3. Cicero, Tusc. disput., II, i, 3 (adapted).
4. ’80: corruption and licentiousness. Even…
5. ’80: so leaden that it lacks the very taste of virtue: virtue…
6. Horace, Epistles, I, vi, 31–2.
7. Cicero, Tusc. disput., V, ii, 6 (adapted).
8. Not Potidaea but Plataeae, a city of Boeotia, famous for the Greek victory over the Persians (Herodotus, IX, lxx).
9. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De la malignité d’Herodote, 649H–650A.
10. The famous image of poetry’s magnetic power in Plato’s Io, widely known from Ronsard’s ode, A Michel de L’Hospital.
11. This order is not kept. The first poet is Martial, VI, xxxii.
12. Manilius, IV, 87.
13. Lucan, Pharsalia, I, 128.
14. Horace, Odes, II, i, 23.
15. Virgil, Aeneid, VIII, 670.
1. Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus; then an allusion to the defeat of Charles the Bold by René II, 1477. The battle of Auroy is narrated by Froissart.
2. Petrarch, Sonnet 81.
3. Plutarch, Life of Caesar.
4. Lucan, Pharsalia, 1037–9.
5. Publius Syrus apud Aulus Gellius, XVII, 14.
6. Catullus, De coma Berenices, LXVI, 15.
7. Agrippina, Nero’s mother, shouted as she was killed: ‘Stab the belly which brought forth such a monster.’ Boethius (De consolatione philosophiae, II, vi, metre), says that ‘Nero shed no tears.’ Tacitus’ account in the Annals, xiv, 9, states that ‘some say, but others deny’ that he looked at her dead body and praised its beauty.
8. Lucretius, V, 282–4.
9. After Herodotus, VII, xlv, and Valerius Maximus, IX, xiii.
10. Lucretius, III, 183–6.
11. Plutarch, Life of Timoleon.
1. From early Christian times such comparisons were legion.
2. The great Platonic adage spread by Cicero in its Latin form and stating that ‘No man is born for himself alone, but partly for his country and partly for those whom he loves.’ (Erasmus, Adages, IV, VI, VIII, Nemo sibi nascitur.)
3. Ecclesiasticus 7:28; then, Juvenal, Satires, XIII, 26–7.
4. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Bias. (The subsequent references to Bias are also from this work.) His remark became proverbial; cf. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VII, Bias Prienaeus, II. Then, Simon Goulart, Histoire du Portugal, VIII, ix.
5. Charondas the lawgiver of Sicily and follower of Pythagoras (Seneca, Epist. moral., XC, 6).
’80: chastised with great punishments by…
6. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VII, Antisthenes Atheniensis, XXII.
7. Horace, Epistles, I, xi, 25–6.
8. Odes, III, i, 40.
9. Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 73.
10. Seneca, Epist. moral., CIV, 7, Erasmus, Apophthegmata, III, Socrates, XLIV.
11. Horace, Odes, II, xvi, 18–20. (The ideas in general are indebted here to Seneca.)
12. Persius, Satires, V, 158–60.
13. Lucretius, V, 43–8.
14. Horace, Epistles, I, xiv, 13.
15. Seneca, Epist. moral., IX, 18.
16. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Antisthenes (with later references also to this work).
17. St Augustine, City of God, I, x.
18. Tibullus, IV, xiii, 12 (adapted).
19. Terence, Adelphi, I, i, 13–14.
20. Quintilian, X, 7.
21. The source of this saying is unknown to me.
22. Horace, Epistles, I, xv, 42–6.
23. Horace, Epistles, I, i, 19.
24. Sallust, Catilenae conjuratio, IV.
25. Cicero, De Senectute, XVI, 59.
[A]: more noble and acceptable…
26. Horace, Epistles, I, xii, 12–13.
27. Pliny the Younger, Epistles, I, i. no. 3.
28. Persius, Satires, I, xxiii.
29. Seneca, Epist. moral., LI, 13; the Philistae (or Philetai) were assassins.
30. Propertius, II, xxv, 38.
31. Horace, Epistles, I, iv, 4–5.
32. Persius, Satires, V, 151–2.
’80 (instead of this quotation): grasp, and prolong them with all our power: Quamcunque Deus tibi fortunaverit horam, Grata sume manu, nec dulcia differ in annum [Whatever happy hour God has allotted you, accept with a grateful hand and do not put off delights for a year]… (Did Montaigne strike out this because he had confused, in his quotation from Horace, Epistles I, xi, 22, God with Fortuna? All editions of Horace read Fortuna not Deus.)
