IL me semble que la vertu est chose autre, et plus noble, que les inclinations à la bonté, qui naissent en nous. Les ames reglées d’elles mesmes et bien nées, elles suyuent mesme train, et representent en leurs actions, mesme visage que les vertueuses. Mais la vertu sonne ie ne sçay quoy de plus grand et de plus actif, que de se laisser par vne heureuse complexion, doucement et paisiblement conduire à la suite de la raison.
It seems to me that virtue is something different from, and nobler than, the inclinations to goodness that are born in us. Souls that are well regulated of themselves and well born follow the same course, and show the same face in their actions, as virtuous ones. But virtue has the ring of something greater and more active than letting oneself, through a happy disposition, be led gently and peacefully in the train of reason.
Celuy qui d’vne douceur et facilité naturelle, mespriseroit les offences receuës, feroit chose tresbelle et digne de loüange: mais celuy qui picqué et outré iusques au vif d’vne offence, s’armeroit des armes de la raison contre ce furieux appetit de vengeance, et apres vn grand conflict, s’en rendroit en fin maistre, feroit sans doubte beaucoup plus. Celuy-là feroit bien, et cestuy-cy vertueusement: l’vne action se pourroit dire bonté, l’autre vertu. Car il semble que le nom de la vertu presuppose de la difficulté et du contraste, et qu’elle ne peut s’exercer sans partie. C’est à l’auenture pourquoy nous nommons Dieu bon, fort, et liberal, et iuste, mais nous ne le nommons pas vertueux. Ses operations sont toutes naïfues et sans effort.
A man who, out of natural gentleness and easiness, made light of the injuries done him would do a very fine thing, worthy of praise. But a man who, stung and outraged to the quick by an injury, armed himself with the arms of reason against this furious appetite for vengeance, and after a great struggle finally mastered it, would without doubt do much more. The first would be acting well, the second virtuously; the one action might be called goodness, the other virtue. For it seems that the very name of virtue presupposes difficulty and struggle, and that it cannot be exercised without an opponent. That is perhaps why we call God good, mighty, generous and just, but we do not call him virtuous. His workings are all natural and effortless.
Des philosophes non seulement Stoiciens, mais encore Epicuriens (et cette enchere ie l’emprunte de l’opinion commune, qui est fauce, quoy que die ce subtil rencontre d’Arcesilaüs, à celuy qui luy reprochoit, que beaucoup de gents passoient de son eschole en l’Epicurienne, et iamais au rebours: Ie croy bien. Des coqs il se fait des chappons assez, mais des chappons il ne s’en fait iamais des coqs. Car à la verité en fermeté et rigueur d’opinions et de preceptes, la secte Epicurienne ne cede aucunement à la Stoique.
Some philosophers—not only Stoics but even Epicureans (and this “even” I borrow from common opinion, which is false, whatever may be said for that witty retort of Arcesilaus to the man who reproached him that many people went over from his school to the Epicurean, and never the other way round: “I can well believe it. Plenty of capons are made out of cocks, but no cock was ever made out of a capon.” For in truth, in firmness and rigor of opinions and precepts, the Epicurean sect yields nothing to the Stoic.
Et vn Stoicien reconnoissant meilleure foy, que ces disputateurs, qui pour combattre Epicurus, et se donner beau ieu, luy font dire ce à quoy il ne pensa iamais, contournans ses paroles à gauche, argumentans par la loy grammairienne, autre sens de sa façon de parler, et autre creance, que celle qu’ils sçauent qu’il auoit en l’ame, et en ses mœurs, dit qu’il a laissé d’estre Epicurien, pour cette consideration entre autres, qu’il trouue leur route trop hautaine et inaccessible: et ij qui φιληδονοι vocantur, sunt φιλοχαλοι et φιλοδιχαιοι, omnésque virtutes et colunt, et retinent).
And a certain Stoic, showing better faith than those debaters who, to combat Epicurus and give themselves an easy game, make him say what he never thought, twisting his words the wrong way and arguing by the rules of grammar for another meaning in his way of speaking, and another belief, than the one they know he had in his soul and in his conduct—this Stoic says that he gave up being an Epicurean for this reason among others: that he found their road too lofty and inaccessible. And those who are called lovers of pleasure are in fact lovers of honor and lovers of justice, and they cultivate and practice all the virtues).
Des philosophes Stoiciens et Epicuriens, dis-ie, il y en a plusieurs qui ont iugé, que ce n’estoit pas assez d’auoir l’ame en bonne assiette, bien reglée et bien disposée à la vertu: ce n’estoit pas assez d’auoir nos resolutions et nos discours, au dessus de tous les efforts de Fortune: mais qu’il falloit encore rechercher les occasions d’en venir à la preuue: ils veulent quester de la douleur, de la necessité, et du mespris, pour les combattre, et pour tenir leur ame en haleine: multum sibi adijcit virtus lacessita.
Of these Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, I say, there are many who have judged that it was not enough to have the soul well settled, well ordered and well disposed to virtue; it was not enough to have our resolutions and our reasoning above all the assaults of Fortune; we must also seek out occasions to put them to the proof. They want to go looking for pain, need and contempt, in order to fight them and keep their soul in training: virtue gains much when it is challenged.
C’est l’vne des raisons, pourquoy Epaminondas, qui estoit encore d’vne tierce secte, refuse des richesses que la Fortune luy met en main, par vne voye tres-legitime: pour auoir, dit-il, à s’escrimer contre la pauureté, en laquelle extreme il se maintint tousiours. Socrates s’essayoit, ce me semble, encor plus rudement, conseruant pour son exercice, la malignité de sa femme, qui est vn essay à fer esmoulu.
This is one of the reasons why Epaminondas, who belonged to yet a third sect, refuses riches that Fortune puts into his hands by a perfectly legitimate means: in order, he says, to have poverty to fence with; and he always kept himself in extreme poverty. Socrates tested himself, it seems to me, still more harshly, keeping his wife’s ill temper for his exercise—which is a trial with sharpened blades.
Metellus ayant seul de tous les Senateurs Romains entrepris par l’effort de sa vertu, de soustenir la violence de Saturninus tribun du peuple à Rome, qui vouloit à toute force faire passer vne loy iniuste, en faueur de la commune: et ayant encouru par là, les peines capitales que Saturninus auoit establies contre les refusans, entretenoit ceux, qui en cette extremité, le conduisoient en la place de tels propos: Que c’estoit chose trop facile et trop lasche que de mal faire; et que de faire bien, où il n’y eust point de danger, c’estoit chose vulgaire: mais de faire bien, où il y eust danger, c’estoit le propre office d’vn homme de vertu.
Metellus, alone of all the Roman senators, undertook by the strength of his virtue to withstand the violence of Saturninus, tribune of the people at Rome, who was determined at all costs to pass an unjust law in favor of the common people. Having thereby incurred the capital penalties that Saturninus had established against those who refused, he talked in this way to those who, in this extremity, were leading him to the public square: that it was too easy and too cowardly a thing to do wrong; that to do right where there was no danger was a common thing; but that to do right where there was danger was the proper duty of a man of virtue.
Ces paroles de Metellus nous representent bien clairement ce que ie vouloy verifier, que la vertu refuse la facilité pour compagne; et que cette aisée, douce, et panchante voie, par où se conduisent les pas reglez d’vne bonne inclination de nature, n’est pas celle de la vraye vertu. Elle demande vn chemin aspre et espineux, elle veut auoir ou des difficultez estrangeres à luicter, comme celle de Metellus, par le moyen desquelles Fortune se plaist à luy rompre la roideur de sa course: ou des difficultez internes, que luy apportent les appetits desordonnez et imperfections de nostre condition.
