The Complete Essays
Page 154
Xenocrates (Greek philosopher), 575, 609, 750, 797, 826
Xenophanes of Colophon (Greek philosopher), 45, 560, 568, 575, 597, 852
Xenophilus (Greek musician), 91
Xenophon, 26, 160, 161, 170, 274, 279, 306, 323, 362, 575, 725, 823, 833, 940, 1013, 1050, 1072, 1102, 1119, 1219, 1220, 1247, 1261
Xerxes (King of Persia), 20, 263, 583
Zaleucus (Locrian lawgiver), 134
Zamolxis (Getaean god), 582, 716
Zeno of Cittium (Stoic philosopher), 137, 194, 236, 345, 567, 575, 600, 609, 612, 621, 670, 743, 940, 968, 991, 933, 1106, 1148–9, 1259
Zeno (Epicurean philosopher), 560, 589
Zeno, citizen of Messana, 5
Zenobia (Queen of Palmyra), 224
Zeuxidamus (King of Sparta), 188
Zoroaster, 645, 716
[A] and ’80: the text of 1580
[Al]: the text of 1582 (plus)
[B] and ’88: the text of 1588
[C]: the text of the edition being prepared by Montaigne when he died, 1592
’95: text of the 1595 posthumous printed edition
In the notes there is given. selection of variant readings, including most abandoned in 1588 and many from the printed posthumous edition of 1595.
By far the most scholarly account of the text is that given in R. A. Sayce, The Essays of Montaigne: A Critical Exploration, 1972, Chapter 2, ‘The Text of the Essays’.
1. Blaise Pascal, Pensées et Opuscules, ed. L. Brunschvicg, 1909, p. 120 – an old study, but still useful.
2. Cf. my study, Montaigne and Melancholy, Duckworth 1983; Penguin 1991.
3. The standard text of St Paul (I Corinthians 2:9) cited by theologians over the centuries. Montaigne quotes it to good effect when condemning the teachings about the afterlife found in Plato – teachings which he provocatively judged too corporeal. See ‘An apology for Raymond Sebond’, II, 12, note 212.
4. Cf. ‘An apology for Raymond Sebond’, p.628.
5. A translation of Montaigne’s version of the Prologus is given after this Introduction in an Appendix (p. lviii).
6. This is the conviction of Pascal, Pensées, Brunschvicg no. 244.
7. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa, IIac, Q.I ad 5. Later this theme is briefly treated in ways relevant to an understanding of Montaigne in Daniel Huët, Bishop of Avranches, De imbecillitate mentis humanae, 1738, Bk. 2, chapter 1, or in the same chapter of the French original, Traité philosophique de la faiblesse de l’esprit humain, 1723. (It was already a standard doctrine long before Montaigne’s time.)
8. Edward Chaloner, The Gentile’s Creede, or The Naturall Knowledge of God, in sixe sermons, 1623, p. 223: ‘The doctrine therefore which our Apostles in my Text doe insinuate unto us, when they say, that God left not himselfe to the Gentiles without witnesse, must needs be this. That so much may be knowne of God by the Witness of Nature, as is sufficient to confirme unto us, though not his Persons, or workes of Redemption, yet his Godhead, and also his handie-worke in creating and governing the World. God is himself invisible, and yet The invisible things of him (sayth the Apostle, Rom. 1:20) that is, his Etemall Power and Godhead, are scene by the creation of the World, being considered in their workes. To resolve the members of which Verse, were to propose unto you a whole systeme of naturall Divinitie…’ Cf. also Sir Walter Raleigh, Historie of the World, I, i, cited by E. M. W. Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture, London, 1963, p. 36; Tillyard gives a résumé of Raymond Sebond’s Viola animae.
9. ‘Apology’, p. 500; cf. Montaigne and Melancholy, p. 49.
10. Pensées, Brunschvicg no. 578.
11. ‘Apology’, p. 573; this can be conveniently seen from the gloss of a later scholar, Estius: in one sense even good pagans were ‘not excusable’ because of their ignorance; yet ‘they can in some way be said to be excusable’ by comparison with others who did less well. A hyper-orthodox preacher, Father Boucher, was to condemn Montaigne over this, but could only do so by distorting his thought. Cf. his Triomphes de la Religion Chrestienne, 1638, pp. 128–9; Boucher believed that Montaigne was advocating the pagan religion he was seeking to ‘excuse’. That was because he was distressed to see Montaigne so influential over ‘the beaux esprits of these times’ that he attributed to him ideas he believed to be held by free-thinkers in his own day.
