The Complete Essays (58 page)

55. On smells

[An early compilation which progressively becomes more personal: the topic itself may have been suggested by a commonplace of the
Querelle des femmes
(the centuries-long series of works for and against women and marriage).]
.

[A] Of some such as Alexander the Great it is said that their sweat smelt nice (because of some rare complexion outside the natural Order, the cause of which was sought by Plutarch and others).
¹
But the normal fashioning of our bodies works contrary to that: the best characteristic we can hope for is to smell of nothing. The sweetness of the purest breath consists in nothing more excellent than to be without any offensive smell, as the breath of healthy children. That is why Plautus says,
‘Mulier tum bene olet, ubi nihil olet’
, ‘A woman smells nice when she smells of nothing,’ [B] just as we say that the best perfume for her actions is for her to be quiet and discreet.
²
[A] And when people give off nice odours which are not their own we may rightly suspect them, and conclude that they use them to smother some natural stench. That is what gives rise to those adages of the ancient poets which claim that the man who smells nice in fact stinks:

     
Rides nos Coracine, nil olentes.
Malo quam bene olere, nil olere
.

[You laugh at us, Coracinus, because we emit no smell: I would rather smell of nothing than smell sweetly.]

And again,

Posthume, non bene olet, qui bene semper olet
.
[A man who always smells nice, Posthumus, actually stinks.]
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[B] However I am myself very fond of living amongst good smells and I immeasurably loathe bad ones, which I sense at a greater distance than anyone else:

Namque sagacius units odoror,
Polypus, an gravis hirsutis cubet hircus in alis,
Quant canis acer ubi lateat sus
.

[I have a nose with with more flair, Polypus, for sensing the goaty smell of hairy armpits than any hound on the track of a stinking hoar.]
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[C] The simpler, more natural smells seem to me to be the most agreeable. A concern for smells is chiefly a matter for the ladies. In deepest Barbary the Scythian women powder themselves after washing and smother their whole face and body with a certain sweet-smelling unguent, native to their soil; when they take off this cosmetic they find themselves smooth and nice-smelling for an approach to their menfolk.

[B] Whatever the smell, it is wonderful how it clings to me and how my skin is simply made to drink it in. The person who complained that Nature left Man with no means of bringing smells to his nose was in error: smells do it by themselves. But, in my particular case the job is done for me by my thick moustache: if I bring my glove or my handkerchief anywhere near it, the smell will linger there all day. It gives away where I have just come from. Those close smacking kisses of my youth, [C] gluey and greedy, [B] would stick to it and remain there for hours afterwards. Yet I find myself little subject to those mass illnesses which are caught by social intercourse and spring from infected air; and I have been spared those of my own time, of which there have been several kinds in our towns and among our troops. [C] We read that although Socrates never left Athens during several recurrences of the plague which so often racked that city, he alone suffered no harm.
⁵

[B] It seems to me that doctors could make better use of smells than they do, for I have frequently noticed that, depending on which they are, they variously affect me and work upon my animal spirits;
⁶
which convinces me of the truth of what is said about the invention of odours and incense in our Churches (a practice so ancient and so widespread among all nations
and religions): that it was aimed at making us rejoice, exciting us and purifying us so as to render us more capable of contemplation.

[C] In order to judge it I wish I had been invited to experience the culinary art of those chefs who know how to season wafting odours with the savour of various foods, as was particularly remarked in our time in the case of the King of Tunis who landed at Naples for face to face talks with the Emperor Charles. His meats were stuffed with sweet-smelling ingredients, so luxuriously that a peacock and two pheasants cost a hundred ducats to prepare in their manner. And when those birds were cut up they filled not merely the hall but all the rooms of his palace and even the neighbouring houses with a delicious mist which was slow to evaporate.

[B] When choosing where to stay, my principal concern is to avoid air which is oppressive and stinking. My liking for those fair cities Venice and Paris is affected by the pungent smell of the marshes of one and the mud of the other.
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56. On prayer

[We are given here a deeper insight into the austerer, rigorist side of Montaigne’s Catholicism. The additions, which are numerous, beginning with those of 1582, marked [
A1
], are partly designed to meet the criticisms raised by the Maestro di Palazzo at the Vatican about Montaigne’s assertion ‘that a man when he prays must be free of sinful inclinations during that time’. Such a doctrine savours of that ‘puritanism’ of which the Roman Catholic Church was ever suspicious. Together with III, 2, ‘On repenting’ we can see here how demanding Montaigne’s Catholicism was beneath its urbane exterior. We can also understand his work better: he is writing philosophy not theology; and philosophy has its own rules and its own language. As usual Montaigne is suspicious of words, even liturgical words, without deeds. To many in his Church his theological position appeared rigorous to the point of heresy where sin-free prayer was concerned. But he himself presents his thoughts as a kind of
disputabilis opinio,
that is, as analogous to an unresolved topic or paradox, subject to open debate in the universities.]

