Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  Contrastare, the French contraster, contester, and contrester, and the Spanish contrastar are verbs, or rather a verb, unknown in good Latin but common from antiquity, and since their origins, to the three daughters of Latin; and formed (1) entirely in the Latin style, (2) from two very Latin [2149] words, contra [against] and stare [to stand], of which one no longer exists in French, etc. What does this indicate if not a common origin of that verb—before the branching out of the three sisters, that is, before the corruption of Latin, which occurred late, and was only partial, and was different and independent in the three nations (since those nations were then independent from one another, and politically separate, etc.)—and a Latin origin? Now, what else can this be but ancient Vulgar Latin? See Du Cange under Contrastare. And there is an infinite number of words of this type, and with the same circumstances, which there have always been, from earliest times, in all three sister languages. (22 Nov. 1821.)

  For p. 1115, margin. Or rather the verb mantare [to stay] clearly indicates an ancient participle mantus, of manere [to stay], a contraction of manitus, which is the regular participle of manere, just as monitus is of monere (docitus of docere, etc.). Or mantare is itself a contraction of manitare. (23 Nov. 1821.)

  [2150] Cicero’s style and language are nowhere so simple as in the Timaeus, which is translated from Plato’s Greek. And, indeed, among the Greeks of the golden age (if we don’t wish to exclude Isocrates) Plato unquestionably has the most elegant and elaborated style and language, and the Timaeus is one of his most abstruse, and perhaps most elaborated, works, because it above all contains his philosophical system. Plato, the prince of refinement in the language and style of Greek prose, turns out to be marvelously simple in Latin in the hands of Cicero, compared with the original language and style of other Latin writers, the Cicero who is the prince of refinement in Latin prose. The great refinement and elegance of the golden age of Greek literature achieves simplicity when it is transported not into corrupt times but into the golden age of Latin literature, and thanks to its greatest writer. (23 Nov. 1821.)

  To what I’ve said elsewhere [→Z 139‒40, 271‒72] about the way to behave in giving comfort, add that, in the last analysis, the only consolation for troubles, especially great ones, is persuading oneself or at least believing confusedly that they either are not real or are less serious than they appeared, [2151] or that they have a remedy, or compensation, etc. Great sorrows are not in the end consoled except in this way: and time the consoler also largely uses this method. (23 Nov. 1821.)

  Observe the incredible abilities that the blind acquire in music, and in other things, the deaf in understanding by signs, etc., and the much greater facility and speed with which, although they may have a very slow intellect, they achieve what the healthy achieve with much greater effort and time or don’t achieve at all, even if they are very intelligent. And then tell me what talent consists of, whether or not it depends on circumstances, whether it is anything other than conformability and habituation, greater or less but common to all, with its effects, or its use and application, determined by pure accidental circumstances; whether or not man in himself is capable of incredible, and almost unlimited, things; whether this capacity [2152] is or is not a pure, natural disposition, common to the entire species, but made use of to a greater or lesser extent according to habit and circumstances. (23 Nov. 1821.)

  In the case of many human faculties that are considered natural, or almost so, or willed by nature, etc., one will see, if one considers them carefully, that nature did not place in man even (so to speak) the disposition toward them, that is, a definite, direct, nearby disposition, but one so distant that it is practically only a possibility. So it is. Those human faculties in regard to which man owes nothing to nature other than the purest possibility of acquiring them, and contracting them, are infinite and very common and everyday. (23 Nov. 1821.)

  For p. 1279, margin. That the pronunciation of these two vowels was mixed up, switched, etc., in Latin, even in written Latin, one can argue from the ancient habit [2153] of writing maxumus, sanctissumus, optumus, decumus, etc. See if Forcellini under I and U, and the Encyclopédie. Grammaire, art. “I” and “U” have anything relevant. See also Cellarius’s Orthographia latina, especially p. 12. See also Forcellini under Clipeus, beginning and end. (23 Nov. 1821.)

  For p. 2113, margin—and yet they are not understood definitely and precisely, in that not even the writer gave or wanted to give those expressions a meaning that was any more than a little precise, or wanted to express an idea that was more than a little definite. (23 Nov. 1821.)

