2. The reference to mild west breezes is a reminiscence of Horace (Odes I 4,1;3,7,3;4,S,6).

3. Erasmus, having noted at the beginning that Folly herself is speaking and having drawn attention in the preceding section to the instantaneous effect of her appearance, now emphasizes once again that the declamation is put into the mouth of Folly by drawing attention to the dress in which she appears. Since it is Folly who is praising herself, and since therefore she might be taken to be blinded by self-love, Erasmus can pretend, as he did in the letter-preface, that he does not intend anything she says to be taken seriously. Folly refers to the story of Midas, whose ears were changed by Apollo into those of an ass for preferring Pan's flute to his own lyre (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 11,153 if. and Herodotus, 7, 33). Midas was at some pains to hide his ears, but his barber betrayed him. There is another reference to Midas in the Adages.

4. The ancient Sophists were itinerant teachers, often of oratory, sometimes even of virtue. But the premium put by most of such teachers on the ability to defend any point of view, irrespective of its truth or moral value, explains the pejorative overtones which the term 'sophist' developed. Folly here touches on a theme frequent in the writings of Erasmus, whose blistering comments on the scholastic educational system focus on the accusation of 'sophistical cavilling'. There is a sense in which the humanist reform of education was always Erasmus's central concern. When, a little later on, Folly refers to speech as the least deceptive mirror of the mind, the reference is to a central tenet in the humanist philosophy of education, as well as to one' of Erasmus's own Apothegmata. Eloquence. or style, not only mirrors intellectual qualities, but can become the means of inculcating and developing them. From this central tenet, clearly implied by Erasmus in an important series of letters to Colet, derives the importance of the renaissance debate about the relationship between eloquence and philosophy (or between dialectic and rhetoric).

5. Folly here quotes a Greek proverb in Greek, as she does three times more in the following lines. Most of the proverbs are comin ented on in the Adages. The Greek phrase for 'infinity doubled' indicates the greatest interval in musical harmony, popularly known (says Luster) as the double octave. Solon, the law-giver who reformed the Athenian constitution, is famous for the introduction of humane and liberal legal, social and political systems.

6. This list of mock encomia is very similar to that of the letter-preface, on which see note 5, pp.57-8. Phalaris was a tyrant of the sixth century B.C., noted for roasting his victims inside a hollow bronze bull, whose encomium was written by Lucian.

7. This proverb, in Greek in the Latin text, is induded in the Adages. Folly is referring to an affectation of literary facility verv common both in antiquity and in the renaissance. The notation 'from the country' at the end of the letter-preface is a common and recognizable variant of the same pose. Folly's encomium of herself is In fact a very carefully composed oration and, in spite of her disclaimer in the next sentence, she did in fact follow the classical paradigms for encomiastic oratory.

8. The Greek word for 'good things' is taken from Homer (Odyssey, 8,325) and Folly's assertion that 'the look on her face' makes things clear, alludes to Cicero's letters (To Atticus, 14, 13). The proverbs about 'apes in purple' and 'asses in lion-skins' are both the subject of Commentary in the Adages. Minerva was the Italian goddess of 'handicrafts frequently identified with Athene and hence with wisdom. Folly's assertion that she looks what she is has a special importance since Erasmus (followed here, as so often, by Rabelais) made much of the Silenus figure, whose point was that he appeared foolish and ugly while being wise and admirable. In the Sileni Alcibiadis of '515 Erasmus names Christ together with Socrates and Epictetus among the Silenus figures. The Enchiridion contains a reference to the scriptures which 'like the Silenus of Alcibiades, conceal their real divinity beneath a surface that is crude and almost laughable'. Folly just called herself the true bestower of all good things, perhaps

9. Thales was one of the seven sages, astronomer, geographer, geometer and philosopher. The important sentence in which Thales is mentioned is not easy to render; and the difficulty is increased by the fact that Kan's Latin text is certainly corrupt at this point, where it differs from Froben's 1515 version. Folly is saying that those of her faction who reject the name of fools and pretend to be wise are not only 'complete fools' in fact, but are wise to be so They ought therefore really to be called hybrid wise-fools. The 'complete fools' or mortals who pretend to be wise are also the subject of commentary in the Adages. They are, however, also morosophers, which means at the same time both wise and foolish. Lucian uses the term of the wise who pretend to be foolish (Alexander, 40) and Rabelais uses it of Triboullet (Third Book, chapter 46). Erasmus is playing ironically with the wisdom in Folly's eyes of being foolish. Just possibly, he is also hinting openly at the possibility that Folly and her friends are not so foolish as they pretend to he. At any rate, the purely burlesque pose drops for a minute to reveal the potential seriousness of what Folly will go on to say. The complex thought of Erasmus suggests that, while the followers of Folly pretend to be wise, they have the wisdom to be foolish. It is not farfetched to link this idea with the Pauline folly of the Gross and Erasmus's Own exploitation of the Silenus figure.

10. The reference to leeches alludes to Ovid (Metamorphoses, 4, 568). Erasmus is having a joke at his own expense. Just as Folly's declamation is anything but improvised, so it goes to some lengths to drag in Greek proverbs. Folly's attack on literary pretentiousness ends with two Greek proverbs. In the 1529 colloquy The Cyclops, Erasmus makes a similarly ironic comment on his own activity.

11. Chaos, according to Hesiod, was at the origin of the world. Orcus, the Italian god often identified with Pluto or Hades, was one of the three sons of Kronos and god of the lower world. Saturn was the Roman god often identified with Kronos, father of Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto. Japetus was one of the Titans, son of heaven and earth and the father of Atlas. Plutus was the god of wealth and Hesiod the Greek author of uncertain date whose Theogany tried to bring the traditions concerning the gods into a consistent system. It also established their genealogy. Jupiter is of course the Roman sky-god and equivalent of Zeus. Homer and Hesiod frequently refer to Zeus as the 'father of gods and men'. Folly, having presented herself in jester's garb, has pursued the introduction to her encomium of herself with a take-off of most of the classical introductory procedures. We have had an exordium, consisting of a greeting and a narratidn. Instead of the scholastic' partition, Folly has refused to explain herself 'by definition, still less by division', but has presented herself without cosmetics and with immediate effect. Erasmus seems to imply a contrast between evangelical humanism and the cosmetic procedures of the scholastics. We now move into a discussion of Folly's birth, parodying the genealogical section of the Greek paradigm for encomia, prior to identifying Folly's companions and moving on to the gifts she bestows.

12. The 'chosen Olympian gods' were normally said to be twelve in number, although Varro says twenty. St Augustine discusses the issue in The City of God (Book 7, chapter 2, 3, 33). Lucian says in his work on sacrifices that, without the food and drink from sacrifices, the gods would have a thin time at home on nectar and ambrosia.

13. 'Go hang himself' is the literal translation of the phrase from Juvenal (10, 53) to which Folly alludes. Folly here solemnly claims godly birth in the Homeric phrase which she quotes in Greek. The principal myth concerning Athene is that she had no mother but sprang fully armed out of Zeus's head when it was split with an axe by Hephaestus. Erasmus invents a new name for the nymph Youthfulness, normally called Hebe, the daughter of Hera and Zeus. She was the cup-bearer of the gods, here supposed to have conceived Folly by the young, vigorous and somewhat inebriated Plutus whom she served at table. Lijster says that Erasmus is implying that Folly is the product of the union between youth and riches. The limping blacksmith is Vulcan, god of fire, legitimate son of Jupiter and Juno, and the term 'hot-blooded' implies a reference to Horace (Odes, 3, 14, 27).

14. Aristophanes was the Athenian author of comedies whose Plutus was staged in 388 B.C. According to legend (see Ovid, Metamorphoses 6, 333) Leto was delivered of Apollo after nine days labour on the island of Delos. The island, previously afloat, was anchored by Zeus to provide a birth-place for the twins Apollo and Artemis. Aphrodite, goddess of fertility, love and beauty, was born 'out of the waves' according to later Greek tradition while, according to Homer (Odyssey, 4, 403), Thetis and her sister Nereids were born in hollow caves. The 'Islands of the Blest', originally the winterless home of the happy dead for Homer, Hesiod and Pindar, are mentioned by Pliny and described by Horace. Folly also refers to Homer in the words 'unsown, untilled'. The islands were fertile without being cultivated, and free from illness, extremes of temperature and all forms of disease and blight. Everything was in abundant supply. In the renaissance the myth of the Islands of the Blest was frequently used as a vehicle either for satire or, as in More's Utopia, as a tentative means of exploring personal and social aspirations, in which form it later blended with the idea of Arcadia and became embedded in the pastoral tradition.

15. The list of worthless plants is compdounded from various passages of Hesiod and Horace, although it looks as if Erasmus mistook a reference in Horace to seaons for an allusion to the common vegetable. Asphodel is mentioned as a poor man's vegetable by Hesiod (Works and Days, 42) and by Pliny (Historia naturalis, 21,108). In the second list moly is the wonderful herb (Odyssey, 10, 305) given by Hermes to Odysseus to preserve him from Circe's seductions. Panacea (Pliny, Historia naturalis, 25, ii) cures all ills. Nepenthe drives away care. Marjoram is the aromatic herb and ambrosia, the food of the gods, is also the name given to a fragrant herb in Dioscorides and Pliny. The lotus was the food of the Lotophagi which made the eater forget his own country and desire to live in Lotusland (Odyssey, 9, 82 if.). The gardens of Adonis, god of vegetation and fertility, mentioned by Erasmus in the Adages, were pots filled with short-lived seasonal plants at his spring festival. The mighty son of Kronos is Homer's description of Zeus, quoted by Folly in Greek (Iliad, 2, 403). Zeus was hidden away in Crete by his mother Rhea to save him from being swallowed by his father. In Crete Zeus was reared on the milk of the she-goat Amalthea. Erasmus invents Greek names for Drunkenness and Ignorance. The connexion between Bacchus and his daughter Drunkenness is clear. Pan, the father of Ignorance, was the half-goat Arcadian god, frightening, angry and haunter of wildernesses.

Although Folly boasts here that she was nursed by Drunkenness and Ignorance, it is important not to forget that the intoxication induced by Bacchus became in renaissance authors like Rabelais and Pontus de Tyard a figure of the divine 'furor' of the Platonist tradition which, in Marsiho Ficinp, was the beginning of the soul's reunification in its ascent to beatitude. In the same way, ignorance is at this date an equivocal concept since some at least of the evangelical humanists were heavily indebted to the idea of a 'learned ignorance' used by Nicolas of Cusa in his de docta ignorantia to describe human receptivity to divine knowledge. Postel, Bigot and Rahelais were to make Pan, here the father of Ignorance, into a figure of Christ, the Good Shepherd, an identification suggested by Paul Marsus's commentary on Ovid's Fasti. It is difficult to know whether Erasmus intended the ambivalence in Folly's nurses. 16. This section marks the end of that part of the declamation which deals with Folly's birth and education. She will now proceed to the body of the encomium dealing with achievements and attributes. The list of her companions is a variation on the list of deadly sins. Only Philautia plays any significant part in the subsequent declaniation. Kulakia is a name coined by Erasmus. Lethe is the underworld river of mythology from which the shades of the dead drank and then forgot their earthly existence. Misaponia is a term for laziness used by Lucian. Hedone, Anoia and Tryphe are the Greek words for pleasure, madness and sensuality. Comus is the god of revelry and Negretos Hypnos is an Homeric expression for deep sleep (Odyssey, r3, 79). Folly's list of companions by whose help she rules might, if it were less humanist in form, have come from some medieval sermon or allegoiy.

17. The statement that it is the function of the gods to help men comes from Pliny (Historia naturalis, 2, 5). In Revelation, i, 8, God reveals himself as the 'Alpha and the Omega', that is the beginning and end of all things signified by the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. This main section of Folly's declamation dealing with her powers takes up very nearly half its total length and leads on to the consideration of Folly's followers which starts in section forty-eight.

