Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 082

pre-eminence of valour and virtue that we pretend to have over them; they
will find if they do but observe it, that they will not only be much more
esteemed for it, but also much more beloved. A gallant man does not give
over his pursuit for being refused, provided it be a refusal of chastity,
and not of choice; we may swear, threaten, and complain to much purpose;
we therein do but lie, for we love them all the better: there is no
allurement like modesty, if it be not rude and crabbed. ‘Tis stupidity
and meanness to be obstinate against hatred and disdain; but against a
virtuous and constant resolution, mixed with goodwill, ‘tis the exercise
of a noble and generous soul. They may acknowledge our service to a
certain degree, and give us civilly to understand that they disdain us
not; for the law that enjoins them to abominate us because we adore them,
and to hate us because we love them, is certainly very cruel, if but for
the difficulty of it. Why should they not give ear to our offers and
requests, so long as they are kept within the bounds of modesty?
wherefore should we fancy them to have other thoughts within, and to be
worse than they seem? A queen of our time said with spirit, “that to
refuse these courtesies is a testimony of weakness in women and a
self-accusation of facility, and that a lady could not boast of her
chastity who was never tempted.”
The limits of honour are not cut so short; they may give themselves a
little rein, and relax a little without being faulty: there lies on the
frontier some space free, indifferent, and neuter. He that has beaten
and pursued her into her fort is a strange fellow if he be not satisfied
with his fortune: the price of the conquest is considered by the
difficulty. Would you know what impression your service and merit have
made in her heart? Judge of it by her behaviour. Such an one may grant
more, who does not grant so much. The obligation of a benefit wholly
relates to the good will of those who confer it: the other coincident
circumstances are dumb, dead, and casual; it costs her dearer to grant
you that little, than it would do her companion to grant all. If in
anything rarity give estimation, it ought especially in this: do not
consider how little it is that is given, but how few have it to give;
the value of money alters according to the coinage and stamp of the
place. Whatever the spite and indiscretion of some may make them say in
the excess of their discontent, virtue and truth will in time recover all
the advantage. I have known some whose reputation has for a great while
suffered under slander, who have afterwards been restored to the world’s
universal approbation by their mere constancy without care or artifice;
every one repents, and gives himself the lie for what he has believed and
said; and from girls a little suspected they have been afterward advanced
to the first rank amongst the ladies of honour. Somebody told Plato that
all the world spoke ill of him. “Let them talk,” said he; “I will live
so as to make them change their note.” Besides the fear of God, and the
value of so rare a glory, which ought to make them look to themselves,
the corruption of the age we live in compels them to it; and if I were
they, there is nothing I would not rather do than intrust my reputation
in so dangerous hands. In my time the pleasure of telling (a pleasure
little inferior to that of doing) was not permitted but to those who had
some faithful and only friend; but now the ordinary discourse and common
table-talk is nothing but boasts of favours received and the secret
liberality of ladies. In earnest, ‘tis too abject, too much meanness of
spirit, in men to suffer such ungrateful, indiscreet, and giddy-headed
people so to persecute, forage, and rifle those tender and charming
favours.
This our immoderate and illegitimate exasperation against this vice
springs from the most vain and turbulent disease that afflicts human
minds, which is jealousy:
“Quis vetat apposito lumen de lumine sumi?
Dent licet assidue, nil tamen inde perit;”
[“Who says that one light should not be lighted from another light?
Let them give ever so much, as much ever remains to lose.”--Ovid, De
Arte Amandi, iii. 93. The measure of the last line is not good;
but the words are taken from the epigram in the Catalecta entitled
Priapus.]
she, and envy, her sister, seem to me to be the most foolish of the whole
troop. As to the last, I can say little about it; ‘tis a passion that,
though said to be so mighty and powerful, had never to do with me. As to
the other, I know it by sight, and that’s all. Beasts feel it; the
shepherd Cratis, having fallen in love with a she-goat, the he-goat, out
of jealousy, came, as he lay asleep, to butt the head of the female, and
crushed it. We have raised this fever to a greater excess by the
examples of some barbarous nations; the best disciplined have been
touched with it, and ‘tis reason, but not transported:
“Ense maritali nemo confossus adulter
Purpureo Stygias sanguine tinxit aquas.”
