QVAND nous iugeons de l’asseurance d’autruy en la mort, qui est sans doubte la plus remerquable action de la vie humaine, il se faut prendre garde d’vne chose, que mal-aisément on croit estre arriué à ce poinct. Peu de gens meurent resolus, que ce soit leur heure derniere: et n’est endroit où la pipperie de l’esperance nous amuse plus. Elle ne cesse de corner aux oreilles: D’autres ont bien esté plus malades sans mourir, l’affaire n’est pas si desesperé qu’on pense: et au pis aller, Dieu a bien faict d’autres miracles. Et aduient cela de ce que nous faisons trop de cas de nous. Il semble que l’vniuersité des choses souffre aucunement de nostre aneantissement, et qu’elle soit compassionnée à nostre estat.
When we judge another man’s assurance in death, which is without doubt the most noteworthy action of human life, we must beware of one thing: that people find it hard to believe they have reached that point. Few men die convinced that it is their last hour, and there is no situation in which the deception of hope beguiles us more. It never stops trumpeting in our ears: “Others have been much sicker than this without dying; the case is not as hopeless as people think; and at worst, God has worked other miracles.” And this comes about because we make too much of ourselves. It seems that the universe somehow suffers from our annihilation, and that it takes pity on our condition.
D’autant que nostre veuë alterée se represente les choses de mesmes, et nous est aduis qu’elles luy faillent à mesure qu’elle leur faut. Comme ceux qui voyagent en mer, à qui les montagnes, les campagnes, les villes, le ciel, et la terre vont mesme bransle, et quant et quant eux: Prouehimur portu, terræque vrbésque recedunt. Qui vit iamais vieillesse qui ne louast le temps passé, et ne blasmast le present, chargeant le monde et les mœurs des hommes, de sa misere et de son chagrin? Iámque caput quassans, grandis suspirat arator, / Et cùm tempora temporibus præsentia confert / Præteritis, laudat fortunas sæpe parentis, / Et crepat antiquum genus vt pietate repletum.
For our altered sight pictures things in the same way, and we suppose that they are failing it as fast as it fails them—like those who travel by sea, for whom the mountains, the fields, the towns, the sky and the earth move with the same motion, and along with them: We sail out from harbor, and lands and cities recede. Who ever saw old age that did not praise times past and blame the present, charging the world and the manners of men with its own misery and sullenness? And now the old plowman shakes his head and sighs, / And when he compares the present times with times / Past, he often praises his father’s fortunes, / And harps on how the old race was full of piety.
Nous entrainons tout auec nous: d’où il s’ensuit que nous estimons grande chose nostre mort, et qui ne passe pas si aisément, ny sans solemne consultation des astres: tot circa vnum caput tumultuantes deos. Et le pensons d’autant plus, que plus nous nous prisons. Comment, tant de science se perdroit elle auec tant de dommage, sans particulier soucy des destinées? vne ame si rare et exemplaire ne couste elle non plus à tuer, qu’vne ame populaire et inutile? cette vie, qui en couure tant d’autres, de qui tant d’autres vies dependent, qui occupe tant de monde par son vsage, remplit tant de place, se desplace elle comme celle qui tient à son simple nœud? Nul de nous ne pense assez n’estre qu’vn.
We drag everything along with us. From this it follows that we regard our death as a great thing, one that does not pass so easily, nor without solemn consultation of the stars: so many gods in an uproar over one head. And we think so all the more, the more highly we prize ourselves. What! Should so much learning be lost, with so much harm, without the special concern of the Fates? Does so rare and exemplary a soul cost no more to kill than a common, useless one? This life, which shelters so many others, on which so many other lives depend, which keeps so many people busy in its service and fills so much space—is it dislodged like one that hangs by its own single knot? None of us thinks enough that he is only one.
