Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  Velleius, 2, 90, § 4: “ut quae maximis bellis numquam vacaverant, eae sub C. Antistio, ac deinde P. Silio legato, ceterisque, postea etiam latrociniis vacarent” [“So that whereas they had never before been free from serious wars, they were now, under the governorship of Gaius Antistius and then of Publius Silius and of their successors, free even from brigandage”]. I would read it as: ceterisque postea, etiam, etc. He is talking about Spain.

  Velleius, 2, 102, § 2: “Mox in conloquium (cui se temere crediderat) circa Artageram graviter a quodam, nomine Adduo vulneratus” [“But later, in a parley near Artagera (to which he rashly entrusted his person), he was seriously wounded by a man named Adduus”]. Surely this should be corrected to: in conloquio?1

  On the strength of the body, its influence on the mind, and in general how the state of the mind corresponds with that of the body, see various passages from the ancients in Gruter’s note to Velleius, 2, 102, § 2.2

  [474] About a Frenchman, either by birth or by custom, who would continually fall to his knees before women. If, let us suppose, he was telling them a spicy story, or a bit of broadsheet gossip, and they didn’t believe it, he, by way of demonstration, imploring them to believe it, as if to entreat their trust or belief, would fall to his knees. (5 Jan. 1821.)

  You very often find that Velleius, in order to portray, as was his way, the characters of illustrious people from the time of Julius Caesar onward, after saying that a particular person was most patient in times of trouble and danger, diligent in his affairs, watchful of what needed to be done, adept in war or political maneuverings, would then add that when idle he was weak and effeminate, or at least that he also delighted in idleness and peaceful pleasures, and, in short, in frivolity, and that he was as lazy and sensual in his idleness as he was industrious, diligent, and tolerant in his affairs. See book 2, ch. 88, § 2; ch. 98, § 3; ch. 102, § 3; ch. 105, § 3. He mentions idleness everywhere, and he always finds these men inclined toward it, and to no small degree, even though they are the most active men of their time. Something unknown to the ancient Roman Heroes, who neither would nor could find pleasure in idleness. And in fact this characteristic [475] in Velleius’s descriptions is not found before that time, which was a period of blatant and advanced corruption among the Romans. It is well known in relation to Lucullus and Antony.1 (Velleius also talks about Scipio Aemilianus in relation to idleness, 1, 13, § 3, but very differently.) Note, therefore, the effects of civilization and corruption. Note how, by its very nature, corruption leads to inaction, idleness, and laziness: even the finest and most active men, in this condition of society, are naturally inclined toward inaction. The cause is pleasure, which could not be found in idleness in ancient Rome, and consequently man necessarily dedicated himself to action in his desire for pleasure and life: and this happens in all nations that are not yet, or only moderately, civilized. The cause is pure egoism, thanks to which man has no desire to trouble himself for the profit of another, except to the extent that it is necessary, or of benefit to himself. The cause is the absence of illusions, of ideas of glory, of greatness, virtue, heroism, etc., which, once removed, give way to the idea of doing nothing, letting things go, enjoying the present. Finally, [476] in monarchies (such as under Augustus) the cause is the absence not only of illusions but of their principle, not only of the life of the spirit but of the life of things, that is, the absence of things that realize and foment these illusions; the difficulty or impossibility of doing great or important things and of being or regarding oneself as important; the nullity or triviality and limited existence of the subject even when raised to the highest ranks. But compare this trait of the Roman character in those times with the character of the French today, a nation weakened by excessive civilization, and with the character of their finest men of action, and you will find a clear similarity. (5 Jan. 1821.) See p. 620, end and p. 629, paragraph 1.

  For p. 466, thought 1. “Quippe ita se res habet, ut plerumque, qui fortunam mutaturus Deus,” (Vossius legit cui fortunam; alii delent τὸ qui, et melius) “consilia corrumpat, efficiatque, quod miserrimum est, ut quod accidit, etiam merito accidisse videatur, et casus in culpam transeat” [“Indeed, it turns out that on most occasions God, who wishes to alter a man’s fortunes,” (Vossius reads: cui fortunam; others rightly delete τὸ qui, and it reads better thus) “destroys his capacity for judgment and so arranges things—a most painful circumstance—that what happens has been deserved and that what happens as an accident is transformed into guilt”]. Velleius, 2, 118, § 4.1 (6 Jan. 1821.)

