Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  The reason that words that need to be added to our language, either to enrich it or out of necessity, etc., should be taken from Latin rather than French, German, etc., and that we call the former good and approve them and the latter barbarous, is that the former generally, or at least more often and easily, agree with the nature of our language, and allow it its native form and appearance and its grace, etc., but the latter are manifestly dissonant and improper, and because they are improper they create barbarousness, and if there are many of them they spoil the native forms and the beauty and the original, proper grace of the language. And this impropriety can also be seen in simple words, as is clear, because you see immediately that they come from another source, whereas Latin words cannot come from another source, having come from that same source from which one can say the entire Italian language has come. And although French came from it too, nonetheless Italian did not come from French, and so although the source may be the same, the stream may well change course, indeed has done so, and has acquired such properties that it no longer has any right to give its waters to another stream originating from the same source, as though [48] they were proper to it. Where the source is not corrupted, we still have the right to draw on it, though even then with caution, and as far as is allowed by the corruptions suffered by our own stream, because of which some waters from the source itself cannot properly be mingled with it. And this is the reason for the different rights and the different consequences that should be deduced from the sisterhood and descent of languages.1 What I have said about words should also be understood, and much more intensely, of phrases, which are more corrupting and unsuitable, because their appearance is more obviously foreign and dissimilar. And that this is not pedantry and blind veneration of antiquity we can clearly see from the fact that we not only do not love Greek words but detest them, even though Latin took so many of them precisely for the purpose of enriching itself and for its various needs to express this or that thing which lacked a Latin word. Instead of creating a new one, they lifted it straight from the Greek, and this is very common practice among Latin writers like Cicero, Celsus, etc., although it was followed primarily by writers on science, like Pliny, etc., but Horace, too, as is very well known, etc.2 Now, because these words have a foreign face for us, we avoid them with all our heart, and likewise a large proportion of phrases taken in the strict sense of the term, for many idioms in the wider sense agree wonderfully well with our language. Unlike us, however, the French language does not have the slightest difficulty about robbing the Greek language according to its needs, and in recent times has stuffed and sated itself to excess. There already exist dictionaries of French words taken from Greek, a criminal act, moreover, that damages that language horrendously. (As ours is shamefully damaged by the very common barbarism of using the same Greek words, especially modern ones, by taking them not from Greek but from French, though that does not make it any less barbarous; most people do not even know that they are entirely Greek and think they are French—words like despot, demagogue, anarchy, aristocracy, democracy, or simply with Greek endings, like civism, philosophism, etc. etc. To a large extent, they are political and were circulated by the French republic, but there are all kinds.) The language is damaged above all because—with Greek terminology having been adopted by all those who write about the sciences, so that there is no science, indeed no art, profession, rhetoric, grammar, etc., that is not full of Greek, and whose name and the names of whose parts are not entirely Greek, and with Greek words necessarily having the appearance that we are all accustomed to see in the words used by scientists—these words give the French language (and would give any language and will give the Italian language if they are transferred in a lasting way from French to our own) an unseemly air of technicism (to use one of those fine words) and of the geometric, the mathematical, and the scientific, which skeletonizes the language, and reduces it in a certain sense to angles.3 And, because there is nothing more unfriendly to nature than dry geometry, it takes away all the naturalness and naïveté of language, its popularity (from which its beauty comes) and its grace and comeliness, and propriety, and also its strength and robustness and effectiveness. The latter is also entirely missing from technical language, whose impact comes not through language but through what comes out of the words, that is, their meaning, and through argument and reason, or through the concept that is coldly explained with the words.

  [49] The tale of the peacock that is ashamed of its legs1 seems improbable, indeed impossible, since there cannot be a natural and common part of any genus of animal which does not appear proper to that genus, and which, when it is well formed according to its genus, does not appear beautiful. For beauty is propriety, and this is an idea inborn in nature. What propriety is, however, varies in the ideas not only of the various genera of animals but also of individuals belonging to the same genus, as in the case of human beings. For the Ethiopians (to stay with physical beauty), black skin, a flat nose, and fleshy lips appear beautiful, and the opposite, which we think of as beautiful, they consider ugly, and among whites this or that nation differs greatly in regarding as beautiful this or that form, which another nation will not like. But it’s impossible for nature to have made a fixed and essential part of any genus of animal which that same kind regards as ugly, since it is not possible for any genus of animal to include one that it does not consider beautiful, and this we see equally in species, and the differences that I have noted in the opinions of men come from the difference in their forms, as in the Ethiopians, Laplanders, Savages, islanders of a hundred kinds, etc.2 And the other differences, as in preferring blue eyes to black, etc., do not revolve around things that are fixed and unchangeable, but, as is clear from this example, are changeable and different in one and the same species according to the individual, since otherwise nature would have made a species of absolute ugliness, if, appearing ugly to us, it were to appear so to that very genus or species as well. But we imagine absolute ugliness when we see the peacock’s ugly legs, and, because to us they seem unbecoming to the rest of its body, we believe that they cannot appear beautiful to any animal. But it’s not like that, and, indeed, the peacock would regard as ugly among its own kind those fatter, softer, meatier, more ornately dressed, etc., legs that we would consider more beautiful, and judges to be ugly those of its own genus (or species if we want to call it that) whose legs are not perfectly skinny, dry, etc.

