 |
|
|
Book XIXof the Essays
of Michel
de Montaigne
|
|
CICERO says "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
apprenticeship 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 endeavor 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"- 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 main thing at which we all aim, even in virtue itself, is pleasure.
It amuses me to rattle in their ears this word, which they so nauseate to
hear; and if it signify some supreme pleasure and excessive contentment, it
is more due to the assistance of virtue than to any other assistance
whatever. This pleasure, for being more gay, more sinewy, more robust, and
more manly, is only the more seriously voluptuous, and we ought to give it
the name of pleasure, as that which is more favorable, gentle, and natural,
and not that of vigor, 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
competition, 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 labors, its
sweat and its blood; and, moreover, has particular to itself so many several
sorts of sharp and wounding passions, 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 ennoble,
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 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 beatitude that glitters
in Virtue, shines 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 center 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 passing 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 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," 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." 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 citharaeque cantus Somnum reducent." 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 Metitur vitam; torquetur peste futura." 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 ass by the tail. "Qui capite
ipse suo instituit vestigia retro," '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 passed sentence upon him, and totally given him over, and then
between grief and terror, God 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
pronouncing such a one is dead, said, "Such a one has lived," or
"Such a one has ceased to live;" 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." Peradventure, as the
saying is, the term we have lived is worth our money. I was born between
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, and it
is now 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 years
good to come. Fool that thou art, who has assured 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 favor: thou hast already outlived the ordinary term of
life. And that 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 ennobled 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." To omit fevers and pleurisies, who
would ever have imagined that a duke of Brittany should be pressed to death
in a crowd as that duke was, at the entry of Pope Clement, my neighbor, into
Lyons? Hast thou not seen one of our kings killed at a tilting, and did not
one of his ancestors die by the jostle of a hog? Aeschylus, threatened with
the fall of a house, was to much purpose circumspect 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 grapestone; an emperor
killed with the scratch of a comb in combing his head. Aemilius Lepidus with
a stumble at his own threshold, and Aufidius with a jostle against the door
as he entered the council-chamber. And between the very thighs of woman,
Cornelius Gallus the praetor; 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. While 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 valor, 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
passing 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
pass, 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
shift; all I aim at is, to pass 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." 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." 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 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 prick 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." Where death waits for us is uncertain;
let us look for him everywhere. The premeditation of death is the
premeditation of liberty; he who has learned to die, has unlearned to serve.
There is nothing of evil in life, for him who rightly comprehends that the
privation of life is no evil: to know how to die, delivers us from all
subjection and constraint. Paulus Aemilius answered him whom the miserable
king of Macedon, his prisoner, sent to entreat him that he would not lead him
in his triumph, "Let him make that request to himself." In truth, in all things, if nature do
not help a little, it is very hard for art and industry to perform anything
to purpose. I am in my own nature not melancholic, but meditative; and there
is nothing I have more continually entertained myself withal than imaginations
