This is a slightly awkward translation of the French “giron,” which can mean – as well as “lap” – “breast” or “bosom” in a literal or figurative way. Montaigne uses it the way we might use “heart,” as in “getting to the heart of the matter.”

Having more or less abandoned public life to write his Essais, and being of a somewhat melancholic temperament, Montaigne may have been trying to rationalize his decision and his feelings

A typical Socratic admission by Montaigne that he doesn’t know something

Montaigne is fond of rephrasing himself, just in case we didn’t get it the first time

It’s interesting to think about Montaigne’s concern with the impossibility of natural purity in light of his propensity to mix his own French language with that of ancient Latin poets

“It’s not you I’m worried about – you’re guiltless – it’s those evil nuns I’m worried about”

The nuns threaten to “ruin” Isabel’s morals and assets, and their abbey is itself, from the standpoint of the poem, a kind of “ruin” – a regression to pre-Protestant values, and a decaying building that’s about to be bought out and bulldozed by the Fairfax family

Fairfax warns Isabel that the nuns want her for her money – her estate that would transfer to the abbey upon her initiation – and not for her winning personality

Any women who didn’t conform to feminine social roles in a Protestant society – like nuns, spinsters, or lesbians – could be cast in the category of “witches”

These nuns need men like Protestants need the Pope