Shakespeare's Montaigne

by Michel de Montaigne

  Nature gives them [9] ever more happy than those we give ourselves. Witness the image of the golden age that poets feign and the state wherein we see diverse nations to live which have no other. [10] Some there are who to decide any controversy that may rise amongst them will choose for judge the first man that by chance shall travel alongst their mountains. Others that upon a market day will name some one amongst themselves who in the place without more wrangling shall determine all their questions. What danger would ensue if the wisest should so decide ours, according to occurrences and at first sight, without being tied to examples and consequences? Let every foot have his own shoe. Ferdinando, King of Spain, sending certain colonies into the Indies, provided wisely that no lawyers or students of the laws should be carried thither for fear lest controversies, suits, or processes should people that new-found world. As a science that of her own nature engendereth altercation and division, judging with Plato that lawyers and physicians are an ill provision for any country.

  Wherefore is it that our common language, so easy to be understood in all other matters, becometh so obscure, so harsh, and so hard to be understood in law cases, bills, contracts, indentures, citations, wills, and testaments? And that he who so plainly expresseth himself whatever he speak or writ of any other subject, in law matters finds no manner or way to declare himself or his meaning that admits not some doubt or contradiction? Unless it be that the princes of this art, applying themselves with a particular attention to invent and choose strange, choice, and solemn words and frame artificial cunning clauses, have so plodded and poised every syllable, canvassed and sifted so exquisitely every seam and quiddity, [11] that they are now so entangled and so confounded in the infinity of figures and so several-small partitions that they can no more come within the compass of any order or prescription or certain understanding. Confusum est quidquid usque in pulverem sectum est. Whatsoever is sliced into very powder is confused. [12]

  Whosoever hath seen children labouring to reduce a mass of quicksilver to a certain number? The more they press and work the same and strive to force it to their will, so much more they provoke the liberty of that generous metal which scorneth their art and scatteringly disperseth itself beyond all imagination. Even so of lawyers who, in subdividing their subtleties or quiddities, teach men to multiply doubts; and by extending and diversifying difficulties, they lengthen and amplify, they scatter and disperse them. In sowing and retailing [13] of questions, they make the world to fructify and abound in uncertainty, in quarrels, in suits, and in controversies, as the ground the more it is crumbled, broken, and deeply removed or grubbed up becometh so much more fertile. Difficultatem facit doctrina. Learning breeds difficulty. [14]

  We found many doubts in Ulpian, we find more in Bartolus and Baldus. [15] The trace of this innumerable diversity of opinions should never have been used to adorn posterity and have it put in her head [16] but rather have been utterly razed out.

  I know not what to say to it, but this is seen by experience that so many interpretations dissipate and confound all truth. Aristotle hath written to be understood; which if he could not, much less shall another not so learned as he was, and a third than he who treateth his own imagination. We open the matter and spill it in distempering [17] it. Of one subject we make a thousand, and, in multiplying and subdividing, we fall again into the infinity of Epicurus his atoms. It was never seen that two men judged alike of one same thing. And it is impossible to see two opinions exactly semblable, not only in diverse men but in any one same man at several hours. I commonly find something to doubt of where the commentary happily never deigned to touch as deeming it so plain. I stumble sometimes as much in an even, smooth path as some horses that I know who oftener trip in a fair plain way than in a rough and stony.

  Who would not say that glosses increase doubts and ignorance, since no book is to be seen, whether divine or profane, commonly read of all men, whose interpretation dims or tarnisheth not the difficulty? The hundredth commentary sends him to his succeeder more thorny and more crabbed than the first found him. When agreed we amongest ourselves to say this book is perfect, there’s now nothing to be said against it?

  This is best seen in our French-peddling [18] law. Authority of law is given to infinite doctors, to infinite arrests, [19] and to as many interpretations. Find we for all that any end of need of interpreters? Is there any advancement or progress towards tranquility seen therein? Have we now less need of advocates and judges than when this huge mass of law was yet in her first infancy? Clean contrary, we obscure and bury understanding. We discover it no more but at the mercy of so many courts, barres, [20] or plea-benches.

