Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 068

drawn to screen the burning furnace from their sight, which some of them,
to manifest the greater courage, forbid. Having ended what she has to
say, a woman presents her with a vessel of oil, wherewith to anoint her
head and her whole body, which when done with she throws into the fire,
and in an instant precipitates herself after. Immediately, the people
throw a good many billets and logs upon her that she may not be long in
dying, and convert all their joy into sorrow and mourning. If they are
persons of meaner condition, the body of the defunct is carried to the
place of sepulture, and there placed sitting, the widow kneeling before
him, embracing the dead body; and they continue in this posture whilst
the people build a wall about them, which so soon as it is raised to the
height of the woman’s shoulders, one of her relations comes behind her,
and taking hold of her head, twists her neck; so soon as she is dead, the
wall is presently raised up, and closed, and there they remain entombed.
There was, in this same country, something like this in their
gymnosophists; for not by constraint of others nor by the impetuosity of
a sudden humour, but by the express profession of their order, their
custom was, as soon as they arrived at a certain age, or that they saw
themselves threatened by any disease, to cause a funeral pile to be
erected for them, and on the top a stately bed, where, after having
joyfully feasted their friends and acquaintance, they laid them down with
so great resolution, that fire being applied to it, they were never seen
to stir either hand or foot; and after this manner, one of them, Calanus
by name; expired in the presence of the whole army of Alexander the
Great. And he was neither reputed holy nor happy amongst them who did
not thus destroy himself, dismissing his soul purged and purified by the
fire, after having consumed all that was earthly and mortal. This
constant premeditation of the whole life is that which makes the wonder.
Amongst our other controversies, that of ‘Fatum’ has also crept in; and
to tie things to come, and even our own wills, to a certain and
inevitable necessity, we are yet upon this argument of time past:
“Since God foresees that all things shall so fall out, as doubtless He
does, it must then necessarily follow, that they must so fall out”: to
which our masters reply: “that the seeing anything come to pass, as we
do, and as God Himself also does (for all things being present with him,
He rather sees, than foresees), is not to compel an event: that is, we
see because things do fall out, but things do not fall out because we
see: events cause knowledge, but knowledge does not cause events. That
which we see happen, does happen; but it might have happened otherwise:
and God, in the catalogue of the causes of events which He has in His
prescience, has also those which we call accidental and voluntary,
depending upon the liberty. He has given our free will, and knows that
we do amiss because we would do so.”
I have seen a great many commanders encourage their soldiers with this
fatal necessity; for if our time be limited to a certain hour, neither
the enemies’ shot nor our own boldness, nor our flight and cowardice,
can either shorten or prolong our lives. This is easily said, but see
who will be so easily persuaded; and if it be so that a strong and lively
faith draws along with it actions of the same kind, certainly this faith
we so much brag of, is very light in this age of ours, unless the
contempt it has of works makes it disdain their company. So it is, that
to this very purpose the Sire de Joinville, as credible a witness as any
other whatever, tells us of the Bedouins, a nation amongst the Saracens,
with whom the king St. Louis had to do in the Holy Land, that they, in
their religion, so firmly believed the number of every man’s days to be
from all eternity prefixed and set down by an inevitable decree, that
they went naked to the wars, excepting a Turkish sword, and their bodies
only covered with a white linen cloth: and for the greatest curse they
could invent when they were angry, this was always in their mouths:
“Accursed be thou, as he that arms himself for fear of death.” This is a
testimony of faith very much beyond ours. And of this sort is that also
that two friars of Florence gave in our fathers’ days. Being engaged in
some controversy of learning, they agreed to go both of them into the
fire in the sight of all the people, each for the verification of his
argument, and all things were already prepared, and the thing just upon
the point of execution, when it was interrupted by an unexpected
accident.--[7th April 1498. Savonarola issued the challenge. After many
delays from demands and counter-demands by each side as to the details of
the fire, both parties found that they had important business to transact
in another county--both just barely escaped assassination at the hands of
the disappointed spectators. D.W.]
