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Montaige Shake Stor PDF
Montaige Shake Stor PDF
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LIV
'I have not had access to this work. A. H. Upham, The French In
Literature (New York, 1908), p. 282, cites the parallel as pointed out
Notes and Various Readings (1781), pt. iv, p. 63.
2 Hamlet: ein Tendenz-drama Shakespeares (Berlin, 1871).
988
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Alice Harmon
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parallels cited by Taylor may be due to a common inheritance of Renaissance thought shared by the two writers.7 Pierre Villey believes the
passage in The Tempest is the only instance of Shakespeare's borrowing
from Montaigne. After reading the exhaustive parallels cited by Robertson and others, he concludes that "cent zeros additionnes ensemble ne
font toujours que zero."8 Yet, in spite of the skepticism of the more
conservative scholars, parallels are still cited to prove a direct relation
between the two writers. Miss Suzanne Tiirck has brought together
numerous passages which she believes show unmistakable influence of
the Essais on Hamlet.9 J. Dover Wilson cites Montaigne frequently in
his notes to his recent edition of Hamlet.10 And Joseph E. Baker, in his
essay "The Philosophy of Hamlet," says that in Hamlet "direct echoing
[of Montaigne] seems very probable.""
Those who have attempted to show that Shakespeare's borrowing
from Montaigne was extensive have failed to take sufficient account of
the wide currency in the Renaissance of ideas common to the two writers.
For most of the passages in the Essays and in Shakespeare which reflect
on the same problems, both writers probably drew upon sentences, simili-
knew the Latin forms of many of the loci. He had no doubt learned to
search out the "places" in school authors by the methods then in vogue
in the schools. He had perhaps gathered them from the treatises of Cicero, from the letters and essays of Seneca, and from some Latin version
of Plutarch-writers who are prominent among Montaigne's avowed
sources. In these, in other Latin works, and in the enormously popular
anthologies of quotations, such as Erasmus' two great collections-the
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990
parallels in the special studies which have been cited from the Essays as
sources for Shakespeare, especially those from Hamlet and Julius Caesar
with parallels from Florio's "That to Philosophie, is to learne how to die"
(I, 19), are reflections embodying the Stoic view of the ideal attitude
toward death and fortune. Shakespeare would have found precepts on
this theme scattered through the books of aphorisms mentioned above
and in numerous popular English adaptations from Stoic works, such as
E.A.'s Defence of Death (1577), Lord Berners' The golden boke of Marcus
Aurelius (1534), North's Diall of Princes (1557), and Thomas Twyne's
translation of Petrarch's De remediis utriusque fortunae as A Phisicke
against fortune (1579).
them on to succeeding generations. To loci communes under such head12 My citations from Baldwin are from the edition of 1564, representing Paulfreyman's
third revision. I cite from the 1630 edition of Ling, and from the 1634 edition of Meres. My
citations from Elyot, Bankette of sapience (1539) and from Whittinton's translations from
St. Martin-The Forme and Rule of honest lyvynge and The Myrour or Glasse of manersare from photostat copies of the originals in the British Museum. Of the Polyanthea I cite
the edition of 1608, of the Adagia the Froben edition, 1533. My citations from E.A.'s The
Defence of Death are from a film reproduction of the original in the British Museum.
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Alice Harmon
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ure we must subject and imploy them with certaine seeds for our u
... So is it of mindes, which except they be busied about some sub
bridle and keepe them under, they will here and there wildely scatt
through the vaste field of imaginations.
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Shakespeare need not have gone to Florio for this similitude. It was one
of the familiar commonplaces on Education, and is to be found in the
works of those great favorites, Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch. It frequently occurs in the translations and adaptations from these authors,
often in the English precept books. We find in North's translation of
Plutarch's Lives, at the beginning of the life of Coriolanus, and marked
by a marginal note, "Coriolanus wit," the following passage, which may
be compared with the lines cited above from Shakespeare:
This man also [Coriolanus] is a good proofe to confirme some mens opinions.
