Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  *“Whenever g precedes n, I remember observing that when a word is divided in the ancient manuscripts” (at the end of a line or a page) “the letter g stays with the previous part of the word, n with the latter. Therefore do the Spanish, English, and Germans seem to pronounce these words better than the Italians?”* Mai, in Cicero, De re publica 2, 19, p. 165, line 72 (where the page of the codex ends in mag, and the following begins with na; that is, magna), note b. (20 Dec. 1822.) However, it’s essential to see what country these manuscripts were written in, whether, e.g., in Spain. See p. 3762.

  [2658] In Cicero’s Republic cited above, in ch. 37 of bk. 2, p. 203, ll. 1–2,1 where the edition has res publica, requiring in fact the nominative, the Codex has repubblica, as if it were Italian. From which it appears that in the past, too, it was customary to leave out the final s in pronouncing Latin words, as it is left out in our languages. (21 Dec. 1822.) In fact the apocope of the s at the end of words is known in the ancient Latin poets. See p. 2656, margin.

  “Eademque” (mens aut ratio aut sapientia, ut supplet Maius in notis et in addendis, nam superiora in cod. desiderantur) “cum accepisset homines inconditis vocibus incohatum quiddam et confusum sonantis” (sonantes), “incidit” (incídit) “has et distinxit in partes; et ut signa qaedam, sic verba rebus inpressit, hominesque antea dissociatos iucundissimo inter se sermonis vinclo conligavit. A simili etiam mente, vocis qui videbantur infiniti soni, paucis notis inventis, sunt omnes signati et expressi, quibus et conloquia cum absentibus et indicia voluntatum, et monumenta rerum praeteritarum tenerentur. Accessit eos numerus,” (post interventas scil. voces et litteras) “res cum ad vitam necessaria, tum [2659] una inmutabilis et aeterna: quae prima inpulit etiam ut suspiceremus in caelum, nec frustra siderum motus intueremur, di numerationibusque noctium ac dierum…” [“And this” (“mind or reason” or wisdom, which Mai supplies in notes and in addenda, for the preceding words are missing in the codex) “as it became aware that men emitted something incomplete and confused, in inarticulate sounds, broke up these sounds and separated them into parts, and it stamped words on things, like real signs, and joined men together, who before had been separated, with the pleasing bond of language. By the same mind, all the sounds of the voice, which seemed infinite, were also distinguished and represented thanks to the invention of a few characters, by means of which relations with the absent were maintained and wishes expressed and memories of past events preserved. Numbers were added,” (that is after the words and letters were introduced) “an element as necessary to life, as it is immutable and eternal; which first urged us to look up to heaven and not in vain to observe the movements of the stars, and with the calculations of nights and days…”] (the rest is missing). Cicero De re publica, bk. 3, ch. 2, Rome 1822, p. 218–19.1 (22 Dec. 1822.)

  In ancient times the verb sum had a present participle and this was not the more modern ens entis, still preserved in our language, and in Spanish, but sens sentis. Witness the words prae-sens and ab-sens, and con-sens, which last in fact is merely the preposition cum joined to the present participle of sum, and means qui simul est [who is together with], whence Dii Consentes, Dii qui simul sunt [Gods who agree, Gods who are together]. See Forcellini under Consens, praesens, etc. This reinforces my conjecture [→Z 1120–21, 2142–45] that the verb sum also had a past participle in us, as the other neuter verbs had in ancient times, and also the active verbs with an active meaning (e.g., peragratus, that is qui peragravit [who wandered], from the active peragro), and that this began with s, from which was [2660] formed the verb sto. (Rome, 22 Dec. 1822.)

  Cicero, De re publica, bk. 3, ch. 8–20, pp. 230–48,1 in the person of L. Furius Philus argues against justice, and demonstrates the nonexistence of natural law, and brings into it the varieties and differences in customs and laws among different peoples, and in men’s opinions and in various periods about the right and the just, and their opposites. This argument is worth reading, especially for what has to do with the various and incompatible opinions of the ancient nations about so-called natural and universal law, or an innate idea of the just and the good. And on this subject Mai cites (in the third note on p. 232) *“St. Jerome, In Iovinianum, 2, 7ff., Sextus Empiricus, 3, 24 and Contra Ethicos, 190ff.” and “Herodotus 3, 38,” “which authors anyone who has a passion for natural and civil history may read with a certain pleasure and not without drawing benefit from them.”*2 (22 Dec. 1822.)

