A mesure que les pensemens vtiles sont plus pleins, et solides, ils sont aussi plus empeschans, et plus onereux. Le vice, la mort, la pauureté, les maladies, sont subiects graues, et qui greuent. Il faut auoir l’ame instruitte des moyens de soustenir et combatre les maux, et instruite des regles de bien viure, et de bien croire: et souuent l’esueiller et exercer en cette belle estude. Mais à vne ame de commune sorte, il faut que ce soit auec relasche et moderation: elle s’affolle, d’estre trop continuellement bandee. I’auoy besoing en ieunesse, de m’aduertir et solliciter pour me tenir en office. L’alegresse et la santé ne conuiennent pas tant bien, dit-on, auec ces discours serieux et sages. Ie suis à present en vn autre estat.
The fuller and more solid useful thoughts are, the more cumbersome and burdensome they are too. Vice, death, poverty, illness are weighty subjects, and they weigh us down. The soul must be instructed in the means of bearing and fighting ills, and instructed in the rules of living well and believing well; and it must often be roused and exercised in this fine study. But for a soul of the common sort, this must be done with relaxation and moderation: it goes mad from being too continuously strained. In my youth I needed to warn and urge myself to keep to my duty. Cheerfulness and health, they say, do not go so well with these serious and wise reasonings. I am now in a different state.
Les conditions de la vieillesse, ne m’aduertissent que trop, m’assagissent et me preschent. De l’excez de la gayeté, ie suis tombé en celuy de la seuerité: plus fascheux. Parquoy, ie me laisse à cette heure aller vn peu à la desbauche, par dessein: et employe quelque fois l’ame, à des pensemens folastres et ieunes, où elle se seiourne. Ie ne suis meshuy que trop rassis, trop poisant, et trop meur. Les ans me font leçon tous les iours, de froideur, et de temperance. Ce corps fuyt le desreiglement, et le craint: il est à son tour de guider l’esprit vers la reformation: il regente à son tour: et plus rudement et imperieusement.
The conditions of old age warn me only too much; they make me wise and preach to me. From an excess of gaiety I have fallen into an excess of severity, which is more disagreeable. Therefore I now let myself go a little toward license, on purpose, and sometimes occupy my soul with playful, youthful thoughts, where it takes its rest. I am by now only too settled, too heavy and too ripe. The years lecture me every day on coldness and temperance. This body flees disorder and fears it. It is its turn to guide the mind toward reform; it rules in its turn, and more harshly and imperiously.
Il ne me laisse pas vne heure, ny dormant ny veillant, chaumer d’instruction, de mort, de patience, et de pœnitence. Ie me deffens de la temperance, comme i’ay faict autresfois de la volupté: elle me tire trop arriere, et iusques à la stupidité. Or ie veux estre maistre de moy, à tout sens. La sagesse a ses excez, et n’a pas moins besoing de moderation que la folie. Ainsi, de peur que ie ne seche, tarisse, et m’aggraue de prudence, aux interualles que mes maux me donnent, Mens intenta suis ne siet vsque malis, ie gauchis tout doucement, et desrobe ma veuë de ce ciel orageux et nubileux que i’ay deuant moy.
It does not leave me one hour, sleeping or waking, free from lessons on death, patience and penitence. I defend myself against temperance as I once did against pleasure: it pulls me too far back, even to the point of dullness. Now I want to be master of myself in every direction. Wisdom has its excesses, and needs moderation no less than folly does. So, for fear that I may dry up, wither and grow heavy with prudence, in the intervals my ills allow me, So that my mind may not be forever bent on its ills, I swerve aside very gently and steal my gaze away from the stormy, cloudy sky that lies before me.
Lequel, Dieu mercy, ie considere bien sans effroy, mais non pas sans contention, et sans estude. Et me vay amusant en la recordation des ieunesses passees: Animus quod perdidit, optat, / Atque in præterita se totus imagine versat. Que l’enfance regarde deuant elle, la vieillesse derriere: estoit ce pas ce que signifioit le double visage de Ianus? Les ans m’entrainnent s’ils veulent, mais à reculons. Autant que mes yeux peuuent recognoistre cette belle saison expiree, ie les y destourne à secousses. Si elle eschappe de mon sang et de mes veines, aumoins n’en veux-ie déraciner l’image de la memoire. Hoc est / Viuere bis, vita posse priore frui.
That sky, thank God, I can contemplate without dread, but not without effort and study. And I keep amusing myself by recalling my bygone youth: The mind longs for what it has lost, / And loses itself entirely in images of the past. That childhood looks ahead and old age behind—was that not the meaning of Janus’ double face? The years may drag me along if they will, but backward. As long as my eyes can make out that lovely season now gone, I turn them toward it by fits and starts. If it escapes from my blood and my veins, at least I will not root out its image from my memory. This is / To live twice: to be able to enjoy one’s former life.
Platon ordonne aux vieillards d’assister aux exercices, danses, et ieux de la ieunesse, pour se resiouyr en autruy, de la soupplesse et beauté du corps, qui n’est plus en eux: et rappeller en leur souuenance, la grace et faueur de cet aage verdissant. Et veut qu’en ces esbats, ils attribuent l’honneur de la victoire, au ieune homme, qui aura le plus esbaudi et resioui, et plus grand nombre d’entre eux. Ie merquois autresfois les iours poisans et tenebreux, comme extraordinaires. Ceux-là sont tantost les miens ordinaires: les extraordinaires sont les beaux et serains. Ie m’en vay au train de tressaillir, comme d’vne nouuelle faueur, quand aucune chose ne me deult.
Plato orders old men to attend the exercises, dances and games of the young, so as to delight in others in the suppleness and beauty of body that is no longer in themselves, and to call back to memory the grace and charm of that green age. And he wants them, in these sports, to award the honor of victory to the young man who has most delighted and cheered the greatest number of them. I used to mark the heavy, gloomy days as extraordinary. These are now becoming my ordinary ones; the extraordinary ones are the fine, clear ones. I am on the way to thrilling, as at some new favor, when nothing hurts me.
Que ie me chatouille, ie ne puis tantost plus arracher vn pauure rire de ce meschant corps. Ie ne m’esgaye qu’en fantasie et en songe: pour destourner par ruse, le chagrin de la vieillesse. Mais certes il faudroit autre remede, qu’en songe. Foible lucte, de l’art contre la nature. C’est grand simplesse, d’alonger et anticiper, comme chacun fait, les incommoditez humaines. I’ayme mieux estre moins long temps vieil, que d’estre vieil, auant que de l’estre. Iusques aux moindres occasions de plaisir que ie puis rencontrer, ie les empoigne. Ie congnois bien par ouyr dire, plusieurs especes de voluptez prudentes, fortes et glorieuses: mais l’opinion ne peut pas assez sur moy pour m’en mettre en appetit.
Tickle myself as I may, I can now hardly wring a poor laugh out of this wretched body. I make merry only in fancy and in dreams, to divert by cunning the gloom of old age. But truly it would take some other remedy than a dream. A feeble struggle, art against nature. It is great simplicity to lengthen and anticipate human discomforts, as everyone does. I would rather be old for a shorter time than be old before I am. I seize even the slightest occasions for pleasure I can come across. I know well enough by hearsay several kinds of prudent, strong and glorious pleasures, but opinion has not enough power over me to give me an appetite for them.
Ie ne les veux pas tant magnanimes, magnifiques et fastueuses, comme ie les veux doucereuses, faciles et prestes. A natura discedimus: populo nos damus, nullius rei bono auctori. Ma philosophie est en action, en vsage naturel et present: peu en fantasie. Prinssé-ie plaisir à iouer aux noisettes et à la toupie! Non ponebat enim rumores ante salutem. La volupté est qualité peu ambitieuse; elle s’estime assez riche de soy, sans y mesler le prix de la reputation: et s’ayme mieux à l’ombre. Il faudroit donner le foüet à vn ieune homme, qui s’amuseroit à choisir le goust du vin, et des sauces. Il n’est rien que i’aye moins sçeu, et moins prisé: à cette heure ie l’apprens. I’en ay grand honte, mais qu’y feroy-ie?
I do not want them so much magnanimous, magnificent and showy as I want them sweet, easy and ready to hand. We depart from nature; we give ourselves over to the people, who are a good authority on nothing. My philosophy is in action, in natural and present use; little in fancy. If only I could take pleasure in playing at cobnuts and spinning tops! For he did not put rumors before safety. Pleasure is a quality with little ambition: it considers itself rich enough on its own without mixing in the value of reputation, and prefers to be in the shade. A young man who amused himself by fussing over the taste of wine and sauces ought to be whipped. There is nothing I have known less or valued less. Now I am learning it. I am very ashamed of it, but what can I do?
I’ay encor plus de honte et de despit, des occasions qui m’y poussent. C’est à nous, à resuer et baguenauder, et à la ieunesse à se tenir sur la reputation et sur le bon bout. Elle va vers le monde, vers le credit: nous en venons. Sibi arma, sibi equos, sibi hastas, sibi clauam, sibi pilam, sibi natationes et cursus habeant: nobis senibus, ex lusionibus multis, talos relinquant et tesseras. Les loix mesme nous enuoyent au logis. Ie ne puis moins en faueur de cette chetiue condition, où mon aage me pousse, que de luy fournir de ioüets et d’amusoires, comme à l’enfance: aussi y retombons nous.
I am even more ashamed and vexed at the reasons that drive me to it. It is for us to daydream and fool around, and for youth to stand on its reputation and keep its dignity. Youth is heading toward the world, toward standing; we are coming back from them. Let them keep for themselves arms, horses, spears, clubs, balls, swimming and running; and of their many games let them leave us old men knucklebones and dice. Even the laws send us home. I can do no less for this wretched condition into which my age is pushing me than provide it with toys and playthings, as for childhood; and indeed we fall back into it.
Et la sagesse et la folie, auront prou à faire, à m’estayer et secourir par offices alternatifs, en cette calamité d’aage. Misce stultitiam consiliis breuem. Ie fuis de mesme les plus legeres pointures: et celles qui ne m’eussent pas autresfois esgratigné, me transpercent à cette heure. Mon habitude commence de s’appliquer si volontiers au mal: in fragili corpore odiosa omnis offensio est. Ménsque pati durum sustinet ægra nihil. I’ay esté tousiours chatouilleux et delicat aux offences, ie suis plus tendre à cette heure, et ouuert par tout. Et minimæ vires frangere quassa valent. Mon iugement m’empesche bien de regimber et gronder contre les inconuenients que Nature m’ordonne à souffrir, mais non pas de les sentir.
Both wisdom and folly will have plenty to do to prop me up and help me, taking turns, in this calamity of age. Mix a little folly with your counsels. Likewise I shun the slightest pricks; and those that once would not even have scratched me now pierce me through. My constitution is beginning to take so readily to ailments: In a frail body every shock is painful. And a sick mind can bear nothing harsh. I have always been ticklish and sensitive to injuries; I am more tender now, and open on every side. And the slightest force can break what is already cracked. My judgment keeps me from kicking and grumbling against the discomforts that Nature orders me to suffer, but not from feeling them.
Ie courrois d’vn bout du monde à l’autre, chercher vn bon an de tranquillité plaisante et eniouee, moy, qui n’ay autre fin que viure et me resiouyr. La tranquillité sombre et stupide, se trouue assez pour moy, mais elle m’endort et enteste: ie ne m’en contente pas. S’il y a quelque personne, quelque bonne compagnie, aux champs, en la ville, en France, ou ailleurs, resseante, ou voyagere, à qui mes humeurs soient bonnes, de qui les humeurs me soyent bonnes, il n’est que de siffler en paume, ie leur iray fournir des Essays, en chair et en os.
I would run from one end of the world to the other in search of one good year of pleasant, cheerful tranquillity—I who have no other aim than to live and be merry. Gloomy, dull tranquillity I can find enough of, but it puts me to sleep and fogs my head; it does not satisfy me. If there is any person, any good company, in the country or in town, in France or elsewhere, settled or traveling, who likes my temperament and whose temperament I like, they have only to whistle in their palm and I will go and supply them with Essays in flesh and bone.
The mind follows the body
In old age Montaigne lets his mind play, since it can no longer rise above the body.
Puisque c’est le priuilege de l’esprit, de se r’auoir de la vieillesse, ie luy conseille autant que ie puis, de le faire: qu’il verdisse, qu’il fleurisse ce pendant, s’il peut, comme le guy sur vn arbre mort. Ie crains que c’est vn traistre: il s’est si estroittement affreté au corps, qu’il m’abandonne à tous coups, pour le suiure en sa necessité. Ie le flatte à part, ie le practique pour neant: i’ay beau essayer de le destourner de cette colligence, et luy presenter et Seneque et Catulle, et les dames et les dances royalles: si son compagnon a la cholique, il semble qu’il l’ayt aussi.
Since it is the mind’s privilege to recover from old age, I advise it as strongly as I can to do so: let it grow green, let it flourish meanwhile if it can, like mistletoe on a dead tree. I fear it is a traitor. It has bound itself so tightly to the body that it abandons me at every turn to follow the body in its need. I flatter it in private, I work on it to no purpose; it is no use my trying to turn it away from this collusion, and offering it Seneca and Catullus, and the ladies and the royal dances: if its companion has colic, it seems to have it too.
Les puissances mesmes qui luy sont particulieres et propres, ne se peuuent lors sousleuer: elles sentent euidemment le morfondu: il n’y a poinct d’allegresse en ses productions, s’il n’en y a quand et quand au corps.
Even the faculties that are peculiar and proper to it cannot rise up then; they plainly smell of a chill. There is no liveliness in what it produces unless there is some in the body at the same time.
Noz maistres ont tort, dequoy cherchants les causes des eslancements extraordinaires de nostre esprit, outre ce qu’ils en attribuent à vn rauissement diuin, à l’amour, à l’aspreté guerriere, à la poësie, au vin: ils n’en ont donné sa part à la santé. Vne santé bouillante, vigoureuse, pleine, oysiue, telle qu’autrefois la verdeur des ans et la securité, me la fournissoient par venuës. Ce feu de gayeté suscite en l’esprit des eloises viues et claires outre nostre clairté naturelle: et entre les enthousiasmes, les plus gaillards, sinon les plus esperdus. Or bien, ce n’est pas merueille, si vn contraire estat affesse mon esprit, le clouë, et en tire vn effect contraire.
Our masters are wrong in this: seeking the causes of the extraordinary flights of our mind, besides what they attribute to divine rapture, to love, to warlike fierceness, to poetry, to wine, they have not given health its share—a boiling, vigorous, full, idle health, such as the greenness of my years and my freedom from care once supplied me with now and then. This fire of gaiety kindles in the mind flashes of lightning, vivid and bright beyond our natural brightness, and among enthusiasms the lustiest, if not the most frenzied. Well then, it is no wonder if a contrary state weighs my mind down, nails it to the ground, and produces a contrary effect.
Ad nullum consurgit opus cum corpore languet. Et veut encores que ie luy sois tenu, dequoy il preste, comme il dit, beaucoup moins à ce consentement, que ne porte l’vsage ordinaire des hommes. Aumoins pendant que nous auons trefue, chassons les maux et difficultez de nostre commerce, Dum licet, obducta soluatur fronte senectus: tetrica sunt amœnanda iocularibus. I’ayme vne sagesse gaye et ciuile, et fuis l’aspreté des mœurs, et l’austerité: ayant pour suspecte toute mine rebarbatiue: Tristémque vultus tetrici arrogantiam; / Et habet tristis quoque turba cynædos. Ie croy Platon de bon cœur, qui dit les humeurs faciles ou difficiles, estre vn grand preiudice à la bonté ou mauuaistié de l’ame. Socrates eut vn visage constant, mais serein et riant.
It rises to no task when it languishes with the body. And still it wants me to be obliged to it because, as it says, it gives much less to this complicity than is the ordinary way with men. At least while we have a truce, let us drive ills and difficulties out of our company: While we may, let old age smooth its clouded brow; gloomy things must be sweetened with jests. I love a gay and sociable wisdom, and I shun harshness of manners and austerity, holding every forbidding face suspect: And the gloomy arrogance of a grim countenance; / The solemn crowd, too, has its debauchees. I heartily believe Plato, who says that easy or difficult temperaments are a strong indication of the goodness or badness of the soul. Socrates had a steady face, but serene and smiling.
Non fascheusement constant, comme le vieil Crassus, qu’on ne veit iamais rire. La vertu est qualité plaisante et gaye.
Not disagreeably steady, like old Crassus, whom no one ever saw laugh. Virtue is a pleasant and cheerful quality.
Daring to say it
Montaigne resolves to say whatever he dares to do, and confesses himself in public.
Ie sçay bien que fort peu de gens rechigneront à la licence de mes escrits, qui n’ayent plus à rechigner à la licence de leur pensee. Ie me conforme bien à leur courage: mais i’offence leurs yeux. C’est vne humeur bien ordonnee, de pinser les escrits de Platon, et couler ses negociations pretendues auec Phedon, Dion, Stella, Archeanassa. Non pudeat dicere, quod non pudet sentire. Ie hay vn esprit hargneux et triste, qui glisse par dessus les plaisirs de sa vie, et s’empoigne et paist aux malheurs. Comme les mouches, qui ne peuuent tenir contre vn corps bien poly, et bien lissé, et s’attachent et reposent aux lieux scabreux et raboteux. Et comme les vantouses, qui ne hument et appetent que le mauuais sang.
I know very well that very few people will frown at the license of my writings who do not have more reason to frown at the license of their own thoughts. I suit their hearts well enough, but I offend their eyes. It is a well-ordered temperament indeed that carps at Plato’s writings and glides over his alleged dealings with Phaedo, Dion, Stella and Archeanassa. Let us not be ashamed to say what we are not ashamed to think. I hate a surly, gloomy mind that slides over the pleasures of its life and seizes on misfortunes and feeds on them—like flies, which cannot hold on to a well-polished, smooth body, and cling to and settle on rough, uneven spots; and like cupping-glasses, which suck in and crave only bad blood.
Au reste, ie me suis ordonné d’oser dire tout ce que i’ose faire: et me desplaist des pensees mesmes impubliables. La pire de mes actions et conditions, ne me semble pas si laide, comme ie trouue laid et lasche, de ne l’oser aduouer. Chacun est discret en la confession, on le deuroit estre en l’action. La hardiesse de faillir, est aucunement compensee et bridee, par la hardiesse de le confesser. Qui s’obligeroit à tout dire, s’obligeroit à ne rien faire de ce qu’on est contraint de taire.
For the rest, I have ordered myself to dare to say whatever I dare to do; and I am displeased even by thoughts that cannot be made public. The worst of my actions and qualities does not seem to me as ugly as I find it ugly and cowardly not to dare to own it. Everyone is discreet in confession; we ought to be so in action. The boldness of doing wrong is to some extent offset and curbed by the boldness of confessing it. Whoever bound himself to tell everything would bind himself to do nothing of what we are forced to keep quiet.
Dieu vueille que cet excés de ma licence, attire nos hommes iusques à la liberté: par dessus ces vertus couardes et mineuses, nees de nos imperfections: qu’aux despens de mon immoderation, ie les attire iusques au point de la raison. Il faut voir son vice, et l’estudier, pour le redire: ceux qui le celent à autruy, le celent ordinairement à eux mesmes: et ne le tiennent pas pour assés couuert, s’ils le voyent. Ils le soustrayent et desguisent à leur propre conscience. Quare vitia sua nemo confitetur? Quia etiam nunc in illis est, somnium narrare vigilantis est. Les maux du corps s’esclaircissent en augmentant. Nous trouuons que c’est goutte, ce que nous nommions rheume ou foulleure.
God grant that this excess of license in me may draw our men toward freedom, beyond these cowardly, put-on virtues born of our imperfections; that at the expense of my immoderation I may draw them as far as the point of reason. One must see one’s vice and study it in order to tell it. Those who hide it from others usually hide it from themselves, and do not think it well enough covered if they themselves can see it; they withdraw it from their own conscience and disguise it. Why does no one confess his vices? Because he is still in them; it takes a man awake to tell his dream. The ills of the body become clearer as they grow. We find that what we were calling a cold or a sprain is gout.
Les maux de l’ame s’obscurcissent en leurs forces: le plus malade les sent le moins. Voyla pourquoy il les faut souuent remanier au iour, d’vne main impiteuse: les ouurir et arracher du creus de nostre poitrine. Comme en matiere de biens faicts, de mesme en matiere de mesfaicts, c’est par fois satisfaction que la seule confession. Est-il quelque laideur au faillir, qui nous dispense de nous en confesser? Ie souffre peine à me feindre: si que i’euite de prendre les secrets d’autruy en garde, n’ayant pas bien le cœur de desaduouer ma science. Ie puis la taire, mais la nyer, ie ne puis sans effort et desplaisir. Pour estre bien secret, il le faut estre par nature, non par obligation.
The ills of the soul grow darker as they gain strength; the sickest man feels them least. That is why they must often be handled again in daylight with a pitiless hand, opened up and torn out of the hollow of our breast. As with good deeds, so with misdeeds: confession alone is sometimes amends. Is there any ugliness in doing wrong that excuses us from confessing it? I find it painful to dissemble, so much so that I avoid taking other people’s secrets into my keeping, not having the heart to deny what I know. I can keep quiet about it, but deny it I cannot, without effort and displeasure. To be truly secret, one must be so by nature, not by obligation.
C’est peu, au seruice des Princes, d’estre secret, si on n’est menteur encore. Celuy qui s’enquestoit à Thales Milesius, s’il deuoit solemnellement nyer d’auoir paillardé, s’il se fust addressé à moy, ie luy eusse respondu, qu’il ne le deuoit pas faire, car le mentir me semble encore pire que la paillardise. Thales luy conseilla tout autrement, et qu’il iurast, pour garentir le plus, par le moins. Toutesfois ce conseil n’estoit pas tant election de vice, que multiplication. Sur quoy disons ce mot en passant, qu’on fait bon marché à vn homme de conscience, quand on luy propose quelque difficulté au contrepoids du vice: mais quand on l’enferme entre deux vices, on le met à vn rude choix.
In the service of princes it is not much to be secret if one is not also a liar. If the man who asked Thales of Miletus whether he should solemnly deny having committed adultery had come to me, I would have answered that he should not do so, for lying seems to me even worse than lechery. Thales advised him quite otherwise: that he should swear it, so as to cover the greater by the lesser. Yet this advice was not so much a choice of vice as a multiplication of it. On which, let us say a word in passing: a man of conscience is let off cheaply when he is offered some difficulty to set against a vice; but when he is shut in between two vices, he is put to a hard choice.
Comme on fit Origene: ou qu’il idolatrast, ou qu’il se souffrist iouyr charnellement, à vn grand vilain Æthiopien qu’on luy presenta. Il subit la premiere condition: et vitieusement, dit-on. Pourtant ne seroient pas sans goust, selon leur erreur, celles qui nous protestent en ce temps, qu’elles aymeroient mieux charger leur conscience de dix hommes, que d’vne messe.
As was done to Origen: either he must commit idolatry or let himself be carnally enjoyed by a big, ugly Ethiopian who was brought before him. He submitted to the first condition—and sinfully, they say. And yet, by their own error, those women would not be without taste who protest to us these days that they would rather burden their conscience with ten men than with one Mass.
Si c’est indiscretion de publier ainsi ses erreurs, il n’y a pas grand danger qu’elle passe en exemple et vsage. Car Ariston disoit, que les vens que les hommes craignent le plus, sont ceux qui les descouurent. Il faut rebrasser ce sot haillon qui cache nos mœurs. Ils enuoyent leur conscience au bordel, et tiennent leur contenance en regle. Iusques aux traistres et assassins, ils espousent les loix de la ceremonie, et attachent là leur deuoir. Si n’est-ce, ny à l’iniustice de se plaindre de l’inciuilité, ny à la malice de l’indiscretion. C’est dommage qu’vn meschant homme ne soit encore vn sot, et que la decence pallie son vice. Ces incrustations n’appartiennent qu’à vne bonne et saine paroy, qui merite d’estre conseruee, d’être blanchie.
If it is indiscretion to publish one’s faults this way, there is not much danger of its becoming an example and a practice. For Ariston used to say that the winds men fear most are those that uncover them. We must pull back this foolish rag that hides our morals. They send their conscience to the brothel and keep their countenance in good order. Even traitors and assassins espouse the laws of ceremony and fasten their duty there. Still, it is not for injustice to complain of incivility, nor for malice to complain of indiscretion. It is a pity that a wicked man is not also a fool, and that decency should cloak his vice. Such plasterwork belongs only on a good, sound wall that deserves to be preserved and whitewashed.
En faueur des Huguenots, qui accusent nostre confession auriculaire et priuee, ie me confesse en publiq, religieusement et purement. Sainct Augustin, Origene, et Hippocrates, ont publié les erreurs de leurs opinions: moy encore de mes mœurs. Ie suis affamé de me faire congnoistre: et ne me chaut à combien, pourueu que ce soit veritablement. Ou pour dire mieux, ie n’ay faim de rien: mais ie fuis mortellement, d’estre pris en eschange, par ceux à qui il arriue de congnoistre mon nom. Celuy qui fait tout pour l’honneur et pour la gloire, que pense-il gaigner, en se produisant au monde en masque, desrobant son vray estre à la congnoissance du peuple?
As a favor to the Huguenots, who condemn our private, whispered confession, I confess myself in public, religiously and purely. Saint Augustine, Origen and Hippocrates published the errors of their opinions; I, besides, those of my morals. I am hungry to make myself known, and I do not care to how many, provided it is truly. Or, to put it better, I am hungry for nothing; but I have a mortal fear of being mistaken for someone else by those who happen to know my name. The man who does everything for honor and glory, what does he think he gains by showing himself to the world in a mask, hiding his true being from people’s knowledge?
Louez un bossu de sa belle taille, il le doit receuoir à iniure: si vous estes couard, et qu’on vous honnore pour vn vaillant homme, est-ce de vous qu’on parle? On vous prend pour vn autre. I’aymeroy aussi cher, que celuy-là se gratifiast des bonnetades qu’on luy faict, pensant qu’il soit maistre de la trouppe, luy qui est des moindres de la suitte. Archelaus Roy de Macedoine, passant par la ruë, quelqu’vn versa de l’eau sur luy: les assistans disoient qu’il deuoit le punir. Voyre mais, fit-il, il n’a pas versé l’eau sur moy, mais sur celuy qu’il pensoit que ie fusse. Socrates à celuy, qui l’aduertissoit: qu’on mesdisoit de luy. Point, dit-il: il n’y a rien en moy de ce qu’ils disent.
Praise a man with a crooked back for his fine figure: he ought to take it as an insult. If you are a coward and people honor you as a valiant man, is it you they are talking about? They take you for someone else. I would as soon see a man take pleasure in the caps doffed to him, thinking he is master of the troop, when he is one of the least in the retinue. As Archelaus, king of Macedon, was passing along the street, someone poured water on him; the bystanders said he ought to punish the man. “Yes, but,” said he, “he did not pour the water on me, but on the man he thought I was.” Socrates, to someone who told him that people were speaking ill of him: “Not at all,” he said, “there is nothing in me of what they say.”
Pour moy, qui me loüeroit d’estre bon pilote, d’estre bien modeste, ou d’estre bien chaste, ie ne luy en deurois nul grammercy. Et pareillement, qui m’appelleroit traistre, voleur, ou yurongne, ie me tiendroy aussi peu offencé. Ceux qui se mescognoissent, se peuuent paistre de fauces approbations: non pas moy, qui me voy, et qui me recherche iusques aux entrailles, qui sçay bien ce qu’il m’appartient. Il me plaist d’estre moins loué, pourueu que ie soy mieux congneu. On me pourroit tenir pour sage en telle condition de sagesse, que ie tien pour sottise. Ie m’ennuye que mes Essais seruent les dames de meuble commun seulement, et de meuble de sale: ce chapitre me fera du cabinet.
For my part, if someone praised me for being a good pilot, or very modest, or very chaste, I would owe him no thanks. And likewise, if someone called me a traitor, a thief or a drunkard, I would consider myself just as little offended. Those who do not know themselves can feed on false approval; not I, who see myself and search myself to the very entrails, and know well what belongs to me. I am content to be less praised, provided I am better known. I might be taken for wise in a kind of wisdom that I consider folly. It annoys me that my Essays serve the ladies only as a common piece of furniture, furniture for the drawing room. This chapter will get me into the boudoir.
I’ayme leur commerce vn peu priué: le publique est sans faueur et saueur. Aux adieux, nous eschauffons outre l’ordinaire l’affection enuers les choses que nous abandonnons. Ie prens l’extreme congé des ieux du monde: voicy nos dernieres accolades.
