Shakespeare's Montaigne

by Michel de Montaigne

  I never travel without books, nor in peace nor in war. Yet do I pass many days and months without using them. It shall be anon, say I, or tomorrow, or when I please; in the meanwhile, the time runs away and passeth without hurting me. For it is wonderful, what repose I take and how I continue in this consideration that they are at my elbow to delight me when time shall serve, and in acknowledging what assistance they give unto my life. This is the best munition I have found in this human peregrination, [76] and I extremely bewail those men of understanding that want [77] the same. I accept with better will all other kinds of amusements, how slight soever, forsomuch as this cannot fail me.

  At home I betake me somewhat the oftener to my library, whence all at once I command and survey all my household. It is seated in the chief entry of my house; thence I behold under me my garden, my base court, my yard, and look even into most rooms of my house. There, without order, without method, and by piecemeals I turn over and ransack now one book, and now another. Sometimes I muse and rave; and walking up and down, I indite and enregister [78] these my humors, these my conceits.

  It is placed on the third story of a tower. The lower-most is my chapel; the second a chamber with other lodgings, where I often lie because I would be alone. Above it is a great wardrobe. It was in times past the most unprofitable place of all my house. There I pass the greatest part of my life’s days and wear out most hours of the day. I am never there a-nights. Next unto it is a handsome neat cabinet, [79] able and large enough to receive fire in winter and very pleasantly windowed. And if I feared not care more than cost (care which drives and diverts me from all business), I might easily join a convenient gallery of a hundred paces long and twelve broad, on each side of it and upon one floor, having already, for some other purpose, found all the walls raised unto a convenient height. Each retired place requireth a walk. [80] My thoughts are prone to sleep, if I sit long. My mind goes not alone, as if legs did move it. [81] Those that study without books are all in the same case. [82]

  The form of it is round and hath no flat side but what serveth for my table and chair; in which bending or circling manner, at one look it offereth me the full sight of all my books, set round about upon shelves or decks, five ranks one upon another. It hath three bay windows of a far-extending, rich, and unresisted prospect [83] and is in diameter sixteen paces void. [84]

  In winter I am less continually there; for my house (as the name of it importeth [85]) is perched upon an over-peering hillock and hath no part more subject to all weathers than this, which pleaseth me the more both because the access unto it is somewhat troublesome and remote, and for the benefit of the exercise; which is to be respected and that I may the better seclude myself from company and keep encroachers from me. There is my seat that is my throne. I endeavour to make my rule therein absolute and to sequester that only corner from the community of wife, of children, and of acquaintance. Elsewhere I have but a verbal authority of confused essence. Miserable in my mind is he who, in his own home, hath nowhere to be to himself, where he may particularly court [86] and at his pleasure hide or withdraw himself. Ambition payeth her followers well to keep them still in open view, as a statue in some conspicuous place. Magna servitus est magna fortuna. A great fortune is a great bondage. [87] They cannot be private so much as at their privy. [88] I have deemed nothing so rude in the austerity of the life which our churchmen [89] affect as that in some of their companies they institute a perpetual society of place and a numerous assistance amongst them in anything they do. And [I] deem it somewhat more tolerable to be ever alone than never be able to be so.

  If any say to me it is a kind of vilifying the Muses to use them only for sport and recreation, he wots not as I do what worth pleasure, sport, and pastime is of. I had well-nigh termed all other ends ridiculous. I live from hand to mouth, and, with reverence be it spoken, I live but to myself; there end all my designs.

  Being young, I studied for ostentation; then, a little to enable myself and become wiser; now, for delight and recreation—never for gain. A vain conceit and lavish humour I had after this kind of stuff, [90] not only to provide for my need, but somewhat further to adorn and embellish myself withal; I have since partly left it.

