LE iugement est vn vtil à tous subiects, et se mesle par tout. A cette cause aux Essais que i’en fay icy, i’y employe toute sorte d’occasion. Si c’est vn subiect que ie n’entende point, à cela mesme ie l’essaye, sondant le gué de bien loing, et puis le trouuant trop profond pour ma taille, ie me tiens à la riue. Et cette reconnoissance de ne pouuoir passer outre, c’est vn traict de son effect, ouy de ceux, dont il se vante le plus. Tantost à vn subiect vain et de neant, i’essaye voir s’il trouuera dequoy luy donner corps, et dequoy l’appuyer et l’estançonner.
Judgment is a tool for every subject, and it has a hand in everything. That is why, in these essays, the trials I make of it here, I use every kind of occasion. If it is a subject I do not understand at all, I try my judgment out on that very thing, sounding the ford from a good way off; then, finding it too deep for my height, I keep to the bank. And this recognition that I cannot go any further is one of the things it achieves, and indeed one of those it is proudest of. Sometimes, on a vain and trifling subject, I test it to see whether it will find something to give the subject body, something to prop it up and shore it up.
Tantost ie le promene à vn subiect noble et tracassé, auquel il n’a rien à trouuer de soy, le chemin en estant si frayé, qu’il ne peut marcher que sur la piste d’autruy. Là il fait son ieu à eslire la route qui luy semble la meilleure: et de mille sentiers, il dit que cettuy-cy, ou celuy là, a esté le mieux choisi. Ie prends de la fortune le premier argument: ils me sont egalement bons: et ne desseigne iamais de les traicter entiers. Car ie ne voy le tout de rien. Ne font pas, ceux qui nous promettent de nous le faire veoir.
Sometimes I take it for a walk to a noble, well-worn subject, where it can find nothing of its own, since the road is so beaten that it can only walk in other people’s tracks. There it plays its game by choosing the route that seems best to it, and out of a thousand paths it says that this one or that one was the best chosen. I take the first subject that Fortune offers me: they are all equally good to me. And I never plan to treat them whole. For I do not see the whole of anything. Nor do those who promise to show it to us.
De cent membres et visages, qu’à chasque chose i’en prens vn, tantost à lecher seulement, tantost à effleurer: et par fois à pincer iusqu’à l’os. I’y donne vne poincte, non pas le plus largement, mais le plus profondement que ie sçay. Et aime plus souuent à les saisir par quelque lustre inusité. Ie me hazarderoy de traitter à fons quelque matiere, si ie me connoissoy moins, et me trompois en mon impuissance. Semant icy vn mot, icy vn autre, eschantillons dépris de leur piece, escartez, sans dessein, sans promesse: ie ne suis pas tenu d’en faire bon, ny de m’y tenir moy-mesme, sans varier, quand il me plaist, et me rendre au doubte et incertitude, et à ma maistresse forme, qui est l’ignorance.
Of the hundred limbs and faces that each thing has, I take one: sometimes only to lick it, sometimes to brush its surface, and sometimes to pinch it to the bone. I make a thrust at it, not as widely but as deeply as I know how. And more often I like to catch things from some unaccustomed angle. I would venture to treat some matter thoroughly if I knew myself less well and were deceived about my own incapacity. I scatter a word here, another there, samples cut from their piece, set apart, without design and without promise. I am not bound to make good on them, nor to stick to them myself without changing when I please, and giving myself up to doubt and uncertainty, and to my ruling form, which is ignorance.
Tout mouuement nous descouure. Cette mesme ame de Cæsar, qui se fait voir à ordonner et dresser la bataille de Pharsale, elle se fait aussi voir à dresser des parties oysiues et amoureuses. On iuge vn cheual, non seulement à le voir manier sur vne carriere, mais encore à luy voir aller le pas, voire et à le voir en repos à l’estable.
Every movement reveals us. That same soul of Caesar that shows itself in ordering and drawing up the battle of Pharsalus shows itself also in arranging idle and amorous affairs. We judge a horse not only by watching it put through its paces on a course, but also by seeing it walk, and even by seeing it at rest in the stable.
Entre les functions de l’ame, il en est de basses. Qui ne la void encor par là, n’acheue pas de la connoistre. Et à l’aduenture la remarque lon mieux où elle va son pas simple. Les vents des passions la prennent plus en ses hautes assiettes, ioint qu’elle se couche entiere sur chasque matiere et s’y exerce entiere; et n’en traitte iamais plus d’vne à la fois: et la traitte non selon elle, mais selon soy. Les choses à part elles, ont peut estre leurs poids et mesures, et conditions: mais au dedans, en nous, elle les leur taille comme elle l’entend. La mort est effroyable à Cicero, desirable à Caton, indifferente à Socrates.
