Moriae encomium
{"WorkMasterId":5573,"WpPageId":267964,"ParentWpPageId":193794,"Slug":"moriae-encomium","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/desiderius-erasmus-of-rotterdam/moriae-encomium/","RelativeUrl":"theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/desiderius-erasmus-of-rotterdam/moriae-encomium/","HasFullText":true,"RawHtmlLength":280543,"CleanHtmlLength":224433,"Kicker":"Philosophy Work","Title":"Moriae encomium","Deck":"Through satirical personification, Erasmus exposes clerical vanity, social pride, false learning, and moral self-deception.","BackLink":{"Text":"Back to Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/desiderius-erasmus-of-rotterdam/"},"AuthorCard":{"Label":"Author","Title":"Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/desiderius-erasmus-of-rotterdam/","MediaHref":"","ImageSrc":"https://chrisdeasy.com/wp-content/uploads/desiderius-erasmus-of-rotterdam-01-met-holbein-portrait-1.jpg","ImageAlt":"Holbein portrait of Erasmus at the Met","FilterTerra":"Western Europe","ClickText":"Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam","ClickHref":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/desiderius-erasmus-of-rotterdam/","Copies":["1466 CE – 1536 CE","Rotterdam","Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic reformer, philologist, satirist, and educator whose Christian humanism joined classical learning, biblical scholarship, moral reform, peace politics, and disciplined eloquence."]},"ContextCards":[{"Label":"Period","Key":"Period:3","Title":"Early Modern History","DateText":"1500 CE – 1799 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-early-modern-history/"},{"Label":"Era","Key":"Era:7","Title":"Renaissance and Reformation","DateText":"1500 CE – 1599 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-early-modern-history/philosophers-of-the-renaissance-and-reformation/"},{"Label":"Composition","Title":"1511 CE","Url":"","DateText":""}],"DateNote":"Written in 1509 and first printed in 1511; 1511 is used for ordering.","GeoCards":[{"Label":"Region","Key":"Region:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita","Key":"TerraAvita:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita Region","Key":"TerraAvitaRegion:1"},{"Label":"Modern Country","Key":"Country:NLD:1"}],"OriginalTitle":"Moriae encomium","Language":"Latin","DisciplineCards":[{"Label":"Primary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:ethics"},{"Label":"Secondary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:aesthetics"}],"Tradition":"Renaissance Christian humanism","FullText":{"Title":"Full Text","Copy":"Public-domain full text from Project Gutenberg eBook #9371 .","Url":"","Label":"","Kicker":"","Cards":[]},"CoreThesis":["Through satirical personification, Erasmus exposes clerical vanity, social pride, false learning, and moral self-deception."],"Classification":{"AlternateTitles":"In Praise of Folly; Praise of Folly","KeyConcepts":"satire; folly; moral critique; clerical abuse; self-knowledge; rhetoric","Methodology":"Philological return to sources, classical rhetorical training, satire, dialogue, moral exhortation, scriptural annotation, educational counsel, and irenic Christian reform.","Structure":"The public page presents the work title, alternate forms, date or proxy date, visible status note where needed, core philosophical focus, and no full-text badge unless a verified full text is separately added."},"Arguments":["Through satirical personification, Erasmus exposes clerical vanity, social pride, false learning, and moral self-deception."],"Influence":{"InfluencedBy":"Lorenzo Valla, Jerome, Augustine, Cicero, Devotio Moderna, classical rhetoric, patristic scholarship, and late medieval religious reform currents.","InfluenceOn":""},"Significance":["Accepted as a direct satirical philosophical work by Erasmus.","The work matters because Erasmus joins linguistic care, moral reform, peaceable judgment, and Christian humanist learning in a form still central to debates about education, religion, and public speech."],"EvidenceNote":["Accepted as a direct satirical philosophical work by Erasmus."],"MainSections":[{"Kind":"RawSection","Title":"Full Versions","BodyHtml":"\u003cdiv class=\"dz-philo__full-version-grid\"\u003e\n \u003carticle class=\"dz-philo__full-version-card\"\u003e\n \u003cp class=\"dz-philo__full-version-provider\"\u003eProject Gutenberg\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003ch3 class=\"dz-philo__full-version-title\"\u003eProject Gutenberg eBook #9371\u003c/h3\u003e\n \u003cp class=\"dz-philo__full-version-meta\"\u003eHtmlText · Imported\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003ca class=\"dz-philo__full-version-link\" href=\"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9371\"\u003eOpen full version\u003c/a\u003e\n \u003c/article\u003e\n \u003c/div\u003e"},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Core Thesis","Paragraphs":["Through satirical personification, Erasmus exposes clerical vanity, social pride, false learning, and moral self-deception."]},{"Kind":"FieldSection","Title":"Classification","Fields":[{"Label":"Alternate Titles","Value":"In Praise of Folly; Praise of Folly"},{"Label":"Key Concepts","Value":"satire; folly; moral critique; clerical abuse; self-knowledge; rhetoric"},{"Label":"Methodology","Value":"Philological return to sources, classical rhetorical training, satire, dialogue, moral exhortation, scriptural annotation, educational counsel, and irenic Christian reform."},{"Label":"Structure","Value":"The public page presents the work title, alternate forms, date or proxy date, visible status note where needed, core philosophical focus, and no full-text badge unless a verified full text is separately added."}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Arguments","Paragraphs":["Through satirical personification, Erasmus exposes clerical vanity, social pride, false learning, and moral self-deception."]},{"Kind":"FieldSection","Title":"Influence","Fields":[{"Label":"Influenced By","Value":"Lorenzo Valla, Jerome, Augustine, Cicero, Devotio Moderna, classical rhetoric, patristic scholarship, and late medieval religious reform currents."},{"Label":"Influence On","Value":"Christian humanism, Thomas More, John Colet, Reformation and Counter-Reformation debate, Montaigne, humanist education, biblical philology, rhetoric, peace ethics, and later liberal religious culture."}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Significance","Paragraphs":["Accepted as a direct satirical philosophical work by Erasmus.","The work matters because Erasmus joins linguistic care, moral reform, peaceable judgment, and Christian humanist learning in a form still central to debates about education, religion, and public speech."]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Evidence Note","Paragraphs":["Accepted as a direct satirical philosophical work by Erasmus."]},{"Kind":"RawSection","Title":"Full Text","BodyHtml":"\u003cp class=\"dz-philo__section-copy dz-philo__full-text-source\"\u003ePublic-domain full text from \u003ca href=\"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9371\"\u003eProject Gutenberg eBook #9371\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003carticle class=\"dz-philo__full-text-body\"\u003e\n\u003ch1\u003e\r\n THE PRAISE OF FOLLY\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003c/h1\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp class=\"t3b\"\u003e\r\n Translated by John Wilson\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n 1668\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp class=\"t3\"\u003e\r\n ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n to his friend\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n THOMAS MORE, health:\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAs I was coming awhile since out of Italy for England, that I might not\r\nwaste all that time I was to sit on horseback in foolish and illiterate\r\nfables, I chose rather one while to revolve with myself something of our\r\ncommon studies, and other while to enjoy the remembrance of my friends,\r\nof whom I left here some no less learned than pleasant. Among these you,\r\nmy More, came first in my mind, whose memory, though absent yourself,\r\ngives me such delight in my absence, as when present with you I ever\r\nfound in your company; than which, let me perish if in all my life I ever\r\nmet with anything more delectable. And therefore, being satisfied that\r\nsomething was to be done, and that that time was no wise proper for any\r\nserious matter, I resolved to make some sport with the praise of folly.\r\nBut who the devil put that in your head? you\u0027ll say. The first thing was\r\nyour surname of More, which comes so near the word \u003ci\u003eMoriae\u003c/i\u003e (folly) as\r\nyou are far from the thing. And that you are so, all the world will clear\r\nyou. In the next place, I conceived this exercise of wit would not be\r\nleast approved by you; inasmuch as you are wont to be delighted with such\r\nkind of mirth, that is to say, neither unlearned, if I am not mistaken,\r\nnor altogether insipid, and in the whole course of your life have played\r\nthe part of a Democritus. And though such is the excellence of your\r\njudgment that it was ever contrary to that of the people\u0027s, yet such is\r\nyour incredible affability and sweetness of temper that you both can and\r\ndelight to carry yourself to all men a man of all hours. Wherefore you\r\nwill not only with good will accept this small declamation, but take upon\r\nyou the defense of it, for as much as being dedicated to you, it is now\r\nno longer mine but yours. But perhaps there will not be wanting some\r\nwranglers that may cavil and charge me, partly that these toys are\r\nlighter than may become a divine, and partly more biting than may beseem\r\nthe modesty of a Christian, and consequently exclaim that I resemble the\r\nancient comedy, or another Lucian, and snarl at everything. But I would\r\nhave them whom the lightness or foolery of the argument may offend to\r\nconsider that mine is not the first of this kind, but the same thing that\r\nhas been often practiced even by great authors: when Homer, so many ages\r\nsince, did the like with the battle of frogs and mice; Virgil, with the\r\ngnat and puddings; Ovid, with the nut; when Polycrates and his corrector\r\nIsocrates extolled tyranny; Glauco, injustice; Favorinus, deformity and\r\nthe quartan ague; Synescius, baldness; Lucian, the fly and flattery; when\r\nSeneca made such sport with Claudius\u0027 canonizations; Plutarch, with his\r\ndialogue between Ulysses and Gryllus; Lucian and Apuleius, with the ass;\r\nand some other, I know not who, with the hog that made his last will and\r\ntestament, of which also even St. Jerome makes mention. And therefore if\r\nthey please, let them suppose I played at tables for my diversion, or if\r\nthey had rather have it so, that I rode on a hobbyhorse. For what\r\ninjustice is it that when we allow every course of life its recreation,\r\nthat study only should have none? Especially when such toys are not\r\nwithout their serious matter, and foolery is so handled that the reader\r\nthat is not altogether thick-skulled may reap more benefit from it than\r\nfrom some men\u0027s crabbish and specious arguments. As when one, with long\r\nstudy and great pains, patches many pieces together on the praise of\r\nrhetoric or philosophy; another makes a panegyric to a prince; another\r\nencourages him to a war against the Turks; another tells you what will\r\nbecome of the world after himself is dead; and another finds out some new\r\ndevice for the better ordering of goat\u0027s wool: for as nothing is more\r\ntrifling than to treat of serious matters triflingly, so nothing carries\r\na better grace than so to discourse of trifles as a man may seem to have\r\nintended them least. For my own part, let other men judge of what I have\r\nwritten; though yet, unless an overweening opinion of myself may have\r\nmade me blind in my own cause, I have praised folly, but not altogether\r\nfoolishly. And now to say somewhat to that other cavil, of biting. This\r\nliberty was ever permitted to all men\u0027s wits, to make their smart, witty\r\nreflections on the common errors of mankind, and that too without\r\noffense, as long as this liberty does not run into licentiousness; which\r\nmakes me the more admire the tender ears of the men of this age, that can\r\naway with solemn titles. No, you\u0027ll meet with some so preposterously\r\nreligious that they will sooner endure the broadest scoffs even against\r\nChrist himself than hear the Pope or a prince be touched in the least,\r\nespecially if it be anything that concerns their profit; whereas he that\r\nso taxes the lives of men, without naming anyone in particular, whither,\r\nI pray, may he be said to bite, or rather to teach and admonish? Or\r\notherwise, I beseech you, under how many notions do I tax myself?\r\nBesides, he that spares no sort of men cannot be said to be angry with\r\nanyone in particular, but the vices of all. And therefore, if there shall\r\nhappen to be anyone that shall say he is hit, he will but discover either\r\nhis guilt or fear. Saint Jerome sported in this kind with more freedom\r\nand greater sharpness, not sparing sometimes men\u0027s very name. But I,\r\nbesides that I have wholly avoided it, I have so moderated my style that\r\nthe understanding reader will easily perceive my endeavors herein were\r\nrather to make mirth than bite. Nor have I, after the example of Juvenal,\r\nraked up that forgotten sink of filth and ribaldry, but laid before you\r\nthings rather ridiculous than dishonest. And now, if there be anyone that\r\nis yet dissatisfied, let him at least remember that it is no dishonor to\r\nbe discommended by Folly; and having brought her in speaking, it was but\r\nfit that I kept up the character of the person. But why do I run over\r\nthese things to you, a person so excellent an advocate that no man better\r\ndefends his client, though the cause many times be none of the best?\r\nFarewell, my best disputant More, and stoutly defend your \u003ci\u003eMoriae\u003c/i\u003e.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp class=\"noindent\"\u003e\r\nFrom the country,\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nthe 5th of the Ides of June.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch3\u003e\r\n THE PRAISE OF FOLLY\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp class=\"t3\"\u003e\r\n An oration, of feigned matter,\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n spoken by Folly in her own person\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAt what rate soever the world talks of me (for I am not ignorant what an\r\nill report Folly has got, even among the most foolish), yet that I am\r\nthat she, that only she, whose deity recreates both gods and men, even\r\nthis is a sufficient argument, that I no sooner stepped up to speak to\r\nthis full assembly than all your faces put on a kind of new and unwonted\r\npleasantness. So suddenly have you cleared your brows, and with so frolic\r\nand hearty a laughter given me your applause, that in truth as many of\r\nyou as I behold on every side of me seem to me no less than Homer\u0027s gods\r\ndrunk with nectar and nepenthe; whereas before, you sat as lumpish and\r\npensive as if you had come from consulting an oracle. And as it usually\r\nhappens when the sun begins to show his beams, or when after a sharp\r\nwinter the spring breathes afresh on the earth, all things immediately\r\nget a new face, new color, and recover as it were a certain kind of youth\r\nagain: in like manner, by but beholding me you have in an instant gotten\r\nanother kind of countenance; and so what the otherwise great rhetoricians\r\nwith their tedious and long-studied orations can hardly effect, to wit,\r\nto remove the trouble of the mind, I have done it at once with my\r\nsingle look.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut if you ask me why I appear before you in this strange dress, be\r\npleased to lend me your ears, and I\u0027ll tell you; not those ears, I mean,\r\nyou carry to church, but abroad with you, such as you are wont to prick\r\nup to jugglers, fools, and buffoons, and such as our friend Midas once\r\ngave to Pan. For I am disposed awhile to play the sophist with you; not\r\nof their sort who nowadays boozle young men\u0027s heads with certain empty\r\nnotions and curious trifles, yet teach them nothing but a more than\r\nwomanish obstinacy of scolding: but I\u0027ll imitate those ancients who, that\r\nthey might the better avoid that infamous appellation of \u003ci\u003esophi\u003c/i\u003e or\r\n\u003ci\u003ewise\u003c/i\u003e, chose rather to be called sophists. Their business was to\r\ncelebrate the praises of the gods and valiant men. And the like encomium\r\nshall you hear from me, but neither of Hercules nor Solon, but my own\r\ndear self, that is to say, Folly. Nor do I esteem a rush that call it a\r\nfoolish and insolent thing to praise one\u0027s self. Be it as foolish as they\r\nwould make it, so they confess it proper: and what can be more than that\r\nFolly be her own trumpet? For who can set me out better than myself,\r\nunless perhaps I could be better known to another than to myself? Though\r\nyet I think it somewhat more modest than the general practice of our\r\nnobles and wise men who, throwing away all shame, hire some flattering\r\norator or lying poet from whose mouth they may hear their praises, that\r\nis to say, mere lies; and yet, composing themselves with a seeming\r\nmodesty, spread out their peacock\u0027s plumes and erect their crests, while\r\nthis impudent flatterer equals a man of nothing to the gods and proposes\r\nhim as an absolute pattern of all virtue that\u0027s wholly a stranger to it,\r\nsets out a pitiful jay in other\u0027s feathers, washes the blackamoor white,\r\nand lastly swells a gnat to an elephant. In short, I will follow that old\r\nproverb that says, \"He may lawfully praise himself that lives far from\r\nneighbors.\" Though, by the way, I cannot but wonder at the ingratitude,\r\nshall I say, or negligence of men who, notwithstanding they honor me in\r\nthe first place and are willing enough to confess my bounty, yet not one\r\nof them for these so many ages has there been who in some thankful\r\noration has set out the praises of Folly; when yet there has not wanted\r\nthem whose elaborate endeavors have extolled tyrants, agues, flies,\r\nbaldness, and such other pests of nature, to their own loss of both time\r\nand sleep. And now you shall hear from me a plain extemporary speech, but\r\nso much the truer. Nor would I have you think it like the rest of\r\norators, made for the ostentation of wit; for these, as you know, when\r\nthey have been beating their heads some thirty years about an oration and\r\nat last perhaps produce somewhat that was never their own, shall yet\r\nswear they composed it in three days, and that too for diversion: whereas\r\nI ever liked it best to speak whatever came first out.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut let none of you expect from me that after the manner of rhetoricians\r\nI should go about to define what I am, much less use any division; for I\r\nhold it equally unlucky to circumscribe her whose deity is universal, or\r\nmake the least division in that worship about which everything is so\r\ngenerally agreed. Or to what purpose, think you, should I describe myself\r\nwhen I am here present before you, and you behold me speaking? For I am,\r\nas you see, that true and only giver of wealth whom the Greeks call\r\n\u003ci\u003eMoria\u003c/i\u003e, the Latins \u003ci\u003eStultitia\u003c/i\u003e, and our plain English \u003ci\u003eFolly\u003c/i\u003e. Or what\r\nneed was there to have said so much, as if my very looks were not\r\nsufficient to inform you who I am? Or as if any man, mistaking me for\r\nwisdom, could not at first sight convince himself by my face the true\r\nindex of my mind? I am no counterfeit, nor do I carry one thing in my\r\nlooks and another in my breast. No, I am in every respect so like myself\r\nthat neither can they dissemble me who arrogate to themselves the\r\nappearance and title of wise men and walk like asses in scarlet hoods,\r\nthough after all their hypocrisy Midas\u0027 ears will discover their master.\r\nA most ungrateful generation of men that, when they are wholly given up\r\nto my party, are yet publicly ashamed of the name, as taking it for a\r\nreproach; for which cause, since in truth they are \u003ci\u003emorotatoi\u003c/i\u003e, fools,\r\nand yet would appear to the world to be wise men and Thales, we\u0027ll even\r\ncall them \u003ci\u003emorosophous\u003c/i\u003e, wise fools.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nNor will it be amiss also to imitate the rhetoricians of our times, who\r\nthink themselves in a manner gods if like horse leeches they can but\r\nappear to be double-tongued, and believe they have done a mighty act if\r\nin their Latin orations they can but shuffle in some ends of Greek like\r\nmosaic work, though altogether by head and shoulders and less to the\r\npurpose. And if they want hard words, they run over some worm-eaten\r\nmanuscript and pick out half a dozen of the most old and obsolete to\r\nconfound their reader, believing, no doubt, that they that understand\r\ntheir meaning will like it the better, and they that do not will admire\r\nit the more by how much the less they understand it. Nor is this way of\r\nours of admiring what seems most foreign without its particular grace;\r\nfor if there happen to be any more ambitious than others, they may give\r\ntheir applause with a smile, and, like the ass, shake their ears, that\r\nthey may be thought to understand more than the rest of their neighbors.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut to come to the purpose: I have given you my name, but what epithet\r\nshall I add? What but that of the most foolish? For by what more proper\r\nname can so great a goddess as Folly be known to her disciples? And\r\nbecause it is not alike known to all from what stock I am sprung, with\r\nthe Muses\u0027 good leave I\u0027ll do my endeavor to satisfy you. But yet neither\r\nthe first Chaos, Orcus, Saturn, or Japhet, nor any of those threadbare,\r\nmusty gods were my father, but Plutus, Riches; that only he, that is, in\r\nspite of Hesiod, Homer, nay and Jupiter himself, \u003ci\u003edivum pater atque\r\nhominum rex\u003c/i\u003e, the father of gods and men, at whose single beck, as\r\nheretofore, so at present, all things sacred and profane are turned\r\ntopsy-turvy. According to whose pleasure war, peace, empire, counsels,\r\njudgments, assemblies, wedlocks, bargains, leagues, laws, arts, all\r\nthings light or serious\u0026mdash;I want breath\u0026mdash;in short, all the public and\r\nprivate business of mankind is governed; without whose help all that herd\r\nof gods of the poets\u0027 making, and those few of the better sort of the\r\nrest, either would not be at all, or if they were, they would be but such\r\nas live at home and keep a poor house to themselves. And to whomsoever\r\nhe\u0027s an enemy, \u0027tis not Pallas herself that can befriend him; as on the\r\ncontrary he whom he favors may lead Jupiter and his thunder in a string.\r\nThis is my father and in him I glory. Nor did he produce me from his\r\nbrain, as Jupiter that sour and ill-looked Pallas; but of that lovely\r\nnymph called Youth, the most beautiful and galliard of all the rest. Nor\r\nwas I, like that limping blacksmith, begot in the sad and irksome bonds\r\nof matrimony. Yet, mistake me not, \u0027twas not that blind and decrepit\r\nPlutus in Aristophanes that got me, but such as he was in his full\r\nstrength and pride of youth; and not that only, but at such a time when\r\nhe had been well heated with nectar, of which he had, at one of the\r\nbanquets of the gods, taken a dose extraordinary.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd as to the place of my birth, forasmuch as nowadays that is looked\r\nupon as a main point of nobility, it was neither, like Apollo\u0027s, in the\r\nfloating Delos, nor Venus-like on the rolling sea, nor in any of blind\r\nHomer\u0027s as blind caves: but in the Fortunate Islands, where all things\r\ngrew without plowing or sowing; where neither labor, nor old age, nor\r\ndisease was ever heard of; and in whose fields neither daffodil, mallows,\r\nonions, beans, and such contemptible things would ever grow, but, on the\r\ncontrary, rue, angelica, bugloss, marjoram, trefoils, roses, violets,\r\nlilies, and all the gardens of Adonis invite both your sight and your\r\nsmelling. And being thus born, I did not begin the world, as other\r\nchildren are wont, with crying; but straight perched up and smiled on my\r\nmother. Nor do I envy to the great Jupiter the goat, his nurse, forasmuch\r\nas I was suckled by two jolly nymphs, to wit, Drunkenness, the daughter\r\nof Bacchus, and Ignorance, of Pan. And as for such my companions and\r\nfollowers as you perceive about me, if you have a mind to know who they\r\nare, you are not like to be the wiser for me, unless it be in Greek: this\r\nhere, which you observe with that proud cast of her eye, is \u003ci\u003ePhilautia\u003c/i\u003e,\r\nSelf-love; she with the smiling countenance, that is ever and anon\r\nclapping her hands, is \u003ci\u003eKolakia\u003c/i\u003e, Flattery; she that looks as if she were\r\nhalf asleep is \u003ci\u003eLethe\u003c/i\u003e, Oblivion; she that sits leaning on both elbows\r\nwith her hands clutched together is \u003ci\u003eMisoponia\u003c/i\u003e, Laziness; she with the\r\ngarland on her head, and that smells so strong of perfumes, is \u003ci\u003eHedone\u003c/i\u003e,\r\nPleasure; she with those staring eyes, moving here and there, is \u003ci\u003eAnoia\u003c/i\u003e,\r\nMadness; she with the smooth skin and full pampered body is \u003ci\u003eTryphe\u003c/i\u003e,\r\nWantonness; and, as to the two gods that you see with them, the one is\r\n\u003ci\u003eKomos\u003c/i\u003e, Intemperance, the other \u003ci\u003eNegretos hypnos\u003c/i\u003e, Dead Sleep. These, I\r\nsay, are my household servants, and by their faithful counsels I have\r\nsubjected all things to my dominion and erected an empire over emperors\r\nthemselves. Thus have you had my lineage, education, and companions.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd now, lest I may seem to have taken upon me the name of goddess\r\nwithout cause, you shall in the next place understand how far my deity\r\nextends, and what advantage by it I have brought both to gods and men.\r\nFor, if it was not unwisely said by somebody, that this only is to be a\r\ngod, to help men; and if they are deservedly enrolled among the gods that\r\nfirst brought in corn and wine and such other things as are for the\r\ncommon good of mankind, why am not I of right the \u003ci\u003ealpha\u003c/i\u003e, or first, of\r\nall the gods? who being but one, yet bestow all things on all men. For\r\nfirst, what is more sweet or more precious than life? And yet from whom\r\ncan it more properly be said to come than from me? For neither the\r\ncrab-favoured Pallas\u0027 spear nor the cloud-gathering Jupiter\u0027s shield\r\neither beget or propagate mankind; but even he himself, the father of\r\ngods and king of men at whose very beck the heavens shake, must lay by\r\nhis forked thunder and those looks wherewith he conquered the giants\r\nand with which at pleasure he frightens the rest of the gods, and like\r\na common stage player put on a disguise as often as he goes about that,\r\nwhich now and then he does, that is to say the getting of children: And\r\nthe Stoics too, that conceive themselves next to the gods, yet show me\r\none of them, nay the veriest bigot of the sect, and if he do not put off\r\nhis beard, the badge of wisdom, though yet it be no more than what is\r\ncommon with him and goats; yet at least he must lay by his supercilious\r\ngravity, smooth his forehead, shake off his rigid principles, and for\r\nsome time commit an act of folly and dotage. In fine, that wise man\r\nwhoever he be, if he intends to have children, must have recourse to me.