The Complete Essays
Page 160
1. ’80: or Scipio barbaric…
2. Julius Caesar, Gallic Wars, IV, v.
3. Martial, II, lxii, 1; VI, xciii, 9.
4. Virgil, Aeneid, II, 2.
5. Ovid, Ex Ponto, IV, ix, 13.
6. Plutarch, Life of Crates.
7. Seneca, Epist. moral., LXX, 20.
8. Martial, XI, lxviii, 11.
9. Lucretius, IV, 1020–1.
10. Martial, VII, xlviii, 4.
11. Martial, VII, xxxv, 1–2.
12. Horace, Satires, I, v, 13–14.
13. Suetonius, Life of Caesar, xlix.
14. Horace, Odes, II, xi, 18–20.
15. Persius, Satires, I, 58–60.
16. Cf. Rabelais, Gargantua, TLF, IX, ‘On what is signified by the colours white and blue’.
1. ’80: choose. Meanwhile I leave Fortune to furnish me with subjects. Since all are equally good for me, and I do not undertake to treat them fully or to scrape the barrel; of the hundreds of features which each of them has; I take the one which pleases me: I grasp them preferably by some extraordinary aspect: I could well select richer, fuller ones if I had some other objective. Every act is appropriate for making ourselves known: that same soul of Caesar’s…
2. Juvenal, Satires, X, xxviii.
3. He asked Alexander the Great to get out of his light. On his trundling of his barrel, cf. the Prologue to the Tiers Livre of Rabelais.
4. Plutarch, Life of Brutus; Diogenes Laertius, Life of Aristippus.
5. Laughter is the ‘property’ – the specific quality – of Man. Cf. Rabelais, Gargantua, preliminary poem.
1. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Dicts notables des Lacedaemoniens, 209F; also listed among Erasmus’ Spartan apophthegmata. Then, Plutarch, Life of Pericles.
2. Guillaume Postel, Histoire des Turcs; Quintilian, Institutiones, II.
3. Livy, X, xxii.
4. Juvenal, V, 123–4.
5. Terence, Adelphi, III, iii, 71–5.
6. Plutarch, Life of Paulus Aemilius.
7. In Amadis de Gaule, II.
8. Cf. the language of Montaigne’s title to Roman Citizenship cited in III, 9, ‘On vanity’.
9. But cf. the closing pages of III, 13, ‘On experience’.
1. The anecdotes are taken from Valerius Maximus IV, Plutarch’s Lives of Cato the Censor and of Tiberius Gracchus, and Seneca’s De consolatione ad Albinam.
1. Lucretius, III, 1095–7.
2. Lucretius, VI, 9–17.
3. Gallic Wars, II, iv. (Until [C] this was accompanied by a French translation.)
1. Lines all beginning with the same letter were affected by some early Renaissance poets (the ‘Grands Rhétoriqueurs’). Poems with lines of varying lengths arranged to make shapes were known in Late Antiquity. Herbert’s ‘Easter-Wings’ is an example in English.
2. One hundred million two hundred thousand ways, according to Xenophon (Plutarch, tr. Amyot, Propos de table, 430C).
3. An example in Quintilian vulgarized by Castiglione, Book of the Courtier II, 31.
4. Or rather to Garcia V, son of Sancho Garcia.
1. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Propos de table, 366C.
2. Plautus, Mustellaria, I, iii, 117; cf. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, III, §§9–10.
3. Martial, VI, lv, 4–5; II, xii, 4 (both in Tiraquellus, loc. cit.).
4. Horace, Epodes, XII, 4–7.
5. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Socrates.
6. ‘Animal spirits’ are the elements in man, separable from the body, which it animates.
7. In Venice the stench of the canals produced ‘bad air’ (malaria). As for Paris, Joachim Du Bellay emphasizes how its mud struck him on his return from Rome (Regrets, 138).
1. All churches claim to be catholic. Roman Catholics in Montaigne’s time often stressed the ‘Roman’ so as to avoid any ambiguity.
2. The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4). Montaigne always presents the Bible as divinely inspired by the Holy Ghost. Here, by special grace, the incarnate Son ensures the absolute verbal accuracy of the central prayer of Christendom.
