For p. 1127. And they used to pronounce it so softly that even though a trace of it still remains in writing as a sign for aspiration, it has now disappeared altogether from the pronunciation, even as simple aspiration. Likewise the French, where we say fuori or fuora and the Spanish fuera [outside], from the Latin foras or foris, say hors, though they aspirate the h. Instead of voce [voice], the Venetians say ose, with the v having disappeared. The Greek φ, as is well known, is simply an aspirated π, as may also be seen in the grammatical shifts and substitutions of one of these letters for the other. It was missing, it is said, in the original Greek alphabet, called the Cadmean or Phoenician alphabet, and it was added to it, some say, by Palamedes (Pliny 7, 56), along with the χ and θ, which are a κ and a τ aspirated (Servius, on the Aeneid 2, line 81).1 See Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, 1, 23, § 2 and Hofmann’s Lexicon, under “Literae.”2 It is also probable that the Hebrew alphabet lacked it and that the was simply a p, a letter that the Hebrew alphabet lacks today. See p. 1168. The alphabet called Devanagari, that is, the one used by the Sanskrit language (from which some English scholars derive Latin), even though consisting of 50 letters, lacks f, instead of which this language employs an aspirated b or p. (Annali di scienze e lettere, Milan 1811, no. 13, p. 43), etc. etc.3 (5 June 1821.) Consider also the Greek name of Iapetus, from Japheth, which is Hebrew or Phoenician, etc.
[1140] For p. 1115. And the better to grasp the real difference between frequentatives and continuatives every time these verbs were used by writers according to their actual value, let us consider the passage in Virgil (Aeneid 2, 458ff.) in which Aeneas, when he went up to the roof of Priam’s royal palace besieged by the Greeks, says:
Evado ad summi fastigia culminis: unde
Tela manu miseri iactabant irrita Teucri.
[I escape to the roof’s topmost height: from where
the wretched Trojans were hurling their useless spears]
No matter how little one’s ear is attuned to Latin, one will readily grasp how inappropriate and weak the word iaciebant [they were throwing] would be instead of iactabant. But just how bad iactitabant, that is, the frequentative of iacere, would be there, one will see by pondering the fact that this word would have meant “to throw often,” and even “listlessly,” whereas iactabant, being a continuative, means “they were throwing assiduously, at full stretch and uninterruptedly.” And thus the latter verb proves to be wholly appropriate and is just what was needed. And the action here proves to be continuative, not frequentative, which would be too weak to invoke a stubborn resistance such as Virgil sought to express. See then the difference between the continuative and the frequentative and judge whether iactare is frequentative, as the grammarians maintain. And don’t tell me that Virgil wished to express a weak and futile show of resistance, and so sought to use a word expressing a degree of languor in the action depicted. Weak and futile, [1141] with respect to the superior forces of the Greeks, but not indeed weak with respect to the forces of the besieged, indeed as great a resistance as they could muster. And Virgil means to describe a resistance that was all the more desperate for being vain. And hence that miseri [wretched] and that irrita [useless], which express the pointlessness of resistance, make a fine and telling contrast with the iactabant, which expresses the effort, the tirelessness, the distress, the stubbornness, the ferocity, the firmness, the thoroughgoing nature of the resistance, and renders this passage highly expressive by virtue of the propriety of the words used, as is usual in Virgil. And I do not believe that any modern has ever really appreciated the beauty, the full force and real meaning, of this verb in the passage quoted and in others like it, as again with other such verbs used in a similar way and the beauties of other comparable passages, because no modern has ever pondered the real properties, the characteristic force, nature, and character of this kind of verb, which I call continuative. Servius glosses Iactabant as: “Spargebant, quasi nihil profutura” [“They were showering {their arrows} as though without thought”],1 a meaning that simply has nothing to do with what we have noted, and which comes from believing iactare to be a verb midway between a frequentative and a diminutive, like iactitare or some such, and yet which I believe is the sense in which this and a thousand other similar and analogous passages have been and are understood by everyone. (6 June 1821.) See p. 2343.
