LE monde n’est que varieté et dissemblance. Les vices sont tous pareils en ce qu’ils sont tous vices: et de cette façon l’entendent à l’aduenture les Stoiciens: mais encore qu’ils soyent également vices, ils ne sont pas égaux vices. Et que celuy qui a franchi de cent pas les limites, Quos vltra, citráque nequit consistere rectum, ne soit pas de pire condition, que celuy qui n’en est qu’à dix pas, il n’est pas croyable: et que le sacrilege ne soit pire que le larrecin d’vn chou de nostre iardin: Nec vincet ratio, tantumdem vt peccet, idémque, / Qui teneros caules alieni fregerit horti, / Et qui nocturnus diuûm sacra legerit.
The world is nothing but variety and dissimilarity. Vices are all alike in that they are all vices, and perhaps that is how the Stoics understand it; but though they are equally vices, they are not equal vices. That the man who has overstepped the limits by a hundred paces, Beyond and short of which right cannot stand, is in no worse condition than the one who is only ten paces past them is not believable; nor that sacrilege is no worse than stealing a cabbage from our garden: Nor will reason prove that the sin is the same and as great / For one who breaks off tender cabbages in another man’s garden / And for one who steals by night the sacred objects of the gods.
Il y a autant en cela de diuersité qu’en aucune autre chose. La confusion de l’ordre et mesure des pechez, est dangereuse. Les meurtriers, les traistres, les tyrans, y ont trop d’acquest: ce n’est pas raison que leur conscience se soulage, sur ce que tel autre ou est oisif, ou est lascif, ou moins assidu à la deuotion. Chacun poise sur le peché de son compagnon, et esleue le sien. Les instructeurs mesmes les rangent souuent mal à mon gré. Comme Socrates disoit, que le principal office de la sagesse estoit, distinguer les biens et les maux.
There is as much diversity in this as in anything else. Confusing the order and measure of sins is dangerous. Murderers, traitors and tyrants gain too much by it: it is not right that their conscience should be relieved because some other man is idle, or lascivious, or less assiduous in devotion. Each man bears down on his fellow’s sin and makes light of his own. Even our teachers often rank them badly, to my mind. Socrates said that the chief office of wisdom was to distinguish good things from bad.
Nous autres, à qui le meilleur est tousiours en vice, deuons dire de mesme de la science de distinguer les vices: sans laquelle, bien exacte, le vertueux et le meschant demeurent meslez et incognus.
We others, in whom even the best is always tainted with vice, ought to say the same of the science of distinguishing vices; without it, and an exact one, the virtuous and the wicked remain mixed up and unrecognized.
Or l’yurongnerie entre les autres, me semble vn vice grossier et brutal. L’esprit a plus de part ailleurs: et il y a des vices, qui ont ie ne sçay quoy de genereux, s’il le faut ainsi dire. Il y en a où la science se mesle, la diligence, la vaillance, la prudence, l’addresse et la finesse: cestuy-cy est tout corporel et terrestre. Aussi la plus grossiere nation de celles qui sont auiourd’huy, c’est celle là seule qui le tient en credit. Les autres vices alterent l’entendement, cestuy-cy le renuerse, et estonne le corps. Cùm vini vis penetrauit, / Consequitur grauitas membrorum, præpediuntur / Crura vacillanti, tardescit lingua, madet mens, / Nant oculi; clamor, singultus iurgia gliscunt.
Now drunkenness, among others, seems to me a gross and brutish vice. The mind has more share in the others; and there are vices that have something noble about them, if one may put it so. There are some in which knowledge plays a part, and diligence, valor, prudence, skill and cunning; this one is wholly bodily and earthly. And so the grossest nation of all those that exist today is the only one that holds it in esteem. Other vices impair the understanding; this one overturns it, and stuns the body. When the force of wine has penetrated, / Heaviness of the limbs follows; the legs stagger / And are hampered, the tongue grows slow, the mind is sodden, / The eyes swim; shouting, hiccups and quarrels grow.
Le pire estat de l’homme, c’est où il pert la connoissance et gouuernement de soy. Et en dit on entre autres choses, que comme le moust bouillant dans vn vaisseau, pousse à mont tout ce qu’il y a dans le fonds, aussi le vin faict desbonder les plus intimes secrets, à ceux qui en ont pris outre mesure. Tu sapientium / Curas, et arcanum iocoso / Consilium retegis Lyæo. Iosephe recite qu’il tira le ver du nez à vn certain ambassadeur que les ennemis luy auoient enuoyé, l’ayant fait boire d’autant.