I like their company when it is somewhat private; in public it has neither favor nor flavor. At farewells we feel more than ordinary warmth toward the things we are leaving. I am taking my final leave of the world’s games: these are our last embraces.
The unspoken act
Why the sexual act, so natural and necessary, is the one thing we dare not name.
Mais venons à mon theme. Qu’a faict l’action genitale aux hommes, si naturelle, si necessaire, et si iuste, pour n’en oser parler sans vergongne, et pour l’exclurre des propos serieux et reglez? Nous prononçons hardiment, tuer, desrober, trahir: et cela, nous n’oserions qu’entre les dents. Est-ce à dire, que moins nous en exhalons en parole, d’autant nous auons loy d’en grossir la pensee? Car il est bon, que les mots qui sont le moins en vsage, moins escrits, et mieux teuz, sont les mieux sceus, et plus generalement cognus. Nul aage, nulles mœurs l’ignorent non plus que le pain. Ils s’impriment en chascun, sans estre exprimez, et sans voix et sans figure.
But let us come to my theme. What has the sexual act, so natural, so necessary and so just, done to men, that they dare not speak of it without shame and exclude it from serious and orderly conversation? We boldly pronounce “kill,” “rob,” “betray”; and this we would dare to say only between our teeth. Does that mean that the less we breathe of it in words, the more right we have to swell it in our thoughts? For it is a fine joke that the words least used, least written and best kept quiet are the best known and the most widely understood. No age, no manners are ignorant of them, any more than of bread. They imprint themselves on each of us without being expressed, without voice and without shape.
Et le sexe qui le fait le plus, a charge de le taire le plus. C’est vne action, que nous auons mis en la franchise du silence, d’où c’est crime de l’arracher. Non pas pour l’accuser et iuger. Ny n’osons la fouëtter, qu’en periphrase et peinture. Grand faueur à vn criminel, d’estre si execrable, que la iustice estime iniuste, de le toucher et de le veoir: libre et sauué par le benefice de l’aigreur de sa condamnation. N’en va-il pas comme en matiere de liures, qui se rendent d’autant plus venaux et publiques, de ce qu’ils sont supprimez? Ie m’en vay pour moy, prendre au mot l’aduis d’Aristote, qui dit, L’estre honteux, seruir d’ornement à la ieunesse, mais de reproche à la vieillesse.
And the sex that does it most is charged with keeping most quiet about it. It is an act we have placed in the sanctuary of silence, from which it is a crime to drag it—even in order to accuse and judge it. Nor do we dare to whip it except in roundabout phrases and pictures. A great favor to a criminal, to be so execrable that justice thinks it unjust to touch him or look at him: free and saved by the benefit of the harshness of his condemnation. Isn’t it as with books, which become all the more salable and public for being suppressed? For my part, I am going to take Aristotle at his word when he says that bashfulness is an ornament to youth but a reproach to old age.
Ces vers se preschent en l’escole ancienne: escole à laquelle ie me tien bien plus qu’à la moderne: ses vertus me semblent plus grandes, ses vices moindres. Ceux qui par trop fuyant Venus estriuent, / Faillent autant que ceux qui trop la suiuent. / Tu, Dea, tu rerum naturam sola gubernas, / Nec sine te quicquam dias in luminis oras / Exoritur, neque fit lætum, nec amabile quicquam.
These lines are preached in the ancient school, a school to which I hold much more than to the modern one: its virtues seem to me greater, its vices smaller. Those who strive too hard to flee from Venus / Go as far wrong as those who follow her too much. / You, Goddess, you alone govern the nature of things, / Nor without you does anything rise into the shining shores of light, / Nor is anything made joyful or lovely.
Ie ne sçay qui a peu mal mesler Pallas et les Muses, auec Venus, et les refroidir enuers l’amour: mais ie ne voy aucunes deitez qui s’auiennent mieux, ny qui s’entredoiuent plus. Qui ostera aux muses les imaginations amoureuses, leur desrobera le plus bel entretien qu’elles ayent, et la plus noble matiere de leur ouurage: et qui fera perdre à l’amour la communication et seruice de la poësie l’affoiblira de ses meilleures armes. Par ainsin on charge le Dieu d’accointance, et de bien-vueillance, et les Deesses protectrices d’humanité et de iustice, du vice d’ingratitude et de mescognoissance.
I do not know who can have set Pallas and the Muses at odds with Venus and made them cool toward love; but I see no deities that suit each other better or owe each other more. Whoever takes amorous imaginings away from the Muses will rob them of the finest subject they have and the noblest matter of their work; and whoever deprives love of the fellowship and service of poetry will strip it of its best weapons. In this way the god of intimacy and goodwill, and the goddesses who protect humanity and justice, are charged with the vice of ingratitude and of failing to acknowledge what they owe.
Ie ne suis pas de si long temps cassé de l’estat et suitte de ce Dieu, que ie n’aye la memoire informee de ses forces et valeurs: Agnosco veteris vestigia flammæ. Il y a encore quelque demeurant d’emotion et chaleur apres la fiéure. Nec mihi deficiat calor hic, hyemantibus annis. Tout asseché que ie suis, et appesanty, ie sens encore quelques tiedes restes de cette ardeur passee.
I have not been so long dismissed from the service and train of this god that my memory is not informed of his strength and worth: I recognize the traces of the old flame. There is still some remnant of emotion and heat after the fever. May this warmth not fail me in my wintry years. Dried up and weighed down as I am, I still feel some lukewarm remains of that past ardor.
Qual l’alto Ægeo per che Aquilone o Noto / Cessi, che tutto prima il vuolse et scosse, / Non s’accheta ei perto, ma’l sono el’ moto, / Ritien dell’ onde anco agitate è grosse. Mais de ce que ie m’y entends, les forces et valeur de ce Dieu, se trouuent plus vifues et plus animees, en la peinture de la poësie, qu’en leur propre essence. Et versus digitos habet. Elle represente ie ne sçay quel air, plus amoureux que l’amour mesme. Venus n’est pas si belle toute nüe, et viue, et haletante, comme elle est icy chez Virgile. *Dixerat, et niueis hinc atque hinc Diua lacertis / Cunctantem amplexu molli fouet.
As the deep Aegean, though the north or south wind / Has died down that first tossed and shook it all, / Does not grow calm for that, but keeps the roar and motion / Of its waves still stirred and swollen. But from what I understand of it, the strength and worth of this god are found more lively and animated in the painting of poetry than in their own essence. And verse has fingers. Poetry conveys some air or other more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful all naked, alive and panting, as she is here in Virgil: *She had spoken; and, as he hesitated, the goddess, flinging her snowy arms around him on either side, / Warms him in a soft embrace.
Ille repente / Accepit solitam flammam, notúsque medullas / Intrauit calor, et labefacta per ossa cucurrit. / Non secus atque olim tonitru cùm rupta corusco / Ignea rima micans percurrit lumine nimbos. / . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ea verba loquutus, / Optatos dedit amplexus, placidúmque petiuit / Coniugis infusus gremio per membra soporem.*
He suddenly / Caught the familiar flame, and the well-known heat / Entered his marrow and ran through his melting bones, / Just as sometimes, when the thunder bursts, a fiery rift / Runs flashing with light through the storm clouds. / . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Having spoken these words, / He gave her the embraces she longed for, and sought calm sleep / Through his limbs, lying poured out on his wife’s lap.*
Marriage and love
A good marriage is built on friendship, not on love, which hates any other bond.
Ce que i’y trouue à considerer, c’est qu’il la peinct vn peu bien esmeüe pour vne Venus maritale. En ce sage marché, les appetits ne se trouuent pas si follastres: ils sont sombres et plus mousses. L’amour hait qu’on se tienne par ailleurs que par luy, et se mesle laschement aux accointances qui sont dressees et entretenues soubs autre titre: comme est le mariage. L’alliance, les moyens, y poisent par raison, autant ou plus, que les graces et la beauté. On ne se marie pas pour soy, quoy qu’on die: on se marie autant ou plus, pour sa posterité, pour sa famille. L’vsage et l’interest du mariage touche nostre race, bien loing par delà nous.
What I find worth noting here is that he paints her as rather too aroused for a married Venus. In this sensible bargain the appetites are not so frolicsome; they are somber and duller. Love hates people to be bound to each other by anything but itself, and takes only a slack part in relationships formed and kept up under some other title, as marriage is. Connections and means rightly weigh as much there as charms and beauty, or more. We do not marry for ourselves, whatever people say; we marry as much or more for our posterity, for our family. The use and interest of marriage concern our line, far beyond ourselves.
Pourtant me plaist cette façon, qu’on le conduise plustost par main tierce, que par les propres: et par le sens d’autruy, que par le sien. Tout cecy, combien à l’opposite des conuentions amoureuses? Aussi est-ce vne espece d’inceste, d’aller employer à ce parentage venerable et sacré, les efforts et les extrauagances de la licence amoureuse, comme il me semble auoir dict ailleurs. Il faut, dit Aristote, toucher sa femme prudemment et seuerement, de peur qu’en la chatouillant trop lasciuement, le plaisir ne la face sortir hors des gons de raison. Ce qu’il dit pour la conscience, les medecins le disent pour la santé. Qu’vn plaisir excessiuement chaud, voluptueux, et assidu, altere la semence, et empesche la conception.
That is why I like the practice of having it arranged by a third hand rather than by one’s own, and by someone else’s sense rather than one’s own. How opposite all this is to the conventions of love! And so it is a kind of incest to bring into this venerable and sacred kinship the efforts and extravagances of amorous license, as I think I have said elsewhere. One must, says Aristotle, touch one’s wife prudently and soberly, for fear that if she is tickled too lasciviously, pleasure may carry her off the hinges of reason. What he says for conscience’s sake, the doctors say for health’s sake: that excessively hot, voluptuous and assiduous pleasure alters the seed and hinders conception.
Disent d’autre part, qu’à vne congression languissante, comme celle là est de sa nature: pour la remplir d’vne iuste et fertile chaleur, il s’y faut presenter rarement, et à notables interualles; Quo rapiat sitiens Venerem interiúsque recondat. Ie ne voy point de mariages qui faillent plustost, et se troublent, que ceux qui s’acheminent par la beauté, et desirs amoureux. Il y faut des fondemens plus solides, et plus constans, et y marcher d’aguet: cette boüillante allegresse n’y vaut rien.
They say on the other hand that in a languid coupling, as that one is by nature, if it is to be filled with a proper and fruitful heat, one must present oneself rarely and at considerable intervals: So that it may seize Venus thirstily and store her deep within. I see no marriages that fail sooner, or are more troubled, than those that are brought about by beauty and amorous desire. Marriage needs more solid and more constant foundations, and must be approached warily; that boiling ardor is no good for it.
Ceux qui pensent faire honneur au mariage, pour y ioindre l’amour, font, ce me semble, de mesme ceux, qui pour faire faueur à la vertu, tiennent que la noblesse n’est autre chose que vertu. Ce sont choses qui ont quelque cousinage: mais il y a beaucoup de diuersité: on n’a que faire de troubler leurs noms et leurs tiltres. On fait tort à l’vne ou à l’autre de les confondre. La noblesse est vne belle qualité, et introduite auec raison: mais d’autant que c’est vne qualité dependant d’autruy, et qui peut tomber en vn homme vicieux et de neant, elle est en estimation bien loing au dessoubs de la vertu.
Those who think they honor marriage by joining love to it act, it seems to me, like those who, to do virtue a favor, hold that nobility is nothing other than virtue. These things are related, but there is a great deal of difference between them, and there is no point in mixing up their names and titles. We wrong one or the other by confusing them. Nobility is a fine quality, and introduced for good reason. But since it is a quality that depends on others, and can fall to a vicious and worthless man, it is valued far below virtue.
C’est vne vertu, si ce l’est, artificielle et visible: dependant du temps et de la fortune: diuerse en forme selon les contrees, viuante et mortelle: sans naissance, non plus que la riuiere du Nil: genealogique et commune; de suite et de similitude: tiree par consequence, et consequence bien foible. La science, la force, la bonté, la beauté, la richesse, toutes autres qualitez, tombent en communication et en commerce: cetty-cy se consomme en soy, de nulle emploite au seruice d’autruy.
It is a virtue, if it is one at all, that is artificial and visible. It depends on time and fortune, differs in form from country to country, and is living and mortal. Like the river Nile, it has no source. It is genealogical and shared, a matter of succession and resemblance, drawn by inference, and a very weak inference at that. Learning, strength, goodness, beauty, wealth, all other qualities, can be communicated and exchanged. This one is used up in itself, and is of no use in the service of others.
On proposoit à l’vn de nos Roys, le choix de deux competiteurs, en vne mesme charge, desquels l’vn estoit Gentil’homme, l’autre ne l’estoit point: il ordonna que sans respect de cette qualité, on choisist celuy qui auroit le plus de merite: mais où la valeur seroit entierement pareille, qu’alors on eust respect à la noblesse: c’estoit iustement luy donner son rang. Antigonus à vn ieune homme incogneu, qui luy demandoit la charge de son pere, homme de valeur, qui venoit de mourir: Mon amy, dit-il, en tels bien faicts, ie ne regarde pas tant la noblesse de mes soldats, comme ie fais leur proüesse.
One of our kings was offered the choice between two candidates for the same office, one a gentleman and the other not. He ordered that they should choose the one with more merit, without regard to that quality. Only where their worth was entirely equal should nobility be taken into account. That was giving it exactly its proper rank. An unknown young man asked Antigonus for the post of his father, a man of valor who had just died. “My friend,” he said, “in granting such favors I do not look so much at my soldiers’ nobility as at their prowess.”
De vray, il n’en doibt pas aller comme des officiers des Roys de Sparte, trompettes, menestriers, cuisiniers, à qui en leurs charges succedoient les enfants, pour ignorants qu’ils fussent, auant les mieux experimentez du mestier. Ceux de Callicut font des nobles, vne espece par dessus l’humaine. Le mariage leur est interdit, et toute autre vacation que bellique. De concubines, ils en peuuent auoir leur saoul: et les femmes autant de ruffiens: sans ialousie les vns des autres. Mais c’est vn crime capital et irremissible, de s’accoupler à personne d’autre condition que la leur. Et se tiennent pollus, s’ils en sont seulement touchez en passant: et, comme leur noblesse en estant merueilleusement iniuriee et interessee, tuent ceux qui seulement ont approché vn peu trop pres d’eux.
Indeed, it should not be as it was with the officers of the kings of Sparta, the trumpeters, minstrels and cooks. Their children succeeded to their posts, however ignorant they might be, ahead of the most experienced in the trade. The people of Calicut make their nobles a species above the human. Marriage is forbidden to them, and so is every calling but war. They may have their fill of concubines, and the women as many lovers, with no jealousy among them. But it is a capital and unpardonable crime to couple with anyone of a different condition from their own. They consider themselves polluted if such a person merely brushes against them in passing. And, as if their nobility were wonderfully insulted and injured by it, they kill those who have merely come a little too close to them.
De maniere que les ignobles sont tenus de crier en marchant, comme les gondoliers de Venise, au contour des ruës, pour ne s’entreheurter: et les nobles leur commandent de se ietter au quartier qu’ils veulent. Ceux cy euitent par là, cette ignominie, qu’ils estiment perpetuelle; ceux là vne mort certaine. Nulle duree de temps, nulle faueur de Prince, nul office, ou vertu, ou richesse peut faire qu’vn roturier deuienne noble. A quoy ayde cette coustume, que les mariages sont defendus de l’vn mestier à l’autre. Ne peut vne de race cordonniere, espouser vn charpentier: et sont les parents obligez de dresser les enfants à la vacation des peres, precisement, et non à autre vacation: par où se maintient la distinction et continuation de leur fortune.
So the commoners are obliged to call out as they walk, like the gondoliers of Venice at street corners, so as not to collide. The nobles then order them to step aside to whatever side they please. In this way the nobles avoid a disgrace they consider permanent, and the commoners avoid certain death. No length of time, no prince’s favor, no office, virtue or wealth can make a commoner noble. They are helped in this by the custom that forbids marriage between one trade and another. A girl from a family of shoemakers may not marry a carpenter. And parents are obliged to train their children for their fathers’ calling, precisely that one and no other. By this means the distinction and continuance of their lot is kept up.
Vn bon mariage, s’il en est, refuse la compagnie et conditions de l’amour: il tasche à representer celles de l’amitié. C’est vne douce societé de vie, pleine de constance, de fiance, et d’vn nombre infiny d’vtiles et solides offices, et obligations mutuelles. Aucune femme qui en sauoure le goust, Optato quam iunxit lumine tæda, ne voudroit tenir lieu de maistresse à son mary. Si elle est logee en son affection, comme femme, elle y est bien plus honorablement et seurement logee.
A good marriage, if there is such a thing, rejects the company and conditions of love and tries to reproduce those of friendship. It is a sweet partnership in life, full of constancy and trust, and of countless useful and solid services and mutual obligations. No woman who savors its taste, whom the marriage torch has joined with its longed-for light, would want to stand as a mistress to her husband. If she is lodged in his affection as a wife, she is lodged there far more honorably and securely.
Quand il fera l’esmeu ailleurs, et l’empressé, qu’on luy demande pourtant lors, à qui il aymeroit mieux arriuer vne honte, ou à sa femme ou à sa maistresse, de qui la desfortune l’affligeroit le plus, à qui il desire plus de grandeur: ces demandes n’ont aucun doubte en vn mariage sain.
When he plays the smitten and eager lover elsewhere, let him be asked even then which of the two he would rather have suffer some shame, his wife or his mistress. Whose misfortune would grieve him more? For whom does he wish greater advancement? In a sound marriage these questions leave no room for doubt.
Ce qu’il s’en voit si peu de bons, est signe de son prix et de sa valeur. A le bien façonner et à le bien prendre, il n’est point de plus belle piece en notre societé. Nous ne nous en pouuons passer, et l’allons auilissant. Il en aduient ce qui se voit aux cages, les oyseaux qui en sont dehors, desesperent d’y entrer; et d’vn pareil soing en sortir, ceux qui sont au dedans. Socrates, enquis, qui estoit plus commode, prendre, ou ne prendre point de femme: Lequel des deux, dit-il, on face, on s’en repentira. C’est vne conuention à laquelle se rapporte bien à point ce qu’on dit, homo homini, ou Deus, ou lupus.
That so few good ones are to be seen is a sign of its price and its worth. Well fashioned and rightly taken, there is no finer piece in our society. We cannot do without it, and yet we keep debasing it. What happens with it is what we see with cages: the birds outside despair of getting in, and those inside are just as anxious to get out. Socrates was asked which was better, to take a wife or not. “Whichever you do,” he said, “you will regret it.” It is an arrangement to which the saying fits very aptly: man to man is either a god or a wolf.
Il faut le rencontre de beaucoup de qualitez à le bastir. Il se trouue en ce temps plus commode aux ames simples et populaires, où les delices, la curiosité, et l’oysiueté, ne le troublent pas tant. Les humeurs desbauchees, comme est la mienne, qui hay toute sorte de liaison et d’obligation, n’y sont pas si propres. Et mihi dulce magis resoluto viuere collo.
Building it takes the meeting of many qualities. In these times it suits simple, ordinary souls better, where luxuries, curiosity and idleness do not trouble it so much. Unruly temperaments like mine, which hate every sort of tie and obligation, are not so well fitted for it. And to me it is sweeter to live with my neck unyoked.
De mon dessein, i’eusse fuy d’espouser la sagesse mesme, si elle m’eust voulu. Mais nous auons beau dire: la coustume et l’vsage de la vie commune, nous emporte. La plus part de mes actions se conduisent par exemple, non par choix. Toutesfois ie ne m’y conuiay pas proprement. On m’y mena, et y fus porté par des occasions estrangeres. Car non seulement les choses incommodes, mais il n’en est aucune si laide et vitieuse et euitable, qui ne puisse deuenir acceptable par quelque condition et accident, tant l’humaine posture est vaine. Et y fus porté, certes plus preparé lors, et plus rebours, que ie ne suis à present, apres l’auoir essayé.
Left to my own design, I would have avoided marrying wisdom herself, if she had wanted me. But say what we will, custom and the practice of ordinary life carry us along. Most of my actions are guided by example, not by choice. Still, I did not really invite myself to it. I was led to it, carried there by outside circumstances. For not only inconvenient things, but anything at all, however ugly, vicious and avoidable, can become acceptable through some condition or chance, so empty is the human stance. And I was carried there certainly more braced against it then, and more contrary, than I am now that I have tried it.
Et tout licencieux qu’on me tient, i’ay en verité plus seuerement obserué les loix de mariage, que ie n’auois ny promis ny esperé. Il n’est plus temps de regimber quand on s’est laissé entrauer. Il faut prudemment mesnager sa liberté: mais depuis qu’on s’est submis à l’obligation, il s’y faut tenir soubs les loix du debuoir commun, aumoins s’en efforcer. Ceux qui entreprennent ce marché pour s’y porter auec hayne et mespris, font iniustement et incommodément.
And licentious as I am thought to be, I have in truth kept the laws of marriage more strictly than I had either promised or hoped. It is too late to kick once you have let yourself be hobbled. You must manage your liberty prudently. But once you have submitted to the obligation, you must hold to it under the laws of common duty, or at least try to. Those who enter into this bargain only to conduct themselves in it with hatred and contempt act unjustly, and to their own harm.
Et cette belle regle que ie voy passer de main en main entre elles, comme vn sainct oracle, Sers ton mary comme ton maistre, / Et t’en garde comme d’vn traistre: qui est à dire: Porte toy enuers luy, d’vne reuerence contrainte, ennemye, et deffiante (cry de guerre et de deffi) est pareillement iniurieuse et difficile. Ie suis trop mol pour desseins si espineux. A dire vray, ie ne suis pas arriué à cette perfection d’habileté et galantise d’esprit, que de confondre la raison auec l’iniustice, et mettre en risee tout ordre et regle qui n’accorde à mon appetit. Pour hayr la superstition, ie ne me iette pas incontinent à l’irreligion.
And there is that fine rule which I see passed from hand to hand among the women like a holy oracle: Serve your husband as your master, / And guard yourself from him as from a traitor. That is to say: “Bear yourself toward him with a reverence that is forced, hostile and distrustful” (a war cry and a challenge). It is just as insulting as it is hard. I am too soft for such thorny designs. To tell the truth, I have not reached that perfection of cleverness and gallantry of mind that confuses reason with injustice and laughs at every order and rule that does not suit my appetite. Hating superstition does not make me rush straight into irreligion.
Si on ne fait tousiours son debuoir, au moins le faut il tousiours aymer et recognoistre: c’est trahison, se marier sans s’espouser. Passons outre.
If we do not always do our duty, we must at least always love it and acknowledge it. It is treachery to marry without espousing. Let us move on.
Nostre poëte represente vn mariage plein d’accord et de bonne conuenance, auquel pourtant il n’y a pas beaucoup de loyauté. A il voulu dire, qu’il ne soit pas impossible de se rendre aux efforts de l’amour, et ce neantmoins reseruer quelque deuoir enuers le mariage: et qu’on le peut blesser, sans le rompre tout à faict? Tel valet ferre la mule au maistre qu’il ne hayt pas pourtant.
Our poet portrays a marriage full of harmony and good understanding, in which, however, there is not much loyalty. Did he mean that it is not impossible to yield to the assaults of love and still keep some duty toward marriage? That one can wound it without breaking it altogether? Many a servant skims off his master without hating him for all that.
La beauté, l’oportunité, la destinee (car la destinee y met aussi la main) Fatum est in partibus illis / Quas sinus abscondit: nam si tibi sidera cessent, / Nil faciet longi mensura incognita nerui, l’ont attachée à vn estranger: non pas si entiere peut estre, qu’il ne luy puisse rester quelque liaison par où elle tient encore à son mary. Ce sont deux desseins, qui ont des routes distinguees, et non confondues. Vne femme se peut rendre à tel personnage, que nullement elle ne voudroit auoir espousé: ie ne dy pas pour les conditions de la fortune, mais pour celles mesmes de la personne. Peu de gens ont espousé des amies qui ne s’en soient repentis.
Beauty, opportunity and destiny have attached her to a stranger, for destiny too has a hand in it: Fate rules those parts / That the clothing hides: for if the stars desert you, / The unheard-of length of your member will do nothing. Yet perhaps not so wholly that there cannot remain some bond by which she still holds to her husband. These are two designs that travel separate roads, not one. A woman may give herself to a man she would by no means have wanted to marry. I do not mean because of his fortune, but because of the qualities of the person himself. Few men have married their mistresses without regretting it.
Et iusques en l’autre monde, quel mauuais mesnage fait Iupiter avec sa femme, qu’il auoit premierement pratiquee et iouyë par amourettes? C’est ce qu’on dit, chier dans le panier, pour apres le mettre sur sa teste. I’ay veu de mon temps en quelque bon lieu, guerir honteusement et deshonnestement, l’amour, par le mariage: les considerations sont trop autres. Nous aymons, sans nous empescher deux choses diuerses, et qui se contrarient. Isocrates disoit, que la ville d’Athenes plaisoit à la mode que font les dames qu’on sert par amour, chacun aymoit à s’y venir promener, et y passer son temps: nul ne l’aymoit pour l’espouser: c’est à dire, pour s’y habituer et domicilier.
And even in the other world, what a bad household Jupiter keeps with his wife, whom he had first courted and enjoyed in a love affair! That is what the saying calls fouling the basket and then putting it on your head. In my time I have seen love shamefully and dishonorably cured by marriage, in a certain good family. The considerations are too different. We love two different and opposed things without being troubled by it. Isocrates said that the city of Athens pleased people the way ladies do whom men court for love. Everyone liked to come and stroll there and pass the time; no one loved it enough to marry it, that is, to settle there and make it his home.
I’ay auec despit, veu des maris hayr leurs femmes, de ce seulement, qu’ils leur font tort. Aumoins ne les faut il pas moins aymer, de nostre faute: par repentance et compassion aumoins, elles nous en deuroient estre plus cheres.
It has made me indignant to see husbands hate their wives simply because they are wronging them. At least we should not love them less for our own fault. Out of repentance and compassion, at least, they ought to be dearer to us for it.
Ce sont fins differentes, et pourtant compatibles, dit-il, en quelque façon. Le mariage a pour sa part, l’vtilité, la iustice, l’honneur, et la constance: vn plaisir plat, mais plus vniuersel. L’amour se fonde au seul plaisir: et l’a de vray plus chatouilleux, plus vif, et plus aigu: vn plaisir attizé par la difficulté: il y faut de la piqueure et de la cuison. Ce n’est plus amour, s’il est sans fleches et sans feu. La liberalité des dames est trop profuse au mariage, et esmousse la poincte de l’affection et du desir. Pour fuïr à cet inconuenient, voyez la peine qu’y prennent en leurs loix Lycurgus et Platon.
These are different ends, he says, and yet compatible in some way. Marriage has as its share utility, justice, honor and constancy: a flat pleasure, but a more universal one. Love is founded on pleasure alone, and its pleasure is in truth more tickling, livelier and keener, a pleasure stirred up by difficulty. There must be sting and smart in it. It is no longer love if it is without arrows and without fire. The ladies’ generosity is too lavish in marriage and blunts the edge of affection and desire. See what pains Lycurgus and Plato take in their laws to avoid this drawback.
Rules made by men
Men demand of women a chastity they neither practice nor make easy.
Les femmes n’ont pas tort du tout, quand elles refusent les regles de vie, qui sont introduites au monde: d’autant que ce sont les hommes qui les ont faictes sans elles. Il y a naturellement de la brigue et riotte entre elles et nous. Le plus estroit consentement que nous ayons auec elles, encores est-il tumultuaire et tempestueux. A l’aduis de nostre autheur, nous les traictons inconsiderément en cecy.
Women are not entirely wrong when they reject the rules of life that have been introduced into the world, since it is men who made them, without women. There is naturally intrigue and squabbling between them and us. Even the closest agreement we have with them is turbulent and stormy. In our author’s opinion, we treat them thoughtlessly in this matter.
