The Complete Essays

by Michel de Montaigne

  Classical philosophy, not least among the Latins, had taught men how to die. Yet the body and soul will know how to separate well enough when the time comes. Man needs to learn how to live! Meanwhile old age can be indulged and the Muses can bring joy and comfort. But the very last words of the Essays convey a warning: old men may go gaga. (Even the wisdom of Socrates, we were told, is at the mercy of the saliva of some slavering rabid cur.) At the end of his quest Montaigne gave, as a philosopher well might, the last word to Latin poetry, to Horace evoking the patron deity of health and the Muses. Montaigne had learned how to come to terms with ill-health and was grateful for pain-free interludes. He had schooled his soul to help its body over its bouts of anguish. He had gratefully discovered in old age that the Muses continued to make life worth living. The Muses, for a sick old man, meant mainly books and such social intercourse as still came his way, now that he had learned detachment and so prepared himself to part from those he loved. But Horace’s words evoke the fear of fears for a man of Montaigne’s turn of mind: senile dementia: and his last word of all encapsulates the dread of old folk throughout the ages: want – not in his case want of food or money or position but of what the Muses bring: ‘nec cythera carentem’.

  ALL SOULS COLLEGE

  OXFORD

  ALL SOULS DAY, 1989

  Note on the Text

  There is no such thing as a definitive edition of the Essays of Michel de Montaigne. One has to choose. The Essays are a prime example of the expanding book.

  The text translated here is an eclectic one, deriving mainly from the corpus of editions clustering round the impressive Edition municipale of Bordeaux (1906–20) edited by a team led by Fortunat Strowski. This was further edited and adapted by Pierre Villey (1924); V.-L. Saulnier of the Sorbonne again revised, re-edited and adapted the work for the Presses Universitaires de France (1965). Useful editions were also published by J. Plattard (Société ‘Les Belles Lettres’, 1947) as well as by A. Thibaudet and M. Rat for the Pléiade (1962). These editions largely supersede all previous ones and have collectively absorbed their scholarship.

  I have also used the posthumous editions of 1595, 1598 and 1602 and, since it is good and readily available at All Souls, the Edition nouvelle procured in 1617 by Mademoiselle Marie de Gournay, the young admirer and bluestocking to whom Montaigne gave a quasi-legal status as a virtually adopted daughter, a fille d’alliance.

  The Annotations

  Marie de Gournay first contributed to the annotation of Montaigne by tracing the sources of his verse and other quotations, providing translations of them, and getting a friend to supply headings in the margins.

  From that day to this, scholars have added to them. The major source has long been the fourth volume of the Strowski edition, the work of Pierre Villey. It is a masterpiece of patient scholarship and makes recourse to earlier editions largely unnecessary. Most notes of most subsequent editions derive from it rather than from even the fuller nineteenth-century editions subsumed into it. This translation is no exception, though I have made quite a few changes and added my own. Montaigne knew some of his authors very well indeed, but many of his exempla and philosophical sayings were widely known from compendia such as Erasmus’ Adages and Apophthegmata. His judgements on women and marriage are sometimes paralleled in a widely read legal work on the subject, the De legibus connubialibus of Rabelais’ friend Andreas Tiraquellus. Similarly some of his classical and scriptural quotations and philosophical arguments in religious contexts are to be found in such treatises as the De Anima of Melanchthon or in the theological books of clergymen of his own Church writing in his own day. I have taken care to point out some of these possible sources, since Montaigne’s ideas are better understood when placed in such contexts.

  References to Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Seneca are given more fully than usual. Although Montaigne read Plato in Latin, references are given to the Greek text (except in ‘An Apology for Raymond Sebond’) since most readers will not have access to Ficino’s Latin translation. References to Aristotle too are always given to the Greek: that will enable them to be more easily traced in such bilingual editions as the Loeb Classics. For Plutarch’s Moralia detailed references are given to the first edition of Amyot’s translation (Les Oeuvres morales et meslées, Paris, 1572); for Plutarch’s Lives however only general references are given under their English titles (many may like to read them in North’s Plutarch).

  For historical writers of Montaigne’s own time only brief references are given. All of them derive from Pierre Villey’s studies in which the reader will find much relevant detail: Les Livres d’histoire modernes utilisés par Montaigne, Paris, 1908, and Les sources et l’évolution des Essais de Montaigne, Paris, 1908 (second edition 1933). Those books are monuments of scholarship and have not been superseded.

  The classical quotations (which from the outset vary slightly from edition to edition of the Essays) are normally given as they appear in the Villey/Saulnier edition: most readers discover that the quickest way to find a passage in another edition or translation is to hunt quickly through the chapter looking for the nearest quotation. Once found in the Villey/Saulnier edition a passage can be followed up in the Leake Concordance and traced to other standard editions.

