Book 1, Chapter 27: Of Friendship (3 of 3)

In the final part of this moving essay on friendship, Montaigne compares the common friendship to the extraordinary, and discusses the differences between friends and acquaintances

I was so used to being his double in all places and in all things, that I feel no more than half of myself. There is no action or imagination of mine wherein I do not miss him

Cicero reports that when Blosius, best friend to Tiberius, was asked how much he would do for his friend, he replied, "All things". He was asked how he could say all things:

‘What if he commanded you to set fire to our temples?’

‘He would never ask me that," replied Blosius, ‘but if he did, I would obey him"

Those who think this answer is seditious do not understand the mystery, nor see that Blosius had Tiberius’s will in his sleeve, both by the power of friendship, and by the perfect knowledge he had of the man. They were more friends to one another than either enemies or friends to their country, or than friends to ambition and innovation. Having absolutely given up themselves to one another, each held completely the reins of the other's inclination.

Blosius’s answer was just as it should have been. If someone asked me, ‘If your will commanded you to kill your daughter, would you do it?’ What can I say except that I would? This expresses no consent to such an act, for I don’t have any suspicions of my own will. And just as little for Etienne. All the eloquence in the world cannot sway the certainty I have of the intentions and resolutions of my friend. Not one action of his, no matter what it is, could be presented to me, of which I could not immediately determine the moving cause. Our souls had drawn so unanimously together, they had considered each other with so ardent an affection, that I knew his as well as my own; and would have trusted my own interest much more willingly with him, than with myself.

Let no one compare a common friendship to mine with Etienne. I have experienced common friendships, even the most perfect ones, and no one should confuse the rules of the one and the other, for they would find themselves much deceived. In ordinary friendships, you have to be careful and thoughtful, because there is a possibility of the knot slipping. Chilo said, "Love him so as if you were one day to hate him; and hate him so as you were one day to love him." This precept, though abominable in the sovereign and perfect friendship I speak of, is nevertheless very sound as to the practice of the ordinary and customary ones. Aristotle often said, "O my friends, there is no friend".

In the friendship I speak of, presents and benefits by which other friendships are supported and maintained are not even mentioned. This is because our wills are one; the kindnesses that I give to myself, for example, do not affect my relationship with myself. I don’t feel obliged to myself for any service that I give myself. So it was with Etienne, with such truly perfect friends there is no idea of duties, no words of division and distinction, benefits, obligation, acknowledgment, entreaty, thanks, and the like. All things, wills, thoughts, opinions, goods, wives, children, honours, and lives, are in common. That absolute concurrence of affections is no other than one soul in two bodies (according to that very proper definition of Aristotle), they can neither lend nor give anything to one another. This is the reason why the lawgivers, to honour marriage with some resemblance of this divine alliance, forbid all gifts between man and wife, inferring that all should belong to each of them, and that they have nothing to divide or to give to each other.

If, in this kind of friendship, one gives to the other, the receiver of the benefit would be obliging his friend; because each wants, above all things, to be useful to the other. The receiver is thus giving his friend the satisfaction of doing that which he most desires. When the philosopher Diogenes wanted money, he used to say that he redemanded it of his friends, not that he demanded it. And to let you see the practical working of this, I will here produce an ancient and singular example. Eudamidas, a Corinthian, had two friends, Charixenus, a Sicyonian, and Areteus, a Corinthian. He was poor, and his two friends rich. When he was coming to die, he said in his will, "I bequeath to Areteus the maintenance of my mother, to support and provide for her in her old age; and to Charixenus I bequeath the care of marrying my daughter, and to give her as good a portion as he is able; and in case one of these chance to die, I hereby substitute the survivor in his place." They who first saw this will were amused at the contents: but the two friends accepted it with very great contentment, and when one of them, Charixenus, died within five days, Areteus nurtured the old woman with great care and tenderness, and he divided his estate in exactly half, giving one portion to his own daughter and the other to the daughter of Eudamidas. On one and the same day, he also solemnised both their nuptials.

This example is very full, but my only objection is that it speaks of more than one friend. In the perfect friendship I speak, each one gives himself so entirely to his friend, that he has nothing left to distribute to others. On the contrary, he is sorry that he is not double, treble, or quadruple, and that he has not many souls and many wills, to confer them all upon this one object. Common friendships will admit of division; one may love the beauty of this person, the good-humour of that, the liberality of a third, the paternal affection of a fourth, the fraternal love of a fifth, and so on, but this friendship that possesses the whole soul cannot possibly admit of a rival. If two at the same time should call to you for help, to which of them would you run? Should they require of you favours that are contrary, how could you serve them both? Should one urge you to keep something secret that you knew was of importance to the other to know, how would you disengage yourself? A unique and particular friendship dissolves all other obligations whatsoever. The secret I have sworn not to reveal to anyone else, I may without perjury communicate to him who is not another, but myself. It is enough of a miracle for a man to double himself, and those that talk of tripling don’t know what they’re saying.

These are effects that can’t be understood by those who have no experience of them. Though one may almost everywhere meet with men sufficiently qualified for a superficial acquaintance, yet in this, where a man is to deal from the very bottom of his heart, without any manner of reservation, it will be requisite that all the wards and springs be truly wrought and perfectly sure.

In relationships that hold a single purpose, we only have to worry about the imperfections that concern that purpose. It is of no importance to me what religion my doctor or lawyer is – that has nothing to do with the duties of friendship that they owe me. Similarly, I never inquire, when I am to take a footman, if he is chaste, I only ask whether he is diligent. I don’t care if my muleteer is a gambler, as long as if he is strong and able; or if my cook is a swearer, as long as he is a good cook. I don’t meddle in how other men raise their families, but only give an account of my method in my own. For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and serious; in bed, beauty before goodness; in common discourse the ablest speaker, whether or not he is sincere. 