\r\nBut tell me, I beseech you, what man is that would submit his neck to\r\nthe noose of wedlock, if, as wise men should, he did but first truly\r\nweigh the inconvenience of the thing? Or what woman is there would ever\r\ngo to it did she seriously consider either the peril of child-bearing or\r\nthe trouble of bringing them up? So then, if you owe your beings to\r\nwedlock, you owe that wedlock to this my follower, Madness; and what\r\nyou owe to me I have already told you. Again, she that has but once\r\ntried what it is, would she, do you think, make a second venture if it\r\nwere not for my other companion, Oblivion? Nay, even Venus herself,\r\nnotwithstanding whatever Lucretius has said, would not deny but that\r\nall her virtue were lame and fruitless without the help of my deity.\r\nFor out of that little, odd, ridiculous May-game came the supercilious\r\nphilosophers, in whose room have succeeded a kind of people the world\r\ncalls monks, cardinals, priests, and the most holy popes. And lastly,\r\nall that rabble of the poets\u0027 gods, with which heaven is so thwacked\r\nand thronged, that though it be of so vast an extent, they are hardly\r\nable to crowd one by another.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut I think it is a small matter that you thus owe your beginning of life\r\nto me, unless I also show you that whatever benefit you receive in the\r\nprogress of it is of my gift likewise. For what other is this? Can that\r\nbe called life where you take away pleasure? Oh! Do you like what I say?\r\nI knew none of you could have so little wit, or so much folly, or wisdom\r\nrather, as to be of any other opinion. For even the Stoics themselves\r\nthat so severely cried down pleasure did but handsomely dissemble, and\r\nrailed against it to the common people to no other end but that having\r\ndiscouraged them from it, they might the more plentifully enjoy it\r\nthemselves. But tell me, by Jupiter, what part of man\u0027s life is that that\r\nis not sad, crabbed, unpleasant, insipid, troublesome, unless it be\r\nseasoned with pleasure, that is to say, folly? For the proof of which the\r\nnever sufficiently praised Sophocles in that his happy elegy of us, \"To\r\nknow nothing is the only happiness,\" might be authority enough, but that\r\nI intend to take every particular by itself.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd first, who knows not but a man\u0027s infancy is the merriest part of life\r\nto himself, and most acceptable to others? For what is that in them which\r\nwe kiss, embrace, cherish, nay enemies succor, but this witchcraft of\r\nfolly, which wise Nature did of purpose give them into the world with\r\nthem that they might the more pleasantly pass over the toil of education,\r\nand as it were flatter the care and diligence of their nurses? And then\r\nfor youth, which is in such reputation everywhere, how do all men favor\r\nit, study to advance it, and lend it their helping hand? And whence, I\r\npray, all this grace? Whence but from me? by whose kindness, as it\r\nunderstands as little as may be, it is also for that reason the higher\r\nprivileged from exceptions; and I am mistaken if, when it is grown up and\r\nby experience and discipline brought to savor something like man, if in\r\nthe same instant that beauty does not fade, its liveliness decay, its\r\npleasantness grow flat, and its briskness fail. And by how much the\r\nfurther it runs from me, by so much the less it lives, till it comes to\r\nthe burden of old age, not only hateful to others, but to itself also.\r\nWhich also were altogether insupportable did not I pity its condition, in\r\nbeing present with it, and, as the poets\u0027 gods were wont to assist such\r\nas were dying with some pleasant metamorphosis, help their decrepitness\r\nas much as in me lies by bringing them back to a second childhood, from\r\nwhence they are not improperly called twice children. Which, if you ask\r\nme how I do it, I shall not be shy in the point. I bring them to our\r\nRiver Lethe (for its springhead rises in the Fortunate Islands, and that\r\nother of hell is but a brook in comparison), from which, as soon as they\r\nhave drunk down a long forgetfulness, they wash away by degrees the\r\nperplexity of their minds, and so wax young again.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut perhaps you\u0027ll say they are foolish and doting. Admit it; \u0027tis the\r\nvery essence of childhood; as if to be such were not to be a fool, or\r\nthat that condition had anything pleasant in it, but that it understood\r\nnothing. For who would not look upon that child as a prodigy that should\r\nhave as much wisdom as a man?\u0026mdash;according to that common proverb, \"I do\r\nnot like a child that is a man too soon.\" Or who would endure a converse\r\nor friendship with that old man who to so large an experience of things\r\nhad joined an equal strength of mind and sharpness of judgment? And\r\ntherefore for this reason it is that old age dotes; and that it does so,\r\nit is beholding to me. Yet, notwithstanding, is this dotard exempt from\r\nall those cares that distract a wise man; he is not the less pot\r\ncompanion, nor is he sensible of that burden of life which the more manly\r\nage finds enough to do to stand upright under it. And sometimes too, like\r\nPlautus\u0027 old man, he returns to his three letters, A.M.O., the most\r\nunhappy of all things living, if he rightly understood what he did in it.\r\nAnd yet, so much do I befriend him that I make him well received of his\r\nfriends and no unpleasant companion; for as much as, according to Homer,\r\nNestor\u0027s discourse was pleasanter than honey, whereas Achilles\u0027 was both\r\nbitter and malicious; and that of old men, as he has it in another place,\r\nflorid. In which respect also they have this advantage of children, in\r\nthat they want the only pleasure of the others\u0027 life, we\u0027ll suppose it\r\nprattling. Add to this that old men are more eagerly delighted with\r\nchildren, and they, again, with old men. \"Like to like,\" quoted the Devil\r\nto the collier. For what difference between them, but that the one has\r\nmore wrinkles and years upon his head than the other? Otherwise, the\r\nbrightness of their hair, toothless mouth, weakness of body, love of\r\nmild, broken speech, chatting, toying, forgetfulness, inadvertency, and\r\nbriefly, all other their actions agree in everything. And by how much the\r\nnearer they approach to this old age, by so much they grow backward into\r\nthe likeness of children, until like them they pass from life to death,\r\nwithout any weariness of the one, or sense of the other.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd now, let him that will compare the benefits they receive by me, the\r\nmetamorphoses of the gods, of whom I shall not mention what they have\r\ndone in their pettish humors but where they have been most favorable:\r\nturning one into a tree, another into a bird, a third into a grasshopper,\r\nserpent, or the like. As if there were any difference between perishing\r\nand being another thing! But I restore the same man to the best and\r\nhappiest part of his life. And if men would but refrain from all commerce\r\nwith wisdom and give up themselves to be governed by me, they should\r\nnever know what it were to be old, but solace themselves with a perpetual\r\nyouth. Do but observe our grim philosophers that are perpetually beating\r\ntheir brains on knotty subjects, and for the most part you\u0027ll find them\r\ngrown old before they are scarcely young. And whence is it, but that\r\ntheir continual and restless thoughts insensibly prey upon their spirits\r\nand dry up their radical moisture? Whereas, on the contrary, my fat fools\r\nare as plump and round as a Westphalian hog, and never sensible of old\r\nage, unless perhaps, as sometimes it rarely happens, they come to be\r\ninfected with wisdom, so hard a thing it is for a man to be happy in all\r\nthings. And to this purpose is that no small testimony of the proverb,\r\nthat says, \"Folly is the only thing that keeps youth at a stay and old\r\nage afar off;\" as it is verified in the Brabanders, of whom there goes\r\nthis common saying, \"That age, which is wont to render other men wiser,\r\nmakes them the greater fools.\" And yet there is scarce any nation of a\r\nmore jocund converse, or that is less sensible of the misery of old age,\r\nthan they are. And to these, as in situation, so for manner of living,\r\ncome nearest my friends the Hollanders. And why should I not call them\r\nmine, since they are so diligent observers of me that they are commonly\r\ncalled by my name?\u0026mdash;of which they are so far from being ashamed, they\r\nrather pride themselves in it. Let the foolish world then be packing and\r\nseek out Medeas, Circes, Venuses, Auroras, and I know not what other\r\nfountains of restoring youth. I am sure I am the only person that both\r\ncan, and have, made it good. \u0027Tis I alone that have that wonderful juice\r\nwith which Memnon\u0027s daughter prolonged the youth of her grandfather\r\nTithon. I am that Venus by whose favor Phaon became so young again that\r\nSappho fell in love with him. Mine are those herbs, if yet there be any\r\nsuch, mine those charms, and mine that fountain that not only restores\r\ndeparted youth but, which is more desirable, preserves it perpetual. And\r\nif you all subscribe to this opinion, that nothing is better than youth\r\nor more execrable than age, I conceive you cannot but see how much you\r\nare indebted to me, that have retained so great a good and shut out so\r\ngreat an evil.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut why do I altogether spend my breath in speaking of mortals? View\r\nheaven round, and let him that will reproach me with my name if he find\r\nany one of the gods that were not stinking and contemptible were he not\r\nmade acceptable by my deity. Why is it that Bacchus is always a\r\nstripling, and bushy-haired? but because he is mad, and drunk, and spends\r\nhis life in drinking, dancing, revels, and May games, not having so much\r\nas the least society with Pallas. And lastly, he is so far from desiring\r\nto be accounted wise that he delights to be worshiped with sports and\r\ngambols; nor is he displeased with the proverb that gave him the surname\r\nof fool, \"A greater fool than Bacchus;\" which name of his was changed to\r\nMorychus, for that sitting before the gates of his temple, the wanton\r\ncountry people were wont to bedaub him with new wine and figs. And of\r\nscoffs, what not, have not the ancient comedies thrown on him? O foolish\r\ngod, say they, and worthy to be born as you were of your father\u0027s thigh!\r\nAnd yet, who had not rather be your fool and sot, always merry, ever\r\nyoung, and making sport for other people, than either Homer\u0027s Jupiter\r\nwith his crooked counsels, terrible to everyone; or old Pan with his\r\nhubbubs; or smutty Vulcan half covered with cinders; or even Pallas\r\nherself, so dreadful with her Gorgon\u0027s head and spear and a countenance\r\nlike bullbeef? Why is Cupid always portrayed like a boy, but because he\r\nis a very wag and can neither do nor so much as think of anything sober?\r\nWhy Venus ever in her prime, but because of her affinity with me? Witness\r\nthat color of her hair, so resembling my father, from whence she is\r\ncalled the golden Venus; and lastly, ever laughing, if you give any\r\ncredit to the poets, or their followers the statuaries. What deity did\r\nthe Romans ever more religiously adore than that of Flora, the foundress\r\nof all pleasure? Nay, if you should but diligently search the lives of\r\nthe most sour and morose of the gods out of Homer and the rest of the\r\npoets, you would find them all but so many pieces of Folly. And to what\r\npurpose should I run over any of the other gods\u0027 tricks when you know\r\nenough of Jupiter\u0027s loose loves? When that chaste Diana shall so far\r\nforget her sex as to be ever hunting and ready to perish for Endymion?\r\nBut I had rather they should hear these things from Momus, from whom\r\nheretofore they were wont to have their shares, till in one of their\r\nangry humors they tumbled him, together with Ate, goddess of mischief,\r\ndown headlong to the earth, because his wisdom, forsooth, unseasonably\r\ndisturbed their happiness. Nor since that dares any mortal give him\r\nharbor, though I must confess there wanted little but that he had been\r\nreceived into the courts of princes, had not my companion Flattery\r\nreigned in chief there, with whom and the other there is no more\r\ncorrespondence than between lambs and wolves. From whence it is that the\r\ngods play the fool with the greater liberty and more content to\r\nthemselves \"doing all things carelessly,\" as says Father Homer, that is\r\nto say, without anyone to correct them. For what ridiculous stuff is\r\nthere which that stump of the fig tree Priapus does not afford them? What\r\ntricks and legerdemains with which Mercury does not cloak his thefts?\r\nWhat buffoonery that Vulcan is not guilty of, while one with his\r\npolt-foot, another with his smutched muzzle, another with his\r\nimpertinencies, he makes sport for the rest of the gods? As also that old\r\nSilenus with his country dances, Polyphemus footing time to his Cyclops\r\nhammers, the nymphs with their jigs, and satyrs with their antics; while\r\nPan makes them all twitter with some coarse ballad, which yet they had\r\nrather hear than the Muses themselves, and chiefly when they are well\r\nwhittled with nectar. Besides, what should I mention what these gods do\r\nwhen they are half drunk? Now by my troth, so foolish that I myself can\r\nhardly refrain laughter. But in these matters \u0027twere better we remembered\r\nHarpocrates, lest some eavesdropping god or other take us whispering that\r\nwhich Momus only has the privilege of speaking at length.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd therefore, according to Homer\u0027s example, I think it high time to\r\nleave the gods to themselves, and look down a little on the earth;\r\nwherein likewise you\u0027ll find nothing frolic or fortunate that it owes not\r\nto me. So provident has that great parent of mankind, Nature, been that\r\nthere should not be anything without its mixture and, as it were,\r\nseasoning of Folly. For since according to the definition of the Stoics,\r\nwisdom is nothing else than to be governed by reason, and on the contrary\r\nFolly, to be given up to the will of our passions, that the life of man\r\nmight not be altogether disconsolate and hard to away with, of how much\r\nmore passion than reason has Jupiter composed us? putting in, as one\r\nwould say, \"scarce half an ounce to a pound.\" Besides, he has confined\r\nreason to a narrow corner of the brain and left all the rest of the body\r\nto our passions; has also set up, against this one, two as it were,\r\nmasterless tyrants\u0026mdash;anger, that possesses the region of the heart, and\r\nconsequently the very fountain of life, the heart itself; and lust, that\r\nstretches its empire everywhere. Against which double force how powerful\r\nreason is let common experience declare, inasmuch as she, which yet is\r\nall she can do, may call out to us till she be hoarse again and tell us\r\nthe rules of honesty and virtue; while they give up the reins to their\r\ngovernor and make a hideous clamor, till at last being wearied, he suffer\r\nhimself to be carried whither they please to hurry him.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut forasmuch as such as are born to the business of the world have some\r\nlittle sprinklings of reason more than the rest, yet that they may the\r\nbetter manage it, even in this as well as in other things, they call me\r\nto counsel; and I give them such as is worthy of myself, to wit, that\r\nthey take to them a wife\u0026mdash;a silly thing, God wot, and foolish, yet wanton\r\nand pleasant, by which means the roughness of the masculine temper is\r\nseasoned and sweetened by her folly. For in that Plato seems to doubt\r\nunder what genus he should put woman, to wit, that of rational creatures\r\nor brutes, he intended no other in it than to show the apparent folly of\r\nthe sex. For if perhaps any of them goes about to be thought wiser than\r\nthe rest, what else does she do but play the fool twice, as if a man\r\nshould \"teach a cow to dance,\" \"a thing quite against the hair.\" For as\r\nit doubles the crime if anyone should put a disguise upon Nature, or\r\nendeavor to bring her to that she will in no wise bear, according to that\r\nproverb of the Greeks, \"An ape is an ape, though clad in scarlet;\" so a\r\nwoman is a woman still, that is to say foolish, let her put on whatever\r\nvizard she please.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut, by the way, I hope that sex is not so foolish as to take offense at\r\nthis, that I myself, being a woman, and Folly too, have attributed folly\r\nto them. For if they weigh it right, they needs must acknowledge that\r\nthey owe it to folly that they are more fortunate than men. As first\r\ntheir beauty, which, and that not without cause, they prefer before\r\neverything, since by its means they exercise a tyranny even upon tyrants\r\nthemselves; otherwise, whence proceeds that sour look, rough skin, bushy\r\nbeard, and such other things as speak plain old age in a man, but from\r\nthat disease of wisdom? Whereas women\u0027s cheeks are ever plump and smooth,\r\ntheir voice small, their skin soft, as if they imitated a certain kind of\r\nperpetual youth. Again, what greater thing do they wish in their whole\r\nlives than that they may please the man? For to what other purpose are\r\nall those dresses, washes, baths, slops, perfumes, and those several\r\nlittle tricks of setting their faces, painting their eyebrows, and\r\nsmoothing their skins? And now tell me, what higher letters of\r\nrecommendation have they to men than this folly? For what is it they do\r\nnot permit them to do? And to what other purpose than that of pleasure?\r\nWherein yet their folly is not the least thing that pleases; which so\r\ntrue it is, I think no one will deny, that does but consider with\r\nhimself, what foolish discourse and odd gambols pass between a man and\r\nhis woman, as often as he had a mind to be gamesome? And so I have shown\r\nyou whence the first and chiefest delight of man\u0027s life springs.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut there are some, you\u0027ll say, and those too none of the youngest, that\r\nhave a greater kindness for the pot than the petticoat and place their\r\nchiefest pleasure in good fellowship. If there can be any great\r\nentertainment without a woman at it, let others look to it. This I am\r\nsure, there was never any pleasant which folly gave not the relish to.\r\nInsomuch that if they find no occasion of laughter, they send for \"one\r\nthat may make it,\" or hire some buffoon flatterer, whose ridiculous\r\ndiscourse may put by the gravity of the company. For to what purpose were\r\nit to clog our stomachs with dainties, junkets, and the like stuff,\r\nunless our eyes and ears, nay whole mind, were likewise entertained with\r\njests, merriments, and laughter? But of these kind of second courses I am\r\nthe only cook; though yet those ordinary practices of our feasts, as\r\nchoosing a king, throwing dice, drinking healths, trolling it round,\r\ndancing the cushion, and the like, were not invented by the seven wise\r\nmen but myself, and that too for the common pleasure of mankind. The\r\nnature of all which things is such that the more of folly they have, the\r\nmore they conduce to human life, which, if it were unpleasant, did not\r\ndeserve the name of life; and other than such it could not well be,\r\ndid not these kind of diversions wipe away tediousness, next cousin to\r\nthe other.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut perhaps there are some that neglect this way of pleasure and rest\r\nsatisfied in the enjoyment of their friends, calling friendship the most\r\ndesirable of all things, more necessary than either air, fire, or water;\r\nso delectable that he that shall take it out of the world had as good put\r\nout the sun; and, lastly, so commendable, if yet that make anything to\r\nthe matter, that neither the philosophers themselves doubted to reckon it\r\namong their chiefest good. But what if I show you that I am both the\r\nbeginning and end of this so great good also? Nor shall I go about to\r\nprove it by fallacies, sorites, dilemmas, or other the like subtleties of\r\nlogicians, but after my blunt way point out the thing as clearly as it\r\nwere with my finger.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd now tell me if to wink, slip over, be blind at, or deceived in the\r\nvices of our friends, nay, to admire and esteem them for virtues, be not\r\nat least the next degree to folly? What is it when one kisses his\r\nmistress\u0027 freckle neck, another the wart on her nose? When a father shall\r\nswear his squint-eyed child is more lovely than Venus? What is this, I\r\nsay, but mere folly? And so, perhaps you\u0027ll cry it is; and yet \u0027tis this\r\nonly that joins friends together and continues them so joined. I speak of\r\nordinary men, of whom none are born without their imperfections, and\r\nhappy is he that is pressed with the least: for among wise princes there\r\nis either no friendship at all, or if there be, \u0027tis unpleasant and\r\nreserved, and that too but among a very few \u0027twere a crime to say none.\r\nFor that the greatest part of mankind are fools, nay there is not anyone\r\nthat dotes not in many things; and friendship, you know, is seldom made\r\nbut among equals. And yet if it should so happen that there were a mutual\r\ngood will between them, it is in no wise firm nor very long lived; that\r\nis to say, among such as are morose and more circumspect than needs, as\r\nbeing eagle-sighted into his friends\u0027 faults, but so blear-eyed to their\r\nown that they take not the least notice of the wallet that hangs behind\r\ntheir own shoulders. Since then the nature of man is such that there is\r\nscarce anyone to be found that is not subject to many errors, add to this\r\nthe great diversity of minds and studies, so many slips, oversights, and\r\nchances of human life, and how is it possible there should be any true\r\nfriendship between those Argus, so much as one hour, were it not for that\r\nwhich the Greeks excellently call \u003ci\u003eeuetheian\u003c/i\u003e? And you may render by\r\nfolly or good nature, choose you whether. But what? Is not the author and\r\nparent of all our love, Cupid, as blind as a beetle? And as with him all\r\ncolors agree, so from him is it that everyone likes his own sweeter-kin\r\nbest, though never so ugly, and \"that an old man dotes on his old wife,\r\nand a boy on his girl.\" These things are not only done everywhere but\r\nlaughed at too; yet as ridiculous as they are, they make society\r\npleasant, and, as it were, glue it together.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd what has been said of friendship may more reasonably be presumed of\r\nmatrimony, which in truth is no other than an inseparable conjunction of\r\nlife. Good God! What divorces, or what not worse than that, would daily\r\nhappen were not the converse between a man and his wife supported and\r\ncherished by flattery, apishness, gentleness, ignorance, dissembling,\r\ncertain retainers of mine also! Whoop holiday! how few marriages should\r\nwe have, if the husband should but thoroughly examine how many tricks his\r\npretty little mop of modesty has played before she was married! And how\r\nfewer of them would hold together, did not most of the wife\u0027s actions\r\nescape the husband\u0027s knowledge through his neglect or sottishness! And\r\nfor this also you are beholden to me, by whose means it is that the\r\nhusband is pleasant to his wife, the wife to her husband, and the house\r\nkept in quiet. A man is laughed at, when seeing his wife weeping he licks\r\nup her tears. But how much happier is it to be thus deceived than by\r\nbeing troubled with jealousy not only to torment himself but set all\r\nthings in a hubbub!\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn fine, I am so necessary to the making of all society and manner of\r\nlife both delightful and lasting, that neither would the people long\r\nendure their governors, nor the servant his master, nor the master his\r\nfootman, nor the scholar his tutor, nor one friend another, nor the wife\r\nher husband, nor the usurer the borrower, nor a soldier his commander,\r\nnor one companion another, unless all of them had their interchangeable\r\nfailings, one while flattering, other while prudently conniving, and\r\ngenerally sweetening one another with some small relish of folly.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd now you\u0027d think I had said all, but you shall hear yet greater\r\nthings. Will he, I pray, love anyone that hates himself? Or ever agree\r\nwith another who is not at peace with himself? Or beget pleasure in\r\nanother that is troublesome to himself? I think no one will say it that\r\nis not more foolish than Folly. And yet, if you should exclude me,\r\nthere\u0027s no man but would be so far from enduring another that he would\r\nstink in his own nostrils, be nauseated with his own actions, and himself\r\nbecome odious to himself; forasmuch as Nature, in too many things rather\r\na stepdame than a parent to us, has imprinted that evil in men,\r\nespecially such as have least judgment, that everyone repents him of his\r\nown condition and admires that of others. Whence it comes to pass that\r\nall her gifts, elegancy, and graces corrupt and perish. For what benefit\r\nis beauty, the greatest blessing of heaven, if it be mixed with\r\naffectation? What youth, if corrupted with the severity of old age?\r\nLastly, what is that in the whole business of a man\u0027s life he can do with\r\nany grace to himself or others\u0026mdash;for it is not so much a thing of art, as\r\nthe very life of every action, that it be done with a good mien\u0026mdash;unless\r\nthis my friend and companion, Self-love, be present with it? Nor does she\r\nwithout cause supply me the place of a sister, since her whole endeavors\r\nare to act my part everywhere. For what is more foolish than for a man to\r\nstudy nothing else than how to please himself? To make himself the object\r\nof his own admiration? And yet, what is there that is either delightful\r\nor taking, nay rather what not the contrary, that a man does against the\r\nhair? Take away this salt of life, and the orator may even sit still with\r\nhis action, the musician with all his division will be able to please no\r\nman, the player be hissed off the stage, the poet and all his Muses\r\nridiculous, the painter with his art contemptible, and the physician with\r\nall his slip-slops go a-begging. Lastly, you will be taken for an ugly\r\nfellow instead of youthful, and a beast instead of a wise man, a child\r\ninstead of eloquent, and instead of a well-bred man, a clown. So\r\nnecessary a thing it is that everyone flatter himself and commend himself\r\nto himself before he can be commended by others.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nLastly, since it is the chief point of happiness \"that a man is willing\r\nto be what he is,\" you have further abridged in this my Self-love, that\r\nno man is ashamed of his own face, no man of his own wit, no man of his\r\nown parentage, no man of his own house, no man of his manner of living,\r\nnor any man of his own country; so that a Highlander has no desire to\r\nchange with an Italian, a Thracian with an Athenian, nor a Scythian for\r\nthe Fortunate Islands. O the singular care of Nature, that in so great a\r\nvariety of things has made all equal! Where she has been sometimes\r\nsparing of her gifts she has recompensed it with the more of self-love;\r\nthough here, I must confess, I speak foolishly, it being the greatest of\r\nall other her gifts: to say nothing that no great action was ever\r\nattempted without my motion, or art brought to perfection without my\r\nhelp.