Moral Fables

followed by

Thoughts
Giacomo Leopardi
Translated by J.G. Nichols

ALMA CLASSICS
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Moral Fables first published in Italian in 1824
This translation first published by Alma Books Ltd in 2017
Thoughts first published in Italian in 1837
This translation first published by Hesperus Press Ltd in 2002
First published in a revised version by Alma Books Ltd in 2017
Translation, Notes and Extra Material © J.G. Nichols 2002, 2017
Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
isbn: 978-1-84749-580-8
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 Contents
Moral Fables
The History of the Human Race
Hercules and Atlas
Fashion and Death
Prizes Offered by the Satirographical Academy
Sprite and Gnome
Malambruno and Farfarello
Nature and a Soul
The Earth and the Moon
Prometheus Lays a Bet
Physicist and Metaphysician
Torquato Tasso and His Familiar Spirit
Nature and an Icelander
Parini, or On Glory
Frederick Ruysch and His Mummies
Memorable Statements of Filippo Ottonieri
Christopher Columbus and Pedro Gutierrez
In Praise of Birds
The Canticle of the Wild Cock
Apocryphal Fragment of Strato of Lampsacus
Timander and Eleander
Copernicus
Plotinus and Porphyry
A Pedlar of Almanacs and a Passer-by
Tristan and a Friend
Notes
Thoughts
Notes
Extra Material
Leopardi’s Life
Leopardi’s Works
Select Bibliography
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Moral Fables
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 The History of the Human Race*
They say that in the beginning all the inhabitants of the world were
created at one and the same time everywhere, and all of them as children,
and that they were nurtured by the bees, the goats and the doves, just as
the poets fabled concerning Jove’s upbringing.* And that the earth was
much smaller than it is now, almost all the land flat, the sky without stars,
the sea not yet created, and that there was much less variety and splendour
in the world than we see today. Men nevertheless took an insatiable
pleasure in observing and considering the sky and the earth, marvelling at
them and thinking them both beautiful and not merely vast but infinite, in
extent as in majesty and grace. They fed themselves besides with the most
joyful hopes and, taking unbelievable delight in every emotion they felt,
grew up in great contentment, almost believing that they were happy.
Having spent their childhood and early adolescence so pleasantly, and
coming to a time of greater maturity, they started to sense a certain
change. Their hopes, which up to then they had gone on deferring from
day to day, without their having yet come into effect, seemed to them to
deserve little credence; and the idea of being content with what they
enjoyed at present, without the promise of any increase of their well-
being, did not attract them. This was above all because the appearance of
natural things and every detail of their daily lives, either through long
custom or through a decline of man’s primeval mental vivacity, fell far
short of being as delightful and pleasing to them as in the beginning. They
roamed over the earth and visited the most distant places, since they could
do that easily, the land being flat and not divided by seas, and there being
no other difficulty to impede them; and after many years most of them
realized that the earth, although big, was established within certain
bounds which were not so wide as to be beyond comprehension, and that
all places on earth and all men were, with only slight differences, like one
another. For which reasons their discontent increased so much that, before
they had left their youth behind, an overt distaste for their existence took
universal possession of them. And gradually during their maturity, and
even more in their declining years, as satiety turned to hatred, some of
them were filled with such desperation that, unable to bear the light and
the breath of life, which in early times they had so much loved, they
spontaneously, some in one way and some in another, deprived themselves
of them.
This situation horrified the gods – that living creatures preferred death to
life, and that life itself in some of its own subjects, without the force of
necessity or any other influence, should be the instrument of their
destruction. Nor is it easy to say how surprised they were that their gifts
were held to be so contemptible, so abominable that anyone should make
every effort to divest himself of them and reject them; for it seemed to the
gods that they had placed in the world so much goodness and charm, and
such arrangements and circumstances, that this dwelling place ought to be
not merely tolerated, but most dearly loved by any creature – and most of
all by men, that race they had taken particular care to bring to a state of
wonderful excellence. But at the same time, besides being touched in no
small way by pity for so much human misery as events revealed, the gods
even feared that, if these sad examples were to be repeated and multiplied,
the human race in a short time, against the decrees of the Fates, would
come to perish, and everything would be deprived of that perfection which
our species bestowed upon it, and they themselves of those honours which
they received from men.
Jove decided therefore to improve the human condition, since that
seemed to be required, and with greater favours to guide men towards
happiness; and he realized that men complained mainly that things were
neither of such immense size – nor infinite in beauty, perfection and
variety – as they had at first thought them to be; things were on the
contrary very restricted, all of them imperfect, and almost all shaped alike;
and he saw that men, deploring not only increasing age, but their time of
maturity, and even youth itself, and desiring the sweetness of their early
years, prayed fervently to be restored to childhood, and to remain in that
state all their lives. In this Jove was unable to satisfy them, since it would
be contrary to the universal laws of nature and to those duties and services
that men should, in accordance with divine decree, perform and provide.
Neither could he communicate his own infinity to mortal creatures, or
make matter infinite, or make the perfection and happiness of things and
men infinite. It seemed good to him, therefore, to broaden the bounds of
creation, to adorn it more and make it more varied; and once he had taken
this decision, he enlarged the earth all round, and poured the sea into it so
that, being interposed between the inhabited areas, it diversified the
appearance of things and, by interrupting travel, prevented their bounds
being easily known to men, and so presented to the eye a lively semblance
of immensity. At that time those new waters covered the land of Atlantis,*
and not that alone, but other vast and innumerable tracts, although of
Atlantis there is a particular memory, one that has survived over countless
centuries. Many places he lowered, many he filled up by raising mountains
and hills; he sprinkled the sky with stars, refined and purified the nature of
the air and increased the brightness of daylight; he deepened the colours
of the sky and the countryside and made them more various than before,
and confused the generations of men so that the old age of some coincided
with the youth and childhood of others. And, resolving to multiply the
appearances of that infinitude which men desired above all (since he could
not gratify them with the reality) and wishing to feed and encourage their
imaginations (from which he understood the great blessedness of their
childhood had principally proceeded), among the many expedients which
he adopted (like that of the sea) he created echoes, which he hid in the
valleys and caves, and he placed a deep, hollow murmur in the woods,
together with a vast swaying of their treetops. In the same way, Jove
created the crowd of dreams, and charged them with deceiving, under
various guises, the thoughts of men, and with suggesting to men that
fullness of incomprehensible happiness which he saw no way to bring
about in reality; Jove charged them also with suggesting those confused
and indefinite images of which he himself, even if he had wished to and
men had ardently desired it, could not produce one actual example.
By these measures taken by Jove, the minds of men were recreated and
elevated, and the charm and love of life renewed in each of them, no less
than their persuasion of the delight and wonder of the beauty and
immensity of earthly things. And this happy state lasted longer than the
first, mainly because of the different times of birth introduced by Jove, so
that those minds that had grown cold and weary through their experience
of life were comforted by seeing the warmth and hopefulness of those in
their salad days. But in the course of time, once the novelty had
disappeared, and tedium and the contempt of life were restored and
reconfirmed, men were reduced to such despondency that it was then, so it
is believed, that the custom arose which history records as preserved by
certain ancient peoples: when someone was born, relatives and friends
gathered to lament him; and the day of his death was celebrated with
feasts and discourses congratulating the dead man. In the end all mortals
turned to impiety, either because it seemed to them that they were not
listened to by Jove, or because it is the nature of wretchedness to harden
and corrupt even the most cultivated minds and make them fall out of love
with honesty and righteousness. Anyway, this is why they are deceived
who believe that man’s unhappiness was brought about in the beginning
by their iniquity and their crimes against the gods: on the contrary, their
wickedness had no other source but their afflictions.
Now, when the gods had punished the arrogance of mortals with
Deucalion’s flood and taken vengeance for the affronts they had suffered,
the two sole survivors from the universal drowning of our race, Deucalion
and Pyrrha, deciding for themselves that nothing could be of more help to
humankind than its extinction, sat on top of a crag summoning death
with the most earnest longing, neither fearing nor deploring the common
fate. However, exhorted by Jove to redress the earth’s solitude, and not
being able to bring themselves, in their discouragement and disdain for
life, to set about the work of generation, they took stones from the
mountain, as the gods instructed them, and, throwing them over their
shoulders, they restored the human race.* But Jove was aware from past
experience of the true nature of men, how it is not enough for them, as it
is for other creatures, to be alive and free from all bodily aches and pains,
and how, in fact, since they always desire in all circumstances the
impossible, this desire troubles them the more, the less they are afflicted by
other ills. He decided therefore to preserve this wretched race by novel
means, and two especially. The first was to fill their lives with real ills; the
second was to involve them in a thousand toils and trammels, in order to
occupy them and distract them as far as possible from conversing with
their own minds, or at least with that unknown and vain felicity of theirs.
So he began by spreading among them a multitudinous variety of
diseases and an endless array of other misfortunes. He wished, by varying
the conditions and chances of mortal life, to obviate satiety and increase
the value of benefits in contrast to ills; and he hoped that the lack of
pleasure, in those now accustomed to worse things, should prove to be
much more bearable than it had in the past; and he even had the intention
of breaking and taming men’s ferocity, training them to bow the neck and
yield to necessity, reducing them to being more easily satisfied with their
own lot, and blunting, in minds weakened no less by the infirmity of their
bodies than by their personal travails, the edge and vehemence of their
desire. Besides which, he knew that it must happen that men oppressed by
disease and calamities would be less ready than formerly to turn their
hands against themselves because they would be cowed and disheartened,
as happens with the experience of suffering. Which also has the effect, by
opening the way to hopes of better things, of binding men to life: because
those who are not happy are firmly persuaded that they would be happy
indeed once they recovered from their personal misfortunes; which, as is
the way of men, they never fail to hope will come about somehow.
Thereafter he created the storms of wind and cloud, armed himself with
thunder and lightning, gave Neptune his trident, propelled the comets in
their courses and ordained eclipses; with these things and with other
dreadful signs and effects he arranged to terrify mortals from time to time,
knowing that fear and present danger would reconcile to life, for a short
time at least, not merely those who were unhappy, but even those who held
life in the greatest abomination and were most disposed to flee from it.
And to banish their previous laziness he infused into the human race the
need and the appetite for novel food and drink; these could not be
provided without a very great effort, whereas before the flood men,
quenching their thirst with water alone, had fed on the herbs and fruits
which the earth and trees gave them spontaneously, and with other simple
nutriments which were easy to procure, such as some peoples live on even
today, especially in California. He assigned different climates to different
places, and likewise to different seasons of the year, which up to that time
had always been benign and pleasing over the whole earth; men had had
no need of clothing, but from this time forth they were constrained to
provide themselves with it, and to cope with the changes and inclemency
of the weather with much hard work. He commanded Mercury to found
the first cities, and to divide the human race into peoples, nations and
tongues, placing competition and discord among them; and to reveal to
men the art of singing and those other arts, which because of their nature
and origin were called, and still are called, divine. Jove himself gave laws,
conditions and civil ordinances to the new peoples; and finally wishing
them to have the benefit of one incomparable gift, he sent among them
some phantasms* of excellent and superhuman appearance, to whom he
granted to a great extent government and power over these peoples: these
phantasms were called Justice, Virtue, Glory, Patriotism and other such
names. Among which phantasms there was likewise one called Love,
which only at that time, like all the others, made its first appearance upon
earth: because previously, before clothes were worn, it was not love, but
sheer cupidity, not dissimilar in the men of that time to what it is at all
times in beasts, which urged one sex towards the other, in the same way as
everyone is drawn to food and similar things, which are not truly loved,
but hungered for.
It was wonderful how much good fruit for mortal lives these decrees
brought forth, and how far the new condition of men – notwithstanding
their labours, their alarms and their grief, which were things previously
unknown to our race – surpassed in comfort and pleasure what had been
before the flood. And this effect derived in great part from those
marvellous phantasms: by men they were regarded now as spirits, now as
gods, and followed and venerated with inestimable ardour and with vast
and phenomenal labours for many a long age; the poets and other noble
artists for their part took infinite pains inspiring men to do this, to such an
extent that innumerable mortals did not hesitate to offer up and sacrifice,
to one or other of these phantasms, their very lifeblood. This was not
unwelcome to Jove; indeed it pleased him beyond measure because, apart
from anything else, he judged that men must be less prompt to throw their
lives away voluntarily, the readier they were to lay them down for beautiful
and noble causes. In duration too these good arrangements exceeded the
former ones by far: although after many centuries they manifestly
decayed, even after their decline and fall they were nevertheless of great
force: right up to the start of an age not very remote from the present one,
human life, which by virtue of these ordinances had once been, in certain
periods especially, almost joyful, continued to be, on their account,
reasonably easy and tolerable.
The causes of this change, and the means by which it occurred, were the
many expedients discovered by men to provide for their own needs easily
and quickly; the immeasurable growth of the disparity in the conditions
and responsibilities instituted among men by Jove when he founded and
organized the first republics; the sloth and vanity which, after being exiled
so long, for these reasons occupied life once more; the diminution, not
merely of the substance of things, but still more of men’s opinion of the
grace and variety of human life, as always happens after long habituation;
and finally those other graver matters which, since they have been
identified and described by so many, need not be specified now.* Certainly
among men there was a renewal of that boredom with their own affairs
that had troubled them before the flood, and there was a resurgence of
that bitter desire for a happiness unknown and alien to the nature of the
universe.
But the complete reversal of their fortunes, and their final exit from that
state which today we are accustomed to call “ancient” arose mainly from a
different cause. And this is what it was: among those phantasms which
were so esteemed by the ancients there was one called in their tongues
Wisdom who, honoured universally like all her companions and held in
particular veneration by many, had contributed as they had to the
prosperity of past ages. Wisdom had more and more frequently, indeed
daily, promised and sworn to her followers that she would show them
Truth, who she said was a very great spirit, and her own mistress, and had
never come down to earth, but was seated with the gods in heaven.
Wisdom promised to use her own authority and charm to draw Truth
thence, and to induce her for some period of time to wander among men;
so that, with long use and familiarity, the human race would reach a stage
that, in height of understanding, excellence of institutions and customs,
and happiness of life, would be well-nigh comparable to the divine. But
how could a mere shade and an empty semblance make good any promise,
and especially that of bringing Truth to earth? So men, after believing and
trusting for so long, realized the vanity of those professions; and at the
same time they hungered for something new, particularly because of the
sloth in which they lived. So, urged partly by their ambition to equal the
gods, and partly by their desire for that bliss which, according to the
words of that phantasm Wisdom, they thought they would, after some
acquaintance with Truth, achieve, they turned to Jove and in the most
insistent and presumptuous terms asked him to permit that most noble
spirit to come to earth. They rebuked him for denying his creatures the
enormous benefit that they would derive from that presence, and at the
same time they reproached him with the human lot, renewing their
ancient and loathsome complaints about the pettiness and poverty of their
condition. Those beautiful phantasms, the authors of so much good in
past ages, were now commonly held in little esteem: not that they were
known for what they really were, but the general low-mindedness and
customary indolence meant that no one venerated them any longer.
Consequently men wickedly cursed the greatest gift that the eternal
powers had given and could give to mortals; they objected that the earth
was considered worthy only of lesser spirits, and that as for the greater
spirits, those before whom it would be more reasonable for the human
race to bow down, it was not thought right or proper to place them in this
world, the lowest pit of all the universe.
Jove’s goodwill had long since been alienated from mankind yet again by
many things, including their incomparable vices and misdeeds, which in
number and in seriousness had left the wickedness avenged by the flood
far behind. He was quite sickened, after all his experience of it, by the
unquiet, insatiable, immoderate nature of human beings, for whose
tranquillity, let alone happiness, he was certain by now that no measures
could provide, no condition be suitable, no place be satisfactory: even
when he had been willing to increase a thousandfold the range of the earth
and its pleasures, and things in general, these had soon seemed to men,
who were as avid for infinitude as they were incapable of it, to be
straitened, unpleasing and of little worth. Ultimately their stupid and
arrogant demands roused the wrath of the god to such an extent that he
resolved to lay all sympathy aside and to punish the human race for ever
by condemning it for all future ages to a wretchedness much greater than
that of the past. For which reason he decided to send Truth not merely to
stay with men for a while, as they requested, but to dwell for ever among
them, and made her, to the exclusion of those charming phantasms which
he had placed here, the perpetual director and mistress of the human race.
And when the other gods showed their surprise at that decision, thinking
it would raise our status too high and prejudice their own pre-eminence,
Jove disabused them of that notion. He pointed out that not all the spirits,
however great, were beneficent, and Truth was not: she would have the
same effect among men as among the gods: whereas she showed the
immortals their beatitude, to mortals she would reveal all their
unhappiness and keep it continually before their eyes, representing it as
not merely the result of chance, but something they could by no accident
or remedy escape – nor ever, while they lived, interrupt. “And since most
of their ills have this characteristic – that they are ills in so far as they are
believed to be so by those who suffer them, and are more or less as serious
as they are thought to be – one may imagine what enormous harm the
presence of this spirit will do to men.* Nothing will seem to them truer
than the falsity of all mortal goods, and nothing solid but the hollowness
and vanity of everything except their own misery. For these reasons they
will be deprived even of that hope by means of which, from the beginning
right up to the present, more than by any delight or comfort, they have
maintained their life. And, hoping for nothing, and seeing no worthwhile
result of their activities and labours, they will arrive at such negligence
and such abhorrence of any energetic – let alone high-minded – work, that
the common customs of the living will differ little from those of the dead
and buried. But in their desperation and discouragement they will not be
able to prevent their desire for immense felicity, which is innate, from
stinging and tormenting them even more than previously, in that they will
be less hampered and distracted by a variety of concerns and the impulse
of action. And at the same time they will find themselves deprived of their
natural power of imagination, which alone could to some degree supply
that happiness which is not possible, and not understood, either by me or
by those who crave it. And all those semblances of infinitude that, in
deference to their propensities, I have studiously placed in the world to
deceive and feed them with vast and indeterminate thoughts will prove to
be inadequate as a result of the doctrine and the habits that they will learn
from Truth. So that the earth and the other parts of the universe which
before seemed tiny to them will in future seem minuscule: they will be
instructed and enlightened as to the secrets of nature which, contrary to
men’s present expectation, will seem all the more restricted the more they
know about them. In the end, once their phantasms have been taken from
the earth, through the teachings of Truth, which will enable men to
understand them fully, human life will lack all value, all rectitude, in
thought as in deed; and not merely study and charity, but the very names
of nations and native countries will be extinguished everywhere, drawing
all men, as they will be in the habit of saying, into one nation and native
country, as it was in the beginning; and, professing universal love to all
their species, they will in reality disintegrate the human race into as many
peoples as there are men. So that, no one having a native land to claim as
his loved one, or foreigners to hate, everyone will hate everyone else,
loving only, out of the whole race, himself. The many and various troubles
that will arise from this would take an eternity to recount. Nor will such
great and desperate unhappiness embolden mortals to abandon the light
of day of their own accord: this spirit’s imperium will make them as
craven as they are wretched and, increasing immeasurably the bitterness of
their life, will deprive them of all power to reject it.”
These words of Jove’s led the gods to think that our fate was about to be
more savage and terrible than divine pity could consent to. But Jove went
on speaking. “They will nevertheless derive some small comfort from the
phantasm that they call Love, which I am willing, after removing all the
others, to leave in human society. And Truth will not be able, although she
is so powerful and will continually wage war against them, either to drive
men from the face of the earth, or to overcome them, except rarely. So that
men’s lives, occupied equally with the cult of that phantasm and this
spirit, will be divided into two parts, and those two will share a common
dominion over mortal minds and matters. All other occupations, except
for some few of little account, will be lacking among most men. In old age
the absence of Love’s consolations will be compensated for by their
natural tendency to be almost content with life, as happens with the other
species of animals, and to foster it diligently for its own sake, not for any
delight or comfort that they might draw from it.”
Thus, once these beautiful phantasms were removed from the earth, with
the solitary exception of Love, the least noble of them all, Jove sent Truth
to be among men, to dwell with them for ever and have perpetual lordship
over them. From this followed all those regrettable effects that he had
foreseen. And something truly amazing happened: whereas that spirit,
before her descent upon earth, when she had no power or jurisdiction
among men, had been honoured by them with many temples and
sacrifices, now that she had arrived with all the authority of a prince and
had begun to be known personally, then she – in contrast to all the other
immortals, who seem worthier of veneration the better they are known –
troubled the minds of men and struck them with such horror that they,
though bound to obey her, refused to adore her. And while those other
wraiths were accustomed to be the more revered and loved by any soul the
more they exerted their power over it, that spirit received fiercer
maledictions and deeper hatred from those over whom she achieved the
greatest dominion. So mortals, unable to escape or resist her tyranny, lived
in that extreme misery which they suffer to the present day, and always
will suffer.
Except that not long afterwards compassion, which is never utterly spent
in heavenly minds, touched the will of Jove concerning such great
unhappiness, and particularly that of some men distinguished by the
fineness of their intellect, the nobility of their habits and the integrity of
their lives; he saw that they were commonly oppressed and afflicted, more
than others were, by the power and harsh domination of that spirit. In
ancient times, when Justice and Virtue and the other phantasms governed
human affairs, the gods were in the habit of visiting their own creatures
from time to time, now one and now another coming down to earth, and
signifying their presence here in diverse ways: this had always been of the
greatest benefit either to all mortals or to some of them in particular. But
life being once again corrupted and wallowing in every kind of
wickedness, the gods had for a long time disdained to associate with
human beings. Now Jove, in pity for our extreme unhappiness, suggested
to the immortals that some of them might be persuaded to visit, as they
had in antiquity, that troubled progeny of theirs and comfort them in their
travails, especially those who showed that they themselves did not deserve
the universal disaster. They all remained silent at this, except for Love, the
son of celestial Venus, of one name with the phantasm called Love, but
utterly different in nature, virtue and deeds; he offered (being unparalleled
among the gods for his compassion) to perform the office suggested by
Jove, and to come down from heaven, whence he had never been drawn
before, because the council of the immortals, which held him inexpressibly
dear, had not allowed him to be away, even for a brief time, from their
company. Despite this, from time to time many ancient peoples, deceived
by the transformations and the various frauds carried out by the phantasm
known as Love, believed that they had unmistakable signs of the presence
of this most great god. Yet he had never visited mortals before they were
placed under the rule of Truth. Since then he visits only infrequently, and
does not stay long; this is because of the general unworthiness of the
human race, and also because the gods are very disturbed by his absence.
When he does come down to earth, he chooses the tenderest and noblest
hearts of the most high-minded and magnanimous people, and he stays
with them for a brief space; into them he infuses such rare and marvellous
sweetness, and fills them with such noble feelings, and so much virtue and
strength, that they then experience something quite new to the human
race: the actuality rather than the semblance of blessedness. Very
infrequently he joins two hearts together, embracing them both at the
same time, and inducing mutual ardour and desire; and although this is
urgently prayed for by all those of whom he takes possession, Jove does
not allow him to gratify them, apart from some few, because the felicity
which is born from such a blessing comes too near to that of the gods. In
any case, being filled with Love’s godhead surpasses in itself the most
fortunate state of any man at the very best of times. On whomsoever Love
comes to rest, that person is surrounded by those wonderful phantasms,
invisible to all other people and long cut off from human acquaintance,
which Love, with Jove’s permission, brings back down to earth for this
purpose. Nor can Truth prevent this, although she is utterly hostile to
those phantasms, and cut to the quick by their return: it is not given to
spirits to oppose the gods. And because the Fates have endowed Love with
eternal youth, so he, in accordance with his nature, in a manner answers
that first prayer ever offered up by men, which was to return to the state of
childhood: in the souls where he elects to dwell he arouses and
reinvigorates, for all the time he remains there, the infinite hope and the
beautiful and dear imaginations of our tender years. Many mortals,
inexperienced and incapable of Love’s delights, mock and taunt him all
day long, whether he is present or far off, with the most unbridled
audacity; but he does not hear their opprobrium; or, if he does hear it, is
not affected by it, so magnanimous and mild is his nature. Besides which
the immortals, satisfied with the revenge they take against the whole
species, and with the incurable wretchedness with which the whole species
is punished, are indifferent to men’s individual offences; and fraudsters
and the unjust and blasphemers against the gods have no special
punishment but to be, for their part, excluded from Love’s grace.
OceanofPDF.com
 Hercules and Atlas
A Dialogue

HERCULES: Old father Atlas,* I am sent by Jove.* He wishes me to

convey his greetings to you, and to take that weight on my back for a few
hours if you’re fagged out with it, as I did I can’t remember how many
centuries ago,* so that you may get your breath back and rest awhile.
ATLAS: I thank you, my dear Hercules, and I must say also that I am
obliged to Jove in his majesty. But the world has become so light that this
cloak I wear to protect me from the snow weighs on me more than the
world does; and if it were not for the will of Jove which compels me to
remain here without moving and hold this little ball on my back, I’d stick
it under my arm or in my pocket, or let it dangle from one of the hairs of
my beard, and I’d go and do my own thing.*
HERCULES: How can it be that it’s become so light? I am well aware that
it has changed its shape, and is now like a loaf, not round as it was in
those days when I studied cosmography in order to make that great
voyage with the Argonauts;* but despite all that, I can’t see why it should
weigh any less than before.
ATLAS: I don’t know why. But you can verify the lightness that I
mentioned right now, if you will only take it in your hand for a moment
and try the weight.
HERCULES: By Hercules, if I hadn’t tested it myself I’d never have
believed it! But what is this further novelty I notice? It was beating hard
against my back, like the heart of an animal, on the other occasion when
I supported it; and it gave out a continual kind of rumble like a hornets’
nest. But now, as for beating, it’s like a watch when the spring’s gone;
and as for buzzing, I can’t hear a thing.
ATLAS: About this too I can only say that it is a long time now since the
world stopped making any movement or any noticeable sound; and for
my part I did have a strong suspicion that it was dead, and from day to
day I expected it to infect me with its stink; and I considered how and
where I could bury it, and what epitaph I should put over it. But then,
seeing that it did not rot, I decided that from being an animal, as it was
 at first, it had changed into a plant, like Daphne* and so many others;
and that this was why it wasn’t moving or breathing; and I am still
fearful that it will soon send its roots over my shoulders and cling there.
HERCULES: I think rather that it is sleeping, and that its sleep is like that
of Epimenides,* which lasted half a century or more; or as it is said of
Hermotimus,* whose soul would leave his body any time it wanted to,
and remain out of it for many years, strolling through different countries,
and would then return, until his friends, to put an end to all these
shenanigans, burned his body, so that the spirit, when it came to re-enter,
found its home destroyed, so that if it wanted to be under cover, it would
have to rent another home, or go to an inn. But to prevent the world
from sleeping in eternity, and friends or benefactors from setting fire to
it, thinking it is dead, I should like us to try by some means or other to
reawaken it.
ATLAS: Certainly, but how?
HERCULES: I could give it a good clout with this club; but I’m afraid I’d
end up flattening it and making a wafer out of it, and that its crust, given
that it’s so light, has got so thin that it would crunch under the blow like
an egg. And I can’t even be sure that human beings, who in my day
fought hand to hand with lions and now fight with fleas, would not be
straight away stunned by the blow. It’s best if I lay down my club and you
your greatcoat, and we play ball with this wretched sphere. I’m sorry I
haven’t brought the gloves or the rackets that Mercury and I use when we
play in Jove’s house or in the garden, but our fists will do.
ATLAS: Certainly – until your father, seeing our game and wanting to join
in, with his blazing ball hurls both of us down to I don’t know where,
like Phaethon into the River Po!*
HERCULES: Admittedly – if I were, like Phaethon, the darling son of a
poet, and not Jove’s own darling son. And even if I were not his son, then
just as the poets populated cities with the sound of the lyre,* I could if I
had a mind to it depopulate heaven and earth with the sound of my club.
And as for his blazing ball, with the kick I’d give it I’d make it splatter
from here to the very attic of the empyreal heaven. But you may be sure
that if I had a whim to pull out five or six stars to play bowls with, or to
aim at a target with a comet, using it like a sling and grasping it by the
tail, or even to make use of the sun itself as a discus, my father would
 turn a blind eye. Besides which, our intention in this game is to do the
world some good. We are not like Phaethon who wished to flaunt his
personal charm in front of the Hours* who held the footboard for him
when he climbed onto his chariot; and who wished to acquire among
Andromeda and Callisto and the other beautiful constellations the
reputation of being a good coachman; and of whom it is said that in
passing he used to throw out posies of rays and little balls of sugared
light and make a good show in front of the gods in the sky when they
were out for a walk that day, which was a holiday. In brief, don’t give
another thought to my father’s anger, since I undertake, in any event, to
make good any damage. So, without more ado, take off your overcoat
and throw me the ball.
ATLAS: Like it or lump it, I shall do as you say, because you are strong
and armed, while I am old and unarmed. But at least be careful not to let
it drop, in case it gets a few more bumps, or it gets bruised somewhere,
or cracks, as when Sicily broke off from Italy or Africa from Spain; or
some fragment of it flies off, like a province or a kingdom, and provokes
a war.
HERCULES: You need have no fear on my part.
ATLAS: Here it comes! Look how it wobbles because it’s out of shape.
HERCULES: Come on, hit it a bit harder: your shots aren’t arriving.
ATLAS: It’s no use however hard I hit it, because the sou’wester’s blowing
as always, and the ball goes with the wind, because it’s so light.
HERCULES: That is its old fault – going where the wind blows.
ATLAS: I really think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to inflate it, since I notice
that it doesn’t bounce off the fist any more than a melon would.
HERCULES: That is a new fault, because in the old days it used to leap
and bound like a roebuck.
ATLAS: Go that way, quick! Quick I said! For God’s sake, don’t let it
drop! Curse the time you came here!
HERCULES: Your return was unfair – so near the ground that I couldn’t
have got there in time even if I’d been willing to break my neck in doing
so. Ah now, poor thing, how are you feeling? Have you hurt yourself
anywhere? There is not a breath to be heard and not a soul to be seen
moving: they all seem to be sleeping as before.
ATLAS: Let me have it, by all the horns of the Styx,* and I’ll settle it back
 on my shoulders. And you take up your club again, and go back to
heaven straight away and make my apologies to Jove for what has
happened, which is your fault.
HERCULES: I shall do that. In my father’s house there has for many
centuries been a certain poet, Horace by name, allowed in at the instance
of Augustus, who had himself been deified by Jove in due recognition of
the power of the Romans. This poet goes round humming little songs of
his, among which there is one that says the righteous man is unmoved
even if the world falls into ruin.* I think that nowadays all men must be
righteous, because the world has fallen and no one has moved.
ATLAS: Who would doubt men’s righteousness? But don’t just stand there
wasting time: run and tell your father how sorry I am, because every
moment I’m expecting a thunderbolt to change me from Atlas into Etna.
OceanofPDF.com
 Fashion and Death
A Dialogue

FASHION: Madame Death! Madame Death!

DEATH: Wait till the time is right, and then I’ll come without being
summoned.
FASHION: Madame Death!
DEATH: Go to the devil! I shall come when you don’t want me to.
FASHION: As if I were not immortal!
DEATH: Immortal?
By now more than a thousand years have passed”*
Since the time of the immortals ended.
FASHION: Does even Madame Death have to Petrarchize like an Italian
lyricist of the sixteenth or the nineteenth century?
DEATH: I am fond of Petrarch’s rhymes, because I find my Triumph*
among them, and because they talk about me more or less throughout.
But just leave me alone!
FASHION: Come on, for the love you bear to the seven deadly sins, stop a
moment, and look at me.
DEATH: I am looking at you.
FASHION: Don’t you know me?
DEATH: I must tell you that my sight is bad, and I can’t use spectacles,
because the English don’t make the right ones for me, and even if they
did, I wouldn’t have anything to rest them on.*
FASHION: I am Fashion, your sister.
DEATH: My sister?
FASHION: Yes. Don’t you remember that we’re both children of
Transience?
DEATH: What could I possibly remember when I am memory’s greatest
enemy?
FASHION: But I remember it well; and I know that both of us are aiming
equally at the continual destruction and change of things down here,
although you go at it one way and I by another.
DEATH: Unless you are merely talking to yourself or to someone stuck in
your throat, raise your voice and enunciate your words more clearly; for
if you go on mumbling through your teeth to me in that quavering little
voice, I shall never hear you, because my hearing, as you should know, is
no better than my sight.
FASHION: Even though it goes against all propriety, and in France they
are not in the habit of speaking to be heard, I shall speak as you want me
to, simply because we are sisters and need not stand on ceremony. I am
saying that it is our nature and common habit to change the world
continually; but while from the start you went for people and blood, I am
generally content with beards, hair, clothing, household effects, buildings
and such things. However, it is true that I have never failed, and do not
fail now, to play games as good as yours, as for example to riddle now
ears, now lips, now noses with holes, and to tear them with the trinkets
which I hang from those holes; to scorch men’s flesh with red-hot irons
which I provide so that they can brand themselves for beauty’s sake;
deform the heads of babies with bandages and other devices, establishing
the custom that all the inhabitants of a country must have heads of one
shape, as I have done in America and Asia;* crippling people by means of
narrow footwear; restricting breathing and making eyes pop out with the
tightness of corsets; and a hundred similar proceedings. Indeed as a
general thing I persuade and compel all refined people to endure a
thousand labours and a thousand discomforts every day, and pains and
torments often, and persuade some of them to die glorious deaths,* for
the love they bear to me. I shall say nothing of the headaches, the chills,
the discharges of all kinds, the fevers – quotidian, tertian, quartan –
which men acquire in order to obey me, willing to tremble with cold or
suffocate with heat in accordance with my wishes, protecting their
shoulders with woollen cloth and their breasts with linen, and doing
everything in my way even though it be to their harm.
DEATH: Now I do believe that you are my sister: I am, if you like, more
certain of it than I am of death, without any need to dig out the birth
certificate to prove it. But I am fainting with standing still like this; and
yet, if you have a mind to run by my side, make sure you don’t snuff it,
because I move fast. While we’re running you can tell me what you want;
if not, I promise you, in consideration of our parentage, when I die to
 leave you all my goods and chattels, and my best wishes.
FASHION: If we were to run a palio* together, I don’t know which of us
would win: though you can run, I go at more than a gallop; and though
you faint when standing in one place, I pine away. Therefore, let us start
running again, and as you say, while we run we can discuss our affairs.
DEATH: Let’s do it now! So, since you are my mother’s child, it would be
right and proper if you were to forward my affairs in some way.
FASHION: I’ve already done that more often than you think. In the first
place, I who continually cancel or distort all the old customs, have never
anywhere caused the practice of dying to be given up: you can see that it
has lasted universally from the beginning of the world right up to today.
DEATH: What a great miracle, that you haven’t done what you were not
able to do!
FASHION: How was I not able to? You show that you don’t know the
power of fashion!
DEATH: Well, well. It will be time to discuss this when it is no longer the
custom to die. But meanwhile I would like you, as a good sister, to help
me achieve the opposite more easily and more quickly than I have up to
now.
FASHION: I have already mentioned some of my actions that yield you so
much profit. But they are a mere bagatelle compared with those I am
going to tell you about. Bit by bit, but chiefly in these last days, I have as
a favour to you put into disuse and oblivion the labours and exercises
that promote physical well-being, and introduced or raised in esteem
innumerable others which damage the body in a thousand ways and
shorten life. Besides this, I have brought into the world such disciplines
and traditions that life itself, with respect to the body as to the mind, is
more dead then alive; to the extent that this age* may well be called the
age of death. And although of old you had no farms but tombs and
caverns, where in the dark you sowed heaps of bones and filthy dust,*
that are seeds which bear no fruit, you now have lands in the sunlight;
and people moving about here and there on their own two feet are, as it
were, your property and at your disposal from the very moment they’re
born, even if you have not yet harvested them. Moreover, while you used
to be hated and reviled, today, by my doing, things have come to such a
pass that anyone of sense esteems you and praises you, preferring you to
 life, and loves you so much that he is always calling upon you and turning
his gaze upon you as on his greatest hope. Finally, I saw that many had
boasted of wishing to be immortal, that is, not to die utterly,* because a
large part of themselves would not come into your hands. Now, although
I knew well enough that this was all empty talk, and that when they and
others went on living in the memories of men, they were living on, so to
speak, as a bit of a joke, and enjoying their fame no more than they were
suffering from the dampness of the tomb – anyway, realizing that this
business of immortality was a burning issue with you because it appeared
to lessen your honour and reputation, I have taken away the custom of
seeking immortality, and even of granting it when someone actually
deserves it. The result is that at present when anyone dies there is
certainly not a crumb of him left alive, and he may as well go
underground immediately in one piece, like a tiddler that is scoffed in a
mouthful with the whole head and bones. These are the things – not a
small number and not trivial ones – which I find I have already done for
your sake, succeeding in my wish to bolster your status on earth. And I
am ready to do as much and more every day to the same effect. It was
with this in mind that I came looking for you. It seems to me the best
thing for us is never to leave each other’s side in future: being always
together, we shall be able to discuss everything as it arises, take better
decisions than we would otherwise and put them into execution more
effectively.
DEATH: You’re right, and that is what I’d like us to do.
OceanofPDF.com
 Prizes Offered by the
Satirographical Academy
The Satirographical Academy, dedicated, as always, in accordance with its
principal purpose, to the zealous promotion of the common good, and
considering that nothing is more in keeping with this intention than aiding
and advancing the tendencies
Of the blest century in which we are
(as an illustrious poet has it),* has undertaken a diligent consideration of
the qualities and disposition of our times. After long and mature
deliberation it has been resolved that ours may be called the Machine Age,
not merely because the lives of people today proceed more mechanically
perhaps than any in past ages, but also with regard to the enormous
number of machines recently invented and adapted, or which are being
discovered and adapted to so many and such varied uses, that by now not
men but machines, one might say, handle human affairs and do the work
which life demands. In all of which the said Academy takes the greatest
pleasure, not so much in the manifest conveniences which result from this,
as in two considerations which it judges to be most important, although
not commonly remarked. One is that this Academy trusts that in the
course of time the services performed by machines and all their uses will
come to involve not only material things, but spiritual ones too; so that,
just as by virtue of these machines we are already safeguarded against
harm resulting from lightning and hailstones, and many other ills and
fears, so gradually there will be further discoveries, as for example (with
apologies for these novel terms) some anti-envies, some anti-calumnies or
anti-treacheries or anti-frauds, some safety cables or other devices to save
us from egoism, from the predominance of mediocrity, from the good
fortune of idiots, rogues and cowards, from the universal neglect and
poverty of the wise and the courteous and the magnanimous, and from
other such inconveniences which for several centuries it has been less
possible to avert than the effects of lightning and hail once were. The
other consideration, and the main one, is that, since the majority of
philosophers despair of ever being able to cure the defects of the human
race, which, it is believed, are very much greater and more numerous than
the virtues, and since they strongly maintain that it is more feasible to
remake the race by some new process, or to put something else in its stead,
than to amend it – for these reasons the Satirographical Academy
considers it most expedient that men remove themselves from the business
of living as much as possible, and that little by little they give way to
machines. And being resolved to contribute to the utmost of its powers to
the progress of this new arrangement, the Academy proposes as of now
three prizes to those who invent the undermentioned machines.
The function of the first will be to take on the identity and play the part
of a friend who does not censure and does not mock a friend in his
absence; does not fail to support him when he hears him criticized or
made fun of; does not prefer a reputation for being sharp and caustic, and
the provoking of men’s laughter, to the obligations of friendship; does not
divulge, to create an effect or to provide something to chat or boast about,
any secret with which he has been entrusted; does not take advantage of
his familiarity and intimacy with his friend to surpass him and supplant
him the more easily; does not nourish envy of his friend’s advantages; has
concern for this friend’s welfare and is ready to obviate or redress any
injuries to him, and is ready to meet his requests and his needs, and not
with words only. Concerning other requirements in the composition of
this automaton, the treatises of Cicero and the Marquise de Lambert on
friendship* should be kept in mind. The Academy believes that the
invention of such a machine ought not to be considered either impossible
or even particularly difficult, considering that – leaving aside the automata
of Regiomontanus, Vaucanson* and others, and the one in London which
drew shapes and portraits and wrote down whatever anyone said to it –
more than one machine* has been seen that played chess on its own
initiative. Nowadays human life is, in the judgement of many sages, a
game, and some maintain that it is less than that, and also, apart from
anything else, the game of chess proceeds more according to reason, and
what happens in it is more prudently arranged than what happens in life.
Besides which, life, being, as Pindar says, of no more substance than the
shadow of a dream,* should certainly be within the scope of an
automaton. As for speech, it seems impossible to think that men would
have any difficulty in communicating it to the machines that they make.
There are various examples of this: one reads particularly of the statue of
Memnon,* and also of the head made by Albertus Magnus,* which was so
talkative that St Thomas Aquinas came to hate it and smash it. And if the
parrot of Nevers,* although it was only a little creature, could respond to
questions and talk sensibly, there is all the more reason to believe that the
same effect could be produced by a machine conceived by the mind of man
and constructed by human hands. Such should certainly not be so
loquacious as the parrot of Nevers and others like it which we see and
hear every day, nor like the head made by Albertus Magnus, since it would
not be advisable for it annoy its friend and inspire him to shatter it. The
inventor of this machine will win a gold medal of four hundred zecchini in
weight, bearing on one side the images of Pylades and Orestes,* and on
the other the name of the prizewinner with the heading: the first to
make the ancient tales come true.
The second machine has to be an artificial man worked by steam, apt and
adjusted for the performance of virtuous and magnanimous deeds. The
Academy considers that steam vapours, since no other means seem to be
found, ought to be capable of exciting a self-propelled mechanism and
directing it towards the exercise of virtue and the achievement of glory. He
who undertakes to make this machine should read poems and romances,
which will advise him as to the qualities and operations required of this
automaton. The prize will be a gold medal of four hundred and fifty
zecchini in weight, stamped on the obverse with an image symbolizing the
Age of Gold, and on the reverse the name of the machine’s inventor with
this heading taken from Virgil’s fourth eclogue: quo ferrea primum
desinet ac toto surget gens aurea mundo.*
The third machine should be ready to perform all the offices of a lady as
imagined, partly by Count Baldassarre Castiglione who outlines his
conception in the book of The Courtier,* and partly by others who have
discussed this in various writings which are easily available, and which
should be consulted and followed, even as that of the Count. Nor should
the invention of this machine seem impossible to men in our day, since
Pygmalion in very ancient times when science was unknown was able to
construct with his own hands a wife who is held to be the best lady there
has ever been up to the present.* The creator of this machine is to be
awarded a gold medal of five hundred zecchini in weight, one side of which
will show the Arabian phoenix of Metastasio* above a plant of some
European species, while on the other will be written the name of the
prizewinner with the heading: inventor of faithful ladies and
conjugal felicity.
The Academy has decreed that the expenses incurred by these prizes will
be defrayed by what has been found in the little sack of Diogenes, former
secretary of this Academy, or by one of the three golden asses of three
Satirographical Academicians, that is Apuleius, Firenzuola and
Machiavelli,* all of whose possessions have come to the Satirographers in
legacies from those mentioned above, as can be read in the history of the
Academy.
OceanofPDF.com
 Sprite and Gnome
A Dialogue

SPRITE:* Oh, are you there, son of Sabazius?* Where are you off to?
GNOME:* My father has sent me to figure out what the devil these rogues
of human beings are up to. He’s very suspicious, because for some time
now they’ve not been causing any trouble, and there’s not one to be seen
anywhere in his realm. He suspects that they’re preparing something big
and hostile towards him: whether buying and selling by means of sheep,
and not by gold and silver, has become the custom once more; whether
civilized people are making do with paper money, as they have done more
than once in the past,* or with glass beads like savages; or whether
indeed, what seems to him the least likely, they have reinstated the laws
of Lycurgus.*
SPRITE: “You are waiting in vain: they are all dead”, as it says at the close
of a tragedy* when all the characters have died.
GNOME: What are you saying?
SPRITE: I am saying that all men are dead and the race is extinct.
GNOME: Oh, that’s an item for the newspapers. And yet up to now no
one has been seen to mention it.
SPRITE: Idiot! Don’t you realize that, since all the men are dead, there are
no papers printed any more?
GNOME: You are right. Now how will we get to know what’s happening
in the world?
SPRITE: What’s happening? That the sun has risen or set, that it’s hot or
cold, that here or there it has rained or snowed or been windy? Because,
with no human beings there, Fortune has taken off her blindfold, put on
her spectacles and hung her wheel on a hook, and she is sitting with her
arms folded, looking at events in the world without interfering any
more;* there are no longer any kingdoms or empires swelling up and
bursting like bubbles, because they’ve all gone up in smoke; no wars are
waged any more, and every year is as like every other year as an egg is
like an egg.
GNOME: And now we won’t even know what day of the month it is,
 because almanacs will not be printed any longer.
SPRITE: That will be no great loss, since the moon will not go off course
because of it.
GNOME: And the days of the week will not have names any more.
SPRITE: What, are you afraid that, if we don’t call them by name, they
won’t come? Or do you think perhaps that, once they have gone past,
they will come back if you call them?
GNOME: And we won’t be able to keep track of the years.
SPRITE: So we shall pretend to be young even when we’re not. And, not
measuring the time that has gone, we shall be less bothered about it, and
when we are very old we shall not be expecting death from day to day.
GNOME: But how did these brats come to die out?
SPRITE: Some by warring among themselves, some on voyages, some by
eating each other, more than a few by killing themselves, some by rotting
in idleness, some by racking their brains over books, some by
debauchery, and by wrecking themselves in a thousand other ways; in
short, by studying all the ways to go against their own nature and to end
up badly.
GNOME: All the same, I can’t believe that a whole animal species could
be torn up by the roots, as you say.
SPRITE: You, as a master of geology, ought to know that the case is not
new, and that in ancient times there were various kinds of animals which
are no longer found, apart from a few heaps of petrified bones. And
certainly those poor creatures did not employ any of all the artifices that,
as I was telling you, men have used in order to drive themselves to
perdition.
GNOME: It must be as you say. I’d love to see one or two of that mob
resuscitated, to find out what they would think when they saw how
everything else, although the human race is extinct, still endures and goes
on as before, since they used to believe that the whole world was created
and preserved for them alone.
SPRITE: And they simply would not understand that it was created and
preserved for sprites.
GNOME: Now that’s a bit too spritely, if you’re speaking seriously.
SPRITE: Why? I’m speaking completely seriously.
GNOME: Oh, get away with you, you buffoon! Everyone knows the world
 was created for gnomes.
SPRITE: For gnomes, who spend all their time underground? Oh, that’s
the best joke ever! What are the sun, the moon, the air, the sea, the
countryside to a gnome?
GNOME: What are the mines of gold and silver, and the whole body of
the earth except its epidermis, to a sprite?
SPRITE: Well, well, whatever they are or are not, let’s drop this dispute,
since I am sure that even lizards and gnats believe that the whole world
was created expressly for the use of their species. And so let everyone
stick to his own opinion that no one can drive out of his head. For my
part I shall say only this: that if I had not been born a sprite I would be in
despair.
GNOME: So would I if I had not been born a gnome. Now I should really
like to know what men would say about their own presumption, which
made them, apart from the other things they did to this and that, reach
their myriad arms far below ground and seize our goods by force,
declaring that they belonged to the human race, and that nature had
buried them down there and hidden them away from them as a kind of
joke, just to see if they could find them and bring them out.
SPRITE: Does that surprise you? When not only were they persuaded that
the things of this world had no other function than to be at their service,
but they imagined that the whole of existence was a mere bagatelle by the
side of the human race. That is why they described events that affected
them as revolutions in the world, and the history of the human race as
the history of the world. And all this despite the fact that, even within
the limits of the earth, perhaps as many other species were to be
numbered, not of all creatures, but solely of animals, as there were living
men; which animals, created expressly for their use, were not even aware
that the world was turning.
GNOME: Were even mosquitoes and fleas created for the benefit of
mankind?
SPRITE: Yes, they were; that is, to train them in patience, as they used to
say.
GNOME: Certainly, without fleas they would have had no occasion to
exercise their patience.
SPRITE: But pigs, according to Chrysippus,* were pieces of flesh prepared
 by nature expressly for the kitchens and larders of mankind and, so that
they would not rot, seasoned with souls instead of salt.
GNOME: On the contrary, I think if Chrysippus had had a pinch of salt in
his brain instead of a soul, he would never have dreamt up such
nonsense.*
SPRITE: And here’s something else that will amuse you: infinite species of
animals were never seen or known by men their masters. This was either
because they lived in places where the latter never set foot, or because
they were so minute men could not contrive any way of discovering them.
And there were other species of which they were not aware until recent
times. The same can be said of the genus of plants, and of a thousand
others. Similarly, through their telescopes they spotted from time to time
some star or planet which up to then, through thousands and thousands
of years, they never knew existed in the universe; and they immediately
included it in their belongings, because they imagined that the stars and
the planets were, so to speak, candle ends planted up there to give light
to Their Lordships, who transacted so much of their business at night.
GNOME: So that in summertime, when they saw those little flares coming
down through the air on certain nights, they must have said that some
spirit was snuffing out the stars in the service of mankind?
SPRITE: But now that they’ve all disappeared, the earth doesn’t feel that it
lacks anything, and the rivers are not tired of flowing, and the sea, even
though it no longer has to serve for navigation and traffic, has not been
observed to dry up.
GNOME: And the stars and planets do not fail to rise and set, and they
haven’t gone into mourning.
SPRITE: And the sun has not plastered his face with rust, as he did,
according to Virgil, at the death of Caesar,* at which I believe the sun
was every bit as troubled as the statue of Pompey was.*
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 Malambruno and Farfarello
A Dialogue

MALAMBRUNO:* Spirits of the abyss, Farfarello, Ciriatto, Baconero,

Astarotte, Alichino,* whatever your names are! I conjure you in the name
of Beelzebub, and I command you by the power of my art – which can
unfasten the moon and nail the sun in the middle of the sky – come, one
of you, with a free hand from your prince and full authority to use all the
forces of the Inferno in my service!
FARARELLO: Here I am.
MALAMBRUNO: Who are you?
FARFARELLO: Farfarello, at your command.
MALAMBRUNO: Do you come with a commission from Beelzebub?
FARFARELLO: Yes, I do; and in your service I can perform everything
that the King himself could, and more than all other creatures put
together.
MALAMBRUNO: That is well. You must gratify one wish of mine.
FARFARELLO: Your wish will be met. What do you want? To be nobler
than the Atreides?*
MALAMBRUNO: No.
FARFARELLO: To have more riches than will be found in the city of
Manoa* when it is discovered?
MALAMBRUNO: No.
FARFARELLO: A huge empire like the one they say that Charles V*
dreamt about one night?
MALAMBRUNO: No.
FARFARELLO: To have at your bidding a lady more untamed than
Penelope?*
MALAMBRUNO: No. Do you think anyone would need the Devil for
that?
FARFARELLO: Honours and good fortune, rogue that you are?
MALAMBRUNO: I’d have more need of the Devil if I wished for the
contrary.*
FARFARELLO: Then, in short, what is your command?
MALAMBRUNO: Make me happy for one moment in time.
FARFARELLO: I cannot.
MALAMBRUNO: Why can’t you?
FARFARELLO: I swear to you in all conscience that I cannot.
MALAMBRUNO: The conscience of a respectable devil?
FARFARELLO: Yes, of course. You must understand that there are
respectable devils just as there are respectable men.
MALAMBRUNO: But you must understand that I will hang you by the
tail to one of these beams here if you do not obey me immediately
without more words.
FARFARELLO: It is easier for you to kill me than it is for me to grant your
request.
MALAMBRUNO: Well then, go back, curse you! And Beelzebub must
come in person.
FARFARELLO: Even if Beelzebub does come, with the whole of Judecca
and all of Eviltiers,* he will not be able to make you happy, neither you
nor any other of your species, any more than I have been able to.
MALAMBRUNO: Not even for one single instant?
FARFARELLO: It is every bit as possible for one instant, indeed for half of
one instant, and for the thousandth part of one, as it is for a whole
lifetime.
MALAMBRUNO: But if you have no way of making me happy, do you
have at least the capability of freeing me from unhappiness?
FARFARELLO: If you can manage not to love yourself best of all.
MALAMBRUNO: I’ll be able to do that after death.
FARFARELLO: But no creature can during its lifetime: it is your nature to
be able to do anything else sooner than this.
MALAMBRUNO: That is so.
FARFARELLO: Therefore, since of necessity you love yourself with the
greatest love of which you are capable, your greatest desire is of necessity
your own happiness; and never being able by a long chalk to have this
desire, which is supreme, satisfied, it follows that you have no way of
avoiding unhappiness.
MALAMBRUNO: Not even at those times when I am experiencing some
pleasure, because there is no pleasure that will make me happy or
satisfied?
FARFARELLO: Truly, none.
MALAMBRUNO: And therefore, since it will not come up to the natural
desire for happiness, which is innate, it will not be a true pleasure; and
even during the time that it lasts, I shall not cease to be unhappy.
FARFARELLO: You will not: in men and in the other living creatures, the
lack of happiness, even without pain and without any adversity, and even
during those times you call pleasurable, clearly implies unhappiness.
MALAMBRUNO: So that from birth to death our unhappiness cannot
cease for the space of one single instant even?
FARFARELLO: It does stop, yes, whenever you sleep without dreaming, or
you pass out, or something else interrupts the use of your senses.
MALAMBRUNO: But never while we are aware of being alive?
FARFARELLO: Never.
MALAMBRUNO: So that, in the last analysis, not being alive is always
better than being alive?
FARFARELLO: If the lack of unhappiness is simply better than
unhappiness.
MALAMBRUNO: And so?
FARFARELLO: And so, if you’d like to give me your soul before time, here
I am ready to take it away with me!
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 Nature and a Soul
A Dialogue

NATURE: Off you go then, my favourite daughter! For such you shall be
considered and called through a long series of centuries. Live! And be
great and unhappy.
SOUL: What sin have I committed before my birth, that you condemn me
to that punishment?
NATURE: What punishment, my darling daughter?
SOUL: Have you not decreed that I should be unhappy?
NATURE: But only in so far as I want you to be great, and one is not
possible without the other. Besides which, you are destined to animate a
human body; and of necessity all men are born and live unhappy.
SOUL: But on the contrary it would be only reasonable if you so arranged
things so that they were by necessity happy; or, if you can’t do that, you
would do better not to send them into the world.
NATURE:* Neither of those actions lies within my power, since I am
subject to Fate,* who orders things differently, whatever the reason may
be, which you and I cannot understand. Now, since you have been
created and destined to inform a human person, no power at all, neither
mine nor anyone else’s, is capable of rescuing you from the common
unhappiness of mankind. Indeed, you will have to bear a personal and
much greater unhappiness, because of the excellence with which I have
furnished you.
SOUL: I still haven’t understood any of this: I have only this instant begun
to live, and that may be why I don’t understand you. But, tell me, are
excellence and extraordinary unhappiness substantially one and the same
thing? Or, if they are two things, can you separate one from the other?
NATURE: In the souls of men, and proportionately in the souls of all
animals, one can say that they are virtually the same thing: because the
excellence of the souls entails a greater intensity of life; and that entails a
greater feeling of their own unhappiness; which is to say, a greater
unhappiness. Similarly the greater life in the souls includes a greater
intensity of self-love, wherever it is directed, and in whatever shape it
 manifests itself; this greater quantity of self-love entails a greater desire
for happiness, and consequently greater discontent and anxiety at being
deprived of it, and greater grief at the troubles which result. All this is
contained in the primal and perpetual order of created things, which I
cannot alter.
Apart from all this, the fineness of your own intellect and the liveliness
of your imagination will prevent your having much lordship over
yourself. The brute beasts comfortably make use, for the ends that they
set for themselves, of all their faculties and strength. But it is very rarely
that men are able to employ all their power: they are usually impeded by
their reason and their imagination, which create a myriad doubts in their
deliberations and a myriad inhibitions during their execution. Those
who are the least capable, and the least accustomed to ponder and
consider within themselves, are the most ready to be resolved, and the
most efficient in action. But people like you, continually involved in
themselves, and as it were overpowered by the greatness of their own
faculties, and therefore impotent in relation to themselves, succumb to
irresolution most of the time, in their deliberations as in their actions.
This is one of the greatest troubles that afflict human life. In addition,
while in the excellence of your disposition you will quickly and easily go
beyond almost all others of your species in the most serious branches of
knowledge, and in the most difficult disciplines, you will nevertheless
always find it impossible or extremely difficult to learn or to put into
practice very many things which are insignificant in themselves but
necessary in one’s relations with other people; while at the same time
you will see these things exercised perfectly and learnt without difficulty
by a myriad minds not only inferior to you, but despicable in every way.
These and infinite other difficulties and miseries occupy and surround
great souls. But they are abundantly made up for by the fame, the praises
and the honours that are the fruit of the greatness of these exceptional
spirits, and by the lasting memory of themselves that they leave to their
descendants.
SOUL: But those praises and honours of which you speak, will I get them
from heaven, or from you, or from someone else?
NATURE: From men, because they are the only ones who can give them.
SOUL: But look, I have been thinking that, since I cannot do what is most
 necessary, as you say, in my dealings with other men, and which also
comes easily to the feeblest intellects, I am about to be reviled and
shunned, rather than praised, by those same men; or else I shall certainly
live unknown to almost all of them, as though unfit for human society.
NATURE: It is not given to me to foresee the future, nor therefore to
announce infallibly in advance what men will think or do in relation to
you while you are on earth. It is certainly true that from past experience I
deduce that they will most likely persecute you with envy (another
calamity which excellent souls usually meet with), or rather you are
about to be oppressed with contempt and unconcern. Besides which,
Fortune herself, and likewise chance, are usually hostile to people like
you. But immediately after death – as happened to someone called
Camões,* or at the most a few years later, as happened to another man
called Milton,* you will be celebrated and raised to the skies – I don’t
mean by everyone, but at least by the small number of men of good
judgement. And perhaps the ashes of the person in whom you have dwelt
will rest in a magnificent sepulchre; and his features, reproduced in
various ways, will pass through men’s hands; and the incidents of his life
will be described by many, and by others with great effort committed to
memory; and finally the whole civilized world will be full of his name.
Unless, by Fortune’s malignity, or by the very superabundance of your
faculties, you have been continually prevented from providing men with
adequate evidence of your worth; of this there is in truth no lack of
examples, known only to Fate and me.
SOUL: Mother, although I am still without other facts, I nevertheless feel
that the greatest, indeed the only, desire which you have given me is for
happiness. And if I am capable of the desire for glory, then certainly I can
only desire that glory, that blessing or curse, as happiness, or something
helpful in attaining it. Now, according to what you say, the excellence
with which you have endowed me could well be necessary or helpful for
the achievement of glory; but it does not therefore lead to happiness; in
fact it draws one ferociously towards unhappiness. Nor is it even
believable that it will lead me to glory itself before my death; and once
that has arrived, what use or what pleasure can come to me from the
greatest good in the world? And to cap it all, it may easily happen, as you
say, that this coy glory, the prize for so much unhappiness, will not be
 won by me in any way, even after death. So that from your own words I
conclude that you, rather than having a singular love for me, as you
affirmed to begin with, feel towards me greater anger and malevolence
than men and Fortune will once I’m in the world; because you have not
hesitated to give me such a calamitous gift as that excellence you boast
about to me. Which will be one of the principal obstacles preventing me
from reaching my only goal – happiness.
NATURE: My dear daughter, all men’s souls, as I have told you, have been
assigned as prey to unhappiness, through no fault of mine. But in the
universal unhappiness of the human condition, and in the infinite vanity*
of all its pleasures and advantages, glory is judged by the majority of
men to be the greatest good that is granted to mortals, and the worthiest
goal they can propose to all their cares and actions. And that is why, not
from hatred, but from the real and special benevolence that I had towards
you, I decided to lend you, for the achievement of this end, all the aids
that were in my power.
SOUL: Tell me: out of all the brute beasts which you have mentioned, does
there happen to be one furnished with less vitality and feeling than men?
NATURE: Starting with those that have something plant-like about them,
all are in that respect – some more, some less – inferior to man; he has a
greater amount of life, and stronger feelings than any other animal;
because he is the most perfect of all living things.
SOUL: Place me therefore, if you love me, with the most imperfect; or, if
you cannot do this, make me conform, despoiled of all the fatal gifts
which ennoble me, to the stupidest and insensate human spirit which you
have at any time produced.
NATURE: In this last matter I can oblige you; and I am about to do so,
since you refuse the immortality for which I had intended you.
SOUL: And in exchange for immortality, I beg you to hasten death as
much as you can.
NATURE: That is something about which I must confer with Destiny.
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 The Earth and the Moon
A Dialogue

