VOYAGEANT vn iour, mon frere Sieur de la Brousse et moy, durant noz guerres ciuiles, nous rencontrasmes vn Gentilhomme de bonne façon: il estoit du party contraire au nostre, mais ie n’en sçauois rien, car il se contrefaisoit autre. Et le pis de ces guerres, c’est, que les chartes sont si meslées, vostre ennemy n’estant distingué d’auec vous d’aucune marque apparente, ny de langage, ny de port, nourry en mesmes loix, mœurs et mesme air, qu’il est mal-aisé d’y euiter confusion et desordre. Cela me faisoit craindre à moy-mesme de r’encontrer nos trouppes, en lieu où ie ne fusse cogneu, pour n’estre en peine de dire mon nom, et de pis à l’aduanture.
One day during our civil wars, as my brother the Sieur de la Brousse and I were traveling, we met a gentleman of good bearing. He belonged to the party opposed to ours, but I knew nothing of it, for he passed himself off as something else. And the worst of these wars is that the cards are so shuffled that it is hard to avoid confusion and disorder: your enemy is not distinguished from you by any visible mark, neither by language nor by bearing, and he was brought up under the same laws, customs and air. This made me fear, myself, to run into our own troops somewhere I was not known, and so be in trouble when I had to give my name, or worse, perhaps.
Comme il m’estoit autrefois aduenu: car en vn tel mescompte, ie perdis et hommes et cheuaux, et m’y tua lon miserablement, entre autres, vn page Gentil-homme Italien, que ie nourrissois soigneusement; et fut estainte en luy vne tresbelle enfance, et pleine de grande esperance. Mais cettuy-cy en auoit vne frayeur si esperduë, et ie le voyois si mort à chasque rencontre d’hommes à cheual, et passage de villes, qui tenoient pour le Roy, que ie deuinay en fin que c’estoient alarmes que sa conscience luy donnoit. Il sembloit à ce pauure homme qu’au trauers de son masque et des croix de sa cazaque on iroit lire iusques dans son cœur, ses secrettes intentions. Tant est merueilleux l’effort de la conscience.
That had happened to me once before: in such a mistake I lost both men and horses, and among others they pitifully killed a page of mine, an Italian of gentle birth whom I was carefully bringing up; and with him was extinguished a very fine boyhood, full of great promise. But this man was so wildly afraid, and I saw him go so deathly pale whenever we met horsemen or passed through towns that held for the King, that I finally guessed these were alarms his conscience was raising. It seemed to this poor man that through his mask and the crosses on his cloak they would read his secret intentions right into his heart. So marvelous is the power of conscience.
Elle nous fait trahir, accuser, et combattre nous mesmes, et à faute de tesmoing estranger, elle nous produit contre nous, Occultum quatiens animo tortore flagellum.
It makes us betray, accuse and fight ourselves, and for want of an outside witness it brings us forward to testify against ourselves: Brandishing a hidden lash, the mind its own torturer.
Ce conte est en la bouche des enfans. Bessus Pœnien reproché d’auoir de gayeté de cœur abbatu vn nid de moineaux, et les auoir tuez: disoit auoir eu raison, par ce que ces oysillons ne cessoient de l’accuser faucement du meurtre de son pere. Ce parricide iusques lors auoit esté occulte et inconnu: mais les furies vengeresses de la conscience, le firent mettre hors à celuy mesmes qui en deuoit porter la penitence. Hesiode corrige le dire de Platon, que la peine suit de bien pres le peché: car il dit qu’elle naist en l’instant et quant et quant le peché. Quiconque attent la peine, il la souffre, et quiconque l’a meritée, l’attend. La meschanceté fabrique des tourmens contre soy.
This story is in every child’s mouth. Bessus the Paeonian, reproached for having wantonly knocked down a nest of sparrows and killed them, said he had been right to, because those little birds never stopped falsely accusing him of murdering his father. Until then this parricide had been hidden and unknown; but the avenging furies of conscience made it come out from the very man who was to pay the penalty for it. Hesiod corrects Plato’s saying that punishment follows close upon sin: for he says it is born at the very instant, together with the sin. Whoever awaits punishment suffers it, and whoever has deserved it awaits it. Wickedness fashions torments against itself.
Malum consilium consultori pessimum. Comme la mouche guespe picque et offence autruy, mais plus soy-mesme, car elle y perd son esguillon et sa force pour iamais; Vitásque in vulnere ponunt. Les cantharides ont en elles quelque partie qui sert contre leur poison de contrepoison, par vne contrarieté de nature.
Evil counsel is worst for the counselor. Just as the wasp stings and hurts others, but itself more, for it loses its sting and its strength forever: And they leave their lives in the wound. Blister beetles have in them some part that serves as an antidote to their own poison, by a contrariety of nature.
