Writing: see Language: ALPHABET, ORTHOGRAPHY, PRONUNCIATION: writing
Writing (art of): see Language
Wynne, John (1667–1743). English philosopher, author of An Abridgement of Mr. Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding: 3255
X
Xanthus. One of the horses of Achilles: 3103
Xenocrates (c. 396/395–c. 314/313 BCE). Greek philosopher and head of the Platonic Academy: 527
Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570–c. 475 BCE). Greek philosopher, poet and social and religious critic: 19, 1469, 4345
Xenophobia: 119, 123, 880
Xenophon (c. 428–354 BCE). Greek historian and disciple of Socrates: 4, 519, 1057, 1658, 2104–105, 2409, 2452, 2671, 2674–75, 3893, 4047, 4076, 4345–46; ART, LANGUAGE, STYLE: 62, 93–94, 126, 237–38, 319, 466–69, 845, 849, 882–83, 1519, 1689, 1794, 2104–105, 2114, 2204, 2284–85, 2369–72, 2513–514, 2578–79, 2632, 2687, 2773, 2866–67, 2914, 3352–53, 3472–75, 3629, 3817, 4041, 4118, 4119, 4150, 4152, 4327–28, 4435–36, 4464, 4467; SPECIFIC WORKS: Agesilaus: 2626, 3893; Anabasis: 466–69, 4150, 4467; Apomnemoneumaton (also known as Memorabilia): 2354, 2395, 2400–401, 2486, 4118, 4119, 4152, 4430, 4435; Constitution of the Athenians: 741, 785–86, 793, 1135, 2061–62, 3966; Constitution of Sparta: 3893; Cynegeticus: 2204, 3474, 4041; Cyropaedia: 164, 882–83, 920, 1658, 3470; Hellenica: 468–70, 1794, 2671, 2674–75; Oeconomicus: 2454, 2455, 2470–71, 2526–27, 2686; Poroi: 2687; Symposium: 2368, 2370–71, 2379, 2773, 2967, 3353, 4047, 4145
Xerxes (fifth century BCE). King of the Persians: 4153
Y
Yezo. A part of Japan: 1215
Youth, the young: 102, 2962–72, 4310–11, 4421–22, 4422–23; ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES (WASTED YOUTH): 128, 130, 195–96, 593–95, 1169–70, 2736–39, 2987–89, 3293, 3520–25, 3922, 4517–18; EXPERIENCE OF THE WORLD AND OF SOCIETY: 76, 232, 681, 1063–65, 1165, 1387, 1436–37, 1473–74, 1573, 1866–69, 1903, 1939–40, 2032–33, 2473–74, 2523–24, 2555, 2684–85, 3440–41, 3822, 3837–42, 4038, 4180, 4420–21; LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP: 1724–25, 3301–303, 3444–46, 4482; THE OLD: 294–99, 1421, 1472–73, 1660, 2643, 3344, 3520–25, 4231–32, 4268, 4517–18; SELF-LOVE, PLEASURE, HAPPINESS/UNHAPPINESS, DESPAIR: 232, 278–80, 302, 313, 618–19, 1555–56, 1585–86, 1974–75, 2495–96, 2555, 2736–39, 2752–55, 2926–28, 3266–67, 3293, 3837–42, 3879–80, 3922, 4180, 4266–67; TALENT AND EDUCATION: 1472–73, 1866–69, 1939–40; VICES AND VIRTUES: 1420–21, 1473–74, 1573, 1595, 2156–57, 2473–74, 3274–80, 3282–83, 3520–25, 3846, 3942–44, 4287
Z
Zachary, St. (Zacharias) (741–752). Last Pope of the Byzantine Papacy: 4212
Zanchini, Orazio (fl. sixteenth century). Florentine man of letters, the subject of an elegy by Chiabrera: 26
Zanolini, Antonio (1693–1762). Paduan Hebrew scholar: 882, 1390
Zanotti, Francesco Maria (1692–1777). Italian poet and Newtonian philosopher: 160
Zappi, Giambattista Felice (1667–1719). Poet from Imola, one of the founders of Arcadia: 28, 31
Zeno of Citium (Cyprus) (c. 333–262 BCE). Greek philosopher, founder of the Stoic school: 3470
Zoophytes: see Animals
Zopyrus. Famous physiognomist from the time of Socrates: 1829, 3201, 4458
Zosimus (late fifth century CE). Greek historian, author of an extant history in Greek of the Roman empire from Augustus to 410 CE: 2732
Zuraggen, Xavier. Author of Vertheidigung des Wilhelm Tell (1824): 4340
Zurlo, Giuseppe (1759–1828). Minister of finance and of the interior in the Kingdom of Naples: 4434
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Copyright © 2013 by The University of Birmingham
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First edition, 2013
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leopardi, Giacomo, 1798–1837.
