Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 021

affections being no other than one soul in two bodies (according to that
very proper definition of Aristotle), they can neither lend nor give
anything to one another. This is the reason why the lawgivers, to honour
marriage with some resemblance of this divine alliance, interdict all
gifts betwixt man and wife; inferring by that, that all should belong to
each of them, and that they have nothing to divide or to give to each
other.
If, in the friendship of which I speak, one could give to the other, the
receiver of the benefit would be the man that obliged his friend; for
each of them contending and above all things studying how to be useful to
the other, he that administers the occasion is the liberal man, in giving
his friend the satisfaction of doing that towards him which above all
things he most desires. When the philosopher Diogenes wanted money, he
used to say, that he redemanded it of his friends, not that he demanded
it. And to let you see the practical working of this, I will here
produce an ancient and singular example. Eudamidas, a Corinthian, had
two friends, Charixenus a Sicyonian and Areteus a Corinthian; this man
coming to die, being poor, and his two friends rich, he made his will
after this manner. “I bequeath to Areteus the maintenance of my mother,
to support and provide for her in her old age; and to Charixenus I
bequeath the care of marrying my daughter, and to give her as good a
portion as he is able; and in case one of these chance to die, I hereby
substitute the survivor in his place.” They who first saw this will made
themselves very merry at the contents: but the legatees, being made
acquainted with it, accepted it with very great content; and one of them,
Charixenus, dying within five days after, and by that means the charge of
both duties devolving solely on him, Areteus nurtured the old woman with
very great care and tenderness, and of five talents he had in estate, he
gave two and a half in marriage with an only daughter he had of his own,
and two and a half in marriage with the daughter of Eudamidas, and on one
and the same day solemnised both their nuptials.
This example is very full, if one thing were not to be objected, namely
the multitude of friends for the perfect friendship I speak of is
indivisible; each one gives himself so entirely to his friend, that he
has nothing left to distribute to others: on the contrary, is sorry that
he is not double, treble, or quadruple, and that he has not many souls
and many wills, to confer them all upon this one object. Common
friendships will admit of division; one may love the beauty of this
person, the good-humour of that, the liberality of a third, the paternal
affection of a fourth, the fraternal love of a fifth, and so of the rest:
but this friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules and
sways with an absolute sovereignty, cannot possibly admit of a rival.
If two at the same time should call to you for succour, to which of them
would you run? Should they require of you contrary offices, how could
you serve them both? Should one commit a thing to your silence that it
were of importance to the other to know, how would you disengage
yourself? A unique and particular friendship dissolves all other
obligations whatsoever: the secret I have sworn not to reveal to any
other, I may without perjury communicate to him who is not another, but
myself. ‘Tis miracle enough certainly, for a man to double himself, and
those that talk of tripling, talk they know not of what. Nothing is
extreme, that has its like; and he who shall suppose, that of two, I love
one as much as the other, that they mutually love one another too, and
love me as much as I love them, multiplies into a confraternity the most
single of units, and whereof, moreover, one alone is the hardest thing in
the world to find. The rest of this story suits very well with what I
was saying; for Eudamidas, as a bounty and favour, bequeaths to his
friends a legacy of employing themselves in his necessity; he leaves them
heirs to this liberality of his, which consists in giving them the
opportunity of conferring a benefit upon him; and doubtless, the force of
friendship is more eminently apparent in this act of his, than in that of
Areteus. In short, these are effects not to be imagined nor comprehended
by such as have not experience of them, and which make me infinitely
honour and admire the answer of that young soldier to Cyrus, by whom
being asked how much he would take for a horse, with which he had won the
prize of a race, and whether he would exchange him for a kingdom?
--“No, truly, sir,” said he, “but I would give him with all my heart,
to get thereby a true friend, could I find out any man worthy of that
alliance.”--[Xenophon, Cyropadia, viii. 3.]--He did not say ill in
saying, “could I find”: for though one may almost everywhere meet with
men sufficiently qualified for a superficial acquaintance, yet in this,
where a man is to deal from the very bottom of his heart, without any
manner of reservation, it will be requisite that all the wards and
springs be truly wrought and perfectly sure.
In confederations that hold but by one end, we are only to provide
against the imperfections that particularly concern that end. It can be
of no importance to me of what religion my physician or my lawyer is;
this consideration has nothing in common with the offices of friendship
which they owe me; and I am of the same indifference in the domestic
acquaintance my servants must necessarily contract with me. I never
inquire, when I am to take a footman, if he be chaste, but if he be
diligent; and am not solicitous if my muleteer be given to gaming, as if
he be strong and able; or if my cook be a swearer, if he be a good cook.
