68. Preoccupation preconception.
69. Montaigne would rather give them hellebore, to purge madness, than hemlock, to poison them as criminals.
70. Captivate captivated, insane.
71. Livy, The History of Rome, VIII.xviii.
72. An allusion to the Gordian knot, which Alexander untied and, in so doing—according to prophecy—would make him the king of Asia. See Shakespeare, Henry V: “Turn him to any cause of policy, / The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, / Familiar as his garter” (I.1.46–48).
73. For a sumpter-horse as a packhorse would serve men.
74. Gape for guarantee, vouch for.
75. Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes, I.xxv.60.
76. Malapert presumptuous, saucy.
77. Complexions propensities, tendencies.
78. To distaste them to find them distasteful.
79. Commodious for suitable to.
80. Erasmus, Adages, II.ix.49.
81. Unassayed untried, untasted.
82. Earnestly-luxurious lusty.
83. To a not-being to something that does not exist.
84. Montaigne alludes to the adage cited in note 74.
85. Torquato Tasso an Italian epic poet (1544–1595), whom Montaigne must have visited in a Ferrara madhouse while on his Italian travels in 1580–1581. He does not mention the visit in his Travel Journal but does mention it in Sebond (2.12).
86. Theramenes was a Greek rhetorician and supposedly a teacher of Isocrates (436–338 BC), who was famous for arguing on both sides of a question.
87. Virgil, Georgics, I.89–93.
88. More precisely, “Every medal has its reverse” (Italian proverb).
89. Exacted consent from men torn away from men the habit of assent.
90. Fantasia opinion, judgment.
91. Self-overweening excessive arrogance.
92. Set to sale put on sale.
93. Chapman a buyer.
94. Montaigne reiterates his thesis that human beings do nothing in moderation. In the history of philosophy, this tendency has led both to rash claims that human beings can know everything and to equally rash claims they can know nothing.
95. Impuissance inability.
96. The human lack of moderation will be stopped only when the necessity of infirmity makes it impossible to go any further.
OF EXPERIENCE
1. Manilius, Astronomica, I.v.62–63.
2. Dissemblable dissimilar, various.
3. Perozet a manufacturer of playing cards in Montaigne’s day.
4. Cutting out their morsels regulating their procedure, their judicial freedom.
5. In their fashion in their creation.
6. To gloss to provide commentary on.
7. Epicurus a Greek philosopher (341–269 BC) who posited multiple worlds and influenced the poet Lucretius (99–55 BC), who in turn, in this regard, influenced Giordano Bruno.
8. Tacitus, Annals, III.xxv.
9. Them laws.
10. No other no other laws.
11. Quiddity the essential nature of a person or thing (mostly a legal term); see Shakespeare, Hamlet, V.i.91.
12. Seneca, Epistulae morales, LXXXIX.3.
13. Retailing Montaigne’s “retaillant” means “shredding,” “paring,” “clipping.”
14. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, X.iii.16.
15. Ulpian was a second-century AD “jurisconsult.” Bartolus and Baldus were medieval legal commentators.
16. Put in her head cramming and clogging the mind of posterity with useless opinions.
17. Distempering diluting.
18. Peddling trifling, quibbling.
19. Arrests final decisions, decrees, sentences.
20. Barres railings that separate the judge from the criminal in a law court.
21. Firret ferret out, dig for the answer.
22. Erasmus, Adages, II.iii.68. Pitch is a thick tarlike substance used as a trap or snare. Iago famously boasted that he would turn Desdemona’s “virtue into pitch” (Shakespeare, Othello, II.3.334).
23. Lets obstacles.
24. Stifled choked.
25. More ways to the wood than one a proverbial phrase inserted by Florio.
26. Pretendeth aspires.
27. Admiration wonder, inquiry.
28. Étienne de La Boétie, A Marguerite de Carle, 109–16.
29. We do but inter-gloss ourselves we do nothing but write commentaries on each other.
30. Stock trunk, source of a line of descent.
31. Sereine or night-calm nighttime mist or dew believed to have poisonous properties.
32. Distemper to cause disequilibrium, a loss of balanced humors.
33. Swizzers Swiss.
34. Augusta Augsburg; visited by Montaigne in October 1580 on his way to Italy.
35. Without outside, out of doors.
36. We do not like wine from the bottom of the cask, the Portuguese, however, consider this part of the wine to be the best.
37. Scholastical scholarly, textbook-based.
38. Vascosane or Plantin two major printing houses in Montaigne’s day.
39. Hoyting romping.
40. Tintimare confused noise, hubbub.
41. Rumours noises, tumults, loud voices.
42. Fain glad, delighted.
43. And easy to take snuff in the nose or to be transported Montaigne has “facile à prendre l’essor” (Céard, 1685), which means “easily takes flight.” Florio’s “transported” makes sense in this context, but the “take snuff in the nose” is a cryptic idiomatic addition of Florio’s. For a possible answer, see WW: “Pigilare ombra, to take snuffe or pepper in the nose, to mistrust” (277). The link could be that Montaigne’s mind is capable of distraction—either with mistrust and doubt or flights of fancy and wonder. Thanks to Saul Frampton for this suggestion.