of death, even in the most wanton time of my age: "Jucundum quum aetas florida ver ageret." In the company of
ladies, and at games, some have perhaps thought me possessed with some
jealousy, or the uncertainty of some hope, while I was entertaining myself
with the remembrance of some one, surprised, a few days before, with a
burning fever of which he died, returning from an entertainment like this,
with his head full of idle fancies of love and jollity, as mine was then, and
that, for aught I knew, the same destiny was attending me. "Jam fuerit, nec post unquam revocare licebit." Yet did not this thought wrinkle my
forehead any more than any other. It is impossible but we must feel a sting
in such imaginations as these, at first; but with often turning and
re-turning them in one's mind, they, at last, become so familiar as to be no
trouble at all; otherwise, I, for my part, should be in a perpetual fright
and frenzy; for never man was so distrustful of his life, never man so
uncertain as to its duration. Neither health, which I have hitherto ever
enjoyed very strong and vigorous, and very seldom interrupted, does prolong,
nor sickness contract my hopes. Every minute, methinks, I am escaping, and it
eternally runs in my mind, that what may be done to-morrow, may be done
to-day. Hazards and dangers do, in truth, little or nothing hasten our end;
and if we consider how many thousands more remain and hang over our heads,
besides the accident that immediately threatens us, we shall find that the
sound and the sick, those that are abroad at sea, and those that sit by the
fire, those who are engaged in battle, and those who sit idle at home, are
the one as near it as the other. "Nemo altero fragilior est: nemo in
crastinum sui certior." For anything I have to do before I die, the
longest leisure would appear too short, were it but an hour's business I had
to do. A friend of mine the other day turning
over my tablets, found therein a memorandum of something I would have done
after my decease, whereupon I told him, as it was really true, that though I
was no more than a league's distance only from my own house, and merry and
well, yet when that thing came into my head, I made haste to write it down
there, because I was not certain to live till I came home. As a man that am
eternally brooding over my own thoughts, and confine them to my own
particular concerns, I am at all hours as well prepared as I am ever like to
be, and death, whenever he shall come, can bring nothing along with him I did
not expect long before. We should always, as near as we can, be booted and
spurred, and ready to go, and, above all things, take care, at that time, to
have no business with any one but one's self: "Quid brevi fortes jaculamur aevo Multa?" for we shall there
find work enough to do, without any need of addition. One man complains, more
than of death, that he is thereby prevented of a glorious victory; another,
that he must die before he has married his daughter, or educated his
children; a third seems only troubled that he must lose the society of his
wife; a fourth, the conversation of his son, as the principal comfort and
concern of his being. For my part, I am, thanks be to God, at this instant in
such a condition, that I am ready to dislodge, whenever it shall please Him,
without regret for anything whatsoever. I disengage myself throughout from
all worldly relations; my leave is soon taken of all but myself. Never did
any one prepare to bid adieu to the world more absolutely and unreservedly,
and to shake hands with all manner of interest in it, than I expect to do.
The deadest deaths are the best. "Miser, O miser,' aiunt, 'omnia ademit Una dies infesta
mihi tot praemia vitae." And the builder, “Manent,' says he, 'opera interrupta, minaeque Murorum ingentes.” A man must design
nothing that will require so much time to the finishing, or, at least, with
no such passionate desire to see it brought to perfection. We are born to
action. "Quum moriar medium solvar et inter opus." I would always have
a man to be doing, and, as much as in him lies, to extend and spin out the
offices of life; and then let death take me planting my cabbages, indifferent
to him, and still less of my garden's not being finished. I saw one die, who,
at his last gasp, complained of nothing so much as that destiny was about to
cut the thread of a chronicle history he was then compiling, when he was gone
no farther than the fifteenth or sixteenth of our kings. "Illud in his rebus non addunt, nec tibi earum Jam desiderium rerum super insidit una." We are to discharge
ourselves from these vulgar and hurtful humors. To this purpose it was that
men first appointed the places of sepulture adjoining the churches, and in
the most frequented places of the city, to accustom, says Lycurgus, the
common people, women, and children, that they should not be startled at the
