73. Plaineth cause (us) to complain.
74. Claudius Claudianus, In Eutropium, I.24–25.
75. No barrel better hearing nothing to choose between them.
76. In the sexual act.
77. Horace, Satires, I.i.24–25.
78. This the sexual act.
79. Each other every other.
80. That the sexual act.
81. Esseniens Essenes—a Jewish sect of the second century BCE; the others were the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
82. Consume consume itself (by refusing to procreate).
83. As close as secretly, privately.
84. Bonifie to do good.
85. Terence, Phormio, I.iii.20.
86. Virgil, Georgics, II.511.
87. Pseudo-Gallus, Elegies, I.180.
88. Lucretius and Virgil, cited previously.
89. Networke lacework.
90. Ovid, Amores, I.v.24.
91. Baffles gelds, castrates.
92. Love lovemaking.
93. Nicely close...closely nice timid and less open.
94. A beck is as good as a dew guard a mute signal or nod is as valuable as a dieu vous garde (“God preserve you”).
95. Febricitant feverish.
96. Wiredrawing drawing out or prolonging to a great length.
97. Their the ladies’.
98. Each one each man.
99. List’s end narrow strip, scrap.
100. Jouissance sexual pleasure, joy.
101. At rack and manger surrounded by abundance and plenty.
102. Snatches and away quick sexual encounters and departures.
103. Reke fear.
104. Catullus, Epigrams, LXIV.147–48.
105. Viands meats.
106. Martial, Epigrams, VII.xcv.10–11, 15. Florio gets embarrassed and does not translate the last line, using “&c.” instead. Martial’s line reads, “I would a hundred times rather lick his ass.”
107. Surpay surpass, outweigh.
108. Imagine mine imagine being my possession.
109. Moon luna.
110. Ethicke meager (the French word is “étique”).
111. To work to perform sexually.
112. Martial, Epigrams, XI.civ.12, XI.lx.8.
113. Impart not themselves but that way to communicate only in a sexual way.
114. Catullus, Epigrams, LXVIIIb.147–48.
115. Tibullus, Elegies, I.vi.35.
116. Regent teacher.
117. Luxury lust.
118. Livy, The History of Rome, XXXIV.iv.19.
119. Resty resisting control, refractory.
120. Ovid, Amores, III.iv.13–14.
121. No right but by the ears no right to noble women except as a listener or a counselor.
122. Seld seldom, rare.
123. Montaigne is meditating on the external evidence of desire in men—the erection—and the absence of such in women.
124. Lances a synecdoche for “warriors.”
125. Ione Joanna.
126. Andreosse Andreasso.
127. That action sexual intercourse.
128. Florio is confusing. Montaigne is clearly stating that male desire is much more easily satisfied in copulation than is female desire.
129. Happily perhaps.
130. Martial, Epigrams, VII.lviii.3–5. Florio presumably finds these lines too crude to translate. Frame’s fairly tame translation follows: “Having explored his body, found his member limp, / As a wet thong, impossible by hand to primp, / She leaves the dastard bed” (676).
131. Catullus, Epigrams, LXVII.27–28. Again, Florio does not translate. Frame translates as: “A stronger lover elsewhere must be found / By whom her virgin zone may be unbound” (676).
132. Virgil, Georgics, III.127.
133. Horace, Epodes, XII.15–16.
134. Horace, Odes, II.iv.22–24.
135. Lubberly clumsy, lazy, stupid.
136. It old age.
137. Guirle This is a strange one, for Montaigne’s word is “enfance.” He is talking about a youth, but a male youth, a boy, who can use the older man’s ardor to help him with his sexual exploits.
138. Virgil, Aeneid, XII.67–69.
139. Faintness limpness, flaccidity.
140. Dastardise base cowardice.
141. Ovid, Amores, I.vii.21.
142. Priapeia, LXXX.1, VIII.4–5.
143. Essence reality.
144. Seemliness propriety, decorum.
145. Quintus Cicero, Commentariolum petitionis, XIV.54.
146. Cocket cocky, cocksure, proud.
147. Theodore Beza, Poemata, epigram LXXIV.10; Beza was a Reformer and successor to Calvin.
148. Mellin de Saint-Gelais, “Rondeau sur la dispute des vits par quatre dames” (14). Saint-Gelais was a Roman Catholic cleric and court poet.