A young Turkish lord, having performed a notable exploit in his own
person in the sight of both armies, that of Amurath and that of Huniades,
ready to join battle, being asked by Amurath, what in such tender and
inexperienced years (for it was his first sally into arms) had inspired
him with so brave a courage, replied, that his chief tutor for valour was
a hare. “For being,” said he, “one day a hunting, I found a hare
sitting, and though I had a brace of excellent greyhounds with me, yet
methought it would be best for sureness to make use of my bow; for she
sat very fair. I then fell to letting fly my arrows, and shot forty that
I had in my quiver, not only without hurting, but without starting her
from her form. At last I slipped my dogs after her, but to no more
purpose than I had shot: by which I understood that she had been secured
by her destiny; and, that neither darts nor swords can wound without the
permission of fate, which we can neither hasten nor defer.” This story
may serve, by the way, to let us see how flexible our reason is to all
sorts of images.
A person of great years, name, dignity, and learning boasted to me that
he had been induced to a certain very important change in his faith by a
strange and whimsical incitation, and one otherwise so inadequate, that I
thought it much stronger, taken the contrary way: he called it a miracle,
and so I look upon it, but in a different sense. The Turkish historians
say, that the persuasion those of their nation have imprinted in them of
the fatal and unalterable prescription of their days, manifestly conduces
to the giving them great assurance in dangers. And I know a great prince
who makes very fortunate use of it, whether it be that he really believes
it, or that he makes it his excuse for so wonderfully hazarding himself:
let us hope Fortune may not be too soon weary of her favour to him.
There has not happened in our memory a more admirable effect of
resolution than in those two who conspired the death of the Prince of
Orange.
[The first of these was Jehan de Jaureguy, who wounded the Prince
18th March 1582; the second, by whom the Prince was killed 10th July
1584., was Balthazar Gerard.]
‘Tis marvellous how the second who executed it, could ever be persuaded
into an attempt, wherein his companion, who had done his utmost, had had
so ill success; and after the same method, and with the same arms, to go
attack a lord, armed with so recent a late lesson of distrust, powerful
in followers and bodily strength, in his own hall, amidst his guards, and
in a city wholly at his devotion. Assuredly, he employed a very resolute
arm and a courage enflamed with furious passion. A poignard is surer for
striking home; but by reason that more motion and force of hand is
required than with a pistol, the blow is more subject to be put by or
hindered. That this man did not run to a certain death, I make no great
doubt; for the hopes any one could flatter him withal, could not find
place in any sober understanding, and the conduct of his exploit
sufficiently manifests that he had no want of that, no more than of
courage. The motives of so powerful a persuasion may be diverse, for our
fancy does what it will, both with itself and us. The execution that was
done near Orleans--[The murder of the Duke of Guise by Poltrot.]--was
nothing like this; there was in this more of chance than vigour; the
wound was not mortal, if fortune had not made it so, and to attempt to
shoot on horseback, and at a great distance, by one whose body was in
motion from the motion of his horse, was the attempt of a man who had
rather miss his blow than fail of saving himself. This was apparent from
what followed; for he was so astonished and stupefied with the thought of
so high an execution, that he totally lost his judgment both to find his
way to flight and to govern his tongue. What needed he to have done more
than to fly back to his friends across the river? ‘Tis what I have done
in less dangers, and that I think of very little hazard, how broad soever
the river may be, provided your horse have easy going in, and that you
see on the other side easy landing according to the stream. The other,
--[Balthazar Gerard.]--when they pronounced his dreadful sentence,
“I was prepared for this,” said he, “beforehand, and I will make you
wonder at my patience.”
