The Complete Essays (212 page)
Read The Complete Essays Online
Authors: Michel de Montaigne
Tags: #Essays, #Philosophy, #Literary Collections, #History & Surveys, #General
39
. St Augustine did have an illegitimate son. If Montaigne had read the
Confessions
he would have known of him.
40
. Aristotle,
Nicomachaean Ethics
, IX, vii, 3.
41
. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
, X, 243 ff., citing 283–4.
3
. [A] until [C]: weight,
without taking on anything else, hampered and constrained without movement or manoeuvring,
as if…
4
. Tacitus,
Annals
, III; Plutarch,
Life of Lucullus.
5
. [A] until [C]: the Younger,
surnamed Aemilianus,
who…
6
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Dicts notables des Anciens Roy, Princes et grands Capitaines,
204 F; 205 E.
7
. Ariosto,
Orlando furioso
, XII, 30–5.
8
. [A] until [C]: laden,
marching into battle
, were trained…
Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, II, xvi, 31.
9
. Plutarch,
Dicts notables des Princes
…, 205 D. (Cf. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, II, on the Spartan discipline, and Plutarch,
Dicts notables des Lacedaemoniens
.)
10
. ’80: Romans.
Now as it seems to me that their way was very close to our own, I once copied out the following passage from its author, having formerly taken the trouble to state much more fully what I knew about the comparison between our armour and that of the Romans; but that bit of my scribblings having been stolen with some others by one of my serving-men, I will not deprive him of the profit which he hopes to get out of it; besides it would be hard for me to chew over the same stuff twice.
‘They have…
The passages cited are from Ammianus Marcellinus, XIV and XV.
11
. Claudius Claudianus,
In Rufinum
, II, 358–62.
12
. ’80: armour.
I want to say the following words in conclusion
. Plutarch…
13
.Plutarch,
Life of Demetrius
.
1
. ’80: But
I have a memory which is unable to store for three days at a stretch any provisions which I have given into its keeping
. So…
2
. ’88: known
what I think
, Excutienda damus praecordia,
and
what point… Citing Persius,
Satires
, V, 22: later cited in III, 9, ‘On vanity’.
3
. ’80: knowledge
of what I am treating
. Do not linger over
the things I talk about
but over
the
fashioning
I give
to
them when talking
about them.
What I steal from others I do not wish to make mine: I claim no part in them except for my reasoning and judgement: the rest is not my role. I ask for nothing except that you should see whether I have been capable of selecting what can be rightly linked to my topic. The fact that I sometimes deliberately hide the name of the author in the things which I cite is intended
to rein in the
frivolousness of those who are concerned to make judgements upon whatever is offered them but who, having no flair for savouring the things in themselves, stop at the name of the workman or his reputation.
I wish them to scald themselves by
condemning the Cicero and Aristotle
in me. What I am obliged…
6
. ’80: category,
and from the centuries rather earlier than our own, the Ethiopian History
, are worth…
(For this work, cf. II, 8, note 13). Johannes Secundus’
Kisses
were much appreciated and imitated.
7
.
Amadis de Gaule
, a Spanish novel translated into French in twenty-one volumes, had the success of a high-class soap-opera.
8
. The
Axiochus
was already considered supposititious in the Renaissance.
9
. ’80: many
better
judgements,
nor does it rashly give itself the right to arraign them
. It blames…
10
. Catullus, XLIII, 8.
11
. Cicero, the Father of Eloquence; Horace (the ‘best’ judge) prefers Terence to Plautus,
Epistles
, II, i, 55 ff.
12
. Horace, ibid., II, ii, 120.
13
. Martial,
Epigrams
, VIII, dedication to the Emperor Domitian.
14
. ’80: nobility,
to compensate for that grace which they are unable to imitate
, try to…
15
. Virgil,
Georgics
, V, 194.
16
. Horace,
Ars poetica
, 343: the author who ‘wins every vote’,
‘miscuit utile dulci’
(mixes moral usefulness with delight).
17
. That is, since Bishop Amyot translated him into French.
18
. Seneca was born 4
BC,
Plutarch half a century later; Seneca was Nero’s tutor; Plutarch (it was thought) Trajan’s. (Here Montaigne writes a brief parallel life, in the style of Plutarch.)
19
. ’80: authors
to come quickly to the point
. I know…
20
. In pagan Rome,
Hoc age
was the order to commence the sacrificial slaughter;
Sursum corda
figures in the Christian liturgy of the Eucharist.
21
. ’80: Letters,
and especially those to
Atticus…
22
. ’80: equal it.
