Had my intention been to forestall and purchase the world’s opinion and favour, I would surely have adorned myself more quaintly, or kept a more grave and solemn march. I desire therein to be delineated in mine own genuine, simple, and ordinary fashion, without contention, art, or study; for it is myself I portray. My imperfections shall thus be read to the life, and my natural form discerned, so far-forth as public reverence hath permitted me. For if my fortune had been to have lived among those nations which yet are said to live under the sweet liberty of Nature’s first and uncorrupted laws, I assure thee I would most willingly have portrayed myself fully and naked.
Thus, gentle Reader, myself am the groundwork of my book; it is then no reason thou shouldst employ thy time about so frivolous and vain a subject. Therefore farewell.
From Montaigne,
the first of March, 1580.
THE ESSAYS
That to Philosophize Is to Learn How to Die
1.20, 1.19
CICERO sayeth, that to Philosophize is no other thing than for a man to prepare himself to death: [1] which is the reason that study and contemplation doth in some sort withdraw our soul from us, and severally [2] employ it from the body, which is a kind of apprentisage [3] and resemblance of death. Or else it is that all the wisdom and discourse of the world doth in the end resolve upon this point: to teach us not to fear to die. Truly either reason mocks us, or it only aimeth at our contentment, and in fine [4] bends all her travel to make us live well and, as the holy Scripture sayeth, at our ease. All the opinions of the world conclude that pleasure is our end, howbeit they take diverse means unto and for it, else would men reject them at their first coming. For who would give ear unto him [5] that for its end would establish our pain and disturbance?
The dissensions of philosophical sects in this case are verbal: Transcurramus solertissimas nugas: Let us run over such over-fine fooleries and subtle trifles. [6] There is more willfulness and wrangling among them than pertains to a sacred profession. But what person a man undertakes to act, he doth ever therewithal personate [7] his own. Although they say that, in virtue itself, the last scope of our aim is voluptuousness. It pleaseth me to importune their ears still with this word, which so much offends their hearing: And if it imply any chief pleasure or exceeding contentments, it is rather due to the assistance of virtue than to any other supply. Voluptuousness, being more strong, sinewy, sturdy, and manly, is but more seriously voluptuous. And we should give it the name of pleasure, more favorable, sweeter, and more natural; and not term it vigor, from which it hath his denomination. Should this baser sensuality deserve this fair name, it should be by competency and not by privilege. I find it less void of incommodities and crosses than virtue. And besides that her taste is more fleeting, momentary, and fading, she hath her fasts, her eves, and her travels, and both sweat and blood. Furthermore, she hath particularly so many wounding passions and of so several sorts, and so filthy and loathsome a society waiting upon her, that she is equivalent to penitence. [8]
We are in the wrong to think her incommodities [9] serve her as a provocation and seasoning to her sweetness, as in nature one contrary is vivified by another contrary: and to say, when we come to virtue, that like successes and difficulties overwhelm it, and yield it austere and inaccessible. Whereas much more properly than unto voluptuousness, they ennoble, sharpen, animate, and raise that divine and perfect pleasure, which it meditates and procureth us. Truly he is very unworthy her acquaintance, that counter-balanceth her cost to his fruit, and knows neither the graces nor use of it. Those who go about to instruct us, how her pursuit is very hard and laborious, and her jouissance [10] well-pleasing and delightful: what else tell they us, but that she is ever unpleasant and irksome? For, what humane mean did ever attain unto an absolute enjoying of it? [11] The perfectest have been content but to aspire and approach her, without ever possessing her. But they are deceived; seeing that of all the pleasures we know, the pursuit of them is pleasant. The enterprise is perceived by the quality of the thing, which it hath regard unto: for it is a good portion of the effect, and consubstantial. That happiness and felicity, which shineth in virtue, replenisheth her approaches and appurtenances, even unto the first entrance and utmost bar. [12]
Now of all the benefits of virtue, the contempt of death is the chiefest, a mean that furnisheth our life with an easeful tranquility and gives us a pure and amiable taste of it, without which every other voluptuousness is extinguished. Lo, here the reasons why all rules encounter and agree with this article. And albeit they all lead us with a common accord to despise grief, poverty, and other accidental crosses, to which man’s life is subject, it is not with an equal care: as well because accidents are not of such a necessity, for most men pass their whole life without feeling any want or poverty, and other-some without feeling any grief or sickness, as Xenophilus the musician, who lived an hundred and six years in perfect and continual health: as also if the worst happen, death may at all times, and whensoever it shall please us, cut off all other inconveniences and crosses. But as for death, it is inevitable.