  Not only is egoism or self-love found in any action, feeling, etc., possible to man, even one that seems the farthest from and most contrary to love of oneself, but in those very acts and feelings, etc., self-love has as large a part, it is found in as great a measure and degree and force, man [2154] or a living being is as much focused on himself as in the action or feeling that derives from the most exalted, from the most pure, infamous, manifest egoism.

  This is notable. Not only can man or the living being not lose self-love, he cannot lose even the slightest part of it in the course of his life (even though the different guises this passion assumes may make one believe the contrary). Self-love not only cannot vanish but can never diminish by the slightest degree. And what is said of matter can be said of self-love, that as much as there is of it today, and will be, so much, neither more nor less, there was at the beginning of the world, and its quantity has never increased nor diminished at all. Likewise, as self-love cannot diminish, so it can never increase in any individual, from the beginning of life to the end. (Another proof and analogous observation to demonstrate [2155] that, and how, self-love is infinite.)

  And as a result, it is as much in one moment of life as in every other, as much in the man who betrays his most sacred duties and principles to obtain a minor pleasure as in the man who actually performs the most heroic and terrible sacrifice in observance of a minor duty, or in the man who kills himself by his own hand.

  The mass of self-love is likewise precisely the same in each living being of whatever species, because it is infinite, and so cannot be greater or less in any individual, not only with respect to that individual but also compared with any other possible individual. (23 Nov. 1821.)

  Which demonstrates, conversely, that it is infinite absolutely, and of itself. (23 Nov. 1821.)

  Women, great men, and the public (literary, civil, political, etc.), are won over, manipulated, moved, persuaded, [2156] prevailed upon, conquered, etc., by the same arts, means, trickery, bullying, etc. Literary rivalries, for example, are carried on in the same way as amorous ones. In the literary republic, etc., as with women, and as in conversations, you have to get on top of others, push your way through, denigrate rivals, joke about them, create a great empty space around yourself, chasing away those who occupy it, with the stratagems and malicious schemes that are practiced on rivals in love, etc.1 (24 Nov. 1821.)

  Everything is enlivened by contrast, and is dull without it. I’ve said elsewhere [→Z 1606], about religion, political parties, love of country, etc., that they are all weak and idle feelings, if there are no opposites. But would virtue, or enthusiasm for virtue (and what is virtue without enthusiasm? and can one who is not capable of enthusiasm be virtuous?) exist if vice did not exist? It is certainly true that [2157] the best-natured, best-educated youth, who at the start of that rather sensitive and thoughtful age, before he knows the world through experience, is habitually enthusiastic about virtue, would not feel that keen love of duty—that strong resolve to sacrifice everything to it, that sensitive attachment to good, noble, generous inclinations and actions—if he didn’t know that there are many who think and act differently, and that the world is full of vices and vileness, although he doesn’t believe it’s as full as it is, and as he later experiences it. (24 Nov., Feast of St. Flavian, 1821.)

  I have elsewhere [→Z 1507] compared the occupations of a merchant with those
of a young lout who plays around with women, and found them of the very same importance, in fact the latter more important than the former. The same comparison, with the same result, can be made [2158] with the actions and intentions and desires and toils of a soldier, a literary man, a professional man, etc. The philosopher who, for pure love of humanity, sweats over a work of morals or politics, or some other subject of great usefulness, or toils over speculations about nature, the human heart, etc., the zealous and most upright minister of the greatest monarch imaginable who labors day and night solely for the good of the greatest nation and the greatest possible number of men (even if such philosophers, and such courtiers, can be found)—what are these men seeking? The happiness of men. And what is happiness? Pleasure. And what greater pleasures than those of youth? Therefore, the occupations of such men are no more important than those of the young lout who makes the most of the advantages of the age most favored by nature [2159]—the age intended for pleasure. In fact, they are less important, because all they do is obtain for men the same pleasure (or other, surely lesser pleasures) at some far-off time that the youth enjoys immediately and in the present. In the final analysis, it’s clear that the occupations of those men have practically the same end that the youth already achieves, but that this end is very far off. How, then, can the end not be more important than the means? And a means that takes a very long time? And is very difficult? And often imaginary, false, useless? Often, too, leading to the opposite result? (24 Nov., Feast of St. Flavian, 1821.)

