The Complete Essays (226 page)
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Authors: Michel de Montaigne
Tags: #Essays, #Philosophy, #Literary Collections, #History & Surveys, #General
18
. Philosophy classified sexual intercourse among the physical necessities. Montaigne does not deny that it is so, but insists that sexual fulfilment is more than the physical slaking of an appetite.
19
. Tacitus,
Annals
, VI, i; then a tale of Flora recounted among others by Brantôme in
Les Dames Calantes
(Deuxième Discours).
20
. Guillaume Postel,
Histoire des Turcs.
23
. Seneca,
Consolatio ad Polybium
, XXVI.
1
. Juvenal,
Satires
, VI, 272–4.
2
. The following taken from Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, III, xxxi, 77 (where Cicero alludes also to his own (now lost)
Consolatio
on the death of his daughter).
3
. II, 23, ‘On bad means to a good end’.
6
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, IV, xxxv, 74–5.
7
. Ibid., I, xxxiv, 83–4. Hegesias the Cyrenaic’s pupils who committed suicide are linked by Cicero to Cleombrotus Ambraciotes, who did so after reading Plato; his example is mentioned in II, iii, ‘A custom of the Isle of Cea’, and linked to St Paul’s yearning to die so as to be with Christ.
10
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, IV, 382–4; 387; then, Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Xenophon
.
11
. Cicero,
De finibus
, II, xxx, 96; then [C]:
Tusc. disput.
, II, xxvi, 62 (twice); II, xxiv, 59.
12
. Zeno was. Stoic; the following criticism of his arguments, from Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LXXXII, 9, and LXXXIII, 9. Seneca considers them ‘Greek absurdities’.
13
. The ideal Christian reaction (Matthew 5:39), but not to be pressed at the wrong psychological moment.
14
. Persius,
Satires
, VI, 73, linked to Lucretius, IV, 1062; then, Lucretius, 1063–4.
15
. Cf. Erasmus,
Adages
, II, V, V,
Dies adimit aegritudinem
, citing Iphiclus, ‘Time cures all our ills,’ and Euripides on time as ‘doctor’ of men’s problems.
16
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, III, xv, 32.
17
. Plutarch,
Life of Alcibiades
.
18
. Lucretius, V, 801–2.
19
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
consolation envoyée à sa femme
, 256 A; then, his
Life of Antony
.
20
. Lucan,
The Civil War
, II, 42.
21
. Tiberius, in Plutarch’s
Life
.
22
. Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Polemon
, IV, xxvii.
23
. In 1580.
24
. Quintilian, VI, ii – the standard view eventually challenged by Diderot in his
Paradoxe sur le comédien
.
25
. Montaigne is likening the ecstasy of battle to that of melancholy madness.
26
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De l’amitié fraternelle
, 88 E-F;
De la superstition, 122
C-D; Ravisius Textor,
Officina, Fratrum et Sororum interfectores
.
27
. Cf. Erasmus,
Adages
, II, III, XLVIII,
Homo bulla
.
28
. Propertius, III, J, 7–10.
1
. Ovid,
Tristia
, IV, i, 4 (adapted); then, Petronius,
Satyricon
, 128.
2
. Janus, the god of the beginning of the year, had two faces, one looking back, the other forward (Ovid,
Fasti
, I, 345 etc.).
3
. Martial,
Epigrams
, X, xxiii, 7; then, Plato,
Laws
, II, 657 D–E.
4
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, CXIX, 17.
5
. Cicero,
De officiis
, I, xxiv, 84: from lines of Ennius, the ancient Latin poet. In context the word
salutem
means not ‘his welfare’ but ‘the safety’ of the State.
6
. Cicero,
De senectute
, XVI, 58.
7
. Horace,
Odes
, IV, xii, 27.
8
. Cicero,
De senectute
, XVIII, 65.
9
. Ovid,
Ex Ponto
, I, v, 18, and
Tristia
, IV, xi, 22.
10
. The tittle of university professors, especially theologians. Here they are explaining various forms of ecstasy and rapture.
11
. Pseudo-Gallus, I, 125; then, Horace,
Epodes
, XIII, 7; Bishop Caius Sollius Apollinaris (Sidonius),
Epist.
, I, ix; George Buchanan,
Joannes Baptista
(prologue); Martial,
Epigrams
, VII, lvii, 8.
12
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, III, xv, 31; Ravisius Textor,
Officina
(for both Socrates and Crassus):
Severissimi et maxime tetrici
.
13
. Source not identified.
14
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De la tranquillité de l’âme
, 73. H (for the flies);
Du banissement, ou de l’exil
, 125 AB (for the leeches).
