IL est bien aisé à verifier, que les grands autheurs, escriuans des causes, ne se seruent pas seulement de celles qu’ils estiment estre vrayes, mais de celles encores qu’ils ne croient pas, pourueu qu’elles ayent quelque inuention et beauté. Ils disent assez veritablement et vtilement, s’ils disent ingenieusement. Nous ne pouuons nous asseurer de la maistresse cause, nous en entassons plusieurs, pour voir si par rencontre elle se trouuera en ce nombre, Namque vnam dicere causam / Non satis est, verum plures, vnde vna tamen sit.
It is very easy to verify that great authors, when writing about causes, use not only those they consider true but also those they do not believe, provided they have some inventiveness and beauty. They speak truly and usefully enough if they speak ingeniously. We cannot be sure of the master cause, so we pile up several, to see whether by chance it will be found among them: For it is not enough to state one cause, / but several, of which one, however, is the true one.
Me demandez vous d’où vient cette coustume, de benir ceux qui esternuent? Nous produisons trois sortes de vent; celuy qui sort par embas est trop sale: celuy qui sort par la bouche, porte quelque reproche de gourmandise: le troisiesme est l’esternuement: et parce qu’il vient de la teste, et est sans blasme, nous luy faisons cet honneste recueil. Ne vous moquez pas de cette subtilité, elle est, dit-on, d’Aristote.
Do you ask me where this custom comes from of blessing those who sneeze? We produce three kinds of wind. The one that goes out below is too dirty; the one that goes out through the mouth carries some reproach of gluttony; the third is the sneeze, and because it comes from the head and is blameless, we give it this courteous welcome. Do not laugh at this subtlety; it is, they say, Aristotle’s.
Il me semble auoir veu en Plutarque (qui est de tous les autheurs que ie cognoisse, celuy qui a mieux meslé l’art à la nature, et le iugement à la science) rendant la cause du sousleuement d’estomach, qui aduient à ceux qui voyagent en mer, que cela leur arriue de crainte, ayant trouué quelque raison, par laquelle il prouue, que la crainte peut produire vn tel effect. Moy qui y suis fort subiect, sçay bien, que cette cause ne me touche pas. Et le sçay, non par argument, mais par necessaire experience.
I seem to remember seeing in Plutarch an explanation of the queasiness that comes over people traveling by sea. (Of all the authors I know, he is the one who has best blended art with nature, and judgment with learning.) He says it happens to them out of fear, having found some reason by which he proves that fear can produce such an effect. I am very prone to it, and I know well that this cause does not apply to me. And I know it not by argument but by unavoidable experience.
Sans alleguer ce qu’on m’a dict, qu’il en arriue de mesme souuent aux bestes, specialement aux pourceaux, hors de toute apprehension de danger: et ce qu’vn mien cognoissant, m’a tesmoigné de soy, qu’y estant fort subiect, l’enuie de vomir luy estoit passee, deux ou trois fois, se trouuant pressé de frayeur, en grande tourmente. Comme à cet ancien: Peius vexabar quàm vt periculum mihi succurreret. Ie n’euz iamais peur sur l’eau: comme ie n’ay aussi ailleurs (et s’en est assez souuent offert de iustes, si la mort l’est) qui m’ait troublé ou esblouy. Elle naist par fois de faute de iugement, comme de faute de cœur. Tous les dangers que i’ay veu, ç’a esté les yeux ouuerts, la veuë libre, saine, et entiere.
I will not cite what I have been told, that the same thing often happens to animals, especially pigs, without any apprehension of danger. Nor will I cite what an acquaintance of mine told me of himself: he was very prone to it, yet two or three times the urge to vomit left him when he found himself gripped by terror in a great storm. It was the same with that ancient: I was too badly shaken for the danger to cross my mind. I have never been afraid on the water. Nor have I had a fear elsewhere that troubled or dazzled me, though just causes for one have offered themselves often enough, if death is one. Fear sometimes springs from a lack of judgment, as well as from a lack of heart. All the dangers I have seen, I have seen with my eyes open and my sight free, sound and whole.
Encore faut-il du courage à craindre. Il me seruit autrefois au prix d’autres, pour conduire et tenir en ordre ma fuite, qu’elle fust sinon sans crainte, toutesfois sans effroy, et sans estonnement. Elle estoit esmeue, mais non pas estourdie ny esperdue. Les grandes ames vont bien plus outre, et representent des fuites, non rassises seulement, et saines, mais fieres. Disons celle qu’Alcibiades recite de Socrates, son compagnon d’armes: Ie le trouuay, dit-il, apres la route de nostre armee, luy et Lachez, des derniers entre les fuyans: et le consideray tout à mon aise, et en seureté, car i’estois sur vn bon cheual, et luy à pied, et auions ainsi combatu.
Even fearing takes courage. It once served me well, compared with others, in conducting my flight and keeping it in order, so that it was, if not without fear, at least without terror and without being stunned. It was stirred, but not dazed or distraught. Great souls go much further and display flights that are not only composed and sound, but proud. Let us cite the one Alcibiades tells of Socrates, his comrade in arms: “I found him,” he says, “after our army was routed, him and Laches, among the last of the fugitives. I watched him at my ease and in safety, for I was on a good horse and he was on foot, and that is how we had fought.
Ie remarquay premierement, combien il montroit d’auisement et de resolution, au prix de Lachez: et puis la brauerie de son marcher, nullement different du sien ordinaire: sa veue ferme et reglee, considerant et iugeant ce qui se passoit autour de luy: regardant tantost les vns, tantost les autres, amis et ennemis, d’vne façon, qui encourageoit les vns, et signifioit aux autres, qu’il estoit pour vendre bien cher son sang et sa vie, à qui essayeroit de la luy oster, et se sauuerent ainsi: car volontiers on n’attaque pas ceux-cy, on court apres les effraiez.
I noticed first how much more presence of mind and resolution he showed than Laches. Then I noticed the boldness of his gait, not at all different from his ordinary walk, and his gaze, steady and measured, considering and judging what was going on around him. He looked now at some, now at others, friends and enemies, in a way that encouraged the one side and signified to the other that he was ready to sell his blood and his life very dear to anyone who tried to take it from him. And so they got away; for people do not readily attack men like these; they run after the frightened.”
Voylà le tesmoignage de ce grand capitaine: qui nous apprend ce que nous essaions tous les iours, qu’il n’est rien qui nous iette tant aux dangers, qu’vne faim inconsideree de nous en mettre hors. Quo timoris minus est, eo minus fermè periculi est. Nostre peuple a tort, de dire, celuy-là craint la mort, quand il veut exprimer, qu’il y songe, et qu’il la preuoit. La preuoyance conuient egallement à ce qui nous touche en bien, et en mal. Considerer et iuger le danger, est aucunement le rebours de s’en estonner. Ie ne me sens pas assez fort pour soustenir le coup, et l’impetuosité, de cette passion de la peur, ny d’autre vehemente.
That is the testimony of this great captain. It teaches us what we experience every day: that nothing throws us into danger so much as a thoughtless hunger to get ourselves out of it. The less fear there is, the less danger, as a rule. Our common people are wrong to say “that man fears death” when they mean that he thinks about it and foresees it. Foresight applies equally to what concerns us for good and for ill. To consider and judge danger is, in a way, the opposite of being stunned by it. I do not feel strong enough to withstand the blow and the violence of this passion of fear, or of any other vehement one.
Si i’en estois vn coup vaincu, et atterré, ie ne m’en releuerois iamais bien entier. Qui auroit faict perdre pied à mon ame, ne la remettroit iamais droicte en sa place. Elle se retaste et recherche trop vifuement et profondement. Et pourtant, ne lairroit iamais ressoudre et consolider la playe qui l’auroit percee. Il m’a bien pris qu’aucune maladie ne me l’ayt encore desmise. A chasque charge qui me vient, ie me presente et oppose, en mon haut appareil. Ainsi la premiere qui m’emporteroit, me mettroit sans ressource. Ie n’en fais point à deux. Par quelque endroict que le rauage fauçast ma leuee, me voyla ouuert, et noyé sans remede. Epicurus dit, que le sage ne peut iamais passer à vn estat contraire.
If I were once overcome and floored by it, I would never get up again quite whole. Whatever had made my soul lose its footing would never set it back upright in its place. My soul probes and searches itself too keenly and too deeply, and so it would never let the wound that had pierced it close and heal. It has been lucky for me that no illness has yet put it out of joint. At every attack that comes at me, I stand up and oppose it in full array. So the first one that carried me away would leave me without recourse. I have no second line. Wherever the flood broke through my dike, there I would be, laid open and drowned beyond remedy. Epicurus says that the wise man can never pass into a contrary state.
I’ay quelque opinion de l’enuers de cette sentence; que qui aura esté vne fois bien fol, ne sera nulle autre fois bien sage. Dieu me donne le froid selon la robe, et me donne les passions selon le moyen que i’ay de les soustenir. Nature m’ayant descouuert d’vn costé, m’a couuert de l’autre: m’ayant desarmé de force, m’a armé d’insensibilité, et d’vne apprehension reglee, ou mousse.
I hold something like the reverse of this maxim: that whoever has once been thoroughly a fool will never at any other time be thoroughly wise. God sends me the cold according to my coat, and sends me passions according to the means I have to bear them. Nature, having left me uncovered on one side, has covered me on the other; having disarmed me of strength, she has armed me with insensibility and with a measured, or dull, apprehension.
Coaches and seasickness
Montaigne cannot bear coaches or boats, and recalls coaches used in war and pageantry.
