Shakespeare's Montaigne

by Michel de Montaigne

  Their buildings are very long and able to contain two or three hundred souls: covered with barks of great trees, fastened in the ground at one end, interlaced and joined close together by the tops, after the manner of some of our granges; the covering whereof hangs down to the ground and steadeth them as a flank. [29] They have a kind of wood so hard that riving [30] and cleaving the same, they make blades, swords, and gridirons to broil their meat with. Their beds are of a kind of cotton cloth, fastened to the house roof, as our ship cabins: every one hath his several [31] couch, for the women lie from [32] their husbands.

  They rise with the sun and feed for all day, as soon as they are up, and make no more meals after that. They drink not at meat, as Suidas reporteth of some other people of the East, which drank after meals, but drink many times a day and are much given to pledge carouses. [33] Their drink is made of a certain root and of the colour of our claret wines which lasteth but two or three days. They drink it warm. It hath somewhat a sharp taste, wholesome for the stomach, nothing heady but laxative for such as are not used unto it, yet very pleasing to such as are accustomed unto it. Instead of bread, they use a certain white composition, like unto corianders confected. [34] I have eaten some, the taste whereof is somewhat sweet and wallowish. [35]

  They spend the whole day in dancing. Their young men go a-hunting after wild beasts with bows and arrows. Their women busy themselves therwhil’st with warming of their drink, which is their chiefest office. Some of their old men, in the morning before they go to eating, preach in common to all the household, walking from one end of the house to the other, repeating one self-same sentence many times, till he have ended his turn (for their buildings are a hundred paces in length) he commends but two things unto his auditory [36]: First, valor against their enemies, then lovingness unto their wives. They never miss (for their restraint [37]) to put men in mind of this duty that it is their wives which keep their drink lukewarm and well-seasoned. The form of their beds, cords, swords, blades, and wooden bracelets, wherewith they cover their hand-wrists when they fight, and great canes open at one end, by the sound of which they keep time and cadence in their dancing, are in many places to be seen and, namely, in mine own house. They are shaven all over, much more close and cleaner than we are, with no other razors than of wood or stone. They believe their souls to be eternal, and those that have deserved well of their gods to be placed in that part of heaven where the sun riseth, and the cursed toward the west in opposition.

  They have certain prophets and priests, which commonly abide in the mountains and very seldom show themselves unto the people. But when they come down, there is a great feast prepared and a solemn assembly of many townships together. (Each grange as I have described maketh a village, and they are about a French league [38] one from an other.) The prophet speaks to the people in public, exhorting them to embrace virtue and follow their duty. All their moral discipline containeth but these two articles: first, an undismayed resolution to war; then, an inviolable affection to their wives. He doth also prognosticate of things to come and what success they shall hope for in their enterprises: he either persuadeth or dissuadeth them from war. But if he chance to miss of his divination and that it succeed otherwise than he foretold them, if he be taken, he is hewn in a thousand pieces and condemned for a false prophet. And therefore he that hath once mis-reckoned himself is never seen again.

  Divination is the gift of God; the abusing whereof should be a punishable imposture. When the divines amongst the Scythians had foretold an untruth, they were couched along upon hurdles full of heath or brushwood, drawn by oxen, and so manacled hand and foot, burned to death. Those which manage matters subject to the conduct of man’s sufficiency [39] are excusable, although they show the utmost of their skill. But those that gull and cony-catch [40] us with the assurance of an extraordinary faculty and which is beyond our knowledge ought to be double punished: first, because they perform not the effect of their promise; then, for the rashness of their imposture and unadvisedness of their fraud.

  They war against the nations that lie beyond their mountains, to which they go naked, having no other weapons than bows or wooden swords, sharp at one end, as our broaches [41] are. It is an admirable thing to see the constant resolution of their combats, which never end but by effusion of blood and murder: for they know not what fear or rowts [42] are.

