Interpreting Montaigne: Ed's superficial reading of the Essay of judging happiness only after death

I was pleased with the comments yesterday's blog elicited.  As Mr. Dupin observed, Montaigne (the granddaddy of all bloggers, GOAB) does say it best, in his essay, (aptly named for our subject) "That our happiness must not be judged until after our death." He begins by quoting Ovid:

No man should be called happy till his death; 

Always we must await his final day

Reserving judgment till he's laid away. 

Here I have the aid of my son, Austin, back from his studies for a few days, in interpreting: Ovid's stories involve metamorphosis.  The man with the grief in his old age was Cadmus.  "Actaeon, one of your grandsons, was your first reason for grief, in all your happiness, Cadmus."   The grandson grew horns on his forehead and his hunting dogs ate him.   As long and happy as Cadmus' life had been when his grandchildren began to suffer, his joy ended.

Mr. Hugo 2006 adds the alliterative "lawyers' lament" verdict to the concerns about success and failure.   But we lawyers cannot take comfort from the fact we are largely too selfish to find ourselves working in a hospice;  we very well may end up the recipient of the care.

Montaigne makes the point, "God has willed it as he pleased; but in my time three of the most execrable and most infamous persons I have known in very abomination of life have had deaths that were ordered and in every circumstance composed to perfection."

And it feels like to me, good people often have nasty, ugly deaths.  When the wrong organs begin to fail before the rest of the body, long periods a pain result.

Montaigne also tells us, "In judging the life of another, I always observe how it ended; and one of my principal concerns about my own end is that it shall go well, that is to say quietly and insensibly."

Montaigne is concerned that we may live just a day too long.  He quotes someone named Laberius:  "Truly this day I have lived one day longer than I should have."  When I first read that I tried to figure out who Laberius was and why he thought he should have avoided a certain day.

One guy named Laberius was ridiculed by Julius Caesar but he won the day by being quicker witted.  This is all I can find out about him, but it doesn't seem like his last day disgraced his historical legacy, in any case.

Another guy name Laberius died in Britain with a spear through his lung.

Lingering on seems to give the chance to repair a reputation.  It is rather like refusing to pass the examination of a harmful witness until something good comes of the testimony.  A line in Chinatown made this point: "Course I'm respectable.  I'm old.  Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough."

Presidents are said to worry about what history will say.  And I have friends who worry about a legacy.  "Will I be known as a greater lawyer than Clarence Darrow?"  That sort of thing.

Now my task is to decide whether or not it matters.

That all having been said, Austin tells me I have missed the whole point of the essay.  On the next post, I'll describe what he says it really means.