  The state of resigned desperation, which is the last step of the sensitive man, and the final sepulchre of his sensibility, his pleasures, and his sufferings, is so deadly to sensibility, and to poetry [2160] (in all the meanings and extent of the term), that although misfortune, and its perception in actuality, seems and is (apart from the above state) the most lethal thing possible to poetry (not only immediate, but also habitual misfortune, which wretchedly depresses the imagination, the feelings, the mind), nevertheless, if it can happen that a new and intense misfortune gives rise to some feeling in a man who is in that state, that point, for such a person, is the best suited, the best he can hope for, to the power of concepts, to the poetic, to eloquence of thought, to the yield of a heart and imagination that before were barren. The new suffering in that case is like a cautery which restores some feeling, some span of life to numbed bodies. The heart gives a sign of life, momentarily senses itself again, since what is distinctive and unpoetical about resigned desperation is precisely that one is no longer [2161] visited or touched even by suffering.

  But these inadequately poetic effects, inadequately (and also feebly) alive, are fleeting, indeed momentary, because such a man, in spite of the magnitude of his new misfortune, quickly falls back into the lethargic state of resignation. And therefore he must make poetry in the very experience of misfortune, or rather, he is not (and does not feel that he is) a poet, and eloquent, except in that act (contrary to what happens in every other situation). The immediate sensation of misfortune—with its rooted habit of suffering, enduring, and of drowning, putting to sleep, shaking off the sorrow—is tempered in such a way that you come to make of these two qualities or affects or dispositions a state sufficiently adapted to sentimental emotions and to poetry, etc.

  An unusual cause of joy would produce—and much better—similar [2162] effects, and they would be more truly poetic, more eloquent, etc. (24 Nov. 1821.)

  Men of very crude and slow intelligence, incapable not only of performing but of understanding everything else, are seen and observed all the time to be very subtle, penetrating, quick to understand, highly skilled in the matters of their own profession and occupation, and in these to surpass greater talents, even those who are trained and proficient in the same things. What does this mean? That that feeble intelligence seems something else entirely when it comes to the things of its own occupation, however little it understands not only of other things but even of things that belong to the same sphere of its profession but in which it is not trained. Yet where it is habituated, it understands perfectly right away, and performs, etc., everything necessary—even in the case of [2163] something new—within the small space of its knowledge. This means that human intelligence is only habit, human faculties pure habits, all of which can be acquired by all, albeit more or less easily, with longer or shorter habituation. It means that a given man is, starting in boyhood, or for a long time, trained in and habituated to that type of knowledge, and skill, and owes this skill purely to the circumstances through which he has become habituated. For I suppose that the carpenter’s faculty for doing his job perfectly, to the exclusion of every other faculty, should not be considered innate and natural. And we might suppose in him simply a natural disposition, capable of every other talent through habituation, but, as a result of circumstances, directed to this faculty alone. Since what does it mean that all those [2164] who are trained from youth, assiduously, in whatever faculty, in the occupation of their father, etc., become very skilled in that—more than anyone else, even if that person is very talented, and they are not? How is it that the faculties claimed to be innate always accord with the professions that the happenstance of birth or life leads us to cultivate determinedly and studiously? How does it happen that a man without any other innate faculty (such as men of little talent are assumed to be) always has, and has with him at birth, the very faculty or natural, preceding disposition that he needs for the profession to which he is destined by pure chance and the unforeseeable conjunction of circumstances? (24 Nov. 1821.)

  It is not true, therefore, what is said by those who, while they recognize the force of circumstances and habituation on talent, [2165] and accept that nature should be seen as disposing rather than shaping, take to an extreme the idea that the individual is born with dispositions that are particularly and exclusively directed to such and such faculties or habits and their acquisition, and distinguishes himself in these, and surpasses other individuals, who, according to them, are differently inclined by nature. (24 Nov. 1821.)