  Men mis-acknowledge the natural infirmity of their mind. She doth but quest and firret, [21] and uncessantly goeth turning, winding, building, and entangling herself in her own work, as do our silk-worms, and therein stifleth herself. Mus in pice. A mouse in pitch. [22] He supposeth to note a far-off I wot-not-what appearance of clearness and imaginary truth; but whilst he runneth unto it, so many lets [23] and difficulties cross his way, so many impeachments and new questings start up, that they stray loose and besot him. Not much otherwise than it fortuned to Aesop’s dogs, who far-off discovering some show of a dead body to float upon the sea and being unable to approach the same, undertook to drink up all the water that so they might dry up the passage, and were all stifled. [24] To which answereth that which one Crates said of Heraclitus his compositions, that they needed a reader who should be a cunning swimmer, lest the depth and weight of his learning should drown and swallow him up.

  It is nothing but a particular weakness that makes us contented with that which others or we ourselves have found in this pursuit of knowledge. A more sufficient man will not be pleased therewith. There is a place for a follower, yea, and for ourselves, and more ways to the wood than one. [25] There is no end in our inquisitions. Our end is in the other world. It is a sign his wits grow short when he is pleased, or a sign of weariness. No generous spirit stays and relies upon himself; he ever pretendeth [26] and goeth beyond his strength. He hath some vagaries beyond his effects. If he advance not himself, press, settle, shock, turn, wind, and front himself, he is but half alive. His pursuits are termless and formless. His nourishment is admiration, [27] questing, and ambiguity. Which Apollo declared sufficiently, always speaking ambiguously, obscurely, and obliquely unto us, not feeding, but busying and amusing us. It is an irregular uncertain motion, perpetual, patternless, and without end. His inventions enflame, follow, and interproduce one another.

  Ainsi voit-on en un ruisseau coulant,

  Sans fin l’une eau, apres l’autre roulant,

  Et tout de rang, d’un eternel conduit,

  L’une suit l’autre, et l’une l’autre fuit.

  Par cette-ci, celle-là est poussée,

  Et cette-ci, par l’autre est devancée:

  Tousiours l’eau va dans l’eau, et tousiours est ce

  Même ruisseau, et tousiours eau diverse.

  As in a running river we behold

  How one wave after th’ other still is rolled,

  And all along as it doth endless rise,

  Th’ one th’ other follow, th’ one from th’ other flies.

  By this wave, that is driv’n, and this again,

  By th’ other is set forward all a-main:

  Water in water still, one river still,

  Yet diverse waters still that river fill. [28]

  There’s more ado to interpret interpretations than to interpret things, and more books upon books than upon any other subject. We do but inter-gloss ourselves. [29] All swarmeth with commentaries; of authors, their is great penury. Is not the chiefest and most famous knowledge of our ages to know how to understand the wise? Is it not the common and last scope of our study? Our opinions are grafted one upon another. The first serveth as a stock [30] to the second; the second to the third. Thus we ascend from step to step. Whence it followeth that the highest-mounted hath often more honour than merit. For he is
got-up but one inch above the shoulders of the last save one.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  It is in the hands of custom to give our life what form it pleaseth; in that it can do all in all. It is the drink of Circe’s, diversifieth our nature as she thinks good. How many nations near-bordering upon us imagine the fear of the sereine or night-calm [31] to be but a jest, which so apparently doth blast and hurt us? and whereof our mariners, our watermen, and our countrymen make but a laughing stock? You make a German sick if you lay him upon a mattress, as you distemper [32] an Italian upon a featherbed, and a Frenchman to lay him in a bed without curtains or lodge him in a chamber without a fire. A Spaniard cannot well brook to feed after our fashion, nor we endure to drink as the Swizzers. [33]

  A German pleased me well at Augusta [34] to rail against the incommodity of our chimneys, using the same reasons or arguments that we ordinarily employ in condemning their stoves. For, to say truth, the same close-smothered heat and the smell of that oft-heated matter whereof they are composed fumeth in the heads of such as are not accustomed unto them; not so with me. But on the other side, that heat being equally dispersed, constant, and universal, without flame or blazing, without smoke, and without that wind which the tunnels of our chimneys bring us, may many ways be compared unto ours.

