Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  Florus, 1, 12: “Veientium quanta res fuerit, indicat decennis obsidio. Tunc primum hiematum sub pellibus: taxata stipendio hiberna: adactus miles sua sponte iureiurando, ‘nisi capta urbe remeare.’ Spolia de Larte Tolumnio rege ad Feretrium reportata. Denique non scalis, nec irruptione, sed cuniculo, et subterraneis dolis peractum urbis excidium” [“The ten years’ siege of Veii indicates just how strong it was. It was the first occasion on which a Roman army spent the winter under tents of skin, and winter service was compensated by special pay, and the soldiers at their own suggestion were bound by an oath ‘not to return until the city had been captured.’ The spoils won from Lars Tolumnius, the king, were brought back in triumph and dedicated to Jupiter Feretrius. In the end, the fall of the city was brought about, not by scaling ladders or assault but by a mine and underground devices”].2 [490] All of this constitutes just one sentence, and should not be divided up save by lesser elements of punctuation. The hiematum sub pellibus, the taxata hiberna, the adactus miles, the spolia reportata, the peractum excidium do not stand on their own but depend upon Veientium quanta res fuerit, indicat; as is plain as much from the things themselves as from what Florus immediately adds: “Ea denique visa est praedae magnitudo, cuius decimae Apollini Pythio mitterentur: universusque populus Romanus ad direptionem urbis vocaretur. Hoc tunc Veii fuere” [“Finally, the booty appeared so rich that one-tenth was dispatched to Pythian Apollo, and the whole of the Roman people was summoned to plunder the city. Such was Veii in those days”].1 Those words close the demonstration of the ancient greatness and might of Veii. See, however, the most recent editions of Florus. (11 Jan. 1821.)

  “Σὺ γὰρ, ὦ Θαλῆ, τὰ ἐν ποσὶν οὐ δυνάμενος ἰδεῖν, τὰ ἐπὶ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ οἴει γνώσεσθαι” [“You cannot see, O Thales, the things that are right in front of you and yet you believe you can know celestial things”]; said the old servant to Thales after he had fallen in a pit while he was gazing at the stars (Laertius, 1, 34, in Thales). [491] “῞Ωσπερ καὶ Θαλῆν ἀστρονομοῦντα, ὦ Θεόδωρε,” (dum coelum suspiceret. Ficinus) “καὶ ἄνω βλέποντα, πεσόντα εἰς φρέαρ,” (in foveam. id.) “Θρᾷττά τις ἐμμελὴς καὶ χαρίεσσα θεραπαινίς” (Thracia quaedam eius ancilla concinna et lepida. id.) “ἀποσκῶψαι λέγεται, ὡς τὰ μὲν ἐν οὐρανῷ προθυμοῖτο εἰδέναι,” (pervidere contenderet. id.) “τὰ δ’ ἔμπροσθεν αὐτοῦ καὶ παρὰ πόδας, λανθάνοι αὐτόν. Ταὐτὸν δὲ ἀρκεῖ,” (obiici potest. id. aptius, cadit, convenit) “σκῶμμα ἐπὶ πάντας ὅσοι ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ διάγουσι” (in philosophia versantur. id.) [“As also it is recounted of Thales, O Theodorus, that while he was gazing at the stars and looking upward, and had fallen into a pit, a Thracian servant girl, who was rather slender and pretty, is said to have teased him; she said that he sought to know the celestial phenomena but failed to see what was in front of him and at his feet. This jest is all too apt for those who occupy themselves with philosophy”]. Plato in the Theaetetus, or περὶ ἐπιστήμης [On Knowledge] a little before the halfway point (pp. 127ff., Paris 1590). And see Ménage on Laertius, 1, 34.1 And Diogenes the Cynic marveled “ἐθαύμαζε … τοὺς μαθηματικοὺς” [“that mathematicians”] (that is to say, the astronomers) “ἀποβλέπειν μὲν πρὸς τὸν ἥλιον καὶ τὴν σελήνην, τὰ δ’ ἐν ποσὶ πράγματα παρορᾷν·” [“kept their eyes fixed on the sun and moon, and overlooked what was at their feet”] (Laertius, 6, 28, in Diogenes the Cynic).

