The Complete Essays
Page 171
183. In Plato’s Republic (not his Laws), V, 468.
184. Virgil, Georgics, III, 98–100 (of an aged stallion).
185. Catullus, LXV, 19–24.
186. Plato, Republic, V, where no sex distinctions are allowed to affect eligibility for the offices of State.
187. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VII, Antisthenes, LVII. Erasmus comments: ‘So too did Socrates think women to be no less apt for instruction in all the duties of wisdom than men, provided they receive the same education. Yet the mob condemn women as though they cannot be taught virtue.’
1. ’88: some appositeness and beauty…
2. Lucretius, VI, 704–5.
3. In the Problemata, XXXIII, 9, attributed to Aristotle.
4. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Causes naturelles, 536H–537A.
5. Seneca, Epist. moral., LIII, 3 (of his own experience).
6. Plato, Symposium, 221A–B.
7. Livy, XXII, v.
8. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Epicurus.
9. Nicolas Chalcocondylas, Décadence de l’empire grec, VII, vii (tr. Biaise de Vigenère).
10. Du Haillant, Hist. des Roys de France, II; then a series of examples from Pietro Crinito, De honesta disciplina, XVI, v.
11. Isocrates, Nicocles, VI, xix.
12. [C] all from Cicero, De officiis, II, xvi, 56–7. Aristotle’s judgement otherwise unknown.
13. The Queen Mother, Catherine de’ Medici.
14. Plutarch, Life of Galba.
15. Cicero, De finibus, V, vi, 16.
16. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Dicts notables des anciens Roys, 190 D–E.
17. In Amyot’s Plutarch (525 F) this verse of Corinna’s is cited in French, not Greek. The original appears in Justus Lipsius, De amphitheatro.
18. Cicero, De officiis, II, xv, 52–3; 54.
19. ’88: since clowns, pimps, fiddlers and other such riff-raff reckon that…
20. Seneca, Epist. moral., LXXIII, 2–3.
21. Xenophon, Cyropaedia, VIII, ii.
22. Cicero, De officiis, I, xiv, 43 (on the liberality of Sylla and Gaius Caesar); then, II, xv, 53–4 (on Philip of Macedonia).
23. Related after Pietro Crinito, De honesta disciplina, XII, vii, with interpolated verses from Calpurnius’ Bucolica, VII, 47; Juvenal, Satires, III, 153–5 and Calpurnius, Bucolica, VII, 64–75, taken (with much else) from Justus Lipsius’ De amphitheatro.
24. Martial, Epigrams, XII, xxix, 15–16; then, Calpurnnius, Bucolica, VII, 53–4, with other matter from Justus Lipsius.
25. ’88: forces. There is verisimilitude in saying that we neither go forward nor backwards, rolling, rather, spinning and changing. I am afraid… Then, Horace, Odes, IV, ix, 25–8.
26. Lucretius, V, 327–8.
27. Cicero, De natura deorum, I, xx, 54 (changing Cicero’s atomorum to formarum, thus linking the concept less to Lucretius than to Plato’s Great Chain of Being).
28. Many, including Rabelais, believed that printing was invented under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, so as to counteract the Devil’s invention of gunpowder and artillery (cf. Pantagruel, TLF, VIII, 92–5). Knowledge of China was being spread especially by the Jesuits.
29. Lucretius, II, 1136; then, V, 331–5.
30. The Inca garden and museum described on hearsay by Lopez de Gomara (tr. Fumée), Histoire générale des Indes, V, xiii. Much of what follows is from that work.
31. I, 31, ‘On the Cannibals’, above, pp. 79–92.
32. ’88: to beg leave to tell what he knew to redeem himself from the unbearable pain. That King…
33. Montaigne’s main source throughout is Francisco Lopez de Gomara (tr. Fumée), L’Histoire générale des Indes (1578 and 1587). It is not known whether he had also read the blistering attacks on the Conquistadores or on Spanish policy by Bishop Bartolome de las Casas, e.g. his Brevissima relación de la destruyción de Las Indias (Seville, 1552) or the account of his dispute entitled Aqui se contiene una disputa entre B. de las Casas y G. de Sepulveda (Seville, 1552), with which he would have been in agreement.
