IE ne puis receuoir la façon, dequoy nous establissons la durée de nostre vie. Ie voy que les sages l’accoursissent bien fort au prix de la commune opinion. Comment, dit le ieune Caton, à ceux qui le vouloyent empescher de se tuer, suis-ie à cette heure en aage, où lon me puisse reprocher d’abandonner trop tost la vie? Si n’auoit-il que quarante et huict ans. Il estimoit cet aage là bien meur et bien auancé, considerant combien peu d’hommes y arriuent.
I cannot accept the way we fix the length of our life. I see that the wise shorten it considerably compared with common opinion. “What!” said the younger Cato to those who wanted to stop him from killing himself, “am I now of an age where I can be reproached for leaving life too early?” Yet he was only forty-eight. He considered that age quite ripe and well advanced, seeing how few men reach it.
Et ceux qui s’entretiennent de ce que ie ne sçay quel cours qu’ils nomment naturel, promet quelques années au delà, ils le pourroient faire, s’ils auoient priuilege qui les exemptast d’vn si grand nombre d’accidens, ausquels chacun de nous est en bute par vne naturelle subiection, qui peuuent interrompre ce cours qu’ils se promettent. Quelle resuerie est-ce de s’attendre de mourir d’vne defaillance de forces, que l’extreme vieillesse apporte, et de se proposer ce but à nostre durée: veu que c’est l’espece de mort la plus rare de toutes, et la moins en vsage?
And those who comfort themselves with the thought that some course or other, which they call natural, promises them a few more years could do so if they had a privilege exempting them from the great number of accidents to which each of us is exposed by a natural subjection, and which can interrupt the course they promise themselves. What a fantasy it is to expect to die of the failing of strength that extreme old age brings, and to set that as the goal of our lifespan, when it is the rarest kind of death of all and the least common!
Nous l’appellons seule naturelle, comme si c’estoit contre nature, de voir vn homme se rompre le col d’vne cheute, s’estoufer d’vn naufrage, se laisser surprendre à la peste ou à vne pleuresie, et comme si nostre condition ordinaire ne nous presentoit à tous ces inconuenients. Ne nous flattons pas de ces beaux mots: on doit à l’auenture appeler plustost naturel, ce qui est general, commun, et vniuersel.
We call it the only natural one, as if it were against nature to see a man break his neck in a fall, drown in a shipwreck, or be caught by the plague or a pleurisy—and as if our ordinary condition did not expose us to all these mishaps. Let us not flatter ourselves with these fine words. We ought perhaps rather to call natural what is general, common and universal.
Mourir de vieillesse, c’est vne mort rare, singuliere et extraordinaire, et d’autant moins naturelle que les autres: c’est la derniere et extreme sorte de mourir: plus elle est esloignée de nous, d’autant est elle moins esperable: c’est bien la borne, au delà de laquelle nous n’irons pas, et que la loy de Nature a prescript, pour n’estre point outre-passée: mais c’est vn sien rare priuilege de nous faire durer iusques là. C’est vne exemption qu’elle donne par faueur particuliere, à vn seul, en l’espace de deux ou trois siecles, le deschargeant des trauerses et difficultez qu’elle a ietté entre deux, en cette longue carriere. Par ainsi mon opinion est, de regarder que l’aage auquel nous sommes arriuez, c’est vn aage auquel peu de gens arriuent.
To die of old age is a rare, singular and extraordinary death, and so much less natural than the others. It is the last and extreme way of dying; the further it is from us, the less it is to be hoped for. It is indeed the boundary beyond which we shall not go, which the law of Nature has prescribed so that it shall not be overstepped; but it is a rare privilege of hers to make us last until then. It is an exemption she grants by special favor to one man alone in the space of two or three centuries, relieving him of the obstacles and difficulties she has thrown in between along this long course. So my opinion is that we should consider the age we have reached as an age few people reach.
Puis que d’vn train ordinaire les hommes ne viennent pas iusques là, c’est signe que nous sommes bien auant. Et puis que nous auons passé les limites accoustumez, qui est la vraye mesure de nostre vie, nous ne deuons esperer d’aller guere outre. Ayant eschappé tant d’occasions de mourir, où nous voyons tresbucher le monde, nous deuons recognoistre qu’vne fortune extraordinaire, comme celle-là qui nous maintient, et hors de l’vsage commun, ne nous doibt guere durer.
Since in the ordinary course men do not get that far, it is a sign that we are well along. And since we have passed the usual limits, which are the true measure of our life, we should not hope to go much further. Having escaped so many occasions of death, at which we see everyone stumble, we should recognize that an extraordinary fortune like the one that keeps us going, outside the common practice, is not likely to last us much longer.
C’est vn vice des loix mesmes, d’auoir cette fauce imagination: elles ne veulent pas qu’vn homme soit capable du maniement de ses biens, qu’il n’ait vingt et cinq ans, et à peine conseruera-il iusques lors le maniment de sa vie. Auguste retrancha cinq ans des anciennes ordonnances Romaines, et declara qu’il suffisoit à ceux qui prenoient charge de iudicature, d’auoir trente ans. Seruius Tullius dispensa les Cheualiers qui auoient passé quarante sept ans des coruées de la guerre: Auguste les remit à quarante et cinq. De renuoyer les hommes au seiour auant cinquante cinq ou soixante ans, il me semble n’y auoir pas grande apparence.
