45. Jean de Joinville, Histoire et cronique de Saint Louis, LI. (Outremer: the Crusader Kingdoms, and the Near East generally.)
46. Orissa. This is an account of the Juggernaut (Krishna’s idol dragged in a huge carriage, beneath whose wheels pilgrims were said to immolate themselves).
47. This and the following episode from Valerius Maximus, Memorabilia, II, vi, 7 and 8. (Cea or Ceos is an island of the Cyclades.)
48. Pliny, Hist., nat., IV, xii.
1. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De la curiosité, 67 G–H.
2. Plutarch, Life of Caesar.
3. Erasmus, Adagia, IV, VII, LX, In crastinum seria (after Plutarch’s Life of Pelopidas; cf. also Plutarch’s Du démon de Socrates, 647G–648C.
4. ’80: Come either to bring news to the man seated there or to whisper some warning in his ear. Which shows…
5. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Propos de table, 363 E–H. (again citing Achias’ saying).
1. ’80: an honourable gentleman.
2. Reformers often considered the cross, when used as a symbol, to be idolatrous and blasphemous. Here it is used as a disguise.
3. Juvenal, Satires, XIII, 195 (adapted).
4. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Pourquoy la justice divine differe la punition des malefices, 261 E–G (a major borrowing).
5. Erasmus, Adages, I, II, XIV, Malum consilium.
6. Virgil, Georgics, IV, 238. Montaigne wrote Mousches guespes (wasps), but clearlymeans ‘bees’.
7. This Spanish fly was particularly poisonous. Cf. Cicero, Tusc. disput., V, xl, 117; Pliny, XXIX, iv, 30; XI, xxv, 41.
8. Lucretius, V, 1157–9.
9. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Pourquoi la justice divine differe, 262 D–E; Seneca, Epist. moral., XCVII, 13.
10. Juvenal, Satires, XIII, 2–3.
11. Ovid, Fasti, I, 485–6. Cf. also Cognatus, Adages, Conscientia crimen prodit.
12. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Comment on se peut louer soy-mesme, 139 F; Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights; IV, xviii; Livy, Annales, XXXVIII. Erasmus gives these anecdotes s.v. Scipio Africanus Major in his Apophthegmata.
13. St Augustine, City of God, XIX, vi (against torture) with Vives’ comments (in which Vives cites Etiam innocentes [from Publius Syrus] and apologizes for turning a commentary into a plea against torture). Montaigne is deeply indebted to him for what follows.
14. Quintus Curtius, VI ff.
15. ’80: it is the best method that…
16. Vives (cf. note 13 above).
17. Anecdote from Froissart in H. Estienne’s Apologie pour Hérodote.
1. ’80: impeded, no matter how good a will she may have. That…
2. Lucretius, III, 942–3.
’80: that monster Caligula…
3. Seneca, De tranquillitate, XIV; Lucan, Pharsalia, VIII, 636.
4. Torquato Tasso, Gierusalemme liberata; XII; lines from stanzas 74 and 26.
5. Lucretius, III, 485–9.
6. Ovid, Tristia, I, iii, 12.
7. Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 702.
8. Virgil, Aeneid, X, 396.
9. Lucretius, III, 642–5.
10. ’80: action as pleasant as that was…
11. Ovid, Tristia, I, iii, 14.
12. Cf. Pliny, cited Erasmus, Adages, I, VII, XCIV, In tuum ipsius sinum inspue.
13. It is not certain who these ‘two or three Ancients’ were. They may have included Lucillius, the ‘father of satire’.
14. Horace, Ars poetica, 31.
15. Montaigne may be thinking, among other works, of St Augustine’s Confessions, but there are signs that he never read that particular work, though one would have expected him to have done so.
16. The Reformed Church rejected private confession to priests but encouraged a sinner to confess his sins to the assembled Church.
17. Montaigne’s gibe is unfair. Quintus Hortensius was a famous orator of Cicero’s time; Cicero named his treatise on oratory after him. Quintilian (XI, iii, 8) held his oratory to be inferior to Cicero’s.
