IL y a vne autre sorte de gloire, qui est vne trop bonne opinion, que nous conceuons de nostre valeur. C’est vn’affection inconsiderée, dequoy nous nous cherissons, qui nous represente à nous mesmes, autres que nous ne sommes. Comme la passion amoureuse preste des beautez, et des graces, au subject qu’elle embrasse, et fait que ceux qui en sont espris, trouuent d’vn iugement trouble et alteré, ce qu’ils ayment, autre et plus parfaict qu’il n’est.
There is another kind of glory, which is an overgood opinion we form of our own worth. It is an ill-considered affection with which we cherish ourselves, which represents us to ourselves as other than we are. It is like the passion of love, which lends beauties and graces to the object it embraces, and makes those smitten with it find what they love, with troubled and altered judgment, other and more perfect than it is.
Ie ne veux pas, que de peur de faillir de ce costé là, vn homme se mescognoisse pourtant, ny qu’il pense estre moins que ce qu’il est: le iugement doit tout par tout maintenir son droit. C’est raison qu’il voye en ce subject comme ailleurs, ce que la verité luy presente. Si c’est Cæsar, qu’il se treuue hardiment le plus grand Capitaine du monde. Nous ne sommes que ceremonie, la ceremonie nous emporte, et laissons la substance des choses: nous nous tenons aux branches et abandonnons le tronc et le corps.
I do not want a man, for fear of erring on that side, to fail to know himself on that account, or to think he is less than he is: judgment must maintain its rights everywhere. It is right that he should see in this matter, as elsewhere, what truth shows him. If he is Caesar, let him boldly find himself the greatest captain in the world. We are nothing but ceremony; ceremony carries us away, and we leave the substance of things. We cling to the branches and abandon the trunk and the body.
Nous auons appris aux Dames de rougir, oyants seulement nommer, ce qu’elles ne craignent aucunement à faire: nous n’osons appeller à droict noz membres, et ne craignons pas de les employer à toute sorte de desbauche.
We have taught ladies to blush at merely hearing named what they are not in the least afraid to do. We dare not call our members by their right names, and we are not afraid to use them in every kind of debauchery.
La ceremonie nous deffend d’exprimer par parolles les choses licites et naturelles, et nous l’en croyons: la raison nous deffend de n’en faire point d’illicites et mauuaises, et personne ne l’en croit. Ie me trouue icy empestré és loix de la ceremonie: car elle ne permet, ny qu’on parle bien de soy, ny qu’on en parle mal. Nous la lairrons là pour ce coup. Ceux de qui la Fortune, bonne ou mauuaise qu’on la doiue appeller, a faict passer la vie en quelque eminent degré, ils peuuent par leurs actions publiques tesmoigner quels ils sont.
Ceremony forbids us to express in words things that are lawful and natural, and we believe it; reason forbids us to do things that are unlawful and wicked, and no one believes it. I find myself entangled here in the laws of ceremony, for it allows us neither to speak well of ourselves nor to speak ill. We shall leave it aside for this once. Those whose lives Fortune—whether we should call it good or bad—has made pass in some eminent rank can show by their public actions what they are.
Mais ceux qu’elle n’a employez qu’en foule, et de qui personne ne parlera, si eux mesmes n’en parlent, ils sont excusables, s’ils prennent la hardiesse de parler d’eux, mesmes enuers ceux qui ont interest de les cognoistre; à l’exemple de Lucilius: Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim / Credebat libris, neque si malè cesserat, vsquam / Decurrens alio, neque si benè: quo fit, vt omnis / Votiua pateat veluti descripta tabella / Vita senis. Celuy la commettoit à son papier ses actions et ses pensées, et s’y peignoit tel qu’il se sentoit estre. Nec id Rutilio et Scauro citra fidem, aut obtrectationi fuit.
But those whom she has employed only in the crowd, and of whom no one will speak unless they speak themselves, are excusable if they make bold to speak of themselves to those who have an interest in knowing them, following the example of Lucilius: He used to confide his secrets to his books as to faithful friends, / Never turning elsewhere, whether things had gone badly / Or well; so that the old man’s whole life / Lies open to view, as if painted / On a votive tablet. That man entrusted his actions and his thoughts to his paper, and portrayed himself there as he felt himself to be. Nor did Rutilius and Scaurus lose credit or meet with disparagement for doing so.
Gestures of pride
Montaigne asks whether his bearing betrayed pride, and notes the unconscious mannerisms of great men.
Il me souuient donc, que dés ma plus tendre enfance, on remerquoit en moy ie ne sçay quel port de corps, et des gestes tesmoignants quelque vaine et sotte fierté. I’en veux dire premierement cecy, qu’il n’est pas inconuenient d’auoir des conditions et des propensions, si propres et si incorporées en nous, que nous n’ayons pas moyen de les sentir et recognoistre. Et de telles inclinations naturelles, le corps en retient volontiers quelque ply, sans nostre sçeu et consentement.
I remember, then, that from my earliest childhood people noticed in me a certain bearing of the body, and gestures that betrayed some vain and foolish pride. First I want to say this about it: it is quite possible to have qualities and propensities so much our own and so built into us that we have no means of sensing and recognizing them. And the body readily keeps some crease from such natural inclinations, without our knowledge or consent.
C’estoit vne affetterie consente de sa beauté, qui faisoit vn peu pancher la teste d’Alexandre sur vn costé, et qui rendoit le parler d’Alcibiades mol et gras: Iulius Cæsar se grattoit la teste d’vn doigt, qui est la contenance d’vn homme remply de pensemens penibles: et Cicero, ce me semble, auoit accoustumé de rincer le nez, qui signifie vn naturel mocqueur. Tels mouuemens peuuent arriuer imperceptiblement en nous. Il y en a d’autres artificiels, dequoy ie ne parle point. Comme les salutations, et reuerences, par où on acquiert le plus souuent à tort, l’honneur d’estre bien humble et courtois: on peut estre humble de gloire.
It was an affectation conscious of his beauty that made Alexander tilt his head a little to one side, and that made Alcibiades’ speech soft and lisping. Julius Caesar scratched his head with one finger, which is the gesture of a man full of painful thoughts; and Cicero, it seems to me, had the habit of wrinkling his nose, which signifies a mocking nature. Such movements can arise in us imperceptibly. There are others, artificial ones, which I am not talking about, such as salutations and bows, by which people most often win, undeservedly, the honor of being very humble and courteous: one can be humble out of vainglory.
Ie suis assez prodigue de bonnettades, notamment en esté, et n’en reçois iamais sans reuenche, de quelque qualité d’hommes que ce soit, s’il n’est à mes gages. Ie desirasse d’aucuns Princes que ie cognois, qu’ils en fussent plus espargnans et iustes dispensateurs; car ainsin indiscretement espanduës, elles ne portent plus de coup: si elles sont sans esgard, elles sont sans effect.
I am rather lavish with raising my hat, especially in summer, and I never receive such a greeting without returning it, whatever the rank of the man, unless he is in my pay. I could wish that some princes I know were more sparing with them and fairer in dispensing them; for, scattered so indiscriminately, they no longer carry any weight. If they are given without regard, they are without effect.
Entre les contenances desreglées, n’oublions pas la morgue de l’Empereur Constantius, qui en publicq tenoit tousiours la teste droicte, sans la contourner ou flechir ny çà ny là, non pas seulement pour regarder ceux qui le saluoient à costé, ayant le corps planté immobile, sans se laisser aller au bransle de son coche, sans oser ny cracher, ny se moucher, n’y essuyer le visage deuant les gens. Ie ne sçay si ces gestes qu’on remerquoit en moy, estoient de cette premiere condition, et si à la verité i’auoy quelque occulte propension à ce vice; comme il peut bien estre: et ne puis pas respondre des bransles du corps. Mais quant aux bransles de l’ame, ie veux icy confesser ce que i’en sens.
Among unruly bearings, let us not forget the haughtiness of the Emperor Constantius, who in public always held his head straight, without turning or bending it this way or that, not even to look at those who greeted him from the side; he kept his body planted motionless, not letting himself sway with the motion of his coach, not daring to spit, or blow his nose, or wipe his face in front of people. I do not know whether those gestures people noticed in me were of that first kind, and whether in truth I had some hidden propensity to this vice, as may well be; and I cannot answer for the movements of the body. But as for the movements of the soul, I want to confess here what I feel about them.
Valuing what is not mine
He rates his own things below others’ and embraces the opinions that most humble mankind.
Il y a deux parties en cette gloire: sçauoir est, de s’estimer trop, et n’estimer pas assez autruy. Quant à l’vne, il me semble premierement, ces considerations deuoir estre mises en compte. Ie me sens pressé d’vne erreur d’ame, qui me desplaist, et comme inique, et encore plus comme importune. I’essaye à la corriger: mais l’arracher ie ne puis. C’est, que ie diminue du iuste prix des choses, que ie possede: et hausse le prix aux choses, d’autant qu’elles sont estrangeres, absentes, et non miennes. Cette humeur s’espand bien loing. Comme la prerogatiue de l’authorité fait, que les maris regardent les femmes propres d’vn vicieux desdein, et plusieurs peres leurs enfants: ainsi fay-ie: et entre deux pareils ouurages, poiseroy tousiours contre le mien.
There are two parts to this glory: namely, to esteem oneself too highly, and not to esteem others highly enough. As to the first, it seems to me that these considerations should be taken into account first. I feel myself burdened by an error of the soul that displeases me, both as unjust and still more as troublesome. I try to correct it, but I cannot root it out. It is that I lower the just value of the things I possess, and raise the value of things because they are foreign, absent and not mine. This temperament spreads very far. Just as the prerogative of authority makes husbands look upon their own wives with a vicious disdain, and many fathers their children, so do I; and between two equal works I would always weigh against my own.
Non tant que la ialousie de mon auancement et amendement trouble mon iugement, et m’empesche de me satisfaire, comme que, d’elle mesme la maistrise engendre mespris de ce qu’on tient et regente. Les polices, les mœurs loingtaines me flattent, et les langues. Et m’apperçoy que le Latin me pippe par la faueur de sa dignité, au delà de ce qui luy appartient, comme aux enfants et au vulgaire. L’œconomie, la maison, le cheual de mon voisin, en egale valeur, vault mieux que le mien, de ce qu’il n’est pas mien. Dauantage, que ie suis tres-ignorant en mon faict: i’admire l’asseurance et promesse, que chacun a de soy: là où il n’est quasi rien que ie sçache sçauoir, ny que i’ose me respondre pouuoir faire.
Not so much because jealousy for my progress and improvement troubles my judgment and keeps me from being satisfied with myself, as because mastery in itself breeds contempt for what one holds and governs. Distant governments and manners appeal to me, and so do distant languages. And I notice that Latin beguiles me, through the favor of its dignity, beyond what is its due, as it does children and the common people. My neighbor’s management, his house, his horse, though of equal value, are better than mine because they are not mine. Moreover, I am very ignorant about my own affairs. I admire the assurance and confidence that everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything that I know I know, or that I dare promise myself I can do.
Ie n’ay point mes moyens en proposition et par estat: et n’en suis instruit qu’apres l’effect: autant doubteux de ma force que d’vne autre force. D’où il aduient, si ie rencontre louablement en vne besongne, que ie le donne plus à ma fortune, qu’à mon industrie: d’autant que ie les desseigne toutes au hazard et en crainte.
I do not have my capacities set out and itemized in advance; I learn of them only after the event, as doubtful of my own strength as of anyone else’s. Hence, if I succeed creditably in some task, I put it down more to my luck than to my skill, since I plan every task at random and in fear.
Pareillement i’ay en general cecy, que de toutes les opinions que l’ancienneté a euës de l’homme en gros, celles que i’embrasse plus volontiers, et ausquelles ie m’attache le plus, ce sont celles qui nous mesprisent, auilissent, et aneantissent le plus. La philosophie ne me semble iamais auoir si beau ieu, que quand elle combat nostre presomption et vanité; quand elle recognoist de bonne foy son irresolution, sa foiblesse, et son ignorance. Il me semble que la mere nourrice des plus fausses opinions, et publiques et particulieres, c’est la trop bonne opinion que l’homme a de soy.
Likewise I have this in general: of all the opinions antiquity has held of man as a whole, those I embrace most willingly and cling to most are those that most despise, debase and annihilate us. Philosophy never seems to me to have so fine a game as when it combats our presumption and vanity, when it acknowledges in good faith its irresolution, its weakness and its ignorance. It seems to me that the nursing mother of the falsest opinions, both public and private, is man’s overgood opinion of himself.
Ces gens qui se perchent à cheuauchons sur l’epicycle de Mercure, qui voient si auant dans le ciel, ils m’arrachent les dents: car en l’estude que ie fay, duquel le subject, c’est l’homme, trouuant vne si extreme varieté de iugemens, vn si profond labyrinthe de difficultez les vnes sur les autres, tant de diuersité et incertitude, en l’eschole mesme de la sapience: vous pouuez penser, puis que ces gens là n’ont peu se resoudre de la cognoissance d’eux mesmes, et de leur propre condition, qui est continuellement presente à leurs yeux, qui est dans eux; puis qu’ils ne sçauent comment bransle ce qu’eux mesmes font bransler, ny comment nous peindre et deschiffrer les ressorts qu’ils tiennent et manient eux mesmes, comment ie les croirois de la cause du flux et reflux de la riuiere du Nil.
Those people who perch astride the epicycle of Mercury, who see so far into the heavens, set my teeth on edge. For in the study I pursue, whose subject is man, I find so extreme a variety of judgments, so deep a labyrinth of difficulties piled one upon another, so much diversity and uncertainty in the very school of wisdom. You can imagine, then: since those people have not been able to settle the knowledge of themselves and of their own condition, which is continually before their eyes and within them; since they do not know how that moves which they themselves set moving, nor how to portray and decipher for us the springs they themselves hold and handle—how could I believe them about the cause of the rise and fall of the river Nile?
La curiosité de cognoistre les choses, a esté donnée aux hommes pour fleau, dit la saincte Escriture.
The curiosity to know things was given to men as a scourge, says Holy Scripture.
Mais pour venir à mon particulier, il est bien difficile, ce me semble, qu’aucun autre s’estime moins, voire qu’aucun autre m’estime moins, que ce que ie m’estime. Ie me tien de la commune sorte, sauf en ce que ie m’en tiens: coulpable des deffectuositez plus basses et populaires: mais non desaduoüées, non excusées. Et ne me prise seulement que de ce que ie sçay mon prix. S’il y a de la gloire, elle est infuse en moy superficiellement, par la trahison de ma complexion: et n’a point de corps, qui comparoisse à la veuë de mon iugement. I’en suis arrosé, mais non pas teint.
But to come to my own case, it is very hard, it seems to me, for anyone else to esteem himself less—or indeed for anyone else to esteem me less—than I esteem myself. I hold myself to be of the common sort, except in holding myself so; guilty of the lowest and most commonplace defects, but not disowning them, not excusing them. And I value myself only in that I know my value. If there is any glory in me, it is infused superficially, by the treachery of my constitution, and has no body that appears before the eye of my judgment. I am sprinkled with it, but not dyed in it.
Car à la verité, quant aux effects de l’esprit, en quelque façon que ce soit, il n’est iamais party de moy chose qui me contentast. Et l’approbation d’autruy ne me paye pas. I’ay le iugement tendre et difficile, et notamment en mon endroit. Ie me sens flotter et fleschir de foiblesse. Ie n’ay rien du mien, dequoy satisfaire mon iugement: i’ay la veue assez claire et reglée, mais à l’ouurer elle se trouble: comme i’essaye plus euidemment en la poësie. Ie l’ayme infiniment; ie me cognois assez aux ouurages d’autruy: mais ie fay à la verité l’enfant quand i’y veux mettre la main; ie ne me puis souffrir. On peut faire le sot par tout ailleurs, mais non en la poësie.
