Essays of Montaigne

CHAPTER XI. OF PROGNOSTICATIONS

For what concerns oracles, it is certain that a good while before the coming of Jesus Christ they had begun to lose their credit; for we see that Cicero troubled to find out the cause of their decay, and he has these words:

"Cur isto modo jam oracula Delphis non eduntur,

non modo nostro aetate, sed jam diu; ut nihil

possit esse contemptius?"

["What is the reason that the oracles at Delphi are no longer

uttered: not merely in this age of ours, but for a long time past,

insomuch that nothing is more in contempt?"

—Cicero, De Divin., ii. 57.]

But as to the other prognostics, calculated from the anatomy of beasts at sacrifices (to which purpose Plato does, in part, attribute the natural constitution of the intestines of the beasts themselves), the scraping of poultry, the flight of birds—

"Aves quasdam . . . rerum augurandarum

causa natas esse putamus."

["We think some sorts of birds are purposely created to serve

the purposes of augury."—Cicero, De Natura Deor., ii. 64.]

claps of thunder, the overflowing of rivers—

"Multa cernunt Aruspices, multa Augures provident,

multa oraculis declarantur, multa vaticinationibus,

multa somniis, multa portentis."

["The Aruspices discern many things, the Augurs foresee many things,

many things are announced by oracles, many by vaticinations, many by

dreams, many by portents."—Cicero, De Natura Deor., ii. 65.]

—and others of the like nature, upon which antiquity founded most of their public and private enterprises, our religion has totally abolished them. And although there yet remain amongst us some practices of divination from the stars, from spirits, from the shapes and complexions of men, from dreams and the like (a notable example of the wild curiosity of our nature to grasp at and anticipate future things, as if we had not enough to do to digest the present)—

"Cur hanc tibi, rector Olympi,

Sollicitis visum mortalibus addere curam,

Noscant venturas ut dira per omina clades?...

Sit subitum, quodcumque paras; sit coeca futuri

Mens hominum fati, liceat sperare timenti."

["Why, ruler of Olympus, hast thou to anxious mortals thought fit to

add this care, that they should know by, omens future slaughter?...

Let whatever thou art preparing be sudden. Let the mind of men be

blind to fate in store; let it be permitted to the timid to hope."

—Lucan, ii. 14]

"Ne utile quidem est scire quid futurum sit;

miserum est enim, nihil proficientem angi,"

["It is useless to know what shall come to pass; it is a miserable

thing to be tormented to no purpose."

—Cicero, De Natura Deor., iii. 6.]