 |
| Michel de Montaigne |
Michel Eyquem de
Montaigne (1533-1592), That to Philosophise Is to Learne How to
Die.
Vol. 32, pp. 9-22 of
The Harvard Classics
The Romans made an
art of dying. The Egyptians looked on death with complacency. Moderns
fear it. Montaigne argues that the purpose of philosophy is to teach
men how to die.
CICERO saith, that to Philosophise is no
other thing than for a man to prepare himselfe to death: which is the
reason that studie and contemplation doth in some sort withdraw our
soule from us, and severally employ it from the body, which is a kind
of apprentisage and resemblance of death; or else it is, that all the
wisdome and discourse of the world, doth in the end resolve upon this
point, to teach us not to feare to die. Truly either reason mockes
us, or it only aimeth at our contentment, and in fine, bends all her
travell to make us live well, and as the holy Scripture saith, “at
our ease.” All the opinions of the world conclude, that pleasure is
our end, howbeit they take divers meanes unto and for it, else would
men reject them at their first coming. For who would give eare unto
him, that for it’s end would establish our paine and disturbance?
The dissentions of philosophicall sects in this case are
verbal: Transcurramus solertissimas nugas; 1 “Let
us run over such over-fine fooleries and subtill trifles.” There is
more wilfulnesse and wrangling among them, than pertains to a sacred
profession. But what person a man undertakes to act, he doth ever
therewithall personate his owne. Allthough they say, that in vertue
it selfe, the last scope of our aime is voluptuousnes. It pleaseth me
to importune their eares still with this word, which so much offends
their hearing. And if it imply any chief pleasure or exceeding
contentments, it is rather due to the assistance of vertue, than to
any other supply, voluptuousnes being more strong, sinnowie, sturdie,
and manly, is but more seriously voluptuous. And we should give it
the name of pleasure, more favorable, sweeter, and more naturall; and
not terme it vigor, from which it hath his denomination. Should this
baser sensuality deserve this faire name, it should be by
competencie, and not by privilege. I finde it lesse void of
incommodities and crosses than vertue. And besides that, her taste is
more fleeting, momentarie, and fading, she hath her fasts, her eyes,
and her travels, 2 and both sweat and bloud.
Furthermore she hath particularly so many wounding passions, and of
so severall sorts, and so filthie and loathsome a societie waiting
upon her, that she is equivalent to penitencie. Wee are in the wrong,
to thinke her incommodities serve her as a provocation and seasoning
to her sweetness, as in nature one contrarie is vivified by another
contrarie: and to say, when we come to vertue, that like successes
and difficulties overwhelme it, and yeeld it austere and
inaccessible. Whereas much more properly then unto voluptuousnes,
they ennobled, sharpen, animate, and raise that divine and perfect
pleasure, which it meditates and procureth us. Truly he is verie
unworthie her acquaintance, that counter-ballanceth her cost to his
fruit, and knowes neither the graces nor use of it. Those who go
about to instruct us, how her pursuit is very hard and laborious, and
her jovisance 3 well-pleasing and delightfull:
what else tell they us, but that shee is ever unpleasant and irksome?
For, what humane meane 4 did ever attaine unto
an absolute enjoying of it? The perfectest have beene content but to
aspire and approach her, without ever possessing her. But they are
deceived; seeing that of all the pleasures we know, the pursute of
them is pleasant. The enterprise is perceived by the qualitie of the
thing, which it hath regard unto: for it is a good portion of the
effect, and consubstantiall. That happiness and felicitie, which
shineth in vertue, replenisheth her approaches and appurtenances,
even unto the first entrance and utmost barre. Now of all the
benefits of vertue, the contempt of death is the chiefest, a meane
that furnisheth our life with an ease-full tranquillitie, and gives
us a pure and amiable taste of it: without which every other
voluptuousnes is extinguished. Loe, here the reasons why all rules
encounter and agree with this article. And albeit they all leade us
with a common accord to despise griefe, povertie, and other
accidentall crosses, to which man’s life is subject, it is not with
an equall care: as well because accidents are not of such a
necessitie, for most men passe their whole life without feeling any
want or povertie, and othersome without feeling any griefe or
sickness, as Xenophilus the Musitian, who lived an hundred and six
years in perfect and continuall health: as also if the worst happen,
death may at all times, and whensoever it shall please us, cut off
all other inconveniences and crosses. But as for death, it is
inevitable.
