The Praise of Folly Summary and Analysis of Start of The Praise of Folly ("But why do I talk only of mortal men?) Summary
Folly, a female personification of the quality, stands before a crowd speaking. As Folly, the essay begins, Folly has already taken her place. Folly introduces herself and explains that, despite her bad reputation, she is the only one who can bring joy to both gods and men. Indeed, when she first stood up before the crowd in the hall, the attendees' faces lit up with smiles, and cheers broke out in the room. room. She has the power to transfigure transfigure them, them, much as the sun does when it comes up in the morning or spring brings its freshness to the chill of winter. She asks her listeners to attend to her as if she was a street-performer or a comedian, and states that she is going to act like a Sophist whose job was to praise gods and men. Folly plans to sing her own praises because, after all, who knows her better than she knows herself? There is no need to do what the pundits and patricians do when they hire a sycophantic and servile rhetorician to extol their merits. Amazingly, no one before has sought to sing of Folly's praises. She finds this strange because most of mankind has partaken of her bounty. She promises that her treatise will be truthful, and is not designed solely to show off her wit. Considering how many previous orators have expounded on ridiculous subjects, she does not believe her intention lacks precedent. Her strategy is not to provide a definition and then divide up her topic, as a speaker might do when dissecting an idea; verbal definitions are unnecessary since she is actually before her listeners. She gives her Latin name as Stultitia and her Greek name as Moria, and she does not attempt to hide her identity by manipulating her appearance- "I'm always exactly like myself, so that even those who most aspire to the name and reputation of wisdom cannot hide in my presence..." Folly thinks it best to imitate the style of her contemporary contemporary rhetoricians, who she says delight in mixing Latina and Greek into their oratories in order to impress their listeners with their erudition.
Returning to her main point, Folly is determined to set the matter straight on her lineage. She is descended from Plutus, god of riches, and Neotes, a nymph of Youth. She was born on the Fortunate Isles where no one grows old or sick and everything is fecund and fertile and beautiful. She was nursed by Methe (Tipsy) and Apaedia (Ninny), both of whom are in her company today. Her company is also comprised of: Philautia (Self-Love), Kolakia (Flattery), Lethe (Forgetfulness), Misponia (Lieabout), Hedone (Pleasure), Anoia (Imbecility), Tryphe (Fascination), Comus (Festivity), and Negretos Hypnos (Sound Sleep). With their faithful help, Folly maintains dominion over all things. Folly, now having established her patrimony, avers that she is ready to detail the benefits she bestows upon gods and men, and to explain how much joy she brings them. First of all, nothing is sweeter than life itself and Folly is owed some credit for engendering life, considering that men and women would not likely engage in intercourse without a dose of folly. Men would not enter into matrimony if they knew how inconvenient it was, and women would not want to do so either if they knew how painful and time-consuming childbearing and child-rearing were; it takes Folly's servant Forgetfulness to both inspire matrimony and ensure its continuation. Not only life but every good thing derives from folly. Anything that brings pleasure is from folly, and even the Stoics cannot decry the need for pleasure. Indeed, "what part of life is not gloomy, not sullen, not drab, not dull and dreary, unless you add a dash of pleasure, the condiment of folly?" Even Sophocles wrote that "the happiest life is to know nothing at all." As Folly explains, all of this can be proved simply by looking at children, whose age makes them the happiest of people. They are cooed over and cuddled, all because they possess the charm of foolishness. This foolishness compensates for the toil of bringing them up. As soon as they grow older, their bright and shining faces grow dull and they call folly a liar. The further they depart from folly, the less they truly live. Only folly allows old age to be pleasurable. It is almost like a second childhood; the old are silly, playful, and have no cares because Folly has mitigated the curse of growing older. These old men and women have more in
common with children, "for what is the difference between them, apart from the fact that the elders have more wrinkles and more birthdays?" None of the other gods can do what Folly does- she can restore men to the best and happiest days of their life even when they are old and gray. All those men who have devoted themselves to their studies or other difficult and serious business have grown old before their time, but, as Folly explains, "my morons are all plump, with sleek and glistening skins..." Folly is truly the only one who can bestow the fountain of youth upon men.
Anastâncio Ariel Macuácua
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