CEVX qui s’exercent à contreroller les actions humaines, ne se trouuent en aucune partie si empeschez, qu’à les r’apiesser et mettre à mesme lustre: car elles se contredisent communément de si estrange façon, qu’il semble impossible qu’elles soient parties de mesme boutique. Le ieune Marius se trouue tantost fils de Mars, tantost fils de Venus. Le Pape Boniface huictiesme, entra, dit-on, en sa charge comme vn renard, s’y porta comme vn lion, et mourut comme vn chien.
Those who make it their business to scrutinize human actions are never so baffled as when they try to piece them together and show them in a single light; for they commonly contradict one another so strangely that it seems impossible they came out of the same shop. The younger Marius is now a son of Mars, now a son of Venus. Pope Boniface VIII, they say, entered his office like a fox, conducted himself in it like a lion, and died like a dog.
Et qui croiroit que ce fust Neron, cette vraye image de cruauté, comme on luy presentast à signer, suyuant le stile, la sentence d’vn criminel condamné, qui eust respondu: Pleust à Dieu que ie n’eusse iamais sceu escrire: tant le cœur luy serroit de condamner vn homme à mort? Tout est si plein de tels exemples, voire chacun en peut tant fournir à soy-mesme, que ie trouue estrange, de voir quelquefois des gens d’entendement, se mettre en peine d’assortir ces pieces: veu que l’irresolution me semble le plus commun et apparent vice de nostre nature; tesmoing ce fameux verset de Publius le farseur, Malum consilium est, quod mutari non potest.
And who would believe that it was Nero, that very image of cruelty, who, when the sentence of a condemned criminal was presented to him for signature in the usual form, replied, “Would to God I had never learned to write!”—so wrung was his heart at condemning a man to death? Everything is so full of such examples—indeed each of us can supply himself with so many—that I find it strange to see men of understanding sometimes taking pains to match up these pieces, since irresolution seems to me the most common and evident vice of our nature. Witness that famous line of Publius the farce writer: It is a bad plan that cannot be changed.
Il y a quelque apparence de faire iugement d’vn homme, par les plus communs traicts de sa vie; mais veu la naturelle instabilité de nos mœurs et opinions, il m’a semblé souuent que les bons autheurs mesmes ont tort de s’opiniastrer à former de nous vne constante et solide contexture. Ils choisissent vn air vniuersel, et suyuant cette image, vont rangeant et interpretant toutes les actions d’vn personnage, et s’ils ne les peuuent assez tordre, les renuoyent à la dissimulation. Auguste leur est eschappé: car il se trouue en cet homme vne varieté d’actions si apparente, soudaine, et continuelle, tout le cours de sa vie, qu’il s’est faict lâcher entier et indecis, aux plus hardis iuges.
There is some sense in judging a man by the most ordinary features of his life; but given the natural instability of our ways and opinions, it has often seemed to me that even good authors are wrong to insist on fashioning a constant and solid fabric out of us. They pick a general character and, following that image, go about arranging and interpreting all of a person’s actions; and if they cannot twist them enough, they put them down to dissimulation. Augustus has escaped them. For in that man there is so evident, sudden and continual a variety of actions throughout the whole course of his life that even the boldest judges have had to let him go, whole and undecided.
Ie croy des hommes plus mal aisément la constance que toute autre chose, et rien plus aisément que l’inconstance. Qui en iugeroit en detail et distinctement, piece à piece, rencontreroit plus souuent à dire vray. En toute l’ancienneté il est malaisé de choisir vne douzaine d’hommes, qui ayent dressé leur vie à vn certain et asseuré train, qui est le principal but de la sagesse. Car pour la comprendre tout en vn mot, dit vn ancien, et pour embrasser en vne toutes les regles de nostre vie, c’est vouloir, et ne vouloir pas tousiours mesme chose: Ie ne daignerois, dit-il, adiouster, pourueu que la volonté soit iuste: car si elle n’est iuste, il est impossible qu’elle soit tousiours vne.
Nothing is harder for me to believe of men than constancy, and nothing easier than inconstancy. Whoever judged them in detail and distinctly, piece by piece, would more often hit on the truth. In all antiquity it is hard to pick out a dozen men who set their lives to a definite and steady course, which is the principal aim of wisdom. For to sum it up in a word, says an ancient, and to embrace all the rules of our life in one, it is to will and not to will always the same thing. “I would not deign,” he says, “to add ‘provided the will is just’; for if it is not just, it cannot always be one.”