  Never punish the insult that you did not deserve, or leave unpunished that which you deserved. [477] Pardon your slanderer, punish your detractor. Ignore the man who taunts you and is wrong, but take revenge on him who mocks you and is right. (7 Jan. 1821.)

  For p. 375, beginning. In this respect, the difference in intelligence or judgment can be seen in Livy, who is the poet of history, a truly great poet, worthy of being studied and of serving as a master to poets. And yet he is also the most splendid model of the most perfect prose. Whereas the rest of them are the poorest writers of prose (7 Jan. 1821) and not generally any better as poets for all that. See p. 526, paragraph 1.

  For p. 472. All the more so as that war, involving the conquest of people who were complete barbarians, does not seem to have ended with a peace treaty or with other artificial means, but with that simple conclusion that is brought about by force. See Florus, 4, 12, § 17, and Cassius Dio, 54, 34, pp. 764–65, where in note 316, quoting this passage of Velleius, it would seem to have been read precisely in the way that I suggest.1 (8 Jan. 1821.)

  Velleius, 1, 2, § 2, on Codrus: “Immixtusque castris hostium, de industria, imprudenter, rixam ciens, [478] interemptus est” [“and having infiltrated the enemy camp, with studied imprudence he provoked a brawl and was killed”]. It is true that, according to history or legend, Codrus was killed “imprudenter,” in other words without knowing that he was king of the Athenians, and see the passage in Valerius Maximus cited in the notes there.1 But what sort of construction is this? De industria refers to rixam ciens, which comes after imprudenter; imprudenter to interemptus est, which comes after rixam ciens. This has been transposed and read as de industria, rixam ciens, imprudenter interemptus est. This has even been amended to de industria, ab imprudente, rixam ciens, interemptus est. It seems to me that the meaning is absolutely clear, and the construction plain and simple, if the comma is removed after de industria and after imprudenter, and placed after hostium. For de industria has nothing to do, nor should it, with immixtusque castris hostium, which we already understand was done de industria, but only with rixam ciens. But ille imprudenter? exclaims Lipsius.2 Indeed sir! de industria imprudenter, with studied imprudence, calculatedly incautious. It is one of Velleius’s habitual antitheses and riddles. Imprudenter for imprudently, incaute [incautiously], improvide [improvidently] is used perfectly well by the best writers (like imprudens, imprudentia, and thus prudenter, etc.). Forcellini quotes Terence, [479] Nepos, Caesar. (8 Jan. 1821.)

  To watch someone you love die is much less agonizing than watching that person waste away, transformed in body and soul by illness (or by another cause). Why? Because in the first case illusions remain, in the second they vanish, and are annihilated and forcefully snatched from you. The loved person, after his death, remains exactly as he was, as lovely in our imagination as before.1 But in the other case the person you love is lost completely. Another person takes his place, and the first one, that person so lovely and dear, can no longer exist even through force of illusion, because the presence of reality, and of that same person transformed through chronic illness, madness, degeneration of behavior, etc. etc., undeceives us violently, and cruelly; and the loss of the loved object is not made good even by imagination. Indeed, not even by despair, or by rest after that same excess of pain, as in the case of death. But this loss is such that thought and feeling cannot settle into it in any way. [480] On every side it stings most bitterly. (8 Jan. 1
821.)

  That our pensare [to think] is none other than the Latin pensare [to weigh out], which has lost its proper meaning, and has retained the metaphoric ponder in thought, just as ponderare in Latin and Italian now retains only the metaphoric meaning of considerare or meditare; and how the ancient Romans in fact used their pensare in a manner very similar to modern Italian, can be seen in Heinse’s note to Velleius, 2, 129, § 2.1 See also Forcellini and the Appendix.

