Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 065

whom, Marcellinus, in several places of his history sharply reproves an
edict of his whereby he interdicted all Christian rhetoricians and
grammarians to keep school or to teach, and says he could wish that act
of his had been buried in silence: it is probable that had he done any
more severe thing against us, he, so affectionate as he was to our party,
would not have passed it over in silence. He was indeed sharp against
us, but yet no cruel enemy; for our own people tell this story of him,
that one day, walking about the city of Chalcedon, Maris, bishop of the
place; was so bold as to tell him that he was impious, and an enemy to
Christ, at which, they say, he was no further moved than to reply,
“Go, poor wretch, and lament the loss of thy eyes,” to which the bishop
replied again, “I thank Jesus Christ for taking away my sight, that I may
not see thy impudent visage,” affecting in that, they say, a
philosophical patience. But this action of his bears no comparison to
the cruelty that he is said to have exercised against us. “He was,” says
Eutropius, my other witness, “an enemy to Christianity, but without
putting his hand to blood.” And, to return to his justice, there is
nothing in that whereof he can be accused, the severity excepted he
practised in the beginning of his reign against those who had followed
the party of Constantius, his predecessor. As to his sobriety, he lived
always a soldier-like life; and observed a diet and routine, like one
that prepared and inured himself to the austerities of war. His
vigilance was such, that he divided the night into three or four parts,
of which the least was dedicated to sleep; the rest was spent either in
visiting the state of his army and guards in person, or in study; for
amongst other rare qualities, he was very excellent in all sorts of
learning. ‘Tis said of Alexander the Great, that being in bed, for fear
lest sleep should divert him from his thoughts and studies, he had always
a basin set by his bedside, and held one of his hands out with a ball of
copper in it, to the end, that, beginning to fall asleep, and his fingers
leaving their hold, the ball by falling into the basin, might awake him.
But the other had his soul so bent upon what he had a mind to do, and so
little disturbed with fumes by reason of his singular abstinence, that he
had no need of any such invention. As to his military experience, he was
excellent in all the qualities of a great captain, as it was likely he
should, being almost all his life in a continual exercise of war, and
most of that time with us in France, against the Germans and Franks: we
hardly read of any man who ever saw more dangers, or who made more
frequent proofs of his personal valour.
His death has something in it parallel with that of Epaminondas, for he
was wounded with an arrow, and tried to pull it out, and had done so, but
that, being edged, it cut and disabled his hand. He incessantly called
out that they should carry him again into the heat of the battle, to
encourage his soldiers, who very bravely disputed the fight without him,
till night parted the armies. He stood obliged to his philosophy for the
singular contempt he had for his life and all human things. He had a
firm belief of the immortality of souls.
In matter of religion he was wrong throughout, and was surnamed the
Apostate for having relinquished ours: nevertheless, the opinion seems to
me more probable, that he had never thoroughly embraced it, but had
dissembled out of obedience to the laws, till he came to the empire.
He was in his own so superstitious, that he was laughed at for it by
those of his own time, of the same opinion, who jeeringly said, that had
he got the victory over the Parthians, he had destroyed the breed of oxen
in the world to supply his sacrifices. He was, moreover, besotted with
the art of divination, and gave authority to all sorts of predictions.
He said, amongst other things at his death, that he was obliged to the
gods, and thanked them, in that they would not cut him off by surprise,
having long before advertised him of the place and hour of his death, nor
by a mean and unmanly death, more becoming lazy and delicate people; nor
by a death that was languishing, long, and painful; and that they had
thought him worthy to die after that noble manner, in the progress of his
victories, in the flower of his glory. He had a vision like that of
Marcus Brutus, that first threatened him in Gaul, and afterward appeared
to him in Persia just before his death. These words that some make him
say when he felt himself wounded: “Thou hast overcome, Nazarene”; or as
others, “Content thyself, Nazarene”; would hardly have been omitted, had
they been believed, by my witnesses, who, being present in the army, have
set down to the least motions and words of his end; no more than certain
other miracles that are reported about it.
And to return to my subject, he long nourished, says Marcellinus,
paganism in his heart; but all his army being Christians, he durst not
own it. But in the end, seeing himself strong enough to dare to discover
himself, he caused the temples of the gods to be thrown open, and did his
uttermost to set on foot and to encourage idolatry. Which the better to
effect, having at Constantinople found the people disunited, and also the
prelates of the church divided amongst themselves, having convened them
all before him, he earnestly admonished them to calm those civil
dissensions, and that every one might freely, and without fear, follow
his own religion. Which he the more sedulously solicited, in hope that
this licence would augment the schisms and factions of their division,
and hinder the people from reuniting, and consequently fortifying
themselves against him by their unanimous intelligence and concord;
having experienced by the cruelty of some Christians, that there is no
beast in the world so much to be feared by man as man; these are very
nearly his words.
