The Complete Essays (113 page)

          [B]
Minutatim vires et robur adultum
Frangit, et in partem pejorem liquitur ætas
.

[Bit by bit age smashes their vigour and their adult strength, and they drift into a diminished existence.]

[A] From now on, what I shall be is but half a being it will no longer be me,

Singula de nobis anni prædantur euntes
.
[One by one things are stolen by the passing years.]
²¹

Skill and agility I have never had; yet I am the son of [C] a very agile father, [A] with an energy which lasted into his extreme old age. There was hardly anyone of his rank to equal him in all the physical exercises, just as I have in found hardly anyone who could not do better than me except at running (at which I was among the average). As for music, either vocal (for which my voice is quite unsuited) or instrumental, nobody could ever teach me anything. At dancing, tennis and wrestling I have never been able to acquire more than a slight, vulgar skill; and at swimming, fencing, vaulting and jumping, no skill at all. My hand is so clumsy that I cannot even read my own writing, so that I prefer to write things over again rather than to give myself the trouble of disentangling my scribbles. [C] And my reading aloud is hardly better: I can feel myself boring my audience. That apart, I am quite a good scholar! [A] I can never fold up a letter neatly, never sharpen a pen, never carve passably at table, [C] nor put harness on horse, nor bear a hawk properly nor release it, nor address hounds, birds or horses.

[A] My bodily endowments are, in brief, in close harmony with my soul’s. There is no agility, merely a full firm vigour; but I can stick things out, provided that I set myself to it and as long as I am guided by my own desires:

Molliter austerum studio fallente laborem
.
[The pleasure hides the austerity of the toil.]
²²

Otherwise if I am not attracted by some pleasure and if I have any guide but my own will, pure and free, then I am no good at all. For as I am now, except for life and health there is nothing [C] over which I am willing to chew my nails or [A] which I am willing to purchase at the cost of a tortured spirit or constraint –

[B]
tanti mihi non sit opaci
Omnis arena Tagi, quodque in mare volvitur aurum;

[at such a price I would not buy all the sand of the muddy Tagus nor the gold which it carries down to the sea;]

[C] being extremely idle and extremely free both by nature and by art. I would as soon give the blood of my veins as to take any pains.

[A] My Soul is herself’s alone and used to acting after her own fashion. Since up till now I have never had anyone giving me orders or any forced
master I have gone my way just as far and just as fast as I liked. That has made me slack and useless to serve others; it has made me good for nothing but myself. And for myself there was no need to force my heavy, lazy, dilatory nature. Finding myself since birth with such a degree of fortune that I had cause to remain as I was, and with such a degree of intelligence as to make me appreciate that fact, I have sought nothing – and have taken nothing either:

Non agimur tumidis velis Aquilone secundo;
Non tamen adversis ætatem ducimus austris:
Viribus, ingenio, specie, virtute, loco, re,
Extremi primorum, extremis usque priores
.

[I do not scud with bellying sails before the good North Wind, nor does an adverse gale from the south stay my course: in strength, in wit, in beauty, virtue, birth and goods I am the last of the first and the first of the last.]
²³

The only talent I needed was to be content with myself– [C] which is nevertheless an ordering of the soul (if you understand it aright) equally hard in any sort of circumstances and which in practice we can find more readily in want than in plenty, perhaps because (as is the way with our other passions too) the hunger for riches is more sharpened by having them than by lacking them, while the virtue of moderation is rarer than that of endurance. All I needed was [A] gently to enjoy such good things as God in his bounty has placed in my hands. I have never tasted [C] excruciating [A] toil of any kind. [C] I have had to manage little apart from my own affairs; or if I have had to do anything else, it was in circumstances which let me manage things in my own time and in my own way, delegated to me by such as trusted me, never bothered me and knew me. For experienced men can even get some service out of a skittish wheezing horse. My very boyhood was spent [A] in a manner slack and free,
²⁴
exempt from rigorous subjection. All of which formed a fastidious complexion for me, one incapable of supporting worry – to the extent that I prefer people to hide my losses and my troubles from
me: under the heading
Expenditure
I include whatever my indifference costs me for its board and lodging:

hæc nempe supersunt,
Quæ dominum fallant, quæ prosint furibus
.

[superfluities which the Master never knows about and which profit the thieves.]

I prefer not to know about my estate-accounts so as to feel my losses less exactly. [B] Whenever those who live with me lack affection and its duties I beg them to deceive me, paying me by putting a good face on things. [A] I do not have firmness enough to put up with the importunate demands of those adverse accidents which we are subject to and I cannot brace myself to control and manage my affairs; so, by abandoning myself to Fortune, I nurture in me as much as I can the opinion which always sees the worst of everything; and then I resolve to bear that worst gently and patiently. That is the only thing I do work at: it is the goal towards which I direct all my arguments.