Omnes eodem
cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna,
serius, ocius
Sors exitura, et
nos in æternum
Exilium impositura
cymbæ, 5
All to one place are
driv’n, of all
Shak’t is the
lot-pot, where-hence shall
Sooner or later drawne
lots fall,
And to deaths boat for
aye enthrall.
And by consequence,
if she makes us affeard, it is a continual subject of torment, and
which can no way be eased. There is no starting-hole will hide us
from her, she will finde us wheresoever we are, we may as in a
suspected countrie start and turne here and there:quæ quasi saxum
Tantalo semper impendet. 6 “Which evermore
hangs like the stone over the head of Tantalus:” Our lawes doe
often condemne and send malefactors to be executed in the same place
where the crime was committed: to which whilest they are going, leade
them along the fairest houses, or entertaine them with the best
cheere you can,
non
Siculæ dapes
Dulcem elaborabunt
saporem:
Non avium,
citharæque cantus
Somnum reducent. 7
Not all King Denys
daintie fare,
Can pleasing taste for
them prepare:
No song of birds, no
musikes sound
Can lullabie to sleepe
profound.
Doe you thinke they can take any
pleasure in it? or be any thing delighted? and that the finall intent
of their voiage being still before their eies, hath not altered and
altogether distracted their taste from all these commodities and
allurements?
Audit iter,
numeratque dies, spatioque viarum
Metitur vitam,
torquetur peste futura. 8
He heares his journey,
counts his daies, so measures he
His life by his waies
length, vext with the ill shall be.
The end of our cariere is death, it is
the necessarie object of our aime: if it affright us, how is it
possible we should step one foot further without an ague? The remedie
of the vulgar sort is, not to think on int. But from what brutall
stupiditie may so grosse a blindnesse come upon him? he must be made
to bridle his Asse by the taile,
Qui capite ipse suo
instituit vestigia retro. 9
Who doth a course
contrarie runne
With his head to his
course begunne.
It is no marvell if he be so often taken tripping; some
doe no sooner heare the name of death spoken of, but they are afraid,
yea the most part will crosse themselves, as if they heard the Devill
named. And because mention is made of it in mens wils and testaments,
I warrant you there is none will set his hand to them, til the
physitian hath given his last doome, and utterly forsaken him. And
God knowes, being then betweene such paine and feare, with what sound
judgment they endure him. For so much as this syllable sounded so
unpleasantly in their eares, and this voice seemed so illboding and
unluckie, the Romans had learned to allay and dilate the same by a
Periphrasis. In liew of saying, he is dead, or he hath ended his
daies, they would say, he hath lived. So it be life, be it past or
no, they are comforted: from whom we have borrowed our
phrases quondam, alias, or late such a one. It may
haply be, as the common saying is, the time we live is worth the
money we pay for it. I was borne betweene eleven of the clocke and
noone, the last of Februarie 1533, according to our computation, the
yeare beginning the first of Januarie. It is but a fortnight since I
was 39 yeares old. I want at least as much more. If in the meane time
I should trouble my thoughts with a matter so farre from me, it were
but folly. But what? we see both young and old to leave their life
after one selfe-same condition. No man departs otherwise from it,
than if he but now came to it, seeing there is no man so
crazed, 10bedrell, 11 or
decrepit, so long as he remembers Methusalem, but thinkes he may yet
live twentie yeares. Moreover, seely 12 creature
as thou art, who hath limited the end of thy daies? Happily thou
presumest upon physitians reports. Rather consider the effect and
experience. By the common course of things long since thou livest by
extraordinarie favour. Thou hast alreadie over-past the ordinarie
tearmes of common life: And to prove it, remember but thy
acquaintances, and tell me how many more of them have died before
they came to thy age, than have either attained or outgone the same:
yea, and of those that through renoune have ennobled their life, if
thou but register them, I will lay a wager, I will finde more that
have died before they came to five and thirty years, than after. It
is consonant with reason and pietie, to take example by the humanity
of Iesus Christ, who ended his humane life at three and thirtie
yeares. The greatest man that ever was, being no more than a man, I
meane Alexander the Great, ended his dayes, and died also of that
age. How many severall meanes and waies hath death to surprise us!