The worst state of man is when he loses knowledge and control of himself. Among other things, it is said that, just as boiling must in a vat pushes up everything at the bottom, so wine makes the most intimate secrets spill out of those who have taken it beyond measure. You lay bare the cares of the wise / And their secret counsel / Through playful Lyaeus. Josephus relates that he wormed the secrets out of a certain ambassador whom the enemy had sent him, by making him drink deep.
Toutesfois Auguste s’estant fié à Lucius Piso, qui conquit la Thrace, des plus priuez affaires qu’il eust, ne s’en trouua iamais mesconté: ny Tyberius de Cossus, à qui il se deschargeoit de tous ses conseils: quoy que nous les sçachions auoir esté si fort subiects au vin, qu’il en a fallu rapporter souuent du Senat, et l’vn et l’autre yure, Hesterno inflatum venas, de more, Lyæo. Et commit on aussi fidelement qu’à Cassius beuueur d’eauë, à Cimber le dessein de tuer Cesar: quoy qu’il s’enyurast souuent: d’où il respondit plaisamment, Que ie portasse vn tyran, moy, qui ne puis porter le vin! Nous voyons nos Allemans noyez dans le vin, se souuenir de leur quartier, du mot, et de leur rang.
Yet Augustus, having confided his most private affairs to Lucius Piso, the conqueror of Thrace, was never let down; nor was Tiberius by Cossus, onto whom he unloaded all his plans—though we know that both were so given to wine that they often had to be carried back from the Senate, the pair of them drunk: His veins swollen, as usual, with yesterday’s wine. And the plan to kill Caesar was entrusted to Cimber as faithfully as to Cassius, a water drinker, though Cimber often got drunk; hence his witty reply: “Me, bear a tyrant—I who cannot bear my wine!” We see our Germans, drowned in wine, still remember their quarters, the password and their rank.
Nec facilis victoria de madidis, et / Blæsis, atque mero titubantibus.
Nor is victory easy over men who are soaked, / Stammering and staggering with wine.
Ie n’eusse pas creu d’yuresse si profonde, estoufée, et enseuelie, si ie n’eusse leu cecy dans les histoires: Qu’Attalus ayant conuié à souper pour luy faire vne notable indignité, ce Pausanias, qui sur ce mesme subiect, tua depuis Philippus Roy de Macedoine (Roy portant par ses belles qualitez tesmoignage de la nourriture, qu’il auoit prinse en la maison et compagnie d’Epaminondas) il le fit tant boire, qu’il peust abandonner sa beauté, insensiblement, comme le corps d’vne putain buissonniere, aux muletiers et nombre d’abiects seruiteurs de sa maison.
I would not have believed in a drunkenness so deep, so stifled and buried, had I not read this in the histories. Attalus, wishing to do a signal indignity to that Pausanias who later, over this very matter, killed Philip, King of Macedon (a king whose fine qualities bore witness to the upbringing he had received in the house and company of Epaminondas), invited him to supper. He made him drink so much that he was able to hand over his beauty, without his feeling a thing, like the body of a hedgerow prostitute, to the muleteers and a crowd of the lowly servants of his household.
Et ce que m’aprint vne dame que i’honnore et prise fort, que pres de Bordeaux, vers Castres, où est sa maison, vne femme de village, veufue, de chaste reputation, sentant des premiers ombrages de grossesse, disoit à ses voisines, qu’elle penseroit estre enceinte si ell’auoit vn mary. Mais du iour à la iournee, croissant l’occasion de ce soupçon, et en fin iusques à l’euidence, ell’en vint là, de faire declarer au prosne de son eglise, que qui seroit consent de ce faict, en l’aduoüant, elle promettoit de le luy pardonner, et s’il le trouuoit bon, de l’espouser.
And there is what I was told by a lady whom I honor and esteem highly. Near Bordeaux, toward Castres, where her house is, a village woman, a widow of chaste reputation, feeling the first suspicions of pregnancy, told her neighbors that she would think she was with child if she had a husband. But as the grounds for this suspicion grew from day to day, and finally to the point of being evident, she went so far as to have it announced from the pulpit of her church that whoever had been party to this deed, if he owned up to it, she promised to forgive him, and, if he was willing, to marry him.
Vn sien ieune valet de labourage, enhardy de cette proclamation, declara l’auoir trouuée vn iour de feste, ayant bien largement prins son vin, endormie en son foyer si profondement et si indecemment, qu’il s’en peut seruir sans l’esueiller. Ils viuent encore mariez ensemble.
One of her young farmhands, emboldened by this proclamation, declared that one feast day, when she had taken her wine very liberally, he had found her asleep by her hearth, so deeply and in so indecent a posture that he was able to make use of her without waking her. They are still living together as man and wife.
