Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  The same reasons lead me to believe that if, e.g., we find in the three daughter languages amammo, amamos, aimâmes, we must conclude that colloquial Latin speakers said amamus, contracted from amavimus [we loved], as we have seen that they said amai (the Spanish and the French say aimai, emè, with the ai changed to e), and as they also said amasti, amastis for amavisti, etc. (which should be discussed as above), whence amasti amaste, amaste amastes, aimas aimâtes (earlier, aimastes). (1 Jan. 1822.)

  The ancients celebrated not only birthdays but also the anniversaries of deaths. See the fifth book of the Aeneid and in particular lines 46‒54. They also celebrated the anniversaries of victories, etc., like that of Actium, to commemorate which they established the Actian games. See Heyne, Publii Virgilii Maronis Vita per annos digesta, anno U. C. 723.1 Likewise in Athens the festival of Pallas on the anniversary (if I’m not mistaken) of the battle of Marathon or Salamis.2 During various periods they held various [2323] regular, annual celebrations in honor of this or that god, and often added commemorations of patriotic events, etc. The Rustic Dionysia, etc., in Athens. The Lupercalia in Rome, etc. The secular festivals in honor of Apollo and Diana (see Horace’s Carmina saecularia). The festivals in honor of Bacchus, etc. (2 Jan. 1822.)

  For p. 2019, margin, end. That exdorsuare [to take out the backbone {of fish}] (an ancient verb) seems to me an indication of a lost dorsus us in place of dorsus i, or dorsum i [back], which would have produced not exdorsuare but exdorsare, as we in fact have sdossare [to off-load, to shed] (which is the same—see pp. 2236ff., 2297ff.—since dosso is the same as dorso [back], and is the Italian and French, etc., manner of pronouncing the word, but has a very ancient origin, because the ancient Romans, in fact, said dossum i, as usual changing the r to s. See Forcellini under Dossuarius), indossare, addossare [to put on, put against], etc. See the Glossary, Forcellini, the French and Spanish dictionaries on these and similar words. The above-mentioned ancient dorsus us is also demonstrated, in my opinion, by [2324] the derivatives dorsualis [of the back, dorsal] (from dorsum or dossum you would get dorsalis or dossalis; in fact you see this with other, similar words in the Glossary), dossuarius [that carries on his back], dorsuosus.1 Dorsuosus is from dorsus us, as luctuosos from luctus us [mournful, mourning], fructuosus from fructus us [fruit-bearing, fruit], flexuosus from flexus us [full of bends, bend], sinuosus from sinus us [curving, curve], aestuosus from aestus us [hot, heat], etc. etc., actuosus from actus us [active, motion], etc., portuosus from portus us [having many harbors, harbor], etc., tortuosus from tortus us [tortuous, twist], etc. (see Forcellini under monstruosus [strange], which perhaps itself comes from a monstrus us), adfectuosus from adfectus us [disposition, mood], etc. Ossuosus [bony] seems to come from os [bone], or from ossum i, and yet in later times or colloquially people said ossuum, ossua. See Forcellini and the Glossary, impetuosus, tumultuosus, sumptuosus, unctuous.2 See pp. 2226 and 2386. (2 Jan. 1822.)

  Italian assalire, French assaillir, Spanish assaltar [to attack] (simple continuative of assalire, and derived from its participle in the manner of a hundred thousand other verbs, typical of Italian as well): do they not demonstrate a common origin, that is, a Latin assalire, which, not being found among the writers, can only be colloquial? See whether Forcellini and the Glossary have anything. In the purge of words without good authority, Forcellini, in fact, includes Adsalio, adorior, aggredior; Adsalitura and Adsaltura, aggressio. (2 Jan. 1822.)

