LES autres forment l’homme, ie le recite: et en represente vn particulier, bien mal formé; et lequel si i’auoy à façonner de nouueau, ie ferois vrayement bien autre qu’il n’est: mes-huy c’est fait. Or les traits de ma peinture, ne se fouruoyent point, quoy qu’ils se changent et diuersifient. Le monde n’est qu’vne branloire perenne. Toutes choses y branlent sans cesse, la terre, les rochers du Caucase, les pyramides d’Ægypte: et du branle public, et du leur. La constance mesme n’est autre chose qu’vn branle plus languissant. Ie ne puis asseurer mon obiect: il va trouble et chancelant, d’vne yuresse naturelle. Ie le prens en ce poinct, comme il est, en l’instant que ie m’amuse à luy.
Others form man; I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very badly formed. If I had to fashion him anew, I would truly make him very different from what he is. But by now it is done. Still, the strokes of my portrait do not go astray, though they change and vary. The world is nothing but a perpetual see-saw. All things in it are constantly swaying: the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt, both with the common motion and with their own. Constancy itself is nothing but a more languid swaying. I cannot keep my subject still. It goes along muddled and staggering, with a natural drunkenness. I take it at this point, as it is, at the moment I give it my attention.
Ie ne peinds pas l’estre, ie peinds le passage: non vn passage d’aage en autre, ou comme dict le peuple, de sept en sept ans, mais de iour en iour, de minute en minute. Il faut accommoder mon histoire à l’heure. Ie pourray tantost changer, non de fortune seulement, mais aussi d’intention. C’est vn contrerolle de diuers et muables accidens, et d’imaginations irresoluës, et quand il y eschet, contraires: soit que ie sois autre moy-mesme, soit que ie saisisse les subiects, par autres circonstances, et considerations. Tant y a que ie me contredis bien à l’aduanture, mais la verité, comme disoit Demades, ie ne la contredy point.
I do not portray being; I portray passing: not a passing from one age to another, or, as the people say, from seven years to seven years, but from day to day, from minute to minute. I must suit my story to the hour. I may soon change, not only by fortune but also by intention. This is a record of various and changeable occurrences, and of notions that are unsettled and, when it so happens, contradictory, whether because I myself am different or because I grasp my subjects in other circumstances and from other points of view. At any rate, I may well contradict myself now and then; but the truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict.
Si mon ame pouuoit prendre pied, ie ne m’essaierois pas, ie me resoudrois: elle est tousiours en apprentissage, et en espreuue.
If my soul could find its footing, I would not be trying myself out; I would be making up my mind. It is always in apprenticeship and on trial.
Ie propose vne vie basse, et sans lustre. C’est tout vn. On attache aussi bien toute la philosophie morale, à vne vie populaire et priuee, qu’à vne vie de plus riche estoffe. Chaque homme porte la forme entiere, de l’humaine condition. Les autheurs se communiquent au peuple par quelque marque speciale et estrangere: moy le premier, par mon estre vniuersel: comme, Michel de Montaigne: non comme grammairien ou poëte, ou iurisconsulte. Si le monde se plaint dequoy ie parle trop de moy, ie me plains dequoy il ne pense seulement pas à soy. Mais est-ce raison, que si particulier en vsage, ie pretende me rendre public en cognoissance?
I set forth a humble life, without luster. It makes no difference. You can attach the whole of moral philosophy to a common and private life just as well as to a life of richer stuff. Every man bears the whole form of the human condition. Authors communicate with the public through some special and extraneous mark. I am the first to do so through my universal being, as Michel de Montaigne, not as a grammarian or a poet or a jurist. If the world complains that I speak too much of myself, I complain that it does not even think of itself. But is it reasonable that I, so private in my way of life, should claim to make myself known to the public?
Est-il aussi raison, que ie produise au monde, où la façon et l’art ont tant de credit et de commandement, des effects de nature et crus et simples, et d’vne nature encore bien foiblette? Est-ce pas faire vne muraille sans pierre, ou chose semblable, que de bastir des liures sans science? Les fantasies de la musique, sont conduites par art, les miennes par sort. Aumoins i’ay cecy selon la discipline, que iamais homme ne traicta subiect, qu’il entendist ne cogneust mieux, que ie fay celuy que i’ay entrepris: et qu’en celuy là ie suis le plus sçauant homme qui viue.
Is it reasonable, too, that I should set before the world, where fashion and art have so much credit and command, products of nature that are crude and simple, and of a nature that is rather feeble at that? Is it not like making a wall without stone, or something of the kind, to build books without learning? The fantasias of music are guided by art; my fancies, by chance. At least I have this much according to the rules: that no man ever treated a subject he understood and knew better than I do the one I have undertaken, and that in this subject I am the most learned man alive.
Secondement, que iamais aucun ne penetra en sa matiere plus auant, ny en esplucha plus distinctement les membres et suittes: et n’arriua plus exactement et plus plainement, à la fin qu’il s’estoit proposé à sa besongne. Pour la parfaire, ie n’ay besoing d’y apporter que la fidelité: celle-là y est, la plus sincere et pure qui se trouue. Ie dy vray, non pas tout mon saoul: mais autant que ie l’ose dire. Et l’ose vn peu plus en vieillissant: car il semble que la coustume concede à cet aage, plus de liberté de bauasser, et d’indiscretion à parler de soy. Il ne peut aduenir icy, ce que ie voy aduenir souuent, que l’artizan et sa besongne se contrarient.
Second, that no one ever went deeper into his material, or picked apart its parts and consequences more distinctly, or reached more exactly and fully the goal he had set for his work. To complete it, I need bring to it only faithfulness, and that is there, the most sincere and pure to be found. I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare to speak. And I dare a little more as I grow old, for it seems that custom grants this age more freedom to babble and more indiscretion in talking about oneself. What I often see happen cannot happen here: that the craftsman and his work contradict each other.
Vn homme de si honneste conuersation, a-t-il faict vn si sot escrit? Ou, des escrits si sçauans, sont-ils partis d’vn homme de si foible conuersation? Qui a vn entretien commun, et ses escrits rares: c’est à dire, que sa capacité est en lieu d’où il l’emprunte, et non en luy. Vn personnage sçauant n’est pas sçauant par tout. Mais le suffisant est par tout suffisant, et à ignorer mesme. Icy nous allons conformément, et tout d’vn train, mon liure et moy. Ailleurs, on peut recommander et accuser l’ouurage, à part de l’ouurier: icy non: qui touche l’vn, touche l’autre. Celuy qui en iugera sans le congnoistre, se fera plus de tort qu’à moy: celuy qui l’aura cogneu, m’a du tout satisfaict.
Has a man so decent in conversation written so foolish a book? Or have such learned writings come from a man so feeble in conversation? If a man’s talk is commonplace and his writings exceptional, that means his ability lies in the place he borrows it from, and not in himself. A learned man is not learned in everything; but the able man is able in everything, even in being ignorant. Here we go in step and at the same pace, my book and I. Elsewhere one can commend or condemn the work apart from the workman; not here: whoever touches the one touches the other. He who judges it without knowing it will do more wrong to himself than to me; he who has come to know it has satisfied me completely.
Heureux outre mon merite, si i’ay seulement cette part à l’approbation publique, que ie face sentir aux gens d’entendement, que i’estoy capable de faire mon profit de la science, si i’en eusse eu: et que ie meritoy que la memoire me secourust mieux.
I shall be happy beyond my deserts if I have only this share of public approval: that I make men of understanding feel that I would have been capable of profiting from learning, if I had had any, and that I deserved better help from my memory.