Il est certain que l’antiquité n’a pas fort descrié ce vice: les escris mesmes de plusieurs Philosophes en parlent bien mollement: et iusques aux Stoïciens il y en a qui conseillent de se dispenser quelquefois à boire d’autant, et de s’enyurer pour relascher l’ame. Hoc quoque virtutum quondam certamine magnum / Socratem palmam promeruisse ferunt. Ce censeur et correcteur des autres Caton, a esté reproché de bien boire. Narratur et prisci Catonis / Sæpe mero caluisse virtus. Cyrus Roy tant renommé, allegue entre ses autres loüanges, pour se preferer à son frere Artaxerxes, qu’il sçauoit beaucoup mieux boire que luy. Et és nations les mieux reglées, et policées; cet essay de boire d’autant, estoit fort en vsage.
It is certain that antiquity did not much decry this vice. The writings even of several philosophers speak of it very mildly; and even among the Stoics there are some who advise allowing oneself now and then to drink deep and get drunk, to relax the soul. In this contest of virtues too, they say, the great / Socrates once won the palm. That censor and corrector of others, Cato, was reproached for drinking hard. It is told that even old Cato’s virtue / Was often warmed with wine. Cyrus, that much-renowned king, among his other claims to praise, cites as a reason for ranking himself above his brother Artaxerxes that he could hold his drink far better than he. And in the best-ordered and best-governed nations this trial of drinking deep was very much in use.
I’ay ouy dire à Siluius excellent medecin de Paris, que pour garder que les forces de nostre estomac ne s’apparessent, il est bon vne fois le mois, les esueiller par cet excez, et les picquer pour les garder de s’engourdir. Et escrit-on que les Perses apres le vin consultoient de leurs principaux affaires.
I have heard Sylvius, an excellent Paris physician, say that to keep the powers of our stomach from growing lazy, it is good once a month to rouse them by this excess, and to prod them to keep them from going numb. And it is written that the Persians deliberated on their chief affairs after wine.
Mon goust et ma complexion est plus ennemie de ce vice, que mon discours. Car outre ce que ie captiue aysément mes creances soubs l’authorité des opinions anciennes, ie le trouue bien vn vice lasche et stupide, mais moins malicieux et dommageable que les autres, qui choquent quasi tous de plus droit fil la societé publique. Et si nous ne nous pouuons donner du plaisir, qu’il ne nous couste quelque chose, comme ils tiennent, ie trouue que ce vice couste moins à nostre conscience que les autres: outre ce qu’il n’est point de difficile apprest, ny malaisé à trouuer: consideration non mesprisable.
My taste and constitution are more hostile to this vice than my reasoning is. For besides the fact that I readily make my beliefs captive to the authority of ancient opinions, I do indeed find it a slack and stupid vice, but less malicious and harmful than the others, which nearly all strike more directly at public society. And if we cannot give ourselves pleasure without its costing us something, as they hold, I find that this vice costs our conscience less than the others; besides which it takes no trouble to prepare and is not hard to find—a consideration not to be despised.
Vn homme auancé en dignité et en aage, entre trois principales commoditez, qu’il me disoit luy rester, en la vie, comptoit ceste-cy, et où les veut on trouuer plus iustement qu’entre les naturelles? Mais il la prenoit mal. La delicatesse y est à fuyr, et le soigneux triage du vin. Si vous fondez vostre volupté à le boire friand, vous vous obligez à la douleur de le boire autre. Il faut auoir le goust plus lasche et plus libre. Pour estre bon beuueur, il ne faut le palais si tendre. Les Allemans boiuent quasi esgalement de tout vin auec plaisir. Leur fin c’est l’aualler, plus que le gouster. Ils en ont bien meilleur marché. Leur volupté est bien plus plantureuse et plus en main.
A man advanced in rank and in age, among three principal comforts that he told me were left to him in life, counted this one; and where would one look for them more rightly than among the natural ones? But he went about it the wrong way. Fastidiousness is to be avoided here, and the careful choosing of wine. If you base your pleasure on drinking it choice, you condemn yourself to the pain of drinking it otherwise. You need a slacker and freer taste. To be a good drinker, you must not have so tender a palate. The Germans drink almost any wine with equal pleasure. Their aim is to swallow it rather than to taste it. They get a far better bargain. Their pleasure is much more plentiful and more ready to hand.
