Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  Fear is one thing but terror quite another. The latter is a much more powerful and more intense passion than the former, and humbles the mind far more and is far more likely to cause the use of the reason to be suspended, indeed, than almost all of the faculties of the mind, and also of the senses of the body. [2804] Nonetheless the first of these passions does not occur in a wholly courageous or wise man, but the second does. He is never afraid but he can always be terror-struck. No one can justifiably boast of not being able to be frightened.1 (21 June 1823.)

  We know that the chorus had a large part to play in ancient drama, and that much has been said for and against its use. See the Viaggio d’Anacarsi, ch. 70.2 Modern drama has banished it, and everything modern was well served by its banishment. I regard this use as part of that vagueness, that indefiniteness which is the principal cause of the charme of ancient poetry and fine literature. The individual is always a paltry thing, and often an ugly, often a contemptible one. The beautiful and the great need indefiniteness, and this indefiniteness can only be brought on to the stage by bringing on the multitude. Everything that stems from the multitude is respectable, though it is composed of wholly contemptible individuals. The public, [2805] the people, antiquity, ancestors, posterity—great and beautiful terms, because they represent an indefinite idea. Suppose we analyze this public, this posterity. Men for the most part worthless, and all flawed. In the ancient dramas the maxims of justice, virtue, heroism, compassion, patriotism were spoken by the chorus, that is to say, an indefinite and often unnamed multitude, since the poet did not in any way declare which persons his chorus was supposed to consist of. These maxims were expressed in lyric verses, and the latter were sung and accompanied by musical instruments. All these circumstances, which we are at liberty to condemn as implausible, as absurd, etc., what other impression could they give save a vague and indeterminate one, and hence one that was altogether great, beautiful, poetic? Those maxims were not put in the mouth of an individual, who recited them in an ordinary and natural tone. [2806] No matter how great and perfect the poet had made out this individual to be, the very idea of the individual is too determinate and restricted to produce an indeterminate and immense sensation or conception. The latter qualities clash with the former, and the former would have directly impeded the latter conception, so that they would never have been able to produce it. The audience would have known the name, the exploits, the attributes, the adventures of that individual. He would always have been that particular person Theseus, that particular person Oedipus, King of Thebes, slayer of his father, husband of his mother, and the like. The whole nation, posterity itself, appeared on stage. It did not speak like each of the mortals who performed the action, it expressed itself in verses that were lyrical and full of poetry. The sound of its voice was not that of human individuals, it was a music, a harmony. In the intervals of the performance this unknown, unnamed actor, this multitude of mortals, began to make profound or sublime reflections [2807] on the events that had taken or would take place before the spectator’s eyes, bewailed the sufferings of humanity, sighed, cursed vice, avenged innocence and virtue, the sole revenge permitted them in this world, that is, the public and posterity’s execration of the oppressors of the innocent and the virtuous; exalted heroism, paid tribute to the benefactors of men, to the blood shed for the homeland. (See Horace, Art of poetry, ll. 193–201.) This was tantamount to establishing a connection on the stage between the real world and the ideal and moral world, just as they are connected in life, and connecting them dramatically, that is to say, bringing this connection before the senses of the spectator, according to the office and custom of the dramatist, and as far as it is possible for the drama to represent what is. This was personifying the poet’s imaginings, and the feelings of the audience and of the nation to whom the play was represented. Events were [2808] represented by individuals; feelings, reflections, passions, and the effects they produced or were expected to produce in persons placed outside such events were represented by the multitude, by a kind of ideal being. This latter undertook to gather together and express the benefit to be derived from the example of such events. And there was a sense in which the audience came in order to hear the selfsame feelings which the performance inspired in them, represented in the same way on the stage, and they saw themselves transported as it were on to the stage in order to play their part; or imitated by the chorus, just as much as the heroes were imitated or represented by the individual actors. In fact when the chorus played a direct part in the action, this involving of the multitude in the drama was more poetic, and was bound to have a greater and more vivid impact than dividing the whole of the action between several individuals, as we do.