  For p. 988. The Latin authors very often even in the titles of their works used not only Greek words but also Greek elements, as in the ἀποκολοκύντωσις [Pumpkinification]1 of Seneca, and in many of Varro’s works of satire and logic (see Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina, tome 1, pp. 88 and 428, note d), that is, in the golden age of classical Latin, or they left entirely Greek titles in origin, also in the ending, etc., as in Metamorphoseon, Horace’s Epodon, Virgil’s Georgicon, Bucolicon, and Eclogon, Ausonius’s Ephemeris,2 and a truly infinite number of others, through [2166] all the centuries of Latin culture. The Latin authors may have had words of their own, either already used or new, to replace the ones written in Greek or taken from Greek. Further, the words were not used in the Latin language for those subjects (like georgica for agriculture, etc.), nor do I believe that there exists a Greek poem with that title, etc., or at least not a famous one. We would not dare to do such things (nor perhaps would the Germans, the Russians, etc.), with French, in spite of the flood of Gallicisms and the submersion of native languages, etc., that it has caused (a point that Greek certainly never reached with respect to Latin), though the French language and words are generally at least as well understood in every civilized nation, and in all together, as Greek was at the time in the Latin nation, and in the other nations (actually, in the others much less than French is today). And in spite of the fact that the French elements do not differ from the Italian, etc., the way the Greek differed from the Latin, which must have made a foreign title on a national work, a Greek title on a Latin work, far stranger and more discordant and barbarous. (25 Nov. 1821.)

  It might be very reasonable to wonder at the fact that Marcus Aurelius wrote his books—τῶν εἰς [2167] ἑαυτὸν, some thoughts on himself, as Ménage1 puts it—in Greek rather than in Latin, since he was a Roman, was not reared in Greece (nor do I believe he ever went there), and had deeply and happily studied his native literature and language,
as appears from other information that the Historians give of him, and especially from what he writes to Fronto and Fronto to him.2 I don’t think he could have had as his aim the greater dissemination of his work, by writing it in a more widespread language. But I am absolutely certain that he was led to prefer the Greek language to Latin solely because of the former’s greater freedom. Of that freedom he had need in a work that was profoundly and intimately philosophical, and that had to do with knowledge of life and the human heart, and subtle psychological speculations. I have no doubt that he despaired of being able to succeed [2168] in treating such a subject in Latin, in speaking to himself, and about himself, that is, about his heart, etc. (not about his public affairs, as Cicero does), in Latin. This language had already had a Cicero and a Seneca and a Tacitus, and yet still it was not enough for a certain truly intimate philosophy. The Greek language had had profound philosophical writers, but, apart from that, its extremely flexible and free character lent itself to any type of subject, class of philosophy, etc., even if it was new. The Latin language was the opposite, and, furthermore, it was a time when, as happens after a period of decided corruption and license, human institutions, having been recalled to the right path, fall into the opposite excess. The Latin language and the taste of that time (as in Italy today) sinned through servility and timidity (“in vitium ducit culpae fuga” [“fleeing from error leads to fault”]),1 as can be seen in the works of Fronto, and, as the masters of devotion [2169] said, newly converted souls customarily suffer from scruples, and it would indeed be a bad sign if they did not.1 This didn’t last long, because, in Latin, language and literature soon went downhill again. But at the time, the style of Seneca, and other such philosophical styles, were roundly condemned by Latin literary types (as today Cesarotti’s, etc.,2 is by the Italians), and this served as a barrier and a bogey to those people who wanted to write about philosophy in Latin, just as, if you want to write good Italian today, you don’t bother any more about thinking. Marcus Aurelius consequently must have felt this danger, and despaired of being able to be a profound philosopher in the native language favored by his time, without violating contemporary taste, and annoying the critics, who had already reproached him for bad and careless language, and license, after he dedicated himself to philosophy, going from the study of words to that of things. [2170] Fronto openly reproaches him in “De orationibus.”1 Thus, in order to express his most intimate feelings, he found himself obliged to choose the Greek language, to believe that it would be easier to express his own most private ideas in a foreign language, the language of someone else, than in his own native language. (That need would, unfortunately, make itself felt often among the Italians with respect to French, if the Italians thought, and had things of their own to say.)