  Every victor brings home the head of the enemy he hath slain as a trophy of his victory and fasteneth the same at the entrance of his dwelling place. After they have long time used and entreated their prisoners well, and with all commodities they can devise, he that is the master of them, summoning a great assembly of his acquaintance, tieth a cord to one of the prisoners arms, by the end whereof he holds him fast, with some distance from him for fear he might offend him, and giveth the other arm, bound in like manner, to the dearest friend he hath. And both in the presence of all the assembly kill him with swords. Which done, they roast and then eat him in common and send some slices of him to such of their friends as are absent. It is not, as some imagine, to nourish themselves with it (as anciently the Scythians wont to do,) but to represent an extreme and inexpiable revenge. Which we prove thus. Some of them perceiving the Portugales, [43] who had confederated themselves with their adversaries, to use another kind of death when they took them prisoners, which was to bury them up to the middle, and against the upper part of the body to shoot arrows, and then being almost dead, to hang them up. They supposed that these people of the other world (as they who had sowed the knowledge of many vices amongst their neighbours and were much more cunning in all kinds of evils and mischief than they) undertook not this manner of revenge without cause and that consequently it was more smartful [44] and cruel than theirs, and thereupon began to leave their old fashion to follow this.

  I am not sorry we note the barbarous horror of such an action but grieved that, prying so narrowly into their faults, we are so blinded in ours. I think there is more barbarism in eating men alive than to feed upon them being dead; to mangle by tortures and torments a body full of lively sense, to roast him in pieces, and to make dogs and swine to gnaw and tear him in mammockes [45] (as we have not only read, but seen very lately, yea and in our own memory, not amongst ancient enemies, but our neighbours and fellow citizens, and which is worse, under pretense of piety and religion) than to roast and tear him after he is dead.

  Chrysippus and Zeno, arch-pillars of the Stoic sect, have supposed that it was no hurt at all, in time of need, and to what end soever, to make use of our carrion bodies and to feed upon them, as did our forefathers who, being besieged by Cæsar in the city of Alesia, resolved to sustain the famine of the siege with the bodies of old men, women, and other persons unserviceable and unfit to fight.

  Vascones (fama est) alimentis talibus usi

  Produxere animas.

  Gascoynes (as fame reports)

  Liv’d with meats of such sorts. [46]

  And physicians fear not, in all kinds of compositions availful to [47] our health, to make use of it, be it for outward or inward applications. [48]

  But there was never any opinion found so unnatural and immodest that would excuse treason, treachery, disloyalty, tyranny, cruelty, and such like, which are our ordinary faults. [49] We may then well call them barbarous, in regard of reason’s rules, but not in respect of us that exceed them in all kind of barbarism. Their wars are noble and generous and have as much excuse and beauty as this human infirmity may admit: they aim at nought so much and have no other foundation amongst them but the mere jealousy of virtue. They contend not for the gaining of new lands, for to this day they yet enjoy that natural ubertie [50] and fruitfulness which without labouring-toil doth in such plenteous abundance furnish them with all necessary things that they need not enlarge their limits. [51] They are yet in that happy estate as they desire no more than what their natural necessities direct them: whatsoever is beyond it is to them superfluous.

  Those that are much about one age do generall
y enter-call [52] one another brethren, and such as are younger, they call children, and the aged are esteemed as fathers to all the rest. These leave this full possession of goods in common and without division to their heirs, without other claim or title but that which Nature doth plainly impart unto all creatures, even as she brings them into the world.

