Vergheggiare [To hit with a stick]. See Crusca, Vagheggiare [to contemplate lovingly].
Burchiellesco. Genere burchiellesco [in the style of Burchiello],3 Frottole [nonsense poems], used as well among the Greeks. Demetrius, De elocutione, § 153: “῎Εστι δέ τις καὶ ἡ παρὰ τὴν προσδοκίαν χάρις· ὡς ἡ τοῦ Κύκλωπος, ὅτι ὕστατον ἔδομαι Οὖτιν. οὐ γὰρ προσεδόκα τοιοῦτο ξένιον οὔτε ᾿Οδυσσεὺς οὔτε ὁ ἀναγινώσκων. καὶ ὁ ᾿Αριστοφάνης ἐπὶ τοῦ Σωκράτους, Κάμψας ὀβελίσκον, φησὶν, εἶτα διαβήτην λαβὼν, ᾿Εκ τῆς παλαίστρας θοιμάτιον ὑφείλετο”; § 154: “῎Ηδη μέν τοι ἐκ δύο τόπων ἐνταῦθα ἐγένετο ἡ χάρις. οὐ γὰρ παρὰ προσδοκίαν μόνον ἐπηνέχθη, ἄλλ' οὐδ' ἠκολούθει τοῖς προτέροις. ἡ δὲ τοιαύτη ἀνακολουθία καλεῖται γρῖφος. ὥσπερ ὁ παρὰ Σώφρονι ῥητορεύων Βουλίας· (οὐδὲν γὰρ ἀκόλουθον αὑτῷ λέγει)· καὶ παρὰ Μενάνδρῳ δὲ ὁ πρόλογος τῆς Μεσσηνίας” [“There is also a pleasure in surprise, as in the phrase of the Cyclops: ‘Last of all, I will eat No one.’ Neither Ulysses nor the reader expected such a hospitable gift. Aristophanes as well, in reference to Socrates, says, ‘He bent a little spit and using it as a pair of compasses, he unhooked a cloak hanging in the Palaestra.’” § 154: “There is certainly a pleasure that comes from both these passages. The conclusion is not only characterized by a surprise, it is incoherent with its premises. Such a non sequitur is called a griphos, as in Bulias’s speech in Sophron (where nothing he says is logical) and in the prologue of Menander’s Messenia”]. The lines of Aristophanes are 54–94 of scene 2, act 1, of Clouds, Geneva 1608. The ancient scholia, however, give them a meaning, and explain them like the rest. As do the commentators of Petrarch’s frottola.4 (Bologna, 5 July 1826.) On griphi [enigmas, riddles], see Casaubon, in Athenaeus, subject index.
[4183] A curious example of Spartan constancy mixed with bêtise [stupidity]. *“Worthily Spartan is the pithy saying of the Spartan who having put in his mouth, through total lack of experience, a sea urchin” (fish) “with all its spines, declares: ‘ὦ φάγημα, μιαρὸν, οὔτε μὴ νῦν σε ἀφέω μαλακισθείς, οὔτ' αὖθις ἔτι λάβοιμι’ [‘O foul food, I am not so weak in spirit to spit you out, and I will never swallow you again’] ‘O cibe impure, neque nunc ego te prae mollitiae animi dimittam, neque iterum posthac sumam.’” (the words quoted by Athenaeus) “That strong man thought that it was a matter of his constancy not to appear to be defeated by the spines of the sea urchin”* Casaubon on Athenaeus, bk. 3, ch. 13.1 (Bologna, 6 July 1826.) See p. 4206.
Eating alone, τὸ μονοφαγεῖν, was disgraceful among the Greeks and Romans, and judged inhumanum [inhuman], and the name of μονοφάγος was given to someone as an insult, like τοιχωρύχος, that is, thief. See Casaubon on Athenaeus, bk. 2, ch. 8 and the Addenda to that passage.2 I would have deserved such disgrace among the ancients. (Bologna, 6 July 1826.) The ancients however were right, because they did not converse with one another at table, until they had eaten, when the symposium in the true sense of the word began, that is the merrymaking,3 or rather the drinking party, as was the custom after eating, as the English do today, and accompanied by a little something to nibble, to awaken the desire to drink. That is the time when there would be most merriment, most liveliness, most good humor, and most desire to talk and to chatter. That is what the ancients thought. See Casaubon, ibid., bk. 8, ch. 14, beginning.4 But when they were eating they were silent, or spoke very little. We have discarded this very natural and merry custom of drinking together, and we speak as we eat. Now I cannot be persuaded that the only time [4184] of the day when one has one’s mouth full, when the organs we use for speaking are otherwise engaged (engaged in something very interesting, and which it is very important to do well, since on good digestion depends in large measure the well-being, the healthy state of the body, and so the mental and moral state of man, and digestion cannot be good unless it gets off to a good start in the mouth, according to the well-known proverb or medical aphorism), has to be the very moment when one must talk most. For there are many people, who, since they devote themselves to study or seclusion for some other reason the rest of the day, only converse at table, and they would be bien fachés [very annoyed] to be alone and silent at such a time. But since I am particularly concerned about a good digestion, I do not think I am inhuman if at such a time I want to speak as little as possible, and so dine alone. All the more so since I want to deal with the food in my mouth as I need to, and not as others do, who often devour it and just put it in their mouths and swallow. If their stomach is happy with that, it does not follow that mine is happy with it, as it would have to be, if I were eating in company, so as not to keep the others waiting, and in order to observe the other bienséances [proprieties] which I do not think the ancients cared much about in this case; which is another reason why they did well to eat in company, as I believe I do in my excellent choice of eating alone. (Bologna 6 July 1826.) See pp. 4245, 4248, 4275.
[4185] Barbarism supposes a beginning of civilization, a civilization in its early stages, imperfect; in fact it implies it. The purely savage state is not at all barbarous. The savage tribes of America who destroy one another with their deadly wars, and kill themselves as well by becoming intoxicated, do not do this because they are savage, but because their civilization has just begun, a civilization that is very imperfect and rough, because they have just started to be civilized, which means they are barbarous. The natural state does not teach such behavior, and it is not theirs. Their ills come from a beginning of civilization. There is certainly nothing worse than a civilization either in its early stages or past maturity, degenerate, corrupt. Both are barbarous states, but neither is a savage state in the pure and strict sense of the word.1 (Bologna, 7 July 1826.)
It may seem quite contradictory in my system on human happiness, my praising so highly action, activity, abundance of life, and therefore my preferring the ancient customs and states to modern ones, and at the same time my considering as the happiest or least unhappy way of life, that of the most stupid men, of animals who are least animal, or rather most lacking in life, the inaction and laziness of savages; in short my exalting above all other states on the one hand the one with the most life, and on the other the one with the most death as is compatible with animal existence. But in truth these two things go very well together, they come from the same principle, and are both equally consequences of it, in equal measure. [4186] Once we have recognized the impossibility of happiness and of ever ceasing to desire it alone above all else; once we have recognized the necessary tendency in the life of the soul toward an end impossible to obtain; once we have recognized that the universal and necessary unhappiness of living beings, consists in and derives from nothing other than this tendency, and from it not being able to reach its goal; once we have recognized finally that this universal unhappiness is proportionately greater in each species or individual animal, as this tendency is more strongly felt; what is left is that the greatest possible happiness, or rather the least possible degree of unhappiness, consists in the least possible feeling of this tendency. The least sensitive species and individual animals, the least naturally alive, have the least possible degree of such feeling. The states of the least developed mind, and therefore with the least mental life, are the least sensitive, and therefore the least unhappy of the human states. Such is that of primitive man or the savage.1 That is why I prefer the savage state to the civilized one. But once the development of the mind has begun and has reached a certain level, it is impossible to go back, impossible, both in individuals and peoples, to prevent its progress.2 The individua
ls and nations of Europe and of a great part of the world have had for an incalculable length of time a developed mind. To reduce them to a primitive and savage state is impossible. At the same time from such [4187] development and from such mental life, there follows a greater sensitivity, therefore a greater feeling of the tendency mentioned, therefore greater unhappiness. Only one remedy remains: Distraction.1 This consists in the greatest possible amount of activity, of action, which is to occupy and satiate the developed faculties and the life of the mind. In this way the feeling of this tendency will be either interrupted, or as it were blacked out, confused, its voice smothered and suffocated, eclipsed. The remedy is far from being the same as the primitive state, but its effects are all we have, the state that it produces the best possible, ever since man has been civilized. —This is the case for nations. For individuals it is the same. E.g., the most happy Italian is the one who naturally and by force of habit is the most stupid, the least sensitive, the most mentally dead. But the Italian who either naturally or by force of habit has a lively mind, cannot in any way acquire or recover insensibility. For that reason I advise him to engage his sensibilities as much as he can. —From this discussion it follows that my system, instead of being opposed to activity, the energetic spirit which now dominates a great part of Europe, to efforts directed toward the progress of civilization so as to make nations and men ever more active and more occupied, is in fact directly and fundamentally favorable to them (as far as the principle, I mean, of activity is concerned, and insofar as civilization is considered as an increaser of occupation, of movement, of real life, of action, and as a provider of other similar resources), notwithstanding the fact that this system does consider at the same time the savage state, the least developed, the least sensitive, the least active mind, as the best possible condition [4188] for human happiness. (Bologna, 13 July 1826.)
