Zibaldone
Page 334
For p. 4316. Of quite a different quality and weight is Niebuhr’s conjecture, based on profound learning and knowledge of antiquity, “that the Teucrians and Dardanians, Troy and Hector, ought perhaps to be considered as Pelasgian:… that they were not Phrygians was clearly [4448] perceived by the Greek philologers, who had even a suspicion that they were no barbarians at all.”1 (loc. cit. p. 4431, end, section entitled “The Oenotrians and Pelasgians,” p. 28.) He sets out ibid. the foundations for this personal and particular opinion of his. In the section entitled “Conclusion” of that part of his history which concerns the ancient peoples of Italy, p. 148, he repeats the same conjecture: “In the very earliest traditions they” (the Pelasgians) “are standing at the summit of their greatness. The legends that tell of their fortunes, exhibit only their decline and fall: Jupiter had weighed their destiny and that of the Hellens; and the scale of the Pelasgians had risen. The fall of Troy was the symbol of their story.”2 (The author considers the Trojan war to be a myth. Section entitled “Aeneas and the Trojans in Latium,” p. 151: “Let none treat this inquiry with scorn, because Ilion too was a fable … Mythical the Trojan war certainly is…: yet it has an undeniable historical foundation; and this does not lie hid so far below the surface as in many other poetical legends. That the Atridae were Kings of the Peloponnesus, is not to be questioned.”) Elsewhere (section quoted in brackets above, pp. 160–61) he once again sets out the foundations of this opinion, and also puts forward another personal conjecture, that the tradition that Aeneas came to Latium and founded a colony from which Rome originated, and that Rome was of Trojan origin is nothing else but an effect and an expression of the “national affinity” existing between the Trojans and the Romans, insofar as, according to the author, the Romans were partly of Pelasgian origin. —The Pelasgians, [4449] according to Niebuhr (and one of the most remarkable and original parts of his History consists of the new observations and new insights which he presents in relation to this mysterious race, as he calls it, and the new light he has cast upon it), were a separate nation, with a different origin and way of life from that of the Hellenes, whom we call Greeks, as the Romans did; and at the same time they were very similar: and they spoke a language which was “peculiar and not Greek,” and nevertheless it was very similar to the Greek; more similar than Latin, in relation to which it seems, according to Niebuhr, to be “unquestionable” that that element of similarity to the Greek language, that element “which is half Greek” is of Pelasgian origin. Nevertheless Pelasgians and Greeks did not understand each other, in the same way as Italians and French do not understand each other, etc. (p. 23 and passim). (31 Jan. 1 Feb. 1829.) See p. 4519.
In order to live peacefully in the society of men it is necessary not only to abstain from offending those who have not offended us, as is normal, but even (something which is very rare) to abstain from causing (inciting) others to offend us. —Those who truly have a sincere desire to live peacefully in the society of men are very rare: for those who do have it, the effect is much easier to achieve than we believe. (1 Feb. 1829.)
Everybody, beginning from Pindemonte in his Epistle, has criticized the introduction of Hector and of Trojan references in the Poem “Dei sepolcri”;1 and everyone reads that episode with great interest, and they secretly feel a true pleasure. The topic is certainly stale; but it is precisely because it is stale, because our acquaintance2 with these characters dates back to our childhood, that we are so interested by them; we are interested in such a way that it would not be possible, by substituting them with others, [4450] to produce as much effect. (1 Feb. 1829.)
It can be said of reading a piece of true contemporary poetry, in verse or in prose (but verse gives a more effective impression), and perhaps more aptly (even in such prosaic times as these), what Sterne said about a smile; that it adds “a thread to the very brief fabric of our life.”1 It refreshes us, so to speak; and it increases our vitality. But pieces of this sort are extremely rare today. (1 Feb. 1829.) There are none like this in Monti.
ἀκμὴν for ἔτι [as yet]. See Orelli (loc. cit., p. 4431), tome 2, Leipzig 1821, pp. 529–30.
Grus (grue) [crane]—Spanish grulla, almost grucula or gruicula.—Sol–soleil [sun], almost soliculus.—Legnaiuolo [woodman], armaiuolo [armorer], etc., almost lignariolus and so forth. (2 Feb. 1829.)
Mirado (ammirato) for maravigliato [surprised]; “en la noche callada” for silent. Francisco de Rioja,2 Cancion á (i.e., sobre) las ruinas de Itálica, last verse.
