The Complete Essays (223 page)
Read The Complete Essays Online
Authors: Michel de Montaigne
Tags: #Essays, #Philosophy, #Literary Collections, #History & Surveys, #General
1
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LIII, 11–12 (mocked in II, 12, ‘An apology for Raymond Sebond’, as are the following anecdotes about Pyrrho).
2
. Diogenes Laertius,
Pyrrho
, IX.
3
. Tibullus,
De inertia inguinis
. (Story from H. Estienne,
Apologie pour Hérodote
, XV, xxix.)
4
. Propertius, II, xiii, 17–22.
5
. From Classical times suttee was known from Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, V, xxvii, 77 and its commentators; Montaigne clearly used another source as well.
6
. Plutarch,
Life of Alexander
.
7
. ‘Our Masters’: the title of Professors of Theology in the Sorbonne. Their explanation of God’s foreknowledge is the standard Platonico-Christian one: God, the Creator of time, alone has an absolute existence outside time. For God, all things past, present and future are seen in an eternal present. But to see an event is not to cause it; neither, for God therefore, is ‘foreseeing’ necessarily causative. (Cf. the end of II, 12, ‘An apology for Raymond Sebond’.)
8
. A theological quip. A ‘lively’ faith, a faith informed with charity, manifests itself through the works of charity. Otherwise it is dead. Theological controversy led Reformers and Evangelicals to segregate faith and works into discrete compartments: a man may have the ‘true’ faith yet do no corresponding good works which prove it to be a true and lively one. Both sides in the Civil Wars could be misled into contempt for good works, prizing orthodoxy above all else. Hence (for Montaigne) the decadence and the atrocities of his age in which rival credal orthodoxies took precedence over works of charity.
9
. Joinville,
Vie de Saint Louis
, XXX. (Guillaume Postel, the Renaissance expert on Turkish affairs, was struck by the religion and piety of the Turks and by their valour.)
10
. Cf. Innocent Gentillet,
Discours… de bien gouverner
, II, xii. Then, Nicolas Chalcocondylas,
De la décadence
…, VII, viii.
11
. Doubtless Henry of Navarre (Henry IV).
’95: profit from it,
should he either believe it or else use it as justification to take extraordinary risks, provided that Fortune does not tire too soon of giving him a leg up.
[B] In living…
12
. The would-be assassins were Jeaureguy (1582) and Balthasar Gérard (1584).
13
. The murder of the Duc de Guise (1563) by Poltrot de Méré.
14
. Balthasar Gérard.
15
. ’95: city,
during our expeditions in the Crusades. So too Conrad, Marquess of Montfarat, whose murderers were all brought to the scaffold full of elation and proud of so beautiful a masterpiece…
Cf. Bernard de Girard,
Hist. des Roys de France
.
1
. Cicero,
De divinatione
, II, xxxi, 56; Aristotle,
Rhetorica
, III, viii. On Epimenides the Greek philosopher and thaumaturge, cf. Cicero,
De legibus
, II, 11, 28;
De divinatione
, I, xviii; Pliny, VII, 48–53.
2
. Cicero,
De divinatione
, II, xxii, 49. (The Platonic notion of the ‘great chain of being’ held that God in his infinite power created all possible forms. Man, being finite, can know only a few of them.)
1
. Aristotle,
Nicomachaean Ethics
, X, ix, 1180a (with, for Crete, I, xiii, 1102a). The educational ideas of Sparta so impressed Erasmus that he devoted a whole section of the
Apophthegmata
to them, remarking as how Christians can learn from them.
2
. Juvenal, VI, 647–9; Hippocrates, in Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Comment il fault refrener la colere
579–H and, later, 60 E.
3
. Juvenal, XIV, 70–3.
4
. Ovid,
De arte amandi
, III, 503–4. (Echoes of Seneca’s
De ira
, III, xxxii, and of Plutarch’s (tr. Amyot)
Comment il fault refrener la colere
, and of Suetonius’
Caesar
.)
5
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Dicts notables des Lacedaemoniens
, 216–18.
6
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Comment il fault ouir
, 26G. Then, Aulus Gellius, I, xxvi.
7
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Comment il fault nourrir les enfans
, 6D–E;
Dicts notables des anciens Roys,
198 F–G. Both anecdotes are well-known from Erasmus’
Apophthegmata
, VII,
Plato
, VII; I,
Charillus seu Charilaus
, XLV; cf. also VIII,
Architas
, XXXII.
8
. Seneca,
De ira
, I, xvi.
9
. Seneca,
De ira
, III, viii; then, Plutarch,
Instruction pour ceulx qui manient affaires d’Estat
, 169 B.
10
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, VII, 462–6. (The man is unidentified.)
11
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, III,
Diogenes Cynicus
, XXXIII.
12
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LVI, 10 – reading
leniora
(more gentle) not
leviora
(more light).
13
. Claudianus,
In Eutropium
, I, 237; then Virgil,
Aeneid
, XII, 103–6.