  In the above discussion there is a notable fragment (ch. 15, p. 243)3 where Cicero in the person of Philus recalls the extraordinary conviction of the Arcadians [2661] and the Athenians that they were αὐτόχθονɛς, that is, terrae filii [sons of the earth], and, considering themselves for that reason of a different origin and nature from other men, they thought they owed nothing to other nations, although they recognized laws and rights that bound each individual in their own nation to other individuals of that nation. And see there Mai’s note 1. (22 Dec. 1822.) See p. 2665.

  “Et quamquam optatissimum est, perpetuo fortunam quam florentissimam permanere; illa tamen aequabilitas vitae non tantum habet sensum,” (mallem sensus secundo casu, quod magis tullianum est) “quantum cum ex saevis et perditis rebus ad meliorem statum fortuna revocatur” [“And although it is very much to be desired that good fortune should flourish continuously, yet in an uneventful life there is no sensation so intense” (I would prefer sensus in the genitive, which is more typical of the language of Cicero) “as when fate recalls us from cruel and desperate circumstances to a better situation”]. Cicero in Ammianus Marcellinus, 15, 5.1 (23 Dec., day before Christmas Eve, 1822.)

  “And after careful thought I used the term figura not to describe everything that departs from the original formation of the language, but that which departs from the more ordinary manner of present speakers. For what was figural at one time [2662] does not remain a figure later when it has become so leveled by usage that it becomes the most commonplace manner of everyday language, since languages depend on the will of men, as much when they are brought into being, as when they are changing; and since Grammarians are not legislators, as some think, but compilers of those Laws which the Lordship of Usage has previously prescribed.” Trattato dello stile e del dialogo, by Father Sforza Pallavicino of the Company of Jesus, chapter 4, Modena 1819, p. 22. (26 December, Feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr, 1822.)

  Concerning my opinion [→Z 95–96, 511, 2243–44] that troia in ancient Latin meant, as in Italian, scrofa [sow], see in Forcellini troianus added to porcus, and what he says about it. (Rome, 28 December 1822.)

  Father Sforza Pallavicino in the Trattato dello stile e del dialogo, chapter 27, entitled “In which is established what Authors should be followed in scientific matters by those who write in Italian or in Latin” (reprint of Modena 1819, pp. 175–78) gives decisive and universal, and not relative but absolute, preference to the [2663] writers, style, and language of the 16th century (and of the following century, when he was writing) above the language and writers of the fourteenth century. (5 January 1823.)

  “In summary” (in short) “language and Writing are addressed to contemporaries and to the future, not to the dead.” Pallavicino, loc. cit. above, p. 181, end. (5 Jan. 1823.)

  “Nemo enim orator tam multa, ne in graeco quidem otio, scripsit, quam multa sunt nostra” [“Indeed no orator, not even in Greek idleness, has written as much as I have”]. Cicero, Orator, no. 108,1 talking about his speeches. (9 Jan. 1823.)

  For p. 2470. Cicero in the Orator, no. 134 on metaphors,2 urging the Orator to make great use of them, says: “Ex omnique genere” (subintellige rerum) “frequentissimae translationes erunt, quod eae propter similitudinem transferunt animos, et referunt ac movent huc et illuc; qui motus cogitationis, celeriter agitatus, per se ipse delectat” [“In the entire genre” (understood of things) “metaphors should be the most frequent, because, through the relationship of similarity, they transport minds and draw them and move them here and there; and this swift, stirring movement of thoug
ht in itself produces pleasure”]. (10 Jan. 1823.)

  In a passage of Lucilius cited by Cicero in the Orator, no. 1493 read Aptae pavimento for Arte. It is the case that the second syllable of the preceding line is short. (10 Jan. 1823.)

  In ancient times the Latins said maxilla, axilla [jaw, wing], etc. (Cicero, Orator, no. 155),4 then they made mala, ala [jaw, wing], etc. Now we preserve the ancient: mascella, ascella, tassello [jaw, armpit, plug]. They also said siet for sit [so be it] (see ibid. no. 159);5 now, [2664] the former and not the latter must have been always preserved in the usage of the people, as appears from sia, soit, sea. (10 Jan. 1823.) Note our similar custom of adding an e to accented vowels: virtue, fue [virtue, was], etc.

  In Cicero’s Orator, no. 196, “illa ipsa delectarent” read non delectarent.1 (11 Jan. 1823.)

