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Associazione Laureati in Lingue
Università degli Studi di Udine
LINGUE ANTICHE E MODERNE
MODERNE
Rivista accademica internazionale on-line
International refereed on-line journal
http://all.uniud.it/lam
ISSN: 2281-4841
Volume 4 (2015)
LINGUE ANTICHE E MODERNE
Direttore Responsabile: Renato Oniga
Vice-direttrice: Nicoletta Penello
Comitato di redazione (Università degli Studi di Udine)
Maria Bortoluzzi
Annalisa Bracciotti
Maria Luisa Delvigo
Piervincenzo Di Terlizzi
Anna Maria Perissutti
Milena Romero Allué
Fabio Sartor
Sara Vecchiato
Segreteria di redazione: Alessandro Re
Comitato scientifico internazionale
Dagmar Bartoňková (Brno)
Bernard Bortolussi (Paris)
Chiara Gianollo (Köln)
Adam Ledgeway (Cambridge)
Dominique Longrée (Liège)
Franc Marušič (Nova Gorica)
Jaume Mateu (Barcelona)
Giampaolo Salvi (Budapest)
Michael P. Schmude (Koblenz)
William M. Short (San Antonio, Texas)
Valeria Viparelli (Napoli)
Rainer Weissengruber (Linz)
Editore: Associazione Laureati in Lingue dell’Università degli Studi di Udine
Indirizzo del direttore e sede amministrativa
Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici
Via Mazzini 3
33100 Udine (Italia)
E-mail: [email protected]
ISSN: 2281-4841
Iscrizione presso il Tribunale di Udine n. 14/2012 del 13 novembre 2012
Rivista Annuale – Pubblicazione del numero: 30 novembre
CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
INDICE
Volume 4 (2015)
Articoli
VALENTINA PROSPERI
The Reception of Lucretius’ Second Proem: The Topos That Never Was.
5
THOMAS LINDNER
Garrula limoso prospexit ab elice perdix:
Textkritik und Wissenschaftsgeschichte am Beispiel von Ov. met. 8.23.
39
BENEDETTO PASSARETTI
This all-graved tome. A Reading of John Donne’s A Valediction:
of the Booke.
53
MARTINA ZAMPARO
Neoplatonism in Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
81
INNOCENZO MAZZINI
Greco-latino e inglese nella lingua medica italiana contemporanea:
convivenza pacifica o sopraffazione?
113
LORENZO RENZI – GIAMPAOLO SALVI
La Grande Grammatica Italiana di Consultazione e la Grammatica
dell’Italiano Antico: strumenti per la ricerca e per la scuola.
133
Recensioni
C. Burrow, Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity, Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 341.
(C. Guardini)
161
THE RECEPTION OF LUCRETIUS’ SECOND PROEM:
THE TOPOS THAT NEVER WAS
VALENTINA PROSPERI
ABSTRACT
This paper aims to reappraise the famous Lucretian proem of the
“shipwreck with spectator”. The analysis of early commentaries of the
poem shows that our current interpretation, as reflected by present-day
commentaries and scholarship, is biased by previous, Humanistic
readings. These early readings, in turn, pointed to supposed parallels
and antecedents to the Lucretian proem, which are not related to it.
Once we discard the supposed parallels, we can fully appreciate the
poignancy and singularity of the image, which in any case was not a
topos in antiquity. Literary responses to the image have usually taken
an antagonistic stance towards Lucretius and voiced the protests of the
shipwreck victim rather than the serenity of the spectator. The
question remains as to the significance of the image, which seems to
voluntarily shake and subvert common ethics. The answer is to be
found in Lucretius’ Epicureanism, which reveals the passage as being
devoid of any callous overtones.
1. OLD READINGS, PERSISTENT INTERPRETATIONS
Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis,
e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;
non quia vexari quemquamst iucunda voluptas,
sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est.
Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri
per campos instructa tua sine parte pericli.
Sed nil dulcius est bene quam munita tenere
edita doctrina sapientum templa serena,
Lingue antiche e moderne 4 (2015)
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despicere unde queas alios passimque videre
errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae,
certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,
noctes atque dies niti praestante labore
ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri.
O miseras hominum mentes, o pectora caeca!1
The shipwreck image that opens the proem to Lucretius’ second book
has never ceased to attract critical and scholarly attention since the De
rerum natura was rediscovered in 1417. So much so, that
investigating the passage’s classical and modern reprises amounts
almost to a literary sub-genre per se especially in the wake of
Blumenberg’s (1979) seminal study.
As present-day readers of Lucretius we can take full advantage of a
number of critical approaches that have dispelled the centuries-long
habit of reading the second proem as an expression of selfishness and
even cruelty on the part of Lucretius. Readings such as that by
Holtsmark (1967), or David Konstan’s (1973) study on Epicurean
psychology have long since reassessed the proem’s significance,
stressing that «the pleasure of the philosopher derives not from any
active sadistic delight in the difficulties faced by struggling humanity,
but from the uninvolved serenity which his own awareness and
knowledge of the true workings of the world enable him to embrace»2.
1
Lucr. II, 1-14: «Pleasant it is, when on the great sea the winds trouble the waters,
to gaze from shore upon another’s great tribulation: not because any man’s
troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive what ills you are free from
yourself is pleasant. Pleasant is it also to behold great encounters of warfare
arrayed over the plains, with no part of yours in the peril. But nothing is more
delightful than to possess lofty sanctuaries serene, well fortified by the teachings
of the wise, whence you may look down upon others and behold them all astray,
wandering abroad and seeking the path of life: the strife of wits, the fights for
precedence, a labouring night and day with surpassing toil to mount upon the
pinnacle of riches and to lay hold on power. O pitiable minds of men, O blind
intelligences!» (tr. W.H.D. Rouse, rev. M. Ferguson Smith, Cambridge Ma.
1992).
2
Holtsmark (1967: 196).
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THE RECEPTION OF LUCRETIUS’ SECOND PROEM
7
Nevertheless, the fact remains, as Holtsmark remarked, that the
negative line of reading has «long commanded serious attention»3, and
not only among scholars. The clearest proof of this widespread view is
that almost all literary responses in the classical and early modern past
stem precisely from this misinterpretation of the Lucretian text.
Although a long record of commentaries and critical readings may
have got us into the habit of considering the proem as controversial,
this does not rule out that the proem still manages to trigger strong
reactions in the reader. This disturbance only affects a portion of the
proem, i.e. its first two lines: the image that following Blumenberg we
now identify as the shipwreck with spectator. Our misinterpretation of
the image, due to some kind of psychological unease – that I shall try
to better define – has over time sparked off a series of interpretative
reading approaches that have infused misreadings of the text of
Lucretius in widely circulated commentaries. The result has been to
bias our reading of the proemial image even more and to reinforce our
misunderstanding of it.
Now I do not think it can be denied that to us the force of the image
is in large measure due to its unpleasantness. It may well be
unfounded, but it is a fact that the image has been for centuries read as
the very epitome of Schadenfreude, the “volupté maligne” that
Montaigne avowed we feel in the sight of others’ misery:
Nostre estre est simenté de qualitez maladives: l’ambition, la
jalousie, l’envie, la vengeance, la superstition, le desespoir,
logent en nous d’une si naturelle possession, que l’image s’en
reconnoist aussi aux bestes; voire et la cruauté, vice si dénaturé;
car, au milieu de la compassion, nous sentons au dedans, je ne
sçay quelle aigre-douce poincte de volupté maligne, à voir
souffrir autruy; et les enfans le sentent;
3
Holtsmark (1967: 193).
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VALENTINA PROSPERI
Suave, mari magno, turbantibus æquora ventis,
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem4.
It is highly unlikely that Lucretius had not foreseen the possibility
of this image sparking strong (mostly negative) reactions, and I shall
ask this question later on. But for now, I would like to better define
the chronological terms of the response to the proem.
In his rich and insightful contribution A. Rodighiero has identified
in Montaigne and his age the chronological boundary that led to a
different, modern approach on the proem, now seen as the expression
of selfishness and indifference and no longer – as was Lucretius’
intention and his first readers’ perception – as the expression of the
Epicurean sage’s detachment5. I would like to argue that this kind of
negative reading dates from the first appearance of De rerum natura:
there are a number of responses, polemical for the most part, from the
foremost Latin authors that have not been yet identified. And the same
applies for the first two centuries of Lucretius’ rediscovery in the
Humanism and Renaissance: broadly speaking, there was never a time
when the Lucretian proem did not elicit strong and negative reactions.
Actually, I would like to draw attention to the fact that many of the
traits that we find in present-day critical literature (namely, in
commentaries) on the proem, stem from early humanistic and
Renaissance approaches to Lucretius, written at the time of his
rediscovery. The identification of the continuous threads of critical
readings from earlier to present-day commentaries will help us bring
to the fore some interesting facts about Lucretius’ II proem.
4
Montaigne (1962: 768): «Our being is cemented together by qualities which are
diseased. Ambition, jealousy, envy, vengeance, superstition and despair, lodge in
us with such a natural right of possession that we recognize the likeness of them
even in animals too – not excluding so unnatural a vice as cruelty; for, in the
midst of compassion we feel deep down some bitter-sweet pricking of malicious
pleasure at seeing others suffer. Even children feel it» (tr. M. Screech: M. De
Montaigne, The complete Essays, London 1993, p. 892). On Lucretius’
conspicuous presence in Montaigne: Screech (1998).
5
Rodighiero (2009: 62).
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2. NEITHER METAPHOR, NOR PROVERB
One of the clearest signs of the unease widely shared by readers of the
proem is the notion, recorded by most commentaries, that Lucretius
himself must have been aware of the image’s awkwardness; and that
he has therefore tried to ‘amend’ or ‘soften’ the first two lines by way
of the third and fourth. Thus, in Ernout’s view, «les vers 3 et suivants
s’efforcent de corriger ce que cette exclamation égoïste peut avoir de
choquant»6. The same applies for Munro’s commentary, where we
read that Lucretius «tries to soften» the hardness of the image «by the
explanation of 3»7. Bailey, in his commentary, elaborates at some
length on the mode of the first lines of the proem. He does so
somehow reluctantly («There remain the introductory lines»), and
only after discussing the meaning of the proem in general without the
first lines8. When he finally deals with them, Bailey is positive that
most readers find them egotistical and «almost cruel»: an opinion that
he clearly shares and reinforces with the famous Baconian quote about
‘Lucretian pleasure’9.
6
Ernout (1962-64: vol. 1: 203).
Munro (1978: vol. 2: 118).
8
«There remain the introductory lines (1-13) which to almost all readers have an
unpleasant taste of egoism and even of cruelty. The Epicurean philosopher, secure
in his own independence, gazing on the troubles and struggles of his fellow-men
is an almost cynical picture; Bacon referred to it ironically as ‘Lucretian pleasure’.
Nor can it be wholly defended, for it is true that Epicurus’ hedonism was
essentially individualistic; the Epicurean must be freed from the pains of body and
mind, and it would no doubt enhance his sense of pleasure to observe the contrast
in the lives of others. Perhaps the only pleas which could be made in extenuation
are that in practice the Epicurean, like the founder himself, showed a large degree
of kindness to others […], and that it was the aim of Lucr. to make converts, so
that as many men as possible might share the Epicurean tranquillity» Bailey
(1950: vol. II: 797).
9
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning; Works 3: 317; cfr. Passannante
(2011: 128-29). See also the excellent discussion of this passage of Bailey’s
commentary in Konstan (1973: 3-8).
7
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VALENTINA PROSPERI
Arguing, though, that Lucretius introduces ll. 3-4 to «soften and
correct» the opening image10 is tantamount to implying a less than
perfect control on the part of Lucretius’ over his means of expression.
I actually believe that Lucretius deliberately chose the image because
of its poignancy and disturbing quality. Indeed, the force of the image
is such as to make the reader immediately attentive and receptive to
what follows. As Joachim Classen has pointed out in a classic essay,
Lucretius structures his arguments so as to immediately draw the
reader’s attention to what follows, in a manner that is strongly
reminiscent of Cicero’s recommendations for the proem11.
Attentos autem faciemus, si demonstrabimus ea, quae dicturi
erimus, magna, nova, incredibilia esse, aut ad omnes aut ad eos,
qui audient, aut ad aliquos inlustres homines aut ad deos
immortales aut ad summam rem publicam pertinere… nam et,
cum docilem velis facere, simul attentum facias oportet. Nam is
est maxime docilis, qui attentissime est paratus audire12.
Another reading approach common to all commentaries to the
proem and one that crept in at a very early date, is to interpret the
image as a proverb: as just another occurrence of a well-known
ancient topos. This reading approach is on a par with reading the
image as a metaphor and, I would like to suggest, just as groundless.
Actually, reading the incriminated image as a metaphor or a
proverb is an effective way to diminish its disruptive impact by
denying its literality. Just as a metaphor is a figure of speech in which
10
Barigazzi (1987: 278) suggests that ll. 3-4 are meant as a defense to possible
accusations of malivolentia.
11
Classen (1968: 89).
12
Cic. De invent. 1, 23: «We shall make our audience attentive if we show that
the matters which we are about to discuss are important, novel, or incredible, or
that they concern all humanity or those in the audience or some illustrious men or
the immortal gods or the general interest of the state… for when you wish to make
an auditor receptive, you should also at the same time render him attentive. For he
is most receptive who is prepared to listen most attentively» (tr. H.M. Hubbell,
Cambridge Ma. 1968).
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a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in
place of another, in the same way a proverb or adage is a saying often
in metaphorical form that embodies a common observation. Ancient
precedents and parallels to the Lucretian shipwreck can be found in all
the commentaries of the poem, but they do not hold up to closer
examination. However, I shall start out by discussing the metaphorical
reading, since of the two it is easier to invalidate.
The current interpretation of the shipwreck image as metaphorical
quite simply stems from a sort of reversed reading that improperly
projects the second part of the proem (ll. 7 ff. sed nihil dulcius est…)
onto the first (ll. 1-6 Suave mari magno… sine parte pericli) and that
finds no justification in the text. The metaphorical nature of the image
is nowhere to be perceived for the attentive, unbiased reader. The
image at ll. 1-2 is quite clearly not a metaphor: Lucretius presents us
with a real situation to ponder (watching a shipwreck), immediately
followed by a second, equally non-metaphorical, one (watching a
battle). The metaphor proper only appears at l. 7: nothing is more
gratifying than dwelling in the well-buttressed temples erected by the
doctrine of the sapientes; and from thence watching the wandering
and fretting of others below, lost in vain pursuit of intellectual
achievement and social prestige. If, in other words, the structure of the
proem were reversed and lines 1-2 and 5-6 followed 7ff, instead of
preceding them, then the harshness of the first image would be largely
diminished13. As of course would be its impact on the reader. Why
would the metaphorical image of the spectator watching another’s
shipwreck from the shore and drawing pleasure from his own
13
Cfr. Fowler (2002: 33): «Lucretius’ example thus already anticipates the point
of 7-13; the wise man safe on land is contrasted with the tempestuous
disturbances of the unphilosophical life».
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VALENTINA PROSPERI
contrasting secure state be so shocking14?
Moving now onto the more frayed question of the «image as
proverb» reading, it is an approach rooted in Lambin’s hugely
influential 1563 edition of the De rerum natura. Lambin was not the
first to compare the shipwreck image with other ancient loci; Giovan
Battista Pio in his 1501 commented edition remarked that a somewhat
similar concept had been expressed by Statius as well: «Similis est illa
de prudenti viro Papiniana sententia. Celsa tu mentis ab arce Despicis
errantes, humanaque gaudia rides»15. Lambin, however, is the first
commentator to offer multiple parallels for the shipwreck image, and
to actively suggest that Lucretius might have borrowed from other
sources, as we shall see later in further detail16. Today, Lambin’s list
of ancient precedents and parallels to the Lucretian shipwreck image
is reproduced with little or no modifications in all the major
commentaries to the poem. It does not, however, hold up to closer
examination. In theory, if the image were Lucretius’ personal
rendering of a common topos or proverb17 that had subsequently
14
See for instance Rodighiero (2009: 59): «È noto che negli esametri d’attacco
del secondo libro del De rerum natura l’evento descritto, osservato da chi dimora
in spazi asciutti e saldi, è soltanto metaforico. All’origine dello sguardo lanciato
dalla terraferma verso il mare in tempesta sono riconoscibili infatti gli occhi sereni
del saggio: dal margine sicuro di un’esistenza che non teme derive, egli osserva
tranquillo l’animato e agitato mondo circostante».
15
I quote from the edition Pio 1514, f. 43r. The reference is to Stat. Silv. 2. 2, 12932: Nos, vilis turba, caducis / deservire bonis semperque optare parati /
spargimur in casus: celsa tu mentis ab arce / despicis errantes, humanaque
gaudia rides. «We, worthless crew, ever ready to serve perishable blessings, ever
hoping for more, are scattered to the winds of chance; whereas you from your
mind’s high citadel look down upon our wanderings and laugh at human joys» (tr.
D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Cambridge Ma., 2003). On this passage see Newlands
(2002: 170-171).
16
Cfr. Lambin’s (1563: 101) comment on the proem.
17
Ernout, ad loc.; Fowler (2002: 28): «The proposition [Lucr. II, 1-2] has a
proverbial ring, and the general sense is paralleled in the Greek proverb ἐξάντης
λεύσσω τοὐµὸν κακὸν ἄλλον ἔχοντα (I, 81 Leutsch-Schneidewin, with their
note)».
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replaced all other existing versions by virtue of its poetical
memorability, this would not be an unicum in the De rerum natura.
The image of the poet as wise doctor, smearing the cup of bitter
philosophy with the honey of poetry, stemmed from an ancient lineage
of similar topoi that De re. nat. I, 936-942 obliterated and completely
replaced for the ensuing ages18.
It is true that in the group of ancient examples usually quoted as
parallels to the Lucretian proem, those predating the poem do share a
character of proverbial vagueness and sententiousness, but when
examined more closely they are only loosely related to Lucretius’
proem. They all lack either one or both of the elements that make
Lucretius’ image so distinctive: the sea as scenery; the mirroring of
the watcher’s serene state in another’s suffering. In other words, the
older passages pertain the same semantic area, as they are illustrations
of the concept of securitas, and as such they could be grouped
together as proverbs; however, they express this concept in different
fashions, only remotely reminiscent of De re. nat.’s second proem. On
the other hand, in the later ancient passages, those dating after
Lucretius, the wording is much closer to De re. nat.’s second proem
for the very good reason that they are all meant as responses to it, as
we shall see.
Let us start with the earlier passages, as listed by Don Fowler in his
commentary, which collects and admirably expands on previous
critical efforts. Fowler starts out by stating that De re. nat. 2, 1-2 «has
a proverbial ring»19 and immediately proceeds to give a list of parallel
passages, either literary or proverbial.
The first example he presents is the Greek proverb ἐξάντης λεύσσω
τοὐµὸν κακὸν ἄλλον ἔχοντα20. The general meaning is vaguely
reminiscent of Lucretius’, but the terms are so general as to lose any
specific resemblance. And while there is a visual connection between
18
Prosperi (2004: chap. 1).
Fowler (2002: 28).
20
Leutsch, Schneidewin (1839: 81-82); «Free from danger I watch another caught
by my troubles».
19
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VALENTINA PROSPERI
a serene watcher and an anguished watched, there is however no
mention of either shipwrecks or even of the sea.
The second example is a fragment from Archippus and one already
pointed out as the source for Lucretius by Lambin:
ὡς ἡδὺ τὴν θάλατταν ἀπὸ <τῆς> γῆς ὁρᾶν
ὦ µῆτέρ ἐστι, µὴ πλέοντα µηδαµοῦ21.
Here, as opposed to the previous example, the sea is the specific
scenario, but any reference to the ‘other person’ that contrasts and
mirrors the watcher’s serenity in his anguish is lacking.
The third passage pointed out by Fowler, following Lambin’s and
all subsequent commentators’ lead, is a fragment from Sophocles:
Φεῦ φεῦ, τί τούτου χάρµα µεῖζον ἂν λάβοις
Τοῦ γῆς ἐπιψαύσαντα κᾆθ̓ ὑπὸ στέγῃ
πυκνῆς ἀκούειν ψακάδος εὑδούςῃ φρενί22.
Again, the passage presents only a vague reminiscence with
Lucretius’ very specific situation. Here, we find expressed a feeling of
recovered calm and serenity that involves in some measure the sea and
is enhanced by the awareness of the rain pouring outside: but there is
no ‘other in peril’. Actually, I doubt that the Sophoclean fragment
would have ever been taken into consideration as a possible parallel to
Lucretius’ second proem if it had not been associated, starting, again,
with Lambin, with a passage that has much more in common with it.
And this is a Ciceronian quote from a letter to Atticus written in 59
BCE:
21
Archipp., fr. 43 K = PCG II, 45 «How sweet it is, o mother, to gaze from land at
the sea, without sailing».
22
Soph., TrGF, IV F636: «Ah, ah, what greater joy could you obtain than this,
that of reaching land and then under the roof hearing the heavy rain in your
sleeping mind?» (tr. H. Lloyd-Jones, SOPHOCLES, Fragments, Cambridge, Ma.
2003). The fragment is reported in Stobaeus; κἆθ᾽ is Meineke’s correction for
Stobaeus’ καὶ. See Fowler (2002: 28) for further references to Tibullus’ use of this
fragment.
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Iam pridem gubernare me taedebat, etiam cum licebat: nunc
vero, cum cogar exire de navi, non abiectis, sed ereptis
gubernaculis, cupio istorum naufragia ex terra intueri: cupio, ut
ait tuus amicus Sophocles κἄν ὑπὸ στέγῃ / πυκνῆς ἀκούειν
ψακάδος εὑδούσῃ φρενί23.
Once at the helm of the state/ship, Cicero has been forcefully
pushed out of it. Now that the helm has not slipped from his grasp, but
has been seized from him, he expresses the ardent wish24 of
contemplating his enemies’ failure/shipwreck, from the shore of his
forced inactivity. Of the group of classical examples usually quoted by
commentaries in connection to the Lucretian passage, this is clearly
the closest one in imagery (watching from the shore another’s ship
being wrecked). But Cicero’s passage leaves no doubt as to where the
source of pleasure lies for him: precisely in watching another’s
suffering at sea. Cicero’s dream is one of retaliation, not of
philosophical detachment, and it would thus make a dangerous
parallel to Lucretius’ image, in that it plays up the hostile meaning
that readers generally perceive in it, the one they see evoked under the
veil of denial in line 2, 3 of De re. nat.: «non quia vexari quemquamst
iucunda voluptas». The dating of Cicero’s letter means that we cannot
establish whether he had read Lucretius’ poem by then25; since, as far
as we know, there were no ancient precedents linking shipwrecks with
spectators, it is very tempting to read the letter to Atticus as the first,
23
Cic. Ad Att. 2, 7, 4: «I was long ago getting tired of being at the helm, even
when it was in my power. And now that I am forced to quit the ship, and have not
cast aside the tiller, but have had it wrenched out of my hands; my only wish is to
watch their shipwreck from the shore: I desire, in the words of your favourite
Sophocles, And safe beneath the roof/ To hear with drowsy ear the plash of rain»
(tr. E.S. Shuckburgh, London, 1899-1900).
24
As expressed by the anaphorical cupio: cf. Rodighiero (2009: 61).
25
As Rodighiero (2009: 61n) points out, Cicero’s letter dates from 59 BCE, while
Cicero’s famous letter to Quintus mentioning Lucretii poemata (Ad Quintum fr. 2,
9, 3) is of february 54: therefore it is hard to tell whether Cicero had read
Lucretius’ poem at the time of the letter to Atticus. On the letter as Cicero’s
possible reaction to Lucretius’ proem: Rostagni (1961).
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such reading of Lucretius’ proem. Although attractive, I am inclined
to disagree with this view. And this for the very good reason that
Cicero does quote a poetical text as a way of commenting on his less
than noble thought; but this text is not by Lucretius: it is the
Sophoclean fragment acquired as a ‘Lucretian parallel’. Why not
quote Lucretius himself if the De re. nat. were the source of the
passage? I think that, for Cicero, it was instead the well-trodden
Alcaic metaphor of the state as ship26 that triggered an image
outwardly close to the Lucretian one, but very dissimilar from it in
spirit. In Cicero, watching another’s shipwreck is not the accidental
foil that enhances the watcher’s detachment, but the very fulfilment of
a wish arisen from the opposite of detachment: an excessive
involvement with political life.
As I suggested above, the ultimate consequence of reading the
proem as commonplace (or metaphorical) has been to cloud our view
as to what we should see as actual ancient parallels of, or responses to,
Lucretius’ second proem, while at the same time leaving us unable to
perceive the presence of others.
3. DISTANCE AND COMPASSION
What makes Lucretius’ proemial image so disturbing is the fact that it
openly contradicts our ingrained belief that, as individuals, we share a
common inborn compassion for our fellow human beings. More than
that, the image invites us to ignore what is today and was in antiquity
perceived as the role of proximity in promoting human compassion. In
antiquity, it was a shared notion that our capacity to feel compassion
is in direct connection with the distance (that is lack thereof) from the
object that elicits it. The distance could be in space, in time or in kind:
26
See the introductory note to Hor. Carm. 1-14 in Nisbet, Hubbard (1970);
Huxley 1952; on the Ciceronian letter and Cicero’s attitude in 59 BCE:
Degl’Innocenti Pierini (2006).
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the lesser the distance, the stronger our feelings. This is what Aristotle
states in the Rhetoric (Rhet. 2, 8, 1386a):
For, in general, here also we may conclude that all that men fear
in regard to themselves excites their pity when others are the
victims. And since sufferings are pitiable when they appear close
at hand, while those that are past or future, ten thousand years
backwards or forwards, either do not excite pity at all or only in
a less degree, because men neither expect the one nor remember
the other.
The Aristotelian passage is quoted by C. Ginzburg27 in an essay
investigating whether, historically, the perception of distance has
affected «an alleged natural passion such as human compassion». The
same Aristotelian passage is also the starting point of David Konstan’s
organic discussion of ancient expressions of the emotion we identify
as pity28. Dealing as he does with Lucretius, it is all the more
surprising that Konstan does not include the De re. nat.’s second
proem in his discussion. But more on that later. For now I would like
to stress that within this perspective, Lucretius’ II proem suits the
Aristotelian criteria perfectly, as there is no significant distance
between the spectator and the shipwreck victim. They share the same
circumstances of time and kind; most significantly, they share the
same space, being, as they are, within sight of each other29. In other
words, Lucretius’ image pairs together the two factors that in
Aristotle’s view most elicit compassion in human beings: proximity
(«sufferings are pitiable when they appear close at hand») and selfprojection («all that men fear in regard to themselves excites their pity
when others are the victims»). Nonetheless, the image envisages a
reaction from the spectator that is the opposite of compassion. If this
is the root of the generalized distress felt by readers of the proem, it is
27
Ginzburg (1994: 48).
Konstan (2001: 128-136: Appendix: Aristotle on Pity and Pain).
29
Neurosciences have today confirmed the role of vision (that is of proximity) as
trigger of compassion: physically seeing pain in another living being materially
activates our brain to feel that same pain: cfr. Rizzolatti – Sinigaglia (2006).
28
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clear why even scholars and commentators may have unconsciously
tried to defuse the image by way of reducing it to topos or metaphor.
4. THE NAUFRAGUS’ PERSPECTIVE IN OVID
In the analysis of Lucretius’ proem and its legacy – philosophical as
well as literary – one side of the question has been rather overlooked,
and that is the naufragus’ own perspective in relation to the spectator.
As any watching process between two individuals is potentially
mutual, so, the direction of the serene watcher’s gaze towards the
shipwreck victim is one that can all too easily be reversed. The
watched can in turn become the watcher, but the drowning will not
derive any voluptas from watching those that idly watch them.
In order to know the feelings harboured by the shipwrecked person
as he is being gazed upon, we can turn to Ovid: he risked actual, nonmetaphorical shipwreck in his journey from Rome to Tomis and
recounted the special terror of impending death by water in Tristia 1,
2 (51-52: nec letum timeo: genus est miserabile leti. / Demite
naufragium, mors mihi munus erit30). Indeed the shipwreck imagery is
one of the semantic constants in all of Ovid’s poetry from exile and
one that is developed with especial consistency in the Tristia31.
Comparing one’s sudden downfall with a shipwreck is a common
topos of poetry and of ancient poetry; as it is expressing gratitude
towards a benefactor through metaphors of drowning and rescuing.
Less common is, on the part of the shipwrecked victim, contrasting
the rescuer with the spectator: the one who saves us from drowning
with the one who watches impassibly, unmoved by our plight, our
imminent death.
30
«I fear not death; ‘tis the form of death that I lament. Save me from shipwreck
and death will be a bonus» (Tr. A.L. Wheeler, Cambridge Ma. 1988).
31
On the topic in Ovid’s exile production: Claassen (2012: 14-15, 185 on the
prominence of the shipwreck imagery in Tristia).
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In the Tristia, drowning and shipwrecks clearly emerge as Ovid’s
metaphors of choice to evoke his downfall and subsequent exile. This
would not be particularly remarkable or original but for the fact that
the metaphorical shipwrecks envisaged in Ovid’s poems are never a
solitary event and always involve one or more spectators. These, in
turn, are never neutral witnesses of Ovid’s sufferings: their attitudes
and roles vary, from helpful, to culpably idle, to malignant and even
actively vicious. Thus, in Tr. 1, 5, 35-36 Ovid begs his few remaining
friends for help:
O pauci, rebus succurrite laesis
et date naufragio litora tuta meo32.
Whereas in Tr. 1, 6, 7-8 he contrasts the selfless abnegation towards
himself shown by his wife with the avid profiteers that would rob him
even of the planks of his wrecked ship:
Tu [his wife] facis, ut spolium non sim, nec nuder ab illis,
naufragii tabulas qui petiere mei33.
But it is in Tristia 5, 9 that Ovid offers the perfect commentary to
De re. nat.’s second proem from the naufragus’ perspective:
Caesaris est primum munus, quod ducimus auras;
gratia post magnos est tibi habenda deos.
Ille dedit vitam; tu, quam dedit ille, tueris,
et facis accepto munere posse frui.
Cumque perhorruerit casus pars maxima nostros,
pars etiam credi pertimuisse velit
naufragiumque meum tumulo spectarit ab alto,
nec dederit nanti per freta saeva manum,
32
«And so, few though ye are, run all the more to aid my injured state and provide
a secure shore for my shipwreck» (Tr. Wheeler).