EARTH: I know that you can speak and reply to questions, because you
are a person. At least that is what I have often been given to understand
by the poets. Besides, our children say that you really do have a mouth, a
nose and eyes, just as they all have themselves; and they say that they can
see that with their own eyes, which at their age it is reasonable to assume
must be very sharp. As for me, you must be aware that I am nothing less
than a person; in fact, when I was younger I had many little children: so
you won’t be surprised to hear me speak. Well then, my lovely Moon –
although I have been a neighbour of yours for more centuries than I can
remember, I have never addressed one word to you until now, being so
occupied with my work that I’ve had no time left for chit-chat. But now
my business has declined to almost nothing, indeed I can say it runs
itself, so I don’t know what to do and I’m choked with boredom. And so
I’m looking forward to having many a talk with you in the future and
becoming very interested in your concerns. Unless this would be a
nuisance to you?
MOON: Have no fear on that score. I only hope Fortune will protect me
as surely from every other inconvenience as I’m certain you will give me
none. If you feel like talking, talk away. Fond though I am of silence, as I
think you are aware,* I shall be only too glad to listen to you and answer.
I am at your service.
EARTH: Do you hear this delightful sound made by the heavenly bodies in
their revolution?
MOON: To be honest, I can’t hear anything.
EARTH: Neither can I – apart from the din made by the wind as it blows
from my two poles to the Equator, and from the Equator back to the
poles, showing clearly that it knows nothing about music. But
Pythagoras* says that the celestial spheres make a certain wonderfully
sweet sound; and he says also that you too play your part in this, and that
you are the eighth string on this universal lyre. But I, he says, am
deafened by the sound itself, and therefore do not hear it.
MOON: I must be deafened too: as I’ve said, I can’t hear it. And I don’t
know anything about being a string.
EARTH: Then let’s change the subject. Tell me: are you really inhabited,
as a thousand philosophers ancient and modern, from Orpheus* to
Lalande,* declare and swear? Now I – however hard I try to stretch out
these horns of mine, which men call mountains and peaks, and with the
tips of which I am gazing at you, in the manner of a snail – I cannot
manage to discover any inhabitants on you. Although I do hear that a
certain David Fabricius,* who had sharper sight than Lynceus,* on one
occasion did discover some people on you, as they were spreading out
their washing in the sun.
MOON: I don’t know what to say about your horns. Nevertheless, I am
inhabited.
EARTH: What sort of men are they?
MOON: What men?
EARTH: Those who live on you. Didn’t you say you were inhabited?
MOON: Yes. And so?
EARTH: And so your inhabitants surely can’t all be animals?
MOON: They’re neither animals nor men, for I don’t know what sort of
creature either of those are. Although you’ve already dropped me some
hints – hints about men so far as I can judge – I haven’t understood one
jot or tittle.
EARTH: Well, what sort of people are they?
MOON: Many and various. And you do not know them, any more than I
know yours.
EARTH: To me that sounds so strange that, if I hadn’t heard it from you, I
would not believe it for anything. Were you ever conquered by any of
yours?
MOON: Not to my knowledge. But how? And why?
EARTH: Through ambition, through others’ greed, by political arts, by
force of arms.
MOON: I don’t know what is meant by force of arms, ambition, political
arts; in fact, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
EARTH: But, even if you don’t know what arms are, you certainly do
know what war is: only a short while ago, a scientist down here, using
certain telescopes, which are instruments made to see things at a very
 great distance, discovered up there a fine fortress, with its lofty bastions;*
and this shows at least that your peoples are accustomed to sieges and
fighting at the walls.
MOON: Pardon me, Lady Earth, if my reply to you is rather more frank
than perhaps is fitting from a subject or maidservant of yours, which is
what I am. But truly it seems to me a vanity of vanities for you to imagine
that all things in every part of the universe must conform to yours; as if
nature had had no other purpose beyond making exact copies of you
everywhere. I say I am inhabited, and you conclude from this that my
inhabitants must be men. I inform that they are not; and then you,
accepting that they are creatures of a different kind, still do not doubt
that they have the same qualities and undergo the same vicissitudes as
your people; and for this you cite the telescopes of some scientist or
other. But if those telescopes do not see any better than that in other
matters, I am inclined to believe that their sight is as keen as that of your
children, who make out that I have eyes, a mouth and a nose, even
though I’ve no idea where I keep them.
EARTH: So perhaps it isn’t true either that your provinces are provided
with broad, clear-cut roads; or that your fields are cultivated: all things
that can be seen clearly from Germany, using a telescope?*
MOON: If I am cultivated, I haven’t noticed it, and I can’t see these roads
of mine.
EARTH: My dear Moon, you must realize that I’m a simple person and a
bit thick, so it’s not surprising that people find it easy to deceive me. But
I can tell you this: even if your peoples make no effort to conquer you,
you have nevertheless not always been out of danger; from time to time
people down here have taken it into their heads to conquer you, and
made great preparations to do so. The trouble was that when they
climbed to the highest heights, and stood on tiptoe, and stretched their
arms up, they still didn’t manage to touch you. Besides all that, for a
number of years I have seen them spying out all your lands in detail,
getting out the maps of your districts again and measuring the heights of
those mountains of yours, of which we even know the names. Because of
the good will I bear towards you, it seems to me right to warn you of all
this, so that you may be prepared for any eventuality.
Turning now to something else – how bothered are you by dogs
 howling* at you? What do you think of those people who point you out
at the bottom of a well?* Are you feminine or masculine?* I ask because
ancient opinions used to differ on that. Is it true that the Arcadians came
into the world before you did?* That your women, or whatever I ought to
call them, are oviparous, and that one of their eggs fell down here at
some time or other? That you have a hole right through you, like a rosary
bead, as a certain modern scientist believes? That you are made, as some
Englishmen affirm, of green cheese? That Mahomet one day, or perhaps
night, split you down the middle, like a watermelon; and that a large
chunk of your body slipped into his sleeve?* How is it that you are happy
to be placed on the tips of minarets? What do you think of the feast of
Bairam?*
MOON: Please carry on: while you continue in this strain I have no need
to break my accustomed silence with a reply. If you’re really anxious to
enjoy some tittle-tattle, and can’t think of any other subjects, then
instead of turning to me, who can’t understand you, it would probably
be better to get your men to construct another planet to circle round you,
one that is constituted and inhabited in the same way as you are. You
can’t talk about anything but men and dogs and such things, of which I
know about as much as I do of that enormous sun round which I hear
our own sun circles.*
EARTH: I must admit that the harder I try in our conversation to keep
away from my own concerns, the less I succeed. But from now on I’ll be
more careful. Tell me: is it you who gets a bit of fun drawing my sea
water up in the air and then letting it drop back down again?
MOON: It could be. But even if I do have that or any other effect on you, I
am not aware of doing it to you; in the same way as you, so far as I can
tell, are unaware of many effects which you have up here, which must be
greater than mine, since you are so superior to me in size and strength.
EARTH: Truly, all I know of such effects is that from time to time I keep
the light of the sun away from you, and your light away from myself; and
again, I shine brightly upon you in your nights, as sometimes I can see to
some extent. But I’m forgetting the most important thing of all. I would
like to know if it is true what Ariosto writes:* that all those things that
everyone is losing all the time – youth, beauty, health, the trouble and
expense that one goes to in serious studies in the attempt to gain honour
 for oneself, or in directing children on the right path, or in setting up and
promoting useful institutions – all these things rise and are gathered
together up there, so that everything human is to be found there, except
madness, which does not depart from humankind. Supposing this to be
true, I realize that you must be so full that you have no space left;
particularly since men have recently lost so many things (for example,
patriotism, virtue, magnanimity, integrity), not just partly or one or
other of them, as used to happen, but all of them and utterly. Certainly if
they are not there, I don’t think they are to be found anywhere. I should
therefore like us to come to an agreement, whereby you return to me all
those things immediately, and then one by one as you receive them in
future. I do think that you yourself would be glad to be rid of them, and
particularly of good sense, which I know must occupy a great deal of
space there; and I would arrange for men to pay you a large sum of
money annually.
MOON: You’re still coming back to men! And even though madness, as
you affirm, does not depart from your borders, you are trying to drive me
completely mad, and deprive me of my own good sense, by making me
search for theirs. I do not know where this might be, or whether it’s
moving about or reposing somewhere in the universe. All I know for sure
is that it is not to be found here; and neither are the other things you are
asking for.
EARTH: Can you at least tell me whether vices, crimes, misfortunes,
griefs, old age – evils, in short – are in vogue up there? You do know
what those words mean?
MOON: Oh, these I do know – and not only the words, but the things
they refer to – well enough. Because I am full up with them, unlike those
other things you imagined.
EARTH: Do merits or defects predominate among your peoples?
MOON: Defects by a long chalk.
EARTH: Which do you have in greater quantity, good things or bad
things?
MOON: Bad things by far.
EARTH: And, speaking in general, are your inhabitants happy or
unhappy?
MOON: They are so unhappy that I would not change places with the
 most fortunate of them.
EARTH: It’s the same here. And so I’m amazed that, although you are so
different from me in other ways, in this you are the same.
MOON: I resemble you also in my shape, and in moving in orbit, and in
being lit by the sun; and our common unhappiness is no more to be
wondered at than those features are: because evil is common to all the
planets in the universe, or at least in this solar system, just like roundness
and the other qualities I have mentioned, neither more nor less. And if
you could raise your voice high enough to be heard by Uranus and
Saturn, or by any other planet in our universe, and asked them whether
they had any unhappiness on them, and whether good or evil prevailed,
each of them would reply to you as I have. I say this because I have myself
put the same questions to Venus and Mercury, two planets to which from
time to time I find myself nearer than I am to you; just as I have put them
to some comets which were passing close to me: and all of them
answered me as I have answered you. And I do believe that the sun itself
and every star would answer likewise.
EARTH: Despite all that, I live in hope; and especially these days, when
men promise me such happiness in the future.
MOON: Hope as much as you like: and I can promise you that you’ll be
able to go on hoping for ever.*
EARTH: Do you know what’s happening now? These men and animals of
mine are starting to kick up a racket. That’s because on the side from
which I’m talking to you it is night-time, as you see, or rather as you
don’t see; so they were all asleep; and the noise we’re making as we speak
has awakened them and they’re terrified.
MOON: But on this side here, as you see, it’s daytime.
EARTH: Now I don’t want to frighten my people, or interrupt their sleep,
which is the greatest good they have. So we’ll continue this conversation
on another occasion. Farewell then. Good day.
MOON: Farewell, goodnight.
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 Prometheus Lays a Bet
In the year eight hundred and thirty-three thousand two hundred and
seventy-five of Jove’s reign, the College of the Muses issued, and caused to
be posted in all public places in the city and suburbs of Hypernephelos,*
various printed placards in which they invited all the gods, greater and
lesser, and all other inhabitants of the aforesaid city, who of recent years or
in times past had produced some praiseworthy invention or discovery, to
submit it, either the thing itself or as a diagram or as written description,
to those judges nominated by the said College. Apologizing for the fact
that their well-known poverty prevented their displaying such generosity
as they would have wished, they promised, as a prize to him whose
invention was judged the finest and most productive, a crown of laurel,
together with the privilege of being allowed to wear it on his head both
day and night, in private and in public, within the city and without; and to
be painted, sculptured, engraved, cast or represented in any manner or
material, with the symbol of that crown upon his head.
Not a few of the celestial beings competed for this prize, as a way of
passing the time (something which was no less necessary for the
inhabitants of Hypernephelos than for those of any other city). They had
no longing for the crown, which in itself was worth less than a straw hat;
as for glory, if men, since they became philosophers, have despised it, one
can imagine in what esteem the gods held it, who are so much wiser than
men, indeed the only wise ones according to Pythagoras and Plato. And
so, as something unique and till then unheard of in such cases of rewards
for merit, the prize was decided without any solicitations or favours or
secret promises or artifices. There were three winners: Bacchus for his
invention of wine; Minerva for hers of olive oil, essential for that
anointing which is the gods’ daily custom after their baths; and Vulcan for
his invention of a copper pot, said to be inexpensive and useful for
cooking any kind of food quickly with only a little heat. And so, because
the prize had to be divided into three, each of them was left with only a
sprig of laurel. But all three of them refused this, just as they would have
refused the whole prize. Vulcan alleged that, since he spent most of his
time near the fire of the smithy in great sweat and labour, that
encumbrance on his forehead would get in the way; besides which, it
would put him in danger of being roasted or seared if some spark chanced
to settle on those dry leaves and set them on fire. Minerva said that, since
she had to bear on her head a helmet big enough, as Homer writes, to
cover completely the armies of a hundred cities all at once, it would not
suit her to increase this weight in any way. Bacchus did not wish to
exchange his mitre, and his garland of vine leaves, for a wreath of laurel;
even though he would have been happy to accept it if he had been allowed
to place it as a sign outside his tavern; but the Muses did not agree to give
it to him for this purpose, so it remained in the public treasury.
None of the competitors for this prize bore any grudge against the three
gods who had won it and refused it, or complained about the judges, or
disagreed with the judgement – except for one. This was Prometheus, who
had taken part in the competition by sending in the model of the earth
that he had made and used in forming the first men, together with a
written statement of the qualities and functions of the human race that he
had invented. There was not a little amazement at the displeasure shown
by Prometheus in a matter like this, which by all the others, losers and
winners, had been taken as a joke. And so, when the reason was looked
into, it was realized that what he longed for was not really the honour, but
the privilege he would have gained by the victory. Some believe that he
meant to use the laurel as a defence for his head against all storms; just as
they say about Tiberius who, whenever he heard thunder, put on his
crown, in the belief that it could not be struck by lightning. But there is no
lightning or thunder in the city of Hypernephelos. Others affirm more
credibly that Prometheus, with advancing years, was starting to lose his
hair; and bearing that misfortune, as happens to many, with an ill will,
and not having read the praises of baldness written by Synesius,* or not
having been persuaded by them, which is more likely, he wished, like
Caesar the dictator, to hide the nakedness of his head beneath the diadem.
But to get back to the point. One day or other when Prometheus was
chatting with Momus* he complained bitterly that wine, oil and pots had
been preferred to the human race, which he said was the best work of the
immortals to come into the world. And when it seemed to him that he had
not fully persuaded Momus, who brought forward who knows what
arguments against him, he suggested that they should descend to earth
together, and alight at random in the first place in each of the five parts of
the earth they found to be inhabited by men; but first both had to agree to
this wager: whether in all five of the places, or in the majority of them,
they would or would not find clear evidence that man was the most perfect
creature in the universe. As soon as Momus agreed, and the stakes had
been settled, they began to descend to earth, heading first for the New
World, which, because of its name and the fact that none of the immortals
had yet set foot on it, aroused their curiosity most. They concluded their
flight at the town of Popaian,* at its northern side, not far from the River
Cauca, in a spot where there appeared many signs of human habitation:
the remains of cultivation throughout the countryside; several paths,
although they were cut short in many places, and for the most part
blocked; trees cut down and laid flat; and particularly some sites which
looked like burial places and some human bones every now and then.
Nevertheless, the two celestial beings, although they pricked up their ears
and cast their glances everywhere, could not hear one voice or discern the
shadow of one living man. On they went, half walking and half flying, for
many thousands of miles, crossing mountains and rivers, and finding
everywhere the same signs and the same solitude. “Why are these towns
empty,” Momus asked Prometheus, “since they show clear signs of having
been inhabited?” Prometheus reminded him of the sea surges, the
earthquakes, the tempests, the enormous rainstorms, which he knew to be
normal in hot climates – and in fact at that very moment they could hear,
from all the nearby woodlands, the branches of the trees shaking in the
wind and dripping continually. All the same, Momus could not
understand how that region could be subject to flooding by the sea, which
was so far away that it was not visible anywhere; still less could he
understand for what purpose the earthquakes, the tempests and the rains
had destroyed all the men in the land, while sparing the jaguars, the
monkeys, the anteaters, the opossums, the eagles, the parrots and a
hundred other kinds of terrestrial or flying animals that were wandering
about that region. At last, descending into an immense valley, they
discovered what was, so to speak, a little clump of wooden houses or huts,
covered with palm leaves, each of them surrounded by a kind of fence.
There were many people in front of one of them, some on foot, some
seated, around an earthenware pot placed above a large fire. The two
celestial beings approached, once they had taken on human form; and
Prometheus, greeting them all courteously, turned to one who looked like
the chief, and asked him: “What are you doing?”
SAVAGE: Eating, as you can see.
PROMETHEUS: What nice kinds of food do you have?
SAVAGE: This bit of meat.
PROMETHEUS: Is that farmed meat or game?
SAVAGE: Farmed. In fact it’s my son.
PROMETHEUS: Do you have a calf for a son, like Pasiphaë?*
SAVAGE: Not a calf, but a man like everyone else.
PROMETHEUS: Are you serious? You are eating your own flesh?
SAVAGE: Not my own flesh, but this fellow’s: it’s the only reason I
brought him into the world and took such care to nourish him.
PROMETHEUS: So that you could eat him yourself?
SAVAGE: Does that surprise you? And his mother too, who is hardly good
for producing more children – I’m thinking of eating her soon.
MOMUS: Just like eating a chicken after eating her eggs!
SAVAGE: And the other women I have, when they’ve become useless for
breeding, I’ll eat them likewise. And these slaves of mine whom you can
see, do you think I’d keep them alive if it were not to have their children
from time to time, and eat them? But once they’ve grown old I’ll eat
them too one by one, if I live long enough.
PROMETHEUS: Tell me: do these slaves come from your own nation or
from some other?
SAVAGE: From another.
PROMETHEUS: Very far from here?
SAVAGE: Very, very far: so far that a rivulet used to run between their
houses and ours.
And, pointing to a little hill, he added: “Over there, that’s where they
were; but our people destroyed them.”
Meanwhile it struck Prometheus that quite a number of them were gazing
at him with that loving look which a cat gives a mouse. And so, to escape
being eaten by his own creatures, he rose and flew away; and Momus did
likewise; and they were both seized by such terror that, as they went, they
fouled the barbarians’ food with the same filth as the envious harpies
excreted on the Trojans’ feast.* But these people, hungrier and less
fastidious than the companions of Aeneas, carried on with their meal.
Prometheus, dissatisfied with the New World, turned with no delay to the
oldest one – I mean to Asia. Crossing over in a mere instant from the
newly discovered Indies to the ancient continent of India, they both
descended close to Agra, in a field crowded with people gathered round a
ditch full of wood, on the edge of which, at one side, some could be seen
with blazing torches, just about to light the fire; while at the other side, on
a platform, a young woman, dressed in sumptuous clothes with every kind
of barbaric ornament, was dancing and crying out, giving every sign of the
utmost joy. Seeing this, Prometheus was put in mind of a new Lucretia or a
new Virginia, or some emulator of the daughters of Erectheus, some
Iphigenia, or Codrus, or Menoeceus, or Curtius, or Decius* who, such
was their faith in some oracle, voluntarily sacrificed themselves for their
homeland. Then, gathering that the reason for the woman’s sacrifice was
the death of her husband, Prometheus thought that she, not unlike
Alcestis,* wished to bring him back to life at the price of her own life; but
– learning that she was only willing to be burnt because this was the
custom for widows of her sect, and that she had always hated her
husband, and that she was drunk, and that the dead man, far from being
resuscitated, was to be burnt in the same fire – he immediately turned his
back on the spectacle, and took flight for Europe. On the way he had this
conversation with his companion.
MOMUS: Did it ever occur to you, when at your own great peril you stole
fire from heaven to pass it on to men, that they would exploit it, some in
order to cook each other in pots, some to burn to death of their own free
will?
PROMETHEUS: Certainly not. But just consider, my dear Momus, that
those whom we have seen so far are barbarians; and one should not
judge the nature of men by barbarians, but rather by civilized people. We
are visiting some of them now, and I am firmly of the opinion that
among them we shall see things and hear words that you will consider
worthy, not merely of praise, but of wonder.
MOMUS: For myself I can’t see why, if men are the most perfect species in
the universe, they need to be civilized out of burning themselves to death
and eating their own children. The other animals may all be barbaric, yet
they don’t burn themselves deliberately, except for the phoenix, which
doesn’t exist; they very seldom eat their own kind, much less make a
meal of their own children, and then on some very rare occasion in
unusual circumstances, and not because they have bred them for this
purpose. Notice too that, of the world’s five parts, only one, not
comparable in size to any of the other four, and even that one not
entirely, is endowed with the civilization which you praise; add if you like
some minuscule portions of one other part of the world. And even you
yourself would not presume to say that this civilization is complete, to
the extent that nowadays the citizens of Paris or Philadelphia in general
have all the perfection that their species ought to have. Again, to get
themselves to their present state of still-imperfect civilization, how long
have such people as these had to suffer? As many years as can be
numbered from the creation of man right up to recent times. And almost
all the discoveries which were most needed or most profitable for the
achievement of this civilized state had their origins, not in reason, but
from lucky incidents; so that human civilization is more the result of
chance than of nature; and where such circumstances have not occurred,
we see that the people are still barbarous, even though they are of the
same age as civilized people. I am saying therefore that, if barbarous man
shows himself to be inferior in many respects to any other animal; if
civilization, which is the opposite of barbarism, is possessed even today
by only a small part of the human race; if, in addition, this part has only
managed to reach its present civilized state after innumerable centuries,
and with enormous help from chance rather than for any other reason;
and finally if even that state of civilization is not perfect – just consider if
perhaps your judgement of the human race would have more truth if it
were couched in this form: that is, saying it is truly the highest of the
species, as you believe; but the highest in imperfection rather than in
perfection, even though men in speaking and judging continually mistake
one for the other, arguing as they do from certain presuppositions, which
they have devised themselves and hold to be obvious truths. It is certain
that all the other creatures were absolutely perfect in themselves from the
very beginning. And even if it were not evident that barbarous man,
 considered in comparison with all the other animals, is the worst of all, I
cannot convince myself that being naturally imperfect in his own species,
as it seems man is, means he can be considered as of greater perfection
than all the others. We might add that human civilization, so hard to
achieve, and perhaps impossible to bring to completion, is still not so
stable that it cannot degenerate; as indeed one finds has happened several
times, in various nations that had acquired a high degree of it. In short, I
conclude that if your brother Epimetheus* had submitted to the judges
the model that he must have used when he formed the first ass or the first
frog, he would perhaps have carried off the prize that you failed to win.
And yet I would be happy in any case to agree with you that man is
perfect, if you are willing to agree that his perfection is like that which
Plotinus* attributed to the world: the world, said Plotinus, is excellent
and completely perfect; but, since the world is complete, it must contain
within itself, among the other things, all possible evils too; since in fact
all imaginable evil is found in it. And in this respect I might agree
likewise with Leibniz that the present world is the best of all possible
worlds.*
One cannot doubt that Prometheus had a ready answer to all these
arguments, one that was clear, precise and logical; but it is just as certain
that he did not give it. This was because at that moment they found
themselves above the city of London. Alighting there, and seeing a great
multitude of people running towards a private house, they joined the
crowd and entered the house; there they found a man lying on his back on
a bed, with a pistol in his right hand, with a wound in his chest, and dead;
and near to him lay two children, dead also. In the room there were several
of the household, and some judges interrogating them while an official
was writing.
PROMETHEUS: Who are these poor people?
A SERVANT: My master and his children.
PROMETHEUS: Who killed them?
SERVANT: My master killed all three of them.
PROMETHEUS: You mean the children and himself?
SERVANT: Precisely.
PROMETHEUS: Oh, what a thing! Some great misfortune must have
 befallen them.
SERVANT: None that I know of.
PROMETHEUS: But he was perhaps poor, or scorned by everyone, or
unlucky in love or at court?
SERVANT: On the contrary, he was very rich, and I think that everyone
esteemed him highly; he had no interest in love, and he was in great
favour at court.
PROMETHEUS: Then how did he come to fall into such despair?
SERVANT: Through sheer boredom with life, according to the note he has
left behind.
PROMETHEUS: And these judges, what are they doing?
SERVANT: They are finding out if the master was mad or not: if he was
not mad, all his goods fall by law to the public purse; and in truth there
is no way of preventing this.
PROMETHEUS: But tell me, did he have no friend or relative to whom he
could entrust these little children, instead of slaughtering them?
SERVANT: Yes, he did; and among them there was one to whom he was
particularly close, and to whom he entrusted his dog.
Momus was about to congratulate Prometheus on the beneficial effects of
civilization, and the contentment which it seemed to bestow on our lives;
and he also intended to remind him that no other animal apart from man
deliberately kills itself, or destroys the life of its offspring through
desperation; but Prometheus anticipated him and, without bothering to
see the two remaining parts of the world, paid over the wager.
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 Physicist and Metaphysician
A Dialogue

PHYSICIST: Eureka! Eureka!*

METAPHYSICIAN: What is it? What have you found?
PHYSICIST: The technique for living a long life.
METAPHYSICIAN: And that book you’re holding?
PHYSICIST: This is where I explain it. With this discovery, others will live
for a long time, and I shall live for eternity at least – by that I mean I
shall gain immortal glory.
METAPHYSICIAN: Just do one thing to please me. Find a small leaden
box, lock this book in it, bury it and, before you die, remember to leave a
note of the place, so that it will be possible to go there and dig the book
up, once the way to live in happiness has been found.
PHYSICIST: And in the meantime?
METAPHYSICIAN: In the meantime it won’t be good for anything. I
should value it more if it showed the way to a short life.
PHYSICIST: That’s already been known for a while; and it wasn’t hard to
find.
METAPHYSICIAN: Anyway I value that more than your technique.
PHYSICIST: Why?
METAPHYSICIAN: Because if life is not happy, which up to now it hasn’t
been, then better for us if it turns out to be short rather than long.
PHYSICIST: Oh, no, no! Because life is good in itself, and everyone
naturally desires it and loves it.
METAPHYSICIAN: That is what men think; but they are deceived, just as
the uneducated are deceived when they think that colours are qualities of
objects, although they are not qualities of objects but of light. I say that
men desire and love only their own happiness. Therefore they do love life,
but only since they regard it as a means to, or a condition of, that
happiness. So that strictly speaking they come to love the latter and not
the former, even though they very often attribute to one the love that
they bear to the other. It is true that this self-deception, like that over
colours, comes naturally. But as evidence that men’s love of life is not
 natural, or rather not innate, notice how a great number in ancient times
elected to die when they might have lived, and a great number in our
times in various circumstances desire death, and some die at their own
hand – as could not happen if love of life for itself were innate to men. As
the love of their own happiness is innate in all living beings, the world
would fall to ruin before any of them stopped loving happiness and
trying to obtain it in their own way. So then, that life is good in itself is
something you have to prove to me, with reasons drawn from physics or
metaphysics or any branch of learning whatsoever. For myself, I say that
a happy life would be an unalloyed good, but because it was happy and
not because it was life. The unhappy life, in as much as it is unhappy, is
an evil; and given that nature, or at least human nature, means that life
and unhappiness cannot be separated, you yourself can draw the
conclusion.
PHYSICIST: Please let us drop the subject, which is too gloomy. And
without all this quibbling, tell me honestly: if men lived and could live for
ever – I mean without dying and not after death* – do you believe they
would not be glad of it?
METAPHYSICIAN: I shall answer that fantastic hypothesis with one or
two flights of fancy; all the more since I have never lived for ever, so that I
cannot speak from experience; I have not even spoken to anyone who was
immortal; and I have no information of such a person except what we
gain from fables. If Cagliostro* were present, he could perhaps shed
some light on the matter, since he lived for several centuries, although,
since he died like everyone else, he does not seem to have been immortal.
I shall mention therefore that the wise Chiron,* who was a god, in the
course of time got bored with life, obtained permission from Jove to die,
and died. Now just think, if immortality displeases the gods, what it
would do to men! The Hyperboreans,* a people who are obscure but
famous, who are inaccessible either by land or sea, wealthy in every
respect, and especially in very beautiful asses of which they are
accustomed to make hecatombs, and who might have the power, unless I
am deceived, of being immortal – because they have no infirmities or
hard labour or wars or discord or shortages or vices or faults – do
nevertheless all die; because, after living a thousand years or so, they
grow tired of the world, and leap spontaneously from a certain rock into
 the sea, and drown. Take another fable. The brothers Biton and Cleobis,
one feast day when the mules were not ready, yoked themselves to their
mother’s chariot (she was a priestess of Juno), and drew it to the temple;
she beseeched the goddess to reward her sons’ piety with the greatest
benefit that could befall men. Juno – instead of making them immortal,
as she could have done and as was the custom in those days, caused both
of them to die peacefully at the same time. Something similar happened
to Agamedes and Trophonius. They, having finished the temple of
Delphi, required payment from Apollo, who replied that he was willing
to satisfy them within seven days; in the meantime they should
concentrate on feasting at their own expense. On the seventh night he
sent them a sweet sleep, from which they have still not awoken; and,
having had this, they demanded no further payment. But, since we’re on
the subject of fables, here’s another for you, about which I intend to put
a question to you. I know that nowadays people like you take it as a given
that human life, in whatever country it is lived, and under whatever sky,
lasts naturally, with slight differences, the same length of time,
considering each nation as a whole. But some good ancients say that men
in certain parts of India and Ethiopia do not live beyond forty; whoever
dies at that age dies an old man; and girls of seven are of marriageable
age. This last particular is, we know, verified more or less in Guinea, in
the Deccan and in other places in the torrid zone. And so, assuming it is
true that one or two nations are to be found where the people normally
do not live beyond forty – dying from natural causes, and not, as is
believed of the Hottentots,* for other reasons – I ask you if, in view of
this, you think those people are bound to be happier or more wretched
than others?
PHYSICIST: Certainly more wretched, since they die sooner.
METAPHYSICIAN: I believe the opposite, for the same reason. But that is
not the point. Pay some attention. I denied that life in itself, that is to say
the simple sensation of one’s own being, was naturally lovable and
desirable; but what is worthier to be called life – I mean the vigour and
the abundance of sensations – is naturally loved and desired by all men.
That is because any lively or strong action or passion, provided it is not
annoying or grievous to us, is welcome, just by being lively and strong,
even if it is without any other pleasing quality. Now in that race of men
 whose life was naturally over in the space of forty years, that is half the
time nature destines for other men; their life would be in every respect
twice as lively as ours. That is because – since they have to grow and
reach perfection, and likewise fade and die, in half the time – the vital
operations of their nature, in proportion to that rapidity, would be at
every instant twice as forceful as happens in others; and even the
voluntary actions of these people, their motion and outward liveliness,
would correspond to this greater vigour. As a result they would have, in a
shorter time, the same amount of life that we have. This, distributed over
fewer years, would suffice to fill those years, or leave few spaces; whereas
it is not enough to fill twice the space; and the actions and sensations of
those people, being stronger and condensed into a smaller sphere, would
suffice more or less to occupy and vivify their whole lives; whereas in our
lives, which are much longer, frequent and long intervals are left, devoid
of any actions or lively impressions. And, since it is not mere existence,
but being happy, which is desirable, and no one’s good or bad fortune is
calculated by the number of their days, I conclude that the life of those
nations would, because it was shorter, be less poor in pleasure, or what is
called that, and yet be preferable to our lives, and even to the lives of the
early kings of Assyria, Egypt, China, India and other countries; and this
even though, to return to our fables, they lived for thousands of years.
Therefore, I do not merely have no interest in immortality, which I am
content to leave to the fish, to whom Leeuwenhoek* ascribes it with the
proviso that they are not eaten by whales or men; but instead of retarding
or interrupting the growth of our bodies in order to prolong life, as
Maupertuis* suggests, I should like to speed it up until our lives were no
longer than those of certain insects, called ephemera, of whom it is said
that the oldest do not live beyond a day, and nevertheless die as great-
grandparents or great-great grandparents. In that case I think that no
room would be left for boredom. What do you think of this argument?
PHYSICIST: I think that I am not convinced; and that, if you love
metaphysics, I shall stick to physics. I mean that, while you look for
subtleties, I look at things as a whole, and I’m content to do so. However,
without recourse to a microscope, I judge that life is better than death,
and I award life the apple, having looked at them both fully clothed.*
METAPHYSICIAN: That is my judgement too. But when I turn my
 attention to the custom of those barbarians who, for every unhappy day
in their lives, threw a black pebble into a quiver, and for every happy day
a white one, then I think it likely that a small number of white pebbles
would be found in the quivers after their deaths, and a great multitude of
black ones. And I should like to see before me all the pebbles of the days
which remain to me, and then, after separating them, have the power to
throw away all the black ones and subtract them from my life, while
keeping only the white ones; and this, even though I know full well that
they would only amount to a small heap, and they would be off-white.
PHYSICIST: Many people, on the contrary, even if all the little stones were
black, blacker than touchstone, would like to add to them, even though
the stones were of the same colour, simply because they are certain that
no stone could be as black as the last one. And such people, of whom I
am one, will be able in effect to add many pebbles to their lives, using the
skill that I reveal in my book.
METAPHYSICIAN: Everyone must think and act according to his own
ability; and even death will not fail to act in his own way. But if you wish,
by prolonging life, to really help men, then find a method of multiplying
the number and vigour of their sensations and actions. By this means you
will really lengthen human life and, filling up those immeasurable
intervals of time in which our existence is endured rather than lived, you
will be able to boast of prolonging it. And that without attempting the
impossible or doing violence to nature, backing her up in fact. Does it
not seem to you that the ancients lived more intensely than we do, partly
because, with the grave and continual dangers they were accustomed to
facing, they usually died sooner? And you will confer a very great benefit
on men: their lives were always, I shall not say happy, but less unhappy, in
so far as they were more strongly excited, and more completely occupied,
without pain or discomfort. But when life is full of idleness and
boredom, which is as much as to say empty, it inclines one to believe in
that saying of Pyrrho* that life is no different from death. If I believed
that, I swear to you that death would terrify me not a little. In short, a
life must be lively – that is, a true life; otherwise death is worth
incomparably more.
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 Torquato Tasso and His Familiar Spirit
A Dialogue

SPIRIT: How are you, Torquato?*

TASSO: You must know well enough how one is when in prison, and up to
one’s neck in trouble.
SPIRIT: Now then! After dinner is not the time to be making complaints.
Take heart, and we shall laugh it off together.
TASSO: I don’t feel like doing that. But your presence and your words
always comfort me. Sit down here by my side.
SPIRIT: You want me to sit? That’s not an easy thing for a spirit to do. But
look: just imagine that I am seated.
TASSO: Oh, could I see my Leonora once again!* Whenever she comes
into my mind, I feel a shiver of joy, running from the top of my head to
the very tips of my toes; and there is no nerve or vein in me that is not
agitated. At times, when I am thinking of her, certain images and
affections come back into my mind, so that, for a short space of time, I
seem to be once more the Torquato I was before I had experience of
adversity and human beings – him whom now I so often mourn as dead.
To tell the truth, I would say that familiarity with the world, and the
experience of suffering, tend to lower and diminish in each of us the man
he was at first: he rouses himself from time to time for a little while, but
more and more infrequently as the years go by; he withdraws more and
more into his deepest self, and drops into an ever profounder lethargy
until, as life drags on, he dies. In short, I am amazed that the mere
thought of a woman has the power to, as it were, renew my soul, and
make me forget such great calamities. And, if it were not that I no longer
have any hope of seeing her again, I would believe that I had not yet lost
the ability to be happy.
SPIRIT: Which, do you think, is sweeter: to see the woman one loves, or to
think about her?
TASSO: I don’t know. When she was with me she certainly seemed to be a
woman: in the distance she seemed, and still seems, a goddess.
SPIRIT: Those goddesses are so well disposed, that when anyone comes
 near them, they immediately fold their divinity up, detach the rays that
are around them and put them into their pockets, to avoid dazzling the
mortal who is approaching.
TASSO: What you say is true, unfortunately. But does that not seem to you
a great fault in women, that when it comes to the point, they turn out to
be so different from what we had imagined?
SPIRIT: I cannot see what fault it is of theirs, that they are made of flesh
and blood, rather than nectar and ambrosia. What earthly thing has even
a trace or a thousandth part of the perfection that you think should be in
women? And it also seems strange to me that, while you are not amazed
that men are men, creatures who are not very laudable and not very
likeable, you still cannot understand how it comes about that women are
not in fact angels.
TASSO: For all that, I am dying to see her again and speak to her once
more.
SPIRIT: Well, this very night I shall bring her to you in a dream, as lovely
as youth, and so kindly that you will be encouraged to speak to her much
more openly and fluently than you ever did in the past: indeed, in the end
you will clasp her hand; she will gaze at you fixedly, and pour such a
sweetness into your soul that you will be overcome; and all through
tomorrow, every time you recall this dream, you will feel your heart leap
with tenderness.
TASSO: That is a great comfort: a dream in exchange for the truth!
SPIRIT: What is truth?
TASSO: I do not know that any more than Pilate did.*
SPIRIT: Very well then, I shall reply for you. You should know that there is
no difference between the truth and what is dreamt, except that the latter
may sometimes be much sweeter and more beautiful than the former ever
is.
TASSO: Is therefore a dreamt delight worth as much as a true delight?
SPIRIT: So I believe. Moreover I have heard of someone who, when the
lady he loves appears before him in a pleasant dream, avoids being with
her and seeing her again throughout the following day. He knows that
she could not bear comparison with the image that sleep has impressed
upon him, and that the truth, wiping out from his mind what was false,
would deprive him of the extraordinary delight that he draws from that
 image. We should therefore not condemn the ancients – much more
diligent, shrewd and industrious than you are today in relation to any
kind of enjoyment possible to human nature – if it was their custom to
seek to procure by various means the sweetness and joyfulness of dreams.
Nor is Pythagoras to be reprehended for having forbidden the eating of
beans, which were believed to be inimical to the tranquillity of those
same dreams, and likely to blur them. And those superstitious people
may be excused who, before they lay down to rest, used to pray and make
libations to Mercury the bringer of dreams, to bring them those
pleasures; and to this effect they had his image carved at the foot of their
beds. So, never finding happiness in their waking hours, they were keen
to be happy while asleep; and I believe that to some extent, by some
means, they were successful; and that their prayers were answered by
Mercury more than by the other gods.
TASSO: And so, since men are born and live solely for pleasure, either of
the body or of the mind, while on the other hand pleasure exists only or
mainly in dreams, we should decide to live in order to dream – something
which, in truth, I cannot lower myself to do.
SPIRIT: You have already lowered yourself and decided, since you are
living and consent to live. What is pleasure?
TASSO: I haven’t experienced it enough to know what it is.
SPIRIT: No one knows it from experience, but only by speculation:
pleasure is a speculative matter, and not a real thing; a desire, not a fact;
a feeling that man conceives by thinking, but does not experience; or, to
put it better, a concept, and not a feeling. Don’t you realize that at any
pleasurable time – even one desired to the utmost, and procured at the
cost of indescribable effort and trouble – you cannot be contented with
what you are doing in all those moments: you are always waiting for
some greater and truer enjoyment, in which such pleasure really consists;
and you go on constantly looking forward to future moments of that
same pleasure? This always comes to an end before it gets to the point of
satisfying you; and the only good thing it leaves with you is the blind
hope of greater and truer enjoyment on another occasion, and the
comfort of pretending and telling yourself you have enjoyed yourself, and
recounting it also to others, not out of ambition alone, but to help you to
persuade them of what you would also like to be persuaded of. Therefore
 whoever consents to live does so really to no other effect, and for no
other purpose, than to dream; that is, to believe that there is enjoyment
to come, or that he has had some enjoyment. Both ideas are false and
imaginary.
TASSO: Can men never believe that they are enjoying themselves in the
present?
SPIRIT: Any time they believed that, they would in fact be enjoying
themselves. But tell me if you, at any instant of your life, recall having
said, in complete sincerity and to the best of your belief, “I am enjoying
myself”. Certainly you always have said and do say sincerely, “I shall
enjoy”, and on some occasions, with less sincerity, “I have enjoyed”. And
so pleasure is always either past or future, and never present.
TASSO: This is as much as to say it is always nothing.
SPIRIT: So it would seem.
TASSO: Even in dreams.
SPIRIT: Strictly speaking.
TASSO: And yet the object and intent of our life, not merely essentially
but uniquely, is pleasure itself; by pleasure meaning happiness, which in
effect must be pleasure, from whatever source it comes.
SPIRIT: Most certainly.
TASSO: And so our life, never achieving its goal, is continually imperfect:
hence living is by its nature a violent state.
SPIRIT: Perhaps.
TASSO: There is no perhaps in it. But why then do we live? I mean, why
do we consent to live?
SPIRIT: What do I know about that? You are more likely to know better,
you who are men.
TASSO: For my part I swear I do not know.
SPIRIT: Ask others who are wiser, and perhaps you will find someone who
can resolve this doubt for you.
TASSO: I shall do that. But this life that I lead is all a state of violence:
even leaving aside the griefs, the tedium by itself is killing me.
spirit: What sort of thing is tedium?*
TASSO: Here I do have the experience to answer you. In my opinion
tedium has the same nature as air: air fills all the spaces interposed
between other material things, and all the apertures contained in each of
 them; and hence when one substance goes, and another does not take its
place, tedium immediately takes over. And so all the intervals of human
life that are interposed between pleasures and displeasures are occupied
by tedium. And so, as in the material world, according to the
Peripatetics,* there is no vacuum, so in our lives there is no vacuum;
except when for some reason the use of thought is disrupted. All the rest
of the time the mind, considered in itself and as if disconnected from the
body, is found to contain some passion or other, since being empty of
any pleasure or displeasure entails being full of tedium, which is as much
of a passion as pain or delight.
SPIRIT: And since all your pleasures are made of similar stuff to spiders’
webs – very delicate and thin and transparent – so, like the air in them,
tedium penetrates to every part and fills them. Truly I believe that tedium
should be understood as nothing but the pure desire for happiness, not
satisfied by pleasure, and not apparently offended by displeasure. This
desire, as we were saying a short while ago, is never satisfied; and
pleasure, strictly speaking, cannot be found. So human life, in a way of
speaking, is made up and woven, in part from pain, in part from tedium:
it has no rest from either one of those passions except by falling into the
other. And this is not your individual destiny, but one common to all
men.
TASSO: What remedy can there be for tedium?
SPIRIT: Sleep, opium and pain. And pain is the most potent of the three,
since when a man is suffering, he is not bored at all.
TASSO: In preference to that medicine I could be content to be bored my
whole life long. And yet a variety of actions, occupations and feelings,
although they certainly do not free us from tedium, because they bring
no true delight, do nevertheless bring comfort and relief. Whereas in this
prison, cut off from human intercourse, with even writing denied me,
reduced to passing the time by noting the strokes of the clock, numbering
the beams in the roof and the cracks and wormholes in the planks,
contemplating the bricks in the flooring, amusing myself with the moths
and midges which flutter round the room, passing every hour in the same
way – I have nothing which relieves in any way the burden of tedium.
SPIRIT: Tell me: how long is it since you were reduced to this way of life?
TASSO: Several weeks, as you know.
SPIRIT: Can you not perceive, from the first day to the present, any
diversion from the tedium it brings you?
TASSO: I certainly felt it more at the beginning, because gradually my
mind, not occupied or entertained by anything, has become accustomed
to talking to itself much more and with more relief than previously, and
to acquire such a habit and capacity of talking to itself, indeed
chattering, that sometimes I almost seem to have in my head a company
of people talking to me, and the least thought that comes into my mind
is enough for me to make a great palaver between me and myself.
SPIRIT: You will see that habit hardened and reinforced from day to day
until, when you do have the option of being with other people, you will
feel more at a loss in their company than when alone. And do not think
that this settled way of life comes only to people who are, like you,
already accustomed to meditation: sooner or later it comes to everyone.
Moreover, being cut off from people and, one might say, from life itself,
does bring this advantage: even when experience has made him satiated,
disillusioned and out of love with human affairs, a man does, as he
gradually gets used to viewing them from that distance which makes
them seem much more attractive and worthwhile than when they are
nearby, forget their vanity and wretchedness; he begins to shape, almost
to create, the world to suit himself; he starts to appreciate, love and
desire life; in the hope of which, if he has not lost the ability or the self-
confidence to rejoin human society, he continues to feed and delight as he
did when young. The result is that solitude almost performs the function
of youth; it does at least rejuvenate the mind, and revive the imagination
and put it to work again, and in the experienced man it renews the
benefits of that original inexperience which you long for. I’ll leave you
now, because I can see sleep is coming over you, and I’m off to arrange
that beautiful dream I promised you. And so, between dreaming and
daydreaming, you will wear out your life, with no other purpose than to
wear it out; for that is the only profit to be had in the world, and the only
intention that you should propose to yourself every morning when you
waken. Very often you will have to drag your life along by your teeth:
blessed is the day when you can drag it along with your hands, or carry it
on your back. But, in the last analysis, time goes no slower for you in this
prison than it would in the drawing rooms and gardens of him who
 oppresses you.* Goodbye.
TASSO: Goodbye. But listen: your conversation does bring me some
comfort. Not that it interrupts my sadness; but most of the time that is
like a pitch-black night, with no moon or stars, and while I am with you
it resembles the darkness of dusk, more welcome than troublesome. And,
so that from now on I may summon you or find you at need, tell me
where you normally live.
SPIRIT: Have you still not realized? In a large drink.*
OceanofPDF.com
 Nature and an Icelander
A Dialogue

An Icelander, who had travelled most of the world, and who had lived in
various countries, was going once through the interior of Africa, and
crossing the Equator at a place where no man had ever been before, when
he had an experience similar to Vasco da Gama’s when he was rounding
the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape itself, guardian of the southern seas,
came towards Vasco da Gama in the form of a giant in order to dissuade
him from attempting those unknown waters.* The Icelander saw in the
distance an enormous torso, which he thought at first must be of stone,
similar to those colossal herms he had seen many years before on Easter
Island. But having come closer he found that it was the figure of an
immense woman sitting upright on the ground, her back and elbow
resting on a mountain; and not artificial but alive, with a countenance
both beautiful and terrible, her eyes and hair jet-black. After gazing at him
intensely for a long time without speaking, she said to him at last:
NATURE: Who are you? What are you looking for in these parts where
your kind has been unknown?
ICELANDER: I am a poor Icelander, fleeing from Nature; and having fled
her almost all my life through a hundred regions of the world, I am now
fleeing her through this one.
NATURE: So the squirrel flees the rattlesnake, until he falls down its
throat of his own accord. I am she from whom you are fleeing.
ICELANDER: Nature?
NATURE: None other.
ICELANDER: This cuts me to the quick: I really believe that no greater
misfortune than this could happen to me.
NATURE: You might have realized that I would haunt these regions
particularly, where you know that my power is more obvious than it is
elsewhere. But what moved you to flee from me?
ICELANDER: You must know that already in my first youth, when I was
very inexperienced, I was fully convinced of the vanity of life, and of the
stupidity of men. They continually fight one another to obtain pleasures
which give no delight, and possessions which are of no use; they endure
and inflict upon each other infinite anxieties and infinite ills, which cause
distress and even harm; and they go farther from happiness the more
they look for it. For these reasons, having abandoned all other desires, I
resolved, giving no trouble to anyone, not meaning in any way to advance
my state, and not competing with anyone else for any earthly good, to
live a life that was obscure and tranquil; despairing of pleasure, as of
something denied to our kind, I proposed to myself no other purpose but
the avoidance of suffering. By this I do not mean that I thought of
abstaining from physical occupations and labours: you know well what a
difference there is between hard work and discomfort, and between living
quietly and living idly.
As soon as I put this resolve into effect, I learnt by experience that it is
vain to suppose, if you live among men, that by not harming anyone you
ensure that others do not harm you; or that by being always willing to
give way, and contenting yourself with the minimum in everything, you
may manage to have some little room for yourself, and keep it free from
contention. But I easily freed myself from the vexations caused by men,
separating myself from their society and withdrawing into solitude:
something that in my native island can be effected without difficulty. This
done, and living without any semblance of pleasure, I still could not keep
myself free from suffering: because the length of the winter, and the
intensity of its cold, and the fierce heat of summer – features of that
place – troubled me continually; and the fire, near which I had to spend
much of my time, dried up my flesh, and hurt my eyes with smoke; to
such an extent that neither indoors nor out could I keep myself from
perpetual discomfort. Nor could I even preserve that tranquillity which
had been the main object of my thoughts: since fearful storms by land
and sea, the roaring menace of Mount Hekla* and the fear of those fires
which are so common in dwellings made, as ours are, of wood, never
stopped bothering me. All of these discomforts prove to be of no little
importance in a life that does not vary, and is devoid of desire and hope,
and of almost any other care but to be at peace: they are much more
serious than they usually seem to be when our mind is more or less
occupied by thoughts of social life, and by the calamities which come
from men. And so I noticed that the more I withdrew and as it were
shrank into myself, in an attempt to prevent my existence annoying or
harming anything in the world, the more did other things disquiet me
and afflict me. So I set about changing my country and climate, to see if
in any part of the world I could by not hurting be not hurt, and by not
enjoying not suffer. And to this decision I was moved also by the thought
that perhaps you had destined for the human race only one of the world’s
climates (as you have for all the other kinds of animals and kinds of
plants) and such places as have that climate; outside which men could
not prosper or even live without difficulties and miseries which must be
imputed, not to you, but only to themselves, since they had scorned and
transgressed the limits laid down by your laws for human habitation. I
have searched the world over, and tried virtually every country in it,
always keeping to my intention of not troubling other creatures more
than I had to, with the sole purpose of procuring a peaceful life. But I
have been burnt in the tropics, frozen stiff near the poles, tormented in
temperate zones by the changeableness of the weather, troubled
everywhere by the disorder of the elements. I have seen places where not
a day passes without a storm; that is, places where every day in battle
formation you attack the people who live there, who are not guilty of any
offence against you. In other regions the constant clearness of the sky is
offset by the frequency of earthquakes, by the multitude and fury of
volcanoes, by the subterranean seething of the whole country.
Ungovernable gales and tornadoes rule in those regions and seasons
which are undisturbed by other commotions in the air. At times I have
felt the roof collapse over my head under the great weight of snow; at
other times the earth itself, split open by the heavy rains, has disappeared
from beneath my feet; on occasion I have had to flee as fast as I could
from the rivers, which pursued me as if I were guilty of some offence
against them. Many savage beasts, not provoked by me in the slightest,
have attempted to devour me, many serpents to poison me; in several
places flying insects have eaten my flesh almost down to the bone. Not to
mention the daily perils which are always hanging over men, and which
are infinite in number; so much so that one ancient philosopher finds no
better remedy for fear than the consideration that everything is to be
feared. Nor have I been free from illness, even though I was, as I still am,
not merely temperate but even frugal in the pleasures of the flesh. I often
marvel not a little that you have inspired in us so great and constant and
insatiable a craving for pleasure; without which our life, deprived of that
which it naturally desires, is an imperfect thing; and on the other hand
you have ordained that the enjoyment of this pleasure is of almost all
human things the most harmful to the health and strength of the body,
the most calamitous in its effects on each individual and the most
unfavourable to the continuance of life itself. But in no way, having
almost always and almost completely abstained from all pleasures, have I
been able to avoid running into many and diverse diseases; some of
which have put me in danger of death; others in danger of losing the use
of some limb, or of leading ever afterwards a life more wretched than
before; and all for days or months on end have oppressed me, body and
soul, with a thousand hardships and sufferings. And certainly, although
each of us experiences in time of sickness new or at least unaccustomed
ills, and greater unhappiness than usual (as if human life were not
normally wretched enough), you have not given man, to compensate him
for this, any times of superabundant and unusual health, which might
provide him with some delight extraordinary in kind and in degree. In
the countries that are for the most part covered in snow, I have been
almost blinded: as frequently happens to the Lapps in their country. The
sun and the fresh air, vital things, indeed essential for life, and therefore
not to be escaped from, harm us continually – the latter with its damp,
its chill and its other properties; the former with its heat, and with its
very light – so much so that man cannot ever, without some greater or
lesser discomfort or harm, be exposed to either of them. In short, I do
not recall having spent a single day of my life without pain, whereas
countless days have gone by without a trace of enjoyment. I realize that it
is as inevitable and unavoidable that we suffer as that we be without
pleasure; that it is as impossible to lead any kind of peaceful life as it is
to lead an unpeaceful life without misery. I come to the conclusion that
you are the declared enemy of mankind, and of the other animals, and of
all your works; you lie in wait for us, you threaten us, you assault us, you
sting us, you strike us, you tear us to pieces, you are always either
injuring or persecuting us. By custom and by edict you are the butcher of
your own family, your children, your own flesh and blood. I am therefore
left without any hope: I realize that men stop persecuting anyone fleeing
 or hiding from them who has a real determination to flee or hide, but
that you, without any reason, never stop pursuing us until you crush us.
And already I see approaching the bitter and gloomy time of old age, a
real and patent evil, or rather an accumulation of the gravest evils and
miseries; and not accidental either, but something you have laid down by
law for every kind of living thing, something foreseen by each of us even
from childhood, and developed in us continually, from our fifth lustrum
onwards, as grievous decline and loss occur through no fault of ours: so
that scarcely a third of the life of man is given to flourishing, a few
instants to maturity and perfection and all the rest to decline and to the
troubles which its brings.
NATURE: Did you really think the world was made for your sake? You
need to understand that in my works, in my ordinances and in my
operations, with very few exceptions, I always had and still have in mind
something quite other than the happiness or unhappiness of men. When
I hurt you in any way or by any means, I am not aware of it, except very
seldom; just as, usually, if I please you or benefit you, I do not know of it;
and I have not, as you believe, made certain things, nor do I perform
certain actions, to please you or to help you. And finally, even if I
happened to exterminate your whole race, I would not be aware of it.
ICELANDER: Let us suppose that someone of his own free will pressed
me to stay at a villa of his; and that to please him I went there; that I was
given a broken-down, ruined cell to live in, where I was in continual
danger of being crushed, and which was damp, stinking, exposed to wind
and rain; and that he, far from making an effort to entertain me or to
make me comfortable, on the contrary scarcely gave me the basic
necessities, and worse, that he let me be insulted, mocked, threatened
and struck by his children and the rest of his household. And when I
complained to him of this ill treatment, replied: “Do you think I built
this villa for you? Or that I keep these children of mine, and these
servants, to minister to you? I certainly have other things to think about
than amusing you and keeping you in luxury.” To this I would retort:
“Look, friend, just as you have not made this villa for my use, so it was in
your power not to invite me here. But since of your own free will you
have asked me to live here, do you not have an obligation to ensure, so
far as you can, that I at least live here without suffering and without
 danger?” That is what I say now. I know well enough that you have not
made the world for the sake of men: I would find it easier to believe that
you created it and ordered it expressly to torment them. I now ask
whether I ever begged you to place me in this universe. Or whether I
forced myself into it with violence and against your will. But if of your
own wish, and without my knowledge, and in such a way that I could not
refuse it or reject it, you yourself, with your own hands, have put me
here; is it not then your duty, if not to keep me happy and contented in
this realm of yours, at least to prevent my being tormented and torn to
pieces, and see that my living here should not harm me? And what I am
saying about myself I am saying about the whole human race, and I am
saying it about the other animals and all creatures.
NATURE: You have obviously given no thought to the fact that the life of
this universe is a perpetual cycle of production and destruction, the two
connected in such a way that each continually serves the other to ensure
the conservation of the world, which as soon as one or the other of them
ceased to be would likewise disintegrate. So the world itself would be
harmed if anything in it were free from suffering.
ICELANDER: That is what I hear all the philosophers saying. But if what
is destroyed suffers, while the destroyer gets no pleasure, and is itself
soon destroyed in turn, then I want you to tell me what no philosopher
can tell me: who does get any pleasure or benefit from this unhappiest
life of the universe, which is preserved by the injury and death of
everything that composes it?
While they were engaged in these and similar arguments, it is said that
two lions arrived on the scene, so wasted and worn out by hunger that
they hardly had the strength to eat the Icelander up; which they did; and
having taken that little refreshment, they preserved their lives one day
longer. But there are some who deny this account, and they relate that a
very fierce wind, which had arisen while the Icelander was speaking, laid
him out on the ground, and built over him a superb mausoleum of sand,
under which he was utterly dehydrated and made an excellent mummy. He
was later found by certain travellers, and placed by them in the museum of
some city or other in Europe.
OceanofPDF.com
 Parini, or On Glory

1
Giuseppe Parini* was one of the very few Italians of our times who
combined literary excellence with depth of thought and a great
understanding and experience of current philosophy. These are qualities
by now so necessary to polite letters that one could hardly comprehend
how they could be separated, if it were not that in Italy endless examples
are to be seen. He was moreover, as is well known, a man of singular
generosity, with compassion for the unfortunate and for his homeland,
fidelity to his friends, nobility of soul and constancy beneath the blows of
nature and fate, which troubled him during the whole of his wretched and
humble life, until death raised him out of obscurity. He had a few
disciples, and he taught them, first, to understand men and their ways, and
then how to delight them with eloquence and poetry. Among these there
was a young man of remarkable aptitude and zeal for worthwhile studies,
in whom great hopes were placed, who had recently become a disciple,
and one day Parini started speaking to him in this manner:
My son, you are seeking that glory which, one might say, alone of all
others, may nowadays be cultivated by men of humble birth; I mean that
which can sometimes be obtained by wisdom and the pursuit of serious
studies and good literature. To begin with, you are not unaware that this
glory, although it was not neglected by our predecessors, was nevertheless
held to be of little account in comparison with all others: and you have
certainly seen how often and how carefully Cicero,* its zealous and
successful follower, justified to his fellow citizens the time and effort he
put into obtaining it; now pointing out that the study of letters and
philosophy did not affect in any way his public dealings, and now saying
that, when he was compelled by the wickedness of his times to abstain
from important business, he expected to use his leisure worthily on such
studies. He always placed the fame of his writings after that of his
consulship, and of what he had done for the benefit of the Republic. And
truly, if the principal subject matter of literature is human life, and the
primary intention of philosophy is the right ordering of our actions, then
there can be no doubt that action is much worthier and nobler than
meditation and writing, as the end is nobler than the means, and as events
and people matter more than words and arguments. In fact no mind has
ever been created by nature for study; and man is not born to write, but
only to act. And so we see that most excellent writers, and particularly
illustrious poets, in this age – for example, Vittorio Alfieri* – were, to
begin with, unusually inclined to the performance of great deeds; when the
times were incompatible with this, and perhaps also their own fortunes
hindered them, they turned to the writing of great things. Nor are those
really fit to write of them who have not the disposition and strength to
perform them. And you may clearly see in Italy, where almost everyone has
a mind ill-disposed to outstanding deeds, how few achieve lasting fame by
their writings. I think that antiquity, particularly Roman or Greek
antiquity, can be suitably represented in the way that the statue of the
poetess, female warrior and saviour of her country Telesilla* was carved in
Argos. This statue showed her with a helmet in her hand, and gazing at it
intently, with every sign of pleasure, and about to put it back on her head;
while at her foot there lay some volumes, almost ignored by her, as
forming only a small part of her glory.
But among us moderns, generally excluded from any other road to fame,
those who start themselves off on the path of study show in that very
choice of theirs the greatest grandeur of soul that can be shown today, and
need make no excuses to their homeland. So I praise your purpose most
highly, because of its magnanimity. But this path, not being in accordance
with the nature of mankind, cannot be followed without prejudice to the
body, or without increasing in various ways the innate unhappiness of
one’s own mind. Consequently, above all I consider it fitting, and owing no
less to my duty than to the great affection you merit and which I do have
for you, to make you aware both of the various stumbling blocks placed
between you and the achievement of the glory to which you aspire, and of
the fruit it will produce if you do achieve it, according to what I have, up
to know, been able to learn from experience and reflection. This is with
the intention that – estimating for yourself, on the one hand the
importance and value of the end, and how strong is the hope of obtaining
it, and estimating on the other hand the harms, the labours and the
discomforts that the search for it brings (of which I shall talk separately to
you on another occasion) – you may be able with full understanding to
consider and decide whether you should follow it or take another path.

2
Here I could begin by expatiating at length on the rivalries, the envy, the
harsh judgements, the calumnies, the bias, the sharp practice and the
secret and the open intrigues against your reputation and the other endless
obstacles which the malignity of men will place in your way along the path
on which you have started. These obstacles, always very hard to surmount,
often insuperable, have caused more than one writer, not merely during his
life but even after his death, to be utterly defrauded of that honour which
is his due. Having lived without fame because of the hatred or envy of
others, he is left after death in the obscurity of oblivion: it is hardly likely
that anyone’s glory should be born or revived at a time when, apart from
his pages, which are themselves motionless and mute, nothing shows any
concern for him. But I mean to leave on one side the difficulties arising
from human malice, since they have been thoroughly written about by
many others, to whom you may refer. Nor do I have in mind to recount
those impediments that have their origin in the individual fate of the
writer, or even in sheer accident, or very trivial causes. These not
uncommonly mean that some writings which are worthy of very high
praise, and which are the fruit of infinite labour, are for ever excluded from
celebrity, or else, having been in the limelight for a short while, slip out of
it and disappear utterly from the memory of men; whereas other writings,
which are either inferior to them in quality or at least not superior, come
to be held, and continue to be held, in great honour. I wish only to reveal
to you the difficulties and the hindrances that, without any intervention
from human malignity, vigorously oppose the achievement of glory, not by
this writer or that one as an exception, but as a normal thing, by the
majority of great writers.
You are well aware that no one becomes worthy of that title, or arrives at
a true and lasting glory, except through works that are excellent and
perfect, or in some respect close to perfection. You should now therefore
bear in mind a most sound judgement by a Lombard author of ours. I
mean the author of The Courtier,* who says that “it seldom happens that
one who is not accustomed to writing, however learned he may be, can
ever appreciate fully the labours and efforts expended by writers, or
appreciate the sweetness and excellence of their various styles, and those
subtle insights which are often found in the ancients”. And just think, at
this point, how very few people are accustomed and trained to write; and
therefore from what a tiny minority of men, either in the present or in the
future, you may hope in any circumstances for that very high opinion
which you have in mind as the reward for your life. Consider besides how
great in a piece of writing is the effect of style, on whose efficacy and
perfection the durability of those works which fall somehow or other into
the category of polite letters principally depends. Very often, if you strip a
famous piece of writing of its style, having thought that almost all its
value lay in its meaning, you impair it so much that it seems to you to be
of little worth. Now language forms so great a part of style, indeed is so
united with it, that it is very hard to think of one of these things apart
from the other. At the very least they are confused, not merely in what
men say about them, but even in men’s minds; and numerous qualities of
theirs and numerous merits or demerits may hardly, if ever, be
distinguished and assigned to the area to which they belong, even with the
subtlest and most accurate speculation, since they are both almost the
same thing and inseparable from one another. But certainly no foreigner
is, to quote Castiglione’s words again, “accustomed to writing” elegantly
in your language. The result is that, style being such a large and significant
aspect of writing, it is inexplicably difficult and onerous both to learn the
inmost and perfect artifice it requires, and to exercise it once that is learnt.
It has no appropriate judges or appraisers, able to extol it according to its
worth, except those who in each nation of the world are writers by
profession. And to the rest of the human race the immense difficulties and
labours that style demands turn out to be largely and perhaps wholly
useless and scattered to the winds. I leave on one side the infinite variety in
the judgements and partiality of men of letters, which mean that the
number of people who are capable of appreciating the praiseworthy
qualities of this or that book is reduced even more.
But I want you to be fully persuaded that, in order to recognize the true
worth of a work that is perfect or almost perfect, and really capable of
immortality, it is not enough to be accustomed to writing: it is essential to
know how to write almost as perfectly as the very writer you are to judge.
This is because experience will show you that the more in depth you come
to recognize those virtues in which perfect writing consists, and the
infinite difficulties in the way of achieving it, the better you will learn the
way to overcome the latter and attain the former, so that there will be no
gap and no difference between recognizing them and learning and
possessing them: they will indeed be the same thing. So a man does not
arrive at the ability to discern and enjoy completely the excellence of the
best writers until he has the skill to include it in his own writings, because
that excellence cannot be recognized or enjoyed completely except
through one’s own use and, almost, so to speak, by transferring it to
oneself. Until that happens no one truly understands what precisely
perfect writing is; and not understanding this, one cannot even have a due
admiration for the best writers. And most of those who give themselves to
such studies, and write with ease, and believe they write well, are firmly
persuaded, although they may say the contrary: that writing well is easy.
Now see how diminished is the number of those who will be capable of
admiring you and praising you as you deserve, when with labour and
incredible discomfort you have ultimately managed to produce an
outstanding and perfect work! I can tell you (give credence to these white
hairs of mine) that there are scarcely two or three in Italy today who have
the method and art to produce the best writing. If this number seems to
you excessively small, you should not therefore think it was ever much
greater at any time or in any place.
I very often wonder to myself how Virgil, for example, the supreme
model of perfection for writers, attained that peak of glory and remains
there. Because, although I am not presumptuous enough to think I shall
ever enjoy and appreciate any fraction of all his worth and all his mastery,
I am nevertheless certain that most of his readers and eulogists do not
perceive in his poems more than one beauty for every ten or twenty which
I, by rereading and meditation, have managed to discover. I am truly
convinced that the great esteem and reverence felt for the best writers
usually comes, even in those who read and comment on them, rather from
a tradition blindly followed than from individual judgement and any
perception of any such merit in them. And I remember in my youth when,
reading Virgil’s poems with complete freedom of judgement and an
uncommon lack of respect for the authority of others, and with the
inexperience which is usual at that age, but which is perhaps no greater
than that which in very many readers persists – I refused within myself to
concur with the prevailing judgement, since I did not perceive in Virgil
many more virtues than in mediocre poets. I am now in fact almost
astonished that Virgil’s fame has surpassed Lucan’s.* You see that the
mass of readers – not only in the eras of false and corrupt judgement, but
even in those of healthy and temperate letters – are much more pleased
with gross and obvious beauties, than with those that are subtle and
unobtrusive; more with boldness than with modesty; even often more with
appearance than substance; and as a rule more with mediocrity than with
excellence. When I read the letters of a certain prince,* one with a truly
rare intellect, but accustomed to placing almost all the excellence of
writing in wit, sharpness, volatility and perspicacity, I realize that clearly
he, in his own mind, preferred the Henriade* to the Aeneid; even though
he did not dare to proffer this opinion, simply for fear of offending men’s
ears. In short, I am amazed that the judgement of a few, even though it is
correct, has managed to overcome that of so many, and to produce a
tradition of esteem which is no less blind than it is just. This does not
always happen, but I do consider that the fame of the best writers is
commonly the result of chance rather than their merits. You will perhaps
find confirmation of this in what I am about to say in the course of this
disquisition.

