[A] Plutarch says somewhere that he finds less distance between beast and beast than between man and man. He was talking of mental powers and inner qualities.1 Truly, I find Epaminondas, as I conceive him to be, so far above some men I know – I mean men in their right mind2 – that I would go farther and say that there is a greater distance between this man and that one than between this man and that beast:
[C] Hem vir viro quid praestat.
[Hmm! How far one man excels another.]3
There are as many degrees of intelligence as there are fathoms ’twixt heaven and earth.
[A] While on the subject of men it is astonishing that everything except ourselves is judged by its own properties: we praise a horse for its vigour and dexterity –
[B] volucrem
Sic laudamus equum, facili cui plurima palma
Fervet, et exultat rauco victoria circo,
[it is the swift horse that we praise, the one which, to the noisy shouts of the spectators, easily wins the prize;]4
– we do not praise it for its harness. We praise a greyhound for its speed not for its neck-band; a hawk, for its wing not for its bells and its leg-straps. So why do we not similarly value a man for qualities which are really his? He may have a great suite of attendants, a beautiful palace, great influence and a large income: all that may surround him but it is not in him. You would never buy a cat in a bag. If you are haggling over a horse, you strip off its trappings and examine it naked and bare – or if it does wear an ornamental cover as used to be the case for horses offered for sale to royalty, it was only spread over the inessentials, so that you should not waste time over its handsome coat or its broad crupper but mainly concentrate on its legs, eyes and hooves – the parts which really matter:
Regibus hic mos est: ubi equos mercantur, opertos
Inspiciunt, ne, si facies, ut sæpe, decora
Molli fulta pede est, emptorem inducat hiantem,
Quod pulchræ clunes, breve quod caput, ardua cervix.
[This is how kings do it: when they buy horses they inspect them in their caparisons lest they as buyers may be tempted (as often happens with lame horses with a fine mane) to gape at their broad cruppers, their neat heads or their proud necks.]5
Why do you judge a man when he is all wrapped up like a parcel? He is letting us see only such attributes as do not belong to him while hiding the only ones which enable us to judge his real worth. You are trying to find out the quality of the sword not of the scabbard: strip it of its sheath and perhaps you would not give twopence for it. You must judge him not by his finery but by his own self. As one of the old writers amusingly put it: ‘Do you know why you think he is so tall? You are including his high-heels!’ The plinth is no part of the statue.6 Measure his height with his stilts off: let him lay aside his wealth and his decorations and show us himself in his shimmy. Is his body functioning properly? Is it quick and healthy? What sort of soul does he have? Is his soul a beautiful one, able, happily endowed with all her functions? Are her riches her own or are they borrowed? Has luck had nothing to do with it? Does she face drawn swords with steady gaze? Does it not bother her whether she expires with a sigh or a slit throat? Is she calm, unruffled and contented? That is what we need to know; that is what the immense distances between us men should be judged by.
Is he,
sapiens, sibique imperiosus,
Quem neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent.
Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores
Fortis, et in seipso totus teres atque rotundus,
Externi ne quid valeat per læve morari,
In quem manca ruit semper fortuna?
[wise, lord of himself, not terrified of death, poverty or shackles? Is he a man who stoutly defies his passions, who scorns ambition? Is he entirely self-sufficient? Is he like a smooth round sphere which no foreign object can adhere to and which maims Fortune herself if she attacks him?]
That kind of man is miles above kingdoms and dukedoms. He is an empire unto himself.7
[C] Sapiens pol ipse fingit fortunam sibi.
[Why, the wise man shapes his own destiny.]
What more can he desire?
[A] Non ne videmus
Nil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi ut quoi
Corpore sejunctus dolor absit, mente fruatur,
Jucundo sensu cura semotus metuque?
[Can we not see that Nature demands nothing for herself except a body free from pain and a mind rejoicing in a happy disposition, remote from fear and worry?]8
Compare with him the mass of men nowadays, senseless, base, servile, unstable, continually bobbing about in a storm of conflicting passions which drive them hither and thither, men totally dependent upon others: they are farther apart than earth and sky. But so blind are our habitual ways that we take little or no account of such things; when we come to consider a peasant or a monarch, [C] a nobleman or a commoner, a statesman or a private citizen, a rich man or a poor man, [A] we find therefore an immense disparity between men who, it could be said, differ only by their breeches.
[C] (In Thrace, the king was distinguished from his people in a most amusing and extravagant manner: he had his own separate religion, a god all to himself whom his subjects had no right to adore – Mercury it was; Mars, Bacchus and Diana were the people’s gods, whom he despised.)9
Such things are only so much paint: they do not make for differences of essence. [A] For as you see actors in plays imitating on the trestles dukes or emperors, only to return suddenly to their original natural position of wretched valets and drudges: so too with that Emperor whose pomp in public dazzles you –
[B] Scilicet et grandes viridi cum luce smaragdi
Auro includuntur, teriturque Thalassina vestis
Assidue, et Veneris sudorem exercita potat;
[Because his huge green emeralds are set in gold, and he assiduously dresses in sea-green garments drenched in the sweat of Venus’ games;]10 –
[A] draw back the bed-curtains and look at him: he is but a commonplace man, baser perhaps than the least of his subjects. [C] ‘Ille beatus introrsumest. Istius bracteata felicitas est’ [That man is inwardly blessed; the other’s happiness is merely gold-plated]:11 [A] he is wracked like another man by cowardice, wavering, ambition, anger and envy;
Non enim gazæ neque consularis
Summovet lictor miseros tumultus
Mentis et curas laqueata circum
Tecta volantes.