[“Never did adulterer slain by a husband
stain with purple blood the Stygian waters.”]
Lucullus, Caesar, Pompey, Antony, Cato, and other brave men were
cuckolds, and knew it, without making any bustle about it; there was in
those days but one coxcomb, Lepidus, that died for grief that his wife
had used him so.
“Ah! tum te miserum malique fati,
Quem attractis pedibus, patente porta,
Percurrent raphanique mugilesque:”
[“Wretched man! when, taken in the fact, thou wilt be
dragged out of doors by the heels, and suffer the punishment
of thy adultery.”--Catullus, xv. 17.]
and the god of our poet, when he surprised one of his companions with his
wife, satisfied himself by putting them to shame only,
“Atque aliquis de dis non tristibus optat
Sic fieri turpis:”
[“And one of the merry gods wishes that he should himself
like to be so disgraced.”--Ovid, Metam., iv. 187.]
and nevertheless took anger at the lukewarm embraces she gave him;
complaining that upon that account she was grown jealous of his
affection:
“Quid causas petis ex alto? fiducia cessit
Quo tibi, diva, mei?”
[“Dost thou seek causes from above? Why, goddess, has your
confidence in me ceased?”--Virgil, AEneid, viii. 395.]
nay, she entreats arms for a bastard of hers,
“Arena rogo genitrix nato.”
[“I, a mother, ask armour for a son.”--Idem, ibid., 383.]
which are freely granted; and Vulcan speaks honourably of AEneas,
“Arma acri facienda viro,”
[“Arms are to be made for a valiant hero.”--AEneid, viii. 441.]
with, in truth, a more than human humanity. And I am willing to leave
this excess of kindness to the gods:
“Nec divis homines componier aequum est.”
[“Nor is it fit to compare men with gods.”
--Catullus, lxviii. 141.]
As to the confusion of children, besides that the gravest legislators
ordain and affect it in their republics, it touches not the women, where
this passion is, I know not how, much better seated:
“Saepe etiam Juno, maxima coelicolam,
Conjugis in culpa flagravit quotidiana.”
[“Often was Juno, greatest of the heaven-dwellers, enraged by her
husband’s daily infidelities.”--Idem, ibid.]
When jealousy seizes these poor souls, weak and incapable of resistance,
‘tis pity to see how miserably it torments and tyrannises over them; it
insinuates itself into them under the title of friendship, but after it
has once possessed them, the same causes that served for a foundation of
good-will serve them for a foundation of mortal hatred. ‘Tis, of all the
diseases of the mind, that which the most things serve for aliment and
the fewest for remedy: the virtue, health, merit, reputation of the
husband are incendiaries of their fury and ill-will:
“Nullae sunt inimicitiae, nisi amoris, acerbae.”
[“No enmities are bitter, save that of love.”
(Or:) “No hate is implacable except the hatred of love”
--Propertius, ii. 8, 3.]
This fever defaces and corrupts all they have of beautiful and good
besides; and there is no action of a jealous woman, let her be how chaste
and how good a housewife soever, that does not relish of anger and
wrangling; ‘tis a furious agitation, that rebounds them to an extremity
quite contrary to its cause. This held good with one Octavius at Rome.
Having lain with Pontia Posthumia, he augmented love with fruition, and
solicited with all importunity to marry her: unable to persuade her, this
excessive affection precipitated him to the effects of the most cruel and
mortal hatred: he killed her. In like manner, the ordinary symptoms of
this other amorous disease are intestine hatreds, private conspiracies,
and cabals:
“Notumque furens quid faemina possit,”
[“And it is known what an angry woman is capable of doing.”