For in truth, as regards the products of the mind, of whatever kind, nothing has ever come from me that satisfied me. And other people’s approval does not repay me. My judgment is tender and hard to please, especially about myself. I feel myself wavering and bending with weakness. I have nothing of my own with which to satisfy my judgment. My sight is clear and orderly enough, but when I set to work it grows blurred, as I find most plainly in poetry. I love it infinitely; I am a fair judge of other people’s work; but in truth I act like a child when I try to set my own hand to it; I cannot bear myself. One may play the fool anywhere else, but not in poetry.
Mediocribus esse poetis / Non dij, non homines, non concessere columnæ. Pleust à Dieu que cette sentence se trouuast au front des boutiques de tous noz imprimeurs, pour en deffendre l’entrée à tant de versificateurs. Verùm / Nil securius est malo poeta.
Neither gods, nor men, nor booksellers’ columns / Have allowed poets to be mediocre. Would to God this maxim were posted over the doors of all our printers’ shops, to bar the way to so many versifiers! But / Nothing is more self-assured than a bad poet.
Que n’auons nous de tels peuples? Dionysius le pere n’estimoit rien tant de soy, que sa poësie. A la saison des jeux Olympiques, auec des chariots surpassant tous autres en magnificence, il enuoya aussi des poëtes et des musiciens, pour presenter ses vers, auec des tentes et pauillons dorez et tapissez royalement. Quand on vint à mettre ses vers en auant, la faueur et excellence de la prononciation attira sur le commencement l’attention du peuple. Mais quand par apres il vint à poiser l’ineptie de l’ouurage, il entra premierement en mespris: et continuant d’aigrir son iugement, il se ietta tantost en furie, et courut abbattre et deschirer par despit tous ces pauillons.
Why do we not have peoples like that? Dionysius the Elder valued nothing in himself so much as his poetry. At the season of the Olympic Games, along with chariots surpassing all others in magnificence, he also sent poets and musicians to present his verses, with tents and pavilions gilded and royally hung with tapestries. When they came to put his verses forward, the charm and excellence of the delivery at first caught the people’s attention. But when afterward the people came to weigh the ineptitude of the work, they first turned to contempt; and as their judgment grew ever more sour, they soon flew into a fury and rushed to pull down and tear up all those pavilions in spite.
Et ce que ces chariots ne feirent non plus, rien qui vaille en la course, et que la nauire, qui rapportoit ses gents, faillit la Sicile, et fut par la tempeste poussée et fracassée contre la coste de Tarante: il tint pour certain que c’estoit l’ire des Dieux irritez comme luy, contre ce mauuais poëme: et les mariniers mesmes, eschappez du naufrage, alloient secondant l’opinion de ce peuple: à laquelle, l’oracle qui predit sa mort, sembla aussi aucunement soubscrire. Il portoit, que Dionysius seroit pres de sa fin, quand il auroit vaincu ceux qui vaudroyent mieux que luy. Ce qu’il interpreta des Carthaginois, qui le surpassoyent en puissance.
And since those chariots likewise did nothing worthwhile in the race, and the ship bringing his people home missed Sicily and was driven by the storm and smashed against the coast of Taranto, the people held it for certain that this was the wrath of the gods, angered as they were against that bad poem. And the very sailors who escaped the shipwreck went about seconding the people’s opinion, to which the oracle that foretold his death also seemed in some way to subscribe. It declared that Dionysius would be near his end when he had defeated those who were better than he. This he took to mean the Carthaginians, who surpassed him in power.
Et ayant affaire à eux, gauchissoit souuent la victoire, et la temperoit, pour n’encourir le sens de cette prediction. Mais il l’entendoit mal: car le Dieu marquoit le temps de l’aduantage, que par faueur et iniustice il gaigna à Athenes sur les poëtes tragiques, meilleurs que luy: ayant faict iouer à l’enuy la sienne, intitulée les Leneïens. Soudain apres laquelle victoire, il trepassa: et en partie pour l’excessiue ioye, qu’il en conceut.
And in dealing with them he often sidestepped victory and tempered it, so as not to incur the meaning of this prediction. But he misunderstood it: for the god was marking the moment of the advantage he won at Athens, by favor and injustice, over tragic poets better than himself, when he had his tragedy, entitled The Lenaeans, performed in the competition. Immediately after this victory he died—and partly from the excessive joy it gave him.
Ce que ie treuue excusable du mien, ce n’est pas de soy, et à la verité: mais c’est à la comparaison d’autres choses pires, ausquelles ie voy qu’on donne credit. Ie suis enuieux du bon-heur de ceux, qui se sçauent resiouyr et gratifier en leur besongne; car c’est vn moyen aysé de se donner du plaisir, puis qu’on le tire de soy-mesmes. Specialement s’il y a vn peu de fermeté en leur opiniastrise. Ie sçay vn poëte, à qui fort et foible, en foulle et en chambre, et le ciel et la terre, crient qu’il n’y entend guere. Il n’en rabat pour tout cela rien de la mesure à quoy il s’est taillé.
What I find excusable in my own work is not excusable in itself and in truth, but only in comparison with other, worse things that I see given credit. I envy the good fortune of those who know how to rejoice in their work and take pleasure in it, for it is an easy way to give oneself pleasure, since one draws it from oneself—especially if there is a little firmness in their stubbornness. I know a poet to whom strong and weak, in public and in private, heaven and earth, all cry out that he knows little about it. For all that, he takes nothing off the measure he has cut himself to.
Tousiours recommence, tousiours reconsulte: et tousiours persiste, d’autant plus ahurté en son aduis, qu’il touche à luy seul, de le maintenir.
He is always starting again, always reconsidering, and always persisting, all the more stubborn in his opinion because it is up to him alone to uphold it.
Never pleased with my work
His writings never satisfy him; he describes his rough, unruly style and his Gascon and Latin.
Mes ouurages, il s’en faut tant qu’ils me rient, qu’autant de fois que ie les retaste, autant de fois ie m’en despite. Cùm relego, scripsisse pudet, quia plurima cerno, / Me quoque qui feci, iudice, digna lini. I’ay tousiours vne idée en l’ame, qui me presente vne meilleure forme, que celle que i’ay mis en besongne, mais ie ne la puis saisir ny exploicter. Et cette idée mesme n’est que du moyen estage. I’argumente par là, que les productions de ces riches et grandes ames du temps passé, sont bien loing au delà de l’extreme estenduë de mon imagination et souhaict. Leurs escris ne me satisfont pas seulement et me remplissent, mais ils m’estonnent et transissent d’admiration.
As for my works, they are so far from smiling on me that every time I go over them again, I am vexed with them. When I reread, I am ashamed to have written, for I see much / That even I, who wrote it, judge worth erasing. I always have an idea in my soul that presents me with a better form than the one I have put to work, but I cannot grasp it or make use of it. And that very idea is only of the middling sort. I conclude from this that the productions of those rich and great souls of times past lie far beyond the farthest reach of my imagination and my wishes. Their writings not only satisfy and fill me; they stun me and transfix me with admiration.
Ie iuge leur beauté, ie la voy, sinon iusques au bout, au moins si auant qu’il m’est impossible d’y aspirer. Quoy que i’entreprenne, ie doibs vn sacrifice aux Graces, comme dit Plutarque de quelqu’vn, pour practiquer leur faueur. Si quid enim placet, / Si quid dulce hominum sensibus influit, / Debentur lepidis omnia Gratiis. Elles m’abandonnent par tout. Tout est grossier chez moy, il y a faute de polissure et de beauté. Ie ne sçay faire valoir les choses pour le plus que ce qu’elles valent. Ma façon n’ayde rien à la matiere. Voyla pourquoy il me la faut forte, qui aye beaucoup de prise, et qui luyse d’elle mesme.
I judge their beauty; I see it, if not to the very end, at least so far that it is impossible for me to aspire to it. Whatever I undertake, I owe a sacrifice to the Graces, as Plutarch says of someone, to win their favor. For if anything pleases, / If anything sweet flows into men’s senses, / All of it is owed to the charming Graces. They forsake me everywhere. Everything is coarse with me; there is a lack of polish and beauty. I do not know how to make things worth more than they are worth. My manner adds nothing to the matter. That is why I need matter that is strong, that has plenty of grip, and that shines of itself.
Quand i’en saisi des populaires et plus gayes, c’est pour me suiure, moy, qui n’aime point vne sagesse ceremonieuse et triste, comme fait le monde: et pour m’egayer, non pour egayer mon stile, qui les veut plustost graues et seueres. Aumoins si ie doy nommer stile, vn parler informe et sans regle: vn iargon populaire, et vn proceder sans definition, sans partition, sans conclusion, trouble, à la façon de celuy d’Amafanius et de Rabirius. Ie ne sçay ny plaire, ny resiouyr, ny chatouiller. Le meilleur compte du monde se seche entre mes mains, et se ternit. Ie ne sçay parler qu’en bon escient.
When I seize on popular and lighter subjects, it is to follow my own bent—I do not love a ceremonious and gloomy wisdom, as the world does—and to cheer myself, not to cheer my style, which would rather have them grave and severe. At least, if I should call style a formless, unruled way of talking, a popular jargon, a way of proceeding without definition, without division, without conclusion, muddled, after the fashion of Amafanius and Rabirius. I do not know how to please, or delight, or tickle. The best story in the world dries up in my hands and goes dull. I know how to speak only in earnest.
Et suis du tout desnué de cette facilité, que ie voy en plusieurs de mes compagnons, d’entretenir les premiers venus, et tenir en haleine toute vne trouppe, ou amuser sans se lasser, l’oreille d’vn Prince, de toute sorte de propos; la matiere ne leur faillant iamais, pour cette grace qu’ils ont de sçauoir employer la premiere venue, et l’accommoder à l’humeur et portée de ceux à qui ils ont affaire. Les Princes n’ayment guere les discours fermes, ny moy à faire des comptes. Les raisons premieres et plus aisées, qui sont communément les mieux prinses, ie ne sçay pas les employer. Mauuais prescheur de commune. De toute matiere ie dy volontiers les plus extremes choses, que i’en sçay.
And I am wholly lacking in that facility I see in many of my companions, of entertaining all comers, holding a whole company in suspense, or tirelessly amusing a prince’s ear with all sorts of talk. Matter never fails them, thanks to the gift they have of knowing how to use the first that comes to hand and suit it to the temperament and capacity of the people they are dealing with. Princes do not much like solid discourse, nor do I like telling stories. The first and easiest reasons, which are usually the best received, I do not know how to use. A poor preacher for the common crowd. On any subject I am inclined to say the most extreme things I know about it.
Cicero estime, qu’és traictez de la philosophie, le plus difficile membre soit l’exorde. S’il est ainsi, ie me prens à la conclusion sagement. Si faut-il sçauoir relascher la corde à toute sorte de tons: et le plus aigu est celuy qui vient le moins souuent en ieu. Il y a pour le moins autant de perfection à releuer vne chose vuide, qu’à en soutenir vne poisante. Tantost il faut superficiellement manier les choses, tantost les profonder. Ie sçay bien que la plus part des hommes se tiennent en ce bas estage, pour ne conceuoir les choses que par cette premiere escorse.
Cicero holds that in philosophical treatises the hardest part is the opening. If so, I am wise to take hold of the conclusion. Yet one must know how to tune the string to every kind of pitch; and the highest is the one that comes into play least often. There is at least as much perfection in raising up an empty thing as in holding up a weighty one. Sometimes one must handle things on the surface, sometimes go deep into them. I know well that most men stay on this low level, grasping things only by that outer bark.
Mais ie sçay aussi que les plus grands maistres, et Xenophon et Platon, on les void souuent se relascher à cette basse façon, et populaire, de dire et traitter les choses, la soustenans des graces qui ne leur manquent iamais.
But I also know that the greatest masters, Xenophon and Plato, are often seen relaxing into this low and popular way of speaking about things and treating them, sustaining it with graces that never fail them.
Au demeurant mon langage n’a rien de facile et fluide: il est aspre, ayant ses dispositions libres et desreglées. Et me plaist ainsi; sinon par mon iugement, par mon inclination. Mais ie sens bien que par fois ie m’y laisse trop aller, et qu’à force de vouloir euiter l’art et l’affection, i’y retombe d’vne autre part; Breuis esse laboro, / Obscurus fio. Platon dit que le long ou le court, ne sont proprietez qui ostent ny qui donnent prix au langage. Quand i’entreprendrois de suiure cet autre stile æquable, vny et ordonné, ie n’y sçaurois aduenir. Et encore que les coupures et cadences de Saluste reuiennent plus à mon humeur, si est-ce que ie treuue Cæsar et plus grand, et moins aisé à representer.
For the rest, my language has nothing easy or fluent about it; it is rough, with its free and unruly arrangements. And I like it so—if not by my judgment, then by my inclination. But I clearly feel that I sometimes let myself go too far that way, and that by dint of trying to avoid art and affectation I fall back into them from another side: I strive to be brief, / I become obscure. Plato says that length or brevity are not qualities that take away or give value to language. Even if I undertook to follow that other style, even, smooth and orderly, I could not attain it. And although the clipped phrases and cadences of Sallust suit my temperament better, still I find Caesar both greater and harder to imitate.
Et si mon inclination me porte plus à l’imitation du parler de Seneque, ie ne laisse pas d’estimer dauantage celuy de Plutarque. Comme à taire, à dire aussi, ie suy tout simplement ma forme naturelle. D’où c’est à l’aduanture que ie puis plus, à parler qu’à escrire. Le mouuement et action animent les parolles, notamment à ceux qui se remuent brusquement, comme ie fay, et qui s’eschauffent. Le port, le visage, la voix, la robbe, l’assiette, peuuent donner quelque prix aux choses, qui d’elles mesmes n’en ont guere, comme le babil. Messala se pleint en Tacitus de quelques accoustremens estroits de son temps, et de la façon des bancs où les orateurs auoient à parler, qui affoiblissoient leur eloquence.
And though my inclination leads me more to imitate Seneca’s way of speaking, I nonetheless esteem Plutarch’s more highly. As in keeping silent, so in speaking, I simply follow my natural form. That is perhaps why I am better at speaking than at writing. Movement and action bring words to life, especially in those who move about briskly, as I do, and grow heated. Bearing, face, voice, dress, posture can give some value to things that have little of their own, such as chatter. Messala complains in Tacitus of certain tight garments of his day, and of the arrangement of the benches from which orators had to speak, which weakened their eloquence.
Mon langage François est alteré, et en la prononciation et ailleurs, par la barbarie de mon creu. Ie ne vis iamais homme des contrées de deçà, qui ne sentist bien euidemment son ramage, et qui ne blessast les oreilles qui sont pures Françoises. Si n’est-ce pas pour estre fort entendu en mon Perigourdin: car ie n’en ay non plus d’vsage que de l’Allemand; et ne m’en chault gueres. C’est vn langage, comme sont autour de moy d’vne bande et d’autre, le Poitteuin, Xaintongeois, Angoulemoisin, Lymosin, Auuergnat, brode, trainant, esfoiré.
My French is corrupted, both in pronunciation and otherwise, by the barbarism of my native soil. I never saw a man from these parts who did not quite plainly smack of his local warble, and who did not grate on purely French ears. Yet this is not because I am well versed in my Périgord dialect, for I have no more use of it than of German, and I hardly care. It is a language—like those around me on every side, Poitevin, Saintongeais, Angoumois, Limousin, Auvergnat—limp, drawling, flabby.
Il y a bien au dessus de nous, vers les montagnes, vn Gascon, que ie treuue singulierement beau, sec, bref, signifiant, et à la verité vn langage masle et militaire, plus qu’aucun autre, que i’entende: autant nerueux, et puissant, et pertinent, comme le François est gracieux, delicat, et abondant. Quant au Latin, qui m’a esté donné pour maternel, i’ay perdu par des-accoustumance, la promptitude de m’en pouuoir seruir à parler: ouï, et à escrire, en quoy autrefois ie me faisoy appeller maistre Iean. Voylla combien peu ie vaux de ce costé là.