  What I said at the beginning of this thought leads me to another, namely that in fact this tale does not seem implausible, having been written not for peacocks but for us, who are naturally led to believe that those legs which are ugly to our eyes are also such to the eyes of peacocks. And even if the philosopher easily understands the opposite, the poet nevertheless writes for ordinary people, for whom it’s not implausible to say, e.g., that the stars fall, indeed Virgil3 says so, and so do country folk and poets all the time, even though to anyone who is not uneducated it is an impossibility.

  [50] Regarding what I said in the 3rd thought before this one [→Z 47] it should be added that new words must also be obtained from the roots that exist in our own language. This is a source of fundamental importance and one from which Dante, who is regarded as the creator of the language, derived a very great number, perhaps most, of the words that he introduced. And because the words derived from this source retain, as is natural, the native color of the language more than any other, if they are made wisely they come to form the best kinds of new words that can possibly be created, etc. etc. But this source is the more limited the fewer the roots, that is, the less rich the language is, which is why, given that the French language yields to Italian without comparison in this regard, there is no doubt that the Italian language must be much more capable than French of producing new words according to need, which agree with, etc., rather than altering the physiognomy of the language. In fact, the latter language, which passes for being very rich in terms for the arts and sciences, etc., is, in fact, very poor because i
t does not take them from its own resources, but lifts them wholesale from other languages, such as Greek, so that they contradict and jar with the rest of the language and contaminate and debase it. And this happens because these are not languages of one kind but languages of very different kinds, whose genius even in simple words has nothing to do with that of French, in contrast to Latin, especially in relation to Italian. Now, this richness is as much theirs as ours because it’s clear that, as this is not αὐτόχθων [native] richness but goods taken from elsewhere, everyone can take it equally and spend the same amount, especially we Italians, for whom it is no more difficult to make stereotipia from στερεοτυπία than it is for the French to make stéréotypie, etc. etc.,1 and to form new Greek compounds like this, etc., from which it follows that this richness is a sham, improper, adventitious, paltry, common to all, and harmful. Furthermore, words derived from their own roots immediately have meaning and are understood by all, and come in large part from the Latin language (from which one must not take what would not be generally understood). But these other derivatives are not understood by anyone unless you add the etymological explanation, etc., or put them in the dictionary along with their meaning, except when they have gradually passed into usage, but this cannot happen without the major problem at the beginning mentioned above [→ Z 47–48].

  Even negligence and carefreeness and nonchalance, and even lack of affectation itself, can be affected, conspicuous, etc. Even simplicity naturalness spontaneity. See p. 160.2

  My sadness at hearing the night song of country people passing in the late evening after some festivity. Infinity of the past that came into my mind, as I thought back to the Romans, so fallen after such clamor, and to the many events now past that I compared sorrowfully with that profound quiet and silence of the night, [51] which was brought to me by the sound of that voice or rustic song.1

  The most solid pleasure in this life is the vain pleasure of illusions.2

  I consider illusions to be in a certain sense real, since they are essential ingredients in the system of human nature, and given by nature to all men, so that it is not right to scorn them as being the dreams of a single man, but better to regard them as a real part of man and willed by nature, without which our life would be the most miserable and barbarous thing, etc. Hence they are necessary and form a substantial part of the composition and order of things.

  Variety is so great an enemy of boredom that even the very variety of boredom is a remedy or a relief from it, as we see every day in people of the world. On the other hand, continuity is such a great friend of boredom that even the continuity of variety is most tedious, as in the people mentioned, and in anyone else, such as, for example, travelers accustomed to changing places and objects and companions and to continual novelty. There is no doubt that after no great length of time they desire a regular life, so that the uniformity itself provides a change after the continual variety. See Montesquieu, Essai sur le goût, “De la variété,” Amsterdam 1781, p. 378, last line, and “Des contrastes,” pp. 384–85.3

  By innocent I mean one incapable not of sinning but of sinning without remorse. See p. 276.4

  Can it ever be better in absolute terms for a person not to exist than to exist? This would be so if man did not have a future life.