That a rare and excellent wit untaught, doth bring forth many good and evill
things together: as a fat soile that lyeth unmanured bringeth foorth both hearbes
and weeds.15
-The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (ed. of 1579), p. 237.
many weeds: so youth capable of reason, except it be exercised in honest precepts doth not onely not become good, but runneth into many vices. Plutarch.
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Alice Harmon
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Cawdrey has
As the earth when it is not tilled, or trimmed, dooth breede and bring foorth
bryers, brambles, nettles, and all noysome and unprofitable things: So Idlenesse
in man, doth breed and broode in him, ungodly thoughts, and wicked cogitations
of all sortes ....
did better than he thought of. They are exceeding vaine things.
goeth before her body, and sometimes exceeds by much in length.
Essays, I, 296:
Fame ... is a dreame, dreames shadowl6
Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality18 that it is but
a shadow's shadow.
Ham. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch'd hero
the beggars' shadows.
17 The comparison between transitory and vain things and a shadow seen in sleep is fre
quently met in the literature of the Renaissance. Montaigne here quotes Tasso. The figure
is to be found in Pindar (Pythian Hymns viii), where it is used to describe the slightn
and evanescence of man's life. Erasmus' quotation of the similitude from Pindar (Adag
In, iii, 48, under "Homo bulla") no doubt gave currency to this figure. I cite part of Erasmus' paraphrase from Pindar below, for the Duke's speech in Measure for Measure.
18 Cf. Seneca Ep. cxxIIm, 16:
Gloria vanum et volucre quiddam est auraque mobilius.
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994
When the Sun-beames are perpendicular over a mans head they either altogether
take away his shadow, or make it very little: so exceeding great glory doth quite
Let us now but consider man alone without other help .... Let
hold-fast, or freehold he hath in this gorgeous, and goodly e
22 Other English versions of this similitude may be found in Meres under "Wisdome,"
and in Cawdrey under "Vertue."
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Alice Harmon
995
hath perswaded him, that this admirable moving of heavens vaults; that the
eternal light of these lampes so fiercely rowling over his head; that the horrormoving and continuall motion of this infinite vaste Ocean, were established,
and continue so many ages for his commoditie and service? Is it possible to
imagine any thing so ridiculous, as this miserable and wretched creature, which
is not so much as master of himselfe, exposed and subject to offences of all
things, and yet dareth call himselfe Master and Emperour of this Universe?
the Epicurean Velleius to prove that the world could not have been
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996
A passage on this theme from a sixteenth century translation of Petrarch's De Remediis utriusque fortunae, a work which makes much use of
What shall I neede to speake of ... the most glorious and bryght spectacle of
all, whiche is the circumference of the starrie Firmament, that continually
turneth about with incomprehensible swiftness, wherein are fastened the fixed
Starres? Lykewyse the wanderyng lyghtes, which you call the seven Planettes,
and especially the Sunne and Mone, the two most excellent lyghtes of the worlde,
[Natura] in media nos sui parti constituit et circumspectum omnium nobis dedit; nec
erexit tantummodo hominem, sed etiam habilem contemplationi factura, ut ab ortu
sidera in occasum labentia prosequi posset et vultum suum circumferre cum toto, sublime fecit illi caput et collo flexili imposuit....
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Alice Harmon
defend you, that by all meanes he myght declare your excellencie above all other
creatures.27
Montaigne, Essays, II, 29, 265, 347; Shakespeare, Hamlet, in. iv. 161
168. Seneca, Ep. xxxIx, 6; Polyanthea, "Consuetudo"; Elyot, Bankett
under "Maners of men,"; Baldwin (ed. of 1556), fol. cvii; Whittinto
Myrour or Glasse of maners, sig. A8; Ling, p. 181, "Of Labour."
