Essays of Montaigne

yet are they of much less authority now than heretofore. Which makes so much more remarkable the example of Francesco, Marquis of Saluzzo, who being lieutenant to King Francis I. in his ultramontane army, infinitely favoured and esteemed in our court, and obliged to the king's bounty for the marquisate itself, which had been forfeited by his brother; and as to the rest, having no manner of provocation given him to do it, and even his own affection opposing any such disloyalty, suffered himself to be so terrified, as it was confidently reported, with the fine prognostics that were spread abroad everywhere in favour of the Emperor Charles V., and to our disadvantage (especially in Italy, where these foolish prophecies were so far believed, that at Rome great sums of money were ventured out upon return of greater, when the prognostics came to pass, so certain they made themselves of our ruin), that, having often bewailed, to those of his acquaintance who were most intimate with him, the mischiefs that he saw would inevitably fall upon the Crown of France and the friends he had in that court, he revolted and turned to the other side; to his own misfortune, nevertheless, what constellation soever governed at that time. But he carried himself in this affair like a man agitated by divers passions; for having both towns and forces in his hands, the enemy's army under Antonio de Leyva close by him, and we not at all suspecting his design, it had been in his power to have done more than he did; for we lost no men by this infidelity of his, nor any town, but Fossano only, and that after a long siege and a brave defence.—(1536)

"Prudens futuri temporis exitum

Caliginosa nocte premit Deus,

Ridetque, si mortalis ultra

Fas trepidat."

["A wise God covers with thick night the path of the future, and

laughs at the man who alarms himself without reason."

—Hor., Od., iii. 29.]

"Ille potens sui

Laetusque deget, cui licet in diem

Dixisse vixi! cras vel atra

Nube polum pater occupato,

Vel sole puro."

["He lives happy and master of himself who can say as each day

passes on, 'I HAVE LIVED:' whether to-morrow our Father shall give

us a clouded sky or a clear day."—Hor., Od., iii. 29]

"Laetus in praesens animus; quod ultra est,

Oderit curare."

["A mind happy, cheerful in the present state, will take good care

not to think of what is beyond it."—Ibid., ii. 25]

And those who take this sentence in a contrary sense interpret it amiss:

"Ista sic reciprocantur, ut et si divinatio sit,

dii sint; et si dii lint, sit divinatio."

["These things are so far reciprocal that if there be divination,

there must be deities; and if deities, divination."—Cicero, De

Divin., i. 6.]

Much more wisely Pacuvius—

"Nam istis, qui linguam avium intelligunt,

Plusque ex alieno jecore sapiunt, quam ex suo,

Magis audiendum, quam auscultandum, censeo."

["As to those who understand the language of birds, and who rather

consult the livers of animals other than their own, I had rather

hear them than attend to them."

—Cicero, De Divin., i. 57, ex Pacuvio]