  For p. 1121, end. What do we think the verb periclitari [to try; to be in danger] is, with that ending in tari? It has to be a continuative or frequentative of a periculari, with a participle periculatus contracted to periclatus (as periculum [trial, danger] very often was to periclum, and in this case with greater cause, in order not to voice [2325] the harsh-sounding periculitari), whence periclitari, just as minitari [to threaten] comes from minatus, the participle of minari [to jut forth, to threaten]. What is it? Is this periculor a dream? (1) Why from periculum or periclum do we make first off periclitor, and not periclor or periculor, according to all the rules? (2) But look, there is periculor in Festus on Cato, who said Periculatus sum [I was in danger].1 (Forcellini under Periculatus.) And there precisely is this very old verb, forgotten in Latin literature, alive and fresh in the colloquialisms derived from Vulgar Latin. We say pericolare [to be in danger] (and not periclitare, as we might well have said, but today that could only be a poetic word, and not very likely). The Spanish say peligrar, which is the same, because in Spanish periculum became peligro. ὃ οὐ διαλείπω λέγων [I will not stop saying this], our vernacular languages resemble very ancient Latin more than they do classical Latin. See Du Fresne under Periculare. (4 Jan. 1822.) But we do also have periclitare [to be in danger]. See the Crusca.

  The ancient Latins said volgus, volpes [people, fox], etc. etc., and a hundred thousand other words the same way, using the o instead of the u. (See Forcellini [2326] under O, U, etc. etc.) It’s a usage typical of the common people, typical of antiquity, and loved for that reason also in more recent times by those who affected antiquity of language, like Fronto, etc. Now, here is the very same usage in Italian, in which classical Latin u customarily changes to o, and such words return to the primitive form that they had among the ancient Latins and in the old writings. And I note that this habit is more typical of Italian than of Spanish, and much more than of French, etc. etc. (4 Jan. 1822.)

  For p. 2315. It is typical of mediocre or bad dramatists, for precisely those reasons, to overload their works with plot, to have an abundance of episodes, etc. The opposite is typical of the greatest. And the reason is that the latter always find a way to keep the spectator’s interest alive (even in an unimportant action) by means of the naturalness of the speeches, vividness, energy, the continuous development of the passions, or comedy, etc. The former are never satisfied, even after they have devised or imagined the most complicated, [2327] strangest, most intriguing situation. In the blink of an eye they use up everything that the subject offers them. That is, since they don’t know how to get out of it all the benefit they can and should, the subject suffices them only for a few scenes. Once they have finished or sketched out these scenes, then, or in the scenes in between, they are left empty-handed (however crammed with passion, comedy, etc., the subject may be), and find no way of keeping interest and curiosity alive except by looking for new episodes, new threads, in short, new subjects, and then use these up, too, in a moment. They cannot, in other words, for a single instant be left without some story to tell, some thread to add to the weave, some still-fresh subject, otherwise they have nothing to say. And how many authors are of this type? How many dramas? 999 out of a thousand. (4 Jan. 1822.)

  For p. 1128, beginning. From cheF [head] (like acaBar from cabo in Spanish, and we, too, say condurre, etc., a capo [from the beginning, from the top], venire a capo [to get to the bottom of, to work out], etc.) French makes achever [to finish], with the f changed to v. This exchange (as I’ve said [2328] elsewhere, that is, p. 2070, end) is very frequent in French, and frequent as a rule, as in the case cited, and not arbitrarily, like schifare, which can equally be pronounced schivare. (4 Jan. 1822.) From clavis comes clef [key], from cervus cerf [deer], from nervus nerf [nerve], etc. etc. etc. That is, with the ending removed as usual, instead of saying nerv the French said nerf, etc.

  For p. 1155, a little before the end. We also have a continuative mode, star facendo, dicendo [to be doing, saying], etc. See the Crusca. Indeed, the verb stare—by its nature in all languages (since it is typically and essentially a continuative of essere), and as a property of ours—is best suited to expressing, or rather is precisely that which expresses, the continuity or duration of any action (although not very elegantly). E.g., if I want to express the force of a Latin continuative in Italian, I will have to use the verb stare with the gerund expressing that action, and for lectare I will say star leggendo [to be reading], especially if the action is not of motion, either physical or ideal, and is metaphoric, etc. But col
loquially we also say all the time star passeggiando or camminando [to be walking], or viaggiando [to be traveling] and so on, and we characteristically and constantly use the verb stare like this in place of a universal continuative. (4 Jan. 1822.) See p. 2374.

