Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  The simplicity of Petrarch, although extremely natural, like that of the Greeks, is nevertheless different in a way that can be felt but not explained. And perhaps it consists in a greater familiarity, closer to prose, which Petrarch so admirably gives his verses, noble though they are. The Greek poets are perhaps a little more elegant, like Homer, who went to great lengths to find a language that was different from the familiar, as appears in his continuous epithets, etc., even though it remained very simple. Perhaps also Italian, being our language, helps us to feel this familiarity of style more than we do in the Greeks, but nevertheless it seems to me there is a certain real difference.

  There is perhaps nothing more conducive to suicide than self-contempt. An example is that friend of mine [71] who went to Rome on purpose to throw himself into the Tiber because he had heard someone say he was a good-for-nothing. My own example, driven to expose myself to all possible danger and even to kill myself the first time I felt self-contempt. It is the effect of self-love that prefers death to the recognition of our own nothingness, etc., so that the more egotistical we are, the more powerfully and continually we are driven in this case to kill ourselves. And in fact to love life means to love our own good, so that when it no longer seems of any value, etc. etc.

  To a Turkish horse: “Oh, how much better you are than the men of your country.”

  I do not like to talk in company with people with whom I think I might agree. This is partly because others around me who do not know me well (since I am not used to making myself known to everyone) would give these people, directly or indirectly, a false idea of me; and partly because, in order not to become involved in arguments, which I avoid at all costs with people who have different principles from mine,1 and not to oblige that particular person whom I respect to be involved, either, I would dissimulate of necessity. And by seeking to deceive others, I would deceive him too, and he would then believe me to be one of the many with whom he cannot agree.

  I believe that the absolute number of each animal species bears a direct relationship to its smallness. There is no doubt that a single small plant very often contains many more ants on it than the number of men in the entire field. So let us discuss it. Look at the naturalists, and whether this observation has been made by any of them.2 I also observe the multitude of birds, whose flocks are innumerable, and yet they are still outnumbered by the smaller animals, [72] who are to be found in this or that place according to their respective circumstances.

  Crime, too, is often a form of heroism,1 that is, for example, when committing a crime leads to loss or danger, and yet you still want to carry it out in order to satisfy a given passion, etc., and the more heroic, the more need there is to overcome all the power of protesting nature and of habit (if we are talking, e.g., about a young person, an innocent, etc.), etc. And so it is a form of heroism when, even if no loss or danger is involved, it is carried out by someone who is not accustomed to committing a crime, since it always comes at the cost of an effort and a victory over himself, which is what heroism consists in. From a crime of this kind, therefore, one can always infer something good or at any rate rather remarkable about a person. In short, every sacrifice of something dear, every difficult sacrifice, is a form of heroism, even the sacrifice of virtue, and of the most sacred feelings, even though this sacrifice comes at a cost.2

  Even the pain that comes from boredom and awareness of the vanity of things is far more bearable than boredom itself.

  The feeling of vengeance is so pleasant that we often wish to be offended in order to seek revenge, and not only by a sworn enemy but by someone who means nothing to us, or (especially in certain moments of black humor) even by a friend.

  All is nothingness in the world, including my despair, which any man who is wise but also calmer, and I myself certainly at a quieter time, will see as vain, irrational, and imaginary. Wretched me! Even this pain of mine is vain, nothing. After a certain time it will pass and turn to nothing, and leave me in a universal emptiness, a terrible apathy that will not even let me lament.3

  [73] I have never felt envy in matters where I thought I had a certain ability, such as in literature, where indeed I have been most ready to offer praise. I can admit that I had such a feeling for the first time (and toward someone very close to me) when I wanted to be good at something in an area in which I knew I was very weak. But I must do myself justice by saying that this envy was very indistinct and not altogether base, and it was quite out of character. Nevertheless, I felt great displeasure on hearing about the successes of that person in that area, and when he told me about them, I treated him as deluded, etc.1

  The reason the unexpected and casual good is more pleasurable than one that is expected is that the latter suffers comparison with what had been imagined beforehand, and since the imagined good is a hundredfold better than the real thing, it is inevitable that the latter pales and seems like almost nothing. Unlike the unexpected good, which loses nothing of whatever real value it has by reason of an unfavorable comparison.

  “L’ame est si mal à l’aise dans ce lieu,” (says Staël, referring to the catacombs in bk. 5, ch. 2, of Corinne) “qu’il n’en peut résulter aucun bien pour elle. L’homme est une partie de la création, il faut qu’il trouve son harmonie morale dans l’ensemble de l’univers, dans l’ordre habituel [74] de la destinée; et de certaines exceptions violentes et redoutables peuvent étonner la pensée, mais effraient tellement l’imagination, que la disposition habituelle de l’ame ne saurait y gagner.” [“The soul feels so ill at ease in this place, that it can derive no good from it. Man is a part of creation, and must find his moral harmony within the universe as a whole, within the habitual order of fate; and certain violent and imposing exceptions may astonish thought, but so terrify the imagination that the habitual disposition of the soul can gain nothing by them.”] These words are a very solemn condemnation of the horrors and terrible excesses that are so beloved of the Romantics, by which imagination and feeling, rather than being stirred, are oppressed and crushed, and there is no alternative but to flee, that is, to close the eyes of the imagination and block the image that you present them with.1

  In autumn, the sun and objects appear to have a different color, the clouds a different shape, the air a different savor. It seems as if the whole of nature had a tone, a countenance that belongs to this season alone, which is more distinct and sharper than in the others, even regarding objects that hardly change in their substance. I’m speaking now about a certain superficial aspect, and with objects, circumstances, etc., being equal, and in terms of certain details, not about the most essential things, because in these it’s obvious that the face of winter is more pronounced and distinct from the other seasons than the face of autumn is, etc.

