In Praise of Folly

giants and with which at pleasure he frightens the rest of the gods, and like a common stage player

put on a disguise as often as he goes about that, which now and then he does, that is to say the

getting of children: And the Stoics too, that conceive themselves next to the gods, yet show me one

of them, nay the veriest bigot of the sect, and if he do not put off his beard, the badge of wisdom,

though yet it be no more than what is common with him and goats; yet at least he must lay by his

supercilious gravity, smooth his forehead, shake off his rigid principles, and for some time commit

an act of folly and dotage. In fine, that wise man whoever he be, if he intends to have children,

must have recourse to me. But tell me, I beseech you, what man is that would submit his neck to

the noose of wedlock, if, as wise men should, he did but first truly weigh the inconvenience of the

thing? Or what woman is there would ever go to it did she seriously consider either the peril of

child-bearing or the trouble of bringing them up? So then, if you owe your beings to wedlock, you

owe that wedlock to this my follower, Madness; and what you owe to me I have already told you.

Again, she that has but once tried what it is, would she, do you think, make a second venture if it

were not for my other companion, Oblivion? Nay, even Venus herself, notwithstanding whatever

Lucretius has said, would not deny but that all her virtue were lame and fruitless without the help

of my deity. For out of that little, odd, ridiculous May-game came the supercilious philosophers,

in whose room have succeeded a kind of people the world calls monks, cardinals, priests, and the

most holy popes. And lastly, all that rabble of the poets’ gods, with which heaven is so thwacked

and thronged, that though it be of so vast an extent, they are hardly able to crowd one by another.

But I think it is a small matter that you thus owe your beginning of life to me, unless I also show

you that whatever benefit you receive in the progress of it is of my gift likewise. For what other is

this? Can that be called life where you take away pleasure? Oh! Do you like what I say? I knew

none of you could have so little wit, or so much folly, or wisdom rather, as to be of any other

opinion. For even the Stoics themselves that so severely cried down pleasure did but handsomely

dissemble, and railed against it to the common people to no other end but that having discouraged

them from it, they might the more plentifully enjoy it themselves. But tell me, by Jupiter, what part

of man’s life is that that is not sad, crabbed, unpleasant, insipid, troublesome, unless it be seasoned

with pleasure, that is to say, folly? For the proof of which the never sufficiently praised Sophocles

in that his happy elegy of us, “To know nothing is the only happiness,” might be authority enough,

but that I intend to take every particular by itself.

And first, who knows not but a man’s infancy is the merriest part of life to himself, and most

acceptable to others? For what is that in them which we kiss, embrace, cherish, nay enemies succor,

but this witchcraft of folly, which wise Nature did of purpose give them into the world with them

that they might the more pleasantly pass over the toil of education, and as it were flatter the care

and diligence of their nurses? And then for youth, which is in such reputation everywhere, how do

all men favor it, study to advance it, and lend it their helping hand? And whence, I pray, all this

grace? Whence but from me? by whose kindness, as it understands as little as may be, it is also for

that reason the higher privileged from exceptions; and I am mistaken if, when it is grown up and

by experience and discipline brought to savor something like man, if in the same instant that beauty

does not fade, its liveliness decay, its pleasantness grow fat, and its briskness fail. And by how

much the further it runs from me, by so much the less it lives, till it comes to the burden of old age,

not only hateful to others, but to itself also. Which also were altogether insupportable did not I pity

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Desiderius Erasmus

In Praise of Folly

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its condition, in being present with it, and, as the poets’ gods were wont to assist such as were dying

with some pleasant metamorphosis, . help their decrepitness as much as in me lies by bringing them

back to a second childhood, from whence they are not improperly called twice children. Which, if

you ask me how I do it, I shall not be shy in the point. I bring them to our River Lethe (for its

springhead rises in the Fortunate Islands, and that other of hell is but a brook in comparison), from

which, as soon as they have drunk down a long forgetfulness, they wash away by degrees the

perplexity of their minds, and so wax young again.

But perhaps you’ll say they are foolish and doting. Admit it; ’tis the very essence of childhood; as

if to be such were not to be a fool, or that that condition had anything pleasant in it, but that it

understood nothing. For who would not look upon that child as a prodigy that should have as much

wisdom as a man?—according to that common proverb, “I do not like a child that is a man too

soon.” Or who would endure a converse or friendship with that old man who to so large an experience

of things had joined an equal strength of mind and sharpness of judgment? And therefore for this

reason it is that old age dotes; and that it does so, it is beholding to me. Yet, notwithstanding, is

this dotard exempt from all those cares that distract a wise man; he is not the less pot companion,

nor is he sensible of that burden of life which the more manly age finds enough to do to stand

upright under it. And sometimes too, like Plautus’ old man, he returns to his three letters, A.M.O.,

the most unhappy of all things living, if he rightly understood what he did in it. And yet, so much

do I befriend him that I make him well received of his friends and no unpleasant companion; for

as much as, according to Homer, Nestor’s discourse was pleasanter than honey, whereas Achilles’

was both bitter and malicious; and that of old men, as he has it in another place, florid. In which

respect also they have this advantage of children, in that they want the only pleasure of the others’

life, we’ll suppose it prattling. Add to this that old men are more eagerly delighted with children,

and they, again, with old men. “Like to like,” quoted the Devil to the collier. For what difference

between them, but that the one has more wrinkles and years upon his head than the other? Otherwise,

the brightness of their hair, toothless mouth, weakness of body, love of mild, broken speech, chatting,

toying, forgetfulness, inadvertency, and briefly, all other their actions agree in everything. And by

how much the nearer they approach to this old age, by so much they grow backward into the likeness

of children, until like them they pass from life to death, without any weariness of the one, or sense

of the other.

And now, let him that will compare the benefits they receive by me, the metamorphoses of the

gods, of whom I shall not mention what they have done in their pettish humors but where they have

been most favorable: turning one into a tree, another into a bird, a third into a grasshopper, serpent,

or the like. As if there were any difference between perishing and being another thing! But I restore

the same man to the best and happiest part of his life. And if men would but refrain from all

commerce with wisdom and give up themselves to be governed by me, they should never know

what it were to be old, but solace themselves with a perpetual youth. Do but observe our grim

philosophers that are perpetually beating their brains on knotty subjects, and for the most part you’ll

find them grown old before they are scarcely young. And whence is it, but that their continual and

restless thoughts insensibly prey upon their spirits and dry up their radical moisture? Whereas, on

the contrary, my fat fools are as plump and round as a Westphalian hog, and never sensible of old

age, unless perhaps, as sometimes it rarely happens, they come to be infected with wisdom, so hard

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Desiderius Erasmus

In Praise of Folly

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