  [2329] For p. 1136, end. Among the many proofs that could be put forward, drawn from a truly thorough, exhaustive investigation of the most remote antiquity, there is also the following. We say that the rough breathing of the Greeks was often transformed by the Latins into an s. But the fact is that the oldest Greek records themselves have a sigma where later the custom was to put the rough breathing, and the sigma may have been used in place of the smooth as well. See Iscrizioni antiche illustrate by Abbé Gaetano Marini, p. 184, and above all Lanzi, on the Etruscan language.1 What does this demonstrate? In my opinion it demonstrates that the oldest form of those words common to Greek and Latin from earliest times in fact had an s at the beginning, and not the breathing; that, because of the nature of Greek pronunciation, Greek speakers, and later the writers, over time replaced the sigma with the rough breathing, and it was not, vice versa, the Romans who replaced the breathing with an s; that consequently the Latin form is older than the Greek, that is, the Latin pronunciation and writing of such words; and therefore in the case of such words the Romans preserved the old and the primitive more than the [2330] Greeks did. See pp. 2143ff., 2307–308, and other passages of mine on this point of antiquity. And how many other observations could be made about ancient words, properties, orthography, etc., in the two languages. Observations that would demonstrate that what we commonly believe came from Greece to Latium either did completely the reverse or comes from a common origin; and that the differences encountered between Greek and Latin in such things and attributed by us to corruption undergone by those words when they came into Latium should instead be attributed to corruption undergone in Greece; and that in Latium they preserve their oldest form, and differ from the Greek only because the latter grew much more distant from the primitive than Latin. (5 Jan. 1822.) See pp. 2351, end, and 2384.

  For p. 1153. Those lines of the comic, iambic poets, etc., were almost rhythmic, that is, regulated and measured by the number of syllables and the disposition of the accents (even if the latter was rarely observed) rather than by the value and quantity of each syllable. So it means that, according to the rhythm, double vowels had to be pronounced as monosyllables rather than as disyllables, [2331] etc. Therefore, among the common people, indeed in everyday pronunciation, they were monosyllables, and not anything else, until the recent period of the Latin language (since this same practice is much more noticeable in the deliberately rhythmic lines of later times), etc. etc. (5 Jan. 1822.)

  For p. 928. Asia was the first to shine in the world because of power: it had the first nations, the first homelands, and so it ruled, by means of either colonies or laws and government, the other parts of the world that it had settled. After Asia, or at the same time, Egypt became a nation and a homeland, and under Sesostris, etc., Egypt became the conqueror and practically the center of the world. Greece, called a child by Plato,1 because it was very young compared with those nations—Greece, that small tract of Europe, became à son tour [in its turn] the center of the world, and the most powerful part of it, why? Because at that time it had become a nation and a homeland, while Asia and Egypt had ceased to be one, and it preserved the natural customs that the Asians, etc., had lost. And after [2332] Greece, thanks to this superiority, became formidable to the greatest kingdoms, conquered them, and destroyed the immense Persian empire, including Egypt, and after, as a result of the conquests of Alexander, Asia, Africa, Europe became in effect Greek, Greek provinces—after all that, why did Italy, until then unknown in the world, unknown among the number of nations and powers, expanding little by little, swallow up Greece and its empire, and establish its own kingdom on the ruins of the kingdoms of Semiramis, Cyrus, Alexander, etc. etc.? Because Italy became a nation later than other parts of the world. Nature, that had fled even Greece, remained here, at the bottom of Europe, here a middling civilization arose (closer to the excess of barbarism than to the excess of civilization that, after the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks, too, had attained), and this made them masters of the world. As long as a middling civilization1 is found among peoples either untouched by civilization or [2333] fully civilized (which was later the case with the northern peoples in the Roman Empire, and is today again in the rest of Europe, especially in Russia),1 as long as a nation and homeland exists among peoples who have never had a nation and homeland or who as a result of extreme civilization have lost it, middling civilization will triumph over all the world. And that nation which remains, or arises, however small it is, will become the conqueror, and will sign its name in the catalogue of nations that have dominated the world, until this same dominion reduces it to the state of the powers that it conquered, and destroys its power. And today, given the accelerated pace of human things, this will happen more quickly than it used to in early times.2