Plutarch tells of a man who was found playing with his children on a rocking horse, who entreated the person who had surprised him in that posture to say nothing of it till he himself came to be a father, supposing that the fondness that would then possess his own soul, would render him a fairer judge of such an action. Like him, I also could wish to speak to those who have had experience of what I say: though, knowing how rarely it is to be found, I despair of meeting with any such judge. For even these discourses left us by antiquity upon this subject seem to me flat and poor, in comparison with the sense I have of it.

The ancient Menander declared him to be happy that had had the good fortune to meet with even the shadow of a friend. Doubtless, he had good reason to say so, especially if he spoke by experience, for in all honesty, if I compare all the rest of my life, as wonderful as it has been, with the four years I had the happiness to enjoy the sweet society of this excellent man, it is nothing but smoke, an obscure and tedious night. From the day that I lost him
I have only led a languishing life; and the very pleasures that present themselves to me, instead of acting as consolation, double my affliction for his loss. We were halves throughout, and to that degree, that I think, by outliving him, I defraud him of his part.

I was so used to being his double in all places and in all things, that I feel no more than half of myself. There is no action or imagination of mine wherein I do not miss him; as I know that he would have missed me: for as he surpassed me by infinite degrees in virtue and all other accomplishments, so he also did in the duties of friendship.

Book 1, Chapter 27: Of Friendship (2 of 3)

In this part of the essay Montaigne talks about the dangers of marriage. Then, he goes into intimate detail about his relationship with Etienne, including the heart-warming account of the first time they met.

'in the friendship I speak of, the souls mixed so universally that there is no more sign of the seam by which they were first conjoined'

We can’t compare the love we bear to women to other friendships, even though that too, unlike family relationships, is an act of our own choice. Nonetheless, its fire is more active, more eager, and more sharp. But also, more fickle and inconstant; it is a fever subject to intermissions and fits, and it seizes just one part of us. Friendship’s fire, on the other hand, is general and universal, temperate and equal, a constant established heat. In love, it is frantic desire that flies from us. Aristo writes of the hunter that  pursues the hare, in cold and heat, to the mountain, to the shore, but no longer cares for it once it is taken. He only delights in chasing that which flees from him. 

Fruition destroys love, which has only fleshly motives, and is therefore capable of being satiated. Friendship, on the contrary, is enjoyed proportionately as it is desired; and is only nourished and improved by enjoyment, because it is in itself spiritual, and so, like the soul, it grows more refined by practice. Under this perfect friendship, the other fleeting affections have in my younger years found some place in me, to say nothing of him, who himself so confesses but too much in his verses; so that I had both these passions. But I could always differentiate between them. The two cannot be compared - one maintains its flight in so high and so brave a place, that it can only look down with disdain at the other, flying at a far humbler pitch below. 

Marriage is a covenant to which only the entrance is free. The continuance is forced and compulsory, depending on other things than our own free will, and normally contracted for other motives. In marriage, there are a thousand intricacies to unravel, enough to break the thread and to divert the current of a lively affection. Friendship, however, has no interest but itself. And to be honest, the ordinary talent of women is not such sufficient to maintain the communication required to support this sacred tie. Also, they do not have the constancy of mind, to sustain the pinch of so hard and durable a knot. If there could be free and voluntary familiarity contracted without marriage, where not only the souls might have this entire fruition, but the bodies also might share in the alliance, the friendship would certainly be more full and perfect. But women have not yet arrived at such perfection. 

That other Grecian license (Montaigne appears to be referring to gay sex) is justly abhorred by our manners. And that too, because it is practiced between lovers who are so different in age and in office, cannot provide any more perfect a union and harmony than the other.

I don’t think anyone will contradict me when I point out that the love that the son of Venus felt upon sight of the springing and blossoming youth was simply founded upon external beauty, the false image of a young body. This immoderate ardour could not have ground this love upon the soul, the sight of which as yet lay concealed. It sprang straight way, it did not blossom in maturity. Cicero said, "Love is a desire of contracting friendship arising from the beauty of the object."

Let me return to my own more just and true description. For the rest, what we commonly call friends are only acquaintance and familiarities, either contracted by chance or for some purpose. There is little communication between our souls. But in the friendship I speak of, the souls mixed so universally that there is no more sign of the seam by which they were first conjoined. If someone asked me why I loved him, I could only answer: because it was he, because it was I. That’s all I can say; I don’t know what inexplicable and fated power that brought on this union. We sought one another long before we met. The things we’d heard about each other wrought our affections more than mere reports would normally do. I think it was by some secret appointment of heaven. Our first meeting, at a great city entertainment, was by chance, and we found ourselves so mutually taken with one another, so acquainted, and so endeared, that from then on nothing was so near to us as one another. He wrote an excellent Latin satire, since published, on the subject. When we first met we were both full-grown men, and he some years older, so we were destined to have only a short time together. Our intelligences had very recently and very late come to perfection and there was no time to lose. Also, we felt no need to conform to the example of those slow and regular friendships that require so many long preliminary conversation. This has no other idea than that of itself, and can only refer to itself: this is no one special consideration, nor two, nor three, nor four, nor a thousand. End of the day I can’t say why my whole will plunged and lost itself in his, and that having seized his whole will, brought it back with equal concurrence and appetite to plunge and lose itself in mine. I may truly say lose, reserving nothing to ourselves that was either his or mine.