  My studies of Montaigne have been greatly helped by the kindness of the Librarian of University College London, the Reverend Frederick Friend, who has authorized several volumes to be made available to me on a very long loan. I am most grateful to him and to University College London.

  I am most grateful to those readers who have suggested corrections or improvements, many of which have been included in this 1994 reprinting. A special word of thanks is due to Mr Jan Stolpe, the distinguished translator of Montaigne into Swedish, and to Donald Upton Esq., Dr Jon Haarberg, Dr Andrew Calder, M. Gilbert de Botton, Dr Bernard Curchod, Professor David Wiggins, Mrs Thalia Martin and Dr Jean Birrell.

  *

  Postscript:

  Since my ordination by the Bishop of Oxford in 1993 I am often asked if I find Montaigne Montaigne’s arguments for his Church still convincing. Clearly not: I was not ordained in his Church, but I do think that Montaigne can still succeed in getting many to take Christianity – and religion in general – seriously.

  M.A.S. All Souls College, Oxford.

  June 2003.

  Note on the Translation

  I have tried to convey Montaigne’s sense and something of his style, without archaisms but without forcing him into an unsuitable, demotic English. I have not found that his meaning is more loyally conveyed by clinging in English to the grammar and constructions of his French: French and English achieve their literary effect by different means. On the other hand I have tried to translate his puns: they clearly mattered to him, and it was fun doing so. Montaigne’s sentences are often very long; where the sense does not suffer I have left many of them as they are. It helps to retain something of his savour.

  It is seldom possible to translate one word in one language by one only in another. I have striven to do so in two cases vital for the understanding of Montaigne. The first is essai, essayer and the like: I have rendered these by essay or assay or the equivalent verbs even if that meant straining English a little. The second is opinion. In Montaigne’s French, as often in English, opinion does not imply that the idea is true: rather the contrary, as in Plato.

  Montaigne’s numerous quotations are seldom integrated grammatically into his sentences. However long they may be we are meant to read them as asides – mentally holding our breath. I have respected that. To do otherwise would be to rewrite him.

  When in doubt, I have given priority to what I take to be the meaning, though never, I hope, losing sight of readability.

  Of versions of the Classics Jowett remarked that, ‘the slight personification arising out of Greek genders is the greatest difficulty in translation.’ In Montaigne’s French this difficulty is even greater since his sense of gender enables him to flit in and out of various degre
es of personification in ways not open to writers of English. Where the personification is certain or a vital though implied element of the meaning I have sometimes used a capital letter and personal pronouns, etc., to produce a similar effect.

  Explanation of the Symbols

  [A] or ’80: all that follows is (ignoring minor variations) what Montaigne published in 1580 (the first edition).

  [A1]: all that follows was added subsequently, mainly in 1582 and in any case before [B].

  [B] or ’88: all that follows shows matter added or altered in 1588, the first major, indeed massive, revision of the Essays, which now includes a completely new Third Book.

  [C]: all that follows represents an edited version of Montaigne’s final edition being prepared for the press when he died. The new material derives mainly from Montaigne’s own copy, smothered with additions and changes in his own hand and now in the Bibliothèque Municipale of Bordeaux.

  ’95: the first posthumous edition prepared for the press by Montaigne’s widow and by Marie de Gournay. It gives substantially the text of [C] but with important variants. (The editions of 1598 and 1617 have also been consulted, especially the latter, which contains most useful marginal notes as well as French translations, also by Marie de Gournay, of most of Montaigne’s quotations in Classical or foreign languages.)

  Summary of the Symbols

  [A] and ’80: the text of 1580

  [A1] 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 a 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’.

  Appendices

  I

  Montaigne’s dedication of his translation of Raymond Sebond’s Natural Theology to his father.

  TO MY LORD, MY LORD OF MONTAIGNE

  My Lord, following the task you gave me last year at Montaigne, I have tailored and dressed with my hand a garment in the French style for Raymond Sebond, the great Spanish Theologian and Philosopher, divesting him (in so far as in me lay) of his uncouth bearing and of that barbarous stance that you were the first to perceive: so that, in my opinion, he now has sufficient style and polish to present himself in good company.

  It may well be that delicate and discriminating people may notice here some Gascon usages or turns of phrase: that should make them all the more ashamed at having neglectfully allowed a march to be stolen on them by a man who is an apprentice and quite unsuited to the task.

  It is, my Lord, right that it should appear and grow in credit beneath your name, since it is to you that it owes whatever amendment or reformation it now enjoys.

  And yet I believe that if you would be pleased to reckon accounts with him, it will be you who will owe him more: in exchange for his excellent and most religious arguments, for his conceptions lofty and as though divine, you, for your part, have brought only words and language – a merchandise so base and vile that who has most is perhaps worth least.

