No More Learning

DESIDERIUS ERASMUS

THE PRAISE OF FOLLY



Translated by John Wilson
1668



ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM
to his friend
THOMAS MORE, health:


As I was coming awhile since out of Italy for England, that I might not
waste all that time I was to sit on horseback in foolish and illiterate
fables, I chose rather one while to revolve with myself something of our
common studies, and other while to enjoy the remembrance of my friends,
of whom I left here some no less learned than pleasant. Among these you,
my More, came first in my mind, whose memory, though absent yourself,
gives me such delight in my absence, as when present with you I ever
found in your company; than which, let me perish if in all my life I ever
met with anything more delectable. And therefore, being satisfied that
something was to be done, and that that time was no wise proper for any
serious matter, I resolved to make some sport with the praise of folly.
But who the devil put that in your head? you'll say. The first thing was
your surname of More, which comes so near the word _Moriae_ (folly) as
you are far from the thing. And that you are so, all the world will clear
you. In the next place, I conceived this exercise of wit would not be
least approved by you; inasmuch as you are wont to be delighted with such
kind of mirth, that is to say, neither unlearned, if I am not mistaken,
nor altogether insipid, and in the whole course of your life have played
the part of a Democritus. And though such is the excellence of your
judgment that it was ever contrary to that of the people's, yet such is
your incredible affability and sweetness of temper that you both can and
delight to carry yourself to all men a man of all hours. Wherefore you
will not only with good will accept this small declamation, but take upon
you the defense of it, for as much as being dedicated to you, it is now
no longer mine but yours. But perhaps there will not be wanting some
wranglers that may cavil and charge me, partly that these toys are
lighter than may become a divine, and partly more biting than may beseem
the modesty of a Christian, and consequently exclaim that I resemble the
ancient comedy, or another Lucian, and snarl at everything. But I would
have them whom the lightness or foolery of the argument may offend to
consider that mine is not the first of this kind, but the same thing that
has been often practiced even by great authors: when Homer, so many ages
since, did the like with the battle of frogs and mice; Virgil, with the
gnat and puddings; Ovid, with the nut; when Polycrates and his corrector
Isocrates extolled tyranny; Glauco, injustice; Favorinus, deformity and
the quartan ague; Synescius, baldness; Lucian, the fly and flattery; when
Seneca made such sport with Claudius' canonizations; Plutarch, with his
dialogue between Ulysses and Gryllus; Lucian and Apuleius, with the ass;
and some other, I know not who, with the hog that made his last will and
testament, of which also even St. Jerome makes mention. And therefore if
they please, let them suppose I played at tables for my diversion, or if
they had rather have it so, that I rode on a hobbyhorse. For what
injustice is it that when we allow every course of life its recreation,
that study only should have none? Especially when such toys are not
without their serious matter, and foolery is so handled that the reader
that is not altogether thick-skulled may reap more benefit from it than
from some men's crabbish and specious arguments. As when one, with long
study and great pains, patches many pieces together on the praise of
rhetoric or philosophy; another makes a panegyric to a prince; another
encourages him to a war against the Turks; another tells you what will
become of the world after himself is dead; and another finds out some new
device for the better ordering of goat's wool: for as nothing is more
trifling than to treat of serious matters triflingly, so nothing carries
a better grace than so to discourse of trifles as a man may seem to have
intended them least. For my own part, let other men judge of what I have
written; though yet, unless an overweening opinion of myself may have
made me blind in my own cause, I have praised folly, but not altogether
foolishly. And now to say somewhat to that other cavil, of biting. This
liberty was ever permitted to all men's wits, to make their smart, witty
reflections on the common errors of mankind, and that too without
offense, as long as this liberty does not run into licentiousness; which
makes me the more admire the tender ears of the men of this age, that can
away with solemn titles. No, you'll meet with some so preposterously
religious that they will sooner endure the broadest scoffs even against
Christ himself than hear the Pope or a prince be touched in the least,
especially if it be anything that concerns their profit; whereas he that
so taxes the lives of men, without naming anyone in particular, whither,
I pray, may he be said to bite, or rather to teach and admonish? Or
otherwise, I beseech you, under how many notions do I tax myself?
Besides, he that spares no sort of men cannot be said to be angry with
anyone in particular, but the vices of all. And therefore, if there shall
happen to be anyone that shall say he is hit, he will but discover either
his guilt or fear. Saint Jerome sported in this kind with more freedom
and greater sharpness, not sparing sometimes men's very name. But I,
besides that I have wholly avoided it, I have so moderated my style that
the understanding reader will easily perceive my endeavors herein were
rather to make mirth than bite. Nor have I, after the example of Juvenal,
raked up that forgotten sink of filth and ribaldry, but laid before you
things rather ridiculous than dishonest. And now, if there be anyone that
is yet dissatisfied, let him at least remember that it is no dishonor to
be discommended by Folly; and having brought her in speaking, it was but
fit that I kept up the character of the person. But why do I run over
these things to you, a person so excellent an advocate that no man better
defends his client, though the cause many times be none of the best?
Farewell, my best disputant More, and stoutly defend your _Moriae_.

From the country,
the 5th of the Ides of June.




THE PRAISE OF FOLLY


An oration, of feigned matter,
spoken by Folly in her own person


At what rate soever the world talks of me (for I am not ignorant what an
ill report Folly has got, even among the most foolish), yet that I am
that she, that only she, whose deity recreates both gods and men, even
this is a sufficient argument, that I no sooner stepped up to speak to
this full assembly than all your faces put on a kind of new and unwonted
pleasantness. So suddenly have you cleared your brows, and with so frolic
and hearty a laughter given me your applause, that in truth as many of
you as I behold on every side of me seem to me no less than Homer's gods
drunk with nectar and nepenthe; whereas before, you sat as lumpish and
pensive as if you had come from consulting an oracle. And as it usually
happens when the sun begins to show his beams, or when after a sharp
winter the spring breathes afresh on the earth, all things immediately
get a new face, new color, and recover as it were a certain kind of youth
again: in like manner, by but beholding me you have in an instant gotten
another kind of countenance; and so what the otherwise great rhetoricians
with their tedious and long-studied orations can hardly effect, to wit,
to remove the trouble of the mind, I have done it at once with my
single look.

But if you ask me why I appear before you in this strange dress, be
pleased to lend me your ears, and I'll tell you; not those ears, I mean,
you carry to church, but abroad with you, such as you are wont to prick
up to jugglers, fools, and buffoons, and such as our friend Midas once
gave to Pan. For I am disposed awhile to play the sophist with you; not
of their sort who nowadays boozle young men's heads with certain empty
notions and curious trifles, yet teach them nothing but a more than
womanish obstinacy of scolding: but I'll imitate those ancients who, that
they might the better avoid that infamous appellation of _sophi_ or
_wise_, chose rather to be called sophists. Their business was to
celebrate the praises of the gods and valiant men. And the like encomium
shall you hear from me, but neither of Hercules nor Solon, but my own
dear self, that is to say, Folly. Nor do I esteem a rush that call it a
foolish and insolent thing to praise one's self. Be it as foolish as they
would make it, so they confess it proper: and what can be more than that
Folly be her own trumpet? For who can set me out better than myself,
unless perhaps I could be better known to another than to myself? Though
yet I think it somewhat more modest than the general practice of our
nobles and wise men who, throwing away all shame, hire some flattering
orator or lying poet from whose mouth they may hear their praises, that
is to say, mere lies; and yet, composing themselves with a seeming
modesty, spread out their peacock's plumes and erect their crests, while
this impudent flatterer equals a man of nothing to the gods and proposes
him as an absolute pattern of all virtue that's wholly a stranger to it,
sets out a pitiful jay in other's feathers, washes the blackamoor white,
and lastly swells a gnat to an elephant. In short, I will follow that old
proverb that says, "He may lawfully praise himself that lives far from
neighbors. " Though, by the way, I cannot but wonder at the ingratitude,
shall I say, or negligence of men who, notwithstanding they honor me in
the first place and are willing enough to confess my bounty, yet not one
of them for these so many ages has there been who in some thankful
oration has set out the praises of Folly; when yet there has not wanted
them whose elaborate endeavors have extolled tyrants, agues, flies,
baldness, and such other pests of nature, to their own loss of both time
and sleep. And now you shall hear from me a plain extemporary speech, but
so much the truer. Nor would I have you think it like the rest of
orators, made for the ostentation of wit; for these, as you know, when
they have been beating their heads some thirty years about an oration and
at last perhaps produce somewhat that was never their own, shall yet
swear they composed it in three days, and that too for diversion: whereas
I ever liked it best to speak whatever came first out.

