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 (1 of 3)

In the first part of this touching tribute to his best friend Etienne, Montaigne discusses friendship, and relationships between parent and child

There are some countries where it was custom for children to kill their fathers, and others where the fathers killed their children, to avoid their being an impediment to each other’s lives. Naturally, the expectations of the one depend upon the ruin of the other

I have noted the technique of a painter in my employ, and would not mind imitating it. This painter chooses a beautiful spot – the middle of some wall or panel – and draws his picture there with utmost art and care. Then, he covers the blank spaces around the picture with grotesque art, odd fantastic figures with no grace. In truth, what are the things I scribble here but grotesque and monstrous bodies, made of various parts but without any clear figure and containing, except by accident, no order, coherence, or proportion.

So in the second part I am like the painter, but in the first and better part, I fall very short of him. I don’t have the powers to produce a rich and finely polished piece. I have therefore thought it fit to borrow from Etienne de la Boetie, a piece that will honour and adorn the rest of my work. It is a discourse called ‘Voluntary Servitude’. Etienne wrote it before he was even eighteen years old, and it has since run through the hands of men of great learning, all of whom praise it, because it is finely written and as full as anything can be. And yet, one can confidently say it is far short of what he was able to do. In the more mature age when I knew him, Etienne had decided to commit his thought to writing, the way that I am doing now. We would have had a great many rare things that would have rivaled the best writings of antiquity if he had done so, for I know no man comparable to him. But he left nothing behind except this discourse, which he bequeathed to me along with his library and other papers, in his last will.

I came to know of Etienne because of this discourse, and only became acquainted with him long after he had written it. This discourse, in fact, proved to be the first cause and foundation of our friendship, which we afterwards improved and maintained for as long as God allowed us to be together. Our friendship was so perfect, inviolate, and entire that none like it could be found in any story, and amongst men of our time there is no sign or trace of such a thing. So much concurrence is required for such a friendship that it is much if fortune allows it to pass even once in three ages.

There is nothing to which nature seems to make us as inclined as to society. Aristotle said that good legislators respected friendship more than justice. The most supreme point of its perfection is that those who derive pleasure, profit, public or private interest, or any nourishment from a friendship, other than friendship itself, cannot enjoy one as beautiful and generous as those that don’t. Also, the four ancient kindnesses: natural, social, hospitable, and sexual – either separately or jointly – cannot help in making a true and perfect friendship.

The relationship of children and their parents is based on respect. Friendship is nourished by a communication that is impossible between parent and child, due to great differences. This communication would offend the duties of nature, for neither are all the secret thoughts of fathers fit to be communicated to their children (this would lead to an indecent familiarity), nor can advice and reproofs (one of the principal offices of friendship) be performed by the son towards the father. There are some countries where it was custom for children to kill their fathers, and others where the fathers killed their children, to avoid their being an impediment to each other’s lives. Naturally, the expectations of the one depend upon the ruin of the other.

Many great philosophers have made nothing of parent-child relationships. When Aristippus was pressed about the affection he owed to his children, he spat forcefully and said that that too had come out of him, and that we also breed worms and lice. Plutarch refused to reconcile with his brother, saying he would not give him extra importance just for ‘coming out of the same hole’.

The word itself is fine and delectable, and for that reason Etienne and I called each other brother. But the complication of interests, the division of estates, and the fact that the wealth of the one is also the property of the other weakens and relaxes the fraternal bond. Brothers who pursue their fortunes by advancing along the same path often jostle and hinder one another. Besides, why do the correspondences of manners, parts, and inclinations that beget true and perfect friendships have to meet in blood relations? Father and son may have completely different temperaments; my son, or my brother, may be passionate, ill-natured, or a fool. These are friendships more imposed on us by the law and natural obligation and less by choice.

Personally, however, I have not experienced anything to corroborate, as I have the best and most indulgent father, even now when I am so old, that ever was. And he himself is descended from a family for many generations famous and exemplary for brotherly concord.

In part 2 of this essay, Montaigne discusses, amongst other things, the difference between friendship and the love one feels for a woman. Soon to come … 

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 4: That The Soul Expends Its Passions Upon False Objects, Where The True Are Wanting

In this essay, Montaigne muses on why we always look for someone or something to blame when things go wrong, and why we like little dogs and monkeys. 

Have you ever tried to hit something, and then missed your target? The arm hits nothing then but wind, and this is painful. Lucan tells us the wind itself loses its force if it is diffused in air; it needs to hit against a tree.

Similarly the soul, when disturbed or agitated, needs an object on which to aim and act. Otherwise, it will turn against itself. Plutarch tells us that the reason we like little dogs and monkeys is that there is an ‘amorous part’ is us – one which wants to love – and if it doesn’t have something to love, it will create one, ‘false and frivolous’ as it may be. The soul would rather ‘deceive itself, be creating a false and fantastical subject … than not have something.’

