MONTAIGNE, Michel de (1533—1592), French essayist and thinker, who is regarded as the father of the modern essay. In a time of political and religious turmoil, Montaigne strove for peace. In the face of intense and prolonged pain, he insisted on the worth-whileness of life. In an age of doctrinaire intolerance, he proclaimed that customs and beliefs vary and that differences should be respected. He also championed novel and forward-looking educational theories.

米歇尔·德·蒙田（1533年至1592年），法国随笔家和思想家，被认为是现代随笔之父。在那个政治和宗教动荡的时代，蒙田为和平而奋斗。面对强烈而持久的痛苦，他坚持着人生的价值。在教条主义偏执的时期，他公开声明，习俗与信仰各不相同，应当尊重它们的差异。他还支持新颖的和有远见的教育理论。

One of the pioneers of autobiography, Montaigne was convinced of the importance of introspection, of examining one’s own experience in order to determine values and rules of conduct, and of communicating one’s self-knowledge to others. His reflections are recorded in his famous Essays (Essais), begun about 1571 and first published in 1580, to which he continued to add until his death.

作为自传体写作的先驱之一，蒙田确信自省的重要性，以审视人自身的经历来确定行动的价值和规则，以及将人的自知之明传递给他人。他的反思被记录在他著名的《随笔集》中，随笔大约于1571年开始，并于1580年首次出版，他一直在写作，直到他去世。

Life. Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was born on Feb. 28, 1533, at the Chateau Montaigne, acquired by his great-grandfather, Ramon Eyquem, in a small village near Libourne, east of Bordeaux. (Montaigne himself was the first of the family to drop the name of Eyquem and sign himself simply as Michel de Montaigne.) His paternal line had rather recently risen from the class of prosperous merchants to that of the landed gentry, with many of the family, including some in clerical orders, functioning in various judiciary and bureaucratic positions and rising to the status of minor nobility. His father, Pierre, led a prestigious career as a soldier and manager of his estates. He fought for some time in Italy and there acquired an enthusiasm for Renaissance humanism, with its admiration for classical antiquity. Such social mobility was not uncommon in the 16^th century, but what is significant is that the Montaignes were precursors of a new kind of aristocracy, the honnete homme of the 17^th century, whose pride was less in wealth, heredity, or feats at arms than in intellectual accomplishments and a high degree of culture.

生活。1533年2月28日米歇尔·埃康·德·蒙田出生在位于波尔多东部，利布尔纳附近一个小村庄，由其曾祖父雷蒙·埃康拥有的蒙田庄园里（蒙田本人是家族中放弃埃康名称，并将自己简写为米歇尔·德·蒙田的第一人）。他的父系最近从富足的商人阶层上升到拥有土地的士绅阶层，家庭的许多人，包括一些神职人员的职位，在各种司法和官僚职位中承担职责，进而上升到了小贵族的地位。其父皮埃尔，作为一名军人拥有显赫的职业生活，而且是其产业的管理人。他在意大利打过一段时间的仗，伴随对意大利古代经典的钦佩，对那里的文艺复兴时期的人文主义产生了热情。这种社会流动性在16世纪并不罕见，但重要的是蒙田们是新型贵族阶级的先驱者，17世纪诚实的人，他们的自豪不在于财富、血统，或作战功绩，而是智力的成就和高度的文化。

Montaigne’s mother also came from a rich merchant family. Of Spanish origin, she probably counted Jewish converts to Christianity among her ancestors, but there is no proof. She seems to have been a competent, businesslike but rather difficult person, and Montaigne rarely mentions her in his writing. On the other hand, he shows great devotion to his father, calling him “the best father there ever was.”

蒙田的母亲也来自一个富商家庭。西班牙人血统，她的祖先中可能有皈依基督教的犹太人，但没有证据。她似乎是个能干、有条理但难以相处的人，而且蒙田很少在他的写作中提到她。另一方面，他对其父表现出了极大的热爱，称他为“世上最好的父亲”。

The THIRD of a family of ten children (the first two died in infancy), Montaigne received an education that was unusual for the period. First, he was put out to nurse with a peasant family, and throughout his life he was grateful for this early contact with the humble, whose straightforwardness and courage he much admired. Then, inspired by Erasmus, his father hired tutors who brought him up using nothing but Latin—an early example of the extreme direct method of language teaching. Montaigne was never physically punished, and he was awakened during childhood by the sound of music.

