The Praise of Folly | Page 8

is a very wag and can neither do nor so much
as think of anything sober? Why Venus ever in her prime, but because
of her affinity with me? Witness that color of her hair, so resembling
my father, from whence she is called the golden Venus; and lastly, ever
laughing, if you give any credit to the poets, or their followers the
statuaries. What deity did the Romans ever more religiously adore than
that of Flora, the foundress of all pleasure? Nay, if you should but
diligently search the lives of the most sour and morose of the gods out
of Homer and the rest of the poets, you would find them all but so
many pieces of Folly. And to what purpose should I run over any of the
other gods' tricks when you know enough of Jupiter's loose loves?
When that chaste Diana shall so far forget her sex as to be ever hunting
and ready to perish for Endymion? But I had rather they should hear
these things from Momus, from whom heretofore they were wont to
have their shares, till in one of their angry humors they tumbled him,
together with Ate, goddess of mischief, down headlong to the earth,
because his wisdom, forsooth, unseasonably disturbed their happiness.
Nor since that dares any mortal give him harbor, though I must confess
there wanted little but that he had been received into the courts of

princes, had not my companion Flattery reigned in chief there, with
whom and the other there is no more correspondence than between
lambs and wolves. From whence it is that the gods play the fool with
the greater liberty and more content to themselves "doing all things
carelessly," as says Father Homer, that is to say, without anyone to
correct them. For what ridiculous stuff is there which that stump of the
fig tree Priapus does not afford them? What tricks and legerdemains
with which Mercury does not cloak his thefts? What buffoonery that
Vulcan is not guilty of, while one with his polt-foot, another with his
smutched muzzle, another with his impertinencies, he makes sport for
the rest of the gods? As also that old Silenus with his country dances,
Polyphemus footing time to his Cyclops hammers, the nymphs with
their jigs, and satyrs with their antics; while Pan makes them all twitter
with some coarse ballad, which yet they had rather hear than the Muses
themselves, and chiefly when they are well whittled with nectar.
Besides, what should I mention what these gods do when they are half
drunk? Now by my troth, so foolish that I myself can hardly refrain
laughter. But in these matters 'twere better we remembered Harpocrates,
lest some eavesdropping god or other take us whispering that which
Momus only has the privilege of speaking at length.
And therefore, according to Homer's example, I think it high time to
leave the gods to themselves, and look down a little on the earth;
wherein likewise you'll find nothing frolic or fortunate that it owes not
to me. So provident has that great parent of mankind, Nature, been that
there should not be anything without its mixture and, as it were,
seasoning of Folly. For since according to the definition of the Stoics,
wisdom is nothing else than to be governed by reason, and on the
contrary Folly, to be given up to the will of our passions, that the life of
man might not be altogether disconsolate and hard to away with, of
how much more passion than reason has Jupiter composed us? putting
in, as one would say, "scarce half an ounce to a pound." Besides, he has
confined reason to a narrow corner of the brain and left all the rest of
the body to our passions; has also set up, against this one, two as it
were, masterless tyrants--anger, that possesses the region of the heart,
and consequently the very fountain of life, the heart itself; and lust, that
stretches its empire everywhere. Against which double force how

powerful reason is let common experience declare, inasmuch as she,
which yet is all she can do, may call out to us till she be hoarse again
and tell us the rules of honesty and virtue; while they give up the reins
to their governor and make a hideous clamor, till at last being wearied,
he suffer himself to be carried whither they please to hurry him.
But forasmuch as such as are born to the business of the world have
some little sprinklings of reason more than the rest, yet that they may
the better manage it, even in this as well as in other things, they call me
to counsel; and I give them such as is worthy of myself, to wit, that
they take