De vray, i’ay autrefois appris, que le vice, n’est que des-reglement et faute de mesure; et par consequent, il est impossible d’y attacher la constance. C’est vn mot de Demosthenes, dit-on, que le commencement de toute vertu, c’est consultation et deliberation, et la fin et perfection, constance. Si par discours nous entreprenions certaine voye, nous la prendrions la plus belle, mais nul n’y a pensé, Quod petiit, spernit; repetit quod nuper omisit; / Æstuat, et vitæ disconuenit ordine toto.
Indeed, I once learned that vice is nothing but disorder and lack of measure, and consequently it is impossible to attach constancy to it. It is a saying of Demosthenes, they say, that the beginning of all virtue is consultation and deliberation, and its end and perfection constancy. If we set out on a definite path by reasoning, we would choose the finest; but no one has thought of it. What he sought he spurns; he seeks again what he just left; / He seethes, and his whole life is at odds with itself.
Nostre façon ordinaire c’est d’aller apres les inclinations de nostre appetit, à gauche, à dextre, contremont, contre-bas, selon que le vent des occasions nous emporte. Nous ne pensons ce que nous voulons, qu’à l’instant que nous le voulons: et changeons comme cet animal, qui prend la couleur du lieu, où on le couche. Ce que nous auons à cett’heure proposé, nous le changeons tantost, et tantost encore retournons sur nos pas: ce n’est que branle et inconstance: Ducimur vt neruis alienis mobile lignum. Nous n’allons pas, on nous emporte: comme les choses qui flottent, ores doucement, ores auecques violence, selon que l’eau est ireuse ou bonasse.
Our ordinary way is to follow the inclinations of our appetite, left and right, uphill and down, as the wind of circumstance carries us. We think about what we want only at the moment we want it, and we change like that animal which takes the color of the place where it is laid. What we resolved just now we soon change, and soon again we retrace our steps: it is nothing but wavering and inconstancy. We are led, like a wooden puppet, by strings that others pull. We do not go; we are carried along, like things that float, now gently, now violently, as the water is angry or calm.
Nonne videmus / Quid sibi quisque velit nescire, et quærere semper; / Commutare locum, quasi onus deponere possit? Chaque iour nouuelle fantasie, et se meuuent nos humeurs auecques les mouuements du temps. Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali pater ipse / Iuppiter auctifero lustrauit lumine terras.
Do we not see / That each man does not know what he wants, and is always seeking, / Changing place, as if he could lay down his burden? Every day a new notion, and our temperaments shift with the shifts of the weather. Men’s minds are like the fruitful light / With which father Jupiter himself has lit the earth.
Nous flottons entre diuers aduis: nous ne voulons rien librement, rien absoluëment, rien constamment. A qui auroit prescript et estably certaines loix et certaine police en sa teste, nous verrions tout par tout en sa vie reluire vne equalité de mœurs, vn ordre, et vne relation infallible des vnes choses aux autres. (Empedocles remarquoit cette difformité aux Agrigentins, qu’ils s’abandonnoyent aux delices, comme s’ils auoyent l’endemain à mourir: et bastissoyent, comme si iamais ils ne deuoyent mourir.) Le discours en seroit bien aisé à faire. Comme il se voit du ieune Caton: qui en a touché vne marche, a tout touché: c’est vne harmonie de sons tres-accordans, qui ne se peut démentir. A nous au rebours, autant d’actions, autant faut-il de iugemens particuliers.
We float between different opinions: we will nothing freely, nothing absolutely, nothing constantly. In anyone who had prescribed and established definite laws and a definite order of government in his head, we would see an evenness of conduct shine out everywhere in his life, an order and an unfailing relation of one thing to another. (Empedocles noticed this inconsistency in the people of Agrigentum: they abandoned themselves to pleasures as if they were to die the next day, and built as if they were never to die.) It would be easy to give an account of such a man. You can see it in the younger Cato: touch one key of him and you have touched them all; he is a harmony of perfectly concordant sounds that cannot belie itself. With us, on the contrary, as many actions, so many separate judgments are needed.
Le plus seur, à mon opinion, seroit de les rapporter aux circonstances voisines, sans entrer en plus longue recherche, et sans en conclurre autre consequence.
The surest thing, in my opinion, would be to relate them to the immediate circumstances, without going into any longer inquiry and without drawing any further conclusion from them.