3
We have seen already how few will have the capacity to admire you when
you have attained that excellence which is your aim. Notice too that more
than one impediment may be placed even in the way of those few to
prevent their making a just estimate of your worth, even when they can see
the signs of it. There is no doubt that writings of any kind that are
eloquent or poetic are judged not so much according to their inherent
qualities as according to the effect they have on the mind that reads them.
So that the reader, in judging them, considers them more, so to speak, in
himself than in themselves. From this it comes about that men whose
imaginations or hearts are naturally slow and dull, even though they are
gifted with reason, great mental acuity and not a little learning, are almost
completely unable to pass an appropriate judgement on such writings:
they cannot in the least identify their own minds with the mind of the
author; and commonly within themselves they despise such writings,
because, reading them and realizing that they are very famous, they do not
see the reason for their fame; they are like those in whom such reading
creates no emotion, no impression and hence no significant enjoyment.
Now even to those who are naturally disposed and willing to receive and
remember certain images or feelings accurately expressed by writers, there
intervene many periods of coldness, lack of interest, mental weariness,
obtuseness and such a disposition that, while it lasts, renders them either
equal to or similar to those mentioned above. This comes about from
various causes, intrinsic or extrinsic, spiritual or bodily, transitory or
lasting. At such times no one, even if he is also an excellent writer, can be
a good judge of writings meant to move the heart or the imagination. I
leave on one side the satiety brought about by the pleasures experienced a
short while before in other such readings; and the passions, more or less
powerful, which crop up from time to time, and which very often, keeping
the mind more or less occupied, leave no room for the emotions that on
other occasions would have been stirred by the readings. And so, for these
or similar reasons, we often see that those same passages, those scenes (of
nature or of any other kind), those musical pieces and a hundred such
things, which on other occasions moved us, or would have been capable of
moving us if we had seen or heard them – do not move us or please us in
the slightest when we see or hear them now; and that is not because they
are less beautiful or less effective in themselves than they were previously.
But when, for any of the above reasons, a man is unreceptive to eloquence
or poetry, he nevertheless does not hesitate to judge whatever books, of
any kind, he happens to read for the first time. Not seldom, picking up
Homer* or Cicero or Petrarch* again, I find myself utterly unmoved by my
reading. Nevertheless, already conscious and sure of the quality of such
writings, both because of their ancient fame and the experience of the
pleasure they gave me on other occasions, I do not harbour a single
thought against their reputation simply because of their present insipidity.
But with writings that are read for the first time, which because they are
new have caused no sensation, and have not managed to show that their
value cannot be doubted, there is nothing to prevent the reader, judging by
their present effect on his own mind, which is in no mood to welcome the
feelings and images intended by the writer, from forming a poor
conception of excellent authors and their works. After this it is difficult for
him to change his mind by further readings of the same books on more
receptive occasions: most likely the tedium experienced at first will
discourage him on those further readings; anyway, who can doubt the
effect of first impressions, and of a settled judgement, however false?
On the contrary, our minds are found at times, for one reason or another,
to be in such a state of mobility, sensation, vigour and warmth, or so open
and ready for such feelings, that they follow each impulse of the reading,
appreciate fully the lightest touch and – occasioned by what they are
reading – create within themselves a thousand emotions and a thousand
imaginations, straying at times into the sweetest delirium, as if ravished
beyond themselves. From this it can easily come about that, thinking of
the delights of the reading, and confusing the effects of their own mental
state with those which really come from the book, they are left possessed
with a great admiration for the latter; they then form a greater idea of it
than is just, even preferring it to others which are worthier, but were read
at a less propitious time. So you can see to what uncertainty the right and
true judgement of even competent people on the writings and talents of
others is subjected, even apart from any malignity or bias. This
uncertainty is such that a man often differs greatly within himself in his
estimation of works of equal value, and even about one work, at different
stages of his life, in different circumstances and even at different times of
the day.

4
Now, you must not imagine that the above difficulties, which dwell in the
ill-disposed minds of readers, occur only seldom and exceptionally.
Remember that nothing is more common than the loss with ageing of our
natural disposition to appreciate the delights of eloquence and poetry, no
less than of the other fine arts, and of all worldly beauty. This mental
decline, ordained by nature herself for our lives, is today so much greater
than in other ages, begins so much earlier and progresses more rapidly,
especially among scholars, since to everyone’s experience is added a
greater or lesser part of the knowledge born from the practice and
speculations of so many past ages. For this reason, and because of the
present conditions of civilized life, the phantasms of youth fade easily
from men’s imaginations, and with them the hopes of their minds, and
with those hopes a great part of the desires, the passions, the fervour, the
life, the faculties. And so I marvel more that the minds of grown men,
particularly those who are learned and dedicated to meditation on human
affairs, are still open to the qualities of eloquence and poetry, than that
now and then these are prevented from having any effect on them.
Because, make no mistake about it, in order to be strongly moved by
imagined beauty and greatness, it is essential to believe that there is
something great and beautiful in human life, that what is poetic in the
world is not all a fantasy. A young man always believes this, even when he
knows the contrary is true, until his own experience is added to his mere
knowledge; but it is hard to believe in it after the sad discipline of practical
living, particularly when experience is combined with the habit of
speculation and with education.
From this line of argument it would seem to follow that the young would
usually be better judges of works intended to arouse emotions and images
than mature or old men are. But on the other hand we see that young men,
inexperienced in reading, look in it for a delight that is more than human,
infinite, something impossible; and then, not finding this, they despise the
writers: this is something that occasionally happens, in other ages and for
similar reasons, with illiterate people. These young people then, who are
given to letters, tend, both in writing and in judging the writings of others,
to prefer excess to moderation, magnificence or charm of manner and
ornament to what is simple and natural, and specious beauties to true
ones. This comes partly from their lack of experience, and partly from the
enthusiasm of youth. And so the young, who are without doubt those
readiest to praise what to them seems good, since they are more truthful
and candid, are seldom apt to appreciate the mature and accomplished
virtues of literary works; that state of mind, which comes from art, grows
with the progress of the years, and their natural ability diminishes.
Nevertheless, both are essential.
Consequently, I do not know how anyone living in a big city, however
naturally warm and lively his heart and imagination were, could ever
receive, from beauty or nature or letters, any tender or generous feeling
(unless, like you for example, he spends most of his time in solitude).
There are few things so contrary to that state of mind that makes us
responsive to such pleasures as the conversation of these men, the noise of
these places, the spectacle of pointless magnificence, the superficiality of
the minds, the perpetual falsity, the wretched anxieties, the even more
wretched idleness, reigning there. As for the crowd of literati, I must say
that those in the big cities are less able to judge books than those in small
towns; because in big cities, just as other things are mostly false and vain,
so the literature is commonly false and vain, or superficial. And if the
ancients regarded the pursuit of letters and knowledge as a rest and
comfort after practical affairs, today most of those in big cities who
profess to be scholars, regard, and in effect use, study and writing as an
amusement and a relief from other amusements.
It is my opinion that distinguished paintings, sculptures and architectural
works would be enjoyed very much more if they were distributed
throughout the provinces, in the smaller and less important towns, rather
than, as they are now, piled up in the metropolises: for the people there,
some preoccupied with endless thoughts, and some with a thousand
amusements, with their minds inured, or constrained, even against their
will, to distractions, frivolity and vanity, are very seldom open to the
intimate pleasures of the spirit. Besides which, the multitude of such great
beauties brought together distracts the mind in such a way that, paying
little or no attention to any of them, it cannot take in one lively feeling; or
else such satiety is generated that these beauties are contemplated with the
same inner coldness as any common object. I say the same about music,
which is found not to be performed so perfectly in other towns, and with
such pomp and circumstance, as in the big cities, where the mind is less
open to the wonderful emotions aroused by that art, and is, so to speak,
less musical than in any other place. The arts must nevertheless reside in
the big cities both to achieve their perfection and to put it into practice.
Yet it is no less true that the pleasure they offer to people there is much
less than it would be elsewhere. And it can be said that artists, in solitude
and silence, with unflagging wakefulness, industry and care, procure
pleasure for people who, accustomed to moving in crowds and noise,
savour only a tiny part of the fruit of such labours. This fate of all artists
falls in some measure upon writers.

5
But that is all incidental. Now, getting back to the main point, the writings
that come nearest to perfection have this characteristic: usually they please
more on a second reading than on the first. The contrary is the case with
many books composed with merely average art and diligence, but not
however without a certain extrinsic and obvious worth; these books, if
they are reread, do not live up to the high opinion formed at the first
reading. But all of them, when read only once, sometimes deceive even
scholars and experts, and so the best are placed below the mediocre. You
must now bear in mind that today even those who are scholars by
profession can only with difficulty bring themselves to reread recent
books, particularly those whose main aim is to give pleasure. This was not
so with the ancients because with them books were less abundant. But in
this age, rich in writings passed down to us during so many centuries,
with this present number of literate nations and the excessive abundance
of the books produced daily by each of them, with so much two-way
traffic between them all – and in addition with such a great multitude and
variety of written tongues, ancient and modern, with such great numbers
and breadth of sciences and learning of every kind, and these so closely
connected and linked with each other, so that the student is forced to
make the effort to embrace them all if possible – you can easily see that
there is no time for a first, never mind a second reading. For this reason
any judgement on new books once passed is hard to change. Add to this
that, for the same reasons, even at their first reading of the said books,
particularly when they are literary works, few people – and even those
very seldom – give them the care and attention that is essential for
discovering their laboured perfection, their inmost art and their modest
and recondite virtues. The result is that nowadays conditions are getting
worse for accomplished books than for mediocre ones, most of whose
beauties and qualities, true or false, are so obvious that, however small
they may be, they leap to the eye. And we may say with perfect truth that
striving to write perfectly is by now almost useless for the acquisition of
fame. But on the other hand, books composed, as almost all modern ones
are, in a hurry, and far from being perfect, even though they may be
celebrated for some time, cannot fail to perish soon: we see this happening
all the time. It is certainly true that the practice of writing is nowadays so
prevalent that even many writings worth remembering, and which have
become famous, are carried away very soon, and before their celebrity has
managed (so to speak) to put down roots, and perish for no other reason
than the immense flood of new books that see the light every day; and they
make space for others, worthwhile or worthless, which are famous for a
little while. Thus, at one and the same time, only one kind of glory is
given to us to strive for, out of the many that were proposed to the
ancients; and even that one is achieved with much more difficulty now
than in ancient times.
In this continual and general shipwreck of noble writings no less than
coarse and common ones, only the ancient books remain afloat. They,
with their fame established and corroborated by their great age, are not
only still read with care, but are reread and studied. Note too that a
modern book, even one of a perfection comparable to that of the ancients,
could only with difficulty – or perhaps not at all – I will not say attain the
same height of glory, but give people so much joy as they receive from the
ancients. There are two reasons for this. The first is that it would not be
read with that care and subtlety which is given to writings that have been
famous for a long time, nor reread except by very few, nor studied by
anyone: books, unless they are scientific ones, are not studied until they
have become ancient. The other reason is that the lasting and universal
fame of writings, even when that came at first from no other cause than
their own intrinsic merit, nevertheless, once it has arisen and grown,
multiplies in value so that they become much more pleasing to read than
they were before; and sometimes most of the pleasure they give arises
simply from that fame itself. In this connection there now come to mind
some notable remarks of a French philosopher* who, discussing the
origins of human pleasure, says essentially the same thing. Many causes of
enjoyment are created and composed for themselves by our minds,
particularly in drawing diverse things together. And so it very often
happens that what has pleased once pleases on another occasion; and this
merely because it has pleased before: in us the image of the present is
connected with that of the past. As an example, an actress who has
pleased the spectators when onstage will please them even offstage; this is
because the sound of her voice, her acting and their having been present at
the applause the lady won, and even in some way the idea of a princess
added to her own self, will make up something like a mixture of several
causes to produce one delight. Certainly everyone’s mind abounds all day
in images and thoughts subordinate to the main ones. This is why ladies
who have a great reputation stained with some small defect sometimes
bring that very defect into honour, causing others to regard it as a grace.
And truly the particular love which we have, some to one lady and some
to another, is founded most often merely on the preconceptions in her
favour which arise from nobility of blood, or wealth, or from the honours
she has received, or the esteem which others have for her... Often, I would
add, even from the fame, true or false, for beauty or grace, or from the
love she receives or has received from other people. And who will deny
that almost all pleasure comes more from our imagination than from the
intrinsic qualities of what pleases?
These considerations apply no less to writings than to other things. I
suggest that if today a poem saw the light that was equal or superior in
intrinsic quality to the Iliad, even if it was read very attentively by the very
best judge of poetry, would turn out to be much less welcome and less
delightful to him than that, and so be held in less esteem by him. This is
because the virtues of the new poem would not be assisted by twenty-
seven centuries of fame, or by a thousand memories and a thousand
commendations, as the virtues of the Iliad are. I suggest likewise that
anyone reading with care either Gerusalemme liberata* or Orlando
furioso,* and knowing nothing or little of their celebrity, would have less
pleasure in the reading than others would. In conclusion therefore, and
speaking generally, the first readers of any outstanding work, and the
contemporaries of the author, given that the work later obtains fame with
posterity, are those who have less pleasure in reading it than all others; and
this is very detrimental to writers.

6
These are some of the difficulties with which you must contend if you
would gain glory among scholars and those who themselves excel in
learning and in the art of writing. And as for those who, although
sufficiently instructed in that learning which is today, one may say, a polite
necessity, make no profession of study or writing, and read solely to pass
the time – you know well they are not likely to enjoy more than a little of
the goodness to be found in books; and this is, apart from what I have said
above, for another reason which I must explain. Such people do not look
in what they read for anything other than the pleasure of the moment. But
the present is by its nature trivial and insipid for everyone. And so all the
sweetest things, as Homer says,
Love, sleep, song and dance*
of necessity soon become boring, unless to the present occupation is
added the hope of some pleasure or future advantage which depends on it.
This is because the human condition is incapable of any notable pleasure
which does not consist above all in hope, whose power is such that many
occupations, which are themselves devoid of pleasure and are even boring
or wearisome, when they are connected with the hope of some
achievement, are very welcome and joyful, however protracted they may
be. And on the contrary, things that are regarded as delightful in
themselves, but unattended by hope, become tiresome, one may say, as
soon as they are tasted. And indeed we see that scholars are insatiable
readers, often even of dry subjects, and take a perpetual delight in their
studies, which occupy a great part of their day, because they have always
before their eyes a goal which lies in the future, and the hope of some
progress and benefit, whatever it may be; even in that reading which they
sometimes undertake almost as a leisure activity and a pastime, they do
not neglect to have in mind, besides their present pleasure, some other
purpose, more or less defined. Whereas the others, not aiming in their
reading at any result that is outside the confines of that reading, find
themselves, in the first pages of the sweetest and most delightful books,
after an empty pleasure, sated. And so they tend to wander in disgust from
book to book, and ultimately most of them marvel at how others can
receive a lengthy delight from a lengthy reading. From this too you can see
that any art, industry or effort on the part of the writer is almost entirely
lost on such people, who usually form the greatest number of his readers.
And even scholars, when the subject matter and quality of their studies
has, as often happens, changed with the years, can hardly endure those
books by which in earlier times they were or might have been delighted
beyond measure; and although they still have the intelligence and the
expertise to recognize their quality, they do not feel anything but boredom;
because they do not expect any benefit from them.

7
Up to now we have spoken about writing in general and certain matters
relating principally to polite letters, to whose study I see you are more
inclined than to any other. Let us now talk particularly about philosophy. I
do not intend, however, to separate this from literature, upon which it
depends totally. You may perhaps think that since we derive philosophy
from reason, in which the majority of civilized men participate more
perhaps than in imagination and the capacities of the heart, the value of
philosophical works ought to be recognized more easily and by a greater
number of people than the value of poems and the other writings which
are concerned with the delightful and the beautiful. Now, for myself, I
consider that apt judgement and perfect understanding are scarcely less
rare in the former case than in the latter. For a start, take it as an axiom
that, in order to make significant progress in philosophy, it is not enough
to have a subtle mind and a great reasoning faculty, but one needs also
great imaginative strength: Descartes, Galileo, Leibniz, Newton and Vico,*
as far as their innate mental disposition goes, could have been supreme
poets; and on the contrary, Homer, Dante and Shakespeare supreme
philosophers. However, since many words would be needed to open up
this subject and handle it, and that would keep us too long from our
purpose, let us remain content with that hint. Passing on, I declare that
only philosophers can appreciate the value, and experience the delight, of
philosophical books. I mean, as regards the substance, not in regard to
any ornamentation they may have, either of words or style or anything
else. Therefore, just as men who are naturally, so to speak, unpoetic, even
if they understand the words and the sense, are not receptive to the
emotions and the images of poems, so very often those who are not
familiar with meditation and philosophy themselves, and who are not apt
to think deeply – however true and accurate the discourses and
conclusions of the philosopher may be, and however clear the means he
uses to set them both out – understand the words and what he wants to
say, but not the truth of his pronouncements. So that, not having the
ability or the habit of penetrating with their thoughts into the essence of
things, nor of unravelling and separating their own ideas into their least
parts, nor of combining and uniting a good number of those ideas, nor of
mentally contemplating in one view many particulars in order to draw
from them one general idea, nor of following tirelessly with their
intellectual eyes a long series of truths connected with each other one by
one, nor of discovering the subtle and hidden connections which each
truth has with a hundred others – they cannot easily, or in any way, imitate
and repeat in their own minds the operations which have been carried out,
nor experience the impressions experienced by a philosopher, which is the
only way to see, understand and evaluate justly all the causes which
induced him to make this or that judgement, affirm or deny this or that
thing, to doubt of such and such or of something else. The result is that,
although they understand his concepts, they do not know whether they are
true or probable; they do not have, and they cannot have, what one might
call an experience of their truth and probability. This is not very different
from what happens to men who are cold by nature concerning the visions
and emotions expressed by the poets. And you know well that the poet
and the philosopher have this in common: they penetrate the depths of the
human mind, and bring to light its inmost qualities and variety, its
progressions, its hidden motions and successes, and the causes and effects
of these. In these matters they who are not capable of feeling within
themselves the correspondence of poetical thoughts with the truth, do not
feel either, and do not recognize, the same thing in the philosophers.
From these causes comes something we see every day: many exceptional
works, although they are both clear and intelligible to everyone,
nevertheless seem to some people to contain a thousand clear truths, and
seem to others to contain a thousand manifest errors. And so they are
impugned, in public or in private; and not only out of malignity or self-
interest or similar reasons, but even out of mental weakness, and an
incapacity for feeling and comprehending the sureness of their principles,
the rightness of their deductions and conclusions, and in general the
aptness, the efficacy and the truth of their thoughts. Often the most
stupendous philosophical works are also charged with obscurity, through
no fault of their writers, but because of the profundity and the novelty of
their thoughts on the one hand, and on the other the intellectual blindness
of those who could not ever comprehend them. And think how hard it is
in the realm of philosophy to win praise, however appropriate it would be.
So there is no doubt, even if I fail to explain the reason, that the number of
true and profound philosophers, apart from whom there is no one fit to
make a proper estimate of the others, is very small even at the present
time, devoted though it is to the love of philosophy more than previous
ages. I ignore the various factions, or whatever we ought to call them, into
which those who make a profession of philosophy are now divided, as they
always were; each of whom normally denies due praise and esteem to
members of other factions; and this not only wilfully, but through having
the mind occupied with other principles.

8
If then (since there is nothing I cannot hope for from such a mind as
yours) you were to rise through knowledge and meditation to such a
height that you were permitted, as a few elect spirits have been, to discover
some essential truth, not only one that has been always unknown, but one
utterly remote from men’s expectation, and completely different or
contrary to present opinions, even of those who are wise – nevertheless do
not think of receiving from this discovery any outstanding praise during
your life. Indeed you will not be praised, even by the learned (except
perhaps by a tiny minority of them) until, those same truths having been
repeated, now by one person and now by another, gradually and during a
long course of time, men’s ears and then their intellects become
accustomed to them. This is because no new truth – one utterly foreign to
current judgements – even if he who first became aware of it demonstrated
it with a certainty and evidence equal or similar to that of geometry, has
ever, even if the demonstrations were self-evident, been introduced to the
world and established immediately. Only in course of time, through habit
and example, since men accustom themselves to belief as to everything
else – indeed usually believing through familiarity, and not persuaded by
proofs conceived in the mind – has this truth, beginning to be taught to
children, at last been generally accepted, the ignorance of it remembered
with wonder, and other opinions, whether ancient or contemporary,
derided. But this has happened with all the more difficulty and delay the
more important and more central these novel and incredible truths were,
and therefore the more subversive of a greater number of opinions rooted
in men’s minds. Not even acute and cultivated intellects are ready to
appreciate all the cogency of the reasons for such truths, unheard of and
far beyond the bounds of the cognizance and practice of those intellects;
especially when such reasons and such truths are repugnant to their
inveterate beliefs. In his time even Descartes was not understood, except
by very few, in geometry, which he enlarged amazingly by adapting algebra
to it and by his other discoveries. The same happened to Newton. In fact
the condition of men unusually superior in intelligence and knowledge for
their time is not very different from that of men of letters and scholars
living in cities or provinces devoid of scholarship, who, as I shall proceed
to explain, are not held by their fellow citizens or fellow provincials in the
esteem they merit, as neither are those ahead of their time by their
contemporaries. In fact they are most often reviled because of the
difference between their lives and opinions and those of the rest, and
because of the general incapacity to understand the value of their abilities
and works.
There is no doubt that the human race in this age, and ever since the
rebirth of civilization,* does make continual progress in knowledge. But
this progress is slow and limited, even though the highest and most
distinguished spirits – who devote themselves to speculation concerning all
that is available and intelligible to man in this universe, and to the pursuit
of truth – walk, or rather run, at great speed, and virtually without
restraint. And yet this does not make it possible for the world, seeing them
move so fast, to quicken its own pace, so as to arrive with them, or a little
later than them, where they eventually arrive. On the contrary, it does not
alter its pace; and sometimes is led to this or that goal only in the space of
one or more centuries after some exalted spirit has got there.
It is a universal conviction, one might say, that human knowledge owes
most of its progress to those supreme minds which from time to time arise,
now one and now another, miracles of nature almost. I, on the contrary,
consider that this progress is owed most to ordinary minds, and very little
to exceptional spirits. One of the latter, let us say, having in his learning
covered all the ground known to his contemporaries, then takes, so to
speak, ten paces forward in his knowledge. But the rest of them are not
merely disinclined to follow him, but most often, to say the least, mock his
progress. In the meantime, many mediocre minds, perhaps aided
somewhat by the thoughts and discoveries of that exceptional spirit, but
chiefly through their own studies, take together one step forward. And
then, because the distance is so short – that is, the novelty of the thoughts
is so slight – and also because of the multitude of its authors, at the end of
a year or so they are followed universally. Proceeding in this way, according
to custom, little by little, and through the works and example of other
mediocre intellects, men at last take the tenth step; and the
pronouncements of that supreme spirit are generally accepted in all
civilised nations as true. But he himself, already long dead, does not gain
through that success even a late and untimely reputation. This is partly
because his memory has already faded, or because the unjust opinion held
of him during his lifetime, confirmed by long habit, prevails over every
other consideration; partly because men have not reached this stage of
knowledge by his doing; and partly because they are already equal to him
in wisdom, soon they will surmount him, and perhaps are superior to him
even in the present, through having been able in the course of time to
demonstrate and explain better the truths he imagined, reduce his
conjectures to certainty, give a better order and shape to his discoveries
and, one might say, ripen them. Except that possibly some scholar, going
over the records of times past, and having considered the opinions of that
great spirit and compared them with those of his descendants, notices how
and how far he was ahead of the human race, and so gives him some
praise, which will not attract much attention, and will soon be forgotten.
Although the progress of human knowledge, like the fall of heavy objects,
gathers speed second by second, it is nevertheless very difficult for one
generation of men to change its opinion, or recognize its own errors, so
that it believes today the opposite of what it used to believe. Nevertheless
it does prepare the means for the succeeding generation to understand and
believe much that is contrary to the beliefs of the one before it. But, just as
no one feels the perpetual movement whirling us round together with the
globe, so men in general are not aware of the continual progress of their
knowledge, or of the incessant changing of their judgements. And they
never change their opinion in such a way that they believe they are
changing it, while certainly they could not fail to believe it and be aware of
it every time they embraced all of a sudden an assertion quite foreign to
those they have just held. Therefore no such truth, unless it happens to be
under their very eyes, will ever be generally believed by the contemporaries
of the first person to know it.

9
Let us suppose that you have, aided by good fortune, overcome every
obstacle, and actually achieved not merely celebrity, but glory, and not
after death but in your lifetime. Let us see what benefit you will gain from
that. First there is the desire of people to see you and know you personally,
and the being pointed out, and receiving that honour and that reverence
which are signified by the actions and words of those present. This, which
is the greatest advantage of that glory which comes from one’s writings,
would apparently come to you more easily in small cities than in large
ones where eyes and minds are distracted and obsessed partly by power,
partly by wealth, and ultimately by those arts which serve to entertain and
amuse useless lives. But small towns are usually without the ways and
means by which one may attain excellence in letters and knowledge, while
all that is rare and praiseworthy congregates and unites in the large cities.
So small towns, seldom inhabited by the learned, and commonly without
worthwhile studies, normally hold, not only learning and wisdom, but
even the fame acquired by such means, in such little esteem that in those
places they are not even a cause of envy. And if it happens that someone
notable and even extraordinary for his mind and studies is found to be
living in a little place, his uniqueness, far from increasing his worth,
harms him so that often, even when he is famous outside, he is habitually
the most obscure and neglected person in that place. In those lands where
gold and silver are unknown and valueless, anyone who happened to be
rich in those metals, but without other wealth, would not be wealthier
than others, but rather very poor, and held to be such; similarly where
intellect and learning are unknown, and being unknown are not valued,
anyone who abounds in those qualities has no means of being superior to
others and, if he has no other qualities, is held in low regard. And, far
from being honoured in such places, very often he is reputed to be of
higher standing than he is, and yet not therefore held in any esteem. In
those days when, as a youth, I kept to my little Bosisio,* and it was known
in that region that I was accustomed to attend to my studies and practise a
little writing, the villagers regarded me as a poet, philosopher, physicist,
mathematician, doctor, lawyer, theologian, and an expert in every
language in the world; and they would question me, without any
distinction, on any matter in any subject or any language which happened
to occur in their conversation. Nevertheless they did not hold a high
opinion of me; rather they thought me of less account than all other
learned men in other parts. But if I gave them any reason to suspect that
my learning was a little less extensive than they thought, I fell a long way
in their estimation, and eventually they came to believe that my learning
was not a jot greater than their own.
From what I have said a little while ago you may easily imagine the great
number of obstacles that in large cities stand in the way of attaining glory
and being able to enjoy the fruits of that achievement. I will add now that,
although no fame is harder to deserve than that of an outstanding poet or
literary writer or philosopher – at all of which you are principally aiming
– nevertheless no other fame is less beneficial to him who possesses it. You
are not ignorant of all the complaints – there are ancient and modern
instances – over the poverty and misfortunes of the greatest poets. With
Homer everything is, so to speak, vague and beautifully indefinite, about
the poetry as about the man himself; his homeland, his life, everything is a
mystery impenetrable to man. There is however, among such uncertainty
and ignorance, a persistent tradition that Homer was poor and unhappy:
it is almost as if the fame and memory of centuries have not wished to
leave any room for doubt that the fate of other excellent poets was also
that of the prince of poetry. But leaving aside other benefits, and speaking
only of honour, no kind of fame in the conduct of life is less honoured, or
less likely to make one esteemed above others, than that just mentioned.
This is either because the crowd of those who obtain it without merit, and
the immense difficulty of meriting it, take away the worth of such
reputations and our faith in them; or possibly because almost everyone
with a little education believes himself to have, or to be easily able to
acquire, some knowledge and ability in literature and philosophy, and
therefore does not recognize as much superior to himself those who have a
true ability in these matters; or partly for the one reason, partly for the
other. It is certain that to have a name as a mediocre mathematician,
physicist, philologist or antiquarian, or as a mediocre painter, sculptor or
musician, or even to be fairly well versed in just one ancient or foreign
language, is a way of obtaining among most men, even in the best cities,
much more regard and esteem than by being known and celebrated by
good judges as an outstanding philosopher or poet, or as a good writer of
imaginative literature. And so the two noblest realms, most wearisome to
attain, most extraordinary, most stupendous – the two summits, so to
speak, of human art and science: poetry and philosophy – are in those
who profess them, especially today, the most neglected faculties in the
world. They are even regarded as lower than manual skills, because, apart
from other respects, no one presumes either to possess one of those skills
without having earned it, or to be able to earn it without study and
labour. In short, the poet and the philosopher have during their lives no
other fruit of their genius, no other reward for their efforts, than perhaps a
glory that is born and remains among a very small number of people. And
this also is one of the many reasons why philosophy is linked to poetry,
since it too is “poor and bare”, as Petrarch has it,* not only of all other
goods, but of reverence and honour.

10
Since in society you will be able to enjoy hardly any benefit from your
fame, the greatest profit you will be able to get from it will be to address it
in your mind and to enjoy it yourself in the silence of your solitude, by
drawing from it a stimulus and encouragement for new efforts, and
making it the foundation for fresh hopes for yourself. This is because a
writer’s glory not only turns out to be, like all men’s blessings, more
pleasurable in the distance than close by, but is never, one may say, present
to him who possesses it, and cannot be found anywhere.
Therefore as a last resort you will return in your imagination to that
ultimate refuge and comfort of great minds, which is posterity. In the same
way that Cicero – rich not only in one reputation, and that neither vulgar
nor tenuous, but in a multitude of extraordinary reputations, appropriate,
among Romans and ancients, for a supreme Roman and ancient –
nevertheless turns longingly to future generations, saying, although in
another person:* “Do you think that I could be induced to undertake and
sustain such great labours day and night, at home and abroad, if I believed
that my glory would not last beyond the end of my life? Would it not have
been much better to choose a leisured and tranquil way of living, free from
toil and worry? But somehow my mind, as if lifting up its eyes, has always
had posterity in sight, as if, once life had passed, it would then be alive.”*
Here Cicero refers to a belief in the immortality of his own soul, a belief
that is innate in human breasts. But the true reason is that all the good
things of this world are no sooner acquired than they are seen to be
unworthy of the care and effort expended to acquire them; this is
particularly true of glory that, among them all, comes at the highest price,
and is the most useless. As Simonides says:
Hope is attractive and she suckles us
On fine appearances;
So all of us are striving, and in vain:
One waits a better dawn, another
A better age or season;
And no one rushes through his course on earth
Who for the future does not have in mind
A generous god of wealth
And other gods as kind.*
And so, gradually, as glory is shown by experience to be in vain, hope, as
though it were hunted and pursued from place to place, having ultimately
nowhere left to rest in the whole course of life, does not therefore
diminish, but passes beyond death itself, and comes to rest in posterity. All
because man must always tend to sustain himself with a future good, just
as he is always deeply dissatisfied with his present good. And so those who
desire glory, even if they obtain it in their lifetimes, encourage themselves
mainly with that which they hope to possess after death, in the same way
as no one is so happy today that he does not despise his vain present
happiness, and comfort himself with the thought of that happiness,
equally vain, which he promises himself in future.

11
But in the end what is this recourse that we always have to posterity?
There is no doubt that the nature of human imagination is such that it has
a higher and better impression of our successors than of our
contemporaries, or even of our ancestors. This is only because we cannot
have any real notion, either through experience or through report, about
people who do not yet exist. But in the light of reason, and not of our
imagination, do we really believe that those who come after us are likely to
be better than our contemporaries? I believe the opposite rather, and
maintain the truth of the adage that says the world gets worse as it gets
older. It seems to me that exceptional men would be better off if they
could call upon their precursors, who, according to Cicero, were not
inferior in numbers to our successors, and were far superior in virtue. But
certainly the worthiest man of this century would not receive any praise
from the ancients. Granted that people in the future, in so far as they are
free from emulation, envy, love and hate, not among themselves of course,
but towards us, are likely to be fairer judges of our works than our
contemporaries are. Are they likely for other reasons to be better judges?
Do we think, speaking only of what concerns our studies, that posterity is
likely to have a greater number of excellent poets, of accomplished
writers, of true and profound philosophers? We have, after all, seen that
these alone can make a just estimate of their fellows. Or do we believe that
the judgement of these men will be more effective among the crowd in
those days than our contemporaries are in the present? Do we believe that
in the general run of people the faculties of the heart, the imagination, the
intellect will be greater than they are today?
In literature do we not see how many ages have made such perverse
judgements that, despising truly excellent writing, with the best ancient
and modern writers either forgotten or derided, they have constantly loved
and prized this or that barbarous manner, even considering it to be the
only proper and natural one? This is because any custom, however corrupt
and bad, is hard to distinguish from what is natural. And is that not
known to have happened in ages and nations otherwise civilized and
noble? What certainty have we that posterity will continue to praise those
ways of writing which we praise, even if those which we praise today are
truly praiseworthy? There is no doubt that men’s judgements and
predilections with regard to the beauties of writing are mutable, and they
change according to the times, the nature of the places and the
populations, the customs, the usages, the individuals. Now the fame of
writers must likewise be subject to this variety and inconstancy.
The state of philosophy and the other sciences is even more varied and
mutable. And this even if at first sight the contrary appears to be true,
since literature is concerned with the beautiful, which relies in great part
on habits and opinions, while science is concerned with the truth, which is
invariable and does not undergo change. But as this truth is concealed
from mortals, except as it is discovered little by little through the
centuries, so striving to know it, conjecturing it, embracing this or that
appearance in its stead, men divide themselves into many opinions and
sects; with the result that no small variety comes about in the sciences. At
the same time with fresh information and with fresh, as it were, glimmers
of the truth, which are gradually acquired, the sciences grow continually.
For this reason, and because various opinions are at different times
regarded as certain, it happens that they, having little or no duration in
one state, change their form and quality from time to time. I leave on one
side the first point, that is the variety of opinions, which perhaps is no less
harmful to the fame of philosophers or scientists among their successors
than among their contemporaries. But how far do you think the mutability
of the sciences and of philosophy is likely to harm this glory in times to
come? When new discoveries have been made, or new suppositions and
conjectures, and the state of one science or another has been markedly
changed from what it is in our century, what esteem will there be for the
writings and the thoughts of those men who today have the greatest praise
in that particular science? Who today reads Galileo’s works any longer?
Yet they were certainly most marvellous in their time; and perhaps on
those subjects nothing could have been better written then, or worthier of
an outstanding intellect, or more packed with great discoveries and noble
concepts. Nevertheless, every mediocre physicist or mathematician of the
present age finds that he is, in one science or the other, greatly superior to
Galileo. How many nowadays read the works of Chancellor Bacon?* Who
cares about Malebranche’s* work? And how long will the work of Locke*
himself, if the progress of the science that was almost founded by him is in
future as rapid as it bids fair to be, remain in men’s hands?
Truly the same strength of mind, the same industry and effort that are
expended by philosophers and scientists in gaining glory for themselves,
are in the course of time the cause of the extinction or overshadowing of
that glory. This is because, to the increase they bring to their branches of
knowledge and from which they gain their reputation, other increases
come, through which their names and writings are gradually forgotten.
And certainly most men find it hard to admire and venerate in others a
knowledge which is much inferior to their own. Now who can doubt that
the next age will realize the falsity of many things affirmed or believed
today by those who are foremost in learning, and in a short time will far
exceed the present age in the knowledge of truth?

12
Finally perhaps you would like to have my opinion and my clear
recommendation as to whether you would be well advised or not, for your
own good, to continue on the road to this glory, which is of such little
utility, and as difficult and uncertain to retain as it is to achieve, like a
shadow – though you have it in your hands, you cannot feel it or prevent it
escaping. I shall give my opinion briefly and without dissimulation. I
consider that that wonderful acuity and strength of understanding of
yours, that nobility, warmth and fecundity of heart and imagination, are
of all the qualities which fate dispenses to human minds the most
damaging and lamentable to him who receives them. But once they are
dispensed it is hard to avoid the harm they cause; and on the other hand,
in these days perhaps the only benefit they can possibly give is the glory
that may sometimes be gained by applying these qualities to letters and
learning. Therefore, like those wretched people who, being by some
misfortune deprived of limbs or deformed, make every effort to turn their
misfortune to the greatest possible profit, and use this misfortune to
arouse men’s pity and therefore their generosity – so, in my opinion, you
should strive by every means to derive from your qualities that one benefit,
however tiny and uncertain it may be, which they are able to produce.
They are generally regarded as a valuable gift from nature, and often those
who are without them envy, in the past or in the present, those on whom
fate has bestowed them. This is against all reason; as if a healthy man were
to envy the physical disability of those wretches I mentioned; almost as if
their misfortune might be freely chosen, on account of the small gain
which it might bring. Other people expect to act as the times allow, and to
enjoy themselves so far as our mortal state allows; but great writers,
incapable, either through nature or habit, of many human pleasures, and
willingly deprived of many others, not seldom neglected in human society,
if not perhaps by the few who pursue the same studies, are destined to lead
a life which is like death, and to live, if they manage to, after death. But
our fate, wherever it may take us, is to be accepted with a strong and great
spirit: this is above all required of your virtue and of those who resemble
you.
OceanofPDF.com
 Frederick Ruysch and His Mummies
A Dialogue

Chorus of the dead in Frederick Ruysch’s* studio:

O death, sole everlasting thing, and final
Outcome for every creature!
In you our naked nature
Settles for evermore;
Not happy, no, but secure
From all the ancient pain and care. Deep night!
And our bewildered thought
Grows more and more obscure.
The withered spirit might feel hope, desire,
But lacks the breath for that;
So, free from fear and trouble, it consumes
The empty, the inert
Aeons without ennui.
We did live once; and as the blurred remembrance
Of some unsettling phantom,
Or of some dream that made him sweat with terror,
Runs through an infant’s mind,
Such memory has remained
To us of living; but remembering
Is far from fear. Who were we?
What was that wretched speck
Of dust that we called life?
An occult thing, astounding,
Seems life to us today, the very same
As death, the undiscovered,
Seems to the living still. And as alive
We ran from death, so now our naked nature
Runs from the vital flame
As much or even more;
Not happy, no, but secure;
 Since fate does not concede
Happiness to the living or the dead.
RUYSCH (outside his studio, looking through a crack in the door): What
the hell is this? Who’s been teaching these corpses to sing? It’s the middle
of the night and they’re crowing like cocks. Honestly, I’m in a cold sweat,
and almost more dead than they are. I never thought, when I preserved
them from corruption, that I’d have them coming back to life on me. But
that is what’s happened. And for all my philosophy, I’m trembling from
head to foot. Curse that devil who tempted me to take these people into
my home!
I don’t know what to do. If I leave them shut in there, how can I be
certain that they won’t break the door down, or else get out through the
keyhole, and come after me in my bed? And yet it wouldn’t be right to
cry for help for fear of dead people.
Oh, come on! I must pull myself together, and see if I can strike fear
into them instead.
(He enters his studio.) Now, lads, what are you playing at? Have you
forgotten that you’re dead? What’s all this racket about? Are you so full
of yourselves after Tsar Peter’s visit* that you think you’re no longer
subject to the laws of nature? Perhaps you’re just joking, and you don’t
really mean it. If you have come back to life, I’m very pleased for you;
but I just can’t afford to go on keeping you if you’re alive, as I did when
you were dead. So you’ll have to remove yourselves from my home. If it’s
true what they say about vampires (for that’s what you are) then go and
look for someone else’s blood to suck. I’m not disposed to let you have
mine now, however generous I was with that blood substitute I injected
into your veins. In short, if you are willing to go on being calm and
silent, as you have been up to now, we shall remain on good terms, and
you will lack for nothing in my house; if not, be warned I’ll take the bar
off the door and slaughter the lot of you.
MUMMY: Don’t be angry: I assure you that we’ll all stay as dead as we
are, without your needing to slaughter us.
RUYSCH: In that case, why did you take it into your heads to sing just
now?
MUMMY: A short while ago, on the stroke of midnight, that Great
 Platonic Year,* of which the ancients write so much, came to an end for
the first time; and this is the first time too that the dead speak. And we
are not the only ones: in every graveyard, in every sepulchre, down in the
depths of the sea, beneath the snow, beneath the sand, under the open
sky and in every place where they are to be found, all the dead at
midnight sang as we did that little song which you heard.
RUYSCH: And how long will they go on with this singing and talking?
MUMMY: Their song they have finished already. And they have
permission to talk for a quarter of an hour. Then they will return to
silence until eventually the same Great Year is completed once more.
RUYSCH: If that’s true, then I hardly think you’ll break my sleep a second
time. Please speak together quite freely; and I’ll stand at one side here
and be glad to listen, just out of curiosity, without disturbing you.
MUMMY: We can only speak in reply to a living person. Those who do
not have a living person to reply to fall silent once the song is finished.
RUYSCH: I’m really sorry: I think it would be very amusing to hear what
you said to each other, if you were able to talk among yourselves.
MUMMY: Even if we could you would not hear anything, because we
would not have anything to say to each other.
RUYSCH: A thousand questions come to mind, which I would like to put
to you. But since the time is short, and there’s no room for choice, tell me
briefly what you felt in body and mind at the moment of death.
MUMMY: I was not aware of the moment of death.
THE OTHER MUMMIES: Neither were we.
RUYSCH: How could you fail to be aware of it?
MUMMY: In the same way, for instance, that you are never aware of the
moment when you fall asleep, however much you try to notice it.
RUYSCH: But falling asleep is a natural process.
MUMMY: And you think that dying is not natural? Show me a man, or an
animal, or a plant that does not die!
RUYSCH: I’m no longer surprised that you’re singing and talking, if you
didn’t notice you were dying. As an Italian poet has written:
So he, quite ignorant of the stroke that felled,
Continued fighting, though he had been killed.*
 I did think that you people would know rather more about this business
of death than the living do. But anyway, getting back to the main point,
you really didn’t feel any pain at the moment of death?
MUMMY: How can it be pain, when he who feels it is not aware of it?
RUYSCH: But everyone is convinced that death is a very painful thing to
feel.
MUMMY: As if death were a feeling, and not rather the very opposite!
RUYSCH: And yet all or most of those who accept the opinion of the
Epicureans regarding the nature of the soul,* and also most of those who
hold the common belief,* agree with what I say: namely that death is by
its very nature, and beyond compare, a most lively pain.
MUMMY: Well then, you can ask any one of us about it: if men do not
have the faculty of being aware of that moment when their vital forces, to
a greater or a lesser extent, are merely interrupted, by sleep or by
lethargy or by a fainting fit or by anything else, how can they be aware of
that moment when the same forces cease entirely, and not for a short
space of time, but in perpetuity? Besides, how can a lively feeling exist in
death? Or indeed, how can death by its very nature be a lively feeling?
When the power to feel is not only weakened and deficient, but reduced
to such a minimum that it fails and vanishes, do you believe that anyone
is capable of strong feeling? Indeed, that very extinction of the power to
feel, can you believe that that itself must be a strong feeling? You can see
that even those who die of acute and painful illnesses, at the approach of
death, some time before they expire, calm down and become peaceful
once more, so that it is obvious that their life is so far diminished that
there is not enough of it left to suffer pain, and pain ceases before life
does. This is what you should say from us to anyone who thinks that he
is going to be in pain at the moment of death.
RUYSCH: For the Epicureans perhaps these reasons may suffice. But not
for those who have a different opinion about the soul, as I have had in the
past and shall have much more firmly from now on, now that I have
heard the dead speaking and singing. Those who believe that dying
consists of the separation of the soul from the body will not understand
how these two things, joined and as it were glued together in such a way
that they form a single person, can be separated without the utmost
violence and unspeakable suffering.
MUMMY: Tell me: do you really think that the spirit is attached to the
body by some tendons, or by some muscles or membranes, which must
of necessity break when the spirit departs? Or do you think the spirit is a
limb of the body, which has to be broken off or cut away with violence?
Don’t you see that the soul only leaves the body because it is prevented
from remaining there, and has no place there any longer, and certainly
not because there is a force which tears it away and uproots it? Tell me
something else: you don’t really think that when it enters the body it feels
itself being firmly nailed there, or tied there, or, as you put it, glued
there? Why then, when it comes out of the body, should it feel itself being
detached or feel any sharp sensation at all? Rest assured: the soul’s
entrance and its exit are equally quiet, easy and gentle.
RUYSCH: Well, what is death then, if it isn’t pain?
MUMMY: Pleasure more than anything else. You must realize that dying,
like falling asleep, does not happen instantly, but by stages. The truth is
that these stages are more or less numerous, or longer or shorter,
according to the various causes and kinds of death. In the last of such
moments death does not bring pain or pleasure, any more than sleep
does. In the other preceding moments it cannot produce pain, because
pain is a lively thing, and a man’s senses at that time – that is, when
death has already begun – are themselves moribund, which means that
they are very much enfeebled. Death may even be a cause of pleasure,
because pleasure is not always a lively thing; in fact most human delights
probably consist of some sort of languor. So a man’s senses are capable
of pleasure even when near extinction, since very often languor is itself a
pleasure, especially when it frees from suffering: you know well enough
that the cessation of suffering or discomfort of any kind is a pleasure in
itself. So the languor of death must be the more welcome the greater the
suffering from which it frees us. As far as I am concerned, although in the
hour of death I did not pay much attention to what I was feeling, since
my doctors had forbidden me to tire my mind, still I do remember that
the feeling which I experienced was not very different from the delight
caused by the languor of sleep at the time when one is nodding off.
THE OTHER MUMMIES: We too seem to remember that.
RUYSCH: Let’s assume that it’s as you say, even though all those with
whom I’ve had occasion to speak of this matter saw it very differently,
 but without, as I recall, being able to bring their own experience to bear.
Now tell me: at the time of death, while you had this pleasant feeling, did
you think that you were dying, and that this delight came by courtesy of
death; or did you imagine something else?
MUMMY: As long as I was still not dead, I never believed I would not
escape that peril; right to the last instant that I had the power to think, I
hoped that I still had an hour or two of life left at least; as I believe is the
case with many people when they die.
THE OTHER MUMMIES: The same thing happened to us.
RUYSCH: Certainly Cicero says that there is no one so decrepit that he
does not give himself at least another year of life. But how were you
aware at the end that the spirit had left the body? Tell me: how did you
know you were dead?
They’re not answering. You can’t hear me, lads? Their quarter of an
hour must be up. Let’s give them a bit of a poke. They’re dead again all
right. There’s no danger that they’ll frighten me a second time. I’ll go
back to bed.
OceanofPDF.com
 Memorable Statements of Filippo Ottonieri

1
Filippo Ottonieri,* some of whose notable statements I am about to
record – whether gathered from his own mouth or told to me by others –
was born, and lived most of his life, in Cloudborough in the region of
Windy Valley, where he died a short while ago, and where there is no
memory of anyone ever being injured by him, either in word or deed. He
was generally hated by his fellow citizens, because he appeared to take
little pleasure in many things which are usually greatly loved and pursued
by most people, even though he gave no sign of despising or reproving
those who enjoyed and pursued them more than he did. It is believed that
he was in effect, and not only in his thoughts but in his actions, what other
men of his time professed to be – that is, a philosopher. And so he seemed
different from other people, although he did not wish or affect to look in
any way different from the crowd. On this subject he used to say that the
greatest eccentricity that could be found today in the dress or the way of
life or the actions of any civilized person, compared with what was
regarded as eccentric among the ancients, was not merely of another kind,
but much less different than that was from the usual custom of
contemporaries. However great that difference appeared to people
nowadays, it would have been little or nothing to the ancients, even in
those times and peoples who were in ancient days the most civilized or
corrupt. Comparing the singularity of Jean-Jacques Rousseau,* who
seemed very eccentric to our forebears, to that of Democritus* and the
early Cynic philosophers,* Ottonieri added that today anyone who lived a
life as different from ours as those philosophers did from the Greeks of
their time would not merely be regarded as an eccentric but, in the
opinion of the public, quite estranged, so to speak, from the human race.
And he considered that it was possible to discover the degree of
civilization in any place or time from the degree of singularity that could
be found in the people living in it.
Although he was most temperate in his life, he professed himself an
Epicurean, perhaps more as a joke than anything. But he condemned
Epicurus,* in whose time and nation, he said, much more pleasure could
be drawn from pursuing virtue and glory than from idleness, slovenliness
and carnal pleasures, things which Epicurus regarded as man’s supreme
good. And he declared that the Epicurean doctrine, which was very
appropriate for the modern age, was utterly alien to ancient times.
In philosophy he liked to be known as Socratic; often, like Socrates,* he
amused himself for much of the day in philosophic discussions, now with
this person and now with that, and most of all with some of his friends,
on whatever questions happened to arise. But, unlike Socrates, he did not
frequent the workshops of cobblers, carpenters, blacksmiths and people
like that; this was, he said, because, although the blacksmiths and
carpenters of Athens had time to spend in philosophizing, those in
Cloudborough would, if they had done that too, have died of hunger. Nor
did he argue, as Socrates did, by continual questioning and reasoning: he
said that, although the moderns might be more patient than the ancients,
one could not today find anyone who would put up with having to reply to
thousands of continual questions and listen to hundreds of conclusions.
And in fact he did not have anything of Socrates but his tendency to speak
at times ironically and obliquely. And, looking for the origin of the famous
Socratic irony,* he used to say: Socrates, born with a very noble mind, and
therefore with a very loving disposition, but very unfortunate in his
appearance, probably despaired even from his youth of being loved with
any love but that of friendship, which is unlikely to satisfy the sensitive and
fervid heart that often feels to others a much more tender affection. On
the other hand, although he abounded in that courage which comes from
reflection, it does not seem that he had enough of that courage which
comes from nature, or of the other qualities which in those times of war
and sedition, and amidst the great licentiousness of the Athenians, were
needed to engage in public affairs in his native land. In those his
unpleasing and ridiculous appearance would also have caused no small
prejudice against him in a population which, even in their language, made
little distinction between the good and the beautiful, and who were,
besides, much given to mockery. And so – in a city which was given to
freedom, full of noise, of passions, of business, of pastimes, of riches and
of other good things – Socrates, who was poor, unlucky in love, little
inclined to public affairs and nonetheless gifted with a magnificent mind
which in these conditions must augment every annoyance, gave himself to
reasoning subtly over the actions, the habits and the qualities of his fellow
citizens. This is why he came to use a certain irony, which is bound to
come naturally to someone who finds himself prevented from having any
part, so to speak, in living. But the meekness and the magnanimity of his
nature, and also the celebrity which he was achieving with that reasoning
of his, and by which his self-esteem must have been somewhat comforted,
made this irony not scornful and bitter, but gentle and sweet.
And so in this way, according to the famous saying of Cicero,*
philosophy was for the first time brought down from heaven by Socrates
and introduced into cities and homes. Removed from speculation over
occult matters, by which it had until that time been occupied, it was
directed to the lives and customs of men, and to dispute over virtues and
vices, over things which were good and useful and their opposite. But at
the beginning Socrates did not have it in mind to bring about this
innovation, or to teach anything, or to acquire the name of philosopher.
Since in his time that name belonged only to physicists and
metaphysicians, he could not hope to win it with such discussions and
colloquies as his. Indeed he openly professed to know nothing; and he
proposed nothing but to amuse himself by talking about other people’s
actions, preferring this as a pastime to philosophy itself, no less than to
any other branch of knowledge or art: inclined as he naturally was to
action much more than to speculation, he only turned to discussion
because of the difficulties which prevented him from acting. And in his
discussions he was always readier to speak with people who were young
and good-looking than with others, as if he were duping his desire and
pleasing himself through being esteemed by those by whom he would
much rather have been loved. And since all the Greek schools of
philosophy afterwards derived in some way from the Socratic, Ottonieri
concluded that the origin of almost all Greek philosophy, from which the
modern derives, was the pug nose and the satyr-like face of a man with an
excellent mind and an ardent heart. He also said that in the Socratic books
the person of Socrates is like those masked characters in our ancient
comedies,* each of which has everywhere one name, one costume and one
cast of mind, but whose other features vary from comedy to comedy.
Ottonieri left no philosophical writings, and nothing else that was not
private. And when he was asked by some people why he did not take to
philosophizing in writing, as he did by word of mouth, and did not put his
thoughts down on paper, he replied: reading is a conversation which one
has with the writer. Now, as in feasts and public amusements, those who
are not, or believe themselves not to be, part of the entertainment soon
become bored, so in conversation it is generally more pleasing to talk than
to listen. But books are essentially like those people who, when they are
with others, always talk and never listen. For this reason a book must say
much that is good and beautiful and say it well, so that the reader will
pardon it for talking all the time. Otherwise any book must come to be
hated like any insatiable talker.

2
Ottonieri admitted no distinction between business and amusement;
always, after being occupied by anything, however serious it was, he said
he had been amused. Only when occasionally he had been a little while
without any occupation did he confess to having had no amusement in
that interval.
He used to say that the truest pleasures our life has to offer are those that
come from false imaginings, and that children find everything even in
nothing, and adults nothing in everything.
He likened each of those pleasures generally regarded as real ones to a
globe artichoke: if we want to get to the heart of it, we have first to gnaw
and gulp down all the leaves. And he added that such artichokes were also
very rare; others were to be found in great numbers, similar to those on
the outside, but without hearts; he, finding it hard to swallow the leaves,
was usually content to abstain from both of them.
Replying to one who asked him what was the worst moment of human
life, he said: apart from times of grief, as also of fear, I myself tend to
believe that the worst moments are those of pleasure. This is because the
hope for and remembrance of these moments, which occupy the rest of
life, are the best and sweetest parts of those same pleasures. And he
compared human pleasures universally to scents: because he judged that
these usually leave behind a greater desire for themselves than any other
sensation does, in proportion to the delight they give; and of all man’s
senses that which was furthest from being capable of being satisfied by its
own pleasures was, he judged, the sense of smell. Also he likened scents to
the expectation of good things, saying that those scented things that are
good to eat, or in some way to taste, usually overcome their taste by their
odour, because their taste pleases less than their scent, or less than the
scent would lead us to presume. And he told how at times it had happened
to him that he waited impatiently for some good which he was sure to
obtain, and that not because of the greed he felt for that good, but for fear
of spoiling its enjoyment by building too much imagination round it, and
thinking it much greater than it would turn out to be. And that meanwhile
he had taken every care to distract his mind from the thought of that
good, as one does from thoughts of bad things.
He would say likewise that all of us, once we come into this world, are
like someone who lies down on a hard and uncomfortable bed: the instant
he is on it, he feels ill at ease and begins to twist and turn from one side to
the other, and change his place and position at every moment; and so he
goes on the whole night long, hoping always to get a little sleep at last,
and sometimes believing he is on the point of going to sleep; until the hour
comes when, without having had any rest, he gets up.
Observing with several others certain bees busy about their business, he
said: you are blessed if you do not know your own unhappiness.
He did not believe that one could number all the miseries of mankind, or
deplore any one of them enough.
To that question posed by Horace,* how it happens that no one is
content with his own lot, he replied: the reason is that no lot is happy.
Subjects no less than princes, the poor no less than the rich, the weak no
less than the strong, if they were happy, would be very content with their
lot, and would have no envy of others. This is because men are no more
demanding than any other species, but they can be satisfied only with
happiness. Now, since they are always unhappy, is it surprising that they
are never content?
He commented that, if one were to put the case that somebody was
found to be in the happiest condition on this earth, without his being able
to promise himself any improvement anywhere and in any way, one might
well say that he would be the most wretched of all men. Even the very
oldest people have plans and hopes of improving their condition in some
way. And he called to mind a passage of Xenophon* where he advises that,
when about to buy a piece of land, one should buy one that is poorly
cultivated. This is, he said, because a piece which produces no more than
it already does will not please you as much as it would if you saw it go
from well to better; and all those possessions which we see improving
content us much more than others do.
At the same time he remarked that no state is so wretched that it cannot
get worse; no mortal, however unfortunate he may be, can comfort
himself or boast that he is so unhappy that his unhappiness could not
increase. Although hope has no limits, men’s well-being is limited: rich
and poor, master and servant – if we balance the difference in their
conditions with what they are accustomed to and their desires – are found
usually to have roughly the same amount of well-being. But nature has
placed no limit on our ills, and even imagination cannot conceive a
calamity so great that it cannot happen in the present, or has not already
happened, or ultimately could not happen, to someone of our species.
Therefore, while the majority of men have really no hope of any increase
in the amount of well-being they possess, no one in the course of life lacks
good reason for fear, and if Fortune soon declines so far that she truly has
no power to benefit us further, she never loses the power to hurt us with
fresh injuries, such as to overcome and break the steadfastness of
desperation itself.
He often used to laugh at those philosophers who imagine that a man
can escape from the power of Fortune by despising and regarding as
nothing to do with him all the good and ill which it is not in his own
hands to obtain or avoid, to keep or get rid of, and by not placing his own
felicity or infelicity in anything that does not depend totally on himself.
About this opinion he used to say, among other things: even if we admit
that there ever was someone who lived among others as a true and perfect
philosopher, no one has ever lived or does live like this with himself; and it
is no more possible to care less for one’s own concerns than for those of
others than it is to care for those of others as if they were one’s own. But
even if this state of mind that these philosophers talk of were not only
possible, which it isn’t, but were discovered here truly present in one of us,
and also more perfect than they say, confirmed and ingrained by long use
and tested in many circumstances – might one say that the felicity and
infelicity of such a person was not in the power of Fortune? Would not
that very state of mind, which these philosophers suggest ought to save us
from Fortune, be subject to it? Is not man’s reason subject all day long to
infinite accidents, innumerable illnesses that bring with them stupidity,
delirium, frenzy, madness, foolishness, a hundred other kinds of lunacy,
brief or lasting, temporary or permanent? And can these not disturb it,
upset it, extinguish it? Is not memory, the preserver of knowledge,
continually wearing out and diminishing from our youth onwards? How
many in their old age become infantile again! And almost all lose their
spiritual vigour at that time of life. Even in any physical indisposition,
although every faculty of the intellect and memory remains healthy and
unimpaired, courage and constancy tend, sometimes more, sometimes
less, to flag and not infrequently die out. Finally, it is a great foolishness to
concede that our bodies are subject to things beyond our control, and at
the same time to deny that our minds, which depend almost entirely upon
the bodies, are bound to be subject to something outside ourselves. And he
used to conclude that man is wholly, and always, and undeniably, in the
hands of Fortune.
When asked why men are born, he replied, as a joke, that it was in order
to realize how much better it would have been not to be born.

3
In relation to a certain misfortune he had suffered, he said: losing
someone beloved, through a sudden accident, or after a short and rapid
illness, is not as bitter as seeing her destroyed little by little (and this had
happened to him) by a long illness, from which she dies only after she is
changed in body and mind, and reduced to being almost a different
person. This is something chock-full of wretchedness: in such a case the
beloved does not disappear from your sight, leaving you, in exchange, the
image which you keep of her in your mind, no less lovable than it was in
the past; but she remains before your eyes utterly different from her whom
you used to love; the result is that all the illusions of love are violently torn
out of your mind, and when eventually she goes for ever from your
presence, that first image of her which you had in your mind is found to be
cancelled by the new image. And so you come to lose your beloved utterly,
since she could not survive even in your imagination, which, instead of
comfort, offers you nothing but occasion for sadness. And to conclude,
such misfortunes leave us nowhere to rest in the grief that they bring us.
When someone was complaining of some trouble or other, and saying: if
I could be free of this, all my other troubles would be very easy to bear; he
replied: on the contrary, those troubles would then be heavy which now
seem light.
When someone else said: if this grief had lasted any longer, it would have
been unendurable; he replied: on the contrary, familiarity would have
enabled you to endure it better.
And in many matters that concern the nature of mankind he distanced
himself from the general judgement of the crowd, and at times even from
that of the educated. As for example, he denied that in making requests or
appeals, the best times are those of some unusual happiness on the part of
the people to whom the requests or appeals are made. He said: this is
especially the case if the request is not such as may be satisfied at once, on
the part of the person who is begged or requested, by simply or little more
than assenting to it. I consider that rejoicing is, when we want something
from people, a state no less unfavourable and contrary than grief. This is
because both emotions fill men’s minds with themselves, with the result
that they leave no room for other people’s concerns. As in grief our
misfortune, so in great happiness our well-being keeps our minds intent,
occupied and incapable of caring about the needs and desires of others.
Both sets of circumstances are quite alien to compassion in particular;
those of grief because man is wholly turned to self-pity; those of joy
because then all human affairs and the whole of life seem to us to be most
blithe and pleasing, with the result that misfortunes and troubles seem
almost to be vain imaginings, or at least we reject the very thought of
them since it would be too discordant with our present state of mind. The
best times to try to persuade someone to act in the present, or to decide to
act, for someone else’s benefit are those of some placid and moderate
happiness, not extraordinary, not lively; or else, and still more, those of
some similar joy, which, although lively, has no definite cause, but is the
result of vague thoughts, and consists in a gentle agitation of the spirit. In
that state men are more than ever disposed to compassion, more open to
requests, and sometimes welcome the opportunity to gratify others, and to
convert that confused motion and that pleasing impulse of their thoughts
into some praiseworthy action.
Likewise he used to say: an unhappy person, either recounting or in some
other way revealing his misfortunes, is not likely to obtain greater
compassion and greater solicitude from those whose troubles are most like
his. On the contrary, such people, when they hear your laments or
somehow get to hear of your condition, are only concerned with
considering their own ills as more serious. And it often happens that,
when you think that they are moved by your condition, they interrupt you
in order to describe their own lot, and they make great efforts to persuade
you that it is less tolerable than yours. And he used to say that in such
cases it usually happens as, we read in the Iliad, it did with Achilles: when
Priam, weeping in supplication and prostrate at Achilles’s feet, had
concluded his wretched lament, Achilles began to weep with him, not
because of Priam’s woes, but for his own misfortunes and the memory of
his father and his friend who was slain. He added that it may augment our
compassion somewhat if we have ourselves already suffered the same ills
that we hear or see in others, but not if we are enduring them in the
present.
He used to say that negligence and lack of consideration lead us to
commit infinite cruelties and wicked actions; and they very often have the
appearance of wickedness or cruelty. For example, when someone stays
away from home for his own amusement, and he leaves his servants out in
the open getting drenched with rain – and this not because he is harsh and
pitiless, but because he does not think of them and does not have their
discomfort in his mind. And he regarded lack of consideration as far
commoner in mankind than wickedness, inhumanity and things like that;
and he thought it gave rise to many more wicked actions; and he said that
most of the behaviour and actions of men that are attributed to some
appalling moral quality are really nothing more than a lack of
consideration.
He said on one occasion that a complete and overt ingratitude was less
painful to the benefactor than the remuneration of a great benefit with a
small one, by which the one who has benefited, either through coarseness
of judgement or through wickedness, believes he is or pretends he is
discharged of any obligation towards his benefactor; and the benefactor
must appear recompensed, or for the sake of civility pretend that he thinks
he is. The result is that on the one hand he comes to be deprived even of
the bare and idle gratitude of the mind which probably he had promised
himself in some particular case; and on the other hand he is deprived of
the power of freely complaining of ingratitude, or of appearing, as in
effect he is, to be poorly and unjustly requited.
I have also heard the following statement referred to as one of his. We are
usually inclined to presuppose, in those with whom we happen to be
talking, great acuity and skill in discerning our true merits, or those we
imagine we have, and in perceiving the beauty or any other virtue of all
our words or deeds; as also great profundity and a strong habit of
meditating, and a good memory, in considering those virtues and those
merits, and keeping them always in mind; and this even though, with
respect to anything else, we either do not discern such abilities in such
persons, or we do not admit, even to ourselves, that we find them.

