I’AY autresfois esté employé à consoler vne dame vrayement affligee. La plus part de leurs deuils sont artificiels et ceremonieux. Vberibus semper lacrymis, sempérque paratis / In statione sua, atque expectantibus illam / Quo iubeat manare modo. On y procede mal, quand on s’oppose à cette passion: car l’opposition les pique et les engage plus auant à la tristesse. On exaspere le mal par la ialousie du debat. Nous voyons des propos communs, que ce que i’auray dit sans soing, si on vient à me le contester, ie m’en formalise, ie l’espouse: beaucoup plus ce à quoy i’aurois interest.
I was once employed to console a lady who was truly afflicted. Most of their mourning is artificial and ceremonious. Tears always abundant, always ready / at their post, waiting for her / to command them how to flow. It is a mistake to oppose this passion, for opposition goads them and drives them further into sadness. One aggravates the ill by the jealousy of debate. We see from ordinary conversation that if something I have said carelessly comes to be contested, I take offense and embrace it—much more so something in which I have an interest.
Et puis en ce faisant, vous vous presentez à vostre operation d’vne entree rude: là où les premiers accueils du medecin enuers son patient, doiuent estre gracieux, gays, et aggreables. Iamais medecin laid, et rechigné n’y fit œuure. Au contraire doncq, il faut ayder d’arriuee et fauoriser leur plaincte, et en tesmoigner quelque approbation et excuse. Par cette intelligence, vous gaignez credit à passer outre, et d’vne facile et insensible inclination, vous vous coulez aux discours plus fermes et propres à leur guerison. Moy, qui ne desirois principalement que de piper l’assistance, qui auoit les yeux sur moy, m’aduisay de plastrer le mal. Aussi me trouue-ie par experience, auoir mauuaise main et infructueuse à persuader.
And then, in doing so, you begin your operation with a rough approach, whereas the physician’s first greetings to his patient should be gracious, cheerful and pleasant. No ugly, sullen physician ever achieved anything. So, on the contrary, you must from the start help and encourage their lament, and show some approval and excuse for it. By this understanding you gain credit to go further, and by an easy and imperceptible inclination you slide into firmer arguments, fitter to cure them. I, who wanted chiefly to beguile the company, who had their eyes on me, decided to plaster over the ill. And indeed I find by experience that I have a poor and unfruitful hand at persuading.
Ou ie presente mes raisons trop pointues et trop seiches: ou trop brusquement: ou trop nonchalamment. Apres que ie me fus appliqué vn temps à son tourment, ie n’essayay pas de le guarir par fortes et viues raisons: par ce que i’en ay faute, ou que ie pensois autrement faire mieux mon effect. Ny n’allay choisissant les diuerses manieres, que la philosophie prescrit à consoler: Que ce qu’on plaint n’est pas mal, comme Cleanthes: Que c’est vn leger mal, comme les Peripateticiens: Que se plaindre n’est action, ny iuste, ny loüable, comme Chrysippus: Ny cette cy d’Epicurus, plus voisine à mon style, de transferer la pensee des choses fascheuses aux plaisantes: Ny faire vne charge de tout cet amas, le dispensant par occasion, comme Cicero.
Either I present my reasons too sharp and too dry, or too abruptly, or too casually. After I had applied myself to her torment for a while, I did not try to cure it with strong and lively reasons, because I lack them, or because I thought I could achieve my purpose better otherwise. Nor did I go choosing among the various methods of consolation that philosophy prescribes: that what one laments is not an evil, like Cleanthes; that it is a slight evil, like the Peripatetics; that lamenting is an action neither just nor praiseworthy, like Chrysippus. Nor did I use this one of Epicurus, closer to my style, of transferring one’s thoughts from unpleasant things to pleasant ones; nor did I make a load of this whole heap and dispense it as occasion arose, like Cicero.
Mais declinant tout mollement noz propos, et les gauchissant peu à peu, aux subiects plus voysins, et puis vn peu plus eslongnez, selon qu’elle se prestoit plus à moy, ie luy desrobay imperceptiblement cette pensee douloureuse: et la tins en bonne contenance et du tout r’apaisee autant que i’y fus. I’vsay de diuersion. Ceux qui me suyuirent à ce mesme seruice, n’y trouuerent aucun amendement: car ie n’auois pas porté la coignee aux racines.
But steering our talk very gently, and turning it little by little to nearby subjects and then to ones a little further away, as she lent herself more to me, I imperceptibly stole that painful thought from her, and kept her composed and entirely calm for as long as I was there. I used diversion. Those who followed me in the same service found no improvement in her, for I had not laid the axe to the roots.
Diversions public and private
Generals, Atalanta’s suitor and physicians all succeed by turning attention elsewhere.
A l’aduenture ay-ie touché quelque espece de diuersions publiques. Et l’vsage des militaires, dequoy se seruit Pericles en la guerre Peloponnesiaque: et mille autres ailleurs, pour reuoquer de leurs païs les forces contraires, est trop frequent aux histoires. Ce fut vn ingenieux destour, dequoy le Sieur d’Himbercourt sauua et soy et d’autres, en la ville du Liege: où le Duc de Bourgongne, qui la tenoit assiegee, l’auoit fait entrer, pour executer les conuenances de leur reddition accordee. Ce peuple assemblé de nuict pour y pouruoir, commence à se mutiner contre ces accords passez: et delibererent plusieurs, de courre sus aux negociateurs, qu’ils tenoient en leur puissance.