Apres que nous auons cogneu, qu’elles sont sans comparaison plus capables et ardentes aux effects de l’amour que nous, et que ce prestre ancien l’a ainsi tesmoigné, qui auoit esté tantost homme, tantost femme: Venus huic erat vtraque nota. Et en outre, que nous auons appris de leur propre bouche, la preuue qu’en firent autrefois, en diuers siecles, vn Empereur et vne Emperiere de Rome, maistres ouuriers et fameux en cette besongne: luy despucela bien en vne nuict dix vierges Sarmates ses captiues: mais elle fournit reelement en vne nuict, à vingt et cinq entreprinses, changeant de compagnie selon son besoing et son goust, Adhuc ardens rigidæ tentigine vuluæ: / Et lassata viris, nondum satiata recessit. Et que sur le different aduenu à Cateloigne, entre vne femme, se plaignant des efforts trop assiduelz de son mary (non tant à mon aduis qu’elle en fust incommodee, car ie ne crois les miracles qu’en foy, comme pour retrancher soubs ce pretexte, et brider en ce mesme, qui est l’action fondamentale du mariage, l’authorité des maris enuers leurs femmes:
We have recognized that they are incomparably more capable and ardent than we are in the acts of love. That ancient priest who had been now a man, now a woman, bore witness to it: Venus of both kinds was known to him. Besides, we have learned from their own mouths the proof given long ago, in different centuries, by an emperor and an empress of Rome, master craftsmen famous in this work. He did indeed deflower ten Sarmatian virgins, his captives, in one night. But she actually took on twenty-five bouts in one night, changing company as her need and taste required, Still burning with the stiff tension of her vulva, / She withdrew exhausted by men, but not yet satisfied. Then there was the dispute that arose in Catalonia. A woman complained of her husband’s too frequent efforts. In my opinion this was not so much because they troubled her, for I believe in miracles only in matters of faith. It was rather to curtail, on this pretext, the authority of husbands over their wives, and to curb it in the very act that is fundamental to marriage;
et pour montrer que leurs hergnes, et leur malignité passent outre la couche nuptiale, et foulent aux pieds graces et douceurs mesmes de Venus) à laquelle plainte, le mary respondoit, homme vrayement brutal et desnaturé, qu’aux iours mesme de ieusne il ne s’en sçauroit passer à moins de dix: interuint ce notable arrest de la Royne d’Aragon: par lequel, apres meure deliberation de conseil, cette bonne Royne, pour donner regle et exemple à tout temps, de la moderation et modestie requise en vn iuste mariage: ordonna pour bornes legitimes et necessaires, le nombre de six par iour: relaschant et quitant beaucoup du besoing et desir de son sexe, pour establir, disoit-elle, vne forme aysee, et par consequent permanante et immuable.
and to show that women’s sulks and malice go beyond the marriage bed and trample underfoot even the graces and sweetnesses of Venus. To her complaint the husband, a truly brutish and unnatural man, replied that even on fast days he could not make do with fewer than ten. Then came that notable decree of the Queen of Aragon. After mature deliberation in council, this good queen, to give all ages a rule and example of the moderation and modesty required in a proper marriage, set the number at six a day as the legitimate and necessary limit. In doing so she gave up and relinquished much of the need and desire of her sex, in order, she said, to establish an easy standard, and therefore a lasting and unchangeable one.
En quoy s’escrient les docteurs, quel doit estre l’appetit et la concupiscence feminine, puisque leur raison, leur reformation, et leur vertu, se taille à ce prix? considerans le diuers iugement de nos appetits. Car Solon patron de l’eschole legiste ne taxe qu’à trois fois par mois, pour ne faillir point, cette hantise coniugale. Apres avoir creu, dis-ie, et presché cela, nous sommes allez, leur donner la continence peculierement en partage: et sur peines dernieres et extremes.
At which the learned exclaim: what must female appetite and lust be, if their reason, their reform and their virtue are cut to this measure? They are thinking of how differently our own appetites are judged. For Solon, the master of the school of law, rates this conjugal intercourse at only three times a month, so as not to fall short. After believing and preaching all this, I say, we have gone and given them continence as their special portion, and under the last and most extreme penalties.
Il n’est passion plus pressante, que cette cy, à laquelle nous voulons qu’elles resistent seules: non simplement, comme à vn vice de sa mesure: mais comme à l’abomination et execration plus qu’à l’irreligion et au parricide: et nous nous y rendons ce pendant sans coulpe et reproche. Ceux mesme d’entre nous, qui ont essayé d’en venir à bout, ont assez auoué quelle difficulté, ou plustost impossibilité il y auoit, vsant de remedes materiels, à mater, affoiblir et refroidir le corps. Nous au contraire, les voulons saines, vigoreuses, en bon point, bien nourries, et chastes ensemble: c’est à dire, et chaudes et froides. Car le mariage, que nous disons auoir charge de les empescher de bruler, leur aporte peu de refraichissement selon nos mœurs.
There is no passion more pressing than this one, and we want them alone to resist it. Not simply as a vice of its own size, but as an abomination and an execration, worse than irreligion and parricide; and meanwhile we give in to it ourselves without guilt or reproach. Even those of us who have tried to master it have admitted readily enough how difficult, or rather impossible, it was to subdue, weaken and cool the body with material remedies. We, on the contrary, want them healthy, vigorous, plump, well fed and chaste all at once, that is to say, both hot and cold. For marriage, which we say has the task of keeping them from burning, brings them little cooling, as our ways go.
Si elles en prennent vn, à qui la vigueur de l’aage boult encores, il fera gloire de l’espandre ailleurs. Sit tandem pudor, aut eamus in ius, / Multis mentula millibus redempta, / Non est hæc tua, Basse, vendidisti. Le philosophe Polemon fut iustement appellé en iustice par sa femme, de ce qu’il alloit semant en vn champ sterile le fruict deu au champ genital. Si c’est de ces autres cassez, les voyla en plein mariage, de pire condition que vierges et vefues. Nous les tenons pour bien fournies, par ce qu’elles ont vn homme aupres. Comme les Romains tindrent pour viollee Clodia Læta, vestale, que Caligula auoit approchée, encore qu’il fust aueré, qu’il ne l’auoit qu’approchée.
If they take a man in whom the vigor of youth still boils, he will make it his glory to spend it elsewhere. Have some shame at last, or let us go to court: / Your member, bought by me for many thousands, / Is not yours, Bassus; you have sold it. The philosopher Polemon was rightly sued by his wife for going about sowing in a barren field the fruit owed to the field of generation. If they take one of those other, worn-out men, there they are, in full marriage, worse off than virgins and widows. We consider them well provided for because they have a man beside them. In the same way the Romans held that Clodia Laeta, a Vestal, had been violated because Caligula had approached her, though it was proved that he had only approached her.
Mais au rebours; on recharge par là, leur necessité: d’autant que l’attouchement et la compagnie de quelque masle que ce soit, esueille leur chaleur, qui demeureroit plus quiete en la solitude. Et à cette fin, comme il est vray-semblable, de rendre par cette circonstance et consideration, leur chasteté plus meritoire. Boleslaus et Kinge sa femme, Roys de Poulongne, la vouërent d’vn commun accord, couchez ensemble, le iour mesme de leurs nopces: et la maintindrent à la barbe des commoditez maritales.
But on the contrary, this only increases their need, since the touch and company of any male whatever awakens their heat, which would stay quieter in solitude. And it was probably to this end, to make their chastity more meritorious through this circumstance and consideration, that Boleslaus and his wife Kinga, king and queen of Poland, vowed it by common accord. They did so lying together on their very wedding day, and kept it in the teeth of marital opportunities.
Nous les dressons dés l’enfance, aux entremises de l’amour: leur grace, leur attiffeure, leur science, leur parole, toute leur instruction, ne regarde qu’à ce but. Leurs gouuernantes ne leur impriment autre chose que le visage de l’amour, ne fust qu’en le leur representant continuellement pour les en desgouster. Ma fille, c’est tout ce que i’ay d’enfans, est en l’aage auquel les loix excusent les plus eschauffees de se marier. Elle est d’vne complexion tardiue, mince et molle, et a esté par sa mere esleuee de mesme, d’vne forme retiree et particuliere: si qu’elle ne commence encore qu’à se desniaiser de la naifueté de l’enfance.
We train them from childhood in the business of love. Their grace, their finery, their learning, their speech, all their instruction aims at that one goal. Their governesses imprint nothing on them but the face of love, if only by depicting it to them continually to put them off it. My daughter (she is the only child I have) is at the age at which the laws allow the most hot-blooded girls to marry. She is of a slow-developing constitution, slight and soft, and her mother has brought her up accordingly, in a secluded and private way. So she is only now beginning to shed the innocence of childhood.
Elle lisoit vn liure François deuant moy: le mot de, fouteau, s’y rencontra, nom d’vn arbre cogneu: la femme qu’ell’ a pour sa conduitte, l’arresta tout court, vn peu rudement, et la fit passer par dessus ce mauuais pas. Ie la laissay faire, pour ne troubler leurs regles: car ie ne m’empesche aucunement de ce gouuernement. La police feminine a vn train mysterieux, il faut le leur quitter. Mais si ie ne me trompe, le commerce de vingt laquays, n’eust sçeu imprimer en sa fantasie, de six moys, l’intelligence et vsage, et toutes les consequences du son de ces syllabes scelerees, comme fit cette bonne vieille, par sa reprimende et son interdiction.
She was reading a French book in front of me when the word fouteau came up, the name of a well-known tree. The woman she has as her governess stopped her short, rather roughly, and made her skip over that bad step. I let her do it, so as not to upset their rules, for I do not meddle in that government at all. Feminine administration has a mysterious way of proceeding; we must leave it to them. But if I am not mistaken, the company of twenty lackeys could not in six months have imprinted on her mind the meaning, the use and all the implications of the sound of those wicked syllables as well as that good old woman did with her reprimand and her prohibition.
Motus doceri gaudet Ionicos / Matura virgo, et frangitur artubus, / Iam nunc, et incestos amores / De tenero meditatur vngui, Qu’elles se dispensent vn peu de la ceremonie, qu’elles entrent en liberté de discours, nous ne sommes qu’enfans au prix d’elles, en cette science. Oyez leur representer nos poursuittes et nos entretiens: elles vous font bien cognoistre que nous ne leur apportons rien, qu’elles n’ayent sçeu et digeré sans nous. Seroit-ce ce que dit Platon, qu’elles ayent esté garçons desbauchez autresfois? Mon oreille se rencontra vn iour en lieu, où elle pouuoit desrober aucun des discours faicts entre elles sans soupçon: que ne puis-ie le dire?
The ripening maiden loves to be taught Ionian dances, / And makes her limbs supple, / And even now, from her tenderest years, / Dreams of unchaste loves. Let them drop the ceremony a little and talk freely, and we are mere children compared with them in this science. Listen to them describe our pursuits and our conversations: they make it quite plain that we bring them nothing they have not known and digested without us. Could it be, as Plato says, that they were once dissolute boys? One day my ear happened to be in a place where it could steal some of their talk among themselves without their suspecting. If only I could repeat it!
Nostre dame, (fis-ie), allons à cette heure estudier des frases d’Amadis, et des registres de Boccace et de l’Aretin, pour faire les habiles: nous employons vrayement bien notre temps: il n’est ny parole, ny exemple, ny démarche qu’elles ne sçachent mieux que nos liures. C’est vne discipline qui naist dans leurs veines, Et mentem Venus ipsa dedit, que ces bons maistres d’escole, nature, ieunesse, et santé, leur soufflent continuellement dans l’ame. Elles n’ont que faire de l’apprendre, elles l’engendrent. Nec tantum niueo gauisa est ulla columbo / Compar, vel si quid dicitur improbius, / Oscula mordenti semper decerpere rostro, / Quantum præcipuè multiuola est mulier.
By Our Lady, I said, let us go now and study phrases from Amadis and the stories of Boccaccio and Aretino, to make ourselves clever! We are really putting our time to good use! There is no word, no example, no move that they do not know better than our books. It is a discipline born in their veins, And Venus herself gave them the mind, which those good schoolmasters, nature, youth and health, keep breathing into their souls. They do not need to learn it; they generate it. No dove ever so delighted in her snow-white mate— / Or any creature said to be more wanton— / Always plucking kisses with her biting beak, / As does a woman whose desires are many.
Qui n’eust tenu vn peu en bride cette naturelle violence de leur desir, par la crainte et honneur, dequoy on les a pourueuës, nous estions diffamez. Tout le mouuement du monde se resoult et rend à cet accouplage: c’est vne matiere infuse par tout: c’est vn centre où toutes choses regardent. On void encore des ordonnances de la vieille et sage Rome, faictes pour le seruice de l’amour: et les preceptes de Socrates, à instruire les courtisanes. Necnon libelli Stoici inter sericos / Iacere puluillos amant. Zenon parmy les loix, regloit aussi les escarquillemens, et les secousses du depucelage. De quel sens estoit le liure du philosophe Strato, de la conionction charnelle? Et dequoy traittoit Theophraste, en ceux qu’il intitula, l’vn l’Amoureux, l’autre de l’Amour?
If this natural violence of their desire had not been held a little in check by the fear and honor they have been given, we men would be disgraced. All the motion of the world resolves itself into this coupling and yields to it. It is a matter infused everywhere, a center toward which all things look. We can still see ordinances of old and wise Rome made for the service of love, and Socrates’ precepts for instructing courtesans. And Stoic pamphlets love / To lie among silken cushions. Zeno, among his laws, also regulated the spreading of legs and the thrusts of deflowering. What was the drift of the philosopher Strato’s book on carnal union? And what did Theophrastus treat in the books he entitled, one The Lover, the other On Love?
Dequoy Aristippus au sien, des anciennes delices? Que veulent pretendre les descriptions si estendues et viues en Platon, des amours de son temps? Et le liure de l’Amoureux, de Demetrius Phalereus: et Clinias, ou l’Amoureux forcé de Heraclides Ponticus? Et d’Antisthenes, celuy de faire les enfants, ou des nopces: et l’autre, du maistre ou de l’Amant? Et d’Aristo, celuy, des exercices amoureux? de Cleanthes, vn de l’Amour, l’autre de l’art d’aymer? Les dialogues amoureux de Spherus? Et la fable de Iupiter et Iuno de Chrysippus, eshontee au delà de toute souffrance? Et ses cinquante epistres si lasciues? Ie veux laisser à part les escrits des philosophes, qui ont suiuy la secte d’Epicurus protectrice de la volupté.
What did Aristippus treat in his On Ancient Pleasures? What are Plato’s long and vivid descriptions of the loves of his time meant to convey? And the book The Lover by Demetrius of Phalerum, and Clinias, or The Lover Forced, by Heraclides of Pontus? And Antisthenes’ book On Begetting Children, or On Weddings, and his other one, On the Master, or The Lover? And Aristo’s On Amorous Exercises? And Cleanthes’ two books, one On Love, the other On the Art of Loving? The amorous dialogues of Sphaerus? And Chrysippus’ fable of Jupiter and Juno, shameless beyond all bearing? And his fifty letters, so lascivious? I mean to leave aside the writings of the philosophers who followed the sect of Epicurus, the protector of pleasure.
Cinquante deitez estoient au temps passé asseruies à cet office. Et s’est trouué nation, où pour endormir la concupiscence de ceux qui venoient à la deuotion, on tenoit aux temples des garses à iouyr et estoit acte de ceremonie de s’en seruir auant venir à l’office: Nimirum propter continentiam incontinentia necessaria est, incendium ignibus extinguitur.
In times past, fifty deities were bound to this office. And there was once a nation where, to lull the lust of those who came to worship, young women were kept in the temples for enjoyment, and it was a ceremonial act to make use of them before attending the service: Doubtless incontinence is necessary for the sake of continence; a blaze is put out by fire.
En la plus part du monde, cette partie de nostre corps estoit deifiee. En mesme prouince, les vns se l’escorchoient pour en offrir et consacrer vn lopin: les autres offroient et consacroient leur semence. En vne autre, les ieunes hommes se le perçoient publiquement, et ouuroient en diuers lieux entre chair et cuir, et trauersoient par ces ouuertures, des brochettes, les plus longues et grosses qu’ils pouuoient souffrir: et de ces brochettes faisoient apres du feu, pour offrande à leurs Dieux: estimez peu vigoureux et peu chastes, s’ils venoient à s’estonner par la force de cette cruelle douleur. Ailleurs, le plus sacré magistrat, estoit reueré et recogneu par ces parties là.
In most of the world, this part of our body was deified. In one and the same province, some flayed it to offer and consecrate a piece of it, while others offered and consecrated their seed. In another, the young men pierced it publicly, opening it in various places between the flesh and the skin. Through these openings they passed skewers, the longest and thickest they could bear, and afterward they burned these skewers as an offering to their gods. Anyone who fainted from the force of that cruel pain was thought to have little vigor and little chastity. Elsewhere the most sacred magistrate was revered and recognized by those parts.
Et en plusieurs ceremonies l’effigie en estoit portee en pompe, à l’honneur de diuerses diuinitez. Les dames Ægyptiennes en la feste des Bacchanales, en portoient au col vn de bois, exquisement formé, grand et pesant, chacune selon sa force: outre ce que la statue de leur Dieu, en representoit, qui surpassoit en mesure le reste du corps. Les femmes mariées icy pres, en forgent de leur couurechef vne figure sur leur front, pour se glorifier de la iouyssance qu’elles en ont: et venant à estre vefues, le couchent en arriere, et enseuelissent soubs leur coiffure. Les plus sages matrones à Rome, estoient honnorees d’offrir des fleurs et des couronnes au Dieu Priapus.
In several ceremonies its effigy was carried in procession in honor of various divinities. At the feast of the Bacchanalia, the Egyptian ladies wore one around their necks, exquisitely carved in wood, large and heavy, each according to her strength. Besides this, the statue of their god displayed one that was bigger than the rest of his body. The married women in these parts fashion a figure of it on their foreheads out of their kerchiefs, to glory in the enjoyment they have of it. When they become widows, they lay it back and bury it under their headdress. In Rome the most virtuous matrons were honored to offer flowers and garlands to the god Priapus.
Et sur ses parties moins honnestes, faisoit-on soir les vierges, au temps de leurs nopces. Encore ne sçay-ie si i’ay veu en mes iours quelque air de pareille deuotion. Que vouloit dire cette ridicule piece de la chaussure de nos peres, qui se voit encore en nos Suysses? A quoy faire, la montre que nous faisons à cette heure de nos pieces en forme, soubs nos grecgues: et souuent, qui pis est, outre leur grandeur naturelle, par fauceté et imposture? Il me prend enuie de croire, que cette sorte de vestement fut inuentee aux meilleurs et plus conscientieux siecles, pour ne piper le monde: pour que chacun rendist en publiq compte de son faict. Les nations plus simples, l’ont encore aucunement rapportant au vray.
And at the time of their weddings, virgins were made to sit on his less decent parts. And I wonder whether I have not seen in my own day some trace of a similar devotion. What was the meaning of that ridiculous piece of our fathers’ breeches, which can still be seen on our Swiss? Why do we now make a display of our parts, shaped, under our breeches, and often, what is worse, larger than their natural size, by falsehood and imposture? I am tempted to believe that this sort of garment was invented in better and more conscientious ages so as not to cheat people, so that each man should give a public account of his case. The simpler nations still wear it in a form that corresponds somewhat to the truth.
Lors on instruisoit la science de l’ouurier, comme il se faict, de la mesure du bras ou du pied. Ce bon homme qui en ma ieunesse, chastra tant de belles et antiques statues en sa grande ville, pour ne corrompre la veuë, suyuant l’aduis de cet autre antien bon homme, Flagitij principium est nudare inter ciues corpora: se deuoit aduiser, comme aux mysteres de la bonne Deesse, toute apparence masculine en estoit forclose, que ce n’estoit rien auancer, s’il ne faisoit encore chastrer, et cheuaux, et asnes, et nature en fin.
In those days people were informed of the workman’s capacity as one is by measuring an arm or a foot. That good man who, in my youth, castrated so many fine ancient statues in his great city, so as not to corrupt the eye, followed the advice of that other good man of antiquity: It is the beginning of vice to bare bodies among citizens. He should have reflected that, just as in the mysteries of the Good Goddess every masculine semblance was shut out, he was getting nowhere unless he also had horses and asses castrated, and in the end nature itself.
Omne adeo genus in terris, hominùmque, ferarúmque, / Et genus æquoreum, pecudes pictæque volucres, / In furias ignémque ruunt. Les Dieux, dit Platon, nous ont fourni d’vn membre inobedient et tyrannique: qui, comme vn animal furieux, entreprend par la violence de son appetit, sousmettre tout à soy. De mesmes aux femmes le leur, comme vn animal glouton et auide, auquel si on refuse aliments en sa saison, il forcene impatient de delay; et soufflant sa rage en leurs corps, empesche les conduits, arreste la respiration, causant mille sortes de maux: iusques à ce qu’ayant humé le fruit de la soif commune, il en ayt largement arrousé et ensemencé le fond de leur matrice.
So it is that every race on earth, of men and beasts, / The race of the sea, the flocks and the painted birds, / Rush into this fury and fire. The gods, says Plato, have furnished us with a disobedient and tyrannical member, which, like a furious animal, tries by the violence of its appetite to bring everything under its sway. In the same way, women’s member is like a greedy and ravenous animal. If it is refused food in its season, it goes mad, impatient of delay, and breathes its rage into their bodies. It blocks the passages and stops the breathing, causing a thousand kinds of ills, until it has drunk in the fruit of the common thirst and abundantly watered and sown the depths of their womb.
Or se deuoit aduiser aussi mon legislateur, qu’à l’auanture est-ce vn plus chaste et fructueux vsage, de leur faire de bonne heure cognoistre le vif, que de le leur laisser deuiner, selon la liberté, et chaleur de leur fantasie. Au lieu des parties vrayes, elles en substituent par desir et par esperance, d’autres extrauagantes au triple. Et tel de ma cognoissance s’est perdu, pour auoir faict la descouuerte des siennes, en lieu où il n’estoit encore au propre de les mettre en possession de leur plus serieux vsage. Quel dommage ne font ces enormes pourtraicts, que les enfants vont semant aux passages et escalliers des maisons Royalles? De là leur vient vn cruel mespris de nostre portee naturelle.
Now my lawgiver should also have considered that it may be a more chaste and fruitful practice to let them know the living thing early than to leave them to guess at it according to the freedom and heat of their fancy. In place of the real parts, they substitute, through desire and hope, others three times as extravagant. And a man I know ruined his chances by revealing his in a situation where it was not yet proper to put them to their most serious use. What harm those enormous drawings do, which boys scatter over the passages and staircases of royal houses! From them women get a cruel contempt for our natural capacity.
Que sçait-on, si Platon ordonnant apres d’autres republiques bien instituees que les hommes, femmes, vieux, ieunes, se presentent nuds à la veuë les vns des autres, en ses gymnastiques, n’a pas regardé à cela? Les Indiennes qui voyent les hommes à crud, ont aumoins refroidy le sens de la veuë.
Who knows whether Plato did not have this in mind when, following other well-ordered republics, he ordained that men and women, old and young, should present themselves naked to one another’s view in his gymnastics? The Indian women, who see men in the raw, have at least cooled the sense of sight.
Et quoy que dient les femmes de ce grand royaume du Pegu, qui au dessous de la ceinture, n’ont à se couurir qu’vn drap fendu par le deuant: et si estroit, que quelque cerimonieuse decence qu’elles y cerchent, à chasque pas on les void toutes; que c’est vne inuention trouuee aux fins d’attirer les hommes à elles, et les retirer des masles, à quoy cette nation est du tout abandonnee: il se pourroit dire, qu’elles y perdent plus qu’elles n’auancent: et qu’vne faim entiere, est plus aspre, que celle qu’on a rassasiee, au moins par les yeux. Aussi disoit Liuia, qu’à vne femme de bien, vn homme nud, n’est non plus qu’vne image.
Then there are the women of that great kingdom of Pegu. Below the waist they have nothing to cover themselves with but a cloth slit in front, and so narrow that, whatever ceremonious decency they try for, they can be seen entirely at every step. They say it is a device invented to draw men to them and away from males, to whom that nation is wholly given over. Whatever they may say, it could be argued that they lose more by it than they gain, and that a total hunger is sharper than one that has been satisfied, if only by the eyes. So Livia said that to a virtuous woman a naked man is no more than a statue.
Les Lacedemoniennes, plus vierges femmes, que ne sont noz filles, voyoyent tous les iours les ieunes hommes de leur ville, despouillez en leurs exercices: peu exactes elles mesmes à couurir leurs cuisses en marchant: s’estimants, comme dit Platon, assez couuertes de leur vertu sans vertugade. Mais ceux là, desquels parle Sainct Augustin, ont donné vn merueilleux effort de tentation à la nudité, qui ont mis en doubte, si les femmes au iugement vniuersel, resusciteront en leur sexe, et non plustost au nostre, pour ne nous tenter encore en ce sainct estat. On les leurre en somme, et acharne, par tous moyens. Nous eschauffons et incitons leur imagination sans cesse, et puis nous crions au ventre.
The Spartan women, more virginal as wives than our girls are, saw the young men of their city every day, stripped for their exercises. They themselves were not very particular about covering their thighs as they walked, considering themselves, as Plato says, covered enough by their virtue without a farthingale. But those Saint Augustine speaks of attributed a marvelous power of temptation to nakedness. They questioned whether women, at the Last Judgment, will rise again in their own sex and not rather in ours, so as not to tempt us even in that holy state. In short, we lure them and goad them on by every means. We ceaselessly heat and stir up their imagination, and then we cry out against the belly.
Confessons le vray, il n’en est guere d’entre nous, qui ne craigne plus la honte, qui luy vient des vices de sa femme, que des siens: qui ne se soigne plus (esmerueillable charité) de la conscience de sa bonne espouse, que de la sienne propre: qui n’aymast mieux estre voleur et sacrilege, et que sa femme fust meurtriere et heretique, que si elle n’estoit plus chaste que son mary. Inique estimation de vices. Nous et elles sommes capables de mille corruptions plus dommageables et desnaturees, que n’est la lasciueté. Mais nous faisons et poisons les vices, non selon nature, mais selon nostre interest. Par où ils prennent tant de formes inegales.
Let us confess the truth. There is hardly one of us who does not fear the shame that comes to him from his wife’s vices more than from his own. Hardly one who does not take more care (wonderful charity!) of his good wife’s conscience than of his own. Hardly one who would not rather be a thief and a committer of sacrilege, and have his wife a murderess and a heretic, than have her be no more chaste than her husband. An unjust valuation of vices! Both we and they are capable of a thousand corruptions more harmful and unnatural than lasciviousness. But we create and weigh vices not according to nature but according to our interest. That is why they take on so many unequal forms.
L’aspreté de noz decrets, rend l’application des femmes à ce vice, plus aspre et plus vicieuse, que ne porte sa condition: et l’engage à des suittes pires que n’est leur cause. Elles offriront volontiers d’aller au palais querir du gain, et à la guerre de la reputation, plustost que d’auoir au milieu de l’oisiueté, et des delices, à faire vne si difficile garde. Voyent-elles pas, qu’il n’est ny marchant ny procureur, ny soldat, qui ne quitte sa besongne pour courre à cette autre: et le crocheteur, et le sauetier, tout harassez et hallebrenez qu’ils sont de trauail et de faim?
The harshness of our decrees makes women’s devotion to this vice harsher and more vicious than its nature warrants, and leads it to consequences worse than their cause. They would willingly offer to go to the law courts to seek gain, and to war to seek reputation, rather than have to keep so difficult a guard in the midst of idleness and pleasures. Do they not see that there is no merchant, no attorney, no soldier who does not leave his work to run to this other business? And the porter and the cobbler too, however harassed and worn out they are with labor and hunger?
Num tu, quæ tenuit diues Achæmenes, / Aut pinguis Phrygiæ Mygdonias opes, / Permutare velis crine Licymniæ, / Plenas aut Arabum domos, / Dum fragrantia detorquet ad oscula / Ceruicem, aut facili sæuitia negat, / Quæ poscente magis gaudeat eripi, / Interdum rapere occupet? Ie ne sçay si les exploicts de Cæsar et d’Alexandre surpassent en rudesse la resolution d’vne belle ieune femme, nourrie à nostre façon, à la lumiere et commerce du monde, battue de tant d’exemples contraires, se maintenant entiere, au milieu de mille continuelles et fortes poursuittes. Il n’y a point de faire, plus espineux, qu’est ce non faire, ny plus actif. Ie trouue plus aysé, de porter vne cuirasse toute sa vie, qu’vn pucelage.
Would you exchange all that rich Achaemenes possessed, / Or the Mygdonian wealth of fertile Phrygia, / For a lock of Licymnia’s hair, / Or the full houses of the Arabs, / While she bends her neck toward your burning kisses, / Or with easy cruelty refuses / What she would rather have snatched from her than asked for, / And sometimes is the first to snatch? I do not know whether the exploits of Caesar and Alexander surpass in toughness the resolution of a beautiful young woman. She has been brought up in our fashion, in the light and company of the world, assailed by so many contrary examples, and yet keeps herself intact in the midst of a thousand continual and strong pursuits. There is no doing more thorny, or more active, than this not doing. I find it easier to wear a suit of armor all one’s life than a virginity.
Et est le vœu de la virginité, le plus noble de tous les vœux, comme estant le plus aspre. Diaboli virtus in lumbis est: dict Sainct Ierosme.
