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1. Cicero, Tusc. disput., I, xxx, 74–xxxi, 75. In Plato (Phaedo 67D) for Socrates, whom Cicero is following, to philosophize is to practise dying. However, Cicero translates ‘practice’ not by meditatio, which means that, but by commentatio, which means a careful preparation. Montaigne is here echoing Cicero, not Socrates directly, and so lessens the element of ecstasy implied by Socrates.

2. ’80: as the Holy Word says… Montaigne is at best paraphrasing not citing Scripture: cf. Ecclesiastes 3:12; 5:17; 9:7; also Ecclesiasticus 14:14 (no New Testament text is relevant). Several inscriptions in Montaigne’s library prove that he was citing either or both of Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiasticus from some untraced intermediary source.

3. ’80: for us our torment. Now there are no means of reaching this point, of fashioning a solid contentment, unless it frees us from the fear of death. [A] That is why…

4. Seneca, Epist. moral., CXVII, 30.

5. On Cicero’s authority (Tusc. disput., II, xviii, 43), virtus, the Latin word for virtue, was normally derived from vir (man) not from vis (strength). True virtue, in this sense, was ‘manliness’. (Same etymology: Essays, II, 7.)

6. Philosophical pleasure (quite ascetic in Epicurus) is contrasted here with sexual pleasure.

7. In the great myth of Hesiod, the father of Greek mythology (Works and Days, 289), the upward path to Virtue is steep and rugged: once attained, her dwelling-place is a delightful plateau. (Cf. Rabelais, Quart Livre, LVII, Joachim Du Bellay, Regrets, TLF, 3. 3.) Montaigne is rare in challenging the truth of the myth: most accepted it, often with a Christian sense.

8. ’80: That is why all Schools of Philosophy meet and concur in this one clause, teaching us to despise it [i.e., death]. It is true…

9. The last resort of the Stoic: suicide. (Xenophilus’ longevity was proverbial.)

10. Horace, Odes, II, iii, 25.

11. Cicero, De finibus, I, xviii, 60; Erasmus, Adages, II, IX, VII, Tantali lapis (a boulder was ever about to fall on Tantalus’ head but never did, keeping him in suspense for all eternity).

12. [A] until [C]: past all fair mansions of France, and ply them… (Horace, Odes, I, xviii; Claudian, In Ruffinum, II, 137.)

13. Contrast III, 12, in which Montaigne denies that death is the end to which our life aims (its ‘but’) but merely its ending (‘bout’).

14. Lucretius, IV, 472.

15. Montaigne believed that feu (‘the late’) derived from fut (‘he was’). That is a false etymology. But the Romans could indeed say vixit (‘he has lived’) to mean, ‘he is dead’ or ‘he has died’.[B]: They were happy with living…

16. Traditionally the year began at Easter (or thereabouts). Dating the year from the first of January, a Roman practice, was decreed in France in 1565 and generally applied in 1567.

17. ’80: another year more to go…

18. Christ incarnate was God and Man, immortal as touching his Godhead, mortal as touching his Manhood. (Thirty-three is a traditional age of Christ at the Crucifixion.)

19. Horace, Odes, II, xiii, 13–14.

20. Lists like these were common in Renaissance compilations and handbooks. Montaigne is partly following here Ravisius Textor’s Officina (‘Workshop’). The lecherous Pope was Clement V (early fourteenth century); the French king killed in a tournament (1559) was Henry II; his ancestor killed by a pig was Philip, the crowned son, who never reigned, of Louis the Fat.

21. Two exempla from Pliny, VII, liii.

22. Horace, Epistles, II, ii, 126–8.

23. Horace, Epistles, III, ii, 14–17; Propertius, IV, xviii, 25.

24. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Banquet des Sept Sages, 1515A.

25. Horace, Epistles, I, iv, 13–14. Then echoes of Seneca’s Epist. moral., I, lxxxviii, 25, and of Plutarch’s Life of Paulus Aemilius.

26. Catullus, LXVIII, 26. On Montaigne’s melancholic humour, which was modified by the sanguine, cf. II, 17. (His comportment corresponds to the symptoms associated with melancholy.)

27. ’80: fever and death, with his head…

28. Lucretius, III, 195.

29. Seneca, Epist. moral., XCI, 16.

30. Horace, Odes, II, xvi, 17.

31. Lucretius, III, 898–9 (Lambin); Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 88.

32. [A] until [C]: for action: and I am of the opinion that not only an Emperor, as Vespasian said, but any gallant man should die on his feet: Cum moriar… Then Ovid, Amores, II, x, 36.

33. Lucretius, III, 900.

34. By ‘churches’ here Montaigne means pagan temples. Then, Silius Italicus, The Punic War, XI, li.

35. Herodotus, II, lxxviii; Erasmus, Apophthegmata, VI; varie mixta, LXXXIV.

36. Cicero, De officiis, II, V, 16. Dicearchus’ book was called The Perishing of Human Life. It has not survived.

37. ’80: than that. I realize from experience that Nature…

38. Caesar, Gallic Wars, VII, lxxxiv.

39. Pseudo-Gallus, Elegies, I, 16. (Like his contemporaries Montaigne attributed to Cornelius Gallus poems later attributed to Maximianus.)

40. Seneca, Epist. moral., LXXVII, 19. The Emperor was Gaius Caesar (Caligula), not Julius Caesar.

41. Horace, Odes, III, iii, 3–6.

42. Horace, Epistles, I, xvi, 76–9.

43. St Augustine, City of God, I, xi.

44. Erasmus, Apophthegmata, III; Socratica, LII.

45. Cicero, Tusc. disput., I, xxxix, 94.

46. The main source of what follows is Nature’s soliloquy in Lucretius, III.

47. Lucretius, II, 76 and 79; cf. Erasmus, Adages, I, II, XXXVIII, Cursu lampada tradunt.

48. Seneca (the dramatist), Hercules furens, III, 874; Manilius, Astronomica, IV, xvi.

49. Lucretius, III, 938; 941–2.

50. Seneca, Epist. moral., XCIX, 12.

51. Manilius cited by Vives (Commentary on St Augustine’s City of God, XI, iv).

52. ’80: Its role is done…

53. Lucretius, III, 1080; Virgil, Georgics, II, 402; Lucretius, III, 944–5.

54. Seneca, Epist. moral., XXX, 11.

55. Lucretius, III, 1090 (within a wider Lucretian context); III, 885 (adapted); III, 919; 922; 926.

56. Seneca, Epist. moral., LXIX, 6; then Lucretius, III, 972–3.

57. Several echoes of Seneca: Epist. moral., LXXVII, 20, 13 (etc.); XLIX; LXI, LXXVII. Then, Lucretius, III, 968.

58. ’80: same hour that you die…Further borrowings, Seneca, Epist. moral., LXXVII.

59. Lucretius, II, 578–80.

60. Nature is still speaking and the inspiration is still Senecan; cf. Epist. moral., XCIII, 2 ff.

61. Cf. Lucian, Dialogues of the Dead, XXVI; Ovid, Metamorphoses, II, 649 ff.

62. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Thales, XXX.

63. Seneca, Epist. moral., CVII, and CXX. The entire speech of Nature, who adds her arguments to Reason’s in support of ‘our religion’s contempt for life’ is a patchwork of quotation, at first from Lucretius and subsequently from Seneca.

64. Seneca, Epist. moral., XXIV, 14.

65. [A] until [C]: Blessed, and thrice blessed, the death… (Doubtless an echo of Aeneas’ evocation in Virgil, Aeneid, I, 94.)