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<h1> ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE </h1>
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<h3> Translated by Charles Cotton </h3>
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<h3> Edited by William Carew Hazlitt </h3>
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<h3> 1877 </h3>
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<h2> CHAPTER I——THAT MEN BY VARIOUS WAYS ARRIVE AT THE SAME END. </h2>
<p>The most usual way of appeasing the indignation of such as we have any way
offended, when we see them in possession of the power of revenge, and find
that we absolutely lie at their mercy, is by submission, to move them to
commiseration and pity; and yet bravery, constancy, and resolution,
however quite contrary means, have sometimes served to produce the same
effect.—[Florio's version begins thus: "The most vsuall waie to
appease those minds wee have offended, when revenge lies in their hands,
and that we stand at their mercie, is by submission to move them to
commiseration and pity: Nevertheless, courage, constancie, and resolution
(means altogether opposite) have sometimes wrought the same effect."—]
[The spelling is Florio's D.W.]</p>
<p>Edward, Prince of Wales [Edward, the Black Prince. D.W.] (the same who so
long governed our Guienne, a personage whose condition and fortune have in
them a great deal of the most notable and most considerable parts of
grandeur), having been highly incensed by the Limousins, and taking their
city by assault, was not, either by the cries of the people, or the
prayers and tears of the women and children, abandoned to slaughter and
prostrate at his feet for mercy, to be stayed from prosecuting his
revenge; till, penetrating further into the town, he at last took notice
of three French gentlemen,—[These were Jean de Villemure, Hugh de la
Roche, and Roger de Beaufort.—Froissart, i. c. 289. {The city was
Limoges. D.W.}]—who with incredible bravery alone sustained the
power of his victorious army. Then it was that consideration and respect
unto so remarkable a valour first stopped the torrent of his fury, and
that his clemency, beginning with these three cavaliers, was afterwards
extended to all the remaining inhabitants of the city.</p>
<p>Scanderbeg, Prince of Epirus, pursuing one of his soldiers with purpose to
kill him, the soldier, having in vain tried by all the ways of humility
and supplication to appease him, resolved, as his last refuge, to face
about and await him sword in hand: which behaviour of his gave a sudden
stop to his captain's fury, who, for seeing him assume so notable a
resolution, received him into grace; an example, however, that might
suffer another interpretation with such as have not read of the prodigious
force and valour of that prince.</p>
<p>The Emperor Conrad III. having besieged Guelph, Duke of Bavaria,—[In
1140, in Weinsberg, Upper Bavaria.]—would not be prevailed upon,
what mean and unmanly satisfactions soever were tendered to him, to
condescend to milder conditions than that the ladies and gentlewomen only
who were in the town with the duke might go out without violation of their
honour, on foot, and with so much only as they could carry about them.
Whereupon they, out of magnanimity of heart, presently contrived to carry
out, upon their shoulders, their husbands and children, and the duke
himself; a sight at which the emperor was so pleased, that, ravished with
the generosity of the action, he wept for joy, and immediately
extinguishing in his heart the mortal and capital hatred he had conceived
against this duke, he from that time forward treated him and his with all
humanity. The one and the other of these two ways would with great
facility work upon my nature; for I have a marvellous propensity to mercy
and mildness, and to such a degree that I fancy of the two I should sooner
surrender my anger to compassion than to esteem. And yet pity is reputed a
vice amongst the Stoics, who will that we succour the afflicted, but not
that we should be so affected with their sufferings as to suffer with
them. I conceived these examples not ill suited to the question in hand,
and the rather because therein we observe these great souls assaulted and
tried by these two several ways, to resist the one without relenting, and
to be shook and subjected by the other. It may be true that to suffer a
man's heart to be totally subdued by compassion may be imputed to
facility, effeminacy, and over-tenderness; whence it comes to pass that
the weaker natures, as of women, children, and the common sort of people,
are the most subject to it but after having resisted and disdained the
power of groans and tears, to yield to the sole reverence of the sacred
image of Valour, this can be no other than the effect of a strong and
inflexible soul enamoured of and honouring masculine and obstinate
courage. Nevertheless, astonishment and admiration may, in less generous
minds, beget a like effect: witness the people of Thebes, who, having put
two of their generals upon trial for their lives for having continued in
arms beyond the precise term of their commission, very hardly pardoned
Pelopidas, who, bowing under the weight of so dangerous an accusation,
made no manner of defence for himself, nor produced other arguments than
prayers and supplications; whereas, on the contrary, Epaminondas, falling
to recount magniloquently the exploits he had performed in their service,