And the vow of virginity is the noblest of all vows, as being the hardest. The devil’s strength is in the loins, says Saint Jerome.
Certes le plus ardu et le plus vigoureux des humains deuoirs, nous l’auons resigné aux dames, et leur en quittons la gloire. Cela leur doit seruir d’vn singulier esguillon à s’y opiniastrer. C’est vne belle matiere à nous brauer, et à fouler aux pieds, cette vaine preeminence de valeur et de vertu, que nous pretendons sur elles. Elles trouueront, si elles s’en prennent garde, qu’elles en seront non seulement tres-estimees, mais aussi plus aymees. Vn galant homme n’abandonne point sa poursuitte, pour estre refusé, pourueu que ce soit vn refus de chasteté, non de choix. Nous auons beau iurer et menasser, et nous plaindre: nous mentons, nous les en aymons mieux. Il n’est point de pareil leurre, que la sagesse, non rude, et renfrongnee.
Certainly we have handed over to the ladies the most arduous and vigorous of human duties, and we leave them the glory of it. That ought to serve them as a singular spur to persist in it. It is a fine occasion for them to defy us and trample underfoot that empty pre-eminence in valor and virtue that we claim over them. They will find, if they take note, that it will make them not only highly esteemed but also more loved. A gallant man does not abandon his pursuit because he is refused, provided it is a refusal of chastity, not of choice. We may swear and threaten and complain all we like: we are lying; we love them the better for it. There is no lure like virtue, so long as it is not harsh and scowling.
C’est stupidité et lascheté, de s’opiniastrer contre la hayne et le mespris. Mais contre vne resolution vertueuse et constante, meslee d’vne volonté recognoissante, c’est l’exercice d’vne ame noble et genereuse. Elles peuuent recognoistre nos seruices, iusques à certaine mesure, et nous faire sentir honnestement qu’elles ne nous desdaignent pas. Car cette loy qui leur commande de nous abominer, par ce que nous les adorons, et nous hayr de ce que nous les aymons: elle est certes cruelle, ne fust que de sa difficulté. Pourquoy n’orront elles noz offres et noz demandes, autant qu’elles se contiennent sous le deuoir de la modestie? Que va lon deuinant, qu’elles sonnent au dedans, quelque sens plus libre?
It is stupidity and cowardice to persist against hatred and contempt. But to persist against a virtuous and constant resolution mingled with a grateful will is the exercise of a noble and generous soul. They may acknowledge our services up to a certain point and let us feel, decently, that they do not disdain us. For that law which commands them to abominate us because we adore them, and to hate us because we love them, is certainly cruel, if only because it is so hard. Why should they not listen to our offers and our requests, so long as they keep within the bounds of modesty? Why go guessing that inwardly they hear some freer meaning?
Vne Royne de nostre temps, disoit ingenieusement, que de refuser ces abbors, c’est tesmoignage de foiblesse, et accusation de sa propre facilité: et qu’vne dame non tentee, ne se pouuoit venter de sa chasteté. Les limites de l’honneur ne sont pas retranchez du tout si court: il a dequoy se relascher, il peut se dispenser aucunement sans se forfaire. Au bout de sa frontiere, il y a quelque estendue, libre, indifferente, et neutre. Qui l’a peu chasser et acculer à force, iusques dans son coin et son fort: c’est vn mal habile homme s’il n’est satisfaict de sa fortune. Le prix de la victoire se considere par la difficulté. Voulez vous sçauoir quelle impression a faict en son cœur, vostre seruitude et vostre merite?
A queen of our time used to say, ingeniously, that refusing these approaches is a sign of weakness and an admission of one’s own easiness, and that a lady who has not been tempted cannot boast of her chastity. The limits of honor are not cut so very short. It has room to relax; it can take some liberties without forfeiting itself. At the edge of its frontier there is a stretch that is free, indifferent and neutral. Whoever has managed to chase it and drive it by force right into its corner and its stronghold is a clumsy fellow if he is not satisfied with his luck. The prize of victory is measured by its difficulty. Do you want to know what impression your devotion and your merit have made on her heart?
mesurez-le à ses mœurs. Telle peut donner plus, qui ne donne pas tant. L’obligation du bien-faict, se rapporte entierement à la volonté de celuy qui donne: les autres circonstances qui tombent au bien faire, sont muettes, mortes et casueles. Ce peu luy couste plus à donner, qu’à sa compaigne son tout. Si en quelque chose la rareté sert d’estimation, ce doit estre en cecy. Ne regardez pas combien peu c’est, mais combien peu l’ont. La valeur de la monnoye se change selon le coin et, la merque du lieu. Quoy que le despit et l’indiscretion d’aucuns leur puisse faire dire, sur l’excez de leur mescontentement: tousiours la vertu et la verité regaigne son auantage.
Measure it by her character. One woman may give more who does not give as much. The obligation created by a benefit depends entirely on the will of the giver; the other circumstances that attend the giving are mute, dead and accidental. That little costs her more to give than her all costs her companion. If rarity is a ground for esteem in anything, it must be in this. Look not at how little it is, but at how few have had it. The value of a coin changes with the stamp and mark of the place. Whatever spite and indiscretion may make some men say in the excess of their discontent, virtue and truth always regain the advantage.
I’en ay veu, desquelles la reputation a esté long temps interessee par iniure, s’estre remises en l’approbation vniuerselle des hommes, par leur seule constance, sans soing et sans artifice: chacun se repent et se desment, de ce qu’il en a creu. De filles vn peu suspectes, elles tiennent le premier rang entre les dames d’honneur. Quelqu’vn disoit à Platon: Tout le monde mesdit de vous. Laissez les dire, fit-il: ie viuray de façon, que ie leur feray changer de langage. Outre la crainte de Dieu, et le prix d’vne gloire si rare, qui les doibt inciter à se conseruer, la corruption de ce siecle les y force.
I have seen women whose reputation had long been damaged by slander win back the universal approval of men by their constancy alone, without effort and without artifice. Everyone repents and retracts what he had believed of them. From being girls under some suspicion, they hold the first rank among ladies of honor. Someone said to Plato, “Everyone speaks ill of you.” “Let them talk,” he said. “I will live in such a way that I make them change their tune.” Besides the fear of God and the prize of so rare a glory, which should incite them to preserve themselves, the corruption of this age forces them to it.
Et si i’estois en leur place, il n’est rien que ie ne fisse plustost que de commettre ma reputation en mains si dangereuses. De mon temps, le plaisir d’en comter (plaisir qui ne doit guere en douceur à celuy mesme de l’effect) n’estoit permis qu’à ceux qui auoient quelque amy fidelle et vnique: à present les entretiens ordinaires des assemblees et des tables, ce sont les vanteries des faueurs receuës, et liberalité secrette des dames. Vrayement c’est trop d’abiection, et de bassesse de cœur, de laisser ainsi fierement persecuter, paistrir, et fourrager ces tendres et mignardes douceurs, à des personnes ingrates, indiscretes, et si volages.
And if I were in their place, there is nothing I would not do sooner than entrust my reputation to such dangerous hands. In my time, the pleasure of telling about it (a pleasure hardly less sweet than that of the act itself) was permitted only to those who had a single faithful friend. Nowadays the ordinary talk at gatherings and at table is all boasting about favors received and the secret generosity of ladies. Truly it is too abject and base-hearted to let those tender, dainty sweetnesses be so fiercely persecuted, kneaded and plundered by people so ungrateful, indiscreet and fickle.
Jealousy
Jealousy, the most futile of passions, makes cuckoldry worse and cannot be cured.
Cette nostre exasperation immoderee, et illegitime, contre ce vice, naist de la plus vaine et tempesteuse maladie qui afflige les ames humaines, qui est la ialousie. Quis vetat apposito lumen de lumine sumi? / Dent licet assiduè, nil tamen inde perit. Celle-là, et l’enuie sa sœur, me semblent des plus ineptes de la trouppe. De cette-cy, ie n’en puis gueres parler: cette passion qu’on peint si forte et si puissante, n’a de sa grace aucune addresse en moy. Quant à l’autre, ie la cognois, au moins de veuë. Les bestes en ont ressentiment. Le pasteur Cratis estant tombé en l’amour d’vne cheure, son bouc, ainsi qu’il dormoit, luy vint par ialousie choquer la teste, de la sienne, et la luy escraza.
This immoderate and illegitimate exasperation of ours against this vice is born of the most futile and stormy malady that afflicts human souls, which is jealousy. Who forbids taking light from a light set beside it? / Though they give constantly, nothing is lost by it. Jealousy and its sister envy seem to me among the most foolish of the troop. Of envy I can hardly speak: that passion, painted as so strong and powerful, has kindly found no way into me. As for the other, I know it, at least by sight. Animals feel it. The shepherd Cratis fell in love with a she-goat, and while he slept her billy goat came out of jealousy and butted his head with its own, and crushed it.
Nous auons monté l’excez de cette fieure, à l’exemple d’aucunes nations barbares. Les mieux disciplinees en ont esté touchees: c’est raison: mais non pas transportees: Ense maritali nemo confossus adulter, / Purpureo Stygias sanguine tinxit aquas. Lucullus, Cæsar, Pompeius, Antonius, Caton, et d’autres braues hommes, furent cocus, et le sçeurent, sans en exciter tumulte. Il n’y eut en ce temps là, qu’vn sot de Lepidus, qui en mourut d’angoisse. *Ah!
We have raised the excess of this fever after the example of certain barbarous nations. The best-disciplined nations have been touched by it, which is reasonable, but not carried away by it: No adulterer, pierced by a husband’s sword, / Has dyed the waters of the Styx with his crimson blood. Lucullus, Caesar, Pompey, Antony, Cato and other brave men were cuckolds and knew it, without making a commotion about it. In those days there was only one fool, Lepidus, who died of anguish over it. *Ah!
tum te miserum malique fati, / Quem attractis pedibus, patente porta, / Percurrent mugilésque raphanique. Et le Dieu de nostre poëte, quand il surprint auec sa femme l’vn de ses compagnons, se contenta de leur en faire honte: Atque aliquis de Diis non tristibus optat, / Sic fieri turpis. Et ne laisse pourtant de s’eschauffer des molles caresses, qu’elle luy offre: se plaignant qu’elle soit pour cela entree en deffiance de son affection: Quid causas petis ex alto? fiducia cessit / Quo tibi, Diua, mei? Voyre elle luy fait requeste pour vn sien bastard, Arma rogo genitrix nato: qui luy est liberalement accordee. Et parle Vulcan d’Æneas auec honneur: Arma acri facienda viro.* D’vne humanité à la verité plus qu’humaine.
then, poor wretch, of evil fate, / With your legs pulled apart and the door wide open, / Mullets and radishes will run you through! And our poet’s god, when he caught one of his companions with his wife, was content to put them to shame: And one of the gods, not among the gloomy ones, wishes / He might be so disgraced. Yet he still warms to the soft caresses she offers him, and complains that she has come to distrust his affection on that account: Why seek reasons from so far back? Where, goddess, / Has your trust in me gone? She even makes a request of him for an illegitimate son of hers, Arms I ask, a mother for her son, which he generously grants. And Vulcan speaks of Aeneas with honor: Arms must be made for a valiant man.* A humanity, in truth, more than human.
Et cet excez de bonté, ie consens qu’on le quitte aux Dieux: Nec diuis homines componier æquum est.
And this excess of goodness I agree to leave to the gods: Nor is it right to compare men with gods.
Quant à la confusion des enfans, outre ce que les plus graues legislateurs l’ordonnent et l’affectent en leurs republiques, elle ne touche pas les femmes, où cette passion est ie ne sçay comment encore mieux en siege. Sæpe etiam Iuno, maxima cælicolum, / Coniugis in culpa flagrauit quotidiana. Lors que la ialousie saisit ces pauures ames, foibles, et sans resistance, c’est pitié, comme elle les tirasse et tyrannise cruellement. Elle s’y insinue sous tiltre d’amitié: mais depuis qu’elle les possede, les mesmes causes qui seruoient de fondement à la bien-vueillance, seruent de fondement de hayne capitale: c’est des maladies d’esprit celle, à qui plus de choses seruent d’aliment, et moins de choses de remede.
As for the confusion of children, the gravest lawgivers ordain and favor it in their republics. Besides, it does not concern women, in whom this passion is, I know not how, even more firmly seated. Often even Juno, greatest of the heaven-dwellers, / Has blazed with anger at her husband’s daily faults. When jealousy seizes these poor souls, weak and without resistance, it is pitiful to see how cruelly it pulls them about and tyrannizes them. It creeps in under the name of affection. But once it possesses them, the very causes that served as the foundation of goodwill serve as the foundation of mortal hatred. Of all the diseases of the mind, it is the one that the most things feed and the fewest things cure.
La vertu, la santé, le merite, la reputation du mary, sont les boutefeux de leur maltalent et de leur rage. Nullæ sunt inimicitiæ, nisi amoris, acerbæ. Cette fiéure laidit et corrompt tout ce qu’elles ont de bel et de bon d’ailleurs. Et d’vne femme ialouse, quelque chaste qu’elle soit, et mesnagere, il n’est action qui ne sente l’aigre et l’importun. C’est vne agitation enragee, qui les reiette à vne extremité du tout contraire à sa cause. Il fut bon d’vn Octauius à Rome. Ayant couché auec Pontia Posthumia, il augmenta son affection par la iouyssance, et poursuyuit à toute instance de l’espouser: ne la pouuant persuader, cet amour extreme le precipita aux effects de la plus cruelle et mortelle inimitié: il la tua.
The husband’s virtue, health, merit and reputation are the firebrands of their spite and their rage. No enmities are bitter but those of love. This fever disfigures and corrupts all that is otherwise fine and good in them. In a jealous woman, however chaste and however good a housekeeper she may be, there is no action that does not smack of sourness and nagging. It is a frenzied agitation that throws them to an extreme wholly contrary to its cause. A fine example was one Octavius in Rome. He had lain with Pontia Postumia, and his affection grew through enjoyment, so that he pressed her with all urgency to marry him. Unable to persuade her, this extreme love drove him headlong into acts of the cruelest and deadliest enmity: he killed her.
Pareillement les symptomes ordinaires de cette autre maladie amoureuse, ce sont haines intestines, monopoles, coniurations: Notumque, furens quid fæmina possit: et vne rage, qui se ronge d’autant plus, qu’elle est contraincte de s’excuser du pretexte de bien-vueillance.
Likewise, the usual symptoms of this other amorous malady are internal hatreds, cabals and conspiracies, And it is known what a raging woman can do, and a rage that gnaws at itself all the more for being forced to excuse itself under the pretext of goodwill.
Or le deuoir de chasteté, a vne grande estendue. Est-ce la volonté que nous voulons qu’elles brident? C’est vne piece bien soupple et actiue. Elle a beaucoup de promptitude pour la pouuoir arrester. Comment? si les songes les engagent par fois si auant, qu’elles ne s’en puissent desdire. Il n’est pas en elles, ny à l’aduanture en la chasteté mesme, puis qu’elle est femelle, de se deffendre des concupiscences et du desirer. Si leur volonté seule nous interesse où en sommes nous? Imaginez la grand’ presse, à qui auroit ce priuilege, d’estre porté tout empenné, sans yeux, et sans langue, sur le poinct de chacune qui l’accepteroit.
Now the duty of chastity covers a lot of ground. Is it the will that we want them to rein in? That is a very supple and active piece, far too quick to be stopped. What then, if dreams sometimes engage them so deeply that they cannot disown them? It is not in their power, nor perhaps in the power of Chastity herself, since she is female, to defend themselves against lusts and desiring. If their will alone concerns us, where are we? Imagine the great crush of men competing for the privilege of being carried, fully winged, with no eyes and no tongue, to each woman at the moment she would accept him.
Les femmes Scythes creuoyent les yeux à touts leurs esclaues et prisonniers de guerre, pour s’en seruir plus librement et couuertement. O le furieux aduantage que l’opportunité! Qui me demanderoit la premiere partie en l’amour, ie respondrois, que c’est sçauoir prendre le temps: la seconde de mesme: et encore la tierce. C’est vn poinct qui peut tout. I’ay eu faute de fortune souuent, mais par fois aussi d’entreprise. Dieu gard’ de mal qui peut encores s’en moquer. Il y faut en ce siecle plus de temerité: laquelle nos ieunes gens excusent sous pretexte de chaleur. Mais si elles y regardoyent de pres, elles trouueroyent qu’elle vient plustost de mespris. Ie craignois superstitieusement d’offenser: et respecte volontiers, ce que i’ayme.
The Scythian women put out the eyes of all their slaves and prisoners of war, so as to make use of them more freely and secretly. Oh, what a tremendous advantage opportunity is! If anyone asked me what comes first in love, I would answer: knowing how to seize the moment. The second thing likewise, and the third as well. It is a point that can do everything. I have often lacked luck, but sometimes also enterprise. God keep from harm anyone who can still laugh at that! In this age it takes more boldness, which our young men excuse on the pretext of ardor. But if women looked at it closely, they would find that it comes rather from contempt. I was superstitiously afraid of giving offense, and I gladly respect what I love.
Outre ce qu’en cette marchandise, qui en oste la reuerence, en efface le lustre. I’ayme qu’on y face vn peu l’enfant, le craintif et le seruiteur. Si ce n’est du tout en cecy, i’ay d’ailleurs quelques airs de la sotte honte dequoy parle Plutarque: et en a esté le cours de ma vie blessé et taché diuersement. Qualité bien mal auenante à ma forme vniuerselle. Qu’est-il de nous aussi, que sedition et discrepance? I’ay les yeux tendres à soustenir vn refus, comme à refuser. Et me poise tant de poiser à autruy, qu’és occasions où le deuoir me force d’essayer la volonté de quelqu’vn, en chose doubteuse et qui lui couste, ie le fais maigrement et enuis.
Besides, in this traffic, take away reverence and you rub off its luster. I like a man to play the child a little in it, the timid one, the servant. If not altogether in this, then in other respects I have something of that foolish bashfulness Plutarch speaks of, and it has wounded and stained the course of my life in various ways. It is a quality that fits very badly with my general make-up. But then, what are we but sedition and discord? My eyes are as tender at bearing a refusal as at giving one. And it weighs on me so much to be a weight on others that when duty forces me to test someone’s willingness in a doubtful matter that costs him something, I do it sparingly and reluctantly.
Mais si c’est pour mon particulier, (quoy que die veritablement Homere, qu’à vn indigent c’est vne sotte vertu que la honte) i’y commets ordinairement vn tiers, qui rougisse en ma place: et esconduis ceux qui m’emploient, de pareille difficulté: si qu’il m’est aduenu par fois, d’auoir la volonté de nier, que ie n’en auois pas la force.
But if it is for my own sake (though Homer truly says that in a needy man shame is a foolish virtue), I usually hand the task to a third party, who blushes in my place. And I turn down those who call on my services with the same difficulty, so that it has sometimes happened that I had the will to refuse but not the strength.
C’est donc folie, d’essayer à brider aux femmes vn desir qui leur est si cuysant et si naturel. Et quand ie les oye se vanter d’auoir leur volonté si vierge et si froide, ie me moque d’elles. Elles se reculent trop arriere. Si c’est vne vieille esdentee decrepite, ou vne ieune seche et pulmonique: s’il n’est du tout croyable, aumoins elles ont apparence de le dire. Mais celles qui se meuuent et qui respirent encores, elles en empirent leur marché. D’autant que les excuses inconsiderees seruent d’accusation.
It is folly, then, to try to bridle in women a desire so burning and so natural to them. And when I hear them boast that their will is so virginal and so cold, I laugh at them. They draw back too far. If it is a toothless, decrepit old woman, or a young one who is dried up and consumptive, then even if it is not quite believable, at least they have some plausibility in saying it. But those who still move and breathe only make their bargain worse, since rash excuses serve as accusations.
Comme vn Gentilhomme de mes voysins, qu’on soupçonnoit d’impuissance: Languidior tenera cui pendens sicula beta, / Numquam se mediam sustulit ad tunicam: trois ou quatre iours apres ses nopces, alla iurer tout hardiment, pour se iustifier, qu’il auoit faict vingt postes la nuict precedente: dequoy on s’est seruy depuis à le conuaincre de pure ignorance, et à le desmarier. Outre, que ce n’est rien dire qui vaille. Car il n’y a ny continence ny vertu, s’il n’y a de l’effort au contraire. Il est vray, faut-il dire, mais ie ne suis pas preste à me rendre. Les saincts mesmes parlent ainsi.
Take a gentleman, a neighbor of mine, who was suspected of impotence: whose little dagger, hanging limper than a tender beet, / never once rose as high as the middle of his tunic. Three or four days after his wedding he went and swore quite boldly, to clear himself, that he had ridden twenty stages the night before. This was later used to convict him of sheer ignorance and to unmarry him. Besides, such talk is worth nothing. For there is neither continence nor virtue if there is no effort to the contrary. “It is true,” they should say, “but I am not ready to surrender.” Even the saints talk like this.
S’entend, de celles qui se vantent en bon escient, de leur froideur et insensibilité, et qui veulent en estre creuës d’vn visage serieux: car quand c’est d’vn visage affeté, où les yeux dementent leurs parolles, et du iargon de leur profession, qui porte coup à contrepoil, ie le trouue bon. Ie suis fort seruiteur de la nayfueté et de la liberté: mais il n’y a remede, si elle n’est du tout niaise ou enfantine, elle est inepte, et messeante aux dames en ce commerce: elle gauchit incontinent sur l’impudence. Leurs desguisements et leurs figures ne trompent que les sots: le mentir y est en siege d’honneur: c’est vn destour qui nous conduit à la verité, par vne fauce porte.
I mean those who boast in earnest of their coldness and insensibility and want to be believed with a straight face. When it is with an affected face, where the eyes give the lie to their words, and in the jargon of their profession, which hits home by working against the grain, I find it fine. I am a great devotee of naturalness and freedom; but there is no help for it: unless it is altogether simple or childlike, it is inept and unbecoming to ladies in these dealings, and it swerves at once into impudence. Their disguises and figures of speech deceive only fools. Lying there holds the place of honor: it is a detour that leads us to the truth by a back door.
Si nous ne pouuons contenir leur imagination, que voulons nous d’elles? les effects? Il en est assez qui eschappent à toute communication estrangere, par lesquels la chasteté peult estre corrompue. Illud sæpe facit, quod sine teste facit. Et ceux que nous craignons le moins, sont à l’auanture les plus à craindre. Leurs pechez muets sont les pires. Offendor mœcha simpliciore minus. Il est des effects, qui peuuent perdre sans impudicité leur pudicité: et qui plus est, sans leur sçeu. Obstetrix, virginis cuiusdam integritatem manu velut explorans, siue maleuolentia, siue inscitia, siue casu, dum inspicit, perdidit. Telle a adiré sa virginité, pour l’auoir cerchee: telle s’en esbattant l’a tuee. Nous ne sçaurions leur circonscrire precisement les actions que nous leur deffendons.
If we cannot restrain their imagination, what do we want from them? Deeds? There are plenty that escape any outside knowledge, by which chastity can be corrupted. She often does it—the thing she does without a witness. And the deeds we fear least are perhaps the most to be feared. Their silent sins are the worst. A more open adulteress offends me less. There are acts by which they can lose their chastity without unchastity, and what is more, without their knowledge. A midwife, testing a certain virgin’s integrity by hand, whether through malice, clumsiness or accident, destroyed it while examining it. One woman has lost her virginity by looking for it; another has killed it by toying with it. We could never precisely mark out for them the actions we forbid them.
Il faut conceuoir nostre loy, soubs parolles generalles et incertaines. L’idee mesme que nous forgeons à leur chasteté est ridicule. Car entre les extremes patrons que i’en aye, c’est Fatua femme de Faunus, qui ne se laissa voir oncques puis ses nopces à masle quelconque. Et la femme de Hieron, qui ne sentoit pas son mary punais, estimant que ce fust vne qualité commune à tous hommes. Il faut qu’elles deuiennent insensibles et inuisibles, pour nous satisfaire.
We have to frame our law in general and vague terms. The very idea we forge of their chastity is ridiculous. For among the most extreme models of it that I know are Fatua, wife of Faunus, who after her marriage never let herself be seen by any male whatever; and the wife of Hiero, who did not notice that her husband’s breath stank, thinking it a quality common to all men. They must become insensible and invisible to satisfy us.
Or confessons que le neud du iugement de ce deuoir, gist principallement en la volonté. Il y a eu des maris qui ont souffert cet accident, non seulement sans reproche et offence enuers leurs femmes, mais auec singuliere obligation et recommandation de leur vertu. Telle, qui aymoit mieux son honneur que sa vie, l’a prostitué à l’appetit forcené d’vn mortel ennemy, pour sauuer la vie à son mary: et a faict pour luy ce qu’elle n’eust aucunement faict pour soy. Ce n’est pas icy le lieu d’estendre ces exemples: ils sont trop hauts et trop riches, pour estre representez en ce lustre: gardons-les à vn plus noble siege.
Now let us admit that the crux in judging this duty lies chiefly in the will. There have been husbands who suffered this mishap not only without reproaching or resenting their wives, but with singular gratitude and praise for their virtue. Some woman who loved her honor more than her life has prostituted it to the frenzied appetite of a mortal enemy to save her husband’s life, and has done for him what she would never have done for herself. This is not the place to expand on these examples: they are too lofty and too rich to be shown in this light. Let us keep them for a nobler setting.
Mais pour des exemples de lustre plus vulgaire: est-il pas tous les iours des femmes entre nous qui pour la seule vtilité de leurs maris se prestent, et par leur expresse ordonnance et entremise? Et anciennement Phaulius l’Argien offrit la sienne au Roy Philippus par ambition: tout ainsi que par ciuilité ce Galba qui auoit donné à souper à Mecenas, voyant que sa femme et luy commançoient à comploter d’œuillades et de signes, se laissa couler sur son coussin, representant vn homme aggraué de sommeil: pour faire espaule à leurs amours.
But for examples of a more ordinary light: are there not women among us every day who lend themselves out solely for their husbands’ profit, and by their express order and arrangement? And in ancient times Phaulius of Argos offered his wife to King Philip out of ambition; just as, out of courtesy, that Galba who had given a supper for Maecenas, seeing his wife and his guest begin to conspire with glances and signs, let himself slide down onto his cushion, playing a man heavy with sleep, to give their love affair a helping hand.
Ce qu’il aduoua d’assez bonne grace: car sur ce poinct, vn valet ayant pris la hardiesse de porter la main sur les vases, qui estoient sur la table: il luy cria tout franchement: Comment coquin? vois tu pas que ie ne dors que pour Mecenas? Telle a les mœurs desbordees, qui a la volonté plus reformee que n’a cet’ autre, qui se conduit soubs vne apparence reglee. Comme nous en voyons, qui se plaignent d’auoir esté vouees à chasteté, auant l’aage de cognoissance: i’en ay veu aussi, se plaindre veritablement, d’auoir esté vouees à la desbauche, auant l’aage de cognoissance. Le vice des parens en peut estre cause: ou la force du besoing, qui est vn rude conseiller.
He owned up to this with rather good grace: for at that point, when a servant made bold to lay hands on the vessels on the table, he cried out to him quite frankly: “What, you rascal? Can’t you see I am only sleeping for Maecenas?” One woman whose morals are loose may have a more reformed will than another who conducts herself with an orderly appearance. Just as we see some women complain of having been vowed to chastity before the age of discretion, I have also seen some complain, truthfully, of having been vowed to debauchery before the age of discretion. The vice of the parents may be the cause, or the force of need, which is a harsh counselor.
Aux Indes Orientales, la chasteté y estant en singuliere recommandation, l’vsage pourtant souffroit, qu’vne femme mariee se peust abandonner à qui luy presentoit vn elephant: et cela, auec quelque gloire d’auoir esté estimee à si haut prix. Phedon le philosophe, homme de maison, apres la prinse de son païs d’Elide, feit mestier de prostituer, autant qu’elle dura, la beauté de sa ieunesse, à qui en voulut, à prix d’argent, pour en viure. Et Solon fut le premier en la Grece, dit-on, qui par ses loix, donna liberté aux femmes aux despens de leur pudicité de prouuoir au besoing de leur vie: coustume qu’Herodote dit auoir esté receuë auant luy, en plusieurs polices. Et puis, quel fruit de cette penible sollicitude?
In the East Indies, though chastity was held in singular esteem, custom nevertheless allowed a married woman to give herself to anyone who presented her with an elephant, and that with some glory at having been valued at so high a price. Phaedo the philosopher, a man of good family, after his homeland, Elis, was captured, made a trade of prostituting the beauty of his youth, as long as it lasted, to anyone who wanted it, for money, in order to live. And Solon was the first in Greece, they say, to give women by his laws the freedom to provide for their livelihood at the expense of their chastity—a custom that Herodotus says had been accepted before him in several states. And then, what comes of all this painful anxiety?