Or ie ne puis souffrir long temps, et les souffrois plus difficilement en ieunesse, ny coche, ny littiere, ny bateau, et hay toute autre voiture que de cheual, en la ville, et aux champs. Mais ie puis souffrir la lictiere, moins qu’vn coche: et par mesme raison, plus aisement vne agitation rude sur l’eau, d’où se produict la peur, que le mouuement qui se sent en temps calme. Par cette legere secousse, que les auirons donnent, desrobant le vaisseau soubs nous, ie me sens brouiller, ie ne sçay comment, la teste et l’estomach: comme ie ne puis souffrir sous moy vn siege tremblant. Quand la voile, ou le cours de l’eau, nous emporte esgallement, ou qu’on nous touë, cette agitation vnie, ne me blesse aucunement.
Now, I cannot endure coach, litter or boat for long, and I endured them with more difficulty in my youth; I hate any conveyance but a horse, in town and in the country. But I can stand a litter less than a coach; and for the same reason I can stand a rough tossing on the water, which produces fear, more easily than the motion felt in calm weather. With that light jerk the oars give, stealing the vessel out from under us, I feel my head and stomach scrambled, I do not know how, just as I cannot bear a shaky seat under me. When the sail or the current carries us along evenly, or when we are towed, that smooth motion does not bother me at all.
C’est vn remuement interrompu, qui m’offence: et plus, quand il est languissant. Ie ne sçaurois autrement peindre sa forme. Les medecins m’ont ordonné de me presser et sangler d’vne seruiette le bas du ventre, pour remedier à cet accident: ce que ie n’ay point essayé, ayant accoustumé de lucter les deffauts qui sont en moy, et les dompter par moy-mesme.
It is an interrupted movement that upsets me, and all the more when it is sluggish. I cannot describe its form any other way. The doctors have prescribed that I bind my lower belly and strap it tight with a cloth to remedy this trouble. I have not tried it, being accustomed to wrestle with the defects I have and to tame them by myself.
Si i’en auoy la memoire suffisamment informee, ie ne pleindroy mon temps à dire icy l’infinie varieté, que les histoires nous presentent de l’vsage des coches, au seruice de la guerre: diuers selon les nations, selon les siecles: de grand effect, ce me semble, et necessité. Si que c’est merueille, que nous en ayons perdu toute cognoissance. I’en diray seulement cecy, que tout freschement, du temps de nos peres, les Hongres les mirent tres-vtilement en besongne contre les Turcs: en chacun y ayant vn rondelier et vn mousquetaire, et nombre de harquebuzes rengees, prestes et chargees: le tout couuert d’vne pauesade, à la mode d’vne galliotte.
If my memory were sufficiently stocked on the subject, I would not begrudge the time to recount here the infinite variety the histories show us in the use of coaches in the service of war. It differed according to nations and to ages, and was of great effect, it seems to me, and of great necessity—so much so that it is a wonder we have lost all knowledge of it. I will say only this. Quite recently, in our fathers’ time, the Hungarians put them to very good use against the Turks. In each one there was a shield-bearer and a musketeer, and a number of harquebuses lined up, ready and loaded, the whole thing covered with a pavisade, in the manner of a galliot.
Ils faisoient front à leur bataille de trois mille tels coches et apres que le canon auoit ioué, les faisoient tirer, et aualler aux ennemys cette salue, auant que de taster le reste: qui n’estoit pas vn leger auancement: ou descochoient lesdits coches dans leurs escadrons, pour les rompre et y faire iour: outre le secours qu’ils en pouuoient prendre, pour flanquer en lieu chatouilleux, les trouppes marchants en la campagne: ou à couurir vn logis à la haste, et le fortifier. De mon temps, vn Gentil-homme, en l’vne de nos frontieres, impost de sa personne, et ne trouuant cheual capable de son poids, ayant vne querelle, marchoit par païs en coche, de mesme cette peinture, et s’en trouuoit tres-bien. Mais laissons ces coches guerriers.
They placed three thousand such coaches at the front of their battle line. After the cannon had played, they had the coaches fire and made the enemy swallow that volley before tasting the rest, which was no slight advantage. Or else they let fly these coaches into the enemy squadrons to break them and open a gap. They could also use them to flank troops marching across open country at a ticklish spot, or to cover a camp in haste and fortify it. In my time a gentleman on one of our frontiers, who was unwieldy in his person and could find no horse able to bear his weight, had a feud and used to travel about the country in a coach of this same design, and did very well with it. But let us leave these war coaches.
Comme si leur neantise n’estoit assez cognue à meilleures enseignes, les derniers Roys de nostre premiere race marchoient par païs en vn chariot mené de quatre bœufs. Marc Antoine fut le premier, qui se fit trainer à Rome, et vne garse menestriere quand et luy, par des lyons attelez à vn coche. Heliogabalus en fit depuis autant, se disant Cibelé la mere des Dieux: et aussi par des tigres, contrefaisant le Dieu Bacchus: il attela aussi par fois deux cerfs à son coche: et vne autre fois quatre chiens: et encore quatre garses nues, se faisant trainer par elles, en pompe, tout nud. L’empereur Firmus fit mener son coche, à des autruches de merueilleuse grandeur, de maniere qu’il sembloit plus voler que rouler.
As if their sloth were not well enough known by better tokens, the last kings of our first dynasty traveled about the country in a cart drawn by four oxen. Mark Antony was the first who had himself drawn through Rome by lions harnessed to a coach, with a minstrel girl beside him. Heliogabalus later did the same, calling himself Cybele, mother of the gods; he also had himself drawn by tigers, impersonating the god Bacchus. Sometimes he harnessed two stags to his coach, another time four dogs, and again four naked girls, having himself drawn by them in pomp, stark naked himself. The emperor Firmus had his coach drawn by ostriches of marvelous size, so that he seemed to be flying rather than rolling.
The spending of princes
Lavish display and liberality are weak virtues in a king, who gives what is not his own.
L’estrangeté de ces inuentions, me met en teste cett’ autre fantasie: Que c’est vne espece de pusillanimité, aux monarques, et vn tesmoignage de ne sentir point assez, ce qu’ils sont, de trauailler à se faire valloir et paroistre, par despenses excessiues. Ce seroit chose excusable en pays estranger: mais parmy ses subiects, où il peut tout, il tire de sa dignité, le plus extreme degré d’honneur, où il puisse arriuer. Comme à vn Gentil-homme, il me semble, qu’il est superflu de se vestir curieusement en son priué: sa maison, son train, sa cuysine respondent assez de luy.
The strangeness of these inventions puts another notion into my head: that it is a kind of faintheartedness in monarchs, and a sign that they do not sufficiently feel what they are, to labor to make themselves valued and conspicuous by excessive expenditure. It would be excusable in a foreign country; but among his own subjects, where he can do anything, a king draws from his dignity the very highest degree of honor he can attain. In the same way, for a gentleman, it seems to me superfluous to dress elaborately at home: his house, his household and his kitchen answer well enough for him.
Le conseil qu’Isocrates donne à son Roy, ne me semble sans raison: Qu’il soit splendide en meubles et vtensiles: d’autant que c’est vne despense de duree, qui passe iusques à ses successeurs: et qu’il fuye toutes magnificences, qui s’escoulent incontinent et de l’vsage et de la memoire. I’aymois à me parer quand i’estoy cadet, à faute d’autre parure: et me seoit bien. Il en est sur qui les belles robes pleurent. Nous auons des comtes merueilleux de la frugalité de nos Roys au tour de leurs personnes, et en leurs dons: grands Roys en credit, en valeur, et en fortune. Demosthenes combat à outrance, la loy de sa ville, qui assignoit les deniers publics aux pompes des ieux, et de leurs festes.
The advice Isocrates gives his king does not seem to me unreasonable: that he be splendid in furniture and utensils, since that is a lasting expense that passes on to his successors, and that he avoid all magnificence that slips away at once from both use and memory. I liked to dress up when I was a young man, for lack of other adornment, and it suited me. There are some on whom fine clothes weep. We have marvelous accounts of the frugality of our kings in their persons and in their gifts—kings great in reputation, in valor and in fortune. Demosthenes fights tooth and nail against the law of his city that assigned public funds to the pomp of the games and of their festivals.
Il veut que leur grandeur se montre, en quantité de vaisseaux bien equippez, et bonnes armees bien fournies. Et a lon raison d’accuser Theophrastus, qui establit en son liure des richesses, vn aduis contraire: et maintient telle nature de despense, estre le vray fruit de l’opulence. Ce sont plaisirs, dit Aristote, qui ne touchent que la plus basse commune: qui s’euanouissent de la souuenance aussi tost qu’on en est rassasié: et desquels nul homme iudicieux et graue ne peut faire estime.
He wants their greatness to show itself in a quantity of well-equipped ships and good, well-supplied armies. And people are right to blame Theophrastus, who in his book on wealth set forth a contrary opinion and maintained that this kind of expenditure is the true fruit of opulence. These are pleasures, says Aristotle, that touch only the lowest common sort, that vanish from memory as soon as one has had one’s fill of them, and that no judicious and serious man can hold in esteem.
L’emploitte me sembleroit bien plus royale, comme plus vtile, iuste et durable, en ports, en haures, fortifications et murs: en bastiments somptueux, en eglises, hospitaux, colleges, reformation de ruës et chemins: en quoy le Pape Gregoire treziesme lairra sa memoire recommandable à long temps: et en quoy nostre Royne Catherine tesmoigneroit à longues annees sa liberalité naturelle et munificence, si ses moyens suffisoient à son affection. La Fortune m’a faict grand desplaisir d’interrompre la belle structure du Pont neuf, de nostre grand’ ville, et m’oster l’espoir auant mourir d’en veoir en train le seruice.