Why I rarely repent
True vice brings its own repentance, and a good conscience its own reward.
Excusons icy ce que ie dy souuent, que ie me repens rarement, et que ma conscience se contente de soy: non comme de la conscience d’vn ange, ou d’vn cheual, mais comme de la conscience d’vn homme. Adioustant tousiours ce refrein, non vn refrein de ceremonie, mais de naifue et essentielle submission: Que ie parle enquerant et ignorant, me rapportant de la resolution, purement et simplement, aux creances communes et legitimes. Ie n’enseigne point, ie raconte.
Let me excuse here what I often say, that I rarely repent and that my conscience is content with itself, not as the conscience of an angel or of a horse, but as the conscience of a man. I always add this refrain, not a refrain of ceremony but of genuine and essential submission: that I speak as one who inquires and does not know, referring the decision purely and simply to the common and lawful beliefs. I do not teach; I tell.
Il n’est vice veritablement vice, qui n’offence, et qu’vn iugement entier n’accuse. Car il a de la laideur et incommodité si apparente, qu’à l’aduanture ceux-là ont raison, qui disent, qu’il est principalement produict par bestise et ignorance: tant est-il mal-aisé d’imaginer qu’on le cognoisse sans le haïr. La malice hume la pluspart de son propre venin, et s’en empoisonne. Le vice laisse comme vn vlcere en la chair, vne repentance en l’ame, qui tousiours s’esgratigne, et s’ensanglante elle mesme. Car la raison efface les autres tristesses et douleurs, mais elle engendre celle de la repentance: qui est plus griefue, d’autant qu’elle naist au dedans: comme le froid et le chaud des fiéures est plus poignant, que celuy qui vient du dehors.
There is no vice truly a vice that does not offend, and that a sound judgment does not condemn. For its ugliness and harmfulness are so evident that perhaps those are right who say it is chiefly produced by stupidity and ignorance, so hard is it to imagine that anyone could know it without hating it. Wickedness sucks up most of its own venom and poisons itself with it. Vice leaves in the soul, like an ulcer in the flesh, a repentance that is always scratching itself and making itself bleed. For reason wipes out other sadnesses and sorrows, but it engenders that of repentance, which is the more grievous because it is born within, just as the cold and heat of fevers are sharper than those that come from outside.
Ie tiens pour vices, mais chacun selon sa mesure, non seulement ceux que la raison et la nature condamnent, mais ceux aussi que l’opinion des hommes a forgé, voire fauce et erronee, si les loix et l’vsage l’auctorise.
I count as vices (but each according to its measure) not only those that reason and nature condemn, but also those that the opinion of men has forged, even false and mistaken opinion, if laws and usage give it authority.
Il n’est pareillement bonté, qui ne resiouysse vne nature bien nee. Il y a certes ie ne sçay quelle congratulation, de bien faire, qui nous resiouit en nous mesmes, et vne fierté genereuse, qui accompagne la bonne conscience. Vne ame courageusement vitieuse, se peut à l’aduenture garnir de securité: mais de cette complaisance et satisfaction, elle ne s’en peut fournir.
Likewise, there is no goodness that does not gladden a wellborn nature. There is indeed a certain self-congratulation in doing well that gladdens us within, and a noble pride that goes with a good conscience. A boldly vicious soul may perhaps arm itself with a sense of security; but this contentment and satisfaction it cannot supply for itself.
Ce n’est pas vn leger plaisir, de se sentir preserué de la contagion d’vn siecle si gasté, et de dire en soy: Qui me verroit iusques dans l’ame, encore ne me trouueroit-il coupable, ny de l’affliction et ruyne de personne: ny de vengeance ou d’enuie, ny d’offence publique des loix: ny de nouuelleté et de trouble: ny de faute à ma parole: et quoy que la licence du temps permist et apprinst à chacun, si n’ay-ie mis la main ny és biens, ny en la bourse d’homme François, et n’ay vescu que sur la mienne non plus en guerre qu’en paix: ny ne me suis seruy du trauail de personne, sans loyer.
It is no slight pleasure to feel oneself preserved from the contagion of so corrupt an age, and to say to oneself: “Whoever could see right into my soul would still not find me guilty of anyone’s affliction or ruin, or of vengeance or envy, or of any public offense against the laws, or of innovation and disturbance, or of breaking my word. And whatever the license of the times allowed and taught everyone, I have never laid hands on the goods or the purse of any Frenchman, and have lived on my own purse alone, in war as in peace. Nor have I used anyone’s labor without paying for it.”
Ces tesmoignages de la conscience, plaisent, et nous est grand benefice que cette esiouyssance naturelle: et le seul payement qui iamais ne nous manque.
These testimonies of conscience give pleasure; and this natural rejoicing is a great boon to us, and the only payment that never fails us.
De fonder la recompence des actions vertueuses, sur l’approbation d’autruy, c’est prendre vn trop incertain et trouble fondement, signamment en vn siecle corrompu et ignorant, comme cettuy cy: la bonne estime du peuple est iniurieuse. A qui vous fiez vous, de veoir ce qui est louable? Dieu me garde d’estre homme de bien, selon la description que ie voy faire tous les iours par honneur, à chacun de soy. Quæ fuerant vitià, mores sunt. Tels de mes amis, ont par fois entreprins de me chapitrer et mercurializer à cœur ouuert, ou de leur propre mouuement, ou semons par moy, comme d’vn office, qui à vne ame bien faicte, non en vtilité seulement, mais en douceur aussi, surpasse tous les offices de l’amitié.
To base the reward of virtuous actions on the approval of others is to choose too uncertain and murky a foundation, especially in a corrupt and ignorant age like this one: the good opinion of the people is an insult. Whom do you trust to see what is praiseworthy? God keep me from being a good man according to the description I see everyone giving of himself every day, to his own honor. What were vices are now morals. Some of my friends have at times undertaken to take me to task and lecture me frankly, either of their own accord or at my invitation, as a service which, to a well-made soul, surpasses all the services of friendship, not only in usefulness but in sweetness too.
Ie l’ay tousiours accueilli des bras de la courtoisie et recognoissance, les plus ouuerts. Mais, à en parler à cette heure en conscience, i’ay souuent trouué en leurs reproches et louanges, tant de fauce mesure, que ie n’eusse guere failly, de faillir plustost, que de bien faire à leur mode. Nous autres principalement, qui viuons vne vie priuee, qui n’est en montre qu’à nous, deuons auoir estably vn patron au dedans, auquel toucher nos actions: et selon iceluy nous caresser tantost, tantost nous chastier. I’ay mes loix et ma cour, pour iuger de moy, et m’y adresse plus qu’ailleurs. Ie restrains bien selon autruy mes actions, mais ie ne les estends que selon moy.
I have always welcomed it with the most open arms of courtesy and gratitude. But to speak of it now in all conscience, I have often found such false measure in their reproaches and their praises that I would hardly have erred in erring rather than in doing well their way. We especially, who live a private life that is on show only to ourselves, must have set up a pattern within us against which to test our actions, and by which we now make much of ourselves, now punish ourselves. I have my own laws and my own court to judge me, and I turn to them more than anywhere else. I do restrain my actions according to others, but I extend them only according to myself.
Il n’y a que vous qui sçache si vous estes lâche et cruel, ou loyal et deuotieux: les autres ne vous voyent point, ils vous deuinent par coniectures incertaines: ils voyent, non tant vostre naturel, que vostre art. Par ainsi, ne vous tenez pas à leur sentence, tenez vous à la vostre. Tuo tibi iudicio est vtendum. Virtutis et vitiorum graue ipsius conscientiæ pondus est: qua sublata, iacent omnia.
