IL n’est homme à qui il siese si mal de se mesler de parler de memoire. Car ie n’en recognoy quasi trace en moy: et ne pense qu’il y en ayt au monde, vne autre si merueilleuse en defaillance. I’ay toutes mes autres parties viles et communes, mais en cette-là ie pense estre singulier et tres-rare, et digne de gaigner nom et reputation.
There is no man it suits worse to talk about memory. For I recognize hardly a trace of it in myself, and I do not think there is another in the world so marvelously deficient. All my other faculties are mean and ordinary, but in this one I think I am singular and very rare, and worthy of earning a name and a reputation.
Outre l’inconuenient naturel que i’en souffre: car certes, veu sa necessité, Platon a raison de la nommer vne grande et puissante deesse: si en mon pays on veut dire qu’vn homme n’a point de sens, ils disent, qu’il n’a point de memoire: et quand ie me plains du defaut de la mienne, ils me reprennent et mescroient, comme si ie m’accusois d’estre insensé: ils ne voyent pas de chois entre memoire et entendement. C’est bien empirer mon marché: mais ils me font tort: car il se voit par experience plustost au rebours, que les memoires excellentes se ioignent volontiers aux iugemens debiles.
Besides the natural inconvenience I suffer from it—and indeed, given how necessary memory is, Plato is right to call it a great and powerful goddess—in my part of the country, when they want to say a man has no sense, they say he has no memory. And when I complain of the failings of mine, they reprove me and refuse to believe me, as if I were accusing myself of being witless. They see no difference between memory and understanding. That makes a bad bargain worse for me. But they do me wrong, for experience shows rather the opposite: excellent memories are often joined to feeble judgments.
Ils me font tort aussi en cecy, qui ne sçay rien si bien faire qu’estre amy, que les mesmes paroles qui accusent ma maladie, representent l’ingratitude. On se prend de mon affection à ma memoire, et d’vn defaut naturel, on en fait vn defaut de conscience. Il a oublié, dict-on, cette priere ou cette promesse: il ne se souuient point de ses amys: il ne s’est point souuenu de dire, ou faire, ou taire cela, pour l’amour de moy. Certes ie puis aysément oublier: mais de mettre à nonchalloir la charge que mon amy m’a donnee, ie ne le fay pas. Qu’on se contente de ma misere, sans en faire vne espece de malice: et de la malice autant ennemye de mon humeur.
They wrong me in this too—I who can do nothing so well as be a friend—that the same words that accuse my infirmity describe ingratitude. They blame my affection for what is the fault of my memory, and turn a natural defect into a defect of conscience. “He has forgotten,” they say, “this request or that promise. He does not remember his friends. He did not remember to say, or do, or keep quiet about such and such, for my sake.” Certainly I can easily forget; but to neglect a charge my friend has given me—that I do not do. Let them be content with my wretchedness, without making it into a kind of malice, and a malice so contrary to my temperament.
Ie me console aucunement. Premierement sur ce, que c’est vn mal duquel principallement i’ay tiré la raison de corriger vn mal pire, qui se fust facilement produit en moy: sçauoir est l’ambition, car cette deffaillance est insuportable à qui s’empestre des negotiations du monde. Que comme disent plusieurs pareils exemples du progres de nature, elle a volontiers fortifié d’autres facultés en moy, à mesure que cette-cy s’est affoiblie, et irois facilement couchant et allanguissant mon esprit et mon iugement, sur les traces d’autruy, sans exercer leurs propres forces, si les inuentions et opinions estrangieres m’estoient presentes par le benefice de la memoire.
I console myself somewhat. First, because it is an evil from which I have chiefly drawn the means of correcting a worse one that would easily have grown in me, namely ambition; for this defect is unbearable in anyone who gets entangled in the world’s affairs. Also, as many similar examples of nature’s workings show, she has readily strengthened other faculties in me as this one has weakened. If other people’s ideas and opinions were present to me by the benefit of memory, I might easily let my mind and judgment lie down and languish in others’ tracks, without exercising their own powers.