一个家庭十个孩子中的老三（前两个在幼年去世），蒙田接受了那个时期不寻常的教育。首先，他被送到一户农民家中抚养，而在他的一生中，他都感激这种早期的与卑微的接触，他非常钦佩他们的坦率和勇气。然后，受到伊拉斯谟的启发，其父聘请了只说拉丁语的家庭教师培养他---一种极端直接的语言教学方法的早期例子。蒙田从未受过体罚，他的童年是被音乐唤醒的。

At the age of six, Montaigne was sent off to the College de Guyenne in Bordeaux, surely among the best in France at time. However, already fluent in Latin, he was out of place in a school whose main purpose was to teach that language, and he seems to have spent much of his time reading on his own (Ovid, Vergil, Latin plays), laying the foundations of what was to become an extensive knowledge of literature and philosophy. Montaigne counted among his teachers such noted humanists as George Buchanan and Marc Antoine Muret.

在六岁时，蒙田被送到了波尔多的吉耶纳学院，当然是当时法国最好的学校。然而，他的拉丁语已很流利，便与一所主要目的是为了教授这种语言的学校格格不入，而且他似乎花了很多时间阅读他自己的读物（奥维德、维吉尔、拉丁语戏剧），奠定了未来广博的文学和哲学知识的基础。蒙田将像乔治·布坎南和马克·安托万·穆雷这样著名的人文主义者看作自己的老师。

Little is known for certain about Montaigne’s life between 1549 and 1557. He probably pursued further studies at the University of Bordeaux and spent some time at home, hunting, relaxing and helping to manage the estate. He surely also spent several years in Paris, attending lectures at the College de France, then France’s only nonreligious institution of higher education, where the humanist Adrien Turnebe introduced him to Greek literature and philosophy. (Montaigne never thoroughly mastered the Greek language.) He also acquired what any young man from the provinces would by a sojourn in Paris—a taste for elegance and sophistication and a sense of style.

很少有人确切地知道蒙田在1549年至1557年间的生活。他可能在波尔多大学继续学习，并在家中度过一段时光，狩猎、休息和帮助管理庄园。他肯定也在巴黎待过几年，在当时法兰西唯一的非宗教高等教育机构，法兰西大学听讲座，在那里，人文主义者阿德里安·蒂尔内布向他介绍了希腊文学和哲学。（蒙田从未完全掌握希腊语）。他还得到了任何外省年青人在逗留巴黎时会得到东西---优雅的品味、老练和时尚感。

Montaigne then returned south to take up judiciary functions in the courts ofPerigueux, which, in 1557, were combined with those of Bordeaux. He seems to have performed his duties with competence but without enthusiasm, and he EXPRESSED a real distaste for the pomposity of judges, the complications of legal procedures, and the venality of justice.

蒙田随后返回南方，在佩里格的法庭担任了法官，在1557年，法庭与波尔多的法庭合并。他似乎有能力履行他的职责，但没有热情，而且他对法官的自大，法律程序的复杂以及司法的唯利是图表达了真正的反感。

In 1571, after the death of his father in 1568, Montaigne retired to the family estate, declaring that “Michel de Montaigne, long weary of the servitude of the court and of public employments, while still entire, has retired to the bosom of the learned Muses, where in calm and free from all cares he will spend what little remains of his life.” There he began writing his essays in his famed tower room, which was covered with moral inscriptions. In 1578 he was afflicted with his first attack of kidney stones, from which his father had died and from which he was to suffer for the rest of his life. Learning how to bear that suffering and still enjoy existence was a major turning point in his career.

在其父于1568年去世后，1571年，蒙田退休回归了家族庄园，声明“米歇尔·德·蒙田，长期以来厌倦了法庭和公职的奴役，当他还完整的时候，退休回到博学的缪斯的怀抱，在平静而无忧无虑的地方，他将度过他残余不多的生活”。在那里，他开始在他著名的塔楼房间里写他的随笔，上面写满了道德铭文。1578年，他首次受到胆结石的折磨，其父就是因此病去世的，而他的余生都将遭受此病的折磨。在他的生涯中，学习如何承受那种痛苦而依然享受生活是个重大的转折点。

Montaigne was no solitary. Even after he retired to his estate, he cultivated many friendships and entertained many visitors. Of his friends, none was closer to him than Etienne de La Boetie, a humanist noted for his attacks on tyranny, whose premature death in 1563 deeply moved Montaigne.

蒙田并不孤独。甚至在他退休回到他的庄园后，他建立了许多友谊，接待了许多来访者。作为他的朋友，没有人比艾蒂安·德·拉博埃西与他更亲近了，一位以反暴政而著名的人文主义者，他于1563年早逝，深深触动了蒙田。

Montaigne also traveled much, including a long trip to Italy in 1580—1581, in part to see if the waters at various spas could dissolve his stones, in part to satisfy his humanistic enthusiasm for classical antiquity and his interest in the exotic. He was deeply moved on seeing Rome, of which he became citizen, and was a sharp and sympathetic observer of local customs and historical monuments. Journal of this trip was published posthumously in 1774.