De là viennent ces mots de Cæsar à son pilote, plus enflez que la mer qui le menassoit: Italiam si cœlo authore recusas, / Me pete: sola tibi causa hæc est iusta timoris, / Vectorem non nosse tuum, perrumpe procellas / Tutela secure mei: et ceux-cy, Credit iam digna pericula Cæsar / Fatis esse suis: tantúsque euertere, dixit, / Me superis labor est, parua quem puppe sedentem, / Tam magno petiere mari? Et cette resuerie publique, que le soleil porta en son front tout le long d’vn an le deuil de sa mort: Ille etiam extincto miseratus Cæsare Romam, / Cùm caput obscura nitidum ferrugini texit. Et mille semblables; dequoy le monde se laisse si aysément pipper, estimant que noz interests alterent le ciel, et que son infinité se formalise de noz menues actions.
From this come those words of Caesar to his pilot, more swollen than the sea that threatened him: If you refuse Italy with heaven as your guide, / Make for it with me as guide: the only just cause of fear for you / Is not knowing whom you carry; break through the storms, / Secure in my protection: and these: Caesar now believes these dangers worthy / Of his destiny: “Is it so great a labor,” he said, / “For the gods above to overthrow me, that they assail me, sitting in a little boat, / With so vast a sea?” And that public fancy that the sun wore mourning for his death on its brow for a whole year: He too took pity on Rome when Caesar was extinguished, / And covered his shining head in dark rust. And a thousand like ones, by which the world lets itself be so easily fooled, thinking that our interests disturb heaven, and that its infinity takes offense at our petty actions.
Non tanta cœlo societas nobiscum est, vt nostro fato mortalis sit ille quoque siderum fulgor.
Heaven has no such fellowship with us that the brightness of the stars should be mortal through our fate as well.
Or de iuger la resolution et la constance, en celuy qui ne croit pas encore certainement estre au danger, quoy qu’il y soit, ce n’est pas raison: et ne suffit pas qu’il soit mort en cette desmarche, s’il ne s’y estoit mis iustement pour cet effect. Il aduient à la plus part, de roidir leur contenance et leurs parolles, pour en acquerir reputation, qu’ils esperent encore iouir viuans. D’autant que i’en ay veu mourir, la fortune a disposé les contenances, non leur dessein. Et de ceux mesmes qui se sont anciennement donnez la mort, il y a bien à choisir, si c’est vne mort soudaine, ou mort qui ait du temps.
Now it is not reasonable to judge resolution and constancy in a man who does not yet firmly believe he is in danger, even though he is. Nor is it enough that he died in that situation, unless he had put himself there precisely for that purpose. Most men stiffen their bearing and their words to win a reputation that they still hope to enjoy while alive. Of those I have seen die, it was Fortune that arranged their bearing, not their own design. And even among those who took their own lives in ancient times, there is a great difference between a sudden death and a death that takes its time.
Ce cruel Empereur Romain, disoit de ses prisonniers, qu’il leur vouloit faire sentir la mort, et si quelqu’vn se deffaisoit en prison, Celuy là m’est eschappé, disoit-il. Il vouloit estendre la mort, et la faire sentir par les tourmens. Vidimus et toto quamuis in corpore cæso, / Nil animæ lethale datum, morémque nefandæ / Durum sæuitiæ, pereuntis parcere morti. De vray, ce n’est pas si grande chose, d’establir tout sain et tout rassis, de se tuer; il est bien aisé de faire le mauuais, auant que de venir aux prises.
That cruel Roman emperor said of his prisoners that he wanted to make them feel death; and if one of them did away with himself in prison, “That one has escaped me,” he would say. He wanted to stretch death out and make it felt through torments. We have seen, though the whole body was slashed, / No fatal blow dealt to the life, and the harsh custom / Of unspeakable cruelty: to withhold death from the dying. In truth, it is no great thing to decide to kill yourself while you are perfectly healthy and perfectly calm. It is very easy to act tough before coming to grips.
