Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  For p. 4217. It is Demetrius as well who makes nonetheless a good observation, § 197: “᾿Εναγώνιος” (apta contentionibus. Gale). “μὲν οὖν ἴσως μᾶλλον ἡ διαλελυμένη λέξις” (a discourse without conjunctions, σύνδεσμοι) “ἡ δ' αὐτὴ καὶ ὑποκριτικὴ” (histrionica. Gale) “καλεῖται. κινεῖ γὰρ ὑπόκρισιν ἡ λύσις· γραφικὴ” (idonea scriptionibus. Gale) “δὲ λέξις ἡ εὐανάγνωστος” (quae facile legi potest) “αὕτη δέ ἐστιν ἡ συνηρτημένη καὶ οἷον ἠσφαλισμένη” (connexa et tanquam munita) “συνδέσμοις. διὰ τοῦτο δὲ καὶ Μένανδρον ὑποκρίνονται” (in Menandro actorum opera utuntur), “λελυμένον ἐν τοῖς πλείστοις. Φιλήμονα δὲ ἀναγινώσκουσιν” [“The style without any conjunctions is perhaps the most suited to debates; it is also called declamatory, because asyndeton tends toward declamation. The descriptive style, however, is better to read, because it is articulated through and in a certain sense consolidated by conjunctions. That is also why one declaims Menander, who employs asyndeton as much as he can and why on the other hand one reads Philemon”].3 In fact there are some writers, books, or passages, which when you read them, especially aloud, seem to call for gestures, and you need all the force of habituation and the rules of French civilization to abstain from using them. And such passages as these are, at least [4223] most of the time, or perhaps always, disconnected. However the cause of such an effect is not their being disconnected, but what Demetrius alludes to further on, that is emotion. Since straight after this quotation he adds, § 198: “῞Οτι δὲ ὑποκριτικὸν” (accommodata actori res) “ἡ λύσις, παράδειγμα ἐγκείσθω τόδε” [“That asyndeton is suited to declamation, can be shown by the following example”]. And here, having given an example which has little or nothing to do with the matter (“ἐδεξάμην, ἔτικτον, ἐκτρέφω φίλε” [“I expected you, I begot you, I rear you, my dear one”]),1 like almost all the examples Demetrius uses (sometimes he adopts the same one for two observations, cases, or contrary rules), he continues: “οὕτως γὰρ λελυμένον ἀναγκάσει καὶ τὸν μὴ θέλοντα, ὑποκρίνεσθαι” (actu adiuvare), “διὰ τὴν λύσιν, εἰ δὲ συνδήσας εἴποις, ᾿Εδεξάμην καὶ ἔτικτον καὶ ἐκτρέφω, πολλὴν ἀπάθειαν” (vacuitatem affectuum) “τοῖς συνδέσμοις” (with the conjunctions) “συμβαλεῖς. πᾶν δὲ τὸ ἀπαθὲς, ἀνυπόκριτον” (remotum ab actione). [“A phrase like this without conjunctions would make anyone declaim it, even if they did not want to, because of the asyndeton. If we say it with conjunctions: ‘I expected and I begot and I rear you,’ we introduce considerable lack of emotion. And anything lacking in emotion is unsuited to performance.”] Now, although our rhetorician has scarcely noticed and made only a brief reference to the real cause, one cannot deny that this is a nice little observation. And that is perhaps all that is any good and worth mentioning in his book. (Bologna, 17 Oct. 1826.) See p. 4224.

  An attractive feature of the Italian language, especially the ancient language, a feature which in thousands of cases is very useful for brevity, and can actually avoid a very long circumlocution, a feature moreover that is common in French as well (nonchalance, nonchaloir, see Pougens, Archéologie française), in English (nonsense, nonsensical, etc.), etc., is that of certain negatives, whether nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc., formed from the positive, preceded by non, joined or not to that word: like noncuranza [neglect, indifference], non cale, non calere [to be of no interest], etc. See the Crusca on Non … and Monti’s Proposta, if I am not mistaken, under Non, or Non … 2 —Damascius in the Life of the philosopher Isidore (Damascius was a close student of elegance in language in that work and researcher of ancient phrases and words) in Photius, codex 242, speaking about a certain Asclepiodotus, who however hard he tried, could not recover the kind of music called enharmonic (τὸ ἐναρμόνιον γένος), the use and the knowledge of which had been lost, says, column 1054, line 1, Greek-Latin ed., “αἴτιον δὲ τῆς μὴ εὑρέσεως τὸ,” etc., “the reason for the noninvention,” that is of not being able to recover it, was, etc. (Bologna, 17 October 1826.)

  [4224] For p. 4162. Id., § 240, p. 134, end,1 “φιλοφρόνησις γὰρ βούλεται εἶναι ἡ ἐπιστολὴ σύντομος” [“As an expression of courtesy the letter should be concise”]. “Expressio enim quaedam amoris debet esse epistola, concisa.” Gale.

  Tondeo, tonsum–detonsare, tosare [to cut hair, to shear], etc.

  For p. 4223. Demetrius, ibid., § 285, “Καθόλου δὲ τῆς λέξεως τὰ σχήματα καὶ ὑπόκρισιν καὶ ἀγῶνα παρέχει τὸ λέγοντι, μάλιστα τὸ διαλελυμένον” [“Rhetorical figures generally offer to the performer a declamatory and vehement tone: particularly asyndeton”]. “Ad summam” (generally) “autem figurae verborum et actionem et contentionem praebent dicenti: in primisque dissolutum.” Gale. (Bologna, 20 October 1826.)