Perhaps I have touched here on some sort of public diversions. And the military practice that Pericles used in the Peloponnesian War, and a thousand others elsewhere, to draw enemy forces away from their own countries, is all too frequent in the histories. It was an ingenious ruse by which the Sieur d’Himbercourt saved both himself and others in the city of Liège. The Duke of Burgundy, who was besieging it, had sent him in to carry out the terms of their agreed surrender. The people, assembled by night to deal with this, began to rebel against the agreements made, and many resolved to fall upon the negotiators, whom they held in their power.
Luy, sentant le vent de la premiere ondee de ces gens, qui venoient se ruer en son logis, lascha soudain vers eux, deux des habitans de la ville, (car il y en auoit aucuns auec luy) chargez de plus douces et nouuelles offres, à proposer en leur conseil, qu’il auoit forgees sur le champ pour son besoing. Ces deux arresterent la premiere tempeste, ramenant cette tourbe esmeüe en la maison de ville, pour ouyr leur charge, et y deliberer. La deliberation fut courte.
He, getting wind of the first wave of these people, who were coming to storm his lodging, at once sent out to them two of the city’s inhabitants (for he had some with him). They carried new and milder offers, which he had invented on the spot for his need, to be put before their council. These two stopped the first storm, leading the agitated mob back to the town hall to hear their message and deliberate on it. The deliberation was short.
Voicy desbonder vn second orage, autant animé que l’autre: et luy à leur despecher en teste, quatre nouueaux et semblables intercesseurs, protestans auoir à leur declarer à ce coup, des presentations plus grasses, du tout à leur contentement et satisfaction: par où ce peuple fut de rechef repoussé dans le conclaue. Somme, que par telle dispensation d’amusemens, diuertissant leur furie, et la dissipant en vaines consultations, il l’endormit en fin, et gaigna le iour, qui estoit son principal affaire.
Then a second storm broke loose, as fierce as the first; and he sent four new and similar intercessors out to meet them, declaring that this time they had richer proposals to put to them, entirely to their content and satisfaction. By this the people were driven back once more into the conclave. In short, by such a dispensing of distractions, turning aside their fury and dissipating it in vain consultations, he finally lulled it to sleep and held out until daylight, which was his main concern.
Cet autre comte est aussi de ce predicament. Atalante fille de beauté excellente, et de merueilleuse disposition, pour se deffaire de la presse de mille poursuiuants, qui la demandoient en mariage, leur donna cette loy, qu’elle accepteroit celuy qui l’egalleroit à la course, pourueu que ceux qui y faudroient, en perdissent la vie. Il s’en trouua assez, qui estimerent ce prix digne d’vn tel hazard, et qui encoururent la peine de ce cruel marché. Hippomenes ayant à faire son essay apres les autres, s’adressa à la deesse tutrice de cette amoureuse ardeur, l’appellant à son secours: qui exauçant sa priere, le fournit de trois pommes d’or, et de leur vsage.
This other story also falls into the same category. Atalanta, a girl of excellent beauty and wonderful agility, wanted to rid herself of the throng of a thousand suitors who sought her in marriage. She gave them this law: she would accept the one who equaled her in a race, provided that those who failed lost their lives. There were enough who judged that prize worth such a risk, and who incurred the penalty of this cruel bargain. Hippomenes, who had to make his trial after the others, turned to the goddess who is guardian of this amorous ardor and called on her for help. She granted his prayer and supplied him with three golden apples and with instructions for their use.
Le champ de la course ouuert, à mesure qu’Hippomenes sent sa maistresse luy presser les talons, il laisse eschapper, comme par inaduertance, l’vne de ces pommes: la fille amusee de sa beauté, ne faut point de se destourner pour l’amasser: Obstupuit virgo, nitidique cupidine pomi / Declinat cursus, aurúmque volubile tollit. Autant en fit-il à son poinct, et de la seconde et de la tierce: iusques à ce que par ce fouruoyement et diuertissement, l’aduantage de la course luy demeura.
When the race began, as Hippomenes feels his beloved pressing on his heels, he lets one of the apples drop as if by inadvertence. The girl, beguiled by its beauty, does not fail to turn aside to pick it up: The maiden was dazzled, and in her desire for the shining fruit / she swerves from her course and picks up the rolling gold. He did the same at the right moment with the second and the third, until by this straying and diversion the advantage in the race remained his.
Quand les medecins ne peuuent purger le caterrhe, ils le diuertissent, et desuoyent à vne autre partie moins dangereuse. Ie m’apperçoy que c’est aussi la plus ordinaire recepte aux maladies de l’ame. Abducendus etiam nonnunquam animus est ad alia studia, solicitudines, curas, negotia: loci denique mutatione, tanquam ægroti non conualescentes, sæpe curandus est. On luy fait peu choquer les maux de droit fil: on ne luy en fait ny soustenir ny rabatre l’atteinte: on la luy fait decliner et gauchir.
