Zibaldone
Page 252
From all these considerations, it follows that in addition to being the most perfect epic poem in terms of design, and contrary to what is generally believed, the Iliad is also the most perfect epic poem in terms of its main characters, for they are more interesting than those in other poems. And this is because they are more likable. And they are more likable because they conform more to nature, are more human, and less perfect than in other poems. The authors of which, in accordance with the wretched spiritualization of ideas1 which since Homer has produced, and is increasingly expanding, the process of civilization and the human intellect, always felt that their Heroes should exceed the common, not in the qualities which nature produces and promotes when it is only partially refined and governed (which are largely and often held to be vices and shortcomings in our opinions), but in those that are born of and fed by civilization and cultivation and cognition and experience [3614] and familiarity with affairs and social life, and by wisdom and knowledge, and prudence and moral maxims, and in short by reason. Now the former qualities are likable, the latter estimable, and often unlikable or even odious. The Heroes of the Iliad are great men according to nature, the heroes of the other epic poets great according to reason; the qualities of the former are more material, external, pertaining to the body, physical; the qualities of the latter are all spiritual, internal, moral, proper to the mind, and created from the mind alone and judged by it alone. I say all, but I mean the main ones, and those which properly, and in accordance with the poets’ intentions, form the character of these Heroes. For if the poets also added the more external and corporeal virtues, they did so as though they were secondary and of lesser account, and they sought, successfully, to ensure that they were obscured by the moral virtues in the minds of the readers, and esteemed little in comparison with the latter. And in truth they are all but forgotten, and as I said with respect to Aeneas, they almost appear to be out of place, and at odds with the other virtues, or it seems out of place [3615] to mention them and dwell on them as things worthy of being noted and expressed. And it seems, and is true, that the poets did so more out of custom and in order to conform to rules and examples, than because it was fitting for their purpose and intention, or because the nature and spirit of their poems and characters requested it or indeed required it. Now, as men in any age, regardless of any spiritualization or alteration of nature, are always moved and dominated more by matter than by spirit, it follows that the material virtues and what I shall call the material Heroes of the Iliad should prove to be, and will always prove to be, more likable and hence also more interesting than the spiritual Heroes and the moral virtues devised in other epic poems. And that Homer, who is the singer and personifier of nature, will always win out over other epic poets, who preferred to be (to differing degrees) singers and personifiers of reason. These considerations are all the more forcefully in favor of Homer, and in favor of my argument that his example should be followed, because it is the nature of poetry to follow nature, and it is an enormous and extremely damaging vice, destructive of all good effect, and contradictory in poetry to prefer reason to nature. This change in the quality of the idea of the perfect Hero in poems subsequent to the Iliad derives from the same principle which, as it increased in importance, made poetry allegorical, metaphysical, etc., and corrupted it entirely, and made it something other than poetry, because it came to follow reason entirely, which is not compatible with the true essence of poetry, but only with measured, rhyming discourse, etc. You can see pp. 2944ff.1 (For truly the Heroes of the Iliad are the type of the perfect natural great man, and those of the other epic poems [3616] of the perfect rational great man, who in nature and according to nature is perhaps very often the smallest man.)
Besides, it seems that Homer himself made sacrifice and was led astray by the growing influence of reason and civilization, when, having modeled the perfect warrior in the Iliad with such great success, he later chose, in his old age (according to what is said regarding the age of the Odyssey),1 to model the perfect politician: a young warrior, a mature and almost old politician, certainly with very little success, and less successfully than the other poets who followed him, who made their Heroes unlikable, while he made his little less than odious. And it was quite right that this should be so, for it was still the age of nature, and reason was too imperfect for anyone to model a character which was supposed to be perfect according to it, and the principle and reason of whose worth and perfection, that is, his being good and praiseworthy, etc., was contained in it. (3–6 October 1823.) See p. 3768.
Tostar [to toast, to roast] in Spanish, from torreo–tostus [to dry, to roast]. (6 Oct. 1823.)
[3617] Torto as [to torture] from torqueo–tortus [to turn, turn about]. (6 Oct. 1823.)
Nouns ending in uosus, etc. Impetuosus [impetuous], from impetus us [attack]. If this term, and impetuose [impetuously], are not truly good Latin (see Forcellini) they are without doubt present in the daughter languages. (See the Glossary.) Tortuosus, tortuose [full of crooks or turns], etc., from tortus us. (6 Oct. 1823.)
Andare for essere, on which see elsewhere [→Z 3004]. Ariosto, Furioso, canto 11, stanza 79: “Nè però fu tale / La pena, ch’al delitto andasse eguale” [“Nor was the penalty such that it was equal to the crime”].1 (6 Oct. 1823.)
