Essays of Montaigne (eBook)

 CHAPTER XI  OF PROGNOSTICATIONS

For what concerns oracles, it is certain that a good while before the coming of Jesus Christ they had begun to lose their credit; for we see that Cicero troubled to find out the cause of their decay, and he has these words:

          "Cur isto modo jam oracula Delphis non eduntur,           non modo nostro aetate, sed jam diu; ut nihil           possit esse contemptius?"

     ["What is the reason that the oracles at Delphi are no longer      uttered: not merely in this age of ours, but for a long time past,      insomuch that nothing is more in contempt?"--      Cicero, De Divin., ii. 57.]

But as to the other prognostics, calculated from the anatomy of beasts at sacrifices (to which purpose Plato does, in part, attribute the natural constitution of the intestines of the beasts themselves), the scraping of poultry, the flight of birds--

          "Aves quasdam .  .  .  rerum augurandarum           causa natas esse putamus."

     ["We think some sorts of birds are purposely created to serve      the purposes of augury."--Cicero, De Natura Deor., ii. 64.]

--claps of thunder, the overflowing of rivers--

          "Multa cernunt Aruspices, multa Augures provident,           multa oraculis declarantur, multa vaticinationibus,           multa somniis, multa portentis."

     [The Aruspices discern many things, the Augurs foresee many things,      many things are announced by oracles, many by vaticinations, many by      dreams, many by portents."--Cicero, De Natura Deor., ii. 65.]

--and others of the like nature, upon which antiquity founded most of their public and private enterprises, our religion has totally abolished them.  And although there yet remain amongst us some practices of divination from the stars, from spirits, from the shapes and complexions of men, from dreams and the like (a notable example of the wild curiosity of our nature to grasp at and anticipate future things, as if we had not enough to do to digest the present)--

               "Cur hanc tibi, rector Olympi,                Sollicitis visum mortalibus addere curam,                Noscant venturas ut dira per omina clades?....                Sit subitum, quodcumque paras; sit coeca futuri                Mens hominum fati, liceat sperare timenti."

     ["Why, ruler of Olympus, hast thou to anxious mortals thought fit to      add this care, that they should know by, omens future slaughter?...      Let whatever thou art preparing be sudden.  Let the mind of men be      blind to fate in store; let it be permitted to the timid to hope."--      Lucan, ii. 14]

               "Ne utile quidem est scire quid futurum sit;                miserum est enim, nihil proficientem angi,"

     ["It is useless to know what shall come to pass; it is a miserable      thing to be tormented to no purpose."--      Cicero, De Natura Deor., iii. 6.]

yet are they of much less authority now than heretofore.  Which makes so much more remarkable the example of Francesco, Marquis of Saluzzo, who being lieutenant to King Francis I. in his ultramontane army, infinitely favoured and esteemed in our court, and obliged to the king's bounty for the marquisate itself, which had been forfeited by his brother; and as to the rest, having no manner of provocation given him to do it, and even his own affection opposing any such disloyalty, suffered himself to be so terrified, as it was confidently reported, with the fine prognostics that were spread abroad everywhere in favour of the Emperor Charles V., and to our disadvantage (especially in Italy, where these foolish prophecies were so far believed, that at Rome great sums of money were ventured out upon return of greater, when the prognostics came to pass, so certain they made themselves of our ruin), that, having often bewailed, to those of his acquaintance who were most intimate with him, the mischiefs that he saw would inevitably fall upon the Crown of France and the friends he had in that court, he revolted and turned to the other side; to his own misfortune, nevertheless, what constellation soever governed at that time.  But he carried himself in this affair like a man agitated by divers passions; for having both towns and forces in his hands, the enemy's army under Antonio de Leyva close by him, and we not at all suspecting his design, it had been in his power to have done more than he did; for we lost no men by this infidelity of his, nor any town, but Fossano only, and that after a long siege and a brave defence. --[1536]

                   "Prudens futuri temporis exitum                     Caliginosa nocte premit Deus,                     Ridetque, si mortalis ultra                     Fas trepidat."

     ["A wise God covers with thick night the path of the future, and      laughs at the man who alarms himself without reason."--      Hor.,Od., iii.  29.]

                    "Ille potens sui                     Laetusque deget, cui licet in diem                     Dixisse vixi!  cras vel atra                     Nube polum pater occupato,                     Vel sole puro."

     ["He lives happy and master of himself who can say as each day      passes on, 'I HAVE LIVED:' whether to-morrow our Father shall give      us a clouded sky or a clear day."--Hor., Od., iii. 29]

                    Laetus in praesens animus; quod ultra est,                     Oderit curare."

     ["A mind happy, cheerful in the present state, will take good care      not to think of what is beyond it.--Ibid., ii. 25]

And those who take this sentence in a contrary sense interpret it amiss:

               "Ista sic reciprocantur, ut et si divinatio sit,                dii sint; et si dii lint, sit divinatio."

     ["These things are so far reciprocal that if there be divination,      there must be deities; and if deities, divination."--Cicero, De      Divin., i. 6.]

Much more wisely Pacuvius--

          Nam istis, qui linguam avium intelligunt,           Plusque ex alieno jecore sapiunt, quam ex suo,           Magis audiendum, quam auscultandum, censeo."

      ["As to those who understand the language of birds, and who...