3. Romans 8:14–17, etc.
4. ’80: According to the criteria of his justice, not according to our inclinations and wishes. God’s…
5. Plato, Laws, X, 885 B–C.
6. ’80: at least for that time when… (This passage was raised by the Maestro del Palazzo. Consult Malcolm Smith, Montaigne and the Roman Censors, Geneva, 1981. Montaigne’s assertion is rigorist and neo-Augustinian. Some still judge it hyperorthodox.)
7. Cf. Matthew 3:8.
8. Juvenal, Satires, VIII, 144–5.
9. The Benedicite precedes dinner; grace follows it.
’80: It amounts in the end to pretence. And it…
’88: since they are practices which I honour and often imitate, only…
10. ’80: to usury, venality and lechery. Give… [Montaigne strengthens his case, replacing sinful practices by the infinitely more serious inward sins of the mind.]
11. 80: the Catholic Church has forbidden… (Psalm-singing, often in the translation of the French poet Clément Marot, had been a practice in the Court of Margaret of Navarre but had become for many the sign of the Reformed Church.)
12. ’80: kitchen, in the hands of everybody. A study…
13. ‘Lift up your hearts’ – the liturgical summons to prayer.
14. ’88: of translating and broadcasting…
15. All this paragraph of Nicetas comes directly from Justus Lipsius’ De una religione.
16. Plato forbade youths, not women, to discuss the laws (Plato, Laws, I, 634 D–E). Here, as often in the Renaissance, Law includes religion. (Christianity was termed ‘the law of Christians’ from medieval times.)
17. Bishop Jeronimo Osorio (da Fonseca), De rebus Emanuëlis Lusitaniae Regis gestis, Cologne, 1581 (1586).
18. Euripides apud Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De l’amour, 604B.
19. St Augustine, City of God, X, xxix. This was current Renaissance practice. For some reason the Maestro di Palazzo raised the question of the use of ‘fortune’ in the Essays. Montaigne changed a few passages but held his ground and explains why. (The passage of Chrysostom remains untraced.)
20. Montaigne’s terms are technical. He is giving his opinions (i.e. his unproven notions) ‘according to himself, ‘selon moy’ (secundum me). Anything which is said secundum quid (‘according to anything’) is not stated simpliciter (absolutely, simply) but in some partial respect only. Anything stated ‘selon Dieu’, ‘according to God’ (secundum Deum) would be infallible and a matter of absolute faith.
21. That was the practice of the Reformed Church. (Cf. Joachim Du Bellay, Regrets, 136, on the Genevan Calvinists.)
22. Persius, Satires, II, 4; glossing a petition from the Lord’s Prayer.
23. Persius, Satires, II, 21–31. The young monarch (or ‘prince’) in the next paragraph is Francis. (cf. Margaret of Navarre, Heptaméron, III, 25). Prince regularly means King in the Renaissance, as a current Latinism.
24. Lucan, Pharsalia, V, 104–5.
25. Persius, Satires, II, 6–7; Horace, Epistles, III, i, 16–19.
26. For Oedipus, cf. Plato, Second Alcibiades, 138 B–C. Then, for prayer, cf. The ‘magic’ prayers of Panurge during the Storm in the Quart Livre of Father Rabelais. Montaigne’s point is theologically sound and, at the time, not difficult to grasp.
27. That is, Christianity.
28. ’80: those concupiscences which…
29. Plato, Laws, IV, 717E.
30. Horace, Odes, III, xxxiii, 13–16.
1. Presumably the biblical ‘three-score years and ten’, held to be the norm.
2. Plutarch, Life of Cato of Utica.
3. Suetonius, Life of Augustus.
4. The Emperor Augustus.
5. Lucretius, III, 452–4.
6. Montaigne’s next-to-last noun, oisiveté probably renders the classical Latin word otium; in which case he is not thinking of ‘idleness’ but of that ‘leisure’ time,
when learning, study and culture took precedence over ‘business’ (negotium), which included all duties and employments.
1. Plutarch, Life of Marius; Bouchet, Annales d’Acquitaine; Seneca, De Clementia.
2. Publius Syrus cited by Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, XVII, 14.
3. Seneca, Epistles, XX, 5.
4. Demosthenes (?), On the Fallen at Chaeronea; then, Horace, Epistles, I, i, 98–9.
5. Horace, Satires, II, vii, 82; Lucretius, III, 1070–3; Homer, cited in Latin by St Augustine, City of God, V, xxxviii.
6. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Empedocles. Also cited in Erasmus’ Apophthegmata.
7. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, IV, Antigonus Rex Macedonum, XXXIII.
8. Horace, Epistles, II, ii, 36; 26–40 (where the soldier’s tale is told).
9. That is, Mechmet II. Cf. Nicolas Chalcocondylas (tr. Blaise de Vigenère), De la décadence de l’empire grec, 1584.
10. That each individual is swayed by a good guardian angel and a bad angel derives from platonizing interpretations of Matthew 18:10; Rabelais accepts it (Tiers Livre, TLF, VII). (Cf. Erasmus, Adages, I, I, LXXII, Genius malus.)
11. ‘I make a distinction’, a term used in formal debates to reject or modify an opponent’s assertion.
12. Cicero, Tusc. disput., II, xxvii, 65.
13. Ibid., IV, xxxvii, 79. Alexander murdered Clitus when drunk.
14. Cicero, De officiis, I, xxi, 71.
15. Cicero, Paradoxa, V, i; Seneca, Epist. moral., XX, 2–3.
16. Several echoes of Seneca, Epist. moral., LXXI and XCII and of other Epistles throughout this chapter.
17. Cicero, De senectute, VII.
18. Herodotus, Historia, V, xxix.
19. Seneca, Epist. moral., CXX, 22. In the following sentence ‘ambition’, as often, means inordinate ambition; so too covetousness (‘avarice’ in the French original) means an inordinate desire to obtain, and retain, not only wealth but honour: its sense is close to that of inordinate ambition. Montaigne holds that bad motives can produce admirable qualities.
20. Tibullus, II, i, 75–6.
1. For Stoics all vices are equally evil; all virtues equally good. Horace (as cited) denies that: Satires, I, i, 107; I, iii, 115–17.
2. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, III, Socratica, XXXIII.
3. The Germanic peoples.
4. Lucretius, III, 475–8.
5. Seneca, Epist. moral., LXXXIII, 16; Horace, Odes, III, xxi, 14–17.
6. Flavius Josephus (the Jewish historian): De vita sua.
7. Seneca, Epist. moral., LXXXIII, 14–15 (for both Piso and Cossa).
8. Virgil, Bucolica, VI, 15 (adapted).
9. Seneca, Epist. moral., LXXXIII, 12–13.
10. Juvenal, Satires, XV, 47–8.
11. Diodorus Siculus, XV, xxvi.
12. Pseudo-Gallus, I, 47–8.
13. [A]: That true portrait of Stoic virtue, Cato… (Montaigne had first confused Cato of Utica with Cato the Censor).
14. Horace, Odes, III, xxi, 11–12.
15. ’88: dull. Plato attributes to it the same effect on the mind. [B] And we can… (Cf. Erasmus, Adages, IV, III, LVIII, Non est dithyrambus qui hibit aquam; Rabelais, Tiers Livre, TLF, Prologue, 175ff.; Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Propos de Table, 364B; 420A.) Joannes Sylvius (Dubois) was a doctor and pharmacologist of note. He died in 1576.
16. ’95: life: and where do you hope more rightly to find them among the natural pleasures? But…
17. The Libro aureo del emperador Marco Aurelio of Bishop Antonio de Guevara.
18. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Anacharsis.
19. Cf. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, XIII, §147, citing Plato’s Laws.
20. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Stilpo and of Arcesilaus.
21. Horace, Odes, III, xxviii, 4.
22. Lucretius, III, 155–8.
23. Terence, Heautontimorumenos, I, i, 25.
24. Virgil, Aeneid, VI, 1.
25. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Publicola, III.
26. The Stoics.
27. The Epicureans; Cicero, Tusc. disput., V, ix, 27, citing Metrodorus the pupil of Epicurus.
28. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Philosophers, I, civ.
29. Flavius Josephus, De Macabaeorum martyrio.
30. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VII, Antithenes Atheniensis, III; other examples from Aulus Gellius, IX, v, and Sextus Empiricus, Hypotyposes, III, xx.
31. Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 158–9.