Secondement, boire à la Françoise à deux repas, et moderéement, c’est trop restreindre les faueurs de ce Dieu. Il y faut plus de temps et de constance. Les anciens franchissoyent des nuicts entieres à cet exercice, et y attachoyent souuent les iours. Et si faut dresser son ordinaire plus large et plus ferme. I’ay veu vn grand Seigneur de mon temps, personnage de hautes entreprinses, et fameux succez, qui sans effort, et au train de ses repas communs, ne beuuoit guere moins de cinq lots de vin: et ne se montroit au partir de là, que trop sage et aduisé aux despens de noz affaires. Le plaisir, duquel nous voulons tenir compte au cours de nostre vie, doit en employer plus d’espace.
Secondly, to drink in the French fashion, at two meals and in moderation, is to restrict the favors of this god too much. More time and constancy are needed. The ancients spent whole nights at this exercise, and often tacked the days on to them. And so one must set one’s ordinary allowance larger and steadier. I have seen a great lord of my time, a man of lofty enterprises and famous successes, who without effort, and in the course of his everyday meals, drank hardly less than five lots of wine; and on rising from table showed himself only too wise and shrewd, at the expense of our interests. The pleasure we want to reckon on in the course of our life should take up more room in it.
Il faudroit, comme des garçons de boutique, et gents de trauail, ne refuser nulle occasion de boire, et auoir ce desir tousiours en teste. Il semble que touts les iours nous racourcissons l’vsage de cestuy-cy: et qu’en noz maisons, comme i’ay veu en mon enfance, les desiuners, les ressiners, et les collations fussent plus frequentes et ordinaires, qu’à present. Seroit ce qu’en quelque chose nous allassions vers l’amendement? Vrayement non. Mais ce peut estre que nous nous sommes beaucoup plus iettez à la paillardise, que noz peres. Ce sont deux occupations, qui s’entrempeschent en leur vigueur. Elle a affoibli nostre estomach d’vne part: et d’autre part la sobrieté sert à nous rendre plus coints, plus damerets pour l’exercice de l’amour.
We ought, like shop boys and laborers, to refuse no occasion to drink, and always to have this desire in our heads. It seems that every day we cut down on the practice of it, and that in our houses, as I saw in my childhood, breakfasts, afternoon snacks and light suppers were more frequent and usual than now. Could it be that in some respect we are moving toward improvement? Truly not. But it may be that we have thrown ourselves much more into lechery than our fathers did. These are two occupations that hinder each other in their vigor. Lechery has weakened our stomach on the one hand; and on the other, sobriety serves to make us more dapper and more the ladies’ man for the exercise of love.
My father
His father’s tales of a chaste age, his bearing, his agility and his late marriage.
C’est merueille des comptes que i’ay ouy faire à mon pere de la chasteté de son siecle. C’estoit à luy d’en dire, estant tres aduenant et par art et par nature à l’vsage des dames. Il parloit peu et bien, et si mesloit son langage de quelque ornement des liures vulgaires, sur tout Espaignols: et entre les Espaignols, luy estoit ordinaire celuy qu’ils nomment Marc Aurele. Le port, il l’auoit d’vne grauité douce, humble, et tres modeste. Singulier soing de l’honnesteté et decence de sa personne, et de ses habits, soit à pied, soit à cheual. Monstrueuse foy en ses paroles: et vne conscience et religion en general, penchant plustost vers la superstition que vers l’autre bout.
It is a marvel, the accounts I have heard my father give of the chastity of his age. He was the one to speak of it, being very well suited, both by skill and by nature, to the company of ladies. He spoke little and well, and mixed into his speech some ornament from books in the vernacular, especially Spanish ones; and among the Spanish, the one they call Marcus Aurelius was a constant companion of his. His bearing had a gentle gravity, humble and very modest. Singular care for the propriety and decency of his person and his clothes, whether on foot or on horseback. Prodigious faithfulness to his word; and a conscience and religion in general leaning rather toward superstition than toward the other extreme.
Pour vn homme de petite taille, plein de vigueur, et d’vne stature droitte et bien proportionnée, d’vn visage aggreable, tirant sur le brun: adroit et exquis en touts nobles exercices. I’ay veu encore des cannes farcies de plomb, desquelles on dit qu’il s’exerçoit les bras pour se preparer à ruer la barre, ou la pierre, ou à l’escrime: et des souliers aux semelles plombées, pour s’alleger au courir et à sauter. Du prim-saut il a laissé en memoire de petits miracles. Ie l’ay veu pardelà soixante ans se moquer de noz alaigresses: se ietter auec sa robbe fourrée sur vn cheual; faire le tour de la table sur son pouce, ne monter guere en sa chambre, sans s’eslancer trois ou quatre degrez à la fois.