Among the functions of the soul there are some low ones. Whoever does not see it on that side too does not fully know it. And perhaps we observe it best where it goes at its simple pace. The winds of passion catch it more in its lofty postures. Besides, it throws itself wholly into each matter and exercises itself wholly there, and never treats more than one at a time; and it treats that matter not according to the matter but according to itself. Things in themselves may have their own weights and measures and conditions; but inwardly, in us, the soul cuts them to its own pattern as it sees fit. Death is frightful to Cicero, desirable to Cato, indifferent to Socrates.
La santé, la conscience, l’authorité, la science, la richesse, la beauté, et leurs contraires, se despouillent à l’entrée, et reçoiuent de l’ame nouuelle vesture, et de la teinture qu’il luy plaist: brune, claire, verte, obscure: aigre, douce, profonde, superficielle: et qu’il plaist à chacune d’elles. Car elles n’ont pas verifié en commun leurs stiles, regles et formes: chacune est Royne en son estat. Parquoy ne prenons plus excuse des externes qualitez des choses: c’est à nous, à nous en rendre compte. Nostre bien et nostre mal ne tient qu’à nous. Offrons y nos offrandes et nos vœus, non pas à la fortune: elle ne peut rien sur nos mœurs: au rebours, elles l’entrainent à leur suitte, et la moulent à leur forme.
Health, conscience, authority, knowledge, wealth, beauty and their opposites are stripped at the entrance and receive new clothing from the soul, and whatever coloring it pleases: brown, light, green, dark; sharp, sweet, deep, superficial—whatever pleases each individual soul. For souls have not agreed among themselves on their styles, rules and forms: each is queen in her own realm. So let us no longer make excuses from the external qualities of things: it is up to us to account for them. Our good and our ill depend on ourselves alone. Let us make our offerings and our vows there, not to Fortune: she has no power over our ways; on the contrary, our ways drag her along in their train and mold her to their form.
Pourquoy ne iugeray-ie d’Alexandre à table deuisant et beuuant d’autant? Ou s’il manioit des eschecs, quelle corde de son esprit, ne touche et n’employe ce niais et puerile ieu? Ie le hay et fuy, de ce qu’il n’est pas assez ieu, et qu’il nous esbat trop serieusement; ayant honte d’y fournir l’attention qui suffiroit à quelque bonne chose. Il ne fut pas plus embesoigné à dresser son glorieux passage aux Indes: ny cet autre à desnouër vn passage, duquel depend le salut du genre humain. Voyez combien nostre ame trouble cet amusement ridicule, si touts ses nerfs ne bandent. Combien amplement elle donne loy à chacun en cela, de se connoistre, et iuger droittement de soy.
Why should I not judge Alexander at table, chatting and drinking deep? Or if he was playing chess, what string of his mind is not touched and put to work by this silly, childish game? I hate it and avoid it because it is not game enough, and amuses us too seriously; I am ashamed to give it the attention that would be enough for some good thing. He was no more absorbed in planning his glorious passage into the Indies; nor was that other man in unraveling a passage on which the salvation of the human race depends. See how much our soul complicates this ridiculous pastime, and whether every one of its sinews is not strained! How amply it allows everyone, in this, to know himself and to judge himself rightly.
Ie ne me voy et retaste, plus vniuersellement, en nulle autre posture. Quelle passion ne nous y exerce? la cholere, le despit, la hayne, l’impatience: et vne vehemente ambition de vaincre, en chose, en laquelle il seroit plus excusable d’estre ambitieux d’estre vaincu. Car la precellence rare et au dessus du commun, messied à vn homme d’honneur, en chose friuole. Ce que ie dy en cet exemple, se peut dire en touts autres. Chasque parcelle, chasque occupation de l’homme, l’accuse, et le montre egalement qu’vn autre.
In no other posture do I see and probe myself more thoroughly. What passion does it not exercise in us? Anger, spite, hatred, impatience, and a vehement ambition to win, in a thing in which it would be more excusable to be ambitious of losing. For rare excellence, above the common level, ill becomes a man of honor in a frivolous thing. What I say in this example can be said in all others. Every particle, every occupation of a man betrays him and shows him as well as any other.
