The Complete Essays (224 page)

6
. [A] Until [A]: old age
(for he was then about one hundred and forty years old
) and…

7
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, CIV, 2–6.

1
. Virgil. Montaigne realized that his Greek was not up to appreciating the real merits of Homer.

2
. Propertius, II, xxxiv, 79–80.

3
. Horace,
Epistles
, I, ii, 3–4; then, Ovid,
Amores
, III, ix, 25–6; Lucretius, III, 1050–51; Manilius,
Astronomica
, II, 8–11.
Then, ’80: the most
noble
work […] are
feeble and
imperfect…

4
. Aristotle, after Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Des oracles de la prophetisse Pythie
, VIII, 629 E; then, Plutarch,
Life of Alexander, Dicts notables des Lacedaemoniens
, 217 H;
De trop parler
D–E;
Dicts des anciens Roys
, 196 H. (For these well-known and authoritative sayings, cf. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, I,
Cleomenes
, I; IV,
Alexander Magnus
, LIV; V,
Alcibiades
, III. For Homer’s ‘winged words,’ cf. Rabelais,
Quart Livre
, TLF, LV, 63 ff.)

5
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, I, xxxii, 79 (condemning the Stoic Panaetius for not believing in the immortality of the soul).

6
. Innocent Gentillet,
Discours sur le moyen de bien gouverner
, III; then a line of Greek poetry as translated by Aulus Gellius into Latin, III, xi.

7
. Lucan,
Pharsalia
, I, 149–50. The main original sources of Montaigne’s long, grammatically confusing eulogy of Alexander are Plutarch’s
Alexander
and the
Fortunes of Alexander
. Later borrowings, from Flavius Arrianus’
Deeds of Alexander
and Quintus Curtius’ work with the same title.

8
. Livy, XXXV, xiv; then, Virgil,
Aeneid
, VIII, 589–91.

9
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, XII, 21–5.

10
.
The
hero for Montaigne. His main sources here are again Plutarch,
Life of Pelopidas;
also Cornelius Nepos’
Epaminondas
or Erasmus’
Apophthegmata
, V,
Epaminondas
.

11
. Scipio Africanus Minor, the son of Paulus Aemilius, often called Scipio Aemilianus; he achieved great renown in the Third Punic War. Cicero idealized him in his
De Republica, De Senectute
and
De Amicitia
.

12
. Montaigne’s principal sources are Plutarch’s
Pelopidas
, Cornelius Nepos’
Epaminondas
, Erasmus’
Apophthegmata
and Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Esprit familier de Socrate
.

1
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, CI, II, citing ‘the most vile prayer of Maecenas’.

2
. Nicolas Chalcocondylas, De
la décadence de L’Empire Grec
, III, x; then, Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, III,
Diogenes Cynicus
, CCXVII.

3
. Martial,
Epigrams
, X, xlvii, 3. (Having inscribed this maxim in his library, Montaigne later painted another over it.)

4
. ’80… Philosophy (whose concerns are with
life and substance
) waste her time over external appearances
as though she was rehearsing men for the actions of a play, or as though it was of her jurisdiction to restrain movements and changes which we are required by Nature to accept? Let her restrain Socrates, then, from blushing with emotion or shame, from blinking when threatened with a blow, or trembling and sweating under the shakings of a fever: the descriptions of Poetry (who is free and freely willed) dare not deprive of tears even those persons whom she would present as perfect and complete: ‘Et se n’aflige tanto/Che se mordi le man, morde le labbia,/Sperge le guancie di continuo pianto’: Philosophy should leave such a duty to those whose profession it is to rule our deportment and outward show
. Let her limit… (The Italian verse means: ‘Her pain is such that she wrings her hands, bites her lips, while her cheeks are bathed in a flood of tears.)’

5
. Diogenes Laertius,
Epicurus
, X, cxviii; then, Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, II, xxiii, 50.

6
. Cicero,
De finibus
, II, xxix, 94; equally condemned by Cicero.
’80: show despair and rage…

7
. Cicero, De
divinatione
, II, lxix, 143.

8
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, VI, 103–5.

9
. Pliny,
Hist. nat.
, VII, xii; then, Plutarch (tr. Amyot)
Pourquoy la justice divine differe…
267 B; Aristotle,
Politics
, II, i, 1262 a (this nation was in Upper Libya).

10
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, V, xxxiii, 95.

11
. Diogenes Laertius,
Epicurus
, CXXIX.

12
. Henry Cornelius Agrippa’s De
Vanitate omnium scientiarum et de excellentia verbi Dei
LXXXIII, is a major source here.

13
. Plato,
Timaeus
, 8 B.

14
. The great Renaissance commonplace, deriving from Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, CVIII, 11: Greek verses of Cleanthes, translated by Seneca and ending, ‘The Fates lead the willing but drag the unwilling.’ St Augustine cites them (
City of God
, V, 8) in the context of the will of God.

15
. Quips from H. C. Agrippa’s
De Vanitate
, LXXXIII (from which work several subsequent borrowings are made); also, Diogenes Laertius,
Diogenes
, VI, lxii.

16
. Juvenal,
Satires
, III, 236–7.

17
. Plato,
Republic
, 389 BC (cf. 382 D).

18
. Aesop,
Fables
.

19
. Until [‘95]: not
Hippolytus
but, erroneously,
Helen
. (Then, Virgil,
Aeneid
, VII, 770–3.)

20
. Cicero,
De divinatione
, II, lxiv, 133. The doctor is prescribing a diet of snails!

21
. Rasis (Al Razi); after H. C. Agrippa.

