The Complete Essays (11 page)

BOOK I

1. We reach the same end by discrepant means

[This first chapter treats of war and history, subjects appropriate to a nobleman. Montaigne introduces the irrational (astonishment, ecstasy and the fury of battle) and shows how unpredictable are the reactions of even great, brave and virtuous men. The verb
to assay
is used three times; explanations of motives are mere conjecture
–
what ‘could be said’; [A] cites the
exemplum
of Conrad III from the foreword to Bodin’s
Method towards an Easy Understanding of History,
which Montaigne was reading about 1578. In [B] he adds his own reactions.]

[A] The most common way of softening the hearts of those we have offended once they have us at their mercy with vengeance at hand is to move them to commiseration and pity [C] by our submissiveness.

[A] Yet flat contrary means, bravery and steadfastness,
¹
have sometimes served to produce the same effect.

Edward, Prince of Wales
²
– the one who long governed our Guyenne and whose qualities and fortune showed many noteworthy characteristics of greatness – having been offended by the inhabitants of Limoges, took their town by force. The lamentations of the townsfolk, the women and the children left behind to be butchered crying for mercy and throwing themselves at his feet, did not stop him until eventually, passing ever deeper into the town, he noticed three French noblemen who, alone, with unbelievable bravery, were resisting the thrust of his victorious army. Deference and respect for such remarkable valour first blunted the edge of his anger; then starting with those three he showed mercy on all the other inhabitants of the town.

Scanderbeg, Prince of Epirus, was pursuing one of his soldiers in order to kill him. The soldier, having assayed all kinds of submissiveness and supplications to try and appease him, as a last resort resolved to await him, sword in hand. Such resolution stopped his Master’s fury short; having seen him take so honourable a decision he granted him his pardon. (This example will allow of a different interpretation only from those who have not read of the prodigious strength and courage of that Prince.)

The Emperor Conrad III had besieged Guelph, Duke of Bavaria; no matter how base and cowardly were the satisfactions offered him, the most generous condition he would vouchsafe was to allow the noblewomen who had been besieged with the Duke to come out honourably on foot, together with whatever they could carry on their persons. They, with greatness of heart, decided to carry out on their shoulders their husbands, their children and the Duke himself. The Emperor took such great pleasure at seeing the nobility of their minds that he wept for joy and quenched all the bitterness of that mortal deadly hatred he had harboured against the Duke; from then on he treated him and his family kindly.

[B] Both of these means would have swayed me easily, for I have a marvellous weakness towards mercy and clemency – so much so that I would be more naturally moved by compassion than by respect. Yet for the Stoics pity is a vicious emotion: they want us to succour the afflicted but not to give way and commiserate with them.

[A] Now these examples seem to me to be even more to the point in that souls which have been assaulted and assayed by both those methods can be seen to resist one without flinching only to bow to the other.

It could be said that for one’s mind to yield to pity is an effect of affability, gentleness – and softness (that is why weaker natures such as those of women, children and the common-people are more subject to them) – whereas, disdaining [C] tears [A] and supplications
³
and then yielding only out of respect for the holy image of valour is the action of a strong, unbending soul, reserving its good-will and honour for stubborn, masculine vigour. Yet ecstatic admiration and amazement can produce a similar effect in the less magnanimous. Witness the citizens of Thebes: they had impeached their captains on capital charges for having extended their mandates beyond the period they had prescribed and preordained for them; they were scarcely able to pardon Pelopidas, who, bending beneath the weight of such accusations, used only petitions and supplications in his defence, whereas on the contrary when Epaminondas
came and gloriously related the deeds he had done and reproached the people with them proudly [C] and arrogantly, [A] they had no heart for even taking the ballots into their hands: the meeting broke up, greatly praising the high-mindedness of that great figure.

[C] The elder Dionysius had captured, after long delays and extreme difficulties, the town of Rhegium together with its commander Phyton, an outstanding man who had stubbornly defended it. He resolved to make him into a terrible example of vengeance. Dionysius first told him how he had, the previous day, drowned his son and all his relations. Phyton merely replied that they were happier than he was, by one day. Next he had him stripped, seized by executioners and dragged through the town while he was flogged, cruelly and ignominiously, and plied with harsh and shameful insults. But Phyton’s heart remained steadfast and he did not give way; on the contrary, with his face set firm he loudly recalled the honourable and glorious cause of his being condemned to death – his refusal to surrender his country into the hands of a tyrant – and he threatened Dionysius with swift punishment from the gods. Dionysius read in the eyes of the mass of his soldiers that, instead of being provoked by the taunts which this vanquished enemy made at the expense of their leader and of his triumph, they were thunder-struck by so rare a valour, beginning to soften, wondering whether to mutiny, and ready to snatch Phyton from the hands of his guards; so he brought Phyton’s martyrdom to an end and secretly sent him to be drowned in the sea.