Book 1, Chapter 20: Of The Force Of Imagination (3 of 3)

In the final part of this essay, Montaigne muses a bit more about the human body. Then, he shares some surprising examples of the power of the human mind. He ends with a discussion on his own writing

'the bird at last fell dead into the cat’s claws, either dazzled by the force of its own imagination or drawn by some power of the cat'

St. Augustine said he had seen a man who could command his rear to discharge as often as he pleased. Vives provided another example, of a man who could break wind in tune. But these cases don’t provide proof of control over one’s body, for is anything more disordered or indiscreet than these acts? Let me add an example of my own – I know a man so rude and ungoverned that for forty years has been expelling one continuous, never-ending wind, and he’ll probably continue to do so until he dies. I also know men who have fallen very ill because their stomachs have not allowed them to break wind.

We have liberty to break wind whenever we want, but so often this happens irregularly and disobediently. We are unable to will our bodies to do what we want them to do, or to forbid them from doing something.

As for our (male) member, nature has endowed it with particular privilege; it is the author of the sole immortal work of mortals, a divine work, according to Socrates.

But more about the imagination – I know a man who was cured of stones with injections that he thought contained strong medicine but in fact did not. Also, a woman, thinking she had swallowed a pin, cried about an intolerable pain in her throat. A gentleman had her vomit and secretly threw a bent pin into the basin. As soon as the woman saw the pin she was eased of her pain. I also know a man who jokingly bragged to his dinner-guests that he had fed them a baked cat. A young woman was so horrified at this that she fell into violent vomiting and fever.

Animals are also subject to the force of imagination: think of the dogs who die in grief at the loss of their masters, and bark and tremble and cry in their sleep. Horses also kick and whinny in their sleep.

This could all be attributed to the close relationship between the soul and the body, but sometimes, the imagination works not only on one’s own body but even on others. Just as an infected body can transfer its disease onto those nearby, the imagination, becoming vehemently agitated, darts out infection capable of affecting foreign objects. The ancients reported that certain women of Scythia could kill a man just with their looks. Tortoises and ostriches hatch their eggs only by looking at them, as if their eyes have some ejaculative virtue. And the eyes of witches are said to be harmful.

Some time ago there was, in my house, a cat watching a bird on the top of a tree. For some time, they had their eyes fixed on each other. Then, the bird at last fell dead into the cat’s claws, either dazzled by the force of its own imagination or drawn by some power of the cat.

Someone told me of a falconer who brought down a kite from the air just by fixing his eyes upon it. However, I must say here, for the stories that I borrow I rely on the consciences of those from whom I have them. But you know, in the subjects that I speak of – our manners and motions, testimonies and experiences – some stories, as fabulous as they are, provided that they are possible, it does not matter whether they are true or not. Whether they happened in Rome or Paris, to John or Peter, as long as they are within the verge of human capacity, they serve their purpose. I see and make advantage of them as well as I can, and amongst the various readings in old books, I cull out the more rare and memorable to fit my purposes. There are some authors whose only purpose is to give an account of things that have happened. My purpose is to talk about what may happen. There is a freedom allowed in schools to make up examples when you have none at hand. I do not make use of this privilege, and in fact avoid things like superstitious religion. In the examples I bring in, of what I have heard, read, done, or said, I forbid myself from altering even the smallest detail. That my ignorance may do so anyway, I cannot say.

This is why I sometimes wonder how priests and philosophers are fit to write history, for how much can they stake their reputations on a popular faith? How can they be responsible for the opinions of men that they don’t even know? And with what assurance do they deliver their ideas? For my part, I think it is safer to write of the past than the present. That way, the writer only gives account of things everyone knows he must borrow upon trust.

Friends sometimes tell me to write of the present, because they feel I look upon our times with an eye less blinded than others, and that I have a clearer access to the minds of others. They don’t consider that I wouldn't put myself through the trouble, sworn enemy that I am to obligation, difficult work, or attentiveness. There is nothing as contrary to my style as an uninterrupted narrative. I often interrupt myself and am no good at composition or explanation. I am more ignorant than a child of the proper words and phrases to express the most common things, and that is why I only undertake to say what I can say, and have accommodated my subject to my strength. 

Book 1, Chapter 19: That To Study Philosophy Is To Learn To Die (Part 3 of 3)

In this final part of his long essay, Montaigne talks with incredible logic and beauty of why it is stupid to fear our last day. 

Seneca reported that an old weather-beaten guard approached Ceaser asking for permission to kill himself. Ceaser looked at his withered and decrepit body and said, ‘You think then, that you are alive?’ If a man should fall into such a condition suddenly, he would not be able to bear it, but nature leads us step by step into this miserable state, so that we are not even conscious of the moment when our youth dies in us, even though this may be a harder death than the final end of the languishing body – the death of old age; the fall is not as great from an uneasy being to none at all as it is from an energetic and flourishing being to one that is troublesome and painful. The body, bent and bowed, has less force to support a burden, and this is also true for the soul. That’s why we have to raise her (the soul) up firmly against the enemy. No anxiety, fear or disturbance should have any place in her. She should be master to all her lusts and passions, mistress of necessity, shame, poverty and any other injuries of fortune.

Our religion very religion has no surer foundation than the contempt of death. It is very logical really: why should we fear to lose a thing, which being lost, cannot be lamented? Also, since there are so many ways in which we could die, isn’t it worse to fear them all than just undergo one of them? And what does it matter, when it is inevitable? When Socrates was (wrongly) told, ‘The thirty tyrants have sentenced you to death’, he responded, ‘And nature them.’ It is ridiculous to trouble ourselves about taking the only step that is to end all our troubles! As our birth brought us the birth of all things, so in our death is the death of all things included. And to lament that we will not be alive a hundrer years from now is as foolish as feeling sorry that we were not alive a hundred years ago. Death is the beginning of another life. Nothing can be a grievance that is but once. Is it reasonable to fear a thing for so long that will come so soon?

