The Book of the Courtier
well and clearly,—we delight ourselves with obscurity; and calling it
the vulgar tongue, we try in speaking it to use words that are
understood neither by the vulgar nor yet by the gentle and lettered, and
are no longer used in any place; unmindful that all the good writers of
old disapproved words discarded by custom. Which to my thinking, you do
not rightly understand; since you say that if some fault of speech is
widely prevalent among the ignorant, it ought not for that reason to be
called custom or accepted as a rule of speech, and from what I have
heard you sometimes say, you would have us use _Campidoglio_ in place of
_Capitolio_; _Girolamo_ for _Hieronymo_; _aldace_ for _audace_; and
_padrone_ for _patrone_, and other words corrupt and spoiled like these;
because they are found written thus by some ignorant old Tuscan, and
because the Tuscan country folk speak thus to-day.[92]
“Hence I believe that good custom in speech springs from men who have
talent and who have gained good judgment from study and experience, and
who therefore agree and consent to accept the words that to them seem
good, which are recognized by a certain innate judgment and not by any
art or rule. Do you not know that figures of speech, which give so much
grace and splendour to an oration, are all infringements of grammatical
rules, yet accepted and confirmed by usage, because, although unable to
offer other reason, they give pleasure and seem to carry suavity and
sweetness to our very sense of hearing? And this I believe to be good
custom,—of which the Romans, the Neapolitans, the Lombards and the rest,
may be as capable as the Tuscans are.
36.—“It is very true that in every language certain things are always
good, such as ease, good order, richness, beautiful sentences,
harmonious periods; and on the contrary affectation and other things
opposed to these, are bad. But among words there are some that remain
good for a time, then grow antiquated and wholly lose their grace;
others gain strength and come to be esteemed. For as the seasons of the
year despoil the earth of flowers and fruits and then clothe it anew
with others, so time causes those primal words to decay, and use makes
others to be born again and gives them grace and dignity, until they in
their turn meet their death, consumed by the envious gnawing of time;
for in the end both we and all our concerns are mortal. Consider that we
no longer have any knowledge of the Oscan tongue.[93] The Provençal,
although it may be said to have been but lately celebrated by noble
writers, is not now understood by the inhabitants of that country. Hence
I think, as my lord Magnifico has well said, that if Petrarch and
Boccaccio were alive at this time, they would not use many words that we
find in their writings: therefore it does not seem to me well for us to
copy these words. I applaud very highly those who know how to imitate
that which ought to be imitated, but I do not at all believe that it is
impossible to write well without imitating,—and particularly in this
language of ours, wherein we may be aided by usage: which I should not
dare say of Latin.”
37.—The messer Federico said:
“Why would you have usage more esteemed in the vernacular than in
Latin?”
“Nay,” replied the Count, “I esteem usage as mistress of both the one
and the other. But since those men to whom the Latin tongue was as
natural as the vernacular now is to us, are no longer on earth, we must
needs learn from their writings that which they learned from usage. Nor
does ancient speech mean anything more than ancient usage of speech, and
it would be a silly business to like ancient speech for no other reason
than a wish to speak as men used to speak rather than as they now
speak.”
“Then,” replied messer Federico, “the ancients did not imitate?”
“I believe,” said the Count, “that many of them did, but not in
everything. And if Virgil had imitated Hesiod in everything, he would
not have surpassed his master; nor Cicero, Crassus; nor Ennius, his
predecessors. You know Homer is so ancient that many believe he is the
first heroic poet in time as he is also in excellence of diction: and
whom would you think he imitated?”
“Some other poet,” replied messer Federico, “more ancient than he, of
whom we have no knowledge because of excessive antiquity.”
“Then whom,” said the Count, “would you say Petrarch and Boccaccio
imitated, who were on earth only three days since, one may say?”
“I know not,” replied messer Federico; “but we may believe that even
their minds were directed to imitation, although we do not know of
whom.”
The Count replied:
“We may believe that they who were imitated, surpassed those who
imitated them; and if they were admirable, it would be too great a
marvel that their name and fame should be so soon extinguished. But I
believe that their real master was aptitude and their own native
judgment; and at this there is no one who ought to wonder, since nearly
always the summit of every excellence may be approached by diverse
roads. Nor is there anything that has not in it many things of the same
sort which are dissimilar and yet intrinsically deserving of equal
praise.
“Consider music, the harmonies of which are now grave and slow, now very
fast and of novel moods and means; yet all give pleasure, albeit for
different reasons: as is seen in Bidon’s[94] manner of singing, which is
so skilful, ready, vehement, fervid, and of such varied melodies, that
the listener’s spirits are moved and inflamed, and thus entranced seem
to be lifted up to heaven. Nor does our friend Marchetto Cara[95] move
us less by his singing, but with a gentler harmony; because he softens
and penetrates our souls by placid means and full of plaintive
sweetness, gently stirring them to sweet emotion.
