The Complete Essays (211 page)
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Authors: Michel de Montaigne
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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.
7
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, IV, 702.
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
.
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.
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.)