No one but you knows whether you are cowardly and cruel, or loyal and devout. Others do not see you; they guess at you by uncertain conjectures; they see not so much your nature as your art. Therefore do not hold to their verdict; hold to your own. You must use your own judgment. Great is the weight of one’s own conscience in matters of virtue and vice: take it away, and everything collapses.
Mais ce qu’on dit, que la repentance suit de pres le peché, ne semble pas regarder le peché qui est en son haut appareil: qui loge en nous comme en son propre domicile. On peut desauouër et desdire les vices, qui nous surprennent, et vers lesquels les passions nous emportent: mais ceux qui par longue habitude, sont enracinez et ancrez en vne volonté forte et vigoureuse, ne sont subiects à contradiction. Le repentir n’est qu’vne desdicte de nostre volonté, et opposition de nos fantasies, qui nous pourmene à tout sens. Il faict desaduouër à celuy-là, sa vertu passee et sa continence. Quæ mens est hodie, cur eadem non puero fuit, / Vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt genæ?
But the saying that repentance follows close upon sin does not seem to concern sin in its full regalia, sin that lodges in us as in its own home. We can disown and retract the vices that take us by surprise and toward which our passions sweep us. But those that, through long habit, are rooted and anchored in a strong and vigorous will are not open to contradiction. Repentance is nothing but a retraction of our will and a contradiction of our notions, and it leads us about in every direction. It makes this man disown his past virtue and continence: Why did I not have as a boy the mind I have today? / Or why, with this mind, do my smooth cheeks not come back?
Order at home
The real test of a life is its private, ordinary conduct, not its public show.
C’est vne vie exquise, celle qui se maintient en ordre iusques en son priué. Chacun peut auoir part au battelage, et representer vn honneste personnage en l’eschaffaut: mais au dedans, et en sa poictrine, où tout nous est loisible, où tout est caché, d’y estre reglé, c’est le poinct. Le voysin degré, c’est de l’estre en sa maison, en ses actions ordinaires, desquelles nous n’auons à rendre raison à personne: où il n’y a point d’estude, point d’artifice. Et pourtant Bias peignant vn excellent estat de famille: de laquelle, dit-il, le maistre soit tel au dedans, par luy-mesme, comme il est au dehors, par la crainte de la loy, et du dire des hommes.
It is an exceptional life that keeps itself in order even in private. Anyone can take part in the mountebank show and play a decent character on the stage. But to be well-ordered within, in one’s own breast, where everything is permitted to us and everything is hidden: that is the point. The next step is to be so in one’s own house, in one’s ordinary actions, for which we need give account to no one, where there is no studied effort, no artifice. And so Bias, describing an excellent household, says it is one whose master is the same within, by himself, as he is outside, through fear of the law and of what people say.
Et fut vne digne parole de Iulius Drusus, aux ouuriers qui luy offroient pour trois mille escus, mettre sa maison en tel poinct, que ses voysins n’y auroient plus la veuë qu’ils y auoient: Ie vous en donneray, dit-il, six mille, et faictes que chacun y voye de toutes parts. On remarque auec honneur l’vsage d’Agesilaus, de prendre en voyageant son logis dans les eglises, affin que le peuple, et les Dieux mesmes, vissent dans ses actions priuees. Tel a esté miraculeux au monde, auquel sa femme et son valet n’ont rien veu seulement de remercable. Peu d’hommes ont esté admirez par leurs domestiques. Nul a esté prophete non seulement en sa maison, mais en son païs, dit l’experience des histoires.
And it was a worthy remark of Julius Drusus to the workmen who offered, for three thousand crowns, to fix his house so that his neighbors would no longer have the view into it they had: “I will give you six thousand,” he said, “and make it so that everyone can see in from every side.” Agesilaus’ practice is recorded to his honor: when traveling he lodged in temples, so that the people, and the gods themselves, might see into his private actions. Many a man has seemed a marvel to the world in whom his wife and his valet saw nothing even remarkable. Few men have been admired by their own households. No one has been a prophet, not only in his own house but in his own country, says the experience of history.
De mesmes aux choses de neant. Et en ce bas exemple, se void l’image des grands. En mon climat de Gascongne, on tient pour drolerie de me veoir imprimé. D’autant que la cognoissance, qu’on prend de moy, s’esloigne de mon giste, i’en vaux d’autant mieux. I’achette les imprimeurs en Guienne: ailleurs ils m’achettent. Sur cet accident se fondent ceux qui se cachent viuants et presents, pour se mettre en credit, trepassez et absents. I’ayme mieux en auoir moins. Et ne me iette au monde, que pour la part que i’en tire. Au partir de là, ie l’en quitte.
The same holds in things of no account, and in this lowly example one can see the image of the great. In my region of Gascony, people think it a joke to see me in print. The farther the knowledge of me travels from my lair, the more I am worth. In Guyenne I pay the printers; elsewhere they pay me. This is what those people count on who hide themselves while they are alive and present, in order to win credit once they are dead and absent. I would rather have less of it. I throw myself upon the world only for the share I get out of it. Once I am out of it, we are quits.
Le peuple reconuoye celuy-là, d’vn acte public, auec estonnement, iusqu’à sa porte: il laisse auec sa robbe ce rolle: il en retombe d’autant plus bas, qu’il s’estoit plus haut monté. Au dedans chez luy, tout est tumultuaire et vil. Quand le reglement s’y trouueroit, il faut vn iugement vif et bien trié, pour l’apperceuoir en ces actions basses et priuees. Ioint que l’ordre est vne vertu morne et sombre. Gaigner vne bresche, conduire vne ambassade, regir vn peuple, ce sont actions esclatantes: tancer, rire, vendre, payer, aymer, hayr, et conuerser auec les siens, et auec soy-mesme, doucement et iustement: ne relascher point, ne se desmentir point, c’est chose plus rare, plus difficile, et moins remerquable.
The people escort that man back to his door in awe after some public act. He leaves this role behind with his robe, and falls back all the lower for having climbed so high. Within, in his own house, everything is disorderly and base. Even if there were order there, it would take a keen and discriminating judgment to perceive it in these lowly and private actions. Besides, order is a dull and somber virtue. To take a breach, conduct an embassy, govern a people: these are brilliant actions. To scold, laugh, sell, pay, love, hate, and deal gently and justly with one’s household and with oneself, not to let oneself go, not to belie oneself: that is rarer, more difficult, and less noticed.
Les vies retirees soustiennent par là, quoy qu’on die, des deuoirs autant ou plus aspres et tendus, que ne font les autres vies. Et les priuez, dit Aristote, seruent la vertu plus difficilement et hautement, que ne font ceux qui sont en magistrat. Nous nous preparons aux occasions eminentes, plus par gloire que par conscience. La plus courte façon d’arriuer à la gloire, ce seroit faire pour la conscience ce que nous faisons pour la gloire. Et la vertu d’Alexandre me semble representer assez moins de vigueur en son theatre, que ne fait celle de Socrates, en cette exercitation basse et obscure. Ie conçois aisément Socrates, en la place d’Alexandre; Alexandre en celle de Socrates, ie ne puis.
Retired lives therefore carry duties, whatever people say, as harsh and strenuous as other lives do, or more so. And private persons, says Aristotle, serve virtue with more difficulty and in a higher way than those in office. We prepare ourselves for eminent occasions more for glory than for conscience. The shortest way to reach glory would be to do for conscience what we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander seems to me to show much less vigor on its stage than that of Socrates in his lowly and obscure activity. I can easily imagine Socrates in Alexander’s place; Alexander in Socrates’, I cannot.