“Again, various things give equal pleasure to our eyes, so that we can
with difficulty decide which are more pleasing to them. You know that in
painting Leonardo da Vinci,[96] Mantegna,[97] Raphael,[98] Michelangelo,
[99] Giorgio da Castelfranco,[100] are very excellent, yet they are all
unlike in their work; so that no one of them seems to lack anything in
his own manner, since each is known as most perfect in his style.
Reduced from Anderson’s photograph (no. 8148) of a part of the fresco,
“Zacharias in the Temple,” in the Church of Santa Maria Novella at
Florence, by Domenico Bigordi, better known as Ghirlandajo,
(1449-1494).
“It is the same with many Greek and Latin poets, who, although different
in their writing, are equal in their fame. The orators, too, have always
had so much diversity among themselves, that almost every age has
produced and prized a type of orator peculiar to its own time; and these
have been different not only from their predecessors and successors, but
from one another: as it is written of Isocrates, Lysias, Æschines,[101]
and many others among the Greeks,—all excellent, yet each resembling no
one but himself. So, among the Latins, Carbo, Lælius, Scipio Africanus,
Galba, Sulpicius, Cotta, Gracchus, Marcus Antonius, Crassus,[102] and so
many others that it would be tedious to name them,—all good and very
different one from another; so that if a man were able to consider all
the orators that have been in the world, he would find as many kinds of
oratory as of orators. I think I remember too that Cicero in a certain
place[103] makes Marcus Antonius say to Sulpicius that there are many
who imitate no man and yet arrive at the highest pitch of excellence;
and he speaks of certain ones who had introduced a new form and figure
of speech, beautiful but not usual among the orators of that time,
wherein they imitated no one but themselves. For that reason he affirms
also that masters ought to consider the pupils’ nature, and taking this
as guide ought to direct and aid them to the path towards which their
aptitude and natural disposition incline them. Hence I believe, dear
messer Federico, that if a man has no innate affinity for any particular
author, it is not well to force him to imitate, because the vigour[104]
of his faculty languishes and is impeded when turned from the channel in
which it would have made progress had that channel not been barred.
“Therefore I do not see how it can be well, instead of enriching this
language of ours and giving it spirit and grandeur and light, to make it
poor, thin, humble and obscure, and to try to restrict it in such narrow
bounds that everyone shall be forced to imitate Petrarch and Boccaccio
alone; and how, in respect of language, we ought not also to give
credence to Poliziano,[105] to Lorenzo de’ Medici,[106] to Francesco
Diacceto,[107] and to some others who are also Tuscans and perhaps of no
less learning and judgment than were Petrarch and Boccaccio. And great
pity would it be indeed to set a limit, and not to surpass that which
almost the earliest writers achieved, and to deny that so many men of
such noble genius can ever find more than one beautiful form of
expression in this language which is proper and natural to them. But
to-day there are certain scrupulous souls, who so frighten the listener
with the cult and ineffable mysteries of this Tuscan tongue of theirs,
as to put even many a noble and learned man in such fear, that he dare
not open his mouth and confesses that he does not know how to speak the
very language which he learned in swaddling clothes from his nurse.
“However I think we have said only too much of this; so now let us go on
with our discussion about the Courtier.”
38.—Then messer Federico replied:
“I should first like to say one thing more, which is that I do not deny
men’s opinions and aptitudes to be different among themselves. Nor do I
believe that it would be well for a naturally vehement and excitable man
to set himself to write of placid themes, or for another, being severe
and grave, to write jests; for in this matter it seems to me reasonable
that everyone should adapt himself to his own proper instinct. And I
think Cicero was speaking of this when he said that masters ought to
have regard to their pupils’ nature, in order not to act like bad
husbandmen, who will sometimes sow grain in land that is fruitful only
for the vine.
“Still I cannot get it into my head why, in the case of a particular
language,—which is not proper to all men equally, like speech and
thought and many other functions, but an invention of limited use,—it is
not more rational to imitate those who speak better, than to speak at
random; or why, just as in Latin we ought to try to approach the
language of Virgil and Cicero rather than that of Silius or Cornelius
Tacitus,[108] it is not better in the vernacular also to imitate the
language of Petrarch and Boccaccio than any other’s; yet to express our
thoughts in it well, and thus to give heed to our own natural instinct,
as Cicero teaches. And in this way it will be found that the difference
which you say there is among good orators, consists in sense and not in
language.”
Then the Count said:
“I fear we shall be entering on a wide sea, and shall be leaving our
first subject of the Courtier. However, I ask you in what consists the
excellence of this language?”
Messer Federico replied:
“In preserving strictly its proprieties, in giving it that sense, and in
using that style and those rhythms, which have been used by all who have
written well.”
“I should like to know,” said the Count, “whether this style and these
rhythms of which you speak, arise from the thought or from the words.”
“From the words,” replied messer Federico.
“Then,” said the Count, “do not the words of Silius and Cornelius
Tacitus seem to you the same that Virgil and Cicero use? and employed in
the same sense?”