sight of a corpse, and to the end, that the continual spectacle of bones,
graves, and funeral obsequies should put us in mind of our frail condition. "Quin etiam exhilarare viris convivia caede Mos olim, et miscere epulis spectacula dira, Certantum ferro, saepe et super ipsa cadentum Pocula, respersis non parco
sanguine mensis." And as the
Egyptians after their feasts were wont to present the company with a great
image of death, by one that cried out to them, "Drink and be merry, for
such shalt thou be when thou art dead;" so it is my custom to have death
not only in my imagination, but continually in my mouth. Neither is there
anything of which I am so inquisitive, and delight to inform myself, as the
manner of men's deaths, their words, looks, and bearing; nor any places in
history I am so intent upon; and it is manifest enough, by my crowding in
examples of this kind, that I have a particular fancy for that subject. If I
were a writer of books, I would compile a register, with a comment, of the
various deaths of men: he who should teach men to die, would at the same time
teach them to live. Dicearchus made one, to which he gave that title; but it
was designed for another and less profitable end. Peradventure, some one may object,
that the pain and terror of dying so infinitely exceed all manner of
imagination, that the best fencer will be quite out of his play when it comes
to the push. Let them say what they will: to premeditate is doubtless a very
great advantage; and besides, is it nothing to go so far, at least, without
disturbance or alteration? Moreover, nature herself assists and encourages
us: if the death be sudden and violent, we have not leisure to fear; if
otherwise, I perceive that as I engage further in my disease, I naturally
enter into a certain loathing and disdain of life. I find I have much more
ado to digest this resolution of dying, when I am well in health, than when
languishing of a fever; and by how much I have less to do with the
commodities of life, by reason that I begin to lose the use and pleasure of
them, by so much I look upon death with less terror. Which makes me hope,
that the farther I remove from the first, and the nearer I approach to the
latter, I shall the more easily exchange the one for the other. And, as I
have experienced in other occurrences, that, as Caesar says, things often
appear greater to us at a distance than near at hand, I have found, that
being well, I have had maladies in much greater horror than when really
afflicted with them. The vigor wherein I now am, the cheerfulness and delight
wherein I now live, make the contrary estate appear in so great a
disproportion to my present condition, that, by imagination, I magnify those
inconveniences by one-half, and apprehend them to be much more troublesome,
than I find them really to be, when they lie the most heavy upon me; I hope
to find death the same. Let us but observe in the ordinary
changes and declinations we daily suffer, how nature deprives us of the light
and sense of our bodily decay. What remains to an old man of the vigor of his
youth and better days? "Heu! senibus vitae portio quanta manet." Caesar, to an old
weather-beaten soldier of his guards, who came to ask him leave that he might
kill himself, taking notice of his withered body and decrepit motion,
pleasantly answered, "Thou fanciest, then, that thou art yet
alive." Should a man fall into this condition on the sudden, I do not
think humanity capable of enduring such a change: but nature, leading us by
the hand, an easy and, as it were, an insensible pace step by step conducts
us to that miserable state, and by that means makes it familiar to us, so
that we are insensible of the stroke when our youth dies in us, though it be
really a harder death than the final dissolution of a languishing body, than
the death of old age; forasmuch as the fall is not so great from an uneasy
being to none at all, as it is from a sprightly and flourishing being to one
that is troublesome and painful. The body, bent and bowed, has less force to
support a burden; and it is the same with the soul, and therefore it is, that
we are to raise her up firm and erect against the power of this adversary.
For, as it is impossible she should ever be at rest, while she stands in fear
of it; so, if she once can assure herself, she may boast (which is a thing as
it were surpassing human condition) that it is impossible that disquiet,
anxiety, or fear, or any other disturbance, should inhabit or have any place
in her. "Non vultus instantis tyranni Mente quati solida, neque
Auster Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae, Nec fulminantis
magna Jovis manus." She is then become sovereign of all
her lusts and passions, mistress of necessity, shame, poverty, and all the
other injuries of fortune. Let us, therefore, as many of us as can, get this
advantage; 'tis the true and sovereign liberty here on earth, that fortifies