Qui demandera à celuy-là, ce qu’il sçait faire, il respondra, Subiuguer le monde: qui le demandera à cettuy-cy, il dira, Mener l’humaine vie conformément à sa naturelle condition: science bien plus generale, plus poisante, et plus legitime.
Ask the one what he knows how to do, and he will answer, “Conquer the world”; ask the other, and he will say, “Lead human life in conformity with its natural condition”: a far more general, weightier, and more legitimate knowledge.
Le prix de l’ame ne consiste pas à aller haut, mais ordonnément. Sa grandeur ne s’exerce pas en la grandeur: c’est en la mediocrité. Ainsi que ceux qui nous iugent et touchent au dedans, ne font pas grand’recette de la lueur de noz actions publiques: et voyent que ce ne sont que filets et pointes d’eau fine reiallies d’vn fond au demeurant limonneux et poisant. En pareil cas, ceux qui nous iugent par cette braue apparence du dehors, concluent de mesmes de nostre constitution interne: et ne peuuent accoupler des facultez populaires et pareilles aux leurs, à ces autres facultez, qui les estonnent, si loin de leur visee. Ainsi donnons nous aux demons des formes sauuages.
The worth of the soul consists not in going high, but in going in good order. Its greatness is exercised not in greatness but in the middle range. Those who judge and probe us within make little account of the luster of our public actions, and see that these are only jets and spurts of clear water springing from a bed that is otherwise muddy and heavy. In the same way, those who judge us by this fine outward show draw the same conclusion about our inner constitution, and cannot couple faculties that are ordinary and like their own with those other faculties that astonish them, so far beyond their range of sight. So it is that we give demons wild shapes.
Et qui non à Tamburlan des sourcils esleuez, des nazeaux ouuerts, vn visage afreux, et vne taille desmesuree, comme est la taille de l’imagination qu’il en a conceuë par le bruit de son nom? Qui m’eust faict veoir Erasme autrefois, il eust esté mal-aisé, que ie n’eusse prins pour adages et apophthegmes, tout ce qu’il eust dit à son vallet et à son hostesse. Nous imaginons bien plus sortablement vn artisan sur sa garderobe ou sur sa femme qu’vn grand President, venerable par son maintien et suffisance. Il nous semble que de ces hauts thrones ils ne s’abaissent pas iusques à viure. Comme les ames vicieuses sont incitees souuent à bien faire, par quelque impulsion estrangere? aussi sont les vertueuses à faire mal.
And who does not give Tamburlaine raised eyebrows, flaring nostrils, a frightful face, and an enormous stature, as enormous as the image he has formed of him from the fame of his name? If someone had shown me Erasmus in former days, it would have been hard for me not to take for adages and apophthegms everything he said to his valet and his landlady. We imagine much more fittingly a craftsman on his privy or on his wife than a great presiding judge, venerable for his bearing and ability. It seems to us that from those lofty thrones they do not stoop so low as to live. Just as vicious souls are often incited to do good by some outside impulse, so are virtuous ones to do evil.
Il les faut doncq iuger par leur estat rassis: quand elles sont chez elles, si quelquefois elles y sont: ou au moins quand elles sont plus voysines du repos, et en leur naifue assiette.
So we must judge them in their settled state, when they are at home, if ever they are; or at least when they are nearest to repose and in their natural posture.
Les inclinations naturelles s’aident et fortifient par institution: mais elles ne se changent gueres et surmontent. Mille natures, de mon temps, ont eschappé vers la vertu, ou vers le vice, au trauers d’vne discipline contraire. Sic vbi desuetæ siluis in carcere clausæ / Mansueuêre feræ, et vultus posuere minaces, / Atque hominem didicere pati, si torrida paruus / Venit in ora cruor, redeunt rabiésque furórque, / Admonitæque tument gustato sanguine fauces; / Feruet, et à trepido vix abstinet ira magistro. On n’extirpe pas ces qualitez originelles, on les couure, on les cache. Le langage Latin m’est comme naturel: ie l’entends mieux que le François: mais il y a quarante ans, que ie ne m’en suis du tout poinct seruy à parler, ny guere à escrire.
Natural inclinations are helped and strengthened by education, but they are hardly ever changed or overcome. A thousand natures in my time have broken away toward virtue or toward vice in spite of a contrary training. So when wild beasts, grown unused to the forests and shut in a cage, / Have become tame, and laid aside their threatening looks, / And learned to put up with man, if a little hot blood / Comes to their burning mouths, their rage and fury return, / And their jaws, reminded by the taste of blood, swell; / Their anger boils, and barely spares their trembling keeper. These original qualities are not uprooted; they are covered over and hidden. Latin is almost my native tongue; I understand it better than French. But for forty years I have not used it at all for speaking, and hardly at all for writing.
Si est-ce qu’à des extremes et soudaines esmotions, où ie suis tombé, deux ou trois fois en ma vie: et l’vne, voyant mon pere tout sain, se renuerser sur moy pasmé: i’ay tousiours eslancé du fonds des entrailles, les premieres paroles Latines: Nature se sourdant et s’exprimant à force, à l’encontre d’vn si long vsage: et cet exemple se dit d’assez d’autres.
And yet in extreme and sudden emotions, which I have fallen into two or three times in my life (one of them when I saw my father, in perfect health, fall back on me in a faint), the first words I have poured out from the depths of my entrails have always been Latin: Nature welling up and expressing itself by force, against so long a habit. And this example is told of many others.
Ceux qui ont essaié de r’auiser les mœurs du monde, de mon temps, par nouuelles opinions, reforment les vices de l’apparence, ceux de l’essence ils les laissent là, s’ils ne les augmentent. Et l’augmentation y est à craindre. On se seiourne volontiers de tout autre bien faire, sur ces reformations externes, de moindre coust et de plus grand merite: et satisfait-on à bon marché par là, les autres vices naturels consubstantiels et intestins. Regardez vn peu, comment s’en porte nostre experience. Il n’est personne, s’il s’escoute, qui ne descouure en soy, vne forme sienne, vne forme maistresse, qui lucte contre l’institution: et contre la tempeste des passions, qui luy sont contraires.
Those who in my time have tried to correct the world’s morals by new opinions reform the vices of appearance; those of essence they leave alone, if they do not increase them. And their increase is to be feared. People readily rest from all other good-doing on these external reforms, which cost less and win more credit; and in this way they cheaply pay off the other vices, which are natural, consubstantial and internal. Just look a little at what our experience shows. There is no one who, if he listens to himself, does not discover in himself a form of his own, a ruling form, that struggles against education and against the storm of the passions that oppose it.
De moy, ie ne me sens gueres agiter par secousse: ie me trouue quasi tousiours en ma place, comme font les corps lourds et poisans. Si ie ne suis chez moy, i’en suis tousiours bien pres: mes desbauches ne m’emportent pas fort loing: il n’y a rien d’extreme et d’estrange: et si ay des rauisemens sains et vigoureux.
As for me, I hardly feel myself shaken by jolts. I find myself almost always in my place, as heavy and weighty bodies do. If I am not at home, I am always very near it. My excesses do not carry me very far; there is nothing extreme or strange about them. And besides, I have sound and vigorous recoveries.