These words of Metellus show us very clearly what I wanted to establish: that virtue refuses ease as a companion, and that the easy, gentle, downhill path along which the well-regulated steps of a good natural inclination are guided is not the path of true virtue. Virtue demands a rough and thorny road. It wants to have either external difficulties to wrestle with, like those of Metellus, by means of which Fortune delights in breaking the momentum of its course, or internal difficulties, brought to it by the disordered appetites and imperfections of our condition.
Socrates and Cato
The greatest souls act well without struggle, which seems to unsettle the claim that virtue needs difficulty.
Ie suis venu iusques icy bien à mon aise: mais au bout de ce discours, il me tombe en fantasie que l’ame de Socrates, qui est la plus parfaicte qui soit venuë à ma cognoissance, seroit à mon compte vne ame de peu de recommendation. Car ie ne puis conceuoir en ce personnage aucun effort de vitieuse concupiscence. Au train de sa vertu, ie n’y puis imaginer aucune difficulté ny aucune contrainte: ie cognoy sa raison si puissante et si maistresse chez luy, qu’elle n’eust iamais donné moyen à vn appetit vitieux, seulement de naistre. A vne vertu si esleuée que la sienne, ie ne puis rien mettre en teste.
I have come this far quite at my ease. But at the end of this reasoning it pops into my head that the soul of Socrates, which is the most perfect that has come to my knowledge, would by my reckoning be a soul of little merit. For I cannot conceive in that man any stirring of vicious desire. In the course of his virtue I can imagine no difficulty and no constraint: I know his reason to have been so powerful and so much the mistress in him that it would never have given a vicious appetite the means even to be born. Against a virtue as lofty as his I can set up no opponent.
Il me semble la voir marcher d’vn victorieux pas et triomphant, en pompe et à son aise, sans empeschement, ne destourbier. Si la vertu ne peut luire que par le combat des appetits contraires, dirons nous donq qu’elle ne se puisse passer de l’assistance du vice, et qu’elle luy doiue cela, d’en estre mise en credit et en honneur? Que deuiendroit aussi cette braue et genereuse volupté Epicurienne, qui fait estat de nourrir mollement en son giron, et y faire follatrer la vertu; luy donnant pour ses iouets, la honte, les fieures, la pauureté, la mort, et les gehennes?
I seem to see it marching with a victorious and triumphant step, in state and at its ease, without hindrance or disturbance. If virtue can shine only through combat with contrary appetites, shall we say, then, that it cannot do without the help of vice, and that it owes vice this much—that vice brings it credit and honor? And what, too, would become of that brave and noble Epicurean pleasure, which claims to nurse virtue tenderly in its lap and let it frolic there, giving it for toys shame, fevers, poverty, death and tortures?
Si ie presuppose que la vertu parfaite se cognoist à combattre et porter patiemment la douleur, à soustenir les efforts de la goutte, sans s’esbranler de son assiette: si ie luy donne pour son obiect necessaire l’aspreté et la difficulté, que deuiendra la vertu qui sera montée à tel poinct, que de non seulement mespriser la douleur, mais de s’en esiouyr; et de se faire chatouiller aux pointes d’vne forte colique, comme est celle que les Epicuriens ont establie, et de laquelle plusieurs d’entre eux nous ont laissé par leurs actions, des preuues tres-certaines? Comme ont bien d’autres, que ie trouue auoir surpassé par effect les regles mesmes de leur discipline. Tesmoing le ieune Caton.
If I assume that perfect virtue is known by its fighting and patiently bearing pain, by withstanding the onslaughts of gout without being shaken from its seat; if I give it harshness and difficulty as its necessary object—what will become of the virtue that has risen so high as not only to despise pain but to rejoice in it, and to be tickled by the stabs of a severe colic? Such is the virtue the Epicureans have established, and many of them have left us very certain proofs of it by their actions. So have many others, who I find surpassed in deed the very rules of their own discipline. Witness the younger Cato.
Quand ie le voy mourir et se deschirer les entrailles, ie ne me puis contenter, de croire simplement, qu’il eust lors son ame exempte totalement de trouble et d’effroy: ie ne puis croire, qu’il se maintint seulement en cette desmarche, que les regles de la secte Stoique luy ordonnoient, rassise, sans esmotion et impassible: il y auoit, ce me semble, en la vertu de cet homme, trop de gaillardise et de verdeur, pour s’en arrester là. Ie croy sans doubte qu’il sentit du plaisir et de la volupté, en vne si noble action, et qu’il s’y aggrea plus qu’en autre de celles de sa vie.
When I see him dying and tearing out his own entrails, I cannot be content simply to believe that his soul was then wholly free of turmoil and fear. I cannot believe that he merely held himself in the bearing that the rules of the Stoic sect prescribed for him—composed, without emotion and impassive. There was, it seems to me, too much gaiety and vigor in this man’s virtue for it to stop there. I believe without doubt that he felt pleasure and delight in so noble an act, and that he took more satisfaction in it than in any other act of his life.
Sic abijt è vita, vt causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet. Ie le croy si auant, que i’entre en doubte s’il eust voulu que l’occasion d’vn si bel exploict luy fust ostée. Et si la bonté qui luy faisoit embrasser les commoditez publiques plus que les siennes, ne me tenoit en bride, ie tomberois aisément en cette opinion, qu’il sçauoit bon gré à la Fortune d’auoir mis sa vertu à vne si belle espreuue, et d’auoir fauorisé ce brigand à fouler aux pieds l’ancienne liberté de sa patrie.
So he departed this life, rejoicing that he had found a reason to die. I believe this so far that I wonder whether he would have wanted the occasion for so fine an exploit to be taken from him. And if the goodness that made him embrace the public interest more than his own did not hold me in check, I would easily fall into this opinion: that he was grateful to Fortune for having put his virtue to so fine a test, and for having helped that brigand trample underfoot the ancient liberty of his country.
Il me semble lire en cette action, ie ne sçay quelle esiouyssance de son ame, et vne esmotion de plaisir extraordinaire, et d’vne volupté virile, lors qu’elle consideroit la noblesse et haulteur de son entreprise: Deliberata morte ferocior. Non pas aiguisée par quelque esperance de gloire, comme les iugements populaires et effeminez d’aucuns hommes ont iugé: car cette consideration est trop basse, pour toucher vn cœur si genereux, si haultain et si roide, mais pour la beauté de la chose mesme en soy: laquelle il voyoit bien plus clair, et en sa perfection, luy qui en manioyt les ressorts, que nous ne pouuons faire.
I seem to read in this act some indescribable rejoicing of his soul, an emotion of extraordinary pleasure and of manly delight, as it contemplated the nobility and loftiness of its undertaking: Fiercer for having resolved on death. It was not spurred by any hope of glory, as the common and spineless judgments of some men have supposed—for that consideration is too base to touch a heart so noble, so lofty and so unbending—but by the beauty of the thing itself, which he, who handled its springs, saw far more clearly and in its perfection than we can.
La Philosophie m’a faict plaisir de iuger, qu’vne si belle action eust esté indecemment logée en toute autre vie qu’en celle de Caton: et qu’à la sienne seule il appartenoit de finir ainsi. Pourtant ordonna-il selon raison et à son fils et aux Senateurs qui l’accompagnoyent, de prouuoir autrement à leur faict. Catoni, quum incredibilem natura tribuisset grauitatem, eámque ipse perpetua constantia roborauisset, sempérque in proposito consilio permansisset, moriendum potius, quàm tyranni vultus aspiciendus erat. Toute mort doit estre de mesmes sa vie. Nous ne deuenons pas autres pour mourir. I’interprete tousiours la mort par la vie. Et si on m’en recite quelqu’vne forte par apparence, attachée à vne vie foible: ie tiens qu’ell’ est produitte de cause foible et sortable à sa vie.