us wherewithal to defy violence and injustice, and to contemn prisons and
chains. "In manicis et Compedibus saevo te sub custode tenebo "Ipse Deus, simul atque volam, me solvet. Opinor, Hoc sentit; moriar; mors ultima linea rerum est." Our very religion itself has no surer
human foundation than the contempt of death. Not only the argument of reason
invites us to it- for why should we fear to lose a thing, which being lost
cannot be lamented?- but, also, seeing we are threatened by so many sorts of
death, is it not infinitely worse eternally to fear them all, than once to
undergo one of them? And what matters it, when it shall happen, since it is
inevitable? To him that told Socrates, "The thirty tyrants have
sentenced thee to death;" "And nature them," said he. What a
ridiculous thing it is to trouble ourselves about taking the only step that
is to deliver us from all trouble! As our birth brought us the birth of all
things, so in our death is the death of all things included. And therefore to
lament that we shall not he alive a hundred years hence, is the same folly as
to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago. Death is the beginning of
another life. So did we weep, and so much it cost us to enter into this, and
so did we put off our former veil in entering into it. Nothing can be a
grievance that is but once. Is it reasonable so long to fear a thing that
will so soon be despatched? Long life, and short, are by death made all one;
for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more. Aristotle tells
us that there are certain little beasts upon the banks of the river Hypanis,
that never live above a day: they which die at eight of the clock in the
morning, die in their youth, and those that die at five in the evening, in
their decrepitude: which of us would not laugh to see this moment of
continuance put into the consideration of weal or woe? The most and the least,
of ours, in comparison with eternity, or yet with the duration of mountains,
rivers, stars, trees, and even of some animals, is no less ridiculous. But nature compels us to it. "Go
out of this world," says she, "as you entered into it; the same
pass you made from death to life, without passion or fear, the same, after
the same manner, repeat from life to death. Your death is a part of the order
of the universe, 'tis a part of the life of the world. “Inter se mortales mutua vivunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Et, quasi cursores, vitai lampada tradunt.' Shall I exchange
for you this beautiful contexture of things? 'Tis the condition of your
creation; death is a part of you, and while you endeavor to evade it, you
evade yourselves. This very being of yours that you now enjoy is equally
divided between life and death. The day of your birth is one day's advance
toward the grave. "Prima, quae vitam dedit, hora carpsit.” "Nascentes morimus, finisque ab origne pendet.” All the whole time
you live, you purloin from life, and live at the expense of life itself. The
perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death. You are in
death, while you are in life, because you still are after death, when you are
no more alive; or, if you had rather have it so, you are dead after life, but
dying all the while you live; and death handles the dying much more rudely
than the dead, and more sensibly and essentially. If you have made your
profit of life, you have had enough of it; go your way satisfied. "Cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedis?' If you have not
known how to make the best use of it, if it was unprofitable to you, what
need you to care to lose it, to what end would you desire longer to keep it? "Cur amplius addere quaeris, Rursum quod pereat male, et ingratum occidat omne?” Life in itself is
neither good nor evil; it is the scene of good or evil, as you make it. And,
if you have lived a day, you have seen all: one day is equal and like to all
other days. There is no other light, no other shade; this very sun, this
moon, these very stars, this very order and disposition of things, is the
same your ancestors enjoyed, and that shall also entertain your posterity. "Non alium videre patres, aliumve nepotes Aspicient.” And, come the worst
that can come, the distribution and variety of all the acts of my comedy are
performed in a year. If you have observed the revolution of my four seasons,
they comprehend the infancy, the youth, the virility, and the old age of the
world: the year has played his part, and knows no other art but to begin
again; it will always be the same thing. "Versamur ibidem, atque insumus usque.' "'Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus.” I am not prepared
to create for you any new recreations. "Nam tibi praeterea quod machiner, inveniamque Quod placeat, nihil est; eadem sunt omnia semper.” Give place to
others, as others have given place to you. Equality is the soul of equity.