[A1] The notions which I am propounding have no form and reach no conclusion. (Like those who advertise questions for debate in our Universities I am seeking the truth not laying it down.) I submit them to the judgement of those whose concern it is to govern not only my actions and my writings but my very thoughts. Both condemnation and approbation will be equally welcome, equally useful, [C] since I would loathe to be found saying anything ignorantly or inadvertently against the holy teachings of the Church Catholic, Apostolic and Roman, in which I die and in which I was born.
¹
[A1] And so, while ever submitting myself to the authority of their censure, whose power over me is limitless, I am emboldened to treat all sorts of subjects – as I do here.

[A] I may be mistaken but, seeing that we have been granted by special grace and favour a set form of prayer prescribed and dictated to us, word by word, by God’s own mouth, it has always seemed to me that we
should use it more commonly.
²
If it depended on me I would like to see Christians saying the Lord’s Prayer as a grace before and after meals, when we get up and go to bed and on all those special occasions where we normally include prayers, [C] saying it always if not exclusively. [A] The Church may lengthen or vary prayers according to her need to instruct us; for I am well aware that the matter is identical and always substantially the same. But this prayer ought to have the prerogative of being on people’s lips at all times, since it is certain that it says everything necessary and that it is always most appropriate on all occasions. [C] It is the only prayer that I say everywhere; instead of varying it I repeat it. That explains why it is the only prayer I can ever remember.

[A] I was wondering recently how the error arose which leads us to have recourse to God in all our doings and designs, [B] calling upon him in every kind of need and in any place whatsoever where our weakness needs support, without once considering whether the occasion is just or unjust. No matter how we are or what we are doing – however sinful it may be – we invoke God’s name and power. [A] He is of course our only and unique Protector, [C] able to do anything whatever to help us; [A] but even though he does vouchsafe to grant us that sweet honour of being our Father by adoption,
³
he is as just as he is good [C] and powerful; but he uses his justice more often than his power; [A] and he grants us his favours according to [C] its criteria not our petitions.
⁴

In his
Laws
, Plato lists three kinds of belief which are insulting to the gods: that there are none; that they do not concern themselves with our affairs; that they never refuse to answer our prayers, oblations and sacrifices. He believes that the first error never remains stable in anyone from childhood to old age but that the other two do allow of constancy.
⁵

[A] God’s power and his justice are inseparable. If we implore him to use his power in a wicked cause it is of no avail. Our soul must be pure, at least for that [C] instant [A] when we make our prayer, free from
the weight of vicious passions; otherwise we offer him rods for our own chastisement.
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Instead of amending our faults we redouble them by offering God (from whom we ought to be begging forgiveness) emotions full of irreverence and hatred. That is why I do not approve of those whom I see praying to God frequently and regularly if deeds consonant with their prayers do not bear me witness of some reformation and amendment
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–

[B]
si, nocturnus adulter,
Tempora Sanctonico velas adoperta cucullo
.

[if, for your nightly adultery, you hide beneath an Aquitanian cowl.]
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[C] The position of a man who mingles devotion with a detestable life seems somehow to deserve condemnation more than that of a man who is self-consistent, dissolute in everything. That is why our Church daily excludes all stubborn notorious evildoers from entry into our fellowship.

[A] We say our prayers out of habit and custom, or to put it better, we merely read and utter the words of our prayers. It amounts, in the end, to [C] outward show. [B] And it displeases me to see a man making three signs of the cross at the
Benedicite
and three more at grace – displeasing me all the more since [C] it is a sign of which I revere and continually employ, not least when I yawn – [B] only
⁹
to see him devoting every other hour of the day to [C] hatred, covetousness and injustice.
¹⁰
[B] Give vices their hours, then one hour to God – a sort of barter or arrangement! What a miracle it is to see actions so incompatible proceeding at so even a course that at the very point where they pass from one to the other you can notice no break or hesitation.

[C] What monstrous a conscience it is that can find rest while nurturing together in so peaceful and harmonious a fellowship both the crime and the judge in the same abode. If a man has his head full of the demands of lechery, judging it to be something most odious in the sight of God, what
does he say to God when he tells him of it? He repents, only to fall again – at once. If as he claims the concept of divine Justice really did strike home, scourging and chastising his soul, then however short his repentance fear itself would force him to cast his mind back to it, making him thenceforth master of those bloated vices which were habitually his.

And what about those men whose whole life reposes on the fruits and profits of what they know to be a mortal sin? How many trades and vocations are there which gain acceptance, yet whose very essence is vicious?