  Books have and contain diverse pleasing qualities to those that can duly choose them. But no good without pains, no roses with out prickles. It is a pleasure not absolutely pure and neat, no more than all others; it hath his inconveniences attending on it, and sometimes weighty ones. The mind is therein exercised, but the body (the care whereof I have not yet forgotten) remaineth therewhilst without action, and is wasted and ensorrowed. I know no excess more hurtful for me, nor more to be avoided by me in this declining age.

  Lo, here my three most favoured and particular employments. I speak not of those I owe of duty to the world.

  Of Diverting or Diversion

  3.4

  I WAS ONCE employed in comforting of a truly afflicted lady: the greatest part of their [1] discourses [of mourning] are artificial and ceremonious.

  Uberibus semper lachrimis, semperque paratis.

  In statione sua, atque expectantibus illam,

  Quo iubeat manare modo.

  With plenteous tears, still ready in their stand,

  Expecting still their mistresses’ command,

  How they must flow, when they must go. [2]

  Men do but ill in opposing themselves against this passion, for opposition doth but incense and engage them more to sorrow and quietness. The disease is exasperated by the jealousy of debate. In matters of common discourse, we see that what I have spoken without heed or care, if one come to contest with me about it, I stiffly maintain and make good mine own, much more if it be a thing wherein I am interested.

  Besides, in so doing, you enter but rudely into your matter, whereas a physician’s first entertainment of his patient should be gracious, cheerful, and pleasing. An ugly and froward [3] physician wrought never any good effect. On the contrary, then, we must at first assist and smooth their laments and witness some approbation and excuse thereof. By which means you get credit to go on, and by an easy and insensible inclination you fall into more firm and serious discourses and fit for their amendment.

  I, who desired chiefly to gull the assistants [4] that had their eyes cast on me, meant to salve their mischief. [5] I verily find by experience that I have but an ill and unfruitful vein to persuade. I present my reasons either too sharp, or too dry, or too stirringly, or too carelessly. After I had for awhile applied myself to her torment, I attempted not to cure it by strong and lively reasons, either because I want [6] them or because I supposed I might otherwise effect my purpose the better. Nor did I cull out the several fashions of comfort prescribed by philosophy: that the thing lamented is not ill, as Cleanthes [says]; or but a little ill, as the Peripatetics; that to lament is neither just nor commendable, as Chrisippus; nor this of Epicurus, most agreeing with my manner, to translate the conceit of irksome into delightsome things; nor to make a load of all this mass, [7] dispensing the same as one hath occasion, as Cicero. But fair and softly declining our discourses, and by degrees bending them unto subjects more near, then a little more remote, even as she more or less inclined to me. I unperceivably removed those doleful humours from her so that, as long as I was with her, so long I kept her in cheerful countenance and untroubled fashion, wherein I used diversion. Those which in the same service succeeded me found her no whit amended: the reason was, I had not yet driven my wedge [8] to the root.

  I have peradventure elsewhere glanced at some kinds of public diversions. And the military customs used by Pericles in the Peloponnesian war and a thousand others elsewhere, to divert or withdraw the army of an enemy from their own country, is too frequent in histories.

  It was an ingenious diverting, wherewith the Lord of Himbercourt saved both himself and others in the town of Liege, into which the Duke of Burgundy, who beleaguered the same, had caused him to enter to perform the covenant of their accorded yielding. The inhabit
ants thereof, to provide for it, assembled by night and began to mutiny against their former agreement, determining upon this advantage to set upon the negotiators, now in their power. He, perceiving their intent and noise of this shower ready to fall upon him and the danger his lodging was in, forthwith rushed out upon them two citizens (whereof he had diverse with him), furnished with most plausible and new offers to be propounded to their counsel but indeed forged at that instant to serve his turn withal and to amuse [9] them. These two stayed the first-approaching storm and carried this incensed Hydra-headed-monster multitude back to the townhouse to hear their charge and accordingly to determine of it. The conclusion was short, when, lo, a second tempest came rushing on, more furiously enraged than the former; to whom he immediately dispatched four new and semblable [10] intercessors, [11] with protestations that now they were in earnest to propose and declare new and far more ample conditions unto them, wholly to their content and satisfaction. Whereby this disordered route was again drawn to their conclave and senate house. In sum, he, by such a dispensation of amusements diverting their head-long fury and dissipating the same with vain and frivolous consultations, at length lulled them into so secure a sleep that he gained the day, which was his chiefest drift and only aimed scope.

