The Complete Essays (235 page)

7
. Tribonian, the ‘architect of the Pandects’ of Justinian. He ‘cut their slices’ by carving up the Roman laws into gobbets. For an attack on him in the same terms, cf. Rabelais,
Tiers Livre
, TLF, XLIIII, 82–94.

8
. Tacitus,
Annals
, III, xxv.

9
. The poets stressed that in the Golden Age, ‘there was no mine and thine’; and Ovid, in the
Metamorphoses
, I, 89 ff., stresses that no law was needed since each was guided by his innocent natural sense of right and wrong.

10
. Given Montaigne’s assimilation of Indians to happy primitive tribes in the Golden Age, those nations are doubtless to be sought in the Americas.

11
. Guillaume Bouchet,
Serées
, IX; Plato,
Republic
, III, 405 A.

12
. Experts in the ‘art’ of law were often, even on the title-pages of their own books, referred to as ‘princes’.

13
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LXXXIX, 3.

14
. Quintilian, X, iii, 16 (explaining why peasants and uneducated folk speak more directly and less hesitantly).

15
. Ulpian, the great second-century jurisconsult; the other two are Italian medieval glossators. Criticisms of such glossators was common in France among partisans of certain schools of legal methodology who included Guillaume Budé and Rabelais (cf.
Pantagruel
, TLF, IX
bis
, 76–100, etc.).

16
. Erasmus,
Adages
, II, III, LXVIII.

17
. [B] instead of [C]: path to it, and
killed
themselves. It is…

18
. Not Crates but Socrates, not the proverbially obscure Heraclitus, but a certain Delius; cf. Erasmus,
Adages
, I, III, XXXVI,
Davus sum non Oedipus
, linking the saying to Heraclitus and to Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Socrates
, II, xxii.

19
. A step in the argument from the opening quotation from
Metaphysics
, I, i: see the Introduction, p. xlv.

20
. ’88: consists in
doubt
and uncertainty…

21
. Cf. III, 11, ‘On the lame’, note 9. Apollo was surnamed
loxias
, ‘obscure’.

22
. Etienne de La Boëtie,
A Marguerite de Carle
.

23
. Aristotle,
Nicomachaean Ethics
, II, vii, 12, 1108a.

24
. A true statement. Geneseolutherans, Philippists (Melanchthonians), etc. formed hostile schools.

25
.
The
example of a perfect definition, which can be used both ways: you can start from the definition and arrive at Man: start from Man and arrive at this definition: Priscian,
Opera
, 1527, XVII, 1180.

26
. Cf. Erasmus,
Adages
, I, X, IX,
Hydram Secas;
you cut off one head of the serpent Hydra and several others grow in its place. (Well-known from Plato in the
Republic
, I, 427 A, where it is applied to the multiplicity of laws in an ill-governed state.)

27
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De la vertu
, 31, CD.

28
. St Augustine,
City of God
, XXI, viii.

29
. Cf. Cicero,
Academica
, II (
Lucullus
), 56.

30
. ’88: some fine
drawn-out
, forced…

31
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Diets
notables des anciens Roys
, 192 B.

32
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot): of. Jason, Tyrant of Thessalia;
Instruction pour ceulx qui manient affaires d’estat
, 173 F;
Pourquoy la justice divine differe quelquefois la punition des malefices
, 265 C (analogy with medicine).

33
. A surprising statement. The Stoics took Nature as their standard of value. But their conception of Nature was paradoxical and, as such, attacked by Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Que les Stoïques disent des choses plus estranges que les poëtes
(560C – 561A);
Les contredicts des Philosophes Stoïques
(561A – 574 C);
Des communes conceptions contre les Stoïques
(574 C – 588 F). Montaigne’s assertion may possibly be read into such objections, but one would expect him to have some definite authority behind him.

34
. From Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Aristippus
, II, xciii and xcix; Coelius Richerius Rhodiginus,
Antiquae lectiones
, XIV, vi.

35
. Cf. Henry Estienne,
Apophthegmata
, s. v. Alcibiades.

36
. ’88: on a man who
is not merely free from evil-doing but who acts better than others
. Our justice…

37
. China, increasingly known, especially from Jesuit sources, vastly widened the horizons of Renaissance moralists. Montaigne’s account doubtless derives from Juan Gonzalez, whose
Historia de las cosas mas notables de la China
(Rome, 1585) was rapidly translated into French by L. de la Porte (Paris, 1588).

38
. Cicero contrasts justice with equity (
De oratore
, I, lvi, 240). It was a legal contention that, in law, equity is above all to be observed (Spiegel,
Lexicon Juris Civilis
, s.v.
Aequitas
).

39
. [B] instead of [C]: no other. If anyone
obeys the law because it is just, obeys it not
. Our French laws…

40
. That is, a study of his own self replaces a study of Aristotle’s
Metaphysics
and
Physics
.

