The Complete Essays

by Michel de Montaigne

  [A] When our bodies are bent and stooping low they have less strength for supporting burdens. So too for our souls: we must therefore educate and train them for their encounter with that adversary, death; for the soul can find no rest while she remains afraid of him. But once she does find assurance she can boast that it is impossible for anxiety, anguish, fear or even the slightest dissatisfaction to dwell within her. And that almost surpasses our human condition.

  [B] Non vultus instantis tyranni

  Mente quatit solida, neque Auster

  Dux inquieti turbidus Adriæ,

  Nec fulminantis magna Jovis manus.

  [Nothing can shake such firmness: neither the threatening face of a tyrant, nor the South Wind (that tempestuous Master of the Stormy Adriatic) nor even the mighty hand of thundering Jove.]41

  [A] She has made herself Mistress of her passions and her lusts, Mistress of destitution, shame, poverty and of all other injuries of Fortune. Let any of us who can gain such a superiority do so: for here is that true and sovereign freedom which enables us to cock a snook at force and injustice and to laugh at manacles and prisons:

  in manicis, et

  Compedibus, sævo te sub custode tenebo.

  Ipse Deus simul atque volam, me solvet: opinor,

  Hoc sentit, moriar. Mors ultima linea rerum est.

  [‘I will shackle your hands and feet and keep you under a cruel gaoler.’ – ‘God himself will set me free as soon as I ask him to.’ (He means, I think, ‘I will die’: for death is the last line of all.)]42

  Our religion has never had a surer human foundation than contempt for life; rational argument (though not it alone) summons us to such contempt: for why should we fear to lose something which, once lost, cannot be regretted? And since we are threatened by so many kinds of death is it not worse to fear them all than to bear one?43 [C] Death is inevitable: does it matter when it comes? When Socrates was told that the Thirty Tyrants had condemned him to death, he retorted, ‘And nature, them!’44

  How absurd to anguish over our passing into freedom from all anguish. Just as our birth was the birth of all things for us, so our death will be the death of them all. That is why it is equally mad to weep because we shall not be alive a hundred years from now and to weep because we were not alive a hundred years ago. Death is the origin of another life. We wept like this and it cost us just as dear when we entered into this life, similarly stripping off our former veil as we did so. Nothing can be grievous which occurs but once; is it reasonable to fear for so long a time something which lasts so short a time? Living a long life or a short life are made all one by death: long and short do not apply to that which is no more. Aristotle says that there are tiny creatures on the river Hypanis whose life lasts one single day: those which die at eight in the morning die in youth; those which die at five in the evening die of senility.45 Which of us would not laugh if so momentary a span counted as happiness or unhappiness? Yet if we compare our own span against eternity or even against the span of mountains, rivers, stars, trees or, indeed, of some animals, then saying shorter or longer becomes equally ridiculous.

  [A] Nature drives us that way, too:46 ‘Leave this world,’ she says, ‘just as you entered it. That same journey from death to life, which you once made without suffering or fear, make it again from life to death. Your death is a part of the order of the universe; it is a part of the life of the world:

  [B] inter se mortales mutua vivunt…

  Et quasi cursores vitaï lampada tradunt.

  [Mortal creatures live lives dependent on each other; like runners in a relay they pass on the torch of life.]47 –

  [A] Shall I change, just for you, this beautiful interwoven structure! Death is one of the attributes you were created with; death is a part of you; you are running away from yourself; this being which you enjoy is equally divided between death and life. From the day you were born your path leads to death as well as life:

  Prima, quae vitam dedit, hora, carpsit.

  [Our first hour gave us life and began to devour it.]

  Nascentes morimur, finisque ab origine pendet.

  [As we are born we die; the end of our life is attached to its beginning.]48

  [C] All that you live, you have stolen from life; you live at her expense. Your life’s continual task is to build your death. You are in death while you are in life: when you are no more in life you are after death. Or if you prefer it thus: after life you are dead, but during life you are dying: and death touches the dying more harshly than the dead, in more lively a fashion and more essentially.

  [B] ‘If you have profited from life, you have had your fill; go away satisfied:

  Cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedis?

  [Why not withdraw from life like a guest replete?]

  But if you have never learned how to use life, if life is useless to you, what does it matter if you have lost it? What do you still want it for?

  Cur amplius addere quæris

  Rursum quod pereat male, et ingratum occidat omne?

  [Why seek to add more, just to lose it again, wretchedly, without joy?]49

  [C] Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.50

  [A] ‘If you have lived one day, you have seen everything. One day equals all days. There is no other light, no other night. The Sun, Moon and Stars, disposed just as they are now, were enjoyed by your grandsires and will entertain your great-grandchildren:

  [C] Non alium videre patres: aliumve nepotes

  Aspicient.

  [Your fathers saw none other: none other shall your progeny discern.]51

  [A] And at the worst estimate the division and variety of all the acts of my play are complete in one year. If you have observed the vicissitude of my four seasons you know they embrace the childhood, youth, manhood and old age of the World. Its [C] play [A] is done.52 It knows no other trick but to start all over again. Always it will be the same.