Pendant les débauches de nostre pauure Estat, on me rapporta, qu’vne fille de bien pres de là où i’estoy, s’estoit precipitée du haut d’vne fenestre, pour éuiter la force d’vn belitre de soldat son hoste: elle ne s’estoit pas tuée à la cheute, et pour redoubler son entreprise, s’estoit voulu donner d’vn cousteau par la gorge, mais on l’en auoit empeschée: toutefois apres s’y estre bien fort blessée, elle mesme confessoit que le soldat ne l’auoit encore pressée que de requestes, sollicitations, et presens, mais qu’elle auoit eu peur, qu’en fin il en vinst à la contrainte: et là dessus les parolles, la contenance, et ce sang tesmoing de sa vertu, à la vraye façon d’vne autre Lucrece.
During the disorders of our poor country, I was told that a girl from very near where I was had thrown herself from a high window to escape being forced by a rascal of a soldier quartered in her house. The fall had not killed her, and to renew her attempt she had tried to cut her throat with a knife, but she had been prevented. Even so, after wounding herself quite badly, she admitted herself that the soldier had so far pressed her only with requests, entreaties and gifts, but that she had been afraid he would end by using force. And on top of that, the words, the bearing, and that blood bearing witness to her virtue, in the true manner of a second Lucretia.
Or i’ay sçeu à la verité, qu’auant et depuis ell’auoit esté garse de non si difficile composition. Comme dit le compte, tout beau et honneste que vous estes, quand vous aurez failly vostre pointe, n’en concluez pas incontinent vne chasteté inuiolable en vostre maistresse: ce n’est pas à dire que le muletier n’y trouue son heure.
Now I have learned for a fact that before and since she had been a girl not so hard to come to terms with. As the tale says: handsome and honorable as you may be, when you have failed in your pursuit, do not at once conclude that your mistress is of inviolable chastity; it does not follow that the muleteer will not find his moment.
Antigonus ayant pris en affection vn de ses soldats, pour sa vertu et vaillance, commanda à ses medecins de le penser d’une maladie longue et interieure, qui l’auoit tourmenté long temps: et s’apperceuant apres sa guerison, qu’il alloit beaucoup plus froidement aux affaires, luy demanda qui l’auoit ainsi changé et encoüardy: Vous mesmes, Sire, luy respondit-il, m’ayant deschargé des maux, pour lesquels ie ne tenois compte de ma vie.
Antigonus, having taken a liking to one of his soldiers for his virtue and valor, ordered his physicians to treat him for a long-standing internal illness that had tormented him for a long time. Noticing after his cure that he went into action much more coolly, he asked him what had changed him so and made him a coward. “You yourself, sire,” he replied, “by relieving me of the ills that made me hold my life of no account.”
Le soldat de Lucullus ayant esté déualisé par les ennemis, fit sur eux pour se reuencher vne belle entreprise: quand il se fut remplumé de sa perte, Lucullus l’ayant pris en bonne opinion, l’emploioit à quelque exploict hazardeux, par toutes les plus belles remonstrances, dequoy il se pouuoit aduiser: Verbis quæ timido quoque possent addere mentem; Employez y, respondit-il, quelque miserable soldat déualisé: Quantumuis rusticus: Ibit, / Ibit eò, quò vis, qui zonam perdidit, inquit; et refuse resoluëment d’y aller.
A soldier of Lucullus, having been robbed by the enemy, carried out a fine exploit against them to get his revenge. When he had recouped his loss, Lucullus, who had formed a good opinion of him, wanted to use him in some risky venture, with all the finest exhortations he could think of, With words that might have put heart even into a coward. “Use some wretched soldier who has been robbed,” he replied—However rustic he was: “He will go, / He will go where you wish, the man who has lost his purse,” he said—and he flatly refused to go.
Quand nous lisons, que Mahomet ayant outrageusement rudoyé Chasan chef de ses Ianissaires, de ce qu’il voyoit sa troupe enfoncée par les Hongres, et luy se porter laschement au combat, Chasan alla pour toute response se ruer furieusement seul en l’estat qu’il estoit, les armes au poing, dans le premier corps des ennemis qui se presenta, où il fut soudain englouti: ce n’est à l’aduenture pas tant iustification, que raduisement: ny tant prouësse naturelle, qu’vn nouueau despit.
We read that Mehmed harshly abused Hasan, the commander of his Janissaries, because he saw his troop broken by the Hungarians and Hasan himself fighting like a coward; and that Hasan, by way of answer, went and hurled himself furiously, alone, just as he was, weapon in hand, into the first body of enemies that came before him, where he was at once swallowed up. This was perhaps not so much self-justification as a change of heart, nor so much natural prowess as fresh spite.