I do not take upon me to direct what other men should do in the
government of their families, there are plenty that meddle enough with
that, but only give an account of my method in my own:
“Mihi sic usus est: tibi, ut opus est facto, face.”
[“This has been my way; as for you, do as you find needful.
--“Terence, Heaut., i. I., 28.]
For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and
the grave; in bed, beauty before goodness; in common discourse the ablest
speaker, whether or no there be sincerity in the case. And, as he that
was found astride upon a hobby-horse, playing with his children,
entreated the person who had surprised him in that posture to say nothing
of it till himself came to be a father,--[Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus,
c. 9.]--supposing that the fondness that would then possess his own
soul, would render him a fairer judge of such an action; so I, also,
could wish to speak to such as have had experience of what I say: though,
knowing how remote a thing such a friendship is from the common practice,
and how rarely it is to be found, I despair of meeting with any such
judge. For even these discourses left us by antiquity upon this subject,
seem to me flat and poor, in comparison of the sense I have of it, and in
this particular, the effects surpass even the precepts of philosophy.
“Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.”
[“While I have sense left to me, there will never be anything more
acceptable to me than an agreeable friend.”
--Horace, Sat., i. 5, 44.]
The ancient Menander declared him to be happy that had had the good
fortune to meet with but the shadow of a friend: and doubtless he had
good reason to say so, especially if he spoke by experience: for in good
earnest, if I compare all the rest of my life, though, thanks be to God,
I have passed my time pleasantly enough, and at my ease, and the loss of
such a friend excepted, free from any grievous affliction, and in great
tranquillity of mind, having been contented with my natural and original
commodities, without being solicitous after others; if I should compare
it all, I say, with the four years I had the happiness to enjoy the sweet
society of this excellent man, ‘tis nothing but smoke, an obscure and
tedious night. From the day that I lost him:
“Quern semper acerbum,
Semper honoratum (sic, di, voluistis) habebo,”
[“A day for me ever sad, for ever sacred, so have you willed ye
gods.”--AEneid, v. 49.]
I have only led a languishing life; and the very pleasures that present
themselves to me, instead of administering anything of consolation,
double my affliction for his loss. We were halves throughout, and to
that degree, that methinks, by outliving him, I defraud him of his part.
“Nec fas esse ulla me voluptate hic frui
Decrevi, tantisper dum ille abest meus particeps.”
[“I have determined that it will never be right for me to enjoy any
pleasure, so long as he, with whom I shared all pleasures is away.”
--Terence, Heaut., i. I. 97.]
I was so grown and accustomed to be always his double in all places and
in all things, that methinks I am no more than half of myself:
“Illam meae si partem anima tulit
Maturior vis, quid moror altera?
Nec carus aeque, nec superstes
Integer? Ille dies utramque
Duxit ruinam.”
[“If that half of my soul were snatch away from me by an untimely
stroke, why should the other stay? That which remains will not be
equally dear, will not be whole: the same day will involve the
destruction of both.”]
or:
[“If a superior force has taken that part of my soul, why do I, the
remaining one, linger behind? What is left is not so dear, nor an
entire thing: this day has wrought the destruction of both.”
--Horace, Ode, ii. 17, 5.]
There is no action or imagination of mine wherein I do not miss him; as I
know that he would have missed me: for as he surpassed me by infinite
degrees in virtue and all other accomplishments, so he also did in the
duties of friendship:
“Quis desiderio sit pudor, aut modus
Tam cari capitis?”
[“What shame can there, or measure, in lamenting so dear a friend?”
--Horace, Ode, i. 24, I.]
“O misero frater adempte mihi!
Omnia tecum una perierunt gaudia nostra,
Quae tuus in vita dulcis alebat amor.
Tu mea, tu moriens fregisti commoda, frater;
Tecum una tota est nostra sepulta anima
Cujus ego interitu tota de menthe fugavi
Haec studia, atque omnes delicias animi.
Alloquar? audiero nunquam tua verba loquentem?
Nunquam ego te, vita frater amabilior
Aspiciam posthac; at certe semper amabo;”
[“O brother, taken from me miserable! with thee, all our joys have
vanished, those joys which, in thy life, thy dear love nourished.
Dying, thou, my brother, hast destroyed all my happiness. My whole
soul is buried with thee. Through whose death I have banished from
my mind these studies, and all the delights of the mind. Shall I
address thee? I shall never hear thy voice. Never shall I behold
thee hereafter. O brother, dearer to me than life. Nought remains,
but assuredly I shall ever love thee.”--Catullus, lxviii. 20; lxv.]