Spending would seem to me much more royal, as being more useful, just and lasting, if it went to ports, harbors, fortifications and walls; to sumptuous buildings, churches, hospitals, colleges, and the improvement of streets and roads. In this Pope Gregory XIII will leave a memory to be commended for a long time; and in this our Queen Catherine would bear witness for many years to her natural liberality and munificence, if her means were equal to her desire. Fortune has done me a great disservice in interrupting the fine structure of the Pont Neuf in our great city and taking from me the hope of seeing it in use before I die.
Outre ce, il semble aux subiects spectateurs de ces triomphes, qu’on leur fait montre de leurs propres richesses, et qu’on les festoye à leurs despens. Car les peuples presument volontiers des Roys, comme nous faisons de nos valets: qu’ils doiuent prendre soing de nous apprester en abondance tout ce qu’il nous faut, mais qu’ils n’y doiuent aucunement toucher de leur part. Et pourtant l’Empereur Galba, ayant pris plaisir à vn musicien pendant son souper, se fit porter sa boëte, et luy donna en sa main vne poignee d’escus, qu’il y pescha, auec ces paroles: Ce n’est pas du public, c’est du mien.
Besides, the subjects who watch these triumphs feel that they are being shown their own riches and feasted at their own expense. For peoples readily presume of kings what we presume of our servants: that they should take care to lay on for us in abundance everything we need, but should not touch any of it themselves. And so the Emperor Galba, having enjoyed a musician during his supper, had his money box brought to him and with his own hand gave the man a fistful of crowns that he fished out of it, with these words: “This is not from the public purse; it is from my own.”
Tant y a, qu’il aduient le plus souuent, que le peuple a raison: et qu’on repaist ses yeux, de ce dequoy il auoit à paistre son ventre.
Be that as it may, it most often happens that the people are right, and that their eyes are fed with what should have fed their bellies.
La liberalité mesme n’est pas bien en son lustre en main souueraine: les priuez y ont plus de droict. Car à le prendre exactement, vn Roy n’a rien proprement sien; il se doibt soy-mesmes à autruy. La iurisdiction ne se donne point en faueur du iuridiciant: c’est en faueur du iuridicié. On fait vn superieur, non iamais pour son profit, ains pour le profit de l’inferieur: et vn medecin pour le malade, non pour soy. Toute magistrature, comme tout art, iette sa fin hors d’elle.
Liberality itself does not show to best advantage in a sovereign hand; private persons have more right to it. For, strictly speaking, a king has nothing that is properly his own; he owes his very self to others. Jurisdiction is not granted for the benefit of the judge but for the benefit of the judged. A superior is never made for his own profit, but for the profit of the inferior; and a doctor for the patient, not for himself. Every magistracy, like every art, has its end outside itself.
Nulla ars in se versatur. Parquoy les gouuerneurs de l’enfance des Princes, qui se piquent à leur imprimer cette vertu de largesse: et les preschent de ne sçauoir rien refuser, et n’estimer rien si bien employé, que ce qu’ils donront (instruction que i’ay veu en mon temps fort en credit) ou ils regardent plus à leur proufit, qu’à celuy de leur maistre: ou ils entendent mal à qui ils parlent. Il est trop aysé d’imprimer la liberalité, en celuy, qui a dequoy y fournir autant qu’il veut, aux despens d’autruy. Et son estimation se reglant, non à la mesure du present, mais à la mesure des moyens de celuy qui l’exerce, elle vient à estre vaine en mains si puissantes.
No art is concerned with itself. Therefore the tutors of princes in childhood who make it a point to imprint on them this virtue of largesse—who preach to them never to know how to refuse anything and to think nothing so well spent as what they give away (a teaching I have seen much in favor in my time)—either have their own profit more in view than their master’s, or misunderstand whom they are talking to. It is too easy to imprint liberality on someone who has the means to supply it as freely as he likes at others’ expense. And since its worth is reckoned not by the size of the gift but by the size of the means of the one who practices it, it comes to nothing in such powerful hands.
Ils se trouuent prodigues, auant qu’ils soient liberaux. Pourtant est elle de peu de recommandation, au prix d’autres vertus royalles. Et la seule, comme disoit le tyran Dionysius, qui se comporte bien auec la tyrannie mesme. Ie luy apprendroy plustost ce verset du laboureur ancien, Τη χειρι δει σπειρειν, αλλαμη ὁλω τω θυλακω Qu’il faut à qui en veut retirer fruict, semer de la main, non pas verser du sac: il faut espandre le grain, non pas le respandre: et qu’ayant à donner, ou pour mieux dire, à payer, et rendre à tant de gens, selon qu’ils ont deseruy, il en doibt estre loyal et auisé dispensateur. Si la liberalité d’vn Prince est sans discretion et sans mesure, ie l’ayme mieux auare.
Princes turn out prodigal before they are liberal. So it earns little praise compared with the other royal virtues—and it is the only one, as the tyrant Dionysius used to say, that gets along well with tyranny itself. I would rather teach a prince this line of the ancient farmer, One must sow with the hand, not with the whole sack: that whoever wants to reap a harvest must sow by hand, not pour from the sack; the grain must be scattered, not spilled. And having to give, or rather, to pay and repay so many people according to what they have deserved, he must be a loyal and prudent dispenser. If a prince’s liberality is without discretion and without measure, I would rather he were miserly.
La vertu Royalle semble consister le plus en la iustice. Et de toutes les parties de la iustice, celle là remerque mieux les Roys, qui accompagne la liberalité. Car ils l’ont particulierement reseruee à leur charge: là où toute autre iustice, ils l’exercent volontiers par l’entremise d’autruy. L’immoderee largesse, est vn moyen foible à leur acquerir bien-vueillance: car elle rebute plus de gens, qu’elle n’en practique: Quo in plures vsus sis, minus in multos vti possis. Quid autem est stultius, quàm, quod libenter facias, curare vt id diutius facere non possis? Et si elle est employee sans respect du merite, fait vergongne à qui la reçoit: et se reçoit sans grace.
Royal virtue seems to consist most of all in justice. And of all the parts of justice, the one that best marks out kings is the one that goes with liberality; for they have reserved it especially to their own office, whereas all other justice they readily exercise through others. Immoderate largesse is a weak means of winning them goodwill, for it repels more people than it wins over: The more people you have used it on, the fewer you will be able to use it on. And what is more foolish than to see to it that what you like doing you can no longer do for long? And if it is bestowed without regard to merit, it shames the one who receives it, and is received without gratitude.
Des tyrans ont esté sacrifiez à la hayne du peuple, par les mains de ceux mesme, qu’ils auoyent iniquement auancez: telle maniere d’hommes, estimants asseurer la possession des biens indeuement receuz, s’ils montrent auoir à mespris et hayne, celuy duquel ils les tenoyent, et se r’allient au iugement et opinion commune en cela.
Tyrants have been sacrificed to the people’s hatred by the hands of the very men they had unjustly advanced. Men of that kind think they can secure possession of goods unduly received by showing contempt and hatred for the man they had them from, and by siding with common judgment and opinion in this.
Les subiects d’vn Prince excessif en dons, se rendent excessifs en demandes: ils se taillent, non à la raison, mais à l’exemple. Il y a certes souuent, dequoy rougir, de nostre impudence. Nous sommes surpayez selon iustice, quand la recompence esgalle nostre seruice: car n’en deuons nous rien à nos Princes d’obligation naturelle? S’il porte nostre despence, il fait trop: c’est assez qu’il l’ayde: le surplus s’appelle bien-faict, lequel ne se peut exiger: car le nom mesme de la liberalité sonne liberté. A nostre mode, ce n’est iamais faict: le reçeu ne se met plus en compte: on n’ayme la liberalité que future. Par quoy plus vn Prince s’espuise en donnant, plus il s’appaourit d’amys.
The subjects of a prince who is excessive in gifts become excessive in demands; they cut their cloth not by reason but by example. There is certainly often cause to blush at our impudence. In justice we are overpaid when the reward equals our service; for do we owe our princes nothing by natural obligation? If he bears our expenses, he does too much; it is enough that he helps with them. The surplus is called a benefaction, which cannot be demanded; for the very name of liberality sounds of liberty. In our fashion, it is never done; what has been received no longer counts; we love only liberality to come. So the more a prince exhausts himself in giving, the poorer he grows in friends.
Comment assouuiroit il les enuies, qui croissent, à mesure qu’elles se remplissent? Qui a sa pensee à prendre, ne l’a plus à ce qu’il a prins. La conuoitise n’a rien si propre que d’estre ingrate.
How could he sate desires that grow as fast as they are filled? A man whose thoughts are on taking no longer thinks of what he has taken. Nothing is so characteristic of covetousness as ingratitude.
L’exemple de Cyrus ne duira pas mal en ce lieu, pour seruir aux Roys de ce temps, de touche, à recognoistre leurs dons, bien ou mal employez: et leur faire veoir, combien cet Empereur les assenoit plus heureusement, qu’ils ne font. Par où ils sont reduits à faire leurs emprunts, apres sur les subiects incognus, et plustost sur ceux, à qui ils ont faict du mal, que sur ceux, à qui ils ont faict du bien: et n’en reçoiuent aydes, où il y aye rien de gratuit, que le nom. Crœsus luy reprochoit sa largesse: et calculoit à combien se monteroit son thresor, s’il eust eu les mains plus restreintes.
