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on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI The essays of Michel de Montaigne online
Rodmine wrote 7 hours 31 min ago:
He did not write it for others to read. Please respect his privacy and
don't read them.
m3kw9 wrote 1 day ago:
What if a boxer learns some sort of visual prompt injections to
increase the hit rate. Like punching past people a heads
JodieBenitez wrote 1 day ago:
URI [1]: http://xtf.bvh.univ-tours.fr/xtf/view?docId=tei/B330636101_S12...
rramadass wrote 1 day ago:
A good edition to own is the beautiful hardcover edition published by
Everyman's Library titled Michel de Montaigne The Complete Works Essays
Travel journal Letters and translated by Donald Frame -
URI [1]: http://www.everymanslibrary.co.uk/classics-author.aspx?letter=...
loughnane wrote 1 day ago:
The Donald frame translation is lovely. Itâs a shame itâs not in
the public domain.
rramadass wrote 1 day ago:
Ask and ye shall receive ;-) [1]
URI [1]: https://archive.org/details/MontaigneCompleteFrame/mode/2u...
URI [2]: https://archive.org/stream/MontaigneCompleteFrame/Montaign...
loughnane wrote 18 hours 30 min ago:
is that public domain though?
octed wrote 1 day ago:
This is the translation I was referring to in a previous comment!
Interesting how it has been brought up twice in a single thread.
selimthegrim wrote 1 day ago:
I wonder which joker tagged the language as Norwegian.
ninalanyon wrote 1 day ago:
W. Carew Hazlittâs 1877 update of Charles Cottonâs translation is
on Project Gutenberg if you prefer, as I do, an epub copy.
URI [1]: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3600
youssefabdelm wrote 1 day ago:
Pro tip:
html {
-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;
}
For a better reading experience.
If you're on Arc and have Boosts, I also recommend a darker background.
bambax wrote 1 day ago:
This book
How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in one question and twenty, by Sarah
Bakewell (2011)
is an incredible introduction to Montaigne. I greatly enjoyed it and
recommend it fondly to anyone's interested in the man or what he had to
say.
tbcj wrote 1 day ago:
Agreed - how it contextualizes the time and place for Montaigne when
writing the essays is invaluable to understanding the essays and how
he changes over time.
ZacnyLos wrote 1 day ago:
Here are his works on Wikisources (in 7 languages, public domain):
URI [1]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Michel_de_Montaigne
billfruit wrote 1 day ago:
There is already the excellent Screech translation and Frame
translation(which seems popular with Americans) available, how is this
different apart from being online.
phtrivier wrote 1 day ago:
Great effort !
The most striking things to me when I started reading the Essays, is
how much it reads like... A blog.
Variety of topics, general consistency of theme, a tone that is
surprisingly conversationnal... And the bombardment of references, in
jokes, quotes, etc... that you use to create connivence with your
reader.
Also, in the end, if you were asked what Montaigne was famous for, what
he actually did, _beyond writing his blog_, you would be... hard
pressed to answer.
Still, I would probably lurk his substack, and watch his stand up on
Instagram.
kergonath wrote 1 day ago:
> The most striking things to me when I started reading the Essays,
is how much it reads like... A blog.
This is somewhat deceptive. The Essais were very personal, but not
spontaneous at all. He spent a lot of time polishing them and
rewriting them right until he died. Just like Rabelais, the apparent
casual tone of the language is actually quite a lot of work.
In comparison, blog posts are quick to post and then just left as
they are. They are closer to letters in that respect.
p3rls wrote 19 hours 57 min ago:
[1] was all the rage in the 16th century
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura
jchanimal wrote 1 day ago:
I had the pleasure of reading Montaigne before blogs were invented.