La vraye condamnation, et qui touche la commune façon de nos hommes, c’est, que leur retraicte mesme est pleine de corruption, et d’ordure: l’idée de leur amendement chafourree, leur penitence malade, et en coulpe, autant à peu pres que leur peché. Aucuns, ou pour estre collez au vice d’vne attache naturelle, ou par longue accoustumance, n’en trouuent plus la laideur. A d’autres, duquel regiment ie suis, le vice poise, mais ils le contrebalancent auec le plaisir, ou autre occasion: et le souffrent et s’y prestent, à certain prix. Vitieusement pourtant, et laschement. Si se pourroit-il à l’aduanture imaginer, si esloignee disproportion de mesure, où auec iustice, le plaisir excuseroit le peché, comme nous disons de l’vtilité.
The true condemnation, and one that applies to the common run of our men, is that even their retreat from vice is full of corruption and filth: their idea of amendment is smudged, their penance diseased and almost as much at fault as their sin. Some, either because they are glued to vice by a natural attachment or through long habit, no longer see its ugliness. For others, of whose regiment I am, vice weighs heavily, but they counterbalance it with pleasure or some other consideration, and put up with it and lend themselves to it at a certain price, viciously, however, and basely. Yet one could perhaps imagine so vast a disproportion of measure that pleasure might justly excuse the sin, as we say of usefulness.
Non seulement s’il estoit accidental, et hors du peché, comme au larrecin, mais en l’exercice mesme d’iceluy, comme en l’accointance des femmes, où l’incitation est violente, et, dit-on, par fois inuincible. En la terre d’vn mien parent, l’autre iour que i’estois en Armaignac, ie vis vn paisant, que chacun surnomme le Larron.
And not only if the pleasure were incidental and separate from the sin, as in theft, but in the very exercise of it, as in intercourse with women, where the urge is violent and, they say, sometimes invincible. On the estate of a kinsman of mine, the other day when I was in Armagnac, I saw a peasant whom everyone nicknames the Thief.
Il faisoit ainsi le conte de sa vie: Qu’estant nay mendiant, et trouuant, qu’à gaigner son pain au trauail de ses mains, il n’arriueroit iamais à se fortifier assez contre l’indigence, il s’aduisa de se faire larron: et auoit employé à ce mestier toute sa ieunesse, en seureté, par le moyen de sa force corporelle: car il moissonnoit et vendangeoit des terres d’autruy: mais c’estoit au loing, et à si gros monceaux, qu’il estoit inimaginable qu’vn homme en eust tant emporté en vne nuict sur ses espaules: et auoit soing outre cela, d’egaler, et disperser le dommage qu’il faisoit, si que la foule estoit moins importable à chaque particulier.
This is how he told the story of his life. Born a beggar, and finding that by earning his bread with the work of his hands he would never manage to arm himself well enough against want, he decided to become a thief. He had spent his whole youth at this trade in safety, thanks to his bodily strength. For he harvested grain and grapes from other people’s lands, but far away and in such huge loads that it was unimaginable that one man could have carried off so much on his shoulders in one night. And besides, he took care to even out and spread the damage he did, so that the burden was less unbearable for each individual.
Il se trouue à cette heure en sa vieillesse, riche pour vn homme de sa condition, mercy à cette trafique: de laquelle il se confesse ouuertement. Et pour s’accommoder auec Dieu, de ses acquests, il dit, estre tous les iours apres à satisfaire par bien-faicts, aux successeurs de ceux qu’il a desrobez: et s’il n’acheue (car d’y pouruoir tout à la fois, il ne peut) qu’il en chargera ses heritiers, à la raison de la science qu’il a luy seul, du mal qu’il a faict à chacun.
Now, in his old age, he finds himself rich for a man of his station, thanks to this traffic, which he openly confesses. And to make his peace with God over his acquisitions, he says he is busy every day making amends, by good deeds, to the heirs of those he robbed; and if he does not finish (for he cannot provide for it all at once), he will charge his own heirs with it, according to the knowledge, which he alone has, of the harm he did to each.
Par cette description, soit vraye ou fauce, cettuy-cy regarde le larrecin, comme action des-honneste, et le hayt, mais moins que l’indigence: s’en repent bien simplement, mais en tant qu’elle estoit ainsi contrebalancee et compensee, il ne s’en repent pas. Cela, ce n’est pas cette habitude, qui nous incorpore au vice, et y conforme nostre entendement mesme: ny n’est ce vent impetueux qui va troublant et aueuglant à secousses nostre ame, et nous precipite pour l’heure, iugement et tout, en la puissance du vice.
By this description, whether true or false, this man regards theft as a dishonorable action and hates it, but less than poverty. He repents of it quite simply; but insofar as it was counterbalanced and compensated in this way, he does not repent of it. That is not the habit which incorporates us into vice and conforms even our understanding to it; nor is it that impetuous wind which keeps troubling and blinding our soul in gusts, and hurls us for the moment, judgment and all, into the power of vice.
All of a piece
Montaigne cannot repent of what he is, only regret it; he blames fortune, not his choices.
Ie fay coustumierement entier ce que ie fay, et marche tout d’vne piece: ie n’ay guere de mouuement qui se cache et desrobe à ma raison, et qui ne se conduise à peu pres, par le consentement de toutes mes parties: sans diuision, sans sedition intestine: mon iugement en a la coulpe, ou la louange entiere: et la coulpe qu’il a vne fois, il l’a tousiours: car quasi dés sa naissance il est vn, mesme inclination, mesme routte, mesme force. Et en matiere d’opinions vniuerselles, dés l’enfance, ie me logeay au poinct où i’auois à me tenir.
Usually I do wholly what I do, and move all in one piece. I have hardly any impulse that hides and steals away from my reason, and that is not guided, more or less, by the consent of all my parts, without division, without internal sedition. My judgment takes the whole blame or the whole praise for it; and the blame it once has, it always has, for almost from its birth it has been one: the same inclination, the same road, the same strength. And on general questions, from childhood I settled at the point where I was to hold.
Il y a des pechez impetueux, prompts et subits, laissons les à part: mais en ces autres pechez, à tant de fois reprins, deliberez, et consultez, ou pechez de complexion, ou pechez de profession et de vacation: ie ne puis pas conceuoir, qu’ils soient plantez si long temps en vn mesme courage, sans que la raison et la conscience de celuy qui les possede, le vueille constamment, et l’entende ainsin. Et le repentir qu’il se vante luy en venir à certain instant prescript, m’est vn peu dur à imaginer et former. Ie ne suy pas la secte de Pythagoras, que les hommes prennent vne ame nouuelle, quand ils approchent des simulacres des Dieux, pour recueillir leurs oracles.
There are impetuous, prompt and sudden sins; let us leave them aside. But as for those other sins, so many times repeated, deliberated and pondered, whether sins of temperament or sins of profession and calling, I cannot conceive that they can be planted so long in the same heart without the reason and conscience of their possessor constantly willing it and understanding it so. And the repentance which he boasts comes to him at a certain prescribed moment is a little hard for me to imagine and picture. I do not follow the school of Pythagoras, that men take on a new soul when they approach the images of the gods to receive their oracles.
Sinon qu’il voulust dire cela mesme, qu’il faut bien qu’elle soit estrangere, nouuelle, et prestee pour le temps: la nostre montrant si peu de signe de purification et netteté condigne à cet office.
Unless he meant just this: that it must indeed be a foreign soul, new and lent for the occasion, since ours shows so little sign of a purification and cleanness worthy of that office.