Who can complain of being comprehended in the same destiny, wherein all are
involved. Besides, live as long as you can, you shall by that nothing shorten
the space you are to be dead; 'tis all to no purpose; you shall be every whit
as long in the condition you so much fear, as if you had died at nurse. "Licet quot vis viven do vincere secla, Mors aeterna tamen nihilominus illa manebit.” And yet I will
place you in such a condition as you shall have no reason to be displeased. "In vera nescis nullum fore morte alium te, Qui possit vivus tibi te lugere peremptum, Stansque jacentem.” Nor shall you so much as wish for the
life you are so concerned about. "Nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitamque requirit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nec desiderium nostri nos afficit ullum.” Death is less to be
feared than nothing, if there could be anything less than nothing. "Multo... mortem minus ad nos esse putandum, Si minus esse potest, quam quod nihil esse videmus.” Neither can it any
way concern you, whether you are living or dead: living, by reason that you
are still in being; dead because you are no more. Moreover, no one dies
before his hour: the time you leave behind was no more yours, than that was
lapsed and gone before you came into the world; nor does it any more concern
you. "Respice enim, quam nil ad nos anteacta vetustas Temporis aeternia fuerit.” Wherever your life ends, it is all
there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the
use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use
of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon
the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life. Is it possible you
can imagine never to arrive at the place toward which you are continually
going? and yet there is no journey but hath its end. And, if company will
make it more pleasant or more easy to you, does not all the world go the
self-same way? "Omnia te, vita perfuncta, sequentur.” Does not all the
world dance the same brawl that you do? Is there anything that does not grow
old, as well as you? A thousand men, a thousand animals, a thousand other
creatures, die at the same moment that you die: "Nam nox nulla diem, neque noctem aurora sequuta est, Quae non audierit mistos vagitibus aegris Ploratus, mortis comites et
funerisiatri.” To what end should you endeavor to
draw back, if there be no possibility to evade it? you have seen examples
enough of those who have been well pleased to die, as thereby delivered from
heavy miseries; but have you ever found any who have been dissatisfied with
dying? It must, therefore, needs be very foolish to condemn a thing you have
neither experimented in your own person, nor by that of any other. Why dost
thou complain of me and of destiny? Do we do thee any wrong? Is it for thee
to govern us, or for us to govern thee? Though, peradventure thy age may not
be accomplished, yet thy life is: a man of low stature is as much a man as a
giant: neither men nor their lives are measured by the ell. Chiron refused to
be immortal, when he was acquainted with the conditions under which he was to
enjoy it, by the god of time itself and its duration, his father Saturn. Do
but seriously consider how much more insupportable and painful an immortal
life would be to man than what I have already given him. If you had not
death, you would externally curse me for having deprived you of it; I have
mixed a little bitterness with it, to the end, that seeing of what
convenience it is, you might not too greedily and indiscreetly seek and
embrace it: and that you might be so established in this moderation, as
neither to nauseate life, nor have an antipathy for dying, which I have
decreed you shall once do, I have tempered the one and the other between
pleasure and pain. It was I that taught Thales, the most eminent of your sages,
that to live and to die were indifferent; which made him, very wisely, answer
him, 'Why then he did not die?' 'Because,' said he, 'it is indifferent.'
Water, earth, air, and fire, and the other parts of this creation of mine,
are no more instruments of thy life than they are of thy death. Why dost thou
fear thy last day? it contributes no more to thy dissolution, than every one
of the rest: the last step is not the cause of lassitude; it does but confess
it. Every day travels toward death: the last only arrives at it." These
are the good lessons our mother Nature teaches. I have often considered with myself whence
it should proceed, that in war the image of death, whether we look upon
it in ourselves or in others, should, without comparison, appear less
dreadful than at home in our own houses (for if it were not so, it would
be an army of doctors and whining milksops), and that being still in
all places the same, there should be, notwithstanding, much more assurance
in peasants and the meaner sort of people, than in others of better
quality. I believe, in truth, that it is those terrible ceremonies and
preparations wherewith we set it out, that more terrify us than the
thing itself; a new, quite contrary way of living; the cries of mothers,
wives, and children: the visits of astounded and afflicted friends;
the attendance of pale and blubbering servants; a dark room, set round
with burning tapers; our beds environed with physicians and divines;
in sum, nothing but ghostliness and horror round about us: we seem dead
and buried already. Children are afraid even of those they are best
acquainted with, when disguised in a visor; and so 'tis with us; the
visor must be removed as well from things as from persons; that being
taken away, we shall find nothing underneath but the very same death
that a mean servant, or a poor chambermaid, died a day or two ago, without
any manner of apprehension. Blessed is the death which leaves no time
for preparing such gatherings of mourners. |
 |
Poetry is Disaster |  |
|||
| correspond | |
||||