Tobacco. Its usefulness. Its pleasures: more innocent than all others for body and mind; less shameful to confess, immune from the opinion of others; more easy to get hold of; at a low cost to suit everyone’s pocket; more lasting, can be more easily replicated. (Bologna, 13 July 1826.)
Ser-g-ius–Ser-v-ius.
Smiris–smeriglio [emery].
Lampare–lampeggiare [to flash]. Volgere–voltare–volteggiare, voltiger [to turn].
Avvolticchiare [to wind several strands tightly]. Smiracchiare [to gaze upon]. See Monti Proposta p. XXXIV, see note.1
Malastroso, that is unhappy, for rascal. See Monti, Proposta, tome 6, p. XLIX, note.
Caro, Aeneid, bk. 4, l. 412.2 “E più non disse, / Nè più” (nè altra, that is nè alcuna) “risposta attese; anzi dicendo, / Uscìo d’umana forma e dileguossi” [“And he said no more, neither did he wait for any reply; in fact as he spoke, he left his human form and vanished”]. (Bologna, 15 July 1826.)
*“Bion used to say on that account ‘μὴ δυνατὸν εἶναι τοῖς πολλοῖς ἀρέσκειν, εἰ μὴ πλακοῦντα γενόμενον ἢ Θάσιον’ [‘it is not possible to please the crowd unless you become a pie or a sweet wine from Thasos’] ‘non posse aliquem vulgo omnibus placere, nisi placenta fieret aut vinum Thasium.’”* Casaubon on Athenaeus, bk. 3, ch. 29.3 (Bologna, 17 July 1826.)
῏Ητρον–ἤτριον.
See πλύνειν [to wash, to scold] and its compounds used for biasimare, sparlare [to criticize, to speak badly about], etc., in Casaubon on Athenaeus, bk. 3, ch. 32,4 a phrase analogous to our lavare il capo [to scold], etc. (Bologna, 20 July 1826.)
Tero–tritum–tritare–stritolare, triturare [to crush, to grind].
Sclamare–schiamazzare [to make a din, to squawk].
“And what perhaps might be surprising is that the insalubrity of the air is nearly always a sure sign of an extraordinary fertile soil.” Gioia, [4189] Filosofia della statistica, Milan, 1826, tome 1, in Antologia of Florence, June, 1826, no. 66, p. 84.1 “He” (Gioia) “is speaking about the Harmattan, a wind which blows on part of the African coast between Cape Verde and Cape Lopez, which is harmful to plants and very salubrious for animals. Anyone suffering from reflux from the stomach, from intermittent fevers, recovers when the Harmattan blows. Anyone whose strength is exhausted by excessive bloodletting, recuperates his strength despite and much to the surprise of the doctor. This wind chases away epidemics, makes smallpox disappear, and prevents the spread of disease without recourse to other methods. So much so that what harms vegetation is very useful to animal life, and vice versa. (Journal des voyages, tome 19, p. 111).” Ibid., p. 85. This conflict between two realms that are so similar to one another, so near, indeed so close, in the natural order; and so necessary to one another; so inevitably, so to speak, partners living together; is a further proof of the supreme providence, goodness, benevolence of Nature toward its offspring.2 (28 July 1826, Bologna.)
We happily speak every day about the laws of nature (even to reject this or that fact as impossible) as if we knew something else about nature other than facts, and very few at that. The so-called laws of nature are nothing other than the facts that we know. —Today, with good reason, true philosophers, when they hear incredible facts, suspend their judgment, without daring to pronounce on their impossibility. This happens, e.g., in Mesmerism,3 which in the past, every philosopher would have rejected as absurd, without looking any further, as contrary to the laws of nature. Today it is quite generally known that we do not know what the laws of nature are. So much so that the progress [4190] of the human spirit consists, or certainly has consisted up until now, not in learning but mainly in unlearning, in knowing more and more that we do not know, in realizing we know less and less, in diminishing the number of cognitions, in narrowing the breadth of human understanding. This is the true spirit and principal essence of our progress since 1700 until now, although not everyone, in fact not many people at all, realize it.1 (Bologna, 28 Luglio 1826.)
Insatiatus for insatiabilis [insatiable]. Statius, Thebaid, bk. 6, in the passage cited in note 7 of my “Inno a Nettuno.”2
Smerletto, positivized diminutive of smerlo [scallop edge] or perhaps of merlo [blackbird]. Folgore da San Gimignano, first Sequence of Sonnets, September Sonnet, l. 2, in Poeti del primo secolo della lingua italiana, Florence 1816, in Monti, Proposta, last volume, p. CXCIX.3 (Bologna, 31 July 1826.)