44. Sextius Sextius Niger (first century AD), a Roman philosopher.
45. Attalus Stoic philosopher (first century AD).
46. Rudeness austerity.
47. Wantonness softness, effeminacy.
48. Common sink dump heap.
49. Once again, Florio adds the proverb (in italics).
50. Apprentisages teachings.
51. Corporal complexions bodily qualities.
52. Opiniative opinionated, stubborn.
53. Reasty rancid.
54. Art the art of medicine.
55. Sallets salads.
56. Friand fond (of delicate food).
57. Shroving festive, carnival, connected to Shrovetide.
58. Just as it goes against my conscience to eat meat on a fish day, so it goes against my taste to eat fish and meat together.
59. It is as unwise to utterly shun physical pleasures as it is to be obsessed with them.
60. Ninny-hammer nitwit, idiot.
61. Spirit mind.
62. He the mind.
63. Horace, Epistles, I.ii.54.
64. The scale of Critolaus (ca. 200–118 BC) always gave greater weight to matters of the soul.
65. She imagination, the mind.
66. Cyrenaic philosophers those fourth-century BC ancient Greek philosophers who were devoted to hedonism.
67. Them bodily pleasures.
68. Let them live on War (Mars), Wisdom (Pallas), or Persuasion (Mercury) rather than Corn/Harvest (Ceres), Sex (Venus), or Wine (Bacchus).
69. Quadrature squaring.
70. Even upon their wives even while having sex with their wives.
71. Mediocrity mean, balance.
72. Voluptuous pleasurable.
73. That...this everyday bodily pleasures...violent actions and thoughts of war.
74. Without...welt or guard without ornamentation or trimming (OED).
75. Appendixes appendages.
76. Horace, Odes, I.vii.30–32.
77. Gaudy luxurious, ornate.
78. Whether it is true or merely a joke that the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne was characterized by wine-drenched fe
asts, it was acceptable that, after a morning of difficult study, professors engaged in drinking at lunch.
79. Devoires obligations, duties.
80. Cicero, De finibus, II.viii.24. Florio’s translation is strange. The Latin stresses wisdom: “A wise palate should go with a wise heart.”
81. Play at cob-castle clearly a game, but one not found in the OED. Montaigne has “jouer à cornichon-va-devant” (Céard, 1729). Cotgrave links “cornichon,” or “little Horne,” to games of “Quoites” and “Bowles.”
82. Continency chastity.
83. She may assist and favour him the soul may assist and favor the body.
84. Continually Montaigne has “conjugalement,” “conjugally.”
85. Eudoxus (ca. 400 BC) was a follower of Plato and was famous as an astronomer and mathematician. In his Nicomachaean Ethics, Aristotle mentioned him as a proponent of hedonism.
86. Who thereon established his chief felicity he who made pleasure his principal good.
87. Voluptuousness pleasure.
88. Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes, IV.xxxi.66.
89. Evitable avoidable.
90. Physic medicine.
91. Dictionary lexicon, vocabulary.
92. Severally separately, uniquely.
93. Bawk shirk, avoid, pass over.
94. Priseable worth prizing.
95. Seneca, Epistulae morales, XV.9.
96. Jouissance enjoyment, pleasure.
97. Promptitude of my hold-fast by it the speed with which I can grip or grasp it.
98. Custom use of it.
99. Him God; condign proper, well-earned.
100. Her part the soul’s part.
101. Intestine inner.
102. Availful beneficial.
103. Virgil, Aeneid, X.641–42.
104. Lucan, Pharsalia, II.657.
105. There is nothing wrong with our needing to eat and drink. In fact, these elemental functions are to be appreciated and embraced.
106. Seneca, Epistulae morales, CXIX.5.
107. Insensibly without sensation and pleasure.
108. Cicero, De finibus, III.vi.20.
109. She Philosophy.
110. There is irony here; the child is not really “well-pleasing.” Montaigne is criticizing Philosophy for being childish when she rants against the “barbarous alliance” of the “divine” and the “terrestrial.”
111. His followers...his lessons Florio confuses matters with the masculine pronouns here. Montaigne is still talking about Philosophy’s anti-corporal strictures, and the feminine pronouns should be used.
112. His Philosophy’s.
113. Moderatrix moderator.
114. Sensualities pleasures.
115. Cicero, De finibus, V.xvi.44.
116. Academical and Peripatetical following those of Plato’s academy and those of Aristotle.
117. Cousin-german to cousin to, related to.
118. Saint Augustine, City of God, XIV.5.
119. Frowardly rebelliously, cheekily.
120. Seneca, Epistulae morales, LXXIV.32.
121. Montaigne praises true Christian ascetics who renounce the earthly for the spiritual; they engage in “privileged study.” For the rest of us, though, hypocrisy reigns, and spiritual chatter (“Super-celestial opinions”) tends to be essentially linked to subhuman behavior (“under-terrestrial manners”).
122. &c. Florio’s prudishness ruins the joke. Montaigne has “chier,” or “shit.”
123. They will be exempted from them and escape man human beings want to escape the human parts of themselves.
124. He...him...he Philotas... Alexander... Philotas.
125. Horace, Odes, III.vi.5.
126. From Jacques Amyot’s translation of Plutarch’s Life of Pompey the Great, 42.
127. Blithe and social happy and sociable wisdom. Apollo was the god of healing and music, and was in charge of the Muses.
128. Horace, Odes, I.xxxi.17–20.
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