Car quelque iustice, qu’il y ayt en cette passion, encore faudroit-il voir si elle nous charie vtilement. Est-il quelqu’vn, qui les pense boucler par son industrie? Pone seram, cohibe: sed quis custodiet ipsos / Custodes? cauta est, et ab illis incipit vxor. Quelle commodité ne leur est suffisante, en vn siecle si sçauant?
For whatever justice there may be in this passion, we should still see whether it carries us anywhere useful. Is there anyone who thinks he can lock them up by his own ingenuity? Put on a bolt, keep her confined; but who will guard / the guards themselves? Your wife is crafty and begins with them. What opportunity is not enough for them, in so knowing an age?
La curiosité est vicieuse par tout: mais elle est pernicieuse icy. C’est folie de vouloir s’esclaircir d’vn mal, auquel il n’y a point de medecine, qui ne l’empire et le rengrege: duquel la honte s’augmente et se publie principalement par la ialousie: duquel la vengeance blesse plus nos enfans, qu’elle ne nous guerit. Vous assechez et mourez à la queste d’vne si obscure verification. Combien piteusement y sont arriuez ceux de mon temps, qui en sont venus à bout? Si l’aduertisseur n’y presente quand et quand le remede et son secours, c’est vn aduertissement iniurieux, et qui merite mieux vn coup de poignard, que ne faict vn dementir.
Curiosity is a vice everywhere, but here it is pernicious. It is folly to want to get to the bottom of an ill for which there is no medicine that does not worsen and aggravate it; whose shame is increased and made public chiefly by jealousy; whose revenge wounds our children more than it heals us. You wither and die in pursuit of so obscure a verification. How pitifully those in my time who succeeded in it have fared! If the informer does not offer the remedy and his help at the same time, his warning is an insult, and deserves a dagger thrust more than being called a liar does.
On ne se moque pas moins de celuy qui est en peine d’y pouruoir, que de celuy qui l’ignore. Le charactere de la cornardise est indelebile: à qui il est vne fois attaché, il l’est tousiours. Le chastiement l’exprime plus, que la faute. Il faict beau voir, arracher de l’ombre et du doubte, nos malheurs priuez, pour les trompeter en eschaffaux tragiques: et malheurs, qui ne pinsent, que par le rapport. Car bonne femme et bon mariage, se dit, non de qui l’est, mais duquel on se taist. Il faut estre ingenieux à euiter cette ennuyeuse et inutile cognoissance. Et auoyent les Romains en coustume, reuenans de voyage, d’enuoyer au deuant en la maison, faire sçauoir leur arriuee aux femmes, pour ne les surprendre.
People laugh no less at the man who goes to the trouble of remedying it than at the man who knows nothing about it. The mark of cuckoldry is indelible: once it is attached to a man, it stays with him forever. The punishment shows it more than the fault does. It is a fine sight, to drag our private misfortunes out of shadow and doubt and trumpet them on tragic stages—misfortunes that sting only by being reported. For a good wife and a good marriage are so called not when they are so, but when nobody talks about them. We must be clever at avoiding this distressing and useless knowledge. The Romans had the custom, when returning from a journey, of sending someone ahead to the house to let their wives know they were coming, so as not to surprise them.
Et pourtant a introduit certaine nation, que le prestre ouure le pas à l’espousee, le iour des nopces: pour oster au marié, le doubte et la curiosité, de cercher en ce premier essay, si elle vient à luy vierge, ou blessee d’vne amour estrangere.
And that is why a certain nation introduced the practice that the priest opens the way for the bride on the wedding day, to spare the groom the doubt and the curiosity of trying to find out, in this first trial, whether she comes to him a virgin or wounded by another’s love.
Mais le monde en parle. Ie sçay cent honnestes hommes coquus, honnestement et peu indecemment. Vn galant homme en est pleint, non pas desestimé. Faites que vostre vertu estouffe votre malheur: que les gens de bien en maudissent l’occasion: que celuy qui vous offence, tremble seulement à le penser. Et puis, de qui ne parle on en ce sens, depuis le petit iusques au plus grand? Tot qui legionibus imperitauit, / Et melior quàm tu multis fuit, improbe, rebus. Voys tu qu’on engage en ce reproche tant d’honnestes hommes en ta presence, pense qu’on ne t’espargne non plus ailleurs. Mais iusques aux dames elles s’en moqueront. Et dequoy se moquent elles en ce temps plus volontiers, que d’vn mariage paisible et bien composé?
“But people talk about it.” I know a hundred honorable men who are cuckolds, honorably and with little indecency. A gallant man is pitied for it, not thought less of. See to it that your virtue smothers your misfortune; that good men curse the occasion of it; that the man who wrongs you trembles merely to think of it. And then, who is not talked of in this way, from the least to the greatest? He who commanded so many legions, / and was a better man than you, scoundrel, in many ways. When you see so many honorable men implicated in this reproach in your presence, consider that you are not spared elsewhere either. “But even the ladies will laugh at it.” And what do they laugh at more readily these days than a peaceful and well-ordered marriage?
Chacun de vous a fait quelqu’vn coqu: or nature est toute en pareilles, en compensation et vicissitude. La frequence de cet accident, en doibt mes-huy auoir moderé l’aigreur: le voyla tantost passé en coustume.
Each of you has made someone a cuckold; and nature deals entirely in like for like, in compensation and turn about. The frequency of this mishap must by now have tempered its bitterness: it will soon have passed into custom.
Miserable passion, qui a cecy encore, d’estre incommunicable. Fors etiam nostris inuidit questibus aures. Car à quel amy osez vous fier vos doleances: qui, s’il ne s’en rit, ne s’en serue d’acheminement et d’instruction pour prendre luy-mesme sa part à la curee? Les aigreurs comme les douceurs du mariage se tiennent secrettes par les sages. Et parmy les autres importunes conditions, qui se trouuent en iceluy, cette cy à vn homme languager, comme ie suis, est des principales: que la coustume rende indecent et nuisible, qu’on communique à personne tout ce qu’on en sçait, et qu’on en sent.
A wretched passion, which has this further feature: that it cannot be shared. Fortune has even begrudged ears to our complaints. For what friend do you dare confide your grievances to, who, if he does not laugh at them, will not use them as a lead and a lesson for taking his own share of the spoils? The bitternesses of marriage, like its sweetnesses, are kept secret by the wise. And among the other troublesome conditions found in it, this one, for a talkative man like me, is among the chief: that custom makes it indecent and harmful to tell anyone all that one knows and feels about it.
De leur donner mesme conseil à elles, pour les desgouter de la ialousie, ce seroit temps perdu: leur essence est si confite en soupçon, en vanité et en curiosité, que de les guarir par voye legitime, il ne faut pas l’esperer. Elles s’amendent souuent de cet inconuenient, par vne forme de santé, beaucoup plus à craindre que n’est la maladie mesme. Car comme il y a des enchantemens, qui ne sçauent pas oster le mal, qu’en le rechargeant à vn autre, elles reiettent ainsi volontiers cette fieure à leurs maris, quand elles la perdent. Toutesfois à dire vray, ie ne sçay si on peut souffrir d’elles pis que la ialousie. C’est la plus dangereuse de leurs conditions, comme de leurs membres, la teste.
As for giving advice to the women themselves, to wean them from jealousy, that would be time lost. Their essence is so steeped in suspicion, vanity and curiosity that we must not hope to cure them by legitimate means. They often recover from this affliction through a kind of health much more to be feared than the illness itself. For as there are spells that can remove an ailment only by loading it onto someone else, so they readily throw this fever back onto their husbands when they lose it. Yet, to tell the truth, I do not know whether one can suffer anything worse from them than jealousy. It is the most dangerous of their conditions, as the head is of their members.
Pittacus disoit, que chacun auoit son defaut: que le sien estoit la mauuaise teste de sa femme: hors cela, il s’estimeroit de tout point heureux. C’est vn bien poisant inconuenient, duquel vn personnage si iuste, si sage, si vaillant, sentoit tout l’estat de sa vie alteré. Que deuons nous faire nous autres hommenets? Le Senat de Marseille eut raison, d’interiner sa requeste à celuy qui demandoit permission de se tuer, pour s’exempter de la tempeste de sa femme: car c’est vn mal, qui ne s’emporte iamais qu’en emportant la piece: et qui n’a autre composition qui vaille, que la fuitte, ou la souffrance: quoy que toutes les deux, tres-difficiles.
Pittacus said that everyone had his defect, and that his was his wife’s bad head; apart from that, he would think himself happy in every respect. It is a very heavy affliction, if so just, so wise, so valiant a personage felt the whole state of his life altered by it. What are we little manikins to do? The Senate of Marseille was right to grant the request of the man who asked permission to kill himself to escape his wife’s storms. For it is an ill that is never removed except by removing the whole piece, and that admits of no settlement worth anything but flight or endurance—though both are very hard.
Celuy là s’y entendoit, ce me semble, qui dit qu’vn bon mariage se dressoit d’vne femme aueugle, auec vn mary sourd.
He knew what he was talking about, it seems to me, who said that a good marriage was made of a blind wife and a deaf husband.
Regardons aussi que cette grande et violente aspreté d’obligation, que nous leur enioignons, ne produise deux effects contraires à nostre fin: à sçauoir, qu’elle aiguise les poursuyuants, et face les femmes plus faciles à se rendre. Car quant au premier point, montant le prix de la place, nous montons le prix et le desir de la conqueste. Seroit-ce pas Venus mesme, qui eust ainsi finement haussé le cheuet à sa marchandise, par le maquerelage des loix: cognoissant combien c’est vn sot desduit, qui ne le feroit valoir par fantasie et par cherté? En fin c’est toute chair de porc, que la sauce diuersifie, comme disoit l’hoste de Flaminius. Cupidon est vn Dieu felon. Il fait son ieu, à luitter la deuotion et la iustice.
Let us also take care that this great and violent harshness of obligation that we impose on them does not produce two effects contrary to our purpose: namely, that it whets the pursuers and makes the women readier to surrender. As to the first point, by raising the value of the fortress we raise the value of the conquest and the desire for it. Might it not be Venus herself who so cleverly raised the price of her wares through the pimping of the laws, knowing what a silly pastime it is unless fancy and costliness give it value? In the end it is all pork, varied only by the sauce, as Flamininus’s host used to say. Cupid is a treacherous god. His game is to wrestle with devotion and justice.
C’est sa gloire, que sa puissance chocque tout’ autre puissance, et que toutes autres regles cedent aux siennes. Materiam culpæ prosequitúrque suæ. Et quant au second poinct: serions nous pas moins coqus, si nous craignions moins de l’estre? suyuant la complexion des femmes: car la deffence les incite et conuie. Vbi velis nolunt, vbi nolis volunt vltrò: / Concessa pudet ire via. Quelle meilleure interpretation trouuerions nous au faict de Messalina? Elle fit au commencement son mary coqu à cachetes, comme il se faict: mais conduisant ses parties trop aysément, par la stupidité qui estoit en luy, elle desdaigna soudain cet vsage: la voyla à faire l’amour à la descouuerte, aduoüer des seruiteurs, les entretenir et les fauoriser à la veüe d’vn chacun.
It is his glory that his power clashes with every other power, and that all other rules give way to his. And he goes after the occasion of his own offense. As to the second point: would we not be cuckolded less if we were less afraid of it, given the temperament of women? For prohibition incites and invites them. Where you will, they won’t; where you won’t, they want to of their own accord. / They are ashamed to go by the permitted road. What better interpretation could we find for the case of Messalina? At first she cuckolded her husband on the sly, as is done; but since she managed her affairs too easily, thanks to his stupidity, she suddenly scorned that practice. There she was, making love in the open, acknowledging her lovers, keeping them and favoring them in everyone’s sight.
Elle vouloit qu’il s’en ressentist. Cet animal ne se pouuant esueiller pour tout cela, et luy rendant ses plaisirs mols et fades, par cette trop lasche facilité, par laquelle il sembloit qu’il les authorisast et legitimast: que fit elle? Femme d’vn Empereur sain et viuant, et à Rome, au theatre du monde, en plein midy, en feste et ceremonie publique, et auec Silius, duquel elle iouyssoit long temps deuant, elle se marie vn iour que son mary estoit hors de la ville. Semble-il pas qu’elle s’acheminast à deuenir chaste, par la nonchallance de son mary? Ou qu’elle cherchast vn autre mary, qui luy aiguisast l’appetit par sa ialousie, et qui en luy insistant, l’incitast? Mais la premiere difficulté qu’elle rencontra, fut aussi la derniere.
She wanted him to feel it. When the beast could not be roused for all that, and made her pleasures soft and insipid by this too lax indulgence, by which he seemed to authorize and legitimize them, what did she do? Wife of an emperor alive and in good health, in Rome, the theater of the world, at high noon, amid public feast and ceremony, she married Silius, whom she had long been enjoying, one day when her husband was out of the city. Does it not seem that she was on her way to becoming chaste through her husband’s indifference? Or that she was looking for another husband who would whet her appetite by his jealousy, and spur her on by resisting her? But the first difficulty she met was also the last.
Cette beste s’esueilla en sursaut. On a souuent pire marché de ces sourdaux endormis. I’ay veu par experience, que cette extreme souffrance, quand elle vient à se desnoüer, produit des vengeances plus aspres. Car prenant feu tout à coup, la cholere et la fureur s’emmoncelant en vn, esclatte tous ses efforts à la premiere charge. Irarúmque omnes effundit habenas. Il la fit mourir, et grand nombre de ceux de son intelligence: iusques à tel qui n’en pouuoit mais, et qu’elle auoit conuié à son lict à coups d’escourgee.
The beast woke with a start. One often gets the worst of the bargain with these sleepy deaf fellows. I have seen by experience that this extreme forbearance, when it comes to break loose, produces the harshest revenges. For catching fire all at once, with anger and fury heaped into one, it bursts out with all its force at the first charge. And he lets loose all the reins of his wrath. He put her to death, along with a great number of those in her confidence—even one who could not help it, and whom she had summoned to her bed with lashes of the whip.
The language of the poets
Virgil and Lucretius show how vigor of thought makes words full and living.
Ce que Virgile dit de Venus et de Vulcan, Lucrece l’auoit dict plus sortablement, d’vne iouyssance desrobee, d’elle et de Mars. Belli fera mœnera Mauors / Armipotens regit, in gremium qui sæpe tuum se / Reiicit, æterno deuinctus vulnere amoris / Pascit amore auidos inhians in te, Dea, visus, / Eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore: / Hunc tu, Diua, tuo recubantem corpore sancto / Circumfusa super, suaueis ex ore loquelas / Funde. Quand ie rumine ce, reiicit, pascit, inhians, molli, fouet, medullas, labefacta, pendet, percurrit, et cette noble, circumfusa, mere du gentil infusus, i’ay desdain de ces menues pointes et allusions verballes, qui nasquirent depuis. A ces bonnes gens, il ne falloit d’aigue et subtile rencontre.
What Virgil says of Venus and Vulcan, Lucretius had said more fittingly of a stolen enjoyment between her and Mars. Mars, mighty in arms, governs the fierce works / of war; often he flings himself back into your lap, / bound by the eternal wound of love; / gazing open-mouthed at you, goddess, he feeds his greedy eyes with love, / and as he lies back his breath hangs upon your lips. / As he reclines upon your holy body, goddess, / pour yourself around him from above, and pour sweet words / from your lips. When I ruminate on that reiicit, pascit, inhians, molli, fouet, medullas, labefacta, pendet, percurrit, and that noble circumfusa, mother of the fine infusus, I disdain those petty conceits and verbal plays that were born since. These good people had no need of sharp and subtle wit.
Leur langage est tout plein, et gros d’vne vigueur naturelle et constante. Ils sont tout epigramme: non la queuë seulement, mais la teste, l’estomach, et les pieds. Il n’y a rien d’efforcé, rien de trainant: tout y marche d’vne pareille teneur. Contextus totus virilis est, non sunt circa flosculos occupati. Ce n’est pas vne eloquence molle, et seulement sans offence: elle est nerueuse et solide, qui ne plaist pas tant, comme elle remplit et rauit: et rauit le plus, les plus forts esprits. Quand ie voy ces braues formes de s’expliquer, si vifues, si profondes, ie ne dis pas que c’est bien dire, ie dis que c’est bien penser. C’est la gaillardise de l’imagination, qui esleue et enfle les parolles.
Their language is wholly full and pregnant with a natural and steady vigor. They are all epigram: not the tail only, but the head, the stomach and the feet. There is nothing strained, nothing dragging: everything moves at the same pace. The whole texture is manly; they are not busy with little flowers. It is not a soft eloquence, merely inoffensive: it is sinewy and solid, and it does not so much please as fill and ravish; and it ravishes the strongest minds most. When I see these splendid ways of expressing oneself, so lively, so deep, I do not say “this is speaking well,” I say “this is thinking well.” It is the vigor of the imagination that lifts and swells the words.
Pectus est quod disertum facit. Nos gens appellent iugement, langage, et beaux mots, les pleines conceptions. Cette peinture est conduitte, non tant par dexterité de la main, comme pour auoir l’obiect plus vifuement empreint en l’ame. Gallus parle simplement, par ce qu’il conçoit simplement. Horace ne se contente point d’vne superficielle expression, elle le trahiroit: il voit plus clair et plus outre dans les choses: son esprit crochette et furette tout le magasin des mots et des figures, pour se representer: et les luy faut outre l’ordinaire, comme sa conception est outre l’ordinaire. Plutarque dit, qu’il veid le langage Latin par les choses. Icy de mesme: le sens esclaire et produit les parolles: non plus de vent, ains de chair et d’os.
It is the heart that makes one eloquent. Our people call judgment “language” and full conceptions “fine words.” This painting is guided not so much by dexterity of hand as by having the object more vividly imprinted on the mind. Gallus speaks simply because he conceives simply. Horace is not content with a superficial expression; it would betray him. He sees more clearly and further into things; his mind picks the locks of the whole storehouse of words and figures and ferrets through it to express itself; and he needs them beyond the ordinary, as his conception is beyond the ordinary. Plutarch says that he learned the Latin language through things. It is the same here: the sense illuminates and produces the words—words no longer of wind, but of flesh and bone.
Elles signifient, plus qu’elles ne disent. Les imbecilles sentent encores quelque image de cecy. Car en Italie ie disois ce qu’il me plaisoit en deuis communs: mais aux propos roides, ie n’eusse osé me fier à vn idiome, que ie ne pouuois plier ny contourner, outre son alleure commune. I’y veux pouuoir quelque chose du mien.
They signify more than they say. Even the feeble get some glimpse of this. For in Italy I said what I pleased in ordinary conversation, but in serious discussion I would not have dared trust myself to an idiom that I could not bend or turn beyond its common gait. I want to be able to put something of my own into it.
Le maniement et employte des beaux esprits, donne prix à la langue: non pas l’innouant, tant, comme la remplissant de plus vigoreux et diuers seruices, l’estirant et ployant. Ils n’y apportent point des mots: mais ils enrichissent les leurs, appesantissent et enfoncent leur signification et leur vsage: luy apprenent des mouuements inaccoustumés: mais prudemment et ingenieusement. Et combien peu cela soit donné à tous, il se voit par tant d’escriuains François de ce siecle. Ils sont assez hardis et dédaigneux, pour ne suyure la route commune: mais faute d’inuention et de discretion les pert. Il ne s’y voit qu’vne miserable affectation d’estrangeté: des desguisements froids et absurdes, qui au lieu d’esleuer, abbattent la matiere.
It is the handling and use by fine minds that give value to a language: not so much by innovating as by filling it out with more vigorous and varied services, stretching and bending it. They do not bring words to it, but they enrich their own words, give weight and depth to their meaning and use, and teach the language unaccustomed movements—but prudently and ingeniously. How little this is granted to everyone can be seen in so many French writers of this century. They are bold and scornful enough not to follow the common road; but lack of invention and discretion ruins them. All one sees is a wretched affectation of strangeness, cold and absurd disguises which, instead of raising the subject matter, bring it down.
Pourueu qu’ils se gorgiasent en la nouuelleté, il ne leur chaut de l’efficace. Pour saisir vn nouueau mot, ils quittent l’ordinaire, souuent plus fort et plus nerueux.
So long as they can strut in novelty, they care nothing for effectiveness. To seize on a new word they abandon the ordinary one, which is often stronger and more sinewy.
En nostre langage ie trouue assez d’estoffe, mais vn peu faute de façon. Car il n’est rien, qu’on ne fist du iargon de nos chasses, et de nostre guerre, qui est vn genereux terrein à emprunter. Et les formes de parler, comme les herbes, s’amendent et fortifient en les transplantant. Ie le trouue suffisamment abondant, mais non pas maniant et vigoureux suffisamment. Il succombe ordinairement à vne puissante conception. Si vous allez tendu, vous sentez souuent qu’il languit soubs vous, et fleschit: et qu’à son deffaut le Latin se presente au secours, et le Grec à d’autres.
In our language I find plenty of material, but a slight lack of fashioning. For there is nothing that could not be made out of the jargon of our hunting and our warfare, which is a generous ground to borrow from. And forms of speech, like plants, improve and grow stronger by being transplanted. I find our language abundant enough, but not pliable and vigorous enough. It usually gives way under a powerful conception. If you are going at full stretch, you often feel it flag and buckle beneath you, and when it fails you, Latin comes to your aid, and Greek to others.
D’aucuns de ces mots que ie viens de trier, nous en apperçeuons plus mal-aysement l’energie, d’autant que l’vsage et la frequence, nous en ont aucunement auily et rendu vulgaire la grace. Comme en nostre commun, il s’y rencontre des frases excellentes, et des metaphores, desquelles la beauté flestrit de vieillesse, et la couleur s’est ternie par maniement trop ordinaire. Mais cela n’oste rien du goust, à ceux qui ont bon nez: ny ne desroge à la gloire de ces anciens autheurs, qui, comme il est vraysemblable, mirent premierement ces mots en ce lustre.
In some of the words I have just picked out, we perceive their force less easily because use and frequency have somewhat cheapened their grace and made it common. Just so, in our everyday speech there are excellent phrases and metaphors whose beauty has withered with age and whose color has been tarnished by too common handling. But that takes nothing away from their savor for those who have a good nose, nor does it detract from the glory of those ancient authors who, very likely, first brought these words into such luster.
Les sciences traictent les choses trop finement, d’vne mode artificielle, et differente à la commune et naturelle. Mon page fait l’amour, et l’entend: lisez luy Leon Hebreu, et Ficin: on parle de luy, de ses pensees, et de ses actions, et si n’y entend rien. Ie ne recognois chez Aristote, la plus part de mes mouuemens ordinaires. On les a couuers et reuestus d’vne autre robbe, pour l’vsage de l’eschole. Dieu leur doint bien faire: si i’estois du mestier, ie naturaliserois l’art, autant comme ils artialisent la nature. Laissons là Bembo et Equicola.
The sciences treat things too subtly, in an artificial way, different from the common and natural one. My page makes love and understands it. Read him Leo Hebraeus and Ficino: they talk about him, his thoughts and his actions, and yet he understands nothing of it. I do not recognize in Aristotle most of my ordinary emotions. They have been covered and dressed in another robe for the use of the schools. God grant them success! If I were in the trade, I would naturalize art as much as they artify nature. Let us leave Bembo and Equicola aside.
Quand i’escris, ie me passe bien de la compagnie, et souuenance des liures: de peur qu’ils n’interrompent ma forme. Aussi qu’à la verité, les bons autheurs m’abbattent par trop, et rompent le courage. Ie fais volontiers le tour de ce peintre, lequel ayant miserablement representé des coqs, deffendoit à ses garçons, qu’ils ne laissassent venir en sa boutique aucun coq naturel. Et auroy plustost besoing, pour me donner vn peu de lustre, de l’inuention du musicien Antinonydes, qui, quand il auoit à faire la musique, mettoit ordre que deuant ou apres luy, son auditoire fust abbreuué de quelques autres mauuais chantres.
When I write, I prefer to do without the company and memory of books, for fear they may interfere with my form. Also because, in truth, good authors humble me too much and dash my courage. I gladly play the trick of that painter who, having painted roosters wretchedly, forbade his apprentices to let any real rooster into his shop. And to give myself a little luster, I would rather need the device of the musician Antinonydes, who, when he had to perform, arranged for his audience to be plied, before or after him, with some other bad singers.
Mais ie me puis plus malaisément deffaire de Plutarque: il est si vniuersel et si plain, qu’à toutes occasions, et quelque suiect extrauagant que vous ayez pris, il s’ingere à vostre besonge, et vous tend vne main liberale et inespuisable de richesses, et d’embellissemens. Il m’en fait despit, d’estre si fort exposé au pillage de ceux qui le hantent. Ie ne le puis si peu racointer, que ie n’en tire cuisse ou aile.
But I can less easily rid myself of Plutarch. He is so universal and so full that on every occasion, however eccentric the subject you have taken up, he thrusts himself into your work and holds out to you a generous hand, inexhaustible in riches and embellishments. It vexes me that he is so exposed to plunder by those who frequent him. I cannot have the slightest dealings with him without making off with a leg or a wing.
Pour ce mien dessein, il me vient aussi à propos, d’escrire chez moy, en pays sauuage, où personne ne m’aide, ny me releve: où ie ne hante communément homme, qui entende le Latin de son patenostre; et de François vn peu moins. Ie l’eusse faict meilleur ailleurs, mais l’ouurage eust esté moins mien. Et sa fin principale et perfection, c’est d’estre exactement mien. Ie corrigerois bien vne erreur accidentale, dequoy ie suis plein, ainsi que ie cours inaduertemment: mais les imperfections qui sont en moy ordinaires et constantes, ce seroit trahison de les oster.
For this design of mine, it also suits me to write at home, in wild country, where no one helps me or sets me right; where I do not usually associate with anyone who understands the Latin of his Paternoster, and French a little less. I would have done it better elsewhere, but the work would have been less mine; and its principal end and perfection is to be exactly mine. I would gladly correct an accidental error, of which I am full, since I run on carelessly; but the imperfections that are ordinary and constant in me—it would be treachery to remove them.
Quand on m’a dict ou que moy-mesme me suis dict: Tu es trop espais en figures, voyla vn mot du cru de Gascongne: voyla vne phrase dangereuse: (ie n’en refuis aucune de celles qui s’vsent emmy les rues Françoises: ceux qui veulent combatre l’vsage par la grammaire se moquent) voylà vn discours ignorant: voylà vn discours paradoxe, en voylà vn trop fol: tu te ioues souuent, on estimera que tu dies à droit, ce que tu dis à feinte. Oüy, fais-ie, mais ie corrige les fautes d’inaduertence, non celles de coustume. Est-ce pas ainsi que ie parle par tout? me represente-ie pas viuement? suffit. I’ay faict ce que i’ay voulu: tout le monde me recognoist en mon liure, et mon liure en moy.
When I have been told, or have told myself, “You are too thick with figures of speech. Here is a word of Gascon growth. Here is a risky phrase” (I reject none of those used in the streets of France; those who would fight usage with grammar are not serious), “Here is an ignorant piece of reasoning. Here is a paradoxical one. Here is one too foolish. You are often joking; people will think you mean in earnest what you say in jest”—“Yes,” I say, “but I correct the faults of inadvertence, not those of habit. Isn’t this how I speak everywhere? Do I not portray myself to the life? Enough. I have done what I wanted: everyone recognizes me in my book, and my book in me.”
Or i’ay vne condition singeresse et imitatrice. Quand ie me meslois de faire des vers, et n’en fis iamais que des Latins, ils accusoient euidemment le poëte que ie venois dernierement de lire. Et de mes premiers Essays, aucuns puent vn peu l’estranger. A Paris ie parle vn langage aucunement autre qu’à Montaigne. Qui que ie regarde auec attention, m’imprime facilement quelque chose du sien. Ce que ie considere, ie l’vsurpe: vne sotte contenance, vne desplaisante grimace, vne forme de parler ridicule. Les vices plus. D’autant qu’ils me poingnent, ils s’acrochent à moy, et ne s’en vont pas sans secouer. On m’a veu plus souuent iurer par similitude, que par complexion.
Now I have an apish, imitative disposition. When I dabbled in writing verse (and I never wrote any but Latin), it plainly betrayed the poet I had last been reading. And some of my first essays smell a little of other people. In Paris I speak a somewhat different language than at Montaigne. Anyone I look at attentively easily imprints something of his on me. Whatever I observe, I appropriate: a foolish bearing, an unpleasant grimace, a ridiculous way of speaking. Vices even more: because they prick me, they cling to me and will not go away unless shaken off. I have more often been seen to swear by imitation than by temperament.