But let none of you expect from me that after the manner of rhetoricians
I should go about to define what I am, much less use any division; for I
hold it equally unlucky to circumscribe her whose deity is universal, or
make the least division in that worship about which everything is so
generally agreed. Or to what purpose, think you, should I describe myself
when I am here present before you, and you behold me speaking? For I am,
as you see, that true and only giver of wealth whom the Greeks call
_Moria_, the Latins _Stultitia_, and our plain English _Folly_. Or what
need was there to have said so much, as if my very looks were not
sufficient to inform you who I am? Or as if any man, mistaking me for
wisdom, could not at first sight convince himself by my face the true
index of my mind? I am no counterfeit, nor do I carry one thing in my
looks and another in my breast. No, I am in every respect so like myself
that neither can they dissemble me who arrogate to themselves the
appearance and title of wise men and walk like asses in scarlet hoods,
though after all their hypocrisy Midas' ears will discover their master.
A most ungrateful generation of men that, when they are wholly given up
to my party, are yet publicly ashamed of the name, as taking it for a
reproach; for which cause, since in truth they are _morotatoi_, fools,
and yet would appear to the world to be wise men and Thales, we'll even
call them _morosophous_, wise fools.

Nor will it be amiss also to imitate the rhetoricians of our times, who
think themselves in a manner gods if like horse leeches they can but
appear to be double-tongued, and believe they have done a mighty act if
in their Latin orations they can but shuffle in some ends of Greek like
mosaic work, though altogether by head and shoulders and less to the
purpose. And if they want hard words, they run over some worm-eaten
manuscript and pick out half a dozen of the most old and obsolete to
confound their reader, believing, no doubt, that they that understand
their meaning will like it the better, and they that do not will admire
it the more by how much the less they understand it. Nor is this way of
ours of admiring what seems most foreign without its particular grace;
for if there happen to be any more ambitious than others, they may give
their applause with a smile, and, like the ass, shake their ears, that
they may be thought to understand more than the rest of their neighbors.

But to come to the purpose: I have given you my name, but what epithet
shall I add? What but that of the most foolish? For by what more proper
name can so great a goddess as Folly be known to her disciples? And
because it is not alike known to all from what stock I am sprung, with
the Muses' good leave I'll do my endeavor to satisfy you. But yet neither
the first Chaos, Orcus, Saturn, or Japhet, nor any of those threadbare,
musty gods were my father, but Plutus, Riches; that only he, that is, in
spite of Hesiod, Homer, nay and Jupiter himself, _divum pater atque
hominum rex_, the father of gods and men, at whose single beck, as
heretofore, so at present, all things sacred and profane are turned
topsy-turvy. According to whose pleasure war, peace, empire, counsels,
judgments, assemblies, wedlocks, bargains, leagues, laws, arts, all
things light or serious--I want breath--in short, all the public and
private business of mankind is governed; without whose help all that herd
of gods of the poets' making, and those few of the better sort of the
rest, either would not be at all, or if they were, they would be but such
as live at home and keep a poor house to themselves. And to whomsoever
he's an enemy, 'tis not Pallas herself that can befriend him; as on the
contrary he whom he favors may lead Jupiter and his thunder in a string.
This is my father and in him I glory. Nor did he produce me from his
brain, as Jupiter that sour and ill-looked Pallas; but of that lovely
nymph called Youth, the most beautiful and galliard of all the rest. Nor
was I, like that limping blacksmith, begot in the sad and irksome bonds
of matrimony. Yet, mistake me not, 'twas not that blind and decrepit
Plutus in Aristophanes that got me, but such as he was in his full
strength and pride of youth; and not that only, but at such a time when
he had been well heated with nectar, of which he had, at one of the
banquets of the gods, taken a dose extraordinary.

And as to the place of my birth, forasmuch as nowadays that is looked
upon as a main point of nobility, it was neither, like Apollo's, in the
floating Delos, nor Venus-like on the rolling sea, nor in any of blind
Homer's as blind caves: but in the Fortunate Islands, where all things
grew without plowing or sowing; where neither labor, nor old age, nor
disease was ever heard of; and in whose fields neither daffodil, mallows,
onions, beans, and such contemptible things would ever grow, but, on the
contrary, rue, angelica, bugloss, marjoram, trefoils, roses, violets,
lilies, and all the gardens of Adonis invite both your sight and your
smelling. And being thus born, I did not begin the world, as other
children are wont, with crying; but straight perched up and smiled on my
mother. Nor do I envy to the great Jupiter the goat, his nurse, forasmuch
as I was suckled by two jolly nymphs, to wit, Drunkenness, the daughter
of Bacchus, and Ignorance, of Pan. And as for such my companions and
followers as you perceive about me, if you have a mind to know who they
are, you are not like to be the wiser for me, unless it be in Greek: this
here, which you observe with that proud cast of her eye, is _Philautia_,
Self-love; she with the smiling countenance, that is ever and anon
clapping her hands, is _Kolakia_, Flattery; she that looks as if she were
half asleep is _Lethe_, Oblivion; she that sits leaning on both elbows
with her hands clutched together is _Misoponia_, Laziness; she with the
garland on her head, and that smells so strong of perfumes, is _Hedone_,
Pleasure; she with those staring eyes, moving here and there, is _Anoia_,
Madness; she with the smooth skin and full pampered body is _Tryphe_,
Wantonness; and, as to the two gods that you see with them, the one is
_Komos_, Intemperance, the other _Negretos hypnos_, Dead Sleep. These, I
say, are my household servants, and by their faithful counsels I have
subjected all things to my dominion and erected an empire over emperors
themselves. Thus have you had my lineage, education, and companions.

