Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  The bold use of certain turns of phrase, epithets, expressions, metaphors that is so commended in poetry and also in the rest of literature, and used so much by Horace, is often no more than a fine use of that vagueness, and in a certain sense, in terms of construction, irrationality, which is so necessary to the poet.2 As in Horace when he describes the hand of necessity as a hand of bronze (in his ode to Fortune).3 The idea is clear but expressed vaguely (erroneously). He takes an epithet as if at random from what he has just been talking about, without considering whether or not it suits his purpose, that is, whether the two ideas that occur to him, one substantive and the other relating to quality, that is, adjectival, can be so straightforwardly put side by side, for example, someone who calls the wind hard because it’s difficult to break its force when you are against it, etc.

  [62] The practice of transporting Greek words wholesale into Latin during the classical age in Latium (even in the most ancient Latin writers, just as our early Italian writers did with French) must have produced the same effect as our current fashion for using French words in the Italian language. This fashion is as old for us as it was for the Romans, since it began with our earliest writers but has now come back into vogue, as in the times of Horace and especially Seneca, Pliny, etc., where it seems (and see what Seneca says about the word analogia)1 to have been considered a barbarism, as it is today, even though in its favor there were many ancient examples, as there are for us of words that today are laughable, for example, frappare for battere [to beat], vengianza [vengeance], which appears many times in Alamanni’s Girone,2 though not needed for the rhyme, and many other words of the kind can be found in the same poem, etc. So that then, as now, that taste grew and was applied indiscriminately and spread to the forms, etc., and became harmful to the native genius of the language. See p. 312.

  It is said that, when reading certain authors who are simple, plain, spontaneous, fluent, straightforward, confident, natural, etc., everyone believes he can do as well, and then, on being put to the test, you can see how wrong that is. However, when you read Xenophon it seems as if everyone really does write like this and that there is just no other way to write, until, that is, you move on to another writer or from another writer to reading him. Because in other writers you understand that they are simple, but in Xenophon you do not even notice it.3

  In the great battle of Issus, Darius placed the Greek mercenary soldiers in the front line (Arrian, bk. 2, ch. 8, § 9; Quintus Curtius Rufus, bk. 3, ch. 9, § 2). Alexander placed his Greek mercenaries at the very back (Arrian, ch. 9, § 5). It is a curious and most remarkable difference and enough in itself to predict the outcome of the battle. Because it was clear that the Persians placed all their hopes in those 30,000 Greeks, and yet Alexander’s mercenaries were also Greek (Arrian, ch. 9, § 7)4 and he put them at the rear. It is therefore clear that he placed more trust in the others than he did in these, and what was strongest in the Persian army was weakest in the Macedonian army. And Darius trusted more in the courage of his mercenaries than in those who fought for their country, and had good reason. Alexander, having the same mercenaries, [63] knew that his other troops, fighting for their honor and for him and to avenge their country, would be more courageous, and he was absolutely right. And his own Macedonian phalanx fought with the 30,000 mercenaries, and the mercenaries battled but were defeated. And so from this one difference in the two approaches, with all that it said about the infinite difference between the spirit of the two armies, what happened could be conjectured.

  As to the distinction between comedy of things and comedy of words, which I described in another thought [→Z 41], see Costa, Della elocuzione, pp. 70ff.1

  A new simile could be that of a farmer who is reaping, his sheaves scattered about the field, and sees the weather darken and a terrible hailstorm snatch the grain away irreparably from beneath his scythe; and he there, ready to harvest it, sees it being ripped from his hands without being able to do anything about it.

  Comedy is of particular use when it teaches young men and women about the world, its dangers, vices, vanities, temptations, treacheries, illusions, etc., since it does not do much for older people, who already know about these things. And, as for the moral maxims and the examples of wrongdoers punished, virtues, and good people rewarded, etc., these are miserable things whose usefulness, except perhaps among the lowest classes, cannot be argued in good faith, for to be sure no young person or anyone of a certain rank and upbringing has ever come back more virtuous from a comedy as a result of the sermons or moral examples that he has heard and seen. Indeed, it is quite possible that he has been disillusioned (at least in part) by the revelation of the many traps that are laid for unfortunate youths, and by the simple imitation and representation of what happens in the world and about which young people are unaware or which they believe to be quite different. For this reason, histories are more useful than so many other books, although comedy shows everything in a more lively and natural way and makes it visible, rather than recounting it, and is therefore more persuasive. We can also say the same proportionately about other kinds of drama.

  What a marvelous time it was when everything was alive, according to human imagination, and humanly alive, in other words inhabited or formed by beings [64] like ourselves; when it was taken as certain that in the deserted woods lived the beautiful Hamadryads and fauns and woodland deities and Pan, etc., and, on entering and seeing everything as solitude, you still believed that everything was inhabited and that Naiads lived in the springs, etc., and embracing a tree you felt it almost palpitating between your hands and believed it was a man or a woman like Cyparissus, etc., and the same with flowers, etc., just as children do.1

  What I said on p. 32 of these thoughts about the tortoise could perhaps be said also of the sloth, concerning which we should find out from the naturalists whether it is long-lived.

