Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  Num ancillae aut servi tibi

  Responsant? Eloquere: impune non erit.

  [Do the maids or servants talk back to you? Speak out plainly: they shall pay for it]

  (Plautus, Menaechmi 4, 2, ll. 56–57). That is to say, they are in the habit of answering you arrogantly, it is not that they simply answer you or often answer you. And when vested with the metaphoric meaning of to withstand, the verb responsare is likewise continuative, and so too when it means to echo, which is a more continuous affair than to answer, and not in any way a frequent one, as anyone can see. (9 June 1821.) So too from cessus, participle of cedere [to go, to yield], derives cessare [to delay], which is called frequentative, though I can hardly imagine anything more continuative than the action this verb describes. See p. 2076.

  For p. 1124, margin. And anyone pondering the verses of the comic poets, and indeed of Phaedrus and the other Latin iambic poets, whether we have their entire works (as with Catullus or the tragedies of Seneca) or mere fragments, will find in them many other liberties characteristic of those kinds of verses, and known as such to scholars. But he will also [1152] be readily able to observe that wherever two or more vowels are encountered in a row, whether at the beginning or in the middle or at the end of words, those vowels for the most part and as a general rule count as a single syllable, as if they formed a diphthong, even if according to the ordinary laws of prosody they do not. Except if these vowels are at the end of the line, where very often (as in Italian verse) they count as two syllables, but often still as one, as in this line from Phaedrus:

  Repente vocem sancta misit Religio.

  [Suddenly holy Religion spoke]

  (bk. 4, fable 11, or alternatively 10, l. 4).1 This is an acatalectic iambic trimeter, that is, it has six pure feet, and the penultimate short one is not the syllable gi in Religio but the syllable li. Likewise in the line from Catullus, although here and as far as metrical rules are concerned, he is a good deal more diligent than others (Carmina 18, or alternatively 17, l. 1),

  O Colonia quae cupis ponte ludere ligneo

  [O Colonia, you who wish to celebrate your games on a wooden bridge]

  the penultimate syllable having to be long, it is not the syllable gne in ligneo but the syllable li, assuming we read ligneo [wooden] for longo [long] as others have read it. Aside from the fact that this trochaic stesichoric verse, which has to be fifteen syllables, would be sixteen, if ligneo were trisyllabic. (The word ligneo is a trochee here, a foot consisting of one long and one short, also called a choree.) And what I say here of the Latins is true of the Greeks, too. In the first line of Wealth by Aristophanes:

  ῾Ως ἀργαλέον πρᾶγμ' ἐστὶν ὦ Ζεῦ καὶ Θεοὶ,

  [O Zeus and you Gods, it is a tough job]

  [1153] the word ἀργαλέον is trisyllabic. And note that by writing

  ῾Ως ἀργαλέον πρᾶγμ' ἐστ' ὦ Ζεῦ καὶ Θεοὶ,

  this verse was effortlessly turned into an iambic trimeter or pure senarius, in accordance with the rules of Greek prosody. It is evident from this that the poets who wrote in “imitation of prose,” as Cicero says of the Comic Poets (Orator, ch. 55),1 more or less regularly employed such double vowels, etc., as diphthongs, so that in everyday speech (which clung far more tenaciously to antiquity than did writing) they were regarded and pronounced as diphthongs, or single syllables, in Greece and Latium alike. You can see Faber’s note to the second line of Phaedrus’s prologue, bk. 1, and also Desbillons’s in the Addenda to the notes p. LI, end.2 (10 June, Feast of Pentecost, 1821.) See p. 2330.