And now, lest I may seem to have taken upon me the name of goddess
without cause, you shall in the next place understand how far my deity
extends, and what advantage by it I have brought both to gods and men.
For, if it was not unwisely said by somebody, that this only is to be a
god, to help men; and if they are deservedly enrolled among the gods that
first brought in corn and wine and such other things as are for the
common good of mankind, why am not I of right the _alpha_, or first, of
all the gods? who being but one, yet bestow all things on all men. For
first, what is more sweet or more precious than life? And yet from whom
can it more properly be said to come than from me? For neither the
crab-favoured Pallas' spear nor the cloud-gathering Jupiter's shield
either beget or propagate mankind; but even he himself, the father of
gods and king of men at whose very beck the heavens shake, must lay by
his forked thunder and those looks wherewith he conquered the giants
and with which at pleasure he frightens the rest of the gods, and like
a common stage player put on a disguise as often as he goes about that,
which now and then he does, that is to say the getting of children: And
the Stoics too, that conceive themselves next to the gods, yet show me
one of them, nay the veriest bigot of the sect, and if he do not put off
his beard, the badge of wisdom, though yet it be no more than what is
common with him and goats; yet at least he must lay by his supercilious
gravity, smooth his forehead, shake off his rigid principles, and for
some time commit an act of folly and dotage. In fine, that wise man
whoever he be, if he intends to have children, must have recourse to me.
But tell me, I beseech you, what man is that would submit his neck to
the noose of wedlock, if, as wise men should, he did but first truly
weigh the inconvenience of the thing? Or what woman is there would ever
go to it did she seriously consider either the peril of child-bearing or
the trouble of bringing them up? So then, if you owe your beings to
wedlock, you owe that wedlock to this my follower, Madness; and what
you owe to me I have already told you. Again, she that has but once
tried what it is, would she, do you think, make a second venture if it
were not for my other companion, Oblivion? Nay, even Venus herself,
notwithstanding whatever Lucretius has said, would not deny but that
all her virtue were lame and fruitless without the help of my deity.
For out of that little, odd, ridiculous May-game came the supercilious
philosophers, in whose room have succeeded a kind of people the world
calls monks, cardinals, priests, and the most holy popes. And lastly,
all that rabble of the poets' gods, with which heaven is so thwacked
and thronged, that though it be of so vast an extent, they are hardly
able to crowd one by another.

But I think it is a small matter that you thus owe your beginning of life
to me, unless I also show you that whatever benefit you receive in the
progress of it is of my gift likewise. For what other is this? Can that
be called life where you take away pleasure? Oh! Do you like what I say?
I knew none of you could have so little wit, or so much folly, or wisdom
rather, as to be of any other opinion. For even the Stoics themselves
that so severely cried down pleasure did but handsomely dissemble, and
railed against it to the common people to no other end but that having
discouraged them from it, they might the more plentifully enjoy it
themselves. But tell me, by Jupiter, what part of man's life is that that
is not sad, crabbed, unpleasant, insipid, troublesome, unless it be
seasoned with pleasure, that is to say, folly? For the proof of which the
never sufficiently praised Sophocles in that his happy elegy of us, "To
know nothing is the only happiness," might be authority enough, but that
I intend to take every particular by itself.

And first, who knows not but a man's infancy is the merriest part of life
to himself, and most acceptable to others? For what is that in them which
we kiss, embrace, cherish, nay enemies succor, but this witchcraft of
folly, which wise Nature did of purpose give them into the world with
them that they might the more pleasantly pass over the toil of education,
and as it were flatter the care and diligence of their nurses? And then
for youth, which is in such reputation everywhere, how do all men favor
it, study to advance it, and lend it their helping hand? And whence, I
pray, all this grace? Whence but from me? by whose kindness, as it
understands as little as may be, it is also for that reason the higher
privileged from exceptions; and I am mistaken if, when it is grown up and
by experience and discipline brought to savor something like man, if in
the same instant that beauty does not fade, its liveliness decay, its
pleasantness grow flat, and its briskness fail. And by how much the
further it runs from me, by so much the less it lives, till it comes to
the burden of old age, not only hateful to others, but to itself also.
Which also were altogether insupportable did not I pity its condition, in
being present with it, and, as the poets' gods were wont to assist such
as were dying with some pleasant metamorphosis, help their decrepitness
as much as in me lies by bringing them back to a second childhood, from
whence they are not improperly called twice children. Which, if you ask
me how I do it, I shall not be shy in the point. I bring them to our
River Lethe (for its springhead rises in the Fortunate Islands, and that
other of hell is but a brook in comparison), from which, as soon as they
have drunk down a long forgetfulness, they wash away by degrees the
perplexity of their minds, and so wax young again.

But perhaps you'll say they are foolish and doting. Admit it; 'tis the
very essence of childhood; as if to be such were not to be a fool, or
that that condition had anything pleasant in it, but that it understood
nothing. For who would not look upon that child as a prodigy that should
have as much wisdom as a man? --according to that common proverb, "I do
not like a child that is a man too soon. " Or who would endure a converse
or friendship with that old man who to so large an experience of things
had joined an equal strength of mind and sharpness of judgment? And
therefore for this reason it is that old age dotes; and that it does so,
it is beholding to me. Yet, notwithstanding, is this dotard exempt from
all those cares that distract a wise man; he is not the less pot
companion, nor is he sensible of that burden of life which the more manly
age finds enough to do to stand upright under it. And sometimes too, like
Plautus' old man, he returns to his three letters, A. M. O. , the most
unhappy of all things living, if he rightly understood what he did in it.
And yet, so much do I befriend him that I make him well received of his
friends and no unpleasant companion; for as much as, according to Homer,
Nestor's discourse was pleasanter than honey, whereas Achilles' was both
bitter and malicious; and that of old men, as he has it in another place,
florid. In which respect also they have this advantage of children, in
that they want the only pleasure of the others' life, we'll suppose it
prattling. Add to this that old men are more eagerly delighted with
children, and they, again, with old men. "Like to like," quoted the Devil
to the collier. For what difference between them, but that the one has
more wrinkles and years upon his head than the other? Otherwise, the
brightness of their hair, toothless mouth, weakness of body, love of
mild, broken speech, chatting, toying, forgetfulness, inadvertency, and
briefly, all other their actions agree in everything. And by how much the
nearer they approach to this old age, by so much they grow backward into
the likeness of children, until like them they pass from life to death,
without any weariness of the one, or sense of the other.

And now, let him that will compare the benefits they receive by me, the
metamorphoses of the gods, of whom I shall not mention what they have
done in their pettish humors but where they have been most favorable:
turning one into a tree, another into a bird, a third into a grasshopper,
serpent, or the like. As if there were any difference between perishing
and being another thing! But I restore the same man to the best and
happiest part of his life. And if men would but refrain from all commerce
with wisdom and give up themselves to be governed by me, they should
never know what it were to be old, but solace themselves with a perpetual
youth. Do but observe our grim philosophers that are perpetually beating
their brains on knotty subjects, and for the most part you'll find them
grown old before they are scarcely young. And whence is it, but that
their continual and restless thoughts insensibly prey upon their spirits
and dry up their radical moisture? Whereas, on the contrary, my fat fools
are as plump and round as a Westphalian hog, and never sensible of old
age, unless perhaps, as sometimes it rarely happens, they come to be
infected with wisdom, so hard a thing it is for a man to be happy in all
things. And to this purpose is that no small testimony of the proverb,
that says, "Folly is the only thing that keeps youth at a stay and old
age afar off;" as it is verified in the Brabanders, of whom there goes
this common saying, "That age, which is wont to render other men wiser,
makes them the greater fools. " And yet there is scarce any nation of a
more jocund converse, or that is less sensible of the misery of old age,
than they are. And to these, as in situation, so for manner of living,
come nearest my friends the Hollanders. And why should I not call them
mine, since they are so diligent observers of me that they are commonly
called by my name? --of which they are so far from being ashamed, they
rather pride themselves in it. Let the foolish world then be packing and
seek out Medeas, Circes, Venuses, Auroras, and I know not what other
fountains of restoring youth. I am sure I am the only person that both
can, and have, made it good. 'Tis I alone that have that wonderful juice
with which Memnon's daughter prolonged the youth of her grandfather
Tithon. I am that Venus by whose favor Phaon became so young again that
Sappho fell in love with him. Mine are those herbs, if yet there be any
such, mine those charms, and mine that fountain that not only restores
departed youth but, which is more desirable, preserves it perpetual. And
if you all subscribe to this opinion, that nothing is better than youth
or more execrable than age, I conceive you cannot but see how much you
are indebted to me, that have retained so great a good and shut out so
great an evil.

