Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  To a sensitive and imaginative man, who lives, as I have done for so long, continually feeling and imagining, the world and its objects are in a certain respect double. With his eyes he will see a tower, a landscape; with his ears he will hear the sound of a bell; and at the same time with his imagination he will see another tower, another landscape, he will hear another sound. The whole beauty and pleasure of things lies in this second kind of objects. Sad is that life (and yet life is generally so) which sees, hears, feels only simple objects, only those objects perceived by the eyes, the ears, and the other senses.3 (30 Nov. [1828], 1st Sunday in Advent.) See p. 4502.

  It is well known that great pain (like every great passion) has no external language. Nor, I add, does it have an internal one. This means that when a person is in great pain, he is unable to define, to establish in his own mind any idea, any feeling about the subject of his passion, which idea or feeling he might be able to express to himself, and turn and exercise his thought and pain around it, so to speak. He feels a thousand feelings, sees [4419] a thousand ideas run together, or rather feels, sees only one feeling, one vast idea, where his faculty of feeling and thinking remains absorbed, powerless either to grasp everything or to divide it into parts, and to determine some of these. Therefore at that moment he has no thoughts of his own, he does not even know the cause of his pain; he is in a kind of lethargy; if he cries (and I have seen this in myself), he cries as though by chance, and in general, without being able to explain to himself what he is crying about. Those dramatists and the like who in situations of great passion introduce soliloquies, following the convention which enables their characters to say out loud what, if they were real, they would say to themselves, should know that in such situations a man says nothing to himself, he does not speak to himself at all. And such dramatists include the greatest (Shakespeare himself),1 if not all are like that. (30 Nov. 1828, Recanati.)

  For p. 4280. I myself have seen a very tame domestic canary, as soon as it was placed before a mirror, become irritated by its own image, and take against itself with wings arched and beak raised high.

  For p. 4241. The man of noble birth can be seen in the free, frank, forthright and original criticism, and also in the forthright and reasonable moral theology of the marquis Maffei;2 he is to be seen in the original style, in the individual way of thinking and writing poetry, in the bold and self-assured tone, in the very firmness and power of religious and superstitious opinion of Varano.3 (1 Dec. 1828, Recanati.)

  [4420] “Memories of my life.” —When I went to Rome, the need to live with other people, to pour forth, to act, to live externally, made me stupid, inept, dead internally. I became completely devoid and incapable of internal action and life, without thereby becoming more adapted to external life. I was thus incapable of reconciling one life with the other; so incapable that I decided such a reconciliation was impossible, and I thought that other men, who I saw were capable of living externally, experienced no more internal life than that which I then experienced, and that most of them had never experienced it at all. Only personal experience enabled me later to correct my misconception on this matter. But that was perhaps the most painful and mortifying state that I have been through in my life; because, having become so inept internally as well as externally, I lost almost any idea of myself, and all hope of success in the world and of achieving anything with my life. (1 Dec. 1828.)

  A young man is unable to make a mark in society because of the very fervency of his desire to do so. He does not succeed until after his desire has calmed and been almost extinguished; and the removal of this obstacle plays no small part in the acquisition of such ability. Thus the nature of things requires that social successes, even of the most frivolous kind, are impossible to achieve when they would produce ineffable pleasure; they are achieved only when the pleasure they give is little or none. This is exactly what happens: because even if a person manages to achieve success in early youth, it only occurs where his mind, passing rapidly through life, [4421] has arrived very quickly (as often occurs) at a state in which there is hardly any desire for social successes, and they produce little or no pleasure. (1 Dec. 1828.)

  In my solitary walks around cities, the view into the rooms which I see from the street below, through their open windows, arouses within me very pleasurable sensations and beautiful images. Such rooms would arouse nothing in me if I saw them from inside. Is this not an image of human life, of its conditions, its goods and its delights? (1 December 1828, Recanati.)

  Nature is like a child: with great care she toils to produce, and to guide her product to perfection; but as soon as she has done so, she sets about destroying it, working away at its dissolution. This is true of man, also of other animals, of vegetables, of every kind of thing. And man treats nature exactly like he treats a child: the means of preservation used by him to prolong the period of existence or of a certain state (either his own or of things which serve him in life) are almost like taking his work out of the hands of the child as soon as he has completed it, so that he does not immediately set about undoing it.1 (2 Dec. 1828.)