33. Persius, Satires, I, 19–20.
34. The first is Epicurus. The second is Seneca. The following epistle is largely composed of borrowings from various epistles of Seneca.
35. Cicero, Tusc. disput., II, xxii, 52.
36. Modelled on Seneca, Epist. moral., XXV, 6. The ‘companions’ proposed there are Cato, Scipio and Laelius. Montaigne prefers Phocion, the great Athenian general, and Aristides, a statesman renowned for his integrity.
37. Pliny the Younger and Cicero, condemned above for seeking glory from their withdrawal from the world.
1. ’80: is in no ways like his uncle…
2. Cicero wrote to Luxeius, and Pliny the Younger to Tacitus, asking for a place in their histories.
3. Not really. Terence may have been a Carthaginian slave freed by Terentius Lucanus. In the Prologue to the Adelphi (15–21) he says he is flattered by the imputation that great men helped him write his comedies, which may or may not mean what Montaigne thinks it does.
4. Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes.
5. Horace, Carmen Saeculare, 51–2.
6. Virgil, Aeneid, VI, 849–51.
7. Plutarch: Life of Pericles (twice) and (tr. Amyot) Dicts notables des anciens Roys, Princes et grands Capitaines, 192C.
8. Seneca, Epist. moral., XCV, 2–3.
9. Ibid., XXI, 4–5.
10. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Dicts notables des anciens Roys, Princes et grands Capitaines, 208A.
11. Etienne de La Boëtie.
12. ’80: disjointed and difficult; and I know… (Montaigne sees his style as marked by the dry, everyday language of Latin comedy. Cf. Seneca, Epist. moral., C, 10.)
13. ’80: haughty. Those whom I love cause me pain if I have to tell them I do so. I present myself…
1. Torquato Tasso, Gierusalemme liberata, XIV, 63; St Augustine, City of God, V, xiv.
2. Cicero, Tusc. disput., I, xv, 34–5.
3. The Du Bellay Mémoires, VI; Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Dicts notables des Lacedaemoniens, 216B; Froissart, Chroniques; Livy, XXVII, xlv.
4. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Instruction pour ceux qui manient affaires d’Estat, 166BC; 172H–173A.
5. Bishop Jean Du Tillet, La chronique des Roys de France.
1. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Que les bestes usent de la Raison, 274AB.
’80: qualities. For as concerns bodily shape it is evident that the species of beasts are distinguished by a mote evident difference than we are from each other. Truly…
2. ’80: mind – for fools and those made witless by accident are not complete men, that I would go…
3. Terence, Eunuch, II, iii, 1, adapted.
and that beast, meaning that the most excellent of the animals is nearer to a man of lowest degree than that man is to another man, great and excellent. He…
4. Juvenal, Satires, VIII, lvii.
5. Horace, Satires, I, ii, 86.
6. Seneca, Epist. moral., LXXVI, 31. (There are a great many echoes of this and other Epistles of Seneca in this section.)
7. Horace, Satires, II, vii, 83–8.
’80: an empire and riches unto himself; he lives satisfied, content and happy. And whoever has that, what more is there? ‘non ne videmus…
8. Plautus, Trinummus, II, ii, 84; Lucretius, II, 16.
9. Herodotus says the same, without the irony (V, vii).
10. Lucretius, IV, 1123–5.
11. A combination of two phrases in Seneca: Epist. moral., CXIX, 12 and CXV, 9.
12. Horace, Odes, II, xvi, 9–12; Lucret
ius, II, 47–50.
13. Lucretius, II, 34–6; Erasmus, Apophthegmata, IV, Alexander Macedo, XVI. (Alexander was echoing Homer’s account of Venus wounded by Diomedes.)
14. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De Isis et Osiris, 323F; Erasmus, Apophthegmata, IV, Antigonus Rex Macedonum, VII. (The poet’s name was Hermodotus not Hermodorus. The error is Montaigne’s. In the Quart Livre of Rabelais, as in Erasmus, he is correctly named.)