Quid quisque vitet,
nunquam homini satis
Cautum est in
horas 13
A man can never take
good heed,
Hourely what he may
shun and speed.
I omit to speak of
agues and pleurisies; who would ever have imagined that a Duke of
Brittanie should have beene stifled to death in a throng of people,
as whilome was a neighbour of mine at Lyons, when Pope Clement made
his entrance there? Hast thou not seene one of our late Kings slaine
in the middest of his sports? and one of his ancestors die miserably
by the chocke 14 of an hog? Eschilus
forethreatned by the fall of an house, when he stood most upon his
guard, strucken dead by the fall of a tortoise shell, which fell out
of the tallants of an eagle flying in the air? and another choaked
with the kernell of a grape? And an Emperour die by the scratch of a
combe, whilest he was combing his head? And Æmylius Lepidus with
hitting his foot against a doore-seele? And Aufidius with stumbling
against the Consull-chamber doore as he was going in thereat? And
Cornelius Gallus, the Prætor, Tigillinus, Captaine of the Romane
watch, Lodowike, sonne of Guido Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, end their
daies betweene womens thighs? And of a farre worse example
Speusippus, the Platonian philosopher, and one of our Popes? Poore
Bebius a Judge, whilest he demurreth the sute of a plaintife but for
eight daies, behold, his last expired: And Caius Iulius a Physitian,
whilest he was annointing the eies of one of his patients, to have
his owne sight closed for ever by death. And if amongst these
examples, I may adde one of a brother of mine, called Captain Saint
Martin, a man of three and twentie yeares of age, who had alreadie
given good testimonie of his worth and forward valour, playing at
tennis, received a blow with a ball, that hit him a little above the
right eare, without appearance of any contusion, bruise, or hurt, and
never sitting or resting upon it, died within six hours after of an
apoplexie, which the blow of the ball caused in him. These so
frequent and ordinary examples, hapning, and being still before our
eies, how is it possible for man to forgo or forget the remembrance
of death? and why should it not continually seeme unto us, that shee
is still ready at hand to take us by the throat? What matter is it,
will you say unto me, how and in what manner it is, so long as a man
doe not trouble and vex himselfe therewith? I am of this opinion,
that howsoever a man may showed or hide himselfe from her dart, yea,
were it under an oxe-hide, I am not the man would shrinke backe: it
sufficeth me to live at my ease; and the best recreation I can have,
that doe I ever take; in other matters, as little vain glorious, and
exemplare as you list.
———prætulerim
delirus inersque videri,
Dum mea delectent
mala me, vel denique fallant,
Quam sapere et
ringi. 15
A dotard I had rather
seeme, and dull,
Sooner my faults may
please make me a gull,
Than to be wise, and
beat my vexed scull.