4
He used to observe that irresolute men are sometimes full of perseverance
in their intentions, despite some difficulties; and this is the result of their
very lack of resolution, because to abandon a decision they had made
would oblige them to make another decision. Sometimes they are very
prompt and efficient in putting into action what they have resolved. This is
because, fearful from moment to moment that they will themselves
abandon the decision they have made, and so return to that troubling
perplexity and mental indecision in which they were before they made up
their minds, they hurry the execution on with all their strength. They are
impelled more by anxiety and the uncertainty of overcoming themselves
than by the object of the exercise and any obstacles that they must
overcome to achieve it.
Sometimes he said with a smile that people who are accustomed to the
continual communication of their own thoughts and feelings to others cry
out even when they are alone if a gnat bites them, or if they spill a vase, or
it slips from their fingers; and on the contrary those who are accustomed
to keeping themselves to themselves and are self-contained, even if they are
stricken with apoplexy while they are in company, keep their mouths shut.
He believed that many men, ancient and modern, who are reputed to be
great or extraordinary, achieve this reputation by virtue principally of the
excess of some of their qualities over others. And that one whose spiritual
qualities were balanced and in proportion to each other could, even if
these qualities were extraordinary and exceptionally great, only with
difficulty do things worthy of one quality or another, and appear either in
the present or in the future either great or extraordinary.
In modern civilized nations he distinguished three genera of people. The
first were those in whom their own nature, and also in great part the
nature they have in common with other men, was found to be transformed
by the conventions and customs of city life. He included in this group of
people all those who were suited to private or public business, to taking
part happily in polite human society and to being on good terms with
those with whom they happen to live and whom they deal with personally
in one way or another; in short, those who were suited to the customs of
civilized life in the present. And he said it was only this kind, generally
speaking, that deserved and gained men’s esteem in those nations. The
second kind, he said, were those whose nature was not changed
sufficiently from its first condition, either from not being, as they say,
cultivated, or because, by reason of its own narrow-mindedness and
insufficiency, it was little apt to receive and preserve the impressions and
the effects of convention, practice and example. This was the most
numerous of the three, but it was despised no less by itself than by the
others, and worthy of little consideration; and briefly it consisted of those
people who have or deserve the name of the populace, in whatever station
in life Fortune has placed them. The third kind, incomparably smaller in
number than the other two, despised almost as much as the second, and
often even more, consisted of those people whose nature, through
superabundance of strength, had resisted the conventions of our present
way of life, and excluded them and repelled them, accepting only the
smallest part of them, not enough for business dealings and conducting
themselves in society, nor even for knowing how to succeed in their
conversation, which is neither pleasing nor valued. And he subdivided this
genus into two species. The first was very strong and vigorous,
contemptuous of the contempt in which it was universally held, and often
gladder of this than if it were honoured; different from the others not
merely by its nature, but even voluntarily and happily; remote from the
hopes and pleasures of human society, and solitary in the midst of cities,
no less because it flees from other people than because they flee from it.
He added that only a few people were to be found in this species. In the
nature of the second species there was, he said, a sort of weakness and
timidity mixed with the strength, to the extent that their nature was at war
with itself. This had the result that men of this second species, not being in
the least disinclined to converse with others, and desiring in many various
ways to conform or be similar to those of the first genus, grieving in their
hearts at the low regard in which they see they are held, and at their
seeming to be inferior to men whom they surpass in intellect and mind –
do not manage, despite the care and diligence they put into it, to adjust
themselves to the practical management of living, or to making themselves
bearable even to themselves in society, any more than to others. Such men
had included in recent times, and in our time, to a greater or lesser degree,
not a few of the greatest and subtlest intellects. As a prime example he
adduced Jean-Jacques Rousseau;* and he added another example, drawn
from among the ancients: Virgil, of whom, in the Latin Life which bears
the name of Donatus the grammarian, it is said on the authority of
another grammarian, Melissus, a freedman of Maecenas,* that he was
very slow of speech, and little different from the ignorant. That this was
true, and that Virgil, simply because of his extraordinarily sharp mind,
was inept in human society, you could reasonably deduce from the subtly
wrought artifice of his style and from the spirit of his poetry; as also from
what we read towards the end of the second Georgic. There the poet,
against the custom of the ancient Romans, and especially those of great
intelligence, professed himself desirous of an obscure and solitary life; and
he said this in such a way that one can see he was compelled to it by his
whole nature, rather than by mere inclination; and that he loved it as a
remedy or refuge rather than as a benefit. And since, generally speaking,
men of this and the other species are not held in high esteem, except for
some few after death, while those of the second species when still alive, as
well as in death, are held of little or no account, Ottonieri judged that one
could affirm universally that in our times the general esteem of men could
not be obtained in life in any other way than by alienating oneself from
oneself and changing one’s natural being radically. Besides, since at the
present time all civilized life, so to speak, consists of people of the first
genus, whose nature tends to be in the middle ground between the other
two, he used to conclude that by this way, as by a thousand others, one
may see that the customs, the management and the authority over things
are almost totally in the hands of the mediocre.
Ottonieri also distinguished three stages of old age considered in relation
to the other ages of mankind. In the early years of nations, while in their
customs and habits all ages were just and virtuous, and while experience
and the knowledge of men and life did not yet necessarily alienate minds
from what was honest and just, old age was venerated above all other ages.
This was because in it, together with justice and similar virtues, which
were then common to all, there concurred, naturally, greater sense and
prudence than in the others. In the course of time, on the contrary, when
customs had been corrupted and perverted, no age was baser and more
abominable than old age. It was more inclined to love evil than the others
were, through long habit, through greater acquaintance with and practice
in human affairs, through the effects of others’ wickedness, endured longer
and in more instances, and through that coldness which is in the nature of
old age. At the same time it was impotent in pursuing evil, except with
calumnies, frauds, treachery, cunning, dissimulation and, in short, with
the lowest subterfuges of villainy. But once the corruption of nations had
gone beyond bounds, and the scorn of rightness and virtue preceded in
men their experience and understanding of the world and of the sad truth
of things – when in fact, so to speak, experience and understanding
preceded age, and man even in childhood was an expert, learned and
spoilt – old age became, I certainly will not say venerable, because from
then on very few things were worthy of this description, but more
tolerable than other ages. This was because mental fervour and physical
vigour – which previously, combined with imagination and nobility of
thought, had not seldom occasioned virtuous customs, feelings and
actions – had become merely stimuli and ministers to ill will and bad
actions, and gave spirit and liveliness to wickedness, which with declining
years was softened and alleviated by old people’s coldness of heart, and
the weakness of their limbs, qualities which are otherwise more conducive
to vice than to virtue. Besides this, their very experience and acquaintance
with human affairs, having become totally unpleasant, tiresome and base,
instead of turning good people to iniquity as in the past, gained the power
to diminish and at times extinguish the love of iniquity in saddened men.
Therefore, speaking of conduct, and of old age in comparison with other
ages, one may say that in the early times it was as the best is to the good;
in corrupt times as the worst is to the bad; in later and worse times, the
contrary.

5
He often spoke about the kind of self-love that these days is called egoism,
frequently giving himself, I believe, the opportunity to discuss it. I shall
repeat some of his opinions on that subject. He used to say that nowadays
any time you hear someone praised or reviled, for probity or its opposite,
by someone who has, or has had, dealings with him, all you can gather is
that this person who blames or praises him is satisfied or dissatisfied with
him – satisfied if he represents him as good, and dissatisfied if he
represents him as wicked.
He denied that anyone in these times could love without a rival. When
asked how this could be, he replied: because the loved one is of course the
ardent rival of the lover.
He used to say: let us suppose that you asked someone for a favour that
could not be given without incurring the hatred or ill will of a third
person; and let us suppose that all three people were more or less equal in
regard to their station in life or power. I declare that probably your request
would not be granted, even if granting it would put you under a great
obligation to the benefactor, and make your goodwill towards him greater
than the third person’s hatred: people’s fear of the hatred and anger of
men is much greater than the hope placed in their love and gratitude. This
is reasonable, because we see in general that the first two passions are
more often put into action, and in their operation show much more vigour
than the contrary ones. The reason is that anyone who makes an effort to
harm someone he hates, and seeks vengeance, does it for his own sake: he
who tries to help someone he loves, and who is repaying the benefits he has
received, does it for his friends and his benefactors.
He used to say that as a general thing the respects and services performed
for others in the deliberate hope of profit for oneself very seldom achieve
their purpose. This is because men, particularly today, who have more
knowledge and more sense than previously, find receiving easy and giving
difficult. Nevertheless, of those respects and services, the ones which are
rendered by young people to those who are old, rich and powerful, achieve
their end, not only more often than the others, but almost always.
I remember to have heard from his own mouth the considerations which
follow, concerned mainly with modern customs.
There is today nothing that makes experienced and worldly-wise men
ashamed except their being ashamed; and nothing makes such men
ashamed apart from this, if by chance it occurs.
The power of fashion is amazing. Whereas nations and men are most
stubborn in everything else, and obstinate in judging, acting and
proceeding according to tradition, even against all reason and to their own
detriment, Fashion whenever she wishes makes them immediately set
aside, vary or take up customs, fashions and judgements, and this even
when what they abandon is reasonable, useful and convenient, and what
they embrace is the opposite.
The endless things that in everyday life, particularly in men, are truly
ridiculous are seldom laughed at; and if anyone makes the attempt, then
when he sees his laughter is not taken up by others, he soon stops. And on
the contrary, we are laughing all the time at a thousand serious and useful
things, at which it is very easy to rouse others to laughter. Indeed, most
things at which we usually laugh are in fact quite the opposite of
ridiculous; and we laugh at very many of them for that very reason that
they are not at all, or scarcely, laughable.
Again and again we mention, or hear mention, of the good ancients, and
our good ancestors, and a man of the old school, meaning someone who is
decent and trustworthy. Every generation believes on the one hand that
people in the past were better than those in the present, and on the other
hand that nations get better every day as they distance themselves from
their primal state – which, if they were to go back to it, would
undoubtedly make them worse.
 The truth is certainly not beautiful. Nevertheless, even truth can often
provide some pleasures; and if in human affairs beauty is preferable to
truth, truth, where beauty is lacking, is to be preferred to everything else.
Now in large cities you are distant from beauty, because beauty no longer
has a place in men’s lives. You are distant also from truth, because in large
cities everything is feigned, or empty. So that there, so to speak, you do not
see, you do not hear, you do not touch, you do not breathe anything but
falsity, and that itself is ugly and displeasing. One may say that to sensitive
spirits this is the greatest unhappiness in the world.
Those who do not have to provide for themselves, and therefore leave the
care for their needs to others, cannot usually provide, in any way at all, or
only with the greatest difficulty and less sufficiently than others, for the
principal need which they are bound to have. I mean the need to occupy
their time. This is greater than all the particular needs for which, simply
by occupying one’s time, one does provide. And it is greater than the need
to live. Indeed living is, in itself, not a necessity: without happiness it is not
a blessing. Given life, the greatest and primary necessity is to lead it with
as little unhappiness as possible. Now on the one hand an unoccupied and
empty life is unhappy. On the other hand, the occupation that, more than
any other, makes one’s life less unhappy consists of providing for one’s
own needs.
He used to say that the custom of buying and selling human beings was
very useful to the human race. He alleged that inoculation against
smallpox came into Constantinople – whence it passed into England, and
so to other parts of Europe – originally from Circassia, where smallpox,
which was endangering the lives and harmful to the health and beauty of
their children and young people, was affecting the trade in their young
women very badly.
He would say about himself that, when he first left school and went into
the world, he decided, since he was an inexperienced young man and a
friend of truth, that he would never praise any people or things he came
across in his dealings with men, unless they seemed to him to be truly
praiseworthy. But, after a year had passed during which, keeping to his
decision, he had not praised anyone or anything, he came to fear that he
would totally forget, through lack of practice, what he had learnt not long
before in the art of rhetoric about the encomiastic or praising genre; so he
went against his decision, and soon afterwards abandoned it completely.

6
He used to have books read to him, now one book now another, mostly
those by ancient authors; and from time to time he interposed brief
comments of his own during these readings, on this passage or that, as
though annotating them orally. On hearing in the Lives of the
Philosophers, written by Diogenes Laertius, that Chilon,* being asked in
what the learned differed from the unlearned, replied it was in their great
hopes, he said: it is the opposite today; because the ignorant hope, and the
intelligent hope for nothing.
Likewise, hearing in the same Lives how Socrates declared that the only
good in this world was knowledge, and the only evil was ignorance, he
said: I do not know about ancient knowledge and ignorance; but today I
would say the contrary.
When, from the same book, he heard this dogma of the school of
Hegesias:* the wise man, whatever he does, will do everything for his own
benefit, he said: if all those who act like this are philosophers, then let
Plato come and establish his republic throughout the civilized world!*
He commended highly a remark by Bion of Borysthenes,* reported by the
same Diogenes Laertius, that the most tormented of all are those who seek
the greatest happiness. And he added that, on the other hand, the most
blessed are those who know how to, and can and do, nourish themselves
with the least and, even when that has gone, turn back to it and taste it in
memory at their ease.
He applied to the various ages of the civilized nations this Greek verse:
the young act, the middle-aged consult, the old desire. And he said that
truly nothing remained for the present age but desire.
There is a passage in Plutarch translated by Marcello Adriani the
Younger* in these words: the Spartans would have been much less willing
to endure the insolence and buffoonery of Stratocles. He had persuaded
the people (that is, the Athenians) to offer sacrifice as victors; then, when
the truth of their rout was known, they were indignant. He said: what
harm have I done you, since I enabled you to feast and rejoice for three full
days? Ottonieri added to this: it would be quite reasonable to give a
similar reply to those who complain about Nature, and resent the fact
that, as far as she can, she keeps the truth hidden from everyone and
covers it with many appearances that are empty yet beautiful and
delightful; one might ask: what harm has she done to you by keeping you
happy for three or four days? And on another occasion he said that one
could apply to our species in general, considering the errors that are
natural to man, what Tasso says about a child induced by trickery to take
his medicine: and from the deception he receives his life.
A passage from the Paradoxes of Cicero was read to him; it could be
rendered in the vulgar tongue as follows: do sensual pleasures perhaps
make someone better or more praiseworthy? And does there happen to be
someone who boasts and swanks of having enjoyed them? He said: my
dear Cicero, I shall not make bold to say whether moderns become better
or more praiseworthy through sensual pleasure, but they are certainly
more praised. You should in fact know that today this is the only pathway
to praise proposed and followed by almost all our young people; I mean
the one that goes through sensual pleasures. Those who enjoy them do not
only boast about them, and talk about them endlessly with friends and
strangers, with those who wish to hear and those who do not; in addition,
they desire and seek very many of them out, not as pleasures, but as a
reason for praise and fame, and something to boast about; and they even
lay claim to very many of them when they have not obtained them, or even
tried to obtain them, and they are all fictitious.
He noted that Arrian, in his history of Alexander the Great’s enterprises,
said that, on the day of Issus, Darius positioned his Greek mercenaries in
the vanguard of his army, while Alexander placed his mercenaries, who
were also Greek, at the rear; and he considered that from this
circumstance alone the result of the battle could have been foreseen.*
He did not reprehend, indeed he praised and loved, writers talking much
about themselves. He said that when they do this they are almost always
and almost all of them eloquent, and usually employ a style that is good
and suitable, even when that is contrary to what is normal in their time, or
their nation, or their own usage. And he said that that was not to be
wondered at, because those who write about their own affairs have their
minds strongly engaged and occupied by that subject matter; they never
lack for thoughts and emotions arising from that material and in their
own minds, not brought in from outside, nor drunk from other fountains,
nor ordinary and trite; and they find it easy to abstain from
ornamentation that is frivolous in itself or inappropriate, from graces and
beauties which are false, or which have more show than substance, from
affectation, and from everything which is unnatural. And he said it was
wrong to imagine that readers normally care little for what writers say
about themselves: first, because everything that is truly thought and felt by
the writer himself, and written in a natural and appropriate way, compels
attention and has an effect; and then, because no one can represent or
discuss in any way other people’s affairs with greater truth and efficacy
than when discussing their own. This is because all men are alike in the
qualities that are natural to them, and in those that are accidental, and in
everything that depends upon fate; and human affairs are seen much
better and with more feeling when they are considered in oneself than in
others. In confirmation of these thoughts he adduced, among other
instances, the oration of Demosthenes for the crown,* in which the orator,
while speaking all the time of himself, surpasses himself in his eloquence;
and Cicero, to whom most often, when speaking of his own affairs, the
same occurs, as seen especially in his defence of Milo, which is marvellous
throughout, but most marvellous where the orator introduces himself.
Similarly the most beautiful and eloquent part of Bossuet’s praises of the
Prince de Condé* is where at the end the orator mentions his own old age
and approaching death. Of the writings of the Emperor Julian, who
everywhere else is sophistical and often intolerable, the most judicious and
praiseworthy is the discourse entitled Misopogon, or Beard-Hater, where
he responds to the witticisms and slanders of the inhabitants of Antioch
against him. In this short work he is, apart from other qualities, not much
inferior to Lucian* either in comic grace, or in the abundance, sharpness
and vivacity of his witty sallies; whereas in his work on the Caesars,
although it imitates Lucian, he is graceless, and his jokes, apart from being
few and far between, are feeble and almost insipid. Among the Italians,
who are otherwise almost without eloquent writings, the apology which
Lorenzino dei Medici* wrote for his own justification is a great example of
eloquence and perfect throughout; and again, Torquato Tasso, not seldom
eloquent in those of his prose pieces where he speaks much of himself, is
almost always most eloquent in his letters, where he talks of nothing, one
might say, but his own circumstances.

7
Many other sayings and witty replies of his are recorded, like that which
he gave to a young man who was very well read but little experienced in
the world. The young man had said that the art of conducting oneself in
social life and the practical knowledge of men were learnt at the rate of
one hundred pages a day. Ottonieri replied: but the book contains five
million pages.
Another young man, who was thoughtless and impudent, and wished to
defend himself from those who reproached him for his daily gaffes and the
scorn they brought him, used to respond that life was only a comedy. On
one occasion Ottonieri said: even in a comedy it is better to be clapped
than hissed; and an actor poorly trained in his art, or inept in exercising it,
will eventually die of hunger.
A homicidal rogue was unable to flee after he had committed the crime
because he was lame, and so was taken by the officers of the law. Ottonieri
said of this: you see, my friends, that justice, although they say it is lame,
does capture the malefactor, if he is lame also.
When he was travelling in Italy, I do not know whereabouts, a courtier
said, in an attempt to irritate him: I shall speak frankly to you, if you will
permit me; he replied: I shall indeed be glad to listen to you; travellers are
always on the lookout for rarities.
Once, when he was forced by some necessity or other to ask someone to
lend him some money, the other excused himself for not giving it, adding
that, if he had been rich, he would have had no greater concern than for
his friends’ needs. He answered: I would be very sorry if you were
concerned for our sake. I pray that God never makes you rich.
In his youth he had composed some verses that employed certain out-of-
date words. When, at her request, he recited them to an aged lady, she said
she could not understand them because those words were not current in
her day. He replied: I certainly thought they would be current, because
they are very ancient.
 He said about a very wealthy miser, who had been robbed of a small sum
of money: he has been miserly even with thieves.
He said about a calculating person who, whenever he heard or saw
anything began to calculate: others do things, while this man adds them
up.
Some antiquarians were discussing an ancient figurine of Jove, made of
terracotta. When asked for his opinion he said: do you not see that this is
a Jove of Crete?*
Of a fool who presumed to be well acquainted with logic and in his
discourses mentioned it at every second word, he said: this is precisely the
man defined by the Greeks – a logical animal.
When he was near to death he composed for himself this inscription that
was later carved on his tomb:
THE REMAINS
OF FILIPPO OTTONIERI
BORN FOR VIRTUOUS WORKS
AND FOR GLORY
LIVED IDLE AND USELESS
AND DIED WITHOUT RENOWN
NOT UNAWARE OF HIS NATURE
OR OF HIS FATE
OceanofPDF.com
 Christopher Columbus and Pedro Gutierrez
A Dialogue

COLUMBUS: It’s a beautiful night, my friend.

GUTIERREZ:* It certainly is. And I think if we could see it from dry land
it would be even more beautiful.
COLUMBUS: Ah! So you’re tired of sailing too.
GUTIERREZ: Not of sailing in itself; but it is this voyage, turning out to
last longer than I would have thought, which is troubling me somewhat.
All the same, you mustn’t think that I am complaining about you, as the
others do. On the contrary, you can be sure that, whatever decision you
come to over this voyage, I shall always support you as I have in the past,
in every way I can. But, as a matter of interest, I wish you would make
clear to me definitely and honestly whether you are still as sure as you
were at the beginning of finding land in this part of the world; or
whether, after such a long time and with so much evidence to the
contrary, you are beginning to have some doubts.
COLUMBUS: To be quite frank, and speaking in confidence as one can
with a friend, I confess that I have begun to be rather dubious,
particularly since several signs that raised my hopes high during the
voyage have proved vain; like those birds that flew over us, coming from
the west, a few days out from Gomera,* and which I took as an
indication that there was land not far away. Indeed, day after day I have
seen how in more than one instance events have failed to correspond to
conjectures and predictions I made before we put to sea, concerning a
number of things that I believed would happen on the voyage. So I am
wondering whether, just as these predictions turned out to be delusions,
for all that they seemed to me practically certain, so it could happen that
the most important conjecture of all would prove false too, and that we
would not find land beyond the ocean. Certainly that conjecture is so
well founded that, if it really proves wrong, it would seem to me that one
could have no faith in human judgement, unless it were entirely of things
that one could see for oneself and touch. On the other hand, I must take
into account the fact that often, indeed more often than not, practice is
at odds with theory; and I even say to myself: how can you know that
each part of the world resembles all the others so much that, the eastern
hemisphere being made up partly of land and partly of water, it follows
that the western hemisphere too must be divided in the same way? How
can you know that it is not completely covered by one immense sea? Or
that instead of land, or even land and water, it does not contain some
other element? Granted that it has lands and seas like our hemisphere,
might it not be uninhabited? Uninhabitable even? Then, supposing it is
inhabited like ours, what certainty can you have that there are rational
creatures there, as in ours? And even if there are, how can you be certain
that they are human beings, that they are not very different from those
that you know? With a much bigger frame perhaps, and more robust,
more adroit; naturally endowed with much more intelligence and spirit;
much more civilized also, and enriched with much more knowledge and
artistry? These are the things I am wondering about. And to tell the
truth, nature is obviously provided with such great power, leading to so
many and various effects, that not only can we not make any sure
judgement about what she has achieved and goes on achieving in parts
very distant from our world and quite unknown to it, but we may even
wonder whether we are not deluding ourselves very badly if we draw
conclusions about other worlds on the basis of this one. Is it really
against all likelihood to suppose that at least some things in the
unknown world are marvellous and strange in comparison with our
own? Well, our eyes tell us that in these waters the compass needle
declines from the North Star quite a way towards the West. This is
something new, up to now unheard of among seamen, and for which,
whatever notions I come up with, I cannot think of one reason that
satisfies me. For all this, I am not suggesting that we should lend an ear
to the fables the ancients tell of marvels in the unknown world and on
this Ocean, like for example the fable of those lands described by
Hanno,* which at night were full of flames, with torrents of fire
disgorged by them into the sea. Rather we know how baseless has been
up to now all the fear of marvellous and horribly strange things our men
have suffered from on this voyage; as for instance when, seeing that mass
of seaweed* which appeared almost to change the ocean into a meadow,
and really did hinder our progress somewhat, they thought they were at
 the very limit of the navigable sea. What I wish to suggest is merely, in
reply to your question, that although my conjecture is based on
assumptions that are very reasonable – not only in my judgement, but in
that of many excellent geographers, astronomers and navigators with
whom I have, as you know, conferred in Spain, in Italy and in Portugal –
nevertheless it could turn out to be mistaken; because, I repeat, we see
that many conclusions reached after excellent trains of reasoning do not
stand up to experience; and this happens more than ever concerning
things about which we have very little knowledge.
GUTIERREZ: And so in short you have risked your own life, and the lives
of your companions, for the sake of a mere speculation?
COLUMBUS: That is so: I cannot deny it. But – leaving aside the fact that
every day men put themselves in mortal danger for much worse reasons,
and for things of very little account, or even without thinking about it –
just consider a moment. If at this time you and I and all our companions
were not on board these ships, in the middle of this sea, in this
unexplored solitude, in circumstances that are as uncertain and risky as
anyone could wish, in what other situation would we find ourselves?
How would we be occupied? How would we be passing the time? More
happily perhaps? Or instead might we not be in worse trouble or anxiety,
or else full of boredom? What does a state free of uncertainty and danger
entail? If it were contented and happy, then it is preferable to any other
state; if tedious and wretched, I do not know any state worse. I won’t
mention the glory we shall receive or the service we shall perform if our
enterprise succeeds as we hope it will. If no other benefit comes to us
from this voyage, it seems to me that it is most profitable in keeping us
free for a while from boredom, making life dear to us and making us
value many things which otherwise we would not even think about.
According to the ancients, as you have probably read or heard, unhappy
lovers who threw themselves from the rock of Santa Maura (which was in
those days known as the rock of Leucas)* down into the sea and got out
safely were, thanks to Apollo, freed ever afterwards from the passion of
love. I do not know whether we can believe that they achieved this effect;
but I certainly do know that, once they escaped that peril, they surely for
a little while, even without any favours from Apollo, held dear that very
life which they had been accustomed to hate, or at least held it dearer
 and more valuable than before. Every voyage is, in my opinion, like a
leap from the rock of Leucas, producing the same effect but for a longer
period, on which account it is far superior. It is commonly believed that
seamen and soldiers, since they are very often in danger of death, value
their lives less than other men do. For the very same reason I suspect that
life is loved and valued by few people as much as it is by sailors and
soldiers. There are so many blessings which when we have them we take
no notice of, and in fact so many things not even called blessings which
seem very dear and precious to sailors merely because they are deprived
of them! Who ever counted it as one of humanity’s blessings, just having
a little bit of earth to stand on? No one except sailors, and especially we
who, because of our great uncertainty over the outcome of this voyage,
desire nothing so much as the sight of a strip of land. This is the first
thought we have when we wake, and still with this thought we go to
sleep; and if one day we are but granted the distant sight of a mountain
peak or a forest crest, or some such thing, we shall be beside ourselves
with joy; and once we have landed, just the thought of finding ourselves
on terra firma and being able to walk here and there as we feel like it will
make us believe for some days that we are blessed.
GUTIERREZ: All that is true enough. Indeed, if your theory turns out to
be as sound as your justification for having pursued it, then we cannot
fail to enjoy this blessedness one day.
COLUMBUS: As far as I am concerned, although I no longer dare to
promise it to myself definitely, I do have hopes that we are going to enjoy
it soon. For several days now the plummet, as you know, has touched
bottom; and the kind of material that has come up with it seems to me a
good indication. When it gets towards evening the clouds round the sun
seem to me of a different shape and colour from the previous days. The
air, as you can feel, has become milder and warmer. The wind is not as
strong as it was, nor as straight and constant; rather it is uncertain and
variable, as though there were obstacles in the way. Then there was that
length of cane floating on the surface of the sea, which looked as though
it had been cut recently, and that little branch with those fresh red
berries. Even the flocks of birds, although they have deceived me on other
occasions, now pass over so often and are so large, and their numbers
increase so much from day to day, that I think that one could put some
 trust in them; particularly since mingled with them are birds which, by
their shape, do not look like seabirds. In short, all these indications taken
together, however cautious I try to be, keep me in high hopes.
GUTIERREZ: God grant that this time your dreams come true.
OceanofPDF.com
 In Praise of Birds
Amelius,* a solitary philosopher, was sitting one morning with his books
in the shade of his country house and reading, when he was struck by the
sound of the birds singing throughout the countryside. Gradually he
began to listen and think, and he stopped reading. Eventually he took a
pen in his hand and there and then wrote as follows:
Birds are by their nature the happiest creatures in the world. When I say
that I do not mean that whenever you see or hear them they make you
rejoice; I mean rather that they are themselves carefree and joyful more
than other creatures. The other creatures generally look serious and grave;
many of them even look melancholy; only on rare occasions do they show
signs of joy, and these signs are small and brief; most often in their
enjoyment and delight they do not celebrate, or give any appearance of
mirth; even if the verdant countryside, the open and graceful scenes, the
resplendent sun and the sweet crystalline air give them pleasure, they do
not usually give any external indication of it. The exception are hares,
which are said – by night, when there is a moon, and especially when there
is a full moon – to jump and play together, enjoying the brightness,
according to what Xenophon writes.* Birds generally seem full of joy in
their motion and appearance; and that quality which they have of making
us rejoice at their sight comes solely from the fact that their shape and
their actions, always and everywhere, are such that they denote a natural
ability and special disposition to feel delight and joy; nor should that
appearance be thought empty and deceptive. In every pleasure and every
satisfaction which they have, they sing; and the greater the pleasure and
satisfaction, the more breath and effort they put into their singing. And,
since they sing for most of the time, we may infer that they are usually
enjoying themselves and full of goodwill. And although it is observed that,
when they are in love, they sing better and more often and at greater
length than ever, one should not therefore think that they are moved to
sing by no other delights and satisfactions than those of love. We can
clearly see that when the day is clear and calm they sing more than when it
is dark and troubled; and in storms they fall silent, as they do also when
they are afraid; and when that trouble has passed, they come out once
more singing and playing with one another. Likewise we see that they are
accustomed to sing in the morning when they waken; they are moved to
this partly by the joy they take in the new day, partly by that pleasure
which every animal usually has at feeling itself restored by sleep and
renewed. Moreover they rejoice most of all at the cheerful greenery, the
fertile valleys and the pure and lucent waters of the beautiful countryside.
In relation to that it is noteworthy that what seems to us to be pleasant
and graceful seems so also to them. We can see this from the allurements
by which they are drawn to the nets and birdlime, to the limed branches
and where the nets are spread. We see it also from the kind of places in the
country that are normally the most frequented by birds, and where their
song is constant and warm. None or few of the other creatures – except
perhaps those that are domesticated and used to living with men – make
the same judgment as we do about the pleasantness and beauty of places.
And that is not to be wondered at, because they are only pleased with
what is natural. Now very many of those things which we call natural are
not; on the contrary, they are somewhat artificial; for instance, the
cultivated fields, the trees and other plants which are tended and placed in
order, the rivers which are kept within bounds and directed along a certain
course and suchlike, are not in that state and do not have that appearance
which they would have naturally. The result is that the look of every village
inhabited by whatever race of civilized men, even without considering the
towns and the other places where men bring themselves to be together, is
artificial and very different from how it would be in nature. Some do say,
and it would be relevant here, that birdsong is sweeter and more pleasant,
and the song more modulated, in our countries than in those where the
men are savage and uncouth; and they conclude that birds, although they
are free, do take on a little of the civilization of those people in whose
countries they are accustomed to live.
Whether this is true or not, it was certainly a notable provision of nature
to give to one kind of creature both song and flight, with the result that
they who were to cheer other living beings with their voices would
normally be up on high; this is so that their voices would spread around to
a greater area, and so reach more listeners, and also so that the air, which
is the element destined for sound, should be populated by vocal and
musical creatures. Truly much comfort and delight is given to us, and no
less, in my opinion, to the other creatures, by hearing the song of the
birds. And that, I believe, comes mainly, not from the sweetness of the
sounds, however great that may be, nor from their variety, nor from their
harmony, but from that indication of joy which is naturally contained
both in song in general and in birdsong especially. This is, one might say,
the bird’s laugh called forth by its feeling of well-being and pleasure.
From this one might conclude that birds participate in some way in man’s
privilege of laughter. Other creatures do not, which is why there are those
who think that, just as man is defined as an intellectual and rational
creature, he might just as well be defined as a creature made for laughter,
since it seems to them that laughter is no less fitting and particular to men
than reason. It is certainly a remarkable fact that man, who is of all
creatures the most troubled and wretched, has the faculty of laughter,
which is foreign to all the others. Remarkable too is the use we make of
this faculty: we see how many who are involved in some savage incident,
others in great sadness, others who have preserved scarcely any love of life
and who are convinced of the vanity of all human happiness, almost
incapable of any joy, and bereft of all hope, do nonetheless laugh. Indeed,
the more they come to recognize the vanity of the above-mentioned good,
and the unhappiness of life, and the less they hope, and even the less they
are capable of enjoyment, all the more are some men inclined to laughter.
The nature of laughter in general, and its inmost principles and action, as
regards that part which belongs to the mind, could hardly be defined and
explained except perhaps by saying that laughter is a sort of temporary
madness, or even raving and delirium. This is because men, since they are
never satisfied or ever truly pleased with anything, cannot have any cause
to laugh that is reasonable and justified. It would indeed be interesting to
enquire why and on what occasion man was most likely to have been
brought for the first time to employ and become aware of this faculty of
his. There is no doubt that in his first and savage state he showed himself
to be usually serious, as do the other creatures, in fact melancholy in
appearance. I am therefore of the opinion that laughter not only came into
the world after weeping – something about which there could be no
argument – but that it struggled for a long time before it was tried out and
noticed for the first time. Meanwhile, neither did the mother smile on her
baby, nor did her baby recognize her with a smile, as Virgil says.* And if
today, at least where the people are used to a civilized way of life, they
begin to laugh shortly after they are born, they do that principally from
example, because they see others laugh. And I should think that the first
occasion and the first cause of men laughing was drunkenness, something
else that is unique and peculiar to the human race. Drunkenness began
long before men had arrived at any kind of civilization: we know that it is
hard to find any people so uncouth that they have not provided themselves
with some drink or other means of getting drunk, in the use of which they
are not sparing. This is not to be wondered at, considering that men, as
they are the unhappiest of all the creatures, also experience more delight
than any other, by the effortless distraction of their minds, by the
suspension, as it were, of life. From this interruption or temporary
decrease in their sense and understanding of their own ills they receive no
small benefit. And as regards laughter, we see that savages, however
serious and sad their appearance is at other times, do laugh profusely
when they are drunk, talking a lot and singing, quite against their custom.
But I shall deal with these matters at greater length in a history of
laughter, which I have in mind to write. In this, having traced its birth, I
shall continue by recounting its actions and its incidents and its fortunes
thereafter, up to the present day, when it is found to be greater in dignity
and state than ever it was. It has a place in civilized nations, and performs
to some extent an office that was performed in other ages by virtue,
justice, honour and suchlike; on many occasions it restrains and frightens
men off evil actions. Now, to conclude this discussion of birdsong, I say
that, since happiness observed or recognized in others, when it does not
provoke envy, usually comforts us and makes us rejoice, it was very
laudable of nature to arrange for birdsong, which is a demonstration of
happiness and especially of laughter, to be public, whereas men’s singing
and laughter are private with respect to the rest of the world. Nature in
her wisdom has arranged that the earth and the air should be crowded
with creatures who throughout the day, in resounding and solemn voices,
seem to applaud all life, and inspire other living things with happiness, so
bearing continual witness, however false, to the happiness of everything.
And it is not without good reason that birds are, and show themselves to
be, more cheerful than other animals. This is because, as I suggested at the
start, their natures are truly better adapted to enjoyment and happiness.
To begin with, it does not seem that they are subject to boredom. They are
moving about all the time; they travel from one place to another, however
distant that may be, and from the lowest to the highest regions of the air,
in a short space of time, and with admirable ease; they see and experience
in their lives endless very different things; they are continually exercising
their bodies; they have an unusual abundance of external life. All other
creatures, once they have provided for their needs, love to stay quiet and
idle; none of them, except perhaps fish, and with the exception of some of
the flying insects, dash about for long just for amusement. Likewise, men
in their savage state – unless they are supplying their daily necessities,
which does not take long, or they are driven by a storm or a wild beast or
something similar – are not accustomed to move a step; they love idleness
and slovenliness most of all; they spend almost entire days sitting
indolently in silence in their shapeless hovels, or in the open, or in the
cracks and caverns in rocks and stones. Birds, on the contrary, do not stay
very long in the same place; they are always coming and going without
any real reason; flight is to them an amusement; and sometimes, having
travelled for pleasure more than a hundred miles from their usual haunts,
they return towards the evening of the same day. Even during the short
time that they remain in one place, you will not ever see their bodies still;
they are always turning this way and that, they are always twitching,
bending over, stretching out, shaking themselves, wriggling, with that
sprightliness, that agility of theirs, that indescribable swiftness. In short,
from when the bird hatches out until it dies, apart from intervals for sleep,
it does not rest for one moment. From these considerations it seems that
we might affirm that the natural and customary state of other creatures,
including man, is rest, while of the birds it is motion.
To these external qualities and circumstances of theirs internal
circumstances correspond – those, that is, of the mind, by which likewise
they are more predisposed to happiness than other creatures are. Their
hearing is so acute, and their sight so efficacious and perfect, that our
minds can scarcely form an adequate idea of them. These powers enable
them to enjoy immense and varied spectacles every day. From on high they
observe at one and the same moment such an expanse of earth, and clearly
pick out with their eyes so many regions, that a man can scarcely, even in
his mind, comprehend them all at once. We must conclude that they have
great vivacity and great imaginative power. Not that profound imaginative
power, fervid and tempestuous, that Dante and Tasso had. That is an ill-
omened gift, and the cause of the gravest perpetual worries and torments.
No, the imagination of birds is of that kind which is rich, varied, light,
changeable and childlike. It is an abundant fount of pleasing and cheerful
thoughts, of charming errors, of multifarious delights and comforts: it is
the greatest and most fruitful gift of nature’s generosity to living beings.
The result is that by means of this faculty birds have in great abundance
what is good and useful in promoting joyfulness, without however
participating in what is harmful and distressing. And, just as they abound
in external life, they are equally rich in interior life, but in such a way that
this abundance redounds to their benefit and delight, as it does with
children, and not to their harm and great wretchedness, as it usually does
with mankind. This is because, just as birds have an obvious likeness to
children with regard to liveliness and external mobility, so it is reasonable
to believe they are alike in their mental faculties. If the blessings of that
early time of life were common to other times of life, and the ills no
greater in the others than in that one, perhaps men would have cause to
bear their lives patiently.
In my opinion the nature of birds is, from certain points of view, nearer
perfection than that of other creatures. For example, if we consider that
birds are far superior to all others in the faculties of sight and hearing –
which, according to the order of nature, belong to the whole race of living
creatures – it follows that the nature of birds is nearer perfection than the
natures of others. Again, the other creatures are, as I said above, naturally
inclined to rest, as the birds are to motion; motion is a livelier thing than
stillness, life itself, in fact, consisting in motion, and the birds abound in
external movement more than any other creature; besides which, their
sight and hearing, in which they surpass all others, and which are the
foremost of their powers, are the two senses most peculiar to living beings,
as also the liveliest and most mobile, both in themselves and in the
customary actions and other effects that are produced by them in the
creature internally and externally. So finally, considering also the other
things said above, we must conclude that birds have greater fullness of life,
externally and internally, than other creatures. Now, if life is something
nearer perfection than its opposite, at least in living creatures, and if
therefore abundance of life is greater perfection, in this respect too it
follows that the nature of birds is more perfect. In this connection we must
not ignore the fact that birds are in the same way fitted to endure the
extremes of cold and heat, even without any interval of time between one
and the other: often we see them rise in little more than an instant from
the earth through the air into some very high region, a place that is
immeasurably cold; many of them also move across different climates in
their flight.
In conclusion, just as Anacreon longed to be transformed into a mirror in
order to be gazed at continually by her whom he loved, or into a skirt to
cover her, or into an unguent to anoint her, or into water to wash her, or
into a band which she might bind to her bosom, or into a pearl to be worn
at her neck, or into a shoe that she might at least press him with her foot*
– likewise I would like, for a little while, to be changed into a bird in order
to experience the contentment and joy of that life.
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 The Canticle of the Wild Cock
Certain Hebrew authorities and writers affirm that between heaven and
earth, or rather halfway between the two, there lives a certain wild cock,
with its feet standing on the earth and its crest and beak touching the sky.
This gigantic cock has, apart from various qualities that can be read about
in the aforementioned authors, the use of reason; or at least it has, like a
parrot, been taught, I know not by whom, to enunciate words as men do.
In an ancient parchment, written in Hebrew letters, and in a language that
is a mixture of Chaldean, Targum, Rabbinic, Cabbalistic and Talmudic, a
canticle has been found entitled ‘Scir detarnegòl bara letzafra’, that is
‘Morning Canticle of the Wild Cock’. And this – not without great labour,
and not without questioning more than one rabbi, cabbalist, theologian,
jurist and Hebrew philosopher – I have contrived to understand
thoroughly and to render into our vulgar tongue, as can be seen in what
follows. I have not yet managed to find out if this canticle is repeated by
the cock from time to time, or rather every morning, or whether it was
sung only once, or who hears or has heard it sung, or if the language is the
language proper to the cock, or if the canticle was taken from some other
language. As for what is written below in the vulgar tongue, to make it as
faithful as possible (which I have struggled to do in every other way), it has
seemed to me preferable to use prose rather than verse, even though the
matter is poetical. The style, which is unfinished and at times perhaps
inflated, ought not to be blamed on me: it is in conformity with that of the
original text, which itself corresponds in this respect to the languages, and
especially to the poets, of the East.
Up, mortals, rouse yourselves! Day is reborn, truth returns to the earth
and vain images depart. Arise! Take up once more the burden of life, and
bring yourselves once more from the false world into the true!
At this time of day everyone calls back to mind all the thoughts of his
present life; he recalls the projects, the studies and the occupations; he
contemplates the delights and the troubles that may come to him during
the new day. And everyone at this time of day desires more than ever to
find again joyful expectations and pleasant thoughts, even if only in his
mind. But few find their desire satisfied: reawakening is disastrous for
everyone. The wretch is no sooner aroused than he is once more in the
hands of his unhappiness. Sleep is the sweetest of things, laying to rest
both joy and hope. Both of them are kept whole and intact until the eve of
the next day, but with that they either vanish or deteriorate.
If the sleep of mortals were perpetual, and coextensive with life; if
beneath the star of day, with all living beings throughout the earth
languishing in a profound silence, no activity appeared; no lowing of
cattle through the meadows, no roar of wild beasts through the forests, no
song of birds in the air, no buzzing of bees or butterflies fluttering over the
countryside; if no voice, no motion whatsoever, except for the waters, the
winds and the tempests, arose on any side – the universe would certainly
be useless; but would there happen to be there either less unhappiness, or
greater misery, than can be found today? I ask you, O Sun, author of day
and lord of our waking hours: in the course of the centuries distinguished
by you and devoured by you in your rising and falling up to now, did you
ever see even once one person among the living who was happy? Out of all
the innumerable works of mortals that you have seen so far, do you think
that even one achieved its intention, which was the satisfaction, lasting or
transitory, of that creature which produced it? Indeed do you see at this
moment or have you ever seen happiness within the bounds of this world?
In what field does it dwell, in what woodland, on what mountain, in what
valley, in what country, inhabited or uninhabited, on what planet of all
those that your flames light up and warm? Perhaps it is hiding from your
sight, and resides in the inmost parts of caverns, or in the depths of the
earth or sea? What living being has any part in it; what plant, or anything
else that you bring to life; what creature with or without vegetable or
animal powers? And you yourself, you who like a tireless giant, rapidly, day
and night, without sleep or rest, race along the limitless road that has been
laid down for you – are you blessed or are you unhappy?
Mortals, rouse yourselves! You are not yet freed from living. The time
will come when no external force, no inner movement will rouse you from
the silence of sleep; but there you will always and insatiably rest. For the
time being death is not permitted to you: only from time to time are you
briefly granted some likeness of it; life would not last if it were not
frequently interrupted. A lack of this brief and ephemeral slumber for too
long is in itself a fatal illness and cause of eternal rest. Life is such a thing
that, in order to endure it, there is a need from time to time to lay it down,
gather a little energy and restore oneself with a taste, a particle as it were,
of death.
It would appear that existence has death for its peculiar and unique
object. Since that which never was cannot die, then all that exists has
originated from nothingness. Assuredly the ultimate cause of being is not
happiness, since nothing is happy. Admittedly, animate creatures have this
end in view in all their actions, but they do not attain it with any one of
them; and yet throughout their lives, as they do their utmost, always
putting themselves out and struggling, they truly suffer and take all this
trouble, for nothing else but to reach this sole object of nature that is
death.
The first hour of the day is, however, usually the most bearable for living
creatures. Few of them, upon awakening, find pleasant and joyful thoughts
in their minds, but almost all such thoughts are produced and formed at
that time. This is because at that hour the mind, even without any special
and determined matter, is inclined above all to joyfulness, or disposed,
more than at other times, to the endurance of ills. The result is that
anyone who, as he falls sleep, finds himself overcome with desperation,
when he awakens accepts hope into his heart once more, although there is
no reason at all for it. Many misfortunes and many worries of his, many
reasons for fear and anxiety seem at that time to be much slighter than
they were on the previous evening. Often, moreover, past anxieties are
disparaged, and almost the occasion for a laugh, as if they were the result
of errors and vague imaginings. Evening is comparable to old age: the
early morning, on the contrary, seems like youth, generally more consoled
and confident, while the evening is sad, discouraged and inclined to expect
the worst. But, like the youth of life itself, what mortals experience each
day is very brief and fugitive; and rapidly the day itself turns for them into
extreme old age.
The bloom of youth, although it is life at its best, is nevertheless
wretched. And even this poor blessing disappears so soon that, when the
living being notices the many signs of his degeneration, he has scarcely
enjoyed perfection, or been able to sense and fully understand his own
powers, which are already diminishing. In any kind of mortal creature
most of life is a fading-away. Indeed, nature in all her works is intent and
directed towards death: there is no other reason why old age prevails so
obviously, and for such a long time, in life and in the world. Every part of
the universe is rushing tirelessly towards death with remarkable diligence
and speed. Only the universe itself might appear immune from languishing
and decay: if in the autumn and winter it shows itself to be infirm and old,
it is always rejuvenated in the following season. But, just as mortals,
although at the beginning of each day they recover some of their youth,
and yet are every day growing older, and ultimately are extinguished, just
so the universe, although it is renewed at the start of each year, is
nevertheless ageing continually. The time will come when this universe,
and nature herself, will be spent. And just as, of the greatest realms and
human empires, and their marvellous deeds, which in other ages were
most famous, no trace or fame remains today, so of the whole world and
the infinite events and calamities of creation no vestige will remain; but a
bare silence and deep quiet will fill the immensity of space. So this
marvellous and terrifying mystery of universal existence, before it is either
declared or understood, will disappear and be lost.
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 Apocryphal Fragment of Strato of Lampsacus

Preamble
This fragment, which I have for my own amusement translated from
Greek into the vulgar tongue, is taken from a codex that some years ago
was to be found, and perhaps still is to be found, in the library of the
monks on Mount Athos. I entitle it ‘Apocryphal Fragment’ because, as
anyone can see, what is written in the chapter ‘Of the End of the World’
could only have been written a short time ago; while Strato of
Lampsacus,* a Peripatetic philosopher, known as “the physicist”, lived
about three hundred years before the Christian era. Certainly the chapter
‘Of the Origin of the World’ agrees very closely with those few opinions of
that philosopher referred to in ancient writings. And therefore we may
well believe that the first chapter, and also perhaps the beginning of the
second, are definitely by Strato; while the rest has been added by some
learned Greek no earlier than the last century. The learned reader must
judge for himself.

Of the Origin of the World

Material things, just as they all perish and come to an end, so they all had
a beginning. But matter itself had no beginning, which is to say that it
exists, through its own strength, ab eterno.* For, from observing that
material things grow and diminish and in the end dissolve, it can be
concluded that they do not exist in themselves and ab eterno, but were
begun and produced; and on the contrary one may judge that what does
not grow or decrease, and never perishes, never began and does not arise
from any cause whatsoever. And certainly there is no way by which one
might prove that, if the latter argument were false, the former was
nevertheless true. But since we are certain that the former is true, we must
also agree with the latter. Now we see that matter does not ever increase
even by the slightest amount, and not even the slightest part of matter
perishes, so that matter is not subject to decay. Therefore the different
modes of existence of matter, which are seen in what we call material
creatures, are ephemeral and fleeting. And yet no sign of transience or
mortality is to be found in matter as a whole, and therefore no sign that it
had a beginning, or that in order to exist it has needed or does now need
any cause or impulse outside itself. The world – that is, the existence of
matter in such and such a way – is something that began and is ephemeral.
We shall now speak about the origin of the world.
Matter in general, like the plants and animate creatures in particular, has
in itself of its nature one or more of its own forces, which continually
agitate it and move it in many different ways. We may conjecture these
impulses and even name them by their effects, but we cannot know them
in themselves or discover their nature. Nor can we know even that those
effects which we attribute to one and the same impulse really do proceed
from one impulse or from several, or on the contrary if those impulses to
which we give different names are really different impulses, or rather one
and the same. So every day one single passion or impulse in man is
denoted by different words: for example, ambition, the love of pleasure
and suchlike – from each of these sources effects are derived which are at
times simply different, at times utterly contrary to those of the others – are
in fact one passion, that is, self-love, which operates differently in different
circumstances. Therefore these impulses, or one should say this impulse,
of matter, moving it, as we have said, and agitating it continually, forms
out of this matter innumerable creatures, that is it modifies the matter in a
great variety of ways. These creatures, taking them all together, and
considering them as distributed into certain genera and species, and joined
to each other by certain arrangements and relations that arise out of their
nature, are known as the world. But since the said impulse never rests
from working and modifying matter, so the creatures that it continually
forms it likewise destroys, forming new creatures from their matter.
Although individual creatures are destroyed, so long as their genera and
their species are preserved – that is, all or most of them, and the natural
arrangements and relations of the things are not wholly altered – one says
that the world still endures. But infinite worlds in the infinite space of
eternity, having lasted a greater or a lesser time, have ultimately perished,
lost through the continuous upheaval of matter occasioned by the said
impulse, and the genera and species of which these worlds were composed
are lost, together with those arrangements and relations that governed
them. Yet matter has not diminished in any particle, only such modes of
being, each of them being at once succeeded by another mode of being –
that is, by another world – one after another.

Of the End of the World

It is not easy to say how long this present world – of which men are a part,
one of the species of which it is composed – has lasted up to now, just as
one cannot know either how long it will endure. The laws that govern it
appear immutable, and are believed to be such, because they only change
little by little and over an incomprehensible period of time, in such a way
that their changes cannot be apprehended by the intellect, still less by the
senses of man. This stretch of time, however long it may be, is nevertheless
tiny in comparison with the eternal duration of matter. In this present
world we see individuals dying continually and things changing
continually, one into another; but since destruction is continually
compensated for by production, and the genera are preserved, it is thought
that this world does not have and is not likely to have in itself any reason
why it must die, and does not show any sign of transience. Nevertheless,
one can see that the contrary is true, and that from more than one
indication, and among them this which follows.
We know that the world – through its perpetual rotation on its own axis,
with the parts near the Equator fleeing from the centre, and those parts
round the poles pressing towards the centre – has changed, and is
continually changing its shape, becoming always fatter round the Equator,
and on the contrary always compressing itself round the poles. It must
therefore happen at the end of a certain length of time – which, although it
is in itself measurable, cannot be known by man – the earth will be
flattened all round the Equator, in such a way that it will lose entirely its
globular shape and be reduced to a thin, round tabletop. This circle,
turning continually around its centre, attenuated and dilated more and
more, at long last, with all its parts fleeing from the centre, will turn out
to be holed in the middle. With this hole increasing its circle from day to
day, the world will be reduced to the shape of a ring, which eventually will
fly off in pieces that, having left the present orbit of the world, will fall
into the sun or perhaps some planet.
One could, as it happens, give an example in confirmation of this thesis. I
mean the ring of Saturn, on whose nature astronomers are divided. And
although the hypothesis is new and unheard of, it might seem not
unreasonable to suggest that the ring was at first one of the lesser planets
destined to be a courtier of Saturn; then it was flattened and pierced in the
centre for reasons like those we have mentioned in relation to the world –
but more quickly, being perhaps made of softer and rarer matter – and it
fell from its orbit in the planet of Saturn, by which, with the attractive
strength of its mass and its centre, it was kept, as indeed we see it, around
this centre. And one might believe that this ring, continuing to rotate, as
indeed it does, around its centre, which is the same as that of the globe of
Saturn, will always get thinner and more spread out, with the space
between it and the said globe increasing, although that will happen too
slowly for those changes to be noticed and understood by men,
particularly since they are so far away. This is what, seriously or jokingly,
might be said about the ring of Saturn.
Now there is no doubt that this change, which we know has happened
and is happening every day to the shape of the earth, happens likewise and
for the same reasons to the shape of every planet, even though in the other
planets it will not be so obvious to our eyes as it is in the case of Jupiter.
And this does not happen only to those that, like the earth, revolve around
the sun: the same doubtless happens to those planets that we have every
reason to believe are revolving around every star. Therefore, in the same
way as we have hypothesized for the earth, all the planets at the end of a
certain period of time, breaking into pieces of their own accord, will fall,
some into the sun and the others into their own stars. In these flames it is
clear that not only some or many individuals, but all those genera and
species which are now on the earth and on the planets, will be universally
destroyed, down, so to speak, to their roots. And this probably, or
something like it, was in the minds of those philosophers, Greek and
barbarian, who affirmed that this present world must in the end perish
from fire. But, since we see that the sun too revolves on its own axis, and
therefore the same must be believed about the stars, it follows that all of
them in the course of time must, no less than the planets, fall into
dissolution, with their flames scattered into space. In the same way,
therefore, the circular motion of the terrestrial spheres, which is a
principal part of the existing natural order, and almost the beginning and
source of the conservation of this universe, will likewise be the cause of
the destruction of the said universe and of the said laws.
When the planets, the earth, the sun and the stars – but not their matter –
have vanished, new creatures will be formed, divided into new genera and
new species, and by the eternal force of matter new orders of things and a
new world will be born. But of the quality of all these things, just as of the
innumerable ones that have been and the infinite others that will follow,
we cannot even guess.
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 Timander and Eleander
A Dialogue