  “Memories of my life.” —I will always be pained by the words which Olimpia Basvecchi used to say to me, rebuking me for the way in which I passed the days of my youth, at home, seeing no one: “what youth! what a way to spend these years!” And I understood completely and perfectly even then that such words were entirely reasonable. But nevertheless, I believe [4422] there is not a single young man, whatever life he leads, who when he looks back upon the way he spent those years, is not ready to say those very same words to himself.1 (2 Dec. 1828, Recanati.)

  The Spanish language seems (and will always seem) ridiculous to the Italians to the same extent that the monkey is regarded by man as a ridiculous animal: extreme similarity with serious differences. But speaking in absolute terms, this way of laughing at Spanish is at least as unreasonable as laughing at the monkey; and, moreover, it operates both ways since it is equally natural that Italian is regarded with as much reason as being just as ridiculous to the Spanish. We regard Spanish as ridiculous in the same way and for the same reason that we regard an Italian dialect as being so. Similarly Italian must seem ridiculous to the Spanish in the same way as a dialect in the Spanish language. It is therefore a real prejudice for Italians to consider Spanish as a language or pronunciation which has something intrinsically ridiculous, arguing about the effect it has upon us. (2 Dec. 1828.) (See p. 4506.)

  For p. 4248, end. The Greeks very reasonably—whatever Cicero, who prefers the Latin word convivium, has to say about it—called the banquet symposium, i.e., compotation, because only drinking was actually carried out together and in company (as was entirely reasonable), and not eating, as probably happened among the Romans, etc. (See the passage on Cicero in Forcellini under Convivium, or Symposium or Compotatio, etc.) (2 Dec. 1828.)

  Guadagnoli reciting his burlesque Sestinas about his life, in my presence at the Accademia de’ Lunatici in Pisa, at the home of Madame Mason,2 accompanying his ridiculous style and subject with ridiculous gestures and recitation. I feel sad in such cases, when I see a young man making a mockery of himself, his youth, [4423] his misfortunes, and turning himself into a spectacle and the object of laughter, and relinquishing all cherished hope at the thought of inspiring something in the heart of women (a thought which is so natural in young men), and almost spontaneously embracing and choosing old age in the bloom of youth. This kind of desperation is one of the saddest to see, and all the sadder the more it is coupled with a sincere smile, and perfect gaieté de coeur [cheerfulness of heart]. (Recanati, 3 Dec., Feast of St. Francis Xavier, 1828.)

  I live right in the middle of Italy, in the most temperate climate in the world. I go out every day for a walk during the most temperate hours of the day. I choose the places which are most sheltered, most suitable and opportune. And after all of this, it happens barely two or three times a year that I can say I walk in entire comfort with regard to heat, cold, wind, humidity, we
ather, and similar things. And you observe, in fact, that the perfect comfort of the air and the weather is something so rare, that when you do find it, even in the best seasons, everyone is quite naturally prompted to say: “what fine weather! what delightful air! what a pleasant walk!” almost exclaiming, expressing surprise as if it were a strange exception to what I shortsightedly think should be the rule, at least in our part of the world. How benign and provident is nature toward living creatures! (3 Dec. 1828.)

  The exclusion of the foreigner and the subject from the rights (however natural and primordial) of the citizen and the dominant nation, an exclusion to be found in all ancient legislation, in all legislation pertaining to a middling civilization, one based implicitly upon a view of the natural inferiority of [4424] other races of men to the dominant or citizen race and explicitly based upon this principle, was first codified in scientific and philosophical theory and doctrine, so far as is known (like so much other opinion and knowledge of the time) by Aristotle in his Politics (a work often cited by Niebuhr in his Roman History as being genuinely by Aristotle).1 This exclusion is very obvious in all medieval legislation, in which the favor of the law in defending property and people, and every other right, was almost exclusively on the side of the nobility alone. In France a noble who killed a nonnoble faced no other penalty than to throw five sous on the grave of the victim: such was the law. (Courier.)2 The same with all other rights. And it is well known that modern legislations are still not properly purged of their original vice of distinguishing between two races of men—noble and nonnoble, etc. Nobles, as observed by jurists and historians, are mostly and almost totally, in those semibarbarous legislations, synonymous with people who are free, who are native-born, with citizens, with burghers in Germany (Niebuhr, Roman History, p. 283),3 nationals, belonging to the dominant nation, and for whom the laws are made; and the nonnoble are no more, in origin, than foreigners, subjects, servants, members of the defeated and conquered nation. All of the much-criticized perversity of medieval and modern legislation relating to nobility (synonymous with native birth, nationality) derive from that principle of distinguishing between citizen and foreigner in relation to human rights, which we have often reflected upon in the most ancient peoples. This also includes the Turkish legislation in relation to the rajas, that is, to slaves, that is, to Greeks, defeated and conquered, people considered as being different from the Turks. (4 Dec. 1828.)