  This other story is also of the same predicament. [12] Atalanta, a maid of rare surpassing beauty and of a wondrous-strange disposition, to rid herself from the importunate pursuit of a thousand amorous suitors who solicited her for marriage, prescribed this law unto them: that she would accept of him that should equal her in running, on condition those she should overcome might lose their lives. Some there were found who deemed this prize worthy the hazard and who incurred the penalty of so cruel a match.

  Hippomenes, coming to make his assay after the rest, devoutly addressed himself to the divine protectress of all amorous delights, [13] earnestly invoking her assistance; who gently listening to his hearty prayers, furnished him with three golden apples and taught him how to use them. The scope of the race being plain, according as Hippomenes perceived his swift-footed mistress to approach his heels, he let fall (as at unawares [14]) one of his apples. The heedless maiden, gazing and wondering at the alluring beauty of it, failed not to turn and take it up.

  Obstupuit virgo, nitidique cupidine pomi,

  Dectinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit.

  The maid amaz’d, desiring that fair gold,

  Turns by her course, takes it up as it rolled. [15]

  The like he did (at his need) with the second and third, until by this digressing and diverting, the goal and advantage of the course was judged his.

  When physicians cannot purge the rheum, they divert and remove the same unto some less dangerous part. I also perceive it to be the most ordinary receite [16] for the mind’s diseases. Ab ducendus etiam non nunquam animus est ad alia studia, solicitudines, curas, negotia: Loci denique mutatione, tanquam ægroti non conualescentes, sæpe curandus est. Our mind also is sometimes to be diverted to other studies, cogitations, cares, and businesses; and lastly to be cured by chance of place, as sick folks use that otherwise cannot get health. [17] One makes it seldom to shock mischiefs with direct resistance. One makes it neither bear nor break, but shun or divert the blow.

  This other lesson is too high and over-hard. It is for them of the first rank, merely to stay upon the thing itself, to examine, and judge it. It belongeth to one only Socrates to accost and entertain death with an undaunted ordinary visage, to become familiar and play with it. He seeketh for no comfort out of this thing itself. To die seemeth unto him a natural and indifferent accident. Thereon he wishly [18] fixeth his sight and thereon he resolveth without looking elsewhere.

  Hegesias his disciples, who with hunger starved themselves to death, incensed thereunto with the persuading discourses of his lessons and that so thick [19] as King Ptolomy forbade him any longer to entertain his school with such murderous precepts. Those considered not death in itself; they judge it not. This was not the limit of their thoughts; they run on and aim at another being.

  Those poor creatures we see on scaffolds, fraught with an earnest to heavens-raised devotion, therein to the uttermost of their power, employing all their senses—their ears attentive to such instructions as preachers give them and wringing hands heaved up to heaven; with heart-proceeding voice, uttering devout prayers, with fervent and continual ruth-moving [20] motion—do verily what in such an unavoidable exigent [21] is commendable and convenient. One may well commend their religion, but not properly their constancy. They shun the brunt; they divert their consideration from death, as we use to dandle and busy children, when we would lance them or let them blood. [22] I have seen some who, if by fortune they chanced to cast their eyes towards the dreadful preparations of death which were round about them, fall into trances, and with fury cast their cogitations [23] elsewhere. We teach those that are to pass over some steepy down-fall [24] or dreadful abyss to shut or turn aside their eyes.