Philosophy has given me the pleasure of judging that so fine an action would have been unbecomingly lodged in any other life than Cato’s, and that it belonged to his alone to end in this way. That is why he rightly ordered both his son and the senators who were with him to provide for their affairs in some other way. Since nature had given Cato an incredible gravity, which he himself had strengthened by unfailing constancy, and since he had always held firm to his purpose, he had to die rather than look upon the face of a tyrant. Every death must be of a piece with its life. We do not become different in order to die. I always interpret the death by the life. And if I am told of some death that seems strong, attached to a weak life, I hold that it was produced by a weak cause, in keeping with that life.
L’aisance donc de cette mort, et cette facilité qu’il auoit acquise par la force de son ame, dirons nous qu’elle doiue rabattre quelque chose du lustre de sa vertu? Et qui de ceux qui ont la ceruelle tant soit peu teinte de la vraye Philosophie, peut se contenter d’imaginer Socrates, seulement franc de crainte et de passion, en l’accident de sa prison, de ses fers, et de sa condemnation? Et qui ne recognoist en luy, non seulement de la fermeté et de la constance, c’estoit son assiette ordinaire que celle-là, mais encore ie ne sçay quel contentement nouueau, et vne allegresse enioüée en ses propos et façons dernieres?
Shall we say, then, that the ease of this death, and the facility he had acquired by the strength of his soul, must take something away from the luster of his virtue? And who among those whose brains are even slightly tinged with true philosophy can be content to imagine Socrates as merely free from fear and passion in the misfortune of his imprisonment, his chains and his condemnation? And who does not recognize in him not only firmness and constancy—that was his ordinary state—but also some new contentment, and a playful cheerfulness in his last words and ways?
A ce tressaillir, du plaisir qu’il sent à gratter sa iambe, apres que les fers en furent hors: accuse-il pas vne pareille douceur et ioye en son ame, pour estre desenforgée des incommodités passées, et à mesme d’entrer en cognoissance des choses aduenir? Caton me pardonnera, s’il luy plaist; sa mort est plus tragique, et plus tendue, mais cette-cy est encore, ie ne sçay comment, plus belle. Aristippus à ceux qui la plaignoyent, Les Dieux m’en enuoyent vne telle, fit-il. On voit aux ames de ces deux personnages, et de leurs imitateurs (car de semblables, ie fay grand doubte qu’il y en ait eu) vne si parfaicte habitude à la vertu, qu’elle leur est passée en complexion.
In that thrill of pleasure he feels at scratching his leg after the irons were taken off, does he not reveal a like sweetness and joy in his soul at being unfettered from past discomforts and on the point of entering into the knowledge of things to come? Cato will forgive me, if he pleases: his death is more tragic and more strained, but this one is still, I know not how, more beautiful. Aristippus said to those who were lamenting it: “May the gods send me one like it.” In the souls of these two men and of their imitators (for I very much doubt that there have been any like them) one sees so perfect a habit of virtue that it has become their very constitution.
Ce n’est plus vertu penible, ny des ordonnances de la raison, pour lesquelles maintenir il faille que leur ame se roidisse: c’est l’essence mesme de leur ame, c’est son train naturel et ordinaire. Ils l’ont renduë telle, par vn long exercice des preceptes de la Philosophie, ayans rencontré vne belle et riche nature. Les passions vitieuses, qui naissent en nous, ne trouuent plus par où faire entrée en eux. La force et roideur de leur ame, estouffe et esteint les concupiscences, aussi tost qu’elles commencent à s’esbranler.
It is no longer a laborious virtue, nor the ordinances of reason, which their soul must stiffen itself to maintain: it is the very essence of their soul, its natural and ordinary gait. They made it so by long practice of the precepts of philosophy, having come upon a fine and rich nature. The vicious passions that arise in us no longer find any way into them. The strength and firmness of their soul stifles and extinguishes desires as soon as they begin to stir.
Or qu’il ne soit plus beau, par vne haulte et diuine resolution, d’empescher la naissance des tentations; et de s’estre formé à la vertu, de maniere que les semences mesmes des vices en soient desracinées: que d’empescher à viue force leur progrez; et s’estant laissé surprendre aux esmotions premieres des passions, s’armer et se bander pour arrester leur course, et les vaincre: et que ce second effect ne soit encore plus beau, que d’estre simplement garny d’vne nature facile et debonnaire, et desgoustée par soy mesme de la desbauche et du vice, ie ne pense point qu’il y ait doubte.
Now I do not think there is any doubt that it is finer, by a lofty and divine resolution, to prevent the birth of temptations, and to have so shaped oneself to virtue that the very seeds of the vices are uprooted, than to check their progress by main force—and, having let oneself be caught by the first stirrings of the passions, to arm and brace oneself to halt their course and overcome them. Nor is there any doubt that this second achievement is finer still than simply to be endowed with an easy and good-natured disposition, of itself averse to debauchery and vice.
Car cette tierce et derniere façon, il semble bien qu’elle rende vn homme innocent, mais non pas vertueux: exempt de mal faire, mais non assez apte à bien faire. Ioint que cette condition est si voisine à l’imperfection et à la foiblesse, que ie ne sçay pas bien comment en demesler les confins et les distinguer. Les noms mesmes de bonté et d’innocence, sont à cette cause aucunement noms de mespris.
For this third and last way does seem to make a man innocent, but not virtuous: free from doing wrong, but not apt enough to do right. Besides, this condition is so close to imperfection and weakness that I do not really know how to sort out their boundaries and tell them apart. That is why the very names of goodness and innocence are, to some extent, terms of contempt.
Ie voy que plusieurs vertus, comme la chasteté, sobrieté, et temperance, peuuent arriuer à nous, par deffaillance corporelle. La fermeté aux dangers, si fermeté il la faut appeller, le mespris de la mort, la patience aux infortunes, peut venir et se treuue souuent aux hommes, par faute de bien iuger de tels accidens, et ne les conceuoir tels qu’ils sont. La faute d’apprehension et la bestise, contrefont ainsi par fois les effects vertueux. Comme i’ay veu souuent aduenir, qu’on a loué des hommes, de ce, dequoy ils meritoyent du blasme.
I see that several virtues, such as chastity, sobriety and temperance, can come to us through bodily failing. Firmness in danger (if firmness it must be called), contempt of death, patience in misfortune, can come to men, and are often found in them, from a failure to judge such events rightly and to conceive them as they are. Lack of apprehension and stupidity thus sometimes counterfeit virtuous deeds. So I have often seen men praised for what deserved blame.
Vn Seigneur Italien tenoit vne fois ce propos en ma presence, au des-auantage de sa nation: Que la subtilité des Italiens et la viuacité de leurs conceptions estoit si grande, qu’ils preuoyoient les dangers et accidens qui leur pouuoyent aduenir, de si loing, qu’il ne falloit pas trouuer estrange, si on les voyoit souuent à la guerre prouuoir à leur seurté, voire auant que d’auoir recognu le peril: que nous et les Espagnols, qui n’estions pas si fins, allions plus outre; et qu’il nous falloit faire voir à l’œil et toucher à la main, le danger auant que de nous en effrayer; et que lors aussi nous n’auions plus de tenue: mais que les Allemans et les Souysses, plus grossiers et plus lourds, n’auoyent le sens de se rauiser, à peine lors mesmes qu’ils estoyent accablez soubs les coups.