14
. Aristotle,
Nicomachaean Ethics
, III, viii, 1167b, commented on by Seneca,
De ira
, III, viii, in Montaigne’s sense.
1
. The official French Roman Catholic name for the religion of the Reformed Church of the ‘Calvinists’ was
la Religion Prétendue Réformée
, often abbreviated to RPR.
2
. When Nero became Emperor in
AD
54, Seneca, who had been his tutor, became his counsellor and minister; the Cardinal of Lorraine was counsellor to Charles IX.
3
. Perhaps the
Memoires de l’Estat de France, sous Charles Neufiesme
of Simon Goulart.
4
. Dion Cassius’ censures in his Greek
Roman History
(which was widely read in Xylander’s Latin translation) are normally accepted now as justified. (But cf. Tacitus,
Annals
, XIII, 1, XIV, liii, etc.)
5
. Jean Bodin,
Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem
, 1566, IV, p. 58.
6
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, II, xiv, 34; cf. Erasmus,
Apopkthegtnata,
II,
Prisca Lacedaemoniorum Instituta
, XXXIV.
7
. Spartan boys were underfed and taught to steal food: i) to increase their hardihood and skill at foraging in war; ii) to make Spartans defend their property. Any boy
caught
stealing was flogged. (Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, XII.)
8
. Ammanius Marcellinus, XXII, xvi; then Tacitus,
Annals
, IV, xlv and XV, lvii.
9
. Cf. Cognatus’ Adage,
Miles Romane, Aegyptum cave.
10
. A well-known tale in Poggio’s
Facetiae
.
11
. A reworked passage revealing Montaigne’s conception of philosophical ecstasy: i) ’80: do themselves. I consider
some of those souls of the Ancients to be raised up to Heaven when valued against mine;
and even though I realize that I am powerless to follow them, I do not give up judging the principles which raise
and lift
them thus aloft. I admire…
ii) [‘95]… that the master Form of
human
nature is in himself
and that all the others must be regulated in accordance with it. Attitudes which do not correspond to his own are
feigned and
false. Do you set before him some details of the deeds or capacities of another man? The first thing which he calls upon to guide his judgement is himself as a standard: as things go with him, thus must they go with the Order of the world. O dangerous and intolerable asininity!
I consider…
12
. Bodin,
Methodus
, IV, 58 (here and also later in the chapter). Over-popular leaders were indeed banished for five or ten years: i) by
ostracism
in Athens, signified by writing the leader’s name on a potsherd; ii) by
petalism
in Syracuse, signified by writing the name on an olive leaf.
1
. For example, the theologian Origen in Christian antiquity.
2
. From
haire
(hair-cloth, a kind of sack-cloth) were made ‘hair-shirts’.
3
. Diogenes Laertius,
Xenocrates
, IV, ii.
4
. Virtually all the anecdotes and judgements about Caesar in this chapter derive from Suetonius’
Caesar
. (Aegisthus lived adulterously with Clytemnestra, whose husband he had murdered.)
5
. Mahomet II. This anecdote, and the following one about Ladislaus, from Nicolas Chalcocondylas’
De la décadence de l’Empire Grec
, V, xi.
6
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, V,
Cato Uticensis
, IV.
7
. Erasmus,
Adages
, II, III, XCVII, Sine
Cerere et Baccho friget Venus;
Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, IX, 208.
8
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, X, 134–7.
9
. Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, II, 12; after Valerius Maximus, and stating that St Ambrose cited Spurina as an example for Christians.
1
. As in Chapter 33, most details derive from Suetonius’
Caesar
, incorporating Renaissance footnotes, commentaries and further details from Caesar’s own writings, mainly from the
Gallic Wars
.
2
. Lucan,
Pharsalia
, V, 289–90.
3
. Lucan, V, 405; Virgil,
Aeneid
, XII, 684–9.
4
. Lucan, IV, 151–4; then Horace,
Odes
, IV, xiv, 25–8.
5
. ’80: More-than-human confidence,
beyond the natural order
, in their fortunes…
A significant excision in the light of the end of III, 13, ‘On experience’. (Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Dicts des anciens Roys
, 208 D.)
6
. Plutarch,
Life of Lucullus
.
7
. Xenophon,
Cyropaedia
, II, ii; then Nicolas Chalcocondylas,
De la décadence de l’Empire Grec
, III, xi (for Bajazet), and Jacques Lavardin,
Histoire de Scanderbeg
(1576), 444 r°.
8
. Cited as a proverbial saying by Aristotle,
Laws
, III, 689 D.
9
. An example of fairness to enemies, Gaspard de Coligny (Chastillon) being a Protestant leader; those ‘under the old regime’ are the French Roman Catholics.
1
. Tacitus,
Annals
, II, lxxvii.
4
. Retold after Pliny the Younger.
Epistles
, III, xvi; then, Martial,
Epigrams
, I, xiv.
5
. Retold from Tacitus,
Annals
, XV, lvii–lxiv.
