Hose” should be “Those”
Those who still accuse men of ever gaping after future things and go about to teach us to take hold of present fortunes and settle ourselves upon them, as having no hold of that which is to come; yes, much less than we have of that which is already past, touch and are ever harping upon the commonest human error, if they dare call that an error, to which Nature herself, for the service of the continuation of her work, does address us, imprinting as it does many others this false imagination in us, as more jealous of our actions than of our knowledge.
We are never in ourselves but beyond. Fear, desire, and hope draw us ever towards that which is to come and remove our sense and consideration from that which is to amuse us on that which shall be, even when we shall be no more. “Calamitosus est animus futuri anxius.” 1 “A mind in suspense about what is to come is in a pitiful case.” This noble precept is often alleged in Plato, “Follow thy business and know thyself”; each of these two members generally implies all our duty and likewise enfolds its companion.
He that should do his business might perceive that his first lesson is to know what he is and what is convenient for him. And he that knows himself takes no more of another’s matters for his own, but above all other things loves and corrects himself, rejects superfluous occupations, idle imaginations, and unprofitable propositions. As if you grant folly what it desires, it will no whit be satisfied; so wisdom is content with that which is present and never displeased with itself.
Epicurus does dispense with his age touching the foresight and care of what shall ensue. Amongst the laws that regard the deceased, that which ties the actions of Princes to be examined when they are dead seems to me very solid. They are companions, if not masters of the laws: that which justice could not work on their heads, it is reason it effect upon their reputation and goods of their successors: things we many times prefer before our lives.
It is a custom that brings many singular commodities unto nations that observe it and to be desired of all good Princes who have cause to complain that the memory of the wicked is used as theirs. We owe a like obedience and subjection to all Kings; for it respects their office: but estimation and affection, we owe it only to their virtue. If they are unworthy, we are to endure them patiently, to conceal their vices, and to aid their indifferent actions with our commendations as long as their authority has need of our assistance, and that ought to be ascribed unto political order.
But our commerce with them being ended, there is no reason we should refuse the unfolding of our felt wrongs unto justice and our liberty. And especially to refuse good subjects, the glory to have reverently and faithfully served a master whose imperfections were so well known unto them: exempting posterity from so profitable an example. And such as for the respect of some private benefit or interest, do wickedly embrace the memory of an unworthy Prince, do particular justice at the charge of public justice.
Titus Livius speaks truly when he says that the speech of men brought up under royalty is full of vain ostentations and false witness. Every man indifferently extols the king to the furthest strain of valor and sovereign greatness. The magnanimity of those two soldiers may be reproved, one of whom, when asked by Nero why he hated him, answered to his face: ‘I loved thee while thou wast worthy of love, but since thou becamest a parricide, a fire-brand, a juggler, a player, and a coachman, I hate thee as thou deservest.’ The other, when asked why he sought to kill him, answered: ‘Because I find no other course to hinder thy unceasing outrages and impious deeds.’
But can any man, who has his senses about him, justly prove the public and general testimonies that, since his death, have been given and will be forever against him and all such reprobates of his tyrannical and wicked demeanor? I am sorry that in so sacred a polity as the Lacedaemonian was, so feigned and fond a ceremony at the death of their kings was ever devised and brought into use. All their confederates and neighbors, all the slave-Helotes, men and women pell-mell, for a testimony of their grief and sorrow, did mangle and gash their foreheads and in their outcries and lamentations exclaimed that their deceased king, however he had lived, was and had been the best prince they had ever had, ascribing in order the commendations due unto desert, and to the last and latter rank, what belongs unto the first merit.
Aristotle, who has an oar in every water and meddles with all things, makes a question about Solon’s speech who says that no man can truly be counted happy before his death, whether he who lived and died according to his wish may be named happy, whether his renown be good or ill, and whether his posterity be miserable or not. While we stir and move, we transport ourselves by preoccupation wherever we wish, but no sooner are we out of being but we have no communication at all with that which is. And it were better to tell Solon that never man is happy then, since he never is so, but when he is no more. ‘Quisquam vix radicitus e vita se tollit, et ejicit: Se facit esse, qui quiddam super inscius ipse, nee removet satis a projecto corpora sese, et vindicat.’ –Lucretius, Rerum Natura, iii. 912. (Scarce any rids himself of life so clear but leaves unwitting some part of him here, nor frees or quits himself sufficiently from that his body which forlorn doth lie.)
