Essais de Michel de Montaigne Livre II Chapitre XX : Nous ne goûtons rien de pur
Michel de Montaigne
Annotated and edited by Jasmine Morden
Introduction
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), known as a distinguished scholarly humanist of the 16th century aimed to exercise his natural judgment. After reading passages from Montaigne’s Essais, I decided that I wanted to explore his ideals focused on relativism and virtue. I chose to focus on chapter XX, titled We Taste Nothing Pure in book II. With his essays, Montaigne continuously enriched his texts and added notes and comments for the sake of variety rather than making corrections (Ferrari, Foglia, 2019). Montaigne rejects Aristotle’s hierarchical conception of human nature develops criticism of science and commended philosophy as the practice of free judgment. We can see that Montaigne dedicated his life and work to the freedom of the mind and soul and that human conduct does not follow the rules of the universe.
I transcribed the French version to the best ability, and when translating, I tried to stick to a similar sentence structure. Due to the various versions of the chapter with Montaigne’s many annotations, I decided to omit these and focus on the original 1588 text. I attempted to keep the structure and spacing of the essay the same combining sentences and phrases only when necessary.
In terms of moral skepticism, Montaigne’s ideas were inspired by philosopher Sextus Empiricus, who wrote how all knowledge can be subsequently disproved by suspending judgment (Ferrari, Foglia, 2019). For the Jansenist thinkers in the Middle Ages, the only alternative to life is faith in God. Montaigne believed that customs are not almighty because their authority can be evaluated or challenged by individual judgment (Ferrari, Foglia, 2019). To contextualize his essays, Montaigne explored judgment on various topics and reflected on his thoughts. He valued that a clear head with independent thinking was something all virtuous men had.
.
Essais de Michel de Montaigne Livre II Chapitre XX : Nous ne goûtons rien de pur
Original French :
La faiblesse de notre condition fait que les choses, en leur simplicité et pureté naturelle, ne puissent pas tomber en notre usage. Les éléments dont nous jouissons, sont altérés ; et les métaux de même ; et l’or, il le faut empirer par quelque autre matière pour l’accommoder à notre service. Des plaisirs et biens que nous avons, il n’en est aucun exempt de quelque mélange de mal et d’incommodité.
Medio de fonte l’eprom
Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat
Notre extrême volupté a quelque air de gémissement et de plainte. Diriez-vous pas qu’elle se meurt d’angoisse ? Voire quand nous en forgeons l’image en son excellence, nous la fardons d’épithètes et qualités maladives et douloureuse : langueur, mollesse, faiblesse, défaillance, Morbidezze ; grand témoignage de leur consanguinité et consubstantiel. C’est que dit un verset Grec ancien, de tel sens : les dieux nous vendent tous les biens qu’ils nous donnent ; c’est-à-dire ils ne nous en donnent aucun pur et parfait, et que nous n’achetons au prix de quelque mal. Métrodore disait quand la tristesse il y a quelque alliage de plaisir : Je ne çay pas s’il voudra dire autre chose : mais moye, j’imagine bien qu’il y a du dessein, du consentement et de la complaisance à se nourrir en la mélancholier, je dis outre l’ambition qui s’y peut encore mêler : il y a quelque ombre de friandise et délicatesse qui nous rit et qui nous flatte au giron même de la mélancholie : Y a-t-il par des complexions qui en font leur aliment.
Est quaedam flere voluptas
Nature nous découvre cette confusion : les peintres tiennent que les mouvements et plis du visage qui servent au pleurer, servent aussi au rire : de vrai, avant que l’un ou l’autre soit achevé d’exprimer, regardez à la conduite de la peinture : vos estes en doute ver lequel c’est qu’on va, & l’extrémité du rire ses me l’aux larmes. Quand je me confesse à moye religieusement, je trouve que la meilleure bonté que j’aye, a de la teinture vicieuse, & craint que Platon en sa plus verte vertu (moye qui en suis autant sincère et loyal estimateur, et des vertus de semblable marque, qu’autre puisse ester), s’il y eut escoute de près, et il y escoutois de près, et il y escoutois e pres, il y eut senti quelque ta gauche de mixtion humaine, mais ton obscur et sensible seulement a soya. L’homme en tout et par tout, n’est que rapiècement et bigarrure. Les Loix mêmes de la justice ne peuvent subsister sans quelques mes langues d’injustice ; et dit Platon que ceux-là entreprennent de couper la teste d’Hydra, qui prétend poster des Loix toutes incommodités et inconvénient.