15. Persius, Satires, II, 38–9; Terence, Heautontimorumenos, I, iii, 21–6; Horace, Epistles, I, ii, 47–52.
16. Plato, Laws, II, 661C–D.
17. Tibullus, I, i, 71; Horace, Epistles, I, xii, 5. [A] until [C]: add nothing to.
18. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Si l’homme d’aage doit encore mesler des affaires, 183D.
19. Lucretius, V, 1126–7; then Erasmus, Apophthegmata, V, Cyrus Major, I.
20. Borrowings here and later from Xenophon’s Hieron (On Kingship), also Ovid, Amores, II, xix, 25–6.
21. Horace, Odes, III, xxix, 12–15.
22. Plato, Gorgias, 468C–469C. Ensuing anecdote: Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VIII, Alphonsus Rex Aragonum, XVII.
23. A slip of memory: Livy says somewhat similar things of the Spanish (XXXVII, 25).
24. Seneca, Epist. moral., XXII, 11. (The Duke of Venice is the Doge.)
25. Seneca (the dramatist), Thyestes, II, i, 30.
26. ’80: follow me, or to draw from it their own individual aggrandisement and advantages. All they say…
27. Ammianus Marcellinus, XXII, 10; of Julian the Apostate.
28. Diocletian’s reluctance to rule was proverbial (cf. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VI, Diocletianus, I). For Anacharsis, cf. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Banquet des sept sages, 155B. (The ensuing anecdote, from Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus.)
29. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, V, Pyrrhus, XXIV; Lucretius, V, 1431–2.
30. Erasmus, Adages, II, IV, XXX, Sui cuique mores fingunt fortunam, citing Cornelius Nepos’ Life of Pomponius Atticus, together with similar sayings of Menander (in Plutarch) and many others.
1. ’80: now yet you at once infer that he is a man of little importance. It…
2. Diodorus Siculus, Historia, XII, cited Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, III, §13.
3. Quintilian, Declamationes, III.
4. ’80: The rest of the country adopts as its model whatever is done, in court: those vicious fashions are born close to it. Let…
’80: our shameful parts, those monstrously padded…
5. A tercelet is a male falcon (one-third smaller than the female). Montaigne invents the word ‘quartlet’ for even smaller kinglets.
6. Plato, Laws, VII. In Ficino’s Latin translation Plato talks not of customs ‘to which God has vouchsafed’ continuance but of those to which ‘some divine Fortune’ has done so.
1. An echo of Seneca, Epist. moral., XX, 2–3: the wise man acts consistently, his deeds always in harmony with his words.
2. Cf. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VI, Alexander Magnus, LXIV. (Borrowings follow from i) Plutarch’s Lives of Alexander, Otho, Sylla and Paulus Aemilius; and ii) Suetonius, Life of Augustus.)
3. [A] until [C]: courage of those three men enables…
4. Herodotus, History, IV, xxv; Diogenes Laertius, Life of Epimenides.
1. In the Cratylus, where several etymologies do indeed appear fanciful nowadays.
2. Jean Bouchet, Annales d’Acquitaine.
3. Outremer (‘Overseas’) was the collective name of French Crusader kingdoms in the Middle East.
4. There are as many spellings of the name of the great medieval constable, Bertrand Du Guesclin, as that of Shakespeare.
5. Cf. Lucian of Samosata, Lawsuit between the Vowels.
6. Virgil, Aeneid, XII, 764.
7. Nicolas Denisot, poet, novelist and portrait-painter as well as intelligence-agent and diplomatist, was known by the anagram of his name and regularly addressed as Comte (Count) (Cf. Margaret Harris, A Study of Théodose Valentinian’s ‘Amant Resuscité’ (by Nicolas Denisot?), Geneva, 1966).
8. Suetonius’ cognomen was probably Tranquillus.
9. The ‘good chevalier Bayard’ (on whom Jacques de Mailles wrote a popular book) was indeed really called Pierre Du Terrail. Escalin, Baron de la Garde, was nicknamed Captain Poulin.
10. The Renaissance cult of Classical names adds force to Montaigne’s point. (When Erasmus first heard of Julius Caesar Scaliger he thought the name was fictional.)
11. Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 34.
12. Cicero, Tusc. disput., V, xvii, 49; translated from the Greek epitaph of Epaminondas.
’95: on our lips for so many centuries…
13. From Ennius’ epitaph on Scipio Africanus.
14. Juvenal, Satires, X, 137–41.
1. Homer, Iliad, XX, 249 (translated in text).
2. Petrarch, Sonnet 82 (83).
3. Lucan, Pharsalia, VII, 734.
4. Portius Latro apud Justus Lipsius, Politici, V, xviii; Lucan, Pharsalia, IV, 275.
5. Anecdotes from Diodorus Siculus, Jean Bouchet (Annales d’Acquitaine), Plutarch’s Lives, Suetonius and Xenophon (Cyropaedia).
6. Anecdotes from Livy, XI, xl, Aulus Gellius (Attic Nights, V, v) and Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Dicts notables des Lacaedaemoniens, 221 C.
7. Plutarch, Life of Otho.
8. Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus.
9. Plutarch, Life of Pompey.
10. The battle of Cunaxa between Artaxerxes and Cyrus the Great, 401 BC. Cf. Xenophon, Anabasis.
11. In 1536. The discussion is influenced by the Du Bellay Mémoires.
12. Manilius, Astronomica, IV, 95–9.
13. ’80: Fortune, and that she is as uncertain and random as our reasoning. Plato, Timaeus, 34C.
1. Destrier does indeed derive from the Latin for right-hand (dexter).
2. Livy, XXIII, xxix.
3. Herodotus, History, VIII.
4. ’95: King Charles was saved…
(According to Bishop Paolo Giovio, Historiae sui temporis.)
5. The [C] text of Bordeaux is damaged here. It is slightly different, where read-able, from the ’95 posthumous text given here.
6. Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, V, 11; Suetonius, Life of Caesar.
7. Plato, Laws, VII, 789A ff.; Pliny, Hist. nat., XXVIII, xiv.
8. ’80: the enactment of Cyrus, forbidding…
9. Xenophon, Cyropaedia; Justinus, Historia (an extract of Trogus Pompeius).
10. Livy, IX, xxii.
11. In the Cyropaedia he praises the role of cavalry.
12. Aeneid, X, 756–7.
13. Livy, XXV, xli.
14. Lucan, Pharsalia, VIII, 384–6.
15. The chapter in which this was treated was stolen by a manservant. (Cf. II, 9 and 37.)
16. Virgil, Aeneid, IX, 704–5.
17. Livy, XXXVIII, xxix; v; xxi. (Both the Ancient Galatians and the Turks were believed to be cousins of the French.)
18. Xenophon, Anabasis (the Greek retreat from Asia); Diodorus Siculus for the huge catapults.
19. ’80: on his horse adopted…
’80: words. I do not know what manoeuvre this might be, unless it were one of our ‘passades’. Caesar… (Both anecdotes from the Chroniques d’Enguerran de Monstrelet, which continue those of Froissait.)
20. Caesar, Gallic Wars, IV (of the Suevi of north-east Germany).
21. Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 41–3.
22. Livy, XXXV, xi.
23. Both the letters and the Book of Marcus Aurelius by Bishop Antonio de Guevara were termed ‘Golden’. Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier was written in Italian for the Court of Francis I.
24. Xenophon, Cyropaedia, III, iii.
25. Martial, Epigrams: Spectacula III, 4.
26. Valerius Maximus, VII.
27. Paolo Giovio, Disciplinae Turcae militis; Lopez de Gomara, Historia de Capitano Don Ferdinando Cortes; Flavius Arrianus, De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni.
28. Livy, VIII, xxx; XL, xl.
29. Jan Herbut (tr. F. Baudouin), Histoi
re des Roys de Pologne, Paris, 1573 (Latin edn, Basle, 1571).
30. Nicolas Chalcocondylas, Histoire de la décadence de l’Empire grec (tr. V. de Vigenère); Herodotus, History, I, lxxxviii.
31. Plutarch, Life of Nicias.
32. Quintus Curtius, VII, viii.
33. Henry Porsius and George Lebelski, Histoire de la guerre de Perse [of 1578], Avecques la description des jeux… à Constantinople [of 1582] (Paris, 1583).
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