  [B] Versamur ibidem, atque insumus usque;

  [We turn in the same circle, for ever;]

  Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus.

  [And the year rolls on again through its own traces.]

  [A] I have not the slightest intention of creating new pastimes for you.

  Nam tibi præterea quod machiner, inveniamque

  Quod placeat, nihil est, eadem sunt omnia semper

  [For there is nothing else I can make or discover to please you: all things are the same forever.]53

  Make way for others as others did for you. [C] The first part of equity is equality. Who can complain of being included when all are included?54

  [A] ‘It is no good going on living: it will in no wise shorten the time you will stay dead. It is all for nothing: you will be just as long in that state which you fear as though you had died at the breast;

  licet, quod vis, vivendo vincere secla,

  Mors æterna tamen nihilominus illa manebit.

  [Triumph over time and live as long as you please: death eternal will still be waiting for you.]

  [B] ‘And yet I shall arrange that you have no unhappiness:

  In vera nescis nullum fore morte alium te,

  Qui possit vivus tibi te lugere peremptum,

  Stansque jacentem.

  [Do you not know that in real death there will be no second You, living to lament your death and standing by your corpse.]

  “You” will not desire the life which now you so much lament.

  Nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitamque requirit…

  Nec desiderium nostri nos afficit ullum.

  [Then no one worries about his life or his self;… we feel no yearning for our own being.]

  Death is less to be feared than nothing – if there be anything less than nothing:

  multo mortem minus ad nos esse putandum

  Si minus esse potest quam quod nihil esse videmus.

  [We should think death to be less – if anything is ‘less’ than what we can see
to be nothing at all.]55

  [C] ‘Death does not concern you, dead or alive; alive, because you are: dead, because you are no more.

  [A] ‘No one dies before his time; the time you leave behind you is no more yours than the time which passed before you were born;56 [B] and does not concern you either:

  Respice enim quam nil ad nos ante acta vetustas

  Temporis æterni fuerit.

  [Look back and see that the aeons of eternity before we were born have been nothing to us.]

  [A] ‘Wherever your life ends, there all of it ends. [C] The usefulness of living lies not in duration but in what you make of it. Some have lived long and lived little. See to it while you are still here. Whether you have lived enough depends not on a count of years but on your will.

  [A] ‘Do you think you will never arrive whither you are ceaselessly heading? [C] Yet every road has its end. [A] And, if it is a relief to have company, is not the whole world proceeding at the same pace as you are?

  [B] Omnia te vita perfuncta sequentur.

  [All things will follow you when their life is done.]57

  [A] Does not everything move with the same motion as you do? Is there anything which is not growing old with you? At this same [C] instant [A] that you die58 hundreds of men, of beasts and of other creatures are dying too.

  [B] Nam nox nulla diem, neque noctem aurora sequuta est,

  Quæ non audierit mistos vagitibus ægris

  Ploratus, mortis comites et funeris atri.

  [No night has ever followed day, no dawn has ever followed night, without hearing, interspersed among the wails of infants, the cries of pain attending death and sombre funerals.]59

  [C] ‘Why do you pull back when retreat is impossible? You have seen cases enough where men were lucky to die, avoiding great misfortunes by doing so: but have you ever seen anyone for whom death turned out badly? And it is very simple-minded of you to condemn something which you have never experienced either yourself or through another. Why do you complain of me60 or of Destiny? Do we do you wrong? Should you govern us or should we govern you? You may not have finished your stint but you have finished your life. A small man is no less whole than a tall one. Neither men nor their lives are measured by the yard. Chiron refused immortality when he was told of its characteristics by his father Saturn, the god of time and of duration.61

  ‘Truly imagine how much less bearable for Man, and how much more painful, would be a life which lasted for ever rather than the life which I have given you. If you did not have death you would curse me, for ever, for depriving you of it.

  ‘Seeing what advantages death holds I have deliberately mixed a little anguish into it to stop you from embracing it too avidly or too injudiciously. To lodge you in that moderation which I require of you, neither fleeing from life nor yet fleeing from death, I have tempered them both between the bitter and the sweet.

  ‘I taught Thales, the foremost of your Sages, that living and dying are things indifferent. So, when asked “why he did not go and die then,” he very wisely replied: “Because it is indifferent.”62

  ‘Water, Earth, Air and Fire and the other parts of this my edifice are no more instrumental to your life than to your death. Why are you afraid of your last day? It brings you no closer to your death than any other did. The last step does not make you tired: it shows that you are tired. All days lead to death: the last one gets there.’

