The Complete Essays (222 page)
Read The Complete Essays Online
Authors: Michel de Montaigne
Tags: #Essays, #Philosophy, #Literary Collections, #History & Surveys, #General
53
. Horace,
Satires
, II, ii, 254–8.
54
. Lactantius,
Divinarum Institutiones
, III, v. Also cited by Justus Lipsius,
Politici
, V, x.
55
. In his list Montaigne includes men opposed to him in war or doctrine, e.g. the Spanish Duke of Alba who fought against France, and Theodore Beza, the erotic poet who became Calvin’s great successor as leader of the Reformed Church. General Anne de Montmorency died, aged seventy-four, at the Battle of St-Denis, 1567. The following passage between asterisks is suspect and may have been added to the posthumous printed editions by Marie de Gournay, the subject of its praise, who edited the
Essais
.
1
. Horace,
Satires
, I, iv, 73–5; then Persius,
Satires
, V, 19–21.
2
. Until [C]: It is
to be hidden in
some corner of a library and as a pastime for
anyone who has a private interest in knowing me;
for a neighbour…
3
. [A] until [C]: beloved ancestors
and to disdain them. A dagger, a suit of armour, a sword which served them, I preserve, out of love for them, as well as I can, from the injuries of time
. However…
Quotation from St Augustine,
City of God
, I, xiii.
4
. [A] until [C]: convenient.
I had to cast this portrait in print to free myself from the bother of making several manuscript copies. In return for this convenience which I have borrowed from the public I hope to do it the service of providing
wrapping-paper…
Then, Martial,
Epigrams
, XIII, i; Catullus, XCIV, 8.
5
. Cf. Joachim Du Bellay’s reasons for writing personal poetry
(Regrets
, 4, 14, etc.). Then, Clément Marot,
Epistre de Fripelipes
against Sagon, punning on his name Sagon
(sagouin
, lout).
6
. Pindar, in Plutarch,
Life of Marius;
Plato,
Republic
, VI, 489e ff.
7
. Presbyter Salvianus of Massilia,
De gubernatione Dei
, I, i, xiv (a work printed in Paris in 1580).
8
. Plutarch,
Life of Lysander
.
9
. Lopez de Gomara (tr. Fumée),
Histoire generale des Indes
, II, xxviii. (These new-found ‘Indies’ are the Americas.)
10
. Androclidas criticizing Lysander, in Plutarch’s
Life of Lysander
.
11
. Cf. II, 33, ‘The tale of Spurina’, and also the insulting by Christians of the Emperor Julian in II, 19, ‘On freedom of conscience’.
1
. Only two manuscripts of part of Tacitus’
Annals
survived. Montaigne read Tacitus through at one go (III, 8, ‘On the art of conversation’) and had studied the
Commentaria
on Tacitus of Justus Lipsius. For some, Tacitus was very much to be condemned since in his account of Nero’s persecution (
Annals
, XV, 44) he refers to Christianity as ‘a pernicious superstition’.
2
. Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXV, iv.
3
. Ibid., XVI, v.
4
. Ibid., XXV, iii. (Epaminondas was a model hero for Montaigne.)
5
. Cf. Prudentius,
Apotheosis
, 448–53.
6
. Theodoret, Bishop of Cyprus, for the first version, Zonaras for the second. Montaigne’s authorities who witnessed Julian’s death are Ammianus Marcellinus and Eutropius.
7
. Ammianus Marcellinus, XXI, v.
8
. Cf. Erasmus,
Adages
, I, I, LXX,
Homo homini lupus
.
9
. A line from Terence (
Andria
, II.i.6–7), satirically applied long before Montaigne to the King of France acting under compulsion, e.g. ‘Pasquillus on the King of France compelled to make peace:
Quoniam id fieri quod vis non potest, velis id quod possis’
[‘Since you cannot do what you wish, Wish what you can’], in
Pasquillus novus Terentianus
, 1546 (no place of printing).
1
. Lucretius, IV, 1130–1. (The ensuing ‘greatest of our pleasures’ is sexual intercourse.)
2
. Italian word meaning delicate flesh-tints. Montaigne sees in it the Latin word
morbidus
(disease, unwholesome).
3
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LXXIV, 18. (The following translated Greek verse appears in John Stobaeus’
Sententiae
.)
4
. Plato,
Phaedo
, 60B; then Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, XCIX, 25 (Metrodorus, cited with disapproval by Seneca.)
5
. Ovid,
Tristia
, IV, iii, 27; Catullus, XXVII, 1–2; Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LXIII, 5, citing his Stoic teacher Attalus.
6
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LXIX, 4.
7
. Erasmus,
Adages
, I, X, IX,
Hydram secus
(citing Plato,
Republic
, IV, 426E–427A); then Tacitus,
Annals
, XIV, xliv.
8
. Livy, XXXII, xx.