Celuy que vous vistes hier si auantureux, ne trouuez pas estrange de le voir aussi poltron le lendemain: ou la cholere, ou la necessité, ou la compagnie, ou le vin, ou le son d’vne trompette, luy auoit mis le cœur au ventre, ce n’est pas vn cœur ainsi formé par discours: ces circonstances le luy ont fermy: ce n’est pas merueille, si le voyla deuenu autre par autres circonstances contraires. Cette variation et contradiction qui se void en nous, si souple, a faict qu’aucuns nous songent deux ames, d’autres deux puissances, qui nous accompaignent et agitent chacune à sa mode, vers le bien l’vne, l’autre vers le mal: vne si brusque diuersité ne se pouuant bien assortir à vn subiet simple.
That man you saw so venturesome yesterday, do not find it strange to see him just as cowardly the next day. Anger, or necessity, or company, or wine, or the sound of a trumpet had put fire in his belly; it is not a heart formed in that way by reasoning. These circumstances stiffened it for him; it is no wonder if he has become someone else through other, contrary circumstances. This variation and contradiction that we see in ourselves, so supple, has led some to imagine that we have two souls, and others two powers that accompany us and drive us each in its own way, the one toward good, the other toward evil, since so abrupt a diversity cannot well be reconciled with a single subject.
Non seulement le vent des accidens me remue selon son inclination: mais en outre, ie me remue et trouble moy mesme par l’instabilité de ma posture; et qui y regarde primement, ne se trouue guere deux fois en mesme estat. Ie donne à mon ame tantost vn visage, tantost vn autre, selon le costé où ie la couche. Si ie parle diuersement de moy, c’est que ie me regarde diuersement.
Not only does the wind of events stir me according to its bent, but besides, I stir and trouble myself by the instability of my stance; and anyone who looks at himself closely will hardly find himself twice in the same state. I give my soul now one face, now another, depending on which side I lay it on. If I speak of myself in different ways, it is because I look at myself in different ways.
Toutes les contrarietez s’y trouuent, selon quelque tour, et en quelque façon: Honteux, insolent, chaste, luxurieux, bauard, taciturne, laborieux, delicat, ingenieux, hebeté, chagrin, debonnaire, menteur, veritable, sçauant, ignorant, et liberal et auare et prodigue: tout cela ie le vois en moy aucunement, selon que ie me vire: et quiconque s’estudie bien attentifuement, trouue en soy, voire et en son iugement mesme, cette volubilité et discordance. Ie n’ay rien à dire de moy, entierement, simplement, et solidement, sans confusion et sans meslange, ny en vn mot. Distinguo, est le plus vniuersel membre de ma Logique.
All the contradictions are found there, in some turn and in some fashion. Bashful, insolent; chaste, lustful; talkative, taciturn; hardworking, soft; ingenious, dull-witted; morose, good-natured; lying, truthful; learned, ignorant; and liberal, and miserly, and prodigal: all this I see in myself to some extent, according to how I turn. And anyone who studies himself really attentively finds in himself, yes, even in his very judgment, this volatility and discord. I have nothing to say about myself entirely, simply and solidly, without confusion and without mixture, or in one word. I distinguish is the most universal member of my logic.
Encore que ie sois tousiours d’aduis de dire du bien le bien, et d’interpreter plustost en bonne part les choses qui le peuuent estre, si est-ce que l’estrangeté de nostre condition, porte que nous soyons souuent par le vice mesme poussez à bien faire, si le bien faire ne se iugeoit par la seule intention. Parquoy vn fait courageux ne doit pas conclurre vn homme vaillant: celuy qui le seroit bien à poinct, il le seroit tousiours, et à toutes occasions.
Though I am always for speaking well of what is good, and for taking in a good sense whatever can be so taken, still the strangeness of our condition is such that we are often driven to do good by vice itself—were it not that doing good is judged by intention alone. So one courageous deed should not lead us to conclude that a man is valiant. A man who was truly valiant would be so always and on every occasion.
Si c’estoit vne habitude de vertu, et non vne saillie, elle rendroit vn homme pareillement resolu à tous accidens: tel seul, qu’en compagnie: tel en camp clos, qu’en vne bataille: car quoy qu’on die, il n’y a pas autre vaillance sur le paué et autre au camp. Aussi courageusement porteroit il vne maladie en son lict, qu’vne blessure au camp: et ne craindroit non plus la mort en sa maison qu’en vn assaut. Nous ne verrions pas vn mesme homme, donner dans la bresche d’vne braue asseurance, et se tourmenter apres, comme vne femme, de la perte d’vn procez ou d’vn fils.