Aussi à mesme qu’on prend le plaisir au vice, il s’engendre vn desplaisir contraire en la conscience, qui nous tourmente de plusieurs imaginations penibles, veillans et dormans, Quippe vbi se multi, per somnia sæpe loquentes, / Aut morbo delirantes, procraxe ferantur, / Et celata diu in medium peccata dedisse. Apollodorus songeoit qu’il se voyoit escorcher par les Scythes, et puis bouillir dedans vne marmitte, et que son cœur murmuroit en disant; Ie te suis cause de tous ces maux. Aucune cachette ne sert aux meschans, disoit Epicurus, par ce qu’ils ne se peuuent asseurer d’estre cachez, la conscience les descouurant à eux mesmes, Prima est hæc vltio, quòd se / Iudice nemo nocens absoluitur.
So too, at the very moment we take pleasure in vice, an opposite displeasure is engendered in our conscience, which torments us, waking and sleeping, with many painful imaginings: For many, often talking in their dreams, / Or raving in sickness, are said to have betrayed themselves / And brought to light sins long concealed. Apollodorus dreamed that he saw himself being flayed by the Scythians and then boiled in a pot, and that his heart murmured, saying: “I am the cause of all these ills for you.” No hiding place helps the wicked, said Epicurus, because they can never be sure they are hidden, since their conscience reveals them to themselves: This is the first punishment: that no guilty man / Is acquitted when he is his own judge.
Comme elle nous remplit de crainte, aussi fait elle d’asseurance et de confiance. Et ie puis dire auoir marché en plusieurs hazards, d’vn pas bien plus ferme, en consideration de la secrette science que i’auois de ma volonté et innocence de mes desseins. Conscia mens vt cuique sua est, ita concipit intra / Pectora pro facto spémque metúmque suo. Il y en a mille exemples: il suffira d’en alleguer trois de mesme personnage. Scipion estant vn iour accusé deuant le peuple Romain d’vne accusation importante, au lieu de s’excuser ou de flatter ses iuges: Il vous siera bien, leur dit-il, de vouloir entreprendre de iuger de la teste de celuy, par le moyen duquel vous auez l’authorité de iuger de tout le monde.
Just as conscience fills us with fear, so it fills us with assurance and confidence. And I can say that I have walked into many dangers with a much firmer step because of the secret knowledge I had of my own will and of the innocence of my intentions. As each man’s mind knows what he has done, so within his breast / He conceives hope or fear according to his deeds. There are a thousand examples; it will be enough to cite three about the same person. Scipio was accused one day before the Roman people on a serious charge. Instead of excusing himself or flattering his judges, he said to them: “It would suit you well indeed to set about passing judgment on the life of the man through whom you have the authority to judge the whole world.”
Et vn’ autre fois, pour toute responce aux imputations que luy mettoit sus vn Tribun du peuple, au lieu de plaider sa cause: Allons, dit-il, mes citoyens, allons rendre graces aux Dieux de la victoire qu’ils me donnerent contre les Carthaginois en pareil iour que cettuy-cy. Et se mettant à marcher deuant vers le temple, voylà toute l’assemblée, et son accusateur mesmes à sa suitte.
Another time, as his only answer to the charges a tribune of the people laid against him, instead of pleading his case, he said: “Come, my fellow citizens, let us go and give thanks to the gods for the victory they gave me over the Carthaginians on this very day.” And as he set off walking ahead toward the temple, off went the whole assembly after him, and even his accuser.
Et Petilius ayant esté suscité par Caton pour luy demander compte de l’argent manié en la prouince d’Antioche, Scipion estant venu au Senat pour cet effect, produisit le liure des raisons qu’il auoit dessoubs sa robbe, et dit, que ce liure en contenoit au vray la recepte et la mise: mais comme on le luy demanda pour le mettre au greffe, il le refusa, disant, ne se vouloir pas faire cette honte à soy-mesme: et de ses mains en la presence du Senat le deschira et mit en pieces.
And when Petilius had been put up by Cato to demand an account of the money handled in the province of Antioch, Scipio came to the Senate for that purpose and produced the account book from under his robe, saying that it contained a true record of receipts and expenses. But when they asked him for it so that it could be deposited in the record office, he refused, saying he did not wish to do himself that shame; and with his own hands, in the presence of the Senate, he tore it apart and ripped it to pieces.
Ie ne croy pas qu’vne ame cauterizée sçeust contrefaire vne telle asseurance: il auoit le cœur trop gros de nature, et accoustumé à trop haute fortune, dit Tite Liue, pour sçauoir estre criminel, et se demettre à la bassesse de deffendre son innocence.
I do not believe that a seared soul could counterfeit such assurance. He had a heart too great by nature, says Livy, and too used to high fortune, to know how to be a criminal and to stoop to the baseness of defending his innocence.
