The Complete Essays (220 page)
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Authors: Michel de Montaigne
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475
. Plutarch,
Des communes conceptions contre les Stoïques
, 586B—C. For Heraclitus, see Aristotle,
Metaph.
, IV, v, 1010a.
476
. Plutarch, tr. Amyot,
Pourquoi la justice divine differe quelquefois la punition des malefices
, 264. (Some small changes to Amyot’s French here, to accommodate the interpolations; grammar and clarity suffer.)
477
. Lucretius, V, 828 (Lambin, p. 426).
478
. Five words of Amyot omitted and a phrase adapted (357B).
479
. Small omission from Amyot (357B).
480
. Omission: Amyot, 357C (‘like a sinking ship in which are contained generation and corruption’).
481
. Montaigne adds the words ‘or born’ (
ou nées
) and omits, ‘intermingled with Time’ (357D).
482
. The long borrowing from Plutarch ends here. The concluding words of the treatise
On the E’i at Delphi
emphasize its connection with Montaigne’s themes of self-knowledge and the abasement of Man: ‘And meanwhile it seems that this word
E’i
is somewhat opposed to the precept
Know Thyself and
also in some ways accordant and agreeable to it: the one is a kind of verbal astonishment and adoration before God, as being Eternal and Ever in Being, while the other is a warning and reminder to mortal man of the weakness and debility of his nature’ (358C).
483
. Seneca,
Quaest. nat.
, I (Preface), cited by Sebond, tr. Montaigne, 186r°.
’88: humanity.’
There is in all his Stoic school no saying truer than that one: but
to make…
484
. ’88: pulled up by
divine grace: but not otherwise
. (The closing words of the
Apology
until [C].)
485
.
Metamorphose
may imply ‘transfiguration’: it certainly implies ‘transformation’ – the theme of the final pages of the last chapter (III, 13, ‘On experience’).
1
. An idea of Lucretius, already exploited in II, 12, ‘An apology for Raymond Sebond’.
2
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, III, 72.
3
. Lucretius,
De nat. rerum
, II, 1165–8.
4
. Marcus Annaeus Seneca,
Suasoriae
, I, iv.
5
. Lucan,
Pharsalia
, V, 579–82; cf. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, IV,
Julius Caesar
, IX.
6
. Lucan, ibid., V, 653–6.
7
. Virgil,
Georgics
, I, 466–7.
8
. Pliny,
Hist. nat.
, II, viii.
9
. Caligula’s cruelty was legendary, but the saying is that of Tiberius: Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, VI,
Tiberius Caesar
, X: ‘Carvillius has got away.’
10
. Lucan,
Pharsalia
, II, 178–80.
11
. Ever since Lampridius’
Life
of him, the Emperor Heliogabalus, the son of Antonius Caracalla, was infamous for his effeminacy and luxurious ways.
12
. Lucan,
Pharsalia
, IV, 798.
13
. Plutarch,
Life of Caesar
.
14
. Tacitus,
Annals
, IV, xxii.
15
. Tacitus, ibid., VI, xlviii.
16
. Ravisius Textor,
Officina
; chapter headed ‘Mortem qui sibi consciverunt’.
17
. Cf. Ravisius Textor, ibid.
18
. Tacitus,
Annals
, XVI, xv.
19
. Anecdote from Xiphilinus’
Life of Hadrian
.
20
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Dicts des anciens Roys
, 209 F.
21
. Pliny,
Hist. nat.
, VII, liii.
22
. Cited by Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, I, viii, 15.
23
. His
Epistulae ad Atticum
.
24
. Cornelius Nepos,
Life of Atticus
.
25
. Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Cleanthes
.
26
. Horace,
Ars poetica
, 467.
27
. Seneca’s
Epist. moral.
, XXIX, is devoted to the illness of Marcus Tullius Marcellinus, a friend of his, whose suicide is related in LXXVII, 5 ff.
28
. That is, Cato of Utica (the defender of the Republic against Julius Caesar) ‘murdered himself’ in a manner more exalted than that of Marcellinus and it strikes us with more ecstatic amazement (Plutarch,
Life of Cato of Utica
).
1
. The dilemma of Buridan’s ass: it starved to death when equidistant from identical food.
2
. The mathematician Jacques Peletier du Mans had puzzled Montaigne with conic asymptotes which, towards the end of II, 12 (‘An apology for Raymond Sebond’) Montaigne assimilated to Pyrrhonist arguments which undermine reason and experience. (Such
asymptotes
are lines which ever approach a given curve but never touch it within infinity.)