But why do I altogether spend my breath in speaking of mortals? View
heaven round, and let him that will reproach me with my name if he find
any one of the gods that were not stinking and contemptible were he not
made acceptable by my deity. Why is it that Bacchus is always a
stripling, and bushy-haired? but because he is mad, and drunk, and spends
his life in drinking, dancing, revels, and May games, not having so much
as the least society with Pallas. And lastly, he is so far from desiring
to be accounted wise that he delights to be worshiped with sports and
gambols; nor is he displeased with the proverb that gave him the surname
of fool, "A greater fool than Bacchus;" which name of his was changed to
Morychus, for that sitting before the gates of his temple, the wanton
country people were wont to bedaub him with new wine and figs. And of
scoffs, what not, have not the ancient comedies thrown on him? O foolish
god, say they, and worthy to be born as you were of your father's thigh!
And yet, who had not rather be your fool and sot, always merry, ever
young, and making sport for other people, than either Homer's Jupiter
with his crooked counsels, terrible to everyone; or old Pan with his
hubbubs; or smutty Vulcan half covered with cinders; or even Pallas
herself, so dreadful with her Gorgon's head and spear and a countenance
like bullbeef? Why is Cupid always portrayed like a boy, but because he
is a very wag and can neither do nor so much as think of anything sober?
Why Venus ever in her prime, but because of her affinity with me? Witness
that color of her hair, so resembling my father, from whence she is
called the golden Venus; and lastly, ever laughing, if you give any
credit to the poets, or their followers the statuaries. What deity did
the Romans ever more religiously adore than that of Flora, the foundress
of all pleasure? Nay, if you should but diligently search the lives of
the most sour and morose of the gods out of Homer and the rest of the
poets, you would find them all but so many pieces of Folly. And to what
purpose should I run over any of the other gods' tricks when you know
enough of Jupiter's loose loves? When that chaste Diana shall so far
forget her sex as to be ever hunting and ready to perish for Endymion?
But I had rather they should hear these things from Momus, from whom
heretofore they were wont to have their shares, till in one of their
angry humors they tumbled him, together with Ate, goddess of mischief,
down headlong to the earth, because his wisdom, forsooth, unseasonably
disturbed their happiness. Nor since that dares any mortal give him
harbor, though I must confess there wanted little but that he had been
received into the courts of princes, had not my companion Flattery
reigned in chief there, with whom and the other there is no more
correspondence than between lambs and wolves. From whence it is that the
gods play the fool with the greater liberty and more content to
themselves "doing all things carelessly," as says Father Homer, that is
to say, without anyone to correct them. For what ridiculous stuff is
there which that stump of the fig tree Priapus does not afford them? What
tricks and legerdemains with which Mercury does not cloak his thefts?
What buffoonery that Vulcan is not guilty of, while one with his
polt-foot, another with his smutched muzzle, another with his
impertinencies, he makes sport for the rest of the gods? As also that old
Silenus with his country dances, Polyphemus footing time to his Cyclops
hammers, the nymphs with their jigs, and satyrs with their antics; while
Pan makes them all twitter with some coarse ballad, which yet they had
rather hear than the Muses themselves, and chiefly when they are well
whittled with nectar. Besides, what should I mention what these gods do
when they are half drunk? Now by my troth, so foolish that I myself can
hardly refrain laughter. But in these matters 'twere better we remembered
Harpocrates, lest some eavesdropping god or other take us whispering that
which Momus only has the privilege of speaking at length.

And therefore, according to Homer's example, I think it high time to
leave the gods to themselves, and look down a little on the earth;
wherein likewise you'll find nothing frolic or fortunate that it owes not
to me. So provident has that great parent of mankind, Nature, been that
there should not be anything without its mixture and, as it were,
seasoning of Folly. For since according to the definition of the Stoics,
wisdom is nothing else than to be governed by reason, and on the contrary
Folly, to be given up to the will of our passions, that the life of man
might not be altogether disconsolate and hard to away with, of how much
more passion than reason has Jupiter composed us? putting in, as one
would say, "scarce half an ounce to a pound. " Besides, he has confined
reason to a narrow corner of the brain and left all the rest of the body
to our passions; has also set up, against this one, two as it were,
masterless tyrants--anger, that possesses the region of the heart, and
consequently the very fountain of life, the heart itself; and lust, that
stretches its empire everywhere. Against which double force how powerful
reason is let common experience declare, inasmuch as she, which yet is
all she can do, may call out to us till she be hoarse again and tell us
the rules of honesty and virtue; while they give up the reins to their
governor and make a hideous clamor, till at last being wearied, he suffer
himself to be carried whither they please to hurry him.

But forasmuch as such as are born to the business of the world have some
little sprinklings of reason more than the rest, yet that they may the
better manage it, even in this as well as in other things, they call me
to counsel; and I give them such as is worthy of myself, to wit, that
they take to them a wife--a silly thing, God wot, and foolish, yet wanton
and pleasant, by which means the roughness of the masculine temper is
seasoned and sweetened by her folly. For in that Plato seems to doubt
under what genus he should put woman, to wit, that of rational creatures
or brutes, he intended no other in it than to show the apparent folly of
the sex. For if perhaps any of them goes about to be thought wiser than
the rest, what else does she do but play the fool twice, as if a man
should "teach a cow to dance," "a thing quite against the hair. " For as
it doubles the crime if anyone should put a disguise upon Nature, or
endeavor to bring her to that she will in no wise bear, according to that
proverb of the Greeks, "An ape is an ape, though clad in scarlet;" so a
woman is a woman still, that is to say foolish, let her put on whatever
vizard she please.

But, by the way, I hope that sex is not so foolish as to take offense at
this, that I myself, being a woman, and Folly too, have attributed folly
to them. For if they weigh it right, they needs must acknowledge that
they owe it to folly that they are more fortunate than men. As first
their beauty, which, and that not without cause, they prefer before
everything, since by its means they exercise a tyranny even upon tyrants
themselves; otherwise, whence proceeds that sour look, rough skin, bushy
beard, and such other things as speak plain old age in a man, but from
that disease of wisdom? Whereas women's cheeks are ever plump and smooth,
their voice small, their skin soft, as if they imitated a certain kind of
perpetual youth. Again, what greater thing do they wish in their whole
lives than that they may please the man? For to what other purpose are
all those dresses, washes, baths, slops, perfumes, and those several
little tricks of setting their faces, painting their eyebrows, and
smoothing their skins? And now tell me, what higher letters of
recommendation have they to men than this folly? For what is it they do
not permit them to do? And to what other purpose than that of pleasure?
Wherein yet their folly is not the least thing that pleases; which so
true it is, I think no one will deny, that does but consider with
himself, what foolish discourse and odd gambols pass between a man and
his woman, as often as he had a mind to be gamesome? And so I have shown
you whence the first and chiefest delight of man's life springs.


