“Besides the examples of the Roman lady, who died for joy to see her son safe returned from the defeat of Cannae; and of Sophocles and of Dionysius the Tyrant,—[Pliny, vii. 53. Diodorus Siculus, however (xv. c. 20), tells us that Dionysius “was so overjoyed at the news that he made a great sacrifice upon it to the gods, prepared sumptuous feasts, to which he invited all his friends, and therein drank so excessively that it threw him into a very bad distemper.”]—who died of joy; and of Thalna, who died in Corsica, reading news of the honours the Roman Senate had decreed in his favour, we have, moreover, one in our time, of Pope Leo X., who upon news of the taking of Milan, a thing he had so ardently desired, was rapt with so sudden an excess of joy that he immediately fell into a fever and died.”
Montaigne corroborates his aversion to sorrow using exemplifications of the ‘Roman lady, Sophocles, and Of Dionysius the Tyrant, Thalna, and Pope Leo X.” Their comparable deaths are attributed to the precarious joy that followed news of triumphant incidences. The inordinate pleasure that they delighted in upon the reception of satisfactory news contributed materially to their deaths. These specimens are pertinent because in each of them Montaigne relates the blissful occurrence to an eventual death. Montaigne surreptitiously submits that the individuals in this passage would not have expired were it not for the disproportionate pleasure that he abhors. Montaigne establishes that thrilling pleasure can be a causative trigger of untimely bereavement. Accordingly, passionate reactions, even if they are well-intentioned, may occasion indeterminate sorrow.
“When I lately retired to my own house, with a resolution, as much as possibly I could, to avoid all manner of concern in affairs, and to spend in privacy and repose the little remainder of time I have to live, I fancied I could not more oblige my mind than to suffer it at full leisure to entertain and divert itself, which I now hoped it might henceforth do, as being by time become more settled and mature; but I find— ”
Leisure should not be a justification for inactivity. The mind should be engaged with constructive ideas during leisure to diminish the enticements of indolent considerations. The mind should be dynamic at all times failure to which it will entertain ineffectual illusions.
“Neither do the Stoics pretend that the soul of their philosopher need be proof against the first visions and fantasies that surprise him; but, as to a natural subjection, consent that he should tremble at the terrible noise of thunder, or the sudden clatter of some falling ruin, and be affrighted even to paleness and convulsion; and so in other passions, provided his judgment remain sound and entire, and that the seat of his reason suffer no concussion nor alteration, and that he yield no consent to his fright and discomposure.”
Montaigne illuminates the interrelationship between stoicism and constancy. Even the philosophers who sanction the ideology of stoicism submit to inborn ‘visions and illusions’. Instinctively, human beings, whether philosophers or not, react to dreadful circumstances. Therefore, appealing to stoicism is an irrational appeal aimed at augmenting unsanctioned constancy. Accordingly, one may espouse superficial constancy, in the face of fright, but internally, he/she could be longing for flight. Therefore, constancy cannot be possible when antagonized by terror.