18. It is Homer who refers to Athene, daughter of Zeus, as 'mighty-fathered' (Iliad, 5,747) and to Zeus himself, 'father of gods and men' as 'cloud-gathering' (Iliad, I, 160 and 470). The reference is to his thunderbolts. It is Virgil (Aeneid, 9,106) who talks of the terror he inspires and Ovid who mentions his three-forked lightning (Metamorphoses, 2, 848). The mention of the Titanic visage implies a reference to Lucian (e.g. Icaromenippus, 23) who used the phrase on several occasions. The word for 'making a child', in Greek in the Latin text, is a coinage of Erasmus.

The ethical doctrines of the Stoics, which they regarded as based on a rigorously deductive system, centred on the suppression of passion and the following of reason and nature. Since, however, some early Christian writers like Clement of Alexandria, drawing on neoplatonist as well as on stoic ideas, held that the suppression of passion demanded the total hegemony in man of spirit over matter, the stoic sage was therefore endowed with the spiritual elevation, measured in terms of freedom from matter and rationality of behaviour, of God himself. The idea that the sage is the equal of God was to be defended by some sixteenth-century Christian Stoics such as Justus Lipsius and attacked as impious by representatives of a more rigorously Augustinian tradition of Christian spirituality. Erasmus himself was to explicit certain stoic themes and ideas, particularly those which, unlike this one, derived from Epictetus.

19. The Stoics, like the Cynics, wore a characteristic uniform of beard, cloak and stick. The first four whole numbers were the basis for the cosmic system of the Pythagoreans, and so the 'sacred fount' of all natural. During the renaissance there was a serious discussion about the seat of the soul and its affections in the various parts of the body and, in the Enchiridion, Erasmus had adopted a modification of the Platonist view, giving desire to the lower part of the body. Here, however, as when she refers to the Stoics, Folly is in lighter mood. She goes on after Juvenal (6, 43), to talk of the 'halter of matrimony', although Erasmus elsewhere treats that subject seriously, too.

20. Lucretius, author of the de rerum natura, starts his poem with an invocation to Venus. goddess of love. 'Kings in their purple' refers to Horace (Odes, 1, 3S~ 12). The parenthesis on 'those popularly called monks' foreshadows the sustained later attack. Monks, as Erasmus was fond of pointing out, were not instituted by Christ.

21. Folly has by now come near to laying down her ironic pose by appearing to argue sensibly. Erasmus here recalls us, and himself, too, to the convention he has established inside which foolishness is sense for Folly. However, Folly immediately goes on to argue seriously, so that Erasmus has put the reader in a situation in which he can no longer be sure what is serious and what is not. The stage is now set both for Erasmus's attack on aspects of sixteenth-century society and for his defence that they are only the outpourings of Folly.

22. The line, of Sophocles is from his Ajax (L 554). Technically it is true to say that the Stoics, or some of them, did not despise the pleasure which was not a passion but a 'rational affection'. Erasmus, as usual, is making learned fun and perhaps remembering that, for Seneca, the 'pleasure' which is the final end of human endeavour is for the Epicurean identified with the 'virtue' which the Stoics cultivate (de beata vita, 13).

23. This section contains verbal reminiscences of Virgil, Seneca and Horace. The Greek phrase for 'painful age' is taken from Homer (Iliad, 8, 103) while that, a little later, for 'second childhood' comes from Lucian (Saturn. 9). Erasmus comments on it in the Adages, as' he also does on the proverb from Apuieius which Folly goes on to quote, 'I hate a small child too wise for his years.'

24. The reference here is to senile love in Plautus" Mercator (2, 2, 33) and the letters of course mean 'I love'.

25. See the Iliad, I, 249 and 3, 152 for the references to Nestor and 'lily-sweet' voices. The verse comes from the Odyssey, 17, 218.

26. The first allusion is probably to Daphne, changed into a laurel tree after asking for help while being pursued by an amorous Apollo (Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, 452 ff.). Ceyx and his wife Alcyone were punished for calling themselves Zeus and Hera. Ceyx was drowned and Alcyone threw herself into the sea after him. Both were changed into birds by the pity of the gods (Oyid, Metamorphoses, II, 410, if.). Tithonus, Priam's brother, was given by Zeus the gift of immortality but not that of eternal youth, for which Eos, goddess of the dawn, forgot to ask. When he became old and garrulous she finally shut him up in a room or, in the version of the legend deriving from Hellanicus, he was changed into a chirping grasshopper. Cadmus, the son of Agenor, built the Cadmea, citadel of Thebes, and introduced writing into Greece. In old age he and his wife Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, were turned into snakes in Illyria (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 4, 57 if.).

27. 'Plump', 'sleek' and 'glossy' are words used by Horace of himself (Epistles, I, 4, 15-16) when he presents himself as a pig from the herd of Epicurus. The Acarnanian pigs are also mentioned in the Adages.

In the renaissance Epicurus was usually taxed with denying the immortality of the soul and his followers were not unusually referred to as pigs from his herd. His view that man's final end was pleasure could be taken in a severe and almost stoic sense, as Seneca interpreted it, or as something altogether less lofty, which explains something of the ambiguity of the renaissance attitude towards him. In the seventeenth century, Gassendi produced a full-scale Christian version of his philosophy.

28. The 'special boast' is the Dutch proverb that the older a Dutchman is, the stupider he is,

Hoe ouder, hoe hotter Hollander.

By claiming a special relationship with the Dutch, Folly is of course being ironic at Erasmus's expense.

29. Medea is said (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 7, 162 if.) to have renewed the youth of Aeson, Jason's father, by boiling him with herbs. Circe is the witch in Homer who turns Odysseus' men into swine (Odyssey, 10,137 if.). Venus is the goddess of love, and Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn identified with the Greek Eos, is noted for the lovers she abducted. It was the granddaughter of Aurora who obtained from Jupiter the transformation of Tithonus into a grasshopper (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 19,576 if. and see note 26, p. 80). Phaon, the old boatman of Lesbos, was rejuvenated by Venus. Sappho fell in love with him and jumped off the Leucadian rock for his sake.

30. Virgil describes the cult of Bacchus in the Georgics (2,380 if.). Bacchus is the Lydian name of Dionysus, and as this became more popular, the older, bearded figure of the god gave place to the youthful, almost effeminate figure of later Greek sculpture. The proverb concerning Morychus is discussed by Erasmus in the Adages. It apparently refers to one who neglects the places where important things are going on and alludes to a Sicilian statue of Bacchus which was outside his temple. Athenaeus tells us that Bacchus was known as Morychus. Folly goes on to refer to Bacchus's birth from the thigh of Jupiter. His mother Semele, tricked by a jealous Hera, had her request granted by Jupiter that he should come to her, as to Hera, in his full glory, which resulted in her death from his thunderbolts. Jupiter put the premature child into his thigh, whence in due course he was born. The 'Old Comedy' refers to Aristophanes' The Frogs.

31. 'Crooked-counselled', is a word applied by Homer to Zeus and by Hesiod to Prometheus. Pan, the god of woods, was known for the terror ('panic') with which he inspired travelers. On Vulcan the smith, see note 13. p.71. Pallas Athene as goddess of war is frequently depicted with shield, lance, helmet and her goatskin cloak fringed with serpents and with the Gorgon's head in the centre. The 'fixed grim stare' is a reference to Sophocles (Ajax, 452). On Cupid, Folly refers to the Iliad (8, 524) and on Venus to the Odyssey (8, 337). Aphrodite was the classical Greek name for Venus. Flora is the goddess of flowering plants whose spring festival was renowned for its licentiousness.

32. Jupiter's love affairs were notorious. Hesiod enumerates his seven wives, and there were of course numerous affairs with mortals. Diana, goddess of the moon, who fell in love with the beautiful sleeping hunter Endymion, had his sleep indefinitely prolonged by Jupiter in order to be able to embrace him every night without his knowledge. The Endymion legend is usually referred to Selene or Artemis. But Selene was the moon goddess and Artemis, the chaste goddess of the hunt, was the sister of the sun god Apollo. The Romans identified her with Diana, their moon goddess, so that Diana took over Artemis's functions as virgin hunter to give the legend as Folly refers to it.

Momus, although mentioned by Hesiod, is a literary rather than a mythological character. He is the fault-finder who mocks at his fellow-gods, normally depicted taking off his mask and associated with folly and stinging satire. Erasmus writes of him in the Adages. Até, the personification of blindness and infatuation, caused so much trouble among the gods, notably by leading Juno to deceive Jupiter, that Jupiter threw her down to earth, where she is responsible for discord and disaster (Iliad, 19, 91 if.).

33. Homer refers, in slightly different terms, to the 'easy life' of the gods in the Iliad (6, 138). Priapus, god of fertility, shrank to the garden-god and was depicted as grotesque rather than serious or impressive. Horace puts into his mouth that he was once a (useless) piece of fig-wood (Satires, I, 8, i). Mercury, the god of commerce and subsequently of theft, was responsible for stealing Apollo's cattle and, while being reproached for it, his quiver. Ludan tells us that Mercury stole Vulcan's tongs and in the Ode of Horace to which Folly refers (I, 10), Mercury's intervention to protect Priam on his midnight journey to recover the body of Hector is also mentioned. Homer recounts how Vulcan or Hephaestus downed at the feasts of the gods, moving them to laughter at his Ump or by his scoffing (Iliod, I, ~68 and i8, 397). Silenus was the drunken and misshapen companion of Bacchus, and the 'cordax' an obscene dance which existed before the Old Comedy and was illustrative of the effects of debauchery. Polyphemus is one of the Homeric Cyclopes, who destroyed with a rock his rival Acis for the love of the nymph Galatea. The reference to the 'barefoot ballet' comes from Lucian's de saltatione (chapter 12). The satyrs were sylvan creatures, half-goat, half-man, and the Atellan farces, with stock characters and ritualized action, were noted for their obscenlty. Pan was always considered to be musical, but his instrument was the shepherd's pipe.

34. Harpocrates, mentioned in the Adages, is the god of silence, depicted as a chubby child with his index finger covering his lips. The Corycian cave on Mount Parnassus, also mentioned in the Adages, is associated with unsuccessful attempts to conceal what one is doing. Folly's new reference to Momus underlines the irreverence with which she is discoursing on such apparently serious topics as the going on of the gods and paves the way for her equal irreverence later about contemporary ecclesiastics and their affairs.

35. Erasmus's reference to 'Mother Nature' is a reminiscence of Cicero (de natura deorum, I, 8). The proportion of twenty-four to one is Lijster's interpretation of Erasmus's quantities. On the stoic opposition between reason and passion, see note 18, p. 75, and on the attribution of the passions to the various parts of the body, note 19, p.76. The reference here is to Plato's Timaeus (69d). The Phaedrus had contained the parable of the charioteer (reason) with his two horses (the noble and obedient passions and the wild, disobedient ones). The Timaeus goes on to ascribe the rational part of the soul to the head, the faculty of courage and anger to the part of the body near the heart, and desire to the lower part of the body. This was the doctrine, popularized by Cicero; which Erasmus quoted from Plato in the Enchiridion Militis Christiani. Plato himself, who regarded ethical activity as determined by rational judge-ment, ascrihed desire to the liver, and by widening the 'lower part of the body' to include the sexual organs, Erasmus,retained plausi. bility. for Plato's ascription of the soul's faculties to the three regions of the body. It is only under the inlluence of St Augustine that the later renaissance authors will reverse Plato's doctrine and put love into the heart.

36. Folly's reference to Plato's doubts about whether women were human or animal (Timaeus, 90e) does not give a fair idea of what either Plato or Frasmus thought. Rabelais borrows this reference for the Third Book (chapter 32). The two proverbs in this paragraph are both commented on in the Adages. That concerning Minerva refers to the attempt to teach something to someone who Cannot understand. The idea that women's folly sweetens the harsh nature of men oomes from Aulus Gellius (15, 2~, 2).

