[101] Mais, surtout, je lui sçais bon gré d’avoir sceu trier et choisir un livre si digne et si à propos, pour en faire présent à son pais. Nous aultres ignorants estions perdus, si ce livre ne nous eust relevé du bourbier: sa mercy nous osons à cette heure et parler et escrire; les dames en regentent les maistres d’eschole; c’est notre bresviaire (ii. 4).
[102] Je n’ay dressé commerce avecques aulcun livre solide sinon Plutarque et Senecque, où je puyse comme les Danaïdes remplissant et versant sans cesse (i. 25).
[103] Les livres qui m’y servent, c’est Plutarque depuis qu’il est françois, et Seneque (ii. iv.). Of course Montaigne knew some Greek and read it more or less. He has even his own opinion about Plutarch’s style ([see page 104]), and M. Faguet conjectures: “It is quite conceivable that Montaigne compared the translation with the text, and that it is a piece of mere affectation when he says he knows nothing of the Greek.” But doubtless he read the French much more habitually and easily.
[104] Seneque est plein de poinctes et saillies, Plutarque de choses; celuy là vous eschauffe plus et vous esmeut, cettuy ci vous contente davantage et vous paye mieulx; il nous guide, l’aultre nous poulse (ii. 10).
[105] Il y a dans Plutarque beaucoup de discours estendus très dignes d’estre sceus, car, à mon gré, c’est le maistre ouvrier de telle besongne; mais il y en a mille qu’il n’a que touchez simplement; et guigne seulement du doigt par où nous irons, s’il nous plaist; et se contente quelquefois de ne donner qu’une attaincte dans le plus vif d’un propos. Il les fault arracher de la, et mettre en place marchande.... Cela mesme de luy voir trier une legere action en la vie d’un homme, ou un mot qui semble ne porter cela, c’est un discours (i. 25).
[106] There were also translations in Italian, Spanish, and German; but none of them had anything like the literary importance of Amyot’s, and they were made from the Latin, not from the Greek. Of Hieronymus Boner, for instance, who published his Plutarch, Von dem Leben der allerdurchlauchtigsten Griechen und Romern (1st edition, Augsburg, 1534), it is misleading to say that he “anticipated” Amyot. Merzdorf writes of Boner’s versions of Greek authors generally (Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie) that he “turned them into German not from the original Greek but from Latin translations. Moreover, one must not expect from him any exact rendering, but rather a kind of paraphrase which he accommodates to the circumstances of the time.”
[107] See his preface, towards the close.
[108] In later days, too, Mr. Holden, who has busied himself with Plutarch, says “Amyot’s version is more scholarlike and correct than those of Langhorne or Dryden and others.”
[109] Cum jam majorem operis partem absolvissem, prodierunt Vitae Plutarchi gallicâ linguâ ab Amyoto conscriptae. Quem cum praeclaram ei libro operam impendisse ex iis qui linguae ejus sunt periti (quod mihi non datum est) et usum multis ac bonis codicibus audirem; amicorum adjutus ... officio, nonnullos, de quibus dubitabam, locos correxi; in haud paucis mea conjectura est illius interpretis suffragio comprobata (Ed. 1560). Xylander’s friends must have given him yeoman’s help, for he frequently discusses Amyot’s readings, generally adopting them; and for the whole life of Cato, he even goes so far as to avow: “Amyoti versionem secutus sum, Graecis non satis integris.”
[110] Ego quidem si dicere hîc non valeam, vitas me Plutarchi, quas plurimi sumpserunt antehac Itali Latine reddendas parum feliciter, me explicavisse unum et verius et mundius; hoc certe dicere queo liquide et recte, esse arbitratum me hoc effecisse (Epistola ad Lectorem, 1561, edition 1599).