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIs not war the very root and matter of all famed enterprises? And yet\r\nwhat more foolish than to undertake it for I know what trifles,\r\nespecially when both parties are sure to lose more than they get by the\r\nbargain? For of those that are slain, not a word of them; and for the\r\nrest, when both sides are close engaged \"and the trumpets make an ugly\r\nnoise,\" what use of those wise men, I pray, that are so exhausted with\r\nstudy that their thin, cold blood has scarce any spirits left? No, it\r\nmust be those blunt, fat fellows, that by how much the more they exceed\r\nin courage, fall short in understanding. Unless perhaps one had rather\r\nchoose Demosthenes for a soldier, who, following the example of\r\nArchilochius, threw away his arms and betook him to his heels e\u0027er he had\r\nscarce seen his enemy; as ill a soldier, as happy an orator.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut counsel, you\u0027ll say, is not of least concern in matters of war. In a\r\ngeneral I grant it; but this thing of warring is not part of philosophy,\r\nbut managed by parasites, panders, thieves, cut-throats, plowmen, sots,\r\nspendthrifts, and such other dregs of mankind, not philosophers; who how\r\nunapt they are even for common converse, let Socrates, whom the oracle of\r\nApollo, though not so wisely, judged \"the wisest of all men living,\" be\r\nwitness; who stepping up to speak somewhat, I know not what, in public\r\nwas forced to come down again well laughed at for his pains. Though yet\r\nin this he was not altogether a fool, that he refused the appellation of\r\nwise, and returning it back to the oracle, delivered his opinion that a\r\nwise man should abstain from meddling with public business; unless\r\nperhaps he should have rather admonished us to beware of wisdom if we\r\nintended to be reckoned among the number of men, there being nothing but\r\nhis wisdom that first accused and afterwards sentenced him to the\r\ndrinking of his poisoned cup. For while, as you find him in Aristophanes,\r\nphilosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring how far a flea could\r\nleap, and admiring that so small a creature as a fly should make so great\r\na buzz, he meddled not with anything that concerned common life. But his\r\nmaster being in danger of his head, his scholar Plato is at hand, to wit\r\nthat famous patron, that being disturbed with the noise of the people,\r\ncould not go through half his first sentence. What should I speak of\r\nTheophrastus, who being about to make an oration, became as dumb as if he\r\nhad met a wolf in his way, which yet would have put courage in a man of\r\nwar? Or Isocrates, that was so cowhearted that he dared never attempt it?\r\nOr Tully, that great founder of the Roman eloquence, that could never\r\nbegin to speak without an odd kind of trembling, like a boy that had got\r\nthe hiccough; which Fabius interprets as an argument of a wise orator and\r\none that was sensible of what he was doing; and while he says it, does he\r\nnot plainly confess that wisdom is a great obstacle to the true\r\nmanagement of business? What would become of them, think you, were they\r\nto fight it out at blows that are so dead through fear when the contest\r\nis only with empty words?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd next to these is cried up, forsooth, that goodly sentence of Plato\u0027s,\r\n\"Happy is that commonwealth where a philosopher is prince, or whose\r\nprince is addicted to philosophy.\" When yet if you consult historians,\r\nyou\u0027ll find no princes more pestilent to the commonwealth than where the\r\nempire has fallen to some smatterer in philosophy or one given to\r\nletters. To the truth of which I think the Catoes give sufficient credit;\r\nof whom the one was ever disturbing the peace of the commonwealth with\r\nhis hair-brained accusations; the other, while he too wisely vindicated\r\nits liberty, quite overthrew it. Add to this the Bruti, Casii, nay Cicero\r\nhimself, that was no less pernicious to the commonwealth of Rome than was\r\nDemosthenes to that of Athens. Besides M. Antoninus (that I may give you\r\none instance that there was once one good emperor; for with much ado I\r\ncan make it out) was become burdensome and hated of his subjects upon no\r\nother score but that he was so great a philosopher. But admitting him\r\ngood, he did the commonwealth more hurt in leaving behind him such a son\r\nas he did than ever he did it good by his own government. For these kind\r\nof men that are so given up to the study of wisdom are generally most\r\nunfortunate, but chiefly in their children; Nature, it seems, so\r\nprovidently ordering it, lest this mischief of wisdom should spread\r\nfurther among mankind. For which reason it is manifest why Cicero\u0027s son\r\nwas so degenerate, and that wise Socrates\u0027 children, as one has well\r\nobserved, were more like their mother than their father, that is to\r\nsay, fools.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nHowever this were to be born with, if only as to public employments they\r\nwere \"like a sow upon a pair of organs,\" were they anything more apt to\r\ndischarge even the common offices of life. Invite a wise man to a feast\r\nand he\u0027ll spoil the company, either with morose silence or troublesome\r\ndisputes. Take him out to dance, and you\u0027ll swear \"a cow would have done\r\nit better.\" Bring him to the theatre, and his very looks are enough to\r\nspoil all, till like Cato he take an occasion of withdrawing rather than\r\nput off his supercilious gravity. Let him fall into discourse, and he\r\nshall make more sudden stops than if he had a wolf before him. Let him\r\nbuy, or sell, or in short go about any of those things without there is\r\nno living in this world, and you\u0027ll say this piece of wisdom were rather\r\na stock than a man, of so little use is he to himself, country, or\r\nfriends; and all because he is wholly ignorant of common things and lives\r\na course of life quite different from the people; by which means it is\r\nimpossible but that he contract a popular odium, to wit, by reason of the\r\ngreat diversity of their life and souls. For what is there at all done\r\namong men that is not full of folly, and that too from fools and to\r\nfools? Against which universal practice if any single one shall dare to\r\nset up his throat, my advice to him is, that following the example of\r\nTimon, he retire into some desert and there enjoy his wisdom to himself.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut, to return to my design, what power was it that drew those stony,\r\noaken, and wild people into cities but flattery? For nothing else is\r\nsignified by Amphion and Orpheus\u0027 harp. What was it that, when the common\r\npeople of Rome were like to have destroyed all by their mutiny, reduced\r\nthem to obedience? Was it a philosophical oration? Least. But a\r\nridiculous and childish fable of the belly and the rest of the members.\r\nAnd as good success had Themistocles in his of the fox and hedgehog. What\r\nwise man\u0027s oration could ever have done so much with the people as\r\nSertorius\u0027 invention of his white hind? Or his ridiculous emblem of\r\npulling off a horse\u0027s tail hair by hair? Or as Lycurgus his example of\r\nhis two whelps? To say nothing of Minos and Numa, both which ruled their\r\nfoolish multitudes with fabulous inventions; with which kind of toys that\r\ngreat and powerful beast, the people, are led anyway. Again what city\r\never received Plato\u0027s or Aristotle\u0027s laws, or Socrates\u0027 precepts? But, on\r\nthe contrary, what made the Decii devote themselves to the infernal gods,\r\nor Q. Curtius to leap into the gulf, but an empty vainglory, a most\r\nbewitching siren? And yet \u0027tis strange it should be so condemned by those\r\nwise philosophers. For what is more foolish, say they, than for a\r\nsuppliant suitor to flatter the people, to buy their favor with gifts, to\r\ncourt the applauses of so many fools, to please himself with their\r\nacclamations, to be carried on the people\u0027s shoulders as in triumph, and\r\nhave a brazen statue in the marketplace? Add to this the adoption of\r\nnames and surnames, those divine honors given to a man of no reputation,\r\nand the deification of the most wicked tyrants with public ceremonies;\r\nmost foolish things, and such as one Democritus is too little to laugh\r\nat. Who denies it? And yet from this root sprang all the great acts of\r\nthe heroes which the pens of so many eloquent men have extolled to the\r\nskies. In a word, this folly is that that laid the foundation of cities;\r\nand by it, empire, authority, religion, policy, and public actions are\r\npreserved; neither is there anything in human life that is not a kind of\r\npastime of folly.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut to speak of arts, what set men\u0027s wits on work to invent and transmit\r\nto posterity so many famous, as they conceive, pieces of learning but the\r\nthirst of glory? With so much loss of sleep, such pains and travail,\r\nhave the most foolish of men thought to purchase themselves a kind of\r\nI know not what fame, than which nothing can be more vain. And yet\r\nnotwithstanding, you owe this advantage to folly, and which is the\r\nmost delectable of all other, that you reap the benefit of other\r\nmen\u0027s madness.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd now, having vindicated to myself the praise of fortitude and\r\nindustry, what think you if I do the same by that of prudence? But some\r\nwill say, you may as well join fire and water. It may be so. But yet I\r\ndoubt not but to succeed even in this also, if, as you have done\r\nhitherto, you will but favor me with your attention. And first, if\r\nprudence depends upon experience, to whom is the honor of that name more\r\nproper? To the wise man, who partly out of modesty and partly distrust of\r\nhimself, attempts nothing; or the fool, whom neither modesty which he\r\nnever had, nor danger which he never considers, can discourage from\r\nanything? The wise man has recourse to the books of the ancients, and\r\nfrom thence picks nothing but subtleties of words. The fool, in\r\nundertaking and venturing on the business of the world, gathers, if I\r\nmistake not, the true prudence, such as Homer though blind may be said to\r\nhave seen when he said, \"The burnt child dreads the fire.\" For there are\r\ntwo main obstacles to the knowledge of things, modesty that casts a mist\r\nbefore the understanding, and fear that, having fancied a danger,\r\ndissuades us from the attempt. But from these folly sufficiently frees\r\nus, and few there are that rightly understand of what great advantage it\r\nis to blush at nothing and attempt everything.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut if you had rather take prudence for that that consists in the\r\njudgment of things, hear me, I beseech you, how far they are from it that\r\nyet crack of the name. For first \u0027tis evident that all human things, like\r\nAlcibiades\u0027 Sileni or rural gods, carry a double face, but not the least\r\nalike; so that what at first sight seems to be death, if you view it\r\nnarrowly may prove to be life; and so the contrary. What appears\r\nbeautiful may chance to be deformed; what wealthy, a very beggar; what\r\ninfamous, praiseworthy; what learned, a dunce; what lusty, feeble; what\r\njocund, sad; what noble, base; what lucky, unfortunate; what friendly, an\r\nenemy; and what healthful, noisome. In short, view the inside of these\r\nSileni, and you\u0027ll find them quite other than what they appear; which, if\r\nperhaps it shall not seem so philosophically spoken, I\u0027ll make it plain\r\nto you \"after my blunt way.\" Who would not conceive a prince a great lord\r\nand abundant in everything? But yet being so ill-furnished with the gifts\r\nof the mind, and ever thinking he shall never have enough, he\u0027s the\r\npoorest of all men. And then for his mind so given up to vice, \u0027tis a\r\nshame how it enslaves him. I might in like manner philosophize of the\r\nrest; but let this one, for example\u0027s sake, be enough.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nYet why this? will someone say. Have patience, and I\u0027ll show you what I\r\ndrive at. If anyone seeing a player acting his part on a stage should go\r\nabout to strip him of his disguise and show him to the people in his true\r\nnative form, would he not, think you, not only spoil the whole design of\r\nthe play, but deserve himself to be pelted off with stones as a\r\nphantastical fool and one out of his wits? But nothing is more common\r\nwith them than such changes; the same person one while impersonating a\r\nwoman, and another while a man; now a youngster, and by and by a grim\r\nseignior; now a king, and presently a peasant; now a god, and in a trice\r\nagain an ordinary fellow. But to discover this were to spoil all, it\r\nbeing the only thing that entertains the eyes of the spectators. And what\r\nis all this life but a kind of comedy, wherein men walk up and down in\r\none another\u0027s disguises and act their respective parts, till the\r\nproperty-man brings them back to the attiring house. And yet he often\r\norders a different dress, and makes him that came but just now off in the\r\nrobes of a king put on the rags of a beggar. Thus are all things\r\nrepresented by counterfeit, and yet without this there was no living.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd here if any wise man, as it were dropped from heaven, should start up\r\nand cry, this great thing whom the world looks upon for a god and I know\r\nnot what is not so much as a man, for that like a beast he is led by his\r\npassions, but the worst of slaves, inasmuch as he gives himself up\r\nwillingly to so many and such detestable masters. Again if he should bid\r\na man that were bewailing the death of his father to laugh, for that he\r\nnow began to live by having got an estate, without which life is but a\r\nkind of death; or call another that were boasting of his family ill\r\nbegotten or base, because he is so far removed from virtue that is the\r\nonly fountain of nobility; and so of the rest: what else would he get by\r\nit but be thought himself mad and frantic? For as nothing is more foolish\r\nthan preposterous wisdom, so nothing is more unadvised than a forward\r\nunseasonable prudence. And such is his that does not comply with the\r\npresent time \"and order himself as the market goes,\" but forgetting that\r\nlaw of feasts, \"either drink or begone,\" undertakes to disprove a common\r\nreceived opinion. Whereas on the contrary \u0027tis the part of a truly\r\nprudent man not to be wise beyond his condition, but either to take no\r\nnotice of what the world does, or run with it for company. But this is\r\nfoolish, you\u0027ll say; nor shall I deny it, provided always you be so civil\r\non the other side as to confess that this is to act a part in that world.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut, O you gods, \"shall I speak or hold my tongue?\" But why should I be\r\nsilent in a thing that is more true than truth itself? However it might\r\nnot be amiss perhaps in so great an affair to call forth the Muses from\r\nHelicon, since the poets so often invoke them upon every foolish\r\noccasion. Be present then awhile, and assist me, you daughters of\r\nJupiter, while I make it out that there is no way to that so much famed\r\nwisdom, nor access to that fortress as they call it of happiness, but\r\nunder the banner of Folly. And first \u0027tis agreed of all hands that our\r\npassions belong to Folly; inasmuch as we judge a wise man from a fool by\r\nthis, that the one is ordered by them, the other by reason; and therefore\r\nthe Stoics remove from a wise man all disturbances of mind as so many\r\ndiseases. But these passions do not only the office of a tutor to such as\r\nare making towards the port of wisdom, but are in every exercise of\r\nvirtue as it were spurs and incentives, nay and encouragers to well\r\ndoing: which though that great Stoic Seneca most strongly denies, and\r\ntakes from a wise man all affections whatever, yet in doing that he\r\nleaves him not so much as a man but rather a new kind of god that was\r\nnever yet nor ever like to be. Nay, to speak plainer, he sets up a stony\r\nsemblance of a man, void of all sense and common feeling of humanity. And\r\nmuch good to them with this wise man of theirs; let them enjoy him to\r\nthemselves, love him without competitors, and live with him in Plato\u0027s\r\ncommonwealth, the country of ideas, or Tantalus\u0027 orchards. For who would\r\nnot shun and startle at such a man, as at some unnatural accident or\r\nspirit? A man dead to all sense of nature and common affections, and no\r\nmore moved with love or pity than if he were a flint or rock; whose\r\ncensure nothing escapes; that commits no errors himself, but has a lynx\u0027s\r\neyes upon others; measures everything by an exact line, and forgives\r\nnothing; pleases himself with himself only; the only rich, the only wise,\r\nthe only free man, and only king; in brief, the only man that is\r\neverything, but in his own single judgment only; that cares not for the\r\nfriendship of any man, being himself a friend to no man; makes no doubt\r\nto make the gods stoop to him, and condemns and laughs at the whole\r\nactions of our life? And yet such a beast is this their perfect wise man.\r\nBut tell me pray, if the thing were to be carried by most voices, what\r\ncity would choose him for its governor, or what army desire him for their\r\ngeneral? What woman would have such a husband, what goodfellow such a\r\nguest, or what servant would either wish or endure such a master? Nay,\r\nwho had not rather have one of the middle sort of fools, who, being a\r\nfool himself, may the better know how to command or obey fools; and who\r\nthough he please his like, \u0027tis yet the greater number; one that is kind\r\nto his wife, merry among his friends, a boon companion, and easy to be\r\nlived with; and lastly one that thinks nothing of humanity should be a\r\nstranger to him? But I am weary of this wise man, and therefore I\u0027ll\r\nproceed to some other advantages.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nGo to then. Suppose a man in some lofty high tower, and that he could\r\nlook round him, as the poets say Jupiter was now and then wont. To how\r\nmany misfortunes would he find the life of man subject? How miserable, to\r\nsay no worse, our birth, how difficult our education; to how many wrongs\r\nour childhood exposed, to what pains our youth; how unsupportable our old\r\nage, and grievous our unavoidable death? As also what troops of diseases\r\nbeset us, how many casualties hang over our heads, how many troubles\r\ninvade us, and how little there is that is not steeped in gall? To say\r\nnothing of those evils one man brings upon another, as poverty,\r\nimprisonment, infamy, dishonesty, racks, snares, treachery, reproaches,\r\nactions, deceits\u0026mdash;but I\u0027m got into as endless a work as numbering the\r\nsands\u0026mdash;for what offenses mankind have deserved these things, or what\r\nangry god compelled them to be born into such miseries is not my present\r\nbusiness. Yet he that shall diligently examine it with himself, would he\r\nnot, think you, approve the example of the Milesian virgins and kill\r\nhimself? But who are they that for no other reason but that they were\r\nweary of life have hastened their own fate? Were they not the next\r\nneighbors to wisdom? among whom, to say nothing of Diogenes, Xenocrates,\r\nCato, Cassius, Brutus, that wise man Chiron, being offered immortality,\r\nchose rather to die than be troubled with the same thing always.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd now I think you see what would become of the world if all men should\r\nbe wise; to wit it were necessary we got another kind of clay and some\r\nbetter potter. But I, partly through ignorance, partly unadvisedness, and\r\nsometimes through forgetfulness of evil, do now and then so sprinkle\r\npleasure with the hopes of good and sweeten men up in their greatest\r\nmisfortunes that they are not willing to leave this life, even then when\r\naccording to the account of the destinies this life has left them; and by\r\nhow much the less reason they have to live, by so much the more they\r\ndesire it; so far are they from being sensible of the least wearisomeness\r\nof life. Of my gift it is, that you have so many old Nestors everywhere\r\nthat have scarce left them so much as the shape of a man; stutterers,\r\ndotards, toothless, gray-haired, bald; or rather, to use the words of\r\nAristophanes, \"Nasty, crumpled, miserable, shriveled, bald, toothless,\r\nand wanting their baubles,\" yet so delighted with life and to be thought\r\nyoung that one dyes his gray hairs; another covers his baldness with a\r\nperiwig; another gets a set of new teeth; another falls desperately in\r\nlove with a young wench and keeps more flickering about her than a young\r\nman would have been ashamed of. For to see such an old crooked piece with\r\none foot in the grave to marry a plump young wench, and that too without\r\na portion, is so common that men almost expect to be commended for it.\r\nBut the best sport of all is to see our old women, even dead with age,\r\nand such skeletons one would think they had stolen out of their graves,\r\nand ever mumbling in their mouths, \"Life is sweet;\" and as old as they\r\nare, still caterwauling, daily plastering their face, scarce ever from\r\nthe glass, gossiping, dancing, and writing love letters. These things are\r\nlaughed at as foolish, as indeed they are; yet they please themselves,\r\nlive merrily, swim in pleasure, and in a word are happy, by my courtesy.\r\nBut I would have them to whom these things seem ridiculous to consider\r\nwith themselves whether it be not better to live so pleasant a life in\r\nsuch kind of follies, than, as the proverb goes, \"to take a halter and\r\nhang themselves.\" Besides though these things may be subject to censure,\r\nit concerns not my fools in the least, inasmuch as they take no notice of\r\nit; or if they do, they easily neglect it. If a stone fall upon a man\u0027s\r\nhead, that\u0027s evil indeed; but dishonesty, infamy, villainy, ill reports\r\ncarry no more hurt in them than a man is sensible of; and if a man have\r\nno sense of them, they are no longer evils. What are you the worse if the\r\npeople hiss at you, so you applaud yourself? And that a man be able to do\r\nso, he must owe it to folly.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut methinks I hear the philosophers opposing it and saying \u0027tis a\r\nmiserable thing for a man to be foolish, to err, mistake, and know\r\nnothing truly. Nay rather, this is to be a man. And why they should call\r\nit miserable, I see no reason; forasmuch as we are so born, so bred, so\r\ninstructed, nay such is the common condition of us all. And nothing can\r\nbe called miserable that suits with its kind, unless perhaps you\u0027ll think\r\na man such because he can neither fly with birds, nor walk on all four\r\nwith beasts, and is not armed with horns as a bull. For by the same\r\nreason he would call the warlike horse unfortunate, because he understood\r\nnot grammar, nor ate cheese-cakes; and the bull miserable, because he\u0027d\r\nmake so ill a wrestler. And therefore, as a horse that has no skill in\r\ngrammar is not miserable, no more is man in this respect, for that they\r\nagree with his nature. But again, the virtuosi may say that there was\r\nparticularly added to man the knowledge of sciences, by whose help he\r\nmight recompense himself in understanding for what nature cut him short\r\nin other things. As if this had the least face of truth, that Nature that\r\nwas so solicitously watchful in the production of gnats, herbs, and\r\nflowers should have so slept when she made man, that he should have need\r\nto be helped by sciences, which that old devil Theuth, the evil genius of\r\nmankind, first invented for his destruction, and are so little conducive\r\nto happiness that they rather obstruct it; to which purpose they are\r\nproperly said to be first found out, as that wise king in Plato argues\r\ntouching the invention of letters.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nSciences therefore crept into the world with other the pests of mankind,\r\nfrom the same head from whence all other mischiefs spring; we\u0027ll suppose\r\nit devils, for so the name imports when you call them demons, that is to\r\nsay, knowing. For that simple people of the golden age, being wholly\r\nignorant of everything called learning, lived only by the guidance and\r\ndictates of nature; for what use of grammar, where every man spoke the\r\nsame language and had no further design than to understand one another?\r\nWhat use of logic, where there was no bickering about the double-meaning\r\nwords? What need of rhetoric, where there were no lawsuits? Or to what\r\npurpose laws, where there were no ill manners? from which without doubt\r\ngood laws first came. Besides, they were more religious than with an\r\nimpious curiosity to dive into the secrets of nature, the dimension of\r\nstars, the motions, effects, and hidden causes of things; as believing it\r\na crime for any man to attempt to be wise beyond his condition. And as to\r\nthe inquiry of what was beyond heaven, that madness never came into their\r\nheads. But the purity of the golden age declining by degrees, first, as I\r\nsaid before, arts were invented by the evil genii; and yet but few, and\r\nthose too received by fewer. After that the Chaldean superstition and\r\nGreek newfangledness, that had little to do, added I know not how many\r\nmore; mere torments of wit, and that so great that even grammar alone is\r\nwork enough for any man for his whole life.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThough yet among these sciences those only are in esteem that come\r\nnearest to common sense, that is to say, folly. Divines are half starved,\r\nnaturalists out of heart, astrologers laughed at, and logicians slighted;\r\nonly the physician is worth all the rest. And among them too, the more\r\nunlearned, impudent, or unadvised he is, the more he is esteemed, even\r\namong princes. For physic, especially as it is now professed by most men,\r\nis nothing but a branch of flattery, no less than rhetoric. Next them,\r\nthe second place is given to our law-drivers, if not the first, whose\r\nprofession, though I say it myself, most men laugh at as the ass of\r\nphilosophy; yet there\u0027s scarce any business, either so great or so small,\r\nbut is managed by these asses. These purchase their great lordships,\r\nwhile in the meantime the divine, having run through the whole body of\r\ndivinity, sits gnawing a radish and is in continual warfare with lice and\r\nfleas. As therefore those arts are best that have the nearest affinity\r\nwith folly, so are they most happy of all others that have least commerce\r\nwith sciences and follow the guidance of Nature, who is in no wise\r\nimperfect, unless perhaps we endeavor to leap over those bounds she has\r\nappointed to us. Nature hates all false coloring and is ever best where\r\nshe is least adulterated with art.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nGo to then, don\u0027t you find among the several kinds of living creatures\r\nthat they thrive best that understand no more than what Nature taught\r\nthem? What is more prosperous or wonderful than the bee? And though they\r\nhave not the same judgment of sense as other bodies have, yet wherein has\r\narchitecture gone beyond their building of houses? What philosopher ever\r\nfounded the like republic? Whereas the horse, that comes so near man in\r\nunderstanding and is therefore so familiar with him, is also partaker of\r\nhis misery. For while he thinks it a shame to lose the race, it often\r\nhappens that he cracks his wind; and in the battle, while he contends for\r\nvictory, he\u0027s cut down himself, and, together with his rider \"lies biting\r\nthe earth;\" not to mention those strong bits, sharp spurs, close stables,\r\narms, blows, rider, and briefly, all that slavery he willingly submits\r\nto, while, imitating those men of valor, he so eagerly strives to be\r\nrevenged of the enemy. Than which how much more were the life of flies or\r\nbirds to be wished for, who living by the instinct of nature, look no\r\nfurther than the present, if yet man would but let them alone in it. And\r\nif at anytime they chance to be taken, and being shut up in cages\r\nendeavor to imitate our speaking, \u0027tis strange how they degenerate from\r\ntheir native gaiety. So much better in every respect are the works of\r\nnature than the adulteries of art.