37. The banquet rituals include choosing a 'king' or president to prescribe who will sing, how much he must drink and in general to direct the festivities (see Horace, Odes, i 4, i8). 'Drinking healths' refers to a sort of friendly competition. 'Singing with a myrtle branch' is a proverb considered in the Adages and refers to the habit of passing round a stick of myrtle, held bv the singer and given by him to the guest whom he wished to sing.

38. The reference to 'poop and prow' is proverbial and is noted in the Adages. The Crocod~e's Syllogism is mentioned by Quintilian and is a trick. The example normally given is that of a crocodile promising to return to its mother a child he has snatched. providing she can correctly forecast what he will do. If she says he w~l return it, she is wrong. If she says he will not; she is right, but only if he in fact does not. The Horned Sorites is also in Quintilian and is best illustrated by dilemmas of the type posed by the question 'Have you stopped heating your wife?' Among the philosophers who p~aise the joys of friendship are the Stoics and Cicero. The tradition passed through St Ambrose into Christian writings and was strongly taken up both in the middle ages and in the renaissance, when friendship came to be considered as essentially disinterested, a union of wills divorced from desire and sensual inclination. The neoplatonist context of so rauch renaissance writing on the affections made friendship non-instinctive and, in spite of earlier gropings, it was not until the late sixteenth century that morally elevating friendship came to be considered even to be compatible with instinctively based affection. Erasmus, like the other humanists, reacted very strongly against the educational system largely focused round a knowledge of the next. complex rules of minor logic.

39. Most of this paragraph so far is a reminiscence of Horace, from whom it quotes and whom it paraphrases (Satires, i, 3). The eagle's eye is proverbially acute. The Epidaurian snake mentioned by Horace is Asdepius, Greek hero and god of healing, whose symbol was a snake, often coiled on a staff, and who originally came intQ prominence at Epidaurus. the site of his first and principal shrine. He is said to have come to Rome in the fo~m of a snake.

40. Argus had eyes in the back of his head. The Greek word for 'good nature' is taken from Plato's Repubhc (401e). Cupid is represented as blind both because the lover sees no defects in the object of his love and on account of the ill-assorted relationships over which he presides. The Greek phrase for 'ugliiaess looks like beauty' comes from Theocritus (6, 19) and the proverbial expression 'the old man loves his~old woman' is treated in the Adages. At the end of t'~ his paragraph. Folly suggests that love, however absurd, is the binding force of society. This is an allusion to the celebrated neoplatonist notion of love as the 'vinculum Mundi'. The renaissance neoplatonists, following Plotinus, saw the 'vinculum Mundi' in terms of God's love for men and men's love for one another and for God, so that love was circular, beginning and ending in God. Panurge, in the mock encomium of the early chapters of Rabelais's Third Book will facetiously hold that debt is the bond of society.

41. The idea that nature is only a stepmother is a well-known renaissance topos oliginating in Quintilian.

42. Nireus, according to Homer, was the most handsome of the Greeks, after Achilles, but a weakling (Iliad, 2, 671) and Thersites was the ugliest (Iliad, 2, 212). Nestor is said by Ovid to have lived to be more than two hundred years old (Metamorphoses, 12, 187, if.) while Phaon was rejuvenated by Venus (see note 29, p.82). The comparison between Nireus and Thersites occurs in Ovid and the allusion to Minerva corresponds to a reference in the Adages. Folly quotes Martial on being willing to he what you are (lo, 47,)

43. The men of Megara also figure in the Adages. This is a · proverbial expression for people of no account. The harsh note of the trumpets alludes to Virgil (Aeneid; 8, 2). The incidents concerning the Athenian orator Demosthenes and the advice of Archilochus the Ionic poet are both mentioned in Plutarch. Erasmus was withering in his satire on the futility of war, inheriting his view from Colet and the tradition of neoplatonist evangelism. He shared ~t with More and, even more, with Rabelais. Among Erasmus's own writings against war are the famous Dulce · bellum inexpertis from the 151S Adages and the 1517 Querela pacis, a 'complaint' put into the mouth of Peace.

44. The passage on Socrates draws on several Platonic dialogues, and notably the Apology. There is also a reference to Aristophanes on the midges' humming (Clouds, 146 and 157). The anecdote about Plato's reaction to the crowd is from Diogenes Laertius (2, 41). The incident involving Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, is of unknown origin unless, as Kan supposes, Erasmus bases his account on a misunderstanding of Cicero (Tusculan Disputations, 5, 9, 24). The effect of wolves is proverbial and is mentioned in the Adages. The mention of Isocrates, the Athenian orator, alludes to Cicero (de oratore, 2, 3, io). Cicero himself writes of his own nervousness when he spoke in public (pro Roscia Amerino, 4, 9). The reference Quintilian is to the Institutia oratoria, II, 1,43.P.F.L.-5

45. Plato's statement about philosopher.kings is from the Republic (5', 473d). Rahelais borrows this allusion for Gargantua (chapter 45). The Cato who is blamed by Folly for his denunciations is Cato the Censor (234-149 B.c.) who attacked the Scipios, became consul, and was noted for conservatism in a somewhat puritan tradition. The second Cato is Cato of Utica (95-46), moderate but unamiable, who joined cause with Pompey in 52 B.C. and who governed Utica in Pompey's interest during the civil war which Pompey lost to Caesar. Brutus and Cassius, oudawed by Octavian, lost the famous Battle of Philippi to Antony and Octavian. The Gracchi brothers were both reformers who attempted to undermine the authority of the senate by allying the rich business class with the plebs. Cicero was an intermittent enemy of Caesar and supporter of Pompey. Modern scholars would generally accept Folly's criticism of Marcus Aurelius. His son Commodus, sole emperor from A.D. i8o to 192, ruled by favourites and was much influenced by his concubine Marcia. He was obsessed by power and deeply antagonistic to the senate. Cicero's son, also Marcus Tuflius, born in 6~ B.C., is said to have heen idle, extravagant and devoted to the bottle.

46. The proverbial 'ass with the lyre' figures in the Adages, as do the prancing camel and the sudden silence caused by the wolf in the fable. Cato the Censor's serious frown is a commonplace of Latin literature. Lucian's dialogue Timon was translated by Erasmus in ~ Timon of Athens cut himself wholly off from the world and would see no one but Alcibiades.

47. Amphion and Orpheus both come from the well-known renaissance list of musicians whose music produced extraordinary or magical effects. Amphion was given a lyre by Jupiter and, t~ · gether with his brother, constructed the walls of Thebes by draw. mg the stones into position with his music. Orpheus, too, charmed -beasts, trees and stones with Apollo's lyre (see Horace, Ars poetica, 39! ff.). The legendary fable of the Belly and the Limbs which calmed the Roman mob and brought them back to Rome was reputedly told them by Menenius Agrippa in the fifth century B.C. (see Livy, 2, 32). Themistocle~, the Athenian statesman, is said by Plutarch to have dissuaded the Athenians from throwing off the yoke of taxation by a fable in which a fox will not have the blood. sucking flies removed by a hedgehog on the grounds that'they would · only be replaced by other unsatisfied ones. According to Plutarch, · Sertorius persuaded the Spaniards that the white hind signified that he~was in Communication with the gods, and the anecdote about the Spartan, also from Plutarch, concerned Lycurgus who demonstrated to the Spartans the importance of education by showing them the difference between a trained and an untrained dog. The reference to the hairs from the horse's tail comes from an anecdote in Valerius Maximus (7, 3, 6) in which Sertorius showed his barbarian army the futility of trying to overcome the Romans in one great battle by demonstrating that the only way to pluck a horse's tail was one hair at a time. Minos was believed by ~is people to retire every nine years to Jupiter's grotto to be inspired by the god. Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, is said by Plutarch to have made his followers helieve he was advised by the nymph Egeria in a wood near Rome. Polly's reference to the gullibility of the common people is a Common renaissance topos. It is historically important as it indicates the new and exciting nature of the insights into social and personal possibilities among those who experienced them. Erasmus was to explore the natural rectitude of moral aspirations but, like Rabelais and the Pl6iade poets, he could only plausibly do so on the presupposition that he was dealing with the well-born. High birth was a condition of entry into The'J~me. But there are classical precedents, and both Horace and Plato regard the common people as a monster.

48. The reference to the house of Decius draws its point from the deaths of three of its members at war for their country. The young knight Quintus Curtius, according to legend, rode his horse Into an abyss which opened in the forurn after the auguries had said that it could be closed only when Rome's greatest treasure was thrown into it (Livy, 7, 6, s). The phrase 'cast in bronze' alludes to Horace (Satires, 2,3, 183).

49. 'Mixing fire and water' is one of Erasmus's Adages, as is, the saying of liomer that the fool is wise after the event (Iliad, '7, 32) and the reference to clouding the judgement. The advantages claimed by Folly for folly have again become serious ones.

50. On the Silenus figure, see note 8, p.67. In his essay Sileni Alcibiadis for the i~i~ Adages, Erasmus writes,'.. For it seems that the Sileni were small images divided in half, and so constructed that they could he opened out and displayed; when closed they represented some ridiculous, ugly flute-player, but when they opened they suddenly revealed the figure of a god!' (Translated Margaret Mann Phillips, Erasmus on his Times: A Shortened Version of the Adages of Erasmus, Cambridge University Press, 1967. p.77.) The phrase for 'speaking bluntly' also occurs in the Adages. Kan's text here differs from Froben's and is probably corrupt. The Latin contains an allusion to Minerva, identified with Athene as goddess of wisdom, and implies that lofty discourse can obscure the simplest things.

51. Dama is the name given by Horace to a Syrian slave (Satires, 2, 5, i8; 2, 7, s4). The phrase 'true natural faces' appears. in the Adages.

52. The phrases for 'an eye for the main chance' and 'drink or depart' are both in the Adages.

53. The reference to the muses on Helicon alludes to Virgil (Aeneid, 7, 641). There was some confusion between the later Stoi~ who held only that man should overcome his passions and the sceptics like Pyrrho who held that they should not even feel pleasure or pain. Folly is rather harsh on Seneca, although some of his somewhat rhetorical formulations could be quoted in support of her view.

54. Lucian said of Plato's Republic that Plato was the only person to live in 'it (which implies a ~eliberate misunderstanding of its literary genre). Like Utopia, whi~h means nowhere, the gardens of Tantalus did not exist. Erasmus comments on the phrase in the Adages. The line quoted is from Virgil (Aeneid, Iv, 471). Parian marble was much esteemed for its durability. The Argonaut Lynceus, brother of ldas, had preternaturally sharp sight and is mentioned by Pindar and Horace as well as occurring in the Adages. The final sentence is very reminiscent of Horace (Satires, I, 3, 124-5), and its descri~ tion of the sage is a summary of one of the principal stoic 'para. doxes'.

55. Lijster, and therefore subsequent commentators, seem to have missed the obvious reference to Terence's famous comment 'homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto' (there is no human interest which is not my concern, Heautontimorumenos, 77). The phrase 'being pleasant to his wife' is an allusion to Horace (Epistles, 2, 2, '33).

56. It is Homer who refers to Zeus as contemplating from above men and their doings (iliad, 8, si). Folly here elaborates the well. worn theme of the miseries of human life. Miletus was one of the great lonian sea-ports, and, according to Aulus Gellius, there was a spate of suiddes among its young women. Folly's list of suicides is well known. Diogenes the Cynic and Xenocrates are sometimes said (as by Diogenes Laertius) to have committed suicide. Cato of Utica is perhaps the most famous of all the antique suicides (along with Socrates and Seneca) for renaissance authors. Both Cassius and Brutus killed themselves in 42 B.C. after Antony's victory at Philippi. Chiron, accidentally wounded by Hercules, preferred to die although he was immortal.

57. The words of Aristophanes were used by him to describe and there is a further allusion to Aristophanes in the phrase for a mate'. The reference to pubic hair alludes to Martial(10, 90) while the 'sagging and withered breasts', come from Horace (Epistles, 8, 7) as does the 'rousing of desire' (Odes, 4, '3, 5). This section contains a further reference to Horace in the phrase 'clap yourself' (Satires, 1, 1.66), and a further adage about 'the beam to hang from'.