33
«‘Tis thy doing that I am not plundered nor stripped bare by those who have
attacked the timbers of my wreckage» (Tr. Wheeler).
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seminecem Stygia revocasti solus ab unda34.
Commentaries to this passage35 usually refer to the opening lines of
Catullus 68, which are however a very weak match:
Quod mihi fortuna casuque oppressus acerbo
conscriptum hoc lacrimis mittis epistolium,
naufragum ut eiectum spumantibus aequoris undis
sublevem et a mortis limine restituam…36
The main difference to consider is of course that in Catullus the
authorial voice is the rescuer and not the victim of the shipwreck, nor
is there any mention of passive (pavid) watchers. The (anti-)model
behind the Ovidian passage is in fact De re. nat. 2, 1-2, as
demonstrated beyond any possible doubt by the presence of the
spectator(s) watching securely from afar37:
Naufragiumque meum tumulo spectarit ab alto: […] e terra
magnum alterius spectare laborem.
The verbal echoes and symmetrical construction (spectarit /
spectare; ab alto tumulo / e terra) bring to the fore the one changed
element that reveals Ovid’s vibrant anti-epicurean polemic:
34
«Caesar’s gift – that I draw breath – comes first; after the mighty gods it is to
thee that I must render thanks. He gave me life; thou dost preserve the life he
gave, lending me power to enjoy the boon I have received. When most men
shrank with dread at my fall – some even would have it believed that they had
feared it – and gazed from a safe height upon my shipwreck, extending no hand to
him who swam in the savage seas, thou alone didst recall me half lifeless from the
Stygian waters. My very power to remember this is due to thee» (tr. Wheeler).
35
However, Green (2005: 286), following Luck (1977: 314) points to Lucretius’
II proem: «The image of observed misfortune at sea inevitably recalls the opening
of Book 2 of Lucretius».
36
Catull. 68, 1-4: «That you, weighed down as you are by fortune and bitter
chance, should send me this letter written with tears, to bid me succour a
shipwrecked man cast up by the foaming waters of the sea, and restore him from
the threshold of death…» (tr. F. Warre Cornish, Cambridge Ma., 1988).
37
It has been remarked that the Lucretian spectator watches from the shore, not
from up high; however, at DRN 2, 9, despicere implies a downward gaze.
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naufragium meum / alterius laborem. It is worth noticing that it is not
someone else’s shipwreck that is being observed, but naufragium
meum, my very own, and there is no room left for contemplation: the
reversed perspective, with the metrical emphasis on meum, transforms
voluptas into anguish. The onlookers caught affecting compassion
(pars etiam credi pertimuisse velit) but not lending material help (nec
dederit nanti per freta saeva manum) are exposed as the hypocrites
they are.
But the shipwreck discourse has a further, surprising twist in Ovid’s
Tristia: just as the naufragus can return the spectator’s gaze and
become in turn the spectator from amidst the waves, so the situation
can be reversed, under new circumstances, with the original watcher
now drowning helplessly under the gaze of the former naufragus. As
Fortuna is inherently capricious, so it is not advisable to express any
but humane feelings at the sight of another’s shipwreck (Tr. 5, 8, 311):
… curve
casibus insultas, quos potes ipse pati?
Nec mala te reddunt mitem placidumque iacenti
nostra, quibus possint inlacrimare ferae;
nec metuis dubio Fortunae stantis in orbe
Numen, et exosae verba superba deae.
Exigit a dignis ultrix Rhamnusia poenas:
inposito calcas quid mea fata pede?
Vidi ego naufragium qui risit in aequora mergi,
et ‘numquam’ dixi ‘iustior unda fuit’.
Vilia qui quondam miseris alimenta negarat,
nunc mendicato pascitur ipse cibo.38
38
«Why do you mock at misfortunes which you yourself may suffer? My woes do
not soften you and placate you towards one who is prostrate – woes over which
wild beasts might weep, nor do you fear the power of Fortune standing on her
swaying wheel, or the haughty commands of the goddess who hates. Avenging
Rhamnusia exacts a penalty from those who deserve it; why do you set your foot
and trample upon my fate? I have seen one drowned in the waves who had
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Ironically enough, the Lucretian proem had resonated in an
unchallenged form at an earlier and happier time in Ovid’s life: in
Metamorphoses XV the Ovidian Pythagoras voiced his philosophical
detachment exactly in the terms applied by Lucretius to the Spectator:
… iuvat ire per alta
astra, iuvat terris et inerti sede relicta
nube vehi validique umeris insistere Atlantis
palantesque homines passim ac rationis egentes
despectare procul trepidosque obitumque timentes
sic exhortari…39
5. SENECA (AND VIRGIL)
As it has been noted, Epicurean philosophy did not preach to rejoice
in the plight of others, but simply to draw inner satisfaction from the
consciousness of one’s secure state and, in this, it differed from
Stoicism. Stoics, and Seneca, did recommend active intervention to
help out fellow human beings, despite the fact that Seneca condemned
misericordia as a weakness, aegritudo animi, in that the sapiens
should not be affected by another’s fate. If we turn to Seneca, we find
a consistent undercurrent of polemic against Lucretius’ Epicurean
stance as embodied by the second proem.
In the De beneficiis a strong fragment of Lucretian memory – one
that to my knowledge has gone so far unnoticed – is displayed in antiEpicurean and anti-Lucretian mode. Generally speaking, if we
laughed at a shipwreck, and I said, “Never were the waters more just”. The man
who once denied cheap food to the wretched now eats the bread of beggary» (tr.
Wheeler).
39
«In fancy I delight / to float among the stars or take my stand / on mighty Atlas’
shoulders, and to look / afar down on men wandering here and there – / afraid in
life yet dreading unknown death, / and in these words exhort them…»; Ov. Met.
XV, 147-152, tr. Brookes More, Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co, 1922. On this
passage cfr. Bömer (1986: 297).
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consider the De beneficiis40, we find that in it the shipwreck imagery
stands out especially in terms of its frequency. What is more
noticeable, this often occurs in contexts discussing the opportunity of
an active intervention on the part of the sapiens to rescue the
shipwreck victims. Thus in 1, 5, 4 Seneca examines the permanent
character of a good deed: «Ex naufragio alicui raptos vel ex incendio
liberos reddidi, hos vel morbus vel aliqua fortuita iniuria eripuit;
manet etiam sine illis, quod in illis datum est»41; 3, 9, 3 reflects on the
difficulty of establishing equality between two different benefits
«‘Dedi tibi patrimonium’. ‘Sed ego naufrago tabulam’»42. At 3, 35, 4
those rescuing the drowning are among the few that can give the gift
of life: «nec medico gratia in maius referri potest (solet enim et
medicus vitam dare), nec nautae, si naufragum sustulit»43. Paragraphs
4, 1, 37 and 38 discuss ungratefulness44 by telling the story of Philip’s
greedy soldier rescued from shipwreck by one generous stranger,
whom in return he robs of his estate. Paragraph 4, 11, 1-3 dwells on
the gratuity of benefits: we should not benefit others with the sole aim
40
A recent, succinct treatment of De beneficiis in Inwood (2008: 65-94: 76):
«Stoic ethics needs common sense in order to get off the ground, and in the case
of good deeds Seneca relies on ordinary common sense for important general
views about the nature of benevolence. His repeated claim that some particular
course of action is not a good deed just because it involves a quasi-commercial
exchange of services is supported primarily by the instinctive sense we all have
about what counts as generosity». For a thorough discussion of the treatise’s
sources: Chaumartin (1985).
41
«If I have saved a man’s children from shipwreck or a fire and restored them to
him, and afterwards they were snatched from him either by sickness or some
injustice of fortune, yet, even when they are no more, the benefit that was
manifested in their persons endures» (tr. J.W. Basore, Cambridge Ma. 1935).
42
«‘I gave you a fortune,’ you say. ‘Yes, but I gave you a plank when you were
shipwrecked!’» (tr. Basore).
43
«Consequently, you cannot return too much gratitude to a physician (for
physicians also habitually give life), nor to a sailor if he has rescued from
shipwreck» (tr. Basore).
44
Also focussing on ungratefulness is Letter 81 to Lucilius, which refers back to
De beneficiis (81, 3) and can be read as an appendix to it: Inwood (2008: 75n).
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of reward; the case in point is the naufragus that we help, never
expecting to see him again:
Ignoto naufrago navem, qua revehatur, et damus et struimus.
Discedit ille vix satis noto salutis auctore et numquam amplius
in conspectum nostrum reversurus debitores nobis deos delegat
precaturque, illi pro se gratiam referant; interim nos iuvat
sterilis beneficii conscientia45.
In 7, 15, 1 the intention of repaying a benefit is as laudable as the
actual repaying itself:
Etiamne, si in illa navigatione pecuniam, quam saluti tuae
contraxeram, naufragus perdidi, etiamne, si in vincula, quae
detrahere tibi volui, ipse incidi, negabis me rettulisse gratiam?46
Readers of De beneficiis are thus led to believe that no good deed is
more exemplary or laudable or indeed more common in the ancient
world than lending help to a shipwrecked wretch, such is Seneca’s
insistence on the imagery.
A comparative reading of Seneca’s works reinforces the impression
of uniqueness of the De beneficiis under this regard: nowhere else in
Seneca’s writings is the shipwreck imagery exploited or made relevant
with any comparable insistence. On this heavily oriented backdrop I
think it is impossible to mistake the polemical source referred to in De
ben. 4, 12, 2:
45
De ben. 4, 11, 3: «to a shipwrecked stranger, in order that he may sail back
home, we both give a ship and equip it. He leaves us scarcely knowing who was
the author of his salvation, and, expecting never more to see our faces again, he
deputes the gods to be our debtors, and prays that they may repay the favour in his
stead; meanwhile we rejoice in the consciousness of having given a benefit that
will yeld no fruit» (tr. Basore).
46
«Even if, during that voyage, I was shipwrecked, and lost the money that I had
raised to rescue you, even if I myself have fallen into the chains which I hoped to
remove from you, will you say that I have not repaid gratitude?» (tr. Basore). Also
dealing with the theme of shipwrecking, but not directly relevant to this
discussion: De ben. 1, 1, 10; 4, 9, 2.
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Adeo beneficium utilitatis causa dandum non est, ut saepe,
quemadmodum dixi, cum damno ac periculo dandum sit.
Latronibus circumventum defendo, at tuto transire permittitur;
rerum gratia laborantem tueor et hominum potentium factionem
in me converto, quas illi detraxero sordes sub accusatoribus
isdem fortasse sumpturus, cum abire in partem alteram possim
et securus spectare aliena certamina47.
This one passage deals with the central notion that we should do
good without expecting any retribution for it, and indeed in spite of
the possible consequences; and although aliena certamina here are the
legal battles of others, the immediate context is a pointed allusion to
De rerum natura’s second proem. In the phrase «cum abire in partem
alteram possim et securus spectare aliena certamina», it is not only
aliena certamina that responds to Lucretius 2, 5-6 («Suave etiam belli
certamina magna tueri / Per campos instructa tua sine parte pericli»);
securus and spectare are tiles of the same mosaic. With spectare
clearly echoing De re. nat. 2, 2, the very core of the controversial
Lucretian proem: «e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem»; as for
securus, securitas is the key-word of the Lucretian proem, evoked, if
not spelled out directly, throughout the first nineteen verses. As has
been pointed out, «[a]lthough Lucretius does not employ the term
securitas… the term is concretely discernible in the passage’s final
syntagma: cura semota (removed from care). The perfect participle of
the verb semovere, also built with the prefix (se-), allows this phrase
to capture the primary sense of securitas. In fact, Lucretius engages an
entire program of elimination underscored by se-, the prefix of
47
«So far from its being right for us to give a benefit from a motive of self
interest, often, as I have said, the giving of it must involve one’s own loss and
risk. For instance, I come to the rescue of a man who has been surrounded by
robbers although I am at liberty to pass by in safety. By defending an accused
man, who is battling with privilege, I turn against myself a clique of powerful
men, and shall be forced perhaps by the same accusers to put on the mourning that
I have removed from him, although I might take the other side, and look on in
safety at struggles that do not concern me» (tr. Basore).
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apartness: corpore seiunctus dolor, cura semota metuque – an
eradication of pain, concern, and fear that is achieved explicitly
through distantiation»48. Seneca seems to make masterful use of
allusive memory to pointedly reverse the meaning and message of
Lucretius’ second proem49: far from being desirable for the wise man
to protect and relish his own securitas unmoved by the plight of
others, he must reach out and help his fellow human beings, regardless
of how this might affect or even destroy his securus state.
What is even more relevant, in the same treatise Seneca quotes a
line from Virgil’s Georgics to illustrate the difference between
owning a good and owning the right to use that same good.
Conduxi domum a te; in hac aliquid tuum est, aliquid meum: res
tua est, usus rei tuae meus est. Itaque nec fructus tanges colono
tuo prohibente, quamvis in tua possessione nascantur, et, si
annona carior fuerit aut fames. Heu! frustra magnum alterius
spectabis acervum in tuo natum, in tuo positum, in horrea iturum
tua50.
The line quoted by Seneca (with the accidental inversion of
magnum and frustra), Georg. 1, 158, is no other than the most famous
and striking ancient response to Lucretius’ second proem:
Quod nisi et adsiduis herbam insectabere rastris,
et sonitu terrebis aves, et ruris opaci
48
Hamilton (2013: 101).
Lucretius’ name is notoriously very scarce in Seneca’s writings, where it
appears only five times: Dial. 9, 2, 14; Ep. 95, 11; 10, 68; 110, 6; Nat. 4, 3, 4
(Doppioni 1937: 13 n. 5). On Seneca’s multi-faceted relationship with Epicurus
and Lucretius: Schiesaro (2015).
50
De ben. 7, 4, 7: «Suppose I have rented a house from you; you still have some
“right” in it, and I have some right – the property is yours, the use of the property
is mine. Nor, likewise, will you touch crops, although they may be growing on
your own estate, if your tenant objects; and if the price of corn becomes too dear,
or you are starving, you will
Alas! In vain another’s mighty store behold,
grown upon your own land, lying upon your own land, and about to be stored in
your own granary» (tr. Basore).
49
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falce premes umbras votisque vocaberis imbrem
heu magnum alterius frustra spectabis acervum
concussaque famem in silvis solabere quercu51.
Seneca must have been aware that his Virgilian quote was a
mimicking of Lucretius 2, 2. This is after all «the clearest single-line
verbal echo of Lucretius in the entire Georgics»52: a fact that was not
unnoticed even by trudging pedant Nonius Marcellus in 4th century
CE53. In the Georgics, the context to this line is the aetiology of labor,
a section that has been endlessly dissected and analyzed. Gale’s recent
treatment opts for a syncretic approach, arguing that «we should read
the whole passage as suggesting that the Hesiodic, Lucretian and Stoic
interpretations of history and civilization are all possible ways of
viewing the world, none of which finally excludes the others, although
they cannot be fully harmonized»54. But I agree with Farrell and Otis
that Virgil «in large measure agrees with Lucretius’ conception of
labor» and that «in the face of grim necessity, the Epicurean ideal of
contemplation is in vain». I also share Farrell’s view that we should
consider this line not as «sardonic parody» of De re. nat. 2, but as «a
genuine cry of despair». Now, whatever intentions we choose to attach
to Virgil’s Lucretian echo, I think we can agree that in the Georgics
this line acts as a powerful boundary marker that differentiates
(deprecatingly, or regretfully) the Virgilian universe from the
Lucretian one by means of evoking it. For Virgil, the relationship
between the gazing and the gazed upon is superficially the same as for
Lucretius, with the former idle and the latter active. But the meaning
51
Georg. 1, 155-59: «Therefore, unless your hoe is ever ready to assail the weeds,
your voice to terrify the birds, your knife to check the shade over the darkened
land, and your prayers to invoke the rain, in vain poor man, you will gaze on your
neighbour’s large store of grain, and you will be shaking oaks in the woods to
assuage your hunger» (Tr. H. Rushton Fairclough, Cambridge, Ma 1999).
52
Farrell (1991, p. 184).
53
Non., p. 646 ed. Lindsay.
54
Gale (2000: 66).
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is completely reversed as (former) idleness has now thrown the
watcher in despair, while the watched reaps the fruits of his activity.
The immediate context to the Virgilian quote is of limited relevance
within the De beneficiis; here Seneca is illustrating a secondary point
of his argument: the difference, as mentioned before, between owning
a good and owning the right to that same good. But a closer reading
reveals that a critique of the detached life applies to this passage as
well. In this paragraph, the owner of the right to a particular good (an
estate, a house, a carriage) fails to actively exploit it and is thus forced
to contemplate the owner of the right (the tenant) thriving in his
activity. Seneca’s quoting Virgil’s line is then perfectly in keeping
with the rest of the treatise and with the anti-Lucretian mode that
informs it. As in the rest of the treatise he has stressed over and over
again the necessity of actively doing good deeds through a series of
shipwreck-centred examples and with one pointed reference to De re.
nat. 2, so here he is warning against other inactivity-related risks
through an immediately perspicuous anti-Lucretian quote.
The De beneficiis stands alone in Seneca’s oeuvre for its consistent
reworking and reversing of the shipwreck imagery as presented in De
re. nat.’s II proem55. Other Senecan works dealing with the problem
of pietas and active intervention towards fellow-humans make only
occasional mention of shipwrecks, albeit the stress is always on our
duty to offer our help to other human beings56.
55
For a discussion of Seneca’s attitude towards shipwrecks in his life and works:
Berno (2015).
56
Nonetheless, the Stoic approach to human solidarity did not fare much better
with Christian authors than the Epicurean approach. Stoics and Seneca
discriminated between pity (pietas) and mercy (misericordia) and warned against
the latter, deeming it as a disturbance (aegritudo animi) for the wise man; for an
overview of the topic and bibliography: Zincone (2001: 147-157); on Christian
rejection of Seneca’s approach: Konstan (2001: 121-124).
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6. LUCRETIUS’ SHIPWRECK WITH SPECTATOR: A STUDY IN SELF-PITY
In his discussion of the language of self-pity in the ancient world,
David Konstan points to a Lucretian passage to prove his theory that
the ancients, while «capable of feeling miserable and saying so», «did
not normally speak of pitying or having pity for oneself»57. However,
even if we were to agree with Konstan, that for the ancients pity
«presupposes a relationship between two parties, pitier and pitied»,
this does not rule out the possibility of self-pity, as a feeling triggered
precisely by the mirroring of one’s misfortunes in another being’s. To
prove his point Konstan refers to a passage in the III book where
Lucretius demonstrates that the fear of death is groundless by mocking
our tendency to project our inevitable death in a future when we –
dead – shall not be there to experience death.
This is the relevant passage:
ipse sui miseret; neque enim se dividit illim
nec removet satis a proiecto corpore et illum
se fingit sensuque suo contaminat astans.
hinc indignatur se mortalem esse creatum
nec videt in vera nullum fore morte alium se,
qui possit vivus sibi se lugere peremptum
stansque iacentem se lacerari urive dolere58.
Konstan’s remarks on this passage deserve to be reported in full:
«in the course of his demonstration that the fear of death is
groundless, Lucretius argues that even someone who avows that death
57
Konstan (2001: 65).
Lucr. 3, 881-887; this is the passage in Konstan’s own translation: «He pities
himself, for he does not separate himself from that other, nor does he sufficiently
distance himself from the body that has been laid out, and he imagines that he is
that other one and, as he stands near, invests him with his own sensibility. This is
why he is upset that he was created mortal, and he does not see that, in real death,
there will be no other self, who might be alive and grieve that he has been
snatched from himself and, standing by, suffer for the fact that he himself is lying
there and being torn to pieces or incinerated».
58
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VALENTINA PROSPERI
is final and that there is no afterlife nevertheless imagines, in spite of
himself, that he will be conscious of the pyre or of the animals that
will lacerate his corpse; as Lucretius puts it: “he unconsciously makes
a part of himself survive” (sed facit esse sui quiddam super inscius
ipse, 3, 878). Under such an illusion, Lucretius continues, “he pities
himself” (ipse sui miseret, 3, 881). The point is that to pity oneself,
one must imagine oneself divided in two: one self is in torment, while
the other stands by as an observer, itself unharmed» (my emphasis).
What is remarkable in this passage is not only, as Konstan surmises,
the fact that this situation is unusual or that self-pity is here expressed
through the phrase ipse sui miseret59; but the fact that Lucretius has a
full and clear understanding of the inner workings of self-pity.
Now, we could postulate that self-pity induced by dividing oneself
into two is the most extreme case of a more natural process, which is
common now as it was in antiquity: self-pity as self-reflection in
another’s sufferings60.
As Glenn Most notices, while it is true that there «is no word for
self-pity in Greek» and «there is only a surprisingly small number of
scenes of self-pity in the ancient Greek literature of the archaic and
classical periods»61, the emotion of self-pity is already present and
depicted, albeit rarely, in ancient Greek civilization. What is relevant
from our perspective is that the very first of the few ancient Greek
literary depictions of self-pity is one based on the same self-reflection
process satirized by Lucretius. It is the scene in the Iliad where the
female slaves mourn the dead Patroclus and respond to Briseis’
lament:
«So spake she wailing, and thereto the women added their
laments; Patroclus indeed they mourned, but therewithal each
one her own sorrows»62.
59
Konstan (2001: 67-68).
Ibid. 70 for a discussion on the logical status of pity and self-pity in English.
61
Most (2003: 59).
62
Hom. Il. 19, 301-302 (tr. A.T. Murray, Cambridge, Ma., 1924).
60
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Self-projection is then already perceived by Homer as the normal
process which enables self-pity through pity; and Lucretius can
ferociously deride it not because it is uncommon, but because it is the
norm, well known through experience to all of his readers, ancient and
modern. Within this frame, the second proem is like a condensed
version of the vitriolic attack on the fear of death: by offering to our
consideration another’s sufferings, Lucretius is warning us not so
much against pity as against self-pity.
Lucretius’ supposedly harsh attitude, as expressed in De re. nat. II
proem, rests in the end on his Epicurean contempt for death. Far from
ignoring how the image of the impassive watcher would impact on his
readers, he deliberately chooses to shock them. He is well aware that
the spectator and the shipwrecked person are one and the same,
interchangeable. But his philosophy demands that, as spectators, we
relish our separateness from the evils of the shipwrecked; and that as
victims of a shipwreck, we do not fear death in the least as –
doubtlessly – he would not have: Nil igitur mors est ad nos neque
pertinet hilum (Lucr. III, 830). It is Lucretius’ most difficult lesson,
and as such, it is only appropriate that he has chosen to draw our
attention to it in this difficult fashion. Readers ancient and modern
have invariably recoiled from the call for moral strength hiding in
plain sight in Lucretius’ II Proem. The fact that throughout the
centuries we have been misreading the image in all possible ways (as
metaphor, as topos, as a cynical display of man’s worst instincts) is
probably the best commentary on the moral frailty for which Lucretius
blames us.
Università degli Studi di Sassari
Dipartimento di Storia, Scienze dell’Uomo e della Formazione
[email protected]
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VALENTINA PROSPERI
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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1987 Lucrezio e la gioia per il male altrui, in «Filologia e
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1985 Le De beneficiis de Sénèque, sa signification
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Claassen, J.M.
2012 Ovid Revisited, London, Bristol Classical Press.
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33
Classen, J.
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Degl’Innocenti Pierini, R.
2006 I naufragi degli altri: Cicerone e gli otia del 59 nella
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Doppioni, L.
1939 Virgilio nell’arte e nel pensiero di Seneca, Firenze,
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Ernout, A.
1962-64 Lucrèce, De la nature. Texte établi et traduit par A.
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Farrell, J.
1991 Vergil’s Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic. The
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Fowler, D.
2002 Lucretius on Atomic Motion. A Commentary on De
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Gale, M.
2000 Virgil on the Nature of Things. The Georgics, Lucretius
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Ginzburg, C.
1994 Killing a Chinese Mandarin: The Moral Implications of
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Green, P.
2005 Ovid, The Poems of Exile – Tristia and the Black Sea
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University of California Press.
Hamilton, J.T.
2013 Security: Politics, Humanity, and the Philology of Care.
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Holtsmark, E.B.
1967 On Lucretius 2.1-19, in «Transactions and Proceedings of
the American Philological Association», 98 (1967), pp. 193-204.
Huxley, H. H.
1952 Storm and Shipwreck in Roman Literature, in «Greece &
Rome», 21, No. 63, pp. 117-124.
Inwood, B.
2008 Reading Seneca – Stoic Philosophy at Rome, Oxford,
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Konstan, D.
1973 Some Aspects of Epicurean Psychology, Leiden, Brill.
2001
Pity transformed, London, Duckworth.
Lambin, D.
1563 T. Lucretii Cari De Rerum Natura Libri VI. A Dion.
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doctore Regio…, Parisiis et Lugduni, Gaultier, Philippe &
Rouillé, Guillaume.
von Leutsch, E.L. – Schneidewin, F.G. (eds)
1839 Corpus Paroemiographorum Graecorum, I, Göttingen,
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Luck, G. (ed.)
1967-1977
OVIDIUS, Tristia, Heidelberg, Winter.
de Montaigne, M.
1962 Œuvres complètes, textes établis par A. Thibaudet et M.
Rat, Paris, Gallimard.
Most, G. W.
2003 Anger and pity in Homer’s Iliad, in Braund, S. – Most,
G.W. (eds.), Ancient Anger. Perspectives from Homer to Galen,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 50-75.
Munro, H.A.J.
1978 TITUS LUCRETIUS CARUS, De rerum natura libri sex,
Edited with notes and a translation by H.A.J. Munro, New YorkLondon, Garland (repr. of the 1908 edition).
Newlands, C.
2002 Statius’ Silvae and the Poetics of Empire, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Nisbet, R.G.M. – Hubbard, M.
1970 A Commentary on Horace: Odes Book I, Oxford,
Clarendon Press.
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VALENTINA PROSPERI
Pio, G.B.
1514 In Carum Lucretium poetam commentarii a Ioanne
Baptista Pio editi codice Lucretiano diligenter emendato…,
[Paris] Vaenundantur ab Ascensio & Ioanne Paruo.
Prosperi, V.
2004 Di soavi licor gli orli del vaso. Fortuna di Lucrezio dal
Rinascimento alla Controriforma, Roma, Aragno.
Rizzolatti, G. – Sinigaglia, C.
2006 So quel che fai. Il cervello che agisce e i neuroni
specchio, Milano, Raffaello Cortina.
Rodighiero, A.
2009 Fortuna di una citazione. Il lucreziano suave mari
magno, in «Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici»,
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Rostagni, A.
1961 Intorno alla data di composizione del poema di Lucrezio,
in Virgilio minore. Saggio sullo svolgimento della poesia
virgiliana. Seconda edizione riveduta e ampliata, Roma, Edizioni
di Storia e Letteratura, pp. 377-384.
Screech, M.A.
1988 Montaigne’s annotated copy of Lucretius: a transcription
and study of the manuscript, notes and pen-marks, with a
foreword by G. de Botton, Genève, Droz.
Schiesaro, A.
2015 Seneca and Epicurus: the Allure of the Other, in A.
Schiesaro, A. – Bartsch, S., The Cambridge Companion to
Seneca, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 239-254.
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Zincone, S.
2001 Echi senecani nel Commento ai Salmi di Ambrogio, in
Martina, A.P. (ed.), Seneca e i cristiani, Milano, Vita e Pensiero,
pp. 147-157.
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GARRULA LIMOSO PROSPEXIT AB ELICE PERDIX:
TEXTKRITIK UND WISSENSCHAFTSGESCHICHTE
AM BEISPIEL VON OV. MET. 8, 237
THOMAS LINDNER
ABSTRACT
The solution of the notorious crux OV. met. 8, 237 garrula ramosa
prospexit ab ilice perdix came along through secondary tradition
(limoso… elice) and has been attributed to Merkel’s first edition
(1850) ever since. A close look, however, on contemporary
scholarship will show that v. 237 had already been emendated some
ten years before.
1. AUSGANGSLAGE
Es kommt in überlieferungsgeschichtlicher Hinsicht nicht gerade oft
vor, dass eine von sämtlichen handschriftlichen Quellen und der
darauf aufbauenden Vulgata völlig einmütig tradierte Lesart durch ein
– erst spät entdecktes und hier nicht einmal dem betreffenden Autor
zugewiesenes – Sekundärzitat nachhaltig aus dem Text verschwindet.
Ein Musterbeispiel dafür ist Ovid, met. 8, 237: garrula limoso prospexit ab elice perdix.
Bekanntlich ist an diesem Locus conclamatus in der umfangreichen
kodikalen Metamorphosen-Überlieferung ausschließlich ramosa… ilice belegt, was sämtliche Ausgaben bis um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts naturgemäß auch druckten; der erste Metamorphosen-Text, der
limoso… elice bietet, ist Merkels Edition von 1850.
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THOMAS LINDNER
2. ZUR TEXTKRITIK DER STELLE
2.1. Die Handschriften
Für die gesamte handschriftliche Tradition (Ω) gilt garrula ramosa
prospexit ab ilice perdix. Freilich existiert eine einzige, nirgendwo
sonst aufgegriffene Ausnahme, namentlich (ramosa…) elice im
Hauniensis 2008 (h) aus dem 12./13. Jh. (allerdings h2, interlinear
nach Slater 1927: 35, 141). Dazu äußerte Richmond (2002: 472) die
kaum plausible Vermutung: «If this reading is traditional it shows an
interesting link with the quotation in the Auctor de dubiis nominibus
(?s. VII) (GLK 5, 587, 1) which has the superior limoso… elice» (vgl.
auch Richmond 2006: 132). Wenn hier nämlich tatsächlich eine direkte Traditionslinie bestünde, würde man auch bei ramosa eine Interlinearvariante erwarten; zu dieser isolierten Lesart in h vgl. auch
Hollis (1970: 64).
Dass das Epitheton in ganz wenigen humanistischen Kodizes (ς)
verderbt überliefert ist (clamosa, scamosa), wirft möglicherweise ein
schwaches Licht auf ein anderes zugrundeliegendes, von ramosa
abweichendes Adjektiv. Sowohl Heinsius’ Konjektur glandosa (…
ilice) als auch Housmans Emendation lamoso (… elice)1 sind freilich,
abgesehen davon, dass damit Hapax legomena nicht nur für Ovid,
sondern für die gesamte antike Latinität postuliert werden (*glandosus
← glans ‛Eichel’, *lāmosus ← lāma ‛lacuna lutosa’), auch in Anbetracht von bei Ovid mehrfach belegtem līmosus (neben privativem
illīmis) überflüssig. Auch eine Konjektur dumosa… ulice (s. § 3.2.)
erscheint wenig stringent.2
1
glandosa Heinsius (s. ed. Burman [1727], II, 567). || lamoso Housman (1894:
147 = 1972: 167f.); übernommen von Edwards (in ed. Postgate, Corpus poetarum
Latinorum, I [1894], 445), wozu ablehnend R. Ehwald in Bursians Jahresbericht,
Nr. 109, 29. Jg., 1901 [1902], 279f.