De maniere que le plus effeminé homme du monde Heliogabalus, parmy ses plus lasches voluptez, desseignoit bien de se faire mourir delicatement, où l’occasion l’en forceroit: et afin que sa mort ne dementist point le reste de sa vie, auoit faict bastir expres vne tour somptueuse, le bas et le deuant de laquelle estoit planché d’ais enrichis d’or et de pierrerie pour se precipiter: et aussi fait faire des cordes d’or et de soye cramoisie pour s’estrangler: et battre vne espée d’or pour s’enferrer: et gardoit du venin dans des vaisseaux d’emeraude et de topaze, pour s’empoisonner, selon que l’enuie luy prendroit de choisir de toutes ces façons de mourir.
So it was that Heliogabalus, the softest man in the world, amid his most dissolute pleasures, fully intended to put himself to death delicately should occasion force him to. So that his death should not belie the rest of his life, he had a sumptuous tower built on purpose to throw himself from, its base and front floored with boards inlaid with gold and precious stones. He also had cords of gold and crimson silk made to strangle himself, and a sword of gold forged to run himself through. And he kept poison in vessels of emerald and topaz to poison himself, depending on which of all these ways of dying he might feel like choosing.
Impiger et fortis virtute coacta. Toutefois quant à cettuy-cy, la mollesse de ses apprests rend plus vray-semblable que le nez luy eust saigné, qui l’en eust mis au propre. Mais de ceux mesmes, qui plus vigoureux, se sont resolus à l’execution, il faut voir, dis-ie, si ç’a esté d’vn coup, qui ostait le loisir d’en sentir l’effect. Car c’est à deuiner, à voir escouler la vie peu à peu, le sentiment du corps se meslant à celuy de l’ame, s’offrant le moyen de se repentir, si la constance s’y fust trouuée, et l’obstination en vne si dangereuse volonté. Aux guerres ciuiles de Cæsar, Lucius Domitius pris en la Prusse, s’estant empoisonné, s’en repentit apres.
Vigorous and brave with a courage forced upon him. Still, as for this one, the softness of his preparations makes it more likely that he would have lost his nerve had it come to the point. But even among those who were more vigorous and resolved to carry the deed through, we must see, I say, whether it was done at a single stroke, which left no leisure to feel its effect. For it is anyone’s guess whether, watching life drain away little by little, with the feeling of the body mingling with that of the soul and the chance to repent presenting itself, they would have shown constancy and obstinacy in so dangerous a resolve. In Caesar’s civil wars, Lucius Domitius, captured in Prussia, poisoned himself and then repented of it.
Il est aduenu de nostre temps que tel resolu de mourir, et de son premier essay n’ayant donné assez auant, la demangéson de la chair luy repoussant le bras, se reblessa bien fort à deux ou trois fois apres, mais ne peut iamais gaigner sur luy d’enfoncer le coup. Pendant qu’on faisoit le procés à Plantius Syluanus, Vrgulania sa mere-grand luy enuoya vn poignard, duquel n’ayant peu venir à bout de se tuer, il se feit coupper les veines à ses gents. Albucilla du temps de Tibere, s’estant pour se tuer frappée trop mollement, donna encores à ses parties moyen de l’emprisonner et faire mourir à leur mode. Autant en fit le Capitaine Demosthenes apres sa route en la Sicile. Et C.
It has happened in our time that a man resolved to die did not strike deep enough at his first attempt, the shrinking of his flesh pushing back his arm. He wounded himself again quite badly two or three times afterward, but could never bring himself to drive the blow home. While Plautius Silvanus was on trial, his grandmother Urgulania sent him a dagger; unable to finish himself off with it, he had his servants cut his veins. Albucilla, in the time of Tiberius, struck herself too feebly in trying to kill herself, and so gave her enemies the chance to imprison her and put her to death in their own way. The general Demosthenes did the same after his rout in Sicily. And C.
Fimbria s’estant frappé trop foiblement, impetra de son vallet de l’acheuer. Au rebours, Ostorius, lequel pour ne se pouuoir seruir de son bras, desdaigna d’employer celuy de son seruiteur à autre chose qu’à tenir le poignard droit et ferme: et se donnant le branle, porta luy mesme sa gorge à l’encontre, et la transperça.
