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ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE

 (b) Tempora certa modosque, et quod prius ordine verbum est,
Posterius facias, præponens ultima primis,
Invenias etiam disjecti membra poete,[1] —

it will not be changed in character by that; even its fragments will be beautiful. Menander, when he was taunted because, the day drawing near on which he had promised a comedy, he had not yet set hand to it, replied: “It is composed and ready; nothing remains to be done save to add the verses.[2] Having the subject and the details[3] arranged in his mind, he took small account of the rest. Since Ronsard and du Bellay have given reputation to our French poetry, every little beginner, it seems to me, uses as swelling words, and manages his cadences almost like them. (c) Plus sonat quam valet.[4] (a) In the opinion of the vulgar there were never so many poets; but while it has been very easy for them to reproduce their rhymes, they fall very far short in imitating the rich descriptions of the one and the delicate fancies of the other.

Aye, but how if he[5] be importuned by the sophistical artifice of some syllogism? Ham makes one drink, drink quenches thirst, therefore ham quenches thirst. (c) Let him laugh them to scorn; there is more wit in so doing than in answering this.[6] Let him borrow from Aristippus this diverting counterstroke: "Why should I unloose it when, fettered, it impedes me?"[7] Some one propounding certain dialectical refinements against Cleanthes, Chrysippus said to

  1. ↑ [Take away] the rhythm and the metre, and change the order of the words, putting the first last and the last first, and you will find the dispersed limits of the poet. — Horace, Satires, I, 4.58, 59, 62. By omitting two lines, Montaigne precisely reverses the thoughts of Horace.
  2. ↑ See Plutarch, Of the renown of the Athenians.
  3. ↑ Les choses et la matière.
  4. ↑ There is more sound than worth. — Seneca, Epistle 40.5.
  5. ↑ Our pupil.
  6. ↑ See Idem, Epistle 49.6. — The following sentence was written by Montaigne on the Bordeaux copy of 1588, then erased: Voies ce qu'il en semble a Platon en l' Euthydème: et par tout la guerre jurée de Socrates a l'encontre des Sophismes.
  7. ↑ Pourquoi le deslierai je, puis que, tout lie, il m'empesche? See Diogenes Laertius, Life of Aristippus.
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