But let us hear a boy of sixteen speak:
--[In Cotton’s translation the work referred to is “those Memoirs
upon the famous edict of January,” of which mention has already been
made in the present edition. The edition of 1580, however, and the
Variorum edition of 1872-1900, indicate no particular work; but the
edition of 1580 has it “this boy of eighteen years” (which was the
age at which La Boetie wrote his “Servitude Volontaire”), speaks of
“a boy of sixteen” as occurring only in the common editions, and it
would seem tolerably clear that this more important work was, in
fact, the production to which Montaigne refers, and that the proper
reading of the text should be “sixteen years.” What “this boy
spoke” is not given by Montaigne, for the reason stated in the next
following paragraph.]
“Because I have found that that work has been since brought out, and with
a mischievous design, by those who aim at disturbing and changing the
condition of our government, without troubling themselves to think
whether they are likely to improve it: and because they have mixed up his
work with some of their own performance, I have refrained from inserting
it here. But that the memory of the author may not be injured, nor
suffer with such as could not come near-hand to be acquainted with his
principles, I here give them to understand, that it was written by him in
his boyhood, and that by way of exercise only, as a common theme that has
been hackneyed by a thousand writers. I make no question but that he
himself believed what he wrote, being so conscientious that he would not
so much as lie in jest: and I moreover know, that could it have been in
his own choice, he had rather have been born at Venice, than at Sarlac;
and with reason. But he had another maxim sovereignty imprinted in his
soul, very religiously to obey and submit to the laws under which he was
born. There never was a better citizen, more affectionate to his
country; nor a greater enemy to all the commotions and innovations of his
time: so that he would much rather have employed his talent to the
extinguishing of those civil flames, than have added any fuel to them;
he had a mind fashioned to the model of better ages. Now, in exchange of
this serious piece, I will present you with another of a more gay and
frolic air, from the same hand, and written at the same age.”


CHAPTER XXVIII.
NINE AND TWENTY SONNETS OF ESTIENNE DE LA BOITIE
TO MADAME DE GRAMMONT, COMTESSE DE GUISSEN.
[They scarce contain anything but amorous complaints, expressed in a
very rough style, discovering the follies and outrages of a restless
passion, overgorged, as it were, with jealousies, fears and
suspicions.--Coste.]
[These....contained in the edition of 1588 nine-and-twenty sonnets
of La Boetie, accompanied by a dedicatory epistle to Madame de
Grammont. The former, which are referred to at the end of Chap.
XXVIL, do not really belong to the book, and are of very slight
interest at this time; the epistle is transferred to the
Correspondence. The sonnets, with the letter, were presumably sent
some time after Letters V. et seq. Montaigne seems to have had
several copies written out to forward to friends or acquaintances.]


CHAPTER XXIX.
OF MODERATION
As if we had an infectious touch, we, by our manner of handling, corrupt
things that in themselves are laudable and good: we may grasp virtue so
that it becomes vicious, if we embrace it too stringently and with too
violent a desire. Those who say, there is never any excess in virtue,
forasmuch as it is not virtue when it once becomes excess, only play upon
words:
“Insani sapiens nomen ferat, aequus iniqui,
Ultra quam satis est, virtutem si petat ipsam.”
[“Let the wise man bear the name of a madman, the just one of an
unjust, if he seek wisdom more than is sufficient.”
--Horace, Ep., i. 6, 15.]
[“The wise man is no longer wise, the just man no longer just, if he
seek to carry his love for wisdom or virtue beyond that which is
necessary.”]
This is a subtle consideration of philosophy. A man may both be too much
in love with virtue, and be excessive in a just action. Holy Writ agrees
with this, Be not wiser than you should, but be soberly wise.--[St.
Paul, Epistle to the Romans, xii. 3.]--I have known a great man,
--[“It is likely that Montaigne meant Henry III., king of France.
The Cardinal d’Ossat, writing to Louise, the queen-dowager, told
her, in his frank manner, that he had lived as much or more like a
monk than a monarch (Letter XXIII.) And Pope Sextus V., speaking of
that prince one day to the Cardinal de Joyeuse, protector of the
affairs of France, said to him pleasantly, ‘There is nothing that
your king hath not done, and does not do so still, to be a monk, nor
anything that I have not done, not to be a monk.’”--Coste.]