When physicians cannot purge a catarrh, they divert it and shift it to another, less dangerous part. I notice that this is also the most usual remedy for the diseases of the soul. The mind must sometimes be drawn away to other pursuits, concerns, cares, business; and finally it must often be treated by a change of place, like sick people who are not recovering. We seldom make it meet ills head-on; we make it neither withstand their attack nor beat it back; we make it dodge and sidestep them.
Cette autre leçon est trop haute et trop difficile. C’est à faire à ceux de la premiere classe, de s’arrester purement à la chose, la considerer, la iuger. Il appartient à vn seul Socrates, d’accointer la mort d’vn visage ordinaire, s’en appriuoiser et s’en iouer. Il ne cherche point de consolation hors de la chose: le mourir luy semble accident naturel et indifferent: il fiche là iustement sa veuë, et s’y resoult, sans regarder ailleurs.
That other lesson is too lofty and too difficult. It is for those of the first rank to keep purely to the thing itself, to consider it, to judge it. It belongs to Socrates alone to meet death with an ordinary face, to grow familiar with it and play with it. He seeks no consolation outside the thing itself. Dying seems to him a natural and indifferent accident; he fixes his gaze precisely there and makes up his mind to it, without looking elsewhere.
Les disciples d’Hegesias, qui se font mourir de faim, eschauffez des beaux discours de ses leçons, et si dru que le Roy Ptolomee luy fit defendre de plus entretenir son eschole de ces homicides discours: ceux là ne considerent point la mort en soy, ils ne la iugent point: ce n’est pas là où ils arrestent leur pensee: ils courent, ils visent à vn estre nouueau.
The disciples of Hegesias, who starved themselves to death, fired by the fine discourses of his lessons—and in such numbers that King Ptolemy had him forbidden to entertain his school any longer with these murderous discourses—those people do not consider death in itself; they do not judge it; that is not where they fix their thought. They run, they aim at a new existence.
Ces pauures gens qu’on void sur l’eschaffaut, remplis d’vne ardente deuotion, y occupants tous leurs sens autant qu’ils peuuent: les aureilles aux instructions qu’on leur donne; les yeux et les mains tendues au ciel: la voix à des prieres hautes, auec vne esmotion aspre et continuelle, font certes chose louable et conuenable à vne telle necessité. On les doibt louer de religion: mais non proprement de constance. Ils fuyent la lucte: ils destournent de la mort leur consideration: comme on amuse les enfans pendant qu’on leur veut donner le coup de lancette. I’en ay veu, si par fois leur veuë se raualoit à ces horribles asprets de la mort, qui sont autour d’eux, s’en transir, et reietter auec furie ailleurs leur pensee.
Those poor people we see on the scaffold, filled with ardent devotion, occupy all their senses with it as much as they can: their ears with the instructions given to them, their eyes and hands raised to heaven, their voices in loud prayers, with a harsh and continual emotion. They are certainly doing something praiseworthy and fitting for such a necessity. We should praise them for religion, but not properly for steadfastness. They flee the struggle; they turn their attention away from death, as we distract children when we are about to give them the stroke of the lancet. I have seen some who, if their gaze sometimes dropped to the horrible harshness of death around them, froze with fear and furiously threw their thoughts elsewhere.
A ceux qui passent vne profondeur effroyable, on ordonne de clorre ou destourner leurs yeux.
Those who cross over a frightful depth are told to close or avert their eyes.
Subrius Flauius, ayant par le commandement de Neron, à estre deffaict, et par les mains de Niger, tous deux chefs de guerre: quand on le mena au champ, où l’execution deuoit estre faicte, voyant le trou que Niger auoit fait cauer pour le mettre, inegal et mal formé: Ny cela, mesme, dit-il, se tournant aux soldats qui y assistoyent, n’est selon la discipline militaire. Et à Niger, qui l’exhortoit de tenir la teste ferme: Frapasses tu seulement aussi ferme. Et deuina bien: car le bras tremblant à Niger, il la luy coupa à diuers coups. Cettuy-cy semble auoir eu sa pensee droittement et fixement au subiect.
Subrius Flavus had been condemned by Nero’s command to be put to death at the hands of Niger, both of them military commanders. When he was led out to the field where the execution was to take place, he saw that the pit Niger had had dug to put him in was uneven and badly shaped. “Not even this,” he said, turning to the soldiers who were present, “is according to military discipline.” And to Niger, who was urging him to hold his head steady: “If only you strike as steadily.” He guessed right, for Niger’s arm trembled and he cut off his head in several blows. This man seems to have kept his thought squarely and fixedly on the matter.
Celuy qui meurt en la meslee, les armes à la main, il n’estudie pas lors la mort, il ne la sent, ny ne la considere: l’ardeur du combat l’emporte. Vn honneste homme de ma cognoissance, estant tombé comme il se batoit en estocade, et se sentant daguer à terre par son ennemy de neuf ou dix coups, chacun des assistans luy crioit qu’il pensast à sa conscience, mais il me dit depuis, qu’encores que ces voix luy vinssent aux oreilles, elles ne l’auoient aucunement touché, et qu’il ne pensa iamais qu’à se descharger et à se venger. Il tua son homme en ce mesme combat. Beaucoup fit pour L.
