Happy is he who lays aside his desires, and cherishes and is content with small pleasures, and always goes on hoping, without ever taking account of his own contrary experience, either in general or in particular. And as a result blessed are the modest souls, or those that are distracted and little accustomed to reflection. (30 May 1822.)
For p. 2252. The idea of eternity has to do with that of last, finished, passed, death, no less than with that of infinite, endless, immortal. And see the thought I’ve already written on this subject (30 May 1822), that is pp. 2242, 2251.
How much more natural and simple the style of the Greek language (although very poetic) is than that of Latin; and hence one can see also from this how much less particular to itself, and how much more suited the Greek language must have been to universality than the Latin language.
[2452] Although Italian and Spanish are true direct daughters of Latin, still it is much, much easier to translate the best Greek authors naturally and spontaneously into Italian or Spanish than the best Latin ones. And the better the Greek authors are, that is, the more truly and purely Greek, the easier it is. As for Latin authors, on the contrary, it is less difficult when they are less good, that is, less Latin, as, e.g., in the case of Boethius, translated with great naturalness by Varchi, and the Vite de’ SS. Padri (which have almost nothing to do with Latin) translated outstandingly by Cavalca, and the Ammaestramenti degli antichi by Fra Bartolomeo da S. Concordio,1 etc. etc. Cicero, Sallust, Livy with great difficulty take on an Italian flavor, unless they completely lose their own character and style. Unlike Herodotus, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Isocrates, etc. Now, since the style of modern languages is generally much flatter and less figurative, etc., than the ancient, this is an indication that the Greek language, adapting to the modern languages much more easily than Latin, must have been much simpler and more natural in its structure and form. (30 May 1822.)
[2453] Whether man is born to think or to act, and whether it is true that the best use of life, as some say, is to attend to philosophy and letters (as if these could have any object or subject other than human life and affairs, and the governing of these, and as if the means were to be preferred to the end),a can be observed from the following. No man was or ever will be great in philosophy or letters who was not born to do more and greater things than others, if he hadn’t in himself more life and greater need for life than ordinary men have, and by his nature and original inclination was not more inclined to the action and energy of existence than others usually are. Staël says it of Alfieri (Corinne, tome 1, last bk.), indeed, she says that he was born not to write but to do, if the nature of his times (and ours) had allowed him to.1 And precisely for that reason he was a true writer, unlike most Italian scholars and men of letters of his and our time. Since among these no one or almost no one was born to do (except for stupid things), so no one or almost no one is [2454] a true philosopher, or a literary man worth a cent. Unlike foreigners, especially the English and the French, who (thanks to the nature of their national governments and conditions) do, and were born to do, more than others. And the more they do, or are naturally inclined to do, the better and more deeply and extraordinarily they think and write. (30 May 1822.)
Grace arising from the extraordinary. Aren’t moles purely flaws, and defective productions of the skin? And haven’t they for a long time been considered beauty marks? (Indeed, even today they are generally called that in the vernacular.) And when women put them on they were, in short, feigning defects, and fabricating them deliberately, to obtain grace and beauty. (1 June 1822.)
For the opinion of Socrates, or Xenophon, and the other ancients as well, on those skills and occupations that were long respected and considered truly necessary to the habit of civilized life, indeed part, nourishment, etc., of civilization, and yet are harmful to health and physical life, and, in addition, to the minds of those who practice them, see Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, ch. 4, §§ 2, 3 and ch. 6, §§ 5, 6, 7.1 (3 June 1822.)
[2455] “Τῶν δὲ σωμάτων θηλυνομένων” (si corpora effeminentur), “καὶ αἱ ψυχαὶ πολὺ ἀῤῥωστότɛραι γίγνονται” [“Once the body becomes effeminate, the soul also becomes much less vigorous”]. Socrates in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, ch. 4, § 2. (3 June 1822.)
