Excerpts From Michel de Montaigne's "A Custom of the Island of Cea"
Montaigne is a thinker of the Hard Right, a Hellenist who rejected human domestication by custom and reason and called for a return to the examples of Greece and Rome.
Excerpts From Michel de Montaigne’s “A Custom of the Island of Cea”
Montaigne is a thinker of the Hard Right, a Hellenist who rejected human domestication by custom and reason and called for a return to, if not the fullness of nature, then the example set by the manliest men and women in the manliest societies in history known to him, namely Greece and Rome. Those among our friends who like Nietzsche, BAP, Celine, and Mishima would do well to read his Essays1, which, as the excerpts below and those that I will post in the future demonstrate, are a potent and concentrated expression of the life that Mishima lived and the death that he died.
Book II, Essay 3: A Custom of the Island of Cea
“…When Philip had entered the Peloponnesus with an armed force, someone said to Damidas that the Lacedaemonians would have much to suffer if they did not regain his favor. "Coward," he answered, "and what can people suffer who do not fear death?" Also Agis was asked how a man could live free. "By despising death," he said.
These sayings, and a thousand like them that we come across on this subject, evidently have a ring of something beyond patiently waiting for the end when death comes to us. For there are many accidents in life worse to suffer than death itself. Witness that Lacedaemonian boy, taken by Antigonus and sold as a slave, who, when pressed by his master to perform some mean service, replied: "You shall see whom you have bought; it would be shameful for me to be a servant, with freedom so ready at hand." And so saying, he threw himself from the top of the house. When Antipater harshly threatened the Lacedaemonians to make them fall in with some demand of his, they answered: "If you threaten us with worse than death, we shall die the more willingly." And to Philip, who had written them that he would hinder all their enterprises: "What, will you also hinder us from dying?"
That is what they mean by saying that the sage lives as long as he should, not as long as he can; and that the most beneficent present Nature has given us, a present which takes from us any reason for complaining about our condition, is the gift of the key to the fields. She has ordained only one entry into life, and a hundred thousand exits. Be may lack land to live on, but land to die on we cannot lack, as Boiocalus replied to the Romans. Why do you complain of this world? It does not hold you: if you live in pain, your cowardice is the cause; to die all that is needed is the will:
For death is everywhere. Gracious is this, God's plan:
That though our life may be destroyed by any man,
No one can take our death; a thousand roads lead there.
SENECA
And death is not the remedy for just one malady, but the remedy for all ills. It is a very sure haven, which is never to be feared, and often to be sought. It all comes to the same thing whether man gives himself his death or suffers it, whether he runs to meet his day or awaits it; wherever it comes from, it is still his; wherever the thread breaks, it is all there, that's the end of the skein.
The most voluntary death is the fairest.
Life depends on the will of others; death, on our own.
In nothing should we suit our own humor as much as in this. Reputation is not concerned in such an enterprise; it is folly to consider it.
Life is slavery if the freedom to die is wanting.
The ordinary course of a cure is carried on at the expense of life: they incise us, they cauterize us, they amputate our limbs, they deprive us of food and blood. One step further, and we are completely cured. Why is not the jugular vein as much at our disposal as the median vein? For the most violent diseases the most violent remedies.
Servius the grammarian, having the gout, found no better plan for it than to apply poison and kill his legs. Let them be as gouty as they liked, provided they were insensitive. God gives us leave enough when he puts us in such a state that it is worse to live than to die. It is weakness to yield to ills, but it is madness to foster them.
The Stoics say that it is living in conformity with nature for the sage to part with life even in full happiness, if he does so opportunely, and for the fool to cling to his life, even though he is miserable - the essential thing, for both men, is to be in general harmony with nature.
Just as I do not violate the laws against thieves when I carry away my own money and cut my own purse, or those against firebugs when I burn my own wood, so I am not bound by the laws against murderers for having taken my own life.