The Assassins, a nation bordering upon Phoenicia,
[Or in Egypt, Syria, and Persia. Derivation of ‘assassin’ is from
Hassan-ben-Saba, one of their early leaders, and they had an
existence for some centuries. They are classed among the secret
societies of the Middle Ages. D.W.]
are reputed amongst the Mohammedans a people of very great devotion and
purity of manners. They hold that the nearest way to gain Paradise is to
kill some one of a contrary religion; which is the reason they have often
been seen, being but one or two, and without armour, to attempt against
powerful enemies, at the price of a certain death and without any
consideration of their own danger. So was our Raymond, Count of Tripoli,
assassinated (which word is derived from their name) in the heart of his
city,--[in 1151]--during our enterprises of the Holy War: and likewise
Conrad, Marquis of Monteferrat, the murderers at their execution bearing
themselves with great pride and glory that they had performed so brave an
exploit.


CHAPTER XXX.
OF A MONSTROUS CHILD
This story shall go by itself; for I will leave it to physicians to
discourse of. Two days ago I saw a child that two men and a nurse, who
said they were the father, the uncle, and the aunt of it, carried about
to get money by showing it, by reason it was so strange a creature. It
was, as to all the rest, of a common form, and could stand upon its feet;
could go and gabble much like other children of the same age; it had
never as yet taken any other nourishment but from the nurse’s breasts,
and what, in my presence, they tried to put into the mouth of it, it only
chewed a little and spat it out again without swallowing; the cry of it
seemed indeed a little odd and particular, and it was just fourteen
months old. Under the breast it was joined to another child, but without
a head, and which had the spine of the back without motion, the rest
entire; for though it had one arm shorter than the other, it had been
broken by accident at their birth; they were joined breast to breast, and
as if a lesser child sought to throw its arms about the neck of one
something bigger. The juncture and thickness of the place where they
were conjoined was not above four fingers, or thereabouts, so that if you
thrust up the imperfect child you might see the navel of the other below
it, and the joining was betwixt the paps and the navel. The navel of the
imperfect child could not be seen, but all the rest of the belly, so that
all that was not joined of the imperfect one, as arms, buttocks, thighs,
and legs, hung dangling upon the other, and might reach to the mid-leg.
The nurse, moreover, told us that it urined at both bodies, and that the
members of the other were nourished, sensible, and in the same plight
with that she gave suck to, excepting that they were shorter and less.
This double body and several limbs relating to one head might be
interpreted a favourable prognostic to the king,--[Henry III.]--of
maintaining these various parts of our state under the union of his laws;
but lest the event should prove otherwise, ‘tis better to let it alone,
for in things already past there needs no divination,
“Ut quum facts sunt, tum ad conjecturam
aliqui interpretatione revocentur;”
[“So as when they are come to pass, they may then by some
interpretation be recalled to conjecture”
--Cicero, De Divin., ii. 31.]
as ‘tis said of Epimenides, that he always prophesied backward.
I have just seen a herdsman in Medoc, of about thirty years of age, who
has no sign of any genital parts; he has three holes by which he
incessantly voids his water; he is bearded, has desire, and seeks contact
with women.
Those that we call monsters are not so to God, who sees in the immensity
of His work the infinite forms that He has comprehended therein; and it
is to be believed that this figure which astonishes us has relation to
some other figure of the same kind unknown to man. From His all wisdom
nothing but good, common; and regular proceeds; but we do not discern the
disposition and relation:
“Quod crebro videt, non miratur, etiamsi,
cur fiat, nescit. Quod ante non vidit, id,
si evenerit, ostentum esse censet.”
[“What he often sees he does not admire, though he be ignorant how
it comes to pass. When a thing happens he never saw before, he
thinks that it is a portent.”--Cicero, De Divin., ii. 22.]
Whatever falls out contrary to custom we say is contrary to nature, but
nothing, whatever it be, is contrary to her. Let, therefore, this
universal and natural reason expel the error and astonishment that
novelty brings along with it.


