Erasmus: Moriae Encomium

Superioribus diebus cum me ex Italia in Angliam recepissem, ne totum hoc tempus quo equo fuit insidendum amusois et illitteratis fabulis tereretur, malui mecum aliquoties uel de communibus studiis nostris aliquid agitare, uel amicorum, quos hic ut doctissimos ita et suauissimos reliqueram, recordatione frui. Inter hos tu, mi More, uel in primis occurrebas; cuius equidem absentis absens memoria non aliter frui solebam quam presentis presens consuetudine consueueram; qua dispeream si quid unquam in uita contigit mellitius. Ergo quoniam omnino aliquid agendum duxi, et id tempus ad seriam commentationem parum uidebatur accommodatum, uisum est Moriae Encomium ludere.

In the preceding days, when I had taken myself back from Italy into England, lest all this time in which it was necessary to sit a-horseback be worn away on un-Muse-like and illiterate tales, I preferred with myself at times either to agitate something about our common studies, or to enjoy the recollection of friends, whom here I had left as most learned and likewise most suave. Among these you, my More, occurred almost first; and of you, absent, I absent was accustomed to enjoy the memory no otherwise than, present to one present, I had been wont to enjoy the familiar consuetude; than which—may I perish—if ever anything in life befell more honey-sweet. Therefore, since I judged that absolutely something ought to be done, and that time seemed little accommodated to serious commentation, it seemed good to play the Moriae Encomium.

Que Pallas istuc tibi misit in mentem? inquies. Primum admonuit me Mori cognomen tibi gentile, quod tam ad Moriae uocabulum accedit quam es ipse a re alienus; es autem uel omnium suffragiis alienissimus.

“What Pallas sent that into your mind?” you will say. First, your gentile cognomen Morus admonished me, which comes as close to the vocable Moria as you yourself are alien from the thing; indeed, by the suffrages of all, you are most alien.

Deinde suspicabar hunc ingenii nostri lusum tibi precipue probatum iri, propterea quod soleas huius generis iocis, hoc est nec indoctis, ni fallor, nec usquequaque insulsis, impendio delectari, et omnino in communi mortalium uita Democritum quendam agere. Quanquam tu quidem, ut pro singulari quadam ingenii tui perspicacitate longe lateque a uulgo dissentire soles, ita pro incredibili morum suauitate facilitateque cum omnibus omnium horarum hominem agere et potes et gaudes. Hanc igitur declamatiunculam non solum lubens accipies ceu mnemosunon tui sodalis, uerum etiam tuendam suscipies, utpote tibi dicatam iamque tuam non meam.

Then I suspected that this sport of my wit would be especially approved by you, because you are wont to be exceedingly delighted by jests of this kind—namely, if I am not mistaken, neither unlearned nor altogether insipid—and in general to play a certain Democritus in the common life of mortals. And yet you indeed, just as by a certain singular perspicacity of your talent you are accustomed to dissent far and wide from the crowd, so by an incredible sweetness and affability of manners you both can and rejoice to play the man-for-all-hours with everyone. Therefore you will not only gladly receive this little declamation as a mnemosynon of your comrade, but you will even undertake to defend it, as being dedicated to you and now yours, not mine.

Etenim non deerunt fortasse uitilitigatores, qui calum nientur partim leuiores esse nugas quam ut theologum deceant, partim mordaciores quam ut Christiane conueniant modestie; nosque clamitabunt ueterem comediam aut Lucianum quempiam referre atque omnia mordicus arripere. Verum quos argumenti leuitas et ludicrum offendit, cogitent uelim non meum hoc exemplum esse, sed idem iam olim a magnis auctoribus factitatum; cum ante tot secula Batrachomuomachian luserit Homerus, Maro Culicem et Moretum, Nucem Ouidius; cum Busyriden laudarit Polycrates et huius castigator Isocrates, iniustitiam Glauco, Thersiten et quartanam febrim Fauorinus, caluitiem Synesius, muscam et parasiticam Lucianus; cum Seneca Claudii luserit apotheôsin, Plutarchus Grylli cum Ulysse dialogum, Lucianus et Apuleius Asinum, et nescio quis Grunnii Coro cottae porcelli testamentum, cuius et diuus meminit Hieronymus Proinde, si uidebitur, fingant isti me laterunculis in terim animi causa lusisse, aut si malint equitasse in arundine longa. Nam que tandem est iniquitas, cum omni uite insti tuto suos lusus concedamus, studiis nullum omnino lusum permittere, maxime si nuge seria ducant, atque ita tractentur ludicra ut ex his aliquanto plus frugis referat lector non omnino naris obese, quam ex quorundam tetricis ac splendidis argumentis?

Indeed there will perhaps not be lacking wranglers, who will calumniate that the trifles are partly too light to befit a theologian, partly too mordacious to suit Christian modesty; and they will keep shouting that we revive the Old Comedy or some Lucian, and seize everything with a bite. But those whom the lightness and the ludic element of the subject offend, let them consider, I would wish, that this is not my example, but that the same has long since been practiced by great authors; since so many ages ago Homer played the Batrachomyomachia, Maro the Culex and the Moretum, Ovid the Nux; since Polycrates praised Busiris and Isocrates, his chastiser; Favorinus [praised] injustice for Glaucus, Thersites, and the quartan fever; Synesius baldness, Lucian the Fly and the Parasite; since Seneca sported with the apotheosis of Claudius, Plutarch the dialogue of Gryllus with Ulysses, Lucian and Apuleius the Ass, and I know not who the will of the piglet Grunnius Corocotta, of which even Saint Jerome makes mention. Therefore, if it shall seem good, let those fellows imagine that I meanwhile for the sake of my mind have played with little bricks, or, if they prefer, have ridden on a long reed. For what, pray, is the injustice, when we concede to every institution of life its own games, to permit no game at all to studies—especially if trifles lead to seriousness, and ludic things are handled in such a way that a reader not altogether dull-nosed brings back somewhat more fruit from these than from the grim and splendid subjects of certain people?

ueluti cum alius diu consarcinata oratione rhetoricen aut philosophiam laudat, alius principis alicuius laudes describit, alius ad bellum aduersus Turcas mouendum adhortatur, alius futura predicit. alius nouas de lana caprina comminiscitur questiunculas. Vt enim nihil nugacius quam seria nugatorie tractare, ita nihil festiuius quam ita tractare nugas ut nihil minus quam nugatus fuisse uidearis.

as, for instance, when one with a long cobbled-together oration praises rhetoric or philosophy, another describes the praises of some prince, another exhorts to set war in motion against the Turks, another foretells the future. another devises new little questions about caprine wool. for just as nothing is more trifling than to handle serious things in a trifling fashion, so nothing is more witty than to handle trifles in such a way that you seem to have been anything but a trifler.

De me quidem aliorum erit iudicium; tamet si, nisi plane me fallit philautia, Stulticiam laudauimus, sed non omnino stulte.

As for me, indeed, the judgment will belong to others; although, unless self-love plainly deceives me, we have praised Folly, but not altogether foolishly.

Iam uero ut de mordacitatis cauillatione respondeam, semper hec ingeniis libertas permissa fuit, ut in communem hominum uitam salibus luderent impune, modo ne licentia exiret in rabiem. Quo magis admiror his temporibus aurium delicias que nihil iam fere nisi solennes titulos ferre possunt. Porro nonnullos adeo prepostere religiosos uideas, ut uel grauissima in Christum conuicia ferant citius quam pontificem aut principem leuissimo ioco aspergi, presertim si quid pros ta alphita id est ad questum, attinet.

Now indeed, to answer the cavillation of mordacity, this liberty has always been permitted to wits: that they might with their sallies play upon the common life of men with impunity, provided only that license not break out into rabies. Wherefore I the more marvel, in these times, at the delicacy of ears, which now can scarcely bear anything except solemn titles. Moreover, you may see some so preposterously religious that they will more readily endure the gravest invectives against Christ than that the pontiff or a prince be sprinkled with the lightest joke—especially if anything that looks pros ta alphita, that is, to profit, is at issue.

At enim qui uitas hominum ita taxat ut neminem omnino perstringat nominatim, queso utrum is mordere uidetur an docere potius ac monere? Alioqui quot obsecro nominibus ipse me taxo? Preterea qui nullum hominum genus pretermittit, is nulli homini, uiciis omnibus iratus uidetur.

But indeed, he who thus assesses the lives of men so as to lash no one at all by name—pray, does he seem to bite, or rather to teach and admonish? Otherwise, I beseech you, by how many names do I tax myself? Moreover, he who passes over no kind of men seems to be angry with no man, but with all vices.

Ergo si quis extiterit qui sese lesum clamabit, is aut conscientiam prodet suam aut certe metum. Lusit hoc in genere multo liberius ac mordacius diuus Hieronymus, ne nominibus quidem ali quoties parcens. Nos preterquam quod a nominibus in to tum abstinemus, ita preterea stilum temperauimus ut cordatus lector facile sit intellecturus nos uoluptatem magis quam morsum quesisse.

Therefore, if anyone shall have arisen who will cry out that he has been injured, he will either betray his own conscience or at least his fear. In this kind Saint Jerome played much more freely and more mordaciously, not sparing even names at times. We, besides the fact that we abstain from names altogether, have moreover so tempered our style that the sound-minded reader will easily understand that we have sought pleasure rather than a bite.

Neque enim ad Iuuenalis exemplum occultam illam scelerum sentinam usquam mouimus, et ridenda magis quam foeda recensere studuimus. Tum si quis est quem nec ista placare possunt, is saltem illud meminerit, pulchrum esse a Stulticia uituperari; quam cum loquentem fecerimus, decoro persone seruiendum fuit. Sed quid ego hec tibi, patrono tam singulari ut causas etiam non optimas optime tamen tueri possis?

Nor indeed have we, after the example of Juvenal, anywhere stirred that hidden cesspool of crimes, and we have striven to recount things laughable rather than foul. Then, if there is anyone whom not even these can placate, let him at least remember this: that it is fine to be vituperated by Folly; and since we have made her speak, the decorum of the persona had to be served. But why am I saying these things to you, a patron so singular that you can defend even causes not the best, yet in the best way?

Vale, disertissime More, et Moriam tuam gnauiter defende.

Farewell, most eloquent More, and defend your Moria vigorously.

Ex Rure Quinto Idus Iunias, [AN. MDVII].

From the Country on June 9, [YEAR 1507].

MORIAS ENCOMION
ID EST:
STVLTITIAE LAVS
DESIDERII ERASMI ROTERODAMI DECLAMATIO

THE ENCOMIUM OF FOLLY
THAT IS:
THE PRAISE OF FOLLY
THE DECLAMATION OF DESIDERIUS ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM

Stultitia loquitur

Folly speaks

1. Vtcumque de me uulgo mortales loquuntur, neque enim sum nescia, quam male audiat STVLTITIA etiam apud stultissimos, tamen hanc esse, hanc, inquam, esse unam, quae meo numine Deos atque homines exhilaro, uel illud abunde magnum est argumentum, quod simulatque in hunc coetum frequentissimum dictura prodii, sic repente omnium uultus noua quadam atque insolita hilaritate enituerunt, sic subito frontem exporrexistis , sic laeto quodam et amabili applausistis risu, ut mihi profecto quotquot undique praesentes intueor, pariter deorum Homericorum nectare non sine nepenthe temulenti esse uideamini, cum antehac tristes ac solliciti sederitis, perinde quasi nuper e Trophonii specu reuersi. Caeterum quemadmodum fieri consueuit, ut cum primum sol formosum illud et aureum os terris ostenderit, aut ubi post asperam hiemem, nouum uer blandis adspirarit Fauoniis, protinus noua rebus omnibus facies, nouus color ac plane iuuenta quaedam redeat, ita uobis me conspecta, mox alius accessit uultus. Itaque quod magni alioqui Rhetores, uix longa diuque meditata oratione possunt efficere, nempe ut molestas animi curas discutiant, id ego solo statim adspectu praestiti.

1. However mortals commonly speak about me, for I am not unaware how ill a name STUPIDITY bears even among the most stupid, nevertheless that I am she—this, I say, I alone—who by my numen exhilarate gods and humans, even this is an abundantly great argument: that as soon as I came forth, about to speak, into this most crowded assembly, thus at once everyone’s faces shone with a certain new and unwonted cheerfulness, thus you suddenly uncreased the brow , thus with a certain joyful and amiable laughter you applauded, so that, to me indeed, as many as I behold present from every side, you seem alike to be temulent with the nectar of the Homeric gods, not without nepenthe, whereas just before you had sat sad and anxious, as if lately returned from the cave of Trophonius. Moreover, just as it is accustomed to happen, that when first the sun has shown to the lands that beautiful and golden face, or when, after a rough winter, the new spring has breathed with gentle Favonians, immediately a new visage, a new color, and plainly a certain youthfulness returns to all things, so, me once seen by you, straightway another countenance came upon you. And so what great Rhetors can scarcely effect with a long and long-meditated oration—namely, to scatter the vexatious cares of the mind—that I have furnished at once by my mere look alone.

2 Quamobrem autem hoc insolito cultu prodierim hodie, iam audietis, si modo non grauabimini dicenti praebere aures, non eas sane quas sacris Concionatoribus, sed quas fori circulatoribus, scurris ac morionibus consueuistis arrigere, quasque olim Midas ille noster exhibuit Pani. Lubitum est enim paulisper apud uos Sophistam agere, non quidem huius generis quod hodie nugas quasdam anxias inculcat pueris, ac plus quam muliebrem rixandi pertinaciam tradit, sed ueteres illos imitabor, qui quo infamem Sophorum appellationem uitarent, Sophistae uocari maluerunt. Horum studium erat, Deorum ac fortium uirorum laudes encomiis celebrare. Encomium igitur audietis, non Herculis, neque Solonis, sed meum ipsius, hoc est, STVLTITIAE

2 And why I have come forth today in this unusual attire, you shall presently hear, provided only you are not loath to lend an ear to one speaking—not, to be sure, those ears which you are wont to raise for sacred Preachers, but those which you are accustomed to cock for the marketplace tricksters, jesters, and buffoons, such as once that Midas of ours displayed to Pan. For it has pleased me for a little to play the Sophist among you—not indeed of that sort which today inculcates into boys certain anxious trifles and hands down a more-than-womanish pertinacity in wrangling—but I shall imitate those ancients who, in order to avoid the infamous appellation of “Sages,” preferred to be called “Sophists.” Their study was to celebrate with encomia the praises of the gods and of valiant men. An Encomium therefore you shall hear, not of Hercules, nor of Solon, but my own, that is, of STUPIDITY.

3. Iam uero non huius facio sapientes istos qui stultissimum et insolentissimum esse praedicant, si quis ipse laudibus se ferat. Sit sane quam uolent stultum, modo decorum esse fateantur. Quid enim magis quadrat, quam ut ipsa Moria suarum laudum sit buccinatrix, et Autê heautês aulê. Quis enim me melius exprimat quam ipsa me? Nisi si cui forte notior sim, quam egomet sum mihi.

3. But indeed I do not make any account of those sages who proclaim it most foolish and most insolent if anyone should carry himself forward with self-praise. Let it be, to whatever degree they wish, foolish—provided they confess it to be decorous. For what more squares than that Folly herself should be the trumpeter of her own praises, and “a piper to herself”? For who would express me better than I myself—unless, perchance, I should be better known to someone than I am to myself.

Quamquam ego hoc alioqui, non paulo etiam modestius arbitror, quam id quod optimatum ac sapientum uulgus faetitat, qui peruerso quodam pudore uel Rhetorem quempiam palponem, uel Poetam uaniloquum, subornare solent, eumque mercede conductum, a quo suas laudes audiant, hoc est, mera mendacia, et tamen uerecundus interim ille, pauonis in morem pennas tollit, cristas erigit, cum impudens assentator nihili hominem Diis aequiparat, cum absolutum omnium uirtutum exemplar proponit, a quo sciat ille se plusquam dis dia pasôn abesse: cum corniculam alienis conuestit plumis: cum ton Aithiopa leucainei, denique cum ec muias ton elephanta poiei. Postremo sequor tritum illud vulgi prouerbium, quo dicitur is recte laudare sese, cui nemo alius contigit laudator. Quamquam hic interim demiror mortalium, ingratitudinem dicam, an segnitiem, quorum cum omnes me studiose colant, meamque libenter sentiant beneficentiam, nemo tamen tot iam saeculis exstitit, qui grata oratione STVLTITIAE laudes celebrarit, cum non defuerint, qui Busirides, Phalarides, febres quartanas, muscas, caluitia, atque id genus pestes, accuratis magnaque et olei et somni iactura elucubratis laudibus uexerint.

Although I, for my part, deem this to be, by no small measure, more modest than what the mob of optimates and “wise men” belches forth, who, by a certain perverse bashfulness, are wont to suborn either some Rhetor as a palping flatterer or a vain-loquacious Poet, a hireling taken for a fee, from whom they may hear their own praises—that is, sheer mendacities—and yet that “modest” fellow meanwhile, after the peacock’s fashion, lifts his plumes and rears his crest, while the shameless assenter equates a man of nil with the gods, sets him forth as the absolute exemplar of all virtues, from which he knows himself to be more than a dis dia pasôn (two octaves) away; when he clothes the little crow with others’ feathers; when he whitens ton Aithiopa; finally, when ec muias ton elephanta poiei. In fine, I follow that threadbare proverb of the vulgus, by which it is said that he rightly praises himself to whom no other praiser has fallen. Although here, meanwhile, I much marvel at mortals—shall I call it their ingratitude or their sloth?—of whom, though all zealously court me and gladly experience my beneficence, yet in so many ages there has arisen no one who with grateful speech has celebrated the praises of FOLLY, whereas there have not been lacking those who have exalted Busirises, Phalarises, quartan fevers, flies, baldness, and pests of that kind, with meticulous praises, worked out by night with great expense of both oil and sleep.

A me extemporariam quidem illam et illaboratam, sed tanto ueriorem audietis orationem.

From me you will hear an oration, extemporaneous indeed and unlabored, but all the truer.

4. Id quod nolim existimetis ad ingenii ostentationem esse confictum, quemadmodum uulgus oratorum facit. Nam ii, sicuti nostis, cum orationem totis triginta annis elaboratam, nonnumquam et alienam proferunt, tamen triduo sibi quasi per lusum scriptam, aut etiam dictatam esse deierant. Mihi porro semper gratissmum fuit hoti an epi glôttan elthoi dicere.

4. I would not wish you to think that this has been fabricated for an ostentation of talent, as the common herd of orators does. For they, as you know, when they bring forth a speech elaborated over a full thirty years, and sometimes even someone else’s, nevertheless swear that it was written for them in three days as if for play, or even dictated. For my part, it has always been most pleasing to me to say “whatever may come to the tongue.”

At ne quis iam a nobis expectet ut iuxta uulgarium istorum rhetorum consuetudinem, me ipsam finitione explicem porro ut diuidam, multo minus. Nam utrumque ominis est inauspicati, uel fine circumscribere eam cuius numen tam late pateat, uel secare, in cuius cultum omne rerum genus ita consentiat. Tametsi quorsum tandem attinet mei uelut umbram atque imaginem finitione repraesentare, cum ipsam me coram praesentes praesentem oculis intueamini?

But let no one now expect from me that, according to the custom of those commonplace rhetors, I should explicate myself by a definition—still less that I should divide. For each is of inauspicious omen: either to circumscribe by a boundary her whose numen lies open so broadly, or to cut up her, to whose cult every kind of thing thus consents. Although to what, pray, does it tend, to represent as it were my shadow and image by a definition, when you, being present, gaze with your eyes upon me myself present before you?

Sum etenim uti uidetis, uera illa largitrix eaôn, quam Latini STVLTITIAM, Graeci MÔRIAN appellant.

For I am, as you see, that true bestower of good things, whom the Latins call STULTITIA, the Greeks call MORIA.

5. Quamquam quid uel hoc opus erat dicere, quasi non ipso ex uultu fronteque, quod aiunt, satis quae sim prae me feram, aut quasi si quis me Mineruam, aut Sophiam esse contendat, non statim solo possit obtutu coargui, etiam si nulla accedat oratio, minime mendax animi speculum. Nullus apud me fucis locus, nec aliud fronte simulo, aliud in pectore premo. Sumque mei undique simillima, adeo ut nec ii me dissimulare possint, qui maxime Sapientiae personam ac titulum sibi uindicant, kai tê porphura pithêkoi, kai in tê leontê onoi, obambulant.

5. Although what need was there even to say this, as if I did not, from my very face and brow, as they say, bear forth plainly enough what I am; or as if, should anyone contend that I am Minerva or Sophia, he could not at once be convicted by a look alone, even if no oration be added—the least mendacious mirror of the mind. With me there is no place for cosmetic dyes, nor do I simulate one thing on my brow and press another in my breast. And I am on all sides most like to myself, to such a degree that not even those can dissemble me who most vindicate to themselves the persona and title of Wisdom—apes in purple and asses in a lion-skin—strolling about.

Quamuis autem sedulo fingant, tamen alicunde prominentes auriculae Midam produnt. Ingratum mehercle et hoc hominum genus, qui cum maxime sint nostrae factionis, tamen apud uulgum cognominis nostri sic pudet, ut id passim aliis magni probri uice obiiciant. Proinde istos cum sint môrotatoi, caeterum sophi ac Thaletes uideri uelint, nonne iure optimo môrosophous illos appellabimus?

Although they sedulously feign, nevertheless ears protruding from somewhere betray Midas. By Hercules, this tribe of men too is ungrateful, who, though they are most especially of our faction, yet are so ashamed among the vulgar of our cognomen that they everywhere fling it at others in the stead of a great opprobrium. Accordingly, since these are môrotatoi, yet wish to seem sophi and Thaletes, shall we not with the best right call them môrosophous?

6. Visum est enim hac quoque parte nostri temporis Rhetores imitari, qui plane Deos esse sese credunt, si hirudinum ritu bilingues appareant, ac praeclarum facinus esse ducunt, Latinis orationibus subinde Graeculas aliquot uoculas, uelut emblemata intertexere, etiam si nunc non erat his locus. Porro si desunt exotica, e putribus chartis quatuor aut quinque prisca uerba eruunt, quibus tenebras offundant lectori, uidelicet, ut qui intelligunt, magis ac magis sibi placeant: qui non intelligunt, hoc ipso magis admirentur quo minus intelligunt. Quandoquidem est sane et hoc nostratium uoluptatum genus non inelegans, quam maxime peregrina maxime suspicere.

6. For it has seemed good in this part of our own time also to imitate the Rhetors, who plainly believe themselves to be Gods, if they appear bilingual after the leech-like fashion, and they deem it a splendid exploit to interweave into Latin orations now and then some Greekish little vocables, as if emblems, even if there was at the moment no place for them. Moreover, if exotica are lacking, from putrid papers they unearth four or five ancient words, with which they obfuscate the reader, to wit, so that those who understand may be more and more pleased with themselves; those who do not understand may for this very reason admire the more, the less they understand. Since indeed this too is a not-inelegant kind of our countrymen’s pleasures: to look up most of all to what is most foreign, most peregrine.

Quod si qui paulo sunt ambitiosiores, arrideant tamen et applaudant, atque asini exemplo ta ôta kinôsi, quo caeteris probe intelligere uideantur, kai tauta dê men tauta. Nunc ad institutum recurro.

But if there are some a little more ambitious, let them nevertheless smile and applaud, and, after the example of an ass, “move the ears,” so that they may seem to the rest to understand properly, and so much for that. Now I return to the set purpose.

7. Nomen igitur habetis: Viri, Quid addam epitheti? Quid nisi stultissimi? Nam quo alio honestiore cognomine Mystas suos compellet Dea STVLTITIA?

7. So you have a name: Men. What epithet shall I add? What, if not most-stupid? For by what other, more honorable cognomen does the Goddess STUPIDITY address her initiates?

Sed quoniam non perinde multis notum est, quo genere prognata sim, id iam Musis bene iuuantibus exponere conabor. Mihi uero neque Chaos, neque Saturnus, neque Iapetus, aut alius id genus obsoletorum, ac putrium Deorum quispiam pater fuit. Sed ploutos ipse unus, uel inuitis Hesiodo et Homero, atque ipso adeo Ioue, patêr andrôn te theôn te. Cuius unius nutu, ut olim ita nunc quoque sacra profanaque omnia sursum ac deorsum miscentur.

But since it is not equally known to many of what sort I was begotten, I will now try, with the Muses kindly helping, to set it forth. For my father was neither Chaos, nor Saturn, nor Iapetus, nor any other of that kind of obsolete and moldy Gods. Rather Wealth himself alone—Plutus—was my father, even if Hesiod and Homer be unwilling, and even Jove himself, the father of men and gods. At whose nod alone, as once so now too, all things sacred and profane are mixed up both upwards and downwards.

Cuius arbitrio bella, paces, imperia, consilia, iudicia, comitia, connubia, pacta, foedera, leges, artes, ludicra, seria, iam spiritus me deficit, breuiter, publica priuataque omnia mortalium negotia administrantur. Citra cuius opem, totus ille Poeticorum Numinum populus, dicam audacius, ipsi quoque Dii selecti, aut omnino non essent, aut certe oikositoi sane quam frigide uictitarent. Quem quisquis iratum habuerit, huic ne Pallas quidem satis auxilii tulerit.

By whose arbitration wars, peaces, empires, counsels, judgments, assemblies (comitia), marriages, pacts, federations, treaties, laws, arts, amusements, serious matters—already my breath fails me—briefly, all the public and private affairs of mortals are administered. Without whose aid, that whole people of the Poetic numina, to speak more boldly, even the chosen gods themselves, would either not exist at all, or certainly as oikositoi would live rather coldly. For whoever has him angry against him, for such a one not even Pallas would bring sufficient help.

Contra, quisquis propitium, is uel summo Ioui, cum suo fulmine mandare laqueum possit. Toutou patros euchomai einai. Atque hic quidem me progenuit non e cerebro suo, quemadmodum tetricam illam ac toruam Palladem Iupiter, uerum ex Neotete Nympha multo omnium uenustissima, pariter ac festiuissima.

On the contrary, whoever has him propitious could even slip a noose upon highest Jove, thunderbolt and all. Of this one I boast that he is my father. And indeed he begot me not from his own brain, as Jupiter did that grim and scowling Pallas, but from the Nymph Neotete, by far the most venust (charming) of all, and equally the most festive.

Neque rursum id tristi illi illigatus coniugio, quomodo faber ille claudus natus est, uerum quod non paulo suauius en philotêti michtheis: quemadmodum noster ait Homerus. Genuit autem, ne quid erretis, non Aristophanicus ille Plutus, iam capularis, iam oculis captus, sed quondam integer adhuc calidusque iuuenta, neque iuuenta solum, uerum multo magis nectare, quod tum forte in Deorum conuiuio largius ac meracius hauserat.

Nor again by being tied to that gloomy conjugal bond, in the way that that lame smith was born, but by something not a little sweeter, having been mingled in love, as our Homer says. Moreover, lest you err, it was not that Aristophanic Plutus, now coffin-ready, now blinded of eyes, whom he begot, but once upon a time still whole and warm with youth—and not with youth only, but much more with nectar, which at that time by chance at the banquet of the Gods he had quaffed more liberally and more purely.

8. Quod si locum quoque natalem requiritis, quandoquidem id hodie uel inprimis ad nobilitatem interesse putant, quo loco primos edideris uagitus, ego nec in erratica Delo, nec in undoso mari, nec en spessi glaphuroisi sum edita, sed in ipsis insulis fortunatis, ubi aspata kai anêrota omnia proueniunt. In quibus neque labor, neque senium, neque morbus est ullus, nec usquam in agris asphodelus, malua, squilla, lupinumue, aut faba, aut aliud hoc genus nugarum conspicitur. Sed passim oculis, simulque naribus adblandiuntur moly, panace, nepenthes, amaracus, ambrosia, lotus, rosa, uiola, Hyacinthus, Adonidis hortuli.

8. But if you also inquire after the natal place, since today they think this above all pertains to nobility—where you first uttered your wails—I was born neither on wandering Delos, nor in the wave-swept sea, but in the very Fortunate Islands, where all things come forth unsown and untilled. In these there is neither toil, nor old age, nor any disease at all, nor anywhere in the fields is asphodel, mallow, squill, lupine, or bean, or any other trifles of this kind seen. But everywhere there caress the eyes, and at the same time the nostrils, moly, panacea, nepenthe, amaracus, ambrosia, lotus, rose, viola, Hyacinthus, the little gardens of Adonis.

Atque in his quidem nata delitiis, nequaquam a fletu sum auspicata uitam, sed protinus blande arrisi matri. Iam uero non inuideo tô hupatô Kroniôni capram altricem, cum me duae lepidissimae Nymphae suis aluerint mammis, Methe Baccho progenita, et Apaedia Panos filia. Quas hic quoque in caeterarum comitum ac pedissequarum mearum consortio uidetis.

And in these delights indeed having been born, I by no means inaugurated my life with weeping, but straightway sweetly smiled upon my mother. And in truth I do not envy to the Highest Cronion his nurse-goat, since two most charming Nymphs nourished me at their own breasts, Methe, begotten of Bacchus, and Apaedia, daughter of Pan. These you see here as well in the fellowship of the rest of my companions and handmaids.

Quarum mehercle nomina, si uoletis cognoscere, ex me quidem non nisi Graece audietis.

By Hercules, if you wish to learn their names, from me indeed you will hear them only in Greek.

9. Haec nimirum quam sublatis superciliis conspicamini, philautia est. Huic quam uelut arridentibus oculis, ac plaudentem manibus uidetis, kolakia nomen Haec semisomnis ac dormitanti similis lêthê vocatur. Haec cubito utroque innitens, confertisque manibus, misoponia dicitur.

9. This, surely, which you behold with eyebrows raised, is philautia. To this one, whom you see as if with eyes smiling and clapping her hands, the name is kolakia This one, half-asleep and like one dozing, is called lêthê. This one, leaning on each elbow, and with her hands pressed together, is called misoponia.

Haec roseo reuincta serto, et undique delibuta unguentis, hêdonê. Haec lubricis et huc atque illuc errantibus luminibus, anoia dicitur. Haec nitida cute, probeque saginato corpore truphê nomen habet. Videtis et Deos, puellis admixtos, quorum alterum kômon uocant, alterum nêgreton huponn.

This one, wreathed with a rosy garland and everywhere anointed with unguents, is hêdonê. This one, with slippery eyes wandering here and there, is called anoia. This one, with shining skin and a well-fattened body, has the name truphê. You also see Gods mingled with the girls, of whom the one they call kômon, the other nêgreton huponn.

Inquam, famulitii fidelibus auxiliis genus omne rerum meae subiicio ditioni, ipsis etiam imperans imperatoribus.

I say, by the faithful auxiliaries of my household retinue I subject every sort of thing to my dominion, even commanding the emperors themselves.

10. Genus, educationem, et comites audistis. Nunc, ne cui sine causa uidear mihi Deae nomen usurpare, quantis commoditatibus Deos simul et homines adficiam, quamque late meum pateat numen arrectis auribus accipite. Etenim si non inscite scripsit quidam, hoc demum esse Deum, iuuare mortales, et si merito in Deorum senatum adsciti sunt, qui uinum, aut frumentum aut unam aliquam huiusmodi commoditatem mortalibus ostenderunt, cur non ego iure, Deorum omnium alpha dicar, habearque, quae una omnibus largior omnia?

10. You have heard my lineage, upbringing, and companions. Now, lest to anyone I seem without cause to usurp for myself the name of Goddess, with ears pricked receive how many commodities I bestow upon gods and men alike, and how far my numen extends. For indeed, if someone wrote not unskilfully that this is precisely to be a god: to help mortals; and if with merit they have been admitted into the senate of the gods who have shown to mortals wine, or grain, or some one such convenience, why should I not rightly be called the alpha of all the gods, and be held as she who alone to all lavishes all things?

11. Principio quid esse potest uita ipsa uel dulcius, uel pretiosius? At huius exordium cui tandem acceptum ferri conuenit, nisi mihi? Neque enim aut obrimopatrês hasta Palladis, aut nephelegeretou Iouis aegis hominum genus uel progignit, uel propagat.

11. To begin with, what can life itself be either sweeter or more precious? But to whom, pray, ought the beginning of this to be credited, if not to me? For neither the spear of Pallas, daughter of the strong‑fathered one, nor the aegis of cloud‑gathering Jove either begets or propagates the race of men.

Verum ipse Deum pater atque hominum Rex, qui totum nutu tremefactat Olympum, fulmen illud trisulcum ponat oportet, et uultum illum Titanicum, quo, cum lubet, Deos omneis territat, planeque histrionum more, aliena sumenda misero persona, si quando uelit id facere, quod numquam non facit, hoc est paidopoiein. Iam uero Stoici se Diis proximos autumant. At date mihi terque quaterque, aut si libet, sexcenties Stoicum, tamen huic quoque, si non barba insigne sapientiae, etiam si cum hircis commune, certe supercilium erit ponendum, explicanda frons, abicienda dogmata illa adamantina, ineptiendum ac delirandum aliquantisper.

But the Father of gods and King of men himself, who with a nod makes all Olympus tremble, must lay aside that three‑forked thunderbolt, and that Titanic countenance with which, when it pleases him, he terrifies all the gods; and plainly, in the fashion of actors, a foreign persona must be assumed by the poor fellow, whenever he should wish to do that which he never fails to do—namely, to play the child. And now indeed the Stoics aver themselves next to the gods. Yet give me a Stoic three and four times over, or, if you like, six hundred times over—still even he, if not his beard, that badge of wisdom, even if it is shared with he‑goats, at least his supercilious brow must be put down, his forehead must be smoothed, those adamantine dogmas must be thrown away, and he must for a little while play the fool and rave.

In summa, me, me inquam, sapiens accersat oportet, si modo pater esse uelit. Et cur non apertius meo more uobiscum fabuler? Quaeso num caput, num facies, num pectus, num manus, num auris, quae partes honestae putantur, progenerant Deos aut homines?

In sum, it is me—me, I say—that the sapient must summon, if only he should wish to be a father. And why should I not more openly, in my own manner, speak with you? I ask, does the head, does the face, does the breast, do the hands, does the ear—the parts which are considered honorable—progenerate gods or men?

Non, opinor, imo ea pars adeo stulta, adeoque ridicula, ut nec nominari citra risum possit, humani generis est propagatrix. Is est sacer ille fons, unde uitam hauriunt omnia uerius quam ille Pythagoricus quaternio. Age uero, qui uir, obsecro, matrimonii capistro uelit praebere os, si quemadmodum isti sapientes facere consueuerunt, prius eius uitae incommoda secum perpenderit: aut quae tandem mulier uirum admissura sit, si partus periculosos labores, si educationis molestiam, uel norit, uel cogitarit?

Not, I suppose; nay rather, that part so foolish and so laughable that it cannot even be named without laughter, is the propagatrix of the human race. This is that sacred fount whence all things draw life more truly than that Pythagorean quaternity. Come now, what man, I pray, would wish to offer his mouth to the halter of matrimony, if, as those sages are accustomed to do, he first weighed with himself the inconveniences of that life? Or what woman, pray, would admit a husband, if she either knew or considered the perilous labors of childbirth, the trouble of education (upbringing)?

Porro si coniugiis debetis uitam, coniugium autem debetis anoia pedissequae, mihi nimirum quid debeatis, intelligitis. Tum quae semel haec experta, denuo repetere uelit nisi lêthês praesens nomen adfuerit? Neque uero id Venus ipsa, uel reclamante Lucretio, umquam inficias iuerit, sine nostri numinis accessione, suam uim mancam atque irritam esse.

Furthermore, if you owe your life to marriages, and you owe marriage to anoia, the handmaid, you surely understand what you owe to me. Then what woman, having once experienced these things, would wish to repeat them anew, unless Lethe’s present name were at hand? Nor indeed would Venus herself, even with Lucretius protesting, ever deny that without the accession of our divinity, her own force is maimed and ineffectual.

Itaque ex nostro illo temulento ridiculoque lusu, proueniunt, et superciliosi Philosophi, in quorum locum nunc successere, quos uulgus Monachos appellat, et purpurei reges et pii sacerdotes, et ter sacntissimi Pontifices. Postremo totus etiam ille Deorum Poeticorum coetus, adeo frequens, ut turbam uix iam ipse capiat Olympus, tametsi spatiosissimus.

Therefore from our drunken and ridiculous sport there come forth even the supercilious Philosophers, in whose place there have now succeeded those whom the vulgar crowd calls Monks, and purple-clad kings and pious priests, and thrice most-holy Pontiffs. Finally, that whole company too of the Poetic Gods, so numerous that Olympus itself now scarcely contains the throng, although most spacious.

12. At sane parum sit mihi uitae seminarium, ac fontem deberi, nisi quidquid in omni uita commodi est, id quoque totum ostendero mei muneris esse. Quid autem uita haec, num omnino uita uidetur appellanda, si uoluptatem detraxeris? Applausistis.

12. But surely it would be too little that the seedbed and fountain of life be owed to me, unless I also show that whatever in the whole of life is of advantage, that too in its entirety is my gift. And what, moreover, is this life—does it seem to be called life at all, if you take away pleasure? You have applauded.

Equidem sciebam neminem uestrum ita sapere, uel desipere magis, imo sapere potius, ut in hac esset sententia. Quamquam ne Stoici quidem isti uoluptatem adspernantur, tametsi sedulo dissimulant, milleque conuitiis eam apud uulgus dilacerant, nimirum ut deterritis aliis, ipsi prolixius fruantur. Sed dicant mihi per Iouem, quae tandem uitae pars est, non tristis, non in infestiua, non inuenusta, non insipida, non molesta, nisi uoluptatem, id est, stultitiae condimentum adjunxeris?

Indeed I knew that none of you was so wise—or rather, more foolish; nay, rather, more wise—as to be of this opinion. Although not even those Stoics spurn pleasure, though they sedulously dissemble it, and with a thousand revilings tear it to pieces among the vulgar, plainly so that, others being deterred, they themselves may enjoy it more at length. But let them tell me, by Jove, what part of life is not sad, not un-festive, not un-venust, not insipid, not troublesome, unless you add pleasure, that is, the condiment of folly?

Cuius rei cum satis idoneus testis esse possit, ille numquam satis laudatus Sophocles, cuius exstat pulcerrimum illud de nobis Elogium, en tô phronein gar mêdev hêdistos bios, tamen age, rem omnem sigillatim aperiamus.

Since as a sufficiently apt witness of this matter there can be that never-enough-praised Sophocles, of whom there exists that most beautiful Elogium about us, “for in being wise, life is by no means the sweetest,” yet come, let us lay open the whole matter in detail.

13. Principio quis nescit primam hominis aetatem multo laetissimam, multoque omnibus gratissimam esse? Quid est enim illud in infantibus, quod sic exosculamur, sic amplectimur, sic fouemus, ut hostis etiam huic aetati ferat opem, nisi stultitiae lenocinium, quod data opera prudens natura, recens natis adjunxit, ut aliquo uoluptatis uelut auctoramento, et educantium labores delinire queant, et tuentium fauores eblandiantur? Deinde quae succedit huic adolescentia, quam est apud omnes gratiosa, quam candide fauent omnes, quam studiose prouehunt, quam officiose porrigunt auxiliares manus?

13. To begin with, who does not know that the first age of a human is by much the most gladsome, and by much the most gratifying to all? For what is that in infants, which we so kiss, so embrace, so cherish, that even an enemy brings help to this age, unless it be the blandishment of folly, which prudent Nature has purposely joined to the newborn, so that with some, as it were, bounty of pleasure, they may both be able to soothe the labors of those who rear them, and to coax the favors of those who protect them? Then the adolescence which succeeds to this—how gracious is it with all, how candidly all favor it, how zealously they promote it, how dutifully they stretch forth helping hands?

At unde, quaeso, ista iuuentae gratia? unde, nisi ex me? Cuius beneficio quam minimum sapit, atque ob id quam minime ringitur. Mentior, nisi mox ubi grandiores facti, per rerum usum, ac disciplinas uirile quiddam sapere coeperint, continuo deflorescit formae nitor, languescit alacritas, frigescit lepos, labascit uigor.

But whence, I pray, that grace of youth? whence, unless from me? By whose benefaction it is as little sapient as possible, and on that account as little grimacing. I lie, unless soon, when, having become more grown, through the experience of things and the disciplines they begin to savor something virile, straightway the luster of form loses its bloom, alacrity languishes, charm grows frigid, vigor lapses.

Quoque longius a me subducitur, hoc minus minusque uiuit, donec succedat to chalepon gêras, id est, molesta senectus, non iam aliis modo, uerum etiam sibimet inuisa. Quae quidem prorsum nulli mortalium foret tolerabilis, nisi rursum tantorum miserta laborum dextra adessem, et quemadmodum Dii Poetarum solent pereuntibus aliqua metamorphosi succurrere, itidem ego quoque iam capulo proximos denuo quoad licet, ad pueritiam eos reuocarem. Vnde non abs re uulgus eos palimpaidas appellare consueuit.

And the farther one is withdrawn from me, the less and less he lives, until there succeeds to chalepon gêras, that is, burdensome senescence, now hateful not only to others but even to itself. Which indeed would be in no wise tolerable to any of mortals, unless I, pitying such great labors, were present again with a right hand; and just as the Gods of the Poets are wont to succor the perishing by some metamorphosis, so I likewise, when they are already next to the coffin, again, so far as it is permitted, recall them to childhood. Whence not without reason the vulgar have been accustomed to call them palimpaidas.

Porro si quis transformandi rationem requirat, ne id quidem celarim. Ad Lethes nostrae fontem, nam Insulis Fortunatis oritur (siquidem apud Inferos tenuis modo riuulus labitur), eos produco, ut simul atque illic longa potarint obliuia, paulatim dilutis animi curis repubescant. At isti iam delirant, inquiunt, iam desipiunt.

Moreover, if anyone should inquire the method of transforming, I would not conceal that either. To the spring of our Lethe I lead them, for it rises in the Fortunate Islands (since in the Infernal regions there only a slender rivulet glides), so that, as soon as they have there quaffed long oblivions, with the cares of the mind little by little diluted, they grow young again. But these already rave, they say, already play the fool.

Esto sane. Sed istud ipsum est repuerascere. An uero aliud est puerum esse quam delirare, quam desipere?

Granted, by all means. But that very thing is to become a child again. Or indeed, is being a child anything other than to delirate, than to be foolish?

An non hoc uel maxime in ea delectat aetate, quod nihil sapit? Quis enim non ceu portentum oderit, atque exsecretur puerum uirili sapientia? Adstipulatur et uulgo iactatum prouerbium: Odi puerulum praecoci sapientia.

Does not this most of all delight in that age, that it is wise about nothing? For who would not, as if at a portent, hate and execrate a boy with virile wisdom? The proverb too, vulgarly bandied about, gives its assent: “I hate a little boy with precocious wisdom.”

Quis autem sustineret habere commercium aut consuetudinem cum eo sene, qui ad tantam rerum experientiam, parem animi uigorem iudiciique acrimoniam adiunxisset? Itaque delirat senex meo munere. Sed tamen delirus iste meus interim miseris illis curis uacat, quibus sapiens ille distorquetur.

Who, moreover, would endure to have commerce or consuetude with that old man who had added to so great an experience of affairs an equal vigor of mind and an acrimony of judgment? And so the old man is delirious by my gift. Yet nevertheless that delirious fellow of mine meanwhile is vacant from those wretched cares by which that wise man is tormented.

Interim non illepidus est compotor. Non sensit uitae taedium, quod robustior aetas uix tolerat. Nonnumquam cum sene Plautino ad tres illas litteras reuertitur, infelicissimus si sapiat: At interim meo beneficio felix, interim amicis gratus, ne congerro quidem infestiuus.

Meanwhile he is not an un-witty drinking-companion. He has not felt the tedium of life, which a more robust age scarcely tolerates. Sometimes, with the Plautine old man, he reverts to those three letters—most unlucky if he be wise. But meanwhile, by my benefit, he is happy, meanwhile agreeable to his friends, and not even un-festive to a comrade.

Quandoquidem et apud Homerum e Nestoris ore fiuit oratio melle dulcior, cum Achillis sit amarulenta, et apud eumdem, senes in moenibus considentes, tên leirioessan uocem edunt. Quo quidem calculo ipsam etiam superant pueritiam, suauem quidem illam, sed infantem, ac praecipuo uitae oblectamento, puta garrulitate carentem. Addite huc quod pueris quoque gaudeant impensius senes, ac pueri uicissim senibus delectantur, hôs aiei ton homoion agei theos hôs ton homoion.

Since indeed also in Homer, from Nestor’s mouth the oration flows sweeter than honey, whereas Achilles’s is amarulent; and in that same poet the old men, sitting on the walls, give forth “the lily-like voice.” By this reckoning they even surpass boyhood itself—sweet indeed, but infantile—and lacking the chief delectation of life, namely garrulity. Add to this that old men also rejoice more earnestly in children, and children in turn take delight in old men, “for ever the god leads like to like.”