Imitation meurtriere, comme celle des singes horribles en grandeur et en force, que le Roy Alexandre rencontra en certaine contree des Indes. Desquels il eust esté autrement difficile de venir à bout. Mais ils en presterent le moyen par cette leur inclination à contrefaire tout ce qu’ils voyent faire. Car par là les chasseurs apprindrent de se chausser des souliers à leur veuë, auec force nœuds de liens: de s’affubler d’accoustremens de teste à tout des lacs courants, et oindre par semblant, leurs yeux de glux. Ainsi mettoyent imprudemment à mal, ces pauures bestes, leur complexion singeresse. Ils s’engluoient, s’encheuestroyent et garrotoyent eux mesmes.
A murderous imitation, like that of the apes, horrible in size and strength, that King Alexander came upon in a certain region of India. They would otherwise have been hard to overcome. But they supplied the means through their inclination to mimic everything they see done. For by this the hunters learned to put on shoes in their sight, tying them with many knots of laces; to rig themselves out in headgear fitted with running nooses; and to pretend to smear their eyes with birdlime. Thus these poor beasts imprudently turned their apish nature to their own harm: they stuck themselves in lime, tangled themselves in halters and trussed themselves up.
Cette autre faculté, de representer ingenieusement les gestes et parolles d’vn autre, par dessein qui apporte souuent plaisir et admiration, n’est en moy, non plus qu’en vne souche. Quand ie iure selon moy, c’est seulement, par Dieu, qui est le plus droit de touts les serments. Ils disent, que Socrates iuroit le chien: Zenon cette mesme interiection, qui sert à cette heure aux Italiens, Cappari: Pythagoras, l’eau et l’air. Ie suis si aisé à receuoir sans y penser ces impressions superficielles, que si i’ay eu en la bouche, Sire ou Altesse, trois iours de suite, huict iours apres ils m’eschappent, pour excellence, ou pour seigneurie. Et ce que i’auray pris à dire en battelant et en me moquant, ie le diray lendemain serieusement.
That other faculty, of deliberately and cleverly reproducing another person’s gestures and words, which often brings pleasure and admiration, is no more in me than in a tree stump. When I swear in my own way, it is only “by God,” which is the most straightforward of all oaths. They say that Socrates swore by the dog; Zeno by the same interjection the Italians use nowadays, “Cappari”; Pythagoras by water and air. I am so apt to take on these superficial impressions without thinking that if I have had “Sire” or “Highness” in my mouth three days running, a week later they slip out of me in place of “Excellency” or “Lordship.” And what I have taken to saying in fooling and mockery, I will say the next day in earnest.
Parquoy, à escrire, i’accepte plus enuis les argumens battus, de peur que ie les traicte aux despens d’autruy. Tout argument m’est egallement fertile. Ie les prens sur vne mouche. Et Dieu vueille que celuy que i’ay icy en main, n’ait pas esté pris, par le commandement d’vne volonté autant volage. Que ie commence par celle qu’il me plaira, car les matieres se tiennent toutes enchesnees les vnes aux autres.
That is why, in writing, I am more reluctant to take up well-worn subjects, for fear of treating them at someone else’s expense. Any subject is equally fertile for me. I take them up from a fly. And God grant that the one I have in hand here was not taken up at the command of a will just as flighty! Let me begin with whichever I please, for subjects are all linked to one another in a chain.
Mais mon ame me desplaist, de ce qu’elle produit ordinairement ses plus profondes resueries, plus folles, et qui me plaisent le mieux, à l’improuueu, et lors que ie les cherche moins: lesquelles s’esuanouissent soudain, n’ayant sur le champ où les attacher. A cheual, à la table, au lict. Mais plus à cheual, où sont mes plus larges entretiens. I’ay le parler vn peu delicatement ialoux d’attention et de silence, si ie parle de force. Qui m’interrompt, m’arreste. En voyage, la necessité mesme des chemins couppe les propos. Outre ce, que ie voyage plus souuent sans compagnie, propre à ces entretiens de suite: par où ie prens tout loisir de m’entretenir moy-mesme.
But my mind displeases me in that it usually produces its deepest musings, its maddest and those I like best, unexpectedly and when I am least looking for them; and they vanish at once, since I have nothing on the spot to fasten them to. On horseback, at table, in bed—but most on horseback, where my thoughts range widest. My speech is somewhat delicately jealous of attention and silence, if I am speaking in earnest: whoever interrupts me stops me. When traveling, the very demands of the road break off conversation. Besides, I more often travel without company suited to these sustained conversations; so I take all the leisure I want to converse with myself.
Il m’en aduient comme de mes songes: en songeant, ie les recommande à ma memoire, car ie songe volontiers que ie songe, mais le lendemain, ie me represente bien leur couleur, comme elle estoit, ou gaye, ou triste, ou estrange, mais quels ils estoient au reste, plus i’ahane à le trouuer, plus ie l’enfonce en l’oubliance. Aussi des discours fortuites qui me tombent en fantasie, il ne m’en reste en memoire qu’vne vaine image: autant seulement qu’il m’en faut pour me faire ronger, et despiter apres leur queste, inutilement.
It is the same with these as with my dreams. While dreaming, I commend them to my memory (for I often dream that I am dreaming); but the next day I can picture their color well enough, as it was, gay or sad or strange, but as for what they were otherwise, the more I labor to find it, the deeper I plunge it into oblivion. So too with the chance thoughts that drop into my head: all that stays in my memory is a vague image, just enough to make me fret and chafe in fruitless pursuit of them.
The ridiculous act
Love is mere appetite, and its absurd motions show that the gods made man their plaything.
Or donc, laissant les liures à part, et parlant plus materiellement et simplement: ie trouue apres tout, que l’amour n’est autre chose, que la soif de cette iouyssance en vn subiect desiré: ny Venus autre chose, que le plaisir à descharger ses vases: comme le plaisir que nature nous donne à descharger d’autres parties: qui deuient vicieux ou par immoderation, ou par indiscretion. Pour Socrates, l’amour est appetit de generation par l’entremise de la beauté.
So then, leaving books aside and speaking more materially and simply: I find, after all, that love is nothing but the thirst for this enjoyment in a desired object, and Venus nothing but the pleasure of discharging one’s vessels, like the pleasure nature gives us in discharging other parts; which becomes vicious through either immoderation or indiscretion. For Socrates, love is the appetite for generation through the mediation of beauty.
Et considerant maintefois la ridicule titillation de ce plaisir, les absurdes mouuemens esceruelez et estourdis, dequoy il agite Zenon et Cratippus: cette rage indiscrete, ce visage enflammé de fureur et de cruauté, au plus doux effect de l’amour: et puis cette morgue graue, seuere, et ecstatique, en vne action si folle, qu’on ayt logé pesle-mesle nos delices et nos ordures ensemble: et que la supreme volupté aye du transy et du plaintif, comme la douleur: ie crois qu’il est vray, ce que dit Platon, que l’homme a esté faict par les Dieux pour leur iouët.
And considering many times the ridiculous titillation of this pleasure; the absurd, giddy, harebrained motions with which it shakes a Zeno or a Cratippus; that reckless frenzy, that face inflamed with fury and cruelty in the sweetest act of love; and then that grave, severe and ecstatic solemnity in so mad an action; and that our delights and our filth should have been lodged pell-mell together; and that the supreme pleasure should have something of swooning and moaning about it, like pain—I believe it is true, as Plato says, that man was made by the gods as their plaything.
Quænam ista iocandi / Sæuitia? Et que c’est par moquerie, que Nature nous a laissé la plus trouble de nos actions, la plus commune: pour nous esgaller par là, et apparier les fols et les sages, et nous et les bestes. Le plus contemplatif, et prudent homme, quand ie l’imagine en cette assiette, ie le tiens pour affronteur, de faire le prudent et le contemplatif. Ce sont les pieds du paon, qui abbatent son orgueil. Ridentem dicere verum / Quid vetat? Ceux qui parmi les ieux, refusent les opinions serieuses, font, dit quelqu’vn, comme celuy qui craint d’adorer la statuë d’vn sainct, si elle est sans deuantiere.
What cruelty / in jest is this? And that it is in mockery that Nature has left us the most disorderly of our actions as the most common, to make us equal by it and pair off fools and wise men, and us and the beasts. The most contemplative and prudent man, when I imagine him in that position, I consider an impostor for playing the prudent and contemplative man. It is the peacock’s feet that bring down its pride. To tell the truth while laughing— / what forbids it? Those who refuse serious opinions in the midst of play are like, as someone says, the man who is afraid to worship the statue of a saint if it has no loincloth.
Nous mangeons bien et beuuons comme les bestes: mais ce ne sont pas actions qui empeschent les offices de nostre ame. En celles-là, nous gardons nostre auantage sur elles: cette-cy met toute autre pensee soubs le ioug: abrutit et abestit par son imperieuse authorité, toute la theologie et philosophie qui est en Platon: et si ne s’en plaint pas. Par tout ailleurs vous pouuez garder quelque decence: toutes autres operations souffrent des regles d’honnesteté: cette-cy ne se peut pas seulement imaginer, que vicieuse ou ridicule. Trouuez y pour voir vn proceder sage et discret.
We eat and drink just as the beasts do, but these are not actions that hinder the functions of our soul. In them we keep our advantage over the beasts. This one brings every other thought under the yoke, and by its imperious authority stupefies and brutalizes all the theology and philosophy there is in Plato; and yet he does not complain of it. Everywhere else you can keep some decency; all other operations allow rules of propriety. This one cannot even be imagined except as vicious or ridiculous. Just try to find a wise and discreet way of going about it.
Alexandre disoit qu’il se connoissoit principallement mortel, par cette action, et par le dormir: le sommeil suffoque et supprime les facultez de nostre ame, la besongne les absorbe et dissipe de mesme. Certes c’est vne marque non seulement de nostre corruption originele: mais aussi de nostre vanité et deformité.
Alexander said that he knew himself to be mortal chiefly by this act and by sleep. Sleep stifles and suppresses the faculties of our soul; this business likewise absorbs and dissipates them. Certainly it is a mark not only of our original corruption but also of our vanity and deformity.
D’vn costé Nature nous y pousse, ayant attaché à ce desir, la plus noble, vtile, et plaisante de toutes ses functions: et la nous laisse d’autre part accuser et fuyr, comme insolente et deshonneste, en rougir et recommander l’abstinence. Sommes nous pas bien bruttes, de nommer brutale l’operation qui nous faict? Les peuples, és religions, se sont rencontrez en plusieurs conuenances: comme sacrifices, luminaires, encensements, ieusnes, offrandes: et entre autres, en la condemnation de cette action. Toutes les opinions y viennent, outre l’vsage si estendu des circoncisions. Nous auons à l’auanture raison, de nous blasmer, de faire vne si sotte production que l’homme: d’appeller l’action honteuse, et honteuses les parties qui y seruent (à cette heure sont les miennes proprement honteuses).
On the one hand Nature drives us to it, having attached to this desire the noblest, most useful and most pleasant of all her functions; and on the other she leaves us to condemn it and shun it as insolent and indecent, to blush at it and recommend abstinence. Are we not real brutes to call brutish the act that makes us? Peoples in their religions have agreed on many points—sacrifices, lamps, incense, fasts, offerings—and, among others, on condemning this act. All opinions come round to it, not to mention the widespread practice of circumcision. We are perhaps right to blame ourselves for making so foolish a product as man; to call the act shameful, and shameful the parts that serve it (at present mine are truly shameful).
Les Esseniens, dequoy parle Pline, se maintenoient sans nourrice, sans maillot, plusieurs siecles: de l’abbord des estrangers, qui, suiuants cette belle humeur, se rengeoient continuellement à eux: ayant toute vne nation, hazardé de s’exterminer plustost, que s’engager à vn embrassement feminin, et de perdre la suitte des hommes plustost, que d’en forger vn. Ils disent que Zenon n’eut affaire à femme, qu’vne fois en sa vie: et que ce fut par ciuilité, pour ne sembler dedaigner trop obstinement le sexe. Chacun fuit à le voir naistre, chacun court à le voir mourir. Pour le destruire, on cerche vn champ spacieux en pleine lumiere: pour le construire, on se musse dans vn creux tenebreux, et le plus contraint qu’il se peut.
The Essenes, of whom Pliny speaks, kept themselves going for several centuries without wet nurses or swaddling clothes, through the arrival of strangers who, following this fine humor, kept joining them; a whole nation preferred to risk extinction rather than engage in a woman’s embrace, and to lose the succession of men rather than forge one. They say that Zeno had to do with a woman only once in his life, and that it was out of politeness, so as not to seem to disdain the sex too obstinately. Everyone shuns seeing a man born; everyone runs to see him die. To destroy him we seek a spacious field in broad daylight; to construct him we hide in a dark hole, as cramped as can be.
C’est le deuoir, de se cacher pour le faire, et c’est gloire, et naissent plusieurs vertus, de le sçauoir deffaire. L’vn est iniure, l’autre est faueur: car Aristote dit, que bonifier quelqu’vn, c’est le tuer, en certaine phrase de son païs. Les Atheniens, pour apparier la deffaueur de ces deux actions, ayants à mundifier l’isle de Delos, et se iustifier enuers Apollo, defendirent au pourpris d’icelle, tout enterrement, et tout enfantement ensemble. Nostri nosmet pœnitet.
It is our duty to hide in order to make him, and it is glory, and the birth of many virtues, to know how to unmake him. The one is an offense, the other a favor: for Aristotle says that “to do someone good,” in a certain expression of his country, means to kill him. The Athenians, to put the disfavor of these two actions on an equal footing, when they had to purify the island of Delos and justify themselves to Apollo, forbade within its precincts all burials and all childbirths alike. We are ashamed of ourselves.
Il y a des nations qui se couurent en mangeant. Ie sçay vne dame, et des plus grandes, qui a cette mesme opinion, que c’est vne contenance desagreable, de mascher: qui rabat beaucoup de leur grace, et de leur beauté: et ne se presente pas volontiers en public auec appetit. Et sçay vn homme, qui ne peut souffrir de voir manger, ny qu’on le voye: et fuyt toute assistance, plus quand il s’emplit, que s’il se vuide. En l’empire du Turc, il se void grand nombre d’hommes, qui, pour exceller les autres, ne se laissent iamais veoir, quand ils font leur repas; qui n’en font qu’vn la sepmaine: qui se deschiquettent et decoupent la face et les membres: qui ne parlent iamais à personne.
There are nations that cover themselves while eating. I know a lady, one of the greatest, who holds this same opinion, that chewing is an unpleasant sight which greatly detracts from women’s grace and beauty; and she does not willingly appear in public with an appetite. And I know a man who cannot bear to see people eat, or to be seen eating, and who shuns all onlookers more when he is filling himself than when he is emptying himself. In the Turkish empire one sees a great number of men who, to outdo the others, never let themselves be seen when they take their meals; who take only one a week; who slash and cut their faces and limbs; who never speak to anyone.
Gens fanatiques, qui pensent honnorer leur nature en se desnaturant: qui se prisent de leur mespris, et s’amendent de leur empirement. Quel monstrueux animal, qui se fait horreur à soy-même, à qui ses plaisirs poisent: qui se tient à mal-heur? Il y en a qui cachent leur vie, Exilióque domos et dulcia limina mutant, Et la desrobent de la veuë des autres hommes: qui euitent la santé et l’allegresse, comme qualitez ennemies et dommageables. Non seulement plusieurs sectes, mais plusieurs peuples maudissent leur naissance, et benissent leur mort. Il en est où le soleil est abominé, les tenebres adorees. Nous ne sommes ingenieux qu’à nous mal mener: c’est le vray gibbier de la force de nostre esprit: dangereux vtil en desreglement.
Fanatical people, who think they honor their nature by denaturing themselves; who prize themselves for their self-contempt, and improve themselves by making themselves worse. What a monstrous animal, that horrifies itself, whose pleasures weigh on it, that regards itself as a misfortune! There are some who hide their life, And exchange their homes and sweet thresholds for exile, and steal it from the sight of other men; who avoid health and cheerfulness as hostile and harmful qualities. Not only many sects but many peoples curse their birth and bless their death. There are some where the sun is abhorred and darkness worshiped. We are ingenious only at mistreating ourselves; that is the true quarry of our mind’s power—a dangerous tool when it runs out of control.
O miseri quorum gaudia crimen habent! Hé pauure homme, tu as assez d’incommoditez necessaires, sans les augmenter par ton inuention: et és assez miserable de condition, sans l’estre par art: tu as des laideurs reelles et essentielles à suffisance, sans en forger d’imaginaires. Trouues tu que tu sois trop à l’aise si la moitié de ton aise ne te fasche? Trouues tu que tu ayes remply tous les offices necessaires, à quoy Nature t’engage, et qu’elle soit oysiue chez toy, si tu ne t’obliges à nouueaux offices? Tu ne crains point d’offencer ses lois vniuerselles et indubitables, et te piques aux tiennes partisanes et fantastiques. Et d’autant plus qu’elles sont particulieres, incertaines, et plus contredictes, d’autant plus tu fais là ton effort.
O wretches, whose joys are counted a crime! Ah, poor man, you have enough unavoidable ills without adding to them by your own invention; you are wretched enough by condition without being so by art. You have real and essential ugliness enough without forging imaginary ones. Do you find yourself too comfortable unless half your comfort vexes you? Do you find you have fulfilled all the necessary duties to which Nature binds you, and that she is idle in you, unless you bind yourself to new duties? You are not afraid to offend her universal and indubitable laws, and you pride yourself on your own partisan and fanciful ones; and the more particular, uncertain and disputed they are, the more effort you put into them.
Les ordonnances positiues de ta paroisse t’attachent: celles du monde ne te touchent point. Cours vn peu par les exemples de cette consideration: ta vie en est toute.
The man-made ordinances of your parish bind you; those of the world do not touch you. Run through a few examples of this reflection: your whole life is made of them.
Concealment and desire
Veiled poetry and slow, measured favors make desire keener than frankness.
Les vers de ces deux poëtes, traictans ainsi reseruément et discrettement de la lasciueté, comme ils font, me semblent la descouurir et esclairer de plus pres. Les dames couurent leur sein d’vn reseul, les prestres plusieurs choses sacrees, les peintres ombragent leur ouurage, pour luy donner plus de lustre. Et dict-on que le coup du soleil et du vent, est plus poisant par reflexion qu’à droit fil. L’Ægyptien respondit sagement à celuy qui luy demandoit, Que portes-tu là, caché soubs ton manteau? Il est caché soubs mon manteau, affin que tu ne sçaches pas que c’est. Mais il y a certaines autres choses qu’on cache pour les montrer. Oyez cetuy-là plus ouuert, Et nudam pressi corpus adusque meum. Il me semble qu’il me chapone.
The verses of these two poets, treating lasciviousness with as much reserve and discretion as they do, seem to me to reveal it and light it up more closely. Ladies cover their bosoms with a net, priests cover many sacred things, painters shade their work to give it more luster. And they say that the force of the sun and wind strikes harder by reflection than directly. The Egyptian gave a wise answer to the man who asked him, “What are you carrying hidden under your cloak?” “It is hidden under my cloak so that you will not know what it is.” But there are certain other things that are hidden in order to show them. Listen to this one, who is more open: And I pressed her naked body to my own. I feel as if he were gelding me.
Que Martial retrousse Venus à sa poste, il n’arriue pas à la faire paroistre si entiere. Celuy qui dit tout, il nous saoule et nous desgouste. Celuy qui craint à s’exprimer, nous achemine à en penser plus qu’il n’en y a. Il y a de la trahison en cette sorte de modestie: et notamment nous entr’ouurant comme font ceux cy, vne si belle route à l’imagination. Et l’action et la peinture doiuent sentir leur larrecin.
Let Martial hitch up Venus’s skirts as he pleases, he does not succeed in showing her so completely. He who says everything gluts us and puts us off. He who is afraid to express himself leads us to imagine more than there is. There is treachery in this sort of modesty, especially when, like these two, it half opens so fine a road for the imagination. Both the act and its depiction should have a whiff of theft about them.
L’amour des Espagnols, et des Italiens, plus respectueuse et craintifue, plus mineuse et couuerte, me plaist. Ie ne sçay qui, anciennement, desiroit le gosier allongé comme le col d’vne gruë, pour sauourer plus long temps ce qu’il aualloit. Ce souhait est mieux à propos en cette volupté, viste et precipiteuse. Mesmes à telles natures comme est la mienne, qui suis vicieux en soudaineté. Pour arrester sa fuitte, et l’estendre en preambules; entre-eux, tout sert de faueur et de recompense: vne œillade, vne inclination, vne parolle, vn signe. Qui se pourroit disner de la fumee du rost, feroit-il pas vne belle espargne?
The love of the Spaniards and the Italians, more respectful and timid, more coy and covert, pleases me. Someone in ancient times, I forget who, wished for a throat as long as a crane’s neck, to savor longer what he swallowed. That wish is more apt for this quick and hasty pleasure, especially for natures like mine, which have the fault of suddenness. To check its flight and spin it out in preambles, everything among them serves as favor and reward: a glance, a bow, a word, a sign. If someone could dine on the smoke of the roast, would he not make a fine saving?
C’est vne passion qui mesle à bien peu d’essence solide, beaucoup plus de vanité et resuerie fieureuse: il la faut payer et seruir de mesme. Apprenons aux dames à se faire valoir, à s’estimer, à nous amuser, et à nous piper. Nous faisons nostre charge extreme la premiere: il y a tousiours de l’impetuosité Françoise. Faisant filer leurs faueurs, et les estallant en detail: chacun, iusques à la vieillesse miserable, y trouue quelque bout de lisiere, selon son vaillant et son merite. Qui n’a iouyssance, qu’en la iouyssance: qui ne gaigne que du haut poinct: qui n’ayme la chasse qu’en la prise: il ne luy appartient pas de se mesler à nostre escole.
It is a passion that mixes with very little solid substance a great deal more vanity and feverish dreaming; it must be paid and served in the same coin. Let us teach ladies to make themselves valued, to esteem themselves, to keep us dangling and to lure us on. We make our final charge first: there is always some French impetuosity in it. If they spin out their favors and display them piece by piece, everyone, even into wretched old age, will find some scrap of the hem, according to his means and merit. He who finds enjoyment only in the enjoyment, who wins only with the highest throw, who likes the hunt only in the kill, has no business joining our school.
Plus il y a de marches et degrez, plus il y a de hauteur et d’honneur au dernier siege. Nous nous deurions plaire d’y estre conduicts, comme il se faict aux palais magnifiques, par diuers portiques, et passages, longues et plaisantes galleries, et plusieurs destours. Cette dispensation reuiendroit à nostre commodité: nous y arresterions, et nous y aymerions plus long temps. Sans esperance, et sans desir, nous n’allons plus rien qui vaille. Nostre maistrise et entiere possession, leur est infiniement à craindre. Depuis qu’elles sont du tout rendues à la mercy de nostre foy, et constance, elles sont vn peu bien hasardees. Ce sont vertus rares et difficiles: soudain qu’elles sont à nous, nous ne sommes plus à elles.
The more steps and stairs there are, the more height and honor in the topmost seat. We should be glad to be led there, as one is in magnificent palaces, through various porticoes and passages, long and pleasant galleries, and many windings. This arrangement would work to our advantage: we would linger there and love longer. Without hope and without desire, we are no longer good for much. Our mastery and full possession is something they have infinite reason to fear. Once they have surrendered entirely to the mercy of our faith and constancy, they are running quite a risk. Those are rare and difficult virtues: as soon as they are ours, we are no longer theirs.
Postquam cupidæ mentis satiata libido est, / Verba nihil metuere, nihil periuria curant. Et Thrasonidez ieune homme Grec, fut si amoureux de son amour, qu’il refusa, ayant gaigné le cœur d’vne maistresse, d’en iouyr: pour n’amortir, rassasier et allanguir par la iouyssance cette ardeur inquiete, de laquelle il se glorifioit et se paissoit.
Once the lust of the eager mind is sated, / they fear nothing of their words, care nothing for their perjuries. And Thrasonides, a young Greek, was so in love with his love that, having won a mistress’s heart, he refused to enjoy her, so as not to deaden, sate and enfeeble through enjoyment that restless ardor in which he gloried and on which he fed.
La cherté donne goust à la viande. Voyez combien la forme des salutations, qui est particuliere à nostre nation, abastardit par sa facilité, la grace des baisers, lesquels Socrates dit estre si puissans et dangereux à voler nos cœurs. C’est vne desplaisante coustume, et iniurieuse aux dames, d’auoir à prester leurs leures, à quiconque a trois valets à sa suitte, pour mal plaisant qu’il soit, Cuius liuida naribus caninis, / Dependet glacies, rigétque barba: / Centum occurrere malo culilingis. Et nous mesme n’y gaignons guere: car comme le monde se voit party, pour trois belles, il nous en faut baiser cinquante laides. Et à vn estomach tendre, comme sont ceux de mon aage, vn mauuais baiser en surpaie vn bon.
Costliness gives food its relish. See how the form of greeting peculiar to our nation, by its very easiness, debases the grace of kisses, which Socrates says are so powerful and dangerous for stealing our hearts. It is an unpleasant custom, and insulting to the ladies, to have to lend their lips to any man with three footmen in his train, however disagreeable he may be: From whose dog-like nostrils / hangs a livid icicle, and whose beard is stiff with frost: / I would rather meet a hundred lickers of backsides. And we ourselves gain little by it: for as the world is divided, for three pretty women we have to kiss fifty ugly ones. And to a delicate stomach, such as men of my age have, one bad kiss is too high a price for a good one.
Ils font les poursuyuans en Italie, et les transis, de celles mesmes qui sont à vendre: et se defendent ainsi: Qu’il y a des degrez en la iouyssance: et que par seruices ils veulent obtenir pour eux, celle qui est la plus entiere. Elles ne vendent que le corps. La volonté ne peut estre mise en vente, elle est trop libre et trop sienne. Ainsi ceux cy disent, que c’est la volonté qu’ils entreprennent, et ont raison. C’est la volonté qu’il faut seruir et practiquer. I’ay horreur d’imaginer mien, vn corps priué d’affection. Et me semble, que cette forcenerie est voisine à celle de ce garçon, qui alla saillir par amour, la belle image de Venus que Praxiteles auoit faicte.
In Italy they play the suitor and the lovesick swain even with women who are for sale. They defend themselves this way: there are degrees of enjoyment, and by their attentions they want to obtain for themselves the most complete kind. Those women sell only the body. The will cannot be put up for sale; it is too free and too much its own. So these men say it is the will they are setting out to win, and they are right. It is the will that must be served and courted. I am horrified to imagine as mine a body without affection. And it seems to me that this frenzy is close to that of the boy who, out of love, went and mounted the beautiful statue of Venus that Praxiteles had made.
Ou de ce furieux Ægyptien, eschauffé apres la charongne d’vne morte qu’il embaumoit et ensueroit. Lequel donna occasion à la loy, qui fut faicte depuis en Ægypte, que les corps des belles et ieunes femmes, et de celles de bonne maison, seroient gardez trois iours, auant qu’on les mist entre les mains de ceux qui auoient charge de prouuoir à leur enterrement. Periander fit plus merueilleusement: qui estendit l’affection coniugale, plus reglee et legitime, à la iouyssance de Melissa sa femme trespassee. Ne semble ce pas estre vne humeur lunatique de la Lune, ne pouuant autrement iouyr d’Endymion son mignon, l’aller endormir pour plusieurs mois: et se paistre de la iouyssance d’vn garçon, qui ne se remuoit qu’en songe?
Or that of the frenzied Egyptian who was inflamed with lust for the corpse of a dead woman he was embalming and shrouding. He gave occasion for the law later made in Egypt that the bodies of beautiful young women, and of women of good family, should be kept for three days before being handed over to those whose task was to prepare their burial. Periander did something more astonishing: he extended his conjugal affection, which is more regulated and lawful, to the enjoyment of his dead wife Melissa. Does it not seem a lunatic whim of the Moon that, unable to enjoy Endymion, her darling, in any other way, she went and put him to sleep for several months, and feasted on the enjoyment of a boy who moved only in his dreams?
Ie dis pareillement, qu’on ayme vn corps sans ame, quand on ayme vn corps sans son consentement, et sans son desir. Toutes iouyssances ne sont pas vnes. Il y a des iouyssances ethiques et languissantes. Mille autres causes que la bien-vueillance, nous peuuent acquerir cet octroy des dames. Ce n’est suffisant tesmoignage d’affection. Il y peut eschoir de la trahison, comme ailleurs: elles n’y vont par fois que d’vne fesse; Tanquam thura merûmque parent: / Absentem marmoreàmue putes. I’en sçay, qui ayment mieux prester cela, que leur coche: et qui ne se communiquent, que par là.