Above us, toward the mountains, there is indeed a Gascon that I find singularly beautiful: dry, brief, expressive, and in truth a manly and military language, more than any other I understand; as sinewy, powerful and to the point as French is graceful, delicate and abundant. As for Latin, which was given me as my mother tongue, I have lost through disuse the readiness to use it in speaking—yes, and in writing, in which I once got myself called Master John. That shows how little I am worth on that side.
Beauty and the body
Body and soul must not be separated; Montaigne regrets his short stature and describes his build.
La beauté est vne piece de grande recommendation au commerce des hommes. C’est le premier moyen de conciliation des vns aux autres; et n’est homme si barbare et si rechigné, qui ne se sente aucunement frappé de sa douceur. Le corps a vne grand’part à nostre estre, il y tient vn grand rang: ainsi sa structure et composition sont de bien iuste consideration. Ceux qui veulent desprendre noz deux pieces principales, et les sequestrer l’vne de l’autre, ils ont tort. Au rebours, il les faut r’accoupler et reioindre.
Beauty is a quality of great recommendation in human dealings. It is the first means by which people are won over to one another, and there is no man so barbarous and so surly as not to feel himself somewhat struck by its sweetness. The body has a great share in our being; it holds a high rank there; so its structure and composition deserve very careful consideration. Those who want to detach our two principal parts and sequester them from each other are wrong. On the contrary, they must be coupled and joined together again.
Il faut ordonner à l’ame, non de se tirer à quartier, de s’entretenir à part, de mespriser et abandonner le corps (aussi ne le sçauroit elle faire que par quelque singerie contrefaicte) mais de se r’allier à luy, de l’embrasser, le cherir, luy assister, le contreroller, le conseiller, le redresser, et ramener quand il fouruoye; l’espouser en somme, et luy seruir de mary: à ce que leurs effects ne paroissent pas diuers et contraires, ains accordans et vniformes.
We must order the soul not to withdraw to one side, not to keep its own company apart, not to despise and abandon the body (nor could it do so except by some counterfeit aping), but to rally to it, embrace it, cherish it, assist it, supervise it, counsel it, set it right and bring it back when it goes astray—in short, to marry it and serve it as a husband, so that their actions may not appear different and contrary, but harmonious and uniform.
Les Chrestiens ont vne particuliere instruction de cette liaison, car ils sçauent, que la iustice diuine embrasse cette societé et ioincture du corps et de l’ame, iusques à rendre le corps capable des recompenses eternelles: et que Dieu regarde agir tout l’homme, et veut qu’entier il reçoiue le chastiement, ou le loyer, selon ses demerites.
Christians have special instruction about this bond, for they know that divine justice embraces this union and joining of body and soul, even to making the body capable of eternal rewards; and that God watches the whole man act, and wills that he receive punishment or reward whole, according to his deserts.
La secte Peripatetique, de toutes sectes la plus sociable, attribue à la sagesse ce seul soing, de pouruoir et procurer en commun, le bien de ces deux parties associées: et montre les autres sectes, pour ne s’estre assez attachées à la consideration de ce meslange, s’estre partializées, cette-cy pour le corps, cette autre pour l’ame, d’vne pareille erreur: et auoir escarté leur subject, qui est l’homme; et leur guide, qu’ils aduouent en general estre Nature. La premiere distinction, qui aye esté entre les hommes, et la premiere consideration, qui donna les præeminences aux vns sur les autres, il est vray-semblable que ce fut l’aduantage de la beauté. Agros diuisere atque dedere / Pro facie cuiusque et viribus ingenióque: / Nam facies multum valuit, virésque vigebant.
The Peripatetic school, the most sociable of all schools, assigns to wisdom this one care: to provide for and procure in common the good of these two associated parts. And it shows that the other schools, through not having attached themselves enough to the consideration of this mixture, have taken sides, this one for the body, that one for the soul, with equal error, and have lost sight of their subject, which is man, and of their guide, which they generally acknowledge to be Nature. The first distinction there ever was among men, and the first consideration that gave some preeminence over others, was probably the advantage of beauty. They divided the fields and gave them out / According to each man’s looks and strength and wit; / For looks counted for much, and strength was prized.
Or ie suis d’vne taille vn peu au dessoubs de la moyenne. Ce deffaut n’a pas seulement de la laideur, mais encore de l’incommodité: à ceux mesmement, qui ont des commandements et des charges: car l’authorité que donne vne belle presence et majesté corporelle, en est à dire. C. Marius ne receuoit pas volontiers des soldats, qui n’eussent six pieds de haulteur. Le Courtisan a bien raison de vouloir pour ce Gentilhomme qu’il dresse, vne taille commune, plustost que toute autre: et de refuser pour luy, toute estrangeté, qui le face montrer au doigt. Mais de choisir, s’il faut à cette mediocrité, qu’il soit plustost au deçà, qu’au delà d’icelle, ie ne le ferois pas, à vn homme militaire.
Now, I am a little below average height. This defect is not only ugly but also inconvenient, especially for those who hold commands and offices, for they lack the authority that a fine presence and bodily majesty confer. Gaius Marius was reluctant to accept soldiers who were not six feet tall. The Courtier is quite right to want, for the gentleman he is shaping, an ordinary stature rather than any other, and to reject for him any oddity that would make people point at him. But if he must miss that middle measure, to choose that he fall short of it rather than go beyond it—that I would not do, for a military man.
Les petits hommes, dit Aristote, sont bien iolis, mais non pas beaux: et se cognoist en la grandeur, la grande ame, comme la beauté, en vn grand corps et hault. Les Æthiopes et les Indiens, dit-il, elisants leurs Roys et Magistrats, auoyent esgard à la beauté et procerité des personnes.
Little men, says Aristotle, are pretty but not handsome; and a great soul shows itself in greatness, as beauty does in a large, tall body. The Ethiopians and the Indians, he says, when electing their kings and magistrates, paid attention to people’s beauty and tallness.
Ils auoient raison: car il y a du respect pour ceux qui le suiuent, et pour l’ennemy de l’effroy, de voir à la teste d’vne trouppe, marcher vn chef de belle et riche taille: Ipse inter primos præstanti corpore Turnus / Vertitur, arma tenens, et toto vertice suprà est. Nostre grand Roy diuin et celeste, duquel toutes les circonstances doiuent estre remerquées auec soing, religion et reuerence, n’a pas refusé la recommandation corporelle, speciosus forma præ filiis hominum. Et Platon auec la temperance et la fortitude, desire la beauté aux conseruateurs de sa republique.
They were right. For it inspires respect in those who follow him, and terror in the enemy, to see a leader of fine, ample stature marching at the head of a troop: Turnus himself, of surpassing frame, moves among the foremost, / Weapons in hand, and towers a whole head above the rest. Our great King, divine and heavenly, every circumstance of whose life should be noted with care, devotion and reverence, did not reject bodily commendation: fairer than the children of men. And Plato, along with temperance and fortitude, wants beauty in the guardians of his republic.
C’est vn grand despit qu’on s’addresse à vous parmy voz gens, pour vous demander où est Monsieur: et que vous n’ayez que le reste de la bonnetade, qu’on fait à vostre barbier ou à vostre secretaire. Comme il aduint au pauure Philopœmen: estant arriué le premier de sa trouppe en vn logis, où on l’attendoit, son hostesse, qui ne le cognoissoit pas, et le voyoit d’assez mauuaise mine, l’employa d’aller vn peu aider à ses femmes à puiser de l’eau, ou attiser du feu, pour le seruice de Philopœmen.
It is very galling when someone comes up to you among your own people to ask where the master is, and you get only the leftovers of the hat-doffing they make to your barber or your secretary. That is what happened to poor Philopoemen. Having arrived first of his party at a lodging where he was expected, his hostess, who did not know him and thought him rather unprepossessing, set him to go and help her women draw water or stoke the fire, to serve Philopoemen.
Les Gentils-hommes de sa suitte estans arriuez, et l’ayants surpris embesongné à cette belle vacation, car il n’auoit pas failly d’obeïr au commandement qu’on luy auoit faict, luy demanderent ce qu’il faisoit-là: Ie paie, leur respondit-il, la peine de ma laideur. Les autres beautez, sont pour les femmes: la beauté de la taille, est la seule beauté des hommes.
When the gentlemen of his retinue arrived and caught him busy at this fine task—for he had not failed to obey the order he had been given—they asked him what he was doing there. “I am paying,” he answered, “the penalty for my ugliness.” Other kinds of beauty are for women; beauty of stature is the only beauty of men.
Où est la petitesse, ny la largeur et rondeur du front, ny la blancheur et douceur des yeux, ny la mediocre forme du nez, ny la petitesse de l’oreille, et de la bouche, ny l’ordre et blancheur des dents, ny l’espesseur bien vnie d’vne barbe brune à escorce de chataigne, ny le poil releué, ny la iuste proportion de teste, ny la fraischeur du teint, ny l’air du visage aggreable, ny vn corps sans senteur, ny la iuste proportion de membres, peuuent faire vn bel homme.
Where there is smallness, neither a broad, rounded forehead, nor clear, gentle eyes, nor a well-proportioned nose, nor a small ear and mouth, nor even, white teeth, nor a thick, smooth beard brown as chestnut bark, nor hair that curls up, nor a well-proportioned head, nor a fresh complexion, nor a pleasing face, nor a body free of odor, nor well-proportioned limbs, can make a handsome man.
I’ay au demeurant, la taille forte et ramassée, le visage, non pas gras, mais plein, la complexion entre le iovial et le melancholique, moyennement sanguine et chaude, Vnde rigent setis mihi crura, et pectora villis: la santé, forte et allegre, iusques bien auant en mon aage, rarement troublée par les maladies. I’estois tel, car ie ne me considere pas à cette heure, que ie suis engagé dans les auenues de la vieillesse, ayant pieça franchy les quarante ans. Minutatim vires et robur adultum / Frangit, et in partem peiorem liquitur ætas. Ce que ie seray doresnauant, ce ne sera plus qu’vn demy estre: ce ne sera plus moy. Ie m’eschappe tous les iours, et me desrobbe à moy: Singula de nobis anni prædantur euntes.
For the rest, I have a strong, compact build; a face not fat but full; a temperament between the jovial and the melancholic, moderately sanguine and warm, Whence my legs bristle with hairs, and my chest with shaggy fleece; health strong and lively until well on in years, rarely troubled by illness. I was like that—for I am not considering myself as I am now, when I have entered the approaches of old age, having long since passed forty. Little by little age breaks down our strength and full-grown vigor, / And melts away into a worse condition. What I shall be from now on will be no more than half a being; it will no longer be me. Every day I escape and steal away from myself: One by one the passing years rob us of what is ours.
Clumsy hands, a free soul
He has no bodily skills and will work only of his own free will, never under constraint.
D’addresse et de disposition, ie n’en ay point eu; et si suis fils d’vn pere dispost, et d’vne allegresse qui luy dura iusques à son extreme vieillesse. Il ne trouua guere homme de sa condition, qui s’egalast à luy en tout exercice de corps: comme ie n’en ay trouué guere aucun, qui ne me surmontast; sauf au courir, en quoy i’estoy des mediocres. De la musique, ny pour la voix, que i’y ay tres-inepte, ny pour les instrumens, on ne m’y a iamais sçeu rien apprendre. A la danse, à la paulme, à la lucte, ie n’y ay peu acquerir qu’vne bien fort legere et vulgaire suffisance: à nager, à escrimer, à voltiger, et à saulter, nulle du tout.
Of dexterity and agility I have had none; and yet I am the son of a very agile father, whose liveliness lasted him into extreme old age. He scarcely found a man of his rank who could equal him in any bodily exercise, just as I have found scarcely any who did not surpass me—except at running, at which I was middling. In music, no one has ever managed to teach me anything, either in singing, for which my voice is very unapt, or in playing instruments. At dancing, tennis and wrestling, I have been able to acquire only a very slight and ordinary competence; at swimming, fencing, vaulting and jumping, none at all.
Les mains, ie les ay si gourdes, que ie ne sçay pas escrire seulement pour moy; de façon, que ce que i’ay barbouillé, i’ayme mieux le refaire que de me donner la peine de le demesler, et ne ly guere mieux. Ie me sens poiser aux escoutans: autrement bon clerc. Ie ne sçay pas clorre à droit vne lettre, ny ne sçeuz iamais tailler plume, ny trancher à table, qui vaille, ny equipper vn cheval de son harnois, ny porter à poinct vn oyseau, et le lascher: ny parler aux chiens, aux oyseaux, aux cheuaux. Mes conditions corporelles sont en somme tresbien accordantes à celles de l’ame, il n’y a rien d’allegre: il y a seulement vne vigueur pleine et ferme.
My hands are so clumsy that I cannot even write legibly for myself, so that what I have scrawled I would rather write over again than take the trouble to make it out; and I read aloud hardly any better: I feel I weigh on my listeners. Otherwise, a good scholar. I do not know how to fold and close a letter properly, and I could never cut a pen, or carve at table to any purpose, or saddle and harness a horse, or carry a hawk properly and fly it, or speak to dogs, birds or horses. In short, my bodily qualities are very much in keeping with those of my soul. There is nothing lively about them; there is only a full, firm vigor.
Ie dure bien à la peine, mais i’y dure, si ie m’y porte moy-mesme, et autant que mon desir m’y conduit: Molliter austerum studio fallente laborem. Autrement, si ie n’y suis alleché par quelque plaisir, et si i’ay autre guide que ma pure et libre volonté, ie n’y vauls rien. Car i’en suis là, que sauf la santé et la vie, il n’est chose pourquoy ie vueille ronger mes ongles, et que ie vueill’ acheter au prix du tourment d’esprit et de la contrainte: Tanti mihi non sit opaci / Omnis arena Tagi, quódque in mare voluitur aurum. Extremement oisif, extremement libre, et par nature et par art. Ie presteroy aussi volontiers mon sang, que mon soing.
I endure hard work well, but only if I go to it of my own accord, and as far as my desire leads me: Eagerness gently beguiling the harshness of the toil. Otherwise, if I am not lured to it by some pleasure, and if I have any other guide than my own pure and free will, I am good for nothing. For I have come to this: except for health and life, there is nothing for which I am willing to bite my nails, nothing I am willing to buy at the price of torment of mind and constraint: Not at such a price would I have all the sands of shady Tagus / And the gold it rolls down to the sea. Extremely idle, extremely free, both by nature and by art. I would as soon lend my blood as my care.
I’ay vne ame libre et toute sienne, accoustumée à se conduire à sa mode. N’ayant eu iusques à cett’ heure ny commandant ny maistre forcé, i’ay marché aussi auant, et le pas qu’il m’a pleu. Cela m’a amolli et rendu inutile au seruice d’autruy, et ne m’a faict bon qu’à moy.
I have a free soul, entirely its own, used to conducting itself in its own way. Having had until now neither commander nor master forced on me, I have gone as far as I pleased, and at the pace I pleased. That has made me soft and useless in the service of others, and good for no one but myself.
Et pour moy, il n’a esté besoin de forcer ce naturel poisant, paresseux et fay-neant. Car m’estant trouué en tel degré de fortune dés ma naissance, que i’ay eu occasion de m’y arrester: (vne occasion pourtant, que mille autres de ma cognoissance eussent prinse, pour planche plustost, à se passer à la queste, à l’agitation et inquietude) ie n’ay rien cherché, et n’ay aussi rien pris: Non agimur tumidis velis Aquilone secundo, / Non tamen aduersis ætatem ducimus Austris: / Viribus, ingenio, specie, virtute, loco, re, / Extremi primorum, extremis vsque priores. Ie n’ay eu besoin que de la suffisance de me contenter.
And for my part, there has been no need to force this heavy, lazy, do-nothing nature of mine. For having found myself from birth at such a level of fortune that I had reason to stop there (a reason, however, which a thousand others I know would rather have taken as a plank to cross over to seeking, agitation and restlessness), I have sought nothing, and have also taken nothing: We are not borne along with swelling sails by a favoring north wind, / Nor yet do we pass our lives against contrary winds from the south: / In strength, wit, looks, virtue, rank and wealth, / Last of the first, but still ahead of the last. I have needed only the ability to be content.
