The Complete Essays (209 page)
Read The Complete Essays Online
Authors: Michel de Montaigne
Tags: #Essays, #Philosophy, #Literary Collections, #History & Surveys, #General
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),
Histoire 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).
1
. ’80: or
Scipio
barbaric…
4
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, II, 2.
5
. Ovid,
Ex Ponto
, IV, ix, 13.
6
. Plutarch,
Life of Crates
.
7
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LXX, 20.
8
. Martial, XI, lxviii, 11.
9
. Lucretius, IV, 1020–1.
10
. Martial, VII, xlviii, 4.
11
. Martial, VII, xxxv, 1–2.
12
. Horace,
Satires
, I, v, 13–14.
13
. Suetonius,
Life of Caesar
, xlix.
14
. Horace,
Odes
, II, xi, 18–20.
15
. Persius,
Satires
, I, 58–60.
16
. Cf. Rabelais,
Gargantua
, TLF, IX, ‘On what is signified by the colours white and blue’.
1
. ’80: choose.
Meanwhile I leave
Fortune
to furnish me with subjects. Since
all are equally good for me,
and I do not undertake to treat them fully or to scrape the barrel; of the hundreds of features which each of them
has; I take the one
which pleases me: I grasp them preferably by some extraordinary aspect: I could well select richer, fuller ones if I had some other objective. Every act is appropriate for making ourselves known:
that same soul of Caesar’s…
2
. Juvenal,
Satires
, X, xxviii.
3
. He asked Alexander the Great to get out of his light. On his trundling of his barrel, cf. the
Prologue
to the
Tiers Livre
of Rabelais.
4
. Plutarch,
Life of Brutus;
Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Aristippus
.
5
. Laughter is the ‘property’ – the specific quality – of Man. Cf. Rabelais,
Gargantua
, preliminary poem.
1
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Dicts notables des Lacedaemoniens
, 209F; also listed among Erasmus’ Spartan apophthegmata. Then, Plutarch,
Life of Pericles
.
2
. Guillaume Postel,
Histoire des Turcs;
Quintilian,
Institutiones
, II.
3
. Livy, X, xxii.
4
. Juvenal, V, 123–4.
5
. Terence,
Adelphi
, III, iii, 71–5.
6
. Plutarch,
Life of Paulus Aemilius
.
7
. In
Amadis de Gaule
, II.
8
. Cf. the language of Montaigne’s title to Roman Citizenship cited in III, 9, ‘On vanity’.
9
. But cf. the closing pages of III, 13, ‘On experience’.
1
. The anecdotes are taken from Valerius Maximus IV, Plutarch’s
Lives
of Cato the Censor and of Tiberius Gracchus, and Seneca’s
De consolatione ad Albinam
.
1
. Lucretius, III, 1095–7.
2
. Lucretius, VI, 9–17.
3
.
Gallic Wars
, II, iv. (Until [C] this was accompanied by a French translation.)
1
. Lines all beginning with the same letter were affected by some early Renaissance poets (the ‘Grands Rhétoriqueurs’). Poems with lines of varying lengths arranged to make shapes were known in Late Antiquity. Herbert’s ‘Easter-Wings’ is an example in English.
2
. One hundred million two hundred thousand ways, according to Xenophon (Plutarch, tr. Amyot,
Propos de table
, 430C).
3
. An example in Quintilian vulgarized by Castiglione,
Book of the Courtier
II, 31.
4
. Or rather to Garcia V, son of Sancho Garcia.
1
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Propos de table
, 366C.
2
. Plautus,
Mustellaria
, I, iii, 117; cf. Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, III, §§9–10.
3
. Martial, VI, lv, 4–5; II, xii, 4 (both in Tiraquellus, loc. cit.).
4
. Horace,
Epodes
, XII, 4–7.
5
. Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Socrates
.
6
. ‘Animal spirits’ are the elements in man, separable from the body, which it animates.
7
. In Venice the stench of the canals produced ‘bad air’ (
malaria
). As for Paris, Joachim Du Bellay emphasizes how its mud struck him on his return from Rome (
Regrets
, 138).
1
. All churches claim to be catholic. Roman Catholics in Montaigne’s time often stressed the ‘Roman’ so as to avoid any ambiguity.