3
. A saying of Pliny’s
(Hist. nat.
, II, vii) which Montaigne inscribed in his library; until [C] he translated it in his text.
1
. The sceptics. Cf. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, vi, 12.
2
. ’80:
most beautiful and very fine
saying…
Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, IV, 6.
3
. Ibid., XCVIII, 6.
4
. Ibid., IV, 5–6.
5
. Ovid,
Amores
, II, xix, 27–8.
6
. Seneca,
De beneficiis
, VII, ix.
7
. Martial,
Epigrams
, IV, xxxvii.
8
. Plutarch,
Life of Lycurgus
.
9
. Horace,
Epodes
, XI, 9–10 (adapted).
10
. Plutarch,
Life of Pompey the Great
.
11
. Lucretius,
De nat. rerum
, IV, 1076–9.
12
. Cato of Utica lent his second wife, Marcia, to Hortensius. This was much commented on by Christian writers. Cf. Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, VII, 28.
13
. Horace,
Satires
, I, ii, 108 (a huntsman comparing his course of love to his pursuit of a hare).
14
. Ovid,
Amores
, II, xix, 47–8.
15
. For Plato it is Want
(Poros
) and Plenty who together give birth to love: neither does by itself. Cf. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De Isis et Osiris
, 33OH–331B.
16
. Terence,
Phormio
, I, iii, 10.
17
. Ovid,
Amores
, II, xix, 33.
18
. Propertius, II, xiv, 19–20.
19
. The mistress, then wife, of Nero. Tacitus,
Annals
, XIII, xlv.
20
. Virgil,
Eclogues
, III, 65, then, Propertius, II, xv, 6.
21
. [A1] until [C]: and
more perfect than in any other nation
. Beauty…
22
. Throughout the Roman Empire divorce was permitted by law. The Roman Catholic Church forbade it utterly, though it did allow
divortium
(legal separation) and annulment.
23
. Ovid,
Amores
, II, xix, 3.
24
. Seneca,
De clementia
, I, xxiii.
25
. Claudius Rutilius (of Numantia; fl.
AD
410),
De reditu suo
, 397.
26
. See Charles Estienne,
Dictionarium historicum
, s.v. ‘Argippei’, when the same details are given. (The eventual source is Herodotus.)
27
. Lopez de Gomara,
Histoire des Indes
, III, xxx.
28
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LXVIII, 4.
29
. The first form of this chapter dates from about 1576. But Montaigne’s long reflection here was written on the Bordeaux copy just before he died in 1592.
1
. Opinion deriving from Aristotle’s treatise
On Interpretation
.
2
. Praising and exalting God’s ‘name’ is a
leitmotiv
of the psalms.
3
. Cf. I Timothy 1:17; I Chronicles 29:11–13.
[A] until [C]: nothing
so vain and
so remotely…
4
. The paeon of the angelic host at the Nativity (Luke 1:14).
5
. Cicero,
De finibus
, III, xvii, 57.
6
. Translated from Homer,
Odyssey
, XII, 184.
7
. From the same section of Cicero’s
De finibus
as in note 5.
8
. Juvenal,
Satires
, VII, 81.
9
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Si ce nom commun est bien dict, Cache ta vie
, 291 A ff.
10
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, XXI, 3 ff.
11
. Quoted from Cicero,
De finibus
, II, xxx, 96–7, to prove how far apart were Epicurus’ words and his practices.
12
. Same conclusion in Cicero, ibid., 101 (where the heir is normally called Amynochus).
13
. He was leader of the New Academy and a declared opponent of the Stoics. His ideas are expounded by Cicero in
De finibus
, II, 35–59.
14
. Aristotle,
Nicomachaean Ethics
, II, vii (1107b), during a general discussion of the Mean.
15
. Horace,
Odes
, IV, ix, 29–30. (In context Horace means that heroes need poets to sing of their glories.)
16
. Cicero,
De finibus
, II, xviii, 59.
17
. Cicero, ibid., II, xviii, 58: Cicero adds that ‘you yourself would undoubtedly have done the same’.
18
. Ibid., II, xvii, 55.
19
. Those men, praised by Cicero (
De finibus
, II, xviii, 57), are condemned for the same reason as Montaigne in
De officiis
, III, 73.
20
. Cicero, De
officiis
, III, x, 44 (adapted).
21
. St Augustine,
City of God
, VII, iii; citing Sallust.
22
. Cicero held that glory ‘follows virtue like a shadow’:
Tusc. disput.
, I, xlv, 110.