Shakespeare's Montaigne

by Michel de Montaigne

  It is ever proper unto women to be readily bent to contradict and cross their husbands. They will with might and main, [42] hand over head, take hold of any colour to thwart and withstand them; the first excuse they meet with serves them as a plenary justification. I have seen some that would in gross steal from their husbands to the end (as they told their confessor) they might give the greater alms. Trust you to such religious dispensations! They think no liberty to have or managing to possess sufficient authority if it come from their husbands’ consent. [43] They must necessarily usurp it, either by wily craft or main force, and ever injuriously, thereby to give it more grace and authority. As in my discourse, when it is against a poor old man and for children, then take they hold of this title and therewith gloriously serve their turn and passion, and, as in a common servitude, easily usurp and monopolize against his government and domination. If they be men-children, tall, of good spirit, and forward, then they presently suborn—either by threats, force, or favour—both steward, bailiff, clerk, receiver, and all the father’s officers and servants.

  Such as have neither wife nor children do more hardly [44] fall into his mischief, but yet more cruelly and unworthily. Old Cato was wont to say, So many servants, so many enemies. Note whether according to the distance that was between the purity of his age and the corruption of our times, he did not forewarn us that wives, children, and servants are to us so many enemies. Well fits it decrepitude to store us with the sweet benefit of ignorance and unperceiving facility wherewith we are deceived. If we did yield unto it, what would become of us? Do we not see that even then if we have any suits in law or matters to be decided before judges, both lawyers and judges will commonly take part with and favour our children’s causes against us, as men interested in the same?

  And if I chance not to spy or plainly perceive how I am cheated, cozened, and beguiled, I must of necessity discover in the end how I am subject, and may be cheated, beguiled, and cozened. And shall the tongue of man ever be able to express the invaluable worth of a friend, in comparison of these civil bonds? The lively image and idea whereof which so unspotted I perceive to be among beasts—oh, with what religion do I respect and observe the same!

  If others deceive me, yet do I not deceive myself, to esteem myself capable and of power to look unto myself, nor to trouble my brains to yield myself unto it. I do beware and keep myself from such treasons and cunny-catching [45] in mine own bosom, not by an unquiet and tumultuary [46] curiosity, but rather by a diversion and resolution.

  When I hear the state of any one reported or discoursed of, I amuse not myself on him but presently cast mine eyes on myself and all my wits together, to see in what state I am and how it goeth with me. Whatsoever concerneth him, the same hath relation to me. His fortunes forewarn me and summon up my spirits that way. There is no day nor hour but we speak that of others we might properly speak of ourselves, could we as well enfold as we can unfold our consideration.

  And many authors do in this manner wound the protection of their cause by over-rashly running against that which they take hold of, thirling [47] such darts at their enemies that might with much more advantage be cast at them.

  The Lord of Montluc, late one of the Lord Marshals of France, having lost his son, who died in the island of Madeira—a worthy, forward, and gallant young gentleman, and truly of good hope—amongst other his griefs and regrets did greatly move me to condole the infinite displeasure and heart’s-sorrow that he felt, inasmuch as he had never communicated and opened himself unto him. For with his austere humour and continual endeavouring to hold a grim-stern-fatherly gravity over him, he had lost the means perfectly to find and thoroughly to know his son and so to manifest unto him the extreme affection he bore him and the worthy judgement he made of his virtue. “Alas,” was he wont to say, “the poor lad saw never anything in me but a severe-surly countenance, full of disdain, and haply [48] was possessed with this conceit that I could neither love nor esteem him according to his merits. Ay-me, to whom did I reserve to discover that singular and loving affection which in my soul I bare unto him? Was it not he that should have had all the pleasure and acknowledgement thereof? I have forced and tormented myself to maintain this vain mask and have utterly lost the pleasure of his conversation and therewithal his good will, which surely was but faintly cold towards me, forsomuch as he never received but rude entertainment of me and never felt but a tyrannical proceeding in me towards him.” I am of opinion his complaint was reasonable and well grounded. For, as I know by certain experience, there is no comfort so sweet in the loss of friends as that our own knowledge or conscience tells us we never omitted to tell them everything and expostulate all matters unto them and to have had a perfect and free communication with them. Tell me, my good friend, am I the better or the worse by having a taste of it? [49] Surely I am much the better. His grief doth both comfort and honour me. Is it not a religious and pleasing office of my life for ever to make the obsequies thereof? Can there be any pleasure worth this privation?