[A] Man is indeed an object miraculously vain, various and wavering. It is difficult to found a judgement on him which is steady and uniform. Here you have Pompey pardoning the entire city of the Mamertines, against whom he was deeply incensed, out of consideration for the valour and great-heartedness of Zeno,
⁴
a citizen who assumed full responsibility for the public wrong-doing and who begged no other favour than alone to bear the punishment for it. Yet that host of Sylla showed similar bravery in the city of Perugia and gained nothing thereby, neither for himself nor for the others.

[B] And, directly against my first examples, Alexander, the staunchest of men and the most generous towards the vanquished, stormed, after great hardship, the town of Gaza and came across Betis who commanded it; of his valour during the siege he had witnessed staggering proofs; now Betis was alone, deserted by his own men, his weapons shattered; all covered with blood and wounds, he was still fighting in the midst of several
Macedonians who were slashing at him on every side. Alexander was irritated by so dearly won a victory (among other losses he had received two fresh wounds in his own body); he said to him: ‘You shall not die as you want to, Betis! Take note that you will have to suffer every kind of torture which can be thought up against a prisoner!’ To these menaces Betis (not only looking assured but contemptuous and proud) replied not a word. Then Alexander, seeing his haughty and stubborn silence said: ‘Has he bent his knee? Has he let a word of entreaty slip out? Truly I will overcome that refusal of yours to utter a sound: if I cannot wrench a word from you I will at least wrench a groan.’ And as his anger turned to fury he ordered his heels to be pierced
⁵
and, dragging him alive behind a cart, had him lacerated and dismembered.

Was it because [C] bravery was so usual for him
⁶
that [B] he was never struck with wonder by it and therefore respected it less? [C] Or was it because he thought bravery to be so properly his own that he could not bear to see it at such a height in anyone else without anger arising from an emotion of envy; or did the natural violence of his anger allow of no opposition? Truly if his anger could ever have suffered a bridle it is to be believed that it would have done so during the storming and sack of Thebes, at seeing so many valiant men put to the sword, men lost and with no further means of collective defence. For a good six thousand of them were killed, none of whom was seen to run away or to beg for mercy; on the contrary all were seeking, here and there about the streets, to confront the victorious enemy and to provoke them into giving them an honourable death. None was so overcome with wounds that he did not assay with his latest breath to wreak revenge and to find consolation for his own death in the death of an enemy. Yet their afflicted valour evoked no pity; a day was not long enough to slake the vengeance of Alexander: this carnage lasted until the very last drop of blood remained to be spilt; it spared only those who were disarmed – the old men, women and children – from whom were drawn thirty thousand slaves.

2. On sadness

 

[Chapters 2–18 (in their [A] version) seem to date from the earliest period, reflecting the influence of books which Montaigne was reading about 1572 – Guicciardini’s
History of Italy,
Jean Bouchet’s
Mémoires d’Aquitaine
and the
Mémoires
of the Du Bellay brothers
. ‘On sadness’
shows Montaigne’s concern with ecstasies produced by strong emotions and his impatience with merely fashionable
tristesse
(sadness) which sought to ape the abstracted, pensive depths of melancholy genius (as portrayed, for example, by Dürer).
]

[B] I am among those who are most free from this emotion; [C] I neither like it nor think well of it, even though the world, by common consent, has decided to honour it with special favour. Wisdom is decked out in it; so are Virtue and Conscience – a daft and monstrous adornment. More reasonably it is not sadness but wickedness that the Italians have baptised
tristezza,
¹
for it is a quality which is ever harmful, ever mad. The Stoics forbid this emotion to their sages as being base and cowardly.

[A] But a story is told about Psammenitus, a King of Egypt. When he was defeated and captured by Cambises the King of Persia he showed no emotion as he saw his daughter walk across in front of him, dressed as a servant and sent to draw water. All his friends were about him, weeping and lamenting: he remained quiet, his eyes fixed on the ground. Soon afterwards he saw his son led away to execution; he kept the same countenance. But when he saw one of his household friends brought in among the captives, he began to beat his head and show grief.
²

You can compare that with what we recently saw happen to one of our princes.
³
He was at Trent: first he heard the news of the death of his very special elder brother, the support and pride of his whole family; then came the death of his younger brother, their second hope. He bore both these blows with exemplary fortitude; yet, when a few days later one of his men happened to die, he let himself be carried away by this event; he abandoned
his resolute calm and gave himself over to grief and sorrow – so much so that some argued that only this last shock had touched him to the quick. The truth is that he was already brimful of sadness, so the least extra burden broke down the barriers of his endurance.