Agreement between ancient practical philosophies (although discordant) and mine, e.g., primitive Socratic philosophy, Cyrenaic, Stoic, Cynic, as well as the philosophy of the Academy and Skepticism,4 etc. (Bologna, 1 August, Feast of the Pardon of Assisi, 1826.)
Offensus for qui offendit [who offends, offensive], neuter. See Catullus,5 bk. 1, elegy 3, l. 20—and Forcellini. Similarly inoffensus [inoffensive], like inoffenso pede [without stumbling], etc.
Le destina [the fates], plural. See Monti Proposta, last volume, p. CCXIV, col. 2, line 3.
For p. 4164, paragraph 3. A notable passage of Fazio degli Uberti in Monti loc. cit. above, p. CCXVII, col. 2, line 6: “Che mi vendrei se fosse chi comprare,” that is chi mi comperasse [“For I would sell myself if there were someone who would buy me”]. Rome is speaking, referring to what Jugurtha said about her: “urbem venalem, et mature perituram si emptorem invenerit” [“a venal city ripe to perish, if she can ever find a buyer”].6 (Bologna, 13 August 1826, Sunday, returned this morning just now from Ravenna.)
᾿Εν τοσούτῳ intanto [meanwhile]. “Vetus argumentum Ranarum Aristophanis,” toward the middle, and “Argumentum Pacis Aristophanis.”7
Πρότερον [before] for potius [rather], as we have prima, anzi, innanzi, etc. Aristophanes, Nubes, l. 24 (Act 1, scene 1). Dio Chrysostom, Oration 1, “De regno,” beginning, p. 2a, Paris 1604, Morel.8
[4191] “καὶ τοῦτον ὑπέρχεται τὸν ἀγῶνα ὁ λόγος” (Δίωνος τοῦ χρυσοστόμου, πρὸς Νικομηδεῖς περὶ ὁμονοίας πρὸς τοὺς Νικαεῖς), “εὐκαίρως διὰ τῆς ἡδονῆς προενηνεγμένος. μᾶ
λλον γὰρ οὕτω ταῖς ψυχαῖς τὸ πιθανὸν ἐθέλει διαδύειν” “and the speech” (of Dio Chrysostom on Concord between Nicomedians and the Nicaeans) “delivered appropriately in a moment of joy since it is thus that persuasion is able to better penetrate souls” Photius, Bibliotheca, Codex 209, Greek-Latin ed., 1611, col. 533. (Bologna, 18 August 1826.)
Tacheté [speckled], Marqueté [inlaid]. Déchiqueter [to tear to pieces].
Immotus, immoto, etc., for immobile [motionless].
It is one thing for a language to be pliable, adaptable, versatile, quite another for it to be as soft as dough. The former is a good quality, the latter implies formlessness, or rather, implies the language lacks form or a determined character, in terms of achievement and perfection. It seems that such flabby formlessness should be necessarily attributed to the present German language, if it is true, as the Germans preach in order to praise their language, that in translations it can assume all the possible and most disparate forms of languages and authors, without them doing any violence to it. That means that it is a formless dough and without consistency; consequently devoid of all the beauties and qualities coming from a certain propriety, and from the achieved, natural, native character and form, distinctive of a language. Flexibility, pliability, elasticity (so to speak), are not mutually exclusive with a determinate and achieved form or consistency; but they certainly do not allow for the vaunted miracle of German translations. The Italian language possesses this flexibility to an extreme degree among modern cultivated languages. Greek did not possess that vaunted capacity of the German language.1 (Bologna, 26 August 1826.)
Happiness is nothing more than contentedness with one’s own being and with one’s own way of being, satisfaction with, perfect love of, one’s own state, whatever that state may be moreover, and even if it is the most despicable. Now from this [4192] definition alone you can understand that happiness is by its nature impossible in a being who loves himself above all else, as all living beings naturally do, the only ones furthermore capable of happiness. A love of self that cannot cease and that has no limits is incompatible with contentedness, with satisfaction. Whatever good a living being may enjoy, he will always desire a greater good, because his own self-love will never cease, and that good, however great it is, will always be limited, and his own self-love cannot have limits. However lovable your state is, you will love yourself more than that state, therefore you will desire a better state. Therefore you will never be content, never in a state of satisfaction with, of perfect love for, your way of being, or perfectly pleased with it. Therefore you will never be and can never be happy (30 August 1826, Bologna), not in this world, nor in another.1
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