Wherein this is very worthy of consideration, that the Emperor Julian
made use of the same receipt of liberty of conscience to inflame the
civil dissensions that our kings do to extinguish them. So that a man
may say on one side, that to give the people the reins to entertain every
man his own opinion, is to scatter and sow division, and, as it were, to
lend a hand to augment it, there being no legal impediment or restraint
to stop or hinder their career; but, on the other side, a man may also
say, that to give the people the reins to entertain every man his own
opinion, is to mollify and appease them by facility and toleration, and
to dull the point which is whetted and made sharper by singularity,
novelty, and difficulty: and I think it is better for the honour of the
devotion of our kings, that not having been able to do what they would,
they have made a show of being willing to do what they could.


CHAPTER XX
THAT WE TASTE NOTHING PURE
The feebleness of our condition is such that things cannot, in their
natural simplicity and purity, fall into our use; the elements that we
enjoy are changed, and so ‘tis with metals; and gold must be debased with
some other matter to fit it for our service. Neither has virtue, so
simple as that which Aristo, Pyrrho, and also the Stoics, made the end of
life; nor the Cyrenaic and Aristippic pleasure, been without mixture
useful to it. Of the pleasure and goods that we enjoy, there is not one
exempt from some mixture of ill and inconvenience:
“Medio de fonte leporum,
Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis fioribus angat.”
[“From the very fountain of our pleasure, something rises that is
bitter, which even in flowers destroys.”--Lucretius, iv. 1130.]
Our extremest pleasure has some sort of groaning and complaining in it;
would you not say that it is dying of pain? Nay, when we frame the image
of it in its full excellence, we stuff it with sickly and painful
epithets and qualities, languor, softness, feebleness, faintness,
‘morbidezza’: a great testimony of their consanguinity and
consubstantiality. The most profound joy has more of severity than
gaiety, in it. The highest and fullest contentment offers more of the
grave than of the merry:
“Ipsa felicitas, se nisi temperat, premit.”
[“Even felicity, unless it moderate itself, oppresses?”
--Seneca, Ep. 74.]
Pleasure chews and grinds us; according to the old Greek verse, which
says that the gods sell us all the goods they give us; that is to say,
that they give us nothing pure and perfect, and that we do not purchase
but at the price of some evil.
Labour and pleasure, very unlike in nature, associate, nevertheless,
by I know not what natural conjunction. Socrates says, that some god
tried to mix in one mass and to confound pain and pleasure, but not being
able to do it; he bethought him at least to couple them by the tail.
Metrodorus said, that in sorrow there is some mixture of pleasure. I
know not whether or no he intended anything else by that saying; but for
my part, I am of opinion that there is design, consent, and complacency
in giving a man’s self up to melancholy. I say, that besides ambition,
which may also have a stroke in the business, there is some shadow of
delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very
lap of melancholy. Are there not some constitutions that feed upon it?
“Est quaedam flere voluptas;”
[“‘Tis a certain kind of pleasure to weep.”
--Ovid, Trist., iv. 3, 27.]
and one Attalus in Seneca says, that the memory of our lost friends is as
grateful to us, as bitterness in wine, when too old, is to the palate:
“Minister vetuli, puer, Falerni
Inger’ mi calices amariores”--
[“Boy, when you pour out old Falernian wine, the bitterest put
into my bowl.”--Catullus, xxvii. I.]
and as apples that have a sweet tartness.
Nature discovers this confusion to us; painters hold that the same
motions and grimaces of the face that serve for weeping; serve for
laughter too; and indeed, before the one or the other be finished, do but
observe the painter’s manner of handling, and you will be in doubt to
which of the two the design tends; and the extreme of laughter does at
last bring tears:
“Nullum sine auctoramento malum est.”
[“No evil is without its compensation.”--Seneca, Ep., 69.]
When I imagine man abounding with all the conveniences that are to be
desired (let us put the case that all his members were always seized with
a pleasure like that of generation, in its most excessive height) I feel
him melting under the weight of his delight, and see him utterly unable
to support so pure, so continual, and so universal a pleasure. Indeed,
he is running away whilst he is there, and naturally makes haste to
escape, as from a place where he cannot stand firm, and where he is
afraid of sinking.