The man who dies in the thick of the fight, weapons in hand, is not studying death at that moment; he neither feels it nor considers it: the heat of combat carries him away. A decent man of my acquaintance fell while fighting with the sword, and felt his enemy stab him with a dagger nine or ten times as he lay on the ground. Every one of the bystanders was shouting at him to think of his conscience. But he told me afterward that although these voices reached his ears, they had not touched him at all, and that he thought of nothing but getting free and taking revenge. He killed his man in that same fight. A great service was done to L.
Syllanus, celuy qui luy apporta sa condamnation: de ce qu’ayant ouy sa response, qu’il estoit bien preparé à mourir, mais non pas de mains scelerees: il se rua sur luy, auec ses soldats pour le forcer: et comme luy tout desarmé, se defendoit obstinement de poingts et de pieds, il le fit mourir en ce debat: dissipant en prompte cholere et tumultuaire, le sentiment penible d’vne mort longue et preparee, à quoy il estoit destiné.
Silanus by the man who brought him his sentence. Having heard his reply, that he was well prepared to die, but not at the hands of criminals, this man rushed at him with his soldiers to overpower him; and as Silanus, completely unarmed, stubbornly defended himself with fists and feet, he had him killed in the struggle. So he dissipated, in a quick and tumultuous anger, the painful feeling of the long, prepared death to which Silanus had been destined.
Nous pensons tousiours ailleurs: l’esperance d’vne meilleure vie nous arreste et appuye: ou l’esperance de la valeur de nos enfans: ou la gloire future de nostre nom: ou la fuitte des maux de cette vie: ou la vengeance qui menasse ceux qui nous causent la mort: Spero equidem mediis, si quid pia numina possunt, / Supplicia hausurum scopulis, et nomine Dido / Sæpe vocaturum. / Audiam, et hæc manes veniet mihi fama sub imos. Xenophon sacrifioit couronné quand on luy vint annoncer la mort de son fils Gryllus, en la bataille de Mantinee. Au premier sentiment de cette nouuelle, il ietta sa couronne à terre: mais par la suitte du propos, entendant la forme d’vne mort tres-valeureuse, il l’amassa, et remit sur sa teste.
We are always thinking of something else. The hope of a better life stops us and props us up; or the hope of our children’s worth; or the future glory of our name; or escape from the ills of this life; or the vengeance that threatens those who cause our death: I hope indeed, if the righteous powers can do anything, that amid the rocks / You will drain your punishment to the dregs, and call on Dido by name / Again and again. / I shall hear it, and the news will reach me down among the shades. Xenophon was offering a sacrifice, wearing a garland, when they came to tell him of the death of his son Gryllus at the battle of Mantinea. At the first impression of the news he threw his garland to the ground; but as the account went on, hearing how very valiant a death it had been, he picked it up and put it back on his head.
Epicurus mesme se console en sa fin, sur l’eternité et l’vtilité de ses escrits. Omnes clari et nobilitati labores, fiunt tolerabiles. Et la mesme playe, le mesme trauail, ne poise pas, dit Xenophon, à vn general d’armee, comme à vn soldat. Epaminondas print sa mort bien plus alaigrement, ayant esté informé, que la victoire estoit demeuree de son costé. Hæc sunt solatia, hæc fomenta summorum dolorum. Et telles autres circonstances nous amusent, diuertissent et destournent de la consideration de la chose en soy. Voire les arguments de la philosophie, vont à touts coups costoyans et gauchissans la matiere, et à peine essuyans sa crouste.
Epicurus himself, at his end, consoles himself with the eternity and usefulness of his writings. All labors that bring fame and renown become bearable. And the same wound, the same toil, does not weigh as heavily, says Xenophon, on a general as on a soldier. Epaminondas took his death far more cheerfully once he had been told that the victory had remained on his side. These are the consolations, these the soothing remedies for the greatest pains. And other such circumstances amuse, divert and turn us away from considering the thing itself. Even the arguments of philosophy are forever skirting and sidestepping the matter, barely brushing its crust.
Le premier homme de la premiere eschole philosophique, et surintendante des autres, ce grand Zenon, contre la mort: Nul mal n’est honorable: la mort l’est: elle n’est pas donc mal. Contre l’yurongnerie: Nul ne fie son secret à l’yurongne: chacun le fie au sage: le sage ne sera donc pas yurongne. Cela est-ce donner au blanc? I’ayme à veoir ces ames principales, ne se pouuoir desprendre de nostre consorce. Tant parfaicts hommes qu’ils soyent, ce sont tousiours bien lourdement des hommes.
The foremost man of the foremost school of philosophy, the one that presides over all the others, the great Zeno, argues against death: “No evil is honorable; death is honorable; therefore death is not an evil.” Against drunkenness: “No one entrusts his secret to a drunkard; everyone entrusts it to the wise man; therefore the wise man will not be a drunkard.” Is that hitting the target? I like to see these leading souls unable to break free of our common fellowship. However perfect they may be, they are still, very clumsily, men.
Diverting passions
Revenge and love can be weakened by turning them aside rather than fighting them head-on.