prejudice the opinion men had of his devotion, by pretending to be devout
beyond all examples of others of his condition. I love temperate and
moderate natures. An immoderate zeal, even to that which is good, even
though it does not offend, astonishes me, and puts me to study what name
to give it. Neither the mother of Pausanias,
--[“Montaigne would here give us to understand, upon the authority of
Diodorus Siculus, that Pausanias’ mother gave the first hint of the
punishment that was to be inflicted on her son. ‘Pausanias,’ says
this historian, ‘perceiving that the ephori, and some other
Lacedoemonians, aimed at apprehending him, got the start of them,
and went and took sanctuary m Minerva’s temple: and the
Lacedaemonians, being doubtful whether they ought to take him from
thence in violation of the franchise there, it is said that his own
mother came herself to the temple but spoke nothing nor did anything
more than lay a piece of brick, which she brought with her, on the
threshold of the temple, which, when she had done, she returned
home. The Lacedaemonians, taking the hint from the mother, caused
the gate of the temple to be walled up, and by this means starved
Pausanias, so that he died with hunger, &c. (lib. xi. cap. 10., of
Amyot’s translation). The name of Pausanias’ mother was Alcithea,
as we are informed by Thucydides’ scholiast, who only says that it
was reported, that when they set about walling up the gates of the
chapel in which Pausanias had taken refuge, his mother Alcithea laid
the first stone.”--Coste.]
who was the first instructor of her son’s process, and threw the first
stone towards his death, nor Posthumius the dictator, who put his son to
death, whom the ardour of youth had successfully pushed upon the enemy a
little more advanced than the rest of his squadron, do appear to me so
much just as strange; and I should neither advise nor like to follow so
savage a virtue, and that costs so dear.
--[“Opinions differ as to the truth of this fact. Livy thinks he
has good authority for rejecting it because it does not appear in
history that Posthumious was branded with it, as Titus Manlius was,
about 100 years after his time; for Manlius, having put his son to
death for the like cause, obtained the odious name of Imperiosus,
and since that time Manliana imperia has been used as a term to
signify orders that are too severe; Manliana Imperia, says Livy,
were not only horrible for the time present, but of a bad example to
posterity. And this historian makes no doubt but such commands
would have been actually styled Posthumiana Imperia, if Posthumius
had been the first who set so barbarous an example (Livy, lib. iv.
cap. 29, and lib. viii. cap. 7). But, however, Montaigne has Valer.
Maximus on his side, who says expressly, that Posthumius caused his
son to be put to death, and Diodorus of Sicily (lib. xii. cap.
19).”--Coste.]
The archer that shoots over, misses as much as he that falls short, and
‘tis equally troublesome to my sight, to look up at a great light, and
to look down into a dark abyss. Callicles in Plato says, that the
extremity of philosophy is hurtful, and advises not to dive into it
beyond the limits of profit; that, taken moderately, it is pleasant and
useful; but that in the end it renders a man brutish and vicious, a
contemner of religion and the common laws, an enemy to civil
conversation, and all human pleasures, incapable of all public
administration, unfit either to assist others or to relieve himself, and
a fit object for all sorts of injuries and affronts. He says true; for
in its excess, it enslaves our natural freedom, and by an impertinent
subtlety, leads us out of the fair and beaten way that nature has traced
for us.
The love we bear to our wives is very lawful, and yet theology thinks fit
to curb and restrain it. As I remember, I have read in one place of St.
Thomas Aquinas,--[Secunda Secundx, Quaest. 154, art. 9.]--where he
condemns marriages within any of the forbidden degrees, for this reason,
amongst others, that there is some danger, lest the friendship a man
bears to such a woman, should be immoderate; for if the conjugal
affection be full and perfect betwixt them, as it ought to be, and that
it be over and above surcharged with that of kindred too, there is no
doubt, but such an addition will carry the husband beyond the bounds of
reason.
Those sciences that regulate the manners of men, divinity and philosophy,
will have their say in everything; there is no action so private and
secret that can escape their inspection and jurisdiction. They are best
taught who are best able to control and curb their own liberty; women
expose their nudities as much as you will upon the account of pleasure,
though in the necessities of physic they are altogether as shy. I will,
therefore, in their behalf:
--[Coste translates this: “on the part of philosophy and theology,”
observing that but few wives would think themselves obliged to
Montaigne for any such lesson to their husbands.]--
teach the husbands, that is, such as are too vehement in the exercise of
the matrimonial duty--if such there still be--this lesson, that the very
pleasures they enjoy in the society of their wives are reproachable if
immoderate, and that a licentious and riotous abuse of them is a fault as
reprovable here as in illicit connections. Those immodest and debauched
tricks and postures, that the first ardour suggests to us in this affair,
are not only indecently but detrimentally practised upon our wives. Let
them at least learn impudence from another hand; they are ever ready
enough for our business, and I for my part always went the plain way to
work.