CHAPTER XXXI
OF ANGER
Plutarch is admirable throughout, but especially where he judges of human
actions. What fine things does he say in the comparison of Lycurgus and
Numa upon the subject of our great folly in abandoning children to the
care and government of their fathers? The most of our civil governments,
as Aristotle says, “leave, after the manner of the Cyclopes, to every one
the ordering of their wives and children, according to their own foolish
and indiscreet fancy; and the Lacedaemonian and Cretan are almost the
only governments that have committed the education of children to the
laws. Who does not see that in a state all depends upon their nurture
and bringing up? and yet they are left to the mercy of parents, let them
be as foolish and ill-conditioned as they may, without any manner of
discretion.”
Amongst other things, how often have I, as I have passed along our
streets, had a good mind to get up a farce, to revenge the poor boys whom
I have seen hided, knocked down, and miserably beaten by some father or
mother, when in their fury and mad with rage? You shall see them come
out with fire and fury sparkling in their eyes:
“Rabie jecur incendente, feruntur,
Praecipites; ut saxa jugis abrupta, quibus mons
Subtrahitur, clivoque latus pendente recedit,”
[“They are headlong borne with burning fury as great stones torn
from the mountains, by which the steep sides are left naked and
bare.”--Juvenal, Sat., vi. 647.]
(and according to Hippocrates, the most dangerous maladies are they that
disfigure the countenance), with a roaring and terrible voice, very often
against those that are but newly come from nurse, and there they are
lamed and spoiled with blows, whilst our justice takes no cognisance of
it, as if these maims and dislocations were not executed upon members of
our commonwealth:
“Gratum est, quod patria; civem populoque dedisti,
Si facis, ut patrix sit idoneus, utilis agris,
Utilis et bellorum et pacis rebus agendis.”
[“It is well when to thy country and the people thou hast given a
citizen, provided thou make fit for his country’s service; useful to
till the earth, useful in affairs of war and peace”
--Juvenal, Sat., xiv. 70.]
There is no passion that so much transports men from their right judgment
as anger. No one would demur upon punishing a judge with death who
should condemn a criminal on the account of his own choler; why, then,
should fathers and pedagogues be any more allowed to whip and chastise
children in their anger? ‘Tis then no longer correction, but revenge.
Chastisement is instead of physic to children; and would we endure a
physician who should be animated against and enraged at his patient?
We ourselves, to do well, should never lay a hand upon our servants
whilst our anger lasts. When the pulse beats, and we feel emotion in
ourselves, let us defer the business; things will indeed appear otherwise
to us when we are calm and cool. ‘Tis passion that then commands, ‘tis
passion that speaks, and not we. Faults seen through passion appear much
greater to us than they really are, as bodies do when seen through a
mist. He who is hungry uses meat; but he who will make use of
chastisement should have neither hunger nor thirst to it. And, moreover,
chastisements that are inflicted with weight and discretion are much
better received and with greater benefit by him who suffers; otherwise,
he will not think himself justly condemned by a man transported with
anger and fury, and will allege his master’s excessive passion, his
inflamed countenance, his unwonted oaths, his emotion and precipitous
rashness, for his own justification:
“Ora tument ira, nigrescunt sanguine venae,
Lumina Gorgoneo saevius igne micant.”
[“Their faces swell, their veins grow black with rage, and their
eyes sparkle with Gorgonian fire.”--Ovid, De Art. Amandi, iii. 503.]
Suetonius reports that Caius Rabirius having been condemned by Caesar,
the thing that most prevailed upon the people (to whom he had appealed)
to determine the cause in his favour, was the animosity and vehemence
that Caesar had manifested in that sentence.
Saying is a different thing from doing; we are to consider the sermon
apart and the preacher apart. These men lent themselves to a pretty
business who in our times have attempted to shake the truth of our Church
by the vices of her ministers; she extracts her testimony elsewhere; ‘tis
a foolish way of arguing and that would throw all things into confusion.