TIMANDER: I wish to speak frankly – indeed I think I ought to. Both the
substance and the intention of what you write and what you say seem to
me to be very deplorable.
ELEANDER: As long as you do not think the same of my actions, I am
not too bothered: writings and spoken words do not matter very much.
TIMANDER: Your actions are irreproachable. I know that you do not do
good to others because you cannot, and I can see that you do no harm
because you do not wish any. But in your spoken words and your
writings I think you are reprehensible. And I do not agree with you that
these things matter very little today, because our present life, one might
say, consists in nothing else. But let us leave your spoken words aside for
the moment, and talk about your writings. To begin with, your continual
censure and derision of the human race is out of fashion.
ELEANDER: My mind is out of fashion too. And it’s not news that sons
are like their fathers.
TIMANDER: And it will be not be news if your books, like everything
that goes against the current fashion, have no success.
ELEANDER: No matter. It will not mean that they will have to beg their
bread from door to door.
TIMANDER: Forty or fifty years ago philosophers used to speak ill of the
human race; but in this century* they do precisely the opposite.
ELEANDER: Do you believe that the philosophers, when they spoke ill of
mankind forty of fifty years ago, spoke truly or falsely?
TIMANDER: Rather, and more often the truth than a lie.
ELEANDER: Do you believe that, in that forty or fifty years, the human
race has changed to the opposite of what it used to be?
TIMANDER: I do not believe that, but it is not to the purpose.
ELEANDER: Why not? Do you think the race has grown in strength, or
risen to a higher status, so that contemporary writers are bound to
flatter it, or compelled to revere it?
TIMANDER: You are joking about a serious matter.
ELEANDER: And so, getting down to brass tacks, I am not unaware that
the people of this century, while doing harm to their contemporaries
according to the ancient fashion, have begun to speak well of them, in
contrast to the practice of the preceding century. But I, who do no harm
either to contemporaries or to predecessors, do not consider I am obliged
to speak well of others against my conscience.
TIMANDER: Nevertheless you are obliged, like all men, to try to help
your species.
ELEANDER: If my species tries to do the opposite to me, I don’t see how
I incur this obligation you speak of. But let us suppose I do incur it.
What ought I to do, when I cannot do anything?
TIMANDER: You cannot achieve anything, and few others can, with your
deeds. But with your writings you could help, and you should. And
books that continually get at people in general are no help; indeed, they
are very harmful.
ELEANDER: I agree that they are no help, and I believe that they do no
harm. But do you believe that books can help the human race?
TIMANDER: Not only I, but the whole world believes that.
ELEANDER: What books?
TIMANDER: Many kinds, but especially moral works.
ELEANDER: This is not believed by the whole world, since I, among
others, do not believe it – as a woman replied to Socrates.* If any moral
book could help, I think that poetical books would help the most. I say
“poetical”, taking this word in a general sense: that is, books intended to
rouse the imagination, and I am thinking of prose no less than verse.
Now I do not think much of that poetry which, when read and meditated
on, does not leave in the mind of the reader such noble feelings that, for
half an hour, he cannot entertain a base thought or do an unworthy
action. But if the reader is unfaithful to his best friend one hour after the
reading, I do not for that reason despise such a poem: otherwise I would
have to despise the most beautiful, the most ardent and the noblest
poems in the world. Also I exclude from this argument readers who live
in big cities and who, even if they happen to read attentively, cannot be
helped for even half an hour, or be much pleased or moved, by any kind
of poetry.
TIMANDER: You speak, as you always do, malignantly, and you make it
 apparent that you are usually very badly received and treated by others:
this is most often the cause of the ill feeling and the contempt that some
people profess to have for their own species.
ELEANDER: Truly I am not saying that people have treated or do treat
me very well, particularly since, if I said that, I would be passing myself
off as unique. Neither have they, however, done me great harm: expecting
nothing from them, and not in competition with them, I have not
exposed myself to their offences very often. I do say to you and assure
you that I realize and admit openly that I cannot do the slightest thing
that is required to make oneself agreeable to other people, and I am as
inept as one could ever imagine in conversing with others, inept in living
itself – through my own fault or a fault in my nature. Consequently, if
people were to treat me better than they do, I should have a worse
opinion of them.
TIMANDER: You are therefore more to be blamed. Hatred, and the wish
to wreak, as it were, vengeance upon men when one has been unfairly
offended, would have some excuse. But your hatred, according to what
you say, has no particular cause, unless perhaps an uncommon and
wretched ambition of winning fame by misanthropy, like Timon.* This is
in itself an abominable desire, and one especially alien to this century,
dedicated as it is above all to philanthropy.
ELEANDER: I do not have to reply to you about ambition. I have already
said that I wish for nothing from men, and if this does not seem credible
to you, even though it is true, you should at least believe that it is not
ambition that moves me to write things which today, as you yourself
affirm, breed vituperation and not praise for him who writes them. As
for hatred towards our own species, I am so far removed from it that not
only do I not wish, but I simply cannot, hate those who harm me most;
on the contrary, I am quite unfit for, and impervious to, hatred. And this
forms no small part of my complete ineptitude in worldly affairs. But I
cannot amend this: because I always have it in my mind that generally,
whoever is persuaded that by displeasing and harming someone else he is
consoling and pleasing himself, is led to offend, not in order to do harm
to others (for this is not really the end of any possible action or thought),
but to do good to himself; and this wish is natural, and does not deserve
hatred. Besides which, at each vice or fault that I see in others, before I
 get indignant about it, I try to examine myself, supposing in myself the
antecedent events and the circumstances favourable to that fault; and,
always finding myself either stained by or capable of the same defects, I
have not the heart to be indignant. I keep my anger for those occasions
when I may see some wickedness that could have no part in my own
nature – but up to now I have not managed to see any. Finally, the
concept of the vanity of human affairs fills my mind all the time in such a
way that I cannot bring myself to put up a fight for any of them; and
anger and hatred seem to me greater and stronger passions than are
suitable for the fragility of life. You can see what a difference there is
between Timon’s mind and mine. Timon, hating and avoiding all others,
loved and made much of Alcibiades,* and said he did so since Alcibiades
would be the cause of many ills in their common homeland. I, without
hating him, would have shunned him more than the others, having
warned the citizens of their peril, and helped them to provide against it.
Some do say that Timon did not hate mankind, but beasts in human
shape. I hate neither man nor beast.
TIMANDER: But you don’t love anybody either.
ELEANDER: Take note, my friend. I was born to love, and I have loved,
perhaps with as much affection as could ever be in a living creature.
Today, although I am still not at an age that is naturally cold, or even
perhaps lukewarm, I am not ashamed to say that I love no one but
myself, which I am bound to do by the law of nature,* and which I do the
least that is possible. With all that, I am accustomed and willing to
choose to suffer myself rather than to be the cause of suffering in others.
And you, with the small acquaintance you have with my habits, might, I
think, bear witness to this.
TIMANDER: I don’t deny it.
ELEANDER: To such an extent that I, for my part, never stop procuring
for men, before my own interest, that greatest, indeed sole, benefit that I
am reduced to desiring for myself: namely not to suffer.
TIMANDER: But do you explicitly admit that you do not love our species
in general?
ELEANDER: Yes, explicitly. But all the same, if it were up to me, I would
have the guilty punished, even though I do not hate them. Likewise, if I
could, I would confer some great benefit on my fellow beings, even
 though I do not love them.
TIMANDER: Well, it may be so. But ultimately, if you are not moved by
injuries received, or by hatred, or by ambition, what is it that moves you
to write in the way you do?
ELEANDER: Various things. Primarily intolerance of all simulation and
dissimulation, to which I do at times yield in speech, but never in writing.
This is because I often speak from necessity, but I am never forced to
write; and if I had to write what I do not think, it would not give me
much pleasure to rack my brains over a sheet of paper. All sensible
people laugh at anyone who writes Latin nowadays, because no one
speaks that language, and few understand it. I cannot see that it is not
just as ridiculous, when writing or talking, continually to presuppose
certain human qualities that everyone by now knows are not be found in
anyone born of woman, and presuppose certain ideal or imaginary
entities,* worshipped a long time ago, but now privately regarded as
empty by those who name them and by those who hear them named.
That masks and disguises are used to deceive others, or in order to
remain unknown, does not seem strange to me; but that everyone should
go masked with the same kind of mask, and disguised in the same way,
without anyone deceiving anyone else, and all recognizing each other
well enough, is to me ultimately childish. With the masks off, they would
still be clothed; they would not be less effective than before, and they
would be more at ease. Because, in the last analysis, this continual
pretence, and this continual presentation of someone very different from
oneself, besides being futile, cannot be done without causing
embarrassment and a great nuisance. If people had passed from a
primitive state, solitary and savage, into modern civilization at one
stroke, and not by degrees, can we think that on their tongues would be
found the names of those qualities mentioned above, far less the habit of
repeating them at the least opportunity, and of arguing so much about
them? Truly this habit seems to me one of those ancient ceremonies or
practices, quite alien to modern customs, that are nevertheless kept up by
sheer force of habit. But I, who cannot adapt to ceremony, cannot adapt
to that habit either; and I write in a modern language, and not one from
the Trojan era. In the second place, I do not seek in my writings to attack
our species, but rather to complain of Fate. Nothing seems to me more
 obvious and palpable than the necessary unhappiness of all living things.
If this unhappiness is not true, everything is false, and we may as well be
done with this and any other conversation. If it is true, why is it not
allowed for me to lament it openly and freely, and say that I suffer? But if
I mourned and wept (and this is the third thing that moves me), I would
irritate others not a little, and myself also, without achieving anything.
In laughing at our ills I find some comfort; and in the same way I bring
some to others. If I do not do this, I nevertheless am quite sure that
laughing at our ills is the only profit we can draw from them and the only
remedy to be found in them. Poets say that desperation always has a
smile upon its mouth. You must not think that I have no compassion for
human unhappiness. But – not being able to put it right by any force, any
art, any industry, any pact – I regard it as worthier in a man, in his
magnanimous despair, to laugh at our common troubles, than to start
pining over them, weeping and screeching with the rest, or to incite
others to do likewise. It only remains for me to say that I desire as much
as you, and as much as anyone else, the welfare of my species in general;
but I have no hope of it at all; I cannot be delighted and feast on certain
good outcomes, as I see that many philosophers in this century do; and
my despair, because it is total, continuous and based on a firm
judgement and on a certainty, leaves me no place for dreams and happy
fancies about the future, and no mind to undertake anything in order to
see them take effect. And you know well that no man is disposed to
attempt anything in which he knows or believes he cannot succeed; when
he is so disposed, he works with an ill will and with little effort; and you
know too that, if one writes in a manner different or contrary to one’s
own opinion, even if this is also false, one does not do something worthy
of consideration.
TIMANDER: But one really should alter one’s own opinion when it
deviates from the truth – as yours does.
ELEANDER: As far as I am concerned, I judge that I am unhappy, and I
know that I am not deceived in this. If others are not, I congratulate
them with all my heart. I am also certain that I shall not be free from
unhappiness until I die. If others have different hopes for themselves, I
congratulate them on that too.
TIMANDER: We are all unhappy, and we all have been. And I don’t think
 that you would boast that this belief of yours is something new. But the
human condition can be much improved from what it is, just as it has
been ineffably improved from what it was. You seem not to remember, or
not to wish to remember, that man is perfectible.
ELEANDER: I take your word for it that he is perfectible; but that he is
perfect, which means much more, I do not know when I will come to
believe that, or whose word I shall take for it.
TIMANDER: He has not yet arrived at perfection, because he has not had
enough time; but one cannot doubt that he will arrive at it.
ELEANDER: I do not doubt that either. Those few years from the
beginning of the world to the present could not be enough; and one
should not pass judgement on the disposition, the destiny and the
abilities of man; besides which he has had other things to cope with. But
now he bothers about nothing but perfecting our species.
TIMANDER: Certainly they are putting every effort into that throughout
the civilized world. And considering the abundance and efficacy of the
means available, all of which have increased unbelievably lately, one may
well believe that the result will assuredly follow sooner or later; and this
hope is of no small benefit, on account of the enterprises and useful
operations that it promotes and gives birth to. And so, if it was ever
harmful and reprehensible at any time, this ostentation of your despair is
particularly harmful and abominable at the present day, as is the
inculcation in men of the necessity of their misery, the vanity of life, the
feebleness and pettiness of their species and the wickedness of their
nature: this can do nothing but dishearten them, divest them of their self-
esteem, which is the basic foundation of an honest life, of what is useful,
of what is glorious, and turn them aside from procuring their own good.
ELEANDER: I would like you to tell me exactly whether it seems to you
that what I believe and say about men’s unhappiness is true or false.
TIMANDER: You are taking up once more your usual arms! And when I
confess to you that what you say is true, you think to win the argument.
But I say to you in reply that not every truth should be preached to
everyone, or at any time.
ELEANDER: Please answer another question. These truths that I
announce, but do not preach, are they, philosophically speaking,
principal truths or mere accessory ones?
TIMANDER: I myself think that they are the substance of all philosophy.
ELEANDER: Therefore they are very much deceived who say and preach
that the perfection of mankind consists in knowledge of the truth, and
that all ills come from false opinions and ignorance, and that the human
race will ultimately be happy when all men, or at least most of them,
know the truth, and according to that alone arrange and rule their lives.
And this is what is said by almost all philosophers, ancient and modern.
And yet in your judgement those truths that form the substance of all
philosophy ought to be hidden from the majority of men; and I believe
you might well agree that they should be unknown or forgotten by
everyone; because if they are known, and kept in mind, they can do
nothing but harm. Which is as much as to say that philosophy should be
eradicated from the world. I am not ignorant that the final conclusion to
be drawn from a true and perfect philosophy is that we need not
philosophize. From which it is to be inferred that philosophy is for a start
useless, because, in order not to philosophize, there is no need to be a
philosopher; secondly, it is extremely harmful, because one only reaches
that last conclusion at one’s own expense, and once it is learnt, one
cannot put it into practice: it is not in men’s power to forget truths once
they are known, and it is easier to give up any other habit rather than
that of philosophizing. In conclusion, philosophy, which begins by
hoping and promising to cure our ills, ultimately comes down to wishing
in vain to remedy itself. Given all that, I ask why we should believe that
the present age is nearer to perfection and more disposed to it, than past
ages. Can it be because of its greater knowledge of the truth, which is
seen to be quite contrary to man’s happiness? Or is it perhaps because
now a few people know that we should not philosophize without having
the ability to stop doing it? But primitive man did not in fact
philosophize, and savages abstain from it without any effort. What other
means, either new or greater than those our ancestors had, do we have,
in order to get nearer to perfection?
TIMANDER: Many, and very useful ones. But it would take for ever to
expound them.
ELEANDER: Let’s leave them to one side for the moment. But, getting
back to my point, I say that, if in my writings I record some hard and sad
truths, either to let off steam, or to comfort myself with a laugh, and for
no other reason – nevertheless in the same books I never leave off
deploring, warning against and reprehending the study of that wretched
and cold truth, the knowledge of which is the source of apathy and sloth,
or of mental baseness, wickedness and dishonest deeds and perverse
customs. On the contrary, I praise and exalt those opinions, although
false, which generate attitudes and thoughts that are noble, strong,
magnanimous, virtuous and useful for both common and private good: I
mean those fancies that are beautiful and happy, although vain, and
which make life worthwhile; the illusions that come naturally to mind;
and, in short, the ancient errors, very different from the barbaric errors
which alone should have been brought low by the force of modern
civilization and philosophy. But these of ours, in my opinion, going
beyond limits (as is natural and inevitable in human affairs), not long
after having lifted us out of one barbarism, have hurled us into another,
no better than the first, even though they were born out of reason and
knowledge, and not out of ignorance, and so are less efficacious and
manifest in the body than in the spirit, less vigorous in its working and,
so to speak, more secret and inward. At any rate I suspect, or rather am
inclined to believe, that the ancient errors, however necessary they are for
the welfare of civilized nations, are now, and more and more every day,
impossible to revive. As for the perfection of man, I swear to you that, if
it had already come about, I would have written at least one volume in
praise of the human race. But since it has not been my fortune to see it,
and I do not expect it to happen in my lifetime, I am disposed to leave in
my will a large part of my assets with the provision that, when the
human race is perfect, a panegyric on it should be written and read
publicly every year, and also that a temple in the ancient style should be
raised to it, or a statue, or whatever is thought to be appropriate.
OceanofPDF.com
 Copernicus
A Dialogue

Scene One
The First Hour of the day and the Sun are the speakers.
FIRST HOUR: Good day, Your Majesty.
SUN: Yes; or rather goodnight.
FIRST HOUR: The horses are ready.*
SUN: Good.
FIRST HOUR: The day star has been visible a while.
SUN: Good: she may come and go as she pleases.
FIRST HOUR: What does Your Majesty mean?
SUN: I mean that you should leave me alone.
FIRST HOUR: But, Your Majesty, the night has already lasted so long
that it cannot last any longer. And if we were to delay, Your Majesty, you
would have to take care that some disorder did not result.
SUN: Come what may, I am not moving.
FIRST HOUR: Oh, Your Majesty, what is this? Do you feel unwell?
SUN: No, no! I don’t feel anything, except that I have no wish to move. So
you just go about your own business.
FIRST HOUR: How can I do that if you don’t come, since I am the First
Hour of the day? And how can it be daytime if Your Majesty does not
deign to come out as usual?
SUN: If you are not the First Hour of the day, you will be the First Hour of
the night; or rather the Hours of the Night will do double duty, and you
and your companions will be sitting at leisure. Because – do you know
what? – I am tired of this continual going round and round in order to
provide light for two or three little beasties who live on a handful of mud
so very tiny that I, who have good eyesight, cannot manage to see it. And
tonight I have decided that I don’t want to put any more effort into this;
and if men want light they must keep their fires lit, or supply light in
some other way.
FIRST HOUR: And what way, Your Majesty, do you think the poor
 creatures will find? To keep their lamps burning, or provide enough
candles to burn throughout the day, will cost too much. If the discovery
had already been made of that kind of air that serves to heat, and to
illuminate the streets, the rooms, the shops, the taverns and everything
else,* and all at little cost, well then, I would say that the situation was
not so bad. But the fact is that there are three hundred years still to go,
more or less, before men discover that cure for their ills;* and meanwhile
they will be short of oil and wax and pitch and tallow, and they’ll have
nothing left to burn.
SUN: Let them hunt for fireflies and those little worms that shine.
FIRST HOUR: And how will they manage in the cold? For without that
help which they had from Your Majesty, the fire from all their forests will
not suffice to warm them. Besides which, they will die of hunger, because
the earth will not bear its fruits any more. And so, at the end of a few
years, the seed of those poor animals will be lost; for, when they have
made their way for a while up and down through the Earth, groping
around, trying to find something to live off and something to warm
them, at last, with everything they could possibly eat used up, and their
last spark of fire spent, they will all die in the dark, frozen like pieces of
rock crystal.
SUN: What’s that got to do with me? Am I the human race’s wet nurse; or
perhaps their cook, to prepare their food and make it well seasoned?
Why should I care if a certain tiny number of invisible creatures, millions
of miles away from me, are not able to see, and not able to bear the cold,
without my light? And again, if I still have to serve, so to speak, as stove
and fireplace for this human family, it would be reasonable if, when the
family wanted to get warm, they were to gather round the hearth, and
not if the hearth had to go round the house. Therefore, if the Earth needs
my presence, let the Earth go and put herself out to obtain it: I for one
need nothing from the Earth, to make me go looking for her.
FIRST HOUR: Your Majesty is saying, if I understand you, that what has
been done in the past by you should now be done by the Earth.
SUN: Yes, now and for ever.
FIRST HOUR: Your Majesty is certainly in the right about this, apart
from the fact that you may do what you want with yourself in your own
way. But for all that, please deign, Your Majesty, to consider how many
 fine things must go to the bad if you wish to establish this new order. The
day will no longer be announced by your golden chariot with its fine
horses that used to bathe in the sea; and, leaving other details aside, we
poor Hours will no longer have a place in the sky, and we heavenly
maidens will become terrestrial; unless, as I expect, we disappear rather
into smoke. But let this happen as it must: the main thing will be to
persuade the Earth to go round you, which will certainly be very difficult;
she is not used to it, and it will seem strange to her having always to run
and tire herself out, when she has never moved an inch up to now. And if
Your Majesty is now, as it seems, inclined to consider being idle, from
what I hear the Earth will not be in the least more inclined to make an
effort today than in other ages.
SUN: Necessity will drive her in this matter, and will make her leap and
run as required. But in any case, the quickest and safest method here is to
find a poet, or rather a philosopher, who may persuade the Earth to
move or, when he cannot induce her to do that, to use force to make her
go. Because, in the last analysis, this business is largely in the hands of
the philosophers and the poets; in fact, they can deal with almost all of it
for us. The poets are those who formerly (because I was younger, and
gave ear to them) with their beautiful songs encouraged me to perform
willingly, as if for amusement, or as an honourable exercise, that
ridiculous task of racing frantically, big and fat as I am, round a tiny
grain of sand.* But now that I am of mature years, and have turned to
philosophy, I look in everything for utility and not for beauty. The poets’
sentiments, when they don’t turn my stomach, make me laugh. I wish,
when I do anything, to have good and sufficient reason for it. I find no
reason for preferring the active life to a leisurely life – since the active life
could yield no profit worth the trouble, or even worth thinking about
(since there is not in the world any profit worth tuppence). So I have
decided to leave the effort and inconveniences to others, while I for my
part live at home quietly without any duties. As I have said, this change
in me has, with some cooperation from old age, been achieved by the
philosophers, people who in these days are swollen with power, and swell
more every day. And so, if I now wish the Earth to move and to start
running round instead of me, a poet would, in my opinion, be more to
the point than a philosopher. The poets, now with one fairy tale, now
 with another, give us to understand that the things of this world are of
value and have some weight, and that they are very pleasing and
beautiful, and by creating a thousand joyful hopes they often encourage
people to toil and labour; the philosophers discourage them. However,
since the philosophers have begun to get the upper hand, I fear that a
poet would not be listened to today by the Earth any more than I would
listen to him, or, if he were listened to, would have no effect. So it may be
better to have recourse to a philosopher: even if philosophers are usually
little suited, and less inclined, to persuade others to act, it could all the
same happen that, in this extreme instance, they might do something
contrary to their custom, unless the Earth judges that it would be better
for her to go to perdition, rather than have to work so hard. I would not
say that she was wrong; but, enough of that, we shall see what happens.
There is, therefore, one thing you must do. You must go down to the
Earth; or else you must send one of your companions, whomever you
wish; and if she finds one of those philosophers outside his house in the
fresh air, exploring the sky and the stars (as it is reasonable to expect that
she will, given the novelty of such a long night as this), she must, without
more ado, take the weight of him on her back, and return and bring him
to me here. Then I shall arrange for him to do what is necessary. Do you
understand completely?
FIRST HOUR: Yes, Your Majesty. It shall be done.

Scene Two
Copernicus* on the balcony of his house looking at the eastern sky
through a paper tube, because telescopes had not yet been invented.
There’s something on the go! Either the clocks are all wrong or the sun
should have risen already, in fact more than an hour ago. From here you
can’t see even a glimmer of light in the east, even though the sky is as
clear and polished as a mirror. All the stars are shining as though it were
midnight. Go now to Almagest* or to Sacrobosco* and ask them to give
the reason for this state of affairs. I have often heard of the night that
Jove spent with Amphitryon’s wife,* and I recall having read a short
while ago in a modern book by a Spaniard that the Peruvians tell the tale
 that once, in ancient days, there was in their country a very long, almost
endless, night, and that in the end the sun issued forth from a certain
lake which they call Titicaca. But up to now I have thought, and firmly
believed, that such things were just idle prattle, as do all reasonable men.
Now that I realize that reason and science are not worth, to be honest, a
brass farthing, I am determined to believe that these and similar things
could, in truth, be true. In fact, I’m going to go to all the lakes and bogs
that I can, and see if I happen to fish the sun up. But what is this roaring I
can hear? It seems to be made by the wings of a huge bird.

Scene Three
The Final Hour and Copernicus.
FINAL HOUR: Copernicus, I am the Final Hour.
COPERNICUS: The Final Hour? Right, I’ll have to cope with that. Only,
if it be possible, allow me the time to make my will and set my affairs in
order before I die.
FINAL HOUR: Die? I am certainly not the last hour of your life.
COPERNICUS: Oh, what are you then? The last canonical hour of the
breviary?
FINAL HOUR: I can well believe that is the one you prefer when you’re
singing in the choir.
COPERNICUS: But how do you know that I am a canon? How do you
know me anyway? Because you did just call me by name.
FINAL HOUR: I’ve heard about you from some people who were down
below in the street. In short, I am the Final Hour of the day.
COPERNICUS: Ah, now I understand. The First Hour is ill, and that’s
why the day is still not to be seen.
FINAL HOUR: Let me explain. Day will not happen any more, neither
today, nor tomorrow, nor ever, if you don’t do something about it.
COPERNICUS: That would be a fine thing, if it were up to me to bring
about the day!
FINAL HOUR: I’ll tell you how. But first you must come with me
immediately to the home of the Sun, my master. You’ll hear more on the
way, and you’ll be told more by His Majesty when we arrive.
COPERNICUS: Very well. But the journey must, unless I’m mistaken, be
very long. And how can I take enough provisions so that I don’t die of
hunger years before I get there? Added to which, I don’t believe His
Majesty’s land produces enough to provide me even with a snack.
FINAL HOUR: Dismiss those worries. You won’t have to stay long in the
Sun’s house; and the journey takes only an instant, because I am a spirit,
in case you didn’t know.
COPERNICUS: But I am a body.
FINAL HOUR: Well, well! You’ve no reason to trouble yourself about
such matters, since you are certainly not a metaphysical philosopher.
Come here, climb up onto my shoulders and leave the rest to me.
COPERNICUS: Come on then! I’ve done that. We shall see where this
novelty takes us.

Scene Four
Copernicus and the Sun.
COPERNICUS: Most illustrious Lord!
SUN: Pardon me, Copernicus, if I don’t ask you to be seated: we don’t use
seats here. But we’ll get straight on with it. You’ve heard from my
maidservant about this matter. For my part, from what the girl has told
me of your ability, I conclude that you are very much the right person for
the effect we’re looking for.
COPERNICUS: Sir, I can see many difficulties in this business.
SUN: The difficulties ought not to frighten a man like you. On the
contrary, it is said that they strengthen the spirit of those who are
spirited. But, after all, what are these difficulties?
COPERNICUS: To begin with, however great the power of philosophy
may be, I am not certain that it is great enough to persuade the Earth to
start running instead of staying seated in comfort, and to start making
an effort instead of remaining idle; especially in these days, for this is
certainly not the heroic age.
SUN: If you cannot persuade her, you must compel her.
COPERNICUS: I’d do it willingly, most illustrious Lord, if I were a
Hercules, or at least an Orlando,* and not a mere canon of Varmia.
SUN: What’s this got to do with anything? Don’t they talk about one of
your ancient mathematicians* who said that if he could stand somewhere
outside the world he could guarantee to move heaven and earth? Now,
you don’t have to move the heavens. And you find yourself now in a place
that is outside the Earth. And so, if you are not inferior to that ancient
mathematician, you should not fail to move her, whether she wants to
move or not.
COPERNICUS: My lord, that could be managed, but we would need a
lever that would have to be so long that not only do I not have, but Your
Illustrious Excellency, for all your wealth, does not have enough to pay
for half the cost of the material itself and the manufacture. Another and
greater difficulty is this of which I am about to tell you; it is in fact a
conglomeration of difficulties. Until today the Earth has occupied the
pre-eminent seat in the world, which is to say the one in the centre; and,
as you know, since the Earth is immobile, without any other occupation
but to look about all round, all the other globes in the universe, the
greatest no less than the smallest, and the brightest as well as the darkest,
have gone rolling round her, above and beneath and round the sides
continually, with a rush, a busyness, a fury that is staggering even to
think about. And so, with everything in the universe demonstrating that
it was occupied in her service, the universe looked very much like a court
in which the Earth sat as on a throne, while the other globes round
about, like courtiers, guards or servants, were performing, some one
service and some another. So that, in effect, the Earth has always believed
herself to be the empress of the universe; and in truth, with things as they
have been formerly, it certainly cannot be said that she was reasoning
badly; indeed, I will not say that that concept of hers was ill founded.
Now what shall I say about mankind? Regarding ourselves (as we always
will regard ourselves) as more than the first and more than the most
important of terrestrial creatures, every one of us, even if he were clothed
in rags and did not have a crust of dry bread to gnaw, has certainly
regarded himself as emperor, not just of Constantinople or Germany, or
of half the Earth, as the Roman emperors were, but an emperor of the
universe, of the Sun, of the planets, of all the stars, visible and invisible,
and first cause of the stars, the planets, of Your Most Excellent Majesty
and of all things. But now, if we want the Earth to move from her
 position in the centre; if we force her to run, to turn, to bestir herself
continually, to do all things, neither more nor less, that have been done
previously by the other globes – in short, to become just one of the
planets – this will entail that her earthly majesty, and their human
majesties will have to vacate the throne, and surrender the empire,
leaving themselves nevertheless with their rags, and with their miseries,
which are not few.
SUN: Well, what conclusion is my dear Sir Nicholas coming to with this
harangue? Does he perhaps have twinges of conscience, and fear that the
act may be one of lese-majesty?
COPERNICUS: No, Your Excellency: because neither the codes, nor the
Digest,* nor the books dealing with public law, or with the imperial law,
or with international law, or with the law of nature, make any mention
of this lese-majesty, so far as I can recall. But the substance of what I am
trying to say is that our action will not be simply material, as at first
sight it might seem to be; and that its effects will not simply be physical
ones, since they will unsettle the degrees of dignity among things, and
the order of beings; it will confuse the creatures’ purposes; and be
enough to make an enormous upheaval even in metaphysics, indeed in
everything that touches on the speculative side of knowledge. And the
result will be that men, even if they have the ability and wish to reason
sanely, will find that they are quite different from what they have been up
to now, or from what they have imagined themselves to be.
SUN: My son, such things strike no fear into me: I have no more respect
for metaphysics than I have for physics, or even for alchemy, or for
necromancy if you like. And men should be content to be what they are;
and if they don’t like this, they will go on rationalizing back to front, and
arguing despite the evidence of things. They will be able to do this very
easily, and so they will be able to go on considering themselves what they
would like to be – barons or dukes or emperors or whatever they wish.
The result will be that they will be comforted, and these beliefs of theirs
will not give me any displeasure in the world.
COPERNICUS: Come on – let’s forget about mankind and the Earth.
Please consider, Your Excellency, what we must assume will happen to
the other planets. When they see the Earth doing everything which they
do, having become one of them, they will no longer wish to remain as
 bald, simple and unadorned, as deserted and sad, as they always have
been, with the Earth alone being so decorated. No, they too will want to
have their rivers, their seas, their mountains, their plants and, along with
everything else, their animals and inhabitants; they will see no reason
why they should be inferior to the Earth in any respect. And so you will
have another enormous upheaval in the world, and an infinity of new
families and populations in one moment will be seen to come through on
all sides, like mushrooms.
SUN: And you must let them come through, and let them be as numerous
as possible. My light and my heat will suffice for all of them, without any
increase in the expenditure; and the universe will have the wherewithal to
feed them, clothe them, house them and be generous with them, without
getting into debt.
COPERNICUS: But if it pleases Your Excellency to consider a little
further, you will see another upheaval come about. The stars – seeing
that you have been seated, and not on a stool, but a throne, and that you
have around you this beautiful court and this whole population of
planets – will not only want to have themselves seated and at rest, but
will wish likewise to reign. And he who reigns must have subjects;
therefore they will wish to have their planets, as you have yours: everyone
his own. These new planets will have to be inhabited and adorned as the
Earth is. And I am not about to speak here of the poor human race,
which will already have become little more than nothing, in respect to
this universe alone, or of how it will be reduced when so many thousands
of other worlds burst forth, so that there will not be the tiniest star in the
Milky Way that does not have its own world. But, thinking only of your
interest, I must say that up to now you have been, if not first in the
universe, certainly second – after the Earth that is – and you have had no
equal, since the stars have not made bold to compete with you. But in
this new state of the universe you will have as many equals as there are
stars with their own worlds. So you need to take care that this change
that we wish to bring about does not prejudice your dignity.
SUN: Don’t you remember what your Julius Caesar said when, as he was
crossing the Alps, he happened to pass near that little settlement of
poverty-stricken barbarians? He said he would sooner be the first in that
little settlement than the second in Rome. And I likewise would prefer
 being the first in this world rather than the second in the universe. But it
is not ambition that makes me want to change the present state of things:
it is simply the love of peace and quiet, or to be more precise, sheer
laziness. So whether I have my equals or not, or whether I hold the first
place or the last, I don’t really care: unlike Cicero, I am concerned more
with leisure than dignity.*
COPERNICUS: That leisure you speak of, Excellency – I, for my part, will
try to get as much of it for you as possible. But I doubt, even if this
attempt succeeds, that it will last very long with you. To begin with, I am
almost certain that, before many years have gone by, you will be forced to
go on turning round like the pulley of a rope in a well, or like a
millstone; without moving out of your place, however. Then, I do have a
suspicion that in the end, after a shorter or longer time, you will even
have to go back to running; I don’t mean round the Earth. But what does
this matter to you? And perhaps that very turning of yours will be the
reason you have to move. Enough of this, and be that as it may. Despite
every difficulty and every other consideration, if you persevere in your
intention, I shall try to be of service to you. So that, if I am not
successful, you will believe that I simply couldn’t do it, and will not say
that my heart was not in it.
SUN: Very well, my dear Copernicus: try to do it.
COPERNICUS: There is just one remaining difficulty.
SUN: Come on, what is it?
COPERNICUS: I should not like, because of this, to be burnt alive like the
phoenix;* because if that were to happen, I am certain I would not be
resuscitated from my ashes as that bird was, and I would never again
from that hour see Your Lordship’s face.
SUN: Listen to me, Copernicus. You know that at one time, when you
philosophers had scarcely been born – I mean in the age when poetry
held the field – I was a prophet.* I would be obliged now if you would let
me prophesy for one last time, and, in memory of my ancient authority,
lend me credence. I say to you therefore that perhaps, after your time,
some who approve of what you have done will suffer from burns, or from
some similar affliction.* But I say also that you, on account of this
enterprise, will, so far as I can tell, suffer nothing. And if you wish to be
even more secure, take this option: dedicate the book that you write on
this matter to the Pope.* I promise you that, by this means, you won’t
even lose your canonry.
OceanofPDF.com
 Plotinus and Porphyry
A Dialogue

“On one occasion when I, Porphyry,* was thinking of ridding myself of

this life, Plotinus* became aware of it. He appeared before me all of a
sudden in my home and, having said that such thoughts were not the
product of a healthy mind’s reasoning but came from some melancholy
indisposition, he concluded that I should go abroad.” (Porphyry in his Life
of Plotinus)
Something similar is mentioned in the life of Porphyry written by
Eunapius,* who adds that Plotinus expanded into a book the arguments
he had with Porphyry on that occasion.
PLOTINUS: Porphyry, you know that I am your friend, and you know
how good a friend I am. It will therefore not surprise you that I have been
observing your actions and your words and your state of mind with some
curiosity, all because I have your well-being at heart. For some days now I
have seen you sad and full of thought; you have a certain look, and you’re
letting drop certain words: in short, without more preamble and without
beating about the bush, I believe you have some evil purpose in mind.
PORPHYRY: What do you mean?
PLOTINUS: Some evil purpose against yourself. It is regarded as bad luck
to name the deed. Look, my dear Porphyry, don’t deny me the truth; do
not insult the great love that we have had for each other for so long. I do
realize that I displease you by opening this discussion; and I know that
you would have liked to keep your intention hidden; but in a matter of
such moment I could not remain silent; and you should not be unwilling
to discuss it with one who loves you as much as he loves himself. Let us
have a peaceful discussion and consider the arguments. You must
unburden yourself to me, and lament and weep. You owe me this. And
ultimately I am not about to prevent you doing what we shall find to be
reasonable and to your benefit.
PORPHYRY: I have never refused anything you asked of me, my dear
Plotinus. And now I confess to you what I would have liked to keep
secret, and what I would not confess to anyone else for anything in the
 world: I admit that what you imagine of my intention is the truth. If it
would please you to discuss this matter, then – although I find it very
repugnant, because such deliberations as these seem to be more in tune
with a profound silence, and because the mind absorbed in such
thoughts loves to be more than ever solitary and closed in itself – I am
disposed to proceed as you wish even in this. Indeed, I myself shall begin.
I shall say that this inclination of mine is not the result of any misfortune
that has befallen me, or which I expect to befall me; but it comes from an
annoyance with life, from a tedium that I feel so vehemently that it is like
an ache or a pang, from not only knowing, but seeing, tasting, touching
the vanity of everything that happens to me in the course of the day. The
result is that not only my mind, but all sensations, even physical ones, are
(it is a strange way to speak, but it suits the case) full of this emptiness.
And here to start with you cannot say that my disposition is
unreasonable, even though I am willing to concede that it comes largely
from some physical ailment. It is nevertheless most reasonable: in fact,
apart from this one, all human arrangements by which, in whatever
manner, people live, and believe that life and human affairs have some
substance, are – some more, some less – far from reasonable, and are
based on illusions and false imaginings. And nothing is more reasonable
than ennui. All pleasures are vain. Suffering itself – I mean mental
suffering – is most often vain: if you consider well its cause and its
subject, it has little or no reality. I say the same about fear, and the same
about hope. Tedium alone, which always rises from the vanity of
everything, is never vain; it is never falsely based. And it can be said that,
everything else being vain, whatever is substantial and real in life comes
down to and consists of ennui.
PLOTINUS: Let that be so. I don’t wish to contradict you in this matter.
But we must consider now the deed that you are contemplating: I mean,
consider it more closely, and in itself. I am not about to say that it is
Plato’s opinion,* as you know, that it is not permissible for a man, like a
fugitive slave, to free himself on his own authority from that virtual
prison in which by the will of the gods he finds himself; that is, willingly
deprive himself of life.
PORPHYRY: I beg you, my dear Plotinus, let’s leave Plato aside, and his
teachings, and his fantasies. It is one thing to praise, comment upon and
defend certain opinions in the schools and in books: it is another to carry
them out in practice. In the schools and in books we were right to
approve Plato’s theories and follow them, because such is the present-day
custom: in life, far from approving them, I abominate them. I am aware
it is said that Plato scattered in his writings those doctrines about the life
to come, with the intention that men, in doubt and fear over their state
after death, would – because of that uncertainty and for fear of future
penalties and calamities – restrain themselves during their lives from
committing injustices and from other evil actions. If I thought that Plato
had been the author of these doubts and of these beliefs, that they were
his invention, I would say to him: “Plato, you see how Nature or Fate or
Necessity, or whatever may be the originating power and lord of the
universe, has been and is forever the enemy of our species. Added to
which, many, indeed innumerable, reasons could be brought forward to
oppose that superiority which we, together with other titles, arrogate to
ourselves among the animals; but no reason can be found to take from us
that primacy which the ancient Homer attributed to us: I mean the
primacy in unhappiness. Nevertheless, Nature destined for us, as a
medicine for every illness, death. This is something that, by those who
make little use of their minds, should be little feared, and by others
should be longed for. And in our life, so full of sorrows, there should be
great comfort in the expectation and thought of our end. Now you, with
this terrible doubt that you have raised in the minds of men, have taken
away from this thought all its sweetness, and made it bitterer than any
other. You are the reason that, as we see, hapless mortals fear the port
more than they do the tempest, and shy away in their minds from that
sole remedy and repose of theirs, to the anxieties and the pangs that are
present in their lives. You have been crueller to men than have Fate or
Necessity or Nature. And since it is impossible to cast off this
uncertainty in any way, or for our minds to be ever free from it, you have
brought your fellow beings to this state for ever: they will hold that death
is full of trouble and more wretched than life. The result is that by your
doing: whereas all the other animals die quite free from fear, quiet and
peace of mind are perpetually banned from men’s last hours. This was,
O Plato, all that was lacking to the great unhappiness of the human race.
“I have not mentioned that you have failed to achieve the effect you
wished for: of restraining men from violence and injustice. For these
doubts and beliefs frighten all men in their last hours, when they cannot
do any harm; in the course of life they frequently frighten good men who
have no wish to cause harm, but only to do good; they terrify timid
people, and those whose bodies are feeble, whose natures are not inclined
to violence and wickedness and who have not the heart or the means to
do it. But those who are bold, and those who are vigorous, and those
who have little imagination – in short, those who in general require a
further deterrent than just the law – they are not frightened, they do not
refrain from acting badly, as we see by daily examples, and as the
experience of all the ages, from your day to now, makes manifest. Good
laws and, even more, good breeding, and the fostering of customs and
minds, preserve justice and gentleness in human society. This is because
minds which are refined and softened by a little civilization, and
accustomed to giving some consideration to things, and to use their
understanding a little – these almost of necessity and almost always
abhor raising their hand against the bodies and blood of their
companions; they are for the most part reluctant to harm others in any
way; and seldom, and only with great difficulty, are they persuaded to
incur those dangers which come with breaking the law. The effect we
desire is not achieved by threatening imaginings and sad ideas of savage
and frightening things; indeed, as the multitude and cruelty of
punishments inflicted by countries is accustomed to do, they even
increase mental cowardice on the one hand, and ferocity on the other: the
chief enemies and plagues upon human society.
“But you have promulgated and promised rewards for good people.
What reward? A condition that seems to us full of ennui, and even less
tolerable than this life. The bitterness of your punishments is obvious to
everyone; but the sweetness of your prizes is hidden, and arcane, and
incomprehensible to the mind of man. And so such prizes can have no
power to tempt us towards rectitude and virtue. And in truth, if very few
rogues, out of fear for that terrifying Tartarus* of yours, do abstain from
some bad action, I dare to affirm that no good person ever, in his least
action, was moved to behave well by a longing for that Elysium of yours.
It cannot have in our imagination any semblance of something desirable.
And besides the fact that even the certain expectation of this happiness
would be small comfort, what hope have you left that even the virtuous
and the just may enjoy it? That Minos of yours and that Aeacus and
Rhadamanthus,* severe and inexorable judges, are not inclined to pardon
any shade or vestige of sin. And what man is there who could feel or
believe himself to be as clean and pure as you require? So the achievement
of that felicity, whatever it is, turns out to be almost impossible; and his
awareness of the most righteous and the most laborious life is not
enough to reassure a man in extremis against the uncertainty of his
future state and the terror of punishment. Therefore, in accordance with
your teaching, fear, vastly superior to hope, has become the overlord of
man; and the ultimate fruit of that teaching is this: the human race, a
marvellous example of unhappiness in this life, expects not that death
will be the end of its miseries, but after death to be unhappier still. Thus
you have surpassed in cruelty not only Nature and Fate, but all the
cruellest tyrants and all the most pitiless torturers who ever were in the
world.
“But what barbarism is there that is comparable to your decree that it is
not lawful for a man to put an end to his sufferings, his pains, his
anguish, by overcoming his horror of death, and voluntarily giving up the
ghost? It is certain that no other animals have a desire to end their lives;
this is because their unhappiness is more strictly limited than men’s
unhappiness, and they never have the courage to extinguish it voluntarily.
And, if such a disposition did happen to be in the nature of the beasts,
there would be no impediment to their dying; no prohibition, no doubt
would deprive them of the ability to deliver themselves from their ills.
And so you see how even in this matter you make us inferior to the
beasts; and that freedom which the beasts would have if it occurred to
them to use it, that freedom which Nature herself, so stingy with regard
to us, has not denied to us, is, because of you, not available to men. So
that the only race of living creatures that is capable of desiring death is
the only one that does not have death in its own hands. Nature, Fate and
Fortune continually subject us to a bloody scourging, to our inestimable
torment and grief; then you come along, and bind our arms tightly, and
chain our legs, so that it is impossible for us to shield ourselves or flee
from the blows. To be honest, when I consider the magnitude of human
unhappiness, I think that we should blame your teachings for that more
 than anything else; and that men should complain about you much more
than about Nature. For Nature, even if, to tell the truth, she destined us
to no other life but the unhappiest one, did, on the other hand, give us
the ability to end it any time we wished. And above all I can never regard
as very great that wretchedness which, if I merely wish, can be of short
duration. And then, even if someone did not in effect resolve to end his
life, the mere thought of being able to relinquish his wretchedness
whenever he wished should be of such comfort and such lightening of
any calamity that, by virtue of it, all things would turn out to be easy to
endure. So that the intolerable weight of our unhappiness must be
admitted to arise mainly from nothing else but this fear that we may
possibly, by willingly cutting short our life, run into a wretchedness
greater than we suffer at present. And not merely greater, but of such
ineffable atrocity and duration that, even given that the present
wretchedness is certain while those future pains are uncertain, the fear of
those future pains must in all reason, without any proportion or
comparison, outweigh any feeling of any kind of evil in this life. This
fear, O Plato, was easily aroused by you; but the human race will
disappear before it is resolved. Therefore nothing ever came to birth,
nothing will ever come to birth in any age, so calamitous and detrimental
to the human race as your intellect.”
This is what I would say if I thought that Plato was the author or
inventor of those doctrines, as I know very well he was not. But, in any
case, enough has been said on this subject, and I should like us to lay it
aside.
PLOTINUS: Porphyry, I truly love Plato, as you know. But I do not
therefore want this discussion to be based on authority; particularly with
you and on such a question: no, I wish to discuss it in the light of reason.
And, even if I did touch on that judgement of Plato’s, I meant to use it
more as a sort of preamble than anything. And taking up the argument I
had in mind, I say that not only Plato or any other philosopher alone,
but Nature herself appears to teach us that withdrawing from the world
merely of our own will is not lawful. I do not need to expand on this
point because, if you give it a little thought, you yourself must admit that
dying at your own hand without good reason is against nature. Indeed,
to put it better, it is of all actions that you could commit the most against
 Nature. The whole order of things would be subverted, if living beings
were to destroy themselves. And it would seem to be repugnant that one
should use life to end life; that existence should help us to not exist.
Besides which, if anything at all is enjoined on us and commanded by
Nature, she certainly commands us strictly and above everything – and
not merely human beings but equally every kind of creature in the
universe – to attend to our own preservation and to procure it by all
means: that is the precise opposite of killing oneself. And without further
argument, do we not feel that our own inclination by itself influences us
and makes us hate death, and fear it, and have a horror of it, even in our
own despite? Now therefore, since this act of suicide is contrary to
nature, and so very contrary as we see, I could not ever decide that it was
lawful.
PORPHYRY: I have already considered all this, for, as you say, it is
impossible for any mind not to realize it, whenever one stops to think
about this subject. It seems to me that one could respond to all your
reasons with many others, and in many different ways; but I shall try to
be brief. You doubt whether it may be lawful to die without necessity: I
ask you if it is lawful for us to be unhappy. Nature forbids suicide. It
seems to me strange that, while not having the will or the power to make
me either happy or free from misery, she should have the faculty of
obliging me to live. Certainly, even though Nature has engendered in us a
love of our own preservation, and a hatred of death, she has given us no
less hatred of unhappiness, and a love of what is best for us. Indeed, these
latter tendencies are as much stronger and more central than the former
ones, as happiness is the goal of all our actions and of all our love and
hate; and death is not shunned, or life loved, for themselves, but for the
love of what is best for us and the hatred of evil and our own harm. So
how can it therefore be against Nature if I flee from unhappiness in the
only way mortals have of fleeing from it – that is, removing myself from
the world? Because while I live I cannot avoid it. And how could it
possibly be true that Nature forbids me to cling to death, something
which is without any doubt for my good – and also to repudiate life,
which manifestly has turned out to be bad and harmful to me, since to
me it is good for nothing but suffering, which of necessity it leads me to?
PLOTINUS: Anyway, those remarks fail to persuade me that self-slaughter
 is not against Nature, because our feelings contain too much manifest
incompatibility with death and abhorrence of it. We see too that the
beasts which (when they are not constrained by men or led astray) act
naturally in everything, not only never come to commit this deed but,
however suffering and wretched they are, they show how alien it is to
them. To sum up, no creature who does commit it can be found, except
among men; and none at all among those peoples who live a natural life;
among these can be found no one who does not abominate it, if he has
heard of it and has some inkling of it; but only among those of us who
are distorted and corrupted and who do not live according to Nature.
PORPHYRY: All right, I am willing to concede to you that this action is
contrary to nature, as you wish. But what does this matter, if we are not
natural creatures, so to speak? I am speaking of civilized men. Just
compare us not to the living creatures of any other species you may
choose, but to those nations there near India and Ethiopia which, as they
say, still preserve their primitive and woodland customs, and it will be
hard to say that these men and those are creatures of the same species.
And this, as it were, transformation of ours, this alteration in our lives,
and especially in our minds, has not, I myself firmly believe, been
without an infinite growth in unhappiness. It is certain that those
uncivilized peoples never feel the urge to end their lives; nor can they
imagine that death could be desired: on the other hand, men accustomed
to our way of life and, as we say, civilized, desire it very often, and some
achieve it. Now, if it is lawful for civilized man to live contrary to nature,
and to be wretched contrary to nature, why may it not be lawful to die
contrary to nature, since from this new unhappiness, which comes to us
from the change of our state, we cannot free ourselves except by death?
For as to our returning to that primal state, to the life Nature meant for
us, that could be possible, if at all, in matters outside us; with regard to
what is inside us, which is more important, it would without any doubt
be completely impossible. What is less natural than doctoring, either
surgery, or that which works by drugs? Both of them, on the whole, in the
work they perform, and in the material they work with – in the
instruments and the means they use – are very far from nature: and
animals and savage men know nothing of them. Nevertheless, because
the illnesses themselves that they try to remedy are outside nature, and
only occur because of civilization – that is by the corruption of our state
– such arts, although not natural, are thought to be, and are,
appropriate, and even necessary. In the same way, this act of suicide,
which frees us from the wretchedness caused by corruption, may be
against nature, but it does not follow that it is culpable: unnatural ills
call for unnatural remedies. And it would be very harsh and wicked if
reason, which, in order to make us unhappier than we naturally are, is
accustomed to go against nature in other things – should in this matter
ally itself with her in order to take from us this last remaining escape, the
only one that reason recommends to us, and so force us to persevere in
wretchedness.
The truth is this, Plotinus: the primitive nature of ancient men, and of
people who were savage and uncivilized, is no longer our nature. But
habit and reason have brought about another nature in us, which we
have, and always will have, in place of the first. In the beginning it was
not natural for man to deliberately bring about his own death; but it was
not natural either for him to desire it. Today both things are natural; that
is, in conformity with our new nature which – still with a necessary
inclination, like the old nature, towards what appears to be our welfare –
makes us often look and long for what is truly the greatest good for men:
death. And that is not surprising: that second nature is governed and
directed for the most part by reason. Reason affirms for certain that
death, far from being really an evil, as the primitive notion was, is in fact
the only valid remedy for our ills, the thing desired most by men, and the
best. Consequently I ask: do civilized men measure their other actions by
the light of primitive nature? When do they ever, and what actions? Not
by primitive nature, but by this other nature of ours, or, as we like to say,
by reason. Why should only this act of depriving oneself of life be
measured not by our new nature, or by reason, but by primitive nature?
Why should primitive nature, which no longer lays down laws for our
life, give laws for death? Why should not reason govern death, since it
rules life? And we see in fact that both reason and the infelicity of our
present state not merely extinguish, particularly for the unfortunate and
afflicted, that inborn abhorrence of death that you mention, but change it
into desire and love, as I have just said. Given that desire and love, which
according to nature should not exist, and given the unhappiness
 generated by our alteration, one not desired by nature, it would
obviously be repugnant and a contradiction if the natural prohibition of
suicide should still pertain. This seems to me all that needs to be said
with regard to whether suicide is lawful. It remains to be seen whether it
is beneficial.
PLOTINUS: You do not need to speak to me about that, my dear
Porphyry: when that action is lawful (because I cannot agree that one
which was neither just nor right could possibly be useful) I have no doubt
that it is very beneficial. Because the question ultimately comes down to
this: which is better, not to suffer or to suffer? I know well that
enjoyment combined with suffering would most likely be chosen by
almost all men, rather than not suffering and also not enjoying; such is
the desire and, so to speak, the thirst that the mind has for enjoyment.
But the choice is not between these two, because enjoyment and pleasure,
speaking appositely and correctly, are just as impossible as suffering is
inevitable. And I mean a suffering that is as continuous as the desire and
need that we have of enjoyment and happiness, which is never fulfilled.
This is leaving aside the particular and accidental sufferings that occur to
every human being, and which are equally certain; I mean that they must
happen (more or less, and in one form or another) even to the most
fortunate life in the world. And in truth one single and brief suffering,
which someone knew was bound to happen to him if he went on living,
ought to be sufficient, according to reason, to prefer death to life. This is
because such suffering would bring with it no compensation at all, since
a true benefit or pleasure cannot occur in our life.
PORPHYRY: It seems to me that boredom itself, and finding that one is
without any hope of a better state or fortune, are sufficient causes to give
rise to a desire of ending one’s life, even for one who finds himself in a
state or fortune not merely not bad, but prosperous. And I have often
been amazed that nowhere is there mention of princes who have wanted
to die merely out of boredom, and out of satiety with their own
condition, as one reads and hears every day of private people. Such were
those who, having heard Hegesias, a Cyrenaic philosopher, air his
teachings on the wretchedness of life, went out and killed themselves.
Because of this Hegesias was given the nickname of “Death Persuader”;
and they say, as I believe you know, that eventually King Ptolemy*
 forbade him to dispute any further on that matter. Though we find some
– like King Mithridates,* Cleopatra* and Otho the Roman,* and perhaps
some other princes – who killed themselves, they were moved by finding
themselves then in adversity or unhappiness, and by wishing to flee from
worse things. Now, it would seem to me believable that princes more
easily than others should conceive a hatred of their condition, and be
bored with everything, and should long to die. This is because, since they
are at the height of what is known as human happiness, and have little
more to hope for, or perhaps nothing, from what are known to be the
good things of life (since they possess them all), they cannot promise
themselves that tomorrow will be better than today. And the present is
always, however fortunate it is, sad and unlovable: only the future can
please. But, however that may be, in the end we have to recognize that
(apart from fear of the world to come) what restrains men from willingly
abandoning their lives, and what induces them to love life and to prefer it
to death, is nothing other than a simple and manifest error, as one might
say, of calculation and measurement; that is to say, an error committed in
calculating and measuring, and in comparing the benefits and the harm.
This error occurs, one might say, as often as anyone embraces life, or
consents to live and is content to do so; whether it is from deliberate
choice or merely by going on living.
PLOTINUS: This is all true, my dear Porphyry. But despite all this, allow
me to advise you, and even permit me to beg you, to lend an ear, with
regard to this intention of yours, to Nature rather than to reason. And I
mean to that primitive Nature, to that mother of us and of the universe
who, even if she has not shown that she loves us, and even if she has
made us unhappy, has all the same been less hostile and maleficent to us
than we have been with our own minds, with our unceasing and
boundless curiosity, with our speculations, with our discussions, with
our dreams, with our wretched opinions and teachings; and Nature has
especially tried hard to alleviate our unhappiness by hiding the greater
part of it from us, or disguising it. And, although there has been a great
change in us, and Nature’s power over us has diminished, it is not
reduced to nothing, nor are we so changed and reformed that much of
the ancient man does not survive in each of us. This, despite the
antipathy that we in our stupidity feel towards it, can never be otherwise.
So what you call an error of calculation, which really is an error, as great
as it is palpable, is committed continually; and not only by stupid people
and idiots, but by intelligent, learned and wise people. And it will go on
being committed to all eternity if Nature, who has produced our species,
does not, of her own accord, and not by the reasoning and the hand of
man, extinguish it. And believe me, there is no disgust with life, no
desperation, no sense of the nothingness of things, of the vanity of cares,
of the loneliness of man, no hatred of the world and of oneself, that can
last for long; even though these states of mind are very reasonable, and
their opposites unreasonable. Despite all this, after some time, with a
slight change in the state of the body, little by little, and often in an
instant, for reasons that are so slight as to be scarcely noticeable, the
taste for life revives, this or that new hope is born and human affairs take
on their old appearance again, and show themselves not unworthy of
some attention; not indeed to the intellect, but rather, so to speak, to the
mind’s sensitivity. And that is enough to make anyone, however aware
and convinced of the truth, despite all reason persevere in living, and live
as others do: because it is this very sensitivity (one might say) and not the
intellect that rules over us.
Say it is reasonable to kill oneself; say it is unreasonable to adjust one’s
mind to living: suicide is nevertheless a ferocious and inhuman act. And
it should not please one more, nor should one wish, to be a monster and
reasonable rather than a man and natural. And why should we not also
wish to have some consideration for our friends, our blood relations, our
children, our brothers, our parents, our wives, our intimates and family,
with whom we have been accustomed to live for a long time? These are
those whom, when we die, we must leave for ever: shall we not feel in our
hearts any grief over this separation; shall we take no account of what
they will feel over the loss of a dear and familiar friend, or over the
awfulness of what has happened? I know well enough that the mind of a
wise person should not be too soft, nor allow itself to be overcome by
pity and grief to such an extent that it becomes deranged, falls to earth,
gives way and yields like a coward, indulges in immoderate weeping, in
actions unworthy of one who has full and clear awareness of the human
condition. But this strength of mind should be shown in those sad,
unfortunate accidents that one cannot avoid, not abused by depriving
ourselves deliberately, for ever, of the sight, the speech, the familiarity
with our loved ones. Not to consider the pain of separation and the loss
of relatives, of close friends, of companions, or to be unwilling to feel any
grief over such things – is not the act of a wise man, but of a barbarian.
To think nothing of grieving friends and family with one’s own death is
to have no care for others, and too much care for oneself. And, to be
honest, he who kills himself has no care or thought for others; he is
looking for nothing but his own convenience; in a way of speaking, he
throws away behind him his nearest and dearest, and the whole of the
human race; in fact, this action of depriving oneself of life turns out to be
an instance of the plainest, most sordid, or certainly the least attractive
and least generous, self-love that can be found in the world.
Finally, my dear Porphyry, the annoyances and ills of life, although they
are many and constant – even when, as can be seen in you, there are no
extraordinary misfortunes and calamities, or harsh physical pains – are
not hard to bear, particularly by someone who is wise and strong, as you
are. And life is something of so little importance that a man, as regards
himself, should not be overeager either to keep it or to let it go.
Therefore, without considering the matter too curiously, on every slight
occasion that is offered to keep it rather than let it go, he should not
refuse the offer. And if he were begged by a friend, why should he not
please him? Now I am begging and beseeching you, my dear Porphyry, by
the memory of the years our friendship has lasted up to now, to cast
aside those thoughts; have no wish to be the cause of such great grief to
your good friends, who love you with all their hearts, and to me who has
no dearer or more pleasant companion. Try to help us to endure life
rather than in this way, without any thought of us, to abandon us. Let us
live, my dear Porphyry, and comfort each other; let us not refuse to bear
that portion of the ills of our species that destiny has allotted to us. Let
us take care to keep each other company; let us go encouraging each
other, and giving a helping hand one to another, and so see this
wearisome life out in the best way possible. It will without fail be short.
And when death comes, then we shall not complain; and even at that last
hour our friends and companions will comfort us; and we shall be happy
at the thought that, when we are dead, they shall remember us often, and
love us still.
OceanofPDF.com
 A Pedlar of Almanacs and a Passer-by
A Dialogue

PEDLAR: Almanacs! New almanacs! New calendars! Do you need any

almanacs, sir?
PASSER-BY: Almanacs for the coming year?
PEDLAR: Yes, sir.
PASSER-BY: Do you think this new year will be a happy one?
PEDLAR: Oh yes, sir, certainly.
PASSER-BY: Like this past year?
PEDLAR: More, much more.
PASSER-BY: Like the year before last?
PEDLAR: More, more, sir.
PASSER-BY: Well then, what other year will it be like? Wouldn’t you want
the new year to be like one of these recent years?
PEDLAR: No, sir, I wouldn’t want that.
PASSER-BY: How many new years have gone by since you started selling
almanacs?
PEDLAR: It must be twenty years, sir.
PASSER-BY: Which of those twenty years would you want the coming year
to resemble?
PEDLAR: Me? I wouldn’t know.
PASSER-BY: Don’t you recall any year in particular that seemed to you a
happy one?
PEDLAR: Not really, sir.
PASSER-BY: And yet life is a fine thing, isn’t it?
PEDLAR: That is agreed.
PASSER-BY: Wouldn’t you like to live those twenty years again, indeed all
your time past, starting from when you were born?
PEDLAR: Ah, sir, would to God we could!
PASSER-BY: But say you had to relive the life that you have lived, no more
no less, with all the pleasures and the sorrows that you have had?
PEDLAR: That I would not want.
PASSER-BY: Then what other life would you like to relive? The life I have
 had, or the prince’s, or whose? Don’t you think that I, and the prince,
and anyone else would answer exactly as you have, and that if he had to
live the same life again, no one would want to go back?
PEDLAR: I do believe that.
PASSER-BY: And you would not want to go back either, on this condition,
if you couldn’t in any other way?
PEDLAR: No indeed, sir, I would not.
PASSER-BY: What kind of life would you like then?
PEDLAR: I would like a life just as God gave it to me, without any
preconditions.
PASSER-BY: A life left to chance, and you not knowing anything about it
beforehand, just as we don’t know anything about this coming year?
PEDLAR: Exactly.
PASSER-BY: So I too would wish, if I had to live again, and so would
everyone. But this shows that chance, up to the end of this year, has
treated everyone badly. And we see clearly that everyone is of the opinion
that the bad that has happened to him outweighs the good; since it seems
that, on condition of living once more his former life, with all its good
and its bad, no one would wish to be born again. That life, which is such
a fine thing, is not the life we know, but the one we do not know; not the
life of the past, but the life that lies in the future. In the new year, chance
will start to treat you and me and all the others well, and a happy life
will begin. Isn’t that so?
PEDLAR: Let’s hope so.
PASSER-BY: Well then, show me the best almanac you have.
PEDLAR: It’s this one, sir. It costs thirty pence.
PASSER-BY: Here’s the thirty pence.
PEDLAR: Thank you, sir. Good day. Almanacs, new almanacs, new
calendars!
OceanofPDF.com
 Tristan and a Friend
A Dialogue