蒙田也经常旅行，包括于1580年至1581年间去意大利的长途旅行，部分原因是想看看各地的水疗是否能去除他的结石，部分原因是满足他对古代经典人文主义的热情和他对异国风情的兴趣。当看到罗马时，他深受感动，他成为了罗马的公民，他是一位对当地习俗和历史古迹有强烈而又有同情心的观察者。这次的旅行日志在他死后于1774年出版。

Montaigne was called back to France in 1581 to become mayor of Bordeaux. He served two terms, doing his best to maintain peace and order and yet avoid tyranny in a region beset with violent religious strife. At the end of his second term, a disastrous plague broke out in the city, and Montaigne decided to leave. No one at the time seems to have been upset by his decision, but it greatly bothered Sainte-Beuve and other early 19^th century critics, who regarded it as a dereliction of duty.

1581年，蒙田被召回法国，成为了波尔多的市长。他担任了两任市长，尽力去维持和平与秩序，还要在一个受到暴力宗教冲突困扰的地区避免暴政。在他第二任期结束时，城中暴发了一场灾难性的瘟疫，而蒙田决定离开。那时候，没人似乎因他的决定而感到不适，但这困扰了圣伯夫和其他19世纪早期的批评家，他们认为这是一种失职。

Montaigne gain retired to his state, but he remained politically active as a negotiator between the Protestant Henry of Navarre and the Catholic Valois family. (He was once attacked by soldiers, once arrested.) A practicing Catholic all his life, Montaigne nonetheless favored Henry and was delighted when he converted to Catholicism and became King Henry IV of France, putting an end to the religious strife.

蒙田获准退休，回到了他的国家，但他在政治上依然活跃，成为了纳瓦拉新教徒的亨利与天主教徒的瓦卢瓦家族之间的谈判人。（他曾受到士兵的袭击，还被捕过）。他的一生都遵循着天主教，尽管如此，蒙田还是看好亨利，而且当亨利皈依天主教义，并成为了法国的国王亨利四世，结束了宗教冲突时，他很高兴。

Montaigne’s last years were eased by the devoted admiration of Marie Le Jars de Gournay, his “adopted daughter,” who, following his death, edited the additions he made to his Essays after 1588. He died on Sept. 13, 1592, while hearing Mass said in his bedroom.

蒙田的最后几年因玛丽·勒雅尔·德·古尔内的热忱钦佩而轻松惬意，在他死后，他的“养女”于1588年后编辑了他对《随笔集》做的补充。他于1592年9月13日去世，据说当时他是在卧室听着弥撒曲。

Ideas.  If Montaigne always remained a faithful Catholic, he counted Protestants among his family and friends. His own religious position was a brand of fideism: faith and reason may be contradictory, but faith must prevail in religious matters—a position strengthened by his very real doubts about the capacity of reason to discover eternal truths of any sort. Papal censors raised only minor objections to the Essays when they appeared. However, the work was placed on the Index in 1678.

理念。如果蒙田一直是忠实的天主教教徒，而他将新教教徒视为他的家人和朋友。那么他自己的宗教立场就是一种信仰主义：信仰与理性可能是矛盾的，但在宗教事务中信仰必须占上风---他凭借对理性发现各种永恒真理的真切怀疑增强了这一地位。当《随笔集》出版时，罗马教皇的审查官只对它们提出了一些小异议。然而，该作品于1678年还是被列入了索引中。

Montaigne’s tolerance stemmed from a deep conviction that customs and mores vary from land to land and from culture to culture. His humanistic admiration for classical antiquity was complemented by an admiration for the natural goodness of primitive man (the essay of Cannibals), and he sharply criticized the abuses of European colonization of the New World (Of Coaches).

蒙田的宽容源于一种深厚的信念，即习俗更多是因国度的不同而不同，因文化的不同而不同。他对古代经典的人文主义崇拜与对原始人（《食人族》随笔）天性善良的崇拜互为补充，并且他尖锐地批评了欧洲人对新大陆殖民的暴行。

In many matters, he was a conservative, but a tolerant one, curious about and appreciative of different customs and point of view. In education, he considered that the proper goal was to create a well-made mind, rather than a well-filled one. The development of the capacity for judgment seemed to him essential, and judgment could only be developed by analyzing the self and its experiences, which justified his autobiographical “soundings” of his own being and life.