For p. 2451. Alfieri was a very bold and frequent maker of words derived or newly compounded from native ones, and although I don’t think that in doing so he had an eye on the Greek language, nonetheless this habit of his gave the Italian language a faculty and a form very similar (materially) to one of the principal and most useful faculties and powers of the Greek language. I am not going to consider whether he used this means of expression with the measure and moderation and discretion it requires, nor whether he always paid attention to necessity or the greatest usefulness, nor indeed whether all his derivatives and compounds, or the majority of them, are well made. But I offer them as an example so that, considering them, we may see more clearly, and as proof, how many subtle or rare ideas or ideas never before precisely articulated, how many things difficult and almost impossible to express in another way (even with foreign words) are clearly and precisely and easily expressed by this means, without going outside our language at all, and so without harming its purity. Certainly [2456] when Alfieri calls Voltaire “Disinventore od inventor del nulla” [“Disinventor, or inventor of nothing”]1 (the true and principal and proper qualities and attributes of modern knowledge), that disinventore says such a thing as could barely be said by means of a long circumlocution, or explained and explicated, in a patient, watered-down, languid sort of way, in a whole sentence. (3 June 1822.)
Among all religions ancient and modern, the Christian religion is the only one that either implicitly or explicitly, but certainly in its essence, institution, character, and spirit, makes us consider or considers evil that which naturally is, was, and always will be good (among the animals too), and always evil its contrary, like beauty, youth, wealth, etc., and even happiness itself and prosperity, which all living beings desire and will eternally and necessarily desire. And it considers them evil in effect because we cannot deny that these very things are very dangerous to the soul, and that their opposites (like ugliness, etc.) do free us from infinite occasions for sinning. And therefore those who profess to be devout2 call the ugly, etc., fortunate and consider ugliness, etc., to be a good for man, a fortunate thing for society, and a condition, a quality, a [2457] most desirable fate in this life. I say the same of prosperity, which makes us naturally proud, confident in ourselves and in things, and hence distracted and ill suited to the habit of reflection (which is essential for the care of our eternal salvation), and causes a great attachment to the things of this earth. And hence the opinion that misfortunes (or, as they call them, crosses) are favors from God, and signs of divine benevolence, a very strange opinion and in fact new, unheard of in all antiquity and in all other modern religions (all of which consider the fortunate man alone a favorite of God, whence among the ancients beato, μακάριος ὄλβιος [blessed, happy], etc., was a title of respect and praise, and that is to say like sanctus or vir iustus [holy, just man], etc. The etymology of ɛὐδαίμων is favored by the Gods, or who has a good God, that is, favorable. The contrary is δυσδαίμων, unhappy, who has evil Gods. See p. 2463. See the Lexicons. And from the beginning in that same Christian religion the men most distinguished by virtue or dignity were called beati [happy, blessed], even when they were living, as today the Pope is called Beatitudine [Blessedness]).1 This opinion is unheard of among any uncivilized people, and in the end I don’t know if any other opinion can be more directly opposed to the universal nature of things, and to the entire order of perceptible [2458] existence. (4 June 1822.)
For p. 1660, middle. I don’t really know if it is Salviati or Savini who speaks of the Italians’ old, wrong, and Latin spelling, particularly of et [and] pronounced only e or ed.1 All languages arise, as is natural, gradually, and for a long ti
me are not suited to writing and much less to literature. As they begin to adapt to writing, the spelling is very uncertain, because of the ignorance of those early writers or scribes, who don’t really know how to apply the symbol to the sound, especially when they use, as is customary, a foreign alphabet, and when each nation or language certainly has its particular sounds, which don’t correspond to those signified by the alphabet of another nation. Then, when literature arrives, the spelling takes on a certain consistency, and it’s the primary concern of the literate to standardize it, to reduce it to fixed general principles, and give it stability. But even this work is always imperfect in its beginnings. For the most part, the literature of a nation derives from that of another. Hence also the spelling in the beginning [2459] follows the form and mold of what the literate have before their eyes, who are still too weak to be original and to imagine by themselves, and know and understand the particular nature of their own sounds, etc., which things are characteristic only of what is already either perfected or close to perfection. In our case, then, this literate language, whose spelling was standardized and consistent, and on whose literature the modern literatures were based, was also directly the mother of the modern languages. And although these (especially French) had lost many of its sounds, and replaced them or added many others, nonetheless the resemblance of the daughters to the mother was so great, and their derivation from it so recent, that when these not yet written or cultivated languages began to be written and then cultivated, no one thought that any spelling other than that of Latin could be used. That spelling already existed, and ours had to be created: but nothing is created in a moment, especially since many other things had to be created at the [2460] same time, which occupied the full attention of the first shapers of the modern languages. Men who to a rotten material (since all were very barbaric corruptions) had to give life, and splendor.