Omne magnum exemplum habet aliquid ex iniquo, quod contra singulos utilitate publica rependitur, dict Tacitus.
Il est pareillement vrai que, pour l’usage de la vie et service du commerce public, il y a pu avoir de l’excès en la pureté et perspicacité de nos esprits ; cette clarté pénétrante a trop de subtilité et de curiosité. Il les fats appesantir et émousser pour les rendre plus obéissants à l’exemple et à la pratique, et les épaissir et obscurcir pour les proportionner à cette vie ténébreuse et terrestre. Pourtant se trouvent les esprits communs et moins tendus plus propres et plus heureux à conduire affaires : & les opinions de la philosophie élevées et enquises se trouvent ineptes à l’exercice. Cette pointue vivacité d’amé, et cette volubilité souple et inquiète trouble nos négociations : Il faut manier les entreprises humaines plus grossièrement et superficiellement, et en laisser bonne et grande part pour les droits de la fortune. Il n’est pas besoin d’éclairer les affaires si profondément et si subtilement : On s’y perd, a la considération de tant de lustres contraires et formes diverses. Qui en recherche et embrasse toutes les circonstances et conséquences, il empèse son élection : un engin moyen conduit également, et suffit aux exécutions de grand et de petits pois. Regardez que les meilleurs ménagers sont ceux qui nous savent moins dire comment ils le sont, et que ces suffisants conteurs n’y font le plus souvent rien qui vaille. Je çays un grand diseur et très excellent peintre de toute sorte de mésange, qui a laissé bien piteusement couler par ses mains cent mille livres de rente. J’en çays un autre qui dict, qui consulte, mieux qu’homme de son conseil, et n’est point au monde une plus belle montre d’amé et de suffisance ; toutefois, aux effets, ses serviteurs trouvent qu’il est tout autre, je dy sans mettre le malheur en compte.
English Translation :
The weakness of our condition means that things, in their simplicity and natural purity, cannot fall into our use. The elements which we enjoy are altered; and the metals of the same; and gold, it is necessary to worsen it by some other matter to accommodate it to our service. Of the pleasures and goods, we have, there is none free of any mixture of evil and inconvenience.
In the middle of the fountain
There arises something to be loved, which disturbs the flowers themselves.
Our extreme pleasure has some air of groaning and complaint; would you not say that it is dying of pain? Even when we forge the image in its excellence, we paint it with sick and painful epithets and qualities: languor, softness, weakness, failure, Morbidezza; great testimony of their consanguinity and consubstantial. This is what an ancient Greek verse says, of such meaning: the Gods sell us all the goods they give us; that is, they give us nonpure and perfect, and we buy at the price of some evil.[1] Metrodorus said when sadness there is some alloy of pleasure.[2] I can’t tell if he will want to say anything else: but average, I imagine that there is purpose, consent and complacency to feed on the melancholy, I say in addition to the ambition that can still be mixed: there is some shadow of delicacy and delicacy that laughs and flatters us in the very lap of melancholy: Are there by complexions that make them their food.[3]
There is a certain pleasure in weeping.
Nature reveals this confusion: the painters hold that the movements and folds of the face that serve to cry, also serve to laugh at the truth, before either is finished expressing, look at the conduct of the painting: You are in doubt as to which it is that we are going, & the end of laughter it’s me to tears. When I confess to medium religiously, I find that the best goodness that I have, has vicious tincture, & fears that Plato in his greenest virtue (medium who am as sincere and loyal estimator, and virtues of similar brand, that other may ester) If there were close squads, and there were close squads, and there were close squads, there would be some sense of your left of human mixing, but your dark and sensitive only soy. The man in all and by all, is only patching and variegation. The very law of justice cannot subsist without some of my tongues of injustice; and said Plato that these undertake to cut off the test of Hydra, who claims to post law all inconvenience and inconvenience.[4]
Tacitus says, "Every great example has something of injustice, which is repaid against individuals for the benefit of the public."