  One reason for the great contrast in the qualities of the inhabitants of the south noted by Staël (Corinne bk. 6, ch. 2, p. 246, third2 edition, 1812)—apart from the fact that “ils ne perdent aucune force de l’ame dans la société” [“they waste no spiritual strength in society”],3 as she says here, so that nature from this point of view as well is more various and not so constrained and accustomed to continuous uniformity, as is the case in France, with that spirit of society and excessive civilization—is that, because the southern climate is [75] the more temperate and nature (as she repeats several times) is very harmonious here, it is quicker, more dégagée [relaxed], more developed. And so, since the circumstances of life are very different and, for the reason stated, the character of the southern people is so pliant and susceptible to every impression, the consequence is the contrast in the qualities that are displayed in opposing circumstances, and rapid change, etc. Whereas in other climates, where nature is less changeable, more stubborn, and harsher, violence is rarely calmed, and indolence almost never becomes active, in short, the dominant quality dominates more absolutely and tyrannically than it does in the south, where it should not be supposed, however, that a given individual might lack the dominant qualities, but that they le
ave proportionately more space for other qualities, for variety between them, etc.1

  The feeling we experience on seeing the countryside or any other thing that inspires vague and indefinite ideas and thoughts, however extremely delightful it might be, is like a delight that cannot be captured, and can be compared to that of someone who chases a beautiful colored butterfly and is unable to catch it, and so it always leaves a great yearning in the soul. Yet this is the sum of our delights, and all that is fixed and certain is much farther from contenting us than that which, by its very uncertainty, can never content us.

  [76] The greatest happiness possible to man in this world is when he lives his life quietly with a calm and certain hope of a much better future, a hope that, because it is certain, and because the state in which he lives is good, does not make him restless or disturbed by impatience to enjoy this very beautiful imagined future. I myself enjoyed this divine state for several months at intervals when I was 16 and 17, finding myself quietly occupied in my studies with nothing else to disturb me, and with the calm and certain hope of a happy future. And I will never experience it again, because such a hope as this, which alone can make man happy with the present, can occur only in a youth of that age, or at least, of that experience.1

  Civilization has introduced refined labors, etc., that consume and exhaust and extinguish human faculties such as memory, sight, strength in general, etc., labors that were not required by nature. And it has taken away those labors which conserve and improve the faculties, such as agriculture, hunting, etc., and primitive life, which were willed by nature and necessary for such a life.2

  A corollary to the thought expressed above3 might be observations on the anchorites, who live without disturbance and with the calm and patient hope of paradise.

