Essays of Michel de Montaigne Part 43

"Hoc igitur, quo to Jovis aurem impellere tentas, Dic agedum Staio: 'proh Jupiter! O bone, clamet, Jupiter!' At sese non clamet Jupiter ipse."

["This therefore, with which you seek to draw the ear of Jupiter, say to Staius. 'O Jupiter! O good Jupiter!' let him cry. Think you Jupiter himself would not cry out upon it?"--Persius, ii. 21.]

Marguerite, Queen of Navarre,--[In the Heptameron.]--tells of a young prince, who, though she does not name him, is easily enough by his great qualities to be known, who going upon an amorous a.s.signation to lie with an advocate's wife of Paris, his way thither being through a church, he never pa.s.sed that holy place going to or returning from his pious exercise, but he always kneeled down to pray. Wherein he would employ the divine favour, his soul being full of such virtuous meditations, I leave others to judge, which, nevertheless, she instances for a testimony of singular devotion. But this is not the only proof we have that women are not very fit to treat of theological affairs.

A true prayer and religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty G.o.d cannot enter into an impure soul, subject at the very time to the dominion of Satan. He who calls G.o.d to his a.s.sistance whilst in a course of vice, does as if a cut-purse should call a magistrate to help him, or like those who introduce the name of G.o.d to the attestation of a lie.

"Tacito mala vota susurro Concipimus."

["We whisper our guilty prayers."---Lucan, v. 104.]

There are few men who durst publish to the world the prayers they make to Almighty G.o.d:

"Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque, humilesque susurros Tollere de templis, et aperto vivere voto"

["'Tis not convenient for every one to bring the prayers he mutters out of the temple, and to give his wishes to the public ear.

--"Persius, ii. 6.]

and this is the reason why the Pythagoreans would have them always public and heard by every one, to the end they might not prefer indecent or unjust pet.i.tions as this man:

"Clare quum dixit, Apollo!

Labra movet, metuens audiri: Pulcra Laverna, Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri; Noctem peccatis, et fraudibus objice nubem."

["When he has clearly said Apollo! he moves his lips, fearful to be heard; he murmurs: O fair Laverna, grant me the talent to deceive; grant me to appear holy and just; shroud my sins with night, and cast a cloud over my frauds."--Horace, Ep., i. 16, 59.--(Laverna was the G.o.ddess of thieves.)]

The G.o.ds severely punished the wicked prayers of OEdipus in granting them: he had prayed that his children might amongst themselves determine the succession to his throne by arms, and was so miserable as to see himself taken at his word. We are not to pray that all things may go as we would have them, but as most concurrent with prudence.

We seem, in truth, to make use of our prayers as of a kind of jargon, and as those do who employ holy words about sorceries and magical operations; and as if we reckoned the benefit we are to reap from them as depending upon the contexture, sound, and jingle of words, or upon the grave composing of the countenance. For having the soul contaminated with concupiscence, not touched with repentance, or comforted by any late reconciliation with G.o.d, we go to present Him such words as the memory suggests to the tongue, and hope from thence to obtain the remission of our sins. There is nothing so easy, so sweet, and so favourable, as the divine law: it calls and invites us to her, guilty and abominable as we are; extends her arms and receives us into her bosom, foul and polluted as we at present are, and are for the future to be. But then, in return, we are to look upon her with a respectful eye; we are to receive this pardon with all grat.i.tude and submission, and for that instant at least, wherein we address ourselves to her, to have the soul sensible of the ills we have committed, and at enmity with those pa.s.sions that seduced us to offend her; neither the G.o.ds nor good men (says Plato) will accept the present of a wicked man:

"Immunis aram si terigit ma.n.u.s, Non sumptuosa blandior hostia Mollivit aversos Penates Farre pio et saliente mica."

["If a pure hand has touched the altar, the pious offering of a small cake and a few grains of salt will appease the offended G.o.ds more effectually than costly sacrifices."

--Horace, Od., iii. 23, 17.]

CHAPTER LVII

OF AGE

I cannot allow of the way in which we settle for ourselves the duration of our life. I see that the sages contract it very much in comparison of the common opinion: "what," said the younger Cato to those who would stay his hand from killing himself, "am I now of an age to be reproached that I go out of the world too soon?" And yet he was but eight-and-forty years old. He thought that to be a mature and advanced age, considering how few arrive unto it. And such as, soothing their thoughts with I know not what course of nature, promise to themselves some years beyond it, could they be privileged from the infinite number of accidents to which we are by a natural subjection exposed, they might have some reason so to do. What am idle conceit is it to expect to die of a decay of strength, which is the effect of extremest age, and to propose to ourselves no shorter lease of life than that, considering it is a kind of death of all others the most rare and very seldom seen? We call that only a natural death; as if it were contrary to nature to see a man break his neck with a fall, be drowned in shipwreck, be s.n.a.t.c.hed away with a pleurisy or the plague, and as if our ordinary condition did not expose us to these inconveniences. Let us no longer flatter ourselves with these fine words; we ought rather, peradventure, to call that natural which is general, common, and universal.

To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular, and, therefore, so much less natural than the others; 'tis the last and extremest sort of dying: and the more remote, the less to be hoped for.

