In Praise of Folly
affected for any person to praise himself: yet let it be as silly as
they please, if they will but allow it needful: and indeed what is more
befitting than that Folly should be the trumpet of her own praise, and
dance after her own pipe? for who can set me forth better than myself?
or who can pretend to be so well acquainted with my condition?
And yet farther, I may safely urge, that all this is no more than the
same with what is done by several seemingly great and wise men, who with
a new-fashioned modesty employ some paltry orator or scribbling poet,
whom they bribe to flatter them with some high-flown character, that
shall consist of mere lies and shams; and yet the persons thus extolled
shall bristle up, and, peacock-like, bespread their plumes, while the
impudent parasite magnifies the poor wretch to the skies, and proposes
him as a complete pattern of all virtues, from each of which he is yet
as far distant as heaven itself from hell: what is all this in the mean
while, but the tricking up a daw in stolen feathers; a labouring to
change the black-a-moor's hue, and the drawing on a pigmy's frock over
the shoulders of a giant.
Lastly, I verify the old observation, that allows him a right of
praising himself, who has nobody else to do it for him: for really, I
cannot but admire at that ingratitude, shall I term it, or blockishness
of mankind, who when they all willingly pay to me their utmost
devoir, and freely acknowledge their respective obligations; that
notwithstanding this, there should have been none so grateful or
complaisant as to have bestowed on me a commendatory oration, especially
when there have not been wanting such as at a great expense of sweat,
and loss of sleep, have in elaborate speeches, given high encomiums to
tyrants, agues, flies, baldness, and such like trumperies.
I shall entertain you with a hasty and unpremeditated, but so much the
more natural discourse. My venting it _ex tempore_, I would not have
you think proceeds from any principles of vain glory by which ordinary
orators square their attempts, who (as it is easy to observe) when they
are delivered of a speech that has been thirty years a conceiving, nay,
perhaps at last, none of their own, yet they will swear they wrote it in
a great hurry, and upon very short warning: whereas the reason of my
not being provided beforehand is only because it was always my humour
constantly to speak that which lies uppermost. Next, let no one be
so fond as to imagine, that I should so far stint my invention to
the method of other pleaders, as first to define, and then divide
my subject, i.e., myself. For it is equally hazardous to attempt the
crowding her within the narrow limits of a definition, whose nature
is of so diffusive an extent, or to mangle and disjoin that, to the
adoration whereof all nations unitedly concur. Beside, to what purpose
is it to lay down a definition for a faint resemblance, and mere shadow
of me, while appearing here personally, you may view me at a more
certain light? And if your eye-sight fail not, you may at first
blush discern me to be her whom the Greeks term _Mwpia_, the Latins
_stultitia_.
But why need I have been so impertinent as to have told you this, as if
my very looks did not sufficiently betray what I am; or supposing any be
so credulous as to take me for some sage matron or goddess of wisdom, as
if a single glance from me would not immediately correct their mistake,
while my visage, the exact reflex of my soul, would supply and supersede
the trouble of any other confessions: for I appear always in my natural
colours, and an unartificial dress, and never let my face pretend one
thing, and my heart conceal another; nay, and in all things I am so true
to my principles, that I cannot be so much as counterfeited, even by
those who challenge the name of wits, yet indeed are no better than
jackanapes tricked up in gawdy clothes, and asses strutting in lions'
skins; and how cunningly soever they carry it, their long ears appear,
and betray what they are. These in troth are very rude and disingenuous,
for while they apparently belong to my party, yet among the vulgar they
are so ashamed of my relation, as to cast it in others' dish for a shame
and reproach: wherefore since they are so eager to be accounted wise,
when in truth they are extremely silly, what, if to give them their due,
I dub them with the title of wise fools: and herein they copy after
the example of some modern orators, who swell to that proportion of
conceitedness, as to vaunt themselves for so many giants of eloquence,
if with a double-tongued fluency they can plead indifferently for either
side, and deem it a very doughty exploit if they can but interlard a
Latin sentence with some Greek word, which for seeming garnish they
crowd in at a venture; and rather than be at a stand for some cramp
words, they will furnish up a long scroll of old obsolete terms out of
some musty author, and foist them in, to amuse the reader with, that
those who understand them may be tickled with the happiness of being
acquainted with them: and those who understand them not, the less they
know the more they may admire; whereas it has been always a custom to
those of our side to contemn and undervalue whatever is strange and
unusual, while those that are better conceited of themselves will nod
and smile, and prick up their ears, that they may be thought easily to
apprehend that, of which perhaps they do not understand one word. And so
much for this; pardon the digression, now I return.
