, est egalement mal à l’iniuste, comme bien au iuste, et le mal au rebours.
Neither house nor estate, nor heaps of bronze and gold, / Have ever driven the fevers from their owner’s sick body, / Or the cares from his mind; the owner must be healthy / If he means to make good use of the things he has gathered. / The man who desires or fears enjoys his house or wealth / As a man with sore eyes enjoys paintings, or a gouty man warm compresses. He is a fool; his taste is dull and blunted; he enjoys it no more than a man with a head cold enjoys the sweetness of Greek wine, or a horse the richness of the harness it has been decked with. Just as Plato says that health, beauty, strength, riches and everything called good are as much evil to the unjust as good to the just, and evil the other way about.
Et puis, où le corps et l’ame sont en mauuais estat, à quoy faire ces commoditez externes? veu que la moindre picqueure d’espingle, et passion de l’ame, est suffisante à nous oster le plaisir de la monarchie du monde. A la premiere strette que luy donne la goutte, il a beau estre Sire et Majesté, Totus et argento conflatus, totus et auro, perd il pas le souuenir de ses palais et de ses grandeurs? S’il est en colere, sa principauté le garde elle de rougir, de paslir, de grincer les dents comme vn fol?
And then, where body and soul are in a bad state, what good are these external comforts? For the slightest pinprick, or passion of the soul, is enough to take from us the pleasure of being monarch of the world. At the first twinge the gout gives him, it is no use his being Sire and Majesty, All cast in silver, all in gold: does he not lose the memory of his palaces and his grandeur? If he is angry, does his princely rank keep him from turning red, turning pale, gnashing his teeth like a fool?
Or si c’est vn habile homme et bien né, la royauté adiouste peu à son bon heur: Si ventri bene, si lateri est, pedibúsque tuis, nil / Diuitiæ poterunt regales addere maius: il voit que ce n’est que biffe et piperie. Oui à l’aduenture il sera de l’aduis du Roy Seleucus, Que qui sçauroit le poix d’vn sceptre, ne daigneroit l’amasser quand il le trouueroit à terre: il le disoit pour les grandes et penibles charges, qui touchent vn bon Roy. Certes ce n’est pas peu de chose que d’auoir à regler autruy, puis qu’à regler nous mesmes, il se presente tant de difficultez.
Now if he is a capable and well-born man, royalty adds little to his happiness: If your belly, your sides and your feet are well, / A king’s riches can add nothing greater. He sees that it is nothing but sham and trickery. Yes, perhaps he will share the opinion of King Seleucus, that whoever knew the weight of a scepter would not deign to pick it up if he found it lying on the ground; he said this because of the great and painful responsibilities that fall on a good king. Indeed, it is no small thing to have to govern others, since in governing ourselves so many difficulties present themselves.
Quant au commander, qui semble estre si doux; considerant l’imbecillité du iugement humain, et la difficulté du chois és choses nouuelles et doubteuses, ie suis fort de cet aduis, qu’il est bien plus aisé et plus plaisant de suiure, que de guider: et que c’est vn grand seiour d’esprit de n’auoir à tenir qu’vne voye tracée, et à respondre que de soy: Vt satiùs multo iam sit, parere quietum, / Quàm regere imperio res velle. Ioint que Cyrus disoit, qu’il n’appartenoit de commander à homme, qui ne vaille mieux que ceux à qui il commande.
As for commanding, which seems so sweet: considering the weakness of human judgment and the difficulty of choosing in new and doubtful matters, I am strongly of the opinion that it is much easier and more pleasant to follow than to lead, and that it is a great rest for the mind to have only a marked-out path to keep to, and to answer only for oneself. So that it is far better to obey in peace / Than to wish to rule the state with sovereign power. Besides, Cyrus said that no man was fit to command who is not worth more than those he commands.
The burdens of kingship
Following Xenophon’s Hiero, princes are shown losing pleasure, freedom and true friendship.