[For it is not treasures nor even the consul’s lictor that can banish wretched storms of passion from our minds nor banish those anguished cares which flutter about beneath fretted ceilings.]
[B] Even when surrounded by his armies, anxiety and fear can have him by the throat.
Re veraque metus hominum, curæque sequaces,
Nec metuunt sonitus armorum, nec fera tela;
Audacterque inter reges, rerumque potentes
Versantur, neque fulgorem reverentur ab auro.
[The fears and dogging cares of men are not themselves afraid of fierce swords nor the sounds of war: they boldly come to kings and powerful men and have no reverence for the gleam of gold.]12
[A] Do fever, headache or gout spare him any more than us? When old age is on his back, will the archers of his guard carry it for him? When he is paralysed by dread of dying, will he be calmed by the presence of the gentleman-in-waiting of his bedchamber? When he is jealous and jumpy, will our doffed hats cure him? The roof of his four-poster may be stuffed with gold and pearls but it has no virtue to assuage the anguished paroxysms of a lively attack of the stone.
Nec calidæ citius decedunt corpore febres,
Textilibus si in picturis ostroque rubenti
Jacteris, quam si plebeia in veste cubandum est.
[Nor do burning fevers quit your body sooner if you lie under embroidered bedclothes in your purple than if you are covered by plebeian sheets.]
Flatterers were bringing Alexander the Great to believe that he was the Son of Jo
ve; but when he was wounded one day and saw the blood pour out of the gash he said, ‘What do you say about this, then? Is this blood not red and thoroughly human? It is not the same colour as the blood which Homer has flowing from the wounds of gods!’13
Hermodorus the poet wrote verses in honour of Antigonus in which he called him Offspring of the Sun; he retorted, ‘The man who slops out my chamber-pot knows nothing about that!’14 After all what we have is a man; and if he himself is born awry then ruling the world will not put him right.
[B] Puellæ
Hunc rapiant; quicquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat;
[Let girls fight over him; let roses grow where’er his feet have trod;]
but what does that amount to if his soul is coarse and doltish? Even joy and sensual pleasure are not perceptible without vigour and wit:
hæc perinde sunt, ut illius animus qui ea possidet,
Qui uti scit, ei bona; illi qui non utitur recte, mala.
[Such things are like the mind which possesses them; good for the mind which knows how to use them rightly, but for the mind which knows not, bad.]
[A] The goods of Fortune (all of them, such as they are) cannot be savoured without tasting them: what makes us happy is not possessing them but enjoying them:
Non domus et fundus, non æris acervus et auri
Ægroto domini deduxit corpore febres,
Non animo curas: valeat possessor oportet,
Qui comportais rebus bene cogitat uti.
Qui cupit aut metuit juvat ilium sic domus aut res,
Ut lippum pictæ tabulæ, fomenta podagram.
[It is not house and lands nor piles of bronze and gold which banish fevers from their owner’s sickly body nor anxieties from his sickly mind. Their owner must be well if he wants to enjoy his acquisitions. When a man is full of fears or cravings, house and goods are as enjoyable as paintings are to blear eyes or hot fomentations to the gout.]15
He is a fool: then his taste is flat and dull; he no more enjoys the sweet savour of Greek wine than a man with the snuffles, or than a horse enjoys the rich harness with which men bedeck it; [C] exactly as Plato says that health, beauty, strength, riches and all other things termed ‘good’ are bad to the unjust but, equally, are good to the just; and vice versa for ‘bad’ things.16
[A] And then, when your body and mind are in a bad state, what is the use of those external advantages, seeing that the merest pinprick or a passion of the soul are enough to take away the pleasure of being ruler of the world? At the first anguished pain of the gout [B] it is no help to be called Sire and Majesty,
Totus et argento conflatus, totus et auro;
[With everything cast in gold and silver;]
[A] does he not lose all memory of his grandeur and his palaces? And if he is in a temper, does his kingdom stop him from turning red, then livid, and grinding his teeth like a madman?
Now if he is a clever man and well endowed, his royal state will add [C] little [A] to his happiness:
Si ventri bene, si lateri est pedibusque tuis, nil
Divitiæ poterunt regales addere majus;
[If your stomach, lungs and feet are all right, then a king’s treasure can offer you no more;]17
he knows it to be deception and vanity. Yes, and he may perhaps agree with the opinion of King Seleucus, that if a man knew the weight of a sceptre he would not bother to pick it up if he found it lying on the ground – he said that because of the great and painful responsibilities weighing on a good king.18 Indeed it is no little thing to have to rule others, since there are so many difficulties in ruling ourselves. As for being in command – which appears so pleasant – I am strongly of the opinion (given the weakness of man’s judgement and the difficulty of making choices in new and doubtful matters) that it is far more easy and agreeable to be led than to lead, and that there is great peace of mind to be found in merely having to follow the road you are told to and in being responsible for no one but yourself:
[B] Ut satius multo jam sit parere quietum
Quam regere imperio res velle.