We could, I suggest, put the same interpretation on the story of Psammenitus, except that the account goes on to tell us that Cambises asked him why he had remained unmoved by the fate of his son and daughter yet showed such emotion at the death of his friend. ‘Only the last of these misfortunes can be expressed by tears’, he replied; ‘the first two are way beyond any means of expression.’

That may explain the solution adopted by a painter in antiquity.
⁴
He had to portray the grief shown on the faces of the people who were present when Iphigenia was sacrificed, giving each of them the degree of sorrow appropriate to his feelings of involvement in the death of that fair and innocent young woman. By the time he came to portray the father of Iphigenia he had exhausted all the resources of his art, so he painted him with his face veiled over, as though no countenance could display a grief so intense.

That is why the poets feign that when Niobe lost seven sons and then seven daughters she was overcome by such bereavements and was finally turned into a rock:

 

Diriguisse malis
.
[Petrified by such misfortunes.]
⁵

 

By this they expressed that sad, deaf, speechless stupor which seizes us when we are overwhelmed by tragedies beyond endurance.

The force of extreme sadness inevitably stuns the whole of our soul, impeding her freedom of action. It happens to us when we are suddenly struck with alarm by some really bad news: we are enraptured, seized, paralysed in all our movements in such a way that, afterwards, when the soul lets herself go with tears and lamentations, she seems to have struggled loose, disentangled herself and become free to range about as she wishes:

 

[B]
Et via vix tandem voci laxata dolore est
.
[And then, at length, his grief can just force open a channel for his voice.]
⁶

 

[C] In the war which King Ferdinand waged near Buda against the widow of King John of Hungary, there was a German officer called Raïsciac. As he saw men bringing back the body of a soldier slung across a horse, he joined in the general mourning for the man who had shown exceptional bravery in the clash of battle. Like the others he was curious to know who the man was. When they took off the armour he recognized his son. Amid all the public tears he alone stood dry-eyed, saying nothing, his gaze fixed on his son until the violent strain of that sadness froze his vital spirits and, just as he was, toppled him dead to the ground.
⁷

 

[A]
Chi puo dir com’ egli arde e in picciol fuoco
–
[He who can describe how his heart is ablaze is burning on a small pyre]
⁸
–

 

that is what lovers say when they want to express an unbearable passion.

 

   
misero quod omnes
Eripit sensus mihi. Nam simul te,
Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi
   
Quod loquar amens
.

 

 

Lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
Flamma dimanat, sonitu suopte
Tinniunt aures, gemina teguntur
   Lumina nocte
.

 

[How pitiable I am. Love snatches my senses from me. As soon as I see you, Lesbia, I can say nothing to you; I am out of my mind; my tongue sticks in my mouth; a fiery flame courses through my limbs; my ears are ringing and darkness covers both my eyes.]
⁹

[B] We cannot display our grief or our convictions during the living searing heat of the attack; the soul is then burdened by deep thought and
the body is cast down, languishing for love. [A] That is the source of the occasional impotence which sometimes comes so unseasonably upon men when making love, and of that chill produced, in the very lap of their delight by excessive ardour. For pleasures to be tasted and then digested they must remain moderate:

 

Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent
.
[Light cares can talk: huge one are struck dumb.]
¹⁰

 

[B] We can be equally stunned when surprised by joy unhoped for:

 

Ut me conspexit venientem, et Troïa circum
Arma amens vidit, magnis exterrita monstris,
Diriguit visu in medio, calor ossa reliquit,
Labitur, et longo vix tandem tempore fatur
.

 

[As soon as she noticed me coming and saw the arms of Troy all about her, she went out of her mind. As though terrified by some dreadful portents her gaze became fixed upon them, the heat drained from her body; she fell to the ground and for a long time uttered not a word.]
¹¹

[A] There was a Roman woman who was surprised by joy on seeing her son return from the rout at Cannae and fell down dead; Sophocles and Dionysius the Tyrant died of happiness; Talva died in Corsica upon reading the news of the honours conferred on him by the Senate. Apart from these it is claimed that in our own century Pope Leo X entered into such an excess of joy upon being told of the capture of Milan (his desire for which had been extreme) that he took fever and died.

And there is an even more noteworthy witness to [C] human [A] weakness:
¹²
the Ancients recorded that Diodorus the Dialectician ‘fell in the field’, overcome by an extreme sense of shame at being unable to refute arguments put to him in public in the presence of his followers.

[B] Violent emotions like these have little hold on me. By nature my sense of feeling has a hard skin, which I daily toughen and thicken by arguments.