[Zibaldone. English.]
Zibaldone / Giacomo Leopardi; edited by Michael Caesar and Franco D’Intino; translated from the Italian by Kathleen Baldwin … [et al.]. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 978-0-374-29682-7 (alk. paper)
I. Caesar, Michael. II. D’Intino, Franco. III. Baldwin, Kathleen. IV. Title.
PQ4708.Z3213 2013
858'.703—dc23
2012023322
www.fsgbooks.com
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eISBN 9781466837058
This book was translated thanks to a grant allocated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy.
Questo libro e’ stato tradotto grazie ad un contributo da parte del Ministero degli Affari Esteri Italiano.
aSee on this point p. 3441.
a῎Ιδιον, strange. See my observations on the Greek paradoxographers. “Mirum hoc videre potest, quod” [“It may seem strange that”], etc.
aΔίκαιος. Respectable man, honest man.
bΣυκοφάντης. Slanderer, informant, spy.
aNote in this regard that, while it is certain that man’s body cannot be perfected, indeed, that it deteriorates with civilization, and hence that there is no perfectibility for man as regards the body (which, indeed, no one ever claimed or would claim), his infinite perfectibility as regards the mind is nonetheless asserted (as regards the body, even if one sought to treat as perfections those things which are today regarded as such, and which in nature are for the most part the reverse, it is nonetheless certain that perfectibility would be absolutely finite).
aSee The Monthly Repertory of English Literature, Paris, June 1811, no. 51, vol. 13, pp. 317, 325, 326.
aArticle drawn from the Monthly Magazine and reproduced in the Spettatore of Milan, 15 October 1816, Issue 62, pp. 78–79, entitled “Lingua Persiana.” Foreign Section.
aWith regard to the participles in tus of Latin neuter or active verbs that have a passive desinence often with an active or neuter meaning, see Burmann’s notes to Velleius, bk. 2, ch. 97, § 4. In fact Latin, according to a commonly held opinion, is supposed to lack past participles signifying action, save in the case of deponent verbs. See Forcellini, under Musso, end and see Partus a um, and Pransus, and Coenatus, and pp. 2277, 2340.
aSee in this regard pp. 1240–42 and note that verbs in eggiare seem at least sometimes to have an effectively continuative force as is the case with fronteggiare [to face], scarseggiare [to be in short supply], and many, many others, which are in various senses continuous and clearly distinguishable from the frequent and from the diminutive: biancheggiare [to be white, to turn white], rosseggiare [to redden], neuter, etc.
aAccording to Forcellini, the verb obligari occurs in Ovid with the specific meaning of cogi, iubari as in Italian one says to be obliged to do, etc. But Forcellini is mistaken. Here is the passage in Ovid with the necessary accompaniment of the surrounding verses, whereas Forcellini cites just the one line (Tristia, 1, second elegy, ll. 81ff.):
Quod faciles opto ventos, (quis credere possit?) Sarmatis est tellus quam mea vota petunt.
Obligor, ut tangam laevi fera litora Ponti; Quodque sit a patria tam fuga tarda queror.
[The reason why I wish for favorable winds (who can believe it?) is the Sarmatian lands, which my vows are seeking.
I am obliged to reach the savage shores of the left side of Pontus And I lament that my flight from my native land is so slow].
