The Complete Essays (227 page)

57
. Just possibly Pope Paul IV; then, Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, IV, xxxiii, 70, citing Ennius.

58
. Virgil,
Georgics
, III, 242–4.
Bona Dea
(the Good Goddess) was worshipped by Roman women as the patron of fertility and chastity. No man might enter her temple.

59
. Plato made both men and women subject to sexual organs which were deaf to reason. Ancient medical writers isolated the women in this context, with the result that women – but not men – were, on the highest medical authority, for centuries thought to be subject to an irrational ‘animal’ (the womb), the frustrations of which could cause a form of hysteria (‘womb-disease’) all but indistinguishable from death. Rabelais makes this medical belief central to his doctor’s judgement on women in the
Tiers Livre du Pantagruel
, XXXII. Montaigne, unlike Rabelais, shows great independence of mind by going back to Plato himself
(Timaeus
, 91 B-C), so putting men and women essentially on a par, sexually speaking, both being subject to the irrational demands of their genitalia (which were defined in both sexes as ‘animals’ in accordance with criteria long accepted by doctors).

60
. The ‘fine fellow’ who put fig leaves on the Roman statues.

61
. Plato,
Republic
, V, 452.

62
. G. Balbi,
Viaggio del’ Indie
, then, for Livia, Dion Cassius,
Life of Tiberius

63
. The
vertugade
(farthingale) was a structure worn beneath the skirts. Obviously, it ‘got in the way’. Montaigne therefore derives
vertugade
from
‘virtue-guard’
.

64
. St Augustine,
City of God
, XXII, xvii; St Paul (Romans 8:29) teaches that God will raise Christians from the dead to be ‘conformed to the image of His Son’. Augustine denies that this means that all Christians, male and female, will arise again as males.

65
. Horace,
Odes
, II, xii, 21–8 (the text is corrected from the posthumous printed editions of Montaigne).

66
. St Jerome,
Contra Jovinianum
, II – a work so rhetorically hostile to marriage that Erasmus prefaced it with an ‘Antidote’.

67
. Source unknown. Cf. (not very close!) Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Comment on pourra recevoir utilité de ses ennemis
, 110 EF.

68
. Ovid,
Ars amandi
, III, 93; then a verse from the
Priapeia
.

69
. A tale related, after Aelianus, by Coelius Richerius Rhodiginus,
Antiquae Lectiones
, XXV, xxxii.

70
. Johannes Secundus,
Elegiae
, I, vii, 71–2.

71
. Plutarch,
Life of Pompey
(Lepidus intercepted a love-letter and died of grief); then, Catullus, XV, 17–19. (For this use of mullet to punish adulterers, cf. Juvenal,
Satires
, X, 317.)

72
. Vulcan, in the verse of Virgil cited, p. 958; then, Ovid,
Metamorphoses
, IV, 187–8.

73
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, VII, 395–6; then, VIII, 383; VIII, 441.

74
. Catullus, LXVIII, 141.

75
. Above all, Plato and, presumably, those who follow him.

76
. Catullus, LXVIII, 138–9.

77
. Propertius, II, viii, 3.

78
. Tacitus,
History
, IV, xliv.

79
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, V, 6.

80
. A misunderstanding of Herodotus, IV; cf. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Que la vertu se peult enseigner et apprendre
, 399: the Scythian women blinded slaves to stop them from stealing milk. (Montaigne had certainly read this passage, the following sentence of which concerning Iphicrates he used in I, 40 ‘Reflections on Cicero’.)

81
. Plutarch sees it as the sign of a good marriage
(Les preceptes de mariage
, 146 A).

82
. Homer,
Odyssey
, XVII, 347, cited by Plato (
Charmides
, 161 A).

83
. Catullus, LXVII, 21–2.

84
. Martial,
Epigrams
, VII, lxi, 6; then, VI, vii, 6.

85
. St Augustine,
City of God
, I, xviii (stressing that modesty is a matter of the mind not the body).

86
. Fatua’s case was a commonplace; Plutarch tells of Hiero’s wife
(Comment on pourra recevoir utilité de ses ennemis
, 111 D-E). So does Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, IV, 1.

87
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De l’amour
, 606 E-F; then, for Galba, 606 D-E and Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, VI,
Varie mixta
, LVIII.

88
. Flavius Arrian,
Alexander the Great
, VII.

89
. The usual accounts say Phaedo was compelled to do so (cf. Aulus Gellius,
Attic Nights
, II, xviii, 1). Then, cf. for Solon, Coelius Richerius Rhodiginus,
Antiquae lectiones
, XIV, iv, and Juvenal,
Satires
, VI, 347–8.

90
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Demandes des choses Romaines
, IX, 462 B-L; S. Goulart,
Hist. générale des Indes
, in which the priests are called
Piates
.

91
. Lucretius, III, 1041 (adapted) and III, 1039.

92
. Catullus, LXIV, 170.

93
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De la tranquillité de l’ame et de l’esprit
, 72 C.

94
. Cf. II, 3, ‘A custom of the Isle of Cea’, p. 406.