Bertrand of Glesquin died at the siege of the castle of Rancon, near Puy in Avergne. The besieged, yielding afterwards, were forced to carry the keys of the castle upon the decease of the captain. Bartholomew of Alviano, General of the Venetian forces, died in their service and wars about Brescia, and his body being transported to Venice through the territory of Verona, which was then an enemy unto them, the greatest part of the army thought it expedient to demand a safe conduct for their passage of those of Verona, to which Theodore Trivulcio stoutly opposed himself and chose rather to pass it by main force and to hazard the day, saying it was not convenient that he who, in his lifetime, had never apprehended fear of his enemies.
Verily, in similar matters, by the laws of Greece, he who requested the dead body of his enemies with the intent to bury it renounced the victory and was no longer able to erect any trophy of it. And he who was requested purchased the title of honour and gain. So did Nicias lose the advantage he had clearly gained over the Corinthians; and contrariwise, Ageshaus assured that he doubtfully had gained over the Boeotians.
These actions might be deemed strange if it were not a commonly accepted opinion in all ages to not only extend the care of ourselves beyond this life but also to believe that heavenly favours often accompany us to our grave and continue in our posterity. There are so many examples of this, leaving aside our modern times that I need not delve further into it.
Edward the first King of England, in the long wars he had with Robert King of Scotland, having by trial found how greatly his presence advantaged the success of his affairs and how he was ever victorious in any enterprise he undertook in his own person; when he died, bound his son by solemn oath to cause his body to be boiled until the flesh fell from the bones, which he should inter carefully keeping the bones and ever carrying them about him whenever he should happen to have wars with the Scots. As if destiny had fatally annexed the victory unto his limbs.
John Zisca, who for the defence of Wickliff’s opinions so much troubled the state of Bohemia, commanded that after his death his body should be flayed, and a drum made of his skin to be carried and sounded in all the wars against his enemies, deeming that the sound of it would be a means to continue the advantages he had obtained in his previous wars against them.
Certain Indians likewise carried the bones of one of their captains in the skirmishes they had with the Spaniards in regard to the good success he had while he lived against them. Other nations of that new-found world also carried the bodies of such worthy and fortunate men with them, who had died in their battles, to serve them instead of good fortune and encouragement. The first examples reserved nothing else in their tombs but the reputation acquired by their former achievements, but these will also add unto it the power of working.
The act of Captain Bayard is of better composition, who, perceiving himself to be fatally wounded by a shot received in his body, being persuaded by his men to come off and retire himself from out the throng, answered that he would not now, so near his end, begin to turn his face from his enemy. He fought stoutly for as long as he could stand, feeling himself faint and stagger from his horse, and then commanded his steward to lay him against a tree, but in such a way that he might die with his face towards the enemy, as indeed he did. I may not omit this other example as remarkable for this consideration as any of the precedents.
The Emperor Maximilian, great grandfather to Philip, now King of Spain, was a prince highly endowed with many noble qualities, and among others, with a well-nigh matchless comeliness of body. But with other customs of his, he had one much contrary to other princes, who, to dispatch their weightiest affairs, often make their close-stool their regal throne or council chamber. Maximilian would not permit any groom of his chamber, no matter how near to him, to see him in his inner chamber. If he had occasion but to make water, he would as nicely and religiously withdraw himself as any maiden and never allow so much as a physician, much less any other whatsoever, to see those private parts that all in modesty seek to keep secret and unseen. I, myself, who am so broad-mouthed and lavish in speeches, am nonetheless naturally touched with that bashfulness. Unless it is by the motion of necessity or of voluptuousness, I never willingly impart those actions and parts that custom wills to be concealed to the view of any creature. I endure more compulsion than I deem befitting a man, especially of my profession.
But he grew to such superstition that by express words in his last will and testament, he commanded that, being dead, he should have linen-flops put about his privates. He should by codicil have annexed unto it that he who should put them on might have his eyes hoodwinked. The instruction which Cyrus gives his children, that neither they nor any other should either see or touch his body after the breath were once out of it, I ascribe it unto some motive of devotion in him. For both his historian and himself, amongst many other notable qualities they are endued with, have throughout all the course of their life seemed to have a singular respect and awful reverence unto religion.
That story displeased me very much, which a nobleman told me of a kinsman of mine, a man very famous and well known both in peace and war. He died very aged in his court, being much tormented with extreme pangs of the stone. He, with an earnest and unwearied care, employed all his last hours to dispose the honor and ceremony of his funerals and summoned all the nobility that came to visit him to give him assured promises to be assistants and to convey him to his last resting place. To the very same prince, who was with him at his last gasp, he made a very earnest suit. He would command all his household to wait upon him at his interment, enforcing many reasons and alleging diverse examples to prove that it was a thing very convenient and fitting a man of his quality. When he had obtained that assured promise and had at his pleasure marshaled the order of how they should march, he seemed quietly and contentedly to yield up the ghost. I have seldom seen a vanity continue for so long.