When I religiously confess myself to myself, I find that the best virtue
I have has in it some tincture of vice; and I am afraid that Plato, in
his purest virtue (I, who am as sincere and loyal a lover of virtue of
that stamp as any other whatever), if he had listened and laid his ear
close to himself and he did so no doubt--would have heard some jarring
note of human mixture, but faint and only perceptible to himself. Man is
wholly and throughout but patch and motley. Even the laws of justice
themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice; insomuch that
Plato says, they undertake to cut off the hydra’s head, who pretend to
clear the law of all inconveniences:
“Omne magnum exemplum habet aliquid ex iniquo,
quod contra singulos utilitate publics rependitur,”
[“Every great example has in it some mixture of injustice, which
recompenses the wrong done to particular men by the public utility.”
--Annals, xiv. 44.]
says Tacitus.
It is likewise true, that for the use of life and the service of public
commerce, there may be some excesses in the purity and perspicacity of
our minds; that penetrating light has in it too much of subtlety and
curiosity: we must a little stupefy and blunt them to render them more
obedient to example and practice, and a little veil and obscure them, the
better to proportion them to this dark and earthly life. And therefore
common and less speculative souls are found to be more proper for and
more successful in the management of affairs, and the elevated and
exquisite opinions of philosophy unfit for business. This sharp vivacity
of soul, and the supple and restless volubility attending it, disturb our
negotiations. We are to manage human enterprises more superficially and
roughly, and leave a great part to fortune; it is not necessary to
examine affairs with so much subtlety and so deep: a man loses himself in
the consideration of many contrary lustres, and so many various forms:
“Volutantibus res inter se pugnantes, obtorpuerunt.... animi.”
[“Whilst they considered of things so indifferent in themselves,
they were astonished, and knew not what to do.”--Livy, xxxii. 20.]
‘Tis what the ancients say of Simonides, that by reason his imagination
suggested to him, upon the question King Hiero had put to him--[What God
was.--Cicero, De Nat. Deor., i. 22.]--(to answer which he had had many
days for thought), several sharp and subtle considerations, whilst he
doubted which was the most likely, he totally despaired of the truth.
He who dives into and in his inquisition comprehends all circumstances
and consequences, hinders his election: a little engine well handled is
sufficient for executions, whether of less or greater weight. The best
managers are those who can worst give account how they are so; while the
greatest talkers, for the most part, do nothing to purpose; I know one of
this sort of men, and a most excellent discourser upon all sorts of good
husbandry, who has miserably let a hundred thousand livres yearly revenue
slip through his hands; I know another who talks, who better advises than
any man of his counsel, and there is not in the world a fairer show of
soul and understanding than he has; nevertheless, when he comes to the
test, his servants find him quite another thing; not to make any mention
of his misfortunes.


CHAPTER XXI
AGAINST IDLENESS
The Emperor Vespasian, being sick of the disease whereof he died, did not
for all that neglect to inquire after the state of the empire, and even
in bed continually despatched very many affairs of great consequence; for
which, being reproved by his physician, as a thing prejudicial to his
health, “An emperor,” said he, “must die standing.” A fine saying, in my
opinion, and worthy a great prince. The Emperor Adrian since made use of
the same words, and kings should be often put in mind of them, to make
them know that the great office conferred upon them of the command of so
many men, is not an employment of ease; and that there is nothing can so
justly disgust a subject, and make him unwilling to expose himself to
labour and danger for the service of his prince, than to see him, in the
meantime, devoted to his ease and frivolous amusement, and to be
solicitous of his preservation who so much neglects that of his people.
Whoever will take upon him to maintain that ‘tis better for a prince to
carry on his wars by others, than in his own person, fortune will furnish
him with examples enough of those whose lieutenants have brought great
enterprises to a happy issue, and of those also whose presence has done
more hurt than good: but no virtuous and valiant prince can with patience
endure so dishonourable councils. Under colour of saving his head, like
the statue of a saint, for the happiness of his kingdom, they degrade him
from and declare him incapable of his office, which is military
throughout: I know one--[Probably Henry IV.]--who had much rather be
beaten, than to sleep whilst another fights for him; and who never
without jealousy heard of any brave thing done even by his own officers
in his absence. And Soliman I. said, with very good reason, in my
opinion, that victories obtained without the master were never complete.