95
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, VIII,
Alphonsus Aragonum Rex
, IV, commented upon in Montaigne’s sense.

96
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Dicts notables des anciens Roys…
, 203 B.

97
. Ovid,
Tristia
, IV, i, 34; then, Terence,
Eunuch
, IV, viii, 43 and Lucan,
Pharsalia
, II, 446.

98
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, XII, 499. The standard source about Messalina is Tacitus, XI, xvi-xvii. She is given as an example of ‘prodigious lust’ by Tiraquellus and, indeed, by almost everyone.

99
. Lucretius, I, 33–40. The first three of the following Latin words are from Lucretius, and so is
pendet
. The rest are from the lines of Virgil which are alluded to in the title of this chapter and cited above (cf. p. 958). Montaigne believed that Lucretius’ use of the word
circunfusa
(literally ‘poured like water around’ the body of Mars in a close embrace) was imitated by Virgil when he used
infusus
in a similar sense.

100
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, XXXIII, 1.

101
. Quintilian, X, vii, 15.

102
. Plutarch,
Life of Demosthenes
.

103
. Authors of treatises on Renaissance Platonic love: Ficino,
Commentary on Plato’s Symposium
; Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel),
Dialogues of Love
.

104
. ’88: trade, I would
treat art as naturally as a could
. Let us…
Allusions follow to Pietro Bembo,
Gli Asolani
and Mario Equicola,
On the Nature of Love:
two more Renaissance Platonists.

105
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Comment on peult discerner le flatteur d’avec l’amy
, 49 H.

106
. Or rather,
Antigenides
. Cf. Coelius Richerius Rhodiginus,
Antiquae Lectiones
, XV, x.

107
. Diodorus Siculus, XVII, xxv.

108
. ’95: balls,
analogous to the pleasure which Nature vouchsafes to us when we are unloading other organs of ours;
it becomes…
    Montaigne’s word for balls,
vases
, represents the Latin word
vas (tool
) used in this sense in the Priapics and, for example, by Plautus,
Poenulus
IV, ii.

109
. Aristotle,
Nicomachaean Ethics
, II, ii, 1104 a ff.

110
. Plato,
Symposium
, 203 ff.

111
. Zeno, the founder of the Stoic School; Cratippus, the Peripatic who taught the son of Cicero; both admitted the effects of terrifying emotion: cf. St Augustine,
City of God
, IX, iv.

112
. Plato,
Laws
, VII, 803 E and I, 644 D; then, Claudius Claudianus,
In Eutropium
, I, 24.

113
. Horace,
Satires
, I, i, 24.

114
. Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, XV, 63–4.

115
. The Essenes forbade procreation, depending on proselytes to continue their community (Pliny, V, xvii).

116
. Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Zeno
.

117
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Demandes des choses Romaines
, 469 A: not a general statement, but Aristotle’s gloss on a term in a peace-treaty between the Arcadians and the Spartans.

118
. Diodorus Siculus, XII, xvii; then, Terence,
Phormio
, I, iii, 20.
    ’88: poenitet.
We condemn in hundreds of ways the circumstances of our being
. There are…

119
. ’88: What.
disnatured
animal…
    (Cf. the similar change in note 121.)

120
. Virgil,
Georgics
, II, 511.

121
. Pseudo-Gallus, I, 180.
    ’88: enough
natural
misfortunes… (‘Necessary’ misfortunes are those entailed by the human condition and its
necessitates

122
. Virgil and Lucretius, cited earlier.

123
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De la curiosité
, 64 C.

124
. Ovid,
Amores
, I, v, 24.

125
. As, for example, in ‘stolen’ kisses.

126
. Aristotle,
Nicomachaean Ethics
, III, x, 1118a; Aristophanes,
The Frogs
, 934.

127
. Allusion to a famous legal tale related by Rabelais (
Tiers Livre
, TLF, xxxvii, after Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, XI, 5): a chef complained that a poor man was savouring the smell of his roast beef: a fool, called in to judge, ordered the smell to be paid by the jangle of coins.

128
. An ancient Roman gibe against the Gauls (referring to military not amorous ventures): Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, VI,
Varie mixta
, CIII.

129
. Catullus, LXIV, 147–8; then, Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Zeno
.

130
. Platonic theories of mutual love held that by kissing one another lovers exchange souls and so literally ‘live in’ each other. Ficino had made such a belief current during the Renaissance.

131
. Martial,
Epigrams
, VII, cxv, 10–12.

132
. Ravisius Textor,
Officina: Animalium et aliarum rerum amatores
(for the statue);
amor conjugalis
(for Periander); Herodotus, II, lxxxix (for the Egyptian law).

133
. Erasmus,
Adages
, I, IX, LXIII,
Endymionis sonmium dormis
, alluding to the tale of the shepherd Endymion in Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, I, xxxviii, 92; Plato,
Phaedo
, 72 C; Aristotle,
Nicomachaean Ethics
, VI, viii.

134
. Martial, X, ciii; XI, lix; then, Catullus, LXVIII, 147–8 and Tibullus, I, vi, 35.