The Complete Essays
Page 170
38. Tiresias, who changed sex; a frequently cited example: cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, III, 323; then, Juvenal, Satires, VI, 128–9; the Emperor was Proculus, the Empress, Messalina, the consort of Claudius. (Cf. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, IX, 94 for Messalina, and XV, 92 for Proculus.)
39. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, XV, 1.
40. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De l’amour, 612 C; Tiraquellus, XV, 83.
41. Perhaps an echo of Leviticus 26.
42. St Paul, I Corinthians 7:9; then, Martial, Epigrams, XII and Diogenes Laertius, Life of Polemaon.
43. Clodia Laeta was buried alive. The emperor was in fact Caracalla.
44. Jan Herburt, Histoire des Roys de Pologne, 1573.
45. Fouteau evoked foutre, then the usual vulgar word for ‘to have sexual intercourse’, a meaning almost submerged by other usages in modern French.
46. Horace, Odes, III, vi, 21–4.
47. Cf. Plato, Timaeus, 42 B–C.
48. Virgil, Georgics, 42 B–C.
49. Catullus, LXVI, 125–8.
50. For the laws of Rome, cf. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, XIII, 12 ff. But I do not know what Socrates’ precepts were. Then, Horace, Epodes, VIII, 15–16 (adapted).
51. Cf. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Propos de table, III, question 6, p. 384 C (blaming Zeno).
52. All these books are lost. (Cf. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, XV, 91.)
53. Tertullian (known to Montaigne only at second-hand?); cf. Villey, Sources et évolution des ‘Essais’ de Montaigne, p. 256.
54. Cf. Coelius Richerius Rhodiginus, Antiquae lectiones, VII, xvi, Dionysiorum ritus. Qui sunt phalle. Phallogogia Sacra.
55. St Augustine, City of God, VI, ix; note of J. L. Vives on this passage.
56. The codpiece.
57. Just possibly Pope Paul IV; then, Cicero, Tusc. disput., IV, xxxiii, 70, citing Ennius.
58. Virgil, Georgics, III, 242–4. Bona Dea (the Good Goddess) was worshipped by Roman women as the patron of fertility and chastity. No man might enter her temple.
59. Plato made both men and women subject to sexual organs which were deaf to reason. Ancient medical writers isolated the women in this context, with the result that women – but not men – were, on the highest medical authority, for centuries thought to be subject to an irrational ‘animal’ (the womb), the frustrations of which could cause a form of hysteria (‘womb-disease’) all but indistinguishable from death. Rabelais makes this medical belief central to his doctor’s judgement on women in the Tiers Livre du Pantagruel, XXXII. Montaigne, unlike Rabelais, shows great independence of mind by going back to Plato himself (Timaeus, 91 B-C), so putting men and women essentially on a par, sexually speaking, both being subject to the irrational demands of their genitalia (which were defined in both sexes as ‘animals’ in accordance with criteria long accepted by doctors).
60. The ‘fine fellow’ who put fig leaves on the Roman statues.
61. Plato, Republic, V, 452.
62. G. Balbi, Viaggio del’ Indie, then, for Livia, Dion Cassius, Life of Tiberius
63. The vertugade (farthingale) was a structure worn beneath the skirts. Obviously, it ‘got in the way’. Montaigne therefore derives vertugade from ‘virtue-guard’.
64. St Augustine, City of God, XXII, xvii; St Paul (Romans 8:29) teaches that God will raise Christians from the dead to be ‘conformed to the image of His Son’. Augustine denies that this means that all Christians, male and female, will arise again as males.
65. Horace, Odes, II, xii, 21–8 (the text is corrected from the posthumous printed editions of Montaigne).
66. St Jerome, Contra Jovinianum, II – a work so rhetorically hostile to marriage that Erasmus prefaced it with an ‘Antidote’.
67. Source unknown. Cf. (not very close!) Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Comment on pourra recevoir utilité de ses ennemis, 110 EF.
68. Ovid, Ars amandi, III, 93; then a verse from the Priapeia.
69. A tale related, after Aelianus, by Coelius Richerius Rhodiginus, Antiquae Lectiones, XXV, xxxii.
70. Johannes Secundus, Elegiae, I, vii, 71–2.
71. Plutarch, Life of Pompey (Lepidus intercepted a love-letter and died of grief); then, Catullus, XV, 17–19. (For this use of mullet to punish adulterers, cf. Juvenal, Satires, X, 317.)