Fimbria, having struck himself too weakly, begged his servant to finish him off. Ostorius, on the contrary, being unable to use his own arm, disdained to use his servant’s for anything but holding the dagger straight and firm; and, launching himself, he drove his throat onto it himself and pierced it through.
C’est vne viande à la verité qu’il faut engloutir sans macher, qui n’a le gosier ferré à glace. Et pourtant l’Empereur Adrianus feit que son medecin merquast et circonscriuist en son tetin iustement l’endroit mortel, où celuy eust à viser, à qui il donna la charge de le tuer. Voyla pourquoy Cæsar, quand on luy demandoit quelle mort il trouuoit la plus souhaitable, La moins premeditée, respondit-il, et la plus courte. Si Cæsar l’a osé dire, ce ne m’est plus lascheté de le croire. Vne mort courte, dit Pline, est le souuerain heur de la vie humaine. Il leur fasche de la recognoistre.
Death, in truth, is a dish that must be swallowed without chewing, unless your throat is lined with iron. And so the Emperor Hadrian had his physician mark and circle on his breast, just by the nipple, the exact mortal spot at which the man he charged with killing him was to aim. That is why Caesar, when asked what death he thought most desirable, answered: “The least premeditated, and the shortest.” If Caesar dared to say it, it is no longer cowardice in me to believe it. “A short death,” says Pliny, “is the supreme good fortune of human life.” People hate to look it over closely.
Nul ne se peut dire estre resolu à la mort, qui craint à la marchander, qui ne peut la soustenir les yeux ouuerts. Ceux qu’on voit aux supplices courir à leur fin, et haster l’execution, et la presser, ils ne le font pas de resolution, ils se veulent oster le temps de la considerer: l’estre morts ne les fasche pas, mais ouy bien le mourir. Emori nolo, sed me esse mortuum, nihili æstimo. C’est vn degré de fermeté, auquel i’ay exprimenté que ie pourrois arriuer, comme ceux qui se iettent dans les dangers, ainsi que dans la mer, à yeux clos.
No one can be called resolved to die who is afraid to haggle with death, who cannot endure it with open eyes. Those we see at executions running to their end, hurrying the execution and pressing it on, do not do so out of resolution: they want to deprive themselves of the time to consider it. Being dead does not trouble them, but dying certainly does. I do not want to die, but being dead I count as nothing. This is a degree of firmness that I have found by experience I could reach—like those who throw themselves into danger as into the sea, with their eyes shut.
Deaths that take their time
Socrates spent thirty days with his sentence; Atticus, Cleanthes and Marcellinus chose to die slowly and calmly.
Il n’y a rien, selon moy, plus illustre en la vie de Socrates, que d’auoir eu trente iours entiers à ruminer le decret de sa mort: de l’auoir digerée tout ce temps là, d’vne tres-certaine esperance, sans esmoy, sans alteration: et d’vn train d’actions et de parolles, rauallé plustost et anonchally, que tendu et releué par le poids d’vne telle cogitation.
Nothing in Socrates’ life, in my opinion, is more illustrious than his having had thirty whole days to ruminate on the sentence of his death; than his having digested it all that time, in most certain expectation, without anxiety, without change; and with a course of actions and words that was lowered and easygoing rather than strained and heightened by the weight of such a thought.
Ce Pomponius Atticus, à qui Cicero escrit, estant malade, fit appeller Agrippa son gendre, et deux ou trois autres de ses amys; et leur dit, qu’ayant essayé qu’il ne gaignoit rien à se vouloir guerir, et que tout ce qu’il faisoit pour allonger sa vie, allongeoit aussi et augmentoit sa douleur; il estoit deliberé de mettre fin à l’vn et à l’autre, les priant de trouuer bonne sa deliberation, et au pis aller, de ne perdre point leur peine à l’en destourner. Or ayant choisi de se tuer par abstinence, voyla sa maladie guerie par accident: ce remede qu’il auoit employé pour se deffaire, le remet en santé.