Some animals, when attacked, allow their fury to fall upon the attacking weapon, In furious rage they break and twist the spears that attack them.

And what about us? How do we react when we suffer misfortunes that are out of our control. Who or what can we blame? It is common practice, in such cases, to tear at your hair or beat your breast. Cicero, seeing someone tearing his hair in sorrow, commented, ‘Does this man think that baldness is a remedy for grief?’

And then there are those who rail against God.

- A neighbouring king who had gone through some sort of misfortune, blamed God and decided to revenge Him. He ordered that for 10 years noone could pray to God, or even mention Him. Such an action can be seen as not only foolish, but vain: two vices that always go together. There is more arrogance in such an action than there is wit.

- Augustus Ceaser was caught in a stormy sea, and decided in revenge to remove the statue of Neptune (the God of the sea) from amongst his other deities.

These are instances of people ‘invading God himself, or at least Fortune, as if she had ears that were subject to our batteries’. I’ll end with a quote from Plutarch

‘We must not trouble the gods with our affairs; they take no heed of our angers and disputes’

Book 1, Chapter 2: Of Sorrow

Montaigne discusses the nature of sorrow, sadness, and grief. Also those of love, and joy, and of emotions so strong that they cannot be expressed. 

I never feel sorrow. Sorrow is overrated. I hate it when the world respects sadness, seeing 'wisdom, virtue, and conscience' to lie within. 'Foolish and sordid guise!' I say. Italians call this word 'la tristezza', which translated as 'evil'. I think this is apt. Sadness is hurtful, idle, cowardly, and mean.

But of course, there's much more to say on sadness. I have some stories:

- The King of Egypt was taken prisoner by Persia. He saw his daughter pass before him; she was a prisoner too. She carried a bucket, and she looked terrible. His friends around him wept. The King remained unmoved. Immediately after, he witnessed his son being led to execution. Still, he didn't react. Finally, he saw a fried being dragged away among the captives. He began to wail and cry and tear his hair.

And a similar one:

- Our own prince was told his elder brother had died. Soon after, he learned his younger brother had also died. He 'withstood these two assaults with exemplary resolution'. Then, one of his servants died. He was overcome with sorrow and mourning. As if he had been 'brimful of grief' and this last addition had tipped him over. But also, there's another explanation. This is important:

'only this last affliction was to be manifested be tears, the two first far exceeding all manner of expression'.

Yes. The strongest emotions cannot be expressed in tears, I say. Two legends of my time to illustrate:

 An ancient painter wanted to represent the death of a woman and its effect on those around her. He drew each of her acquaintances with grief-stricken, sad faces, but over the face of her father, he drew a veil. Meaning it was impossible to express the deep sorrow that he felt. Similarly, the poets represent the mother Noebe, who lost seven sons and seven daughters, as being transformed into a rock.

The rock represents the stupefaction, the numbing of our faculties, when we are faced with more sadness than we can bear. Excessive grief astonishes the soul, renders us incapable of ordinary functioning. When we're faced with truly terrible news, we are 'surprised, stupefied, and in a manner deprived of all power of motion'. When we cry, it seems we are able to vent, and release tension, and allow ourselves to work out the problem within.

I will tell you a very sad story now

- A soldier, who had been admired for his exceptional bravery, had fought a particularly valiant battle. When the armour was removed off the body of the person he had killed, he found that it was his own son. Without saying a word, he turned away his eyes, stood fixedly contemplating the body, until the sorrow overcame his vital spirits and he fell to the ground 'stone-dead'.

So you see, true, pure grief is unspeakable. It cannot be articulated.

Let's talk about love now; I have beautiful things to say about the unspeakable qualities of love:

'He who can say how he burns with love, has little fire'

In the throes of love, we are unable to express it. The soul at that time is 'over-burdened, and labouring with profound thoughts; and the body dejected and languishing with desire'

'all passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.'

So think again, when you hear, 'I love you'. Seneca said, 'Light griefs can speak: deep sorrows are dumb.'

Unexpected joy, by the way, produces the same effects. A Roman lady died for joy to see her son return from war. I have several other examples of people, overcome with joy at hearing some wonderful news, die.

one last - 'a testimony to the imbecility of human nature':

A scholar called Diodorus was being debated with, in his own school, in front of a great authority. Unable to win the argument, he died on the spot, from shame.

This is how I end the essay - read into it what you like:

'I, for my part, am very little subject to these violent passions; I am naturally of a stubborn apprehension, which also, by reasoning, I every day harden and fortify.'