Marriage is a solemn and religious tie, and therefore the pleasure we
extract from it should be a sober and serious delight, and mixed with a
certain kind of gravity; it should be a sort of discreet and
conscientious pleasure. And seeing that the chief end of it is
generation, some make a question, whether when men are out of hopes as
when they are superannuated or already with child, it be lawful to
embrace our wives. ‘Tis homicide, according to Plato.--[Laws, 8.]--
Certain nations (the Mohammedan, amongst others) abominate all conjunction
with women with child, others also, with those who are in their courses.
Zenobia would never admit her husband for more than one encounter, after
which she left him to his own swing for the whole time of her conception,
and not till after that would again receive him:--[Trebellius Pollio,
Triginta Tyran., c. 30.]--a brave and generous example of conjugal
continence. It was doubtless from some lascivious poet,--[The lascivious
poet is Homer; see his Iliad, xiv. 294.]--and one that himself was in
great distress for a little of this sport, that Plato borrowed this
story; that Jupiter was one day so hot upon his wife, that not having so
much patience as till she could get to the couch, he threw her upon the
floor, where the vehemence of pleasure made him forget the great and
important resolutions he had but newly taken with the rest of the gods in
his celestial council, and to brag that he had had as good a bout, as
when he got her maidenhead, unknown to their parents.
The kings of Persia were wont to invite their wives to the beginning of
their festivals; but when the wine began to work in good earnest, and
that they were to give the reins to pleasure, they sent them back to
their private apartments, that they might not participate in their
immoderate lust, sending for other women in their stead, with whom they
were not obliged to so great a decorum of respect.--[Plutarch, Precepts
of Marriage, c. 14.]--All pleasures and all sorts of gratifications
are not properly and fitly conferred upon all sorts of persons.
Epaminondas had committed to prison a young man for certain debauches;
for whom Pelopidas mediated, that at his request he might be set at
liberty, which Epaminondas denied to him, but granted it at the first
word to a wench of his, that made the same intercession; saying, that it
was a gratification fit for such a one as she, but not for a captain.
Sophocles being joint praetor with Pericles, seeing accidentally a fine
boy pass by: “O what a charming boy is that!” said he. “That might be
very well,” answered Pericles, “for any other than a praetor, who ought
not only to have his hands, but his eyes, too, chaste.”--[Cicero, De
Offic., i. 40.] AElius Verus, the emperor, answered his wife, who
reproached him with his love to other women, that he did it upon a
conscientious account, forasmuch as marriage was a name of honour and
dignity, not of wanton and lascivious desire; and our ecclesiastical
history preserves the memory of that woman in great veneration, who
parted from her husband because she would not comply with his indecent
and inordinate desires. In fine, there is no pleasure so just and
lawful, where intemperance and excess are not to be condemned.
But, to speak the truth, is not man a most miserable creature the while?
It is scarce, by his natural condition, in his power to taste one
pleasure pure and entire; and yet must he be contriving doctrines and
precepts to curtail that little he has; he is not yet wretched enough,
unless by art and study he augment his own misery:
“Fortunae miseras auximus arte vias.”
[“We artificially augment the wretchedness of fortune.”
--Properitius, lib. iii. 7, 44.]
Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent, when she exercises it in
rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are
naturally our due, as she employs it favourably and well in artificially
disguising and tricking out the ills of life, to alleviate the sense of
them. Had I ruled the roast, I should have taken another and more
natural course, which, to say the truth, is both commodious and holy, and
should, peradventure, have been able to have limited it too;
notwithstanding that both our spiritual and corporal physicians, as by
compact betwixt themselves, can find no other way to cure, nor other
remedy for the infirmities of the body and the soul, than by misery and
pain. To this end, watchings, fastings, hair-shirts, remote and solitary
banishments, perpetual imprisonments, whips and other afflictions, have
been introduced amongst men: but so, that they should carry a sting with
them, and be real afflictions indeed; and not fall out as it once did to
one Gallio, who having been sent an exile into the isle of Lesbos, news
was not long after brought to Rome, that he there lived as merry as the
day was long; and that what had been enjoined him for a penance, turned
to his pleasure and satisfaction: whereupon the Senate thought fit to
recall him home to his wife and family, and confine him to his own house,
to accommodate their punishment to his feeling and apprehension. For to
him whom fasting would make more healthful and more sprightly, and to him
to whose palate fish were more acceptable than flesh, the prescription of
these would have no curative effect; no more than in the other sort of
physic, where drugs have no effect upon him who swallows them with
appetite and pleasure: the bitterness of the potion and the abhorrence of
the patient are necessary circumstances to the operation. The nature
that would eat rhubarb like buttered turnips, would frustrate the use and
virtue of it; it must be something to trouble and disturb the stomach,