Those who treat the Italian language as though it were dead, and prohibit the present, continued, and inalienable use of its faculties, are doing something more ridiculous than our libertines,1 and more damaging. Both think that the true Italian language is dead, but the latter, with fine logic, deduce from this that we should use another living language, that is, the barbarous one that they set before us, and use. The former (stupidly) [2228] want us living people to write and speak and discuss living things in a dead language. (5 Dec. 1821.)
It can be readily observed that when we are composing, etc., our work is greatly helped and made easier, etc., if we regularly read at the time authors whose style, subject, etc., is analogous to what we are working on, etc. What do we think that comes from? Perhaps from taking those readings, those authors, etc., as models, as examples of what we should do, from having them more available, in order to look at them, and letting ourselves be guided through imitation?, etc. Not at all. It comes from the material habit of that style, etc., that the mind acquires, a habit that makes doing what it has to do much easier. Such readings at the time are not studies but exercises, as a long habit of composing makes composition easier. Now, such readings act for this habit, help it; in other words they exercise the mind in the operation [2229] that it has to perform. And they help especially when it is already engaged, and is disposed to execute, to apply itself to the matter, etc. Thus in the days when we are reading a logical thinker, we feel an extraordinary and frequent inclination, ability, etc., to reason about every thing that occurs, even the slightest. Likewise a thinker, likewise a writer of imagination, of feeling (who accustoms us for the moment to feel even by ourselves), an original writer, an inventive one, etc. And they produce these effects not as models (for they produce the effects even when the reader despises them, or considers them anything but models) but because they are a means of habituation. And so, especially in the act of composing, one should avoid readings that are bad in terms of style or anything else. Because, without being aware of it, the mind becomes habituated to those styles, even if it condemns them, and even if it is already used to different styles and has formed a style [2230] of its own, solidly rooted in the writer’s own habits, etc.1 (6 Dec. 1821.)
How true it is that knowledge and all human faculties derive purely from habituation, and that this, when it is in any way related to the intellect, requires attention. The man of great talent, who is very used to paying attention and to becoming habituated, often finds himself unskilled in and ignorant of things that less attentive and more distracted minds know well. That is because he is not accustomed to paying attention to such things. I’ve said elsewhere [→Z 1062–63] that he is generally ignorant of all the social graces, etc.2 You can also observe it in the material sense of taste. The ignorant will have a very refined sense, the capacity to discern the slightest differences, values, deficiencies in tastes and foods. He, on the contrary, if he occasionally pays attention to them, marvels at not understanding what others are perfectly familiar with and show him. And yet this is a material sense. But he does not exercise it with attention, [2231] although, like others, he does materially exercise it. What does that mean? That all the most material, and apparently natural, human faculties need habituation, etc. (6 Dec. 1821.)
For p. 2181. Concerning those who wrote in the Ionic dialect, for reasons purely of elegance and beauty, after Attic prevailed universally, with all the rules and pedantries of Atticism, see Lucian, πῶς δεῖ τὴν ἱστορίαν συγγραφεῖν [How to Write History].1 (6 Dec. 1821.)
How many words or phrases, foreign, ancient, or modern, are there of which we daily say to ourselves, or if we are asked about their meaning, “This cannot be expressed in our language,” “I cannot precisely explain the sense.” What are they? Ideas, or parts or qualities and modifications of ideas, which those languages and those nations have, and which ours doesn’t, although it has the capacity for them because, if we learn those languages, it understands them very well and clearly. (6 Dec. 1821.)
[2232] Christian law essentially and chiefly, and in such a way that without it it does not exist, orders us to love God above all things, our neighbors as ourself for love of him, and ourself not for ourself but for love of God; whence it commands also hatred for ourself, etc. Now, you may twist the thing however you like. Just as on the one hand you will never be able to deny that Christian law absolutely obliges man to place another Being above himself in his love, in every way, so in the final and most definite and infallible analysis of nature (not only human but living, indeed of that nature which in any way has a sense of its own existence) you will find that to do so is utterly and precisely impossible, and contradictory to the way things really are. (7 Dec. 1821.)