But it is folly to thinke that way to
come unto it. They come, they goe, they trot, they daunce: but no
speech of death. All that is good sport. But if she be once come, and
on a sudden and openly surprise, either them, their wives, their
children, or their friends, what torments, what outcries, what rage,
and what despaire doth then overwhelme them? saw you ever anything so
drooping, so changed, and so distracted? A man must looke to it, and
in better times foresee it. And might that brutish carelessenesse
lodge in the minde of a man of understanding (which I find altogether
impossible) she sells us her ware at an overdeere rate: were she an
enemie by mans wit to be avoided, I would advise man to borrow the
weapons of cowardlinesse: but since it may not be, and that be you
either a coward or a runaway, an honest or valiant man, she overtakes
you,
Nempe et fugacem
persequitur virum,
Nec parcit imbellis
juventæ
Poplitibus,
timidoque tergo. 16
Shee persecutes the
man that flies,
Shee spares not weake
youth to surprise,
But on their hammes
and backe turn’d plies.
Ille licet ferro
cautus se condat et ære,
Mors
tamen inclusum protrahet inde caput. 18
Though he with yron
and brasse his head empale,
Yet death
his head enclosed thence will hale.
Let us learne to
stand, and combat her with a resolute minde. And being to take the
greatest advantage she hath upon us from her, let us take a cleane
contrary way from the common, let us remove her strangenesse from
her, let us converse, frequent, and acquaint our selves with her, let
us have nothing so much in minde as death, let us at all times, and
seasons, and in the ugliest manner that may be, yea with all faces
shapen and represent the same unto our imagination. At the stumbling
of a horse, at the fall of a stone, at the least prick with a pinne,
let us presently ruminate and say with our selves, what if it were
death it selfe? and thereupon let us take heart of grace, and call
our wits together to confront her. Amiddest our bankets, feasts, and
pleasures, let us ever have this restraint or object before us, that
is, the remembrance of our condition, and let not pleasure so much
mislead or transport us, that we altogether neglect or forget, how
many waies, our joyes, or our feastings, be subject unto death, and
by how many hold-fasts shee threatens us and them. So did the
Ægyptians, who in the middest of their banquetings, and in the full
of their greatest cheere, caused the anatomie 19 of
a dead man to be brought before them, as a memorandum and warning to
their guests.
Omnem crede diem
tibi diluxisse supremum,
Grata superveniet;
quæ non sperabitur, hora. 20
Thinke every day
shines on thee as thy last,
Welcome it will come,
whereof hope was past.
It is uncertaine where death looks for
us; let us expect her everie where: the premeditation of death, is a
forethinking of libertie. He who hath learned to die, hath unlearned
to serve. There is no evill in life, for him that hath well
conceived, how the privation of life is no evill. To know how to die,
doth free us from all subjection and constraint. Paulus Æmilius
answered one, whom that miserable king of Macedon his prisoner sent
to entreat him he would not lead him in triumph, “Let him make that
request unto himselfe.” Verily, if Nature afford not some helpe in
all things, it is very hard that art and industrie should goe farre
before. Of my selfe, I am not much given to melancholy, but rather to
dreaming and sluggishness. There is nothing wherewith I have ever
more entertained my selfe, than with the imaginations of death, yea
in the most licentious times of my age.
Iucundum, cum ætas
florida ver ageret. 21
When my age
flourishing
Did spend its pleasant
spring.
Being amongst faire Ladies, and in earnest play,
some have thought me busied, or musing with my selfe, how to digest
some jealousie, or meditating on the uncertaintie of some conceived
hope, when God he knowes, I was entertaining my selfe with the
remembrance of some one or other, that but few daies before was taken
with a burning fever, and of his sodaine end, comming from such a
feast or meeting where I was my selfe, and with his head full of idle
conceits, of love, and merry glee; supposing the same, either
sickness or end, to be as neere me as him.
Iam fuerit, nec
post, unquam revocare licebit. 22
Now time would be, no
more
You can this time
restore.