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna, serius, ocius
Sors exitura, et nos in æter-
Num exitium impositura cymbæ.
All to one place are driv’n, of all
Shak’t is the lot-pot, [13] where-hence shall
Sooner or later drawn lots fall,
And to death’s boat for aye [14] enthrall. [15]
And by consequence, if she make us afeard, it is a continual subject of torment, and which can no way be eased. There is no starting-hole [16] will hide us from her; she will find us wheresoever we are; we may as in a suspected country start and turn here and there: quæ quasi saxum Tantalo semper impendet: Which evermore hangs like the stone over the head of Tantalus. [17] Our laws do often condemn and send malefactors to be executed in the same place where the crime was committed: to which place, whilst they are going, lead them along the fairest houses or entertain them with the best cheer you can,
non Siculæ dapes
Dulcem elaborabunt saporem:
Non avium, citharæque cantus
Somnum reducent.
Not all King Denys dainty fare,
Can pleasing taste for them prepare:
No song of birds, no music’s sound
Can lullaby to sleep profound. [18]
Do you think they can take any pleasure in it? Or be anything delighted? And that the final intent of their voyage being still before their eyes, hath not altered and altogether distracted their taste from all these commodities and allurements?
Audit iter, numeratque dies, spatioque viarum
Metitur vitam, torquetur peste futura.
He hears his journey, counts his days, so measures he
His life by his way’s length, vex’t with the ill shall be. [19]
The end of our cariere [20] is death. It is the necessary object of our aim: if it affright us, how is it possible we should step one foot further without an ague? The remedy of the vulgar sort is not to think on it. But from what brutal stupidity may so gross a blindness come upon him? He must be made to bridle his ass by the tail,
Qui capite ipse suo instituit vestigia retro.
Who doth a course contrary run
With his head to his course begun. [21]
It is no marvel if he be so often taken tripping; some do no sooner hear the name of death spoken of, but they are afraid, yea the most part will cross themselves, as if they heard the Devil named. And because mention is made of it in men’s wills and testaments, I warrant you there is none will set his hand to them, till the physician hath given his last doom and utterly forsaken him. And God knows, being then between such pain and fear, with what sound judgment they endure him.
For so much as this syllable sounded so unpleasantly in their ears, and this voice seemed so ill-boding and unlucky, the Romans had learned to allay and dilate the same by a Periphrasis. [22] In lieu of saying, he is dead, or he hat
h ended his days, they would say, he hath lived. So it be life, be it past or no, they are comforted: from whom we have borrowed our phrases quondam, alias, or late such a one.
It may happily be, as the common saying is, the time we live is worth the money we pay for it. I was born between eleven of the clock and noon, the last of February 1533, according to our computation, the year beginning the first of January. [23] It is but a fortnight since I was 39 years old. I want at least as much more. [24] If in the mean time I should trouble my thoughts with a matter so far from me, it were but folly. But what? We see both young and old to leave their life after one self-same condition. No man departs otherwise from it than if he but now came to it. Seeing there is no man so crazed, bedrell, [25] or decrepit, so long as he remembers Mathusalem, [26] but thinks he may yet live twenty years. [27]
Moreover, seely [28] creature as thou art, who hath limited the end of thy days? Happily thou presumest upon physicians’ reports. Rather consider the effect and experience. By the common course of things, long since thou livest by extraordinary favor. Thou hast already over-passed the ordinary terms of common life. And to prove it, remember but thy acquaintances and tell me how many more of them have died before they came to thy age than have either attained or outgone the same. Yea, and of those that through renoune [29] hath ennobled their life, if thou but register them, [30] I will lay a wager I will find more that have died before they came to five and thirty years than after. It is consonant with reason and piety to take example by the humanity of Jesus Christ, who ended his human life at three and thirty years. The greatest man that ever was, being no more than a man, I mean Alexander the great, ended his days and died also of that age.