FRIEND: I’ve read your book. It’s a melancholy one, as always with you.
TRISTAN: Yes, as always with me.
FRIEND: Melancholy, disconsolate, desperate. It’s obvious that this life
seems to you to be a very terrible thing.
TRISTAN: What can I say? I had this madness firmly fixed in my head,
that human life was unhappy.
FRIEND: Unhappy? Yes, perhaps. And yet in the end...
TRISTAN: No, no. On the contrary, it is happy. I have changed my
opinion now. But when I wrote that book I did, as I was saying, have that
madness in my head.* And I was so sure of it that the last thing I
expected was to hear doubt cast upon the observations that I made on
the subject: it seemed to me that every reader’s consciousness must bear
ready witness to every one of them. I did imagine that some dispute
might arise over the usefulness or harmfulness of such observations, but
never over their truth. Indeed I trusted that my words of lament, since
they referred to common ills, would find an echo in the heart of everyone
who heard them. And when I heard the denials, not of some particular
proposition, but of them all, and heard it said that life was not unhappy,
and that if it seemed so to me that must be the result of illness, or of
some other wretchedness peculiar to myself, well then at first I was left
stunned, astounded, as unmoving as a stone, and for several days I
thought I was in another world. Then, as I came to myself, I was rather
indignant; then I laughed and said to myself: men in general are like
husbands. Husbands, if they wish to lead a quiet life, have to believe that
their wives are faithful; each has to believe that in regard to his own; and
so they do believe, even when half the world knows that the truth is quite
different. Whoever wishes to live or has to live in a certain place finds it
convenient to believe it to be one of the best in the habitable world; and
so that is what he does believe. Men the world over, if they wish to go on
living, have to believe that life is beautiful and valuable; and such they do
believe it to be; and they grow angry at anyone who thinks differently. To
conclude, the human race always believes, not the truth, but what is, or
seems to be, to its benefit. The human race, which has believed and will
go on believing so many foolish things, will never believe that it knows
nothing, is nothing and has nothing to hope for. No philosopher who
taught one of these three things would make his fortune or found a
school, especially among the ordinary people. This is because, apart
from the fact that all three are of little relevance to anyone who wishes to
live, the first two offend men’s pride, and the third, and in fact the other
two as well, demand courage and strength of mind to be believed. And
men are cowardly, weak, ignoble and narrow-minded; always ready to
hope for the best, because they are always prepared to change their
opinion of what is best as necessity governs their lives; very ready to
surrender, as Petrarch says, to their fate;* very ready and determined to
be consoled for any mishap; to accept any compensation in exchange for
what is denied them or what they have lost; to accommodate themselves
on any conditions to any fate, even the wickedest and most barbarous;
and when they are deprived of every desirable thing, to live on false
beliefs, as vigorous and as firm as if they were the truest and the most
securely based in the world. As for myself, just as southern Europeans
laugh at husbands who are enamoured of their unfaithful wives, so I
laugh at the human race enamoured of life; and I regard it as hardly
manly to wish to be deceived and deluded like fools and, in addition to
the ills that they suffer, to be as it were mocked by Nature and Destiny. I
am speaking all the time of deceptions not of the imagination, but of the
intellect. I do not know if these feelings of mine are the result of illness:*
I do know that, sick or well, I trample on men’s pusillanimity and reject
every consolation and every childish deception, and I have the courage to
bear the privation of every hope, to contemplate dauntlessly the desert of
life, not to conceal from myself any scrap of human unhappiness and to
accept all the consequences of a philosophy that is distressing but true.
This, if it is good for nothing else, does give strong men the proud
satisfaction of seeing every veil stripped from the hidden and mysterious
cruelty of human destiny. I used to say these things to myself, almost as if
that sorrowful philosophy were my own invention, seeing it thus rejected
by everyone, as one does refute things that are new and never seen before.
But then, thinking it over, I recalled that it was no newer than Solomon
 or Homer* or the most ancient poets and philosophers that we know of;
they are all full to overflowing with figures, fables and opinions that
denote the extreme of human unhappiness. One of them says that man is
the most wretched of the animals; another* says that it is best not to be
born, and if one is born to die in the cradle; another* says that he who is
loved by the gods dies young; and others say endless things in the same
strain. And I remembered too that from those days until yesterday or the
day before, all the poets and all the philosophers and writers, great and
small, in one fashion or another, had repeated or confirmed the same
teachings. And so I returned once more to wondering; and thus, between
wonder and scorn and laughter I spent much time. Eventually, studying
the matter more deeply, I realized that a belief in the unhappiness of
mankind was one of the inveterate errors of the intellect, and that one of
the great discoveries of the nineteenth century was that this opinion was
false, and life was happy. And then I calmed myself, and now I admit that
I was wrong to believe what I did believe.
FRIEND: And you have altered your opinion?
TRISTAN: Definitely. Would you want me to argue with the truths
discovered by the nineteenth century?
FRIEND: And you believe everything that this century believes?
TRISTAN: Certainly. What is surprising in that?
FRIEND: And so you believe in the infinite perfectibility of mankind?
TRISTAN: Utterly.
FRIEND: You believe in fact that the human race is getting better every
day?
TRISTAN: Yes, certainly. It is true that on occasion I do think that each of
the ancients was equal, in bodily strength, to four of us. And the body
does make the man, because (leaving everything else aside) the
magnanimity, the courage, the passions, the ability to act, the ability to
enjoy – everything that makes life noble and vital – depends on the
body’s strength, without which it does not exist. Anyone who is
physically weak is not a man, but a child, in fact worse: it is his fate to
watch others living, and the most he can do is chatter; but life is not for
him. And that is why in ancient times physical weakness was
contemptible, even in the more civilized ages. But among us, for a very
long time already, education has not deigned to consider the body,
 regarding it as something too low and abject; it considers the spirit and
so, precisely by intending to cultivate the spirit, it ruins the body; it does
not realize that, in ruining the body, it ruins the spirit too in its turn. And
even if that could be remedied in education, it could never be done
without changing the modern state of society radically, finding a remedy
that would be valid for the other parts of private and public life, which
all, by their very nature, conspired together in the ancient world to
perfect and conserve the body, and today conspire to deprave it. The
result is that, in comparison with the ancients, we are little more than
children, and the ancients in comparison with us can be said more than
ever to have been men. I am speaking thus of individuals compared to
individuals, and also of the masses (to use this charming modern word)
compared to the masses. And I add that the ancients were incomparably
more virile than us in their moral and metaphysical systems too. At any
rate I am not going to let myself be influenced by such tiny objections,
and I always believe that the human race is going forward all the time.
FRIEND: It follows that you also believe that knowledge or, as they say,
enlightenment, grows continually?
TRISTAN: Most certainly. Although I do notice that, as the wish to learn
increases, the wish to study declines. And it is an amazing thing to see
the number of the learned, and I mean the truly learned, who were
contemporaries a hundred and fifty years ago, and even later, and to see
how immeasurably greater that number was than it is in the present age.
Don’t tell me that the learned are now few because, generally speaking,
knowledge is no longer accumulated in a few individuals, but divided
among many, and that the abundance of the latter is a compensation for
the rarity of the former. Knowledge is not like wealth, which can be
divided up and accumulated, and always amounts to the same sum.
Where everyone knows a little, well then, little is known; for knowledge
follows hard upon knowledge, and is not scattered about. Superficial
instruction can be, not in fact divided among many, but common to
many who are unlearned. The rest of knowledge belongs only to those
who are learned, and a large part of it to those who are very learned.
And, leaving fortuitous instances to one side, only those who are very
learned, and individually furnished with an immense capital of
knowledge, are capable of increasing human knowledge significantly and
 carrying it further. Now, except perhaps in Germany, from where
knowledge has not yet been hunted down, does it not seem to you that it
becomes every day less possible to see such learned men cropping up? I
air these reflections in this way for the sake of our discussion, and to
philosophize a little, or perhaps to quibble: it is not that I am
unconvinced by what you say. Indeed, even if I saw the world full of
ignorant impostors on the one hand and presumptuous ignoramuses on
the other, I would nevertheless still believe, as I do believe, that
knowledge and enlightenment are growing continually.
FRIEND: Do you believe, as a consequence, that this century is superior
to all past ones?
TRISTAN: Definitely. All centuries have thought this about themselves,
even the most barbarous ones; and that is what my century believes, and
I with it. If you ask me then wherein its superiority to other centuries
consists – whether it is in physical or spiritual matters – I refer to
everything that has just been said.
FRIEND: In a word, are your thoughts about nature and human destiny
and affairs (since we are not speaking now of literature or politics) the
same as those expressed by the newspapers?
TRISTAN: Precisely. I believe and I embrace the profound philosophy of
the newspapers: killing off every other kind of literature and every other
kind of study (especially those that are serious and displeasing),
newspapers are the masters that illuminate the present age. Is that not
so?
FRIEND: Very true. If what you say is said seriously and not as a joke, you
have become one of us.
TRISTAN: Yes, certainly, one of you.
FRIEND: Well now, what will you do with your book? Do you want it to
go down to posterity with those thoughts that are clean contrary to your
present opinions?
TRISTAN: To posterity? I’m laughing, because you’re joking. And if it
were possible that you were not joking, I would laugh all the more. I will
not speak about myself; but as for individuals and individual things of
the nineteenth century, you know very well that there is no fear of
posterity, which will know only as much of them as their ancestors did.*
Individuals have disappeared before the masses, as modern thinkers put
it so elegantly. That means that it is useless for any individual to be
bothered, because, whatever his worth, not even that wretched prize of
glory is left to him to hope for, either in his waking hours or in his
dreams. Let’s leave it to the masses; what they are about to do without
individuals, since they are composed of individuals, is something that I
desire and hope will be explained to me by those who understand
individuals and masses, those who today enlighten the world. But, to get
back to my book and posterity – with books especially, which now for
the most part are written in less time than it takes to read them, you can
see clearly that, just as they cost what they are worth, so they last in
proportion to their cost. I myself believe that the next century will
completely blot out the nineteenth century’s immense bibliography; or
else it will say: I have whole libraries of books that cost, some twenty,
some thirty years of hard work, and some less, but all a great deal of
effort. Let us read these first, because the likelihood is that we shall
extract more sense from them; and when there are no more of this sort to
read, well then I shall take up those books that have been written off the
cuff. My friend, this age is an age of children, and the few men who are
left have to hide themselves in shame, like one walking upright in a
country of cripples. And these children of ours want to do everything as
men did in other times, and do it just like children, at one stroke, without
any preparatory labour. Indeed they imagine that the degree to which
civilization has come, and the disposition of the present and future times,
will in perpetuity absolve them and their successors from any need for
long and laborious efforts in order to become fit for anything. A few days
ago a friend of mine, a man of affairs and business, said to me that even
mediocrity has become extremely rare; almost all are inept, almost all
inadequate to perform those offices or duties to which necessity or
fortune or choice has destined them. That seems to me part of the
difference between this and other ages. In all other ages, as in this,
greatness has been very rare; but in other ages mediocrity has held the
field, as now it is held by worthlessness. From this there arises such
clamour and confusion, with everyone wishing to be everything, that no
attention is paid to the few great men who I do believe in fact still exist,
and who, in the immense multitude of competitors, cannot make their
way. And thus, while all the lowest believe themselves to be illustrious,
 obscurity and nothingness become the fate common to both the lowest
and the highest.
But long live statistics! Long live the economic, moral and political
sciences, portable encyclopedias, manuals and all those many marvellous
creations of our age! And may the nineteenth century live forever! Poor
perhaps in deeds, but most rich and far-reaching in words (which has
always been the best sign, as you know)! And let us be comforted by the
fact that for another sixty-six years* this century will be the only one
that can speak and express its ideas.
FRIEND: You’re speaking, it seems to me, with a touch of irony. But you
ought at least to remember that this century is a century of transition.
TRISTAN: And what do you conclude from that? Every century, more or
less, has been and will be one of transition, because human society never
stays still, and there never will be a century that has reached a state that
will endure. So that either this fine word does not excuse the nineteenth
century at all, or else it is excused in common with all centuries. It
remains to be seen, with society going along the way it does, how it will
finish up; that is, whether the transition it is now making is from good to
better or from bad to worse. Perhaps you are trying to tell me that the
present transition is one towards excellence – a rapid passage, that is,
from one state of civilization to another very different from the one
before. In that case I beg leave to laugh at such a rapid transit, and I reply
that all transitions must be made slowly: if they are made suddenly, in a
short time we are back to where we started, in order to make the
transition again more gradually. That is how it has always happened. The
reason is that nature does not proceed by leaps, and if nature is
constrained, no lasting effect is created. Or rather, to put it better, such
precipitous transitions are only apparent transitions, not real ones.
FRIEND: I beg you not to talk like this to too many people: it will gain
you many enemies.
TRISTAN: That matters little. By now neither enemies nor friends can do
me great harm.
FRIEND: Or more likely you will be despised as having little
understanding of modern philosophy, and having little care for the
progress of civilization and enlightenment.
TRISTAN: I am very sorry, but what can I do? If they despise me, I shall
 try to be comforted.
FRIEND: But finally, have you changed your opinion or not? And what is
to be done with this book?
TRISTAN: Best to burn it! If not burn it, then keep it as a book of poetic
dreams, melancholy inventions and caprices, or rather as an expression
of the author’s unhappiness. In strict confidence, my dear friend, I
believe that you are happy and so is everyone else; but, as for me, by your
leave and that of the age, I am most unhappy: such I believe myself to be,
and all the newspapers in all the world will not persuade me otherwise.
FRIEND: I don’t understand the reason for that unhappiness you
mention. But no one can judge whether any individual is happy or
unhappy except that person himself, and his judgement cannot be
wrong.
TRISTAN: How true! And, what is more, I tell you frankly that I do not
submit to my unhappiness, or bow my head to destiny, or come to terms
with it, as other men do; and I dare to desire death, and to desire it more
than anything, with such ardour and such sincerity as I firmly believe it
has never been desired in the world except by very few. Nor would I
speak to you like this if I were not completely certain that, when my time
comes, the reality will not belie my words; for, although I do not see any
way out of my life yet, still I have a feeling inside me that makes me
virtually certain that the time I speak of is not far off. I am overripe for
death: it seems to me too absurd and unbelievable that, spiritually dead
as I am, with the story of my life already told down to the last detail, I
should have to last out for the forty or fifty years* that Nature threatens
me with. The very thought of it makes me shudder. But as happens with
all those ills that are, as it were, beyond imagination, this seems to me a
dream and an illusion, which could not happen. In fact, if anyone speaks
of a distant future as of something that concerns me, I cannot help
smiling to myself: such confidence have I that the life left for me to
complete is not long. And this is, I must say, the only thought that keeps
me going. Books and studies – which I often marvel to have loved so
much – ambitious designs and hopes of glory and immortality are things
at which it is too late even to laugh. I do not laugh at the designs and
hopes of this century; with all my heart I wish them the greatest possible
success, and I praise, admire and honour good intentions deeply and
most sincerely; but I do not envy posterity, nor those who still have a long
time to live. In the past I have envied the foolish and stupid, and those
who have a high opinion of themselves; and I would happily have
changed places with any one of them. Nowadays I no longer envy the
foolish or the wise, the great or the small, the weak or the powerful. I
envy the dead, and only with them would I change places. Every pleasing
fancy, every thought of the future that I happen to have in my solitude,
and with which I pass the time, is concerned with death, and cannot go
beyond it. Nor is this desire troubled any more, as it used to be, by the
memory of the dreams of my youth, and the thought of having lived in
vain. If I obtain death, I shall die as peaceful and contented as if I had
never hoped for or desired anything else in the world. This is the only
blessing that can reconcile me with destiny. If I were offered on the one
hand the fortune and fame of Caesar or of Alexander, free from any
blemish, and on the other hand to die today, and if I had to choose, I
would say, die today, and I would need no time to make up my mind.
OceanofPDF.com
 Notes
p. 3, The History of the Human Race: Two poems with similar themes are
Canti VII (‘To Spring, or of the Ancient Fables’), and Canti VIII (‘Hymn
to the Patriarchs, or of the Beginnings of the Human Race’).
p. 3, they were nurtured… Jove’s upbringing: As a baby, Jove was hidden in
a cave on Mount Ida in Crete, to save him from his father’s murderous
intent, and nourished in the way described.
p. 5, Atlantis: A fabled island overwhelmed by an earthquake. It was
usually thought to be situated in the Atlantic, and often seen as a place
of happiness.
p. 6, they took stones from the mountain… human race: After Jove,
angered by men’s impiety, had destroyed all but two of the human race
by a flood, the survivors, Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, consulted the
oracle of Themis. They were told to repair the loss of mankind by
throwing behind them the bones of their grandmother. Realizing these
were the stones of the earth, they obeyed. The stones thrown by
Deucalion became men and those thrown by Pyrrha became women.
p. 8, phantasms: A key concept in Leopardi. Here the Italian is “fantasmi”
(ghosts, spectres, phantoms, or phantasms); elsewhere Leopardi uses
“larve” (ghosts), “illusioni” (illusions or delusions), “inganni”
(deceptions or deceits) and “errori” (errors or mistakes) for the same
concept.
p. 9, The causes of this change… specified now: Ovid, for example,
describes the human wickedness that came into the world with the Iron
Age (Metamorphoses i, 122–50).
p. 11, one may imagine… men: By destroying belief in the phantasms
previously mentioned. See note to p. 8.
p. 16, Atlas: A Titan who was changed into a mountain in Morocco that
still bears his name. He was generally said to hold the heavens on his
shoulders: Leopardi represents him holding the earth.
p. 16, Jove: King of the gods and father of Hercules.
p. 16, as I did… many centuries ago: The eleventh of the Twelve Labours
of Hercules was to obtain the golden apples of the Hesperides. While
Hercules took over Atlas’s burden (the heavens, not the earth, as in this
 piece), Atlas procured the apples for him.
p. 16, I’d stick it… own thing: This reversal of the usual notion that the
world would be heavy to bear is consistent with Leopardi’s belief in
“l’infinita vanità del tutto” (“all the emptiness of everything”), Canti
xxviii, 16. The lightness here is figurative as well as literal.
p. 16, Argonauts: They sailed in search of the Golden Fleece. The presence
of Hercules on the expedition was more likely to be because of his great
strength than his scholarship.
p. 17, Daphne: She was changed into a laurel tree to escape the attentions
of Apollo.
p. 17, Epimenides: A shepherd who fell asleep in a cave and did not waken
for fifty-seven years.
p. 17, Hermotimus: A prophet whose soul was able to leave his body and
so investigate the future.
p. 17, blazing ball… River Po!: Phaethon, the son of Apollo, attempted to
guide the chariot of the sun, but he lost control of it and, to save further
damage to the world, Jove struck him with a thunderbolt (“blazing
ball”), and he was drowned in the Po.
p. 18, the poets… lyre: Amphion was said to have built the walls of Thebes
by his music: Hercules exaggerates the feat.
p. 18, the Hours: Goddesses of the seasons and the hours, attendant on the
chariot of the sun.
p. 19, Styx: A river in the Underworld, by which the gods often swore. The
attribution of horns to rivers (shown on the heads of sculptured
personifications of the rivers) may come from the tendency of rivers to
break up into several streams at their deltas.
p. 19, This poet… into ruin: Horace, Odes III, 3, especially lines 7–8: “si
fractus illabatur orbis, / impavidum ferient ruinæ” (“if the world should
break and fall in pieces, / the ruins would strike him [the just man] but
leave him unafraid”).
p. 20, “By now… passed”: Petrarch, Canzoniere liii, 77–78.
p. 20, my Triumph: Petrarch, Trionfo della Morte (The Triumph of
Death).
p. 20, I can’t use spectacles… rest them on: Imagined as a skeleton, Death
has no nose.
p. 21, deform the heads of babies… America and Asia: In a note to the
 text, Leopardi quotes Hippocrates about a people in Asia Minor who
followed this practice and whose babies were born with elongated heads
even when the custom was abandoned.
p. 21, die glorious deaths: Not merely physical appearances, but actions
involving moral choices, such as martyrdom, are said to be subject to
fashion.
p. 22, palio: A traditional horse race in several Italian cities.
p. 23, this age: This was written in 1824.
p. 23, tombs and caverns… filthy dust: An allusion to Foscolo’s Dei
Sepolcri (Sepulchres), especially line 15: “ossa che in terra e in mar
semina morte” (“bones which death scatters over land and sea”), where
semina means “scatters, broadcasts, sows”. Fashion is challenging
Foscolo’s assertion that the famous dead live on as an inspiration to the
living.
p. 23, Finally, I saw… die utterly: See Horace, Odes iii, 30, 6–7: “non
omnis moriar, multaque pars mei / vitabit Libitinam” (“I shall not die
completely, and a large part of me shall escape death”).
p. 24, “Of the blest century in which we are”: A slightly modified
quotation from Giovanni Battista Casti (1724–1803) in Animali parlanti
(Talking Animals).
p. 25, the treatises of Cicero and the Marquise de Lambert on friendship:
The Roman politician, orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero
(106–43 bc) wrote Lælius de amicitia (Laelius on Friendship). Anne-
Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles (1647–1733), known as Marquise de
Lambert, wrote the Traité de l’amitié (Treatise on Friendship) in 1732.
p. 25, Regiomontanus, Vaucanson: Regiomontanus was the pen name –
derived from his birthplace, Königsberg – of the German astronomer and
mathematician Johannes Müller (1436–76). Jacques de Vaucanson
(1709–82) was a French inventor.
p. 26, more than one machine: For example those by the Austrian
Wolfgang von Kempelen (1751–1801) and the German Leonhard Mälzel
(1783–1855).
p. 26, as Pindar says… of a dream: Pythian Odes viii, 95.
p. 26, statue of Memnon: At Thebes, said to emit a melodious sound at
sunrise, and a lugubrious one at sunset and during the night.
p. 26, Albertus Magnus: A German theologian (1206–80), who was the
 mentor of St Thomas Aquinas and was said to have devised an
automaton in the shape of a head which could answer questions.
p. 26, parrot of Nevers: Eponymous protagonist of a burlesque poem by
Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset (1709–77).
p. 26, Pylades and Orestes: In Greek mythology, two cousins who were
proverbial for their friendship.
p. 27, Quo ferrea… aurea mundo: Lines 8–9: “with whom the iron race
will end at last and a golden one spring up throughout the world”.
p. 27, Count Baldassarre Castiglione… The Courtier: Baldassarre
Castiglione (1478–1529) was a diplomat, courtier, soldier and author of
the influential manual The Book of the Courtier (1528).
p. 27, since Pygmalion… to the present: The mythical Pygmalion made a
statue of a woman and fell in love with it; in answer to his prayers it
came to life, and they married.
p. 27, Arabian phoenix of Metastasio: See Pietro Metastasio, Demetrio II,
3, 107–10: “The faith of lovers is like the Arabian Phoenix: everyone says
it exists, but no one knows where it is.”
p. 27, Diogenes… Apuleius, Firenzuola and Machiavelli: Diogenes was a
Cynic philosopher of the fourth century bc who lived in ostentatious
poverty. Apuleius was the second-century ad author of The Golden Ass,
which Agnolo Firenzuola (1493–1543) translated into Italian. Niccolò
Machiavelli (1469–1527), author of The Prince, also wrote a satirical
allegorical poem entitled The Golden Ass.
p. 28, Sprite: A spirit of the air.
p. 28, Sabazius: A name for Bacchus, in his role as the most ancient of the
gnomes.
p. 28, Gnome: An underground spirit, guardian of precious metals hidden
in the earth.
p. 28, paper money… in the past: Saying that paper money is an ancient
invention is ironic, and the target of the irony is the modern use of it.
p. 28, Lycurgus: A Spartan lawgiver who instituted the use of brass and
iron coins.
p. 28, as it says… close of a tragedy: Rutzvanscad il giovane (The Young
Rutzvanscad, 1724), by Zaccaria Vallaresso (1686–1769).
p. 29, Fortune… any more: Fortune is commonly personified as blindfold,
with her turning wheel an image of the variability of human fate.
p. 31, according to Chrysippus: A Stoic philosopher (c.280–207 bc).
Leopardi is here referring to a passage about Chrysippus in Cicero, De
natura deorum ii, 64.
p. 31, if Chrysippus… such nonsense: Salt is used here for Attic salt
(delicate and refined wit), and the soul is to be understood as the vital
principle and not as a soul in the Christian sense.
p. 31, And the sun… Caesar: Virgil, Georgics I, 466–67. The primary
meaning of the word (ferrugo) used seriously by Virgil for the sun’s
gloom is “iron-rust”.
p. 32, as the statue of Pompey was: Caesar was killed at the foot of
Pompey’s statue. There had been no love lost between Caesar and
Pompey.
p. 33, Malambruno: The name suggests evil and darkness.
p. 33, Farfarello… Alichino: All devils: Farfarello, Ciriatto and Alichino
are from Dante (Inferno xxi), Astarotte from Morgante maggiore (1483)
xxv by Luigi Pulci (1432–84) and Baconero from Il Malmantile
racquistato (1688) by Lorenzo Lippi (1606–65).
p. 33, nobler than the Atreides: The brothers Agamemnon and Menelaus,
famous Greek commanders in the Trojan War.
p. 33, Manoa: Another name for the fabled El Dorado, long sought for its
gold.
p. 33, Charles V: Holy Roman Emperor (1500–58), whose actual empire
was huge.
p. 33, Penelope: Wife of Odysseus, who remained faithful to him during
his twenty-year absence.
p. 34, I’d have… contrary: The assumption is that rogues always prosper.
p. 34, the whole of Judecca and all of Eviltiers: Judecca is the lowest part
of Dante’s Inferno (xxxiii–xxxiv), while Eviltiers is the eighth circle
(xviii–xxx), occupied by fraudsters.
p. 36, Nature: Leopardi’s conception of Nature varies: sometimes she is, as
here, a kindly mother; at other times she is a malign stepmother: “de’
mortali / madre è di parto e di voler matrigna” (“mother because she
bears us all, / Stepmother, though, by virtue of her will”), ‘La ginestra’
(‘The Broom’), Canti xxx, 124–25; she may even be “il brutto / poter
che, ascoso, a commun danno impera” (“the brutal force / That furtively
ordains the general harm”), ‘A se stesso’ (‘To Himself’), Canti xxviii, 14–
 15.
p. 36, Fate: A term to cover Leopardi’s abiding uncertainty as to whom, or
what, is ultimately to blame for existence.
p. 38, Camões: Luís de Camões (1524–80), author of Os Lusiadas (The
Lusiads, 1572), the Portuguese national epic, who lived in poverty and
had a pauper’s funeral.
p. 38, as happened… Milton: Leopardi presumably has in mind Milton’s
blindness and his obscurity after the Restoration.
p. 39, the infinite vanity: A phrase reminiscent of “Vanity of vanities, saith
the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (Eccles. 1:2), and a favourite
of Leopardi’s (see Zibaldone 69: “Oh infinita vanità del vero!” (“Oh,
infinite vanity of the truth!”), and ‘A se stesso’ (‘To Himself’), Canti
xxviii, 16: “l’infinita vanità del tutto” (“all the emptiness of everything”).
p. 41, Fond though I am of silence: See Canti xix, 132: “tacita luna”
(“silent moon”) and xxiii, 2: “silenziosa luna” (“silent moon”).
p. 42, Pythagoras: Greek Philosopher of the sixth century bc.
p. 42, Orpheus: The mythical poet makes a strange authority on
astronomical matters.
p. 42, Lalande: The French astronomer Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de
Lalande (1732–1807).
p. 42, David Fabricius: Dutch astronomer (1564–1617), whom Leopardi
regarded as mad.
p. 42, Lynceus: One of the Argonauts, famous for his unbelievably sharp
sight.
p. 43, a scientist down here… lofty bastions: This alludes to a spurious
work attributed to the great astronomer Sir William Herschel (1738–
1822).
p. 43, So perhaps… a telescope: Here, Leopardi’s note reads: “See the
German newspapers of March 1824 for the discoveries attributed to Herr
Gruithuisen”.
p. 44, dogs howling: Proverbial for ineffective complaining.
p. 44, bottom of a well: Proverbial for trying to make others believe
something impossible.
p. 44, feminine or masculine: For instance, in Italian and French the moon
is feminine, while in German it is masculine.
p. 44, Is it true… you did?: Leopardi attributes this suggestion to the
 Athenian comic poet Menander (c.342–291 bc).
p. 44, That Mahomet… his sleeve: A famous Arabic legend.
p. 44, feast of Bairam: Lesser Bairam, or Eid al-Fitr, a Muslim festival at
the end of Ramadan, which begins with the new moon.
p. 44, You can’t talk… sun circles: The Moon is mocking current
hypotheses.
p. 45, Ariosto writes: A reference to Orlando furioso (1532) xxxiv by
Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533).
p. 46, Hope… for ever: Leopardi’s mockery of contemporary assertions of
a bright present and a brighter future for mankind is well exemplified in
Canti xxxii, ‘Palinodia al marchese Gino Capponi’ (‘Palinode to the
Marchese Gino Capponi’).
p. 48, Hypernephelos: I.e. “above the clouds”.
p. 49, Synesius: Synesius of Cyrene (c.370–413), author of hymns and a
treatise on Providence.
p. 50, Momus: Son of the Night and notorious for his mockery and fault-
finding.
p. 50, Popaian: In what is now Colombia.
p. 51, Pasiphaë: The goddess who, after her union with a bull, gave birth
to the Minotaur.
p. 52, harpies… Trojans’ feast: Aeneid iii, 209ff.
p. 52, a new Lucretia… or Decius: Lucretia was a Roman woman whose
rape by a son of King Tarquin, and consequent suicide, led to the
expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome and the foundation of the Roman
Republic. Virginia was killed by her father, the centurion Virginius, to
preserve her chastity, bringing about the death of the tyrant who had
threatened it. Erectheus was the King of Athens whose four daughters
sacrificed themselves to appease the anger of Neptune against him.
Iphigenia was sacrificed by her father Agamemnon to secure a favourable
wind for his voyage to Troy. Codrus was the last King of Athens, who
made sure he was killed in battle to fulfil the oracle’s forecast that the
city whose king was killed would be victorious. Menoeceus was a
Theban who sacrificed himself to the gods to ensure his city’s safety.
Curtius threw himself into a chasm that had opened in the Roman
Forum as a sacrifice to ensure the safety of Rome. Decius was the name
of three generations of Romans who audaciously sacrificed themselves in
 battle for their country.
p. 52, Alcestis: She gave her own life in order to bring her husband back
from death.
p. 54, Epimetheus: He created the animals when his brother Prometheus
created the human race. He also brought evil into the world when he
opened the box of his wife Pandora.
p. 54, Plotinus: Neoplatonic philosopher (ad 204–69).
p. 54, Leibniz… possible worlds: This teaching of Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz (1646–1716) was satirized by Voltaire in Candide.
p. 57, Eureka! Eureka!: “I have found it! I have found it!” (Famous
exclamation of Archimedes, Syracusan scientist of the third century bc,
when he discovered how to find the amount of silver that had been mixed
with gold in the making of a crown.)
p. 58, after death: I.e. not in the memory of their descendants.
p. 58, Cagliostro: Alessandro, Conte di Cagliostro (1743–95) was a
notorious Italian adventurer and impostor.
p. 58, Chiron: A centaur, tutor to Achilles.
p. 58, Hyperboreans: A mythical nation, said to live in the extreme north.
p. 59, dying… the Hottentots: Leopardi alludes to the hypothesis that their
early deaths were the result of poor hygiene and infected food.
p. 60, Leeuwenhoek: The Dutch naturalist Anton van Leeuwenhoek
(1632–1723).
p. 60, Maupertuis: P.L. Mareau de Maupertuis (1698–1759), French
mathematician and philosopher, whose works include one Sur l’art de
prolonger la vie (On the Art of Prolonging Life).
p. 61, I judge… fully clothed: Alludes to the beauty contest between Juno,
Venus and Minerva, judged by Paris, who saw the goddesses naked, and
for which the prize was an apple. The Physicist once more stresses his
unwillingness to consider things too carefully.
p. 62, Pyrrho: Pyrrho of Elis (fl. c.300 bc), philosopher who doubted man’s
ability to come to a conclusion about anything.
p. 63, Torquato: Torquato Tasso (1544–95) is one of the greatest Italian
poets and author of the epic Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem
Delivered). He suffered from religious scruples and literary misgivings,
and eventually from a madness in which he came to believe that he had
conversations with a familiar spirit who was well disposed to him. His
 madness led to his imprisonment for seven years, and this dialogue takes
place during the imprisonment. Leopardi was very sympathetic towards
him: “In Tasso we see one who is overcome by his unhappiness, who has
lost, who is prostrated, who has submitted to adversity, who is
continually suffering and enduring beyond measure. Even if his
calamities are imaginary and quite without substance, his unhappiness is
certainly real” (Zibaldone 4255–56).
p. 63, Oh… once again: There is a tradition that Tasso was in love with
Eleonora d’Este, sister of Alfonso II, the Duke of Ferrara, by whom
Tasso was imprisoned.
p. 64, I do not… Pilate did: See John 18:37–38: “Pilate therefore said unto
him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king.
To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I
should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth
my voice. Pilate saith unto him, ‘What is truth?’”
p. 67, tedium: A key concept in Leopardi, and one denoting much more
than mere lack of interest, but rather “l’infinita vanità del tutto” (see
note to p. 39).
p. 67, Peripatetics: A sect of Athenian philosophers, disciples of Aristotle.
p. 69, time goes no slower… oppresses you: See first note to p. 64.
p. 69, In a large drink: A somewhat surprising end to a finely argued
philosophical dialogue; but Leopardi’s ratiocination never strays far from
mundane physical facts: “Wine is the most certain and (incomparably)
the most effective consolation” (Zibaldone 324). There is also reason to
believe that Tasso’s madness was partly occasioned by his fondness for
wine.
p. 70, The Cape itself… unknown waters: This fantasy is from Canto V of
The Lusiads (see first note to p. 38).
p. 72, Mount Hekla: A famous volcano in Iceland.
p. 77, Giuseppe Parini: Giuseppe Parini (1729–99) was the most
distinguished Italian poet of his time. Born in a small town in Lombardy,
he was sent at the age of nine to Milan for his education, and spent most
of his life in that city. He was ordained priest in 1754. He was for eight
years a tutor in a noble household. His poems reveal an understanding of
the privileged life of the upper classes, but also a strong satiric awareness
of the shortcomings of the class he had to serve.
p. 77, Cicero: See first note to p. 25.
p. 78, Vittorio Alfieri: Italian poet and playwright (1749–1803).
p. 78, Telesilla: A lyric poetess of Argos who bravely defended her country
against the Spartans.
p. 80, the author of The Courtier: See first note to p. 27.
p. 82, Lucan’s: Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (ad 39–65), author of the
unfinished epic Pharsalia, remarkable for its striking and unusual
phraseology.
p. 82, a certain prince: Frederick the Great of Prussia (1712–86).
p. 82, Henriade: An epic (published 1723 and 1728) by Voltaire; its
protagonist is Henry of Navarre.
p. 84, Homer: Author of the Odyssey and the Iliad, generally regarded as
the supreme epics of all time.
p. 84, Petrarch: Francesco Petrarca (1304–74), Italian poet and scholar,
most famous now for his lyrics in praise of Laura.
p. 89, French philosopher: Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755), Essai sur le
goût dans les choses de la nature et de l’art (Essay on Taste in Nature and
Art, 1757).
p. 90, Gerusalemme liberata: Epic (Jerusalem Delivered) by Torquato
Tasso (1544–95) See first note to p. 60.
p. 90, Orlando furioso: See note to p. 45.
p. 91, Love… dance: Iliad xiii, 636–37.
p. 92, Descartes… Vico: All pre-eminent practitioners in their respective
fields: René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher and
mathematician; Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was an Italian astronomer;
for Leibniz see third note to p. 54); Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was an
English scientist; Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) was an Italian
philosopher and historian.
p. 96, the rebirth of civilization: The Renaissance.
p. 98, Bosisio: Parini’s birthplace.
p. 100, as Petrarch has it: Canzoniere vii, 10. The whole sonnet is relevant
to Leopardi’s theme.
p. 100, in another person: Cato the Elder (234–149 bc), Roman statesman,
soldier and writer.
p. 101, “Do you think… alive”: De senectute (On Old Age), Chapter 23.
p. 101, Simonides… kind: Lines 10–18 of a poem by Simonides of
 Amorgos (c.660 bc), translated (from a slightly different text) as Canti
xl.
p. 104, Chancellor Bacon: Francis Bacon (1561–1626), English
philosopher, statesman, scientist, orator and author.
p. 104, Malebranche: Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715), French
theologian and philosopher.
p. 104, Locke: John Locke (1632–1704), English philosopher.
p. 106, frederick ruysch’s: Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731) was a Dutch
anatomist who became famous for his advances in the field of
embalming.
p. 107, Tsar Peter’s visit: Peter the Great visited Ruysch’s collection twice,
bought it and had it sent to St Petersburg, where it remains to this day.
p. 108, Great Platonic Year: The term used to describe the precession of
the equinoxes through the twelve houses of the zodiac, taking about
25,800 years, after which the Earth returns to its original position in
relation to the other planets.
p. 109, “So he… killed”: Francesco Berni (1497–1535), Orlando
innamorato (Orlando in Love) liii, 60.
p. 109, Epicureans… soul: They regarded it as material and mortal.
p. 109, the common belief: The Christian belief in the soul’s immortality.
p. 113, Filippo Ottonieri: A fictional character.
p. 113, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Swiss philosopher (1712–78) whose works
undermined much of eighteenth-century morality.
p. 113, Democritus: Greek philosopher (c.460–c.357 bc), founder of
atomic theory.
p. 113, early Cynic philosophers: A sect of Greek philosophers who
ostentatiously flouted the social mores of their time.
p. 114, Epicurus: Greek philosopher (342–270 bc).
p. 114, Socrates: Athenian philosopher (469–399 bc) known through the
writings of his pupil Plato. He was always depicted as ugly in
appearance.
p. 114, Socratic irony: The pretence of being ignorant, or at least of
knowing less than those in one’s company.
p. 115, famous saying of Cicero: Cicero’s words are directly translated by
Leopardi in the rest of this sentence and the whole of the next.
p. 116, our ancient comedies: The commedia dell’arte.
p. 117, To that… Horace: Satires i, 1, 1–3.
p. 118, Xenophon: An Athenian general, historian and philosopher
(c.430–354 bc).
p. 125, As a prime example… Rousseau: See second note to p. 108.
p. 125, the Latin Life… Maecenas: The grammarian Aelius Donatus (fl.
mid-fourth century AD) wrote a Life of Virgil which is now lost in full,
but of which extracts survive in commentaries. Aelius Melissus was
former slave of Gaius Maecenas (68–8 BC), an advisor to the Emperor
Augustus and patron of Virgil and Horace.
p. 129, Lives of the Philosophers… Chilon: Lives of the Philosophers was
written c.ad 200–50 by Diogenes Laertius, of whom little else is known.
Chilon was a Spartan magistrate of the sixth century bc.
p. 130, Hegesias: A ruler of Ephesus under Alexander the Great.
p. 130, then let Plato… world: In his Republic, Plato described his ideal
state, which would be ruled by philosophers.
p. 130, Bion of Borysthenes: A Scythian philosopher (d.241 bc).
p. 130, Plutarch translated by Marcello Adriani the Younger: Plutarch was
a Boeotian author (ad 46–120) famous for his lives of illustrious Greeks
and Romans; the reference here is to his Moralia, a series of moral essays.
The translation in question is from 1819.
p. 131, He noted that Arrian… foreseen: Alexander won an overwhelming
victory against the Persian king Darius III at the Battle of Issus. This is
recounted in the Anabasis of Alexander by Arrian of Nicomedia (c.86–
c.160).
p. 132, oration of Demosthenes for the crown: In which he defends his
conduct and his right to a golden crown for his services to Athens (330
bc).
p. 132, Bossuet’s praises of the Prince de Condé: In 1687, Jacques-Bénigne
Bossuet (1627–1704), the French bishop and theologian famed for his
oratory, pronounced an acclaimed funeral oration for the general Louis
de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (1621–86).
p. 132, Lucian: Lucian of Samosata (c.ad 115–200), famous for his
satirical dialogues.
p. 132, Lorenzino dei Medici: Lorenzino dei Medici (1514–48) was an
Italian writer and dramatist, who murdered his cousin Alessandro and
wrote a powerful justification of his action.
p. 133, Jove of Crete: A play on the Italian word creta, which means “clay”
and also Crete.
p. 135, Gutierrez: A gentleman at the court of Ferdinand V of Aragon
(1452–1516), the king who equipped Columbus for his famous voyage,
on which Gutierrez sailed too.
p. 135, Gomera: One of the Canaries.
p. 137, Hanno: A Carthaginian who wrote an account of a voyage round
Africa (c.480 bc).
p. 137, that mass of seaweed: The Sargasso Sea.
p. 138, rock of Leucas: A promontory on an island in the Ionian Sea.
p. 140, Amelius: A Neoplatonic philosopher of the third century ad,
chosen as the speaker of this essay because his name suggests
“untroubled, unworried”, an indication of the prevalent tone of this
piece.
p. 140, according to what Xenophon writes: In his Cynegeticus (c.400 bc).
p. 143, as Virgil says: Eclogues iv, 60–63.
p. 146, just as Anacreon… with her foot: In the twentieth ode of this
famous Greek poet (sixth century bc).
p. 151, Strato of Lampsacus: Leopardi may well have chosen the historical
Strato of Lampsacus as the supposed author of this work because,
although none of his writings survive, he is known to have denied the
existence of any god or gods.
p. 151, ab eterno: “From all eternity”, a Latin phrase normally used in
religious contexts and referring to God.
p. 156, this century: The nineteenth.
p. 157, This is not… Socrates: Leopardi’s note refers us to Plato’s
Symposium (written towards the end of the fifth century bc), but he has
altered the import of his source to suit his purpose.
p. 158, Timon: An Athenian misanthrope (fifth century bc) mentioned by
Aristophanes, Lucian and Plutarch, and known to English readers from
Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens.
p. 159, Alcibiades: An Athenian (d.404 bc) whose lack of scruple,
bellicosity and ambition did great harm to his homeland.
p. 159, I am not ashamed… law of nature: Because, according to
Leopardi, man can love only himself.
p. 160, certain ideal or imaginary entities: These are the “illusions”
 (various abstract qualities or ideals such as glory, honour, love): see note
to p. 8.
p. 166, The horses are ready: For the Sun’s chariot.
p. 167, If the discovery… everything else: Gas was first used for lighting
only in the very early nineteenth century.
p. 167, three hundred years… cure for their ills: This remark helps to
maintain the light tone, and it alerts the reader to when the dialogue is
taking place.
p. 168, tiny grain of sand: The earth.
p. 170, Copernicus: The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–
1543), famous for his theory that the sun, and not the earth, was the
centre of the universe.
p. 170, Almagest: The Arabic translation of several astronomical treatises,
including Ptolemy’s.
p. 170, Sacrobosco: Johannes de Sacrobosco is a Latin translation of John
of Holywood (fl. thirteenth century), probably an Englishman, who
wrote textbooks on astronomy that were based on Ptolemy’s theory.
p. 170, the night… Amphitryon’s wife: Jove slept with her and prolonged
the night to extend his enjoyment.
p. 172, Orlando: The hero of Ariosto’s epic Orlando furioso.
p. 172, one of your ancient mathematicians… earth?: Archimedes (287–
212 bc).
p. 174, Digest: Part of the Emperor Justinian’s codification of the law.
p. 176, unlike Cicero… dignity: In his speech Pro Sestio (For Sestius).
p. 176, phoenix: A fabled bird, the only one of its kind, said to burn itself
every five hundred years and then arise rejuvenated from its ashes.
p. 176, I was a prophet: When the sun was identified with the god Apollo.
p. 176, will suffer from burns… affliction: An allusion to Giordano Bruno
(1548–1600), who was burnt at the stake for, among other things, some
philosophical conclusions he drew from Copernicus’s theory, and also to
the sentences against Galileo in 1616 and 1633.
p. 176, dedicate the book… to the Pope: He did in fact dedicate De
revolutionibus orbium cœlestium (The Revolutions of the Heavenly
Bodies) to Pope Paul III.
p. 178, Porphyry: A Platonic philosopher (c.ad 233–301), pupil of Plotinus.
p. 178, Plotinus: A Platonic philosopher (ad 204–70) who taught in Rome.
p. 178, Eunapius: Writer (fourth century ad) of lives of philosophers.
p. 180, Plato’s opinion: In his Phaedrus.
p. 182, Tartarus: In classical notions of hell, the region for those who had
been wicked in life, especially those who had committed crimes against
the gods.
p. 182, Minos… Rhadamanthus: The three classical judges in hell.
p. 188, King Ptolemy: King of Egypt (d.283 bc).
p. 188, King Mithridates: King of Pontus (120–63 bc). On his defeat by
Rome, he ordered a slave to kill him.
p. 188, Cleopatra: Queen of Egypt who committed suicide after her defeat
at Actium (31 bc).
p. 188, Otho: Roman Emperor who in ad 69 committed suicide after a
military defeat.
p. 194, But when I wrote… madness in my head: With particular reference
to the present volume, but applicable to most of Leopardi’s work.
p. 191, ready to surrender… fate: Canzoniere cccxxxi, 7–8: “Or, lasso,
alzo la mano, et l’arme rendo / a l’empia et vïolenta mia fortuna...”
(“Alas, I raise my hands now and surrender / completely to inexorable
fate”).
p. 191, I do not know… result of illness: Leopardi usually denied that they
were.
p. 192, no newer than Solomon or Homer: Alludes to the sense of vanity
throughout Ecclesiastes, a work often attributed to King Solomon (for
example 1:14: “I have seen everything that is done under the sun; and
behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind”). For Homer see for
example Iliad xvii, 446–7: “...truly there is nothing, I think, more
miserable than man among all things that breathe and move upon earth”.
p. 192, another: Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, l. 1289.
p. 192, another: Menander (c.342–291 bc), Athenian comic poet known
now chiefly for his pithy sayings, of which this is perhaps the most
famous.
p. 191, only as much… ancestors did: Nothing at all.
p. 192, sixty-six years: This piece was first published in 1834.
p. 193, forty or fifty years: The other precise numbering of years in this
piece suggests that Leopardi is not simply using round numbers here, but
exaggerating the time he was still likely to live (i.e. to seventy-six or
eighty-six), presumably to make the prospect seem all the more dreadful.
OceanofPDF.com
Thoughts
 1
For a long time I have denied the truth of the things I am about to say,
because, apart from the fact that they are utterly foreign to my nature (and
we always tend to judge others by ourselves), I have never been inclined to
hate people, but to love them. In the end experience has persuaded me,
indeed almost forced me, to believe the truth of these things. And I am
certain that those readers who happen to have had many and various
dealings with human beings will admit the truth of what I am about to say.
Everyone else will maintain that it is exaggerated, until experience, if they
ever do have occasion to experience human society fully, brings them face
to face with it.
I maintain that the world is a league of scoundrels against honest men,
and of the contemptible against the high-minded. When two or more
scoundrels find themselves together for the first time, they have no trouble
in recognizing each other for what they are, almost as if they had signs
upon them to point it out, and they are immediately at one, or, if their
personal interests will not permit this, they certainly feel inclined towards
each other, and have great respect for each other. If a scoundrel has
dealings or business with other scoundrels, it often happens that he acts
honestly and without deceit. If he is dealing with honourable people, it is
impossible for him to be trustworthy, and whenever it is to his advantage,
he will not hesitate to ruin them. He will do this even if they are spirited
people, capable of taking their revenge, because he hopes that his tricks
will get the better of their cleverness, as almost always is the case. More
than once I have seen very frightened people, finding themselves caught
between a scoundrel more frightened than they are and someone who is
honest and full of courage, take the scoundrel’s part out of fear. Indeed,
this always happens when your average person finds himself in similar
situations, because the ways of the brave and honest person are
straightforward and well known, while those of the rogue are concealed
and endlessly varied. Now, as everyone is aware, the unknown is much
more frightening than what is known, and you can easily guard against
the vengeance of the right-minded, because your own baseness and fear
will save you from it. But no fear and no baseness can save you from secret
persecution, from deceit, or even from the open attacks made on you by
enemies who are themselves contemptible. In daily life true courage is
generally little feared, simply because, since there is no imposture about it,
it is without that ostentation which makes things frightening. Courage is
often not believed in, while scoundrels are feared as though they were
brave, because, by virtue of their impostures, they are frequently held to
be brave.
Scoundrels are seldom poor. Apart from anything else, if an honest man
falls into poverty, no one gives him any aid, and many rejoice at it, while
on the other hand, if a rogue becomes poor, everyone gathers round to
help him. The reason is not hard to find. It is natural for us to be moved by
the misfortunes of anyone who is our companion and fellow sufferer,
because it seems to us we are threatened in the same way. So we are glad to
lend a hand if we can, because to ignore these misfortunes would seem to
us to be agreeing all too clearly deep down inside that the same may
happen to us, given the right circumstances. Now scoundrels, who are in
the majority in this world, and the richest people in it, think of all the
other scoundrels, even if they do not even know them by sight, as their
companions and fellow sufferers, and they feel obliged, by that league as it
were, which as I have said exists between them, to help them in their need.
Also, they think it a scandal that a man known to be a scoundrel should
be seen to be in poor circumstances. The reason for this is that the world,
which always honours virtue with words, is very likely in such cases to call
poverty a punishment, and this is something that results in disgrace, and
can turn out to be harmful, to all of them. They work so effectively to
remove this scandal that, apart from people who are quite obscure, we see
few examples of villains who, when they have fallen on hard times, do not
by some means or other improve their circumstances until they are
bearable.
The good and high-minded, on the contrary, since they are different from
the majority, are regarded by the majority as creatures of another species.
Consequently, they are not only not regarded as friends or fellow sufferers,
but also not considered to be entitled to human rights. They are always
seen to be persecuted more or less severely according to the degree of low-
mindedness and the wickedness of the times and the people among whom
they happen to live. Nature always tends to purge creatures’ bodies of
those humours and those active principles which do not sit well with the
ones of which the bodies should rightly be composed, and Nature also
brings it about in groups composed of many people that whoever differs
very much from the generality, especially if such difference is so great as to
be contrariety, should at all costs be destroyed or driven out. Also, the
good and the high-minded are usually loathed because they tend to be
sincere and call things by their proper names. This is a fault that the
human race does not pardon, because it does not hate the evildoer, or evil
itself, as much as it hates the person who calls it that. The result of this is
that often, while the evildoer obtains riches, honours and power, he who
names him is dragged to the scaffold, since people are very ready to suffer
anything at the hands of others or at the will of Heaven, provided that
they are said to be saved from it.

2
Run through the lives of famous men, and if you look at those who are
such not merely by ascription, but by their actions, you will, despite all
your efforts, find very few of the truly great who were not fatherless in
their youth. I am not thinking of the fact that he whose father is alive
(speaking of those who live on inherited income) is usually a man without
means, and consequently can achieve nothing in the world, particularly
when he is at the same time rich in expectations, so that he gives no
thought to earning anything by his own effort, which might result in great
deeds. (This is not a common circumstance, however, since generally those
who have achieved great things have from the start been rich or at least
well furnished with the world’s goods.) Ignoring all this, a father’s power,
in all those nations that have laws, involves a sort of slavery for his sons.
This slavery, because it is domestic, is more pressing and more perceptible
than civil slavery. Although it may be moderated by the laws themselves,
or by common custom, or by the personal qualities of the people involved,
it never fails to produce a very damaging effect: that feeling which a man
always has in his mind while his father lives, and which is bound to be
confirmed by public opinion. I mean a feeling of subjection and
dependence, of not being free and not being one’s own master, indeed of
not being, so to speak, a whole person, but merely a part and a member, a
feeling that one’s own name belongs more to someone else. This feeling is
all the more profound in those more capable of action. Since they are more
wide awake, they are more capable of feeling, and more shrewd to
recognize the truth of their own condition. It is almost impossible that this
feeling should go together with, I will not say doing, but planning
anything great. And once his youth has gone by in this way, it hardly needs
to be said that the man of forty or fifty who feels for the first time that he
is his own master has no incentive, and, if he did have any, would have no
enthusiasm or strength or time for great actions. So even in this matter it is
clear that we can have nothing good in this world which is not
accompanied by bad in equal measure. The inestimable value of having
before one’s eyes in one’s youth an expert and loving guide, such as only
one’s own father can be, is offset by a sort of insignificance in youth and in
life generally.

3
The economic wisdom of this century can be measured by what happens
with the so-called “compact” editions, where there is little consumption of
paper, and endless wear and tear on the eyesight. However, in defence of
saving paper on books one might mention that it is the custom in this
century to print much and read nothing. To this custom belongs also the
abandonment of those round letters that were used generally in Europe in
past centuries, and the substitution for them of long letters, to which we
might add the gloss on the paper. These are things which are the more
beautiful to look at the more harmful they are to the reader’s eyes. But all
this is very reasonable at a time when books are printed to be seen and not
to be read.

4
What follows is not a thought, but a story, which I am telling here for the
reader’s amusement. A friend of mine, my life’s companion in fact,
Antonio Ranieri – a young man who, if he lives, and if people do not go so
far as to render his natural gifts useless, will soon be significant by the
mere mention of his name – was living with me in 1831 in Florence. One
summer evening, while he was walking along Via Buia, he found many
people standing on the corner near to the Piazza del Duomo, under a
ground-floor window of the building which is now the Palazzo de’
Riccardi. They were saying very fearfully, “Ah! The phantom!” And
looking through the window into the room, where there was no other light
but that which came in from one of the street lamps, he himself saw what
looked like the shade of a woman who was throwing her arms about but
was otherwise quite still. However, since he had other things on his mind,
he passed on, and during that evening and for the whole of the next day he
forgot that encounter. The next evening, at the same time, happening to
pass once more by the same place, he found that there was a larger
multitude there than the previous evening, and heard them repeating with
the same terror, “Ah! The phantom!” And looking through the window, he
saw the same shade, again throwing its arms about but not making any
other movement. The window was not much higher than a man, and one
of the crowd, who seemed to be a policeman, said, “If someone would
take me on his shoulders, I’d climb up and see what’s inside.” To this
Ranieri said, “If you hold me up, I’ll do the climbing.” And when the other
said, “Climb up,” he did climb up, placing his feet on the other’s
shoulders. He discovered, near to the bars of the window, stretched out on
the back of a chair, a black apron which, when the wind stirred it, looked
like arms waving about, and on the chair, leaning against the back of it, a
distaff which seemed to be the head of the shade. Ranieri took the distaff
in his hand and showed it to the people, who dispersed, roaring with
laughter.
What is the point of this little tale? It makes, as I have said, a diversion
for the reader, and I suspect also that it may even be not entirely useless to
historical criticism and to philosophy to know that in the nineteenth
century, in the very centre of Florence, which is the most cultured city in
Italy, and where especially the people have most understanding and are
most urbane, phantoms are seen, which are believed to be spirits and are
in fact distaffs. And here foreigners must restrain their tendency to smile,
as they like to do at our affairs, because it is well known that of the three
great nations* which, as the papers say, “are at the forefront of
civilization” none believes in spirits less than the Italians do.

5
In abstruse matters the minority always sees better than the majority,
while the majority sees better in things that are evident. It is absurd in
questions of metaphysics to bring into play what is called the general
consensus, and no one attaches any importance to that consensus in
physical matters, which are subject to the senses, as for example in the
matter of the movement of the earth, and a thousand others. On the
contrary, however, it is a thing which is foolhardy, dangerous and in the
long run useless to oppose the opinion of the majority in civil affairs.

6
Death is not an evil, because it frees us from all evils, and while it takes
away good things, it takes away also the desire for them. Old age is the
supreme evil, because it deprives us of all pleasures, leaving us only the
appetite for them, and it brings with it all sufferings. Nevertheless, we fear
death, and we desire old age.

7
There is, strange to say, a disdain of death, a courage which is more abject
and despicable than fear. That is the disdain of businessmen and others
dedicated to making money, who very often, even for minimum gain, and
for niggardly savings, obstinately neglect precautions and measures
necessary for their own preservation, and put themselves in extreme
danger, where not seldom, as contemptible heroes, they die a shameful
death. There have been striking examples of this disgraceful courage, not
without consequent harms and the massacre of innocent people, during
the plague, which we like to call cholera morbus, a scourge of the human
race in recent years.
 8
One of the serious errors into which people fall every day is to believe that
a secret of theirs is being kept. And not only the secret which they reveal in
confidence, but even that which without their wish, or even against it,
someone discovers or otherwise gets to know, and which they had rather
were kept hidden. What I am saying is that you are mistaken every time
when, aware that some business of yours is clearly known to someone else,
you fail to be convinced that it is common knowledge, whatever harm or
shame this may bring you. Having regard for their own best interests,
people make a great effort not to reveal private things, but in what
concerns other people no one stays silent. If you wish to verify this, look
into yourself, and see how often you are restrained from revealing
something you know by the displeasure or harm or shame that this might
bring to someone else. I mean revealing it, if not to many people, at least
to this or that friend, which comes to the same thing. In society there is
nothing more needed than gossip, the main way of passing time, which is
one of the first necessities of life. And no subject of gossip is more striking
than one that arouses curiosity and banishes boredom, as new and secret
things do. Therefore take this for a definite rule: whatever you do not wish
to be known to have done, not only do not tell it, but do not do it. And
whatever you cannot undo, or make as though it has never been, be sure
that it is known, even if you do not notice.

9
No one who, against other people’s opinion, has predicted the outcome of
something exactly as it then turns out, should think that those who
opposed him, once they see what has happened, will say he was right, and
say he was wiser or more understanding than they were. No, they will
deny the fact, or the prediction, or else they will allege that the
circumstances differ somehow. Or they will find some other way to
convince themselves and others that their opinion was correct, and the
opposite opinion mistaken.
 10
We know for certain that the majority of those whom we appoint to
educate our children have not themselves been educated. And we should
be in no doubt that they cannot give what they have not received, and
what cannot be acquired in any other way.

11
There are some centuries which, in arts and studies (not to mention other
matters), presume to remake everything, because they know how to make
nothing.

12
He who with trouble and sufferings, or even only after waiting a long
time, has achieved something desirable, if he sees another achieve the same
thing easily and quickly, does not in fact lose anything he possesses.
Nevertheless, such a thing is bound to be very hateful, because in the
imagination the achievement diminishes out of all proportion if it is held
in common with him who has expended or suffered little or nothing to
obtain it. Therefore, in the parable, the workers in the vineyard complain
of an injustice done to themselves, because a wage equal to theirs has been
given to those who have done less work. Similarly, the brothers in certain
religious orders are accustomed to treat their novices with every kind of
harshness, for fear they will without any effort reach that state which they
themselves only attained after some discomfort.

13
It is a pleasant and attractive illusion that the anniversary of an event
(which has really no more to do with it than with any other day of the
year) seems to have a particular connection with the event, as if a shadow
from the past always rises again and returns on those days, and stands
before us. This is some cure for the sad thought of the annihilation of
what has been, and some comfort for the grief we feel for many losses,
because those recurrences seem to suggest that what is past, and never
returns, is not quite dead and gone. This is like finding ourselves in places
where things have happened which are memorable either in themselves or
on our account, and saying that this happened here, and here this, and
believing we are, so to speak, nearer to those events than when we find
ourselves elsewhere. So when we say that a year ago today or so many
years ago such a thing happened, or something else happened, this event
seems to us, so to speak, more present, or less past, than on other days.
And this fancy is so deeply rooted in mankind that it seems hard for us to
believe that the anniversary is as alien to the event itself as any other day
is. This is why the annual celebration of important memories, religious as
well as civil, public as well as private, birthdays and days of death of
people who are dear to us, and suchlike, was and is common to all nations
that have, or had, memories and a calendar. And I have noticed, having
asked several people about it, that sensitive people, used to solitude or to
internal conversations, are usually very diligent in keeping anniversaries,
and live, so to speak, on remembrances of this kind, always going over
them, and saying to themselves that on a day of the year like the present
this or that thing happened to them.

14
It would be no small unhappiness to educators, and above all to parents, if
they were to think what is most true: that their children, whatever
disposition they may have been endowed with, and whatever effort,
diligence and expense may have gone into educating them, with
subsequent experience of the world, almost without doubt, if death does
not prevent them, will become wicked. This would perhaps make a
sounder and more reasonable reply than that given by Thales. Asked by
Solon why he was not married, he replied by showing how parents worry
over the misfortunes and dangers of their children. It would, in my
opinion, be sounder and more reasonable to excuse oneself by saying that
one did not want to increase the number of the wicked.
 15
Chilon, who is numbered among the Seven Sages of Greece, advised that
the man who is physically strong should be gentle in his behaviour, with
the purpose, he said, of inspiring in others reverence rather than fear.
Affability, a pleasant manner and even humility are never superfluous in
those who, in beauty or intellect or in anything else much desired by the
world, are manifestly superior to the majority. This is because the fault for
which they have to beg pardon is so grievous, and the enemy they have to
placate is so cruel and exacting. The former is superiority, and the latter is
envy. The ancients believed this. When they found themselves honoured
and in prosperity, they thought it necessary to placate the very gods,
expiating with humiliation, with offerings and with voluntary penances
the scarcely expiable sin of happiness and excellence.

16
If, as the Emperor Otho says according to Tacitus, the guilty and the
innocent have the same end prepared for them, then it is a more human
thing to deserve one’s fate. This opinion is not very different, I believe,
from that of those who, having lofty minds and being naturally disposed
to virtue, once they have gone into the world and experienced the
ingratitude, the injustice and the disgraceful fury of men against their
fellows (and even more against the virtuous), embrace wickedness, and do
this not through corruption, or drawn by example, as the weak are, or
even out of self-interest, or through too great a desire for base and trifling
human benefits, or ultimately in the hope of saving themselves in the
general wickedness, but by their free choice, and to avenge themselves on
men, and pay them back in their own coin, taking up their own arms
against them. The wickedness of such people is all the more profound as it
is born out of experience of virtue, and it is all the more formidable
insofar as it is joined (no ordinary thing) to greatness and strength of
mind, and is a sort of heroism.
 17
As the prisons and galleys are full of people who are, according to
themselves, completely innocent, so public offices and positions of every
kind are held only by people called to them and compelled to accept them
very much against their will. It is almost impossible to find anyone who
admits either to having merited the punishments he suffers, or sought the
responsibilities he enjoys. Perhaps, however, the latter is less likely than the
former.

18
I saw a man in Florence dragging along, like a draught animal, as the
custom is there, a cart full of goods. He walked with the greatest of
arrogance, shouting and commanding people to get out of his way. And he
seemed to me a symbol of many who walk full of pride, insulting others,
for reasons not dissimilar to what caused his arrogance – that is, pulling a
cart.

19
There are some few people in the world condemned to have little success
in any dealings with others because – not through inexperience or
ignorance of social life, but through their own invariable cast of mind –
they cannot rid themselves of a certain simplicity of behaviour, devoid of
those rather deceptive and artificial appearances, which all others
(including fools), even if they never realize it, always have at their disposal
and make use of, and which in them, and in their own eyes, is very difficult
to distinguish from what is natural. These people of whom I speak, since
they are obviously different from others, being regarded as incapable of
coping with worldly matters, are despised and badly treated even by their
inferiors, and seldom listened to or obeyed by their dependants, because
they all think themselves above them and look down on them. Everyone
who has anything to do with them tries to deceive them and take
advantage of them more than he would anyone else, believing this is easier
and can be done with impunity. So from all sides faith is not kept with
them; they are abused, and what is just and right is denied them. Wherever
there is competition, they are overcome, even by those who are very
inferior to them, not only in their mental powers or other intrinsic
qualities, but in those which the world recognizes and appreciates more,
like beauty, youth, strength, courage and even wealth. Finally, whatever
their station in life, they cannot get the same degree of consideration as
greengrocers and porters. That is reasonable in a way, because it is no
small innate defect or disadvantage not to be able, despite all their efforts,
to learn what even dolts learn easily – that is, that art which alone makes
men and boys look like men. After all, such people, despite being naturally
inclined to goodness, and being better acquainted with men and life than
many others, are in no way, as they sometimes seem to be, better than we
are allowed to be without having to be ashamed of it. And they lack the
manners current in the world, not through goodness or by their own
choice, but because they have not been able to learn them, despite all their
zeal and study. The result is that nothing remains for them but to adapt
their minds to their condition, and to be careful above all not to try to
hide or dissimulate that frankness and that natural way of behaving which
is their own, because nothing is so bad or so ridiculous as when they affect
the usual affectation of others.

20
If I had Cervantes’s talent, I would write a book to purge – as he purged
Spain of the imitation of knights errant – Italy, indeed the civilized world,
of a vice which, considering the mildness of current manners, and perhaps
even without that consideration, is no less cruel and barbarous than any
remnant of medieval savagery castigated by Cervantes. I mean the vice of
reading or performing one’s own compositions in front of others. This is
an ancient vice, which was tolerable in previous centuries because it was
rare, but which today, when everyone writes and it is very difficult to find
someone who is not an author, has become a scourge, a public calamity,
one further tribulation for human beings. And it is not a joke but the
simple truth to say that, on account of this, acquaintances are suspect and
friendships dangerous, and that there is no time or place where an
innocent person does not have to fear being assaulted, and subjected on
the very spot, or after being dragged elsewhere, to the torture of hearing
endless prose or thousands of lines of verse, no longer with the excuse of
wanting to learn his opinion – an excuse which for a long time it was
customary to give as the reason for such performances – but solely and
expressly to give pleasure to the author by hearing them, apart from the
inevitable praise at the end. In all conscience I believe that on the one hand
the childishness of human nature, and the extremity of blindness, indeed
of stupidity, to which man is led by his amour propre, and on the other
hand how far we can deceive ourselves, are shown in few things more
clearly than in this matter of reciting one’s own writings. Because, while
everyone is himself fully aware of the unspeakable annoyance he always
feels when he hears other people’s writings, and everyone sees people
whom he invites to listen to his writings shudder and grow pale and
adduce all sorts of obstacles to excuse themselves, and even run away and
hide as well as they can, nevertheless, brazen-faced and amazingly
persevering, like a hungry bear, he searches out and pursues his prey
through the whole city, and once he has caught up with it, drags it to the
destined place. And during the performance, although he is aware, first by
the yawning, then by the stretching and writhing, and by a hundred other
signs, of the mortal anguish felt by the unhappy listener, this does not
make him stop or pause. Indeed, he gets fiercer and fiercer and more
dogged, and goes on haranguing and shouting for hours, in fact for whole
days and nights almost, until he becomes hoarse, and until, long after his
listener has fainted, he feels his own strength is exhausted, although he is
still not satisfied. During this time, while the man slaughters his
neighbour, it is certain that he experiences an almost superhuman and
paradisal pleasure, since we see that people forsake every other pleasure
for this one, and forget their food and sleep, while life and the world
disappear from their vision. And this pleasure consists of the firm belief
that the man has in arousing admiration and giving pleasure to whomever
hears him. If this were not so, it would be all the same to him if he recited
to the desert rather than to people. Now, as I have said, everyone knows by
experience what pleasure the hearer has (I always say hearer and not
listener advisedly), and the performer can see it. And I know also that
many would choose great physical suffering in preference to a pleasure like
this. Even the most beautiful and valuable writings, when their own author
is reciting them, become such as to kill with boredom. In this connection a
philologist friend of mine has observed that, if it is true that Octavia
fainted when she heard Virgil read the sixth book of the Aeneid, we may
well believe that that happened not so much because she was reminded of
her son Marcellus, as they say, as through boredom on hearing the
reading.
Such is man. And this vice of which I am speaking, which is so barbarous
and ridiculous, and contrary to the good sense of a rational creature, is
truly an illness endemic to the human race, because there is no nation so
noble, nor any kind of people, nor any period, in which this plague is not
found. Italians, French, English, Germans; white-haired men, very wise in
other things, full of intellect and worth; men well experienced in the ways
of society, with very polite manners, who love to observe foolishness and
make fun of it; all of these turn into cruel children when it is a matter of
reading out their own compositions. And just as this is a vice of our time,
so it was in the time of Horace, to whom already it seemed unbearable. So
it was also in the time of Martial who, when he was asked by someone
why he did not read his verses to him, replied, “So as not to hear yours.”
And so it was also in the greatest age of Greece when, we are told,
Diogenes the Cynic, finding himself in a company where everyone was
dying of boredom at one such reading, and seeing at the end of the book,
which was in the author’s hands, a blank page appear, said, “Take heart,
friends. I see land ahead.”
But today the thing has come to such a pitch that the number of hearers,
even under compulsion, can hardly meet the authors’ needs. Some of my
acquaintances, therefore, hard-working men, having considered this point,
and being convinced that the recitation of one’s own works is a human
need, have thought of making provision for it, and at the same time
turning it, as all public needs are turned, to a particular use. For this
purpose they will shortly be opening a school or academy, or rather an
Institute of Listening where, at any hour of the day or night, they, or
people paid by them, will listen to whoever wishes to read, at set prices, as
follows: for prose, for the first hour, one scudo, the second hour two scudi,
the third hour four scudi, the fourth hour eight, and so on in geometrical
progression. Poetry will cost double. For every passage read, if the reader
wishes to read it again, as does happen, one lira a line. If the listener falls
asleep, the reader will be reimbursed with a third of the price. For
convulsions, fainting fits and other accidents, slight or serious, which may
happen to one party or the other in the course of the reading, the school
will be supplied with essences and medicines that will be dispensed free.
So, by making a profit from something that up to now has yielded no
dividend (I mean our ears), a new road will be opened up for industry,
with an increase of the general wealth.

21
We do not feel any lively and lasting pleasure in conversation, except
insofar as we are allowed to talk about ourselves, and of the things which
occupy us, or which relate to us in some way. Any other talk soon starts to
bore us, and whatever pleases us is deadly boring to the listener. No one is
regarded as amiable except at the price of suffering, because in
conversation only he is amiable who gratifies others’ amour propre, first
by listening a lot and staying silent a lot, something which is usually very
tedious, then by letting others talk about themselves and their own affairs
for as long as they wish, in fact encouraging them in such dissertations,
and by himself talking about such things. The result is that they go away
very pleased with themselves, and he goes away dreadfully bored by them.
Because, in short, if the best companions are those from whom we go
away more pleased with ourselves, it more or less follows that they are
those whom we leave more bored. The conclusion must be that in
conversations and in any discussion where the intention is only to amuse
ourselves by talking, almost inevitably some people’s pleasure is other
people’s boredom, and one can hope for nothing but to be either bored or
to displease, and one is very fortunate if one is able to have equal
experience of both.

22
It is in my opinion very difficult to decide whether it is more contrary to
the basic principles of good breeding to be in the habit of talking about
oneself at length, or whether it is rarer to find someone without this vice.

23
The common saying that life is a theatrical performance is verified above
all in this: that the world constantly speaks in one way, and just as
constantly acts in another. Since nowadays all are actors in this comedy,
because they all talk in the same way, and practically no one is a spectator,
because the empty language of the world deceives only children and fools,
it follows that this performance has become something completely inept,
an effort that is boring and pointless. It would therefore be an undertaking
worthy of our century finally to make life not a simulated action but a true
one, and to overcome for the first time in the history of the world the
notorious discrepancy between words and deeds. Since our actions are by
now known by experience to be unchangeable, and it is not right that men
should tire themselves out any longer looking for the impossible, this
reconciliation has to be achieved by that means which is the only one and
at the same time very easy, although up to now it has not been tried, and
this is to change the words, and for once call things by their proper names.

