Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  If during the rebirth of letters the Greek language had prevailed over Latin in scholarly use, diplomatic affairs, etc., it would [2211] (in addition to other advantages) have been easier to discuss and to write elegantly and with the perfection with which Latin was written in Italy, and not only because Greek is adaptable to modern things but because of the absolutely greater facility of its constitution and character, which results from its naturalness, simplicity of phrasing, flow, etc. And the lesser or no resemblance it would have borne to the material of modern, living languages, the fewer obstacles there would have been to its purity and elegance, to the preservation of its true character, and in place of barbarian Latin a pure Greek would have been written, and barbarism would not have been a reason to abandon it, as in the case of Latin, which is barbarous even today in the German, etc., writers who use it.1

  Besides the great advantage, freedom, etc., that familiarity with and the practice and use of that omnipotent language would have brought to intellects, to the conception and expression of ideas, to their clarity and [2212] fluency. (2 Dec. 1821.)

  We think only by speaking. Hence it is certainly true that the slower the language we use in thinking, the more in need of words and circumlocutions to express something, and to express it clearly, the slower (in proportion, however, to the respective faculties and habits of individual intellects) is our perception, our thought, reasoning, and interior discourse, our mode of conceiving and understanding, of grasping and deducing a truth, knowing it, the process of our mind in syllogizing and reaching conclusions. In precisely the manner in which a mind unaccustomed to reasoning more slowly draws from evident and well-conceived and strict, etc., premises an equally manifest conclusion (something that happens every day in common men, and is the cause of their lack of reasonableness, their small-mindedness, delay in understanding the most obvious things, small-mindedness,1 vulgarity, dullness of [2213] intellect, etc.); and in the manner in which science and the practice of mathematics, their method of proceeding and of reaching conclusions, their language, etc., help, to an infinite degree, the intellectual and reasoning faculty of man, concentrate the operations of his intellect, make him readier to conceive, quicker and more fluent in arriving at the conclusion of his thoughts and the heart of his argument—in short, on the one hand habituate man, on the other make the use of reason, etc., easier for him. Hence you can deduce how useful the knowledge of many languages is,1 since each has some particular property and value, this is more fluent for one thing, that for another, this is more powerful in this thing, that in another, this can more easily express such and such a precise idea, that cannot, or only with difficulty. It is unquestionable: the bare knowledge of many languages [2214] in itself increases the number of ideas, and generates them in the mind, and allows them to be abundantly and easily acquired. What I have said about slowness or quickness of languages should be extended to all their other properties—poverty or richness, etc. etc.—including those which belong to the imagination, since the imagination, and the capacity for fantastic ideas (and fantastic reasoning), and their quality, is influenced by the latter properties, just as the intellect and the capacity for speech is by the former. See, then, if I am right in saying that the practice of the Greek language would have helped intellects more than Latin (a language that is not only not philosophical or logical, as not even Greek is, but not adaptable to subtle philosophy without being corrupted, or, unlike Greek, to an exact precision of expressions and ideas). See p. 2211, end. And what I say about the Greek language I say of every other, [2215] especially of the languages that are most closely analogous to it, I mean Italian, and especially in terms of the imaginative faculty, the capacity to conceive the beautiful, the noble, the graceful, etc., a capacity that can be helped by Italian more than by any other modern language—by knowing it well, and being familiar with it, whether it is one’s mother language or not. (3 Dec., Feast of St. Francis Xavier, 1821.)

  Virtue among the Latins was synonymous with valor, strength of mind, and was also applied, in the sense of strength, to nonhuman, or inanimate, things, like virtus Bacchi [the virtue, or strength, of Bacchus], that is, of wine, virtus virium, ferri, herbarum [the virtue or strength of forces, of iron, of herbs]. See Forcellini throughout. We, too, say virtue for power, the virtue of fire, of water, of medicines, etc. See the Crusca. In short, among the Latins virtue was properly merely fortitudo [strength, force], applied particularly to man, as vir. And despite the frequent use [2216] of this word among the Latins, it was not applied until very late to the virtues that are not strong, not acute in their effects and their nature—to patience (which today is customary), gentleness, compassion, etc. Qualities that the Christian Latin writers called virtutes could not be called that today if you wanted to write in good Latin, although they are called virtues in the daughter languages, and with equivalent names in the other modern languages. For ἀρετὴ [virtue] (from ἄρης [Ares]) see the Lexicons and the etymological dictionaries, although its etymology is more obscure, because it’s a more ancient word, or was used by writers in more ancient times.1 And so I think that in all languages the word meaning virtue did not originally have any other meaning than strength, vigor (of mind or body or both, or some mixture of the former and the latter, but certainly first and foremost [2217] the latter). So much so that primitive man and antiquity does not and did not recognize any other virtue, any other perfection in man and things except force and strength, or certainly didn’t recognize any virtues that were separate from those qualities or whose essence, and main character, and form of being, and rationale as virtues and perfections was not contained in them. (3 Dec. 1821.)

  Dido, Aeneid 4, 659ff.