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn like manner I can never sufficiently praise that Pythagoras in a\r\ndunghill cock, who being but one had been yet everything, a philosopher,\r\na man, a woman, a king, a private man, a fish, a horse, a frog, and, I\r\nbelieve too, a sponge; and at last concluded that no creature was more\r\nmiserable than man, for that all other creatures are content with those\r\nbounds that nature set them, only man endeavors to exceed them. And\r\nagain, among men he gives the precedency not to the learned or the great,\r\nbut the fool. Nor had that Gryllus less wit than Ulysses with his many\r\ncounsels, who chose rather to lie grunting in a hog sty than be exposed\r\nwith the other to so many hazards. Nor does Homer, that father of\r\ntrifles, dissent from me; who not only called all men \"wretched and full\r\nof calamity,\" but often his great pattern of wisdom, Ulysses,\r\n\"miserable;\" Paris, Ajax, and Achilles nowhere. And why, I pray but that,\r\nlike a cunning fellow and one that was his craft\u0027s master, he did nothing\r\nwithout the advice of Pallas? In a word he was too wise, and by that\r\nmeans ran wide of nature. As therefore among men they are least happy\r\nthat study wisdom, as being in this twice fools, that when they are born\r\nmen, they should yet so far forget their condition as to affect the life\r\nof gods; and after the example of the giants, with their philosophical\r\ngimcracks make a war upon nature: so they on the other side seem as\r\nlittle miserable as is possible who come nearest to beasts and never\r\nattempt anything beyond man. Go to then, let\u0027s try how demonstrable this\r\nis; not by enthymemes or the imperfect syllogisms of the Stoics, but by\r\nplain, downright, and ordinary examples.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd now, by the immortal gods! I think nothing more happy than that\r\ngeneration of men we commonly call fools, idiots, lack-wits, and dolts;\r\nsplendid titles too, as I conceive them. I\u0027ll tell you a thing, which at\r\nfirst perhaps may seem foolish and absurd, yet nothing more true. And\r\nfirst they are not afraid of death\u0026mdash;no small evil, by Jupiter! They are\r\nnot tormented with the conscience of evil acts, not terrified with the\r\nfables of ghosts, nor frightened with spirits and goblins. They are not\r\ndistracted with the fear of evils to come nor the hopes of future good.\r\nIn short, they are not disturbed with those thousand of cares to which\r\nthis life is subject. They are neither modest, nor fearful, nor\r\nambitious, nor envious, nor love they any man. And lastly, if they should\r\ncome nearer even to the very ignorance of brutes, they could not sin, for\r\nso hold the divines. And now tell me, you wise fool, with how many\r\ntroublesome cares your mind is continually perplexed; heap together all\r\nthe discommodities of your life, and then you\u0027ll be sensible from how\r\nmany evils I have delivered my fools. Add to this that they are not only\r\nmerry, play, sing, and laugh themselves, but make mirth wherever they\r\ncome, a special privilege it seems the gods have given them to refresh\r\nthe pensiveness of life. Whence it is that whereas the world is so\r\ndifferently affected one towards another, that all men indifferently\r\nadmit them as their companions, desire, feed, cherish, embrace them, take\r\ntheir parts upon all occasions, and permit them without offense to do or\r\nsay what they like. And so little does everything desire to hurt them,\r\nthat even the very beasts, by a kind of natural instinct of their\r\ninnocence no doubt, pass by their injuries. For of them it may be truly\r\nsaid that they are consecrate to the gods, and therefore and not without\r\ncause do men have them in such esteem. Whence is it else that they are in\r\nso great request with princes that they can neither eat nor drink, go\r\nanywhere, or be an hour without them? Nay, and in some degree they prefer\r\nthese fools before their crabbish wise men, whom yet they keep about them\r\nfor state\u0027s sake. Nor do I conceive the reason so difficult, or that it\r\nshould seem strange why they are preferred before the others, for that\r\nthese wise men speak to princes about nothing but grave, serious matters,\r\nand trusting to their own parts and learning do not fear sometimes \"to\r\ngrate their tender ears with smart truths;\" but fools fit them with that\r\nthey most delight in, as jests, laughter, abuses of other men, wanton\r\npastimes, and the like.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAgain, take notice of this no contemptible blessing which Nature has\r\ngiven fools, that they are the only plain, honest men and such as speak\r\ntruth. And what is more commendable than truth? For though that proverb\r\nof Alcibiades in Plato attributes truth to drunkards and children, yet\r\nthe praise of it is particularly mine, even from the testimony of\r\nEuripides, among whose other things there is extant that his honorable\r\nsaying concerning us, \"A fool speaks foolish things.\" For whatever a fool\r\nhas in his heart, he both shows it in his looks and expresses it in his\r\ndiscourse; while the wise men\u0027s are those two tongues which the same\r\nEuripides mentions, whereof the one speaks truth, the other what they\r\njudge most seasonable for the occasion. These are they \"that turn black\r\ninto white,\" blow hot and cold with the same breath, and carry a far\r\ndifferent meaning in their breast from what they feign with their tongue.\r\nYet in the midst of all their prosperity, princes in this respect seem to\r\nme most unfortunate, because, having no one to tell them truth, they are\r\nforced to receive flatterers for friends.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut, someone may say, the ears of princes are strangers to truth, and for\r\nthis reason they avoid those wise men, because they fear lest someone\r\nmore frank than the rest should dare to speak to them things rather true\r\nthan pleasant; for so the matter is, that they don\u0027t much care for truth.\r\nAnd yet this is found by experience among my fools, that not only truths\r\nbut even open reproaches are heard with pleasure; so that the same thing\r\nwhich, if it came from a wise man\u0027s mouth might prove a capital crime,\r\nspoken by a fool is received with delight. For truth carries with it a\r\ncertain peculiar power of pleasing, if no accident fall in to give\r\noccasion of offense; which faculty the gods have given only to fools. And\r\nfor the same reasons is it that women are so earnestly delighted with\r\nthis kind of men, as being more propense by nature to pleasure and toys.\r\nAnd whatsoever they may happen to do with them, although sometimes it be\r\nof the most serious, yet they turn it to jest and laughter, as that sex\r\nwas ever quick-witted, especially to color their own faults.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut to return to the happiness of fools, who when they have passed over\r\nthis life with a great deal of pleasantness and without so much as the\r\nleast fear or sense of death, they go straight forth into the Elysian\r\nfield, to recreate their pious and careless souls with such sports as\r\nthey used here. Let\u0027s proceed then, and compare the condition of any of\r\nyour wise men with that of this fool. Fancy to me now some example of\r\nwisdom you\u0027d set up against him; one that had spent his childhood and\r\nyouth in learning the sciences and lost the sweetest part of his life in\r\nwatchings, cares, studies, and for the remaining part of it never so much\r\nas tasted the least of pleasure; ever sparing, poor, sad, sour, unjust,\r\nand rigorous to himself, and troublesome and hateful to others; broken\r\nwith paleness, leanness, crassness, sore eyes, and an old age and death\r\ncontracted before their time (though yet, what matter is it, when he die\r\nthat never lived?); and such is the picture of this great wise man.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd here again do those frogs of the Stoics croak at me and say that\r\nnothing is more miserable than madness. But folly is the next degree, if\r\nnot the very thing. For what else is madness than for a man to be out of\r\nhis wits? But to let them see how they are clean out of the way, with the\r\nMuses\u0027 good favor we\u0027ll take this syllogism in pieces. Subtly argued, I\r\nmust confess, but as Socrates in Plato teaches us how by splitting one\r\nVenus and one Cupid to make two of either, in like manner should those\r\nlogicians have done and distinguished madness from madness, if at least\r\nthey would be thought to be well in their wits themselves. For all\r\nmadness is not miserable, or Horace had never called his poetical fury a\r\nbeloved madness; nor Plato placed the raptures of poets, prophets, and\r\nlovers among the chiefest blessings of this life; nor that sibyl in\r\nVirgil called Aeneas\u0027 travels mad labors. But there are two sorts of\r\nmadness, the one that which the revengeful Furies send privily from hell,\r\nas often as they let loose their snakes and put into men\u0027s breasts either\r\nthe desire of war, or an insatiate thirst after gold, or some dishonest\r\nlove, or parricide, or incest, or sacrilege, or the like plagues, or when\r\nthey terrify some guilty soul with the conscience of his crimes; the\r\nother, but nothing like this, that which comes from me and is of all\r\nother things the most desirable; which happens as often as some pleasing\r\ndotage not only clears the mind of its troublesome cares but renders it\r\nmore jocund. And this was that which, as a special blessing of the gods,\r\nCicero, writing to his friend Atticus, wished to himself, that he might\r\nbe the less sensible of those miseries that then hung over the\r\ncommonwealth.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nNor was that Grecian in Horace much wide of it, who was so far made that\r\nhe would sit by himself whole days in the theatre laughing and clapping\r\nhis hands, as if he had seen some tragedy acting, whereas in truth there\r\nwas nothing presented; yet in other things a man well enough, pleasant\r\namong his friends, kind to his wife, and so good a master to his servants\r\nthat if they had broken the seal of his bottle, he would not have run mad\r\nfor it. But at last, when by the care of his friends and physic he was\r\nfreed from his distemper and become his own man again, he thus\r\nexpostulates with them, \"Now, by Pollux, my friends, you have rather\r\nkilled than preserved me in thus forcing me from my pleasure.\" By which\r\nyou see he liked it so well that he lost it against his will. And trust\r\nme, I think they were the madder of the two, and had the greater need of\r\nhellebore, that should offer to look upon so pleasant a madness as an\r\nevil to be removed by physic; though yet I have not determined whether\r\nevery distemper of the sense or understanding be to be called madness.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nFor neither he that having weak eyes should take a mule for an ass, nor\r\nhe that should admire an insipid poem as excellent would be presently\r\nthought mad; but he that not only errs in his senses but is deceived also\r\nin his judgment, and that too more than ordinary and upon all\r\noccasions\u0026mdash;he, I must confess, would be thought to come very near to it.\r\nAs if anyone hearing an ass bray should take it for excellent music, or a\r\nbeggar conceive himself a king. And yet this kind of madness, if, as it\r\ncommonly happens, it turn to pleasure, it brings a great delight not only\r\nto them that are possessed with it but to those also that behold it,\r\nthough perhaps they may not be altogether so mad as the other, for the\r\nspecies of this madness is much larger than the people take it to be. For\r\none mad man laughs at another, and beget themselves a mutual pleasure.\r\nNor does it seldom happen that he that is the more mad, laughs at him\r\nthat is less mad. And in this every man is the more happy in how many\r\nrespects the more he is mad; and if I were judge in the case, he should\r\nbe ranged in that class of folly that is peculiarly mine, which in truth\r\nis so large and universal that I scarce know anyone in all mankind that\r\nis wise at all hours, or has not some tang or other of madness.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd to this class do they appertain that slight everything in comparison\r\nof hunting and protest they take an unimaginable pleasure to hear the\r\nyell of the horns and the yelps of the hounds, and I believe could pick\r\nsomewhat extraordinary out of their very excrement. And then what\r\npleasure they take to see a buck or the like unlaced? Let ordinary\r\nfellows cut up an ox or a wether, \u0027twere a crime to have this done by\r\nanything less than a gentleman! who with his hat off, on his bare knees,\r\nand a couteau for that purpose (for every sword or knife is not\r\nallowable), with a curious superstition and certain postures, lays open\r\nthe several parts in their respective order; while they that hem him in\r\nadmire it with silence, as some new religious ceremony, though perhaps\r\nthey have seen it a hundred times before. And if any of them chance to\r\nget the least piece of it, he presently thinks himself no small\r\ngentleman. In all which they drive at nothing more than to become beasts\r\nthemselves, while yet they imagine they live the life of princes.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd next these may be reckoned those that have such an itch of building;\r\none while changing rounds into squares, and presently again squares into\r\nrounds, never knowing either measure or end, till at last, reduced to the\r\nutmost poverty, there remains not to them so much as a place where they\r\nmay lay their head, or wherewith to fill their bellies. And why all this?\r\nbut that they may pass over a few years in feeding their foolish fancies.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd, in my opinion, next these may be reckoned such as with their new\r\ninventions and occult arts undertake to change the forms of things and\r\nhunt all about after a certain fifth essence; men so bewitched with this\r\npresent hope that it never repents them of their pains or expense, but\r\nare ever contriving how they may cheat themselves, till, having spent\r\nall, there is not enough left them to provide another furnace. And yet\r\nthey have not done dreaming these their pleasant dreams but encourage\r\nothers, as much as in them lies, to the same happiness. And at last, when\r\nthey are quite lost in all their expectations, they cheer up themselves\r\nwith this sentence, \"In great things the very attempt is enough,\" and\r\nthen complain of the shortness of man\u0027s life that is not sufficient for\r\nso great an understanding.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd then for gamesters, I am a little doubtful whether they are to be\r\nadmitted into our college; and yet \u0027tis a foolish and ridiculous sight to\r\nsee some addicted so to it that they can no sooner hear the rattling of\r\nthe dice but their heart leaps and dances again. And then when time after\r\ntime they are so far drawn on with the hopes of winning that they have\r\nmade shipwreck of all, and having split their ship on that rock of dice,\r\nno less terrible than the bishop and his clerks, scarce got alive to\r\nshore, they choose rather to cheat any man of their just debts than not\r\npay the money they lost, lest otherwise, forsooth, they be thought no men\r\nof their words. Again what is it, I pray, to see old fellows and half\r\nblind to play with spectacles? Nay, and when a justly deserved gout has\r\nknotted their knuckles, to hire a caster, or one that may put the dice in\r\nthe box for them? A pleasant thing, I must confess, did it not for the\r\nmost part end in quarrels, and therefore belongs rather to the Furies\r\nthan me.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut there is no doubt but that that kind of men are wholly ours who love\r\nto hear or tell feigned miracles and strange lies and are never weary of\r\nany tale, though never so long, so it be of ghosts, spirits, goblins,\r\ndevils, or the like; which the further they are from truth, the more\r\nreadily they are believed and the more do they tickle their itching ears.\r\nAnd these serve not only to pass away time but bring profit, especially\r\nto mass priests and pardoners. And next to these are they that have\r\ngotten a foolish but pleasant persuasion that if they can but see a\r\nwooden or painted Polypheme Christopher, they shall not die that day; or\r\ndo but salute a carved Barbara, in the usual set form, that he shall\r\nreturn safe from battle; or make his application to Erasmus on certain\r\ndays with some small wax candles and proper prayers, that he shall\r\nquickly be rich. Nay, they have gotten a Hercules, another Hippolytus,\r\nand a St. George, whose horse most religiously set out with trappings and\r\nbosses there wants little but they worship; however, they endeavor to\r\nmake him their friend by some present or other, and to swear by his\r\nmaster\u0027s brazen helmet is an oath for a prince. Or what should I say of\r\nthem that hug themselves with their counterfeit pardons; that have\r\nmeasured purgatory by an hourglass, and can without the least mistake\r\ndemonstrate its ages, years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds,\r\nas it were in a mathematical table? Or what of those who, having\r\nconfidence in certain magical charms and short prayers invented by some\r\npious imposter, either for his soul\u0027s health or profit\u0027s sake, promise to\r\nthemselves everything: wealth, honor, pleasure, plenty, good health, long\r\nlife, lively old age, and the next place to Christ in the other world,\r\nwhich yet they desire may not happen too soon, that is to say before the\r\npleasures of this life have left them?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd now suppose some merchant, soldier, or judge, out of so many rapines,\r\nparts with some small piece of money. He straight conceives all that sink\r\nof his whole life quite cleansed; so many perjuries, so many lusts, so\r\nmany debaucheries, so many contentions, so many murders, so many deceits,\r\nso many breaches of trusts, so many treacheries bought off, as it were by\r\ncompact; and so bought off that they may begin upon a new score. But what\r\nis more foolish than those, or rather more happy, who daily reciting\r\nthose seven verses of the Psalms promise to themselves more than the top\r\nof felicity? Which magical verses some devil or other, a merry one\r\nwithout doubt but more a blab of his tongue than crafty, is believed to\r\nhave discovered to St. Bernard, but not without a trick. And these are so\r\nfoolish that I am half ashamed of them myself, and yet they are approved,\r\nand that not only by the common people but even the professors of\r\nreligion. And what, are not they also almost the same where several\r\ncountries avouch to themselves their peculiar saint, and as everyone of\r\nthem has his particular gift, so also his particular form of worship? As,\r\none is good for the toothache; another for groaning women; a third, for\r\nstolen goods; a fourth, for making a voyage prosperous; and a fifth, to\r\ncure sheep of the rot; and so of the rest, for it would be too tedious to\r\nrun over all. And some there are that are good for more things than one;\r\nbut chiefly, the Virgin Mother, to whom the common people do in a manner\r\nattribute more than to the Son.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nYet what do they beg of these saints but what belongs to folly? To\r\nexamine it a little. Among all those offerings which are so frequently\r\nhung up in churches, nay up to the very roof of some of them, did you\r\never see the least acknowledgment from anyone that had left his folly, or\r\ngrown a hair\u0027s breadth the wiser? One escapes a shipwreck, and he gets\r\nsafe to shore. Another, run through in a duel, recovers. Another, while\r\nthe rest were fighting, ran out of the field, no less luckily than\r\nvaliantly. Another, condemned to be hanged, by the favor of some saint or\r\nother, a friend to thieves, got off himself by impeaching his fellows.\r\nAnother escaped by breaking prison. Another recovered from his fever in\r\nspite of his physician. Another\u0027s poison turning to a looseness proved\r\nhis remedy rather than death; and that to his wife\u0027s no small sorrow, in\r\nthat she lost both her labor and her charge. Another\u0027s cart broke, and he\r\nsaved his horses. Another preserved from the fall of a house. All these\r\nhang up their tablets, but no one gives thanks for his recovery from\r\nfolly; so sweet a thing it is not to be wise, that on the contrary men\r\nrather pray against anything than folly.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut why do I launch out into this ocean of superstitions? Had I a hundred\r\ntongues, as many mouths, and a voice never so strong, yet were I not able\r\nto run over the several sorts of fools or all the names of folly, so\r\nthick do they swarm everywhere. And yet your priests make no scruple to\r\nreceive and cherish them as proper instruments of profit; whereas if some\r\nscurvy wise fellow should step up and speak things as they are, as, to\r\nlive well is the way to die well; the best way to get quit of sin is to\r\nadd to the money you give the hatred of sin, tears, watchings, prayers,\r\nfastings, and amendment of life; such or such a saint will favor you, if\r\nyou imitate his life\u0026mdash;these, I say, and the like\u0026mdash;should this wise man\r\nchat to the people, from what happiness into how great troubles would he\r\ndraw them?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOf this college also are they who in their lifetime appoint with what\r\nsolemnity they\u0027ll be buried, and particularly set down how many torches,\r\nhow many mourners, how many singers, how many almsmen they will have at\r\nit; as if any sense of it could come to them, or that it were a shame to\r\nthem that their corpse were not honorably interred; so curious are they\r\nherein, as if, like the aediles of old, these were to present some shows\r\nor banquet to the people.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd though I am in haste, yet I cannot yet pass by them who, though they\r\ndiffer nothing from the meanest cobbler, yet \u0027tis scarcely credible how\r\nthey flatter themselves with the empty title of nobility. One derives his\r\npedigree from Aeneas, another from Brutus, a third from the star by the\r\ntail of Ursa Major. They show you on every side the statues and pictures\r\nof their ancestors; run over their great-grandfathers and the\r\ngreat-great-grandfathers of both lines, and the ancient matches of their\r\nfamilies, when themselves yet are but once removed from a statue, if not\r\nworse than those trifles they boast of. And yet by means of this pleasant\r\nself-love they live a happy life. Nor are they less fools who admire\r\nthese beasts as if they were gods.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut what do I speak of any one or the other particular kind of men, as if\r\nthis self-love had not the same effect everywhere and rendered most men\r\nsuperabundantly happy? As when a fellow, more deformed than a baboon,\r\nshall believe himself handsomer than Homer\u0027s Nereus. Another, as soon as\r\nhe can draw two or three lines with a compass, presently thinks himself a\r\nEuclid. A third, that understands music no more than my horse, and for\r\nhis voice as hoarse as a dunghill cock, shall yet conceive himself\r\nanother Hermogenes. But of all madness that\u0027s the most pleasant when a\r\nman, seeing another any way excellent in what he pretends to himself,\r\nmakes his boasts of it as confidently as if it were his own. And such was\r\nthat rich fellow in Seneca, who whenever he told a story had his servants\r\nat his elbow to prompt him the names; and to that height had they\r\nflattered him that he did not question but he might venture a rubber at\r\ncuffs, a man otherwise so weak he could scarce stand, only presuming on\r\nthis, that he had a company of sturdy servants about him.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOr to what purpose is it I should mind you of our professors of arts?\r\nForasmuch as this self-love is so natural to them all that they had\r\nrather part with their father\u0027s land than their foolish opinions; but\r\nchiefly players, fiddlers, orators, and poets, of which the more ignorant\r\neach of them is, the more insolently he pleases himself, that is to say\r\nvaunts and spreads out his plumes. And like lips find like lettuce; nay,\r\nthe more foolish anything is, the more \u0027tis admired, the greater number\r\nbeing ever tickled at the worst things, because, as I said before, most\r\nmen are so subject to folly. And therefore if the more foolish a man is,\r\nthe more he pleases himself and is admired by others, to what purpose\r\nshould he beat his brains about true knowledge, which first will cost him\r\ndear, and next render him the more troublesome and less confident, and\r\nlastly, please only a few?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd now I consider it, Nature has planted, not only in particular men but\r\neven in every nation, and scarce any city is there without it, a kind of\r\ncommon self-love. And hence is it that the English, besides other things,\r\nparticularly challenge to themselves beauty, music, and feasting. The\r\nScots are proud of their nobility, alliance to the crown, and logical\r\nsubtleties. The French think themselves the only well-bred men. The\r\nParisians, excluding all others, arrogate to themselves the only\r\nknowledge of divinity. The Italians affirm they are the only masters of\r\ngood letters and eloquence, and flatter themselves on this account, that\r\nof all others they only are not barbarous. In which kind of happiness\r\nthose of Rome claim the first place, still dreaming to themselves of\r\nsomewhat, I know not what, of old Rome. The Venetians fancy themselves\r\nhappy in the opinion of their nobility. The Greeks, as if they were the\r\nonly authors of sciences, swell themselves with the titles of the ancient\r\nheroes. The Turk, and all that sink of the truly barbarous, challenge to\r\nthemselves the only glory of religion and laugh at Christians as\r\nsuperstitious. And much more pleasantly the Jews expect to this day the\r\ncoming of the Messiah, and so obstinately contend for their Law of Moses.\r\nThe Spaniards give place to none in the reputation of soldiery. The\r\nGermans pride themselves in their tallness of stature and skill in magic.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd, not to instance in every particular, you see, I conceive, how much\r\nsatisfaction this Self-love, who has a sister also not unlike herself\r\ncalled Flattery, begets everywhere; for self-love is no more than the\r\nsoothing of a man\u0027s self, which, done to another, is flattery. And though\r\nperhaps at this day it may be thought infamous, yet it is so only with\r\nthem that are more taken with words than things. They think truth is\r\ninconsistent with flattery, but that it is much otherwise we may learn\r\nfrom the examples of true beasts. What more fawning than a dog? And yet\r\nwhat more trusty? What has more of those little tricks than a squirrel?