As for his person: a man of small stature, full of vigor, with an upright, well-proportioned build, a pleasant face tending to the dark; adroit and accomplished in all noble exercises. I have still seen canes filled with lead, with which, they say, he exercised his arms to prepare for throwing the bar or the stone, or for fencing; and shoes with leaded soles, to make himself lighter for running and jumping. Of his leaping he has left the memory of little miracles. I have seen him past sixty make a mockery of our nimbleness: throw himself onto a horse in his furred gown, go around the table on his thumb, and hardly ever go up to his room without bounding three or four steps at a time.
Sur mon propos il disoit, qu’en toute vne prouince à peine y auoit il vne femme de qualité, qui fust mal nommée. Recitoit des estranges priuautez, nommément siennes, auec des honnestes femmes, sans soupçon quelconque. Et de soy, iuroit sainctement estre venu vierge à son mariage, et si c’estoit apres auoir eu longue part aux guerres delà les monts: desquelles il nous a laissé vn papier iournal de sa main suyuant poinct par poinct ce qui s’y passa, et pour le publiq et pour son priué. Aussi se maria il bien auant en aage l’an M. D. XXVIII, qui estoit son trentetroisiesme, sur le chemin de son retour d’Italie. Reuenons à noz bouteilles.
On my subject, he said that in a whole province there was hardly one woman of quality who had a bad name. He would tell of strange intimacies, notably his own, with respectable women, without any suspicion whatever. And of himself he solemnly swore that he had come a virgin to his marriage—and this after having long taken part in the wars beyond the mountains, of which he left us a journal in his own hand, following point by point what happened there, both in public matters and in his private ones. And so he married well on in age, in the year 1528, which was his thirty-third, on his way home from Italy. Let us return to our bottles.
Les incommoditez de la vieillesse, qui ont besoing de quelque appuy et refreschissement, pourroyent m’engendrer auecq raison desir de cette faculté: car c’est quasi le dernier plaisir que le cours des ans nous desrobe. La chaleur naturelle, disent les bons compaignons, se prent premierement aux pieds: celle là touche l’enfance. De-là elle monte à la moyenne region, où elle se plante long temps, et y produit, selon moy, les seuls vrais plaisirs de la vie corporelle. Les autres voluptez dorment au prix. Sur la fin, à la mode d’vne vapeur qui va montant et s’exhalant, ell’arriue au gosier, où elle fait sa derniere pose.
The discomforts of old age, which need some support and refreshment, might with reason breed in me a desire for this faculty; for it is almost the last pleasure that the course of the years steals from us. Natural heat, say the boon companions, takes hold first in the feet: that belongs to childhood. From there it climbs to the middle region, where it settles for a long time and produces there, in my opinion, the only true pleasures of bodily life. The other pleasures are asleep by comparison. Toward the end, like a vapor that keeps rising and evaporating, it reaches the throat, where it makes its last halt.
Ie ne puis pourtant entendre comment on vienne à allonger le plaisir de boire outre la soif, et se forger en l’imagination vn appetit artificiel, et contre nature. Mon estomach n’iroit pas iusques là: il est assez empesché à venir à bout de ce qu’il prend pour son besoing. Ma constitution est, ne faire cas du boire que pour la suitte du manger: et boy à cette cause le dernier coup tousiours le plus grand. Et par ce qu’en la vieillesse, nous apportons le palais encrassé de reume, ou alteré par quelque autre mauuaise constitution, le vin nous semble meilleur, à mesme que nous auons ouuert et laué noz pores.
Yet I cannot understand how people come to prolong the pleasure of drinking beyond thirst, and to forge in their imagination an artificial appetite, against nature. My stomach would not go that far: it has trouble enough getting through what it takes for its needs. My constitution is to care for drink only as a sequel to eating; and for this reason I always make the last draught the biggest. And because in old age we bring a palate clogged with phlegm, or altered by some other bad condition, wine seems better to us in proportion as we have opened and washed our pores.
Aumoins il ne m’aduient guere, que pour la premiere fois i’en prenne bien le goust, Anacharsis s’estonnoit que les Grecs beussent sur la fin du repas en plus grands verres qu’au commencement. C’estoit, comme ie pense, pour la mesme raison que les Alemans le font, qui commencent lors le combat à boire d’autant.
At least it hardly ever happens that I get the taste of it properly the first time. Anacharsis was astonished that the Greeks drank from bigger cups at the end of a meal than at the beginning. It was, I think, for the same reason that the Germans do it, who only then begin their contest of drinking deep.