2
Zu līmosus ‘sumpfig’ s. ThLL VII.2, 1424, 8ff., v.a. 35f. (ad loc.) [Balzert], zu
ēlix (zumeist Pl. ēlicēs) ‘Wassergraben, Sumpfloch’ s. ThLL V.2, 393, 39ff.
[Rubenbauer].
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2.2. Die Textausgaben
Die Überlieferung ramosa… ilice erscheint nun in den Editionen bis
etwa um 1850, z.B. in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jhs.: ed. Gierig
(21804), I, 502; ed. Bothe (1818), 159; ed. Mitscherlich (21819), I,
523; ed. Gierig-Jahn (31821), I, 471; ed. Lemaire (1822), IV, 22; ed.
Baumgarten-Crusius (1824), II, 136; ed. Richter (1825), II, 171; ed.
Jahn (1832), II/2, 498; ed. Baumgarten-Crusius (1834), 302; ed. Bach
(1836), II, 21; ed. Loers (1843), 268; ed. Weise (1845), II, 180 sowie
ed. Koch (1851), 146.
Ab 1850, beginnend mit Merkels erster Ovid-Edition – ed. Merkel
1
( 1850 [u.ö.]), 151 – bis hin zur rezentesten Metamorphosen-Ausgabe
von Tarrant, findet sich fast nur mehr limoso… elice, so z.B. ed.
Lindemann (1854), II, 180, 228 (Anm.); ed. Merkel (21875 [u.ö.]),
156; ed. Siebelis/Polle (1880), I, 149; ed. Sedlmayer (1883), praef.
VII, 50; ed. Zingerle (1884), praef. XV, 141; ed. Edwards (in Postgate,
Corpus poetarum Latinorum, I [1894]), 445; ed. Haupt/Ehwald (1898),
II, 14, 389 (Anm.); ed. Magnus (1914), 297; ed. [Merkel2-]Ehwald
(ed. maior 1915), II, 231, (ed. minor 1919), II, 159; ed. Miller (Loeb
1916 [u.ö.]), 3/I, 422, ed. Miller/Goold (Loeb 1977 [u.ö.]), 3/I, 422;
ed. Fabbri (Paraviana 1918-23), II, 58, 142; ed. Lafaye (Budé 1928
[u.ö.]), II, 68; ed. Anderson (Teubneriana 1977 [u.ö.]), 182; v.
Albrecht 1977: 69, 294 (Anm.); ed. Fedeli/Galasso (Einaudi 2000), II,
340, 1155 (Komm.); ed. Tarrant (Oxford 2004), 224.
Nur wenige neuere Ausgaben perpetuieren die alte Lesart ramosa…
ilice, z.B. edd. Riese (11872), II, 131, (21889), II, 131; ed. Haupt/Korn
(1876), 10; ed. Korn (1880), 172. In jüngerer Zeit sind mir nur ed.
Ruiz de Elvira (Madrid 1964 [u.ö.]), II, 104 sowie ed. Hollis (1970),
9, 64f. (Komm.) bekannt (vgl. Hollis 1970: 64: «after much hesitation
I retain the manuscript reading»; seine Argumentation «Apart from the
rarity of ‘elix’, the picture thus produced is not aesthetically very
pleasing» überzeugt m.E. aber nicht wirklich). Erst kürzlich sprach
sich aber auch Mark Possanza in seiner Rezension von Tarrants
Ausgabe (in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2005.06.27, online:
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42
THOMAS LINDNER
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2005/2005-06-27.html) wiederum für die
Vulgataversion aus.3
3. WISSENSCHAFTSGESCHICHTLICHE ERKENNTNISSE
3.1. Die Exegese der Stelle vor Haupt (1838)
Freilich war den Ovid-Exegeten schon bald aufgefallen, dass der
Dichter hier einem faktischen Irrtum unterliegen müsse, da, wie er ja
selbst wenige Verse später beschreibt (256ff.), Rebhühner sich nur am
Boden aufhalten. Exemplarisch dafür sei Burmans Kommentar
angeführt, der Ovid aber gleich darauf mit einer naiv anmutenden
Erklärung wiederum entlastet:
an vero apte perdicem ex arbore prospicientem fingat Poëta,
dijudicandum venatoribus relinquo, qui hanc avem semper humi
residentem offendere solent. nullum saltem audivi dicere se
vidisse perdicem in arbore, quae corporis gravitate prohibetur
sublime petere, et in terra facit cunabula. vid. Plin. x. 33. et ipse
Noster mox vs. 256 et seqq. agnoscit, et velut excusat se Poëta,
quod prima illa et unica tunc avis sublimius volaverit, reliquae
deinde humilius4.
3
An neueren textkritischen Diskussionen der Stelle (seit ca. 1900) sind zu nennen:
Magnus (1905: 239, Anm. 1: doppelte Rezension?; 1925: 117f.); Müller (1906:
82, Anm. 260); C. Hosius, in Sokrates, 68 (1914), 436; ed. Lafaye (1928), I, praef.
XXII; Pasquali (1934: 390, Anm. 2); Mendner (1939: 74); Wieacker (1960: 29,
Anm. 18); Lenz (1967: 61); Hollis (1970: 64f.); Anderson (1972: 355); Bömer
(1977: 84f.); J. Núñez González, in Minerva, 4 (1988), 316f.; Galasso in ed.
Fedeli/Galasso (2000), II, 1155; Richmond (2002: 472; 2006: 132); Liberman
(2004: 57).
4
P. Burmannus, ed. 1727, II, 567f. ad loc. – Eine naturgeschichtliche „Autorität”
machte dafür Bach (ed. 1836, II, 21) geltend: „ab ilice perdix wie mit 256 ff. zu
vereinigen? Chandler bei Schneid. zu Ael. H. N. III, 35 bezeugt, daß das Rebhuhn auch auf Bäumen sitzend singe. Oder redet Ov. nur aus dem mythischen,
nicht naturhistorischen Gesichtspuncte?” Vgl. auch Kindscher in Zeitschrift für
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Noch in den allerletzten Ausläufern der Aetas Heinsio-Burmanniana
findet sich Ähnliches, so etwa in den erklärenden Noten der Metamorphosen-Ausgabe von Vitus Loers:
Ceterum sunt, qui reprehendant poetam, quod perdicem ex
arbore prospicientem fingat, cum haec avis semper humi versetur, et in terra faciat cubilia. Neque hoc latuit Nasonem, qui v.
256. hanc avis indolem e Perdicis casu explicat. Sed nunc
transitum quaerebat (ed. 1843, 268 ad loc.).
3.2. Ein unbeachtetes Intermezzo: Sprengels dumosa… ulice (1815)
Hollis (1970: 64f.) referiert eine offensichtlich bis dahin unpublizierte,
wohl mündliche Konjektur seines Lehrers R.G.M. Nisbet (ramoso…
ulice) und bezeichnet sie, «if emendation is thought necessary», als
«attractive suggestion» (zustimmend dazu S. Döpp, Gnomon 44
[1972], 566). Meine Recherchen haben freilich zutage gefördert, dass
die Konjektur ulice (zu ūlex ‛rosmarinartiger Strauch’) bereits lange
vor Nisbet, ja sogar noch vor der Entdeckung von limoso… elice
geäußert wurde, und zwar mit ausführlicher Begründung von
Christian Konrad Sprengel (1815: 33-37); er änderte den Ovid-Vers in
garrula dumosa prospexit ab ulice perdix:
Ovid würde einen unverzeihlichen Fehler begangen haben, wenn
er hier gesagt hätte, daß das Rebhuhn auf einer immergrünen
Eiche, die Horaz Epod. XV, 5. einen hohen Baum nennt, gesessen
habe, da er selbst weiter unten sagt, daß dieser Vogel nicht hoch
fliege, und in Zäunen und Hecken brüte. Da wir aber in seinen
übrigen Erzählungen so grobe Widersprüche nicht antreffen, so
ist es wahrscheinlich, daß er etwas anderes geschrieben habe, als
was wir hier lesen. In ilice muß der Nahme eines Strauchs verborgen liegen, ein selten vorkommendes Wort, welches einem
das Gymnasialwesen, 1854, 231. – Zur mythologischen bzw. zoologischen Interpretation von lat. perdix ‘Rebhuhn’ vgl. Gerland (1871: 1–28) und Bömer (1977:
83f.).
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THOMAS LINDNER
Abschreiber unbekannt war, und deswegen von ihm in ilice verwandelt wurde. Und was das clamosa betrifft, welches Eine Handschrift anstatt ramosa hat, so ist es zwar ungereimt, verdient aber
doch unsere Aufmerksamkeit, weil es vielleicht aus dem rechten
Wort entstanden seyn kann. Verfolgen wir diese Spur, so kömmt
uns gleichsam von selbst entgegen dumosa ab vlice […] Da indessen Plinius sagt, der Vlex sey ein dorniger oder stachlicher
Strauch, so nehme ich meine Verbesserung nicht zurück, weil
Ovid […] vom Vlex, keinesweges aber von der immergrünen
Eiche geredet haben kann. (Original in Fraktur; zitiert in der
Orthographie des Originals; Sprengel 1815: 33f., 37)
Diese durchaus ingeniöse Argumentation, die die definitive Lesart
unter anderen Vorzeichen gewissermaßen schon vorausgeahnt hatte,
schlug sich freilich in keinem Metamorphosen-Text nieder: Sprengels
Konjektur hatte keine einzige Ausgabe ad loc. aufgegriffen oder
referiert; dies vermutlich deshalb, weil sie von der zeitgenössischen
Kritik ziemlich verhalten rezipiert wurde5.
3.3. Haupt (1838) und die Folgen
Nun begegnet aber in dem bereits zitierten frühmittelalterlichen
Grammatikertraktat (De generibus nominum oder De dubiis nominibus, 5, 568ff GLK) ein ohne weitere Spezifikation dem Varro zugeschriebenes Fragment, das dem gegenständlichen Ovid-Vers bis auf
eine metrische Entstellung bestens entspricht: «Perdix generis feminini, ut Varro “garrula limoso prospicit elice perdix”» (5, 587, 1f
GLK). Jenes mehr oder weniger alphabetisch geordnete, auf die
Nominalgenera abzielende Glossar wurde freilich erst in den späten
1830er Jahren von Moriz Haupt (wieder-)entdeckt und von ihm im
Jahr 1838 veröffentlicht. Er nahm bei der Erklärung der Stelle auch
5
Vgl. Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, 1816, 2. Bd., 189; Jenaische allgemeine
Literatur-Zeitung, 13. Jg., 1816, 1. Bd., 252, 256; ed. Gierig-Jahn (31821), I,
praef. IX, Anm. 8 sowie Fuss (1823/1824: 15).
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45
sogleich die Korrektur der Zitatidentifikation vor; fehlerhafte
Zuweisungen insbesondere an Varro treten in diesem Werk ohnedies
öfters auf.6 Die sich daraus entspinnende Debatte war dem großen
Neuerer der Ovid-Kritik Rudolf Merkel sicherlich bekannt. Denn wie
ja schon öfters erwähnt, findet sich bereits in dessen erster
Metamorphosen-Ausgabe (ed. 1850, mit zahlreichen Nachdrucken)
der heutige, im Aufsatztitel zitierte Textus receptus. (Hätte Burman,
nebenbei bemerkt, jenes Grammatikerzitat gekannt, wäre er mit
dessen Version sicherlich höchst zufrieden gewesen.) Weder aber in
der Praefatio der ersten Auflage von 1850 noch im kritischen
Vorspann der revidierten zweiten Auflage von 1875 rechtfertigte
Merkel diese neue Lesung, woraus folgt, dass sie um die Jahrhundertmitte bereits Opinio communis gewesen sein muss. Im
Variantenapparat der großen Edition von Hugo Magnus (ed. 1914,
297) wird limoso prospexit ab elice perdix mit «237 sic Merkel»
explizit ihm zugeschrieben;7 die jüngsten Ausgaben von Anderson und
Tarrant geben darüber keine Auskunft.
Aus diesem Grund erscheint es mir durchaus angebracht, den
tatsächlichen Verlauf der Diskussion zwischen 1838, der Erstveröffentlichung des Zitats, und 1850, der Erstaufnahme der Neulesung in einen offiziellen Ovid-Text, nachzuzeichnen. Es wird augenfällig werden, dass nicht primär Merkel das Verdienst zukommt, met.
8.237 auf diese neue textliche Grundlage gestellt zu haben, wovon die
bisherige, vor allem rezentere Exegese unhinterfragt ausgeht.
Im Kommentar seiner Ausgabe von De generibus nominum8 von
1838 schrieb Moriz Haupt:
6
Vgl. ed. Magnus (1914), 297, Testimonienapparat (met. 2.494, 825, 8.237).
Vgl. auch Cook (1914: 727, Anm. 3); weiters: Magnus (1925: 117); Lafaye (ed.
1928), I, praef. XXII; Slater (1927: 35, 141); Bömer (1977: 84f.), v. Albrecht
(1977: 294) und Galasso in ed. Fedeli/Galasso (2000), II, 1155.
8
Es handelt sich dabei um eine Sammelausgabe von Ovids Halieutica, Grattius’
und Nemesians Cynegetica sowie etlichen Inedita, darunter eben De generibus
nominum.
7
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THOMAS LINDNER
20. Varro] Varronem in admirandis perdicas Boeoticos dixisse
refert Nonius p. 218 M. sed qui sequitur uersiculus non Varronis
est, uerum Ouidii met. 8, 237, ubi male scriptum extat garrula
ramosa prospexit ab ilice perdix. (Haupt 1838: 92f.)
Noch im selben Jahr griff Samuel Obbarius in seiner Rezension der
Metamorphosen-Ausgabe von Bach (ed. 1836) diesen Vorschlag auf:
Man vergleiche das Verzeichniss der vorgeschlagenen Textverbesserungen S. 622. Wenn auch viele derselben sich nicht
durchaus nothwendig erweisen, so legen sie doch ein rühmliches
Zeugniss von der Sprachkenntniss des Herausgebers [scil.
Bachs] ab. Anderes hat sich des Schutzes zu erfreuen gehabt,
dass dessen unwerth war. […] Dahin gehört die sonderbare
Lesung 8, 237: Hunc – Garrula ramosa prospexit ab ilice perdix.
Da aber Rebhühner sich nie auf Bäume setzen, auch kein sonstiger Grund vorhanden ist, warum die Alten bisweilen von der
Naturgeschichte abweichen […], und hier Vers 256 jener naturhistorischen Sünde geradezu widerspricht: so musste die Vulgata
aufgegeben werden. Glücklicherweise hat sich das Wahre in dem
von Moriz Haupt edirten Buche: de Generibus nominum p. 92
(in Ovidii Halieutica etc. Lips. 1838) gefunden: garrula limoso
prospicit elice perdix. Zwar wird daselbst dieser Vers dem Varro
zugeschrieben, aber der gelehrte Editor hat mit Recht auf diesen
Vers des Ovid verwiesen, gleich wie p. 104, wo ebenfalls Varro
statt des Ovidius genannt wird [scil. met. 2.494]. (Obbarius
1838: 1198f.)
Ebenfalls noch im selben Jahr übernahm Johann Kaspar Orelli in
der Einleitung zu seiner Horaz-Ausgabe die Trouvaille und formulierte den Vers erstmals so, wie er späterhin im Ovid-Text beinahe
allenthalben figurieren sollte:
Sic Ovidius Metam. VIII, 237 scripserat: Garrula limoso prospexit ab elice perdix: uti nunc scimus ex libello de generibus
nominum ed. Hauptii p. 92. Quid ausus est interpolator? Garrula
ramosa prospexit ab ilice perdix: in Codd. sine varietate, [quae
ad veram Ovidii manum nos perducat 1844] nisi quod corruptelae tenuia quaedam vestigia supersunt in Mor. 1. clamosa.
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Sen. 2. scamosa. Sen. 1. ramoso [= ς, Anm.]: verum quod dedit
[/inculcavit 1844] grammaticus prorsus repugnat et avis naturae
et v. 256: Non tamen haec alte volucris sua corpora tollit cet.9
Schon im Jahr 1838 stand also der bis heute maßgebliche Wortlaut
fest. Eine Begründung der Korruptel lieferte schließlich Friedrich
Wilhelm Schneidewin 1846:
[…] haben wir hier [scil. met. 8.237] einen von mir im Martialis
oft nachgewiesenen, bei Ovid äusserst häufigen fall, wo unzeitige reminiscenzen anderer stellen desselben dichters den abschreibern von selbst in die feder flossen und das richtige gefälscht wurde. Hier ist die quelle der corruptel art. am. 3,149.
Sed neque ramosa numerabis in ilice glandes. (Schneidewin
1846: 169).
Es war nun lediglich eine Frage der Zeit, bis limoso… elice von
einer Ovid-Ausgabe aufgegriffen werden sollte.10
Den tatsächlichen Wert des Grammatikerzitats brachte schließlich
Rudolf Ehwald auf den Punkt:
Wir haben nur für die ersten Bücher im frgm. Bernense eine
wenn auch in letzter Instanz mit unsern Handschriften auf denselben Archetypus zurückgehende, doch eine besondere Tradition bietende Textquelle: sehr möglich, daß die exquisite Lesart
unserer Stelle auf eine dem Bern. verwandte Handschrift zurückgeht. (Ehwald 1898: 389)
9
Q. Horatius Flaccus, Recensuit Io. Casp. Orellius, II, Turici/Londinii 1838, praef.
VI-VII = 21844, 131. Vgl. dazu noch Madvig (1873: 81): „In iis [scil. libris
metamorphoseon] quales subesse possint in omnibus, etiam optimis, codicibus
interpolationes, ostendit protractum illud nostra demum aetate ab Hauptio e grammatici scripto in libro VIII, 237 limoso… ab elice, pro quo substitutum erat ad rem
absurdissime ramosa ab ilice”, des weiteren Ehwald (1889: 2).
10
Nicht verschwiegen sei freilich, dass es auch gegenteilige Stimmen gab, die
limoso… elice im Grammatikertraktat als Korruptel ansahen, z.B. V. Loers, Rez.
ed. Haupt (1838), in Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, 1840, 3. Bd., 239f.; Unger
(1848: 209, Anm. 15, vs. 446) und v.a. Otto (1850: 48). Vgl. auch Le Clerc (1849:
680).
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THOMAS LINDNER
4. FAZIT: EIN ADÄQUATER APPARAT FÜR MET. 8, 237
In unserem glücklichen, aber leider seltenen Fall hat also die indirekte
Überlieferung ein Fenster in eine Traditionsschicht eröffnet, die längst
schon verloren gegangen ist und durch das vorliegende handschriftliche Material nicht mehr rekonstruiert werden hätte können.
Aus textkritischer Sicht ist die Änderung von limoso… elice in
ramosa… ilice leicht erklärbar: Es handelt sich um die bereits im
Archetyp der überlieferten direkten Quellen (Ω) erfolgte Trivialisierung einer Lectio difficilior.
Die wissenschaftshistorische Aufarbeitung hat wiederum gezeigt,
dass selbst die aktuellen Referenzeditionen11 sowie die jüngere Sekundärliteratur12 die Fakten nicht immer lückenlos und eindeutig präsentieren. Nicht Merkel 1850, sondern bereits Haupt und Orelli haben
den Ovid-Vers im Jahr 1838 restituiert: ein wenngleich nur kleines, so
aber doch ‘exquisites’ Detail der Forschungsgeschichte.
Ein umfassender Apparat für diesen, im übrigen, perfekten Versus
aureus könnte somit nach meinem Dafürhalten in etwa folgendermaßen aussehen:
247 ramosa prospexit ab ilice (ἐκ θαµνώδους πρίνου Planudes)
codd., vulg. olim, Hollis : limoso prospicit elice Dub. nom.
gramm. p. 92 sq. Haupt (qui hunc versum Varroni tributum
primus Ovidio tribuit), V 587 GLK : limoso prospexit ab elice
emend. Orelli, secuti sunt Merkel, edd. recc. || limoso] ramosa Ω
edd. vett. : clamosa vel scamosa ς : ci. glandosa Heinsius : dumosa Sprengel : lamoso Housman, quem secuti sunt Edwards,
Lenz | prospexit] respexit ς | elice] ilice Ω (elice h2) edd. vett. :
ci. ulice Sprengel, Nisbet.
11
Was Ovids Metamorphosen anbelangt: Anderson und Tarrant, aber durchaus
auch noch Magnus und Ehwald (s. § 2.2.)
12
Magnus, Lenz, Hollis, Bömer, Galasso usw. (s. Fn. 3).
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Universität Salzburg
Fachbereich Linguistik
[email protected]
BIBLIOGRAPHIE
von Albrecht, M.
1977 Römische Poesie, Texte und Interpretationen, Heidelberg,
Stiehm.
Anderson, W.S.
1972 Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Books 6-10, Norman (Okla.),
University Press.
Bömer, F.
1977 P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphosen, Kommentar, Buch VIIIIX, Heidelberg, Winter.
Cook, A.B.
1914 Zeus. A Study in Ancient Religion, Vol. I, Cambridge,
University Press.
Ehwald, R.
1889 Ad historiam carminum Ovidianorum recensionemque
symbolae, I, Programm Gotha.
3
1898 Die Metamorphosen des P. Ovidius Naso, Vol. II, Berlin,
Weidmann.
Fuss, J.D.
1823/1824 Ad J.B. Lycocriticum epistola, Leodii, Collardin,
1823 / Coloniae, Dumont-Schauberg, 1824.
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THOMAS LINDNER
Gerland, G.
1871 Über die Perdixsage und ihre Entstehung, Programm
Halle/S.
Haupt, M.
1838 Ovidii Halieutica, Gratti et Nemesiani Cynegetica ex
recensione Mauricii Hauptii. Accedunt Inedita Latina et tabula
lithographica, Leipzig, Weidmann.
Hollis, A.S.
1970 Ovid: Metamorphoses Book VIII, Oxford, University
Press.
Housman, A.E.
1886-93 [1894]
Emendations in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in
«Transactions of the Cambridge Philological Society», 3, S. 140153.
1972 The Classical Papers, Vol. I, Cambridge, University
Press.
Le Clerc, V.
1849 Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques
publiques des départements, Vol. I, Paris, Imprimerie Nationale.
Lenz, F.W.
1967 Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Prolegomena to a Revision of
Hugo Magnus’ Edition, Dublin-Zürich, Weidmann.
Liberman, G.
2004 Observations sur le texte des Métamorphoses d’Ovide, in
«Revue de philologie, de littérature et d’histoire anciennes», 78,
S. 57-90.
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Madvig, J.N.
1873 Adversaria critica ad scriptores Graecos et Latinos, Vol.
II: Emendationes Latinae, Hauniae, Gyldendal.
Magnus, H.
1905 Ovids Metamorphosen in doppelter Fassung?, in
«Hermes», 40, S. 191-239.
1925 Ovids Metamorphosen in doppelter Fassung? II, in
«Hermes», 60, S. 113-143.
Mendner, S.
1939 Der Text der Metamorphosen Ovids (Diss. Köln),
Bochum-Langendreer.
Müller, H.W.H.
1906 De Metamorphoseon Ovidii codice Planudeo, Diss.
Gryphiae 1906.
Obbarius, S.
1838 Rez. ed. Bach (1836), in «Zeitschrift für die Alterthumswissenschaft», 5, Sp. 1197-1201.
Otto, F.W.
1850 Grammatici incerti de generibus nominum sive de dubio
genere opusculum, Gissae, Brühl.
Pasquali, G.
1
1934 (u.ö.) Storia della tradizione e critica del testo, Firenze,
Sansoni.
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THOMAS LINDNER
Richmond, J.
2002 Manuscript Traditions and the Transmission of Ovid’s
Works, in Boyd, B.W. (Hrsg.), Brill’s Companion to Ovid,
Leiden, Brill, S. 443-483.
2006
132.
Rez. ed. Tarrant (2004), in «Hermathena», 180, S. 129-
Schneidewin, F.W.
1846 Horatius sat. I, 6, 126, in «Philologus», 1, S. 168-169.
Slater, D.A.
1927 Towards a Text of the Metamorphosis of Ovid, Oxford,
Clarendon.
Sprengel, C.K.
1815 Neue Kritik der klassischen Römischen Dichter in
Anmerkungen zum Ovid, Vergil und Tibull, Berlin, Gädicke.
Unger, R.
1848 De C. Valgii Rufi poematis commentatio, Halis (S.),
Orphanotropheum.
Wieacker, F.
1960 Textstufen klassischer Juristen, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht.
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THIS ALL-GRAVED TOME.
A READING OF JOHN DONNE’S A VALEDICTION: OF THE BOOKE
ABSTRACT
This article presents a close reading of John Donne’s poem A
Valediction: of the Booke. Often neglected by scholarship, this complex
composition centres around the ambiguous symbolism of the book which
gives the title to the poem, cherished both as token of material presence
and as a lasting written document of the lovers’ passion. The volume, a
joint collaboration of male design and female ghost-writing, is put before
the eyes of all future generations as a universal, sacred text, as a rule
book aimed to govern every domain of human existence. This analysis of
the seven stanzas emphasizes Donne’s subtle use of classical learning
and the multiplicity of meanings evoked by the book metaphor, in
particular the contradictory processes of memory and forgetting.
1. INTRODUCTION
A Valediction: of the Booke is not generally regarded as one of the
greatest poetic achievements of John Donne, who is perhaps the most
influential among the English poets of the early seventeenth century.
Seldom is this valediction mentioned in critical assessments of John
Donne’s Songs and Sonnets and in the few exceptional instances, the
reference is either dismissive or parenthetical (a notable exception
being Marotti 1986: 169-172), with even Helen Gardner designating
the poem’s language «strained» (in Donne 1965: 196n). In a recent
and compelling reading of Donne’s work, Ramie Targoff mentions
this poem briefly, suggesting that it is «arguably the least successful of
the four Valedictions» (2008: 66). It is indeed difficult to disagree
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with her judgement, or with that of Silvia Bigliazzi, who lists the
poem among Donne’s most complex compositions (Serpieri-Bigliazzi,
in Donne 2007: 228). Its obscurity of expression, the recherché
allusiveness of its classical and medieval sources – Marotti speaks of
«learned foolishness» (1986: 171) – and ultimately the overall
complexity of its seven-stanza-long reasoning certainly do not
encourage a thorough appreciation of A Valediction: of the Booke,
especially for the modern reader untrained in such scholarship. It is
ironic that the four-century gap dividing Donne’s text from our own
sensibility presents such an alienating barrier to readers when we
consider that much of the poem’s argumentation relies on the
immortalizing power of language.
The central image of the valediction is the “Booke” of the title1,
which the speaker impels his beloved to write: the poem in its whole
may be conceived as the sketchy outline of that vaster project he
commissions the lady to set down in writing. Her main sources will be
the «manuscripts, those Myriades / Of letters, which have past twixt
thee and mee» (ll. 10-11)2. The book, an object which by way of its
materiality resists the passing of time, represents therefore not merely
a token of eternal presence, but a document for posterity:
I’ll tell thee now (deare Love) what thou shalt doe
To anger destiny, as she doth us,
How I shall stay, though she esloygne me thus
And how posterity shall know it too.
(ll. 1-4)
Ovid’s Heroides, a collection of imaginary love letters written by
heroines of classical mythology, is probably the model par excellence
1
The title of the poem varies according to the edition. This article follows Helen
Gardner’s, where the text appears under the title A Valediction: of the Booke.
Valediction to his booke is the variant chosen by C.A. Patrides (in Donne 1985).
With both the colon and the noun capitalization, the former title better emphasizes
the centrality of the book as a symbol.
2
Cited from Helen Gardner’s edition (Donne 1965). Unless specified, all further
in-text references to Donne’s poetry are to this edition.
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A READING OF JOHN DONNE
55
of Donne’s “Booke”; Ovid constantly relies on the immortalizing
power of poetry in his works3. Until the disquieting doubt is disclosed
in the final stanza of the valediction, which puts into question the
efficacy of the whole ‘book-writing’ conceit as a means of
overcoming absence, the lyrical voice revels in his bold expectation
that the lines of the poem will provide a written, public, permanent
record of his individual and ephemeral love. The wish is that a capitalL “Love” will endure for all future time through the words of the
valediction: «how Love this grace to us affords, / To make, to keep, to
use, to be these his Records» (ll. 17-18), where here the demonstrative
pronoun these indicates both the «Annals» of their love (l. 12) and the
lines of the poem itself.
In contrast with the other three valedictions collected in Songs and
Sonnets, the theme of separation does not seem to be the central
concern here. As the term ‘valediction’ itself leads us to expect, the
poem ought to revolve around a situation of ‘leave-taking’. HansHeinrich Freitag (1975: 146) has suggested that the recurrent motif of
absence traceable in so many poems of the collection is in A
Valediction: of the Booke nothing more than a pretext. Far from
expressing his anxiety at the thought of bidding farewell to his
beloved, the speaker seems more obsessed by the mysterious need to
imagine the response which her book will elicit in different future
circles of readership – “Loves Divines”, “Lawyers”, and “Statesmen”
in the fourth, fifth, and sixth stanzas respectively. Yet, upon closer
inspection, it is indeed a poem about anxiety, albeit one of a different
type. This anxiety is an uneasiness deriving from the speaker’s
reliance on the symbolism of the book, a most ambiguous object and
particularly so for a poet whose literary output was constantly
3
One of the most famous formulations in this respect is in Tristia IV, 10, 1-2: Ille
ego qui fuerim, tenerorum lusor amorum, / quem legis, ut noris, accipe posteritas
(“That thou mayst know who I was, I that playful poet of tender love whom thou
readest, hear my words, thou of the after time”, transl. by A.L. Wheeler). All
translations of the classical texts included in this article are based on the Loeb
editions.
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influenced by the simultaneous coexistence and mutual influence of
manuscript and print culture4. The aim of these pages is to read A
Valediction: of the Booke by shedding light on the multifaceted
significance of its central metaphor.
2. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE BOOK
“The Book as Symbol” in the early modern period was famously
discussed by E.R. Curtius in the sixteenth chapter of European
Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (1990 [1948]). The German
scholar emphasized the centrality of book imagery in medieval and
Renaissance literature, tracing its roots to the historical transition from
a religious to a secularized culture, a process which accelerated by the
explosive growth of the recently created European book market
(Pettegree 2010: 65-90).
Like many other love tokens in Songs and Sonnets, the “Booke” of
Donne’s valediction embraces both the religious and the secular
domain. It is a universal book, a book about love, religion, history,
law, politics, art, alchemy. The “Booke” in the Renaissance is an
ambiguous symbol because not only could stand for the indisputable
orthodoxy of religious truth, but also provide the ultimate icon of
cultural relativism. The art historian Jan Białostocki highlights the
ambiguity of the book in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century culture:
«A book may be the book of religious truth – the Bible, or a book of
human learning, valued for the erudition and culture in it but also
looked down on because the human learning it conveys has no really
lasting value but passes away in time» (1988: 46)5. All these
contrasting and contradictory meanings are at play in A Valediction: of
the Booke, so that the woman’s book is as unreliable as the mirror-like
tear of A Valediction: of Weeping or as the name written on the glass
4
For a thorough analysis of this cultural context, see Wollman (1993).
See also the discussion in Aleida Assmann’s Cultural Memory and Western
Civilization (2011: 178).
5
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of the window-pane in A Valediction: of my Name in the Window. The
ensuing close reading of the poem’s seven stanzas aims to show how
Donne constructs a forceful metaphor of the book as culturally
transmissible microcosm, where Love becomes the organizing
principle of every field of knowledge, the ‘grand unified theory’ of the
lovers’ universe. The volume is described as an all-encompassing
alchemical book, an «all-graved tome»6 (l. 20), mysterious and
secretive, sacred and profane, granting both eternal life and oblivion.
In Cesare Ripa’s emblem book Iconologia, “memory” (memoria) is
described as a woman dressed all in black, holding a pen in her right
hand and a book in her left (Ripa 1992 [1603]: 271). The book is also
an important symbol in the emblem “study” (studio), wherein a young
man attentively reads an open book which he holds in his left hand,
illustrating that steady application of the mind reveals the soul’s
disposition to the cognition of things. With his right hand he holds a
pen, symbolizing his intention of leaving – through the act of writing
– a memory of himself behind (Ripa 1992 [1603]: 429). Ripa quotes
here Persius’s first satire: scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat
alter? (“Is all your knowledge to go so utterly for nothing unless other
people know that you possess it?”, Pers. Sat. I, 27)7.
The two emblems memoria and studio are somehow mirror-like: the
images they represent, whether Donne was acquainted with Ripa’s
work or not, are to be found again in the structure of A Valediction: of
the Booke, the first part of which revolves around the idea of the
woman as writer (memoria), whereas the second focuses on the male
poet as careful reader (studio). Indeed one’s utmost heedfulness is
required to enter into the textual world of the valediction itself, to
keep Donne’s mannerist rhetoric at bay; to make sense of the satirical
vein of many of his lines; to appreciate the bafflingly inconclusive
6
«[T]otally engraved, i.e., not expressible in ordinary print» (Robbins, in Donne
2010: 270). Cf. also OED ‘engrave’: “2. b. To mark by incisions; to inscribe with
incised characters; to ornament with incised marks./ 3. c. To impress deeply; to fix
indelibly”.
7
Transl. by G.G. Ramsay.
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book metaphor he has been so scrupulously trying to construct. In this
respect, John Donne might be regarded as belonging, like Persius, to
the tradition of the poeta obscurus: the aesthetics of obscurity
crucially occupying, as Jan M. Ziolkowski (1996: 101) has suggested,
«a central point on the dividing-line between the poetic and the
prosaic, between poetry and prose, between the ordinary and the
extraordinary».
3. AND OBSCURE HER.
LOVE, FAME AND OBLIVION. DONNE’S MULIERES DOCTAE
The first stanza of A Valediction: of the Booke reconciles immortal
poetic glory with the inevitability of cultural forgetting. The speaker
explains to his mistress how she can flout the laws of a troublesome
destiny, thus achieving a more enduring fame than that of her
illustrious – and unnamed – predecessors:
I’ll tell thee now (deare Love) what thou shalt doe
To anger destiny, as she doth us,
How I shall stay, though she esloygne me thus,
And how posterity shall know it too:
How thine may out-endure
Sybills glory, and obscure
Her who from Pindar could allure,
And her, through whose helpe Lucan is not lame,
And her, whose booke (they say) Homer did find, and name.
(ll. 1-9)
Through the anaphoric construction of the three concluding lines of
the stanza, the speaker situates his beloved at the end of a list of four
women of the classical tradition, whose names, however, are left
unsaid. They are Corinna, the Greek poetess who allegedly defeated
Pindar in a poetic competition; Polla Argentaria, who helped her
husband Lucan complete his poem Bellum Civile; and the legendary
Egyptian priestess Phantasia, who is said to have written the first draft
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of the Iliad and the Odyssey8. The only explicitly named woman is the
first one on the list, presumably the Cumaean Sibyl of Virgil’s Aeneid,
Apollo’s mouthpiece, known for the obscure ambiguity of her
responses9. The word ‘obscure’ itself (l. 6) is a key term of the stanza,
since it hints at the threat of forgetting and oblivion which the poet so
cunningly seeks to prevent.
The three unnamed women form a group of their own in the stanza
– since they are all connected through the use of the polysyndeton And
her..., thus creating the impression that this list of forgotten women is
not exhaustive, but rather samples an unknowably longer one.
Corinna, Polla, and Phantasia are probably ordered in accordance with
their degree of fame, from the most famous to the most forgotten.
8
Cf. Gardner (in Donne 1965: 193) and Robbins (in Donne 2010: 269-270) for a
thorough account of the classical sources to which Donne alludes in this stanza.
The story of the competition between Pindar and Corinna, poetess of Thebes, is
narrated by Aelian (Var. Hist. XIII, 25). A letter by Sidonius Apollinaris (Epist.
II, 10, 6) is the main source for the tradition according to which Polla Argentaria,
Lucan’s wife, had an essential role in the completion of the Pharsalia. The legend
of Phantasia is reported by two sources: Photius’s Bibliotheca (Augsburg 1601;
Latin translation: Augsburg 1606), from Ptolemy Ephaestion or ‘Chennos’, and
the preface by Eustathius of Thessalonica to his commentary on the Odyssey
(Rome 1542-50; reprint Basel 1559-60; not translated into Latin). The story of
Phantasia was also mentioned by the Flemish humanist Justus Lipsius (De
Bibliothecis Syntagma 1, Antwerp 1602, p. 10), from Eustathius.
9
Verg. Aen. VI, 9-12; 42-53; 98-101. But it is in Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue that the
Cumaen Sibyl is most clearly described as a writer, as the author of a poem
announcing a new Golden Age: Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas; /
magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo (Verg. Ecl. IV, 4-5. “Now is come
the last age of the song of Cumae; / the great line of the centuries begins anew”,
transl. by H. Rushton Fairclough). The Sibyl is a prophetic poetess also in
Horace’s Carmen saeculare: tempore sacro / quo Sibyllini monuere versus (ll. 45. “at the holy season / when the verses of the Sibyl have commanded”, transl. by
C.E. Bennett). The Cumaean Sibyl was often portrayed in Renaissance art as a
woman holding a book in her hand (for example by Andrea del Castagno,
Michelangelo, Raphael, Domenichino). For a preliminary, though thorough,
account of medieval depictions of Virgil and the Sibyl as prophets see Joyner
(2008: 453-457).
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Moreover, the syntactic parallel between the latter pair (polysyndeton
+ genitive + name of the male author + verb) elicits a deeper
commonality: both Polla and Phantasia saw their work fall into the
shadow of the name of a male poet. The Sibyl has perhaps been
consigned to the same fate; since Constantine and Lactantius
interpreted Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue as a prophecy of Christianity, the
subsequent medieval commentators «included Virgil among those
who foresaw the birth of Christ [...]. Yet other authorities, such as
Augustine, regarded the Cumaean Sibyl [...] as being the true prophet»
(Joyner 2008: 453).
The value of the first stanza lies exactly in this original reflection on
the workings of fame for women; these extremely erudite lines seem
to ask what is their place in what Aleida Assmann (2011: 45) defines
as «[t]he dialectics of rejection and acceptance, forgetting and
remembering [that] is at the heart of what we understand by
‘Renaissance’». With the exception of Phantasia, who was probably a
very obscure reference even during Donne’s lifetime, these women
were often featured in the catalogues of mulieres doctae (“learned
women”) included in many a learned compendium by humanist
antiquarians, such as Baptiste Fulgose’s Factorum Dictorumque
Memorabilium Libri IX (Venice, 1483), Ravisius Textor’s Theatrum
poeticum atque historicum, sive Officina (Paris, 1520) and Barthélemy
de Chasseneuz’s Catalogus gloriae mundi (Lyons, 1529), each of
which was repeatedly reprinted. Donne might have been familiar with
one or more of these catalogues, whose tradition and legacy has been
explored by Jean Céard (1999). If these lists of women made
accessible to a wider audience the notion of mulier docta in the
Renaissance, these representations were complicated by issues of male
gaze and consequently rendered quite ambivalent10.
10
Cf. Céard (1999) and, for a general discussion, Assmann (2011: 52): «As long
as entry into the cultural memory is conditioned by heroism or canonization,
women systematically disappear into cultural oblivion. It is a classic case of
structural amnesia».
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This same situation was brilliantly exposed in the ensuing decades
by another English poet, Abraham Cowley (1618-1667):
Of Female Poets, who had Names of old,
Nothing is shown, but only Told,
And all we hear of them perhaps may be
Male-Flatt’ry only, and Male-Poetry11.
In this respect, it is somewhat ironic that the speaker of Donne’s
valediction tempts his lady with promises of a fame modelled after
that of women about whom the readers know so little12. Through the
use of allusion in (un)naming three learned women of antiquity, the
speaker makes the reader question the very concept of ‘fame’. He does
so by underlining the subtle difference between living, immortal glory
and mere presence in the cultural ‘archive’13. Although the
Renaissance successfully revalued the role of fame, cherishing «the
hope of immortality through cultural achievements» (Assmann 2011:
36), Donne appears to cast doubt on this optimistic view as soon as he
embraces it.
Moreover, a distinctive feature of Songs and Sonnets is that Donne
never names the lady of his love poems; there is no Cynthia, Laura,
Astrea, Elizabeth, or Stella to venerate and immortalize, no name to
11
Abraham Cowley, On the Death of Mrs Katherine Philips (1667), quoted in
Stevenson (2005: 7).
12
Cf. also Elizabeth D. Harvey’s observations about this first stanza (1996: 7980). For Harvey, Donne’s rhetoric restores the woman «on the margins of
discourse, where she is confined as the nameless, faceless handmaiden to poetic
accomplishment» (1996: 80). It is important to point out that the reader of
Donne’s valediction might well have been a mulier docta of his time: in a richly
detailed study, Jane Stevenson (2005) has explored the fascinating history of
women Latinists in Europe, cf. in particular Chapter 10 on sixteenth-century
England.
13
I follow here Assmann’s definition of “archive” as a place of memory: «In
contrast to the sensually concrete memory linked to bodies and places, the archive
exists independently of both, and so remains abstract and general. A precondition
for its existence as a collective store of knowledge is a material data-carrier that
must function as a support, above all, for the written word» (Assmann 2011: 12).
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remember14. As Targoff suggests, Donne is much more inclined to
describe the immediacy, precariousness, and mutuality of the love
relationship, rather than the timelessness of love or the perfect,
goddess-like qualities of his mistress15.
Consequently, it is not surprising that the object of A Valediction: of
the Booke is not at all the speaker’s passionate love for his woman, but
the written proof of their affectionate liaison. In this regard, it is also
highly significant that the task of writing is a work appointed to the
woman, though the extent of the latter’s autonomy in the project is far
from clear: is she an independent author or just a subordinate copyist?
Given that «the unconventional brilliance of Donne’s love poems
arises (at least in part) from his unprecedented capacity to elicit and
articulate and respond to the woman’s point of view» (Bell 1983:
116), the latent ambiguity of the conceited themes displayed in A
Valediction: of the Booke does not give us sufficient evidence to
determine whose perspective is being presented here.
4. THENCE WRITE OUR ANNALS.
THE BOOK AS A LASTING TOKEN OF LOVE
In the second stanza the speaker proceeds to give his beloved some
general instructions on the task she is to fulfil; the starting point for
her research is their collection of love letters, which will provide the
primary source of what seems to be an unassailable, indisputable, and
entirely reliable historiographical project:
14
However, as Robbins (in Donne 2010: 270) points out, the noun Annals could be
interpreted as a «submerged pun on Ann», the name of Donne’s wife. If the pun
were intended, the noun Annals would almost appear as the fitting title for a ‘love
epic’.
15
«What distinguishes Donne as a love poet is not his joyful assurance that his
love will endure. What distinguishes him is at once the intensity of the pleasure he
conveys in the moment of mutual love, and the ferocity with which he attempts to
prolong that moment for as long as he can, knowing full well that its end may be
near» (Targoff 2008: 49).
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Study our manuscripts, those Myriades
Of letters, which have past twixt thee and mee,
Thence write our Annals, and in them will bee,
To all whom loves subliming fire invades,
Rule and example found;
There, the faith of any ground
No schismatique will dare to wound,
That sees, how Love this grace to us affords,
To make, to keep, to use, to be these his Records.
(ll. 10-18)
As the second stanza makes it clear, the real commissioner of the
book is Love personified, whose powerful agency allows the
transitory, individual experience of the lovers to become a universal
metaphor for future generations to come. The personification of love
occurs also in another celebrated poem of Songs and Sonnets, The
Canonization, in which we find it set in the same collaborative
partnership with the immortalizing power of the written text, able to
transform private love into a religious idol to be devoutly worshipped
once the lovers leave this world behind:
Wee can dye by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tombes or hearse
Our legend bee, it will be fit for verse;
And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove,
We’ll build in sonnets pretty roomes;
As well a well wrought urne becomes
The greatest ashes, as halfe-acre tombes,
And by these hymnes, all shall approve
Us Canoniz’d for Love.
(The Canonization, ll. 28-36)
The «pretty roomes» of the above-quoted poem appear to have the
same function as a funerary urn16, forever containing the two lovers’s
mortal remains. The “Booke” of the valediction, thanks to the pun on
16
A similar image occurs in the poem The Extasie, where the lovers are compared
to sepulchrall statues (l. 18).
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the word “tome” (l. 20), does also play a similar ‘tomb-like’ role, as
will be shown in the next section. In both poems, the construction of a
private world which could eventually overcome the defined limits of
human existence is described as a mutual undertaking of lover and
beloved. The “Myriades of letters” which the lady must attentively
peruse represent the final product of the lovers’ affection. The act of
letter-writing was of paramount importance for John Donne
throughout his whole life (for a thorough account, see Targoff 2008,
chapter II). The letter was for Donne a token of material presence, a
means to communicate his thoughts and feelings to absent friends –
see, for example, one of the two fascinating verse epistles «To Sir
Henry Wotton», starting with the lines «Sir, more then kisses, letters
mingle Soules; / For, thus friends absent speake» (ll. 1-2). Since, as
Ilona Bell underlines (1986: 25), «[d]espite the multitude of Donne
letters, scholars lament the complete absence of any correspondence
with Ann More»17, we must hesitate to interpret the lines of the second
stanza of A Valediction: of the Booke with too close a reference to the
poet’s biographical details. Nonetheless, the importance Donne placed
on his personal correspondence more generally is crucial for a
thorough appreciation of the valediction’s second stanza: it is the
profound intimacy and the loving reciprocity of the epistolary
exchange which makes the resultant book so valuable and precious for
the future reader, who will have the privilege of handling a sacred text
whose orthodoxy cannot be easily contested: «There, the faith of any
ground / No schismatique will dare to wound» (ll. 15-16). Not only
does the metaphor draw from the contemporary time of religious
turmoil, but, by introducing in the text such an unpoetical term as
schismatique – used also in another poem of the collection, The Will
(l. 20) – Donne conflates the troubling macrocosm of historical time
with the untouchable and unchangeable microcosm of the lovers’
experience. The “Booke” ensures that this ‘little world’ will outlive
17
Bell (1986), however, identifies three letters included in Evelyn Simpson’s
Study of the Prose Works of John Donne (1924) in which Anne More is the most
probable addressee.
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their earthly life, in the indelible “Records” of a written and hence
(re)readable volume.
Yet, for the text to live, the Author(s) must die. What really counts
in A Valediction: of the Booke is not the expression of a subjective
passion, but rather the creation of «a writing that can know no halt:
life never does more than imitate the book, and the book itself is only
a tissue of signs, an imitation that is lost, infinitely deferred» (Barthes
1984: 147). By referring to the four women of the classical world in
the first stanza, moreover, the speaker of Donne’s poem inscribes the
text in that «multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings,
none of them original, blend and clash» (Barthes 1984: 146). The
fantasy of numbering the beloved’s work among those of the learned
women of antiquity, of her overwriting the achievements of her
illustrious predecessors, might be thought of in terms of Assman’s
palimpsest metaphor in which the superposition of writings in the
human mind «makes the new the grave of the old» (2011: 143).
In the third stanza, the “Booke” is described as a secret text, written
in ciphers, but also as a sepulchre: the death of the lover-authors
allows the opening up of endless interpretative possibilities for the
“Booke”, the product of their creative passion, upon which no
definitive meaning can be bestowed; yet it is the endless striving for
this ultimate meaning which grants the “Booke” its immortality.
5. THIS ALL-GRAVED TOME, / IN CYPHER WRITE
THE BOOK AS A SECRET TEXT WORLD OF IMMORTALITY
The third stanza of A Valediction: of the Booke is the most important
of the whole poem, both structurally and thematically. The speaker
describes the book as a mysterious volume inscrutable to all but those
capable of understanding the new language devised by the lovers18. It
18
A similar concept of love’s secrecy is expressed by the speaker of A Valediction
forbidding Mourning: «‘Twere prophanation of our joyes / To tell the layetie our
love» (ll. 7-8).
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is a highly inaccessible text that may, if properly read, open up the
doors of universal knowledge:
This Booke, as long-liv’d as the elements,
Or as the worlds forme, this all-graved tome,
In cypher write, or new made Idiome;
Wee for loves clergie only’are instruments.
When this booke is made thus,
Should againe the ravenous
Vandals and Goths inundate us,
Learning were safe; in this our Universe
Schooles might learn Sciences, Spheares Musick, Angels Verse.
(ll. 19-27)
The coexistence of different disciplines within the book can be read
along the lines of Neoplatonic philosophy, as Donald L. Guss remarks
(1966: 144-5). One of the Neoplatonic texts mentioned by Guss is
Guido Casoni’s Della magia d’amore (1596), the frontispiece of
which lists a long series of arts and professions in which Love
manifests itself: «Nella quale si dimostra come Amore sia Metafisico,
Fisico, Astrologo, Musico, Geometra, Aritmetico, Grammatico,
Dialetico, Rettore, Poeta, Historiografo, Iurisconsulto, Politico»19.
Casoni’s catalogue is much longer, including some twenty-seven
professions in all. Love’s all-encompassing influence over the other
human activities is a distinctive motif of A Valediction: of the Booke.
Building on this theme, the ensuing three stanzas set out to
demonstrate with a satirical touch how the lovers’ book of love might
be the invaluable source of knowledge for the followers of different
professions, from “Loves Divines” (l. 28) to “Lawyers” (l. 37) to
“Statesmen” (l. 46): they will all be provided with their ultimate ‘rule
book’.
19
«The book demonstrates how Love is a Metaphysician, a Physicist, an
Astrologist, a Musician, a Surveyor, an Arithmetician, a Grammarian, a
Dialectician, a Rector, a Poet, a Historiographer, a Jurisconsult, a Politician [...]»
(Translation mine).
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The “Booke” seems to contain both text and images («this allgraved tome, in cypher write20, or new made Idiome» ll. 20-21). The
language ought to be secretive, or at least unfamiliar to the untrained
readers: the brief description of the «all-graved tome» resembles that
of an alchemical book21, drawing heavily from the rich tradition of the
Renaissance emblems, mixing the visual with the textual dimension to
become «a repository for secret wisdom» whose «resulting obscurity
[often] precludes intelligibility without the assistance of all the
components, as well as of highly specialized knowledge» (Linden
1995: 19-20; see also Holmyard 1957). The emblem was considered
to be the most perfect and complete artistic form in the Renaissance
for its conflation of the two sister arts, pictura and poësis, representing
respectively the ‘corporeal’ and the ‘spiritual’ essence of human
creativity22. The emblem is consequently Donne’s ideal way of
expressing «the fantasy of being fully present» (Targoff 2008: 21),
even after the inevitable dissolution that death brings about. With their
overt, primary focus on separation and absence, all the four
valedictions of the Songs and Sonnets foreshadow the ‘last parting’ in
their choice of words and images. In A Valediction: Of the Booke, the
juxtaposition of the adjective ‘all-graved’ with the noun ‘tome’ is
extremely cunning in this respect, both words hinting simultaneously
at the extended metaphor of the book and at the afterlife imagery so
recurrent in the Songs and Sonnets. The same coexistence of emblem,
book, and burial images can be found in Shakespeare’s sonnet 77,
which Assmann (2011: 176-179) discusses as an example of the
«optimistic faith in the conservational powers of writing» in the
Renaissance. With «a very tutorial frame of mind» (Rowse, in
20
The verb write is a disputed variant. In other editions (see Patrides, in Donne
1985) the past participle writ is preferred to the imperative write: «this all-graved
tome / In cypher writ» (ll. 20-21).
21
Cf. Donne’s elegy XIX, To His Mistress Going to Bed, where women are
compared to «mystick books» for «lay-men» (ll. 40-41).
22
For a thorough discussion of the relationship between word and image in the
Renaissance, see Innocenti (1983; 1996).
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Shakespeare 1964: 157), the speaker of this sonnet recommends the
‘fair youth’ to fill a blank book with the thoughts which arise from his
contemplation of vanitas objects, such as the glass and the dial:
Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
The vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear,
And of this book this learning mayst thou taste:
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
Of mouthèd graves will give thee memory;
Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know
Time’s thievish progress to eternity.
(Sonnet 77, ll. 1-8)
In Shakespeare’s sonnet, the book, filled with memento mori
reflections, has the exclusively private function of making the young
man aware of the passage of time. It is a volume bound to be read by
the ‘fair youth’ alone, so that he may develop a more mature stand in
the face of the transience of the human mortal condition
Look, what thy memory cannot contain
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.
(Sonnet 77, ll. 9-14)
While for Shakespeare the book functions as a reminder of human
mortality, the «all-graved tome» of Donne’s valediction plays
defiantly with death images in order to reassert with rhetorical
strength and persuasion the immortality of the lovers’ passion. In
Donne’s conceited argumentation, the book becomes an engraved
tome/tomb which will last as long as the elements and the “worlds
forme”. This is an undoubtedly powerful formulation, of ambiguous
and baffling complexity, probably referring to the perfect, universal
harmony between the macrocosm and the human microcosm, on
whose principles of exact correspondence much Neoplatonic
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philosophy and alchemical theories are founded. It is not by chance
that the speaker stresses the fact that the book enables the construction
of a “Universe”, the centre of a new cultural power capable of
resisting the ferocious invasions of future barbarians. Ultimately,
however, the elusive expression “worlds forme” resists any attempt of
definition: as Angela Leighton (2007: 3) suggests, the success of the
word ‘form’ in literary and critical texts derives precisely from its
subtle, Protean attributes: «Although it looks like a fixed shape, a
permanent configuration or ideal, whether in eternity, in the mind, or
on the page, in fact form is versatile. It remains open to distant senses,
distortions, to the push-and-pull of opposites or cognates».
The “Booke” the poet envisages is a universal project of world
formation: the scope of this enterprise is so vast and all-embracing
that the textual world thus created is ruled by the paradox that
‘everything’ and ‘nothing’ come to signify the same ‘thing’, i.e.
‘nothing’ at all. Jonathan Culler (1982: 98) suggests that «[t]he value
and force of a text may depend to a considerable extent on the way it
deconstructs the philosophy that subtends it». The structure of A
Valediction: of the Booke, ending with the apparent sceptical
recantation of the whole preceding reasoning, similarly contains the
seeds of its own undoing. Everything that can be created and
expressed by language – love, life, death – may easily amount to
‘nothing’ as soon as the bound between soul and body, lover and
beloved, is being menaced.
6. NOTHING BUT A “BOOKE”.
BEYOND MATERIAL AND IMMATERIAL
The fourth, fifth, and sixth stanza of A Valediction: of the Book form a
single unit within the poem: each of them is marked by a satirical
vein, typical of the early Donne; the language of these stanzas is a
mixture of poetic and prosaic elements which, besides being a salient
feature of rhetorical obscurity, expresses a critical stance on religious,
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bureaucratic and political power. The love poet does not ignore the
real social forces but brings them into the picture by questioning their
effective power.
The speaker pungently describes the response that his mistress’s
book ought to generate in three main groups of future readers: “Loves
Divines”, “Lawyers”, and “Statesman”, most probably ranked in a
decreasing order of abstractness (the Neoplatonic degradatio)23. One
of the distinctive features of Songs and Sonnets is the impossibility of
tracking down one single, constantly identifiable speaker: as Virginia
Woolf observes, «we cannot see how so many different qualities meet
together in one man» (2009: 361). The voice of A Valediction: of the
Booke shows all this chameleon-like potential in the short space of
twenty-seven lines: from the Neoplatonic perspective of the fourth
stanza, in which the speaker explains the advantages and
disadvantages of embodied love, moving on to the misogynistic stance
of the fifth, which condemns the vainness and unreliability of fickle
women, eventually ending with the almost nihilistic remarks of the
sixth, where lovers and statesmen seem to face the same meaningless
‘nothing’. All three stanzas are introduced by the adverb of place
Here, transforming the book into a ‘locus’ of universal learning:
Here Loves Divines, (since all Divinity
Is love or wonder) may finde all they seeke,
23
This catalogue brings to mind the first monologue of Christopher Marlowe’s
Doctor Faustus (Scene I), another Renaissance text where the symbolism of the
book is paramount (Cf. Matalene III 1973; Budra 1991). Upon first entering the
scene, Faustus seems to be glancing through his books so as to decide in which
area of knowledge to «settle his studies». One after another he discards all the
possible options: logician, physician, jurist, divine, statesman; building up such a
climax, he finally decides to become a magician («These metaphysics of
magicians / And necromantic books are heavenly»; «A sound magician is a demigod; / Here tire, my brains, to get a deity» Scene I, 48-49 and 61-62).
Mephostophilis will give him the book of the new art (Scene V), a compendium
of universal knowledge, where Faustus will find everything that he wishes to
know, thus it is a volume resembling the one described in A Valediction: of the
Booke.
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Whether abstract spirituall love they like,
Their Soules exhal’d with what they do not see,
Or, loth so to amuze
Faiths infirmitie, they chuse
Something which they may see and use;
For, though minde be the heaven, where love doth sit,
Beauty’a convenient type may be to figure it.
(ll. 28-36)
This stanza might be viewed as a compendium of the theories of
love described in other poems of Songs and Sonnets, like Aire and
Angels and The Extasie, both revolving around the necessity of uniting
carnal and spiritual love: the former expressible in a visible
dimension, the latter only imaginable in a metaphysical realm.
The fifth stanza is marked by the inclusion of many un-poetic
words drawn from the specialist vocabulary of legal language24:
“prerogative”, “states”, “subsidies”. In the face of the increasing
specialization of human knowledge, the “Booke” appears to reclaim
that alien terminology for the lovers’ own use and so make legal
language dependent on the language of love:
Here more then in their bookes may Lawyers finde,
Both by what titles Mistresses are ours,
And how prerogative those states devours,
Transferr’d from Love himselfe, to womankind,
Who though from heart, and eyes,
They exact great subsidies,
Forsake him who on them relies,
And for the cause, honour, or conscience give,
Chimeraes, vaine as they, or their prerogative.
(ll. 37-45)
24
Donne plays with legal language from the outset by using the term esloygne (l. 3),
with the meaning “To convey or remove out of the jurisdiction of the court or of the
sheriff” (OED, II. 2). As Robbins observes (in Donne 2010: 269), «this is one of the
French legal terms used by Sir John Davies, Gulling Sonnets 8. 12 (1594-6), his
parody of the jargon-laden anonymous sonnet-sequence Zepheria (1594)».
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The sixth stanza brings together love and politics: what the two
‘disciplines’ have in common is the elusiveness of their subject matter
(«Love and their art [statesmanship] alike it deadly wounds, / If to
consider what ‘tis, one proceed», ll. 48-49). The changes in language
brought about by the scientific progress of the period are most evident
in the final word of the stanza, “Alchimy”, used here as «a stock
example of trickery» (Robbins, in Donne 2010: 272). This negative
connotation of the term clashes with the positive alchemical imagery
of the preceding stanzas, consistent with the coexistence of the old and
the new which always characterises a transitional period of crisis and
revolution. In such an uncertain age, excellent lovers and politicians
appear to be those «who the present governe well» (l. 51):
Here Statesmen, (or of them, they which can reade,)
May of their occupation finde the grounds.
Love and their art alike it deadly wounds,
If to consider what ‘tis, one proceed:
In both they doe excell
Who the present governe well,
Whose weaknesse none doth, or dares tell;
In this thy booke, such will their nothing see,
As in the Bible some can finde out Alchimy.
(ll. 46-54)
The symbolism of the book is not the central preoccupation of the
three stanzas just quoted: in this part of the poem, the “Booke” serves
the purpose of identifying three categories of readership that act as
‘foils’ of the passionate lovers. The speaker defines love, the main
topic of their “Booke”, by contrasting its essence with the sterile
spirituality of the “Loves Divines”, the labyrinthine, shrewd rhetoric
of “Lawyers” which resembles the vows of unfaithful mistresses, and
the short-sightedness and ignorance of rulers, whose ‘nothingness’
make them paradoxically equal to the two lovers. Both categories
have to cope with the insignificance of their status when faced with
the overwhelming power of love that the book, as established in the
first three stanzas, so clearly ought to express. As Marotti puts it
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(1986: 171), «this poem […] was a fictional counterpoise to a
disturbing actuality». With this valediction, the speaker takes leave
from the world, from this troubling ‘actuality’. Every act of writing is
after all, Hélène Cixous suggests, «an act that suppresses the world.
We annihilate the world with a book» (Cixous 1993: 19).