[1142] For p. 1109. Among which from depositus, from deponere, the Italian verb depositare or dipositare, and the Spanish depositar and the barbarian Latin depositare, a verb which continues the action of putting something down as far as possible, meaning putting something down that should not be taken up again so quickly, or putting it down, recommending it, and committing it to the trust, or placing it in the care and custody of someone else, which as anyone may see is a more drawn-out act of putting down, and how deporre [put down] is simpler. The barbarian Latin Glossary likewise has assertare [to assert], etc., from assertus, etc., usitare, a frequentative, from usus [using], etc., preserved in Italian, as indeed was its participle in French, etc. See the Glossary cited.
I believe that many verbs so constructed and whose origin is reckoned to be either barbarian or recent, and that were born either during the period of late Latin or at the beginnings of our own languages, are ancient Latin continuatives that were either lost or not admitted into ordinary usage by good writers, and acceded to our languages by way of Vulgar Latin. Let us supply some evidence.
Versare is a continuative of vertere [to turn], from its participle versus. Forcellini calls it frequentative. And I would ask whether in the examples adduced by him (see the examples from the first §) versare implies frequency or continuation. And thus when Horace said
Vos exemplaria graeca
Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna
[turn the Greek models by night, and turn them by day]1
one may readily see that to say vertite [turn] would have been to say somewhat less, and assiduity would have been very incorrectly signified. Thus you will argue of the passive versari [to dwell, to live] that [1143] it signifies an action or passion which by its very nature is as continuous as possible. Likewise with conversari [to be a constant visitor to], adversari [to resist], etc. From versare or from transversus, participle of transvertere [to turn across], is derived transversare, and from the latter the Italian traversare, attraversare, and intraversare, the French traverser, and the Spanish travessar and atravessar. But the verb transversare, having been denied the honors of the Dictionary, has been relegated to the Glossaries like Du Cange’s, who interprets it to mean transire [to pass over], trajicere [to cause to go across], and Forcellini dispatches it to the end of his Dictionary and consigns it to the rubbish pit of words found without competent authorities in old Latin Dictionaries and takes it to mean transverse ponere [to place transversely or obliquely]. Nor does the recent Appendix to Forcellini rescue it from that place or make any reference to it at all. Yet here we have this barbarian word in a very genteel little poem or idyll from the Augustan Age or the one following it, I mean the little poem entitled Moretum1 (attributed by some to Virgil, by others to one A. Septimius Serenus or Severus, a Faliscan poet during the time of the Vespasians) in imitation of which (a fact which, so far as I know, has not been noted until now) our own Baldi wrote the famous “Celeo,”2 where he all but translates the first lines of the little Latin poem. So the author of this little poem says
[1144] Contrahit admistos nunc fontes atque farinas;
Transversat durata manu, liquidoque coactos
Interdum grumos spargit sale. (ll. 45ff.)
[He mixed and blended flour and water; working the mixture back and forth and sprinkling with salt the lumps thickened by water.]
That is, he passes his hands back and forth across the dough which has already been rendered firm by hand. Here, then, we have the verb transversare, and our own words, etc., of ancient origin and in pure Latin.
It could be assumed that transversare more or less meant versare, that is, to turn and work in one’s hands. Nonet
heless, the explanation that the Glossary and Forcellini give of transversare, the preposition trans [beyond], and the meaning of the word transversus [across], would seem to bear out my interpretation. There is also the verb transvertere [to turn or direct across], on which see Forcellini, and of which transversare would seem in all likelihood to be the continuative.
Let us proceed with another example. From arctus or arcitus, an old participle of arcere, taken to mean coercere [to enclose], continere [to hold together] (on which see Festus and Forcellini who gives some good examples of its use) is derived the continuative arctare, which means stringere [to draw tight, to bind], constringere [to draw together, to bind], not indeed momentarily as when we shake someone’s hand; but to clasp continuously and in such a fashion that the action of clasping is not a pure act but an action. The verb coarctare, which in reputable Latin writers means restringere [to restrict], comes either from arctare or from coercere. But in the barbarian Latin Glossaries coarctare sometimes means costringere [to compel] or forzare [to force] and it is employed in this sense by Paulus the jurist, a usage recorded in the actual Latin dictionaries;1 and in Italy coartare and coartazione are employed in this sense somewhat more than in that of ristringere [to bind up] (which today may be said to have been forgotten), even though the Crusca does not give this meaning for coartare [1145] and in giving it for coartazione is mistaken in supposing that, in the sole example it records, this word is understood in that sense, since it is understood there to mean restrizione [restraint, restriction] in accord with what Monti has shown (Proposta, etc., the entry for Coartazione, vol. 1, part 2, p. 166). And he condemns as barbarous the words coartare and coartazione when taken to mean Costrignimento [constraint], Sforzamento [compulsion]. For my part, however, I believe that the latter meaning is neither barbarous in Italian nor modern in Latin but ancient and frequently used in Vulgar Latin, even though it is not admissible in the best writings.
