Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  That splendid example, made more remarkable by its circumstances, confirms what I’ve said about the more philosophical nature of the Greek language, its greater freedom and independence, greater capacity for subtle ideas, greater adaptability to modern things, and how it could have been much more useful than Latin for a reborn literature, and how even today its deep knowledge could have served (if not the use, which is impossible) at least the perfecting of the modern philosophical intellect, [2171] our individual ideas, the faculty of thinking, and the most cultured modern languages themselves. (26 Nov. 1821.)

  Not only in the French language (as Staël observes) but in all other modern languages as well it seems that prose may be more suitable than verse to modern poetry.1 I’ve shown elsewhere [→Z 734‒35] what this must in essence consist of, and how much more prosaic it is than poetic. In fact, whereas in reading ancient prose we sometimes almost wish for number and meter because of the poetic quality of the ideas that it contains (even though in terms of both number and every other quality ancient prose has so much that is verselike about it), on the contrary, in reading modern verse—even the best, and even more when we ourselves try to put into verse poetic thoughts, truly distinctive and modern—we wish for the freedom, the looseness, the abandon, the flow, the facility, the clarity, the placidity, the simplicity, the plainness, the judiciousness, the serious and earnest quality, the composure, the evenness of prose, [2172] which harmonizes better with ideas that have almost nothing verselike, etc., about them. (26 Nov. 1821.)

  The ancient languages and styles are much bolder and more poetic than the modern (however close any ancient language is to any modern language, however bold, poetic, free that language is among the moderns, and is so through climate, national character, etc.). Even in the Italian language—the boldest and most poetic of the perfectly formed modern languages, and Latin’s own daughter—the boldness of Latin prose cannot be tolerated except in verse, and the boldness characteristic of Latin epic cannot be tolerated except in our lyric. Indeed, when the boldest of our poems (either because of its genre or because of the particular style of the author, etc.), becomes bolder it goes no farther than the Greeks or Romans went in their humblest poetry. Indeed, very often a prosaic and well-worn (maybe even familiar) phrase, metaphor, etc., in Latin or Greek cannot but be lyric in Italian.

  This must serve as a rule in the imitation [2173] of the ancients, in carrying the beauties or qualities of ancient styles and languages across into modern ones, etc.

  In the same way, the eastern or northern can be discussed with respect to the western or southern.

  The Latin language is, with respect to Italian, in the situation described above, even more than Greek, although it is the mother. Boldness in poetry (also in prose) is greater in the Latin language than in Greek, even though Latin is less free. Reconcile these two qualities, which seem contradictory. (26 Nov. 1826.)

  The spirit of the Latin language and style is bolder and more poetic than that of Greek (not only in verse but also in prose), and yet it is much less free. These two qualities go together very well. The Greek language had the faculty of not being bold, the Latin language did not. The Greek language could be not only as bold [2174] and poetic as Latin (and it very often was), not only bolder than Latin (as it was, too), but in all possible ways, whereas Latin could be bold only within a fixed mode, type, taste, character of boldness. The freedom of a language is measured by how adaptable it is to diverse styles, by, let’s say, the larger or smaller number of characteristics that it contains in itself, or for which it has room, etc. But that it has a particular bold character, that it has characteristically a certain particular kind of boldness, that doesn’t prove that it is free. Thus there can be a language that is restricted and bold, just as there can be a language that is timid and restricted (like French), a language free and not bold, and a language bold and free. Rather, if it is given that a language is free, it depends only on the writer, etc., to make it bold. The boldness of spirit characteristic of fully formed and literary Latin came from [2175] the poetic nature of the southern peoples, from that of the writers who shaped it, from the energy and liveliness of Roman political institutions and customs and times. The lack of freedom of the language came from the social customs that constrained it, made it uniform, prescribed and set for it that particular path, that character and not another. The Greek language, although in the hands of a people who were extremely lively in regard to climate, character, politics, customs, opinions, etc., nonetheless was more inclined to make use of the simple style than the bold, and that was because of the candid nature of the times in which it principally flourished and was applied to literature. But making it bold depended on writers alone, more than in the case of Latin, and in every genre, and they made it so whenever they wanted. Whereas it did not depend on the Latin writers to reduce the language, after it was formed, to the simple, the plain, the clear, the calm of the [2176] Greek language, except to a certain point. Whence more or less what I said on p. 2172 happens to Latin phrases transported into Greek, or vice versa, but more in the case of transporting Greek phrases into Latin, which end up seeming too simple, than in the opposite case, because the Greek language lends itself to everything.