72. Vulcan, in the verse of Virgil cited, p. 958; then, Ovid, Metamorphoses, IV, 187–8.
73. Virgil, Aeneid, VII, 395–6; then, VIII, 383; VIII, 441.
74. Catullus, LXVIII, 141.
75. Above all, Plato and, presumably, those who follow him.
76. Catullus, LXVIII, 138–9.
77. Propertius, II, viii, 3.
78. Tacitus, History, IV, xliv.
79. Virgil, Aeneid, V, 6.
80. A misunderstanding of Herodotus, IV; cf. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Que la vertu se peult enseigner et apprendre, 399: the Scythian women blinded slaves to stop them from stealing milk. (Montaigne had certainly read this passage, the following sentence of which concerning Iphicrates he used in I, 40 ‘Reflections on Cicero’.)
81. Plutarch sees it as the sign of a good marriage (Les preceptes de mariage, 146 A).
82. Homer, Odyssey, XVII, 347, cited by Plato (Charmides, 161 A).
83. Catullus, LXVII, 21–2.
84. Martial, Epigrams, VII, lxi, 6; then, VI, vii, 6.
85. St Augustine, City of God, I, xviii (stressing that modesty is a matter of the mind not the body).
86. Fatua’s case was a commonplace; Plutarch tells of Hiero’s wife (Comment on pourra recevoir utilité de ses ennemis, 111 D-E). So does Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, IV, 1.
87. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De l’amour, 606 E-F; then, for Galba, 606 D-E and Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VI, Varie mixta, LVIII.
88. Flavius Arrian, Alexander the Great, VII.
89. The usual accounts say Phaedo was compelled to do so (cf. Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, II, xviii, 1). Then, cf. for Solon, Coelius Richerius Rhodiginus, Antiquae lectiones, XIV, iv, and Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347–8.
90. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Demandes des choses Romaines, IX, 462 B-L; S. Goulart, Hist. générale des Indes, in which the priests are called Piates.
91. Lucretius, III, 1041 (adapted) and III, 1039.
92. Catullus, LXIV, 170.
93. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De la tranquillité de l’ame et de l’esprit, 72 C.
94. Cf. II, 3, ‘A custom of the Isle of Cea’, p. 406.
95. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VIII, Alphonsus Aragonum Rex, IV, commented upon in Montaigne’s sense.
96. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Dicts notables des anciens Roys…, 203 B.
97. Ovid, Tristia, IV, i, 34; then, Terence, Eunuch, IV, viii, 43 and Lucan, Pharsalia, II, 446.
98. Virgil, Aeneid, XII, 499. The standard source about Messalina is Tacitus, XI, xvi-xvii. She is given as an example of ‘prodigious lust’ by Tiraquellus and, indeed, by almost everyone.
99. Lucretius, I, 33–40. The first three of the following Latin words are from Lucretius, and so is pendet. The rest are from the lines of Virgil which are alluded to in the title of this chapter and cited above (cf. p. 958). Montaigne believed that Lucretius’ use of the word circunfusa (literally ‘poured like water around’ the body of Mars in a close embrace) was imitated by Virgil when he used infusus in a similar sense.
100. Seneca, Epist. moral., XXXIII, 1.
101. Quintilian, X, vii, 15.
102. Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes.
103. Authors of treatises on Renaissance Platonic love: Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium; Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel), Dialogues of Love.
104. ’88: trade, I would treat art as naturally as a could. Let us…
Allusions follow to Pietro Bembo, Gli Asolani and Mario Equicola, On the Nature of Love: two more Renaissance Platonists.
105. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Comment on peult discerner le flatteur d’avec l’amy, 49 H.
106. Or rather, Antigenides. Cf. Coelius Richerius Rhodiginus, Antiquae
Lectiones, XV, x.
107. Diodorus Siculus, XVII, xxv.
108. ’95: balls, analogous to the pleasure which Nature vouchsafes to us when we are unloading other organs of ours; it becomes…
Montaigne’s word for balls, vases, represents the Latin word vas (tool) used in this sense in the Priapics and, for example, by Plautus, Poenulus IV, ii.
109. Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics, II, ii, 1104 a ff.
