Essays of Michel de Montaigne Part 11

And, in this sense, this good advice of Solon may reasonably be taken; but he, being a philosopher (with which sort of men the favours and disgraces of Fortune stand for nothing, either to the making a man happy or unhappy, and with whom grandeurs and powers are accidents of a quality almost indifferent) I am apt to think that he had some further aim, and that his meaning was, that the very felicity of life itself, which depends upon the tranquillity and contentment of a well-descended spirit, and the resolution and a.s.surance of a well-ordered soul, ought never to be attributed to any man till he has first been seen to play the last, and, doubtless, the hardest act of his part. There may be disguise and dissimulation in all the rest: where these fine philosophical discourses are only put on, and where accident, not touching us to the quick, gives us leisure to maintain the same gravity of aspect; but, in this last scene of death, there is no more counterfeiting: we must speak out plain, and discover what there is of good and clean in the bottom of the pot,

"Nam vera; voces turn demum pectore ab imo Ejiciuntur; et eripitur persona, manet res."

["Then at last truth issues from the heart; the visor's gone, the man remains."--Lucretius, iii. 57.]

Wherefore, at this last, all the other actions of our life ought to be tried and sifted: 'tis the master-day, 'tis the day that is judge of all the rest, "'tis the day," says one of the ancients,--[Seneca, Ep., 102]-- "that must be judge of all my foregoing years." To death do I refer the a.s.say of the fruit of all my studies: we shall then see whether my discourses came only from my mouth or from my heart. I have seen many by their death give a good or an ill repute to their whole life. Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompey, in dying, well removed the ill opinion that till then every one had conceived of him. Epaminondas being asked which of the three he had in greatest esteem, Chabrias, Iphicrates, or himself.

"You must first see us die," said he, "before that question can be resolved."--[Plutarch, Apoth.]--And, in truth, he would infinitely wrong that man who would weigh him without the honour and grandeur of his end.

G.o.d has ordered all things as it has best pleased Him; but I have, in my time, seen three of the most execrable persons that ever I knew in all manner of abominable living, and the most infamous to boot, who all died a very regular death, and in all circ.u.mstances composed, even to perfection. There are brave and fortunate deaths: I have seen death cut the thread of the progress of a prodigious advancement, and in the height and flower of its increase, of a certain person,--[Montaigne doubtless refers to his friend Etienne de la Boetie, at whose death in 1563 he was present.]--with so glorious an end that, in my opinion, his ambitious and generous designs had nothing in them so high and great as their interruption. He arrived, without completing his course, at the place to which his ambition aimed, with greater glory than he could either have hoped or desired, antic.i.p.ating by his fall the name and power to which he aspired in perfecting his career. In the judgment I make of another man's life, I always observe how he carried himself at his death; and the princ.i.p.al concern I have for my own is that I may die well--that is, patiently and tranquilly.

CHAPTER XIX

THAT TO STUDY PHILOSOPY IS TO LEARN TO DIE

Cicero says--[Tusc., i. 31.]--"that to study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one's self to die." The reason of which is, because study and contemplation do in some sort withdraw from us our soul, and employ it separately from the body, which is a kind of apprentices.h.i.+p and a resemblance of death; or, else, because all the wisdom and reasoning in the world do in the end conclude in this point, to teach us not to fear to die. And to say the truth, either our reason mocks us, or it ought to have no other aim but our contentment only, nor to endeavour anything but, in sum, to make us live well, and, as the Holy Scripture says, at our ease. All the opinions of the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end, though we make use of divers means to attain it: they would, otherwise, be rejected at the first motion; for who would give ear to him that should propose affliction and misery for his end? The controversies and disputes of the philosophical sects upon this point are merely verbal:

"Transcurramus solertissimas nugas"

["Let us skip over those subtle trifles."--Seneca, Ep., 117.]

--there is more in them of opposition and obstinacy than is consistent with so sacred a profession; but whatsoever personage a man takes upon himself to perform, he ever mixes his own part with it.