Yet he was not able to exploit his superiority as clearly as Virgil did in his poetry: for soon after him many thought they could equal him or surpass him, though under fake colours: but no poet since Virgil had dared to compare himself to him; and I would like to add another story on this topic
. The younger Cicero…
23
. Marcus Annaeus Seneca,
Suasiorae
, VIII.
24
. Tacitus,
Oratores
, XVIII.
25
. Indeed a rough bit of Latin! (Cicero,
De Senectute
, X, 32.)
26
. ’80: The historians
are the true game that my study would bag;
they are pleasant and delightful, and at the same time,
reflections on the natures and circumstances of various men and on the customs of different nations are the real subject of ethics
. Now…
27
. ’80: for me.
I most carefully seek out not only the various opinions and arguments on my endeavour of ancient philosophers of all the schools, but also their morals, fates and lives
. I am deeply sorry that we do not have Diogenes Laertiuses by the dozen, or that he himself did not spread himself more widely. In this genre…
Diogenes Laertius’ compendium of the lives and doctrines of philosophers is indeed incomplete and unoriginal.
28
. ’80: Cicero himself
and all the yap there ever was
. There…
Montaigne echoes Cicero’s frequently cited praise of Caesar in
Brutus or the Orator
.
29
. ’80: enemies,
and so much truth
, that…
30
. ’80: dimensions.
Those historians are also very commendable who have knowledge of the events they write about either because they played a part in doing them or because they were privy to those who were in charge. For
as often as not…
31
. ’80: were
always
found…
’80: doubt.
Though they did not write about what they had seen, they at least had experienced the managing of similar affairs which rendered their judgement more sound. For
what can we…
32
. Suetonius,
Life of Caesar
, LVI.
33
. Jean Bodin,
Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem
, Paris, 1566.
34
. Guicciardini wrote his
History of Italy
in Italian: Montaigne’s notes on it were in French.
35
.
Monsieur
(‘My Lord’) Du Bellay is Martin Du Bellay, under whose name the
Memoirs
were published. They include matter from other Du Bellays: Guillaume (the Seigneur de Langey), Bishop Jean and René.
36
. Guillaume and Martin Du Bellay.
37
. Philip Chabot (Brion) was disgraced in 1540; Montmorency, who was in part responsible, was disgraced in his turn. The King’s acknowledged mistress, the Duchesse d’Estampes, was influential in their downfall.
38
. Langey (Guillaume Du Bellay) sought to reconcile German Lutherans by reforming Roman Catholicism; he pacified the Piedmont and was Rabelais’ heroic statesman-scholar.
1
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, VII,
Arcesilaus
, II.
2
. Cicero,
Epistulae ad familiares
, XV, 19.
3
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, XIII, 3.
4
. Epaminondas was a Pythagorean; Socrates’ wife Xanthippe was, for Plato, the archetypal shrew.
7
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, I, xxx, 74.
8
. Julius Caesar; defeated by him at Pharsalia, Cato killed himself later at Utica.
9
. Horace,
Odes
, I, xxxvii, 29.
12
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, XI, 154–5.
13
. Horace,
Satires
, I, vi, 65–7.
14
. Horace,
Odes
, II, xvii, 13–16. (To be born under the equable Balance, Libra, was to be learned and judicious: cf. Manilius,
Astronomica
, IV, 202 ff.)
15
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, VII;
Antisthenes Atheniensis
, XXVII.
16
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, III;
Aristippus
, III and XXXVII.
17
. Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Epicurus
.
18
. Juvenal,
Satires
, VIII, 164–5.
19
. For Stoics the virtues are individually impossible without all the others. Cf. Cicero,
De finibus
, IV, xxviii, 77 ff. Augustine,
Catalogus hereseon
considers that this doctrine favours the Jovinian heresy.
20
. Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Aristotle
.
21
. Zopyrus the Physiognomist judged from Socrates’ features that he was lecherous and a dullard. Socrates agreed: he was born such, but had ‘reformed’ his soul: see Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, III;
Socratica
, LXXX; and Cicero,
De fato
, V, 10 for both Socrates and Stilpo.
22
. Lucretius, IV, 1099–10.
23
. Margaret of Navarre,
Heptaméron
, III
e
Journée, conte
30; she states that St Ambrose had to forbid such tests of virtue.
24
. ’80: I think a more appropriate
comparison would be with
hunting,
in which there seems to be more rapture: not in my opinion that the pleasure in itself is greater but because it affords us no leisure to brace and prepare ourselves against it, and that it surprises us
when…
