AV prix du commun des hommes, peu de choses me touchent: ou pour mieux dire, me tiennent. Car c’est raison qu’elles touchent, pourueu qu’elles ne nous possedent. I’ay grand soin d’augmenter par estude, et par discours, ce priuilege d’insensibilité, qui est naturellement bien auancé en moy. I’espouse, et me passionne par consequent, de peu de choses. I’ay la veuë clere: mais ie l’attache à peu d’obiects: le sens delicat et mol: mais l’apprehension et l’application, ie l’ay dure et sourde. Ie m’engage difficilement. Autant que ie puis ie m’employe tout à moy.
Compared with most men, few things touch me, or, to put it better, hold me. For it is reasonable that things should touch us, provided they do not possess us. I take great care to increase by study and reasoning this privilege of insensibility, which is naturally well advanced in me. Consequently there are few things I espouse and feel passionate about. My sight is clear, but I fix it on few objects; my feeling is delicate and tender, but my grasp and application are tough and dull. I commit myself with difficulty. As much as I can, I employ myself entirely on myself.
Et en ce subiect mesme, ie briderois pourtant et soustiendrois volontiers, mon affection, qu’elle ne s’y plonge trop entiere: puis que c’est vn subiect, que ie possede à la mercy d’autruy, et sur lequel la Fortune a plus de droict que ie n’ay. De maniere, que iusques à la santé, que i’estime tant, il me seroit besoing, de ne la pas desirer, et m’y addonner si furieusement, que i’en trouue les maladies importables. On se doibt moderer, entre la haine de la douleur, et l’amour de la volupté. Et ordonne Platon vne moyenne route de vie entre les deux. Mais aux affections qui me distrayent de moy, et attachent ailleurs, à celles là certes m’oppose-ie de toute ma force.
And even in this subject I would still gladly bridle and hold back my affection, so that it does not plunge into it too wholly, since it is a subject I possess at the mercy of others, and over which Fortune has more right than I have. So that even health, which I value so highly, I ought not to desire and give myself up to so furiously as to find illnesses unbearable. We should moderate ourselves between hatred of pain and love of pleasure; and Plato prescribes a middle course of life between the two. But the affections that distract me from myself and attach me elsewhere, those I certainly oppose with all my strength.
Mon opinion est, qu’il se faut prester à autruy, et ne se donner qu’à soy-mesme. Si ma volonté se trouuoit aysée à s’hypothequer et à s’appliquer, ie n’y durerois pas. Ie suis trop tendre, et par nature et par vsage, Fugax rerum, securâque in otia natus. Les debats contestez et opiniastrez, qui donneroient en fin aduantage à mon aduersaire; l’issue qui rendroit honteuse ma chaulde poursuitte, me rongeroit à l’aduanture bien cruellement. Si ie mordois à mesme, comme font les autres; mon ame n’auroit iamais la force de porter les alarmes, et emotions, qui suyuent ceux qui embrassent tant. Elle seroit incontinent disloquée par cette agitation intestine.
My opinion is that we should lend ourselves to others and give ourselves only to ourselves. If my will found it easy to mortgage and commit itself, I would not last. I am too tender, both by nature and by habit: Shunning affairs, and born for carefree leisure. Hotly contested and stubborn disputes that ended by giving my opponent the advantage, an outcome that made my heated pursuit shameful, might perhaps gnaw at me quite cruelly. If I bit into things as deeply as others do, my soul would never have the strength to bear the alarms and emotions that pursue those who embrace so much. It would at once be dislocated by this internal agitation.
Si quelquefois on m’a poussé au maniement d’affaires estrangeres, i’ay promis de les prendre en main, non pas au poulmon et au foye; de m’en charger, non de les incorporer: de m’en soigner, ouy; de m’en passionner, nullement: i’y regarde, mais ie ne les couue point. I’ay assez affaire à disposer et ranger la presse domestique que i’ay dans mes entrailles, et dans mes veines, sans y loger, et me fouler d’vne presse estrangere. Et suis assez interessé de mes affaires essentiels, propres, et naturels, sans en conuier d’autres forains. Ceux qui sçauent combien ils se doiuent, et de combien d’offices ils sont obligez à eux, trouuent que Nature leur a donné cette commission plaine assez, et nullement oysifue.
If I have sometimes been pushed into managing other people’s affairs, I have promised to take them in hand, not into my lungs and liver; to take them on, not to incorporate them; to take care of them, yes; to be passionate about them, not at all. I watch over them, but I do not brood on them. I have enough to do in arranging and ordering the domestic throng I have in my bowels and in my veins, without lodging a foreign throng there and getting crushed by it. And I am concerned enough with my own essential, proper and natural affairs without inviting others in from outside. Those who know how much they owe themselves, and by how many duties they are bound to themselves, find that Nature has given them a commission quite full enough, and by no means idle.
Tu as bien largement affaire chez toy, ne t’esloigne pas.
You have plenty to do at home; do not go far away.
Les hommes se donnent à louage. Leurs facultez ne sont pas pour eux; elles sont pour ceux, à qui ils s’asseruissent; leurs locataires sont chez eux, ce ne sont pas eux. Cette humeur commune ne me plaist pas. Il faut mesnager la liberté de nostre ame, et ne l’hypotequer qu’aux occasions iustes. Lesquelles sont en bien petit nombre, si nous iugeons sainement. Voyez les gens appris à se laisser emporter et saisir, ils le font par tout. Aux petites choses comme aux grandes; à ce qui ne les touche point, comme à ce qui les touche. Ils s’ingerent indifferemment où il y a de la besongne; et sont sans vie, quand ils sont sans agitation tumultuaire.
Men hire themselves out. Their faculties are not for themselves; they are for those to whom they enslave themselves; it is their tenants who are at home in them, not they. This common temperament does not please me. We must husband the freedom of our soul and mortgage it only on just occasions, which are very few in number if we judge soundly. Look at people who have learned to let themselves be carried away and seized: they do it everywhere, in small things as in great, in what does not concern them as in what does. They thrust themselves in indiscriminately wherever there is work to be done, and they are lifeless when they are without tumultuous agitation.
In negotiis sunt, negotij causa. Ils ne cherchent la besongne que pour embesongnement. Ce n’est pas, qu’ils vueillent aller, tant, comme c’est, qu’ils ne se peuuent tenir. Ne plus ne moins, qu’vne pierre esbranlée en sa cheute, qui ne s’arreste iusqu’à tant qu’elle se couche. L’occupation est à certaine maniere de gents, marque de suffisance et de dignité. Leur esprit cherche son repos au bransle, comme les enfans au berceau. Ils se peuuent dire autant seruiables à leurs amis, comme importuns à eux mesmes. Personne ne distribue son argent à autruy, chacun y distribue son temps et sa vie. Il n’est rien dequoy nous soyons si prodigues, que de ces choses là, desquelles seules l’auarice nous seroit vtile et louable.
They are busy for the sake of being busy. They seek work only to keep themselves busy. It is not so much that they want to go as that they cannot keep still: just like a stone set rolling as it falls, which does not stop until it comes to rest. For a certain kind of people, being occupied is a mark of ability and dignity. Their mind seeks its rest in motion, like children in the cradle. They may call themselves as serviceable to their friends as they are troublesome to themselves. No one gives away his money to others; everyone gives away his time and his life. There is nothing we are so prodigal with as those things in which alone avarice would be useful and praiseworthy.
Ie prens vne complexion toute diuerse. Ie me tiens sur moy. Et communément desire mollement ce que ie desire, et desire peu: m’occupe et embesongne de mesme, rarement et tranquillement. Tout ce qu’ils veulent et conduisent, ils le font de toute leur volonté et vehemence. Il y a tant de mauuais pas, que pour le plus seur, il faut vn peu legerement et superficiellement couler ce monde: et le glisser, non pas l’enfoncer. La volupté mesme, est douloureuse en sa profondeur. Incedis per ignes / Subpositos cineri doloso.
My constitution is quite different. I keep myself to myself. And usually what I desire I desire mildly, and I desire little; I occupy and busy myself in the same way, rarely and calmly. Whatever they want and undertake, they do with all their will and vehemence. There are so many bad passes that, to be safest, we must skim over this world a little lightly and on the surface, and slide over it, not sink into it. Even pleasure is painful in its depths. You are walking over fires / hidden beneath treacherous ash.
Mayor of Bordeaux
Montaigne recounts his election and tells the citizens plainly what to expect of him.
Messieurs de Bordeaux m’esleurent Maire de leur ville, estant esloigné de France; et encore plus esloigné d’vn tel pensement. Ie m’en excusay. Mais on m’apprint que i’auois tort; le commandement du Roy s’y interposant aussi. C’est vne charge, qui doit sembler d’autant plus belle, qu’elle n’a, ny loyer ny gain, autre que l’honneur de son execution. Elle dure deux ans; mais elle peut estre continuée par seconde eslection. Ce qui aduient tres rarement. Elle le fut à moy; et ne l’auoit esté que deux fois auparauant: quelques années y auoit, à Monsieur de Lansac; et fraichement à Monsieur de Biron Mareschal de France. En la place duquel ie succeday; et laissay la mienne, à Monsieur de Matignon aussi Mareschal de France.
The gentlemen of Bordeaux elected me mayor of their city while I was far from France, and still farther from any such thought. I excused myself. But I was told that I was wrong, the king’s command also intervening. It is an office that should seem all the finer for having no pay or gain other than the honor of performing it. It lasts two years, but it can be extended by a second election, which happens very rarely. It happened to me, and had happened only twice before: some years earlier to Monsieur de Lansac, and recently to Monsieur de Biron, Marshal of France, whom I succeeded; and I left my place to Monsieur de Matignon, also Marshal of France.
Glorieux de si noble assistance. Vterque bonus pacis bellique minister. La Fortune voulut part à ma promotion, par cette particuliere circonstance qu’elle y mit du sien. Non vaine du tout. Car Alexandre desdaigna les Ambassadeurs Corinthiens qui lui offroyent la bourgeoisie de leur ville; mais quand ils vindrent à luy deduire, comme Bacchus et Hercules estoyent aussi en ce registre, il les en remercia gratieusement.
Proud of such noble company. Both good servants in peace and in war. Fortune wanted a share in my promotion through this particular circumstance, which she contributed on her own account. Not altogether vain. For Alexander scorned the Corinthian ambassadors who offered him the citizenship of their city; but when they went on to explain to him that Bacchus and Hercules were also on that register, he thanked them graciously.
A mon arriuée, ie me deschiffray fidelement, et conscientieusement, tout tel que ie me sens estre: sans memoire, sans vigilance, sans experience, et sans vigueur: sans hayne aussi, sans ambition, sans auarice, et sans violence: à ce qu’ils fussent informez et instruicts de ce qu’ils auoyent à attendre de mon seruice. Et par ce que la cognoissance de feu mon pere les auoit seule incitez à cela, et l’honneur de sa memoire: ie leur adioustay bien clairement, que ie serois tres-marry que chose quelconque fist autant d’impression en ma volonté, comme auoyent faict autrefois en la sienne, leurs affaires, et leur ville, pendant qu’il l’auoit en gouuernement, en ce lieu mesme auquel ils m’auoyent appellé.
On my arrival I deciphered myself to them faithfully and conscientiously, exactly as I feel I am: without memory, without vigilance, without experience and without vigor; also without hatred, without ambition, without avarice and without violence; so that they would be informed and instructed about what they had to expect from my service. And because it was knowledge of my late father alone that had moved them to this, and the honor of his memory, I added very clearly that I would be very sorry if anything whatever made as much impression on my will as their affairs and their city had once made on his, while he was governing it, in the very place to which they had called me.