  On the basis of these considerations we argue as to whether [2809] it is correct to say that the use of the chorus harms illusion. What beneficial illusion can there be without vagueness and indefiniteness? And what sweet, great, and poetic illusion must have arisen in the circumstances described above? (21 June 1823.) In comedies the multitude is also conducive to enthusiasm and the indeterminacy of joy, to βακχɛίᾳ [Bacchic frenzy], and serves to give some apparent and illusory weight to the always vain and false causes we have for feeling delight and enjoyment, and in some way to drag the spectator into gladness and laughter, as though blinding him, inebriating him, overwhelming him with the authority of the vague multitude. See p. 2905.1

  I don’t know who is right about the origin of the Latin verb accuso [to blame], those who derive it from causa [cause, lawsuit], or those who hold that it comes from a verb cuso a continuative of cudere [to strike], of which cuso, however, they do not furnish any example. (See Forcellini under accuso, end, and cuso.) The argument of the latter camp would perhaps be supported by our ancient cusare which, if it came from cuso and not from causari [to bring forward a reason], or if it were not a mangled version of accusare, would be a very ancient stem that had been lost or fallen out of use in written Latin, and preserved in Italian: and it would be the simple form of the compound verbs accuso, incuso, excuso, recuso. It is worth noting, however, that our common people (at any rate in the Marche) use the verb causare with the same meaning as our ancient cusare, and as the Latin causari, that is to say, meaning not cagionare [to cause] but recare per cagione or come [2810] cagione [to bring forward a reason], accagionare [to accuse]; they use it, I mean, in the adverbial phrase causando che, that is to say, granted that, since. This meaning and this adverbial mode is not noted by the Crusca, but it is however used by Lorenzo de’ Medici in his famous letter to Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, his son and later Pope Leo X, toward the end, where, however, in the collection of prose pieces, published in Turin 1753, vol. 2, p. 7821 I find cagionando che for causando che, which is in the Lettere di diversi eccellentissimi huomini, collected by Dolce, Venice, printed by Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari and brothers, 1554, p. 303, and in the Lettere volgari di diversi nobilissimi huomini et eccellentissimi ingegni printed by Paulus Manutius in Venice, 1544, fol. 6, p. 2. (In any case the adverbial phrase cagionando che is also missing from the Crusca.) In the Lettere di XIII huomini illustri, Venice, Comin da Trino di Monferrato, 1561, p. 485 I find pensando che. See Roscoe’s Magnifico, where that letter is reproduced.2

  Anyway the verb accuso or accudo, or the simple form cudo-cusus has its own continuative or frequentative accusito. (23 June 1823.) If accuso is very nearly accauso, we should take special note of this continuative, which will nearly be accausito from the participle accausatus.

  [2811] For p. 2775. The verb δɛίδω [to fear, to be alarmed] that today is presumed to be a root form, is certainly no more than a reduplication of a simpler root, which is demonstrated both by the word δέος [fear] and by the verb δίω [to put to flight] in Homer, and also by the word δɛῖσθαι used several times by Plutarch to mean to fear.1 Κάρχαρος, χαρχαρέοι, καρχαρίας from χαράσσω [to sharpen] by reduplication. ὀπιπτɛύω from ὀπτɛύω [to see]. βέβαιος from βα�
��νω [to walk] or from βέβαα. See p. 4109. Likewise in Latin titillo [to tickle] is formed through duplication from τίλλω [to pluck]. And other such duplications in the Greek style can also be found in Latin (like those of the perfects memini, cecidi, etc.), be they genuinely Latin in origin, or Greek, or common in ancient times to both languages, etc. etc. (23 June 1823.)

  *“His plan, however” (that of Moeris, in ᾿Αττικιστῇ [The Atticist]) “is to annotate and compare Attic words and Greek words in other dialects, especially those used in the Koine: sometimes he indicates the Koine of the common people and distinguishes it not only from Attic but also from Greek, as under ἐξίλλɛιν, ɛὐφήμɛι, κάθησο, λέμμα, οἰδίπουν, οἶσɛ, σχέατον.”* Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, old ed., bk. 5, ch. 38, § 9, no. 157, vol. 9, p. 420.2 (23 June 1823.)