\r\nAnd yet what more loving to man? Unless, perhaps you\u0027ll say, men had\r\nbetter converse with fierce lions, merciless tigers, and furious\r\nleopards. For that flattery is the most pernicious of all things, by\r\nmeans of which some treacherous persons and mockers have run the\r\ncredulous into such mischief. But this of mine proceeds from a certain\r\ngentleness and uprightness of mind and comes nearer to virtue than its\r\nopposite, austerity, or a morose and troublesome peevishness, as Horace\r\ncalls it. This supports the dejected, relieves the distressed, encourages\r\nthe fainting, awakens the stupid, refreshes the sick, supplies the\r\nuntractable, joins loves together, and keeps them so joined. It entices\r\nchildren to take their learning, makes old men frolic, and, under the\r\ncolor of praise, does without offense both tell princes their faults and\r\nshow them the way to amend them. In short, it makes every man the more\r\njocund and acceptable to himself, which is the chiefest point of\r\nfelicity. Again, what is more friendly than when two horses scrub one\r\nanother? And to say nothing of it, that it\u0027s a main part of physic,\r\nand the only thing in poetry; \u0027tis the delight and relish of all\r\nhuman society.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut \u0027tis a sad thing, they say, to be mistaken. Nay rather, he is most\r\nmiserable that is not so. For they are quite beside the mark that place\r\nthe happiness of men in things themselves, since it only depends upon\r\nopinion. For so great is the obscurity and variety of human affairs that\r\nnothing can be clearly known, as it is truly said by our academics, the\r\nleast insolent of all the philosophers; or if it could, it would but\r\nobstruct the pleasure of life. Lastly, the mind of man is so framed that\r\nit is rather taken with the false colors than truth; of which if anyone\r\nhas a mind to make the experiment, let him go to church and hear sermons,\r\nin which if there be anything serious delivered, the audience is either\r\nasleep, yawning, or weary of it; but if the preacher\u0026mdash;pardon my mistake,\r\nI would have said declaimer\u0026mdash;as too often it happens, fall but into an\r\nold wives\u0027 story, they\u0027re presently awake, prick up their ears and gape\r\nafter it. In like manner, if there be any poetical saint, or one of whom\r\nthere goes more stories than ordinary, as for example, a George, a\r\nChristopher, or a Barbara, you shall see him more religiously worshiped\r\nthan Peter, Paul, or even Christ himself. But these things are not for\r\nthis place.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd now at how cheap a rate is this happiness purchased! Forasmuch as to\r\nthe thing itself a man\u0027s whole endeavor is required, be it never so\r\ninconsiderable; but the opinion of it is easily taken up, which yet\r\nconduces as much or more to happiness. For suppose a man were eating\r\nrotten stockfish, the very smell of which would choke another, and yet\r\nbelieved it a dish for the gods, what difference is there as to his\r\nhappiness? Whereas on the contrary, if another\u0027s stomach should turn at a\r\nsturgeon, wherein, I pray, is he happier than the other? If a man have a\r\ncrooked, ill-favored wife, who yet in his eye may stand in competition\r\nwith Venus, is it not the same as if she were truly beautiful? Or if\r\nseeing an ugly, ill-pointed piece, he should admire the work as believing\r\nit some great master\u0027s hand, were he not much happier, think you, than\r\nthey that buy such things at vast rates, and yet perhaps reap less\r\npleasure from them than the other? I know one of my name that gave his\r\nnew married wife some counterfeit jewels, and as he was a pleasant droll,\r\npersuaded her that they were not only right but of an inestimable price;\r\nand what difference, I pray, to her, that was as well pleased and\r\ncontented with glass and kept it as warily as if it had been a treasure?\r\nIn the meantime the husband saved his money and had this advantage of her\r\nfolly, that he obliged her as much as if he had bought them at a great\r\nrate. Or what difference, think you, between those in Plato\u0027s imaginary\r\ncave that stand gaping at the shadows and figures of things, so they\r\nplease themselves and have no need to wish, and that wise man, who, being\r\ngot loose from them, sees things truly as they are? Whereas that cobbler\r\nin Lucian if he might always have continued his golden dreams, he would\r\nnever have desired any other happiness. So then there is no difference;\r\nor, if there be, the fools have the advantage: first, in that their\r\nhappiness costs them least, that is to say, only some small persuasion;\r\nnext, that they enjoy it in common. And the possession of no good can be\r\ndelightful without a companion. For who does not know what a dearth there\r\nis of wise men, if yet any one be to be found? And though the Greeks for\r\nthese so many ages have accounted upon seven only, yet so help me\r\nHercules, do but examine them narrowly, and I\u0027ll be hanged if you find\r\none half-witted fellow, nay or so much as one-quarter of a wise man,\r\namong them all.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nFor whereas among the many praises of Bacchus they reckon this the chief,\r\nthat he washes away cares, and that too in an instant, do but sleep off\r\nhis weak spirits, and they come on again, as we say, on horseback. But\r\nhow much larger and more present is the benefit you receive by me, since,\r\nas it were with a perpetual drunkenness I fill your minds with mirth,\r\nfancies, and jollities, and that too without any trouble? Nor is there\r\nany man living whom I let be without it; whereas the gifts of the gods\r\nare scrambled, some to one and some to another. The sprightly delicious\r\nwine that drives away cares and leaves such a flavor behind it grows not\r\neverywhere. Beauty, the gift of Venus, happens to few; and to fewer gives\r\nMercury eloquence. Hercules makes not everyone rich. Homer\u0027s Jupiter\r\nbestows not empire on all men. Mars oftentimes favors neither side. Many\r\nreturn sad from Apollo\u0027s oracle. Phoebus sometimes shoots a plague among\r\nus. Neptune drowns more than he saves: to say nothing of those\r\nmischievous gods, Plutoes, Ates, punishments, favors, and the like, not\r\ngods but executioners. I am that only Folly that so readily and\r\nindifferently bestows my benefits on all. Nor do I look to be entreated,\r\nor am I subject to take pet, and require an expiatory sacrifice if some\r\nceremony be omitted. Nor do I beat heaven and earth together if, when the\r\nrest of the gods are invited, I am passed by or not admitted to the\r\nstream of their sacrifices. For the rest of the gods are so curious in\r\nthis point that such an omission may chance to spoil a man\u0027s business;\r\nand therefore one has as good even let them alone as worship them: just\r\nlike some men, who are so hard to please, and withall so ready to do\r\nmischief, that \u0027tis better be a stranger than have any familiarity\r\nwith them.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut no man, you\u0027ll say, ever sacrificed to Folly or built me a temple.\r\nAnd troth, as I said before, I cannot but wonder at the ingratitude; yet\r\nbecause I am easily to be entreated, I take this also in good part,\r\nthough truly I can scarce request it. For why should I require incense,\r\nwafers, a goat, or sow when all men pay me that worship everywhere which\r\nis so much approved even by our very divines? Unless perhaps I should\r\nenvy Diana that her sacrifices are mingled with human blood. Then do I\r\nconceive myself most religiously worshiped when everywhere, as \u0027tis\r\ngenerally done, men embrace me in their minds, express me in their\r\nmanners, and represent me in their lives, which worship of the saints is\r\nnot so ordinary among Christians. How many are there that burn candles to\r\nthe Virgin Mother, and that too at noonday when there\u0027s no need of them!\r\nBut how few are there that study to imitate her in pureness of life,\r\nhumility and love of heavenly things, which is the true worship and most\r\nacceptable to heaven! Besides why should I desire a temple when the whole\r\nworld is my temple, and I\u0027m deceived or \u0027tis a goodly one? Nor can I want\r\npriests but in a land where there are no men. Nor am I yet so foolish as\r\nto require statues or painted images, which do often obstruct my worship,\r\nsince among the stupid and gross multitude those figures are worshiped\r\nfor the saints themselves. And so it would fare with me, as it does with\r\nthem that are turned out of doors by their substitutes. No, I have\r\nstatues enough, and as many as there are men, everyone bearing my lively\r\nresemblance in his face, how unwilling so ever he be to the contrary. And\r\ntherefore there is no reason why I should envy the rest of the gods if in\r\nparticular places they have their particular worship, and that too on set\r\ndays\u0026mdash;as Phoebus at Rhodes; at Cyprus, Venus; at Argos, Juno; at Athens,\r\nMinerva; in Olympus, Jupiter; at Tarentum, Neptune; and near the\r\nHellespont, Priapus\u0026mdash;as long as the world in general performs me every\r\nday much better sacrifices.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWherein notwithstanding if I shall seem to anyone to have spoken more\r\nboldly than truly, let us, if you please, look a little into the lives of\r\nmen, and it will easily appear not only how much they owe to me, but how\r\nmuch they esteem me even from the highest to the lowest. And yet we will\r\nnot run over the lives of everyone, for that would be too long, but only\r\nsome few of the great ones, from whence we shall easily conjecture the\r\nrest. For to what purpose is it to say anything of the common people, who\r\nwithout dispute are wholly mine? For they abound everywhere with so many\r\nseveral sorts of folly, and are every day so busy in inventing new, that\r\na thousand Democriti are too few for so general a laughter though there\r\nwere another Democritus to laugh at them too. \u0027Tis almost incredible what\r\nsport and pastime they daily make the gods; for though they set aside\r\ntheir sober forenoon hours to dispatch business and receive prayers, yet\r\nwhen they begin to be well whittled with nectar and cannot think of\r\nanything that\u0027s serious, they get them up into some part of heaven that\r\nhas better prospect than other and thence look down upon the actions of\r\nmen. Nor is there anything that pleases them better. Good, good! what an\r\nexcellent sight it is! How many several hurly-burlies of fools! for I\r\nmyself sometimes sit among those poetical gods.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nHere\u0027s one desperately in love with a young wench, and the more she\r\nslights him the more outrageously he loves her. Another marries a woman\u0027s\r\nmoney, not herself. Another\u0027s jealousy keeps more eyes on her than Argos.\r\nAnother becomes a mourner, and how foolishly he carries it! nay, hires\r\nothers to bear him company to make it more ridiculous. Another weeps over\r\nhis mother-in-law\u0027s grave. Another spends all he can rap and run on his\r\nbelly, to be the more hungry after it. Another thinks there is no\r\nhappiness but in sleep and idleness. Another turmoils himself about other\r\nmen\u0027s business and neglects his own. Another thinks himself rich in\r\ntaking up moneys and changing securities, as we say borrowing of Peter to\r\npay Paul, and in a short time becomes bankrupt. Another starves himself\r\nto enrich his heir. Another for a small and uncertain gain exposes his\r\nlife to the casualties of seas and winds, which yet no money can restore.\r\nAnother had rather get riches by war than live peaceably at home. And\r\nsome there are that think them easiest attained by courting old childless\r\nmen with presents; and others again by making rich old women believe they\r\nlove them; both which afford the gods most excellent pastime, to see them\r\ncheated by those persons they thought to have over-caught. But the most\r\nfoolish and basest of all others are our merchants, to wit such as\r\nventure on everything be it never so dishonest, and manage it no better;\r\nwho though they lie by no allowance, swear and forswear, steal, cozen,\r\nand cheat, yet shuffle themselves into the first rank, and all because\r\nthey have gold rings on their fingers. Nor are they without their\r\nflattering friars that admire them and give them openly the title of\r\nhonorable, in hopes, no doubt, to get some small snip of it themselves.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThere are also a kind of Pythagoreans with whom all things are so common\r\nthat if they get anything under their cloaks, they make no more scruple\r\nof carrying it away than if it were their own by inheritance. There are\r\nothers too that are only rich in conceit, and while they fancy to\r\nthemselves pleasant dreams, conceive that enough to make them happy. Some\r\ndesire to be accounted wealthy abroad and are yet ready to starve at\r\nhome. One makes what haste he can to set all going, and another rakes it\r\ntogether by right or wrong. This man is ever laboring for public honors,\r\nand another lies sleeping in a chimney corner. A great many undertake\r\nendless suits and outvie one another who shall most enrich the dilatory\r\njudge or corrupt advocate. One is all for innovations and another for\r\nsome great he-knows-not-what. Another leaves his wife and children at\r\nhome and goes to Jerusalem, Rome, or in pilgrimage to St. James\u0027s where\r\nhe has no business. In short, if a man like Menippus of old could look\r\ndown from the moon and behold those innumerable rufflings of mankind, he\r\nwould think he saw a swarm of flies and gnats quarreling among\r\nthemselves, fighting, laying traps for one another, snatching, playing,\r\nwantoning, growing up, falling, and dying. Nor is it to be believed what\r\nstir, what broils, this little creature raises, and yet in how short a\r\ntime it comes to nothing itself; while sometimes war, other times\r\npestilence, sweeps off many thousands of them together.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut let me be most foolish myself, and one whom Democritus may not only\r\nlaugh at but flout, if I go one foot further in the discovery of the\r\nfollies and madnesses of the common people. I\u0027ll betake me to them that\r\ncarry the reputation of wise men and hunt after that golden bough, as\r\nsays the proverb. Among whom the grammarians hold the first place, a\r\ngeneration of men than whom nothing would be more miserable, nothing more\r\nperplexed, nothing more hated of the gods, did not I allay the troubles\r\nof that pitiful profession with a certain kind of pleasant madness. For\r\nthey are not only subject to those five curses with which Home begins his\r\nIliads, as says the Greek epigram, but six hundred; as being ever\r\nhunger-starved and slovens in their schools\u0026mdash;schools, did I say? Nay,\r\nrather cloisters, bridewells, or slaughterhouses\u0026mdash;grown old among a\r\ncompany of boys, deaf with their noise, and pined away with stench and\r\nnastiness. And yet by my courtesy it is that they think themselves the\r\nmost excellent of all men, so greatly do they please themselves in\r\nfrighting a company of fearful boys with a thundering voice and big looks,\r\ntormenting them with ferules, rods, and whips; and, laying about them\r\nwithout fear or wit, imitate the ass in the lion\u0027s skin. In the meantime\r\nall that nastiness seems absolute spruceness, that stench a perfume, and\r\nthat miserable slavery a kingdom, and such too as they would not change\r\ntheir tyranny for Phalaris\u0027 or Dionysius\u0027 empire. Nor are they less happy\r\nin that new opinion they have taken up of being learned; for whereas most\r\nof them beat into boys\u0027 heads nothing but foolish toys, yet, you good\r\ngods! what Palemon, what Donatus, do they not scorn in comparison of\r\nthemselves? And so, I know not by what tricks, they bring it about that\r\nto their boys\u0027 foolish mothers and dolt-headed fathers they pass for such\r\nas they fancy themselves. Add to this that other pleasure of theirs, that\r\nif any of them happen to find out who was Anchises\u0027 mother, or pick out\r\nof some worm-eaten manuscript a word not commonly known\u0026mdash;as suppose it\r\nbubsequa for a cowherd, bovinator for a wrangler, manticulator for a\r\ncutpurse\u0026mdash;or dig up the ruins of some ancient monument with the letters\r\nhalf eaten out; O Jupiter! what towerings! what triumphs! what\r\ncommendations! as if they had conquered Africa or taken in Babylon.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut what of this when they give up and down their foolish insipid verses,\r\nand there wants not others that admire them as much? They believe\r\npresently that Virgil\u0027s soul is transmigrated into them! But nothing like\r\nthis, when with mutual compliments they praise, admire, and claw one\r\nanother. Whereas if another do but slip a word and one more quick-sighted\r\nthan the rest discover it by accident, O Hercules! what uproars, what\r\nbickerings, what taunts, what invectives! If I lie, let me have the ill\r\nwill of all the grammarians. I knew in my time one of many arts, a\r\nGrecian, a Latinist, a mathematician, a philosopher, a physician, a man\r\nmaster of them all, and sixty years of age, who, laying by all the rest,\r\nperplexed and tormented himself for above twenty years in the study of\r\ngrammar, fully reckoning himself a prince if he might but live so long\r\ntill he could certainly determine how the eight parts of speech were to\r\nbe distinguished, which none of the Greeks or Latins had yet fully\r\ncleared: as if it were a matter to be decided by the sword if a man made\r\nan adverb of a conjunction. And for this cause is it that we have as many\r\ngrammars as grammarians; nay more, forasmuch as my friend Aldus has given\r\nus above five, not passing by any kind of grammar, how barbarously or\r\ntediously soever compiled, which he has not turned over and examined;\r\nenvying every man\u0027s attempts in this kind, how to be pitied than happy,\r\nas persons that are ever tormenting themselves; adding, changing, putting\r\nin, blotting out, revising, reprinting, showing it to friends, and nine\r\nyears in correcting, yet never fully satisfied; at so great a rate do\r\nthey purchase this vain reward, to wit, praise, and that too of a very\r\nfew, with so many watchings, so much sweat, so much vexation and loss of\r\nsleep, the most precious of all things. Add to this the waste of health,\r\nspoil of complexion, weakness of eyes or rather blindness, poverty, envy,\r\nabstinence from pleasure, over-hasty old age, untimely death, and the\r\nlike; so highly does this wise man value the approbation of one or two\r\nblear-eyed fellows. But how much happier is this my writer\u0027s dotage who\r\nnever studies for anything but puts in writing whatever he pleases or\r\nwhat comes first in his head, though it be but his dreams; and all this\r\nwith small waste of paper, as well knowing that the vainer those trifles\r\nare, the higher esteem they will have with the greater number, that is to\r\nsay all the fools and unlearned. And what matter is it to slight those\r\nfew learned if yet they ever read them? Or of what authority will the\r\ncensure of so few wise men be against so great a cloud of gainsayers?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut they are the wiser that put out other men\u0027s works for their own, and\r\ntransfer that glory which others with great pains have obtained to\r\nthemselves; relying on this, that they conceive, though it should so\r\nhappen that their theft be never so plainly detected, that yet they\r\nshould enjoy the pleasure of it for the present. And \u0027tis worth one\u0027s\r\nwhile to consider how they please themselves when they are applauded by\r\nthe common people, pointed at in a crowd, \"This is that excellent\r\nperson;\" lie on booksellers\u0027 stalls; and in the top of every page have\r\nthree hard words read, but chiefly exotic and next degree to conjuring;\r\nwhich, by the immortal gods! what are they but mere words? And again, if\r\nyou consider the world, by how few understood, and praised by fewer! for\r\neven among the unlearned there are different palates. Or what is it that\r\ntheir own very names are often counterfeit or borrowed from some books of\r\nthe ancients? When one styles himself Telemachus, another Sthenelus, a\r\nthird Laertes, a fourth Polycrates, a fifth Thrasymachus. So that there\r\nis no difference whether they title their books with the \"Tale of a Tub,\"\r\nor, according to the philosophers, by alpha, beta.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut the most pleasant of all is to see them praise one another with\r\nreciprocal epistles, verses, and encomiums; fools their fellow fools, and\r\ndunces their brother dunces. This, in the other\u0027s opinion, is an absolute\r\nAlcaeus; and the other, in his, a very Callimachus. He looks upon Tully\r\nas nothing to the other, and the other again pronounces him more learned\r\nthan Plato. And sometimes too they pick out their antagonist and think to\r\nraise themselves a fame by writing one against the other; while the giddy\r\nmultitude are so long divided to whether of the two they shall determine\r\nthe victory, till each goes off conqueror, and, as if he had done some\r\ngreat action, fancies himself a triumph. And now wise men laugh at these\r\nthings as foolish, as indeed they are. Who denies it? Yet in the\r\nmeantime, such is my kindness to them, they live a merry life and would\r\nnot change their imaginary triumphs, no, not with the Scipioes. While yet\r\nthose learned men, though they laugh their fill and reap the benefit of\r\nthe other\u0027s folly, cannot without ingratitude deny but that even they too\r\nare not a little beholding to me themselves.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd among them our advocates challenge the first place, nor is there any\r\nsort of people that please themselves like them: for while they daily\r\nroll Sisyphus his stone, and quote you a thousand cases, as it were, in a\r\nbreath no matter how little to the purpose, and heap glosses upon\r\nglosses, and opinions on the neck of opinions, they bring it at last to\r\nthis pass, that that study of all other seems the most difficult. Add to\r\nthese our logicians and sophists, a generation of men more prattling than\r\nan echo and the worst of them able to outchat a hundred of the best\r\npicked gossips. And yet their condition would be much better were they\r\nonly full of words and not so given to scolding that they most\r\nobstinately hack and hew one another about a matter of nothing and make\r\nsuch a sputter about terms and words till they have quite lost the sense.\r\nAnd yet they are so happy in the good opinion of themselves that as soon\r\nas they are furnished with two or three syllogisms, they dare boldly\r\nenter the lists against any man upon any point, as not doubting but to\r\nrun him down with noise, though the opponent were another Stentor.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd next these come our philosophers, so much reverenced for their furred\r\ngowns and starched beards that they look upon themselves as the only wise\r\nmen and all others as shadows. And yet how pleasantly do they dote while\r\nthey frame in their heads innumerable worlds; measure out the sun, the\r\nmoon, the stars, nay and heaven itself, as it were, with a pair of\r\ncompasses; lay down the causes of lightning, winds, eclipses, and other\r\nthe like inexplicable matters; and all this too without the least\r\ndoubting, as if they were Nature\u0027s secretaries, or dropped down among us\r\nfrom the council of the gods; while in the meantime Nature laughs at them\r\nand all their blind conjectures. For that they know nothing, even this is\r\na sufficient argument, that they don\u0027t agree among themselves and so are\r\nincomprehensible touching every particular. These, though they have not\r\nthe least degree of knowledge, profess yet that they have mastered all;\r\nnay, though they neither know themselves, nor perceive a ditch or block\r\nthat lies in their way, for that perhaps most of them are half blind, or\r\ntheir wits a wool-gathering, yet give out that they have discovered\r\nideas, universalities, separated forms, first matters, quiddities,\r\nhaecceities, formalities, and the like stuff; things so thin and bodiless\r\nthat I believe even Lynceus himself was not able to perceive them. But\r\nthen chiefly do they disdain the unhallowed crowd as often as with their\r\ntriangles, quadrangles, circles, and the like mathematical devices, more\r\nconfounded than a labyrinth, and letters disposed one against the other,\r\nas it were in battle array, they cast a mist before the eyes of the\r\nignorant. Nor is there wanting of this kind some that pretend to\r\nforetell things by the stars and make promises of miracles beyond\r\nall things of soothsaying, and are so fortunate as to meet with people\r\nthat believe them.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut perhaps I had better pass over our divines in silence and not stir\r\nthis pool or touch this fair but unsavory plant, as a kind of men that\r\nare supercilious beyond comparison, and to that too, implacable; lest\r\nsetting them about my ears, they attack me by troops and force me to a\r\nrecantation sermon, which if I refuse, they straight pronounce me a\r\nheretic. For this is the thunderbolt with which they fright those whom\r\nthey are resolved not to favor. And truly, though there are few others\r\nthat less willingly acknowledge the kindnesses I have done them, yet even\r\nthese too stand fast bound to me upon no ordinary accounts; while being\r\nhappy in their own opinion, and as if they dwelt in the third heaven,\r\nthey look with haughtiness on all others as poor creeping things and\r\ncould almost find in their hearts to pity them; while hedged in with so\r\nmany magisterial definitions, conclusions, corollaries, propositions\r\nexplicit and implicit, they abound with so many starting-holes that\r\nVulcan\u0027s net cannot hold them so fast, but they\u0027ll slip through with\r\ntheir distinctions, with which they so easily cut all knots asunder that\r\na hatchet could not have done it better, so plentiful are they in their\r\nnew-found words and prodigious terms. Besides, while they explicate the\r\nmost hidden mysteries according to their own fancy\u0026mdash;as how the world was\r\nfirst made; how original sin is derived to posterity; in what manner, how\r\nmuch room, and how long time Christ lay in the Virgin\u0027s womb; how\r\naccidents subsist in the Eucharist without their subject.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut these are common and threadbare; these are worthy of our great and\r\nilluminated divines, as the world calls them! At these, if ever they fall\r\nathwart them, they prick up\u0026mdash;as whether there was any instant of time in\r\nthe generation of the Second Person; whether there be more than one\r\nfiliation in Christ; whether it be a possible proposition that God the\r\nFather hates the Son; or whether it was possible that Christ could have\r\ntaken upon Him the likeness of a woman, or of the devil, or of an ass, or\r\nof a stone, or of a gourd; and then how that gourd should have preached,\r\nwrought miracles, or been hung on the cross; and what Peter had\r\nconsecrated if he had administered the Sacrament at what time the body of\r\nChrist hung upon the cross; or whether at the same time he might be said\r\nto be man; whether after the Resurrection there will be any eating and\r\ndrinking, since we are so much afraid of hunger and thirst in this world.\r\nThere are infinite of these subtle trifles, and others more subtle than\r\nthese, of notions, relations, instants, formalities, quiddities,\r\nhaecceities, which no one can perceive without a Lynceus whose eyes could\r\nlook through a stone wall and discover those things through the thickest\r\ndarkness that never were.