"OF COVETOUSNESS"
27 Cf. with the Senecan passage in the preceding footnote and with the lines f
translation of Petrarch, the latter part of Hamlet's speech on the beauty of
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty!
moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In appreh
like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!
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998
duel. From the early studies of Stedefeld and Feis to J. Dover Wilson's
edition of Hamlet in 1934, the following parallel has been cited.
Montaigne, Essays, I, 78, 84, 87:
It is uncertaine where death looks for us; let us expect her everie where ... why
should we feare to lose a thing, which being lost, cannot be moaned? . . . 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.
J. Dover Wilson says that this whole speech is "a distillation of Montaigne," the essay entitled in Florio, "That to Philosophie, is to learne
how to die." He cites for Hamlet's speech the passage from the Essays
quoted just above,29 the various parts of which are taken from the nine-
teenth chapter of the first book. Upham cites the Montaigne parallel,
and remarks that it "goes a long way toward clearing up a doubtful line
in the folio."30 He refers to the line "since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is't to leave betimes?" The citations below show, however,
that Shakespeare would have had no more need to turn to Florio for
Stoic commonplaces on death such as those in Hamlet's speech just cited
than for those expressed in other plays which are thought to be indebted
to Montaigne. The nineteenth essay of the first book, which has been
cited more often than any other of the Essays as Shakespeare's source,
has been shown by the editors of Montaigne to consist in large part of
adaptations of Latin-chiefly Senecan-aphorisms, separated by comments on these aphorisms.31 Senecan and other commonplaces on how
the "wise man" meets death and fortune were probably familiar to
Shakespeare in the original. There are English variants of consolatory
precepts such as he has adapted in Hamlet and in the Duke's speech in
Measure for Measure to be found among the commonplaces in Ling,
Baldwin, Elyot, and elsewhere. I have selected as typical the adaptations
from Seneca in E.A.'s Defence of Death (1577). Compare with this speech
of Hamlet's the following:
28 Feis, p. 111, Hooker, p. 320, Ttirck, pp. 61-62.
29 Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Cambridge University Press, 1934), p. 249.
30 The French Influence in English Literature, p. 283.
31 See citations of Montaigne's sources for "que philosophre c'est apprendre a mourir,"
I, xx (in Florio, I, xix), Les Essais de Michel Montaigne (Bordeaux, 1920), tome 4 (by Pierre
Villey), pp. 41-47. See also comment on the sources of this essay, ibid. p. 45: "On remarquera que bien souvent les sentences en francais qui s6parent les citations latines ne sont
guere que des commentaires de ces citations."
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Alice Harmon
999
.. No man knoweth where death waiteth for thee, watch thou therfor for it
in al places.
-The Defence of Death, sig. Evi; from Ep. xxvi, 7.
... what greater folly can there be then to wonder, that the thing dooth sometime happen which is in danger dayly to come to pass? Our bounds are limited in
place where the inexorable destinie hath planted them, and yet can no man tell
how nere they are. Let us therfore frame our mindes as if we were at the end of
them, let us not defer the time. For he who dayly setteth the last hand to his
life hath nothing to doo with time. (Cf.: "If it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all.")32
and baggage of hostryes [hostelries] and that thou must go forwarde. Nature
abaseth men at their departure, as at their comming in. We carry away no more
then we bring with us (Cf.: "since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is
't to leave betimes?").34 Let death find us redy disposed, and nothing slack.35
(Cf.: "The readiness is all.")
