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That We Should Not Judge Of Our Happiness Until After Our Death
That We Should Not Judge Of Our Happiness Until After Our Death
Michel Eyquem De Montaigne, the founder of the modern Essay, was born
February 28, 1533, at the chateau of Montaigne in Perigord. He came of a
family of wealthy merchants of Bordeaux, and was educated at the College de
Guyenne, where he had among his teachers the great Scottish Latinist, George
Buchanan. Later he studied law, and held various public offices; but at the
age of thirty-eight he retired to his estates, where he lived apart from the
civil wars of the time, and devoted himself to study and thought. While he was
travelling in Germany and Italy, in 1580-81, he was elected mayor of Bordeaux,
and this office he filled for four years. He married in 1565, and had six
daughters, only one of whom grew up. The first two books of his "Essays"
appeared in 1580; the third in 1588; and four years later he died.
These are the main external facts of Montaigne`s life; of the man himself
the portrait is to be found in his book. "It is myself I portray," he
declares; and there is nowhere in literature a volume of self-revelation
surpassing his in charm and candor. He is frankly egotistical, yet modest and
unpretentious; profoundly wise, yet constantly protesting his ignorance;
learned, yet careless, forgetful, and inconsistent. His themes are as wide and
varied as his observation of human life, and he has written the finest eulogy
of friendship the world has known. Bacon, who knew his book and borrowed from
it, wrote on the same subject; and the contrast of the essays is the true
reflection of the contrast between the personalities of their authors.
Shortly after Montaigne`s death the "Essays" were translated into English
by John Florio, with less than exact accuracy, but in a style so full of the
flavor of the age that we still read Montaigne in the version which
Shakespeare knew. The group of examples here printed exhibits the author in a
variety of moods, easy, serious, and in the essay on "Friendship," as nearly
impassioned as his philosophy ever allowed him to become.
The Author To the Reader
Reader, loe here a well-meaning Booke. It doth at the first entrance
forewarne thee, that in contriving the same I have proposed unto my selfe no
other than a familiar and private end: I have no respect or consideration at
all, either to thy service, or to my glory: my forces are not capable of any
such desseigne. I have vowed the same to the particular commodity of my
kinsfolks and friends: to the end, that losing me (which they are likely to
doe ere long), they may therein find some lineaments of my conditions and
humours, and by that meanes reserve more whole, and more lively foster the
knowledge and acquaintance they have had of me. Had my intention beene to
forestal and purchase the world`s opinion and favour, I would surely have
adorned myselfe more quaintly, or kept a more grave and solemne march. I
desire therein to be delineated in mine owne genuine, simple and ordinary
fashion, without contention, art or study; for it is myselfe I pourtray. My
imperfections shall therein be read to the life, and my naturall forme
discerned, so farre-forth as public reverence hath permitted me. For if my
fortune had beene to have lived among those nations which yet are said to live
under the sweet liberty of Nature`s first and uncorrupted lawes, I assure
thee, I would most willingly have pourtrayed myselfe fully and naked. Thus,
gentle Reader, myselfe am the groundworke of my book: it is then no reason
thou shouldest employ thy time about so frivolous and vaine a subject.
Therefore farewell.
From Montaigne,
The First of March, 1580.
That We Should Not Judge Of Our Happiness Untill After Our Death
--- scilicet ultima semper
Expectanda dies homini est, dicique beatus
Ante obitum nemo, supremaque funera debet.^1
[Footnote 1: Ovid. Met. l. iii. 135.]
We must expect of man the latest day,
Nor ere he die, he`s happie, can we say.
The very children are acquainted with the storie of Croesus to this
purpose: who being taken by Cyrus, and by him condemned to die, upon the point
of his execution, cried out aloud: "Oh Solon, Solon!" which words of his,
being reported to Cyrus, who inquiring what he meant by them, told him, hee
now at his owne cost verified the advertisement Solon had before times given
him; which was, that no man, what cheerful and blandishing countenance soever
fortune shewed them, may rightly deeme himselfe happie, till such time as he
have passed the last day of his life, by reason of the uncertaintie and
vicissitude of humane things, which by a very light motive, and slight
occasion, are often changed from one to another cleane contrary state and
degree. And therefore Agesilaus answered one that counted the King of Persia
happy, because being very young, he had gotten the garland of so mightie and
great a dominion: "yea but said he, Priam at the same age was not unhappy." Of
the Kings of Macedon that succeeded Alexander the Great, some were afterward
seene to become Joyners and Scriveners at Rome: and of Tyrants of Sicilie,
Schoolemasters at Corinth. One that had conquered halfe the world, and been
Emperour over so many Armies, became an humble and miserable suter to the
rascally officers of a king of Aegypte: At so high a rate did that great
Pompey purchase the irkesome prolonging of his life but for five or six
months. And in our fathers daies, Lodowicke Sforze, tenth Duke of Millane,
under whom the State of Italie had so long beene turmoiled and shaken, was
seene to die a wretched prisoner at Loches in France, but not till he had
lived and lingered ten yeares in thraldom, which was the worst of his
bargaine. The fairest Queene, wife to the greatest King of Christendome, was
she not lately seene to die by the hands of an executioner? Oh unworthie and
barbarous crueltie! And a thousand such examples. For, it seemeth that as the
sea-billowes and surging waves, rage and storme against the surly pride and
stubborne height of our buildings, so are there above, certaine spirits that
envie the rising prosperities and greatnesse heere below.