Hence the Italian spelling of the fourteenth century, even that of the first literate men, was all barbarously Latin. One can see the manuscript of the Divina Commedia made by the hand of Boccaccio and Petrarch, and published this year or last by a Library in Rome.1 Hence the h that Italians no longer pronounced (except with the g and the c) was preserved; hence the y, a useless letter, having lost its ancient pronunciation of Gallic u; hence the k, etc. etc. And since for a long time, even after our literature was established, the belief endured that the vernacular was not adequate for writing or for any use that was more than slightly elevated or important (and for a long time in fact it wasn’t, because it wasn’t applied), so until the sixteenth century, and especially through its entire first half, [2461] Italian continued to be written with barbarously Latin spelling, either because people didn’t believe it was capable of its own spelling, or still didn’t know how to find one for it, and make it standard and consistent, or pedantically wanted to return the vernacular to Latin as far as possible. See the edition of Alamanni’s Coltivazione done in Paris 1546 by Robert Estienne, under the eyes of the author, and reprinted with the same spelling in Padua, Volpi, 1718, and Bologna 1746, and the edition of Rucellai’s Api, Venice 1539, which was the first (by Gianantonio de’ Nicolini da Sabio), and was likewise reprinted in the places mentioned above. Volpi says that the “manner both of writing and of punctuating that seems to have pleased Alamanni is somewhat different not only from that which is used today but also from that which in his time was universally customary.” (G. A. Volpi “to his Readers”).1 See also Della Casa’s letters to Gualteruzzi, from an original manuscript, in his works tome 2, Venice 1752.2 I don’t know if that’s true, or if Rucellai’s, e.g., differs from it noticeably. It doesn’t seem to me that the Italian editions of those times (like the one of Firenzuola’s Rime in Florence, cited in the Dictionary) [2462] stray very far from it, but if that is the case, it would result from Alamanni’s sojourn in France. See p. 2466.
In short, the Italian language was in danger of establishing and becoming rooted irremediably in that same imperfect spelling with which it was developing, and in which the French language became rooted forever. Fortunately that didn’t happen. Instead, it was to have the most perfect modern spelling: no letters written that are not pronounced; no letters pronounced that are not written; each letter written, pronounced always, and in every case, as it is when one recites the alphabet, etc. See p. 2464.
The causes of this advantage were the infinite capacity, acuteness, and good taste of countless persons in that century, and the other circumstances that I’ve noted elsewhere [→Z 1659–60]. To which one can and should perhaps add that the sounds of the Latin language, and generally its pronunciation and usage, on whose spelling ours was naturally modeled, were much less different from the usage and pronunciation of ourselves and the Spanish than from those of the French. [2463] Hence since all three of these spellings were from the beginning based equally on Latin, the first two, which had to change it very little to adapt it to their usage, easily corrected it (especially Italian) and made it uniform. But French, which would have almost had to find a new manner of writing (being in pronunciation, as in every other aspect, the most degenerate daughter of Latin) and also find in part a new alphabet (for the silent e, etc.), was not correctable.
In the meantime these observations should be used to demonstrate with a recent example how much the early languages must have been altered when they were applied to writing and to the alphabet, either their own or foreign, and when their spelling was developed, and how little we can trust the way in which they have reached us, that is, solely by means of writing. (5 June, Vigil of Corpus Christi, 1822.)