Il me souuenoit, de l’auoir veu vieil, en mon enfance, l’ame cruellement agitée de cette tracasserie publique; oubliant le doux air de sa maison, où la foiblesse des ans l’auoit attaché long temps auant; et son mesnage, et sa santé; et mesprisant certes sa vie, qu’il y cuida perdre, engagé pour eux, à des longs et penibles voyages. Il estoit tel; et luy partoit cette humeur d’vne grande bonté de nature. Il ne fut iamais ame plus charitable et populaire. Ce train, que ie louë en autruy, ie n’ayme point à le suiure. Et ne suis pas sans excuse. Il auoit ouy dire, qu’il se falloit oublier pour le prochain; que le particulier ne venoit en aucune consideration au prix du general.
I remembered having seen him in my childhood, an old man, his soul cruelly agitated by this public turmoil, forgetting the sweet air of his home, to which the weakness of age had long since attached him, and his household, and his health; and truly despising his life, which he nearly lost through it, committed on their behalf to long and painful journeys. That is how he was; and this temperament came from a great goodness of nature. There was never a more charitable and public-spirited soul. This course, which I praise in others, I do not like to follow. And I am not without excuse. He had heard it said that one must forget oneself for one’s neighbor, that the individual counted for nothing compared with the general.
La plus part des regles et preceptes du monde prennent ce train, de nous pousser hors de nous, et chasser en la place, à l’vsage de la societé publique. Ils ont pensé faire vn bel effect, de nous destourner et distraire de nous; presupposans que nous n’y tinsions que trop, et d’vne attache trop naturelle; et n’ont espargné rien à dire pour cette fin. Car il n’est pas nouueau aux sages, de prescher les choses comme elles seruent, non comme elles sont. La verité a ses empeschements, incommoditez et incompatibilitez auec nous. Il nous faut souuent tromper, afin que nous ne nous trompions. Et siller nostre veuë, estourdir nostre entendement, pour les redresser et amender.
Most of the world’s rules and precepts take this course: they push us out of ourselves and drive us into the public square, for the use of public society. They thought they would achieve a fine effect by turning us away and distracting us from ourselves, presupposing that we cling to ourselves only too much, and with too natural a bond; and they have spared no words to that end. For it is nothing new for the wise to preach things as they serve, not as they are. Truth has its obstacles, inconveniences and incompatibilities with us. We must often be deceived so that we may not deceive ourselves, and have our sight blindfolded and our understanding stunned in order to straighten and correct them.
Imperiti enim iudicant, et qui frequenter in hoc ipsum fallendi sunt, ne errent. Quand ils nous ordonnent, d’aymer auant nous, trois, quatre, et cinquante degrez de choses; ils representent l’art des archers, qui pour arriuer au poinct, vont prenant leur visée grande espace au dessus de la bute. Pour dresser vn bois courbe, on le recourbe au rebours.
For it is the ignorant who judge, and they must often be deceived on this very point, so that they may not err. When they order us to love three, four and fifty grades of things before ourselves, they imitate the skill of archers who, to hit the mark, take their aim a great distance above the target. To straighten a crooked stick, you bend it back the other way.
I’estime qu’au temple de Pallas, comme nous voyons en toutes autres religions, il y auoit des mysteres apparens, pour estre montrez au peuple; et d’autres mysteres plus secrets, et plus haults, pour estre montrés seulement à ceux qui en estoyent profez. Il est vray-semblable qu’en ceux-cy, se trouue le vray poinct de l’amitié que chacun se doit. Non vne amitié faulce, qui nous faict embrasser la gloire, la science, la richesse, et telles choses, d’vne affection principalle et immoderée, comme membres de nostre estre; ny vne amitié molle et indiscrette; en laquelle il aduient ce qui se voit au lierre, qu’il corrompt et ruyne la paroy qu’il accole. Mais vne amitié salutaire et reglée; esgalement vtile et plaisante.
I believe that in the temple of Pallas, as we see in all other religions, there were outward mysteries to be shown to the people, and other mysteries, more secret and higher, to be shown only to those who were initiated into them. It is likely that in these is found the true point of the friendship that each man owes himself. Not a false friendship that makes us embrace glory, learning, riches and such things with a principal and immoderate affection, as if they were members of our being; nor a soft and indiscriminate friendship, in which there happens what we see with ivy, which corrupts and ruins the wall it clings to; but a wholesome and well-ordered friendship, equally useful and pleasant.
Qui en sçait les deuoirs, et les exerce, il est vrayement du cabinet des Muses; il a attaint le sommet de la sagesse humaine, et de nostre bon heur. Cettuy-cy, sçachant exactement ce qu’il se doit, trouue dans son rolle, qu’il doit appliquer à soy, l’vsage des autres hommes, et du monde; et pour ce faire, contribuer à la societé publique les deuoirs et offices qui le touchent. Qui ne vit aucunement à autruy, ne vit guere à soy. Qui sibi amicus est, scito hunc amicum omnibus esse. La principale charge que nous ayons, c’est à chacun sa conduite. Et est ce pourquoy nous sommes icy.
Whoever knows its duties and practices them truly belongs to the inner chamber of the Muses; he has reached the summit of human wisdom and of our happiness. Such a man, knowing exactly what he owes himself, finds in his part that he must apply to himself the use of other men and of the world, and to do so must contribute to public society the duties and services that fall to him. He who in no way lives for others hardly lives for himself. Know that he who is a friend to himself is a friend to all. The principal charge we have is, for each of us, his own conduct. And that is what we are here for.
Comme qui oublieroit de bien et saintement viure; et penseroit estre quitte de son deuoir, en y acheminant et dressant les autres; ce seroit vn sot. Tout de mesme, qui abandonne en son propre, le sainement et gayement viure, pour en seruir autruy, prent à mon gré vn mauuais et desnaturé party.
Just as anyone who forgot to live well and holily, and thought he had discharged his duty by guiding and training others to do so, would be a fool, so likewise anyone who gives up living healthily and cheerfully in his own person in order to serve others with it makes, to my mind, a bad and unnatural choice.
Ie ne veux pas, qu’on refuse aux charges qu’on prend, l’attention, les pas, les parolles, et la sueur, et le sang au besoing: Non ipse pro charis amicis / Aut patria timidus perire. Mais c’est par emprunt et accidentalement; l’esprit se tenant tousiours en repos et en santé: non pas sans action, mais sans vexation, sans passion. L’agir simplement, luy couste si peu, qu’en dormant mesme il agit. Mais il luy faut donner le bransle, auec discretion. Car le corps reçoit les charges qu’on luy met sus, iustement selon qu’elles sont: l’esprit les estend et les appesantit souuent à ses despens, leur donnant la mesure que bon luy semble. On faict pareilles choses auec diuers efforts, et differente contention de volonté.
I do not want anyone to refuse to the charges he takes on his attention, his steps, his words, his sweat, and his blood if need be: Not himself afraid to die / for dear friends or for his country. But this is by way of loan and incidentally, the mind keeping itself always in repose and in health: not without action, but without vexation, without passion. Simply acting costs it so little that it acts even in sleep. But it must be set in motion with discretion. For the body receives the burdens laid on it exactly as they are; the mind often extends them and makes them heavier at its own expense, giving them whatever measure it pleases. We do the same things with different efforts and different strains of will.
L’vn va bien sans l’autre. Car combien de gens se hazardent tous les iours aux guerres, dequoy il ne leur chault: et se pressent aux dangers des battailles, desquelles la perte, ne leur troublera pas le voisin sommeil? Tel en sa maison, hors de ce danger, qu’il n’oseroit auoir regardé, est plus passionné de l’yssue de cette guerre, et en a l’ame plus trauaillée, que n’a le soldat qui y employe son sang et sa vie. I’ay peu me mesler des charges publiques, sans me despartir de moy, de la largeur d’vne ongle, et me donner à autruy sans m’oster à moy. Cette aspreté et violence de desirs, empesche plus, qu’elle ne sert à la conduitte de ce qu’on entreprend.
The one goes perfectly well without the other. For how many people risk themselves every day in wars that mean nothing to them, and press into the dangers of battles whose loss will not trouble their next night’s sleep? Meanwhile another man at home, out of this danger, which he would not have dared to look at, is more passionate about the outcome of the war, and has his soul more tormented by it, than the soldier who spends his blood and his life in it. I have been able to take part in public offices without departing from myself by the breadth of a fingernail, and to give myself to others without taking myself away from myself. This harshness and violence of desire hinders more than it helps in carrying out what we undertake.
Nous remplit d’impatience enuers les euenemens, ou contraires, ou tardifs: et d’aigreur et de soupçon enuers ceux, auec qui nous negotions. Nous ne conduisons iamais bien la chose de laquelle nous sommes possedez et conduicts. Malè cuncta ministrat / Impetus. Celuy qui n’y employe que son iugement, et son addresse, il y procede plus gayement: il feint, il ploye, il differe tout à son aise, selon le besoing des occasions: il faut d’atteinte, sans tourment, et sans affliction, prest et entier pour vne nouuelle entreprise: il marche tousiours la bride à la main. En celuy qui est enyuré de cette intention violente et tyrannique, on voit par necessité beaucoup d’imprudence et d’iniustice. L’impetuosité de son desir l’emporte.
It fills us with impatience toward events that are adverse or slow, and with bitterness and suspicion toward those we are dealing with. We never conduct well a thing by which we are possessed and conducted. Everything is badly handled / by impetuosity. He who brings only his judgment and his skill to it proceeds more cheerfully: he feints, he bends, he postpones, entirely at his ease, as occasions require; he misses his stroke without torment and without affliction, ready and whole for a new undertaking; he always walks with the bridle in his hand. In the man who is drunk with this violent and tyrannical purpose, one necessarily sees much imprudence and injustice. The impetuosity of his desire carries him away.
Ce sont mouuements temeraires, et, si Fortune n’y preste beaucoup, de peu de fruict. La philosophie veut qu’au chastiement des offences receuës, nous en distrayons la cholere: non afin que la vengeance en soit moindre, ains au rebours, afin qu’elle en soit d’autant mieux assenee et plus poisante. A quoy il luy semble que cette impetuosité porte empeschement. Non seulement la cholere trouble: mais de soy, elle lasse aussi les bras de ceux qui chastient. Ce feu estourdit et consomme leur force. Comme en la precipitation, festinatio tarda est. La hastiueté se donne elle mesme la iambe, s’entraue et s’arreste. Ipsa se velocitas implicat. Pour exemple. Selon ce que i’en vois par vsage ordinaire, l’auarice n’a point de plus grand destourbier que soy-mesme.
These are rash movements, and, unless Fortune contributes a great deal, of little fruit. Philosophy wants us to remove anger from the punishment of offenses we have received: not so that the vengeance should be less, but on the contrary so that it should be all the better aimed and heavier. To which, in its view, this impetuosity is an obstacle. Not only does anger confuse, but of itself it also tires the arms of those who punish. This fire stuns them and consumes their strength. As in precipitation, haste is slow. Hastiness trips itself up, hobbles itself and brings itself to a stop. Speed entangles itself. For example: from what I see in ordinary experience, avarice has no greater hindrance than itself.
Plus elle est tendue et vigoureuse, moins elle en est fertile. Communement elle attrape plus promptement les richesses, masquée d’vn’ image de liberalité.
The more taut and vigorous it is, the less fruitful it is. Usually it catches riches more quickly when masked with an image of liberality.