Que mon parler en est plus court: car le magasin de la memoire, est volontiers plus fourny de matiere, que n’est celuy de l’inuention. Si elle m’eust tenu bon, i’eusse assourdi tous mes amys de babil: les subiects esueillans cette telle quelle faculté que i’ay de les manier et employer, eschauffant et attirant mes discours. C’est pitié: ie l’essaye par la preuue d’aucuns de mes priuez amys: à mesure que la memoire leur fournit la chose entiere et presente, ils reculent si arriere leur narration, et la chargent de tant de vaines circonstances, que si le conte est bon, ils en estouffent la bonté: s’il ne l’est pas, vous estes à maudire ou l’heur de leur memoire, ou le malheur de leur iugement.
Also, my talk is shorter for it; for the storehouse of memory is usually better stocked with material than that of invention. If my memory had served me well, I would have deafened all my friends with chatter, since subjects rouse this faculty I have, such as it is, of handling and using them, warming up and drawing out my reasoning. It is a pity: I see it tested in some of my close friends. As their memory supplies them with the whole thing, complete and present, they start their story so far back and load it with so many pointless details that if the tale is good, they smother its goodness; and if it is not, you are left cursing either the good luck of their memory or the bad luck of their judgment.
Et c’est chose difficile, de fermer vn propos, et de le coupper despuis qu’on est arroutté. Et n’est rien, où la force d’vn cheual se cognoisse plus, qu’à faire vn arrest rond et net. Entre les pertinents mesmes, i’en voy qui veulent et ne se peuuent deffaire de leur course. Ce pendant qu’ils cerchent le point de clorre le pas, ils s’en vont baliuernant et trainant comme des hommes qui deffaillent de foiblesse. Sur tout les vieillards sont dangereux, à qui la souuenance des choses passees demeure, et ont perdu la souuenance de leurs redites. I’ay veu des recits bien plaisants, deuenir tres-ennuyeux, en la bouche d’vn Seigneur, chascun de l’assistance en ayant esté abbreuué cent fois.
And it is a hard thing to close a speech and cut it short once you are under way. There is nothing in which a horse’s strength shows more than in making a clean, neat stop. Even among those who speak to the point, I see some who want to break off their run and cannot. While they are looking for the place to end their stride, they go rambling and trailing on like men fainting from weakness. Old men above all are dangerous: they keep the memory of things past and have lost the memory of their repetitions. I have seen very amusing stories become extremely tiresome in the mouth of a certain lord, everyone present having been regaled with them a hundred times.
Secondement qu’il me souuient moins des offences receuës, ainsi que disoit cet ancien: il me faudroit vn protocolle, comme Darius, pour n’oublier l’offense qu’il auoit receue des Atheniens, faisoit qu’vn page à touts les coups qu’il se mettoit à table, luy vinst rechanter par trois fois à l’oreille, Sire, souuienne vous des Atheniens: et que les lieux et les liures que ie reuoy, me rient tousiours d’vne fresche nouuelleté.
Second, I remember less of the offenses I have received, as that ancient said. I would need a prompter, like Darius: to keep from forgetting the offense he had received from the Athenians, he had a page come and chant in his ear three times, every time he sat down to table, “Sire, remember the Athenians.” And the places and books I see again always smile at me with fresh novelty.
Liars need good memories
Lying is a cursed vice; liars who forget their own inventions are caught out.
Ce n’est pas sans raison qu’on dit, que qui ne se sent point assez ferme de memoire, ne se doit pas mesler d’estre menteur. Ie sçay bien que les grammairiens font difference, entre dire mensonge, et mentir: et disent que dire mensonge, c’est dire chose fausse, mais qu’on a pris pour vraye, et que la definition du mot de mentir en Latin, d’où nostre François est party, porte autant comme aller contre sa conscience: et que par consequent cela ne touche que ceux qui disent contre ce qu’ils sçauent, desquels ie parle. Or ceux icy, ou ils inuentent marc et tout, ou ils déguisent et alterent vn fons veritable.
It is not without reason that people say that anyone who does not feel his memory firm enough should not meddle with being a liar. I know well that the grammarians distinguish between telling a falsehood and lying. They say that telling a falsehood is saying something false that one has taken to be true, whereas the definition of the word “lie” in Latin, from which our French word comes, amounts to going against one’s conscience; and that consequently it concerns only those who say the contrary of what they know. It is of these that I am speaking. Now such people either invent the whole thing outright, or they disguise and alter something that is true at bottom.