Of my name I have informed you, Sirs; what additional epithet to give
you I know not; except you will be content with that of most foolish;
for under what more proper appellation can the goddess Folly greet
her devotees? But since there are few acquainted with my family and
original, I will now give you some account of my extraction:
First then, my father was neither the chaos, nor hell, nor Saturn, nor
Jupiter, nor any of those old, worn out, grandsire gods, but Plutus, the
very same that, maugre Homer, Hesiod, nay, in spite of Jove himself, was
the primary father born amongst these delights, I did not, like
other infants, come crying into the world, but perked up, and laughed
immediately in my mother's face. And there is no reason I should envy
Jove for having a she-goat to his nurse, since I was more creditably
suckled by two jolly nymphs; the name of the first drunkenness, one
of Bacchus's offspring, the other ignorance, the daughter of Pan;
both which you may here behold among several others of my train and
attendants, whose particular names, if you would fain know, I will give
you in short This, who goes with a mincing gait, and holds up her head
so high, is Self-Love. She that looks so spruce, and makes such a noise
and bustle, is Flattery. That other, which sits hum-drum, as if she were
half asleep, is called Forgetfulness. She that leans on her elbow, and
sometimes yawningly stretches out her arms, is Laziness. This, that
wears a plighted garland of flowers, and smells so perfumed, is
Pleasure. The other, which appears in so smooth a skin, and pampered-up
flesh, is Sensuality. She that stares so wildly, and rolls about her
eyes, is Madness. As to those two gods whom you see playing among the
lasses the name of the one is Intemperance, the other Sound Sleep. By
the help and service of this retinue I bring all things under the verge
of my power, lording it over the greatest kings and potentates.
You have now heard of my descent, my education, and my attendance; that
I may not be taxed as presumptuous in borrowing the title of a goddess,
I come now in the next place to acquaint you what obliging favours I
everywhere bestow, and how largely my jurisdiction extends: for if,
as one has ingenuously noted, to be a god is no other than to be a
benefactor to mankind; and if they have been thought deservedly deified
who have invented the use of wine, corn, or any other convenience for
the well-being of mortals, why may not I justly bear the van among the
whole troop of gods, who in all, and toward all, exert an unparalleled
bounty and beneficence?
For instance, in the first place, what can be more dear and precious
than life itself? and yet for this are none beholden, save to me alone.
For it is neither the spear of throughly-begotten Pallas, nor the
buckler of cloud-gathering Jove, that multiplies and propagates mankind:
but my sportive and tickling recreation that proceeded the old crabbed
philosophers, and those who now supply their stead, the mortified monks
and friars; as also kings, priests, and popes, nay, the whole tribe of
poetic gods, who are at last grown so numerous, as in the camp of heaven
(though ne'er so spacious), to jostle for elbow room. But it is not
sufficient to have made it appear that I am the source and original
of all life, except I likewise shew that all the benefits of life are
equally at my disposal. And what are such? Why, can any one be said
properly to live to whom pleasure is denied? You will give me your
assent; for there is none I know among you so wise shall I say, or so
silly, as to be of a contrary opinion. The Stoics indeed contemn, and
pretend to banish pleasure; but this is only a dissembling trick, and
a putting the vulgar out of conceit with it, that they may more quietly
engross it to themselves: but I dare them now to confess what one stage
of life is not melancholy, dull, tiresome, tedious, and uneasy, unless
we spice it with pleasure, that hautgoust of Folly. Of the truth whereof
the never enough to be commended Sophocles is sufficient authority, who
gives me the highest character in that sentence of his,
To know nothing is the sweetest life.
Yet abating from this, let us examine the case more narrowly. Who
knows not that the first scene of infancy is far the most pleasant and
delightsome? What then is it in children that makes us so kiss, hug, and
play with them, and that the bloodiest enemy can scarce have the heart
to hurt them; but their ingredients of innocence and Folly, of which
nature out of providence did purposely compound and blend their tender
infancy, that by a frank return of pleasure they might make some sort
of amends for their parents' trouble, and give in caution as it were for
the discharge of a future education; the next advance from childhood is
youth, and how favourably is this dealt with; how kind, courteous, and
respectful are all to it? and how ready to become serviceable upon all
occasions? And whence reaps it this happiness? Whence indeed, but from
me only, by whose procurement it is furnished with little of wisdom, and
so with the less of disquiet? And when once lads begin to grow up,
and attempt to write man, their prettiness does then soon decay, their
briskness flags, their humours stagnate, their jollity ceases, and their
blood grows cold; and the farther they proceed in years, the more they
grow backward in the enjoyment of themselves, till waspish old age
comes on, a burden to itself as well as others, and that so heavy and
oppressive, as none would bear the weight of, unless out of pity to
their sufferings. I again intervene, and lend a helping-hand, assisting
them at a dead lift, in the same method the poets feign their gods to
succour dying men, by transforming them into new creatures, which I do
by bringing them back, after they have one foot in the grave, to their