  Subrius Flavius, being by the appointment of Nero to be put to death by the hands of Niger, both chief commanders in war; when he was brought unto the place where the execution should be performed, seeing the pit Niger had caused to be digged for him uneven and unhandsomely made. “Nor is this pit” (quoth he to the soldiers that stood about him), “according to the true discipline of war.” And to Niger, who willed him to hold his head steady, “I wish thou wouldst strike as steadily.” He guessed right, for Niger’s arm trembling, he had diverse blows at him before be could strike it off. This man seemed to have fixed his thoughts surely and directly on the matter.

  He that dies in the fury of a battle, with weapons in hand, thinks not then on death and neither feeleth nor considereth the same; the heat of the fight transports him. An honest man of my acquaintance, falling down in a single combat and feeling himself stabbed nine or ten times by his enemy, was called unto by the bystanders to call on God and remember his conscience. But he told me after that, albeit those voices came unto his ears, they had no whit moved him and that he thought on nothing but how to discharge and revenge himself. In which combat he vanquished and slew his adversary.

  He who brought L. Sillanus his condemnation did much for him, in that when he heard him answer he was prepared to die but not by the hands of base villains, ran upon him with his soldiers to force him; against whom obstinately defending himself (though unarmed) with fists and feet, he was slain in the conflict, dispersing with a ready and rebellious choler the painful sense of a long and fore-prepared death to which he was assigned.

  We ever think on somewhat else: either the hope of a better life doth settle and support us, or the confidence of our children’s worth, or the future glory of our name, or the avoiding of these lives’ mischiefs, or the revenge hanging over their heads that have caused and procured our death:

  Spero equidem mediis, si quid pia numina possunt,

  Supplcia hausurum scopulis, et nomine Dido

  Sæpe vocaturum.

  Audiam, et hæc manes veniet mihi fama sub imos.

  I hope, if powers of heaven have any power,

  On rock he shall be punished, at that hour

  He oft on Dido’s name, shall pitiless exclaim.

  This shall I hear, and this report shall to me in my grave resort. [25]

  Xenophon sacrificed with a crown on his head, when one came to tell him the death of his son Gryllus in the battle of Mantinea. At the first hearing whereof he cast his crown to the ground; but finding upon better relation how valiantly he died, he took it up and put it on his head again.

  Epicurus also at his death comforted himself in the eternity and worth of his writings. Omnes clari et nobilitati labores fiunt tolerabiles. All glorious and honourable labours are made tolerable. And the same wound and the same toil (sayeth Xenophon) toucheth not a general of an army as it doth a private soldier. Epaminondas took his death much the more cheerfully, being informed that the victory remained on his side. Hæc sunt solatia, hæc fomenta summorum dolorum. These
are the comforts, these the eases of most grievous pains. [26] And such other like circumstances amuse, divert, and remove us from the consideration of the thing in itself.

  Even the arguments of philosophy at each clap [27] wrest and turn the matter aside and scarcely wipe away the scab thereof. The first man of the first philosophical school and superintendent of the rest, that great Zeno, against death cried out: No evil is honourable; death is; therefore is death no evil. Against drunkenness, No man entrusts his secrets to a drunkard; every one to the wise; therefore the wise will not be drunk. Is this to hit the white? [28] I love to see that these principal wits cannot rid themselves of our company. As perfect and absolute as they would be, they are still but gross and simple men.

  Revenge is a sweet-pleasing passion, of a great and natural impression. I perceive it well, albeit I have made no trial of it. To divert of late a young prince [29] from it, I told him not he was to offer the one side of his cheek to him who had struck him on the other in regard of charity; nor displayed I unto him the tragical events poesy bestoweth upon that passion. There I left him and strove to make him taste the beauty of a contrary image: the honour, the favour, and the good will he should acquire by gentleness and goodness. I diverted him to ambition. Behold how they deal in such cases.

  If your affection in love be over-powerful, disperse or dissipate the same, say they. And they say true, for I have often, with profit made trial of it. Break it by the virtue of several desires, of which one may be regent or chief master, if you please; but for fear it should misuse and tyrannize you, weaken it with dividing, and protract it with diverting the same.