2
. The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4). Montaigne always presents the Bible as divinely inspired by the Holy Ghost. Here, by special grace, the incarnate Son ensures the absolute verbal accuracy of the central prayer of Christendom.
3
. Romans 8:14–17, etc.
4
. ’80: According to
the
criteria
of his justice, not according to our inclinations and wishes
. God’s…
5
. Plato,
Laws
, X, 885 B–C.
6
. ’80: at least for that
time
when… (This passage was raised by the Maestro del Palazzo. Consult Malcolm Smith,
Montaigne and the Roman Censors
, Geneva, 1981. Montaigne’s assertion is rigorist and neo-Augustinian. Some still judge it hyperorthodox.)
7
. Cf. Matthew 3:8.
8
. Juvenal,
Satires
, VIII, 144–5.
9
. The
Benedicite
precedes dinner; grace follows it.
’80: It amounts in the end to
pretence
. And it…
’88: since
they are practices which I honour and often imitate
, only…
10
. ’80: to
usury, venality and lechery
. Give… [Montaigne strengthens his case, replacing sinful practices by the infinitely more serious inward sins of the mind.]
11
. 80: the
Catholic
Church has forbidden… (Psalm-singing, often in the translation of the French poet Clément Marot, had been a practice in the Court of Margaret of Navarre but had become for many the sign of the Reformed Church.)
12
. ’80: kitchen,
in the hands of everybody
. A study…
13
. ‘Lift up your hearts’ – the liturgical summons to prayer.
14
. ’88:
of translating and
broadcasting…
15
. All this paragraph of Nicetas comes directly from Justus Lipsius’
De una religione
.
16
. Plato forbade youths, not women, to discuss the laws (Plato,
Laws
, I, 634 D–E). Here, as often in the Renaissance,
Law
includes religion. (Christianity was termed ‘the law of Christians’ from medieval times.)
17
. Bishop Jeronimo Osorio (da Fonseca),
De rebus Emanuëlis Lusitaniae Regis gestis
, Cologne, 1581 (1586).
18
. Euripides
apud
Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De l’amour
, 604B.
19
. St Augustine,
City of God
, X, xxix. This was current Renaissance practice. For some reason the Maestro di Palazzo raised the question of the use of ‘fortune’ in the
Essays
. Montaigne changed a few passages but held his ground and explains why. (The passage of Chrysostom remains untraced.)
20
. Montaigne’s terms are technical. He is giving his
opinions
(i.e. his unproven notions) ‘according to himself, ‘
selon moy
’ (
secundum me
). Anything which is said
secundum quid
(‘according to anything’) is not stated
simpliciter
(absolutely, simply) but in some partial respect only. Anything stated
‘selon Dieu’
, ‘according to God’ (
secundum Deum
) would be infallible and a matter of absolute faith.
21
. That was the practice of the Reformed Church. (Cf. Joachim Du Bellay,
Regrets
, 136, on the Genevan Calvinists.)
22
. Persius,
Satires
, II, 4; glossing a petition from the Lord’s Prayer.
23
. Persius,
Satires
, II, 21–31. The young monarch (or
‘prince’
) in the next paragraph is Francis. (cf. Margaret of Navarre,
Heptaméron
, III, 25).
Prince
regularly means
King
in the Renaissance, as a current Latinism.
24
. Lucan,
Pharsalia
, V, 104–5.
25
. Persius,
Satires
, II, 6–7; Horace,
Epistles
, III, i, 16–19.
26
. For Oedipus, cf. Plato,
Second Alcibiades
, 138 B–C. Then, for prayer, cf. The ‘magic’ prayers of Panurge during the Storm in the
Quart Livre
of Father Rabelais. Montaigne’s point is theologically sound and, at the time, not difficult to grasp.
27
. That is, Christianity.
28
. ’80: those
concupiscences
which…
1
. Presumably the biblical ‘three-score years and ten’, held to be the norm.
2
. Plutarch,
Life of Cato of Utica
.
5
. Lucretius, III, 452–4.
6
. Montaigne’s next-to-last noun,
oisiveté
probably renders the classical Latin word
otium;
in which case he is not thinking of ‘idleness’ but of that ‘leisure’ time, when learning, study and culture took precedence over ‘business’ (
negotium
), which included all duties and employments.