  [4425] Preserving the purity of the language is a fantasy, a dream, an abstract hypothesis, an idea that can never be put into practice, except only in the case of a nation which has never received anything from any other foreign nation either in relation to literature and learning or in relation to life. Greek, by a very strange combination of circumstances, found itself in this situation for a very long period of time after the formation of its language and literature. This Greek nation (unless we want to add the Chinese) is, among those civilized nations whose history is known, the only real example of such a case, and the Greek language is also the only cultured language which kept a true and effective purity for a long space of time. The Latin language was impure as soon as it became cultured and literary. Italian was thoroughly impure when it became a written language, full of Provençalisms and Gallicisms. Then, because of the rare circumstance that Italy, having become mistress and guide and source for other nations, found itself, like Greece, in the situation of receiving nothing from outside, its language kept a certain purity. Once the situation had changed (had indeed reversed) it became once more, and remains, thoroughly impure. So long as the current reciprocity between nations and literatures continues for present and future nations (and especially for Italy), the purity of the language, assuming that nations wish to use this language, is fanciful and impossible. (5 Dec. 1828.)

  NoVem—(noundinae) nUndinae: almost novendiales, markets or fairs which were once held on every ninth day, i.e., every eight days (which was the ancient Etruscan week). (Niebuhr, Roman History.) (11 Dec. 1828.)

  [4426] For p. 4415. “Dante, from whom he” (Monti) “took the art of fixing the imagination of the reader firmly on the place of the scene, often setting Geography in verse much more masterfully than Dante himself had done; and the even more remarkable art, which Rousseau admired in Dante, of calling things by their proper names.” Antologia of Florence, Oct. 1828, vol. 32, no. 94, p. 177.1 (Recanati, 13 Dec. 1828.)

  Any kind of object, for example, a place, a setting, a landscape, though it may be beautiful, is in no way poetic to the eye if it does not awaken any memory.2 That same landscape, and a setting too, any kind of object, utterly unpoetic in itself, will be highly poetic in the remembering. Remembering is the essential and principal constituent of poetic feeling, if for no other reason than that the present, whatever it may be, cannot be poetic; and the poetic, in one way or another, always consists in the distant, the indefinite, the vague.3 (Recanati, 14 Dec., Sunday, 1828.) See next page and p. 4471.

  IOvis–IUppiter, i.e., Iovis pater (Iouppiter) [Jupiter]. The etymology given by a certain ancient, juvans pater [beneficial father] (see Forcellini), shows that the contraction of ov or ou, into u, which is to be found in ancient Latin and in many other languages, was already little known or forgotten by the ancients. (21 Dec., Sunday, Feast of St. Thomas, 1828.)

  “Il fut reçu” (M. Charles le Beau, auteur de l’Histoire du Bas Empire) “à l’académie des belles lettres, en 1759, ayant cette même année remporté le prix, dont le sujet étoit cette question importante et vraiment philosophique: ‘Pourquoi la langue grecque s’est-elle conservée si long-temps dans sa pureté, tandis que la langue latine s’est altérée de si bonne heure’” [“He was received” (Monsieur Charles Le Beau, author of the Histoire du Bas Empire) “into the academy of letters in 1759, the same year in which he had won the prize, whose subject was this important and truly philosophical question: ‘Why the Greek language kept itself pure for so long, while the Latin language was corrupted at an early stage’”]. Encyclopédie méthodique. Histoire, art. “Beau (Charles le).”4 (24 Dec., Christmas Eve, 1828.)