The example of Cyrus will not be out of place here. It can serve the kings of our time as a touchstone for telling whether their gifts are well or ill bestowed, and show them how much more happily that emperor placed his than they do. Because of their poor giving, they are reduced afterward to borrowing from subjects they do not know, and rather from those they have harmed than from those they have benefited; and they receive no aid from them in which there is anything free but the name. Croesus reproached Cyrus for his largesse, and calculated what his treasure would amount to if he had been more tight-fisted.
Il eut enuie de iustifier sa liberalité: et despeschant de toutes parts, vers les grands de son estat, qu’il auoit particulierement auancez: pria chacun de le secourir, d’autant d’argent qu’il pourroit, à vne sienne necessité: et le luy enuoyer par declaration. Quand touts ces bordereaux luy furent apportez, chacun de ses amys, n’estimant pas que ce fust assez faire, de luy en offrir seulement autant qu’il en auoit reçeu de sa munificence, y en meslant du sien propre beaucoup, il se trouua, que cette somme se montoit bien plus que ne disoit l’espargne de Crœsus. Sur quoy Cyrus: Ie ne suis pas moins amoureux des richesses, que les autres Princes, et en suis plustost plus mesnager.
Cyrus wanted to justify his liberality. He sent messengers in every direction to the great men of his realm whom he had particularly advanced, and asked each of them to help him with as much money as he could for a need of his, and to send him a written statement of it. When all these accounts were brought to him, each of his friends, thinking it not enough to offer him only as much as he had received from his munificence, had added a great deal of his own; and it turned out that the sum came to much more than Croesus’s reckoning of his savings. Whereupon Cyrus said: “I am no less in love with riches than other princes, and am, if anything, a better manager of them.
Vous voyez à combien peu de mise i’ay acquis le thresor inestimable de tant d’amis: et combien ils me sont plus fideles thresoriers, que ne seroient des hommes mercenaires, sans obligation, sans affection: et ma cheuance mieux logee qu’en des coffres, appellant sur moy la haine, l’enuie, et le mespris des autres Princes.
You see at how little outlay I have acquired the inestimable treasure of so many friends, and how much more faithful treasurers they are to me than hired men would be, without obligation and without affection. And my wealth is better lodged with them than in coffers, which would call down on me the hatred, envy and contempt of other princes.”
Les Empereurs tiroient excuse à la superfluité de leurs ieux et montres publiques, de ce que leur authorité dependoit aucunement, aumoins par apparence, de la volonté du peuple Romain: lequel auoit de tout temps accoustumé d’estre flaté par telle sorte de spectacles et d’excez. Mais c’estoyent particuliers qui auoyent nourry cette coustume, de gratifier leurs concitoyens et compagnons: principalement sur leur bourse, par telle profusion et magnificence. Elle eut tout autre goust, quand ce furent les maistres qui vindrent à l’imiter. Pecuniarum translatio à iustis dominis ad alienos non debet liberalis videri. Philippus de ce que son fils essayoit par presents, de gaigner la volonté des Macedoniens, l’en tança par vne lettre, en cette maniere. Quoy?
The emperors excused the superfluity of their games and public shows on the grounds that their authority depended to some extent, at least in appearance, on the will of the Roman people, who had always been accustomed to being flattered by that kind of spectacle and excess. But it was private individuals who had fostered this custom of gratifying their fellow citizens and companions, chiefly out of their own purse, with such profusion and magnificence. It had quite another taste when it was the masters who came to imitate it. The transfer of money from its rightful owners to strangers should not be regarded as liberality. Because his son was trying to win the goodwill of the Macedonians with presents, Philip rebuked him in a letter, in this manner: “What?
as tu enuie, que tes subiects te tiennent pour leur boursier, non pour leur Roy? Veux tu les prattiquer? Prattique les, des bien-faicts de ta vertu, non des bien-faicts de ton coffre.
do you want your subjects to take you for their purse-bearer, not their king? Do you want to win them over? Win them with the benefits of your virtue, not the benefits of your coffer.”
Roman spectacles
The marvels of the Roman arena show how inventive those ages were.
C’etoit pourtant vne belle chose, d’aller faire apporter et planter en la place aux arenes, vne grande quantité de gros arbres, tous branchus et tous verts, representans vne grande forest ombrageuse, despartie en belle symmetrie: et le premier iour, ietter là dedans mille austruches, mille cerfs, mille sangliers, et mille dains, les abandonnant à piller au peuple: le lendemain faire assommer en sa presence, cent gros lyons, cent leopards, et trois cens ours: et pour le troisiesme iour, faire combatre à outrance, trois cens paires de gladiateurs, comme fit l’Empereur Probus.
It was a fine thing, though, to have a great number of big trees brought and planted in the arena, all branching and all green, representing a great shady forest laid out in fine symmetry; and on the first day to throw into it a thousand ostriches, a thousand stags, a thousand wild boars and a thousand fallow deer, abandoning them to the people to plunder; the next day to have a hundred big lions, a hundred leopards and three hundred bears slaughtered in his presence; and for the third day to have three hundred pairs of gladiators fight to the death—as the Emperor Probus did.
C’estoit aussi belle chose à voir, ces grands amphitheatres encroustez de marbre au dehors, labouré d’ouurages et statues, le dedans reluisant de rares enrichissemens, Baltheus en gemmis, en illita porticus auro. Tous les costez de ce grand vuide, remplis et enuironnez depuis le fons iusques au comble, de soixante ou quatre vingts rangs d’eschelons, aussi de marbre, couuers de carreaux, Exeat, inquit, / Si pudor est, et puluino surgat equestri, / Cuius res legi non sufficit, où se peussent renger cent mille hommes, assis à leur aise.
It was also a fine thing to see those great amphitheaters encrusted with marble on the outside, worked with carvings and statues, the inside gleaming with rare embellishments: Look, the belt studded with gems; look, the colonnade coated with gold. All the sides of that great hollow were filled and surrounded, from the bottom to the top, with sixty or eighty rows of steps, also of marble, covered with cushions—“Let him leave,” he says, / “if he has any shame, and get up from the knights’ cushion, / whose property falls short of what the law requires”—where a hundred thousand men could sit at their ease.
Et la place du fons, où les ieux se iouoyent, la faire premierement par art, entr’ouurir et fendre en creuasses, representant des antres qui vomissoient les bestes destinees au spectacle: et puis secondement l’inonder d’vne mer profonde, qui charioit force monstres marins, chargee de vaisseaux armez à representer vne bataille naualle: et tiercement, l’applanir et assecher de nouueau, pour le combat des gladiateurs: et pour la quatriesme façon, la sabler de vermillon et de storax, au lieu d’arene, pour y dresser vn festin solemne, à tout ce nombre infiny de peuple: le dernier acte d’vn seul iour. *Quoties nos descendentis arenæ / Vidimus in partes, ruptáque voragine terræ / Emersisse feras, et ijsdem sæpe latebris / Aurea cum croceo creuerunt arbuta libro!
And the floor at the bottom, where the games were played: first to have it artfully opened and split into crevasses representing caves that spewed out the beasts destined for the show; then, second, to flood it with a deep sea carrying many sea monsters and laden with armed ships to represent a naval battle; third, to level it and dry it again for the gladiators’ combat; and for the fourth arrangement, to strew it with vermilion and storax instead of sand, to set up a solemn banquet for that whole countless multitude of people—the last act of a single day. *How often have we seen part of the arena sink / down, and from a chasm torn open in the earth / wild beasts emerge, and often from those same lairs / golden trees spring up with saffron bark!
/ Nec solùm nobis siluestria cernere monstra / Contigit, æquoreos ego cum certantibus vrsis / Spectaui vitulos, et equorum nomine dignum, / Sed deforme pecus.* Quelquefois on y a faict naistre, vne haute montaigne pleine de fruitiers et arbres verdoyans, rendant par son feste, vn ruisseau d’eau, comme de la bouche d’vne viue fontaine. Quelquefois on y promena vn grand nauire, qui s’ouuroit et desprenoit de soy-mesmes, et apres auoir vomy de son ventre, quatre ou cinq cens bestes à combat, se resserroit et s’esuanouissoit, sans ayde. Autresfois, du bas de cette place, ils faisoient eslancer des surgeons et filets d’eau, qui reiallissoient contremont, et à cette hauteur infinie, alloient arrousant et embaumant cette infinie multitude.
/ Nor was it only woodland monsters that we were given / to see: I have watched sea calves with bears fighting them, / and a beast that deserves the name of horse, / but a misshapen one.* Sometimes they made a high mountain rise up there, full of fruit trees and green trees, sending a stream of water from its summit as from the mouth of a living spring. Sometimes they paraded a great ship through it, which opened and came apart by itself, and after spewing four or five hundred fighting beasts from its belly, closed up again and vanished without any help. At other times, from the floor of that place, they made jets and threads of water shoot up, which spurted upward and, at that infinite height, went sprinkling and perfuming that infinite multitude.
Pour se couurir de l’iniure du temps, ils faisoient tendre cette immense capacité, tantost de voyles de pourpre labourez à l’éguille, tantost de soye, d’vne ou autre couleur, et les auançoyent et retiroyent en vn moment, comme il leur venoit en fantasie, Quamuis non modico caleant spectacula sole, / Vela reducuntur, cùm venit Hermogenes. Les rets aussi qu’on mettoit au deuant du peuple, pour le defendre de la violence de ces bestes eslancees, estoient tyssus d’or, Auro quoque torta refulgent / Retia.
To shelter themselves from the weather, they had that immense space covered, sometimes with purple awnings worked with the needle, sometimes with silk of one color or another, and they drew them forward and back in a moment, as the fancy took them: Though the spectators swelter in no small sun, / the awnings are drawn back when Hermogenes comes. The nets, too, that were set in front of the people to protect them from the violence of the beasts let loose, were woven of gold: The nets too gleam, / twisted with gold.