32. Seneca, De tranquillitate, XV (a major borrowing).
33. Plato, Timaeus, 71D–72A.
1. Several examples, all from Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Dicts notables des Lacedaemoniens.
2. Cicero, Tusc. disput., V, XIV, 42; then many borrowings from Seneca, Epist. moral., LXIX-LXXVIII, especially LXX.
3. Tacitus, Annales, XIII, lvi; Seneca, Phoenissae, 151–3.
4. Cicero, De finibus, III, xviii, 60.
5. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Aristippus and of Speucippus (up to this point, Montaigne’s position is that of Seneca).
6. [A] originally read: For, apart from that authority which, when forbidding murder, included self-murder in it, many philosophers hold…
7. The great commonplace from Plato’s Phaedo: see St Augustine, City of God, I, xxii; Erasmus, Adages, IV, VI, LXXXI, Nemo sibi nascitur, Tiraquellus’ discussion for and against suicide in De nobilitate, XXXI (where Plato is cited, §561).
8. Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 434–7:
9. St Augustine, City of God, I, xxii and xxiv.
10. Horace, Odes, IV, iv, 57–60.
11. Seneca (the dramatist), Phoenissae, 190–93.
12. Martial, XI, lvi, 15–16.
13. Horace, Odes, III, iii, 7–8.
14. Martial, II, lxxv, 2.
15. Lucan, Pharsalia, VII, 104–7.
16. Lucretius, III, 79–82.
17. Plato, Laws, 9. (See Tiraquellus, De nobilitate, XXXI, §561.)
18. Lucretius, III, 862–4.
19. A concept attributed to Zeno the philosopher.
20. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, IV, §32 (after Plutarch’s Famous Women).
21. Plutarch, Life of Cleomenes. (The man’s name was Therycion.)
22. In the Saturnalia of Justus Lipsius, attributed to Pentadius.
23. Seneca, Epist. moral., LXX, 7.
24. Flavius Josephus, De vita sua.
25. An addition by Montaigne has gone astray from the Bordeaux copy. In ’95 we read: protect. In the battle of Serisolles Monsieur d’Enghien made two assays at slashing his throat with his sword, despairing of the fortune of a battle, which, where he was, was going badly, and in his haste nearly deprived himself of the pleasure of so fair a victory. I have…
26. Seneca, Epist. moral., XIII, 11.
27. Virgil, Aeneid, I, 425–7.
28. Pliny, Hist., nat., XXV. The stone was Montaigne’s complaint.
29. Seneca, Epist. moral., LVIII, 36.
30. Livy, XXXVII, xlvi.
31. Ibid., XLV, xxvi.
32. Narrated by Guillaume Paradin, Histoire de son temps.
33. Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, XII, v.
34. Seneca, Epist. moral., LXX, 10.
35. II Maccabees 14:37–46 – virtually word for word from the Latin Vulgate. (The English Geneva Bible warns the reader that there are occasions when Biblical exempla are not to be followed: this suicide is one of them.)
36. Cf. St Augustine, City of God, I, xxv–xxvi; he feared that some virgins might, despite themselves, enjoy rape. Nevertheless, except when individually counselled to do so by God, desire to avoid such pleasure does not justify suicide. Vives in his notes cites Montaigne’s examples of Pelagia and Sophronia, after Eusebius’ Ecclesiasti cal History.
37. Allusion to some conteur, not a theologian.
38. Clément Marot, De nenny (ed. Guiffrey), IV, 241.
39. Tacitus, Annals, V.
40. Ibid., XV.
41. Herodotus, I, ccxiii.
42. Herodotus, VII, cvii.
&nb
sp; 43. Simon Goulart, Histoire du Portugal. Examples follow from Tacitus, Annals, Livy, Quintus Curtius and Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Du trop parler, 93D–E.
44. St Paul, Philippians 1:23; Romans 7:24; Cicero, Tusc. disput., I, xxxiv, 84. Contemporary theologians, philosophers and jurisconsults used these texts to show that suicide is often both reasonable and natural, but forbidden by God’s ordinance which supersedes both reason and nature. (Cf. Bartholomew of Medina, Expositio in Secundam Secundae (of Thomas Aquinas), Salamanca, 1588; Tiraquellus, De nobilitate, XXXI, §§ 512–13.