Quid enim inter illos non conuenit, nisi quod hic rugosior et plures numerat natales? Alioqui capillorum albor, os edentulum, corporis modus minor, lactis appetentia, balbuties, garrulitas, ineptia, obliuio, incogitantia, breuiter omnia caetera congruunt. Quoque magis accedunt ad senectam, hoc propius ad pueritiae similitudinem redeunt, donec puerorum ritu, citra uitae taedium, citra mortis sensum emigrant e vita.

What, indeed, does not agree between them, except that this one is more wrinkled and counts more birthdays? Otherwise, the whiteness of the hair, an edentulous mouth, a lesser measure of body, an appetite for milk, stammering, garrulity, ineptitude, oblivion, incogitancy, briefly, all the rest are congruent. And the more they draw near to old age, the closer they return to a likeness of childhood, until, after the manner of boys, without the tedium of life, without the sense of death, they emigrate from life.

14. Eat nunc qui uolet, et hoc meum beneficium cum reliquorum Deorum metamorphosi comparet. Qui quid irati faciant, non libet commemorare: sed quibus quam maxime propitii sunt, eos solent in arborem, in auem, in cicadam aut etiam in serpentem transformare: quasi uero non istud ipsum sit perire, aliud fieri. Ego uero hominem eumdem optimae ac felicissimae uitae parti restituo.

14. Let him go now who will, and let him compare this my beneficium with the metamorphosis of the remaining Gods. What they do when angry, I do not care to recount: but those to whom they are most propitious, they are accustomed to transform into a tree, into a bird, into a cicada, or even into a serpent: as though that very thing were not to perish, to become something else. I, for my part, restore the same man to the best and most felicitous part of life.

Quod si mortales prorsus ab omni sapientiae commercio temperarent, ac perpetuo mecum aetatem agerent, ne esset quidem ullum senium, uerum perpetua iuuenta fruerentur felices. An non uidetis tetricos istos et uel Philosophiae studiis, uel seriis et arduis addictos negotiis plerumque priusquam plane iuuenes sint, iam consenuisse, uidelicet curis, et assidua acrique cogitationum agitatione sensim spiritus et succum illum uitalem exhauriente? Cum contra Moriones mei pinguiculi sint, et nitidi, et bene curata cute, plane choiroi, quod aiunt, Akaranioi, numquam profecto senectutis incommodum ullum sensuri, nisi nonnihil, ut fit, sapientum contagio inficerentur.

If mortals entirely restrained themselves from every commerce with wisdom, and spent their lifetime with me perpetually, there would indeed be no senility at all; rather, they would enjoy perpetual youth, happy. Do you not see those grim fellows—addicted either to the studies of Philosophy or to serious and arduous affairs—who, for the most part, before they are even fully young, have already grown aged, namely with cares, and with the assiduous and sharp agitation of thoughts gradually draining the spirits and that vital juice? Whereas, on the contrary, my fools are a bit plump, sleek, with well-cared-for skin—plainly pigs, as they say, Acarnanian ones—never, in truth, about to feel any inconvenience of old age, unless they should be infected a little, as happens, by the contagion of the wise.

Adeo nihil patitur hominum uita, omni ex parte beatum esse. Accedit ad haec uulgati prouerbii non leue testimonium, quo dictitant, STVLTITIAM unam esse rem, quae et iuuentam alioqui fugacissimam remoretur, et improbam senectam procul arceat. Vt non temere de Brabantis populari sermone iactatum sit.

To such a degree does human life permit nothing to be blessed in every part. To these points there is added no light testimony of a common proverb, by which they keep saying that FOLLY is the one thing that both holds back youth, otherwise most fleeting, and keeps wicked old age far away. So that it has not been rashly bandied about in the popular speech concerning the Brabanters.

Cum caeteris hominibus aetas prudentiam adferre soleat, hos quo propius ad senectam accedunt, hoc magis atque magis stultescere. Atqui hac gente non est alia, uel ad communem uitae consuetudinem festiuior, uel quae minus sentiat senectutis tristitiam. His quidem ut loco, ita et uitae instituto confines sunt Hollandi mei, cur enim non meos appellem, usque adeo studiosos mei cultores, ut inde uulgo cognomen emeruerint?

While for other men age is wont to bring prudence, these, the nearer they approach to old age, the more and more they grow foolish. And yet there is not another nation either more festive for the common consuetude of life, or that feels less the sadness of senectitude. To these, indeed, both in place and in the institute of life, my Hollanders are contiguous—for why should I not call them mine, so studious devotees of me that from this they have in popular parlance earned a cognomen?

cuius illos adeo non pudet, ut hinc uel praecipue sese iactitent. Eant nunc stultissimi mortales, et Medeas, Circes, Veneres, Auroras, et fontem, nescio quem, requirant, quo sibi iuuentam restituant, cum id sola praestare et possim et soleam. Apud me succus est ille mirificus, quo Memnonis filia Tithoni aui sui iuuentam prorogauit.

of which they are so far from being ashamed that they especially vaunt themselves on this account. Let the most foolish mortals go now and hunt up Medeas, Circes, Venuses, Auroras, and some fountain, I know not what, by which they may restore youth to themselves—since I alone both can and am wont to furnish this. With me is that wonder-working juice, by which the daughter of Memnon prolonged the youth of her own grandfather Tithonus.

Ego sum Venus illa, cuius fauore Phaon ille repubuit, ita ut a Sapphone tantopere deamaretur. Meae sunt herbae, si quae sunt, mea precamina, meus ille fons, qui non solum reuocat elapsam adolescentiam, sed quod est optabilius, perpetuam seruat. Quod si omnes huic sententiae subscribitis, adolescentia nihil esse melius, senectute nihil detestabilius, quantum mihi debeatis uidetis opinor, quae tantum bonum retineat, tanto excluso malo.

I am that Venus, by whose favor that Phaon grew young again, so that he was so greatly beloved by Sappho. Mine are the herbs, if there are any, mine the supplications, mine that fountain, which not only calls back youth that has slipped away, but, what is more desirable, preserves it perpetual. And if you all subscribe to this opinion, that there is nothing better than youth, nothing more detestable than old age, you see, I suppose, how much you owe to me, who retains so great a good, with so great an evil excluded.

15. Sed quid adhuc de mortalibus loquor? Coelum omne lustrate, et mihi meum nomen opprobret licebit, quicumque uolet, si quem omnino Deorum repererit non insuauem et aspernabilem, nisi meo numine commendetur. Etenim cur semper ephebus et comatus Bacchus?

15. But why am I still speaking of mortals? Survey the whole heaven, and let whoever wishes be permitted to cast reproach upon my name, if he shall find any one of the gods at all not unpleasant and not to be spurned, unless he be commended by my numen. For indeed, why is Bacchus always an ephebus and long-haired?

Nempe quia uecors ac temulentus, conuiuiis, saltationibus, choreis, lusibus uitam omnem transigens, ne tantulum quidem habet cum Pallade commercii. Denique tantum abest, ut sapiens haberi postulet, ut ludibriis ac iocis coli gaudeat. Neque prouerbio offenditur, quod illi fatui cognomentum attribuit, id est huiusmodi, moruchou môrteros.

Surely because he is witless and temulent, spending his whole life in convivial banquets, saltations, choruses, and games, he has not even the least commerce with Pallas. Finally, so far is he from seeking to be held sapient that he rejoices to be worshiped with mockeries and jokes. Nor is he offended by the proverb which assigns to him the cognomen of “fool,” that is of this sort, moruchou môrteros.

Porro Morycho nomen uerterunt, quod illum pro templi foribus sedentem, musto ficisque recentibus, agricolarum lasciuia consueuerit oblinere. Tum autem quid non scommatum in hunc uetus iacit comoedia? O insulsum, inquiunt, Deum, et dignum qui ex inguine nasceretur.

Moreover, they changed the name to Morychus, because, sitting before the temple doors, he was accustomed to be besmeared by the lasciviousness of the farmers with must and with fresh figs. Then, indeed, what taunt does Old Comedy not hurl against this one? “O insipid god,” they say, “and worthy to have been born from the groin.”

At quis non malit hic fatuus et insulsus esse, semper festiuus, semper pubescens, semper omnibus lusus ac uoluptatem adferens, quam uel agkulomêtis ille Iupiter omnibus formidabilis, uel Pan suis tumultibus omnia senio uitians, uel fauillis oppletus Vulcanus, ac semper of ficinae laboribus squalidus, aut Pallas etiam ipsa, sua Gorgone et hasta terribilis kai aei enorôsa drimu. Cur semper puer Cupido? Cur?

But who would not prefer to be this fatuous and insipid fellow, always festive, always pubescent, always bringing sport and pleasure to all, rather than that crooked-counseled Jupiter, formidable to everyone, or Pan, by his tumults vitiating everything with senility, or Vulcan crammed with cinders and always filthy with the labors of the workshop, or even Pallas herself, terrible with her Gorgon and spear, and ever glaring keenly? Why is Cupid always a boy? Why?

nisi quia nugator est, kai mêdev hugies neque facit, neque cogitat? Cur aureae Veneri semper uornat sua forma? Nimirum, quia mecum habet affinitatem, unde et patris mei colorem uultu refert, atque hac de causa est apud Homerum, chrusê Aphroditê. Deinde perpetuo ridet, si quid modo Poetis credimus, aut horum aemulis Statuariis.

unless because he is a trifler, and not even anything sound does he do or think? Why does he always adorn golden Venus with his form? Clearly, because he has affinity with me, whence he even recalls in his face my father’s complexion, and for this cause she is in Homer, “golden Aphrodite.” Then he laughs perpetually, if indeed we believe the Poets, or the Statuaries who emulate them.

Quod numen umquam religiosius coluere Romani, quam Florae omnium uoluptatum parentis? Quamquam si quis etiam tetricorum Deorum uitam diligentius requirat ab Homero, reliquisque Poetis, reperiet stultitiae plena omnia. Quid enim attinet reliquorum facta commemorare, cum Iouis ipsius fulminatoris amores ac lusus probe noritis?

What divinity did the Romans ever worship more religiously than Flora, the mother of all pleasures? Yet if anyone should inquire more diligently from Homer and the other Poets into the life of the grim gods, he will find everything full of folly. For what is the point of commemorating the deeds of the rest, since you know full well the loves and the play of Jupiter himself, the Thunderer?

cum seuera illa Diana oblita sexus, nihil aliud quam uenetur, Endymionem interim deperiens? Verum illi sua facinora a Momo audiant malim, a quo saepius quondam audire solebant. Sed hunc nuper irati una cum Ate in terras praecipitem dederunt, quod sapientia sua felicitati Deorum importunus obstreperet.

when that severe Diana, oblivious of her sex, does nothing other than hunt, meanwhile perishing with love for Endymion? But I would prefer that they hear their own misdeeds from Momus, from whom once upon a time they used to hear more often. Yet recently, in anger, they hurled him headlong to the earth together with Ate, because with his wisdom he importunately and obstreperously clamored against the felicity of the gods.

Neque mortalium ullus exsulem dignatur hospitio, tantum abest ut illi in Principum aulis sit locus, in quibus tamen mea kolakia primas tenet, cui cum Momo non magis conuenit, quam cum agno lupis. Itaque sublato illo, iam multo licentius ac suauius nugantur Dii, uere raon agontes, ut inquit Homerus, nullo uidelicet censore. Quos enim non praebet iocos ficulnus ille Priapus?

Nor does any of mortals deign to honor the exile with hospitality, so far is it from being the case that there is a place for him in the halls of princes, in which nevertheless my kolakia holds first place, with which Momus agrees no more than wolves with a lamb. And so, with him removed, the gods now trifle much more licentiously and more suavely, truly raon agontes, as Homer says, with, to be sure, no censor. For what jests does that fig-wood Priapus not provide?

Quos non ludos exhibet furtis ac praestigiis suis Mercurius? Quin et Vulcanus ipse in Deorum conuiuiis gelôtopoion agere consueuit, ac modo claudicatione, modo cauillis, modo ridiculis dictis exhilarare compotationem. Tum et Silenus ille senex amator, tên kordaka saltare solitus, una cum Polyphemo tên threttanelo, Nymphis tên gumnopodian saltantibus.

What jests does Mercury not put on display with his thefts and sleights-of-hand? Nay, even Vulcan himself at the banquets of the gods is wont to play the gelotopoion, and now by his limping, now by quips, now by ridiculous sayings he exhilarates the drinking-bout. Then too that old lover Silenus, accustomed to dance the kordax, together with Polyphemus the threttanelos, while the Nymphs dance the gymnopaedia.

Satyri semicapri Atellanas agitant, Pan insulsa quapiam cantiuncula risum omnibus mouet, quem ita malunt, quam ipsas audire Musas, praecipue cum iam nectare coeperint madere. Porro quid ego nunc commemorem, quae probe poti Dii post conuiuium agitent? adeo mehercle stulta, ut ipsa nonnumquam a risu temperare nequeam.

Satyrs, half-goats, put on Atellan farces; Pan with some insipid little ditty moves all to laughter, which they so prefer rather than to hear the Muses themselves, especially when they have now begun to be soaked with nectar. Furthermore, what should I now commemorate of the things the Gods, well-drunk, get up to after the banquet? So, by Hercules, foolish am I, that I myself sometimes cannot keep from laughter.

At satius est in his Harpocratis meminisse, ne quis forte nos quoque Corycaeus aliquis Deus auscultet, ea narrantes, quae ne Momus quidem impune proloquutus est.

But it is better in these matters to remember Harpocrates, lest perhaps some Corycaean God too should eavesdrop on us, as we narrate those things which not even Momus proclaimed with impunity.

16. Sed iam tempus est, ut ad Homericum exemplar relictis Coelitibus uicissim in terram demigremus, quamque ibi nihil laetum, aut felix, nisi meo munere, dispiciamus. In primis uidetis, quanta prouidentia Natura parens et humani generis opifex, illud cauerit, ne usquam deesset stultitiae condimentum? Etenim cum Stoicis definitoribus nihil aliud sit sapientia, quam duci ratione; contra stultitia, affectuum arbitrio moueri, ne plane tristis ac tetrica esset hominum uita, Iupiter quanto plus indidit affectuum quam rationis?

16. But now it is time that, after the Homeric exemplar, with the heaven-dwellers left behind, we in turn descend to the earth, and observe how there nothing is cheerful or happy except by my gift. In the first place you see with what providence Nature, the parent and artificer of the human race, has taken care of this: that the condiment of folly should nowhere be lacking. For indeed, with the Stoic definers, wisdom is nothing other than to be led by reason; contrariwise, folly is to be moved at the discretion of the affections; lest human life be altogether sad and grim, how much more did Jupiter instill of affections than of reason?

quasi semiunciam compares ad assem. Praeterea rationem in angustum capitis angulum relegauit, reliquum omne corpus perturbationibus reliquit. Deinde duos quasi tyrannos uiolentissimos uni opposuit, iram, quae praecordiorum arcem obtinet, atque adeo ipsum uitae fontem cor, et concupiscentiam, quae ad imam usque pubem latissime imperium occupat.

as if you were comparing a half-ounce to an as. Moreover, he relegated reason into the narrow corner of the head, and left all the rest of the body to perturbations. Then he opposed to that one two most violent tyrants: anger, which holds the citadel of the vitals, and indeed the very fountain of life, the heart; and concupiscence, which occupies with the broadest dominion down to the very lowest groin.

Aduersus has geminas copias quantum ualeat ratio, communis hominum uita satis declarat, cum illa, quod unum licet, uel usque ad rauim reclamat, et honesti dictat formulas. Verum hi laqueum regi suo remittunt, multoque odiosius obstrepunt, donec iam is quoque fessus ultro cedit, ac manus dat.

Against these twin forces how much reason avails, the common life of men declares well enough, since it—which alone is permitted—protests even to hoarseness, and dictates the formulas of the honorable. But they slacken the leash for their own king, and make a much more odious din, until at last he too, weary, yields of his own accord, and gives his hands in surrender.

17. Caeterum quoniam uiro administrandis rebus nato, plusculum de rationis unciola erat adspergendum, ut huic quoque pro uirili consuleret, me sicut in caeteris in consilium adhibuit, moxque consilium dedi me dignum: nempe uti mulierem adiungeret, animal, uidelicet, stultum quidem illud atque ineptum, uerum ridiculum et suaue, quo conuictu domestico, uirilis ingenii tristitiam, sua stultitia condiret atque edulcaret. Nam, quod Plato dubitare uidetur, utro in genere ponat mulierem, rationalium animantium, an brutorum, nihil aliud uoluit, quam insignem eius sexus stultitiam indicare. Quod si qua forte mulier sapiens haberi uoluit, ea nihil aliud agit quam ut bis stulta sit, perinde quasi bouem aliquis ducat ad ceroma, inuita reluctanteque, ut aiunt, Minerua.

17. However, since for a man born for administering affairs a little sprinkling of the ouncelet of reason had to be added, so that he too might consult for this to the best of his virile power, he, just as in the other matters, called me into counsel, and straightway I gave counsel worthy of me: namely, that he should adjoin a woman, an animal, to wit, indeed that foolish and inept one, yet ridiculous and suave, by whose domestic consorting he might season and edulcorate the sadness of a virile ingenium with her own stupidity. For, as to Plato’s seeming to doubt in which genus he should place woman, whether among rational animals or among brutes, he wished nothing else than to indicate the conspicuous stupidity of that sex. But if perchance any woman has wished to be held wise, she does nothing else than to be twice-stupid, just as if someone were to lead an ox to the wrestling-school (ceroma), with Minerva, as they say, unwilling and resisting.

Conduplicat enim uitium, quisquis contra naturam, uirtutis fucum inducit, atque alio deflectit ingenium. Quemadmodum, iuxta Graecorum prouerbium, simia semper est simia, etiam si purpura uestiatur: Ita mulier semper mulier est, hoc est, stulta, quamcumque personam induxerit. Neque uero mulierum genus usque adeo stultum arbitror, ut eam ob rem mihi succenseant, quod illis et ipsa mulier, et STVLTITIA stultitiam attribuam.

For he doubles the vice, whoever, against nature, puts on the rouge of virtue, and deflects his native genius elsewhere. Just as, according to the Greeks’ proverb, a monkey is always a monkey, even if it be clothed in purple: so a woman is always a woman, that is, foolish, whatever persona she has assumed. Nor indeed do I judge the race of women to be so foolish that on that account they would be angry with me, because both I, a woman myself, and FOLLY, attribute folly to them.

Etenim si rem recta reputent uia, hoc ipsum Stultitiae debent acceptum ferre, quod sint uiris multis calculis fortunatiores. Primum formae gratiam, quam illae merito rebus omnibus anteponunt, cuiusque praesidio in tyrannos etiam ipsos tyrannidem exercent. Alioqui undenam horror ille formae, hispida cutis, et barbae sylua, plane senile quoddam in uiro, nisi a prudentiae uitio, cum feminarum semper laeues malae, uox semper exilis, cutis mollicula, quasi perpetuam quamdam adolescentiam imitentur?

For indeed, if they reckon the matter in the straight way, they ought to credit this very thing to Folly, that they are by many tallies more fortunate than men. First, the grace of form (beauty), which they rightly set before all things, and by the protection of which they even exercise tyranny over the tyrants themselves. Otherwise, whence that horror of form, the bristly skin, and the forest of beard—something plainly senile in the male—if not from the vice of Prudence; whereas women’s cheeks are always smooth, the voice always slender, the skin soft, as if they were imitating a kind of perpetual adolescence?

Deinde quid aliud optant in hac uita, quam ut uiris quam maxime placeant? Nonne huc spectant tot cultus, tot fuci, tot balnea, tot compturae, tot unguenta, tot odores, tot componendi, pingendi, fingendique uultus, oculos et cutem, artes? Iam num alio nomine, uiris magis commendatae sunt, quam stultitiae?

Then what else do they desire in this life than to please men as much as possible? Do not so many adornments, so many dyes, so many baths, so many coiffures, so many unguents, so many odors, so many arts of composing, painting, and fashioning the face, the eyes, and the skin, all look to this? And now, by what other name are they more commended to men than by Folly?

Quid enim est quod illi mulieribus non permittunt? At quo tandem auctoramento, nisi uoluptatis? Delectant autem non alia re, quam stultitia.

For what, indeed, is there that they do not permit to women? But by what inducement, pray, if not Pleasure? And they delight by nothing else than Folly.

Id esse uerum non ibit inficias quisquis secum reputarit, quas uir cum muliere dicat ineptias, quas agat nugas, quoties foeminea uoluptate decreuerit uti. Habetis igitur primum et praecipuum uitae oblectamentum, quo fonte proficiscatur.

That this is true, no one will go into denials who has reckoned with himself what ineptitudes a man says with a woman, what trifles he enacts, whenever he has resolved to make use of feminine voluptuous pleasure. You have, therefore, the first and principal delectation of life, from what fountain it proceeds.

18. Sed sunt nonnulli, cumprimis autem senes bibaces quidem illi magis quam mulierosi, qui summam uoluptatem in compotationibus constituunt. Equidem an sit ullum lautum conuiuium, ubi mulier non adsit, uiderint alii. Illud certe constat, citra Stultitiae condimentum, nullum omnino suaue esse.

18. But there are some, especially old men—bibulous indeed rather than woman‑loving—who establish their highest pleasure in compotations. As for me, whether there is any sumptuous banquet where a woman is not present, let others see to that. This, at any rate, is agreed: without the condiment of Folly, none at all is pleasant.

Adeo ut si desit, qui seu uera, seu simulata STVLTITIA risum moueat, gelôtopoion quempiam uel mercede conductum accersant, aut ridiculum aliquem parasitum adhibeant, qui ridendis, hoc est, stultis dicteriis, silentium ac tristitiam compotationis discutiat. Quorsum enim attinebat tot bellariis, tot lautitiis, tot cupediis onerare uentrem, nisi et oculi pariter et aures, nisi totus animus, risu, iocis, leporibus pasceretur? At istiusmodi tragematum ego sum architectrix unica.

To such a degree that, if there is lacking someone who, by true or by feigned STUPIDITY, may move laughter, they send for some gelotopoion even hired for a wage, or they bring in some ridiculous parasite, who with laughables—that is, foolish witticisms—may dispel the silence and gloom of the drinking-bout. For to what end was it pertinent to load the belly with so many dainties, so many luxuries, so many delicacies, unless the eyes and equally the ears, unless the whole mind, were fed with laughter, jests, and charms? But the architectrix unique of dessert-courses of this kind am I.

Quamquam illa ipsa iam in conuiuiis solennia, regem sortiri talis, lusitare tesseris, Philotesiis inuitare, certare sumperiphorais ad Myrtum canere, saltare, gesticulari, non a septem Graeciae Sophis, uerum a nobis ad humani generis salutem reperta sunt. Atqui omnium huiusmodi rerum ea natura est, ut quo plus habeant stultitiae, hoc plus conferant uitae mortalium, quae si tristis sit ne uita quidem appellanda uideatur. Tristis autem euadat oportet, nisi cognatum taedium, hoc genus oblectamentis absterseris.

Although those very things now customary at convivials— to draw by lot with the tali a king of the feast, to play with the tesserae, to invite to the Philotesia, to compete in symperiphorai (toasts), to sing the Myrtus, to dance, to play the mime— were discovered not by the Seven Sages of Greece, but by us for the salvation of the human race. And indeed the nature of all things of this sort is such that the more folly they have, the more they contribute to the life of mortals, which, if it be sad, would scarcely even seem worthy to be called life. And yet it must turn out sad, unless you wipe away the kindred tedium with amusements of this kind.

I9. Sed erunt fortassis, qui hoc quoque uoluptatis genus negligant, et in amicorum caritate et consuetudine acquiescant, amicitiam dictitantes unam rebus omnibus anteponendam, quippe rem usque adeo necessariam, ut nec aer, nec ignis, nec aqua magis. Rursum adeo iucundam, ut qui hanc de medio sustulerit, solem sustulerit: adeo denique honestam, si quid tamen hoc ad rem pertinet, ut nec ipsi philosophi uereantur eam inter praecipua bona commemorare. Sed quid, si doceo me huius quoque tanti boni, et puppim esse et proram?

I9. But there will be perhaps those who neglect this genus of pleasure too, and acquiesce in the charity and consuetude of friends, declaring that friendship alone must be put before all things—indeed a thing so necessary that neither air, nor fire, nor water is more so. Again, so pleasant that whoever has taken this away from the midst has taken away the sun; so, finally, honest, if anyhow this pertains to the matter, that not even the philosophers themselves are afraid to commemorate it among the principal goods. But what if I show that I am both the stern and the prow of this so great a good as well?

Docebo autem non crocodilitis, aut soritis ceratinis, aut aliis id genus dialecticorum argutiis, sed pingui, quod aiunt, Minerua, rem digito propemodum ostendam. Age, conniuere, labi, caecutire, hallucinari in amicorum uitiis, quaedam etiam insignia uitia pro uirtutibus amare, mirarique, an non stultitiae uidetur affine? Quid cum alius exosculatur naeuum in amica, alium delectat polypus Agnae, cum filium strabonem appellat petum pater: quid, inquam, hoc est, nisi mera stultitia?

I will teach, however, not by crocodilites, or Sorites of the “horned” sort, or other dialecticians’ quibbles of that kind, but with a “fat Minerva,” as they say, I will almost point the matter out with my finger. Come now, to wink at, to slip, to be half-blind, to hallucinate in regard to friends’ vices, even to love certain conspicuous vices as though they were virtues, and to admire them—does this not seem akin to folly? What when one over-kisses the nevus (birthmark) on his girlfriend, another is delighted by Agna’s polyp, when a father calls his strabismic son “pretty” (petus): what, I say, is this, if not sheer folly?

Clament terque quaterque, stultitiam esse: atqui haec una stultitia, et iungit iunctos, et seruat amicos. De mortalibus loquor, quorum nemo sine uitiis nascitur, optimus ille est, qui minimis urgetur: cum interim inter sapientes istos Deos, aut omnino non coalescit amicitia, aut tetrica quaedam et insuauis intercedit, nec ea nisi cum paucissimis, nam cum nullis dicere religio est, propterea quod maxima pars hominum desipit, imo nullus est, qui non multis modis deliret, et non nisi inter similes cohaeret necessitudo. Quod si quando inter seueros istos coierit mutua beneuolentia, ea certe haudquaquam stabilis est, nec admodum duratura, nimirum inter morosos et plus satis oculatos, ut qui in amicorum uitiis tam cernunt acutum, quam aut aquila, aut serpens Epidaurius.

Let them cry out thrice and four times that it is stupidity; and yet this one stupidity both binds those already bound and preserves friends. I speak of mortals, of whom no one is born without vices; the best is he who is burdened by the least. Meanwhile, among those wise men—these gods—either friendship does not coalesce at all, or a certain grim and unsavory one intervenes, and even that only with a very few (for it would be impious to say with none), because the greatest part of men is foolish—nay rather, there is no one who does not in many ways rave—and a necessitude coheres only among similars. But if ever among those severe men mutual benevolence comes together, it is certainly by no means stable nor very enduring—inevitably so among morose and more-than-sufficiently sharp-eyed people, who discern in their friends’ vices as keenly as either an eagle or the Epidaurian serpent.

At ipsi in propriis uitiis quam lippiunt, et quam non uident manticam in tergo pendentem. Itaque cum ea sit hominum natura, ut nullum ingenium reperiatur non magnis obnoxium uitiis. Adde tantam annorum ac studiorum dissimilitudinem, tot lapsus, tot errata, tot casus uitae mortalis, quo pacto uel horam constabit inter Argos istos amicitiae iucunditas, nisi accesserit ea, quam mire Graeci euêtheian appellantl, hanc seu stultitiam, seu morum facilitatem uertas licebit.

But they themselves—how bleary-eyed they are in their own vices, and how they do not see the knapsack hanging on their back. And so, since such is the nature of men that no temperament is found not obnoxious to great vices. Add the so great dissimilarity of ages and of studies, so many lapses, so many errors, so many contingencies of mortal life, in what way will the pleasantness of friendship stand fast even for an hour among those Arguses, unless there be added that which the Greeks admirably call euêtheia, this you may, if you please, render either as Folly or as an easiness of manners.

Quid autem? an non Cupido ille omnis necessitudinis auctor et parens, prorsum oculis captus est, cui quemadmodum ta mê kala, kala pephantai, itidem inter uos quoque efficit, ut suum cuique pulcrum uideatur, ut cascus cascam, perinde ut pupus pupam deamet. Haec passim et fiunt et ridentur, sed tamen haec ridicula iucundam uitae glutinant copulantque societatem.

What then? Is not Cupid, that author and parent of every bond, downright blind in his eyes, who, just as “the things not fair have appeared fair,” likewise also brings it about among you that to each his own seems beautiful—so that an old codger loves an old crone, just as a little boy dotes on a little girl. These things everywhere both happen and are laughed at; yet these laughable things glue and couple together the pleasant society of life.

20. Porro quod de amicitia dictum est, id multo magis de coniugio sentiendum, quod quidem nihil est aliud, quam indiuidua uitae coniunctio. Deum immortalem! quae non diuortia, aut etiam diuortiis deteriora passim acciderent, nisi uiri foeminaeque domestica consuetudo, per adulationem, per iocum, per facilitatem, errorem, dissimulationem, meum utique satellitium, fulciretur alereturque?

20. Furthermore, what has been said about friendship must be felt much more about conjugal union, which indeed is nothing else than an indivisible conjunction of life. By the immortal God! what divorces, or even things worse than divorces, would everywhere befall, unless the domestic consuetude of man and woman, through adulation, through jest, through facility, error, dissimulation, my retinue assuredly, were propped up and nourished?

Papae, quam pauca coirent matrimonia, si sponsus prudenter exquireret, quos lusus delicata illa sicuti uidetur, ac pudens uirguncula iam multo ante nuptias luserit? Tum quanto pauciora cohaererent inita, nisi plurima uxorum facta per uiri uel negligentiam, uel stuporem laterent? Atque haec quidem merito stultitiae tribuuntur, uerum ea interim praestat, ut marito iucunda sit uxor, uxori iucundus maritus, ut tranquilla domus, ut maneat affinitas.

Good heavens, how few matrimonies would come together, if the bridegroom should prudently inquire what games that delicate—as she appears—and modest little maiden has already played long before the nuptials! Then how much fewer of those unions entered would cohere, unless very many deeds of wives lay hidden through the husband’s either negligence or stupor? And these things indeed are deservedly attributed to stupidity; yet it meanwhile procures this: that the wife be pleasant to the husband, the husband pleasant to the wife, that the house be tranquil, that affinity may remain.

Ridetur, cuculus, curruca, et quid non uocatur, cum moechae lacrymas labellis exsorbet. At quanto felicius, sic errare quam zelotypiae diligentia cum sese conficere, tum omnia miscere tragaediis?

He is laughed at, “cuckoo,” “warbler,” and what is he not called, when he sucks the adulteress’s tears with his little lips. But how much happier to err thus than, by the diligence of jealousy, both to wear oneself out and to mix everything into tragedies?

21. In summa usque adeo nulla societas, nulla uitae coniunctio sine me uel iucunda, uel stabilis esse potest, ut nec populus Principem, nec seruum herus, nec heram pedissequa, nec discipulum praeceptor, nec amicus amicum, nec maritum uxor, nec locator conductorem, nec contubernalis contubernalem, nec conuictor conuictorem diutius ferat, nisi uicissim inter sese nunc errent, nunc adulentur, nunc prudentes conniueant, nunc aliquo stultitiae melle sese deliniant. Iam haec scio uideri maxima, sed audietis maiora.

21. In sum, to such an extent can no society, no conjunction of life be either pleasant or stable without me, that neither the People a Prince, nor a master a slave, nor a lady’s-maid her mistress, nor a preceptor a disciple, nor a friend a friend, nor a wife a husband, nor a lessor a lessee, nor a tentmate a tentmate, nor a table‑companion a table‑companion would longer endure, unless in turn among themselves now they err, now they flatter, now the prudent connive, now they soothe themselves with some honey of folly. Now I know these things seem very great, but you will hear greater.

22. Quaeso num quemquam amabit, qui ipse semet oderit? Num cum alio concordabit, qui secum ipse dissidet? Num ulli uoluptatem adferet, qui sibimet ipsi sit grauis ac molestus?

22. I ask, will he love anyone, who himself hates himself? Will he be in accord with another, who is at odds with himself? Will he afford pleasure to anyone, who is to himself heavy and troublesome?

Istud, opinor, nemo dixerit, nisi qui sit ipsa stultior Stultitia. Atqui si me excluseris, adeo nemo poterit alterum ferre, ut ipse etiam sibi quisque puteat, sua cuique sordeant, sibi quisque sit inuisus. Quandoquidem id mali natura, non paucis in rebus nouerca magis quam parens, mortalium ingeniis inseuit, praecipue paulo cordatiorum, ut sui quemque poeniteat.

That, I suppose, no one would say, unless he be more foolish than Folly herself. And yet, if you exclude me, to such a degree will no one be able to bear another that each one will even stink to himself, his own things will be sordid to him, each will be odious to himself. Since nature—stepmother rather than parent in not a few matters—has sown this evil into the ingenia of mortals, especially of the somewhat more prudent, so that each is displeased with himself.

admiretur aliena. Quo fit ut omnes dotes, omnis elegantia decorque uitae uitietur, pereatque. Quid enim proderit forma, praecipuum Deorum immortalium munus, si putiditatis uitio contaminetur?

admires what belongs to others. Whence it comes about that all endowments, all the elegance and decor of life are vitiated and perish. For what will beauty profit, the chief gift of the immortal gods, if it be contaminated by the fault of putidity?

Quid iuuenta, si senilis tristitiae fermento corrumpatur? Denique quid in omni uitae munere uel tecum, uel apud alios acturus es cum decoro (est enim non artis modo, uerum etiam omnis actionis caput, decere quod agas) nisi adsit dextra haec Philautia, quae mihi merito germanae est uice? Adeo strenue meas ubique partes agit.

What is youth, if it be corrupted by the ferment of senile sadness? Finally, what, in every office of life, either with yourself or among others, will you do with decorum (for it is the head not only of art, but indeed of every action, that what you do be decorous), unless this Philautia be present as your right hand, who for me deservedly holds the place of a own-sister? So strenuously does she play my parts everywhere.

Quid autem aeque stultum, atque tibi ipsi placere? te ipsum admirari? At rursum quid uenustum, quid gratiosum, quid non indecorum erit, quod agas, ipse tibi displicens?

But what is equally foolish as to please yourself? to admire yourself? But in turn, what will be comely, what gratifying, what not indecorous in what you do, you yourself being displeasing to yourself?

Tolle hoc uitae condimentum et protinus frigebit cum sua actione Orator, nulli placebit cum suis numeris Musicus, explodetur cum sua gesticulatione Histrio, ridebitur una suis cum Musis Poeta, sordebit cum arte Pictor, esuriet cum pharmacis Medicus. Postremo pro Nireo Thersites, pro Phaone Nestor, pro Minerua suslls, pro facundo infans, pro urbano rusticus uideberis. In tantum necesse est, ut sibi quoque quisque blandiatur, et assentatiuncula quapiam sibi prius commendetur, quam aliis possit esse commendatus.

Remove this condiment of life, and straightway the Orator will grow cold along with his delivery; the Musician will please no one with his numbers; the Actor will be hissed off the stage with his gesticulation; the Poet will be laughed at together with his Muses; the Painter will be sordid along with his art; the Physician will go hungry with his pharmaceuticals. Finally, instead of Nireus, Thersites; instead of Phaon, Nestor; instead of Minerva, a swine; instead of a man facund, an infant; instead of urbane, rustic will you seem. To such an extent is it necessary that each man also flatter himself, and that by some little assentation he first be commended to himself, before he can be commended to others.

Denique cum praecipua felicitatis pars sit, ut quod sis, esse uelis, nimirum totum hoc praestat compendio mea Philautia, ut neminem suae formae, neminem sui ingenii, neminem generis, neminem loci, neminem instituti, nemiminem patriae poeniteat, adeo, ut nec Irlandus cum Italo, nec Thrax cum Atheniensi, nec Scytha cum Insulis Fortunatis cupiat permutare. Et o singularem naturae sollicitudinem, ut in tanta rerum uarietate paria fecit omnia. Vbi dotibus suis nonnihil detraxit, ibi plusculum Philautiae solet addere, quamquam hoc ipsum stulte profecto dixi, cum haec ipsa dos sit uel maxima.

Finally, since a chief part of felicity is that you should wish to be what you are, assuredly my Philautia accomplishes all this by a compendium: that no one repents of his own form, no one of his own genius, no one of his stock, no one of his place, no one of his institution, no one of his fatherland—so much so that neither would an Irishman wish to exchange with an Italian, nor a Thracian with an Athenian, nor a Scythian with the Fortunate Islands. And O the singular solicitude of nature, that in so great a variety of things she has made all equal! Where she has taken away somewhat from one’s endowments, there she is wont to add a little more of Philautia—although indeed I spoke foolishly in saying this, since this very endowment is the greatest.

Vt ne dicam interim, nullum egregium facinus adiri, nisi meo impulsu, nullas egregias artes, nisi me auctore fuisse repertas.

Not to say, meanwhile, that no distinguished deed is undertaken except by my impulse, and that no distinguished arts have been discovered except with me as author.

23. An non omnium laudatorum facinorum seges ac fons est bellum? Porro quid stultius, quam ob causas, nescio quas, certamen eiusmodi suscipere, unde pars utraque semper plus aufert incommodi quam boni? Nam eorum qui cadunt, veluti Megarensium oudeis logos.

23. Is not war the harvest and fountain of all lauded deeds? Moreover, what is more foolish than to undertake a contest of this sort on account of I know not what causes, from which each side always carries off more incommodity than good? For as to those who fall, there is, as with the Megarians, oudeis logos.

Dein cum iam utrimque constitere ferratae acies, et rauco crepuerunt cornua cantu, quis, oro, Sapientum istorum usus, qui studiis exhausti, vix tenui frigidoque sanguine spiritum ducunt, crassis ac pinguibus opus est, quibus quam plurimum adsit audaciae, mentis quam minimum. Nisi si quis Demosthenem militem malit, qui Archilochi sequutus consilium, vix conspectis hostibus, abiecto clypeo fugit tam ignavus miles, quam orator sapiens. Sed consilium, inquiunt, in bellis plurimum habet momenti.

Then, when now on both sides the iron-clad battle-lines have taken their stand, and the horns have rattled with a hoarse song, what, I pray, is the use of those Sages, who, drained by studies, scarcely draw breath with thin and chilly blood? There is need of men crass and pinguid, in whom there is as much audacity present as possible, and of mind as little as possible. Unless someone should prefer Demosthenes as a soldier, who, following Archilochus’s counsel, scarcely at the sight of the enemies, with his shield cast away, fled—so cowardly a soldier as he is a wise orator. But “counsel,” they say, “in wars has the greatest moment.”

Equidem fateor in duce, verum id quidem militare, non philosophicum, alioqui parasitis, lenonibus, latronibus, sicariis, agricolis, stupidis, obaeratis, et huiusmodi mortalium fece res tam praeclara geritur, non Philosophis lucernariis.

I for my part confess this in a commander—granted, that is a military, not a philosophical, matter—that otherwise so preeminent an affair is carried on by parasites, pimps, brigands, assassins, farmers, the stupid, the debt-bound, and the dregs of mortals of this sort, not by lamp-philosophers.

24. Qui quidem quam sint ad omnem vitae usum inutiles, vel Socrates ipse unus Apollinis oraculo sapiens, sed minime sapienter iudicatus, documento esse potest, qui nescio quid publice conatus agere, summo cum omnium risu discessit. Quamquam viris in hoc non usquequaque desipit, quod sapientis cognomen non agnoscit, atque ipsi Deo rescribit, quodque censet sapienti a Republica tractanda abstinendum esse, nisi quod potius monere debuerat, a sapientia temperandum ei, qui velit in hominum haberi numero. Deinde quid eumdem accusatum ad cicutam bibendam adegit, nisi sapientia?

24. That these men are indeed useless for every use of life, even Socrates himself, alone wise by Apollo’s oracle, but judged least wisely, can be a proof: who, having attempted I-know-not-what to do publicly, departed amid the highest laughter of all. Although the man does not in this altogether lack sense, that he does not acknowledge the cognomen of “wise,” and even writes back to God himself, and that he judges a wise man must abstain from being handled by the Republic; except that he ought rather to have warned that one must temper oneself away from wisdom, who wishes to be held in the number of men. Then what drove that same man, when accused, to drink hemlock, if not wisdom?

Nam dum nubes et ideas philosophatur, dum pulicis pedes metitur, dum culicum vocem miratur, quae ad vitam communem attinent, non didicit. Sed adest praeceptori de capite periclitanti discipulus Plato, egregius, scilicet, patronus, qui turbae strepitu offensus, vix dimidiatam illam periodum pronunciare potuit. Iam quid dicam de Theophrasto?

For while he philosophizes about clouds and ideas, while he measures the feet of the flea, while he marvels at the voice of gnats, the things that pertain to common life he did not learn. But there stands by the preceptor, with his very head in peril, the disciple Plato, an excellent—of course—patron, who, offended by the din of the crowd, could scarcely pronounce that half period. Now what shall I say about Theophrastus?

qui progressus in concionem, repente obmutuit, perinde quasi lupo conspecto. Qui militem animasset in bello? Isocrates ob ingenii timiditatem nec hiscere umquam est ausus.

who, having advanced into the assembly, suddenly fell mute, just as if at the sight of a wolf. Who would have animated a soldier in war? Isocrates, on account of the timidity of his genius, did not ever dare even to open his mouth.

M. Tullius eloquentiae Romanae parens, semper indecora trepidatione, perinde quasi puer singultiens, exordiri consuevit: Idque Fabius interpretatur cordati oratoris et periculum intelligentis argumentuml. Verum cum hoc dicit, an non palam fatetur sapientiam obstare ad rem probe gerendam? Quid isti facient, cum res ferro geritur, qui tum metu exanimantur, cum nudis verbis est decertandum?

M. Tullius, the parent of Roman eloquence, was always accustomed to begin with unseemly trepidation, just as if a sobbing boy: and Fabius interprets this as an argument of a sound-minded orator and of one intelligent of the peril. But when he says this, does he not openly confess that sapience stands in the way of conducting the affair properly? What will such men do, when the matter is carried on by iron, who are then struck breathless with fear when it is with naked words that one must contend?

Et post haec celebratur, si Diis placet, praeclara illa Platonis sententia, beatas fore respublicas, si aut imperent philosophi, aut philosophentur Imperatores. Imo si consules historicos, reperies, nimirum, nullos reipublicae pestilentiores fuisse Principes, quam si quando in philosophastrum aliquem aut litteris addictum inciderit imperium. Cuius rei satis, opinor, faciunt fidem Catones, quorum alter insanis delationibus reipublicae tranquillitatem vexavit, alter libertatem Populi Romani, dum nimium sapienter vindicat, funditus subvertit.

And after these things there is celebrated, if it please the gods, that most illustrious sententia of Plato: that republics will be blessed, if either philosophers rule, or Emperors philosophize. Nay rather, if you consult the historians, you will find, assuredly, that no Princes have been more pestilential to the republic than when rule has fallen upon some philosopheaster or one addicted to letters. Of which matter, I suppose, the Catos furnish sufficient proof: one of whom, by insane denunciations, vexed the tranquility of the republic; the other, while vindicating the liberty of the Roman People too wisely, utterly overthrew it.

Adde his Brutos, Cassios, Gracchos, ac Ciceronem etiam ipsum, qui non minus pestilens fuit Romanorum Reipublicae, quam Demosthenes Atheniensium. Porro Marcus Antoninus ut donemus bonum Imperatorem fuisse, iam id ipsum extorquere possim, fuit enim hoc ipso nomine gravis, atque invisus civibus, quod tam philosophus esset . Sed tamen ut donemus fuisse bonum, at certe pestilentior fuit Reipublicae tali relicto filio, quam fuerat sua administratione salutaris. Quandoquidem solet hoc hominum genus, qui se sapientiae studio dediderunt, cum caeteris in rebus, tum praecipue in liberis propagandis infelicissimum esse, providente opinor natura, ne malum hoc sapientiae inter mortales latius serpat.

Add to these the Brutuses, the Cassii, the Gracchi, and even Cicero himself, who was no less pestilent to the Roman republic than Demosthenes to that of the Athenians. Moreover, as for Marcus Antoninus, even if we grant that he was a good emperor, I could actually wrest even this point: by that very designation he was grievous and hateful to his fellow citizens, that he was so much a philosopher. Yet granting that he was good, he was certainly more pestilent to the republic by leaving behind such a son than he had been salutary by his own administration. Since this kind of men, who have devoted themselves to the study of wisdom, is wont, both in other matters and especially in propagating children, to be most unlucky—Nature, I suppose, providing, lest this evil of wisdom spread more widely among mortals.

Itaque Ciceroni degenerem fuisse filium constat, et sapiens ille Socrates liberos habuit matri similiores quam patri, ut non omnino pessime scripsit quidam, id est, stultos.

Therefore it is agreed that Cicero had a degenerate son, and that wise Socrates had children more similar to the mother than to the father, so that, as a certain person wrote not altogether badly, that is, “fools.”