Vn Gentilhomme tres-homme de bien, et mon amy, cuyda brouiller la santé de sa teste, par vne trop passionnée attention et affection aux affaires d’vn Prince, son maistre. Lequel maistre, s’est ainsi peinct soy-mesmes à moy: Qu’il voit le poix des accidens, comme vn autre: mais qu’à ceux qui n’ont point de remede, il se resoult soudain à la souffrance: aux autres, apres y auoir ordonné les prouisions necessaires, ce qu’il peut faire promptement par la viuacité de son esprit, il attend en repos ce qui s’en peut ensuiure. De vray, ie l’ay veu à mesme, maintenant vne grande nonchalance et liberté d’actions et de visage, au trauers de bien grands affaires et bien espineux.
A gentleman of great worth, and a friend of mine, nearly unsettled his mind through too passionate an attention and devotion to the affairs of a prince, his master. This master once described himself to me in these terms: he sees the weight of misfortunes as well as anyone, but for those that have no remedy he resigns himself at once to enduring them. For the others, he orders the necessary measures, which he can do quickly thanks to the liveliness of his mind, and then waits calmly for whatever may follow. And indeed I have watched him at it, keeping a great unconcern and freedom in his actions and in his face through some very great and very thorny affairs.
Ie le trouue plus grand et plus capable, en vne mauuaise, qu’en vne bonne fortune. Ses pertes luy sont plus glorieuses, que ses victoires, et son deuil que son triomphe.
I find him greater and more capable in bad fortune than in good. His losses do him more honor than his victories, and his mourning more than his triumph.
Considerez, qu’aux actions mesmes qui sont vaines et friuoles: au ieu des eschecs, de la paulme, et semblables, cet engagement aspre et ardant d’vn desir impetueux, iette incontinent l’esprit et les membres, à l’indiscretion, et au desordre. On s’esblouit, on s’embarasse soy mesme. Celuy qui se porte plus moderément enuers le gain, et la perte, il est tousiours chez soy. Moins il se pique et passionne au ieu, il le conduit d’autant plus auantageusement et seurement.
Consider how even in actions that are idle and frivolous—at chess, at tennis and the like—this sharp and ardent engagement of an impetuous desire at once throws mind and limbs into rashness and disorder. We dazzle ourselves; we trip ourselves up. The man who takes winning and losing more moderately is always in command of himself. The less he gets nettled and worked up over the game, the more advantageously and surely he plays it.
Nature’s needs and habit’s
Nature asks little; habit becomes a second nature he will not change in old age.
Nous empeschons au demeurant, la prise et la serre de l’ame, à luy donner tant de choses à saisir. Les vnes, il les luy faut seulement presenter, les autres attacher, les autres incorporer. Elle peut voir et sentir toutes choses, mais elle ne se doit paistre que de soy. Et doit estre instruicte, de ce qui la touche proprement, et qui proprement est de son auoir, et de sa substance. Les loix de Nature nous apprennent ce que iustement, il nous faut. Apres que les sages nous ont dit, que selon elle personne n’est indigent, et que chacun l’est selon l’opinion, ils distinguent ainsi subtilement, les desirs qui viennent d’elle, de ceux qui viennent du desreglement de nostre fantasie.
For the rest, we hinder the soul’s grip and hold by giving it so many things to seize. Some things need only be presented to it, others fastened to it, others made part of it. It can see and feel all things, but it should feed only on itself. And it should be taught what properly concerns it, what is properly its own possession and its own substance. The laws of Nature teach us exactly what we need. The sages tell us that by Nature’s standard no one is poor, and by opinion’s standard everyone is; then they subtly distinguish the desires that come from Nature from those that come from the disorder of our fancy.
Ceux desquels on voit le bout, sont siens, ceux qui fuyent deuant nous, et desquels nous ne pouuons ioindre la fin, sont nostres. La pauureté des biens, est aisée à guerir; la pauureté de l’ame, impossible. Nam si, quod satis est homini, id satis esse potesset, / Hoc sat erat: nunc, quum hoc non est, quî credimus porro, / Diuitias vllas animum m’i explere potesse? Socrates voyant porter en pompe par sa ville, grande quantité de richesse, ioyaux et meubles de prix: Combien de choses, dit-il, ie ne desire point! Metrodorus viuoit du poix de douze onces par iour, Epicurus à moins: Metroclez dormoit en hyuer auec les moutons, en esté aux cloistres des Eglises.
Those whose end we can see are hers; those that flee before us and whose end we can never reach are ours. Poverty of goods is easy to cure; poverty of soul, impossible. For if what is enough for a man could be enough for him, / that would suffice; but since it is not, how can we believe / that any riches could ever fill my soul? Socrates, seeing a great quantity of riches, jewels and precious furnishings carried in procession through his city, said: “How many things I do not desire!” Metrodorus lived on twelve ounces of food a day, Epicurus on less. Metrocles slept among the sheep in winter, and in summer in the cloisters of the churches.
Sufficit ad id natura, quod poscit. Cleanthes viuoit de ses mains, et se vantoit, que Cleanthes, s’il vouloit, nourriroit encore vn autre Cleanthes.
Nature is sufficient for what she demands. Cleanthes lived by the work of his hands, and boasted that Cleanthes, if he wished, could feed yet another Cleanthes.
Si ce que Nature exactement, et originelement nous demande, pour la conseruation de nostre estre, est trop peu (comme de vray combien ce l’est, et combien à bon comte nostre vie se peut maintenir, il ne se doit exprimer mieux que par cette consideration: Que c’est si peu, qu’il eschappe la prise et le choc de la Fortune, par sa petitesse) dispensons nous de quelque chose plus outre; appellons encore nature, l’vsage et condition de chacun de nous; taxons nous, traitons nous à cette mesure; estendons noz appartenances et noz comtes iusques là. Car iusques là, il me semble bien, que nous auons quelque excuse. L’accoustumance est vne seconde nature, et non moins puissante. Ce qui manque à ma coustume ie tiens qu’il me manque.
Suppose that what Nature strictly and originally asks of us for the preservation of our being is too little. (And indeed how little it is, and how cheaply our life can be kept going, cannot be better expressed than by this consideration: it is so little that its very smallness puts it beyond the grip and the blows of Fortune.) Then let us allow ourselves something more. Let us also call nature the habits and condition of each of us; let us rate ourselves and treat ourselves by that measure; let us stretch our belongings and our accounts that far. For that far, it seems to me, we have some excuse. Habit is a second nature, and no less powerful. Whatever my habit lacks, I consider that I lack.
Et i’aymerois presque esgalement qu’on m’ostast la vie, que si on me l’essimoit et retranchoit bien loing de l’estat auquel ie l’ay vescue si long temps. Ie ne suis plus en termes d’vn grand changement, ny de me ietter à vn nouueau train et inusité; non pas mesme vers l’augmentation: il n’est plus temps de deuenir autre. Et comme ie plaindrois quelque grande aduenture, qui me tombast à cette heure entre mains, qu’elle ne seroit venuë en temps que i’en peusse iouyr, Quo mihi fortunæ, si non conceditur vti? Ie me plaindroy de mesme, de quelque acquest interne. Il vault quasi mieux iamais, que si tard, deuenir honneste homme. Et bien entendu à viure, lors qu’on n’a plus de vie.
And I would almost as soon have my life taken from me as have it pared down and cut back far below the state in which I have lived it for so long. I am no longer in a condition for any great change, or for throwing myself into a new and unaccustomed way of life—not even toward improvement. It is too late to become someone else. And just as I would complain of some great stroke of luck that fell into my hands now, because it had not come at a time when I could enjoy it—What good is fortune to me, if I am not allowed to use it?—so I would complain of any inner gain. It is almost better never to become a decent man than to become one so late, and to understand how to live when there is no more life left.
Moy, qui m’en vay, resigneroy facilement à quelqu’vn, qui vinst, ce que i’apprends de prudence, pour le commerce du monde. Moustarde apres disner. Ie n’ay que faire du bien, duquel ie ne puis rien faire. A quoy la science, à qui n’a plus de teste? C’est iniure et deffaueur de Fortune, de nous offrir des presents, qui nous remplissent d’vn iuste despit de nous auoir failly en leur saison. Ne me guidez plus: ie ne puis plus aller. De tant de membres, qu’a la suffisance, la patience nous suffit. Donnez la capacité d’vn excellent dessus, au chantre qui a les poulmons pourris! Et d’eloquence à l’eremite relegué aux deserts d’Arabie. Il ne faut point d’art, à la cheute.
I, who am on my way out, would readily hand over to someone just arriving whatever wisdom I am learning for dealing with the world. Mustard after dinner. I have no use for a good that I can do nothing with. What is knowledge to a man who no longer has a head? It is an insult and an unkindness of Fortune to offer us gifts that fill us with a just resentment for having failed us in their season. Guide me no longer: I can no longer walk. Of all the parts that make up ability, patience is enough for us. Give the voice of a superb treble to a singer whose lungs are rotten! Or eloquence to a hermit banished to the deserts of Arabia! Falling needs no skill.
La fin se trouue de soy, au bout de chasque besongne. Mon monde est failly, ma forme expirée. Ie suis tout du passé. Et suis tenu de l’authorizer et d’y conformer mon issue. Ie veux dire cecy par maniere d’exemple. Que l’eclipsement nouueau des dix iours du Pape, m’ont prins si bas, que ie ne m’en puis bonnement accoustrer. Ie suis des années, ausquelles nous comtions autrement. Vn si ancien et long vsage, me vendique et rappelle à soy. Ie suis contraint d’estre vn peu heretique par là. Incapable de nouuelleté, mesme correctiue. Mon imagination en despit de mes dents se iette tousiours dix iours plus auant, ou plus arriere: et grommelle à mes oreilles. Cette regle touche ceux, qui ont à estre.
The end comes of itself at the close of every task. My world is over, my form has run its course. I belong wholly to the past, and I am bound to sanction it and to make my exit conform to it. Let me say this by way of example: the recent eclipse of ten days by the Pope caught me so late in life that I cannot really adjust to it. I belong to the years when we counted otherwise. So ancient and long a usage claims me and calls me back to itself. In this I am forced to be something of a heretic, incapable of novelty, even corrective novelty. My imagination, in spite of myself, keeps leaping ten days ahead or ten days behind, and grumbles in my ears. This rule concerns those who are yet to be.
Si la santé mesme, si succrée vient à me retrouuer par boutades, c’est pour me donner regret plustost que possession de soy. Ie n’ay plus où la retirer. Le temps me laisse. Sans luy rien ne se possede. O que ie feroy peu d’estat de ces grandes dignitez electiues, que ie voy au monde, qui ne se donnent qu’aux hommes prests à partir: ausquelles on ne regarde pas tant, combien deuëment on les exercera, que combien peu longuement on les exercera: dés l’entrée on vise à l’issue. Somme: me voicy apres d’acheuer cet homme, non d’en refaire vn autre. Par long vsage, cette forme m’est passée en substance, et fortune en nature.
If health itself, so sweet, comes back to me now and then in fits and starts, it is to give me regret for it rather than possession of it. I no longer have anywhere to lodge it. Time is leaving me, and without time nothing is possessed. Oh, how little I would think of those great elective dignities I see in the world, which are given only to men about to depart! In them people look not so much at how properly the holder will exercise them as at how briefly; from the moment of entry they have their eye on the exit. In short: here I am, finishing off this man, not making another. By long usage this form of mine has turned into substance, and fortune into nature.
Ie dis donc, que chacun d’entre nous foiblets, est excusable d’estimer sien, ce qui est compris soubs cette mesure. Mais aussi au delà de ces limites, ce n’est plus que confusion. C’est la plus large estandue que nous puissions octroyer à noz droicts. Plus nous amplifions nostre besoing et possession, d’autant plus nous engageons nous aux coups de la Fortune, et des aduersitez. La carriere de noz desirs doit estre circonscripte, et restraincte, à vn court limite, des commoditez les plus proches et contigues. Et doit en outre, leur course, se manier, non en ligne droicte, qui face bout ailleurs, mais en rond, duquel les deux pointes se tiennent et terminent en nous, par vn brief contour.