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAdd to this those their other determinations, and those too so contrary\r\nto common opinion that those oracles of the Stoics, which they call\r\nparadoxes, seem in comparison of these but blockish and idle\u0026mdash;as \u0027tis a\r\nlesser crime to kill a thousand men than to set a stitch on a poor man\u0027s\r\nshoe on the Sabbath day; and that a man should rather choose that the\r\nwhole world with all food and raiment, as they say, should perish, than\r\ntell a lie, though never so inconsiderable. And these most subtle\r\nsubtleties are rendered yet more subtle by the several methods of so many\r\nSchoolmen, that one might sooner wind himself out of a labyrinth than the\r\nentanglements of the realists, nominalists, Thomists, Albertists,\r\nOccamists, Scotists. Nor have I named all the several sects, but only\r\nsome of the chief; in all which there is so much doctrine and so much\r\ndifficulty that I may well conceive the apostles, had they been to deal\r\nwith these new kind of divines, had needed to have prayed in aid of some\r\nother spirit.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nPaul knew what faith was, and yet when he said, \"Faith is the substance\r\nof things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen,\" he did not\r\ndefine it doctor-like. And as he understood charity well himself, so he\r\ndid as illogically divide and define it to others in his first Epistle to\r\nthe Corinthians, Chapter the thirteenth. And devoutly, no doubt, did the\r\napostles consecrate the Eucharist; yet, had they been asked the question\r\ntouching the \"terminus a quo\" and the \"terminus ad quem\" of\r\ntransubstantiation; of the manner how the same body can be in several\r\nplaces at one and the same time; of the difference the body of Christ has\r\nin heaven from that of the cross, or this in the Sacrament; in what point\r\nof time transubstantiation is, whereas prayer, by means of which it is,\r\nas being a discrete quantity, is transient; they would not, I conceive,\r\nhave answered with the same subtlety as the Scotists dispute and define\r\nit. They knew the mother of Jesus, but which of them has so\r\nphilosophically demonstrated how she was preserved from original sin as\r\nhave done our divines? Peter received the keys, and from Him too that\r\nwould not have trusted them with a person unworthy; yet whether he had\r\nunderstanding or no, I know not, for certainly he never attained to that\r\nsubtlety to determine how he could have the key of knowledge that had no\r\nknowledge himself. They baptized far and near, and yet taught nowhere\r\nwhat was the formal, material, efficient, and final cause of baptism, nor\r\nmade the least mention of delible and indelible characters. They\r\nworshiped, \u0027tis true, but in spirit, following herein no other than that\r\nof the Gospel, \"God is a Spirit, and they that worship, must worship him\r\nin spirit and truth;\" yet it does not appear it was at that time revealed\r\nto them that an image sketched on the wall with a coal was to be\r\nworshiped with the same worship as Christ Himself, if at least the two\r\nforefingers be stretched out, the hair long and uncut, and have three\r\nrays about the crown of the head. For who can conceive these things,\r\nunless he has spent at least six and thirty years in the philosophical\r\nand supercelestial whims of Aristotle and the Schoolmen?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn like manner, the apostles press to us grace; but which of them\r\ndistinguishes between free grace and grace that makes a man acceptable?\r\nThey exhort us to good works, and yet determine not what is the work\r\nworking, and what a resting in the work done. They incite us to charity,\r\nand yet make no difference between charity infused and charity wrought in\r\nus by our own endeavors. Nor do they declare whether it be an accident or\r\na substance, a thing created or uncreated. They detest and abominate sin,\r\nbut let me not live if they could define according to art what that is\r\nwhich we call sin, unless perhaps they were inspired by the spirit of the\r\nScotists. Nor can I be brought to believe that Paul, by whose learning\r\nyou may judge the rest, would have so often condemned questions,\r\ndisputes, genealogies, and, as himself calls them, \"strifes of words,\" if\r\nhe had thoroughly understood those subtleties, especially when all the\r\ndebates and controversies of those times were rude and blockish in\r\ncomparison of the more than Chrysippean subtleties of our masters.\r\nAlthough yet the gentlemen are so modest that if they meet with anything\r\nwritten by the apostles not so smooth and even as might be expected from\r\na master, they do not presently condemn it but handsomely bend it to\r\ntheir own purpose, so great respect and honor do they give, partly to\r\nantiquity and partly to the name of apostle. And truly \u0027twas a kind of\r\ninjustice to require so great things of them that never heard the least\r\nword from their masters concerning it. And so if the like happen in\r\nChrysostom, Basil, Jerome, they think it enough to say they are not\r\nobliged by it.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe apostles also confuted the heathen philosophers and Jews, a people\r\nthan whom none more obstinate, but rather by their good lives and\r\nmiracles than syllogisms: and yet there was scarce one among them that\r\nwas capable of understanding the least \"quodlibet\" of the Scotists. But\r\nnow, where is that heathen or heretic that must not presently stoop to\r\nsuch wire-drawn subtleties, unless he be so thick-skulled that he can\u0027t\r\napprehend them, or so impudent as to hiss them down, or, being furnished\r\nwith the same tricks, be able to make his party good with them? As if a\r\nman should set a conjurer on work against a conjurer, or fight with one\r\nhallowed sword against another, which would prove no other than a work to\r\nno purpose. For my own part I conceive the Christians would do much\r\nbetter if instead of those dull troops and companies of soldiers with\r\nwhich they have managed their war with such doubtful success, they would\r\nsend the bawling Scotists, the most obstinate Occamists, and invincible\r\nAlbertists to war against the Turks and Saracens; and they would see, I\r\nguess, a most pleasant combat and such a victory as was never before. For\r\nwho is so faint whom their devices will not enliven? who so stupid whom\r\nsuch spurs can\u0027t quicken? or who so quick-sighted before whose eyes they\r\ncan\u0027t cast a mist?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut you\u0027ll say, I jest. Nor are you without cause, since even among\r\ndivines themselves there are some that have learned better and are ready\r\nto turn their stomachs at those foolish subtleties of the others. There\r\nare some that detest them as a kind of sacrilege and count it the height\r\nof impiety to speak so irreverently of such hidden things, rather to be\r\nadored than explicated; to dispute of them with such profane and\r\nheathenish niceties; to define them so arrogantly and pollute the majesty\r\nof divinity with such pithless and sordid terms and opinions. Meantime\r\nthe others please, nay hug themselves in their happiness, and are so\r\ntaken up with these pleasant trifles that they have not so much leisure\r\nas to cast the least eye on the Gospel or St. Paul\u0027s epistles. And while\r\nthey play the fool at this rate in their schools, they make account the\r\nuniversal church would otherwise perish, unless, as the poets fancied of\r\nAtlas that he supported heaven with his shoulders, they underpropped the\r\nother with their syllogistical buttresses. And how great a happiness is\r\nthis, think you? while, as if Holy Writ were a nose of wax, they fashion\r\nand refashion it according to their pleasure; while they require that\r\ntheir own conclusions, subscribed by two or three Schoolmen, be accounted\r\ngreater than Solon\u0027s laws and preferred before the papal decretals;\r\nwhile, as censors of the world, they force everyone to a recantation that\r\ndiffers but a hair\u0027s breadth from the least of their explicit or implicit\r\ndeterminations. And those too they pronounce like oracles. This\r\nproposition is scandalous; this irreverent; this has a smack of heresy;\r\nthis no very good sound: so that neither baptism, nor the Gospel, nor\r\nPaul, nor Peter, nor St. Jerome, nor St. Augustine, no nor most\r\nAristotelian Thomas himself can make a man a Christian, without these\r\nbachelors too be pleased to give him his grace. And the like in their\r\nsubtlety in judging; for who would think he were no Christian that should\r\nsay these two speeches \"matula putes\" and \"matula putet,\" or \"ollae\r\nfervere\" and \"ollam fervere\" were not both good Latin, unless their\r\nwisdoms had taught us the contrary? who had delivered the church from\r\nsuch mists of error, which yet no one ever met with, had they not come\r\nout with some university seal for it? And are they not most happy while\r\nthey do these things?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThen for what concerns hell, how exactly they describe everything, as if\r\nthey had been conversant in that commonwealth most part of their time!\r\nAgain, how do they frame in their fancy new orbs, adding to those we have\r\nalready an eighth! a goodly one, no doubt, and spacious enough, lest\r\nperhaps their happy souls might lack room to walk in, entertain their\r\nfriends, and now and then play at football. And with these and a thousand\r\nthe like fopperies their heads are so full stuffed and stretched that I\r\nbelieve Jupiter\u0027s brain was not near so big when, being in labor with\r\nPallas, he was beholding to the midwifery of Vulcan\u0027s axe. And therefore\r\nyou must not wonder if in their public disputes they are so bound about\r\nthe head, lest otherwise perhaps their brains might leap out. Nay, I have\r\nsometimes laughed myself to see them so tower in their own opinion when\r\nthey speak most barbarously; and when they humh and hawh so pitifully\r\nthat none but one of their own tribe can understand them, they call it\r\nheights which the vulgar can\u0027t reach; for they say \u0027tis beneath the\r\ndignity of divine mysteries to be cramped and tied up to the narrow rules\r\nof grammarians: from whence we may conjecture the great prerogative of\r\ndivines, if they only have the privilege of speaking corruptly, in which\r\nyet every cobbler thinks himself concerned for his share. Lastly, they\r\nlook upon themselves as somewhat more than men as often as they are\r\ndevoutly saluted by the name of \"Our Masters,\" in which they fancy there\r\nlies as much as in the Jews\u0027 \"Jehovah;\" and therefore they reckon it a\r\ncrime if \"Magister Noster\" be written other than in capital letters; and\r\nif anyone should preposterously say \"Noster Magister,\" he has at once\r\noverturned the whole body of divinity.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd next these come those that commonly call themselves the religious and\r\nmonks, most false in both titles, when both a great part of them are\r\nfarthest from religion, and no men swarm thicker in all places than\r\nthemselves. Nor can I think of anything that could be more miserable did\r\nnot I support them so many several ways. For whereas all men detest them\r\nto that height, that they take it for ill luck to meet one of them by\r\nchance, yet such is their happiness that they flatter themselves. For\r\nfirst, they reckon it one of the main points of piety if they are so\r\nilliterate that they can\u0027t so much as read. And then when they run over\r\ntheir offices, which they carry about them, rather by tale than\r\nunderstanding, they believe the gods more than ordinarily pleased with\r\ntheir braying. And some there are among them that put off their\r\ntrumperies at vast rates, yet rove up and down for the bread they eat;\r\nnay, there is scarce an inn, wagon, or ship into which they intrude not,\r\nto the no small damage of the commonwealth of beggars. And yet, like\r\npleasant fellows, with all this vileness, ignorance, rudeness, and\r\nimpudence, they represent to us, for so they call it, the lives of the\r\napostles. Yet what is more pleasant than that they do all things by rule\r\nand, as it were, a kind of mathematics, the least swerving from which\r\nwere a crime beyond forgiveness\u0026mdash;as how many knots their shoes must be\r\ntied with, of what color everything is, what distinction of habits, of\r\nwhat stuff made, how many straws broad their girdles and of what fashion,\r\nhow many bushels wide their cowl, how many fingers long their hair, and\r\nhow many hours sleep; which exact equality, how disproportionate it is,\r\namong such variety of bodies and tempers, who is there that does not\r\nperceive it? And yet by reason of these fooleries they not only set\r\nslight by others, but each different order, men otherwise professing\r\napostolical charity, despise one another, and for the different wearing\r\nof a habit, or that \u0027tis of darker color, they put all things in\r\ncombustion. And among these there are some so rigidly religious that\r\ntheir upper garment is haircloth, their inner of the finest linen; and,\r\non the contrary, others wear linen without and hair next their skins.\r\nOthers, again, are as afraid to touch money as poison, and yet neither\r\nforbear wine nor dallying with women. In a word, \u0027tis their only care\r\nthat none of them come near one another in their manner of living, nor\r\ndo they endeavor how they may be like Christ, but how they may differ\r\namong themselves.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd another great happiness they conceive in their names, while they call\r\nthemselves Cordiliers, and among these too, some are Colletes, some\r\nMinors, some Minims, some Crossed; and again, these are Benedictines,\r\nthose Bernardines; these Carmelites, those Augustines; these Williamites,\r\nand those Jacobines; as if it were not worth the while to be called\r\nChristians. And of these, a great part build so much on their ceremonies\r\nand petty traditions of men that they think one heaven is too poor a\r\nreward for so great merit, little dreaming that the time will come when\r\nChrist, not regarding any of these trifles, will call them to account for\r\nHis precept of charity. One shall show you a large trough full of all\r\nkinds of fish; another tumble you out so many bushels of prayers; another\r\nreckon you so many myriads of fasts, and fetch them up again in one\r\ndinner by eating till he cracks again; another produces more bundles of\r\nceremonies than seven of the stoutest ships would be able to carry;\r\nanother brags he has not touched a penny these three score years without\r\ntwo pair of gloves at least upon his hands; another wears a cowl so lined\r\nwith grease that the poorest tarpaulin would not stoop to take it up;\r\nanother will tell you he has lived these fifty-five years like a sponge,\r\ncontinually fastened to the same place; another is grown hoarse with his\r\ndaily chanting; another has contracted a lethargy by his solitary living;\r\nand another the palsy in his tongue for want of speaking. But Christ,\r\ninterrupting them in their vanities, which otherwise were endless, will\r\nask them, \"Whence this new kind of Jews? I acknowledge one commandment,\r\nwhich is truly mine, of which alone I hear nothing. I promised, \u0027tis\r\ntrue, my Father\u0027s heritage, and that without parables, not to cowls, odd\r\nprayers, and fastings, but to the duties of faith and charity. Nor can I\r\nacknowledge them that least acknowledge their faults. They that would\r\nseem holier than myself, let them if they like possess to themselves\r\nthose three hundred sixty-five heavens of Basilides the heretic\u0027s\r\ninvention, or command them whose foolish traditions they have preferred\r\nbefore my precepts to erect them a new one.\" When they shall hear these\r\nthings and see common ordinary persons preferred before them, with what\r\ncountenance, think you, will they behold one another? In the meantime\r\nthey are happy in their hopes, and for this also they are beholding\r\nto me.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd yet these kind of people, though they are as it were of another\r\ncommonwealth, no man dares despise, especially those begging friars,\r\nbecause they are privy to all men\u0027s secrets by means of confessions, as\r\nthey call them. Which yet were no less than treason to discover, unless,\r\nbeing got drunk, they have a mind to be pleasant, and then all comes out,\r\nthat is to say by hints and conjectures but suppressing the names. But if\r\nanyone should anger these wasps, they\u0027ll sufficiently revenge themselves\r\nin their public sermons and so point out their enemy by circumlocutions\r\nthat there\u0027s no one but understands whom \u0027tis they mean, unless he\r\nunderstand nothing at all; nor will they give over their barking till you\r\nthrow the dogs a bone. And now tell me, what juggler or mountebank you\r\nhad rather behold than hear them rhetorically play the fool in their\r\npreachments, and yet most sweetly imitating what rhetoricians have\r\nwritten touching the art of good speaking? Good God! what several\r\npostures they have! How they shift their voice, sing out their words,\r\nskip up and down, and are ever and anon making such new faces that they\r\nconfound all things with noise! And yet this knack of theirs is no less a\r\nmystery that runs in succession from one brother to another; which though\r\nit be not lawful for me to know, however I\u0027ll venture at it by\r\nconjectures. And first they invoke whatever they have scraped from the\r\npoets; and in the next place, if they are to discourse of charity, they\r\ntake their rise from the river Nilus; or to set out the mystery of the\r\ncross, from bell and the dragon; or to dispute of fasting, from the\r\ntwelve signs of the zodiac; or, being to preach of faith, ground their\r\nmatter on the square of a circle.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nI have heard myself one, and he no small fool\u0026mdash;I was mistaken, I would\r\nhave said scholar\u0026mdash;that being in a famous assembly explaining the mystery\r\nof the Trinity, that he might both let them see his learning was not\r\nordinary and withal satisfy some theological ears, he took a new way, to\r\nwit from the letters, syllables, and the word itself; then from the\r\ncoherence of the nominative case and the verb, and the adjective and\r\nsubstantive: and while most of the audience wondered, and some of them\r\nmuttered that of Horace, \"What does all this trumpery drive at?\" at last\r\nhe brought the matter to this head, that he would demonstrate that the\r\nmystery of the Trinity was so clearly expressed in the very rudiments of\r\ngrammar that the best mathematician could not chalk it out more plainly.\r\nAnd in this discourse did this most superlative theologian beat his\r\nbrains for eight whole months that at this hour he\u0027s as blind as a\r\nbeetle, to wit, all the sight of his eyes being run into the sharpness of\r\nhis wit. But for all that he thinks nothing of his blindness, rather\r\ntaking the same for too cheap a price of such a glory as he won thereby.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd besides him I met with another, some eighty years of age, and such a\r\ndivine that you\u0027d have sworn Scotus himself was revived in him. He, being\r\nupon the point of unfolding the mystery of the name Jesus, did with\r\nwonderful subtlety demonstrate that there lay hidden in those letters\r\nwhatever could be said of him; for that it was only declined with three\r\ncases, he said, it was a manifest token of the Divine Trinity; and then,\r\nthat the first ended in \u003ci\u003eS\u003c/i\u003e, the second in \u003ci\u003eM\u003c/i\u003e, the third in \u003ci\u003eU\u003c/i\u003e, there\r\nwas in it an ineffable mystery, to wit, those three letters declaring to\r\nus that he was the beginning, middle, and end (\u003ci\u003esummum, medium, et\r\nultimum\u003c/i\u003e) of all. Nay, the mystery was yet more abstruse; for he so\r\nmathematically split the word Jesus into two equal parts that he left the\r\nmiddle letter by itself, and then told us that that letter in Hebrew was\r\n\u003ci\u003eschin\u003c/i\u003e or \u003ci\u003esin\u003c/i\u003e, and that \u003ci\u003esin\u003c/i\u003e in the Scotch tongue, as he remembered,\r\nsignified as much as sin; from whence he gathered that it was Jesus that\r\ntook away the sins of the world. At which new exposition the audience\r\nwere so wonderfully intent and struck with admiration, especially the\r\ntheologians, that there wanted little but that Niobe-like they had been\r\nturned to stones; whereas the like had almost happened to me, as befell\r\nthe Priapus in Horace. And not without cause, for when were the Grecian\r\nDemosthenes or Roman Cicero ever guilty of the like? They thought that\r\nintroduction faulty that was wide of the matter, as if it were not the\r\nway of carters and swineherds that have no more wit than God sent them.\r\nBut these learned men think their preamble, for so they call it, then\r\nchiefly rhetorical when it has least coherence with the rest of the\r\nargument, that the admiring audience may in the meanwhile whisper to\r\nthemselves, \"What will he be at now?\" In the third place, they bring in\r\ninstead of narration some texts of Scripture, but handle them cursorily,\r\nand as it were by the bye, when yet it is the only thing they should have\r\ninsisted on. And fourthly, as it were changing a part in the play, they\r\nbolt out with some question in divinity, and many times relating neither\r\nto earth nor heaven, and this they look upon as a piece of art. Here they\r\nerect their theological crests and beat into the people\u0027s ears those\r\nmagnificent titles of illustrious doctors, subtle doctors, most subtle\r\ndoctors, seraphic doctors, cherubin doctors, holy doctors, unquestionable\r\ndoctors, and the like; and then throw abroad among the ignorant people\r\nsyllogisms, majors, minors, conclusions, corollaries, suppositions, and\r\nthose so weak and foolish that they are below pedantry. There remains yet\r\nthe fifth act in which one would think they should show their mastery.\r\nAnd here they bring in some foolish insipid fable out of \u003ci\u003eSpeculum\r\nHistoriale\u003c/i\u003e or \u003ci\u003eGesta Romanorum\u003c/i\u003e and expound it allegorically,\r\ntropologically, and anagogically. And after this manner do they and their\r\nchimera, and such as Horace despaired of compassing when he wrote \"Humano\r\ncapiti,\" etc.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut they have heard from somebody, I know not whom, that the beginning of\r\na speech should be sober and grave and least given to noise. And\r\ntherefore they begin theirs at that rate they can scarce hear themselves,\r\nas if it were not matter whether anyone understood them. They have\r\nlearned somewhere that to move the affections a louder voice is\r\nrequisite. Whereupon they that otherwise would speak like a mouse in a\r\ncheese start out of a sudden into a downright fury, even there too, where\r\nthere\u0027s the least need of it. A man would swear they were past the power\r\nof hellebore, so little do they consider where \u0027tis they run out. Again,\r\nbecause they have heard that as a speech comes up to something, a man\r\nshould press it more earnestly, they, however they begin, use a strange\r\ncontention of voice in every part, though the matter itself be never so\r\nflat, and end in that manner as if they\u0027d run themselves out of breath.\r\nLastly, they have learned that among rhetoricians there is some mention\r\nof laughter, and therefore they study to prick in a jest here and there;\r\nbut, O Venus! so void of wit and so little to the purpose that it may be\r\ntruly called an ass\u0027s playing on the harp. And sometimes also they use\r\nsomewhat of a sting, but so nevertheless that they rather tickle than\r\nwound; nor do they ever more truly flatter than when they would seem to\r\nuse the greatest freedom of speech. Lastly, such is their whole action\r\nthat a man would swear they had learned it from our common tumblers,\r\nthough yet they come short of them in every respect. However, they are\r\nboth so like that no man will dispute but that either these learned their\r\nrhetoric from them, or they theirs from these. And yet they light on some\r\nthat, when they hear them, conceive they hear very Demosthenes and\r\nCiceroes: of which sort chiefly are our merchants and women, whose ears\r\nonly they endeavor to please, because as to the first, if they stroke\r\nthem handsomely, some part or other of their ill-gotten goods is wont to\r\nfall to their share. And the women, though for many other things they\r\nfavor this order, this is not the least, that they commit to their\r\nbreasts whatever discontents they have against their husbands. And now, I\r\nconceive me, you see how much this kind of people are beholding to me,\r\nthat with their petty ceremonies, ridiculous trifles, and noise exercise\r\na kind of tyranny among mankind, believing themselves very Pauls and\r\nAnthonies.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut I willingly give over these stage-players that are such ingrateful\r\ndissemblers of the courtesies I have done them and such impudent\r\npretenders to religion which they haven\u0027t. And now I have a mind to give\r\nsome small touches of princes and courts, of whom I am had in reverence,\r\naboveboard and, as it becomes gentlemen, frankly. And truly, if they had\r\nthe least proportion of sound judgment, what life were more unpleasant\r\nthan theirs, or so much to be avoided? For whoever did but truly weigh\r\nwith himself how great a burden lies upon his shoulders that would truly\r\ndischarge the duty of a prince, he would not think it worth his while to\r\nmake his way to a crown by perjury and parricide. He would consider that\r\nhe that takes a scepter in his hand should manage the public, not his\r\nprivate, interest; study nothing but the common good; and not in the\r\nleast go contrary to those laws whereof himself is both the author and\r\nexactor: that he is to take an account of the good or evil administration\r\nof all his magistrates and subordinate officers; that, though he is but\r\none, all men\u0027s eyes are upon him, and in his power it is, either like a\r\ngood planet to give life and safety to mankind by his harmless influence,\r\nor like a fatal comet to send mischief and destruction; that the vices of\r\nother men are not alike felt, nor so generally communicated; and that a\r\nprince stands in that place that his least deviation from the rule of\r\nhonesty and honor reaches farther than himself and opens a gap to many\r\nmen\u0027s ruin. Besides, that the fortune of princes has many things\r\nattending it that are but too apt to train them out of the way, as\r\npleasure, liberty, flattery, excess; for which cause he should the more\r\ndiligently endeavor and set a watch over himself, lest perhaps he be led\r\naside and fail in his duty. Lastly, to say nothing of treasons, ill will,\r\nand such other mischiefs he\u0027s in jeopardy of, that that True King is over\r\nhis head, who in a short time will call him to account for every the\r\nleast trespass, and that so much the more severely by how much more\r\nmighty was the empire committed to his charge. These and the like if a\r\nprince should duly weigh, and weigh it he would if he were wise, he would\r\nneither be able to sleep nor take any hearty repast.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut now by my courtesy they leave all this care to the gods and are only\r\ntaken up with themselves, not admitting anyone to their ear but such as\r\nknow how to speak pleasant things and not trouble them with business.