Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A39869
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New dialogues of the dead in three parts / dedicated to Lusian in Elysium ; made English by J.D.; Nouveaux dialogues des mort. English. 1683.
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Fontenelle, M. de (Bernard Le Bovier), 1657-1757.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing F1414; ESTC R28503
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37,395
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159
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died in your Bed in a plain and unremarkable manner Adrian What Are not those Verses remarkable at all which I made as I was just giving up the Ghost My little Soul my dear Darling Thou Going thou art Girl and whither God does know Alone thou goest naked and all over quaking Alas what 'll become of thy pretty fooling humour Lass what 'll become of so many pleasant frolicks I can't guess Cato treated Death like a business that was too serious but you see I drolled with it and herein it is that I pretend that my Philosophy went far beyond Cato's It is not so difficult haughtily to out-brave Death as it is to joak her in a careless manner nor is it so hard a thing to receive her kindly when we call her to our aid as when she comes when we have no need of her M. of Austria Yes I grant Cato's death is not so brave as yours but as ill luck would have it I had not observed that you had made these small Verses in which the bravery of yours does consist Adrian This is the way of all the world Cato may tear out his Bowels rather than fall into the hands of his Enemy it is perhaps no such great matter if it be throughly examined yet such a feat as that makes a vast shew in History and there 's not one but is taken with it Another may die fair and quietly and be in a capacity to make drolling Verses upon his death 't is more than Cato has done but this has nothing in it that is taking and History does scarce take notice of it M. of Austria Alas nothing is truer than what you say And I my self that now speak to you I have a death that I pretend is far before yours and yet 't is less taken notice of 'T is not however a downright death but such as 't is it exceeds yours that does exceed Cato's Adrian How what do you mean M. of Austria I was an Emperor's Daughter I was contracted to a King's Son and this Prince after his father's death sent me back to mine notwithstanding the solemn promise he had made to marry me After this they contracted me to the Son of another King and as I was going by Sea to this Husband my Ship was beaten with a terrible Tempest which cast my life into evident danger Then it was that I made my self this Epitaph Megg that pretty Damsel does here lie Has two Husbands and yet a Maid does die The truth is I did not die that bout but 't was not my fault Conceive well this kind of death you 'l be satisfied with it Cato's Constancy is injured in one kind yours in another mine is natural He is too high you are too drolling I am reasonable Adrian What You tax me of having had too little fear of death M. of Austria I do It is not likely that a man should be in no disorder at his dying hour and I am confident you did force your self then to droll as much as Cato did to tear out his Entrails I am every moment in expectation of Shipwrack without frightning my my self and I mak my Epitaph in cold blood this is very extraordinary and if there were nothing to moderate this History there would be some reason not to believe it or to believe that I did act only by way of Rhodomantado But in the mean while I am a poor Girl twice contracted and yet have been so unlucky as to die a Maid I shew my Concern for it and that gives my History all requisite appearance of truth Your Verses mind them well carry no meaning with them there is nothing but a Gibbrish made up of a few Childish Terms but mine have a very clear Sense and give content at the very first which is a sign that Nature speaks in them much more than in yours Adrian Truly I should never have believed that the trouble to die a Virgin ought to have been so much to your Glory M. of Austria Make your self as pleasant with this as you please but my death if it may be termed so has another especial advantage over Cato's and over yours You had both of you played the Philosophers so much whilst you lived that you had engaged your selves upon Honour not to be afraid of death and if you had had the liberty to fear it I cannot tell what would have come on it But I as long as the storm lasted I had a Right to tremble and make my cries reach Heaven without any body 's taking exception at it or having a less esteem for me Nevertheless I remained quiet enough to make my Epitaph Adrian Betwixt you and I Was not the Epitaph made on Shore M. of Astria Ah! this wrangling thus is ill-becoming I did not so by you about your Verses Adrian I yield then in good earnest and I grant that when Vertue does not go beyond the bounds of Nature she is very great The Fifth Dialogue Erasistrates Herveus Erasistrates YOU tell me wonders What the Blood circulates in the Body the Veins carry it from the Extremities of the Heart and goes from the Heart into the Arteries which convey it back again towards the Extremities Herveus I have shewed so many Experiences of this that no body makes any further question of it Arasist We deceived our selves very much then we Physicians of Antiquity who took the Blood to have but one slow motion from the Heart towards the Extremities of the Body and people are highly obliged to you for having abolished this ancient Error Herv So I pretend And people ought too to be so much the more obliged to me in that I was the first that set them in the way to make all those fine Discoveries as are now made in Anatomy Since I once found out the Circulation of the Blood 't is now who shall find a new Conduit out to convey the Blood into all parts of the Body a new Reservatory It looks as though whole Man were melted down again Behold the advantages our Modern Physick ought to have above yours You made it your business to cure the Body of Man and his Body was altogether unknown to you Erasist I own that your modern Physitians are better Naturalists than we they understand Nature better but they are not better Physitians we cured the Sick as well as they cure them I could wish all these modern ones and you the very first of all had had Prince Antiochus in hand to cure of his Quartern Ague You know how I went about it and how I discovered by the more than ordinary beating of his Pulse in the presence of Stratonice that he was enamoured with that beautifull Queen and that his whole Disease did proceed from his violent striving to hide his Passion And yet I made so difficult and so considerable a Cure as that was without knowing that the blood did circulate and I am of opinion that notwithstanding the help you