  I do unfold and open myself as much as I can to mine own people, [50] and willingly declare the state of my will and judgment towards them, as commonly I do towards all men. I make haste to produce and present myself, for I would have no man mistake me, in what part soever.

  Amongst other particular customs which our ancient Gauls had (as Cæsar affirmeth), this was one, that children never came before their fathers nor were in any public assembly seen in their company but when they began to bear arms; as if they would infer that then was the time fathers should admit them to their acquaintance and familiarity.

  I have also observed another kind of indiscretion in some fathers of our times, who during their own life would never be induced to acquaint or impart unto their children that share or portion which, by the Law of Nature, they were to have in their fortunes: nay, some there are who, after their death, bequeath and commit the same authority over them and their goods unto their wives, with full power and law to dispose of them at their pleasure. And myself have known a gentleman, a chief officer of our crown that by right and hope of succession (had he lived unto it) was to inherit above fifty thousand crowns a year good land, who at the age of more than fifty years fell into such necessity and want, and was run so far in debt that he had nothing left him and, as it is supposed, died for very need; whilst his mother, in her extreme decrepitude, enjoyed all his lands and possessed all his goods, by virtue of his father’s will and testament, who had lived very near four-score years; a thing (in my conceit) no way to be commended but rather blamed.

  Therefore do I think that a man but little advantaged or bettered in estate who is able to live of himself and is out of debt, especially if he have children and goeth about to marry a wife that must have a great jointer [51] out of his lands, assuredly there is no other debt that brings more ruin unto houses than that. My predecessors have commonly followed this counsel and so have I, and all have found good by it. But those that dissuade us from marrying of rich wives lest they might prove over disdainful and peevish, or less tractable and loving, are also deceived to make us neglect and forego a real commodity for so frivolous a conjecture. To an unreasonable woman, it is all one cost to her whether they pass under one reason or under another. They love to be where they are most wronged. Injustice doth allure them, as the honour of their virtuous actions enticeth the good. And by how much richer they are, so much more mild and gentle are they, as more willingly and gloriously chaste by how much fairer they are.

  Some colour of reason there is men should leave the administration of their goods and affairs unto mothers whilst their children are not of competent age or fit according to the laws to manage the charge of them. And ill hath their father brought them up if he cannot hope these, coming to years of discretion, they shall have no more wit, reason, and sufficiency than his wife, considering the weakness of their sex. Yet truly were it as much against nature so to order things that mothers must wholly depend on their children’s discretion. They ought
largely and competently to be provided wherewith to maintain their estate according to the quality of their house and age because need and want is much more unseemly and hard to be endured in women than in men. And children rather than mothers ought to be charged therewith.

  In general, my opinion is that the best distribution of goods is, when we die, to distribute them according to the custom of the country. The laws have better thought upon them than we. And better is it to let them err in their election than for us rashly to hazard to fail in ours. They are not properly our own since, without us and by a civil prescription, they are appointed to certain successours. And albeit we have some further liberty, I think it should be a great and most apparent cause to induce us to take from one and bar him from that which Fortune hath allotted him and the common laws and justice hath called him unto. And that against reason we abuse this liberty, by suiting the same unto our private humours and frivolous fantasies. My fortune hath been good, inasmuch as yet it never presented me with any occasions that might tempt or divert my affections from the common and lawful ordinance.