I say likewise that one loves a body without a soul when one loves a body without its consent and without its desire. Not all enjoyments are alike. There are consumptive and languid enjoyments. A thousand causes other than goodwill can win us this grant from the ladies. It is not sufficient evidence of affection. There may be treachery in it, as anywhere else: sometimes they go at it with only one buttock; As if they were preparing incense and wine: / you would think her absent, or made of marble. I know some who would rather lend that than their coach, and who give themselves only that way.
Il faut regarder si vostre compagnie leur plaist pour quelque autre fin encores, ou pour celle là seulement, comme d’vn gros garson d’estable: en quel rang et à quel prix vous y estes logé, Tibi si datur vni / Quo lapide illa diem candidiore notet. Quoy, si elle mange vostre pain, à la sauce d’vne plus agreable imagination? Te tenet, absentes alios suspirat amores. Comment? auons nous pas veu quelqu’vn en nos iours, s’estre seruy de cette action, à l’vsage d’vne horrible vengeance: pour tuer par là, et empoisonner, comme il fit, vne honneste femme?
You must look to see whether your company pleases them for some other purpose too, or only for that one, as with a strapping stable-boy; at what rank and at what value you are lodged there, whether to you alone / she grants the days she marks with a whiter stone. What if she is eating your bread with the sauce of a more pleasing fancy? She holds you, but sighs for other, absent loves. What? Have we not seen someone in our own day use this act for a horrible revenge, to kill and poison by this means, as he did, an honorable woman?
Ceux qui cognoissent l’Italie, ne trouueront iamais estrange, si pour ce subiect, ie ne cherche ailleurs des exemples. Car cette nation se peut dire regente du reste du monde en cela. Ils ont plus communément des belles femmes, et moins de laydes que nous: mais des rares et excellentes beautez, i’estime que nous allons à pair. Et en iuge autant des esprits: de ceux de la commune façon, ils en ont beaucoup plus, et euidemment. La brutalité y est sans comparaison plus rare: d’ames singulieres et du plus haut estage, nous ne leur en deuons rien.
Those who know Italy will never find it strange if, on this subject, I look nowhere else for examples. For that nation can be called the teacher of the rest of the world in this matter. They commonly have more beautiful women and fewer ugly ones than we do; but in rare and excellent beauties I reckon we are even. And I judge the same of minds: of the ordinary sort they have far more, and obviously so. Brutishness is incomparably rarer there; but in singular souls of the highest rank, we owe them nothing.
Si i’auois à estendre cette similitude, il me sembleroit pouuoir dire de la vaillance, qu’au rebours, elle est au prix d’eux, populaire chez nous, et naturelle: mais on la voit par fois, en leurs mains, si pleine et si vigoreuse, qu’elle surpasse tous les plus roides exemples que nous en ayons.
If I had to extend this comparison, it seems to me I could say of valor that, on the contrary, compared with them it is common among us, and natural; but one sometimes sees it in their hands so full and so vigorous that it surpasses all the sternest examples we have.
Les mariages de ce pays là, clochent en cecy. Leur coustume donne communement la loy si rude aux femmes, et si serue, que la plus esloignee accointance auec l’estranger, leur est autant capitalle que la plus voisine. Cette loy fait, que toutes les approches se rendent necessairement substantieles. Et puis que tout leur reuient à mesme compte, elles ont le choix bien aysé. Et ont elles brisé ces cloisons? Croyez qu’elles font feu: Luxuria ipsis vinculis, sicut fera bestia, irritata, deinde emissa. Il leur faut vn peu lascher les resnes. Vidi ego nuper equum, contra sua frena tenacem, / Ore reluctanti fulminis ire modo. On alanguit le desir de la compagnie, en luy donnant quelque liberté.
Marriages in that country limp in this respect. Their custom commonly lays down so harsh and servile a law for women that the most distant acquaintance with a stranger is as much a capital offense for them as the closest. This law makes every approach necessarily substantial. And since it all comes to the same reckoning for them, they have an easy choice. And once they have broken through those partitions? Believe me, they catch fire: Lust, like a wild beast, first provoked by its very chains, then let loose. You must slacken the reins on them a little. I saw lately a horse fighting stubbornly against its bit / rush off like a thunderbolt, its mouth resisting. The desire for company is dulled by allowing it some freedom.
C’est vn bel vsage de nostre nation, qu’aux bonnes maisons, nos enfans soyent receuz, pour y estre nourris et esleuez pages comme en vne escole de noblesse. Et est discourtoisie, dit-on, et iniure, d’en refuser vn Gentil-homme. I’ay apperçeu, car autant de maisons autant de diuers stiles et formes, que les dames qui ont voulu donner aux filles de leur suite, les regles plus austeres, n’y ont pas eu meilleure aduanture. Il y faut de la moderation. Il faut laisser bonne partie de leur conduitte, à leur propre discretion: car ainsi comme ainsi n’y a il discipline qui les sçeut brider de toutes parts.
It is a fine custom of our nation that our children are received into good houses to be brought up and trained there as pages, as in a school of nobility. And it is a discourtesy and an insult, they say, to refuse a gentleman this. I have noticed (for there are as many different styles and ways as there are houses) that the ladies who have tried to give the girls in their train the most austere rules have had no better luck for it. Moderation is needed here. A good part of their conduct must be left to their own discretion; for, one way or another, there is no discipline that could curb them on every side.
Mais il est bien vray, que celle qui est eschappee bagues sauues, d’vn escolage libre, apporte bien plus de fiance de soy, que celle qui sort saine, d’vne escole seuere et prisonniere.
But it is quite true that the girl who has come out of a free schooling unscathed inspires much more confidence in herself than the one who comes out sound from a strict, prison-like school.
Nos peres dressoient la contenance de leurs filles à la honte et à la crainte (les courages et les desirs tousiours pareils), nous à l’asseurance: nous n’y entendons rien. C’est à faire aux Sarmates, qui n’ont loy de coucher auec homme, que de leurs mains elles n’en ayent tué vn autre en guerre. A moy qui n’y ay droit que par les oreilles, suffit, si elles me retiennent pour le conseil, suyuant le priuilege de mon aage. Ie leur conseille donc, et à nous aussi, l’abstinence: mais si ce siecle en est trop ennemy, aumoins la discretion et la modestie.
Our fathers trained their daughters’ bearing to shame and fear (hearts and desires being always the same); we train it to self-assurance. We understand nothing about it. That is a matter for the Sarmatian women, who are not allowed to sleep with a man until they have killed another with their own hands in war. For me, who have no rights there except through my ears, it is enough if they keep me on as counsel, according to the privilege of my age. So I counsel them, and us too, abstinence; but if this age is too hostile to it, at least discretion and modesty.
Car, comme dit le compte d’Aristippus, parlant à des ieunes hommes, qui rougissoient de le veoir entrer chez vne courtisane: Le vice est, de n’en pas sortir, non pas d’y entrer. Qui ne veut exempter sa conscience, qu’elle exempte son nom: si le fons n’en vaut guere, que l’apparence tienne bon.
For, as the story goes of Aristippus, speaking to some young men who blushed to see him go into a courtesan’s house: “The vice is in not coming out, not in going in.” Let her who will not keep her conscience clear keep her name clear; if the substance is not worth much, let the appearance hold firm.
Ie loüe la gradation et la longueur, en la dispensation de leurs faueurs. Platon montre, qu’en toute espece d’amour, la facilité et promptitude est interdicte aux tenants. C’est vn traict de gourmandise, laquelle il faut qu’elles couurent de tout leur art, de se rendre ainsi temerairement en gros, et tumultuairement. Se conduisant en leur dispensation, ordonnement et mesurement, elles pipent bien mieux nostre desir, et cachent le leur. Qu’elles fuyent tousiours deuant nous: ie dis celles mesmes qui ont à se laisser attraper. Elles nous battent mieux en fuyant, comme les Scythes. De vray, selon la loy que Nature leur donne, ce n’est pas proprement à elles de vouloir et desirer: leur rolle est souffrir, obeyr, consentir.
I commend gradualness and slowness in the dispensing of their favors. Plato shows that in every kind of love, easiness and promptness are forbidden to the defenders. To surrender like that, rashly, wholesale and in a rush, is a mark of greed, which they must hide with all their art. By conducting themselves in an orderly and measured way in dispensing their favors, they lure our desire far better and conceal their own. Let them always flee before us—I mean even those who intend to let themselves be caught. They beat us better by fleeing, like the Scythians. In truth, by the law Nature gives them, it is not properly their part to will and desire; their role is to submit, obey, consent.
C’est pourquoy Nature leur a donné vne perpetuelle capacité; à nous, rare et incertaine. Elles ont tousiours leur heure, afin qu’elles soyent tousiours prestes à la nostre Pati natæ. Et où elle a voulu que nos appetis eussent montre et declaration prominante, ell’ a faict que les leurs fussent occultes et intestins. Et les a fournies de pieces impropres à l’ostentation: et simplement pour la defensiue. Il faut laisser à la licence Amazonienne pareils traits à cettuy cy. Alexandre passant par l’Hyrcanie, Thalestris Royne des Amazones le vint trouuer auec trois cents gens-darmes de son sexe: bien montez et bien armez: ayant laissé le demeurant d’vne grosse armee, qui la suyuoit, au delà des voisines montaignes.
That is why Nature has given them a perpetual capacity, and us a rare and uncertain one. They always have their hour, so that they may always be ready for ours: born to be passive. And whereas she wanted our appetites to have a prominent display and declaration, she made theirs hidden and internal; and she furnished them with parts unsuited for display, made simply for defense. We must leave to Amazonian license strokes like this one. When Alexander was passing through Hyrcania, Thalestris, queen of the Amazons, came to find him with three hundred warriors of her sex, well mounted and well armed, having left the rest of a large army that followed her beyond the neighboring mountains.
Et luy dit tout haut, et en publiq, que le bruit de ses victoires et de sa valeur, l’auoit menee là, pour le veoir, luy offrir ses moyens et sa puissance au secours de ses entreprinses. Et que le trouuant si beau, ieune, et vigoureux, elle, qui estoit parfaitte en toutes ses qualitez, luy conseilloit qu’ils couchassent ensemble: afin qu’il nasquist de la plus vaillante femme du monde, et du plus vaillant homme, qui fust lors viuant, quelque chose de grand et de rare, pour l’aduenir. Alexandre la remercia du reste: mais pour donner temps à l’accomplissement de sa derniere demande, il arresta treize iours en ce lieu, lesquels il festoya le plus alaigrement qu’il peut, en faueur d’vne si courageuse Princesse.
And she told him aloud, in public, that the fame of his victories and his valor had brought her there to see him and to offer him her means and her power in support of his enterprises; and that, finding him so handsome, young and vigorous, she, who was perfect in all her qualities, advised that they sleep together, so that from the most valiant woman in the world and the most valiant man then living there might be born something great and rare for the future. Alexander thanked her for the rest; but to give time for the fulfillment of her last request he stayed thirteen days in that place, which he celebrated as merrily as he could in honor of so courageous a princess.
Nous sommes quasi par tout iniques iuges de leurs actions, comme elles sont des nostres. I’aduoüe la verité lors qu’elle me nuit, de mesme que si elle me sert. C’est vn vilain desreglement, qui les pousse si souuent au change, et les empesche de fermir leur affection en quelque subiect que ce soit: comme on voit de cette Deesse, à qui lon donne tant de changemens et d’amis. Mais si est-il vray, que c’est contre la nature de l’amour, s’il n’est violant, et contre la nature de la violance, s’il est constant.
We are almost everywhere unfair judges of their actions, as they are of ours. I admit the truth when it hurts me just as when it serves me. It is an ugly disorder that drives them so often to change and prevents them from fixing their affection firmly on any object whatever, as we see with that goddess to whom so many changes and lovers are attributed. But it is true, all the same, that it is against the nature of love not to be violent, and against the nature of violence to be constant.
Et ceux qui s’en estonnent, s’en escrient, et cherchent les causes de cette maladie en elles, comme desnaturee et incroyable: que ne voyent ils, combien souuent ils la reçoyuent en eux, sans espouuantement et sans miracle? Il seroit à l’aduenture plus estrange d’y voir de l’arrest. Ce n’est pas vne passion simplement corporelle. Si on ne trouue point de bout en l’auarice, et en l’ambition, il n’y en a non plus en paillardise. Elle vit encore apres la satieté: et ne luy peut on prescrire ny satisfaction constante, ny fin: elle va tousiours outre sa possession. Et si l’inconstance leur est à l’aduenture aucunement plus pardonnable qu’à nous.
And those who are amazed at this, who cry out against it and seek the causes of this malady in women as something unnatural and incredible—why do they not see how often they harbor it in themselves without alarm and without marvel? It would perhaps be stranger to find any stability in it. It is not simply a bodily passion. If there is no limit to be found in avarice and ambition, there is none in lechery either. It lives on even after satiety; no constant satisfaction and no end can be prescribed for it; it always goes beyond what it possesses. And yet inconstancy is perhaps somewhat more pardonable in them than in us.
Elles peuuent alleguer comme nous, l’inclination qui nous est commune à la varieté et à la nouuelleté: et alleguer secondement sans nous, qu’elles achetent chat en sac. Ieanne Royne de Naples, feit estrangler Andreosse son premier mary, aux grilles de sa fenestre, auec un laz d’or et de soye, tissu de sa main propre: sur ce qu’aux couruees matrimoniales, elle ne luy trouuoit ny les parties, ny les efforts, assez respondants à l’esperance qu’elle en auoit couçeuë, à veoir sa taille, sa beauté, sa ieunesse et disposition: par où elle auoit esté prinse et abusee. Que l’action a plus d’effort que n’a la souffrance: ainsi que de leur part tousiours aumoins il est pourueu à la necessité: de nostre part il peut auenir autrement.
They can plead, as we can, the inclination we share for variety and novelty; and they can plead secondly, as we cannot, that they buy a cat in a sack. Joanna, queen of Naples, had Andrew, her first husband, strangled at the bars of her window with a cord of gold and silk woven by her own hand, because in the labors of marriage she found neither his parts nor his efforts answering to the hope she had conceived of them on seeing his stature, his beauty, his youth and his vigor, by which she had been taken in and deceived. They can plead too that the active part takes more effort than the passive: so that on their side, at least, the need is always provided for, whereas on ours it may turn out otherwise.
Platon à cette cause establit sagement par ses loix, auant tout mariage, pour decider de son opportunité, que les iuges voient les garçons, qui y pretendent, touts fins nuds: et les filles nuës iusqu’à la ceinture seulement. En nous essayant, elles ne nous trouuent à l’aduenture pas digne de leur choix: Experta latus, madidoque simillima loro / Inguina, nec lassa stare coacta manu, / Deserit imbelles thalamos. Ce n’est pas tout, que la volonté charrie droict. La foiblesse et l’incapacité, rompent legitimement vn mariage: Et quærendum aliunde foret neruosius illud, / Quod posset zonam soluere virgineam. Pourquoy non, et selon sa mesure, vne intelligence amoureuse, plus licentieuse et plus actiue? Si blando nequeat superesse labori.
For this reason Plato wisely provides in his Laws that before any marriage, to decide whether it is suitable, the judges should see the young men who seek it stark naked, and the girls naked only to the waist. When they try us out, they may find us unworthy of their choice: Having tried his loins, and found his groin just like a sodden strap, / unable to stand even when urged by her tired hand, / she deserts the unwarlike marriage bed. It is not enough for the will to go straight. Weakness and incapacity lawfully break a marriage: And she would have to look elsewhere for something more sinewy, / able to untie a virgin’s girdle. Why not, then, and in her own measure, a love affair more licentious and more active? if he cannot last out the sweet labor.
Mais n’est-ce pas grande impudence, d’apporter nos imperfections et foiblesses, en lieu où nous desirons plaire, et y laisser bonne estime de nous et recommandation? Pour ce peu qu’il m’en faut à cette heure, Ad vnum / Mollis opus, ie ne voudrois importuner vne personne, que i’ay a reuerer et craindre. Fuge suspicari, / Cuius vndenum trepidauit ætas / Claudere lustrum. Nature se deuoit contenter d’auoir rendu cet aage miserable, sans le rendre encore ridicule. Ie hay de le voir, pour vn pouce de chetiue vigueur, qui l’eschaufe trois fois la semaine, s’empresser et se gendarmer, de pareille aspreté, comme s’il auoit quelque grande et legitime iournee dans le ventre: vn vray feu d’estoupe.
But is it not great impudence to bring our imperfections and weaknesses to a place where we wish to please, and to leave a good opinion and recommendation of ourselves behind? For the little I need nowadays, limp / after a single bout, I would not want to trouble a person whom I must revere and fear. Have no suspicion of a man / whose age has hurried on / to close its eleventh lustrum. Nature should have been content to make this age miserable without making it ridiculous as well. I hate to see it, for an inch of puny vigor that heats it three times a week, bustle and swagger with as much eagerness as if it had some great and lawful battle in its belly: a real fire of straw.
Et admire sa cuisson, si viue et fretillante, en vn moment si lourdement congelee et esteinte. Cet appetit ne deuroit appartenir qu’à la fleur d’vne belle ieunesse. Fiez vous y, pour voir, à seconder cett’ ardeur indefatigable, pleine, constante, et magnanime, qui est en vous: il vous la lairra vrayment en beau chemin.
And I marvel at its heat, so lively and frisky, being in a moment so heavily frozen and snuffed out. This appetite ought to belong only to the flower of a fine youth. Just trust it, and see, to second that tireless, full, constant and magnanimous ardor that is in you: it will leave you stranded halfway, I promise you.
Renuoyez le hardiment plustost vers quelque enfance molle, estonnee, et ignorante, qui tremble encore soubs la verge, et en rougisse, Indum sanguineo veluti violauerit ostro / Si quis ebur, vel mista rubent vbi lilia multa / Alba rosa. Qui peut attendre le lendemain, sans mourir de honte, le desdain de ces beaux yeux, consens de sa lascheté et impertinence: Et taciti fecere tamen conuitia vultus, il n’a iamais senty le contentement et la fierté, de les leur auoir battus et ternis, par le vigoureux exercice d’vne nuict officieuse et actiue. Quand i’en ay veu quelqu’vne s’ennuyer de moy, ie n’en ay point incontinent accusé sa legereté: i’ay mis en doubte, si ie n’auois pas raison de m’en prendre à Nature plustost.
Rather send it off boldly to some soft, bewildered and ignorant girlhood that still trembles under the rod and blushes at it, As when someone stains Indian ivory / with blood-red purple, or when white lilies blush, mixed / with many roses. The man who can wait for the next day without dying of shame, for the disdain of those lovely eyes that witnessed his slackness and ineptitude, And yet her silent face reproached me, has never felt the satisfaction and pride of having left them heavy and dim from the vigorous exercise of an obliging and active night. When I have seen a woman grow tired of me, I have not straightaway blamed her fickleness; I have wondered whether I had not better reason to blame Nature instead.
Certes elle m’a traitté illegitimement et inciuilement, Si non longa satis, si non benè mentula crassa: / Nimirum sapiunt vidéntque paruam / Matronæ quoque mentulam illibenter: et d’vne lesion enormissime. Chacune de mes pieces est esgalement mienne, que toute autre. Et nulle autre ne me fait plus proprement homme que cette cy.
Certainly she has treated me unfairly and unkindly, If the penis is not long enough, not thick enough: / no doubt matrons too know what’s what, and look on / a small penis with displeasure: and with the grossest of losses. Each of my parts is as much mine as any other. And no other makes me more properly a man than this one.
My portrait, all of it
Montaigne defends his frankness and owns his conduct as a lover.
Ie doy au publiq vniuersellement mon pourtrait. La sagesse de ma leçon est en verité, en liberté, en essence, toute. Dedeignant au rolle de ses vrays deuoirs, ces petites regles, feintes, vsuelles, prouinciales. Naturelle toute, constante, generale. De laquelle sont filles, mais bastardes, la ciuilité, la ceremonie. Nous aurons bien les vices de l’apparence, quand nous aurons eu ceux de l’essence. Quand nous aurons faict à ceux icy, nous courrons sus aux autres, si nous trouuons qu’il y faille courir. Car il y a danger, que nous fantasions des offices nouueaux, pour excuser nostre negligence enuers les naturels offices, et pour les confondre. Qu’il soit ainsin, il se void, qu’és lieux, où les fautes sont malefices, les malefices ne sont que fautes.
I owe the public my portrait, complete. The wisdom of my teaching lies wholly in truth, in freedom, in essence. It disdains to put on the list of its true duties these petty rules, feigned, customary, provincial. It is wholly natural, constant, universal. Civility and ceremony are its daughters, but spurious ones. We shall get the better of the vices of appearance once we have got the better of those of essence. When we have done with these, we will fall upon the others, if we find that we must. For there is a danger that we invent new duties to excuse our neglect of the natural ones, and to confuse them. That this is so can be seen from the fact that in places where faults are crimes, crimes are only faults.
Qu’és nations, où les loix de la bienseance sont plus rares et lasches, les loix primitiues de la raison commune sont mieux obseruees: l’innumerable multitude de tant de deuoirs, suffoquant nostre soing, l’allanguissant et dissipant. L’application aux legeres choses nous retire des iustes. O que ces hommes superficiels, prennent vne routte facile et plausible, au prix de la nostre! Ce sont ombrages, dequoy nous nous plastrons et entrepayons. Mais nous n’en payons pas, ainçois en rechargeons nostre debte, enuers ce grand iuge, qui trousse nos panneaus et haillons, d’autour noz parties honteuses: et ne se feint point à nous veoir par tout, iusques à noz intimes et plus secrettes ordures: vtile decence de nostre virginale pudeur, si elle luy pouuoit interdire cette descouuerte.
And that in nations where the laws of propriety are fewer and looser, the primary laws of common reason are better observed, since the countless multitude of so many duties smothers our care, making it languid and scattering it. Attention to trivial things draws us away from the proper ones. Oh, what an easy and plausible road these superficial men take, compared with ours! These are shadows with which we plaster ourselves over and pay one another. But we do not pay with them; rather, we add to our debt toward that great Judge who lifts our flaps and rags from around our shameful parts, and does not hesitate to see us all over, down to our most intimate and secret filth. A useful decency, that maidenly modesty of ours, if it could forbid him this discovery.
En fin, qui desniaiseroit l’homme, d’vne si scrupuleuse superstition verbale, n’apporteroit pas grande perte au monde. Nostre vie est partie en folie, partie en prudence. Qui n’en escrit que reueremment et regulierement, il en laisse en arriere plus de la moitié. Ie ne m’excuse pas enuers moy: et si ie le faisoy, ce seroit plustost de mes excuses, que ie m’excuseroy, que d’autre mienne faute. Ie m’excuse à certaines humeurs, que i’estime plus fortes en nombre que celles, qui sont de mon costé.
In short, whoever cured man of so scrupulous a verbal superstition would do the world no great harm. Our life is partly folly, partly prudence. Whoever writes of it only reverently and by the rules leaves more than half of it out. I do not make excuses to myself; and if I did, it would be for my excuses that I would excuse myself, rather than for any other fault of mine. I make my excuses to certain temperaments, which I reckon to be more numerous than those on my side.
En leur consideration, ie diray encore cecy (car ie desire de contenter chacun; chose pourtant difficile, esse vnum hominem accommodatum ad tantam morum ac sermonum et voluntatum varietatem) qu’ils n’ont à se prendre à moy, de ce que ie fay dire aux auctoritez receuës et approuuees de plusieurs siecles: et que ce n’est pas raison, qu’à faute de rythme ils me refusent la dispense, que mesme des hommes ecclesiastiques, des nostres, iouyssent en ce siecle. En voicy deux, et des plus crestez: Rimula, dispeream, ni monogramma tua est. / Vn vit d’amy la contente et bien traitte. Quoy tant d’autres? I’ayme la modestie: et n’est par iugement, que i’ay choisi cette sorte de parler scandaleux: c’est Nature, qui l’a choisi pour moy.
For their sake I will say this too (for I wish to satisfy everyone, a hard thing nonetheless, for one man to adapt himself to so great a variety of manners, speech and inclinations): that they have no cause to blame me for what I make authorities say that have been accepted and approved for many centuries; and that it is not reasonable, just because I do not write in rhyme, to refuse me the license that even churchmen, some of our own, enjoy in this age. Here are two, and from some of the proudest crests: May I perish if your little slit is more than a single line. / A friend’s member pleases her and treats her well. And what of so many others? I love modesty; and it is not by judgment that I have chosen this scandalous way of speaking: it is Nature that chose it for me.
Ie ne le louë, non plus que toutes formes contraires à l’vsage receu: mais ie l’excuse: par circonstances tant generales que particulieres, en allege l’accusation. Suiuons.
I do not praise it, any more than any other ways contrary to accepted usage; but I excuse it, and by circumstances both general and particular I lighten the charge. Let us go on.
Pareillement d’où peut venir cette vsurpation d’authorité souueraine, que vous prenez sur celles, qui vous fauorisent à leurs despens, Si furtiua dedit nigra munuscula nocte, que vous en inuestissez incontinent l’interest, la froideur, et vne auctorité maritale? C’est vne conuention libre, que ne vous y prenez vous, comme vous les y voulez tenir? Il n’y a point de prescription sur les choses volontaires.
Likewise, where can it come from, this usurpation of sovereign authority that you assume over the women who favor you at their own expense, If she has given stolen little gifts in the dark of night, so that you at once take on the rights, the coolness and the authority of a husband? It is a free agreement: why do you not hold yourselves to it as you want to hold them? No rights can be acquired by prescription in things done voluntarily.
C’est contre la forme, mais il est vray pourtant, que i’ay en mon temps conduict ce marché, selon que sa nature peut souffrir, aussi conscientieusement qu’autre marché, et auec quelque air de iustice: et que ie ne leur ay tesmoigné de mon affection, que ce que i’en sentois; et leur en ay representé naifuement, la decadence, la vigueur, et la naissance: les accez et les remises. On n’y va pas tousiours vn train. I’ay esté si espargnant à promettre, que ie pense auoir plus tenu que promis, ny deu. Elles y ont trouué de la fidelité, iusques au seruice de leur inconstance. Ie dis inconstance aduouee, et par fois multipliee.
It is against the fashion, but it is true nonetheless, that in my time I conducted this bargain, as far as its nature allows, as conscientiously as any other bargain, and with some semblance of justice; that I showed them no more affection than I felt, and represented to them plainly its decline, its vigor and its birth, its fits and its lulls. One does not always go at the same pace. I was so sparing in my promises that I think I have kept more than I promised or owed. They found me faithful, even to the point of serving their inconstancy. I mean an inconstancy openly admitted, and sometimes multiplied.
Ie n’ay iamais rompu auec elles, tant que i’y tenois, ne fust que par le bout d’vn filet. Et quelques occasions qu’elles m’en ayent donné, n’ay iamais rompu, iusques au mespris et à la hayne. Car telles priuautez, lors mesme qu’on les acquiert par les plus honteuses conuentions, encores m’obligent elles à quelque bien-vueillance. De cholere et d’impatience vn peu indiscrette, sur le poinct de leurs ruses et desfuites, et de nos contestations, ie leur en ay faict voir par fois. Car ie suis de ma complexion, subiect à des emotions brusques, qui nuisent souuent à mes marchez, quoy qu’elles soyent legeres et courtes.
I never broke with them as long as I was still attached, even if only by the end of a thread. And whatever cause they gave me, I never broke off to the point of contempt and hatred. For such intimacies, even when obtained by the most shameful agreements, still bind me to some goodwill. I have sometimes shown them anger and somewhat indiscreet impatience over their tricks and evasions, and over our quarrels. For by my constitution I am subject to sudden emotions that often harm my dealings, though they are light and brief.
Si elles ont voulu essayer la liberté de mon iugement, ie ne me suis pas feint, à leur donner des aduis paternels et mordans, et à les pinser où il leur cuysoit. Si ie leur ay laissé à se plaindre de moy, c’est plustost d’y auoir trouué vn amour, au prix de l’vsage moderne, sottement consciencieux. I’ay obserué ma parolle, és choses dequoy on m’eust aysement dispensé. Elles se rendoient lors par fois auec reputation, et soubs des capitulations, qu’elles souffroient aysement estre faussees par le vaincueur. I’ay faict caler soubs l’interest de leur honneur, le plaisir, en son plus grand effort, plus d’vne fois.