In her lecture on The School of the Dead, Cixous talks about the
authors she loves, whom she describes as «writers of extremity, those
who take themselves to the extremes of experience, thought, life»:
they all share a «desire to die», which is «the desire to know; […] the
desire to enjoy» (Cixous 1993: 34). Donne may be equally described
as a poet «of extremity»: the ‘nothing’ revealed by the book of the
valediction can be understood as «The thing that is both known and
unknown, the most unknown and the best unknown, this is what we
are looking for when we write» (Cixous 1993: 38). This moment of
ambiguous revelation comes often, in Donne’s poetry, at the moment
of dying25: it is the same kind of negative knowledge that we find, for
example, at the beginning of A Valediction: forbidding Mourning –
with its memorable image of the “virtuous men” (l. 1) on their
deathbed – or at the end of A Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day, being the
shortest day26. The valediction, as a poetic form itself, has the
pragmatic function of taking leave, of bidding farewell to one’s
beloved: the separation is a metaphoric preparation to death and,
hence, an act engendering the greatest anxiety imaginable, a real
condition of suffering which cannot possibly be placated by the
powerful, soothing images which language evokes. From time to time
I like to think of this valediction as a visual poem, since the
typographical arrangement of each stanza vaguely recalls the shape of
an open book.
25
It is important to recall that, as stated in the OED (I. 7. d.), the verb to die was
“[m]ost common as a poetical metaphor in the late 16th and 17th cent”, with the
meaning “To experience a sexual orgasm”.
26
For a close reading of A Nocturnall along these lines, see Nichols (2011),
whose article revolves around the possible influence of Dionysian negative
theology on Donne’s poem.
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7. BUT ABSENCE TRYES HOW LONG THIS LOVE WILL BEE.
CONCLUSION.
The concluding stanza seems to test the significance of the extended
book metaphor: once absence threatens the solidity of the lover’s
union, the “all-graved tome” is the only means to keep the relationship
intact: the act of reading re-establishes the bond that the act of
separation unmade. Although the tone of the last lines is far from
optimistic, it manages to convey the sense of existential doubt induced
by the speaker’s coming to terms with the death-like ‘nothing’ of the
penultimate stanza, the dimension of endless meaning-making, where
no ‘forms’ can be ever perceived. In this domain of absence, of
shapeless possibilities, the bearing cannot be given by luminous stars
and it is thus the “darke eclipses” that provide the speaker with the
essential point of reference:
Thus vent thy thoughts; abroad I’ll studie thee,
As he removes farre off, that great heights takes;
How great love is, presence best tryall makes,
But absence tryes how long this love will bee;
To take a latitude
Sun, or stares, are fitliest view’d
At their brightest, but to conclude
Of longitudes, what other way have wee,
But to marke when, and where the darke eclipses bee?
(ll. 55-63)
Through the act of reading, the incorporeal text of the absent female
writer is invested with a new body – that of the male reader’s – thus
recreating the union jeopardized by the latter’s departure. Donne’s
argumentation is rendered even more innovative by his overturning of
the traditional sexual connotations of the writing metaphor held by
many cultures, whereby «[t]he writing instrument itself denotes
masculinity (pen = penis), whereas the writing surface is the ‘matrix’,
and the white paper is virgin – therefore, feminine» (Assmann 2011:
141).
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The real fascination of the poem, however, arises from the
scepticism cast upon the whole conceit. The speaker is not fully
confident that the disquieting void created by absence can be really
overcome. Moving towards death, bringing oneself to the extremes of
the human condition is a life-threatening enterprise. Yet, the «point
where blindness and light meet» (Cixous 1993: 38), the «lovely
glorious nothing» of Donne’s Aire and Angels (l. 6), is precisely
‘somewhere else’, in that uncharted territory which we try to access
every time we write or read. It is a step towards death and ultimate
love, both, until the very end, unattainable. The “Booke” keeps record
of this endless quest, instilling in both writers and readers the
possibility of immortality. As stated succinctly by Drew Leder (1990:
123), «Language, as concretized in the text, leaves behind its voice of
origin, is able to live on through the centuries, to be instantiated
unchanged in an indefinite number of locales».
Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere
[email protected]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Assmann, A.
2011 Cultural Memory and Western Civilization, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Barthes, R.
1984 Image, Music, Text, translated from the French by S.
Heath, London, Flamingo.
Bell, I.
1983 The Role of the Lady in Donne’s Songs and Sonets, in
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1986 Under ye rage of a hott sonn & yr eyes: John Donne’s
Love Letters to Ann More, in Summers, C.J. – Pebworth, T.
(eds.), The Eagle and the Dove: Reassessing John Donne,
Columbia, University of Missouri Press, pp. 25-52.
Białostocki, J.
1988 The Message of Images: Studies in the History of Art,
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Budra, P.
1991 Doctor Faustus: Death
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Céard, J.
1999 Listes de femmes savantes au XVIe siècle, in Nativel, C.
(ed.), Femmes savantes, savoirs des femmes : du crépuscule de la
Renaissance à l’aube des Lumières : actes du Colloque de
Chantilly, 22-24 septembre 1995, Genève, Librairie Droz, pp. 8594.
Cixous, H.
1993 Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing, translated from the
French by S. Cornell and S. Sellers, New York, Columbia
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Culler, J.
1982 On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism
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1990 European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages,
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lateinisches Mittelalter, Bern, A. Francke Verlag).
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Donne, J.
1965 The Elegies and the Songs and Sonnets, edited by H.
Gardner, Oxford, Clarendon Press.
1985 The Complete English Poems, edited by C.A. Patrides,
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2007 Poesie, edited by A. Serpieri and S. Bigliazzi, Milano,
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2010 The Complete Poems, edited by Robin Robbins, Harlow,
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Freitag, H.
1975 John Donne: Zentrale Motive und Themen in seiner
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Guss, D.L.
1966 John Donne, Petrarchist: Italianate Conceits and Love
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Harvey, E.D.
1996 Ventriloquizing Sappho, or the Lesbian Muse, in Greene
E. (ed.), Re-Reading Sappho: Reception and Transmission,
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Holmyard, E.J.
1957 Alchemy, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
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1983 Vis eloquentiae. Emblematica e persuasione, Palermo,
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1996 Parola e immagine nel Rinascimento, in Marenco, F.
(ed.), Storia della civiltà letteraria inglese, I, Torino, UTET, pp.
588-603.
Joyner, D.
2008 Portraits of Prophetic Virgil and the Sibyl, in Ziolkowski,
J.M. – Putnam, M.C.J. (eds.), The Virgilian Tradition: The First
Fifteen Hundred Years, New Haven, Yale University Press, pp.
453-457.
Leder, D.
1990
The Absent Body, Chicago, Chicago University Press.
Leighton, A.
2007 On Form: Poetry, Aestheticism, and Legacy of a Word,
Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Linden, S.J.
1995 Alchemical Art and the Renaissance Emblem, in Mulvey
Roberts, M. – Ormsby-Lennonm H. (eds.), Secret Texts: The
Literature of Secret Societies, New York, AMS Press, pp. 7-23.
Marlowe, C.
1965 Doctor Faustus, edited by J.D. Jump, London, Routledge.
Marotti, A.F.
1986 John Donne, Coterie Poet, Madison, University of
Wisconsin Press.
Matalene III, H.W.
1972 Marlowe’s Faustus and the Comforts of Academicism, in
«English Literary History», 39.4, pp. 495-519.
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Nichols, J.L.
2011 Dionysian Negative Theology in Donne’s A Nocturnall
upon S. Lucies Day, in «Texas Studies in Literature and
Language», 53.3, pp. 352-367.
Pettegree, A.
2010 The Book in the Renaissance, New Haven, Yale
University Press.
Ripa, C.
1992 [1603] Iconologia, edited by P. Buscaroli, foreword by M.
Praz, Milano, TEA [1603, Iconologia. Overo descrittione di
diverse imagini cavate dall’antichità, & di propria invention,
Roma, appresso Lepido Facii].
Shakespeare, W.
1964 Sonnets, edited by A.L. Rowse, London, Macmillan.
Stevenson, J.
2005 Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender and Authority
from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
Targoff, R.
2008 John Donne, Body and Soul, Chicago, University of
Chicago Press.
Wollman, R.B.
1993 The “Press and the Fire”: Print and Manuscript Culture
in Donne’s Circle, in «Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900»,
33.1, pp. 85-97.
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Woolf, V.
2009 The Essays, 5 vols., vol. V, edited by Stuart Nelson
Clarke, London, Hogarth.
Ziolkowski, J.M.
1996 Theories of Obscurity in the Latin Tradition, in
«Mediaevalia», 19: 101-170.
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NEOPLATONISM IN BLAKE’S
SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE
MARTINA ZAMPARO
ABSTRACT
The aim of this essay is to demonstrate that William Blake’s
collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Shewing the Two
Contrary States of the Human Soul (1789-1794) can be read in the
light of Neoplatonism. From this perspective, Innocence and
Experience are not completely opposed but, rather, intertwined in a
more complex and fascinating way. As the human soul experiences a
rebirth after its descent in the so-called world of generation, so man
can be born again, in a higher and purer form, after his immersion in
the world of Experience. According to this reading, based on the
Eleusinian Mysteries and Plotinus’s and Porphyry’s works, Blake’s
aim is not to recover the world described by the Songs of Innocence,
because the real Innocence he alludes to is the spiritual and moral
wisdom man will achieve after his journey through the two stages of
existence.
1. INTRODUCTION
William Blake’s composite collection Songs of Innocence and of
Experience. Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul is
the product of a long and elaborate work that lasts several years, from
1789 to 1794. This essay is an attempt to demonstrate that the
collection acquires extra value if read in the light of the Eleusinian
Mysteries and of the Neoplatonic concepts Blake found in Thomas
Taylor’s works. As a matter of fact, it is generally assumed that Taylor
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provides the poet with the translations of the most celebrated
Neoplatonic writings1.
As claimed by Harper and Raine, the first to remark Blake’s
indebtedness to Taylor is Damon (1969) «and no serious Blake
scholar has since denied it» (Harper – Raine 1969: 3). In 1928, Pierce
discovered a series of connections between Taylor’s and Blake’s
works, stating that «the Neo Platonism of the poet so consistently
develops just behind that of the scholar, that some form of influence
seems almost unquestionable» (Pierce 1928: 1121)2. In recent years,
Harper has focused on the most evident influences of Taylor’s
translations on the poet’s so-called ‘Prophetic Books’: «I am
convinced that Taylor is a primary source of Blake’s ideas in the
important formative years before and during the writing of the early
Prophetic Books» (Harper 1961: vii). Since the ‘Prophetic Books’ are
considered on the whole as a summa of Blake’s ideas, it seems likely
that the same Neoplatonic influences can be detected also in Blake’s
earlier works, namely in the Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
Among the writings by Taylor that most attract Blake’s attention is
the Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries (Amsterdam
[London] 1790-1791). It has also been claimed that Blake probably
owned one of the replicas of the so-called ‘Portland Vase’, whose
symbols might be interpreted as a representation of the Eleusinian
1
«It was Thomas Taylor who took upon himself, at the close of the eighteenth
century, the task of placing before his contemporaries the canonical Platonic
writings […]. Taylor’s translations were the texts, his interpretations the guide.
Flaxman and probably Blake were close friends of Taylor during the formative
years of all three» (Harper – Raine 1969: 8). As claimed by Raine (1970: 36),
Blake might also have had the chance to attend Taylor’s lectures on Neoplatonism
at Flaxman’s house. Furthermore, Taylor’s translations might have been available
to Blake even before their publication (Raine 1968: 393).
2
«In some cases there may have been other sources available, in some there
certainly were not; but for all cases under discussion Taylor was a possible source,
sometimes, apparently, the only one. Even where Blake could have drawn from
other writers, it seems improbable that he did» (Pierce 1928: 1122).
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NEOPLATONISM IN WILLIAM BLAKE
83
Mysteries3. It should be noted that Taylor seems to link Plotinus to the
tradition of the Eleusinian Mysteries4. Indeed, Taylor might have been
prompted to see a connection between Plotinus and the Eleusinian
celebrations by a passage in the Enneads where the Greek philosopher
refers to some ancient Mysteries (Enn. I, 6, 7). As noted by Procopio
(2005: 68), Plotinus’s words seem to recall the symbolism of the
Eleusinian Mysteries and, in particular, their focus on the blessed and
privileged condition of the initiates after the final revelation5. Indeed,
Plotinus’s claim “Any that have seen know what I have in mind: the
soul takes another life as it approaches God” (Plot. Enn. VI, 9, 6:
transl. Mackenna – Page 1952: 359) somehow recalls the Homeric
3
As suggested by Raine (1970: 30-31), «It was during the early years of Blake’s
friendship with him that Flaxman persuaded Josiah Wedgwood to make his
famous replicas of the Portland Vase, the first of his many replicas and imitations
of Graeco-Roman vases. […] In 1791 Erasmus Darwin […] published in Part I of
his Botanic Garden a long essay in which he argued, probably mistakenly, that the
vase figures are emblems of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Blake made the fine set of
engravings for Darwin’s work, and must, therefore, have had either the original
vase or one of the replicas in his workroom for some time».
4
«That the mysteries occultly signified this sublime truth, that the soul by being
merged in matter resides among the dead both here and hereafter […] yet it is
indisputably confirmed, by the testimony of the great and truly divine Plotinus»
(Taylor 1790-1791: 351). All quotations from the Dissertation on the Eleusinian
and Bacchic Mysteries are from Taylor (1790-1791) and from Taylor (1891).
5
«È evidente che un’analoga concezione della visione finale, dell’epopteia,
presiede tanto ai misteri quanto alla filosofia plotiniana: essa è considerata come il
presagio ed al tempo stesso l’anticipo di una situazione escatologica privilegiata»
(Procopio 2005: 69). The importance of visionary experience in Plotinus’s
thought is underlined also by Bussanich (1996: 40): «Discursive reasoning must
retreat before intuitive thought and visionary experience, which for Plotinus
justify the claim that ‘whoever has seen, knows what I am saying’ […]. To
achieve this transcendent level of existence requires both philosophical reasoning
and affective training». For a further study on Plotinus’s philosophy of the soul,
see Chiaradonna (2005).
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Hymn to Demeter6, which underlines the importance of visions as a
source of knowledge of the divine:
Happy is he among men upon earth who has seen these
mysteries; but he who is uninitiate and who has no part in them,
never has lot of like good things once he is dead, down in the
darkness and gloom.
(h. Cer. 480-484; transl. Evelyn-White 1967: 323)
However, even though there are affinities between Plotinus’s
concept of the soul’s final salvation and that of the rites of Eleusis, it
should be pointed out that several mystery cults existed and, therefore,
it is not sure whether the philosopher’s reference was precisely to the
rites of Eleusis7.
It is possibly by means of Taylor, then, that Plotinus’s ideas and the
symbolism of the Eleusinian Mysteries become somehow intertwined
in Blake’s thought. The habit of merging different traditions in a new,
‘illuminated’, way is one of Blake’s characteristics, as emerges from
All Religions Are One, whose title underlines the author’s syncretic
approach to philosophy and religion. All religions, as well as all
philosophies and traditions, derive from the so-called ‘Poetic Genius’,
which is universal and transcends all distinctions: «As all men are
alike (tho’ infinitely various), So all Religions &, all similars, have
one source. The true Man is the source, he being the Poetic Genius»
6
The story of the Eleusinian Mysteries «was told in detail for the first time in a
long epic poem that has come down to us under the title of the Homeric Hymn to
Demeter. Neither the author of this hymn nor the time of its composition is
known, but scholars have come more and more to consider it the official story of
the Eleusinian traditions, recorded in verse about the end of the seventh century
B.C., perhaps around 600 B.C.» (Mylonas 1969: 3).
7
As remarked by Ustinova (2009: 228), for instance, «Before we can attribute to
the Eleusinian cult practices suggested by statements in ancient authors, we have
first to be sure that they do not refer to the Orphic mysteries» or, as it has been
said, to other mystery cults.
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(A.R.O., K. 98)8. It follows that Blake might have seen some links
between Plotinus’s theory of the descent and ascent of the soul and the
Eleusinian Mysteries, two traditions that constitute, along with
Porphyry’s The Cave of the Nymphs9, such an important key for the
interpretation of Blake’s ideas.
2. TRUE KNOWLEDGE COMES FROM “THE MOLE”
As claimed by Frye, the interpretation of Blake’s works and,
especially, of his Songs of Innocence and of Experience, presupposes
an awareness of the author’s complex and often obscure symbolism:
«Without the system, Blake is the simplest of lyric poets and every
child may joy to hear the songs» (Frye 1966 :10). I believe that a key
to the correct interpretation of Blake’s Songs is provided by the
opening lines of The Book of Thel: «Does the Eagle know what is in
the pit? / Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?» (B.T., ll. 1-2, K. 127). These
lines are a reflection on two different kinds of knowledge: abstract and
sensuous knowledge10. The lyrical voice is indirectly asking the reader
whether true knowledge is acquired by means of abstract definitions
or if, conversely, truth is achieved only through concrete experience.
As it might be expected, Blake does not provide his reader with a clear
8
Hereafter all quotations from Blake will be quoted according to Keynes (1972)
and marked as a K. followed by the page number. The following abbreviations for
Blake’s works are employed: All Religions Are One: A.R.O; The Book of Thel:
B.T.; Jerusalem: J.; Milton: M.; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: M.H.H.; There
is no Natural Religion: N.N.R.; A Vision of the Last Judgment: V.L.J.
9
Blake’s knowledge of Porphyry’s De Antro Nympharum is demonstrated by the
author’s engraving dating from 1821. For Blake’s plate De Antro Nympharum, see
his Arlington Court Tempera, reproduced in Raine (1970).
10
Mitchell (1978: 86) discusses the meaning of Thel’s question: «Is knowledge a
process and a probe, or a product and a point of view? […] Mediated, abstract
‘eagle knowledge’ produces a vision of the pit that is desirable, but apparently
false; immediate, sensuous ‘mole knowledge’ discovers the apparent truth, but
this truth is intolerable».
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and definite answer because, as he states, the obscurity of his works is
aimed at helping man to awake his faculties: «That which can be made
Explicit to the Idiot is not worth my care. The wisest of the Ancients
consider’d what is not too Explicit as the fittest for Instruction,
because it rouzes the faculties to act» (Letter to Dr. Trusler, 23 Aug.
1799, K. 793). However, an attentive perusal of Blake’s macrotext,
along with a study of the influences coming from the Eleusinian
Mysteries and Neoplatonism, might offer an answer to Thel’s question
and demonstrate that the passage through the complexities of the state
of Experience is a conditio sine qua non for the achievement of
eternity.
Blake provides an answer to Thel’s obscure question in his earliest
illuminated work, All Religions Are One, where he asserts that «As the
true method of knowledge is experiment, the true faculty of knowing
must be the faculty which experiences» (A.R.O., K. 98). These lines
recall a passage from Plotinus’s Enneads, where the philosopher, in
similar terms, praises the role of direct experience as a source of
knowledge: «Where the faculty is incapable of knowing without
contact, the experience of evil brings the clearer perception of Good»
(Plot. Enn. IV, 8, 7: transl. MacKenna – Page 1952: 204). Both Blake
and Plotinus, thus, suggest that knowledge is not provided by abstract
categories but by real experience, i.e. by “the Mole”11. Plotinus goes
even further when he claims that evil is useful for humanity in order to
realize what good consists of, as if man could not really perceive the
greatness of God without being immersed in the “mud” of existence
first (Plot. Enn. I, 6, 5). This is exactly what Thel does not have the
strength to do since she questions her usefulness in a world where
11
As noted by Catapano (1996: 157), in Plotinus’s times, philosophy implied a
specific behaviour; the philosopher had to translate his ideas into a concrete way
of life. Therefore, it might be inferred that knowledge by means of direct
experience played a very important role in Plotinus’s system. «Questa ricerca
della verità – ricerca personale e corale, dialettica e problematica, tradizionalista e
insieme originale – e lo stile di vita ad essa corrispondente sono esattamente ciò
che Plotino ha in mente quando si parla di ‘filosofia’».
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everything inevitably perishes, but, when she is given the possibility
of exploring the underworld in first person, she runs away: «The
Virgin started from her seat, & with a shriek / Fled back unhinder’d
till she came to the vales of Har» (B.T., 6: 21-22, K. 130). In her
representing the weaknesses of every man when facing the difficulties
of life, Thel is a metaphor for man’s complex journey on earth.
However, Blake himself maintains that «Evil is Created into a State,
that Men / May be deliver’d time after time» (J., 49: 71-72, K. 680),
somehow prompting his reader not to be afraid of the «Dolours and
lamentations» (B.T., 6: 7, K. 130) of mortal existence and not to
follow Thel’s example. Once more, Blake seems to be deeply
influenced by Plotinus, who argues that the fall into the material world
does not only have to be read in terms of a death of the soul’s eternal
life, but also as a positive event:
then it [the Soul] abandons its status as whole soul with whole
soul, though even thus it is always able to recover itself by
turning to account the experience of what it has seen and
suffered here, learning, so, the greatness of rest in the Supreme,
and more clearly discerning by comparison with what is almost
their direct antithesis12.
(Plot. Enn. IV, 8, 7: transl. MacKenna – Page 1952: 204)
According to Plotinus, the soul ‘dies’, putting an end to its eternal
life, but is then able to be born again, in a purer and higher form. As a
matter of fact, in Plotinus’s theory of the descent of the soul, «what
12
According to Fleet (2012: 177-178), in his commentary on Plotinus’s On the
Descent of the Soul into Bodies, the philosopher «is suggesting that experience of
evil in the sensible world can lead us to an understanding of the Form of Good in
the intelligible world. […] At root is the fundamental Platonic distinction between
knowledge or understanding, whose theater is the intelligible world, and
experience or suffering, whose theater is the sensible world».
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appears as a fall is in fact a positive event» (Kanyororo 2003: 235)13.
Likewise, Blake argues that the ‘descent’ into the evil of Experience
does not have to be avoided because man has to know what sin is in
order to be redeemed: «If I were Unpolluted I should never have /
Glorified thy Holiness or rejoiced in thy Great Salvation» (J., 61: 4546, K. 695). It follows that both Blake and Plotinus seem to believe in
the ability of the human soul to renew itself after the ‘immersion’ in
the so-called world of generation, so that the experience of the
difficulties of existence might be turned into a source of ‘salvation’.
The Neoplatonic concept of the world as a cave where the human
soul descends is also useful for the interpretation of Blake’s Songs14.
Blake actually considers the world of generation as a place of both
death and rebirth, as a ‘grave’ and a ‘womb’ at the same time, as «The
Habitation of the Spectres of the Dead, & the Place / Of Redemption
13
Kanyororo (2003: 238) claims that Plotinus constantly refers to the possibility
that the fallen soul has to renew itself and ascend to the world of eternity, enriched
by its experience in the mortal world: «L’âme incarnée peut se retrouver. Son
effort, pour retrouver la cohérence primitive de sa nature, doit aller dans le sens de
l’éveil, de la concentration et peut-être du silence qui seul rend capable de garder
en soi l’essentiel. […] la descente de l’âme se révèle néanmoins comme une
richesse».
14
Generally speaking, the cave is a place of spiritual death and initiatory rebirth:
«L’antro è simbolo del cosmo, luogo di iniziazione e rinascita, immagine del
centro e del cuore. […] In esso avviene l’iniziazione, il passaggio dalla morte (al
mondo profano) alla nascita, e questo passaggio, come ogni passaggio, deve
avvenire nell’oscurità» (Laura Simonini’s comment on De Antro Nympharum, in
Porfirio 2010: 94). Porphyry himself asserts that, because of their symbolism, the
ancients often consecrated caves to their gods during their rituals of initiation:
«the Persians, mystically signifying the descent of the soul into an inferior nature
and its ascent into the intelligible world, initiate the priest or mystic in a place
which they denominate cave» (Porph. Antr. 6: transl. Taylor 1788: 301). As
claimed by Ustinova (2009: 2), this image of the cave as a source of truth and
regeneration is different from Plato’s depiction of the cave as a place of
ignorance. Porphyry’s cave actually represents «a means of acquiring ultimate,
superhuman knowledge» (Ustinova 2009: 2). On the myth of the cave and its
related symbolism, see also Findlay (2003).
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& of awakening again into Eternity» (J., 59: 8-9, K. 691). This
concept is fully developed by Porphyry, Plotinus’s pupil, in his work
On the Cave of the Nymphs, where the author analyses Homer’s
account of a cave having two gates: «Besides this too is wonderful,
that the cave should have a double entrance; one prepared for the
descent of men, the other for the ascent of gods» (Porph. Antr. 3:
transl. Taylor 1788: 299). After its first descent, the soul is able to
ascend, through the second gate, in a divine form15. This sort of
descensus ad inferos functions as a process of purification and
expiation, during which the soul has to be cleansed from the ‘filth’ of
existence, as a sculptor works on his statue (Plot. Enn. I, 6, 5: transl.
Mackenna – Page 1952: 23):
act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he
cuts away here, he smoothes there […]. So do you also […] and
never cease chiselling your statue, until there shine out on you
from it the godlike splendour of virtue.
(Plot. Enn. I, 6, 9: transl. MacKenna – Page 1952: 25).
Once more, Blake is close to Plotinus when claiming that man has
to purify himself from the vices of earthly life, as a great artist
endlessly refines his work: «We are in a World of Generation & death,
& this world we must cast off if we would be Painters such as Rafael,
Mich. Angelo & the Ancient Sculptors» (V. L. J., K. 613). While in
the mortal world, then, man undergoes a spiritual and moral journey
that will allow him to be born again, ascend from the ‘cave’ where he
first fell, and be united with God, exactly as when he was «One
Family, / One Man blessed forever» (J., 55: 46, K. 687).
The necessity to ‘die’ or, in Blakean terms, to be immersed in
Experience16, in order to ‘be reborn’ is what the Eleusinian Mysteries
symbolically intend to signify by means of a representation of the
15
Plotinus asserts that «in the Soul’s becoming a good and beautiful thing is its
becoming like God» (Plot. Enn. I, 6, 6: transl. MacKenna – Page 1952: 24).
16
Raine (1968: 129) remarks that «Experience, as a whole, deals with the world
of the soul that has ‘died’, or ‘lapsed’».
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story of Proserpina and Ceres17. Indeed, as it will be discussed below,
two poems of Songs of Experience, The Little Girl Lost and The Little
Girl Found, might be read as Blake’s reinterpretation of the myth of
Proserpina18. Lyca, the protagonist of the two songs, seems to retrace
the path of Proserpina who, in the imagery of the Mysteries, is linked
to the regeneration of nature, since Ceres allows the coming of spring
in order to celebrate the ‘rebirth’ of her lost daughter19. Recalling the
symbolism of the Eleusinian celebrations, the lyrical voice of The
Little Girl Lost announces the world’s future rebirth, thus linking Lyca
to the myth of Proserpina:
In futurity
I prophetic see,
That the earth from sleep,
(Grave the sentence deep)
Shall arise and seek
For her maker meek:
And the desart wild
Become a garden mild.
(The Little Girl Lost, 34: 1-8, K. 112)
17
As claimed by Kerenyi (Jung – Kerenyi 1985: 117), «The basic theme of both
these mysteries was the eternal coming of life from death» (Jung – Kerenyi 1985:
149). One of the symbols displayed during the rituals was «a single ear of grain»
(Jung – Kerenyi 1985: 115) that represented life generating from death: «The
grain figure is essentially the figure of both origin and end […]. It is always the
grain that sinks to earth and returns». The grain, exactly like Proserpina, descends
in order to ascend in a better, more complete form. For further studies on the
Eleusinian Mysteries, see Clinton (1992), Eliade (1978), Kerenyi (1967), Lippolis
(2006), Mylonas (1969), Scarpi (2002) and Wassoon (1978).
18
«The Little Girl Lost and The Little Girl Found tell the story that Blake first
learned from the Portland vase; Lyca is the Kore, whose death – or, as Blake says,
‘sleep’ – is watched with such grave wonder by the man and woman on the urn»
(Raine 1968: 127).
19
«After recovering her daughter, Demeter consented to rejoin the gods, and the
earth was miraculously covered with verdure» (Eliade 1978: 291).
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Moreover, Lyca’s sleep, a metaphor for her physical death, might
be read as a reinterpretation of Proserpina’s descent into the
underworld20. As a matter of fact, Proserpina’s imprisonment in Hades
also symbolizes «the mighty descent into sleep, into the realm of
dreams» (Keller 1988: 50). However, Lyca knows that man’s ‘sleep’
is nothing but a rebirth into a higher reality, exactly as the soul’s
descent into generation turns out to be a source of salvation. By his
indirect reference to the story of Proserpina, Blake is once more
suggesting that true knowledge can be acquired only by means of
direct experience, i.e. by a descent into the ‘cave’ of earthly life.
The Eleusinian Mysteries, along with the Neoplatonic concepts of
the cosmos as a cave and of the descent of the soul into matter, seem
to support the idea that knowledge comes from “the Mole”. Thel,
differently from Proserpina and Lyca, is not strong enough to
accomplish her descensus ad inferos and chooses a form of
incomplete knowledge, the one provided by “the Eagle”. Blake does
not want his reader to be entrapped, like Thel, in a world of illusory
perfection; man, like the initiates of the Eleusinian Mysteries, has to
face the pains of existence in first person in order to be redeemed.
20
«Sweet sleep come to me / Underneath this tree» (The Little Girl Lost, 34:1718, K. 112). According to Raine (1968: 136), there are several hints suggesting
that ‘sleeping’ is here a metaphor for dying. First of all, the text suggests that
Lyca’s parents weep because their daughter sleeps, which sounds very unusual:
«Do father, mother weep, / ‘Where can Lyca sleep’. / […] How can Lyca sleep, /
If her mother weep» (The Little Girl Lost, 34:19-20/23-24, K. 112). The only
possible explanation is, thus, that Lyca’s sleep symbolizes her physical death.
Moreover, Lyca ambiguously states that she will not weep if her mother ‘sleeps’:
«If my mother sleep, / Lyca shall not weep» (The Little Girl Lost, 34: 27-28, K.
113). Once more, Lyca shows that death is to her a rebirth into a higher and better
reality and the consequent end of the darkness of the Fallen world.