在许多问题上，他是一位保守主义者，但又是一位宽容的人，对不同习俗和观点感到好奇和欣赏。在教育方面，他认为，真正的目标是创造完美的心灵，而不是一个被灌输的头脑。对他来说，判断能力的发展似乎是非常重要的，而且判断只可能通过分析自我和其经验来发展，这证明了他对自己存在和生活的自传式的“试探”是正当的。

Thought he strongly felt each man is different, Montaigne also believed in a common human condition, thanks to which men can learn from each other’ experience (Of Experience). His thoughts on certain questions evolved from positions that have been described a ranging from the Stoical to the Epicurean, especially on the matter of pain, which he came to feel was an inevitable part of life that served to enhance the sense of pleasure and enjoyment. Very conscious of change and fluctuation—in himself, in society, in the world—and of the instability of man and of institutions, Montaigne at times seems to be a pessimist, who attacks man: man’s reason is limited, his lot is pain and death, and his nature is vanity and falsehood. But he also proclaims that life can be pleasurable and worthwhile, that by a sense of moderation, a wise use of judgment, and an awareness of limitations, man can achieve both joy and dignity. Montaigne wrote in troubled times, and his own life was not an easy one, but autobiography became for him an act of affirmation of human values.

虽然他强烈地感到每个人都是不同的，但蒙田也相信人类共同的处境，幸亏有了它，人们能够从彼此的经验（《论经验》）中学习。他对某些问题的思考是从曾被描述的斯多葛学派到伊壁鸠鲁哲学的立场演化而来的，尤其是关于痛苦的问题，他感到的问题是生活中不可避免的一部分，它有助于增强快乐和享受的感觉。他对自己，对社会，对世界--以及对人和体系不稳定的变化和波动非常敏感，蒙田偶尔似乎是一个悲观主义者，他抨击人类：人类的理性是有限的，其处境是痛苦与死亡，而其本性是虚荣和虚伪。不过，他也声明，生活可以是愉快的和有价值的，那就是通过一种有节制的理性，一种明智的判断运用，以及对局限的意识，人类就能既获得快乐，又能获得尊严。蒙田写于乱世，而他自己的生活并不容易，但对他而言，自传成为了一种对人类价值肯定的行为。

Influence.  Montaigne’s influence has been immense, and from the first the Essays were a success. In 1603 they were translated into English, inaccurately but beautifully, by John Florio, whose translation Shakespeare knew and quoted in The Tempest. John Marston, Francis Bacon, John Webster, and Robert Burton also read, quoted, and imitated him. Charles Cotton’s translation in 1685, more accurate than Florio’s, was also widely read. Emerson considered Montaigne one of his “representative men.”

影响。蒙田的影响是巨大的，《随笔集》从一开始就获得了成功。1603年，它们被约翰·弗洛里奥翻译成英语，不准确但很优美，莎士比亚了解他的译文，并在《暴风雨》中引用过。约翰·马斯顿，弗朗西斯·培根，约翰·韦伯斯特以及罗伯特·伯顿也读过，引用过，并且模仿过他。查尔斯·科顿于1685年的译文比弗洛里奥译文更准确，阅读也更为广泛。爱默生认为蒙田是他的“代表性人物”之一。

In France, Pascal owed much to Montaigne, but often wrote against him as did many other Catholic writers. Voltaire and other Enlightenment figures turned him into an ancestral freethinker. The Romantic, with Sainte-Beuve in the lead, admired him for his self-searching sincerity, his relativism, his awareness of the wholeness of man, and the rich yet relaxed texture of his style and thought. In the 20 century he continued to fascinate such varied minds as T. S. Eliot and Andre Gide. In a word, each age, with ease, find him meaningful. See also ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE.

在法国，帕斯卡尔多亏了蒙田，但常常撰文反对他，就像许多其他的天主教作者一样。伏尔泰和其他启蒙运动的人物将他变成了祖传的思想家。以圣伯夫主导的浪漫主义作家对其自我反省的真诚、他的相对主义、他对人类整体的意识，以及对其风格和思想丰富、轻松的神韵而非常崇拜他。在20世纪，他继续深深吸引着像T. S. 艾略特和安德烈·纪德这样不同的大脑。一句话，每个时代，都有从容，发现他的意味深长。

                                     FRANK PAUL BOWMAN

                                  Author of “Montaigne, Essays”

                                     弗兰克·保罗·鲍曼

                                     “蒙田，随笔”的作者

                                         2022年8月13日译

（译者注：该词条位列《大美百科全书》1985年版，第19卷，第388页到390页）