In Praise of Folly

reason why I should envy the rest of the gods if in particular places they have their particular

worship, and that too on set days—as Phoebus at Rhodes; at Cyprus, Venus; at Argos, Juno; at

Athens, Minerva; in Olympus, Jupiter; at Tarentum, Neptune; and near the Hellespont, Priapus—as

long as the world in general performs me every day much better sacrifices.

Wherein notwithstanding if I shall seem to anyone to have spoken more boldly than truly, let us,

if you please, look a little into the lives of men, and it will easily appear not only how much they

owe to me, but how much they esteem me even from the highest to the lowest. And yet we will not

run over the lives of everyone, for that would be too long, but only some few of the great ones,

from whence we shall easily conjecture the rest. For to what purpose is it to say anything of the

common people, who without dispute are wholly mine? For they abound everywhere with so many

several sorts of folly, and are every day so busy in inventing new, that a thousand Democriti are

too few for so general a laughter, though there were another Democritus to laugh at them too. ’Tis

almost incredible what sport and pastime they daily make the gods; for though they set aside their

sober forenoon hours to dispatch business and receive prayers, yet when they begin to be well

whittled with nectar and cannot think of anything that’s serious, they get them up into some part

of heaven that has better prospect than other and thence look down upon the actions of men. Nor

is there anything that pleases them better. Good, good! what an excellent sight it is! How many

several hurly-burlies of fools! for I myself sometimes sit among those poetical gods.

Here’s one desperately in love with a young wench, and the more she slights him the more

outrageously he loves her. Another marries a woman’s money, not herself. Another’s jealousy

keeps more eyes on her than Argos. Another becomes a mourner, and how foolishly he carries it!

nay, hires others to bear him company to make it more ridiculous. Another weeps over his

mother-in-law’s grave. Another spends all he can rap and run on his belly, to be the more hungry

after it. Another thinks there is no happiness but in sleep and idleness. Another turmoils himself

about other men’s business and neglects his own. Another thinks himself rich in taking up moneys

and changing securities, as we say borrowing of Peter to pay Paul, and in a short time becomes

bankrupt. Another starves himself to enrich his heir. Another for a small and uncertain gain exposes

his life to the casualties of seas and winds, which yet no money can restore. Another had rather get

riches by war than live peaceably at home. And some there are that think them easiest attained by

courting old childless men with presents; and others again by making rich old women believe they

love them; both which afford the gods most excellent pastime, to see them cheated by those persons

they thought to have over-caught. But the most foolish and basest of all others are our merchants,

to wit such as venture on everything be it never so dishonest, and manage it no better; who though

they lie by no allowance, swear and forswear, steal, cozen, and cheat, yet shuffle themselves into

the first rank, and all because they have gold rings on their fingers. Nor are they without their

flattering friars that admire them and give them openly the title of honorable, in hopes, no doubt,

to get some small snip of it themselves.

There are also a kind of Pythagoreans with whom all things are so common that if they get anything

under their cloaks, they make no more scruple of carrying it away than if it were their own by

inheritance. There are others too that are only rich in conceit, and while they fancy to themselves

pleasant dreams, conceive that enough to make them happy. Some desire to be accounted wealthy

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In Praise of Folly

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abroad and are yet ready to starve at home. One makes what haste he can to set all going, and

another rakes it together by right or wrong. This man is ever laboring for public honors, and another

lies sleeping in a chimney corner. A great many undertake endless suits and outvie one another

who shall most enrich the dilatory judge or corrupt advocate. One is all for innovations and another

for some great he-knows-not-what. Another leaves his wife and children at home and goes to

Jerusalem, Rome, or in pilgrimage to St. James’s where he has no business. In short, if a man like

Menippus of old could look down from the moon and behold those innumerable rufflings of mankind,

he would think he saw a swarm of flies and gnats quarreling among themselves, fighting, laying

traps for one another, snatching, playing, wantoning, growing up, falling, and dying. Nor is it to

be believed what stir, what broils, this little creature raises, and yet in how short a time it comes to

nothing itself; while sometimes war, other times pestilence, sweeps off many thousands of them

together.

But let me be most foolish myself, and one whom Democritus may not only laugh at but flout, if

I go one foot further in the discovery of the follies and madnesses of the common people. I’ll betake

me to them that carry the reputation of wise men and hunt after that golden bough, as says the

proverb. Among whom the grammarians hold the first place, a generation of men than whom nothing

would be more miserable, nothing more perplexed, nothing more hated of the gods, did not I allay

the troubles of that pitiful profession with a certain kind of pleasant madness. For they are not only

subject to those five curses with which Homer begins his Iliads, as says the Greek epigram, but six

hundred; as being ever hungerstarved and slovens in their schools—schools, did I say? Nay, rather

cloisters, bridewells, or slaughterhouses—grown old among a company of boys, deaf with their

noise, and pined away with stench and nastiness. And yet by my courtesy it is that they think

themselves the most excellent of all men, so greatly do they please themselves in frighting a company

of fearful boys with a thundering voice and big looks, tormenting them with ferules, rods, and

whips; and, laying about them without fear or wit, imitate the ass in the lion’s skin. In the meantime

all that nastiness seems absolute spruceness, that stench a perfume, and that miserable slavery a

kingdom, and such too as they would not change their tyranny for Phalaris’ or Dionysius’ empire.

Nor are they less happy in that new opinion they have taken up of being learned; for whereas most

of them beat into boys, heads nothing but foolish toys, yet, you good gods! what Palemon, what

Donatus, do they not scorn in comparison of themselves? And so, I know not by what tricks, they

bring it about that to their boys’ foolish mothers and dolt-headed fathers they pass for such as they

fancy themselves. Add to this that other pleasure of theirs, that if any of them happen to find out

who was Anchises’ mother, or pick out of some worm-eaten manuscript a word not commonly

known—as suppose it bubsequa for a cowherd, bovinator for a wrangler, manticulator for a

cutputse—or dig up the ruins of some ancient monument with the letters half eaten out; O Jupiter!

what towerings! what triumphs! what commendations! as if they had conquered Africa or taken in

Babylon.

But what of this when they give up and down their foolish insipid verses, and there wants not others

that admire them as much? They believe presently that Virgil’s soul is transmigrated into them!

But nothing like this, when with mutual compliments they praise, admire, and claw one another.

Whereas if another do but slip a word and one more quick-sighted than the rest discover it by

accident, O Hercules ! what uproars, what bickerings, what taunts, what invectives! If I lie, let me

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In Praise of Folly

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