Long lives and short are made one by death. There is no long, nor short, to things that are no more. Aristotle tells us of little animals on the banks of the river Hypanis that never live more than a day; those that die at eight in the morning die in their youth and those that die at five in the evening die in their old age. Which of us would not laugh to see this time of death affect our grief or relief? The most and the least, of ours, in comparison with eternity, or yet with the duration of mountains, rivers, stars, trees, and even some animals, is no less ridiculous.

Nature compels us to leave this world as we entered it. The same pass we made from death to life, without passion or fear, should be repeated from life to death. Your death is a part of the order of the universe. Death is a part of you, and while you try to evade it, you evade yourself. This very being of yours that you nor enjoy is equally divided between birth and death. The day of your birth is one day’s advance towards the grave. Seneca said, ‘The first hour that gave us life took away also an hour’, and Manilius said, ‘As we are born we die, and the end commences with the beginning’.

The whole time you live, you take from life and live at the expense of life itself. The perpetual work of your life is only 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 longer alive. Or, if you want to put it another way, you are dead after life, but you are dying while you are living, and death handles the dying much more rudely than it handles the dead. If you have profited from life, go away satisfied. Lucretius said, ‘Why not depart from life as a satisfied guest from a feast?’

And if you have not profited from life, why are you worried about losing it? For what purpose do you desire to keep it? To this, Lucretius said, ‘Why seem to add longer life, merely to renew ill-spent time, and be again tormented?’

Life is neither good nor evil, it is only the scene for good or evil, and if you have lives a day, you have seen it all. One day is equal and alike all other days. There is no other light, no other shade, no other sun or moon or stars. The order and character of things is the same as that that your ancestors enjoyed, and that your posterity will be entertained with. And come the worst day 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 the four seasons, then you know the infancy, the youth, the strength, and the old age of the world. The year has played its part, and knows no other art but to begin again; it will always be the same thing.

Give place to others, as others have given place to you. Who can complain when all have the same destiny? Live as long as you can – you  shall by that nothing shorten the space you are to be dead; it is to no purpose, you shall be in the condition that you fear so much for just as long as if you had died at birth. Death will still remain eternal.

And yet you will be in such a condition that you will have no reason to be displeased, because when you are dead, there will be no other living self to lament over your grave. It should not concern you whether you are living or dead because in living, you are still in being, and in death, you are no more.

Wherever your life ends, it is all there. Make use of your time while you can. It depend upon your will, not the number of days that you have. Is it possible that you can imagine never to arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yet there is no journey without an end.

Lucretius said, ‘No night has followed day, no day has followed night, in which there has not been heard sobs and sorrowing cries, the companions of deaths and funerals.’

Anyway, imagine how much more unbearable an immortal life would be to man than the one he has now. If you didn’t have death, you would be cursing Fate for depriving you of it. There is some bitterness mixed in death only so that, seeing how convenient it is, you do not greedily and indiscreetly seek and embrace it, and so that you may live in a balance between being neither too sick of life nor excited about death. You will die once, and death lies somewhere between pleasure and pain. Why fear your last day? It contributes no more to your end than any of your other days.

Everyday travels towards death, the last only arrives at it.

Book 1, Chapter 19: That To Study Philosophy Is To Learn To Die (Part 2 of 3)

In this part of the essay, Montaigne offers some ways of dealing with death. He shares his own (one may find, extreme) strategies of preparing himself for the end

'Let us disarm death of all novelty and strangeness. Let us converse and be familiar with him, and have nothing so frequent in our thoughts'

 Man laughs and plays and gallops and dances without thinking at all of death. Nonetheless, when it comes to them by surprise, or to their wives, children, or friends, what torment and outcries, what madness and despair! Have you ever seen anyone so changed, confused, and subdued? Therefore, man must prepare in advance for it. If it were an enemy that could be avoided then I would advise to borrow arms, even from cowardice if need be, but it is not, and it will catch you whether you are hiding away or fleeing like a coward, or whether you face it bravely. No kind of weapon can secure us against it.

Nonetheless there is a strategy.

Let us learn bravely to stand our ground and fight him. To deprive him of the greatest advantage that he has over us, we have to take a route that is not common. Let us disarm him of all novelty and strangeness. Let us converse and be familiar with him, and have nothing so frequent in our thoughts as death.

We should imagine him constantly, in all kinds of shapes. At the stumbling of a horse, the falling of a tile, the prick of a pin, we should stop and ask ourselves, ‘Well, and what if it had been death itself?’ This way, we can encourage and fortify ourselves. Even when we are happy and feasting, we should remember how frail our condition is, and never get carried away with our delights. We should stop and reflect how our happiness tends to death, and think of all the dangers that death threatens us with. The Egyptians followed this advice seriously: in the middle of their feasting and joy, they had a dried human skeleton brought to the room, for the guests to be reminded.

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 learned to un-serve. There is nothing evil in life for him who understands that the end of life has no evil. To learn how to die releases us from all subjection and constraint.

In everything in life, art and industry cannot perform anything useful without the help of nature. In my own nature, I am not melancholic, but I am meditative, and there is nothing I have entertained myself with more continually than imaginations of death, even when I have been happiest and healthiest, when, as Catullus said, ‘my florid age rejoiced in pleasant spring.’

