UTOPIA Written in Latin by Sir THOMAS MORE CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND Translated into English LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXIV THE PREFACE THere is no way of writing so proper for the refining and polishing a Language as the translating of Books into it if he that undertakes it has a competent skill of the one Tongue and is a Master of the other When a Man writes his own Thoughts the heat of his Fancy and the quickness of his Mind carry him so much after the Notions themselves that for the most part he is too warm to judg of the aptness of Words and the justness of Figures so that he either neglects these too much or overdoes them But when a Man translates he has none of these Heats about him and therefore the French took no ill Method when they intended to reform and beautify their Language in setting their best Writers on Work to translate the Greek and Latin Authors into it There is so little praise got by Translations that a Man cannot be engaged to it out of Vanity for it has past for a sign of a slow Mind that can amuse it self with so mean an Entertainment but we begin to grow wiser and tho ordinary Translators must succeed ill in the esteem of the World yet some have appeared of late that will I hope bring that way of writing in credit The English Language has wrought it self out both of the fulsome Pedantry under which it laboured long ago and the trifling way of dark and unintelligible Wit that came after that and out of the course extravagance of Canting that succeeded this but as one Extream commonly produces another so we were beginning to fly into a sublime pitch of a strong but false Rhetorick which had much corrupted not only the Stage but even the Pulpit two places that tho they ought not to be named together much less to resemble one another yet it cannot be denied but the Rule and Measure of Speech is generally taken from them but that florid strain is almost quite worn out and is become now as ridiculous as it was once admired So that without either the Expence or Labour that the French have undergone our Language has like a rich Wine wrought out its Tartar and is iâ—…insensibly brought to a Purity that could not have been compassed without much labour had it not been for the great advantage that we have of a Prince who is so great a Judg that his single approbation or dislike has almost as great an Authority over our Language as his Prerogative gives him over our Coin We are now so much refined that how defective soever our Imaginations or Reasonings may be yet our Language has fewer Faults and is more natural and proper than it was ever at any time before When one compares the best Writers of the last Age with these that excel in this the difference is very discernable even the great Sir Francis Bacon that was the first that writ our Language correctly as he is still our best Author yet in some places has Figures so strong that they could not pass now before a severe Judg. I will not provoke the present Masters of the Stage by preferring the Authors of the last Age to them for tho they all acknowledg that they come far short of B. Iohnson Beamont and Fletcher yet I believe they are better pleased to say this themselves than to have it observed by others Their Language is now certainly properer and more natural than it was formerly chiefly since the correction that was given by the Rehearsal and it is to be hoped that the Essay on Poetry which may be well matched with the best Pieces of its kind that even Augustus's Age produced will have a more powerful Operation if clear sense joined with home but gentle Reproofs can work more on our Writers than that unmerciful exposing of them has done I have now much leisure and want diversion so I have bestowed some of my hours upon Translations in which I have proposed no ill Patterns to my self but the Reader will be best able to judg whether I have copied skilfully after such Originals This small Volume which I now publish being writ by one of the greatest Men that this Island has produced seemed to me to contain so many fine and well-digested Notions that I thought it might be no unkind nor ill entertainment to the Nation to put a Book in their Hands to which they have so good a Title and which has a very common fate upon it to be more known and admired all the World over than here at Home It was once translated into English not long after it was written and I was once apt to think it might have been done by Sir Thomas More himself for as it is in the English of his Age and not unlike his Stile so the Translator has taken a liberty that seems too great for any but the Author himself who is Master of his own Book and so may leave out or alter his Original as he pleases which is more than a Translator ought to do I am sure it is more than I have presumed to do It was writ in the Year 1516 as appears by the Date of the Letter of Peter Giles's in which he says That it was sent him but a few days before from the Author and that bears date the first of November that Year but I cannot imagine how he comes to be called Sheriff of London in the Title of the Book