There does not exist, nor can there exist, supreme good or supreme evil, neither as supreme nor as good or evil, since there is nothing that of itself is good or bad. Rather, supreme good or evil [2233] can exist within the limits of one and the same nature, depending on and subsequent to its order and essence, relative to it, to the beings that it includes, to the qualities that, within its system, and after its system, and owing to and by virtue of its system, are good or bad, or more or less good or bad. (7 Dec. 1821.)
I have said elsewhere [→Z 227‒28] that the opinion a reader utters about a poem (the same can be said respectively about every other type of writing) depends on and is very much influenced by his current state of mind, and is therefore liable to be very wrong (whether favorable or unfavorable), even if the reader is judicious, intelligent, sensitive, capable of enthusiasm, in short, a completely competent judge. In fact, observe. When one is in a cold and indifferent state of mind, or [2234] distracted, or weighed down by other cares, or discouraged, or disillusioned, etc., whether it’s for a reason or is an acquired or natural, etc., habit, the most beautiful scenes of nature, etc. etc., produce not the slightest effect, even in the most sensitive man in the world, and hence no pleasure; and yet they are not for that reason less beautiful. Likewise the opposite. The same must then be the case, and should be said, of the opinions that even the most capable men form and express about poems, questions of eloquence, feeling, imagination, etc. Opinions that are very different in different people, and in a single person at different times, or even different moments of the day, and, still more, in different nations, etc. Add satiety, discontent, emptiness of soul, boredom; add the state of your studies, finding yourself sated or bored at that [2235] particular moment, or coming from a subject or reading that has wearied or bored you, etc., which is as likely to make a judgment more favorable than it should be as to make it (very often) more unfavorable.
And it is generally noticeable that disillusioned, dried-out men are necessarily bad judges of poetry, eloquence, etc. Now, that is soon the situation of the most sensitive and imaginative men, as I’ve said elsewhere [→Z 1648–49, 2039–41, 2107ff., 2208]. Indeed, it is almost always so just when they have succeeded in forming refined and exquisite taste and tact in literary matters and everything else, which can happen only after long study, experience, time. So it is that today the most competent judges of works of the imagination and feeling, indeed the only competent ones, become, unfortunately, incompetent, because, almost [2236] inevitably, they contract the habit of coldness and indifference more quickly, more firmly and enduringly and continuously, and more radically, deeply, and keenly, than mediocre minds. As a result, those who claim to recognize among the latter the best possible judges of such materials would not, perhaps, be mistaken, if only as a testing board. (8 Dec., Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1821.)
In the case of Latin words beginning with ex, we have often, indeed almost always, taken away the e and the c, and begun them with s, especially—indeed, properly—when the ex was followed by a consonant, and so our s comes to be impure. What the Spanish and the French usually do in that case I have stated elsewhere [→Z 812‒14], in discussing the impure initial s. It appears that since they usu
ally preserve the e, they are closer [2237] than we are to Latin, and yet if you want to see that ancient Vulgar Latin, and also the earliest writers, used to do exactly what we do, look at Forcellini under Stinguo [to extinguish] (and perhaps many other entries), a verb that in early times we, too, said instead of estinguo, and likewise stremo for estremo [extreme], sperimento for esperimento [experiment]; sperto for esperto [skilled]; spremere from exprimere, from which we have esprimere [to express], sclamare from exclamare, whence esclamare [to exclaim]; and so other such words, while they have preserved the e, lose it either at the writer’s pleasure, or among our forebears, or in the mouth of the people, etc. And perhaps the Spanish and the French have the e in such words not so much because they have preserved it as because of a further, and double, corruption. That is to say that, in my view, they originally spoke colloquially the way we do, that is, with the impure initial s, and then, because of the particularity and inclination of their speech organs, which couldn’t tolerate it, or to which it didn’t seem sweet, etc., they added the initial e, [2238] not taking it from Latin but adding it themselves. In fact, that e is always or almost always found in words that, even in written Latin, and in the classical age, and because of their nature and etymology, etc., begin with the impure s, as they always do in Italian as well. See p. 2297.