Ils font tout à l’opposite des preceptes Stoiques: qui nous ordonnent bien, de corriger les imperfections et vices que nous recognoissons en nous, mais nous defendent d’en alterer le repos de nostre ame. Ceux-cy nous font à croire, qu’ils en ont grande desplaisance, et remors au dedans, mais d’amendement et correction ny d’interruption, ils ne nous en font rien apparoir. Si n’est-ce pas guerison, si on ne se descharge du mal. Si la repentance pesoit sur le plat de la balance, elle emporteroit le peché. Ie ne trouue aucune qualité si aysee à contrefaire, que la deuotion, si on n’y conforme les mœurs et la vie: son essence est abstruse et occulte, les apparences faciles et pompeuses.
They do just the opposite of the Stoic precepts, which do bid us correct the imperfections and vices we recognize in ourselves, but forbid us to disturb the repose of our soul over them. These people make us believe that they feel great displeasure and remorse within; but of amendment and correction, or even of a pause, they show us nothing. Yet it is no cure if one does not get rid of the disease. If repentance were weighed in the scale, it would outweigh the sin. I find no quality so easy to counterfeit as devoutness, if one does not make one’s morals and life conform to it. Its essence is abstruse and hidden; its appearances are easy and showy.
Quant à moy, ie puis desirer en general estre autre: ie puis condamner et me desplaire de ma forme vniuerselle, et supplier Dieu pour mon entiere reformation, et pour l’excuse de ma foiblesse naturelle: mais cela, ie ne le doibs nommer repentir, ce me semble, non plus que le desplaisir de n’estre ny Ange ny Caton. Mes actions sont reglees, et conformes à ce que ie suis, et à ma condition. Ie ne puis faire mieux: et le repentir ne touche pas proprement les choses qui ne sont pas en nostre force: ouy bien le regret. I’imagine infinies natures plus hautes et plus reglees que la mienne.
As for me, I may desire in general to be other than I am; I may condemn and dislike my form as a whole, and pray God for my entire reformation and for pardon for my natural weakness. But this, it seems to me, I ought not to call repentance, any more than my displeasure at being neither an angel nor Cato. My actions are regulated by and conform to what I am and to my condition. I cannot do better. And repentance does not properly concern things that are not in our power; regret certainly does. I imagine countless natures loftier and better ordered than mine.
Ie n’amende pourtant mes facultez: comme ny mon bras, ny mon esprit, ne deuiennent plus vigoureux, pour en conceuoir vn autre qui le soit. Si l’imaginer et desirer vn agir plus noble que le nostre, produisoit la repentance du nostre, nous aurions à nous repentir de nos operations plus innocentes: d’autant que nous iugeons bien qu’en la nature plus excellente, elles auroyent esté conduictes d’vne plus grande perfection et dignité: et voudrions faire de mesme. Lors que ie consulte des deportemens de ma ieunesse auec ma vieillesse, ie trouue que ie les ay communement conduits auec ordre, selon moy. C’est tout ce que peut ma resistance. Ie ne me flatte pas: à circonstances pareilles, ie seroy tousiours tel.
Yet I do not improve my faculties by doing so, just as neither my arm nor my mind becomes more vigorous by imagining another that is. If imagining and desiring a nobler way of acting than ours produced repentance for ours, we would have to repent of our most innocent operations, since we judge well enough that in a more excellent nature they would have been carried out with greater perfection and dignity; and we would want to do the same. When I consult my old age about the conduct of my youth, I find that I generally conducted myself in an orderly way, according to my own lights. That is all my resistance can do. I do not flatter myself: in similar circumstances, I would always be the same.
Ce n’est pas macheure, c’est plustost vne teinture vniuerselle qui me tache. Ie ne cognoy pas de repentance superficielle, moyenne, et de ceremonie. Il faut qu’elle me touche de toutes parts, auant que ie la nomme ainsin: et qu’elle pinse mes entrailles, et les afflige autant profondement, que Dieu me voit, et autant vniuersellement.
It is not a smudge; it is rather a universal dye that stains me. I know no repentance that is superficial, middling and ceremonial. It must touch me in every part before I call it that, and it must pinch my entrails and afflict them as deeply as God sees me, and as universally.
Quand aux negoces, il m’est eschappé plusieurs bonnes auantures, à faute d’heureuse conduitte: mes conseils ont pourtant bien choisi, selon les occurrences qu’on leur presentoit. Leur façon est de prendre tousiours le plus facile et seur party. Ie trouue qu’en mes deliberations passees, i’ay, selon ma regle, sagement procedé, pour l’estat du subiect qu’on me proposoit: et en ferois autant d’icy à mille ans, en pareilles occasions. Ie ne regarde pas, quel il est à cette heure, mais quel il estoit, quand i’en consultois. La force de tout conseil gist au temps: les occasions et les matieres roulent et changent sans cesse. I’ay encouru quelques lourdes erreurs en ma vie, et importantes: non par faute de bon aduis, mais par faute de bon heur.
As for business, many good opportunities have slipped from me for want of successful handling; yet my decisions chose well, according to the circumstances presented to them. Their way is always to take the easiest and safest course. I find that in my past deliberations I have proceeded wisely, according to my rule, given the state of the matter put before me; and I would do the same a thousand years from now on similar occasions. I do not look at what the matter is now, but at what it was when I was deliberating on it. The force of all counsel lies in its time: occasions and matters roll and change ceaselessly. I have fallen into some gross and important errors in my life, not for lack of good judgment but for lack of good luck.
Il y a des parties secrettes aux obiects, qu’on manie, et indiuinables: signamment en la nature des hommes: des conditions muettes, sans montre, incognues par fois du possesseur mesme: qui se produisent et esueillent par des occasions suruenantes. Si ma prudence ne les a peu penetrer et profetizer, ie ne luy en sçay nul mauuais gré: sa charge se contient en ses limites. Si l’euenement me bat, et s’il fauorise le party que i’ay refusé: il n’y a remede, ie ne m’en prens pas à moy, i’accuse ma fortune, non pas mon ouurage: cela ne s’appelle pas repentir.
There are secret and unguessable parts in the matters we handle, especially in the nature of men: silent qualities, without outward show, sometimes unknown even to their possessor, which are brought out and awakened by unforeseen occasions. If my prudence could not see into them and foretell them, I bear it no ill will: its charge is confined within its limits. If the outcome beats me, and favors the course I rejected, there is no help for it. I do not blame myself; I blame my fortune, not my work. That is not called repentance.
Phocion auoit donné aux Atheniens certain aduis, qui ne fut pas suiuy: l’affaire pourtant se passant contre son opinion, auec prosperité, quelqu’vn luy dit: Et bien Phocion, es tu content que la chose aille si bien? Bien suis-ie content, fit-il, qu’il soit aduenu cecy, mais ie ne me repens point d’auoir conseillé cela. Quand mes amis s’adressent à moy, pour estre conseillez, ie le fay librement et clairement, sans m’arrester comme faict quasi tout le monde, à ce que la chose estant hazardeuse, il peut aduenir au rebours de mon sens, par où ils ayent à me faire reproche de mon conseil: dequoy il ne me chaut. Car ils auront tort, et ie n’ay deu leur refuser cet office.
Phocion had given the Athenians some advice which was not followed. When the affair nevertheless turned out prosperously, contrary to his opinion, someone said to him: “Well, Phocion, are you pleased that things are going so well?” “I am indeed pleased,” he said, “that this has happened, but I do not repent of having advised that.” When my friends come to me for advice, I give it freely and clearly, without stopping, as almost everyone does, to think that since the matter is risky it may turn out contrary to my view, so that they may reproach me for my advice. I do not care about that. For they will be wrong, and I could not refuse them that service.