When I started reading blogs, the format reminded me of his essays.
bloak wrote 1 day ago:
A translation into modern French might be an interesting addition.
edweis wrote 1 day ago:
Here it is, 1907: [1] EDIT: my bad, this is not modern French
URI [1]: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Essais/%C3%A9dition_Michaud,_...
draven wrote 11 hours 21 min ago:
Looks like the left column is Middle French, the right one is the
modern translation.
RandomThoughts3 wrote 1 day ago:
This is very much modern French. Anything written after 1650 is
easy to understand by the average French person and anything
written after 1800 is indistinguishable from how French is written
nowadays.
benreesman wrote 1 day ago:
Monsieur de Montaigneâs observations are highly above the average as
concerns wealthy people advising everyone what to do with a
noblemanâs time and resources.
As a new magistrate or nobleman itâs a decent place to start winding
up with something better than a Tesla and a Substack advising people
how to inherit a monopoly.
But for us plebs, itâs about as compelling as any other bunch of
dandies on a tennis court.
afpx wrote 1 day ago:
Iâm almost done with Book 1, and so far at least 85% applies to
anyone:
don't be idle, don't lie,
don't make hasty decisions,
build up your willpower,
be courageous,
be present,
do what you say you will do,
challenge customs (because people tend to choose custom over reason),
learn through experience,
be present,
life is a delicate balance,
and about 50 more
benreesman wrote 1 day ago:
Itâs a lot of very bright folks on HN, and very well read.
But this stuff at this stage of the game is somewhere between
propaganda and Stockholmâs Syndrome.
Hackers have never been paid less, or had worse job security, or
been more subject to being fucked with than in decades.
Getting funding or traction or press or customers has never been
more insular and nepotistic and corrupt and numb in decades.
There is a season for de Montaigne and there is a season for Thomas
Paine.
aubanel wrote 1 day ago:
Hard disagree. His thoughts are so rich and varied that it's harsh to
classify them under "blogs for wealthy people". He speaks about
death, self worth, many other things that speak to anyone.
benreesman wrote 1 day ago:
I myself said that de Montaigne is pretty good stuff as this sort
of thing goes.
But the kind of agency attached to being quasi-Royal wealthy in the
mid-sixteenth century France is not terribly useful to anyone under
crushing debt peonage then, nor itâs resurgent beginning comeback
now.
For truly catholic stoicism there are better sources. If I want to
hear someone talk about inner will from atop a mountain Iâll go
all the way back to Marcus Aurelius.
Itâs good to see that Randian Objectivists are diversifying out
of such a shitty brand, but itâs all boomers and their bootstraps
to me, and Iâve read fucking ALL of it. Twice.
lukan wrote 1 day ago:
I think philosophy works when you have money, as well when you don't.
Or rather, only good philosophy works also when you don't have money
and I enjoyed Montaigne a lot, when I was backpacking without money.
benreesman wrote 1 day ago:
You want some carcinogenic French thought? May I introduce you to
Julien Offray de La Mettrie.
melvinmelih wrote 1 day ago:
One of the most life altering essays Iâve ever read is Montaigneâs
To Philosophize Is To Die ( [1] ) where he lays out the principle of
memento mori (âremember to dieâ). Fear of death is often very
debilitating, and a topic we all like to avoid but we all have to deal
with it, sooner or later. The sooner you accept it, the freer (and
happier) youâll feel.
URI [1]: https://hyperessays.net/essays/to-philosophize-is-to-learn-to-...
grozmovoi wrote 1 day ago:
I've been working on writing essays to process my thinking for the last
few months. Glad to see this be on #1 of `new`.
tfolbrecht wrote 1 day ago:
Thank you for your efforts.
One of my favorite quotes of all time:
"âTis an absolute and, as it were, a divine perfection, for a man to
know how loyally to enjoy his being. We seek other conditions, by
reason we do not understand the use of our own; and go out of
ourselves, because we know not how there to reside. âTis to much
purpose to go upon stilts, for, when upon stilts, we must yet walk with
our legs; and, when seated upon the most elevated throne in the world,
we are but seated upon our breech." â Michel de Montaigne, Essays,
"Of Experience"
I like the contemporary translations floating around the web
"even on the highest throne in the world, we still sit on our ass"
octed wrote 1 day ago:
Just to clarify this isn't my own work, I just found it online by
accident.