for in all our printed Catalogues of Sheriffs his Name is not to be found I do not think my self concerned in the Matter of his Book no more than any other Translator is in his Author nor do I think More himself went in heartily to that which is the chief Basis of his Utopia the taking away of all Property and the levelling the World but that he only intended to set many Notions in his Reader 's way and that he might not seem too much in earnest he went so far out of all Roads to do it the less suspected the earnestness with which he recommends the precaution used in Marriages among the Utopians makes one think that he had a misfortune in his own choice and that therefore he was so cautious on that Head for the strictness of his Life covers him from severe Censures His setting out so barbarous a practice as the hiring of Assassinates to take off Enemies is so wild and so immoral both that it does not admit of any thing to soften or excuse it much less to justify it and the advising Men in some Cases to put an end to their Lives notwithstanding all the Caution with which he guards it is a piece of rough and fierce Philosophy The tenderest part of the whole Work was the representation he gives of Henry the Seventh's Court and his Discourses upon it towards the end of the first Book
they resist those Impressions that our natural Infirmity is still making upon us And as a wise Man desires rather to avoid Diseases than to take Physick and to be freed from pain rather than to find ease by Remedies so it were a more desirable state not to need this sort of Pleasure than to be obliged to indulge it And if any Man imagines that there is a real Happiness in this Pleasure he must then confess that he would be the happiest of all Men if he were to lead his life in a perpetual hunger thirst and itching and by consequence in perpetual eating drinking and scratching himself which any one may easily see would be not only a base but a miserable state of Life These are indeed the lowest of Pleasures and the least pure for we can never relish them but when they are mixed with the contrary pains The pain of Hunger must give us the pleasure of Eating and here the Pain outballances the Pleasure and as the Pain is more vehement so it lasts much longer for as it is upon us before the Pleasure comes so it does not cease but with the Pleasure that extinguishes it and that goes off with it So that they think none of those Pleasures are to be valued but as they are necessary Yet they rejoice in them and with due gratitude acknowledg the tenderness of the great Author of Nature who has planted in us Appetites by which those things that are necessary for our preservation are likewise made pleasant to us For how miserable a thing would Life be if those daily Diseases of Hunger and Thirst were to be carried off by such bitter Drugs as we must use for those Diseases that return seldomer upon us and thus these pleasant as well as proper Gifts of Nature do maintain the strength and the sprightliness of our Bodies They do also entertain themselves with the other Delights that they let in at their Eyes their Ears and their Nostrils as the pleasant relishes and seasonings of Life which Nature seems to have marked out to be seen a greater encrease both of Corn and Cattel nor are there any where healthier Men to be found and freer from Diseases than among them for one may see there not only such things put in practice that Husbandmen do commonly for manuring and improving an ill Soil but in some places a whole Wood is plucked up by the Roots as well as whole ones planted in other places where there were formerly none In doing of this the cheif consideration they have is of carriage that their Timber may be either near their Towns or lie upon the Sea or some Rivers so that it may be floated to them for it is a harder work to carry Wood at any distance over Land then Corn. The Peole are industrious apt to learn as well as chearful and pleasant and none can endure more labour when it is necessary than they but except in that case they love their ease They are unwearied pursuers of knowledg for when we had given them some hints of the Learning and Discipline of the Greeks concerning whom we only instructed them for we know that there was nothing among the Romans except their Historians and their Poets that they would value much it was strange to see how eagerly they were set on learning that Language We began to read a little of it to them rather in compliance with their importunity than out of any hopes of their profiting much by it But after a very short trial we found they made such a progress in it that we saw our labour was like to be more successful than we could have expected They learned to write their Characters and to pronounce their Language so right and took up all so quick they remembered it so faithfully and became so ready and correct in the use of it that it would have look'd like a Miracle if the greater part of those whom we taught had not been Men both of extraordinay Capacity and of a fit Age for it They were for the greatest part chosen out among their learned Men by their cheif Council tho