How many several means and ways hath death to surprise us.
Quid quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis
Cautum est in horas.
A man can never take good heed,
Hourly what he may shun and speed. [31]
I omit to speak of agues and pleurisies; who would ever have imagined that a Duke of Brittany should have been stifled to death in a throng of people, as whilome [32] was a neighbour of mine at Lyons, when Pope Clement made his entrance there? Hast thou not seen one of our late Kings slain in the midst of his sports? And one of his ancestors die miserably by the chocke [33] of an hog? [34] Eschilus, [35] fore-threatened by the fall of an house when he stood most upon his guard, strucken dead by the fall of a Tortoise shell, which fell out of the talons of an eagle flying in the air; and another choked with the kernel of a grape? And an Emperor die by the scratch of a comb, whilst he was combing his head? And Lepidus with hitting his foot against a door-sill? And Aufidius with stumbling against the council-chamber door as he was going in thereat? And Cornelius Gallus, the Prætor; Tegiliinus Captain of the Roman watch; Lodovico, son of Guido Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua—end their days between women’s thighs? And of a far worse example Speusippus, the Platonian philosopher, and one of our Popes? Poor Bebius, a judge, whilst he demurreth the suit of a plaintiff but for eight days, behold his last expired. And Caius Julius a physician, whilst he was anointing the eyes of one of his patients, to have his own sight closed forever by death. And if amongst these examples, I may add one of a brother of mine, called Captain Saint Martin, [36] a man of three and twenty years of age, who had already given good testimony of his worth and forward valor, playing at tennis, received a blow with a ball that hit him a little above the right ear, without appearance of any contusion, bruise, or hurt; and never sitting or resting upon it, died within six hours after of an apoplexy, which the blow of the ball caused in him. These so frequent and ordinary examples, happening and being still before our eyes, how is it possible for man to forgo or forget the remembrance of death? And why should it not continually seem unto us that she is still ready at hand to take us by the throat?
What matter is it, will you say unto me, how and in what manner it is, so long as a man do not trouble and vex himself therewith? I am of this opinion, that howsoever a man may shroud or hide himself from her dart, yea were it under an ox-hide, I am not the man would shrink back. It sufficeth me to live at my ease; and the best recreation I can have, that do I ever take; in other matters, as little vainglorious and exemplary as you list.
——prætulerim delirus inersque videri,
Dum mea delectent mala me, vel denique fallant,
Quam sapere et ringi.
A dotard I had rather seem, and dull,
Sooner my faults may please, make me a gull,
Than to be wise, and beat my vexed scull. [37]
But it is folly to think that way to come unto it. They come, they go, they trot, they dance: but no speech of death. All that is good sport. But if she be once come, and on a sudden and openly surprise either them, their wives, their children, or their friends, what torments, what out-cries, what rage, and what despair doth then overwhelm them? Saw you ever anything so drooping, so changed, and so distracted? A man must look to it, and in better times foresee it. And might that brutish carelessness lodge in the mind of a man of understanding (which I find altogether impossible), she sells us her ware at over-dear a rate. Were she an enemy by man’s wit to be avoided, I would advise man to borrow the weapons of cowardliness. But since it may not be, and that be you either a coward or a runaway, an honest or valiant man, she overtakes you,
Nempe et fugacem persequitur virum,
Nec parcit imbellis iuuentæ
Poplitibus, timidoque tergo.
She persecutes the man that flies,
She spares not weak youth to surprise,
But on their hams and back turn’d, plies. [38]
And that no temper of cuirace [39] may shield or defend you,
Ille licet ferro cautus se condat in ære,
Mors tamen inclusum protrahet inde caput.
