The Essays of Montaigne — Volume 07 by Michel de Montaigne
page 17 of 79 (21%)
page 17 of 79 (21%)
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or our taste that a potion of aloes is vin de Graves? Pyrrho's hog is
here in the same predicament with us; he is not afraid of death, 'tis true, but if you beat him he will cry out to some purpose. Shall we force the general law of nature, which in every living creature under heaven is seen to tremble under pain? The very trees seem to groan under the blows they receive. Death is only felt by reason, forasmuch as it is the motion of an instant; "Aut fuit, aut veniet; nihil est praesentis in illa." ["Death has been, or will come: there is nothing of the present in it."--Estienne de la Boetie, Satires.] "Morsque minus poenae, quam mora mortis, habet;" ["The delay of death is more painful than death itself." --Ovid, Ep. Ariadne to Theseus, v. 42.] a thousand beasts, a thousand men, are sooner dead than threatened. That also which we principally pretend to fear in death is pain, its ordinary forerunner: yet, if we may believe a holy father: "Malam mortem non facit, nisi quod sequitur mortem." ["That which follows death makes death bad." --St. Augustin, De Civit. Dei, i. ii.] And I should yet say, more probably, that neither that which goes before nor that which follows after is at all of the appurtenances of death. |
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