Qui est toutesfois vn reglement d’ame, à le bien prendre, esgalement difficile en toute sorte de condition, et que par vsage, nous voyons se trouuer plus facilement encores en la disette qu’en l’abondance. D’autant, à l’aduanture, que selon le cours de noz autres passions, la faim des richesses est plus aiguisée par leur vsage, que par leur besoin: et la vertu de la moderation, plus rare, que celle de la patience. Et n’ay eu besoin que de iouyr doucement des biens que Dieu par sa liberalité m’auoit mis entre mains. Ie n’ay gousté aucune sorte de trauail ennuieux.
Which is, however, rightly understood, a discipline of the soul equally difficult in every kind of condition, and one that experience shows us is found more easily still in want than in plenty. Perhaps because, following the course of our other passions, the hunger for riches is sharpened more by having them than by needing them, and the virtue of moderation is rarer than that of patience. And I have needed only to enjoy quietly the goods that God in his bounty had put into my hands. I have never tasted any kind of irksome toil.
Ie n’ay eu guere en maniement que mes affaires: ou, si i’en ay eu, ç’a esté en condition de les manier à mon heure et à ma façon: commis par gents, qui s’en fioyent à moy, et qui ne me pressoyent pas, et me cognoissoyent. Car encore tirent les experts, quelque seruice d’vn cheual restif et poussif.
I have had scarcely anything to manage except my own affairs; or if I have had others, it has been on condition of managing them in my own time and my own way, entrusted to me by people who relied on me, who did not press me, and who knew me. For experts can still get some service out of a restive, broken-winded horse.
Mon enfance mesme a esté conduicte d’vne façon molle et libre, et lors mesme exempte de subjection rigoureuse. Tout cela m’a donné vne complexion delicate et incapable de sollicitude; iusques là, que i’ayme qu’on me cache mes pertes, et les desordres qui me touchent. Au chapitre de mes mises, ie loge ce que ma nonchalance me couste à nourrir et entretenir: Hæc nempe supersunt, / Quæ dominum fallunt, quæ prosint furibus. I’ayme à ne sçauoir pas le compte de ce que i’ay, pour sentir moins exactement ma perte. Ie prie ceux qui viuent auec moy, où l’affection leur manque, et les bons effects, de me pipper et payer de bonnes apparences.
Even my childhood was conducted in a gentle, free way, and even then exempt from strict subjection. All this has given me a delicate temperament, incapable of worry—so much so that I like my losses, and the disorders that concern me, to be kept from me. Under the heading of my expenses I enter what my carelessness costs me to feed and maintain: That, surely, is what is left over: / What escapes the master’s notice and benefits the thieves. I like not knowing the count of what I have, so as to feel my loss less exactly. I beg those who live with me, where they lack affection and good deeds, to cheat me and pay me in good appearances.
A faute d’auoir assez de fermeté, pour souffrir l’importunité des accidens contraires, ausquels nous sommes subjects, et pour ne me pouuoir tenir tendu à regler et ordonner les affaires, ie nourris autant que ie puis en moy cett’ opinion: m’abandonnant du tout à la Fortune, de prendre toutes choses au pis; et ce pis là, me resoudre à le porter doucement et patiemment. C’est à cela seul, que ie trauaille, et le but auquel i’achemine tous mes discours. A vn danger, ie ne songe pas tant comment i’en eschapperay, que combien peu il importe que i’en eschappe. Quand i’y demeurerois, que seroit ce? Ne pouuant regler les euenements, ie me regle moy-mesme: et m’applique à eux, s’ils ne s’appliquent à moy.
For want of firmness enough to bear the vexation of the adverse accidents we are subject to, and because I cannot keep myself keyed up to regulating and ordering my affairs, I nurture in myself, as much as I can, this attitude: abandoning myself wholly to Fortune, I expect the worst in everything, and resolve to bear that worst gently and patiently. That is the only thing I work at, and the goal toward which I direct all my reasoning. In a danger, I do not think so much about how I shall escape it as about how little it matters whether I escape it. Suppose I were to stay there for good—what of it? Being unable to rule events, I rule myself, and I adapt myself to them if they do not adapt to me.
Ie n’ay guere d’art pour sçauoir gauchir la Fortune, et luy eschapper, ou la forcer; et pour dresser et conduire par prudence les choses à mon poinct. I’ay encore moins de tolerance, pour supporter le soing aspre et penible qu’il faut à cela. Et la plus penible assiette pour moy, c’est estre suspens és choses qui pressent, et agité entre la crainte et l’esperance.
I have hardly any skill at dodging Fortune and escaping her, or at forcing her, or at arranging and steering things my way by prudence. I have even less patience to bear the harsh and painful care that this requires. And the most painful position for me is to be in suspense about pressing matters, tossed between fear and hope.
Le deliberer, voire és choses plus legeres, m’importune. Et sens mon esprit plus empesché à souffrir le bransle, et les secousses diuerses du doute, et de la consultation, qu’à se rassoir et resoudre à quelque party que ce soit, apres que la chance est liurée. Peu de passions m’ont troublé le sommeil, mais des deliberations, la moindre me le trouble. Tout ainsi que des chemins, i’en euite volontiers les costez pendants et glissans, et me iette dans le battu, le plus boüeux, et enfondrant, d’où ie ne puisse aller plus bas, et y cherche seurté. Aussi i’ayme les malheurs tous purs, qui ne m’exercent et tracassent plus, apres l’incertitude de leur rabillage: et qui du premier saut me poussent droictement en la souffrance.
Deliberating, even about the slightest things, bothers me. And I feel my mind more hampered in enduring the swaying and the various jolts of doubt and consultation than in settling down and resolving on any course whatever, once the die is cast. Few passions have disturbed my sleep; but of deliberations, the least disturbs it. Just as with roads, I gladly avoid the sloping and slippery edges and throw myself into the beaten track, however muddy and boggy, where I cannot sink any lower, and there I look for safety. So too I like misfortunes that are pure and simple, which no longer try and harass me with uncertainty about whether they can be mended, and which at the first leap push me straight into suffering.
Dubia plus torquent mala.
Uncertain evils torment us more.
Aux euenemens, ie me porte virilement, en la conduicte puerilement. L’horreur de la cheute me donne plus de fiebure que le coup. Le ieu ne vaut pas la chandelle. L’auaritieux a plus mauvais conte de sa passion, que n’a le pauure: et le ialoux, que le cocu. Et y a moins de mal souuent, à perdre sa vigne, qu’à la plaider. La plus basse marche, est la plus ferme: c’est le siege de la constance. Vous n’y auez besoing que de vous. Elle se fonde là, et appuye toute en soy. Cet exemple, d’vn Gentil-homme que plusieurs ont cogneu, a il pas quelque air philosophique? Il se marya bien auant en l’aage, ayant passé en bon compaignon sa ieunesse, grand diseur, grand gaudisseur.
In the face of events I bear myself manfully; in the handling of them, childishly. The dread of the fall gives me more fever than the blow. The game is not worth the candle. The miser has a worse time of it from his passion than the poor man, and the jealous man than the cuckold. And there is often less harm in losing your vineyard than in going to law over it. The lowest step is the firmest: it is the seat of constancy. There you need no one but yourself. Constancy is founded there and rests wholly on itself. This example of a gentleman whom many people knew—does it not have something of the philosopher about it? He married well on in years, having spent his youth as a jolly fellow, a great talker, a great joker.
Se souuenant combien la matiere de cornardise luy auoit donné dequoy parler et se moquer des autres: pour se mettre à couuert, il espousa vne femme, qu’il print au lieu, où chacun en trouue pour son argent, et dressa auec elle ses alliances: Bon iour putain, bon iour cocu: et n’est chose dequoy plus souuent et ouuertement, il entretinst chez luy les suruenans, que de ce sien dessein: par où il bridoit les occultes caquets des moqueurs, et esmoussoit la poincte de ce reproche.
Remembering how much the subject of cuckoldry had given him to talk about and to mock others for, he took cover by marrying a woman he found in the place where anyone can get one for his money, and with her he set up the terms of their alliance: “Good day, hussy; good day, cuckold.” And there was nothing he talked about more often and more openly with visitors to his house than this plan of his. In this way he curbed the mockers’ secret gossip and blunted the point of that reproach.
Without ambition
Content with his inheritance, Montaigne never sought advancement; his frank virtues would be useless at court anyway.
Quant à l’ambition, qui est voisine de la presumption, ou fille plustost, il eust fallu pour m’aduancer, que la Fortune me fust venu querir par le poing: car de me mettre en peine pour vn’ esperance incertaine, et me soubmettre à toutes les difficultez, qui accompaignent ceux qui cherchent à se pousser en credit, sur le commencement de leur progrez, ie ne l’eusse sçeu faire, Spem pretio non emo. Ie m’attache à ce que ie voy, et que ie tiens, et ne m’eslongne guere du port: Alter remus aquas, alter tibi radat arenas. Et puis on arriue peu à ces auancements, qu’en hazardant premierement le sien.
As for ambition, which is a neighbor of presumption, or rather its daughter, Fortune would have had to come and take me by the hand to advance me. For to put myself to trouble for an uncertain hope, and to submit to all the difficulties that beset those who are trying to push their way into favor at the start of their career—that I could never have done: I do not pay cash for hope. I cling to what I see and hold, and I hardly stray from port: Let one oar sweep the water, and the other the sand. And besides, one seldom attains such advancement except by first risking what one has.
Et ie suis d’aduis, que si ce qu’on a, suffit à maintenir la condition en laquelle on est nay, et dressé, c’est folie d’en lascher la prise, sur l’incertitude de l’augmenter. Celuy à qui la Fortune refuse dequoy planter son pied, et establir vn estre tranquille et reposé, il est pardonnable s’il iette au hazard ce qu’il a, puis qu’ainsi comme ainsi la necessité l’enuoye à la queste. Capienda rebus in malis præceps via est. Et i’excuse plustost vn cabdet, de mettre sa legitime au vent, que celuy à qui l’honneur de la maison est en charge, qu’on ne peut point voir necessiteux qu’à sa faute.
And I am of the opinion that if what you have is enough to maintain the condition in which you were born and brought up, it is folly to let go of it on the uncertain chance of increasing it. The man to whom Fortune refuses a place to set his foot and establish a quiet, settled existence is pardonable if he gambles what he has, since one way or another necessity sends him out on the quest. In bad times one must take the headlong road. And I would sooner excuse a younger son for throwing his portion to the winds than the man charged with the honor of the house, who cannot be seen in want except through his own fault.
I’ay bien trouué le chemin plus court et plus aisé, auec le conseil de mes bons amis du temps passé, de me défaire de ce desir, et de me tenir coy: Cui sit conditio dulcis, sine puluere palmæ. Iugeant aussi bien sainement, de mes forces, qu’elles n’estoient pas capables de grandes choses. Et me souuenant de ce mot du feu Chancelier Oliuier, que les François semblent des guenons, qui vont grimpant contremont vn arbre, de branche en branche, et ne cessent d’aller, iusques à ce qu’elles soyent arriuées à la plus haute branche: et y montrent le cul, quand elles y sont. Turpe est, quòd nequeas, capiti committere pondus, / Et pressum inflexo mox dare terga genu.
I did indeed find it the shorter and easier way, with the advice of my good friends of times past, to rid myself of this desire and keep still: Whose happy lot is the palm without the dust. Judging also, quite soundly, that my powers were not capable of great things. And remembering that saying of the late Chancellor Olivier, that the French are like monkeys that go climbing up a tree from branch to branch and never stop until they have reached the highest branch—and there, once they are up, they show their backside. It is shameful to load on your head a weight you cannot bear, / And soon, buckling at the knee, to turn your back and give way.
Les qualitez mesmes qui sont en moy non reprochables, ie les trouuois inutiles en ce siecle. La facilité de mes mœurs, on l’eust nommée lascheté et foiblesse: la foy et la conscience s’y feussent trouuées scrupuleuses et superstitieuses: la franchise et la liberté, importune, inconsiderée et temeraire. A quelque chose sert le mal’heur. Il fait bon naistre en vn siecle fort depraué: car par comparaison d’autruy, vous estes estimé vertueux à bon marché.
Even those qualities in me that are not blameworthy I found useless in this age. The easiness of my manners would have been called cowardice and weakness; good faith and conscience would have been thought scrupulous and superstitious; frankness and freedom, tiresome, thoughtless and rash. Misfortune is good for something. It is a fine thing to be born in a thoroughly depraved age, for by comparison with others you are reckoned virtuous at a bargain price.
Qui n’est que parricide en nos iours et sacrilege, il est homme de bien et d’honneur: Nunc, si depositum non inficiatur amicus, / Si reddat veterem cum tota ærugine follem, / Prodigiosa fides, et Tuscis digna libellis, / Quæque coronata lustrari debeat agna. Et ne fut iamais temps et lieu, où il y eust pour les Princes loyer plus certain et plus grand, proposé à la bonté, et à la iustice. Le premier qui s’auisera de se pousser en faueur, et en credit par cette voye là, ie suis bien deçeu si à bon compte il ne deuance ses compaignons. La force, la violence, peuuent quelque chose: mais non pas tousiours tout.
Anyone who in our day is no worse than a parricide and a desecrator of churches is a good and honorable man: Now, if a friend does not deny a deposit, / If he returns an old purse with all its rust, / That is prodigious honesty, worthy of the Etruscan books, / And calls for purification with a garlanded lamb. And there was never a time or place where a surer and greater reward was offered to princes for goodness and justice. The first who takes it into his head to push his way into favor and credit by that road, I am much mistaken if he does not easily outstrip his fellows. Force and violence can do something, but not always everything.
Les marchans, les iuges de village, les artisans, nous les voyons aller à pair de vaillance et science militaire, auec la noblesse. Ils rendent des combats honorables et publiques et priuez: ils battent, ils defendent villes en noz guerres presentes. Vn Prince estouffe sa recommendation emmy cette presse. Qu’il reluise d’humanité, de verité, de loyauté, de temperance, et sur tout de iustice: marques rares, incognuës et exilées. C’est la seule volonté des peuples dequoy il peut faire ses affaires: et nulles autres qualitez ne peuuent attirer leur volonté comme celles là: leur estant les plus vtiles. Nihil est tam populare quàm bonitas.
Merchants, village judges, artisans—we see them matching the nobility in valor and military science. They fight honorable combats, both public and private; they batter and defend towns in our present wars. A prince’s distinction is smothered in this throng. Let him shine with humanity, truthfulness, loyalty, temperance, and above all justice: rare marks, unknown and exiled. It is solely through the goodwill of the peoples that he can get his business done, and no other qualities can win their goodwill like those, since they are the most useful to them. Nothing is so popular as goodness.
Par cette proportion ie me fusse trouué grand et rare: comme ie me trouue pygmée et populaire, à la proportion d’aucuns siecles passez: ausquels il estoit vulgaire, si d’autres plus fortes qualitez n’y concurroient, de veoir vn homme moderé en ses vengeances, mol au ressentiment des offences, religieux en l’obseruance de sa parolle: ny double ny soupple, ny accommodant sa foy à la volonté d’autruy et aux occasions. Plustost lairrois-ie rompre le col aux affaires, que de plier ma foy pour leur seruice.
By that measure I would have found myself great and rare, just as I find myself a pygmy and commonplace by the measure of certain past ages, in which it was ordinary—unless other, stronger qualities went with it—to see a man moderate in his revenge, slow to resent offenses, scrupulous in keeping his word, neither double nor pliant, nor fitting his faith to the will of others and to circumstances. I would rather let affairs break their necks than bend my faith to serve them.
Against dissimulation
Montaigne hates the new art of feigning and holds that a prince who breaks his word ruins himself.
Car quant à cette nouuelle vertu de faintise et dissimulation, qui est à cett’heure si fort en credit, ie la hay capitalement: et de tous les vices, ie n’en trouue aucun qui tesmoigne tant de lascheté et bassesse de cœur. C’est vn’ humeur coüarde et seruile de s’aller desguiser et cacher sous vn masque, et de n’oser se faire veoir tel qu’on est. Par là nos hommes se dressent à la perfidie. Estans duicts à produire des parolles fauces, ils ne font pas conscience d’y manquer. Vn cœur genereux ne doit point desmentir ses pensées: il se veut faire voir iusques au dedans: tout y est bon, ou aumoins, tout y est humain.