But there are some, you'll say, and those too none of the youngest, that
have a greater kindness for the pot than the petticoat and place their
chiefest pleasure in good fellowship. If there can be any great
entertainment without a woman at it, let others look to it. This I am
sure, there was never any pleasant which folly gave not the relish to.
Insomuch that if they find no occasion of laughter, they send for "one
that may make it," or hire some buffoon flatterer, whose ridiculous
discourse may put by the gravity of the company. For to what purpose were
it to clog our stomachs with dainties, junkets, and the like stuff,
unless our eyes and ears, nay whole mind, were likewise entertained with
jests, merriments, and laughter? But of these kind of second courses I am
the only cook; though yet those ordinary practices of our feasts, as
choosing a king, throwing dice, drinking healths, trolling it round,
dancing the cushion, and the like, were not invented by the seven wise
men but myself, and that too for the common pleasure of mankind. The
nature of all which things is such that the more of folly they have, the
more they conduce to human life, which, if it were unpleasant, did not
deserve the name of life; and other than such it could not well be,
did not these kind of diversions wipe away tediousness, next cousin to
the other.

But perhaps there are some that neglect this way of pleasure and rest
satisfied in the enjoyment of their friends, calling friendship the most
desirable of all things, more necessary than either air, fire, or water;
so delectable that he that shall take it out of the world had as good put
out the sun; and, lastly, so commendable, if yet that make anything to
the matter, that neither the philosophers themselves doubted to reckon it
among their chiefest good. But what if I show you that I am both the
beginning and end of this so great good also? Nor shall I go about to
prove it by fallacies, sorites, dilemmas, or other the like subtleties of
logicians, but after my blunt way point out the thing as clearly as it
were with my finger.

And now tell me if to wink, slip over, be blind at, or deceived in the
vices of our friends, nay, to admire and esteem them for virtues, be not
at least the next degree to folly?
What buffoonery that Vulcan is not guilty of, while one with his
polt-foot, another with his smutched muzzle, another with his
impertinencies, he makes sport for the rest of the gods? As also that old
Silenus with his country dances, Polyphemus footing time to his Cyclops
hammers, the nymphs with their jigs, and satyrs with their antics; while
Pan makes them all twitter with some coarse ballad, which yet they had
rather hear than the Muses themselves, and chiefly when they are well
whittled with nectar. Besides, what should I mention what these gods do
when they are half drunk? Now by my troth, so foolish that I myself can
hardly refrain laughter. But in these matters 'twere better we remembered
Harpocrates, lest some eavesdropping god or other take us whispering that
which Momus only has the privilege of speaking at length.

And therefore, according to Homer's example, I think it high time to
leave the gods to themselves, and look down a little on the earth;
wherein likewise you'll find nothing frolic or fortunate that it owes not
to me. So provident has that great parent of mankind, Nature, been that
there should not be anything without its mixture and, as it were,
seasoning of Folly. For since according to the definition of the Stoics,
wisdom is nothing else than to be governed by reason, and on the contrary
Folly, to be given up to the will of our passions, that the life of man
might not be altogether disconsolate and hard to away with, of how much
more passion than reason has Jupiter composed us? putting in, as one
would say, "scarce half an ounce to a pound. " Besides, he has confined
reason to a narrow corner of the brain and left all the rest of the body
to our passions; has also set up, against this one, two as it were,
masterless tyrants--anger, that possesses the region of the heart, and
consequently the very fountain of life, the heart itself; and lust, that
stretches its empire everywhere. Against which double force how powerful
reason is let common experience declare, inasmuch as she, which yet is
all she can do, may call out to us till she be hoarse again and tell us
the rules of honesty and virtue; while they give up the reins to their
governor and make a hideous clamor, till at last being wearied, he suffer
himself to be carried whither they please to hurry him.

But forasmuch as such as are born to the business of the world have some
little sprinklings of reason more than the rest, yet that they may the
better manage it, even in this as well as in other things, they call me
to counsel; and I give them such as is worthy of myself, to wit, that
they take to them a wife--a silly thing, God wot, and foolish, yet wanton
and pleasant, by which means the roughness of the masculine temper is
seasoned and sweetened by her folly. For in that Plato seems to doubt
under what genus he should put woman, to wit, that of rational creatures
or brutes, he intended no other in it than to show the apparent folly of
the sex. For if perhaps any of them goes about to be thought wiser than
the rest, what else does she do but play the fool twice, as if a man
should "teach a cow to dance," "a thing quite against the hair. " For as
it doubles the crime if anyone should put a disguise upon Nature, or
endeavor to bring her to that she will in no wise bear, according to that
proverb of the Greeks, "An ape is an ape, though clad in scarlet;" so a
woman is a woman still, that is to say foolish, let her put on whatever
vizard she please.

But, by the way, I hope that sex is not so foolish as to take offense at
this, that I myself, being a woman, and Folly too, have attributed folly
to them. For if they weigh it right, they needs must acknowledge that
they owe it to folly that they are more fortunate than men. As first
their beauty, which, and that not without cause, they prefer before
everything, since by its means they exercise a tyranny even upon tyrants
themselves; otherwise, whence proceeds that sour look, rough skin, bushy
beard, and such other things as speak plain old age in a man, but from
that disease of wisdom? Whereas women's cheeks are ever plump and smooth,
their voice small, their skin soft, as if they imitated a certain kind of
perpetual youth. Again, what greater thing do they wish in their whole
lives than that they may please the man? For to what other purpose are
all those dresses, washes, baths, slops, perfumes, and those several
little tricks of setting their faces, painting their eyebrows, and
smoothing their skins? And now tell me, what higher letters of
recommendation have they to men than this folly? For what is it they do
not permit them to do? And to what other purpose than that of pleasure?
Wherein yet their folly is not the least thing that pleases; which so
true it is, I think no one will deny, that does but consider with
himself, what foolish discourse and odd gambols pass between a man and
his woman, as often as he had a mind to be gamesome? And so I have shown
you whence the first and chiefest delight of man's life springs.


But there are some, you'll say, and those too none of the youngest, that
have a greater kindness for the pot than the petticoat and place their
chiefest pleasure in good fellowship. If there can be any great
entertainment without a woman at it, let others look to it. This I am
sure, there was never any pleasant which folly gave not the relish to.
Insomuch that if they find no occasion of laughter, they send for "one
that may make it," or hire some buffoon flatterer, whose ridiculous
discourse may put by the gravity of the company. For to what purpose were
it to clog our stomachs with dainties, junkets, and the like stuff,
unless our eyes and ears, nay whole mind, were likewise entertained with
jests, merriments, and laughter? But of these kind of second courses I am
the only cook; though yet those ordinary practices of our feasts, as
choosing a king, throwing dice, drinking healths, trolling it round,
dancing the cushion, and the like, were not invented by the seven wise
men but myself, and that too for the common pleasure of mankind. The
nature of all which things is such that the more of folly they have, the
more they conduce to human life, which, if it were unpleasant, did not
deserve the name of life; and other than such it could not well be,
did not these kind of diversions wipe away tediousness, next cousin to
the other.

But perhaps there are some that neglect this way of pleasure and rest
satisfied in the enjoyment of their friends, calling friendship the most
desirable of all things, more necessary than either air, fire, or water;
so delectable that he that shall take it out of the world had as good put
out the sun; and, lastly, so commendable, if yet that make anything to
the matter, that neither the philosophers themselves doubted to reckon it
among their chiefest good. But what if I show you that I am both the
beginning and end of this so great good also? Nor shall I go about to
prove it by fallacies, sorites, dilemmas, or other the like subtleties of
logicians, but after my blunt way point out the thing as clearly as it
were with my finger.