Let the philosophers say what they will, the thing at which we all aim, even in virtue is pleasure. It amuses me to rattle in ears this word, which they so nauseate to and if it signify some supreme pleasure and contentment, it is more due to the a.s.sistance of virtue than to any other a.s.sistance whatever. This pleasure, for being more gay, more sinewy, more robust and more manly, is only the more seriously voluptuous, and we ought give it the name of pleasure, as that which is more favourable, gentle, and natural, and not that from which we have denominated it. The other and meaner pleasure, if it could deserve this fair name, it ought to be by way of compet.i.tion, and not of privilege. I find it less exempt from traverses and inconveniences than virtue itself; and, besides that the enjoyment is more momentary, fluid, and frail, it has its watchings, fasts, and labours, its sweat and its blood; and, moreover, has particular to itself so many several sorts of sharp and wounding pa.s.sions, and so dull a satiety attending it, as equal it to the severest penance. And we mistake if we think that these incommodities serve it for a spur and a seasoning to its sweetness (as in nature one contrary is quickened by another), or say, when we come to virtue, that like consequences and difficulties overwhelm and render it austere and inaccessible; whereas, much more aptly than in voluptuousness, they enn.o.ble, sharpen, and heighten the perfect and divine pleasure they procure us. He renders himself unworthy of it who will counterpoise its cost with its fruit, and neither understands the blessing nor how to use it. Those who preach to us that the quest of it is craggy, difficult, and painful, but its fruition pleasant, what do they mean by that but to tell us that it is always unpleasing? For what human means will ever attain its enjoyment? The most perfect have been fain to content themselves to aspire unto it, and to approach it only, without ever possessing it. But they are deceived, seeing that of all the pleasures we know, the very pursuit is pleasant. The attempt ever relishes of the quality of the thing to which it is directed, for it is a good part of, and consubstantial with, the effect. The felicity and beat.i.tude that glitters in Virtue, s.h.i.+nes throughout all her appurtenances and avenues, even to the first entry and utmost limits.

Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest, as the means that accommodates human life with a soft and easy tranquillity, and gives us a pure and pleasant taste of living, without which all other pleasure would be extinct. Which is the reason why all the rules centre and concur in this one article. And although they all in like manner, with common accord, teach us also to despise pain, poverty, and the other accidents to which human life is subject, it is not, nevertheless, with the same solicitude, as well by reason these accidents are not of so great necessity, the greater part of mankind pa.s.sing over their whole lives without ever knowing what poverty is, and some without sorrow or sickness, as Xenophilus the musician, who lived a hundred and six years in a perfect and continual health; as also because, at the worst, death can, whenever we please, cut short and put an end to all other inconveniences. But as to death, it is inevitable:--

"Omnes eodem cogimur; omnium Versatur urna serius ocius Sors exitura, et nos in aeternum Exilium impositura cymbae."

["We are all bound one voyage; the lot of all, sooner or later, is to come out of the urn. All must to eternal exile sail away."

--Hor., Od., ii. 3, 25.]

and, consequently, if it frights us, 'tis a perpetual torment, for which there is no sort of consolation. There is no way by which it may not reach us. We may continually turn our heads this way and that, as in a suspected country:

"Quae, quasi saxum Tantalo, semper impendet."

["Ever, like Tantalus stone, hangs over us."

--Cicero, De Finib., i. 18.]

Our courts of justice often send back condemned criminals to be executed upon the place where the crime was committed; but, carry them to fine houses by the way, prepare for them the best entertainment you can--

"Non Siculae dapes Dulcem elaborabunt saporem: Non avium cyatheaceae cantus Somnum reducent."

["Sicilian dainties will not tickle their palates, nor the melody of birds and harps bring back sleep."--Hor., Od., iii. 1, 18.]

Do you think they can relish it? and that the fatal end of their journey being continually before their eyes, would not alter and deprave their palate from tasting these regalios?

"Audit iter, numeratque dies, spatioque viarum Met.i.tur vitam; torquetur peste futura."

["He considers the route, computes the time of travelling, measuring his life by the length of the journey; and torments himself by thinking of the blow to come."--Claudia.n.u.s, in Ruf., ii. 137.]