110. Plato, Symposium, 203 ff.
111. Zeno, the founder of the Stoic School; Cratippus, the Peripatic who taught the son of Cicero; both admitted the effects of terrifying emotion: cf. St Augustine, City of God, IX, iv.
112. Plato, Laws, VII, 803 E and I, 644 D; then, Claudius Claudianus, In Eutropium, I, 24.
113. Horace, Satires, I, i, 24.
114. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, XV, 63–4.
115. The Essenes forbade procreation, depending on proselytes to continue their community (Pliny, V, xvii).
116. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno.
117. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Demandes des choses Romaines, 469 A: not a general statement, but Aristotle’s gloss on a term in a peace-treaty between the Arcadians and the Spartans.
118. Diodorus Siculus, XII, xvii; then, Terence, Phormio, I, iii, 20.
’88: poenitet. We condemn in hundreds of ways the circumstances of our being. There are…
119. ’88: What. disnatured animal…
(Cf. the similar change in note 121.)
120. Virgil, Georgics, II, 511.
121. Pseudo-Gallus, I, 180.
’88: enough natural misfortunes… (‘Necessary’ misfortunes are those entailed by the human condition and its necessitates
122. Virgil and Lucretius, cited earlier.
123. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De la curiosité, 64 C.
124. Ovid, Amores, I, v, 24.
125. As, for example, in ‘stolen’ kisses.
126. Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics, III, x, 1118a; Aristophanes, The Frogs, 934.
127. Allusion to a famous legal tale related by Rabelais (Tiers Livre, TLF, xxxvii, after Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, XI, 5): a chef complained that a poor man was savouring the smell of his roast beef: a fool, called in to judge, ordered the smell to be paid by the jangle of coins.
128. An ancient Roman gibe against the Gauls (referring to military not amorous ventures): Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VI, Varie mixta, CIII.
129. Catullus, LXIV, 147–8; then, Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno.
130. Platonic theories of mutual love held that by kissing one another lovers exchange souls and so literally ‘live in’ each other. Ficino had made such a belief current during the Renaissance.
131. Martial, Epigrams, VII, cxv, 10–12.
132. Ravisius Textor, Officina: Animalium et aliarum rerum amatores (for the statue); amor conjugalis (for Periander); Herodotus, II, lxxxix (for the Egyptian law).
133. Erasmus, Adages, I, IX, LXIII, Endymionis sonmium dormis, alluding to the tale of the shepherd Endymion in Cicero, Tusc. disput., I, xxxviii, 92; Plato, Phaedo, 72 C; Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics, VI, viii.
134. Martial, X, ciii; XI, lix; then, Catullus, LXVIII, 147–8 and Tibullus, I, vi, 35.
135. Brantôme relates a case of a French nobleman who poisoned his wife through her genitals in the hope of marrying another woman (Dames galantes, ed. M. Rat, Paris, 1947, pp. 14–15).
136. ’88: We owe them hardly anything…
137. Cato, in Livy, XXIV, iv; then, Ovid, Amores, III, iv, 13–14.
138. ’88: freedom. They are, in their social life, ladies of many parts. We put them on the way to using the ultimate one, since we rate them all the same. Both run…
139. Also called Sarmatae; cf. Herodotus, IV, cxvii; Coelius Richerius Rhodiginus, Antiquae lectiones, IX, xii, who assimilates them to the Amazons.
140. Erasmus (Apophthegmata, III, Aristippus, XIII), who adds a caution, restricting the saying to legitimate relationships.
141. Implied in Plato’s Symposium.
142. ’88: voracity and hunger, which…
143. Seneca, Epist. moral., CXV, 21.
144. Diodorus Siculus, XVII, xvi.
145. Jacques de Lavardin, Scanderbeg; cf. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, IX, 99.
146. Plato, Laws, XI, 925 A.
147. Martial, Epigrams, VII, lvii, 3–5.
148. Catullus, LXVII, 27–8.
149. Virgil, Georgics, III, 127 (adapted).
150. Horace: Epodes, XII, 15; then, Odes, II, iv, 22–4. The text of ’95 reads undenum, not heu denum, that is, ‘fifty-five’, not ‘alas fifty’. Horace wrote octavum (forty). Horace is counting by five-year units (lustra).