  It does not surprise me that the ancient Jews and, I believe, most or all of the East (see the introductory letters of the Principes discutés by the Jewish-Capuchin Society, etc.)5 and likewise the Greeks did not have, e.g., the v or that they had certain letters that we do not have, such as, e.g., the Hebrew and the Greek θ, the χ, etc. The letters that we commonly believe to be exactly equal and not more in number than our own, at least in general, are actually many, since they come not from nature but from particular usage. In other words, the ability to speak and articulate and form various sounds comes from nature, but the quality and difference of these sounds, namely of the letters, comes from usage. And in fact there is an infinity of ways [52] of positioning, etc., the tongue, the teeth, the lips, etc., those parts that form such sounds. And we see how small differences of position produce very different sounds, such as the p and the b for example. Now, because as children we heard nothing other than the sounds of our alphabet and learned only those positions, and because we are accustomed to them and incapable of any others, we believe (1) that there are no others in nature; (2) that all are more or less naturally common to all. But the first thing is shown to be false by the many letters of ancient or foreign alphabets that we do not know how to pronounce, either because we do not know the sound, as often in the ancient alphabets (although more often we think that we do know it), or because we do not know how to pronounce them, as in foreign alphabets; and by many other proofs. The second thing is proved false by what I have said above and by the continuous experience of so many alphabets that, more for accidental and extrinsic reasons than for organic ones, are left without certain letters. It is, therefore, no surprise that the alphabets of different peoples vary according to differences in traditional usage, from which it is necessary to go back to the origins of these alphabets. And from this it can be deduced that in nature either there is no alphabet or it is much richer than is commonly thought.

  An example of how Greek mythology was natural and full of delightful and natural illusions is the personification of the echo.

  The poet must not always conceal his purpose; he should not, for example, conceal his purpose to instruct in a didactic poem, that is, the clear purposes that are openly stated, e.g., at the very start of the poem: “Canto l’armi pietose” [“Of pious arms I sing”], etc.1 But he should conceal those which do not go naturally with the openly stated purpose, like description with narration, or delight with instruction, things that the poet does have in mind but should not show that he has in mind, however much he must reveal those other outward purposes, which serve more than anything as a pretext and cloak for his hidden purposes. And this because these hidden purposes are not natural in the way that it is natural for someone to narrate, etc., but it has to appear that the delight, the vivid representation, etc., is spontaneous, not something the poet went in search of, for that would be to show art and study and diligence, in short, it would not be natural. Because if we imagine a poet in the natural state, he is someone who, having chosen his theme, and this is the declared purpose, carries on saying whatever comes to him spontaneously, like everyone who speaks, and, although he puts an image in here, a feeling in there, an expressive sound somewhere else, elsewhere, etc., all quite deliberately and thought through, it mustn’t seem like that, it must seem natural, and guided by the thread of what he is saying, and the warmth [53] of his imagination and his heart, etc. Otherwise, nature is not imitated naturally, and these are what we might call the secondary purposes, which must be concealed, although very often they are in reality primary (as in didactic poems where the primary purpose is apparently to instruct, and must appear so, when in truth it is only a means, the true purpose being delight). And, as well as the poet, I include the orator, historian, and any other writer. Affectation in Latin means the same as purpose, and for us the same as manifest purpose. Indeed, this could be its definition.

  I have often noted in the writings of modern psychologists that, in examining and demonstrating the causes of many effects and phenomena of the human heart, etc., they stop long before the conclusion that they could reach, giving only certain particular reasons, and this because they want to make them seem marvelous, like Saint-Pierre in his studies of nature, or Chateaubriand, etc.1 They do not go to the primary or almost the primary reason, which they would find simple and in full correspondence with the rest of the system of our nature. This reduction of the various phenomena of the human mind to simple principles diminishes the marvel, and also the variety, because many would be seen to be derived from one single, slightly modified principle. They always speak emphatically and observe the phenomenon with great keenness. But, once they have assigned it a reason that is immediate
and secondary and just as marvelous (if they give one at all, because often they believe and have us believe that the phenomenon is inexplicable, in other words without any known relationship to the rest of the system, for this alone gives birth to wonder in anything in the world), they do not go back to the source, which would be easy enough, and would reduce the phenomenon and its secondary reasons to accustomed classifications. I believe that anyone who carried out this last analysis would be doing something new (owing either to the bad faith or to the poor acumen of our predecessors) and would considerably simplify the science of the human mind, linking together the infinite phenomena that seem anomalous (because, in fact, science is still neither fixed nor ordered and summarized in a body of knowledge) into principles that are universal, or not far from it. This is the principal and guiding task of all the sciences and the general aim of those in search of the causes of things. For example, the natural desire of men to suppose, as is so apparent in children, that inanimate objects are animate, derives from our desire and inclination toward our fellow creatures, which is a paramount, and primitive, and most fertile principle. See my discourse on the Romantics.2