Vsque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam
Obterit, et pulchros fasces saevasque secures
Proculcare, ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur.^2
[Footnote 2: Lucret.l. v.1243.]
A hidden power so mens states hath out-worne
Faire swords, fierce scepters, signes of honours borne,
It seemes to trample and deride in scorne.
And it seemeth Fortune doth sometimes narrowly watch the last day of our
life, thereby to shew her power, and in one moment to overthrow what for many
yeares together she had been erecting, and makes us cry after Laberius,
Nimirum hac die una plus vixi, mihi quam vivendum fuit.^3 Thus it is, "I have
lived longer by this one day than I should." So many that good advice of Solon
be taken with reason. But forsomuch as he is a Philosopher, with whom the
favours or disfavours of fortune, and good or ill lucke have no place, and are
not regarded by him; and puissances and greatnesses, and accidents of
qualitie, are well-nigh in different: I deeme it very likely he had a
further reach, and meant that the same good fortune of our life, which
dependeth of the tranquillitie and contentment of a welborne minde, and of the
resolution and assurance of a well ordered soule, should never be ascribed
unto man, untill he have beene seene play the last act of his comedie, and
without doubt the hardest. In all the rest there may be some maske: either
these sophisticall discourses of Philosophie are not in us but by countenance,
or accidents that never touch us to the quick, give us alwaies leasure to keep
our countenance setled. But when that last part of death, and of our selves
comes to be acted, then no dissembling will availe, then is it high time to
speake plaine English, and put off all vizards: then whatsoever the pot
containeth must be shewne, be it good or bad, foule or cleane, wine or water.
[Footnote 3: Macrob. l.ii. c.7.]
Nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo
Ejiciuntur, et eripitur persona, manet res.^4
[Footnote 4: Lucret.l. iii.57.]
For then are sent true speeches from the heart,
We are ourselves, we leave to play a part.
Loe heere, why at this last cast, all our lives other actions must be
tride and touched. It is the master-day, the day that judgeth all others: it
is the day, saith an auncient Writer, that must judge of all my forepassed
yeares. To death doe I referre the essay^5 of my studies fruit. There shall
wee see whether my discourse proceed from my heart, or from my mouth. I have
seene divers, by their death, either in good or evill, give reputation to all
their forepassed life. Scipio, father-in-law to Pompey, in well dying,
repaired the ill opinion which untill that houre men had ever held of him.
Epaminondas being demanded which of the three he esteemed most, either
Chabrias, or Iphicrates, or himselfe: "It is necessary," said he, "that we be
seene to die, before your question may well be resolved."^6 Verily, we should
steale much from him, if he should be weighed without the honour and
greatnesse of his end. God hath willed it, as he pleased: but in my time three
of the most execrable persons that ever I knew in all abomination of life, and
the most infamous, have beene seen to die very orderly and quietly, and in
every circumstance composed even unto perfection. There are some brave and
fortunate deaths. I have seene her cut the twine of some man`s life, with a
progresse of wonderful advancement, and with so worthie an end, even in the
flowre of his growth and spring of his youth, that in mine opinion, his
ambitious and haughtie couragious designes, thought nothing so high as might
interrupt them, who without going to the place where he pretended, arrived
there more gloriously and worthily than either his desire or hope aimed at,
and by his fall fore-went the power and name, whither by his course he
aspired. When I judge of other men`s lives, I ever respect how they have
behaved themselves in their end; and my chiefest study is, I may well demeane
my selfe at my last gaspe, that is to say, quietly and constantly.
[Footnote 5: Assay, exact weighing.]
[Footnote 6: Answered.]
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