9
. Condensed from Cicero,
De nat. deorum
, I, xxii, 60, on ‘What is the Being and Nature of God?’
3
. Details from the anonymous
Tesoro politico per li disegni de Principe
and from Froissart.
4
. Johannes Zonaras; Xenophon,
Cyropaedia
, I, ii; Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LXXXVIII, 19.
5
. Livy, II, xlv; Simon Goulart,
Histoire du Portugal
, V, vii.
6
. Diodorus Siculus,
Philistus;
the historian–admiral killed himself after being defeated by Dion (356
BC).
7
. Jeronimo Conestaggio,
Dell’unione del regno di Portogallo alla… Castiglia
(Genoa, 1585); interpolated quotation from Livy, II, iv.
8
. Cf. I, 37, ‘On Cato the Younger’ (of Utica). Plutarch’s
Life
is the main source.
1
. Xenophon,
Cyropaedia
, VIII, vi, 17–18.
2
. Julius Caesar,
De Bello Gallico
, III, iii; Suetonius,
Caesar
, LVII; Pliny,
Hist. nat.
, VII, xx; Livy, XXXVII, vii.
3
. Pliny,
Hist. nat.
, X, XIV, xxxviii.
4
. Lopes de Gomara,
Hist. des Indes
, V, vii.
5
. Nicolas Chalcocondylas (tr. Vigenère),
Histoire de la décadence de l’Empire Grec et établissement de celuy des Turcs
, Paris, 1585.
3
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, II,
Prisca Lacedaemorum instituta
, XXV.
4
. Prudentius,
Contra Orationem Symmachi
, I, 382–3; II, 1122–6; II, 1096–9.
5
. Manlius,
Astronomica
, IV, 225–6; Statius,
Sylvae
, I, vi, 51–3.
3
. Cicero,
De divinatione
, I, xv, 26–7; for Mithridates, the anonymous
De Bello Alexandrino
, XXVI; Suetonius,
Caesar
, LIV; Claudianus,
In Eutropium
, I, 203; Plutarch,
Mark Antony
, VIII.
4
. Livy, LXV, xii ff.
5
. Tacitus,
Agricola
, XIV.
6
. Solyman entrusted the Kingdom to Elizabeth of Hungary as Regent.
3
. Pliny,
His., nat.
, VII, i; cf. I, 21, ‘On the power of the imagination’.
4
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, L, 2 ff., 9.
1
. Tacitus,
Annals
, XII, xlvii.
2
.
Pollex
, the Latin for thumb, ‘the strong one’, was indeed derived from the verb ‘to be strong’. Cf. Macrobius,
Saturnalia
, VII, xiii. The Greek etymology is fanciful.
3
. Martial,
Epigrams
, XII, xcviii, 8; Horace,
Epist.
, I, xviii, 66; Juvenal, III, 36. (Our ‘thumbs up’ was ‘thumbs down’ for the Romans.)
4
. Suetonius,
Augustus
, XXIV; Valerius Maximus, V; Plutarch,
Life of Lysander
. Philoctetes left them
able
to row (in the galleys).
5
. Cicero,
De officiis
. III, xi, 46; then, Plutarch,
Life of Lysander
.
3
. Ovid,
Tristia
, III, v, 35–6.
4
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Comment il faut uoir
(30 G) and
Pour quoy la justice divine differe… la punition
(258 E-G).
5
. S. Goulart,
Histoire du Portugal
, IV, xii.
6
. From a note of Vives on Augustine,
City of God
, V, xxvii; then, Diogenes Laertius,
Aristotle
, V, xviii.
7
. Livy, xxxiv, 28.
8
. Enguerrand de Monstrelet,
Chroniques
, I, ix; Herodotus, I, lxxxii; Livy, I, xxiv.
13
. Plutarch,
Life of Caesar
, then,
Life of Philopoemen
.
14
. Plato,
Laches
, 183 B–C; then
Laws
, 796.
15
. Of the Eastern Empire. Zonaras, III.
16
. Claudianus,
In Eutropium
, I, 182.
17
. ’95: beauty.
When such accounts are richly beautiful in themselves and can sustain themselves in isolation, I am content to link them to my argument with a scrap of hair
. Among…
Then Livy, XL, iii.
18
. Josephus,
De vita sua
. (Torture was a legacy of Roman Law.)
19
. Nicolas Chalcocondylas,
Hist. de la decadence de l’Empire grec et l’etablissement de celui des Turcs
, X, ii; Jacques Lavardin,
Scanderbeg, Roi d’Albanie
(1576), 446.
20
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Malignité de Herodote
, 651 C; then Bishop Paolo Giovio,
Historia sui temporis
, XIII.
1
. Livy, XXXVIII.
[A]: self-murderer,
do great honour to the former, in my opinion, for a find them very wide apart
. What they tell…