life of john picus earl of mirandola - The Center for Thomas More ...
life of john picus earl of mirandola - The Center for Thomas More ...
life of john picus earl of mirandola - The Center for Thomas More ...
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<strong>More</strong>’s Introduction to Picus’ First Letter to Francis<br />
him in this epistle and exhorteth him to perseverance, by such means<br />
as are in the epistle evident and plain enough. Notwithstanding, in the<br />
beginning <strong>of</strong> this letter, where he saith that the flesh shall (but if we<br />
take good heed) make us drunk in the cups <strong>of</strong> Circe and misshape us<br />
into the likeness and figure <strong>of</strong> brute beasts: 1 those words, if ye perceive<br />
them not, be in this wise understood.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was sometime in [Aeaea] 2 a woman called Circe which<br />
by enchantment (as Virgil maketh mention) used with a drink to turn<br />
as many men as received it into divers likeness and figures <strong>of</strong> sundry<br />
beasts, some into lions, some into bears, some into swine, some into<br />
wolves, which afterwards walked ever tame about her house and waited<br />
upon her in such use or service as she list to put unto them. 3 In likewise,<br />
the flesh if it make us drunk in the wine <strong>of</strong> voluptuous pleasure<br />
or make the soul leave the noble use <strong>of</strong> his reason and incline unto<br />
sensuality and affections <strong>of</strong> the body°: then the flesh changeth us from<br />
the figure <strong>of</strong> reasonable men into the likeness <strong>of</strong> unreasonable beasts,<br />
and that diversely, after the convenience and similitude between our<br />
sensual affections and the brutish properties <strong>of</strong> sundry beasts—as the<br />
proud-hearted man into a lion, the irous° into a bear, the lecherous into<br />
a goat, the drunken glutton into a swine, the ravenous extortioner into a<br />
wolf, the false deceiver into a fox, the mocking jester into an ape. From<br />
which beastly shape may we never be restored to our own likeness again<br />
unto the time we have cast up again the drink <strong>of</strong> the bodily affections<br />
by which we were into these figures enchanted. When there cometh,<br />
sometimes, a monstrous beast to the town, we run and are glad to<br />
pay some money to have a sight there<strong>of</strong>; but I fear if men would look<br />
upon themselves advisedly they should see a more monstrous beast<br />
nearer home; <strong>for</strong> they should perceive themselves by the wretched<br />
inclination to divers beastly passions changed in their soul not into<br />
the shape <strong>of</strong> one but <strong>of</strong> many beasts, that is to say, <strong>of</strong> all them whose<br />
brutish appetites they follow. Let us then beware, as Picus counselleth<br />
us, that we be not drunken in the cups <strong>of</strong> Circe, that is to say, in the<br />
sensual affections <strong>of</strong> the flesh, lest we de<strong>for</strong>m the image <strong>of</strong> God in<br />
15 affections <strong>of</strong> the body passions, appetites (OED s.v. affection sb. 3) / 19 irous angry, wrathful<br />
1. <strong>The</strong> reference is to 28.14-17.<br />
2. [Aeaea]: <strong>The</strong> 1510 edition has a blank space here, either because the compositor could not<br />
read his copy (perhaps written in Greek characters—the reference is to Homer’s Odyssey 10.135)<br />
or because <strong>More</strong> left it blank and failed to return to fill it in (CW 1:229).<br />
3. Cf. Aeneid 7.15–20, but note the additions <strong>More</strong> makes.<br />
27<br />
Circe<br />
How reasonable<br />
men be changed into<br />
unreasonable beasts<br />
[77]<br />
Wittily said