A man whose morals are good may have false opinions, and a wicked man may
preach truth, even though he believe it not himself. ‘Tis doubtless a
fine harmony when doing and saying go together; and I will not deny but
that saying, when the actions follow, is not of greater authority and
efficacy, as Eudamidas said, hearing a philosopher talk of military
affairs: “These things are finely said, but he who speaks them is not to
be believed for his ears have never been used to the sound of the
trumpet.” And Cleomenes, hearing an orator declaiming upon valour, burst
out into laughter, at which the other being angry; “I should,” said he to
him, “do the same if it were a swallow that spoke of this subject; but if
it were an eagle I should willingly hear him.” I perceive, methinks, in
the writings of the ancients, that he who speaks what he thinks, strikes
much more home than he who only feigns. Hear Cicero speak of the love of
liberty: hear Brutus speak of it, the mere written words of this man
sound as if he would purchase it at the price of his life. Let Cicero,
the father of eloquence, treat of the contempt of death; let Seneca do
the same: the first languishingly drawls it out so you perceive he would
make you resolve upon a thing on which he is not resolved himself; he
inspires you not with courage, for he himself has none; the other
animates and inflames you. I never read an author, even of those who
treat of virtue and of actions, that I do not curiously inquire what kind
of a man he was himself; for the Ephori at Sparta, seeing a dissolute
fellow propose a wholesome advice to the people, commanded him to hold
his peace, and entreated a virtuous man to attribute to himself the
invention, and to propose it. Plutarch’s writings, if well understood,
sufficiently bespeak their author, and so that I think I know him even
into his soul; and yet I could wish that we had some fuller account of
his life. And I am thus far wandered from my subject, upon the account
of the obligation I have to Aulus Gellius, for having left us in writing
this story of his manners, that brings me back to my subject of anger.
A slave of his, a vicious, ill-conditioned fellow, but who had the
precepts of philosophy often ringing in his ears, having for some offence
of his been stript by Plutarch’s command, whilst he was being whipped,
muttered at first, that it was without cause and that he had done nothing
to deserve it; but at last falling in good earnest to exclaim against and
rail at his master, he reproached him that he was no philosopher, as he
had boasted himself to be: that he had often heard him say it was
indecent to be angry, nay, had written a book to that purpose; and that
the causing him to be so cruelly beaten, in the height of his rage,
totally gave the lie to all his writings; to which Plutarch calmly and
coldly answered, “How, ruffian,” said he, “by what dost thou judge that
I am now angry? Does either my face, my colour, or my voice give any
manifestation of my being moved? I do not think my eyes look fierce,
that my countenance appears troubled, or that my voice is dreadful: am I
red, do I foam, does any word escape my lips I ought to repent? Do I
start? Do I tremble with fury? For those, I tell thee, are the true
signs of anger.” And so, turning to the fellow that was whipping him,
“Ply on thy work,” said he, “whilst this gentleman and I dispute.” This
is his story.
Archytas Tarentinus, returning from a war wherein he had been
captain-general, found all things in his house in very great disorder,
and his lands quite out of tillage, through the ill husbandry of his
receiver, and having caused him to be called to him; “Go,” said he, “if I
were not in anger I would soundly drub your sides.” Plato likewise,
being highly offended with one of his slaves, gave Speusippus order to
chastise him, excusing himself from doing it because he was in anger.
And Carillus, a Lacedaemonian, to a Helot, who carried himself insolently
towards him: “By the gods,” said he, “if I was not angry, I would
immediately cause thee to be put to death.”
‘Tis a passion that is pleased with and flatters itself. How often,
being moved under a false cause, if the person offending makes a good
defence and presents us with a just excuse, are we angry against truth
and innocence itself? In proof of which, I remember a marvellous example
of antiquity.