18. Socrates maintained that men should be concerned not with cosmology but with self-knowledge and morals. He followed Apollo’s revealed commandment, ‘Know Thyself’. (Cf. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, III, Socratica, XII and XXXVI; Adages, I, VI, XCV, Nosce teipsum.)
1. ’80: dignity, being coin which buys any sort of traded goods; they are…
2. ’80: treachery and such-like which we exploit for our own ends by the intermediary of others. No marvel…
3. Martial, Epigrams, XII, lxxxii.
4. ’80: famous and noble leader…
5. Livy, XXV, xix.
6. ’80: theme, and since it is so familiar to us from the French appearance which has been given to it, so accomplished and so pleasing, I would…
7. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Les dicts notables des Anciens Roys, 199 C; valiance is the proper virtue of beasts not men (Que bestes brutes usent de Raison, 271 A–H).
8. In fact Cicero derives virtus (virtue) from vir (man), not from vis (strength) (Tusc. disput., II, XVIII, 43), adding that ‘Man’s proper virtue is fortitude.’
1. Montaigne’s complexion (balance of humours) was melancholy modified by sanguine elements. An access of melancholy humour would unbalance his complexion, plunging him into a depression (chagrin).
2. ’80: wild and monstrous. Nothing…
3. ’80: until [C]: the honour and particular reverence which […] merits and virtues. I…
4. Montaigne took him as a youth to Italy.
5. Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics, IX, vii, 4–6.
6. ’80: father, in his dotage and only half alive…
7. Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics, IV, i, 37.
8. Terence, Adelphi, I, i, 40–3.
9. The gentlemanly idea of education, as in Rabelais, who also loathed corporal punishment.
10. ’80: tasted the whip only twice…
11. Cf. Adagia, Frankfurt, 1656, Appendix Erasmi, p. 313, Scelera non habent consilia, cited after Livy, XXVIII, xxviii.
12. Aristotle, Politics, VII, xvi (age of thirty-seven not thirty-five); Plato, Republic, V, 460A ff.; cf. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, VI, §§ 44–7; 52.
13. Plutarch, Life of Thales; Caesar, Gallic Wars, VI (cf. Tiraquellus, ibid., VI, § 47); Torquato Tasso, Gierusalemme liberata, X, 39–41.
14. Tiraquellus, ibid., XV, § 26, citing Plato, Laws, VIII, 839E–840A.
15. Paolo Giovio, Historia sui temporis, on ‘Muleasses’ (Muley Hassan); Lopez de Gomara, Histoire générale des Indes.
16. Charles V resigned his crown and entered a monastery in 1557 (cf. J. Du Bellay, Regrets, 111).
17. Horace, Epistles, I, i, 8. (The ‘old nag’ is his Muse: hence the following development.)
18. [A] until [C]: I have of bringing forth whatever comes to my lips I told him…
19. Jean d’Estissac, who died in 1576. Such symptoms of melancholy as Montaigne describes are not rare in Renaissance medical treatises.
20. ’80: children of private intercourse and easy understanding with…
21. ’80: maintain a severe and distant frown, full of rancour and contempt, hoping…
22. Cf. Erasmus’ similar reaction in his Adages, II, IX, LXII, Oderint dum metuant.
23. ’88: against that poor man. If…
24. Terence, Adelphi, IV, ii, 9.
25. ’88: husbands, especially if they are old and irascible: but when it is a matter of favouring their children they grasp that pretext and glory in it. If the children…
26. Cf. Seneca, Epist. moral., XLVII, 5; but it was not Cato who said it. (The proverb applied to slaves, not valets or servants.)
27. This and the following passage between stars have been restored. In the Bordeaux manuscript they are deleted, but not certainly by Montaigne himself.
28. Caesar, Gallic Wars, VI, xviii.
29. Cf. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, V, § 1 ff., repeating Aristotle’s warning against wives who dominate because of their wealth.