58. Folly's specious arguments are ironic inversions of perfectly serious humanist contentions, and there is a strong element of self-parody running through Erasmus's text. The idea that non-physical evils do harm only in so far as one is conscious of them, for instance, is a caricature of the stoic view that, while there are legitimate affeetive reactions to present goods, future goods and future evils, there 4s no rational affective reaction to present evils, which exist only in the imagination. There is no rational grief as nothing which happens externally is a source of grief for the sage. Erasmus himself, strongly committed with all the humanists to a belief in man's power of autonomous self-determination, develops the view with 'which Epictetus' Manual opens, that our true good is in our power. It follows that all those things we cannot change, the fortuitous events of the external world, cannot constitute true goods or true evils. In the evangelical humanists generally, and particularly in Erasmus, Bud~ and Rabelais, the stoic principles of Epictetus were developed in the interest of supporting man's power of self~et~mination. As a result the common medieval idea of contempt for adversity is given a new significance. Erasmus wrote to Marguerite de Valois, soon to be Queen of Navarre, after the disas-' trous battle of Pavia in 1525, to congratulate her on her 'contempt for adversity, and this is the quality which defines Pantagruelism in the prologue to Rabelais's fourth book. In 1521 Bud~ published his three books de contemptu rerum fortuitarum and Erasmus's own early de con temptu mundi was published in the same year and republished in the 1529 edition of his great work on education de pueris... instituendis.

59. Thoth, the Egyptian god, is said to have invented numbers and letters and in Plato's Phaedrus (274) the Theban king Thamus ates the malignity of his influence. The Latin word for ~erbal wizards' also contains an allusion to the Phaedrus (266c). Folly continues to caricature the humanist arguments and to exploit them in an anti-humanist sense. For the scholastics as for the fifteenth-century Florentine Platonist Marsiho Ficino, man's nature occupied a fixed position in the hierarchy of being, hetween the spiritual and the material creation, and much of medieval spirituality and ethics centres on his need to live in accordance with his place in th~ hierarchy. 'Truth to type' was a serious ethical and spiritual principle although, in Erasmus's immediate predecessor, Pico della Mirandola, man had already become detached from the fixed hierarchy and was capable of self-determination in such a way as to be able to achieve parity of stature with the angels or degradation to the status of the irrational beasts (see the Introduction, pp.22-3). The argument that man should be guided by reason rather than by instinct was another serious ethical principle parodied here by Folly, with deliberate allusion to the Sermon on the Mount. But this is still self.parody rather than any serious attack on the 5 of scientific inquiry.

60. See Plato's Cratylus (396b). The etymological derivation of the demons, originally the manifestations of supernatural power, from the Greek word for knowing or teaching seems most unlikely.

61. The myth of the Golden Age is in some ways similar to that of the Islands ?~ the Blest (see note 14, p.71). It was originally an early paradise ruled by Saturn, a period of peace and prosperity without wars or violence and in which laws were superfluous. The earth was fertile without being cultivated and even the animals lived peacefully with one another. See especially Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, 89 ff. Macrobius points out that good laws derive from evil habits (Saturnalia, 3, '7, io). The Golden Age was an influential myth in the renaissance. but the most important feature of Folly's account, however, is the glossing over the problem of original sin. Th& early sixteenth centur~ went some way towards attempting to replace the authority of Augustine, gloomily conscious of human sinfulness, with that of Origen, who rainirnizes the effects of or~ginal sin on fallen nature. Erasmus himself in the i~i6 Paraclesis goes so far as to regard the philosophy of Christ and Christian rebirth as the 'establishment of well-formed human nature', iust as Folly here asserts the innocence of natural instinct. This is perhaps the heart of evangelical humanism. Erasmus always defended the view that human perfection, even religious perfection, was achieved in accordance with natural needs and moral aspirations, while the scholastics of the early sixteenth century thought of religious perfection in practice as something extrinsic to human needs and not empirically verifiable in human experience.

62. The Greek phrase about doctors comes from Homer (Iliad, i i, 5!4). The reference to flattery alludes to Socrates's discourse in Plato's Gorgias (463a). Since rhetoric was considered to be the art of moving an audience, so that Aristotle treats the passions of the soul in his Rhetoric, the affinity hetween rhetoric and flattery was natural. Doctors and lawyers were a favourite subject for satire well beyond the renaissance, and Folly's reference to the contrast between nature and art takes up another subject which was important in the renaissance but which was endlessly to occupy educational and poetic theorists for very much longer. Goethe and Schiller were still engaged in this debate.

63. The happiness of bees was something of a classical topos, and is to he found. for instance, in Virgil, Ovid and Pliny. Folly rememhers the Aeneid in the phrase 'bites the dust' (11, 418). The reference to the famous cock who had once heen Pythagoras comes from one of Lucian's dialogues translated by Erasmus. Does Folly helieve, with Pliny, that sponges are animals? The Latin term for 'broken comes from Horace (Epistles, I, I, 9).

64. On Gryllus, see note 5, p. ~8. 'Many~ounselled' is a Homeric epithet for Odysseus. Homer often calls mortals 'wretched', but as a matter of fact never 'long-suffering'. Odysseus, Latinized as Ulysses, is called 'unfortunate' in the Odyssey (e.g. 5, 436). The allusion to the giants who rehel against nature comes from Cicero (de senectute, 2,5).

65. The word used by Folly for the stoic 'syllogisms' is pejorative, denoting a suggestion which is not backed up by a logically cogent argument. The moral theologians traditionally grouped together the categories of the young and the mad ('infans et amens') as incapable of the moral self-determination implied by sin.

66. The reference to a 'delicate ear' is from Persius (Satires, I, 107). The proverb 'truth belongs to wine', discussed in the Adages, is important here, because it demonstrates that Erasmus was using the Ficino translation of Plato, whose mistranslation Folly adopts. The .text is from the Symposium (217e). The reference to Euripides 'is to the &icchae (369). The reference to the wise man's two tongues is not to an authentic text of Euripides (Rhesus, 394). Juvenal (Satires, 3' 30) mentions changing black into white. The phrase 'blowing hot~ an,d cold' alludes to one of Aesop's fables. Folly's allusion to the jesters of kings points to a custom which, familiar from Shakespeare, was already widespread ih the early sixteenth century, when there were real 'fook' renowned for their wisdom.

67. Fofly's words were not only to be confirmed a hundred years later in Shakespeare's plays, but they already 'corresponded to the authentic historical role of some of the great jesters.

68. The portrait of the wise man is uncomfortably like a grotesque caricature of Erasmus himself, whose self-parody cuts particularly deep in this section. Erasmus did 'fritter away' his youth in acquiring learning. He also worked extremely hard, was thrifty, intermittently impoverished and exceptionally waspish. He was also sickly almost to the point of hypochondria'.

69. The reference to Horace is to the Odes (~, 4, 5) and that to Aenea~ to the Aeneid (6, i3~). In Plato's Symposium (i8o), Pausanias proposes the division of love into the love which is common and includes that for a woman's body and that which is divine and seeks satisfaction only in the union of the souls. From this division result the double Venus and the double Cupid. Marsiho Ficino's famous commentary is at its most powerful at this point and Ficino himself in a letter coined the term 'Platonic love' to describe the higher and morally perfective affection. But unlike some of his followers, and Erasmus himself in the Enchiridion, Ficino himself holds the~ compatibility of the two loves. The doctrine of the four furores, poetic, Bacchic, prophetic and erotic, the forms of divine frenzy which move the soul to its reunification in the ascent of its love through the four circles Of creation to heatitude is elaborated in Ficino from the doctrine of Socrates in the Phaedrus (244). The poetic furor in particular w'as an important renaissance concept. It was used, for instance, to explain the religious and moral significance which S6billet and the Pl~iade attributed to poetic activity, and allowed them to insist on the need for the poet to be moved emotionally when he wrote. By 1546 Richard Le Blanc in his preface to the translation of Plato's Ion could go so far as explicitly to identify the poetic, furor with divine grace.

70. The reference to Cicero alludes to the Letters to Atticus (3, 13, 2). The quotations from Horace come from the Epistles (2, 2, 133 ff.). Hellebore was supposed to cure madness.

71. Th'e reference to taking a donkey for a mule is an allusion to Theognis (996) and the proverb 'rich as Croesus' is discussed in the Adages. From this point on Folly abandons for the time being her classical examples arid moves o,n to contemporary social criticism. Needless to say, she sees early sixteenth-century society through the eyes of Erasmus even when, as in the following section, she is clearly remembering Horace.

72. The view that no one is wise every hour of his life comes from Pliny (Historia Naturalis, 7, 4'). Penelope's fidelity to Odysseus is the framework of the Odyssey's narrative.

73. Seneca had argued in his de brevitate vitae that life is long enough if it is well spent. The verse comes from Propertius (2, 10, 6). Lijster suggests that the hunter's rites described by Folly are partly irlspired by Erasmus's experiences in England. The reference to builders comes from Horace (Epistles, I, 1, too). Erasmus was always ironical about alchemy, magic, astrology and superstition, so Folly naturally claims as her own the seekers after the fifth essence. Rabelais published his first two books under the name of M. Alcofribas, abstracteur de quinte essence.

74. Cape Malea, the southeast promontory of Laconia, was notorious for its shipwrecks and is mentioned as a pun on the Latin word for dice, alea.

75. Folly, having claimed various forms of indubitably foolish behaviour as her own, here tendentiously goes on to establish rights over forms of religious behaviour which could not easily be criticized with impunity, but about which Erasmus felt as strongly as Luther. The phrase for being 'of my kidney' (literally 'flour') comes from Persius (Satires, 5, 115). Much of Lucian's sceptical irreverence about the doings of the ancient gods is here applied to the contemporary Christian scene, with an important emphasis on clerical venality. In particular this paragraph appears to allude to the Philopseudes translated by More. The evangelical humanists were often bitterly opposed by the friars who had a virtual and lucrative preaching monopoly, and it is certain that the exploitation of the fear of death in later medieval religious practice was partly nourished by the economic needs of the clergy.

76. Erasmus frequently returned to the subject of the superstitious practices which had grown up round the cults of Saints. Several of the saints in the present section figure also in the Enchiridion and in the Colloquies A Pilgnmage for Religion's Sake and On the Eating of Fish. This Section of the encomium is to some extent an elaboration of parts of the Enchiridion. St Christopher. the third-century martyr, was according to legend enormous in Stature. The medieval paintings and statues are on that account often of generous dimensions, whence the comparison with the giant Polyphemus. A series of Latin rhymes testifies to the belief that no one would die on any day on which he saw a picture or carving of the saint. St Barbara, the third-century virgin martyr, was executed by her own father who, it is said, was struck dead by lightning as he finished his task. St Barbara subsequently became the patron of gunners and, in consequence, also the protectress of warriors. The allusion to the need to get the formula right is typical of the extrinsicism of much popular late medieval devotion. St Erasmus, martyred in the early fourth century, was usually invoked in certain illnesses and by sailors. Exactly why his inter. cession should be especially powerful in the production of wealth is uncertain.

St Hippolytus is said to have been martyred by being dragged behind two horses because Hippolytus, the mythological son of Theseus, was dragged to death behind his chariot when Poseidon at Theseus's request sent a sea-monster to frighten his horses. St George is celebrated in legend for his conquest of the dragon, as Hercules conquered the Hydra of Lerna. During the renaissance, Hercules often appears as a figure of Christian saints and even Christ himself. His labours, for instance, are depicted on the facade of the Colleoni Chapel in Bergamo (as well as at Lyons and on the Campanile in Florence) alongside Old Testament scenes. The Hercule Chretien is one of Ronsard's most celebrated Hymnes.