  “Natural,” in the way that we and the French frequently use it: “it is natural that this should happen,” “il est bien naturel,” etc., was used also in Latin, even though the Lexicographers have failed to notice it (neither Forcellini nor the Appendix). Asconius, in his introduction to Cicero’s Oratio “contra L. Pisonem” [against Piso]: “Sed ut ego ab eo dissentiam, facit primum, quod Piso etc. deinde, quod magis naturale est, ut in ipso recenti reditu invectus sit in Ciceronem” (Piso), “responderitque insectationi eius, qua revocatus erat ex provincia, quam [481] post anni intervallum” [“But that I disagree with him {Fenestella} derives first from the fact that Piso, etc., then—which is more natural—from the fact that he” (Piso) “must have lashed out at Cicero just as soon as he had returned, and thus must have responded immediately to the attack {by Cicero}, on account of which he had been recalled from his province, and not a year later”].1 (In another edition I find prius quam, meaning potius quam, or magis quam, in which sense prius quam is found in excellent examples in Forcellini: and note here also the similarity with the Italian prima che, avanti innanzi anzi che [before, prior to, instead of], for piuttosto che [rather than]; and similarly più presto che [sooner than], etc.) This is truly remarkable and perhaps unique among the good writers. But see Burmann’s note to the first words of § 4 of chapter 128, bk. 2 of Velleius, where, however, τὰ πολλὰ ἀπροσδιόνυσα [most of it is beside the point].2 (9 Jan. 1821.)

  The strength of imagination in children, and the way in which the perceptions derived from it in early childhood also exert a great influence upon the rest of a life, may be further seen in this detailed observation. When we are children we generally conceive of a particular idea, a particular type for each name of a person, and the nature of this type derives from the attributes of the individuals we first knew by those names, or those we knew best and were most familiar with. Once this type has formed in our imagination (still corresponding to the particular circumstances of those people relative [482] to ourselves, to our sympathies, antipathies, etc.), if we hear the same name applied to a person other than the one on whom we have formed the type, we immediately think of that person as conforming to the type. And no matter how elegant the name, or beautiful the person, if the type has been imagined by us and formed on the basis of a hateful or ugly person, the beautiful person also necessarily strikes us as hateful or ugly. Or at any rate we find a contradiction between the name and the object, or we are loath to believe that that object is different from the type and the idea, etc. Likewise the other way around and relative to the various attributes of names and people. And even when we’re adults, and imagination has lost its sway, this same effect lasts for a long time and perhaps forever, at any rate with regard to the first moments, and in proportion to the strength of the impression received in childhood, and of the image conceived. When I was a child, I was familiar with an elderly Teresa, who was hateful, or so it seemed to me. Both then and now that I am an adult, I have a certain reluctance to convince myself that the name of Teresa could belong [483] to someone young or beautiful or attractive, or that someone with this name could be so. And, in short, if I hear the name I am always left with an unfavorable impression and a prejudice toward the person who bears it.1 And generally the idea we have of the elegance, gracefulness, sweetness, attractiveness of a name does not derive from the material sound of that name, or from its particular and absolute qualities, but from the qualities of the first people with that name whom we knew or had dealings with at an early age. It can also happen the other way around, whereby as children we conceive an idea of a person from the name they bear, especially if it is a question of people who are far away or known to us only by name, and we judge the person by the impact the name has on us, by the material sound, or by the meaning that it may have, or by certain relationships with other ideas. And this still happens to us as adults, as a consequence of the idea conceived in childhood, or even absolutely. For certainly we do not hear the name or indeed the surname of a person so unknown to us that we do not [484] form any idea, either external or internal, of the person on the basis of that naming. An idea that is more or less confused, more or less vivid, according to circumstances; but generally very clear and vivid in children, even if for the most part wholly false. And children (who are always far from being indifferent) especially, according to this same idea, decide upon hatred or love, a kind of liking or dislike for those people whom they know only by name. (10 Jan. 1821.)