Democritus et Heraclitus ont esté deux philosophes, desquels le premier trouuant vaine et ridicule l’humaine condition, ne sortoit en public, qu’auec vn vsage moqueur et riant: Heraclitus, ayant pitié et compassion de cette mesme condition nostre, en portoit le visage continuellement triste, et les yeux chargez de larmes. Alter / Ridebat quoties à limine mouerat vnum / Protulerátque pedem, flebat contrarius alter. I’ayme mieux la premiere humeur, non par ce qu’il est plus plaisant de rire que de pleurer: mais par ce qu’elle est plus desdaigneuse, et qu’elle nous condamne plus que l’autre: et il me semble, que nous ne pouuons iamais estre assez mesprisez selon nostre merite.
Democritus and Heraclitus were two philosophers. The first, finding the human condition vain and ridiculous, never went out in public without a mocking, laughing face. Heraclitus, feeling pity and compassion for this same condition of ours, wore a continually sad face, and his eyes were laden with tears. One of them / laughed each time he moved a foot from his doorstep / and set it forward; the other, in contrast, wept. I prefer the first temperament, not because it is pleasanter to laugh than to weep, but because it is more disdainful and condemns us more than the other; and it seems to me that we can never be despised as much as we deserve.
La plainte et la commiseration sont meslées à quelque estimation de la chose qu’on plaint: les choses dequoy on se moque, on les estime sans prix. Ie ne pense point qu’il y ait tant de malheur en nous, comme il y a de vanité, ny tant de malice comme de sotise: nous ne sommes pas si pleins de mal, comme d’inanité: nous ne sommes pas si miserables, comme nous sommes vils. Ainsi Diogenes, qui baguenaudoit apart soy, roulant son tonneau, et hochant du nez le grand Alexandre, nous estimant des mouches, ou des vessies pleines de vent, estoit bien iuge plus aigre et plus poingnant, et par consequent, plus iuste à mon humeur que Timon, celuy qui fut surnommé le haisseur des hommes.
Lamenting and pity are mixed with some esteem for the thing we lament; the things we mock we consider worthless. I do not think there is as much unhappiness in us as there is vanity, nor as much malice as foolishness. We are not so full of evil as of emptiness; we are not so wretched as we are base. Thus Diogenes, who pottered about by himself, rolling his tub and turning up his nose at the great Alexander, and who took us for flies or bladders full of wind, was a sharper and more stinging judge, and therefore, to my mind, a juster one, than Timon, the man who was nicknamed the hater of men.
Car ce qu’on hait, on le prend à cœur. Cettuy-cy nous souhaitoit du mal, estoit passionné du desir de nostre ruine, fuioit nostre conuersation comme dangereuse, de meschans, et de nature deprauée: l’autre nous estimoit si peu, que nous ne pourrions ny le troubler, ny l’alterer par nostre contagion, nous laissoit de compagnie, non pour la crainte, mais pour le desdain de nostre commerce: il ne nous estimoit capables ny de bien ny de mal faire.
For what we hate, we take to heart. The latter wished us ill, was passionately eager for our ruin, and shunned our company as dangerous, as the company of wicked men with depraved natures. The other thought so little of us that we could neither disturb him nor change him by our contagion; he kept away from our company not out of fear but out of disdain for dealing with us. He did not think us capable of doing either good or evil.
De mesme marque fut la response de Statilius, auquel Brutus parla pour le ioindre à la conspiration contre Cæsar: il trouua l’entreprinse iuste, mais il ne trouua pas les hommes dignes, pour lesquels on se mist aucunement en peine: conformément à la discipline de Hegesias, qui disoit, le sage ne deuoir rien faire que pour soy: d’autant que, seul il est digne, pour qui on face. Et à celle de Theodorus, que c’est iniustice, que le sage se hazarde pour le bien de son païs, et qu’il mette en peril la sagesse pour des fols. Nostre propre condition est autant ridicule, que risible.
Of the same stamp was the answer of Statilius, whom Brutus approached to bring him into the conspiracy against Caesar: he found the undertaking just, but he did not find men worthy of anyone taking any trouble for them. This is in keeping with the teaching of Hegesias, who said that the wise man should do nothing except for himself, since he alone is worthy to have anything done for him; and with that of Theodorus, that it is unjust for the wise man to risk himself for the good of his country and put wisdom in peril for the sake of fools. Our own condition is as ridiculous as it is laughable.