Hegesias used to say that like the condition of life, the condition of death ought to depend on our choice. And when Diogenes met the philosopher Speusippus, long afflicted with the dropsy and being carried in a litter, who called out to him "Good health to you, Diogenes!" he replied "No health to you, who endure life, being in such a state." Indeed, some time after, Speusippus killed himself, weary of such a painful condition of life.”
[…]
And then, there being so many sudden changes in human affairs, it is hard to judge just at what point we are at the end of our hope:
The gladiator too has hope, prone on the sand,
Although the thumb is down on every threatening hand.
PENTADIUS, QUOTED BY JUSTUS LIPSIUS
A man may hope for anything, says an old adage, as long as he is alive. "Yes," replies Seneca, "but why should I keep in mind this fact, that fortune can do anything for one who is alive, rather than this other fact, that fortune can do nothing to one who knows how to die?" We see Josephus caught in a danger so clear and so imminent a whole nation had risen up against him - that logically there could be no way out. However, as he says, although he was advised by one of his friends at this point to do away with himself, he did well to hang on stubbornly to his hopes; for fortune, beyond all human reason, so reversed this situation that he saw himself delivered from it without any mishap.
And Cassius and Brutus, on the contrary, demolished the last remnants of Roman liberty, of which they were the protectors, by the rash haste with which they killed themselves before the proper time and occasion.
I have seen a hundred hares escape from the very teeth of the greyhounds. Some men have survived their executioners [Seneca].
Time, and the work of changing days, has made
Many a bad thing good; fortune has played
With many men, and set them firm again.
VIRGIL
[…]
“To avoid a worse death, there are some who decide to take theirs at their discretion. Damocritus, leader of the Aetolians, being brought prisoner to Rome, found a way to escape by night. But, finding himself pursued by his guards, he ran himself through with his sword rather than let himself be retaken.
Antinous and Theodotus, when their city in Epirus had been reduced to extremity by the Romans, advised all its people to kill themselves; but, finding their counsel spurned in favor of surrender, they went to seek death, hurling themselves upon the enemy intent only on striking, and not on defending themselves. When the Turks took the island of Gozo by storm a few years ago, a Sicilian, who had two beautiful daughters ready for marriage, killed them with his own hand, and after them their mother, who came running up at their death. This done, he went out into the street with a crossbow and a harquebus, and with two shots killed the first two Turks who approached his door; and then, taking sword in hand, he went furiously into the melee, where he was immediately surrounded and cut to pieces, thus saving himself from slavery after delivering his family from it.
The Jewish women, after having their children circumcised, went and threw themselves with them to their death to escape the cruelty of Antiochus.
I have been told a story about a prisoner of quality in one of our jails, whose relatives, being informed that he would certainly be condemned and wishing to avoid the shame of such a death, had a priest tell him that to be delivered he need only commend himself to such-and-such a saint, with such-and-such a vow, and go eight days without taking any nourishment, whatever faintness and weakness he might feel inside. He took this advice, and by this means unintentionally rid himself of his life and the danger.
Scribonia, advising her nephew Libo to kill himself rather than await the hand of justice, told him that to preserve his life for those who would come to seek it three or four days later was to do other people's business, and that he was serving his enemies by keeping his blood only to make it their quarry.
We read in the Bible that Nicanor, the persecutor of the law of God, sent his satellites to seize the good old man Razis, in honor of his virtue surnamed the father of the Jews. This good man, seeing there was no remedy, his gate burned down and his enemies ready to seize him, chose rather to die nobly than fall into the hands of the wicked and be humiliated to the dishonor of his rank, and struck himself with his sword. Having dealt the blow badly in his haste, he ran and threw himself from the top of a wall into the midst of the troop, and when they moved apart and made room for him, he fell right on his head. Nevertheless, still feeling some bit of life left in him, he rekindled his courage, and getting up all bloody and weighed down with blows, pierced his way through the crowd. He got to a certain steep, precipitous rock, where, unable to do anything more, he plucked out his entrails with both hands through one of his wounds, tearing and mangling them, and threw them among the pursuers, calling down and attesting divine vengeance upon them.