Obligor [I am obliged] does not here mean cogor [I am forced], iubeor [I am ordered], as Forcellini maintains, and as it seems to mean if this line is recited on its own, when it becomes identical to them; but it means fo voti [I make a vow], I put myself under an obligation through vows, not indeed I am compelled; and it is akin to saying obligor votis (since this is evident from the context, and from the word vota [vows] in the preceding line),1 an expression of the same kind as those in Cicero, obligare militiae sacramento [to bind by a military oath of allegiance], obligare sempite
rna religione [to pledge by eternal religion], obligare scelere [to bind by guilt]; and in Livy, obligari foedere [to be bound by a compact]; and in Horace, obligare caput suum votis [to bind yourself by oaths sworn on your life]. In Horace, however, it means devovere [to vow as an offering or sacrifice], etc. See Horace, 2, 8, l. 5, Odes. See p. 2246.
aNote in this regard that from the start the Venetian and Tuscan dialects vied for preeminence, precisely because Venice was also remarkable for its commerce. See Monti, Proposta, etc., vol. 2, paragraph 1, p. 191 and also p. 168, end.
aYou have to be an artist to have ideas that are a little bit definite regarding the beauty of the figure, and even artists have less solid and definite ideas about it than they do about the face.
aOther editors read, more accurately, flumine.
aAs if in this light and manner to confirm what that old man said to Pico about the stupidity of old men who had been extraordinarily bright as children.
aHere one can give the example of the verb sustentare, a true continuative, not of tenere (whence the continuative tentare) but of its compound sustinere [to support]. See Forcellini under sustento. “Ex meis angustiis illius sustento tenuitatem” [“I help him as best I can out of my own meager funds”], “egestatem lenocinio … sustentavit” [“supported his destitution … by turning his house into a brothel”], etc. etc. He would not have been able to say sustineo, sustinuit. Sostentar la vita works very well in Italian; but not however sostenere for mantenere, an obvious continued action.
aThe purpose of literature is principally to govern the life of the unlettered; it is in short useful to them, and they have to make use of it. Now, I have never known the condition of those who are served to be worse than and inferior to that of those who serve.
aContradictorily. Do we not perhaps find thousands of contradictions between characters, opinions, customs, from different times, nations, climates, individuals, civilized peoples between themselves, and between them and the uncivilized, and the latter between themselves, etc.? Yet all have the same elementary principles that constitute human nature.
a“The Latin lapidary inscriptions found in the subalpine cities of Italy often let us identify what province the authors were from. Thus the letter W, which is one of the most characteristic marks of the ultramontane alphabet, is found in those which belong to the Gallic Colonies” (p. 58).
aSciences that are entirely exact in their method of demonstrating and in their notions, propositions, parts, and dogmas, teaching, subjects, etc., such as mathematical sciences, Speroni (Dialoghi, Venice 1596, p. 194, middle) calls scienze certe [exact sciences]. Generally, however, the ones which I mean here, he calls demonstrative (pp. 160, middle, 161, beginning, etc., and thus demonstrative reasons p. 181, as opposed to probable and persuasive or conjectural). This name embraces both the exact and the less certain, whether they be speculative moral or material, etc.
aOthers claim, and it is likely, that ɛἰδὼς, ἑστὼς, βɛβὼς, etc., are middle preterit perfect participles. See p. 2975 and Scapula under Μέλɛι.
aPerhaps suspicor [to mistrust] or suspico, and auspico or auspicor [to take the auspices], from specio [to look], form part of this argument, unless the former were rather to come from suspicio onis [mistrust], and the latter from auspicium [auspices], or from auspex auspicis [augur]. Perhaps again we should here mention plico [to fold] from plecto [to plait], regarding which verbs I believe that I have argued in a different way elsewhere [→Z 1167]. From plecto–plexus the continuatives amplexor and complexo are also formed. And note that we also find amplector aris instead of amplector eris, which on the other hand would confirm that plecto is was an anomalous continuative of plico, as I believe I have said elsewhere [→Z 1167, 2226]. See p. 2903.
aThe ancient and first Latin writers also have a wholly informal flavor and manner, whether poets, like Ennius and the tragedians, of whom there are only fragments, Lucretius, etc.; or prose writers, like Cato, Cincius, and other Chroniclers, of whom there are also fragments, etc.