149. Catullus, Epigrams, LXVIIIb.147.
150. In the world of voluntary acts, there are no prescriptive rights.
151. Appointments assignations.
152. Impertinently genital not a typo for “genial”: Montaigne is asserting his physicality as a wooer and lover.
153. Horace, Odes, I.v.13–16.
154. Terence, The Eunuch, I.i.16–18.
155. Seneca, Epistulae morales, XCV.33.
156. And blood wipes as well as dry-blows cutting blows as well as bloodless ones.
157. Seneca, Epistulae morales, CXVI.5.
158. Receipt recipe, prescription.
159. Juvenal, Satires, I.iii.26–28.
160. It pain.
161. Avie in rivalry or emulation (OED).
162. Entrained constrained.
163. She...them the mind...bodily pleasures.
164. Domage damage, detriment.
165. Carking burdening, distressing.
166. Comber encumber.
167. Sinnowes sinews, tendons.
168. Lives-blitheness joys.
169. Such a commodity love.
170. Horace, Epodes, XII.19–20. Florio does not translate these lines, which tell us that the phallus of the young man is firmer than a young tree.
171. Horace, Odes, IV.xiii.26–28.
172. We (the older generation) no longer have any hold or control.
173. The old are not able to attract (“hook”) young lovers (“fresh cheese”).
174. Florio’s translation obscures the paradox and makes no sense. Montaigne has “Qui s’aymera, si me suive”: he who loves himself, let him follow me.
175. Composition combination, mix.
176. Martial, Epigrams, X.xc.10–11.
177. Ovid, Ex Ponto, I.iv.49–51.
178. Horace, Odes, II.v.21–24.
179. See Screech: “Conspirators who freed Athens from the tyranny of the Pisistratids. Similarly, a sprouting beard freed youths from the ‘tyranny’ of homosexual advances” (1014n177).
180. Importune disdainful.
181. Horace, Odes, IV.xiii.9–10.
182. It love.
183. Princock saucy, insolent. This “princock boy” is Cupid.
184. Garb from Montaigne’s “galbe”: gracefulness, comeliness, style.
185. Them women.
186. Preoccupate gain before or ahead of.
187. Handy-gripes firm, amorous grasps.
188. Amain violently, at full force.
189. Virgil, Georgics, III.98–100 (of an old stallion).
190. Plast placed.
191. Catullus, Epigrams, LXV.19–24.
192. Ill may the kiln call the oven burnt-tail the kiln should not call the oven burned-ass. Something like “the pot calling the kettle black” is meant. Montaigne has “le fourgon se moque de la pelle” (III:112)—the oven fork mocks the fire shovel.
OF COACHES
1. Eftsoons moreover.
2. Lucretius, De rerum natura, VI.703–4.
3. Gourmandise gluttony.
4. Seneca, Epistulae morales, LIII.3.
5. Astonie astonish.
6. It s
ense of fear.
7. Represent flight give us examples of flights from fear and danger.
8. In respect of in comparison with.
9. Livy, The History of Rome, XXII.v.1.
10. Impetuosity violent passion.
11. Ward position, preparation.
12. I encounter not two I cannot take a second attack.
13. Litter an enclosed vehicle containing a couch, often used to transport the sick.
14. Display describe.
15. Availefully usefully.
16. Targeteer soldier with a shield.
17. Harquebuses or calivers types of guns.
18. Pavesado a screen or wall of shields.
19. Galliote a small galley or boat.
20. Disroute uproot, dislodge.
21. Embarricado to make a barricade.
22. The last kings of our first race the Merovingien dynasty (481–751).
23. Movables and household-stuff tableware and furniture.
24. Communality common people.
25. Aye-lasting everlasting.
26. Queen Catherine Catherine de’ Medici (1519–1589).
27. The Pont Neuf—construction on which began in 1578, was interrupted in 1588–1589, and was resumed in 1599—opened in 1603 and was christened by Henri IV in 1607.