some learn'd it of their own accord In three Years time they became Masters of the whole Language so that they read the best of the Greek Authors very exactly I am indeed apt to think that they learned that Language the more easily because it seems to be of kin to their own I believe that they were a Colony of the Greeks for tho their Language comes nearer the Persian yet they retain many Names both for their Towns and Magistrates that are of Greek Origination I had happened to carry a great many Books with me instead of Merchandise when I failed my fourth Voyage for I was so far from thinking of coming back soon that I rather thought never to have returned at all and I gave them all my Books among which many of Plato's and some of Aristotle's works were I had also Theophrastus of the Plants which to my great regret was imperfect for having laid it carelessly by while we were at Sea a Monkey had fallen upon it and had torn out leaves in many places They have no Books of Grammar but Lascares for I did not carry Theodorus with me nor have they any Dictionaries but Hesichius and Dioscorides They esteem Plutarch highly and were much taken with Lucian's Wit and with his pleasant way of writing As for the Poets they have Aristophanes Homer Euripides and Sophocles of Aldus's Edition and for Historians they have Thucidydes Herodotus and Herodian One of my Companions Thricius Apinatus happened to carry with him some of Hippocrates's Works and Galen's Microtechne which they hold in great estimation for tho there is no Nation in the World that needs Physick so little as they do yet there is not any that honours it so much They reckon the knowledg of it to be one of the pleasantest and profitablest parts of Philosophy by which as they search into the Secrets of Nature so they not only find marvellous pleasure in it but think that in making such enquiries they do a most acceptable thing to the Author of Nature and imagine that he as all Inventers of curious Engines has exposed to our view this great Machine of the Universe we being the only Creatures capable of contemplating it and that therefore an exact and curious Observer and Admirer of his Workmanship is much more acceptable to him than one of the Herd who as if he were a Beast and not capable of Reason looks on all this glorious Scene only as a dull and unconcerned Spectator The Minds of the Vtopians when they are once excited by Learning are very ingenious in finding out all such Arts as tend to the conveniences of Life Two things they owe to us which are the Art of Printing and the Manufacture of Paper yet they do not owe these so entirely to us but that a great part of the invention was their
own for after we had shewed them some paper-Paper-books of Aldus's Impression and began to explain to them the way of making Paper and of printing tho we spake but very crudely of both these not being practised in either of them they presently took up the whole matter from the hints that we gave them and whereas before they only writ on Parchment or on the Barks of Trees or Reeds they have now set up the Manufacture of Paper and Printing-presses and tho at first they could not arrive at a perfection in them yet by making many essays they at last found out and corrected all their Errors and brought the whole thing to perfection so that if they had but a good number of Greek Authors they would be quickly supplied with many Copies of them at present tho they have no more than those I have mentioned yet by several Impressions they have multiplied them into many thousands If any Man should go among them that had some extraordinary Talent or that by much travelling had observed the Customs of many Nations which made us to be so well received he would be very welcome to them for they are very desirous to know the state of the whole World Very few go among them on the account of Traffick for what can a Man carry to them but Iron or Gold or Silver which Merchants desire rather to export than import to any strange Country and as for their Exportation they think it better to manage that themselves than to let Forraigners come and deal in it for by this means as they understand the state of the neighbouring Countries better so they keep up the Art of Navigation which cannot be maintained but by much practise in it Of their Slaves and of their Marriages THEY do not make Slaves of Prisoners of War except those that are taken fighting against them nor of the Sons of their Slaves nor of the Slaves of other Nations the Slaves among them are only such as are condemned to that state of Life for some Crime that they had committed or which is more common such as their Merchants find condemned to die in those parts to which they trade whom they redeem sometimes at low rates and in other places they have them for nothing and so they fetch them away All their Slaves are kept at perpetual labour and are always chained but with this difference that they treat their own Natives much worse looking on them as a more profligate sort of People who not being restrained from Crimes by the advantages of so excellent an Education are judged worthy of harder usage than