Recently I was in the company of ladies and at games, and people must have thought I was possessed with jealousy or some kind of uncertain hope. In truth I was thinking of some one who, a few days before, had died with a burning fever. He had been returning from a party like this one, with his head full of idle fantasies of love and jollity, as mine was then, and for all I knew, the same destiny awaited me.

Every minute I think I am escaping, and what may be done tomorrow must be done today.

A friend of mine was going through my notes the other day, and he found a memo where I had written of something I would have done had I not died. I told him, as was true, that the thought came to me when I was not far from my house, and I was happy and healthy. Yet, I wrote it down there, because I was not certain that I would live to come home. I am eternally brooding over my own thoughts, and confine them to my own particular concerns. At all hours, I am well-prepared for death, so that whenever he comes, he can bring nothing along with him that I did not expect long before. We should always, as near as we can be, be booted and spurred, and ready to go.

And we should have no business with us but our own, because we shall find enough work to do without any need of addition. One man complains that death will prevent him a glorious victory, another that he must die before his daughter has married, or his children finished school, a third seems only troubled to be losing his wife’s company, a fourth the conversation of his son. For my part, I am at this instant in such a condition that I am ready to dislodge, whenever it shall please God, without regret for anything whatsoever. I disengage myself from all worldly relations and take leave from all but myself. Never did anyone prepare to say goodbye to the world more absolutely and unreservedly, and shake hands with all manners of interest in it, than I expect to do. The deadest deaths are the best.

As the Egyptians, after their feasts where they presented their guests with the image of death, said, ‘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. There is nothing I am more curious about and delighted to hear of than the manner of men’s deaths: their words, looks, behaviour etc. There are also no places in history I am more interested in than those associated with the subject. If I were a writer of books, I would compile a register with a comment on the various deaths of men. He who should teach men how to die would at the same time teach them how to live. Dicarchus made one, to which he gave that title, but it was designed for another and less profitable goal.

Some may object that the actual pain and terror of dying so infinitely exceeds what we can imagine, that to guard against it this way is useless. Let them say what they will; to premeditate it is doubtlessly a great advantage. Nature herself encourages and assists us: if our death is sudden and violent, we have no time to fear; if otherwise, then as my disease worsens, I naturally enter into a certain loathing and disdain of life. I find it is more strenuous to digest this idea of death when I am healthy than when I am languishing in fever. In fever, I have less to do with the commodities of life, and I lose the use and pleasure of them, and I begin to look upon death with less terror. This makes me hope that the more I remove myself from the first and the nearer I approach the latter, the more easy it will be to exchange the one for the other. 

Book 1, Chapter 19: That To Study Philosophy Is To Learn To Die (Part 1 of 3)

Montaigne talks firstly about how study can be a kind of death. Then he shares his feelings about sex. He ends with with a contemplation on man's fear of death

 'it is a pleasure more favourable, soft, and natural, than the other forms of pleasure that we prefer to call pleasure'

Cicero says that studying philosophy serves no purpose other than to prepare one’s self for death. The reason for this is that study and contemplation, in some sense, withdraw us from our souls, and employ the soul separately from the body. This is a kind of ‘apprenticeship’ and a resemblance of death in this process. Another reason is that the point of all wisdom and reasoning is to teach us not to fear death.

Now, either our reason mocks us, or it has no aim other than contentment. ‘All the opinions of the world’ agree that pleasure is our aim, even if we all have different ways of attaining it. Any other route would be rejected straightaway, for who would go down a path that led to misery and affliction? All disputes on this point are trivial, and merely verbal. They arise out of a stubbornness and opposition that should not be present in great thinkers.

No matter what they say, even in virtue, our ultimate aim in life is bliss (Montaigne here uses the word ‘volupté’, referring to an intense pleasure that is both sensual and spiritual). I’d like to punch the ears of those who find this word sickening. If the word signifies a supreme pleasure or excessive contentment, then this is due to the assistance of virtue and nothing else. This bliss, if it is joyous, strong and virile, becomes all the more seriously blissful. And so we should allow this bliss to be called pleasure; it is a pleasure more favourable, soft, and natural, than the other forms of pleasure that we prefer to call pleasure. Those other pleasures are lower forms of bliss. If they even deserve to be called pleasure, this should be a matter of agreement and not privilege. 

A few words on this bliss

- I find it to be less free from inconvenience and pitfall than virtue.  

- The enjoyment is more momentary, fluid, and frail than some other pleasures. Nonetheless, it has its periods of vigils and fasting, also periods of hard work, sweat and blood.

- It comes with so many different kinds of sharp and wounding passions, and the satiety that attends it can be so dull and heavy that it sometimes equates to a punishment.

- If one imagines that these hurdles actually spur us to pursue it, that they are no more than a seasoning to its sweetness,  they are mistaken.

- When circumstances render it inaccessible (such as a coming to virtue, or some kind of difficulty), the pleasure of this joyous bliss is sharpened and heightened once it comes. 

- He who measures its cost against its fruit renders himself unworthy of it, for he does not understand its graces nor uses.

- What do they mean, those who preach that the quest for it is difficult, complicated, and painful and the resultant orgasmic joyousness (in French, jouissance) pleasant? Is it ever unpleasant? What would human beings not do to arrive at this pleasure? The most perfect have been happy to just aspire to this pleasure, to approach it without ever possessing it. Those that warn of the quest are therefore wrong, because even the pursuit of this bliss is pleasurable, because the attempt contains the essence of what it pursues.