  One may say all this not only of the wise but of men in general, and regret not only the impotence of human knowledge, not only the bad judgment shown in choosing, that is, [492] in concerning ourselves with things placed outside our sphere, and alien to us, and neglecting those near at hand, and important to us, but also the blindness, the wretchedness, the pointlessness, the harmfulness of human knowledge: when all the things we ought to have known, and that we still can know, truly are “ἔμπροσθεν ἡμῶν καὶ παρὰ πόδας” [“in front of us and at our feet”], and finally the summit, the ultimate degree of knowledge, consists of knowing that everything we sought was in front of us, lay at our feet, that we would have known it, and did indeed already know it, without study. Indeed, study alone and wishing to know prevented us from knowing it and seeing it, seeking it prevented us from finding it. And looking upward in order to inform ourselves about our own affairs, which lay at our feet and were all too visible and clearly displayed, we did not see them, and do not see them; and we have as a consequence fallen, and fall, into so many ditches, ditches that are, first, full of errors, and, second, and, this is worse, full of ills and unhappiness. How much has been studied, how many things have been consulted, how many comparisons have been made, how many relationships observed, how many secrets, how many mysteries [493] discovered or sought out, how many sciences, how many arts, how many disciplines have been invented, how many institutions founded, whether political, moral, or religious, etc., in order to discover our origin, our destinies, the nature of things, the order of the universe, our happiness! Yet we were naturally happy, and we were born so. The order of things was such as lay before our eyes, neither more nor less, such as existed before our studies, which have merely disturbed it. Nature was what we felt without study, what we found without seeking, what we followed without observing, what spoke to us without our questioning it. Good and evil really were what we naturally believed them to be. Our destinies were those we naturally ran toward, as the river runs to the sea. Real truth was what we knew1 without being aware of it, and without thinking or believing that we knew. Everything was relative, and we have believed everything to be absolute. We were fine just as we were, and precisely because that was how we had been made. But we have sought out the good, as a thing divided from our own essence, [494] distinct from our own natural and original intellective capacity, as a thing consisting of abstractions, and of universal forms. We have had recourse to heaven and earth, to the most difficult systems (whether chimerical or well-founded), in millions of different guises, in order to find that happiness, that condition best suited to us, in which we had already been placed by being born. And we have not found it, except in that we have been able to ascertain that it was precisely the one we had before we thought to seek it out.1 (12 Jan. 1821.)

  “Hic sive invidia deum, sive fato, rapidissimus procurrentis imperii cursus parumper Gallorum Senonum incursione subprimitur” [“At this point whether on account of the envy of the gods or on account of fate, the very swift progress of the growing empire was checked for a while by the invasion of the Senonian Gauls”]. Florus, 1, 13, beginning, as he embarks upon his account of the first Gallic war.2

  Florus, 1, 13, Mannheim ed. “Adeo tum quoque in ultimis religio publica privatis adfectibus antecellebat” [“To such an extent, then too, even in the utmost extremities did the respect for religion prevail over personal affection”].3 Why tum quoque? Perhaps in the following period, and especially in that of Florus, that is, of Trajan, public religion was dearer to the hearts of Romans than in the early days of Rome? Or, rather, did it not gradually weaken as time went on, and in Florus’s time it was, you could say, actually extinct? [495] And the same has happened, and happens, not only to the Romans but to every people. This was something admitted by everyone even then, and the supreme religiosity of ancient Rome was well known and celebrated. Read Adeo tum in ultimis quoque: “then even in the lowliest plebs public religion prevailed over private affections,” whereas later it was just the reverse. I nonetheless reckon that they have understood in ultimis to mean in ultimis rebus or casibus, that is in the direst extremities, and thus they have interpreted it as “so much so even in that time, that is to say, in the most extreme calamity.” Wrongly. In ultimis means in the lowliest, as is evide
nt from the words used by Florus earlier. See Forcellini, and the most recent editions of Florus. See p. 510, paragraph 2.

  Florus, 1, 13, having said that the Romans destroyed the Senonian Gauls in such a fashion that “hodie nulla Senonum vestigia supersint” [“today no trace of the Senonians survives”], adds shortly afterward: “ne quis exstaret in ea gente, quae incensam a se Romam urbem gloriaretur” [“so that no one might survive in the nation to boast that he had set fire to the city of Rome”].1 That qui may be read for quae would seem not to be in doubt, and will indeed have been noted. Yet in that case, [496] and even so, how was anyone supposed to be left in that nation, if it had been completely destroyed? I would read: ex ea gente: “so that not one of that nation was left.” Anyone with a sense of Latin or simply of logic will recognize that the preposition in has no place here. (12 Jan. 1821.)