others Another sort of Slaves is when some of the poorer sort in the neighbouring Countries offer of their own accord to come and serve them they treat these better and use them in all other respects as well as their own Country Men except that they impose more labour upon them which is no hard task to them that have been accustomed to it and if any of these have a mind to go back to their own Country which indeed falls out but seldom as they do not force them to stay so they do not send them away empty handed I have already told you with what care they look after their Sick so that nothing is left undone that can contribute either to their Ease or Health and for those who are taken with fixed and incurable Diseases they use all possible ways to cherish them and to make their Lives as comfortable as may be they visit them often and take great pains to make their time pass off easily but when any is taken with a torturing and lingering pain so that there is no hope either of recovery or ease the Priests and Magistrates come and exhort them that since they are now unable to go on with the business of Life and are become a burden to themselves and to all about them so that they have really out-lived themselves they would no longer nourish such a rooted Distemper but would chuse rather to die since they cannot live but in much misery being assured that if they either deliver themselves from their Prison and Torture or are willing that others should do it they shall be happy after their Deaths And since by their dying thus they lose none of the Pleasures but only the Troubles of Life they think they act not only reasonably in so doing but religiously and piously because they follow the Advices that are given them by the Priests who are the Expounders of the Will of God to them Such as are wrought on by these Perswasions do either starve themselves of their own accord or they take Opium and so they die without pain But no Man is forced on this way of ending his Life and if they cannot be perswaded to it they do not for that fail in their attendance and care of them But as they believe that a voluntary Death when it is chosen upon such an Authority is very honourable so if any Man takes away his own Life without the approbation of the Priests and the Senate they give him none of the Honours of a decent Funeral but throw his Body into some Ditch Their Women are not married before eighteen nor their Men before two and twenty and if any of them run into forbidden Embraces before their Marriage they are severely punished and the privilege of Marriage is denied them unless there is a special Warrant obtained for it afterward from the Prince Such Disorders cast a great reproach upon the Master and Mistress of the Family in which they fall out for it is supposed that they have been wanting to their Duty The reason of punishing this so severely is because they think that if they were not so strictly restrained from all vagrant Appetites very few would engage in a married state in which Men venture the quiet of their whole Life being restricted to one Person besides many other Inconveniences that do accompany it In the way of chusing of their Wives they use a method that would appear to us very absurd and ridiculous but is constantly observed among them and accounted a wise and good Rule Before Marriage some grave Matron presents the Bride naked whether she is a Virgin or a Widow to the Bridegroom and after that some grave Man presents the Bridegroom naked to the Bride We indeed both laughed at this and condemned it as a very indecent thing But they on the other hand wondered at the folly of the Men of all other Nations who if they are but to buy a Horse of a small value are so cautious that they will see every part of him and take off both his Sadle and all his other Tackle that there may be no secret Ulcer hid under under any of them and that yet in the choice of a Wife on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his Life a Man should venture upon trust and only see about an handbreadth of
in which his Disguise is so thin that the Matter would not have been much plainer if he had named him But when he ventured to write so freely of the Father in the Son's Reign and to give such an Idea of Government under the haughtiest Prince and the most impatient of uneasy Restraints that ever reigned in England who yet was so far from being displeased with him for it that as he made him long his particular Friend so he employed him in all his Affairs afterwards and raised him to be L. Chancellor I thought I might venture to put it in more Modern English for as the Translators of Plutarch's Hero's or of Tullies Offices are not concerned either in the Maxims or in the Actions that they relate so I who only tell in the best English I can what Sir Thomas More writ in very Elegant Latin must leave his Thoughts and Notions to the Reader 's censure and do think my self liable for nothing but the fidelity of the Translation and the correctness of the English and for that I can only say that I have writ as carefully and as well as I can THE Author's Epistle TO PETER GILES I Am almost ashamed my