The Complete Essays (200 page)
Read The Complete Essays Online
Authors: Michel de Montaigne
Tags: #Essays, #Philosophy, #Literary Collections, #History & Surveys, #General
2
. Ennius, in Cicero,
De officiis
, I, xii, 38.
3
. Geronimo Osorio (da Fonseca) and others,
Histoire du Portugal
, tr. Simon Goulart (and sometimes attributed to him), Paris, 1587, XIV.
4
. Cf. Giovanni Villani,
Croniche dell’origine di Firenze
, Venice, 1537, VI.
5
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, I;
Lysander
, XCI.
6
. Martin Du Bellay,
Mémoires
, I, 22, on the siege of Mousson, and I, 29, on the siege of Reggio (cf. Guicciardini,
Histoire d’Italie
, 1568).
7
. Plutarch,
Life of Eumenes
.
8
. Jean Froissart,
Croniques
, I, ccix.
3
. Livy, XXIV, xix; Cicero,
De officiis
, III, xvii; Xenophon,
Cyropaedia
.
4
. Guicciardini,
Histoire d’Italie
, V, ii.
5
. Montaigne confounds the sieges of Yvoy in the Ardennes with that of Dinan (1554).
6
. Martin Du Bellay,
Mémoires
, II, and IX.
7
. Ariosto,
Orlando furioso
, XV, 1.
3
. Herodotus, cited by Henri Estienne in his satire,
L’Apologie pour Hérodote
, XV.
1
. The human egg not yet having been discovered, many believed with Galen that children were produced by an intermingling of a (weaker) female semen with the male’s. By itself the female semen could at times produce
moles
, a misshapen lump. (Montaigne found the idea developed in Plutarch’s
Matrimonial Precepts
, which La Boëtie translated, and which Montaigne published in 1571.)
2
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, VIII, 22.
3
. Horace,
Ars poetica
, 7.
4
. Martial, VII, lxxiii.
5
. Lucan,
Pharsalia
, IV, 704.
6
. Montaigne’s terms are the technical ones of melancholy madness. Cf. for example Milton’s
Ode to Melancholy
, where the English equivalents occur.
1
. [A] until [B]: reputation.
I could tell some remarkable tales about that, but, for the while, it is better to keep to my subject
. It is not for nothing…
Then Plato,
Critias
, 108D.
4
. Quintilian,
Institutio oratoria
, IV, ii, 91; the saying had become proverbial.
5
. Pedro Mexia also treats this topic: cf. his
Diverses Leçons
(in, ‘How we can tell lies’). His sources, like Montaigne’s, are Aulus Gellius and Nonus.
6
. St Augustine,
City of God
, XIX, vii; Montaigne cites Pliny from J. L. Vives’ note on this passage.
7
. The murder of Captain Merveille became an international
cause célèbre
. It is narrated in the Du Bellay
Mémoires
.
8
. The original source of this account is the
De Lingua
of Erasmus. It is taken up by Henri Estienne in the
Apologie pour Hérodote
.
1
. Etienne de La Boëtie,
Vers françois
, ed. Montaigne, Paris, 1572; sonnet XIV.
2
. Pope Clement VII came to Marseilles to discuss heresy (and other matters) in 1533. Montaigne follows the account in the Du Bellay
Mémoires
.
3
. Marcus Annaeus Seneca (the rhetorician, not the philosopher),
Controversies
, III.
4
. Horace,
Epistles
, I, xix, 6 (cf. Erasmus,
Adages
, IV, III, LVIII:
‘Non est dithyrambus qui bibit aquam.’)
5
. Cf. Montaigne’s dedication of his translation of Raymond Sebond to his father (given in the Appendix to the Introduction, p. lvii).
1
. Cicero,
De divinatione
, II, lvii, 117;
De natura deorum
, II, lxiv, 160–1; lxv, 162 f. The theme is prominent in Plutarch’s treatise on the cessation of oracles. There was a renewed interest in classical forms of prognostication during the Renaissance. (Cf. Rabelais,
Le Tiers Livre
, TLF, XXV.) Montaigne criticizes Plato’s belief in divination from entrails in II, 12.
2
. Cf. Robert Garnier,
Les Juifves
, final line: Christ ‘Will come, to put an end to all prophecy’.
3
. Lucan,
Pharsalia
, II, 4–6; 14–15.
4
. Cicero,
De nat. deorum
, III, vi, 14.
5
. The Du Bellay
Mémoires
relate this. For the context, cf. Rabelais,
Pantagruéline Prognostication
, TLF, Droz, 1974, pp. xviii-xxii.