  Anyone at the very top of any profession, no matter how slight, trivial, or unimportant it may be, could certainly achieve prominence in another, weightier profession. For we do not attain perfection in anything, no matter how trifling it may be, without a quantity of exceptional virtue, courage, capability, facility, and aptitude both in character and in intelligence. (13 Jan. 1821.)

  People say and hint that when we want to win from women the favors we desire, we should first drink wine, to make ourselves brave, carefree, to think little of consequences, and if nothing else to shine in company by being at our ease. Voltaire jokingly advised drinking in order to forget or to free oneself from [497] love: “Ou bien buvez: c’est un parti fort sage” [“Or else drink: that’s a very sound move”].1 I don’t know how good the advice is. Wine—meaning bodily vigor, as I have said elsewhere [→Z 109, 324], and what I say is true—although it fosters cheerfulness and assuages the mind’s sorrows, nonetheless intensifies each person’s dominant or habitual passions. But certainly it will cheer, and will give hope even to someone who is unlucky or inconsolable in love. See p. 501, paragraph 1.

  Favella [speech] and favellare [speak] plainly derive from fabula and fabulari with the b having turned as usual into a v, as from fabula we also say favola; whence it is as if we said fabella and fabellare. There is nothing remarkable or strange about this: it stands to reason and must have been observed by all the Etymologists. But what have favella and favellare to do with favoleggiare [to make up stories] and favole [fables]? But this is precisely what is singular and noteworthy about this derivation. Because the ancient and original meaning of fabula was not fable but speech, from for faris [to speak], something like a short speech, whence it acquired the meaning of ciancia [idle talk] [498] nugae [chitchat], and finally that of fiction and false account. Precisely like the Greek μῦθος, which in its proper meaning is the same as λόγος, verbum, dictum, sermo, colloquium [word, saying, talk, conversation], and from Homer onward is not found, or so I believe, save with this or similar meanings, neither it nor its derivatives. Then it acquired the meaning of favola.1 The sense of fabula, fabulator, fabulo, fabulor, confabulor, etc., given above is evident in Latin authors from all the classical centuries, especially, however, in the earliest and the purest. See Forcellini under all these entries. Yet later, and particularly in late antiquity, the usual and commonplace meaning of fabula in written texts was simply favola [fable]. And nonetheless our language has expressly retained this word (which, as I have said, is precisely our favella) in its very old, original, and proper meaning. The language certainly didn’t go fishing for this meaning in the earliest records and writers. This meaning must, therefore, have been handed down exactly as it was at the outset, and was preserved and perpetuated without [499] interruption up until the birth and origins of our language. Now, that can have been only through the medium of the Latin people, especially given that the writers, even if they had kept this meaning in use until the very end, would never have been able on their own to communicate it to the people, and make it popular, routine, commonplace, characteristic, and primal in a nascent language, when the more usual meaning of that word was different. And such it was, indeed, among the writers. Anyway, just as μῦθος and fabula mean speech and fable at one and the same time, and that first meaning was transposed to the second, so, too, conversely, in our language novella and novellare, having had the meaning of fable or tale and acquired that of gossip or talk, likewise have the meaning of fable and speech at one and the same time. See the Crusca. (13 Jan. 1821.) See p. 871, end.

  The fecundity, instability, and swiftness of imagination and conception in children (true or false, it [500] does not matter which) appears again in an observation I have made of those in the middle years of childhood (6, 7, 8 years old, or thereabouts), who already know enough and more than enough language to string together a discourse, and nonetheless, even though they are talkative, indeed, the more talkative they are (and this is a sign of fecundity), the more they hesitate and have problems in carrying on a continuous conversation, telling a story, etc. I have then observed that this does not chiefly derive from the difficulty of finding or putting together words (indeed, as I have said, the more talkative are more subject to this, the less talkative have much more success with a fairly long and sequential discourse) but from the sheer number of ideas that crowd into their minds. With the result that they are unable to choose, become confused, go from pillar to post, suddenly even change the subject completely; their discourses have neither head nor tail, and having begun with the head of a man end with the tail of a fish.1 How great, then, must be the internal activity, the quantity of occupations even in the least occupied, the capacity for being distracted, and for alleviating or suppressing [501] painful thoughts or sensations, the variety and at the same time the vividness of images and perceptions (since each one is capable of wholly distracting them from the one that at present occupies them)—in other words, the life of the mind, and consequently the happiness of children, even of those who are the least happy in their external circumstances!1

  For p. 497.