  “Transferenda tota dictio est ad illa quae nescio cur, quum Graeci κόμματα et κῶλα nominent, nos non recte incisa et membra dicamus. Neque enim esse possunt rebus ignotis nota nomina; sed, quum verba aut suavitatis aut inopiae causa transferre soleamus, in omnibus hoc fit artibus, ut, quum id appellandum sit quod, propter rerum ignorationem ipsarum, nullum habuerit ante nomen, necessitas cogat aut novum facere verbum, aut a simili mutuari” [“All diction has to be transferred to those elements that, I don’t know why, since the Greeks name them κόμματα and κῶλα, we could not correctly call them parentheticals and clauses. In fact we cannot have names for things not known, but, since we customarily have recourse to metaphors for a more beautiful diction or in the absence of a proper expression, in every field of knowledge it happens that, having to name a thing that, because we were ignorant of its existence, did not have a name before, necessity should force us either to coin a new word or to borrow from a similar one”]. Cicero, Orator, no. 209.2 (11 Jan. 1823.)

  In Cicero’s Orator, no. 231, that is, very near the end, read reperiant ipsâ eâdem, etc., for “reperiam.” (11 Jan. 1823.) Ibid., no. 11, that is, shortly after the beginning, and also in the introduction, read ut sine causâ alte repetita videatur instead of “ut non sine causâ alte repetitâ videatur.” (12 Jan. 1823.) Ibid., no. 16, read de moribus sine multa instead of “de moribus? sine,” etc. Ibid., 19 poterimus fortasse discere for “dicere.” Ibid., 32 nomen eius non extaret for “nomen eius extaret.” (12 Jan. 1823.) [2665] Ibid., 83, read recte QUIDAM vocant Atticum, and see no. 75. Ibid., 88, read aut tempore alieno, not “alienum,” since this word refers to “ridiculo.” (12 Jan. 1823.) Ibid., 107, read laudata; 138, read quid caveat. (13 Jan. 1823, Rome, in bed.) 150, read in dicendo. (13 Jan. 1823.) 182, read quid accideret or quid accidisset. 195, read quisque or quique for “cuique.”1 (13 Jan. 1823.)

  For p. 2661. Concerning the ancient presumptuous belief held by various peoples, and especially the Athenians, that they were αὐτόχθονοι [sons of the earth] and therefore had a different origin and different rights from other men, by which they justified conquests, national superiority, the claims that each people had over other peoples, being free of every law regarding foreigners, the enslavement of the latter, either nationally or individually, the oppression of foreign residents or domiciles, the hatred, in short, toward other nations, while they professed love of their own, and considered themselves bound by law and nature to their own citizens or fellow nationals, see also the funeral oration given by Socrates in the person of Aspasia in Plato’s Menexenus, near the beginning.2 (2 February, Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1823.)

  [2666] French prose (the most unpoetic nation and language among the moderns, which are the most unpoetic in the world) is much more poetic than ancient prose written in the most poetic possible languages. The very lack of a poetic language distinct from that of prose causes the French writer to confuse what is proper to one with what is proper to the other, and so, as the French poet writes prosaically, the prose writer writes poetically, and the French language lacks not only a poetic language and style distinct from that of prose but also a true prose language and style, easily distinguished and circumscribed and defined with respect to the poetic. This is one of the reasons for the poetic nature of French prose. Still others could be pointed to, but among these one that is paradoxical and yet very true. French prose is poetic because the French language is very poor. Hence the need for metaphors, metonymies, catachresis, a thousand figures of speech, which make the language of prose poetic, and, according to our taste, [2667] bombastic, overwrought, and alien to that simplicity, ease, calm, assurance, and evenness and gravity of pace that is admired in Latin and Greek prose, the most poetic languages of the West. E.g., since the French don’t have a word that means father and mother together (as we do, who say i genitori [parents]), they are often obliged to say les auteurs de ses jours, des jours de quelqu’un, de celui là [the authors of his days, of the days of someone, of him], etc.1 These essential and obligatory phrases compel the French prose writer to create a fitting framework for them, to follow a way of speaking, a style, where these phrases, figures, etc., are not inappropriate, and hence to raise the tone of his prose, and give it a poetic color as much in style as in language. And so the poverty of the French language makes its prose poetic, because of the figures of speech that it is thus obliged to use in exchange for the words that are lacking, and because of the figures that these same forced figures require around themselves, and virtually carry with them, and because of the style and the language and the tone that these forced figures [2668] require in order not to be inappropriate. (2 Feb. 1823.)