  There are many people who, on reading novels, sentimental books, etc., acquire a false sensibility (having had none before) or find that the true sensibility they used to have has been tainted. Having always been a sworn enemy of affectation, especially in everything to do with feelings of the heart and the soul, I have been careful to avoid this kind of malaise, and have always sought to allow nature to work freely and spontaneously, etc. In any event, I have noticed that reading books has not produced in me any affects or feelings that I did not previously have, or any outcome from these that would not have arisen by itself without reading. But it has accelerated such feelings and made them develop more quickly. In short, knowing where such an affect, impulse, feeling would take me, though allowing nature to run its course freely, nevertheless I found the path open before me and moved along it more swiftly. In love, for example, despair drove me several times to an ardent desire to kill myself. It would certainly have driven me there by itself, and I felt that my desire came from the heart and was innate and personal and not borrowed from elsewhere, but at the same time I sensed that it rose so powerfully within me because I had recently been reading Werther2 and knew that this kind of love, etc., finished like that. Despair drove me there. But if I had been new to such things, that desire would not have come to mind so quickly—I would have had to invent it, whereas (although I seek to avoid every kind of imitation) I had found it already invented.

  In relation to Algarotti’s thought in tome 8 of his Opere, Cremona, Manini, 1778–1784, p. 96,3 we can add the corresponding Greek word καλοκᾀγαθὸς4 [65] wherein can be noted the character of that most amiable and noble nation, which described an honest and upright man as being good and handsome (even if he wasn’t handsome, as this word, like its abstract noun καλοκᾀγαθία, was used to refer only to perfect probity and integrity in whomever it was found). So important was beauty that reference to it could never be omitted when offering praise or describing virtue, and this rule was so generally applied and so much a part of the language that even those who were anything but beautiful received such praise. They were a delicate and
sensitive people, who loved beauty, who knew how outward appearance and that which is apprehended by the senses could adorn the inner person, and how the idea of beauty was sublime and should never be separated from virtue. One might add the corresponding Latin word, frugi, which means useful, showing the quality of the ancient Roman people, where a man was esteemed according to his contribution to the common good, and it was the obligation and custom of good people to live not for themselves but for the republic. Therefore, in indicating a courteous man, a good man, they considered his quality in relation to the public good, i.e., in general his usefulness and his potential, and so they described him as frugi, someone who could be of use, someone to profit from.

  Once my mother said to Pietrino, who was crying because Luigi threw his little stick out of the window: “Don’t cry, don’t cry, because I would have thrown it out myself.” And he was comforted by the thought that he would have lost it anyway. Observations about this very common reaction in people, and about a related reaction, namely that we are comforted and pacified by convincing ourselves that the particular good could not be obtained, or that the evil in question could not be avoided, and we therefore try to convince ourselves of that and are desperate when we fail, even though the evil remains the same in every way. See p. 188. See in this respect Epictetus’s Handbook.1

  [66] I found myself desperately bored with life, with a very strong desire to kill myself, and had an intimation of something bad, which frightened me at the very moment that I wanted to die, and placed me immediately in a state of apprehension and anxiety. I have never felt so strongly the absolute conflict of the elements that form the present human condition, forced to fear for its life and to seek at all costs to preserve it, just then when it was most burdensome, and when it could resolve to be ended by its own will (but by no other cause). And I saw how true and obvious it is (unless we wish to suppose that nature, which is so wise and coherent in everything else—for analogy is one of the foundations of modern philosophy and of our own knowledge and discourse1—is in fact completely mad and contradictory in its principal work) that man should not be aware in any way of his absolute and necessary unhappiness in this life, but only of accidental misfortunes (in the same way as children and animals), and that his awareness of it is contrary to nature and repugnant to the common principles that make up all other beings (which is to say, the love of life) and upsets the order of things (since it encourages suicide, the thing most contrary to nature that can be imagined).

  If you have a sworn enemy in a certain city, and you see that there is a storm overhead, does the hope pass through your mind that he might be killed? So why then are you frightened if that storm passes over you, when the probability that it will kill is so small that you can’t even find a basis for the thing that needs so small a base in order to rise up in us, namely hope? The same can be said for a hundred other dangers. If they were to bring a probability of good, it would seem ridiculous not to place any hope in them, and yet these dangers produce fear in us. So it is. Though it is easy to kindle hope, and without any cause, it is even easier to kindle fear. But it seems to me that this reflection helps a lot to temper it. Fear is, therefore, richer in illusions than hope is.2

  Someone said, in relation to a calculator who set about calculating everything he heard: “Other people do things, and he counts them.”

  [67] “No servant who enters my house ever leaves before he dies, as you can find out from those who have been here,” said the master of the house to his new cook, after two others had left of their own accord.