An Italian lord once said this in my presence, to the disadvantage of his own nation: that the subtlety of the Italians and the quickness of their minds were so great that they foresaw the dangers and mishaps that might befall them from so far off that it should not seem strange if in war they were often seen providing for their safety even before they had perceived the peril; that we and the Spaniards, who were not so sharp, went further, and had to be made to see the danger with our own eyes and touch it with our hands before we took fright, and that even then we could no longer stand firm; but that the Germans and the Swiss, coarser and duller, hardly had the sense to think better of it even when they were already being crushed under the blows.
Ce n’estoit à l’aduenture que pour rire. Si est-il bien vray qu’au mestier de la guerre, les apprentis se iettent bien souuent aux hazards, d’autre inconsideration qu’ils ne font apres y auoir esté eschauldez. Haud ignarus, quantùm noua gloria in armis, / Et prædulce decus, primo certamine, possit. Voyla pourquoy quand on iuge d’vne action particuliere, il faut considerer plusieurs circonstances, et l’homme tout entier qui l’a produicte, auant la baptizer.
Perhaps it was only in jest. Still, it is quite true that in the profession of war beginners very often throw themselves into hazards with a heedlessness quite different from what they show after they have been burned. Not unaware how much fresh glory in arms / And the sweet honor of a first battle can do. That is why, when we judge a particular action, we must consider many circumstances, and the whole man who produced it, before we christen it.
An innocence owed to luck
Montaigne credits his own good conduct to birth and temperament rather than to effort.
Pour dire vn mot de moy-mesme: I’ay veu quelque fois mes amis appeller prudence en moy, ce qui estoit fortune; et estimer aduantage de courage et de patience, ce qui estoit aduantage de iugement et opinion; et m’attribuer vn tiltre pour autre; tantost à mon gain, tantost à ma perte. Au demeurant, il s’en faut tant que ie sois arriué à ce premier et plus parfaict degré d’excellence, où de la vertu il se faict vne habitude; que du second mesme, ie n’en ay faict guere de preuue. Ie ne me suis mis en grand effort, pour brider les desirs dequoy ie me suis trouué pressé. Ma vertu, c’est vne vertu, ou innocence, pour mieux dire, accidentale et fortuite.
To say a word about myself: I have sometimes seen my friends call prudence in me what was luck, and count as an advantage of courage and patience what was an advantage of judgment and opinion, and give me one title in place of another, sometimes to my gain, sometimes to my loss. For the rest, I am so far from having reached that first and most perfect degree of excellence, where virtue becomes a habit, that even of the second I have given scarcely any proof. I have not put myself to great effort to curb the desires that pressed upon me. My virtue is a virtue—or rather, to put it better, an innocence—that is accidental and fortuitous.
Si ie fusse nay d’vne complexion plus desreglée, ie crains qu’il fust allé piteusement de mon faict: car ie n’ay essayé guere de fermeté en mon ame, pour soustenir des passions, si elles eussent esté tant soit peu vehementes. Ie ne sçay point nourrir des querelles, et du debat chez moy.
If I had been born with a more unruly constitution, I fear it would have gone badly for me; for I have scarcely tested any firmness in my soul for withstanding passions, had they been even slightly violent. I do not know how to nurse quarrels and conflict within me.
Ainsi, ie ne me puis dire nul grand-mercy, dequoy ie me trouue exempt de plusieurs vices: Si vitiis mediocribus, et mea paucis / Mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si / Egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore næuos. Ie le doy plus à ma fortune qu’à ma raison.
So I can give myself no great thanks for being free of many vices: If my nature is flawed by a few middling faults, / But otherwise sound, as if you were to find fault / With moles scattered over a handsome body. I owe this more to my fortune than to my reason.
Elle m’a faict naistre d’vne race fameuse en preud’hommie, et d’vn tres-bon pere: ie ne sçay s’il a escoulé en moy partie de ses humeurs, ou bien si les exemples domestiques, et la bonne institution de mon enfance, y ont insensiblement aydé; ou si ie suis autrement ainsi nay, Seu Libra, seu me Scorpius adspicit / Formidolosus, pars violentior / Natalis horæ, seu tyrannus / Hesperiæ Capricornus vndæ. Mais tant y a que la pluspart des vices ie les ay de moy mesmes en horreur. La responce d’Antisthenes à celuy, qui luy demandoit le meilleur apprentissage: Desapprendre le mal: semble s’arrester à cette image.
Fortune caused me to be born of a family famous for integrity, and of a very good father. I do not know whether he passed on to me some part of his temperament, or whether the examples at home and the good upbringing of my childhood imperceptibly helped, or whether I was simply born this way, Whether Libra looks on me, or Scorpio, / Dread and more violent part / Of my natal hour, or Capricorn, tyrant / Of the western wave. But at any rate most vices I hold in horror of my own accord. The answer of Antisthenes to the man who asked him what was the best apprenticeship—“To unlearn evil”—seems to rest on this picture.
Ie les ay, dis-ie, en horreur, d’vne opinion si naturelle et si mienne, que ce mesme instinct et impression, que i’en ay apporté de la nourrice, ie l’ay conserué, sans qu’aucunes occasions me l’ayent sçeu faire alterer. Voire non pas mes discours propres, qui pour s’estre desbandez en aucunes choses de la route commune, me licentieroyent aisément à des actions, que cette naturelle inclination me fait haïr. Ie diray vn monstre: mais ie le diray pourtant. Ie trouue par là en plusieurs choses plus d’arrest et de regle en mes mœurs qu’en mon opinion: et ma concupiscence moins desbauchée que ma raison.
I hold them in horror, I say, by a judgment so natural and so much my own that I have kept the same instinct and impression I brought away from my nurse, and no occasion has ever been able to alter it—not even my own reasonings, which, having broken away from the common road in some matters, would readily license me to actions that this natural inclination makes me hate. I will say something monstrous, but I will say it all the same: in many things I find more steadiness and rule in my conduct than in my opinions, and my desire less debauched than my reason.
Aristippus establit des opinions si hardies en faueur de la volupté et des richesses, qu’il mit en rumeur toute la philosophie à l’encontre de luy. Mais quant à ses mœurs, Dionysius le tyran luy ayant presenté trois belles garses, afin qu’il en fist le chois: il respondit, qu’il les choisissoit toutes trois, et qu’il auoit mal prins à Paris d’en preferer vne à ses compaignes. Mais les ayant conduittes à son logis, il les renuoya, sans en taster. Son vallet se trouuant surchargé en chemin de l’argent qu’il portoit apres luy: il luy ordonna qu’il en versast et iettast là, ce qui luy faschoit. Et Epicurus, duquel les dogmes sont irreligieux et delicats, se porta en sa vie tres-deuotieusement et laborieusement.
Aristippus set out opinions so bold in favor of pleasure and riches that he set all philosophy in an uproar against him. But as for his conduct: when Dionysius the tyrant presented him with three beautiful girls so that he might take his pick, he replied that he picked all three, and that Paris had come to grief for preferring one over her companions. But having brought them to his lodging, he sent them away without tasting them. When his servant found himself overloaded on the road by the money he was carrying behind him, he ordered him to pour out and throw away, then and there, whatever was too much for him. And Epicurus, whose doctrines are irreligious and pleasure-loving, conducted himself in his life very devoutly and laboriously.
