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296 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
Quippe etenim mortale aterno jungere, et una*
Consentire putare, et fungi mutua posse,
Desipere est. Quid enim diverstus esse putandum est,
Aut magis inter se disjunctum discrepitansquc,
Quam mortale quod est, immortali atque perenni
Junction in concilio scevas tolerate procellas ?¹
For what immortali is, mortall to joyne unto,
And thinke they can agree, and mutuall duties doe,
Is to be foolish: for what thinke we stranger is,
More disagreeable or more disjoyn'd than this,
That mortall with immortali endlesse joyn'd in union,
Can most outrageous stormes endure in their communion ?
Moreover they felt their soule to he engaged in death
as well as the body.
simul aevo fessa fatiscit,*
It jointly faints in one,
Weaned as age is gone.
Which thing (according to Zeno) the image of sleep
doth manifestly show unto us. For he esteemeth that
it is a fainting and declination of the soule as well as
of the body : Contrahi animum, et quasi labi putat
atque decidere:³ 'He thinks the minde is contracted,
and doth as it were slide and fall downe.' And that
(which is perceived in some) its force and vigor maintaineth
it selfe even in the end of life, they referred
and imputed the same to the diversitie of diseases, as
men are seene in that extremitie to maintaine some one
sense and some'another, some their hearing and some
their smelling, without any alteration; and there is
no weaknesse or decay seene so universall but some
entire and vigorous parts will remaine.
Non alio pacto guam si pes cum dolet oegri,
In nullo caput tnterea sit forte dolore.*
No otherwise than if, when sick-mans foote doth ake,
Meane time perhaps his head no fellow-feeling take.
¹ LUCR. 1. iii. 831. ² Ib., 463.
³ CIC. Div. 1. ii. c. 58. 4 LUCR. 1. iii. 111