  For p. 2776, margin. The same argument may be applied to βαΰζω [to bark], which is also a verb expressing a sound, and created through imitation of this sound; which sound, since it is very like that of βαΰω, likewise has nothing to do with βαΰζω. But this and other similar interpositions of the letter ζ, [2812] and of other such letters, have been effected either to avoid hiatus or for various other reasons, as the language develops, when indeed there was no longer any need for the word, in order to be understood, to express and represent with the selfsame sound the object signified, but it was already generally understood on its own account, and not by virtue of its origin; and when indeed in the language there was a greater concern for euphony, etc., than for need, etc. And in these ways words in every language have diverged from their original form and have often entirely lost the representational sound which they had at first, and upon which they were modeled and created and in which from the beginning the cause of their meaning consisted. The Latins from the stem βαΰω or bauare formed baubari [to bark softly],1 interposing a b (which in this case is better adapted to the imitation) instead of the ζ. We for our part have baiare [to bark], which in truth could be that same original βαΰω which has entirely disappeared in Greek and in written Latin, and one might well believe that it was wholly [2813] an ancient Latin word, preserved in the vernacular. From which we may deduce, first, that ancient Latin, and then its vernacular, perpetually preserved in a pure form the original verb βαΰω (since the Greek υ in ancient Latin is at times equivalent to a u, at times to an i), even if it is not to be found in written Latin; a verb that is unattested in known ancient and modern Greek usage; second, that this very ancient verb, which has been lost or in my opinion altered in Greek, and lost or else altered in written Latin, is still preserved in a very pure and wholly unaltered state in Italian, and see page 2704.1 One might also suppose that the first speakers of Latin and the common people did not say baubari but bauari (which was itself βαΰɛιν), and that the shift from u to i (vowels which are very often interchangeable, through being the thinnest, as I have said elsewhere [→Z 1277‒83]) followed in Italian and in French, etc. Or else that the ancients said bauari, and then the common people baiari. (24 June 1823.)

  Latin continuatives, all of which (save perhaps visere from visus from video [to see], with its compounds inviso, reviso, etc., and perhaps some others, which I will call anomalous continuatives) belong to the first conjugation, are formed from the participle or the supine of the original verb, as I have demonstrated [→Z 1104ff., 1118ff.]. Nonetheless I have found a small number of verbs, also of the first conjugation, which are plainly akin to other verbs of the third, and have a meaning that is plainly continuative of their original meaning, but they are not formed from their participles. The ones I have observed are (1) cubare [to lie down], with its compounds accubare, incubare, decubare, secubare, recubare, etc., the meaning of which is quite obviously [2814] continuative of that of cumbere (unattested save in the word cubui, etc., and cubitum which today are ascribed to cubare), incumbere, accumbere, etc., so that whenever one has to express continuative action the former and not the latter are used (as also vice versa in the opposite case), and you will hardly ever find a good example of the reverse, such as might be for instance that of Virgil, Aeneid 2, 51–14: “Ingens ara fuit; juxtaque veterrima laurus / Incumbens arae” [“There was a large altar; and nearby an ancient laurel overhanging the altar”], instead of incubans. (2) educare [to bring up], a continuative of educere so far as its meaning is concerned. (3) jugare [to bind], also a continuative of jungere, and likewise conjugare, abiugare, deiugare, and any other compounds there may be. (4) dicare [to proclaim] similarly from dicere, and likewise the compounds judicare, from ius dicere; dedicare, praedicare, abdicare, etc. See p. 3006. (5) labare [to totter] from labere which is unattested, that is to say from the deponent verb labi. And I observe these third-conjugation verbs also have their continuatives formed regularly from their participles, but with a different meaning from that of the verbs listed above of the first conjugation, even though it too is continuative; just as dicere [to say] also has dictare and dictitare; ducere [to lead], whence educere, has ductare and ductitare; jungere [to join] in late Latin and Spanish has junctare (in ordinary speech we say aggiuntare, the French ajouter); labi [to glide] or labere also has lapsare.a1 Cubitare [to lie down], accubitare [to lie near], etc., may come from the unattested accubatus [2815] and from accubitus, etc., and hence be likewise derived from accumbere or from accubare. But the latter, together with all its relatives and its simple form cubo, has neither its own preterite perfect nor the tenses that are formed from it, nor the participle in us, nor the supine, but borrows them from accumbere, recumbere, incumbere, etc., creating, no less than is the case with the latter, accubui, accubitus i, accubitum, etc. See, however, pp. 3570, 3715–17. Incubare also has incubavi, incubatum. Cubare also has cubavi, or certainly cubasse. Note that if you sometimes find in dictionaries and grammars, etc., examples of accubare, incubare, etc., employed in the preterit or in the supine, etc., that do not seem to you to be continuative in meaning, you should presume that they are wrongly attributed to these verbs, and belong to incumbere, accumbere, occumbere, etc. See in this regard pp. 2930–35. (24 June, Feast of St. John the Baptist, 1823.) See p. 2996.