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3. INNOCENCE: AN AMBIGUOUS REALITY
Blake’s claim that «Understanding […] is acquir’d by means of […]
Experience» (Annotations to Swedenborg, K. 89) seems to suggest
that the world of Innocence has to be gradually abandoned. Indeed,
the Songs of Innocence, if carefully perused, depict a dimension where
human imagination is restrained by different forms of authority and
visually represent the necessity to overcome this oppressive world by
means of some flying creatures that appear in several plates of the
collection21: as claimed by Erdman (1974: 50), these birds flying
towards the sky, in a sort of attempt of escape, remind the reader that
«this life of sheltered innocence is but a ‘little space’ which must be
pierced to prevent its becoming a prison».
The very title-page to Songs of Innocence, showing a woman
instructing two children with a book on her lap, visually represents the
stifling sides of the seemingly idyllic world of Innocence. The scene
actually embodies that form of ruled education considered by Blake as
the death of man’s creative energy22, as suggested by one of the most
praised principles of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: «The tygers
of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction» (M.H.H., pl. 9, K.
152). Several other plates of Songs of Innocence, among which is A
Cradle Song, highlight the ambiguities of this state and, in particular,
21
The plates of Songs of Innocence in which flying birds appear are the following:
Title-page to Songs of Innocence, The Shepherd and The Little Black Boy (plate
II). As Blake produced several versions of each plate, with single illustrations
considerably varying in colour, thus affecting their interpretation, it is important
to note that the edition here considered for the plates of Songs of Innocence and of
Experience is Keynes (1970).
22
As is well-known, Blake is self-educated and often expresses his contempt for
every form of forced instruction. His outstanding culture is due to his being a
voracious reader: «In my Brain are studies & Chambers fill’d with books &
pictures of old, which I wrote & painted in ages of Eternity before my mortal life»
(Letter to John Flaxman, 21 Sept. 1800, K. 802).
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the oppressive features of maternal love23. Throughout Songs of
Innocence, mothers are, most of the times, those who entrap their
children in a limiting dimension.
In the Eleusinian Mysteries, Proserpina’s separation from her
mother’s cares is one of the basic steps of the ritual, the cause of her
descent into Hades: «Here, then, we see the first cause of the soul’s
descent, […] occultly signified by the separation of Proserpine from
Ceres» (Taylor 1790-1791: 387). Unlike Thel, Proserpina abandons
the cave where she has been hidden by her mother, «lest some
violence should be offered to Proserpine» (Taylor 1790-1791: 386),
and undertakes her journey alone. In the celebrations of the Mysteries,
as in most rituals of initiation, the separation from the mother
represents a definite break from the previous state and a rebirth into a
new condition24. In similar terms, Blake encourages humanity to leave
all forms of moral and motherly constraints and find the strength to
begin the ‘descent’ into Experience, since «none by travelling over
known lands can find out the unknown, So from already acquired
knowledge Man could not acquire more» (A.R.O., K. 98).
Albeit A Cradle Song is usually considered as conforming «in its
simplicity to the general pattern of all lullabies» (Keynes 1970: 137),
in my opinion it functions as an example of how the protection of the
state of Innocence, if excessive, might become a prison. The mother of
the poem is worried about her child’s future, as every mother would
be but, at the same time, her ‘moans’ stress her oppressive role:
23
Analyzing each of the Songs of Innocence would go beyond the scope of this
study: in this discussion it is worth considering how A Cradle Song highlights
some of the more ambiguous aspects of the state of Innocence.
24
As claimed by Eliade (1994: 9), «The maternal universe was that of the profane
world. The universe that the novices now enter is that of the sacred world.
Between the two, there is a break, a rupture of continuity». As pointed out also by
Lippolis (2006: 7-8), Proserpina’s separation from Ceres played a basic role in the
symbolism of the Mysteries: «La ‘storia sacra’ inizia con il rapimento della figlia
[…]; il suo destino femminile, infatti, non può prescindere dal matrimonio, che
implica l’abbandono della madre e l’inizio di una nuova vita, esperienza temuta e
allontanata da Demetra».
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Sleep sleep happy child.
All creation slept and smil’d.
Sleep sleep, happy sleep,
While o’er thee thy mother weep.
(A Cradle Song, 16: 17-20, K. 120).
The fact that the sweet sleep of the child is contrasted by the crying
of the mother clearly alludes to Blake’s negative conception of
maternal protection which, in Jerusalem, he defines as the «anguish of
maternal love» (J., 5: 46-47, K. 624). Since it is strange that a mother
should cry if her child is quietly sleeping, the whole scene calls the
idyllic atmosphere of Innocence into question. The adverb while
actually focuses on the opposition between the child’s serenity, on the
one hand, and the mother’s lamentations, on the other. The illustration
of A Cradle Song, the only indoor-scene of Songs of Innocence,
further contributes to highlight the ambiguities emerging from the
poem. First of all, the picture of A Cradle Song evidently contrasts
with the open settings of songs like The Shepherd, The Lamb and
Spring, thus suggesting that the state of Innocence is not just a place
where man can spend his time happily «Piping down the valleys wild»
(Introduction to Songs of Innocence, 4: 1, K. 111); secondly, indoorsettings often function, in Blake’s system, as a symbol of the
domination of reason over imagination. As a matter of fact, the child
represented in the plate of A Cradle Song seems to have no way out
from the different layers that prevent him from escaping: the bands
which envelop him, the relatively big cradle where he lies and the
heavy curtains that enclose the whole scene. As claimed by Warner
(1989: 85), Blake’s designs have to be meticulously analyzed in order
to grasp the full meaning of the author’s works: «Like his poetic
archetypes, Blake’s visual images are indicative primarily of states of
man, which is one reason the human figure in various attitudes is so
central to his designs». Therefore, every detail of the poet’s
illustrations has to be perused, since his drawings are never simple
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translations of the songs they refer to25. The very Blake actually
prompts his reader never to overlook the visual details provided by the
plates: «As Poetry admits not a Letter that is Insignificant, so Painting
admits not a Grain of Sand or a Blade of Grass Insignificant – much
less an Insignificant Blur or Mark» (V.L.J, K. 611).
The ambiguities coming to light from A Cradle Song seem to be
confirmed by a comparison with the illustration of Infant Sorrow, a
poem included in Songs of Experience. Mitchell (1978: 5) argues that
Blake’s plates have to be studied as «a picture in a world of pictures»,
since they are all somehow interrelated, as if they were part of a story.
It is no coincidence, then, that the two plates of A Cradle Song and
Infant Sorrow show two mothers, both red-dressed and bent over their
children, in a particularly stifling setting. As suggested by Warner
(1989: 107), the position of the two women might be considered as
part of the body language used by Blake to symbolize negative
feelings: «This figure and its related form, the bent-over, kneeling
figure […] are recognized by most readers to be Blake’s primary
visual symbols for mankind in the state of despair». The undeniable
similarities between the two plates might be read as an evidence that
they should be connected and that they acquire a clearer significance
if studied one in the light of the other. The lyrical voice of Infant
Sorrow mentions some heavy bands against which he has to struggle:
Struggling in my fathers hands:
Striving against my swadling bands:
25
«The aesthetic and iconographic independence of Blake’s designs from their
texts can thus be seen as having two functions. First, it serves a mimetic purpose,
in that it reflects Blake’s vision of the fallen world as a place of apparent
separation between temporal and spatial, mental and physical phenomena.
Second, it has a rhetorical or hermeneutic function, in that the contrariety of poem
and picture entices the reader to supply the missing connections» (Mitchell 1978:
33). For further studies on Blake’s ‘illuminated’ art, see Hagstrum (1964) and
Lister (1975). It should also be noticed that, in the eighteenth century, the concept
of the so-called ut pictura poesis was particularly widespread and necessarily
influenced Blake’s art. For a complete study on the ut pictura poesis, see Lee
(1967).
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Bound and weary I thought best
To sulk upon my mothers breast.
(Infant Sorrow, 48: 5-8, K. 217)
However, it should be noted that these swadling bands are not
present in the illustration of Infant Sorrow, where the little child is
depicted with outstretched arms and as completely free from all
physical constraints26. Conversely, the little protagonist of A Cradle
Song is still wrapped in the tight bands that symbolize how the
protection offered to the characters in the state of Innocence does not
allow humanity to grow up. Given that Infant Sorrow is part of Songs
of Experience, it follows that the child with no bands and outstretched
arms, represented in the corresponding illustration, symbolizes the
possibility man has to be set free from the bonds of mortal life only
after passing through the suffering of the state of Experience.
It is important to point out that children are, in Blake’s system, a
symbol of the «fecundity of imagination» (Damon 1973: 81), as
opposed to the so-called «Reasoning Power, / An Abstract objecting
power that Negatives every thing» (J., 10: 13-14, K. 629). Blake often
praises the ability of children, led by their imagination, to understand
the meaning of his ‘illuminated’ works:
I am happy to find a Great Majority of Fellow Mortals who can
Elucidate My Visions, & Particularly they have been Elucidated
by Children, who have taken a greater delight in contemplating
my Pictures than I even hoped. Neither Youth nor Childhood is
Folly or Incapacity.
(Letter to Dr. Trusler, 23 Aug. 1799, K. 794)
After the passage through all the stages of existence, man is like a
new-born child, able to show to the ‘inexperienced’ ones the way to
26
For a study of the symbolism of the outstretched arms in Blake’s plates, see
Warner (1989: 87-105).
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God. As suggested by Eliade27, many rituals of initiation are
symbolically considered as a regressus ad uterum, as if man were
returning into the motherly womb. This concept recalls Wordsworth’s
line «The Child is father of Man» (My Heart leaps up, l. 7), where the
child stands, in Blakean and Platonic terms, for the new man who is
born again, after being immersed into Experience. Given the great
importance childhood has for Blake, the child of A Cradle Song,
forced in a closed setting, suggests that the state of Innocence hides
several controversial sides; what seems to be an idyllic setting, «where
joy doth sit on every bough» (Song 1st by a Shepherd, l. 1, K. 63),
turns out to be a place where human imagination is restrained. In the
light of the deceptive features of Innocence, one might think that
Blake’s aim is not to recover the condition described in Songs of
Innocence: actually, his aim is to show that a higher reality can be
achieved at the end of the passage through Experience, as suggested
by the opening lines of Jerusalem, the summa of Blake’s thought, «of
the passage through / Eternal Death! And of the awakening to Eternal
Life» (J., 4: 1-2, K. 622).
4. FROM EXPERIENCE TO ETERNITY
The previous section has dwelled on the idea that the state of
Innocence is a deceptive world and that man has to overcome its flaws
and abandon its false securities, thus becoming gradually aware of the
necessity to pass through the more complex state of Experience. Songs
of Experience actually end in a positive way, showing that the journey
through the two ‘contrary states’ of the human soul will lead humanity
to a better reality. In The Voice of the Ancient Bard, the closing poem
27
«Initiatory death is often symbolized, for example, by darkness, by cosmic
night, by the telluric womb, the hut, the belly of a monster. […] These images and
symbols of ritual death are inextricably connected with germination, with
embryology; they already indicate a new life in course of preparation» (Eliade
1994: xiv).
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of the Experience collection, the Bard announces the coming of a new
morn, suggesting that humanity’s spiritual darkness has been replaced
by the light of God:
Youth of delight come hither,
And see the opening morn,
Image of truth new born.
Doubt is fled & clouds of reason,
Dark disputes & artful teazing.
(The Voice of the Ancient Bard, 54: 1-5, K. 126).
However, the ‘pilgrimage’ through the sorrow of existence is not an
easy one and humanity needs a guide not to get irremediably lost. The
Bard, the guide of man in the state of Experience28, is a ‘seer’, a wise
prophet who knows what is the end of earthly life and, thus, summons
humanity to wake up:
Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & Future sees
Whose ears have heard,
The Holy Word,
That walk’d among the ancient trees.
Calling the lapsed Soul
And weeping in the evening dew:
That might controll
The starry pole:
And fallen fallen light renew!
(Introduction to Songs of Experience, 30: 1-10, K. 210).
28
«Blake makes clear, then, what he conceives the function of the poet, the Bard,
to be. He must break the heavy chain of Night which threatens to strangle
fertility» (Bottrall 1970: 126). Indeed, Prophets «are not foretellers of future facts;
they are revealers of eternal truths» (Damon 1973: 335). The very Plotinus, as
asserted by Kanyororo (2003: 255), bestows great importance to those who,
having experienced the greatness of the divine, have to guide fallen humanity:
«La pensée de Plotin donne de la place au témoignage dévolu au sage et à ‘celui
qui a vu’: ils ont la charge d’annoncer aux autres la vérité […]. Ils dévront être
des éducateurs et des éveilleurs».
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The task of the Bard is to help man to clean the «doors of
perception» (M.H.H., pl. 14, K. 154) and find the light of God within
himself: «I rest not from my great task! / To open the Eternal Worlds,
to open the immortal Eyes / Of Man inwards into the Worlds of
Thought, into Eternity» (J., 5: 17-19, K. 623). Without the Bard
leading him, man is just a «wanderer lost in dreary night» (M., 15: 16,
K. 496) because of his inability to find the light of God on his path. In
similar terms, Plotinus claims that the human soul has to be helped
and ‘trained’ to goodness in order to ascend to the world of eternity:
«the Soul must be trained – to the habit of remarking, first, all noble
pursuits, then the works of beauty produced not by the labour of the
arts but by the virtue of men known for their goodness» (Plot. Enn. I,
6, 9: transl. MacKenna – Page 1952: 25).
In the Eleusinian Mysteries, the role of the guide is played by the
Hierophant, who initiates the candidates, the so-called mystae29, to the
symbolism of Eleusis. Like Blake’s Bard, the Hierophant’s task is to
symbolically ‘open’ man’s eyes by means of visions of eternity30:
«Crowned with myrtle, we enter with the other initiates into the
vestibule of the temple, – blind as yet, but the Hierophant within will
soon open our eyes» (Taylor 1891: 17). Indeed, at the basis of these
ancient celebrations are the visions experienced by the mystae during
the phase called epopteia or, in other words, during the final
revelation (Taylor 1891: 81). Since the epopteia is, according to
29
«The first initiations of the Eleusinia were called Teletae or terminations, as
denoting that the imperfect and rudimentary period of generated life was ended
and purged off; and the candidate was denominated a mysta» (Taylor 1891: 25).
30
What is known is that «the initiates experienced a special seeing, the ‘opening
of the eyes’» (Keller 1988: 53). However, «In all the years of their celebration, the
central experience of the initiation was never revealed – perhaps because the
mystical insight itself was beyond naming, ineffable» (Keller 1988: 53). What is
sure, as remarked by Clinton (2004: 85), is that «the hierophant’s task was […] ‘to
show sacred objects’ or ‘to make the gods appear’. In the latter case he did more
than show sacred objects, i.e. made gods appear in addition to objects, or perhaps
was mainly associated with an appearance of the gods. Making gods appear was a
feature of the Mysteries».
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Taylor, «the beholding of the most stupenduous visions» (Taylor
1891: 81), the condition of the initiate at the end of the sacred rituals
is completely changed; he is now a ‘seer’31.
Before reaching the epopteia, the mystae undergo a series of
purifying activities, among which is the immersion in water32: «the
second was the day of purification, called also aladé mystai, from the
proclamation: ‘to the sea, initiated ones!’» (Taylor 1891: 14). This
same symbolism recurs also in Blake’s The Chimney Sweeper, where
the protagonist sees, in a vision, an angel releasing all the children
who, once free, wash in a river:
And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open’d the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.
(The Chimney Sweeper, 12: 13-16, K. 117).
The image of the chimney sweepers washing themselves in water,
along with the imagery related to the sun as a symbol of God’s mercy
that saves humanity, might function as a further evidence of Blake’s
knowledge of all the phases of the Eleusinian celebrations.
After appointed rituals and sacrifices, the fifth day, «denominated
the day of torches» (Taylor 1891: 14), is consecrated to torchlight
processions, symbolizing Ceres’s search for her lost daughter. Blake
himself, in A Vision of the Last Judgment, mentions the symbolism of
31
Eliade (1978: 295-296) actually claims that, after suffering all sorts of troubles,
the initiate, like the human soul, finally discovers a better world: «the experiences
of the soul immediately after death are compared to the ordeals of the initiate in
the Greater Mysteries: at first, he wanders in darkness and undergoes all sorts of
terrors; then, suddenly, he is struck by a marvelous light and discovers pure
regions and meadows».
32
«Early in the morning the heralds would order all participants to cleanse
themselves in the sea and the shout ‘to the sea, oh mystai’ would fill the city. […]
The sea was considered immaculate; it cleansed and purified man from all evil.
The initiates probably went to the nearest shore, to the Phaleron coast on the east
side, or to the peninsula of Peiraeus, the port town of Athens» (Mylonas 1969:
249).
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torches, thus further suggesting that he is close to the significance of
the Mysteries: «The wreathed Torches in their hands represents
Eternal Fire which is the fire of Generation or Vegetation» (V.L.J., K.
609). Moreover, the song A Dream, included in Songs of Innocence,
recalls the idea of Ceres searching for her daughter. A lost mother-ant,
desperately looking for her family, is finally guided home by a glowworm, exactly as Ceres is reunited with Proserpina after wandering
alone for several days:
Pitying I drop’d a tear:
But I saw a glow-worm near:
Who replied, What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night.
I am set to light the ground,
While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetles hum.
Little wanderer hie thee home.
(A Dream, 26: 13-20, K. 112)
Like the mother-ant, «Troubled wilderd and forlorn» (A Dream, 26:
5, K. 111), and like Ceres, the mystae are finally able to be united with
the divine dimension and leave behind their dark existence33, since
«God appears & God is light / To those poor Souls who dwell in
Night» (Auguries of Innocence, ll. 129-130, K. 434).
In Plotinus’s terms, the soul’s ascent to the world of eternity is like
a journey, at the end of which man learns how to awake a new way of
‘seeing’:
What then is our course, what the manner of our flight? This is
not a journey for the feet; the feet bring us only from land to
land; nor need you think of coach or ship to carry you away; all
this order of things you must set aside and refuse to see; you
33
As claimed by Taylor (1790-1791: 356), darkness symbolically represented the
mortal world as opposed to the divine realm: «the mysteries, as is well known,
were celebrated by night […]; this period being peculiarly accomodated to the
darkness and oblivion of a corporeal nature».
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must close the eyes and call instead upon another vision.
(Plot. Enn. I, 6, 8: transl. MacKenna – Page 1952: 25)
The idea of the journey is perfectly represented by Blake’s songs
The Little Girl Lost and The Little Girl Found which, as already
anticipated, are re-elaborated versions of the myth of Proserpina
(Raine 1968: 130). The protagonist of the two songs, Lyca,
demonstrates that humanity, like the human soul, can be saved only
after being lost in the «desart wild» (The Little Girl Lost, 34: 7, K.
112) of mortal existence. As a matter of fact, Lyca first enters the cave
where she is brought by the beasts of the forest and is there initiated to
a greater life, since her death is nothing but a rebirth into a higher
dimension:
While the lioness
Loos’d her slender dress,
And naked they convey’d
To caves the sleeping maid34.
(The Little Girl Lost, 34: 53-56, K. 113).
In the light of the symbolism of Eleusis, as much as Proserpina
ascends from her sleep in Hades, allowing the regeneration of nature,
so Lyca is initiated to a new life after entering the cave, both ‘grave’
and ‘womb’. Furthermore, the wanderings of Lyca’s parents might be
34
The removal of the garments, to which the poem alludes, is a Neoplatonic
symbol of the soul’s rebirth. As claimed by Porphyry, once the soul descends into
the world of generation, it assumes the garment of the body: «the body is a
garment with which the soul is invested […]. Thus according to Orpheus,
Proserpine, who presides over every thing generated from seed, is represented
weaving a web» (Porph. Antr. 14: transl. Taylor 1788: 305). Conversely, the souls
«dying from this world discard a garment» (Raine 1968: 141). It follows that the
removal of Lyca’s dress is a representation of the process of the soul’s ascent to
the divine realm, after being set free from the constrictions of physical reality.
Blake often alludes to the concept of the removal of the ‘garments’ as a symbol of
the purification of the human soul: «For God himself enters Death’s Door always
with those that enter / And lays down in the Grave with them, in Visions of
Eternity, / Till they awake & see Jesus & the Linen Clothes lying / That the
Females had Woven for them» (M., 32: 42-43, K. 522).
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read as an allusion to the purifying disciplines of the Eleusinian
Mysteries35 and to the sufferings of the soul previous to its final ascent
(Raine 1968: 143). Indeed, the mystae’s wanderings represented a
training of the soul, symbolically retracing the steps of Proserpina and
Ceres, «from the happiness of the early bonding, through the period of
separation and suffering, to their joyful reunion» (Keller 1988: 53). In
a similar way, the girl’s parents search for their daughter several days
and nights:
Tired and woe-begone,
Hoarse with making moan:
Arm in arm seven days,
They trac’d the desart ways.
(The Little Girl Found, 35: 5-8, K. 113)
The road that brings to eternity is a long and difficult one but, if the
just man keeps his right course through this land of pain and sorrow,
he will finally rejoice in eternity. Blake himself states that he had
fought like a ‘champion’ against the complexities of existence:
I am again Emerged into the light of day; I still & shall to
Eternity Embrace Christianity and Adore him who is the Express
image of God; but I have travel’d thro’ Perils & Darkness not
unlike a Champion.
(Letter to Thomas Butts, 22 Nov. 1802, K. 815-816)
Likewise, Lyca’s parents finally realize that their daughter’s
physical death is not an end but a rebirth:
Then they followed,
Where the vision led:
And saw their sleeping child,
Among tygers wild.
35
Ustinova (2009: 233) remarks how the pilgrimage of the initiates of Eleusis was
a long and difficult one: «The effect of the awe-inspiring environment was
enhanced by the two days of fasting and the exhausting march of more than 30
kilometres from Athens to Eleusis».
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MARTINA ZAMPARO
To this day they dwell
In a lonely dell
Nor fear the wolvish howl,
Nor the lions growl.
(The Little Girl Found, 36: 45-48, K. 115)
The harmonious union with the tygers wild refers to the state of
peace reached by man after his long journey through this land of
«Suffering & Distress» (Annotations to Swedenborg’s Wisdom, K.
89). Once the doors of perception (M.H.H., pl. 14, K. 154) have been
cleansed, humanity does not need a guide any longer, as suggested by
Plotinus: «when you perceive that you have grown to this, you are
now become very vision: now call up all your confidence, strike
forward yet a step – you need a guide no longer – strain, and see»
(Plot. Enn. I. 6, 9: transl. MacKenna – Page 1952: 25).
The positive ending of Blake’s Songs of Experience suggests that if
man comes out from his dark ‘cave’, he will find the light of God36.
As claimed by Blake, «Albion must Sleep / The Sleep of Death till the
Man of Sin & Repentance be reveal’d» (J., 29: 11-12, K. 653), where
Albion stands for humanity. The very title-page to Songs of
Experience actually alludes to the ascent of the human soul, resulting
from a difficult process of suffering: the lowest part of the plate shows
two young people mourning before their dead parents’ bodies,
somehow evoking the loneliness of man facing the darkness of the
state of Experience. However, the higher part of the illustration
symbolizes the joys following the passage through Experience: the
two flying creatures «with arms outstretched» (Keynes 1970: 143)
36
Blake believes that God is everywhere on earth but man, blinded by the
negativity of the ‘reasoning power’, does not perceive it: «God is in the lowest
effects as well as in the highest causes; for he is become a worm that he may
nourish the weak. For let it be remember’d that creation is God descending
according to the weaknesses of man, for our Lord is the word of God & every
thing on earth is the word of God & in its essence is God» (Annotations to
Lavater, K. 87).
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might legitimately be read as representing humanity’s final rebirth and
the soul’s ascent to eternity.
5. CONCLUSION
Blake himself, despite the obscure and intricate symbolism of his
writings, provides the reader with a definition of Innocence in one of
the songs of his first collection, Poetical Sketches:
Whilst Virtue is our walking-staff
And Truth a Lantern to our path,
We can abide life’s pelting storm
That makes our limbs quake, if our hearts be warm.
Blow, boisterous wind, stern winter frown,
Innocence is a winter’s gown;
So clad, we’ll abide life’s pelting storm
That makes our limbs quake, if our hearts be warm.
(Song by an Old Shepherd, ll. 5-12, K. 64).
The real Innocence Blake alludes to, «a winter’s gown», is not the
limiting and oppressive world described in Songs of Innocence but,
rather, that combination of virtues that will help man to keep the right
way through the state of Experience, the «stern winter frown». The
very Plotinus maintains that evil has to be defeated by means of
virtue: «Remember that the good of life […] is not due to anything in
the partnership but to the repelling of evil by virtue» (Plot. Enn. I, 7,
3: transl. MacKenna – Page 1952: 27). As already discussed, also in
the Eleusinian Mysteries the mystae had to undertake a complex
process of purification and expiation before reaching the revelation of
the epopteia; the initiate «was freed from the bondage of matter» only
after «purifying himself by practice of the cathartic virtues, of which
certain purifications in the mystic ceremonies were symbolic» (Taylor
1790-1791: 363). Indeed, one of the main precepts of the Eleusinian
celebrations was self-knowledge, since the purifying activities of the
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MARTINA ZAMPARO
rites represented a process of inner growth37. In similar terms, man,
after passing through both Innocence and Experience, becomes able to
perceive the divinity of his soul and, thus, rejoices in the greatness of
the divine dimension.
Blake clearly maintains that man can face the suffering of mortal
life only if his heart is «warm» or, in other words, if he keeps
following the true values of Innocence, that is «a Lantern to our path».
Blake is not assuming that the state of Experience has to be avoided;
since true knowledge comes from “the Mole”, man has to experience
evil in order to be redeemed and enlightened, so that «the Divine
Mercy / Steps beyond and Redeems Man in the Body of Jesus» (J., 36:
54-55, K. 663-664).
As pointed out in the present study, Blake’s thought, complex and
highly symbolical, presupposes a constant dialogue with both the
Eleusinian Mysteries and Plotinus’s and Porphyry’s Neoplatonist
theories. In particular, the juxtaposition, suggested in this essay, with
some extracts from the Enneads seems to throw further light on some
of Blake’s most puzzling lines. Indeed, if read in the light of
Neoplatonism, Blake’s works seem to revolve around the same,
fundamental, concept: the soul’s eternal life and the human ability to
renew after the passage through mortal existence.
Università degli studi di Udine
[email protected]
37
«One of the central precepts of the ancient Mysteries was ‘know thyself’.
According to Socrates, ‘self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom’. […] The
sometimes willing, sometimes involuntary passages into underworlds of
unacknowledged experience provide opportunities for attaining deeper selfknowledge to be used in self-healing» (Keller 1988: 49-50).
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bottrall, M.
1970 William Blake. Songs of Innocence and of Experience,
London, Macmillan.
Bussanich, J.
1996 Plotinus’s metaphysics on the One, in Gerson, L.P. (ed.),
The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press.
Catapano, G.
1995 Epékeina tês philosophías. L’eticità del filosofare in
Plotino, Padova, CLEUP.
1996 Il ruolo della filosofia nella mistica plotiniana
dell’Anima, in «Rivista di ascetica e mistica», 21, pp. 143-180.
Chiaradonna, R. (a cura di)
2005 Studi sull’anima in Plotino, Napoli, Bibliopolis.
Clinton, K.
1992 Myth and Cult. The Iconography of the Eleusinian
Mysteries, Stockholm, Svenska Institutet i Athen.
2004 Epiphany in the Eleusinian Mysteries, in «Illinois
Classical Studies», 29, pp. 85-109.
Damon, S.F.
1969 William Blake. His Philosophy and Symbols, London,
Dawsons of Pall Mall.
1973
A Blake Dictionary, London, Thames and Hudson.
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MARTINA ZAMPARO
Eliade, M.
1959 Naissances Mystiques. Essai sur quelques types
d’initiation, Paris, Gallimard, (Engl. tr. Rites and symbols of
initiation. The mysteries of birth and rebirth, by Willard R. Task,
Putnam, Connecticut, Spring Publications, 1994).
1976 Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses. De l’âge
de la pierre aux mystères d’Eleusis, Paris, Payot. (Engl. tr. A
History of Religious Ideas. From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian
Mysteries, by Willard R. Task, Chicago, University of Chicago
Press, 1978).
Erdman, D.V.
1974 The Illuminated Blake. All of William Blake’s illuminated
works with a plate-by-plate commentary, Garden City, New
York, Anchor Books/Doubleday.
Evelyn-White, H.G.
1967 Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, Harvard University Press.
Findlay, J.N.
2003 Il mito della caverna, introduzione di G. Reale, trad. di
M. Marchetto, Milano, Bompiani.
Fleet, B.
2012 Ennead IV. 8. On the Descent of the Soul into Bodies,
translation, introduction and commentary by Barrie Fleet, Las
Vegas, Parmenides.
Frye, N. (ed.)
1966 Blake. A Collection of Critical Essays, Englewood Cliffs,
Prentice Hall Inc.
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Harper, G.M.
1961 The Neoplatonism of William Blake, Chapel Hill, The
University of North Carolina Press.
Harper, G.M. – Raine, K (eds.)
1969 Thomas Taylor the Platonist.
Selected
Writings,
Hagstrum, J.H.
1964 William Blake, Poet and Painter. An Introduction to the
Illuminated Verse, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Jung, C. – Kerényi, K.
1985 Science of mythology. Essays on the myth of the divine
child and the mysteries of eleusis, London, Ark Paperbacks.
Kanyororo, J.C.
2003 Les richesses intérieures de l’âme selon Plotin, in «Laval
théologique et philosophique», 59.2, pp. 235-256.
Keller, M.L.
1988 The Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone.
Fertility, Sexuality and Rebirth, in «Journal of Feminist Studies
in Religion», 4, pp. 27-54.
Keynes, G. (ed.)
1970 William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience,
with introduction and commentary by G. Keynes, Oxford,
Oxford University Press.
Keynes, G. (ed.)
1972 William Blake, Complete Writings, edited by G. Keynes,
Oxford, Oxford University Press.
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Kerényi, K.
1967 Eleusis. Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter,
Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press.
Lee, R.
1967 Ut Pictura Poesis. The Humanistic Theory of Painting,
New York, WW. Norton & Company.
Lippolis, E.
2006 Mysteria: archeologia e culto del santuario di Demetra a
Eleusi, Milano, Bruno Mondadori.
Lister, R.
1975 Infernal Methods. A Study of William Blake’s Art
Techniques, London, G. Bells and Sons.
MacKenna, S. – Page, B.S.
1952 The Six Enneads. Plotinus, Chicago, Encyclopaedia
Britannica.
Mitchell, W.J.T.
1978 Blake’s Composite Art. A Study of the Illuminated Poetry,
Mylonas, G.E.