34. ’88: they preach and proclaim them. Could it be…
35. These included Pizarro, condemned to death in 1548.
36. Montaigne’s term plus civilisez probably means not ‘more civilized’, but ‘more urban and hence more given to civic virtues’ than the pastoral Indians; similarly his term plus artistes probably means ‘more cultured’ rather than ‘more artistic’: they had more developed arts and sciences.
37. Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Histoire générale des Indes, II, lxxv and (for the Royal road described later) V, lxxxvii.
38. According to the teaching of Alkindi, Albumasar and other Islamic astrologers widely accepted in medieval and Renaissance Europe, when a ‘great conjunction’ (that of the planets Saturn and Jupiter) occurs in the first degree of the zodiacal sign of the Ram, it produces one single outstanding prophet, teacher or lawgiver. Such a great conjunction was calculated to occur every 960 years. Both Islamic and Christian astrologers often held that a great conjunction heralded the birth of Moses, Jesus and Mahomet. Cf., for example, Petrus de Abano, Conciliator (Diff. XVIII). The great conjunction mentioned by Montaigne was the one preceding the birth of the Prophet of Islam. The theory of the influence of conjunctions was, of course, challenged by many.
39. Attabalipa.
1. Montaigne’s term j’esguise mon courage echoes Cicero’s acuant mentem (Tusc. disput., I, xxxiii, 80), where Cicero stresses the influence of body on mind and congratulates himself (as Montaigne often does) on being slow-witted rather than a volatile, melancholy genius.
2. Julius Caesar; cf. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, IV C. Julius Caesar, V. (Caesar would rather be the first man in an alpine hamlet than second in Rome.)
3. ’88: by fortune and also by taste…
4. Cicero (De finibus, II, XX, 63–4) compares, as does Montaigne, Balbus (who despite a certain greatness, ‘knew no limit but satiety’) with Regulus and judged him a less happy example. Cicero also prefers Lucretia, who took her own life, and Lucius Verginius, a poor man who killed his virgin daughter rather than have her defiled by Appius Claudius.
5. Herodotus, III, lxxxiii.
6. George Buchanan (‘the people’s man’) the future Scottish reformer, had taught Montaigne at the Collège de Guienne in Bordeaux. His De jure regni apud Scotos appeared in 1579. This was answered by Adam Blackwood’s Apologia for Mary Stuart against Buchanan. Both works were translated into French. Jean Dorat wrote a prefatory poem for Blackwood’s book.
7. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De la tranquillité de l’ame, 72 G.
8. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VII, Carneades, XXXII; Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Comment on peult disarner le flatteur de l’amy, 46 A–B).
9. Venus (or rather Aphrodite) in the Iliad (V).
10. Renaissance science believed that we see objects by means of rays leaving our eyes, not by rays striking the retina.
11. Perhaps a confused memory of an event related in Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VI, Varie mixta, XXVIII, when Tiberius rebuked a flattering senator.
12. Above exempla from Plutarch, Comment on pourra discerner le flatteur d’avec l’amy, 42 G, 43 A, 43 B, 45 E.
13. Both exempla from Pietro Crinito, De honesta disciplina, XII.
14. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De la tranquillité de l’ame, 72 E; cf. De la fortune d’Alexandre, 312 E.
1. Plato, Laws, XI, 934 A–B.
2. Horace, Satires, I, iv, 109–11.
3. ’88: more advantage from…
4. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, V, Cato Senior, XXXIX.
5. Anecdote not traced. Perhaps a confusion with the practice of the ancient musician Timotheus of Miletus. Cf. Quintilian, II, iii, 3.
6. ’88: routine: the routine sight of thieving and perfidiousness has guided and restrained my morals. To my taste…
7. Cicero, De finibus, I, viii, 28 (Torquatus defending Epicurus’ style of conversation).
8. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De la mauvaise honte, 81 B.
9. Renais
sance rhetoric and dialectic in school and university did indeed often encourage pro et contra debates rather than a search for truth.