  In most of Pignotti’s fables (and perhaps in others as well), the purpose of the fable, which is to use sweetness, simile, etc., in order to teach children, etc., has vanished and does not remain even in appearance (as in didactic poetry), for they are intended to describe certain vices of the social world, certain political maxims, certain fine qualities of the human character that are neither of concern to children nor possible for them to recognize and understand—for example, the one about the donkey, the horse, and the ox.1 Rather, these fables have been reduced from their original Aesopian model to not inurbane little satires, or pure games of wit, that is, pleasant comparisons or little stories, of some use to grown men, like Marmontel’s Contes moraux and other works of that kind, except that in this case they describe animals, plants, etc. etc.

  It is said (see Roberti, fable 62, note)2 that female birds are generally less beautiful than the males and that this is a matter of surprise, because the opposite seems to be true in humans. Poor reasoning. We are men, and we find the woman more beautiful than the man. The opposite is true for women. Male birds surely find the female more beautiful, and vice versa for the females. If there was another reasonable animal who could judge the human species as we judge the birds, there is no doubt that for visible perfection, etc., correctness of proportion, etc. etc., it would prefer the male, and describe the man as fairer than the woman, whom we describe as the fair sex.

  Very often, indeed most of the time, love of glory is mistaken for love of country. For example, the constancy of the Greeks at Thermopylae, the story of Atilius Regulus (if true), etc. etc.,3 are described as patriotic, whereas they were the result of a love of glory, i.e., direct, obvious, unadulterated, etc., self-love. The great motivation of the ancient peoples was the promise of glory to those who sacrificed themselves for their country, and the shame of those who refused to make such sacrifice. And as the Mohammedans expose themselves to death, indeed [68] seek it out, in the hope of reaching paradise, according to their belief, so also the ancients sought death, suffering, etc., in the hope, indeed certainty of glory, and that in doing so they were spurred by love of self and not of country is clear from the fact that at times they sought death where it was neither necessary nor useful (as can be seen in the detailed accounts that Barthélemy gives about Thermopylae),1 and from the Spartans accused by public opinion of having escaped death at Thermopylae, who killed themselves not for their country but out of shame. And on closer examination, it can be seen that pure love of country, even among the ancients, was a much rarer motivation than might be thought. Instead, there were such motives as liberty, hatred of enemy nations, etc., feelings that are generally included under the name of love of country, a word that needs to be well understood, because sacrifice specifically on behalf of others is not possible for man.

  Watch two, three, or more people from behind when only one of them is talking. You will immediately be able to identify the speaker. But if you cannot see them, even though you’re at the same distance, you will no longer be able to identify the speaker unless you recognize the voice, or for some other reason, etc. And this happened to me, that I was unable to identify the person without seeing him, but could do so on first glimpse of him from behind. So it is that talking, even when done by the most modest of people (as in this case), is always accompanied by movements of the body. See p. 206.

  The great judgment and taste and beautiful imagination of the Greeks is demonstrated in, among a thousand other things, their making the ferryman in Hades an old man (“cruda deo viridisque senectus” [“a god’s old age is vigorous and green”], in Virgil’s divine words),2 something that is totally in keeping with the roughness and squalor of that place. And note that in mythology all other tasks assigned to the divinities are assigned to young Gods. Here alone, because this is Hell, the task is given to an old man.

  The very birth of man, that is, the beginning of his life, is a threat to life, as can be seen from the great number of those for whom birth is the cause of death, who do not survive labor or the hardships that the baby experiences at birth. And note [69] that, upon examination, I believe it will be found that a much lower proportion of animals perish in such danger, probably because human nature is tainted and weakened by civilization.1

  “Invenies alium si te hic fastidit Alexis” [“If Alexis spurns you, you will find another”].2 This is wrong in form. No true lover believes he will find another object of love t
hat is capable of compensating for the first.

  Oh infinite vanity of truth!

  How much sweeter is hatred than indifference toward another! This is why nature, intent upon procuring our personal happiness in the primitive state, has left us indifferent toward very few things, as we can see in children who are always prone to hating or loving, fearing, etc.

  It might be added to what I said in another thought [→Z 30] that the Florentines pronounce effe elle emme esse, etc., and not effi elli, etc., from which it is clear that the human tongue, where it lacks the support of the vowel, naturally forms an e.3

  “Blessed are you if your miseries

  You know not.”

  Said, e.g., to an animal, the bees, etc.4

  It must already have been observed that as good cheer brings us into contact with others (and so a cheerful man becomes talkative even though he is normally quiet, and has no difficulty in speaking to people he would otherwise have avoided or not easily approached, etc.), so sadness causes us to flee the company of others and curl up into ourselves with our thoughts and our pain. But I notice that this tendency to be expansive when cheerful, and to recoil when sad, is also found in the physical actions of people who are caught up in [70] one or the other of these emotions: when they are cheerful, they pace up and down, move and spread their arms, their legs, swing their hips, and in a certain sense expand by rushing here and there, as if seeking a kind of spaciousness; when they are sad, they hunch up, lower their head, wrap their arms around their chest, walk slowly, and spurn any action that is quick and what one might call open. And I remember (I noticed it at the time) that when, sitting deep in some pleasant or indifferent thought, I was overcome by a sad thought, I immediately pulled my knees tightly together when they had been relaxed and apart, and dropped my chin on my chest when I had been holding it high.