Michel de Montaigne

Gilgamesh (a hero) speaks: I think that this question is easily answered: The greatest service that the individual may give to the state is that he face death willingly and bravely. To fight on the field of honor is the greatest expression of loyalty to our society, to our king. There is nothing that may compare with the willingness of a person to die for another - and not even to die for friend or family, but to die for strangers, to die in the name of a king that he will never even meet (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/GILG.HTM).

Penelope (a virtuous wife): I think that it is true that when our king, our nation, calls on us to sacrifice ourselves, we must do so. But such a sacrifice should be in many ways incidental to our relationship to the state, for you cannot build any great civilization upon the deaths of the greatest members of that

. . .
Anchises, but a scion of the royal line of Troy and a cousin to the brave Hector. Hector, the eldest son of the Trojan King Priam and Queen Hecuba and the husband of Andromache, was the model for all I hoped to be in life and of the greatest of the Greek virtues. The ideal man is not one always ready to follow someone into war or to seek revenge. Rather, he honors his gods and his king by looking to himself, his owen hearth, his own fields. The ideal man is no warrior, no agent of vengeance but one who may equally be a good son, a loving husband and father, and a trustworthy friend. We must above all be loyal to this ideal. Antigone (a good daughter): The only true loyalty that a person has in this life is to the gods who will rule over us in the next life. Our rulers here are deceived, are blind to the obligations of divine law. Creon condemned me to be buried alive because I would not let my brother's body rot under the sun. I took my own life so he would not have the satisfaction of having his revenge upon me. Many of you here have spoken of revenge as if it were a wondrous and good thing. But revenge is merely what humans pursue because they do not have the wisdom of the gods. I gave up my life rather than serve my king, and
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Lady Murasaki, Queen Hecuba, Loyalty Monsieur, , Creon King, Philomela Procne, Aphrodite Anchises, Troy Rome, Hector Hector, Yowkr Penguin, son loving husband, trustworthy friend, loving husband father, serve king, talk revenge, loving husband, poet licentious, father trustworthy, husband father, son loving, husband father trustworthy, father trustworthy friend, emperor gods, de montaigne,
Approximate Word count = 1480
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Michel de Montaigne