Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) was a Dutch humanist, scholar, and social critic, and one of the most important figures of the Renaissance. The Praise of Folly is perhaps his best-known work. Originally written to amuse his friend Sir Thomas More, this satiric celebration of pleasure, youth, and intoxication irreverently pokes fun at the pieties of theologians and the foibles that make us all human, while ultimately reaffirming the value of Christian ideals. No other book displays quite so completely the transition from the medieval to the modern world, and Erasmus's wit, wisdom, and critical spirit have lost none of their timeliness today. This Princeton Classics edition of The Praise of Folly features a new foreword by Anthony Grafton that provides an essential introduction to this iridescent and enduring masterpiece. "There is no more joyous and delightful bit of forensic jugglery than Desiderius Erasmus's The Praise of Folly and a debt of gratitude is owed Professor Hoyt Hopewell Hudson for translating the old Latin of 1511 into lively, vivid, contemporary English, at once lucid and free. . . . Like all great minds Erasmus has the faculty of being perennially contemporary, and The Praise of Folly is a gay, witty revelation of the subtleties and intricacies of the scholarly mind of the Renaissance." ---Edward Larocque Tinker, New York Times "The scholarship and grace of Hudson's translation and introduction assure that the book will be accepted as the standard English version." ― Modern Language Quarterly "[Hudson] has spared no pains to provide whatever might increase the general reader's appreciation and enjoyment of this world-famous, perennially humane satire." ---John Archer Gee, Journal of English and Germanic Philology "Erasmus's Praise of Folly is certainly one of the most characteristic and delightful pieces of Renaissance literature and has rightly enjoyed a wide popularity. . . . This handsome volume will certainly please the student as well as the general reader." ― Journal of Philosophy Anthony Grafton is the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University. The Praise of Folly By Desiderius Erasmus, Hoyt Hopewell Hudson PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © 1969 Princeton University Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-691-16564-6 Contents A PRELUDE TO THE PRAISE OF FOLLY: FOREWORD TO THE PRINCETON CLASSICS EDITION, vii, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, xxiii, THE FOLLY OF ERASMUS: AN ESSAY, xxv, PREFACE: DESIDERIUS ERASMUS TO HIS FRIEND THOMAS MORE, 1, MORIAE ENCOMIUM, THAT IS, THE PRAISE OF FOLLY, 7, ANALYSIS, 129, NOTES, 143, INDEX OF PROPER NAMES, 155, CHAPTER 1 Stultitia loquitur: HOWEVER MORTAL FOLK MAY COMMONLY SPEAK of me (for I am not ignorant how ill the name of Folly sounds, even to the greatest fools), I am she—the only she, I may say —whose divine influence makes gods and men rejoice. One great and sufficient proof of this is that the instant I stepped up to speak to this crowded assembly, all faces at once brightened with a fresh and unwonted cheerfulness, all of you suddenly unbent your brows, and with frolic and affectionate smiles you applauded; so that as I look upon all present about me, you seem flushed with nectar, like gods in Homer, not without some nepenthe, also; whereas a moment ago you were sitting moody and depressed, as if you had come out of the cave of Trophonius. Just as it commonly happens, when the sun first shows his splendid golden face to the earth or when, after a bitter winter, young spring breathes mild west winds, that a new face comes over everything, new color and a sort of youthfulness appear; so at the mere sight of me, you straightway take on another aspect. And thus what great orators elsewhere can hardly bring about in a long, carefully planned speech, I have done in a moment, with nothing but my looks. As to why I appear today in this unaccustomed garb, you shall now hear, if only you will not begrudge lending your ears to my discourse—not those ears, to be sure, which you carry to sermons, but those which you are accustomed to prick up for mountebanks in the marketplace, for clowns and jesters, the ears which, in the old days, our friend Midas inclined to the god Pan. It is my pleasure for a little while to play the rhetorician before you, yet not one of the tribe of those who nowadays cram certain pedantic trifles into the heads of schoolboys, and teach a more than womanish obstinacy in disputing; no, I emulate those ancients who, to avoid the unpopular name of philosophers, preferred to be called Sophists. Their study was to celebrate in eulogies the virtues of gods and of heroic men. Such a eulogy, therefore, you shall hear, but not of Hercules or Solon; rather of my own self—to wit, Folly. [2] Nor do I have any use for those wiseacres who preach that it is most foolish and insolent for a person to praise himself. Yet let it be as foolish as they would have it, if only th