If it were a habit of virtue and not a sudden sally, it would make a man equally resolute in every circumstance: the same alone as in company, the same in single combat as in a battle. For whatever people say, there is not one kind of valor in the street and another in the field. He would bear an illness in his bed as courageously as a wound in the field, and would fear death no more at home than in an assault. We would not see the same man charge into the breach with brave assurance and afterward torment himself, like a woman, over the loss of a lawsuit or a son.
Quand estant lasche à l’infamie, il est ferme à la pauureté: quand estant mol contre les rasoirs des barbiers, il se trouue roide contre les espées des aduersaires: l’action est loüable, non pas l’homme. Plusieurs Grecs, dit Cicero, ne peuuent veoir les ennemis, et se trouuent constants aux maladies. Les Cimbres et Celtiberiens tout au rebours. Nihil enim potest esse æquabile, quod non à certa ratione proficiscatur.
When a man who is cowardly in the face of disgrace is steadfast in poverty; when a man who is soft before the barber’s razor is unflinching before the swords of his adversaries, the action is praiseworthy, not the man. Many Greeks, says Cicero, cannot look the enemy in the face, and yet are steadfast in illness; the Cimbrians and Celtiberians quite the reverse. For nothing can be consistent that does not proceed from a fixed principle.
Il n’est point de vaillance plus extreme en son espece, que celle d’Alexandre: mais elle n’est qu’en espece, ny assez pleine par tout, et vniuerselle. Toute incomparable qu’elle est, si a elle encores ses taches. Qui faict que nous le voyons se troubler si esperduement aux plus legers soupçons qu’il prent des machinations des siens contre sa vie: et se porter en cette recherche, d’vne si vehemente et indiscrete iniustice, et d’vne crainte qui subuertit sa raison naturelle. La superstition aussi dequoy il estoit si fort attaint, porte quelque image de pusillanimité. Et l’exces de la penitence, qu’il fit, du meurtre de Clytus, est aussi tesmoignage de l’inegalité de son courage.
There is no valor more extreme of its kind than Alexander’s; but it is so only of its kind, and is not full enough everywhere, or universal. Incomparable as it is, it still has its blemishes. That is why we see him so frantically distraught at the slightest suspicions he conceives of plots by his own people against his life, and conducting his investigation with such vehement and indiscriminate injustice, and with a fear that overturns his natural reason. The superstition with which he was so deeply tainted also bears some mark of faint-heartedness. And the excess of his penitence for the murder of Clitus is further evidence of the unevenness of his courage.
Nostre faict ce ne sont que pieces rapportées, et voulons acquerir vn honneur à fauces enseignes. La vertu ne veut estre suyuie que pour elle mesme; et si on emprunte par fois son masque pour autre occasion, elle nous l’arrache aussi tost du visage. C’est vne viue et forte teinture, quand l’ame en est vue fois abbreuuée, et qui ne s’en va qu’elle n’emporte la piece.
Our doings are nothing but patchwork, and we want to win honor under false colors. Virtue wants to be pursued only for its own sake; and if we sometimes borrow its mask for some other purpose, it soon snatches it from our face. It is a vivid, strong dye, once the soul is steeped in it, and it does not come out without taking the cloth with it.
Voyla pourquoy pour iuger d’vn homme, il faut suiure longuement et curieusement sa trace: si la constance ne s’y maintient de son seul fondement, cui viuendi via considerata atque prouisa est, si la varieté des occurrences luy faict changer de pas, (ie dy de voye: car le pas s’en peut ou haster, ou appesantir) laissez le courre: celuy là s’en va auau le vent, comme dict la deuise de nostre Talebot.
That is why, to judge a man, we must follow his tracks long and carefully. If constancy does not hold there on its own foundation—a man whose way of life has been considered and planned in advance—if the variety of events makes him change his pace (I mean his path, for the pace may be quickened or slowed), let him run: that man goes down the wind, as the motto of our Talbot says.