22
. Again, from H. C. Agrippa, as is the following list of medical variations; also Pliny (
Hist, nat.
, XXIX, i). The following ‘friend of the doctors’ is Pliny.

23
. Latin was the usual language of doctors throughout the sixteenth century. For the first doctor in Rome see Polydore Vergil,
De Inventoribus rerum
, I, xx, citing Livy, XVI.
  ’80: we
could value drugs which are known to us: if a drug does not come from overseas and has not been brought to us from far-off regions it has no efficacy
. If… (I cannot identify the ‘very great doctor’.)

24
. The most famous (and infamous) of these was Bombast von Hohenheim (Paracelsus) whose chemical and mystical therapeutics reject medical tradition. One of Leonardo Fioravanti’s books appeared in English in 1582 as
A compendium of Rational Secrets
…; Johannes Argenterius wrote critical commentaries on Galen and Hippocrates.

25
. Aesop’s fable gave rise to the expression, ‘to wash an Ethiop white’. Ambroise Paré questioned the validity of phlebotomy in his treatise on the plague.

26
. Cf. Polydore Vergil,
De inventoribus rerum
, I, xx: probable source of part of Montaigne’s erudition and arguments about medicine. (The following case is the death of Etienne de La Boëtie.)

27
. [A] until [Al] (instead of the next seven paragraphs): weakens them.
To sum up, they have no reasons which do not allow of such counter-arguments. As for the judgement about the effectiveness of the drugs, it is as much or more uncertain. I have twice been to drink the hot waters of our local mountains, accepting to do so because it is a natural drink, simple, with no additives, which is at least not dangerous even if useless and which fortunately turned out to be not inimical to my taste (it is true that I take it according to my own rules, not the doctors’); moreover the pleasure of visiting several relatives and friends on the way and of the company which gathers there, as well as the beauty of the countryside, attract me there. Those waters, without a doubt, work no miracle. And I do not believe all the wonderful effects told about them: for while I was there several rumours were spread which I discovered to be false when I informed myself rather carefully about them. But people deceive themselves easily about things they desire. You should not, though, deny that the waters stimulate appetite, aid digestion and give you a new gaiety, provided that you do not go there weak and exhausted. But I never went there, and was determined never to go there, other than hale and happy. Now, as for what I was saying about the difficulty which presents itself in judging their effectiveness, here is an example: first went to Aigues-Caudes; from the waters I felt no effect, no evident purgation while I was there: but, for a year after my return I was without any pain from the colic on account of which I went there. Since then I went to Bagnères: those waters made me void a deal of gravel and left me long afterwards with a very loose stomach. Yet they did not protect my health more than two months, after which I was most maltreated by my malady. I would ask my doctor which of the two waters he considers, on this evidence, I should put my faith in, having as we do opposing arguments and circumstances for each of them. People should stop yelling against those who, in such uncertainty, let themselves be guided by their inclination and by the simple advice of Nature. Thus, when they themselves advise one water rather than another, prescribing aperients such as those hot waters or forbidding them, they act with the same uncertainty; without a doubt they entrust to the mercy of Fortune the outcome of their advice, since it is not within their power nor their Art to answer for the quantity of gravelly substances which are being nurtured in our loins, whereas a very slight difference in their size can produce contrasting results affecting our health. You can judge their form of argument from this example. But to press them more vigorously, you would need a man who was not so ignorant of their Art as I am
. Poets…

28
. The long re-writing in 1582 from seven paragraphs back ends here. The following epigrams are from Ausonius, LXXIV, and Martial, VI, liii.

29
. Contemporary French gentlefolk feared the
serein
, the cool dewy air of a summer evening. The mass of peasants ignored it!

30
. ’80: petrification.
And if that beast is subject to that malady, I find that it was badly chosen to serve us as a medicine for it
. I was curious about this experiment not so much
for my own use
but…
    (This account and its argument incensed some doctors.)

31
. The famous praise of medicine in Ecclesiasticus 38:1, ‘Honour a physician according to the need’ (
propter necessitatem
– that is, ‘according to thy need of him’). For Asa’s equally famous counter-example, see II Chronicles 16:12; Asa ‘was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord but to the physicians.’

32
. ’80: order me to
sleep on my right side, if a like that as well as sleeping on my left;
they can prescribe…

33
. Herodotus, I, lxxxviii. Then, Diogenes Laertius,
Plato
, III, vii; Homer,
Odyssey
, IV, 231. (Cf. Polydore Vergil,
De inventoribus rerum
, I, xx.)

34
. The ‘fifth essence’ (quintessence) is the substance of which the heavenly bodies were thought to be composed; it was held to be latent in all things and extractable by distillation.

35
. Such claims were made, for example, for Hippocrates, who, it was claimed, learned by inspiration the way that semen was produced by the brain. This led his Renaissance followers to claim that, while not omniscient, he was incapable of error or of misleading others.

36
. ’80: for
its taste: just as
Galen gives an account (
so I have been told
) of a leper… I do not know the source of Galen’s alleged account, but Polydore Vergil (
De Inventoribus return
, I, xxi) gives accounts of how the medical qualities of herbs were discovered which support Montaigne’s contentions.

37
. This doctor’s researches are concerned with epilepsy (a ‘holy sickness’ in ancient Rome), melancholy and the conjunction of Venus with Saturn (which aggravates melancholy). Montaigne starts with the horn of an
ellend
(elk), an animal described by Cotgrave in his
Dictionarie
as a ‘fearful melancholike beast, much troubled by the falling sicknesse’, that is, by epilesy.