Lors qu’ils déguisent et changent, à les remettre souuent en ce mesme conte, il est mal-aisé qu’ils ne se desferrent: par ce que la chose, comme elle est, s’estant logée la premiere dans la memoire, et s’y estant empreincte, par la voye de la connoissance et de la science, il est mal-aisé qu’elle ne se represente à l’imagination, délogeant la fausceté, qui n’y peut auoir le pied si ferme, ny si rassis: et que les circonstances du premier aprentissage, se coulant à tous coups dans l’esprit, ne facent perdre le souuenir des pieces raportées faulses ou abastardies. En ce qu’ils inuentent tout à faict, d’autant qu’il n’y a nulle impression contraire, qui choque leur fausceté, ils semblent auoir d’autant moins à craindre de se mesconter.
When they disguise and alter, if you bring them back often to the same story, it is hard for them not to trip themselves up. For the thing as it really is, having lodged first in the memory and imprinted itself there by way of knowledge and understanding, will hardly fail to present itself to the imagination and dislodge the falsehood, which cannot have so firm or settled a foothold there. And the circumstances of what they first learned, slipping into the mind at every turn, will make them forget the false or spurious pieces they have patched on. In what they invent outright, since there is no contrary impression to clash with their falsehood, they seem to have that much less to fear of slipping up.
Toutefois encore cecy, par ce que c’est vn corps vain, et sans prise, eschappe volontiers à la memoire, si elle n’est bien asseuree. Dequoy i’ay souuent veu l’experience, et plaisamment, aux despens de ceux qui font profession de ne former autrement leur parole, que selon qu’il sert aux affaires qu’ils negotient, et qu’il plaist aux grands à qui ils parlent.
Yet even this, being an empty body with nothing to grip, readily escapes the memory unless it is very sure. I have often seen proof of this, and amusingly, at the expense of those who make a profession of shaping their words only according to what serves the business they are negotiating and what pleases the great men they are speaking to.
Car ces circonstances à quoy ils veulent asseruir leur foy et leur conscience, estans subiettes à plusieurs changements, il faut que leur parole se diuersifie quand et quand: d’où il aduient que de mesme chose, ils disent, tantost gris, tantost iaune: à tel homme d’vne sorte, à tel d’vne autre: et si par fortune ces hommes rapportent en butin leurs instructions si contraires, que deuient ce bel art? Outre ce qu’imprudemment ils se desferrent eux-mesmes si souuent: car quelle memoire leur pourroit suffire à se souuenir de tant de diuerses formes, qu’ils ont forgées en vn mesme subiect?
For since these circumstances, to which they are willing to enslave their faith and their conscience, are subject to many changes, their words must vary along with them. Hence it happens that of the same thing they say now gray, now yellow; to one man one thing, to another something else. And if by chance these men pool their contradictory information like booty, what becomes of this fine art? Besides, they so often trip themselves up out of sheer carelessness: for what memory could be enough to remember so many different shapes they have forged on one and the same subject?
I’ay veu plusieurs de mon temps, enuier la reputation de cette belle sorte de prudence: qui ne voyent pas, que si la reputation y est, l’effect n’y peut estre.
I have seen many in my time envy the reputation of this fine kind of prudence, without seeing that if the reputation is there, the effect cannot be.
En verité le mentir est vn maudit vice. Nous ne sommes hommes, et ne nous tenons les vns aux autres que par la parole. Si nous en connoissions l’horreur et le poids, nous le poursuiurions à feu, plus iustement que d’autres crimes. Ie trouue qu’on s’amuse ordinairement à chastier aux enfans des erreurs innocentes, tres mal à propos, et qu’on les tourmente pour des actions temeraires, qui n’ont ny impression ny suitte. La menterie seule, et vn peu au dessous, l’opiniastreté, me semblent estre celles desquelles on deuroit à toute instance combattre la naissance et le progrez, elles croissent quand et eux: et depuis qu’on a donné ce faux train à la langue, c’est merueille combien il est impossible de l’en retirer.
