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183 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
When hath a greater Lion damnifide
A Lions life ? in what wood ever di'de,
A boare by tusks and gore,
Of any greater boare ?
Yet are not they altogether exempted from it: witnesse
the furious encounters of Bees, and the hostile enterprises
of the Princes and Leaders of the two contrary
Armies.
scepe duobus
Regibus incessit magno discordia motu,
Continuoque animos vulgi et trepidantia hello
Corda licet longe prcesascere, 1
Oft-times twixt two so great Kings great dissenlio
With much adoe doth set them at contention;
The vulgare mindes strait may you see from farre,
And hearts that tremble at the thought of warre.
I never marke this divine description but mee thinkes
I read humane foolishnesse and worldly vanitie painted
in it. For these motions of warre, which out of their
horror and astonishment breed this tempest of cries and
clang of sounds in us :
Fulgur ubi ad ccelum se tollit, totaque circum
AEre renidesat tellus, subterque vir um vi
Excitur pedibus sonitus, clamoreqne montes
Icti rejectant voces ad sidera mundi:²
Where lightning raiseth it selfe to the skies,
The earth shines round with armour, soundes doe rise
By mens force under feet, wounded with noyse
The hilles to hetiv'n reverberate their voyce.
This horror-causing aray of so many thousands of
armed men, so great furie, earnest fervor, and undaunted
courage, it would make one laugh to see by
how many vaine occasions it is raised and set on fire,
and by what light meanes it is again suppressed and
extinct.
Paridis propter narratur amorem
' Groecia Baibamas airo collisa duello. 3
For Paris lustfull love (as Stories tell)
All Greece to direfull warre with Asia fell.
¹ VIRG. Georg. 1. iv. 67. ² LUCR. 1. ii. 326,
³ HOR. 1. i. Epist ii. 6.