And now tell me if to wink, slip over, be blind at, or deceived in the
vices of our friends, nay, to admire and esteem them for virtues, be not
at least the next degree to folly? What is it when one kisses his
mistress' freckle neck, another the wart on her nose? When a father shall
swear his squint-eyed child is more lovely than Venus? What is this, I
say, but mere folly? And so, perhaps you'll cry it is; and yet 'tis this
only that joins friends together and continues them so joined. I speak of
ordinary men, of whom none are born without their imperfections, and
happy is he that is pressed with the least: for among wise princes there
is either no friendship at all, or if there be, 'tis unpleasant and
reserved, and that too but among a very few 'twere a crime to say none.
For that the greatest part of mankind are fools, nay there is not anyone
that dotes not in many things; and friendship, you know, is seldom made
but among equals. And yet if it should so happen that there were a mutual
good will between them, it is in no wise firm nor very long lived; that
is to say, among such as are morose and more circumspect than needs, as
being eagle-sighted into his friends' faults, but so blear-eyed to their
own that they take not the least notice of the wallet that hangs behind
their own shoulders. Since then the nature of man is such that there is
scarce anyone to be found that is not subject to many errors, add to this
the great diversity of minds and studies, so many slips, oversights, and
chances of human life, and how is it possible there should be any true
friendship between those Argus, so much as one hour, were it not for that
which the Greeks excellently call _euetheian_? And you may render by
folly or good nature, choose you whether. But what? Is not the author and
parent of all our love, Cupid, as blind as a beetle? And as with him all
colors agree, so from him is it that everyone likes his own sweeter-kin
best, though never so ugly, and "that an old man dotes on his old wife,
and a boy on his girl. " These things are not only done everywhere but
laughed at too; yet as ridiculous as they are, they make society
pleasant, and, as it were, glue it together.

And what has been said of friendship may more reasonably be presumed of
matrimony, which in truth is no other than an inseparable conjunction of
life. Good God! What divorces, or what not worse than that, would daily
happen were not the converse between a man and his wife supported and
cherished by flattery, apishness, gentleness, ignorance, dissembling,
certain retainers of mine also! Whoop holiday! how few marriages should
we have, if the husband should but thoroughly examine how many tricks his
pretty little mop of modesty has played before she was married! And how
fewer of them would hold together, did not most of the wife's actions
escape the husband's knowledge through his neglect or sottishness! And
for this also you are beholden to me, by whose means it is that the
husband is pleasant to his wife, the wife to her husband, and the house
kept in quiet. A man is laughed at, when seeing his wife weeping he licks
up her tears. But how much happier is it to be thus deceived than by
being troubled with jealousy not only to torment himself but set all
things in a hubbub!

In fine, I am so necessary to the making of all society and manner of
life both delightful and lasting, that neither would the people long
endure their governors, nor the servant his master, nor the master his
footman, nor the scholar his tutor, nor one friend another, nor the wife
her husband, nor the usurer the borrower, nor a soldier his commander,
nor one companion another, unless all of them had their interchangeable
failings, one while flattering, other while prudently conniving, and
generally sweetening one another with some small relish of folly.

And now you'd think I had said all, but you shall hear yet greater
things. Will he, I pray, love anyone that hates himself? Or ever agree
with another who is not at peace with himself? Or beget pleasure in
another that is troublesome to himself? I think no one will say it that
is not more foolish than Folly. And yet, if you should exclude me,
there's no man but would be so far from enduring another that he would
stink in his own nostrils, be nauseated with his own actions, and himself
become odious to himself; forasmuch as Nature, in too many things rather
a stepdame than a parent to us, has imprinted that evil in men,
especially such as have least judgment, that everyone repents him of his
own condition and admires that of others. Whence it comes to pass that
all her gifts, elegancy, and graces corrupt and perish. For what benefit
is beauty, the greatest blessing of heaven, if it be mixed with
affectation? What youth, if corrupted with the severity of old age?
Lastly, what is that in the whole business of a man's life he can do with
any grace to himself or others--for it is not so much a thing of art, as
the very life of every action, that it be done with a good mien--unless
this my friend and companion, Self-love, be present with it? Nor does she
without cause supply me the place of a sister, since her whole endeavors
are to act my part everywhere. For what is more foolish than for a man to
study nothing else than how to please himself? To make himself the object
of his own admiration? And yet, what is there that is either delightful
or taking, nay rather what not the contrary, that a man does against the
hair? Take away this salt of life, and the orator may even sit still with
his action, the musician with all his division will be able to please no
man, the player be hissed off the stage, the poet and all his Muses
ridiculous, the painter with his art contemptible, and the physician with
all his slip-slops go a-begging. Lastly, you will be taken for an ugly
fellow instead of youthful, and a beast instead of a wise man, a child
instead of eloquent, and instead of a well-bred man, a clown. So
necessary a thing it is that everyone flatter himself and commend himself
to himself before he can be commended by others.

Lastly, since it is the chief point of happiness "that a man is willing
to be what he is," you have further abridged in this my Self-love, that
no man is ashamed of his own face, no man of his own wit, no man of his
own parentage, no man of his own house, no man of his manner of living,
nor any man of his own country; so that a Highlander has no desire to
change with an Italian, a Thracian with an Athenian, nor a Scythian for
the Fortunate Islands. O the singular care of Nature, that in so great a
variety of things has made all equal! Where she has been sometimes
sparing of her gifts she has recompensed it with the more of self-love;
though here, I must confess, I speak foolishly, it being the greatest of
all other her gifts: to say nothing that no great action was ever
attempted without my motion, or art brought to perfection without my
help.

Is not war the very root and matter of all famed enterprises? And yet
what more foolish than to undertake it for I know what trifles,
especially when both parties are sure to lose more than they get by the
bargain? For of those that are slain, not a word of them; and for the
rest, when both sides are close engaged "and the trumpets make an ugly
noise," what use of those wise men, I pray, that are so exhausted with
study that their thin, cold blood has scarce any spirits left? No, it
must be those blunt, fat fellows, that by how much the more they exceed
in courage, fall short in understanding. Unless perhaps one had rather
choose Demosthenes for a soldier, who, following the example of
Archilochius, threw away his arms and betook him to his heels e'er he had
scarce seen his enemy; as ill a soldier, as happy an orator.

But counsel, you'll say, is not of least concern in matters of war. In a
general I grant it; but this thing of warring is not part of philosophy,
but managed by parasites, panders, thieves, cut-throats, plowmen, sots,
spendthrifts, and such other dregs of mankind, not philosophers; who how
unapt they are even for common converse, let Socrates, whom the oracle of
Apollo, though not so wisely, judged "the wisest of all men living," be
witness; who stepping up to speak somewhat, I know not what, in public
was forced to come down again well laughed at for his pains. Though yet
in this he was not altogether a fool, that he refused the appellation of
wise, and returning it back to the oracle, delivered his opinion that a
wise man should abstain from meddling with public business; unless
perhaps he should have rather admonished us to beware of wisdom if we
intended to be reckoned among the number of men, there being nothing but
his wisdom that first accused and afterwards sentenced him to the
drinking of his poisoned cup. For while, as you find him in Aristophanes,
philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring how far a flea could
leap, and admiring that so small a creature as a fly should make so great
a buzz, he meddled not with anything that concerned common life. But his
master being in danger of his head, his scholar Plato is at hand, to wit
that famous patron, that being disturbed with the noise of the people,
could not go through half his first sentence. What should I speak of
Theophrastus, who being about to make an oration, became as dumb as if he
had met a wolf in his way, which yet would have put courage in a man of
war? Or Isocrates, that was so cowhearted that he dared never attempt it?
Or Tully, that great founder of the Roman eloquence, that could never
begin to speak without an odd kind of trembling, like a boy that had got
the hiccough; which Fabius interprets as an argument of a wise orator and
one that was sensible of what he was doing; and while he says it, does he
not plainly confess that wisdom is a great obstacle to the true
management of business? What would become of them, think you, were they
to fight it out at blows that are so dead through fear when the contest
is only with empty words?