C’est vne douce passion que la vengeance, de grande impression et naturelle: ie le voy bien, encore que ie n’en aye aucune experience. Pour en distraire dernierement vn ieune Prince, ie ne luy allois pas disant, qu’il falloit prester la iouë à celuy qui vous auoit frappé l’autre, pour le deuoir de charité: ny ne luy allois representer les tragiques euenements que la poësie attribue à cette passion. Ie la laissay là, et m’amusay à luy faire gouster la beauté d’vne image contraire: l’honneur, la faueur, la bien-vueillance qu’il acquerroit par clemence et bonté: ie le destournay à l’ambition. Voyla comme lon en faict.
Revenge is a sweet passion, one that strikes deep and comes naturally: I can see that well enough, though I have no experience of it. Recently, to draw a young prince away from it, I did not go telling him that out of the duty of charity he must offer his cheek to the man who had struck him on the other one; nor did I go setting before him the tragic outcomes that poetry attributes to this passion. I left it alone and busied myself making him savor the beauty of a contrary picture: the honor, the favor, the goodwill he would gain by clemency and kindness. I diverted him toward ambition. That is how it is done.
Si vostre affection en l’amour est trop puissante, dissipez la, disent-ils. Et disent vray, car ie l’ay souuent essayé auec vtilité. Rompez la à diuers desirs, desquels il y en ayt vn regent et vn maistre, si vous voulez, mais de peur qu’il ne vous gourmande et tyrannise, affoiblissez-le, seiournez-le, en le diuisant et diuertissant. Cùm morosa vago singultiet inguine vena, / Coniicito humorem collectum in corpora quæque. Et pouruoyez y de bonne heure, de peur que vous n’en soyez en peine, s’il vous a vne fois saisi. Si non prima nouis conturbes vulnera plagis, / Volgiuagáque vagus Venere ante recentia cures.
If your affection in love is too powerful, disperse it, they say. And they are right, for I have often tried it to good effect. Break it up into various desires; one of them may be ruler and master, if you like, but for fear it should bully and tyrannize you, weaken it, hold it in check by dividing and diverting it. When the peevish vein throbs in your restless groin, / Discharge the gathered fluid into any body you please. And see to it early, for fear you will be in trouble once it has seized you. Unless you confound the first wounds with fresh blows, / And heal them while still new, roaming after a roving Venus.
Ie fus autrefois touché d’vn puissant desplaisir, selon ma complexion: et encores plus iuste que puissant: ie m’y fusse perdu à l’aduenture, si ie m’en fusse simplement fié à mes forces. Ayant besoing d’vne vehemente diuersion pour m’en distraire, ie me fis par art amoureux et par estude: à quoy l’aage m’aydoit. L’amour me soulagea et retira du mal, qui m’estoit causé par l’amitié. Par tout ailleurs de mesme. Vne aigre imagination me tient: ie trouue plus court, que de la dompter, la changer: ie luy en substitue, si ie ne puis vne contraire, aumoins vn’ autre. Tousiours la variation soulage, dissout et dissipe. Si ie ne puis la combatre, ie luy eschappe: et en la fuïant, ie fouruoye, ie ruse.
I was once struck by a powerful grief, powerful for a temperament like mine, and even more just than powerful. I might well have been lost in it if I had simply relied on my own strength. Needing a vehement diversion to draw me away from it, I made myself fall in love, by art and by study, in which my age helped me. Love relieved me and drew me out of the pain that friendship had caused me. It is the same everywhere else. A bitter notion takes hold of me: I find it quicker to change it than to subdue it. I put another in its place, if not a contrary one, at least a different one. Variation always relieves, dissolves and dissipates. If I cannot fight it, I escape it; and in fleeing it I take detours and play tricks.
Muant de lieu, d’occupation, de compagnie, ie me sauue dans la presse d’autres amusemens et pensees, où elle perd ma trace, et m’esgare.
Changing place, occupation, company, I slip away into the crowd of other amusements and thoughts, where it loses my trail and loses track of me.
Nature procede ainsi, par le benefice de l’inconstance. Car le temps qu’elle nous a donné pour souuerain medecin de nos passions, gaigne son effect principalement par là, que fournissant autres et autres affaires à nostre imagination, il demesle et corrompt cette premiere apprehension, pour forte qu’elle soit. Vn sage ne voit guere moins, son amy mourant, au bout de vingt et cinq ans, qu’au premier an; et suiuant Epicurus, de rien moins: car il n’attribuoit aucun leniment des fascheries, ny à la preuoyance, ny à l’antiquité d’icelles. Mais tant d’autres cogitations trauersent cette-cy, qu’elle s’alanguit, et se lasse en fin.
Nature proceeds this way, by the benefit of inconstancy. For time, which she has given us as the sovereign physician of our passions, achieves its effect chiefly by this: by supplying our imagination with one matter after another, it unravels and breaks down that first impression, however strong it may be. A wise man sees his friend dying hardly less after twenty-five years than in the first year; and according to Epicurus, not a bit less, for he attributed no easing of troubles either to foreseeing them or to their being old. But so many other thoughts cut across this one that it languishes and at last grows weary.