Mais le Roy Hieron en Xenophon dict d’auantage, qu’à la iouyssance des voluptez mesmes, ils sont de pire condition que les priuez: d’autant que l’aysance et la facilité, leur oste l’aigredouce pointe que nous y trouuons. Pinguis amor nimiùmque potens, in tædia nobis / Vertitur, et, stomacho dulcis vt esca, nocet. Pensons nous que les enfans de cœur prennent grand plaisir à la musique? La sacieté la leur rend plustost ennuyeuse. Les festins, les danses, les masquarades, les tournois reiouyssent ceux qui ne les voyent pas souuent, et qui ont desiré de les voir: mais à qui en faict ordinaire, le goust en deuient fade et mal plaisant: ny les dames ne chatouillent celuy qui en iouyt à cœur saoul.
But King Hiero, in Xenophon, says further that even in the enjoyment of pleasures, kings are worse off than private persons, since ease and facility take from them the bittersweet sting that we find in them. Love that is too rich and too powerful turns to tedium for us, / And harms us, as sweet food harms the stomach. Do we think choirboys take great pleasure in music? Satiety rather makes it tiresome to them. Feasts, dances, masquerades and tournaments delight those who do not see them often and have longed to see them; but for the man who makes them his daily fare, the taste becomes flat and unpleasant. Nor do women excite the man who enjoys them to his heart’s content.
Qui ne se donne loisir d’auoir soif, ne sçauroit prendre plaisir à boire. Les farces des bateleurs nous res-iouissent, mais aux ioüeurs elles seruent de coruée. Et qu’il soit ainsi, ce sont delices aux Princes, c’est leur feste, de se pouuoir quelque fois trauestir, et démettre à la façon de viure basse et populaire. Plerumque gratæ principibus vices, / Mundæque paruo sub lare pauperum / Cœnæ, sine aulæis et ostro, / Solicitam explicuere frontem. Il n’est rien si empeschant, si desgouté que l’abondance. Quel appetit ne se rebuteroit, à veoir trois cents femmes à sa merci, comme les a le grand Seigneur en son serrail?
He who does not give himself time to be thirsty can take no pleasure in drinking. The farces of the mountebanks delight us, but for the players they are drudgery. And to show that this is so: it is a delight to princes, a holiday for them, to be able sometimes to disguise themselves and come down to the low, common way of living. Often a change is welcome to the great, / And a neat meal beneath the humble roof of the poor, / Without hangings and purple, / Has smoothed the anxious brow. Nothing is so cumbersome, so cloying as abundance. What appetite would not be put off at seeing three hundred women at its mercy, as the Sultan has them in his seraglio?
Et quel appetit et visage de chasse, s’estoit reserué celuy de ses ancestres, qui n’alloit iamais aux champs, à moins de sept mille fauconniers?
And what appetite and taste for hunting could that ancestor of his have kept for himself, who never went out into the field with fewer than seven thousand falconers?
Et outre cela, ie croy, que ce lustre de grandeur, apporte non legeres incommoditez à la iouyssance des plaisirs plus doux: ils sont trop esclairez et trop en butte. Et ie ne sçay comment on requiert plus d’eux de cacher et couurir leur faute. Car ce qui est à nous indiscretion, à eux le peuple iuge que ce soit tyrannie, mespris, et desdain des loix. Et outre l’inclination au vice, il semble qu’ils y adioustent encore le plaisir de gourmander, et sousmettre à leurs pieds les obseruances publiques. De vray Platon en son Gorgias, definit tyran celuy qui a licence en vne cité d’y faire tout ce qui luy plaist.
And besides that, I believe that this luster of greatness brings no slight inconveniences to the enjoyment of the gentler pleasures: princes are too brightly lit and too exposed. And somehow more is demanded of them in hiding and covering their faults. For what in us is indiscretion, in them the people judge to be tyranny, contempt and disdain for the laws. And besides the inclination to vice, it seems that they add to it the pleasure of bullying public observances and trampling them underfoot. Indeed Plato, in his Gorgias, defines a tyrant as one who has license in a city to do whatever he pleases there.
