The Essays of Montaigne [68]
"'Non alium videre patres, aliumve nepotes
Aspicient.'
["Your grandsires saw no other thing; nor will your posterity."
—Manilius, i. 529.]
"And, come the worst that can come, the distribution and variety of all the acts of my comedy are performed in a year. If you have observed the revolution of my four seasons, they comprehend the infancy, the youth, the virility, and the old age of the world: the year has played his part, and knows no other art but to begin again; it will always be the same thing:
"'Versamur ibidem, atque insumus usque.'
["We are turning in the same circle, ever therein confined."
—Lucretius, iii. 1093.]
"'Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus.'
["The year is ever turning around in the same footsteps."
—Virgil, Georg., ii. 402.]
"I am not prepared to create for you any new recreations:
"'Nam tibi prxterea quod machiner, inveniamque
Quod placeat, nihil est; eadem sunt omnia semper.'
["I can devise, nor find anything else to please you: 'tis the same
thing over and over again."—Lucretius iii. 957]
"Give place to others, as others have given place to you. Equality is the soul of equity. Who can complain of being comprehended in the same destiny, wherein all are involved? Besides, live as long as you can, you shall by that nothing shorten the space you are to be dead; 'tis all to no purpose; you shall be every whit as long in the condition you so much fear, as if you had died at nurse:
"'Licet quot vis vivendo vincere secla,
Mors aeterna tamen nihilominus illa manebit.'
["Live triumphing over as many ages as you will, death still will
remain eternal."—Lucretius, iii. 1103]
"And yet I will place you in such a condition as you shall have no reason to be displeased.
"'In vera nescis nullum fore morte alium te,
Qui possit vivus tibi to lugere peremptum,
Stansque jacentem.'
["Know you not that, when dead, there can be no other living self to
lament you dead, standing on your grave."—Idem., ibid., 898.]
"Nor shall you so much as wish for the life you are so concerned about:
"'Nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitamque requirit.
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"'Nec desiderium nostri nos afficit ullum.'
"Death is less to be feared than nothing, if there could be anything less than nothing.
"'Multo . . . mortem minus ad nos esse putandium,
Si minus esse potest, quam quod nihil esse videmus.'
"Neither can it any way concern you, whether you are living or dead: living, by reason that you are still in being; dead, because you are no more. Moreover, no one dies before his hour: the time you leave behind was no more yours than that was lapsed and gone before you came into the world; nor does it any more concern you.
"'Respice enim, quam nil ad nos anteacta vetustas
Temporis aeterni fuerit.'
["Consider how as nothing to us is the old age of times past."
—Lucretius iii. 985]
Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life. Is it possible you can imagine never to arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yet there is no journey but hath its end. And, if company will make it more pleasant or more easy to you, does not all the world go the self-same way?
"'Omnia te, vita perfuncta, sequentur.'
["All things, then, life over, must follow thee."
—Lucretius, iii. 981.]
"Does not all the world dance the same brawl that you do? Is there anything that does not grow old, as well as you? A thousand men, a thousand animals, a thousand other creatures, die at