Pour destourner l’inclination des bruits communs, Alcibiades couppa les oreilles et la queuë à son beau chien, et le chassa en la place: afin que donnant ce subiect pour babiller au peuple, il laissast en paix ses autres actions. I’ay veu aussi, pour cet effect de diuertir les opinions et coniectures du peuple, et desuoyer les parleurs, des femmes, couurir leurs vrayes affections, par des affections contrefaictes. Mais i’en ay veu telle, qui en se contrefaisant s’est laissee prendre à bon escient, et a quitté la vraye et originelle affection pour la feinte: et aprins par elle, que ceux qui se trouuent bien logez, sont des sots de consentir à ce masque.
To turn the drift of common gossip elsewhere, Alcibiades cut off the ears and tail of his beautiful dog and drove it out into the public square, so that, having given the people this to chatter about, they would leave his other actions in peace. I have also seen women, for this same purpose of diverting public opinion and conjecture and throwing the talkers off the scent, cover their true affections with counterfeit ones. But I have seen one who, while counterfeiting, let herself be caught in earnest, and abandoned her true and original affection for the feigned one. From her I learned that those who find themselves well placed are fools to consent to this masquerade.
Les accueils et entretiens publiques estans reseruez à ce seruiteur aposté, croyez qu’il n’est guere habile, s’il ne se met en fin en vostre place, et vous envoye en la sienne. Cela c’est proprement tailler et coudre vn soulier, pour qu’vn autre le chausse.
Since the public welcomes and conversations are reserved for this planted suitor, believe me, he is not very clever if he does not end up putting himself in your place and sending you to his. That is truly cutting and stitching a shoe for someone else to wear.
Little things move us
Small images and sounds stir our grief more than the thing itself.
Peu de chose nous diuertit et destourne: car peu de chose nous tient. Nous ne regardons gueres les subiects en gros et seuls: ce sont des circonstances ou des images menues et superficielles qui nous frappent: et des vaines escorces qui reiallissent des subiects. Folliculos vt nunc teretes æstate cicadæ / Linquunt. Plutarque mesme regrette sa fille par des singeries de son enfance. Le souuenir d’vn adieu, d’vne action, d’vne grace particuliere, d’vne recommandation derniere, nous afflige. La robe de Cæsar troubla toute Romme, ce que sa mort n’auoit pas faict. Le son mesme des noms, qui nous tintoüine aux oreilles: Mon pauure maistre, ou mon grand amy: helas mon cher pere, ou ma bonne fille.
Little things divert and distract us, for little things hold us. We hardly ever look at subjects as a whole and by themselves; it is circumstances, or small, superficial images, that strike us, and the empty husks that peel off from subjects. As cicadas in summer / Leave behind their smooth husks. Even Plutarch mourns his daughter through the little antics of her childhood. The memory of a farewell, of an action, of some particular grace, of a last request, afflicts us. Caesar’s robe threw all Rome into turmoil, which his death had not done. The very sound of names ringing in our ears: “My poor master,” or “My great friend,” “Alas, my dear father,” or “My good daughter.”
Quand ces redites me pinsent, et que i’y regarde de pres, ie trouue que c’est vne pleinte grammairiene, le mot et le ton me blesse. Comme les exclamations des prescheurs, esmouuent leur auditoire souuent, plus que ne font leurs raisons: et comme nous frappe la voix piteuse d’vne beste qu’on tue pour nostre seruice: sans que ie poise ou penetre ce pendant, la vraye essence et massiue de mon subiect. His se stimulis dolor ipse lacessit. Ce sont les fondemens de nostre deuil.
When these refrains pinch me and I look at them closely, I find it is a grammarian’s lament: the word and the tone wound me. Just as preachers’ exclamations often move their audience more than their reasons do, and as the pitiful cry of an animal being killed for our use strikes us—all without my weighing or getting to the bottom, meanwhile, of the true and solid essence of my subject. With these goads grief spurs itself on. These are the foundations of our mourning.
L’opiniastreté de mes pierres, specialement en la verge, m’a par fois ietté en longues suppressions d’vrine, de trois, de quatre iours: et si auant en la mort, que c’eust esté follie d’esperer l’euiter, voyre desirer, veu les cruels efforts que cet estat m’apporte. O que ce bon Empereur, qui faisoit lier la verge à ses criminels, pour les faire mourir à faute de pisser, estoit grand maistre en la science de bourrellerie! Me trouuant là, ie consideroy par combien legeres causes et obiects, l’imagination nourrissoit en moy le regret de la vie: de quels atomes se bastissoit en mon ame, le poids et la difficulté de ce deslogement: à combien friuoles pensees nous donnions place en vn si grand affaire.
The stubbornness of my stones, especially in the penis, has sometimes thrown me into long retentions of urine, of three or four days, and brought me so far into death that it would have been folly to hope to avoid it—indeed, to wish to, given the cruel agonies this condition brings me. Oh, what a great master in the science of torture was that good emperor who had his criminals’ penises tied up so as to make them die for want of pissing! Finding myself in that state, I considered by what slight causes and objects imagination fed my regret for life in me; out of what atoms the weight and difficulty of this departure were built up in my soul; to what frivolous thoughts we gave room in so great an affair.
Vn chien, vn cheual, vn liure, vn verre, et quoy non? tenoient compte en ma perte. Aux autres, leurs ambitieuses esperances, leur bourse, leur science, non moins sottement à mon gré. Ie voy nonchalamment la mort, quand ie la voy vniuersellement, comme fin de la vie. Ie la gourmande en bloc: par le menu, elle me pille. Les larmes d’vn laquais, la dispensation de ma desferre, l’attouchement d’vne main cognue, vne consolation commune, me desconsole et m’attendrit.
