The Complete Essays (18 page)

All is not in the mind in his case. We can hold opinions about other
things: here the role is played by definite knowledge. Our very senses are judges of that:

Qui nisi sunt veri, ratio quoque falsa sit omnis
.
[If they are not true, then reason itself is totally false.]
¹⁹

Are we to make our flesh believe that lashes from leather thongs merely tickle it, or make our palate believe that bitter aloes is
vin de Graves?
In this matter, Pyrrho’s pig is one of us: it may not fear death, but beat it and it squeals and cries. Are we to force that natural universal and inherent characteristic which can be seen in every living creature under heaven: namely, that pain causes trembling? The very trees seem to shudder beneath the axe.

The act of dying is the matter of a moment: it is felt only by our powers of reason:

Aut fuit, aut veniet, nihil est praesentis in illa;
[Death either was or is to come: nothing of the present is in her;]
²⁰

Morsque minus poenae quam mora mortis habet
.

[There is less pain in Death than in waiting for Death.]

Thousands of beasts and men are dead before they are threatened. In truth, what [C] we say we [A] chiefly fear
²¹
in death is what usually precedes it: pain.

[C] Yet if we are to believe a holy Father of the Church,
‘Malam mortem non facit, nisi quod sequitur mortem.’
[Death is no evil, except on account of what follows it.]
²²
And I would maintain with greater likelihood that neither what precedes it nor what follows it appertains to death. Our self-justifications are false: I find from experience that it is our inability to suffer the thought of dying which makes us unable to suffer the pain of it, and that the pain we do suffer is twice as grievous since it threatens us with death. But as reason condemns our cowardice in fearing something so momentary, so unavoidable, so incapable of being felt as death is, we seize upon a more pardonable pretext.

We do not put on the danger list any painful ailment which comports no danger apart from the pain itself. Since toothache or gout, however painful, are not fatal nobody really counts them as illnesses. So let us concede that where dying is concerned we are chiefly concerned with the pain, [A] just as in poverty there is nothing to fear except the fact that it throws us into the embrace of pain by the thirst, hunger, cold and heat and the sleepless watches that we are made to suffer.

And so let us concern ourselves only with pain. I grant that pain is the worst disaster that can befall our being. I willingly do so, for, of all men in the world. I am the most ill-disposed toward pain and [C] flee
²³
[A] it all the more for having had little acquaintance with it, thank God. But it lies within us not to destroy pain but at least to lessen it by patient suffering and, even if the body be disturbed by it, still to keep our reason and our soul well-tempered.

If this were not so, what could have brought us to respect manly courage, valour, fortitude, greatness of soul and determination? If there were no pain to defy, how could they play their part?
‘Avida est periculi virtus’
. [Manly courage is avid for danger.]
²⁴
If we did not have to sleep rough, endure in full armour the midday sun, make a meal of horseflesh or donkey, watch as they cut us open to extract a bullet buried between our bones, allow ourselves to be stitched up again, cauterized and poked about, how could we ever acquire that superiority which we aspire to have over the common people? Fleeing pain and evil is not at all what the sages counsel – they say that among indifferent actions it is more desirable to perform the one which causes us most trouble. [C]
‘Non enim hilaritate, nec lascivia, nec risu, aut joco comite levitatis, sed saepe etiam tristes firmitate et constantia sunt beati.’
[For happiness is to be found not in gaiety, pleasure, laughing, nor in levity the comrade of jesting: those are happy, often in sadness, who are constant and steadfast.]
²⁵
[A] That was why it was impossible to convince our forebears that conquests made by force of arms at the hazard of war were not superior to those safely won by intrigues and plotting:

Laetius est quoties magno sibi constat honestum
.

