The Book of the Courtier
“I cannot and in reason ought not to contradict any man who says that
the Tuscan tongue is more beautiful than the others.[81] It is very true
that in Petrarch and in Boccaccio are found many words that are now
discarded by the custom of to-day; and these I for my part would never
use either in speaking or in writing; and I believe that they
themselves, if they had survived until now, would no longer use those
words.”
Then messer Federico said:
“Indeed they would. And you Tuscan gentlemen ought to keep up your
mother tongue, and not suffer it to decay, as you do,—so that now one
may say that there is less knowledge of it in Florence than in many
other parts of Italy.”
Then messer Bernardo said:
“These words that are no longer used in Florence have survived among the
country folk, and are rejected by the gentle as corrupt and spoiled with
age.”
32.—Then my lady Duchess said:
“Let us not wander from our main purpose, but have Count Ludovico teach
the Courtier how to speak and write well, whether it be in the Tuscan or
any other dialect.”
“My Lady,” replied the Count, “I have already told what I know about it;
and I hold that the same rules which serve to teach the one, serve also
to teach the other. But since you require it of me, I will make such
response as I may to messer Federico, who has a different opinion from
mine; and perhaps I shall have need to discuss the matter somewhat more
diffusely than is right. However, it shall be all I can tell.
“And first I say that in my judgment this language of ours, which we
call vulgar, is still tender and new, although it be already long in
use. For since Italy was not only vexed and ravaged but long inhabited
by the barbarians, the Latin language was corrupted and spoiled by
contact with those nations, and from that corruption other languages
were born: and like rivers that from the crest of the Apennines separate
and flow down into the two seas, so also these languages divided, and
some of them tinged with Latinity reached by diverse paths, one this
country and one that; and one of them remained in Italy tinged with
barbarism. Thus our language was long unformed and various, from having
had no one to bestow care upon it or write in it or try to give it
splendour or grace: but afterwards it was somewhat more cultivated in
Tuscany than in the other parts of Italy. And so its flower seems to
have remained there even from those early times, because that nation
more than the others preserved a sweet accent and a proper grammatical
order, and have had three noble writers[82] who expressed their thoughts
ingeniously and in those words and terms that the custom of their times
permitted: wherein I think Petrarch succeeded more happily than the
others in amourous subjects.
“Afterwards from time to time, not only in Tuscany but in all Italy,
among noble men and those well versed in courts and arms and letters,
there arose some desire to speak and write more elegantly than had been
done in that rude and uncultivated age, when the blaze of the calamities
inflicted by the barbarians was not yet quenched. Many words were laid
aside, as well in the city of Florence itself and in all Tuscany as in
the rest of Italy, and instead of them others were taken up; and herein
there thus occurred that change which takes place in all human affairs
and has always happened in the case of the other languages also. For if
those earliest writings in ancient Latin had survived until now, we
should see that Evander and Turnus[83] and the other Latins of that age
spoke differently from the last Roman kings and the first consuls. See
how the verses that the Salian priests chaunted were hardly understood
by posterity;[84] but being established in that form by the first
founders, out of religious reverence they were not changed. Likewise the
orators and poets continued one after another to lay aside many words
used by their predecessors: thus Antonius, Crassus, Hortensius and
Cicero avoided many of Cato’s words, and Virgil avoided many of
Ennius’s;[85] and the others did the same. For although they had
reverence for antiquity, yet they did not esteem it so highly as to
consent to be bound by it in the way you would have us bound by it now.
Nay they criticised it where they saw fit, as did Horace, who says that
his forefathers lauded Plautus foolishly, and thinks he has a right to
gather in new words.[86] And in sundry places Cicero reprehends many of
his predecessors, and slightingly affirms that Sergius Galba’s orations
had an antique flavour,[87] and says that Ennius himself disprized his
predecessors in certain things: so that if we would imitate the
ancients, in doing so we shall not imitate them. And Virgil, who (you
say) imitated Homer, did not imitate him in language.
33.—“Therefore I for my part should always avoid using these antique
words, save however in certain places, and seldom even there; and it
seems to me that whoever uses them otherwise makes a mistake, not less
than he who, in order to imitate the ancients, should wish to feed on
acorns when wheat had been discovered in plenty. And since you say that
by their mere splendour of antiquity, antique words so adorn every
subject, however mean it be, that they can make it worthy of much
praise,—I say that I do not set such store, not only by these antique
words but even by good ones, as to think that they ought in reason to be
prized without the pith of beautiful thoughts; for to divide thought
from words is to divide soul from body, which can be done in neither
case without destruction.
“So I think that what is chiefly important and necessary for the
Courtier, in order to speak and write well, is knowledge; for he who is
ignorant and has nothing in his mind that merits being heard, can
neither say it nor write it.