  I see some towards whom it is but labour lost carefully to endeavour to do any good offices. A word ill taken defaceth the merit of ten years. Happy he that, at this last passage, is ready to soothe and applaud their will. The next action transporteth him; not the best and most frequent offices, but the freshest and present, work the deed. [52] They are the people that play with their wills and testaments as with apples and rods, to gratify or chastise every action of those who pretend any interest thereunto. It is a matter of over-long pursuit and of exceeding consequence at every instance to be thus dilated, [53] and wherein the wiser sort establish themselves once for all, chiefly respecting reason and public observance.

  We somewhat over-much take these masculine substitutions [54] to heart and propose a ridiculous eternity unto our names. We also over-weight such vain future conjectures which infant-spirits [55] give us. It might peradventure have been from out my rank because I was the dullest, the slowest, the unwillingest, the most leaden-pated to learn my lesson or any good that ever was not only of all my brethren but of all the children in my country, were the lesson concerning my exercise of the mind or body. It is folly to try any extraordinary conclusions upon the trust of their divinations, wherein we are so often deceived. If this rule may be contradicted and the destinies corrected in the choice they have made of our heirs, with so much more appearance may it be done in consideration of some remarkable and enormous corporal deformity, a constant and incorrigible vice, and, according to us great esteemers of beauty, a matter of important prejudice.

  The pleasant dialogue of Plato’s the law-giver with his citizens will much honour this passage: “Why then,” say they, perceiving their end to approach, “shall we not dispose of that which is our own to whom and according as we please? O Gods, what cruelty is this, that it shall not be lawful for us to give or bequeath more or less according to our fantasies [56] to such as have served us and taken pains with us in our sicknesses, in our age, and in our business?” To whom the law-giver answereth in this manner: “My friends,” sayeth he, “who doubtless shall shortly die, it is a hard matter for you both to know yourselves and what is yours according to the Delphic inscription. As for me, who am the maker of your laws, I am of opinion that neither yourselves are your own nor that which you enjoy. And both you and your goods, past and to come, belong to your family. And, moreover, both your families and your goods are the commonwealth’s. Wherefore, lest any flatterer, either in your age or in time of sickness, or any other passion, should unadvisedly induce you to make any unlawful conveyance or unjust will and testament, I will look to you and keep you from it. But having an especial respect both to the universal interest of your city and particular state of your houses, I will establish laws and by reason make you perceive and confess that a particular commodity ought to yield to a public benefit. Follow that course merely whereto human necessity doth call you. To me it belongeth, who have no more regard to one thing than to another, and who, as much as I can, take care for the general, to have a regardful respect of that which you leave behind you.”

  But to return to my former discourse, methinks we seldom see that woman born to whom the superiority or majesty over men is due, except the motherly and natural, unless it be for the chastisement of such as by some fond-febricitant [57] humour have voluntarily submitted themselves unto them. But that doth nothing concern old women, of whom we speak here. It is the appearance of this consideration hath made us to frame and willingly to establish this law (never seen elsewhere) that barreth women from the succession of this crown; and there are few principalities in the world where it is not alleged, as well as here, by a likely and apparent reason which authoriseth the same. But fortune hath given more credit unto it in some places than in other some. [58]

  It is dangerous to leave the dispensation of our succession unto their [59] judgement, according to the choice they shall make of their children, which is most commonly unjust and fantastical. For the same unruly appetite and distasted relish, or strange longings, which they have when they are great with child, the same have they at all times in their minds. They are commonly seen to affect the weakest, the simplest, and most abject, or such, if they have any, that had more need to suck. For, wanting reasonable discourse to choose and embrace what they ought, they rather suffer themselves to be directed where nature’s impressions are most single, as other creatures, which take no longer knowledge of their young ones than they are sucking.