The end of our race is death; 'tis the necessary object of our aim, which, if it fright us, how is it possible to advance a step without a fit of ague? The remedy the vulgar use is not to think on't; but from what brutish stupidity can they derive so gross a blindness? They must bridle the a.s.s by the tail:

"Qui capite ipse suo inst.i.tuit vestigia retro,"

["Who in his folly seeks to advance backwards"--Lucretius, iv. 474]

'tis no wonder if he be often trapped in the pitfall. They affright people with the very mention of death, and many cross themselves, as it were the name of the devil. And because the making a man's will is in reference to dying, not a man will be persuaded to take a pen in hand to that purpose, till the physician has pa.s.sed sentence upon and totally given him over, and then betwixt and terror, G.o.d knows in how fit a condition of understanding he is to do it.

The Romans, by reason that this poor syllable death sounded so harshly to their ears and seemed so ominous, found out a way to soften and spin it out by a periphrasis, and instead of p.r.o.nouncing such a one is dead, said, "Such a one has lived," or "Such a one has ceased to live"

--[Plutarch, Life of Cicero, c. 22:]--for, provided there was any mention of life in the case, though past, it carried yet some sound of consolation. And from them it is that we have borrowed our expression, "The late Monsieur such and such a one."--["feu Monsieur un tel."]

Peradventure, as the saying is, the term we have lived is worth our money. I was born betwixt eleven and twelve o'clock in the forenoon the last day of February 1533, according to our computation, beginning the year the 1st of January,--[This was in virtue of an ordinance of Charles IX. in 1563. Previously the year commenced at Easter, so that the 1st January 1563 became the first day of the year 1563.]--and it is now but just fifteen days since I was complete nine-and-thirty years old; I make account to live, at least, as many more. In the meantime, to trouble a man's self with the thought of a thing so far off were folly. But what?

Young and old die upon the same terms; no one departs out of life otherwise than if he had but just before entered into it; neither is any man so old and decrepit, who, having heard of Methuselah, does not think he has yet twenty good years to come. Fool that thou art! who has a.s.sured unto thee the term of life? Thou dependest upon physicians'

tales: rather consult effects and experience. According to the common course of things, 'tis long since that thou hast lived by extraordinary favour; thou hast already outlived the ordinary term of life. And that it is so, reckon up thy acquaintance, how many more have died before they arrived at thy age than have attained unto it; and of those who have enn.o.bled their lives by their renown, take but an account, and I dare lay a wager thou wilt find more who have died before than after five-and-thirty years of age. It is full both of reason and piety, too, to take example by the humanity of Jesus Christ Himself; now, He ended His life at three-and-thirty years. The greatest man, that was no more than a man, Alexander, died also at the same age. How many several ways has death to surprise us?

"Quid quisque, vitet, nunquam homini satis Cautum est in horas."

["Be as cautious as he may, man can never foresee the danger that may at any hour befal him."--Hor. O. ii. 13, 13.]

To omit fevers and pleurisies, who would ever have imagined that a duke of Brittany,--[Jean II. died 1305.]--should be pressed to death in a crowd as that duke was at the entry of Pope Clement, my neighbour, into Lyons?--[Montaigne speaks of him as if he had been a contemporary neighbour, perhaps because he was the Archbishop of Bordeaux. Bertrand le Got was Pope under the t.i.tle of Clement V., 1305-14.]--Hast thou not seen one of our kings--[Henry II., killed in a tournament, July 10, 1559]--killed at a tilting, and did not one of his ancestors die by jostle of a hog?--[Philip, eldest son of Louis le Gros.]--AEschylus, threatened with the fall of a house, was to much purpose circ.u.mspect to avoid that danger, seeing that he was knocked on the head by a tortoise falling out of an eagle's talons in the air. Another was choked with a grape-stone;--[Val. Max., ix. 12, ext. 2.]--an emperor killed with the scratch of a comb in combing his head. AEmilius Lepidus with a stumble at his own threshold,--[Pliny, Nat. Hist., vii. 33.]-- and Aufidius with a jostle against the door as he entered the council-chamber. And betwixt the very thighs of women, Cornelius Gallus the proctor; Tigillinus, captain of the watch at Rome; Ludovico, son of Guido di Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua; and (of worse example) Speusippus, a Platonic philosopher, and one of our Popes. The poor judge Bebius gave adjournment in a case for eight days; but he himself, meanwhile, was condemned by death, and his own stay of life expired. Whilst Caius Julius, the physician, was anointing the eyes of a patient, death closed his own; and, if I may bring in an example of my own blood, a brother of mine, Captain St. Martin, a young man, three-and-twenty years old, who had already given sufficient testimony of his valour, playing a match at tennis, received a blow of a ball a little above his right ear, which, as it gave no manner of sign of wound or contusion, he took no notice of it, nor so much as sat down to repose himself, but, nevertheless, died within five or six hours after of an apoplexy occasioned by that blow.