It is a fault of the laws themselves to have this false notion. They do not want a man to be capable of managing his property until he is twenty-five, and he will hardly keep the management of his life until then. Augustus cut five years off the old Roman ordinances and declared that it was enough for those taking up judicial office to be thirty. Servius Tullius exempted knights who had passed forty-seven from the toils of war; Augustus brought it down to forty-five. To send men into retirement before fifty-five or sixty does not seem to me very reasonable.
Ie serois d’aduis qu’on estendist nostre vacation et occupation autant qu’on pourroit, pour la commodité publique: mais ie trouue la faute en l’autre costé, de ne nous y embesongner pas assez tost. Cettuy-cy auoit esté iuge vniuersel du monde à dixneuf ans, et veut que pour iuger de la place d’vne goutiere on en ait trente.
I would be in favor of extending our vocation and employment as far as possible, for the public good; but I find the fault lies on the other side, in not putting us to work soon enough. He himself had been judge of the whole world at nineteen, and he wants a man to be thirty before he can rule on where to put a gutter.
Quant à moy i’estime que nos ames sont desnoüées à vingt ans, ce qu’elles doiuent estre, et qu’elles promettent tout ce qu’elles pourront. Iamais ame qui n’ait donné en cet aage là, arre bien euidente de sa force, n’en donna depuis la preuue. Les qualitez et vertus naturelles produisent dans ce terme là, ou iamais, ce qu’elles ont de vigoureux et de beau. Si l’espine nou picque quand nai, / A pene que pique iamai, disent-ils en Daulphiné.
As for me, I consider that at twenty our souls are fully unfolded, as they are meant to be, and that they promise all they ever can. Never has a soul that did not give a very evident pledge of its strength at that age given proof of it afterward. Natural qualities and virtues show within that term, or never, whatever vigor and beauty they have. If the thorn does not prick when it is born, / It will hardly ever prick, they say in Dauphiné.
De toutes les belles actions humaines, qui sont venues à ma cognoissance, de quelque sorte qu’elles soyent, ie penserois en auoir plus grande part, à nombrer celles qui ont esté produites et aux siecles anciens et au nostre, auant l’aage de trente ans, qu’apres. Ouy, en la vie de mesmes hommes souuent. Ne le puis-ie pas dire en toute seureté, de celles de Hannibal et de Scipion son grand aduersaire? La belle moitié de leur vie, ils la vescurent de la gloire acquise en leur ieunesse: grands hommes depuis au prix de touts autres, mais nullement au prix d’eux-mesmes. Quant à moy ie tien pour certain que depuis cet aage, et mon esprit et mon corps ont plus diminué, qu’augmenté, et plus reculé, qu’auancé.
Of all the fine human actions that have come to my knowledge, of whatever kind, I think I would find that the greater number, in ancient times and in our own, were done before the age of thirty rather than after. Yes, and often in the lives of the very same men. May I not say so with complete assurance of those of Hannibal and of Scipio, his great adversary? They lived the better half of their lives on the glory won in their youth: great men afterward compared with all others, but not at all compared with themselves. As for me, I hold it certain that since that age both my mind and my body have diminished more than they have grown, and gone backward more than forward.
Il est possible qu’à ceux qui employent bien le temps, la science, et l’experience croissent auec la vie: mais la viuacité, la promptitude, la fermeté, et autres parties bien plus nostres, plus importantes et essentielles, se fanissent et s’allanguissent. Vbi iam validis quassatum est viribus æui / Corpus, et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus, / Claudicat ingenium, delirat linguáque ménsque.
It is possible that for those who use their time well, knowledge and experience grow with life; but liveliness, quickness, firmness and other qualities much more our own, more important and essential, wither and languish. When the body has been shaken by the hard blows of time / And the limbs have given way, their strength blunted, / The mind limps, and tongue and wits wander.
Tantost c’est le corps qui se rend le premier à la vieillesse: par fois aussi c’est l’ame: et en ay assez veu, qui ont eu la ceruelle affoiblie, auant l’estomach et les iambes. Et d’autant que c’est vn mal peu sensible à qui le souffre, et d’vne obscure montre, d’autant est-il plus dangereux. Pour ce coup, ie me plains des loix, non pas dequoy elles nous laissent trop tard à la besogne, mais dequoy elles nous y employent trop tard. Il me semble que considerant la foiblesse de nostre vie, et à combien d’escueils ordinaires et naturels elle est exposée, on n’en deuroit pas faire si grande part à la naissance, à l’oisiueté et à l’apprentissage.
Sometimes it is the body that surrenders first to old age; sometimes too it is the mind. I have seen plenty of people whose brains were enfeebled before their stomach and legs. And since it is an ailment the sufferer hardly feels, and whose signs are obscure, it is all the more dangerous. This time my complaint against the laws is not that they leave us at work too late, but that they set us to work too late. It seems to me that, considering the frailty of our life and how many ordinary and natural reefs it is exposed to, we should not give so large a share of it to infancy, idleness and apprenticeship.