Those who cannot circumscribe, cannot produce. The faculty of production is meager or absent in the mind of one whose other faculties are too vast and overabundant.3 (3 Feb. 1829.) See p. 4484.
Niebuhr (loc. cit., p. 4431, end) section entitled “Beginning and Nature of the Earliest History,” pp. 216ff.4 “The greater is the antiquity of the legends” (of the myths, etc., relating to the deeds of the kings of Rome, and the beginnings of the city): “their origin goes back far beyond the time when the annals” (the pontifical annals of Rome) “were restored” (were restored, after the ancient annals were destroyed in the fire of Rome during the time of the invasion of the city by the Gauls). “That they were transmitted from generation to generation in lays, that their contents cannot be more authentic than those of any other poem on the deeds of ancient times which is preserved by song, is not a new notion. A century and a half will soon have elapsed, since Perizonius (note 627. In [4451] his Animadversiones historicae, ch. 6) expressed it, and shewed that among the ancient Romans it had been the custom at banquets to sing the praises of great men to the flute; (note 628. The leading passage in Tusculanae Quaestiones 4, 2: ‘Gravissimus auctor in Originibus dixit Cato, morem apud majores hunc epularum fuisse, ut deinceps, qui accubarent, canerent ad tibiam clarorum virorum laudes atque virtutes’ [‘That serious author, Cato, said, in his Origins, that the custom at banquets for our ancestors was this, that those who took part sang, while accompanied by the flute, the praises and virtues of great men’]. Cicero laments the loss of these songs; Brutus 18, 19. Yet, like the sayings of Appius the blind, they seem to have disappeared only for such as cared not for them. Dionysius knew of songs on Romulus)” (“ὡς ἐν τοῖς πατρίοις ὕμνοις ὑπὸ ῾Ρωμαίων ἔτι καὶ νῦν ᾄδεται” [“as is still sung today in national hymns among the Romans”], says Dionysius 1, 79 about the famous story about the birth of Romulus and Remus and their revenge upon Amulius) “a fact Cicero only knew from Cato, who seems to have spoken of it as an usage no longer subsisting. The guests themselves sang in turn; so it was expected that the lays, being the common property of the nation, should be known to every free citizen. According to Varro, who calls them old, they were sung by modest boys, sometimes to the flute, sometimes without music. (note 629. In Nonius 2, 70: assa voce [with just the voice]: (aderant) ‘in conviviis pueri modesti ut cantarent carmina antiqua, in quibus laudes erant majorum, assa voce, et cum tibicine’ [(there were present) ‘at the banquets modest boys to sing the ancient songs, which contained the praises of their ancestors, both with voice alone, and with flute accompaniment’].) The peculiar function of the Camenae was to sing the praise of the ancients; (note 630. Festus, Epitome, see ‘Camenae, musae, quod canunt antiquorum laudes’ [‘Camenae, muses, because they sing the praises of the ancients’]) and among the rest those of the kings. For never did republican Rome strip herself of the recollection of them, any more than she removed their statues from the Capitol: in the best times of liberty their memory was revered and celebrated. (note 631. Ennius [4452] sang of them, and Lucretius mentions them with the highest honour.)
“We are so thoroughly dependent on the age to which we belong, we subsist so much in and through it as parts of a whole, that the same thought is at one time sufficient to give us a measure for the acuteness, depth, and strength of the intellect which conceives it, while at another it suggests itself to all, and nothing but accident leads one to give it utterance before others. Perizonius knew of heroic
lays only from books; that he should ever have heard of any then still current, or written down from the mouth of the common people, is not conceivable of his days: he lived long enough to hear, perhaps he heard, but not until a quarter of a century had passed since the appearance of his researches, how Addison (sic)1 roused the stupefied senses of his literary contemporaries, to join with the common people in recognizing the pure gold of poetry in Chevychase.” (see The Spectator’s nos. 70, 74.) “For us the heroic lays of Spain, Scotland, and Scandinavia, had long been a common stock: the lay of the Niebelungen had already returned and taken its place in literature:” (the author, p. 196: “the German national epic poem, the Niebelungen lay”)2 “and now that we listen to the Servian lays, and to those of Greece,” (collected by Fauriel, who the author cites several times), “the swanlike strains of a slaughtered nation; now that every one knows that poetry lives in every people, until metrical forms, foreign models, the various and multiplying interests of everyday life, general dejection or luxury, stifle it so, that of the poetical spirits, still more than of all others, very few find vent: while on the contrary spirits without poetical genius, but with talents so analogous to it that they may serve as a [4453] substitute, frequently usurp the art; now the empty objections that have been raised no longer need any answer. Whoever does not discern such lays in the epical part of Roman story, may continue blind to them: he will be left more and more alone every day: there can be no going backward on this point for generations.