And next to these is cried up, forsooth, that goodly sentence of Plato's,
"Happy is that commonwealth where a philosopher is prince, or whose
prince is addicted to philosophy. " When yet if you consult historians,
you'll find no princes more pestilent to the commonwealth than where the
empire has fallen to some smatterer in philosophy or one given to
letters. To the truth of which I think the Catoes give sufficient credit;
of whom the one was ever disturbing the peace of the commonwealth with
his hair-brained accusations; the other, while he too wisely vindicated
its liberty, quite overthrew it. Add to this the Bruti, Casii, nay Cicero
himself, that was no less pernicious to the commonwealth of Rome than was
Demosthenes to that of Athens. Besides M. Antoninus (that I may give you
one instance that there was once one good emperor; for with much ado I
can make it out) was become burdensome and hated of his subjects upon no
other score but that he was so great a philosopher. But admitting him
good, he did the commonwealth more hurt in leaving behind him such a son
as he did than ever he did it good by his own government. For these kind
of men that are so given up to the study of wisdom are generally most
unfortunate, but chiefly in their children; Nature, it seems, so
providently ordering it, lest this mischief of wisdom should spread
further among mankind. For which reason it is manifest why Cicero's son
was so degenerate, and that wise Socrates' children, as one has well
observed, were more like their mother than their father, that is to
say, fools.

However this were to be born with, if only as to public employments they
were "like a sow upon a pair of organs," were they anything more apt to
discharge even the common offices of life. Invite a wise man to a feast
and he'll spoil the company, either with morose silence or troublesome
disputes. Take him out to dance, and you'll swear "a cow would have done
it better. " Bring him to the theatre, and his very looks are enough to
spoil all, till like Cato he take an occasion of withdrawing rather than
put off his supercilious gravity. Let him fall into discourse, and he
shall make more sudden stops than if he had a wolf before him. Let him
buy, or sell, or in short go about any of those things without there is
no living in this world, and you'll say this piece of wisdom were rather
a stock than a man, of so little use is he to himself, country, or
friends; and all because he is wholly ignorant of common things and lives
a course of life quite different from the people; by which means it is
impossible but that he contract a popular odium, to wit, by reason of the
great diversity of their life and souls. For what is there at all done
among men that is not full of folly, and that too from fools and to
fools? Against which universal practice if any single one shall dare to
set up his throat, my advice to him is, that following the example of
Timon, he retire into some desert and there enjoy his wisdom to himself.

But, to return to my design, what power was it that drew those stony,
oaken, and wild people into cities but flattery? For nothing else is
signified by Amphion and Orpheus' harp. What was it that, when the common
people of Rome were like to have destroyed all by their mutiny, reduced
them to obedience? Was it a philosophical oration? Least. But a
ridiculous and childish fable of the belly and the rest of the members.
And as good success had Themistocles in his of the fox and hedgehog. What
wise man's oration could ever have done so much with the people as
Sertorius' invention of his white hind? Or his ridiculous emblem of
pulling off a horse's tail hair by hair? Or as Lycurgus his example of
his two whelps? To say nothing of Minos and Numa, both which ruled their
foolish multitudes with fabulous inventions; with which kind of toys that
great and powerful beast, the people, are led anyway. Again what city
ever received Plato's or Aristotle's laws, or Socrates' precepts? But, on
the contrary, what made the Decii devote themselves to the infernal gods,
or Q. Curtius to leap into the gulf, but an empty vainglory, a most
bewitching siren? And yet 'tis strange it should be so condemned by those
wise philosophers. For what is more foolish, say they, than for a
suppliant suitor to flatter the people, to buy their favor with gifts, to
court the applauses of so many fools, to please himself with their
acclamations, to be carried on the people's shoulders as in triumph, and
have a brazen statue in the marketplace? Add to this the adoption of
names and surnames, those divine honors given to a man of no reputation,
and the deification of the most wicked tyrants with public ceremonies;
most foolish things, and such as one Democritus is too little to laugh
at. Who denies it? And yet from this root sprang all the great acts of
the heroes which the pens of so many eloquent men have extolled to the
skies. In a word, this folly is that that laid the foundation of cities;
and by it, empire, authority, religion, policy, and public actions are
preserved; neither is there anything in human life that is not a kind of
pastime of folly.

But to speak of arts, what set men's wits on work to invent and transmit
to posterity so many famous, as they conceive, pieces of learning but the
thirst of glory? With so much loss of sleep, such pains and travail,
have the most foolish of men thought to purchase themselves a kind of
I know not what fame, than which nothing can be more vain. And yet
notwithstanding, you owe this advantage to folly, and which is the
most delectable of all other, that you reap the benefit of other
men's madness.

And now, having vindicated to myself the praise of fortitude and
industry, what think you if I do the same by that of prudence? But some
will say, you may as well join fire and water. It may be so. But yet I
doubt not but to succeed even in this also, if, as you have done
hitherto, you will but favor me with your attention. And first, if
prudence depends upon experience, to whom is the honor of that name more
proper? To the wise man, who partly out of modesty and partly distrust of
himself, attempts nothing; or the fool, whom neither modesty which he
never had, nor danger which he never considers, can discourage from
anything? The wise man has recourse to the books of the ancients, and
from thence picks nothing but subtleties of words. The fool, in
undertaking and venturing on the business of the world, gathers, if I
mistake not, the true prudence, such as Homer though blind may be said to
have seen when he said, "The burnt child dreads the fire. " For there are
two main obstacles to the knowledge of things, modesty that casts a mist
before the understanding, and fear that, having fancied a danger,
dissuades us from the attempt. But from these folly sufficiently frees
us, and few there are that rightly understand of what great advantage it
is to blush at nothing and attempt everything.

But if you had rather take prudence for that that consists in the
judgment of things, hear me, I beseech you, how far they are from it that
yet crack of the name. For first 'tis evident that all human things, like
Alcibiades' Sileni or rural gods, carry a double face, but not the least
alike; so that what at first sight seems to be death, if you view it
narrowly may prove to be life; and so the contrary. What appears
beautiful may chance to be deformed; what wealthy, a very beggar; what
infamous, praiseworthy; what learned, a dunce; what lusty, feeble; what
jocund, sad; what noble, base; what lucky, unfortunate; what friendly, an
enemy; and what healthful, noisome. In short, view the inside of these
Sileni, and you'll find them quite other than what they appear; which, if
perhaps it shall not seem so philosophically spoken, I'll make it plain
to you "after my blunt way. " Who would not conceive a prince a great lord
and abundant in everything? But yet being so ill-furnished with the gifts
of the mind, and ever thinking he shall never have enough, he's the
poorest of all men. And then for his mind so given up to vice, 'tis a
shame how it enslaves him. I might in like manner philosophize of the
rest; but let this one, for example's sake, be enough.