--AEneid, V. 21.]
and a rage which so much the more frets itself, as it is compelled to
excuse itself by a pretence of good-will.
Now, the duty of chastity is of a vast extent; is it the will that we
would have them restrain? This is a very supple and active thing; a
thing very nimble, to be stayed. How? if dreams sometimes engage them so
far that they cannot deny them: it is not in them, nor, peradventure, in
chastity itself, seeing that is a female, to defend itself from lust and
desire. If we are only to trust to their will, what a case are we in,
then? Do but imagine what crowding there would be amongst men in
pursuance of the privilege to run full speed, without tongue or eyes,
into every woman’s arms who would accept them. The Scythian women put
out the eyes of all their slaves and prisoners of war, that they might
have their pleasure of them, and they never the wiser. O, the furious
advantage of opportunity! Should any one ask me, what was the first
thing to be considered in love matters, I should answer that it was how
to take a fitting time; and so the second; and so the third--‘tis a point
that can do everything. I have sometimes wanted fortune, but I have also
sometimes been wanting to myself in matters of attempt. God help him,
who yet makes light of this! There is greater temerity required in this
age of ours, which our young men excuse under the name of heat; but
should women examine it more strictly, they would find that it rather
proceeds from contempt. I was always superstitiously afraid of giving
offence, and have ever had a great respect for her I loved: besides, he
who in this traffic takes away the reverence, defaces at the same time
the lustre. I would in this affair have a man a little play the child,
the timorous, and the servant. If not this, I have in other bashfulness
whereof altogether in things some air of the foolish Plutarch makes
mention; and the course of my life has been divers ways hurt and
blemished with it; a quality very ill suiting my universal form: and,
indeed, what are we but sedition and discrepancy? I am as much out of
countenance to be denied as I am to deny; and it so much troubles me to
be troublesome to others that on occasion when duty compels me to try the
good-will of any one in a thing that is doubtful and that will be
chargeable to him, I do it very faintly, and very much against my will:
but if it be for my own particular (whatever Homer truly says, that
modesty is a foolish virtue in an indigent person), I commonly commit it
to a third person to blush for me, and deny those who employ me with the
same difficulty: so that it has sometimes befallen me to have had a mind
to deny, when I had not the power to do it.
‘Tis folly, then, to attempt to bridle in women a desire that is so
powerful in them, and so natural to them. And when I hear them brag of
having so maidenly and so temperate a will, I laugh at them: they retire
too far back. If it be an old toothless trot, or a young dry consumptive
thing, though it be not altogether to be believed, at least they say it
with more similitude of truth. But they who still move and breathe, talk
at that ridiculous rate to their own prejudice, by reason that
inconsiderate excuses are a kind of self-accusation; like a gentleman, a
neighbour of mine, suspected to be insufficient:
“Languidior tenera cui pendens sicula beta,
Numquam se mediam sustulit ad tunicam,”
[Catullus, lxvii. 2, i.--The sense is in the context.]
who three or four days after he was married, to justify himself, went
about boldly swearing that he had ridden twenty stages the night before:
an oath that was afterwards made use of to convict him of his ignorance
in that affair, and to divorce him from his wife. Besides, it signifies
nothing, for there is neither continency nor virtue where there are no
opposing desires. It is true, they may say, but we will not yield;
saints themselves speak after that manner. I mean those who boast in
good gravity of their coldness and insensibility, and who expect to be
believed with a serious countenance; for when ‘tis spoken with an
affected look, when their eyes give the lie to their tongue, and when
they talk in the cant of their profession, which always goes against the
hair, ‘tis good sport. I am a great servant of liberty and plainness;
but there is no remedy; if it be not wholly simple or childish, ‘tis
silly, and unbecoming ladies in this commerce, and presently runs into
impudence. Their disguises and figures only serve to cosen fools; lying
is there in its seat of honour; ‘tis a by-way, that by a back-door leads
us to truth. If we cannot curb their imagination, what would we have
from them. Effects? There are enough of them that evade all foreign
communication, by which chastity may be corrupted:
“Illud saepe facit, quod sine teste facit;”
[“He often does that which he does without a witness.”