  For p. 4211. Aratos, Φαινόμενα [Phaenomena], l. 108, speaking about men of the golden age: “Οὔπω λευγαλέου τότε νείκεος ἠπίσταντο, Οὐδὲ διακρίσιος περιμεμφέος, οὐδὲ κυδοιμοῦ· Αὕτως” (thus, howsoever, εἰκῆ) “δ' ἔζωον. χαλεπὴ δ' ἀπέκειτο θάλασσα, Καὶ βίον οὔπω νῆες ἀπόπροθεν ἠγίνεσκον,” etc. And l. 179. “Οὐδ' ἄρα Κηφῆος μογερὸν γένος ᾿Ιασίδαο Αὕτως” (redundant) “ἄῤῥητον” (silent, obscure, unknown, etc.) “κατακείσεται· ἀλλ' ἄρα καὶ τῶν Οὐρανὸν εἰς ὄνομ’ ἦλθεν, ἐπεὶ Διὸς ἐγγύθεν ἦσαν” [“They knew nothing yet of deathly conflict, harmful rivalry, and the disorder of war. And so they lived; the sea and its perils stayed far from their thoughts; the boats did not yet bring food supplies from distant shores […] The unfortunate family of Cepheus, descendant of Iasidas, will no longer be so without someone speaking of it. Their names as well have ascended to the heavens, since they were close to Zeus”]. And in other places several times in the same poem he uses the adverb αὕτως [thus].2 As other poets do; probably Homer most of all. See the index of Homeric words.

  For p. 4210, line 1. This tendency, this habit of applying to well-known people and places close to us stories (true or false) belonging to distant people and places, and of modernizing them as well, that is applying the old stories, sometimes very old ones, to modern times and people, has thousands of examples, that we can observe even daily. I myself have heard various stories told in Italian towns, very distant from one another, various claims about the origins of proverbs, various celebrated ridiculous events, etc., said to have happened expressly to one person in one town; and it was the same in every city, always exactly the same story with just a different name; and I had already heard many of the stories since my childhood told in my own home town and by my parents, with the names of people from the town or region. And some of them I have also found in ancient Italian storytellers, with other names, and the stories are now told as if they happened just a little while ago, to people known to the narrators, or known to someone from whom they heard them. (Bologna, 23 Oct. 1826.) Another similarity between the ancients and the moderns, since the ancients too had the same habit, as we have seen.

  [4225] For p. 4202. Often in moments of deep sorrow and mental distress, I have consoled myself like this. I have asked myself: Certainly this really is a great misfortune: but is it possible not to get so distraught by it? My own experience, on many other occasions made me reply yes, it was: but not to get distraught by it would be unreasonable: the misfortune is great and real. —Well, yes, that may be the case: but does m
y getting distraught dissipate it or reduce it? —Not at all. —Will my not getting distraught make things worse, or bring me any harm? —No. —Then how is my not getting distraught unreasonable? And if it is reasonable, if it helps me (which it clearly does), if I can do it, why would I not want to? —I swear that this conversation was useful: that my resolve was determined according to it, and achieved its aim; and that I was consoled and did not suffer. (Bologna, Sunday, 29 Oct. 1826.)

  For p. 4211. Nicias, De lapidibus, in Stobaeus, discourse 98, περὶ νόσου [“On Illness”] writes about a certain stone from Thrace: “ποιεῖ δ' ἄριστα πρὸς ἀμβλυωπίας” [“does excellent things for weak sight”], “is very beneficial.” Callisthenes the Sybarite, bk. 13 Rerum Galaticarum ibid.: “εὑρίσκεται δ’ ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ αὐτοῦ” (about a certain fish) “λίθος, χόνδρῳ παρόμοιος ἁλὸς” (grumo salis), “ὃς κάλλιστα ποιεῖ πρὸς τεταρταίας νόσους” (ad quartanas. Gessner) [“In its head is found a stone, similar to a lump of salt, which does excellent things for quartan fever”]. Archelaus, bk. 1, De fluviis, ibid.: “γεννᾶται δ' ἐν αὐτῷ” (in a river of Aetolia) “βοτάνη ζάρισα προσαγορευομένη, λόγχῃ παρόμοιος, ποιοῦσα πρὸς ἀμβλυωπίας ἄριστα” [“there grows in the same place an alga called zarisa, like a spearhead, which does excellent things for weak sight”]. Ctesias of Cnidus, bk. 2, De montibus, ibid.: “γεννᾶται δ’ ἐν αὐτῷ” (in a mountain of Mysia) “λίθος ἀντιπαθὴς προσονομαζόμενος, ὃς κάλλιστα ποιεῖ πρὸς ἀλφοὺς” (vitiligines) “καὶ λέπρας” [“there is in the same place a stone called curative, which does excellent things for vitiligo and leprosy”]. Clitophon of Rhodes, bk. 1 Indicorum, ibid. writes about an Indian herb: “ποιεῖ δ' ἄριστα πρὸς ἰκτέρους” (ad morbum regium) [“does excellent things for jaundice”].1 (Bologna, 30 October 1826.)