These so frequent and common examples pa.s.sing every day before our eyes, how is it possible a man should disengage himself from the thought of death, or avoid fancying that it has us every moment by the throat? What matter is it, you will say, which way it comes to pa.s.s, provided a man does not terrify himself with the expectation? For my part, I am of this mind, and if a man could by any means avoid it, though by creeping under a calf's skin, I am one that should not be ashamed of the s.h.i.+ft; all I aim at is, to pa.s.s my time at my ease, and the recreations that will most contribute to it, I take hold of, as little glorious and exemplary as you will:

"Praetulerim . . . delirus inersque videri, Dum mea delectent mala me, vel denique fallant, Quam sapere, et ringi."

["I had rather seem mad and a sluggard, so that my defects are agreeable to myself, or that I am not painfully conscious of them, than be wise, and chaptious."--Hor., Ep., ii. 2, 126.]

But 'tis folly to think of doing anything that way. They go, they come, they gallop and dance, and not a word of death. All this is very fine; but withal, when it comes either to themselves, their wives, their children, or friends, surprising them at unawares and unprepared, then, what torment, what outcries, what madness and despair! Did you ever see anything so subdued, so changed, and so confounded? A man must, therefore, make more early provision for it; and this brutish negligence, could it possibly lodge in the brain of any man of sense (which I think utterly impossible), sells us its merchandise too dear. Were it an enemy that could be avoided, I would then advise to borrow arms even of cowardice itself; but seeing it is not, and that it will catch you as well flying and playing the poltroon, as standing to't like an honest man:--

"Nempe et fugacem persequitur virum, Nec parcit imbellis juventae Poplitibus timidoque tergo."

["He pursues the flying poltroon, nor spares the hamstrings of the unwarlike youth who turns his back"--Hor., Ep., iii. 2, 14.]

And seeing that no temper of arms is of proof to secure us:--

"Ille licet ferro cautus, se condat et aere, Mors tamen inclusum protrahet inde caput"

["Let him hide beneath iron or bra.s.s in his fear, death will pull his head out of his armour."--Propertious iii. 18]

--let us learn bravely to stand our ground, and fight him. And to begin to deprive him of the greatest advantage he has over us, let us take a way quite contrary to the common course. Let us disarm him of his novelty and strangeness, let us converse and be familiar with him, and have nothing so frequent in our thoughts as death. Upon all occasions represent him to our imagination in his every shape; at the stumbling of a horse, at the falling of a tile, at the least p.r.i.c.k with a pin, let us presently consider, and say to ourselves, "Well, and what if it had been death itself?" and, thereupon, let us encourage and fortify ourselves.

Let us evermore, amidst our jollity and feasting, set the remembrance of our frail condition before our eyes, never suffering ourselves to be so far transported with our delights, but that we have some intervals of reflecting upon, and considering how many several ways this jollity of ours tends to death, and with how many dangers it threatens it. The Egyptians were wont to do after this manner, who in the height of their feasting and mirth, caused a dried skeleton of a man to be brought into the room to serve for a memento to their guests:

"Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum Grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur, hora."

["Think each day when past is thy last; the next day, as unexpected, will be the more welcome."--Hor., Ep., i. 4, 13.]

Where death waits for us is uncertain; let us look for him everywhere.