\r\nThey believe they have discharged all the duty of a prince if they hunt\r\nevery day, keep a stable of fine horses, sell dignities and commanderies,\r\nand invent new ways of draining the citizens\u0027 purses and bringing it into\r\ntheir own exchequer; but under such dainty new-found names that though\r\nthe thing be most unjust in itself, it carries yet some face of equity;\r\nadding to this some little sweet\u0027nings that whatever happens, they may be\r\nsecure of the common people. And now suppose someone, such as they\r\nsometimes are, a man ignorant of laws, little less than an enemy to the\r\npublic good, and minding nothing but his own, given up to pleasure, a\r\nhater of learning, liberty, and justice, studying nothing less than the\r\npublic safety, but measuring everything by his own will and profit; and\r\nthen put on him a golden chain that declares the accord of all virtues\r\nlinked one to another; a crown set with diamonds, that should put him in\r\nmind how he ought to excel all others in heroic virtues; besides a\r\nscepter, the emblem of justice and an untainted heart; and lastly, a\r\npurple robe, a badge of that charity he owes the commonwealth. All which\r\nif a prince should compare them with his own life, he would, I believe,\r\nbe clearly ashamed of his bravery, and be afraid lest some or other\r\ngibing expounder turn all this tragical furniture into a ridiculous\r\nlaughingstock.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd as to the court lords, what should I mention them? than most of whom\r\nthough there be nothing more indebted, more servile, more witless, more\r\ncontemptible, yet they would seem as they were the most excellent of all\r\nothers. And yet in this only thing no men more modest, in that they are\r\ncontented to wear about them gold, jewels, purple, and those other marks\r\nof virtue and wisdom; but for the study of the things themselves, they\r\nremit it to others, thinking it happiness enough for them that they can\r\ncall the king master, have learned the cringe \u003ci\u003eà la mode\u003c/i\u003e, know when and\r\nwhere to use those titles of Your Grace, My Lord, Your Magnificence; in a\r\nword that they are past all shame and can flatter pleasantly. For these\r\nare the arts that speak a man truly noble and an exact courtier. But if\r\nyou look into their manner of life you\u0027ll find them mere sots, as\r\ndebauched as Penelope\u0027s wooers; you know the other part of the verse,\r\nwhich the echo will better tell you than I can. They sleep till noon and\r\nhave their mercenary Levite come to their bedside, where he chops over\r\nhis matins before they are half up. Then to breakfast, which is scarce\r\ndone but dinner stays for them. From thence they go to dice, tables,\r\ncards, or entertain themselves with jesters, fools, gambols, and horse\r\ntricks. In the meantime they have one or two beverages, and then supper,\r\nand after that a banquet, and \u0027twere well, by Jupiter, there were no more\r\nthan one. And in this manner do their hours, days, months, years, age\r\nslide away without the least irksomeness. Nay, I have sometimes gone away\r\nmany inches fatter, to see them speak big words; while each of the ladies\r\nbelieves herself so much nearer to the gods by how much the longer train\r\nshe trails after her; while one nobleman edges out another, that he may\r\nget the nearer to Jupiter himself; and everyone of them pleases himself\r\nthe more by how much more massive is the chain he swags on his shoulders,\r\nas if he meant to show his strength as well as his wealth.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nNor are princes by themselves in their manner of life, since popes,\r\ncardinals, and bishops have so diligently followed their steps that\r\nthey\u0027ve almost got the start of them. For if any of them would consider\r\nwhat their Albe should put them in mind of, to wit a blameless life; what\r\nis meant by their forked miters, whose each point is held in by the same\r\nknot, we\u0027ll suppose it a perfect knowledge of the Old and New Testaments;\r\nwhat those gloves on their hands, but a sincere administration of the\r\nSacraments, and free from all touch of worldly business; what their\r\ncrosier, but a careful looking after the flock committed to their charge;\r\nwhat the cross born before them, but victory over all earthly\r\naffections\u0026mdash;these, I say, and many of the like kind should anyone truly\r\nconsider, would he not live a sad and troublesome life? Whereas now they\r\ndo well enough while they feed themselves only, and for the care of their\r\nflock either put it over to Christ or lay it all on their suffragans, as\r\nthey call them, or some poor vicars. Nor do they so much as remember\r\ntheir name, or what the word bishop signifies, to wit, labor, care, and\r\ntrouble. But in racking to gather money they truly act the part of\r\nbishops, and herein acquit themselves to be no blind seers.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn like manner cardinals, if they thought themselves the successors of\r\nthe apostles, they would likewise imagine that the same things the other\r\ndid are required of them, and that they are not lords but dispensers of\r\nspiritual things of which they must shortly give an exact account. But if\r\nthey also would a little philosophize on their habit and think with\r\nthemselves what\u0027s the meaning of their linen rochet, is it not a\r\nremarkable and singular integrity of life? What that inner purple; is it\r\nnot an earnest and fervent love of God? Or what that outward, whose loose\r\nplaits and long train fall round his Reverence\u0027s mule and are large\r\nenough to cover a camel; is it not charity that spreads itself so wide to\r\nthe succor of all men? that is, to instruct, exhort, comfort, reprehend,\r\nadmonish, compose wars, resist wicked princes, and willingly expend not\r\nonly their wealth but their very lives for the flock of Christ: though\r\nyet what need at all of wealth to them that supply the room of the poor\r\napostles? These things, I say, did they but duly consider, they would not\r\nbe so ambitious of that dignity; or, if they were, they would willingly\r\nleave it and live a laborious, careful life, such as was that of the\r\nancient apostles.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd for popes, that supply the place of Christ, if they should endeavor\r\nto imitate His life, to wit His poverty, labor, doctrine, cross, and\r\ncontempt of life, or should they consider what the name pope, that is\r\nfather, or holiness, imports, who would live more disconsolate than\r\nthemselves? or who would purchase that chair with all his substance? or\r\ndefend it, so purchased, with swords, poisons, and all force imaginable?\r\nso great a profit would the access of wisdom deprive him of\u0026mdash;wisdom did I\r\nsay? nay, the least corn of that salt which Christ speaks of: so much\r\nwealth, so much honor, so much riches, so many victories, so many\r\noffices, so many dispensations, so much tribute, so many pardons; such\r\nhorses, such mules, such guards, and so much pleasure would it lose them.\r\nYou see how much I have comprehended in a little: instead of which it\r\nwould bring in watchings, fastings, tears, prayers, sermons, good\r\nendeavors, sighs, and a thousand the like troublesome exercises. Nor is\r\nthis least considerable: so many scribes, so many copying clerks, so many\r\nnotaries, so many advocates, so many promoters, so many secretaries, so\r\nmany muleteers, so many grooms, so many bankers: in short, that vast\r\nmultitude of men that overcharge the Roman See\u0026mdash;I mistook, I meant\r\nhonor\u0026mdash;might beg their bread.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nA most inhuman and economical thing, and more to be execrated, that those\r\ngreat princes of the Church and true lights of the world should be\r\nreduced to a staff and a wallet. Whereas now, if there be anything that\r\nrequires their pains, they leave that to Peter and Paul that have leisure\r\nenough; but if there be anything of honor or pleasure, they take that to\r\nthemselves. By which means it is, yet by my courtesy, that scarce any\r\nkind of men live more voluptuously or with less trouble; as believing\r\nthat Christ will be well enough pleased if in their mystical and almost\r\nmimical pontificality, ceremonies, titles of holiness and the like, and\r\nblessing and cursing, they play the parts of bishops. To work miracles is\r\nold and antiquated, and not in fashion now; to instruct the people,\r\ntroublesome; to interpret the Scripture, pedantic; to pray, a sign one\r\nhas little else to do; to shed tears, silly and womanish; to be poor,\r\nbase; to be vanquished, dishonorable and little becoming him that scarce\r\nadmits even kings to kiss his slipper; and lastly, to die, uncouth; and\r\nto be stretched on a cross, infamous.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nTheirs are only those weapons and sweet blessings which Paul mentions,\r\nand of these truly they are bountiful enough: as interdictions, hangings,\r\nheavy burdens, reproofs, anathemas, executions in effigy, and that\r\nterrible thunderbolt of excommunication, with the very sight of which\r\nthey sink men\u0027s souls beneath the bottom of hell: which yet these most\r\nholy fathers in Christ and His vicars hurl with more fierceness against\r\nnone than against such as, by the instigation of the devil, attempt to\r\nlessen or rob them of Peter\u0027s patrimony. When, though those words in the\r\nGospel, \"We have left all, and followed Thee,\" were his, yet they call\r\nhis patrimony lands, cities, tribute, imposts, riches; for which, being\r\nenflamed with the love of Christ, they contend with fire and sword, and\r\nnot without loss of much Christian blood, and believe they have then most\r\napostolically defended the Church, the spouse of Christ, when the enemy,\r\nas they call them, are valiantly routed. As if the Church had any\r\ndeadlier enemies than wicked prelates, who not only suffer Christ to run\r\nout of request for want of preaching him, but hinder his spreading by\r\ntheir multitudes of laws merely contrived for their own profit, corrupt\r\nhim by their forced expositions, and murder him by the evil example of\r\ntheir pestilent life.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nNay, further, whereas the Church of Christ was founded in blood,\r\nconfirmed by blood, and augmented by blood, now, as if Christ, who after\r\nhis wonted manner defends his people, were lost, they govern all by the\r\nsword. And whereas war is so savage a thing that it rather befits beasts\r\nthan men, so outrageous that the very poets feigned it came from the\r\nFuries, so pestilent that it corrupts all men\u0027s manners, so unjust that\r\nit is best executed by the worst of men, so wicked that it has no\r\nagreement with Christ; and yet, omitting all the other, they make this\r\ntheir only business. Here you\u0027ll see decrepit old fellows acting the\r\nparts of young men, neither troubled at their costs, nor wearied with\r\ntheir labors, nor discouraged at anything, so they may have the liberty\r\nof turning laws, religion, peace, and all things else quite topsy-turvy.\r\nNor are they destitute of their learned flatterers that call that\r\npalpable madness zeal, piety, and valor, having found out a new way by\r\nwhich a man may kill his brother without the least breach of that charity\r\nwhich, by the command of Christ, one Christian owes another. And here, in\r\ntroth, I\u0027m a little at a stand whether the ecclesiastical German electors\r\ngave them this example, or rather took it from them; who, laying aside\r\ntheir habit, benedictions, and all the like ceremonies, so act the part\r\nof commanders that they think it a mean thing, and least beseeming a\r\nbishop, to show the least courage to Godward unless it be in a battle.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd as to the common herd of priests, they account it a crime to\r\ndegenerate from the sanctity of their prelates. Heidah! How soldier-like\r\nthey bustle about the \u003ci\u003ejus divinum\u003c/i\u003e of titles, and how quick-sighted they\r\nare to pick the least thing out of the writings of the ancients wherewith\r\nthey may fright the common people and convince them, if possible, that\r\nmore than a tenth is due! Yet in the meantime it least comes in their\r\nheads how many things are everywhere extant concerning that duty which\r\nthey owe the people. Nor does their shorn crown in the least admonish\r\nthem that a priest should be free from all worldly desires and think of\r\nnothing but heavenly things. Whereas on the contrary, these jolly fellows\r\nsay they have sufficiently discharged their offices if they but anyhow\r\nmumble over a few odd prayers, which, so help me, Hercules! I wonder if\r\nany god either hear or understand, since they do neither themselves,\r\nespecially when they thunder them out in that manner they are wont. But\r\nthis they have in common with those of the heathens, that they are\r\nvigilant enough to the harvest of their profit, nor is there any of them\r\nthat is not better read in those laws than the Scripture. Whereas if\r\nthere be anything burdensome, they prudently lay that on other men\u0027s\r\nshoulders and shift it from one to the other, as men toss a ball from\r\nhand to hand, following herein the example of lay princes who commit the\r\ngovernment of their kingdoms to their grand ministers, and they again to\r\nothers, and leave all study of piety to the common people. In like manner\r\nthe common people put it over to those they call ecclesiastics, as if\r\nthemselves were no part of the Church, or that their vow in baptism had\r\nlost its obligation. Again, the priests that call themselves secular, as\r\nif they were initiated to the world, not to Christ, lay the burden on the\r\nregulars; the regulars on the monks; the monks that have more liberty on\r\nthose that have less; and all of them on the mendicants; the mendicants\r\non the Carthusians, among whom, if anywhere, this piety lies buried, but\r\nyet so close that scarce anyone can perceive it. In like manner the\r\npopes, the most diligent of all others in gathering in the harvest of\r\nmoney, refer all their apostolical work to the bishops, the bishops to\r\nthe parsons, the parsons to the vicars, the vicars to their brother\r\nmendicants, and they again throw back the care of the flock on those that\r\ntake the wool.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut it is not my business to sift too narrowly the lives of prelates and\r\npriests for fear I seem to have intended rather a satire than an oration,\r\nand be thought to tax good princes while I praise the bad. And therefore,\r\nwhat I slightly taught before has been to no other end but that it might\r\nappear that there\u0027s no man can live pleasantly unless he be initiated to\r\nmy rites and have me propitious to him. For how can it be otherwise when\r\nFortune, the great directress of all human affairs, and myself are so all\r\none that she was always an enemy to those wise men, and on the contrary\r\nso favorable to fools and careless fellows that all things hit luckily\r\nto them?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nYou have heard of that Timotheus, the most fortunate general of the\r\nAthenians, of whom came that proverb, \"His net caught fish, though he\r\nwere asleep;\" and that \"The owl flies;\" whereas these others hit\r\nproperly, wise men \"born in the fourth month;\" and again, \"He rides\r\nSejanus\u0027s his horse;\" and \"gold of Toulouse,\" signifying thereby the\r\nextremity of ill fortune. But I forbear the further threading of\r\nproverbs, lest I seem to have pilfered my friend Erasmus\u0027 adages. Fortune\r\nloves those that have least wit and most confidence and such as like that\r\nsaying of Caesar, \"The die is thrown.\" But wisdom makes men bashful,\r\nwhich is the reason that those wise men have so little to do, unless it\r\nbe with poverty, hunger, and chimney corners; that they live such\r\nneglected, unknown, and hated lives: whereas fools abound in money, have\r\nthe chief commands in the commonwealth, and in a word, flourish every\r\nway. For if it be happiness to please princes and to be conversant among\r\nthose golden and diamond gods, what is more unprofitable than wisdom, or\r\nwhat is it these kind of men have, may more justly be censured? If wealth\r\nis to be got, how little good at it is that merchant like to do, if\r\nfollowing the precepts of wisdom, he should boggle at perjury; or being\r\ntaken in a lie, blush; or in the least regard the sad scruples of those\r\nwise men touching rapine and usury. Again, if a man sue for honors or\r\nchurch preferments, an ass or wild ox shall sooner get them than a wise\r\nman. If a man\u0027s in love with a young wench, none of the least humors in\r\nthis comedy, they are wholly addicted to fools and are afraid of a wise\r\nman and fly him as they would a scorpion. Lastly, whoever intend to live\r\nmerry and frolic, shut their doors against wise men and admit anything\r\nsooner. In brief, go whither you will, among prelates, princes, judges,\r\nmagistrates, friends, enemies, from highest to lowest, and you\u0027ll find\r\nall things done by money; which, as a wise man condemns it, so it takes a\r\nspecial care not to come near him. What shall I say? There is no measure\r\nor end of my praises, and yet \u0027tis fit my oration have an end. And\r\ntherefore I\u0027ll even break off; and yet, before I do it, \u0027twill not be\r\namiss if I briefly show you that there has not been wanting even great\r\nauthors that have made me famous, both by their writings and actions,\r\nlest perhaps otherwise I may seem to have foolishly pleased myself only,\r\nor that the lawyers charge me that I have proved nothing. After their\r\nexample, therefore, will I allege my proofs, that is to say, nothing to\r\nthe point.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd first, every man allows this proverb, \"That where a man wants matter,\r\nhe may best frame some.\" And to this purpose is that verse which we teach\r\nchildren, \"\u0027Tis the greatest wisdom to know when and where to counterfeit\r\nthe fool.\" And now judge yourselves what an excellent thing this folly\r\nis, whose very counterfeit and semblance only has got such praise from\r\nthe learned. But more candidly does that fat plump \"Epicurean bacon-hog,\"\r\nHorace, for so he calls himself, bid us \"mingle our purposes with folly;\"\r\nand whereas he adds the word \u003ci\u003ebravem\u003c/i\u003e, short, perhaps to help out the\r\nverse, he might as well have let it alone; and again, \"\u0027Tis a pleasant\r\nthing to play the fool in the right season;\" and in another place, he had\r\nrather \"be accounted a dotterel and sot than to be wise and made mouths\r\nat.\" And Telemachus in Homer, whom the poet praises so much, is now and\r\nthen called \u003ci\u003enepios\u003c/i\u003e, fool: and by the same name, as if there were some\r\ngood fortune in it, are the tragedians wont to call boys and striplings.\r\nAnd what does that sacred book of Iliads contain but a kind of\r\ncounter-scuffle between foolish kings and foolish people? Besides, how\r\nabsolute is that praise that Cicero gives of it! \"All things are full of\r\nfools.\" For who does not know that every good, the more diffusive it is,\r\nby so much the better it is?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut perhaps their authority may be of small credit among Christians.\r\nWe\u0027ll therefore, if you please, support our praises with some testimonies\r\nof Holy Writ also, in the first place, nevertheless, having forespoke our\r\ntheologians that they\u0027ll give us leave to do it without offense. And in\r\nthe next, forasmuch as we attempt a matter of some difficulty and it may\r\nbe perhaps a little too saucy to call back again the Muses from Helicon\r\nto so great a journey, especially in a matter they are wholly strangers\r\nto, it will be more suitable, perhaps, while I play the divine and make\r\nmy way through such prickly quiddities, that I entreat the soul of\r\nScotus, a thing more bristly than either porcupine or hedgehog, to leave\r\nhis scorebone awhile and come into my breast, and then let him go whither\r\nhe pleases, or to the dogs, I could wish also that I might change my\r\ncountenance, or that I had on the square cap and the cassock, for fear\r\nsome or other should impeach me of theft as if I had privily rifled our\r\nmasters\u0027 desks in that I have got so much divinity. But it ought not to\r\nseem so strange if after so long and intimate an acquaintance and\r\nconverse with them I have picked up somewhat; when as that fig-tree-god\r\nPriapus hearing his owner read certain Greek words took so much notice of\r\nthem that he got them by heart, and that cock in Lucian by having lived\r\nlong among men became at last a master of their language.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut to the point under a fortunate direction. Ecclesiastes says in his\r\nfirst chapter, \"The number of fools is infinite;\" and when he calls it\r\ninfinite, does he not seem to comprehend all men, unless it be some few\r\nwhom yet \u0027tis a question whether any man ever saw? But more ingeniously\r\ndoes Jeremiah in his tenth chapter confess it, saying, \"Every man is made\r\na fool through his own wisdom;\" attributing wisdom to God alone and\r\nleaving folly to all men else, and again, \"Let not man glory in his\r\nwisdom.\" And why, good Jeremiah, would you not have a man glory in his\r\nwisdom? Because, he\u0027ll say, he has none at all. But to return to\r\nEcclesiastes, who, when he cries out, \"Vanity of vanities, all is\r\nvanity!\" what other thoughts had he, do you believe, than that, as I said\r\nbefore, the life of man is nothing else but an interlude of folly? In\r\nwhich he has added one voice more to that justly received praise of\r\nCicero\u0027s which I quoted before, viz., \"All things are full of fools.\"\r\nAgain, that wise preacher that said, \"A fool changes as the moon, but a\r\nwise man is permanent as the sun,\" what else did he hint at in it but\r\nthat all mankind are fools and the name of wise only proper to God? For\r\nby the moon interpreters understand human nature, and by the sun, God,\r\nthe only fountain of light; with which agrees that which Christ himself\r\nin the Gospel denies, that anyone is to be called good but one, and that\r\nis God. And then if he is a fool that is not wise, and every good man\r\naccording to the Stoics is a wise man, it is no wonder if all mankind be\r\nconcluded under folly. Again Solomon, Chapter 15, \"Foolishness,\" says he,\r\n\"is joy to the fool,\" thereby plainly confessing that without folly there\r\nis no pleasure in life. To which is pertinent that other, \"He that\r\nincreases knowledge, increases grief; and in much understanding there is\r\nmuch indignation.\" And does he not plainly confess as much, Chapter 7,\r\n\"The heart of the wise is where sadness is, but the heart of fools\r\nfollows mirth\"? by which you see, he thought it not enough to have\r\nlearned wisdom without he had added the knowledge of me also. And if you\r\nwill not believe me, take his own words, Chapter 1, \"I gave my heart to\r\nknow wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly.\" Where, by the way, \u0027tis\r\nworth your remark that he intended me somewhat extraordinary that he\r\nnamed me last. A preacher wrote it, and this you know is the order among\r\nchurchmen, that he that is first in dignity comes last in place, as\r\nmindful, no doubt, whatever they do in other things, herein at least to\r\nobserve the evangelical precept.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBesides, that folly is more excellent than wisdom the son of Sirach,\r\nwhoever he was, clearly witnesses, Chapter 44, whose words, so help me,\r\nHercules! I shall not once utter before you meet my induction with a\r\nsuitable answer, according to the manner of those in Plato that dispute\r\nwith Socrates. What things are more proper to be laid up with care, such\r\nas are rare and precious, or such as are common and of no account? Why do\r\nyou give me no answer? Well, though you should dissemble, the Greek\r\nproverb will answer for you, \"Foul water is thrown out of doors;\" which,\r\nif any man shall be so ungracious as to condemn, let him know \u0027tis\r\nAristotle\u0027s, the god of our masters. Is there any of you so very a fool\r\nas to leave jewels and gold in the street? In truth, I think not; in the\r\nmost secret part of your house; nor is that enough; if there be any\r\ndrawer in your iron chests more private than other, there you lay them;\r\nbut dirt you throw out of doors. And therefore, if you so carefully lay\r\nup such things as you value and throw away what\u0027s vile and of no worth,\r\nis it not plain that wisdom, which he forbids a man to hide, is of less\r\naccount than folly, which he commands him to cover? Take his own words,\r\n\"Better is the man that hideth his folly than he that hideth his wisdom.\"\r\nOr what is that, when he attributes an upright mind without craft or\r\nmalice to a fool, when a wise man the while thinks no man like himself?\r\nFor so I understand that in his tenth chapter, \"A fool walking by the\r\nway, being a fool himself, supposes all men to be fools like him.\" And is\r\nit not a sign of great integrity to esteem every man as good as himself,\r\nand when there is no one that leans not too much to other way, to be so\r\nfrank yet as to divide his praises with another? Nor was this great king\r\nashamed of the name when he says of himself that he is more foolish than\r\nany man. Nor did Paul, that great doctor of the Gentiles, writing to the\r\nCorinthians, unwillingly acknowledge it; \"I speak,\" says he, \"like a\r\nfool. I am more.\" As if it could be any dishonor to excel in folly.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut here I meet with a great noise of some that endeavor to peck out the\r\ncrows\u0027 eyes; that is, to blind the doctors of our times and smoke out\r\ntheir eyes with new annotations; among whom my friend Erasmus, whom for\r\nhonor\u0027s sake I often mention, deserves if not the first place yet\r\ncertainly the second. O most foolish instance, they cry, and well\r\nbecoming Folly herself! The apostle\u0027s meaning was wide enough from what\r\nyou dream; for he spoke it not in this sense, that he would have them\r\nbelieve him a greater fool than the rest, but when he had said, \"They are\r\nministers of Christ, the same am I,\" and by way of boasting herein had\r\nequaled himself with to others, he added this by way of correction or\r\nchecking himself, \"I am more,\" as meaning that he was not only equal to\r\nthe rest of the apostles in the work of the Gospel, but somewhat\r\nsuperior. And therefore, while he would have this received as a truth,\r\nlest nevertheless it might not relish their ears as being spoken with too\r\nmuch arrogance, he foreshortened his argument with the vizard of folly,\r\n\"I speak like a fool,\" because he knew it was the prerogative of fools to\r\nspeak what they like, and that too without offense. Whatever he thought\r\nwhen he wrote this, I leave it to them to discuss; for my own part, I\r\nfollow those fat, fleshy, and vulgarly approved doctors, with whom, by\r\nJupiter! a great part of the learned had rather err than follow them that\r\nunderstand the tongues, though they are never so much in the right. Not\r\nany of them make greater account of those smatterers at Greek than if\r\nthey were daws. Especially when a no small professor, whose name I\r\nwittingly conceal lest those choughs should chatter at me that Greek\r\nproverb I have so often mentioned, \"an ass at a harp,\" discoursing\r\nmagisterially and theologically on this text, \"I speak as a fool, I am\r\nmore,\" drew a new thesis; and, which without the height of logic he could\r\nnever have done, made this new subdivision\u0026mdash;for I\u0027ll give you his own\r\nwords, not only in form but matter also\u0026mdash;\"I speak like a fool,\" that is,\r\nif you look upon me as a fool for comparing myself with those false\r\napostles, I shall seem yet a greater fool by esteeming myself before\r\nthem; though the same person a little after, as forgetting himself, runs\r\noff to another matter.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut why do I thus staggeringly defend myself with one single instance? As\r\nif it were not the common privilege of divines to stretch heaven, that is\r\nHoly Writ, like a cheverel; and when there are many things in St. Paul\r\nthat thwart themselves, which yet in their proper place do well enough if\r\nthere be any credit to be given to St. Jerome that was master of five\r\ntongues. Such was that of his at Athens when having casually espied the\r\ninscription of that altar, he wrested it into an argument to prove the\r\nChristian faith, and leaving out all the other words because they made\r\nagainst him, took notice only of the two last, viz., \"To the unknown\r\nGod;\" and those too not without some alteration, for the whole\r\ninscription was thus: \"To the Gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa; To the\r\nunknown and strange Gods.