  In all the above-mentioned qualities, the Italian language resembles Greek much more than it does Latin, just as primitive written Latin resembled both much more than classical Latin did. (27 Nov. 1821.)

  The resemblance of German to Greek, attributed, as we have seen [→Z 2081ff.], to historical causes, appears from my observations not to have need of other reasons, apart from those natural and universal ones on account of which any language less related to Greek, in circumstances and eras similar to those of German, would likewise resemble [2177] Greek, as Italian does, whose political circumstances, eras, etc., resemble those of German. And those circumstances have had such force that, although the Italian language is the offspring of a perfectly formed language (unlike the Teutonic language), and its early writers (who didn’t know a syllable of Greek, or didn’t believe it applicable) tried to model it on the mother language and literature alone, the only models they had in sight, nonetheless in the hands of those writers it became much more like Greek than like its own mother. (27 Nov. 1821.)

  In any case, the freedom and independence and lack of literary unity that Germany enjoys complement the political freedom, lack of unity, etc., amid which the Italian language was formed, and make the era [2178] of German language and literature ancient in character, although modern in time, just as that of Italian was ancient in time and character. (27 Nov. 1821.)

  On what I’ve said about the essence of God [→Z 2073–74]. Letting stand all that faith teaches on this point, all I do is range over what is allowed to the philosopher, that is, speculations on the arcane essence of God, speculations as permissible to the philosopher as to the theologian. For the theologian, too, once he has left revelation untouched, and his thoughts flow on to those things which revelation does not reach, but which it neither excludes nor contradicts—then, I say, the theologian is indistinguishable from the philosopher. Further, my observations agree with Christian teachings, not only affirming but making almost palpable, breaking down and making almost concrete that truth: that the essence of God cannot be conceived by man. In fact, demonstrating again that man is deceived [2179] in precisely those confused images that he forms of him, and blunting by that demonstration the claims of the human intellect. Further, because it states what it knows of the essence of God, and teaches that it cannot be known, religion leaves the field free to rational and metaphysical speculations on the point, which can advance more or less in the infinite space of this arcanum, and because the space is infinite, no advance in speculation will ever be in danger of reaching its end. And it is for that reason, and in conformity with it, that many Fathers, and Doctors, do all they can to explain or elucidate, some in one way, some in another, the mystery of the Trinity, the Incarnation, etc., not just through revealed know
ledge, which is already known to all, but through human and reasoned discourse. And therefore they have (without censure) applied human discourse to speculations about the essence of God, beyond [2180] or outside the terms of revelation without harming them, and therefore without being reproached. (27 Nov. 1821.)

  On pedantry and scruples concerning the purity of the language, new words, etc., introduced into Latin literature even in the golden age, reigning indeed much as they do today in Italy, scruples unknown to Greece in the good times of its language, which therefore must necessarily have been much freer compared even with classical Latin—see, in particular, Horace’s Art of poetry.1 (28 Nov. 1821.)