dearest Peter Giles to send you this Book of the Utopian Common-Wealth after almost a Years delay whereas no doubt you look'd for it within six Weeks for as you know I had no occasion for using my Invention or for taking pains to put things into any method because I had nothing to do but to repeat exactly those things that I heard Raphael relate in your presence so neither was there any occasion given for a studied Eloquence since as he delivered things to us of the sudden and in a careless Stile so he being as you know a greater Master of the Greek than of the Latin the plainer my words are they will resemble his simplicity the more and will be by consequence the nearer to the Truth and that is all that I think lies on me and it is indeed the only thing in which I thought my self concerned I confess I had very little left on me in this Matter for otherwise the inventing and ordering of such a Scheme would have put a Man of an ordinary pitch either of Capacity or of Learning to some pains and have cost him some time but if it had been necessary that this Relation should have been made not only truly but eloquently it could never have been performed by me even after all the pains and time that I could have bestowed upon it My part in it was so very small that it could not give me much trouble all that belonged to me being only to give a true and full account of the things that I had heard but although this required so very little of my time yet even that little was long denied me by my other Affairs which press much upon me for while in pleading and hearing and in judging or composing of Causes in waiting on some Men upon Business and on others out of Respect the greatest part of the Day is spent on other Mens Affairs the remainder of it must be given to my Family at home So that I can reserve no part of it to my self that is to my Study I must talk with my Wife and chat with my Children and I have somewhat to say to my Servants for all these things I reckon as a part of Business except a Man will resolve to be a Stranger at Home and with whomsoever either Nature Chance or Choice has engaged a Man in any Commerce he must endeavour to make himself as acceptable to these about him as he possibly can using still such a temper in it that he may not spoil them by an excessive gentleness so that his Servants may not become his Masters In such things as I have named to you do Days Months and Years slip away what is then left for Writing and yet I have said nothing of that time that must go for Sleep or for Meat in which many do waste almost as much of their time as in Sleep which consumes very near the half of our Life and indeed all the time which I can gain to my self is that which I steal from my Sleep and my Meals and because that is not much I have made but a slow progress yet because it is somewhat I have at last got to an end of my Utopia which I now send to you and expect that after you have read it you will let me know if you can put me in mind of any thing that has escaped me for tho I would think my self very happy if I had but as much Invention and Learning as I know I have Memory which makes me generally depend much upon it yet I do not relie so entirely on it as to think I can forget nothing My Servant John Clement has started some things that shake me You know he was present with us as I think he ought to be at every Conversation that may be of use to him for I promise my self great Matters from the progress he has so early made in the Greek and Roman Learning As far as my Memory serves me the Bridg over Anider at Amaurot was 500 paces broad according to Raphael's account but John assures me he spoke only of 300 paces therefore I pray you recollect what you can remember of this for if you agree with him I will believe that I have been mistaken but if you remember nothing of it I will not alter what I have written because it is according to the best of my remembrance for as I will take care that there may be nothing falsly set down so if there is any thing doubtful tho I may perhaps tell a lie yet I am sure I will not make one for I would rather pass for a good Man than for a wise Man but it will be easy to correct this Mistake if you can either meet with Raphael himself or know how to write to him I have another Difficulty that presses me more and makes your writing to him the more necessary I know not whom I ought to blame for it whether Raphael you or my self for as we did not think of asking it so neither did he of telling us in what part of the new-found World Utopia is situated this was such an omission that I would gladly redeem it at any rate I am ashamed that after I have told so many things concerning this Island I cannot let my Readers know in what Sea it lies There are some among us that have a mighty desire to go thither and in particular one pious Divine is very earnest on it not so much out of a vain curiosity of seeing unknown Countries as that he may advance our Religion which is so happily begun to be planted there and that he may do this regularly he intends to procure a Mission from the Pope and to be sent thither as their Bishop In such a case as