Platon defend aux enfants de boire vin auant dixhuict ans, et auant quarante de s’enyurer. Mais à ceux qui ont passé les quarante, il pardonne de s’y plaire, et de mesler vn peu largement en leurs conuiues l’influence de Dionysus: ce bon Dieu, qui redonne aux hommes la gayeté, et la ieunesse aux vieillards, qui adoucit et amollit les passions de l’ame, comme le fer s’amollit par le feu, et en ses loix, trouue telles assemblées à boire (pourueu qu’il y aye vn chef de bande, à les contenir et regler) vtiles: l’yuresse estant vne bonne espreuue et certaine de la nature d’vn chascun: et quand et quand propre à donner aux personnes d’aage le courage de s’esbaudir en danses, et en la musique: choses vtiles, et qu’ils n’osent entreprendre en sens rassis.
Plato forbids children to drink wine before eighteen, and to get drunk before forty. But those who have passed forty he excuses for taking pleasure in it and for mixing rather liberally into their banquets the influence of Dionysus—that good god who gives back gaiety to men and youth to the old, who softens and mollifies the passions of the soul as iron is softened by fire. And in his Laws he finds such drinking gatherings useful (provided there is a leader of the company to restrain and regulate them): drunkenness being a good and sure test of each man’s nature, and at the same time apt to give elderly people the courage to make merry in dancing and music—useful things, which they dare not undertake when sober.
Que le vin est capable de fournir à l’ame de la temperance, au corps de la santé. Toutesfois ces restrictions, en partie empruntées des Carthaginois, luy plaisent. Qu’on s’en espargne en expedition de guerre. Que tout magistrat et tout iuge s’en abstienne sur le point d’executer sa charge, et de consulter des affaires publiques. Qu’on n’y employe le iour, temps deu à d’autres occupations: ny celle nuict, qu’on destine à faire des enfants. Ils disent, que le Philosophe Stilpon aggraué de vieillesse, hasta sa fin à escient, par le breuuage de vin pur. Pareille cause, mais non du propre dessein, suffoqua aussi les forces abbatuës par l’aage du Philosophe Arcesilaüs.
That wine is capable of providing temperance for the soul and health for the body. However, these restrictions, partly borrowed from the Carthaginians, please him: that it should be avoided on military expeditions; that every magistrate and every judge should abstain from it when about to carry out his office and to deliberate on public affairs; that the day, a time owed to other occupations, should not be given to it, nor the night set aside for making children. They say that the philosopher Stilpo, weighed down by old age, deliberately hastened his end by drinking unmixed wine. The same cause, though not by his own design, also stifled the strength of the philosopher Arcesilaus, already worn down by age.
Wisdom and frenzy
Even the wise are shaken by wine and illness; great deeds come from a soul beside itself.
Mais c’est vne vieille et plaisante question, si l’ame du sage seroit pour se rendre à la force du vin, Si munitæ adhibet vim sapientiæ. A combien de vanité nous pousse cette bonne opinion, que nous auons de nous? la plus reglée ame du monde, et la plus parfaicte, n’a que trop affaire à se tenir en pieds, et à se garder de s’emporter par terre de sa propre foiblesse. De mille il n’en est pas vne qui soit droite et rassise vn instant de sa vie: et se pourroit mettre en doubte, si selon sa naturelle condition elle y peut iamais estre. Mais d’y ioindre la constance, c’est sa derniere perfection: ie dis quand rien ne la choqueroit: ce que mille accidens peuuent faire.
But it is an old and amusing question whether the soul of the wise man would yield to the strength of wine: If it brings force to bear on fortified wisdom. How far into vanity does this good opinion we have of ourselves push us? The best-ordered and most perfect soul in the world has only too much to do to stay on its feet and keep from being thrown to the ground by its own weakness. Out of a thousand there is not one that is upright and settled for a single instant of its life; and it could be doubted whether, in its natural condition, it can ever be so. But to join constancy to that is its ultimate perfection—I mean if nothing were to jolt it, which a thousand accidents can do.
Lucrece, ce grand Poëte, a beau philosopher et se bander, le voyla rendu insensé par vn breuuage amoureux. Pensent ils qu’vne apoplexie n’estourdisse aussi bien Socrates, qu’vn portefaix? Les vns ont oublié leur nom mesme par la force d’vne maladie, et vne legere blessure a renuersé le iugement à d’autres. Tant sage qu’il voudra, mais en fin c’est vn homme: qu’est il plus caduque, plus miserable, et plus de neant? La sagesse ne force pas nos conditions naturelles.
Lucretius, that great poet, may philosophize and brace himself all he likes: there he is, driven mad by a love potion. Do they think an apoplexy would not stun Socrates as well as a porter? Some have forgotten even their own name through the force of an illness, and a slight wound has overturned the judgment of others. Let him be as wise as he likes, in the end he is a man: what is there more frail, more wretched, more of a nothing? Wisdom does not overpower our natural conditions.