I did no more trouble my selfe or frowne at such
conceit, 23 than at any other. It is impossible
we should not apprehend or feele some motions or startings at such
imaginations at the first, and comming sodainely upon us: but
doubtlesse, he that shall manage and meditate upon them with an
impartiall eye, they will assuredly, in tract 24 of
time, become familiar to him: Otherwise, for my part, I should be in
continuall feare and agonie; for no man did ever more distrust his
life, nor make lesse account of his continuance: Neither can health,
which hitherto I have so long enjoied, and which so seldome hath
beene crazed, 25 lengthen my hopes, nor any
sicknesse shorten them of it. At every minute me thinkes I make an
escape. And I uncessantly record unto my selfe, that whatsoever may
be done another day, may be effected this day. Truly hazards and
dangers doe little or nothing approach us at our end: And if we
consider, how many more there remaine, besides this accident, which
in number more than millions seeme to threaten us, and hang over us;
we shall find, that be we sound or sicke, lustie or weake, at sea or
at land, abroad or at home, fighting or at rest, in the middest of a
battell or in our beds, she is ever alike neere unto us. Nemo
altero fragilior est, nemo in crastinum sui certior: “No
man is weaker then other; none surer of himselfe (to live) till to
morrow.” Whatsoever I have to doe before death, all leasure to end
the same seemeth short unto me, yea were it but of one houre. Some
body, not long since turning over my writing tables, found by chance
a memoriall of something I would have done after my death: I told him
(as indeed it was true), that being but a mile from my house, and in
perfect health and lustie, I had made haste to write it, because I
could not assure my self I should ever come home in safety: As one
that am ever hatching of mine owne thoughts, and place them in my
selfe: I am ever prepared about that which I may be: nor can death
(come when she please) put me in mind of any new thing. A man should
ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey,
and above all things, looke he have then nothing to doe but with
himselfe.
Quid brevi fortes
jaculamur ævo
Multa: 26
To aime why are we
ever bold,
At many things in so
short hold?
For then we shall have worke
sufficient, without any more accrease. Some man complaineth more that
death doth hinder him from the assured course of a hoped for
victorie, than of death it selfe; another cries out, he should give
place to her, before he have married his daughter, or directed the
course of his childrens bringing up; another bewaileth he must forgoe
his wives company; another moaneth the losse of his children, the
chiefest commodities of his being. I am now by meanes of the mercy of
God in such a taking, that without regret or grieving at any worldly
matter, I am prepared to dislodge, whensoever he shall please to call
me: I am every where free: my farewell is soone taken of all my
friends, except of my selfe. No man did ever prepare himselfe to quit
the world more simply and fully, or more generally spake of all
thoughts of it, than I am fully assured I shall doe. The deadest
deaths are the best.
———Miser, ô
miser (aiunt) omnia ademit.
Vna dies infesta
mihi tot præmia vitæ. 27
O wretch, O wretch
(friends cry), one day,
All joyes of life hath
tane away:
And the builder,
———manent (saith
he) opera interrupta, minæque
Murorum
ingentes. 28
The workes unfinisht
lie,
And walls that
threatned hie.
A man should
designe nothing so long afore-hand, or at least with such an intent,
as to passionate 29 himselfe to see the end of
it; we are all borne to be doing.
Cùm moriar, medium
solvar et inter opus. 30
When dying I my selfe
shall spend,
Ere halfe my businesse
come to end.
I would have a man to be doing, and to
prolong his lives offices as much as lieth in him, and let death
seize upon me whilest I am setting my cabiges, carelesse of her dart,
but more of my unperfect garden. I saw one die, who being at his last
gaspe, uncessantly complained against his destinie, and that death
should so unkindly cut him off in the middest of an historie which he
had in hand, and was now come to the fifteenth or sixteenth of our
Kings.
Illud in his rebus
non addunt, nec tibi earum,
Iam desiderium
rerum super insidet und. 31
Friends adde not that
in this case, now no more
Shalt thou desire, or
want things wisht before.
A man should rid himselfe of these
vulgar and hurtful humours. Even as Churchyards were first place
adjoyning unto churches, and in the most frequented places of the
City, to enure (as Lycurgus said) the common people, women and
children, not to be skared at the sight of a dead man, and to the end
that continuall spectacle of bones, sculs, tombes, graves and
burials, should forewarne us of our condition, and fatall end.