  In this catalogue of nations that have been dominant at different times, where I put Asia, you must separate and list successively the various nations of Asia that held power: the Indians perhaps, first of all, the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, perhaps [2334] also the Phoenicians and their Carthaginian colonies, etc. And the French empire (born, lived, and died in twenty years, which serves in effect as proof of what I said toward the end of the previous page) also deserves a place among empires of this sort. But although the French nation is the most civilized in the world, still it gained this empire only by means of a revolution, which, putting in play every type of passion, and reviving every type of illusion, brought France closer to nature, drove civilization backward (in fact, the wonderful monarchist philosophers complain about this), returned France to the state of nation and homeland (which it had lost under the kings), curbed, if momentarily, its most dissolute habits, opened the way to merit, developed the desire, the honor, the strength of virtue and natural feelings, kindled hatreds and every sort of keen passion, and, in short, if it did not bring back the middling civilization of the ancients, certainly did almost that (as far as the times permitted), and those actions called barbarous, which were then so abundant [2335] in France, should not be attributed to anything else.1 Rising out of corruption, the revolution staunched it for a moment, as the barbarism arising from excessive civilization still, by twisting pathways, leads men back closer to nature. (6 Jan., Feast of the Epiphany, 1822.)

  Metaphysics without ideology is almost exactly what Astronomy was before it drew on mathematics. An uncertain science, frivolous, inexact, popular, full of dreams and unsupported conjectures. And metaphysics much more so than astronomy. Metaphysics receives almost as much certitude and exactitude from ideology as astronomy from mathematics, calculus, etc. (7 Jan. 1822.)

  From what I have said elsewhere [→Z 774] about Buonarroti, who wrote deliberately in order to give words to the Crusca, and about Salvini, who in all his writings was prodigal with new words, drawn either from foreign or ancient languages or from Italian roots, and who wrote at the time that the dictionary was being compiled, although as long as he lived he did not allow himself to be cited, etc.,2 it seems that our pedants expressly desire that, by the very act of publishing the dictionary [2336] of a language, and by virtue of that publication, all the faculties that all the writers up to that point had in relation to the language be revoked forever, and at that moment the sources of the language, up to then always, indisputably open, be closed forever. (8 Jan. 1822.)

  I have spoken elsewhere [→Z 1716–17, 1780–81, 1999, 2049–50, 2239] about why swiftness should give pleasure, and how it is related to speed, to promptness, etc. I’ve noted that this swiftness is pleasurable not only in the figure of persons or visible objects, and in movements, etc., but in all other types of things and their attributes. E.g., I have shown how swiftness, flexibility, the rapidity of the voice, of the phrasing, etc., is one of the principal sour
ces of pleasure in music, especially modern music. Now I shall add. Swiftness and rapidity also in speech, in pronunciation, etc., is pleasurable. It is very pleasing to hear Venetian women speak, because of the material rapidity of their speech, because they have an inexhaustible supply of words, because their speed doesn’t lead them to stumble, etc., that is, in spite of the velocity of their pronunciation and their speech, they do not stumble. Also [2337] rapidity and concision, etc., of style, and the abundant pleasure they provide, can and should in part come down to these considerations. (8 Jan. 1822.)

  Swiftness, seen or perceived by means of any sense, or in any way (see the preceding thought), communicates to the soul activity, mobility, transports it here and there, stirs it, exercises it, etc. And so you see how it must necessarily be pleasurable, because our soul always finds some pleasure (greater or lesser but always some pleasure) in action, as long as it isn’t or doesn’t become effort, and doesn’t cause weariness. (8 Jan. 1822.)