  Even after the study of Atticism, etc., was introduced in Greece, being or not being Athenian by birth or reared in Athens was never a reason for judging a writer favorably or unfavorably in terms of the purity of his language. Or at least, it wasn’t as much as it was in the case of Tuscanism or Florentinism in the 16th century (and still is today), and in the opinion of the [2181] Academicians of the Crusca when they judge classic or not classic the language of writers who are outstanding and famous anyway (in terms of style as well). For even writing deliberately in another dialect was not considered a vice (not just mixing foreign words or expressions with Attic, etc., or reducing Atticism to a mere common dialect, formed by all that was characteristic of different Greek cities), as Arrian did in the Indica, and perhaps in other works, see p. 2231. Hecataeus of Miletus (but much earlier), etc.1 In fact Athens, after Atticism prevailed in Greece, suffered more or less the same fate as Florence, that is, it produced nothing good, on which see a passage of Cicero in a note to the “Dialogo del capro,” in Monti’s Proposta, under Becco. —etc. etc.2 (28 Nov. 1821.)

  The Greek language certainly resembles Latin (generally speaking, however, and on the whole) more than it resembles Italian, as is natural in the case of two sisters. But although [2182] of those two sisters Latin alone is a mother, nonetheless Italian and Spanish resemble Greek more than they do Latin. Just as the French language, although it is the offspring of Latin and the sister of the two mentioned above, resembles English more than it resembles the others, etc. etc. (28 Nov. 1821.)

  It has been observed not only that deaths caused by very painful suffering are usually preceded by a lessening of pain, in fact almost total insensibility, but that these are a sure, almost inevitable (I think certainly inevitable) sign of approaching death. Wherefore death is so far from being a point of extraordinary pain or suffering or any bodily discomfort that, in fact, the very bodily travails that cause it, however intense they are (and the more intense they are), in fact cease as it approaches. And the moment of death and those immediately preceding it [2183] are moments of utter repose and solace—the more complete and profound, the greater the sufferings that lead to that stage. What I say about bodily travail must necessarily extend to the spiritual, because when the insensibility of the patient has reached a degree that makes him impervious to any bodily pain, however great the reasons that should produce it, which inevitably happens at the point of death, it is clear that the soul, being almost outside of its senses, is outside of itself, outside of its spiritual senses, which operate only through bodily means, and hence it is incapable of pain and the travails of thought. And in fact the point of death is always preceded by a loss of speech, by total insensibility and the inability to perceive and pay attention, as can be inferred from external signs, and as happens with someone who has fainted, or is sleeping, etc. And this lethargy, the inevitable precursor [2184] of death, perhaps, or at least very often, lasts longer in the case of acute, violent illnesses than in the case of slow ones, nature thus being compassionate toward the sufferings of mortals, and taking away from them in time the power to feel, when it would no longer be anything but the power to suffer. (28 Nov. 1821.)

  Man is the work of circumstances, not only in that these determine him to such or such profession, etc. etc., but also in that they determine him to the type, way, taste of that profession to which habituation alone and circumstances have determined him. For example, as long as I read only French writers and habit seemed nature, it seemed to me that that alone was my natural style, and that my inclination led me there. I was undeceived about this by moving on to different readings, but also in these, and from month to month, as the style of the authors I read varied, the opinion I formed about my own [2185] natural inclination varied. And this also in small and very particular things, having to do with language, or style, or the type and genre of literature. In the same way as, having read only Petrarch among the lyric poets, it seemed to me that, if I had to write lyric poetry, nature could not lead me to write in any other style, etc., but one like Petrarch’s. Indeed, the first attempts I made in that genre of poetry turned out to be just that.1 The second were less similar, because I had not been reading Petrarch for some time. The third were very different, because I had formed myself on other models, or had acquired, by dint of multiplying my models, reflections, etc., that sort of manner or faculty that is called originality. (Originality: that which is acquired? And, in fact, one never possesses it unless it is acquired? Mme. de Staël as well says that one has to read as much as possible to become [2186] original. What, then, is originality? An acquired faculty, like all the others, although this adjective acquired is directly opposed to the meaning and value of the noun.)1 (28 Nov. 1821.)