30. Plato, Laws, XI, 922 D–924 A.
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31. The English claim to the French crown was based on the irrelevance of the mythical Salic Law. (Guillaume Postel maintained that it specifically applied to France, its real name being the ‘Gallic’ Law: La Loi Salique, Paris, 1552.)
32. ’80: their young, or savour their kinship while…
33. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, VII, § 51; Herodotus, History, IV.
34. Plato, Phaedrus, 258 C, dealing with a man’s writings, his ‘brain-children’; but Montaigne has transcribed Minos for Darius.
35. His Greek novel, An Ethiopian History, tells of the loves of Theagenes and Chariclea. It was translated into French by Amyot (Paris, 1547) and often reprinted.
36. Labienus was, for the ferocious nature of his controversial style, nicknamed Rabienus (the Fierce One). (Cf. Marcus Annaeus Seneca, Controversiae, 10, Preface; Suetonius, Caligula, 16.)
37. Or rather, Cremutius Cordus, an historian honoured for his frankness: Tacitus, Annals, IV, xxxiv; Marcus Annaeus Seneca, Suasiora, VII; Quintilian, X, i, 104.
38. Cicero, De finibus, II, xxx, 96.
39. St Augustine did have an illegitimate son. If Montaigne had read the Confessions he would have known of him.
40. Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics, IX, vii, 3.
41. Ovid, Metamorphoses, X, 243 ff., citing 283–4.
1. Livy, XXVII, xlviii.
2. Virgil, Aeneid, VII, 742.
3. [A] until [C]: weight, without taking on anything else, hampered and constrained without movement or manoeuvring, as if…
4. Tacitus, Annals, III; Plutarch, Life of Lucullus.
5. [A] until [C]: the Younger, surnamed Aemilianus, who…
6. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Dicts notables des Anciens Roy, Princes et grands Capitaines, 204 F; 205 E.
7. Ariosto, Orlando furioso, XII, 30–5.
8. [A] until [C]: laden, marching into battle, were trained…
Cicero, Tusc. disput., II, xvi, 31.
9. Plutarch, Dicts notables des Princes…, 205 D. (Cf. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, II, on the Spartan discipline, and Plutarch, Dicts notables des Lacedaemoniens.)
10. ’80: Romans. Now as it seems to me that their way was very close to our own, I once copied out the following passage from its author, having formerly taken the trouble to state much more fully what I knew about the comparison between our armour and that of the Romans; but that bit of my scribblings having been stolen with some others by one of my serving-men, I will not deprive him of the profit which he hopes to get out of it; besides it would be hard for me to chew over the same stuff twice. ‘They have…
The passages cited are from Ammianus Marcellinus, XIV and XV.
11. Claudius Claudianus, In Rufinum, II, 358–62.
12. ’80: armour. I want to say the following words in conclusion. Plutarch…
13.Plutarch, Life of Demetrius.
1. ’80: But I have a memory which is unable to store for three days at a stretch any provisions which I have given into its keeping. So…
2. ’88: known what I think, Excutienda damus praecordia, and what point… Citing Persius, Satires, V, 22: later cited in III, 9, ‘On vanity’.
3. ’80: knowledge of what I am treating. Do not linger over the things I talk about but over the fashioning I give to them when talking about them. What I steal from others I do not wish to make mine: I claim no part in them except for my reasoning and judgement: the rest is not my role. I ask for nothing except that you should see whether I have been capable of selecting what can be rightly linked to my topic. The fact that I sometimes deliberately hide the name of the author in the things which I cite is intended to rein in the frivolousness of those who are concerned to make judgements upon whatever is offered them but who, having no flair for savouring the things in themselves, stop at the name of the workman or his reputation. I wish them to scald themselves by condemning the Cicero and Aristotle in me. What I am obliged…
4. Propertius, IV, i, 70.
5. ’80: my judgement is not satisfied with a mediocre understanding…
6. ’80: category, and from the centuries rather earlier than our own, the Ethiopian History, are worth…
(For this work, cf. II, 8, note 13). Johannes Secundus’ Kisses were much appreciated and imitated.