Anyway, it shouldn’t be surprising that if you take as two extremes on the one hand Vulgar Latin and written Latin, on the other Italian, Spanish, and French, you find that the latter two are closer (in their material form, I mean, and in what is extrinsic and particular) to written than to Vulgar Latin, and Italian the contrary. Because in Italy Vulgar Latin was a natural language, and, being natural and indigenous, came to us under the new guise of the Italian language. In France and Spain it was foreign, and hence learned, and hence, etc. etc. (8 Dec. 1821.)
[2239] For p. 2043. To what I’ve said elsewhere [→Z 2049–52] about why rapidity, etc., of style is pleasing, especially poetic, etc., style, add that in that form of writing the unexpected necessarily arises at every point. This derives from the placement and order of words, from the metaphoric meanings, which, as you continue reading, often oblige you to give the words already read a meaning different from that which you had thought, from the very novelty of the metaphors, and from the natural distance of the ideas that are brought together by the author, etc. These are all things that, apart from the pleasure of surprise, delight us, because finding unexpected things keeps the mind continuously exercised and active; and, further, it feeds on novelty, on the material and recurrent wonder deriving from this or that word, phrase, bold expression, etc. (9 Dec. 1821.)
If you look carefully, you will see that Latin prose (and also poetry), in terms of metaphors, [2240] elegant expressions, habitual and accepted boldness of expression, turn of phrase, structure, etc., is much more poetic than Greek prose (I’m talking about classical and ancient prose), the style of which is much more modest, sedate, slow, simple, less bold, and which would not in any case tolerate those bold and poetic metaphors that are familiar to Latin prose writers, and almost colloquial. And if it wouldn’t tolerate them, that’s not because it has, and uses, other equivalents. What I mean to say is that it would not tolerate the same measure or degree of boldness in metaphors and all the stylistic devices of the highest prose, such as that of Demosthenes. Compared with him, Cicero is a poet in terms of style and language, whereas in terms of concepts, passions, etc., he is like a prose writer compared with Demosthenes, who is a poet, or certainly more a poet than Cicero. Hence a prosaic Latin phrase would be poetic in Greek, an epic [2241] or elegiac phrase in Latin would be a lyric in Greek, etc. The Latin language has almost the same relations with Italian, which is very similar in these aspects to Greek, and so it is not surprising that a Latin style gave a certain hardness to writers of the sixteenth century, and strained and distorted their writing somewhat. (10 Dec., Feast of the Translation of the Holy House of Loreto, 1821.)1
If nature today has become powerless to make us happy, because it has lost its dominion over us, why should it still be able to forbid us the way out of an unhappiness that does not come from it, does not depend on it, does not obey it, cannot be remedied except by death? If it is no longer the rule or the arbiter of our life, why must it be of our death? If its end is the happiness of creatures, and if that is lost to us when we are alive, does one who frees himself by death from otherwise inevitable unhappiness not obey nature better, not achieve [2242] its purpose better, than he who refrains from doing so and observes the natural prohibition that now, when we are no longer living naturally, when we are no longer able to enjoy the happiness prescribed by nature, is completely without foundation? (10 Dec. 1821.)
For p. 1128, near the beginning. Do you still want to see the fraternity and the easy exchange between the f and the v? Observe our schifare and schivare, which are the same;1 we don’t know which of the two is the true one, except that schifare can be supported by the substantive schifo [disgust], which may be its root (Crusca, Schifo, addenda, § 3), and we don’t say schivo; likewise schifezza, etc. (10 Dec. 1821.)
Every sensitive man has a feeling of sorrow, and feels an emotion, a sense of melancholy, when he fixes his thoughts on something that is finished forever, especially if it existed in his time, and was familiar to him. I mean anything subject [2243] to ending, like the life or company of the person who is most indifferent to him (who is even annoying, even hateful), or the youth of that person, a tradition, a way of life, etc. Unless the thing that is finished forever is a sorrow, a misfortune, etc., or a trouble, or its being over means that it has achieved its purpose, has reached the end it aimed for, etc. Although even where we have become habituated to it, we still feel, etc. Only in the case of boredom can we never grieve that it is over.
