Familiar Colloquies/Forms of Inquiry

by Desiderius Erasmus

FORMS OF INQUIRY.

George, Livinus

A Form of asking Questions at the First Meeting.

Ge.	Out of what hen-coop or cave came you?
Liv.	Why do you ask me such a question?
Ge.	Because you have been so poorly fed; you are so thin a person may see through you, and as dry as a kecks. Whence came you from?
Liv.	From Montacute College.
Ge.	Then sure you are come laden with letters for us.
Liv.	Not so, but with lice come I am.
Ge.	Well, then, you had company enough.
Liv.	In truth it is not safe for a traveller now-a-days to go without company.
Ge.	I know well enough a louse is a scholar's companion. Well, but do you bring any news from Paris?
Liv.	Ay, I do, and that in the first place that I know you will not believe. At Paris a bete is wise, and an oak preaches.
Ge.	What is that you tell me?
Liv.	That which you hear.
Ge.	What is it I hear?
Liv.	That which I tell you.
Ge.	Oh monstrous! sure mushrooms and stones must be the hearers where there are such preachers.
Liv.	Well, but it is even so as I tell you; nor do I speak only by hearsay, but what I know to be true.
Ge.	Sure men must needs be very wise there where betes and oaks are so.
Liv.	You are in the right of it.

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Inquiring Concerning Health.

Ge.	Are you well?
Liv.	Look in my face.
Ge.	Why do you not rather bid me cast your water? Do you take me for a doctor? I do not ask you if you are in health, for your face bespeaks you so to be; but I ask you how you like your own condition?
Liv.	I am very well in my body, but sick in my mind.
Ge.	He is not well indeed that is sick in that part.
Liv.	This is my case, I am well in my body, but sick in my pocket.
Ge.	Your mother will easily cure that distemper. How have you done for this long time?
Liv.	Sometimes better, and sometimes worse, as human affairs commonly go.
Ge.	Are you very well in health? Are your affairs in a good condition? Are your circumstances as you would have them? Have you always had your health well?
Liv.	Very well, I thank God. By God's goodness I have always had my health very well. I have always been very well hitherto. I have been in very good, favourable, secure, happy, prosperous, successful, perfect health, like a prince, like a champion, fit for anything.
Ge.	God send you may always enjoy the same. I am glad to hear it. You give me a pleasure in saying so. It is very pleasant to me to hear that. I am glad at my heart to hear this from you. This is no bad news to me. I am exceeding glad to hear you say so. I wish you may be so always. I wish you may enjoy the same health as long as you live. In congratulating you, I joy myself, thanks to Heaven for it.
Liv.	Indeed I am very well if you are so.
Ge.	Well, but have you met with no trouble all this while?
Liv.	None but the want of your good company.
Ge.	Well, but how do you do though?
Liv.	Well enough, finely, bravely, very well as may be; very well indeed, happily, commodiously, no way amiss. I enjoy rather what health I wish, than what I deserved. Princely, herculean, champion-like.
Ge.	I was expecting when you would say bull-like too.

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On Being Ill.