Piso, otherwise a man of very eminent virtue, being moved against a
soldier of his, for that returning alone from forage he could give him no
account where he had left a companion of his, took it for granted that he
had killed him, and presently condemned him to death. He was no sooner
mounted upon the gibbet, but, behold, his wandering companion arrives, at
which all the army were exceedingly glad, and after many embraces of the
two comrades, the hangman carried both the one and the other into Piso’s
presence, all those present believing it would be a great pleasure even
to himself; but it proved quite contrary; for through shame and spite,
his fury, which was not yet cool, redoubled; and by a subtlety which his
passion suddenly suggested to him, he made three criminals for having
found one innocent, and caused them all to be despatched: the first
soldier, because sentence had passed upon him; the second, who had lost
his way, because he was the cause of his companion’s death; and the
hangman, for not having obeyed the order which had been given him.
Such as have had to do with testy and obstinate women, may have
experimented into what a rage it puts them to oppose silence and coldness
to their fury, and that a man disdains to nourish their anger. The
orator Celius was wonderfully choleric by nature; and to one who supped
in his company, a man of a gentle and sweet conversation, and who, that
he might not move him, approved and consented to all he said; he,
impatient that his ill-humour should thus spend itself without aliment:
“For the love of the gods deny me something,” said he, “that we may be
two.” Women, in like manner, are only angry that others may be angry
again, in imitation of the laws of love. Phocion, to one who interrupted
his speaking by injurious and very opprobrious words, made no other
return than silence, and to give him full liberty and leisure to vent his
spleen; which he having accordingly done, and the storm blown over,
without any mention of this disturbance, he proceeded in his discourse
where he had left off before. No answer can nettle a man like such a
contempt.
Of the most choleric man in France (anger is always an imperfection, but
more excusable in, a soldier, for in that trade it cannot sometimes be
avoided) I often say, that he is the most patient man that I know, and
the most discreet in bridling his passions; which rise in him with so
great violence and fury,
“Magno veluti cum flamma sonore
Virgea suggeritur costis undantis ahem,
Exsultantque aatu latices, furit intus aquae vis.
Fumidus atque alte spumis exuberat amnis,
Nec jam se capit unda; volat vapor ater ad auras;”
[“When with loud crackling noise, a fire of sticks is applied to the
boiling caldron’s side, by the heat in frisky bells the liquor
dances; within the water rages, and high the smoky fluid in foam
overflows. Nor can the wave now contain itself; the black steam
flies all abroad.”--AEneid, vii. 462.]

that he must of necessity cruelly constrain himself to moderate it. And
for my part, I know no passion which I could with so much violence to
myself attempt to cover and conceal; I would not set wisdom at so high a
price; and do not so much consider what a man does, as how much it costs
him to do no worse.
Another boasted himself to me of the regularity and gentleness of his
manners, which are to truth very singular; to whom I replied, that it was
indeed something, especially m persons of so eminent a quality as
himself, upon whom every one had their eyes, to present himself always
well-tempered to the world; but that the principal thing was to make
provision for within and for himself; and that it was not in my opinion
very well to order his business outwardly well, and to grate himself
within, which I was afraid he did, in putting on and maintaining this
mask and external appearance.
A man incorporates anger by concealing it, as Diogenes told Demosthenes,
who, for fear of being seen in a tavern, withdrew himself the more
retiredly into it: “The more you retire backward, the farther you enter
in.” I would rather advise that a man should give his servant a box of
the ear a little unseasonably, than rack his fancy to present this grave
and composed countenance; and had rather discover my passions than brood
over them at my own expense; they grow less inventing and manifesting
themselves; and ‘tis much better their point should wound others without,
than be turned towards ourselves within:
“Omnia vitia in aperto leviora sunt: et tunc perniciosissima,
quum simulata sanitate subsident.”
[“All vices are less dangerous when open to be seen, and then most
pernicious when they lurk under a dissembled good nature.”
--Seneca, Ep. 56]
I admonish all those who have authority to be angry in my family, in the
first place to manage their anger and not to lavish it upon every