12. The expression Hidden God derives from Isaiah 45:15. Christians of many persuasions used the term to emphasize the need of grace and for revelation from God, who is his own interpreter. It was associated by Nicolas of Lyra with Romans 1:20 in his gloss.
13. In this he remains orthodox. The notion of. Book of Nature (or of Creatures) in Sebond’s and Montaigne’s sense became quite common among theologians: cf. those mentioned in Reginald Pole’s Synopsis criticorum, 1686, vol. 5, col. 21, line 45 f.; it was also pleasing to Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning I, vi, 16.
14. Robert Bellarmine, S.J., De Controversiis Christianae Fidei, adversus hujus temporis haereticos (Opera, 1593, III; ‘On the Loss of Grace and the State of Sin’, col. 487 B; cf. p. 107).
15. Cf. Melanchthon, De Anima: ‘Hence arises other plagues (pestes): the soul loves itself and admires its own wisdom, fashions opinions about God and delights in this game and, in its distress, rails against God.’ A century later Father Boucher is still using the same phrases: ‘Presumptuousness of mind is the mother of error, the nurse of false opinions, the scourge of the soul, the plague (peste) of Man.’
16. Erasmus played a major role in spreading the doctrine of Christian Folly in the Renaissance. It was widely accepted by Christians of many persuasions.
17. Fundamental scepticism, typified by the work of François Sanchez, a doctor in Toulouse, Quod nihil scitur (‘That Nothing is Known’, 1581), was also accessible to Montaigne. He may even have read this particular book in manuscript. (See Francois Sanchez [Franciscus Sanchez]: That nothing is known (Quod nihil scitur): Introduction, notes and bibliography by Elaine Limbrick; Latin text established, annotated and translated by D. F. S. Thomson; Cambridge University Press, 1988.)
18. The Dialogues of Guy de Brués were aimed against ‘the new Academics’ and sought to show ‘that all does not consist in opinion’. The sceptics are allowed to state their case fairly.
19. Montaigne was irritably aware that Cicero was not an original thinker. More provocative for him were, say, Plato’s hostility towards relativism, in the Theaetetus and similar passages in Aristotle, as well as his brief indirect account of scepticism and its arguments (Metaphysics, 1010 b), which resulted in scepticism being placed within the major philosophical contexts of the Renaissance, which was anchored in Aristotle.
20. Cf. ‘Apology’, p. 634 ff., 664 ff.
21. This section begins with line 469 of Book IV of Lucretius: ‘Moreover if anyone thinks nothing is to be known, he does not even know whether that can be known, as he says he knows nothing.’ (Cf. ed. Lambin, 1563, p. 308 ff.)
22. Lucretius, p. 190.
23. Sextus, Hypotyposes, I, 217–19 (criticizing Protagoras for dogmatism and relativism). Some excellent reflections on this topic in Jean-Paul Dumont, Le scepticisme et le phénomène (especially Chapter 3); see also M. Burnyeat, The Skeptical Tradition.
24. Plato, Theaetetus, 152B; again, 152 CD. (Was this saying of Protagoras’ only meant for the mob?) Arguments drawn from 153–4 are used by Montaigne.
25. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1053b (misunderstanding Protagoras): ‘Thus, seeming to say something unusual, he is really saying nothing.’ More relevant to Montaigne (who uses some of the arguments) are Metaphysics, 1062b – 1063a.
26. In his studies of Plato, e.g. Timaeus, 37D–38B; Theaetetus, 152DE, etc.
27. Cf. Montaigne and Melancholy, p. 125; 101 f.
28. Ibid., p. 104.
29. There is a striking parallel between Plutarch’s conception of God and the Christian scholastic doctrines based upon God as revealed to Moses in the burning bush. (Where in English God says I AM THAT I AM, in the Greek and in sch
olastic theology he says I AM EXISTENCE or I AM THE EXISTING ONE.) Montaigne does not emphasize this: he lets it sink in.
30. ‘Apology’, p. 683. The full implications of this are not revealed until the last pages of the final chapter of the Essays: Book III, Chapter 13, ‘On experience’.
