4

4. ‘Work can wait till tomorrow’

[Montaigne discovered Amyot’s French translation of Plutarch’s Lives and his Moral Works after he had embarked on the Essays. His respect for Plutarch’s wisdom and style does not stop him from drawing different moral conclusions from his examples. On the contrary: he is moved to imitate and rival Plutarch’s admired wisdom and judgement. Amyot’s translation was, even at the time, criticized for inaccuracy: Montaigne, without comparing it in scholarly detail with the Greek, is sure that Amyot had grasped the essence of Plutarch’s mind. Both French and English readers have indeed found in Amyot’s Plutarch a lasting source of pleasure and wisdom – North’s famous English Plutarch is translated from Amyot’s French, not from the original Greek. Scholars can, did and do find errors in them both, but it is they who are read, not Xylander or Cruserius or even more recent translators from among the scholars.]

[A] It seems to me that I am justified in awarding the palm, above all our writers in French, to Jacques Amyot, not merely for the simplicity and purity of his language in which he excels all others, nor for his constancy during such a long piece of work, nor for the profundity of his knowledge in being able to disentangle an author so complex and thorny (for you can say what you like: I cannot understand the Greek, but everywhere in his translation I see a meaning so beautiful, so coherent and so consistent with itself that either he has definitely understood the true meaning of his author or else, from a long frequentation with him, he has planted in his own soul a vigorous generic Idea of Plutarch’s, and has at least foisted upon him nothing which belies him or contradicts him); but above all I am grateful to him for having chosen and selected so worthy and so appropriate a book to present to his country. Ignorant people like us would have been lost if that book had not brought us up out of the mire: thanks to it, we now dare to speak and to write – and the ladies teach the dominies; it is our breviary.

If that good man is still alive I would assign him Xenophon to do just as well with: that is an easier task – one therefore all the more suited to his advanced years. And it somehow seems to me that, even though Amyot can slip very briskly and neatly round some tight corners, his style is nevertheless more at home when it is untrammelled and can roll easily along.

I recently came upon the passage where Plutarch tells us that when he himself was delivering a declamation in Rome Rusticus, who was in the audience, received a packet of letters from the Emperor and put off opening it until the end. For which, he says, all the audience most highly praised the dignity of that man. Indeed, since Plutarch was on the subject of curiosity (that avid passion, greedy for news, which leads us to drop everything indiscriminately and impatiently so as to entertain every newcomer and, losing all sense of respect and politeness, to tear open the letters they bring us no matter where we may be) he was right to praise Rusticus’ dignity; and he could also have gone on to praise his decency and his courtesy in not wanting to interrupt his declamation.1

But I doubt whether Rusticus could be praised for his wisdom: for since he was receiving those letters unexpectedly, and from an Emperor at that, to put off reading them might have had grave consequences.

The opposite vice to curiosity is lack of concern, [B] which my complexion manifestly inclines me to, and [A] which is so extreme in many men I have known that you can find them with unopened letters in their pockets brought three or four days earlier.

[B] I not only never open any letter entrusted to me but not even any which Fortune may pass through my hands; I feel guilty if, when standing beside some great man, my eyes inadvertently thieve some knowledge from the important letter he is reading. Never was anyone less inquisitive, less given to poking about in another man’s affairs.

[A] In our fathers’ time Monsieur de Boutières nearly lost Turin because he was enjoying good company at dinner and put off reading a warning sent to him of some treachery being plotted against that town, which was under his command. And I also learned from Plutarch that Julius Caesar would have saved himself if he had read a note which was handed to him that day on his way to the Senate where the conspirators killed him.2

Plutarch relates too how Archias, the Theban Tyrant, on the evening before Pelopidas executed his plan to kill him and so restore freedom to his country, was written to by another Archias, an Athenian, to inform him point by point of what was being prepared against him. This missive was delivered to him during dinner; he put off opening it, saying words which later became Greek proverb: ‘Work can wait till tomorrow.’3

In my opinion a wise man can (out of concern for others, such as not impolitely interrupting a social event, as was Rusticus’ case, or so as not to break into some other affair of importance) put off reading any news brought to him; but, particularly if he holds some public office, to do so for his own interest or pleasure – not interrupting his dinner or even his sleep – is unpardonable. And in ancient Rome the ‘consular place’ as they called it was the most honoured seat at table, since it was the one most readily accessible to those who might come [C] and consult the man seated there.4 [A] Which shows that even at table the Romans did not cut themselves off from dealing with other matters and with unexpected occurrences.5

But when all has been said, it is not easy in any human activity to lay down a rule so well grounded on reasoned argument that Fortune fails to maintain her rights over it.