--Martial, vii. 62, 6.]
and those which we fear the least are, peradventure, most to be feared;
their sins that make the least noise are the worst:
“Offendor maecha simpliciore minus.”
[“I am less offended with a more professed strumpet.”
--Idem, vi. 7,6.]
There are ways by which they may lose their virginity without
prostitution, and, which is more, without their knowledge:
“Obsterix, virginis cujusdam integritatem manu velut explorans, sive
malevolentia, sive inscitia, sive casu, dum inspicit, perdidit.”
[“By malevolence, or unskilfulness, or accident, the midwife,
seeking with the hand to test some maiden’s virginity, has sometimes
destroyed it.”--St. Augustine, De Civit. Dei, i. 18.]
Such a one, by seeking her maidenhead, has lost it; another by playing
with it has destroyed it. We cannot precisely circumscribe the actions,
we interdict them; they must guess at our meaning under general and
doubtful terms; the very idea we invent for their chastity is ridiculous:
for, amongst the greatest patterns that I have is Fatua, the wife of
Faunus: who never, after her marriage, suffered herself to be seen by any
man whatever; and the wife of Hiero, who never perceived her husband’s
stinking breath, imagining that it was common to all men. They must
become insensible and invisible to satisfy us.
Now let us confess that the knot of this judgment of duty principally
lies in the will; there have been husbands who have suffered cuckoldom,
not only without reproach or taking offence at their wives, but with
singular obligation to them and great commendation of their virtue.
Such a woman has been, who prized her honour above her life, and yet has
prostituted it to the furious lust of a mortal enemy, to save her
husband’s life, and who, in so doing, did that for him she would not have
done for herself! This is not the place wherein we are to multiply these
examples; they are too high and rich to be set off with so poor a foil as
I can give them here; let us reserve them for a nobler place; but for
examples of ordinary lustre, do we not every day see women amongst us who
surrender themselves for their husbands sole benefit, and by their
express order and mediation? and, of old, Phaulius the Argian, who
offered his to King Philip out of ambition; as Galba did it out of
civility, who, having entertained Maecenas at supper, and observing that
his wife and he began to cast glances at one another and to make eyes and
signs, let himself sink down upon his cushion, like one in a profound
sleep, to give opportunity to their desires: which he handsomely
confessed, for thereupon a servant having made bold to lay hands on the
plate upon the table, he frankly cried, “What, you rogue? do you not see
that I only sleep for Maecenas?” Such there may be, whose manners may be
lewd enough, whose will may be more reformed than another, who outwardly
carries herself after a more regular manner. As we see some who complain
of having vowed chastity before they knew what they did; and I have also
known others really, complain of having been given up to debauchery
before they were of the years of discretion. The vice of the parents or
the impulse of nature, which is a rough counsellor, may be the cause.
In the East Indies, though chastity is of singular reputation, yet custom
permitted a married woman to prostitute herself to any one who presented
her with an elephant, and that with glory, to have been valued at so high
a rate. Phaedo the philosopher, a man of birth, after the taking of his
country Elis, made it his trade to prostitute the beauty of his youth, so
long as it lasted, to any one that would, for money thereby to gain his
living: and Solon was the first in Greece, ‘tis said, who by his laws
gave liberty to women, at the expense of their chastity, to provide for
the necessities of life; a custom that Herodotus says had been received
in many governments before his time. And besides, what fruit is there of
this painful solicitude? For what justice soever there is in this
passion, we are yet to consider whether it turns to account or no: does
any one think to curb them, with all his industry?
“Pone seram; cohibe: sed quis custodiet ipsos
Custodes? cauta est, et ab illis incipit uxor.”
[“Put on a lock; shut them up under a guard; but who shall guard
the guard? she knows what she is about, and begins with them.”
