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156 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
Eorum scilicet animantium qua ratione utuntur. Hi
sunt dii et homines, quibus profecto nihil est melius:¹
' For whose cause then shall a man say that the world
was made? In sooth, for those creatures sake which
have the use of reason ; those are Gods and men, than
whom assuredly nothing is better.' We shall never
sufficiently baffle the impudency of this conjoyning.
But silly wretch, what hath he in him worthy such an
advantage ? To consider the incorruptible life of the
celestiall bodies, their beauty, greatne&se, and agitation,
continued with so just and regular a course.
——— cum suspicimus magni coelestia mundi
Templa super, stelltsque micanttbus AEthera fixum,
Et ventt in mentem Luna Solisque viarum.²
When we of this great world the heavenly temples see
Above us, and the skies with shine-starres fixt to be,
And marke in our discourse,
Of Sunne and Moone the course.
To consider the power of domination these bodies have
not onely upon our lives and condition of our fortune.
Facta etenim et vitas hominum suspendit ab astris.³
For on the stars he doth suspend
Of men, the deeds, the lives, and end.
But also over our dispositions and inclinations, our
discourses and wils, which they rule, provoke, and
move at the pleasure of their influences, as our reason
finds and teacheth us.
speculatague longe
Deprendit tacitis dominantia tcgibus astra,
Et totum alternd mundum ratione moveri,
l'atorumque vices certis discernere signis. 4
By speculation it from far discerns,
How stars by secret lawes do guide our sterns,
And this whole world is moov'd by entcrcourse
And by sure signes of fates to know the course.
¹ CIC. Nat. Deor. 1. ii. ² LUCR. 1. v. 1214.
³ MANIL. Astron. 1. iii. 58. 4 MANIL. Astron, 1. i. 62.