214044_The_Essa ... rd_Of_Montaigne_Vol_II.pdf - OUDL Home

244 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
which they have given bodies, as necessity required
amid this general! blindnesse, as for me, I should
rather have taken part with those who worshipped the
Sunne.
- la lumiere commune.
L'oeil du monde; et si Dieu au chef porte des yeux,
Les rayons du Soleil sont ses yeux radieux
Qui donnent vie a tous, nous maintiennent et gardent,
Et les faicts des humains en ce monde regardent:
Ce beau, ce grand Soleil, qui nous fait les say sons,
Selon qu'ilentre ou sort de ses douze maysons :
Qui remplit Vumvers de ses vertus cognues,
Qui d'un traict de ses yeux nous disspe les nues:
L'espirit, l'ame du monde, ardent et flamboyant,
En la course d'un tour tout le Ciel tournoyant,
Plein d f immense grandeur, rond, vagabond et ferine ?
Lequel tient dessoubs luy tout le monde pour terme,
En repos sans repos, oysif, et sans seiour,
Fils aisne de Nature, et le Pet e du tour.
The common light,
The"worlds eye: and if God beare eyes in his cheefe head,
His most resplendent eyes the Sunne-beamcs may be said,
Which unto all give life, which us mamtaine and guard,
And in this world of men, the workes of men regard:
This great, this beauteous Sunne, which us our seasons makesy
As in twelve houses he ingresse or egresse takes ;
Who with his Vertues knowne, doth fill this universe,
With one cast of his eyes doth us all clowds disperse:
The spirit, and the soule of this world, flaming, burning,
Round about heav'n in course of one dayes journey turning.
Of endlesse greatnesse full, round, moveable and fast:
Who all the world for bounds beneath himsclfe hath pla'st;
In rest, without rest, and still more staid, without stay,
Of Nature th' eldest Childe, and Father of the day.
Forasmuch as besides this greatnesse and matchless©
beautie of his, it is the onely glorious piece of this vaste
worlds frame, which we perceive to be furthest from
us: And by that meane so little knowne as they are
pardonable, they entered into admiration and reverence
of it. Thales, who was the first to enquire and find
out this matter, esteemed God to be a spirit who made
all things of water. Anaximander thought the Gods did