  The expression of pain in ancient times, for example in the statue of Laocoön, in the Niobe group, in Homer’s descriptions, etc., must by necessity be different from that of modern pain.4 It was a pain without medication, such as ours has. The ancients did not regard the misfortunes that afflicted them as being necessarily caused by our own nature, and as a small thing in this miserable life, but rather [77] as obstacles and hindrances to happiness, which, unlike us, they did not think of as a dream (and in fact for them it was not a dream, because, while we despair, they certainly hoped to be able to achieve it), as ills that were avoidable and had not been avoided. That is why the vengeance of heaven, the injustices of men, injury, calamity, illness, the insults of fortune all seemed to be personal to those who suffered them (in fact, contrary to our current belief, the sufferer of misfortune, by reason of superstitions mingled with feelings and natural opinions, was treated as wicked and hated by the Gods, and aroused more hatred than compassion).1 So their pain was desperate, as it usually is in nature, and still is today among barbarians and country people. Without the comfort of sensibility, without the sweet resignation to misfortune that we, unlike them, know to be inevitable, they could not know the pleasure of pain. The anguish of a mother who, like Niobe, had lost her children was not mixed with any bittersweet tenderness toward itself, etc., it was utterly desperate.2 A supreme difference between ancient and modern pain, on account of which the modern poet, artist, etc., is rightly urged to deal with modern subjects, since if he deals with ancient subjects he cannot but fall into one of the following: either he violates the truth by portraying ancient events in which his characters are given modern feelings and emotions, or he fails to interest or make himself [78] understood by his modern audience because he makes the characters feel and speak as they did in antiquity. Except that the offense against the truth, in the first case, does not seem to me so much something to be avoided, provided that a degree of verisimilitude is preserved. If the effect of mixing ancient and modern is good, it’s pure pedantry to point out that the ancients could not have experienced those feelings, as I myself am in the habit of saying about clothing and poses in painting, etc., where, provided the offense to truth is not obvious, that is, provided a degree of verisimilitude is preserved, it is always better to be understood and to make an impression on the modern viewer than to subject oneself to a wretched scholarly exactness that would have no effect. Therefore, I do not condemn, indeed I praise, Racine, for example, who chose ancient subjects (ones that by their nature were not incompatible with modern feelings, and whose beauty, tragic quality, power, etc., moreover made them preferable to other subjects from more recent times), and then treated them in a modern style. Sensibility existed among the ancients potentially, but not actively, as it does among us, and so is a very natural faculty (see my discourse on the Romantics).1 But experience shows that different circumstances develop different natural faculties of the soul, which remain hidden and inactive in the absence of those physical, political, moral, and, above all, in our case, intellectual circumstances. For the development of feeling and melancholy came about largely as a result of the progress of philosophy and knowledge of mankind and the world, of the vanity of things, and of human unhappiness. [79] Knowledge that itself produces this unhappiness, which in nature we should never have known. Instead of this feeling, which is now inextricably linked with melancholy, the ancients had other feelings, enthusiasms, etc., that were more joyful and happy. It is madness to accuse their poets of not being sentimental, and even to favor our own feelings and pleasures over theirs, which were also intensely spiritual and destined by nature for a humanity not made to be unhappy, although our feelings and pleasures are also natural, that is, nature’s last resort in opposing (as is its continual purpose) the unhappiness produced by the unnatural knowledge of our wretchedness. The consolation sought by the ancients was not in their misfortune, for example, a dead man was consoled with the emblems of life,1 with the most energetic games, with praise that he had met a lesser misfortune or none at all in dying for his country, for glory, for living passions, in dying, I would say, almost for life. Their consolation, even for death, was not in death but in life. See p. 105 of these thoughts.

  The other arts imitate and express nature, from which feeling is drawn, but music imitates and expresses only feeling itself, which it draws from itself and not from nature, as does the listener. This is why Staël (Corinne, bk. 9, ch. 2) says: “De tous les beaux-arts c’est” (la musique) “celui qui agit le plus immédiatement sur l’ame. Les autres la dirigent vers telle ou telle idée, celui-là seul s’adresse à la source intime de l’existence, et change en entier la disposition intérieure” [“Of all the fine arts it” (music) “is the one that acts most directly upon the soul. The other arts direct it toward some idea or other, it alone addresses the intimate source of existence, and wholly changes its inner disposition”].2 Words [80] in poetry, etc., do not have as much power in expressing the vagueness and infiniteness of feeling unless they are applied to objects, and therefore produce an impression that is always secondary and less immediate, because words, like marks and images in painting and sculpture, have a specific and finite meaning. In this respect, architecture is a little more like music, but cannot have so much suddenness, and immediacy.1

  La speme che rinasce in un col giorno.

  Dolor mi preme del passato, e noia

  Del presente, e terror de l’avvenire.

  [Hope that is rekindled with a new day.

  Pain of the past oppresses me, and tiredness

  Of the present, and dread of the future.]2

  One can observe, without being unjust in saying this, that Christianity has in one respect actually worsened mankind. Just consider the effect produced upon readers of history by the character of villainous Christian princes compared with villainous pagans, and also with individual people, Patriarchs, Bishops, and Greek monks (see Montesquieu, Grandeur, etc., Amsterdam 1781, ch. 22)3 or Roman monks. The villainy of the pagans was in no way so contrary to their principles. Once the fanaticism of piety is dead, and with it the early fervor of a religion that is thought of as one’s own opinion, one’s own sect and property, and of which one is therefore more j
ealous (also because of the sacrifices it cost to profess it), man in society goes back to being naturally wicked, but with the difference that whereas the villains of ancient times acted either according to their principles or against maxims that were confused, obscure, and disputed, the Christians acted against maxims that were certain, established, defined, and of which they were intimately persuaded, and man is always that much more [81] villainous the more effort it costs him to be so, especially against himself, as happens, but inversely, with piety. And in fact from the moment that Christianity was corrupted in people’s hearts, that is, more or less from when it became an imperial religion and was recognized as a national religion, and was handed down to men who were placed in circumstances in which they could be wicked, there is no doubt that villainy changed appearance, and the character of Constantine and the other villainous Christian emperors, bishops, etc., is clearly more odious than that of the Tiberiuses, Caligulas, etc., and the Mariuses and Cinnas, etc., with a kind of villainy that was entirely new and more terrible. And in my view, Christianity is largely responsible (since the corruption of Christianity was part of the corruption of civilization) for this new concept of villainy in the Middle Ages, which was quite different, more horrible and more barbarous than that of antiquity.1 And this new idea has persisted more or less until these recent times, when, because unbelief has made such progress, the character of evil has become more like that of antiquity, even if the great spread and advance of clear and definite perceptions of universal morality, so much more shadowy even in the most civilized of ancient times, leaves little space for villainy to calmly follow its course. See p. 710, paragraph 1.