[Whenever virtue costs us dear, our joy is greater.]
²⁶

In addition, it ought to console us that, by Nature, ‘if pain is violent it is short; if long, light’ – [C]
‘si gravis brevis, si longus levis.’
²⁷
[A] You will not feel it for long if you feel it grievously: either it will quench itself or quench you, which amounts to the same thing.
²⁸
[C] If you find it unbearable, it will bear you away.
‘Memineris maximos morte finiri; parvos multa habere intervalla requietis; mediocrum nos esse dominos: ut si tolerabiles sint feramus, sin minus, e vita, quum ea non placeat, tanquam e theatro exeamus.’
[Remember that the greatest pains are ended by death, the smaller ones allow us periods of repose; and we are masters of the moderate ones, so that if they are bearable we shall be able to bear them; if they are not, when life fails to please us, we may make our exit as from the theatre.]
²⁹

[A] What causes us to be so impatient of suffering is that we are not used to finding our [C] principal [A] happiness in the soul, [C] nor to concentrating enough on her, who alone is the sovereign Lady of our actions and of our mode of being. The body knows only differences of degree: otherwise it is of one uniform disposition: but the soul can be diversified into all manner of forms; she reduces all bodily sensations and all physical accidents to herself and to whatever her own state may be. That is why we must study her, inquire into her and arouse in her her almighty principles. No reasoning power, no commandment, no force can override her inclination or her choice. She is capable of inclining a thousand ways: let us endow her with an inclination which conduces to our rest and conversation: then we are not only protected from any shocks but, if it pleases her, we are delighted and flattered by those pains and shocks.

All things indifferently can be turned to profit by the soul: even errors and dreams can serve her as matter to be loyally used to protect us and to make us contented. It can easily be seen that what gives their edge to pain and pleasure is the hone of our mind. The beasts, since they leave them to the body while leading the mind by the nose, have feelings which are free, natural and therefore virtually the same in all species, as we can see from the similarity of their reactions. If we were to refrain from disturbing the jurisdiction which our members rightly have in such matters, it is to be believed that we would be better off and that Nature has endowed them with a just and moderate temperament towards pleasure and pain. Nature,
being equal and common to all, cannot fail to be just. But since we have unslaved ourselves from Nature’s law and given ourselves over to the vagrant liberty of our mental perceptions, the least we can do is to help ourselves by making them incline towards the most agreeable direction. Plato is afraid of our bitter enslavement to pain and to pleasure, since they too firmly bind and shackle our souls to our bodies; I, on the contrary, because they release them and strike them free. [A] Just as
³⁰
an enemy is made fiercer by our flight, so pain too swells with pride as we quake before her. If we withstand her she will make a compact on far better terms. We must brace ourselves against her. By backing away in retreat we beckon her on, drawing upon ourselves the very collapse which we are threatened by. [C] When tense, the body is firmer against attacks; so is the soul.

[A] But let us to come to those examples (which are proper hunting for weak-backed men like me) in which we find that it is with pain as with precious stones which take on brighter or duller hues depending on the foil in which they are set: pain only occupies as much space as we make for her. Saint Augustine says,
‘Tantum doluerunt quantum doloribus se inseruerunt.’
[The more they dwelt on suffering, the more they felt it.]
³¹
We feel the surgeon’s scalpel ten times more than a cut from a sword in the heat of battle. The pangs of childbirth are reckoned to be great by doctors and by God himself;
³²
many social conventions are there to help us to get through them: yet there are whole nations who take no heed of them. To say nothing of the women of Sparta, what difference does childbirth make to the wives of the Swiss guards in our infantry, except that today you can see them plodding after their husbands, bearing on their back the child they bore yesterday in their belly? And Gypsy women (not real Egyptians; but ones recruited from among ourselves) go and personally bathe their newborn infants in the nearest stream and then wash themselves. [C] Apart from the many sluts who daily conceive and deliver their children in secret, there was that good wife of the Roman patrician Sabinus who (for the sake of others) gave birth to twins and endured the labouring pains, alone, without help, without a word and without a groan.
³³