Much more would he have said that that master ought to blush for shame,
to pretend to any share in the honour, having contributed nothing to the
work, but his voice and thought; nor even so much as these, considering
that in such work as that, the direction and command that deserve honour
are only such as are given upon the spot, and in the heat of the
business. No pilot performs his office by standing still. The princes
of the Ottoman family, the chiefest in the world in military fortune,
have warmly embraced this opinion, and Bajazet II., with his son, who
swerved from it, spending their time in science and other retired
employments, gave great blows to their empire; and Amurath III., now
reigning, following their example, begins to find the same. Was it not
Edward III., King of England, who said this of our Charles V.: “There
never was king who so seldom put on his armour, and yet never king who
gave me so much to do.” He had reason to think it strange, as an effect
of chance more than of reason. And let those seek out some other to join
with them than me, who will reckon the Kings of Castile and Portugal
amongst the warlike and magnanimous conquerors, because at the distance
of twelve hundred leagues from their lazy abode, by the conduct of their
captains, they made themselves masters of both Indies; of which it has to
be known if they would have had even the courage to go and in person
enjoy them.
The Emperor Julian said yet further, that a philosopher and a brave man
ought not so much as to breathe; that is to say, not to allow any more to
bodily necessities than what we cannot refuse; keeping the soul and body
still intent and busy about honourable, great, and virtuous things. He
was ashamed if any one in public saw him spit, or sweat (which is said by
some, also, of the Lacedaemonian young men, and which Xenophon says of
the Persian), forasmuch as he conceived that exercise, continual labour,
and sobriety, ought to have dried up all those superfluities. What
Seneca says will not be unfit for this place; which is, that the ancient
Romans kept their youth always standing, and taught them nothing that
they were to learn sitting.
‘Tis a generous desire to wish to die usefully and like a man, but the
effect lies not so much in our resolution as in our good fortune; a
thousand have proposed to themselves in battle, either to overcome or to
die, who have failed both in the one and the other, wounds and
imprisonment crossing their design and compelling them to live against
their will. There are diseases that overthrow even our desires, and our
knowledge. Fortune ought not to second the vanity of the Roman legions,
who bound themselves by oath, either to overcome or die:
“Victor, Marce Fabi, revertar ex acie: si fallo, Jovem patrem,
Gradivumque Martem aliosque iratos invoco deos.”
[“I will return, Marcus Fabius, a conqueror, from the fight:
and if I fail, I invoke Father Jove, Mars Gradivus, and the
other angry gods.”--Livy, ii. 45.]
The Portuguese say that in a certain place of their conquest of the
Indies, they met with soldiers who had condemned themselves, with
horrible execrations, to enter into no other composition but either to
cause themselves to be slain, or to remain victorious; and had their
heads and beards shaved in token of this vow. ‘Tis to much purpose for
us to hazard ourselves and to be obstinate: it seems as if blows avoided
those who present themselves too briskly to them, and do not willingly
fall upon those who too willingly seek them, and so defeat them of their
design. Such there have been, who, after having tried all ways, not
having been able with all their endeavour to obtain the favour of dying
by the hand of the enemy, have been constrained, to make good their
resolution of bringing home the honour of victory or of losing their
lives, to kill themselves even in the heat of battle. Of which there are
other examples, but this is one: Philistus, general of the naval army of
Dionysius the younger against the Syracusans, presented them battle which
was sharply disputed, their forces being equal: in this engagement, he
had the better at the first, through his own valour: but the Syracusans
drawing about his gally to environ him, after having done great things in
his own person to disengage himself and hoping for no relief, with his
own hand he took away the life he had so liberally, and in vain, exposed
to the enemy.
Mule Moloch, king of Fez, who lately won against Sebastian, king of
Portugal, the battle so famous for the death of three kings, and for the
transmission of that great kingdom to the crown of Castile, was extremely
sick when the Portuguese entered in an hostile manner into his dominions;
and from that day forward grew worse and worse, still drawing nearer to
and foreseeing his end; yet never did man better employ his own
sufficiency more vigorously and bravely than he did upon this occasion.
He found himself too weak to undergo the pomp and ceremony of entering.
into his camp, which after their manner is very magnificent, and
therefore resigned that honour to his brother; but this was all of the
office of a general that he resigned; all the rest of greatest utility
and necessity he most, exactly and gloriously performed in his own
person; his body lying upon a couch, but his judgment and courage upright
and firm to his last gasp, and in some sort beyond it. He might have
wasted his enemy, indiscreetly advanced into his dominions, without
striking a blow; and it was a very unhappy occurrence, that for want of a
little life or somebody to substitute in the conduct of this war and the
affairs of a troubled state, he was compelled to seek a doubtful and
bloody victory, having another by a better and surer way already in his
hands. Notwithstanding, he wonderfully managed the continuance of his
sickness in consuming the enemy, and in drawing them far from the
assistance of the navy and the ports they had on the coast of Africa,
even till the last day of his life, which he designedly reserved for this
great battle. He arranged his battalions in a circular form, environing
the Portuguese army on every side, which round circle coming to close in
and to draw up close together, not only hindered them in the conflict
(which was very sharp through the valour of the young invading king),
considering that they had every way to present a front, but prevented
their flight after the defeat, so that finding all passages possessed and
shut up by the enemy, they were constrained to close up together again:
“Coacerventurque non solum caede, sed etiam fuga,”
[“Piled up not only in slaughter but in flight.”]