-Ibid., sigs. Fvii, verso, Gi, verso.
trum, quam prope versetur terminum. Sic itaque formemus animum, tamquam ad extrema ventum sit. Nihil differamus.... Qui cotidie vitae suae summam manum imposuit,
37 Ibid., p. 87.
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cal illustration of the way in which Shakespeare may have been influenced by Montaigne."40 Miss Hooker quotes it almost entire with some
rather close parallels from Montaigne. She says that this speech "seems
to collect many of Montaigne's remarks upon the paradoxical and unsatisfactory nature of human existence.'41
The correspondences to the Duke's speech which have been pointed
out in Florio are, like others cited above, more likely to be due to a
common knowledge on the part of Shakespeare and Montaigne of classical aphorisms which were current as loci communes than to a direct
relation between the two writers. The Duke's speech is, as Robertson
says, made up of Stoic comments on life and death. Most of these were
universally familiar as commonplaces of consolation against the fear
of death. There are in this passage the conventional charges against life
for its shortness and insecurity, and against the shifting sense of values
in the mind of man; against the frailness and the base origin of the body;
against old age, with its impotency, its susceptibility to disease, its
peculiar fault-covetousness-and its unreasonable desire for longer life.
Those who sought loci communes on these themes would have found them
in many places. Among these are the famous consolatory passage against
the fear of death in Lucretius' De rerum natura, Book III;42 certain loci
in Seneca and in Marcus Aurelius; Pliny's Nat. Hist., Book VII, which
deals with man, his life and death, and in which chapters 1 and 50 are
popular sources for loci on these themes; and gatherings of the loci
communes in such comprehensive collections as the Polyanthea, under
cepts among the commonplaces, especially Book III, the Discourse of Nature. He is less
frequently quoted for commonplaces of consolation, however, than other classical writers,
especially Cicero and Seneca; the reason being no doubt largely that the definite rejection
of the doctrine of personal immortality in his poem (III, 417 ff.) is in direct conflict with
Christian teaching.
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Alice Harmon
1001
out, in grammar school, the Latin "places" in some of these sources. But
before his plays were written, this material, like that on the various sub-
the Essays for this passage are the least convincing of all the parallels in
the special studies. Striking correspondence to the Duke's speech are
scattered through the English commonplace books under "Of mans life"
and similar headings. They occur in Baldwin, Elyot, Ling, Cawdrey,
Meres, and E.A. I cite most frequently E.A.'s Defence of Death.
"OF MAN"
The citation from Montaigne does not seem at all close to Shakespeare's
lines, which express the conventional charges against the base origin and
earthy sustenance of the body common in exhortations of consolation
such as the Duke's speech. The English books of common places contain
much the same matter under headings such as "Of man," "Of mans life,"
etc. Compare Baldwin,
Thou shalte knowe thy selfe accordinge to gods commaundemente, if thou con-
sider, what thou arte, what thou wast, & what thou shalte bee.... Thou
knowest thy body shal putrifie and become earth, than was it earth before it
43 Hooker, op. cit., p. 328.
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fragile and subject to disease and planetary influences, but that his disposition is fickle, and his judgments, which are under his own control, are
for "places" on this popular theme. Montaigne's Essays were only one
of many sources accessible to Shakespeare for sentences on it, and for
similitudes with which to "amplify" it. Seneca's prose was more often
sought for consolatory precepts that the works of any other classical
writer. A somewhat detailed comparison between the separate aphorisms
in the Duke's speech and several passages in E.A.'s translation of commonplaces from Seneca shows interesting correspondences.
Shakespeare has
A breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That dost this habitation where thou keep'st
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Alice Harmon
1003
Compare with the "skyey influences" which "afflict" the body, Seneca's
reflections on the inconvenience of inclement weather:
[Winter brings cold, and we must shiver.] Dooth the summer bring heat? We
must not be without heat. Dooth the distempered aire hinder our helth? We
must be sick.46
vigorous health .... Is it not folly? .... The gowt: the stone, the gravell and
indigestion are symptomes or effects of long-continued yeares . . . Thou art seene
to sweate with labour, to grow pale and wanne, to wax red, to quake and tremble,
to cast and vomit blood, to endure strange contractions, to brooke convulsions
.... Even now I lost one of my teeth .... That part of my being, with divers
others, are already dead .... Death entermeddleth, and everywhere confounds
-Ep. cvII, 7.