That Pomponius Atticus to whom Cicero writes, being ill, sent for Agrippa, his son-in-law, and two or three other friends. He told them that he had found by trial that he gained nothing by trying to get well, and that everything he did to lengthen his life also lengthened and increased his pain; so he was determined to put an end to both. He begged them to approve his decision and, at worst, not to waste their efforts trying to dissuade him. Now, having chosen to kill himself by fasting, lo and behold, his illness was cured by chance: the remedy he had used to do away with himself restored him to health.
Les medecins et ses amis faisans feste d’vn si heureux euenement, et s’en resiouyssans auec luy, se trouuerent bien trompez: car il ne leur fut possible pour cela de luy faire changer d’opinion, disant qu’ainsi comme ainsi luy falloit il vn iour franchir ce pas, et qu’en estant si auant, il se vouloit oster la peine de recommencer vn’ autre fois. Cestuy-cy ayant recognu la mort tout à loisir, non seulement ne se descourage pas au ioindre, mais il s’y acharne: car estant satisfaict en ce pourquoy il estoit entré en combat, il se picque par brauerie d’en voir la fin. C’est bien loing au delà de ne craindre point la mort, que de la vouloir taster et sauourer.
The physicians and his friends, celebrating so happy an outcome and rejoicing with him, found themselves sorely disappointed. For all that, they could not make him change his mind: he said that one way or another he would have to take that step someday, and that, being so far along, he wanted to spare himself the trouble of starting over another time. This man, having surveyed death at full leisure, not only is not discouraged on coming to grips with it, but presses on relentlessly; for, having got what he entered the fight for, he makes it a point of bravado to see it through to the end. It is far beyond not fearing death to want to taste and savor it.
L’histoire du philosophe Cleanthes est fort pareille. Les gengiues luy estoyent enflées et pourries: les medecins luy conseillerent d’vser d’vne grande abstinence. Ayant ieuné deux iours, il est si bien amendé, qu’ils luy declarent sa guarison, et permettent de retourner à son train de viure accoustumé. Luy au rebours, goustant desia quelque douceur en cette defaillance, entreprend de ne se retirer plus arriere, et franchir le pas, qu’il auoit fort auancé.
The story of the philosopher Cleanthes is very similar. His gums were swollen and rotting; the physicians advised him to fast strictly. After fasting two days he was so much better that they declared him cured and allowed him to return to his usual way of life. He, on the contrary, already tasting some sweetness in this faintness, resolved not to draw back again but to take the step toward which he had already come so far.
Tullius Marcellinus ieune homme Romain, voulant anticiper l’heure de sa destinée, pour se deffaire d’vne maladie, qui le gourmandoit, plus qu’il ne vouloit souffrir: quoy que les medecins luy en promissent guerison certaine, sinon si soudaine, appella ses amis pour en deliberer: les vns, dit Seneca, luy donnoyent le conseil que par lascheté ils eussent prins pour eux mesmes, les autres par flaterie, celuy qu’ils pensoyent luy deuoir estre plus aggreable: mais vn Stoïcien luy dit ainsi: Ne te trauaille pas Marcellinus, comme si tu deliberois de chose d’importance: ce n’est pas grand’chose que viure, tes valets et les bestes viuent: mais c’est grand’chose de mourir honestement, sagement, et constamment.
Tullius Marcellinus, a young Roman, wished to anticipate the hour of his destiny so as to rid himself of an illness that was tormenting him more than he was willing to endure, even though the physicians promised him a sure cure, if not a quick one. He called his friends to deliberate about it. Some, says Seneca, gave him the advice that they themselves would have taken out of cowardice; others, out of flattery, the advice they thought he would like best. But a Stoic spoke to him thus: “Do not trouble yourself, Marcellinus, as if you were deliberating about something important. It is no great thing to live; your servants and the beasts live. But it is a great thing to die honorably, wisely, and steadfastly.”