and there they were slain in heaps upon one another, leaving to the
conqueror a very bloody and entire victory. Dying, he caused himself to
be carried and hurried from place to place where most need was, and
passing along the files, encouraged the captains and soldiers one after
another; but a corner of his main battalions being broken, he was not to
be held from mounting on horseback with his sword in his hand; he did his
utmost to break from those about him, and to rush into the thickest of
the battle, they all the while withholding him, some by the bridle, some
by his robe, and others by his stirrups. This last effort totally
overwhelmed the little life he had left; they again laid him upon his
bed; but coming to himself, and starting as it were out of his swoon, all
other faculties failing, to give his people notice that they were to
conceal his death the most necessary command he had then to give, that
his soldiers might not be discouraged (with the news) he expired with his
finger upon his mouth, the ordinary sign of keeping silence. Who ever
lived so long and so far into death? whoever died so erect, or more like
a man?
The most extreme degree of courageously treating death, and the most
natural, is to look upon it not only without astonishment but without
care, continuing the wonted course of life even into it, as Cato did,
who entertained himself in study, and went to sleep, having a violent and
bloody death in his heart, and the weapon in his hand with which he was
resolved to despatch himself.


CHAPTER XXII
OF POSTING
I have been none of the least able in this exercise, which is proper for
men of my pitch, well-knit and short; but I give it over; it shakes us
too much to continue it long. I was at this moment reading, that King
Cyrus, the better to have news brought him from all parts of the empire,
which was of a vast extent, caused it to be tried how far a horse could
go in a day without baiting, and at that distance appointed men, whose
business it was to have horses always in readiness, to mount those who
were despatched to him; and some say, that this swift way of posting is
equal to that of the flight of cranes.
Caesar says, that Lucius Vibullius Rufus, being in great haste to carry
intelligence to Pompey, rode night and day, still taking fresh horses for
the greater diligence and speed; and he himself, as Suetonius reports,
travelled a hundred miles a day in a hired coach; but he was a furious
courier, for where the rivers stopped his way he passed them by swimming,
without turning out of his way to look for either bridge or ford.
Tiberius Nero, going to see his brother Drusus, who was sick in Germany,
travelled two hundred miles in four-and-twenty hours, having three
coaches. In the war of the Romans against King Antiochus, T. Sempronius
Gracchus, says Livy:
“Per dispositos equos prope incredibili celeritate
ab Amphissa tertio die Pellam pervenit.”
[“By pre-arranged relays of horses, he, with an almost incredible
speed, rode in three days from Amphissa to Pella.”
--Livy, xxxvii. 7.]
And it appears that they were established posts, and not horses purposely
laid in upon this occasion.
Cecina’s invention to send back news to his family was much more quick,
for he took swallows along with him from home, and turned them out
towards their nests when he would send back any news; setting a mark of
some colour upon them to signify his meaning, according to what he and
his people had before agreed upon.
At the theatre at Rome masters of families carried pigeons in their
bosoms to which they tied letters when they had a mind to send any orders
to their people at home; and the pigeons were trained up to bring back an
answer. D. Brutus made use of the same device when besieged in Modena,
and others elsewhere have done the same.
In Peru they rode post upon men, who took them upon their shoulders in a
certain kind of litters made for that purpose, and ran with such agility
that, in their full speed, the first couriers transferred their load to
the second without making any stop.
I understand that the Wallachians, the grand Signior’s couriers, perform
wonderful journeys, by reason they have liberty to dismount the first
person they meet upon the road, giving him their own tired horses; and
that to preserve themselves from being weary, they gird themselves
straight about the middle with a broad girdle; but I could never find
any benefit from this.


CHAPTER XXIII
OF ILL MEANS EMPLOYED TO A GOOD END
There is wonderful relation and correspondence in this universal
government of the works of nature, which very well makes it appear that
it is neither accidental nor carried on by divers masters. The diseases
and conditions of our bodies are, in like manner, manifest in states and
governments; kingdoms and republics are founded, flourish, and decay with
age as we do. We are subject to a repletion of humours, useless and