For as for this new virtue of feigning and dissimulation, which is now so highly in favor, I hate it mortally; and of all the vices, I find none that shows so much cowardice and baseness of heart. It is a cowardly and servile disposition to go disguising oneself and hiding behind a mask, not daring to let oneself be seen as one is. That is how our men train themselves for treachery. Being practiced at uttering false words, they have no qualms about breaking them. A generous heart should not belie its thoughts; it wants to be seen right to its depths. Everything there is good, or at least everything is human.
Aristote estime office de magnanimité, hayr et aymer à descouuert: iuger, parler auec toute franchise: et au prix de la verité, ne faire cas de l’approbation ou reprobation d’autruy. Apollonius disoit que c’estoit aux serfs de mentir, et aux libres de dire verité. C’est la premiere et fondamentale partie de la vertu. Il la faut aymer pour elle mesme. Celuy qui dit vray, par ce qu’il y est d’ailleurs obligé, et par ce qu’il sert: et qui ne craind point à dire mensonge, quand il n’importe à personne, il n’est pas veritable suffisamment. Mon ame de sa complexion refuit la menterie, et haït mesme à la penser.
Aristotle considers it the part of magnanimity to hate and love openly, to judge and speak with complete frankness, and, compared with the truth, to set no store by the approval or disapproval of others. Apollonius used to say that lying was for slaves and telling the truth for free men. Truthfulness is the first and fundamental part of virtue. We must love it for its own sake. The man who tells the truth because he is obliged to for some other reason, and because it serves him, and who is not afraid to tell a lie when it matters to nobody, is not truthful enough. My soul by its very nature shrinks from lying and hates even to think of it.
I’ay vn’ interne vergongne et vn remors piquant, si par fois elle m’eschappe, comme par fois elle m’eschappe, les occasions me surprenans et agitans impremeditement. Il ne faut pas tousiours dire tout, car ce seroit sottise. Mais ce qu’on dit, il faut qu’il soit tel qu’on le pense: autrement, c’est meschanceté.
I feel an inward shame and a stinging remorse if a lie sometimes slips out of me—as sometimes it does, when occasions take me by surprise and stir me before I can think. We need not always say everything, for that would be foolish. But what we do say must be what we think; otherwise it is wickedness.
Ie ne sçay quelle commodité ils attendent de se faindre et contrefaire sans cesse: si ce n’est, de n’en estre pas creus, lors mesmes qu’ils disent verité. Cela peut tromper vne fois ou deux les hommes: mais de faire profession de se tenir couuert: et se vanter, comme ont faict aucuns de nos Princes, qu’ils ietteroient leur chemise au feu, si elle estoit participante de leurs vrayes intentions, qui est vn mot de l’ancien Metellus Macedonicus: et qui ne sçait se faindre, ne sçait pas regner: c’est tenir aduertis ceux qui ont à les praticquer, que ce n’est que piperie et mensonge qu’ils disent.
I do not know what advantage they expect from constantly feigning and dissembling, unless it is not to be believed even when they tell the truth. That may deceive people once or twice. But to make a profession of keeping oneself covered, and to boast, as some of our princes have done, that they would throw their shirt into the fire if it were privy to their true intentions (a saying of the ancient Metellus Macedonicus), and that he who does not know how to dissemble does not know how to reign—this is to give fair warning to those who have to deal with them that everything they say is nothing but trickery and lies.
Quo quis versutior et callidior est, hoc inuisior et suspectior, detracta opinione probitatis. Ce seroit vne grande simplesse à qui se lairroit amuser ny au visage ny aux parolles de celuy, qui fait estat d’estre tousiours autre au dehors, qu’il n’est au dedans: comme faisoit Tibere. Et ne sçay quelle part telles gens peuuent auoir au commerce des hommes, ne produisans rien qui soit receu pour comptant. Qui est desloyal enuers la verité, l’est aussi enuers le mensonge.
The craftier and more cunning a man is, the more he is hated and suspected, once his reputation for honesty is gone. It would be great simplicity in anyone to let himself be taken in by either the face or the words of a man who makes a point of always being different outside from what he is within, as Tiberius did. And I do not know what part such people can have in human dealings, since they produce nothing that is accepted as ready money. Whoever is disloyal to truth is disloyal to falsehood too.
Ceux qui de nostre temps ont consideré en l’establissement du deuoir d’vn Prince, le bien de ses affaires seulement: et l’ont preferé au soing de sa foy et conscience, diroyent quelque chose à vn Prince, de qui la Fortune auroit rengé à tel poinct les affaires, que pour tout iamais il les peust establir par vn seul manquement et faute à sa parole. Mais il n’en va pas ainsin. On rechet souuent en pareil marché: on fait plus d’vne paix, plus d’vn traitté en sa vie.
Those in our time who, in establishing a prince’s duty, have considered only the good of his affairs, and have put it ahead of care for his good faith and conscience, would have something to say to a prince whose affairs Fortune had so arranged that he could settle them forever by a single breach and failure of his word. But that is not how things go. You often fall back into the same kind of bargain; you make more than one peace, more than one treaty, in your life.
Le gain, qui les conuie à la premiere desloyauté, et quasi tousiours il s’en presente, comme à toutes autres meschancetez: les sacrileges, les meurtres, les rebellions, les trahisons, s’entreprennent pour quelque espece de fruit: mais ce premier gain apporte infinis dommages suyuants: iettant ce Prince hors de tout commerce, et de tout moyen de negotiation par l’exemple de cette infidelité.
The gain that tempts them to the first breach of faith—and some gain almost always presents itself, as with every other kind of wickedness: sacrilege, murder, rebellion and treason are all undertaken for some sort of profit—this first gain brings countless losses after it, shutting that prince out of all dealings and every means of negotiation because of the example of this faithlessness.
Solyman de la race des Ottomans, race peu soigneuse de l’obseruance des promesses et paches, lors que de mon enfance, il fit descendre son armée à Otrante, ayant sçeu que Mercurin de Gratinare, et les habitants de Castro, estoyent detenus prisonniers, apres auoir rendu la place, contre ce qui auoit esté capitulé par ses gents auec eux, manda qu’on les relaschast: et qu’ayant en main d’autres grandes entreprises en cette contrée là, cette desloyauté, quoy qu’elle eust apparence d’vtilité presente, luy apporteroit pour l’aduenir, vn descri et vne deffiance d’infini preiudice.
Suleiman, of the Ottoman race—a race not very careful about keeping promises and pacts—when in my childhood he landed his army at Otranto, learned that Mercurino de Gattinara and the inhabitants of Castro were being held prisoner after surrendering the place, contrary to the terms his men had agreed with them. He sent orders that they be released, saying that since he had other great enterprises in hand in that region, this breach of faith, though it looked advantageous for the moment, would bring him in future a discredit and a distrust that would do him infinite harm.
Or de moy i’ayme mieux estre importun et indiscret, que flateur et dissimulé. I’aduoüe qu’il se peut mesler quelque poincte de fierté, et d’opiniastreté, à se tenir ainsin entier et ouuert comme ie suis sans consideration d’autruy. Et me semble que ie deuiens vn peu plus libre, où il le faudroit moins estre: et que ie m’eschauffe par l’opposition du respect. Il peut estre aussi, que ie me laisse aller apres ma nature à faute d’art. Presentant aux grands cette mesme licence de langue et de contenance que i’apporte de ma maison: ie sens combien elle decline vers l’indiscretion et inciuilité.
As for me, I would rather be tiresome and indiscreet than a flatterer and a dissembler. I admit that some touch of pride and stubbornness may be mixed in with keeping myself as whole and open as I do, without regard for others. And it seems to me that I become a little freer where I ought to be less so, and that the respect I am expected to show provokes me by contrast. It may also be that, for lack of art, I let myself follow my nature. Bringing to the great the same freedom of tongue and bearing that I bring from my own house, I feel how much it tends toward indiscretion and incivility.
Mais outre ce que ie suis ainsi faict, ie n’ay pas l’esprit assez souple pour gauchir à vne prompte demande, et pour en eschapper par quelque destour: ny pour feindre vne verité, ny assez de memoire pour la retenir ainsi feinte: ny certes assez d’asseurance pour la maintenir: et fais le braue par foiblesse. Parquoy ie m’abandonne à la nayfueté, et à tousiours dire ce que ie pense, et par complexion, et par dessein: laissant à la Fortune d’en conduire l’euenement. Aristippus disoit le principal fruit, qu’il eust tiré de la philosophie, estre, qu’il parloit librement et ouuertement à chacun.
But besides the fact that I am made this way, I do not have a mind supple enough to sidestep a sudden question and slip out of it by some detour, nor to make up a truth, nor memory enough to retain it once made up, nor, certainly, assurance enough to keep it up; and I play the bold man out of weakness. So I give myself up to naturalness and to always saying what I think, both by temperament and by design, leaving it to Fortune to manage the outcome. Aristippus used to say that the chief fruit he had drawn from philosophy was that he spoke freely and openly to everyone.
A memory full of holes
His memory fails him constantly, along with a slow wit and ignorance of everyday household matters.
C’est vn outil de merueilleux seruice, que la memoire, et sans lequel le iugement fait bien à peine son office: elle me manque du tout. Ce qu’on me veut proposer, il faut que ce soit à parcelles: car de respondre à vn propos, où il y eust plusieurs diuers chefs, il n’est pas en ma puissance. Ie ne sçaurois receuoir vne charge sans tablettes. Et quand i’ay vn propos de consequence à tenir, s’il est de longue haleine, ie suis reduit à cette vile et miserable necessité, d’apprendre par cœur mot à mot ce que i’ay à dire: autrement ie n’auroy ny façon, ny asseurance, estant en crainte que ma memoire vinst à me faire vn mauuais tour. Mais ce moyen m’est non moins difficile.
Memory is a tool of wonderful service, without which judgment can barely do its job; and I lack it entirely. Whatever anyone wants to put to me must come in small pieces, for answering a proposal with several different heads is beyond my power. I could not take on a commission without notebooks. And when I have a speech of some consequence to make, if it is a long one, I am reduced to the vile and wretched necessity of learning by heart, word for word, what I have to say; otherwise I would have neither poise nor assurance, being afraid that my memory might play me a nasty trick. But this method is no less difficult for me.
Pour apprendre trois vers, il m’y faut trois heures. Et puis en vn propre ouurage la liberté et authorité de remuer l’ordre, de changer vn mot, variant sans cesse la matiere, la rend plus malaisée à arrester en la memoire de son autheur. Or plus ie m’en defie, plus elle se trouble: elle me sert mieux par rencontre, il faut que ie la solicite nonchalamment: car si ie la presse, elle s’estonne: et depuis qu’ell’ a commencé à chanceler, plus ie la sonde, plus elle s’empestre et embarrasse: elle me sert à son heure, non pas à la mienne.
To learn three lines of verse takes me three hours. And then, in one’s own work, the freedom and authority to shift the order and change a word, constantly varying the material, make it harder for the author to fix in his memory. Now, the more I distrust my memory, the more confused it gets. It serves me better when I happen upon things; I have to court it casually, for if I press it, it is stunned; and once it has begun to falter, the more I sound it, the more it tangles and muddles itself. It serves me in its own time, not in mine.
Cecy que ie sens en la memoire, ie le sens en plusieurs autres parties. Ie fuis le commandement, l’obligation, et la contrainte. Ce que ie fais aysément et naturellement, si ie m’ordonne de le faire, par vne expresse et prescrite ordonnance, ie ne sçay plus le faire. Au corps mesme, les membres qui ont quelque liberté et iurisdiction plus particuliere sur eux, me refusent par fois leur obeyssance, quand ie les destine et attache à certain poinct et heure de seruice necessaire. Cette preordonnance contraincte et tyrannique les rebute: ils se croupissent d’effroy ou de despit, et se transissent.
What I feel in my memory I feel in several other parts. I flee command, obligation and constraint. What I do easily and naturally, if I order myself to do it by an express and prescribed order, I can no longer do. Even in the body, those members that have some freedom and a more particular jurisdiction of their own sometimes refuse to obey me when I assign and tie them to a fixed time and place of required service. This forced and tyrannical prearrangement puts them off; they shrink back in fright or spite, and go numb.
Autresfois estant en lieu, où c’est discourtoisie barbaresque, de ne respondre à ceux qui vous conuient à boire: quoy qu’on m’y traitast auec toute liberté, i’essaiay de faire le bon compagnon, en faueur des Dames qui estoyent de la partie, selon l’vsage du pays. Mais il y eut du plaisir: car cette menasse et preparation, d’auoir à m’efforcer outre ma coustume, et mon naturel, m’estoupa de maniere le gosier, que ie ne sçeuz aualler vne seule goute: et fus priué de boire, pour le besoing mesme de mon repas. Ie me trouuay saoul et desalteré, par tant de breuuage que mon imagination auoit preoccupé.
Once, when I was in a place where it is barbarous discourtesy not to respond to those who invite you to drink, I tried, although I was treated there with every freedom, to play the good fellow, to please the ladies who were of the party, according to the custom of the country. But it was quite comical: for this threat and preparation, the prospect of having to force myself beyond my habit and my nature, so stopped up my throat that I could not swallow a single drop, and I was deprived of drinking even what I needed with my meal. I found myself sated and my thirst quenched by all the drink my imagination had swallowed in advance.
Cet effaict est plus apparent en ceux qui ont l’imagination plus vehemente et puissante: mais il est pourtant naturel: et n’est aucun qui ne s’en ressente aucunement. On offroit à vn excellent archer condamné à la mort, de luy sauuer la vie, s’il vouloit faire voir quelque notable preuue de son art: il refusa de s’en essayer, craignant que la trop grande contention de sa volonté, luy fist fouruoyer la main, et qu’au lieu de sauuer sa vie, il perdist encore la reputation qu’il auoit acquise au tirer de l’arc.
This effect is more apparent in those whose imagination is more vehement and powerful; but it is natural nonetheless, and there is no one who does not feel it to some degree. An excellent archer condemned to death was offered his life if he would give some notable proof of his skill. He refused to try, fearing that the excessive strain of his will would make his hand go astray, and that instead of saving his life he would lose, besides, the reputation he had won in archery.
Vn homme qui pense ailleurs, ne faudra point, à vn pousse pres, de refaire tousiours vn mesme nombre et mesure de pas, au lieu où il se promene: mais s’il y est auec attention de les mesurer et compter, il trouuera que ce qu’il faisoit par nature et par hazard, il ne le fera pas si exactement par dessein.
A man whose mind is elsewhere will never fail, within an inch, to repeat the same number and length of steps in the place where he walks up and down; but if he sets about it with the intention of measuring and counting them, he will find that what he did by nature and by chance he will not do so exactly by design.
Ma librairie, qui est des belles entre les librairies de village, est assise à vn coin de ma maison: s’il me tombe en fantasie chose que i’y vueille aller chercher ou escrire, de peur qu’elle ne m’eschappe en trauersant seulement ma cour, il faut que ie la donne en garde à quelqu’autre. Si ie m’enhardis en parlant, à me destourner tant soit peu, de mon fil, ie ne faux iamais de le perdre: qui fait que ie me tiens en mes discours, contrainct, sec, et resserré. Les gens, qui me seruent, il faut que ie les appelle par le nom de leurs charges, ou de leur pays: car il m’est tres-malaisé de retenir des noms.
My library, which is one of the fine ones among village libraries, is set in a corner of my house. If something comes into my head that I want to go and look up or write down there, I have to entrust it to someone else for safekeeping, for fear it may escape me just in crossing my courtyard. If, while speaking, I make bold to stray ever so little from my thread, I never fail to lose it; which is why I keep my talk constrained, dry and terse. The people who serve me I have to call by the names of their jobs or of their home regions, for I find it very hard to retain names.