151. Allusion to the proverb (listed by Cotgrave): A whore’s love is but straw on fire (Amour de putain, feu d’estoupe).
152. Virgil, Aeneid, XII, 67–9; then, Ovid, Amores, I, vii, 21.
153. Priapeia, LXXX, 1; then VIII, 4–5.
154. Cicero, De petitione consulates, xiv. Montaigne’s manuscript jottings at this point, eventually crossed out, show that he was aware of going beyond the limits of decency which he had set himself in his Preface: that was because he had been emboldened by the welcome given to his book.
155. A line from the erotic Juvenilia of Theodore Beza, the great Reformer and successor to Calvin. The next is by Mellin de Saint-Gelais, a Roman Catholic cleric and court poet.
156. Catullus, LXVIII, 145.
157. Horace, Odes, I, v, 13–16; then, Terence, The Eunuch, I, i, 16–18.
158. Seneca, Epist. moral., XCV, 33 (that is, one vice leads to another).
159. Ibid., CXVI, 5. (Panaetius was a Stoic.)
160. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, I, Agesilaus, XIX; Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Dicts notables des Lacedaemoniens, 210 EF (when duty required Agesilaus to leave a sick friend).
161. Juvenal, Satires, I, 26–8.
162. Xenophon, Symposium, IV, 27–8. Socrates was consulting a book-scroll with Cleinias, bare shoulder to bare shoulder. Sage though he was, he was disturbed for five days as though he had been bitten by a wild beast. In his innocence he did not realize why, until Charmides twitted him about it.
163. ’88: human souls, in rule and in its re-formation…
Socrates, as he told Zopyrus the physiognomist, had been born with a vicious, lecherous inferior ‘form’ (soul), but had re-formed it.
164. The Classic Aristotelian teaching (e.g. Nicomachaean Ethics, II, vii, 3; VIII, 2 ff.; III, x–xii, etc.).
165. ’88: warns us to avoid all meats which increase hunger, that is, which make us desire to be hungry afresh, just as…
Cf. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De la curiosité, 67 p.
166. Cf. the advice of the giant heroes in Rabelais, Tiers Livre, TLF, XXXV, 46 ff. and notes. Cf. Tiraquellus, De legibus connubialibus, XV, 56 ff, with references to Thomas Aquinas, etc.
167. ’88: rigorous and inhumane – concern…
The ensuing notion that the soul is ‘imprisoned’ in the body is. Platonic commonplace. (The usual corollary was that the soul should strive, in ecstasy and rapture, to escape from the body. Montaigne does not accept it for most men.)
168. The temptations of saints are not so much grossly corporeal as spiritual and mental.
169. Horace, Epodes, XII, 19–20; then, Odes, IV, xiii, 26–8.
170. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VII, Bion Borysthenites, II. Cheese, curd, Caseus, was a Latin term of amorous endearment. (Erasmus chastely holds this expression to mean that Philosophy cannot ‘hook’ tender minds; Montaigne, more literally, that ageing philosophers cannot ‘hook’ tender lovers.)
171. A famous saying, parodied by Rabelais (Gargantua, XXXI, end) to mock Picrochole, his foolish, choleric monarch.
172. Martial, Epigrams, X, xc, 10–11.
173. Xenophon, Anabasis, II, vi; then, Suetonius, Life of Galba, XXII.
174. Ovid, wretched in unending exile on the orders of Augustus Caesar (Ex Ponto, I, iv, 49–51).
175. Diogenes
Laertius, Life of Arcesilaus. (Cf. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VII, Arcesilaus,VI.)
176. Horace, Odes, II, v, 21–4; then, Plato, Protagoras, 309 AB, alluding to Homer, Iliad, XXIV, 348.
177. Conspirators who freed Athens from the tyranny of the Pisistratids. Similarly, a sprouting beard freed youths from the ‘tyranny’ of homosexual advances: Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De l’amour, 613 AB. Saying of Bion (not Dion).
178. Horace, Odes, IV, xiii, 9–10.
179. Margaret of Navarre, Heptaméron, Journée 4, nouvelle 35 (an unfair remark: Margaret does not ‘ordain’ it, but notes that it is usual).
180. St Jerome, Letters, Ad Chromatium (identified by Marie de Gournay).
181. This was the general drift of Renaissance ‘platonic’ love.
182. Cf. I, 28, ‘On affectionate relationships’; Socratic philosophers paid with their teachings of virtue and wisdom for the homage of youthful disciples. Philosophers beget ideas (brain-children) rather than real children.