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130 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
by any apprentiship. The innocencie that is in me is
a kinde of simple-plaine innocencie, without vigor or
art Amongst all other vices, there is none I hate
more than Crueltie, both by nature and judgement, as
the extremest of all vices. But it is with such an
yearning and faint-hartednesse, that if I see but a
chickins necke puld off, or a pigge stickt, I cannot
chuce but grieve, and I cannot well enduro a seelie
dewbedabled hare to groane when she is seized upon
by the houndes, although hunting be a violent pleasure.
Those that are to withstand voluptuousnesse doe willingly
use this argument, to shew it is altogether vicious
and unreasonable: That where she is in her greatest
prime and chicfe strength, she doth so over-sway us,
that reason can have no accesse unto us, and for a
further triall, alleage the experience wee feel and have
of it in our acquaintance with women.
cum iam proesagit gaudio, corpus
Atque in eo est Venus, id muliebna conserat arm, 1
When now the bodie doth light-joyes fore-know,
And Venus set the womans fields to sow.
Where they thinke pleasure doth so far transport us
beyond our selves, that our discourse, then altogether
overwhelmed, and our reason wholie ravished in the
ulfe of sensualitie, cannot by any meanes discharge
g
er function. I know it may be otherwise: and if a
man but please, he may sometimes, even upon the verie
instant, cast his mind on other conceits. But she-must
be strained to a higher key, and needfully pursued. I
know a man may gourmandize the earnest and thoughtconfounding
violence of that pleasure : for I may with
some experience speak of it; and I have not found
Venus to be so imperious a Goddesse as many, and
more reformed than my selfe, witnesse her to be. I
thinke it not a wonder, as doth the Queene of Navarre,
in one of the tales of her Heptameron (which, respecting
the subject it treateth of, is a verie prettie booke),
nor doe I deeme it a matter of extreame difficultie for
1 LUCR. 1. iv. 1097,