In Praise of Folly

a thing it is for a man to be happy in all things. And to this purpose is that no small testimony of

the proverb, that says, “Folly is the only thing that keeps youth at a stay and old age afar off;” as

it is verified in the Brabanders, of whom there goes this common saying, “That age, which is wont

to render other men wiser, makes them the greater fools.” And yet there is scarce any nation of a

more jocund converse, or that is less sensible of the misery of old age, than they are. And to these,

as in situation, so for manner of living, come nearest my friends the Hollanders. And why should

I not call them mine, since they are so diligent observers of me that they are commonly called by

my name?—of which they are so far from being ashamed, they rather pride themselves in it. Let

the foolish world then be packing and seek out Medeas, Circes, Venuses, Auroras, and I know not

what other fountains of restoring youth. I am sure I am the only person that both can, and have,

made it good. ’Tis I alone that have that wonderful juice with which Memnon’s daughter prolonged

the youth of her grandfather Tithon. I am that Venus by whose favor Phaon became so young again

that Sappho fell in love with him. Mine are those herbs, if yet there be any such, mine those charms,

and mine that fountain that not only restores departed youth but, which is more desirable, preserves

it perpetual. And if you all subscribe to this opinion, that nothing is better than youth or more

execrable than age, I conceive you cannot but see how much you are indebted to me, that have

retained so great a good and shut out so great an evil.

But why do I altogether spend my breath in speaking of mortals? View heaven round, and let him

that will reproach me with my name if he find any one of the gods that were not stinking and

contemptible were he not made acceptable by my deity. Why is it that Bacchus is always a stripling,

and bushy-haired? but because he is mad, and drunk, and spends his life in drinking, dancing, revels,

and May games, not having so much as the least society with Pallas. And lastly, he is so far from

desiring to be accounted wise that he delights to be worshipped with sports and gambols; nor is he

displeased with the proverb that gave him the surname of fool, “A greater fool than Bacchus;”

which name of his was changed to Morychus, for that sitting before the gates of his temple, the

wanton country people were wont to bedaub him with new wine and figs. And of scoffs, what not,

have not the ancient comedies thrown on him? O foolish god, say they, and worthy to be born as

you were of your father’s thigh! And yet, who had not rather be your fool and sot, always merry,

ever young, and making sport for other people, than either Homer’s Jupiter with his crooked

counsels, terrible to everyone; or old Pan with his hubbubs; or smutty Vulcan half covered with

cinders; or even Pallas herself, so dreadful with her Gorgon’s head and spear and a countenance

like bullbeef? Why is Cupid always portrayed like a boy, but because he is a very wag and can

neither do nor so much as think of anything sober? Why Venus ever in her prime, but because of

her vanity with me? Witness that color of her hair, so resembling my father, from whence she is

called the golden Venus; and lastly, ever laughing, if you give any credit to the poets, or their

followers the statuaries. What deity did the Romans ever more religiously adore than that of Flora,

the foundress of all pleasure? Nay, if you should but diligently search the lives of the most sour

and morose of the gods out of Homer and the test of the poets, you would find them all but so many

pieces of Folly. And to what purpose should I run over any of the other gods’ tricks when you know

enough of Jupiter’s loose loves? When that chaste Diana shall so fat forget her sex as to be ever

hunting and ready to perish for Endymion? But I had rather they should hear these things from

Momus, from whom heretofore they were wont to have their shares, till in one of their angry humors

they tumbled him, together with Ate, goddess of mischief, down headlong to the earth, because his

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In Praise of Folly

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wisdom, forsooth, unseasonably disturbed their happiness. Nor since that dares any mortal give

him harbor, though I must confess there wanted little but that he had been received into the courts

of princes, had not my companion Flattery reigned in chief there, with whom and the other there

is no more correspondence than between lambs and wolves. From whence it is that the gods play

the fool with the greater liberty and more content to themselves “doing all things carelessly,” as

says Father Homer, that is to say, without anyone to correct them. For what ridiculous stuff is there

which that stump of the fig tree Pripaus does not afford them? What tricks and legerdemains with

which Mercury does not cloak his thefts? What buffoonery that Vulcan is not guilty of, while one

with his polt-foot, another with his smutched muzzle, another with his impertinencies, he makes

sport for the rest of the gods? As also that old Silenus with his country dances, Polyphemus footing

time to his Cyclops hammers, the nymphs with their jigs and satyrs with their antics; while Pan

makes them all twitter with some coarse ballad, which yet they had rather hear than the Muses

themselves, and chiefly when they are well whittled with nectar. Besides, what should I mention

what these gods do when they are half drunk? Now by my troth, so foolish that I myself can hardly

refrain laughter. But in these matters ’twere better we remembered Harpocrates, lest some

eavesdropping god or other take us whispering that which Momus only has the privilege of speaking

at length.

And therefore, according to Homer’s example, I think it high time to leave the gods to themselves,

and look down a little on the earth; wherein likewise you’ll find nothing frolic or fortunate that it

owes not to me. So provident has that great parent of mankind, Nature, been that there should not

be anything without its mixture and, as it were, seasoning of Folly. For since according to the

definition of the Stoics, wisdom is nothing else than to be governed by reason, and on the contrary

Folly, to be given up to the will of our passions, that the life of man might not be altogether

disconsolate and hard to away with, of how much more passion than reason has Jupiter composed

us? putting in, as one would say, “scarce half an ounce to a pound.” Besides, he has confined reason

to a narrow corner of the brain and left all the rest of the body to our passions; has also set up,

against this one, two as it were, masterless tyrants—anger, that possesses the region of the heart,

and consequently the very fountain of life, the heart itself; and lust, that stretches its empire

everywhere. Against which double force how powerful reason is let common experience declare,

inasmuch as she, which yet is all she can do, may call out to us till she be hoarse again and tell us

the rules of honesty and virtue; while they give up the reins to their governor and make a hideous

clamor, till at last being wearied, he suffer himself to be carried whither they please to hurry him.

But forasmuch as such as are born to the business of the world have some little sprinklings of reason

more than the rest, yet that they may the better manage it, even in this as well as in other things,

they call me to counsel; and I give them such as is worthy of myself, to wit, that they take to them

a wife—a silly thing, God wot, and foolish, yet wanton and pleasant, by which means the roughness

of the masculine temper is seasoned and sweetened by her folly. For in that Plato seems to doubt

under what genus he should put woman, to wit, that of rational creatures or brutes, he intended no

other in it than to show the apparent folly of the sex. For if perhaps any of them goes about to be

thought wiser than the rest, what else does she do but play the fool twice, as if a man should “teach

a cow to dance,” “a thing quite against the hair.” For as it doubles the crime if anyone should put

a disguise upon Nature, or endeavor to bring her to that she will in no wise bear, according to that

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Desiderius Erasmus

In Praise of Folly

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