And then there is the man who confided to me how, all his life, he had professed and practised a religion which he believed to be damnable, quite opposite to the one dear to him, so as not to lose favour or the honour of his appointments. How did he defend such reasoning in his mind? When men address God’s Justice on such matters, what do they say? Since their repentance requires a visible and tangible reparation, they forfeit all means of pleading it before God or men. Do they go so far as to dare to beg forgiveness without making satisfaction, without repentance? I hold that the first ones I mentioned are in the same state as these; but their obstinacy is far less easy to overcome.

Those sudden violent changes and veerings of opinion that they feign for us are a source of wonder to me. They reveal a state of unresolved conflict. And how fantastical seem to me the conceptions of those who, in recent years, have habitually accused anyone who showed a glimmer of intelligence yet professed the Catholic faith of only feigning to do so – even maintaining, to do him honour, that whatever he might actually say for show, deep down inside he could not fail to hold the religion as ‘reformed’ by their standards! What a loathsome malady it is to believe that you are so right that you convince yourself that nobody can think the opposite. And most loathsome still, to convince yourself that such a mind may prefer some chance but present advantage to the hopes and fears of eternal life. They can take my word for it: if anything could have tempted me in youth, a large part would have been played by an ambition to share in the hazards and hardships intendant upon that fresh young enterprise.

[A] It is not without good reason, it seems to me, that the Church has forbidden the indiscriminate, thoughtless and indiscreet use of those venerable sacred songs which the Holy Ghost dictated through David.
¹¹
We
must only bring God into our activities with reverence and attentiveness full of honour and respect. That Word is too holy to serve merely to exercise our lungs and to please our ears; it must be rendered by our hearts not by our tongues. It is unreasonable to permit some shop-boy to amuse himself playing about with it while his mind is on silly frivolous matters. [B] Nor, certainly, is it right to see the Sacred Book of the holy mysteries of our faith dragged about through hall or kitchen
¹²
– [C] they used to
be
mysteries: now they serve as amusements and pastimes.

[B] A study so serious, a subject so revered, should not be handled incidentally or hurriedly. It should always be a considered calm activity, prefaced as in our liturgy by the
Sursum corda;
¹³
we should bring to it even our bodies disposed in such attitudes as bear witness to a special attentiveness and reverence. [C] It is not a study for just anybody: it is a study for those who are dedicated to it, for people whom God calls to it. It makes the wicked and the ignorant grow worse. It is not a story to be told but a story to be reverenced, feared, adored.

How silly they are who think they have made it accessible to the vulgar simply by translating it into the vulgar tongues. When people fail to understand everything they read is it only the fault of the words! I would go further. By bringing Scripture that little bit nearer they actually push it further away. Pure ignorance, leaving men totally dependent on others, was much more salutary and more learned than such vain verbal knowledge, that nursery of rashness and presumption.

[B] I also believe that the liberty everyone takes of
¹⁴
broadcasting so religious and so vital a text into all sorts of languages is less useful than dangerous. Jews, Mahometans and virtually all the others have reverently espoused the tongue in which their mysteries were first conceived; any changes or alterations are forbidden; not, it seems, without reason. Can we be sure that in the Basque country or in Brittany there are enough good judges, men adequate enough to establish the right translation in their languages? Why, the Catholic Church has nothing more difficult to do than to decide such matters – and nothing more solemn. When it is a case of preaching or speaking our translations can be vague, free, variable and partial: that is not at all the same thing.

[C] One of our Greek historians
¹⁵
justly accused his own time of having so scattered the secrets of the Christian religion about the market-place and into the hands of the meanest artisans that everybody could argue and talk about them according to his own understanding: ‘It is deeply shameful,’ he added, ‘that we who by God’s grace enjoy the pure mysteries of our pious faith should allow them to be profaned in the mouths of persons ignorant and base, seeing that the Gentiles forbade even Socrates, Plato and the wisest men to talk or to inquire about matters entrusted to the priests at Delphi.’ He also said that, where Theology is concerned, the factions of princes are armed with anger not with zeal; that zeal itself does partake of the divine Reason and Justice when it behaves ordinately and moderately but that it changes into hatred and envy whenever it serves human passions, producing then not wheat and the fruit of the vine but tares and nettles. And there was another man who rightly advised the Emperor Theodosius that debates never settled schisms in the Church but rather awakened heresies and put life into them; therefore he should flee all contentiousness and all dialectical disputations, committing himself to the bare prescriptions and formulas of the Faith established of old. And when the Emperor Andronicus came across two great men verbally skirmishing in his palace against Lopadius over one of the more important points of our religion, he reprimanded them, even threatening to have them thrown into the river if they still went on.

Nowadays women and children read lectures about ecclesiastical law to the oldest and most experienced of men whereas the first of Plato’s laws forbids them to inquire even into the reason for merely civil ones, which must be regarded as divine ordinances; he allowed only the older men to discuss laws among themselves and with the Magistrate – adding, ‘provided that it is not done in the presence of the young and the uninitiated’.
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