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332 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
tuus ipsa me consolata sunt: ¹ ' Thy rod and thy staffe
hath comforted me.' He doth it by the reasons of his
providence, which more certainly considereth and regardeth
what is meet for us then we ourselves can doe,
and we ought to take it in good part as from a most
wise and thrice-friendly hand.
si consilium vis,
Permittes ipsis expendere numinibus, quid
Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit vtile nost?is:
Chaiior est illis homo quam stbi.*
If you will counsell have, give the Gods leave
To weigh what is most meet we should receive,
And what for our estate most profit were :
To them, then to himselfe man is more deare.
For, to crave honours and charges of them, is to
request them to cast you in some battle, or play at
hazard, or some such thing, whereof the event is unknowen
to you, and the fruit uncertaine. There is no
combate amongst philosophers so violent and sharpe
as that which ariseth upon the question of mans chiefe
felicitie, from which (according to Varroe's calculation)
arose two hundred and foure score Sects. Qui
autem de summo bono dissentit, de tota Philosophise ratione
disputat: ' But he that disagrees about the chiefest felicitie,
cals in question the whole course of Philosophic'
Tret mihi convivce prope dissentire videntur,
Po8centes vario mmtum diversa palato.
Quid dem ? quid non dem ? renuis tu quod iubet alter:
Quod petis, id sane est mvisum acidumque duobus,*
Three guests of mine doe seeme allmost at ods to fall,
Whilest they with divers taste for divers things doe call:
What should I give ? What not ? You will not, what he will;
What you would, to them twame is hatefull, sowre and ill.
Nature should thus answer their contestations and
debates. Some say our felicitie consisteth and is in
vertue, others in voluptuousnesse, others in yeelding
unto Nature, some others in learning, others in feeling
no manner of paine or sorrow, others for a man never
¹ Psalm, xxiii. 4. ² Juv. Sat x. 346.
* Hon. 1. ii. Epist. ii. 61.