Il escrit à vn sien amy, qu’il ne vit que de pain bis et d’eaue; le prie de luy enuoyer vu peu de formage, pour quand il voudra faire quelque somptueux repas. Seroit-il vray, que pour estre bon tout à faict, il nous le faille estre par occulte, naturelle et vniuerselle proprieté, sans loy, sans raison, sans exemple?
He writes to a friend that he lives on nothing but brown bread and water, and asks him to send a little cheese for when he wants to have a sumptuous meal. Could it be true that, to be wholly good, we must be so by some hidden, natural and universal property, without law, without reason, without example?
Les desbordemens, ausquels ie me suis trouué engagé, ne sont pas Dieu mercy des pires. Ie les ay bien condamnez chez moy, selon qu’ils le valent: car mon iugement ne s’est pas trouué infecté par eux. Au rebours, ie les accuse plus rigoureusement en moy, qu’en vn autre. Mais c’est tout: car au demeurant i’y apporte trop peu de resistance, et me laisse trop aisément pancher à l’autre part de la balance, sauf pour les regler, et empescher du meslange d’autres vices, lesquels s’entretiennent et s’entre-enchainent pour la plus part les vns aux autres, qui ne s’en prend garde. Les miens, ie les ay retranchez et contrains les plus seuls, et les plus simples que i’ay peu: nec vltra / Errorem foueo.
The excesses I have found myself involved in are not, thank God, of the worst. I have duly condemned them in myself, as they deserve, for my judgment has not been infected by them. On the contrary, I accuse them more strictly in myself than in another. But that is all. For otherwise I put up too little resistance, and let myself lean too easily to the other side of the scale—except that I keep them in order and prevent them from mixing with other vices, which for the most part hold together and are chained one to another, if one does not take care. My own I have cut back and confined, as solitary and as simple as I could: nor do I indulge / My error further.
Car quant à l’opinion des Stoiciens, qui disent, le sage œuurer quand il œuure par toutes les vertus ensemble, quoy qu’il y en ait vne plus apparente selon la nature de l’action: (et à cela leur pourroit seruir aucunement la similitude du corps humain; car l’action de la colere ne se peut exercer, que toutes les humeurs ne nous y aydent, quoy que la colere predomine) si de là ils veulent tirer pareille consequence; que quand le fautier faut, il faut par tous les vices ensemble, ie ne les en croy pas ainsi simplement; ou ie ne les entend pas: car ie sens par effect le contraire. Ce sont subtilitez aiguës, insubstantielles, ausquelles la Philosophie s’arreste par fois.
For as to the opinion of the Stoics, who say that the wise man, when he acts, acts by all the virtues together, though one is more apparent according to the nature of the action (and here the analogy of the human body might serve them somewhat, for the action of anger cannot be carried out without all the humors helping us, though choler predominates): if from this they want to draw a similar conclusion, that when the wrongdoer does wrong he does wrong by all the vices together, I do not take their word for it so simply—or else I do not understand them, for I feel the contrary in practice. These are sharp, insubstantial subtleties, on which philosophy sometimes dwells.
Ie suy quelques vices: mais i’en fuy d’autres, autant que sçauroit faire vn sainct. Aussi desaduoüent les Peripateticiens, cette connexité et cousture indissoluble: et tient Aristote, qu’vn homme prudent et iuste, peut estre et intemperant et incontinant. Socrates aduoüoit à ceux qui recognoissoient en sa physionomie quelque inclination au vice, que c’estoit à la verité sa propension naturelle, mais qu’il l’auoit corrigée par discipline. Et les familiers du philosophe Stilpo disoient, qu’estant nay subject au vin et aux femmes, il s’estoit rendu par estude tresabstinent de l’vn et de l’autre.
I follow some vices, but I flee others as much as any saint could. The Peripatetics, too, disown this connection and indissoluble seam; and Aristotle holds that a man may be prudent and just and yet intemperate and incontinent. Socrates admitted to those who detected in his physiognomy some inclination to vice that this was indeed his natural propensity, but that he had corrected it by discipline. And the intimates of the philosopher Stilpo said that, though born prone to wine and women, he had made himself, by study, very abstinent in both.
Hating cruelty
He cannot bear to see suffering, condemns torture in justice, and recounts the cruelties of the civil wars.
Ce que i’ay de bien, ie l’ay au rebours, par le sort de ma naissance: ie ne le tiens ny de loy ny de precepte ou autre apprentissage. L’innocence qui est en moy, est vne innocence niaise; peu de vigueur, et point d’art. Ie hay entre autres vices, cruellement la cruauté, et par nature et par iugement, comme l’extreme de tous les vices. Mais c’est iusques à telle mollesse, que ie ne voy pas esgorger vn poulet sans desplaisir, et ois impatiemment gemir vn lieure sous les dents de mes chiens: quoy que ce soit vn plaisir violent que la chasse.
What good I have, I have, on the contrary, by the luck of my birth; I do not hold it from law or precept or any other apprenticeship. The innocence that is in me is a simple-minded innocence: little vigor and no skill. Among other vices, I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and by judgment, as the extreme of all vices. But this goes so far, and makes me so soft, that I cannot see a chicken’s throat cut without distress, and cannot bear to hear a hare squeal in the teeth of my dogs—though hunting is a violent pleasure.
Ceux qui ont à combattre la volupté, vsent volontiers de cet argument, pour montrer qu’elle est toute vitieuse et des-raisonnable, que lors qu’elle est en son plus grand effort, elle nous maistrise de façon, que la raison n’y peut auoir accez: et alleguent l’experience que nous en sentons en l’accointance des femmes, Cùm iam præsagit gaudia corpus, / Atque in eo est Venus, vt muliebria conserat arua. où il leur semble que le plaisir nous transporte si fort hors de nous, que nostre discours ne sçauroit lors faire son office tout perclus et raui en la volupté.
Those who have to combat pleasure readily use this argument to show that it is wholly vicious and unreasonable: that when it is at its height it masters us so completely that reason can have no access to it. And they cite the experience we have of it in intercourse with women, When the body already foretastes its joys, / And Venus is about to sow the woman’s fields, where it seems to them that pleasure carries us so far out of ourselves that our reason, all paralyzed and ravished in pleasure, could not then do its office.
Ie sçay qu’il en peut aller autrement; et qu’on arriuera par fois, si on veut, à reietter l’ame sur ce mesme instant, à autres pensemens: mais il la faut tendre et roidir d’aguet. Ie sçay qu’on peut gourmander l’effort de ce plaisir, et m’y cognoy bien, et n’ay point trouué Venus si imperieuse Deesse, que plusieurs et plus reformez que moy, la tesmoignent.
I know it can go otherwise, and that one can sometimes manage, if one wants, to throw the soul back onto other thoughts at that very moment; but one must brace and stiffen it deliberately. I know that one can master the force of this pleasure—I know myself well in this—and I have not found Venus so imperious a goddess as many people, and more strait-laced than I, testify.
Ie ne prens pour miracle, comme faict la Royne de Nauarre, en l’vn des comptes de son Heptameron, qui est vn gentil liure pour son estoffe, ny pour chose d’extreme difficulté, de passer des nuicts entieres, en toute commodité et liberté, auec vne maistresse de long temps desirée, maintenant la foy qu’on luy aura engagée de se contenter des baisers et simples attouchemens.
I do not take it for a miracle, as the Queen of Navarre does in one of the tales of her Heptameron (a fine book for its matter), nor for a thing of extreme difficulty, to spend whole nights, in all convenience and freedom, with a long-desired mistress, keeping the promise one has given her to be content with kisses and simple caresses.