Ge.	Are you in good health?
Liv.	I wish I were. Not altogether so well as I would be. Indeed I am so so. Pretty well. I am as well as I can be, since I cannot be so well as I would be. As I use to be. So as it pleases God. Truly not very well. Never worse in all my life. As I am wont to be. I am as they use to be who have to do with the doctor.
Ge.	How do you do?
Liv.	Not as I would do. Why truly not well, ill, very ill, in an unhappy, unprosperous, unfavourable, bad, adverse, unlucky, feeble, dubious, indifferent state of health, not at all as I would, a tolerable, such as I would not wish even to my enemies.
Ge.	You tell me a melancholy story. Heavens forbid it. God forbid. No more of that I pray. I wish what you say were not true. But you must be of good cheer, you must pluck up a good heart. A good heart is a good help in bad circumstances. You must bear up your mind with the hope of better fortune. What distemper is it? What sort of disease is it? What distemper is it that afflicts you? What distemper are you troubled with?
Liv.	I cannot tell, and in that my condition is the more dangerous.
Ge.	That is true, for when the disease is known it is half cured. Have you had the advice of any doctor?
Liv.	Ay, of a great many.
Ge.	What do they say to your case?
Liv.	What the lawyers of Demiphon (in the play) said to him. One says one thing, another he says another, and the third he will consider it. But they all agree in this, that I am in a sad condition.
Ge.	How long have you been taken with this illness? How long have you been ill of this distemper? How long has this illness seized you?
Liv.	About twenty days more or less, almost a month. It is now near three months. It seems an age to me since I was first taken ill.
Ge.	But I think you ought to take care that the distemper do not grow upon you.
Liv.	It has grown too much upon me already.
Ge.	Is it a dropsy?
Liv.	They say it is not.
Ge.	Is it a dysentery?
Liv.	I think not.
Ge.	Is it a fever?
Liv.	I believe it is a kind of a fever, but a new one, as ever and anon new ones spring up that were unknown before.
Ge.	There were more old ones than enough before.
Liv.	Thus it pleases Nature to deal with us, which is a little too severe.
Ge.	How often does the fit come?
Liv.	How often do you say? Every day, nay, every hour, indeed.
Ge.	Oh wonderful! It is a sad affliction. How did you get this distemper? How do you think you came by it?
Liv.	By reason of want.
Ge.	Why, you don't use to be so superstitious as to starve yourself with fasting.
Liv.	It is not bigotry but penury.
Ge.	What do you mean by penury?
Liv.	I mean I could get no victuals. I believe it came by a cold. I fancy I got the distemper by eating rotten eggs, by drinking too much water in my wine. This crudity in my stomach came by eating green apples.
Ge.	But consider whether you have not contracted this distemper by long and late studying, by hard drinking, or immoderate use of venery? Why don t you send for a doctor?
Liv.	I am afraid he should do me more harm than good. I am afraid he should poison me instead of curing me.
Ge.	You ought to choose one that you can confide in.
Liv.	If I must die, I had rather die once for all, than to be tormented with so many slops.
Ge.	Well, then, be your own doctor. If you cannot trust to a doctor, pray God be your physician. There have been some that have recovered their health by putting on a Dominican or a Franciscan friar's cowl.
Liv.	And perhaps it had been the same thing if they had put on a whoremaster's cloak. These things have no effect upon those that have no faith in them.
Ge.	Why, then, believe that you may recover. Some have been cured by making vows to a saint.
Liv.	But I have no dealings with saints.
Ge.	Then pray to Christ that you may have faith, and that He would be pleased to bestow the blessing of health upon you.
Liv.	I cannot tell whether it would be a blessing or not.
Ge.	Why, is it not a blessing to be freed from a distemper?
Liv.	Sometimes it is better to die. I ask nothing of Him, but only that He would give me what would be best for me.
Ge.	Take something to purge you.
Liv.	I am laxative enough already.
Ge.	Take something to make you go to stool. You must take a purge.
Liv.	I ought to take something that is binding rather, for I am too laxative.

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Inquiring of a Person upon his Return.

Ge.	Have you had a good and prosperous journey?
Li.	Pretty good; but that there is such robbing everywhere.
Ge.	This is the effect of war.
Li.	It is so, but it is a wicked one.
Ge.	Did you come on foot or on horseback?
Li.	Part of the way on foot, part in a coach, part on horseback, and part by sea.
Ge.	How go matters in France?
Li.	All is in confusion, there is nothing but war talked of. What mischiefs they may bring upon their enemies I know not; but this I am sure of, the French themselves are afflicted with inexpressible calamities.
Ge.	Whence come all these tumultuary wars?
Li.	Whence should they come, but from the ambition of monarchs.
Ge.	But it would be more their prudence to appease these storms of human affairs.
Li.	Appease them! ay, so they do, as the south wind does the sea. They fancy themselves to be gods, and that the world was made for their sakes.
Ge.	Nay, rather a prince was made for the good of the commonwealth, and not the commonwealth for the sake of the prince.
Li.	Nay, there are clergymen too, who blow up the coals, and sound an alarm to these tumults.
Ge.	I would have them set in the front of the battle.
Li.	Ay, ay, but they take care to keep out of harm's way.
Ge.	But let us leave these public affairs to Providence. How go your own matters?
Li.	Very well, happily, indifferently well, tolerably.
Ge.	How goes it with your own business? As you would have it.
Li.	Nay, better than I could have wished for, better than I deserve, beyond what I could have hoped for.
Ge.	Are all things according to your mind? Is all well? Has everything succeeded?
Li.	It cannot be worse. It is impossible it should be worse than it is.
Ge.	What, then, have you not got what you sought for? Have you not caught the game you hunted?
Li.	Hunt! ay, I did hunt indeed, but with very ill success.
Ge.	But is there no hope then?
Li.	Hope enough, but nothing else.
Ge.	Did the bishop give you no hopes?
Li.	Yes, whole cartloads, and whole shiploads of hope; but nothing else.
Ge.	Has he sent you nothing yet?
Li.	He promised me largely, but he has never sent me a farthing.
Ge.	Then you must live in hopes.
Li.	Ay, but that will not fill the belly; they that feed upon hope, may be said to hang, but not to live.
Ge.	But however, then, you were the lighter for travelling, not having your pockets loaded.
Li.	I confess that, nay, and safer too; for an empty pocket is the best defence in the world against thieves; but for all that, I had rather have the burden, and the danger too.
Ge.	You was not robbed of anything by the way, I hope?
Li.	Robbed! What can you rob a man of that has nothing? There was more reason for other folks to be afraid of me than I of them, having never a penny in my pocket. I might sing and be starved all the way I went. Have you anything more to say?
Ge.	Where are you going now?
Li.	Straight home, to see how all do there, whom I have not seen this long time.
Ge.	I wish you may find all well at home,
Li.	I pray God I may. Has anything new happened at our house since I went away?
Ge.	Nothing, but only you will find your family bigger than it was; for your Catula has brought you a little Catulus since you have been gone. Your hen has laid you an egg.
Li.	That is good news; I like your news, and I will promise to give you a gospel for it.
Ge.	What gospel? The gospel according to St. Matthew?
Li.	No, but according to Homer. Here, take it.
Ge.	Keep your gospel to yourself, I have stones enough at home.
Li.	Do not slight my present, it is the eagle's stone; it is good for women with child; it is good to bring on their labour.
Ge.	Say you so? Then it is a very acceptable present to me, and I will endeavour to make you amends.
Li.	The amends is made already by your kind acceptance.
Ge.	Nay, nothing in the world could come more seasonably, for my wife's belly is up to her mouth almost.
Li.	Then I will make this bargain with you; that if she has a boy, you shall let me be the godfather.
Ge.	Well I will promise you that, and that you shall name it too.
Li.	I wish it may be for both our good.
Ge.	Nay, for all our good.