and, after a haughty and arrogant manner reproaching them with ingratitude
and injustice, they had not the heart to proceed any further in his trial,
but broke up the court and departed, the whole assembly highly commending
the high courage of this personage.—[Plutarch, How far a Man may
praise Himself, c. 5.]</p>
<p>Dionysius the elder, after having, by a tedious siege and through
exceeding great difficulties, taken the city of Reggio, and in it the
governor Phyton, a very gallant man, who had made so obstinate a defence,
was resolved to make him a tragical example of his revenge: in order
whereunto he first told him, "That he had the day before caused his son
and all his kindred to be drowned." To which Phyton returned no other
answer but this: "That they were then by one day happier than he." After
which, causing him to be stripped, and delivering him into the hands of
the tormentors, he was by them not only dragged through the streets of the
town, and most ignominiously and cruelly whipped, but moreover vilified
with most bitter and contumelious language: yet still he maintained his
courage entire all the way, with a strong voice and undaunted countenance
proclaiming the honourable and glorious cause of his death; namely, for
that he would not deliver up his country into the hands of a tyrant; at
the same time denouncing against him a speedy chastisement from the
offended gods. At which Dionysius, reading in his soldiers' looks, that
instead of being incensed at the haughty language of this conquered enemy,
to the contempt of their captain and his triumph, they were not only
struck with admiration of so rare a virtue, but moreover inclined to
mutiny, and were even ready to rescue the prisoner out of the hangman's
hands, he caused the torturing to cease, and afterwards privately caused
him to be thrown into the sea.—[Diod. Sic., xiv. 29.]</p>
<p>Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject,
and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment. For
Pompey could pardon the whole city of the Mamertines, though furiously
incensed against it, upon the single account of the virtue and magnanimity
of one citizen, Zeno,—[Plutarch calls him Stheno, and also Sthemnus
and Sthenis]—who took the fault of the public wholly upon himself;
neither entreated other favour, but alone to undergo the punishment for
all: and yet Sylla's host, having in the city of Perugia —[Plutarch
says Preneste, a town of Latium.]—manifested the same virtue,
obtained nothing by it, either for himself or his fellow-citizens.</p>
<p>And, directly contrary to my first examples, the bravest of all men, and
who was reputed so gracious to all those he overcame, Alexander, having,
after many great difficulties, forced the city of Gaza, and, entering,
found Betis, who commanded there, and of whose valour in the time of this
siege he had most marvellous manifest proof, alone, forsaken by all his
soldiers, his armour hacked and hewed to pieces, covered all over with
blood and wounds, and yet still fighting in the crowd of a number of
Macedonians, who were laying on him on all sides, he said to him, nettled
at so dear-bought a victory (for, in addition to the other damage, he had
two wounds newly received in his own person), "Thou shalt not die, Betis,
as thou dost intend; be sure thou shall suffer all the torments that can
be inflicted on a captive." To which menace the other returning no other
answer, but only a fierce and disdainful look; "What," says Alexander,
observing his haughty and obstinate silence, "is he too stiff to bend a
knee! Is he too proud to utter one suppliant word! Truly, I will conquer
this silence; and if I cannot force a word from his mouth, I will, at
least, extract a groan from his heart." And thereupon converting his anger
into fury, presently commanded his heels to be bored through, causing him,
alive, to be dragged, mangled, and dismembered at a cart's tail.—[Quintus
Curtius, iv. 6. This act of cruelty has been doubted, notwithstanding the
statement of Curtius.]—Was it that the height of courage was so
natural and familiar to this conqueror, that because he could not admire,
he respected it the less? Or was it that he conceived valour to be a
virtue so peculiar to himself, that his pride could not, without envy,
endure it in another? Or was it that the natural impetuosity of his fury
was incapable of opposition? Certainly, had it been capable of moderation,
it is to be believed that in the sack and desolation of Thebes, to see so
many valiant men, lost and totally destitute of any further defence,
cruelly massacred before his eyes, would have appeased it: where there
were above six thousand put to the sword, of whom not one was seen to fly,
or heard to cry out for quarter; but, on the contrary, every one running
here and there to seek out and to provoke the victorious enemy to help
them to an honourable end. Not one was seen who, however weakened with
wounds, did not in his last gasp yet endeavour to revenge himself, and
with all the arms of a brave despair, to sweeten his own death in the
death of an enemy. Yet did their valour create no pity, and the length of
one day was not enough to satiate the thirst of the conqueror's revenge,
but the slaughter continued to the last drop of blood that was capable of
being shed, and stopped not till it met with none but unarmed persons, old
men, women, and children, of them to carry away to the number of thirty
thousand slaves.</p>
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