  For p. 1073. The five, indeed ten, fingers of the hands, for a man deprived of language, could serve (given the observations made above) to count at most to 25 (and with great difficulty), that is, to five times five, counting the single digits with one hand and with the other the sets of five. Without which, memory could not have got even to 15, or twenty. Besides, one sees that people lacking language and deprived of sufficient numeral names are, in fact, unable to count even to 20 (if in the Novel of Robinson Crusoe there is any regard for truth or verisimilitude). See the Encyclopédie. Logique, etc., art. “Nombres,”2 etc. [2187] Until children have learned the names of the numerals well and thoroughly, along with the respective ideas that are closely linked to them, they are not capable of grasping, even vaguely, any fixed quantity (of number or of measure, etc.) unless it’s very small, in other words, only as far, usually, as their recognition of the numeral names extends, and only after a long time do they succeed in counting up to twenty, or past ten, etc. Indeed, they are able to count to these numbers before they grasp the corresponding quantities, since the respective ideas of the numbers have not yet been closely enough linked to and identified with and embedded in the words that represent them. (28 Nov. 1821.)

  For p. 2022. I concede, as I’ve said elsewhere [→Z 1111ff.], that the continuative verbs sometimes, and even often (but seldom, however, in the most ancient and primitive records), were used [2188] with an at least vaguely frequentative meaning, similar to that of the verbs in itare. But I have clearly demonstrated the properly continuative meaning of many verbs thus formed, and I have so plainly differentiated the continuative meaning—the continued, etc., action from the frequent—that one cannot question the existence of verbs (and not a few) that, considered up to now to be frequentative, have an evidently continuative meaning (according to the distinctions I have noted) very different from the frequent, etc. To recognize this would be to deny to the verbs thus formed the essential property of such meanings and these meanings would be assumed to be accidental and considered to be unnoticed modifications or aspects, etc., of the frequentative meaning. It would mean to deny that the ancient Latins had a form of verb purposely for continuative meanings, for continuing, etc., the meaning of their original verbs, [2189] and modifying them in that precise manner which I describe. It would mean to assume that these tiny and fleeting differences had not entered the minds of the ancient Latins or had not been considered in their language, and, in short, to persist in believing that the value of verbs in are, etc., and verbs in itare was the same, distinguishing these verbs only by their form, and not by their very meaning, and co
nsidering the differences in meaning encountered between them accidental and not precisely intended by the Latins and by those who formed these verbs. Or at most it would be to grant that the diminutive force belongs only to the verbs in itare, thus allowing that the frequentative is common to them and the verbs in are, etc., and that the latter are likewise frequentative, containing in their frequentative value all their other meanings that I have pointed out. Now, this precisely is what we cannot conclude if we observe [2190] that, whereas those which I call continuatives are used sometimes in the frequentative sense (and for the reason see p. 2023), the verbs, however, in itare that are true frequentatives or diminutives will never or rarely be found used in the various continuative senses that I have specified (see pp. 1116, at the end, 1117), and this shows a precise, deliberate, and not accidental difference between the value of verbs in itare and those in simple are. And what that difference in value consists in, which had up to now been unobserved, I have pointed out, demonstrating that the verbs in are, etc., are properly continuative, not frequentative or diminutive, and that verbs in itare are frequentative or diminutive and not continuative. And in that lies my discovery. Since, then, the continuative meaning is more subtle than the frequentative, it therefore happened that those verbs of which it was typically the first meaning were, with the passing of [2191] time, easily drawn to the frequentative meaning and other meanings that were not properly theirs, because these continuative meanings had a transitory character, easy to miss and to confuse. But conversely, because verbs that were properly frequentative or diminutive possessed a character and meaning that was less fleeting, metaphysical, subtle, and more apparent, they kept it easily and were not drawn to any other meaning, not even the continuative, although in itself the difference of sense was very subtle and prone to confusion.