  [4427] For the previous page. The pleasure we are afforded by a certain natural and simple style (like Homer’s), by childish, and therefore popular, imaginings about natural phenomena, cosmography, etc.; the pleasure in short which is afforded us by poetry, I mean ancient poetry and the poetry of images, has as one of its most important causes, if not absolutely the most important, the confused remembering of our childhood which is awakened within us by such poetry. This is the most welcome and poetic remembering of all; perhaps, most importantly, because it is more remembrance than any other, that is to say, because it is the furthest away and the vaguest.1 (1 [January] of 1829.)

  The practice, common to many ancient (and modern) nations and religions, of jealously maintaining a fire in the temples, and with so much care to ensure it never dies out: could not its origin (as with so many religious practices in antiquity, derived—some obviously, and others in such a way that today their origin is difficult to guess—from social needs and usefulness, from scientific traditions, etc.) be the remembering and the tradition of the difficulty experienced in primitive times in lighting a fire when necessary, in maintaining it or restarting it at will; and the fear of losing the fire altogether, that is, of not being able to relight it, if it were left to die out?2 (1 [January] 1829.)

  The ancient Romans used to add a d at the end of words to avoid the hiatus, or elision in verses, etc. Even in the middle of compound words: such as in prosum: pro-d-es, pro-d-esse, etc.—prodire, prodigere, redire, redigere, etc. etc. (See Forcellini under letter D). Likewise in our own writers, especially old ones, od, ned, ad, sed, ched, etc., a use which certainly did not derive from the books of those ancient Romans, indicating that it was preserved through Vulgar Latin, etc. (1 [January] 1829.)

  [4428] My philosophy not only does not lead to misanthropy, as might seem to anyone who looks at it superficially, and as many accuse it of doing,1 but by its nature it excludes misan
thropy, by its nature it aims to cure, to extinguish that ill humor, that hatred (not systematic but nevertheless real hatred) which very many people who are not philosophers, and would not wish to be called or thought of as misanthropes, feel in their hearts nonetheless toward their fellow humans, either habitually, or in particular circumstances, by reason of the ill which, rightly or wrongly, like everyone else, they receive from other people. My philosophy makes nature guilty of everything, and by exonerating humanity altogether, it redirects the hatred, or at least the complaint, to a higher principle,2 the true origin of the ills of living beings, etc. etc. (Recanati, 2 January 1829.) See p. 4513.

  How wrong it is, from observing that the roots of certain languages have no similarity with those of certain others, to draw conclusions both against historical affinity between these languages and against the unity of origin of human languages (as does Niebuhr, Roman History, p. 44 English ed.),3 can be seen by considering the roots of those languages whose relationships we know. Imagine that the Latin and the French language were almost unknown to us, and that it was known that in one of them the day was called dies and in the other jour. Would anybody, I don’t say discover, but imagine, or even just suspect, the minimal analogy between these two words, which do not have a single letter in common? And yet the French is immediately derived from the Latin, being a simple corruption of diurnus or diurnum (tempus understood) [daytime], which in low or rustic Latin is used instead of the original word dies. See p. 4442. And even though the Latin and the French and the derivation of one from the other are [4429] very well known, yet it is improbable that even the most learned would have guessed the etymology of the word jour unless the corresponding and identical Italian word giorno was also known, which, although it too has nothing in common with dies, has a greater similarity to diurnum (giorno for diorno, just as, vice versa, the Tuscan words diaccio, diacere, etc., with their derivatives, for ghiaccio [ice], giacere [to lie down], etc.).1 I ask: if only these two words of French and Latin were known (which historically are almost identical) would it come to anyone’s mind that those two languages were analogous, that one was the genuine daughter of the other? Would it not indeed be stated with confidence that those languages were from different families, etc.? (3 Jan. 1829.) Now, if this happens in languages which we know completely, living languages, derived immediately one from the other, with millions of ways of discovering the etymology of their roots, what will happen to us in languages which are very remote, almost unknown, extremely ancient, not daughters, not sisters, but great-granddaughters, very distant relatives, etc. etc.? Who would have the courage to say with certainty that a particular word, because it has no similarity with another from another language, has no historical affinity with it? And note that the word jour, dies, etc., expresses an idea that almost counts as primitive, and one of the most usual in conversation, etc. See p. 4485. Thus it is proven that equus is the same word as ἵππος [horse] (Niebuhr, Roman History, p. 65, note 223, tome 1), ὕπνος the same as somnus [sleep], etc. etc.