Ie croy que l’exemple du plaisir de la chasse y seroit plus propre: comme il y a moins de plaisir, il y a plus de rauissement, et de surprinse, par où nostre raison estonnée perd ce loisir de se preparer à l’encontre: lors qu’apres vne longue queste, la beste vient en sursaut à se presenter, en lieu où à l’aduenture, nous l’esperions le moins. Cette secousse, et l’ardeur de ces huées, nous frappe, si qu’il seroit malaisé à ceux qui ayment cette sorte de petite chasse, de retirer sur ce point la pensée ailleurs. Et les poëtes font Diane victorieuse du brandon et des flesches de Cupidon. Quis non malarum, quas amor curas habet, / Hæc inter obliuiscitur?
I think the example of the pleasure of hunting would be more fitting here. There is less pleasure in it, but more rapture and surprise, by which our reason, stunned, loses the leisure to prepare itself against it—when, after a long search, the animal suddenly springs into view, in a place where perhaps we least expected it. That shock, and the ardor of the hallooing, strike us so that it would be hard for those who love this sort of little hunt to turn their thoughts elsewhere at that moment. And the poets make Diana victorious over Cupid’s torch and arrows. Who, amid these pursuits, does not forget / The wretched cares that love brings?
Pour reuenir à mon propos, ie me compassionne fort tendrement des afflictions d’autruy, et pleurerois aisément par compagnie, si pour occasion que ce soit, ie sçauois pleurer. Il n’est rien qui tente mes larmes que les larmes: non vrayes seulement, mais comment que ce soit, ou feintes, ou peintes. Les morts ie ne les plains guere, et les enuierois plustost; mais ie plains bien fort les mourans. Les [peuples du Nouveau Monde] ne m’offensent pas tant, de rostir et manger les corps des trespassez, que ceux qui les tourmentent et persecutent viuans. Les executions mesme de la iustice, pour raisonnables qu’elles soient, ie ne les puis voir d’vne veuë ferme.
To return to my subject: I feel very tender compassion for the afflictions of others, and would readily weep for company, if I knew how to weep for any occasion whatever. Nothing tempts my tears but tears—not only real ones, but any kind at all, feigned or painted. The dead I scarcely pity, and would rather envy; but I pity the dying very much. The peoples of the New World do not offend me so much by roasting and eating the bodies of the dead as those do who torment and persecute them alive. Even the executions of justice, however reasonable they may be, I cannot watch with a steady eye.
Quelqu’vn ayant à tesmoigner la clemence de Iulius Cæsar: Il estoit, dit-il, doux en ses vengeances: ayant forcé les pyrates de se rendre à luy, qui l’auoient auparauant pris prisonnier et mis à rançon; d’autant qu’il les auoit menassez de les faire mettre en croix, il les y condamna; mais ce fut apres les auoir faict estrangler. Philomon son secretaire, qui l’auoit voulu empoisonner, il ne le punit pas plus aigrement que d’vne mort simple. Sans dire qui est cet autheur Latin, qui ose alleguer pour tesmoignage de clemence, de seulement tuer ceux, desquels on a esté offencé, il est aisé à deuiner qu’il est frappé des vilains et horribles exemples de cruauté, que les tyrans Romains mirent en vsage.
Someone, wishing to testify to the clemency of Julius Caesar, says: “He was mild in his revenges. Having forced the pirates who had earlier taken him prisoner and held him for ransom to surrender to him, since he had threatened to have them crucified, he condemned them to it—but only after having them strangled. His secretary Philemon, who had tried to poison him, he punished no more harshly than with a simple death.” Without saying who this Latin author is who dares to cite as evidence of clemency merely killing those who have offended us, it is easy to guess that he was struck by the vile and horrible examples of cruelty that the Roman tyrants put into practice.
Quant à moy, en la iustice mesme, tout ce qui est au delà de la mort simple, me semble pure cruauté. Et notamment à nous, qui deurions auoir respect d’en enuoyer les ames en bon estat; ce qui ne se peut, les ayant agitées et desesperées par tourmens insupportables. Ces iours passés, vn soldat prisonnier, ayant apperceu d’vne tour où il estoit, que le peuple s’assembloit en la place, et que des charpantiers y dressoient leurs ouurages, creut que c’estoit pour luy: et entré en la resolution de se tuer, ne trouua qui l’y peust secourir, qu’vn vieux clou de charrette, rouillé, que la Fortune luy offrit.
As for me, even in justice, anything beyond simple death seems to me pure cruelty—especially for us, who ought to take care to send souls off in a good state, which cannot be done once they have been agitated and driven to despair by unbearable torments. Not long ago a soldier who was a prisoner noticed from a tower where he was held that people were gathering in the square and that carpenters were putting up their structures there, and believed it was for him. Having resolved to kill himself, he found nothing to help him do it but an old rusty cart nail that Fortune offered him.
Dequoy il se donna premierement deux grands coups autour de la gorge: mais voyant que ce auoit esté sans effect: bien tost apres, il s’en donna vn tiers, dans le ventre, où il laissa le clou fiché. Le premier de ses gardes, qui entra où il estoit, le trouua en cet estat, viuant encores: mais couché et tout affoibly de ses coups. Pour emploier le temps auant qu’il deffaillist, on se hasta de luy prononcer sa sentence. Laquelle ouïe, et qu’il n’estoit condamné qu’à auoir la teste tranchée, il sembla reprendre vn nouueau courage: accepta du vin, qu’il auoit refusé: remercia ses iuges de la douceur inesperée de leur condemnation.
With it he first gave himself two great blows around the throat; but seeing that they had had no effect, soon afterward he gave himself a third, in the belly, where he left the nail stuck. The first of his guards to come in found him in this state, still alive, but lying down and much weakened by his blows. To make use of the time before he expired, they hastened to pronounce his sentence. When he heard it, and that he was condemned only to have his head cut off, he seemed to take fresh courage. He accepted some wine, which he had refused, and thanked his judges for the unexpected mildness of their sentence.
Qu’il auoit prins party, d’appeller la mort, pour la crainte d’vne mort plus aspre et insupportable: ayant conceu opinion par les apprests qu’il auoit veu faire en la place, qu’on le vousist tourmenter de quelque horrible supplice: et sembla estre deliuré de la mort, pour l’auoir changée.
He said that he had decided to call on death for fear of a harsher and more unbearable death, having formed the opinion, from the preparations he had seen being made in the square, that they meant to torment him with some horrible torture. And he seemed to have been delivered from death by having exchanged it.
Ie conseillerois que ces exemples de rigueur, par le moyen desquels on veut tenir le peuple en office, s’exerçassent contre les corps des criminels. Car de les voir priuer de sepulture, de les voir bouillir, et mettre à quartiers, cela toucheroit quasi autant le vulgaire, que les peines, qu’on fait souffrir aux viuans; quoy que par effect, ce soit peu ou rien, comme Dieu dit, Qui corpus occidunt, et postea non habent quod faciant. Et les poëtes font singulierement valoir l’horreur de cette peinture, et au dessus de la mort, *Heu!
I would advise that these examples of severity, by which one seeks to keep the people in line, be carried out on the bodies of criminals. For to see them deprived of burial, to see them boiled and quartered, would strike the common people almost as much as the punishments inflicted on the living, though in fact it amounts to little or nothing, as God says: Who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. And the poets make singularly much of the horror of this picture, as something beyond death: *Alas!
reliquias semiassi regis, denudatis ossibus, / Per terram sanie delibutas fœdè diuexarier.* Ie me rencontray vn iour à Rome, sur le point qu’on deffaisoit Catena, vn voleur insigne: on l’estrangla sans aucune emotion de l’assistance, mais quand on vint à le mettre à quartiers, le bourreau ne donnoit coup, que le peuple ne suiuist d’vne voix pleintiue, et d’vne exclamation, comme si chacun eust presté son sentiment à cette charongne. Il faut exercer ces inhumains excez contre l’escorce, non contre le vif.
that the remains of a half-burned king, his bones laid bare, / Should be foully dragged across the earth, smeared with gore.* I happened to be in Rome one day just when they were executing Catena, a notorious robber. They strangled him without any emotion from the onlookers; but when they came to quarter him, the executioner gave no blow without the people following it with a plaintive cry and exclamation, as if each one had lent his own feelings to that carcass. These inhuman excesses should be practiced on the bark, not on the living wood.