Et souuent à cette cause, la montre et publication de leur vice, blesse plus que le vice mesme. Chacun craint à estre espié et contrerollé: ils le sont iusques à leurs contenances et à leurs pensees; tout le peuple estimant auoir droict et interest d’en iuger. Outre ce que les taches s’agrandissent selon l’eminence et clarté du lieu, où elles sont assises: et qu’vn seing et vne verrue au front, paroissent plus que ne faict ailleurs vne balafre. Voyla pourquoy les poëtes feignent les amours de Iupiter conduites soubs autre visage que le sien: et de tant de practiques amoureuses qu’ils luy attribuent, il n’en est qu’vne seule, ce me semble, où il se trouue en sa grandeur et Maiesté.
And for this reason the display and publication of their vice often wounds more than the vice itself. Everyone dreads being spied on and watched. Princes are watched down to their expressions and their thoughts, since the whole people believe they have the right to judge them and a stake in doing so. Besides, stains grow larger according to the eminence and brightness of the place where they sit, and a mole or a wart on the forehead shows more than a gash does elsewhere. That is why the poets imagine Jupiter’s love affairs carried on under some face other than his own; and of all the amorous intrigues they attribute to him, there is only one, it seems to me, in which he appears in his own greatness and majesty.
Mais reuenons à Hieron: il recite aussi combien il sent d’incommoditez en sa royauté, pour ne pouuoir aller et voyager en liberté, estant comme prisonnier dans les limites de son païs: et qu’en toutes ses actions il se trouue enueloppé d’vne facheuse presse. De vray, à voir les nostres tous seuls à table, assiegez de tant de parleurs et regardans inconnuz, i’en ay eu souuent plus de piété que d’enuie. Le Roy Alphonse disoit que les asnes estoyent en cela de meilleure condition que les Roys: leurs maistres les laissent paistre à leur aise, là où les Roys ne peuuent pas obtenir cela de leurs seruiteurs.
But let us return to Hiero. He also relates how many inconveniences he suffers in his kingship from being unable to go about and travel freely, being like a prisoner within the borders of his country, and how in all his actions he finds himself hemmed in by an irksome crowd. Indeed, when I have seen our own kings sitting alone at table, besieged by so many strangers talking and staring, I have often felt more pity for them than envy. King Alfonso used to say that in this respect donkeys were better off than kings: their masters let them graze at their ease, whereas kings cannot get that much from their servants.
Et ne m’est iamais tombé en fantasie, que ce fust quelque notable commodité à la vie d’vn homme d’entendement, d’auoir vne vingtaine de contrerolleurs à sa chaise percée: ny que les seruices d’vn homme qui a dix mille liures de rente, ou qui a pris Casal, ou defendu Siene, luy soyent plus commodes et acceptables, que d’vn bon valet et bien experimenté. Les auantages principesques sont quasi auantages imaginaires. Chaque degré de fortune a quelque image de principauté. Cæsar appelle Roytelets, tous les Seigneurs ayans iustice en France de son temps.
And it has never entered my head that it was any notable advantage, in the life of a man of understanding, to have a score of supervisors at his close-stool. Nor that the services of a man with an income of ten thousand livres, or one who has taken Casale or defended Siena, are more convenient and acceptable to him than those of a good, well-practiced valet. Princely advantages are almost imaginary advantages. Each degree of fortune has some image of sovereignty in it. Caesar calls all the lords who held rights of justice in France in his day petty kings.
De vray, sauf le nom de Sire, on va bien auant auec nos Roys. Et voyez aux Prouinces esloingnées de la Cour, nommons Bretaigne pour exemple, le train, les subiects, les officiers, les occupations, le seruice et cerimonie d’vn Seigneur retiré et casanier, nourry entre ses valets; et voyez aussi le vol de son imagination, il n’est rien plus royal: il oyt parler de son maistre vne fois l’an, comme du Roy de Perse: et ne le recognoit, que par quelque vieux cousinage, que son secretaire tient en registre. A la verité nos loix sont libres assez; et le pois de la souueraineté ne touche vn Gentil-homme François, à peine deux fois en sa vie.
