Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  aSee pp. 3491–94, regarding the timidity that is proper to this second category, and which entirely prevents them from being esteemed in society, destroys any esteem that someone might have of an individual prior to meeting him, etc. This is also often common to the first category, but only with those of whom they are in awe, whereas in the second category it applies to all, for they are in awe of themselves. It is completely absent from the intermediate category, and this is the only category that is entirely exempt and safe from it.

  aHowever, this is more improper in music than it is in poetry. For musical science, in relation to music, is of a much lower and more distant rank, than poetics is to poetry. Counterpoint is to the musician what grammar is to the poet. Music does not have an art that corresponds to what poetics is to poetry, or what rhetoric is to oratory. It could well have such an art, but no one has yet thought to reduce to principles and rules the causes of the moral effects of music and the pleasure that derives from it, and the means of producing them, etc.

  a[3236] See the preface of Timaeus to his Platonic Lexicon in Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, old ed., 9, 419.

  a[3237] Also of many English philosophers, and generally all those who are not accustomed to, or familiar with, anything other than precise studies and things. But it is certainly the case that there is a greater abundance of such philosophers, metaphysicians, politicians-mathematicians, and arid philosophers among the Germans and English than elsewhere, for example in France or Italy.

  aEither because of the various dialects or for other reasons, but with the result that the words formed from such alterations are generally proper to Greek writers or poets. Hence, the difficulty they produce for us is the same, whatever the cause or origin was, and when this too is peculiar, the difficulty this creates for us is normal, widespread, etc.

  aThe scientists, in the narrow sense of the term, in respect of whom our nation was virtually never second to any other, since they always took very little care over the language, followed the barbarism that had come into use as the language which they had to hand, in the same way as they would have followed any other language, pure or impure, which they had ready or was common, as they always had done here and elsewhere.

  aSuetonius himself says this in the place referred to: “vulgo canebantur” [“they were sung by the people”].

  aπαμμεδέων and παμμεδέουσα are also found.

  aI believe this is a printing error for μεμελετηκώς.

  aSo too the king’s ministers, captains, and all those who commanded and governed. Even afterwards, quite often in all languages, and no more or no less so today, government was and is referred to as care, and the act of governing as taking care of, for example, state affairs, state matters, etc.

  bFor my part I have no doubt that it was that of to care for.

  aLatin established itself in England in much the same way as Greek did in upper Asia and Italian in Dalmatia, the Greek islands, and various of the Venetians’ possessions: that is, as the language of all cultured people and of writing, but not spoken by the people, though perhaps understood by them. The same is true of Turkish in Greece, etc.

  aHistory will offer many factual proofs of the correspondence between the Spanish and Italian (and Greek) temperaments. Among other things, the public and private abuse of the Christian religion perpetrated in Spain has no more similar equivalent in modern history than that carried out in Italy, both in relation to opinions and actions and to institutions, laws, uses, customs, etc., and everything else that is influenced by religion. See pp. 3572–84, and in particular pp. 3575ff.

  aSee, in this connection, the Parte primera de la Chronica del Peru by Pedro de Cieça de Leon, Antwerp, 1554, small 8o, ch. 53, end, fol. 146, p. 2, chs. 62, 63, 100, 101, beginning.

  aRepublican or legislative systems, practicable or otherwise but in any case not practiced, and merely imagined and composed by their respective authors. See Aristotle, Politics, bk. 2, pp. 74, 171, 179 end, 116. Bk. 4, pp. 289–92, p. 358 end.

  aE.g., Aristotle did not seek it, nor did Theophrastus, etc.

  aδαίμονες [divine power, tutelary deities], genii [genies], lares [spirits of the hearth], penates [spirits of the ancestors], manes [spirits of the dead], etc. See Forcellini under all these headings.

  a[3510] When people remember, it is very often the opposite, that the time spent without gainful employment and uniformly appears to be shorter, because later in the memory the one hour and the one day become confused and almost superimposed on one another, so that many appear to be a single one, there being no difference between them, nor multitude of actions or passions that may be numbered, the idea of which multitude is that which produces the idea of length of time, especially time past, etc. But on this subject I have written elsewhere [→ Z 368–69].

  a[3512] If it is not, it may be, and in our case the potential to be is as valid as it actually being. Let us imagine, if it is not, that it is, and as though it were a hypothesis let us speak of what would necessarily follow if it were. As the hypothesis is most possible and very similar to the truth, the argument will have the same force, and in the present case shall be as valid, and will test the imagination and supposition as much as the truth, the supposed and the imagined as much as the true and actual.

  aFor another quality which contributes supremely to producing the same effect, see pp. 3564–68.