C’est vne dangereuse inuention que celle des gehennes, et semble que ce soit plustost vn essay de patience que de verité. Et celuy qui les peut souffrir, cache la verité, et celuy qui ne les peut souffrir. Car pourquoy la douleur me fera elle plustost confesser ce qui en est, qu’elle ne me forcera de dire ce qui n’est pas? Et au rebours, si celuy qui n’a pas faict ce dequoy on l’accuse, est assez patient pour supporter ces tourments, pourquoy ne le sera celuy qui l’a faict, vn si beau guerdon, que de la vie, luy estant proposé? Ie pense que le fondement de cette inuention, vient de la consideration de l’effort de la conscience.
Torture is a dangerous invention, and it seems to be a test of endurance rather than of truth. The man who can bear it hides the truth, and so does the man who cannot. For why should pain make me confess what is so, rather than force me to say what is not? And conversely, if the man who has not done what he is accused of is enduring enough to bear these torments, why should not the man who has done it be so too, when so fine a reward as his life is held out to him? I think the basis of this invention lies in a view of the power of conscience.
Car au coulpable il semble qu’elle aide à la torture pour luy faire confesser sa faute, et qu’elle l’affoiblisse: et de l’autre part qu’elle fortifie l’innocent contre la torture. Pour dire vray, c’est vn moyen plein d’incertitude et de danger. Que ne diroit on, que ne feroit on pour fuyr à si griefues douleurs? Etiam innocentes cogit mentiri dolor. D’où il aduient, que celuy que le iuge a gehenné pour ne le faire mourir innocent, il le face mourir et innocent et gehenné. Mille et mille en ont chargé leur teste de faulces confessions. Entre lesquels ie loge Philotas, considerant les circonstances du procez qu’Alexandre luy fit, et le progrez de sa gehenne.
For in the guilty man conscience seems to help the torture make him confess his fault, and to weaken him; while on the other hand it seems to strengthen the innocent against the torture. To tell the truth, it is a means full of uncertainty and danger. What would one not say, what would one not do, to escape such grievous pains? Pain forces even the innocent to lie. So it happens that the man the judge has tortured so as not to put him to death innocent, he puts to death both innocent and tortured. Thousands upon thousands have loaded their heads with false confessions. Among them I place Philotas, considering the circumstances of the trial Alexander brought against him and the course of his torture.
Mais tant y a que c’est, dit-on, le moins mal que l’humaine foiblesse aye peu inuenter: bien inhumainement pourtant, et bien inutilement à mon aduis.
But be that as it may, it is, they say, the least bad thing that human weakness has been able to invent; most inhumanly, however, and most uselessly, in my opinion.
Plusieurs nations moins barbares en cela que la Grecque et la Romaine, qui les appellent ainsin, estiment horrible et cruel de tourmenter et desrompre vn homme, de la faute duquel vous estes encore en doubte. Que peut il mais de vostre ignorance? Estes vous pas iniustes, qui pour ne le tuer sans occasion, luy faites pis que le tuer? Qu’il soit ainsi, voyez combien de fois il ayme mieux mourir sans raison, que de passer par cette information plus penible que le supplice, et qui souuent par son aspreté deuance le supplice, et l’execute. Ie ne sçay d’où ie tiens ce conte, mais il rapporte exactement la conscience de nostre iustice.
Many nations, less barbarous in this respect than the Greeks and Romans who call them so, consider it horrible and cruel to torment and break a man whose guilt you are still in doubt about. Is it his fault that you do not know? Are you not unjust, you who, so as not to kill him without cause, do worse to him than kill him? To see that this is so, consider how often he would rather die without reason than go through this inquiry, which is more painful than the execution and often, by its harshness, forestalls the execution and carries it out. I do not know where I got this story, but it exactly reflects the conscience of our justice.
Vne femme de village accusoit deuant le General d’armée, grand justicier, vn soldat, pour auoir arraché à ses petits enfants ce peu de bouillie qui luy restoit à les substanter, cette armée ayant tout rauagé. De preuue il n’y en auoit point. Le General apres auoir sommé la femme, de regarder bien à ce qu’elle disoit, d’autant qu’elle seroit coulpable de son accusation, si elle mentoit: et elle persistant, il fit ouurir le ventre au soldat, pour s’esclaircir de la verité du faict: et la femme se trouua auoir raison. Condemnation instructiue.
A village woman accused a soldier, before the general of an army who was a stern dispenser of justice, of having snatched from her little children the bit of porridge she had left to feed them, since the army had ravaged everything. There was no proof at all. The general warned the woman to be very careful what she was saying, since she would be guilty of her own accusation if she lied; and when she persisted, he had the soldier’s belly cut open to establish the truth of the matter. And the woman turned out to be right. An instructive sentence.