There is an epigram in Martial, and one of the very good ones--for he has of all sorts--where he pleasantly tells the story of Caelius, who, to avoid making his court to some great men of Rome, to wait their rising, and to attend them abroad, pretended to have the gout; and the better to colour this anointed his legs, and had them lapped up in a great many swathings, and perfectly counterfeited both the gesture and countenance of a gouty person; till in the end, Fortune did him the kindness to make him one indeed:
       "Quantum curs potest et ars doloris
       Desiit fingere Caelius podagram."
       ["How great is the power of counterfeiting pain: Caelius
       has ceased to feign the gout; he has got it."
       --Martial, Ep., vii. 39, 8.]
       I think I have read somewhere in Appian a story like this, of one who to escape the proscriptions of the triumvirs of Rome, and the better to be concealed from the discovery of those who pursued him, having hidden himself in a disguise, would yet add this invention, to counterfeit having but one eye; but when he came to have a little more liberty, and went to take off the plaster he had a great while worn over his eye, he found he had totally lost the sight of it indeed, and that it was absolutely gone. 'Tis possible that the action of sight was dulled from having been so long without exercise, and that the optic power was wholly retired into the other eye: for we evidently perceive that the eye we keep shut sends some part of its virtue to its fellow, so that it will swell and grow bigger; and so inaction, with the heat of ligatures and, plasters, might very well have brought some gouty humour upon the counterfeiter in Martial.
       Reading in Froissart the vow of a troop of young English gentlemen, to keep their left eyes bound up till they had arrived in France and performed some notable exploit upon us, I have often been tickled with this thought, that it might have befallen them as it did those others, and they might have returned with but an eye a-piece to their mistresses, for whose sakes they had made this ridiculous vow.
       Mothers have reason to rebuke their children when they counterfeit having but one eye, squinting, lameness, or any other personal defect; for, besides that their bodies being then so tender, may be subject to take an ill bent, fortune, I know not how, sometimes seems to delight in taking us at our word; and I have heard several examples related of people who have become really sick, by only feigning to be so. I have always used, whether on horseback or on foot, to carry a stick in my hand, and even to affect doing it with an elegant air; many have threatened that this fancy would one day be turned into necessity: if so, I should be the first of my family to have the gout.
       But let us a little lengthen this chapter, and add another anecdote concerning blindness. Pliny reports of one who, dreaming he was blind, found himself so indeed in the morning without any preceding infirmity in his eyes. The force of imagination might assist in this case, as I have said elsewhere, and Pliny seems to be of the same opinion; but it is more likely that the motions which the body felt within, of which physicians, if they please, may find out the cause, taking away his sight, were the occasion of his dream.
       Let us add another story, not very improper for this subject, which Seneca relates in one of his epistles: "You know," says he, writing to Lucilius, "that Harpaste, my wife's fool, is thrown upon me as an hereditary charge, for I have naturally an aversion to those monsters; and if I have a mind to laugh at a fool, I need not seek him far; I can laugh at myself. This fool has suddenly lost her sight: I tell you a strange, but a very true thing she is not sensible that she is blind, but eternally importunes her keeper to take her abroad, because she says the house is dark. That what we laugh at in her, I pray you to believe, happens to every one of us: no one knows himself to be avaricious or grasping; and, again, the blind call for a guide, while we stray of our own accord. I am not ambitious, we say; but a man cannot live otherwise at Rome; I am not wasteful, but the city requires a great outlay; 'tis not my fault if I am choleric--if I have not yet established any certain course of life: 'tis the fault of youth. Let us not seek our disease out of ourselves; 'tis in us, and planted in our bowels; and the mere fact that we do not perceive ourselves to be sick, renders us more hard to be cured. If we do not betimes begin to see to ourselves, when shall we have provided for so many wounds and evils wherewith we abound? And yet we have a most sweet and charming medicine in philosophy; for of all the rest we are sensible of no pleasure till after the cure: this pleases and heals at once." This is what Seneca says, that has carried me from my subject, but there is advantage in the change.
       [The end]
       Montaigne's essay: Not To Counterfeit Being Sick

Against Idleness
All Things Have Their Season
The Ceremony Of The Interview Of Princes
A Consideration Upon Cicero
Cowardice The Mother Of Cruelty
A Custom Of The Isle Of Cea
Defence Of Seneca And Plutarch
The Letters Of Montaigne
Nine And Twenty Sonnets Of Estienne De La Boitie
Not To Communicate A Man's Honour
Not To Counterfeit Being Sick
Observation On The Means To Carry On A War According To Julius Caesar
Of A Monstrous Child
Of A Saying Of Caesar
Of Age
Of Ancient Customs
Of Anger
Of Books
Of Cannibals
Of Cato The Younger
Of Coaches
Of Conscience
Of Constancy
Of Cripples
Of Cruelty
Of Custom, And That We Should Not Easily Change A Law Received
Of Democritus And Heraclitus
Of Diversion
Of Drunkenness
Of Experience
Of Fear
Of Friendship
Of Giving The Lie
Of Glory
Of Idleness
Of Ill Means Employed To A Good End
Of Judging Of The Death Of Another
Of Liars
Of Liberty Of Conscience
Of Managing the Will
Of Moderation
Of Names
Of One Defect In Our Government
Of Pedantry
Of Physiognomy
Of Posting
Of Prayers
Of Presumption
Of Profit And Honesty
Of Prognostications
Of Quick Or Slow Speech
Of Recompenses Of Honour
Of Repentance
Of Sleep
Of Smells
Of Solitude
Of Sorrow
Of Sumptuary Laws
Of The Affection Of Fathers To Their Children
Of The Arms Of The Parthians
Of the Art of Conference
Of The Battle Of Dreux
Of The Custom Of Wearing Clothes
Of The Education Of Children
Of The Force Of Imagination
Of The Inconstancy Of Our Actions
Of The Inconvenience Of Greatness
Of The Inequality Amongst Us
Of The Most Excellent Men
Of The Parsimony Of The Ancients
Of The Punishment Of Cowardice
Of The Resemblance Of Children To Their Fathers
Of The Roman Grandeur
Of The Uncertainty Of Our Judgment
Of The Vanity Of Words
Of Three Commerces
Of Three Good Women
Of Thumbs
Of Vain Subtleties
Of Vanity
Of Virtue
Of War Horses, Or Destriers
A Proceeding Of Some Ambassadors
The Story Of Spurina
That A Man Is Soberly To Judge Of The Divine Ordinances
That Fortune Is Oftentimes Observed To Act By The Rule Of Reason
That It Is Folly To Measure Truth And Error By Our Own Capacity
That Men Are Justly Punished For Being Obstinate In The Defence Of A Fort
That Men Are Not To Judge Of Our Happiness Till After Death
That Men By Various Ways Arrive At The Same End
That Our Affections Carry Themselves Beyond Us
That Our Desires Are Augmented By Difficulty
That Our Mind Hinders Itself
That The Hour Of Parley Is Dangerous
That The Intention Is Judge Of Our Actions
That The Profit Of One Man Is The Damage Of Another
That The Relish For Good And Evil Depends In Great Measure Upon The Opinion
That The Soul Expends Its Passions Upon False Objects, Where The True Are Wantin
That To Study Philosophy Is To Learn To Die
That We Are To Avoid Pleasures, Even At The Expense Of Life
That We Laugh And Cry For The Same Thing
That We Taste Nothing Pure
To-Morrow's A New Day
Upon Some Verses Of Virgil
Use Makes Perfect
Various Events From The Same Counsel
Whether The Governor Of A Place Besieged Ought Himself To Go Out To Parley