15
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LIII, 8; he continues: ‘Similarly a confession of one’s evils is proof of a healthy mind’; Montaigne then develops LIII, 6.
16
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, VII,
Milesii Thaletis
, VII. (Erasmus is also puzzled by this counsel.)
17
. Nicephoros Callistos Xanthopoullos,
Ecclesiastical History
, V, who asserts that Origen uselessly damned his soul by this act. Montaigne compares Origen’s choice to that of those women of the Reformed Church (the ‘Calvinists’), who would rather consent to commit fornication than consent to the ‘idolatry’ of the Roman Catholic mass, which was indeed often assimilated by their ministers (in Old Testament terms) to ‘whoremongering after strange gods’. All theologians of all Churches agreed that physical sins are far, far less serious than spiritual ones.
18
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De la curiosité
, 64 C–D.
19
. This may well imply that Montaigne had never read the
Confessions
of St Augustine, though he knew the
City of God
in detail.
20
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, V,
Archelaus
, V.
21
. Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Socrates
.
22
. Aristotle,
Nicomachaean Ethics
, IV, ix, 1128 b. (His term, aidōs, covers modesty, bashfulness and shamefacedness. It keeps young men in check: old men should not need it, since they should do nothing shameful.)
23
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Qu’il fault qu’un Philosophe converse avec les Princes
, 134 C; then, Lucretius, I, 6 and 23–4.
24
. Among others Joachim Du Bellay regretted that Ronsard devoted so much time and genius to love-poetry; cf.
Regrets
, XXIII.
25
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, IV, 23; then, Johannes Secundus,
Elegies
, III, 29; Tasso,
Gierusalemme liberata
, XII, 63–6; Juvenal,
Satires
, VI, 196.
26
. These are the lines of Virgil alluded to in the chapter heading (
Aeneid
, VIII, 387–92; 404–6). Cf. below, note 99.
27
. Then a commonplace of traditional Christian morality.
28
. Cf. Andreas Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, XV, 23 ff.; but the reference to Aristotle is puzzling.
29
. Virgil,
Georgics
, III, 137.
32
. Montaigne’s account of the Hindu caste-system is based on Simon Goulart’s
Histoire du Portugal
, II, iii.
33
. Catullus, LXIV, 79.
34
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, III,
Socratica
, XL; then,
Adages
, I, I, LXIX,
Homo homini lupus
, and I, I, LXX,
Homo homini Deus
.
35
. Pseudo-Gallus, I, 61.
36
. Juvenal,
Satires
, IX, 32–4.
37
. Isocrates, the pupil of Gorgias and the friend of Plato. I do not know what Montaigne drew upon for his saying, unless it be a confused memory of Zeno and Cleanthes’ reasons for not becoming citizens of Athens (Plutarch tr. Amyot),
Contredicts des Stoïques
, 561 F).
38
. Tiresias, who changed sex; a frequently cited example: cf. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
, III, 323; then, Juvenal,
Satires
, VI, 128–9; the Emperor was Proculus, the Empress, Messalina, the consort of Claudius. (Cf. Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, IX, 94 for Messalina, and XV, 92 for Proculus.)
39
. Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, XV, 1.
40
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De l’amour
, 612 C; Tiraquellus, XV, 83.
41
. Perhaps an echo of Leviticus 26.
42
. St Paul, I Corinthians 7:9; then, Martial,
Epigrams
, XII and Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Polemaon
.
43
. Clodia Laeta was buried alive. The emperor was in fact Caracalla.
44
. Jan Herburt,
Histoire des Roys de Pologne
, 1573.
45
.
Fouteau
evoked
foutre
, then the usual vulgar word for ‘to have sexual intercourse’, a meaning almost submerged by other usages in modern French.
49
. Catullus, LXVI, 125–8.
50
. For the laws of Rome, cf. Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, XIII, 12 ff. But I do not know what Socrates’ precepts were. Then, Horace,
Epodes
, VIII, 15–16 (adapted).
51
. Cf. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Propos de table
, III, question 6, p. 384 C (blaming Zeno).
52
. All these books are lost. (Cf. Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, XV, 91.)
53
. Tertullian (known to Montaigne only at second-hand?); cf. Villey,
Sources et évolution des ‘Essais’ de Montaigne
, p. 256.
54
. Cf. Coelius Richerius Rhodiginus,
Antiquae lectiones
, VII, xvi,
Dionysiorum ritus. Qui sunt phalle. Phallogogia Sacra
.
55
. St Augustine,
City of God
, VI, ix; note of J. L. Vives on this passage.
56
. The codpiece.