77. The word used by Folly for 'pardons' is a non-technical term which, while it suggests the forgiveness of sins, does not explicitly affirm anything beyond the much-disputed remissions not of guilt but of the residual 'temporal debt' due to sin which were known as indulgences. The 'temporal debt' remained after the sin itself had been repudiated and its guilt therefore remitted, and it is about this limited and residual effect of sin that the dispute raged. Indulgences were granted in particular for onerous works or for alms donated to specific causes (like the building of St Peter's in Rome or the prosecution of wars against the Turks). They cduld be applied to the souls of the defunct, thereby hastening or obtaining their release from Purgatory, the state of final purification from the effects of sin which was conceived as extending for definite but varying periods of time. In effect, therefore, if it was not possible to buy forgiveness from sin, it was possible to buy the souls of the dead out of Purgatory and into heaven, and to buy off the residual effects of one's own repented sins. Folly's remarks are carefully limited to counterfeit indulgences, just as her remarks about magic signs and prayers are carefully confined to those of venal impostors. 'Erasmus frequently expresses himself about indulgences, the chief subject of Luther's Wittemberg theses of 1517, most notably in the Enchiridion and the Exomologesis, always taking the view that all religious practice should be the expression of an inner moral conversion.

78. The Lernean morass was the legendary marsh where Hercules killed the hydra. Legend has it that a devil told St Bernard that he knew of seven verses from the Psalms which, if repeated daily, would ensure salvation. When he would not reveal which they were, the Saint is said to have replied that, since he recited daily the whole psalter, he must anyway include the seven magic verses. The list of superstitious practices concerned with local cults, special patrons and assured salvation was a long one, and it lived long enough for Pascal to attack it in his Provincial Letters. It was one of the principles of the evangelical humanists to restore the redemptive work of Christ to the centre of religious attention, and among the undoubted aberrations of late medieval piety was a cult of the virgin Mary which detracted from the proper place of Jesus in Christian devotion. During the whole of this section Lijster's notes back-pedal heavily as he explains throughout that it is only abuses to which Folly is drawing attention, and that she does not wish to attack authentic indulgences, the legitimate cult of saints or non-superstitious practices

79. The story of the man who swallowed poison and, to the displeasure of his wife, survived, comes from Ausonius (Epigrams, 10). The adulterous wife, wishing to kill her husband, gave him two Poisons together, of which either alone would have killed him but of which one was the antidote to the other. The lines of verse are taken, with slight changes, from the Aeneid I(6, 625-7).

80. Folly's irony at the expense of those who are over-concerned with providing for their own funerals is inspired by Seneca's de brevitate vitae, chapter 20.

81. The mention of the 'humblest worker' and the inclusion of Aeneas and Brutus in the list of desirable ancestors are reminiscences 9f Juvenal (Satires, 8, 181-2). The reference to Arcturus has sometimes been taken as an elliptical reference to the claim of the Tudor kings to descend from King Arthur. It most probably alludes to Cicero's de natura deorum (2, 42, 110). Arcturus, killed by drunken shepherds, was put in the heavens by Jupiter and became the constellation Boötes, while his daughter Erigone, who had killed herself the news of her father's death, became Virgo. Their dog, who led to her dead father, became Canicula.

82. On Nireus, see note 42, p.95. Euclid was of course the great geometer of the fourth century B.C. and Hermogenes was a famous singer from Sardia protected by Augustus and mentioned by Horace (Satires, 1, 3, 129). The rich man with the bad memory, called Calvisius Sabinus, is mentioned in Seneca's letters (27,5).

83. Folly is here drawing on popular caricatures and proverbial national characteristics, most of which occur elsewhere in Erasmus's writings, but which have little to do with Erasmus's personal views about the countries he mentions. Apart from the gratifying remarks about England, where Erasmus spent some of what must have been the happiest years of his life, the most noteworthy comments concern the Scots, the French and the Italians. In the early sixteenth century many Scotsmeh taught philosophy at Paris, which was undoubtedly the intellectual capital of northern Europe and whose theology faculty was totally intent on the pr~ servation of medieval orthodoxy, concerned neither with pastoral needs nor even, as a body, with monastic reform. Both the English and the French owed much to the new learning and new values which they found south of the Alps, but the French especially were at the same time concerned to vindicate the super~rity and antiquity of their own culture, for which they invented a glorious history. Anti-Italian jokes appear early in sixteenth.century France and are a by-product of the new national consciousness, often based on an attempt to revive twelfth.century glories.

84. On Kolakia, see note 16, p.74. After ironically praising self-love, Folly here goes on in the same style to praise flattery, a vice which, in the guise of servility to princes, Erasmus found both odious and dangerous. Erasmus however does not primarily object to flattery simply because it is insincere, and Folly makes little of that objection. The use of animal behaviour as an example to shame men is traditional and became very popular in later renaissance authors like Montaigne. The allusion to Horace, who favours a mean between insincere adulation and forthright criticism, refers to Epistles (1, 18, 508). The mules who scratch one another are proverbial and occur in the Adages. The argument that praise makes life tolerable is borrowed from Plato (Gorgias, 463a).

85. This paragraph begins with an allusion to the stoic view that man's true good depends not on what happens to him but on his own state of mind. which remains in his power. Historically this view was the ethical consequence of the sceptical contention, to which Folly goes on to refer, that we cannot know the true world. Although there is a clear distinction between the Stoics and the Academicians or Sceptics, the sixteenth century very often confused the two, powerfully assisted by Cicero who makes Pyrrho, the most important Sceptic, sound like an exaggerated Stoic. Folly is here drawing on Cicero's De Oratore (1, 10). On the subject of the saints mentioned here, see note 76, p.126. Folly is careful not to go so far as to say that they were not saints - it was to be four and a half centuries before they were dropped from the calendar.

86. Folly's views about the unimportance of grammar reflect Erasmus's impatience with those humanists whose grainmatical interests deflected them from absorbing the values and attitudes contained in classical literature. Apelles and Zeuxis are both famous Greek painters mentioned by' Pliny. 'Someone of my name' can only refer to Thomas More who had married in 1505. Plato's image of men as cave-dwellers who take the shadows they see for the only reality occurs at the be-ginning of Book 7 of the Republic. Erasmus frequently refers to this image for those who take shadows for the reality. and he had used it in the Enchiridion. At the beginning of Lucian's The Dream or the Cock, a dialogue translated by Erasmus, Micyllus complains that he cannot even escape from his poverty into beautiful dreams at night without being awakened by the cock.

P.F.L.-7 87. The regions flowing 'with rich hopes' are a reminiscence of Horace (Epistles, I. 15, 19). The reference to Hercules comes from, Persius (2. II). The Latin text uses for Mars the primitive 'Mavors' also used by Virgil. Phoebus is the cause of plague in the Iliad (i, 10 and si). The word used for 'Jupiters' is Vejoves, the piural form of, a hostile god and, in its singular form, given by Ovid to the youthful Jupiter (Fasti, 3.429 ff.). The word for 'Discords' is Atas, plural form of the goddess of discord, At~, on whom see note 32, p.85.,

88. Eris is the mother of At~ and also the goddess of discord, a title she earned by avenging the failure to invite her to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis by throwing into the midst of the guests the golden apple marked 'for the most beautiful', a gesture which led to the judgement of Paris and the Trojan war. Folly's reference to 'steaming victims' alludes also to Diana, who avenged herself on Calydon whose King Oeneus made offerings to all the gods except her (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 8, 276). The reference to human sacrifices a few lines lower is explained by the identification of the goddess to whom the ship-wrecked foreigners on Tauris were sacri'iced with Diana (Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto, 3,2, 53 and Tristia, 4' 4, 63).

89. This passage concludes the section dealing with Folly's powers. The next section opens the famous description by Folly of her followers. But in this section Folly drops her mask. She has claimed for herself the theologians who defend rites and superstition, but she now ~enlists among her devotees those who worship her in their hearts and express her in their habits. The irony is not totally consistent. After the theologians. Folly claims for her own those whose religion is interior and evangelical. The worship of the sun-god Apollo at Rhodes is associated with the cloudless sky above that city. Horace remarks on the cult of Venus at Cyprus (Odes. i, 3, I), of Juno at Argos (Odes, I, 7, 8~), of Minerva or Pallas, the eponymous goddess of Athens (Odes, I, 7, 5) and of Neptune in the town founded by his son Taras (Odes, 1, 28. 29), Olympus is Greece's highest mountain, seat of the king of the gods. Virgil (Georgics, 4, 3) mentions the association between Priapus and Lampsacus where he was born.

90. Folly here adopts the perspective of the gods in viewing human affairs,' and derives from Lucian's Icaromenippus. translated by Erasmus in 1512. The shedding of tears at a stepmother's funeral is a proverbial image of feigned grief which appears in the Adages. The man whose belly counts for all comes from Horace (Epistles, I, 15, 32) and many of the attitudes censured by Folly had been satirized by Persius, Juvenal or Horace. Folly remembers the patristic strictures on trading and ends the paragraph with an attack on merchants, no doubt with reference to the contemporary scene. For Erasmus the greed and self-interest of merchants was socially counter-productive.

91. The Pythagorean belief in the community of goods which, Folly says, allows people to make off with unguarded property. was none the less an ideal taken seriously by Erasmus, who devotes the first proverb of the Adages to discussing it, and by More, who makes it the basis for his Utopia. The early Fathers had been reluctantly concessive in allowing the legitimacy of private property. and Erasmus points out in the discussion of his first adage that the ideal which he takes from Plato could not be more Christian. The pilgrimage to the popular shrine of St James at Compostella was as important in the middle ages as that to Rome or Jerusalem. Erasmus did himself compose a liturgy for the pilgrimage shrine of the Virgin Mother of Loreto in 1523 without. however, alluding in it to the miraculous translation of the house said to have taken place in the thirteenth century but lirst recognized by a Bull of 1470. Menippus Is the ~ero of Lucian's Icaromenippus who comments from heaven on the behaviour of the gods and their view of men.

92. In late antiquity, Democritus was known as 'the laughing philosopher' on account of his attitude to the folly of the world. The 'five curses' are enumerated in an epigram of Palladas, listing the misfortunes alluded to in the first five lines of the Iliad, a text to which of course all 'grammarians' were exposed. The ass of Cumae probably refers to Aesop's ass in the lion's skin (which figures in the Adages). On Phalaris, see note 6, p. 66. Dionys~us was a famous tvrant of Syracuse. Folly's description of sch6ol-masters owes something to Juvenal's seventh satire and takes up a traditional butt of satirical attack. The grammarians or school-masters whom Folly treats so harshly were also elsewhere attacked by Erasmus, who believed in an educational system that was humane as well as humanist. He abhorred the harsh discipline and physical discomfort of the Parisian colleges, and especially the ColI~ge de Montaigu under the reforming Standonck which he had attended in 1495-6. He was later to lampoon Montaigu in the colloquy On the Eating of Fish in 1526, by which time it had become the focal point of the scholastic opposition to evangelical humanism.

93. Palaemon was the first Roman grammarian to write a fully comprehensive grammatical treatise. He was known also for his arrogance and notorious morals, and lived under Tiberius and Claudius. Donatus lived in the fourth century A.D. and taught St Jerome. His grammar was the standard text-book throughout the middle ages. In his seventh satire Juvenal mentions the 'name of Anchises' nurse' as an instance of the unknowable things grammarians quarrel about. The conquest of Africa and the capture of Babylon were proverbial expressions for the achievement of the impossible.

94. Aldus Manutius, the famous humanist and printer, opened his press at Venice in 1485. By 1500 his house had become the centre of a small academy of Greek scholars, and the famous Roman small type-face, said to be copied from the ha~d of Petrarch, was known to humanists throughout Europe. Erasmus came to call in 1507 and stayed to see the Adages througli the Aldine press in i~o8. He writes of Aldus in the rSo8 adage Festina lente and again, waspishly d~ fending himself against attack after Aldus's death, in the 571 col~quy Opulentia Sordida. Alberto Plo, a pupil of Aldus who from 1525 was convinced that Erasmus was a Lutheran in disguise, felt it necessary to defend Aldus against what he erroneously took to be an attack on him in this passage on grammarians. Erasmus's reply makes it clear that no offence was intended or could reasonably be taken, but his reminiscences of Venice in the colloquy were coloured by his need to defend himself against accusati6ns that he had acted as a paid proof-reader for Aldus and risen drunk from his table.

