The Essays of Montaigne

OF THE MOST EXCELLENT MEN If I should be asked my choice among all the men who have come to my knowledge, I should make answer, that methinks I find three more excellent than all the rest. One of them Homer: not that Aristotle and Varro, for example, were not, peradventure, as learned as he; nor that possibly Virgil was not equal to him in his own art, which I leave to be determined by such as know them both. I who, for my part, understand but one of them, can only say this, according to my poor talent, that I do not believe the Muses themselves could ever go beyond the Roman: “Tale facit carmen docta testudine, quale Cynthius impositis temperat articulis:” [“He plays on his learned lute a verse such as Cynthian Apollo modulates with his imposed fingers.”--Propertius, ii. 34, 79.] and yet in this judgment we are not to forget that it is chiefly from Homer that Virgil derives his excellence, that he is guide and teacher; and that one touch of the Iliad has supplied him with body and matter out of which to compose his great and divine AEneid. I do not reckon upon that, but mix several other circumstances that render to me this poet admirable, even as it were above human condition. And, in truth, I often wonder that he who has produced, and, by his authority, given reputation in the world to so many deities, was not deified himself. Being blind and poor, living before the sciences were reduced into rule and certain observation, he was so well acquainted with them, that all those who have since taken upon them to establish governments, to carry on wars, and to write either of religion or philosophy, of what sect soever, or of the arts, have made use of him as of a most perfect instructor in the knowledge of all things, and of his books as of a treasury of all sorts of learning: “Qui, quid sit pulcrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, Planius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit:” [“Who tells us what is good, what evil, what useful, what not, more clearly and better than Chrysippus and Crantor?” --Horace, Ep., i. 2, 3.] and as this other says, “A quo, ceu fonte perenni, Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis” [“From which, as from a perennial spring, the lips of the poets are moistened by Pierian waters.”--Ovid, Amoy., iii. 9, 25.] and the other, “Adde Heliconiadum comites, quorum unus Homerus Sceptra potitus;” [“Add the companions of the Muses, whose sceptre Homer has solely obtained.”--Lucretius, iii. 1050.] and the other: “Cujusque ex ore profusos Omnis posteritas latices in carmina duxit, Amnemque in tenues ausa est deducere rivos. Unius foecunda bonis.” [“From whose mouth all posterity has drawn out copious streams of verse, and has made bold to turn the mighty river into its little rivulets, fertile in the property of one man.” --Manilius, Astyon., ii. 8.] ‘Tis contrary to the order of nature...