  Moriemur inultae,

  Sed moriamur, ait. Sic sic iuvat ire sub umbras.

  [I will die unavenged,

  But let me die, she said. Thus, thus it pleases me to go among the shades]

  Virgil here wished to express (a subtle and profound feeling, worthy of a connoisseur of hearts, an expert in passions and misfortunes, like him) that pleasure which the soul feels in examining and portraying its troubles, its ills, not only vividly but minutely, intimately, and fully; even in exaggerating them to itself, [2218] if it can (and if it can, certainly it does), in recognizing, or imagining, but certainly persuading itself, and striving with every effort to persuade itself firmly, that they are extreme and without end, without limits, without remedy or impediment or compensation or any possible consolation, that there is no circumstance that could lighten them; in seeing, in short, and feeling keenly that its tribulations are immense and total and as terrible as can be, in all their elements, and that every approach to hope or consolation is barred and shut, in such a way that a man remains truly alone with his entire misfortune.1 These feelings are experienced during attacks of despair, in tasting the fleeting comfort of tears (where a man takes pleasure in imagining himself to be as unhappy as possible), and sometimes even at the first moment and sensation or news, etc., of his misfortune, etc.

  [2219] Amid such thoughts, man admires himself, indeed is amazed, and regards himself (or tries to regard himself, even forcing his reason, and expressly imposing silence on it (in his) with the imagination)1 as absolutely extraordinary, extraordinary because he is firm in such a great calamity, or simply because he is capable of such suffering, such anguish, and so is extraordinarily oppressed by destiny, or because he is strong enough to be able to see clearly, fully, and vividly, and feel profoundly, his entire calamity.

  And this is what procures for us the above-mentioned pleasure, which is, in short, only a purely extraordinary satisfaction of self-love. And where does self-love feel this satisfaction? In extreme and complete despair. And where does it come from, on what is it based, what subject does it have? The excess, the irremediability of his own ill.

  Despair is much, but much, more pleasurable than boredom. Nature has [2220] ministered to, has cured all our possible ills, even the most cruel and extreme, even death (abo
ut which see my relevant thoughts [→Z 281‒83, 290‒93, 2182‒84]), with all of them has mixed the good, indeed has caused good to result from them, has joined it to their essence: all ills, I mean, except boredom. Because this is the passion most contrary to and farthest from nature, which did not destine man to experience it or even suspect or predict that it could befall him but had destined him and steered him directly to every other possibility. In fact, perhaps all our ills can find their analogues among the animals except boredom. For it is proscribed by nature and unknown to it. How, in fact, could it not be? Death in life? Real death, nothingness in existence? And the feeling of nothingness, and of the nullity of what exists, and of the very one who conceives and feels it, and in whom it subsists? And truly death and nothingness, because bodily deaths and destructions are merely transformations of substances and qualities, and the end of them is not death [2221] but the perpetual life of the great natural machine, and so they were willed and ordered by nature.

  Let us observe the animals. They often do very little or stay in their lairs, etc. etc. etc., without doing anything. Man does much more. The activity of the most inert man surpasses that of the most active animal (whether internal or external activity). And yet animals don’t know what boredom is, nor do they desire greater activity, etc.1 Man is bored and feels his nothingness at every moment. But he does and thinks things that are not intended by nature. With animals it’s the opposite. (3 Dec. 1821.)

  Non potuit abreptum etc.?

  Verum anceps pugnae fuerat fortuna. Fuisset:

  Quem metui moritura?

  [Could I not have seized, etc.,

  The outcome of the struggle would have been uncertain. If it had been:

  Whom should I, about to die, fear?]

  Dido, Aeneid 4, 600, 603‒604. Fuerat here means explicitly would have been. You can see p. 2321. The Spanish would in fact say fuera. This use of the pluperfect past indicative [2222] in place of and in the sense of the pluperfect in the optative or subjunctive mood is very frequent among Latin writers, especially when it is used with another pluperfect in the subjunctive, in which case it would have been necessary to duplicate that, as in the cited passage, where, if, instead of fuerat, you had put fuisset, you would be doubling the fuisset (if it had been) that comes immediately afterward. See also Georgics 2, 132, 133, where, however, the imperfect indicative is used (see p. 2348). See also Georgics 3, 563ff. and Horace, bk. 4, ode 6, ll. 16‒24. Falleret [would deceive] for fefellisset [would have deceived]. So in that other passage of Virgil, Aeneid 2.1

  Et si fata deum, si mens non laeva fuisset,

  Impulerat etc.

  [And if the fates of the gods, if our mind had not been unlucky,

  he would have driven]

  See also Horace, ode 17, bk. 2, ll. 28ff. and bk. 3, 16, 3ff. So in that famous “perieram nisi periissem.”2 That is, “I would have perished if I hadn’t perished.” Now, from these observations I deduce two things.