7. Amadis de Gaule, a Spanish novel translated into French in twenty-one volumes, had the success of a high-class soap-opera.
8. The Axiochus was already considered supposititious in the Renaissance.
9. ’80: many better judgements, nor does it rashly give itself the right to arraign them. It blames…
10. Catullus, XLIII, 8.
11. Cicero, the Father of Eloquence; Horace (the ‘best’ judge) prefers Terence to Plautus, Epistles, II, i, 55 ff.
12. Horace, ibid., II, ii, 120.
13. Martial, Epigrams, VIII, dedication to the Emperor Domitian.
14. ’80: nobility, to compensate for that grace which they are unable to imitate, try to…
15. Virgil, Georgics, V, 194.
16. Horace, Ars poetica, 343: the author who ‘wins every vote’, ‘miscuit utile dulci’ (mixes moral usefulness with delight).
17. That is, since Bishop Amyot translated him into French.
18. Seneca was born 4 BC, Plutarch half a century later; Seneca was Nero’s tutor; Plutarch (it was thought) Trajan’s. (Here Montaigne writes a brief parallel life, in the style of Plutarch.)
19. ’80: authors to come quickly to the point. I know…
20. In pagan Rome, Hoc age was the order to commence the sacrificial slaughter; Sursum corda figures in the Christian liturgy of the Eucharist.
21. ’80: Letters, and especially those to Atticus…
22. ’80: equal it. Yet he was not able to exploit his superiority as clearly as Virgil did in his poetry: for soon after him many thought they could equal him or surpass him, though under fake colours: but no poet since Virgil had dared to compare himself to him; and I would like to add another story on this topic. The younger Cicero…
23. Marcus Annaeus Seneca, Suasiorae, VIII.
24. Tacitus, Oratores, XVIII.
25. Indeed a rough bit of Latin! (Cicero, De Senectute, X, 32.)
26. ’80: The historians are the true game that my study would bag; they are pleasant and delightful, and at the same time, reflections on the natures and circumstances of various men and on the customs of different nations are the real subject of ethics. Now…
27. ’80: for me. I most carefully seek out not only the various opinions and arguments on my endeavour of ancient philosophers of all the schools, but also their morals, fates and lives. I am deeply sorry that we do not have Diogenes Laertiuses by the dozen, or that he himself did not spread himself more widely. In this genre…
Diogenes Laertius’ compendium of the lives and doctrines of philosophers is indeed incomplete and unoriginal.
28. ’80: Cicero himself and all the yap there ever was. There…
Montaigne echoes Cicero’s frequently cited praise of Caesar in Brutus or the Orator.
29. ’80: enemies, and so much truth, that…
30. ’80: dimensions. Those historians are also very commendable who have knowledge of the events they write about either because they played a part in doing them or because they were privy to those who were in charge. For as often as not…
31. ’80: were always found…
’80: doubt. Though they did not write about what they had seen, they at least had experienced the managing of similar affairs which rendered their judgement more sound. For what can we…
32. Suetonius, Life of Caesar, LVI.
33. Jean Bodin, Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem, Paris, 1566.
34. Guicciardini wrote his History of Italy in Italian: Montaigne’s notes on it were in French.
35. Monsieur (‘My Lord’) Du Bellay is Martin Du Bellay, under whose name the Memoirs were published. They include matter from other Du Bellays: Guillaume (the Seigneur de Langey), Bishop Jean and René.
36. Gui
llaume and Martin Du Bellay.
37. Philip Chabot (Brion) was disgraced in 1540; Montmorency, who was in part responsible, was disgraced in his turn. The King’s acknowledged mistress, the Duchesse d’Estampes, was influential in their downfall.
38. Langey (Guillaume Du Bellay) sought to reconcile German Lutherans by reforming Roman Catholicism; he pacified the Piedmont and was Rabelais’ heroic statesman-scholar.
1. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VII, Arcesilaus, II.
2. Cicero, Epistulae ad familiares, XV, 19.
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