31. Edward Stillingfleet, Nature and Grounds of the Certainty of Faith, 1688, p. 35.
32. Montaigne, Journal de voyage en Italie, ed. Pierre Michel, 1974, pp. 287–8, 310.
33. Daniel Huët, Traité philosophique, 1723, III, 16. Cf. II, 6: ‘What is the End Proposed by the Art of Doubting?’ There are two ends. ‘The proximate end is to avoid error, stubbornness and arrogance. The eventual end is to prepare one’s spirit to receive Faith.’ These are the professed aims of Montaigne.
34. W. R. Inge, Dean of St Paul’s, in Faith and Knowledge, 1905, p. 245; The Church and the World, 1927, p. 191; More Lay Thoughts of. Dean, 1931, p. 160, aphorism no. 37: ‘Know Thyself is really the sum of wisdom; for he who knows himself knows God.’
35. Journal, pp. 325–6, 330. Newman similarly puzzled and irritated many by this respect for the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham and for Loretto.
36. Ibid, (note by Pierre Michel, p. 310 n. 184); and his Introduction.
37. Cited from Biblia Maxima, Vol. XV. This exegesis was accepted by scholars of many schools and Churches: cf. for example Matthew Henry, Exposition of the New Testament, 1738, vol. 5, commentary on this verse.
38. Cf. Nicolas of Lyra on Romans 3:10 (Biblia Maxima, vol. XV: index, s.v. natura): a man can perform moral acts without grace: he cannot be justified.
39. In Italian, Discorsi morali, politici et militari (Ferrara, 1590). John Florio’s title was: The Essayes, or Morali, Politike and Millitarie Discourses… of Lo. Michaeli de Montaigne… (London, 1603).
40. The balance has been restored for more peaceful generations by an excellent book, happily in English, James Supple’s learned and very readable study, Arms versus Letters. The Military and Literary Ideals in the ‘Essais’ of Montaigne, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984.
41. For example, the expression ‘Life is short but art is long’ is the first of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates and means that life is all too brief for anyone who would study the Art – medicine.
42. Montaigne’s illness, ‘the stone’, came suddenly upon him in 1578. It, not unnaturally, changed his attitude to life and put his philosophy to the test. He frequently calls it simply ‘the stone’ or ‘cholique’. Both these terms (especially the second) risk misleading modern readers, who may fail to grasp their implications of dreadful internal pain and the retention of urine accompanied by paroxysms. I often render his (for us) at best neutral terms not by ‘the stone’ but by ‘colic paroxysms’ to drive home the ghastly pain from which he suffered and which (despite the promptings of Classical Stoicism which would have held suicide to be justified) he bore with resignation and fortitude. In his Collection of Offices, 1658, Jeremy Taylor included in his prayer for ‘all them that roar and groane with intolerable paines and noisome diseases’ those who are afflicted ‘with the stone and with the gout, with violent colics and grievous ulcers’. Like Montaigne Jeremy Taylor saw such afflictions as ‘the rod of God’, a cause, indeed, for pity, but to be borne with patience by the sufferer.
1. ’80: myself out, with borrowed beauties, or would have tensed and braced myself in my best posture. Here I want…
2. ’80: Without study or artifice…
3. Date as in [A] and [C]. In [B]: 12 June 1588.
1. ’80: means, bravery, steadfastness and resolution, have…
2. The Black Prince (Limoges, 1370). Sources include Froissart, Paolo Giovio, Vita di Scanderbeg; Jean Bodin, Methodus (Preface); Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Comment on peut se louer soy mesme; Dicts notables des Roys…; Instruction pour ceux qui manient les affaires d’estat; Diodorus Siculus (tr. Amyot), Histoires; and Quintus Curtius, Life of Alexander the Great.
3. ’80: disdaining prayers and…
4. Not Zeno, Stheno.
5. ’80: pierced, a rope threaded through them, and,…
6. ’80: because strength of courage was so natural and usual to him…
1. Tristesse in French means sadness.
2. Erasmus, Apophthegmata; varie mixta: Diversum Graecorum, IX (Opera, 1703–6, Vol. IV, col. 304EF).
3. Charles de Guise, Cardinal de Lorraine (at the Council of Trent).
4. Timanthes (Cicero, De Oratore, XXII; Quintillian, II, xiii, 12).
5. Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI, 304.