  We have never read of any ancient who killed himself because he was tired of life, whereas we read of many moderns, and see Buonafede’s Suicidio ragionato.1 And because this is prevalent today, particularly in England, we should not believe that it was also common in that country in earlier times, even though no memory of it remains. From Ossian’s poems we see how far the ancient inhabitants of that country2 were from perceiving in absolute terms the nothingness and ineluctable emptiness of life, and still farther from despairing and killing themselves on that account. The ancient Celts and the other ancients used to kill themselves out of despair [485] born of passions and misfortunes, which were regarded not as absolutely inevitable and necessary to man but as peculiar to the individual, who was therefore wretched and unhappy and despairing. Despair and discouragement with life in general, hatred of life as human life (not as individually and accidentally unhappy), the wretchedness that is our fate and inevitable in our species, the nothingness and emptiness inherent in and intrinsic to our life, in short, the idea that our life is in itself not a good but a burden and an evil, never occurred to the ancient intellect, or to any human intellect before these last centuries.1 On the contrary, the ancients would kill themselves or despair precisely on account of their opinion and their conviction that, because of individual misfortunes, they could not obtain and enjoy the goods that they held to exist. (10 Jan. 1821.)

  [486] The desire to involve others in our own sensations (either pleasant or unpleasant, as I have said in other thoughts [→Z 85–86, 230, 266–68, 339]) is particularly evident, and is so much stronger, the closer each individual is to nature. Children cannot in any way restrain themselves from communicating to those around them, or to those they go and seek out, with love, entreaties, or a nagging insistence, [487] those joys, those sorrows, in short those noteworthy, and for them somewhat extraordinary, sensations, which they have experienced or are experiencing. As when they hear a good or bad piece of music, or sound or song of some sort that strikes them, when they see an object that makes some impression on them, etc., and as much for good as for ill. In similar circumstances, cruder, more ignorant, and more uncultivated men, and in general the common people, cannot resist calling out to their neighbors, “Look! Look! Listen! Listen!” Such exclamations are so natural that even where there is a large gathering at some performance, etc., all or a great many will exclaim in the same fashion, without being listened to by anyone in particular, or even really caring to be heard by this or that person. But no one can resist calling out in this way, thereby furnishing an obvious sign of the natural inclination that fosters the desire and wish to communicate. And note that such an exclamation is also very often uttered [488] in solitude and without any listener, when a man experiences similar sensations in such a circumstance, and we say “Look!” and “Listen!” even when there is no one there to see or to hear, and we thus strive in every way to satisfy in an illusory fashion a wish that cannot really be satisfied. And even though this happens all the more, the more the individual retains something of his original state, and all the more
frequently, the more often he tends to feel wonder, or to experience powerful and intense sensations, nevertheless it is also very frequent in more cultured, etc., individuals, and one would simply have to pay attention in order to see how often it happens to us in the course of the day without our realizing it. It may happen to us, I repeat, either in solitude and on our own or in company. And I do not believe that there is a man so taciturn, and so loath to speak, to converse, and to communicate with others, that, when experiencing an extraordinarily powerful and intense sensation, he is not impelled almost despite himself, or unthinkingly and without realizing it, to break out into similar exclamations, denoting the desire and the intention to communicate and to share with others what he is feeling. (10 Jan. 1821.)

  [489] Florus, 1, 8: “Haec est prima aetas populi Romani et quasi infantia, quam habuit sub regibus septem, quadam fatorum industria. Tam variis ingenio, ut Reipublicae ratio et utilitas postulabat” [“This was the first age and, as it were, the infancy of the Roman people, and, by a dispensation of fate it occurred under the rule of the seven kings. These kings possessed just such a variety of qualities as the circumstances and advantage of the State demanded”].1 That quadam fatorum industria [by a dispensation of fate], what does it refer to? To the Roman people having had a first age, or an infancy? A truly remarkable circumstance and one requiring much ingenuity on the part of the fates. Read continuously quadam fatorum industria tam variis ingenio, etc. [by a dispensation of fate such a variety of qualities, etc.], because the aforesaid words can refer only to those which follow, and the latter depend wholly upon the earlier ones. See, however, the latest editions of Florus. (11 Jan. 1821.)