This other curiosity, mere opposite unto it, which to prove I need not labor for home examples, seems in my opinion cousin-german to this, that is when one is ever ready to breathe his last, carefully and passionately endeavoring how to reduce the convoy of his obsequies unto some particular and unwonted parsimony, to one servant and to one lantern. I hear the humor and appointment of Marcus Æmilius Lepidus commended, who expressly forbade his heirs to use those ceremonies about his interment, which in such cases were formerly accustomed. Is it temperance and frugality to avoid charge and voluptuousness, the use and knowledge of which is imperceptible unto us? Lo, here an easy reformation and of small cost.
Were it requisite to appoint any, I would be of the opinion that, as well in that as in all other actions of man’s life, every man should refer the rule of it to the quality of his fortune. The philosopher Lycon wisely appointed his friends to place his body where they should think it fittest and for the best, and for his obsequies, they should be neither superfluous and over-costly nor base and sparing. For my part, I would wholly rely on custom, which should dispose of this ceremony, and I would yield myself to the discretion of the first or next into whose hands I might chance to fall. “Tus hic locus est contemnendus in nobis, non negligendus in nostris.” All this matter should be despised by us but not neglected by ours. And a holy man religiously said, “Curatio funeris, conditio sepulturae, pompa exequiarum, magis sunt vivorum solatia, quam subsidia mortuorum.” In the procuration of funerals, the manner of burial, and the pomp of obsequies, are rather comforts to the living than helps to the dead. Therefore, when Criton asked Socrates how he would be buried at the hour of his death, Socrates answered, “Even as you please.”
Were I to meddle further with this subject, I would deem it more gallant to imitate those who yet living and breathing, undertake to enjoy the order and honour of their sepulchers and who please themselves to behold their dead countenance in marble. Happy are those that can rejoice and gratify their sense with insensibility and live by their death!
A little thing would make me conceive an inexpiable hatred against all popular domination, although it seems most natural and just to me. When I call to mind that inhumane injustice of the Athenians who, without further trial or remission, yea without suffering them so much as to reply or answer for themselves, condemned those noble and worthy captains that returned victoriously from the sea-battle which they near the Isles Arginusae had gained over the Macedonians, the most contested, bloody, and greatest fight the Greeks ever obtained by sea with their own forces. Forsomuch as after the victory, they had rather followed those occasions which the law of war presented unto them for their avail than to their prejudice, staid to gather and bury their dead men.
And the success of Diomedon makes their ruthless execution more hateful, who being a man of notable and exemplary virtue, both military and political, and of them so cruelly condemned; after he had heard the bloody sentence, advancing himself forward to speak, having fit opportunity and plausible audience; he, I say, instead of excusing himself or endeavoring to justify his cause, or to exasperate the evident iniquity of so cruel a doom, expressed but a care of the judges’ preservation, earnestly beseeching the gods to turn that judgment to their good, praying that for want of not satisfying the vows which he and his companions had vowed in acknowledgement and thanksgiving for so famous a victory and honorable fortune, they might not draw the wrath and revenge of the gods upon them, declaring what their vows were. And without more words or any further reasons, he courageously addressed himself to his execution. But fortune some years after punished him alike and made him taste of the very same sauce.
For Chabrias, Captain General of their sea fleet, having afterward obtained a famous victory over Pollis, Admiral of Sparta, on the Isle of Naxos, lost absolutely the benefit of it. Only content with the day, a matter of great consequence for their affairs, fearing to incur the mischief of this example, and to save a few dead carcasses of his friends that floated up and down the sea, gave leisure to an infinite number of his living enemies whom he might easily have surprised to sail away in safety. They afterward made them purchase their importunate superstition at a dear-dear rate.
Quaeris, quo jaceas, post obitum, loco Quo non nata jacent. –Sen. Tro as. chor. ii. 30. Where shall you lie when you are dead? Where they lie that were never bred.
This other restores the sense of rest unto a body without a soul, Neque sepulchrum, quo recipiat, habeat portum corporis. Ubi remissa humana vita, corpus requiescat a malis? — Cic. Tusc. Qu. i. Enni. To turn in as a haven, have he no grave, where life left, from all grief he rest may have.
Even as Nature makes us see, many dead things have yet certain secret relations to life. Wine does alter and change in cellars according to the changes and alterations of the seasons of its vineyard. The flesh of wild beasts and venison changes quality and taste in the powdering-tubs, according to the nature of living flesh, as some say that have observed it.