24
Unless I am deceived, it is a rare thing in our century to find someone
generally praised whose praises have not originated from his own mouth.
Egoism is so powerful, and the envy and hatred which men have towards
one another so great, that if you want to get a name, it is not enough to
perform praiseworthy actions. You must praise them or, what amounts to
the same thing, find someone who will continually recommend them and
extol them for you, singing your praises loudly in the ears of the public,
constraining people both by example and by zealous perseverance to
repeat some of those praises. Do not hope that they will say one word
spontaneously, whatever greatness and worth you show, however fine the
works which you achieve. They gaze and remain silent for ever. If they can,
they prevent others seeing. Whoever wishes to rise, even by genuine merit,
must banish modesty. In this respect also the world is like women, for we
get nothing from it by modesty and reserve.

25
No one is so completely disillusioned with the world, or acquainted so
thoroughly with it, or has such hatred for it, that if it regards him benignly
for a while, he does not feel somewhat reconciled to it. Similarly, no one is
known by us to be so wicked that if he greets us courteously he does not
seem to us less wicked than he was. These observations serve to
demonstrate the weakness of mankind, not to justify the wicked or the
world.

26
The man who is inexperienced in the ways of the world, and often also he
who is not inexperienced, in the first instant when he realizes he has been
struck by some disaster, particularly when it is not his fault, if friends and
relatives come into his mind, or people in general, he does not expect from
them anything other than commiseration and comfort, to say nothing of
help, and that they will have either more love or more regard for him than
before. Nothing is further from his mind than to see himself, because of
his misfortune, socially degraded almost, seen by the eyes of the world as
guilty of some misdeed, fallen into disgrace among his friends, with his
friends and acquaintances on all sides in flight, and then from a distance
delighting in his misfortune and holding him in derision. Similarly, if he
has some good fortune, one of the first thoughts that comes to him is that
he must share his joy with his friends, and that perhaps they will turn out
to be even more pleased at his good fortune than he is himself. It does not
occur to him that, on the announcement of his good luck, the faces of his
dear ones will be contorted and darken. Some will be dismayed. Many
will at first try hard not to believe it, and then to lessen in his and their
own and others’ estimation his recent good fortune. In certain people,
because of this, friendship will cool, and in others turn to hatred. Finally,
not a few will do all that is in their power to deprive him of his good
fortune. So the imagination and the ideas of mankind are innately distant
from and abhor the reality of life.

27
There is no clearer sign of not being very philosophical or wise than
wishing all life to be wise and philosophical.

28
The human race, or any least portion of it beyond the single individual,
divides into two groups: the ones who bully, and the others who suffer
their bullying. Since neither laws nor force, nor any progress in philosophy
or civilization can prevent any man born or about to be born from being
one or the other, all that remains is, for him who can choose, to choose.
Certainly not everyone can, or not always.

29
No profession is so sterile as that of letters. However, so great is the value
of imposture in the world, that with its help even letters become fruitful.
Imposture is the soul, so to speak, of social life, and the art without which
indeed no art and no faculty, considered with regard to its effect on human
minds, is perfect. Whenever you look into the fortunes of two people, the
one of true worth in any sphere and the other whose worth is false, you
will find that the latter is more successful than the former. Indeed, most
often the latter is fortunate, and the former unfortunate. Imposture is
valid and efficacious even without the truth, but without it the truth can
do nothing. And that does not come, in my opinion, from the evil
inclination of our race, but because the truth is always too poor and
inadequate, so that men always need, if they are to be delighted or moved,
some illusion and sleight of hand. They must be promised something
much bigger and better than can be given. Nature herself is an impostor
towards man, making his life lovable and endurable principally by means
of imagination and deception.

30
As humankind is in the habit of upbraiding present things, and praising
those which are past, so most travellers, while they are travelling, love their
native place and somewhat angrily prefer it to wherever they find
themselves. Having returned to their native place, with the same anger
they value it less than all the other places where they have been.

31
In every land the universal vices and ills of mankind and of human society
are noted as peculiar to that place. I have never been anywhere where I
have not heard, “Here the women are vain and inconstant; they read little
and they’re poorly educated. Here the public are curious about other
people’s affairs, and they’re very talkative and slanderous. Here money,
favour and baseness can achieve anything. Here envy rules, and
friendships are hardly sincere,” and so on and so on, as if things went on
differently elsewhere. Men are wretched by necessity, and determined to
believe themselves wretched by accident.

32
As he advances every day in his practical knowledge of life, a man loses
some of that severity which makes it difficult for young people, always
looking for perfection, and expecting to find it, and judging everything by
that idea of it which they have in their minds, to pardon defects and
concede that there is some value in virtues that are poor and inadequate,
and in good qualities that are unimportant, when they happen to find
them in people. Then, seeing how everything is imperfect, and being
convinced that there is nothing better in the world than that small good
which they despise, and that practically nothing or no one is truly
estimable, little by little, altering their standards and comparing what they
come across not with perfection any more, but with reality, they grow
accustomed to pardoning freely and valuing every mediocre virtue, every
shadow of worth, every least ability that they find. So much so that,
ultimately, many things and many people seem to them praiseworthy that
at first would have seemed to them scarcely endurable. This goes so far
that, whereas initially they hardly had the ability to feel esteem, in the
course of time they become almost unable to despise. And this to a greater
extent the more intelligent they are. Because in fact to be very
contemptuous and discontented, once our first youth is past, is not a good
sign, and those who are such cannot, either because of the poverty of their
intellects or because they have little experience, have been much
acquainted with the world. Or else they are among those fools who
despise others because of the great esteem in which they hold themselves.
In short, it seems hardly probable, but it is true, and it indicates only the
extreme baseness of human affairs to say it, that experience of the world
teaches us to appreciate rather than to depreciate.

33
Mediocre deceivers, and women generally, always believe that their tricks
have worked, and that people have been caught out by them. Those who
are more astute, however, doubt this, being better acquainted on the one
hand with the difficulties of the art, and on the other with its power, and
knowing that their wish to deceive is everyone’s wish, which means that
often the deceiver turns out to be deceived. Besides this, the more astute
do not think others have so little understanding as they are imagined to
have by those who understand little themselves.

34
Young men very commonly believe that they make themselves likeable by
pretending to be melancholy. And perhaps, when it is feigned, melancholy
can for a short time be pleasing, especially to women. But true melancholy
is shunned by the whole of humankind, and in the long run nothing
pleases and nothing is successful in our dealings with people but
cheerfulness. Because ultimately, contrary to what young men think, the
world, quite rightly, does not like to weep, but to laugh.

35
Occasionally in places that are half civilized and half barbarous, as for
example Naples, something is more noticeable than it is elsewhere,
although it happens everywhere in one way or another – that is, that the
man who is reputed to be penniless is regarded as hardly a man, while the
man who is reputed to be moneyed is always in danger of his life. This is
the reason why people generally act as they do there, as they have to in
such places. They decide to make their own financial state a mystery so
that the public will not know whether to despise them or to murder them.
So one should only be as men ordinarily are, half despised and half
esteemed, at times in danger of harm and at times left alone.

36
Many want to act meanly towards you, and at the same time want you, on
pain of their hatred, to be careful on the one hand not to obstruct their
meanness, and on the other hand not to see them as mean.

37
No human quality is more intolerable in ordinary life, or in fact tolerated
less, than intolerance.

38
As the art of fencing is useless when the fight is between two fencers of
equal skill, because neither has any greater advantage over the other than
if they were both unskilled, so it very often happens that men are false and
wicked without gaining anything by it, because they encounter each other
with equal wickedness and dissimulation, in such a way that the matter
ends as it would do if both had been sincere and honest. There is no doubt
that, in the last analysis, wickedness and duplicity are only useful when
they are allied with force, or when they come across a lesser wickedness or
shrewdness, or rather when they come across goodness. This last case is
rare; the second (insofar as it concerns wickedness) is not common,
because the majority of people are wicked in the same way, more or less.
And so one can hardly overestimate how frequently they could, by acting
well towards each other, obtain the same result with ease which they now
obtain with a great effort, or even do not obtain, by doing, or trying hard
to do, evil.

39
Baldassarre Castiglione in The Book of the Courtier very helpfully gives
the reason why old people are in the habit of praising the time when they
were young and upbraiding the present time. He says, “So the reason for
this false notion which old people have is, I think, that the years, as they
flee away, take with them many comforts, and among these they take most
of the vital spirits from the blood, so that our temperament changes, and
the organs by means of which the soul exercises its powers become feeble.
And so, as the leaves fall from the trees in autumn, from our hearts at that
time fall the sweet flowers of contentment, and in place of serene and clear
thoughts cloudy and troubled sadness enters, accompanied by a thousand
calamities. The result is that not only is the body weak, but the mind is
weak too, and of past pleasures it preserves only a tenacious memory, and
the image of that dear time of our tender age – in which when we find
ourselves again, it seems to us that heaven and earth and all things are
always celebrating a festival and everything is smiling on us all round, and
in our thoughts, as in a delightful and beautiful garden, the sweet spring
of cheerfulness blooms. And so, when the sun of our life in the cold season
is already beginning to depart towards its setting, despoiling us of those
pleasures, it would perhaps be helpful if we were to lose not only them,
but the memory of them, and find, as Themistocles has it, an art which
teaches us to forget. Our bodily senses are so fallible that often they
deceive the judgement of the mind. And so in my opinion old people are
like those who, as they are leaving the port, keep their eyes cast down, so
that it seems to them that the ship is immobile and the shore is moving
away. Of course the contrary is the case, for the port, like the time we
dream of and its pleasures, remains where it was, and we, fleeing with the
ship of mortality, depart one after another on that stormy sea which
absorbs and devours everything. Nor are we ever allowed to make landfall
again. Instead, after being buffeted continually by contrary winds, we are
shipwrecked on a reef. And so, the aged mind being inadequate to cope
with many pleasures, it cannot relish them. Just as to those suffering from
a fever, when their palates have been spoilt by corrupt vapours, all wines
seem bitter, however precious and exquisite they may be, so to old people
because of their indisposition (although they do not lack desire) pleasures
seem insipid and cold and very different from those which they remember
enjoying, although the pleasures in themselves remain as they were. And
so, feeling themselves deprived, they complain, and upbraid the present
age as wicked, not realizing that it is they themselves who have changed
and not the times. And, on the contrary, calling past pleasures to mind,
they call back to mind also the time in which they enjoyed those pleasures,
and so they praise that time as good, because it seems to bring with it a
hint of what they felt when it was present. In effect our minds hate all
things associated with our troubles and love those associated with our
pleasures.”
Thus Castiglione, expounding in a manner that is no less beautiful than
florid, as was the custom with our Italian prose writers, a great truth. In
confirmation of it, one may mention that old people prefer the past to the
present not only in things which depend on mankind, but also in those
which do not, accusing them likewise of having deteriorated, not so much
in old people and in relation to them (which is true), but generally and in
themselves. I believe everyone remembers having heard many times from
his elders (as I remember hearing from mine) that the years have become
colder than they were, and the winters longer, and that, in their day,
around Easter they used to leave off their winter clothes and put on their
summer things, which today, according to them, can hardly be done in
May, or even at times in June. And not many years ago, the cause of this
supposed cooling of the seasons was investigated seriously by some
physicists. The deforestation of the mountains was suggested, and I know
not what else, to explain something which did not happen. Indeed the
opposite is the case. Someone has observed for example that, judging by
various passages in ancient authors, in Roman times Italy must have been
colder than it is now. This is also very easy to believe because it is clear
from experience, and from natural causes, that the progress of human
civilization renders the air, in inhabited lands, milder day by day. This
effect has been, and is, especially obvious in America, where within our
memory a mature civilization has succeeded a state of barbarism in some
parts, and mere solitude in other parts. But old people, since the cold
troubles them much more at their present age than it did in their youth,
believe that the change which they experience in their own condition has
happened outside them, and imagine that the heat which is diminishing in
them is diminishing in the air and on the earth. This fancy is so well
established that exactly what our old people affirm to us was already
affirmed by, to go no further back, the old people of a century and a half
ago to the contemporaries of Magalotti, who wrote in his Familiar Letters:
“It certainly seems that the ancient order of the seasons is being perverted.
Here in Italy there is a common opinion and complaint that the turns of
the seasons no longer exist, and that in this blurring of the boundaries
there is no doubt that cold is gaining ground. I have heard my father say
that, in his youth in Rome, on the morning of Easter Sunday everyone put
on summer clothes. Now anyone who does not have to pawn his shirt
takes good care, I can tell you, not to leave off the lightest garment of
those which he was wearing in the depths of winter.”
That is what Magalotti wrote in the year 1683. Italy would by now be
colder than Greenland if from that year to this it had continued to cool at
the rate which he mentions. It is hardly necessary to add that the
continuous cooling which is said to occur from causes intrinsic to the mass
of the earth has no bearing on the present subject, since it is something
which, because of its slowness, is not perceptible in tens of centuries, much
less in a few years.

40
It is very undesirable to speak a great deal about oneself. But young
people, when they have lively natures, and their spirits are raised above the
common level, are the less able to keep themselves free from this vice. And
they speak of their own affairs with extreme candour, taking it for granted
that the listener is only a little less interested than they are themselves.
And they are pardoned for doing this, not so much in consideration of
their inexperience, as because of the clear need they have of help, counsel
and a verbal outlet for the passions which disturb them at their age. And
also it seems to be generally recognized that young people have a kind of
right to want the world to be occupied with their thoughts.

41
We are seldom right to consider ourselves offended by things said about us
in our absence or with no intention that they should come to our ears.
Because if we try to remember and examine carefully our own habits, we
find we have no friend so dear, and hold no one in such veneration, that it
would not greatly displease them to hear many of the words and the
conversations which come from our mouths about them in their absence.
On the one hand, our amour propre is so excessively sensitive, and so
captious, that it is almost impossible that one word said about us in our
absence, if it is faithfully reported to us, should not seem to us unworthy
or hardly worthy of us, and not sting us. On the other hand, it is hard to
exaggerate how contrary our practice is to the precept not to do unto
others what we would not want them to do unto us, and how much
freedom we allow ourselves in speaking about other people.

42
It is a curious feeling for the man of little more than twenty-five years of
age when, apparently all of a sudden, he realizes that many of his
companions consider him more mature than they are, and he notices on
reflection that there are in fact many people in the world younger than he
is, when he is accustomed to think of himself as, beyond dispute, in the
flower of his youth, and even if he is thought to be inferior to the others in
everything, to believe himself not excelled by anyone in youth. This is
because those younger than he is, still little more than boys, and seldom
his companions, have not formed part, so to speak, of his world. Then he
starts to feel how the merit of youth, regarded by him as almost part of his
essential nature, so much so that it would have been scarcely possible for
him to imagine himself apart from it, has only been given for a time, and
he becomes anxious for such merit, both as a thing in itself and with
regard to the opinion of others. It is certainly true – of no one who has
passed the age of twenty-five, after which the bloom of youth immediately
starts to fade, can one truly say, except of someone who is stupid – that he
has no experience of misfortune. This is because, even if fate had been
propitious to someone in every way, he would still, once he had passed
that stage, be conscious in himself of a misfortune graver and bitterer than
any other, and perhaps graver and bitterer to one who in other respects
had been less unfortunate – the decline and fall of his precious youth.

43
In this world, it is those men who are remarkable for their integrity from
whom, if you are on friendly terms with them, you can, although not
hoping for any service, not fear any disservice.

44
If you question the subordinates of any official or government minister
about his qualities and his conduct, particularly in his official capacity,
even if their replies agree about the facts, you will find great disagreement
over the interpretation of them. And even if their interpretations agree,
their judgements will vary endlessly, some people blaming what others
exalt. It is only with regard to his abstention – or otherwise – from other
people’s goods or public property that you will not find two people who,
agreeing on the facts, disagree either in interpreting them or in judging
them, and who, with one voice, will not simply praise the official for his
abstinence, or condemn him for the contrary. In short, it appears that
good and bad officials are known and assessed by nothing other than this
question of money. In fact, a good official is one who is self-denying, a bad
official is one who is greedy. This means that a public officer can in his
own way dispose of the life, the honesty and everything else citizens have,
and will not only be excused for all of his actions but praised, provided he
does not touch their money. It is as if people, disagreeing in their opinions
over everything else, agree only in their respect for cash, or as if essentially
money is the man, and nothing but money. This is something which really
seems, from a thousand indications, to be regarded by the human race as
an unvarying axiom, particularly in our time. In this connection a French
philosopher of the last century used to say: “Ancient politicians always
talked about morality and virtue, while modern politicians talk about
nothing but commerce and cash.”
According to some students of political economy, or pupils of
philosophical newspapers, there is good reason for this, because virtue
and morality, they say, cannot stand firm without the foundation of
industry. Industry, by providing for daily necessities, and making life
comfortable and secure for all classes of people, will make virtue stable
and common to all. This is all very well. Together with industry, at the
same time low-mindedness, coldness, egoism, avarice, falsity and
treachery in commerce, all the qualities and passions which are most
depraved and unworthy of civilized men, are in full vigour, and multiply
endlessly. And we are still waiting for virtue.

45
The great remedy for slander, just as for troubles in the mind, is time. If
the world condemns some projects or courses of ours, whether they be
good or bad, we need to do nothing but persevere. After a little while,
when the subject has become stale, the slanderers will abandon it in order
to look for fresh subjects. And the firmer and more imperturbable we
show ourselves as we carry on, and scorn what people say, the sooner what
was, in the beginning, condemned or perceived as strange will be regarded
as reasonable and normal. This is because the world, which never believes
anyone wrong if he does not give in, eventually condemns itself, and
absolves us. This is the reason why, as is often noted, the weak live
according to the will of the world, and the strong according to their own
will.
 46
It does not do much credit, I do not know whether to men or to virtue, to
notice that in all civilized tongues, ancient and modern, the same words
signify goodness and stupidity; a worthy man or a man of little worth.
Several words of this kind – such as dabbenaggine in Italian and euethes,
euetheia in Greek,* without their proper meaning, which would perhaps
not be very useful – either keep, or had from the beginning, only their
pejorative meaning. This shows in how much esteem goodness has in all
ages been held by the crowd, whose judgements and intimate feelings are
clear, even at times despite themselves, in the forms of language. It is the
constant judgement of the crowd, always dissimulated, since the very
language they use is contradicted by how they talk, that no one who has
the choice chooses to be good. Fools are good because they cannot be
anything else.

47
Man is condemned either to consume his youth (which is the only time to
store up fruit for the years to come and make provision for himself)
without a purpose, or to waste it in procuring enjoyments for that part of
his life in which he will no longer be capable of enjoyment.

48
We can measure the great love that nature gives us for our fellow beings by
what any animal does if, like an inexperienced boy, it happens to see its
own image in a mirror. Believing it to be a creature like itself, it flies into a
rage and a frenzy, and tries in every way to harm that creature and to
murder it. Domestic birds, tame as they are by nature and by habit, thrust
themselves angrily at the mirror, screeching, with their wings stretched
and their beaks open, and strike at it. Monkeys, when they can, throw it to
the ground and grind it underfoot.
 49
Creatures naturally hate their fellow creatures, and whenever their own
interest requires it, harm them. We cannot therefore avoid hatred and
injuries from men, while to a great extent we can avoid their scorn. This is
why there is usually little point in the respect which young people and
those new to the world pay to those they come across, not through mean-
spiritedness or any other form of self-interest, but through a benevolent
desire not to provoke enmity and to win hearts. They do not fulfil this
desire, and in some ways they harm their own repute, because the person
who is so respected comes to have a greater idea of himself, and he who
pays the respect a lesser idea of himself. He who does not look to men for
usefulness or fame, should not look for love either, since he will not obtain
it. If he wants my opinion, he should preserve his own dignity completely,
giving to everyone no more than his due. Thus he will be somewhat more
hated and persecuted than otherwise, but not often despised.

50
The Jews have a book of precepts and various sayings translated, so they
say, from the Arabic, but more likely, according to some, to be a purely
Jewish composition. In it, among many other things of no importance, we
read that a certain wise man, when someone said to him, “I love you,”
replied, “Why not, if you are not of my religion, or a relative of mine, or a
neighbour, or someone who looks after me?” Our hatred of those who are
like us is greater towards those who are most like us. Young people are, for
a thousand and one reasons, more disposed to be friendly than other
people are. Nevertheless, a lasting friendship is almost impossible between
two men who lead the same youthful life. I mean the sort of life which
goes under that name today, that is, one dedicated mainly to women.
Indeed, between those two it is less possible than ever because of the
vehemence of their passions, and their rivalry in love and the jealousies
which inevitably arise between them, and because, as Madame de Staël
has observed, another person’s successes with women always displease
even the greatest friend of the lucky man. Women are, after money, the
thing in which men are least amenable and least capable of agreement, and
where acquaintances, friends and brothers change their usual demeanour
and nature. This is because men are friends and relatives, indeed civilized,
and truly men, not up to the altar, as the old proverb has it, but up to the
point of money and women, after which they become savage beasts. And
in matters to do with women, although the inhumanity is less than in
money matters, the envy is greater, because vanity is more involved – or
rather, to put it better, amour propre is involved, the most characteristic
and most sensitive of our loves. And we never see anyone smile or say
sweet words to a woman (something we all do on occasion) without all
those who are present trying, either outwardly or just within themselves,
to deride him bitterly. So, although half the pleasure in successes of this
kind, as also usually in other kinds, consists in recounting them, the
revelation which young men make of their amorous joys is completely out
of place, especially with other young men, because no subject was ever
more disagreeable to anyone. Often, even when they are telling the truth,
they are mocked.

51
When we see how seldom men are guided in their actions by a true
judgement of what can help or harm them, we realize how easily anyone
can be deceived who, with the intention of divining some secret decision,
looks carefully to see what would be most useful either to him or to those
by whom the decision is to be made. Guicciardini, speaking at the start of
his seventeenth book about the discussion over what decisions Francis I of
France would make after his liberation of the fortress of Madrid, says,
“Perhaps those who talked in this way considered what he ought to do by
the light of reason, rather than the nature of the French and how prudent
they were. This is certainly an error into which we often fall in discussions
and judgements concerning the disposition and will of others.”*
Guicciardini is perhaps the only historian among the moderns who
understood men very well, and philosophized about events drawing on his
knowledge of human nature, rather than on a certain political science –
divorced from the study of man, and usually unreal – commonly employed
by those historians, especially European and American, who have wished
to reflect upon the facts, not contenting themselves, as most do, with
recounting them in order and not thinking any further.

52
No one should think he has learnt how to live unless he has learnt to
regard as a mere breath of wind any offers made to him by anyone,
particularly the most spontaneous ones, however solemn they are and
however often they may be repeated. And not only the offers which many
people make, but their urgent and endless requests that others should take
advantage of their skills. They specify the means and the circumstances of
the matter, and they show very reasonably how the difficulties can be
removed. The result is that if in the end, either persuaded, or perhaps
overcome by the tedium of such requests, or for some other reason, you
bring yourself to reveal to someone like this what you need, you will see
him immediately grow pale, and then change the subject, or answer in
only the vaguest of terms, leaving you quite dissatisfied. And after that, for
a long time, you will be very lucky if, after much effort, you are allowed to
see him again, or if, after you have brought yourself to his attention again
by writing, you get a reply. People do not want to confer benefits because
of the trouble it would cost them, and because the needs and misfortunes
of their acquaintances never fail to give them some pleasure. But they like
to be known as benefactors, and they like gratitude, together with that
feeling of superiority which comes with being a benefactor. And so they
offer what they do not wish to give. And the more reluctant they see you
are, the more they insist, primarily to humiliate you and make you blush,
but also because they have so much less fear that you will accept their
offers. And so most courageously they thrust themselves forward to the
last, scorning the ever-present danger that they will be shown up as
impostors, and hoping that they will receive nothing but thanks, until at
the first word of a request they turn in flight.

53
The ancient philosopher Bion used to say, “It is impossible to please the
crowd, unless you become a hotchpotch, or a sweetened wine.” But, if the
present state of human society lasts, this impossibility will always be
pursued, even by those who say, and also at times believe, they are not
pursuing it, just as, so long as our species lasts, even those who know the
human condition best will persevere until death looking for happiness,
and promising it to themselves.

54
Take it as axiomatic that human beings, within themselves and away from
everyone else, never stop, except briefly, believing true, against all evidence
to the contrary, those things which are necessary to their peace of mind
and, as it were, their ability to live. The old man, especially one who
moves in society, to the end of his days never stops believing deep down
inside (although he always protests the opposite) that he can, by a
remarkable exception to the general rule, in some way which is unknown
and inexplicable even to himself, still make some impression on women.
That is because his condition would be altogether too wretched if he were
completely convinced that he was excluded, utterly and for ever, from that
good which the civilized man, in one way or another, and deluding himself
more or less, ultimately comes to see as the purpose of life. The licentious
woman, although she can see all day a thousand and one signs of the
public’s opinion of her, firmly believes that most people think her chaste,
and that only a few of her old and new confidantes (few, I mean, in
comparison with the public) know, and keep concealed from the world,
and even from each other, the truth about her. The man whose conduct is
mean and who, because of that very meanness and his lack of courage, is
anxious about other people’s opinion, believes that his actions are
interpreted for the best, and that their true motives are not understood. It
is similar with material things. Buffon observes that the sick man at the
point of death does not really give any credence to his doctors or his
friends, but only to his inmost hope, which promises an escape from the
present danger.* I need hardly mention the astounding credulity and
incredulity of husbands with regard to their wives, which is the subject of
tales, scenes, raillery and continual laughter in those nations where
matrimony is irrevocable. And so on and so forth. There is nothing in the
world so false and so absurd that it is not believed to be true by very
sensible people, whenever their minds cannot find any way of coming to
terms with the opposite and being at peace with it. I am not forgetting
that old people are less disposed than youngsters to stop believing what
suits them, and to accept those beliefs which upset them. This is because
youngsters have more strength of mind to face evil things, and a greater
aptitude either to endure the consciousness of them or to be destroyed by
them.

55
A woman is laughed at if she weeps in all sincerity for her dead husband,
but severely blamed if, for some grave reason or necessity, she appears in
public, or leaves off mourning, one day earlier than custom allows. It is a
well-worn axiom, but not a perfect one, that the world is content with
appearances. One should add, to make the axiom complete, that the world
is never contented with, and often does not care about, and often is
intolerant of, the substance. A famous ancient Roman tried harder to be
good than to appear to be good, but the world demands of us to appear to
be good, and not to be good.

56
Sincerity can be helpful when it is used with art, or when, because of its
rarity, it is not trusted.

57
People are ashamed not of the injustices they do, but of those they receive.
And so, in order that the unjust person should be ashamed, there is no
other way than to give as good as one gets.
 58
Those who are timid do not have less amour propre than those who are
arrogant. Indeed, they have more – or more sensitive rather – amour
propre. And so they are afraid, and they take care not to hurt others not
because that matters more to them than to those who are insolent and
bold, but to avoid being hurt themselves, considering the extreme pain
they feel at every hurt they receive.

59
It is often said that the greater the decrease in real virtues in a country, the
greater the increase in apparent virtues. It seems that literature is subject
to the same fate, since in our time the more we lack the memory – I
cannot say the use – of the virtues of style, the more the splendour of our
publications grows. In other times, no classic book was printed as
elegantly as newspapers are nowadays, and other political tittle-tattle,
made to last a day. But the art of writing is no longer known, and its value
is scarcely understood. And I believe that every decent man, on opening or
reading a modern book, feels pity for those sheets of paper and that clear
typeface, employed to represent words so horrid, and thoughts for the
most part so idle.

60
La Bruyère was certainly right when he said that it is easier for a mediocre
book to acquire fame by virtue of a reputation which its author has
already obtained than it is for an author to acquire a reputation by means
of an excellent book.* To this, one might add that the shortest way to
acquire fame is to affirm, confidently and persistently, and in as many
ways as possible, that one has already acquired it.

61
Once he has left his youth behind, a man has lost that power of
communicating and, so to speak, inspiring others with his presence. And
having lost that kind of influence which a young man has on those around
him, and which links them to him, and always makes them feel some sort
of inclination towards him, he realizes, not without unwonted pain, that in
company he is separate from everyone else, and surrounded by sensitive
creatures hardly less indifferent towards him than those deprived of sense.

62
Basic to one’s readiness, on the right occasion, to sacrifice oneself for
others is to have a high opinion of oneself.

63
The idea which the artist has of his art, or the scholar of his branch of
knowledge, is usually great in inverse proportion to the idea which he has
of his own worth in that art or branch of knowledge.

64
That artist or scholar or student in any discipline who is accustomed to
comparing himself not with other people working in the same area but
with the pursuit itself, the more outstanding he is, the lower the idea he
will have of himself. This is because the greater understanding he has of
the profundity of that art, the more inferior he will find himself by
comparison. So it is that almost all great men are modest, because they
continually compare themselves not with others, but with that idea of
perfection which they have in their minds, infinitely clearer and greater
than that which the common herd has, and so they see how far they are
from achieving it. The common herd, on the contrary, and perhaps at
times with truth, can easily believe that they have not only achieved, but
surpassed that idea of perfection which they have in their minds.
 65
No company is pleasing, in the long run, except that of people whose
esteem we find more and more necessary or pleasing to us. Therefore
women, who do not want their company to cease pleasing after a short
while, ought to try to make themselves such that their esteem may be
lastingly desired.

66
In the present century black people are believed to be by race and origin
completely different from white people, and nevertheless completely equal
to them in the matter of human rights. In the sixteenth century, when
black people were believed to come from the same stock as white people,
and to be of the same family, it was maintained, particularly by Spanish
theologians, that in the matter of rights, they were by nature, and by
divine will, very much inferior to us. And in both centuries black people
were and are bought and sold, and made to work in chains under the lash.
Such is ethics. We see how much beliefs in moral matters have to do with
actions.

67
It is scarcely correct to say that boredom is a common complaint. It is
common to be unemployed, or idle rather, but not to be bored. Boredom
concerns only those in whom the spirit matters. The greater someone’s
spirit, the more frequent, painful and terrible is the boredom. Most people
find that anything at all can keep them occupied, and any dull occupation
gives them all the pleasure they need. And even when they are wholly
unoccupied, they do not feel any great pain on that account. This is why
men of feeling are so little understood concerning their boredom, and why
they make the common herd marvel sometimes and sometimes laugh,
when they speak of it and complain of it with such grave words as are used
in connection with the greatest and most inevitable ills of life.
 68
Boredom is in some ways the most sublime of human feelings. It is not
that I think an examination of this feeling gives rise to those consequences
that many philosophers have claimed to have inferred. Nevertheless, not
being able to be satisfied with any earthly thing or, so to speak, with the
whole earth; considering the immeasurable extent of space, the number
and the wonderful size of the worlds, and finding that everything is small
and petty in comparison with the capacity of one’s own mind; picturing to
oneself the infinite number of worlds, and the infinite universe, and feeling
that the soul and our desire must be still greater than such a universe;
always accusing things of insufficiency and nothingness; and suffering a
huge lack and emptiness, and therefore boredom – all this seems to me the
greatest sign of grandeur and nobility which there is in human nature.
And so boredom is seldom seen in men of no account, and very seldom or
never in other creatures.

69
From the famous letter of Cicero to Lucceius, persuading him to compose
a history of the Catiline conspiracy, and from another letter not so widely
known and no less curious, in which the Emperor Verus begs his tutor
Fronto to write (as he did) of the Parthian War waged by Verus himself,
letters very like those which today are written to journalists, except that
the moderns ask for newspaper articles, while those, because they were
ancients, asked for books – from these it is possible in some small way to
deduce how truthful history is, even when it is written by contemporaries
and men of great reputation in their time.

70
Many of those errors, thought of as childish ones, into which young men
fall when they are unused to the world, as also do those who, young or
old, are condemned by nature to be more than men and appear to be
always boys, consist, if one considers carefully, solely in the fact that they
think and behave as if men were less boyish than they are. Certainly what
first and perhaps foremost strikes the minds of well-brought-up youngsters
with wonder, at their entry into the world, is the frivolousness of the
ordinary occupations, the pastimes, the conversations, the inclinations
and the spirits of the people. With use they adapt to this frivolity little by
little, but not without pain and difficulty, since it seems to them from the
beginning that they have to become boys once more. And so it is. The
young man who has a good character and is well bred, when he begins, as
they say, to live, has to go backwards, and almost go into a second
childhood, as it were. And he finds that he was very deceived in his belief
that he had to become completely adult, and abandon every vestige of
childhood. Because, on the contrary, most men, although they advance in
years, for the most part always go on living in a childish way.

71
As a result of the opinion, mentioned above, which the young man has of
men, believing them more adult than they are, he is dismayed by every
fault he commits, and he thinks he has lost the respect of those who saw
and were aware of his faults. After a short time he takes comfort again,
not without surprise, seeing himself treated by them just as he was at first.
People are not so ready to despise, since otherwise they would do nothing
else, and they forget mistakes, because all the time they see and commit
too many of them. And they are not so consistent that they do not easily
admire today someone whom they may have derided yesterday. We know
how often we ourselves blame someone or other, even with very stern
words, or mock someone who is absent, without him going down in our
estimation in any way at all, and neither is he treated, when he is present,
any differently from before.

72
In the above-mentioned matter, the young man is deceived by his fear.
Similarly, they are deceived by their hope who, realizing they have been
lowered in someone’s esteem or have lost it entirely, try to raise themselves
by dint of performing services for him or affording him gratification.
Respect is not gained by deference. Besides, respect is in one way no
different from friendship in that it is like a flower that, once trampled on
or withered, never blooms again. And so, from what we must regard as
humiliating actions one gains nothing but greater scorn. It is true that
anyone’s contempt, even if it is unjust, is so painful to bear that few, when
they suffer from it, are so strong as to do nothing. Rather, they devote
themselves by various means, most of which are useless, to freeing
themselves from it. And it is a very common habit of mediocre men to be
haughty and disdainful with those whom they do not care about and with
those who show concern for them, and then at the first sign or suspicion
of indifference, to turn humble in order not to suffer it, and often to resort
to humiliating deeds. For this reason also the way to behave when
someone shows disdain is to repay him with signs of equal or greater
disdain, because then there is every likelihood that you will see his pride
turn into humility. And in any case he cannot fail to feel so offended, and
at the same time feel such respect for you, that he will be punished
enough.

73
Almost all women, and men very commonly too, and even the proudest,
are won over and held on to by indifference and disdain – or rather, when
necessary, by the pretence of not caring for them and having no respect for
them. This is because that very pride which leads so many men to display
hauteur with those who are humble, and with all those who give signs of
honouring them, makes them caring and solicitous and needful of the
respect and attention of those who do not care about them or who make a
show of not being bothered about them. This is why it happens not
seldom – in fact often, and not only in matters of love – that there grows
to be a charming alternation between two people, with either one or the
other, perpetually alternating, today cared about and not caring,
tomorrow caring and not cared about. Indeed, it can be said that a similar
alternation is played out in some way, more or less, in all of human society,
and that every branch of life is full of people who when they are looked at
do not look, who when they are greeted do not respond, who when they
are followed flee, and who, when backs are turned on them and faces turn
away, themselves turn and yield and run after others.

74
Towards great men, and particularly towards those who glow with an
unusual virility, the world is like a woman. It does not merely admire
them, it loves them, because of their vigour. Often, as with women, the
love for such men is greater because of and in proportion to the disdain
which they show and the ill treatment which they inflict, and the very fear
which they inspire in men. Thus Napoleon was much loved in France, and
became a cult, as it were, among the soldiers, whom he called cannon
fodder and treated as such. Similarly, many captains, who thought of and
used men in the same way, were much loved by their armies while they
were alive, and histories of them make today’s readers fall in love. Even a
sort of brutality and eccentricity pleases not a little in such men, as it
pleases women in their lovers. And so Achilles is perfectly lovable, while
the goodness of Aeneas and Godfrey of Bouillon, as well as their wisdom
and that of Ulysses, almost generate hatred.

75
There are several other ways in which woman is a symbol of the world at
large. Weakness is a quality most men possess and, in relation to the few
men who are strong of mind or of heart or of hand, it means that the
majority are such as women usually are in relation to men. And so the
human race is won over with more or less the same arts as women are. By
ardour combined with gentleness, by putting up with repulses, by
persevering steadily and without shame, one gets to the heart not only of
women, but also of powerful people, of wealthy people, particularly of
most men, of the nations and of the centuries. Just as with women it is
necessary to knock down one’s rivals, and make a desert all round, so in
the world it is necessary to floor one’s equals and companions, and go
forward over their bodies. And they and rivals in love are beaten by the
same weapons, of which two principal ones are calumny and laughter.
With women and with men, he who loves them with a love that is not
feigned or lukewarm, and who puts their interests before his own, gets
nowhere, or at least is very unfortunate. The world, like women, is for him
who seduces it, enjoys it and walks all over it.

76
There is nothing rarer in the world than someone who is usually bearable.

77
Physical health is generally the last blessing to be thought of, and there are
few important actions and affairs in life where health, if it is thought of at
all, is not subordinated to all other considerations. The reason may be
partly, but not entirely, that life is mainly the preserve of the healthy who
always either despise what they possess or do not fear to lose it. As one
example from a thousand, there are various reasons why a certain place is
chosen on which to build a city, and reasons why the population of a city
grows, but the healthiness of the site is seldom among these reasons. On
the contrary, there is no site on earth so unhealthy and unpleasant that, if
it offers opportunities, men do not willingly agree to live there. Often a
most healthy, but uninhabited, place is in proximity to one that is not very
healthy but is densely inhabited. Moreover, whole populations can
continually be seen to forsake healthy cities and climates in order to come
together under harsh skies, in places which not seldom are unhealthy, and
sometimes almost pestilential, to which certain advantages invite them.
London and Madrid are examples of cities with the worst possible
conditions for health, whose populations, since they are capitals, are
augmented daily by people leaving healthy dwellings in the provinces.
Without going beyond our own regions, in Tuscany Leghorn, because of
its trade, has from its first establishment constantly grown in population,
and is still growing. Also, on the way to Leghorn, Pisa, a healthy place,
and famed for its mild and temperate air, which was once full of people
when it was a powerful and seafaring city, is now reduced to a desert
almost, and goes on losing more people every day.

78
Two or more people in a public place or in any assembly who are
noticeably laughing together, while others do not know what they are
laughing about, cause such anxiety in all those present that every
conversation becomes serious, many people fall silent, and some go away,
while the boldest draw near to those who are laughing, endeavouring to be
accepted so that they may laugh in company with them. It is just as if
bursts of artillery fire were heard nearby, where there were people in the
dark. Everyone would be thrown into confusion, not knowing who might
be hit if the artillery were loaded with shot. Laughter gains esteem and
respect even from strangers, attracts the attention of all those around, and
gives one a sort of superiority among them. And if, as does happen, you
find yourself at times somewhere where either you are ignored or treated
arrogantly and discourteously, you need only choose from those present
one who looks as though he will do, and laugh with him frankly and
openly and perseveringly, showing as well as you can that the laughter
comes from your heart. If some there are laughing at you, you must laugh
more clearly and more constantly than they do. You will be very
unfortunate if the proudest and most impudent in the company, and those
who most turned their faces away from you, when they notice your
laughter do not, after only a brief resistance, either turn to flight or come
of their own accord to beg for peace, seeking out your conversation, and
perhaps offering themselves as friends. The power of laughter is great
among men and causes great terror. No one finds his own mind
completely armed against it. He who has the courage to laugh is master of
the world, much like him who is prepared to die.

79
A young man never learns the art of living – never has, one might say,
success in society, and never experiences any pleasure in it – while the
vehemence of his desires lasts. The more he cools down, the more capable
he is of dealing with other people and himself. Nature, benign as ever, has
ordained that the more man learns to live, the more the reasons for living
desert him; that he must not know the means of achieving his ends until
he ceases to regard them as heavenly felicities, when obtaining them does
not bring him more than a mediocre joy; and that he must not be pleased
until he has become incapable of lively pleasure. Many find themselves in
this state when they are very young, and often they do well, because their
desires are slight, and in their minds adulthood has, through a
convergence of experience and intellect, come before its time. Others never
reach this state in all their lives. They are those few whose strength of
feeling is so great to begin with that it never fails throughout the years.
These people more than all others would enjoy life, if Nature had meant
life to be enjoyed. But they are very unhappy, and until death they remain
children in the ways of the world, which they are unable to learn.

80
When I see again after a few years someone whom I knew when he was
young, he at first always looks to me like one who has suffered some great
misfortune. A joyful and confident appearance belongs only to youth, and
the sense of what one is losing, and of the physical disorders which from
day to day grow worse, produces in even the most frivolous or those who
are happy by nature, and likewise even in the happiest, a habitual
expression of the face and a behaviour which is called grave, and which, in
contrast to that of young people and children, is truly wretched.

81
It is in conversation as it is with writers. At the beginning many writers,
once we find that they have new ideas and their own opinions, please
greatly, but then, as we go on reading, they become boring, because parts
of their writing are imitations of other parts. So it is in conversation, for
new people are often prized and welcome on account of their ways and
their words, and as we get used to them, they become boring and fall in
our esteem, because people inevitably, some more and some less, when
they do not imitate others, imitate themselves. And so those who travel,
especially if they are men of some intelligence who practise the art of
conversation, readily leave behind them, in the places through which they
pass, an opinion of themselves which is far above the truth, given the
opportunity they have of hiding what is the usual defect of the human
spirit, I mean its poverty. This is because everything they reveal on one or
only a few occasions, when they speak mainly of those matters which
most concern them, towards which they are led, even without their
employing any artifice, by the courtesy and curiosity of others, is believed
to be not their entire inward riches, but the least part of it, and, so to
speak, loose change to spend as they wish, and certainly not, as perhaps it
most often is, either all they possess or the greater part of their money.
And this belief remains strong, for lack of new occasions that might
destroy it. For the same reasons travellers for their part also are likely to
make mistakes, judging too highly of people of some ability whom they
come across in their travels.

82
No one becomes a man before he has had considerable experience of
himself – which, revealing himself to himself, and determining his own
opinion of himself, in some ways determines his fortune and his state in
life. For this great experience, before which no one in the world is much
more than a child, life in ancient times provided infinite available material,
but today private life is so poor in incident, and of such a nature for
everyone, that, for lack of opportunity, many men die before the
experience I speak of, and so are like babies, little more than if they had
not been born. To others self-knowledge and self-possession usually come
either from needs and misfortunes or from some grand – by which I mean
strong – passion. This is most often the passion of love, when love is a
grand passion (something which is not experienced by all who love).
However, if it does occur, either at the start of life, as it does for some, or
later and after other loves of less importance, as seems to happen more
often, then certainly when a man issues from a grand and passionate love,
he is scarcely conscious of his fellows among whom he has to move with
his intense desires and with his grave needs never perhaps experienced
before. He knows ab esperto* the nature of the passions (since if one of
them is blazing, it inflames all the others), he knows his own nature and
temperament, he has got the measure of his own abilities and strengths,
and by now he can judge himself and what he must hope for or despair of
from himself – and, in so far as the future can be foretold, what place he is
destined to have in the world. In short, in his eyes life has taken on a
different appearance, being changed for him from a thing heard of to a
thing seen, from something imagined to something real, and he feels he is
in the middle of it, perhaps not happier but, so to speak, more powerful
than before, that is more apt to make good use of himself and of others.

83
If those few men of true worth who pursue glory knew individually all
those who compose that public whose esteem they try to gain with so
many and such extreme sufferings, it is possible that their purpose would
be considerably weakened, and they might perhaps abandon it. However,
we cannot escape the power which the sheer number of people has over
our imagination, and it is noticeable time and time again that we
appreciate, indeed respect, I will not say a multitude, but ten people
gathered in one room, each one of whom by himself we regard as of no
account.

84
Jesus Christ was the first to point out to us distinctly that praiser and
teacher of all the feigned virtues; that detractor and persecutor of all the
true ones; that enemy of all the greatness which is intrinsic to and really
characteristic of mankind; that derider of all elevated feeling, unless he
believes it to be false, and of all tender affection, if he believes it to be
heartfelt; that slave of the strong, tyrant of the weak, hater of the
unhappy; to whom Jesus Christ gave the name of “the world”, with a
meaning which it still has in all civilized languages up to the present day. I
do not believe that before that time this general idea, which contains such
truth, and which has been and always will be of such utility, had occurred
to anyone else, nor do I recall its being found, I mean in one word and in
such a precise form, in any pagan philosopher. Perhaps this is because
before that time meanness and fraud had not grown so mature, and
civilization had not got to the stage where it had become confused with
corruption.
In short, such as I have described above, and such as was indicated by
Jesus Christ, is the man whom they call civilized, that man whom reason
and intellect do not reveal, whom books and educators do not announce,
whom nature constantly says is mythical and whom only experience of life
causes to be known and believed to be true. And it is noteworthy that the
idea which I have described, although it is a general one, is found to fit
innumerable individuals exactly.

85
We never find in pagan writers that the generality of civilized people,
whom we call society or the world, is considered or shown as the
determined enemy of virtue, or as the certain corruptor of every good
character, and of every developing mind. The world as the enemy of the
good is a concept that is as frequent in the gospels and in modern writers,
even secular ones, as it is more or less unknown to the ancients. And this
will not surprise anyone who considers one very simple and obvious fact,
which can serve as an instance for anyone who wishes to compare the
ancients and moderns in moral matters. Where modern educators fear the
public, the ancients sought it, and where the moderns use domestic
obscurity, segregation and seclusion as a protection for young people
against the plague of worldly habits, the ancients took their young people,
by force even, out of their solitude, and exposed their education and their
life to the eyes of the world, and the world to their eyes, because they
considered the example likelier to teach than to corrupt.

86
The most certain way to conceal the limits of one’s own knowledge is not
to go beyond them.

87
He who travels much has this advantage over others: that the things he
remembers soon become remote, so that in a short time they acquire that
vague and poetical quality which is only given to other things by time. He
who has not travelled at all has this disadvantage: that all his memories are
of things present somewhere, since the places with which all his memories
are concerned are present.

88
It happens not seldom that people who are vain and full of their own
conceit, instead of being egoistic and hard, as would seem likely, are
pleasant, kind, good companions, and also good friends and very helpful.
Since they think that everyone admires them, it is only reasonable that
they should love those whom they believe to be their admirers, and help
them whenever they can, simply because they believe that this is right and
proper, considering the superiority with which fate has favoured them.
They converse willingly, because they believe the world resounds with
their name, and they are tender in their ways, secretly praising themselves
for their affability, and for knowing how to adapt their greatness to this
mingling with little people. And I have noticed that, as their opinion of
themselves grows, so they grow too in benignity. Finally, the certainty
which they have of their own importance, and of the consensus of the
human race in admitting it, takes away all roughness from their manners,
because no one who is content with himself and other men has coarse
habits, and generates in them such tranquillity that sometimes they take
on the appearance of modest people.

89
He who has little communication with people is seldom a misanthrope.
True misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world. This is
because it is practical experience of life, and certainly not philosophy, that
makes people hate their fellows. And if someone who is a misanthrope
withdraws from society, in his seclusion he loses his misanthropy.

90
I once knew a little boy who, when he was crossed in anything by his
mother, used to say, “Oh, I see, I see! Mummy’s being naughty.” The
majority of people use the same logic when they talk of their nearest and
dearest, although they do not express themselves quite so plainly.

91
Whoever introduces you to someone, if he wishes to commend you
effectively, should leave aside your more real and distinctive qualities, and
mention the more external ones and those that you owe more to fortune. If
you are great and powerful in the world, he should say great and powerful;
if rich, he should say rich; if nothing but noble, he should say noble. He
should not say magnanimous, or virtuous, or polite, or fond, or anything
similar (unless as a mere addition), even if you do possess these qualities,
and to a high degree. And if you are lettered, and in some places
celebrated for being so, he should not say learned, or profound, or very
talented, or outstanding. Rather he should say celebrated. As I have said
elsewhere, it is fortune that is favoured in the world, and not worth.

92
Jean-Jacques Rousseau says that true courtesy consists of habitually
showing oneself to be kind. This sort of courtesy may perhaps preserve
you from hatred, but it will not gain you love, except from those few to
whom other people’s kindness acts as a stimulus to reciprocate. Whoever
wishes, as far as one can with manners, to make people his friends, or his
lovers even, should show that he esteems them. Just as contempt hurts and
displeases more than hatred, so esteem is sweeter than kindness, and
generally men take more care, or certainly have more desire, to be
esteemed than loved. Demonstrations of esteem, true or false (since either
way they are believed by those who are the objects of them), almost always
win gratitude. And many who would not lift a finger to help someone who
truly loves them are filled with immediate affection for anyone who
appears to esteem them. Such demonstrations are very effective even in
reconciling those we have offended, because it seems that it is not in our
human nature to hate someone who expresses esteem for us. At the same
time, it is not merely a possibility, but something often observed, that
people hate and avoid those who love them, and even those who benefit
them. For if the art of winning people over by conversation consists of
ensuring that others depart from us happier with themselves than they
were before, it is obvious that signs of esteem will be more valid to win
men over than signs of kindness. And the less esteem is due, the more
efficacious it is to show it. Those who have this habitual courtesy are more
or less courted wherever they go, because people gather, like flies round a
honey pot, round that sweet belief that they are esteemed. And for the
most part those who praise are themselves highly praised, because from
the praises which they, in conversation, offer to everyone else, there grows
a great harmony of praise which everyone gives to them, partly out of
gratitude, and partly because it is in our interest that those who esteem us
should be praised and esteemed. In this way people, without realizing it,
and individually possibly against their will, through their agreement in
celebrating such people, elevate them socially far above themselves, to
whom such people continually show signs of holding themselves inferior.

93
Many of those, indeed almost all, who are believed by themselves and by
their acquaintances to be well reputed in society, really have only the
esteem of one particular company, or of one class, or of one kind of
person, to whom they belong and among whom they live. The man of
letters, who believes himself to be famous and respected in the world, finds
himself either left on one side or scorned every time he comes across the
company of frivolous people, who make up three quarters of the world.
The young gallant, made much of by women and by his peers, is neglected
and confused in the society of businessmen. The courtier, whom his
companions and dependants overwhelm with ceremony, is held up to
ridicule and forsaken by fair-weather friends. I conclude, to make it plain,
that a man cannot hope for, and consequently should not wish to win, the
esteem, as they say, of society, but of a small number of people. As for the
others, he should be content to be completely ignored sometimes, and
sometimes more or less despised, because this is a fate that cannot be
escaped.

94
He who has never gone beyond his own tiny locality, where petty
ambitions and vulgar avarice reign, together with an intense hatred felt by
everyone for everyone else, regards as mere myth sincere and stable social
virtues, just as he does great vices. And as for friendship, he believes it to
be something found in poems and stories, not in life. And he is wrong. No
Pylades or Pirithous* certainly, but good, affable friends really are found in
the world, and they are not rare. The services which may be expected or
requested from such friends, I mean such friends as the world really gives,
are either of words, which often turn out to be very useful, or even at times
of deeds, but all too seldom of goods, which the wise and prudent man
should never request. It is easier to find someone who puts his life in
danger for a stranger than one who, I shall not say spends, but risks one
scudo for a friend.

95
And men do have some excuse for this. It is a rare person who genuinely
has more than he needs, since our needs depend almost entirely on
habituation, and since our expenditure is usually proportionate to our
wealth, if not greater. And those few who accumulate without spending,
have a need to accumulate, either for projects of theirs or for possible
necessities which may lie in the future. Nor is it significant if one need or
another is imaginary, because there are all too few things in life which do
not exist wholly or mainly in the imagination.

96
The honest man, in the course of years, easily becomes insensitive to
praise and honour, but never, I believe, to blame or contempt. Indeed, the
praise and esteem of many outstanding people may not compensate for
the pain he feels at one hurtful word or one sign of indifference from some
man of no account. Perhaps the opposite is the case with scoundrels, for,
being used to blame and unused to real praise, they may be insensitive to
the former, but not to the latter, if ever they chance to have some
experience of it.

97
It may seem a paradox, but with experience of life one realizes its truth,
that those people whom the French call originals are not only not rare, but
are so common that I was about to say that it is rarer to find in society a
man who truly is not what is called an original. I am not speaking of
minor differences from man to man; I am speaking of qualities and ways
of his own that a man has, and that to others prove to be strange, bizarre,
absurd. I am also saying that seldom will you have to do for a long time
even with someone who is very civilized, without discovering in him and
his ways more than one strangeness or absurdity or bizarrerie, such as to
make you marvel.
You will come to this discovery sooner with others than with the French,
sooner perhaps with mature men or old people than with youngsters, who
often have the ambition of conforming to others, and who moreover, if
they are well brought up, apply more strength to themselves. But sooner or
later you will discover this in the end in the majority of those with whom
you have dealings. In short, nature’s variety is so great that it is impossible
for civilization, for all its tendency to make people uniform, to conquer
nature.
 98
A similar observation to that above is the following. Anyone who has or
has had anything to do with men, if he thinks it over a little, will
remember having been not many times but very many times a spectator,
and perhaps taken part, in scenes which are, as they say, real, but which
differ in no way from those which, if seen in the theatre, or read in
comedies or novels, are believed to be fictionalized beyond what is natural,
for the sake of art. All this means simply that wickedness, foolishness,
vices of every kind and the ridiculous qualities and actions of men, are
much more usual than we think, and that perhaps we shall not be
believable if we go beyond those limits which mark off what is regarded as
normal from what is supposed to be exaggerated.

99
People are not ridiculous except when they wish to seem or be what they
are not. The poor, the ignorant, the rustic, the sick, the old are never
ridiculous while they are content to appear such, and while they keep
within the limits imposed by their condition. But they certainly are
ridiculous when the old man wants to seem young, the sick man healthy,
the poor man rich, and the ignorant man wants to act like an educated
man, the rustic like a city dweller. Even physical defects, however serious
they may be, would provoke nothing more than a passing smile if the
sufferer did not try to hide them, that is, want to seem not to have them,
to be different from what he is. If we consider carefully, we shall see that
our defects or disadvantages are not in themselves ridiculous. What is
ridiculous is the effort we make to hide them, and our wanting to act as
though we did not have them.
Those who, in order to make themselves more lovable, affect a moral
character different from their own, make a great mistake. The very effort,
which after a short time it is impossible to keep up without its becoming
obvious, and the opposition between the feigned character and the real
one, which from the start keeps coming through, render him more
unlovable and more displeasing than he would be if he showed himself as
he was frankly and constantly. Even the most wretched character has
something in it which is not unpleasant and which, because it is real, if it
were brought out at the right moment, would please much more than the
finest feigned quality.
Generally, wanting to be what we are not spoils everything in the world.
Very many people are unbearable for no other reason, although they
would be very likeable if only they would be content to be themselves. And
not only individuals, but gatherings of people, indeed whole populations.
And I know several cultured and flourishing provincial cities which would
be very pleasant to live in, if it were not for their nauseating imitation of
the capitals, their wanting to be, as far as is in them, capital rather than
provincial cities.

100
Thinking of the defects or disadvantages which people may have, I do not
deny that the world is seldom like those judges who are forbidden by law
to condemn a criminal, however convinced they are of his guilt, if the man
himself does not explicitly confess to the crime. Nevertheless, although
hiding with manifest zeal one’s own defects is a ridiculous thing, I would
not recommend that they should confess of their own free will, and
certainly not give people to understand that their defects make them
inferior to others. That would only be to condemn oneself by that final
judgement which the world, as long as one holds one’s head up, never gets
round to pronouncing. In this kind of struggle of each against all, and of
all against each, in which, if we want to call things by their proper names,
social life consists, with everyone endeavouring to knock his companion
down in order to put his foot on him, he makes a great mistake who
prostrates himself, or even bows, or even inclines his head willingly. There
is no doubt (except when these things are done in pretence, as a stratagem)
that he will be walked all over and trampled on by his neighbours, without
any courtesy or pity in the world. This is a mistake which young people
almost always make, and especially when they are of a polite disposition.
Time and again they admit, without necessity or relevance, their
disadvantages and misfortunes. They are moved partly by the frankness
that is natural at their age, which makes them hate dissimulation and
enjoy affirming the truth, even against themselves, and partly, since they
are themselves generous, by the hope of obtaining by this means pardon
and favour from the world for their misfortunes. And in that golden age of
their life, they are so far ignorant of the truth of human affairs that they
make a display of unhappiness, thinking that this makes them lovable, and
wins people over to them. Nor, to be honest, are they unreasonable in
thinking this. Only long and constant personal experience can persuade
people who are themselves kind that the world will pardon anything more
readily than misfortune, that it is not unhappiness, but fortune that wins
favour, and that therefore it is not the former, but the latter, of which one
should always, as far as possible, even in despite of the truth, make display.
They need to know that the confession of one’s ills does not occasion pity
but pleasure, does not sadden but delights, not only enemies but everyone
who hears it, because it is, as it were, a sign of one’s own inferiority and
other people’s superiority, and that, since man can trust nothing on earth
but his strength, he should never willingly yield anything or retreat one
step, much less surrender at his enemy’s discretion, but defend himself and
resist to the very end, and fight obstinately to retain or acquire, if he can,
even despite fortune, what he will never gain by his supplications to the
generosity or humanity of his neighbours. I myself believe that no one
ought even to allow anyone in his presence to call him unhappy or
unfortunate. These words in almost all languages were, and are, synonyms
for wicked, perhaps from ancient superstition, as if unhappiness were the
penalty for wickedness. Certainly in all languages they are and will
continue to be offensive, because he who uses them, whatever his
intention, feels that by them he elevates himself and lowers his companion,
and the same is felt by him who hears them.

101
By confessing his own infirmities, however obvious they may be, a man
causes manifold harm to the esteem, and hence to the affection, which his
nearest and dearest have for him. So it is necessary that everyone should
stand up for himself strongly, whatever his state, and that despite any of
his misfortunes, by showing he has a firm and secure respect for himself,
he should give an example for others to respect him, and, as it were,
constrain them by his own authority. If a man’s estimation does not come
from himself, it is hard to see how it will come from anywhere else, and if
it does not have a solid foundation in him, it will hardly stand firm.
Human society is like fluids. Every particle of a fluid, or tiny drop,
pressing strongly on its neighbours above and below and on all sides, and
pressing through them on the most distant drops, and being pressed in its
turn in the same way, if at some place the resistance and the mutual
pushing grow less, not an instant passes before the whole mass of the fluid
rushes together towards that place, and the space is occupied by new
drops.

102
The years of youth are, in everyone’s memory, the legendary times of his
life. Similarly, in the memory of a nation, the legendary times are those of
the nation’s youth.

103
Praise given to us has the power of making us esteem subjects and faculties
we have formerly scorned every time that we happen to be praised for
anything of such a kind.

104
The sort of education given, especially in Italy, to those who are educated
(who, to tell the truth, are not many) is a formal betrayal ordained by
weakness against strength, by old age against youth. Old people come and
say to young people, “Avoid the pleasures natural to your time of life, since
they are all dangerous and contrary to good behaviour, and because we,
who have enjoyed them as much as we were able, and who would do the
same again if we could, are no longer capable of them, because of our
years. Do not bother about living today, but be obedient, suffer and strive
as hard as you know how in order to live when it will be too late. Wisdom
and decorum require that the young abstain as far as possible from
making use of their youth, except to surpass others in hard work. Leave
the care of your destiny and everything important to us, who will direct
everything to our advantage. At your age every one of us did quite the
opposite of what we are recommending, and we would do the same again
if we were young once more. But you must pay attention to our words, and
not to what we did in the past, or to our intentions. Believe us, who are
wise and experienced in human affairs: if you act as we say, you will be
happy.” I do not know what deceit and fraud are, if they do not consist of
promising happiness to the inexperienced upon such conditions.
The interests of general tranquillity, domestic and public, are opposed to
the pleasures and enterprises of young people. And so even a good
education, or what is called such, consists in great part of deceiving pupils
into subordinating their own advantage to that of others. But even without
this, old people naturally tend to destroy the young, as far as they can, and
to obliterate them from human life, since they abhor the sight of them. In
all times old age has conspired against youth, because in all times it has
been natural for men basely to condemn and persecute in others those
blessings that they would rather keep for themselves. Nevertheless, it is
still noteworthy that, among educators – who, if they are people of the
world, profess to want their neighbours’ good – there are so many who try
to deprive their pupils of the greatest blessing in life, which is youth. It is
even more noteworthy that fathers and mothers, not to mention other
tutors, never feel pangs of conscience for giving their children an
education based on such a malign principle. This would be even more
surprising if for a long time, for other reasons, trying to abolish youth had
not been regarded as a meritorious effort.
The result of such a pernicious culture, intent on benefiting the cultivator
with the ruin of the plant, is either that the pupils, having lived like old
people in the first bloom of their lives, make themselves ridiculous and
unhappy when they are old, by trying to live like young people, or rather,
as happens more often, Nature wins, and young people, living as young
people despite their education, rebel against the educators, who, if they
had encouraged the use and enjoyment of youthful faculties, would have
been able to regulate them through the confidence their pupils would have
had in their teachers, which they would never have lost.

105
Shrewdness, which belongs to the intellect, is employed most often to
make up for a scarcity of intellect, and to overcome a greater abundance of
intellect in others.

106
The world laughs at those things that otherwise it would have to admire,
and it reprehends, like the fox in Aesop,* what it envies. A great love affair,
with great consolations after great torments, is universally envied, and so
reprehended the more severely. A habit of being generous, or a heroic
action, ought to be admired, but people, if they admired, especially among
equals, would think themselves humiliated. And so, instead of admiring,
they laugh. This goes so far that in social life noble actions need to be
dissimulated more carefully than base actions. Everyone is base, and so
that is at least pardoned. But nobility goes against the custom and seems
to indicate presumption, or beg praise, which the public, and
acquaintances particularly, do not like to give with sincerity.

107
Most stupid things are said in company through a desire to talk. But the
young man who has some self-respect when he first enters into society
easily errs in another way. In speaking he expects that extraordinary things
of some beauty and importance will occur to him to say. With such
expectations, what happens is that he never speaks. The most sensible
conversation in the world, and the most spirited, is one composed for the
most part of frivolous or trite discourse, which anyhow serves to pass the
time in speaking. And everyone has to decide to say things that are for the
most part commonplace, in order just sometimes to say things that are not
commonplace.
 108
Men make great efforts, while they are immature, to seem like grown men,
and once they are grown-up, to seem immature. Oliver Goldsmith, the
author of the novel The Vicar of Wakefield, once he had reached the age of
forty took the title of doctor from his address, because at that age such a
demonstration of gravity had become hateful to him, although it had been
dear to him in his early years.*

109
Men are almost always as wicked as they need to be. When they act
honestly, one may be sure that wickedness is not necessary to them. I have
seen people of very good habits, completely innocent people, commit the
most atrocious actions, in order to avoid some grave harm which was not
avoidable in any other way.

110
It is curious that almost all men of worth have simple manners, and that
simple manners are almost always taken as a sign of little worth.