[A] Why, a little Spartan boy had stolen a fox: [C] (Spartans were
more afraid of being mocked for having botched a theft than we are of being punished for one): [A] he stuffed it
³⁴
under his cloak and rather than betray himself let it gnaw into his belly. Another lad was carrying incense for the sacrifice when a live coal fell up his sleeve: he let it burn through to the bone so as not to disturb the ceremony. When, according to their educational practices, an assay was made of the bravery of boys at the age of seven, many let themselves be flogged to death rather than change their expressions. [C] Cicero saw crowds fighting each other with feet, fists and teeth, till they collapsed with exhaustion rather than admit defeat.
‘Nunquam naturam mos vinceret: est enim ea semper invicta; sed nos umbris, deliciis, otio, languore, desidia animum infecimus; opinionibus maloque more delinitum mollivimus.’
[Never could habit conquer Nature: Nature is unconquerable; yet we have corrupted our souls with unrealities, luxuries, leisure, idleness, listlessness and sloth; we have made them soft with opinions and evil habits.]
³⁵

[A] Everyone knows the story of Scaevola who had slipped into the enemy’s camp to kill their leader: having failed in this attempt he thought of a strange way to complete his task and deliver his country: not only did he confess his purpose to Porsenna (the king he sought to kill) but added that he had a great number of Roman accomplices within the camp; to show what sort of man he was, a brazier was brought in: he suffered his arm to be grilled and roasted: he stood watching it until that enemy himself, in horror, ordered the brazier removed.
³⁶

What about that man who would not condescend to break off reading his book when they cut him open? And what of that other man who persisted in laughing at the ills done to him and in mocking them until his incensed and cruel torturers, having vainly invented new torments and increased them one after another, had to admit that he was the winner?
³⁷

‘But then, he was a philosopher’ – Yes, but when one of Caesar’s gladiators suffered his wounds to be probed and cut open he kept on laughing.
³⁸
[C]
‘Quis mediocris gladiator ingemuit; quis vultum mutavit unquam? Quis non modo stetit, verum etiam decubuit turpiter? Quis cum
decubuisset, ferrum recipere jussus, contraxit?’
[What quite ordinary gladiator has ever made a groan? Which has ever changed his expression? Which has ever behaved shamefully whether still on his feet or beaten to the ground? And having fallen, which of them ever withdrew his neck when ordered to receive the sword?]
³⁹

[A] Women can be brought in to this as well. Who has not heard of that woman of Paris who had herself flayed alive merely to acquire a fresh colour from a new skin? Women have been known to have good sound teeth extracted so as to rearrange them in a better order or in the hope of making their voices softer or fuller. How many examples of contempt for pain does that sex supply! Provided they can hope to enhance their beauty, what do they fear? What can they
not
do?

[B]
Vellere queis cura est albos a stirpe capillos,
Et faciem dempta pelle referre novam
.

[Their labour consists in plucking out white hairs and scraping off skin to put on a new face.]
⁴⁰

[A] I have known women who swallowed sand and ashes, specifically striving to ruin their digestions in order to acquire a pallid hue. And to appear slim in the Spanish fashion what tortures will they suffer, with corsets and braces cutting into the living flesh under their ribs – sometimes even dying from it.

[C] Many peoples in our own times commonly inflict deliberate wounds on themselves to give credit to their oaths – our own King tells of several memorable examples of this which he saw in Poland and in which he was involved.
⁴¹
I know some men who imitated that in France; apart from which I personally saw a girl who, to prove the earnestness of her promises as well as her constancy, took the pin she wore in her hair and jabbed herself four or five times in the arm, breaking the skin and bleeding herself in good earnest. The Turks sport great scars for their ladies; to make the marks permanent they immediately apply hot irons to their wounds to staunch the blood and form the scab, keeping them there an incredible time. Those who have seen it have written sworn depositions about it for
me. Why, you can find Turks any day who will make a deep gash in their arms or their thighs for a mere ten aspers.
⁴²