  For p. 1123. Indeed, in my opinion, at the beginning they would say legitus, tegitus, agitus, hence by contraction legtus, tegtus, agtus, and finally for greater softness, lectus, tectus, actus. And anyone who needs convincing should consider the verb agitare [to drive to and fro], which, according to what we have observed and demonstrated so far, was formed from the participle (or the supine) of agere [to drive]. [1154] And hence it may be inferred that the old and original participle of agere was not actus but agitus, from which derived agitare, just as actitare then derived from actus. See Forcellini, entry for Caveo, end, and p. 2368. I would say the same of cogitare [to ponder], which may either derive from agitare or from old coagitus, participle of cogere [to drive together to one point, to collect]. See p. 2105, paragraph 1. And likewise just as from lectus, participle of legere [to gather], lectare [to gather] and lectitare [to gather eagerly or often] are derived, so too from old legitus the verb legitare [to gather or read often] mentioned by Priscian.1 (10 June 1821.) See p. 1167.

  For p. 1113, margin. If, however, rogitare [to ask or inquire eagerly] is not derived from an old participle, rogitus, from rogare [to ask] (as domitus from domare [to tame], crepitus or the supine crepitum from crepare [to rattle], and the like), on the basis of which I strongly suspect that our word rogito [notarial document or deed] is a substantivized participle derived from rogare [to ask, to propose a stipulation] instead of rogato. From lactatus [containing milk, milky], lactitare [to give suck, to suckle], etc. As for restitare [to stay behind], I would not know whether it is from restatus or from restitus, since both are obsolete, and whether from resisto [to stand back] or from resto [I stand firm]. See p. 2359. Late Latin also said rogitus us, with the same meaning, and also adjectivally rogitus a um, and roitus in place indeed of rogatus [request], on which see Du Cange. Furthermore, from paratus, participle of parare [to prepare], from imperatus, participle of imperare [to command], from volatus or volatum, from volare [to fly], from vocatus, participle of vocare [to call] (see Forcellini on vocitare, which seems to be a continuative verb denoting habit), and from mussatus, participle of mussare [to mutter], the Latins also created paritare [to prepare], imperitare [to command], volitare [to flutter], vocitare [to be wont to call], and mussitare [to mutter]; and generally this would seem to have been the practice in creating either frequentatives or continuatives from participles in atus of the first conjugation; that is to say, by changing the participle’s a into i, in order to avoid the ugly sound of, e.g., mussatare, or mussatitare. (Except, however, for datare, etc.) Likewise from mutuatus, participle of mutuare [to borrow], they created mutitare, syncopated from mutuitare if we are to believe those who derive this verb mutitare from the earlier mutuare. Others derive it from mutare [to change], and that is equally valid for our argument. (11 June 1821.) See pp. 2079 and 2192, end, and 2199, beginning.

  [1155] For p. 1148. The Spanish pintar, that is to paint, certainly derived from the participle of the verb pingere [to paint], would seem among other things to denote an old participle pinctus, instead of pictus, regular and proper participle of pingere, like tinctus from tingere [to dye], cinctus from cingere [to surround], planctus or planctum from plangere [to strike], etc. (and see p. 1153, last paragraph from which you will gather that the first and true passive participle of such verbs was pingitus, tingitus, etc.), and one preserved, or so it would seem, in Vulgar Latin. (11 June 1821.) Do we ourselves not say pinto, dipinto [painted], etc.? And pitto only in poetry, as Rucellai does in Le api.1 The French say peiNt [painted], etc.

  For p. 1121. Likewise dubitare [to waver] derives from dubitus or dubitum or dubiatum (see p. 1154) from an old dubiare mentioned by Festus2 and preserved in early Italian. Since it ends in -itare this can also, according to what is said on p. 1113, be a verb pitched midway between frequentative and diminutive, in the style of haesitare [to be uncertain], from haerere [to hang or hold fast], which it also resembles in meaning. See p. 1166, end. (11 June 1821.)

  For p. 1117. Our only continuatives are the verbs venire [to come] and andare [to go] combined with the gerunds of verbs denoting the action we wish to signify, such as venir facendo [to keep doing], andar dicendo [to keep on saying]. These expressions have less force, and imply less continuation in an action than the Latin continuatives in fact do. And they indicate a weak continuation of a state of affairs, an action that is weaker, and less continuous, and even inter
rupted; and moreover a less complete action. See p. 1212, paragraph 1, and p. 2328. (11 June 1821.)