41
. Propertius, III, v, 26–30, 31; then a line interpolated from Lucan,
Pharsalia
, I, 417.

42
. ’88: than on
Plato
. Were I…

43
. ’88: Were it not that
I see nothing but lying and that
others do…

44
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, VII, 528–30.

45
. The
Know Thyself
of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. (Cf. III, 9, ‘On vanity’, note 160).

46
. Cf. Erasmus,
Adages
, I, VII, XCV,
Nosce teipsum
(citing Plato,
Charmides
, 164 D); Xenophon,
Memorabilia
, IV, ii, 24 ff, and his portrait of Socrates in general.

47
. Plato,
Meno
, XIV, 80.

48
. Xenophon,
Memorabilia
, IV, ii, 29–40.

49
. Cicero,
Academica
, I, xii, 45. (The standard reading today is
adsensionem
, assent, not
assertionem
, assertion.)

50
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De l’amitié fraternelle
, 81 F.

51
. Lucan,
Pharsalia
, IV, 599–60; of Anthaeus, one of the giants called Sons of Earth; cf. Du Bellay,
Antiquités de Rome
, TLF, 12 and 11.

52
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, VII,
Antisthenes
II and XLIV.
[B] instead of [C]: through Socrates,
the wisest man there ever was by the testimony of the gods and men
. This application…

53
. Virgil,
Georgics
, II, 103–4.

54
. ’88: ordinary
vile
souls…

55
. Cicero,
De finibus
, III, vii, 24.

56
. King Perses (or Perseus, as Livy calls him) was the last king of Macedonia and was conquered by Paulus Aemilius. For his character cf. Livy, XLI, xx.

57
. This bold judgement is made on the character of a king, doubtless Henry of Navarre (Henri Quatre). A rejected manuscript reading in the Bordeaux copy is:
‘I have since seen one other king to whom…’
Henry (King of Navarre, 1572–1610) became King of France in 1589. He is sure of himself enough, it is suggested, to accept frank criticism.

58
. ’88: without being hurt
and resentful
, those who risk…
Then, Plato,
Gorgias
, 487 A; Virgil,
Aeneid
, V, 415–16.

59
. ’88: constantly
cheated and diddled
as they are. How else…

60
. Cf. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, IV,
Alexander Magnus
, XV; LXIII, etc.

61
. Martial,
Epigrams
, X, xlvii, 12.

62
. Henry IV did indeed ask Montaigne to become such a counsellor, but too late, for Montaigne was dying.
’88: middling rank. A
prince
is not…

63
. That is Aristotle’s position on all arts at the outset of his
Metaphysics
. Renaissance scholars applied it particularly but not exclusively to medicine, the Art
par excellence
.

64
. Cf. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
VI,
Tiberius
, XIII (but referring not to ‘twenty years’ but to the age of sixty).

65
. Xenophon,
Memorabilia
, IV, vii, 9.

66
. Plato,
Republic
, III, 408 D–E.

67
. Horace,
Epodes
, XVIII, 1.

68
. Medicine and philosophy.

69
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, XC, 25 (regretting the luxury of civilized man).

70
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Propos de table
, 410 B, etc. (cited several more times in the
Oeuvres morales)
.

71
. A Stoic contention.

72
. ’88: were a
more noble
thing to borrow…
Vascosan and Plantin were two great printing-houses.

73
. ‘Miracles of Nature’ were unusual and most rare events but not in any theological sense miraculous: they were sources of wonder.

74
. Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Pyrrho
, IX, lxxxi. (The contemporary nobleman next mentioned is Marquis Jean de Vivonne.)

75
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LVI.

76
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, III,
Socratica
, LX.

77
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, CVIII, 17 f.

78
. Erasmus,
Adages
, IV, IX, XXV,
Usus est altera natura
.

79
. By using
discipline
for instilled habit, Montaigne may be echoing the usage of the Roman comedies, where
disciplina
has this sense.

80
. Juvenal,
Satires
, VI, 576–8.

81
. Plutarch,
Life of Philopoemen
, I.

82
. [B] instead of [C]: special goblet:
earthenware and silver displease me compared with glass, as does being served by hands which I am unused to or which are not in my employ, or from
a common cup,
and
I incline
to choose
glasses of a particular shape. Several such foibles…

83
. ’88: and so do ladies;
others have tact and competence as their qualities: I, frankness and freedom
. The lives…

84
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, XCII, 12.

85
. Untraced. Then verses from Pseudo-Gallus,
Elegeia
, I.

86
. Catullus, LXVI, 133–4; then, Horace,
Odes
, III, xxvi, 2.

87
. Ovid,
Amores
, III, vii, 26 (who says nine, not six, times).

88
. Known from Petronius. Cf. Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, IX, 98; then, Martial,
Epigrams
, XI, xxii, 7–8.