aSupposing for the sake of argument that the Hebrew language does have genius, or another character apart from that of not having any. And certainly the Hebrew language, by dint of being unformed, can perhaps be well represented and imitated by a translation in any language, which by dint of being too precise is also unformed in its turn. This is something that would not happen in any other case. See pp. 2909, 2910 end–2913. See also an addition to this page on p. 2913.
aNot only do Hebrew writers or the various topics in Hebrew not have a style, but even the language itself does not have one, that is to say, a definite manner, such as French has, one, indeed, that is all too definite. Because the Hebrew language is too unformed to have a style of its own, and is the polar opposite of French so far as formlessness is concerned. See p. 2853, margin. See p. 3564.
aSee p. 2841 end. Potus us [drink] is from po, not from poto, as motus us [motion] is from moveo, not from moto as, and you may wish in this regard to look at p. 2975, beginning.
aAs is also borne out by their respective meanings, whether through affinity or through continuity, etc. Likewise from cello, to move, with a meaning analogous to that of veho [to carry], is formed procello [to cast down] (whence procella [storm]), which is nearly vexo [to move violently] and percello [to beat down]; etc. etc. etc.
aI refer here to those ideas that decidedly advance the human mind and the intellect. There are many new ideas which are only such insofar as they are newly compounded of other, already known ideas (as opposed to the new ideas referred to here). But these latter pertain for the most part to the imagination, and it is up to the poet to provide them for us. And the intellect gains nothing thereby. Other new ideas come directly from the senses, when we see or hear, etc., things not yet seen or heard, and we cannot now determine whether these ideas are simpler or more composite than those already possessed. But these new ideas do not derive from the intellect, which we are talking about now.
aNote that the names of the Hebrew letters (from which are derived those of the Greek letters, which in Greek do not signify anything) all have a meaning wholly independent of their respective letters, and are words in the language, and do not have any relationship to one another, or with their respective letters, aside precisely from the fact that they begin with it, as aleph, doctrine; beth, house, etc.
aSee Chateaubriand, Génie, Paris 1802, part 2, bk. 2, ch. 10, end, tome 2, pp. 105–106.
aLike fornicare [to fornicate] from fornix fornicis, and many others; duplico [to double] from duplex, triplico, etc., frutico [to sprout] from frutex, rusticor [to live in the country] from rusticus. See pp. 3752–54.
aVeduto in fact would be the completely regular viditus, according to what is said on pp. 3074ff. and 3362–63. So from fundo [to pour, to melt] regularly funditus shown from funditare [to hurl]; from medeo [to cure], meditus shown by meditare [to think upon], as I say elsewhere, that is pp. 3352–60.
aNote however that in the same way one says populus (from which come populo and populor [to lay waste]) and popellus [rabble]. In Phaedrus, 4, 7, l. 22 fabella is a true diminutive of fabula [story], as popellus is of populus. In such a case favella [speech] and favellare [to speak] which the Latins said as fabula and fabulare, belong to the class of our diminutives which are used in place of positives. We also have the positive favola [fable], but in a different sense, still Latin however. See p. 3062.
aPetrarch, Triumph of Fame, ch. 2, tercet 48.
bAt that time there were more private politicians in Italy than elsewhere, precisely the opposite of the situation today, because unlike the situation today, on the one hand culture, love of letters and sciences, and erudition were greater and more common and more widely diffused among the different classes in Italy (which issues were discussed among us in the vernacular, and in the other nations, with the exception of Spain, in Latin), and on the other turbulent freedom fomented by the plethora and small size of the different States, enabled those who had breached the
law, or spoken or written too liberally, or offended some prince or republic in the Italian state in which they originally resided, to find safety and impunity with ease, by crossing borders and changing residence.
aArgante, Clorinda, and Solimano. Solimano and Argante are also expressly rivals, but all three are equal in valor. There are no other Heroes in the Gerusalemme among the Infidels. See p. 3525.
aSee Tasso, Gerusalemme, 17, 93–94, where he is speaking of Alfonso II of Modena, and compare this with the passages I have noted in Speroni on p. 3132, margin, beginning. See p. 4017.
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