  If their neighbours chance to come over the mountains to assail or invade them, and that they get the victory over them, the victors conquest is glory, and the advantage to be and remain superior in valour and virtue; else have they nothing to do with the goods and spoils of the vanquished and so return into their country, where they neither want any necessary thing, nor lack this great portion, to know how to enjoy their condition happily, and are contented with what nature affordeth them. So do these when their turn commeth. They require no other ransom of their prisoners but an acknowledgement and confession that they are vanquished. And in a whole age, a man shall not find one that doth not rather embrace death than either by word or countenance remissely [53] to yield one jot of an invincible courage. There is none seen that would not rather be slain and devoured than sue for life or show any fear. They use their prisoners with all liberty that they may so much the more hold their lives dear and precious and commonly entertain them with threats of future death, with the torments they shall endure, with the preparations intended for that purpose, with mangling and slicing of their members, and with the feast that shall be kept at their charge. All which is done to wrest some remisse and exact some faint-yielding speech of submission from them, or to possess them with a desire to escape or run away. That so they may have the advantage to have danted [54] and made them afraid and to have forced their constancy. For certainly true victory consisteth in that only point.

  ——Victoria nulla est

  Quam quæ confessos animo quoque subjugat hostes.

  No conquest such, as to suppress

  Foes’ hearts, the conquest to confess. [55]

  The Hungarians, a most war-like nation, were whilom wont to pursue their prey no longer than they had forced their enemy to yield unto their mercy. For, having wrested this confession from him, they set him at liberty without offense or ransom, except it were to make him swear never after to bear arms against them.

  We get many advantages of our enemies that are but borrowed and not ours. It is the quality of porterly-rascal [56] and not of virtue, to have stronger arms and sturdier legs. Disposition [57] is a dead and corporal quality. It is a trick of fortune to make our enemy stoop and to blear his eyes with the sun’s light. It is a prank of skill and knowledge to be cunning in the art of fencing, and which may happen unto a base and worthless man. The reputation and worth of a man consisteth in his heart and will; therein consists true honour. Constancy is valour, not of arms and legs, but of mind and courage; it consisteth not in the spirit and courage of our horse, nor of our arms, but in ours. He that obstinately faileth in his courage, Si succiderit, de genu pugnat. If he slip or fall, he fights upon his knee. [58] He that in danger of imminent death is no whit daunted in his assuredness; he that in yielding up his ghost beholdeth his enemy with a scornful and fierce look, he is vanquished not by us but by fortune; he is slain, but not conquered.

  The most valiant are often the most unfortunate. So are there triumphant losses in envy of victories. Not those four sister-victories, the fairest that ever the sun beheld with his all-seeing eye, of Salamine, [59] of Platea, of Mycale, and of Sicily, durst ever dare to oppose all their glory together to the glory of the King Leonidas his discomfiture and of his men at the passage of Thermopyles.

  What man did ever run with so glorious an envy or more ambitious desire to the goal of a combat than Captain Ischolas to an evident loss and overthrow? Who so ingeniously or more politikely [60] did ever assure himself of his welfare than he of his ruin? He was appointed to defend a certain passage of Peloponnesus against the Arcadians, which finding himself altogether unable to perform, seeing the nature of the place and inequality of the forces and resolving that whatsoever should present itself unto his enemy must necessarily be utterly defeated. On the other side, deeming it unworthy both his virtue and magnanimity, and the Lacedemonian name, to fail or faint in his charge, between these two extremities he resolved upon a mean and indifferent course, [61] which was this. The youngest and best-disposed of his troupe he reserved for the service and defence of their country, to which he sent them back. And with those whose loss was least and who might best be spared, he determined to maintain that passage, and by their death to force the enemy to purchase the entrance of it as dear as possibly he could. As indeed it followed. For being suddenly environed round by the Arcadians, [and] after a great slaughter made of them, both himself and all his were put to the sword. Is any trophy assigned for conquerours that is not more duly due unto these conquered? A true conquest respecteth rather an undaunted resolution and honourable end than a fair escape, and the honour of virtue doth more consist in combating than in beating.

  But to return to our history, these prisoners, howsoever they are dealt withal, are so far from yielding that, contrariwise, during two or three months that they are kept, they ever carry a cheerful countenance and urge their keepers to hasten their trial; they outrageously defy and injure them. They upbraid them with their cowardliness and with the number of battles they have lost against theirs.