  Moreover, experience doth manifestly show unto us that the same natural affection to which we ascribe so much authority hath but a weak foundation. For a very small gain we daily take mothers’ own children from them and induce them to take charge of ours. Do we not often procure them to bequeath their children to some fond, filthy, sluttish, and unhealthy nurse, to whom we would be very loath to commit ours, or to some brutish goat; not only forbidding them to nurse and feed their own children, what danger soever may betide them, but also to have any care of them, to the end they may the more diligently follow and carefully attend the service of ours? Whereby we soon see through custom a certain kind of bastard affection to be engendered in them, more vehement than the natural, and to be much more tender and careful for the welfare and preservation of other men’s children than for their own.

  And the reason why I have made mention of goats is because it is an ordinary thing round about me where I dwell to see the country women, when they have not milk enough to feed their infants with their own breasts, to call for goats to help them. And myself have now two lackeys waiting on me who, except it were eight days, never sucked other milk than goats’. They are presently to come at call and give young infants suck, and become so well acquainted with their voice that, when they hear them cry, they run forthwith unto them. And if by chance they have any other child put to their teats than their nurseling, they refuse and reject him; and so doth the child a strange goat. Myself saw that one not long since, from whom the father took a goat which he had sucked two or three days because he had but borrowed it of one of his neighbours, who could never be induced to suck any other; whereby he shortly died, and, as I verily think, of mere hunger. Beasts, as well as we, do soon alter and easily bastardize their natural affection.

  I believe that, in that which Herodotus reporteth of a certain province of Libya, there often followeth great error and mistaking. He sayeth that men do indifferently use and, as it were, in common frequent women and that the child, as soon as he is able to go, [60] coming to any solemn meetings and great assemblies, led by a natural instinct, findeth out his own father; where being turned loose in the midst of the multitude, look what man the child doth first address his steps unto and then go to him, the same is ever afterward reputed to be his right father.

  Now if we shall duly consider this simple occasion of loving our children—because we have begotten them, for which we call them our other selves—it seems there is another production coming f
rom us and which is of no less recommendation and consequence. For what we engender by the mind, the fruits of our courage, sufficiency, or spirit, are brought forth by a far more noble part than the corporal and more our own. We are both father and mother together in this generation. Such fruits cost us much dearer and bring us more honour, and chiefly if they have any good or rare thing in them. For the value of our other children is much more theirs than ours. The share we have in them is but little, but of these all the beauty, all the grace, and all the worth is ours. And therefore do they represent and resemble us much more lively than others. Plato addeth, moreover, that these are immortal issues, and immortalize their fathers, yea, and deify them, as Licurgus, Solon, and Minos.

  All histories being full of examples of this mutual friendship of fathers toward their children, I have not thought it amiss to set down some choice ones of this kind. [61]

  Heliodorus, that good Bishop of Tricea, loved rather to lose the dignity, profit, and devotion of so venerable a prelateship than to forgo his daughter, a young woman to this day commended for her beauty but haply somewhat more curiously and wantonly pranked up than beseemed the daughter of a churchman and a bishop, and of over-amorous behaviour. [62]

  There was one Labienus in Rome a man of great worth and authority, and amongst other commendable qualities, most excellent in all manner of learning; who, as I think, was the son of that great Labienus, chief of all the captains that followed and were under Cæsar in the wars against the Gauls, and who afterward, taking great Pompey’s part, behaved himself so valiantly and so constantly that he never forsook him until Cæsar defeated him in Spain. This Labienus of whom I speak had many that envied his virtues, but above all, as it is likely, courtiers and such as in his time were favored of the emperors who hated his frankness, his fatherly humors, and distaste he bore still against tyranny, wherewith it may be supposed he had stuffed his books and compositions. His adversaries vehemently pursued him before the magistrate of Rome and prevailed so far that many of his works which he had published were condemned to be burned. He was the first on whom this new example of punishment was put in practice, which after continued long in Rome and executed on diverse others, to punish learning, studies, and writings with death and consuming fire. There were neither means enough or matter sufficient of cruelty, unless we had intermingled among them things which nature hath exempted from all sense and sufferance, as reputation and the inventions of our mind, and except we communicated corporal mischiefs unto disciplines and monuments of the muses.