Part 5 (2/2)

To find a permanent place of residence was, indeed, and apart from this fact, very hard for him Towards the end of 1508 he accepted the post of tutor in rhetorics to the young Alexander Stewart, a natural son of James IV of Scotland, and already, in spite of his youth, Archbishop of Saint Andrews, now a student at Padua The danger of war soon drove them from upper Italy to Siena Here Erasmus obtained leave to visit Roer an unknown canon froions but a celebrated and honoured author All the charms of the Eternal City lay open to hiratified by the consideration and courtesy hich cardinals and prelates, such as Giovanni de' Medici, afterwards Leo X, Domenico Grimani, Riario and others, treated him It seems that he was even offered some post in the curia But he had to return to his youthful archbishop honito, and afterwards travelled in the neighbourhood of Naples He inspected the cave of the Sibylla of cumae, but what ithis departure fro of 1511--in certain respects the le letter that has come down to us Here and there he has occasionally, and at a much later date, touched upon soue and dim It is the incubation period of the _Praise of Folly_ that is thus obscured froland died His successor was the young prince whom Erasmus had saluted at Eltham in 1499, to whom he had dedicated his poe his stay at Bologna, had distinguished him by a Latin letter as creditable to Erasmus as to the fifteen-year-old royal latinist[10] If ever the chance of obtaining a patron see lover of letters ascended the throne as Henry VIII Lord Mountjoy, Erasht so, too, and pointed out the fact to him in a letter of 27 May 1509 It was a pleasure to see, he wrote, how vigorous, how upright and just, how zealous in the cause of literature and men of letters was the conduct of the youthful prince Mountjoy--or Ammonius, who probably drew up the flowery docu sky and tears of joy are the themes of the letter Evidently, however, Erasmus himself had, on his side, already sounded Mountjoy as to his chances, as soon as the tidings of Henry VII's death became known at Rome; not without lamentations about cares and weakened health 'The Archbishop of Canterbury', Mountjoy was able to apprise Erasia_ and praises you to the skies, but he also promises you a benefice on your return and sends you five pounds for travelling expenses,' which sum was doubled by Mountjoy

We do not knohether Erasmus really hesitated before he reached his decision Cardinal Grimani, he asserts, tried to hold him back, but in vain, for in July, 1509, he left Rome and Italy, never to return

As he crossed the Alps for the second tih Switzerland, his genius touched hiions three years before on the road to Italy But this tiuise of the Latin Muse, who then drew from him such artful and pathetic poetical meditations about his past life and pious vows for the future;--it was sorand: the _Praise of Folly_

FOOTNOTES:

[9] LBE No 1175 _c_ 1375, visit to Grimani

[10] A 206, where from Allen's introduction one can form an opinion about the prince's share in the composition

CHAPTER IX

THE PRAISE OF FOLLY

_Moriae Encomium, The Praise of Folly_: 1509, as a work of art--Folly, the motor of all life: Indispensable, salutary, cause and support of states and of heroisy incorporated with folly--Lack of follybeats truth--Knowledge a plague--Satire of all secular and ecclesiastical vocations--Two thehest folly: Ecstasy--The _Moria_ to be taken as a gay jest--Confusion of fools and lunatics--Erasly--Its value

While he rode over the mountain passes,[11] Erasmus's restless spirit, now unfettered for so he had studied and read in the last few years, and with everything he had seen What ambition, what self-deception, what pride and conceit filled the world! He thought of Thoain--that most witty and wise of all his friends, with that curious name _Moros_, the Greek word for a fool, which so ill becaay jests which More's conversation prorew in his mind that masterpiece of humour and wise irony, _Moriae Encomium_, the _Praise of Folly_ The world as the scene of universal folly; folly as the indispensable ele life and society possible and all this put into the mouth of Stultitia--Folly-- itself (true antitype of Minerva), who in a panegyric on her oer and usefulness, praises herself As to form it is a _Declamatio_, such as he had translated from the Greek of Libanius As to the spirit, a revival of Lucian, whose _Gallus_, translated by hiested the theme It must have been in the incomparably lucid moments of that brilliant intellect All the particulars of classic reading which the year before he worked up in the new edition of the _Adagia_ were still at his immediate disposal in that retentive and capaciousat his ease on all that wisdom of the ancients, he secreted the juices required for his expostulation

He arrived in London, took up his abode in More's house in Bucklersbury, and there, tortured by nephritic pains, he wrote down in a few days, without having his books with him, the perfect work of art that must have been ready in his mind Stultitia was truly born in the ery the _Moria_ is faultless, the product of the inspired ure of an orator confronting her public is sustained to the last in a lee when Folly appears in the pulpit; we hear the applause interrupting her words There is a wealth of fancy, coupled with so much soberness of line and colour, such reserve, that the whole presents a perfect instance of that harmony which is the essence of Renaissance expression There is no exuberance, in spite of the ht, but a temperateness, a s as they are relaxing In order perfectly to realize the artistic perfection of Erasmus's book we should compare it with Rabelais

'Without me', says Folly, 'the world cannot exist for amortals, full of folly; is it not performed by fools and for fools?' 'No society, no cohabitation can be pleasant or lasting without folly; so much so, that a people could not stand its prince, nor the master his man, nor the maid her mistress, nor the tutor his pupil, nor the friend his friend, nor the wife her husband for a ether, now flatter each other; now sensibly conniving at things, now s themselves with some honey of folly' In that sentence the summary of the _Laus_ is contained Folly here is worldly wisdoement

He who pulls off the masks in the comedy of life is ejected What is the whole life of mortals but a sort of play in which each actor appears on the boards in his specific er calls hi conditions, and deer It is the part of the truly sensible toreadily at their folly, or affably erring like the power of all human action is 'Philautia', Folly's own sister: self-love He who does not please himself effects little Take away that condiment of life and the word of the orator cools, the poet is laughed at, the artist perishes with his art

Folly in the garb of pride, of vanity, of vainglory, is the hidden spring of all that is considered high and great in this world The state with its posts of honour, patriotism and national pride; the stateliness of ceremonies, the delusion of caste and nobility--what is it but folly?

War, the in of all heroism What prompted the Deciuses, what Curtius, to sacrifice thelory

It is this folly which produces states; through her, eion, law-courts, exist

This is bolder and ne But Erasmus will not have it credited to him: it is Folly who speaks He purposely makes us tread the round of the _circulus vitiosus_, as in the old saw: A Cretan said, all Cretans are liars

Wisdom is to folly as reason is to passion And there is much more passion than reason in the world That which keeps the world going, the fount of life, is folly For what else is love? Why do people marry, if not out of folly, which sees no objections? All enjoyment and amusement is only a condiment of folly When a wise man wishes to become a father, he has first to play the fool For what is ame of procreation?