  aγεύω [to taste] literally means gustare facio [to cause to be tasted]. However, in Herodotus it is found to mean gusto [to taste] which, so the Lexicographers say, is the proper meaning of γεύομαι. Similarly also ἕζω [to make to sit] and ἱζάνω [to cause or bid to be seated] and their compounds, which strictly speaking are active and have the meaning of sedere facio, etc., are used everywhere in the neutral sense to mean sedere [to sit down], etc., which is the proper meaning of their passive forms. And I believe the same thing happens to other such verbs. Hence guo in Latin could well literally be gusto neuter.

  aIn our ancient writers, too, this use of sperare, etc., appears to be vernacular only.

  aThe Spanish organs do not naturally like pronouncing the t, thus in words which come from Latin they very often change to d, which is softer (as the Italians do in some places for terms in Italian), and very often they omit it, as in this case of ours here, and in part the Italians and French as well.

  aBecause on the one hand, the fact that there are two Heroes cannot be concealed or avoided in any way, as Tasso would like, nor can the reader hide it from himself by considering the two persons as one only; and on the other hand, there is no preventing the reader from choosing and putting one Hero above the other, if there are two or more, and ranking them by degrees, one behind the other, if there are several.

  aFor true love, that is, which really has as its proper end the loved object, or we might say that object’s good and happiness, does not occur in any being, not even in God, unless it be directed to the lover himself.

  aThe most civilized nations worshipped animals that were useful, domesticated, tame, etc., like the Egyptians who worshipped the ox, the dog, or their images. The most savage worshipped the fiercest animals or their likenesses (see the 1st part of the Cronica del Peru by Cieça, ch. 55, end, fol. 152, p. 2). The former only or mainly, e.g., the sun, the latter only or mainly the storm or etc. etc. And in proportion to their degree of savagery or civilization, the Gods, etc., malevolent or benevolent, were deemed to be more or less important and powerful, and gained or lost currency in the opinion and religion of the people, and in the mythologies and rites, etc. See p. 3833.

  aThis presupposes the state of society which I am contesting.

  aThere are many other similar examples in many types of verbs which through the negligence of writers, or because their first purpose, etc. etc., has been forgotten often exceed the bounds of the general manner and properties of their meaning, etc. etc.

  aNeo–nevi [to spin, to weave], fleo–flevi [to weep], etc. etc.


  a[3699] All our perfects in etti are originally and truly in ei, even when this desinence can no longer be used in many verbs, and has become irregular, because it has been put out of use by the other one, although that is corrupt and irregular in origin, precisely as with evi, introduced to avoid the hiatus, like etti. And note here too the preservation of the most ancient and true use provided again by Vulgar Latin, to the point of passing down to us the perfects of the second conjugation in ei. See also p. 3820.

  a[3700] Impleo [to fill up]–deleo (see p. 3702) es evi etum [to destroy]. Why therefore for example dolui and not dolevi? like delevi where there is only one letter’s difference. Why dolĭtum and not dolētum? Or if we have dolui, why delevi and not delui? (so there exists perhaps abolui, and also adolui, etc., p. 3702 and the marginal note). See p. 3715.

  aThe o changed to u as usual: volgus–vulgus, etc., as I have said in a hundred other places [→Z 1127, 2195–96, 2325–26]. So from colo colui, colitum–coltum–cultum [to cultivate]. See pp. 3853–54.

  aSee p. 3885. Suo is [to sew] has sui, and that is all. Abluo–Diluo, etc., lui. See p. 3732. Assuo assui, etc., and the other compounds of suo.

  aSo sutum from suo is a contraction of suĭtum. See the end of the previous thought. Ablutum from abluo. Dilutum, etc. Lautum (and hence lotum) is a contraction of lavitum, and demonstrates what I have said [→Z 3698ff.] about the confusion between u and v. See p. 3731.

  aPerhaps also from first-conjugation verbs, as if, for example, consanesco [to recover] were formed from the neuter consano as [to heal] (see Forcellini under consano), in which case sanesco, too, would be formed from a neuter sano.

  aIn fact there would be three us in iuvavi, since for the ancients u was the same as v, etc., so that, for example in pluvi it was called duplex u [double u], etc. See Forcellini under Luo [to wash, to cleanse] end, under U, etc., and the Encyclopédie under U, etc., and Hofmann under U, etc.

  aThe Spanish actually do have pujante. They have indeed potente, potencia, potentemente, etc., but these were probably taken later from Latin: pujante and pujanza, etc., are the proper Spanish forms: although altered somewhat in meaning that is used, at least commonly, for forte, robusto [strong], forza [strength], robustezza [strength], etc.