If you wish to thank/support this project and it's creator you should
check out the support page:
URI [1]: https://hyperessays.net/support/
wazoox wrote 1 day ago:
Notice that the original does not mince words : "Et au plus eslevé
throne du monde, si ne sommes assis que sus notre cul".
seizethecheese wrote 1 day ago:
Okay Iâll bite. The essay on raising children piqued my interest. The
first two paragraphs:
> I never yet saw that father, but let his son be never so decrepit or
deformed, would not, notwithstanding, own him: not, nevertheless, if he
were not totally besotted, and blinded with his paternal affection,
that he did not well enough discern his defects: but that with all
defaults, he was still his. Just so, I see better than any other, that
all I write here are but the idle reveries of a man that has only
nibbled upon the outward crust of sciences in his nonage, and only
retained a general and formless image of them; who has got a little
snatch of everything and nothing of the whole, à la Françoise.
This does not seem âupdatedâ or âmodernâ.
Updating these old texts seems like a perfect use case for AI. Letâs
give GPT 4o a shot:
> I have never seen a father, no matter how frail or deformed his son
may be, who would not still claim him as his own. Yet, unless
completely blinded by paternal affection, the father is fully aware of
his sonâs flaws. Despite those shortcomings, the son remains his
child. In the same way, I am more aware than anyone else that what I
write here is nothing more than the idle musings of someone who, in his
youth, only skimmed the surface of knowledge. I have retained only a
vague and incomplete impression of the sciences, having dabbled a
little in everything but mastered nothingâtrue to the French way.
Much better!
l3x4ur1n wrote 1 day ago:
For a non native English speaker the "translation" is much more
readable and can convey more information to me. The old text is kind
of comprehensible to me, but I have to read really slow, re-read
parts and think a lot to understand.
a2800276 wrote 1 day ago:
Did you translate the original French to modern English or modernize
the new translation?
I wonder how those would compare. Translating the original would
probably be the 'correct' thing to do, from a literary point of view.
Poses some interesting question, though.
alldayhaterdude wrote 1 day ago:
I disagree. This sucks.
NemoNobody wrote 5 hours 35 min ago:
name checks out
baudaux wrote 1 day ago:
It is like repainting La Joconde
octed wrote 1 day ago:
The author of the website has mentioned that
> I am slowly replacing the Cotton/Hazlitt translation with a
contemporary one and adding new notes
So I would assume that the essay you're talking about is from the
earlier Cotton translation and has still not been replaced.
This is the first time I've seen AI being used to "modernize" old
texts, and it works wonderfully in this case; though a bit of the
old-timey charm is lost imo. I used to read a translation that I'd
found in my university library which I enjoyed a lot. Very readable
but still retained the "feel" of a 16th century book. I don't recall
the translator unfortunately.
mkoubaa wrote 20 hours 30 min ago:
Old timey charm is overrated. I want to get to the point.
The use of AI here is really cool and I hope to see it applied to
other older tomes
octed wrote 16 hours 24 min ago:
Unfortunately I still have a soft spot for beautiful writing. The
"point" often sticks better when it is expressed eloquently.
Having to think a little bit to get to the point also helps with
absorbing it, at least in my experience.
RobPfeifer wrote 1 day ago:
Totally right. The art and science of translation is an age-old
debate and where AI isnât super well suited. Weâre not at a
point where it ends up more than a summary but the point is the
proper âtranslationâ of the tone, subtle intent and
idiosyncrasies of the author. That said, most human translators
take license (e.g. The Bible) and how do we counterweight against
their flaws, so thereâs not a great answer here.
Except I hope the guy works through it and does a good job cause
the original is a bit of a slog!
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