The reason for these feelings is that infinite which contains in itself the idea of a thing that is finished, in other words, beyond which there is nothing, a thing that has ended forever, and will never again return. (10 Dec. 1821.) See p. 2251.
On the subject of what I have said [→Z 95‒96, 511] about the famous sow that appears to Aeneas, see the Life of Virgil attributed to Donatus, at the beginning, where he recounts the miracle of a rod that happened to the mother, etc.1 This is relevant to our case, because it demonstrates popular superstitions based [2244] on the similarity of names, and the belief that that man, that thing was represented or symbolized (in relation to omens, augurs, etc.), by that other thing that resembled him or it purely in name, like the troia [sow] in Troy, and like many other examples of omens, etc., derived from pure combinations of names that could be found among the ancients. So the Life of Virgil, by whoever it may be, and however little credit it deserves, at least deserves some for simply having collected the popular and foolish and ill-founded traditions that were current, and offering testimony about that era’s way of thinking, on this subject, and on analogous subjects. (11 Dec. 1821.)
For p. 1563, beginning. Our urtare [to bump], French heurter (see the Spanish; the Glossary has nothing) plainly come from urgere [to push], in the manner of the continuatives, that is, from urtus, a participle unknown in itself but evident in [2245] this verb common to two daughter languages of Latin, and in the word urto [bump], French heurt that is simply a verbal noun formed from the participle in us of urgere, in the manner of many other Latin verbal nouns, as I will discuss elsewhere [→Z 3557]. (11 Dec. 1821.)
The only virtue that is both constant and active is that which is loved and professed through nature and illusions, not through philosophy alone, even should philosophy lead to virtue, which it cannot do except as long as it is imperfect. In any case, look at the Romans. Virtue based on philosophy did not exist in Rome until the time of the Gracchi. The virtuous through philosophy were never so numerous in Rome as in the time of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian. You will find in ancient Rome the Fabricii (very hostile to philosophy, as we know from the episode of Cineas), the Curii, etc., but the Catos, the stoic Brutuses�
�you will not find them. [2246] Now, what aided the introduction and diffusion in Rome of philosophical virtue, based on principles? The destruction of operative and effective virtue, and hence of Rome’s greatness.1 (11 Dec. 1821.)
For p. 1147, end. The Latins said obligari votis [I am bound by vows] and also simply obligari in the same sense, with votis or voto understood, as in the cited passage of Ovid, and as in the passage from Horace that follows: obligata means vota, that is, a promise with a vow, votis or voto obligata.
Ergo obligatam redde Jovi dapem.
[Therefore offer Jove the promised banquet]
bk. 2, ode 7, l. 17.
In the passage from Ovid, then, the ut doesn’t mean Italian a [to], that is, ad tangendum [to touch], but so that, etc., as usual. (12 Dec. 1821.)
Involare, which to us means only to steal, did not, in fact, have that meaning for the Latins of the age of Augustus but did for those who came before and after. (See Forcellini.) Among them was the author of the Life of Virgil, before [2247] the middle, that is, ch. 11.1 See if the Glossary has anything. The French say voler [to steal], and that’s worth noting because it becomes the root of involare in that sense. Also see if the Glossary has anything under Volare. See the Spanish Dictionaries.
Nocchiero [helmsman], an ordinary word for us, comes from ναύκληρος, with the au changed to o and the cl to chi, just as from clericus comes chierico [cleric], from clamare chiamare [to call], etc. Nauclerus is found in Latin writers, but it’s rare, not usual, and it would seem that for them it was a Grecism. It was undoubtedly common among the Latins, if seldom used by writers, since it has been common in Italian from earliest times. See Forcellini and (if he has nothing) the Appendix and the Glossary. (12 Dec. 1821.)
Zibaldone Page 167