  For p. 1128. From these observations, it appears that the Italian desinence in the first person singular active of the perfect indicative, I mean the desinence in ai, is the true and original Latin desinence in the first person, which was retained for so many centuries after it had disappeared from written texts, or else was never admitted to them, and was preserved in Vulgar Latin; and for so many centuries more in our own language, which [1156] succeeded it. A desinence also preserved in French writing, our sister, but lost in pronunciation, in conformity with which the Spanish (also our siblings) write and say amè [I loved], etc. A word indubitably derived from the very old amai, the diphthong ai having changed into the letter e, thanks perhaps to the reciprocal commerce engaged in by the French and the Spanish, as by their languages and poetry when in their infancy, exchanges that were very substantial, enduring, intense, and frequent, and are known to scholars (Andrés, tome 2, pp. 281, end, ff.),1 and which with respect to the form of many words and phrases is the only reason why the Spanish language resembles Latin less than our own, even though in general it resembles both Latin and our own more than it does French. Likewise in the future amarè, etc. etc., resembles the French language as pronounced.

  As for the reason why over time the Aeolic digamma, and subsequently the v, was inserted between the letters a and i, in order to avoid hiatus, it is said, in accordance with Aeolian practice, I will venture some observations that will also help with this whole part of our argument. From these observations, we may also perhaps deduce that this practice did not really come from the people, as I said on p. 1128, which seems, on the contrary, to have kept the old pronunciation before transmitting it to our languages, [1157] but came rather, or for the most part, either from writers or from the cleansing of old, crude Latin.

  The closer languages are to their beginnings, or the more ancient they are and the more their formation occurred at a time when customs and tastes were natural, the more they tend (at any rate the languages spoken by the southern peoples of the West) generally to accept the concurrence of vowels.1 For the most part, they go on losing this propensity as time passes and the cleansing goes on, and the running together of vowels which at the beginning was regarded as a source of sweetness and grace is now regarded as harsh and grating. The Latin language that we know, that is, the polished, fully formed, written language, is not fond of the running together of vowels, because it was polished, shaped, and written down in times which were themselves polished and civilized, perhaps the furthest away from original naturalness in the whole of antiquity, in the last epoch of antiquity, in an already highly civilized, etc., nation. Conversely, the Greek language, fixed and fully formed, and brought to perfection in writing in the earliest times, relished in its writings the running together of vowels, regarded it as something sweet and delicate. And for that reason, the Greek language that we know or are able to know, that is, the written language, [1158] delights in the running together of vowels, especially that language which belongs to the earliest, and at the same time the greatest, most classical, purest, and most truly Greek writers.

  And since Greek prosody was already fully formed in Homer’s day (whether he found it or created it himself) and Latin prosody was formed so very many centuries afterward, a significant difference can be observed between the poetry of the two languages in this regard, which does much to confirm my argument. And it is that in Latin poetry if a word ending in a vowel is followed by another beginning with a vowel, the final vowel of the preceding word is swallowed by the following one, it is lost, and does not count as one of the syllables in the verse. Conversely, in Greek poetry it is not swallowed, nor is it lost or altered in any way, and it counts as a syllable, as if it were followed by a consonant, except when the poet removes it altogether and replaces it with an apostrophe. The same is true of diphthongs in the same circumstances, which are likewise elided in Latin poetry and left untouched in Greek.

  Early Italian, too, the language of the fourteenth-century writers which has no match in any other century for sweetness and grace, not [1159] only does not shun the running together of vowels but delights in it. A characteristic that our language has gradually tended to lose the further it has moved away from its original circumstances, so that today the running together of vowels is for the most part shunned as a vice and as a cause of ugly, harsh sounds, instead of sweetness or grace, and not only by the majority of writers, that is, by those of no great merit, but also by the most elegant. It is particularly the most banal writers, however, (I mean as regards language and style) whether mannered or not, in the last two centuries and the present one, who seem to be terrified of two or more vowels coming together, and they twist words in a thousand different ways to avert such a disaster.