25. Sed utcumque ferendum si tantum ad publica munia forent onoi pros luran, nisi ad omnem prorsus vitae functionem nihil essent dexteriores. Ad convivium adhibe sapientem, aut tristi silentio, aut molestis quaestiunculis obturbabit. Ad chorum advoca, camelum saltare dices.

25. But it would somehow be bearable if they were asses before the lyre only in public duties, were it not that for absolutely every function of life they are no whit more dexterous. Invite a wise man to a banquet, and he will throw it into confusion either by sullen silence or by troublesome little questions. Call him to the chorus, and you will say a camel is dancing.

Ad publicos ludos trahe, ipso vultu populi voluptatibus obstabit et cogetur e theatro migrare sapiens Cato, quandoquidem supercilium non potest ponere. In colloquium inciderit, repente lupus in fabula. Si quid emendum, si contrahendum, breviter, si quid eorum agendum, sine quibus haec quotidiana vita transigi non potest, stipiteml dicas sapientem istum, non hominem.

Drag him to the public games: by his very face he will obstruct the people’s pleasures, and the wise Cato will be compelled to withdraw from the theatre, since he cannot put down his supercilious brow. Should he fall into a conversation—suddenly, the wolf in the fable. If there is anything to be bought, anything to be contracted, in short, if any of those things must be transacted without which this everyday life cannot be carried on, you would call that sage a block of wood, not a man.

Usque adeo neque sibi, neque patriae, neque suis usquam usui esse potest, propterea quod communium rerum sit imperitus, et a populari opinione, vulgaribusque institutis longe lateque discrepet. Qua quidem ex re odium quoque consequatur necessum est, nimirum, ob tantam vitae atque animorum dissimilitudinem. Quid enim omnino geritur inter mortales non stultitiae plenum, idque a stultis, et apud stultos?

To such an extent he can be of use nowhere—neither to himself, nor to his fatherland, nor to his own—because he is unskilled in common affairs, and differs far and wide from popular opinion and vulgar institutions. Whence indeed it needs must be that he also incur odium, namely, on account of so great a dissimilarity of life and of minds. For what, after all, is carried on among mortals that is not full of stultity—and that by fools, and among fools?

Quod si quis unus universis velit obstrepere, huic ego suaserim, ut Timonem imitatus, in solitudinem aliquam demigret, atque ibi solus sua fruatur sapientia.

But if any one man should wish to raise a din against all, I would advise him, imitating Timon, to remove into some solitude, and there alone to enjoy his sapience.

26. Verum ut ad id quod institueram, revertar: quae vis saxeos, quernos, et agrestes illos homines in civitatem coegit, nisi adulatio? Nihil enim aliud significat illa Amphionis et Orpheil cithara. Quae res plebem Romanam iam extrema molientem, in concordiam civitatis revocavit?

26. But, to return to what I had undertaken: what force drove those stony, oaken, and rustic men into a commonwealth, if not adulation? For that cithara of Amphion and Orpheus signifies nothing else. What thing recalled the Roman plebs, already attempting extreme measures, into the concord of the state?

Num oratio philosophica? Minime. Imo ridiculus ac puerilis apologus de ventre, reliquisque corporis membris confictus.

Is it a philosophical oration? By no means. Rather, a ridiculous and puerile apologue, concocted about the belly and the other members of the body.

Idem valuit Themistoclis apologus consimilis de vulpe et ericio. Quae Sapientis oratio tantumdem potuisset, quantum commentitia illa cerva Sertorii potuit quantum Laconis illius de duobus canibus deque vellendis equinae caudae pilis ridendum commentum? Ut ne quid dicam de Minoe, deque Numa, quorum uterque fabulosis inventis stultam multitudinem rexit.

Just so effective was Themistocles’ like apologue about the fox and the hedgehog. What speech of a Sage could have achieved as much as that commentitious hind of Sertorius could, as much as that Spartan’s laughable contrivance about two dogs and about plucking the hairs of a horse’s tail? Not to say anything of Minos and of Numa, each of whom ruled the foolish multitude by fabulous inventions.

Huiusmodi nugis commovetur ingens ac potens illa bellua, populus.

By trifles of this sort the huge and powerful beast, the populace, is stirred.

27. At rursum, quae civitas umquam Platonis, aut Aristotelis leges, aut Socratis dogmata recepit? Tum autem quae res Deciis persuasit, ut ultro sese Diis Manibus devoverent? Quod Q. Curtium in specum traxit, nisi inanis gloria, dulcissima quaedam Siren, sed mirum quam a Sapientibus istis damnata ? Quid enim stultius, inquiunt, quam supplicem candidatum blandiri populo, congiariis favorem emere, venari tot stultorum applausus, acclamationibus sibi placere, in triumpho veluti signum aliquod populo spectandum circumferri, aeneum in foro stare?

27. But again, what commonwealth ever received the laws of Plato or Aristotle, or the dogmas of Socrates? Then what was it that persuaded the Decii to devote themselves of their own accord to the Divine Manes? What drew Q. Curtius into the chasm, if not empty glory, a certain sweetest Siren—yet marvelously condemned by those so‑called Wise Men? For what, they say, is more foolish than for a supplicant candidate to flatter the people, to buy favor with largesses, to hunt the applauses of so many fools, to take pleasure in acclamations, to be carried about in triumph as if some emblem for the people to look upon, to stand as bronze in the forum?

Adde his nominum et cognominum adoptiones. Adde divinos honores, homuncioni exhibitos, adde publicis cerimoniis in Deos relatos etiam sceleratissimos tyrannos. Stultissima sunt haec, et ad quae ridenda non unus sufficiat Democritus.

Add to these the adoptions of names and cognomina. Add the divine honors exhibited to the little manikin, add the most wicked tyrants too, enrolled among the Gods by public ceremonies. These things are most foolish, and for laughing at them one Democritus would not suffice.

Quis negat? Atqui hoc fonte nata sunt fortium Heroum facinora, quae tot eloquentium virorum litteris in coelum tolluntur. Haec stultitia parit civitates, hac constant imperia, magistratus, religio, consilia, iudicia, nec aliud omnino est vita humana, quam stultitiae lusus quidam.

Who denies it? And yet from this fountain are born the feats of brave Heroes, which are lifted to heaven by the writings of so many eloquent men. This folly begets cities; by this stand empires, magistracies, religion, counsels, judgments; nor is human life at all anything other than a certain play of folly.

28. Iam vero ut de artibus dicam, quid tandem mortalium ingenia ad excogitandas prodendasque posteris, tot egregias, ut putant disciplinas excitavit, nisi gloriae sitis? Tantis vigiliis, tantis sudoribus, famam, nescio quam, qua nihil esse potest inanius, redimendam putarunt homines vere stultissimi. Sed interim Stultitiae tot iam egregia vitae commoda debetis, quodque est longe dulcissimum, aliena fruimini insania.

28. But now indeed, to speak of the arts: what, pray, has stirred the ingenuity of mortals to think out and hand down to posterity so many excellent, as they suppose, disciplines, if not a thirst for glory? By such vigils, by such sweats, men truly most foolish have thought that fame—I know not what, than which nothing can be emptier—ought to be bought. But meanwhile you owe to Folly so many already excellent conveniences of life, and, what is by far the sweetest, you enjoy another’s insanity.

29. Ergo posteaquam mihi fortitudinis et industriae laudem vindicavi, quid si prudentiae quoque vindicem? Sed dixerit aliquis eadem opera ignem aquae misceas, licebit. Verum hoc quoque successurum, arbitror, si vos modo, quod antehac fecistis, auribus atque animis favebitis.

29. Therefore, after I have vindicated for myself the praise of fortitude and industry, what if I also vindicate prudence? But someone will say, with the same effort you might as well mix fire with water—so be it. Yet I judge that this too will succeed, if only you will, as you have done before, favor me with your ears and minds.

Principio si rerum usu constat prudentia, in utrum magis competet eius cognominis honos, in sapientem, qui partim ob pudorem, partim ob animi timiditatem nihil aggreditur, an in stultum, quem neque pudor quo vacat, neque periculum, quod non perpendit, ab ulla re deterret? Sapiens ad libros Veterum confugit, atque hinc meras vocum argutias ediscit. Stultus adeundis cominusque periclitandis rebus, veram, ni fallor, prudentiam colligit.

To begin with, if prudence consists in the use—experience—of things, to which will the honor of that cognomen more fittingly belong: to the wise man, who, partly on account of modesty, partly on account of timidity of spirit, undertakes nothing; or to the fool, whom neither shame, of which he is devoid, nor peril, which he does not weigh, deters from anything? The wise man takes refuge in the books of the Ancients, and from them learns by heart mere subtleties of words. The fool, by approaching things and by making trial of them at close quarters, gathers, unless I am deceived, true prudence.

Id quod vidisse videtur Homerus, etiamsi caecus, cum ait rechthen de te nêpios egnô. Sunt enim duo praecipua ad cognitionem rerum parandam obstacula, pudor qui fumum offundit animo, et metus, qui ostenso periculo, dehortatur ab adeundis facinoribus. At his magnifice liberat Stultitia. Pauci mortales intelligunt ad quam multas alias quoque commoditates conducat, numquam pudescere, et nihil non audere.

That which Homer seems to have seen, though blind, when he says, “rechthen de te nêpios egnô”—“after the deed, the simpleton recognized you.” For there are two chief obstacles to preparing the cognition of things: shame, which casts smoke over the mind, and fear, which, once danger is shown, dissuades from approaching enterprises. But from these Folly magnificently frees one. Few mortals understand to how many other advantages it also conduces—never to be ashamed, and to dare anything whatsoever.

Quod si prudentiam accipere malunt eam quae rerum iudicio constat, audite obsecro, quam procul absint ab hac, qui hoc nomine sese venditant. Principio constat res omneis humanas, velut Alcibiadis Silenos, binas habere facies nimium inter sese dissimiles. Adeo ut quod prima, ut aiunt, fronte mors est, si interius inspicias, vita sit: contra quod vita, mors: quod formosum, deforme: quod opulentum, id pauperrimum: quod infame, gloriosum: quod doctum, indoctum: quod robustum, imbecille: quod generosum, ignobile: quod laetum, triste: quod prosperum, adversum: quod amicum, inimicum: quod salutare, noxium: breviter, omnia repente versa reperies, si Silenum aperueris.

If they prefer to take prudence as that which consists in the judgment of things, listen, I beg, how far they are from this, who vend themselves under this name. In the first place, it is agreed that all human affairs, like Alcibiades’ Sileni, have twin faces far too dissimilar to each other. So much so that what, at the first, as they say, front is death, if you look within, is life: conversely what is life, is death: what is beautiful, deformed: what opulent, most poor: what infamous, glorious: what learned, unlearned: what robust, feeble: what generous (well-born), ignoble: what joyful, sad: what prosperous, adverse: what friendly, hostile: what salutary, noxious: in brief, you will find all suddenly reversed, if you open the Silenus.

Id si cui forte nimis philosophice dictum videtur, age pinguiore, quemadmodum dici solet, Minerva, planius faciam. Quis Regem non et opulentum, et dominum fatetur? Atqui nullis animi bonis instructus est, atqui nihil illi satis est, iam videlicet pauperrimus est.

If that perhaps seems to someone to have been said too philosophically, come, with a fatter Minerva, as it is wont to be said, I will make it plainer. Who does not acknowledge the King to be both opulent and lord? But since he is furnished with no goods of the soul, and nothing is enough for him, now, plainly, he is the poorest.

Tum animum habet plurimis addictum vitiis, iam turpiter servus est. Ad eumdem modum in caeteris quoque philosophari liceret. Sed hoc exempli vice posuisse satis sit.

Then he has a mind addicted to very many vices; already he is shamefully a slave. In the same mode one might philosophize about the rest as well. But let it be enough to have set this by way of example.

At quorsum haec? inquiet aliquis. Audite quo rem deducamus . Si quis histrionibus in scena fabulam agentibus personas detrahere conetur, ac spectatoribus veras nativasque facies ostenderel, nonne is fabulam omnem perverterit, dignusque habeatur, quem omnes e theatro velut lymphatum saxis eiiciant?

But to what purpose are these things? someone objects. Hear to what conclusion we lead the matter . If anyone should try to strip from the histrionic actors on the stage the personae (masks) as they act the fable, and to show to the spectators their true and native faces, would he not have perverted the whole play, and be thought worthy to be cast out of the theater with stones by everyone, as if crazed?

Exorietur autem repente nova rerum species, ut qui modo mulier, nunc vir: qui modo iuvenis, mox senex: qui paulo ante Rex, subito Dama: qui modo Deus, repente homunculus appareat. Verum eum errorem tollere, est fabulam omnem perturbare. Illud ipsum figmentum et fucus est, quod spectatorum oculos detinet.

However, a new appearance of things will suddenly arise, so that he who just now was a woman, now a man; he who just now a youth, soon an old man; he who a little before a King, suddenly Dama; he who just now a God, suddenly appears a homunculus. But to take away that error is to throw the whole play into disorder. That very thing is the figment and the cosmetic that holds the spectators’ eyes.

Porro mortalium vita omnis quid aliud est, quam fabula quaepiam, in qua alii aliis obtecti personis procedunt, aguntque suas quisque partes, donec choragus educat e proscenio? Qui saepe tamen eumdem diverso cultu prodire iubet, ut qui modo Regem purpuratum egerat, nunc servulum pannosum gerat. Adumbrata quidem omnia, sed haec fabula non aliter agitur.

Furthermore, what else is the whole life of mortals than a certain fable, in which some step forth covered with others’ personae (masks), and each acts his own parts, until the choragus leads them out from the proscenium? Who often, however, bids that same man to come on in different garb, so that he who just now played the purple-clad King now plays a ragged little servant. All things indeed are adumbrated, but this fable is acted in no other way.

Hic si mihi sapiens aliquis coelo delapsus subito exoriatur, clamitetque hunc quem omnes ut Deum ac dominum suspiciunt, nec hominum esse, quod pecudum ritu ducatur affectibus, servum esse infimum, quod tam multis, tamque foedis dominis sponte serviat. Rursum alium, qui parentem exstinctum luget, ridere iubeat, quod iam demum ille vivere coeperit, cum alioqui vita haec nihil aliud sit quam mors quaedam. Porro alium stemmatis gloriantem, ignobilem ac nothum appellet, quod a virtute longe absit, quae sola nobilitatis sit fons, adque eumdem modum de caeteris omnibus loquatur, quaeso, quid is aliud egerit, nisi ut demens ac furiosus omnibus esse videatur?

Here if some wise man, fallen from heaven, should suddenly appear to me, and should cry out that this one whom all look up to as a God and lord is not of men, in that he is led by affections after the manner of cattle; that he is a lowest slave, in that he willingly serves so many and so foul masters; and again should bid another, who laments a deceased parent, to laugh, because only then has he begun to live, since otherwise this life is nothing else than a certain death; moreover should call another who boasts of his pedigree ignoble and a bastard, because he is far removed from virtue, which alone is the fount of nobility; and in the same way should speak about all the rest—pray, what else would he have achieved, except to seem to all to be demented and furious?

Ut nihil est stultius praepostera sapientia, ita perversa prudentia nihil imprudentius. Siquidem perverse facit, qui sese non accommodet rebus praesentibus, foroque nolit uti, nec saltem legis illius convivialis meminerit, ê pithi, ê apithi, postuletque ut fabula iam non sit fabula. Contra, vere prudentis est, cum sis mortalis, nihil ultra sortem sapere velle, cumque universa hominum multitudine vel connivere libenter, vel comiter errare.

As nothing is more foolish than preposterous wisdom, so nothing is more imprudent than perverted prudence. For he acts perversely who does not accommodate himself to present things, and is unwilling to use the forum, nor at least remembers that convivial law, ê pithi, ê apithi, and postulates that the play now not be a play. By contrast, it is truly the part of a prudent man, since you are mortal, to wish to be wise in nothing beyond your lot, and, together with the whole multitude of men, either to connive gladly, or to err courteously.

At istud ipsum, inquiunt, stultitiae est. Haud equidem inficias iverim, modo fateantur illi vicissim hoc esse, vitae fabulam agere.

But that very thing, they say, is foolishness. I for my part would not gainsay it, provided that they in turn confess this: that it is to act the play of life.

30. Caeterum illud, o Dii immortales ! eloquarne, an sileam? Cur autem sileam, cum sit vero verius? Sed praestiterit fortassis in re tanta, Musas ex Helicone accersere, quas Poetae saepius ob meras nugas advocare solent.

30. But as for that, O immortal gods ! shall I speak it out, or keep silence? Why, moreover, should I be silent, since it is truer than truth? Yet perhaps it would be preferable, in a matter so great, to summon the Muses from Helicon, whom Poets are wont to call in rather often on account of mere trifles.

Adeste igitur paulisper, Iovis filiae, dum ostendo nec ad egregiam illam sapientiam, ac felicitatis, ut ipsi vocant arcem, aditum esse cuiquam, nisi STULTITIA duce. Iam primum illud in confesso est, affectus omnes ad Stultitiam pertinere. Quandoquidem hac nota a stulto sapientem discernunt, quod illum affectus, hunc ratio temperat.

Be present therefore for a little while, daughters of Jove, while I show that there is no access for anyone to that distinguished wisdom, and to the citadel of felicity, as they themselves call it, unless with FOLLY as guide. Now first this is admitted: all the affections pertain to Folly. Since by this mark they distinguish the wise man from the fool—that the former is tempered by reason, the latter by affections.

Eoque Stoici perturbationes omnes ceu morbos a sapiente semovent, verum affectus isti non solum paedagogorum vice funguntur ad sapientiae portum properantibus, verum etiam in omni virtutis functione, ceu calcaria stimulique quidam adesse solent, velut ad bene agendum exhortatores. Quamquam hic fortiter reclamat bis Stoicus Seneca, qui prorsum omnem affectum adimit sapienti. Verum cum id facit, iam ne hominem quidem relinquit, sed novum potius Deum quemdam dêmiourgei, qui nusquam nec exstitit umquam, nec exstabit: imo ut apertius dicam, marmoreum hominis simulacrum constituit, stupidum, et ab omni prorsus humano sensu alienum.

And so the Stoics remove all perturbations, as though diseases, from the wise man; yet those affects not only discharge the office of pedagogues for those hastening to the harbor of wisdom, but also are wont to be present in every function of virtue as certain spurs and goads, as exhorters to act well. Although here the twice-Stoic Seneca stoutly protests, who downright takes away every affect from the wise man. But when he does this, he does not even leave a human being, but rather, as a demiurge, he fashions a certain new god, who has nowhere ever existed, nor will exist: nay, to speak more openly, he sets up a marble simulacrum of a man, stupefied, and alien from all human feeling.

Proinde, si libet, ipsi suo sapiente fruantur, citraque rivalem ament licet, cumque eo vel in civitate Platonis, vel si malint, in idearum regione, vel in Tantaliis inhabitent hortis. Quis enim non istiusmodi hominem ceu portentum ac spectrum fugitet horreatque, qui ad omnes naturae sensus obsurduerit, qui nullis sit affectibus, nec amor,e, nec misericordia magis commoveatur, quam si dura silex, aut stet Marpesia cautes, quem nihil fugiat, qui nihil erret, sed ceu Lynceus quispiam nihil non perspiciat, nihil non ad amussim perpendat, nihil ignoscat, qui solus se ipso sit contentus, solus dives, solus sanus, solus rex, solus liber, breviter, omnia solus, sed suo solius iudicio, qui nullum moretur amicum, ipse amicus nemini, qui Diis quoque ipsis non dubitet mandare laqueum, qui quidquid in omni vita geritur, velut insanum damnet, rideatque? Atqui huiusmodi animal est absolutus ille sapiens.

Accordingly, if it so pleases, let them enjoy their wise man themselves, and let them love him without a rival, and with him let them inhabit either in Plato’s City, or, if they prefer, in the Region of Ideas, or in the gardens of Tantalus. For who would not flee and shudder at such a man as a portent and a specter, who has gone deaf to all the senses of nature, who is possessed by no affects, nor is moved either by love or by mercy any more than if he were hard flint, or stood as the Marpesian crag; whom nothing escapes, who errs in nothing, but, like some Lynceus, sees through everything, weighs everything to a nicety by the rule, forgives nothing; who alone is content with himself, alone rich, alone sound, alone king, alone free, in short, everything alone—yet by his own judgment alone; who regards no friend, himself a friend to no one; who does not hesitate to consign even the gods themselves to the noose; who condemns as madness, and laughs at, whatever is done in the whole of life? And yet such an animal is that absolute Wise Man.

Quaeso, si res agatur suffragiis, quae civitas istiusmodi magistratum sibi velit, aut quis exercitus talem optet ducem? imo quae mulier id genus maritum, quis convivator eiusmodi convivam, quis servus talibus moribus domnium vel optet, vel ferat? Quis autem non malit vel unum quemvis de media stultissimorum hominum plebe, qui stultus stultis vel imperare possit, vel parere, qui sui similibus placeat, sed quam plurimis, qui comis sit in uxorem, iucundus amicis, bellus conviva, convictor facilis, postremo qui nihil humani a se alienum putet?

Pray, if the matter were conducted by suffrages, what city would want a magistrate of that sort for itself, or what army would desire such a leader? nay rather, what woman a husband of that kind, what convivial host such a banquet-guest, what slave would either wish for or endure a master with such manners? Who, moreover, would not prefer even any single fellow from the very midst of the most foolish rabble, who, being foolish, can either command fools or obey, who pleases his likes—and indeed the very many—who is courteous toward his wife, pleasant to friends, a charming dinner-guest, an easy companion in daily life, and finally who thinks that nothing human is alien to himself?

Sed me quidem iam dudum istius sapientis piget. Quare ad reliqua commoda sese recipiat oratio.

But for my part, indeed I have long since been weary of that wise man. Wherefore let the oration betake itself back to the remaining advantages.

31. Agedum, si quis velut e sublimi specula circumspiciat, ita ut Iovem Poetae facere praedicant, quot calamitatibus hominum vita sit obnoxia, quam misera, quam sordida nativitas, quam laboriosa educatio, quot iniuriis exposita pueritia, quot sudoribus adacta iuventus, quam gravis senectus, quam dura mortis necessitas, quot morborum agmina infestent, quot immineant casus, quot ingruant incommoda, quam nihil usquam non plurimo felle tinctum, ut ne commemorem ista, quae homini ab homine inferuntur mala, quod genus sunt, paupertas, carcer, infamia, pudor, tormenta, insidiae, proditio, convitia, lites, fraudes. Sed ego iam plane ton ammon anametrein aggredior. Porro quibus admissis ista commeruerint homines, aut quis Deus iratus eos in has miserias nasci coegerit, non est mihi fas in praesentia proloqui.

31. Come now, if someone, as from a lofty lookout, should survey—just as the Poets proclaim Jove to do—how many calamities the life of men is obnoxious to: how miserable, how sordid the nativity, how laborious the education, how exposed childhood is to injuries, how youth is driven to so many sweats, how grave old age, how hard the necessity of death; how many battalions of diseases infest, how many mishaps hang over, how many inconveniences come rushing in; how nothing anywhere is not dyed with a very great gall—so that I need not commemorate those evils which are inflicted on man by man, of which kind are poverty, prison, infamy, shame, torments, ambushes, treachery, revilings, lawsuits, frauds. But I am now clearly setting about to count the sands of Ammon. Moreover, by what offenses men have deserved these things, or what angry God has compelled them to be born into these miseries, it is not lawful for me at present to declare.

Verum ista qui secum perpendat, nonne Milesiarum virginum probabit exemplum etiam si miserandum? At quinam potissimum sibi vitae taedio fatum accersivere Nonne sapientiae confines? Inter quos, ut interim Diogenes, Xenocrates, Catones, Cassios, ac Brutos sileam, Chiron ille cum immortalem esse liceret, ultro mortem praeoptavit.

But whoever weighs these things with himself, will he not approve the example of the Maidens of Miletus, even if pitiable? But who, most especially, summoned fate to themselves from the tedium of life? Were they not contiguous to wisdom? Among whom—though for the moment I keep silence about Diogenes, Xenocrates, the Catos, the Cassii, and the Brutuses—that Chiron, though it was permitted him to be immortal, of his own accord preferred death.

Videtis, opinor, quid futurum sit, si passim sapiant homines: nempe altero luto, altero figulo Prometheo opus fore. Verum ego partim per ignorantiam, partim per incogitantiam, nonnumquam per oblivionem malorum, aliquando spem bonorum, aliquoties nonnihil mellis voluptatibus adspergens, ita tantis in malis succurro, ut ne tum quidem libeat vitam relinquere, cum exacto Parcarum stamine, ipsa iam dudum eos relinquit vita, quoque minus sit causae, cur in vita manere debeant, hoc magis iuvet vivere, tantum abest, ut ullo vitae taedio tangantur. Mei nimirum muneris est, quod passim Nestorea senecta senes videtis, quibus iam ne species quidem hominis superest, balbos, deliros, edentulos, canos, calvos, vel ut magis Aristophanicis eos describam verbis, rupôntas, kuphous, athlious, rusous, madôntas, nôdous kai psôlous, usque adeo vita delectari, adeoque neanizein, ut alius tingat canos, alius apposititia coma calvitium dissimulet, alius dentibus utatur mutuo fortassis a se quopiam sumptis, hic puellam aliquam misere depereat, et amatoriis ineptiis quemvis etiam superet adolescentulum.

You see, I suppose, what would happen if men were wise everywhere: namely, there would be need of another Prometheus—one for the clay, another for the potter. But I, partly through ignorance, partly through incogitancy, sometimes through oblivion of evils, at times through hope of goods, every so often sprinkling a little honey upon pleasures, so succor men amid such great evils that not even then does it please them to leave life, when, the thread of the Fates being spun out, life itself has long since left them; and the less there is cause why they ought to remain in life, so much the more it delights them to live—so far are they from being touched by any weariness of life. It is plainly my gift that you see everywhere old men of Nestorean senectitude, in whom not even the appearance of a human being remains—stammering, delirious, toothless, hoary, bald—or, to describe them more in Aristophanic words, rupôntas, kuphous, athlious, rusous, madôntas, nôdous kai psôlous—so much delighted with life, and so much neanizein, that one dyes his white hairs, another disguises baldness with apposited hair, another uses teeth on loan, perhaps taken from someone else, this one miserably pines for some girl, and in amatory silliness even surpasses any little adolescent.

Nam ut capulares iam, meraque silicernia, teneram aliquam iuvenculam ducant uxorem, eamque et indotatam, et aliis usui futuram, id adeo frequens, ut propemodum et laudi detur. Sed multo etiam suavius, si quis animadvertat anus, longo iam senio mortuas, adeoque cadaverosas, ut ab inferis redisse videri possint, tamen illud semper in ore habere, phôs agathon, adhuc catullire, atque, ut Graeci dicere solent, kaproun et magna mercede conductum aliquem Phaonem inducere, fucis assidue vuItum oblinere, nusquam a speculo discedere, infimae pubis silvam vellere, vietas ac putres ostentare mammas, tremuloque gannitu languentem sollicitare cupidinem, potitare, misceri puellarum choris, litterulas amatorias scribere. Ridentur haec ab omnibus, tamquam uti sunt, stultissima: at ipsae sibi placent, et in summis interim versantur delitiis, totasque sese melle perungunt, meo videlicet beneficio felices.

For that those already shroud-clad, mere funereal fodder, should take a tender young heifer as a wife, and her both undowered and destined to be of use to others, is so frequent that it is almost even accounted to their praise. But far sweeter still, if one observe old women dead already with long senescence, so cadaverous that they might seem to have come back from the underworld, yet to have that ever on their lips, “phôs agathon,” to lisp still, and, as the Greeks are wont to say, to kaproun, and to bring on stage some Phaon hired at great wages, to smear their face continually with cosmetics, to depart nowhere from the mirror, to pluck the thicket of the lowest pubes, to display withered and rotting breasts, and with a tremulous yapping to solicit languishing Cupid, to tipple, to mingle in the choruses of girls, to write little love-letters. These things are laughed at by all as, just as they are, most foolish; but they themselves are pleased with themselves, and meanwhile are occupied with the highest delights, and anoint themselves all over with honey, happy—manifestly by my benefaction.

Porro quibus haec deridicula videntur, illud secum expendant velim, utrum satius ducant huiusmodi stultitia vitam plane mellitam exigere, an trabem, ut aiunt, suspendio quaerere. Porro quod haec vulgo putantur infamiae obnoxia, istud nihil ad stultos meos, qui malum hoc aut non sentiunt, aut si quid sentiunt, facile negligunt. Si saxum in caput incidat, id vere malum sit.

Moreover, for those to whom these things seem derisible, I would have them weigh with themselves whether they deem it preferable by such stultitia to pass a life plainly honey-sweet, or to seek, as they say, a beam for hanging. Furthermore, that these are commonly thought obnoxious to infamy—this is nothing to my fools, who either do not sense this evil, or, if they sense anything, easily neglect it. If a stone should fall upon the head, that indeed would be an evil.

Caeterum pudor, infamia, probrum, maledicta, tantum adferunt noxae, quantum sentiuntur. Si sensus absit, ne mala quidem sunt. Quid laedit, si totus populus in te sibilet, modo tute tibi plaudas?

Moreover, shame, infamy, reproach, maledictions, bring only as much harm as they are felt. If sensation is absent, they are not even evils. What does it harm, if the whole populace hisses at you, provided you yourself applaud yourself?

Atque ut id liceat, sola Stultitia praestat.

And that this be permitted, only Folly makes it possible.

32. Sed mihi videor audire reclamantes philosophos. Atqui hoc ipsum est, inquiunt, miserum, STULTITIA teneri, errare, falli, ignorare. Imo hoc est hominem esse.

32. But I seem to hear the philosophers protesting. And yet this itself, they say, is miserable: to be held by FOLLY, to err, to be deceived, to be ignorant. Nay rather, this is to be human.

Porro miserum cur vocent, non video, quandoquidem sic nati estis, sic instituti, sic conditi, ea est communis omnium sors. Nihil autem miserum, quod in suo genere constat, nisi forte quis hominem deplorandum existimet, qui neque volare possit cum avibus, neque quaternis ingredi pedibus cum reliquo pecudum genere, neque cornibus sit obarmatus, quemadmodum tauri. Verum is eadem opera equum etiam bellissimum infelicem vocabit, quod neque Grammaticam didicerit, neque placentis vescatur: taurum miserum, quod ad palaestricam sit inutilis.

Furthermore, why they call it miserable, I do not see, since thus you were born, thus instituted, thus constituted; that is the common lot of all. Nothing, however, is miserable that stands fast in its own genus, unless perhaps someone deems man deplorable, who can neither fly with the birds, nor go on four feet with the rest of the class of cattle, nor is armed with horns, as bulls are. But that same person, by the same token, will call even a most beautiful horse unlucky, because it has learned neither Grammar, nor feeds on cakes; a bull miserable, because it is useless for palaestric training.

Igitur ut equus imperitus Grammaticae, miser non est, ita nec homo stultus, infelix, propterea quod haec cum illius natura cohaerent. Verum rursus urgent Logodaedali. Est, inquiunt, homini peculiariter addita disciplinarum cognitio, quarum adminiculis id quod natura diminutum est, ingenio penset.

Therefore, just as a horse unskilled in Grammar is not miserable, so neither is a foolish man unhappy, for the reason that these things cohere with his nature. But again the Logodaedali press the point. “There is,” they say, “peculiarly added to man a cognition of the disciplines, by the supports of which he may compensate by ingenium for that which has been diminished by nature.”

Quasi vero ullam veri faciem habeat, naturam, quae in culicibus, atque adeo in herbis ac flosculis tam sollicite vigilaverit, in uno homine dormitasse, ut disciplinis opus esset, quas Theutus ille humano generi infensus genius, in summam perniciem excogitavit, adeo non utiles ad felicitatem, ut illi quoque ipsi officiant, ad quod proprie repertae dicuntur, ut eleganter arguit apud Platonem, Rex ille prudentissimus de litterarum invento. Igitur disciplinae cum reliquis humanae vitae pestibus irrepserunt, iisdem auctoribus, a quibus omnia flagitia proficiscuntur, puta Daemonibus, quibus hinc nomen etiam inventum, quasi daêmonas, hoc est, scientes appelles. Siquidem simplex illa aurei seculi gens, nullis armata disciplinis, solo naturae ductu, instinctuque vivebat.

As though truly it had any semblance of truth, that Nature, who has kept so solicitous a vigil in gnats, and even in grasses and little flowers, should have slumbered in one man, so that there was need of disciplines, which that Theuth, that genius hostile to the human race, devised to utter perdition—so far from useful for felicity that they even hinder that very thing for which they are said to have been specifically discovered, as that most prudent King argues elegantly in Plato concerning the invention of letters. Therefore the disciplines, along with the remaining pestilences of human life, crept in from the same authors from whom all crimes proceed, namely the Daemons—whence even their name has been coined, as though you would call them daêmones, that is, “knowers.” For indeed that simple race of the Golden Age, armed with no disciplines, lived by Nature’s guidance and instinct alone.

Quorsum enim opus erat Grammatica, cum eadem esset omnibus lingua, nec aliud sermone petebatur, nisi ut alius alium intelligeret? Quis usus dialectices, ubi nulla erat pugnantium inter se sententiarum dimicatio? Quis rhetoricae locus, cum nullus alteri negotium facesseret?

For to what end was there need of Grammar, since the tongue was the same for all, and nothing else was sought in speech except that one might understand another? What use of dialectic, where there was no duel of opinions at variance among themselves? What place for rhetoric, since no one was creating trouble for another?

Quorsum requireretur legum prudentia, cum abessent mali mores, ex quibus haud dubie bonae leges prognatae sunt? Porro religiosiores erant, quam ut impia curiositate arcana naturae, siderum mensuras, motus, effectus, abditas rerum causas scrutarentur, nefas esse rati, si homo mortalis ultra sortem suam sapere conaretur. Iam quid extra coelum esset, inquirendi dementia ne in mentem quidem veniebat.

To what end would jurisprudence be required, since evil mores were absent, from which, without doubt, good laws have sprung? Moreover, they were more religious than to scrutinize with impious curiosity the arcana of nature, the measures of the stars, their motions and effects, the hidden causes of things, reckoning it nefarious if a mortal man should attempt to be wise beyond his lot. Already the madness of inquiring what was outside heaven did not even come into mind.

At labente paulatim aetatis aureae puritate, primum a malis, ut dixi, geniis inventae sunt artes, sed paucae, atque hae quidem a paucis receptae. Postea sexcentas addidit Chaldaeorum superstitio, et Graecorum otiosa levitas, meras ingeniorum cruces, adeo ut vel una Grammatica abunde satis sit ad perpetuam vitae carnificinam.

But with the purity of the golden age gradually slipping away, first the arts were invented by evil genii, as I said—but few, and these indeed received by few. Afterwards the superstition of the Chaldaeans and the idle levity of the Greeks added 600, mere crucifixions of wits, to such a degree that even a single Grammar is more than sufficient for the perpetual butchery of life.

33. Quamquam inter has ipsas disciplinas, hae potissimum in pretio sunt, quae ad sensum communem, hoc est, ad stultitiam, quam proxime accedunt. Esuriunt Theologi, frigent Physici, ridentur Astrologi, negliguntur Dialectici. Solus iatros anêr pollôn antaxios andrôn. Atque in hoc ipso genere, quo quisque indoctior, audacior, incogitantiorque, hoc pluris fit etiam apud torquatos istos Principes.

33. Although among these very disciplines, those are most of all in price which approach the common sense, that is, stupidity, as nearly as possible. Theologians go hungry, Physicists grow cold, Astrologers are laughed at, Dialecticians are neglected. Only the physician is a man worth many men. And in this very kind, the more unlearned, the more audacious, and the more incogitant, by so much the more he is valued even among those torque-wearing princes.

Atqui Medicina, praesertim ut nunc a compluribus exercetur, nihil aliud est quam assentationis particula, non minus profecto quam rhetorica. Secundum hos proximus datur locus leguleiis: Et haud scio, an primus, quorum professionem, ne quid ipsa pronunciem, velut asininam philosophi magno consensu ridere solent. Sed tamen horum asinorum arbitrio maxima minimaque negotia transiguntur.

And yet Medicine, especially as now it is practiced by many, is nothing else than a particle of assentation, no less surely than rhetoric. After these, the next place is given to the little-lawyers (pettifoggers); and I scarcely know whether even the first, whose profession—so that I may not myself pronounce anything—the philosophers by great consensus are wont to laugh at as asinine. Yet by the arbitration of these asses the greatest and the least affairs are transacted.

His latifundia crescunt, cum theologus interim excussis totius divinitatis scriniis, lupinum arrodit, cum cimicibus ac pediculis assidue bellum gerens. Ut igitur feliciores sunt artes, quae maiorem habent cum STULTITIA affinitatem, ita longe felicissimi sunt hi, quibus prorsus licuit ab omnium disciplinarum commercio abstinere, solamque naturam ducem sequi, quae nulla sui parte manca est, nisi forte mortalis sortis pomeria transilire velimus. Odit natura fucos, multoque felicius provenit, quod nulla sit arte violatum.

Their latifundia increase, while the theologian, meanwhile, with the chests of all divinity shaken out, gnaws a lupine, waging continual war with bedbugs and lice. Therefore, the arts are the more fortunate which have a greater affinity with STUPIDITY; and by far the happiest are those to whom it has been altogether permitted to abstain from the commerce of all disciplines, and to follow nature alone as guide, who is in no part of herself maimed, unless perhaps we should wish to leap beyond the boundary-lines of mortal lot. Nature hates cosmetics and shams, and what has been violated by no art thrives much more happily.

34. Agedum, annon videtis ex unoquoque reliquorum animantium genere ea felicissime degere, quae sunt a disciplinis alienissima, nec ullius magisterio nisi naturae, ducuntur? Quid apibus aut felicius, aut mirabilius? At his ne corporis quidem omnes sensus adsunt.

34. Come now, do you not see, from each of the remaining kinds of living beings, that those live most felicitously which are most alien from disciplines, and are led by the magistery of none save Nature? What is either more happy or more marvelous than bees? Yet to these not even all the senses of the body are present.

Quid simile in exstruendis aedificiis reperiat architectura? Quis umquam philosophus similem instituit rempublicam? Rursum equus quoniam humanis sensibus affinis est, et in hominum contubernium demigravit, humanarum item calamitatum est particeps.

What similar thing does architecture find in the erection of edifices? What philosopher has ever instituted a similar commonwealth? Again, the horse, since it is akin to human senses and has migrated into the companionship of men, is likewise a participant in human calamities.

Quippe qui non raro dum vinci pudet in certaminibus ducit ilia, et in bellis dum ambit triumphum, confoditur, simulque cum sessore terram ore momordit. Ut ne commemorem interim lupata frena, aculeata calcaria, stabuli carcerem, scuticas, fustes, vincula, sessorem, breviter omnem illam servitutis tragoediam, cui se ultro addixit, dum fortes viros imitatus, impensius hostem ulcisci studet. Quanto optabilior muscarum et avicularum vita ex tempore soloque naturae sensu degentium, modo per hominum insidias liceat.

For indeed he, not rarely, while it shames him to be conquered in contests, strains his flanks; and in wars, while he ambitiously courts a triumph, he is run through, and together with his rider he has bitten the earth with his mouth. Not to mention meanwhile the wolf-bit bridles, the spiked spurs, the prison of the stable, the scourges, clubs, bonds, the rider—briefly, that whole tragedy of servitude, to which he has voluntarily bound himself over, while, imitating brave men, he strives more earnestly to avenge himself on the foe. How much more desirable is the life of flies and little birds, living from the moment and by the mere sense of nature, provided only it be permitted, so far as men’s snares allow.

Quae si quando caveis inclusae, adsuescant humanas sonare linguas, mirum quam a nativo illo nitore degenerent. Adeo modis omnibus laetius est, quid natura condidit, quam quod fucavit ars. Proinde numquam satis laudarim, gallum illum Pythagoram, qui cum unus omnia fuisset, philosophus, vir, mulier, rex, privatus, piscis, equus, rana, opinor etiam spongia, tamen nullum animal iudicavit calamitosius homine, propterea quod caetera omnia, naturae finibus essent contenta, solus homo sortis suae limites egredi conaretur.

Which, if ever shut up in cages, grow accustomed to sound human tongues, it is astonishing how far they degenerate from that native luster. Thus, in every way, what nature has established is more cheerful than what art has painted over. Accordingly I could never praise enough that cock Pythagoras, who, when as one he had been everything—philosopher, man, woman, king, private citizen, fish, horse, frog, I think even a sponge—nevertheless judged no animal more calamitous than man, for the reason that all the rest were content with the boundaries of nature, while man alone tried to step beyond the limits of his own lot.

35. Rursum inter homines, idiotas multis partibus anteponit doctis ac magnis, et Gryllus ille non paulo plus sapuit, quam polumêtis Odusseus, qui maluerit in hara grunnire, quam cum illo tot miseris obiici casibus. Ab his mihi non dissentire videtur Homerus nugarum pater, qui cum mortales omnes subinde deilous kai mochthêrous appellat, tum Ulyssem illum suum sapientis exemplar, saepenumero dustênon vocat, Paridem nusquam, nec Aiacem, nec Achillem. Quamobrem id tandem?

35. Again, among humans, he puts idiots far by many parts before the learned and great, and that Gryllus was not by a little wiser than polymetis Odysseus, who preferred to grunt in the sty rather than to be exposed with him to so many miserable mishaps. From these Homer, the father of trifles, seems to me not to dissent, who, since he repeatedly calls all mortals deilous kai mochthêrous, then calls that Ulysses of his, the exemplar of the wise man, oftentimes dustênon, never Paris, nor Ajax, nor Achilles. Why, pray, is that?

Nisi quod ille vafer et artifex nihil non Palladis consilio agebat, nimiumque sapiebat, a naturae ductu quam longissime recedens? Ut igitur inter mortales, ii longissime absunt a felicitate, qui sapientiae student, nimirum hoc ipso bis stulti, quod homines nati cum sint, tamen obliti conditionis suae Deorum immortalium vitam affectant, et Gigantum exemplo, disciplinarum machinis, naturae bellum inferunt, ita quam minime miseri videntur ii, qui ad brutorum ingenium stultitiamque quam proxime accedunt, neque quidquam ultra hominem moliuntur. Age experiamur num hoc quoque non Stoicis enthymematis, sed crasso quopiam exemplo queamus ostendere.

Unless it be that that sly and artful fellow did nothing without Pallas’s counsel, and was too wise, withdrawing as far as possible from nature’s leading? Accordingly, among mortals, those are farthest distant from felicity who apply themselves to wisdom—assuredly in this very thing twice-fools, that, though born as men, yet, forgetful of their condition, they aspire to the life of the immortal gods, and, after the example of the Giants, with the machines of the disciplines wage war upon nature—so, in turn, those seem least miserable who approach most nearly to the disposition and stupidity of brutes, and attempt nothing beyond man. Come, let us try whether we can show this too, not by Stoic enthymemes, but by some coarse example.

Ac per Deos immortales, est ne quidquam felicius isto hominum genere, quos vulgo moriones, stultos, fatuos, ac bliteos appellant, pulcerrimis, ut equidem opinor, cognominibus? Rem dicam prima fronte stultam fortassis atque absurdam, sed tamen unam multo verissimam. Principio vacant mortis metu, non mediocri, per Iovem, malo.

And by the immortal gods, is there anything more felicitous than that genus of men whom the crowd calls jesters, stupid, fatuous, and blitean fellows, by the most beautiful, as I for my part think, cognomens? I will say a thing which at first blush may seem foolish and absurd, yet is by far the truest. To begin with, they are vacant of the fear of death, a not moderate, by Jove, evil.

Vacant conscientiae carnificina. Non territantur Manium fabulamentis. Non expavescunt spectris ac lemuribus, non torquentur metu impendentium malorum, non spe futurorum bonorum distenduntur.

They are free from the torture-chamber of conscience. They are not terrified by the fables of the Manes. They do not quake at specters and lemures, they are not tormented by fear of impending evils, nor are they distended by hope of future goods.

In summa, non dilacerantur millibus curarum, quibus haec vita obnoxia est. Non pudescunt, non verentur, non ambiunt, non invident, non amant. Denique si propius etiam ad brutorum animantium insipientiam, accesserint, ne peccant quidem, auctoribus theologis.

In sum, they are not torn to pieces by thousands of cares, to which this life is obnoxious. They are not ashamed, they do not revere, they do not court, they do not envy, they do not love. Finally, if they should come nearer even to the insipience of brute animals, they do not even sin, with theologians for authorities.

Hic mihi iam expendas velim, stultissime sapiens, quot undique sollicitudinibus noctes diesque discrucietur animus tuus, congeras in unum acervum universa vitae tuae incommoda, atque ita demum intelliges, quantis malis meos fatuos subduxerim. Adde huc, quod non solum ipsi perpetuo gaudent, ludunt, cantillant, rident, verum etiam caeteris omnibus quocumque sese verterint, voluptatem, iocum, lusum, risumque adferunt, velut in hoc ipsum a Deorum indulgentia dati, ut humanae vitae tristitiam exhilararent. Unde fit, ut cum aliis in alios varius sit affectus, hos omnes ex aequo tamquam suos agnoscant, expetant, pascant, foveant, complectantur, succurrant, si quid acciderit: impune permittant, quidquid vel dixerint, vel fecerint.