Songe combien il y a que tu fais mesme chose, manger, boire, dormir: boire, dormir, et manger. Nous roüons sans cesse en ce cercle. Non seulement les mauuais accidens et insupportables, mais la satieté mesme de viure donne enuie de la mort.
“Think how long you have been doing the same thing: eating, drinking, sleeping; drinking, sleeping, and eating. We go round and round endlessly in this circle. Not only bad and unbearable misfortunes, but even being sated with living, make one long for death.”
Marcellinus n’auoit besoing d’homme qui le conseillast, mais d’homme qui le secourust: les seruiteurs craignoyent de s’en mesler: mais ce philosophe leur fit entendre que les domestiques sont soupçonnez, lors seulement qu’il est en doubte, si la mort du maistre a esté volontaire: autrement qu’il seroit d’aussi mauuais exemple de l’empescher, que de le tuer, d’autant que Inuitum qui seruat, idem facit occidenti. Apres il aduertit Marcellinus, qu’il ne seroit pas messeant, comme le dessert des tables se donne aux assistans, nos repas faicts, aussi la vie finie, de distribuer quelque chose à ceux qui en ont esté les ministres. Or estoit Marcellinus de courage franc et liberal: il fit departir quelque somme à ses seruiteurs, et les consola.
Marcellinus did not need a man to advise him but a man to help him. His servants were afraid to get involved; but this philosopher made them understand that members of a household are suspected only when there is doubt whether the master’s death was voluntary. Otherwise, he said, it would set as bad an example to prevent him as to kill him, since he who saves a man against his will does the same as one who kills him. Then he advised Marcellinus that it would not be unseemly, just as the dessert is given to those standing by when our meal is over, so too, at the end of life, to distribute something to those who had served it. Now Marcellinus was of a frank and generous heart: he had a sum divided among his servants and comforted them.
Au reste, il n’y eut besoing de fer, ny de sang: il entreprit de s’en aller de cette vie, non de s’en fuyr: non d’eschapper à la mort, mais de l’essayer. Et pour se donner loisir de la marchander, ayant quitté toute nourriture, le troisiesme iour suyuant, apres s’estre faict arroser d’eau tiede, il defaillit peu à peu, et non sans quelque volupté, à ce qu’il disoit. De vray, ceux qui ont eu ces deffaillances de cœur, qui prennent par foiblesse, disent n’y sentir aucune douleur, ains plustost quelque plaisir comme d’vn passage au sommeil et au repos. Voyla des morts estudiées et digerées.
For the rest, there was no need of steel or blood. He set out to depart from this life, not to flee from it; not to escape death but to try it out. And to give himself leisure to haggle with it, he gave up all food; on the third day after, having had himself sprinkled with warm water, he faded away little by little, and not without some pleasure, as he said. Indeed, those who have had these faintings of the heart that come from weakness say they feel no pain in them, but rather a kind of pleasure, as of a passage into sleep and rest. Those are deaths studied and digested.
Mais à fin que le seul Caton peust fournir à tout exemple de vertu, il semble que son bon destin luy fit auoir mal en la main, dequoy il se donna le coup: à ce qu’il eust loisir d’affronter la mort et de la colleter, renforceant le courage au danger, au lieu de l’amollir. Et si ç’eust esté à moy, de le representer en sa plus superbe assiete, ç’eust esté deschirant tout ensanglanté ses entrailles, plustost que l’espée au poing, comme firent les statuaires de son temps. Car ce second meurtre, fut bien plus furieux, que le premier.
But so that Cato alone might furnish every example of virtue, it seems his good destiny gave him a sore hand—the one he struck himself with—so that he had leisure to confront death and grapple with it, his courage growing stronger in the danger instead of softer. And if it had been up to me to portray him in his proudest posture, I would have shown him all bloodied, tearing out his entrails, rather than sword in hand, as the sculptors of his time did. For that second killing was far more furious than the first.