11

11. On prognostications

[Christianity has banished most forms of prognostication. Those that remain are the sport of subtle credulous minds who could find hidden meanings anywhere. Socrates’ daemon, which made him near-infallible, was in fact a natural impulse found to some extent in all of us. So the ecstasies of Socrates were at most ‘natural’ ones.]

[A] Where oracles are concerned it is certain that they had begun to lose their credit well before the coming of Jesus Christ, since we can see Cicero striving to find the cause of their decline. [C] These are his words: ‘Cur isto modo jam oracula Delphis non eduntur non modo nostra ætate sed jamdiu, ut modo nihil possit esse contempsius?’ [Why are oracles no longer uttered thus at Delphi, so that not only in our own time but long before nothing could be held in greater contempt?]

[A] But there were other prognostications, derived from the dissection of sacrificial animals – [C] Plato held that the internal organs of those animals were partly created for that purpose – [A] or from chickens scratching about, from the flight of birds – [C] ‘aves quasdam rerum augurandarum causa natas esse putamus’ [We think that some birds are born in order to provide auguries] – [A] from lightning and from swirling currents in rivers – [C] ‘multa cernunt aruspices, multa augures provident, nnlta oraculis declarantur, multa vaticinationibus, multa somniis, multa portentis’ [the soothsayers divine many things; the augurs foresee many; many are revealed by oracles, many by predictions, many by dreams and many by portents]; [A] and there were other similar ones on which the Ancient World grounded most of their undertakings, both public and private:1 it was our religion which abolished them all.2 There remain among us it is true some means of divination by the heavens, by spirits, by bodily features, by dreams and so on: that is a remarkable example of the mad curiosity of our nature which wastes time trying to seize hold of the future as though it were not enough to have to deal with the present:

[B] cur hanc tibi rector Olympi Sollicitis visum mortalibus addere curam, Noscant venturas ut dira per omina clades. Sit subitum quodcunque paras, sit cæca futuri Mens hominum fati, liceat sperare timenti!

[O Ruler of Olympus, why did it please thee to add more care to worried mortals by letting them learn of future slaughters by means of cruel omens! Whatever thou hast in store, do it unexpectedly; let the minds of men be blind to their future fate: let him who fears, still cling to hope!]3

[C] ‘Ne utile quidem est scire quid futurum sit. Miserum est nihil proficientem angi;’ [It is not even useful to know what is to happen. It is wretched to suffer to no avail;]4 [A] nevertheless divination now has far less authority.

That is why the case of Francisco, Marquis of Saluzzo, struck me as so remarkable. He was the Lieutenant of King Francis’ transalpine forces; he found endless favours at our French Court and was beholden to the King for his very marquisate, which had been forfeited by his own brother. There was no occasion for what he did: his own feelings ran counter to it; yet (as it was asserted) he let himself become terrified by the specious prognostications which were deliberately circulated everywhere in favour of the Emperor Charles V and to our own disadvantage – especially in Italy, where these insane prophecies gained such a footing that vast sums of money changed hands in the banks from the assumption of our overthrow. Having expressed grief to his friends over the ills which he saw inevitably in store for the Crown of France and for his French friends, he foresook all and changed sides. No matter what the stars portended, it proved greatly to his harm!5

In this he acted like a man torn by conflicting emotions. For both the towns and the armies were under his control; the enemy forces led by Antonio de Leyva were only a few yards away; we suspected nothing: so he could have done us far more harm. Despite his treachery we lost not one single man nor any town except Fossano (and even that only after a long struggle).

Prudens futuri temporis exitum Caliginosa nocte premit Deus, Ridetque si mortalis ultra Fas trepidat…

Ille potens sui Lætusque deget, cui licet in diem Dixisse, vixi, cras vel atra Nube polum pater occupato Vel sole puro…

Lætus in præsens animus, quod ultra est, Oderit curare.