6. Virgil, Aeneid, XI, 151.
7. Paolo Giovio, Historia sui temporis, 1550, XXXIX.
’95: John of Hungary, a soldier was particularly remarked by everyone for showing outstanding personal bravery in a certain mêlée in which he fell, unidentified, but highly praised and pitied not least by a German lord called Raïsciac who was impressed by such great valour; when the body was brought back, that Lord, out of common curiosity, drew near to see who the man was. When the armour was stripped off the dead body he realized that it was his son. That increased the compassion of those present. He, without uttering a word or closing his eyes, remained standing, staring fixedly at his son until the vehement force of his sadness overwhelmed his vital spirits, and toppled him dead to the ground.
8. Petrarch, Sonnet 137.
9. Catullus, LI, 5.
10. ’88: ardour – an event with which I am not unacquainted. For pleasures… Seneca (the dramatist), Hippolitus, II, iii, 607.
11. Virgil, Aeneid, III, 306.
12. ’80: to natural weakness – (Pliny, Hist. nat., 54, for both anecdotes.)
1. Seneca, Epist. moral., XCVIII, 5–6.
2. Plato, Timaeus, 72a. Cf. Erasmus, Adages, Nosce teipsum (I.VII.XCV).
3. Cicero, Tusc. disput., V, xviii, 54 (replaced by a French translation in ’95).
4. Cicero, Tusc. disput., III, xv–xvi, 33–5.
5. A vague memory of Livy, not a direct allusion.
6. Tacitus, Annals, XV, lxvii.
7. Herodotus, VI, lxviii.
8. Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics, I, 10.
9. Cf. the last pages of ‘On experience’ (III, 13). Anyone whose soul is transported in ecstasy ‘outside the body’ ceases to exist as Man, since Man is body-plus-soul. His ecstatic soul may have commerce with Being; he, as Man, cannot.
10. Lucretius, III, 890–5 (adapted).
11. Jean Bouchet, Annales d’Acquitaine (Poitiers, 1557) and Francesco Guicciardini, L’Histoire d’Italie (tr. Chomedey, Paris, 1568) XII.
12. Plutarch, Lives of Nicias and of Agesilaus.
13. Cf. Francisco Lopez de Gomara (tr. Fumée), L’Histoire générale des Indes (Paris, 1578), III, xxii. (The example of Vischa was a commonplace).
14. Martin Du Bellay, Mémoires, Paris, 1569, II, p. 59.
15. ’80: as a girl about… (Source of anecdote unknown.)
16. That is, unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman.
17. Xenophon, Cyropaedia, VIII, vii.
18. Livy, Hist., Epitome, XLVIII.
19. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Lycon.
20. ’88: I shall leave it rather to custom to order this ceremony, and, saving such things as are required in the service of my religion, if it be in a place where it be necessary to impose them, I shall willingly entrust myself to the discretion of the first people this burden shall fall to… (The sense of the words struck out is supported by the three quotations added in [C], from Cicero, Tusc. disput., I, XIV, 108; St Augustine, City of God, I, xii (Vives cites Socrates and other philosophers in his notes); and Cicero, ibid., I, xliii, 103.)
21. Diodorus Siculus, XIII, xxxi–xxxii; XV, ix.
22. Seneca (the dramatist), The Trojan Women, II, 30.
23. Ennius, cited by Cicero, Tusc. Disput., I, xliv, 107.
’95 has this addition: ‘Nature thus shows us that several dead things still have some occult relationships with life: the wine in the cellar varies according to some of the changing seasons of the v
ine. And the meat of venison changes its character and flavour according to the laws governing the flesh of the living deer – so we are told’. (Renaissance science attributed such changes to the forces of ‘sympathy’ or ‘antipathy’ inherent in all things.)
1. Lucan, Pharsalia, III, 362–3. (This poem is now frequently known by the better title of The Civil War.)
2. Plutarch, Life of Pericles.
3. Lucan, Pharsalia, VI, 220–4.
4. Livy, XXV, xxxvii; of the brothers Publius and Cnaeus Scipio.
5. Cicero, Tusc. disput., III, xxvi, 63 (not listed by Erasmus in the Apophthegmata).
6. Plutarch, Comment il faut refrener la cholere, 57 F-G; Herodotus, VII, xxxv.
7. Doubtless a King of Castille. Robert Burton cites this in the Anatomy of Melancholy after ‘Montanus’, but does not identify the king or country.