--Juvenal, vi. 346.]
What commodity will not serve their turn, in so knowing an age?
Curiosity is vicious throughout; but ‘tis pernicious here. ‘Tis folly to
examine into a disease for which there is no physic that does not inflame
and make it worse; of which the shame grows still greater and more public
by jealousy, and of which the revenge more wounds our children than it
heals us. You wither and die in the search of so obscure a proof. How
miserably have they of my time arrived at that knowledge who have been so
unhappy as to have found it out? If the informer does not at the same
time apply a remedy and bring relief, ‘tis an injurious information, and
that better deserves a stab than the lie. We no less laugh at him who
takes pains to prevent it, than at him who is a cuckold and knows it not.
The character of cuckold is indelible: who once has it carries it to his
grave; the punishment proclaims it more than the fault. It is to much
purpose to drag out of obscurity and doubt our private misfortunes,
thence to expose them on tragic scaffolds; and misfortunes that only hurt
us by being known; for we say a good wife or a happy marriage, not that
they are really so, but because no one says to the contrary. Men should
be so discreet as to evade this tormenting and unprofitable knowledge:
and the Romans had a custom, when returning from any expedition, to send
home before to acquaint their wives with their coming, that they might
not surprise them; and to this purpose it is that a certain nation has
introduced a custom, that the priest shall on the wedding-day open the
way to the bride, to free the husband from the doubt and curiosity of
examining in the first assault, whether she comes a virgin to his bed, or
has been at the trade before.
But the world will be talking. I know, a hundred honest men cuckolds,
honestly and not unbeseemingly; a worthy man is pitied, not disesteemed
for it. Order it so that your virtue may conquer your misfortune; that
good men may curse the occasion, and that he who wrongs you may tremble
but to think on’t. And, moreover, who escapes being talked of at the
same rate, from the least even to the greatest?
“Tot qui legionibus imperitivit
Et melior quam to multis fuit, improbe, rebus.”
[“Many who have commanded legions, many a man much better far than
you, you rascal.”--Lucretius, iii. 1039, 1041.]
Seest thou how many honest men are reproached with this in thy presence;
believe that thou art no more spared elsewhere. But, the very ladies
will be laughing too; and what are they so apt to laugh at in this
virtuous age of ours as at a peaceable and well-composed marriage? Each
amongst you has made somebody cuckold; and nature runs much in parallel,
in compensation, and turn for turn. The frequency of this accident ought
long since to have made it more easy; ‘tis now passed into custom.
Miserable passion! which has this also, that it is incommunicable,
“Fors etiam nostris invidit questibus aures;”
[“Fortune also refuses ear to our complaints.”
--Catullus, lxvii.]
for to what friend dare you intrust your griefs, who, if he does not
laugh at them, will not make use of the occasion to get a share of the
quarry? The sharps, as well as the sweets of marriage, are kept secret
by the wise; and amongst its other troublesome conditions this to a
prating fellow, as I am, is one of the chief, that custom has rendered it
indecent and prejudicial to communicate to any one all that a man knows
and all that a man feels. To give women the same counsel against
jealousy would be so much time lost; their very being is so made up of
suspicion, vanity, and curiosity, that to cure them by any legitimate way
is not to be hoped. They often recover of this infirmity by a form of
health much more to be feared than the disease itself; for as there are
enchantments that cannot take away the evil but by throwing it upon
another, they also willingly transfer this ever to their husbands, when
they shake it off themselves. And yet I know not, to speak truth,
whether a man can suffer worse from them than their jealousy; ‘tis the
most dangerous of all their conditions, as the head is of all their
members. Pittacus used to say,--[Plutarch, On Contentment, c. II.]--
that every one had his trouble, and that his was the jealous head of his
wife; but for which he should think himself perfectly happy. A mighty
inconvenience, sure, which could poison the whole life of so just, so
wise, and so valiant a man; what must we other little fellows do? The
senate of Marseilles had reason to grant him his request who begged leave
to kill himself that he might be delivered from the clamour of his wife;
for ‘tis a mischief that is never removed but by removing the whole
piece; and that has no remedy but flight or patience, though both of them
very hard. He was, methinks, an understanding fellow who said, ‘twas a
happy marriage betwixt a blind wife and a deaf husband.