A dog, a horse, a book, a glass, and what not, counted in my loss. For others, their ambitious hopes, their purse, their learning—no less foolishly, to my mind. I look at death nonchalantly when I look at it universally, as the end of life. Wholesale, I lord it over death; retail, it robs me. The tears of a lackey, the giving away of my cast-off clothes, the touch of a familiar hand, an ordinary word of consolation, disconsole me and melt me.
Ainsi nous troublent l’ame, les plaintes des fables: et les regrets de Didon, et d’Ariadné passionnent ceux mesmes qui ne les croyent point en Virgile et en Catulle: c’est vne exemple de nature obstinee et dure, n’en sentir aucune emotion: comme on recite, pour miracle, de Polemon: mais aussi ne pallit il pas seulement à la morsure d’vn chien enragé, qui luy emporta le gras de la iambe. Et nulle sagesse ne va si auant, de conceuoir la cause d’vne tristesse, si viue et entiere, par iugement, qu’elle ne souffre accession par la presence, quand les yeux et les oreilles y ont leur part: parties qui ne peuuent estre agitees que par vains accidens.
In the same way, the laments of fables trouble our soul; and the grief of Dido and of Ariadne stirs even those who do not believe in them, in Virgil and in Catullus. It is a sign of an obstinate, hard nature to feel no emotion at them, as is told of Polemon as a marvel; but then he did not even turn pale when a mad dog bit him and tore away the calf of his leg. And no wisdom goes so far as to grasp the cause of a sadness so vividly and completely by judgment that it is not increased by presence, when the eyes and ears have their share—parts that can be stirred only by superficial incidents.
Est-ce raison que les arts mesmes se seruent et facent leur proufit, de nostre imbecillité et bestise naturelle? L’orateur, dit la rhetorique, en cette farce de son plaidoier, s’esmouuera par le son de sa voix, et par ses agitations feintes; et se lairra piper à la passion qu’il represente. Il s’imprimera vn vray deuil et essentiel, par le moyen de ce battelage qu’il iouë, pour le transmettre aux iuges, à qui il touche encore moins. Comme font ces personnes qu’on loüe aux mortuaires, pour ayder à la ceremonie du deuil, qui vendent leurs larmes à poix et à mesure, et leur tristesse.
Is it reasonable that even the arts should make use of our natural weakness and stupidity and profit by them? The orator, says rhetoric, in the farce of his pleading, will be moved by the sound of his own voice and by his feigned agitations, and will let himself be taken in by the passion he is portraying. By means of the act he is putting on, he will impress on himself a true and essential grief, in order to pass it on to the judges, whom it concerns even less. Just like those people who are hired at funerals to help with the ceremony of mourning, who sell their tears and their sadness by weight and measure.
Car encore qu’ils s’esbranlent en forme empruntee, toutesfois en habituant et rengeant la contenance, il est certain qu’ils s’emportent souuent tous entiers, et reçoiuent en eux vne vraye melancholie. Ie fus entre plusieurs autres de ses amis, conduire à Soissons le corps de monsieur de Grammont, du siege de la Fere, où il fut tué. Ie consideray que par tout où nous passions, nous remplissions de lamentation et de pleurs, le peuple que nous rencontrions, par la seule montre de l’appareil de nostre conuoy: car seulement le nom du trespassé n’y estoit pas cogneu.
For although they set themselves going in a borrowed form, still, by adjusting and arranging their countenance, it is certain that they are often carried away entirely and take into themselves a real melancholy. I was one of several of his friends who escorted the body of Monsieur de Gramont to Soissons from the siege of La Fère, where he was killed. I observed that everywhere we passed, we filled the people we met with lamentation and tears, merely by the outward show of our funeral procession; for not even the dead man’s name was known there.
Quintilian dit auoir veu des comediens si fort engagez en vn rolle de deuil, qu’ils en pleuroient encore au logis: et de soy mesme, qu’ayant prins à esmouuoir quelque passion en autruy, il l’auoit espousee, iusques à se trouuer surprins, non seulement de larmes, mais d’vne palleur de visage et port d’homme vrayement accablé de douleur.
Quintilian says he has seen actors so deeply caught up in a role of mourning that they were still weeping over it at home; and says of himself that, having set out to stir some passion in others, he had so embraced it that he found himself overcome not only by tears but by a pallor of face and the bearing of a man truly crushed by grief.
En vne contree pres de nos montaignes, les femmes font le prestre-martin: car comme elles agrandissent le regret du mary perdu, par la souuenance des bonnes et agreables conditions qu’il auoit, elles font tout d’vn train aussi recueil et publient ses imperfections: comme pour entrer d’elles mesmes en quelque compensation, et se diuertir de la pitié au desdain. De bien meilleure grace encore que nous, qui à la perte du premier cognu, nous piquons à luy prester des louanges nouuelles et fauces: et à le faire tout autre, quand nous l’auons perdu de veuë, qu’il ne nous sembloit estre, quand nous le voyions. Comme si le regret estoit vne partie instructiue: ou que les larmes en lauant nostre entendement, l’esclaircissent.