1969 Eleusis and the Eleusinian
Princeton University Press.
Mysteries,
Princeton,
Pierce, F.E.
1928 Blake and Thomas Taylor, in «PMLA», 43.4, pp. 11211141.
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Raine, K.
1968 Blake and Tradition, I, Princeton, Princeton University
Press.
1970
William Blake, London, Thames and Hudson.
Porfirio,
2010 L’antro delle ninfe, a cura di L. Simonini, Milano,
Adelphi.
Procopio, A.
2005 La salvezza in Plotino, Roma, Aracne.
Scarpi, P.
2002 Le Religioni dei Misteri. Eleusi, dionisismo, orfismo,
Milano, A. Mondadori.
Taylor, T.
1788 Concerning the Cave of the Nymphs, in Harper, G.M. –
Raine, K., Thomas Taylor the Platonist. Selected Writings,
1790-1791 A Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic
Mysteries, Amsterdam [London], in Harper, G.M. – Raine, K.,
Thomas Taylor the Platonist. Selected Writings, Princeton,
Princeton University Press.
1891 The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries. A Dissertation,
New York, J. W. Bouton.
Ustinova, Y.
2009 Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind. Descending
Underground in the Search for Ultimate Truth, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
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Wassoon, R.G.
1978 The Road to Eleusis: unveiling the secret of the mysteries,
New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Warner, J.
1989 Blake and the Language of Art, Montreal, McGillQueen’s University Press.
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GRECO-LATINO E INGLESE
NELLA LINGUA MEDICA ITALIANA CONTEMPORANEA:
1
CONVIVENZA PACIFICA O SOPRAFFAZIONE?
INNOCENZO MAZZINI
ABSTRACT
This paper has two basic objectives: 1. to provide an idea of the
numbers and characteristics of the Graeco-Latin and English lexicon
in the context of medical Italian contemporary language; 2. to
understand the mutual relations and the prospects of the two lexicons
within the medical Italian language. At this purpose, the exposition is
divided into three parts: a) consistency of the lexicon of Graeco-Latin
origin within the medical Italian language as a whole, its nature,
historical and cultural causes of his success through the centuries; b)
consistency of the English lexicon in the medical Italian language
today, particularly in the branches of pharmacology, anesthesia and
orthodontics, its nature, historical and cultural causes of the current
success; c) relations between the two lexicons, i.e. Graeco-Latin and
English, and their perspectives for future developments.
1. IL LESSICO GRECO-LATINO
NELLA LINGUA MEDICA ITALIANA CONTEMPORANEA
1.1. Consistenza
Un numero esatto di termini tecnici greco-latini integrali, o adattati al
sistema grafico fonetico dell’italiano, originari, o introdotti nei secoli
1
Il presente contributo rielabora alcune conferenze tenute nelle Università di
Lovanio, Liegi e Roma Sapienza.
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INNOCENZO MAZZINI
successivi, semplici o composti, all’interno del lessico tecnico medico
italiano, è difficile da stabilire2. Questo conteggio non è stato mai fatto, tuttavia è fuori di dubbio che essi costituiscono una percentuale
rilevantissima. Se si tiene presente che attualmente il lessico medico
italiano, come per altro anche i vari lessici medici delle diverse lingue
occidentali contano più o meno 160/170.000 termini, per parole di
origine greco-latina si può certamente parlare di molte migliaia.
1.2. Natura
Per comprendere la natura di questo patrimonio lessicale greco-latino
penso sia opportuno soffermarsi su almeno tre sue caratteristiche: differenti gradi di adattamento alla lingua italiana; introduzione nel linguaggio medico diversificata e scaglionata nei secoli; prevalenza delle
forme composte.
1.2.1. Adattamento grafico-fonetico alla lingua italiana
Le forme di origine greco-latina in uso nel linguaggio medico italiano
possono essere integralmente latine o greche, parzialmente adattate
alla struttura grafico-fonetica e morfologica dell’italiano, totalmente
adattate.
Le integrali sono costituite, per lo più, da espressioni, più che da
singole parole, e sono di tradizione accademica: cutis laxa “pelle
flaccida”, per vias naturales “attraverso le vie naturali” (riferito alla
somministrazione di medicamenti), ab ingestis “in conseguenza degli
alimenti ingeriti”, bacillus coli “colibacillo”, bacillus rigidus “bacillo
rigido”, treponema pallidum “treponema pallido” (il batterio della sifi2
Come fonte principale di dati per questa prima parte ho utilizzato Mazzini
(1989). Limitatamente al greco-latino farmaceutico, utile mi è stata la tesi di
laurea di Mosca (2007-8).
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GRECO-LATINO E INGLESE NELLA LINGUA MEDICA
115
lide), ecc; sono più frequenti nel lessico anatomico, patologico e in
quello biologico3.
Non mancano in altre branche, ove per altro possono rispondere più
a criteri pubblicitari o mnemotecnici che a criteri filologici, questo avviene soprattutto nelle denominazioni di medicinali, così noctem, accusativo di nox noctis, per designare un medicamento contro l’insonnia, o quiens, participio formato su un sostantivo quies, per un farmaco ansiolitico.
Sono parzialmente adattate quelle forme che, pur avendo perduto i
morfemi dei casi, conservano intatta la struttura fonetico-grafica interna. Queste forme generalmente non sono isolate, ma compaiono in
composti: così ad es. auriculo-tomia, da auricula “orecchio”; medulloblastoma, da medulla “midollo”; oculo-rinite, da oculus “occhio”, ecc.
Sono adattate totalmente quelle parole che hanno seguito la normale
evoluzione grafico-fonetica tipica del passaggio dal greco al latino e
dal latino all’italiano. Nel passaggio dal greco al latino si perdono, o
meglio si trasformano i dittonghi greci ai ed oi che diventano ae, ed
oe, vengono uniformate sul piano grafico le lettere eta ed epsilon,
omicron e omega, ecc.; nel passaggio poi dal latino all’italiano si chiudono i dittonghi latini ae e oe in e; la y viene trascritta con i, si perdono le consonanti aspirate rese con le corrispondenti sorde, ecc. Così
parole greche come g. arthritis > l. artritis > i. artrite; g. phlebitis > l.
flebitis> i. flebite; g. haima > l. haema > i. ema- (sangue): questa
parola entra solo come elemento di composizione in parole composte;
gli esempi possono essere moltiplicati.
3
In ogni caso sono in costante calo nei manuali universitari e nelle pubblicazioni
scientifiche, effetto evidente della perdita di terreno degli studi classici nelle
scuole secondarie. La stessa cosa nota Mortara Garavelli (2001: 183-7) a
proposito dei latinismi integrali nel linguaggio giuridico italiano contemporaneo.
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INNOCENZO MAZZINI
1.2.2. Introduzione scaglionata nel corso dei secoli
Le migliaia di forme greco-latine correnti nell’italiano medico contemporaneo sono entrate nell’uso in epoca diverse. Così del punto di
vista storico si può, grosso modo, constatare quanto segue:
a) che la maggior parte appartiene mondo antico greco e latino, dunque risalgono ai secoli dell’antichità: epilessia (g. epilepsia), alopecia (g. alopekia), epigastrio (g. epigastrion), infiammazione (l.
inflammatio), intestino cieco (l. intestinum caecum), pupilla (l.
pupilla), ecc.;
b) che sovente, tuttavia, antico è solo il significante, non il significato:
il significato medico entra nel significante antico (a.) solo in epoca
medievale (me.) o moderna (mo.) o contemporanea (c.), grazie primariamente al procedimento della metafora. Forse è il procedimento più usato nella formazione dei linguaggi tecnici, non solo di
quello medico. Qualche esempio: ippocampo, g. hippókampos “cavalluccio marino” (a.), ma “parte del cervello” (mo.); capsula, l.
capsula “piccola cassa” (a.), ma “rivestimento di vari organi” (mo.),
ad es. “capsula articolare” (c.); embolo, g. embolon “cuneo” (a.),
ma “coagulo” (mo.); estro, g. oistron, “libidine” (a.), ma “attività
sessuale femminile” (mo.); follicolo, l. folliculus “sacco-vescica di
animali” (a.), ma “cavità microscopica” (mo.); ecc.;
c) che alcuni termini, non privi di successo anche in quanto lessemi,
sono creati in epoca medievale e moderna, pur entro le possibilità
delle lingue latina e greca in analogia ad altri esistenti e comunque
con elementi esistenti. Tale è il caso di duodeno, dal lat. medievale
duodenum, sostantivizzazione al singolare del numerale distributivo
latino duodeni; morbillo, dal lat. medievale morbilli -orum, creato
sul latino classico morbus; sinovia, dal latino del ‘500 synovia
invenzione di Paracelso; ecc.;
d) che le parole composte appartengono nei singoli elementi all’antichità, ma in sé stesse, in quanto composte, risalgono all’epoca
medievale o moderna e soprattutto contemporanea: così meningoencefal-ite (c.) “infiammazione delle meningi e sofferenza del
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cervello”; gastro-enter-ite (c.) “infiammazione dell’intestino e dello
stomaco”; ecc.4
1.2.3. Prevalenza delle forme composte
Le parole composte di origine greco-latina sono molte di più delle
semplici. A proposito di esse si può dire che:
a) pur essendo i singoli elementi in genere antichi, i composti in
quanto tali sono, in maggior parte, di creazione recente, epoca moderna e contemporanea. Due esempi: elco-log-ia (c.): “scienza che
si occupa delle ulcere” da g. hélkos (a.) “ulcera”+ g. lógos (.a.)
“discorso”, + -ia. (a.) “astrazione, stato, azione”, ecc.; embriogenesi (c.): “formazione dell’embrione” da g. émbrion (a.) “embrione” + g. génesis (a.) “formazione”, ecc.;
b) in prevalenza gli elementi di composizione sono o tutti greci, o tutti
latini, ma non mancano composti ibridi, cioè greco latini o greco
latini/lingue moderne: es. falc-em-ia (c.) “malattia caratterizzata dai
globuli rossi a forma di falce”, da l. falx -cis (a.) “falce”, + g. haima
(a.) “sangue” + -ia “astrazione, patologia”; feto-pat-ia (c.), da l.
fetus (a.) “feto” + g. pathos (a.) “sofferenza” + -ia (a.) “stato,
condizione, azione”; uro-san (c.) “medicinale urologico” da g. úron
urina (a.) + l. sano “guarisco” (a.); ecc. Esempi di composti grecolatini/lingue moderne possono essere micro-bodies “microrganismi”
da g. mikros (a.) + ingl. bodies (c.), pelade-fob-ia “paura di
contrarre l’alopecia” (c.) da fr. pélade + g. phobos + ia, ecc.;
c) gli elementi di composizione di origine latina, se hanno subìto una
evoluzione grafico-fonetica in quanto termini semplici nel passaggio dal latino all’italiano comune, recuperano la forma antica quan4
In Mazzini (1989) viene segnalata la collocazione cronologica di alcune
centinaia di forme greco-latine, sia in quanto elementi di composizione, sia in
quanto composti, dunque nell’insieme un quadro abbastanza ampio, in grado di
fornire un’idea globale della proliferazione delle diverse forme in rapporto alle
varie epoche storiche.
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do entrano in composizione, così per esempio l. cilium che nell’italiano comune produce ciglio, non entrerà mai in composizione
come ciglio, ma sempre come cilio-, ad es. ciliectomia “asportazione del corpo ciliare”; l. lepra, che produce i. lebbra, non entrerà in composizione come lebbra, ma come lepra: leproma “tumore
della lebbra”; e così tanti altri.
1.3. Ragioni storico-culturali
della entità e della natura del lessico medico greco-latino
Fornita un’idea della consistenza e della natura del lessico grecolatino nell’ambito della lingua medica italiana contemporanea, accenniamo rapidamente alle cause storico-culturali e scientifiche che lo
hanno favorito.
Le spiegazioni che si possono fornire sono molteplici. In concreto,
riassumendo e schematizzando, le seguenti:
a) la persistenza e la lettura in lingua originale, e come testi di studio,
dei grande medici dell’antichità (Ippocrate, Galeno, Celso, Dioscoride e altri) nelle università tardo-medievali e rinascimentali, fino al
‘600;
b) la capacità di formare composti tipica del greco, ma non delle
lingue romanze e nemmeno del latino;
c) la letteratura medica scientifica scritta rigorosamente in latino fino
al ‘600 in Italia e fino a tutto il ‘700 nei paesi anglo-germanici. Si
pensi al grande peso che in questo senso, come modello e come
esempio può aver avuto, per il lessico anatomico, la Fabrica
anatomica del Vesalio della prima metà del ‘500 (Mazzini 1999)5;
d) le forme ed espressioni latine integrali ricercate almeno da taluni,
fino a tempi recenti, anche come elemento di status symbol;
e) la costituzione di vari nomina o terminologie create in primis in
latino e poi tradotte nelle lingue nazionali, si pensi ai Nomina
5
Mazzini (1999: 289-315).
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anatomica, histologica, embryologica, microbiologica codificati e
approvati in vari congressi internazionali, come alle denominazioni
latine dei virus e batteri, distinti in famiglie, sottofamiglie e generi6.
2. IL LESSICO INGLESE
NELLA LINGUA MEDICA ITALIANA CONTEMPORANEA
In questa seconda parte non fornisco dati quantitativi esaurienti né,
tanto meno, completi, operazione, per altro, in se stessa precaria.
Mi limito a sottolineare alcune tendenze nell’uso dell’anglicismo,
all’interno della lingua medica italiana contemporanea, quali mi è
sembrato di scorgere in una letteratura di genere diverso, propria di
alcune branche o scienze mediche, in particolare nelle branche della
farmacologia7, dell’anestesia8 e dell’ortodonzia9.
2.1. Consistenza
Come giustamente rilevava già qualche anno fa Dardano (1994: 501),
a proposito dei linguaggi scientifici in generale, sono soprattutto gli
strumenti e le tecniche che sempre più spesso vengono denominate
6
Sui caratteri di questi latinismi, creati in epoca moderna e contemporanea, rinvio
Mazzini (1992: 79-103). Per un’idea delle denominazioni dei virus, delle norme in
vigore a livello internazionale, fornite dall’International Committee on Taxonomy
of Viruses – ICTV –, si può consultare Chiarini (1997: 16-25) Rinvio a Mazzini
(1989: 191-2) anche per la bibliografia concernente i vari nomina.
7
Per la farmacologia mi sono basato sul Prontuario Farmaceutico Italiano (PFI)
– Edizione del 2007.
8
Per l’anestesia mi sono servito di Villani – Serafini (2004) e della rivista Acta
Anaesthesiologica Italica, Organo ufficiale della Società italiana di Anestesia,
Rianimazione, Emergenza e Dolore, edita da La Garangola, Padova.
9
Per l’ortodonzia ho usato Daskalogiannakis (20029) e la rivista Progress in
orthodontics, Pubblicazione dalla Società italiana di ortodonzia (SIDO), Varese,
Reggiani, fondata nel 1999.
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con ricorso all’inglese. Indubbiamente anche nella lingua medica
italiana è soprattutto nelle denominazioni delle tecniche, strumenti e
metodiche di utilizzo degli stessi, che l’inglese avanza in modo più
vistoso10.
Atteggiamenti diversi, di maggiore o minore apertura nei confronti
dell’inglese, si notano a seconda del pubblico cui un determinato scritto medico è rivolto (ricercatori, studenti, largo pubblico profano),
delle branche (anatomia, patologia generale, chirurgia, anestesia,
odontoiatria, ecc.), a seconda che si tratti di testo originale inglese e
tradotto in italiano, o di testo originale in italiano. È chiaro che
l’anglicismo sarà più frequente nella comunicazione diretta, scritta e
orale, tra ricercatori, nelle branche più tecnologizzate, ed infine nella
letteratura di traduzione.
Il fenomeno ha interessato e interessa tutte le lingue mediche
moderne occidentali e non solo, ha determinato e determina anche
fenomeni di reazione, di fastidio e di rifiuto dell’inglese stesso, o
comunque riflessioni su come arginare, dunque tradurre nelle rispettive lingue nazionali gli anglicismi11.
10
Gualdo – Scarpino (2007: 257-281, in particolare p. 276) riportano un quadro di
dati e frequenze di anglicismi totali, anglicismi integrali in rapporto al lessico
fondamentale di varie scienze, da cui si ricava la conferma che più ricche di
anglicismi sono le scienze più giovani e più tecnologizzate, in particolare appare
evidente il contrasto in questo senso tra il lessico fondamentale della medicina e
quello dell’informatica una scienza giovanissima e altamente tecnologizzata: la
medicina presenta su un lessico fondamentale di 14053 termini 31 anglicismi
integrali e 61 totali, contro l’informatica che su un lessico fondamentale di 980
termini presenta 451 anglicismi integrali e 487 totali. Ma, ripeto, è del lessico
fondamentale che si tratta. Avviene anche in medicina più o meno la stessa cosa,
ove si considera lessici specialistici, e più recenti.
11
In Spagna la rivista elettronica «Panace@», che ha iniziato le sue pubblicazioni
nel 2000, presenta una serie di contributi su singoli problemi legati alla traduzione
in spagnolo di testi medici, recensisce segnala, dizionari specifici, in circolazione,
ma offre anche dizionari limitati on line e no su singoli settori con possibili
corrispondenze in lingua spagnola. In Francia sono state fatte pubblicazioni sul
tema della traduzione in francese dei più noti anglicismi, come Sournia (1974),
cui ha fatto seguito, nell’ambito del Conseil International de Langue Française,
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2.2. Natura
L’uso degli anglicismi nella lingua medica italiana contemporanea,
sembra consistere soprattutto in:
a) denominazioni di strumenti inventati e introdotti recentemente;
b) designazioni di procedimenti metodiche, tecniche;
c) nomi di medicinali;
d) sigle (e loro scioglimento) relative a tecniche, metodiche, medicinali, ecc.;
e) parole ed espressioni in sé non mediche ma di largo uso in altri
settori scientifici, o addirittura ampiamente volgarizzate a livello di
lingua comune;
f) calchi lessicali e/o semantici.
2.2.1. Denominazioni di strumenti
Questo è indubbiamente l’ambito in cui l’introduzione dell’inglese è
più massiccia e, ovviamente, più evidente in quelle branche più recenti
e più dipendenti dalla tecnologia contemporanea, per altro nata e
tutta una serie di dizionari specialistici, pubblicati a partire dal 2000, come il
Dictionnaire di biologie, il Dictionnaire de dermatologie, il Dictionnaire di
Psychiatrie, ed altri ancora.
In Italia il problema di una invadenza incontrollata dell’inglese nei linguaggi
scientifici in generale, dunque compreso quello della medicina, è stato sollevato in
un incontro tra scienziati e linguisti presso l’Accademia della Crusca, per
discutere il tema “Lingua italiana e scienza”, ma non si può dire che ci siano stati
dei reali e fattivi interventi per limitare l’invadenza dell’anglicismo, o meglio per
offrire agli addetti delle concrete possibilità alternative all’uso di anglicismi, come
appunto dizionari specifici. C’è una associazione italiana di terminologia
(ASSITERM) che per ora ha prodotto, nel settore medico un “Vocabolario
panlatino di emodinamica”, la quale, per altro, non costituisce una reale
alternativa all’inglese, ma piuttosto una rassegna di termini italiani di
emodinamica e delle loro corrispondenze nelle lingue neolatine.
Per altri contributi a livello si altre lingue europee, tesi descrivere e/o limitare
l’invadenza dell’anglicismo in medicina si veda Mazzini (1989: 191-2).
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sviluppata fuori della medicina, come in primis l’elettronica, e la meccanica. Dunque nessun anglismo di questo genere ad es. nell’anatomia
e nella patologia generale, o fisiologia, ma molti nell’anestesia, molti
di più nell’ortodonzia.
Alcuni esempi: edgewise, un apparecchio frontalmente posposto, un
arco rettangolare legato all’interno da attacchi (brakets) esterni, cementati su ogni singolo dente; retainer, potrebbe essere tradotto con
“stabilizzatore”, un apparecchio fisso o rimovibile per mantenere in
posizione denti stabilizzati dopo il trattamento ortodontico,ce ne sono
diversi tipi; sidestream “monitore della corrente”.
2.2.2. Denominazioni di procedimenti
Ugualmente le denominazioni di strumenti e procedimenti diagnostici
o terapeutici, introdotte altrove in area anglofona, vengono recepite,
ed usate correntemente, anche se una traduzione italiana, potrebbe
essere agevole e semplice.
Esempi: biofeedback “reimmissione di dati biologici”; sludging
“riempimento di fessure, fenomeno di impilamento delle emazie in
caso di shock anafilattico”; Patient-Controlled Analgesia “anestesia
controllata dal paziente”, una tecnica anestesiologica che permette al
paziente, alla comparsa del dolore, di somministrarsi una quantità
prestabilita di oppioidi attraverso un apparecchio computerizzato.
2.2.3. Denominazioni di medicinali
La scomparsa di molte piccole case farmaceutiche ed il loro assorbimento da parte delle grandi multinazionali ha finito per facilitare sia
l’ingresso delle denominazioni latine e greche sia di quelle inglesi.
Queste ultime evidenziano, come per altro anche quelle latine e greche, più o meno esplicitamente, gli effetti o la composizione o il principio attivo del medicinale, o le modalità di assunzione, ecc., secondo
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un criterio di denominazione dei medicamenti che, per altro, è molto
antico, già proprio del linguaggio farmaceutico geco e latino antico.
Un paio di esempi: Careflu “aver cura dell’influenza”, un cortisonico per aerosol; Breathquality “qualità del respiro” un diagnostico
per la rilevazione dell’Helicobacter pylori nell’aria espirata; Control
“controllo”, un farmaco per il controllo dell’ansia; Honeycold, “raffreddore col miele, un decongestionante a base di miele per la cura del
raffreddore”.
Non raramente alla denominazione del medicinale si aggiunge un
aggettivo o un’espressione che del medicinale sottolineano le modalità
di assunzione, la natura, ecc. In questi ultimi casi si tratta di aggiunte
basate su termini molto comuni, tali da essere percepiti dal pubblico il
più ampio possibile, così light “mite”: iridina light, un collirio; spray
“spruzzo”: cicatrene spray, un cicatrizzante da spruzzare; fast “rapido”: mesulid fast “un farmaco di rapido effetto”; e gli esempi possono
continuare.
2.2.4. Sigle
Una quantità di anglicismi entra con le sigle, che generalmente conservano la struttura inglese (determinante prima del determinato),
anche ove esse nel contesto vengono sciolte seguendo la struttura italiana. Così ad es. in Villani – Serafini (2004: 313) varie tecniche di
ventilazione anestesiologica, vengono presentate in italiano e tuttavia
accompagnate dalla sigla inglese: “Ventilazione meccanica in pressione positiva intermittente” (IPPV, Intermittent Positive Pressure
Ventilation); “Ventilazione meccanica in pressione positiva continua”
(CPPV, Continuous Positive Pressure Ventilation).
Le sigle riguardano, anch’esse, il più delle volte tecniche e strumenti, ma non solo; possono riguardare anche patologie, quando
queste sono di recente descrizione. Per queste ultime un caso certamente a tutti noto è AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). In
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INNOCENZO MAZZINI
questo caso in italiano la sigla inglese è divenuta, almeno per i
profani, il nome proprio della malattia.
Anche nel lessico farmacologico talora la sigla inglese diventa il
nome del medicinale, è il caso di GERET, un medicinale di uso
diagnostico per svelare il deficit dell’ ormone della crescita (Growth
Hormone Releasing Factor); MMR, un vaccino per l’immunizzazione
contro morbillo parotite e rosolia (Mumps Measles Rubeola).
2.2.5. Forme vulgate non originariamente mediche
In un contesto culturale e linguistico generale in cui il senso del
purismo linguistico è quasi bandito, come un retaggio del passato,
quasi come una forma di nazionalismo da rigettare, il linguaggio
medico italiano, più di altri subisce il fascino dell’anglicismo comune,
e ciò soprattutto nei testi, manuali o saggi tradotti dall’inglese: Prendo
ad esempio il saggio di Bowman – Johnston (2007: 124-128): vi si
leggono usasti con estrema disinvoltura termini non tecnici, come new
age, standard, panel, scanner, lifting, trend, stage e molti altri.
2.2.6. Anglicismi nascosti
Gli anglicismi più usati, o all’interno di una specialità, o nel
linguaggio medico comune, finiscono non di rado per ‘travestirsi’,
italianizzarsi cioè nel loro aspetto esteriore: si tratta in sostanza di
imprestiti assimilati morfologicamente e graficamente, o di calchi
semantici.
Si possono addurre numerosissimi esempi, mi limito a un paio
nell’ambito dell’ortodonzia: distale, assimilazione grafico-fonetica
dell’inglese distal lett. “distante”, nel linguaggio ortodontico, un dente
che si allontana dalla linea mediale dentale. Ovviamente su “distale”
si costruiscono vari derivati, che tuttavia hanno il corrispondente
inglese: il sostantivo distalizzazione, ingl. distalisation, o distalizzare,
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ingl. distalise; bondato dall’inglese bonded “incollato” cioè un dente
su cui un attacco è stato incollato.
Nel linguaggio medico comune, un esempio di calco semantico,
molto diffuso e per altro in fase di introduzione anche in altri
linguaggi scientifici, è evidenza nel senso di ‘prova’ dall’inglese
evidency.
2.3. Cause dell’anglicizzazione della lingua medica contemporanea
Si danno cause di ordine generale e planetarie che influiscono anche
sul fenomeno specifico della lingua medica italiana, come la supremazia economica, tecnologica e militare degli USA, la mondializzazione del commercio, il superamento di ogni frontiera nazionale da
parte di internet che parla inglese, ecc. Su queste cause generali, come
anche sull’anglicizzazione di altre lingue settoriali o speciali è stato
scritto molto12.
Soffermiamoci un istante sulle cause più specifiche, anche in rapporto alle singole tipologie di anglicismi medici, di cui abbiamo
parlato.
Le denominazioni inglesi di strumenti e tecniche, di medicinali,
come anche di sigle, trovano la loro prima e più convincente spiegazione nell’importazione della cosa, già ‘battezzata’, cioè già
denominata, nei paesi di origine, il più delle volte anglofoni.
A questa causa di fondo si aggiunge la disponibilità della categoria
degli addetti all’arte, nel caso specifico dei medici, a recepire assimilare e utilizzare forme ed espressioni inglesi.
La disponibilità della categoria, a sua volta si può ricondurre a tutta
una serie motivi pratici e psicologici come:
a) la diffusa conoscenza della lingua inglese, soprattutto tra i medici
più giovani, anche grazie alla diffusione di libri e grammatiche spe12
Rinvio ad una serie contributi interessanti, ricchi di bibliografia, come quelli V.
Dezeljin, C. Furiassi, C. Giovanardi, V. Pulcini, G. Teric, su vari aspetti e vari
settori di ingresso dell’inglese nella lingua italiana, comparsi in AA.VV. (2007).
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cificamente dedicati all’inglese medico: vedi a titolo di esempio
Ribes – Mejía (2011);
b) la prevalenza dell’inglese nelle pubblicazioni a carattere scientifico
medico, anche quelle edite in Italia13;
c) la capacità dell’inglese a formare composti che, proprio in quanto
tali, hanno le caratteristiche della concisione ma insieme chiarezza e
descrittività);
d) le radici ed i temi dell’inglese sovente comuni con le lingue romanze e dunque anche con l’italiano;
e) la percezione, sia all’interno che all’esterno della categoria o gruppo sociale dei medici, dell’inglese come elemento di distinzione,
come status symbol14.
Quest’ultimo motivo, direi che meglio degli altri può giustificare, o
meglio spiegare l’uso dell’anglismo come traduzione e glossa dell’italiano, il ricorso all’anglismo da parte di taluni medici anche nel contatto con il paziente, o in articoli che dovrebbero essere di carattere
divulgativo, scritti da medici in giornali che non hanno pretese
scientifiche.
Per l’anglismo travestito si possono dare altre spiegazioni diverse o
contrarie:
a) necessità di farsi comprendere al di fuori degli addetti;
b) ignoranza dell’inglese;
c) un certo purismo o attaccamento alla lingua nazionale, ecc.
13
Il fenomeno a livello mondiale è macroscopico. Mi limito a riportare un dato
significativo, anche se relativo: nella biblioteca della Facoltà di Medicina
dell’Università Cattolica di Roma, ho contato circa 700 riviste scientifiche
mediche, attive nel 2008-9, e di queste appena una decina in lingue nazionali, in
italiano solo 5. Per giunta poi queste ultime con articoli, in grande parte o in
inglese, o in inglese e italiano. Si noti che alcune hanno cambiato la denominazione italiana in quella inglese: così ad es. “Cardiologia” è divenuta dal 2000
“Italian Heart Journal”; “Rivista Italiana di Pediatria” “Italian Journal of
Pediatrics” dal 2001.
14
Un quadro complessivo e insieme sintetico di cause ed effetti della presenza
degli anglicismi nella lingua medica italiana in Serianni (2005: 183-188).
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Tutte queste cause, generali e specifiche hanno un peso rilevante, e
lo hanno in genere in tutte le altre lingue europee, come anche in altri
linguaggi scientifici italiani, quali quello della chimica, dell’elettronica, dell’economia, dell’informatica, ecc.
2. GRECO-LATINO E INGLESE
Dopo aver, seppure rapidamente, illustrato la consistenza e la natura
dei due lessici che si trovano oggi a convivere nel quadro della lingua
medica italiana contemporanea, dopo averne evidenziato le ragioni
storiche e culturali che ne sono alla base, viene spontaneo chiedersi:
quale la convivenza dei due lessici? Tranquilla nel senso che ognuno
riveste un suo ruolo ed occupa un suo spazio, oppure invadente e
prevaricatrice dell’uno nei confronti dell’altro? Quali sono le
prospettive dei due lessici?
3.1. Qualità della convivenza
Al presente, in linea di massima, si tratta di una convivenza pacifica:
ognuno dei due lessici occupa uno spazio definito e suo proprio.
Come si è già visto il greco-latino occupa lo spazio delle specialità
tradizionali, (ma anche talune più recenti come quella della microbiologia) e comunque all’interno di queste designa le conoscenze
acquisite, grosso modo fino alla prima metà del secolo XX.
L’inglese designa strumenti e tecniche e conoscenze introdotte
soprattutto a partire dalla seconda metà del secolo XX.
Dunque tutto pacifico? Campi separati per i due lessici all’interno
della lingua medica italiana contemporanea, nessuna reciproca influenza?
