Essays of Michel de Montaigne Part 38

"Art thou not ashamed," said he to him, "to sing so well?"

As great a benefit to be without (children) Away with that eloquence that enchants us with itself Because the people know so well how to obey Blemishes of the great naturally appear greater Change is to be feared Cicero: on fame Confidence in another man's virtue Dangerous man you have deprived of all means to escape Depend as much upon fortune as anything else we do Fame: an echo, a dream, nay, the shadow of a dream Far more easy and pleasant to follow than to lead He who lays the cloth is ever at the charge of the feast I honour those most to whom I show the least honour In war not to drive an enemy to despair My words does but injure the love I have conceived within.

Neither the courage to die nor the heart to live Never spoke of my money, but falsely, as others do No great choice betwixt not knowing to speak anything but ill No man continues ill long but by his own fault No necessity upon a man to live in necessity No pa.s.sion so contagious as that of fear Not a victory that puts not an end to the war Not want, but rather abundance, that creates avarice Only secure harbour from the storms and tempests of life Opinions they have of things and not by the things themselves People conceiving they have right and t.i.tle to be judges Pyrrho's hog Repute for value in them, not what they bring to us Satisfaction of mind to have only one path to walk in That which cowardice itself has chosen for its refuge The honour we receive from those that fear us is not honour The pedestal is no part of the statue There is more trouble in keeping money than in getting it.

There is nothing I hate so much as driving a bargain Thou wilt not feel it long if thou feelest it too much Tis the sharpnss of our mind that gives the edge to our pains t.i.tles being so dearly bought Twenty people prating about him when he is at stool Valour whetted and enraged by mischance What can they not do; what do they fear to do (for beauty)

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazlitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 8.

XLVIII. Of war-horses, or destriers.

XLIX. Of ancient customs.

L. Of Democritus and Herac.l.i.tus.

LI. Of the vanity of words.

LII. Of the parsimony of the Ancients.

LIII. Of a saying of Caesar.

LIV. Of vain subtleties.

LV. Of smells.

LVI. Of prayers.

LVII. Of age.

CHAPTER XLVIII

OF WAR HORSES, OR DESTRIERS

I here have become a grammarian, I who never learned any language but by rote, and who do not yet know adjective, conjunction, or ablative. I think I have read that the Romans had a sort of horses by them called 'funales' or 'dextrarios', which were either led horses, or horses laid on at several stages to be taken fresh upon occasion, and thence it is that we call our horses of service 'destriers'; and our romances commonly use the phrase of 'adestrer' for 'accompagner', to accompany. They also called those that were trained in such sort, that running full speed, side by side, without bridle or saddle, the Roman gentlemen, armed at all pieces, would s.h.i.+ft and throw themselves from one to the other, 'desultorios equos'. The Numidian men-at-arms had always a led horse in one hand, besides that they rode upon, to change in the heat of battle:

"Quibus, desultorum in modum, binos trahentibus equos, inter acerrimam saepe pugnam, in recentem equum, ex fesso, armatis transultare mos erat: tanta velocitas ipsis, tamque docile equorum genus."

["To whom it was a custom, leading along two horses, often in the hottest fight, to leap armed from a tired horse to a fresh one; so active were the men, and the horses so docile."--Livy, xxiii. 29.]

There are many horses trained to help their riders so as to run upon any one, that appears with a drawn sword, to fall both with mouth and heels upon any that front or oppose them: but it often happens that they do more harm to their friends than to their enemies; and, moreover, you cannot loose them from their hold, to reduce them again into order, when they are once engaged and grappled, by which means you remain at the mercy of their quarrel. It happened very ill to Artybius, general of the Persian army, fighting, man to man, with Onesilus, king of Salamis, to be mounted upon a horse trained after this manner, it being the occasion of his death, the squire of Onesilus cleaving the horse down with a scythe betwixt the shoulders as it was reared up upon his master. And what the Italians report, that in the battle of Fornova, the horse of Charles VIII., with kicks and plunges, disengaged his master from the enemy that pressed upon him, without which he had been slain, sounds like a very great chance, if it be true.

[In the narrative which Philip de Commines has given of this battle, in which he himself was present (lib. viii. ch. 6), he tells us of wonderful performances by the horse on which the king was mounted. The name of the horse was Savoy, and it was the most beautiful horse he had ever seen. During the battle the king was personally attacked, when he had n.o.body near him but a valet de chambre, a little fellow, and not well armed. "The king," says Commines, "had the best horse under him in the world, and therefore he stood his ground bravely, till a number of his men, not a great way from him, arrived at the critical minute."]

The Mamalukes make their boast that they have the most ready horses of any cavalry in the world; that by nature and custom they were taught to know and distinguish the enemy, and to fall foul upon them with mouth and heels, according to a word or sign given; as also to gather up with their teeth darts and lances scattered upon the field, and present them to their riders, on the word of command. 'T is said, both of Caesar and Pompey, that amongst their other excellent qualities they were both very good hors.e.m.e.n, and particularly of Caesar, that in his youth, being mounted on the bare back, without saddle or bridle, he could make the horse run, stop, and turn, and perform all its airs, with his hands behind him. As nature designed to make of this person, and of Alexander, two miracles of military art, so one would say she had done her utmost to arm them after an extraordinary manner for every one knows that Alexander's horse, Bucephalus, had a head inclining to the shape of a bull; that he would suffer himself to be mounted and governed by none but his master, and that he was so honoured after his death as to have a city erected to his name. Caesar had also one which had forefeet like those of a man, his hoofs being divided in the form of fingers, which likewise was not to be ridden, by any but Caesar himself, who, after his death, dedicated his statue to the G.o.ddess Venus.