28. Casket chest, money box.
29. Authority, like art, has an end outside of itself.
30. Cicero, De finibus, V.vi.16.
31. Governours tutors.
32. Puissant powerful.
33. Justus Lipsius, De amphitheatro, VII.
34. Heedy heedful, attentive, cautious.
35. Intermission intermediary, intervention.
36. Fond foolish.
37. Cicero, De officiis, II.xv.52–53, 54.
38. Overplus surplus.
39. Behoof benefit.
40. Wound and oppress Florio mistranslates Montaigne’s “assenoit”; here it means “hand out, apportion, measure.” Cyrus is being praised for his generosity.
41. Croesus upbraided him Croesus reproached Cyrus.[1]
42. Him Cyrus.
43. Venter venture, risk.
44. Con-citizens private citizens.
45. Cicero, De officiis, I.xiv.43. The Latin says that the passing of money to strangers should not seem a liberality.
46. Coffers chest of money and valuables.
47. In the amphitheater.
48. Three hundred huge bears to be baited and tugged in pieces the sport of bearbaiting, popular in Shakespeare’s day. Florio embellishes Montaigne to give the text a more contemporary English flavor.
49. Emperour Probus Roman emperor from 276 to 282.
50. Enchased ornamented.
51. Calpurnius, Bucolica, VII.47, cited in Justus Lipsius, De amphitheatro, XIII.
52. Juvenal, Satires, III.153–55, cited in Justus Lipsius, De amphitheatro, XIII.
53. Acted played.
54. Chap crack open (into pieces).
55. Cranishes crevices, crannies.
56. Storax a fragrant resin.
57. Banket banquet.
58. Only single.
59. Oresaffron’d covered with saffron.
60. Horse refers to the hippopotamus.
61. Calpurnius, Bucolica, VII.64–71, cited in Justus Lipsius, De amphitheatro, X.
62. Purling rippling, swirling, murmuring.
63. Streaks and purlings streams and ripples.
64. Martial, Epigrams, XII.xxix.15–16, cited in Justus Lipsius, De amphitheatro, XVII. The English translation seems to make little sense but is deeply erudite. Martial’s Hermogenes—“sprung of Hermes,” the thief of the gods—steals napkins. Cloth of all kinds, the epigram suggests, is vulnerable when he is around—even that used to make awnings to cover the amphitheater stage. So when Hermogenes (one of the “linen-thieves”) is present, spectators hide their awnings or “sails” and bake in the sun rather than lose them to the thief.
65. Calpurnius, Bucolica, VII.53–54, cited in Justus Lipsius, De amphitheatro, XII.
66. Admiration wonder, amazement.
67. We go our own pace we retrace our steps.
68. Horace, Odes, IV.ix.25–28.
69. Lucretius, De rerum natura, V.326–27.
70. Cicero, De natura deorum, I.xx.54.
71. Keep a coyle make a fuss about.
72. Lucretius, De rerum natura, II.1150.
73. Ibid., V.330–34.
74. Infantine infantile.
75. Convultion of sinnowes convulsion of sinews or tendons.
76. His the New World’s.
77. Cony-catch trick, deceive.
78. Bucklers small round shields.
79. Topsy-turvied turned upside down.
80. Entreated treated.
81. Behoof benefit, advantage.
82. Minatory threatening.
83. See his “Of the Cannibals” (1.31; 1.30 in Florio).
84. Weights ounces.
85. Redeem the torment of being burned alive by the baptism bought his way out of being burned alive by agreeing to be baptized before his execution.
86. Pusillanimity cowardice.
87. Silly “simple” more than “foolish” (as often with this word in Florio).
88. Montaigne gets this material from Francisco Lopez de Gomara, L’histoire générale des Indes, translated by Fumée (1578 and 1587), II.lxxv. Montaigne also may have read Bartolomé de Las Casas’s attacks on the conquistadores. See Screech, 1034n33.