111
A habit of silence during conversation pleases and is praised when it is
known that the person who is silent has, when necessary, both the
boldness and the aptitude for speech.
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 Notes
p. 218, three great nations: England, France and Germany.
p. 242, such as… in Greek: In English the word “simple” is analogous in
its use to the Italian and Greek words Leopardi mentions.
p. 245, Guicciardini… will of others: The quote is from Chapter xvii of
Storia d’Italia (1537–40) by Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540).
p. 248, Buffon… present danger: This is from ‘De la vieillesse et de la
mort’ (‘Of Old Age and Death’), Histoire naturelle, vol. ii (1749), by
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–88).
p. 250, La Bruyère… excellent book: This is from ‘Des ouvrages de
l’esprit’ (‘Of the Works of the mind’), 4, Caractères (1688) by Jean de La
Bruyère (1645–96).
p. 261, ab esperto: The same Latin expression (meaning “from
experience”) is used by Petrarch in his Canzoniere, ccclv, 4. Leopardi is
subtly bringing the authority of this great poet of love to bear on what he
says.
p. 267, Pylades or Pirithous: In Greek mythology, they were famous for
their friendship to Orestes and Theseus respectively.
p. 274, like the fox in Aesop: Having lost his own tail in a trap, the fox
suggests that other foxes cut off their tails to follow the new fashion.
p. 275, Oliver Goldsmith… early years: This anecdote about Oliver
Goldsmith (1728–74) could be found in various contemporary sources.
OceanofPDF.com
Extra Material on Giacomo Leopardi’s Moral
Fables
OceanofPDF.com
 Leopardi’s Life
Giacomo Leopardi was born on 29th June 1798 into what he was to describe as “a noble family in an
ignoble city of Italy”. The city was Recanati, near to Ancona in the region known now as Le Marche,
and his parents were Count Monaldo Leopardi and the Marchesa Adelaide Antici, both natives of that
city. Giacomo’s noble origins were not in doubt: his father’s family had records which went back to
1200, and his mother’s family was also very ancient. Opinions of the city, however, varied: Monaldo
saw it, and not the land of Italy, as his homeland and loved it; on the other hand a man of letters who
became Giacomo’s friend, Pietro Giordani, described it as “a little village which the Pope calls a city;
it is only four miles from Loreto, that huge market of ignoble superstitions… All the ills of Italy are
there, without any consolation”. It is not surprising that Giacomo’s parents, as aristocrats living in
one of the Papal States, had no truck with the ideal of Italian unification and self-rule which was
current during the nineteenth century – an ideal only realized over twenty years after Giacomo’s
death. And his parents had nothing but hatred for the subversive ideas and martial law imported into
their city by the French revolutionary armies when Giacomo was only one year old.
Monaldo, whose intellect tends to be disparaged in com-parison with his eldest son’s, was a man
with intellectual interests and the author of many books, including an auto-biography. The account in
it of the French occupation of Recanati, the civil disturbances which resulted, the danger to the
Leopardi family, and the sentence of death which was passed on Monaldo himself (which was very
nearly carried out) makes for lively reading. Monaldo comes across as a rather self-satisfied and
pompous man, a conservative in politics and religion who, as he tells us, dressed always in black and
“wore a sword every day, like the ancient knights… probably the last sword-bearer of Italy”. He did
his best to promote the education of his children and, although his eldest son at an early age educated
himself beyond his father’s understanding, their estrangement was a purely intellectual and religious
one, which never prevented their being very fond of each other. In his early years – for he came into
his inheritance when he was only eighteen – Monaldo had, as a result of the depredations of the
French and of his own ineptitude and ill-advised specu-lation, found the family fortunes so far
reduced that he was obliged to transfer all financial affairs into his wife’s capable hands, where they
remained. Despite his financial straits, Monaldo did manage to acquire a library of thousands of
books which in 1812 he opened to the public (in theory at least, since it seems that no one from
outside the family ever entered it). A Latin inscription above the door stated that it was for the use of
his children, friends, and fellow citizens. The library’s rather miscellaneous, and even random,
composition, with a high proportion of theological volumes, is accounted for by the fact that much of
it had been acquired in bulk, sometimes simply by weight, in the sales from religious foundations
closed down during the French occupation of the city. The person who benefited most from this
library was of course Giacomo.
Giacomo’s mother Adelaide was clearly the dominant partner in the marriage. From all accounts,
she had two aims in life, which she pursued without deviation. One was the preservation, by means
of strict economy, of the way of life which she regarded as suitable for a noble family: appearances
were always kept up despite difficult circumstances. Her other aim was the education of her children
according to her own narrow interpretation of Christianity. Giacomo has left a chilling description of
her:

I have known intimately a mother who was not at all superstitious, but very staunch and precise in
her Christian faith, and in the exercise of her religion. Not only was she not sorry for those parents
who lost their children in infancy, but she envied them deeply and sincerely, since those children
had flown safely to paradise, and had freed their parents from the bother of supporting them.
Finding herself several times in danger of losing her children at the same age, she did not pray God
to make them die, because religion would not permit that, but she was truly delighted; and seeing
her husband weeping or in distress, she withdrew into herself, obviously really annoyed. She was
very precise in the care which she took of those poor patients, but in her heart of hearts she hoped it
would be in vain, and went so far as to confess that the only dread she had when she questioned or
consulted the doctors, was in hearing opinions or reports of an improvement. Seeing in the patients
some signs of approaching death, she felt a deep joy (which she endeavoured to conceal only from
those who condemned it), and the day of their death, if it came, was for her a happy and pleasant
day, and she could not understand how her husband was so unwise as to be sad about it. She
considered beauty a real misfortune, and seeing her children ugly or deformed, she thanked God for
it, not out of heroism, but with all her heart. She did not try in any way to help them to hide their
defects; rather did she require that, in view of those defects, they should renounce life completely in
their first youth. If they resisted, if they tried to do the opposite, if they succeeded in that in the
slightest, she was annoyed, and with her comments and opinions depreciated their successes as
much as possible (of the ugly as of the handsome ones, for she had many children), and did not let
an occasion slip, indeed looked diligently for the chance, to reproach them and make them well
aware of their defects, and the consequences to be expected from them, and to persuade them of
 their inevitable unhappiness, with a pitiless and fierce veracity. She found real consolation in the ill
success of her children in these and similar matters; and she dwelt by preference with them on what
she had heard to their disadvantage. All this was to free them from the danger to their souls. She
behaved in the same way in everything that concerned the education of the children, bringing them
into the world, finding them a position in it, all the ways to worldly happiness. She felt infinite
compassion for sinners, but very little for physical or worldly misfortunes, except when her own
nature at times got the better of her. The illnesses, the most pitiful deaths of young people cut off in
the flower of life, with all their great hopes, with the greatest loss to their family and to the public,
etc., did not touch her in any way. For she said that it was not the year of death that mattered, but
the manner, and therefore she used always to enquire diligently whether they had died well
according to religion, or, when they were ill, if they were showing resignation etc. And she spoke of
these calamities with a marmoreal coldness. This woman had been endowed by nature with a very
sensitive disposition, and had been reduced to this state by religion alone.
This passage, which tallies with what Giacomo’s sister Paolina had to say about her mother in rather
more gentle terms, suggests from whom Giacomo inherited his mental ruthless-ness in the pursuit of
the truth as he saw it; it makes us wonder too if the emphasis he so often lays on the value of life on
earth comes partly as a reaction to his mother’s complete denial of it. Unlike most of those in her
circle, Adelaide Leopardi seems to have seldom put pen to paper, and her outlook has to be gathered
from other people’s remarks and actions, but we always sense her presence in the background of
Giacomo’s life, particularly on those occasions when he had to ask his father for money and his
father had to approach his wife for it.
The other children in the family who mattered most to Giacomo were his brother Carlo, one year
younger, with whom he was always on good terms, and his beloved sister Paolina, two years
younger, who in her letters shows something of the keen intelligence of Giacomo. As a woman, it
was even harder for her than for Giacomo to escape from the close confines of family life, and she
managed to travel beyond Recanati only at the very end of her life.
The children’s education was entrusted to a Jesuit father who was kept in the house for that purpose,
and who had earlier been Monaldo’s tutor. The basis of their education was ancient languages and
philology. When Giacomo was fourteen, however, his tutor admitted that there was nothing more he
could teach the boy, and this instruction was discontinued. Giacomo had already been studying a
great deal by himself, and this he continued to do, passing most of his time in his father’s great
library in Palazzo Leopardi. Quite independently, he taught himself Greek and acquired considerable
mastery in that language: indeed, he said that it was reading the poets of ancient Greece which first
led him to think he was himself a poet.
Carlo, who slept in the same room as Giacomo, remembered seeing his brother burning the
midnight oil night after night and only going to bed when the light gave out. Giacomo himself
records how he gave himself up to years of “mad and desperate study”. There is an indication of the
unremitting effort he put into his studies in his description of how he learnt English: when he had
written a page of whatever he was composing at the time, he memorized English vocabulary while he
waited for the ink to dry. Not surprisingly, this way of life had an effect on his health, and he grew up
to suffer from a number of serious ailments, of which the most obvious to those around him was a
severe malformation of his back. This became apparent after the age of twelve, but strangely –
although more than one relative pointed out to Monaldo the ill effects of Giacomo’s way of life on
his health, and Monaldo’s brother-in-law offered to have him living with his family in Rome for a
while to give him or force him to take some respite – Monaldo did nothing to help, and in fact
admitted frankly that he could not have borne his son’s absence. And he was not to let even his adult
son go without a struggle.
Although it is important to emphasize Giacomo’s life of furious study, there is ample evidence too
of his boisterousness and love of horseplay when a child. In later life this became material, as so
often with him, from which to draw a general conclusion:

When I was a boy, I used to say sometimes to one of my brothers: “You shall be my horse.” And
having tied a small cord to him, I used to lead him as though by a bridle and hit him with a whip.
And they were pleased to let me do it, and this did not make them any the less my brothers. I often
remember this when I see a man (often of no worth) respectfully waited upon by this person or that
in a hundred trifles, which he could do for himself, or just as well for those who are serving him,
and perhaps have a greater need of it than he, who at times is probably healthier and stronger than
those he has around him. And I say to myself, “My brothers were not horses, but human beings like
myself, and these servants are human beings like their master…”

Without wishing to draw any generalization from the fact, it is pleasant also to record that in this
usually solemn household the imposing full suit of armour standing at the entrance to the library,
complete with lance and heraldically decorated shield, was known familiarly to the children as
“Maurizio”.
 From the age of ten Giacomo was required to make pres-entations to his family to show how his
studies were pro-gressing, and from then until the end of his life his literary production was
enormous. It included historical, philosophical and philological works and translations from Greek
and Latin. One composition, which he published in a periodical as the translation of an ancient Greek
hymn to Neptune, was so persuasive that there were people who believed that a Greek original did
exist.
When he was nineteen something occurred which is not unusual in a boy of his age, but was
unusual in setting a pattern which repeated itself more than once later in his life. He fell deeply and
hopelessly in love and enjoyed the experience, even the pain of it, without hoping for any return of
love. A twenty-seven-year-old cousin of his father’s, Geltrude Cassi Lazzari, stayed with her husband
overnight at Palazzo Leopardi as a stopover on a journey. The effect she had on Giacomo, quite
unconsciously one presumes, is recorded in his poem ‘First Love’ and also in a long prose account.
Although Monaldo liked to attribute his son’s alienation from the family ways and beliefs to the
influence of friends from other parts of Italy with whom Giacomo corresponded, and who tended to
have disturbing political and religious views, the causes went much deeper:

In its poetic career my spirit has gone through the same phases as the human spirit in general. From
the beginning my forte was fancy, and my verses were full of images, and I always tried to make
my reading of poetry beneficial to the imagination. I was also indeed very sensitive to the
affections, but I did not know how to express them in poetry. I had not yet meditated on things, and
I had only a glimmer of philosophy – and this in broad terms, and with that usual illusion which we
create for ourselves that in the world and in life an exception must always be made in our favour. I
have always been unfortunate, but my misfortunes were at that time full of life, and I gave myself
up to despair because it seemed to me (not indeed to my reason, but to a very firm fancy of mine)
that my misfortunes prevented me from having that happiness which I believed others enjoyed. In
brief my state was exactly like that of the ancients… The whole change in me, and the passage from
the ancient state to the modern, happened one might say within a year, that is 1819, when, deprived
of the use of my eyes, and of the continual distraction of reading, I began to feel my unhappiness in
a much more gloomy way – I began to abandon hope, to reflect deeply on things (under the
influence of these thoughts I wrote in one year almost double what I had written in a year and a
half, and on subjects which concern above all our nature, unlike my past thoughts, almost all of
literature), to become a professed philosopher (from being a poet), to feel the assured unhappiness
 of the world, instead of just being acquainted with it, and this also through a state of physical
weakness, which made me less like the ancients and more like the moderns.

That was the year when Giacomo made his first attempt to escape from Recanati, where he felt he
was in an intellectual and psychological prison. He wrote to a family friend in Macerata, Count
Xaverio Broglio d’Aiano, asking him in his father’s name for a passport, such as was then essential
for travelling between the different states of Italy. He himself had to write the description which the
passport required:

Age 21 years. Low in stature. Hair black. Eyebrows black. Eyes light blue. Nose ordinary. Mouth
regular. Chin likewise. Complexion pale.

This description omits what must have been his most obvious physical characteristic – the hump on
his back – why, we can only speculate. His intention was to leave Recanati in secret and go to Milan,
where he had friends who would, he hoped, provide him with employment and therefore the means to
live. From Macerata Monaldo got some inkling of the plan, and the passport was sent, but to him and
not to his son, and Giacomo backed down and the attempted flight came to nothing but great upset on
all sides.
Carlo has testified to the dreadful psychological state that Giacomo was in during this period, when
at times the only alternative to flight that he could see was suicide. His hatred of Recanati, so often
and so fervently expressed, cannot obscure, however, the fact that the city itself and his early
experiences there influenced his mature poetry very deeply. There is an interesting exchange of
letters with his friend Giordani which sums the matter up. Leopardi had written: “My homeland is
Italy: I burn with love for her, thanking Heaven that I am an Italian.” Giordani in his reply cleverly
attempts to encourage Leopardi to love his native city by instancing the Piedmontese poet and
dramatist Vittorio Alfieri, who was also born into an old aristocratic family and gave up his
inheritance for the sake of physical and intellectual freedom, and who had died less than twenty years
before:

It seems to me that a wise man has to love his native region; and it seems to me that you have good
reason to love your Recanati. Note that Alfieri, whom you justly admire, prided himself on his Asti
– and Piedmont is no better than Piceno, or Recanati any worse than Asti.

Leopardi’s reply has all his customary sharpness:

 It is well said: Plutarch and Alfieri loved Chaeronea and Asti. They loved them and they did not
stay there. In the same way I shall still love my hometown when I am far away from it; now I say I
hate it because I am living in it.

At all events, Giacomo’s unhappiness did not prevent his years before he left Recanati from being
extremely productive: at this early age he composed many of the finest poems in his Canti, including
‘Bruto minore’ (‘Brutus’), ‘Ultimo canto di Saffo’ (‘Sappho’s Last Song’), ‘L’infinito’ (‘The
Infinite’), ‘La sera del dì di festa’ (‘The Evening of the Holy Day’) and ‘Alla luna’ (‘To the Moon’);
in 1817 he began his Zibaldone (Commonplace Book), the detailed notebook which he kept until the
end of 1832, and also his short collection of aphorisms and general reflections, Pensieri (Thoughts),
concerned mainly with social matters.
The topics covered in the Zibaldone are amazingly wide-ranging. The philological discussions are
probably of interest to very few nowadays, and that interest must be mainly historical: as in any
scientific study, even those suggestions on which future research can be based are then superseded.
Nothing else in this work is ephemeral. This is a writer’s notebook: the nearest thing we have to it in
English for critical sharpness and discrimination is Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, which has a
much narrower range and is a brilliant hotchpotch. Unlike Coleridge, Leopardi does not throw out
intriguing suggestions which he promises to follow up and then fails to: he returns to topics again and
again until his thoughts on them are exhausted. Except for a tendency to finish sentences with “etc.”,
as an indication that there is more to say on the subject, he does not write in note form. The result,
since he even provided his own index to the book, is that it is easy to extract from it lengthy and
coherent essays on very many topics. Even his discussion of what might appear at first a triviality
treated in a pedantic manner – his preference for what he calls, from the Greek, monofagia (“eating
alone”) – reveals a sympathetic side of his character, is full of sound sense, and ultimately is
concerned with civilized living. After first pointing out how the ancient Greeks and Romans thought
this monofagia a sign of being “inhuman”, Leopardi says:

I would have incurred this stigma among the ancients… But the ancients were right, because when
they were at table together they talked only after they had eaten, when it was time for the
symposium… time for drinking together, which they were accustomed to do after eating, as the
English do today, to the accompaniment of at most a few titbits to stimulate their thirst. That was
the time when they were more joyful, more lively, more spirited, more good-humoured, and had a
 greater wish to converse and chatter. But while they were eating they kept silent, or spoke very
little. We have given up the natural and pleasant custom of drinking together, and we talk while we
eat. Now I cannot convince myself that the one time of the day when we have our mouths full,
when our external organs of speech are otherwise occupied (in an interesting task, and one which it
is important to do well, because on a good digestion largely depends our well-being, our good
physical, and hence also mental and moral, state – and our digestion cannot be good if it does not
start well at the mouth…) should be precisely that time when we are more than ever obliged to
speak; just because there are many people who, devoting for some reason or other all the rest of the
day to study in retirement, only speak at mealtimes and would be quite angry to find themselves
alone and having to stay silent at that time. But I, who have a good digestion much at heart, do not
believe that I am being “inhuman” if at that time I have less desire to speak than ever, and if I
therefore dine alone. All the more because I wish and need to be able to digest the food which is in
my mouth, and not do as others do who often devour it, simply putting it into their mouths and
gulping it down. If their stomachs are happy with that, it does not follow that mine has to be…

Four years before Giacomo’s departure from Recanati, Monaldo invited Pietro Giordani to visit the
family. It was particularly to this visit, and the influence of Giordani, twenty-four years older than
Giacomo and strongly anti-clerical, that Monaldo attributed Giacomo’s revolt against the values of
his upbringing, and his alienation from his parents. This is to underestimate grossly Giacomo’s own
intelligence and determination. The letter in which Monaldo makes the complaint contains a sentence
which, all unawares, reveals why Giacomo had to break away: “Until this day he had never, literally
never, been one hour out of my sight or his mother’s.” This is only a slight exaggeration, for Carlo
says that, until his walks with Giordani, Giacomo had never left the house unaccompanied by his
tutor or by servants. After all, this was a twenty-year-old, whose father, incidentally, had come to his
majority at the age of eighteen, and married at twenty-one.
Carlo Antici, the maternal uncle who had tried so hard in 1813 to have Giacomo live with him in
Rome, and had been foiled by Monaldo, eventually succeeded nine years later. When he, along with
others of his family, visited the Leopardis in Recanati, he was horrified to find how Giacomo’s poor
physical state had worsened, and he renewed his offer, which this time was accepted.
Carlo Antici’s intention was the praiseworthy and common-sensical one of providing a sort of
convalescence for his nephew, with occasional relief from his never-ending studies, and also the
chance to widen his acquaintance. There was some immediate success: even the journey to Rome
appeared to help, and there seems every reason to believe Giacomo’s physical health did improve
during his time in Rome. However, his psychological health was another matter, and he soon relapsed
into his habitual melancholy: the rescue had come too late to change established habits.
Leopardi’s letters now show a continuation of his habit of complaining, a habit which remained
wherever he moved to. He had found the even tenor of life at Recanati stifling, but now he found the
extremely uneven tenor of life in the turbulent household of Carlo Antici more than he could bear. He
did not like the women he saw in Rome: one may surmise that he was not so fashioned as to make
them like him. Even those scholars he met tended to disappoint him: their chief pursuits appeared to
be archaeology and antiquarianism, which, Giacomo was not slow to point out, could make little
progress among people whose knowledge of Latin and Greek was so inadequate. He even wrote to
Paolina: “Be assured that the most stupid citizen of Recanati has more good sense than the wisest and
most serious Roman.” Were things really so bad? In a letter to Carlo he mentions refusing a chance of
advancement because it entailed taking orders (which, given his opinion of religion, was obviously
an honourable refusal); in the same letter, however, he admits: “…My happiness cannot consist in
anything other than in doing what I want to do.” With such an extreme requirement, it is hardly
surprising that he was seldom happy anywhere.
Although he gained no employment, which would have made him his own master, and no happiness
either, his time in Rome was nevertheless not wasted. As always, wherever he was, his comments on
the city are worth noticing: they show once more that typical generalizing power of his, and they are
relevant to every great city:

All the great size of Rome serves only to multiply the dis-tances, and the number of steps to be
climbed, when you wish to visit anyone. These immense buildings, and these con-sequently
interminable streets, are so many spaces thrown between men, instead of being spaces which
contain men.

All visitors to great cities go to see the sights, and Leopardi was no exception. Where he is an
exception, however, is once again in his power to generalize from his experience, and generalize in
such a way that we accept the truth of what he says, as we see in a letter to Carlo:

On Friday 15 February 1823 I went to visit the tomb of Tasso, and I wept over it. This is the first
and only pleasure which I have experienced in Rome. The way is long, and one only goes there in
order to see this tomb; but who would not come even from America to enjoy the pleasure of tears
 for the space of two minutes? And it is most certain also that the immense expense I see people
going to here, merely to get some pleasure or other, has the opposite result, because instead of
pleasure they get nothing but boredom. Many people feel indignant when they see that Tasso’s
ashes are covered and marked by nothing but a stone, about a span and a half square, placed in one
corner of a wretched little church. I would certainly not want to find these ashes in a mausoleum.
You can imagine the mass of emotions which arise from thinking of the contrast between Tasso’s
greatness and his humble tomb. But you can have no idea of another contrast, that experienced by
the eye which is accustomed to the infinite magnificence and vastness of the monuments in Rome,
when it compares them with the smallness and bareness of this tomb. There is a sad and awesome
consolation in thinking that this poverty is still able to interest and inspire posterity, while the
superb mausoleums of Rome are observed with utter indifference to the people for whom they were
raised, whose names are either not even asked, or else asked not as the names of people but as the
names of monuments.

Disappointed in Rome, there was nothing for it but to go back to Recanati in 1823, or in Leopardi’s
own words, “to return to the tomb”. Here, with his health somewhat improved, he was able not only
to continue writing his Zibaldone, but in one year, 1824, to compose the whole of his chief
imaginative prose work, Operette morali (Moral Fables). A striking feature of this book is its
revelation of a talent for comedy, which no one would have suspected from a reading of the Canti
alone. With Leopardi criticism always goes hand in glove with creation, and he gives us a succinct
raison d’être for the work, which has also a relevance to all comedy:

So that the ridiculous may be both worthwhile and also pleasing in a lively and lasting way – that is,
so that it may not become boring – it must be applied to a serious and important matter… The more
serious the subject matter is which is treated in a ridiculous manner, the more what is ridiculous
becomes delightful, by means of the contrast etc.
The subject matter of the dialogues and fables, of which Moral Fables consists, could hardly be more
serious, since it is the whole of human life and its purpose, or lack of it.
In May 1825 Leopardi went to Bologna on his way to Milan, in response to an invitation from the
publisher Antonio Fortunato Stella, who wished for his collaboration in the publication of the entire
works of Cicero in Latin, with the translation of a selection into Italian. Leopardi accepted gladly,
once Stella had promised to pay his travelling expenses. When he set off, his eyes were giving him
trouble, but once again leaving Recanati did him good, despite the rigours of the journey. His friend
Giordani had been singing his praises, and he found himself among friends and admirers. He was so
pleased with Bologna that he would have preferred to stay in that city, but he had to go on to Milan,
where he remained less than a month (after writing to Carlo that one week’s stay there would be
unendurable), and then returned to Bologna, having agreed with Stella to continue his work on
Cicero from there. Eventually Stella came to provide him with a monthly stipend which enabled him
to continue to live away from his home in Recanati. While he was in Bologna, Leopardi, whose fame
was growing, published a selection of his Moral Fables, and also completed a detailed commentary
on Petrarch’s Canzoniere.
From the time of his first infatuation with his father’s cousin, Geltrude Cassi Lazzari, Giacomo had
been well aware that his physique was not such as to inspire love in women, and he had determined
to become famous so that he would be received by them with pleasure and esteem. In Bologna he
made the acquaintance of Teresa Carniani Malvezzi, a countess with strong literary interests who
had, when Leopardi met her in 1826, already published an Italian translation into blank verse of
Pope’s Rape of the Lock. A strong friendship grew up between them, which lasted for five or six
months.
A brief return to his native city did nothing to arouse any enthusiasm for it in Leopardi. When he
returned to Bologna he did not see the Countess Malvezzi: she had asked him to visit her less
frequently, and he had stopped visiting entirely. He was in that city only a couple of months in the
summer of 1826, before going on to Florence.
Florence at this time was the most appealing place in Italy for one of Leopardi’s outlook. The
government was a comparatively liberal one, attracting intellectuals from all over the land. Gian
Pietro Vieusseux, a Ligurian of Swiss descent, had founded in 1819 a Gabinetto Scientifico-
Letterario (Scien-tific and Literary Society) in the very centre of the city, and this became a favourite
meeting place for intellectuals. They were all united in their respect for italianità, their sense of the
importance of the concept of Italy as a distinctive place and as a whole. In other matters their
opinions might differ widely. The Marchese Gino Capponi, a member of one of the most illustrious
families of Florence, a firm Catholic and a meliorist, was the man who had first suggested to
Vieusseux the founding of a daily paper, the Antologia, to spread liberal opinions. Years later he was
mercilessly mocked by Leopardi in his heavily ironical poem ‘Palinodia al Marchese Gino Capponi’
(‘Palinode to the Marchese Gino Capponi’), simply because his views were seen by Leopardi as
altogether too optimistic.
 In the Palazzo Buondelmonti, the usual meeting place for these various men of letters, Leopardi met
Alessandro Manzoni, whose I promessi sposi (The Betrothed) was published in the same year (1827)
as Leopardi’s Moral Fables, and both by the same publisher, Stella, in Milan. Manzoni wrote of
Leopardi’s work that “for its style, perhaps nothing better has been written in Italian in our time”.
Leopardi’s first impressions of Manzoni’s novel, after sampling a few pages, were not quite so
enthusiastic, but when he read the work in full he recognized its quality. Whereas the first printing of
I promessi sposi sold out in just over a month, the Moral Fables was much slower in making its way.
The reason for this slowness is perhaps hinted at in Manzoni’s praise above, and it became clear
among the friends in Florence that, while Leopardi’s style and élan were much appreciated, many
found the sheer unrelenting pessimism of the work hard to take.
While he was in Florence Leopardi suffered continually with his eyes – to such an extent, indeed,
that he said he could go out of doors only at night like a bat. Even so, he worked away at compiling
an index to his Zibaldone. Despite his customary complaints – he told his sister Paolina for instance
that in his lodgings “we pay a lot and eat little” – Leopardi was in many ways happier in Florence
than he had been elsewhere, and he left the city in the late autumn of 1827 only in order to spend the
winter in a place where the climate was milder.
His chosen place of refuge was Pisa. Although a friend affirmed later that he had never seen
Leopardi smile even once while he was there, in Pisa he seems to have been immediately happy:

I am enchanted with Pisa because of the climate: if it lasts like this, it will be heaven. I left Florence
one degree above freezing; here I have found so much warmth that I have had to cast my cloak off
and wear lighter clothing. The appearance of Pisa pleases me much more than that of Florence. The
road by the side of the Arno here forms a spectacle so vast, so magnificent, so gay, so charming,
that it makes one fall in love with it; I have seen nothing like it in Florence or Milan or Rome – and
truly I do not know whether in the whole of Europe many such sights can be found. And it is very
pleasant to stroll there in the winter, because the air is almost always springlike: so that at certain
hours of the day that district is full of people, full of carriages and pedestrians; ten or twenty
languages can be heard, and bright sunshine glitters on the gilding of the cafés, the shops full of
bijouterie, and the windows of the palaces and houses, all the fine architecture. And for the rest,
Pisa is a mixture of big town and little town, of urban and rural, a mixture so romantic that I have
never seen anything like it.
This passage is from a letter to Paolina. It is interesting that very many years later, when Giacomo
was long dead and when Paolina was able, for the first time in her life, to venture beyond Recanati,
she chose to go to Pisa and recalled this letter as what inspired her to go there.
While he was in the city he wrote ‘Il risorgimento’ (‘The Revival’) and ‘A Silvia’ (‘To Silvia’). If it
is true, as most scholars think, that the latter commemorates Teresa Fattorini, the daughter of the
coachman in Leopardi’s childhood home, then the poem must have been incubating for a decade: it is
an instance of his method of working that the poem was written only when its subject matter was so
well digested that its general significance was clear. ‘A Silvia’ is noteworthy also as the first of his
poems to use a form of verse which, although tightly controlled and rhymed, was not composed on a
regular pattern. Many other poems – including ‘Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell’Asia’
(‘Night Song of a Wandering Shepherd of Asia’), ‘La quiete dopo la tempesta’ (‘The Calm after the
Storm’), and ‘Il sabato del villaggio’ (‘The Village Saturday’) – follow this precedent.
Leopardi felt so much better generally when he was in Pisa that he was at this time able to look
forward to his old age (an old age that in fact he never reached) with a certain mellow equanimity
and pleasure even:

One of the most important results that I intend and hope will come from my verses, is that they
should heat my old age with the warmth of my youth; that I should savour them at that time, and
experience some vestige of my past feelings, placed there to preserve them and make them last, as
if on deposit; that I should be moved as I reread them, as often happens with me, and more than in
reading other people’s poetry; that they should make me not only remember, but also reflect on
what I was, and compare myself with myself; and finally that they should give me the pleasure one
feels in enjoying and appreciating one’s own works, and seeing for oneself and delighting in the
beauties and merits of one’s own son, with no other satisfaction than that of having brought
something beautiful into the world; whether it is recognized as such by other people or not.

In May 1828 his brother Luigi died at the age of twenty-four, but Leopardi did not go immediately to
Recanati to be with his family. He cited health reasons for his absence. In June he returned to
Florence. There he received a letter from Karl Bunsen, the Prussian ambassador to the Vatican, whom
he had first met some years previously in Rome. The letter offered him the Chair of Dante Studies in
Bonn, in terms which were not only flatteringly persuasive but also showed a knowledge of how
Leopardi might best be persuaded:
 There in Bonn, in a climate like that of Verona, with winters in which the temperature rarely drops
below 4º Réaumur when it is cold, you would be surrounded by learned friends and a zealous crowd
anxious to see the Chair of Dante revived beyond the Alps.

Even though this appointment would have removed his money problems and made him independent,
Leopardi refused the offer – finding himself unable to leave Italy and his family behind and, despite
the assurances, fearful of the climate in Germany.
In November 1828 Leopardi, unable to support himself financially any longer away from home,
returned to Recanati for what was to be his last visit to his hometown. He did not find any reason to
rejoice there. First there was the mourning for his brother Luigi, in which Giacomo joined, for his
filial and familial piety was strong, even if he so often resented it in himself. A further cause of
distress was the estrangement that had developed between his brother Carlo and their parents. Carlo
had fallen in love with a young cousin without a dowry, and was determined to marry her, while his
parents were negotiating what they considered a better match with another young cousin who had a
dowry. The matter was settled, although not amicably, when Carlo took advantage of his father’s
temporary absence from home to get married.
Giacomo, as always, was anxious to get away, apparently at any cost, as a letter to Vieusseux
explains:

I am resolved, with the little money which I have from when I was able to work, to set out on my
travels in search of either health or death, and never again return to Recanati. I do not mind what
sort of work I do: anything which is compatible with my state of health will suit me. I shall not be
afraid of humiliation, because there is no humiliation or discouragement greater than that I suffer
now living in this centre of European barbarism and ignorance.

At the same time, we have already seen how he tended to refuse good offers of employment;
moreover, it was not easy to see what work would be compatible with his state of health. At times it
seemed to him that he would never leave Recanati, but die there. However, extreme unhappiness did
not destroy his creativity: ‘Le ricordanze’ (‘Remembrances’), ‘Canto notturno di un pastore errante
dell’Asia’, ‘La quiete dopo la tempesta’, and ‘Il sabato del villaggio’ were all composed during his
short last visit of sixteen months to Recanati.
Rescue came in a way and a manner which he could accept. His friend Pietro Colletta, the
Neapolitan historian, wrote to him from Florence of a subsidy which had been arranged for
Leopardi’s subsistence in the Tuscan city. Colletta gave himself out to be merely the agent in the
matter, while the money came from anonymous donors. The subsidy lasted, as had been promised,
for a year. It was probably the fact that only the small group of anonymous donors would know of his
straitened circumstances and need for charity which induced Leopardi to accept, but sheer
desperation may also have played a part.
In Florence, where Leopardi arrived in May 1830, he did at last think that he was receiving his due
as a writer. It was there that the first edition of his Canti was published, but even before that a letter
to Paolina, sent with a portrait of himself, betrays an unwonted sense of satisfaction:

This portrait of me is very ugly: let it nevertheless be passed about down there, so that the
inhabitants of Recanati may see with their physical eyes (which are the only ones they have) that
“the Leopardis’ hunchback” counts for something in the world, where Recanati is not known even
by name.

There was also a final affair of the heart, if that is the right description for an idealistic and platonic
friendship with a married woman, Fanny Targioni Tozzetti, which did not – indeed by its nature
could not – lead to anything more intimate. However, the most important event in Leopardi’s life at
this time was the renewal and strengthening of his acquaintance with Antonio Ranieri, the best friend
he ever had.
Ranieri was a Neapolitan, eight years younger than Leopardi, who had first met him three years
previously. He was travelling for his education, supported financially by his father in Naples.
Suspected of being that dangerous thing, “a liberal”, he knew that, if he returned to Naples, he might
well not be allowed to leave it again, and so he continued travelling, not visiting his hometown even
when his mother died. He seems to have visited Leopardi at this time in Florence out of pity, but that
developed into a companionship of seven years, no less important for the fact that they seemed to
have so little in common.
In October 1831 Ranieri went to Rome to be close to an actress with whom he was smitten.
Leopardi also went to Rome, for what turned out to be only a few months, because he did not wish to
be parted from Ranieri. They took lodgings together there, as they had latterly in Florence, and apart
from a brief visit of Ranieri’s to Bologna, they lived together for the rest of Giacomo’s life.
It was while Leopardi was back in Florence in early 1832 that there occurred a rare comical
interlude. Towards the end of 1831 his father had published a work evincing extremely conservative
religious and political opinions, Dialoghetti sulle materie correnti nell’anno 1831 (Short Dialogues
on Current Affairs in the Year 1831), and it was generally believed to be the work of Giacomo, and
therefore to represent an astonishing change of heart. His response to the rumours – in a letter to his
cousin Giuseppe Melchiorri – was forthright:

My father himself will think it only just that I refuse to usurp the glory which is due to him… I do
not wish to be seen any more with the blot on my honour of having produced that infamous, most
infamous, most wicked book. Here everyone thinks that it is mine: that is because the author is
Leopardi, my father is unknown and I am known, and therefore I am the author… In Milan they are
saying openly that I am the author, that I have been converted just as Monti was.

The versatility, or adaptability to every changing requirement, shown by the poet Vincenzo Monti
was abhorrent to Leopardi.
In September 1833 Leopardi set off for Naples. In a letter to his father, explaining why he did not
go to Recanati, he claimed that Naples would be better for his health, especially during the winter. He
travelled with Ranieri, who was no longer afraid of returning to his native city. They arrived at the
beginning of October, and first impressions were favourable:

I got here satisfactorily, that is without harm and without accidents. On the other hand my health is
not very good, and my eyes are still in the same condition. However, I like very much the mildness
of the climate, the beauty of the city, and the lovable and kindly disposition of the inhabitants.

A year or so later his opinion seems to have changed:

…I can no longer endure this half-barbarous and half-African place, where I live in complete
isolation from everyone.

That comment is also from a letter to his father, to whom he was almost obliged to express a longing
for Recanati, so its sincerity is hard to judge. There are, however, other letters expressing the same
dislike of Naples and its citizens. He did have various schemes for moving elsewhere, and it is likely
that Ranieri did not encourage them since he himself was at home in Naples, but to some extent this
is the same old story wherever he was. Moreover, he was not “living in complete isolation”: there
was companionship and help from Ranieri’s family, especially Ranieri’s sister Paolina, who
eventually acted as Leopardi’s nurse. His health did improve in the southern climate. Perhaps the
truth is that he was not meeting friends with the same intellectual and artistic interests as himself, and
his health, however improved, was still bad. As always, he went on writing. He produced in these
years more poems for the Canti, including ‘Sopra un basso rilievo antico sepolcrale, dove una
giovane morta è rappresentata in atto di partire, accommiatandosi dai suoi’ (‘Upon a Bas-relief on an
Ancient Tomb Showing a Dead Girl in the Act of Departing and Taking Leave of Her Family’),
‘Sopra il ritratto di una bella donna scolpito nel monumento sepolcrale della medesima’ (‘On the
Likeness of a Beautiful Lady Carved upon her Tomb’), ‘Aspasia’ and ‘La ginestra, o il fiore del
deserto’ (‘The Broom, or the Flower of the Desert’).
Leopardi’s habit of complaining, which was a way of life with him, had in Naples an effect that was
very unfortunate for some involved, but also valuable for the provision of important biographical
details. Long after his death some of his letters were published and revealed his adverse opinion of
Naples and the Neapolitans. Understandably, Ranieri, now an old man, was upset by these revelations
and in 1880, to put the matter straight, he published his Sette anni di sodalizio con Giacomo Leopardi
(Seven Years’ Companionship with Giacomo Leopardi). The result has been a general vilification of
Ranieri: he wrote to justify himself and his sister (since he appeared to think they were included in
his friend’s attacks on the Neapolitans), and his justification is couched in terms too excessive to be
quite believable. He exaggerated the scale of Leopardi’s financial dependence on him, and there are
apparently other lies or false memories. These charges may all be true, but it is not difficult to defend
Ranieri. He went to Florence when he believed his friend was near death, settled his affairs in that
city for him, took him with him to Naples, settled him down there, with the help of his own friends
and relatives, and nursed him for years and during his final illness. Leopardi cannot have been an
easy patient. It should be borne in mind also that Ranieri was not a professional writer and, if he
misjudged the right tone for his own defence, that should not blind us to the good he did do. To
complain that he tells us about Leopardi’s ice-cream habit, but does not record any conversations on
artistic or intellectual matters, saying, as one critic has, that he was no Eckermann or Boswell, is
grossly unfair. Ranieri dwelt on the harsh, even sordid, facts of looking after a seriously sick man,
and that is not surprising, since it is what he had to deal with. Everyone wonders what Ranieri and
Leopardi saw in each other, since they seemed to have so little in common: perhaps Leopardi found it
relaxing to be with someone who did not question him and badger him à la Eckermann or Boswell.
Ranieri did preserve three striking additions to the Leopardi poetical canon – ‘Il tramonto della luna’,
‘La ginestra’, and two extra and essential lines for ‘Alla luna’ – which would otherwise have
remained unknown; he also produced the first complete edition of the Canti in 1845.
 To Ranieri we owe also a first-hand account of Leopardi’s death which, professional writer or not,
is very affecting and informative:

The soup was already served. He had come to the table more cheerful than usual, and had already
taken two or three spoonfuls, when turning to me, who was by his side:
“I feel my asthma getting a bit worse,” he said (for so he persisted in calling what were obviously
symptoms of his illness): “could we have the doctor back?”
This was Professor Niccolò Mannella, who had been the most assiduous and the most affectionate
of his doctors, a man of remarkable knowledge and of even more remark-able integrity, the regular
doctor to the Royal Prince of Salerno.
“And why not?” I replied. “In fact I’ll go for him myself.”
It was one of those days memorable for the number of deaths from cholera, and it did not seem to
me a time to be sending messengers.
I think that, despite all my efforts, a little of the deep perturbation I felt must have shown in my
face. Because he got up and joked about it and smiled; clasping my hand, he reminded me that
asthmatics were long-lived. I left in the very carriage which had been waiting to take us away [for
an excursion into the country]. I entrusted him to my people, and especially to my sister Paolina, his
usual attendant and nurse whom he rewarded so generously when he used to say that only his
Paolina of Naples enabled him to bear the great distance from his Paolina of Recanati.
I found Mannella at home, and he dressed and came with me. But everything had changed. So
used was our beloved patient to long and painful deadly illnesses, and so accustomed to frequent
intimations of death, that he could no longer distinguish the true symptoms of it from the false. And
not really shaken in his faith that his illness was wholly nervous, he had a blind confidence in being
able to alleviate it with food. So that, despite the fervent entreaties of the bystanders, he had tried
three times to rise from the bed on which they had laid him fully dressed as he was, and three times
he had tried to sit at the table again to have his lunch. But each time, after a few sips, he had been
forced, despite himself, to desist and go back to bed – where, when I arrived with Mannella, we
found him not lying down, but merely on the edge of the bed, with some pillows across it to support
him.
He cheered up when we arrived and smiled at us, and although his voice was somewhat fainter
and more faltering than usual, he argued gently with Mannella about his nervous ailment, his
certainty of alleviating it with food, how he was bored with ass’s milk, of the wonders brought
 about by excursions and his wish now to get up and go into the countryside. But Mannella, deftly
taking me aside, advised me to send at once for a priest, since there was no time for anything else.
And I sent immediately, and again and yet again, to the nearest monastery of the Discalced
Augustinians.
In the meantime – while we were all round him, with Paolina supporting his head and drying the
sweat which poured down from that broad forehead of his, and with me, seeing him overtaken by
an ominous and mysterious stupor, trying to rouse him with various kinds of smelling salts –
Leopardi opened his eyes wider than usual, and stared at me more fixedly than ever. Then:
“I can’t see you any more,” he said to me with a sigh.
And he stopped breathing: neither pulse nor heart was beating any more. At that very moment
Brother Felice of St Augustine, a Discalced Augustinian, came in: while I, beside myself, was
calling in a loud voice to my friend and brother and father, who did not answer me any more,
although he still seemed to be looking at me.

Leopardi’s old friend Pietro Giordani provided his epitaph:

to the memory of count giacomo leopardi of recanati

philologist admired beyond italy

illustrious philosopher and poet

comparable only to the greeks

who died at the age of thirty-nine

after severe and unremitting ill health

this stone was laid by antonio ranieri

who for seven years until the final hour

was with his beloved friend

mdcccxxxvii

Giacomo’s sister Paolina noted the death in the family records:

On the fourteenth day of June 1837 there died in the city of Naples this dear brother of mine who
had become one of the foremost men of letters in Europe. He was buried in the church of San
Vitale, on the Via di Pozzuoli. Farewell, dear Giacomo. When shall we meet again in Paradise?

There is a sour footnote to these accounts. In 1900, when the tomb was opened up, the paucity of
human remains found in it suggested that Ranieri had told another lie (since this could scarcely be
something he misremembered) when he said that he had saved his friend’s body from being thrown
into a common grave, the usual fate of those who died during the cholera epidemic of 1837. If so, it
was surely a kindly lie.
In 1937, the centenary of Leopardi’s death, his presumed remains were transferred from San Vitale
to the Virgilian Park at Piedigrotta to rest near the tomb of Virgil.

OceanofPDF.com
 Leopardi’s Works
Although Leopardi died young, at the age of thirty-nine, his literary career spans nearly thirty years.
In 1808, when only ten, he was required to make a presentation to his family to show what he had
learnt. Before the age of eleven he had composed his first poem, the sonnet ‘La morte di Ettore’
(‘The death of Hector’), and he had even translated the first two books of Horace’s Odes.
1809 saw the beginning of his years of “mad and desperate study”. During this time he produced
many works, including a translation of Horace’s Ars Poetica into ottava rima, a tragedy in three acts,
La virtù indiana (The Indian Virtue), and another tragedy, Pompeo in Egitto (Pompey in Egypt). At
the age of fifteen, when he began his study of ancient Greek (without a tutor), he wrote his Storia
dell’astronomia (History of Astronomy). In the following years he made many translations from the
Greek.
Other translations, poems, essays and tragedies followed, and many interesting letters, the earliest
of which to survive with a date was written in December 1810, and the last in May 1837, only a
couple of weeks before his death. It would serve no purpose to try to list all of Leopardi’s writings
here, but it is worth noting that the complete works edited by Walter Binni and Enrico Ghidetti in
1969, in two volumes, consist of nearly 3,000 pages in smallish print with double columns. Despite
the quality of so many of his lesser works, Leopardi’s fame rests squarely on three separate large-
scale achievements – his Canti, his Moral Fables and his Zibaldone.
The earliest poem to be included in the Canti dates from 1816, and two of the poems were written
almost twenty years later. The contents show, not surprisingly, various levels of poetic maturity,
obscured somewhat by the fact that in the Canti the contents are not arranged chronologically. There
were several partial editions in Leopardi’s lifetime, culminating in one in 1835 – the last to receive
his direct attention – which contained all the Canti as we now have them with the exception of ‘Il
tramonto della luna’, ‘La ginestra’ and lines 13–14 of ‘Alla luna’. These were included in Antonio
Ranieri’s posthumous edition of 1845, which there is every reason to believe followed Leopardi’s
wishes: all subsequent editions are ultimately based on this one.
Leopardi is one of those poets who seem to tempt their critics to discuss their “ideas” rather than the
poetry itself. This may well be because the verse in which the ideas are expressed is so accomplished,
so apparently simple that, while giving its reader great pleasure and satisfaction, it gives a literary
critic little to talk about. What is expressed in a poem matters, of course, but we must always
remember what Mallarmé said to Degas: poems are made not with ideas but with words.
Leopardi’s poems are crystal-clear; indeed, to a modern reader his refusal to be oblique can at times
be quite shocking. The poems frequently express the most common of commonplaces:

The happiest days

Of our allotted time are first to go.
Disease succeeds, and old age, and the shadow
Of chilly death.
[‘Sappho’s Last Song’, 65–68]

A much more complex reflection may be expressed even more simply:

If life is all so dire,

Why do we still endure?
[‘Night Song’, 55–56]

If the sheer simplicity of what Leopardi says, and how he says it, may puzzle the critic and baffle the
translator, the nature of what he says seems to affront many others. In an age like ours which often
seems to pride itself on its ability to “take a full look at the worst” – when only unhappiness is news
and an autobiography is nothing without a troubled childhood – it is fascinating to see people flinch
from Leopardi’s outlook and concentrate instead on what they think might have caused his apparent
pessimism. If it can all be put down to his poor state of health, the hunch on his back and his
generally unhappy life, then he can be accommodated in a slot already available in the mind as
another Romantic poète maudit. And then his poems become mere symptoms of a disease, and so
much the less valuable as poems. He foresaw this very clearly, and protested against it:

My feelings towards destiny have been and still are those which I expressed in ‘Brutus’… being
led by my researches to a philosophy of despair, I did not hesitate to embrace it fully; while on the
other hand it is only because of the cowardice of men, who need to be persuaded that existence is
worthwhile, that people have wanted to consider my philosophical opinions the result of my
personal sufferings, and that they persist in attributing to my physical condition what comes only
from my understanding. Before I die I am going to protest against this invention of weakness and
vulgarity, and ask my readers to apply themselves to destroying my observations and arguments
rather than to blaming my illnesses.
It is obvious that Leopardi does in his poetry and elsewhere speak frequently about himself, and also
about his family, but this is never merely for the sake of speaking about himself. One of the
observations in his Zibaldone is quite typical, in its small way, of his normal procedure:

My mother once said to Pietrino, who was weeping for an old stick of his which had been thrown
out of the window by Luigi: “Don’t cry, don’t cry: I would have thrown it out anyway.” And he
was consoled because he would have lost it in any case.

The consolation to be obtained from lack of hope is ubiquitous in his poetry. Other personal details,
when they appear, are similarly generalized.
Leopardi can deal interestingly with contemporary social matters, as he shows particularly in his
Thoughts, but in his poetry he is most effective when his generalities are concerned with matters
beyond the merely contemporary and social. For instance, after a description of Christopher
Columbus’s discoveries there is a comment, not on one man’s foolish optimism, but the general and
unavoidable metaphysical disillusionment of all men:

But the discovered world

Does not increase – it shrinks; so much more vast
The sounding air, the fertile earth, the seas
Seem to the child than to the man who knows.
[‘To Angelo Mai’, 87–90]

The subject is ultimately almost always metaphysical – the meaning of life itself. We see this again in
a meditation which begins with the lava-covered slopes of Mount Vesuvius:

Often, on these bare slopes

Clothed in a kind of mourning
By stone waves which apparently still ripple,
I sit by night, and see the distant stars
High in the clear blue sky
Flame down upon this melancholy waste,
And see them mirrored by
The distant sea, till all this universe
Sparkles throughout its limpid emptiness.
 [‘The Broom’, 158–66]

In both those passages Leopardi is prompted to his meditation by important matters – in the first by
Angelo Mai’s discovery of some lost books of Cicero, which leads to a consideration of a different
kind of discovery, and thence to Everyman’s exploration of the world in which he has to live and his
disillusionment; in the second the prompting comes from the contemplation of Vesuvius and its
destructive power. Such important matters – or others, like the always impressive sight of the moon,
or the premature death of a young girl – might lead anyone to wonder about humanity’s raison d’être,
but often with Leopardi the spur is something in itself trivial – a singing thrush, the looking forward
to a holy day, the end of a holy day, the relief when a storm blows itself out. In such poems, even
when the subject matter at first seems to be quite personal, the real subject is the metaphysical
question of humankind’s destiny and place in the world. Again, in ‘The Evening of the Holy Day’,
lament for the ending of a festival modulates into lament for the transitoriness of everything, and it is
that which is the true subject of the poem and gives it its power.
This is why the descriptions in Leopardi’s poems tend to be generic and even vague: they are there
not for themselves, as they well might be in many another poet, but for the thoughts they inspire: to
go into detailed description would detract from this. We might say that Leopardi evokes, rather than
celebrates, the countryside, and then not for its own sake.
If Leopardi’s poetry is not notable for precise descriptions – such as an English reader finds so
attractive in, to mention only poets of Leopardi’s own century, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson and
Hopkins – and if so much of his poetry consists of apparently simple statement, then where does its
virtue lie? One answer is suggested by the fact that, although he shows no sharp visual sense, his
hearing is acute. Time and again his meditations are provoked by sounds – of church bells, the wind,
the rain, the song of birds, people whistling or singing by themselves, or shotguns being fired in
celebration of a holy day. And this sensitivity to sound is apparent in the texture of his lines. This is
most obvious when there is a gentle onomatopoeic effect:

A gust of wind brings down the sounding hour

From the tower of this town.
[‘Remembrances’, 50–1]

Even more effective is when the sound of the line is devoted to an effect which is quite abstract, as in
the last line here, with its feline movement:
 …and [you] see what fruit
Morning and evening bring,
The silent and unending stealth of time.
[‘Night Song’, 70-2]

There are even such effects where we might expect the resulting impression to be primarily a visual
one. The strange caressing note of the second line here has often been noted:

The countryside clears up,

The river in the vale is visible.
[‘The Calm after the Storm’, 6–7]

Very frequently the strong effect of lines making simple statements, and composed of simple,
although often archaic words comes from the careful management of the syntax. Leopardi makes full
use of – sometimes even stretches in a rather Latinate way – the greater scope there is in Italian than
in English for varying the position of words and particularly building up powerful periodic sentences,
where no word is used until it can appear at its most effective.
Leopardi’s customary clarity does not mean that he is a poet where strong clear statement is all. Far
from it: he is frequently capable of effects which echo in the mind in that inexplicable and eerie way
which we think of as especially Romantic. One such effect can be obtained by a rapid movement
over long stretches of time. We find this in one of Shakespeare’s sonnets when, after expressing his
fear that his friend’s beauty, which seems unchanging, may be decaying, he says, addressing us four
hundred years later:

For fear of which hear this, thou age unbred:

Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.

There is a similar effect, but now going back in time, at the end of ‘The Eve of St Agnes’, when
Keats, after describing the lovers’ elopement in such a way as to make it seem as though it is
happening before our very eyes, says:

And they are gone: aye, ages long ago

These lovers fled away into the storm.

In ‘The Evening of the Holy Day’, after moving from the sadness at the end of the present holy day
to the disappearance of the ancient Romans, Leopardi comes back, not to the present, but first to his
own past, before returning to the present which, the final image implies, is itself fast disappearing:

All is at peace all silent through their world,

And nowadays we hardly talk of them.
In my first age, that age when holy days
Are desperately desired, then I remember,
A holy day once gone, I lay awake
In pain though feather-bedded; and late at night
A song I chanced to hear along the paths
Dying into the distance bit by bit
In this way then as now clutched at my heart.
[38–46]

This is not just an isolated effect in Leopardi: it is widespread. It strongly suggests what is often
taken as his last word on the subject of human life:

…all the emptiness of everything.

[‘To Himself’, 16]

Similarly to the Canti, the Moral Fables went through several editions in Leopardi’s lifetime, with
continual accretions. Its early history was only concluded after eighteen years by the posthumous
edition published, by Ranieri once more, in 1845.
Laughter is not a word that usually springs to mind when we think of Leopardi. True, it would be
tempting fate to assert that there is no humour in all the very many pages of the Zibaldone, but it is
hard to remember any. In the Canti the heavy irony of ‘Palinode to the Marchese Gino Capponi’ is
the nearest we come to wit or humour, and some may argue that does not come very near. But the
Moral Fables, a slighter work than Leopardi’s other two masterpieces, besides revealing Leopardi’s
gift for brief narrative, is a book full of witty turns – some cruel and some kind – and occasional
broad genial humour.
The humour can be sardonic, as in this conversation between a visiting celebrity and a cannibal:

prometheus: What nice kinds of food do you have?

savage: This bit of meat.
 prometheus: Is that farmed meat or game?
savage: Farmed. In fact it’s my son…
prometheus: Are you serious? You are eating your own flesh?
savage: Not my own flesh, but this fellow’s: it’s the only reason I brought him into the world and
took such care to nourish him.

There is also the ending of ‘Nature and an Icelander’, when a discussion of the nature of reality,
anguished on the part of the Icelander and adamant on the part of Nature, is cut short by the sudden
appearance of a man-eating lion, which promptly does what man-eating lions do and thus clinches
the argument.
Often the humour is very gentle and gently refreshing, as it is throughout ‘Prizes Offered by the
Satirographical Academy’, based as this is upon one simple incongruity – imagining that machines
can take the place of people. In the dialogue ‘A Pedlar of Almanacs and a Passer-by’, we are all the
object of genial humour – the naive seller of almanacs who appears to be oblivious throughout to
what is going on, the traveller (representing Leopardi himself) who laughs at the seller’s sales talk
but ends up buying an almanac, and we readers who cannot help but recognize ourselves as just as
foolish as those two. The humour here is kindly, even though it comes from the sheer frustration in
the nature of things. Even in ‘Frederick Ruysch and His Mummies’, whose tone is overwhelmingly
macabre, comedy is not far away.
All this is not to suggest that the Moral Fables are one long laugh. Although any reader coming to
these fables after Leopardi’s Canti is likely to be very often surprised at their tone, which can appear
light-hearted, he would recognize the same general, and generally pessimistic, obsessions as in all of
Leopardi’s work – the impossibility of true happiness in this world or the next, the insubstantiality of
human ideals of behaviour and the pervasive cruelty of Nature to her offspring. Leopardi has not
changed his mind, but only his tone of voice. There must be few critics now who would agree with
Edmund Wilson (in Axel’s Castle) that “Leopardi is a sick man and… all his thinking is sick”: that
naive equation of a man with his work is long out of fashion. But it is a pleasure to watch “the
Leopardis’ hunchback” (as he saw himself in the eyes of his fellow citizens of Recanati) being, with
all his unhappiness, not only energetic in his writing, but positively athletic.
The title Thoughts leads one to expect aphorisms and wit. There is certainly no shortage of either. A
good example of both is the sentence at the end of section 31: “Men are wretched by necessity, and
determined to believe themselves wretched by accident”. That statement, however, is the summary of
a discussion which starts simply from noticing one of the common habits of mankind, and its full
force is only evident when we read it at the end of that discussion. Unlike many writers of aphorisms,
Leopardi does not parade his wit. It would be a mistake to skim through his writings in order to pick
out the gems. Gems there are, but they are found scattered, apparently naturally, almost it would
seem inevitably, in discussions which are comparatively lengthy and which frequently originate in
some, at first trivial, observation.
The tone of this work, and an implicit suggestion as to how we should read it, is evident at its very
beginning:

For a long time I have denied the truth of the things I am about to say, because, apart from the fact
that they are utterly foreign to my nature (and we always tend to judge others by ourselves), I have
never been inclined to hate people, but to love them. In the end experience has persuaded, indeed
almost forced me to believe the truth of these things.

This is a not a mere rhetorical flourish. As we read, we see Leopardi developing his thoughts in such
a way that we are carried along with them and are ourselves frequently “persuaded, indeed almost
forced” to accept the conclusion at the end of the line of argument. The result, then, is not a display
of fireworks so much as a bright steady light illuminating the deeper significance of the most trivial
human affairs.
It is, in keeping with the generalizing tendency of this whole work, not usual for Leopardi to
include any personal details. He is thinking around things which we have all noticed, and personal
details would merely intrude. It is significant that the “little boy” of section 90 was originally, in the
source passage from the Zibaldone, “one of my brothers”. Similarly, one cannot help believing that,
had Leopardi himself lived to see Thoughts through the press, the details concerning Ranieri in
section 4 would have been omitted and the protagonist of that story would have been simply “a
young man”. The common twenty-first century tendency to read, or rather misread, writers by
moving from the work to the writer’s life and being, rather than outward to the world, is a danger of
which Leopardi was always aware and fought against, as we have seen before. When the writer is a
chronically sick hunchback, known to have a difficult relationship with his family and many of those
around him, and is distrusted for his “views”, then the danger of this trivializing misreading is very
great.
If the work were all in one key, then it would inevitably seem more personal than Leopardi intends.
But it is not. Among the many sharp, indeed cutting, comments on social behaviour, there is, for
instance, the discussion of anniversaries in section 13, which is humane and understanding in its
vision of human frailties and suffering. As another example of the variety of the work, there is the
long comic account (in section 20) of “the vice of reading or performing one’s own compositions in
front of others”, which in itself contains great variety of tone. The modest proposal to cure this vice,
with which the discussion ends, is, in its detailed ingenuity and in the poker face with which it is
presented, most reminiscent to English readers of Jonathan Swift.
The reader who is familiar with Leopardi’s other works will notice in Thoughts a rather different
emphasis. The best of his poems, and most of his Moral Fables, are concerned with the cardinal
feature that all that we value in this world, or in a putative other world, is illusory. Leopardi’s
Thoughts do not usually speak so directly of this ultimate emptiness, being concerned more with
human beings in their social life, but it can often be sensed at the back of what he is saying. We see
this in section 29, when he remarks, “Imposture is the soul, so to speak, of social life,” but then
moves to the clearly metaphysical conclusion: “Nature herself is an impostor towards man, making
his life lovable and endurable principally by means of imagination and deception.”
An example of the interpenetration of the two worlds, the social and the metaphysical, in Thoughts
is Leopardi’s quite frequent use of the term “the world”, as when he says in the first section, “I
maintain that the world is a league of scoundrels against honest men, and of the contemptible against
the high-minded.” Leopardi, who rejected both the Enlightenment belief in progress which was
fashionable in his day and the Christianity in which he was brought up, shows the influence of the
former in the fierceness with which he continually rejected it, but the influence of the latter in more
complex ways. He acknowledges quite explicitly (in section 84) the source of the expression “the
world” in the gospels, and in many respects the values which he opposes to “the world” are Christian.
It would, of course, be absurd to suggest that Leopardi was a believer, but the surprising thing is the
moral fervour he shows in treating of a world which he thinks of as an illusion. Beneath the surface
clarity and ease of reading there is a surprisingly complex set of attitudes, and nothing can do justice
to them but a sympathetic reading of the work itself.
The Zibaldone (Commonplace Book) was, like Canti and Moral Fables, also composed over a long
period: Leopardi first began to collect his scattered notes in the summer of 1817, and the last entry in
the book is dated December 1832. The 4,526 handwritten pages were included, after Leopardi’s
death, by his executor, the notary Alessandro delli Ponti, in his inventory of the writer’s effects. The
book was published sixty years later, in six volumes which appeared from 1898 to 1900 under the
title Pensieri di varia filosofia e di bella letteratura (Various Philosophical and Literary Thoughts),
edited by a team presided over by the poet and critic Giosuè Carducci. Several selections from it
followed; a further complete edition, more carefully edited than Carducci’s, appeared in 1937, when
it had the title Zibaldone, by which it is now known both in Italian and in English. This too is a large-
scale work which is important in its own right. Unlike many writers’ notebooks, it is easy to use,
being provided with indexes by Leopardi himself and by his editors. Even if one discounts the purely
philological sections, Zibaldone contains far more material than most readers can digest in their
lifetime. It is difficult to think of a comparable work anywhere.
– J.G. Nichols

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 Select Bibliography
Texts used for the translations in this edition:
Giacomo Leopardi, Canti, ed. Giuseppe and Domenico De Robertis (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori,
1978)
Giacomo Leopardi, Operette morali, ed. Cesare Galimberti, 3rd edn. (Naples: Guida Editori, 1988)
Giacomo Leopardi, Pensieri in Tutte le opere, ed. Walter Binni and Enrico Ghidetti, 4th edn., vol. 1
(Florence: Sansoni, 1985).
Giacomo Leopardi Zibaldone di Pensieri, ed. Giuseppe Pacella, 3 vols. (Milan: Garzanti, 1991)

Biographies:
Chiarini, Giuseppe Vita di Giacomo Leopardi (Rome: Editrice Gela, 1921 – originally published
1905)
Iris Origo, Leopardi: A Study in Solitude (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1953)
Album Leopardi (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1993). The text, by Rolando Damiani, is in Italian; the
book is lavishly and clearly illustrated.

Criticism:
J.H. Whitfield, Giacomo Leopardi (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1954). The best discussion of
Leopardi’s work as a whole.
J.H. Whitfield Alberti, Leopardi and the Modus Morendi (privately printed, October 1988)
Giovanni Carsaniga Giacomo Leopardi: The Unheeded Voice (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 1977)

Translations:
Geoffrey L. Bickersteth, The Poems of Leopardi. Edited with Introduction and Notes and a Verse
Translation in the Metres of the Original (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923)
John Heath-Stubbs, Collected Poems (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1988). This contains translations
of eighteen of Leopardi’s poems.
Leopardi: A Scottis Quair, ed. R.D.S. Jack, M.L. McLaughlin, and C. Whyte (Edinburgh University
Press, 1987). This contains the Italian texts of twelve poems, with translations into English, Scots and
Gaelic.
J.G. Nichols, Giacomo Leopardi: The Canti with a selection of his prose (Manchester: Carcanet
Press, 1994)
Patrick Creagh, Giacomo Leopardi: Moral Tales (Operette morali), (Manchester: Carcanet Press,
1983)

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