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Maurice, Cyprian

Ma.	You are come back fatter than you used to be. You are returned taller.
Cy.	But in truth I had rather it had been wiser, or more learned.
Ma.	You had no beard when you went away; but you have brought a little one back with you. You are grown some what oldish since you went away. What makes you look so pale, so lean, so wrinkled?
Cy.	As is my fortune, so is the habit of my body.
Ma.	Has it been but bad then?
Cy.	She is never otherwise to me, but never worse in my life than now.
Ma.	I am sorry for that. I am sorry for your misfortune. But pray, what is this mischance?
Cy.	I have lost all my money.
Ma.	What, in the sea?
Cy.	No, on shore, before I went aboard.
Ma.	Where?
Cy.	Upon the English coast.
Ma.	It is well you escaped with your life; it is better to lose your money than that; the loss of one's good name is worse than the loss of money.
Cy.	My life and reputation are safe; but my money is lost.
Ma.	The loss of life never can be repaired; the loss of reputation very hardly; but the loss of money may easily be made up one way or another. But how came it about?
Cy.	I can not tell, unless it was my destiny. So it pleased God. As the devil would have it.
Ma.	Now you see that learning and virtue are the safest riches; for as they cannot be taken from a man, so neither are they burdensome to him that carries them.
Cy.	Indeed you philosophise very well; but in the meantime I am in perplexity.

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Claudius, Balbus

Cl.	I am glad to see you come well home, Balbus.
Ba.	And I to see you alive, Claudius.
Cl.	You are welcome home into your own country again.
Ba.	You should rather congratulate me as a fugitive from France.
Cl.	Why so?
Ba.	Because they are all up in arms there.
Cl.	But what have scholars to do with arms?
Ba.	But there they do not spare even scholars.
Cl.	It is well you are got off safe.
Ba.	But I did not get off without danger neither.
Cl.	You are come back quite another man than you went away.
Ba.	How so?
Cl.	Why, of a Dutchman you are become a Frenchman.
Ba.	Why, was I a capon when I went away?
Cl.	Your dress shews that you are turned from a Dutchman into a Frenchman.
Ba.	I had rather suffer this metamorphosis, than to be turned into a hen. But as a cowl does not make a monk, so neither does a garment a Frenchman.
Cl.	Have you learned to speak French?
Ba.	Indifferently well.
Cl.	How did you learn it?
Ba.	Of teachers that were no dumb ones, I assure you.
Cl.	From whom?
Ba.	Of little women, more full of tongue than turtle doves.
Cl.	It is easy to learn to speak in such a school. Do you pronounce the French well?
Ba.	Yes, that I do, and I pronounce Latin after the French mode.
Cl.	Then you will never write good verses.
Ba.	Why so?
Cl.	Because you will make false quantities.
Ba.	The quality is enough for me.
Cl.	Is Paris clear of the plague?
Ba.	Not quite, but it is not continual; sometimes it abates, and anon it returns again; sometimes it slackens, and then rages again.
Cl.	Is not war itself plague enough?
Ba.	It is so, unless God thought otherwise.
Cl.	Sure bread must be very dear there.
Ba.	There is a great scarcity of it. There is a great want of everything but wicked soldiers. Good men are wonderfully cheap there.
Cl.	What is in the mind of the French to go to war with the Germans?
Ba.	They have a mind to imitate the beetle, that will not give place to the eagle. Every one thinks himself an Hercules in war.
Cl.	I will not detain you any longer; at some other time we will divert ourselves more largely, when we can both spare time. At present I have a little business that calls me to another place.