In a region near our mountains, the women play both parts at once. For as they magnify their grief for the husband they have lost by recalling the good and pleasant qualities he had, they also, in the same breath, gather up and proclaim his imperfections, as if to strike some balance of their own accord and turn themselves from pity to disdain. They do it with much better grace than we do, who, on losing any acquaintance at all, make a point of lending him new and false praises, and of making him, once he is out of our sight, quite different from what he seemed to us when we could see him. As if regret were something that teaches, or as if tears, by washing our understanding, made it clearer.
Ie renonce dés à present aux fauorables tesmoignages, qu’on me voudra donner, non par ce que i’en seray digne, mais par ce que ie seray mort.
I renounce here and now any favorable testimonies people may want to give me, not because I shall deserve them but because I shall be dead.
The power of imagination
Empty fancies inflame and torment us as much as real causes.
Qui demandera à celuy là, Quel interest auez vous à ce siege? L’interest de l’exemple, dira-il, et de l’obeyssance commune du Prince: ie n’y pretens proffit quelconque: et de gloire, ie sçay la petite part qui en peut toucher vn particulier comme moy: ie n’ay icy ny passion ny querelle. Voyez le pourtant le lendemain, tout changé, tout bouillant et rougissant de cholere, en son rang de bataille pour l’assaut. C’est la lueur de tant d’acier, et le feu et tintamarre de nos canons et de nos tambours, qui luy ont ietté cette nouuelle rigueur et hayne dans les veines. Friuole cause, me direz vous. Comment cause? il n’en faut point, pour agiter nostre ame.
Ask that man: “What is your interest in this siege?” “The interest of setting an example,” he will say, “and of common obedience to the prince. I claim no profit from it whatever; and as for glory, I know how small a share of it can come to a private person like me. I have neither passion nor quarrel here.” Yet look at him the next day, completely changed, boiling over and red with anger, in his place in the battle line for the assault. It is the gleam of so much steel, and the fire and din of our cannons and drums, that have thrown this new harshness and hatred into his veins. A frivolous cause, you will tell me. What do you mean, cause? None is needed to stir our soul.
Vne resuerie sans corps et sans subiect la regente et l’agite. Que ie me mette à faire des chasteaux en Espaigne, mon imagination m’y forge des commoditez et des plaisirs, desquels mon ame est reellement chatouillee et resiouye. Combien de fois embrouillons nous nostre esprit de cholere ou de tristesse, par telles ombres, et nous inserons en des passions fantastiques, qui nous alterent et l’ame et le corps? Quelles grimaces, estonnees, riardes, confuses, excite la resuerie en noz visages! Quelles saillies et agitations de membres et de voix! Semble-il pas de cet homme seul, qu’il aye des visions fauces, d’vne presse d’autres hommes, auec qui il negocie: ou quelque demon interne, qui le persecute? Enquerez vous à vous, où est l’obiect de cette mutation?
A fancy without body or subject governs and stirs it. Let me start building castles in Spain, and my imagination forges comforts and pleasures for me there by which my soul is really tickled and gladdened. How many times do we cloud our mind with anger or sadness through such shadows, and throw ourselves into imaginary passions that alter both our soul and our body? What grimaces—astonished, laughing, bewildered—daydreaming calls up in our faces! What starts and agitations of limbs and voice! Doesn’t it seem, of this man alone, that he is having false visions of a crowd of other men he is dealing with, or that some inner demon is persecuting him? Ask yourself where the object of this change is.
Est-il rien sauf nous, en nature, que l’inanité substante, sur quoy elle puisse? Cambyses pour auoir songé en dormant, que son frere deuoit deuenir Roy de Perse, le fit mourir, vn frere qu’il aymoit, et duquel il s’estoit tousiours fié. Aristodemus Roy des Messeniens se tua, pour vne fantasie qu’il print de mauuais augure, de ie ne sçay quel hurlement de ses chiens. Et le Roy Midas en fit autant, troublé et fasché de quelque mal plaisant songe qu’il auoit songé. C’est priser sa vie iustement ce qu’elle est, de l’abandonner pour vn songe. Oyez pourtant nostre ame, triompher de la misere du corps, de sa foiblesse, de ce qu’il est en butte à toutes offences et alterations: vrayement elle a raison d’en parler.
Is there anything in nature but us that emptiness feeds, anything over which it has power? Cambyses, having dreamed in his sleep that his brother was to become king of Persia, put him to death—a brother whom he loved and had always trusted. Aristodemus, king of the Messenians, killed himself over a notion that some howling or other of his dogs was a bad omen. And King Midas did the same, troubled and vexed by some unpleasant dream he had dreamed. To abandon one’s life for a dream is to value it at exactly what it is worth. And yet listen to our soul triumphing over the wretchedness of the body, over its weakness, over its being exposed to every injury and change. Truly, it has good reason to talk!
O prima infelix fingenti terra Prometheo! / Ille parum cauti pectoris egit opus. / Corpora disponens, mentem non vidit in arte, / Recta animi primùm debuit esse via.
O luckless earth, first shaped by Prometheus! / He did his work with too little care. / In arranging bodies, his craft gave no thought to the mind; / The soul’s path should have been made straight first.