I say, then, that each of us feeble creatures is excusable for considering his own whatever falls within this measure. But beyond these limits there is nothing but confusion. This is the widest extent we can grant to our rights. The more we enlarge our needs and possessions, the more we expose ourselves to the blows of Fortune and adversity. The course of our desires should be circumscribed and restricted to a short limit, to the nearest and most adjoining comforts. Moreover, their course should run not in a straight line that ends somewhere else, but in a circle whose two ends hold together and terminate in ourselves after a short sweep.
Les actions qui se conduisent sans cette reflexion, s’entend voisine reflexion et essentielle, comme sont celles des auaricieux, des ambitieux, et tant d’autres, qui courent de pointe, desquels la course les emporte tousiours deuant eux, ce sont actions erronées et maladiues.
Actions carried on without this bending back—I mean a close and essential bending back upon ourselves—such as those of the avaricious, the ambitious and so many others who run straight ahead, whose course always carries them on in front of themselves, are erroneous and sickly actions.
The Mayor and Montaigne
We must play our part in the world without mistaking the mask for the face.
La plus part de noz vacations sont farcesques. Mundus vniuersus exercet histrioniam. Il faut iouer deuement nostre rolle, mais comme rolle d’vn personnage emprunté. Du masque et de l’apparence, il n’en faut pas faire vne essence réelle, ny de l’estranger le propre. Nous ne sçauons pas distinguer la peau de la chemise. C’est assés de s’enfariner le visage, sans s’enfariner la poictrine. I’en vois qui se transforment et se transsubstantient en autant de nouuelles figures, et de nouueaux estres, qu’ils entreprennent de charges: et qui se prelatent iusques au foye et aux intestins: et entrainent leur office iusques en leur garderobe. Ie ne puis leur apprendre à distinguer les bonnetades, qui les regardent, de celles qui regardent leur commission, ou leur suitte, ou leur mule.
Most of our occupations are farcical. The whole world plays a part. We must play our part properly, but as the part of a borrowed character. We must not make the mask and the appearance into a real essence, nor what is foreign into what is our own. We cannot tell the skin from the shirt. It is enough to whiten our face with flour without whitening our breast. I see some who transform and transubstantiate themselves into as many new shapes and new beings as the offices they take on; who are prelates right down to the liver and bowels, and drag their office with them even onto the privy. I cannot teach them to distinguish the bows and doffed caps meant for them from those meant for their commission, or their retinue, or their mule.
Tantum se fortunæ permittunt, etiam vt naturam dediscant. Ils enflent et grossissent leur ame, et leur discours naturel, selon la haulteur de leur siege magistral. Le Maire et Montaigne, ont tousiours esté deux, d’vne separation bien claire. Pour estre aduocat ou financier, il n’en faut pas mescognoistre la fourbe, qu’il y a en telles vacations. Vn honneste homme n’est pas comtable du vice ou sottise de son mestier; et ne doit pourtant en refuser l’exercice. C’est l’vsage de son pays, et il y a du proffit. Il faut viure du monde, et s’en preualoir, tel qu’on le trouue. Mais le iugement d’vn Empereur, doit estre au dessus de son empire; et le voir et considerer, comme accident estranger.
They give themselves up so far to fortune that they even unlearn nature. They swell and puff up their soul and their natural reasoning to match the height of their magisterial seat. The Mayor and Montaigne have always been two, very clearly separated. If one is a lawyer or a financier, one must not ignore the trickery there is in such callings. A decent man is not accountable for the vice or folly of his trade, and need not refuse to practice it on that account. It is the custom of his country, and there is profit in it. We must live by the world and make use of it as we find it. But the judgment of an emperor should stand above his empire, and see and consider it as an external accident.
Et luy doit sçauoir iouyr de soy à part; et se communicquer comme Iacques et Pierre: au moins à soy-mesmes.
And he should know how to enjoy himself apart, and to show himself as plain Jack or Peter—to himself, at least.
Judging one’s own party
In civil war he sees the merits of opponents and the faults of his own side.
Ie ne sçay pas m’engager si profondement, et si entier. Quand ma volonté me donne à vn party, ce n’est pas d’vne si violente obligation, que mon entendement s’en infecte. Aux presens brouillis de cet estat, mon interest ne m’a faict mescognoistre, ny les qualitez louables en noz aduersaires, ny celles qui sont reprochables en ceux que i’ay suiuy. Ils adorent tout ce qui est de leur costé: moy ie n’excuse pas seulement la plus part des choses, qui sont du mien. Vn bon ouurage, ne perd pas ses graces, pour plaider contre moy. Hors le nœud du debat, ie me suis maintenu en equanimité, et pure indifference.
I do not know how to commit myself so deeply and so entirely. When my will gives me to a party, it is not with so violent a bond that my understanding is infected by it. In the present troubles of this state, my interest has not made me blind either to the praiseworthy qualities in our adversaries or to the blameworthy ones in those I have followed. They adore everything on their own side; I do not even excuse most of the things on mine. A good work does not lose its graces for pleading against me. Outside the heart of the dispute, I have kept myself in equanimity and pure indifference.
Neque extra necessitates belli, præcipuum odium gero. Dequoy ie me gratifie, d’autant que ie voy communément faillir au contraire. Ceux qui allongent leur cholere, et leur haine au delà des affaires, comme faict la plus part, montrent qu’elle leur part d’ailleurs, et de cause particuliere. Tout ainsi comme, à qui estant guary de son vlcere, la fiebure demeure encore, montre qu’elle auoit vn autre principe plus caché. C’est qu’ils n’en ont point à la cause, en commun: et entant qu’elle blesse l’interest de touts, et de l’estat. Mais luy en veulent, seulement en ce, qu’elle leur masche en priué. Voyla pourquoy, ils s’en picquent de passion particuliere, et au delà de la iustice, et de la raison publique.
Nor do I bear any special hatred beyond the necessities of war. For this I congratulate myself, all the more since I commonly see people err the other way. Those who stretch their anger and hatred beyond the matters at issue, as most do, show that it springs from elsewhere, from some private cause—just as when a man is cured of his ulcer and the fever still remains, it shows that the fever had another, more hidden origin. The fact is that they have nothing against the cause as a common cause, insofar as it injures the interest of all and of the state; they hold it against it only insofar as it galls them in private. That is why they are stung by it with a private passion, beyond justice and public reason.
Non tam omnia vniuersi, quàm ea, quæ ad quemque pertinerent, singuli carpebant. Ie veux que l’aduantage soit pour nous: mais ie ne forcene point, s’il ne l’est. Ie me prens fermement au plus sain des partis. Mais ie n’affecte pas qu’on me remarque specialement, ennemy des autres, et outre la raison generalle. I’accuse merueilleusement cette vitieuse forme d’opiner: Il est de la Ligue: car il admire la grace de Monsieur de Guyse. L’actiueté du Roy de Nauarre l’estonne: il est Huguenot. Il trouue cecy à dire aux mœurs du Roy: il est seditieux en son cœur. Et ne conceday pas au magistrat mesme, qu’il eust raison, de condamner vn liure, pour auoir logé entre les meilleurs poëtes de ce siecle, vn heretique.
It was not so much that they all found fault with everything as that each found fault with what concerned himself. I want the advantage to be on our side, but I do not go mad if it is not. I hold firmly to the soundest of the parties, but I do not seek to be singled out as an enemy of the others beyond what general reason requires. I strongly condemn this vicious way of judging: “He is of the League, for he admires the grace of Monsieur de Guise.” “The King of Navarre’s energy amazes him: he is a Huguenot.” “He finds this to criticize in the King’s conduct: he is seditious at heart.” And I did not grant even to the magistrate that he was right to condemn a book for having placed a heretic among the best poets of this century.
N’oserions nous dire d’vn voleur, qu’il a belle greue? Faut-il, si elle est putain, qu’elle soit aussi punaise? Aux siecles plus sages, reuoqua-on le superbe tiltre de Capitolinus, qu’on auoit auparauant donné à Marcus Manlius, comme conseruateur de la religion et liberté publique? Estouffa-on la memoire de sa liberalité, et de ses faicts d’armes, et recompenses militaires ottroyées à sa vertu, par ce qu’il affecta depuis la Royauté, au preiudice des loix de son pays? S’ils ont prins en haine vn aduocat, l’endemain il leur deuient ineloquent. I’ay touché ailleurs le zele, qui poulsa des gens de bien à semblables fautes. Pour moy, ie sçay bien dire: Il faict meschamment cela, et vertueusement cecy.
May we not say of a thief that he has a shapely leg? If she is a prostitute, must she also have foul breath? In wiser ages, did they revoke the proud title of Capitolinus formerly given to Marcus Manlius as preserver of religion and public liberty? Did they smother the memory of his generosity, his feats of arms and the military rewards granted to his valor, because he later aspired to kingship, to the detriment of his country’s laws? If they have taken a dislike to a lawyer, by the next day he has lost his eloquence for them. I have touched elsewhere on the zeal that drove good men into similar errors. For my part, I can quite well say: “He does that wickedly, and this virtuously.”
De mesmes, aux prognostiques ou euenements sinistres des affaires, ils veulent, que chacun en son party soit aueugle ou hebeté: que nostre persuasion et iugement, serue non à la verité, mais au proiect de nostre desir. Ie faudroy plustost vers l’autre extremité: tant ie crains, que mon desir me suborne. Ioint, que ie me deffie vn peu tendrement, des choses que ie souhaitte.
Likewise, in forecasts or in ill turns of affairs, they want each man in his own party to be blind or dull-witted, and our convictions and judgment to serve not the truth but the design of our desire. I would rather err toward the other extreme, so much do I fear that my desire may suborn me. Besides, I am a little tenderly distrustful of the things I wish for.
I’ay veu de mon temps, merueilles en l’indiscrette et prodigieuse facilité des peuples, à se laisser mener et manier la creance et l’esperance, où il a pleu et seruy à leurs chefs: par dessus cent mescomtes, les vns sur les autres: par dessus les fantosmes, et les songes. Ie ne m’estonne plus de ceux, que les singeries d’Apollonius et de Mahumed embufflerent. Leur sens et entendement, est entierement estouffé en leur passion. Leur discretion n’a plus d’autre choix, que ce qui leur rit, et qui conforte leur cause. I’auoy remarqué souuerainement cela, au premier de noz partis fiebureux. Cet autre, qui est nay depuis, en l’imitant, le surmonte. Par où ie m’aduise, que c’est vne qualité inseparable des erreurs populaires.
In my time I have seen marvels in the indiscriminate and prodigious readiness of peoples to let their belief and their hope be led and handled wherever it pleased and suited their leaders—despite a hundred disappointments one on top of another, despite phantoms and dreams. I am no longer amazed at those who were hoodwinked by the antics of Apollonius and Muhammad. Their sense and understanding are entirely smothered in their passion. Their discernment no longer has any choice but what smiles on them and comforts their cause. I had noticed this to the highest degree in the first of our feverish parties. This other one, born since, imitates it and outdoes it. From which I gather that it is a quality inseparable from popular errors.
Apres la premiere qui part, les opinions s’entrepoussent, suiuant le vent, comme les flotz. On n’est pas du corps, si on s’en peut desdire: si on ne vague le train commun. Mais certes on faict tort aux partis iustes, quand on les veut secourir de fourbes. I’y ay tousiours contredict. Ce moyen ne porte qu’enuers les testes malades. Enuers les saines, il y a des voyes plus seures, et non seulement plus honnestes, à maintenir les courages, et excuser les accidents contraires.