  (1) That the Spanish imperfect optative or subjunctive ending in the first and third person in ara or in era—amara, leyera, oyera [I would love, read, hear]—derives not from the Latin imperfect in the same mood, amarem, legerem, audirem, but from the pluperfect indicative, amaveram, [2223] legeram, audieram. And what persuades me is (i) the ending and the external form, which in quite a few verbs is similar to—indeed, the same as—the aforementioned Latin tenses, like fueram [I had been] fuera [I would have been], quaesieram [I had sought] quisiera [I would have sought] (what does quisiera have to do with quaererem?), dixeram [I had said] dixera [I would have said] (and what does this have to do with dicerem?), etc. (ii) Seeing that the above-mentioned Spanish tense is always formed from the past indicative, just like the Latin pluperfect indicative, not like the Latin imperfect subjunctive. (iii) The use and meaning of the above-mentioned Spanish tense: since the Spanish say, e.g., fuera for I would have been and for if I had been, for j’aurais été and si j’avais été, which are two meanings of the Latin pluperfect subjunctive (such as fuissem), in place of which we have seen that the Romans often used the pluperfect indicative. (I also think that the Spanish [2224] use fuera, e.g., for if I were, si j’étais, whereas the Romans say essem [if I were], distinct from fuissem [if I had been], and also forem; with the other verbs they use the imperfect subjunctive, si legerem, if I read, si je lisais.)

  (2) That this property of the Spanish language, a language derived from Vulgar Latin, must lead us to understand that in the vernacular the normal, ordinary custom was to use the pluperfect indicative in place of the pluperfect subjunctive, as, in fact, we find done here and there by the Latin writers themselves. But they use it as a rhetorical or elegant device. Vulgar Latin must have used it as a matter of custom and propriety, if, noting the reasons stated above, we observe how this usage is common and standard (indeed inviolable and proper and necessary) in a modern, popular language derived from that vernacular. And it is certainly not coincidental that this usage agrees with what we have observed in many passages [2225] in the ancient writers. (4 Dec. 1821.)

  For p. 1167. Similarly, we have already noted (p. 1114, end) the anomalous continuative of videre [to see] visere, from visus, a participle that is either anomalous or not the original form. And that this is truly continuative both in itself, and in its compounds, you can see in Virgil at the beginning of the Georgics: “Tuque adeo quem mox quae sint habitura deorum / Concilia incertum est, urbisne invisere,” (ἐπισκοπεῖν, to preside over) “Caesar, / Terrarumque velis curam, et te maximus orbis / Auctorem frugum, tempestatumque potentem / Accipiat,” etc. [“And you, O Caesar, for it is uncertain what council of the gods will soon welcome you, if you wish to watch over cities and take care of lands, if the vast universe will welcome you as father of the harvests and lord of the seasons, etc.”].1 That could not be more decisively continuative. Replace it with videre or visitare, and you will immediately hear how the positive and the frequentative differ from the continuative. See p. 2273, end and Virgil, Georgics 4, 390, revisit, consider it carefully, and try putting the positive there, or reading revisit as a frequentative. You can also see ibid., 547, 553; and that use of this verb is ordinary among the writers. The same is true of this passage in Horace (Ode 31, bk. 1, ll. 13ff.): “Dis carus ipsis” (he’s talking about the merchant): “quippe ter et quater / Anno revisens” (that is, accustomed to see again [2226] every year: what does this have to do with the frequent? or the positive?, etc.) “aequor Atlanticum / Impune.” [“Dear to the gods: three or four times a year he sees the Atlantic sea unpunished.”] Put in revidens [seeing again] if you can. How could the present participle stand in that place, if it were positive or frequentative? And if it didn’t mean accustomed to, etc., and express something habitual, which is present in every moment that the word or phrase can refer to?

  Furthermore, who knows if flectere [to bend], nectere [to tie], pectere [to comb] (from ψήχω) and such others are not also continuatives like plectere [to braid]. But examine the matter more closely and see Forcellini. See also texere [to weave]. (5 Dec. 1821.)

  For p. 2019, margin, end. We have pattuire [to agree upon] (corruptly pattovire, like continovo [continuous], etc.), a verb that is not from the substantive pactum i [agreement] or from the participle pactus [having made an agreement], from which we would have made pattare (in fact we do have that, along with impattare [to have a tie]; see the Spanish dictionaries), but from the substantive pactus us [agreement], about which see in Du Fresne pactibus, from Plautus [2227] in the Cistellaria (although neither Forcellini nor the Appendix has anything about it), and Pactus (I don’t know if it’s i or us), from late Latin. And recognize, moreover, in this modern pattuire a clear vestige, indeed a derivative, of the ancient pactus us, which appears in that passage in Plautus (but see it), and is later forgotten by writers and by the Dictionary makers themselves. For Forcellini doesn’t even include it among the words from ancient Lexicons that he discards. (5 Dec. 1821.) I think that our eccettuare [to exclude] (see Exceptuare in
the Glossary) comes from an unknown substantive exceptus us, like captus us [a catching] from the simple capio [to take], from which comes excipio, whence exceptare (Glossary), the French excepter, and exceptuare. See the Spanish dictionaries. Likewise conceptus us, deceptus us, receptus us, inceptus us, etc.