Ie diray bien qu’il y a trois syllabes, que le son en est rude, qu’il commence ou termine par telle lettre. Et si ie durois à viure long temps, ie ne croy pas que ie n’oubliasse mon nom propre, comme ont faict d’autres. Messala Coruinus fut deux ans n’ayant trace aucune de memoire. Ce qu’on dit aussi de George Trapezonce. Et pour mon interest, ie rumine souuent, quelle vie c’estoit que la leur: et si sans cette piece, il me restera assez pour me soustenir auec quelque aisance. Et y regardant de pres, ie crains que ce defaut, s’il est parfaict, perde toutes les functions de l’ame.
I can tell you that a name has three syllables, that it sounds harsh, that it begins or ends with such-and-such a letter. And if I were to live long, I do not doubt that I would forget my own name, as others have done. Messala Corvinus spent two years without a trace of memory. The same is said of George of Trebizond. And on my own account I often ponder what sort of life theirs was, and whether, without this faculty, I shall have enough left to keep me going with some ease. And looking at it closely, I fear that this defect, if it becomes complete, ruins all the functions of the soul.
Plenus rimarum sum, hac atque illac perfluo. Il m’est aduenu plus d’vne fois, d’oublier le mot que i’auois trois heures au parauant donné ou receu d’vn autre: et d’oublier où i’auoy caché ma bourse, quoy qu’en die Cicero. Ie m’ayde à perdre, ce que ie serre particulierement. Memoria certè non modò philosophiam, sed omnis vitæ vsum, omnésque artes, vnà maximè continet. C’est le receptacle et l’estuy de la science, que la memoire: l’ayant si deffaillante ie n’ay pas fort à me plaindre, si ie ne sçay guere. Ie sçay en general le nom des arts, et ce dequoy ils traictent, mais rien au delà. Ie feuillete les liures, ie ne les estudie pas.
I am full of cracks; I leak out on every side. More than once I have forgotten the password I had given or received three hours before, and forgotten where I had hidden my purse, whatever Cicero may say. I help myself lose what I put away with special care. Memory, surely, is the one faculty that holds not only philosophy but the whole conduct of life and all the arts. Memory is the receptacle and casket of knowledge; having one so defective, I have no great cause to complain if I know little. I know the names of the arts in general, and what they deal with, but nothing beyond that. I leaf through books; I do not study them.
Ce qui m’en demeure, c’est chose que ie ne reconnoy plus estre d’autruy. C’est cela seulement, dequoy mon iugement a faict son profit: les discours et les imaginations, dequoy il s’est imbu. L’autheur, le lieu, les mots, et autres circonstances, ie les oublie incontinent. Et suis si excellent en l’oubliance, que mes escripts mesmes et compositions, ie ne les oublie pas moins que le reste. On m’allegue tous les coups à moy-mesme, sans que ie le sente.
What stays with me from them is something I no longer recognize as belonging to anyone else. It is only what my judgment has profited from: the reasonings and ideas it has soaked up. The author, the place, the words and the other circumstances I forget at once. And I am so excellent at forgetting that I forget my own writings and compositions no less than everything else. People are always quoting me to myself without my noticing.
Qui voudroit sçauoir d’où sont les vers et exemples, que i’ay icy entassez, me mettroit en peine de le luy dire: et si ne les ay mendiez qu’és portes cognuës et fameuses: ne me contentant pas qu’ils fussent riches, s’ils ne venoient encore de main riche et honorable: l’authorité y concurre quant et la raison. Ce n’est pas grande merueille si mon liure suit la fortune des autres liures: et si ma memoire desempare ce que i’escry, comme ce que ie ly: et ce que ie donne, comme ce que ie reçoy.
Anyone who wanted to know where the verses and examples I have heaped up here come from would put me hard to it to tell him. And yet I have begged them only at well-known and famous doors, not content that they should be rich unless they also came from a rich and honorable hand: authority goes along with reason there. It is no great wonder if my book shares the fate of other books, and if my memory lets go of what I write as well as what I read, of what I give as well as what I receive.
Outre le deffaut de la memoire, i’en ay d’autres, qui aydent beaucoup à mon ignorance. I’ay l’esprit tardif, et mousse, le moindre nuage luy arreste sa poincte: en façon que, pour exemple, ie ne luy proposay iamais enigme si aisé, qu’il sçeust desuelopper. Il n’est si vaine subtilité qui ne m’empesche. Aux ieux, où l’esprit a sa part; des échets, des cartes, des dames, et autres, ie n’y comprens que les plus grossiers traicts. L’apprehension, ie l’ay lente et embrouillée: mais ce qu’elle tient vne fois, elle le tient bien, et l’embrasse bien vniuersellement, estroitement et profondement, pour le temps qu’elle le tient. I’ay la veuë longue, saine et entiere, mais qui se lasse aiséement au trauail, et se charge.
Besides the defect of memory, I have others that contribute a good deal to my ignorance. My mind is slow and blunt; the slightest cloud stops its point, so that, for example, I never set it a riddle so easy that it could unravel it. There is no subtlety so empty that it does not baffle me. In games where the mind plays a part—chess, cards, checkers and the like—I grasp only the crudest features. My understanding is slow and muddled; but what it once grasps it holds well, and embraces quite fully, closely and deeply, for as long as it holds it. My sight is long, sound and perfect, but it tires easily with work and grows heavy.
A cette occasion ie ne puis auoir long commerce auec les liures, que par le moyen du seruice d’autruy. Le ieune Pline instruira ceux qui ne l’ont essayé, combien ce retardement est important à ceux qui s’adonnent à cette occupation.
For this reason I cannot have long dealings with books except with the help of others. The younger Pliny will teach those who have not experienced it how much this hindrance matters to those who devote themselves to this occupation.
Il n’est point ame si chetifue et brutale, en laquelle on ne voye reluire quelque faculté particuliere: il n’y en a point de si enseuelie, qui ne face vne saillie par quelque bout. Et comment il aduienne qu’vne ame aueugle et endormie à toutes autres choses, se trouue vifue, claire, et excellente, à certain particulier effect, il s’en faut enquerir aux maistres. Mais les belles ames, ce sont les ames vniuerselles, ouuertes, et prestes à tout: si non instruites, au moins instruisables. Ce que ie dy pour accuser la mienne.
There is no soul so wretched and brutish that some particular faculty is not seen shining in it; there is none so buried that it does not break out at some point. And how it comes about that a soul blind and asleep to everything else is found lively, clear and excellent in some particular activity—we must ask the masters. But the fine souls are the universal souls, open and ready for everything: if not taught, at least teachable. I say this to accuse my own.
Car soit par foiblesse ou nonchalance (et de mettre à nonchaloir ce qui est à nos pieds, ce que nous auons entremains, ce qui regarde de plus pres l’vsage de la vie, c’est chose bien eslongnée de mon dogme), il n’en est point vne si inepte et si ignorante que la mienne, de plusieurs telles choses vulgaires, et qui ne se peuuent sans honte ignorer. Il faut que i’en conte quelques exemples.
For whether through weakness or carelessness (and to disregard what lies at our feet, what we have in our hands, what most closely concerns the business of living, is something very far from my doctrine), there is no soul so inept and ignorant as mine about many such ordinary things, which one cannot be ignorant of without shame. I must give a few examples.
Ie suis né et nourry aux champs, et parmy le labourage: i’ay des affaires, et du mesnage en main, depuis que ceux qui me deuançoient en la possession des biens que ie iouys, m’ont quitté leur place. Or ie ne sçay conter ny à get, ny à plume: la pluspart de nos monnoyes ie ne les connoy pas: ny ne sçay la difference de l’vn grain à l’autre, ny en la terre, ny au grenier, si elle n’est par trop apparente: ny à peine celle d’entre les choux et les laictues de mon iardin.
I was born and brought up in the country, among farming; I have had business and the management of a household in my hands ever since those who preceded me in possession of the property I enjoy gave up their place to me. Now, I cannot reckon either with counters or with a pen; most of our coins I do not know; nor do I know the difference between one grain and another, either in the field or in the granary, unless it is too obvious; nor, scarcely, the difference between the cabbages and the lettuces in my garden.
Ie n’entens pas seulement les noms des premiers outils du mesnage, ny les plus grossiers principes de l’agriculture, et que les enfans sçauent: moins aux arts mechaniques, en la trafique, et en la cognoissance des marchandises, diuersité et nature des fruicts, de vins, de viandes: ny à dresser vn oiseau, ny à medeciner vn cheual, ou vn chien. Et puis qu’il me faut faire la honte toute entiere, il n’y a pas vn mois qu’on me surprint ignorant dequoy le leuain seruoit à faire du pain; et que c’estoit que faire cuuer du vin. On coniectura anciennement à Athenes, vne aptitude à la mathematique, en celuy à qui on voyoit ingenieusement agencer et fagotter vne charge de brossailles.
I do not even understand the names of the most basic farm tools, or the crudest principles of agriculture, which children know; still less the mechanical arts, trade, and knowledge of goods, of the variety and nature of fruits, wines and foods; nor how to train a bird or doctor a horse or a dog. And since I must make my shame complete, not a month ago I was caught not knowing what yeast was used for in making bread, and what it meant to let wine ferment in the vat. In Athens long ago they guessed at an aptitude for mathematics in a man they saw cleverly arranging and tying up a load of brushwood.
Vrayement on tireroit de moy vne bien contraire conclusion: car qu’on me donne tout l’apprest d’vne cuisine, me voila à la faim. Par ces traits de ma confession, on en peut imaginer d’autres à mes despens. Mais quel que ie me face cognoistre, pourueu que ie me face cognoistre tel que ie suis, ie fay mon effect. Et si ne m’excuse pas, d’oser mettre par escrit des propos si bas et friuoles que ceux-cy. La bassesse du suiet m’y contrainct. Qu’on accuse si on veut mon proiect, mais mon progrez, non. Tant y a que sans l’aduertissement d’autruy, ie voy assez le peu que tout cecy vaut et poise, et la folie de mon dessein.
Truly, one would draw quite the opposite conclusion from me: for give me the whole equipment of a kitchen and there I am, starving. From these features of my confession one can imagine others at my expense. But whatever I make myself known as, provided I make myself known as I am, I achieve my purpose. And yet I make no apology for daring to put into writing such low and frivolous remarks as these. The lowness of my subject forces me to it. Let them blame my project if they like, but not the way I carry it out. Be that as it may, without anyone’s telling me, I see well enough how little all this is worth and weighs, and the folly of my design.
C’est prou que mon iugement ne se deffere point, duquel ce sont icy les essais. Nasutus sis vsque licet, sis denique nasus, / Quantum noluerit ferre rogatus Atlas: / Et possis ipsum tu deridere Latinum, / Non potes in nugas dicere plura meas, / Ipse ego quàm dixi: quid dentem dente iuuabit / Rodere? carne opus est, si satur esse velis. / Ne perdas operam: qui se mirantur, in illos / Virus habe; nos hæc nouimus esse nihil. Ie ne suis pas obligé à ne dire point de sottises, pourueu que ie ne me trompe pas à les cognoistre. Et de faillir à mon escient, cela m’est si ordinaire, que ie ne faux guere d’autre façon, ie ne faux guere fortuitement.
It is enough that my judgment does not come apart, for it is my judgment that these essays put to the test. Be as sharp-nosed as you like, be all nose, / Such a nose as Atlas, if asked, would refuse to carry; / And you could even mock Latinus himself: / You cannot say more against my trifles / Than I have said myself. What good will it do to gnaw tooth against tooth? / You need meat if you want to be filled. / Don’t waste your effort: against those who admire themselves / Keep your venom; I know these things are nothing. I am not obliged not to say foolish things, provided I am not deceived in recognizing them. And to go wrong knowingly is so ordinary with me that I hardly ever go wrong in any other way; I hardly ever go wrong by chance.
C’est peu de chose de prester à la temerité de mes humeurs les actions ineptes, puis que ie ne me puis pas deffendre d’y prester ordinairement les vitieuses.
It is a small matter to let the rashness of my temperament have its way in foolish actions, since I cannot help letting it have its way, as a rule, in wicked ones.
Irresolution
He cannot choose between opinions and prefers to follow, holding that old institutions are better than change.
Ie vis vn iour à Barleduc, qu’on presentoit au Roy François second, pour la recommandation de la memoire de René Roy de Sicile, vn pourtraict qu’il auoit luy-mesmes fait de soy. Pourquoy n’est-il loisible de mesme à vn chacun, de se peindre de la plume, comme il se peignoit d’vn creon? Ie ne veux donc pas oublier encor cette cicatrice, bien mal propre à produire en public. C’est l’irresolution: defaut tres-incommode à la negociation des affaires du monde. Ie ne sçay pas prendre party és entreprinses doubteuses: Ne si, ne no, net cor mi suona intero. Ie sçay bien soustenir vne opinion, mais non pas la choisir.
I once saw at Bar-le-Duc a portrait being presented to King Francis II, in remembrance of René, King of Sicily, which René had made of himself. Why is it not equally permissible for everyone to portray himself with the pen, as he portrayed himself with a crayon? So I do not want to leave out this scar either, though it is hardly fit to be shown in public. It is irresolution: a very awkward defect in negotiating the affairs of the world. I do not know how to take sides in doubtful undertakings: Neither yes nor no rings clear in my heart. I can hold up an opinion well enough, but not choose it.
Par ce qu’és choses humaines, à quelque bande qu’on panche, il se presente force apparences, qui nous y confirment: et le philosophe Chrysippus disoit, qu’il ne vouloit apprendre de Zenon et Cleanthez ses maistres, que les dogmes simplement: car quant aux preuues et raisons, il en fourniroit assez de luy mesme. De quelque costé que ie me tourne, ie me fournis tousiours assez de cause et de vray-semblance pour m’y maintenir. Ainsi i’arreste chez moy le doubte, et la liberté de choisir, iusques à ce que l’occasion me presse. Et lors, à confesser la verité, ie iette le plus souuent la plume au vent, comme on dit, et m’abandonne à la mercy de la Fortune. Vne bien legere inclination et circonstance m’emporte.
Because in human affairs, whichever side one leans to, plenty of appearances present themselves to confirm us in it. And the philosopher Chrysippus said that he wanted to learn from his masters Zeno and Cleanthes only their doctrines, pure and simple; as for proofs and reasons, he would supply enough of them himself. Whichever way I turn, I always supply myself with enough cause and plausibility to hold to it. So I keep doubt and freedom of choice at home until the occasion presses me. And then, to tell the truth, I most often throw the feather to the wind, as they say, and abandon myself to the mercy of Fortune. A very slight inclination or circumstance carries me away.
Dum in dubio est animus, paulo momento huc atque / Illuc impellitur. L’incertitude de mon iugement, est si également balancée en la pluspart des occurrences, que ie compromettrois volontiers à la decision du sort et des dets. Et remarque auec grande consideration de nostre foiblesse humaine, les exemples que l’histoire diuine mesme nous a laissé de cet vsage, de remettre à la Fortune et au hazard, la determination des eslections és choses doubteuses: Sors cecidit super Matthiam. La raison humaine est vn glaiue double et dangereux. Et en la main mesme de Socrates son plus intime et plus familier amy: voyez à quants de bouts c’est vn baston. Ainsi, ie ne suis propre qu’à suyure, et me laisse aysément emporter à la foule.
While the mind is in doubt, the slightest impulse drives it this way / And that. The uncertainty of my judgment is so evenly balanced in most situations that I would willingly leave the decision to lot and dice. And I note, reflecting deeply on our human weakness, the examples that even sacred history has left us of this practice of leaving to Fortune and chance the decision of choices in doubtful matters: The lot fell upon Matthias. Human reason is a two-edged and dangerous sword. Even in the hand of Socrates, its most intimate and familiar friend, see how many ends this stick has. So I am fit only to follow, and I easily let myself be carried along by the crowd.
Ie ne me fie pas assez en mes forces, pour entreprendre de commander, ny guider. Ie suis bien ayse de trouuer mes pas trassez par les autres. S’il faut courre le hazard d’vn choix incertain, i’ayme mieux que ce soit soubs tel, qui s’asseure plus de ses opinions, et les espouse plus, que ie ne fay les miennes, ausquelles ie trouue le fondement et le plant glissant.