[Wisely does God hide what is to come under the darkness of night, laughing if a mortal projects his anxiety further than is proper…

That man will be happy and master of himself who every day declares, ‘I have lived. Tomorrow let Father Jove fill the heavens with dark clouds or with purest light’… Let your mind rejoice in the present: let it loathe to trouble about what lies in the future.]6

[C] The following quotation contradicts that, but those who believe it are wrong: ‘Ista sic reciprocantur, ut et, si divinatio sit, dii sint: et si dii sint, sit divinatio.’ [If there is divination there are gods, and conversely, if there are gods there is divination.]7

Pacuvius was much more wise:

Nam istis qui linguam avium intelligunt, Plusque ex alieno jecore sapiunt, quam ex suo, Magis audiendum quam auscultandum censeo.

[As for those who understand the language of the birds and who know the livers of animals better than their own, I believe it is better just to listen to them rather than pay attention to them.]

The birth of that famous Tuscan art of divination was on this wise: a ploughman ploughed his furrow deeply, from which arose Tages the demi-god; he had the face of a child but the wisdom of an old man. Everybody came running up; his words and wisdom were collected and kept for centuries; they contained the principles and practices of that art… A birth in conformity with its development…8

[B] I would rather order my affairs by casting dice, by lots, than by such fanciful nonsense.9 [C] And truly all States have always attributed considerable authority to them. Plato, freely drawing up his constitution as he pleased, left many important decisions to lots, including the marriages of the good citizens; he attached such importance to these fortuitous matches that he decreed that the offspring of them be kept and brought up in the Republic, whilst those born to the wicked should be driven out; nevertheless if one of these banished children should happen to promise well as he grew up, he could be recalled; and if one of those who were kept turned out hopelessly in his youth, he was exiled.10

[B] I know people who study their almanacs, annotate them and cite their authority as events take place. But almanacs say so much that they are bound to tell both truth and falsehood. [C] ‘Quis est enim qui totum diem jaculans non aliquando conlineet?’ [For who can shoot all day without striking the target occasionally?]11 [B] I do not think any the better of them for seeing them happen to prove true on occasions; there would be more certainty in them if they had some right rule which made them always wrong. [C] Besides, nobody keeps a record of their erroneous prophecies since they are infinite and everyday; right predictions are prized precisely because they are rare, unbelievable and marvellous.

That explains the reply made by Diagoras, surnamed the Atheist, when he was in Samothrace: he was shown many vows and votive portraits from those who have survived shipwreck and was then asked, ‘You, there, who think that the gods are indifferent to human affairs, what have you to say about so many men saved by their grace?’ – ‘It is like this,’ he replied; ‘there are no portraits here of those who stayed and drowned – and they are more numerous!’ Cicero says that among the many philosophers who believed there were gods only Xenophanes of Colophon made an assay at uprooting all forms of divination.12 It is less surprising, therefore, that we have occasionally [B] seen13 some of our leading minds dwelling (often to their prejudice) on such empty nonsense.

[C] I would certainly like to have seen with my own eyes these two marvels: the book of the abbot Joachim of Calabria who predicted all the future popes with their names and styles; and that of the Emperor Leo who predicted all the Emperors and patriarchs of Greece14… But with my own eyes I have verified the following: that when men are stunned by their fate in our civil disturbances, they have resorted to almost any superstition, including seeking in the heavens for ancient portents and causes for their ills. In this they have been so strangely successful in my days that they have convinced me that (since this way of passing time is for acute yet idle minds) those who have been inducted into the subtle art of unwrapping portents and unknotting them would be able to find anything they wish in any piece of writing whatsoever: but their game is particularly favoured by the obscure, ambiguous, fantastical jargon of these prophecies, the authors of which never supply any clear meaning themselves so that posterity can give them any meaning it chooses.

[B] The daemon of Socrates was [C] perhaps [B] a certain thrust of the will which presented itself to him without waiting for rational argument.15 It is likely that in a soul like his (well purified and prepared by the continual exercise of wisdom and virtue) such inclinations, albeit [C] bold and undigested, were nevertheless important and worthy to be followed. Everyone can sense in himself some ghost of such agitations, of a prompt, vehement, fortuitous opinion. It is open to me to allow them some authority, to me who allow little enough to human wisdom. And I have had some – equally weak in reason yet violent in persuasion or dissuasion but which were more common in the case of Socrates16 – [B] by which I have allowed myself to be carried away so usefully and so successfully, that they could have been judged to contain something of divine inspiration.17