Here now I would have you weigh for me, most foolish wise man, by how many anxieties from every side your mind is excruciated nights and days, heap into one pile all the inconveniences of your life, and then at last you will understand from how great evils I have withdrawn my fools. Add to this, that not only do they themselves perpetually rejoice, play, warble, laugh, but they also bring to all others, wherever they turn themselves, pleasure, jest, play, and laughter, as if given for this very purpose by the indulgence of the gods, to exhilarate the sadness of human life. Whence it comes about that, although men’s affection toward one another is various, they recognize all these equally as their own, seek them out, nourish, cherish, embrace, run to help, if anything should happen: they allow with impunity whatever they may have said or done.

Adeoque nemo, illis nocere cupit, ut ferae quoque belluae ab illorum iniuria temperent, sensu quodam innocentiae naturali. Sunt enim vere sacri Diis, praecipue mihi, ideoque non iniuria hunc honorem omnes illis habent.

And so to such an extent that no one desires to harm them, that even wild beast-brutes refrain from injury against them, by a certain natural sense of innocence. For they are truly sacred to the gods, especially to me, and therefore not unjustly do all render to them this honor.

36. Quid quod summis etiam regibus adeo sunt in delitiis, ut nonnulli sine his neque prandere, nec ingredi, nec omnino vel horam durare possint. Neque vero paullo intervallo hos bliteos suis illis tetricis sophis anteponunt, quos tamen ipsos aliquot honoris gratia solent alere. Cur autem ante ponant, nec obscurum arbitror nec mirum videri debet, cum sapientes illi nil nisi triste soleant adferre principibus, suaque doctrina freti, non vereantur aliquoties auriculas teneras mordaci radere vero.

36. What of this: that even with the highest kings they are so much in delights, that not a few without them can neither dine, nor go anywhere, nor at all endure even an hour. Nor indeed by a small interval do they set these blite‑like simpletons before their own grim sophists, whom nevertheless they are accustomed—several of them—to keep for honor’s sake. But why they put them first I judge to be neither obscure nor ought it to seem marvelous, since those wise men are wont to bring nothing but gloomy things to princes, and, relying on their doctrine, do not fear now and again to scrape their tender little ears with a mordacious truth.

Moriones autem id praestent, quod unum undecumque principes modis omnibus aucupantur, iocos, risus, cachinnos, delitias. Iam accipite et hanc non aspernandam stultorum dotem, quod soli simpli ces ac veridici sunt. Quid autem veritate laudatius?

The jesters, however, furnish that one thing which princes, from wherever, by every means, angle for—jokes, laughter, guffaws, delights. Now also accept this not-to-be-spurned endowment of fools: that they alone are simple and veridical. And what, moreover, is more laudable than truth?

Quamquam enim Alcibiadeum apud Platonem proverbium, veri tatem vino pueritiaeque tribuit, tamen omnis ea laus mihi peculiariter debetur, vel Euripide teste, cuius exstat illud celebre de nobis dictum, môra gar môros legei. Fatuus quidquid habet in pectore, id et vultu prae se fert, et ora tione promit. At sapientum sunt duae illae linguae, ut idem meminit Euripides, quarum altera verum dicunt, altera, quae pro tempore iudicarint opportuna.

For although the Alcibiadean proverb in Plato attributes truth to wine and to boyhood, yet all that praise is owed peculiarly to me, Euripides being witness, whose famous saying about us stands: môra gar môros legei. A fool, whatever he has in his breast, he bears it forth in his face, and brings it out in oration. But the wise have those two tongues, as Euripides likewise remembers, of which with the one they speak the true, with the other the things they have judged opportune for the occasion.

Horum est nigrum in candida vertere, et eodem ex ore frigidum pariter et calidum efflare, longeque aliud conditum habere in pectore, aliud sermone fingere. Porro in tanta felicitate, tamen hoc nomine principes mihi videntur infelicissimi, quod deest, a quo verum audiant, et assentatores pro amicis ha bere coguntur. Sed abhorrent a vero principum aures, dixerit aliquis et hac ipsa de causa, sapientes istos fugitant, quod vereantur ne quis forte liberior exsistat, qui vera magis, quam iucunda loqui audeat.

To these belongs to turn black into white, and from the same mouth to exhale cold and hot alike, and to have one thing laid up in the breast, another to fashion in speech. Moreover, amid such felicity, yet under this head the princes seem to me most unhappy, that there is lacking one from whom they may hear the truth, and they are compelled to have assentators for friends. But the ears of princes abhor the truth, someone will say, and for this very reason they shun those wise men, because they fear lest perhaps someone should arise more free-spoken, who would dare to speak truths rather than pleasant things.

Ita quidem res habet, invisa regibus veritas. Sed tamen hoc ipsum mire in fatuis meis usu venit, ut non vera modo, verum etiam aperta convitia cum voluptate audiantur, adeo ut idem dictum, quod si a sapientis ore proficiscatur, capitale fuerat futurum: a morione profectum, incredibilem voluptatem pariat. Habet enim genuinam quamdam delectandi vim veritas, si nihil accedat quod offendat: verum id quidem solis fatuis Dii dederunt.

Thus indeed the matter stands, truth is hateful to kings. Yet this very thing, wondrously, comes to pass in the case of my fools: that not truths only, but even open revilings are heard with pleasure—so much so that the same saying, which, if it should proceed from the mouth of a wise man, would have been capital, proceeding from a morion brings forth incredible delight. For truth has a certain genuine power of delighting, if nothing be added that offends; but that boon the gods have granted to fools alone.

Iisdem ferme de causis hoc hominum genere mulieres gaudere solent impensius, utpote ad voluptatem et nugas natura propensiores. Proinde quidquid cum huiusmodi factitarint, etiamsi nonnumquam serium nimis, illae tamen iocum ac lusum interpretantur, ut est ingeniosus, praesertim ad praetexenda commissa sua, sexus ille.

For nearly the same reasons, women are accustomed to rejoice more earnestly in this kind of men, as being by nature more prone to pleasure and trifles. Accordingly, whatever they are wont to do with persons of this sort, even if sometimes too serious, they nevertheless interpret as jest and play—so ingenious is that sex, especially for pretexting their own committed deeds.

37. Igitur ut ad fatuorum felicitatem redeam, multa cum iucunditate peracta vita, nullo mortis vel metu, vel sensu, recta in campos Elysios demigrant, et illic pias atque otiosas animas lusibus suis delectaturi. Eamus nunc, et quemvis etiam sapientem cum huius morionis sorte conferamus. Finge quod huic opponas exemplar sapientiae, hominem qui totam pueritiam atque adolescentiam in perdiscendis disciplinis contriverit, et suavissimam vitae partem, perpetuis vigiliis, curis, sudoribus perdiderit, ne in reliqua quidem omni vita vel tantillum voluptatis degustarit, semper parcus, pauper, tristis, tetricus, sibi ipsi iniquus ac durus, aliis gravis et invisus, pallore, macie, valetudine, lippitudine, confectus senio, canitieque multo ante diem contracta, ante diem fugiens e vita.

37. Therefore, to return to the felicity of fools, their life having been passed with much jocundity, without either fear or sense of death, they migrate straight into the Elysian fields, and there are about to delight the pious and at-leisure souls with their amusements. Let us go now, and compare even any wise man with the lot of this morion. Imagine that you set over against him an exemplar of wisdom: a man who has worn out his whole boyhood and youth in thoroughly learning disciplines, and has lost the most sweet part of life in perpetual vigils, cares, sweats; who has not even in all the rest of life tasted so much as a tiny drop of pleasure; always parsimonious, poor, sad, austere, unjust and harsh to himself, burdensome and odious to others, consumed with pallor, leanness, ill‑health, blear‑eyedness, worn out with old age, and with a hoariness contracted long before his day, fleeing out of life before his day.

Quamquam quid refert quando moriatur istiusmodi, qui numquam vixerit? Habetis egregiam illam sapientis imaginem.

Although, what does it matter when one of this sort dies, who has never lived? You have that illustrious image of the wise man.

38. At hic rursus obganniunt mihi, hoi ek tês stôas (!) batrachoi. 'Nihil', inquiunt, 'miserius insania'. Sed insignis stultitia, vel insaniae proxima est, vel ipsa potius insa nia. Quid enim aliud est insanire, quam errare animo?

38. But here again those frogs from the Stoa (!) snarl at me. 'Nothing,' they say, 'is more miserable than insanity.' But conspicuous stupidity is either proximate to insanity, or rather is insanity itself. For what else is it to be insane than to err in mind?

Sed isti tota errant via. Age, hunc quoque syllogismum dissipemus, Musis bene fortunantibus. Argute quidem isti, verum quemadmodum apud Platonem docet Socrates, ex una Venere secta duas, et ex uno Cupidine dissecto duos faciens, itidem et istos Dialecticos decebat insaniam ab insania distinguere, si modo ipsi sani videri vellent.

But those men err all along the road. Come, let us also dissipate this syllogism, the Muses favoring us. Acute indeed are they; but, just as Socrates teaches in Plato, making two from one Venus by cutting, and two from one Cupid by dissecting, so likewise it behooved these Dialecticians to distinguish insanity from insanity, if only they themselves wished to seem sane.

Neque enim protinus omnis insania calamitosa est. Alioqui non dixisset Horatius: 'An me ludit amabilis insania': Neque Plato poetarum, vatum, et amantium furorem inter praecipua vitae bona collocasset nec vates illa laborem Aeneae vocasset insanuma. Verum est duplex insaniae genus: alterum quod ab inferis dirae ultrices submittunt, quoties immissis anguibus, vel ardorem belli, vel inexplebilem auri sitim, vel dedecorosum ac nefarium amorem, vel parricidium, incestum, sacrilegium, aut aliam id genus pestem aliquam in pectora mortalium invehunt, sive cum nocentem et conscium animum, Furiis ac terriculorum facibus agunt.

For not straightway is every insanity calamitous. Otherwise Horace would not have said: 'Does a lovable insanity sport with me?'; nor would Plato have placed the furor of poets, seers (vates), and lovers among the chief goods of life; nor would that seer have called the labor of Aeneas ‘insane’. But there is a twofold genus of insanity: the one which the dread Avengers (the Dirae) send up from the underworld, whenever, by letting loose serpents, they drive into the breasts of mortals either the ardor of war, or an insatiable thirst for gold, or disgraceful and nefarious love, or parricide, incest, sacrilege, or some other pest of that kind; or when they lash a guilty and self-conscious mind with Furies and with the torches of terrors.

Est alterum huic longe dissimile, quod videlicet a me proficiscitur, omnium maxime exoptandum. Id accidit quoties iucundus quidam mentis error simul et anxiis illis curis animum liberat, et multiiuga voluptate delibutum reddit. Atqui hunc mentis errorem ceu magnum quoddam Deorum munus, ad Atticum scribens, optat Cicero, nimirum, quo tantorum malorum sensu carere posset.

There is another, far dissimilar to this, which, to wit, proceeds from me, most to be desired of all. It occurs whenever a certain pleasant error of the mind at once both frees the spirit from those anxious cares and renders it imbued with manifold delight. And yet Cicero, writing to Atticus, desires this error of the mind as a certain great gift of the gods, namely, whereby he might be able to be without the sense of such great evils.

Neque perperam sensit Argivus ille, qui hactenus insaniebat, ut totos dies solus desideret in theatro, ridens, plaudens, gaudens, quod crederet illic miras agi tragoedias, cum nihil omnino ageretur, cum in caeteris vitae officiis probe sese gereret: 'iucundus amicis, comis in uxorem, posset qui ignoscere servis. Et signo laesae non insanire lagenae'. Hunc ubi cognatorum opera datis pharmacis morbo levasset, sibique iam totus esset redditus, hunc in modum cum amicis expostulans: 'Pol, me occidistis, amici, non servastis', ait, 'cui sic extorta voluptas. Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error'. Et merito quidem: errabant enim ipsi, atque elleboro magis opus habebant, qui tam felicem ac iucundam insaniam, ceu malum aliquod, existimaquoties foedum illum cornuum cantum audierint, quoties rent potionibus expellendam.

Nor did that Argive perceive amiss, who was insane to this extent: that he desired to be alone in the theater whole days, laughing, applauding, rejoicing, because he believed marvelous tragedies were being acted there, when nothing at all was being acted, while in the other duties of life he bore himself properly: “pleasant to his friends, gracious to his wife, one who could pardon servants. And, by the sign of a damaged flagon, not insane.” When, by the efforts of his kinsmen, with drugs administered, he had been lightened of the disease, and was now wholly restored to himself, expostulating with his friends in this manner: “By Pollux, you have killed me, friends, not saved me,” he says, “from whom pleasure has thus been torn away. And the most welcome error of mind has been removed by force.” And deservedly indeed: for they themselves were erring, and had more need of hellebore, who judged so happy and pleasant a madness, as if it were some evil, to be driven out by potions, whenever they had heard that foul blare of horns.

Quamquam illud equidem nondum statui, num quivis sensus, aut mentis error, insa niae nomine sit appellandus. Neque enim si cui lippienti mulus asinus esse videatur: aut si quis indoctum carmen veluti doctissimum admiretur, is continuo videbitur insanire. Verum si quis non sensu tantum, sed animi iudicio fallatur, idque praeter usitatum morem ac perpetuo, is demum insaniae censebitur affinis esse, veluti si quis quoties asinum audierit rudentem, arbitretur sese miros symphoniscos audire, aut si quis pauperculus, infimi loco natus, Croesum Lydorum regem esse se credat.

Although indeed I have not yet decided whether any and every sensation, or error of mind, is to be called by the name of insanity. For neither, if to someone bleary-eyed a mule should seem to be an ass; or if someone should admire an unlearned song as though most learned, will he forthwith appear to be insane. But if someone is deceived not only in sensation but by the judgment of his mind, and that beyond the usual custom and continually, he will finally be deemed to be akin to insanity, as for instance if someone, whenever he hears a donkey braying, should suppose himself to be hearing marvelous symphonists, or if some poor little fellow, born in the lowest rank, should believe himself to be Croesus, king of the Lydians.

Sed hoc insaniae genus, si, quemadmodum fere sit, vergat ad voluptatem, non mediocrem delectationem adfert tum iis, qui eo tenentur, tum illis, quibus est hoc animadversum, nec tamen eodem insaniunt. Nam haec insaniae species multo latius patet, quam vulgus hominum intelligit. Sed vicissim insanus insanum ridet, ac mutuam sibi voluptatem invicem ministrant.

But this genus of insanity, if, as it for the most part is, it verges toward pleasure, brings no mediocre delectation both to those who are held by it and to those by whom this is observed, and yet they do not go mad in the same way. For this species of insanity is patent much more widely than the vulgar crowd of men understands. But, in turn, the madman laughs at the madman, and they minister mutual pleasure to one another in turn.

Neque raro fieri videbitis, ut maior insanus, vehementius rideat minorem.

Nor will you rarely see it happen, that the greater madman laughs more vehemently at the lesser.

39. Verum hoc quisque felicior, quo pluribus desipit modis, Stultitia iudice, modo in eo genere insaniae maneat, quod nobis est peculiare, quod quidem usque adeo late patet, ut haud sciam, an ex universa mortalium summa quempiam liceat reperire, qui omnibus horis sapiat, quique non aliquo insaniae genere teneatur. Quamquam hoc tantum interest qui cucurbitam cum videt, mulierem esse credit, huic insano nomen ponunt, propterea quod per paucis id usu veniat. Verum ubi quis uxorem suam, quam cum multis habet communem, eam plusquam Penelopen esse deierat, sibique maiorem in modum plaudit, feliciter errans, hunc nullus insanum appellat, propterea quod passim maritis hoc accidere videant.

39. But each man is the happier, the more ways he is foolish, in Folly as judge, provided only he remain in that genus of insanity which is peculiar to us; which indeed extends so widely that I hardly know whether, out of the entire sum of mortals, it is permitted to find anyone who is wise at all hours, and who is not held by some genus of insanity. And yet this only is the difference: the man who, when he sees a gourd, believes it to be a woman—on him they put the name “madman,” because this comes to pass in practice for a few. But when someone swears that his wife, whom he holds in common with many, is more than a Penelope, and applauds himself in the highest degree, happily erring, no one calls this man insane, because they see this happen everywhere to husbands.

Ad hunc ordinem pertinent et isti, qui prae venatu ferarum omnia contemnunt, atque incredibilem animi voluptatem percipere se praedicant, canum eiulatus. Opinor etiam cum excrementa canum odorantur, illis cinnamomum videri. Deinde quae suavitas, quoties fera lanianda est?

To this order there also pertain those who, in preference to the hunting of wild beasts, contemn all things, and proclaim that they perceive an incredible pleasure of mind in the howlings of dogs. I suppose even when they smell the excrements of dogs, it seems to them cinnamon. Then what sweetness, whenever a wild beast is to be torn to pieces?

Tauros et verveces humili plebi laniare licet, feram nisi a generoso secari nefas. Is nudo capite, inflexis genibus, gladio ad id destinato, neque enim quovis idem facere fas est, certis gestibus, certa membra, certo ordine religiose secat. Miratur interim perinde ut in re nova, circumstans tacita turba, tametsi spectaculum hoc plus millies viderit.

It is permitted to the lowly plebs to butcher bulls and wethers, but for a wild beast to be cut except by a well-born man is sacrilege. He, with bare head and bent knees, with a sword destined for that—indeed it is not lawful to do the same with just any blade—religiously cuts, with fixed gestures, specific parts, in a fixed order. Meanwhile the silent crowd standing around marvels as if at a new thing, although it has seen this spectacle more than 1,000 times.

Porro cui contigerit e bellua nonnihil gustare, is vero existimat sibi non parum nobilitatis accedere. Itaque cum isti assidua ferarum insectatione atque esu, nihil aliud assequantur, nisi ut ipsi propemodum in feras degenerent, tamen interea regiam vitam agere se putant. Est his simillimum genus eorum, qui insatiabili aedificandi studio flagrant, nunc rotunda quadratis, nunc, quadrata rotundis permutantes.

Furthermore, whoever has happened to taste somewhat from the beast, he indeed thinks no small amount of nobility accrues to him. And so, although these men, by assiduous pursuit of wild beasts and by eating, achieve nothing else except that they themselves almost degenerate into beasts, yet meanwhile they suppose they are living a regal life. Very similar to them is the kind of those who burn with an insatiable zeal for building, now permuting round things for square, now square things for round.

Neque vero finis ullus, neque modus, donec ad extremam redactis inopiam, nec ubi habitent, nec quid edant, supersit. Quid tum postea? Interim annos aliquot summa cum voluptate peregerunt.

And in truth there is no end, nor measure, until, with them reduced to extreme indigence, neither where they may dwell nor what they may eat remains. What then afterwards? Meanwhile they spent several years with the highest pleasure.

Ad quos mihi quidem proxime videntur accedere, qui novis et arcanis artibus, rerum species vertere moliuntur, ac terra marique quintam quamdam essentiam venantur. Hos adeo lactat mellita spes, ut neque laborum, neque impensarum umquam pigeat, miroque ingenio semper aliquid excogitant, quo sese denuo fallant, sibique ipsis gratam faciant imposturam, donec absumtis omnibus, non sit quo iam fornaculam instruant. Non desinunt tamen iucunda somniare somnia, caeteros pro viribus ad eamdem felicitatem animantes.

Next to them there seem to me to come those who, by new and arcane arts, endeavor to transform the appearances of things, and by land and sea hunt after a certain quintessence. Such honeyed hope so cajoles them that they are never weary either of labors or of expenses; and with wondrous ingenuity they are always contriving something by which they may deceive themselves anew, and make the imposture pleasing to themselves, until, everything having been consumed, there is no means left with which to equip the furnace. Yet they do not cease to dream pleasant dreams, encouraging the rest, so far as they are able, toward the same felicity.

Cumque iam prorsus omni spe destituuntur, superest tamen una sententia, abunde magnum solatium: 'In magnis et voluisse sat est'. Ac tum vitae brevitatem incusant, ut quae magnitudini negotii non suffecerit. Porro aleatores nonnihil addubito num in nostrum collegium sint admittendi. Sed tamen stultum omnino ridiculumque spectaculum est, quoties videmus nonnullos usque adeo addictos, ut simul atque strepitum talorum audierint, protinus illis cor saliat, palpitetque.

And when now they are utterly forsaken of all hope, nevertheless one sententia remains, an abundantly great solace: ‘In great affairs even to have willed is enough.’ And then they accuse the brevity of life, as that which has not sufficed for the magnitude of the enterprise. Furthermore, I somewhat doubt whether gamblers are to be admitted into our college. But yet it is an altogether foolish and ridiculous spectacle, whenever we see some so addicted that, as soon as they have heard the clatter of the dice, straightway their heart leaps and palpitates.

Deinde cum semper illiciente vincendi spe omnium facultatum naufragium fecerint, in aleae scopulum illisa nave, non paulo formidabiliorem Malea, vixque nudi emerserint, quosvis potius fraudant quam victorem, ne scilicet viri parum graves habeantur. Quid cum senes iam et caecutientes, vitreis etiam oculis lusitant? Postremo cum iam iusta chiragra contudit articulos, vicarium etiam mercede conducunt, qui pro se talos in pyrgum mittat?

Then, when, with the ever-alluring hope of winning, they have made a shipwreck of all their resources, their ship dashed upon the rock of the dice, far more formidable than Malea, and have scarcely surfaced naked, they defraud anyone rather than the victor, so that, of course, they may not be considered men of too little gravity. What of it when, now old men and half-blind, they even play with glass eyes? Finally, when the proper hand-gout (chiragra) has crushed their joints, they even hire a vicar for wages to throw the dice into the tower for them?

Suavis quidem res, nisi quod hic ludus plerumque solet in rabiem evadere, iamque ad Furias, non ad me pertinere.

A pleasant thing indeed, except that this game for the most part is wont to run into rabid rage, and by now pertains to the Furies, not to me.

40. Caeterum illud hominum genus haud dubie totum est nostrae farinae qui miraculis ac prodigiosis gaudent mendaciis, vel audiendis vel narrandis. Nec ulla satietas talium fabularum, cum portentosa quaedam, de spectris, de lemuribus, de larvis, de inferis, de id genus millibus miraculorum commemorantur: quae quo longius absunt a vero, hoc et creduntur lubentius et iucundiore pruritu titillant aures. Atque haec quidem non modo ad levandum horarum taedium mire conducunt, verum etiam ad quaestum pertinent, praecipue sacrificis et concionatoribus.

40. But that class of men is without a doubt wholly of our flour who rejoice in miracles and prodigious mendacities, whether to be heard or to be told. Nor is there any satiety of such fables, when certain portentous tales are recounted: about specters, about lemures, about larvae, about the infernal dead, about thousands of miracles of that kind; which, the farther they are from the true, the more gladly they are believed, and with a more pleasant itch they tickle the ears. And these things indeed not only marvelously conduce to the lightening of the tedium of the hours, but also pertain to profit, especially for sacrificers and preachers.

His rursum adfines sunt ii, qui sibi stultam quidem, sed tamen iucundam persuasionem induerunt, futurum, ut si ligneum, aut pictum aliquem Polyphemum Christophorum adspexerint, eo die non sint perituri, aut qui sculptam Barbaram praescriptis verbis salutarit, sit incolumis e praelio rediturus, aut si quis Erasmum certis diebus, certis cereolis, certisque preculis convenerit, brevi sit dives evasurus. Iam vero Georgium etiam Herculem invenerunt, quemadmodum et Hippolytum alterum. Huius equum phaleris ac bullis religiosissime adornatum tantum non adorant ac subinde novo quopiam munusculo demerentur, per huius aeream galeam deierare plane regium habetur.

Next to these again are those who have put upon themselves a foolish yet pleasant persuasion: that if they should behold some wooden or painted Polyphemus-Christopher, they will not perish on that day; or that whoever shall salute a carved Barbara with the prescribed words will return from battle incolume; or that if anyone shall visit Erasmus on certain days, with certain little wax-candles and certain little prayers, he will shortly emerge rich. Now indeed they have even found a Hercules in George, as likewise another Hippolytus. His horse, most religiously adorned with trappings and bosses, they well-nigh adore, and from time to time seek to win its favor with some new little gift; to swear by his brazen helmet is plainly held a royal thing.

Nam quid dicam de iis, qui sibi fictis scelerum condonationibus, suavissime blandiuntur, ac Purgatorii spatia veluti clepsydris metiuntur, saecula, annos, menses, dies, horas, tamquam e tabula mathematica, citra ullum errorem dimetientes. Aut de iis qui magicis quibusdam notulis ac preculis, quas pius aliquis impostor, vel animi causa, vel ad quaestum excogitavit, freti nihil sibi non pollicentur, opes, honores, voluptates, saturitates, valetudinem perpetuo prosperam, vitam longaevam, senectam viridem, denique proximum Christo apud Superos consessum, quem tamen nolint, nisi admodum sero contingere, hoc est, cum huius vitae voluptates, invitos eos ac mordicus retinentes, tamen deseruerint, tum succedant illae Coelitum delitiae. Hic mihi puta negociator aliquis aut miles, aut iudex, abiecto ex tot rapinis unico nummulo, universam vitae Lernam semel expurgatam putat, totque periuria, tot libidines, tot ebrietates, tot rixas, tot caedes, tot imposturas, tot perfidias, tot proditiones existimat velut ex pacto redimi, et ita redimi, ut iam liceat ad novum scelerum orbem de integro reverti.

For what shall I say of those who with fictitious condonations of crimes most sweetly flatter themselves, and measure out the spans of Purgatory as if by clepsydras, centuries, years, months, days, hours, as though from a mathematical table, apportioning them without any error. Or of those who, relying on certain magical little notes and little prayers, which some pious impostor devised either for amusement or for gain, promise themselves nothing not to be had—wealth, honors, pleasures, satieties, health perpetually prosperous, a long-lived life, a green old age, and finally a seat next to Christ among the Supernals—yet which they would not wish to befall except very late; that is, when the pleasures of this life, holding them unwilling and, as it were, biting them fast, have nevertheless deserted them, then those delights of the Celestials may succeed. Here, imagine for me some merchant, or soldier, or judge, who, having thrown away a single coin out of so many depredations, deems the whole Lerna of his life once for all purged, and thinks that so many perjuries, so many lusts, so many drunken bouts, so many brawls, so many slaughters, so many impostures, so many perfidies, so many betrayals are, as by a pact, redeemed—and so redeemed that it is now permitted to return afresh to a new orb of crimes from the beginning.

Quid autem stultius iis, imo quid felicius, qui septem illis sacrorum Psalmorum versiculis quotidie recitatis, plus quam summam felicitatem sibi promittunt? Atque hos magicos versiculos Daemon quispiam, facetus quidem ille, sed futilis magis quam callidus, Divo Bernardo creditur indicasse, sed arte circumventus miser. Et haec tam stulta, ut me ipsam propemodum pudeat, tamen approbantur, idque non a vulgo modo, verum etiam a religionis professoribus.

But what is more foolish than these people, nay rather what more felicitous, who, with those seven little verses of the sacred Psalms recited daily, promise themselves more than the highest felicity? And some Demon, witty indeed, but more futile than crafty, is believed to have pointed out these magical little verses to Saint Bernard, but—poor creature—overreached by art. And these things, so foolish that I myself am almost ashamed, are nevertheless approved, and that not by the common crowd only, but even by professors of religion.

Quid iam, nonne eodem fere pertinet, cum singulae regiones suum aliquem peculiarem vindicant Divum, cumque in singulos singula quaedam partiuntur, singulis suos quosdam culturae ritus attribuunt, ut hic in dentium cruciatu succurrat, ille parturientibus dexter adsit, alius rem furto sublatam restituat, hic in naufragio prosper adfulgeat, ille gregem tueatur: atque item de caeteris. Nam omnia percensere longissimum fuerit. Sunt qui singuli pluribus in rebus valeant, praecipue Deipara Virgo, cui vulgus hominum plus prope tribuit quam Filio.

What now? does it not come almost to the same point, when individual regions claim as their own some peculiar Divine, and parcel out certain things to individuals one by one, assign to individuals their own rites of cult: that this one may succor in the torment of teeth, that one be favorable at hand to women in labor, another restore a thing carried off by theft, this one appear propitious in shipwreck, that one watch over the flock; and likewise concerning the rest. For to run through all would be very long. There are some who, each singly, are effective in more matters—especially the Deipara Virgin, to whom the common crowd of men well-nigh attributes more than to the Son.

41. Verum ab his Divis quid tandem petunt homines nisi quod ad stultitiam attinet? Agedum inter tot anathemata, quibus templorum quorumdam parietes omnes, ac testudinem ipsam refertam conspicitis, vidistisne umquam qui stultitiam effugerit, qui vel pilo sit factus sapientior? Alius enatavit incolumis.

41. But from these divinities what, pray, do men at last ask, except what pertains to stupidity? Come now, among so many anathemas, with which you behold the walls of certain temples, and the very vault itself, crammed full, have you ever seen anyone who has escaped stupidity, who has been made wiser by even a hair? Another swam out unscathed.

Alius ab hoste perfossus, vixit. Alius e praelio, pugnantibus caeteris, non minus feliciter quam fortiter aufugit. Alius in crucem subactus, favore Divi cuiuspiam furibus amici, decidit ut nonnullos etiam male divitiis onustos pergeret exonerare.

Another, pierced through by the foe, lived. Another, out of the battle, while the rest were fighting, escaped no less felicitously than bravely. Another, driven onto the cross, by the favor of some Divus, a friend to thieves, fell down so that he might proceed to unburden even certain persons ill-laden with riches.

Alius perfracto carcere fugit. Alius irato medico a febre revaluit. Alii potum venenum, alvo soluta, remedio non exitio fuit, idque non admodum laeta uxore, quae operam et impensam luserit.

Another broke out of prison and fled. Another recovered from a fever, the physician irate. To another, a poison drunk—his belly loosened—was a remedy, not a ruin, and his wife was not very happy about it, who had wasted her labor and expense.

Alius everso plaustro, equos incolumes domum abegit. Alius oppressus ruina vixit. Alius a marito deprehensus elusit.

Another, with the wagon overturned, drove the horses home unharmed. Another, crushed by a ruin, lived. Another, caught by her husband, eluded him.

Nullus pro depulsa stultitia gratias agit. Adeo suavis quaedam res est nihil sapere, ut omnia potius deprecentur mortales, quam Moriam. Sed quid ego hoc superstitionum pelagus ingredior?

No one gives thanks for foolishness having been driven away. So sweet a thing is to know nothing, that mortals would sooner deprecate all things than Folly. But why do I enter upon this sea of superstitions?

'Non mihi si linguae centum sint, oraque centum, Ferrea vox, omneis fatuorum evolvere formas, Omnia stultitiae percurrere nomina possim'.

'Not even if I had a hundred tongues and a hundred mouths,
an iron voice, could I unfold all the forms of fools,
run through all the names of folly.'

Usque adeo omnis omnium Christianorum vita istiusmodi delirationibus undique scatet: quas ipsas tamen Sacrifici non gravatim et admittunt et alunt, non ignari quantum hinc lucelli soleat accrescere. Inter haec, si quis odiosus sapiens exoriatur, succinatque id, quod res est, non male peribis, sibene vixeris: peccata redimis, si nummulo addideris odium malefactorum, tum lacrymas, vigilias, precationes, ieiunia, ac totam vitae rationem commutaris: Divus hic tibi favebit, si vitam illius aemulaberis. Haec, inquam, atque id genus alia, si sapiens ille obganniat, vide a quanta felicitate repente mortalium animos in quem tumultum retraxerit?

To such an extent the whole life of all Christians everywhere teems with delirations of this sort: which very things, however, the Priests without reluctance both admit and foster, not unaware how much little lucre is wont to accrue from this. Meanwhile, if some odious wise man should arise, and chime in with this, which is the reality: you will not perish badly, if you have lived well; you redeem sins by adding a small coin; add hatred of evildoers, then tears, vigils, prayers, fastings, and alter your whole regimen of life: this Saint will favor you, if you emulate his life. These things, I say, and others of that kind, if that wise man should bark against, see from how great felicity he has suddenly dragged back the souls of mortals into what a tumult?

Ad hoc collegium pertinent, qui vivi qua funeris pompa velint efferri, tam diligenter statuunt, ut nominatim etiam praescribant, quot taedas, quot pullatos, quot cantores, quot luctus histriones velint adesse, perinde, quasi futurum sit, ut aliquis huius spectaculi sensus ad ipsos sit rediturus, aut ut pudescant defuncti, nisi cadaver magnifice defodiatur, haud alio studio, quam si aediles creati, ludos aut epulum edere studeant.

To this collegium pertain those who, while alive, determine with what funeral pomp they wish to be carried forth, so diligently do they decree that they even prescribe by name how many torches, how many black‑clad mourners, how many singers, how many grief‑actors they want to be present, just as if it were going to happen that any sensation of this spectacle would return to them, or that the departed would be ashamed unless the cadaver be magnificently interred, with no other zeal than if, created aediles, they were eager to exhibit games or to serve a banquet.

42. Equidem tametsi propero, tamen haud possum istos silentio praetercurrere qui cum nihil ab infimo cerdone differant, tamen inani nobilitatis titulo, mirum quam sibi blandiuntur. Alius ad Aeneam, alius ad Brutum, alius ad Arcturum genus suum refert. Ostendunt undique sculptas et pictas maiorum imagines.

42. For my part, although I hasten, yet I cannot run past in silence those who, though they differ in nothing from the lowest cobbler, nevertheless, with an empty title of nobility, it is marvelous how they flatter themselves. One refers his lineage back to Aeneas, another to Brutus, another to Arthur. They show everywhere carved and painted images of their elders.

Numerant proavos atque atavos, et antiqua cognomina commemorant, cum ipsi non multum absint a muta statua, pene iis ipsis, quae ostentant signis, deteriores. Et tamen hac tam suavi Philautia felicem prorsum vitam agunt. Neque desunt aeque stulti, qui hoc belluarum genus perinde ut Deos suspiciunt.

They count their great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers, and commemorate ancient cognomina, while they themselves are not far removed from a mute statue, almost worse than the very effigies which they ostentatiously display. And yet, with this so sweet Philautia, they lead a positively happy life. Nor are there lacking those equally foolish, who look up to this genus of brutes just as to the Gods.

Sed quid ego de uno aut altero genere loquor, quasi vero non passim haec Philautia plurimos ubique miris modis felicissimos efficiat. Cum hic quavis simia deformior, sibi plane Nireus videtur? Alius simul atque treis lineas circinno duxerit, prorsum Euclidem sese putat: hic ônos pros luran, et 'Quo deterius, nec ille sonat, quo mordetur gallina marito', tamen alterum Hermogenem esse se credit.

But why do I speak of one or another kind, as though this Philautia did not everywhere make very many supremely happy in wondrous ways? When this fellow, uglier than any ape, plainly seems to himself a Nireus? Another, as soon as he has drawn three lines with a compass, straightway thinks himself a Euclid: this one, a donkey to the lyre, and, ‘He does not sound any worse than the spot where the hen is bitten by her mate,’ nevertheless believes himself to be another Hermogenes.

Est autem illud longe suavissimum insaniae genus, quo nonnulli, quidquid ulli suorum dotis adest, eo non aliter atque suo gloriantur. Qualis erat ille bis beatus apud Senecam dives, qui narraturus historiolam quampiam, servos ad manum habebat, qui nomina suggererent, non dubitaturus, vel in pugilum certamen descendere, homo alioqui adeo imbecillus, ut vix viveret, hac re fretus, quod multos haberet domi servos egregie robustos. Porro de artium professoribus, quid attinet commemorare?

There is, moreover, that by far most sweet kind of insanity, whereby certain people glory in whatever endowment belongs to any of their own, no otherwise than as in their own. Such was that twice-blessed rich man in Seneca, who, when about to tell some little story, kept slaves at hand to prompt the names, and would not have hesitated even to descend into a boxers’ contest—though a man otherwise so imbecile that he scarcely lived—relying on this fact, that he had at home many slaves exceedingly robust. Furthermore, as for the professors of the arts, what need is there to mention them?

quando peculiaris est horum omnium Philautia, adeo ut reperias citius, qui velit agello paterno, quam ingenio cedere, verum praecipue histrionum, cantorum, oratorum, ac poetarum, quorum quo quisque est indoctior, hoc sibi placet insolentius, hoc sese magis iactat, ac dilatat. Et inveniunt similes labra lactucas, imo quo quidque est ineptius, hoc plures admiratores nanciscitur, ut pessima quaeque semper plurimis arrident, propterea quod maxima pars hominum, ut diximus, Stultitiae obnoxia est. Proinde si quis est imperitior, et sibi ipsi multo iucundior est, et pluribus admirationi, quid est quod is veram eruditionem malit, primum magno constaturam, deinde reddituram et putidiorem et timidiorem, postremo multo paucioribus placituram?

since a peculiar Philautia belongs to all these, to such a degree that you would more quickly find someone willing to yield his paternal little field than his talent; but especially among actors, singers, orators, and poets, of whom, the more unlearned each one is, by so much the more arrogantly he pleases himself, the more he vaunts himself and inflates himself. And they find like—lips lettuces; nay, the more inept a thing is, the more admirers it acquires, so that the very worst things always smile upon the greatest number, for this reason that the greatest part of men, as we have said, is obnoxious to Folly. Accordingly, if a man is more unskilled, he is both much more delightful to himself and an object of admiration to more people; what reason, then, has he to prefer true erudition—first, going to cost much; then going to render him both more stuffy and more timid; and, finally, going to please far fewer?

43. Iam vero video naturam, ut singulis mortalibus suam, ita singulis nationibus, ac pene civitatibus communem quamdam insevisse Philautiam: Atque hinc fieri, ut Britanni praeter alia, formam, musicam, et lautas mensas proprie sibi vindicent. Scoti, nobilitate, et Regiae affinitatis titulo, neque non dialecticis argutiis sibi blandiantur: Galli morum civilitatem sibi sumant: Parisienses, Theologicae scientiae laudem omnibus prope submotis, sibi peculiariter arrogent: Itali bonas litteras et eloquentiam asserant: Atque hoc nomine sibi suavissime blandiantur omnes, quod soli mortalium barbari non sint. Quo quidem in genere felicitatis, Romani primas tenent, ac veterem illam Romam adhuc iucundissime somniant: Veneti nobilitatis opinione sunt felices.

43. Now indeed I see that nature, just as she has planted for individual mortals their own (share), so for individual nations, and almost for cities, she has sown a certain common Philautia: And hence it comes about that the Britons, besides other things, claim as proper to themselves beauty, music, and sumptuous tables. The Scots flatter themselves with nobility and with the title of kinship to the Royal house, and not least with dialectical subtleties: the French assume to themselves the civility of manners: the Parisians, with almost all others set aside, arrogate to themselves in particular the praise of Theological science: the Italians assert good letters and eloquence: And under this title they all most sweetly flatter themselves, that they alone of mortals are not barbarians. In which kind of felicity, the Romans hold first place, and still most pleasantly dream of that old Rome: the Venetians are happy by the repute of nobility.

Graeci tamquam disciplinarum auctores, veteribus illis laudatorum heroum titulis sese venditant: Turcae totaque illa vere barbarorum colluvies etiam religionis laudem sibi vindicat, Christianos perinde ut superstitiosos irridens. At multo etiam suavius Iudaei etiamdum Messiam suum constanter exspectant, ac Mosen suum, hodieque mordicus tenent: Hispani bellicam gloriam nulli concedunt: Germani corporum proceritate, et magiae cognitione sibi placent.

The Greeks, as authors of disciplines, peddle themselves with those ancient titles of lauded heroes: The Turks and that whole truly rabble of barbarians even claim for themselves the praise of religion, mocking Christians as superstitious. But much more sweetly the Jews still steadfastly expect their Messiah, and their Moses they even today stubbornly cling to: The Spaniards yield military glory to no one: The Germans are pleased with themselves for the stature of their bodies and for knowledge of magic.

44. Ac ne singula persequar, videtis, opinor, quantum ubique voluptatis pariat singulis et universis mortalibus Philautia, cui prope par est Assentatio soror. Nihil enim aliud Philautia, quam cum quis ipse sibi palpatur. Idem si alteri facias, kolakia fuerit.

44. And not to pursue particulars one by one, you see, I suppose, how much pleasure everywhere Philautia begets for both individuals and mortals collectively, to which almost equal is her sister Assentation. For Philautia is nothing else than when someone strokes himself; do the same to another, and it will be kolakia (flattery).

At hodie res quaedam infamis est adulatio, sed apud eos, qui rerum vocabulis magis, quam rebus ipsis commoventur. Existimant cum adulatione fidem male cohaerere: quod multo secus sese habere, vel brutorum animantium exemplis poterant admoneri. Quid enim cane adulantius?

But today adulation is a certain infamous thing, yet only among those who are moved more by the names of things than by the things themselves. They suppose that faith ill coheres with adulation; that the matter stands far otherwise they could be admonished even by the examples of brute animals. For what is more fawning than a dog?

At rursum quid fidelius? Quid sciuro blandius? At hoc quid est homini magis amicum?

But again, what is more faithful? What is more blandishing than the squirrel? And this, what is more amicable to man?

Nisi forte vel asperi leones, vel immites tigres, vel irritabiles pardi magis ad vitam hominum conducere videntur. Quamquam est omnino pernieiosa quaedam adulatio, qua nonnulli perfidiosi et irrisores, miseros in perniciem adigunt. Verum haec mea, ab ingenii benignitate, candoreque quodam proficiscitur, multoque virtuti vicinior est, quam ea qua huic opponitur, asperitas, ac morositas inconcinna, ut ait Horatius, gravisque.

Unless perhaps harsh lions, or savage tigers, or irritable pards seem rather to conduce to the life of men. Although there is indeed a certain pernicious adulation, by which some perfidious men and mockers drive the wretched into destruction. But this mine proceeds from the benignity of my disposition and from a certain candor, and is much nearer to virtue than that which is set in opposition to it: asperity, and a moroseness inconcinnate, as Horace says, and grave.

Haec deiectiores animos erigit, demulcet tristes, exstimulat languentes, expergefacit stupidos, aegrotos levat, feroces mollit, amores conciliat, conciliatos retinet. Pueritiam ad capessenda studia litterarum allicit, senes exhilarat, principes citra offensam sub imagine laudis, et admonet et docet. In summa, facit, ut quisque sibi ipse sit iucundior et carior, quae quidem felicitatis pars est vel praecipua.

This raises more dejected spirits, soothes the sad, stimulates the languishing, rouses the stupefied, relieves the sick, softens the fierce, wins affections and retains those once won. It allures childhood to take up the studies of letters, exhilarates the old, and under the image of praise both admonishes and teaches princes without offense. In sum, it brings it about that each person is more agreeable and dearer to himself—which indeed is a part of felicity, even a principal one.

Quid autem officiosius, quam cum mutuum muli scabunt? Ut ne dicam interim hanc esse magnam illius laudatae eloquentiae partem, maiorem Medicinae, maximam Poetieae: denique hanc esse totius humanae consuetudinis mel et condimentum.

What, moreover, is more obliging than when mules mutually scratch one another? Not to say, meanwhile, that this is a great part of that lauded eloquence, a greater of Medicine, the greatest of Poetics: finally, that this is the honey and condiment of the whole of human consuetude.

45. Sed falli, inquiunt, miserum est; imo non falli, miserrimum. Nimium enim desipiunt, qui in rebus ipsis felicitatem hominis sitam esse existimant. Ex opinionibus ea pendet: Nam rerum humanarum tanta est obscuritas, varietasque, ut nihil dilucide sciri possit, quemadmodum recte dictum est ab Academicis meis, inter philosophos quam minimum insolentibus.

45. But, they say, to be deceived is wretched; nay rather, not to be deceived is most wretched. For they are excessively foolish who esteem a man’s felicity to be situated in the things themselves. On opinions it depends: For the obscurity and variety of human affairs are so great that nothing can be known lucidly, as has been rightly said by my Academics, who among philosophers are as little insolent as possible.

Aut si quid sciri potest, id non raro officit etiam vitae iucunditati. Postremo sic sculptus est hominis animus, ut longe magis fucis, quam veris capiatur. Cuius rei si quis experimentum expositum et obvium quaerat, conciones ac templa petat, in quibus si quid serium narratur, dormitant, oscitant, nauseant omnes.

Or if anything can be known, it not rarely even works against the jocundity of life. Finally, the human mind is sculpted in such a way that it is taken far more by cosmetics than by verities. If anyone seeks an experiment of this matter set forth and obvious, let him seek the assemblies and the temples, in which, if anything serious is narrated, all doze, yawn, and grow nauseated.

Quod si clamator ille (lapsa sum, declamator dicere volebam) ita ut saepe faciunt, anilem aliquam fabellam exordiatur, expergiscuntur, eriguntur, inhiant omnes. Item si quis sit Divus fabulosiur et poeticus, quod si exemplum requiris, finge huius generis Georgium aut Christophorum, aut Barbaram, videbitis hunc longe religiosius coli, quam Petrum, aut Paulum, aut ipsum etiam Christum. Verum haec non huius sunt loci.