Truly, apart from the title of “Sire,” people go a long way toward matching our kings. Look at the provinces far from the court—let us take Brittany as an example. Look at the retinue, the subjects, the officers, the occupations, the service and ceremony of a retired, stay-at-home lord, brought up among his servants; and look too at the flight of his imagination: there is nothing more royal. He hears his master spoken of once a year, as if he were the King of Persia, and acknowledges him only through some old kinship that his secretary keeps on record. In truth our laws are free enough, and the weight of sovereignty touches a French gentleman barely twice in his life.
La subiection essentielle et effectuelle, ne regarde d’entre nous, que ceux qui s’y conuient, et qui ayment à s’honnorer et enrichir par tel seruice: car qui se veut tapir en son foyer, et sçait conduire sa maison sans querelle, et sans procés, il est aussi libre que le Duc de Venise. Paucos seruitus, plures seruitutem tenent.
Essential and effective subjection concerns only those among us who invite themselves to it and like to gain honor and wealth by such service. For a man who is willing to stay tucked away by his own hearth, and knows how to run his household without quarrels and without lawsuits, is as free as the Doge of Venice. Slavery holds few men; more men hold fast to slavery.
Mais sur tout Hieron faict cas, dequoy il se voit priué de toute amitié et societé mutuelle: en laquelle consiste le plus parfait et doux fruict de la vie humaine. Car quel tesmoignage d’affection et de bonne volonté, puis-ie tirer de celuy, qui me doit, vueille il ou non, tout ce qu’il peut? Puis-ie faire estat de son humble parler et courtoise reuerence, veu qu’il n’est pas en luy de me la refuser? L’honneur que nous receuons de ceux qui nous craignent, ce n’est pas honneur: ces respects se doiuent à la Royauté, non à moy.
But above all Hiero makes much of the fact that he finds himself deprived of all friendship and mutual fellowship, in which lies the most perfect and sweetest fruit of human life. For what testimony of affection and goodwill can I draw from a man who owes me, whether he likes it or not, everything in his power? Can I set any store by his humble speech and courteous reverence, when it is not in him to refuse them to me? The honor we receive from those who fear us is not honor: these respects are due to royalty, not to me.
Maximum hoc regni bonum est, / Quod facta domini cogitur populus sui / Quâm ferre, tam laudare. Vois-ie pas que le meschant, le bon Roy, celuy qu’on haït, celuy qu’on ayme, autant en a l’vn que l’autre: de mesmes apparences, de mesme ceremonie, estoit seruy mon predecesseur, et le sera mon successeur. Si mes subiects ne m’offencent pas, ce n’est tesmoignage d’aucune bonne affection: pourquoy le prendray-ie en cette part-là, puis qu’ils ne pourroient quand ils voudroient? Nul ne me suit pour l’amitié, qui soit entre luy et moy: car il ne s’y sçauroit coudre amitié, où il y a si peu de relation et de correspondance. Ma hauteur m’a mis hors du commerce des hommes: il y a trop de disparité et de disproportion.
This is the greatest boon of kingship, / that the people are forced to praise their master’s deeds / as much as to bear them. Do I not see that the wicked king and the good one, the hated and the loved, get as much of it, the one as the other? My predecessor was served with the same outward show and the same ceremony, and so my successor will be. If my subjects do not offend me, that is no evidence of any good affection: why should I take it that way, since they could not if they would? No one follows me for any friendship between him and me, for no friendship can be stitched together where there is so little relation and correspondence. My height has put me outside the company of men: there is too much disparity and disproportion.
Ils me suiuent par contenance et par coustume, ou plus tost que moy ma fortune, pour en accroistre la leur. Tout ce qu’ils me dient, et font, ce n’est que fard, leur liberté estant bridée de toutes parts par la grande puissance que i’ay sur eux: ie ne voy rien autour de moy que couuert et masqué. Ses courtisans loüoient vn iour Iulian l’Empereur de faire bonne iustice: Ie m’enorgueillirois volontiers, dit-il, de ces loüanges, si elles venoient de personnes, qui ozassent accuser ou mesloüer mes actions contraires, quand elles y seroient.