Ce n’est pas merueille, dict vn ancien, que le hazard puisse tant sur nous, puis que nous viuons par hazard. A qui n’a dressé en gros sa vie à vne certaine fin, il est impossible de disposer les actions particulieres. Il est impossible de renger les pieces, à qui n’a vne forme du total en sa teste. A quoy faire la prouision des couleurs, à qui ne sçay ce qu’il a à peindre? Aucun ne fait certain dessein de sa vie, et n’en deliberons qu’à parcelles. L’archer doit premierement sçauoir où il vise, et puis y accommoder la main, l’arc, la corde, la flesche, et les mouuemens. Nos conseils fouruoyent, par ce qu’ils n’ont pas d’adresse et de but.
It is no wonder, says an ancient, that chance has so much power over us, since we live by chance. A man who has not directed his life as a whole toward a definite end cannot possibly arrange his particular actions. A man who does not have a shape of the whole in his head cannot possibly put the pieces in order. What use is a supply of colors to someone who does not know what he is to paint? No one makes a definite plan for his life; we deliberate about it only piecemeal. The archer must first know what he is aiming at, and then adjust his hand, his bow, the string, the arrow and his movements to it. Our counsels go astray because they have no direction and no aim.
Nul vent fait pour celuy qui n’a point de port destiné. Ie ne suis pas d’aduis de ce iugement qu’on fit pour Sophocles, de l’auoir argumenté suffisant au maniement des choses domestiques, contre l’accusation de son fils, pour auoir veu l’vne de ses tragedies. Ny ne trouue la coniecture des Pariens enuoyez pour reformer les Milesiens, suffisante à la consequence qu’ils en tirerent. Visitants l’isle, ils remarquoyent les terres mieux cultiuees, et maisons champestres mieux gouuernées. Et ayants enregistré le nom des maistres d’icelles, comme ils eurent faict l’assemblée des citoyens en la ville, ils nommerent ces maistres là, pour nouueaux gouuerneurs et magistrats: iugeants que soigneux de leurs affaires priuées, ils le seroyent des publiques.
No wind serves the man who has no port in view. I do not agree with the judgment made in Sophocles’ favor, declaring him competent to manage his household affairs, against his son’s accusation, on the strength of having seen one of his tragedies. Nor do I find the inference of the Parians, sent to reform the Milesians, sufficient for the conclusion they drew from it. Touring the island, they noted the best-cultivated lands and the best-run country houses. Having recorded the names of their owners, they assembled the citizens in the town and named those owners as the new governors and magistrates, judging that men careful of their private affairs would be careful of public ones.
Nous sommes tous de lopins, et d’vne contexture si informe et diuerse, que chaque piece, chaque moment, faict son ieu. Et se trouue autant de difference de nous à nous mesmes, que de nous à autruy.
We are all made of scraps, and of so shapeless and varied a texture that every piece, every moment, plays its own game. And there is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.
Magnam rem puta, vnum hominem agere. Puis que l’ambition peut apprendre aux hommes, et la vaillance, et la temperance, et la liberalité, voire et la iustice: puis que l’auarice peut planter au courage d’vn garçon de boutique, nourri à l’ombre et à l’oysiueté, l’asseurance de se ietter si loing du foyer domestique, à la mercy des vagues et de Neptune courroucé dans vn fraile bateau, et qu’elle apprend encore la discretion et la prudence: et que Venus mesme fournit de resolution et de hardiesse la ieunesse encore soubs la discipline et la verge; et gendarme le tendre cœur des pucelles au giron de leurs meres: Hac duce, custodes furtim transgressa iacentes, / Ad iuuenem tenebris sola puella venit; ce n’est pas tour de rassis entendement, de nous iuger simplement par nos actions de dehors: il faut sonder iusqu’au dedans, et voir par quels ressors se donne le bransle.
Consider it a great thing to play the part of one single man. Ambition can teach men valor, and temperance, and liberality, and even justice. Greed can plant in the heart of a shop boy, brought up in the shade and in idleness, the confidence to cast himself so far from his home, at the mercy of the waves and of angry Neptune, in a frail boat; and it also teaches discretion and prudence. Venus herself supplies resolution and boldness to young people still under discipline and the rod, and arms the tender hearts of maidens in their mothers’ laps: With her as guide, the girl, stealing past her sleeping guards, / Comes alone in the dark to the young man. Since all this is so, it is not the act of a settled understanding to judge us simply by our outward actions. We must probe right into the inside and see by what springs the motion is given.
Mais d’autant que c’est vne hazardeuse et haute entreprinse, ie voudrois que moins de gens s’en meslassent.
But since this is a hazardous and lofty undertaking, I would wish fewer people meddled with it.