Now, one of the greatest benefits that virtue confers upon us is a contempt of death. This contempt allows us a soft and easy tranquility in life, and gives us a pure and pleasant taste of living, without which all other pleasure would be extinct. All the rules centre around and agree with this contempt. And although they also teach us to despise pain, poverty, and other accidents to which human life is subject, we do not do so with the same level of concern. These accidents are, after all, not necessarily going to strike us. Many pass through life without knowing what poverty is, and the musician Xenophilius lived to a hundred and six without falling ill. But death is inevitable. And it can strike at any time, cutting short and putting an end to all other inconveniences.

Hor., in the Odyssey, said; ‘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.’

So if death were to frighten us, it would be a perpetual torment, for which there would be no consolation. Sometimes people on their way to execution are granted special favours just before their death. But, at this time, ‘Sicilian dainties will not tickle their palates, nor the melody of birds and harps bring back sleep.’ (Hor. Od.) They cannot relish these types of entertainment when they know they are at the fatal end of their journey. The end of our race is death, it is the necessary object of our aim. It this frightened us, how would it be possible to advance one step without a fit of panic?

The remedy that the vulgar use is not to think about it, but from what brutish stupidity can they derive such a blatant blindness? They probably ride their donkeys backwards. They scare people with the very mention of death, and many cross themselves when they hear the word, as if it were the name of the devil. And they refuse to write up their wills, because that would be a reference to dying. They will not pick up a pen until the physician has told them in no uncertain terms that they are in their last moments, and even then, they will do so in a state of terror. God knows how, in this state, they are fit enough in understanding to do so.

The Romans, feeling that the word death sounded too ominous to their ears, found a way to soften and spin it, and instead of saying someone is dead, they will say, ‘he has lives’ or ‘he has ceased to live’ (Plutarch, Life of Cicero). The mention of life in the phrase, eventhough it has passed, offers a kind of consolation. It is from them that we have borrowed the phrase, ‘The last Mr. such-and-such’.

I was born between eleven and twelve in the afternoon on the last day of February 1533. The year, that used to commence at Easter, had been changed by order of Charles IX to commence from  then on on January 1^st. I turned thirty-nine fifteen days ago. I hope to live at least as many more years. In the meantime, to trouble myself with something that will happen after so long seems foolish. But so what? Young and old die upon the same terms; no one departs out of life otherwise than as if he had just entered it. No man is so old and decrepit that he does not imagine he has twenty good years left in him. Fool that thou art! Who has assured upon thee the term of life? You depend on your physicians but instead, consult effects and experiences. According to the average life-span, you have lives by extraordinary favour. Think of people you know, how many more have died before they arrived at your age than have survived? And as for those who have made themselves famous in their lifetimes, I bet you will find more that have before before than after thirty-five years of age. Jesus Christ himself died at thirty-three and the greatest man that was no more than a man, Alexander, died at around the same age. Death can surprise us in many ways. Who would have guessed that the duke of Brittany, for instance, would be crushed to death in a crowd of people? King Henry II was killed in a sword tournament and his ancestor Philip died whilst fighting with a hog. Aeschylus, who was very circumspect in avoiding danger, was hit on the head by a tortoise that fell out of the talons of an eagle flying overhead. Another choked on a grape-stone. An emperor was killed with the scratch of a comb while he was combing his hair, and Aemilius Lepidus stumpled on the steps of his own front door. Another died between the thighs of a woman, and another – my brother Captain St. Martin – was playing tennis when he received a little blow with the ball just above his right ear. He took no notice of it at the time, but six or seven hours later, he had died.

With such frequent and common examples passing before us everyday, how is it possible to disengage ourselves from thoughts of death and not live in constant fear of it? You may say that it doesn’t matter how it comes about, provided we do not terrify ourselves with expectation. I, for one, would crawl under the skin of a calf if by that means I could avoid death. I am not ashamed of this. All I aim for is to pass my time at my ease, doing what will most contribute to that ease. I must quote this glorious little exemplary:

‘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.).

Book 1, Chapter 18 That Men Are Not To Judge Of Our Happiness Till After Death

In this beautiful, touching essay, Montaigne warns against judging any life, even our own, until our final day. He also writes of the death of his close friend Etienne

'Sometimes Fortune waits to surprise the last hours of our lives, to show her power by, in a moment, overthrowing what has taken so many years to build'

Ovid, in Metamorphoses, says, ‘We should all look forward to our last days: no one can be called happy till he is dead and buried.’

Even children know the story of King Croseus, who was captured and condemned to death by Cyrus. As he was going to execution, he cried out, ‘O Solon, Solon!’ Cyrus asked what this meant, and Croseus replied that he had finally realized the truth in the teachings of Solon, which was:

‘That men, however fortune may smile upon them, could never be said to be happy till they had been seen to pass over the last day of their lives’.

This is due to the unpredictability and uncertainty of life - the fact that very light and trivial occasions can suddenly change into their own opposite. Many Dukes have died prisoners (for instance, in our fathers’ days, the tenth Duke of Milan), conquerors have become beggars (Pompey, for instance, who had to plead with the king of Egypt), and kings turned into clerks (Alexander’s successors in Macedon, for example). Queen Mary of Scots, the fairest of all queens, came to die at the hands of an executioner. There are a thousand more examples of the same kind, for it seems that as storms and tempests strike the tallest buildings, there are also spirits above that are envious of the greatnesses here below.

Sometimes Fortune waits to surprise the last hours of our lives, to show her power by, in a moment, overthrowing what has taken so many years to build. Macrobius said, ‘I have lived longer by this one day than I should have done.’