  And I think the same thing happens to all languages, over time and in accordance with their character and the cleansing of these languages. And I think it happened to the Greek language, too. Since, setting aside what one may note in the more recent Greek writers, the diphthongs that from the beginning, and for a long time afterward, used to be pronounced openly, began to be pronounced closed, and this practice, as Visconti observed, dates back to the time of Callimachus, if an epigram bearing his name really is by him, in which to the words ναιχὶ καλὸς [handsome indeed!] the echo is supposed to answer ἄλλος ἔχει [He is another’s] (epigram 30).1 The circumstance demonstrates that the author of the epigram pronounced nechi and echi as modern Greeks do, instead of naichi and echei. And since I do not [1160] doubt that in ancient times the Romans pronounced their diphthongs open just as the Greeks did, I can easily understand that in Cicero and Virgil’s day they pronounced them closed, as they are pronounced today.1 (12 June 1821.)

  For p. 1118. In order to achieve a better understanding of this theory of continuative verbs, we shall observe their essential nature, and arrive at a closer and more accurate description of it than we have done up until now. Act and action do, strictly speaking, differ. An act, broadly speaking, does not have parts, but an action does. These two verbal nouns, actus and actio, both in Latin and in Italian (also in French, etc.), and not only these but also others of a similar formation, if properly considered, differ in this respect, namely, that the former considers the agent as if at a single point, whereas the latter considers him as if in space, or in time. Admittedly there is no truly and absolutely indivisible circumstance, but if we were to consider the deeds of man or any agent whatsoever, we would see that some present themselves to us as indivisible, and not continuous, and others as divisible and continuous. Where, therefore, the positive Latin verb signifies an act, the continuative verb will signify action. [1161] E.g., vertere [to turn] signifies an act, versare [to keep turning] action. Turning cannot really be done at a single point, but the language necessarily treats the act of turning as indivisible and not continuous. Whereas what in Latin is called versare, such as the turning of a wheel for a certain period of time, is naturally taken to be a continuous action, not done indeed in a single instant, but in space, and composed of parts. The latter is therefore action, whereas the former is an act, and this action is composed of many such acts. It very often happens that what man or language consider to be an act is longer lasting than action of the same kind. As, to stay with the example given, the action of turning a wheel for the space, shall we suppose, of half an hour, is shorter than the act of overturning a large stone, which could not be turned over in less than one or more hours’ labor. And nonetheless, the action in question would be expressed in Latin through the continuative verb versare, and the act, though longer than the action, could never be said using versare but would be expressed through the positive vertere. Because this act, even though long, in representing itself in its entirety to us and to our thought, precipitates in us a unique, non- [1162] continuous, simple idea, whereas the action presents itself to us as multiple, compound, and continuous. By the same token, ja
cere [to throw] signifies an act, but jactare [to keep throwing] an action.

  When, therefore, the positive Latin verb itself expresses not an act, but an action, such as sequi [to follow], etc., the continuative will signify the same action but in a lengthier and longer-lasting, or more continuous and constant guise, as with sectari [to follow constantly], etc.

  And finally the continuative very often signifies habit, the custom of performing the action or act signified by the positive verb, just as acceptare [to accept], datare [to give away], captare [to strive to seize], (see Forcellini), as we have seen, signify the practice of receiving, giving, seizing. (Captare, where taken to mean, e.g., captare aves or pisces [to strive to catch birds or fish] may perhaps belong rather to the previous class of continuatives proceeding from act to action.) We do indeed have volgere [to turn], voltare [to turn] (that is to say, volutare), and voltolare [to roll over and over], or rivolgere [to turn again], rivoltare [to turn over again], etc., as positive, continuative, and frequentative.

  These observations should lead us to admire ever more deeply the subtlety and exquisite perfection of the Latin language, which has perhaps no equal as regards such qualities and capacities. (12 June 1821.) See p. 2033, end.