But if that bawler (I have slipped; I meant to say declaimer), just as they often do, begins some old-wives’ little fable, they all wake up, sit up, gape. Likewise, if there be a Saint more fabulous and poetic—if you require an example, imagine of this sort George or Christopher or Barbara—you will see him worshiped far more religiously than Peter, or Paul, or even Christ himself. But these things are not for this place.

Iam quanto minoris constat haec felicitatis accessio? Quandoquidem res ipsas aliquoties magno negotio pares oportet, vel levissimas, uti Grammaticen. At opinio facillime sumitur.

Now how much less does this accession of felicity cost? Since the things themselves must sometimes be matched with great trouble—even the very lightest, such as Grammar. But opinion is taken up most easily.

Quae tamen tantumdem, aut amplius etiam ad felicitatem conducat. Age si quis putribus vescatur salsamentis, quorum alius nec odorem ferre possit, et tamen huic ambrosiam sapiant, quaeso, quid interest ad felicitatem? Contra, si acipenser alicui nauseam sapiat, quid referet ad vitae beatitudinem?

Which nevertheless conduces just as much, or even more, to felicity. Come then, if someone eats putrid salted meats, whose very odor another could not even bear, and yet to this man they taste like ambrosia, I ask, what difference does it make for felicity? On the contrary, if sturgeon should taste nauseating to someone, what will it matter for the beatitude of life?

Si cui sit uxor egregie deformis, quae tamen marito, vel cum ipsa Venere certare posse videatur, nonne perinde fuerit, ac si vere formosa foret? Si quis tabulam minio lutoque male oblitam, suspectet, ac demiretur, persuasum habens, Apellis aut Zeuxidis esse picturam, nonne felicior etiam fuerit eo, qui eorum artificum manum magno emerit, fortassis minus ex eo spectaculo voluptatis percepturus? Novi ego quemdam mei nominis, qui novae nuptae gemmas aliquot adulterinas dono dedit, persuadens, ut erat facundus nugator, eas non modo veras ac nativas esse, verum etiam singulari atque inaestimabili pretio.

If someone should have a wife exceedingly deformed, who nevertheless to her husband seems able to contend even with Venus herself, would it not be just the same as if she were truly beautiful? If someone should gaze upon and marvel at a panel badly smeared with red lead and mud, being persuaded that it is a painting of Apelles or Zeuxis, would he not even be happier than the one who has bought at great price the hand of those artificers, perhaps about to receive less pleasure from that spectacle? I know a certain namesake of mine, who gave to a newly-wed bride several adulterine gems as a gift, persuading her—as he was a fluent trifler—that they were not only true and native, but even of singular and inestimable price.

Quaeso, quid intererat puellae, cum vitro non minus iucunde pasceret et oculos, et animum, nugas, perinde ut eximium aliquem thesaurum, conditas apud sese servaret? Maritus interim et sumptum effugiebat, et uxoris errore fruebatur, nec eam tamen sibi minus habebat devinctam, quam si magno empta donasset. Num quid interesse censetis inter eos, qui in specu illo Platonico variarum rerum umbras ac simulacra demirantur, modo nihil desiderent, neque minus sibi placeant?

I ask, what did it matter to the girl, since with glass she fed just as pleasantly both her eyes and her mind, and kept the baubles, just as if some exceptional treasure, stored by herself? The husband meanwhile both escaped the expense and enjoyed his wife’s error, nor did he have her less bound to himself than if he had given her a gift bought at great price. Do you reckon there is any difference between those who in that Platonic cave marvel at the shadows and simulacra of various things, provided they desire nothing and are no less pleased with themselves?

et sapientem illum qui specum egressus, veras res adspicit? Quod si Mycillo Lucianico dives illud et aureum somnium perpetuo somniare licuisset, nihil erat cur aliam optaret felicitatem. Aut nihil igitur interest, aut si quid interest, potior etiam stultorum conditio.

and that wise man who, having egressed from the cave, beholds the true realities? But if to Lucianic Mycillus it had been permitted to dream perpetually that rich and golden dream, there was no reason why he should opt for any other felicity. Either, therefore, nothing makes a difference, or, if there is any difference, the condition of fools is even preferable.

Primum quod iis sua felicitas minimo constat, id est, sola persuasiuncula . Deinde, quod ea fruuntur cum plurimis communiter.

First, that their own felicity costs them the least, that is, by a mere little persuasion . Next, that they enjoy it in common with the very many.

46. Porro nullius boni iucunda sine socio possessio. Quis enim nescit quanta sapientum paucitas, si modo quisquam inveniatur? quamquam ex tot saeculis Graeci septem omnino numerant, quos mehercle, si quis accuratius excutiat, dispeream, si vel semisapientem inveniet, imo si vel trientem viri sapientis.

46. Moreover, the pleasant possession of any good is not without a companion. For who does not know how great the paucity of the wise is, if only anyone can be found? although out of so many ages the Greeks number in all seven, whom, by Hercules, if anyone should examine more exactly, may I perish if he will find even a half-wise man—nay, not even a third of a wise man.

Proinde cum inter multas Bacchi laudes, illud habeatur, ut est primarium, quod animi curas eluat, idque ad exiguum modo tempus, nam simulatque villum edormieris, protinus albis, ut aiunt, quadrigis recurrunt animi molestiae: quanto meum beneficium cum plenius, tum praesentius, quae perpetua quadam ebrietate, mentem gaudiis, delitiis, tripudiis, expleo, idque nullo negotio? Neque quemquam omnino mortalem mei muneris expertem esse sino, cum reliquae numinum dotes aliae ad alios perveniant. Non ubivis nascitur generosum et lene merum, quod curas abigat, quod cum spe divite manet.

Accordingly, since among the many praises of Bacchus this is accounted the principal one, that it washes out the cares of the mind—and that only for a scant time, for as soon as you have slept it off ever so little, straightway the troubles of the spirit, as they say, run back on white four-horse chariots—how much both fuller and more present is my benefaction, I who, by a certain perpetual ebriety, fill the mind with joys, delights, and tripudiations, and that with no trouble at all? Nor do I allow any mortal whatsoever to be without my gift, whereas the remaining endowments of the divinities reach some and others others. Not everywhere is there born a generous and gentle merum, which should drive away cares, which abides with rich hope.

Paucis contigit formae gratia, Veneris munus, paucioribus eloquentia, Mercurii donum. Non ita multis obtigerunt opes, dextro Hercule. Imperium non cuivis concedit Iupiter Homericus, Saepenumero Mavors neutris favet copiis.

To few has the grace of form—Venus’s gift—fallen; to fewer, eloquence—the gift of Mercury. Riches have not befallen so many, with Hercules auspiciously on the right. The Homeric Jupiter does not grant command to just anyone; very often Mavors favors the forces of neither side.

Complures ab Apollinis tripode tristes discedunt. Saepe fulminat Saturnius. Phoebus aliquando iaculis pestem immittit.

Many depart sorrowful from Apollo’s tripod. Often the Saturnian thunders. Phoebus sometimes lets pestilence in with his javelins.

Neptunus plures exstinguit quam servat. Ut interim Veioves istos, Plutones, Atas, Poenas, Febres, atque id genus, non Deos, sed carnifices commemorem. Ego sum una illa Stultitia, quae omneis ex aequo tam parata beneficentia complector.

Neptune extinguishes more than he preserves. Not to mention those Veioves, Plutos, Ates, Punishments, Fevers, and that ilk—not gods, but executioners. I am that one Folly who embraces all equally with so ready a beneficence.

47. Nec vota moror, nec irascor, exposcens piamina, si quid cerimoniarum fuerit praetermissum. Nec coelum terrae misceo, si quis reliquis invitatis Diis, me domi relinquat, nec admittat ad nidorem illum victimarum. Nam caeterorum Deorum tanta in his est morositas, ut prope maius sit operae pretium, atque adeo tutius, illos negligere, quam colere.

47. I do not delay vows, nor do I grow angry, demanding expiations, if anything of the ceremonies has been omitted. Nor do I mix heaven with earth, if someone, with the rest of the Gods invited, leaves me at home, nor admits me to that reek of the victims. For the moroseness of the other Gods in these matters is so great that it is almost more worth the effort, and indeed safer, to neglect them than to cultivate them.

Quemadmodum sunt et homines nonnulli, tam difficiles, et ad laedendum irritabiles, ut praestiterit eos prorsum alienissimos habere, quam familiares. At nemo, inquiunt, Stultitiae sacrificat, neque templum statuit. Equidem demiror, ut dixi, nonnihil hanc ingratitudinem.

Just as there are also certain men, so difficult and so prone to hurt, that it is preferable to have them outright as utter strangers rather than as intimates. But no one, they say, sacrifices to Folly, nor sets up a temple. For my part, as I said, I somewhat marvel at this ingratitude.

Verum hoc quoque pro mea facilitate boni consulo: quamquam ne haec quidem desiderare possum. Quid enim est cur tusculum aut molam aut hircum, aut suem requiram, cum mihi mortales omnes ubique gentium eum cultum persolvant, qui vel a Theologis maxime probari solet? Nisi forte Dianae debeam invidere, quod illi humano sanguine litatur.

But this too, according to my facility, I take in good part; although I cannot even desire these things either. For what reason is there that I should require frankincense or the sacrificial meal, or a he-goat, or a sow, when all mortals everywhere among the nations render to me that cult which is wont even by theologians to be most approved? Unless perhaps I ought to envy Diana, because to her there is sacrifice with human blood.

Ego me tum religiosissime coli puto, cum passim, ut faciunt omnes, animo complectuntur, moribus exprimunt, vita repraesentant. Qui quidem Divorum cultus, nec apud Christianos admodum frequens est. Quanta turba eorum, Deiparae Virgini cereolum affigunt, idque in meridie, cum nihil est opus?

I consider myself then to be most religiously worshiped, when everywhere, as all do, they embrace me in mind, express me in morals, and represent me in life. Which kind of worship of the gods is not very frequent even among Christians. How great a crowd of them fasten a little wax taper to the Virgin Mother of God—and that at midday, when there is no need?

Rursum quam pauci qui eamdem, vitae castimonia, modestia, coelestium rerum amore studeant aemulari? Nam is demum verus est cultus, longeque Coelitibus gratissimus. Praeterea cur templum desiderem, cum orbis hic universus templum mihi sit, ni fallor, pulcerrimum?

Again, how few there are who strive to emulate the same by chastity of life, by modesty, by love of celestial things? For that alone is the true worship, and by far most pleasing to the Celestials. Moreover, why should I desire a temple, since this whole universe is to me a temple—unless I am mistaken—the most beautiful?

Neque vero desunt mystae, nisi ubi desunt homines. Nec iam usque adeo stulta sum, ut saxeas ac coloribus fucatas imagines requiram, quae cultui nostro nonnumquam officiunt, cum a stupidis, et pinguibus istis, signa pro Divis ipsis adorantur. Nobis interim usu venit, quod solet iis, qui a vicariis suis extruduntur.

Nor indeed are mystae lacking, except where human beings are lacking. Nor am I now so exceedingly foolish as to seek stone and paint-daubed images, which sometimes hinder our cult, since by those stupid and gross fellows the statues are adored in place of the gods themselves. Meanwhile, there befalls us what is wont to befall those who are thrust out by their vicars.

Mihi tot statuas erectas puto, quot sunt mortales, vivam mei imaginem prae se ferentes, etiamsi nolint. Itaque nihil est quod reliquis Diis invideam, si aliis in angulis terrarum alii colantur, idque statis diebus: quemadmodum Rhodi Phoebus, in Cypro Venus, Argis Iuno, Athenis Minerva, in Olympo Iupiter, Tarenti Neptunus, Lampsaci Priapusa, modo mihi communiter orbis omnis longe potiores victimas assidue praebeat.

I think there are as many statues erected to me as there are mortals, bearing before themselves the living image of me, even if they are unwilling. And so there is nothing in which I envy the other gods, if in other corners of the lands others are worshiped, and that on stated days: just as at Rhodes Phoebus, in Cyprus Venus, at Argos Juno, at Athens Minerva, on Olympus Jupiter, at Tarentum Neptune, at Lampsacus Priapus, provided only that to me, in common, the whole world continually offers by far better victims.

48. Atque si cui videor haec audacius quam verius dicere, agedum paulisper ipsas hominum vitas inspiciamus, quo palam fiat, et quantum mihi debeant, et quanti me faciant maximi pariter ac minimi. At non quorumlibet vitam recensebimus, nam id quidem perlongum, verum insignium tantum, unde reliquos facile sit aestimare. Quid enim attinet de vulgo, plebeculaque commemorare, quae citra controversiam tota mea est?

48. And if to anyone I seem to say these things more audaciously than truly, come now, let us for a little inspect the very lives of men, so that it may become manifest both how much they owe me and how highly they value me, the greatest and the least alike. But we will not review just anyone’s life—for that indeed would be overlong—but only those of the distinguished, whence it may be easy to estimate the rest. For what is the point of mentioning the common crowd and the plebeian rabble, which, without controversy, is wholly mine?

tot enim undique Stultitiae formis abundat, tot in dies novas comminiscitur, ut nec mille Democriti ad tantos risus suffecerint: quamquam illis ipsis Democritis rursum alio Democrito foret opus. Quin etiam incredibile sit dictu, quos ludos, quas delitias, homunculi quotidie praebeant Superis. Nam hi quidem horas illas sobrias, et antemeridianas iurgiosis consultationibus, ac votis audiendis impartiunt.

for it abounds on every side with so many forms of Folly, and every day devises so many new ones, that not even a thousand Democrituses would have sufficed for such laughter: although those very Democrituses would in turn have needed yet another Democritus. Nay even, it would be incredible to say what games, what delights, the little men daily provide for the gods above. For these indeed allot those sober, ante-meridian hours to quarrelsome consultations and to the hearing of vows.

Caeterum ubi iam nectare madent, neque lubet quidquam serium agere, tum qua parte coelum quam maxime prominet, ibi consident ac pronis frontibus, quid agitent homines speculantur. Nec est aliud spectaculum illis suavius. Deum immortalem!

But when now they are soaked with nectar, and it does not please them to transact anything serious, then, at that part where heaven juts out the most, there they sit and, with brows inclined, they speculate what men are up to. Nor is there any other spectacle sweeter to them. Immortal God!

quod theatrum est illud, quam varius stultorum tumultusa? Nam ipsa nonnumquam in Deorum poeticorum ordinibus considere soleo. Hic deperit mulierculam, et quo minus adamatur, hoc amat impotentius.

what a theater that is, how varied the tumult of fools? For I myself sometimes am accustomed to take a seat in the ranks of the poetic gods. Here a man is dying for a little woman, and the less he is loved, the more uncontrollably he loves.

Ille dotem ducit, non uxorem. Ille sponsam suam prostituit. Alius zelotypus velut Argus observat.

He weds a dowry, not a wife. He prostitutes his bride. Another, a jealous man, observes like Argus.

Hic in luctu, papae, quam stulta dicit facitque? conductis etiam velut histrionibus, qui luctus fabulam peragant. Ille flet ad novercae tumulum.

Here, in mourning—papae!—what foolish things he says and does! He even hires, as it were, actors to perform the play of grief. He weeps at his stepmother’s tomb.

Hic quidquid undecumque potest corradere, id totum ventriculo donat, paulo post fortiter esuriturus. Hic somno et otio nihil putat felicius. Sunt qui alienis obeundis negotiis sedulo tumultuantur, sua negligunt.

This one, whatever he can scrape together from wherever, donates it all to his belly, about to be mightily hungry a little later. This one thinks nothing happier than sleep and leisure. There are those who, in attending to others’ affairs, sedulously tumultuate, and neglect their own.

Est qui versuris, atque aere alieno divitem se esse putat, mox decocturus. Alius nihil arbitratur felicius, quam si ipse pauper haeredem locupletet. Hic ob exiguum, idque incertum lucellum, per omnia maria volitat, undis ac ventis vitam committens, nulla pecunia reparabilem.

There is one who, by roll-overs and borrowed money, thinks himself rich, soon to be a bankrupt. Another thinks nothing happier than if he, poor himself, should enrich his heir. This man, for a meager—and that uncertain—little lucre, flits over all the seas, committing his life to the waves and the winds, reparable by no money.

Ille mavult bello divitias quaerere, quam tutum otium exigere domi. Sunt qui captandis orbis senibus, putant quam commodissime ad opes perveniri. Neque desunt, qui idem malint deamandis beatis aniculis aucupari.

He prefers to seek riches by war, rather than to spend safe leisure at home. There are those who, by angling for the world’s old men, think that one most commodiously arrives at wealth. Nor are there lacking those who would rather snare the same by being doted upon by wealthy old crones.

Quorum utrique tum demum egregiam de se voluptatem Diis spectatoribus praebent, cum ab iis ipsis, quos captant, arte deluduntur. Est omnium stultissimum ac sordidissimum negotiatorum genus, quippe qui rem omnium sordidissimam tractent, idque sordidissimis rationibus, qui cum passim mentiantur, peierent, furentur, fraudent, imponant, tamen omnium primos sese faciunt, propterea quod digitos habeant auro revinctos. Nec desunt adulatores Fraterculi, qui mirentur istos, ac venerabiles palam appellent, nimirum, ut ad ipsos aliqua male partorum portiuncula redeat.

Both of whom then at last provide the gods, as spectators, with excellent amusement from themselves, when by those very people whom they try to catch they are tricked by art. The most foolish and most sordid genus of merchants, indeed, since they handle the most sordid business of all, and that by the most sordid reckonings—who, while they lie everywhere, perjure themselves, steal, defraud, and impose, yet make themselves first among all, for this reason: that they have their fingers bound with gold. Nor are wanting the adulators, the little Friars, who marvel at those men and openly call them “venerable,” naturally, so that some small portion of the ill-gotten gains may return to themselves.

Alibi videas Pythagoricos quosdam, quibus usque adeo omnia videntur esse communia , ut quidquid usquam incustoditum nacti fuerint, id velut haereditate obvenerit, aequo animo tollant. Sunt qui votis tantum divites sunt, et iucunda quaedam sibi fingunt somnia, idque ad felicitatem satis esse putant. Nonnulli foris divites haberi gaudent, domi gnaviter esuriunt.

Elsewhere you may see certain Pythagoreans, to whom to such a degree all things seem to be common , that whatever anywhere they have come upon unguarded, they lift with an even spirit as though it had befallen them by inheritance. There are those who are rich only in wishes, and they fashion for themselves certain pleasant dreams, and think that to be enough for felicity. Some are glad to be considered rich in public, at home they diligently go hungry.

Hic festinat quidquid habet profundere, ille per fas nefasque congerit. Hic candidatus ambit populares honores, ille ad focum semet oblectat. Bona pars lites numquam finiendas agitat, et hinc atque hinc certatim contendunt, ut prorogatorem iudicem, et collusorem ditent advocatum.

This one hastens to pour out whatever he has, that one heaps up by fair means or foul. This one, as a candidate, canvasses for popular honors, that one amuses himself at the hearth. A good part set in motion lawsuits never to be finished, and on this side and that they vie in contention, so as to enrich the judge who keeps proroguing, and the colluding advocate.

Hic rebus novandis studet, ille magnum quiddam molitur. Est qui Hierosolymam, Romam, aut divum Jacobum adeat, ubi nihil est illi negotii, domi relictis cum uxore liberis. In summa, si mortalium innumerabiles tumultus, e Luna, quemadmodum Menippus olim, despicias, putes te muscarum, aut culicum videre turbam inter se rixantium, bellantium, insidiantium, rapientium, ludentium, lascivientium, nascentium, cadentium, morientium.

This man is devoted to innovating affairs, that man engineers some great undertaking. There is one who goes to Jerusalem, to Rome, or to St. James, where he has no business at all, his wife and children left at home. In sum, if you should survey from the Moon the innumerable tumults of mortals, as Menippus once did, you would think you saw a swarm of flies or of gnats quarreling among themselves, warring, lying in ambush, snatching, playing, frolicking, being born, falling, dying.

Neque satis credi potest, quos motus, quas tragoedias ciat tantulum animalculum, tamque mox periturum. Nam aliquoties vel levis belli, seu pestilentiae procella, multa simul millia rapit ac dissipat.

Nor can one sufficiently believe what commotions, what tragedies so tiny an animalcule, and so soon to perish, stirs up. For oftentimes even a slight tempest of war, or of pestilence, snatches up and dissipates many thousands at once.

49. Sed ipsa stultissima sim, planeque digna, quam multis cachinnis rideat Democritus, si pergam popularium stultitiarum, et insaniarum formas enumerare. Ad eos accingar, qui sapientiae speciem inter mortales tenent, et aureum illum ramum, ut aiunt, aucupantur, inter quos Grammatici primas tenent, genus hominum profecto, quo nihil calamitosius, nihil afflictius, nihil aeque Diis invisum foret, nisi ego miserrimae professionis incommoda dulci quodam insaniae genere mitigarem. Neque enim pente katarais, id est, quinque tantum diris obnoxii sunt isti, quemadmodum indicat epigramma Graecum, verum sexcentis, ut qui semper famelici, sordidique in ludis illis suis, in ludis dixi, imo in phrontistêriois vel pistrinis potius, ac carnificinis inter puerorum greges, consenescant laboribus, obsurdescant clamoribus, foetore paedoreque contabescant, tamen meo beneficio fit, ut sibi primi mortalium esse videantur.

49. But I myself would be most foolish, and plainly worthy to be laughed at by Democritus with many guffaws, if I go on to enumerate the forms of popular stupidities and insanities. I will gird myself rather to those who hold the semblance of wisdom among mortals and, as they say, go fowling for that Golden Bough, among whom the Grammarians hold first place—a race of men, assuredly, than which nothing more calamitous, nothing more afflicted, nothing equally hateful to the gods would exist, unless I by a certain sweet kind of insanity were to mitigate the inconveniences of that most miserable profession. For they are liable not to pente katarais, that is, to only five curses, as the Greek epigram indicates, but to six hundred, since they, always famished and filthy, in those “games” of theirs—in “schools,” I said, nay rather in phrontistêriois, or rather in grinding-mills and even slaughterhouses—amid herds of boys, grow old in labors, grow deaf from the clamor, waste away with stench and filth; yet by my benefaction it comes about that they seem to themselves to be the first of mortals.

Adeo sibi placent, dum pavidam turbam, minaci vultu voceque territant: dum ferulis, virgis, lorisque conscindunt miseros, dumque modis omnibus suo arbitratu saeviunt, asinum illum Cumanum imitantes. Interim sordes illae, merae munditiae videntur, paedor amaricinum olet, miserrima illa servitus regnum esse putatur, ut tyrannidem suam nolint cum Phalaridis aut Dionysii imperio commutare. Sed longe etiam feliciores sunt, nova quadam doctrinae persuasione.

So much do they please themselves, while they terrify the timorous crowd with a menacing countenance and voice; while they tear the wretches to pieces with ferules, rods, and thongs; and while by every method, at their own discretion, they are savage, imitating that Cumaean ass. Meanwhile those filths seem pure niceties; the stench smells of amaracinum; that most wretched servitude is thought to be a kingdom, so that they would not wish to exchange their tyranny with the rule of Phalaris or Dionysius. But they are even far happier, by a certain novel persuasion of doctrine.

Siquidem cum mera deliramenta pueris inculcent, tamen, Dii boni, quem non illi Palaemonem, quem non Donatum prae sese contemnunt? idque nescio quibus praestigiis mire efficiunt, ut stultis materculis et idiotis patribus tales videantur, quales ipsi se faciunt. Iam adde et hoc voluptatis genus, quoties istorum aliquis Anchisae matrem, aut voculam vulgo incognitam, in putri quapiam charta deprehenderit, puta bubsequam, bovinatorem aut manticulatorem, aut si quis vetusti saxi fragmentum, mutilis notatum litteris, alicubi effoderit: O Iupiter, quae tum exsultatio, qui triumphi, quae encomia, perinde quasi vel Africam devicerint, vel Babylonas ceperint.

Since indeed they inculcate pure deliriums into boys, yet, good gods, what Palemon is there, what Donatus, whom they do not despise in comparison with themselves? and by I know not what prestidigitations they wondrously bring it about that to foolish little mothers and idiot fathers they seem to be such as they make themselves out to be. Now add also this kind of pleasure: whenever any one of those fellows has detected Anchises’ mother, or a little word unknown to the crowd, on some rotten scrap of paper—suppose “bubsequa,” “bovinator,” or “manticulator”—or if someone has somewhere dug up a fragment of ancient stone, marked with mutilated letters: O Jupiter, what exultation then, what triumphs, what encomia, just as if they had vanquished Africa or captured Babylon!

Quid autem cum frigidissimos et insulsissimos versiculos suos passim ostentant, neque desunt qui mirentur, iam plane Maronis animam in suum pectus demigrasse credunt. At nihil omnium suavius, quam cum ipsi inter sese mutua talione laudant ac mirantur, vicissimque scabunt. Quod si quis alius verbulo lapsus sit, idque forte fortuna hic oculatior deprehenderit, Hêrakleis, quae protinus tragoediae, quae digladiationes, quae convitia, quae invectivae?

But what when they flaunt their most frigid and most insipid little verses everywhere, nor are there lacking those who marvel, now plainly they believe that Maro’s soul has migrated into their own breast. Yet nothing of all is sweeter than when they themselves among themselves with mutual talion praise and admire one another, and scratch each other in turn. But if someone else has slipped by a mere little word, and by some chance this keener-eyed fellow has detected it—Hêrakleis—what tragedies at once, what digladiations, what revilings, what invectives?

Male propitios habeam omneis Grammaticos, si quid mentior. Novi quemdam polutechnotaton, graecum, latinum, mathematicum, philosophum, medicum, kai tauta basilikon, iam sexagenarium, qui caeteris rebus omissis, annis plus viginti se torquet ac discrutiat in Grammatica, prorsus felicem se fore ratus, si tam diu liceat vivere, donec certo statuat, quomodo distinguendae sint octo partes orationis, quod hactenus nemo Graecorum aut Latinorum ad plenum praestare valuit. Perinde quasi res sit bello quoque vindicanda, si quis coniunctionem facit dictionem ad adverbiorum ius pertinentem.

May all Grammarians be ill-disposed toward me, if I am lying at all. I know a certain most many-skilled man, a Greek, a Latinist, a mathematician, a philosopher, a physician, and, what is more, royally so, already sixty years old, who, with the other pursuits set aside, for more than twenty years has been torturing and racking himself over Grammar, thinking he would be truly happy if only he might live long enough to determine with certainty how the eight parts of speech are to be distinguished—a thing which thus far none of the Greeks or Latins has been able fully to accomplish. Just as though the matter ought even to be vindicated by war, if someone makes a conjunction a diction belonging to the jurisdiction of adverbs.

Et hac gratia, cum totidem sint grammaticae quot grammatici, imo plures: quandoquidem Aldus meus unus, plus quinquies grammaticam dedit, hic nullam omnino quantum vis barbare aut moleste scriptam praetermittit, quam non evolvat, excutiatque: nemini non invidens, si quid quantumlibet inepte moliatur in hoc genere, misere timens, ne quis forte gloriam hanc praeripiat, et pereant tot annorum labores. Utrum insaniam hanc vocare mavultis, an stultitiam? Nam mea quidem haud magni refert, modo fateamini meo beneficio fieri, ut animal omnium alioqui longe miserrimum, eo felicitatis evehatur, ut sortem suam neque cum Persarum regibus cupiat permutare.

And for this reason, since there are as many grammars as grammarians, nay more—seeing that my Aldus alone has issued a grammar more than five times—this fellow passes over none at all, however barbarously or tiresomely written, which he does not unroll and shake out; envying no one not, if anyone attempts anything, however ineptly, in this kind, miserably fearing lest someone perchance snatch away this glory, and the labors of so many years perish. Whether you prefer to call this insanity, or stupidity? For my part it matters not much, provided you admit that by my benefaction it comes to pass that the creature otherwise by far the most wretched of all is raised to such a degree of felicity that he would not wish to exchange his lot even with the kings of the Persians.

50. Minus mihi debent Poetae, tametsi vel ex professo meae sunt factionis, quippe liberum genus, ut habet proverbium, quorum omne studium non alio pertinet, quam ad demulcendas stultorum aures, idque meris nugamentis, ac ridiculis fabulis. Et tamen his freti dictu mirum, ut cum sibi polliceantur immortalitatem, et Diis parem vitam, tum aliis eamdem promittant. Huic ordini prae caeteris familiares philautia kai kolakia, nec ab ullo mortalium genere color neque simplicius, neque constantius.

50. The Poets owe me less, although they are even avowedly of my faction—indeed, a free tribe, as the proverb has it—whose whole zeal tends to nothing else than to soothing the ears of fools, and that with mere trifles and ridiculous fables. And yet, relying on these, marvelous to say, while they promise to themselves immortality and a life equal to the gods, then they promise the same to others. To this order, before the rest, self-love and flattery are familiar; nor by any kind of mortals is the color either simpler or more consistent.

Porro rhetores, quamquam nonnihil illi quidem praevaricantur, colluduntque cum philosophis, tamen hos quoque nostrae factionis esse, cum alia multa, tum illud in primis arguit, quod praeter alias nugas, tam accurate, tam multa de iocandi ratione conscripserunt. Atque adeo stultitiam ipsam inter facetiarum species numerat, quisquis is fuit, qui ad Herennium dicendi artem scripsit: Quodque apud Quintilianum, huius ordinis longe principem, caput est de risu, vel Iliade prolixius: tantumque stultitiae tribuunt, ut saepenumero quod nullis argumentis dilui possit, risu tamen eludatur. Nisi et si quis hoc arbitretur ad Stultitiam non pertinere, ridiculis dictis excitare cachinnos, idque arte.

Furthermore the rhetoricians, although they do somewhat prevaricate and collude with the philosophers, yet that these too belong to our faction is argued, among many other things, especially by this: that, besides other trifles, they have so accurately, so abundantly written about the method of joking. And indeed, whoever he was who wrote the art of speaking to Herennius numbers Folly herself among the species of facetiae; and with Quintilian, by far the chief of this order, the chapter on laughter is more prolix than an Iliad: and they attribute so much to Folly that very often what cannot be dissolved by any arguments is nonetheless eluded by laughter. Unless indeed someone should judge that it does not pertain to Folly to excite guffaws with ridiculous sayings, and that by art.

Huius farinae sunt et isti, qui libris edendis famam immortalem aucupantur. Hi cum omnes mihi plurimum debent, tum praecipue qui meras nugas chartis illinunt. Nam qui erudite ad paucorum doctorum iudicium scribunt, quique nec Persium, nec Laelium iudicem recusant, mihi quidem miserandi magis, quam beati videntur, ut qui sese perpetuo torqueant: addunt, mutant, adimunt, reponunt, repetunt, recudunt, ostendunt, nonum in annum premunt, nec umquam sibi satisfaciunt, ac futile praemium, nempe laudem, eamque perpaucorum, tanti emunt, tot vigiliis, somnique, rerum omnium dulcissimi, tanta iactura, tot sudoribus, tot crucibus.

Of this same flour are also those who hunt for immortal fame by publishing books. These all owe me very much, but especially those who smear sheer trifles onto their sheets. For those who write eruditely for the judgment of a few learned men, and who refuse neither Persius nor Laelius as judge, seem to me more to be pitied than blessed, as men who perpetually torment themselves: they add, they alter, they take away, they put back, they repeat, they recast, they exhibit, they press their work till the ninth year, and never satisfy themselves; and they purchase at so great a price a futile reward—namely laud, and that of very few—with so many vigils, with so great a loss of sleep, the sweetest of all things, with so many sweats, so many crosses.

Adde nunc valetudinis dispendium, formae perniciem, lippitudinem, aut etiam caecitatem, paupertatem, invidiam, voluptatum abstinentiam, senectutem praeproperam, mortem praematuram, et si qua sunt alia eiusmodi. Tantis malis sapiens ille redimendum existimat, ut ab uno aut altero lippo probetur. At meus ille scriptor, quanto delirat felicius, dum nulla lucubratione, verum utcumque visum est animo, quidquid in calamum incidit, vel somnia sua, statim litteris prodit, levi dumtaxat chartarum iactura, non ignarus futurum, ut quo nugaciores nugas scripserit, hoc a pluribus, id est, stultis et indoctis omnibus probetur.

Add now the dispendium of health, the perdition of form, blearness of eyes, or even blindness, poverty, envy, abstinence from pleasures, a premature old age, a premature death, and whatever other things there are of the same sort. For such great evils that wise man deems ought to be bought, in order that he may be approved by one or two bleary-eyed men. But my kind of writer—how much more happily he raves!—since with no lucubration, but just as it has seemed to his mind, whatever falls upon his pen, even his dreams, he straightway brings forth into letters, with only a light loss of paper; not unaware it will come to pass that the more nugacious trifles he has written, by so much the more it will be approved by the many, that is, by all the foolish and unlearned.

Quid enim est negotii, treis illos doctos, si tamen ea legerint, contemnere? Aut quid valebit, tam paucorum sapientum calculus, in tam immensa reclamantium turba? sed magis etiam sapiunt, qui aliena pro suis edunt, et alieno magnoque partam labore gloriam, verbis in se transmovent, hoc videlicet freti, quod arbitrentur futurum, ut etiam si maxime coarguantur plagii, tamen aliquanti temporis usuram sint interim lucrifacturi.

For what difficulty is there in despising those three learned men, if indeed they have read these things? Or what will the ballot of so few wise men avail in so immense a crowd of those clamoring against it? But wiser still are they who publish others’ things as their own, and the glory obtained by another’s great labor they transfer by words onto themselves, relying, namely, on this: that they suppose it will come to pass that, even if they are most thoroughly convicted of plagiarism, nevertheless they will in the interim have profited by the use of some time.

Videre est operae pretium, quam hi sibi placent, cum vulgo laudantur, cum digito ostenduntur in turba, houtos estin ho deinos ekeinos cum apud bibliopolas prostant, cum in omnium paginarum frontibus leguntur tria nomina, praesertim peregrina, ac magicis illis similia. Quae, per Deum immortalem, quid aliud sunt quam nomina? Deinde quam a paucis cognoscenda, si mundi vastitatem respicias: tum a quanto paucioribus laudanda, ut sunt etiam indoctorum diversa palata.

It is worth the effort to see how much these men are pleased with themselves, when they are praised by the crowd, when they are pointed out with the finger in the mob, “this is that formidable one,” when they are set out for sale at the bibliopoles, when on the fronts of all the pages three names are read, especially peregrine and like those magic ones. Which, by the immortal God, what else are they than names? Then how much to be known by few, if you consider the vastness of the world: then by how many fewer to be lauded, since even the palates of the unlearned are diverse.

Quid quod ea ipsa nomina non raro confinguntur, aut e priscorum libris adoptantur? Cum alius sese Telemachum, alius Stelenum aut Laertem, hic Polycratem, ille Thrasymachum sese nominari gaudet: ut nihil iam referat, etiam si chamaeleonti aut cucurbitae, sive quemadmodum solent philosophi loqui, alpha aut beta librum inscribas. Illud autem lepidissimum, cum mutuis epistolis, carminibus, encomiis sese vicissim laudant, stulti stultos, indoctos indocti.

What of the fact that those very names are not rarely fabricated, or adopted from the books of the ancients? While one rejoices that he be called Telemachus, another Stelenus or Laertes, this man Polycrates, that one Thrasymachus: so that it now makes no difference, even if you inscribe a book to the chameleon or the gourd, or, as philosophers are wont to speak, Alpha or Beta. But this is most droll: when by mutual epistles, poems, encomia they laud one another in turn—fools [praising] fools, the unlearned [praising] the unlearned.

Hic illius suffragio discedit Alceus, ille huius Callimachus: ile huic est M. Tullio superior, hic illi Platone doctior. Nonnumquam etiam antagonistam quaerunt, cuius aemulatione famam augeant. Hic scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus, donec uterque dux re bene gesta victor discedit, uterque triumphum agit.

This one, by that one’s suffrage, goes off as an Alcaeus; that one, by this one’s, as a Callimachus: that one, for this man, is superior to Marcus Tullius; this one, for that man, more learned than Plato. Sometimes, too, they seek an antagonist, by whose emulation they may augment their fame. Here the wavering mob is split in its allegiances into opposite parties, until each leader, the affair well conducted, departs a victor, each celebrates a triumph.

Rident haec sapientes, ut, veluti sunt, stultissima. Quis enim negat? Sed interim meo beneficio suavem vitam agunt, ne cum Scipionibus quidem suos triumphos commutari.

The wise laugh at these things, as, just as they are, most foolish. Who indeed denies it? But meanwhile, by my beneficence, they lead a sweet life, nor would they exchange their own triumphs even with the Scipios.

Quamquam docti quoque interim dum haec magna cum animi voluptate rident, et aliena fruuntur insania, non paulum mihi debent et ipsi, quod inficari possunt, nisi sint omnium ingratissimi.

Although the learned too, meanwhile, while they laugh at these things with great delight of mind and enjoy another’s insanity, themselves also owe not a little to me—which they cannot deny, unless they are the most ungrateful of all.

51. Inter eruditos iurisconsulti sibi vel primum vindicant locum, neque quisquam sibi placet, dum Sisyphi saxum assidue volvunt, ac sexcentas leges eodem spiritu contexunt, nihil refert quam ad rem pertinentes, dumque glossematis glossemata, opiniones opinionibus cumulantes, efficiunt ut studium illud omnium difficillimum esse videatur. Quidquid enim laboriosum, idem protinus et praeclarum existimant. Adiungamus his dialecticos ac sophistas, hominum genus quovis aere Dodonaeo loquacius, ut quorum unusquivis cum vicenis delectis muleribus garrulitate decertare possit, feliciores tamen futuri, si tantum linguaces essent, non etiam rixosi, adeo ut de lana caprina pertinacissime digladientur, et nimium altercando plerumque veritatem amittant.

51. Among the erudite the jurisconsults claim for themselves even the first place, nor is anyone content with himself while they assiduously roll Sisyphus’s stone, and in the same breath weave together six hundred laws, no matter how they pertain to the matter; and while, piling gloss upon gloss, opinions upon opinions, they make it so that that pursuit seems the most difficult of all. For whatever is laborious, the same they straightway deem illustrious. Let us add to these the dialecticians and sophists, a race of men more loquacious than any Dodonaean bronze, such that any one of them could vie in garrulity with twenty select women—yet they would be more fortunate if they were only loquacious and not also quarrelsome, to such a degree that they cross swords most pertinaciously over goats’ wool, and by over-arguing for the most part lose the truth.

Hos tamen sua Philautia beatos reddit, dum tribus instructi syllogismis incunctanter audent quavis de re, cum quovis manum conserere. Caeterum pertinacia reddit invictos, etiamsi Stentorem opponas.

Yet their own Philautia makes them blessed, while, equipped with three syllogisms, they unhesitatingly dare to join battle with anyone about any matter. Moreover, pertinacity renders them unconquered, even if you were to set Stentor in opposition.

52. Sub hos prodeunt philosophi, barba pollioque verendi, qui se solos sapere praedicant, reliquos omnes mortales, umbras volitare. Quam vero suaviter delirant, cum innumerabiles aedificant mundos, dum solem, dum lunam, stellas, orbes, tamquam pollice filove metiuntur, dum fulminum, ventorum, eclipsium ac caeterarum inexplicabilium rerum causas reddunt, nihil usquam haesitantes, perinde quasi naturae rerum architectrici fuerint a secretis, quasive e Deorum consilio nobis advenerint: quos interim Natura cum suis coniecturis, magnifice ridet. Nam nihil apud illos esse comperti, vel illud satis magnum est argumentum, quod singulis de rebus inexplicabilis inter ipsos est digladiatio.

52. After these step forth the philosophers, to be revered for beard and pallium, who proclaim that they alone are wise, while all the other mortals flit as shadows. How sweetly indeed they rave, when they construct innumerable worlds, while they measure the sun, the moon, the stars, the spheres, as if with thumb or with thread, while they render the causes of thunderbolts, winds, eclipses, and the other inexplicable things, hesitating nowhere at all, just as if they had been privy to the secrets of Nature, architectrix of things, or had come to us from the council of the gods: whom meanwhile Nature, together with their conjectures, magnificently laughs at. For that nothing has been ascertained among them, even this is a sufficiently great proof: that about each single matter there is among themselves an inexplicable dueling.

Ii cum nihil omnino sciant, tamen omnia se scire profitentur: cumque se ipsos ignorent, neque fossam aliquoties, aut saxum obvium videant, vel quia lippiunt plerique, vel quia peregrinantur animi, tamen ideas, universalia, formas separatas, primas materias, quidditates, ecceitates videre se praedicant, res adeo tenues, ut neque Lynceus, opinor, possit perspicere. Ium vero praecipue profanum vulgus adspernantur, quoties, triquetris, et tetragonis, circulis, atque huiusmodi picturis mathematicis, aliis super alias inductis, et in labyrinthi speciem confusis, praeterea litteris velut in acie dispositis, ac subinde alio atque alio repetitis ordine, tenebras offundunt imperitioribus. Neque desunt ex hoc genere qui futura quoque praedicant consultis astris, ac miracula plusquam magica polliceantur, et inveniunt homines fortunati, qui haec quoque credant.

They, though they know nothing at all, nevertheless profess that they know everything; and though they are ignorant of themselves, and do not see, every so often, a ditch or a stone lying in their path—either because most are bleary-eyed, or because their minds are wandering abroad—yet they proclaim that they see Ideas, Universals, Separate Forms, Prime Matters, Quidditities, Haecceities, things so tenuous that not even Lynceus, I suppose, could see through them. Nay rather, they especially spurn the profane vulgus, whenever, with triangles and tetragons, circles, and mathematical figures of this sort, laid one upon another and confused into the likeness of a labyrinth, and, moreover, with letters arrayed as if in a battle-line and then repeated now in one order, now in another, they cast darkness over the more unskilled. Nor are there lacking from this tribe those who also predict future things, the stars having been consulted, and promise miracles more-than-magical; and they find fortunate men who will believe these things as well.

53. Porro Theologos silentio transire fortasse praestiterit, kai tautên kamarinan ou kinein, nec hanc anagyrim tangere, utpote genus hominum mire superciliosum atque irritabile, ne forte turmatim sexcentis conclusionibus adoriantur, et ad palinodiam adigant, quod si recusem, protinus haereticam clamitent. Nam illico solent hoc terrere fulmine, si cui sunt parum propitii. Sane quamquam non alii sunt, qui minus libenter agnoscant meam in se beneficentiam, tamen hi quoque non mediocribus nominibus obstricti sunt, dum felices sua Philautia perinde quasi ipsi tertium incolant coelum, ita reliquos mortaleis omneis ut humi reptantes pecudes, e sublimi despiciunt, ac prope commiserantur, dum tanto magistralium definitionum, conclusionum, corollariorum, propositionum explicitarum et implicitarum agmine septi sunt, tot exuberant krêsphugetois, ut nec Vulcaniis vinculis sic possint irretiri, quin elabantur distinctionibus, quibus nodos omneis adeo facile secant, ut non Tenedia bipennis melius, tot nuper excogitatis vocabulis, ac prodigiosis vocibus scatent.

53. Furthermore, it would perhaps be better to pass by Theologians in silence, and not to move this Camarina, nor to touch this anagyris, seeing that this race of men is wondrously supercilious and irritable, lest perchance they assail in troops with six hundred conclusions, and drive one to a palinode; and if I refuse, they instantly cry “heretical.” For they are wont at once to terrify with this thunderbolt, if they are in the least unpropitious to anyone. Truly, although there are none who more unwillingly acknowledge my beneficence toward them, yet they too are under no mean obligations, while, happy in their Philautia, just as if they themselves inhabited the third heaven, they thus look down from on high upon all other mortals as cattle creeping on the ground, and almost commiserate them, while they are hedged round by so great a host of magisterial definitions, conclusions, corollaries, explicit and implicit propositions, and so abound in refuges, that not even by Vulcanian chains could they be so entangled as not to slip away by distinctions, with which they cut all knots so easily that not even the Tenedian double-axe does it better, teeming with so many newly-devised terms and prodigious words.

Praeterea dum arcana mysteria suo explicant arbitratu, qua ratione conditus ac digestus sit mundus. Per quos canales labes illa peccati in posteritatem derivata sit: quibus modis, qua mensura, quantulo tempore in Virginis utero sit absolutus Christus, quemadmodum in synaxi accidentia subsistant sine domicilio. Sed haec protrita.

Moreover, while they explain the arcane mysteries by their own arbitrament: by what rationale the world was constituted and digested; through what channels that stain of sin was derived into posterity; by what modes, in what measure, in how small a span of time Christ was brought to completion in the Virgin’s womb; how in the synaxis the accidents subsist without a domicile. But these things are worn-out.

Illa demum magnis et illuminatis, ut vocant, Theologis digna putant, ad haec si quando incidunt, expergiscunter. Num quod instans in generatione divina? Num plures in Christo filiationes?

They deem those things at last worthy of the great and “illuminated,” as they call them, Theologians; to these, if ever they chance upon them, they wake up. Whether there is an instant in the divine generation? Whether there are multiple filiations in Christ?

Num possibilis propositio, Pater Deus odit filium? Num Deus potuerit suppositare mulierem, num Diabolum, num asinum, num cucurbitam, num silicem? Tum quemadmodum cucurbita fuerit concionatura, editura miracula, figenda cruci?