  I have a song made by a prisoner, wherein is this clause: Let them boldly come altogether and flock in multitudes to feed on him. For, with him they shall feed upon their fathers and grandfathers, that heretofore have served his body for food and nourishment. These muscles (saith he), this flesh, and these veins are your own. Fond men as you are, know you not that the substance of your forefathers limbs is yet tied unto ours? Taste them well, for in them shall you find the relish of your own flesh: An invention [62] that hath no show of barbarism. Those that paint them dying, and that represent this action, when they are put to execution, delineate the prisoners spitting in their executioners’ faces and making mowes [63] at them. Verily, so long as breath is in their body, they never cease to brave and defy them, both in speech and countenance. Surely, in respect of us, these are very savage men: for either they must be so in good sooth, or we must be so indeed; there is a wondrous difference between their form and ours.

  Their men have many wives, and by how much more they are reputed valiant, so much the greater is their number. The manner and beauty in their marriages is wondrous strange and remarkable. For, the same jealousy our wives have to keep us from the love and affection of other women, the same have theirs to procure it. Being more careful for their husbands’ honour and content than of anything else, they endeavour and apply all their industry to have as many rivals as possibly they can, forasmuch as it is a testimony of their husbands’ virtue.

  Our women would count it a wonder, but it is not so. It is a virtue properly matrimonial, but of the highest kind. And in the Bible, Leah, Rachel, Sarah, and Jacob’s wives brought their fairest maiden-servants unto their husbands’ beds. And Livia seconded the lustful appetites of Augustus to her great prejudice. And Stratonica, the wife of King Deiotarus, did not only bring a most beauteous chambermaid, that served her to her husband’s bed, but very carefully brought up the children he begot on her, and by all possible means aided and furthered them to succeed in their father’s royalty.

  And lest a man should think that all this is done by a simple and servile or awful [64] duty unto their custom and by the impression of their ancient custom’s authority, without discourse or judgement, and because they are so blockish and dull-spirited that they can take no other resolution, it is not amiss we allege some evidence of their sufficiency. Besides what I have said of one of their warlike songs, I have another amorous canzonet, [65] which beginneth in this sense: Adder stay, stay good adder, that my sister may, by the pattern of thy parti-coloured coat, draw the fashion and work of a rich lace, for me to give unto my love; so may thy beauty, thy nimbleness, or disposition be ever prefe
rred before all other serpents. The first couplet is the burden of the song. I am so conversant with poesy that I may judge this invention hath no barbarism at all in it but is altogether Anacreontike. [66] Their language is a kind of pleasant speech and hath a pleasing sound, and some affinity with the Greek terminations. [67]

  Three of that nation, ignoring how dear the knowledge of our corruptions will one day cost their repose, security, and happiness, and how their ruin shall proceed from this commerce, which I imagine is already well advanced (miserable as they are to have suffered themselves to be so cozened by a desire of new-fangled novelties [68] and to have quit the calmness of their climate to come and see ours), were at Roane [69] in the time of our late King Charles the Ninth, who talked with them a great while. They were showed our fashions, our pomp, and the form of a fair city. Afterward, some demanded their advice and would needs know of them what things of note and admirable they had observed amongst us. They answered three things, the last of which I have forgotten, and am very sorry for it; the other two I yet remember. They said, First, they found it very strange that so many tall men with long beards, strong and well armed, as it were about the King’s person (it is very likely they meant the Swizzers [70] of his guard) would submit themselves to obey a beardless child and that we did not rather choose one amongst them to command the rest. Secondly (they have a manner of phrase whereby they call men but a moiety of men from others [71]), they had perceived there were men amongst us full gorged with all sorts of commodities and others which, hunger-starven and bare with need and poverty, begged at their gates. And found it strange these moieties so needy could endure such an injustice and that they took not the others by the throat or set fire on their houses.