  Why do we not imitate the Romans’ architecture? It is reported that in ancient times they made no fire in their houses, but without [35] and at the foot of them; whence by tunnels, which were conveyed through their thickest walls and contrived near and about all such places as they would have warmed, so that the heat was conveyed into every part of the house. Which I have seen manifestly described in some place of Seneca, though I cannot well remember where.

  This German, hearing me commend the beauties and commodities of his city (which truly deserveth great commendation), began to pity me because I was shortly to go from it. And the first inconvenience he urged me withal was the heaviness in the head, which chimneys in other places would cause me. He had heard some other body complain of it and therefore alleged the same against me, being wont by custom to perceive it in such as came to him. All heat coming from fire doth weaken and dull me. Yet said Evenus that fire was the best sauce of life. I rather allow and embrace any other manner or way to escape cold.

  We fear our wines when they are low, whereas in Portugal, the fume of it is counted delicious and is the drink of princes. [36]

  To conclude, each several nation hath diverse customs, fashions, and usages which, to some others, are not only unknown and strange, but savage, barbarous, and wondrous.

  What shall we do unto that people that admit no witness except printed, that will not believe men if not printed in books, nor credit truth unless it be of competent age? We dignify our fopperies when we put them to the press. It is another manner of weight for him to say, “I have seen it” than if you say, “I have heard it reported.” But I, who misbelieve no more the mouth than the hand of men, and know that men write as indiscreetly as they speak unadvisedly, and esteem of this present age as of another past, allege as willingly a friend of mine as Aulus Gellius or Macrobius, and what myself have seen as that they have written. And as they account virtue to be nothing greater by being longer, so deem I truth to be nothing wiser by being more aged. I often say it is mere folly that makes us run after strange and scholastical [37] examples. The fertility of them is now equal unto that of Homer and Plato’s times. But is it not that we rather seek the honour of allegations than the truth of discourses? As if it were more to borrow our proofs from out the shop of Vascosane or Plantin [38] than from that we daily see in our village. Or verily, that we have not the wit to blanch, sift-out, or make that to prevail which passeth before us, and forcibly judge of it to draw the same into example. For if we say that authority fails us to add credit unto our testimony, we speak from the purpose. For so much as in my conceit could we but find out their true light, Nature’s greatest miracles and the most wonderful examples, namely upon the subject of human actions, may be drawn and formed from most ordinary, most common, and most known things.

  Now concerning my subject, omitting the examples I know by books, and that which Aristotle speaketh of Andron of Argos, that he would travel all over the scorching sands of Libya without drinking, a gentleman who hath worthily acquitted himself of many honourable charges reported where I was that, in the parching heat of summer, he had travelled from Madrid to Lisbon without ever drinking. His age respected, he is in very good and healthy plight and hath nothing extraordinary in the course or custom of his life, saving (as himself hath told me) that he can very well continue two or three months, yea, a whole year, without any manner of beverage. He sometimes finds himself thirsty but lets it pass, and holds that it is an appetite which will easily and of itself languish away; and if he drink at any time, it is more for a caprice or humor than for any need or pleasure.

  Lo, here one of another key. It is not long since that I found one of the wisest men of France (among those of no mean fortune), studying hard in the corner of a great hall, which for that purpose was hung about with tapestry and round about him a disordered rabble of his servants, grooms, and lackeys, prattling, playing, and hoyting. [39] Who told me (as Seneca in a manner sayeth of himself) that he learned and profited much by that burly-burly or tintimare, [40] as if, beaten with that confused noise, he did so much the better recall and close himself into himself for serious contemplation, and that the said tempestuous rumours [41] did strike and repercuss his thoughts inward. Whilst he was a scholar in Padua, his study was ever placed so near the jangling of bells, the rattling of coaches, and rumbling tumults of the marketplace that for the service of his study, he was fain [42] not only to frame and inure himself to contemn but to make good use of that turbulent noise. Socrates answered Alcibiades, who wondered how he could endure the continual tittle-tattle and uncessant scolding of his wife: “Even as those who are accustomed to hear the ordinary creaking of the squeaking wheels of wells.” Myself am clean contrary, for I have a tender brain and easy to take snuff in the nose or to be transported. [43] If my mind be busy alone, the least stirring, yea the buzzing of a fly, doth trouble and distemper the same.