“One among the various forms of Roman popular poetry was the nenia, the praise of the deceased, which was sung to the flute at funeral processions, (note 632. Cicero, De legibus 2, 24) as it was related in the funeral orations. We must not think here of the Greek threnes and elegies: in the old times of Rome the fashion was not to be melted into a tender mood, and to bewail the dead; but to pay him honour. We must therefore imagine the nenia to have been a memorial lay, such as was sung at banquets: indeed the latter was perhaps no other than what had been first heard at the funeral. And thus it is possible that, without being aware of it, we may possess some of these lays, which Cicero supposed to be totally lost: for surely a doubt will scarcely be moved against the thought, that the inscriptions in verse (note 633. On the coffin of L. Barbatus the verses are marked and made apparent by lines to separate them: in the inscription on his son they form an equal number of lines, and may be recognized with as much certainty as in the former from the great difference in the length of them.) On the oldest coffins in the sepulcre of the Scipios are nothing else than either the whole nenia, or the beginning of it [4454] (note 634. The two following inscriptions are of this kind: I transcribe them, because it is probable many of my readers never saw them.
Cornélius Lúcius Scípio Barbátus,
Gnáivo (patre) prognátus, fortis vír sapiénsque,
Quoius fórma vírtuti paríssuma fuit,
Consúl, Censor, Aédilis, qúi fuit apúd vos:
Taurásiam, Cesáunam, Sámnio cépit,
Subícit omnem Lúcánaam,a
Obsidésque abdúcit.
[Cornelius Lucius Scipio Barbatus
Sprung from Gneus, his father, a strong and wise man
whose fine form was the equal of his virtue
Who was Consul, Censor and Aedile among you
in Samnium he captured Taurasia and Cesauna,
He subjugated the whole of Lucania,
And brought back hostages].
The second is:
Hunc únum plúrimi conséntiunt R(ománi)
Duonórum optumum fúisse virúm,
Lúcium Scipiónem, fílium Barbáti.
Consúl, Censor, Aédilis, híc fuit apúd vos.
Hic cépit Córsicam, Alériamque úrbem
Dédit tempestátibus aédem mérito
[Most Romans agree that this one man
was the best among the good
Lucius Scipio son of Barbatus
he was Consul, Censor, Aedile among you.
This man captured Corsica and the city of Aleria
and justly dedicated a temple to the tempests].
“I have softened the rude spelling, and have even abstained from marking that the final s in prognatus, quoius, and the final m in Taurasiam, Cesaunam, Aleriam, optumum, and omnem, was not pronounced. The short i in Scipio, consentiunt, fuit, fuisse, is suppressed, so that Scipio for instance is a disyllable; a kind of suppression of which we find still more remarkable instances in Plautus. In the inscription of Barbatus, v. 2, patre after Gnaivo is beyond doubt an interpolation: and in that on his son, v. 6, it is to be observed that the last syllable [4455] of Corsicam is not cut off.) These epitaphs present a peculiarity which characterizes all popular poetry, and is strikingly conspicuous above all in that of modern Greece. Whole lines and thoughts become elements of the poetical language, just like single words: they pass from older pieces in general circulation into new compositions; and, even where the poet is not equal to a great subject, give them a poetical colouring and keeping. So Cicero read on the tomb of Calatinus: ‘hunc plurimae consentiunt gentes populi primarium fuisse virum’ [‘Most nations are agreed in considering this man the first among his people’]: (note 635. Cicero, De senectute 17) we read on that of L. Scipio the son of Barbatus: ‘hunc unum plurimi consentiunt R(omani) bonorum optumum fuisse virum’ [‘Most Romans agree that this one man / was the best among the good’].
“The poems out of which what we call the history of the Roman Kings was resolved into a prose narrative, were different from the nenia in form, and of great extent; consisting partly of lays united into a uniform whole, partly of such as were detached and without any necessary connexion. The history of Romulus is an epopee by itself: on Numa there can only have been short lays. Tullus, the story of the Horatii, and of the destruction of Alba, form an epic whole, like the poem on Romulus: indeed here Livy has preserved a fragment of the poem entire, in the lyrical numbers of the old Roman verse. (note 636. The verses of the horrendum carmen 1, 26:1
Duúmviri pérduelliónem júdicent.