The wise advice of Solon should be heeded. But Solon is a philosopher, the sort of man to whom the favours and disgraces of Fortune mean nothing, and do not make one any happier or unhappier. I am inclined to think he had a further aim in making this statement, and that his meaning was that the happiness of life itself, which depends on tranquility and contentment of the spirit and the resolution and assurance of a well-ordered soul, should not be attributed to any man till he has had to play out the end of his life. He may have been living the rest of his life in pretence, only putting on fine philosophical discourses. When we are not made anxious or upset by anything, we can maintain a false bravado, but in our last scene of death, there is no more pretending. We speak clearly then, and ‘discover what there is of good and clean in the bottom of the pot’.

Our last day is the day on which our life can be measured. As Seneca says, the last day is the judge of all the rest.

The fruit of my studies can be measured, then, only upon my death. Only then will we see whether my discourses come only from my mouth or from my heart.

Plutarch, in Apoth., relates that Epaminondas, when asked which of three people (one being he himself) he held in greatest esteem, responded, ‘you must see us die first, before the question can be resolved’. Indeed, he would feel very wronged if anyone judged him without the honour and grandeur of his end.

God works in ways that best please him, and I have, in my time, seen three of the most hateful people I know – they lived disgustingly and were not liked – die very regular and composed deaths. I have also seen death cut short a life that could have gone so far, that was in the height and flower of its increase when it was ended. The end, however, was so glorious that perhaps his ambitious and generous plans had nothing in them so high and great as this interruption. Without completing his journey, he reached the place where his ambition aimed. He could not have hoped to do so with greater glory. When I judge this man’s life, I always think of how he carried himself at the time of his death, and my principal concern for my own life is that I may die well – that is, patiently and with peace.

(Montaigne, in this final paragraph, is discussing the death of his closest friend Etienne de la Boetie, at whose death in 1563 he was present)

Book 1, Chapter 17: Of Fear

Montaigne discusses the emotion called fear: what can it do to us and why, and how many different kinds of fear exist? 

'Sometimes fear adds wings to the heels. Sometimes it nails them to the ground'

‘I was amazed, my hair stood on end, and my voice stuck in my throat’ Virgil, Aeneid.

I can’t say what it is that causes fear to have the impact on us that it does. It is a strange passion; the physicians say there is no other that makes our judgment falter so much. I myself have seen many become frantic from fear, and even in those that are very calm normally, it causes a terrible confusion and shock. I’m not talking just about the ‘vulgar sort’, to whom fear means their departed rising up from the grave, or werewolves, or nightmares or phantoms, but also of soldiers, over whom fear should have the least power. Fear can convert armed squadrons into flocks of sheep, make their spears and swords into reeds and blades of grass, their friends into their enemies, and the French flag into the Spanish!

When Rome was seized by Mr. Bourbon, a man guarding the city was seized with such fear that he ran directly into the enemy, thinking he was retreating into the city. Bourbon’s army thought he was advancing to attack, and drew their weapons. When the man at last realized his mistake, he retreated blindly, at full speed; and ended up in the middle of an open field. He was unharmed, but another guard who reacted in a similar way was not so lucky, and was killed. Another gentleman, in the same battle, was so seized by fear that he sank to the floor, stone-dead, without being wounded or hurt at all.

Sometimes fear adds wings to the heels. Sometimes it nails them to the ground. The Emperor Theophilius, upon losing a battle in Spain, was so astonished that he could not move, and one of his commanders had to go up to him and tell him, ‘Sir, if you do not follow me, I will kill you; for it is better you should lose your life than, by being taken, lose your empire’. But that’s what fear can do; it can deprive us of all sense of duty or honour.

The thing in this world that I am most afraid of is fear, that feeling along, more than any other accident. Fear can drive out all intelligence from the mind. Take the story of Pompey’s friends: they had witnessed his horrible murder on their ship, but when they saw enemy Egyptian ships coming towards them, they were possessed with such great alarm that they could think of nothing but fleeing. Only when they had reached safety did they grieve for their captain. The more potent passion had, till then, suspended their tears.

Those that have been injured in a skirmish, even if they are wounded and bloody, may be asked the next day to attack once more, but those who have become truly afraid of their enemy can never again be made to do so much as look him in the face.

Those that are in immediate fear of losing their property, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish and lose all appetite and all calm, whereas those that are actually poor, slaves, or exiles often live their lives as happily as the next man. And then those who, tired of being perpetually in fear, have hanged or drowned or shot themselves lead us to believe that fear can be more persistently intrusive, more unbearable, than death itself.

The Greeks acknowledged another kind of fear, different from those we have so far discussed: the fear that surprises us without any visible cause. Whole nations and armies can be struck from it, like an impulse from heaven.  Diodorus Siculus, the Greek historian, calls this fear a ‘panic terror’ and relates the story of Carthage (ancient North-African city near present-day Tunis), where this type of fear took root. Nothing was heard in Carthage when this struck except for frightened voices and crying, and residents ran out of their houses in alarm, and attacked, wounded, and killed one another, as if they had been enemies that had come to attack the city. Everything was in disorder and fury until, with prayers and sacrifices, they appeased their gods.

Book 1, Chapter 7: That The Intention Is Judge Of Our Actions

Montaigne wonders, do promises made when alive still apply when we are dead?

There is a saying: ‘death discharges us of all our obligations’.

I start with two stories, of people who believed that this was indeed true:

- Henry VII asked Don Phillip (father of Charles V) to hand over his enemy, the Duke of Suffolk, who had fled into Phillip’s land. Don Phillip agreed, on the condition that no harm should come to the Duke’s life. Henry agreed, but he instructed his son that immediately upon his own death, the Duke should be killed. In my opinion, Henry’s death did not acquit him from his promise.