I do not trust my powers enough to undertake to command or to guide. I am very glad to find my path traced out by others. If I must run the risk of an uncertain choice, I would rather it be under someone who is surer of his opinions and more wedded to them than I am to mine, whose foundation and footing I find slippery.
Et si ne suis pas trop facile pourtant au change, d’autant que i’apperçois aux opinions contraires vne pareille foiblesse. Ipsa consuetudo assentiendi periculosa esse videtur, et lubrica. Notamment aux affaires politiques, il y a vn beau champ ouuert au bransle et à la contestation. Iusta pari premitur veluti cum pondere libra / Prona, nec hac plus parte sedet, nec surgit ab illa. Les discours de Machiauel, pour exemple, estoient assez solides pour le subiect, si y a-il eu grand’aisance à les combattre; et ceux qui l’ont faict, n’ont pas laissé moins de facilité à combattre les leurs.
And yet I am not too quick to change, for all that, since I see the same weakness in the opposing opinions. The very habit of assenting seems to be dangerous and slippery. Especially in political affairs there is a wide field open for wavering and dispute. As when a true balance is pressed down by equal weight, / and neither sinks on this side nor rises on that. Machiavelli’s reasonings, for example, were solid enough for the subject; yet it has been very easy to attack them, and those who did so have left it no less easy to attack their own.
Il s’y trouueroit tousiours à vn tel argument, dequoy y fournir responces, dupliques, repliques, tripliques, quadrupliques, et cette infinie contexture de debats, que nostre chicane a alongé tant qu’elle a peu en faueur des procez: Cædimur, et totidem plagis consumimus hostem: les raisons n’y ayant guere autre fondement que l’experience, et la diuersité des euenemens humains, nous presentant infinis exemples à toutes sortes de formes.
In such an argument there would always be material for answers, rejoinders, replies, surrejoinders, rebutters, and that endless web of disputes which our legal quibbling has stretched out as far as it could in favor of lawsuits: We are struck, and we wear out the enemy with as many blows. For the reasons there have hardly any foundation but experience, and the diversity of human events offers us infinite examples in every sort of form.
Vn sçauant personnage de nostre temps, dit qu’en nos almanacs, où ils disent chaud, qui voudra dire froid, et au lieu de sec, humide: et mettre tousiours le rebours de ce qu’ils pronostiquent, s’il deuoit entrer en gageure de l’euenement de l’vn ou l’autre, qu’il ne se soucieroit pas quel party il prinst, sauf és choses où il n’y peut escheoir incertitude: comme de promettre à Noël des chaleurs extremes, et à la sainct Iean, des rigueurs de l’hyuer. I’en pense de mesmes de ces discours politiques: à quelque rolle qu’on vous mette, vous auez aussi beau ieu que vostre compagnon, pourueu que vous ne veniez à choquer les principes trop grossiers et apparens.
A learned man of our time says that in our almanacs, where they say hot, a man might say cold, and wet instead of dry, and always put the opposite of what they forecast; and if he had to bet on the outcome of one or the other, he would not care which side he took—except in matters where there can be no uncertainty, such as promising extreme heat at Christmas and the rigors of winter on Saint John’s Day at midsummer. I think the same of these political arguments: whatever part you are cast in, you have as good a game as your opponent, provided you do not run up against principles that are too gross and obvious.
Et pourtant, selon mon humeur, és affaires publiques, il n’est aucun si mauuais train, pourueu qu’il aye de l’aage et de la constance, qui ne vaille mieux que le changement et le remuement. Nos mœurs sont extremement corrompuës, et panchent d’vne merueilleuse inclination vers l’empirement: de nos loix et vsances, il y en a plusieurs barbares et monstrueuses: toutesfois pour la difficulté de nous mettre en meilleur estat, et le danger de ce croullement, si ie pouuoy planter vne cheville à nostre rouë, et l’arrester en ce poinct, ie le ferois de bon cœur.
And yet, to my way of thinking, in public affairs there is no course so bad, provided it has age and constancy, that it is not better than change and upheaval. Our morals are extremely corrupt and lean with a remarkable inclination toward the worse; among our laws and customs there are many that are barbarous and monstrous. Nevertheless, because of the difficulty of putting ourselves in a better state, and the danger of such a collapse, if I could drive a peg into our wheel and stop it at this point, I would gladly do it.
Nunquam adeo fœdis adeóque pudendis / Vtimur exemplis, vt non peiora supersint. Le pis que ie trouue en nostre estat, c’est l’instabilité: et que nos loix, non plus que nos vestemens, ne peuuent prendre aucune forme arrestée. Il est bien aysé d’accuser d’imperfection vne police: car toutes choses mortelles en sont pleines: il est bien aysé d’engendrer à vn peuple le mespris de ses anciennes obseruances: iamais homme n’entreprint cela, qui n’en vinst à bout: mais d’y restablir vn meilleur estat en la place de celuy qu’on a ruiné, à cecy plusieurs se sont morfondus, de ceux qui l’auoient entreprins. Ie fay peu de part à ma prudence, de ma conduite: ie me laisse volontiers mener à l’ordre public du monde.
Never do we use examples so foul and so shameful / that worse ones do not remain. The worst thing I find in our state is instability, and that our laws, any more than our clothes, cannot take on any settled form. It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it. It is very easy to breed in a people contempt for its ancient observances; no man ever undertook that without succeeding. But as for establishing a better state in place of the one that has been ruined—at this, many of those who undertook it have worn themselves out in vain. I give my prudence little share in my conduct; I willingly let myself be led by the public order of the world.
Heureux peuple, qui fait ce qu’on commande, mieux que ceux qui commandent, sans se tourmenter des causes: qui se laisse mollement rouller apres le roullement celeste. L’obeyssance n’est iamais pure ny tranquille en celuy qui raisonne et qui plaide.
Happy the people who do what they are commanded better than those who command, without tormenting themselves about the reasons; who let themselves roll gently along with the rolling of the heavens. Obedience is never pure or tranquil in one who reasons and argues.
The one thing I value in myself
Everyone thinks his own judgment sufficient; Montaigne looks inward and trusts opinions born with him.
Somme pour reuenir à moy, ce seul, par où ie m’estime quelque chose, c’est ce, en quoy iamais homme ne s’estima deffaillant: ma recommendation est vulgaire, commune, et populaire: car qui a iamais cuidé auoir faute de sens? Ce seroit vne proposition qui impliqueroit en soy de la contradiction. C’est vne maladie, qui n’est iamais où elle se voit: elle est bien tenace et forte, mais laquelle pourtant, le premier rayon de la veuë du patient, perce et dissipe: comme le regard du soleil vn brouïllas opaque. S’accuser, ce seroit s’excuser en ce subiect là: et se condamner, ce seroit s’absoudre. Il ne fut iamais crocheteur ny femmelette, qui ne pensast auoir assez de sens pour sa prouision.
In sum, to come back to myself: the one thing for which I think something of myself is the very thing in which no man ever thought himself deficient. My claim to distinction is ordinary, common and popular; for who ever believed he lacked sense? That would be a proposition containing its own contradiction. It is a sickness that is never present where it is seen. It is very tenacious and strong, and yet the first ray of the patient’s sight pierces and dispels it, as the sun’s gaze does a thick fog. To accuse oneself, in this matter, would be to excuse oneself, and to condemn oneself would be to acquit oneself. There was never a street porter or a silly woman who did not think they had sense enough for their needs.
Nous recognoissons aysément és autres, l’aduantage du courage, de la force corporelle, de l’experience, de la disposition, de la beauté: mais l’aduantage du iugement, nous ne le cedons à personne. Et les raisons qui partent du simple discours naturel en autruy, il nous semble qu’il n’a tenu qu’à regarder de ce costé là, que nous ne les ayons trouuees.
We readily recognize that others have the advantage in courage, bodily strength, experience, agility, beauty; but the advantage in judgment we yield to no one. And as for the reasonings that come from plain natural reason in someone else, it seems to us that we would have found them ourselves if we had only looked in that direction.
La science, le stile, et telles parties, que nous voyons és ouurages estrangers, nous touchons bien aysément si elles surpassent les nostres: mais les simples productions de l’entendement, chacun pense qu’il estoit en luy de les rencontrer toutes pareilles, et en apperçoit malaisement le poids et la difficulté, si ce n’est, et à peine, en vne extreme et incomparable distance. Et qui verroit bien à clair la hauteur d’vn iugement estranger, il y arriueroit et y porteroit le sien. Ainsi, c’est vne sorte d’exercitation, de laquelle on doit esperer fort peu de recommandation et de loüange, et vne maniere de composition, de peu de nom. Et puis, pour qui escriuez vous?
Learning, style and such qualities that we see in other people’s works, we readily perceive when they surpass our own. But the simple products of the understanding—everyone thinks it was in him to hit upon exactly the same, and he can hardly perceive their weight and difficulty, except, and barely then, at an extreme and incomparable distance. And whoever could see clearly the height of another’s judgment would reach it and bring his own up to it. So this is a kind of exercise from which one must hope for very little commendation and praise, and a kind of composition of little renown. And then, for whom are you writing?
Les sçauants, à qui appartient la iurisdiction liuresque, ne cognoissent autre prix que de la doctrine; et n’aduoüent autre proceder en noz esprits, que celuy de l’erudition, et de l’art. Si vous auez prins l’vn des Scipions pour l’autre, que vous reste il à dire, qui vaille? Qui ignore Aristote, selon eux, s’ignore quand et quand soy-mesme. Les ames grossieres et populaires ne voyent pas la grace d’vn discours delié. Or ces deux especes occupent le monde. La tierce, à qui vous tombez en partage, des ames reglées et fortes d’elles mesmes, est si rare, que iustement elle n’a ny nom, ny rang entre nous: c’est à demy temps perdu, d’aspirer, et de s’efforcer à luy plaire.
The learned, to whom jurisdiction over books belongs, know no other value than learning, and acknowledge no other way of proceeding in our minds than that of erudition and skill. If you have taken one of the Scipios for the other, what is left for you to say that is worth anything? Whoever is ignorant of Aristotle, according to them, is at the same time ignorant of himself. Coarse and common souls do not see the grace of a finely spun argument. Now these two kinds fill the world. The third, into whose lot you fall—souls well ordered and strong in themselves—is so rare that it rightly has neither name nor rank among us. It is half time wasted to aspire and strive to please it.
On dit communément que le plus iuste partage que Nature nous aye fait de graces, c’est celuy du sens: car il n’est aucun qui ne se contente de ce qu’elle luy en a distribué, n’est-ce pas raison? qui verroit au delà, il verroit au delà de sa veuë. Ie pense auoir les opinions bonnes et saines, mais qui n’en croit autant des siennes? L’vne des meilleures preuues que i’en aye, c’est le peu d’estime que ie fay de moy, car si elles n’eussent esté bien asseurées, elles se fussent aisément laissé piper à l’affection que ie me porte, singuliere, comme celuy qui la ramene quasi toute à moy, et qui ne l’espands gueres hors de là.
It is commonly said that the fairest share of her gifts that Nature has given us is that of sense; for there is no one who is not content with what she has allotted him of it. Isn’t that reasonable? Whoever saw beyond it would be seeing beyond his own sight. I think my opinions are good and sound; but who does not believe as much of his own? One of the best proofs I have of it is the low esteem in which I hold myself. For if they had not been well grounded, they would easily have let themselves be tricked by the affection I bear myself—a singular affection, since I bring it almost entirely back to myself and hardly spread it beyond.
Tout ce que les autres en distribuent à vne infinie multitude d’amis, et de cognoissans, à leur gloire, à leur grandeur, ie le rapporte tout au repos de mon esprit, et à moy. Ce qui m’en eschappe ailleurs, ce n’est pas proprement de l’ordonnance de mon discours: Mihi nempe valere et viuere doctus.
All that others distribute of it to an infinite multitude of friends and acquaintances, to their glory, to their greatness, I refer entirely to the repose of my mind and to myself. What escapes from me elsewhere is not strictly by the command of my reason: Taught, indeed, to live and thrive for myself.
Or mes opinions, ie les trouue infiniement hardies et constantes à condamner mon insuffisance. De vray c’est aussi vn subiect, auquel i’exerce mon iugement autant qu’à nul autre. Le monde regarde tousiours vis à vis: moy, ie replie ma veuë au dedans, ie la plante, ie l’amuse là. Chacun regarde deuant soy, moy ie regarde dedans moy. Ie n’ay affaire qu’à moy, ie me considere sans cesse, ie me contrerolle, ie me gouste. Les autres vont tousiours ailleurs, s’ils y pensent bien: ils vont tousiours auant, Nemo in sese tentat descendere: moy, ie me roulle en moy-mesme.
Now my opinions I find infinitely bold and constant in condemning my own inadequacy. In truth, this too is a subject on which I exercise my judgment as much as on any other. The world always looks straight ahead; as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there, I keep it busy there. Everyone looks in front of him; I look inside myself. I have no business but with myself; I consider myself unceasingly, I inspect myself, I taste myself. Others always go elsewhere, if they think about it; they always go forward. No one tries to descend into himself. As for me, I roll about inside myself.
Cette capacité de trier le vray, quelle qu’elle soit en moy, et cett’humeur libre de n’assubiectir aysément ma creance, ie la dois principalement à moy: car les plus fermes imaginations que i’aye, et generalles, sont celles qui par maniere de dire, nasquirent auec moy: elles sont naturelles, et toutes miennes. Ie les produisis crues et simples, d’vne production hardie et forte, mais vn peu trouble et imparfaicte: depuis ie les ay establies et fortifiées par l’authorité d’autruy, et par les sains exemples des anciens, ausquels ie me suis rencontré conforme en iugement. Ceux-là m’en ont asseuré de la prinse, et m’en ont donné la iouyssance et possession plus claire.
This capacity for sifting out the truth, whatever it amounts to in me, and this free temperament that does not easily subject my belief, I owe chiefly to myself. For the firmest and most general notions I have are those which, so to speak, were born with me: they are natural and entirely mine. I produced them raw and simple, in a bold and strong birth, but a little confused and imperfect. Since then I have established and fortified them by the authority of others, and by the sound examples of the ancients, with whom I found myself in agreement in judgment. These confirmed my hold on them and gave me a clearer enjoyment and possession of them.
La recommandation que chacun cherche, de viuacité et promptitude d’esprit, ie la pretends du reglement, d’vne action esclatante et signalée, ou de quelque particuliere suffisance: ie la pretends de l’ordre, correspondance, et tranquillité d’opinions et de mœurs. Omnino si quidquam est decorum, nihil est profectò magis quàm æquabilitas vniuersæ vitæ, tum singularum actionum: quam conseruare non possis, si, aliorum naturam imitans, omittas tuam.
The commendation everyone seeks for liveliness and quickness of mind, I claim for steadiness; the commendation for a brilliant and signal action, or for some particular ability, I claim for order, consistency and tranquility of opinions and conduct. Assuredly, if anything is becoming, nothing is more so than consistency in one’s whole life and in each of one’s actions; and you cannot maintain it if you imitate the nature of others and abandon your own.
Not esteeming others enough
Montaigne has met no truly great man except La Boétie, and judges the learned harshly.
Voyla donq iusques où ie me sens coulpable de cette premiere partie, que ie disois estre au vice de la presomption. Pour la seconde, qui consiste à n’estimer point assez autruy, ie ne sçay si ie m’en puis si bien excuser: car quoy qu’il me couste, ie delibere de dire ce qui en est. A l’aduenture que le commerce continuel que i’ay auec les humeurs anciennes, et l’idée de ces riches ames du temps passé, me dégouste, et d’autruy, et de moy-mesme: ou bien qu’à la verité nous viuons en vn siecle qui ne produict les choses que bien mediocres. Tant y a que ie ne connoy rien digne de grande admiration.