Our narrow knowledge
We see only a sliver of the world’s past and present, and judge everything by it.
S’il y a quelque chose qui soit excusable en tels excez, c’est, où l’inuention et la nouueauté, fournit d’admiration, non pas la despence. En ces vanitez mesme, nous descouurons combien ces siecles estoyent fertiles d’autres esprits que ne sont les nostres. Il va de cette sorte de fertilité, comme il fait de toutes autres productions de la Nature. Ce n’est pas à dire qu’elle y ayt lors employé son dernier effort. Nous n’allons point, nous rodons plustost, et tourneuirons çà et là: nous nous promenons sur nos pas. Ie crains que nostre cognoissance soit foible en tous sens. Nous ne voyons ny gueres loing, ny guere arriere. Elle embrasse peu, et vit peu: courte et en estendue de temps, et en estendue de matiere.
If there is anything excusable in such excesses, it is where invention and novelty, not expense, supply the wonder. Even in these vanities we discover how fertile those ages were in minds of another kind than ours. It is with this sort of fertility as with all the other productions of Nature. That is not to say that she then made her utmost effort. We do not go forward; rather, we wander about and turn this way and that; we walk back over our own steps. I fear that our knowledge is weak in every direction. We see neither very far ahead nor very far behind. It embraces little and lives little: it is short both in extent of time and in extent of matter.
Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona / Multi, sed omnes illacrymabiles / Vrgentur, ignotique longa / Nocte. / Et supera bellum Troianum et funera Troiæ, / Multi alias alij quoque res cecinere poetæ. Et la narration de Solon, sur ce qu’il auoit apprins des prestres d’Ægypte de la longue vie de leur estat, et maniere d’apprendre et conseruer les histoires estrangeres, ne me semble tesmoignage de refus en cette consideration.
Many brave men lived before Agamemnon, / but all of them, unwept, / unknown, are crushed by the long / night. / And beyond the Trojan War and the fall of Troy, / many other poets have sung of other things. And Solon’s account of what he had learned from the priests of Egypt about the long life of their state, and about their way of learning and preserving the histories of other countries, does not seem to me testimony to be rejected on this point.
Si interminatam in omnes partes magnitudinem regionum videremus et temporum, in quam se iniiciens animus et intendens, ita latè longeque peregrinatur, vt nullam oram vltimi videat, in qua possit insistere: in hac immensitate infinita, vis innumerabilium appareret formarum. Quand tout ce qui est venu par rapport du passé, iusques à nous, seroit vray, et seroit sçeu par quelqu’vn, ce seroit moins que rien, au prix de ce qui est ignoré. Et de cette mesme image du monde, qui coule pendant que nous y sommes, combien chetiue et racourcie est la cognoissance des plus curieux?
If we could see the boundless extent of regions and of ages in every direction, into which the mind, plunging and straining, travels so far and wide that it sees no farthest shore on which it can stop, then in that infinite immensity there would appear a multitude of countless forms. Even if everything that has come down to us by report of the past were true and known by someone, it would be less than nothing compared with what is unknown. And of this very image of the world, which flows by while we are in it, how wretched and cramped is the knowledge of even the most curious!
Non seulement des euenemens particuliers, que Fortune rend souuent exemplaires et poisans: mais de l’estat des grandes polices et nations, il nous en eschappe cent fois plus, qu’il n’en vient a nostre science. Nous escrions, du miracle de l’inuention de nostre artillerie, de nostre impression: d’autres hommes, vn autre bout du monde à la Chine, en iouyssoit mille ans auparauant. Si nous voyions autant du monde, comme nous n’en voyons pas, nous apperceurions, comme il est à croire, vne perpetuelle multiplication et vicissitude de formes. Il n’y a rien de seul et de rare, eu esgard à Nature, ouy bien eu esgard à nostre cognoissance: qui est vn miserable fondement de nos regles, et qui nous represente volontiers vne tres-fauce image des choses.
Not only of particular events, which Fortune often makes exemplary and weighty, but of the state of great governments and nations, a hundred times more escapes us than comes to our knowledge. We cry out at the miracle of our invention of artillery and of printing; other men, at another end of the world, in China, enjoyed them a thousand years earlier. If we saw as much of the world as we do not see, we would perceive, it is likely, a perpetual multiplication and alternation of forms. There is nothing unique and rare with regard to Nature, only with regard to our knowledge—which is a wretched foundation for our rules, and readily presents us with a very false image of things.
Comme vainement nous concluons auiourd’huy, l’inclination et la decrepitude du monde, par les arguments que nous tirons de nostre propre foiblesse et decadence: Iámque adeo affecta est ætas, affectáque tellus. Ainsi vainement concluoit cettuy-la, sa naissance et ieunesse, par la vigueur qu’il voyoit aux esprits de son temps, abondans en nouuelletez et inuentions de diuers arts: Verum, vt opinor, habet nouitatem summa, recénsque / Natura est mundi, neque pridem exordia cœpit: / Quare etiam quædam nunc artes expoliuntur, / Nunc etiam augescunt, nunc addita nauigiis sunt / Multa.
Just as we vainly conclude today that the world is declining and decrepit, from arguments we draw from our own weakness and decay—So worn out already is our age, and so worn out the earth—so that other man vainly concluded that it was newborn and young, from the vigor he saw in the minds of his time, abounding in novelties and inventions in various arts: But, as I think, the whole is new, and fresh / is the nature of the world, nor did it begin long ago: / that is why some arts are even now being refined, / even now are growing; now there have been added to ships / many things.
The New World
A child world, as able as ours, was conquered by trickery and ruined for pearls and pepper.
Nostre monde vient d’en trouuer vn autre (et qui nous respond si c’est le dernier de ses freres, puis que les Dæmons, les Sybilles, et nous, auons ignoré cettuy-cy iusqu’à cette heure?) non moins grand, plain, et membru, que luy: toutesfois si nouueau et si enfant, qu’on luy apprend encore son a, b, c. Il n’y a pas cinquante ans, qu’il ne sçauoit, ny lettres, ny poix, ny mesure, ny vestements, ny bleds, ny vignes. Il estoit encore tout nud, au giron, et ne viuoit que des moyens de sa mere nourrice. Si nous concluons bien, de nostre fin, et ce poëte de la ieunesse de son siecle, cet autre monde ne fera qu’entrer en lumiere, quand le nostre en sortira.
Our world has just discovered another—and who can guarantee that it is the last of its brothers, since the Daemons, the Sibyls and we ourselves knew nothing of this one until now?—no less big, full and well-limbed than itself, yet so new and so childlike that it is still being taught its ABCs. Not fifty years ago it knew neither letters, nor weights, nor measures, nor clothes, nor wheat, nor vines. It was still quite naked, in its mother’s lap, and lived only on what its nursing mother provided. If we are right to conclude that our end is near, and that poet right about the youth of his age, this other world will only be coming into the light when ours is leaving it.
L’vniuers tombera en paralysie: l’vn membre sera perclus, l’autre en vigueur. Bien crains-ie, que nous aurons tres-fort hasté sa declinaison et sa ruyne, par nostre contagion: et que nous luy aurons bien cher vendu nos opinions et nos arts. C’estoit vn monde enfant: si ne l’auons nous pas fouëté et soubsmis à nostre discipline, par l’auantage de nostre valeur, et forces naturelles: ny ne l’auons practiqué par nostre iustice et bonté: ny subiugué par nostre magnanimité. La plus part de leurs responces, et des negotiations faictes auec eux, tesmoignent qu’ils ne nous deuoient rien en clarté d’esprit naturelle, et en pertinence.
The universe will fall into paralysis: one limb will be withered, the other in full vigor. I greatly fear that we will have greatly hastened its decline and ruin by our contagion, and that we will have sold it our opinions and our arts very dear. It was a child world; yet we have not whipped it and subjected it to our discipline by the advantage of our valor and natural strength, nor won it over by our justice and goodness, nor subjugated it by our magnanimity. Most of their replies, and of the negotiations conducted with them, show that they owed us nothing in natural clarity of mind and pertinence.
L’espouuentable magnificence des villes de Cusco et de Mexico, et entre plusieurs choses pareilles, le iardin de ce Roy, où tous les arbres, les fruicts, et toutes les herbes, selon l’ordre et grandeur qu’ils ont en vn iardin, estoient excellemment formees en or: comme en son cabinet, tous les animaux, qui naissoient en son estat et en ses mers: et la beauté de leurs ouurages, en pierrerie, en plume, en cotton, en la peinture, montrent qu’ils ne nous cedoient non plus en l’industrie. Mais quant à la deuotion, obseruance des loix, bonté, liberalité, loyauté, franchise, il nous a bien seruy, de n’en auoir pas tant qu’eux. Ils se sont perdus par cet aduantage, et vendus, et trahis eux mesmes.
Consider the stupendous magnificence of the cities of Cusco and Mexico, and, among many such things, the garden of that king in which all the trees, the fruits and all the plants were excellently fashioned in gold, in the order and size they have in a garden; and likewise in his cabinet all the animals born in his state and in his seas; and the beauty of their works in jewelry, in featherwork, in cotton and in painting. All this shows that they did not yield to us in skill either. But as for devotion, observance of the laws, goodness, liberality, loyalty and frankness, it served us well to have less of them than they did. They were lost by that advantage; they sold and betrayed themselves.
Quant à la hardiesse et courage, quant à la fermeté, constance, resolution contre les douleurs et la faim, et la mort, ie ne craindrois pas d’opposer les exemples, que ie trouuerois parmy eux, aux plus fameux exemples anciens, que nous ayons aux memoires de nostre monde pardeçà.