10. Plato, Republic, 539 A–C.
11. ’88: of the truth: why…
12. ’88: muddles and ruffles the debate. Yet another…
13. Seneca, Epist. moral., LIX, 15; then, Cicero, De finibus, I, xix, 63, criticizing Epicurean logic.
14. Seneca, Epist. moral., XXXIII, 7.
15. ’88: great nobility and value…
16. The theme of III, 13, ‘On experience’.
17. For Democritus, cf. Cicero, Academica, I, xii, 44: a celebrated saying of Democritus, cited similarly to Montaigne by the Christian theologian Lactantius, Institutiones divinarum III, 28, a reference given in the adage Veritas in profundo (Appendix Erasmi, in Adagia id est Proverbiorum collectio absolutissima, Frankfurt, 1656, p. 453).
18. Perhaps an echo of the similar remark attributed to him in Henry Estienne’s Apophthegmata, 1588, pp. 110–11.
19. Heraclitus, the Sage who wept at the folly of the world; normally coupled with Democritus, who laughed at it. Followed by the most famous saying of Myson (Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VII, Myson, I).
20. Literally silly ‘selon moy’ (that is, by my own terms of reference), even sillier ‘according to others’ (by their terms of reference).
21. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Comment on pourra recevoir utilité de ses ennemis, 110 E–F (and for Plato’s saying about to be quoted).
22. Erasmus, Adages, III, IV, II. Erasmus links the saying to Aristotle’s Nicomachaean Ethics, and to the complementary adage, Suum cuique pulchrum (one’s own is beautiful to oneself) (I, II, XV), further linked with Plato, Aristotle and Horace as a condemnation of philautia (self-love).
23. Another authoritative condemnation of self-love, in Aesop’s Beggar’s Wallet: we put our neighbours’ faults in the front pocket where we can see them, our own in the back one where we cannot. (Cf. Rabelais, TLF, Tiers Livre, TLF, XV, note 108, citing Erasmus’ Adages and Raymond Sebond.)
’88: olet. To sum up, we must live among the living and let each man follow his fashion without our worrying or without making ourselves ill about it. (In [C] changed and placed earlier.)
24. Terence, Andria, IV, ii, 9.
25. Plato, Gorgias, 480 B–C.
26. Perhaps a reference to the members of the Reformed Church; it is often taken to be so. But is it not rather an allusion to ascetic movements within the Roman Catholic Church tending to devalue the body and elevate asceticism?
27. Aristotle’s contention in Metaphysics, I, 1, 980b–981a. Experience and experiments as such do not constitute the art of medicine: the art consists in a general inference drawn from it by a man’s judgement.
28. Juvenal, Satires, VIII, 73–4.
29. Perhaps a reference to Plato, Republic, VI, 495 C–D.
30. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VI, Diversorum Graecorum, XXXII.
31. Martial, Epigrams, VIII, 15.
32. Cited by Amyot in his Prologue to Les Vies de Plutarque.
33. Virgil, Aeneid, III, 395; then, Horace, Odes, I, ix, 9.
34. ’88: never were there such military circumspection and prudence, especially in our nation as I see practised: perhaps…
35. Virgil, Georgia, I, 420–2.
36. Thucydides, cited (with others of the above) from Justus Lipsius’ Politici, as is the following, from Plautus’ Pseudolus.
37. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Comment il faut ouïr, 64 H.
38. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VII, Antisthenes, XXX.
39. Lopez de Gomara (tr. Fumée), Histoire générale des Indes, II, lxxvii.
40. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De l’esprit familier de Socrates, 636 BC.
41. Cicero, De officiis, I, xli, 147.
42. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Aristippus.
43. Xenophon, Cyropaedia, III, iii, 49–50.
44. Perhaps a vague recollection of Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Du trop parler, 95 BC, or of Lycurgus’ forbidding of hand-to-hand sports among citizens (Henry Estienne, Apophthegmata, 1568, pp. 416–17).
45. Henry II was killed while jousting; Henry, Marquess of Beaupréau died of wounds received in a tournament. There were other cases as well.