[B] Faced with danger I do not reflect on how to escape but on how little it matters that I do so. If I remained in danger what would it matter? Not being able to control events I control myself: if they will not adapt to me then I adapt to them. I have hardly any of the art of knowing how to cheat Fortune, of escaping her or compelling her, nor of dressing and guiding affairs to my purpose by wisdom. I have even less powers of endurance for sustaining the bitter painful care which is needed to do so. And the most anguishing position for me is to remain in suspense among pressing troubles, torn between fear and hope. It bothers me to make up my mind even about the most trivial things, and I feel my spirits more hard-pressed in suffering the swings of doubt and the diverse shocks of decision-making than in remaining fixed, resigned to any outcome whatsoever once the dice have been thrown. Few emotions have ever disturbed my sleep, yet even the slightest need to decide anything can disturb it for me. For my journey I avoid steep slippery downward slopes and leap into the most muddy and mirey of beaten tracks from which I can slip no lower, and find assurance there: so too I prefer misfortunes to be unalloyed, ones which do not try me, nor trouble me further about whether they can be put right, but which immediately drive me straight into suffering.

[C]
Dubia plus torquent mala
.
[Uncertain evils most torment us.]
²⁵

[B] In events I act like a man: in the conduct of events, like a boy. The dread of a tumble gives me more anguish than the fall. That game is not worth the candle: the miser with his passion fares worse than the poor man, and the jealous husband worse than the cuckold; and there is often less harm in losing your vineyard than in pleading for it in court. The bottom step is the surest: it is the seat of Constancy; there, you need only yourself, and she can make it her base and rely on herself alone.

The following example of a gentleman known to many has something philosophical about it, has it not? He married when well on in years, having spent his youth as a good drinking-companion; he was a great raconteur and a great lover of jests. Recalling how the subject of cuckoldry had provided him with matter for stories and gibes against others, he sought protection by marrying a wife whom he chose in a place where anyone can find a woman for money and he established terms of acquaintance with her: ‘Good morning, Mistress Whore!’ – ‘Good morning, Master Cuckold!’ In his home there was no subject which he more frequently and openly entertained his visitors with than this plan of his, by which he bridled the secret gossip of the mockers and blunted the sharp points of his disgrace.

[A] As for Ambition (which is neighbour to Presumption, or rather her daughter), to find me advancement Fortune would have needed to seek me out by the hand; as for striving for an uncertain hope and submitting myself to all the difficulties which accompany those who seek to thrust themselves forward at the start of their careers, I never could have done it.

[B]
Spem pretio non emo
.
[I will not pay cash for some hope in the future.]
²⁶

I bind myself to what I can see and to what I can hold on to; and I scarcely venture far from the harbour:

Alter remus aquas, alter tibi radat arenas
.
[Let one oar sweep the water and the other sweep the strand.]

And then, few land such advancements without first hazarding their goods; moreover I am convinced that, as soon as a man has enough to keep the estate which he was born to and brought up for, it is madness to give up
what he holds in his hand for the uncertain chance of increasing it. A man to whom Fortune refuses the means of not being footloose and of establishing a calm and tranquil life can be excused if he stakes all that he has on chance, since either way necessity sends him out on a quest:

[C]
Capienda rebus in malis præceps via est
.
[In misfortune dangerous paths must be taken.]

[B] And I can excuse a younger son for chancing his inheritance more than I can a man who is responsible for the honour of a household which may fall into want only through his fault.

[A] On the advice of good friends of mine in former times I have indeed found the shorter easier road to ridding myself of such desires and to remaining quiet,

cui sit conditio dulcis sine pulvere palmæ;

[a man whose pleasant lot is to gain the palms without struggling in the dusty arena;]
²⁷

making also a healthy judgement that my powers are incapable of great achievements, and also remembering that quip of the late Chancellor Olivier, that the French are like monkeys which go scrambling up a tree from branch to branch, never ceasing until they reach the top; then, once they are there, they show you their arses.

[B]
Turpe est, quod nequeas, capiti comtnittere pondus,
Et pressum inflexo mox dare terga genu
.             

[It is shameful to heap loads on your head which you cannot bear, only to bend your knees and show your back.]

[A] The very qualities that I do have which do not deserve reproach are useless, I find, in this century. The affability of my manners would be called slackness and weakness; my faith and my conscience would be thought over-scrupulous and superstitious; my frankness and freedom, inconsiderate and audacious. Evil fortune does have some use: it is a good thing to be born in a century which is deeply depraved, for by comparison with others you are reckoned virtuous on the cheap. Nowadays if you have merely murdered your father and committed sacrilege you are an honest honourable man:

[B]
Nunc, si depositum non inficiatur amicus,
Si reddat veterem cum tota ærugine follem,
Prodigiosa fides et Tuscis digna libellis,
Quæque coronata lustrari debeat agna
.

[If a friend nowadays does not deny that you entrusted money to him and returns your old purse full of rusty coins, he is a prodigy of trustworthiness, meriting a place on the Etruscan Kalendar and the sprinkled blood of a sacrificial lamb.]

And there never was a time and place in which princes could find greater or surer reward given to their generosity and justice. Unless I am mistaken, the first prince to make himself favoured and trusted in that way will, at little cost, outstrip his companions. Might and violence can achieve something, but not always and not everything.

[C] Where valour and the art of war are concerned we can see tradesmen, village wise men and artisans matching the nobility: they fight honourably in open combat and in duels; they do battle and defend cities in these wars of ours. A prince’s reputation is smothered in such a throng. Let him shine forth by his humanity, truthfulness, loyalty, temperance and above all by justice – which are rare tokens now, unknown and driven abroad. It is only by the good-will of the people that he can carry on his business: no other qualities can gratify that good-will more than these, since they are more useful to them than the others are.