As for boldness and courage, as for firmness, constancy and resolution against pain, hunger and death, I would not be afraid to set the examples I could find among them against the most famous examples of antiquity in the records of our world over here.
Car pour ceux qui les ont subiuguez, qu’ils ostent les ruses et batelages, dequoy ils se sont seruis à les piper: et le iuste estonnement, qu’apportoit à ces nations là, de voir arriuer si inopinement des gens barbus, diuers en langage, religion, en forme, et en contenance: d’vn endroit du monde si esloigné, et où ils n’auoient iamais sçeu qu’il y eust habitation quelconque: montez sur des grands monstres incongneuz: contre ceux, qui n’auoient non seulement iamais veu de cheual, mais beste quelconque, duicte à porter et soustenir homme ny autre charge: garnis d’vne peau luysante et dure, et d’vne arme trenchante et resplendissante:
For as for those who subjugated them, take away the ruses and tricks they used to deceive them, and the justified astonishment those nations felt at seeing the unexpected arrival of bearded men, different in language, religion, shape and bearing, from a part of the world so remote that they had never known there was any habitation there at all; men mounted on great unknown monsters, against people who had never seen a horse, nor indeed any animal at all trained to carry a man or any other load; men equipped with a shiny, hard skin and a sharp, gleaming weapon;
contre ceux, qui pour le miracle de la lueur d’vn miroir ou d’vn cousteau, alloyent eschangeant vne grande richesse en or et en perles, et qui n’auoient ny science ny matiere, par où tout à loysir, ils sçeussent percer nostre acier: adioustez y les foudres et tonnerres de nos pieces et harquebuses, capables de troubler Cæsar mesme, qui l’en eust surpris autant inexperimenté: et à cett’heure, contre des peuples nuds, si ce n’est où l’inuention estoit arriuee de quelque tyssu de cotton: sans autres armes pour le plus, que d’arcs, pierres, bastons et boucliers de bois: des peuples surpris soubs couleur d’amitié et de bonne foy, par la curiosité de veoir des choses estrangeres et incognues: ostez, dis-ie, aux conquerans cette disparité, vous leur ostez toute l’occasion de tant de victoires.
against people who, for the marvel of the gleam of a mirror or a knife, would trade great riches in gold and pearls, and who had neither the knowledge nor the material by which, even at leisure, they could pierce our steel. Add to this the lightning and thunder of our cannon and harquebuses, enough to disturb Caesar himself had he been surprised by them with as little experience; and then, against peoples who were naked, except where the invention of some cotton fabric had reached them, with no other weapons at most than bows, stones, sticks and wooden shields; peoples taken by surprise under color of friendship and good faith, through curiosity to see strange and unknown things—take away from the conquerors, I say, this disparity, and you take away from them the whole occasion of so many victories.
Quand ie regarde à cette ardeur indomtable, dequoy tant de milliers d’hommes, femmes, et enfans, se presentent et reiettent à tant de fois, aux dangers ineuitables, pour la deffence de leurs dieux, et de leur liberté: cette genereuse obstination de souffrir toutes extremitez et difficultez, et la mort, plus volontiers, que de se soubsmettre à la domination de ceux, de qui ils ont esté si honteusement abusez: et aucuns, choisissans plutost de se laisser defaillir par faim et par ieusne, estans pris, que d’accepter le viure des mains de leurs ennemis, si vilement victorieuses: ie preuois que à qui les eust attaquez pair à pair, et d’armes, et d’experience, et de nombre, il y eust faict aussi dangereux, et plus, qu’en autre guerre que nous voyons.
When I look at the indomitable ardor with which so many thousands of men, women and children came forward and threw themselves again and again into inevitable dangers in defense of their gods and their liberty; at that noble obstinacy in suffering all extremities and hardships, and death, more willingly than submit to the domination of those who had so shamefully deceived them; and at some who, when captured, chose rather to let themselves waste away from hunger and fasting than accept food from the hands of their enemies, so basely victorious—I foresee that anyone who had attacked them on equal terms of weapons, experience and numbers would have found it as dangerous as any other war we see, and more so.
Que n’est tombee soubs Alexandre, ou soubs ces anciens Grecs et Romains, vne si noble conqueste: et vne si grande mutation et alteration de tant d’empires et de peuples, soubs des mains, qui eussent doucement poly et defriché ce qu’il y auoit de sauuage: et eussent conforté et promeu les bonnes semences, que Nature y auoit produit: meslant non seulement à la culture des terres, et ornement des villes, les arts de deça, en tant qu’elles y eussent esté necessaires, mais aussi, meslant les vertus Grecques et Romaines, aux origineles du pays?
Why did not so noble a conquest fall to Alexander, or to those ancient Greeks and Romans? Why did not so great a transformation and alteration of so many empires and peoples fall into hands that would gently have polished and cleared whatever was wild there, and would have strengthened and promoted the good seeds that Nature had produced there, mixing not only the arts of our side of the world with the cultivation of the land and the adornment of cities, insofar as they were needed there, but also mixing the Greek and Roman virtues with those native to the country?
Quelle reparation eust-ce esté, et quel amendement à toute cette machine, que les premiers exemples et deportemens nostres, qui se sont presentez par delà, eussent appellé ces peuples, à l’admiration, et imitation de la vertu, et eussent dressé entre-eux et nous, vne fraternelle societé et intelligence? Combien il eust esté aisé, de faire son profit, d’ames si neuues, si affamees d’apprentissage, ayants pour la plus part, de si beaux commencemens naturels? Au rebours, nous nous sommes seruis de leur ignorance, et inexperience, à les plier plus facilement vers la trahison, luxure, auarice, et vers toute sorte d’inhumanité et de cruauté, à l’exemple et patron de nos mœurs. Qui mit iamais à tel prix, le seruice de la mercadence et de la trafique?
What a reparation it would have been, and what an improvement to that whole fabric, if the first examples and conduct of ours that appeared over there had called those peoples to the admiration and imitation of virtue, and had established between them and us a brotherly fellowship and understanding? How easy it would have been to make good use of souls so fresh, so hungry to learn, and having for the most part such fine natural beginnings? On the contrary, we took advantage of their ignorance and inexperience to bend them more easily toward treachery, lust, avarice and every kind of inhumanity and cruelty, after the example and pattern of our own ways. Who ever set such a price on the service of commerce and trade?
Tant de villes rasees, tant de nations exterminees, tant de millions de peuples, passez au fil de l’espee, et la plus riche et belle partie du monde bouleuersee, pour la negotiation des perles et du poiure. Mechaniques victoires. Iamais l’ambition, iamais les inimitiez publiques, ne pousserent les hommes, les vns contre les autres, à si horribles hostilitez, et calamitez si miserables.
So many cities razed, so many nations exterminated, so many millions of people put to the sword, and the richest and most beautiful part of the world turned upside down for the traffic in pearls and pepper. Base, tradesmen’s victories. Never did ambition, never did public enmities drive men against one another into such horrible hostilities and such miserable calamities.
En costoyant la mer à la queste de leurs mines, aucuns Espagnols prindrent terre en vne contree fertile et plaisante, fort habitee: et firent à ce peuple leurs remonstrances accoustumees: Qu’ils estoient gens paisibles, venans de loingtains voyages, enuoyez de la part du Roy de Castille, le plus grand Prince de la terre habitable, auquel le Pape, representant Dieu en terre, auoit donné la principauté de toutes les Indes. Que s’ils vouloient luy estre tributaires, ils seroient tres-benignement traictez: leur demandoient des viures, pour leur nourriture, et de l’or pour le besoing de quelque medecine. Leur remontroient au demeurant, la creance d’vn seul Dieu, et la verité de nostre religion, laquelle ils leur conseilloient d’accepter, y adioustans quelques menasses.
Some Spaniards, sailing along the coast in search of their mines, landed in a fertile, pleasant and well-populated region, and made their customary declarations to its people. They said that they were peaceful men, come from distant voyages, sent on behalf of the King of Castile, the greatest prince of the habitable earth, to whom the Pope, representing God on earth, had given sovereignty over all the Indies; and that if the people were willing to be his tributaries, they would be very kindly treated. They asked them for provisions to feed themselves, and for gold for the needs of a certain medicine. They also expounded to them belief in one God and the truth of our religion, which they advised them to accept, adding some threats.
La responce fut telle: Que quand à estre paisibles, ils n’en portoient pas la mine, s’ils l’estoient. Quant à leur Roy, puis qu’il demandoit, il deuoit estre indigent, et necessiteux: et celuy qui luy auoit faict cette distribution, homme aymant dissension, d’aller donner à vn tiers, chose qui n’estoit pas sienne, pour le mettre en debat contre les anciens possesseurs. Quant aux viures, qu’ils leur en fourniroient: d’or, ils en auoient peu: et que c’estoit chose qu’ils mettoient en nulle estime, d’autant qu’elle estoit inutile au seruice de leur vie, là où tout leur soin regardoit seulement à la passer heureusement et plaisamment: pourtant ce qu’ils en pourroient trouuer, sauf ce qui estoit employé au seruice de leurs dieux, qu’ils le prinssent hardiment.
The reply was this. As for being peaceful, they did not look it, if they were. As for their king, since he was asking, he must be poor and needy; and the man who had made him that allotment must be fond of strife, to go giving a third party something that was not his own, so as to set him at odds with its ancient possessors. As for provisions, they would supply them. Of gold they had little, and it was a thing they held in no esteem, since it was useless for the service of their life, whereas all their care was only to pass their life happily and pleasantly; however, whatever of it they could find, except what was used in the service of their gods, the Spaniards were welcome to take.