  My Lord, I beg God that he may grant you a most long and a most happy life.

  From Paris: this 18th of June, 1568.

  Your most humble and obedient son,

  MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.

  II

  Montaigne’s translation and adaptation of the Prologus of Raymond Sebond.

  Book of the Creatures of Raymond Sebond.

  Translated from the Latin into French.

  Preface of the Author.

  To the praise and glory of the most high and glorious Trinity, of the Virgin Mary, and of all the heavenly Court: in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the profit of all Christians, there follows the doctrine of the Book of the Creatures (or, Book of Nature): a doctrine of Man, proper to Man insofar as he is Man: a doctrine suitable, natural and useful to every man, by which he is enlightened into knowing himself, his Creator, and almost everything to which he is bound as Man: a doctrine containing the rule of Nature, by which also each Man is instructed in what he is naturally bound towards God and his neighbour: and not only instructed but moved and incited to do this, of himself, by love and a joyful will.

  In addition this science teaches every one to see clearly, without difficulty or toil, truth insofar as it is possible for natural reason, concerning knowledge of God and of himself and of what he has need for his salvation and to reach life eternal; it affords him access to understanding what is prescribed and commanded in Holy Scripture, and delivers the human spirit from many doubts, making it consent firmly to what Scripture contains concerning knowledge of God and of oneself.

  In this book the ancient errors of the pagans and the unbelieving philosophers are revealed and by its doctrine the Catholic Faith is defended and made known: every sect which opposes it is uncovered and condemned as false and lying.

  That is why, in this decline and last days of the World it is necessary that Christians should stiffen themselves, arm themselves and assure themselves within that Faith so as to confront those who fight against it, to protect themselves from being seduced and, if needs be, joyfully to die for it.

  Moreover this doctrine opens up to all a way of understanding the holy Doctors [of the Church]; indeed, it is incorporated in their books (even though it is not evident in them) as an Alphabet is incorporated in all writings. For it is the Alphabet of the Doctors: as such it should be learned first. For which reason, to make your way towards the Holy Scriptures you will do well to acquire this science as the rudiments of all sciences; in order the better to reach conclusions, learn it before everything else, otherwise you will hardly manage to struggle through to the perfection of the higher sciences: for this is the root, the origin and the tiny foundations of the doctrine proper to Man and his salvation.

  Whoever possesses salvation through hope must first have the root of salvation within him and, consequently, must furnish himself with this science, which is a fountain of saving Truth.

  And there is no need that anyone should refrain from reading it or learning it from lack of other learning: it presupposes no knowledge of Grammar, Logic, nor any other deliberative art or science, nor of Physics nor of Metaphysics, seeing that it is this doctrine which comes first, this doctrine which ranges, accommodates and prepares the others for so holy an End – for the Truth which is both true and profitable to us, because it teaches Man to know himself, to know why he has been created and by Whom; to know his good, his evil and his duty; by what and to Whom he is bound.

  What good are the other sciences to a man who is ignorant of such things? They are but vanity, seeing that men can only use them badly to their harm, since they know not where they are, whither they are going nor whence they came. That is why they are taught here to understand the corruption and defects of Man, his condemnation and whence it came upon him; to know the state in which he is now: the state in which he originally was: from what he has fallen and how far he is from his first perfection; how he can be reformed and those things which are necessary to bring this about.

  And therefore this doctrine is common to the laity, the clergy and all manner of people: and yet it can be grasped in less than a month, without toil and without learning anything off by heart; no books are required, for once it has been perceived it cannot be forgotten. It makes a man happy, humble, gracious, obedient, the enemy of vice and sin, the lover of virtue – all without puffing him up or making him proud because of his accomplishments.

  It uses no obscure arguments requiring deep or lengthy discourse: for it argues from things which are evident and known to all from experience – from the creatures and the nature of Man; by which, and from what he knows of himself, it proves what it seeks to prove, mainly from what each man has assay
ed of himself. And there is no need of any other witness but Man.

  It may, meanwhile, at first appear contemptible, a thing of nothing, especially since its beginnings are common to all and very lowly: but that does not stop it from bearing great and worthwhile fruit, namely the knowledge of God and of Man. And the lower its starting-point, the higher it climbs, rising to matters high and celestial.

  Wherefore, whosoever wishes to taste of its fruit, let him first familiarize himself with the minor principles of this science, without despising them: for otherwise he will never have that taste, no more than a child ever learns to read without a knowledge of the alphabet and of each individual letter. And, finally, let him not complain about this labour by which, in a few months, he becomes learned and familiar with many things, to know which it would be proper to spend long periods reading many books.