That, then, is how far I feel myself guilty of the first part, which I said there was in the vice of presumption. As for the second, which consists in not esteeming others enough, I do not know whether I can excuse myself so well; for whatever it costs me, I am resolved to tell the truth of it. Perhaps the continual company I keep with the temperaments of the ancients, and the idea of those rich souls of times past, gives me a distaste both for others and for myself; or else, in truth, we live in an age that produces only very mediocre things. At any rate, I know of nothing worthy of great admiration.
Aussi ne connoy-ie guere d’hommes, auec telle priuauté, qu’il faut pour en pouuoir iuger: et ceux ausquels ma condition me mesle plus ordinairement, sont pour la pluspart, gens qui ont peu de soing de la culture de l’ame, et ausquels on ne propose pour toute beatitude que l’honneur, et pour toute perfection, que la vaillance.
Nor do I know many men with the intimacy needed to be able to judge them. And those with whom my station most commonly throws me are for the most part people who care little for the cultivation of the soul, and who are offered honor as the whole of bliss and valor as the whole of perfection.
Ce que ie voy de beau en autruy, ie le louë et l’estime tres-volontiers. Voire i’enrichis souuent sur ce que i’en pense, et me permets de mentir iusques là. Car ie ne sçay point inuenter vn subiect faux. Ie tesmoigne volontiers de mes amis, par ce que i’y trouue de loüable. Et d’vn pied de valeur, i’en fay volontiers vn pied et demy. Mais de leur prester les qualitez qui n’y sont pas, ie ne puis: ny les defendre ouuertement des imperfections qu’ils ont. Voyre à mes ennemis, ie rends nettement ce que ie dois de tesmoignage d’honneur. Mon affection se change, mon iugement non. Et ne confons point ma querelle auec autres circonstances qui n’en sont pas.
What I see that is fine in others I very willingly praise and esteem. Indeed I often go beyond what I think of it, and allow myself to lie that far. For I do not know how to invent a false subject. I readily bear witness for my friends as to what I find praiseworthy in them, and out of one foot of worth I gladly make a foot and a half. But lend them qualities that are not there, I cannot; nor openly defend them from the imperfections they have. Even to my enemies I plainly render the testimony of honor that I owe. My affection changes; my judgment does not. And I do not confuse my quarrel with other circumstances that have nothing to do with it.
Et suis tant ialoux de la liberté de mon iugement, que mal-ayséement la puis-ie quitter pour passion que ce soit. Ie me fay plus d’iniure en mentant, que ie n’en fay à celuy, de qui ie mens. On remarque cette loüable et genereuse coustume de la nation Persienne, qu’ils parloient de leurs mortels ennemis, et à qui ils faisoyent la guerre à outrance, honorablement et equitablement autant que portoit le merite de leur vertu.
And I am so jealous of the freedom of my judgment that I can hardly give it up for any passion whatever. I do myself more harm by lying than I do the man I lie about. People remark on that praiseworthy and generous custom of the Persian nation: they spoke of their mortal enemies, against whom they waged war to the bitter end, honorably and fairly, as far as the merit of their virtue warranted.
Ie connoy des hommes assez, qui ont diuerses parties belles: qui l’esprit, qui le cœur, qui l’adresse, qui la conscience, qui le langage, qui vne science, qui vn’autre: mais de grand homme en general, et ayant tant de belles pieces ensemble, ou vne, en tel degré d’excellence, qu’on le doiue admirer, ou le comparer à ceux que nous honorons du temps passé, ma fortune ne m’en a faict voir nul.
I know plenty of men who have various fine parts: one has wit, another courage, another skill, another conscience, another eloquence, one a certain branch of learning, another a different one. But as for a great man overall, having so many fine pieces together, or one of them in such a degree of excellence that he ought to be admired or compared with those we honor from times past—my fortune has shown me none.
Et le plus grand que i’aye conneu au vif, ie di des parties naturelles de l’ame, et le mieux né, c’estoit Estienne de la Boitie: c’estoit vrayement vn’ ame pleine, et qui montroit vn beau visage à tout sens: vn’ ame à la vieille marque: et qui eust produit de grands effects, si sa fortune l’eust voulu: ayant beaucoup adiousté à ce riche naturel, par science et estude.
And the greatest I have known in the flesh—I mean in the natural qualities of the soul—and the best born, was Étienne de La Boétie. His was truly a full soul, which showed a fine face from every side: a soul of the old stamp, which would have achieved great things if his fortune had willed it, for he had added much to that rich nature by learning and study.
Mais ie ne sçay comment il aduient, et si aduient sans doubte, qu’il se trouue autant de vanité et de foiblesse d’entendement, en ceux qui font profession d’auoir plus de suffisance, qui se meslent de vacations lettrées, et de charges qui despendent des liures, qu’en nulle autre sorte de gens. Ou bien par ce que lon requiert et attend plus d’eux, et qu’on ne peut excuser en eux les fautes communes: ou bien que l’opinion du sçauoir leur donne plus de hardiesse de se produire, et de se descouurir trop auant, par où ils se perdent, et se trahissent.
But I do not know how it comes about—and come about it certainly does—that there is as much vanity and weakness of understanding in those who profess to have more ability, who take up literary callings and offices that depend on books, as in any other sort of people. Either because more is required and expected of them, and common faults cannot be excused in them; or because the reputation for learning gives them more boldness to put themselves forward and expose themselves too far, whereby they ruin and betray themselves.
Comme vn artisan tesmoigne bien mieux sa bestise, en vne riche matiere, qu’il ait entre mains, s’il l’accommode et mesle sottement, et contre les regles de son ouurage, qu’en vne matiere vile: et s’offence lon plus du defaut, en vne statue d’or, qu’en celle qui est de plastre. Ceux cy en font autant, lors qu’ils mettent en auant des choses qui d’elles mesmes, et en leur lieu, seroyent bonnes: car ils s’en seruent sans discretion, faisans honneur à leur memoire, aux despens de leur entendement: et faisans honneur à Cicero, à Galien, à Vlpian, et à sainct Hierosme, pour se rendre eux ridicules.
Just as a craftsman shows his stupidity much better in a rich material he has in hand, if he arranges and combines it foolishly and against the rules of his craft, than in a base one; and people are more offended by a flaw in a golden statue than in one of plaster. These men do the same when they put forward things that in themselves and in their place would be good. For they use them without discretion, doing honor to their memory at the expense of their understanding, and doing honor to Cicero, Galen, Ulpian and Saint Jerome only to make themselves ridiculous.
Ie retombe volontiers sur ce discours de l’ineptie de nostre institution. Elle a eu pour sa fin, de nous faire, non bons et sages, mais sçauans: elle y est arriuée. Elle ne nous a pas appris de suyure et embrasser la vertu et la prudence: mais elle nous en a imprimé la deriuation et l’etymologie. Nous sçauons decliner vertu, si nous ne sçauons l’aymer. Si nous ne sçauons que c’est que prudence par effect, et par experience, nous le sçauons par iargon et par cœur.
I readily fall back on this theme of the ineptitude of our education. Its aim has been to make us not good and wise, but learned; and it has succeeded. It has not taught us to follow and embrace virtue and prudence, but it has stamped on us their derivation and etymology. We know how to decline virtue, even if we do not know how to love it. If we do not know what prudence is in fact and by experience, we know it by jargon and by heart.
De nos voisins, nous ne nous contentons pas d’en sçauoir la race, les parentelles, et les alliances, nous les voulons auoir pour amis, et dresser auec eux quelque conuersation et intelligence: elle nous a appris les definitions, les diuisions, et partitions de la vertu, comme des surnoms et branches d’vne genealogie, sans auoir autre soing de dresser entre nous et elle, quelque pratique de familiarité et priuée accointance. Elle nous a choisi pour nostre apprentissage, non les liures qui ont les opinions plus saines et plus vrayes, mais ceux qui parlent le meilleur Grec et Latin: et parmy ses beaux mots, nous a fait couler en la fantasie les plus vaines humeurs de l’antiquité.
With our neighbors, we are not content to know their lineage, their kin and their connections by marriage; we want to have them as friends and establish some conversation and understanding with them. Our education has taught us the definitions, divisions and subdivisions of virtue, like the surnames and branches of a family tree, without any further concern to establish between us and her some practice of familiarity and private acquaintance. It has chosen for our learning not the books with the soundest and truest opinions, but those that speak the best Greek and Latin; and amid their fine words it has slipped into our minds the emptiest fancies of antiquity.
Vne bonne institution, elle change le iugement et les mœurs: comme il aduint à Polemon: ce ieune homme Grec desbauché, qui estant allé ouïr par rencontre, vne leçon de Xenocrates, ne remerqua pas seulement l’éloquence et la suffisance du lecteur, et n’en rapporta pas seulement en la maison, la science de quelque belle matiere: mais vn fruit plus apparent et plus solide: qui fut, le soudain changement et amendement de sa premiere vie. Qui a iamais senti vn tel effect de nostre discipline? Faciásne quod olim / Mutatus Polemon? ponas insignia morbi, / Fasciolas, cubital, focalia, potus vt ille / Dicitur ex collo furtim carpsisse coronas, / Postquam est impransi correptus voce magistri?
A good education changes judgment and conduct, as happened to Polemon, that debauched young Greek who, having gone by chance to hear a lecture by Xenocrates, did not merely notice the eloquence and ability of the lecturer, nor merely bring home the knowledge of some fine subject, but a more evident and more solid fruit: the sudden change and amendment of his former life. Who has ever felt such an effect from our schooling? Would you do what once / the reformed Polemon did? Would you lay aside the badges of your sickness, / your leg-bands, your elbow cushion, your neck-wraps, as he, in his cups, / is said to have stealthily plucked the garlands from his neck / after he was rebuked by the voice of the fasting master?
La moins dedeignable condition de gents, me semble estre, celle qui par simplesse tient le dernier rang: et nous offrir vn commerce plus reglé. Les mœurs et les propos des paysans, ie les trouue communement plus ordonnez selon la prescription de la vraye philosophie, que ne sont ceux de noz philosophes. Plus sapit vulgus, quia tantum, quantum opus est, sapit.
The least contemptible class of people seems to me to be the one that, through simplicity, holds the lowest rank, and that offers us more orderly dealings. The conduct and talk of peasants I commonly find more in keeping with the prescriptions of true philosophy than those of our philosophers. The common people are wiser, because they are only as wise as they need to be.
The notable men of his time
Montaigne names the soldiers, statesmen and poets of his age he admires, and Marie de Gournay.
Les plus notables hommes que i’aye iugé, par les apparences externes, car pour les iuger à ma mode, il les faudroit esclairer de plus pres, c’ont esté, pour le faict de la guerre, et suffisance militaire, le Duc de Guyse, qui mourut à Orleans, et le feu Mareschal Strozzi. Pour gens suffisans, et de vertu non commune, Oliuier, et l’Hospital Chanceliers de France. Il me semble aussi de la poësie qu’elle a eu sa vogue en nostre siecle. Nous auons abondance de bons artisans de ce mestier-là, Aurat, Beze, Buchanan, l’Hospital, Mont-doré, Turnebus.
The most notable men I have judged by outward appearances—for to judge them in my own way I would have to examine them more closely—have been, in matters of war and military ability, the Duke of Guise, who died at Orléans, and the late Marshal Strozzi. As men of ability and uncommon virtue, Olivier and L’Hospital, Chancellors of France. It seems to me also that poetry has had its heyday in our century. We have an abundance of good craftsmen in that trade: Dorat, Beza, Buchanan, L’Hospital, Montdoré, Turnebus.
Quant aux François, ie pense qu’ils l’ont montée au plus haut degré où elle sera iamais: et aux parties, en quoy Ronsart et du Bellay excellent, ie ne les treuue gueres esloignez de la perfection ancienne. Adrianus Turnebus sçauoit plus, et sçauoit mieux ce qu’il sçauoit, qu’homme qui fust de son siecle, ny loing au delà. Les vies du Duc d’Albe dernier mort, et de nostre Connestable de Mommorancy, ont esté des vies nobles, et qui ont eu plusieurs rares ressemblances de fortune.
As for those who write in French, I think they have raised it to the highest degree it will ever reach; and in the qualities in which Ronsard and du Bellay excel, I find them hardly far from the perfection of the ancients. Adrianus Turnebus knew more, and knew better what he knew, than any man of his century or long before. The lives of the Duke of Alba, recently dead, and of our Constable de Montmorency were noble lives, and had several rare resemblances of fortune.
Mais la beauté, et la gloire de la mort de cettuy-cy, à la veuë de Paris, et de son Roy; pour leur seruice contre ses plus proches; à la teste d’vne armée victorieuse par sa conduitte; et d’vn coup de main, en si extreme vieillesse, me semble meriter qu’on la loge entre les remerquables euenemens de mon temps. Comme aussi, la constante bonté, douceur de mœurs, et facilité consciencieuse de Monsieur de la Nouë, en vne telle iniustice de parts armées, vraye eschole de trahison, d’inhumanité, et de brigandage, où tousiours il s’est nourry, grand homme de guerre, et tres-experimenté.
But the beauty and glory of the latter’s death—in sight of Paris and of his King, in their service against his nearest kin, at the head of an army victorious under his leadership, and in hand-to-hand fighting, at so extreme an age—seem to me to deserve a place among the remarkable events of my time. So too do the constant goodness, gentleness of manners and conscientious affability of Monsieur de La Noue, amid such injustice of armed factions—a true school of treachery, inhumanity and brigandage—in which he was raised all his life, a great and very experienced man of war.
I’ay pris plaisir à publier en plusieurs lieux, l’esperance que i’ay de Marie de Gournay le Iars ma fille d’alliance: et certes aymée de moy beaucoup plus que paternellement, et enueloppée en ma retraitte et solitude, comme l’vne des meilleures parties de mon propre estre. Ie ne regarde plus qu’elle au monde.
I have taken pleasure in making public in several places the hope I have for Marie de Gournay le Jars, my adopted daughter—and certainly loved by me far more than as a father loves—enfolded in my retirement and solitude as one of the best parts of my own being. She is all I care for in the world now.
Si l’adolescence peut donner presage, cette ame sera quelque iour capable des plus belles choses, et entre autres de la perfection de cette tressaincte amitié, où nous ne lisons point que son sexe ait peu monter encores: la sincerité et la solidité de ses mœurs, y sont desia bastantes, son affection vers moy plus que sur-abondante: et telle en somme qu’il n’y a rien à souhaiter, sinon que l’apprehension qu’elle a de ma fin, par les cinquante et cinq ans ausquels elle m’a rencontré, la trauaillast moins cruellement.
If youth can give any presage, this soul will one day be capable of the finest things, and among others of the perfection of that most holy friendship to which we do not read that her sex has yet been able to rise. The sincerity and solidity of her character are already sufficient for it; her affection for me more than superabundant—such, in short, that there is nothing left to wish for, except that her fear of my end, given the fifty-five years at which she met me, would torment her less cruelly.
Le iugement qu’elle fit des premiers Essays, et femme, et en ce siecle, et si ieune, et seule en son quartier, et la vehemence fameuse dont elle m’ayma et me desira long temps sur la seule estime qu’elle en print de moy, auant m’auoir veu, c’est vn accident de tres-digne consideration.
The judgment she formed of the first Essays—she a woman, and in this century, and so young, and alone in her part of the country—and the famous vehemence with which she loved me and long yearned to meet me, solely on the esteem she conceived for me before she had ever seen me, is an occurrence most worthy of consideration.
Les autres vertus ont eu peu, ou point de mise en cet aage: mais la vaillance, elle est deuenue populaire par noz guerres ciuiles: et en cette partie, il se trouue parmy nous, des ames fermes, iusques à la perfection, et en grand nombre, si que le triage en est impossible à faire.
The other virtues have had little or no currency in this age; but valor has become common through our civil wars. In this respect there are among us souls firm to the point of perfection, and in such great numbers that it is impossible to sort out the best.
Voila tout ce que i’ay cognu, iusques à cette heure, d’extraordinaire grandeur et non commune.
That is all I have known, up to this hour, of extraordinary and uncommon greatness.