Quant à vn seul Dieu, le discours leur en auoit pleu: mais qu’ils ne vouloient changer leur religion, s’en estans si vtilement seruis si long temps: et qu’ils n’auoient accoustumé prendre conseil, que de leurs amis et cognoissans. Quant aux menasses, c’estoit signe de faute de iugement, d’aller menassant ceux, desquels la nature, et les moyens estoient incongnuz. Ainsi qu’ils se despeschassent promptement de vuyder leur terre, car ils n’estoient pas accoustumez de prendre en bonne part, les honnestetez et remonstrances de gens armez, et estrangers: autrement qu’on feroit d’eux, comme de ces autres, leur montrant les testes d’aucuns hommes iusticiez autour de leur ville. Voylà vn exemple de la balbucie de cette enfance.
As for one God, the account of him had pleased them; but they did not want to change their religion, having made such good use of it for so long; and they were not accustomed to take advice from anyone but their friends and acquaintances. As for the threats, it was a sign of poor judgment to go threatening people whose nature and means were unknown. So the Spaniards should make haste to leave their land, for they were not accustomed to take in good part the civilities and admonitions of armed men and strangers; otherwise they would be dealt with like those others—and they showed them the heads of some executed men around their town. There is an example of the babbling of this infancy.
Mais tant y a, que ny en ce lieu-là, ny en plusieurs autres, où les Espagnols ne trouuerent les marchandises qu’ils cherchoient, ils ne feirent arrest ny entreprinse: quelque autre commodité qu’il y eust: tesmoing mes Cannibales.
But the fact remains that neither in that place nor in several others where the Spaniards did not find the goods they were looking for did they stop or undertake anything, whatever other advantages there might be: witness my Cannibals.
Two kings
The Spaniards’ treachery toward the kings of Peru and Mexico, who meet it with royal constancy.
Des deux les plus puissans Monarques de ce monde là, et à l’auanture de cettuy-cy, Roys de tant de Roys: les derniers qu’ils en chasserent: celuy du Peru, ayant esté pris en vne bataille, et mis à vne rançon si excessiue, qu’elle surpasse toute creance, et celle là fidellement payee: et auoir donné par sa conuersation signe d’vn courage franc, liberal, et constant, et d’vn entendement net, et bien composé: il print enuie aux vainqueurs, apres en auoir tiré vn million trois cens vingt cinq mille cinq cens poisant d’or: outre l’argent, et autres choses, qui ne monterent pas moins (si que leurs cheuaux n’alloient plus ferrez, que d’or massif) de voir encores, au prix de quelque desloyauté que ce fust, quel pouuoit estre le reste des thresors de ce Roy, et iouyr librement de ce qu’il auoit reserré.
As for the two most powerful monarchs of that world, and perhaps of this one, kings over so many kings, the last ones they drove from power: the king of Peru had been taken in a battle and held to a ransom so excessive that it surpasses all belief, and he had paid it faithfully; in his dealings he had given signs of a frank, liberal and steadfast courage and of a clear and well-ordered understanding. Yet the victors, after extracting from him one million three hundred twenty-five thousand five hundred weight of gold, besides silver and other things that amounted to no less (so that their horses went shod with nothing but solid gold), were seized with the desire to see as well, at the cost of whatever treachery, what the rest of this king’s treasures might be, and to enjoy freely what he had stored away.
On luy apposta vne fauce accusation et preuue: Qu’il desseignoit de faire sousleuer ses prouinces, pour se remettre en liberté. Sur quoy par beau iugement, de ceux mesme qui luy auoient dressé cette trahison, on le condamna à estre pendu et estranglé publiquement: luy ayant faict racheter le tourment d’estre bruslé tout vif, par le baptesme qu’on luy donna au supplice mesme. Accident horrible et inouy: qu’il souffrit pourtant sans se desmentir, ny de contenance, ny de parole, d’vne forme et grauité vrayement royalle. Et puis, pour endormir les peuples estonnez et transis de chose si estrange, on contrefit vn grand deuil de sa mort, et luy ordonna on des somptueuses funerailles.
A false charge and false evidence were rigged up against him: that he was plotting to make his provinces rise so as to set himself free. Whereupon, by the fine judgment of the very men who had contrived this treachery against him, he was condemned to be publicly hanged and strangled, having been made to buy off the torment of being burned alive by the baptism they gave him at the very place of execution. A horrible and unheard-of event, which he nevertheless bore without belying himself either in countenance or in word, with a truly royal bearing and gravity. And then, to lull the peoples, stunned and paralyzed by so strange a thing, they feigned great mourning for his death and ordered sumptuous funeral rites for him.
L’autre Roy de Mexico, ayant long temps defendu sa ville assiegee, et montré en ce siege tout ce que peut et la souffrance, et la perseuerance, si onques Prince et peuple le montra: et son malheur l’ayant rendu vif, entre les mains des ennemis, auec capitulation d’estre traité en Roy: aussi ne leur fit-il rien voir en la prison, indigne de ce tiltre: ne trouuant point apres cette victoire, tout l’or qu’ils s’estoient promis: quand ils eurent tout remué, et tout fouillé, ils se mirent à en chercher des nouuelles, par les plus aspres gehennes, dequoy ils se peurent aduiser, sur les prisonniers qu’ils tenoient.
The other, the king of Mexico, had long defended his besieged city and shown in that siege all that endurance and perseverance can do, if ever prince and people showed it. His misfortune delivered him alive into the hands of the enemy, under terms of surrender that he would be treated as a king; and in prison he showed them nothing unworthy of that title. After this victory the victors did not find all the gold they had promised themselves; so when they had turned everything over and searched everything, they set about seeking news of it by the harshest tortures they could devise, on the prisoners they held.
Mais pour n’auoir rien profité, trouuant des courages plus forts que leurs tourments, ils en vindrent en fin à telle rage, que contre leur foy et contre tout droict des gens, ils condamnerent le Roy mesme, et l’vn des principaux seigneurs de sa cour à la gehenne, en presence l’vn de l’autre. Ce seigneur se trouuant forcé de la douleur, enuironné de braziers ardens, tourna sur la fin, piteusement sa veue vers son maistre, comme pour luy demander mercy, de ce qu’il n’en pouuoit plus.
But having gained nothing, finding courage stronger than their torments, they finally came to such a frenzy that, against their word and against all law of nations, they condemned the king himself and one of the chief lords of his court to torture in each other’s presence. This lord, overcome by the pain and surrounded by burning braziers, at last turned his eyes piteously toward his master, as if to ask his pardon because he could bear no more.
Le Roy plantant fierement et rigoureusement les yeux sur luy, pour reproche de sa lascheté et pusillanimité, luy dit seulement ces mots, d’vne voix rude et ferme: Et moy, suis ie dans vn bain, suis-ie pas plus à mon aise que toy? Celuy-là soudain apres succomba aux douleurs, et mourut sur la place. Le Roy à demy rosty, fut emporté de là. Non tant par pitié (car quelle pitié toucha iamais des ames si barbares, qui pour la doubteuse information de quelque vase d’or à piller, fissent griller deuant leurs yeux vn homme: non qu’vn Roy, si grand, et en fortune, et en merite) mais ce fut que sa constance rendoit de plus en plus honteuse leur cruauté.
The king, fixing his eyes proudly and sternly on him in reproach for his cowardice and faintheartedness, said only these words to him, in a harsh, firm voice: “And I—am I in a bath? Am I any more at ease than you?” The lord soon afterward succumbed to the pain and died on the spot. The king, half roasted, was carried away from there—not so much out of pity (for what pity ever touched souls so barbarous that, on dubious information about some golden vessel to plunder, they would have a man grilled before their eyes, let alone a king so great in fortune and in merit), but because his constancy made their cruelty more and more shameful.
Ils le pendirent depuis, ayant courageusement entrepris de se deliurer par armes d’vne si longue captiuité et subiection: où il fit sa fin digne d’vn magnanime Prince.
They hanged him later, after he had bravely attempted to free himself by arms from so long a captivity and subjection; and there he made an end worthy of a great-souled prince.
A vne autre fois ils mirent brusler pour vn coup, en mesme feu, quatre cens soixante hommes tous vifs, les quatre cens du commun peuple, les soixante des principaux seigneurs d’vne prouince, prisonniers de guerre simplement. Nous tenons d’eux-mesmes ces narrations: car ilz ne les aduouent pas seulement, ils s’en ventent, et les preschent. Seroit-ce pour tesmoignage de leur iustice, ou zele enuers la religion? Certes ce sont voyes trop diuerses, et ennemies d’vne si saincte fin.
Another time they burned alive, at one stroke and in the same fire, four hundred and sixty men: the four hundred from the common people, the sixty from among the chief lords of a province—simply prisoners of war. We have these accounts from the men themselves, for they do not merely admit these things; they boast of them and proclaim them. Could it be as a testimony to their justice, or to their zeal for religion? Certainly these are ways too contrary and too hostile to so holy an end.
S’ils se fussent proposés d’estendre nostre foy, ils eussent consideré que ce n’est pas en possession de terres qu’elle s’amplifie, mais en possession d’hommes: et se fussent trop contentez des meurtres que la necessité de la guerre apporte, sans y mesler indifferemment vne boucherie, comme sur des bestes sauuages: vniuerselle, autant que le fer et le feu y ont peu attaindre: n’en ayant conserué par leur dessein, qu’autant qu’ils en ont voulu faire de miserables esclaues, pour l’ouurage et seruice de leurs minieres. Si que plusieurs des chefs ont esté punis à mort, sur les lieux de leur conqueste, par ordonnance des Roys de Castille, iustement offencez de l’horreur de leurs deportemens, et quasi tous desestimez et mal-voulus.