Quin etiam
exhilarare viris convivia cæde
Mos olim, et
miscere epulis spectacula dira
Certantum ferro,
sæpe et super ipsa cadentum
Pocula, respersis
non parco sanguine mensis. 32
Nay more, the manner
was to welcome guests,
And with dire shewes
of slaughter to mix feasts.
Of them that fought at
sharpe, and with bords tainted
Of them with much
bloud, who o’er full cups fainted.
And
even as the Ægyptians after their feastings and carousings caused a
great image of death to be brought in an shewed to the guests and
by-standers, by one that cried aloud, “Drinke and be merry, for
such shalt thou be when thou art dead:” So have I learned this
custome or lesson, to have alwaies death, not only in my imagination,
but continually in my mouth. And there is nothing I desire more to be
informed of than of the death of men; that is to say, what words,
what countenance, and what face they shew at their death; and in
reading of histories, which I so attentively observe. It appeareth by
the shuffling and hudling up 33 of my examples,
I affect 34 no subject so particularly as this.
Were I a composer of books, I would keepe a register, commented of
the divers deaths, which in teaching men to die, should after teach
them to live. Dicearcus made one of that title, but of another and
lesse profitable end. Some man will say to mee, the effect exceeds
the thought so farre, that there is no fence so sure, or cunning so
certaine, but a man shall either lose or forget if he come once to
that point; let them say what they list: to premeditate on it, giveth
no doubt a great advantage: and it is nothing, at the least, to goe
so farre without dismay or alteration, or without an ague? There
belongs more to it: Nature her selfe lends her hand, and gives us
courage. If it be a short and violent death, wee have no leisure to
feare it; if otherwise, I perceive that according as I engage my
selfe in sicknesse, I doe naturally fall into some disdaine and
contempt of life. I finde that I have more adoe to digest this
resolution that I shall die when I am in health, than I have when I
am troubled with a fever: forsomuch as I have no more such fast hold
on the commodities of life, whereof I begin to lose the use and
pleasure, and view death in the face with a lesse undanted looke,
which makes me hope, that the further I goe from that, and the nearer
I approach to this, so much more easily doe I enter in composition
for their exchange. Even as I have tried in many other occurrences,
which Cæsar affirmed, that often some things seeme greater, being
farre from us, than if they bee neere at hand: I have found that
being in perfect health, I have much more beene frighted with
sicknesse, than when I have felt it. The jollitie wherein I live, the
pleasure and the strength make the other seeme so disproportionable
from that, that by imagination I amplifie these commodities by one
moitie, and apprehended them much more heavie and burthensome, than I
feele them when I have them upon my shoulders. The same I hope will
happen to me of death. Consider we by the ordinary mutations, and
daily declinations which we suffer, how Nature deprives us of the
sight of our losse and empairing; what hath an aged man left him of
his youths vigor, and of his forepast life?
Heu senibus vitæ
portio quanta manet! 35
Alas to men in yeares
how small
A part of life is left
in all?
Cæsar,
to a tired and crazed 36 Souldier of his guard,
who in the open street came to him, to beg leave he might cause
himselfe to be put to death; viewing his decrepit behaviour, answered
pleasantly: “Doest thou thinke to be alive then?” Were man all at
once to fall into it, I doe not thinke we should be able to beare
such a change, but being faire and gently led on by her hand, in a
slow, and as it were unperceived descent, by little and little, and
step by step, she roules us into that miserable state, and day by day
seekes to acquaint us with it. So that when youth failes in us, we
feele, nay we perceive no shaking or transchange at all in our
selves: which in essence and veritie is a harder death, than that of
a languishing and irkesome life, or that of age. Forsomuch as the
leape from an ill being unto a not being, is not so dangerous or
steepie; as it is from a delightfull and flourishing being unto a
painfull and sorrowfull condition. A weake bending, and faint
stopping bodie hath lesse strength to beare and under goe a heavie
burden: So hath our soule. She must bee rouzed and raised against the
violence and force of this adversarie. For as it is impossible she
should take any rest whilest she feareth: whereof if she be assured
(which is a thing exceeding humane 37 condition)
she may boast that it is impossible unquietnesse, torment, and feare,
much lesse the least displeasure should lodge in her.