Sudores itaque et pallorem existere toto / Corpore, et infringi linguam, vocémque aboriri, / Caligare oculos, sonere aures, succidere artus, / Denique concidere, ex animi terrore, videmus. Il faut qu’il sille les yeux au coup qui le menasse: il faut qu’il fremisse planté au bord d’vn precipice, comme vn enfant: Nature ayant voulu se reseruer ces legeres marques de son authorité, inexpugnables à nostre raison, et à la vertu Stoique: pour luy apprendre sa mortalité et nostre fadeze. Il pallit à la peur, il rougit à la honte, il gemit à la colique, sinon d’vne voix desesperée et esclatante, au moins d’vne voix cassée et enroüée.
And so we see sweat and pallor break out over the whole / Body, the tongue falter and the voice fail, / The eyes grow dim, the ears ring, the limbs give way, / And in short men collapse, from terror of the mind. He must blink at the blow that threatens him; he must shudder, set at the edge of a precipice, like a child. Nature has wished to reserve for herself these slight marks of her authority, impregnable to our reason and to Stoic virtue, to teach him his mortality and our foolishness. He turns pale with fear, he blushes with shame, he groans with colic—if not in a desperate and piercing voice, at least in a broken and hoarse one.
Humani à se nihil alienum putet. Les Poëtes qui feignent tout à leur poste, n’osent pas descharger seulement des larmes, leurs heros: Sic fatur lacrymans, classique immittit habenas. Luy suffise de brider et moderer ses inclinations: car de les emporter, il n’est pas en luy. Cestuy mesme nostre Plutarque, si parfaict et excellent iuge des actions humaines, à voir Brutus et Torquatus tuer leurs enfans, est entré en doubte, si la vertu pouuoit donner iusques là: et si ces personnages n’auoyent pas esté plustost agitez par quelque autre passion. Toutes actions hors les bornes ordinaires sont subiectes à sinistre interpretation: d’autant que nostre goust n’aduient non plus à ce qui est au dessus de luy, qu’à ce qui est au dessous.
Let him think nothing human foreign to him. The poets, who invent everything as they please, dare not relieve their heroes even of tears: So he speaks, weeping, and gives the fleet free rein. Let it suffice him to bridle and moderate his inclinations; for to do away with them is not in his power. Even our Plutarch, so perfect and excellent a judge of human actions, seeing Brutus and Torquatus kill their children, came to doubt whether virtue could reach that far, and whether these men had not rather been driven by some other passion. All actions beyond the ordinary bounds are open to sinister interpretation, since our taste no more reaches what is above it than what is below it.
Laissons cette autre secte, faisant expresse profession de fierté. Mais quand en la secte mesme estimée la plus molle, nous oyons ces ventances de Metrodorus: Occupaui te, Fortuna, atque cepi; omnésque aditus tuos interclusi, vt ad me aspirare non posses. Quand Anaxarchus, par l’ordonnance de Nicocreon tyran de Cypre, couché dans vn vaisseau de pierre, et assommé à coups de mail de fer, ne cesse de dire, Frappez, rompez, ce n’est pas Anaxarchus: c’est son estuy que vous pilez. Quand nous oyons nos martyrs, crier au Tyran au milieu de la flamme, C’est assez rosti de ce costé là, hache le, mange le, il est cuit, recommence de l’autre.
Let us leave aside that other sect, which makes an express profession of haughtiness. But when, in the very sect considered the softest, we hear these boasts of Metrodorus: I have forestalled you, Fortune, and caught you; I have blocked all your approaches, so that you cannot reach me. When Anaxarchus, laid in a stone trough by order of Nicocreon, tyrant of Cyprus, and battered with blows of iron mallets, keeps on saying: “Strike, smash: this is not Anaxarchus; it is his casing you are pounding.” When we hear our martyrs cry to the tyrant in the midst of the flames: “That side is roasted enough; chop it, eat it, it is cooked; start on the other.”
Quand nous oyons en Iosephe cet enfant tout deschiré de tenailles mordantes, et persé des aleines d’Antiochus, le deffier encore, criant d’vne voix ferme et asseurée: Tyran, tu pers temps, me voicy tousiours à mon aise: où est cette douleur, où sont ces tourmens, dequoy tu me menassois? n’y sçais tu que cecy? ma constance te donne plus de peine, que ie n’en sens de ta cruauté: ô lasche belistre tu te rens, et ie me renforce: fay moy pleindre, fay moy flechir, fay moy rendre si tu peux: donne courage à tes satellites, et à tes bourreaux: les voyla defaillis de cœur, ils n’en peuuent plus: arme les, acharne les.