For p. 2457, margin. What nation, except when it had become Christian, did not consider prosperity to be a gift [2464] of God, and a sign of heavenly favor, and misfortunes punishments from God, and signs of his hatred? (Hence among the ancients, and among the Jews as well, etc., people fled the unfortunate in horror, like they did with lepers, as though he was a criminal, and even if no one knew, or ever had known, of the slightest wrong on his part, he was considered guilty of some secret crime, known to the Gods alone, and his misfortune was taken as a sure sign of evil in him, and if they had previously believed he was good, when they saw some calamity befall him, they reckoned themselves disillusioned.) The opposite came about in our religion, which, if nothing else, defines misfortune as a greater favor, and a sign of the greater favor of God, than prosperity. (5 June 1822.)
For p. 2462, middle—not useless elements of the alphabet, or expressing more than one sound in vain, etc., as, e.g., in Spanish it’s pointless for the sound of j also to be expressed exactly the same by x before a vowel, and by g before e and i. And not only pointless, but in Spanish it still produces great confusion and dangerous, useless variety [2465] in the writing of a single word, even in the same writer, in the same book. Although I believe that in modern Spanish spelling (corrected and made more exact, like all other languages, and like all modern things) these flaws, and these useless qualities have been amended in whole or in part. Similarly the ç or cedilla is a useless element, and produces confusion and damaging variety, etc. etc. (6 June, Feast of Corpus Christi, 1822.)
The Greeks say θɛῖος, the Spanish Tio, the Italians zio [uncle], the latter expressing with the Z, the former with the T the sound of the aspirated t that neither have. Where can this word, so necessary, common, and colloquial in all languages, and extremely common and colloquial in Spanish and Italian have come from, where, I repeat, can it have come from and by what means can it have passed from Greek to these modern vernaculars except through Vulgar Latin, since it is not found in written Latin? Could the Spanish and the Italians have taken a foreign word meaning something that was and is named every day from modern Greek, or from late Greek (hard to know by what means), [2466] and could it have become common and colloquial and driven out the ancient word? And since it might be suspected that some or all of these words that I have shown to be the same in Greek and our vernaculars were derived by means of French in the early Middle Ages, and French
had got them from Greek colonies situated in France, etc., which I have discussed elsewhere [→Z 1040–43], note that this θɛῖος is found in all the vernaculars derived from Latin, except, precisely, French, which from avunculus gets oncle [uncle]. Apart from the fact that the quality of the thing signified by this word, as I’ve said, would not have allowed it to come so late, and establish itself in our vernaculars in place of the old word, if, that is, it were not ancient, very ancient. But see Forcellini, the Glossary, the French, etc., dictionaries. (8 June 1822.) See also calare [to lower, to fall] which the Crusca proposes for Greek χαλᾶν [to slacken, to let fall]. (9 June 1822.)
For p. 2462, beginning. Italian or non-Latin words were still written (especially in older times, because in the sixteenth century greater learning provided a little more regularity) in the Latin manner, [2467] or Latin (Italianate) words in a non-Latin manner, and not suited to Italian, as with non-Italian letters that weren’t right for those words in Latin, either: e.g., ymago or ymagine, etc. This is an effect of the general ignorance regarding Latin and its proper spelling (when in fact even the Latin language wasn’t at all well known, and the codices then were extremely incorrect, etc., and few comparisons could be made, etc.), or the bad way of writing of Latin in those times, and the imperfection and infancy of our native spelling. These observations will serve to explain why, e.g., in the French language the imperfections of spelling often, it seems, have nothing to do with Latin spelling, since even words that didn’t come from Latin were written badly, and others that did come from Latin were written in a manner as discordant with good Latin spelling as with French pronunciation. I mean I’m speaking of French words that were also used in the distant past, because we know that the writing of more modern words, whatever their origin, followed the practice of the imperfect spelling that had already been established. But the primary cause of this imperfection was, in my opinion, what I have said, [2468] that is, the bad, wrong, and childish application of Latin spelling (which was itself in large part wrong and not well known, like the Latin language itself) to vernacular spelling. (10 June 1822.)
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