Ie n’ay guere à me prendre de mes fautes ou infortunes, à autre qu’à moy. Car en effect, ie me sers rarement des aduis d’autruy, si ce n’est par honneur de ceremonie: sauf où i’ay besoing d’instruction de science, ou de la cognoissance du faict. Mais és choses où ie n’ay à employer que le iugement: les raisons estrangeres peuuent seruir à m’appuyer, mais peu à me destourner. Ie les escoute fauorablement et decemment toutes. Mais, qu’il m’en souuienne, ie n’en ay creu iusqu’à cette heure que les miennes. Selon moy, ce ne sont que mousches et atomes, qui promeinent ma volonté. Ie prise peu mes opinions: mais ie prise aussi peu celles des autres, fortune me paye dignement.
I have hardly anyone but myself to blame for my faults or misfortunes. For in fact I rarely use other people’s advice, except out of ceremonious courtesy, save where I need expert instruction or knowledge of the facts. But in matters where I have only my judgment to apply, other people’s reasons can serve to support me, but hardly to turn me aside. I listen to them all favorably and courteously; but, as far as I can remember, I have never yet believed any but my own. To my mind they are mere flies and motes that set my will wandering. I set little value on my opinions, but I set just as little on those of others. Fortune pays me as I deserve.
Si ie ne reçoy pas de conseil, i’en donne aussi peu. I’en suis peu enquis, et encore moins creu: et ne sache nulle entreprinse publique ny priuee, que mon aduis aye redressee et ramenee. Ceux mesmes que la fortune y auoit aucunement attachez, se sont laissez plus volontiers manier à toute autre ceruelle qu’à la mienne. Comme cil qui suis bien autant ialoux des droits de mon repos, que des droits de mon auctorité, ie l’ayme mieux ainsi. Me laissant là, on fait selon ma profession, qui est, de m’establir et contenir tout en moy. Ce m’est plaisir, d’estre desinteressé des affaires d’autruy, et desgagé de leur gariement.
If I do not take advice, I give just as little. I am seldom asked for it, and even more seldom believed; and I know of no public or private undertaking that my advice has set right and brought back on course. Even those whom fortune had in some way bound to it have more willingly let themselves be guided by any other brain than mine. Being a man quite as jealous of the rights of my repose as of the rights of my authority, I prefer it so. In leaving me alone, people act according to my profession, which is to settle and contain myself wholly within myself. It is a pleasure to me to have no stake in other people’s affairs and to be free from answering for them.
En tous affaires quand ils sont passés, comment que ce soit, i’ay peu de regret: car cette imagination me met hors de peine, qu’ils deuoyent ainsi passer: les voyla dans le grand cours de l’vniuers, et dans l’encheineure des causes Stoïques. Vostre fantasie n’en peut, par souhait et imagination, remuer vn poinct, que tout l’ordre des choses ne renuerse et le passé et l’aduenir.
In all affairs, once they are past, however they turned out, I feel little regret. For this thought puts me out of pain: that they were bound to pass that way. There they are, in the great course of the universe and in the chain of Stoic causes. Your fancy cannot, by wishing and imagining, move a single point of them without the whole order of things overturning both past and future.
The false repentance of age
Montaigne refuses to credit old age with virtue for the vices it can no longer commit.
Au demeurant, ie hay cet accidental repentir que l’aage apporte. Celuy qui disoit anciennement, estre obligé aux annees, dequoy elles l’auoyent deffait de la volupté, auoit autre opinion que la mienne. Ie ne sçauray iamais bon gré à l’impuissance, de bien qu’elle me face. Nec tam auersa vnquam videbitur ab opere suo prouidentia, vt debilitas inter optima inuenta sit. Nos appetits sont rares en la vieillesse: vne profonde satieté nous saisit apres le coup. En cela ie ne voy rien de conscience. Le chagrin, et la foiblesse nous impriment vne vertu lasche, et caterreuse. Il ne nous faut pas laisser emporter si entiers, aux alterations naturelles, que d’en abastardir notre iugement.
For the rest, I hate that incidental repentance that age brings. The man who said long ago that he was obliged to the years for having rid him of sensual pleasure held a different opinion from mine. I shall never be grateful to impotence for any good it may do me. Nor will Providence ever seem so hostile to its own work that weakness should be counted among the best things. Our appetites are few in old age; a profound satiety seizes us after the act. In this I see nothing of conscience. Peevishness and weakness stamp on us a slack and rheumy virtue. We must not let ourselves be carried away so entirely by natural changes as to let them debase our judgment.
La ieunesse et le plaisir n’ont pas faict autrefois que i’aye mescogneu le visage du vice en la volupté: ny ne fait à cette heure, le degoust que les ans m’apportent, que ie mescognoisse celuy de la volupté au vice. Ores que ie n’y suis plus, i’en iuge comme si i’y estoy. Moy qui la secouë viuement et attentiuement, trouue que ma raison est celle mesme que i’auoy en l’aage plus licencieux: sinon à l’auanture, d’autant qu’elle s’est affoiblie et empiree, en vieillissant. Et trouue que ce qu’elle refuse de m’enfourner à ce plaisir, en consideration de l’interest de ma santé corporelle, elle ne le feroit non plus qu’autrefois, pour la santé spirituelle. Pour la voir hors de combat, ie ne l’estime pas plus valeureuse.
Youth and pleasure did not once make me fail to recognize the face of vice in pleasure; nor does the distaste that the years bring me now make me fail to recognize the face of pleasure in vice. Now that I am no longer in it, I judge it as if I were. Shaking my reason briskly and attentively, I find that it is the very same as I had in my more licentious years, except perhaps that it has grown weaker and worse with age. And I find that if it refuses to plunge me into this pleasure, it does so out of concern for my bodily health; for the sake of spiritual health it would do no more than it did before. I do not think it any braver for seeing it out of the fight.
Mes tentations sont si cassees et mortifiees, qu’elles ne valent pas qu’elle s’y oppose: tendant seulement les mains au deuant, ie les coniure. Qu’on luy remette en presence, cette ancienne concupiscence, ie crains qu’elle auroit moins de force à la soustenir, qu’elle n’auoit autrefois. Ie ne luy voy rien iuger à part soy, que lors elle ne iugeast, ny aucune nouuelle clarté. Parquoy s’il y a conualescence, c’est vne conualescence maleficiee. Miserable sorte de remede, deuoir à la maladie sa santé. Ce n’est pas à nostre malheur de faire cet office: c’est au bon heur de nostre iugement. On ne me fait rien faire par les offenses et afflictions, que les maudire. C’est aux gents, qui ne s’esueillent qu’à coups de fouët.
My temptations are so broken and deadened that they are not worth its opposing them. Merely by holding out my hands before me, I conjure them away. Let that old lust be set before it again, and I fear it would have less strength to withstand it than it once had. I do not see it judge anything on its own that it did not judge then, nor see any new light in it. Therefore, if there is convalescence, it is a blighted convalescence. A miserable kind of remedy, to owe one’s health to sickness! It is not for our misfortune to perform this office; it is for the good fortune of our judgment. Offenses and afflictions can make me do nothing but curse them. That is for people who wake up only under the whip.
Ma raison a bien son cours plus deliure en la prosperité: elle est bien plus distraitte et occupee à digerer les maux, que les plaisirs. Ie voy bien plus clair en temps serain. La santé m’aduertit, comme plus alaigrement, aussi plus vtilement, que la maladie. Ie me suis auancé le plus que i’ay peu, vers ma reparation et reglement, lors que i’auoy à en iouïr. Ie seroy honteux et enuieux, que la misere et l’infortune de ma vieillesse eust à se preferer à mes bonnes annees, saines, esueillees, vigoureuses. Et qu’on eust à m’estimer, non par où i’ay esté, mais par où i’ay cesse d’estre.