Is the proposition possible, “God the Father hates the Son”? Could God have suppositated a woman, the Devil, a donkey, a gourd, a flint? Then in what way would the gourd be about to preach, be about to work miracles, be to be fastened to the cross?

Et, quid consecrasset Petrus, si consecrasset eo tempore, quo corpus Christi pendebat in cruce? Et, num eodem tempore Christus homo dici potuerit: et num post resurrectionem edere aut bibere fas sit futurum, iam nunc famem sitimque praecaventes. Sunt innumerabiles leptoleschiai, his quoque multo subtiliores, de instantibus, de notionibus, de relationibus, de formalitatibus, de quidditatibus, ecceitatibus, quas nemo possit oculis adsequi, nisi tam Lynceus, ut ea quoque per altissimas tenebras videat, quae nusquam sunt.

And what would Peter have consecrated, if he had consecrated at the time when the Corpus Christi was hanging on the cross? And whether at the same time Christ could have been called man; and whether after the Resurrection it will be lawful to eat or drink, already now preempting hunger and thirst. There are innumerable leptoleschiae, much subtler than these too, about instants, notions, relations, formalities, quidditities, haecceities, which no one can overtake with his eyes unless he be so Lyncean as to see, even through the deepest darkness, those things which are nowhere.

Adde nunc his gnômas, illas, adeo paradoxous ut illa Stoicorum oracula, quae paradoxa vocant, crassissima prae his videantur, et circumforanea, velut levius esse crimen, homines mille iugulare, quam semel in die Dominico calceum pauperi consuere. Et potius esse committendum, ut universus orbis pereat una cum victu et vestitu, quod aiunt, suo, quam unicum quantumlibet leve mendaciolum dicere. Iam has subtilissimas subtilitates subtiliores etiam reddunt tot scholasticorum viae, ut citius e labyrinthis temet explices, quam ex involucris Realium, Nominalium, Thomistarum, Albertistarum, Occanistarum, Scotistarum, et nondum omneis dixi, sed praecipuas dumtaxat.

Add now to these gnômas, those so paradoxical that those oracles of the Stoics, which they call Paradoxes, seem downright gross by comparison, and booth-stuff, as if it were a lighter crime to butcher a thousand men than once, on the Lord’s Day, to sew a shoe for a poor man. And that it ought rather to be permitted that the whole world perish together with, as they say, its sustenance and clothing, than to utter a single little lie, however slight. Now these most subtle subtleties are rendered subtler still by so many “ways” of the Scholastics, that you would sooner extricate yourself from labyrinths than from the envelopments of the Realists, Nominalists, Thomists, Albertists, Ockhamists, Scotists—and I have not yet named them all, but only the chief ones.

In quibus omnibus tantum est eruditionis, tantum difficultatis, ut existimem ipsis Apostolis alio spiritu opus fore, si cogantur hisce de rebus cum hoc novo Theologorum genere conserere manus. Paulus fidem praestare potuit, at idem cum ait: 'Fides est substantia rerum sperandarum, argumentum non apparentium': parum magistraliter definivit. Idem ut caritatem optime praestitit, ita parum dialectice vel dividit, vel finit, in priore ad Corinthios epistola, cap.

In all of which there is so much erudition, so much difficulty, that I would judge the Apostles themselves would have need of another spirit, if they were compelled to join hands in combat on these matters with this new breed of Theologians. Paul could well render/perform faith, yet when he says: 'Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the argument of things not appearing': he defined it not very magisterially. The same man, although he most excellently rendered charity, yet divides or defines it not very dialectically, in the former Epistle to the Corinthians, chap.

13. Ac pie quidem illi consecrabant synaxim, et tamen rogati de termino a quo, et termino ad quem: de transsubstantiatione: de modo quo corpus idem sit in diversis locis: de differentia, qua corpus Christi est in coelo, qua fuit in cruce, qua in sacramento synaxeos: quo puncto fiat transsubstantiatio, cum oratio per quam ea fit, ut quantitas discreta sit in fluxu, non pari, sicut opinor, respondissent acumine, quo Scotidae disserunt haec, ac definiunt. Noverant illi Iesu matrem, sed quis eorum tam philosophice demonstravit, quomodo fuerit ab Adae macula, praeservata, quam nostri Theologi? Petrus accepit claves, et accepit ab eo, qui non committat indigno, et tamen an intellexerit, nescio, certe nusquam attigit subtilitatem, quomodo scientiae clavem habeat is quoque, qui scientiam non habeat.

13. And indeed they piously consecrated the synaxis, and yet, when asked about the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem; about transubstantiation; about the mode by which the same body is in diverse places; about the difference by which the body of Christ is in heaven, by which it was on the cross, by which in the sacrament of the synaxis; at what point transubstantiation takes place, since the prayer by which it is effected is, as I suppose, a discrete quantity in flux, not equal,—they would have answered with the same acumen with which the Scotists discourse and define these things. They knew the mother of Jesus, but which of them has demonstrated as philosophically how she was preserved from Adam’s stain as our Theologians have? Peter received the keys, and he received them from him who does not entrust to the unworthy, and yet whether he understood, I know not; certainly he nowhere touched the subtlety how he too should have the key of knowledge who does not have knowledge.

Baptizabant illi passim, et tamen nusquam docuerunt, quae sit causa formalis, materialis, efficiens, et finalis baptismi, nec characteris delebilis, et indelebilis apud hos ulla mentio. Adorabant quidem illi, sed in Spiritu, nihil aliud sequentes, quam illud Evangelicum, spiritus est Deus, et eos qui adorant eum in spiritu et veritate oportet adorare. Verum haud apparet eis tum fuisse revelatum, una eademque adoratione adorandam imagunculam carbone delineatam in pariete, ut Christum ipsum, si modo duobus sit porrectis digitis, intonsa coma et in umbone qui adhaeret occipitio, treis habeat notas.

They were baptizing everywhere, and yet nowhere did they teach what is the formal, material, efficient, and final cause of baptism, nor was there among them any mention of a deletable or an indelible character. They did indeed adore, but in Spirit, following nothing other than that Evangelical saying, "God is spirit, and those who adore him must adore in spirit and in truth." But it does not appear to have been revealed to them then that with one and the same adoration a little image sketched in charcoal on a wall was to be adored as Christ himself, provided only that, with two fingers outstretched, with unshorn hair, and, in the boss which adheres to the occiput, it should have three marks.

Quis enim haec percipiat, nisi triginta sex annos totos in physicis, et ultramundanis Aristotelis et Scoticis contriverit? Idemtidem inculcant Apostoli gratiam, at iidem nusquam distinguunt, quid intersit inter gratiam gratis datam, et gratiam gratificantem. Hortantur ad bona opera, nec discernunt opus, opus operans et opus operatum.

For who indeed would perceive these things, unless he has worn out thirty-six whole years in physics and the ultramundane of Aristotle and the Scotists? Again and again the Apostles inculcate grace, yet those same men nowhere distinguish what difference there is between grace given gratis and grace gratifying. They exhort to good works, nor do they discern work, the work working, and the work worked.

Passim inculcant caritatem, nec secernunt infusam ab acquisita, nec explicant, accidens ne sit, an substantia, creata res an increata. Detestantur peccatum, at, emoriar, si potuerunt scientifice definire, quid sit illud, quod peccatum vocamus, nisi forte Scotistarum spiritu fuerunt edocti. Nec enim adduci possum, ut credam Paulum, e cuius unius eruditione licet omneis aestimare, toties, damnaturum fuisse quaestiones, disceptationes, genealogias, et ut ipse vocat, logomachias, si eas percalluisset argutias, praesertim cum omnes illius temporis contentiones, pugnaeque rusticanae fuerint, et crassae, si cum magistrorum nostrorum plus quam Chrysippeis subtilitatibus conferantur.

Everywhere they inculcate charity, and yet they do not separate the infused from the acquired; nor do they explain whether it is an accident or a substance, a created thing or uncreated. They detest sin, but—may I die—if they were able scientifically to define what that is which we call sin, unless perhaps they were instructed by the spirit of the Scotists. For neither can I be induced to believe that Paul—by whose single erudition it is permitted to estimate all—would so often have condemned questions, disputations, genealogies, and, as he himself calls them, logomachies, if he had thoroughly mastered those niceties, especially since all the contentions of that time and rustic brawls were rustic and coarse, if they be compared with the subtleties of our masters, subtleties more than Chrysippean.

Quamquam homines modestissimi, si quid forte scriptum sit ab Apostolis indolatius parumque magistraliter, non damnant quidem, sed commode interpretantur. Hoc videlicet honoris, partim antiquitati, partim Apostolico nomini deferentes. Et, hercle, parum aequum erat, res tantas ab illis requirere, de quibus ex praeceptore suo, ne verbum quidem umquam audissent.

Although the most modest men, if anything perhaps has been written by the Apostles somewhat less tenderly and not very magisterially, do not indeed condemn it, but interpret it suitably—paying this, namely, of honor, partly to antiquity, partly to the Apostolic name. And, by Hercules, it was scarcely equitable to require such great matters of them, about which from their own preceptor they had not ever heard so much as a single word.

Idem si eveniat in Chrysostomo, Basilio, Hieronymo, tum sat habent adscribere: 'Non tenetur'. Et illi quidem confutarunt Ethnicos Philosophos ac Iudaeos, suapte natura pertinacissimos, sed vita magis ac miraculis quam syllogismis, tum eos quorum nemo fuerit idoneus, vel unicum Scoti Quodlibetum ingenio consequi. Nunc quis Ethnicus, quis Haereticus non continuo cedat tot tenuissimis subtilitatibus, nisi tam crassus, ut non adsequatur, aut tam impudens ut exsibilet, aut iisdem instructus laqueis, ut iam par sit pugna, perinde quasi magum cum mago committas, aut si gladio fortunato pugnet aliquis cum eo, cui gladius sit fortunatus: tum enim nihil aliud quam tela Penelopes retexeretur. Ac meo quidem iudicio saperent Christiani, si pro pinguibus istis militum cohortibus, per quas iam olim ancipiti Marte belligerantur, clamosissimos Scotistas, et pertinacissimos Occanistas, et invictos Albertistas una cum tota Sophistarum manu, mitterent in Turcas et Saracenos: spectarent, opinor, et conflictum omnium lepidissimum, et victoriam non ante visam.

The same thing, if it happens in Chrysostom, Basil, Jerome, then they have enough to append: ‘He is not bound.’ And they indeed confuted the Ethnic philosophers and the Jews, most pertinacious by their very nature, but by life and miracles rather than by syllogisms, and those too against whom no one would have been fit to match even a single Quodlibet of Scotus in ingenuity. Now what Ethnic, what Heretic would not straightway yield to so most tenuous subtleties, unless he be so gross as not to grasp them, or so shameless as to hiss them down, or equipped with the same snares, so that now the fight is equal, just as if you were to pit a mage against a mage, or if someone should fight with a fortunate sword against one whose sword is fortunate: for then nothing else would happen than that the web of Penelope would be re-woven. And in my judgment Christians would be wise, if instead of those fat cohorts of soldiers, by whose means they have long been waging war with a two-sided Mars, they should send the most clamorous Scotists, and the most pertinacious Occamists, and the unconquered Albertists, together with the whole band of Sophists, against the Turks and Saracens: they would behold, I suppose, both the most delightful bout of all, and a victory not seen before.

Quis enim usque adeo frigidus, quem istorum non inflamment acumina? quis tam stupidus, ut tales non excitent aculei? Quis tam oculatus, ut haec illi non maximas offundant tenebras?

For who is so utterly frigid that the acumen of those men does not inflame him? who so stupid that such stings do not rouse him? Who so keen-eyed that these do not pour upon him the very greatest darkness?

Verum haec omnia videor vobis propemodum ioco dicere. Nec mirum sane, cum sint et inter ipsos Theologos melioribus instituti litteris, qui ad has frivolas, ut putant, Theologorum argutias nauseent. Sunt qui velut sacrilegii genus exsecrentur, summamque ducant impietatem, de rebus tam arcanis et adorandis magis quam explicandis, tam illoto ore loqui, tam profanis Ethnicorum argutiis disputare, tam arroganter definire, ac divinae Theologiae maiestatem tam frigidis, imo sordidis verbis simul et sententiis conspurcare.

But I seem to you to be saying all these things almost in jest. Nor, truly, is it a wonder, since there are even among the Theologians themselves some educated by better letters, who feel nausea at these frivolous, as they think, quibbles of the Theologians. There are those who execrate it as a kind of sacrilege, and deem it the height of impiety to speak with so unwashed a mouth about matters so arcane and to be adored rather than explained, to dispute with such profane subtleties of the Ethnics, to define so arrogantly, and to pollute the majesty of divine Theology with words—nay, with sentiments—so frigid, indeed sordid.

At interim ipsi felicissime sibi placent, imo plaudunt, adeo ut his suavissimis naeniis, nocte dieque occupatis, ne tantulum quidem otii supersit ut Euangelium, aut Paulinas Epistolas vel semel liceat evolvere. Atque interim dum haec nugantur in scholis, existimant sese universam Ecclesiam, alioqui ruituram, non aliter syllogismorum fulcire tibicinibus, quam Atlas coelum humeris sustinet apud poetas. Iam illud quantae felicitatis esse putatis, dum arcanas litteras, perinde quasi cereae sint, pro libidine formant ac reformant, dum conclusiones suas, quibus iam aliquot Scholastici subscripserunt, plus quam Solonis leges videri postulant, et vel pontificiis decretis anteponendas, dumque veluti censores orbis ad palinodiam trahunt, si quid usquam cum explicitis et implicitis illorum conclusionibus, non ad amussim quadrarit, ac non secus atque ex oraculo pronunciant: 'Haec propositio scandalosa est: haec parum reverentialis: haec haeresim olet: haec male tinnit': ut iam nec Baptismus, nec Euangelium, nec Paulus aut Petrus, nec sanctus Hieronvmus aut Augustinus, imo nec ipse Thomas aristotelikôtatos Christianum efficiat, nisi Baccalauriorum calculus accesserit, tanta est in iudicando subtilitas.

Meanwhile, they are supremely well-pleased with themselves—indeed, they applaud themselves—to such a degree that, occupied night and day with these most sweet lullabies, not even so tiny a bit of leisure remains that it be permitted even once to unroll the Gospel or the Pauline Epistles. And meanwhile, while they trifle thus in the schools, they suppose that they shore up the whole Church, otherwise about to collapse, by the props of syllogisms, not otherwise than Atlas, among the poets, bears the heaven upon his shoulders. Now tell me, what great felicity do you think it is, while they shape and reshape the arcane letters as if they were of wax at their pleasure; while they demand that their conclusions—to which already some Schoolmen have subscribed—be regarded as more than the laws of Solon, and even to be set before pontifical decrees; and while, as though censors of the world, they drag men to a palinode, if anywhere anything does not square exactly with the explicit and implicit of their conclusions, and they pronounce no otherwise than as from an oracle: 'This proposition is scandalous: this is too little reverential: this smells of heresy: this rings ill'; so that now neither Baptism, nor the Gospel, nor Paul or Peter, nor Saint Hieronymus or Augustine, nay, not even Thomas the most Aristotelizing, makes a Christian, unless the ballot of the Bachelors be added—so great is the subtlety in judging.

Quis enim sensurus erat eum Christianum non esse, qui diceret has duas orationes, 'matula putes', et 'matula putet', item 'ollae fervere', et 'ollam fervere', pariter esse congruas, nisi sapientes illi docuissent? Quis tantis errorum tenebris liberasset Ecclesiam, quos ne lecturus quidem umquam quisquam fuerat, nisi magnis sigillis isti prodidissent? Verum, an non felicissimi dum haec agunt?

For who, indeed, would have perceived that he was not a Christian—the man who would say that these two sentences, 'matula putes' and 'matula putet,' likewise 'ollae fervere' and 'ollam fervere,' are equally congruous—unless those wise men had taught it? Who would have freed the Church from such darkness of errors, which no one was ever even going to read, unless these men had divulged them with great seals? But, are they not most felicitous while they do these things?

Praeterea dum inferorum res omneis sic examussim depingunt, tamquam in ea republica complureis annos sint versati? Praeterea dum pro arbitrio novos orbes fabricantur, addito denique latissimo illo, pulcerrimoque: ne scilicet deesset ubi felices animae commode vel spatiari, vel convivium agitare, vel etiam pila ludere possent. His atque id genus bis mille nugis horum capita adeo distenta differtaque sunt, ut arbitrer nec Iovis cerebrum aeque gravidum fuisse, cum ille Palladem parturiens, Vulcani securim imploraret.

Besides, while they depict all the affairs of the underworld so exactly to the rule, as though they had been conversant for several years in that commonwealth? Besides, while at their own discretion they manufacture new orbs, with that most broad and most beautiful one added at the end: namely, lest there be lacking a place where the happy souls might conveniently either stroll, or hold a convivium, or even play at ball. With these and with two thousand trifles of that kind the heads of these men are so distended and stuffed, that I would suppose not even Jove’s brain to have been equally pregnant, when he, in travail with Pallas, implored Vulcan’s axe.

Quare nolite mirari, si videtis caput illorum tot fasciis tam diligenter obvinctum in publicis disputationibus, alioquin enim plane dissilirent. Illud ipsa quoque nonnumquam ridere soleo, cum ita demum maxima sibi videntur Theologi, si quam maxime barbare spurceque loquantur, cumque adeo balbutiunt, ut a nemine nisi balbo possint intelligi, acumen appellant, quod vulgus non adsequatur. Negant enim e dignitate Sacrarum Litterarum esse, si grammaticorum legibus parere cogantur.

Wherefore do not marvel, if you see their head so carefully bound about with so many bandages in public disputations; otherwise, indeed, they would plainly burst asunder. This too I myself am sometimes wont to laugh at: when the Theologians then seem greatest to themselves, if they speak as barbarously and as foully as possible, and when they stammer to such a degree that they can be understood by no one unless by a stammerer, they call it acumen, because the vulgar crowd does not attain to it. For they deny it to be of the dignity of the Sacred Letters, if they are compelled to obey the laws of the grammarians.

Mira vero maiestas theologorum, si solis illis fas est mendose loqui, quamquam hoc ipsum habent cum multis cerdonibus commune. Postremo iam Diis proximos sese ducunt, quoties quasi religiose Magistri Nostri salutantur, in quo quidem nomine, tale quiddam subesse putant, quale est apud Iudaeos tetragrammaton. Itaque nefas aiunt esse Magister Noster secus quam maiusculis scribere litteris.

Truly marvelous is the majesty of the theologians, if to them alone it is permitted to speak amiss, although this very thing they have in common with many cobblers. Finally, they now reckon themselves next to the gods, whenever they are saluted, as it were religiously, as Our Masters, in which name indeed they suppose there lies something of the sort that the tetragrammaton is among the Jews. And so they say it is a sacrilege to write Magister Noster otherwise than in capital letters.

Quid si quis praepostere, Noster Magister dixerit, is semel omnem Theologici nominis perverterit maiestatem.

What if someone, preposterously, should say "Our Master"? He would at once have perverted the whole majesty of the Theological name.

54. Ad horum felicitatem proxime accedunt ii, qui se vulgo Religiosos ac Monachos appellant utroque falsissimo cognomine, cum et bona pars istorum longissime absit a Religione, et nulli magis omnibus locis sint obvii. Iis non video quid possit esse miserius, nisi ego multis modis succurrerem. Etenim cum hoc hominum genus omnes sic exsecrentur, ut fortuitum etiam occursum ominosum esse persuasum sit, tamen ipsi sibi magnifice blandiuntur.

54. To the felicity of these, those come next who commonly appell themselves Religious and Monks, by both cognomens most false, since both a good part of these are farthest absent from Religion, and none are more to be met with in all places. For these I do not see what could be more miserable, unless I in many ways should succor them. For indeed, since all so execrate this kind of men that even a fortuitous encounter is believed to be ominous, nevertheless they magnificently flatter themselves.

Primum summam existimant pietatem, si usque adeo nihil attigerint litterarum, ut ne legere quidem possint. Deinde cum Psalmos suos, numeratos quidem illos, at non intellectos, asininis vocibus in templis derudunt, tum vero se putant Divorum aures multa voluptate demulcere. Et sunt ex his nonnulli, qui sordes ac mendicitatem magno vendunt, proque foribus magno mugitu panem efflagitant, imo in nullis diversoriis, vehiculis, navibus non obturbant, non mediocri profecto reliquorum mendicorum iactura.

First, they reckon it the height of piety if they have so far touched nothing of letters that they cannot even read. Then, when they bray out their Psalms—indeed numbered, but not understood—with asinine voices in the temples, then they truly suppose they are stroking the ears of the divine ones with much delectation. And there are some of them who retail filth and beggary at a high price, and before doorways, with loud lowing, demand bread; nay, there are no inns, vehicles, or ships that they do not throw into confusion—assuredly to no small detriment of the other beggars.

Atque ad eum modum homines suavissimi, sordibus, inscitia, rusticitate, impudentia, Apostolos, ut aiunt, nobis referunt. Quid autem iucundius, quam quod omnia faciunt ex praescripto, quasi Mathematicis utentes rationibus, quas praeterire piaculum sit. Quot nodos habeat calceus, quo colore cingula, vestis quot discriminibus varieganda, qua materia, quotque culmis latum cingulum, qua specie, et quot modiorum capax cucullus, quot digitis latum capillitium, quot dormiendum horas.

And in that fashion the most suave men, by filth, ignorance, rusticity, and impudence, reproduce for us the Apostles, as they say. And what is more pleasant than that they do everything from a prescript, as if using Mathematical ratios, which it would be a sin to overstep: how many knots the shoe should have, of what color the belts, with how many partitions the garment is to be variegated, of what material, and how many straws broad the girdle, of what appearance, and how many modii in capacity the cowl, how many fingers wide the hair, how many hours are to be slept.

Atque haec quidem aequalitas in tanta corporum et ingeniorum varietate, quam sit inaequalis, quis non perspicit? Et tamen his nugis, non alios modo per se nauci faciunt, verum invicem alii alios contemnunt, atque homines apostolicam caritatem professi, ob aliter cinctam vestem, ob colorem paulo fusciorem, omnia miris tragoediis miscent. Ex his videas quosdam adeo rigide religiosos, ut summa veste, non nisi Cilicina utantur, intima Milesia, alios contra, qui superne linei sint, intime lanei.

And who does not perceive how unequal this equality is, amid so great a variety of bodies and wits? And yet with these trifles they not only make others in themselves of naught, but also, mutually, some contemn others; and men professing apostolic charity, on account of a garment girt otherwise, on account of a color a little duskier, throw everything into wondrous tragedies. Among these you may see certain men so rigidly religious that in the outermost garment they use nothing but Cilician, the inmost Milesian; others, contrariwise, who are linen outwardly, woolen inwardly.

Rursum alios qui pecuniae contactum ceu aconitum horreant, nec a vino interim, nec a mulierum contactu temperantes. Denique mirum omnibus studium, ne quid in ratione vitae conveniat. Nec illud studio est, ut Christo similes sint, sed ut interse dissimiles.

Again, others there are who shudder at the touch of money as at aconite, yet neither abstain from wine nor from the contact of women. In fine, a strange zeal is common to all, that nothing in the rationale of life should agree. Nor is that zeal that they may be like Christ, but that they may be unlike one another.

Porro magna felicitatis pars est in cognomentis, dum hi Funigeros appellari se gaudent, et inter hos, alii Coletas, alii Minores, alii Minimos, alii Bullistas. Rursum hi Benedictinos, illi Bernardinos: hi Brigidenses, illi Augustinenses: hi Guilhelmitas, illi Iacobitas, quasi vero parum sit, dici Christianos. Horum magna pars in tantum suis nititur cerimoniis, et hominum traditiunculis, ut putet unum coelum parum dignum esse tantis praemium, haud cogitantes futurum, ut Christus contemtis his omnibus, suum illud sit exacturus praeceptum, nempe caritatis.

Moreover, a great part of their felicity lies in cognomens, while these rejoice to be called Funigeri (Rope-bearers), and among these, some Colettines, others Minors, others Minims, others Bullists. Again, these Benedictines, those Bernardines: these Brigittines, those Augustinians: these Wilhelmites, those Jacobites, as though it were truly too little to be called Christians. A great portion of these leans so far on their own ceremonies and on the petty traditions of men that it deems one heaven too little worthy as a reward for such great things, not considering that it will come to pass that Christ, all these things being held in contempt, will exact that precept of his, namely, of charity.

Alius ostentabit aqualiculum, omni piscium genere distentum. Alius Psalmorum centum effundet modios. Alius ieiuniorum myriadas adnumerabit, et toties unico prandio pene disruptam imputabit alvum.

Another will display a paunch distended with every kind of fish. Another will pour out 100 modii of Psalms. Another will reckon up myriads of fasts, and will as many times impute to a single lunch an almost-burst belly.

Alius tantum cerimoniarum acervum proferet, quantum vix septem onerariis navibus vehi possit. Alius gloriabitur sexaginta annos numquam attactam pecuniam, nisi digitis duplici chirotheca munitis. Alius cucullam ingeret adeo sordidam et crassam, ut nullus nauta suo dignetur corpore.

Another will bring forth such a heap of ceremonies as could scarcely be carried by seven cargo ships. Another will boast that for sixty years he never touched money, except with his digits fortified by a double glove. Another will thrust forward a cowl so sordid and thick that no sailor would deign it worthy of his body.

Commemorabit alius se plus quam undecim lustris spongiae vitam egisse, semper eidem affixum loco: Alius raucam assiduo cantu vocem adducet: Alius lethargum solitudine contractum: alius linguam iugi silentio torpentem. At Christus interpellatis, numquam alioqui finiendis gloriis, undenam hoc, inquiet, novum Iudaeorum genus? Unicam ego legem vere meam agnosco, de qua sola nihil audio.

Another will commemorate that he has lived a sponge’s life for more than eleven lustra, always fixed to the same place: Another will produce a voice hoarse from assiduous chant: Another, a lethargy contracted from solitude: another, a tongue benumbed by continual silence. But Christ, the boasts—otherwise never to be ended—having been interrupted: Whence, he says, this new genus of Jews? The single law I acknowledge as truly mine—about that alone I hear nothing.

Et olim palam nulloque parabolarum utens involucro, paternam haereditatem pollicitus sum, non cucullis, preculis, aut inediis, sed caritatis officiis. Nec eos agnosco, qui sua facta nimis agnoscunt, isti qui me quoque sanctiores videri volunt, Abraxasiorum coelos, si libet, occupent, aut ab his sibi novum exstrui coelum iubeant, quorum traditiunculas meis praeceptis anteposuerunt. Cum haec audient, et videbunt nautas et aurigas sibi praeferri, quibus, putatis, vultibus sese mutuo contuebuntur?

And once, openly and using no wrapper of parables, I promised the paternal inheritance, not by cowls, genuflections, or fastings, but by the offices of charity. Nor do I acknowledge those who too much acknowledge their own deeds, those who wish to seem holier even than me; let them, if it pleases, seize the heavens of the Abraxasians, or order a new heaven to be built for themselves by those whose little traditions they have preferred to my precepts. When they hear these things, and see sailors and charioteers set before them, with what faces, do you suppose, will they gaze upon one another?

Sed interim spe sua felices sunt, non absque meo beneficio. Atque hos quidem, quamquam a republica semotos, nemo tamen audet contemnere, praecipue mendicantes, propterea quod omnia omnium arcana teneant, ex confessionibus, quas vocant. Quae tamen prodere nefas habent, nisi si quando poti, fabulis amoenioribus delectare se volunt, sed coniecturis modo rem indicant, tacitis interim nominibus.

But meanwhile they are happy in their own hope, not without my beneficence. And these people indeed, although set apart from the republic, yet no one dares to contemn, especially the mendicants, because they hold all the arcana of everyone, from the “confessions,” as they call them. These, however, they hold it a sacrilege to betray, unless when drunk they wish to amuse themselves with more agreeable tales; but they indicate the matter only by conjectures, with the names meanwhile kept silent.

Quod si quis hos crabrones irritarit, tum in popularibus concionibus probe ulciscuntur sese, et obliquis dictis hostem notant, adeo tecte, ut nemo non intelligat, nisi qui nihil intelligit. Nec prius oblatrandi finem faciunt, quam in os offam obieceris. Age vero quem tu mihi comoedum, quem circulatorem spectare malis, quam istos in concionibus suis rhetoricantes omnino ridicule, sed tamen suavissime imitantes ea quae rhetores de dicendi ratione tradiderunt?

If anyone should provoke these hornets, then in popular assemblies they thoroughly avenge themselves, and with oblique sayings they mark out the enemy—so covertly that no one fails to understand, unless he understands nothing. Nor do they make an end of barking until you have thrown a sop into their mouth. Come now, what comedian, what mountebank would you rather watch than those men, in their assemblies, rhetorizing—altogether ridiculously, yet most sweetly imitating the things which the rhetors have handed down concerning the method of speaking?

Deum immortalem ! ut gesticulantur, ut apte commutant vocem, ut cantillant, ut iactant sese, ut subinde alios vultus induunt, ut omnia clamoribus miscent. Atque hanc orandi artem ceu rem arcanam fraterculus fraterculo, per manus tradit: eam tametsi mihi non est fas scire, tamen utcumque coniecturis sequar. Primo loco invocant, id quod a poetis mutuo sumserunt: deinde dicturi de caritate, a Nilo Aegypti fluvio sumunt exordium, aut crucis mysterium enarraturi, a Babylonio dracone Bel feliciter auspicantur: aut de ieiunio disputaturi, a duodecim zodiaci signis principium faciunt, aut de fide verba facturi, diu de quadratura circuli praeloquuntur.

Immortal God! how they gesticulate, how aptly they change the voice, how they sing-chant, how they fling themselves about, how ever and anon they assume other faces, how they mingle everything with shouts. And this art of orating, as a thing arcane, a little brother hands down to a little brother, from hand to hand: which, although it is not lawful for me to know, yet somehow I will pursue by conjectures. In the first place they invoke, that which they have borrowed from the poets: then, when about to speak on charity, they take their exordium from the Nile, the river of Egypt, or, when about to narrate the mystery of the cross, they happily auspicate from the Babylonian dragon Bel: or, being about to dispute concerning fasting, they make their beginning from the twelve signs of the zodiac, or, about to speak words about faith, they long pre-speak about the quadrature of the circle.

Audivi ipsa quemdam eximie stultum, erravi, doctum volebam dicere, qui in concione celeberrima, divinae Triadis mysterium explicaturus, quo et doctrinam suam non vulgarem ostentaret, et Theologicis satisfaceret auribus, nova prorsus ingressus est via, nimirum a litteris, syllabis, et oratione, tum a concordia nominis et verbi, adiectivi nominis et substantivi, mirantibus iam plerisque, ac nonnullis Horatianum illud apud se mussitantibus: 'Quorsum haec tam putida tendunt?' Tandem huc rem deduxit, ut in Grammaticorum rudimentis sic expressum ostenderet totius Triadis simulacrum, ut nemo Mathematicorum in pulvere posset evidentius depingere. Atque in hac oratione theologôtatos ille totos octo menses ita desudarat, ut hodie quoque magis caecutiat quam talpae, nimirum, tota luminum acie ad ingenii cuspidem avocata. Verum haud poenitet hominem caecitatis, ac parvo quoque putat emptam eam gloriam.

I myself heard a certain man exceedingly foolish—I erred; I wished to say learned—who, in a most crowded assembly, being about to explicate the mystery of the divine Triad, in order both to ostentate his not-common doctrine and to satisfy Theological ears, entered a wholly new way: namely, from letters, syllables, and oration; then from the concord of noun and verb, of adjective and substantive, most already marveling, and some muttering to themselves that Horatian tag: 'Whither do these so putrid things tend?' At length he brought the matter to this point, that in the rudiments of the Grammarians he showed the simulacrum of the whole Triad so expressed that none of the Mathematicians could depict it more evidently in the dust. And upon this oration that most theologizing fellow had so sweated for a full eight months, that even today he is more purblind than moles, to wit, the whole battle-line of his lights drawn off to the cusp of his genius. Yet the man does not repent of his blindness, and he deems that glory bought at a small price.

Auditus est a nobis alius quidam octogenarius, adeo Theologus, ut in hoc Scotum ipsum renatum putes. Is explicaturus mysterium nominis Iesu, mira subtilitate demonstravit in ipsis litteris latere, quidquid de illo dici possit. Etenim quod tribus dumtaxat inflectitur casibus, id manifestum esse simulacrum divini ternionis.

Another certain octogenarian was heard by us, so much a Theologian that you would think Scotus himself reborn in him. He, about to explicate the mystery of the name of Jesus, with wondrous subtlety demonstrated that in the very letters lies hidden whatever can be said about him. For the fact that it is declined in only three cases is a manifest simulacrum of the divine ternion.

Deinde quod prima vox Iesus, desinat in s, secunda Iesum in m, tertia Iesu in u, in hoc arrêton subesse mysterium: nempe tribus litterulis indicantibus eum esse summum, medium, et ultimum. Restabat mysterium his quoque retrusius, Mathematica ratione. Iesus sic in duas aequales diffidit portiones, ut scilicet pentemimeres in medio resideret.

Then, because the first form Iesus ends in s, the second Iesum in m, the third Iesu in u, that an arrêton mystery lies beneath this: namely, with three little letters indicating him to be the highest, the middle, and the last. There remained a mystery more recondite than these as well, by Mathematical reasoning. Iesus is thus split into two equal portions, so that, to wit, the penthemimeres resides in the middle.

Deinde docuit eam litteram apud Hebraeos esse quam illi Syn appellent: porro syn Scotorum, opinor, lingua, peccatum sonat: atque hinc palam declarari, Iesum esse qui peccata tolleret mundi. Hoc tam novum exordium sic inhiantes admirati sunt omnes, praecipue Theologi, ut parum abfuerit, quin illis acciderit, quod olim Niobae, cum mihi propemodum evenerit, quod ficulno illi Priapo, qui magno suo malo, Canidiae Saganaeque nocturna sacra spectavit. Nec iniuria profecto: nam quando similem ephodon, commentus est Demosthenes ille graius, aut Cicero Latinus?

Then he taught that there is among the Hebrews that letter which they call Syn; moreover syn in the tongue of the Scots, I suppose, sounds “sin”: and hence it is openly declared that Jesus is he who would take away the sins of the world. This so novel exordium they all, mouths agape, admired, especially the Theologians, so that it was little short of happening to them what once happened to Niobe, while it very nearly befell me what happened to that figwood Priapus, who, to his great harm, watched the nocturnal rites of Canidia and Sagana. Nor, in truth, unjustly: for when did that Greek Demosthenes, or the Latin Cicero, ever devise a similar ephodos?

Illis vitiosum habebatur proemium, quod a re foret alienius: quasi vero non ad istum modum exordiantur et subulci, natura videlicet magistra. At hi docti praeambulum suum, sic enim vocant, ita demum eximie Rhetoricum fore ducunt, si nusquam quidquam habeat cum reliquo argumento confine, ut auditor interim admirans, illud secum murmuret, quo nunc se proripit ille? Tertio loco ceu narrationis vice nonnihil ex Euangelio, sed cursim ac velut obiter interpretantur, cum id solum fuerit agendum.

By them a proem was accounted defective, because it would be rather more alien from the matter: as though, forsooth, even swineherds did not also begin in this fashion, nature, plainly as teacher. But these learned men deem their preamble—so they call it—will then at last be exceedingly Rhetorical, if it has nowhere anything contiguous with the remaining argument, so that the hearer meanwhile, in amazement, murmurs to himself this: where now is he hurling himself? In the third place, in the stead of narration, they interpret somewhat from the Gospel, but cursorily and, as it were, in passing, whereas that alone ought to have been done.

Quarto loco iam nova sumpta persona, quaestionem movent theologalem, aliquoties oute gês, oute ouranou haptomenên, atque id quoque ad artem arbitrantur pertinere. Hic demum Theologicum attollunt supercilium, Doctores solennes, Doctores subtiles, Doctores subtilissimos, Doctores seraphicos, Doctores sanctos, Doctores irrefragabiles, magnifica nomina auribus inculcantes. Tum syllogismos maiores, minores, conclusiones, corollaria, suppositiones frigidissimas ac plus quam scholasticas nugas apud imperitum vulgus iactitant.

In the fourth place, now with a new persona assumed, they raise a theological question, several times touching neither earth nor heaven, and they reckon that too to pertain to the art. Here at last they raise the Theological eyebrow, dinning into ears magnificent names—Solemn Doctors, Subtle Doctors, Most Subtle Doctors, Seraphic Doctors, Holy Doctors, Irrefragable Doctors. Then they brandish major syllogisms, minor ones, conclusions, corollaries, the chilliest suppositions, and more-than-scholastic trifles before the unskilled crowd.

Superest iam quintus actus, in quo summum artificem praestare convenit. Hic mihi stultam aliquam et indoctam fabulam, ex speculo, opinor, historiali, aut gestis Romanorum in medium adferunt, et eamdem interpretantur allegorice, tropologice, et anagogice. Atque ad hunc quidem modum Chimaeram suam absolvunt, qualem nec Horatius umquam adsequi potuit cum scriberet: 'Humano capiti' etc.

Now the fifth act remains, in which it is fitting to display the supreme craftsman. Here they bring forward for me some foolish and unlearned fable, from the historical speculum, I suppose, or from the Deeds of the Romans, and they interpret the same allegorically, tropologically, and anagogically. And in this fashion they complete their own Chimera, such as not even Horace ever could attain when he was writing: “Humano capiti,” etc.

Sed audierunt a nescio, quibus, ingressum orationis sedatum, minimeque clamosum esse oportere. Itaque principio sic exordiuntur, ut nec ipsi vocem propriam exaudiant, quasi referat dici, quod nullus intelligat. Audierunt nonnumquam ad concitandos adfectus, exclamationibus utendem esse.

But they have heard from I-know-not whom that the ingress of an oration ought to be sedate and by no means clamorous. And so at the beginning they make their exordium in such a way that they themselves do not even hear their own proper voice, as if it mattered that what is said no one should understand. They have heard that sometimes, for arousing affections, exclamations are to be used.

Proinde presse alioqui loquentes, subinde repente vocem tollunt furioso plane clamore, etiam cum nihil opus. Iures elleboro homini opus esse, perinde quasi nihil referat, ut clames. Praeterea quoniam audierunt oportere sermonem in progressu fervescere, in singulis partibus principiis utcumque sane recitatis, mox mira vocis contentione utuntur, etiam si res sit frigidissima, atque ita denique desinunt, ut spiritu defectos credas.

Accordingly, though otherwise speaking in a compressed manner, ever and anon they suddenly raise their voice with plainly frenzied clamor, even when there is no need. You would swear the man had need of hellebore, just as if it made no difference whether you shout or not. Moreover, since they have heard that a discourse ought in its progress to grow fervent, after the beginnings of each part have been recited somehow indeed soberly, soon they employ a marvelous strain of voice, even if the matter is most frigid; and so at last they finish in such a way that you would think them bereft of breath.

Postremo didicerunt, apud rhetores de risu fieri mentionem, eoque student et ipsi iocos quosdam adspergere, ê philê Aphroditê, quam plenos gratiarum, quamque in loco, ut plane onon pros tên luran esse dicas. Mordent quoque nonnumquam, sed ita, ut titillent magis quam vulnerent. Nec umquam verius adulantur, quam cum maxime parrêsiazesthai videri student.

Finally they have learned that among the rhetors mention is made of laughter, and so they too strive to sprinkle in certain jokes—ah, dear Aphrodite—so full of graces, and so in place, that you would plainly say it is not an ass to the lyre. They also bite sometimes, but in such a way as to tickle rather than to wound. Nor do they ever flatter more truly than when they are most eager to seem to be practicing parrhesia.

Denique tota actio est eiusmodi, ut iures eos a fori circulatoribus didicisse a quibus longe vincuntur. Quamquam utrique alteris usque adeo sunt similes, ut nemo dubitet, quin aut hi ab illis, aut illi ab his rhetoricen suam didicerint. Et tamen inveniunt hi quoque, mea nimirum opera, qui cum hos audiunt, Demosthenes meros, ac Cicerones audire se putant.

Finally, the whole performance is of such a sort that you would swear they had learned from the marketplace mountebanks, by whom they are far outdone. Although both parties are so like one another that no one would doubt that either these learned their rhetoric from those, or those their rhetoric from these. And yet these too, through my efforts, forsooth, find people who, when they listen to them, suppose they are hearing nothing but Demosthenes and Ciceros.

Quod genus sunt praecipue mercatores ac mulierculae: quorum auribus unice placere student, quod illi nonnullam praedae portiunculam de rebus male partis soleant impertiri, si commode fuerint palpati. Illae cum aliis multis de causis huic ordini favent, tum praecipue, quod in horum sinus soleant effundere, si quid in maritos stomachantur. Videtis, opinor, quantopere mihi debeat hoc hominum genus, cum cerimoniolis, et nugis deridiculis, clamoribusque tyrannidem quamdam inter mortales exerceant, et Paulos atque Antonios sese credant.

Of this kind are especially merchants and womenfolk: whose ears they strive above all to please, because those men are wont to impart some little portion of booty from ill-gotten goods, if they have been deftly flattered. Those women, for many other reasons, favor this order, but especially because into these men’s bosoms they are wont to pour whatever they are vexed with in regard to their husbands. You see, I suppose, how greatly this genus of people owes me, since with little ceremonials, ridiculous trifles, and clamors they exercise a kind of tyranny among mortals, and think themselves Pauls and Anthonies.

55. Verum ego istos histriones tam ingratos beneficiorum meorum dissimulatores, quam improbos simulatores pietatis libenter relinquo. Iamdudum enim iuvat de regibus ac principibus aulicis a quibus simplicissime color, et, ut dignum est, ingenuis, ingenue nonnihil attingere. Qui quidem si vel semiunciam sani cordis haberent, quid esset horum vita tristius aut aeque fugiendum?

55. But I gladly leave those histrions, as ungrateful dissemblers of my benefactions no less than shameless simulators of piety. For it has long pleased me to touch a little upon kings and courtly princes, with the utmost plain coloring and—as befits the freeborn—frankly. Who indeed, if they had even half an ounce of sound sense, what could be sadder than their life, or as equally to be shunned?

Neque enim existimabit vel periurio parricidioque parandum imperium, quisquis secum perpenderit, quam ingens onus sustineat humeris, qui vere principem agere velit. Eum quirerum gubernacula susceperit, publicum non privatum negotium gerere, nihil nisi de commodis publicis oportere cogitare: a legibus, quarum ipse et auctor et exactor est, nec latum digitum discedere: officialium omnium et magistratuum integritatem sibi praestandam esse: sese esse unum omnium oculis expositum, qui vel ceu sidus salutare, morum innocentia, maximam rebus humanis salutem possit adferre, vel veluti cometa lethalis summam perniciem invehere. Aliorum vitia neque perinde sentiri, neque tam late manare.

For neither will anyone think that an empire is to be procured by perjury and parricide, whoever has weighed with himself how immense a burden he sustains upon his shoulders who truly wishes to act the prince. He who has taken up the helm of affairs understands that he conducts a public, not a private business; that he ought to think of nothing except public advantages; that he must not depart from the laws, of which he himself is both author and enforcer, by so much as a finger-breadth; that it is incumbent on himself to ensure the integrity of all officials and magistrates; that he is one man exposed to the eyes of all, who can either, like a salutary star, by moral innocence bring the greatest salvation to human affairs, or, like a lethal comet, carry in the utmost destruction. The vices of others are neither perceived so much nor spread so widely.

Principem eo loco esse, ut si quid vel leviter ab honesto deflexerit, gravis protinus ad quamplurimos homines vitae pestis serpat. Tum quod multa secum adferat principum fortuna, quae soleant a recto deducere, quod genus, delitiae, libertas, adulatio, luxus, hoc acrius enitendum ac sollicitius advigilandum, necubi vel deceptus cesset in officio. Postremo, ut insidias, odia, caeteraque vel pericula, vel metus omittam capiti imminere verum illum regem, qui paulo post ab eo sit etiam de minimo quoque commisso rationem exacturus, idque tanto severius, quanto praestantius gessit imperium.

The prince is in that position, that if he has deflected even lightly from the honest/right, a grave pest of life straightway spreads to a very great many men. Then, because the fortune of princes brings with it many things that are wont to draw one off from the right—of such a kind: delights, liberty, adulation, luxury—there must be a more keen striving and a more solicitous keeping watch, lest anywhere, even being deceived, he fail in his office. Lastly, to omit the ambushes, hatreds, and the other either perils or fears threatening his head, the true king is hanging over him, who shortly will exact from him an account even for every least thing committed, and this so much the more severely, the more excellently he has borne the imperium.

Haec, inquam, atque huiusmodi plurima, si princeps secum perpenderet, perpenderet autem si saperet, is nec somnum, nec cibum, opinor, iucunde capere posset. At nunc, meo munere, has omneis curas Diis permittunt, ipsi sese molliter curant, neque quemquam ad aurem admittunt, nisi qui iucunda loqui norit, ne quid animo sollicitudinis oboriatur. Se probe principis partes omneis implesse credunt, si venentur assidue, si bellos alant caballos, si suo commodo vendiderint magistratus ac praefecturas, si quotidie novae rationes excogitentur, quibus civium opes attenuent et in suum converrant fiscum.