\" And according to his example do the sons of\r\nthe prophets, who, forcing out here and there four or five expressions\r\nand if need be corrupting the sense, wrest it to their own purpose;\r\nthough what goes before and follows after make nothing to the matter in\r\nhand, nay, be quite against it. Which yet they do with so happy an\r\nimpudence that oftentimes the civilians envy them that faculty.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nFor what is it in a manner they may not hope for success in, when this\r\ngreat doctor (I had almost bolted out his name, but that I once again\r\nstand in fear of the Greek proverb) has made a construction on an\r\nexpression of Luke, so agreeable to the mind of Christ as are fire and\r\nwater to one another. For when the last point of danger was at hand, at\r\nwhich time retainers and dependents are wont in a more special manner to\r\nattend their protectors, to examine what strength they have, and prepare\r\nfor the encounter, Christ, intending to take out of his disciples\u0027 minds\r\nall trust and confidence in such like defense, demands of them whether\r\nthey wanted anything when he sent them forth so unprovided for a journey\r\nthat they had neither shoes to defend their feet from the injuries of\r\nstones and briars nor the provision of a scrip to preserve them from\r\nhunger. And when they had denied that they wanted anything, he adds, \"But\r\nnow, he that hath a bag, let him take it, and likewise a scrip; and he\r\nthat hath none, let him sell his coat and buy a sword.\" And now when the\r\nsum of all that Christ taught pressed only meekness, suffering, and\r\ncontempt of life, who does not clearly perceive what he means in this\r\nplace? to wit, that he might the more disarm his ministers, that\r\nneglecting not only shoes and scrip but throwing away their very coat,\r\nthey might, being in a manner naked, the more readily and with less\r\nhindrance take in hand the work of the Gospel, and provide themselves of\r\nnothing but a sword, not such as thieves and murderers go up and down\r\nwith, but the sword of the spirit that pierces the most inward parts, and\r\nso cuts off as it were at one blow all earthly affections, that they mind\r\nnothing but their duty to God. But see, I pray, whither this famous\r\ntheologian wrests it. By the sword he interprets defense against\r\npersecution, and by the bag sufficient provision to carry it on. As if\r\nChrist having altered his mind, in that he sent out his disciples not so\r\nroyally attended as he should have done, repented himself of his former\r\ninstructions: or as forgetting that he had said, \"Blessed are ye when ye\r\nare evil spoken of, despised, and persecuted, etc.,\" and forbade them to\r\nresist evil; for that the meek in spirit, not the proud, are blessed: or,\r\nlest remembering, I say, that he had compared them to sparrows and\r\nlilies, thereby minding them what small care they should take for the\r\nthings of this life, was so far now from having them go forth without a\r\nsword that he commanded them to get one, though with the sale of their\r\ncoat, and had rather they should go naked than want a brawling-iron by\r\ntheir sides. And to this, as under the word \"sword\" he conceives to be\r\ncomprehended whatever appertains to the repelling of injuries, so under\r\nthat of \"scrip\" he takes in whatever is necessary to the support of life.\r\nAnd so does this deep interpreter of the divine meaning bring forth the\r\napostles to preach the doctrine of a crucified Christ, but furnished at\r\nall points with lances, slings, quarterstaffs, and bombards; lading them\r\nalso with bag and baggage, lest perhaps it might not be lawful for them\r\nto leave their inn unless they were empty and fasting. Nor does he take\r\nthe least notice of this, that he so willed the sword to be bought,\r\nreprehends it a little after and commands it to be sheathed; and that it\r\nwas never heard that the apostles ever used or swords or bucklers against\r\nthe Gentiles, though \u0027tis likely they had done it, if Christ had ever\r\nintended, as this doctor interprets.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThere is another, too, whose name out of respect I pass by, a man of no\r\nsmall repute, who from those tents which Habakkuk mentions, \"The tents of\r\nthe land of Midian shall tremble,\" drew this exposition, that it was\r\nprophesied of the skin of Saint Bartholomew who was flayed alive. And\r\nwhy, forsooth, but because those tents were covered with skins? I was\r\nlately myself at a theological dispute, for I am often there, where when\r\none was demanding what authority there was in Holy Writ that commands\r\nheretics to be convinced by fire rather than reclaimed by argument; a\r\ncrabbed old fellow, and one whose supercilious gravity spoke him at least\r\na doctor, answered in a great fume that Saint Paul had decreed it, who\r\nsaid, \"Reject him that is a heretic, after once or twice admonition.\" And\r\nwhen he had sundry times, one after another, thundered out the same\r\nthing, and most men wondered what ailed the man, at last he explained it\r\nthus, making two words of one. \"A heretic must be put to death.\" Some\r\nlaughed, and yet there wanted not others to whom this exposition seemed\r\nplainly theological; which, when some, though those very few, opposed,\r\nthey cut off the dispute, as we say, with a hatchet, and the credit of so\r\nuncontrollable an author. \"Pray conceive me,\" said he, \"it is written,\r\n\u0027Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.\u0027 But every heretic bewitches the\r\npeople; therefore, etc.\" And now, as many as were present admired the\r\nman\u0027s wit, and consequently submitted to his decision of the question.\r\nNor came it into any of their heads that that law concerned only\r\nfortunetellers, enchanters, and magicians, whom the Hebrews call in their\r\ntongue \"Mecaschephim,\" witches or sorcerers: for otherwise, perhaps,\r\nby the same reason it might as well have extended to fornication\r\nand drunkenness.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut I foolishly run on in these matters, though yet there are so many of\r\nthem that neither Chrysippus\u0027 nor Didymus\u0027 volumes are large enough to\r\ncontain them. I would only desire you to consider this, that if so great\r\ndoctors may be allowed this liberty, you may the more reasonably pardon\r\neven me also, a raw, effeminate divine, if I quote not everything so\r\nexactly as I should. And so at last I return to Paul. \"Ye willingly,\"\r\nsays he, \"suffer my foolishness,\" and again, \"Take me as a fool,\" and\r\nfurther, \"I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly,\" and\r\nin another place, \"We are fools for Christ\u0027s sake.\" You have heard from\r\nhow great an author how great praises of folly; and to what other end,\r\nbut that without doubt he looked upon it as that one thing both necessary\r\nand profitable. \"If anyone among ye,\" says he, \"seem to be wise, let him\r\nbe a fool that he may be wise.\" And in Luke, Jesus called those two\r\ndisciples with whom he joined himself upon the way, \"fools.\" Nor can I\r\ngive you any reason why it should seem so strange when Saint Paul imputes\r\na kind of folly even to God himself. \"The foolishness of God,\" says he,\r\n\"is wiser than men.\" Though yet I must confess that origin upon the place\r\ndenies that this foolishness may be resembled to the uncertain judgment\r\nof men; of which kind is, that \"the preaching of the cross is to them\r\nthat perish foolishness.\"\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut why am I so careful to no purpose that I thus run on to prove my\r\nmatter by so many testimonies? when in those mystical Psalms Christ\r\nspeaking to the Father says openly, \"Thou knowest my foolishness.\" Nor is\r\nit without ground that fools are so acceptable to God. The reason perhaps\r\nmay be this, that as princes carry a suspicious eye upon those that are\r\nover-wise, and consequently hate them\u0026mdash;as Caesar did Brutus and Cassius,\r\nwhen he feared not in the least drunken Antony; so Nero, Seneca; and\r\nDionysius, Plato\u0026mdash;and on the contrary are delighted in those blunter and\r\nunlabored wits, in like manner Christ ever abhors and condemns those wise\r\nmen and such as put confidence in their own wisdom. And this Paul makes\r\nclearly out when he said, \"God hath chosen the foolish things of this\r\nworld,\" as well knowing it had been impossible to have reformed it by\r\nwisdom. Which also he sufficiently declares himself, crying out by the\r\nmouth of his prophet, \"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and cast\r\naway the understanding of the prudent.\"\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd again, when Christ gives Him thanks that He had concealed the mystery\r\nof salvation from the wise, but revealed it to babes and sucklings, that\r\nis to say, fools. For the Greek word for babes is fools, which he opposes\r\nto the word wise men. To this appertains that throughout the Gospel you\r\nfind him ever accusing the Scribes and Pharisees and doctors of the law,\r\nbut diligently defending the ignorant multitude (for what other is that\r\n\"Woe to ye Scribes and Pharisees\" than woe to you, you wise men?), but\r\nseems chiefly delighted in little children, women, and fishers. Besides,\r\namong brute beasts he is best pleased with those that have least in them\r\nof the foxes\u0027 subtlety. And therefore he chose rather to ride upon an ass\r\nwhen, if he had pleased, he might have bestrode the lion without danger.\r\nAnd the Holy Ghost came down in the shape of a dove, not of an eagle or\r\nkite. Add to this that in Scripture there is frequent mention of harts,\r\nhinds, and lambs; and such as are destined to eternal life are called\r\nsheep, than which creature there is not anything more foolish, if we may\r\nbelieve that proverb of Aristotle \"sheepish manners,\" which he tells us\r\nis taken from the foolishness of that creature and is used to be applied\r\nto dull-headed people and lack-wits. And yet Christ professes to be the\r\nshepherd of this flock and is himself delighted with the name of a lamb;\r\naccording to Saint John, \"Behold the Lamb of God!\" Of which also there is\r\nmuch mention in the Revelation. And what does all this drive at, but that\r\nall mankind are fools\u0026mdash;nay, even the very best?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd Christ himself, that he might the better relieve this folly, being\r\nthe wisdom of the Father, yet in some manner became a fool when taking\r\nupon him the nature of man, he was found in shape as a man; as in like\r\nmanner he was made sin that he might heal sinners. Nor did he work this\r\ncure any other way than by the foolishness of the cross and a company of\r\nfat apostles, not much better, to whom also he carefully recommended\r\nfolly but gave them a caution against wisdom and drew them together by\r\nthe example of little children, lilies, mustard-seed, and sparrows,\r\nthings senseless and inconsiderable, living only by the dictates of\r\nnature and without either craft or care. Besides, when he forbade them to\r\nbe troubled about what they should say before governors and straightly\r\ncharged them not to inquire after times and seasons, to wit, that they\r\nmight not trust to their own wisdom but wholly depend on him. And to the\r\nsame purpose is it that that great Architect of the World, God, gave man\r\nan injunction against his eating of the Tree of Knowledge, as if\r\nknowledge were the bane of happiness; according to which also, St. Paul\r\ndisallows it as puffing up and destructive; whence also St. Bernard seems\r\nin my opinion to follow when he interprets that mountain whereon Lucifer\r\nhad fixed his habitation to be the mountain of knowledge.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nNor perhaps ought I to omit this other argument, that Folly is so\r\ngracious above that her errors are only pardoned, those of wise men\r\nnever. Whence it is that they that ask forgiveness, though they offend\r\nnever so wittingly, cloak it yet with the excuse of folly. So Aaron, in\r\nNumbers, if I mistake not the book, when he sues unto Moses concerning\r\nhis sister\u0027s leprosy, \"I beseech thee, my Lord, not to lay this sin upon\r\nus, which we have foolishly committed.\" So Saul makes his excuse of\r\nDavid, \"For behold,\" says he, \"I did it foolishly.\" And again, David\r\nhimself thus sweetens God, \"And therefore I beseech thee, O Lord, to take\r\naway the trespass of thy servant, for I have done foolishly,\" as if he\r\nknew there was no pardon to be obtained unless he had colored his offense\r\nwith folly and ignorance. And stronger is that of Christ upon the cross\r\nwhen he prayed for his enemies, \"Father, forgive them,\" nor does he cover\r\ntheir crime with any other excuse than that of unwittingness\u0026mdash;because,\r\nsays he, \"they know not what they do.\" In like manner Paul, writing to\r\nTimothy, \"But therefore I obtained mercy, for that I did it ignorantly\r\nthrough unbelief.\" And what is the meaning of \"I did it ignorantly\" but\r\nthat I did it out of folly, not malice? And what of \"Therefore I received\r\nmercy\" but that I had not obtained it had I not been made more allowable\r\nthrough the covert of folly? For us also makes that mystical Psalmist,\r\nthough I remembered it not in its right place, \"Remember not the sins of\r\nmy youth nor my ignorances.\" You see what two things he pretends, to wit,\r\nyouth, whose companion I ever am, and ignorances, and that in the plural\r\nnumber, a number of multitude, whereby we are to understand that there\r\nwas no small company of them.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut not to run too far in that which is infinite. To speak briefly, all\r\nChristian religion seems to have a kind of alliance with folly and in no\r\nrespect to have any accord with wisdom. Of which if you expect proofs,\r\nconsider first that boys, old men, women, and fools are more delighted\r\nwith religious and sacred things than others, and to that purpose are\r\never next the altars; and this they do by mere impulse of nature. And in\r\nthe next place, you see that those first founders of it were plain,\r\nsimple persons and most bitter enemies of learning. Lastly there are no\r\nsort of fools seem more out of the way than are these whom the zeal of\r\nChristian religion has once swallowed up; so that they waste their\r\nestates, neglect injuries, suffer themselves to be cheated, put no\r\ndifference between friends and enemies, abhor pleasure, are crammed with\r\npoverty, watchings, tears, labors, reproaches, loathe life, and wish\r\ndeath above all things; in short, they seem senseless to common\r\nunderstanding, as if their minds lived elsewhere and not in their own\r\nbodies; which, what else is it than to be mad? For which reason you must\r\nnot think it so strange if the apostles seemed to be drunk with new wine,\r\nand if Paul appeared to Festus to be mad.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut now, having once gotten on the lion\u0027s skin, go to, and I\u0027ll show you\r\nthat this happiness of Christians, which they pursue with so much toil,\r\nis nothing else but a kind of madness and folly; far be it that my words\r\nshould give any offense, rather consider my matter. And first, the\r\nChristians and Platonists do as good as agree in this, that the soul is\r\nplunged and fettered in the prison of the body, by the grossness of which\r\nit is so tied up and hindered that it cannot take a view of or enjoy\r\nthings as they truly are; and for that cause their master defines\r\nphilosophy to be a contemplation of death, because it takes off the mind\r\nfrom visible and corporeal objects, than which death does no more. And\r\ntherefore, as long as the soul uses the organs of the body in that right\r\nmanner it ought, so long it is said to be in good state and condition;\r\nbut when, having broken its fetters, it endeavors to get loose and\r\nassays, as it were, a flight out of that prison that holds it in, they\r\ncall it madness; and if this happen through any distemper or\r\nindisposition of the organs, then, by the common consent of every man,\r\n\u0027tis downright madness. And yet we see such kind of men foretell things\r\nto come, understand tongues and letters they never learned before, and\r\nseem, as it were, big with a kind of divinity. Nor is it to be doubted\r\nbut that it proceeds from hence, that the mind, being somewhat at liberty\r\nfrom the infection of the body, begins to put forth itself in its native\r\nvigor. And I conceive \u0027tis from the same cause that the like often\r\nhappens to sick men a little before their death, that they discourse in\r\nstrain above mortality as if they were inspired. Again, if this happens\r\nupon the score of religion, though perhaps it may not be the same kind of\r\nmadness, yet \u0027tis so near it that a great many men would judge it no\r\nbetter, especially when a few inconsiderable people shall differ from the\r\nrest of the world in the whole course of their life. And therefore it\r\nfares with them as, according to the fiction of Plato, happens to those\r\nthat being cooped up in a cave stand gaping with admiration at the\r\nshadows of things; and that fugitive who, having broke from them and\r\nreturning to them again, told them he had seen things truly as they were,\r\nand that they were the most mistaken in believing there was nothing but\r\npitiful shadows. For as this wise man pitied and bewailed their palpable\r\nmadness that were possessed with so gross an error, so they in return\r\nlaughed at him as a doting fool and cast him out of their company. In\r\nlike manner the common sort of men chiefly admire those things that are\r\nmost corporeal and almost believe there is nothing beyond them. Whereas\r\non the contrary, these devout persons, by how much the nearer anything\r\nconcerns the body, by so much more they neglect it and are wholly hurried\r\naway with the contemplation of things invisible. For the one give the\r\nfirst place to riches, the next to their corporeal pleasures, leaving the\r\nlast place to their soul, which yet most of them do scarce believe,\r\nbecause they can\u0027t see it with their eyes. On the contrary, the others\r\nfirst rely wholly on God, the most unchangeable of all things; and next\r\nhim, yet on this that comes nearest him, they bestow the second on their\r\nsoul; and lastly, for their body, they neglect that care and condemn and\r\nfly money as superfluity that may be well spared; or if they are forced\r\nto meddle with any of these things, they do it carelessly and much\r\nagainst their wills, having as if they had it not, and possessing as if\r\nthey possessed it not.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThere are also in each several things several degrees wherein they\r\ndisagree among themselves. And first as to the senses, though all of them\r\nhave more or less affinity with the body, yet of these some are more\r\ngross and blockish, as tasting, hearing, seeing, smelling, touching; some\r\nmore removed from the body, as memory, intellect, and the will. And\r\ntherefore to which of these the mind applies itself, in that lies its\r\nforce. But holy men, because the whole bent of their minds is taken up\r\nwith those things that are most repugnant to these grosser senses, they\r\nseem brutish and stupid in the common use of them. Whereas on the\r\ncontrary, the ordinary sort of people are best at these, and can do least\r\nat the other; from whence it is, as we have heard, that some of these\r\nholy men have by mistake drunk oil for wine. Again, in the affections of\r\nthe mind, some have a greater commerce with the body than others, as\r\nlust, desire of meat and sleep, anger, pride, envy; with which holy men\r\nare at irreconcilable enmity, and contrary, the common people think\r\nthere\u0027s no living without them. And lastly there are certain middle kind\r\nof affections, and as it were natural to every man, as the love of one\u0027s\r\ncountry, children, parents, friends, and to which the common people\r\nattribute no small matter; whereas the other strive to pluck them out of\r\ntheir mind: unless insomuch as they arrive to that highest part of the\r\nsoul, that they love their parents not as parents\u0026mdash;for what did they get\r\nbut the body? though yet we owe it to God, not them\u0026mdash;but as good men or\r\nwomen and in whom shines the image of that highest wisdom which alone\r\nthey call the chiefest good, and out of which, they say, there is nothing\r\nto be beloved or desired.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd by the same rule do they measure all things else, so that they make\r\nless account of whatever is visible, unless it be altogether\r\ncontemptible, than of those things which they cannot see. But they say\r\nthat in Sacraments and other religious duties there is both body and\r\nspirit. As in fasting they count it not enough for a man to abstain from\r\neating, which the common people take for an absolute fast, unless there\r\nbe also a lessening of his depraved affections: as that he be less angry,\r\nless proud, than he was wont, that the spirit, being less clogged with\r\nits bodily weight, may be the more intent upon heavenly things. In like\r\nmanner, in the Eucharist, though, say they, it is not to be esteemed the\r\nless that \u0027tis administered with ceremonies, yet of itself \u0027tis of little\r\neffect, if not hurtful, unless that which is spiritual be added to it, to\r\nwit, that which is represented under those visible signs. Now the death\r\nof Christ is represented by it, which all men, vanquishing, abolishing,\r\nand, as it were, burying their carnal affections, ought to express in\r\ntheir lives and conversations that they may grow up to a newness of life\r\nand be one with him and the same one among another. This a holy man does,\r\nand in this is his only meditation. Whereas on the contrary, the common\r\npeople think there\u0027s no more in that sacrifice than to be present at the\r\naltar and crowd next it, to have a noise of words and look upon the\r\nceremonies. Nor in this alone, which we only proposed by way of example,\r\nbut in all his life, and without hypocrisy, does a holy man fly those\r\nthings that have any alliance with the body and is wholly ravished with\r\nthings eternal, invisible, and spiritual. For which cause there\u0027s so\r\ngreat contrarity of opinion between them, and that too in everything,\r\nthat each party thinks the other out of their wits; though that\r\ncharacter, in my judgment, better agrees with those holy men than the\r\ncommon people: which yet will be more clear if, as I promised, I briefly\r\nshow you that that great reward they so much fancy is nothing else but a\r\nkind of madness.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd therefore suppose that Plato dreamed of somewhat like it when he\r\ncalled the madness of lovers the most happy condition of all others. For\r\nhe that\u0027s violently in love lives not in his own body but in the thing he\r\nloves; and by how much the farther he runs from himself into another, by\r\nso much the greater is his pleasure. And then, when the mind strives to\r\nrove from its body and does not rightly use its own organs, without doubt\r\nyou may say \u0027tis downright madness and not be mistaken, or otherwise\r\nwhat\u0027s the meaning of those common sayings, \"He does not dwell at home,\"\r\n\"Come to yourself,\" \"He\u0027s his own man again\"? Besides, the more perfect\r\nand true his love is, the more pleasant is his madness. And therefore,\r\nwhat is that life hereafter, after which these holy minds so pantingly\r\nbreathe, like to be? To wit, the spirit shall swallow up the body, as\r\nconqueror and more durable; and this it shall do with the greater ease\r\nbecause heretofore, in its lifetime, it had cleansed and thinned it into\r\nsuch another nothing as itself. And then the spirit again shall be\r\nwonderfully swallowed up by the highest mind, as being more powerful than\r\ninfinite parts; so that the whole man is to be out of himself nor to be\r\notherwise happy in any respect, but that being stripped of himself, he\r\nshall participate of somewhat ineffable from that chiefest good that\r\ndraws all things into itself. And this happiness though \u0027tis only then\r\nperfected when souls being joined to their former bodies shall be made\r\nimmortal, yet forasmuch as the life of holy men is nothing but a\r\ncontinued meditation and, as it were, shadow of that life, it so happens\r\nthat at length they have some taste or relish of it; which, though it be\r\nbut as the smallest drop in comparison of that fountain of eternal\r\nhappiness, yet it far surpasses all worldly delight, though all the\r\npleasures of all mankind were all joined together. So much better are\r\nthings spiritual than things corporeal, and things invisible than things\r\nvisible; which doubtless is that which the prophet promises: \"The eye\r\nhath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of\r\nman to consider what God has provided for them that love Him.\" And this\r\nis that Mary\u0027s better part which is not taken away by change of life,\r\nbut perfected.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd therefore they that are sensible of it, and few there are to whom\r\nthis happens, suffer a kind of somewhat little differing from madness;\r\nfor they utter many things that do not hang together, and that too not\r\nafter the manner of men but make a kind of sound which they neither heed\r\nthemselves, nor is it understood by others, and change the whole figure\r\nof their countenance, one while jocund, another while dejected, now\r\nweeping, then laughing, and again sighing. And when they come to\r\nthemselves, tell you they know not where they have been, whether in the\r\nbody or out of the body, or sleeping; nor do they remember what they have\r\nheard, seen, spoken, or done, and only know this, as it were in a mist or\r\ndream, that they were the most happy while they were so out of their\r\nwits. And therefore they are sorry they are come to themselves again and\r\ndesire nothing more than this kind of madness, to be perpetually mad. And\r\nthis is a small taste of that future happiness.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut I forget myself and run beyond my bounds. Though yet, if I shall seem\r\nto have spoken anything more boldly or impertinently than I ought, be\r\npleased to consider that not only Folly but a woman said it; remembering\r\nin the meantime that Greek proverb, \"Sometimes a fool may speak a word in\r\nseason,\" unless perhaps you expect an epilogue, but give me leave to tell\r\nyou you are mistaken if you think I remember anything of what I have\r\nsaid, having foolishly bolted out such a hodgepodge of words. \u0027Tis an old\r\nproverb, \"I hate one that remembers what\u0027s done over the cup.\" This is a\r\nnew one of my own making: I hate a man that remembers what he hears.\r\nWherefore farewell, clap your hands, live and drink lustily, my most\r\nexcellent disciples of Folly.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cpre\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nEnd of Project Gutenberg\u0027s The Praise of Folly, by Desiderius Erasmus\n\u003c/article\u003e"}],"SectionSequence":["Back Link","Work Title","Deck","Author","Period","Era","Composition","Date Note","Region","Terra Avita","Terra Avita Region","Modern Country","Original Title","Language","Primary Discipline","Secondary Discipline","Tradition","Full Versions","Core Thesis","Classification","Arguments","Influence","Significance","Evidence Note","Full Text"],"Counts":{"ContextCards":3,"GeoCards":4,"DisciplineCards":2,"Links":11,"Sections":25,"Styles":3,"Scripts":1}}