They follow me for form’s sake and out of custom—or rather they follow not me but my fortune, to increase their own. Everything they say and do to me is mere paint, their freedom being bridled on every side by the great power I have over them. I see nothing around me but what is covered and masked. His courtiers were one day praising the Emperor Julian for dispensing good justice. “I would gladly be proud of these praises,” he said, “if they came from people who would dare to accuse or blame my actions when they went the other way.”
Toutes les vraies commoditez qu’ont les Princes, leurs sont communes auec les hommes de moyenne fortune. C’est à faire aux Dieux, de monter des cheuaux aislez, et se paistre d’Ambrosie: ils n’ont point d’autre sommeil et d’autre appetit que le nostre: leur acier n’est pas de meilleure trempe, que celuy dequoy nous nous armons; leur couronne ne les couure ny du soleil, ny de la pluie.
All the real advantages that princes have, they share with men of middling fortune. It is for the gods to ride winged horses and feed on ambrosia. Princes have no other sleep and no other appetite than ours; their steel is of no better temper than the steel we arm ourselves with; their crown shelters them neither from the sun nor from the rain.
Diocletian qui en portoit vne si reuerée et si fortunée, la resigna pour se retirer au plaisir d’vne vie priuée: et quelque temps apres, la necessité des affaires publiques, requerant qu’il reuinst à prendre la charge, il respondit à ceux qui l’en prioient: Vous n’entreprendriez pas de me persuader cela, si vous auiez veu le bel ordre des arbres, que i’ay moymesme planté chez moy, et les beaux melons que i’y ay semez.
Diocletian, who wore one so revered and so fortunate, resigned it to retire to the pleasure of a private life. Some time later, when the necessity of public affairs required him to come back and take up the charge again, he answered those who begged him to: “You would not undertake to persuade me of this if you had seen the fine rows of trees I have planted with my own hands at home, and the fine melons I have sown there.”
A l’aduis d’Anacharsis le plus heureux estat d’vne police, seroit où toutes autres choses estants esgales, la precedence se mesureroit à la vertu, et le rebut au vice.
In the opinion of Anacharsis, the happiest state of a government would be one where, all other things being equal, precedence would be measured by virtue and rejection by vice.
Quand le Roy Pyrrhus entreprenoit de passer en Italie, Cyneas son sage conseiller luy voulant faire sentir la vanité de son ambition: Et bien Sire, luy demanda-il, à quelle fin dressez vous cette grande entreprinse? Pour me faire maistre de l’Italie, respondit-il soudain: Et puis, suyuit Cyneas, cela faict? Ie passeray, dit l’autre, en Gaule et en Espaigne: Et apres? Ie m’en iray subiuguer l’Afrique, et en fin, quand i’auray mis le monde en ma subiection, ie me reposeray et viuray content et à mon aise. Pour Dieu, Sire, rechargea lors Cyneas, dictes moy, à quoy il tient que vous ne soyez des à present, si vous voulez, en cet estat?
When King Pyrrhus was undertaking to cross into Italy, Cineas, his wise counselor, wishing to make him feel the vanity of his ambition, asked him: “Well, Sire, to what end are you setting up this great enterprise?” “To make myself master of Italy,” he answered at once. “And then,” Cineas went on, “once that is done?” “I shall cross into Gaul and Spain,” said the other. “And after that?” “I shall go and subjugate Africa; and finally, when I have brought the world under my subjection, I shall rest and live content and at my ease.” “For God’s sake, Sire,” Cineas then pressed him, “tell me what keeps you from being in that state right now, if you wish?
Pourquoy ne vous logez vous des cette heure, où vous dites aspirer, et vous espargnez tant de trauail et de hazard, que vous iettez entre deux? Nimirum quia non bene norat quæ esset habendi / Finis, et omnino quoad crescat vera voluptas.
Why not settle at once where you say you aspire to be, and spare yourself all the toil and hazard that you put in between?” No doubt because he did not well know what the limit of possessing is, / and how far true pleasure can grow at all.
Ie m’en vais clorre ce pas par vn verset ancien, que ie trouue singulierement beau à ce propos: Mores cuique sui fingunt fortunam.
I am going to close this passage with an ancient line that I find singularly fine on this point: Each man’s character shapes his fortune.