In describing the moments prior to a pitched battle, with the two camps ranked in battle formation (Gerusalemme liberata, canto 20, stanza 30), Tasso writes: “Bello in sì bella vista anco è l’orrore, / E di mezzo la tema esce il diletto” [“In so beautiful a sight horror too is beautiful, and from the midst of fear comes delight”]. So it is: every strong feeling is pleasurable because it is strong, even though it is also (and in itself) painful or frightening, etc. Apart from those which are painful to the body. As for the mind, even those which are painful, or unpleasurable in some other way, are always at least partly pleasurable as well.2 (6 Oct. 1823.)
On the diminutive ginocchio [knee] which has come down to us, see elsewhere [→Z 2282]. Genou is the positive form genu. But agenouiller [to kneel] comes from the diminutive [3618] genuculum or, etc., no differently to inginocchiare. The Glossary also has precisely ginochium.
It was also typical of the Greeks to use diminutives instead of positive forms. Ποίμνιον grex ovium [flock of sheep] is a diminutive of ποίμνη [flock], like κόριον from κόρη [daughter], but has the same meaning. (6 Oct. 1823.)
For p. 2983. The French call cervelet what the anatomists among us call the cerebellum. Which means this is a diminutive of a diminutive. In the same way we say cervellino and agnellino [little brain, little lamb] and a hundred diminutives of positivized diminutives. But we regularly diminish even our proper diminutives, as in fiorellino [little flower], etc., even to the point of tripling the diminution. (7 Oct. 1823.)
The word magari used in the dialects of Venice and the Marche is held to come from the Greek μακάριος [blessed, happy] or μάκαρ [blessed]. I am quite convinced of this. Hence we still say beato me, beati noi, beato lui, loro, voi, te, se questo accadesse [lucky me, us, him, them, you, if this happens]. Which is equivalent to saying magari, utinam [if only! would that!]. (7 Oct. 1823.)
Sciscitor [to inform oneself] shows the proper participle of scisco [to seek to know], which nowadays does not truly have one (in the same way that many of its kind do not, e.g., hisco, etc., not even the past perfect), even though it borrows it from scio, as it does the perfect. See p. 3687. So too scisco and also its compounds. [3619] Sciscitor, or sciscito, shows the participle sciscitus, regular and perfect. So Forcellini is quite mistaken in deriving sciscitor from scio [to know], from which it comes only to the extent that scisco comes from scio, like vivisco [to become lively] comes from vivo [to live], etc. etc. (7 Oct. 1823.) The idea that sciscito is formed by anadiplosis1 from scitus (either scitus from scio or scitus from scisco, which in my view is just the same participle) or from scitor, as well as other implausible suggestions, and the fact that it evidently comes from scisco (
which is not made by anadiplosis),1 and that there is no similar example as far as I am aware, etc., is shown to be false by the fact that the second i is short, whereas the i of scitus, and of scitor, etc., is long. See the next thought. (7 Oct. 1823.)
For p. 2865, margin. These observations would weaken or remove the argument regarding the continuative of cio and cieo advanced by me on p. 2820. Nonetheless, I would argue that scītor (or scīto) with the long vowel comes from scītus, made from scio also with the long vowel. And as for verbs in ito made from participles ending in itus which come from the fourth conjugation, I believe that the i is long in all of them, as in those participles. (7 Oct. 1823.) Equito [to ride] comes from eques equitis [horseman]. It should be said that suppedito [to be fully supplied] is similarly from pedes peditis [one that is or goes on foot], hence the ending in ito. But I do not find this to be especially convincing, and do not withdraw at all from my earlier opinion.
Sancitus, the true participle of sancio [to render sacred or inviolable], is still found instead of sanctus which is a contraction of it. Or sancitum, etc. See Forcellini.2 (7 Oct. 1823.)
[3620] For p. 3477. Citus a um [moved, quick]. Sanctus a um [made sacred], which in the daughter languages is no more than an adjective. Servius (see Forcellini, Sancio, at the end) seems to derive sancio from Sanctus. In which case he is quite mistaken, for this would be to derive the verb from its participle. (7 Oct. 1823.) Minutus a um [made small, little], a participle so thoroughly established as an adjective that it was even given its own diminutive form minutulus, etc. Quietus [quiet]. Lautus [noble] which has also changed its meaning in such a way that you would never recognize the participle in this meaning, itself very different from the one lautus [washed] still has, on its own account, as a participle. Certus. See Forcellini.
Relictos atque desertos habere expressly for reliquisse ac deseruisse [to have abandoned and deserted]. Fragments from the epistle of Cornelia mother of the Gracchi, at the end; which fragments, as they are ancient, and by a woman (who therefore would have been less able to depart from the colloquial way of speaking and the normal oral modes of expression), in some places sound like Italian, or perhaps we should say modern, phrasing.1 (7 Oct. 1823.)