  aNomenclator for nominclator, etc., is merely an alteration of pronunciation, and so are a thousand similar cases. (Such as the one mentioned in the margin of the following page, that is imaguncula [little image].)

  aIn the compounds notum or gnotum is changed to gnĭtum (cognĭtum, etc.) except in the noun ignotus, and in ignotus as participle and supine. See also agnotus, etc.

  aHe completed this first part in Peru in the year 1550, when he was 32 years old, of which he had spent 17 in the southern Indies, as he tells us in the last lines of the volume.

  aIn Italian, too, ramoscello [twig], etc., very often is positivized, especially in modern speech.

  aHere by monosyllables we also mean words formed with more than one contiguous vowel, and without the insertion of a consonant, according to what is said elsewhere [→Z 1151–52]. Otherwise hiatus could have no place in monosyllables, etc. etc.

  aSee, for example, Forcellini under fruniscor [to enjoy] for fruiscor, whichever of the two is earlier. And who knows whether before there was not sio, with the n inserted afterward to avoid the hiatus, as in Greek at the end of words, and as perhaps with other examples in Latin, and among these perhaps the afore-mentioned fruniscor.

  aDetonat uit. Intono avi and ui, etc.

  aExcept insofar as they have more capacity for occupation and strong distraction of the mind, and when they actually find themselves in such a state (which happens to them more frequently than to others for many reasons), for which see p. 3878, beginning.

  aAs drunkenness increases life and the feeling of life, it ensures at the same time that the individual does not reflect (naturally), does not think about this life and this feeling, that his mind thinks and takes an interest in this heightened feeling a great deal less than it does in ordinary and lesser feeling, and all the less the more heightened the feeling is. See p. 3931.

  aYou can see on this topic pp. 3797–802 and on other even more horrible barbarities, one or two passages from Cieça quoted on p. 3796.

  aAnyone who has a good eye will easily distinguish in speculation and practice, and in each particular person and case and in general, between prickliness of character and behavior and the character, etc., I am describing here (which is not even the same as Goldoni’s Burbero benefico), since in reality they are very different and distinct things.

  aSee letter 101 from the King of Prussia to d’Alembert, from which it seems that outside Italy Metastasio was held to be the principal Italian intellect of those times.

  aSee Algarotti’s Essay on the Incas.

  aCapsula, parva capsa [small box]; capsella, parva capsula. Forcellini. It appears that, at the least, Forcellini believes that the diminutive in ellus, etc., denotes greater diminution than that in ulus, etc., whether or not he believes it to be always or never a supradiminutive. Oculus-ocellus (oculus [eye], as I say elsewhere, is not a diminutive as I had said elsewhere [→Z 980–81, 2281, 2358] or it is positivized, etc., so that ocellus is not a supradiminutive, etc.).

  aDemocritus, etc. Ctesias is more modern, but perhaps earlier than the full flow of Athenian literature.

  bSee p. 3982.

  aYou may see p. 3992, paragraph 3 and p. 3753, margin.

  aSee the preceding thought and p. 3996, paragraphs 1, 2, and the last, etc., this desinence in on is common, that is as much masculine as feminine or both together, etc. If the noun in on, when it is used as an adjective, has its feminine in one or onne, it is not diminutive, in fact I doubt if an adjective in on is ever among the diminutives. —Compagnon (feminine compagne) substantive.

  aIn a similar sense of verbigrazia [for example], etc., or analogous to this, I think that the Spanish luego is likewise used.

  aἄλλως for falso, frustra [wrong, mistakenly] in a passage in the comic poet Alexis, in Athenaeus, bk. 13, p. 562d, end, misunderstood by Dalechamps.

  aSee Saavedra, Idea de un principe politico christiano, Amsterdam 1659, Jansson the Younger, emblem 25, pp. 225–26.

  aSee too Aelian, Various History.

  a“One should at any rate not use the figures too liberally: which would be clumsy and,” etc.

  aLack of consideration and concern for the future.

  aAny kind of administrator, official.

  aChesterfield wrote those things around 1750; Maffei’s Traduttori italiani were published in 1720.

  aSee p. 4431.

  aSee p. 4408, paragraph 2.

  aSee p. 4366.

  aSee p. 4412.

  aSee p. 4412.

  aLikewise with verbs in are, to which ending they add an ol (sfondare–sfondolare, sfondolato) [to break down]. See p. 4496, paragraph 8, p. 4509, paragraph 3, p. 4512.

  a(that is, Lucaniam)

  aIt seems that the Latins, at least in later times, used the form with Acul as a pejorative.

  aInTRICO as, tricae–tricasserie, tracasser, tracas, etc. (tricaculae), coutelas, freddiccio, rossiccio, and similar adjectives.