Ainsin amollit, en cas aucunement pareil, Artaxerxes, l’aspreté des loix anciennes de Perse; ordonnant que les Seigneurs qui auoyent failly en leur estat, au lieu qu’on les souloit foüetter, fussent despouillés, et leurs vestemens foüettez pour eux; et au lieu qu’on leur souloit arracher les cheueux, qu’on leur ostast leur hault chappeau seulement. Les Ægyptiens si deuotieux, estimoyent bien satisfaire à la iustice diuine, luy sacrifians des pourceaux en figure, et representez. Inuention hardie, de vouloir payer en peinture et en ombrage Dieu, substance si essentielle.
In the same way, in a somewhat similar case, Artaxerxes softened the harshness of the ancient laws of Persia. He ordered that lords who had failed in their office, instead of being whipped as was customary, should be stripped and their clothes whipped in their place; and that instead of having their hair torn out as was customary, they should only have their tall hats taken off. The Egyptians, so devout, thought they gave full satisfaction to divine justice by sacrificing pigs to it in effigy and in images. A bold invention, to try to pay God, so essential a substance, in paint and shadow.
Ie vy en vne saison en laquelle nous abondons en exemples incroyables de ce vice, par la licence de noz guerres ciuiles: et ne voit on rien aux histoires anciennes, de plus extreme,que ce que nous en essayons tous les iours. Mais cela ne m’y a nullement appriuoisé. A peine me pouuoy-ie persuader, auant que ie l’eusse veu, qu’il se fust trouué des ames si farouches, qui pour le seul plaisir du meurtre, le voulussent commettre; hacher et destrancher les membres d’autruy; aiguiser leur esprit à inuenter des tourmens inusitez, et des morts nouuelles, sans inimitié, sans proufit, et pour cette seule fin, de iouir du plaisant spectacle, des gestes, et mouuemens pitoyables, des gemissemens, et voix lamentables, d’vn homme mourant en angoisse.
I live in a time when we abound in incredible examples of this vice, through the license of our civil wars; and one sees nothing in ancient histories more extreme than what we experience every day. But this has not at all made me used to it. I could hardly persuade myself, before I had seen it, that there were souls so fierce that they would commit murder for the sheer pleasure of it: hack and lop off other people’s limbs, sharpen their wits to invent unaccustomed torments and new deaths, without enmity, without profit, and for the sole purpose of enjoying the pleasant spectacle of the pitiful gestures and movements, the groans and lamentable cries, of a man dying in anguish.
Car voyla l’extreme poinct, où la cruauté puisse atteindre. Vt homo hominem, non iratus, non timens, tantum spectaturus occidat.
For that is the furthest point cruelty can reach. That man should kill man, not in anger, not in fear, but only to watch.
Kindness to animals
Our cruelty to beasts leads to cruelty to men; we owe some kindness even to animals and trees.
De moy, ie n’ay pas sçeu voir seulement sans desplaisir, poursuiure et tuer vne beste innocente, qui est sans deffence, et de qui nous ne receuons aucune offence. Et comme il aduient communement que le cerf se sentant hors d’haleine et de force, n’ayant plus autre remede, se reiette et rend à nous mesmes qui le poursuiuons, nous demandant mercy par ses larmes, quæstuque cruentus, / Atque imploranti similis, ce m’a tousiours semblé vn spectacle tres-deplaisant. Ie ne prens guere beste en vie, à qui ie ne redonne les champs. Pythagoras les achetoit des pescheurs et des oyseleurs, pour en faire autant.
For my part, I have never been able even to watch without distress an innocent animal being pursued and killed, which is defenseless and from which we receive no offense. And when, as commonly happens, the stag, feeling himself out of breath and strength and with no other remedy left, turns back and surrenders to us, his very pursuers, begging us for mercy with his tears, bleeding, with his moans, / And like one imploring, that has always seemed to me a most unpleasant spectacle. I hardly ever take an animal alive without giving it back to the fields. Pythagoras used to buy them from fishermen and fowlers to do the same.
Primóque à cæde ferarum / Incaluisse puto maculatum sanguine ferrum. Les naturels sanguinaires à l’endroit des bestes, tesmoignent vne propension naturelle à la cruauté. Apres qu’on se fut appriuoisé à Rome aux spectacles des meurtres des animaux, on vint aux hommes et aux gladiateurs. Nature a, ce crains-ie, elle mesme attaché à l’homme quelque instinct à l’inhumanité. Nul ne prent son esbat à voir des bestes s’entreiouer et caresser; et nul ne faut de le prendre à les voir s’entredeschirer et desmembrer. Et afin qu’on ne se moque de cette sympathie que i’ay auec elles, la theologie mesme nous ordonne quelque faueur en leur endroit.
And it was with the slaughter of wild beasts, I think, / That steel first grew warm, stained with blood. Natures that are bloodthirsty toward animals show a natural propensity to cruelty. After people at Rome had grown used to spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they went on to men and gladiators. Nature herself, I fear, has attached to man some instinct for inhumanity. No one takes any amusement in watching animals play together and caress each other, and no one fails to take it in watching them tear each other apart and dismember each other. And lest anyone mock this sympathy I have with them, theology itself enjoins on us some kindness toward them.
Et considerant, qu’vn mesme maistre nous a logez en ce palais pour son seruice, et qu’elles sont, comme nous, de sa famille; elle a raison de nous enjoindre quelque respect et affection enuers elles.
And considering that one and the same master has lodged us in this palace for his service, and that they, like us, are of his household, it has good reason to enjoin on us some respect and affection toward them.
Pythagoras emprunta la metempsychose, des Ægyptiens, mais depuis elle a esté receuë par plusieurs nations, et notamment par nos Druides: Morte carent animæ; sempérque priore relicta / Sede, nouis domibus viuunt, habitántque receptæ. La religion de noz anciens Gaulois, portoit que les ames estans eternelles, ne cessoyent de se remuer et changer de place d’vn corps à vn autre: meslant en outre à cette fantasie, quelque consideration de la iustice diuine. Car selon les desportemens de l’ame, pendant qu’elle auoit esté chez Alexandre, ils disoient que Dieu luy ordonnoit vn autre corps à habiter, plus ou moins penible, et rapportant à sa condition: *Muta ferarum / Cogit vincla pati: truculentos ingerit vrsis, / Prædonésque lupis, fallaces vulpibus addit.
Pythagoras borrowed metempsychosis from the Egyptians, but since then it has been accepted by many nations, and notably by our Druids: Souls are free from death; ever leaving their former / Dwelling, they live in new homes, and dwell where they are received. The religion of our ancient Gauls held that souls, being eternal, never ceased moving and changing place from one body to another; and to this notion they added some consideration of divine justice. For according to the soul’s conduct while it had been, say, in Alexander, they said God assigned it another body to live in, more or less painful, and suited to its condition: *The mute bonds of beasts / He forces them to bear; he thrusts the ferocious into bears, / Robbers into wolves, adds the deceitful to foxes.