My reason runs a freer course in prosperity. It is much more distracted and taken up with digesting ills than pleasures. I see much more clearly in fair weather. Health admonishes me more cheerfully, and therefore more usefully, than sickness. I advanced as far as I could toward my reform and regulation while I had health to enjoy it. I would be ashamed and vexed if the misery and misfortune of my old age were to be preferred to my good years, healthy, wakeful and vigorous; and if people were to value me not for what I have been but for what I have ceased to be.
A mon aduis, c’est le viure heureusement, non, comme disoit Antisthenes, le mourir heureusement, qui fait l’humaine felicité. Ie ne me suis pas attendu d’attacher monstrueusement la queuë d’vn philosophe à la teste et au corps d’vn homme perdu: ny que ce chetif bout eust à desaduoüer et desmentir la plus belle, entiere et longue partie de ma vie. Ie me veux presenter et faire veoir par tout vniformément. Si i’auois à reuiure, ie reuiurois comme i’ay vescu. Ny ie ne pleins le passé, ny ie ne crains l’aduenir: et si ie ne me deçoy, il est allé du dedans enuiron comme du dehors.
In my opinion it is living happily, not, as Antisthenes said, dying happily, that makes human happiness. I have not set out to attach, monstrously, the tail of a philosopher to the head and body of a profligate; nor have I intended this sorry remnant to disown and belie the finest, fullest and longest part of my life. I want to present myself and be seen everywhere in the same way. If I had to live again, I would live as I have lived. I neither lament the past nor fear the future; and unless I deceive myself, things have gone much the same within as without.
C’est vne des principales obligations, que i’aye à ma fortune, que le cours de mon estat corporel ayt esté conduit, chasque chose en sa saison, i’en ay veu l’herbe, et les fleurs, et le fruit: et en voy la secheresse. Heureusement, puisque c’est naturellement. Ie porte bien plus doucement les maux que i’ay, d’autant qu’ils sont en leur poinct: et qu’ils me font aussi plus fauorablement souuenir de la longue felicité de ma vie passee. Pareillement, ma sagesse peut bien estre de mesme taille, en l’vn et en l’autre temps: mais elle estoit bien de plus d’exploit, et de meilleure grace, verte, gaye, naïue, qu’elle n’est à present, cassee, grondeuse, laborieuse. Ie renonce donc à ces reformations casuelles et douloureuses.
It is one of the chief debts I owe my fortune that the course of my bodily life has run each thing in its season. I have seen its grass, its flowers and its fruit; and now I see it drying up. Happily, since it is naturally. I bear the ills I have much more gently because they come in their proper time, and because they also make me remember more fondly the long happiness of my past life. Likewise my wisdom may well be of the same size in both periods; but it was far more accomplished and more graceful then, green, gay and natural, than it is now, broken, grumbling and laborious. I therefore renounce these chance and painful reformations.
Il faut que Dieu nous touche le courage: il faut que nostre conscience s’amende d’elle mesme, par renforcement de nostre raison, non par l’affoiblissement de nos appetits. La volupté n’en est en soy, ny pasle, ny descoulouree, pour estre apperceuë par des yeux chassieux et troubles.
God must touch our heart. Our conscience must amend of itself, through the strengthening of our reason, not through the weakening of our appetites. Pleasure is not in itself pale or discolored because it is seen by bleary and clouded eyes.
On doibt aymer la temperance par elle mesme, et pour le respect de Dieu qui nous l’a ordonnee, et la chasteté: celle que les caterres nous prestent, et que ie doibs au benefice de ma cholique, ce n’est ny chasteté, ny temperance. On ne peut se vanter de mespriser et combatre la volupté, si on ne la voit, si on l’ignore, et ses graces, et ses forces, et sa beauté plus attrayante. Ie cognoy l’vne et l’autre, c’est à moy de le dire. Mais il me semble qu’en la vieillesse, nos ames sont subiectes à des maladies et imperfections plus importunes, qu’en la ieunesse.
We should love temperance for its own sake, and out of respect for God who has ordained it for us, and chastity too. What catarrhs lend us, and what I owe to the kindness of my colic, is neither chastity nor temperance. One cannot boast of despising and fighting pleasure if one does not see it, if one does not know it, its graces, its powers, and its most alluring beauty. I know both the one and the other; it is for me to say. But it seems to me that in old age our souls are subject to more troublesome ailments and imperfections than in youth.
Ie le disois estant ieune, lors on me donnoit de mon menton par le nez: ie le dis encore à cette heure, que mon poil gris m’en donne le credit. Nous appellons sagesse, la difficulté de nos humeurs, le desgoust des choses presentes: mais à la verité, nous ne quittons pas tant les vices, comme nous les changeons: et, à mon opinion, en pis. Outre vne sotte et caduque fierté, vn babil ennuyeux, ces humeurs espineuses et inassociables, et la superstition, et vn soin ridicule des richesses, lors que l’vsage en est perdu, i’y trouue plus d’enuie, d’iniustice et de malignité.
I said so when I was young, and then people threw my beardless chin in my face. I say it again now that my gray hair gives me credit. We call wisdom the crabbedness of our temperament, our distaste for present things. But in truth we do not so much give up our vices as change them, and, in my opinion, for the worse. Besides a foolish and decrepit pride, tedious chatter, prickly and unsociable moods, superstition, and a ridiculous concern for riches when we have lost the use of them, I find more envy, injustice and malice in it.
Elle nous attache plus de rides en l’esprit qu’au visage: et ne se void point d’ames, ou fort rares, qui en vieillissant ne sentent l’aigre et le moisi. L’homme marche entier, vers son croist et vers son décroist. A voir la sagesse de Socrates, et plusieurs circonstances de sa condamnation, i’oseroy croire, qu’il s’y presta aucunement luy mesme, par preuarication, à dessein: ayant de si prés, aagé de soixante et dix ans, à souffrir l’engourdissement des riches allures de son esprit, et l’esblouïssement de sa clairté accoustumée. Quelles metamorphoses luy voy-ie faire tous les iours, en plusieurs de mes cognoissans?
Old age attaches more wrinkles to our minds than to our faces; and one sees no souls, or very rare ones, that do not smell sour and musty as they grow old. Man moves all of a piece toward his growth and toward his decline. Considering the wisdom of Socrates and several circumstances of his condemnation, I would venture to believe that he lent himself to it to some extent, by deliberate collusion, being so close, at seventy years of age, to suffering the numbing of the rich movements of his mind and the dimming of its accustomed brightness. What metamorphoses I see it work every day in many of my acquaintances!
c’est vne puissante maladie, et qui se coule naturellement et imperceptiblement: il y faut grande prouision d’estude, et grande precaution, pour euiter les imperfections qu’elle nous charge: ou aumoins affoiblir leur progrez. Ie sens que nonobstant tous mes retranchemens, elle gaigne pied à pied sur moy. Ie soustien tant que ie puis, mais ie ne sçay en fin, où elle me menera moy-mesme. A toutes auantures, ie suis content qu’on sçache d’où ie seray tombé.
It is a powerful disease, and one that creeps on naturally and imperceptibly. It takes a great store of study and great precaution to avoid the imperfections it loads us with, or at least to slow their progress. I feel that, despite all my entrenchments, it is gaining on me foot by foot. I hold out as long as I can; but I do not know where in the end it will lead even me. At all events, I am content that people should know from where I shall have fallen.