Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian - Ernest Renan

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roome for others, as others have done for you. Equalitie is the chiefe ground-worke of equitie, who can complaine to be comprehended where all are contained? So may you live long enough, you shall never diminish anything from the time you have to die: it is bootlesse; so long shall you continue in that state which you feare, as if you had died, being in your swathing-clothes, and when you were sucking.

      —licet, quot vis, vivendo vincere secla.

       Mors sterna tamen, nihilominus ilia manebit.

       [Footnote: Ib. 1126.]

      Though yeares you live, as many as you will,

       Death is eternall, death remaineth still.

      And I will so please you, that you shall have no discontent.

      In vera nescis nullum fore morte alium te,

       Qui possit vivus tibi te lugere peremptum,

       Stansque jacentem.

       [Footnote: Idt. 1. Iii. 9.]

      Thou know'st not there shall be not other thou,

       When thou art dead indeed, that can tell how

       Alive to waile thee dying, Standing to waile thee lying.

      Nor shall you wish for life, which you so much desire

      Nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitamque requirit,

       [Footnote: ib. 963.]

       Nec desiderium nostri nos afficit ullum.

       [Footnote: Ib. 966.]

      For then none for himselfe or life requires:

       Nor are we of our selves affected with desires.

      Death is lesse to be feared than nothing, if there were anything lesse than nothing.

      —multo mortem minus ad nos esse putandum,

       Si minus esse potest quam quod nihil esse videmus.

       [Footnote: Ib. 970.]

      Death is much less to us, we ought esteeme,

       If lesse may be, than what doth nothing seeme.

      Nor alive, nor dead, it doth concern you nothing. Alive because you are: Dead, because you are no more. Moreover, no man dies before his houre. The time you leave behinde was no more yours than that which was before your birth, and concerneth you no more.

      Respice enim quam nil ad nos anteacta vetustas

       Temporis aeterni fuerit.

       [Footnote: Ib. 1016.]

      For marke, how all antiquitie foregone

       Of all time ere we were, to us was none.

      Wheresoever your life ended, there is it all. The profit of life consists not in the space, but rather in the use. Some man hath lived long, that hath a short life, Follow it whilst you have time. It consists not in number of yeeres, but in your will, that you have lived long enough. Did you thinke you should never come to the place, where you were still going? There is no way but hath an end. And if company may solace you, doth not the whole world walke the same path?

      —Omnia te, vita perfuncta, sequentur.

       [Footnote: Ib. 1012.]

      Life past, all things at last

       Shall follow thee as thou hast past.

      Doe not all things move as you doe, or keepe your course? Is there any thing grows not old together with yourselfe? A thousand men, a thousand beasts, and a thousand other creatures die in the very instant that you die.

      Nam nox nulla diem, neque noctem aurora sequuta est,

       Que non audierit mistus vagitibus aegris

       Ploratus, mortis comites et funeris atri.

       [Footnote: Id. i. ii. 587.]

      No night ensued day light; no morning followed night,

       Which heard not moaning mixt with sick-mens groaning,

       With deaths and funerals joyned was that moaning.

      To what end recoile you from it, if you cannot goe backe. You have seene many who have found good in death, ending thereby many many miseries. But have you seene any that hath received hurt thereby? Therefore it is meere simplicitie to condemne a thing you never approve, neither by yourselfe nor any other. Why doest thou complaine of me and of destinie? Doe we offer thee any wrong? is it for thee to direct us, or for us to governe thee? Although thy age be not come to her period, thy life is. A little man is a whole man as well as a great man. Neither men nor their lives are measured by the Ell. Chiron refused immortalitie, being informed of the conditions thereof, even by the God of time and of continuance, Saturne his father. Imagine truly how much an ever-during life would be lesse tolerable and more painfull to a man, than is the life which I have given him. Had you not death you would then uncessantly curse, and cry out against me, that I had deprived you of it. I have of purpose and unwittingly blended some bitternesse amongst it, that so seeing the commoditie of its use, I might hinder you from over- greedily embracing, or indiscreetly calling for it. To continue in this moderation that is, neither to fly from life nor to run to death (which I require of you) I have tempered both the one and other betweene sweetnes and sowrenes. I first taught Thales, the chiefest of your Sages and Wisemen, that to live and die were indifferent, which made him answer one very wisely, who asked him wherefore he died not: "Because," said he, "it is indifferent. The water, the earth, the aire, the fire, and other members of this my universe, are no more the instruments of thy life than of thy death. Why fearest thou thy last day? He is no more guiltie, and conferreth no more to thy death, than any of the others. It is not the last step that causeth weariness: it only declares it. All daies march towards death, only the last comes to it." Behold heere the good precepts of our universall mother Nature. I have oftentimes bethought my self whence it proceedeth, that in times of warre, the visage of death (whether wee see it in us or in others) seemeth without all comparison much lesse dreadful and terrible unto us, than in our houses, or in our beds, otherwise it should be an armie of Physitians and whiners, and she ever being one, there must needs bee much more assurance amongst countrie-people and of base condition, than in others. I verily believe, these fearefull lookes, and astonishing countenances wherewith we encompass it, are those that more amaze and terrifie us than death: a new forme of life; the out cries of mothers; the wailing of women and children; the visitation of dismaid and swouning friends; the assistance of a number of pale-looking, distracted, and whining servants; a darke chamber; tapers burning round about; our couch beset round with Physitians and Preachers; and to conclude, nothing but horror and astonishment on every side of us: are wee not already dead and buried? The very children are afraid of their friends, when they see them masked; and so are we. The maske must as well be taken from things as from men, which being removed, we shall find nothing hid under it, but the very same death, that a seely[Footnote: weak, simple] varlet, or a simple maid-servant, did latterly suffer without amazement or feare. Happie is that death which takes all leasure from the preparations of such an equipage.

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      I never knew father, how crooked and deformed soever his sonne were, that would either altogether cast him off, or not acknowledge him for his owne: and yet (unlesse he be meerely besotted or blinded in his affection) it may not be said, but he plainly perceiveth his defects, and hath a feeling of his imperfections. But so it is, he is his owne. So it is in my selfe. I see better than any man else, that what I have set downe is nought but the fond imaginations of him who in his youth hath tasted nothing but the paring, and seen but the superficies of true learning: whereof he hath retained but a generall and shapelesse forme: a smacke of every thing in generall, but nothing to the purpose in particular: After the French manner. To be short, I know there is an art of Phisicke; a course of lawes; foure parts of the Mathematikes; and I am not altogether ignorant what they tend unto.

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