Non vultus
instantis tyranni
Mente quatit
solida, neque Auster,
Dux inquieti
turbidus Adriæ,
Nec fulminantis
magna Jovis manus. 38
No urging tyrants
threatning face,
Where minde is found
can it displace,
No troublous wind the
rough seas Master,
Nor Joves great hand,
the thunder-caster.
She is made
Mistris of her passions and concupiscence, Lady of indulgence, of
shame, of povertie, and of all fortunes injuries. Let him that can,
attaine to this advantage: Herein consists the true and soveraigne
liberty, that affords us meanes wherewith to jeast and make a scorne
of force and injustice, and to deride imprisonment, gives, 39 or
fetters.
———in
manicis, et
Compedibus, sævo
te sub custode tenebo.
Ipse Deus simul
atque volam, me solvet: opinor,
Hoc sentit, moriar.
Mors ultima linea rerum est. 40
In gyves and fetters I
will hamper thee,
Under a Jayler that
shall cruell be:
Yet, when I will, God
me deliver shall,
He thinkes, I shall
die: death is end of all.
Our religion hath had no surer humane
foundation than the contempt of life. Discourse of reason doth not
only call and summon us unto it. For why should we feare to lose a
thing, which being lost, cannot be moaned? but also, since we are
threatened by so many kinds of death, there is no more inconvenience
to feare them all, than to endure one: what matter is it when it
commeth, since it is unavoidable? Socrates answered one that told
him, “The thirty tyrants have condemned thee to death.” “And
Nature them,” said he. What fondnesse is it to carke and care so
much, at that instant and passage from all exemption of paine and
care? As our birth brought us the birth of all things, so shall our
death the end of all things. Therefore is it as great follie to
weepe, we shall not live a hundred yeeres hence, as to waile we lived
not a hundred yeeres agoe. “Death is the beginning of another
life.” So wept we, and so much did it cost us to enter into this
life; and so did we spoile us of our ancient vaile in entring into
it. Nothing can be grievous that is but once. Is it reason so long to
fear a thing of so short time? Long life or short life is made all
one by death. For long or short is not in thing that are no more.
Aristotle saith, there are certaine little beasts alongst the river
Hyspanis, that live but one day: she which dies at 8 o’clocke in
the morning, dies in her youth, and she that dies at 5 in the
afternoon, dies in her decrepitude, who of us doth not laugh, when we
shall see this short moment of continuance to be had in consideration
of good or ill fortune? The most and the least is ours, if we compare
it with eternitie, or equal it to the lasting of mountains, rivers,
stars, and trees, or any other living creature, is not lesse
ridiculous. But nature compels us to it. Depart (saith she) out of
this world, even as you came into it. The same way you came from
death to life, returne without passion or amazement, from life to
death: your death is but a peece of the worlds order, and but a
parcell of the worlds life.
——Inter se
mortales mutua vivunt,
Et quasi cursores
vitæ lampada tradunt. 41
Mortall men live by
mutuall entercourse:
And yeeld their
life-torch, as men in a course.
Shal I not change this goodly contexture of things
for you? It is the condition of your creation: death is a part of
yourselves: you flie from yourselves: The being you enjoy is equally
shared between life and death. The first day of your birth doth as
wel address you to die, as to live.
Prima quæ vitam
dedit, hora, carpsit. 42
The first houre, that
to men
Gave life, strait,
cropt it then.
Nascentes morimur,
finisque ab origine pendet. 43
As we are borne we
die; the end
Doth of th’ original
depend.
Note
1. SEN. Epist. 117.
Note
43. MANIL. Ast. l.
iv.
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