Though he with iron and brass his head impale,
Yet death his head enclosed thence will hale. [40]
Let us learn to stand and combat her with a resolute mind. And being to take the greatest advantage she hath upon us from her, let us take a clean contrary way from the common; let us remove her strangeness from her; let us converse, frequent, and acquaint ourselves with her; let us have nothing so much in mind as death; let us at all times and seasons, and in the ugliest manner that may be, yea with all faces shapen, [41] and represent the same unto our imagination. At the stumbling of a horse, at the fall of a stone, at the least prick with a pin, let us presently ruminate and say with ourselves: what if it were death it self? And thereupon let us take heart of grace and call our wits together to confront her. Amidst our banquets, feasts, and pleasures, let us ever have this restraint or object before us, that is, the remembrance of our condition, and let not pleasure so much mislead or transport us that we altogether neglect or forget how many ways, our joys, or our feastings, be subject unto death, and by how many hold-fasts she threatens us and them. So did the Egyptians, who in the midst of their banquetings and in the full of their greatest cheer, caused the anatomy of a dead man to be brought before them, as a memorandum and warning to their guests.
Omnem crede diem ubi diluxisse supremum,
Grata superveniet, quæ non sperabitur hora.
Think every day shines on thee as thy last,
Welcome it will come, whereof hope was past. [42]
It is uncertain where death looks for us; let us expect her every where: the premeditation of death is a fore-thinking of liberty. He who hath learned to die, hath unlearned to serve. There is no evil in life for him that hath well conceived how the privation of life is no evil. To know how to die doth free us from all subjection and constraint. Paulus Æmilius answered one whom that miserable king of Macedon, his prisoner, sent to entreat him [that] he would not lead him in triumph: “let him make that request unto himself.”
Verily, if nature afford not some help in all things, it is very hard that art and industry should go far before. Of myself, I am not much given to melancholy, but rather to dreaming and sluggishness. There is
nothing wherewith I have ever more entertained myself than with the imaginations of death, yea in the most licentious times of my age.
Iucundum, cum ætas florida ver aqeret.
When my age flourishing
Did spend its pleasant spring. [43]
Being amongst fair ladies and in earnest play, some have thought me busied or musing with myself how to digest some jealousy or meditating on the uncertainty of some conceived hope, when God he knows I was entertaining myself with the remembrance of some one or other that but few days before was taken with a burning fever and of his sudden end, coming from such a feast or meeting where I was myself, and with his head full of idle conceits, of love, and merry glee; supposing the same, either sickness or end, to be as near me as him.
Iam fuerit, nec post, unquam revocare licebit.
Now time would be, no more
You can this time restore. [44]
I did no more trouble myself or frown at such a conceit than at any other. It is impossible we should not apprehend or feel some motions or startings at such imaginations at the first and coming suddenly upon us. But doubtless he that shall manage and meditate upon them with an impartial eye, they will assuredly, in tract of time, become familiar to him. Otherwise, for my part, I should be in continual fear and agony; for no man did ever more distrust his life, nor make less account of his continuance. Neither can health, which hitherto I have so long enjoyed and which so seldom hath been crazed, lengthen my hopes, nor any sickness shorten them of it. At every minute methinks I make an escape. And I uncessantly record unto myself, that whatsoever may be done another day may be effected this day. Truly hazards and dangers do little or nothing approach us at our end; and if we consider how many more there remain besides this accident, which in number more than millions seem to threaten us and hang over us, we shall find that be we sound or sick, lusty or weak, at sea or at land, abroad or at home, fighting or at rest, in the midst of a battle or in our beds, she [45] is ever alike near unto us. Nemo altero fragilior est, nemo in crastinum sui certior. No man is weaker than other; none surer of himself (to live) till to morrow. [46] Whatsoever I have to do before death, all leisure to end the same, seemeth short unto me, yea were it but of one hour.
Shakespeare's Montaigne Page 6