The Greek terms and phrases which I have noted on several occasions in the Spanish, French, and Italian languages but which are not found in good Latin, may either have been introduced to Vulgar Latin by exaggeratedly Hellenizing writers, the multitude of Greek immigrants (most of whom belonged to the lowest ranks of the people, domestic servants, etc.), the corrupt usage of Roman conversation, etc., and not adopted in the illustrious language of [3621] good writers, or even in average writers generally, and so not come down to us in written Latin. Or they may have come from the same source in both Latium and Greece, meaning they were proper to archaic Latin, antiquated or never admitted to written Latin, but admitted and recorded forever in the vernacular, as I have shown to have occurred with many words and phrases that are still living among us or not as the case may be, Greek or otherwise, etc., especially in my discussion on continuative verbs, etc. (7 Oct. 1823.)
Latin monosyllables. Falx [sickle], calx (calcagno) [heel]. (7 Oct. 1823.)
Participles of neuter verbs with neuter meanings ending in us. See Forcellini under Desitus, comparing those examples with the fourth example under Desino [to cease] in Forcellini again. (7 Oct. 1823.)
Materia [matter] used for legno, legname [wood, timber]. On which meaning, see what I have said elsewhere [→Z 1281–83] in connection with the word silva [wood, forest, woodland] and ὕλη [matter]. See Forcellini under materiarius [of or belonging to stuff, matter, wood, timber], materiatio [woodwork, e.g., beams, rafters, etc.], materiatura [a working in wood, carpenter’s work], materiatus [built of wood], materio [to build of wood], materior [to fell or procure wood]. In Spanish, as well as madera [wood, timber] for legno, there is also maderamen [lumber for construction] for legname, etc. etc. (7 Oct. 1823.)
[3622] Whenever man does not experience pleasure, he experiences boredom, except for when he either experiences pain or any form of displeasure, or when he does not notice that he is alive. Now, given that man never properly experiences true pleasure, it follows that he never feels he is alive for any length of time without experiencing displeasure or boredom. And as boredom itself is pain and displeasure, it follows that for as long as man feels life, he also feels displeasure and pain. Especially when he has no distractions, or distractions which are too weak to distract him significantly from the continuous desire for pleasure, or in other words, when he is in that state which we specifically call boredom. See p. 3713. (7 Oct. 1823.)
Vermiglio, vermeil, vermejo [vermilion, bright red] comes from vermiculus, as on p. 3514, end, and p. 3515, end. Now this word vermiculus is common to all three daughter languages, signifying red, etc. Therefore I say that this meaning of vermiculus must have come from Vulgar Latin. And all the more so, given that it is known that the color of purples, etc., was made from a certain type of worm. See the antiquarians, including Rosa’s dissertation on purples.1 Hence the metaphor of vermiculi for the color red is quite natural, and in particular for crimson or vermilion, which is what the one used for purple [3623] must have been, and which might well be called vermilion. No less so than that the metaphor of worms be a natural one for the opus vermiculatum, which is also referred to as vermiculus1 (see Forcellini). Indeed, this is even more natural than the former. It should be noted that the custom of making the color of purples with worms ceased centuries ago, so it is certainly no longer possible to know which type of worms were used for this purpose. And if I am not mistaken, even the use of purple proper was discontinued in later times due to its high cost and the poverty of that era, and the interruption in trade with the Indies where, again if I am not mistaken, these worms were found, or where the purples were manufactured, etc. And so, since it is quite clear that the meaning of red for vermilion comes from this custom, and that this custom was very ancient, and then forgotten or discontinued a very long time ago; and since this meaning is common to all three daughter languages of Latin, which since Roman times had no direct or significant trade with each other until very recently, and this word and meaning is ancient, proper, and native, etc. [3624] to all three languages, it seems clear to me that vermilion in the meaning of deep red, crimson, etc., was typical of ancient Vulgar Latin as well as the modern,1 and that it comes from there. See if the Glossary has anything. See also Forcellini regarding the color of purple itself or crimson, under purpura, purpureus, etc. According to him, though, purple was not made using worms but with a type of seashell known as purpura. The color coccineus [scarlet] was made with carmine. The color conchyliatus [purple] was made with the same seashell known as purpura, or with another similar one, etc. Certainly our cochineal is a color made from a kind of worm which too is called Cochineal. Hence conchylium is both the seashell and the color made from them. In the same way vermiculus was both the worm and the color. Similarly, coccum2 and conchylium, κογχύλιον [mollusc], are both the carmine or the shell, the wool, cloth, clothing, and yarn which are dyed with them. Fucus is also found from the color made from kelp.3 (7 Oct. 1823.) See p. 3632.