If they wanted to test the freedom of my judgment, I did not hesitate to give them fatherly and biting advice, and to pinch them where it smarted. If I have left them any cause to complain of me, it is rather that they found in me a love that was, by modern standards, foolishly conscientious. I kept my word in matters where I would easily have been released from it. They sometimes surrendered then with their reputation intact, and on terms of capitulation that they readily allowed the victor to break. More than once I have made pleasure, at its very height, strike sail before the interest of their honor.
Et où la raison me pressoit, les ay armees contre moy: si qu’elles se conduisoient plus seurement et seuerement, par mes regles, quand elles s’y estoient franchement remises, qu’elles n’eussent faict par les leurs propres. I’ay autant que i’ay peu chargé sur moy seul, le hazard de nos assignations, pour les en descharger: et ay dressé nos parties tousiours par le plus aspre, et inopiné, pour estre moins en souspçon, et en outre par mon aduis, plus accessible. Ils sont ouuerts, principalement par les endroits qu’ils tiennent de soy couuerts. Les choses moins craintes sont moins defendues et obseruees. On peut oser plus aysement, ce que personne ne pense que vous oserez, qui deuient facile par sa difficulté.
And where reason pressed me, I armed them against me, so that they conducted themselves more safely and strictly by my rules, once they had freely put themselves in my hands, than they would have by their own. As far as I could, I took on myself alone the risk of our assignations, to relieve them of it; and I always arranged our meetings by the hardest and least expected way, to be less suspected and also, in my opinion, more accessible. People are open chiefly at the points they consider covered by themselves. Things less feared are less defended and watched. You can more easily dare what no one thinks you will dare, which becomes easy by its very difficulty.
Iamais homme n’eut ses approches plus impertinemment genitales. Cette voye d’aymer, est plus selon la discipline. Mais combien elle est ridicule à nos gens, et peu effectuelle, qui le sçait mieux que moy? Si ne m’en viendra point le repentir. Ie n’y ay plus que perdre, Me tabula sacer / Votiua paries indicat vuida, / Suspendisse potenti / Vestimenta maris Deo. Il est à cette heure temps d’en parler ouuertement.
Never did a man make his approaches more ineptly genital. This way of loving is more in keeping with the rules. But how ridiculous it is to our people, and how ineffective, who knows better than I? Yet I shall not come to repent of it. I have nothing more to lose there: The sacred wall, by its votive tablet, / shows that I have hung up my dripping / garments to the mighty god / who rules the sea. Now is the time to speak of it openly.
Mais tout ainsi comme à vn autre, ie dirois à l’auanture, Mon amy tu resues, l’amour de ton temps a peu de commerce auec la foy et la preud’hommie; Hæc si tu postules / Ratione certa facere, nihilo plus agas, / Quàm si des operam, vt cum ratione insanias. Aussi au rebours, si c’estoit à moy de recommencer, ce seroit certes le mesme train et par mesme progrez, pour infructueux qu’il me peust estre. L’insuffisance et la sottise est loüable en vne action meslouable. Autant que ie m’eslongne de leur humeur en cela, ie m’approche de la mienne.
But just as I might perhaps say to another: “My friend, you are dreaming; love in your day has little to do with good faith and integrity; If you expect to make these things / certain by reason, you will achieve no more / than if you tried to go mad by reason”—so, on the other hand, if it were up to me to begin again, it would certainly be the same way and by the same steps, however fruitless it might prove for me. Incompetence and foolishness are praiseworthy in a blameworthy action. The further I move from their temperament in this, the closer I come to my own.
Love in old age
Moderate love would revive an aging man, but he has little left to offer in return.
Au demeurant, en ce marché, ie ne me laissois pas tout aller: ie m’y plaisois, mais ie ne m’y oubliois pas: ie reseruois en son entier, ce peu de sens et de discretion, que Nature m’a donné, pour leur seruice, et pour le mien: vn peu d’esmotion, mais point de resuerie. Ma conscience s’y engageoit aussi, iusques à la desbauche et dissolution, mais iusques à l’ingratitude, trahison, malignité, et cruauté, non. Ie n’achetois pas le plaisir de ce vice à tout prix: et me contentois de son propre et simple coust. Nullum intra se vitium est. Ie hay quasi à pareille mesure vne oysiueté croupie et endormie, comme vn embesongnement espineux et penible. L’vn me pince, l’autre m’assoupit.
Besides, in this business I did not let myself go entirely. I enjoyed it, but I did not forget myself; I kept intact the little sense and discretion that Nature has given me, for their service and for mine: a little excitement, but no delirium. My conscience was engaged in it too, as far as debauchery and dissoluteness, but as far as ingratitude, treachery, malice and cruelty, no. I did not buy the pleasure of this vice at any price, and was content with its own simple cost. No vice is confined to itself. I hate almost equally a stagnant, sleepy idleness and a thorny, painful busyness. The one pricks me, the other puts me to sleep.
I’ayme autant les blesseures, comme les meurtrisseures, et les coups trenchans, comme les coups orbes. I’ay trouué en ce marché, quand i’y estois plus propre, vne iuste moderation entre ces deux extremitez. L’amour est vne agitation esueillee, viue, et gaye. Ie n’en estois ny troublé, ny affligé, mais i’en estois eschauffé, et encores alteré: il s’en faut arrester là. Elle n’est nuisible qu’aux fols. Vn ieune homme demandoit au philosophe Panetius, s’il sieroit bien au sage d’estre amoureux: Laissons là le sage, respondit-il, mais toy et moy, qui ne le sommes pas, ne nous engageons en chose si esmeuë et violente, qui nous esclaue à autruy, et nous rende contemptibles à nous.
I like wounds as much as bruises, and cutting blows as much as blunt ones. In this business, when I was more fit for it, I found a just moderation between these two extremes. Love is a wakeful, lively and cheerful agitation. I was neither troubled nor afflicted by it, but I was warmed by it, and stirred as well: that is where one must stop. It is harmful only to fools. A young man asked the philosopher Panaetius whether it would become a wise man to be in love. “Let us leave the wise man aside,” he answered, “but you and I, who are not wise, let us not get involved in something so agitated and violent, which enslaves us to another and makes us contemptible to ourselves.”
Il disoit vray: qu’il ne faut pas fier chose de soy si precipiteuse, à vne ame qui n’aye dequoy en soustenir les venues, et dequoy rabatre par effect la parole d’Agesilaus, que la prudence et l’amour ne peuuent ensemble. C’est vne vaine occupation, il est vray, messeante, honteuse, et illegitime. Mais à la conduire en cette façon, ie l’estime salubre, propre à desgourdir vn esprit, et vn corps poisant. Et comme medecin, l’ordonnerois à vn homme de ma forme et condition, autant volontiers qu’aucune autre recepte: pour l’esueiller et tenir en force bien auant dans les ans, et le dilaier des prises de la vieillesse.
He spoke truly: one should not entrust so headlong a thing to a soul that has not the means to withstand its assaults, and to refute in practice the saying of Agesilaus, that prudence and love cannot go together. It is a vain occupation, it is true: unseemly, shameful and illegitimate. But conducted in this way, I consider it healthy, fit to rouse a sluggish mind and body. And as a doctor I would prescribe it to a man of my build and condition as willingly as any other prescription, to wake him up and keep him vigorous well on into his years, and to put off the grip of old age.
Pendant que nous n’en sommes qu’aux fauxbourgs, que le pouls bat encores, Dum noua canities, dum prima et recta senectus, / Dum superest Lachesi quod torqueat, et pedibus me / Porto meis, nullo dextram subeunte bacillo, nous auons besoing d’estre sollicitez et chatouillez, par quelque agitation mordicante, comme est cette-cy. Voyez combien elle a rendu de ieunesse, vigueur et de gayeté, au sage Anacreon.
While we are only in its outskirts, while the pulse still beats, While my white hair is new, while old age is fresh and upright, / while Lachesis still has thread to spin, and I carry myself / on my own feet, with no staff to prop my right hand, we need to be roused and tickled by some biting agitation like this one. See how much youth, vigor and gaiety it gave back to the wise Anacreon.
Et Socrates, plus vieil que ie ne suis, parlant d’vn obiect amoureux: M’estant, dit-il, appuyé contre son espaule, de la mienne, et approché ma teste à la sienne, ainsi que nous regardions ensemble dans vn liure, ie senty sans mentir, soudain vne piqueure dans l’espaule, comme de quelque morsure de beste; et fus plus de cinq iours depuis, qu’elle me fourmilloit: et m’escoula dans le cœur vne demangeaison continuelle. Vn attouchement, et fortuite, et par vne espaule, aller eschauffer, et alterer vne ame refroidie, et esneruee par l’aage, et la premiere de toutes les humaines, en reformation. Pourquoy non dea? Socrates estoit homme, et ne vouloit ny estre ny sembler autre chose.
And Socrates, who was older than I am, said of an object of his love: “As I leaned my shoulder against his, and brought my head close to his while we were looking at a book together, I felt, truly, a sudden sting in my shoulder, like the bite of some animal; and for more than five days afterward it tingled, and a continual itch flowed into my heart.” A touch, and an accidental one, and by a shoulder, to heat and stir a soul cooled and enfeebled by age, and the foremost of all human souls in reforming itself! And why not, indeed? Socrates was a man, and wanted neither to be nor to seem anything else.
La philosophie n’estriue point contre les voluptez naturelles, pourueu que la mesure y soit ioincte: et en presche la moderation, non la fuitte. L’effort de sa resistance s’emploie contre les estrangeres et bastardes. Elle dit que les appetits du corps ne doiuent pas estre augmentez par l’esprit. Et nous aduertit ingenieusement, de ne vouloir point esueiller nostre faim par la saturité: de ne vouloir farcir, au lieu de remplir le ventre: d’euiter toute iouyssance, qui nous met en disette: et toute viande et breuuage, qui nous altere, et affame.
Philosophy does not struggle against natural pleasures, provided measure goes with them; it preaches moderation in them, not flight. The force of its resistance is used against foreign and spurious ones. It says that the appetites of the body must not be increased by the mind. And it warns us ingeniously not to try to wake our hunger by surfeit; not to stuff the belly instead of filling it; to avoid every enjoyment that leaves us in want, and every food and drink that makes us thirsty and hungry.
Comme au seruice de l’amour elle nous ordonne, de prendre vn obiect qui satisface simplement au besoing du corps, qui n’esmeuue point l’ame: laquelle n’en doit pas faire son faict, ains suyure nüement et assister le corps. Mais ay-ie pas raison d’estimer, que ces preceptes, qui ont pourtant d’ailleurs, selon moy, vn peu de rigueur, regardent vn corps qui face son office: et qu’à vn corps abbattu, comme vn estomach prosterné, il est excusable de le rechauffer et soustenir par art: et par l’entremise de la fantasie, luy faire reuenir l’appetit et l’allegresse, puis que de soy il l’a perdue?
So in the service of love it bids us take an object that simply satisfies the body’s need and does not stir the soul, which must not make this its business, but merely follow and assist the body. But am I not right to think that these precepts, which in my view are rather rigorous anyway, concern a body that does its job; and that for a body that is run down, like a prostrate stomach, it is excusable to warm it and prop it up by art, and by means of the imagination to bring back its appetite and liveliness, since of itself it has lost them?
Pouuons nous pas dire, qu’il n’y a rien en nous, pendant cette prison terrestre, purement, ny corporel, ny spirituel: et qu’iniurieusement nous desmembrons vn homme tout vif: et qu’il semble y auoir raison, que nous nous portions enuers l’vsage du plaisir, aussi fauorablement aumoins, que nous faisons enuers la douleur? Elle estoit, pour exemple, vehemente, iusques à la perfection, en l’ame des saincts par la pœnitence. Le corps y auoit naturellement part, par le droict de leur colligance, et si pouuoit auoir peu de part à la cause: si ne se sont ils pas contentez qu’il suyuist nuement, et assistast l’ame affligee.
May we not say that there is nothing in us, during this earthly prison, that is purely either bodily or spiritual, and that it is wrong to dismember a living man; and that it seems reasonable for us to treat the enjoyment of pleasure at least as favorably as we treat pain? Pain, for example, was vehement to the point of perfection in the souls of the saints through penitence. The body naturally had a share in it by right of their union, and yet could have had little share in the cause; still, they were not content that it should merely follow and assist the afflicted soul.
Ils l’ont affligé luymesme, de peines atroces et propres: affin qu’à l’enuy l’vn de l’autre, l’ame et le corps plongeassent l’homme dans la douleur, d’autant plus salutaire, que plus aspre. En pareil cas, aux plaisirs corporels, est-ce pas iniustice d’en refroidir l’ame, et dire, qu’il l’y faille entrainer, comme à quelque obligation et necessité contreinte et seruile? C’est à elle plustost de les couuer et fomenter: de s’y presenter et conuier: la charge de regir luy appartenant. Comme c’est aussi à mon aduis à elle, aux plaisirs, qui luy sont propres, d’en inspirer et infondre au corps tout le ressentiment que porte sa condition, et de s’estudier qu’ils luy soient doux et salutaires.
They afflicted the body itself with atrocious pains of its own, so that, vying with each other, soul and body might plunge the man into pain, all the more salutary for being harsher. In the same case, with bodily pleasures, is it not unjust to chill the soul toward them and to say that it must be dragged to them as to some constrained and servile obligation and necessity? It is rather for the soul to brood over and foster them, to present itself and invite itself to them, since the charge of ruling belongs to it. Just as it is also, in my opinion, for the soul, in the pleasures proper to it, to inspire and infuse into the body all the feeling its nature can bear, and to strive to make them sweet and wholesome for it.
Car c’est bien raison, comme ils disent, que le corps ne suyue point ses appetits au dommage de l’esprit. Mais pourquoy n’est-ce pas aussi raison, que l’esprit ne suiue pas les siens, au dommage du corps?
For it is quite right, as they say, that the body should not follow its appetites to the harm of the mind. But why is it not also right that the mind should not follow its own to the harm of the body?
Ie n’ay point autre passion qui me tienne en haleine. Ce que l’auarice, l’ambition, les querelles, les procés, font à l’endroit des autres, qui comme moy, n’ont point de vacation assignee, l’amour le feroit plus commodément.
I have no other passion to keep me on my toes. What avarice, ambition, quarrels and lawsuits do for others who, like me, have no assigned occupation, love would do more agreeably.
Il me rendroit, la vigilance, la sobrieté, la grace, le soing de ma personne: r’asseureroit ma contenance, à ce que les grimaces de la vieillesse, ces grimaces difformes et pitoyables, ne vinssent à la corrompre: me remettroit aux estudes sains et sages, par où ie me peusse rendre plus estimé et plus aymé: ostant à mon esprit le desespoir de soy, et de son vsage, et le raccointant à soy: me diuertiroit de mille pensees ennuyeuses, de mille chagrins melancholiques que l’oysiueté nous charge en tel aage, et le mauuais estat de nostre santé: reschaufferoit aumoins en songe, ce sang que nature abandonne: soustiendroit le menton, et allongeroit vn peu les nerfs, et la vigueur et allegresse de la vie, à ce pauure homme, qui s’en va le grand train vers sa ruine.
It would give me back watchfulness, sobriety, grace, care of my person. It would steady my bearing, so that the grimaces of old age, those deformed and pitiable grimaces, might not come to spoil it. It would bring me back to sound and wise studies, by which I might make myself more esteemed and more loved, freeing my mind from despair of itself and of its use, and reconciling it with itself. It would divert me from a thousand distressing thoughts, a thousand melancholy cares with which idleness and the poor state of our health burden us at such an age. It would warm again, at least in dreams, this blood that nature is abandoning. It would hold up the chin, and stretch a little the sinews, and the vigor and gaiety of life, for this poor man who is heading full tilt toward his ruin.
Mais i’entens bien que c’est vne commodité fort mal-aisée à recouurer. Par foiblesse, et longue experience, nostre goust est deuenu plus tendre et plus exquis. Nous demandons plus, lors que nous apportons moins. Nous voulons le plus choisir, lors que nous meritons le moins d’estre acceptez. Nous cognoissans tels, nous sommes moins hardis, et plus defians: rien ne nous peut asseurer d’estre aymez, veu nostre condition, et la leur. I’ay honte de me trouuer parmy cette verte et bouillante ieunesse, Cuius in indomito constantior inguine neruus, / Quàm noua collibus arbor inhæret. Qu’irions nous presenter nostre misere parmy cette allégresse?
But I fully understand that it is a convenience very hard to come by. Through weakness and long experience, our taste has become more delicate and more refined. We ask more when we bring less. We want to choose most when we least deserve to be accepted. Knowing ourselves to be such, we are less bold and more distrustful: nothing can assure us that we are loved, given our condition and theirs. I am ashamed to find myself among this green and ebullient youth, whose sinew, in his untamed groin, stands firmer / than a young tree rooted on the hills. Why should we go and display our misery amid all this gaiety?
Possint vt iuuenes visere feruidi / Multo non sine risu, / Dilapsam in cineres facem. Ils ont la force et la raison pour eux: faisons leur place: nous n’auons plus que tenir. Et ce germe de beauté naissante, ne se laisse manier à mains si gourdes, et prattiquer à moyens purs materiels. Car, comme respondit ce philosophe ancien, à celuy qui se moquoit, dequoy il n’auoit sçeu gaigner la bonne grace d’vn tendron qu’il pourchassoit: Mon amy, le hameçon ne mord pas à du fromage si frais. Or c’est vn commerce qui a besoin de relation et de correspondance. Les autres plaisirs que nous receuons, se peuuent recognoistre par recompenses de nature diuerse: mais cettuy-cy ne se paye que de mesme espece de monnoye.
So that the hot-blooded young men may see, / not without much laughter, / the torch crumbled into ashes. They have strength and reason on their side; let us make way for them; we have nothing left to hold on to. And this bud of nascent beauty does not let itself be handled by such numb hands, or won by purely material means. For, as that ancient philosopher answered the man who mocked him for failing to win the favor of a young thing he was pursuing: “My friend, the hook won’t bite into such fresh cheese.” Now this is a commerce that requires relationship and reciprocity. The other pleasures we receive can be repaid with rewards of a different kind; but this one is paid only in coin of the same kind.
En verité en ce desduit, le plaisir que ie fay, chatouille plus doucement mon imagination, que celuy qu’on me fait. Or cil n’a rien de genereux, qui peut receuoir plaisir où il n’en donne point; c’est vne vile ame, qui veut tout deuoir, et qui se plaist de nourrir de la conference, auec les personnes ausquels il est en charge. Il n’y a beauté, ny grace, ny priuauté si exquise, qu’vn galant homme deust desirer à ce prix. Si elles ne nous peuuent faire du bien que par pitié: i’ayme bien plus cher ne viure point, que de viure d’aumosne.
Truly, in this sport, the pleasure I give tickles my imagination more sweetly than the pleasure I am given. Now there is nothing generous in a man who can receive pleasure where he gives none; it is a mean soul that wants to owe everything, and likes to keep up dealings with people to whom it is a burden. There is no beauty, no grace, no intimacy so exquisite that a gentleman should desire it at that price. If they can do us good only out of pity, I would much rather not live at all than live on alms.
Ie voudrois auoir droit de leur demander, au stile auquel i’ay veu quester en Italie: Fate bene per voi: ou à la guise que Cyrus exhortoit ses soldats, Qui m’aymera, si me suiue. R’alliez vous, me dira lon, à celles de vostre condition, que la compagnie de mesme fortune vous rendra plus aysees. O la sotte composition et insipide! Nolo / Barbam vellere mortuo leoni. Xenophon employe pour obiection et accusation, contre Menon, qu’en son amour il embesongna des obiects passants fleur. Ie trouue plus de volupté à seulement veoir le juste et doux meslange de deux ieunes beautés: ou à le seulement considerer par fantasie, qu’à faire moy mesme le second, d’vn meslange triste et informe.
I would like to have the right to ask it of them in the style I have seen beggars use in Italy: Do good for your own sake; or in the way Cyrus exhorted his soldiers: “Whoever loves me, follow me.” “Take up with women of your own condition,” someone will tell me, “whom the company of a common lot will make easier for you.” Oh, what a stupid and insipid compromise! I do not want / to pluck the beard of a dead lion. Xenophon brings it as an objection and charge against Meno that in his love he took up with objects past their bloom. I find more pleasure in merely seeing the right and sweet blending of two young beauties, or merely contemplating it in imagination, than in making the second party myself in a sad and shapeless blending.
Ie resigne cet appetit fantastique, à l’Empereur Galba, qui ne s’addonnoit qu’aux chairs dures et vieilles: et à ce pauure miserable, O ego di faciant talem te cernere possim, / Charáque mutatis oscula ferre comis, / Amplectique meis corpus non pingue lacertis! Et entre les premieres laideurs, ie compte les beautez artificielles et forcees. Emonez ieune gars de Chio, pensant par des beaux attours, acquerir la beauté que nature luy ostoit, se presenta au philosophe Arcesilaus: et luy demanda si vn sage se pourroit veoir amoureux: Ouy dea, respondit l’autre, pourueu que ce ne fust pas d’vne beauté paree et sophistiquee comme la tienne. La laideur d’vne vieillesse aduouee, est moins vieille, et moins laide à mon gré, qu’vne autre peinte et lissee.
I leave this fanciful appetite to the Emperor Galba, who went only for tough old flesh, and to this poor wretch: O, may the gods grant that I might see you thus, / and kiss your dear lips beneath your changed hair, / and hold in my arms your body, no longer plump! And among the chief uglinesses I count artificial and forced beauties. Hemon, a young lad from Chios, thinking to acquire by fine adornments the beauty that nature denied him, came before the philosopher Arcesilaus and asked him whether a wise man could fall in love. “Yes indeed,” the other replied, “provided it is not with a decked-out and adulterated beauty like yours.” The ugliness of an avowed old age is less old and less ugly, to my taste, than another that is painted and smoothed over.
Le diray-ie, pourueu qu’on ne m’en prenne à la gorge? L’amour ne me semble proprement et naturellement en sa saison, qu’en l’aage voisin de l’enfance: Quem si puellarum insereres choro, / Mille sagaces falleret hospites / Discrimen obscurum, solutis / Crinibus, ambiguóque vultu. Et la beauté non plus. Car ce qu’Homere l’estend iusqu’à ce que le menton commence à s’ombrager, Platon mesme l’a remarqué pour rare. Et est notoire la cause pour laquelle le sophiste Dion appelloit les poils folets de l’adolescence, Aristogitons et Harmodiens. En la virilité, ie le trouue desia aucunement hors de son siege, non qu’en la vieillesse.
Shall I say it, provided no one grabs me by the throat for it? Love seems to me properly and naturally in season only in the age close to childhood: If you set him in a chorus of girls, / the subtle difference would deceive a thousand / shrewd strangers, with his flowing / hair and ambiguous face. And beauty likewise. For as to Homer extending it until the chin begins to be shadowed, Plato himself remarked on this as rare. And the reason is well known why the sophist Dion called the downy hairs of adolescence Aristogeitons and Harmodiuses. In manhood I find it already somewhat out of its proper place, let alone in old age.
Importunus enim transuolat aridas / Quercus. Et Marguerite Royne de Nauarre, alonge en femme, bien loing, l’auantage des femmes: ordonnant qu’il est saison à trente ans, qu’elles changent le titre de belles en bonnes. Plus courte possession nous luy donnons sur nostre vie, mieux nous en valons. Voyez son port. C’est vn menton puerile, qui ne sçait en son eschole, combien on procede au rebours de tout ordre. L’estude, l’exercitation, l’vsage, sont voyes à l’insuffisance: les nouices y regentent. Amor ordinem nescit. Certes sa conduicte a plus de galbe, quand elle est meslee d’inaduertance, et de trouble: les fautes, les succez contraires y donnent poincte et grace. Pourueu qu’elle soit aspre et affamee, il chaut peu, qu’elle soit prudente.
For he flies rudely past the withered / oaks. And Marguerite, queen of Navarre, like a woman, stretches the advantage of women a long way, decreeing that at thirty it is time for them to exchange the title of “beautiful” for “good.” The shorter the hold we give love over our lives, the better off we are. Look at its bearing. It has a boy’s chin. Who does not know how, in its school, everything proceeds against all order? Study, exercise and practice are roads to incompetence; novices are the masters there. Love knows no order. Certainly its conduct has more grace when mixed with heedlessness and confusion; mistakes and setbacks give it spice and charm. Provided it is keen and hungry, it matters little whether it is prudent.
Voyez comme il va chancelant, chopant, et folastrant. On le met aux ceps, quand on le guide par art, et sagesse. Et contraint on sa diuine liberté, quand on le submet à ces mains barbues et calleuses.
See how it goes staggering, stumbling and frolicking. You put it in the stocks when you guide it by skill and wisdom. And you constrain its divine freedom when you subject it to those bearded and calloused hands.
Au demeurant, ie leur oy souuent peindre cette intelligence toute spirituelle, et desdaigner de mettre en consideration l’interest que les sens y ont. Tout y sert. Mais ie puis dire auoir veu souuent, que nous auons excusé la foiblesse de leurs esprits, en faueur de leurs beautez corporelles, mais que ie n’ay point encore veu, qu’en faueur de l’esprit, tant rassis, et meur soit-il, elles vueillent prester la main à vn corps, qui tombe tant soit peu en decadence.
Moreover, I often hear them describe this relationship as wholly spiritual, and disdain to take into account the part the senses play in it. Everything plays its part there. But I can say that I have often seen us excuse the weakness of their minds for the sake of their bodily beauty; whereas I have not yet seen them willing, for the sake of the mind, however settled and mature it may be, to lend a hand to a body that is falling even slightly into decline.
Que ne prend il enuie à quelqu’vne, de faire cette noble harde Socratique, du corps à l’esprit, achetant au prix de ses cuisses, vne intelligence et generation philosophique et spirituelle: le plus haut prix où elle les puisse monter: Platon ordonne en ses loix, que celuy qui aura faict quelque signalé et vtile exploit en la guerre, ne puisse estre refusé durant l’expedition d’icelle, sans respect de sa laideur ou de son aage, du baiser, ou autre faueur amoureuse, de qui il la vueille. Ce qu’il trouue si iuste en recommandation de la valeur militaire, ne le peut il pas estre aussi, en recommandation de quelque autre valeur?
Why does it not occur to some woman to make that noble Socratic exchange of body for mind, buying at the price of her thighs a philosophical and spiritual understanding and offspring—the highest price she could get for them? Plato ordains in his Laws that whoever has performed some signal and useful exploit in war may not be refused, for the duration of that campaign, regardless of his ugliness or his age, a kiss or other amorous favor from whomever he wants it. What he finds so just as a reward for military valor, can it not be just also as a reward for some other kind of valor?
Et que ne prend il enuie à vne de preoccuper sur ses compagnes la gloire de cet amour chaste? chaste dis-ie bien, Nam si quando ad prælia ventum est, / Vt quondam in stipulis magnus sine viribus ignis / Incassum furit. Les vices qui s’estouffent en la pensee, ne sont pas des pires.
And why does it not occur to some woman to win, ahead of her companions, the glory of this chaste love? Chaste, I say advisedly: For if ever it comes to battle, / his ardor rages in vain, like a great fire in stubble, / without strength. The vices that are stifled in thought are not the worst.
The same mold
Men and women are cast in the same mold; custom and education make the difference.
Pour finir ce notable commentaire, qui m’est eschappé d’vn flux de caquet: flux impetueux par fois et nuisible, Vt missum sponsi furtiuo munere malum / Procurrit casto virginis è gremio: / Quod miseræ oblitæ molli sub veste locatum, / Dum aduentu matris prosilit, excutitur, / Atque illud prono præceps agitur decursu: / Huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor. Ie dis, que les masles et femelles, sont iettez en mesme moule, sauf l’institution et l’vsage, la difference n’y est pas grande. Platon appelle indifferemment les vns et les autres, à la societé de tous estudes, exercices, charges et vacations guerrieres et paisibles, en sa republique. Et le philosophe Antisthenes, ostoit toute distinction entre leur vertu et la nostre.
To finish this notable commentary, which has escaped me in a flood of chatter—a flood sometimes violent and harmful: As an apple, sent as a secret gift by her betrothed, / rolls out of a maiden’s chaste lap: / the poor girl had forgotten it, tucked under her soft gown, / and when she jumps up at her mother’s arrival it is shaken out, / and goes rolling headlong down; / a guilty blush spreads over her sad face. I say that males and females are cast in the same mold; except for education and custom, the difference is not great. Plato invites both alike to share in all studies, exercises, offices and occupations, in war and in peace, in his Republic. And the philosopher Antisthenes removed all distinction between their virtue and ours.
Il est bien plus aisé d’accuser l’vn sexe, que d’excuser l’autre. C’est ce qu’on dit, Le fourgon se moque de la paele.
It is much easier to accuse one sex than to excuse the other. It is as the saying goes: the poker mocks the shovel.