95. That 'poets are a free race' is a proverb quoted by Lucian and used in the Adages. The theme of poetic immortality touched on by Folly is a commonplace associated especially with Horace. The popular rhetorical handbook Ad Herennium was once thought to be by Cicero, but this attribution was questioned from the fifteenth century. Quintilian deals with laughter in a famous chapter (book 6, chapter 3) of the Institutia oratoria which he published towards the end of the first century A.D.

96. Persius and Laehus come from Cicero's de Oratore (2, 6,25) where they signify the very learned and not so learned for reasons which are historically obscure.

97. The Greek phrase for the 'great man himself' is a reminiscence of Horace (Odes, 4, 3, 21-3). The 'three names' of each author refer to the Roman usage in which a middle name denoted nobility. Tele ·~machus was the son and Laertes the father of Ulysses. Stelenus is not classical and may be a mistake for the Sthenelus who was a tragic poet of the fifth century B.C. Polycrates was an Athenian orator and sophist (see note 5, p. ~8). Thrasymachus was a sophist and rhetorician from Chalcedon in the fifth century B.C. Polly alludes to the Aristotelians who used letters like alpha and beta for numbers and signs, Alcaeus was a famous Greek lyric poet of the seventh Century B.C. The two names are mentioned together by Horace (Epistles, 2, 2, 99). The final verse about the hesitant mob is from the Aeneid (2,39)- Folly's advice to plagiarize touches on a practice to which Erasmus became increasingly sensitive. In 1533 he added to the adage Festina lente, pointing out how ill-regulated the printing trade had become. The law had not yet caught up, and the press which had once been welcomed as the instrument for the dissemination of the great works had become, says Erasmus, the tool of commerdal exploiters.

98. Sisyphus was condemned everlastingly to roll a large rock up a mountain only to see it fall down again just before it reached the top. The humanist lawyers like Erasmus's contemporary Bud~ were erned to disinter the text of ancient legislation from under the burden of medieval glosses which had hitherto determined its interpretation. Dodona was the seat of an ancient oracle of Jupiter.. whose priests interpreted the rustling of leaves and the clanging or vibrating of copper pots in the wind. Goat's wool signifies something trivial value in the Adages. Stentor was the Greek In the Trojan war whose voice (Iliad, 5, 785) sounded like that of fifty men. The inclusion bf lawyers among the followers of Folly might seem less surprising than the omission of doctors, since later satirists neither, and Folly had earlier mentioned them both together (chapter 33). But even the lawyers are here seen as merely garrulous rather than the venal or stupid characters for which many later took them. Both legal and medical studies were being reLewed by Erasmus's humanist contemporaries.

99. On the philosophers, Folly delights in cataloguing the subtle abstractions of the scholastics. All the terms listed here were used in the context of disputes about universal ideas behind which in fact were hidden totally different views about man. Generally Platonist psychological presuppositions led to the view either that universal concepts like 'tree-ness' were merely words with nothing to correspond to them in reality or that actual things were modifications of realized 'universal' ideas. Both solutions entailed theological difficulties, and there developed a more Aristotelian epistemology in which the universal concept was 'abstracted' from a perception by a process which always remained obscure. Quiddities or essences defined the nature of particular objects whether or not they had being or existence. Ecceities were important in the Scotist reaction against Thomist realism. They designated individual natures not really but only 'formally objectively' distinct from a common or~ universal nature. Forms were the object of intellectual abstractions conferring reality and numerical distinction for the Aristotelian scholastics on objects whose other component was 'prime' or undifferentiated matter. The cloaks and beards which philosophers wore do 'jot, Erasmus elsewhere assures us, themselves suffice to make a philosopher. On Lynceus, see note 54, p.107.

100. The 'mud of Camarina' refers to a swamp which, when drained against Apollo's orders, then allowed the city to be sacked by its enemies. It is proverbial for the cause of one's own ruin and is discussed in the Adages. The 'noxious plant' (Anagyris foetida or bean trefoil) is the subject of the following adage. Vulcan used an invisible net to envelop his unfaithful wife Venus and her lover Mars (Odyssey, 8, 270 ff.). Its mesh was close enough to immobilize them. The axe of Tenedos is discussed in the Adages. It is a weapon for wreaking swift justice and cutting through ambiguities and excuses. Folly's long indictment of the theologians lies at the very heart of the Praise of Folly and of Erasmus's evangelical humanism. The ironic mask has gradually been lowered through the succession of followers from grammarians to philosophers until Folly, in this paragraph, attacks her own followers in' something very like the voice of Erasmus. The form becomes freer. Bantering irony gives way more often to withering sarcasm at first and then to total seriousness in the praise of evangelical folly. Although the ironic mask is frequently resumed, it is no longer consistently worn, until in the last paragraphs of all Folly grasps for it hastily and admits that she has forgotten who she is.

101. Folly's implication, of course, is that the scholastics, enmeshed in their own abstract categories, were more intrested in speculative subtleties than in questions relevant to religious and moral experience. The Paris theologians, with very few exceptions, regarded themselves as above all custodians of an orthodoxy which i~ their view needed to have no pastoral relevance. or link with human experience. It remains, however, true that some of the questions listed by Folly such as the origin of the world and the transmi~ sion of guilt were matters of obvious religious significance, that the scholastics themselves were often aware of the religious relevance of the apparently abstruse matters they discussed, and that others originated in classroom debates on issues considered trivial but which could be used to teach the techniques of theological debate. There was in fact a serious debate about whether the wo~d existed from eternity, which the fourth Lateran Council had failed satisfactorily to settle in 1215. The transmission of original sin was also subject to debate, but Solutions to this pr6blern were wrapped up with views about universal ideas, as it was obviously easier to understand the transmission of original sin if all men' were actual modifications of the universal 'humanity', and those who rejected exaggerated' realism had to find alternative hypotheses for the ~nsmission of sin. The subsistence of the accidents of bread when substance of the Eucharistic species had been changed was a serious difficulty caused by the application of Aristotelian categories to a phenomenon they were never intended to explain. The moment of divine generation and the number of filiations in Christ had been discussed in the context of the Arian debates and the 'Filioque' dispute which split eastern and western Christians, but were not important issues in the late middle ages. Erasmus mentions these with similar distaste in the preface to his 1523 edition of St Hilary. The 'hatred' of the Father for his Son, who had assumed the sins of the world, was a hypothesis about the theology of the redemption accepted even by so late an author as Bossuet. Discus- about the forms in which God could have become incarnate were of pedagogical utility only, although it appears from a letter to Colet of '499 that Erasmus had had to put up with them. The of consecrating the Eucharistic species 'before the, r~ tion posed real problems of sacramental causality and was a stone for the whole theology of the sacraments.

102. The idea that the murder of a thousand is a lesser crime than' the breaking of the Sabbath derives from the exaggerated application of the scholastic pnnciple that crimes against God have a malice not intrinsic to crimes against men. That a lie may not be told to save the world from destruction admirably illustrates the wax the scholastics derived moral norms from abstract principles rather than human needs. Lies are intrinsically evil. The end does not justify the means, and no extrinsic end can therefore justify a lie. The application of abstract principle is logical, but the resulting norm takes no account of charity or compassion. Realists an4 nominalists were so called from the opposite positions they took up in the debate about universals. The realists believed that the universal was in some way realized in individual objects and the nominalists that universals were merely logical categories. Thomists were the followers of Thomas Aquinas (died 1274), now acknowledged to be the greatest of the scholastics but whose system, which automatically geared divine command to human moral aspiration, found general recognition only after the humanist reform of theology in the sixteenth century. Albertists were followers of Albertus Magnus (died 1280), teacher of Thomas Aquinas, notable for his scientific work and his openness to the new Aristotelianism. 'Qckhamists and Scotists were followers respectively of William of Ockham (died 1347) and Duns Scotus (died 1308), boih of whom took part in the reaction against Aquinas which led to the late medieval nominalist emphasis on the transcendance of God and the arbitrary nature of his revelation and his law.

103. Paul's description of faith comes from Hebrews xi, I. The thorny problems of Eucharistic the~ogy led in the early sixteenth tury to a great variety of views and all the points mentioned by Folly were in fact discussed. In the attempts at reconciliation both at Ratisbon ni 1541 and at Poissy in i~6i Eucharistic theology was apparently (but perhaps only apparently) the one irreconcilable doctrinal issue separating the two sides of the schism opened up by the Reformation. The doctrine of Mary's immaculate conception to which Folly goes On to refer had been accepted by the Paris theology faculty only in 1497. Scotus had argued against Aquinas that it did not compromise the unique mediation of Christ, but his treatment of the question made the immaculate conception into a Marian privilege not clearly relevant to religious experiences, although it is of funda'mental importance for an onderstanding of the effects of the r~ demption. The 'keys' mentioned in Matthew xvi, 19, signified the 'ruling' power of the Church, which is distinct from its teaching authority. The point made by Folly refers to the Scotist insistence that the power of the Church to teach does not derive from the learning of its prelates and theologians. On baptism, the scholastics were caught up in the attempt to apply to the sacraments the four types of cause in Aristotle, formal, material, efficient and final. The 'character' of baptism is indelible, although not all the sacrament's effects are permanent. It accounts for the fact that baptism may not be received more than once. The scriptural reference to worship 'in spirit and in truth' comes from John iv, 24.

104. The scholastic theologians distinguished between three cat~ gories of worship, applicable respectively to God, Mary and the other saints. Some at least, says Lijster, held that the images should themselves be venerated with the category of worship applicable to the subject signified, although the veneration of images apart from the subjects they signified was neither int~nded nor discussed. The iconographical details are those conventionally applicable to images of Christ. On grace Erasmus uses the technical scholastic terms gratia gratis data and gratia gratificans (for which Lijster has the more usual Uratia gratum faciens). The technical English equivalents are 'actual' and 'sanctifying' 'grace. Sanctifying grace produces an enduring State of soul known as justification, while 'actual' grace belongs not to the soul but to its operative faculties like inellect and will, and enables them to perform, for instance, the meritorious works which either prepare for or flow from justification. The sentence about the opus operantis and the opus operatum does not appear in the Froben i~i~ edition, and the Kan text is certainly wrong in printing opus operans (for opus operantis). The distinction was made to emphasize that the validity of a sacramental rite (the opus operatum) is independent of the religious disposition of the officiating minister (the opus operantis). The distinctions of charity are parallel to those of grace. Charity is infused at the moment of the justification which it effects. But its own effects on the operative faculties can be augmented and, in this case, it is possible to talk of 'acquired' charity. The charity which is infused into the soul has to be created, but the full effect of justification cannot be explained unless in some sense God's uncharity is Communicated to us, so that the distinction became necessary in the attempt to explain the metaphysics of justi. fication. Whether grace achieves in us a 'substantial' or an 'accidental' modification was a question bound to arise in any discussion of the modalities of justification inside Aristotelian categories. St Paul's condemnations of dissension and vain dispute are to be found, for instance, in I Timothy (i, 4; vi, 4 and 29), 2 Timothy (ii, i6 and 23) and Titus (iii, 9). Chrysippus was the subtlest of Stoic philosophers.

105. Before it became a literary form the Quaestio de quolibet was a scholastic exercise held twice a year. The subjects were unconnected with the ordinary course of lectures and disputations, were often genuinely disputed questions and often aroused much passion in the audience, which was allowed to participate. Quodlibet is the name given first to these solemn disputations and then to published treatments of theological questions suitable for defending at one of these acts. Penelope, the wife of Ulysses, never finished he'r web because she unwove at night what she had done during the day.

106. The scholastics drew on an increasing range of censures from ''heretical' down to 'offensive to pious ears'. Folly throws in a few variations of her own. The phrase for 'greatest of Aristotelians' is a Greek coinage of Erasmus not intended to be ironical. Folly, it should be noticed, is' iauch harder on Scotus and his followers than on Thomas Aquinas. The final sentence of this passage mocks at scholastic ignorance of and lack of concern for proper Latin usage.