  Seneca in his youth, having earnestly undertaken to follow the example of Sextius, [44] to feed on nothing that were taken dead, could with pleasure (as himself averreth) live so a whole year. And left it only because he would not be suspected to borrow this rule from some new religions that instituted the same. He therewithal followed some precepts of Attalus, [45] not to lie upon any kind of carpets or bedding that would yield under one; and until he grew very aged, he never used but such as were very hard and unyielding to the body. What the custom of his days makes him account rudeness, [46] ours makes us esteem wantonness. [47]

  Behold the difference between my varlet’s life and mine. The Indians have nothing further from my form and strength. Well I wot that I have heretofore taken boys from begging and that went roguing up and down to serve me, hoping to do some good upon them who have within a little while after left me, my fare, and my livery, only that they might without control or check follow their former idle, loitering life. One of which I found not long since gathering of mussels in a common sink [48] for his dinner; whom (do what I could) I was never able, neither with entreaty to reclaim nor by threatening, to withdraw from the sweetness he found in want and delight he felt in roguing laziness. Even vagabonding rogues, as well as rich men, have their magnificences and voluptuousness and (as some say) their dignities, pre-eminences, and politic orders.

  They are effects of custom and use, and what is bred in the bone will never out of the flesh. [49] Both which have power to inure and fashion us, not only to what form they please (therefore, say the wise, ought we to be addressed to the best, and it will immediately seem easy unto us), but also to change and variation, which is the noblest and most profitable of their apprentisages. [50] The best of my corporal complexions [51] is that I am flexible and little opiniative. [52] I have certain
inclinations, more proper and ordinary, and more pleasing, than others. But with small ado and without compulsion, I can easily leave them and embrace the contrary. A young man should trouble his rules to stir up his vigor and take heed he suffer not the same to grow faint, sluggish, or reasty. [53] For there is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is managed by order, method, and discipline.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Death intermedleth and everywhere confounds itself with our life. Declination doth preoccupate her hour and insinuate itself into the very course of our advancement. I have pictures of mine own that were drawn when I was five and twenty and others being thirty years of age, which I often compare with such as were made by me as I am now at this instant. How many times do I say, I am no more myself. How much is my present image further from those than from that of my decease? It is an over-great abuse unto Nature to drag and hurry her so far that she must be forced to give us over and abandon our conduct, our eyes, our teeth, our legs, and the rest to the mercy of a foreign help and begged assistance, and to put ourselves into the hands of art, [54] weary to follow us.

  I am not over-much or greedily desirous of sallets [55] or of fruits, except melons. My father hated all manner of sauces; I love them all. Over-much eating doth hurt and distemper me, but for the quality I have yet no certain knowledge that any meat offends me; I never observe either a full or waned moon, nor make a difference between the springtime or autumn. There are certain inconstant and unknown motions in us. For (by way of example) I have heretofore found radish-roots to be very good for me, then very hurtful, and now again very well agreeing with my stomach. In diverse other things I feel my appetite to change and my stomach to diversify from time to time. I have altered my course of drinking, sometimes from white to claret wine, and then from claret to white again. I am very friand [56] and gluttonous of fish, and keep my shroving [57] days upon fish days, and my feasts upon fasting-days. I believe as some others do, that fish is of lighter digestion than flesh. As I make it a conscience to eat flesh upon a fish day, so doth my taste to eat fish and flesh together. [58] The diversity between them seems to me over-distant.