47 Maximum . argumentum est animi ab altiore sede venientis, si haec, in quibus
versatur, humilia iudicat et angusta, si exire non metuit. Scit enim, quo exiturus sit, qui
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Shakespeare's charge,
Thou are not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects
After the moon,
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selves all things. We are not content with any welth or authoritie. Is there anything more shameless and foolishe.52
with the following lines in E.A., which occur immediately after those in
the last quotation above from the Defence:
We are made to dye, and yet at our death nothing seemeth sufficient for us. For
dayly we draw neerer the last point, and every houre driveth us to the place
from which we cannot escape: beholde then the blindenes of mans understanding.53
"OF THE FEAR OF DEATH"
aetas humana protendi, tantum spe occupamus, nulla contenti pecunia, nulla potentia.
Quid hac re fieri impudentius? Quid stultius potest?
58 Nihil satis est morituris, immo morientibus; cotidie enim propius ab ultimo stamus, et
illo, unde nobis cadendum est, hora nos omnis impellit. Vide in quanta caecitate mens
nostra sit!
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ther fear of it, which is the thought in Shakespeare; and that all life is
death, since each period of our life must die before the next one is reached,
.. .The time neerest hand dooth alwaies escape from him that liveth in hope,
& he is so covetous of life that with the feare of death he becommeth miserable,
and though the dout thereof lameth him of one hand and of one leg, of one thigh
maketh him crooked, and loseneth all his teeth, yet so long as life continueth it
maketh no matter, all is wel, such a miserable thing dooth death seeme unto him.
He wisheth his paines more extreme, and that which is hard to be abidden he
desireth to prolong and maintain a great while; and for what reward or wages?
even to obtain longer life. But what is this long life? as long a death. Is there any
who wold languish in torments and perish member after member that had not55
rather cast away his life by little & little then to cast it away all at once? Deny
me then that the necessitie of death is not a great benfit of nature.56
nas, which Seneca calls "the most debased of prayers"-"turpissimum votum"-and which
E.A. translates in part. I cite the part which he adapts:
Debilem facito manu, debilem pede coxo,
Tuber adstrue gibberum, lubricos quate dentes;
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the least sorow in the world: they had rather to die member after member, &
as ye would say, to over live their sences, moovings & actions67 then altogether
to die to the end to live eternally.
-The Defence of Death, sig. Dviii, recto.
had from the popular commonplaces from the classics the type of material which he shares with Montaigne-in many instances indeed he could
have found there the specific sentences and similitudes which occur with
similar wording in Florio and in his plays. Whether he knew the Latin
form of these commonplaces or not-and he probably knew many of them
in the Latin-he must have been familiar to some extent at least with
the vast body of precepts and similitudes from the ancients which had
been assimilated into English long before his time in the books of aphor-
isms, under convenient headings, for the use of all who sought it. This
57 This passage probably depends not only upon the Senecan commonplaces cited
above from Epistle cxx, 16 and Epistle ci, 10 f., but for the charge that old people who
fear to die prefer to cling to life even though they lose their "senses, moovings, & actions,"
upon a much-quoted commonplace in Pliny which describes the miseries of old age:
. . . tot periculorum genera, tot morbi, tot metus, tot curae, toties invocata morte, ut
nullum frequentius sit votum ... Hebescunt sensus, membra torpent, praemoritur
visus, auditus, incessus; dentes etiam ac ciborum instrumenta. Et tamen vitae hoc
tempus annumeratur,-Pliny, Nat. hist. lib. vii, Cap. 50 (51)
This commonplace was given wide currency by Erasmus' inclusion of it among the quotations under "Homo bulla," Adagia, II, iii. 48. It is constantly adapted in the literature
of the English Renaissance. Jonson translates it literally in a passage in Volpone (I, v. 144
ff.):
Probably the closing lines of Jaques' description of the last age in the seven ages of man
owes something to this popular commonplace. But the description of old age in the Duke's
speech is clearly Senecan for the most part.
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