107. Jupiter, having swallowed the pregnant Metis in case his child dethrone him, felt a pain in his head and asked Vulcan to t open, whereat Pallas Athene emerged from it fully armed. is some doubt whether Folly goes on to refer to heads swathed In bandages or doctoral bonnets. Folly, like Erasmus and many of the humanists, clearly associates non-classical, careless and erroneous Latin usage with the decay ol true religion. and accuses the theologians of responsibility foi both. The fun made of the MAGISTER NOSTER was to be notably ploited by the humanist Ulrich von Hutten's ironic attack on t scholastics in 15t5, the Letters to Obscure Men, written to defend the humanist theologian Johannes Reuchlm. Reuchlm was a Hebraeist, the first of the humanists to provoke a concerted attack from-the scholastics. After his death, Erasmus wrote a colloquy on his 'apotheosis' (1522). Erasmus had meanwhile quarrelled with Hut. ten who, having become a Lutheran, wished to turn the old Holy Roman Empire into an all-German kingdom and do away with any connexion with Rome. Against him Erasmus wrote his Sponge 1523. The tetragram consisted of the four Hebrew consonants in the name of God, I H w H. Out of respect the word was never written out in full or pronounced. 'Jehovah' combines the consonants with the vowels from the Hebrew for 'lord'. Iii the next paragraph, the first sentence alludes to the derivation of the word 'monk' from the Greek for solitary.

108. Cilician goat's hair is rough and Milesian wool exceptionally fine. 'Cordeliers' was a generic name for all Franciscans or friars minor. Fqlly deliberately chooses some lesser known orders and lesser known names for well known orders. By the' time Erasmus came to write the Praise of Folly. serious attempts at monastic reforms were being made. But it is true that some orders, notably the Franciscans, were extremely distrustful of learning, and especially the humanist learning which they regarded as leading to heresy. When Rabelais was a Franciscan, his Greek hooks were confiscated. The earliest French humanists were themselves favourable to the monastic vows. Some indeed were monks. But the Parisian humanists favourable to monks were inclined to feel that if only priests understood Latin all would be well again. This was the view of Josse Clic'htove, an early humanist who defended the monastic vows, worked for the reform of the monasteries and was strongly anti-Lutheran. He typifies a party of humanists less reactionary than the rest of the Paris theology faculty, but less radical than Erasmus, whom Clichtove attacked soon after the publication of the Praise of Folly. Stories of debauched. drunken and lecherous monks may be exaggerated, but totally irreligious behaviour was scandalous and widespread. Folly gets the mentality with pitiless accuracy when she points to the mi~ture of excessive punctiliousness in rule-keepmg with wide-ranging breaches of the spirit and letter of the vows. Her most important criticism is that directed against the impositiofl of uniformity on people of different gifts and temperaments. This was the kernel of the moderate humanist criticism of the religious orders and is frequently found in Erasmus.

109. The Abraxasians were a gnostic sect be)ieving in 365 spheres or heavens, a number they arrived at by totting up the numerical equivalents for the Greek letters in the word abraxas.

110. The reference to the 'sop for Cerberus' alludes to the Aeneid, 6,419. 'Mendicant' was a term which covered all the orders who begged for their living and were therefore not cloistered. Certain canonical privileges, particularly associated with confessional jurisdiction, attached to this status. The sacrament of penance, demanding auricular confession, was attacked by all the reformers. Some of the late medieval handbooks, with their insistence on specifying the last theological su~species of guilt for validity of absolution, explain why Calvin, for instance, found it so distasteful. Erasmus wrote a good deal about the sacrament and seems himself to have confessed regularly, if rarely. In general he emphasizes not the sacramental validity but the occasion offered by the sacrament for obtaining advice and direction. It was of course forbidden under the most rigorous canonical penalties for a confessor to reveal anything which could connect a penitent with a sin.

111. Bel is the dragon of Daniel xiv. The signs of'the Zodiac are not totally without relevance to fastIng. The Lenten fast, roughly coinciding with the sun's entry into the segment Aries, was occasionally justified by reference to the change in the humours coincident on the astronomical event. In the next paragraph Folly refers to Horace, Satires, 2, 7, 21.

112. The proverb 'blind as a mole' is discussed in the Adages. Ovid (Metajuorphoses, 6, 152 if.) recounts how Niobe's seven sons were all killed by Apollo's darts and her seven daughte'rs by Diana before she herself was turned to stone as a punishment for scorning Leto, mother of Apollo and Diana. The figwood Priapus which cracked in fright at the rites of Canidia and Sagana comes from Horace (Satires, 1, 8). The phrase 'where's that taking him?' comes from Virgil (~ucolics, 3, 19). The introduction to the sermon based on the letters of the name 3esus is reminiscent of the number mysticism and caballistic interpretations still popular in the early sixteenth century. Even though many of the humanists wrote occasionall~ in this style, Erasmus was firmly opposed to it.

113. The phrase for what 'has never been known on earth,or in heaven' comes from Lucian's Alexander which Erasmus had translated. The 'great scholastics acquired honorific titles by which they were known to later generations. Thomas Aquinas was the 'doctor angelicus', Scotus the 'doctor subtilis', Bonaventure the 'Pater seraphicus', Ockham the 'doctor invincibilis'. 'Irrefragabills' was used only of Alexander of Hales. The famous Mirror of Vincent of Beauvais, like the Gestia Romanorum, is a popular thirteenth-century handbook printed in the late fifteenth century and often used as a source of exempla. The middle ages classified commentaries on scripture into four categories of interpretation, so that each text could have a literal meaning, an allegorical meaning (drawing the religious lesson), a tropological (moral) me~ning and an anagogical (mystical) meaning. The four-fold possik~lity of each text was summarized in the famous rhyme.

Littera ~esta docet; quid credas allegon~a;
Moralis, quid agas; quid speres, anagogia.

The Enchiridion contains several examples of the allegorical exegesis of the Old Testament. The reference to Horace alludes to the opening of the Ars poetica 'Supposing a painter chose to put a human head on a horse's neck - could you help laughing?'

114. On the 'ass with the lyre' see note 46, p.99. The saints Antony ~d Paul referred to were hoth fourth-century hermits.

115. The political thought of Erasmus scarcely changed through his career and is conveniently summarized in the 1516 treatise the Education of a Christian Prince, written for the future Charles V. Its main characteristics are the insistent pursuit of peace in all circumstances, a consequent dislike of treaties and pacts. a preference for the arbitrated settlement of disputes, for a limited monarchy under a prince himself subject to the laws, and a state where social harmony is erected on economic prosperity and controlled by the laws. There is also a clear view of the dangers of any succession. Underneath Folly's depiction of the dangers faced by princes emerges a portrait of the ideal prince, subject to his own laws, devoted to the welfare of his people. intent on the suppression of corruption and mindful of his own salvation. Deviating 'by a hair's breadth' from the norm is a proverb discussed in the Adoges. The Latin for 'leave all these concerns in the lap of the gods' is taken from Horace (Odes. 1,9,9).

116. Flattery is of course a recurrent theme in Folly's declamation in Erasmus's works. The second chapter of the treatise On the ducation of a Christian Prince is entitled 'The Avoidance of Flat-'ers'. The Phaeacians (Odyssey, 6, 8), were noted for luxurious living. Penelope's suitors are dismissed as idle and luxurious layabouts by .'e in the poem Folly refers to (Epistleg, I, 2).

117. The phrase for 'careless look~out', in Greek in the text, combines an allusion to an Homeric usage (e.g. Iliad, 10, ~i5) with a pun on the literal sense of 'episkopos' or overseer. Folly is of course right in pointing out that liturgical ceremonial ecclesiastical protocol were developed under the influence of procedures. Cardinals, in particular, grew from parish priests the Roman titular churches, a status which still gives them the right to elect the bishop of Rome, into ecclesiastical princes, with privileges of jurisdiction and dress to match their new~status. In the Enchiridion and elsewhere. Erasmus frequently makes the point that ecdesiastical titles deuote not power or status but func tion' 118. The 'grain of salt' Christ spoke of refers to Matthew V, 13. The 'fine-sounding' benedictions to which St Paul refers are thos~ of the spreaders of dissension and deceivers of guileless hearts offer 'flattering talk' and 'pious greetings' (Romans xvi, iB). The 'painted scenes of judgement' depicted the fate of the damned Interdicts, suspensions and anathemas were, like excommunication. canonical penalties. Their efficacy however was in the order not grace but of ecclesiastical organization, a point which neither Folly nor the middle ages as a whole properly appreciated. · The 'dreaded thunderbolt' is presumably either excommunication or perhaps the solemn curse. · The quotation 'we have forsaken all' comes from Matthew xix 27.

119. The connexion between war and the Furies refers to the Aeneid, 7, 323. The reference to 'decrepit old men' alludes clearly to II who was over 6o when he' acceded to the papacy. For the' next ten years he made war, even allying himself with the Turks, and revalued the depreciated silver coinage of the papacy, thereby considerably improving the papal income. Erasmus, who had had to get out of the way of the papal army, was witheringly con- as Folly's satirical portrait makes clear. The attribution Erasmus of the Lucianic dialogue abo4t Julius's attempt to enter aven, the Julius exciusus, written in 1513. is disputed. Lijster, who perpetually apologizing for Erasmus's audacities, thinks him r~ ained on the subject of Julius II.

120. Erasmus, always c6nscious of the abuse of hierarchical fanc' as the source of power or wealth, held that ecclesiastical pr~ demanded an increasing likeness to Christ. He used this in a lost essay on the war waged by Julius II. 'Seculars' differ from 'religious' (who need not be priests) in that, 'ithough obliged to celibacy, they do not take the three formal vows poverty, chastity and obedience. In addition, the ancient orders - exempt from hierarchical jurisdiction and are responsible only ~ugh their own superiors to the pope. Not all religious or 'regu-are monks, who have the added obligation of the cloister which when strictly applied, that they may not leave their monas~ is interesting that Folly implies that the mendicants, who in-the Franciscaus, pass for less worldly than the monks, who at any rate probably richer. The Carthusians were the most and the most contemplative of ail the monastic orders. Thomas More seriously considered joining them. They are norn Considered not to have been in need of reform, even at this date.

121. In the paragraph preceding this one, Folly, realizing she is not supposed to he writing satire, makes play of the fact that she has heen speaking with Erasmus's voice. Nemesis, who personifies avenging justice, presided over the punishnaent of pride and the avenging of injustice in the world. The various phrases in Greek in original text come from a series of adages, with another allusion by Folly to the identity of her inventor. Timotheus was an Athenian general of the fourth century B.C. denial that he owed his victories to Fortune brought swift retribution. His name means 'favoured by Cod'. The first two adages refer to man's inability to help himself and his need to rely on For-tune. 'Being born on the fourth (month)' like Hercules presaged lahours and trials. 'Sejanus's nag' brought misfortune to its owners, while whoever touched the gold of Toulouse died in agony (Aulus Gellius, 3, ~, ~). The 'die is cast' is another proverb discussed in the Adaaes. The reference a few lines later to 'pleasing princes' alludes to Horace (Epistles, I, 17, 35), who thinks there are greater titles to fame.

122. Here ends the central section on Folly's followers. Folly now 'announces the final section of the dedamation, devoted to the wise ~who have praised her and, in particular, to Pauline folly, Since this Christian folly is praised without a trace of irony. the Pr'aise of Folly ends with a remarkable feat of double irony as it transforms itself from a mock encomium into a real one.