Souls And why should she have wasted her self in nothing but in rational Men None of her Works did degenerate yet why should men only degenerate Mont. That is a point indeed they do degenerate Nature seems to have shewed us heretofore some patterns of great men thereby to persuade us that she could have made some if she had had a mind to it and that afterwards she had made all the rest with neglect enough Socrat. One thing mind Antiquity is an object of a particular kind a far off does add to it Had you known Aristides Phocion Pericles and my self since you will put me in that number you would have found in your Age some persons that were like us That which does usually cause this prevention in people for Antiquity is because they are out of humour with their Age and Antiquity takes advantage thereof Men exalt the Ancients to pull down their Contemporaries When we lived we esteemed our Ancestors more than they deserved and now our Posterity esteem us more than is our desert but our Ancestors and we and our Posterity all this is equal enough and I believe the Spectacle of the World would be very tedious to him that should look upon it with an eye of Certitude for 't is always the same Mont. I should have believed that every thing was in motion that all did change and that the different Ages had their different Characters as men had And indeed Are not some Ages learned and are not others ignorant Are not some plain and downright and others again subtil and crafty Some are serious and some are toyish some again are fine and quaint and others are gross and dull Socrat. 'T is true Mont. Why shall there not be then some Ages more vertuous and others more wicked Socrat. That is no consequence Cloaths change but by that it is not meant that the Bodies change their form too The neatness or the grossness the knowledge or the ignorance the more or less of a certain kind of downrightness the serious or the toyish Genius these make but the out-side of Man and all this does change but the heart does not change and whole Man consists in the heart People are ignorant in one Age but the mode to be learned may come People are interested but the mode to be dis-interested will never come Of the prodigious number of Men unreasonable enough that are born in an hundred years Nature may be has two or three dozen of them that are reasonable which she must disperse over the whole Earth and you judge well enough that there are never in no place so many as may make a mode there of Vertue and of Righteousness Mont. Is this distribution of rational men equally made There might have been some Ages that might have had a better share then others Socrat. Nature does ever act very regularly but we do not judge as she acts The Fourth Dialogue Adrian the Emperor Margaret of Austria M. of Austria WHat ail's you I see you are all in an heat Adrian I have just now had a strong Contest with Cato of Utica about the manner how we both died I pretended that in this last action I had shewed my self more a Philosopher than he had M. of Austria I think you very bold that you dare question so famous a death as his Was there any thing more glorious than to take care that all was well setled in Utica secure his Friends and kill himself that he might end with the Liberty of his Country and avoid falling into the hands of a Vanquisher who would however have spared him Adrian Oh! if you did narrowly examine that death you would find there were several things to question in it In the first place he had been so long in preparing himself for it and he did prepare himself with such visible strifes that no body in Utica made any question but that Cato would kill himself Secondly Before he gave himself the blow he was fain to read often the Dialogue where Cato treats of the Immortality of the Soul Thirdly The design he had laid put him so out of humour that going to Bed and not finding his Sword under his Beds-head for as people rightly guessed what he had a mind to do they had taken it away he called one of his Slaves to ask him for it and gave him so great a blow with his fist upon the face that with it he struck-out his teeth this is so true that he drew back his hand all bloody M. of Austria I confess this blow with the fist does very much spoil this Philosophical death Adrian You cannot believe what a stir he made about this Sword taken away and how he railed at his Son and at his Servants saying that they had a mind to deliver him up to Caesar hands and feet tied together In fine he scolded them all in such a manner that they were fain to go out of his Chamber and let him kill himself M. of Austria Indeed indeed things might have gone on a little more mildly He needed but have peaceably stayed till the next day to give himself his death Nothing is more easie than to die when one is bent upon it But in all likelihood the measures he had taken upon the account of his constancy were so exact that he could stay no longer and he had not perhaps killed himself had he delayed a day longer Adrian You say right and I see that you have skill in generous deaths M. of Austria Yet some say that after they had carried this Sword to Cato and had withdrawn themselves he fell asleep and snored That would be brave enough Adrianil And do you believe this He had but done scolding every body and beating his Servants a man does not so easily fall asleep after such an exercise Moreover his hand he had struck his Slave with did pain him too much to let him fall asleep for he was not able to bear the pain he felt and he made it be bound up by a Physician though he was just going to kill himself In short from the time his Sword was brought till Mid-night he read Plato's Dialogues twice over Then I could prove easily by a great Supper he made for all his friends by a walk he took afterwards and by all passages that happened till he was left alone in his Chamber that it must be very late when that Sword was brought him Moreover the Dialogue he read twice over is very long and by consequence if he slept he slept but a little while Truly I am much afraid he did but make as if he snored that he might have the honour of it from those that hearkned at his Chamber door M. of Austria You do not play the Critick amiss upon his death which however does carry in the bottom something that is very heroical But which way can you pretend that yours has the better of it For as much as I can remember you