These things, I say, and very many of this kind, if the prince would weigh with himself—and he would weigh them, if he were wise—he could not, I suppose, take either sleep or food pleasantly. But now, by my favor, they hand over all these cares to the gods; they themselves tenderly care for themselves, nor do they admit anyone to the ear, except one who knows how to speak pleasant things, lest any solicitude arise in the mind. They believe they have properly fulfilled all the functions of a prince, if they hunt assiduously, if they nourish handsome horses, if they have sold magistracies and prefectures to their own advantage, if new schemes are every day excogitated, by which they attenuate the wealth of the citizens and divert it into their own treasury.

Verum id apposite, repertis titulis, ut etiam si sit iniquissimum, aliquam tamen aequitatis speciem prae se ferat. Addunt data opera nonnihil adulationis, quo populares animos, utcumque sibi devinciant. Fingite mihi nunc quales sunt nonnumquam, hominem legum ignarum, publicorum commodorum pene hostem, privatis intentum commoditatibus, addictum voluptatibus, osorem eruditionis, osorem libertatis ac veri, nihil minus quam de reipublicae salute cogitantem, sed omnia sua libidine, suisque utilitatibus metientem.

But they do it aptly, having found titles, so that even if it be most iniquitous, it nevertheless carries before itself some appearance of equity. They add, with deliberate effort, no small measure of adulation, by which they may, somehow, bind popular minds to themselves. Imagine for me now what they sometimes are: a man ignorant of the laws, almost an enemy of the public goods, intent upon private conveniences, addicted to pleasures, a hater of erudition, a hater of liberty and of truth, thinking of anything rather than the safety of the republic, but measuring all things by his own lust and his own interests.

Deinde addite huic torquem auream, omnium virtutum cohaerentium consensum indicantem, tum coronam gemmis insignitam, quae quidem admoneat eum heroicis omnibus virtutibus oportere caeteris antecellere. Praeterea sceptrum, iustitiae et undecumque incorrupti pectoris symbolum. Postremo purpuram eximiae cuiusdam in rempublicam caritatis indicium.

Then add to him a golden torque, indicating the consensus of all the coherent virtues; then a crown adorned with gems, which indeed may admonish him that in all heroic virtues it behooves him to excel the others. Moreover, a scepter, a symbol of justice and of an incorrupt heart in every quarter. Lastly, the purple, an indication of a certain extraordinary charity toward the commonwealth.

Haec gestamina si princeps cum sua vita conferret, equidem futurum arbitror, ut plane pudescat ornatus sui, vereaturque ne quis nasutus interpres, totum hunc tragicum cultum, in risum, iocumque vertat.

If the prince were to compare these regalia with his own life, indeed I think it would come to pass that he would be plainly ashamed of his ornament, and would fear lest some sharp-nosed interpreter turn all this tragic attire into laughter and jest.

56. Iam quid de proceribus aulicis commemorem? quorum plerisque cum nihil sit addictius, servilius, insulsius, abiectius, tamen omnium rerum primos sese videri volunt. Hac una in re tamen modestissimi, quod contenti, aurum, gemmas, purpuram, reliquaque virtutum ac sapientiae insignia corpore circumferre, rerum ipsarum studium omne concedunt aliis.

56. Now what shall I commemorate about the aulic magnates? of most of whom, though nothing could be more addicted, more servile, more insipid, more abject, nevertheless they wish to seem the first in all things. In this one matter, however, they are most modest: that, being content to carry about on the body gold, gems, purple, and the remaining insignia of virtues and wisdom, they yield the whole pursuit of the things themselves to others.

Hoc abunde felices sibi videntur, quod regem herum vocare liceat, quod tribus verbis salutare didicerint, quod norint civiles titulos subinde inculcare, serenitatem, dominationem, et magnificentiam. Quod egregie perfricuerint faciem, quod festiviter adulentur. Nam hae sunt artes, quae vere nobilem et aulicum deceant.

By this they seem to themselves abundantly happy: that it is permitted to call the king “master,” that they have learned to salute in three words, that they know how from time to time to inculcate civil titles—Serenity, Lordship, and Magnificence. That they have superbly brazened their face, that they wittily flatter. For these are the arts which truly befit a nobleman and a courtier.

Caeterum si vitae rationem omnem propius inspicias, nimirum meros Phaeacas invenies, sponsos Penelopes , reliquum carmen agnoscitis, quod Echo vobis melius referet quam ego. Dormitur in medios dies, ibi Sacrificulus mercenarius ad lectum paratus, qui propemodum cubantibus adhuc sacrum expedite peragat. Mox ad ientaculum, quo vix peracto, iam interpellat prandium.

But if you look more closely at the entire regimen of life, assuredly you will find mere Phaeacians, suitors of Penelope , you recognize the rest of the song, which Echo will repeat back to you better than I. One sleeps into the middle of the day, and there a mercenary petty priest is ready at the bedside, who, they being almost still lying down, may expeditiously perform the sacred rite. Soon to breakfast—scarcely is it finished when already luncheon interrupts.

Sub id alea, laterunculi, sortes, scurrae, moriones, scorta, lusus, inficetiae. Interim una aut altera merenda. Rursum coena, post hanc repotia, non una per Iovem.

About then: dice, little gaming-counters, lots, buffoons, fools, strumpets, games, ineptitudes. Meanwhile one or another afternoon snack. Again supper; after this, after-drinkings— not just one, by Jove.

Atque ad hunc modum, citra ullum vitae taedium elabuntur horae, dies, menses, anni, saecula. Ipsa nonnumquam saginatior abeo, si quando viderim illos megalorrvntas, dum inter Nymphas unaquaeque hoc sibi videtur Diis propior, quo caudam longiorem trahit, dum procerum alius alium cubito protrudit, quo Iovi vicinior esse videatur, dum sibi quisque hoc magis placet, quo graviorem catenam collo baiulat, ut robur etiam, non opes tantum ostentent.

And in this fashion, without any tedium of life, the hours, days, months, years, ages slip away. I myself sometimes go away more well-fattened, whenever I have seen those mega‑boasters: while among the Nymphs each one seems to herself the nearer to the Gods the longer a train she drags; while among the grandees one shoves another with the elbow, that he may seem nearer to Jove; while each man likes himself the more, the heavier a chain he bears on his neck, so that they may display strength as well, not wealth only.

57. Ac principum quidem institutum, Summi Pontifices, Cardinales, et Episcopi, iam pridem gnaviter aemulantur, ac prope superant. Porro si quis perpendat, quid linea vestis admoneat, niveo candore insignis, nempe vitam undiquaque inculpatam. Quid sibi velit mitra bicornis, utrumque fastigium eodem cohibente nodo, puta Novi pariter et Veteris Instrumenti absolutam scientiam.

57. And as for the institution of princes, the Supreme Pontiffs, Cardinals, and Bishops have long zealously emulated it, and they almost surpass it. Moreover, if anyone should weigh what the linen vestment, distinguished by snowy whiteness, admonishes—namely, a life in every respect blameless. What the bicorn mitre signifies, its two pinnacles restrained by the same knot—namely, the complete knowledge of the New and likewise the Old Testament.

Quid manus chirothecis communitae, puram et ab omni rerum humanarum contagio immunem sacramentorum administrationem. Quid pedum, nimirum, crediti gregis vigilantissimam curam. Quid praelata crux, videlicet, omnium humanorum affectuum victoriam.

What do the hands fortified with gloves mean?—the pure administration of the sacraments, immune from all contagion of human affairs. What the pastoral staff, to be sure, the most vigilant care of the entrusted flock. What the cross borne before, namely, the victory over all human affections.

Haec, inquam, atque id genus multa, si quis perpendat, nonne tristem ac sollicitam vitam egerit? At nunc belle faciunt, cum sese pascunt. Caeterum ovium curam aut ipsi Christo mandant, aut in Fratres, quos vocant, ac vicarios reiiciunt.

These things, I say, and many of that kind, if anyone should ponder, would he not lead a sad and solicitous life? But now they do nicely, when they feed themselves. Besides, they entrust the care of the sheep either to Christ himself, or they cast it off onto the Brothers, as they call them, and onto vicars.

Neque vel nominis sui recordantur, quid sonet Episcopi vocabulum, nempe laborem, curam, sollicitudinem. Verum in irretiendis pecuniis, plane Episcopos agunt, oud' alaoskopiê.

Nor do they even remember their own name, what the vocable “Bishop” signifies, namely labor, care, solicitude. But in ensnaring monies, they plainly act the Bishops—and not with a blind watch.

58. Ad eumdem modum Cardinales si cogitent sese in Apostolorum locum successisse, eadem ab ipsis requiri, quae illi praestiterunt. Deinde non dominos esse, sed administratores spiritalium dotium, de quibus omnibus sint paullo post exactissime reddituri rationem. Imo si vel in cultu paulisper philosophentur, atque ita secum cogitent, quid sibi vult hic vestitus candor ? Nonne summam et eximiam vitae innocentiam?

58. In the same manner, if the Cardinals would consider that they have succeeded into the place of the Apostles, the same things are required of them which those men rendered. Then that they are not lords, but administrators of spiritual endowments, concerning all of which they will shortly render a most exact account. Nay rather, if even in their attire they would philosophize for a little while, and thus think with themselves, what does this whiteness of vesture want to say? Does it not [signify] the highest and exceptional innocence of life?

Quid interior purpura? Nonne flagrantissimum in Deum amorem? Quid rursus exterior sinuosa capacitate diffluens, ac totam reverendissimi complectens mulam, quamquam una vel camelo contegendo suffecerit?

What does the inner purple mean? Does it not [signify] the most flagrant love toward God? What then of the outer, flowing with sinuous capaciousness and embracing the whole mule of the most reverend, although a single one would have sufficed even for covering a camel?

Nonne caritatem latissime sese pandentem ad subveniendum omnibus, hoc est, ad docendum, exhortandum, increpandum, admonendum, componenda bella, resistendum improbis principibus, et vel sanguinem libenter impendendum gregi Christiano, non solum opes. Quamquam quorsum omnino opes, pauperum Apostolorum vicem gerentibus? Haec si perpenderent, inquam, nec eum locum ambirent, et libenter relinquerent, aut certe vitam plane laboriosam, atque sollicitam agerent, cuiusmodi veteres illi vixerunt Apostoli.

Does it not indicate charity spreading itself most broadly to come to the aid of all, that is, to teach, to exhort, to reprove, to admonish, to compose wars, to resist wicked princes, and even to spend blood gladly for the Christian flock, not riches only? Although to what end are riches at all for those who bear the stead of the poor Apostles? If they would weigh these things, I say, they would not ambitiously court that place, and would gladly relinquish it, or at least would lead a life plainly laborious and anxious, of the sort those ancient Apostles lived.

59. Iam Summi Pontifices, qui Christi vices gerunt, si conentur eiusdem vitam aemulari, nempe paupertatem, labores, doctrinam, crucem, vitae contemptum, si vel Papae, id est patris nomen vel Sanctissimi cognomen cogitent, quid erit in terris afflictius? aut quis eum locum omnibus emat facultatibus: emptum, gladio, veneno, omnique vi tueatur? Quantum his abstulerit commoditatum, si semel incessiverit sapientia?

59. Now then the Supreme Pontiffs, who carry Christ’s vicariate, if they should strive to emulate his very life, to wit, poverty, labors, doctrine, the cross, contempt of life—if they should even consider the name of Pope, that is, Father, or the cognomen Most Holy—what would be more afflicted on earth? or who would buy that place with all his resources; and, once bought, guard it by the sword, by poison, and by every force? How much of their conveniences would wisdom have taken away from them, if once it set upon them?

Sapientia dixi? Imo vel mica salis illius, cuius meminit Christus. Tantum opum, tantum honorum, tantum ditionis, tantum victoriarum, tot officia, tot dispensationes, tot vectigalia, tot indulgentias, tantum equorum, mulorum, satellitum, tantum voluptatum.

Wisdom did I say? Nay, even a crumb of that salt of which Christ makes mention. So much wealth, so many honors, so much dominion, so many victories, so many offices, so many dispensations, so many vectigals, so many indulgences, so many horses, mules, attendants, so many pleasures.

Videtis, quantas nundinas, quantam messem, quantum bonorum pelagus paucis sim complexa. In quorum locum inducet vigilias, ieiunia, lacrymas, orationes, conciones, studia, suspiria, milleque id genus miseros labores. Neque vero negligendum, illud futurum, ut tot scriptores, tot copistae, tot notarii, tot advocati, tot promotores, tot secretarii, tot mulotribae, tot equisones, tot mensarii, tot lenones, pene mollius quiddam addideram, sed vereor ne durius sit auribus.

You see what great market-days, what a harvest, what a sea of goods I have encompassed in a few words. In place of which Wisdom will introduce vigils, fasts, tears, orations, sermons, studies, sighs, and a thousand miserable labors of that kind. Nor indeed is it to be neglected, that it will come to pass that so many writers, so many copyists, so many notaries, so many advocates, so many promoters, so many secretaries, so many muleteers, so many equerries (horse-grooms), so many money-changers, so many panders—I had almost added something a bit softer, but I fear it may be harsher to the ears.

In summa, tam ingens hominum turba, quae Romanam sedem onerat, lapsa sum, honorat sentiebam, ad famem adigetur. Inhumanum quidem hoc, et abominandum facinus, at multo magis detestandum, ipsos etiam summos Ecclesiae Principes ac vera mundi lumina, ad peram et baculum revocari. At nunc fere, si quid laboris est, id Petro et Paulo relinquitur, quibus abunde satis est otii.

In sum, so huge a throng of men, which burdens the Roman See, I have slipped, I felt I was honoring, will be driven to hunger. Inhuman indeed is this, and an abominable deed; but much more to be detested, that the very highest Princes of the Church and the true lights of the world be called back to bag and staff. But now, for the most part, if there is any labor, it is left to Peter and Paul, for whom there is abundantly enough leisure.

Porro si quid splendoris, aut voluptatis, id sibi sumunt. Atque ita fit, mea quidem opera, ut nullum paene hominum genus vivat mollius, minusque sollicitum, ut qui abunde Christo satisfactum existiment, si mystico ac paene scenico ornatu, cerimoniis, beatitudinum, reverentiarum, sanctitatum titulis, et benedictionibus ac maledictionibus, Episcopos agant. Priscum et obsoletum, nec horum omnino temporum, miracula edere: docere populum, laboriosum: sacras interpretari litteras, scholasticum: orare, otiosum: lacrymas fundere, miserum ac muliebre: egere, sordidum: vinci, turpe, parumque dignum eo, qui vix reges etiam summos, ad pedum beatorum admittit oscula: denique mori, inamabile: tolli in crucem, infame.

Moreover, if there is any splendor or voluptuousness, they take it for themselves. And thus it comes to pass, by my own doing, to be sure, that scarcely any kind of men lives more softly and less solicitous, as those who think they have abundantly satisfied Christ, if, with mystical and almost scenic adornment, with ceremonies, with titles of beatitudes, reverences, sanctities, and with benedictions and maledictions, they play the bishops. To produce miracles: ancient and obsolete, and in no way of these times: to teach the people, laborious: to interpret the sacred letters, scholastic: to pray, otiose: to pour forth tears, wretched and womanish: to be in need, sordid: to be conquered, shameful, and little worthy of one who scarcely admits even the highest kings to the kisses of blessed feet: finally, to die, unlovely: to be lifted onto the cross, infamous.

Restant sola haec arma ac benedictiones dulces, quarum meminit Paulus, atque harum quidem sunt sane quam benigni, interdictiones, suspensiones, aggravationes, anathematizationes, ultrices picturae, ac fulmen illud terrificum, quo solo nutu mortalium animas vel ultra tartara mittunt. Quod ipsum tamen sanctissimi in Christo patres, et Christi vicarii, in nullos torquent acrius, quam in eos qui instigante Diabolo, patrimonia Petri minuere atque arrodere conantur. Cuius cum haec vox sit in Euangelio: 'Reliquimus omnia, et sequuti sumus te', tamen huius patrimonium appellant agros, oppida, vectigalia, portitoria, ditiones.

There remain only these arms and sweet benedictions, of which Paul makes mention, and in these indeed they are assuredly very benign: interdicts, suspensions, aggravations, anathematizations, avenging pictures, and that terrific thunderbolt, by the mere nod of which they send the souls of mortals even beyond Tartarus. Yet this very thing the most holy fathers in Christ, and the vicars of Christ, wield against none more sharply than against those who, the Devil instigating, strive to diminish and gnaw away at the patrimonies of Peter. Although his utterance in the Gospel is this: ‘We have left all things and have followed you,’ yet they call his patrimony fields, towns, revenues, port-duties, dominions.

Pro quibus dum zelo Christi accensi, ferro ignique dimicant, non absque plurimo Christiani sanguinis dispendio, tum demum Ecclesiam Christi sponsam sese credunt apostolice defendere, fortiter profligatis, ut vocant, hostibus. Quasi vero ulli sint hostes Ecclesiae perniciosiores, quam impii pontifices, qui et silentio Christum sinunt abolescere, et quaestuariis legibus alligant et coactis interpretationibus adulterant, et pestilente vita iugulant. Porro cum Christiana Ecclesia sanguine sit condita, sanguine confirmata, sanguine aucta, nunc perinde quasi Christus perierit, qui more suo tueatur suos, ita ferro rem gerunt.

For the sake of these things, while, inflamed with the zeal of Christ, they fight with iron and fire—not without a very great expenditure of Christian blood—then at last they believe that they apostolically defend the Church of Christ, the Bride, the enemies, as they call them, having been bravely routed. As though there were any enemies of the Church more pernicious than impious pontiffs, who by silence allow Christ to grow obsolete, and bind with money-making laws, and adulterate by forced interpretations, and with a pestilent life they throttle. Furthermore, since the Christian Church has been founded by blood, confirmed by blood, augmented by blood, now—as though Christ had perished, he who, after his wont, protects his own—they conduct the affair with iron.

Cumque bellum res sit adeo immanis, ut feras non homines deceat, adeo insana, ut poetae quoque fingant a Furiis immitti, adeo pestilens, ut universam morum luem simul invehat, adeo iniusta, ut a pessimis latronibus optime soleat administrari, adeo impia, ut nihil cohaereat cum Christo, tamen omnibus omissis, hoc tantum agunt. Hic videas etiam decrepitos senes, iuvenilis animi robur praestare, nec offendi sumptibus, nec fatigari laboribus, nec deterreri quidquam si leges, si religionem, si pacem, si res humanas omneis sursum ac deorsum misceant. Neque desunt adulatores eruditi, qui istam manifestariam insaniam, zelum, pietatem, fortitudinem appellent, excogitata via, qua fieri potest, ut quis lethale ferrum stringat, adigatque in fratris sui viscera, manente nihilominus caritate illa summa, quam ex Christi praecepto debet proximo Christianus.

And although war is a thing so monstrous that it befits wild beasts, not humans; so insane that even the poets feign it to be sent in by the Furies; so pestilent that it brings in at once a universal plague of morals; so unjust that it is wont to be best administered by the worst brigands; so impious that nothing coheres with Christ—yet, everything else omitted, this one thing they pursue. Here you may see even decrepit old men exhibit the vigor of a juvenile spirit, neither taking offense at expenses, nor growing weary with labors, nor being deterred by anything, even if they mix laws, religion, peace, and all human affairs up and down. Nor are erudite flatterers lacking, who call that manifest insanity zeal, piety, fortitude, having devised a way whereby someone may draw the lethal iron and drive it into his brother’s viscera, with that highest charity nevertheless remaining, which by Christ’s precept a Christian owes to his neighbor.

60. Equidem incerta sum adhuc, utrum his rebus exemplum dederint, an potius hinc sumpserint episcopi quidam Germanorum, qui simplicius, etiam omisso cultu, omissis benedictionibus, aliisque id genus cerimoniis, plane satrapas agunt, adeo ut propemodum ignavum, parumque decorum episcopo putent, alibi, quam in acie, fortem animam Deo reddere. Iam vero vulgus Sacerdotum, nefas esse ducens, a praesulum suorum sanctimonia degenerare, euge, quam militariter pro iure decimarum, ensibus, iaculis, saxis, omnique armorum vi belligerantur: quam hic oculati, si quid ex veterum litteris possint elicere, quo plebeculam territent, et plus quam decimas deberi convincant. At interim non venit in mentem, quam multa passim legantur de officio, quod illi vicissim praestare populo debeant.

60. For my part I am still uncertain whether they gave the exemplar for these things, or rather whether certain bishops of the Germans took it from here—who, more simply, with cult even omitted, blessings omitted, and other ceremonies of that kind, plainly play the satraps—so much so that they think it almost ignoble and little decorous for a bishop to render his valiant soul to God anywhere other than in the battle-line. Now indeed the common crowd of priests, deeming it a nefas to degenerate from the sanctimony of their prelates—bravo, how militarily they wage war for the right of tithes, with swords, javelins, stones, and every force of arms: how sharp-eyed they are here, if they can elicit anything from the writings of the ancients with which to terrify the plebeian crowd, and to prove that more than tithes are owed. But meanwhile it does not come to mind how many things are read everywhere about the duty which they in turn ought to render to the people.

Nec saltem admonet eos vertex rasus, sacerdotem omnibus huius mundi cupiditatibus liberum esse oportere, neque quidquam nisi coelestia meditari. Sed homines suaves, se suo officio probe perfunctos aiunt, si preculas illas suas, utcumque permurmurarint, quas, mehercule, demiror, si quis Deus vel audiat, vel intelligat, cum ipsi fere nec audiant, nec intelligant, tum cum eas ore perstrepunt. Verum hoc quidem sacerdotibus est cum profanis commune, ut ad emolumenti messem vigilent omnes, neque quisquam ibi leges ignoret.

Nor at least does the shaven crown admonish them that a priest ought to be free from all cupidities of this world, and to meditate nothing except celestial things. But these suave men say they have duly discharged their office if they have somehow murmured through those little precations of theirs, which, by Hercules, I marvel whether any god either hears or understands, since they themselves scarcely either hear or understand, at the very time when they make a clamor with their mouth. But this indeed priests have in common with the profane: that all keep vigil for the harvest of emolument, and there no one is ignorant of the laws.

Caeterum si quid sarcinae, id prudenter in alienos humeros reiiciunt, et aliis alii tamquam pilam per manus tradant. Siquidem laici quoque Principes, quemadmodum partes administrandi regni vicariis delegant, et vicarius item vicario tradit, ita pietatis studium omne plebi modestiae causa relinquunt. Plebs in eos reiicit, quos Ecclesiasticos vocant, perinde quasi ipsis cum Ecclesia nihil omnino sit commercii, quasi Baptismi votis nihil prorsus sit actum.

But if there is any burden, they prudently shift it onto alien shoulders, and some hand it over to others like a ball from hand to hand. For indeed lay Princes also, just as they delegate parts of administering the realm to vicars, and the vicar in turn hands it to a vicar, so for the sake of modesty they leave every zeal of piety to the plebs. The plebs casts it upon those whom they call Ecclesiastics, just as if they themselves had absolutely no commerce with the Church, as if nothing at all had been transacted by the vows of Baptism.

Rursum Sacerdotes, qui sese vocant Seculares, quasi mundo initiati non Christo, in regulares onus hoc devolvunt: regulares in monachos: monachi laxiores in arctiores: Omnes simul in mendicantes: mendicantes in Carthusienses, apud quos solos sepulta latet pietas, et adeo latet ut vix umquam liceat conspicere. Itidem pontifices in messe pecuniaria diligentissimi, labores illos nimium apostolicos, in episcopos relegant, episcopi in pastores, pastores in vicarios, vicarii in fratres mendicantes. Hi rursum in eos retrudunt, a quibus ovium lana tondetur.

Again the priests, who call themselves Seculars, as if initiated into the world, not into Christ, devolve this burden upon the regulars: the regulars upon the monks: the laxer monks upon the stricter: All together upon the mendicants: the mendicants upon the Carthusians, with whom alone piety lies buried hidden, and so hidden that it is scarcely ever permitted to behold it. Likewise the pontiffs, most diligent in the pecuniary harvest, relegate those all-too apostolic labors to the bishops, the bishops to the pastors, the pastors to the vicars, the vicars to the mendicant brothers. These in turn shove it back upon those by whom the wool of the sheep is shorn.

Verum non est huius instituti, pontificum ac sacerdotum vitam excutere, ne cui videar satyram texere, non encomium recitare, neve quis existimet bonos principes a me taxari, dum malos laudo. Sed haec ideo paucis attigi, quo palam fieret, nullum esse mortalem, qui suaviter vivere possit, nisi meis initiatus sit sacris, meque propitiam habeat.

But it is not the point of this undertaking to shake out the life of pontiffs and priests, lest to anyone I seem to weave a satire, nor to recite an encomium, nor let anyone suppose that good princes are being taxed by me while I praise the bad. But these things I have touched upon briefly for this reason: that it might be made plain there is no mortal who can live sweetly, unless he has been initiated into my sacred rites and has me propitious.

61. Nam id quo pacto fieri queat, cum ipsa etiam Rhamnusia, rerum humanarum fortunatrix , mecum adeo consentiat, ut sapientibus istis semper fuerit inimicissima? contra stultis etiam dormientibus omnia commoda adduxerit? Agnoscitis Timotheum illum, cui hinc etiam cognomen, et proverbium ê heudontos kurtos hairei.

61. For how could that be brought about, since even Rhamnusia herself, dispensatrix of human fortunes , so consents with me that she has always been most inimical to those wise men? on the contrary, to fools, even while they sleep, she has brought every advantage. You recognize that Timotheus, to whom from this, too, came his cognomen, and the proverb “the net catches while he sleeps.”

Rursum aliud glaux hiptatai. Contra in sapientes quadrant illa, en tetradi gennêthentes, et equum habet Seianum, et aurum Tolosanum. Sed desino paroimiazesthai, ne videar Erasmi mei commentaria suppilasse.

Again, another “the owl flies.” On the contrary, as to the wise those fit: “lo, born on the fourth day,” and “he has Sejanus’s horse,” and “the gold of Tolosa.” But I cease from proverbializing, lest I seem to have pilfered the commentaries of my Erasmus.

Ergo ut ad rem: Amat Fortuna parum cordatos, amat audaciores, et quibus illud placet pas erriphthô kubos. At Sapientia timidulos reddit, ideoque vulgo videtis sapientibus istis cum paupertate, cum fame, cum fumo rem esse, neglectos, inglorios, invisos vivere: Stultos affluere nummis, admoveri reipublicae gubernaculis, breviter, florere modis omnibus. Etenim si quis beatum existimet principibus placuisse viris, et inter meos illos, ac gemmeos Deos versari, quid inutilius sapientia, imo quid apud hoc hominum genus damnatius?

Therefore, to the matter: Fortune loves the not-very-sound-in-heart, she loves the more audacious, and those to whom that saying pleases, “let the die be cast.” But Wisdom renders men timorous, and therefore you commonly see these sages to have business with poverty, with hunger, with smoke, to live neglected, inglorious, and hated: fools to be affluent in money, to be brought to the helms of the republic, in brief, to flourish in every way. For indeed, if someone should deem it blessedness to have pleased princely men, and to consort among those my gemmed gods, what is more useless than wisdom—nay, what more damnable with this race of men?

Si divitiae parandae sunt, quid tandem lucri facturus est negotiator, si sapientiam secutus: periurio offendetur, si in mendacio deprehensus erubescet, si anxios illos de furtis, atque usuris sapientum scrupulos, vel tantuli faciet. Porro si quis honores, atque opes ambiat Ecclesiasticas, ad eas vel asinus, vel bubalus citius penetrabit quam sapiens. Si voluptate ducaris, puellae, maxima huius fabulae pars, stultis toto pectore sunt addictae, sapientem haud secus ac scorpium horrent fugiuntque.

If riches are to be procured, what profit, pray, will the negotiator make if he has followed wisdom? He will be offended at perjury; if caught in mendacity he will blush; if he so much as makes the least account of those anxious scruples of the wise about thefts and usuries. Moreover, if anyone courts Ecclesiastical honors and wealth, into them even an ass or a buffalo will penetrate more quickly than a wise man. If you are led by pleasure, girls—the greatest part of this play—are devoted with their whole breast to fools, and they shudder at and flee a wise man no otherwise than a scorpion.

Denique quicumque paulo festivius ac laetius vivere parant, sapientem inprimis excludunt, ac quodvis animal potius admittunt. Breviter quoquo te vertas, apud pontifices, principes, iudices, magistratus, amicos, hostes, maximos, minimos, omnia praesentibus nummis parantur: quos uti contemnit sapiens, ita illum sedulo fugere consueverunt. Sed cum laudum mearum nullus sit modus, neque finis, tamen oratio aliquando finem habeat, necesse est.

Finally, whoever prepare to live a little more festively and more joyfully, exclude the wise man first of all, and admit rather any animal whatsoever. Briefly, wherever you turn yourself, among pontiffs, princes, judges, magistrates, friends, enemies, the greatest and the least, everything is procured by ready coin: which, inasmuch as the wise man contemns them, so they have been accustomed assiduously to shun him. But since there is no measure nor end of my praises, nevertheless it is necessary that the speech at some time have an end.

Itaque desinam dicere, sed si prius ostendero paucis, non deesse magnos auctores, qui me litteris suis pariter ac factis illustrarint, ne cui forte stulte mihi soli videar placere, neve legulei calumnientur, me nihil allegare. Ad ipsorum igitur exemplum allegabimus, hoc est, ouden pros epos.

Therefore I will cease to speak, but only after I shall first have shown in a few words that there are not lacking great authors who have illustrated me by their letters as well as by their deeds, lest I perhaps may seem to anyone foolishly to please myself alone, and lest the legalists calumniate me for alleging nothing. To their example, therefore, we shall allege, that is, “nothing to the point.”

62. Principio illud omnibus vel notissimo proverbio persuasum est: Ubi res abest, ibi simulationem esse optimam. Eoque recte statim traditur hic versus pueris: Stultitiam simulare loco, sapientia summa est. Vos iam ipsi coniicite, quam ingens sit bonum Stultitia, cuius etiam fallax umbra, et imitatio sola tantum laudis meretur a doctis.

62. To begin with, this is persuaded to all by a most well-known proverb: Where the reality is absent, there simulation is best. And so, straightway this verse is rightly handed down to boys: To simulate Folly in its place is highest wisdom. Do you now yourselves conjecture how immense a good Folly is, whose even deceptive shadow, and mere imitation alone, merits so much praise from the learned.

Sed multo candidius pinguis ille ac nitidus Epicuri de grege porcus miscere stultitiam consiliis iubet, tametsi brevem non admodum scite addidit. Item alibi: 'Dulce est desipere in loco.' Rursum alio in loco, mavult 'delirus, inersque videri, quam sapere, et ringi.' Iam apud Homerum Telemachus, quem modis omnibus laudat poeta subinde nêpios appellatur, atque eodem praenomine tamquam felicis ominis libenter pueros et adolescentes vocare solent tragici. Quid autem sacrum Iliadis carmen, nisi stultorum regum et populorum continet iras?

But much more candidly, that pinguid and nitid (fat and sleek) pig from the herd of Epicurus bids us mix folly with counsels, although he added “brief” not very skillfully. Likewise elsewhere: ‘It is sweet to play the fool in place.’ Again in another place, he prefers ‘to seem delirious and inert, rather than to be wise and snarl.’ Even already in Homer, Telemachus, whom the poet praises in every way, is repeatedly called nêpios, and the tragic poets are wont gladly to call boys and adolescents by the same praenomen as if of a happy omen. And what does the sacred song of the Iliad contain, but the wraths of foolish kings and peoples?

Porro quam absoluta laus illa Ciceronis? Stultorum sunt plena omnia. Quis enim ignorat, unumquodque bonum, quo latius patet, hoc esse praestantius?

Furthermore, how absolute is that praise of Cicero? Everything is full of fools. For who is ignorant that each good, the more widely it extends, by so much the more preeminent it is?

63. Atqui fortassis apud Christianos horum levis est auctoritas. Proinde Sacrarum quoque Litterarum testimoniis, si videtur, laudes nostras fulciamus, sive ut docti solent, fundemus, principio veniam a Theologis praefatae, ut nobis fas esse velint, deinde quoniam arduam rem aggredimur, et fortassis improbum fuerit denuo Musas ex Helicone, ad tantum itineris revocare, praesertim cum res sit alienior, fortasse magis conveniet optare, ut interim dum Theologum ago, perque has spinas ingredior, Scoti anima paulisper ex sua Sorbona in meum pectus demigret, quovis hystrice atque erinaceo spinosior, moxque remigret quo lubebit, vel es korakas. Utinam et vultum alium liceat sumere, et ornatus adsit Theologicus.

63. And yet perhaps among Christians the authority of these is slight. Accordingly, by the testimonies of the Sacred Letters too, if it seems good, let us buttress our praises, or, as the learned are wont, found them, first, asking pardon beforehand from the Theologians, that they may be willing that it be permitted to us; then, since we are undertaking an arduous matter, and perhaps it would be overbold to recall the Muses anew from Helicon for so long a journey, especially since the matter is rather more alien, perhaps it will be more fitting to wish that, meanwhile while I play the Theologian, and as I enter upon these thorns, the soul of Scotus may for a little while migrate down from his Sorbonne into my breast, more spiny than any porcupine and hedgehog, and soon migrate back whithersoever it will please, or to the crows. Would that it were permitted also to assume another visage, and that a Theological adornment be at hand.

Verum illud interim vereor, ne quis me furti ream agat, quasi clanculum Magistrorum Nostrorum scrinia compilaverim, quae tantum rei Theologicae teneam. Sed non adeo mirum videri debet, si tam diutina, quae mihi arctissima est, cum Theologis consuetudine, nonnihil arripui, cum ficulnus etiam ille Deus Priapus, nonnullas Graecas voces, legente domino, subnotarit tenueritque. Et gallus Lucianicus longo hominum convictu sermonem humanum expedite calluerit.

But this meanwhile I fear, lest someone arraign me on a charge of theft, as though I had clandestinely pillaged the scrinia of Our Masters, seeing that I hold so much of Theological matter. Yet it ought not to seem so marvelous, if from a so long-continued familiarity with the Theologians, which is to me most close, I have snatched up something—since even that fig-wood god Priapus, while his master was reading, has annotated and retained some Greek words; and the cock of Lucian, through long companionship with men, became deftly skilled in human speech.

Sed iam ad rem bonis avibus. Scripsit Ecclesiastes capite primo: Stultorum infinitus est numerus. Cum numerum praedicat infinitum, nonne mortaleis universos complecti videtur, praeter pauculos aliquot, quos, haud scio, an cuiquam videre contigerit?

But now to the matter under good auspices. Ecclesiastes wrote in chapter 1: “The number of fools is infinite.” Since he predicates the number as infinite, does he not seem to encompass all mortals, except a very few some, whom—I scarcely know whether it has befallen anyone to see?

Sed magis ingenue confitetur hoc Ieremias cap. 10. 'Stultus', inquiens, 'factus est omnls homo a sapientia sua.' Soli Deo tribuit sapientiam, universis hominibus stultitiam relinquens. Ac rursum paulo superius: Ne glorietur homo in sapientia sua.

But more ingenuously Jeremiah confesses this, chapter 10. 'Foolish,' says he, 'has every man been made by his wisdom.' To God alone he attributes sapience, leaving stupidity to all men. And again a little above: Let not a man glory in his wisdom.

Cur non vis hominem in sua sapientia gloriari, optime Ieremia? Nimirum, inquiet, ob id, quia non habet sapientiam. Sed ad Ecclesiasten redeo.

Why do you not wish man to glory in his own wisdom, most excellent Jeremiah? Assuredly, he says, for this reason, because he does not have wisdom. But I return to Ecclesiastes.

Hunc, cum exclamat: 'Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas,' quid aliud sensisse creditis, nisi, quemadmodum diximus, vitam humanam nihil aliud quam Stultitiae ludicrum esse? nimirum Ciceronianae laudi album addentem calculum, cuius optimo iure celebratur illud, quod modo retulimus: 'stultorum plena sunt omnia'. Rursum sapiens ille Ecclesiasticus, qui dixit: 'Stultus mutatur ut Luna, sapiens permanet ut Sol,' quid aliud innuit, nisi mortale genus omne stultum esse, soli Deo, sapientis nomen competere? Siquidem Lunam humanam naturam interpretantur, Solem omnis luminis fontem, Deum.

When he exclaims: 'Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity,' what else do you believe he has meant, except, as we have said, that human life is nothing other than the sport of Folly? assuredly adding a white pebble to the Ciceronian praise, for which with the best right that saying is celebrated, which we have just reported: 'everything is full of fools.' Again, that wise Ecclesiasticus, who said: 'The fool is changed like the Moon, the wise man remains as the Sun,' what else does he intimate, except that the whole mortal race is foolish, and that to God alone the name of wise befits? Since they interpret the Moon as human nature, the Sun as the source of all light, God.

Huic adstipulatur quod ipse Christus in Euangelio negat, quemquam appellandum bonum, nisi Deum unum. Porro si stultus est, quisquis sapiens non est, et quisquis bonus, idem sapiens, auctoribus Stoicis, nimirum mortales omneis Stultitia complectatur necessum est. Iterum Salomon cap.

This is supported by what Christ himself denies in the Gospel: that anyone is to be called good except the one God. Furthermore, if whoever is not wise is a fool, and, according to Stoic authorities, whoever is good is the same as wise, then of necessity Folly embraces all mortals. Again, Solomon, ch.

15 'Stultitia', inquit, 'gaudium stulto', videlicet, manifeste confitens, sine stultitia nihil in vita suave esse. Eodem pertinet illud quoque: 'Qui apponit scientiam, apponit dolorem, et in multo sensu, multa indignatio.' An non idem palam confitetur egregius ille concionator cap. 7: 'Cor sapientum, ubi tristitia est: et cor stultorum, ubi laetitia'. Eoque non satis habuit sapientiam perdiscere, nisi nostri quoque cognitionem addidisset.

15 'Folly,' he says, 'is joy to the fool,' namely, openly confessing that without folly nothing in life is suave. To the same point pertains also this: 'He who adds knowledge, adds pain, and with much sense, much indignation.' Does not that distinguished preacher likewise openly confess the same in chap. 7: 'The heart of the wise is where sadness is; and the heart of fools, where gladness is'? And he did not think it sufficient to have thoroughly learned wisdom, unless he had added a knowledge of me as well.

Quod si mihi parum habetur fidei, ipsius accipite verba, quae scripsit cap. 1: 'Dedique cor meum, ut scirem prudentiam atque doctrinam, erroresque et stultitiam.' Quo quidem loco illud animadvertendum, ad Stultitiae laudem pertinere, quod eam posteriore posuit loco. Ecclesiastes scripsit, et hunc scitis esse ordinem Ecclesiasticum, ut qui dignitate primus sit, is locum obtineat extremum vel hic certe memor Euangelici praecepti.

But if too little trust is put in me, take his very words, which he wrote ch. 1: 'And I gave my heart, that I might know prudence and doctrine, and errors and folly.' In which passage indeed this is to be noted, that it pertains to the praise of Stultitia (Folly), that he has placed her in the later position. Ecclesiastes wrote this, and you know this to be the ecclesiastical order: that he who is first in dignity obtains the last place—or at least here he is mindful of the Evangelic precept.

Sed Stultitiam praestantiorem esse Sapientia, et Ecclesiasticus ille quisquis fuit, liquido testatur cap. 44. cuius mehercle verba non prius proferam, quam eisagôgên meam commoda responsione adiuveritis, ut faciunt apud Platonem hi, qui cum Socrate disputant. Utra magis convenit recondere, quae rara sunt et pretiosa, an quae vulgaria viliaque?

But that Folly is more outstanding than Wisdom, that Ecclesiastes—whoever he was—plainly attests in chapter 44. By Hercules, I will not bring forward his words before you have aided my introduction with a fitting response, as they do in Plato, those who dispute with Socrates. Which is it more suitable to lay up, the things that are rare and precious, or those that are common and paltry?

Quid tacetis? Etiam si vos dissimuletis, proverbium illud Graecorum pro vobis respondet, tên epi thurais hudrian, quod ne quis impie reiiciat, refert Aristoteles magistrorum nostrorum Deus. An quisquam vestrum tam stultus est, ut gemmas et aurum in via relinquat?

Why are you silent? Even if you dissemble, that proverb of the Greeks answers for you, "tên epi thurais hudrian"—"the water-jar at the doors"; which, lest anyone impiously reject, Aristotle, the God of our teachers, relates. Or is any one of you so stupid as to leave gems and gold in the road?

non, hercle, opinor. In abditissimis penetralibus, nec id satis, in munitissimorum scriniorum secretissimis angulis ista reponitis, coenum in propatulo relinquitis. Ergo si quod pretiosius est reconditur, quod vilius exponitur, nonne palam est, sapientiam quam vetat abscondi, viliorem esse stultitia quam recondi iubet?

No, by Hercules, I think not. In the most hidden penetralia—and not even that suffices—you store those things away in the most secret corners of the most fortified chests, while you leave the mud in the open. Therefore, if what is more precious is recondited, and what is cheaper is exposed, is it not manifest that wisdom, which it forbids to be hidden, is viler than the foolishness which it bids to be stored away?

Iam ipsius testimonii verba accipite: 'Melior est homo qui abscondit stultitiam suam, quam homo qui abscondit sapientiam suam.' Quid quod animi quoque canordem Divinae litterae stulto tribuunt, cum sapiens interim neminem sui similem putet. Sic enim intelligo, id quod scribit Ecclesiastes, cap. 10. 'Sed et in via stultus ambulans, cum ipse insipiens sit, omneis, stultos existimat.' An non istud eximii cuiusdam candoris est, omnes aequare tibi ipsi, cumque nemo non magnifice de se sentiat, omnibus tamen tuas communicare laudes?

Now receive the very words of the testimony: 'Better is the man who hides his foolishness than the man who hides his wisdom.' What of the fact that the Divine Letters also attribute candor of mind to the fool, while the wise man meanwhile thinks no one like himself? Thus indeed I understand that which Ecclesiastes writes, chapter 10. 'But also, as he walks on the way, the fool—since he himself is insipient—thinks everyone to be fools.' Is not that of a certain exceptional candor, to make all equal to yourself, and, although no one fails to think grandly of himself, nevertheless to share your praises with all?

Proinde nec puduit tantum regem huius cognominis, cum ait cap. 30. 'Stultissimus sum virorum'. Neque Paulus ille gentium doctor, Corinthiis scribens, stulti cognomen illibenter agnoscit: 'Ut insipiens', inquit, 'dico, plus ego, perinde quasi turpe sit vinci stultitia'. Sed interim obstrepunt mihi Graeculi quidam, qui tot huius temporis Theologorum, ceu cornicum oculos student configere, dum annotationes suas, veluti fumos quosdam aliis offundunt, cuius gregis si non Alpha, certe Beta meus est Erasmus, quem ego saepius honoris causa nomino. O vere stultam, inquiunt, et ipsa dignam MORIA citationem.

Accordingly, it did not shame so great a king of this name, when he says in chapter 30, “I am the most foolish of men.” Nor does that Paul, the doctor of the nations, writing to the Corinthians, not unwillingly acknowledge the cognomen “fool”: “As an insipient,” he says, “I say: I more,” as if it were disgraceful to be conquered in foolishness. But meanwhile certain Greeklings make a clamor against me, who strive, like crows, to transfix the eyes of so many Theologians of our time, while they pour their annotations over others as though some fumes; of which flock, if not the Alpha, certainly the Beta is my Erasmus, whom I more often name for honor’s sake. “O truly a foolish,” they say, “and one worthy of MORIA itself, citation.”

Longe diversa mens Apostoli quam tu somnias ! Nec enim hoc agit his verbis, ut caeteris stultior haberetur, verum eum dixisse, 'ministri Christi sunt; et ego', seque veluti iactabundus in hac quoque parte aequasset caeteris, per correctionem adiecit, 'plus ego', sentiens, se non modo parem reliquis Apostolis in Euangelii ministerio, verum etiam aliquanto superiorem. Idque cum ita verum videri vellet, ne tamen ut arrogantius dictum offenderet aures, praemuniit stultitiae praetextu. Ut minus sapiens dico, propterea quod diceret esse stultorum privilegium, ut soli, verum citra offensam, proloquantur.

Far different is the mind of the Apostle than you dream ! For he is not doing this with these words, that he might be held more foolish than the others, but that, when he said, ‘They are ministers of Christ; and I,’ and had, as it were vaunting, equated himself with the others in this part also, by way of correction he added, ‘I more,’ perceiving himself to be not only equal to the remaining Apostles in the ministry of the Gospel, but even somewhat superior. And since he wished this thus to seem true, yet lest, as spoken more arrogantly, it should offend ears, he pre-fortified it with the pretext of foolishness: ‘As less wise I say,’ because he would say that it is the privilege of fools that they alone speak forth the truth without offense.