[So that it is far better quietly to obey than to seek to rule in state.]
Added to which Cyrus said that no man has any right to give orders if his worth is not greater than those who receive them.19 [A] But King Hieron, in Xenophon, goes farther and maintains that in the very enjoyment of pleasures kings are in a worse condition than private citizens, since ease and accessibility robs them of that bittersweet pain we find in them:
[B] Pinguis amor nimiumque potens, in tædia nobis
Vertitur, et stomacho dulcis ut esca nocet.
[Too strong and rich a love-affair soon turns loathsome, just as sweet food sickens the stomach.]
[A] Do we believe that choirboys greatly enjoy the music or rather that, being glutted with it, they find it boring? Feasting and dancing, masquerades and tournaments give delight to those who do not often see them and who were yearning to see them; but for a man who attends them regularly they become tasteless and disagreeable. Nor do women excite a man who has enjoyed them until his mind is sated; if a man does not give himself time to get thirsty he will never enjoy drinking.20 We enjoy farces: they are drudgery to the travelling players. As proof of this, it is a treat and feast for princes to put on disguises occasionally and to drop into the way of living of the ordinary common people.
Plerumque gratæ principibus vices,
Mundæque parvo sub lare pauperum
Cænæ, sine aulæis et ostro,
Solicitant explicuere frontem.
[Often a change is pleasant to princes; a clean and frugal meal beneath a poor man’s modest roof, without tapestries and purple, has smoothed the worried brow.]21
[C] Nothing cloys and impedes like abundance. What appetite would not be put off by the sight of three hundred accessible women such as the Grand Seigneur has in his harem? And what appetite for what kind of hunting did one of his ancestors keep up, who never took to the field with fewer than seven thousand falconers?
[A] Moreover I believe that the splendour of greatness brings quite a few impediments to the enjoyment of even the sweetest pleasures; they are too brightly illuminated, too much on show.
[B] And I do not know why, but we expect kings to cover up their faults more and to hide them better. What is a misdemeanor in us is, in them, considered an act of tyranny by the people, as disdain and contempt for the law; any tendency to vice apart, they look as if they are taking additional pleasure in scornfully trampling public decency underfoot. [C] Indeed Plato in his dialogue Gorgias defines a tyrant as a man who, in his city, is free to do anything he wants.22 [B] So, often, the flaunting of their vice in public hurts more than the vice itself. Every man loathes being spied on and having his actions recorded: but kings are spied on, down to their facial expressions and their thoughts, the entire people reckoning that they have the right and privilege of making judgements upon them. The higher and brighter the spot, the bigger the stain: a mole or wart on your forehead shows up more than a scar does elsewhere.
[A] That is why poets feign that Jupiter conducted his love-affairs disguised as something else: among all the amorous adventures which they credit him with, there is not one, I think, where he appears in might and majesty.
But let us get back to Hieron. He tells of all the inconveniences he experiences in his royal state arising from the impossibility of going freely about on his travels (which makes him a prisoner within the frontiers of his own country) and from always being hemmed in by a troublesome crowd. Indeed when seeing our own monarchs sitting alone at their tables, besieged by so many unknown talkers and gazers, I have often felt more pity for them than envy. [B] King Alfonso said that donkeys were better off than kings: their drivers let them at least feed in peace, whereas kings cannot get even their servants to let them do so. [A] And the idea has never occurred to me that it was a special privilege for a man of intelligence to have a score of witnesses standing round his lavatory-seat, nor that it was more pleasant and agreeable to
be waited on by a man worth ten thousand a year or by a soldier who had taken Casale or defended Siena than by a good and experienced manservant.
[B] Most royal prerogatives are virtually imaginary: each degree of wealth has some image of royalty in it. The term used by Caesar for all the lords who held sway in the France of his time was ‘little kings’;23 and in truth, apart from the title Sire, you can all but live like a king. Just consider for example those provinces lying far from the Court – Brittany, say. Take a lord who lives at home on his estates there and who has been brought up among his men-servants: note his retinue, his subjects, his officers-of-state, his pastimes, the way he is served, his ceremonial; then see how high his thoughts can soar. Nothing could be more royal. His own feudal master is mentioned, like the King of Persia, about once in a twelve-month; he acknowledges him merely because of some ancient cousinship recorded in his secretary’s archives. In very truth our laws are in no wise repressive: the weight of the sovereign power is felt by your average French nobleman about twice in a lifetime. Real effective subordination only concerns those who welcome it and who love to gain honour and wealth by such servitude: the man who is content to squat by his hearth and who knows how to govern his household without squabbles or law-suits is as free as the Duke of Venice. [C] ‘Paucos servitus, plures servitutem tenent.’ [Slavery holds on to few: many hold on to it.]24
The Complete Essays Page 39