- Count Egmont assured Count Horn everything would be fine if he surrendered to the Duke of Alva. Later, realizing that it would not, and thus that he would be going back on his word, he asked to be put to the death.

I believe that Count Egmont was discharged from his promise and didn’t need to die. After all, the situation was not in his control. It is important to remember that effect and performance are not in our power; ‘we are masters of nothing but the will’. Count Egmont could not have made good his promise, and was therefore absolved of his duty.

On the other hand, Henry (from the first example) ‘willfully and premeditatedly’ breaks his promise, and deferring his enemy’s execution until after his own death is just a ploy, or an excuse, for which he is not to be excused. It is like the worker in Herodotus who kept the secret of the King of Egypt’s treasure all his life, only to tell it to his children on his death-bed.

I know many people who, feeling guilty of wronging someone else, try to make amends by bequeathing them things in their will. They might as well not do anything, because in delaying so much an important matter and in remedying a wrong without really sacrificing anything at all, their gesture is meaningless. ‘They owe, over and above, something of their own; and by how much their payment is more strict and incommodious to themselves, by so much is their restitution more just meritorious. Penitency requires penalty’. In other words, righting a wrong requires some kind of sacrifice.

Worst of all are those who bear secret grudges that they only reveal when they are dying. Instead of letting their malice die with them they extend the life of their hatred even beyond their own. ‘Unjust judges, who defer judgment to a time wherein they can have no knowledge of the cause!’ Personally, I will make sure that there is nothing revealed in my death that I have not ‘first and openly declared’ during my life. 

Book 1, Chapter 3: That Our Affections Carry Themselves Beyond Us

In this essay Montaigne ponders our tendency to think about the future instead of the present

Some say, stop thinking about the future and live in the moment. They say we cannot predict the future, that we have no grasp upon what is to come, ‘even less than that which we have upon what is past’

This is a mistaken view, but it is a view that Nature herself encourages, in order to continue her work. Nature is ‘more jealous of our action than afraid of our knowledge’

The poet Rousseau says: ‘We are never present, but always beyond ourselves’. He explains that fear, desire, and hope make us always think about the future, and prevent us from enjoying the present moment.

The philosopher Plato says: ‘Do thine own work, and know thyself.’

I like this quote. I think the two are related. He who does his own work well will automatically come to know himself. And he who knows himself well ‘will never mistake another man’s work for his own’. This person, then, will love and improve himself, through his work. He will reject all other work, which is not his. Thus (and this is important)

‘Wisdom, acquiescing in the present, is never dissatisfied with itself’

The philosopher Epicurus told his followers: don’t think ahead, don’t worry about the future.

Let me be specific now, and talk about death

Solon said that noone can be happy till they are dead. Aristotle replied with the question that: If one has lived and died according to his heart’s desire, but died leaving behind a bad reputation, can he be said to be happy? We are preoccupied with our own whims in our life, but when we are no more, we cannot communicate with those left behind. I agree with Solon then, man is never happy till he is no more. Because we cannot ever wholly detach ourselves from the idea of life, even in dying. We imagine, always, that there is something in us that survives.

I’ll recount some stories now to illustrate something quite strange – the fact that we ‘extend the concern of ourselves beyond this life’:

- Edward the First had won many battles. He insisted to his son that his body, upon death, be boiled till the flesh parted from the bones. And the flesh should then be buried but the bones carried with him in the army ‘as if destiny had inevitably attached victory, even to his remains’

- The king of Bohemia, similarly, asked for his skin to be made into a drum to carry in war against his enemies. He thought this would ensure continuation of the successes that he had enjoyed in war.

- Certain Indians in battle with Spaniards carried the bones of their captains, in consideration of their former victories.

- Other men of the New World carry relics of brave men who have died in battle ‘to incite their courage and advance their fortune … they attribute to them a certain present and active power’.

- Captain Bayars found himself wounded to death. He commanded to be set down at the foot of a tree so that he may die with his face towards his enemies.

A personal example:

- A relative of mine, as he lay dying, spent his last hours giving meticulous instructions on how his funeral should be carried out. He made everyone promise they would be there, and presented several examples and reasons why he was due this respect. Then, he died content. ‘I have seldom heard of so persistent a vanity’. At the last moment, to contrive a ceremony in honour of yourself

- A contrary example is of someone called Lepidus, who forbade his heirs from even the most simple ceremony. It makes sense, after all, to be temperate and frugal, ‘to avoid expense and pleasure of which the use and knowledge are imperceptible to us’, for we are gone.

- The philosopher Lycon told his friends to dispose of his body as they saw fit, and to have a ceremony that was neither extravagant nor sparse.

My own funeral? I leave it up to those upon whom it will fall. The care of death are ‘consolations to the living’ rather than any support to the dead.

Socrates, when asked how he should be buried said ‘How you will.’ He elaborated that if he were to concern himself ‘beyond the present about this affair’ he would be tempted to ask for glorious ceremony and honours beforehand, like those who have statues erected etc. in order to behold ‘their own dead countenance in marble’.

Maybe it’s a fear of what happens when you die. Let me offer two observations on this matter.

Firstly, a quote be Seneca:

 ‘Dost ask where thou shalt lie after death?

Where things not born lie, that never being had.’

And I leave you with this gem:

‘As nature demonstrates to us that several dead things retain yet an occult relation to life; wine changes its flavour and complexion in cellars … and the flesh of venison alters its condition in the powdering tub, and its taste according to the laws of the living flesh of its kind.’