It is, indeed, the bourn beyond which we are not to pa.s.s, and which the law of nature has set as a limit, not to be exceeded; but it is, withal, a privilege she is rarely seen to give us to last till then. 'Tis a lease she only signs by particular favour, and it may be to one only in the s.p.a.ce of two or three ages, and then with a pa.s.s to boot, to carry him through all the traverses and difficulties she has strewed in the way of this long career. And therefore my opinion is, that when once forty years we should consider it as an age to which very few arrive. For seeing that men do not usually proceed so far, it is a sign that we are pretty well advanced; and since we have exceeded the ordinary bounds, which is the just measure of life, we ought not to expect to go much further; having escaped so many precipices of death, whereinto we have seen so many other men fall, we should acknowledge that so extraordinary a fortune as that which has. .h.i.therto rescued us from those eminent perils, and kept us alive beyond the ordinary term of living, is not like to continue long.

'Tis a fault in our very laws to maintain this error: these say that a man is not capable of managing his own estate till he be five-and-twenty years old, whereas he will have much ado to manage his life so long.

Augustus cut off five years from the ancient Roman standard, and declared that thirty years old was sufficient for a judge. Servius Tullius superseded the knights of above seven-and-forty years of age from the fatigues of war; Augustus dismissed them at forty-five; though methinks it seems a little unreasonable that men should be sent to the fireside till five-and-fifty or sixty years of age. I should be of opinion that our vocation and employment should be as far as possible extended for the public good: I find the fault on the other side, that they do not employ us early enough. This emperor was arbiter of the whole world at nineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit to determine a dispute about a gutter.

For my part, I believe our souls are adult at twenty as much as they are ever like to be, and as capable then as ever. A soul that has not by that time given evident earnest of its force and virtue will never after come to proof. The natural qualities and virtues produce what they have of vigorous and fine, within that term or never,

"Si l'espine rion picque quand nai, A pene que picque jamai,"

["If the thorn does not p.r.i.c.k at its birth, 'twill hardly ever p.r.i.c.k at all."]

as they say in Dauphin.

Of all the great human actions I ever heard or read of, of what sort soever, I have observed, both in former ages and our own, more were performed before the age of thirty than after; and this ofttimes in the very lives of the same men. May I not confidently instance in those of Hannibal and his great rival Scipio? The better half of their lives they lived upon the glory they had acquired in their youth; great men after, 'tis true, in comparison of others; but by no means in comparison of themselves. As to my own particular, I do certainly believe that since that age, both my understanding and my const.i.tution have rather decayed than improved, and retired rather than advanced. 'Tis possible, that with those who make the best use of their time, knowledge and experience may increase with their years; but vivacity, prompt.i.tude, steadiness, and other pieces of us, of much greater importance, and much more essentially our own, languish and decay:

"Ubi jam validis qua.s.satum est viribus aevi Corpus, et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus, Claudicat ingenium, delirat linguaque, mensque."

["When once the body is shaken by the violence of time, blood and vigour ebbing away, the judgment halts, the tongue and the mind dote."--Lucretius, iii. 452.]

Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind; and I have seen enough who have got a weakness in their brains before either in their legs or stomach; and by how much the more it is a disease of no great pain to the sufferer, and of obscure symptoms, so much greater is the danger. For this reason it is that I complain of our laws, not that they keep us too long to our work, but that they set us to work too late.

For the frailty of life considered, and to how many ordinary and natural rocks it is exposed, one ought not to give up so large a portion of it to childhood, idleness, and apprenticeship.

[Which Cotton thus renders: "Birth though n.o.ble, ought not to share so large a vacancy, and so tedious a course of education." Florio (1613) makes the pa.s.sage read as-follows: "Methinks that, considering the weakness of our life, and seeing the infinite number of ordinary rocks and natural dangers it is subject unto, we should not, so soon as we come into the world, allot so large a share thereof unto unprofitable wantonness in youth, ill-breeding idleness, and slow-learning prentisage."]

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Advise to choose weapons of the shortest sort An ignorance that knowledge creates and begets Ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon it Can neither keep nor enjoy anything with a good grace Change of fashions Chess: this idle and childish game Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato Death of old age the most rare and very seldom seen Diogenes, esteeming us no better than flies or bladders Do not to pray that all things may go as we would have them Excel above the common rate in frivolous things Expresses more contempt and condemnation than the other Fancy that others cannot believe otherwise than as he does Gradations above and below pleasure Greatest apprehensions, from things unseen, concealed He did not think mankind worthy of a wise man's concern Home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints How infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback Led by the ears by this charming harmony of words Little knacks and frivolous subtleties Men approve of things for their being rare and new Must of necessity walk in the steps of another Natural death the most rare and very seldom seen Not to instruct but to be instructed.

Present Him such words as the memory suggests to the tongue Psalms of King David: promiscuous, indiscreet Rhetoric: an art to flatter and deceive Rhetoric: to govern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble Sitting betwixt two stools Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind Stupidity and facility natural to the common people The Bible: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it.

The faintness that surprises in the exercises of Venus Thucydides: which was the better wrestler To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular To make little things appear great was his profession To smell, though well, is to stink Valour will cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear Viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age We can never be despised according to our full desert When we have got it, we want something else Women who paint, pounce, and plaster up their ruins

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazlitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 9.

I. Of the inconstancy of our actions.

II. Of drunkenness.

III. A custom of the Isle of Cea.

IV. To-morrow's a new day.