If they had set out to spread our faith, they would have considered that it grows not by possession of lands but by possession of men. They would have been more than content with the killings that the necessity of war brings, without adding indiscriminately a butchery, as if on wild beasts—universal, as far as fire and sword could reach—deliberately sparing only as many as they wanted to make into wretched slaves for the work and service of their mines. So much so that several of the leaders have been put to death in the lands of their conquest by order of the kings of Castile, justly offended by the horror of their conduct, and almost all of them have been held in disrepute and ill will.
Dieu a meritoirement permis, que ces grands pillages se soient absorbez par la mer en les transportant: ou par les guerres intestines, dequoy ils se sont mangez entre-eux: et la plus part s’enterrerent sur les lieux, sans aucun fruict de leur victoire.
God has deservedly allowed these great plunders to be swallowed up by the sea as they were being shipped, or by the civil wars in which they devoured one another; and most of them were buried on the spot, without any fruit from their victory.
Quant à ce que la recepte, et entre les mains d’vn Prince mesnager, et prudent, respond si peu à l’esperance, qu’on en donna à ses predecesseurs, et à cette premiere abondance de richesses, qu’on rencontra à l’abord de ces nouuelles terres (car encore qu’on en retire beaucoup, nous voyons que ce n’est rien, au prix de ce qui s’en deuoit attendre) c’est que l’vsage de la monnoye estoit entierement incognu, et que par consequent, leur or se trouua tout assemblé, n’estant en autre seruice, que de montre, et de parade, comme vn meuble reserué de pere en fils, par plusieurs puissants Roys, qui espuisoient tousiours leurs mines, pour faire ce grand monceau de vases et statues, à l’ornement de leurs palais, et de leurs temples: au lieu que nostre or est tout en emploite et en commerce.
Why does the revenue, even in the hands of a thrifty and prudent prince, fall so far short of the hopes held out to his predecessors, and of that first abundance of riches found on reaching these new lands? For although a great deal is drawn from them, we see that it is nothing compared with what was to be expected. The reason is that the use of money was entirely unknown there. Consequently their gold was found all gathered in one place, serving no purpose but show and display, like a piece of furniture handed down from father to son by several powerful kings. These kings kept draining their mines to make that great heap of vessels and statues to adorn their palaces and temples. Our gold, by contrast, is all in use and in trade.
Nous le menuisons et alterons en mille formes, l’espandons et dispersons. Imaginons que nos Roys amoncelassent ainsi tout l’or, qu’ils pourroient trouuer en plusieurs siecles, et le gardassent immobile.
We cut it up small and change it into a thousand forms; we spread it about and scatter it. Imagine our kings heaping up in the same way all the gold they could find over several centuries, and keeping it idle.
The five suns
The Mexicans’ belief in five ages of the world, and the great road of the Incas.
Ceux du royaume de Mexico estoient aucunement plus ciuilisez, et plus artistes, que n’estoient les autres nations de là. Aussi iugeoient-ils, ainsi que nous, que l’vniuers fust proche de sa fin: et en prindrent pour signe la desolation que nous y apportasmes. Ils croyoyent que l’estre du monde, se depart en cinq aages, et en la vie de cinq soleils consecutifs, desquels les quatre auoient desia fourny leurs temps, et que celuy qui leur esclairoit, estoit le cinquiesme. Le premier perit auec toutes les autres creatures, par vniuerselle inondation d’eaux.
The people of the kingdom of Mexico were somewhat more civilized and more skilled in the arts than the other nations over there. So they also judged, as we do, that the universe was near its end, and they took the desolation we brought upon them as a sign of it. They believed that the existence of the world is divided into five ages, the lives of five successive suns. Four of these suns had already run their course, and the one that gave them light was the fifth. The first perished, along with all other creatures, in a universal flood of waters.
Le second, par la cheute du ciel sur nous, qui estouffa toute chose viuante: auquel aage ils assignent les geants, et en firent voir aux Espagnols des ossements; à la proportion desquels, la stature des hommes reuenoit à vingt paumes de hauteur. Le troisiesme, par feu, qui embrasa et consuma tout. Le quatriesme, par vne émotion d’air, et de vent, qui abbatit iusques à plusieurs montaignes: les hommes n’en moururent point, mais ils furent changez en magots (quelles impressions ne souffre la lascheté de l’humaine creance!) Apres la mort de ce quatriesme soleil, le monde fut vingt-cinq ans en perpetuelles tenebres. Au quinziesme desquels fut creé vn homme, et vne femme, qui refirent l’humaine race.
The second perished when the sky fell upon us and smothered every living thing. To this age they assign the giants, and they showed the Spaniards some of their bones; by their proportions, those men must have stood twenty palms high. The third sun perished by fire, which set everything ablaze and consumed it. The fourth perished by a commotion of air and wind that beat down even several mountains. Men did not die of it, but they were changed into apes. (What impressions will the pliancy of human belief not take!) After the death of this fourth sun, the world lay twenty-five years in perpetual darkness. In the fifteenth of these years a man and a woman were created, and they remade the human race.
Dix ans apres, à certain de leurs iours, le soleil parut nouuellement creé: et commence depuis, le compte de leurs annees par ce iour là. Le troisiesme iour de sa creation, moururent les Dieux anciens: les nouueaux sont nays depuis du iour à la iournee. Ce qu’ils estiment de la maniere que ce dernier soleil perira, mon autheur n’en a rien appris. Mais leur nombre de ce quatriesme changement, rencontre à cette grande conionction des astres, qui produisit il y a huict cens tant d’ans, selon que les astrologiens estiment, plusieurs grandes alterations et nouuelletez au monde.
Ten years later, on a certain one of their days, the sun appeared, newly created, and they have counted their years from that day ever since. On the third day after its creation the old gods died; the new ones have been born since, from day to day. What they think about the way this last sun will perish, my author learned nothing. But their reckoning of this fourth change coincides with that great conjunction of the stars which, some eight hundred years ago by the astrologers’ estimate, produced many great alterations and novelties in the world.
Quant à la pompe et magnificence, par où ie suis entré en ce propos, ny Græce, ny Rome, ny Ægypte, ne peut, soit en vtilité, ou difficulté, ou noblesse, comparer aucun de ses ouurages, au chemin qui se voit au Peru, dressé par les Roys du païs, depuis la ville de Quito, iusques à celle de Cusco (il y a trois cens lieuës) droit, vny, large de vingt-cinq pas, paué, reuestu de costé et d’autre de belles et hautes murailles, et le long d’icelles par le dedans, deux ruisseaux perennes, bordez de beaux arbres, qu’ils nomment, Moly. Où ils ont trouué des montaignes et rochers, ils les ont taillez et applanis, et comblé les fondrieres de pierre et chaux.
As for pomp and magnificence, which is where I began this subject: neither Greece, nor Rome, nor Egypt can compare any of its works with the road to be seen in Peru, whether for usefulness, difficulty or nobility. The kings of that country built it from the city of Quito to the city of Cusco, a distance of three hundred leagues. It is straight, level, twenty-five paces wide and paved. On either side it is lined with fine, high walls, and along them, on the inside, run two ever-flowing streams bordered with beautiful trees that they call molly. Where they came upon mountains and rocks, they cut through them and leveled them, and they filled the hollows with stone and lime.
Au chef de chasque iournee, il y a de beaux palais fournis de viures, de vestements, et d’armes, tant pour les voyageurs, que pour les armees qui ont à y passer. En l’estimation de cet ouurage, i’ay compté la difficulté, qui est particulierement considerable en ce lieu là. Ils ne bastissoient point de moindres pierres, que de dix pieds en carré: ils n’auoient autre moyen de charrier, qu’à force de bras en trainant leur charge: et pas seulement l’art d’eschaffauder: n’y sçachants autre finesse, que de hausser autant de terre, contre leur bastiment, comme il s’esleue, pour l’oster apres.
At the end of each day’s journey there are fine palaces stocked with provisions, clothing and arms, for travelers as well as for the armies that have to pass that way. In judging this work I have taken the difficulty into account, which is especially considerable in that place. They built with no stones smaller than ten feet square. They had no other means of carrying than the strength of their arms, dragging their loads, and they did not even have the skill of scaffolding. The only trick they knew was to pile earth up against the building as it rose, and to remove it afterward.
Retombons à nos coches. En leur place, et de toute autre voiture, ils se faisoient porter par les hommes, et sur les espaules. Ce dernier Roy du Peru, le iour qu’il fut pris, estoit ainsi porté sur des brancars d’or, et assis dans vne chaize d’or, au milieu de sa bataille. Autant qu’on tuoit de ces porteurs, pour le faire choir à bas, car on le vouloit prendre vif, autant d’autres, et à l’enuy, prenoient la place des morts: de façon qu’on ne le peut onques abbatre, quelque meurtre qu’on fist de ces gens là, iusques à ce qu’vn homme de cheual l’alla saisir au corps, et l’aualla par terre.
Let us fall back on our coaches. Instead of coaches, or any other conveyance, they had themselves carried by men, on their shoulders. That last king of Peru, on the day he was taken, was being carried in this way on golden poles, seated in a golden chair, in the midst of his army. As fast as the Spaniards killed his bearers to bring him down (for they wanted to take him alive), other bearers, vying with one another, took the places of the dead. So he could never be brought down, however many of those people were slaughtered, until a horseman went and seized him bodily and pulled him to the ground.