Once the first opinion sets off, the others push one another along with the wind, like waves. You are not of the body if you can take back what you said, if you do not drift along with the common course. But surely we wrong just parties when we try to help them with frauds. I have always spoken against it. This method works only on sick heads. With healthy ones there are surer ways, and not merely more honest ones, of keeping up people’s courage and explaining away setbacks.
Le ciel n’a point veu vn si poisant desaccord, que celuy de Cæsar, et de Pompeius; ny ne verra pour l’aduenir. Toutesfois il me semble recognoistre en ces belles ames, vne grande moderation de l’vn enuers l’autre. C’estoit vne ialousie d’honneur et de commandement, qui ne les emporta pas à hayne furieuse et indiscrette; sans malignité et sans detraction. En leurs plus aigres exploicts, ie descouure quelque demeurant de respect, et de bien-vueillance. Et iuge ainsi; que s’il leur eust esté possible, chacun d’eux eust desiré de faire son affaire sans la ruyne de son compagnon, plustost qu’auec sa ruyne. Combien autrement il en va de Marius, et de Sylla: prenez y garde.
Heaven has never seen so weighty a discord as that between Caesar and Pompey, nor ever will. Yet I seem to recognize in those fine souls a great moderation toward each other. It was a rivalry for honor and command that did not carry them away into furious and reckless hatred; it was without malice and without disparagement. In their bitterest exploits I discover some remnant of respect and goodwill. And so I judge that, had it been possible, each of them would have wished to achieve his aim without ruining his comrade rather than by ruining him. How differently it went with Marius and Sulla: take note of it.
Stopping passions at the start
It is easier to keep out of passions and quarrels than to master them once begun.
Il ne faut pas se precipiter si esperduement apres nos affections, et interestz. Comme estant ieune, ie m’opposois au progrez de l’amour, que ie sentoy trop auancer sur moy; et m’estudiois qu’il ne me fust si aggreable, qu’il vinst à me forcer en fin, et captiuer du tout à sa mercy. I’en vse de mesme à toutes autres occasions, où ma volonté se prend auec trop d’appetit. Ie me panche à l’opposite de son inclination, comme ie la voy se plonger, et enyurer de son vin. Ie fuis à nourrir son plaisir si auant, que ie ne l’en puisse plus r’auoir, sans perte sanglante. Les ames qui par stupidité ne voyent les choses qu’à demy, iouissent de cet heur, que les nuisibles les blessent moins.
We must not rush so headlong after our affections and interests. When I was young, I resisted the progress of love when I felt it gaining too much ground on me, and took pains that it should not become so pleasant to me as to overpower me in the end and hold me captive entirely at its mercy. I do the same on all other occasions where my will takes hold with too much appetite. I lean the opposite way from its inclination when I see it plunging in and getting drunk on its own wine. I avoid feeding its pleasure so far that I can no longer get it back without bloody loss. Souls that through dullness see things only by halves enjoy this good fortune: harmful things wound them less.
C’est vne ladrerie spirituelle, qui a quelque air de santé; et telle santé, que la philosophie ne mesprise pas du tout. Mais pourtant, ce n’est pas raison de la nommer sagesse: ce que nous faisons souuent. Et de cette maniere se moqua quelqu’vn anciennement de Diogenes, qui alloit embrassant en plein hyuer tout nud, vne image de neige pour l’essay de sa patience. Celuy-là le rencontrant en cette desmarche: As tu grand froid à cette heure, luy dit-il? Du tout point, respond Diogenes. Or suiuit l’autre: Que penses-tu donc faire de difficile, et d’exemplaire à te tenir là? Pour mesurer la constance, il faut necessairement sçauoir la souffrance.
It is a spiritual leprosy that has some look of health—and such health as philosophy does not wholly despise. But even so it is not right to call it wisdom, as we often do. And in this vein someone in ancient times mocked Diogenes, who in the dead of winter went about stark naked hugging a figure of snow to test his endurance. Coming upon him in this posture, the man said: “Are you very cold right now?” “Not at all,” answered Diogenes. “Then,” the other went on, “what do you think you are doing that is difficult or exemplary by standing there?” To measure fortitude, one must necessarily know the suffering.
Mais les ames qui auront à voir les euenemens contraires, et les iniures de la Fortune, en leur profondeur et aspreté, qui auront à les poiser et gouster, selon leur aigreur naturelle, et leur charge, qu’elles emploient leur art, à se garder d’en enfiler les causes, et en destournent les aduenues. Que fit le Roy Cotys? il paya liberalement la belle et riche vaisselle qu’on lui auoit presentée: mais parce qu’elle estoit singulierement fragile, il la cassa incontinent luy-mesme; pour s’oster de bonne heure vne si aisée matiere de courroux contre ses seruiteurs.
But souls that are to see adverse events and the injuries of Fortune in all their depth and harshness, that are to weigh and taste them in their natural bitterness and weight, should use their skill to keep from getting caught up in their causes, and should block the approaches to them. What did King Cotys do? He paid generously for the beautiful and rich tableware that had been presented to him; but because it was exceptionally fragile, he broke it all himself at once, to rid himself in good time of so ready an occasion for anger against his servants.
Pareillement, i’ay volontiers euité de n’auoir mes affaires confus: et n’ay cherché, que mes biens fussent contigus à mes proches: et ceux à qui i’ay à me ioindre d’vne estroitte amitié: d’où naissent ordinairement matieres d’alienation et dissociation. I’aymois autresfois les ieux hazardeux des cartes et detz; ie m’en suis deffaict, il y a long temps; pour cela seulement, que quelque bonne mine que ie fisse en ma perte, ie ne laissois pas d’en auoir au dedans de la picqueure. Vn homme d’honneur, qui doit sentir vn desmenti, et vne offence iusques au cœur, qui n’est pour prendre vne mauuaise excuse en payement et consolation, qu’il euite le progrez des altercations contentieuses. Ie fuis les complexions tristes, et les hommes hargneux, comme les empestez.
In the same way I have gladly avoided having my affairs entangled, and have not sought to have my property adjoin that of my relatives and of those with whom I must be joined in close friendship; that is where occasions for estrangement and separation usually arise. I used to love games of chance with cards and dice. I gave them up long ago, for this reason alone: however good a face I put on my losses, I still felt the sting of them inside. A man of honor, who is bound to feel being given the lie or an insult to the quick, and who is not one to accept a poor excuse as payment and consolation, should keep contentious arguments from going any further. I flee gloomy temperaments and surly men as I would the plague-stricken.
Et aux propos que ie ne puis traicter sans interest, et sans emotion, ie ne m’y mesle, si le deuoir ne m’y force. Melius non incipient, quàm desinent. La plus seure façon est donc, se preparer auant les occasions.
And in discussions that I cannot handle without personal interest and emotion, I do not get involved unless duty forces me. They will do better not to begin than to have to stop. The safest way, then, is to prepare oneself before the occasions arise.
Ie sçay bien, qu’aucuns sages ont pris autre voye; et n’ont pas crainct de se harper et engager iusques au vif, à plusieurs obiects. Ces gens là s’asseurent de leur force, soubs laquelle ils se mettent à couuert en toute sorte de succez ennemis, faisant lucter les maux, par la vigueur de la patience: Velut rupes vastum quæ prodit in æquor, / Obuia ventorum furiis, expostâque ponto / Vim cunctam atque minas perfert cælique marisque, / Ipsa immota manens.
I know well that some sages have taken another path, and have not been afraid to grapple and engage themselves to the quick with many objects. These men are sure of their strength, under which they take cover against every kind of hostile outcome, making their ills wrestle with the vigor of their endurance: Like a cliff that juts out into the vast sea, / facing the fury of the winds and exposed to the waves, / it bears all the violence and threats of sky and sea, / itself remaining unmoved.
N’attaquons pas ces exemples; nous n’y arriuerions point. Ils s’obstinent à voir resoluement, et sans se troubler, la ruyne de leur pays, qui possedoit et commandoit toute leur volonté. Pour noz ames communes, il y a trop d’effort, et trop de rudesse à cela. Caton en abandonna la plus noble vie, qui fut onques. A nous autres petis, il faut fuyr l’orage de plus loing: il faut pouruoir au sentiment, non à la patience; et escheuer aux coups que nous ne sçaurions parer. Zenon voyant approcher Chremonidez ieune homme qu’il aymoit, pour se seoir au pres de luy: se leua soudain. Et Cleanthes, luy en demandant la raison: I’entendz, dit-il, que les medecins ordonnent le repos principalement, et deffendent l’emotion à toutes tumeurs.
Let us not take on these examples; we would never reach them. They persist in watching, resolutely and unperturbed, the ruin of their country, which possessed and commanded their whole will. For our common souls there is too much effort and too much harshness in that. Cato gave up for it the noblest life that ever was. We little folk must flee the storm from further off; we must take measures against feeling, not rely on endurance, and dodge the blows we could not parry. Zeno, seeing Chremonides, a young man he loved, approaching to sit beside him, rose at once. And when Cleanthes asked him the reason, he said: “I understand that physicians prescribe rest above all and forbid agitation for all swellings.”
Socrates ne dit point: Ne vous rendez pas aux attraicts de la beauté; soustenez la, efforcez vous au contraire. Fuyez la, faict-il, courez hors de sa veuë et de son rencontre, comme d’vne poison puissante qui s’eslance et frappe de loing. Et son bon disciple feignant ou recitant; mais, à mon aduis, recitant plustost que feignant, les rares perfections de ce grand Cyrus, le fait deffiant de ses forces à porter les attraicts de la diuine beauté de cette illustre Panthée sa captiue, et en commettant la visite et garde à vn autre, qui eust moins de liberté que luy. Et le Sainct Esprit de mesme, ne nos inducas in tentationem.
Socrates does not say: “Do not yield to the attractions of beauty; stand up to it, strive against it.” “Flee it,” he says, “run out of its sight and out of its way, as from a powerful poison that darts out and strikes from afar.” And his good disciple, inventing or recounting—but in my opinion recounting rather than inventing—the rare perfections of the great Cyrus, shows him distrusting his strength to withstand the attractions of the divine beauty of the illustrious Panthea, his captive, and entrusting the visiting and guarding of her to another who had less freedom than he. And the Holy Spirit likewise: lead us not into temptation.
Nous ne prions pas que nostre raison ne soit combatue et surmontée par la concupiscence, mais qu’elle n’en soit pas seulement essayée: que nous ne soyons conduits en estat où nous ayons seulement à souffrir les approches, solicitations, et tentations du peché: et supplions nostre Seigneur de maintenir nostre conscience tranquille, plainement et parfaictement deliurée du commerce du mal.
We do not pray that our reason may not be fought and overcome by concupiscence, but that it may not even be tested by it; that we may not be led into a state where we have even to suffer the approaches, solicitations and temptations of sin; and we beseech our Lord to keep our conscience tranquil, fully and perfectly delivered from all dealings with evil.
Ceux qui disent auoir raison de leur passion vindicatiue, ou de quelqu’autre espece de passion penible: disent souuent vray: comme les choses sont, mais non pas comme elles furent. Ils parlent à nous, lors que les causes de leur erreur sont nourries et auancées par eux mesmes. Mais reculez plus arriere, r’appelez ces causes à leur principe: là, vous les prendrez sans vert. Veulent ils que leur faute soit moindre, pour estre plus vieille: et que d’vn iniuste commencement la suitte soit iuste? Qui desirera du bien à son païs comme moy, sans s’en vlcerer ou maigrir, il sera desplaisant, mais non pas transi, de le voir menassant, ou sa ruine, ou vne durée non moins ruineuse.