When we hear in Josephus of that child, all torn by biting pincers and pierced by the awls of Antiochus, still defying him and crying in a firm and assured voice: “Tyrant, you are wasting your time; here I am, still at my ease. Where is that pain, where are those torments you threatened me with? Is this all you know? My constancy gives you more trouble than I feel from your cruelty. O cowardly wretch, you are giving in, and I am growing stronger. Make me complain, make me bend, make me surrender if you can. Put heart into your henchmen and your executioners: look, they have lost heart, they can do no more. Arm them, set them on.”
Certes il faut confesser qu’en ces ames là, il y a quelque alteration, et quelque fureur, tant sainte soit elle.
Certainly we must confess that in those souls there is some derangement, and some frenzy, however holy it may be.
Quand nous arriuons à ces saillies Stoïques, i’ayme mieux estre furieux que voluptueux: mot d’Antisthenez. Μανειειν μαλλον η ἡσθειειν. Quand Sextius nous dit, qu’il ayme mieux estre enferré de la douleur que de la volupté: quand Epicurus entreprend de se faire mignarder à la goutte, et refusant le repos et la santé, que de gayeté de cœur il deffie les maux: et mesprisant les douleurs moins aspres, dedaignant les luiter, et les combattre, qu’il en appelle et desire des fortes, poignantes, et dignes de luy: Spumantémque dari, pecora inter inertia, votis / Optat aprum, aut fuluum descendere monte leonem: qui ne iuge que ce sont boutées d’vn courage eslancé hors de son giste?
When we come to these Stoic flights—“I would rather be mad than given to pleasure,” a saying of Antisthenes: Better to be mad than to feel pleasure; when Sextius tells us that he would rather be run through by pain than by pleasure; when Epicurus undertakes to have himself coddled by gout, and, refusing rest and health, light-heartedly defies ills, and, scorning lesser pains and disdaining to wrestle and fight with them, calls for and longs for strong, piercing ones worthy of him: And among the timid flocks he prays that a foaming boar / Be granted him, or that a tawny lion come down from the mountain—who does not judge that these are the thrusts of a courage that has leapt out of its lair?
Nostre ame ne sçauroit de son siege atteindre si haut: il faut qu’elle le quitte, et s’esleue, et prenant le frein aux dents, qu’elle emporte, et rauisse son homme, si loing, qu’apres il s’estonne luy-mesme de son faict. Comme aux exploicts de la guerre, la chaleur du combat pousse les soldats genereux souuent à franchir des pas si hazardeux, qu’estans reuenuz à eux, ils en transissent d’estonnement les premiers. Comme aussi les Poëtes sont épris souuent d’admiration de leurs propres ouurages, et ne reconnoissent plus la trace, par où ils ont passé vne si belle carriere. C’est ce qu’on appelle aussi en eux ardeur et manie.
Our soul could not reach so high from its own seat: it must leave it and rise, and, taking the bit between its teeth, carry off and sweep away its man so far that afterward he is himself astonished at what he has done. So, in feats of war, the heat of battle often drives brave soldiers to cross such hazardous passes that, once they come back to themselves, they are the first to freeze with astonishment at it. So too poets are often seized with admiration for their own works, and no longer recognize the track along which they ran so fine a course. This is what is also called, in them, ardor and mania.
Et comme Platon dict, que pour neant hurte à la porte de la poësie, vn homme rassis: aussi dit Aristote qu’aucune ame excellente, n’est exempte de meslange de folie. Et a raison d’appeller folie tout eslancement, tant loüable soit-il, qui surpasse nostre propre iugement et discours. D’autant que la sagesse est vn maniment reglé de nostre ame, et qu’elle conduit auec mesure et proportion, et s’en respond. Platon argumente ainsi, que la faculté de prophetizer est au dessus de nous: qu’il faut estre hors de nous, quand nous la traittons: il faut que nostre prudence soit offusquée ou par le sommeil, ou par quelque maladie, ou enleuée de sa place par vn rauissement celeste.
And as Plato says that a sober-minded man knocks in vain at the door of poetry, so Aristotle says that no excellent soul is free from an admixture of folly. And he is right to call folly any leap, however praiseworthy, that surpasses our own judgment and reasoning, inasmuch as wisdom is a regulated management of our soul, which it conducts with measure and proportion, and for which it answers. Plato argues thus: that the faculty of prophesying is above us; that we must be outside ourselves when we exercise it; our prudence must be clouded either by sleep or by some illness, or carried off from its place by a heavenly rapture.