It is equally true that, for the use of life and service of public commerce, there may have been excess in the purity and insight of our minds; this penetrating clarity has too much subtlety and curiosity. He puts them down and blunts them to make them more obedient to example and practice and thickens and darkens them to provide for this dark and earthly life. Yet are the common and less tense minds cleaner and happier to conduct business: & the opinions of philosophy elevated and inquired are inept to exercise. This sharp vivacity of amen, and this supple and restless volubility troubles our negotiations: We must handle human enterprises more roughly and superficially and leave good and great part for the rights of fortune. There is no need to illuminate business so deeply and subtly: One gets lost in it, has the consideration of so many opposite chandeliers and various forms. Who searches for it and embraces all the circumstances and consequences, he weighs his election: an average machine also leads and suffices for the executions of large and small peas. Look at the fact that the best housewives are those who know less about how they are, and that these self-sufficient storytellers usually do nothing worthwhile. I am a great teller and very excellent painter of all kinds of tits, who let one hundred thousand pounds of rent flow through his hands pitifully. I am talking about another who dictates, who consults, better than a man of his council, and is not in the world a more beautiful sign of amen and sufficiency; however, to the effects, his servants find that he is quite different, I go without putting misfortune into account.[5]
Bibliography
Foglia, Marc, and Emiliano Ferrari. “Michel de Montaigne.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 20 Nov. 2019, plato.stanford.edu/entries/montaigne/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2023.
Kahn, Victoria. “The Sense of Taste in Montaigne’s Essais.” JSTOR, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Dec. 1980, www.jstor.org/stable/2906492. Accessed 8 Dec. 2023.
Knee, Philip. “La Critique de La Politique Dans Les Essais: Montaigne et Machiavel.” Jstor, vol. 33, no. 4, Dec. 2000, pp. 691–722, doi:Dec., 2000. Accessed 27 Nov. 2023.
Montaigne, Michel De. Essais de Michel Seigneur de Montaigne. Cinquiesme Edition, Augmentée d’un Troisiesme Livre et de Six Cens Additions Aux Deux Premiers. A Paris, Chez Abel L’Angelier, Au Premier Pillier de La Grand Salle Du Palais. Avec Privilege Du Roy., 1588. Accessed 27 Nov. 2023.
Montaigne’s comments on buying goods that God sells us at the price of some evil. He frequently mentions the themes of pain vs. pleasure or good vs. evil and how there is always a balance and combination in human nature. Positive and negative intentions are found in everyone and the most just situations, injustice can be found. Montaigne believes that the act of admitting one’s fallen nature can lead to virtue. ↑
In this section, Montaigne explains how there cannot be pleasure without some sadness. It can be described by separating the two emotions. Pleasure comes from obtaining what we as humans desire, but the act of desiring something means that we are without it. That realization of not having something can evoke sadness. These emotions exist on a balance with both needing to weigh to have harmony. Montaigne describes later in his essay that harmony is an important virtue. ↑
Montaigne uses an interesting metaphor by using food to describe information and taste to represent one’s judgment. The mouth is an organ of perception and enables humans to appropriate the external world (as in ingest the information taken in by the metaphorical sense of taste) (Kahn, 1980). ↑
In a modern context, the phrase tongue of injustice, or sinful tongue can be depicted as lying or backtalking in context. Montaigne viewed human nature as changeable and easily influenced by the environment. Although people can do things that come across as bitter (participate in an injustice act or spread a false rumor), these actions will not completely ruin our character and virtue. ↑
Montaigne explains to his readers that although misfortune and evil can appear in your life, the idea of stoicism encourages people to accept the things that they cannot control. His whole belief system is built on the foundation that there is no greater achievement than looking past the illusion of boundaries and limitations. Humans can be virtuous by oppressing appetites (a form of self-control) and accepting that the elements that we live with change to fit our needs. ↑