Those who say they are in the right in their vindictive passion, or in some other kind of painful passion, often speak the truth—as things are, but not as they were. They speak to us when the causes of their error have been fed and advanced by themselves. But go further back, trace these causes to their origin: there you will catch them off guard. Do they want their fault to be the smaller for being older, and the sequel of an unjust beginning to be just? Whoever wishes his country well, as I do, without getting ulcers or growing thin over it, will be grieved, but not paralyzed, to see it threatened either with ruin or with a survival no less ruinous.
Pauure vaisseau, que les flots, les vents, et le pilote, tirassent à si contraires desseins! In tam diuersa, magister, / Ventus et vnda trahunt. Qui ne bee point apres la faueur des Princes, comme apres chose dequoy il ne se sçauroit passer; ne se picque pas beaucoup de la froideur de leur recueil, et de leur visage, ny de l’inconstance de leur volonté. Qui ne couue point ses enfans, ou ses honneurs, d’vne propension esclaue, ne laisse pas de viure commodément apres leur perte. Qui fait bien principalement pour sa propre satisfaction, ne s’altere guere pour voir les hommes iuger de ses actions contre son merite. Vn quart d’once de patience, prouuoit à tels inconuenients.
Poor ship, which waves, winds and pilot pull toward such contrary aims! So differently do the helmsman, / the wind and the wave pull. Whoever does not gape after the favor of princes as after something he could not do without is not much stung by the coldness of their welcome and their looks, nor by the inconstancy of their will. Whoever does not brood over his children or his honors with a slavish attachment does not cease to live comfortably after losing them. Whoever does good chiefly for his own satisfaction is hardly upset to see men judge his actions contrary to his merit. A quarter of an ounce of patience takes care of such inconveniences.
Ie me trouue bien de cette recepte; me racheptant des commencemens, au meilleur compte que ie puis. Et me sens auoir eschappé par son moyen beaucoup de trauail et de difficultez. Auec bien peu d’effort, i’arreste ce premier bransle de mes esmotions. Et abandonne le subject, qui me commence à poiser, et auant qu’il m’emporte. Qui n’arreste le partir, n’a garde d’arrester la course. Qui ne sçait leur fermer la porte, ne les chassera pas entrées. Qui ne peut venir à bout du commencement, ne viendra pas à bout de la fin. Ny n’en soustiendra la cheute, qui n’en a peu soustenir l’esbranslement.
I do well with this recipe, buying myself off at the beginnings as cheaply as I can; and I feel that by this means I have escaped a great deal of trouble and difficulty. With very little effort I stop this first stirring of my emotions, and I drop the subject that is beginning to weigh on me, before it carries me away. He who does not stop the start will hardly stop the race. He who cannot shut the door on them will not drive them out once they are in. He who cannot master the beginning will not master the end. Nor will he withstand the fall who could not withstand the first shock.
Etenim ipsæ se impellunt, vbi semel à ratione discessum est: ipsáque sibi imbecillitas indulget, in altùmque prouehitur imprudens, nec reperit locum consistendi. Ie sens à temps, les petits vents qui me viennent taster et bruire au dedans, auant-coureurs de la tempeste: Ceu flamina prima / Cùm deprensa fremunt syluis, et cæca volutant / Murmura, venturos nautis prodentia ventos.
For they drive themselves on once reason has been left behind; weakness indulges itself, is carried unawares out into the deep, and finds no place to stand. I feel in time the little winds that come to probe me and murmur within me, forerunners of the storm: As when the first gusts, / caught in the woods, roar and roll their blind / murmurs, betraying to sailors the coming winds.
A combien de fois me suis-ie faict vne bien euidente iniustice, pour fuyr le hazard de la receuoir encore pire des iuges, apres vn siecle d’ennuys, et d’ordes et viles practiques, plus ennemies de mon naturel, que n’est la gehenne et le feu? Conuenit à litibus quantum licet, et nescio an paulo plus etiam quàm licet, abhorrentem esse: Est enim non modo liberale, paululum nonnunquam de suo iure decedere, sed interdum etiam fructuosum. Si nous estions bien sages, nous nous deurions resiouir et venter, ainsi que i’ouy vn iour bien naïuement, vn enfant de grande maison, faire feste à chacun, dequoy sa mere venoit de perdre son procés: comme sa toux, sa fiebure, ou autre chose d’importune garde.
How many times have I done myself a quite evident injustice to avoid the risk of receiving a worse one from the judges, after an age of vexations and of filthy, base practices more hostile to my nature than torture and fire? It is fitting to shrink from lawsuits as much as one may, and perhaps even a little more than one may; for it is not only generous but sometimes even profitable to give up a little of one’s rights now and then. If we were really wise, we should rejoice and boast, as I once heard a child of a great house, quite artlessly, celebrating to everyone that his mother had just lost her lawsuit—as if she had lost her cough, her fever, or something else troublesome to keep.
Les faueurs mesmes, que la Fortune pouuoit m’auoir donné, parentez, et accointances, enuers ceux, qui ont souueraine authorité en ces choses là: i’ay beaucoup faict selon ma conscience, de fuyr instamment de les employer au preiudice d’autruy, et de ne monter par dessus leur droicte valeur, mes droicts. En fin i’ay tant fait par mes iournées, à la bonne heure le puisse-ie dire, que me voicy encore vierge de procés, qui n’ont pas laissé de se conuier plusieurs fois à mon seruice, par bien iuste tiltre, s’il m’eust pleu d’y entendre. Et vierge de querelles. I’ay sans offence de poix, passiue ou actiue, escoulé tantost vne longue vie: et sans auoir ouy pis que mon nom. Rare grace du ciel.
Even the favors Fortune may have given me—kinship and acquaintance with those who have sovereign authority in such matters—I have done my utmost, in conscience, to avoid using to the prejudice of others, and I have not raised my rights above their true value. In short, I have managed so well in my day—may I say it without tempting fate—that here I am still a virgin of lawsuits, though they have more than once offered themselves to my service on very good grounds, had I cared to listen. And a virgin of quarrels. I have now spent a long life without any serious offense, suffered or given, and without having been called anything worse than my own name. A rare grace of heaven.
Noz plus grandes agitations, ont des ressorts et causes ridicules. Combien encourut de ruyne nostre dernier Duc de Bourgongne, pour la querelle d’vne charretée de peaux de mouton! Et l’engraueure d’vn cachet, fust-ce pas la premiere et maistresse cause, du plus horrible croullement, que cette machine aye onques souffert? Car Pompeius et Cæsar, ce ne sont que les reiectons et la suitte, des deux autres. Et i’ay veu de mon temps, les plus sages testes de ce royaume, assemblées auec grande ceremonie, et publique despence, pour des traictez et accords, desquels la vraye decision, despendoit ce pendant en toute souueraineté, des deuis du cabinet des dames, et inclination de quelque femmelette.
Our greatest agitations have ridiculous springs and causes. How much ruin our last Duke of Burgundy brought on himself over a quarrel about a cartload of sheepskins! And the engraving of a seal—was that not the first and principal cause of the most horrible collapse this machine has ever suffered? For Pompey and Caesar are only the offshoots and sequel of those other two. And in my time I have seen the wisest heads of this kingdom assembled with great ceremony and at public expense for treaties and agreements whose real decision meanwhile depended, in complete sovereignty, on the chatter of the ladies’ chamber and the inclination of some little woman.
Les poëtes ont bien entendu cela, qui ont mis, pour vne pomme, la Grece et l’Asie à feu et à sang. Regardez pourquoy celuy-là s’en va courre fortune de son honneur et de sa vie, à tout son espée et son poignart; qu’il vous die d’où vient la source de ce debat, il ne le peut faire sans rougir; tant l’occasion en est vaine, et friuole.
The poets understood this well, who put Greece and Asia to fire and sword for an apple. Look at why that man is off to risk his honor and his life with his sword and dagger; let him tell you the source of the dispute—he cannot do it without blushing, so idle and frivolous is the occasion.
A l’enfourner, il n’y va que d’vn peu d’auisement, mais depuis que vous estes embarqué, toutes les cordes tirent. Il y faict besoing de grandes prouisions, bien plus difficiles et importantes. De combien est il plus aisé, de n’y entrer pas que d’en sortir? Or il faut proceder au rebours du roseau, qui produict vne longue tige et droicte, de la premiere venue; mais apres, comme s’il s’estoit allanguy et mis hors d’haleine, il vient à faire des nœuds frequens et espais, comme des pauses; qui montrent qu’il n’a plus cette premiere vigueur et constance. Il faut plustost commencer bellement et froidement; et garder son haleine et ses vigoureux eslans, au fort et perfection de la besongne.
Getting into it takes only a little forethought; but once you are embarked, all the ropes pull. Great provisions are needed then, much more difficult and important. How much easier it is not to go in than to get out! Now we must do the opposite of the reed, which at first shoots up a long, straight stem; but afterward, as if it had grown languid and out of breath, it starts making frequent thick knots, like pauses, which show that it no longer has its first vigor and steadiness. We should rather begin gently and coolly, and save our breath and our vigorous bursts for the thick of the task and its completion.
Nous guidons les affaires en leurs commencemens, et les tenons à nostre mercy: mais par apres, quand ils sont esbranlez, ce sont eux qui nous guident et emportent, et auons à les suyure.
We guide affairs in their beginnings and hold them at our mercy; but afterward, once they are set in motion, it is they that guide us and carry us away, and we have to follow them.
Pourtant n’est-ce pas à dire, que ce conseil m’aye deschargé de toute difficulté; et que ie n’aye eu affaire souuent à gourmer et brider mes passions. Elles ne se gouuernent pas tousiours selon la mesure des occasions: et ont leurs entrées mesmes, souuent aspres et violentes. Tant y a, qu’il s’en tire vne belle espargne, et du fruict. Sauf pour ceux, qui au bien faire, ne se contentent de nul fruict, si la reputation en est à dire. Car à la verité, vn tel effect, n’est en comte qu’à chacun en soy. Vous en estes plus content; mais non plus estimé: vous estant reformé, auant que d’estre en danse, et que la matiere fust en veuë.
This is not to say that this counsel has relieved me of all difficulty, or that I have not often had to curb and bridle my passions. They do not always govern themselves by the measure of the occasions, and even their onsets are often harsh and violent. Still, a fine saving and profit come of it—except for those who in doing good are content with no profit if reputation is missing. For in truth such an outcome counts only for each man within himself. You are more content, but not more esteemed, having reformed yourself before you joined the dance and before the matter came into view.
Toutesfois aussi, non en cecy seulement, mais en tous autres deuoirs de la vie, la route de ceux qui visent à l’honneur, est bien diuerse à celle que tiennent ceux qui se proposent l’ordre et la raison. I’en trouue, qui se mettent inconsiderément et furieusement en lice, et s’alentissent en la course. Comme Plutarque dit, que ceux qui par le vice de la mauuaise honte, sont mols et faciles, à accorder quoy qu’on leur demande, sont faciles apres à faillir de parole, et à se desdire. Pareillement qui entre legerement en querelle, est subiect d’en sortir aussi legerement. Cette mesme difficulté, qui me garde de l’entamer, m’inciteroit d’y tenir ferme, quand ie serois esbranlé et eschauffé. C’est une mauuaise façon.
And yet, not in this alone but in all the other duties of life, the path of those who aim at honor is very different from the one taken by those who set themselves order and reason as their goal. I find some who rush into the lists recklessly and furiously, and slow down in the race. Plutarch says that those who through the vice of false shame are soft and easy in granting whatever is asked of them are easy afterward in breaking their word and going back on it; in the same way, whoever enters lightly into a quarrel is apt to leave it just as lightly. That same difficulty which keeps me from starting one would spur me to hold firm once I was stirred and heated. That is a bad way to go about it.
Depuis qu’on y est, il faut aller ou creuer. Entreprenez froidement, disoit Bias, mais poursuiuez ardamment. De faute de prudence, on retombe en faute de cœur; qui est encore moins supportable.