Of acts of violence against the conscience, the most to be avoided, in my opinion, is that against the chastity of women, inasmuch as they naturally derive some physical pleasure from it; and for this reason their want of consent cannot be so complete but that, it seems, force meets with a certain willingness. Pelagia and Sophronia both have been canonized; Pelagia threw herself in the river with her mother and sisters to escape being raped by some soldiers, and Sophronia killed herself to escape the violence of the Emperor Maxentius. Church history holds in reverence several such examples of devout people who called on death to protect them against outrages that tyrants were preparing against their conscience.”
[…]
“History is chock full of those who in a thousand ways have changed a painful life for death.
Lucius Aruntius killed himself, he said, to escape both the future and the past.
Granius Silvanus and Statius Proximus, after being pardoned by Nero, killed themselves, either in order not to live by the grace of so wicked a man, or in order not to go through the ordeal of a second pardon at some future time, in view of his readiness to suspect and accuse good men.
Spargapises, son of Queen Tomyris, being a prisoner of war of Cyrus, used the first favor that Cyrus did him, that of having him unbound, to kill himself; for he had aspired to no other benefit from his freedom than to avenge on himself the shame of his capture.
Boges, governor in Eion for King Xerxes, when besieged by the army of the Athenians under the leadership of Cimon, refused an offer that would have let him return safely to Asia with all his possessions, as he was unwilling to survive the loss of what his master had given into his keeping. And after defending his town to the last extremity, there being nothing left to eat, he first threw into the river Strymon all the gold and everything he thought the enemy might best make into booty. He then ordered a great pyre to be lit, and saw to it that his wife, children, concubines, and servants had their throats cut; after which he cast them into the fire, and then himself.
When Ninachetuen, an Indian lord, first got wind of the Portuguese viceroy's apparently reasonless determination to deprive him of his position in Malacca and give it to the king of Campar, he resolved on the following course of action. He had a scaffold erected, longer than it was wide, supported on columns and royally adorned with tapestry, flowers, and perfumes in abundance. He then put on a robe of cloth of gold heavy with many precious stones of great price, and went out into the street and up the steps onto the scaffold, in one corner of which there was a pyre of aromatic woods lit. The people ran up to see what these unaccustomed preparations were for. Ninachetuen, with a bold and angry countenance, pointed out how much the Portuguese nation was obligated to him; how faithfully he had acted in his office; that having so often borne arms on others' behalf to prove that he held honor much dearer than life, he was not the man to abandon its defense in his own behalf; that though his fortune prevented him from resisting the affront that they wanted to offer him, at least his courage ordered him to cease feeling it, and to avoid serving as a laughingstock to the people and as a cause of triumph to men less worthy than himself. So saying, he threw himself into the fire.
Sextilia, wife of Scaurus, and Paxea, wife of Labeo, to encourage their husbands to avoid the dangers that pressed them, in which they themselves had no share except by virtue of conjugal affection, voluntarily sacrificed their own lives so as to serve in this extremity as example and company to their husbands. What these women did for their husbands, Cocceius Nerva did for his country, less usefully but with equal love. This great jurist, flourishing in health, riches, reputation, and credit with the Emperor, had no other reason to kill himself than compassion for the miserable state of the Roman republic.
Nothing can be added to the delicacy of the death of the wife of Fulvius, a close friend of Augustus. Augustus, having discovered that Fulvius had aired an important secret he had confided to him, treated him bleakly one morning when he came to see him. Fulvius went back to his house full of despair, and said most piteously to his wife that because of this misfortune he was resolved to kill himself. She said very frankly: "You will only be doing the right thing, seeing that for all your experience of the incontinence of my tongue you did not guard against it. But here, let me kill myself first." And without further ado she ran a sword through her body.