Let us also consider whether the great and violent severity of obligation
we enjoin them does not produce two effects contrary to our design
namely, whether it does not render the pursuants more eager to attack,
and the women more easy to yield. For as to the first, by raising the
value of the place, we raise the value and the desire of the conquest.
Might it not be Venus herself, who so cunningly enhanced the price of her
merchandise, by making the laws her bawds; knowing how insipid a delight
it would be that was not heightened by fancy and hardness to achieve?
In short, ‘tis all swine’s flesh, varied by sauces, as Flaminius’ host
said. Cupid is a roguish god, who makes it his sport to contend with
devotion and justice: ‘tis his glory that his power mates all powers, and
that all other rules give place to his:
“Materiam culpae prosequiturque suae.”
[“And seeks out a matter (motive) for his crimes.”
--Ovid, Trist., iv. I. 34.]
As to the second point; should we not be less cuckolds, if we less feared
to be so? according to the humour of women whom interdiction incites, and
who are more eager, being forbidden:
“Ubi velis, nolunt; ubi nolis, volunt ultro;
Concessa pudet ire via.”
[“Where thou wilt, they won’t; where thou wilt not, they
spontaneously agree; they are ashamed to go in the permitted path.”
--Terence, Eunuchus, act iv., sc. 8, v 43]
What better interpretation can we make of Messalina’s behaviour? She,
at first, made her husband a cuckold in private, as is the common use;
but, bringing her business about with too much ease, by reason of her
husband’s stupidity, she soon scorned that way, and presently fell to
making open love, to own her lovers, and to favour and entertain them in
the sight of all: she would make him know and see how she used him. This
animal, not to be roused with all this, and rendering her pleasures dull
and flat by his too stupid facility, by which he seemed to authorise and
make them lawful; what does she? Being the wife of a living and
healthful emperor, and at Rome, the theatre of the world, in the face of
the sun, and with solemn ceremony, and to Silius, who had long before
enjoyed her, she publicly marries herself one day that her husband was
gone out of the city. Does it not seem as if she was going to become
chaste by her husband’s negligence? or that she sought another husband
who might sharpen her appetite by his jealousy, and who by watching
should incite her? But the first difficulty she met with was also the
last: this beast suddenly roused these sleepy, sluggish sort of men are
often the most dangerous: I have found by experience that this extreme
toleration, when it comes to dissolve, produces the most severe revenge;
for taking fire on a sudden, anger and fury being combined in one,
discharge their utmost force at the first onset,
“Irarumque omnes effundit habenas:”
[“He let loose his whole fury.”--AEneid, xii. 499.]
he put her to death, and with her a great number of those with whom she
had intelligence, and even one of them who could not help it, and whom
she had caused to be forced to her bed with scourges.
What Virgil says of Venus and Vulcan, Lucretius had better expressed of a
stolen enjoyment betwixt her and Mars:
“Belli fera moenera Mavors
Armipotens regit, ingremium qui saepe tuum se
Rejictt, aeterno devinctus vulnere amoris
............................
Pascit amore avidos inhians in te, Dea, visus,
Eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore
Hunc tu, Diva, tuo recubantem corpore sancto
Circumfusa super, suaveis ex ore loquelas
Funde.”
[“Mars, the god of wars, who controls the cruel tasks of war, often
reclines on thy bosom, and greedily drinks love at both his eyes,
vanquished by the eternal wound of love: and his breath, as he
reclines, hangs on thy lips; bending thy head over him as he lies
upon thy sacred person, pour forth sweet and persuasive words.”
--Lucretius, i. 23.]
When I consider this rejicit, fiascit, inhians, ynolli, fovet, medullas,