  ῎Ερωτα παύει λιμὸς· εἰ δὲ μὴ, χρόνος·

  ᾿Εὰν δὲ τούτοις μὴ δύνῃ χρῆσθαι, βρόχος.

  [Hunger assuages love; and if not, time;

  And if this remedy avails you nothing, a noose.]2

  Amorem sedat fames; sin minus, tempus:

  Eis vero si uti non vales, laqueus.

  A saying of Crates the Cynic in Laertius (6, 86 in Crates the Theban), mentioned by other authors also, and cited in a slightly different form by Stobaeus, and by the Suda. See Ménage and the Aldobrandini edition. (13 Jan. 1821.)

  Just as Italians out of a concern for linguistic propriety say muovere in a neutral fashion for muoversi [to move], andare [to go], camminare [to walk], etc., so too with Latin writers, aside from the examples cited by Forcellini, Florus 1, 13: “Sed quod ius apud barbaros? ferocius agunt. Movent, et inde certamen” [“But what sense of justice could there be among barbarians? They only act with greater ferocity. They advance and thereupon battle is joined”]. He is talking about the Senonian Gauls, “conversis a Clusio, Romamque venientibus” [“who turned away from Clusium, and, as they marched upon Rome”], as [502] he immediately adds.1 And 2, 8: “quum ingenti strepitu ac tumultu movisset ex Asia” (Antiochus) [“who” (Antiochus) “had marched out of Asia with loud noise and tumult”].2 (14 Jan. 1821.) See Suetonius, in Divus Julius, ch. 60, § 1 and ibid. the notes by scholars.3

  As Dante says: “Quinci si va, chi vuole andar per pace” [“This is the way, he who wishes to go for peace”],4 a fairly common, widely used idiom in our language, as it is by Latin writers also. Florus, 2, 15, at the beginning: “Atque si quis trium temporum momenta consideret, primo commissum bellum, profligatum secundo, tertio vero confectum est” [“And if one considers the significance of the three periods, the first saw the beginning of the war, the second saw it brought almost to an end, the third saw it finally settled”].5 He is referring to the 3 Punic Wars. (14 Jan. 1821.) More obvious, and conforming to Italian usage, is the foll
owing idiom (a genuine idiom, because it’s not a regular expression, but wrong in terms of structure and construction) in Horace, Ode 16, bk. 2, l. 13, “Vivitur parvo bene, cui paternum,” etc. [“He whose forefathers … lives well with modesty”], that is to say, si cui (which would itself not be a very regular expression either), but the si is omitted, just as it is in Italian.

  Florus, 2, 15: “Sed huius caussa belli” (tertii Punici) (scil. fuit) “quod contra foderis legem” (Carthago) “adversus Numidas quidem semel parasset classem et exercitum, frequens autem Masinissae fines territabat. Sed huic bono socioque regi favebatur” [“But the cause of this war” (the third Punic War) (i.e., was) “the fact that against the agreements” (Carthage) “on the one hand prepared a fleet and an army against the Numidians, and that it then caused alarm on the borders of Masinissa’s kingdom. But this good king and ally was in favor {among the Romans}”].6 This enallage or shift from parasset [had prepared] to territabat [caused alarm] is not appropriate here. In other editions, however, I find territaret. But what’s more, quidem [indeed] and autem [but, although] are also adversative, or disjunctive, particles. But as read here, these particles can serve no purpose, and in effect serve only to distinguish the Numidians from Masinissa. [503] Whereas they were one and the same, and those preparations made by the Carthaginians, which Florus says were against the Numidians, had been against Masinissa. See the Historians. I read Masinissa (but see the Historians, if this is true of him) and I would also be happy to transfer the quidem after semel. “The pretext of this war was that despite the agreements the Carthaginians had on one occasion equipped a fleet and army against the Numidians, although Masinissa frequently” (note the frequens autem set against the semel quidem, and thus it seems to me it must be, however one wishes to understand this passage, because what opposition or disjunctive force could adversus Numidas quidem have with frequens autem?) “caused alarm on their borders. But” (note that but, which, if we understand the passage in another sense, seems inappropriate) “the Romans supported this good ruler who was their ally.” (14 Jan. 1821.)