First of all, I would point out that coarctare is the continuative of coercere, and coercere, as everyone knows, has a metaphoric sense in the best Latin writers (more common, perhaps, than its actual sense) which closely resembles that of forzare [to force]. Indeed, some grammarians give it this meaning also, even though on the basis of incompetent authorities, that is, that of the pamphlet De progenie Augusti attributed to Messalla Corvinus, where it reads: “Superatos hostes Romae cohabitare coercuit,” that is, forced [“forced the defeated enemy to live with them in Rome”].1 Although scholars deem this pamphlet apocryphal, from the middle ages, it is nonetheless perhaps not inferior either in authority or in age to countless others that are actually cited in the Latin Lexicon. Hence, if coercere [1146] used to mean forzare, or something similar, it is only too natural that its continuative coarctare should have, at any rate in Vulgar Latin, the same or a similar meaning.
Second, I observe that the metaphor from stringere [to draw tight, to bind] to forzare [to force] is so natural that it may be found both in Latin itself, and (setting aside the others) in all the languages which are derived from it. “Quae tibi scripsi, primum, ut te non sine exemplo monerem: deinde ut in posterum ipse ad eandem temperantiam adstringerer, cum me hac epistola quasi pignore obligavissem,” [“My initial reason for telling you this was to have an example to illustrate my advice but I can also use this letter as a kind of pledge to bind me to practice the same self-control in future”] says Pliny the Younger (bk. 7, letter 1).1 What else does this mean but to compel, force, oblige oneself (as he goes on to explain) into moderation? Other uses of adstringere (and likewise of obstringere, constringere, and of the plain Latin stringere) markedly similar to those of forzare are well known to grammarians. And cogere, which in a metaphoric sense (more common than in a proper sense) means forzare, and is a contraction of coagere, what else does it strictly speaking mean except in unum colligere [to assemble together at one point], to assemble, to condense, to thicken, to bind, to bind together? Its continuative, coactare, is also used by Lucretius to mean forzare.2 For us stringere, astringere, costringere, [1147] aside from their proper meanings, also have the metaphoric meaning of sforzare [to strain]. For the French astreindre and contraindre have taken on this meaning to such an extent that astreindre lacks the original meaning of stringere [to draw tight, to bind], and in contraindre this proper meaning is regarded as figurative. Which again happens with the second and third of the Italian verbs mentioned above. For the Spanish apretar, which means to clasp, still commonly means hacer fuerza, that is to say, to strain; and constreñir or costreñir (from estreñir which means to clasp) do not retain any other meaning but that of to force. Estrechar has to clasp as its proper and usual meaning, and to compel and to force as its metaphoric meaning. Binding is a form of clasping. Now, setting aside the metaphoric meanings of the Latin obligare, which resemble those of forzarea in Italian, in French, [1148] in Spanish everyone knows that obligare, obliger, obligor are constantly used with the explicit sense of to force. It therefore seems to me highly probable that the verb coarctare (the continuative of coercere), aside from its proper sense of to draw together, also had, not only in late Latin but also in Vulgar Latin, the sense of to force. (6–8 June 1821.) See p. 1155.
For p. 1107. Forcellini may call acceptare [to accept] a frequentative of accipere [to accept], *“but,” he adds, “of wellnigh the same meaning.”* Now anyone with a good ear can sense the difference in the examples above, simply by substituting the verb accipere. And as for the frequentative, anyone may note the difference there is between receiving annually such and such an income, which is a continuous action in relation to the nature of the receiving, and receiving frequently, an action which does not involve order nor rule, nor does it determine the how, nor the when, nor at which intervals one receives.
And in this regard I will cite a passage in Plautus, where Harpax, who has come to discharge a debt [1149] owed by his master, says to Pseudolus, the creditor’s slave:
Tibi ego dem?
[Give it to you?]