  There are many verbs formed from participles in us which do not express continuative action, nor the habit of performing such an action, or do not always express it, and nonetheless they too, also in this case, are genuine continuatives, and Forcellini and others who call them frequentatives, are mistaken, and use an incorrect word, strictly [2816] and rigorously speaking. For example iactare [to throw] in the passage from the Aeneid 2, 459 and exceptare [to take in] in the Georgics 3, 274, regarding which passages I have argued elsewhere [→Z 1107, 1140], do not express continuous action in itself, since the action of throwing, and that of taking in air through the breath are not continuous actions, but are conceived as instantaneous. Neither do they signify the habit of throwing or taking in, but a multiplicity of such actions, that is, of throwings, so to speak, and of takings in, which without interruption and for a long time succeed one another. This is a continuous idea, and in this case such verbs will quite rightly be called continuatives, and one could not in any way properly call them anything else. They would then quite wrongly be called frequentatives, since it is one thing to do a thing frequently, and quite another to repeat one and the same action continuously for some greater or lesser time, even when this action is not in itself continuous, and is carried out in the instant. This is continuity in performing one and the same action, and is quite different from frequency in performing one and the same action. Which frequency presupposes and allows for intervals, larger, [2817] smaller, and more or less numerous as the case may be, during which that action is not performed. Whereas the continuity mentioned above does not presuppose them, and even if, as is natural, there always are some, nonetheless, since they are minimal, it does not allow for them. Bearing in mind these observations, one will see just how large a number of so-called frequentative Latin verbs are improperly termed such, and just h
ow many meanings that are believed to be frequentative, and that appear such at first glance, because they represent repetition of one and the same action, nonetheless are not, but are really continuatives. We must make a subtle distinction, as we have shown, and not suppose that any verb expressing repetition of one and the same action is frequentative, nor that this repetition is always the same thing as the frequency of that action. The succession of several actions of one and the same kind is quite another thing to the frequency of them. And with this criterion, as with the others we have posited in various places regarding the different meanings of verbs created from participles in us, countless errors made by grammarians and lexicographers may be corrected, a countless number of their definitions may be rectified, point by point the true spirit, and the true and genuine character and force of verbs formed from the participles mentioned above will be known and discerned, and it will be seen that frequentative meaning, [2818] which is simply one of very many meanings imparted to these verbs, has been wrongly chosen or used to name and define all of these verbs, and also considered to be their only proper meaning. Which is tantamount to taking the part for the whole. And if one has to do that, it would be more fitting to apply the name of continuatives to these verbs, a name that embraces a far greater number of the varieties proper to the meaning of these verbs. Which varieties, being not as yet taken into consideration either by grammarians or by philologists or by philosophers, and which nonetheless certainly need to be taken into consideration and distinguished in order to penetrate the innermost character and elegance, and also the innermost and real meaning and value of the Latin language, and to attain an understanding of how passages of writers have efficacy, beauty, etc., we have taken it upon ourselves to declare and expound these varieties, as much to grammarians and philologists as to philosophers and men of letters. (25 June 1823.)