46. Ovid, Tristia, I, vii, 9.
47. Montaigne is contrasting inventio (the discovery of arguments or topics) with original powers of judgement. Philippe de Commines, III, xii; Tacitus, Annals, IV, xviii; Seneca, Epist. moral., LXXXVI, 32; Cicero, De petitione consultatus, ix.
48. ’88: biases. In that he is no less careful and diligent than Plutarch, who made an express claim to do so. This manner….
49. ’88: our own. Yet he did not overlook what he owed to the other aspect. Tacitus’ work…
50. Tacitus, Histories, II, xxxviii.
51. Once more a judgement secundum quid (in this case according to the standard of the laws of Tacitus’ day). It was not Tacitus’ fault, since a knowledge of Christian truth requires prevenient grace, which by definition cannot be in any way earned or deserved.
52. Tacitus, Annals, VI, vi.
53. Montaigne apparently accepts the contention of Duns Scotus (and others) that when a man loves himself or any other creature properly he loves God even more. Luther and many others denied this (Weimarer Ausgabe, XL, p. 461). Montaigne’s contention is more traditionally Catholic than Humanist.
54. Tacitus, Annals, XIII, xxxv; then, IV, lxxi (seen by some as a parody of Christ’s curing the blind man in Mark 8:23).
55. Quintus Curtius, IX, i; Livy, VIII, vi.
56. ’88: even judgements which are…
57. 88: All universal judgements are lax and dangerous…
1. Allusion to the ‘Vanity of vanities’ of Ecclesiastes 1:2 and 14; 3:19; 11:8; 12:8 and the leitmotiv ‘vanity’ and ‘vain’ throughout this, the most sceptical book of the Bible.
2. This awesome philologist was in fact Didymus, who wrote four thousand books. His nickname was ‘Brazen-bowels’, which doubtless explains his being cited here. Montaigne’s error was already in Bodin’s Methodus (dedicatory epistle).
3. Cf. Erasmus, Adagia, IV, III, LXXII, Taciturnior Pythagoreis. (Pythagoras imposed five years of silence on his disciples.) Then, for Galba, Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VIII, Thrasea, XLVII.
4. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Comment il fault ouïr, 54 G.
5. Perhaps a reference to Charles IX’s law on the shortening of legal actions (13 December 1563), and on his sumptuary laws controlling superfluous clothing (17 January – 10 February 1563/4) and hotels and restaurants (20 January 1563). All were printed by Robert Estienne in Paris. Some think it is an allusion to Michel de l’Hospital.
6. Cf. ‘The ordinance of the King [Charles IX] and of Monsieur de Losse forbidding blasphemy and playing or singing dissolute songs’ (promulgated. December 1564).
7. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Dicts notables des Lacedaemoniens, 221B. Cf. p. 905, note 28.
8. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VII, Xenophon, XXVI. (A man should above all worship the gods when things go well, so that he can confidently appeal to them as friends when in sore straits. Erasmus approves of Xenophon’s saying, stating that most men act to the contrary.)
9. [B] instead of [C]: others. For me the good is a unique spur to measure and moderation…
10. Petronius (fragment).
11. Horace, Odes, I, 29–32; then, Lucretius, V, 216–18.
12. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, V, Paulus Aemilius, XVI (explaining why he divorced a beautiful wife).
13. Cicero, Paradoxa, VI, iii.
14. Montaigne had only one child, his daughter Léonor, who could not inherit as could a son and heir. He talks here of a male heir, either thinking of the entailed property of his estates or perhaps of a son-in-law.
15. Cornelius Nepos, Life of Phocion, I; then, Diogenes Laertius, Life of Crates, VI, lxxxviii.
16. ’88: same, and shaming ones. It is…
17. ’88: surprise. Now Homer shows us plainly enough what advantage is given by surprise, when he po
rtrays Ulysses weeping over the death of his dog and not weeping over the tears of his mother: the first event, slight though it was, overwhelmed him since he was unexpectedly assailed by it; he withstood the second more violent one because he was prepared for it. The reasons may be trivial, yet they disturb our lives: our life is a delicate thing, easy to wound. Once my face…
Cf. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), De la tranquillité de l’ame, 74FG. Perhaps omitted because close to the exemplum of Psammenitus in I, 2, ‘On sadnes’.