  To someone who asked me how much and to what point philosophy should concern itself with human affairs and the regulation of the mind, the passions, the judgments, the habits of human life, I would respond: as much as, and to the point where, governments should concern themselves with industry and national commerce, when they desire that these should flourish—that is to say, not concern itself in the least. And in this respect philosophy is truly and fully comparable to the science of public economy. The perfection of which consists in knowing that things should be left to nature, that the freer commerce (internal and external) and industry are, the more they prosper, and the better the affairs of the nation go; that the more regulated they are the more it declines and fails; that, in short, that science is useless, since at its best it lets things go along as if it didn’t exist, and as they would go along wherever it and governments do not get involved in commerce and industry; and at its most perfect [2669] forbids itself every action, is aware of the damage it causes, and in short does nothing, a result for which men did not need political economy, and which, if political economy had not existed, would necessarily have been obtained in the same way, and better.1 Now, that is precisely the most perfect state of philosophy and reason and reflection, etc., as I’ve said elsewhere [→Z 448–50, 491–94]. (2–3 Feb. 1823.)

  Concerning what I’ve said elsewhere [→Z 2206–208, 2387–89] about the custom of sacrifices originating in the egoism of fear. “Toutes les fois que le courroux des dieux se déclare par la famine, par une épidémie ou d’autres fléaux on tâche de le détourner sur un homme et sur une femme du peuple, entretenus par l’état pour être, au besoin, des victimes expiatoires, chacun au nom de son sexe. On les promène dans les rues au son des instrumens; et après leur avoir donné quelques coups de verges, on les fait sortir de la ville” (d’Athènes). “Autrefois on les condamnoit aux flammes et on jetoit leurs cendres au vent. (Aristoph. in equit. v. 1133. Schol. ibid. Id. in ran. v. 745. Schol. ib. Hellad. ap. Phot. p. 1590. Meurs. graec. fer. in thargel.)” [“Whenever the anger of the gods declares itself through famine, an epidemic, or other catastrophes, an attempt is made to deflect it onto a man and a woman of the people, kept by the state to be, as needed, expiatory victims, each in the name of its own sex. They are paraded in the streets to the sound of instruments, and after having been beaten they are banished from the city” (Athens). “At other times they were condemned to the flames and their ashes thrown to the wind. (Aristophanes in Equites, l. 1133; the S
choliast, ibid.; id. in Ranae, l. 745; the Scholiast, ibid.; Helladius in Photius, p. 1590; Meurs, Graecia feriata, under Thargelia.)”]. Voyage du jeune [2670] Anacharsis en Grèce, tome 2, ch. 21, 2nd edition, Paris 1789, p. 395. See also in the same chapter the third page before this, about the sacrifices of human victims, which were made principally in more severe dangers and fears, as the same author says elsewhere.1 (7 Feb. 1823.) See p. 2673.

  On joining the priesthood and civil government in the same persons, as the ancients did, about which I’ve spoken elsewhere [→Z 131–32, 2367–68], and how the functions of the priesthood did not in any way prevent the ancient priests from serving their country. “Chaque particulier peut offrir des sacrifices sur un autel placé a la porte de sa maison, ou dans une chapelle domestique. (Hesych. in ὑδραν. Lomey. de lustrat. p. 120)” [“Each individual can offer sacrifices on an altar placed at the door of his house, or in a domestic chapel. (Hesychius under ὕδραν [hydra]; Lomeier, De lustrationibus, p. 120)”]. Same work, same chapter, p. 397.2 (See also Aristophanes, Pluto, l. 1155 and the Scholiast, ibid.) “Cette espèce de sacerdoce ne devant exercer ses fonctions que dans une seule famille, il a fallu établir des ministres pour le culte public.” [“Since this type of priesthood exercised its functions only within a single family, ministers for public worship had to be established.”] Ibid. “Tous” (les prêtres de la Grèce) “pourroient se borner aux fonctions de leur ministère, et passer leurs jours dans une douce oisivité. (Isocr. de permut. t. 2, [2671] p. 410.) Cependant plusieurs d’entre eux empressés a mériter par leur zèle les égards dus à leur caractère, ont rempli les charges onéreuses de la république, et l’ont servie soit dans les armées, soit dans les ambassades. (Herodot. l. 9. c. 85. Plut. in Aristid. p. 321. Xenoph. hist. graec. p. 590. Demosth. in Neaer. p. 880.)” [“All” (the priests in Greece) “could limit themselves to the functions of their ministry, and spend their days in sweet idleness. (Isocrates, De permutatione, tome 2, p. 410). However, some of them, eager to receive, through their zeal, the respect due to their title, carried out the burdensome tasks of the republic, and served both in the army and in the embassies. (Herodotus, bk. 9, ch. 85; Plutarch, in Aristides, p. 321; Xenophon, Historia Graeca, i.e., Hellenica, p. 590; Demosthenes, In Neaeram, p. 880.)”] Ibid., p. 403. See the 2nd book of the Aeneid, about the priest Panthus, and the Iliad about Helenus,1 etc. (7 Feb. 1823.)