Yet why this? will someone say. Have patience, and I'll show you what I
drive at. If anyone seeing a player acting his part on a stage should go
about to strip him of his disguise and show him to the people in his true
native form, would he not, think you, not only spoil the whole design of
the play, but deserve himself to be pelted off with stones as a
phantastical fool and one out of his wits? But nothing is more common
with them than such changes; the same person one while impersonating a
woman, and another while a man; now a youngster, and by and by a grim
seignior; now a king, and presently a peasant; now a god, and in a trice
again an ordinary fellow. But to discover this were to spoil all, it
being the only thing that entertains the eyes of the spectators. And what
is all this life but a kind of comedy, wherein men walk up and down in
one another's disguises and act their respective parts, till the
property-man brings them back to the attiring house. And yet he often
orders a different dress, and makes him that came but just now off in the
robes of a king put on the rags of a beggar. Thus are all things
represented by counterfeit, and yet without this there was no living.

And here if any wise man, as it were dropped from heaven, should start up
and cry, this great thing whom the world looks upon for a god and I know
not what is not so much as a man, for that like a beast he is led by his
passions, but the worst of slaves, inasmuch as he gives himself up
willingly to so many and such detestable masters. Again if he should bid
a man that were bewailing the death of his father to laugh, for that he
now began to live by having got an estate, without which life is but a
kind of death; or call another that were boasting of his family ill
begotten or base, because he is so far removed from virtue that is the
only fountain of nobility; and so of the rest: what else would he get by
it but be thought himself mad and frantic? For as nothing is more foolish
than preposterous wisdom, so nothing is more unadvised than a forward
unseasonable prudence. And such is his that does not comply with the
present time "and order himself as the market goes," but forgetting that
law of feasts, "either drink or begone," undertakes to disprove a common
received opinion. Whereas on the contrary 'tis the part of a truly
prudent man not to be wise beyond his condition, but either to take no
notice of what the world does, or run with it for company. But this is
foolish, you'll say; nor shall I deny it, provided always you be so civil
on the other side as to confess that this is to act a part in that world.

But, O you gods, "shall I speak or hold my tongue? " But why should I be
silent in a thing that is more true than truth itself? However it might
not be amiss perhaps in so great an affair to call forth the Muses from
Helicon, since the poets so often invoke them upon every foolish
occasion. Be present then awhile, and assist me, you daughters of
Jupiter, while I make it out that there is no way to that so much famed
wisdom, nor access to that fortress as they call it of happiness, but
under the banner of Folly. And first 'tis agreed of all hands that our
passions belong to Folly; inasmuch as we judge a wise man from a fool by
this, that the one is ordered by them, the other by reason; and therefore
the Stoics remove from a wise man all disturbances of mind as so many
diseases. But these passions do not only the office of a tutor to such as
are making towards the port of wisdom, but are in every exercise of
virtue as it were spurs and incentives, nay and encouragers to well
doing: which though that great Stoic Seneca most strongly denies, and
takes from a wise man all affections whatever, yet in doing that he
leaves him not so much as a man but rather a new kind of god that was
never yet nor ever like to be. Nay, to speak plainer, he sets up a stony
semblance of a man, void of all sense and common feeling of humanity. And
much good to them with this wise man of theirs; let them enjoy him to
themselves, love him without competitors, and live with him in Plato's
commonwealth, the country of ideas, or Tantalus' orchards. For who would
not shun and startle at such a man, as at some unnatural accident or
spirit? A man dead to all sense of nature and common affections, and no
more moved with love or pity than if he were a flint or rock; whose
censure nothing escapes; that commits no errors himself, but has a lynx's
eyes upon others; measures everything by an exact line, and forgives
nothing; pleases himself with himself only; the only rich, the only wise,
the only free man, and only king; in brief, the only man that is
everything, but in his own single judgment only; that cares not for the
friendship of any man, being himself a friend to no man; makes no doubt
to make the gods stoop to him, and condemns and laughs at the whole
actions of our life? And yet such a beast is this their perfect wise man.
But tell me pray, if the thing were to be carried by most voices, what
city would choose him for its governor, or what army desire him for their
general? What woman would have such a husband, what goodfellow such a
guest, or what servant would either wish or endure such a master? Nay,
who had not rather have one of the middle sort of fools, who, being a
fool himself, may the better know how to command or obey fools; and who
though he please his like, 'tis yet the greater number; one that is kind
to his wife, merry among his friends, a boon companion, and easy to be
lived with; and lastly one that thinks nothing of humanity should be a
stranger to him? But I am weary of this wise man, and therefore I'll
proceed to some other advantages.

Go to then. Suppose a man in some lofty high tower, and that he could
look round him, as the poets say Jupiter was now and then wont. To how
many misfortunes would he find the life of man subject? How miserable, to
say no worse, our birth, how difficult our education; to how many wrongs
our childhood exposed, to what pains our youth; how unsupportable our old
age, and grievous our unavoidable death? As also what troops of diseases
beset us, how many casualties hang over our heads, how many troubles
invade us, and how little there is that is not steeped in gall? To say
nothing of those evils one man brings upon another, as poverty,
imprisonment, infamy, dishonesty, racks, snares, treachery, reproaches,
actions, deceits--but I'm got into as endless a work as numbering the
sands--for what offenses mankind have deserved these things, or what
angry god compelled them to be born into such miseries is not my present
business. Yet he that shall diligently examine it with himself, would he
not, think you, approve the example of the Milesian virgins and kill
himself? But who are they that for no other reason but that they were
weary of life have hastened their own fate? Were they not the next
neighbors to wisdom? among whom, to say nothing of Diogenes, Xenocrates,
Cato, Cassius, Brutus, that wise man Chiron, being offered immortality,
chose rather to die than be troubled with the same thing always.

And now I think you see what would become of the world if all men should
be wise; to wit it were necessary we got another kind of clay and some
better potter. But I, partly through ignorance, partly unadvisedness, and
sometimes through forgetfulness of evil, do now and then so sprinkle
pleasure with the hopes of good and sweeten men up in their greatest
misfortunes that they are not willing to leave this life, even then when
according to the account of the destinies this life has left them; and by
how much the less reason they have to live, by so much the more they
desire it; so far are they from being sensible of the least wearisomeness
of life. Of my gift it is, that you have so many old Nestors everywhere
that have scarce left them so much as the shape of a man; stutterers,
dotards, toothless, gray-haired, bald; or rather, to use the words of
Aristophanes, "Nasty, crumpled, miserable, shriveled, bald, toothless,
and wanting their baubles," yet so delighted with life and to be thought
young that one dyes his gray hairs; another covers his baldness with a
periwig; another gets a set of new teeth; another falls desperately in
love with a young wench and keeps more flickering about her than a young
man would have been ashamed of. For to see such an old crooked piece with
one foot in the grave to marry a plump young wench, and that too without
a portion, is so common that men almost expect to be commended for it.
But the best sport of all is to see our old women, even dead with age,
and such skeletons one would think they had stolen out of their graves,
and ever mumbling in their mouths, "Life is sweet;" and as old as they
are, still caterwauling, daily plastering their face, scarce ever from
the glass, gossiping, dancing, and writing love letters. These things are
laughed at as foolish, as indeed they are; yet they please themselves,
live merrily, swim in pleasure, and in a word are happy, by my courtesy.
But I would have them to whom these things seem ridiculous to consider
with themselves whether it be not better to live so pleasant a life in
such kind of follies, than, as the proverb goes, "to take a halter and
hang themselves. " Besides though these things may be subject to censure,
it concerns not my fools in the least, inasmuch as they take no notice of
it; or if they do, they easily neglect it. If a stone fall upon a man's
head, that's evil indeed; but dishonesty, infamy, villainy, ill reports
carry no more hurt in them than a man is sensible of; and if a man have
no sense of them, they are no longer evils.