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136 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
I say it hath some reason to injoyne ns to shew some
respect and affection towards them. Pythagoras borrowed
Metempsychosis of the AEgyptians, but since
it hath been received of divers Nations, and especially
of our Druides:
Morte carent aninue, fempiroue priore rclictd
Sede, novts domibus vivunt, habitdntque receptee, 1
Our death-lease soules, their former seats refrained,
In harbors new live and lodge entertained.
The Religion of our ancient Gaules inferred, that
soules being eternally ceased not to remove and change
place from one bodie to another : to which fantasie was
also entermixed some consideration of divine justice.
For, according to the soules behaviors, during the time
she had been with Alexander, they sayd that God
appointed it another bodie to dwell in, either more or
lesse painfull, and suitable to her condition.
muta ferarum
Cogit vinclapati, truculentos ingent uisis,
Prcedonesque lupis, fallaces vulpibus addit.
Mque ubt per varws annosper mille figuras
Eqit letheo purgatos flumine tandem
Rursus ad humanas revocat primordia formoe.²
Dumbe bands of beasts he makes men's soules endure,
Blood-thirstie soules he doth to Beares enure,
Craftie to Foxes, to Woolves bent to rapes ;
Thus when for many yeares, through many shapes,
He hath them driv'n in Lethe lake at last,
Them purg'd he turns to mans forme whence they past*
If the soule had been valiant, they placed it in the
bodie of a Lion : if voluptuous, in a Swine: if faintharted,
in a Stagge or a Iiare ; if malicious, in a Foxe;
and so of the rest, untill that being purified by this
punishment, it re-assumed and tooke the bodie of some
other man againe.
1 OVID. Metam. 1. xv. 158.
² CLAUD. In Ruff. 1. ii, 482.