“Next he must arrange in good order what he has to say or write; then
express it well in words, which (if I do not err) ought to be precise,
choice, rich and rightly formed, but above all, in use even among the
masses; because such words as these make the grandeur and pomp of
speech, if the speaker has good sense and carefulness, and knows how to
choose the words most expressive of his meaning, and to exalt them, to
mould them like wax to his will, and to arrange them in such position
and order that they shall at a glance show and make known their dignity
and splendour, like pictures placed in good and proper light.
“And this I say as well of writing as of speaking: in which however some
things are required that are not needful in writing,—such as a good
voice, not too thin and soft like a woman’s, nor yet so stern and rough
as to smack of the rustic’s,—but sonorous, clear, sweet and well
sounding, with distinct enunciation, and with proper bearing and
gestures; which I think consist in certain movements of the whole body,
not affected or violent, but tempered by a calm face and with a play of
the eyes that shall give an effect of grace, accord with the words, and
as far as possible express also, together with the gestures, the
speaker’s intent and feeling.
“But all these things would be vain and of small moment, if the thoughts
expressed by the words were not beautiful, ingenious, acute, elegant and
grave,—according to the need.”
34.—Then my lord Morello said:
“If this Courtier speaks with so much elegance and grace, I doubt if
anyone will be found among us who will understand him.”
“Nay, he will be understood by everyone,” replied the Count, “because
facility is no impediment to elegance.
“Nor would I have him speak always of grave matters, but of amusing
things, of games, jests and waggery, according to the occasion; but
sensibly of everything, and with readiness and lucid fullness; and in no
place let him show vanity or childish folly. And again when he is
speaking on an obscure or difficult subject, I would have him carefully
explain his meaning with precision of both word and thought, and make
every ambiguity clear and plain with a certain touch of unpedantic care.
Likewise, where there is occasion, let him know how to speak with
dignity and force, to arouse those emotions that are part of our nature,
and to kindle them or to move them according to the need. Sometimes,
with that simple candour that makes it seem as if nature herself were
speaking, let him know how to soften them, and as it were to intoxicate
them with sweetness, and so easily withal that the listener shall think
that with very little effort he too could reach that excellence, and
when he tries, shall find himself very far behind.
“In such fashion would I have our Courtier speak and write; and not only
choose rich and elegant words from every part of Italy, but I should
even praise him for sometimes using some of those French and Spanish
terms that are already accepted by our custom.[88] Thus it would not
displease me if on occasion he were to say, _primor_ (excellence); or
_acertare_ (to succeed), _aventurare_ (to run a risk successfully); or
_ripassare una persona con ragionamento_, meaning to sound a person and
to talk with him in order to gain perfect knowledge of him; or _un
cavalier senza rimproccio_ (a cavalier without reproach), _attilato_
(elegant), _creato d’un principe_ (a prince’s creature), and other like
terms, provided he might hope to be understood.[89]
“Sometimes I would have him use a few words in a sense other than that
proper to them, to transpose them aptly, and as it were to graft them,
like the branch of a tree, upon a more appropriate trunk,—so as to make
them more attractive and beautiful, and as it were to bring things
within the range of our vision, and within hand-touch as we say, to the
delight of him who hears or reads. Nor would I have him scruple to form
new words and in new figures of speech, deriving them tastefully from
the Latins, as of old the Latins derived them from the Greeks.
35.—“Now if among the lettered men of good talent and judgment who
to-day are found in our midst, there were a few who would take care to
write in this language (as I have described) things worthy of being
read, we should soon see it studied and abounding in beautiful terms and
figures, and capable of being written in as well as is any other
whatsoever; and if it were not pure old Tuscan, it would be
Italian,—universal, copious and varied, and in a way like a delightful
garden full of various flowers and fruits. Nor would this be a novel
thing; for from the four dialects that the Greek writers had in use,[90]
they culled words, forms and figures from each as they saw fit, and
thence they brought forth another dialect which was called ‘common,’ and
later they called all five by the single name Greek. And although the
Attic dialect was more elegant, pure and copious than the others, good
writers who were not Athenians by birth did not so affect it as to be
unrecognizable by their style and by the perfume (as it were) and
essence of their native speech. Nor yet were they disprized for this; on
the contrary those who tried to seem too Athenian, were censured for it.
Among the Latin writers too, many non-Romans were highly esteemed in
their day, although there was not found in them that typical purity of
the Roman tongue which men of other race can rarely acquire. Thus Titus
Livius was not at all discarded, although someone professed to have
detected a Paduan flavour in him;[91] nor was Virgil, albeit reproached
with not speaking Roman. Moreover, as you know, many writers of
barbarian race were read and esteemed at Rome.
“We, on the contrary, much more strict than the ancients, needlessly
impose certain new laws upon ourselves, and with the beaten highways
before our eyes, we seek to go along the by-paths; for in our own
language,—of which, as of all others, the office is to express thought