6
. Horace,
Odes
, III, xxix, 29–32; 41–44; then II, xvi, 25.
7
. Cicero,
De divinatione
, I, vi, 10; then I, lvii, 131, citing Pacuvius.
8
. Cicero,
De divinatione
, II, xxiii, 50–1.
9
. A serious possibility, especially for students of Renaissance law; cf. Rabelais, Tiers
Livre
, TLF, XLIII-XLIIII.
10
. Plato,
Republic
, V.
11
. Cicero,
De divinatione
, II, lix, 121.
12
. Cicero,
De natura deorum
, III, xxxvii, 89;
De divinatione
, I, iii, 5.
13
. ’88: wrong.
I
have seen…
14
. Joachim of Flora died about 1202. His
Prophecies
were in print (there is an edition, Venice 1589), but legends had attached to his name. The Emperor Leo’s book is known only at second-hand.
15
. ’88: The daemon of Socrates was,
in my opinion
, a certain thrust…
(Socrates had a
daemon
, a good spirit, who enabled him to avoid error. Renaissance thinkers took this very seriously: Rabelais gives Pantagruel a similar
daemon: Quart Livre
, TLF, LXVI. Cf. Plato’s
Apology for Socrates
and Plutarch’s
Du Demon de Socrate
.)
16
. ’88: albeit
fortuitous
were always
good
and worthy to be followed. Everyone
has
in himself some ghost of such agitations. I have had some by which…
17
. For some Renaissance thinkers Socrates’ ecstasies made him into a forerunner of St Paul. Montaigne considered Socrates’ ecstasies to be natural in origin and so quite unlike St Paul’s privileged rapture. This became a standard opinion.
3
. Herodotus,
Hist.
, IV, cxxvii.
4
. The invasion was in 1536. Cf. Du Bellay,
Mémoires
, VII, p. 129.
5
. Francesco Guicciardini,
Historia d’Italia
, XIII, ii.
6
. All [C] here from St Augustine,
City of God
, IX, iv (following Aulus Gellius and citing Virgil,
Aeneid
, IV, 449).
1
. Cf. I, 10, note 2.
2
. In 1532. (Francesco Guicciardini makes similar remarks about their meeting in 1529.)
1
. A saying of Epictetus, collected by Stobaeus in his
Apophthegms
and inscribed by Montaigne in his library.
2
. Aristotle considers death as something to be most dreaded: the Stoics believe that (since any man can take his own life) it is the ultimate means of escaping pain, disgrace, defeat or other evils. Montaigne’s ideas here are influenced by Seneca.
3
. ’80: Others,
do they not welcome it with quite different countenance?
One…
4
. [B] Until [C]: too
cheap and
available…
The following verse: Lucan,
Pharsalia
, IV, 580.
5
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, V, xl, 117.
6
. [A] until [C]: common
ordinary
people…
7
. Series of jests straight from Henri Estienne,
Apologie pour Herodote
, 1566, p. 175.
8
. Jean Bouchet,
Annales d’Acquitaine
.
9
. Simon Goulart,
Hist. du Portugal
, Paris, 1587, IV, ii.
10
. Bonaventure Des Périers,
Nouvelles récréations et joyeux devis
; end of the first
nouvelle
.
11
. Plutarch,
Brutus
.
12
. Jeronimo Osorio (da Fonseca),
Historia de rebus Emmanuelis Lusitanae regis virtute gestis
, Cologne, 1574, pp.6r° and 13r°. (Montaigne was himself descended from Iberian Jews.)
From 1595 onwards, this chapter became I, 40.
[’95]; as any other.
In the town of Castelnaudary fifty Albigensian heretics all suffered themselves to be burned together, with resolute hearts, in one fire, rather than to disown their opinions…
Cicero says…
13
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, I, xxxvii.
14
. Perhaps Seneca, whose Epistle LXX is devoted to suicide and makes similar points.
15
. A frequently cited example going back to Diogenes Laertius’
Life of Pyrrho
.
16
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, II, vi, 15.
17
. ’80:
sovereign
evil…
18
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, II, XXV, 61.
19
. Lucretius, IV, 485.
20
. Etienne de La Boëtie,
Poèmes
, ed. Montaigne, p. 233; addressed to Montaigne.
21
. Ovid,
Heroïdes;
‘Epistle of Ariana to Theseus’, 82;
[A]: what
the sages
chiefly fear…
22
. St Augustine,
City of God
, I, ii (adapted).