Verum quid Paulus senserit cum haec scriberet, ipsis disputandum relinquo. Ego magnos, pingues, crassos, et vulgo probatissimos Theologos sequor, cum quibus magna pars doctorum errare, nê ton Dia, malit, quam cum istis trilinguibus bene sentire. Neque quisquam illorum Graeculos istos pluris facit quam graculos: praesertim cum quidam gloriosus Theologus, cuius ego nomen prudens supprimo, ne graculi nostri continuo Graecum in illum scomma iaciant onos luras: Magistraliter et Theologaliter hunc passum enarrans, ab hoc loco.

But what Paul thought when he wrote these things I leave to be disputed by themselves. I follow the great, fat, thick, and by the crowd most approved Theologians, with whom the greater part of the learned would rather—by Zeus—err than think well with those trilinguals. Nor does any of them value those little Greeks more than jackdaws: especially since a certain vainglorious Theologian, whose name I prudently suppress, lest our jackdaws straightway hurl at him a Greek scoff, “an ass to the lyre,” expounding this passage magisterially and theologically, from this point.

Ut minus sapiens dico, plus ego, novum facit caput, et quod absque summa Dialectica non poterat, novam addit sectionem, ad hunc interpretans modum: Adducam enim ipsius verba non solum in forma, verum etiam in materia. 'Ut minus sapiens dico, id est, si videor vobis insipiens, me Pseudapostolis adaequando, adhuc videbor vobis minus sapiens, me eis praeferendo'. Quamquam idem paulo post, velut oblitus sui alio delabitur.

I say, as less wise: “I more,” he opens a new chapter, and, what he could not have done without consummate Dialectic, he adds a new section, interpreting in this manner: For I will adduce his very words not only in form but also in matter. “I say, as less wise, that is, if I seem to you foolish by equating myself with the Pseudo-apostles, I shall still seem to you less wise by preferring myself to them.” Although the same man a little later, as if forgetful of himself, slips away into something else.

64. Sed cur anxie me unius exemplo tueor? cum hoc publicum ius sit Theologorum, coelum, hoc est, Divinam Scripturam, ceu pellem extendere: cum apud divum Paulum pugnent Divinae Scripturae verba, quae suo loco non pugnant, si qua fides illi pentaglôttô Hieronymo, cum Athenis forte conspectum arae titulum torqueret in argumentum fidei Christianae, ac caeteris omissis, quae causae fuerant offectura, duo tantum extrema verba decerpserit, nempe haec, IGNOTO DEO, atque haec quoque nonnihil immutata, siquidem integer titulus sic habebat: DIIS ASIAE, EUROPAE, ET AFRICAE, DIIS IGNOTIS, ET PEREGRINIS. Ad huius, opinor, exemplum passim iam hoi tôn theologôn paides, hinc atque hinc revulsa, quatuor aut quinque verbula, et si quid opus est, etiam depravata ad suam accommodant utilitatem, licet ea quae praecedunt et consequuntur, aut nihil omnino faciant ad rem, aut reclament quoque.

64. But why do I anxiously shield myself by a single example? since this is the common right of Theologians, to stretch heaven, that is, Divine Scripture, like a hide: since in the divine Paul the words of Divine Scripture are at strife, which in their own place are not at strife, if any trust is due to that pentaglot Jerome, when he was twisting a title of an altar seen by chance at Athens into an argument for the Christian faith, and, omitting the rest, which would have affected the case, plucked only the last two words, namely these, TO AN UNKNOWN GOD, and these too somewhat altered, since the entire title ran thus: TO THE GODS OF ASIA, EUROPE, AND AFRICA, TO UNKNOWN AND FOREIGN GODS. After this example, I suppose, everywhere now the boys of the theologians, having torn from here and there four or five little words, and, if need be, even depraved, accommodate them to their own utility, although the things which precede and follow either have nothing at all to do with the matter, or even protest against it.

Quod quidem faciunt tam felici impudentia, ut saepenumero theologis invideant iureconsulti. Quid enim illis iam non succedat, posteaquam magnus ille, paene nomen effutiveram, sed rursus metuo Graecum proverbium, ex Lucae verbis sententiam expresserit, tam consentaneam animo Christi quam igni cum aqua convenit. Etenim cum immineret extremum periculum, quo tempore solent boni clientes maxime suis adesse patronis, et quanta valent ope summachein, Christus hoc agens, ut omnem huiusmodi praesidiorum fiduciam eximeret ex animis suorum, percontatus est eos, numquid rei defuisset usquam, cum illos emisisset, adeo non instructos viatico, ut nec calceis muniret adversus spinarum et saxorum iniuriam, nec peram adderet, adversus famem.

Which indeed they do with such felicitous impudence that the jurisconsults often envy the theologians. For what now does not succeed for them, after that great man—I had almost blurted out his name, but again I fear a Greek proverb—has wrung from Luke’s words a sententia as consentaneous with the mind of Christ as fire agrees with water. For when the last peril was impending, at the very time when good clients are wont most to be present to their patrons and to “fight alongside” with all the aid they can (to symmachein), Christ, aiming at this, to strip from the souls of his own all trust in protections of this sort, asked them whether they had anywhere lacked anything, when he had sent them forth so ill-provided with viaticum that he neither armed them with shoes against the injury of thorns and rocks nor added a bag against hunger.

Ubi negassent defuisse quidquam, adiecit: 'Sed nunc, inquit, qui habet sacculum tollat, similiter et peram: et qui non habet, vendat tunicam suam, et emat gladium'. Cum tota Christi doctrina, nihil aliud inculcet, quam mansuetudinem, tolerantiam, vitae contemptum, cui non perspicuum sit, quid hoc loco sentiat? nempe, ut magis etiam exarmet suos legatos, ut non tantum calceos negligant et peram, verum et tunicam insuper abiiciant, nudique et prorsus expediti, munus Euangelicum aggrediantur, nihil sibi parent, nisi gladium, non istum quo grassantur latrones, et parricidae, sed gladium spiritus, in intimos quoque pectoris sinus penetrantem, qui semel affectus omneis sic amputat, ut nihil iam illis cordi sit, praeter pietatem. At videte, quaeso, quorsum haec torqueat celebris ille theologus: Gladium interpretatur defensionem adversus persecutionem, sacculum sufficientem commeatus provisionem, perinde quasi Christus commutata in diversum sententia, quod oratores suos parum basilkôs instructos emisisse videretur, superioris institutionis palinodiam canat.

When they had denied that anything had been lacking, he added: 'But now,' he says, 'let him who has a purse take it up, and likewise a bag; and he who does not have, let him sell his tunic and buy a sword.' Since the whole doctrine of Christ inculcates nothing else than mansuetude, tolerance, contempt of life, to whom is it not plain what he means in this place? namely, that he may yet more disarm his legates, that they not only neglect shoes and a bag, but even cast away their tunic besides, and, naked and altogether unencumbered, may undertake the Evangelical office, preparing nothing for themselves except a sword—not that with which robbers and parricides make their onslaught, but the sword of the spirit, penetrating even into the inmost folds of the breast, which once for all cuts off all affections, so that now nothing is at their heart except piety. But look, I pray, to what end that celebrated theologian twists these things: he interprets the sword as defense against persecution, the purse as a sufficient provision of supplies, just as though Christ, having changed his mind to the contrary, because his orators seemed to have been sent out not very royally equipped, were to sing a palinode of his former instruction.

Aut velut oblitus quod dixerat beatos fore, cum probris, contumeliis et suppliciis affligerentur, prohibens ne quando resisterent malo, mites enim beatos esse, non feroces, oblitus quod illos ad passerum, et liliorum exemplum vocarit, nunc adeo noluerit eos absque gladio proficisci, ut eum vel tunica divendita iubeat emi, malitque nudos ire, quam non accinctos ferro. Ad haec quemadmodum gladii nomine contineri putat, quidquid ad depellendam vim pertinet, ita marsupii titulo complectitur, quidquid ad vitae pertinet necessitatem. Atque ita Divinae mentis interpres Apostolos lanceis, ballistis, fundis et bombardis instructos educit ad praedicationem crucifixi.

Or as though forgetful that he had said they would be blessed when they were afflicted with reproaches, contumelies, and tortures, forbidding that they ever resist evil—for the meek are blessed, not the ferocious—forgetful that he had called them to the example of the sparrows and of the lilies, now he so far should not wish them to set out without a sword as to order that it be bought even with the tunic sold, and to prefer that they go naked rather than not girt with iron. Moreover, just as he thinks that under the name of “sword” is contained whatever pertains to driving off force, so under the title of “purse” he includes whatever pertains to the necessity of life. And thus the interpreter of the Divine mind leads out the Apostles equipped with lances, ballistas, slings, and bombards to the preaching of the Crucified.

Loculis item, vidulis, et sarcinis onerat, ne forte non liceat illis e diversorio discedere, nisi impransis. Nec vel illud commovit hominem, quod ensem, quem tantopere iusserat emi, mox idem obiurgans iubeat recondi, quodque numquam fando sit auditum, Apostolos ensibus aut clypeis usos adversus vim Ethnicorum, utique usuros, si Christus hoc sensisset, quod hic interpretatur. Est alius, quem honoris causa non nomino, haud quaquam postremi nominis, qui e tentoriis, quorum meminit Habacuk, 'turbabuntur pelles terrae Madian', pellem fecerit Bartholomaei excoriati.

Likewise he loads them with little coffers, valises, and packs, lest perhaps it be not permitted them to depart from the inn, unless without having lunched. Nor did even this move the man, that the sword, which he had so greatly ordered to be bought, presently the same, chiding, orders to be put away; and that it has never been heard tell that the Apostles used swords or shields against the violence of the Gentiles—surely they would have used them, if Christ had meant what this man interprets. There is another, whom for honor’s sake I do not name, by no means of the lowest name, who, from the tents of which Habakkuk makes mention, “the skins of the land of Midian shall be troubled,” has made out the skin of flayed Bartholomew.

Ipsa nuper interfui dissertationi Theologicae, (nam id facio frequenter). Ibi cum quispiam exigeret, quae tandem esset Divinarum Litterarum auctoritas, quae iuberet Haereticos incendio vinci, magis quam disputatione revinci: Senex quidam severus, et, vel supercilio teste, Theologus, magno stomacho respondit, hanc legem tulisse Paulum Apostolum, qui dixerit: 'Haereticum hominem post unam et alteram correptionem devita'. Cumque ea verba idemtidem intonaret, et plerique demirarentur quid accidisset homini, tandem explanavit, de vita tollendum haereticum. Risere quidam, nec deerant tamen quibus hoc commentum plane theologicum videretur, caeterum reclamantibus etiamnum nonnullis successit Tenedios, quod aiunt, sunêgopos et auctor irrefragabilis. Accipite rem, inquit: Scriptum est: 'Maleficum ne patiaris vivere': Omnis Haereticus maleficus: Ergo etc.

I myself was lately present at a Theological disputation, (for I do that frequently). There, when someone demanded what, at length, was the authority of the Divine Letters that would order Heretics to be conquered by fire rather than refuted by disputation: a certain severe old man, and, his eyebrow itself as witness, a Theologian, replied with great indignation, that the Apostle Paul had carried this law, who said: 'Avoid a heretical man after one and a second correction.' And when he kept thundering those words again and again, and many were wondering what had come over the man, at last he explained that the heretic must be taken from life. Some laughed, nor were there lacking, however, those to whom this contrivance seemed plainly theological; but with some still protesting, there then succeeded, as they say, a Tenedian co-advocate and an irrefragable authority. 'Take the matter,' he says: It is written: 'Do not allow a malefic to live': Every Heretic is a malefic: Therefore, etc.

Mirati quotquot aderant, hominis ingenium, et in eam sententiam itum est pedibus, et quidem peronatis. Neque cuiquam venit in mentem, legem eam ad sortilegos et incantatores, ac magos at tinere, quos Hebraei sua lingua vocant mekaschephim, alioqui fornicationem et ebrietatem capite punire oportuit.

All who were present marveled at the man’s genius, and into that opinion it was gone by feet—indeed, with buskined ones. Nor did it come into anyone’s mind that that law pertains to sortilegers and incantators and magi, whom the Hebrews in their own tongue call mekaschephim; otherwise fornication and ebriety ought to be punished capitally.

65. Verum haec stulte persequor, tam innumera, ut nec Chrysippi, nec Didymi voluminibus omnia comprehendi possint. Illud dumtaxat admonitos volebam, cum haec divinis illis magistris licuerint, mihi quoque plane sukinê theologô, par est dare veniam, si minus omnia ad amussim citavero. Nunc tandem ad Paulum redeo: 'Libenter', inquit, 'fertis insipientes,' de sese loquens.

65. But I pursue these things foolishly, so innumerable that neither the volumes of Chrysippus nor of Didymus could comprehend them all. This only I wished to have you admonished of: since these things were permitted to those divine masters, it is fair to grant me also pardon—plainly, indulgence to the theologian—if I have not cited everything to the plumb-line. Now at last I return to Paul: “Willingly,” he says, “you bear with fools,” speaking about himself.

Et rursum 'velut insipientem accipite me.' Et: 'Non loquor secundum Deum, sed quasi in insipientia'. Rursum alibi: 'Nos', inquit, 'stulti propter Christum.' Audistis a quanto auctore quanta stultitiae praeconia. Quid, quod idem palam Stultitiam praecipit, ut rem in primis necessariam et oppido salutarem. 'Qui videtur esse sapiens inter vos, stultus fiat, ut sit sapiens'. Et apud Lucam, duos discipulos, quibus se iunxerat in via Iesus, stultos appellat.

And again, 'receive me as though a fool.' And: 'I do not speak according to God, but as if in foolishness.' Again elsewhere: 'We,' he says, 'are fools because of Christ.' You have heard from how great an author how great proclamations of Foolishness. What of the fact that the same man openly prescribes Folly, as a thing primarily necessary and exceedingly salutary? 'He who seems to be wise among you, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.' And in Luke, he calls foolish the two disciples to whom Jesus had joined himself on the way.

Illud haud scio, an mirum videatur, cum Deo quoque nonnihil stultitiae tribuit divinus ille Paulus: 'Quod stultum est', inquit, 'Dei, sapientius est hominibus'. Porro Origenes interpres obsistit, quo minus hanc stultitiam ad hominum opinionem possis referre: quod genus est illud: 'Verbum crucis pereuntibus quidem stultitiam'. Sed quid ego frustra anxia, tot testimoniis haec docere pergo, cum in psalmis mysticis palam ipse Christus loquatur Patri: 'Tu scis insipientiam meam?' Neque vero temere est, quod Deo stulti tam impense placuerunt: opinor propterea, quod quemadmodum summi principes nimium cordatos suspectos habent, et invisos, ut Iulius Brutum et Cassium, cum ebrium Antonium nihil metueret, utque Nero Senecam, Dionysius Platonem: contra crassioribus, ac simplicioribus ingeniis delectantur. Itidem Christus sophous istos, suaque nitentes prudentia semper detestatur, ac damnat. Testatur id Paulus haud quaquam obscure, cum ait: 'Quae stulta sunt mundi elegit Deus', cumque ait, 'Deo visum esse, ut per stultitiam servaret mundum', quandoquidem per sapientiam restitui non poterat.

I do not know whether this will seem a wonder, that that divine Paul also attributes somewhat of foolishness to God: “What is foolish of God,” he says, “is wiser than men.” Moreover Origen, the interpreter, opposes, so that you may not be able to refer this foolishness to the opinion of men—the kind of thing which is: “The word of the cross is indeed foolishness to those who are perishing.” But why do I anxiously, to no purpose, go on teaching these things with so many testimonies, when in the mystical psalms Christ himself openly speaks to the Father: “Thou knowest my senselessness?” Nor indeed is it without reason that fools have so earnestly pleased God: I suppose because, just as the highest princes hold men who are overly shrewd in suspicion and hatred—like Julius [Caesar] Brutus and Cassius, while he feared nothing from a drunken Antony; and as Nero [feared] Seneca, and Dionysius Plato—whereas they take delight in wits more gross and more simple. In like manner Christ always detests and condemns those sophous, relying on their own prudence. Paul bears witness to this by no means obscurely, when he says: “The things that are foolish of the world God has chosen,” and when he says “that it seemed good to God to save the world through foolishness,” since through wisdom it could not be restored.

Quin ipse idem satis indicat, clamans per os Prophetae: 'Perdam sapientiam sapientium, et prudentiam prudentium reprobabo'. Rursum cum agit gratias, quod salutis mysterium celasset sapientes, parvulis autem, hoc est, stultis, aperuisset. Nam Graece pro parvulis, est nêpiois, quos opposuit sophois. Huc pertinet quod passim in Euangelio, Pharisaeos et scribas ac legum doctores incessit, vulgus indoctum sedulo tuetur.

Nay, he himself indicates the same sufficiently, crying through the mouth of the Prophet: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will disapprove.' Again, when he gives thanks, that he had hidden the mystery of salvation from the wise, but to little ones, that is, to fools, had opened it. For in Greek, for 'little ones' it is nêpiois, whom he set in opposition to sophois. To this pertains that, everywhere in the Gospel, he assails the Pharisees and the scribes and the doctors of the law, but sedulously protects the unlearned vulgus.

Quid enim aliud est, 'vae vobis, scribae et pharisaei', quam, 'vae vobis sapientes'? At parvulis, mulieribus, ac piscatoribus potissimum delectatus esse videtur. Quin et ex animantium brutorum genere ea potissimum placent Christo, quae a vulpina prudentia quam longissime absunt. Eoque asino maluit insidere, cum ille, si libuisset, vel leonis tergum impune potuisset premere.

For what else is, 'woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,' than, 'woe to you, wise men'? But he seems to have been most delighted with little ones, women, and fishermen. Indeed, even from the kind of brute living beings, those especially please Christ which are as far as possible from vulpine prudence. And for that reason he preferred to sit upon an ass, although he, if it had pleased him, could with impunity have pressed even a lion’s back.

Ac Spiritus ille sacer in columbae specie delapsus est, non aquilae aut milvii. Praeterea cervorum hinnulorum, agnorum, crebra passim in Divinis Litteris mentio. Adde, quod suos ad immortalem vitam destinatos, oves appellat.

And that holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove, not of an eagle or of a kite. Moreover, of deer’s fawns and of lambs, there is frequent mention everywhere in the Divine Letters. Add that he calls his own, destined for immortal life, sheep.

Quo quidem animante non est aliud insipientius, vel Aristotelico proverbio teste, probateion êthos: quod quidem admonet, ab eius pecudis stoliditate sumptum in stupidos et bardos, convitii loco dici solere. Atqui huius gregis Christus sese pastorem profitetur, quin etiam ipse agni nomine delectatus est, indicante eum Ioanne, Ecce agnus Dei: cuius multa fit et in Apocalypsi mentio. Haec quid aliud clamitant, nisi mortaleis stultos esse, etiam pios?

Than this creature there is no other more foolish, as even the Aristotelian proverb bears witness, “probateion êthos” (“sheepish character”): which indeed reminds us that, taken from the stolidity of this herd-beast, it is wont to be said by way of insult against the stupid and the dull. Yet Christ professes himself the shepherd of this flock; nay more, he himself was pleased with the name of lamb, John pointing him out: “Behold the Lamb of God,” of whom there is much mention also in the Apocalypse. What do these things cry out, if not that mortals are fools, even the pious?

ipsum quoque Christum, quo stultitiae mortalium subveniret, cum esset sapientia Patris, tamen quodammodo stultum esse factum, cum hominis assumpta natura, habitu inventus est ut homo? quemadmodum et peccatum factus est, ut peccatis mederetur. Neque alia ratione mederi voluit quam per stultitiam crucis, per Apostolos idiotas, ac pingues: quibus sedulo stultitiam praecipit, a sapientia deterrens, cum eos ad puerorum, liliorum, sinapis, et passerculorum exemplum provocat, rerum stupidarum ac sensu carentium, soloque naturae ductu, nulla arte, nulla sollicitudine, vitam agentium.

even Christ himself, in order to come to the aid of the stupidity of mortals, although he was the wisdom of the Father, was nevertheless in a certain manner made stupid, when, human nature having been assumed, he was found in habit as a man? just as he was also made sin, that he might heal sins. Nor did he wish to heal in any other way than through the stupidity of the cross, through apostles, idiots and thick; to whom he diligently prescribes stupidity, deterring them from wisdom, when he calls them to the example of children, of lilies, of mustard, and of sparrows—things stupid and lacking sense, and living life by the guidance of nature alone, with no art and no solicitude.

Praeterea cum vetat esse sollicitos, qua essent apud praesides oratione usuri, cumque interdicit, ne scrutentur tempora vel momenta temporum, videlicet, ne quid fiderent suae prudentiae, sed totis animis ex se penderent. Eodem pertinet, quod Deus ille orbis architectus interminatur ne quid de arbore scientiae degustarent, perinde quasi scientia felicitatis sit venenum. Quamquam Paulus aperte scientiam, veluti inflantem et perniciosam improbat.

Moreover, when he forbids them to be solicitous as to what oration they would use before the presiding magistrates, and when he interdicts them from scrutinizing the times or the moments of the times, evidently, lest they trust anything to their own prudence, but with whole souls should depend upon himself. To the same point pertains that God, the architect of the orb, who menaces that they should not degust anything of the tree of science, just as if science were the venom of felicity. Although Paul openly disapproves science as inflating and pernicious.

Quem divus Bernardus, opinor, sequutus, montem eum in quo Lucifer sedem statuerat, scientiae montem interpretatur. Fortasse nec illud omittendum videatur argumentum, gratiosam esse apud superos stultitiam, quod huic solidatur erratorum venia, sapienti non ignoscitur, unde veniam orant, etiam si prudentes peccaverint, tamen stultitiae praetextu patrocinioque utuntur. Nam sic Aaron uxoris poenam deprecatur in Numerorum, si satis commemini, libris: 'Obsecro, domine mi, ne imponas nobis hoc peccatum, quod stulte commisimus'. Sic et Saul apud David culpam deprecatur: 'Apparet enim', inquiens, 'quod stulte egerim'. Rursum ipse David ita blanditur Domino: 'Sed precor, Domine, ut transferas iniquitatem servi tui, quia stulte egimus': perinde quasi non impetraturus veniam, nisi stultitiam et inscitiam obtenderet.

Which the divine Bernard, I think, following, interprets that mountain on which Lucifer had set his seat as the mountain of knowledge. Perhaps that argument too should not seem to be omitted: that folly is gracious with the powers above, in that to it is fastened the pardon of errors, whereas to the wise man it is not forgiven; whence, when they beg pardon, even if the prudent have sinned, nevertheless they use folly’s pretext and patronage. For thus Aaron deprecates the wife’s penalty in the books of Numbers, if I remember well enough: ‘I beseech you, my lord, do not lay upon us this sin which we have committed foolishly.’ So too Saul pleads off his fault before David: ‘For it appears,’ he says, ‘that I have acted foolishly.’ Again David himself so coaxes the Lord: ‘But I pray, Lord, that you transfer the iniquity of your servant, because we have acted foolishly’—as though he were not going to obtain pardon unless he put forward folly and ignorance.

Sed illud acrius urget, quod Christus in cruce, cum oraret pro suis inimicis. 'Pater ignosce illis': non aliam praetexuit excusationem, quam imprudentiae, 'quia nesciunt', inquit, 'quid faciunt'. Ad eumdem modum, Paulus scribens ad Timotheum: 'Sed ideo misericordiam Dei consecutus sum, quia ignorans feci in incredulitate'. Quid est, 'ignorans feci', nisi per stultitiam feci, non malitiam? Quid est, 'ideo misericordiam consecutus sum', nisi non consecuturus, ni stultitiae patrocinio commendatus?

But that presses more sharply, that Christ on the cross, when he was praying for his enemies. 'Father, forgive them': he put forward no other excuse than imprudence, 'because they do not know', he says, 'what they are doing'. In the same way, Paul writing to Timothy: 'But for this reason I have obtained the mercy of God, because I acted ignorantly in incredulity'. What is, 'I acted ignorantly', except 'I acted through stupidity, not malice'? What is, 'for this reason I obtained mercy', except 'I would not have obtained it, had I not been commended by the patronage of stupidity'?

Pro nobis facit et mysticus ille Psalmographus, qui suo loco non veniebat in mentem: 'Delicta iuventutis meae, et ignorantias meas ne memineris'. Audistis quae duo praetexat, nimirum aetatem, cui semper comes esse soleo, et ignorantias, idque numero multitudinis, ut ingentem Stultitiae vim intelligeremus.

On our behalf also does that mystical Psalmographer plead, who did not come to mind in his proper place: “Remember not the offenses of my youth, and my ignorances.” You have heard the two things he pleads as a pretext, namely age, of which I am always wont to be a companion, and ignorances—and that in the number of a multitude—so that we might understand the enormous force of Folly.

66. Ac ne quae sunt infinita persequar, utque summatim dicam, videtur omnino Christiana religio quamdam habere cum aliqua stultitia cognationem, minimeque cum sapientia convenire. Cuius rei si desideratis argumenta primum illud animadvertite, pueros, senes, mulieres, ac fatuos sacris ac religiosis rebus praeter caeteros gaudere, eoque semper altaribus esse proximos, solo, nimirum, naturae impulsu. Praeterea videtis primos illos religionis auctores, mire simplicitatem amplexos, acerrimos litterarum hostes fuisse.

66. And lest I pursue things that are infinite, and to say it summarily, the Christian religion seems altogether to have a certain cognation with some foolishness, and by no means to agree with sapience. If you desire arguments for this matter, take note first of this: boys, old men, women, and the fatuous rejoice in sacred and religious things beyond the rest, and therefore are always nearest to the altars, by the sole, to wit, impulse of nature. Moreover, you see that those first authors of the religion, having marvellously embraced simplicity, were the keenest enemies of letters.

Postremo nulli moriones magis desipere videntur, quam hi, quos Christianae pietatis ardor semel totos arripuit: adeo sua profundunt, iniurias negligunt, falli sese patiuntur, inter amicos et inimicos nullum discrimen, voluptatem horrent, inedia, vigilia, lacrymis, laboribus, contumeliis saginantur, vitam fastidiunt, mortem unice optant, breviter, ad omnem sensum communem prorsus obstupuisse videntur, perinde quasi alibi vivat animus, non in suo corpore. Quod quidem quid aliud est, quam insanire? quo minus mirum videri debet, si Apostoli musto temulenti sunt visi, si Paulus iudici Festo visus est insanire.

Finally, no jesters seem to play the fool more than those whom the ardor of Christian piety has once seized whole: to such a degree they pour out their own goods, neglect injuries, allow themselves to be deceived, make no distinction between friends and enemies, shudder at pleasure, are crammed with fasting, vigil, tears, labors, and contumelies, loathe life, and desire death alone; in brief, they seem utterly to have been benumbed to all common sense, just as if the soul lived elsewhere, not in its own body. What indeed is this, if not to be insane? so that it should seem the less marvelous if the Apostles were seen as drunk with new wine, if Paul seemed to the judge Festus to be mad.

Sed posteaquam semel tên leontên induimus, age doceamus et illud, felicitatem Christianorum, quam tot laboribus expetunt, nihil aliud esse, quam insaniae stultitiaeque genus quoddam, absit invidia verbis, rem ipsam potius expendite. Iam primum illud propemodum Christianis convenit cum Platonicis, animum immersum illigatumque esse corporeis vinculis, huiusque crassitudine praepediri, quo minus ea, quae vere sunt, contemplari, fruique possit. Proinde Philosophiam definit esse mortis meditationem, quod ea mentem a rebus visibilibus, ac corporeis abducat, quod idem utique mors facit.

But after once we have put on the lion’s skin, come, let us also show this: that the felicity of the Christians, which they seek with so many labors, is nothing else than a certain genus of insanity and stupidity—let envy be far from the words; weigh rather the thing itself. To begin with, Christians pretty nearly agree with the Platonists in this: that the soul is immersed and bound with corporeal bonds, and is hampered by the grossness of this [body], so that it is less able to contemplate and to enjoy the things that truly are. Accordingly, he defines Philosophy to be a meditation of death, because it leads the mind away from visible and corporeal things, which same thing death, assuredly, does.

Itaque quam diu animus corporis organis probe utitur, tam diu sanus appellatur, verum ubi ruptis iam vinculis, conatur in libertatem asserere sese, quasique fugam ex eo carcere meditatur, tum insaniam vocant. Id si forte contingit morbo, vitioque organorum, prorsus omnium consensu, insania est. Et tamen hoc quoque genus hominum videmus futura praedicere, scire linguas ac litteras, quas antea numquam didicerant, et omnino divinum quiddam prae se ferre.

Therefore, as long as the mind uses the organs of the body properly, so long it is called sane; but when, the bonds now broken, it tries to assert itself into liberty, and, as it were, meditates a flight from that prison, then they call it insanity. If that happens by disease and by defect of the organs, by the outright consensus of all, it is insanity. And yet we see this genus of men also foretell things to come, to know tongues and letters which they had never learned before, and altogether to bear upon themselves a certain divine something.

Neque dubium est id inde accidere quod mens a contagio corporis paulo liberior incipit nativam sui vim exserere. Idem arbitror esse in causa, cur laborantibus vicina morte, simile quiddam soleat accidere, ut tamquam afflati prodigiosa quaedam loquantur. Rursum si id eveniat studio pietatis, fortasse non est idem insaniae genus, sed tamen adeo confine, ut magna pars hominum meram insaniam esse iudicet, praesertim cum pauculi homunciones ab universo mortalium coetu, tota vita dissentiant.

Nor is there doubt that this happens from the fact that the mind, a little freer from the contagion of the body, begins to exert its native force. I think the same is the cause why, for those laboring with death near at hand, something similar is wont to occur, so that, as if afflated, they speak certain prodigious things. Again, if this comes about by zeal of piety, perhaps it is not the same genus of insanity, yet nevertheless so contiguous to it that a great part of mankind judges it sheer insanity, especially when a few little homunculi dissent from the entire company of mortals for their whole life.

Itaque solet iis usu venire, quod iuxta Platonicum figmentum, opinor, accidere iis, qui in specu vincti rerum umbras mirantur, et fugitivo illi, qui reversus in antrum, veras res vidisse se praedicat, illos longe falli, qui praeter miseras umbras nihil aliud esse credant. Etenim sapiens hic commiseratur, ac deplorat illorum insaniam, qui tanto errore teneantur. Illi vicissim illum veluti delirantem rident, atque eiiciunt.

And so it is wont to come to them in practice, that, according to the Platonic figment, I suppose, it befalls those who, bound in the cave, marvel at the shadows of things; and to that fugitive who, having returned into the cavern, proclaims that he has seen the true realities, that those are greatly deceived who believe that besides the wretched shadows there is nothing else. For the wise man here commiserates and deplores the insanity of those who are held by so great an error. They, in turn, laugh at him as though delirious, and eject him.

Itidem vulgus hominum ea quae maxime corporea sunt, maxime miratur, eaque prope sola putat esse. Contra pii, quo quidquam propius accedit ad corpus, hoc magis negligunt, totique ad invisibilium rerum contemplationem rapiuntur. Nam isti primas partes tribuunt divitiis, proximas corporis commodis, postremas animo relinquunt: quem tamen plerique nec esse credunt, quia non cernatur oculis.

Likewise the vulgar crowd of men most of all marvels at those things which are most corporeal, and thinks that these are almost the only things that are. By contrast, the pious, the nearer anything approaches to the body, so much the more they neglect it, and are wholly rapt into the contemplation of invisible things. For those people assign the first places to riches, the next to the commodities of the body, and leave the last to the soul; which, however, the majority do not even believe to exist, because it is not discerned by the eyes.

E diverso illi primum in ipsum Deum, rerum omnium simplicissimum, toti nituntur: secundum hunc, et tamen in hoc, quod ad illum quam proxime accedit, nempe animum: corporis curam negligunt, pecunias ceu putamina prorsus aspernantur, ac fugitant. Aut si quid huiusmodi rerum tractare coguntur, gravatim, ac fastidienter id faciunt, habent tamquam non habentes, possident tamquam non possidentes. Sunt et in singulis rebus, gradus multum inter istos diversi.

On the contrary, they first strive wholly toward God himself, the most simple of all things; second to Him—and yet in this respect, that which comes as near to Him as possible—namely, the soul: they neglect care of the body, and monies they utterly spurn and flee as mere husks. Or if they are compelled to handle any matters of this sort, they do it grudgingly and with distaste; they have as though not having, they possess as though not possessing. And there are also, in individual things, degrees much differing among them.

Principio sensus tametsi omnes cum corpore cognationem habeant, tamen quidam sunt ex his crassiores, ut tactus, auditus, visus, olfactus, gustus. Quidam magis a corpore semoti, veluti memoria, intellectus, voluntas. Igitur ubi se intenderit animus, ibi valet.

In the first place, although all the senses have cognation with the body, yet some among them are coarser, such as touch, hearing, sight, smell, taste. Some are more removed from the body, as memory, intellect, will. Therefore, where the mind has directed itself, there it prevails.

Pii quoniam omnis animi vis ad ea contendit, quae sunt a crassioribus sensibus alienissima, in his velut obbrutescunt, atque obstupescunt. Contra vulgus in his plurimum valet, in illis quam minimum. Inde est, quod audimus nonnullis divinis viris accidisse, ut oleum vini loco biberint.

The pious, since all the force of their mind strives toward those things which are most alien from the coarser senses, in these they, as it were, grow brutish and are stupefied. Conversely the common crowd is strongest in these, in those as little as possible. Hence it is that we hear it has happened to some divine men that they drank oil in place of wine.

Rursum in affectibus animi, quidam plus habent cum pingui corpore commercii, veluti libido, cibi somnique appetentia, iracundia, superbia, invidia: cum his irreconciliabile bellum piis, contra vulgus sine his vitam esse non putat. Deinde sunt quidam affectus medii, quasique naturales, ut amor patris, caritas in liberos, in parentes, in amicos: His vulgus nonnihil tribuit. At illi hos quoque student ex animo revellere, nisi quatenus ad summam illam animi partem adsurgant, ut iam parentem ament, non tamquam parentem, quid enim ille genuit, nisi corpus ? quamquam hoc ipsum Deo parenti debetur, sed tamquam virum bonum, et in quo luceat imago summae illius mentis, quam unam summum bonum vocant, et extra quam nihil nec amandum nec expetendum esse praedicant.

Again, among the affections of the mind, certain ones have more commerce with the fat body, such as libido, the appetence of food and sleep, iracundity, pride, envy: with these the pious wage an irreconcilable war; by contrast the common crowd does not think life to be without these. Then there are certain middle affections, as it were natural, such as a father’s love, charity toward children, toward parents, toward friends: to these the crowd grants somewhat. But those men strive to tear out even these from the soul, except insofar as they rise up to that highest part of the mind, so that now they love a parent, not as a parent—for what did he beget, except the body?—although even this very thing is owed to God the Parent—but as a good man, and as one in whom the image of that highest Mind shines, which alone they call the supreme good, and outside of which they proclaim that nothing is either to be loved or to be sought after.

Hac eadem regula reliqua item omnia vitae officia metiuntur, ut ubique id quod visibile est, si non est omnino contemnendum, tamen longe minoris faciant, quam ea quae videri nequeunt. Aiunt autem et in Sacramentis, atque ipsis pietatis officiis, corpus et spiritum inveniri. Velut in ieiunio non magni ducunt, si quis tantum a carnibus, coenaque abstineat, id quod vulgus absolutum esse ieiunium existimat, nisi simul et affectibus aliquid adimat, ut minus permittat irae quam soleat, minus superbiae: utque ceu minus iam onustus mole corporea, spiritus ad coelestium bonorum gustum, fruitionemque enitatur.

By this same rule they also mete out likewise all the other offices of life, so that everywhere that which is visible, if it is not to be altogether contemned, yet they make of far less account than those things which cannot be seen. They say moreover that in the Sacraments, and in the very offices of piety, body and spirit are found. For example, in fasting they do not reckon it of great moment if someone only abstains from meats and from supper, which the common crowd thinks to be fasting complete, unless at the same time he also takes something away from the affections, so that he permits less to anger than he is wont, less to pride; and so that, as being now less burdened with the mass of the body, the spirit may strive toward the taste and fruition of heavenly goods.

Similiter et in synaxi, tametsi non est aspernandum, inquiunt, quod cerimoniis geritur, tamen id per se, aut parum est conducibile, aut etiam perniciosum, nisi id quod est spiritale accesserit, nempe hoc quod signis illis visibilibus repraesentatur. Repraesentatur autem mors Christi, quam domitis, exstinctis, quasique sepultis corporis affectibus, exprimere Mortales oportet, ut in novitatem vitae resurgant, utque unum cum illo, unum item inter sese fieri queant. Haec igitur agit, haec meditatur ille pius.

Similarly also in the synaxis, although, they say, what is carried on by ceremonies is not to be spurned, nevertheless that by itself is either little conducive or even pernicious, unless that which is spiritual be added—namely, that which is represented by those visible signs. Now what is represented is the death of Christ, which Mortals ought to express, their bodily affections tamed, extinguished, and as it were buried, so that they may rise again into the newness of life, and that they may become one with him, and likewise one among themselves. These things, therefore, the pious man does; these he meditates.

Contra, vulgus sacrificium nihil aliud esse credit, quam adesse altaribus, idque proxime, audire vocum strepitum, aliasque id genus cerimoniolas spectare. Nec in his tantum, quae dumtaxat exempli gratia proposuimus, sed simpliciter in omni vita refugit pius ab his quae corpori cognata sunt, ad aeterna, ad invisibilia, ad spiritalia rapitur. Proinde cum summa sit inter hos et illos omnibus de rebus dissensio, fit ut utrique alteris insanire videantur.

On the contrary, the common crowd believes sacrifice to be nothing else than to be present at the altars, and that close by, to hear the din of voices, and to behold other little ceremonies of that kind. Nor in these only, which we have proposed merely for example, but simply in the whole of life the pious man flees from those things which are cognate to the body, he is rapt to the eternal, to the invisible, to the spiritual. Accordingly, since there is the utmost dissension between these and those about all matters, it comes to pass that each party seems to the other to be insane.

Quamquam id vocaibuli rectius in pios competit quam in vulgus, mea quidem sententia.

Although, in my opinion, that vocable more rightly befits the pious than the vulgar crowd.

67. Quod quidem magis perspicuum fiet, si quemadmodum pollicita sum, paucis demonstraro, summum illud praemium nihil aliud esse, quam insaniam quamdam. Primum igitur existimate, Platonem tale quiddam iam tum somniasse, cum, amantium furorem omnium felicissimum esse, scriberet. Etenim qui vehementer amat iam non in se vivit, sed in eo quod amat, quoque longius a se ipso digreditur, et in illud demigrat, hoc magis ac magis gaudet.

67. This will indeed become more perspicuous, if, as I have promised, I shall demonstrate in a few words that that highest prize is nothing other than a certain insanity. Therefore, first reckon that Plato already then dreamed something of this sort, when he wrote that the furor of lovers is the most felicitous of all. For he who loves vehemently no longer lives in himself, but in that which he loves; and the further he departs from himself and migrates into that, the more and more he rejoices.

Atque cum animus a corpore peregrinari meditatur, neque probe suis utitur organis, istud haud dubie furorem recte dixeris. Alioqui quid sibi vult, quod vulgo etiam dicunt: 'Non est apud se, et, ad te redi, et, sibi redditus est?' Porro quo amor est absolutior, hoc furor est maior, ac felicior. Ergo quaenam futura est illa coelitum vita, ad quam piae mentes tanto studio suspirant?

And when the mind meditates to peregrinate from the body, and does not properly make use of its own organs, you would without doubt rightly call that madness. Otherwise, what does it mean that people commonly say: 'He is not with himself, and, return to yourself, and, he has been restored to himself?' Moreover, the more absolute the love is, by so much the greater—and more felicitous—the madness is. Therefore, what will that life of the celestials be, for which pious minds sigh with such zeal?

Nempe spiritus absorbebit corpus, utpote victor ac fortior. Idque hoc faciet facilius, partim quod iam velut in suo regno est, partim quod iam olim in vita corpus, ad huiusmodi transformationem repurgarit, atque extenuarit. Deinde spiritus a mente illa summa mire absorbebitur, quippe infinitis partibus potentiore.

Surely the spirit will absorb the body, as victor and stronger. And this it will do more easily, partly because it is already, as it were, in its own kingdom, partly because long ago in life it purged the body for a transformation of this kind and attenuated it. Then the spirit will be wondrously absorbed by that supreme Mind, since it is by infinite parts more potent.

Ita ut iam totus homo extra se futurus sit, nec alia ratione felix futurus, nisi quod extra sese positus, patietur quiddam ineffabile a summo illo bono, omnia in se rapiente. Iam haec felicitas quamquam tum demum perfecta contingit, cum animi receptis pristinis corporibus, immortalitate donabuntur: Tamen quoniam piorum vita nihil aliud est, quam illius vitae meditatio, ac velut umbra quaedam, fit ut praemii quoque illius aliquando gustum aut ardorem aliquem sentiant. Id tametsi minutissima quaedam stillula est, ad fontem illum aeternae felicitatis, tamen longe superat universas corporis voluptates, etiam si omnes omnium mortalium deliciae in unum conferantur.

Thus that already the whole man will be outside himself, nor will he be felicitous on any other account, except that, placed outside himself, he will undergo something ineffable from that highest Good, which snatches all things into itself. Now this felicity, although then at last it comes perfect, when souls, their former bodies having been received back, will be endowed with immortality: nevertheless, since the life of the pious is nothing else than a meditation of that life, and, as it were, a certain shadow, it comes to pass that they also sometimes feel a taste of that reward, or some ardor. Although this, compared to that fountain of eternal felicity, is a certain most minute little droplet, yet it far surpasses all the pleasures of the body, even if all the delights of all mortals were brought together into one.

Usque adeo praestant spiritualia corporalibus, invisibilia visibilibus. Hoc nimirum est quod pollicetur Propheta: 'Oculus non vidit, nec auris audivit, nec in cor hominis adscenderunt, quae praeparavit Deus diligentibus se'. Atque, haec est Moriae pars, quae non aufertur commutatione vitae, sed perficitur. Hoc igitur quibus sentire licuit, contingit autem perpaucis, ii patiuntur quoddam dementiae simillimum, loquuntur quaedam non satis cohaerentia, nec humano more, sed dant sine mente sonum, deinde subinde totam oris speciem vertunt.

To such a degree do spiritual things excel bodily things, the invisible the visible. This, to be sure, is what the Prophet promises: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they ascended into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him'. And this is the part of Folly which is not taken away by a change of life, but is perfected. Therefore, to those to whom it has been permitted to feel this—yet it befalls very few—they undergo something very similar to dementia, they speak certain things not sufficiently coherent, nor in a human manner, but give sound without mind, then ever and again they change the whole look of the face.

Nunc alacres, nunc deiecti, nunc lacrymant, nunc rident, nunc suspirant; in summa, vere toti extra se sunt. Mox ubi ad sese redierint, negant se scire, ubi fuerint, utrum in corpore, an extra corpus, vigilantes an dormientes, quid audierint, quid viderint, quid dixerint, quid fecerint, non meminerunt, nisi tamquam per nebulam, ac somnium, tantum hoc sciunt se felicissimos fuisse, dum ita desiperent. Itaque plorant sese resipuisse, nihilque omnium malint, quam hoc insaniae genus perpetuo insanire.

Now elated, now dejected, now they weep, now they laugh, now they sigh; in sum, truly they are wholly outside themselves. Soon as they have returned to themselves, they deny that they know where they have been—whether in the body or outside the body, awake or asleep—what they heard, what they saw, what they said, what they did; they do not remember, except as if through a mist and a dream; only this do they know: that they were most happy while they were thus out of their wits. And so they weep that they have come back to their senses, and of all things they would prefer nothing to this kind of insanity—to be insane perpetually.

Atque haec est futurae felicitatis tenuis quaedam degustatiuncula.

And this is a certain slight little tasting of future felicity.

68. Verum ego iam dudum oblita mei huper ta eskammena pêdô. Quamquam si quid petulantius aut loquacius a me dictum videbitur, cogitate et Stultitiam, et mulierem dixisse. Sed interim tamen memineritis illius Graecanici proverbii pollaki toi kai môros anêp katakairion eipen, nisi forte putatis hoc ad mulieres nihil attinere. Video vos epilogum exspectare, sed nimium desipitis, siquidem arbitramini, me quid dixerim etiam dum meminisse, cum tantam verborum farraginem effuderim.

68. But I, long since forgetful of myself, am leaping beyond the furrows. Although, if anything shall seem to have been said by me more petulantly or more loquaciously, consider that both Folly and a woman have said it. But meanwhile do remember that Greek proverb: “often even a foolish man has said something to the point,” unless perhaps you think this pertains nothing to women. I see you expect an epilogue, but you are exceedingly foolish, if indeed you suppose that I even now remember what I have said, since I have poured out such a farrago of words.

Vetus illud, misô mnamona sumpotan. Novum hoc, misô mnamona akroatên. Quare valete, plaudite, vivite, bibite, Moriae celeberrimi Mystae.

That old one: “I hate a fellow-drinker with a good memory.” This new one: “I hate a listener with a good memory.” Therefore farewell, applaud, live, drink, most celebrated initiates of Folly.

Telos.

End.