Once you are in, you must go on or burst. “Undertake coolly,” said Bias, “but pursue ardently.” From want of prudence we fall into want of courage, which is still less bearable.
La plus part des accords de noz querelles du iourd’hui, sont honteux et menteurs. Nous ne cherchons qu’à sauuer les apparences et trahissons cependant, et desaduouons noz vrayes intentions. Nous plastrons le faict. Nous sçauons comment nous l’auons dict, et en quel sens, et les assistans le sçauent, et noz amis à qui nous auons voulu faire sentir nostre aduantage. C’est aux despens de nostre franchise, et de l’honneur de nostre courage, que nous desaduouons nostre pensée, et cherchons des conillieres en la fauceté, pour nous accorder. Nous nous desmentons nous mesmes, pour sauuer vn desmentir que nous auons donné à vn autre.
Most of the settlements of our quarrels nowadays are shameful and lying. We seek only to save appearances, and meanwhile we betray and disavow our true intentions. We plaster over the fact. We know how we said it and in what sense; the bystanders know it, and so do our friends, to whom we wanted to make our advantage felt. It is at the expense of our frankness and of the honor of our courage that we disavow our thought and look for rabbit holes in falsehood in order to come to terms. We give ourselves the lie to save a lie we have given another.
Il ne faut pas regarder si vostre action ou vostre parole, peut auoir autre interpretation, c’est vostre vraye et sincere interpretation, qu’il faut mes-huy maintenir; quoy qu’il vous couste. On parle à vostre vertu, et à vostre conscience: ce ne sont parties à mettre en masque. Laissons ces vils moyens, et ces expediens, à la chicane du palais. Les excuses et reparations, que ie voy faire tous les iours, pour purger l’indiscretion, me semblent plus laides que l’indiscretion mesme. Il vaudroit mieux l’offencer encore vn coup, que de s’offencer soy mesme, en faisant telle amende à son aduersaire.
You must not look to see whether your act or your word can bear another interpretation; it is your true and sincere interpretation that you must uphold from now on, whatever it costs you. It is your virtue and your conscience that are being addressed; these are not parts to be put behind a mask. Let us leave these base means and expedients to the chicanery of the law courts. The excuses and reparations I see made every day to purge an indiscretion seem to me uglier than the indiscretion itself. It would be better to offend your adversary once more than to offend yourself by making him such amends.
Vous l’auez braué esmeu de cholere, et vous l’allez rappaiser et flatter en vostre froid et meilleur sens: ainsi vous vous soubsmettez plus, que vous ne vous estiez aduancé. Ie ne trouue aucun dire si vicieux à vn Gentil-homme, comme le desdire me semble luy estre honteux: quand c’est vn desdire, qu’on luy arrache par authorité. D’autant que l’opiniastreté, luy est plus excusable, que la pusillanimité. Les passions, me sont autant aisées à euiter, comme elles me sont difficiles à moderer. Excinduntur facilius animo, quàm temperantur. Qui ne peut atteindre à cette noble impassibilité Stoique, qu’il se sauue au giron de cette mienne stupidité populaire. Ce que ceux-là faisoyent par vertu, ie me duits à le faire par complexion.
You defied him when moved by anger, and now you go and appease and flatter him in your cool and better sense: thus you abase yourself further than you had advanced. I find no saying so wrong in a gentleman as unsaying seems to me shameful for him—when it is an unsaying wrung from him by authority; for obstinacy is more excusable in him than faintheartedness. The passions are as easy for me to avoid as they are hard for me to moderate. They are more easily cut out of the soul than tempered. Whoever cannot attain that noble Stoic impassibility, let him take refuge in the lap of this common dullness of mine. What those men did by virtue, I train myself to do by temperament.
La moyenne region loge les tempestes; les deux extremes, des hommes philosophes, et des hommes ruraux, concurrent en tranquillité et en bon heur; Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, / Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum / Subiecit pedibus, strepitúmque Acherontis auari! / Fortunatus et ille, Deos qui nouit agrestes, / Panáque, Syluanúmque senem, Nymphásque sorores!
The middle region houses the storms; the two extremes, philosophers and country folk, meet in tranquility and happiness. Happy the man who has been able to know the causes of things, / and has trampled underfoot all fears and inexorable fate / and the roar of greedy Acheron! / Fortunate too is he who knows the gods of the countryside, / Pan, and old Silvanus, and the sister Nymphs!
De toutes choses les naissances sont foibles et tendres. Pourtant faut-il auoir les yeux ouuerts aux commencements. Car comme lors en sa petitesse, on n’en descouure pas le danger, quand il est accreu, on n’en descouure plus le remede. I’eusse rencontré vn million de trauerses, tous les iours, plus mal aisées à digerer, au cours de l’ambition, qu’il ne m’a esté mal-aysé d’arrester l’inclination naturelle qui m’y portoit. Iure perhorrui / Latè conspicuum tollere verticem.
The births of all things are weak and tender. Therefore we must keep our eyes open at the beginnings; for just as at that stage, in its smallness, we do not discover the danger, so once it has grown we no longer discover the remedy. In the course of ambition I would have met a million obstacles every day, harder to digest than it has been hard for me to check the natural inclination that drew me toward it. Rightly have I dreaded / to raise my head to be seen far and wide.
His record as mayor
Critics say his term left no trace; he answers that keeping the peace was the task.
Toutes actions publiques sont subiectes à incertaines, et diuerses interpretations: car trop de testes en iugent. Aucuns disent, de cette mienne occupation de ville (et ie suis content d’en parler vn mot: non qu’elle le vaille, mais pour seruir de montre de mes mœurs en telles choses) que ie m’y suis porté en homme qui s’esmeut trop laschement, et d’vne affection languissante: et ils ne sont pas du tout esloignez d’apparence. I’essaye à tenir mon ame et mes pensées en repos. Cùm semper natura, tum etiam ætate iam quietus. Et si elles se desbauchent par fois, à quelque impression rude et penetrante, c’est à la verité sans mon conseil.
All public actions are subject to uncertain and varied interpretations, for too many heads judge them. Some say of this municipal office of mine (and I am glad to say a word about it—not that it is worth it, but to serve as a sample of my ways in such things) that I conducted myself in it like a man too sluggish to be stirred, with a languid zeal; and they are not altogether wide of the appearances. I try to keep my soul and my thoughts at rest. Always quiet by nature, and now also by age. And if they sometimes break loose under some rough and piercing impression, it is, in truth, without my consent.
De cette langueur naturelle, on ne doibt pourtant tirer aucune preuue d’impuissance: car faute de soing, et faute de sens, ce sont deux choses: et moins de mes-cognoissance et d’ingratitude enuers ce peuple, qui employa tous les plus extremes moyens qu’il eust en ses mains, à me gratifier: et auant m’auoir cogneu, et apres. Et fit bien plus pour moy, en me redonnant ma charge, qu’en me la donnant premierement. Ie luy veux tout le bien qui se peut. Et certes si l’occasion y eust esté, il n’est rien que i’eusse espargné pour son seruice. Ie me suis esbranlé pour luy, comme ie fais pour moy.
From this natural languor, however, one should not draw any proof of incapacity—for want of care and want of sense are two different things—and still less of unawareness or ingratitude toward this people, who used all the most extreme means in their power to gratify me, both before they knew me and after, and did far more for me in giving me my office again than in giving it to me the first time. I wish them every possible good. And certainly, had the occasion arisen, there is nothing I would have spared in their service. I bestirred myself for them as I do for myself.
C’est vn bon peuple, guerrier et genereux: capable pourtant d’obeyssance et discipline, et de seruir à quelque bon vsage, s’il y est bien guidé. Ils disent aussi, cette mienne vacation s’estre passée sans marque et sans trace. Il est bon. On accuse ma cessation, en vn temps, où quasi tout le monde estoit conuaincu de trop faire. I’ay vn agir trepignant où la volonté me charrie. Mais cette pointe est ennemye de perseuerance. Qui se voudra seruir de moy, selon moy, qu’il me donne des affaires où il face besoing de vigueur, et de liberté: qui ayent vne conduitte droicte, et courte: et encores hazardeuse: i’y pourray quelque chose. S’il la faut longue, subtile, laborieuse, artificielle, et tortue, il fera mieux de s’addresser à quelqu’autre.
They are a good people, warlike and generous, yet capable of obedience and discipline and of serving some good purpose if well led. They also say that this term of mine passed without mark or trace. Very well. They accuse me of inaction at a time when almost everybody was guilty of doing too much. I have an impatient, foot-stamping way of acting where my will carries me along. But that keenness is hostile to perseverance. Whoever wants to make use of me in accordance with myself, let him give me affairs that call for vigor and freedom, that have a straight and short course, and even a risky one: there I may be able to do something. If the course must be long, subtle, laborious, artful and tortuous, he would do better to turn to someone else.
Toutes charges importantes ne sont pas difficiles. I’estois preparé à m’embesongner plus rudement vn peu, s’il en eust esté grand besoing. Car il est en mon pouuoir, de faire quelque chose plus que ie ne fais, et que ie n’ayme à faire. Ie ne laissay que ie sçache, aucun mouuement, que le deuoir requist en bon escient de moy. I’ay facilement oublié ceux, que l’ambition mesle au deuoir, et couure de son tiltre. Ce sont ceux, qui le plus souuent remplissent les yeux et les oreilles, et contentent les hommes. Non pas la chose, mais l’apparence les paye. S’ils n’oyent du bruict, il leur semble qu’on dorme. Mes humeurs sont contradictoires aux humeurs bruyantes.
Not all important offices are difficult. I was prepared to set to work a little more roughly if there had been great need. For it is in my power to do somewhat more than I do, and than I like to do. I did not omit, so far as I know, any action that duty seriously required of me. I easily forgot those that ambition mixes with duty and covers with its title. It is these that most often fill people’s eyes and ears and satisfy them. Not the thing but the appearance pays them. If they hear no noise, it seems to them that we are asleep. My temperament is the opposite of noisy temperaments.
I’arresterois bien vn trouble, sans me troubler, et chastierois vn desordre sans alteration. Ay-ie besoing de cholere, et d’inflammation? ie l’emprunte, et m’en masque. Mes mœurs sont mousses, plustost fades, qu’aspres. Ie n’accuse pas vn magistrat qui dorme, pourueu que ceux qui sont soubs sa main, dorment quand et luy. Les loix dorment de mesme. Pour moy, ie louë vne vie glissante, sombre et muette. Neque submissam et abiectam, neque se efferentem. Ma fortune le veut ainsi. Ie suis nay d’vne famille, qui a coulé sans esclat, et sans tumulte: et de longue memoire, particulierement ambitieuse de preud’hommie. Nos hommes sont si formez à l’agitation et ostentation, que la bonté, la moderation, l’equabilité, la constance, et telles qualitez quietes et obscures, ne se sentent plus.
I could well stop a disturbance without being disturbed, and punish a disorder without losing my composure. Do I need anger and fire? I borrow them and wear them as a mask. My manners are blunt, insipid rather than harsh. I do not blame a magistrate who sleeps, provided those under his hand sleep along with him: the laws sleep likewise. For my part, I commend a life that glides along, obscure and silent, neither abject and groveling nor self-exalting. My fortune wills it so. I was born of a family that has flowed along without brilliance and without tumult, and within long memory particularly ambitious of integrity. Our men are so shaped to agitation and ostentation that goodness, moderation, evenness, constancy and such quiet and obscure qualities are no longer felt.