And Pseudolus answers:
Mihi hercle vero, qui res rationesque heri
Ballionis curo, argentum adcepto, expenso, et cui debet, dato.
[To me, of course, Lord, yes! Why, I’m in charge of master Ballio’s affairs and accounts. I take in money, I pay out money, and give to whoever is owed.]
(Pseudolus 2, 2, ll. 31–32)1
Here you have three continuatives in their full strength and specificity, adceptare [to take] from adceptus, participle of adcipere [to take]; expensare [to pay out] from expensus, participle of expendere [to pay out]; and datare [to give] from datus, participle of dare [to give]. Are we supposed to believe that it was by chance that Plautus put these three verbs in a row, with all of them being of one and the same form, instead of their positive versions? But the continuatives are here, and must be here, instead of positives, because the latter express a simple action, whereas here one had to signify the custom of performing such actions. Some maintain that datare is the same thing as dare. (Index to Plautus.)2 See how mistaken they are, and how they misconstrue the nature of the Latin language. Forcellini calls datare a frequentative of dare, and citing a passage from Pliny the Elder, “Themison” (a doctor) “binas non amplius drachmas” (of hellebore) “datavit” [“Themison would give doses of not more than two drachmae”], renders it as “dare consuevit” [was accustomed to give].3 But habit is something continuous (even when the action involved is not continuous), and not indeed frequent, and conversely frequency does not involve habit. And when Plautus in another passage (Mostellaria 3, 1, l. 73)4 says,
Tu solus, credo, foenore argentum datas;
[You are the only man around who loans money at interest, I suppose]
[1150] and Sidonius (bk. 5, letter 13), “ne tum quidem domum laboriosos redire permittens, cum tributum annuum datavere”1 [and not even when they have paid him an annual tribute does he allow the poor wretches to return home], they are using the continuative instead of the positive, because they happen to be signify
ing not a single act of giving, but the habit of giving, which is neither a single nor a frequent, but a continuous act.
From sputus or sputum, from spuere [to spit], sputare. “Iamdudum sputo sanguinem,” Plautus says,2 that is to say, I am wont to spit blood, and he could not have said spuo. See in this regard Virgil (Georgics 1, 336, receptet [withdraws]). Do ricettare and raccettare not denote an action twenty times more continuous and long-lasting, etc., than ricevere [to receive]? See also resultat [rebounds, reechoes] Georgics 4, 50, and note the Italian, French, and Spanish risultare [to resound]. See p. 2349.
From ostentus, participle of ostendere [to show] and an older one than ostensus, or so it would seem, Latin had the continuative ostentare.
Altera manu fert lapidem, panem ostentat altera
[He displays a bit of bread in one hand and has a stone in the other]
Plautus said (Aulularia 2, 2, l. 18), and he could never indeed have said ostendit, since he sought to represent someone who all but puts that bread directly in front of you, so that you not only see it but gaze at it. And Cicero metaphorically (Agraria 2, ch. 28): “Agrum Campanum quem vobis ostentant, ipsi concupiverunt” [“For they themselves have long coveted the territory of Capua, which they display to you”]. Put ostendunt instead of ostentant, and you will see how the action becomes more brief, and the sentence weak and clumsy. The same goes for the other metaphors of ostentare for iactare [to boast], gloriari [to boast], venditare [to cry one’s wares], and the like, all continuative meanings. (8–9 June 1821.) See p. 2355, beginning.
For p. 1166. What I say about verbs in tare should also be extended to other verbs ending in other ways, especially those in sare, on account of anomalies in the participles or supines from which they derive, for example, pulsare [to beat] (which in earlier periods, and especially, as Quintilian notes, in the case of the comic poets was also written pultare)3 [1151] is a continuative of pellere [to beat] from the anomalous participle pulsus, and likewise versare [to turn] from vertare [to turn], and others we have seen. I would point out, however, that pultare, though believed to be the same as pulsare, may perhaps be a contraction of pulsitare and originally as different from pulsare as a frequentative is from a continuative. And as to whether pulsare is strictly speaking continuative or frequentative, as it is said to be, look at it in this passage from Cicero (De natura deorum 1, ch. 41) “cum sine ulla intermissione pulsetur” [“since without a moment’s respite he is subjected to the buffeting”]. Likewise from responsus, or responsum, from respondere [to promise something in return for something else], the continuative responsere [to respond] is derived.
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