Erasmus Character Analysis

Nothing is more puerile, certainly, than to treat serious matters triflingly; but nothing is more graceful than to handle light subjects in such a way that you seem to have been anything but trifling. The judgement of others upon me will be what it will be. Yet unless self-love deceives me badly, I have praised folly in a way that is not wholly foolish.

But aside from the fact that I refrain throughout from using names, I have in addition tempered my style that the judicious reader will easily perceive that my end is pleasure rather than censure.

And now you shall hear from me an extemporaneous speech, unlabored, but so much truer for all that. I should not want you to think it is made to show off my wit, as is done by the common run of orators.

For do you not see that the austere fellows who are buried in the study of philosophy, or condemned to difficult and wracking business, grow old even before they have been young–and this because by cares and continual hard driving of their brains they insensibly exhaust their spirits and dry up their radical moisture. On the contrary, my morons are as plump and sleek as the hogs of Acarnania (as the saying is), with complexions well cared for, never feeling the touch of old age; unless as rarely happens, they catch something by contagion from the wise—so true it is that the life of man is not destined to be happy.

In sum, no society, no union in life, could be either pleasant or lasting without me. A people does not for long tolerate its prince, or a master tolerate his servant, a handmaiden her mistress, a teacher his student, a friend his friend, a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a partner his partner, or a boarder his fellow-boarder, except as they mutually or by turns are mistaken, on occasion flatter, on occasion wisely wink, and otherwise soothe themselves with the sweetness of folly.

If something is to be bought, or a contract made, if in short, any of those things without which our daily life could not be carried on must be done, you will say that this wiseacre is no man, but dead wood. Thus he can be of little use to himself, his country, or his family, and all because he is inexpert in everyday matters, and far out of step with general ways of thinking and modes of life among the folk; by the same token he is bound to fall into odium, through the great diversity between his and their lives and minds. For what that passes among mortals everywhere is not full of folly, done by fools in the presence of fools?

Although that double-strength Stoic, Seneca, stoutly denies this, subtracting from the wise man any and every emotion, yet in doing so he leaves him no man at all but rather a new kind of god, or demiurgos, who never existed and will never emerge. Nay to speak more plainly, he creates a marble simulacrum of a man, a senseless block, completely alien to every human feeling.

And yet a remarkable thing happens in the experience of my fools: from them not only true things, but even sharp reproaches, will be listened to; so that a statement which, if it came from a wise man’s mouth, might be a capital offense, coming from a fool gives rise to incredible delight.

If a prince really laid his own life alongside these symbols, I believe he would have the grace to be ashamed of his finery. He would be afraid some nosy satirist might turn the whole spectacle, suited as it is for high tragedy, into laughter and derision.

And although war is so cruel a business that it befits beasts and not men, so frantic that poets feign it is sent with evil purpose by the Furies, so pestilential that it brings with it a general blight upon morals, so iniquitous that is usually conducted by the worst bandits, so impious that it has no accord with Christ, yet our popes, neglecting all their other concerns, make it their only task.

And yet through a cloud, or as in a dream, they know one thing, that they were happiest while they were out of their wits. So they are sorry to come to themselves again and would prefer, of all good things, nothing but to be mad always with this madness. And this is a tiny little taste of that future happiness.

Nothing is more puerile, certainly, than to treat serious matters triflingly; but nothing is more graceful than to handle light subjects in such a way that you seem to have been anything but trifling. The judgement of others upon me will be what it will be. Yet unless self-love deceives me badly, I have praised folly in a way that is not wholly foolish.

But aside from the fact that I refrain throughout from using names, I have in addition tempered my style that the judicious reader will easily perceive that my end is pleasure rather than censure.

And now you shall hear from me an extemporaneous speech, unlabored, but so much truer for all that. I should not want you to think it is made to show off my wit, as is done by the common run of orators.

For do you not see that the austere fellows who are buried in the study of philosophy, or condemned to difficult and wracking business, grow old even before they have been young–and this because by cares and continual hard driving of their brains they insensibly exhaust their spirits and dry up their radical moisture. On the contrary, my morons are as plump and sleek as the hogs of Acarnania (as the saying is), with complexions well cared for, never feeling the touch of old age; unless as rarely happens, they catch something by contagion from the wise—so true it is that the life of man is not destined to be happy.

In sum, no society, no union in life, could be either pleasant or lasting without me. A people does not for long tolerate its prince, or a master tolerate his servant, a handmaiden her mistress, a teacher his student, a friend his friend, a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a partner his partner, or a boarder his fellow-boarder, except as they mutually or by turns are mistaken, on occasion flatter, on occasion wisely wink, and otherwise soothe themselves with the sweetness of folly.

If something is to be bought, or a contract made, if in short, any of those things without which our daily life could not be carried on must be done, you will say that this wiseacre is no man, but dead wood. Thus he can be of little use to himself, his country, or his family, and all because he is inexpert in everyday matters, and far out of step with general ways of thinking and modes of life among the folk; by the same token he is bound to fall into odium, through the great diversity between his and their lives and minds. For what that passes among mortals everywhere is not full of folly, done by fools in the presence of fools?

Although that double-strength Stoic, Seneca, stoutly denies this, subtracting from the wise man any and every emotion, yet in doing so he leaves him no man at all but rather a new kind of god, or demiurgos, who never existed and will never emerge. Nay to speak more plainly, he creates a marble simulacrum of a man, a senseless block, completely alien to every human feeling.

And yet a remarkable thing happens in the experience of my fools: from them not only true things, but even sharp reproaches, will be listened to; so that a statement which, if it came from a wise man’s mouth, might be a capital offense, coming from a fool gives rise to incredible delight.

If a prince really laid his own life alongside these symbols, I believe he would have the grace to be ashamed of his finery. He would be afraid some nosy satirist might turn the whole spectacle, suited as it is for high tragedy, into laughter and derision.

And although war is so cruel a business that it befits beasts and not men, so frantic that poets feign it is sent with evil purpose by the Furies, so pestilential that it brings with it a general blight upon morals, so iniquitous that is usually conducted by the worst bandits, so impious that it has no accord with Christ, yet our popes, neglecting all their other concerns, make it their only task.

And yet through a cloud, or as in a dream, they know one thing, that they were happiest while they were out of their wits. So they are sorry to come to themselves again and would prefer, of all good things, nothing but to be mad always with this madness. And this is a tiny little taste of that future happiness.