Les corps raboteux se sentent, les polis se manient imperceptiblement. La maladie se sent, la santé, peu ou point: ny les choses qui nous oignent, au prix de celles qui nous poignent. C’est agir pour sa reputation, et proffit particulier, non pour le bien, de remettre à faire en la place, ce qu’on peut faire en la chambre du conseil: et en plain midy, ce qu’on eust faict la nuict precedente: et d’estre ialoux de faire soy-mesme, ce que son compaignon faict aussi bien. Ainsi faisoyent aucuns chirurgiens de Grece, les operations de leur art, sur des eschaffaux à la veuë des passans, pour en acquerir plus de practique, et de chalandise.
Rough bodies are felt; smooth ones are handled imperceptibly. Sickness is felt; health little or not at all—nor are the things that salve us felt, compared with those that stab us. It is acting for one’s reputation and private profit, not for the common good, to put off doing in the public square what can be done in the council chamber, and at broad noon what could have been done the night before, and to insist jealously on doing oneself what one’s colleague does just as well. That is how some surgeons in Greece performed the operations of their art on platforms in view of passers-by, to gain more practice and custom.
Ils iugent, que les bons reglemens ne se peuuent entendre, qu’au son de la trompette. L’ambition n’est pas vn vice de petis compaignons, et de tels efforts que les nostres. On disoit à Alexandre: Vostre pere vous lairra vne grande domination, aysée, et pacifique: ce garçon estoit enuieux des victoires de son pere, et de la iustice de son gouuernement. Il n’eust pas voulu iouyr l’empire du monde, mollement et paisiblement. Alcibiades en Platon, ayme mieux mourir, ieune, beau, riche, noble, sçauant, tout cela par excellence, que de s’arrester en l’estat de cette condition. Cette maladie est à l’auanture excusable, en vne ame si forte et si plaine.
They judge that good regulations cannot be appreciated except to the sound of the trumpet. Ambition is not a vice for petty fellows and for efforts like ours. People said to Alexander: “Your father will leave you a great dominion, easy and peaceful.” This boy was envious of his father’s victories and of the justice of his government; he would not have wanted to enjoy the empire of the world softly and peacefully. Alcibiades, in Plato, would rather die young, handsome, rich, noble, learned—all of it to the highest degree—than stop at the state he had reached. This sickness is perhaps excusable in a soul so strong and so full.
Quand ces ametes naines, et chetiues, s’en vont embabouynant: et pensent espandre leur nom, pour auoir iugé à droict vn affaire, ou continué l’ordre des gardes d’vne porte de ville: ils en montrent d’autant plus le cul, qu’ils esperent en hausser la teste. Ce menu bien faire, n’a ne corps ne vie. Il va s’esuanouyssant en la premiere bouche: et ne se promeine que d’vn carrefour de ruë à l’autre. Entretenez en hardiment vostre fils et vostre valet. Comme cet ancien, qui n’ayant autre auditeur de ses loüanges, et consent de sa valeur, se brauoit auec sa chambriere, en s’escriant: O Perrete, le galant et suffisant homme de maistre que tu as! Entretenez vous en vous-mesme, au pis aller.
When these dwarfish, puny little souls go about making monkeys of themselves, and think they will spread their name for having judged a case rightly or kept up the rota of the guards at a city gate, the more they hope to raise their head, the more they show their backside. This petty well-doing has neither body nor life. It vanishes in the first mouth that tells it, and travels only from one street corner to the next. By all means talk about it to your son and your valet. Like that man of old who, having no other audience for his praises and no other witness to his worth, swaggered before his chambermaid, crying: “O Perrette, what a gallant and able man of a master you have!” At worst, talk about it to yourself.
Comme vn conseiller de ma cognoissance, ayant desgorgé vne battelée de paragraphes, d’vne extreme contention, et pareille ineptie: s’estant retiré de la chambre du conseil, au pissoir du palais: fut ouy marmotant entre les dents tout conscientieusement: Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. Qui ne peut d’ailleurs, si se paye de sa bourse.
Like a councilor I know who, having disgorged a boatload of paragraphs with extreme effort and equal ineptitude, and having withdrawn from the council chamber to the urinal of the Palace of Justice, was heard muttering most conscientiously between his teeth: Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory. Whoever cannot get paid elsewhere pays himself out of his own purse.
La renommée ne se prostitue pas à si vil comte. Les actions rares et exemplaires, à qui elle est deuë ne souffriroient pas la compagnie de cette foule innumerable de petites actions iournalieres. Le marbre esleuera vos titres tant qu’il vous plaira, pour auoir faict repetasser vn pan de mur, ou descroter vn ruisseau public: mais non pas les hommes, qui ont du sens. Le bruit ne suit pas toute bonté, si la difficulté et estrangeté n’y est ioincte. Voyre ny la simple estimation, n’est deuë à toute action, qui n’ait de la vertu, selon les Stoïciens. Et ne veulent, qu’on sçache seulement gré, à celuy qui par temperance, s’abstient d’vne vieille chassieuse.
Fame does not prostitute herself at so cheap a rate. The rare and exemplary actions to which it is due would not put up with the company of that countless crowd of petty everyday actions. Marble will raise your titles as high as you please for having had a stretch of wall patched or a public gutter cleaned out; but men of sense will not. Renown does not follow every good deed unless difficulty and strangeness are joined to it. Indeed, according to the Stoics, not even simple esteem is due to every action that has no virtue in it. And they will not have us even feel grateful to the man who, out of temperance, abstains from a bleary-eyed old woman.
Ceux qui ont cognu les admirables qualitez de Scipion l’Africain, refusent la gloire, que Panætius luy attribue d’auoir esté abstinent de dons: comme gloire non tant sienne comme de son siecle. Nous auons les voluptez sortables à nostre fortune: n’vsurpons pas celles de la grandeur. Les nostres sont plus naturelles. Et d’autant plus solides et seures, qu’elles sont plus basses. Puis que ce n’est par conscience, aumoins par ambition refusons l’ambition. Desdaignons cette faim de renommée et d’honneur, basse et belistresse, qui nous le faict coquiner de toute sorte de gens: Quæ est ista laus quæ possit è macello peti? par moyens abiects, et à quelque vil prix que ce soit. C’est deshonneur d’estre ainsin honnoré.
Those who knew the admirable qualities of Scipio Africanus deny him the glory that Panaetius attributes to him of having refused gifts, as a glory not so much his as his age’s. We have the pleasures that suit our fortune; let us not usurp those of greatness. Ours are more natural, and all the more solid and secure for being lower. Since it is not out of conscience, let us at least out of ambition refuse ambition. Let us disdain this hunger for fame and honor, base and beggarly, which makes us go begging for it from all sorts of people—What sort of praise is this, that can be sought in the market?—by abject means and at whatever vile price. It is dishonor to be honored in this way.
Apprenons à n’estre non plus auides, que nous sommes capables de gloire. De s’enfler de toute action vtile et innocente, c’est à faire à gens à qui elle est extraordinaire et rare. Ils la veulent mettre, pour le prix qu’elle leur couste. A mesure, qu’vn bon effect est plus esclatant: ie rabats de sa bonté, le soupçon en quoy i’entre, qu’il soit produict, plus pour estre esclatant, que pour estre bon. Estalé, il est à demy vendu. Ces actions là, ont bien plus de grace, qui eschappent de la main de l’ouurier, nonchalamment et sans bruict: et que quelque honneste homme, choisit apres, et releue de l’ombre, pour les pousser en lumiere: à cause d’elles mesmes.
Let us learn to be no greedier for glory than we are capable of it. Puffing oneself up over every useful and innocent action is for people to whom such action is extraordinary and rare: they want to value it at the price it cost them. The more dazzling a good deed is, the more I deduct from its goodness, because of the suspicion I come to have that it was done more to dazzle than to be good. Put on display, it is half sold. Far more graceful are those actions that slip from the workman’s hand carelessly and without noise, and that some decent man later picks out and raises from the shadows to push them into the light—for their own sake.
Mihi quidem laudabiliora videntur omnia, quæ sine venditatione, et sine populo teste fiunt: dit le plus glorieux homme du monde. Ie n’auois qu’à conseruer et durer, qui sont effects sourds et insensibles. L’innouation est de grand lustre. Mais elle est interdicte en ce temps, où nous sommes pressez, et n’auons à nous deffendre que des nouuelletez. L’abstinence de faire, est souuent aussi genereuse, que le faire: mais elle est moins au iour. Et ce peu, que ie vaux, est quasi tout de cette espece. En somme les occasions en cette charge ont suiuy ma complexion: dequoy ie leur sçay tresbon gré. Est-il quelqu’vn qui desire estre malade, pour voir son medecin en besongne?
To me, indeed, all things seem more praiseworthy that are done without ostentation and without the people as witness, says the most vainglorious man in the world. I had only to preserve and endure, which are quiet, imperceptible achievements. Innovation has great luster; but it is forbidden in these times, when we are hard pressed and have nothing to defend ourselves against but novelties. Refraining from doing is often as noble as doing, but it is less in the open; and what little I am worth is almost all of this kind. In short, the occasions in this office have suited my constitution, for which I am most grateful to them. Is there anyone who wishes to be ill so as to see his physician at work?
Et faudroit-il pas fouëter le medecin, qui nous desireroit la peste, pour mettre son art en practique? Ie n’ay point eu cett’humeur inique et assez commune, de desirer que le trouble et maladie des affaires de cette cité, rehaussast et honnorast mon gouuernement. I’ay presté de bon cœur, l’espaule à leur aysance et facilité. Qui ne me voudra sçauoir gré de l’ordre, de la douce et muette tranquillité, qui a accompaigné ma conduitte: aumoins ne peut-il me priuer de la part qui m’en appartient, par le tiltre de ma bonne fortune. Et ie suis ainsi faict: que i’ayme autant estre heureux que sage: et deuoir mes succez, purement à la grace de Dieu, qu’à l’entremise de mon operation.
And should we not whip the physician who wished the plague on us so as to put his skill into practice? I have never had that unjust and rather common temper of wishing that the disorder and sickness of this city’s affairs would exalt and honor my administration. I have gladly put my shoulder to making them easy and smooth. Whoever will not give me credit for the order, the gentle and silent tranquility that accompanied my conduct of office, cannot at least deprive me of the share of it that belongs to me by right of my good fortune. And I am so made that I like being lucky as much as being wise, and owing my successes purely to the grace of God as much as to the agency of my own work.
I’auois assez disertement publié au monde mon insuffisance, en tels maniemens publiques. I’ay encore pis, que l’insuffisance: c’est qu’elle ne me desplaist guere: et que ie ne cherche guere à la guarir, veu le train de vie que i’ay desseigné. Ie ne me suis en cette entremise, non plus satisfaict à moy-mesme. Mais à peu pres, i’en suis arriué à ce que ie m’en estois promis: et si ay de beaucoup surmonté, ce que i’en auois promis à ceux, à qui i’auois à faire. Car ie promets volontiers vn peu moins de ce que ie puis, et de ce que i’espere tenir. Ie m’asseure, n’y auoir laissé ny offence ny haine.
I had proclaimed to the world eloquently enough my incompetence in such public dealings. I have something still worse than incompetence: it hardly displeases me, and I hardly try to cure it, given the course of life I have planned for myself. Nor did I satisfy myself in this undertaking. But I have arrived at roughly what I had promised myself, and I have far surpassed what I had promised those I had to deal with; for I readily promise a little less than I can do and than I hope to deliver. I am sure I left behind neither offense nor hatred.
D’y laisser regret et desir de moy: ie sçay à tout le moins bien cela, que ie ne l’ay pas fort affecté: Méne huic confidere monstro! / Méne salis placidi vultum, fluctúsque quietos / Ignorare!
As for leaving behind regret and a desire for me, I know at least this much: that I did not much aim at it. I, trust this monster? / I, not know the look of the calm salt sea and the quiet waves / For what they are?