The Essays of Montaigne Ch. 2: When Grief Goes

Michel de Montaigne

When Grief Goes Too Deep for Words

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Summary

Montaigne says he is almost free of sorrow, yet he neither likes it nor thinks it right. He would rather have less of it than more. The essay then watches grief go so far that it stops looking like grief at all.

Psammenitus, beaten by Cambyses, stands still while his daughter is led as a servant and his son is led to die. He does not speak. Then he sees a friend among the captives, reduced to begging, and he tears his hair and beats his face. Asked why the friend unlocked him when his children had not, he says only the last blow could still be shown with tears. The first two were too big for that. A painter veils Agamemnon's face at Iphigenia's death because no expression will hold it. Niobe, in the fable, turns to stone. A French prince, already brimful of grief, overflows at a smaller addition, as a cup already full spills at one more drop.

Light griefs can speak. Deep sorrows are dumb. The quiet person after a death may not be coping. The cup may already be full, and the next small knock is the only sound that still has a name. Do not mistake that silence for a finished recovery.

In this chapter:Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Reading Quiet Overload

When pain exceeds what a person can hold, the largest loss often looks like calm while a smaller one finally produces tears. Psammenitus stays still as his children are led away, then tears his hair when a friend appears among the captives.

When someone goes quiet after devastating news, check in without demanding a performance of grief.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: The Veiled Face

Montaigne says no man is more free from sorrow, then watches grief go so far it stops looking like grief. A painter veils Agamemnon's face because no expression will hold Iphigenia's death. The claim of freedom and the veil are the same defence: when the loss is too large, the mind would rather look finished than invent a face.

Continue this thoughtOutliving Him Feels Like Theft

Coming Up in Chapter 3

Montaigne says we are never present with ourselves. Fear, desire, and hope push the mind past the hour it has, and people spend that hour on a name they will not hear after they are dead.

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Chapter 02

When Grief Goes Too Deep for Words

OF SORROW No man living is more free from this passion than I, who yet neither like it in myself nor admire it in others, and yet generally the world, as a settled thing, is pleased to grace it with a particular esteem, clothing therewith wisdom, virtue, and conscience. Foolish and sordid guise! —[“No man is more free from this passion than I, for I neither love nor regard it: albeit the world hath undertaken, as it were upon covenant, to grace it with a particular favour. Therewith they adorne age, vertue, and conscience. Oh foolish and base ornament!” Florio,…

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When Grief Goes Too Deep for Words

Summary

Why This Matters