  [A] Those are the good counsels of Nature, our Mother.63

  I have often wondered why the face of death, seen in ourselves or in other men, appears incomparably less terrifying to us in war than in our own homes – otherwise armies would consist of doctors and cry-babies – and why, since death is ever the same, there is always more steadfastness among village-folk and the lower orders than among all the rest. I truly believe that what frightens us more than death itself are those terrifying grimaces and preparations with which we surround it – a brand new way of life: mothers, wives and children weeping; visits from people stunned and beside themselves with grief; the presence of a crowd of servants, pale and tear-stained; a bedchamber without daylight; candles lighted; our bedside besieged by doctors and preachers; in short, all about us is horror and terror. We are under the ground, buried in our graves already! Children are frightened of their very friends when they see them masked. So are we. We must rip the masks off things as well as off people. Once we have done that we shall find underneath only that same death which a valet and a chambermaid got through recently, without being afraid.64 Blessed65 the death which leaves no time for preparing such gatherings of mourners.

  21. On the power of the imagination

  [Imagination, the faculty of evoking mental images, traditionally included, as here, much of what we nowadays classify as ‘thinking’: thoughts, concepts, ideas, opinions as well as mental pictures. Religious authorities were divided about the power of the imagination to produce ecstasies as well as ‘natural miracles’. Montaigne’s ideas are controversial without ceasing to be orthodox. The additions in [C] are more personal, less dominated by exempla, and include a development on male sexuality and on that impotence during the marriage-night which was widely thought to be caused by sorcery. Montaigne, who had studied law, gives a mock-legal savour to his defence of the Penis.]

  [A] ‘Fortis imaginatio generat casum,’ [A powerful imagination generates the event,] as the scholars say.1 I am one of those by whom the powerful blows of the imagination are felt most strongly. Everyone is hit by it, but some are bowled over.2 [C] It cuts a deep impression into me: my skill consists in avoiding it not resisting it. I would rather live among people who are healthy and cheerful: the sight of another man’s suffering produces physical suffering in me, and my own sensitivity has often misappropriated the feelings of a third party. A persistent cougher tickles my lungs and my throat.

  The sick whom I am duty-bound to visit I visit more unwillingly than those with whom I feel less concerned and less involved. When I contemplate an illness I seize upon it and lodge it within myself: I do not find it strange that imagination should bring fevers and death to those who let it act freely and who give it encouragement.

  In his own time Simon Thomas was a great doctor. I remember that I happened to meet him one day at the home of a rich old consumptive; he told his patient when discussing ways to cure him that one means was to provide occasions for me to enjoy his company: he could then fix his eyes on the freshness of my countenance and his thoughts on the overflowing cheerfulness and vigour of my young manhood; by filling all his senses with the flower of my youth his condition might improve. He forgot to add that mine might get worse.3

  [A] Gallus Vibius so tensed his soul to understand the essence and impulsions of insanity that he toppled his own judgement from its seat and was never able to restore it again: he could boast that he was made a fool by his own wisdom.

  Some there are who forestall the hand of their executioners; one man was on the scaffold, being un-blindfolded so that his pardon could be read to him, when he fell down dead, the blow being struck by his imagination alone. When imaginary thoughts trouble us we break into sweats, start trembling, grow pale or flush crimson; we lie struck supine on our feather-beds and feel our bodies agitated by such emotions; some even die from them. And boiling youth grows so hot in its armour-plate that it consummates its sexual desires while fast asleep in a dream –

  Ut quasi transactis sæpe omnibus rebus profundant

  Fluminis ingentes fluctus, vestemque cruentent.

  [So that, as though they had actually completed the act, they pour forth floods of semen and pollute their garments.]4

  It is no new thing for a man to wake up with cuckold’s horns which he never had when he went to bed, but it is worth remembering what happened to Cyppus, a king in Italy: he had been very excited by a bullfight one day and his dreams that night had filled his head full of bulls’ horns: thereupon horns grew on his forehead by the sheer power of his imagination.5

  Nature had denied th
e power of speech to the son of Croesus: passion gave it to him; [C] Antiochus [A] fell into a fever from the beauty of Stratonice, which was too vigorously imprinted on his soul; Pliny says that, on the very day of the wedding, he saw Lucius Cossitius change from woman to man; Pontanus and others tell of similar metamorphoses which have happened in Italy in recent centuries. And, since both Iphis’ own desires and her mother’s were so vehement,

  Vota puer solvit, quae foemina voverat Iphis.

  [Iphis fulfilled as a boy vows made as a girl.]6

  [B] I was travelling though Vitry-le-François7 when I was able to see a man to whom the Bishop of Soissons had given the name of Germain at his confirmation: until the age of twenty-two he had been known by sight to all the townsfolk as a girl called Marie. He was then an old man with a full beard; he remained unmarried. He said that he had been straining to jump when his male organs suddenly appeared. (The girls there still have a song in which they warn each other not to take great strides lest they become boys, ‘like Marie Germain’.) It is not surprising that this sort of occurrence happens frequently. For if the imagination does have any power in such matters, in girls it dwells so constantly and so forcefully on sex that it can (in order to avoid the necessity of so frequently recurring to the same thoughts and harsh yearnings) more easily make that male organ into a part of their bodies.