Truly, lying is an accursed vice. We are men, and hold together with one another, only by our word. If we recognized its horror and its gravity, we would hunt it down with fire more justly than other crimes. I find that people commonly busy themselves punishing children for innocent mistakes, very inappropriately, and torment them for thoughtless actions that leave no mark and have no consequences. Lying alone, and a little below it obstinacy, seem to me the faults whose birth and growth we ought to fight at every turn. They grow along with the children; and once the tongue has been set on this false track, it is amazing how impossible it is to pull it back.
Par où il aduient, que nous voyons des honnestes hommes d’ailleurs, y estre subiects et asseruis. I’ay vn bon garçon de tailleur, à qui ie n’ouy iamais dire vne verité, non pas quand elle s’offre pour luy seruir vtilement. Si comme la verité, le mensonge n’auoit qu’vn visage, nous serions en meilleurs termes: car nous prendrions pour certain l’opposé de ce que diroit le menteur. Mais le reuers de la verité a cent mille figures, et vn champ indefiny. Les Pythagoriens font le bien certain et finy, le mal infiny et incertain. Mille routtes desuoyent du blanc: vne y va.
Hence we see men who are otherwise decent being subject and enslaved to it. I have a good lad of a tailor whom I have never heard tell a single truth, not even when it would serve him usefully. If falsehood, like truth, had only one face, we would be in better shape, for we would take as certain the opposite of what the liar said. But the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and a limitless field. The Pythagoreans make good certain and finite, evil infinite and uncertain. A thousand paths miss the target; one leads to it.
Certes ie ne m’asseure pas, que ie peusse venir à bout de moy, à guarentir vn danger euident et extresme, par vne effrontee et solenne mensonge. Vn ancien pere dit, que nous sommes mieux en la compagnie d’vn chien cognu, qu’en celle d’vn homme, duquel le langage nous est inconnu. Vt externus alieno non sit hominis vice. Et de combien est le langage faux moins sociable que le silence?
Certainly I cannot be sure that I could bring myself to ward off an obvious and extreme danger by a brazen and solemn lie. An ancient Father says that we are better off in the company of a dog we know than in that of a man whose language we do not know. So that to a stranger a foreigner is not a man. And how much less sociable is false speech than silence?
Le Roy François premier, se vantoit d’auoir mis au rouet par ce moyen, Francisque Tauerna, Ambassadeur de François Sforce Duc de Milan, homme tres-fameux en science de parlerie. Cettuy-cy auoit esté despesché pour excuser son maistre enuers sa Maiesté, d’vn fait de grande consequence; qui estoit tel.
King Francis I boasted of having driven to his wits’ end, by this means, Francesco Taverna, ambassador of Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, a man very famous for his skill at speechmaking. Taverna had been sent to excuse his master to His Majesty for an act of great consequence, which was as follows.
Le Roy pour maintenir tousiours quelques intelligences en Italie, d’où il auoit esté dernierement chassé, mesme au Duché de Milan, auoit aduisé d’y tenir pres du Duc vn Gentilhomme de sa part, Ambassadeur par effect, mais par apparence homme priué, qui fist la mine d’y estre pour ses affaires particulieres: d’autant que le Duc, qui dependoit beaucoup plus de l’Empereur, lors principallement qu’il estoit en traicté de mariage auec sa niepce, fille du Roy de Dannemarc, qui est à present douairiere de Lorraine, ne pouuoit descouurir auoir aucune praticque et conference auecques nous, sans son grand interest. A cette commission, se trouua propre vn Gentil-homme Milannois, escuyer d’escurie chez le Roy, nommé Merueille.
The King, in order always to keep some lines of intelligence in Italy, from which he had lately been driven out, and especially in the duchy of Milan, had decided to keep a gentleman there near the Duke on his behalf: an ambassador in fact, but in appearance a private man, who would pretend to be there on his own business. For the Duke, who depended much more on the Emperor—especially at the time, when he was negotiating a marriage with the Emperor’s niece, daughter of the King of Denmark, who is now dowager of Lorraine—could not let it be discovered that he had any dealings or talks with us without great harm to his interests. A Milanese gentleman, an equerry in the King’s stables, named Merveille, was found suitable for this commission.
Cettuy-cy despesché auecques lettres secrettes de creance, et instructions d’Ambassadeur, et auec d’autres lettres de recommendation enuers le Duc, en faueur de ses affaires particulieres, pour le masque et la montre, fut si long temps aupres du Duc, qu’il en vint quelque ressentiment à l’Empereur: qui donna cause à ce qui s’ensuiuit apres, comme nous pensons: ce fut, que soubs couleur de quelque meurtre, voila le Duc qui luy faict trancher la teste de belle nuict, et son proces faict en deux iours.