123. The introductory paragraph to the final section is still ban. tering in tone, as in logic. The line about playing the fool in season comes from one of Cato's distichs, learned by heart by every grammar~chool child in the middle ages. The 'sleek porker from Epicurus's herd' is an expression Horace uses of himself (Epistles, 1,4. 16). Ilis advice to mix folly with counsel is in Odes, 4, 12, 27-8. The other Horatian reference is to Epistles, 2,2, 126. Hoi~ier called Telemachus a silly child (Odyssey, II, 449). The quotation from Cicero comes from the letters (To his friends, 9.22, 4)-

124. Folly has already once invoked the Muses from Helicon, rememhering the Aeneid (7, 641). The Sorbonne was the seat of the Paris faculty of theology, not especially Scotist in its views but r~ actionary and sharing with Scotist theology the presuppositions

125. Erasmus quotes scripture from memory and is frequently in accufate. The long catena of scriptural quotations hegins in this paragraph with the following: Ecciesiastes i, is; Jeremiah x, 14; x. ~ and 12; Jeremiah ix. 23; Ecclesiastes ~ and xii, 8; Ecclesiasticus Xxvii, 12; Matthew xix, 17. i88 189 PRAISE OF ~OLLY 126. Proverbs xv, 21; Ecclesiastes i, i8; Ecciesiastes vii. 4; Eccle-Siastes i, 17. The reference to Ecclesiasticus xliv seems wrong and is too vague to permit of identification elsewhere.

127. Rhetoric, I, 6. The proverb is discussed in the Adaaes.

about the extrinsic nature of human perfection which Erasmus most dislikes. The reference to Priapus recalls Horace (Satires, i,8, i).

128. Ecclesiasticus xx, 33; Ecclesiastes x, 3; Proverbs xxx, 2; 2 Corinthians xi, 23. There follows at this point another reference to Erasmus by Folly.

129. The experts in the three tongues (Latin. Greek and Hebrew) were the humanists who insisted that a knowledge of the ancient tongues was the indispensable tool for theological studies in further- of an evangelically based religion. Trilingual foundations were made notably at Cologne, Louvain and Alcala, while the ideal that inspired them also inspired foundafions elsewhere, as at Oxford. Fran~ois I put out feelers to Erasmus with a view to his making: such a foundation in France, but nothing came of the project until the institution of the royal lectureships from 1530 onwards. The theologian referred to and barely disguised in the reference to the ass and the lyre was Nicholas of Lyra who died in 1349. It was said in the sixteenth century, that if Lyra had not played his lyre, Luther would not have danced (Si Lyra non lyrasset, Luther non saltasset). He wrote a series of Postillae Litterales on the Old and New Testaments, carefully distinguishing hetween literal and mystical senses of the text. They were immensely influential and were the first commentary on the Bible to he printed (1471-2). Folly is of course making clear in h~r reference to Erasmus and trilingual pedantry that she is 'conferring only an ironic compliment on Nicholas of Lyra by, embracing his view.

130. The incident of St Paul and the inscription at Athens is r~ ounted in Acts xvii, 23. What Folly says is narrated by Jerome in ~liis commentary.

131. The text of Luke whose interpretation Folly accuses Nicholas of Lyra of distorting is xxii, 35-i. The texts about swords to which Folly refers are presumably Matthew xxvi, S2 and John xviii, Ix, but nowhere does Christ order a sword to he ho ughL secular power to do its will by the application of spiritual sanctions. The 'man from Tenedo,s' is discussed in the Adages.

132. The second theologian appears to be the hermit of St Augustine, Jordan of Quedlinhurg (sometimes called Jordan of Saxony, but to be confused with the Dominican general of that name), a iystical writer and preacher who died in 1380 or 1370. The reference Habakkuk is iii, 7. There are different traditions about the death of St Bartholomew, whQ may have been beheaded. St Paul's use of devita is from the letter to Titus (iii. io) and the reference to the maleficus is in Deuteronomy xiii, 5, (where th& Latin term is 'fictor somniarum'). The Greek word for devita means in fact 'avoid'. In his translation of the New Testament, Erasmus says 'flee'. There was in fact technically no death penalty for heresy as such, since heresy is an ecclesiastical crime. Heretics were delivered to the ~cular power and put to death normally for 'blasphemy'. The effect the same, and the Church was quite capable of forcing the '9S

133. Chrysippus is said to have written more than seven hundred works. Didymus, the Greek contemporary of Augustus, is said to have written 3,500 or 4,000, of which none has survived. The texts of St Paul referred to in this paragraph are 2 Corinthians xi, '9, i6 and 17 and i Corinthians iv, 10; iii, 18; i, 25; i, i8. The reference to Luke is to xxiv, 25 and that to the Psalms to Psalm lxviii, 6 (Vulgate; R~.V. lxix, ~). Origen, the third-century Greek Father whose understanding Christian dogma within a neoplatonist framework later caused his work to be condemned, was a very important figure for the evangelical humanists. Pico della Mirandola had defended him (in a thesis which in turn was' condemned), and the early sixteenth century saw a real attempt to replace the authority of the anti-Pelagian Augustine with that of a rehabilitated Origen, whose doctrine clearly harmonized more easily with the humanist determination to understand Christian perfection in terms of moral fulfilment. Erasmus w''as notably favourable to Origen.

134. Caesar's fear of Brutus and Cassius who were pale and thin is eported by Plutarch (Life of Caesar, 62), as is his failure to fear the sleek Antony. Shakespeare draws on the same passage of Plut in Julius Caesar, I, ii, Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look, He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. Tadtus says that Nero distrusted his former tutor Seneca (Annai~ Is, 62 if.). The tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse sent Plato away in dis~ grace. The scripture quotations in this section are I Corinthians i, and 21, Isaiah xxix, '4 (but Folly confuses this text with i ( inns i, '9) and Matthew Xxiii. 13-15 and 23~7.

135. The ass is mentioned in Matthew Xxi, 2 and the dove Matthew iii, s6. The parable of the good shepherd Is in John Aristotle's proverb is discussed in the Adages. The expression Lamb of Cod' appears in John i, 29 and 36 and throughout tl~ Apocalypse ~eveIation). 136. The remarkable animation of this passage in its plea for learned or spiritual ignorance derives from the tradition of unlettered piety which Erasmus absorbed from the devotio moderna and the Brethren of the Common Life, and which it was his personal achievement to integrate with Christian humanism. In this final section of the Praise of Folly Erasmus takes a,dvantag'e of the ironic form to put his ideal w'ith total seriousness into the sort of paradoxes in which the evangelists recount the moral teach-" i'~ng of Christ. However, what Folly says here does not exclude the need~for learning, required to justify this reading of the Christian message, which Erasmus thought should itself he instantly acc~, ible to everyone. The references here are to: i Corinthians i, i8 and 24 (Christ's folly the wisdom of God); Philippians ii, 7 (assuming the form of man); 2 Corinthians V, 21 (made sin); i Corinthians i, 21 (the folly of the Cross). Children are mentioned for instance in Matthew xviii, 3; lilies for instance in Matthew vi, 28; mustard seed in Matthew xiii, 3 I; spar. rows in Matthew x, 29; governors in Matthew x, iB; times and seasons in Acts 1.7; the tree of knowledge in Genesis ii, 57. St Paul's association of knowledge with conceit is in I Corinthians viii, s. St Bernard's identification of Lucifer's sin with a desire for knowledge is in his commentary on Isaiah xiv, 12. The reference to Number. 200 is to xii. ii, to Saul I Kings (I Samuel) xxix, 2! and to David 2 Kings (2 Samuel) xxiv, 10. Christ's prayer for those who crucified him is In Luke xxiii (verse 34) and the reference to Timothy comes from I Timothy I, i3'. The Psalm quoted is xxiv, 7 (Vulgate; RS.V. xxv, 7). Not all these quotations bear the weight which Folly puts on them. In particular it is difficult to read Genesis as condemning knowledge. But Erasmus deliberately attaches Folly to a tradition of exegesis with which the Brethren of the Common Life had made him familiar. 'Th'e wisdom Folly goes on to attack is conventional and worldly rather than spiritual, but she does renew Christ's insistence that his 'wisdom is folly to the world. 137. The apostles were thought to be drunk in Acts ii, 13 and ,F,estus's reaction to St Paul is in Acts xxvi, 24. 'Donning the lionskin' means undertaking a great task and is a proverb discussed in Ada8es. - 10 201

138. Folly makes it clear that neoplatonist, and especially Plotinlan, Svstems can serve as a substructure to explain and understand the Christian revelation. Folly's Platonism remains notable however for the reference to prophetic insanity, one of the four Sorts of divine furor discussed by Ficino in his commentary on Plato's Symposium which stimulate the process by which the soul is reunified and, pro~ gressively weaned from dependence on matter, reunited to God. The idea that philosophy is a preparation for death is also discussed by Cicero, the source from whom Montaigne took the title of his famous essay Que philosopher, c'est apprendre ~ mourir. Erasmus in the Enchiridion takes it from Socrates in the Phaedo. The phrase 'possessing as if they did not possess' is a reminiscence St Paul, I Corinthians vii, 29~3o.

spiritual and angelic status or to remain immersed in the material world. Folly carefully distinguishes the passions, belonging to the senses which the 'vulgar crowd' is enmeshed, from the higher affections, however hesitant she may remain about these. They are 'intermediate', 'quasi'-natural, capable of heing transferred to the highest point of the soul. The uncertainty is transferred from the Enchiridion, where sorne of the affections come near to being virtuous. lirasmus, far too empirically minded to systematize his teaching, does in fact mov~ towards a greater sympathy with these 'inter- - affections. The identification of the summum bonum with dne mind is expressed in terms reminiscent of Ficino's comy on the Symposium.

139. It is recounted of St Bernard that, meditating on scripture, drank oil without noticing that it was not water. Folly is presenting a modified neoplatonist psychological system, drawing on Origen's commentary on St Paul and the seventh cha~ ter of the Enchiridion in which Erasmus expounds Origen's view. The ascription of passions to the body rather than the soul is Plot. insan, although it became common in the nec>~stoic rqoralists of the renaissance. Iji Christian authors it normally leads to a trichotomist psychological system, based on I Thessalonians V, 23, and distinguishes body, soul and spirit. For Folly, as for Pico Mirandola, the soul can determine itself either to achie~

140. Folly, having drawn almost unguardedly on the Plotinian tra~ dition, is now at pains to modify the neoplatonist paradigm by insisting on the positive, if still relatively slight, value of the world, especially with regard to the sacraments. Elsewhere, Erasmus is caustic about such 'works' as fasting. Here, however, Folly points out the purposes of the ascetic practices elal ated in earlier centuries, which was to discipline the passions. It is possible that the human nervous system has become more complex since the early middle ages, and the pain threshold lower. Folly, at any rate, does not use absolutes but prefers to talk in terms of more and less. She insists only on not allowing the ritual, material element in religious practice to submerge the spiritual content. in The Christian death with Christ crucified and rebirth with Christ glory are here interpreted, as by the neoplatonist Fa~hers, in terms of the conquest of passion, promoting a greater hegemony of spirit nses and hence, on neoplatonist presuppositions, a greater n~ to Cod. See note i8, p. 75.

141. Plato speaks of the madness of lovers in the Phaedrus (245b). Il-ove was another of the four Platonist furores which stimulated: the soul's ascent to heatitude. The idea of living in the object o( one s love is Platonist too ithough also a commonplace of Christiari tradition. The promise starting 'eye has not seen' comes from I Corinthians ii, 9. The reference t6 the 'good part' of Folly (Moriae) is a deliberate allusion to the 'best part' of Mary (Manue) which: Christ said should not be taken from her in spite of Martha's plea ~Luke x, 42). The folly being praised by Folly has hecome religiou~ fulfilment and, as such, totally serious. The last paragraph deriv~ from St Paul's account of his own ecstasy at the heginning of 2 Corinthians xii.

142. The last paragraph hegins with a quotation from Lucian's The Dream or the Cock. The ironic mask is resumed and Folly remerihers she is a garrulous woman, even if she can speak 'a word in season' (a proverb discussed in the Adaaes). A last adage is mentioned about a fellow-'lrinker with a memory. The final reference to drink recalls the earlier serious Bacchus before, in Holhein's wood-cuts, Folly finally leaves her pulpit.