Simon Thomas was a great physician in his time. I remember that I met him one day at Toulouse,[1] at the house of a rich old man whose lungs were affected; and that, while discussing with him[2] means of curing him, he told him that one method was to give me reason to enjoy myself in his company, and that, fixing his eyes on the freshness of my complexion, and his mind on the cheerfulness and vigour that flowed from my youth, and filling all his senses with the blooming state in which I then was, his condition might be improved; but he forgot to say that mine might grow worse at the same time. (a) Gallus Vibius bent his mind so strongly to understand the essence and the actions of madness, that he dragged his judgement from its seat, so that he was never able to replace it there, and could boast of having become insane by wisdom.[3] There are some who, from terror, anticipate the hand of the executioner; and he who was unbound that his pardon might be read to him, was found stark dead on the scaffold solely from the stroke of his imagination. We sweat, we tremble, we turn pale, and we blush at the assaults of our imagination, and, sunk in a feather-bed, feel our bodies shaken by their commotion, sometimes even to death. And ebullient youth is so greatly excited[4] while sound asleep, that it satisfies in dreams its amorous desires.
Ut quasi transactis sæpe omnibus rebus profundant
Fluminis ingentes fluctus, vestemque cruentent.[5]
And although it may be no new thing to see horns grow in the night on one who had none when he went to bed, nevertheless the case of Cyppus, King of Italy, is noteworthy, who, after he had been present during the day, with great zest, at a bull-fight, and had dreamed all night of horns, pro-
- ↑ These two words were added in 1594, which fact would seem to indicate that one, or both, of the editors of 1595 had heard the story from Montaigne’s lips and knew who the “rich old man” was.
- ↑ That is, the old man.
- ↑ See Seneca (Rhetor), Controversia, IX.
- ↑ S’eschauffe si avant en son harnois.
- ↑ Lucretius, IV, 1035.