Vibius Virius despaired of saving his city, which was being besieged by the Romans, and of any mercy from them; and so, in the last deliberation of the city's senate, he concluded, after offering many representations to support his conclusion, that the finest thing was for them to escape fortune by their own hands. The enemy would honor them for it, and Hannibal would feel what faithful friends he had abandoned. Vibius invited those who approved his plan to come and have a good supper that had been prepared at his house, where, after making good cheer, they should drink together of what would be offered to him - "a drink that will deliver our bodies from the tortures, our souls from the insults, our eyes and ears from the many ugly evils that the vanquished have to suffer from cruel and offended conquerors. I have arranged," he said, "that there shall be suitable people to throw us onto a pyre in front of my door when we have expired."
Many approved this lofty resolution; few imitated it. Twenty-seven senators followed him, and, after trying to drown their unpleasant thoughts in wine, finished their meal with this fatal draught. After embracing one another and together deploring their country's misfortune, some retired to their houses and the others stayed to be buried with Vibius in his fire. And they all were so long in dying, for wine fumes had filled their veins and retarded the effect of the poison, that some were within an hour of seeing the enemy in Capua, which was taken the next day, and of incurring the miseries that they had fled at such cost.
Taurea Jubellius, another citizen from Capua, when the consul Fulvius was returning from his shameful butchery of two hundred and twenty-five senators, called him back fiercely by name and, having stopped him, said: "Order me to be massacred also after so many others, so that you may boast of having killed a much more valiant man than yourself." When Fulvius disdained him as a madman, and also because he had just that very moment received letters from Rome opposing the inhumanity of his execution, which tied his hands, Jubellius continued: "My country has been taken, my friends are dead, and I have with own hand killed my wife and children to save them from the desolation of this ruin. Since I am forbidden to die the death of my fellow citizens, let me borrow from virtue vengeance on this hateful life." And drawing a blade that he had hidden, he thrust it through his chest, and fell on his back, dying, at the consul's feet.
Alexander was besieging a city in India. Those inside, finding themselves hard pressed, vigorously resolved to deprive him of the pleasure of this victory, and burned themselves all together, with their city, in spite of his humanity. A new sort of war: the enemy fought to save them, they to destroy themselves; and to ensure their death they did all the things that people do to ensure their life.
The men of Astapa, a city of Spain, finding their city too weak in walls and defenses to withstand the Romans, made a pile of their riches and furniture in the public square, placed their women and children on top of this heap, and surrounded it with wood and material that would catch fire quickly. This done, they left fifty young men to carry out their resolution, and made a sally in which, according to a vow they had made, being unable to conquer, they died to a man. The fifty, after massacring every living soul they could find in the city, set fire to the pile and flung themselves into it also, ending their high-minded liberty in insensibility rather than in pain and shame; and showing the enemy that if fortune had willed, they would have been as brave in winning the victory as they were in making their defeat frustrating and hideous for their conquerors. Yes, and fatal to those who, lured by the glitter of the gold melting in the flame, approached it in good numbers and were suffocated and burned, retreat being denied them by the crowd at their heels.
The Abydeans, pressed by Philip, made the same resolution. But they were caught short of time, and Philip, horrified at the frantic precipitation with which they were carrying out their plan (they already had seized the treasures and furniture which they had condemned to be burned or thrown into the water), withdrew his soldiers and granted them three days to kill themselves at leisure; which days they filled with blood and slaughter, beyond any enemy's cruelty, and not a single person of them escaped who had power over himself.”
[…]
“Pliny tells of a certain Hyperborean nation in which, because of the mild temperature of the air, the inhabitants' lives are ordinarily ended only by their own will; when they are weary and satiated with living after reaching an advanced age, it is their custom, after making good cheer, to throw themselves into the sea from the top of a certain rock reserved for that use.”
I recommend the Donald M. Frame translation contained in The Complete Works.