89. Seld-seen seldom seen.
90. Intestine internecine, internal.
91. King Phillip II of Spain.
92. Moveable movable goods.
93. Encivilized civilized.
94. Munkeis monkeys. Montaigne’s word is “magot,” which means “baboon.”
95. Cawcie causeway.
96. Battaile army, battalion.
97. Avie in emulation.
OF THE LAME OR CRIPPLE
1. The Gregorian calendar—named after Pope Gregory XIII—was introduced in France in December 1582. It actually moved the date forward eleven days.
2. Bissextile “Containing the bissextus or extra day which the Julian calendar inserts in leap-year” (OED).
3. Arrearages arrears, debts.
4. Limit determine.
5. Well holp-up well accommodated, in fine position. Montaigne is being ironic.
6. Plodding musing, thinking.
7. Gadding wandering, flitting.
8. First faculties primary properties. For the gap between knowledge and experiential learning and enjoyment, compare Shakespeare’s Berowne, in Love’s Labour’s Lost, I.1.72–93.
9. The body and the mind disrupt their enjoyment of the world by mixing it with the pretensions of learning.
10. Let us reassume our custom let us return to (an examination of) this custom of ours.
11. Persius, Satires, V.20.
12. Defeature ruin, defeat in battle; see WW: “Soffratto, a defeature or ouerthrow.”
13. Juggle play the showman or fool.
14. Quarelous quarrelsome.
15. Miss fail.
16. Descanted tossed about (an idea).
17. Cicero, Academica, II.xxi.68.
18. Port bearing.
19. Semblable the same, alike.
20. We gravitate toward vanity because it is similar in form to our own being.
21. End of the clue Montaigne has “le bout du fil,” which means “end of the thread” and makes the unwinding metaphor work.
22. Wind off unwind.
23. Embrued steeped in, imbued with (an idea).
24. Botch up to repair.
25. Livy, The History of Rome, XXVIII.xxiv.1.
26. Montaigne is noting that—in the world of rumors—people add interest to the loan that they receive. That is, they add their own fabrications to (false) reports.
27. Furthest-abiding remotest, farthest away.
28. Earnested heated, “fired up.”
; 29. Earnestness excitement.
30. Cicero, De divinatione, II.xxxix.81.
31. Saint Augustine, City of God, VI.x.
32. Composition disposition.
33. Seneca, Epistulae morales, CXVIII.vii.
34. Quintus Curtius, IX.ii.14. The translation is especially obscure here. “Rumor never stops with the crystal clear” (that is, evidence).
35. Heedy attentive, cautious, heedful.
36. Preoccupated prejudiced, biased.
37. Astonieth astonishes.
38. Country thereabout neighborhood.
39. Qualities social classes.
40. Seely foolish, simple, silly.
41. Sottishness foolishness.
42. Cheverell pliable, like the leather of a kid goat. See Feste in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: “A sentence is but a cheverel glove to a good wit, how quickly the wrong side may be turned outward” (III.1.10–12).
43. His his foolishness.
44. We should be as hesitant to reject marvelous stories as we are hesitant to receive them.
45. Stile the legal style.
46. Thaumantis Thaumas, or wonder.
47. Admiration wonder. That wonder is the beginning of the philosophy is an axiom derived from Plato, Theaetetus, 155D.
48. It takes as much learning to yield wise ignorance (which Montaigne is celebrating here) as it does to yield true knowledge.
49. See Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983).
50. Country neighborhood.
51. Author authority.
52. A body substance and credibility.
53. Irrefragable undisputed, irrefutable.
54. Most-mighty testimony God’s testimony in the Bible.
55. Are of them are proper miracles.
56. Whether he uses this amazing narration to testify against others or against himself.
57. Author unknown.
58. Tacitus, Historiae, I.xxii.
59. Doubt of it doubt the existence of witches.
60. Mine those who challenge my opinions; my detractors.
61. They have as much appearance as their contradictors they apparently have as good an argument as their detractors.
62. Cicero, Academica, II.xxvii.87.
63. A bright-shining and clear light clear and obvious evidence.
64. Our life is too real and fundamental to be used to prove these supernatural and imagined events.
65. Even those who have confessed to using drugs and potions should not always be believed, for they have been known to claim to have killed people who turn out to be alive and well.
66. A supernatural approbation hath authorized him a supernatural authority has confirmed his claim.
67. Domestical homegrown.