/ Atque vbi per varios annos, per mille figuras / Egit, Lethæo purgatos flumine, tandem / Rursus ad humanæ reuocat primordia formæ. Si elle auoit esté vaillante, la logeoient au corps d’vn lyon; si voluptueuse, en celuy d’vn pourceau; si lasche, en celuy d’vn cerf ou d’vn lieure; si malitieuse, en celuy d’vn renard; ainsi du reste; iusques à ce que purifiée par ce chastiement, elle reprenoit le corps de quelque autre homme; Ipse ego, nam memini, Troiani tempore belli, / Panthoïdes Euphorbus eram.*
/ And when through many years, through a thousand shapes, / He has driven them on, purged at last in the river of Lethe, / He calls them back again to the first beginnings of human form. If it had been valiant, they lodged it in the body of a lion; if voluptuous, in that of a pig; if cowardly, in that of a stag or a hare; if cunning, in that of a fox; and so on with the rest, until, purified by this chastisement, it took on the body of some other man again. I myself—for I remember it—in the time of the Trojan War / Was Euphorbus, son of Panthous.*
Quant à ce cousinage là d’entre nous et les bestes, ie n’en fay pas grande recepte: ny de ce aussi que plusieurs nations, et notamment des plus anciennes et plus nobles, ont non seulement receu des bestes à leur société et compagnie, mais leur ont donné vn rang bien loing au dessus d’eux; les estimans tantost familieres, et fauories de leurs Dieux, et les ayans en respect et reuerence plus qu’humaine; et d’autres ne recognoissans autre Dieu, ny autre diuinité qu’elles.
As for that kinship between us and the animals, I do not set much store by it; nor by the fact that many nations, and notably some of the most ancient and noble, have not only received animals into their society and company but given them a rank far above themselves—some regarding them as familiars and favorites of their gods and holding them in more than human respect and reverence, and others recognizing no other god or divinity than them.
Belluæ à barbaris propter beneficium consecratæ: Crocodilon adorat / Pars hæc, illa pauet saturam serpentibus ibin, / Effigies sacri hic nitet aurea cercopitheci; / hic piscem fluminis, illic / Oppida tota canem venerantur. Et l’interpretation mesme que Plutarque donne à cet erreur, qui est tresbien prise, leur est encores honorable. Car il dit, que ce n’estoit le chat, ou le bœuf, pour exemple, que les Ægyptiens adoroyent; mais qu’ils adoroyent en ces bestes là, quelque image des facultez diuines. En cette-cy la patience et l’vtilité: en cette-là, la viuacité, ou comme noz voisins les Bourguignons auec toute l’Allemaigne, l’impatience de se voir enfermez: par où ils representoyent la liberté, qu’ils aymoient et adoroient au delà de toute autre faculté diuine, et ainsi des autres.
Animals consecrated by the barbarians for the benefits they conferred: This part / Worships the crocodile, that one dreads the ibis gorged with serpents; / Here gleams the golden image of a sacred long-tailed monkey; / here they revere a river fish, there / Whole towns worship a dog. And the very interpretation Plutarch gives of this error, which is very well taken, is still honorable to them. For he says that it was not the cat or the ox, for example, that the Egyptians worshiped, but that they worshiped in those animals some image of the divine faculties: in this one patience and usefulness; in that one liveliness, or—like our neighbors the Burgundians, together with all Germany—impatience at being shut in, by which they represented liberty, which they loved and worshiped beyond every other divine faculty; and so with the others.
Mais quand ie rencontre parmy les opinions plus moderées, les discours qui essayent à montrer la prochaine ressemblance de nous aux animaux: et combien ils ont de part à nos plus grands priuileges; et auec combien de vray-semblance on nous les apparie; certes i’en rabats beaucoup de nostre presomption, et me demets volontiers de cette royauté imaginaire, qu’on nous donne sur les autres creatures.
But when I come across, among the more moderate opinions, the arguments that try to show how closely we resemble the animals, how large a share they have in our greatest privileges, and how plausibly they are matched with us, I certainly abate much of our presumption, and willingly resign that imaginary kingship over the other creatures that we are given.
Quand tout cela en seroit à dire, si y a-il vn certain respect, qui nous attache, et vn general deuoir d’humanité, non aux bestes seulement, qui ont vie et sentiment, mais aux arbres mesmes et aux plantes. Nous deuons la iustice aux hommes, et la grace et la benignité aux autres creatures, qui en peuuent estre capables. Il y a quelque commerce entre elles et nous, et quelque obligation mutuelle. Ie ne crains point à dire la tendresse de ma nature si puerile, que ie ne puis pas bien refuser à mon chien la feste, qu’il m’offre hors de saison, ou qu’il me demande.
Even if all that were set aside, there is still a certain respect that binds us, and a general duty of humanity, not only to animals, which have life and feeling, but even to trees and plants. We owe justice to men, and grace and kindness to the other creatures that may be capable of them. There is some dealing between them and us, and some mutual obligation. I am not afraid to admit that my nature is so childishly tender that I cannot well refuse my dog the fuss he offers me, or asks of me, out of season.
Les Turcs ont des aumosnes et des hospitaux pour les bestes: les Romains auoient vn soing public de la nourriture des oyes, par la vigilance desquelles leur Capitole auoit esté sauué: les Atheniens ordonnerent que les mules et mulets, qui auoyent seruy au bastiment du temple appellé Hecatompedon, fussent libres, et qu’on les laissast paistre par tout sans empeschement. Les Agrigentins auoyent en vsage commun, d’enterrer serieusement les bestes, qu’ils auoient eu cheres: comme les cheuaux de quelque rare merite, les chiens et les oyseaux vtiles: ou mesme qui auoyent seruy de passe-temps à leurs enfans.
The Turks have alms and hospitals for animals. The Romans took public care of feeding the geese by whose vigilance their Capitol had been saved. The Athenians ordered that the she-mules and mules that had served in building the temple called Hecatompedon should be free, and allowed to graze anywhere without hindrance. The Agrigentines had a common custom of solemnly burying the animals they had held dear, such as horses of rare merit, useful dogs and birds, or even those that had served as playthings for their children.
Et la magnificence, qui leur estoit ordinaire en toutes autres choses, paroissoit aussi singulierement, à la sumptuosité et nombre des monuments esleuez à cette fin: qui ont duré en parade, plusieurs siecles depuis. Les Ægyptiens enterroyent les loups, les ours, les crocodiles, les chiens, et les chats, en lieux sacrés: embausmoyent leurs corps, et portoyent le deuil à leurs trespas. Cimon fit vne sepulture honorable aux iuments, auec lesquelles il auoit gaigné par trois fois le prix de la course aux ieux Olympiques. L’ancien Xanthippus fit enterrer son chien sur vn chef, en la coste de la mer, qui en a depuis retenu le nom.
And the magnificence that was usual with them in all other things appeared singularly in this too, in the sumptuousness and number of the monuments raised for this purpose, which remained on display for several centuries afterward. The Egyptians buried wolves, bears, crocodiles, dogs and cats in sacred places, embalmed their bodies and went into mourning at their deaths. Cimon gave an honorable burial to the mares with which he had three times won the prize for the race at the Olympic Games. The elder Xanthippus had his dog buried on a headland by the sea, which has kept its name ever since.
Et Plutarque faisoit, dit-il, conscience, de vendre et enuoyer à la boucherie, pour vn leger profit, vn bœuf qui l’auoit long temps seruy.
And Plutarch, he says, had scruples about selling an ox that had served him a long time and sending it to the butcher for a slight profit.