Si a duúmviris provocárit,
Provocátióne certáto:
Si víncent, caput óbnúbito:
[4456] Infélici árbore réste suspéndito:
Vérberato íntra vel éxtra pomoérium
[The Duumvirs will judge the traitor.
If he appeals against the duumvirs,
let it be discussed in appeal:
if the duumvirs are upheld, let his head be covered:
let him be hung on the fateful tree:
let him be scourged within or without the city limits]
“The description of the nature of the old Roman versification, and of the great variety of its lyrical metres, which continued in use down to the middle of the seventh century of the city, and were carried to a high degree of perfection, I reserve, until I shall publish a chapter of an ancient grammarian on the Saturnian Verse, which decides the question.) On the other hand what is related of Ancus has not a touch of poetical colouring. But afterward with L. Tarquinius Priscus begins a great poem, which ends with the battle of Regillus; and this lay of the Tarquins even in its prose shape is still inexpressibly poetical; nor is it less unlike real history. The arrival of Tarquinius the Lucumo at Rome: his deeds and victories; his death; then the marvellous story of Servius; Tullia’s impious nuptials; the murder of the just king; the whole story of the last Tarquinius; the warning presages of his fall; Lucretia; the feint of Brutus; his death; the war of Porsenna; in fine the truly Homeric battle of Regillus; all this forms an epopee, which in depth and brilliance of imagination leaves every thing produced by Romans in later times far behind it. Knowing nothing of the unity which characterizes the most perfect of Greek poems, it divides itself into sections, answering to the adventures in the lay of the Niebelungen: and should any one ever have the boldness to think of restoring it in a poetical form, he would commit a great mistake in selecting any other than that of this noble work” (of the poem “of the Niebelungen�
�).
[4457] “These lays are much older than Ennius, (note 637.
—Scripsere alii rem
Versibu’ quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant:
Quom neque Musarum scopulos quisquam superarat,
Nec dicti studiosus erat
[Others have written of this matter
in verses which once Fauns and prophets sang:
When no one had yet climbed the heights of the Muses,
nor yet had studied speech].
“Horace’s ‘annosa volumina vatum’ [‘age-old volumes of the prophets’]1 may have been old poems of this sort: though perhaps they are also to be understood of prophetical books, like those of the Marcii; which, contemptuously as they are glanced at, were extremely poetical. Of this we may judge even from the passages preserved by Livy 25, 12: Horace can no more determine our opinion of them than of Plautus.) who moulded them into hexameters, and found matter in them for three books of his poem; Ennius, who seriously believed himself to be the first poet of Rome, because he shut his eyes against the old native poetry, despised it, and tried successfully to suppress it. Of that poetry and of its destruction I shall speak elsewhere: here only one further remark is needful. Ancient as the original materials of the epic lays unquestionably were, the form in which they were handed down, and a great part of their contents, seem to have been comparatively recent. If the pontifical annals adulterated history in favour of the patricians, the whole of this poetry is pervaded by a plebeian spirit, by hatred toward the oppressors, and by visible traces that at the time when it was sung there were already great and powerful plebeian houses. The assignments of land by Numa, Tullus, Ancus, and Servius, are [4458] in this spirit: all the favorite Kings befriend freedom: the patricians appear in a horrible and detestable light, as accomplices in the murder of Servius: next to the holy Numa the plebeian Servius is the most excellent King: Gaia Caecilia, the Roman wife of the elder Tarquinius, is a plebeian, a Kinswoman of the Metelli: the founder of the republic and Mucius Scaevola are plebeians: among the other party the only noble characters are the Valerii and Horatii; houses friendly to the commons. Hence I should be inclined not to date these poems, in the form under which we know their contents, before the restoration of the city after the Gallic disaster at the earliest. This is also indicated by the consulting the Pythian oracle. The story of the symbolical instruction sent by the last King to his son to get rid of the principal men of Gabii, is a Greek tale in Herodotus: so likewise we find the stratagem of Zopyrus repeated” (by the son of Tarquinius at Gabii): (also the story of Mucius Scaevola is Greek, something which is not noted by the author in that passage, and noted by me elsewhere [→Z 4153, 4330]; and the numerous accounts collected by Plutarch in the book quoted by me elsewhere in this respect [→Z 4213] are also Greek) “we must therefore suppose some knowledge of Greek legends, though not necessarily of Herodotus himself.” (5–8 Feb. 1829.)