Merveille was sent with secret letters of credence and an ambassador’s instructions, along with other letters recommending him to the Duke in support of his private affairs, as a mask and a show. He stayed so long near the Duke that the Emperor got some inkling of it, which, we think, gave rise to what followed. It was this: on the pretext of some murder, there is the Duke having his head cut off in the dead of night, after a trial lasting two days.
Messire Francisque estant venu prest d’vne longue deduction contrefaicte de cette histoire; car le Roy s’en estoit adressé, pour demander raison, à tous les Princes de Chrestienté, et au Duc mesmes: fut ouy aux affaires du matin, et ayant estably pour le fondement de sa cause, et dressé à cette fin, plusieurs belles apparences du faict: Que son maistre n’auoit iamais pris nostre homme, que pour Gentil-homme priué, et sien subiect, qui estoit venu faire ses affaires à Milan, et qui n’auoit iamais vescu là soubs autre visage: desaduouant mesme auoir sçeu qu’il fust en estat de la maison du Roy, ny connu de luy, tant s’en faut qu’il le prist pour Ambassadeur.
Messer Francesco had come prepared with a long, fabricated account of this story—for the King had appealed for satisfaction to all the princes of Christendom, and to the Duke himself. He was given a hearing at the morning council. As the foundation of his case, he laid out several plausible versions of the facts, arranged to this end: that his master had never taken our man for anything but a private gentleman and his own subject, who had come to Milan on business and had never lived there under any other guise. He even denied having known that Merveille was in the service of the King’s household, or known to the King—let alone taking him for an ambassador.
Le Roy à son tour le pressant de diuerses obiections et demandes, et le chargeant de toutes pars, l’acculla en fin sur le point de l’execution faicte de nuict, et comme à la desrobée. A quoy le pauure homme embarrassé, respondit, pour faire l’honneste, que pour le respect de sa Maiesté, le Duc eust esté bien marry, que telle execution se fust faicte de iour. Chacun peut penser, comme il fut releué, s’estant si lourdement couppé, à l’endroit d’vn tel nez que celuy du Roy François.
The King in his turn pressed him with various objections and questions, attacked him from every side, and finally drove him into a corner on the point of the execution carried out by night, and as it were by stealth. To which the poor embarrassed man answered, trying to be polite, that out of respect for His Majesty the Duke would have been very sorry to have such an execution carried out by day. Anyone can imagine how he was taken up on this, having contradicted himself so clumsily before such a nose as King Francis’s.
Le Pape Iulle second, ayant enuoyé vn Ambassadeur vers le Roy d’Angleterre, pour l’animer contre le Roy François, l’Ambassadeur ayant esté ouy sur sa charge, et le Roy d’Angleterre s’estant arresté en sa response, aux difficultez qu’il trouuoit à dresser les preparatifs qu’il faudroit pour combattre vn Roy si puissant, et en alleguant quelques raisons: l’Ambassadeur repliqua mal à propos, qu’il les auoit aussi considerées de sa part, et les auoit bien dictes au Pape.
Pope Julius II had sent an ambassador to the King of England to rouse him against King Francis. The ambassador was heard on his commission, and the King of England, in his reply, dwelt on the difficulties he found in making the preparations needed to fight so powerful a king, and gave some reasons. The ambassador replied, inappropriately, that he too had considered them on his part, and had indeed told them to the Pope.
De cette parole si esloignée de sa proposition, qui estoit de le pousser incontinent à la guerre, le Roy d’Angleterre print le premier argument de ce qu’il trouua depuis par effect, que cet Ambassadeur, de son intention particuliere pendoit du costé de France, et en ayant aduerty son maistre, ses biens furent confisquez, et ne tint à guere qu’il n’en perdist la vie.
From this remark, so far removed from his mission, which was to push the King into war at once, the King of England drew the first evidence of what he later found to be a fact: that this ambassador, in his private intentions, leaned toward France. When the King informed the ambassador’s master, the man’s goods were confiscated, and he very nearly lost his life over it.