I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback, for it is the place where, whether well or sick, I find myself most at ease. Plato recommends it for health, as also Pliny says it is good for the stomach and the joints. Let us go further into this matter since here we are.

We read in Xenophon a law forbidding any one who was master of a horse to travel on foot. Trogus Pompeius and Justin say that the Parthians were wont to perform all offices and ceremonies, not only in war but also all affairs whether public or private, make bargains, confer, entertain, take the air, and all on horseback; and that the greatest distinction betwixt freemen and slaves amongst them was that the one rode on horseback and the other went on foot, an inst.i.tution of which King Cyrus was the founder.

There are several examples in the Roman history (and Suetonius more particularly observes it of Caesar) of captains who, on pressing occasions, commanded their cavalry to alight, both by that means to take from them all hopes of flight, as also for the advantage they hoped in this sort of fight.

"Quo baud dubie superat Roma.n.u.s,"

["Wherein the Roman does questionless excel."--Livy, ix. 22.]

says Livy. And so the first thing they did to prevent the mutinies and insurrections of nations of late conquest was to take from them their arms and horses, and therefore it is that we so often meet in Caesar:

"Arma proferri, jumenta produci, obsides dari jubet."

["He commanded the arms to be produced, the horses brought out, hostages to be given."--De Bello Gall., vii. II.]

The Grand Signior to this day suffers not a Christian or a Jew to keep a horse of his own throughout his empire.

Our ancestors, and especially at the time they had war with the English, in all their greatest engagements and pitched battles fought for the most part on foot, that they might have nothing but their own force, courage, and constancy to trust to in a quarrel of so great concern as life and honour. You stake (whatever Chrysanthes in Xenophon says to the contrary) your valour and your fortune upon that of your horse; his wounds or death bring your person into the same danger; his fear or fury shall make you reputed rash or cowardly; if he have an ill mouth or will not answer to the spur, your honour must answer for it. And, therefore, I do not think it strange that those battles were more firm and furious than those that are fought on horseback:

"Caedebant pariter, pariterque ruebant Victores victique; neque his fuga nota, neque illis."

["They fought and fell pell-mell, victors and vanquished; nor was flight thought of by either."--AEneid, x. 756.]

Their battles were much better disputed. Nowadays there are nothing but routs:

"Primus clamor atque impetus rem decernit."

["The first shout and charge decides the business."--Livy, xxv. 41.]

And the means we choose to make use of in so great a hazard should be as much as possible at our own command: wherefore I should advise to choose weapons of the shortest sort, and such of which we are able to give the best account. A man may repose more confidence in a sword he holds in his hand than in a bullet he discharges out of a pistol, wherein there must be a concurrence of several circ.u.mstances to make it perform its office, the powder, the stone, and the wheel: if any of which fail it endangers your fortune. A man himself strikes much surer than the air can direct his blow:

"Et, quo ferre velint, permittere vulnera ventis Ensis habet vires; et gens quaec.u.mque virorum est, Bella gerit gladiis."

["And so where they choose to carry [the arrows], the winds allow the wounds; the sword has strength of arm: and whatever nation of men there is, they wage war with swords."--Lucan, viii. 384.]

But of that weapon I shall speak more fully when I come to compare the arms of the ancients with those of modern use; only, by the way, the astonishment of the ear abated, which every one grows familiar with in a short time, I look upon it as a weapon of very little execution, and hope we shall one day lay it aside. That missile weapon which the Italians formerly made use of both with fire and by sling was much more terrible: they called a certain kind of javelin, armed at the point with an iron three feet long, that it might pierce through and through an armed man, Phalarica, which they sometimes in the field darted by hand, sometimes from several sorts of engines for the defence of beleaguered places; the shaft being rolled round with flax, wax, rosin, oil, and other combustible matter, took fire in its flight, and lighting upon the body of a man or his target, took away all the use of arms and limbs. And yet, coming to close fight, I should think they would also damage the a.s.sailant, and that the camp being as it were planted with these flaming truncheons, would produce a common inconvenience to the whole crowd:

"Magnum stridens contorta Phalarica venit, Fulminis acta modo."

["The Phalarica, launched like lightning, flies through the air with a loud rus.h.i.+ng sound."--AEneid, ix. 705.]

They had, moreover, other devices which custom made them perfect in (which seem incredible to us who have not seen them), by which they supplied the effects of our powder and shot. They darted their spears with so great force, as ofttimes to transfix two targets and two armed men at once, and pin them together. Neither was the effect of their slings less certain of execution or of shorter carriage:

["Culling round stones from the beach for their slings; and with these practising over the waves, so as from a great distance to throw within a very small circuit, they became able not only to wound an enemy in the head, but hit any other part at pleasure."

--Livy, x.x.xviii. 29.]

Their pieces of battery had not only the execution but the thunder of our cannon also: