MONTAIGNE, Livre I, 50. Il se dit d'aucuns, comme d'Alexandre le Grand, que leur sueur espandoit un' odeur souefve, par quelque rare et extraordinaire complexion: dequoy Plutarque et autres recherchent la cause.1 "Itch . . . also is pleasing." MONTAIGNE, Livre III, 13. Ib. (vII, 694). Si [i. e. neanmoins] est la gratterie des gratifications de nature les plus douces, et autant à main. [He is speaking of the power of our imagination on other bodies than our own.] The inquisition of this subject in our way (which is by induction) is wonderful hard: for the things that are reported are full of fables. Ib. (x, 945). MONTAIGNE, Livre III, 11. 66 Ils commencent ordinairement ainsi : Comment est ce que cela se fait ?" "Mais se fait il?" faudroit il dire. Je trouve quasi par tout qu'il faudroit dire: "Il n'en est rien;" et employerois souvant cette responce; mais je n'ose, car ils crient que c'est une deffaicte produicte de foiblesse d'esprit et d'ignorance; et me faut ordinairement bateler par compaignie à traicter des subjects et comptes frivoles que je mescrois entierement: joinct qu'à la verité il est un peu rude et quereleux de nier tout sec une proposition de faict; et peu de gens faillent, notamment aux choses malaysées à persuader, d'affermer qu'ils l'ont veu, ou d'alleguer des tesmoins desquels l'authorité arreste nostre contradiction. Suyvant cet usage, nous sçavons les fondemens et les causes de mille choses qui ne furent onques; et s'escarmouche le 1 Bacon thought it perhaps due to percolation. monde en mille questions, desquelles et le pour et le contre est faux. If there be any force in imaginations and affections of singular persons, it is probable the force is much more in the joint imaginations and affections of multitudes: as if a victory should be won or lost in remote parts, whether is there not some sense thereof in the people whom it concerneth; because of the great joy or grief that many men are possessed with at once? ... What shall we say to a number of examples amongst the Grecians and Romans? where the people being in theatres at plays, have had news of victories and overthrows, some few days before any messenger could come. MONTAIGNE, Livre I, 27 (26). Ib. (x, 988). Si Plutarque,1 outre plusieurs exemples qu'il allegue de l'antiquité, dict sçavoir de certaine science que du temps de Domitian, la nouvelle de la bataille perdue par Antonius en Allemaigne, à plusieurs journées de là, fut publiée à Rome et semée par tout le monde le mesme jour qu'elle avoit esté perdue, et si Cæsar tient qu'il est souvent advenu que la nouvelle a devancé l'accident, dirons nous pas que ces simples gens là se sont laissez piper aprés le vulgaire, pour n'estre pas clair-voyans comme nous? 1 In his Life of Paulus Æmilius. [There has been much investigation regarding the amount of Shakespeare's indebtedness to Montaigne. The results are not, I think, very important. It is certain that he borrowed from him a passage of considerable length in the 'Tempest,' and it seems more than probable that several other passages scattered through the plays were suggested to him by Montaigne's thoughts expressed in Florio's English. I have not in the following pages cared to enter definitely on this line of comparison. My selections from Shakespeare, as from the other authors in this volume, have been made with the view of pointing out such similarities as may, or may not, be entirely independent of any indebtedness. And I have weighted the scale of independence by bringing forward a number of passages which have been unnoticed hitherto, because those students who were seeking for parallel passages thought that such could only be found in Florio's pages. They have therefore apparently neglected the plays that were previous to Florio's translation. But in 'Romeo and Juliet,'The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' 'The Merchant of Venice,' 'King Henry IV,' 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,''King Henry V,' I find passages as "parallel," it seems to me, as those that have already been made known in connection with the later plays. I leave it to others to decide which is the most likely, that Shakespeare should have read the Essais in their original language, and have been from the first more or less indebted to them; or that the same ideas should have been spontaneously in his mind as were in that of Montaigne. Either hypothesis is, to my thinking, highly probable. 1 "Shakespeare, who represents the free spirit of the Renaissance moulding the drama, hints, by his well-known preoccupation with Montaigne's writings, that just there was the philosophic counterpart to the fulness and impartiality of his own artistic reception of the experience of life."-PATER, Gaston de Latour. In order to distinguish the passages of similar thought that occur in the plays written before Florio's translation from those in the later plays, I have given the accompanying citations from the Essais in the first case in the original French, in the latter case from Florio. And to distinguish the passages that I have not seen remarked on from those that have been, I have indicated the former by a dagger.] † Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied. MONTAIGNE, Livre I, 15 (14). Romeo and Juliet (II, iii). La vaillance a ses limites comme les autres vertus, lesquels franchis et outrepassez, on se trouve dans le train du vice. Livre I, 30 (29). Nous pouvons saisir la vertu de façon qu'elle en deviendra vicieuse. † How use doth breed a habit in a man! Two Gentlemen of Verona (v, iv). MONTAIGNE, Livre III, 10. L'accoustumance est une second nature et non moins puissante.1 I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; Merchant of Venice (1, i). 1 The Latin phrase Consuetudo altera natura seems to have been in familiar use in the sixteenth century. MONTAIGNE, Livre III, 10. La plus part de nos vacations [i. e. vocations] sont farcesques: mundus universus exercet histrioniam. Il faut jouer deuement nostre rolle, mais comme rolle d'un personnage emprunté. † O, that estates, degrees and offices Were not derived corruptly! MONTAIGNE, Livre I, 39 (38). Ib. (II, 9). Qu'ils se battent sur la conscience, si . . . les estats, les charges, et cette tracasserie du monde ne se recherche plustost pour tirer du publicq son profit particulier. † Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack Where men enforced do speak anything. MONTAIGNE, Livre II, 5. Ib. (m, ii). C'est une dangereuse invention que celle des gehenes, et semble que ce soit plustost un essay de patience que de verité: et celuy qui les peut souffrir cache la verité, et celuy qui ne les peut souffrir: car pourquoy la douleur me fera elle plustost confesser ce qui en est qu'elle ne me forcera de dire ce qui n'est pas? †... the end of life cancels all bands [i. e. bonds]. King Henry the Fourth, Part I (ш, ii). MONTAIGNE, Livre I, 7. La mort, dict-on, nous acquitta de toutes nos obligations. |