A dire il vero una certa interferenza del lessico inglese su quello
greco-latino, nell’ambito della lingua medica italiana contemporanea,
ad osservare bene, c’è.
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INNOCENZO MAZZINI
L’interferenza dell’inglese sul lessico greco-latino medico italiano
più evidente, appare quella fonetico-grafico-morfologica.
Come ho accennato all’inizio la maggior parte dei lessemi grecolatini nell’ambito della lingua medica contemporanea è assimilata alla
fonetica, grafia e morfologia dell’italiano, e ciò coerentemente con un
processo evolutivo, che investe tutto il sistema lingua dell’italiano.
Ora non sono infrequenti casi di forme greche e latine che,
reintrodotte in italiano attraverso l’inglese, recuperano in parte o in
toto la grafia antica: così accanto a cinesioterapia si incontra sempre
più spesso kinesioterapia chiaramente dall’inglese kinesiotherapy, g.
kinesis “movimento”; accanto a sindrome ricorre spesso syndrome, g,
syndrome; accanto a ritrazione, ricorre come termine tecnico in
odontoiatria retrazione, movimento posteriore di un dente, l. retractio,
rientrato dall’inglese retraction.
Si danno anche casi di introduzioni di forme ed espressioni
integralmente latine attraverso la via dell’inglese come dens evaginatus “dente caratterizzato da una cuspide sovranumeraria” o dens
invaginatus “un dente all’interno di un altro dente” in odontoiatria;
thoracopagus “gemello siamese unito con il torace” o pygopagus
“gemello siamese unito con il bacino” in anatomia patologica, ecc.
Queste forme ed espressioni in italiano, secondo la tradizione di
assimilazione grafico fonetica, sarebbero dovute divenire “dente
evaginato”, “dente invaginato”, “toracopago”, “pigopago”, ecc.
La lingua medica inglese, come sua consuetudine da sempre, ha
utilizzato e continua ad utilizzare questi latinismi integrali come tali,
cioè senza inserirli nel suo sistema grafico fonetico; l’italiano al
contrario li ha sempre inseriti nel suo sistema grafico fonetico, in
grazia della continuità latino > italiano.
Si danno anche casi, soprattutto in scritti di traduzione, di recupero
di latinismi integrali non strettamente tecnici che, nell’italiano
comune, ma anche colto, non avevano avuto successo: così le sigle
e.g. (exempli gratia) o i.e. (id est), entrambe in italiano sostituite dalle
espressioni comunissime, sulla bocca di tutti noi: “per esempio”, e
“cioè”.
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2.2. Prospettive per i due lessici
A mio avviso, un avanzare ulteriore dell’inglese nell’ambito della
lingua medica italiana, perdurando le condizioni generali e specifiche
attuali, culturali ed economiche, è molto verisimile e difficilmente
arrestabile soprattutto in quelle branche che più sono dipendenti dalla
chimica, dall’elettronica e dall’informatica, dalla robotica, ecc.
Il lessico latino-greco potrà reggere ancora nelle branche di base e
più tradizionali, ma c’è il forte rischio di una sua anglicizzazione
soprattutto a livello fonetico-grafico-morfologico. Questo rischio è
legato all’avanzare complessivo dell’inglese da un lato, ed al retrocedere della formazione classica nelle giovani generazioni.
E per altro, l’insegnamento delle lingue classiche, in molte scuole,
ignorando i pur esistenti suggerimenti ministeriali, continua ad essere
prevalentemente grammaticale, e a trascurare un apprendimento metodico e ragionato del lessico.
Università degli Studi di Macerata
[email protected]
BIBLIOGRAFIA
AA.VV.
2007 Identità e diversità nella lingua e nella letteratura
italiana. Atti del XVIII congresso dell’A.I.S.L.L.I., Lovanio,
Louvain La Neuve, Anversa, Bruxelles, 16-19 luglio 2003,
Firenze, Cesati.
Bowman, J. – Johnston, L.
2007 Ortodonzia ed estetica, in «Progress in orthodontics»,
8,1, pp. 124-128.
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Chiarini A.
1997 Tassonomia e nomenclatura dei virus, in «Bollettino di
Microbiologia e Indagini di Laboratorio News», 3, pp. 16-25.
Dardano, M.
1994 I linguaggi scientifici, in Serianni L. – Trifone, P. (a cura
di), Storia della lingua italiana, II, Torino, Einaudi, pp. 497-551.
Daskalogiannakis, J.
2002 Glossario dei termini ortodontici, Berlino, Chicago,
Quintessence Publishing.
Gualdo, R. – Scarpino, C.
2007 Quanto pesa l’inglese? Anglicismi nella vita quotidiana e
proposte per la coabitazione, in Identità e diversità nella lingua e
nella letteratura italiana. Atti del XVIII Congresso
dell’A.I.S.L.L.I., Firenze, Casati, pp. 257-281.
Mazzini, I.
1989 Introduzione alla terminologia medica. Decodificazione
dei composti e derivati di origine greca e latina, Bologna,
Pàtron.
1999 Appunti per una storia del latino dei medici dal
Rinascimento ai nostri giorni. Saggio di indagine in «Annali
della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia di Macerata», 32, pp. 289315.
1992 Presenza del latino nei linguaggi italiani contemporanei
della scienza. Saggio di indagine sulle lingue settoriali dei
medici e dei botanici, in Rocca, S. (a cura di), Latina Didaxis,
VII, Genova, Compagnia dei Librai, pp. 79-102.
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Mortara Garavelli, B.
2001 Le parole e la giustizia, Torino, Einaudi.
Mosca, A.
2007-8 La persistenza delle radici classiche nel nome
commerciale dei farmaci, Macerata, Tesi di laurea Facoltà
Lettere.
Ribes, R. – Mejía, S.
2011 Inglese per cardiologi, Milano, Springer Verlag Italia.
Serianni, L.
2005 Un treno di sintomi, Milano, Garzanti.
Sournia, J.Ch.
1974 Langage médical moderne, Paris, Hachette.
Villani, A. – Serafini, G.
2004 Anestesia neonatale e pediatrica, Milano, Masson.
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LA GRANDE GRAMMATICA ITALIANA DI CONSULTAZIONE
E LA GRAMMATICA DELL’ITALIANO ANTICO:
STRUMENTI PER LA RICERCA E PER LA SCUOLA
ABSTRACT
In this article the two reference grammars we directed and published
in the past years are presented. Both works are the result of the
collaboration between different authors, but they have a common
theoretical approach. In the first part of the article we focus on some
aspects which are common to the two Grammars (e.g. their
synchronic perspective, their descriptive and - partially - explicative
aim), but we also notice some differences that necessarily arise
between them. The latter are mainly due to the fact that the first
grammar is based on the linguistic intuitions of speakers and listeners
(and these intuitions are also socially shared), while the second one
analyses the data of a well-defined historical corpus composed of
literary and non-literary works of the 13th century and the beginning
of the 14th century. In the second part of the article we discuss in
greater detail seven syntactic issues in order to show the difference
between Old and Modern Italian.
1. ALCUNE CARATTERISTICHE FONDAMENTALI DELLE DUE OPERE
Negli ultimi trentacinque anni o poco più1 abbiamo dedicato le nostre
forze e le nostre conoscenze a due opere di grande mole e di grande
impegno per noi, tutte e due aventi per oggetto la lingua italiana: la
1
La prima idea e i primi contatti per la realizzazione della prima opera sono del
1975; quelli per la seconda, la cui preparazione è durata relativamente di meno,
del 1996.
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Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione, a cura di Lorenzo
Renzi, Giampaolo Salvi e Anna Cardinaletti, 3 voll., Bologna, Il
Mulino, 2a ed. 2001 (1a ed. 1988-1991-1995):
Vol. I: La frase. I sintagmi nominale e preposizionale, pp. 787;
Vol. II: I sintagmi verbale, aggettivale, avverbiale. La subordinazione, pp. 957;
Vol. III: Tipi di frase, deissi, formazione delle parole, pp. 642;
e la
Grammatica dell’italiano antico, a cura di Giampaolo Salvi e
Lorenzo Renzi, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2 voll., 2010, pp. 1745:
Vol. I: La frase, Il sintagma nominale, Il sintagma verbale, Gli
altri sintagmi;
Vol. II: La subordinazione, Tipi di frase, La deissi, Fenomeni
testuali, Morfologia, Fonologia.
Sono due strumenti che pensiamo possano essere utili per il docente
colto, per l’approfondimento specifico della sua preparazione professionale, e in qualche caso per i suggerimenti che possono fornire a
singoli interventi mirati.
Dato lo sviluppo delle conoscenze nella linguistica degli ultimi decenni e la conseguente specializzazione e, in qualche caso, iperspecializzazione, abbiamo pensato di non fare tutto il lavoro da noi, ma di
interessare all’opera una pluralità di autori: trentasei nella prima opera, trentacinque nella seconda. Il nostro lavoro è stato certo alleggerito, ma a noi, Lorenzo Renzi e poi Giampaolo Salvi, come curatori2 è
spettato il compito importante di garantire la coerenza e l’omogeneità
delle opere nel loro complesso e di curarne il volto complessivo e
finale. Non si tratta infatti di raccolte di capitoli, ma di opere organiche, che non dovevano presentare contraddizioni tra una parte e l’altra, né lacune né ripetizioni ingiustificate. Che poi qualcuno di questi
difetti possa apparire qua e là, è facilmente comprensibile, e speriamo
che possa essere perdonato con la gravosità del carico.
2
Nella Grande Grammatica si è aggiunta anche Anna Cardinaletti.
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Nonostante le due opere abbiano una fonte di ispirazione teorica
comune e mirino a realizzazioni simili, la diversità della materia imponeva di per sé alcune differenze. La maggiore diversità riguarda la
fonte dei dati sui quali si fondano le regolarità (e irregolarità) grammaticali. Nella Grande Grammatica, dedicata all’italiano moderno, i
dati sono forniti da quella che in termini tecnici si chiama ‘intuizione
dell’autore-parlante/ascoltatore’, e solo occasionalmente da esempi
d’autore (per es. per testimoniare stili particolari o forme e fenomeni
poco conosciuti). Nella Grammatica dell’italiano antico ci siamo serviti invece di esempi d’autore ricavati dalla lettura diretta dei testi o
consultando il corpus elettronico TLIO (Tesoro della Lingua Italiana
delle Origini) allestito dall’Opera del Vocabolario Italiano3.
In realtà nemmeno qui abbiamo fatto a meno delle intuizioni del
parlante/ascoltatore, un parlante/ascoltatore che in questo caso non
può essere un nativo (l’italiano antico appartiene a sette secoli fa), ma
è lo studioso che ha acquisito il dominio della lingua del passato con
la lettura e con lo studio, un po’ come con la lettura e con lo studio si
acquisisce la capacità di parlare una lingua straniera e di dare su
questa dei giudizi di grammaticalità (certo, in molti casi meno sicuri di
quelli che si darebbero sulla propria lingua).
A parte questa differenza, per molti aspetti le due Grammatiche
hanno caratteristiche comuni, frutto della persistente fiducia in un metodo di lavoro e in certe basi teoriche consolidate, di cui parleremo
sotto.
Cominciamo con la finalità delle opere, che vuole essere descrittiva
e, quando possibile, esplicativa: cioè descrivere l’effettivo funzionamento della lingua e, in certi casi, perché il funzionamento sia quello
descritto e non un altro. Nel caso dell’italiano moderno è allontanata
ogni pretesa normativa, connaturata con la vecchia idea della grammatica, quanto mai resistente – è vero – nella scuola, ma estranea a ogni
concezione moderna.
3
Il corpus è consultabile sui siti: http://artfl-project.uchicago.edu/content/ovi e
http://gattoweb.ovi.cnr.it
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Le due grammatiche presentano un nucleo di contenuto comune:
sintassi e pragmatica, morfologia essenzialmente come formazione
delle parole. Ma il secondo volume ha esteso lo studio anche alla morfologia flessiva e, con maggiore ambizione, nonostante la difficoltà di
avere come oggetto uno stato antico della lingua, alla fonologia (che
può essere conosciuta solo indirettamente attraverso la grafia).
I riferimenti teorici stanno in alcuni approcci che hanno rinnovato
dopo la metà del Novecento lo studio linguistico: particolarmente la
grammatica generativo-trasformazionale, ma anche, per alcuni capitoli, la pragmatica, che è piuttosto un ramo della filosofia del linguaggio, e la linguistica del testo, che estende l’analisi oltre i confini della
frase. Per evitare almeno una parte delle difficoltà di comprensione di
quanto abbiamo scritto, abbiamo stabilito fin dall’inizio di usare sempre, quando possibile, la terminologia della grammatica tradizionale,
inserendo nella trattazione neologismi della linguistica moderna solo
quando fossero davvero indispensabili (e lo sono stati in diversi casi) e
dopo averli debitamente spiegati.
Un aspetto che va chiarito, particolarmente per la seconda delle due
opere, è che la prospettiva di studio è sincronica, non storica. Ora, le
grammatiche delle lingue moderne sono generalmente sincroniche
(anche se possono far riferimento occasionalmente a forme e fenomeni del passato), mentre quelle delle lingue antiche sono storiche.
Ma non lo devono essere necessariamente, anzi, se si accetta l’idea di
Saussure che si può fare diacronia (storia) solo dopo la sincronia, è
chiaro che anche una fase antica della lingua può, anzi deve essere
studiata in sincronia. Il fatto che questo genere di studi sia relativamente raro, soprattutto se riferito non a singoli fenomeni ma all’intero
complesso di una lingua, fa della nostra Grammatica dell’italiano
antico un’opera di avanguardia. Era prevedibile perciò che sollevasse
interrogativi e polemiche. Di una questione effettivamente sorta diamo
conto subito sotto.
Nelle presentazioni pubbliche del progetto che ha portato alla pubblicazione della Grande Grammatica, molti studiosi ci avevano
chiesto quale varietà dell’italiano intendevamo esaminare. La sensibi-
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lità per i diversi stili e soprattutto per la variabilità locale della lingua
è infatti molto diffusa tra gli specialisti. Il problema era in realtà facilmente risolvibile. Abbiamo descritto l’italiano comune, parlato e scritto, che costituisce il nucleo delle varietà stilistiche (diastratiche e diafasiche) della lingua, e abbiamo segnalato e esaminato a parte le principali differenze diatopiche, cioè locali (di quello che si chiama spesso
‘italiano regionale’), in singoli fenomeni4. Un esempio è la varietà,
essenzialmente diatopica, di alcune forme della frase esclamativa
(Benincà 2001, p. 138): it. sett. che bello (che è)! / tosc. com’è bello! /
it. merid. quant’è bello! La forma standard corrente (diastratia) coincide con quella toscana. Questa soluzione sembra aver soddisfatto la
gran parte degli studiosi, visto che, una volta che l’opera è stata pubblicata, quasi nessuna delle numerose recensioni che l’opera ha ricevuto contiene dei rilievi critici concernenti questo aspetto (un’eco di
una vecchia polemica su questo argomento sollevata da Eduardo
Blasco Ferrer si trova tuttavia nel III volume della Grande Grammatica (II ed. 2001, pp. 10-12).
Il problema era più delicato per la Grammatica dell’italiano antico.
Tra gli autori che si sono proposti di valutare quest’opera dopo la sua
apparizione5, c’è lo storico della lingua italiana Lorenzo Tomasin
(2013), che, chiedendosi che cosa sia l’italiano antico (Qu’est-ce que
l’italien ancien?), affronta proprio la questione dell’oggetto della nostra grammatica. L’autore non ne critica nessun aspetto descrittivo
particolare, ma giudica sbagliata l’impostazione generale. Nelle prime
righe della Prefazione (p. 7) avevamo scritto: «questa Grammatica
descrive il fiorentino del Duecento, prima fase documentata della
lingua italiana, e dei primi del Trecento». Tomasin critica l’assunzione
nel titolo e nel corpo del nostro libro del termine ‘italiano’ per
‘fiorentino antico’.
4
La distinzione delle tre dimensioni essenziali di una lingua comprendenti
diatopia, diastratia e diafasia risale a Eugenio Coseriu. Per una rivisitazione
attuale, v. Renzi (2013). Anche l’idea di nucleo comune si trova in Coseriu.
5
La più impegnativa tra le recensioni è finora quella di Marcello Barbato (2011).
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Ora, è vero che il termine ‘italiano’ è usato solo eccezionalmente in
età antica6, ma è anche vero che in ogni lingua è comune applicare il
termine moderno anche alla varietà antica di cui quella moderna è la
prosecuzione.
Resta allora da stabilire se ciò che precede quella lingua che dal
Cinquecento in poi si chiama generalmente ‘italiano’ è o no il fiorentino antico. Tomasin lo nega e sembra proporre (anche se in modo
alquanto implicito) che l’italiano moderno sia piuttosto frutto di una
collaborazione di diverse varietà (i volgari, poi dialetti, d’Italia). Ma la
concezione secondo cui l’italiano moderno è la continuazione del fiorentino è quella universalmente diffusa in materia, ed è stata dimostrata l’unica accettabile da una serie di studiosi illustri: alla fine dell’Ottocento da Ascoli e poi ripetutamente nel Novecento da Clemente
Merlo, da Carlo Tagliavini, da Arrigo Castellani e da numerosi altri7.
Nel caso dei non pochi studiosi che, nel corso del Novecento, non si
esprimono in materia, si deve pensare che questa idea gli apparisse
così ovvia che non hanno nemmeno sentito il bisogno di menzionarla
(Renzi 2000: 721-2). Aggiungiamo che la nostra trattazione, che assume che il fiorentino antico sia la base dell’italiano moderno, non ha
mai incontrato nessuna difficoltà a causa di questo presupposto – vogliamo dire: sarebbe successa ben altra cosa se avessimo sistematicamente raffrontato l’italiano moderno con il milanese antico.
Quanto all’idea, che forse piacerebbe a Tomasin, di confrontare
l’italiano con tutti i volgari antichi, è naturalmente possibile, ma difficilmente realizzabile: volendo raggiungere lo stesso livello di dettaglio
che ci eravamo proposti nel nostro lavoro, la mole dei dati da elabo6
Vedi già Migliorini (1960: 267, n. 1). Per la storia del nome dell’italiano v. lo
stesso Tomasin (2011).
7
Proprio per giustificare le nostre scelte, erano stati raccolti e riassunti i pareri di
questi studiosi in Renzi (2000). Questa linea di pensiero è citata anche da
Tomasin, che la trova però insufficiente perché la dimostrazione si basa solo sulla
fonetica e sulla morfologia. Ma l’intero edificio della linguistica storica si basa
sulla continuità (regolarità di corrispondenze) fonetica e morfologica (Meillet
1991 [1925]: cap. III).
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rare si sarebbe enormemente moltiplicata; anche senza tener conto
delle differenze morfologiche e limitandosi alle strutture sintattiche, le
differenze esistenti tra i diversi volgari sono senz’altro sottovalutate
da Tomasin. Certo sarebbe importante anche scrivere una sintassi
comparativa dei volgari italiani antichi, ma non era questo il compito
che ci eravamo proposti.
Che poi l’italiano moderno sia frutto della collaborazione di scrittori e parlanti di diversa provenienza, è senz’altro vero, ma solo più
tardi, dopo la codificazone cinquecentesca della lingua, quando l’italiano comincia a diventare veramente la lingua dei letterati d’Italia e
di cerchie via via anche più vaste. Non certo per il periodo precedente,
dato che la prima codificazione della lingua letteraria avviene proprio
esplicitamente sulla base della lingua degli scrittori fiorentini del Trecento. La loro lingua poteva già contenere degli influssi di altre varietà, ma certamente limitati, e questo in fondo è vero di tutte le
lingue. Così stando le cose, l’onere della prova che l’italiano non sia la
continuazione del fiorentino antico spetterebbe allo sfidante, a Tomasin, non a noi.
In realtà lo studioso dà solo un esempio della sua tesi (o forse è
meglio dire uno spunto in questa direzione), che è tutt’altro che convincente. Tomasin ricorda il fatto che il fiorentino antico presenta
l’ordine dei clitici Acc. Dat.: lo mi, lo ti… mentre le altre varietà
italiane hanno il tipo Dat. Acc.: me lo, te lo… (nelle diverse forme
locali), che sarà poi quello dell’italiano (v. qui sotto 2.3). L’autore
ipotizza che l’ordine degli altri volgari abbia condizionato il passaggio
del fiorentino stesso e poi dell’italiano all’ordine attuale, uguale a
quello delle altre varietà. Ora, questo processo non riguarda l’italiano
antico, ma si tratta di un processo avvenuto nella storia dell’italiano
post-bembesco: Bembo conosce le due costruzioni, ma consiglia quel-
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la del fiorentino antico8; l’italiano sceglierà l’altra, che del resto era
corrente da molto tempo anche a Firenze.
Comunque, anche se la spiegazione di Tomasin si potesse dimostrare preferibile alla nostra, il che al momento non è, bisognerebbe
poi poter generalizzare questo caso ad altri, e sarebbe veramente
difficile trovarne. Come è noto, già dal Quattrocento è il fiorentino a
condizionare lo sviluppo della altre varietà, non viceversa. Tomasin,
ottimo studioso del veneziano, lo sa benissimo. Da questo periodo,
peraltro, i cambiamenti linguistici sono osservati e discussi dai letterati del tempo, tra i quali nessuno si sogna di mettere in dubbio il primato della lingua di Firenze come lingua letteraria, fissata poi dal
Bembo come paradigma nella sua varietà trecentesca. Sono cose
arcinote, e volerle mettere in discussione sembra veramente velleitario.
Forse quello che sta più a cuore a Tomasin è in realtà l’idea che una
lingua debba essere studiata nella sua struttura ma anche assieme ai
fattori esterni, storici che ne accompagnano lo sviluppo. Ma la distinzione tra linguistica interna e esterna è un fattore d’ordine che favorisce la ricerca linguistica, e sarebbe stato male abbandonarla. È vero
che la seconda non è trattata nella nostra opera, salvo gli spunti dati
8
«E queste voci medesime, quando elle si mescolano con le primiere tre, sì come
si mescola questa, Vedetelvi, e le altre, in qual modo si mescolano elle, che meglio
stiano? Perciò che e all’una guisa e all’altra dire si può; che così si può dire,
Vedetevel voi, e Io te la recherò e Tu la mi recherai e Io gli vi donerò volentieri e
Io ve gli donerò e Se le fecero allo ‘ncontro e Le si fecero. Questo conoscimento,
e questa regola, Giuliano, come si fa ella? O pure puoss’ egli dire a qual maniera
l’uom vuole medesimamente, che niuna differenza o regola non vi sia? Differenza v’è egli senza dubbio alcuno, e tale volta molta, - rispose il Magnifico
- ché molto più di vaghezza averà questa voce, posta d’un modo in un luogo, che
ad un altro. Ma regola e legge che porre vi si possa, altra che il giudicio degli
orecchi, io recare non vi saprei, se non questa: che il dire, Tal la mi trovo al petto,
è propriamente uso della patria mia; là dove, Tal me la trovo, italiano sarebbe più
tosto che toscano, e in ogni modo meno di piacevolezza pare che abia in sé che il
nostro, e per questo è egli per aventura men richiesto alle prose, le quali partire
dalla naturale toscana usanza di poco si debbono» (P. Bembo, Prose della volgar
lingua, III, 19).
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nella Prefazione, ma il lettore sa che è presupposta, e non dovrebbe
essere difficile per Tomasin capire qual è la sua impostazione, e valutarla più serenamente, anche se non corrisponde alla sua concezione.
Nella quale, per es., la distinzione sincronia/diacronia non sembra,
sorprendentemente, avere corso.
2. UTILITÀ DI CONFRONTI TRA LE DESCRIZIONI
DELLA GRANDE GRAMMATICA E DELLA GRAMMATICA DELL’ITALIANO ANTICO:
VERSO UNA STORIA (DIACRONIA) DELLA LINGUA ITALIANA
Vediamo ora come un confronto tra le descrizioni fornite dalla Gr.
Gramm. e dalla Gramm. It. Ant. ci permette di identificare alcuni casi
in cui la sintassi dell’italiano antico e quella dell’italiano moderno divergono. Casi come questi presentano un problema per la sintassi diacronica della lingua italiana e dovranno essere risolti con uno studio
delle fasi intermedie nello sviluppo dell’italiano e con la formulazione
di ipotesi relative ai meccanismi e alle cause che hanno portato alla
ristrutturazione delle costruzioni esaminate.
Ma anche a un livello semplicemente descrittivo il confronto tra le
due descrizioni fornisce al lettore e allo studioso dei testi antichi uno
strumento per interpretare correttamente le strutture linguistiche antiche: quella infatti che al lettore moderno può parere una variante stilistica di carattere letterario (appunto perché è abituato a ritrovarla
solo nei testi letterari antichi, o anche in quelli più tardi che la conservano per imitazione dei modelli antichi), era spesso in it. ant. la variante non-marcata, qualche volta l’unica possibile, che i parlanti usavano anche, dobbiamo supporre, nella lingua colloquiale (testimoniata
solo indirettamente dai testi scritti che ci sono pervenuti). Questo è per
es. il caso della posizione dei clitici, trattata in 2.2.
In alcuni casi la costruzione antica non è sopravvissuta, e se compare in it. mod., è per imitazione della lingua antica, in pastiches storici
o parodici. Questo è per es. il caso, già accennato nel par. 1, dei gruppi
di clitici, trattati in 2.3.
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In altri casi ancora quella che apparentemente sembra la stessa costruzione in it. ant e in it. mod., sono in realtà due costruzioni diverse,
con due diverse interpretazioni. In tutti questi casi la costruzione antica, per essere correttamente interpretata, va tradotta in it. mod. con
una costruzione diversa che svolge nell’architettura della lingua moderna la stessa funzione e ha lo stesso significato della costruzione
antica nell’architettura della lingua antica. (Tradizionalmente, nelle
edizioni dei testi letterari a questo scopo servono le note esplicative,
che però non possono dare un quadro sistematico di tutte le differenze
a cui il lettore dovrebbe fare attenzione; e questo per il loro carattere
sporadico, legate come sono all’interpretazione dei passi più difficili o
ritenuti più importanti dai commentatori.) Questa situazione si presenta per es. con molti degli ordini delle parole della lingua antica, come vedremo in 2.1.
I casi di questo tipo, in cui it. ant. e it. mod. sembrano apparentemente uguali ma, a un esame più accurato, appaiono invece diversi,
sono da soli sufficienti a suggerire l’utilità di una grammatica contrastiva, come la nostra, che aiuti a vedere la differenza in ciò che è apparentemente uguale.
2.1. Ordine delle parole e struttura della frase
L’ordine delle parole dell’it. ant. si differenzia molto da quello dell’it.
mod., e anche le costruzioni apparentemente uguali non hanno sempre
la stessa funzione e possono rispondere a strutture astratte diverse. Vediamo qualche aspetto.
In it. mod. (Benincà – Salvi – Frison 2001) l’ordine non-marcato
delle parole è generalmente SV+finV-finOX, come esemplificato in (A),
dove S = soggetto (Piero), V+fin = verbo di modo finito/ausiliare delle
perifrasi (ha), V-fin = verbo di modo non-finito delle perifrasi (mandato), O = oggetto diretto (il pacco), X = altro complemento (a Maria):
(A) Piero ha mandato il pacco a Maria.
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Il soggetto è normalmente anche il tema della frase, quell’elemento
cioè che serve come punto di partenza per il contenuto che la frase
vuole comunicare: in (A) la frase ci dice qualcosa del soggetto/tema
Piero. Se scegliamo un altro elemento come tema, nell’it. colloquiale
corrente si usa la costruzione della dislocazione a sinistra: il tema
compare prima del soggetto, in genere con un’intonazione particolare
(suggerita qui dalla virgola); inoltre, all’interno della frase è in molti
casi necessario esprimere la funzione del costituente anteposto con un
pronome atono (clitico di ripresa), come esemplificato in (B) con la
tematizzazione dell’oggetto diretto (a) e dell’oggetto indiretto (b):
(B) a. Il pacco, Piero l’ha mandato a Maria.
b. A Maria, Piero (le) ha mandato il pacco.
Un altro tipo di anteposizione si ha in it. mod. nel caso delle frasi
interrogative: in questi casi è il sintagma interrogativo a comparire in
inizio di frase, ma normalmente non davanti al soggetto, ma davanti al
verbo, e con un’intonazione diversa; il soggetto, in questi casi (se non
coincide con il sintagma interrogativo), occupa in genere una posizione ai margini della frase, come esemplificato in (C), e non prima
del verbo flesso o tra l’ausiliare e la forma non-finita di una perifrasi
verbale (per l’importanza di questa posizione v. sotto):
(C) A chi ha mandato il pacco, Piero? / Piero, a chi ha
mandato il pacco? / *A chi Piero ha mandato il pacco? /
*A chi ha Piero mandato il pacco?
La frase interrogativa su un costituente è un tipo speciale di messa a
fuoco o focalizzazione, dove per fuoco intendiamo quell’elemento che
rappresenta il punto essenziale di quanto viene comunicato. Nella frase interrogativa il fuoco compare prima del verbo flesso, negli altri tipi
di frase (per es. nelle risposte) compare invece dopo il verbo, e in particolare dopo la forma non-finita nel caso delle perifrasi verbali, come
mostrano gli ess. (D) con focalizzazione dell’oggetto indiretto (a) e
del soggetto (b):
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(D) a. (A chi ha mandato il pacco, Piero?) L’ha mandato a
Maria.
b. (Chi è venuto?) È venuto Piero.
Abbiamo poi un tipo particolare di focalizzazione che serve per
esprimere un contrasto: in it. mod. a questo scopo si usa una struttura
simile a quella utilizzata nelle frasi interrogative, con il costituente focalizzato in posizione immediatamente preverbale e il soggetto (se
non coincide con il fuoco) ai margini della frase, come esemplificato
in (Ea), con la focalizzazione contrastiva dell’oggetto diretto; una
strategia alternativa consiste nell’uso della frase scissa (struttura è...
che...), come esemplificato in (Eb):
(E) a. IL PACCO ha mandato a Maria, Piero (non i fiori).
b. È il pacco che Piero ha mandato a Maria.
In it. ant. (Benincà – Poletto 2010) l’ordine basico degli elementi
era lo stesso che in it. mod., e cioè SV+finV-finOX, ma per la tematizzazione e la focalizzazione si usavano solo in parte le stesse costruzioni dell’it. mod. Così la tematizzazione si otteneva con l’anteposizione del tema al verbo finito, come in (1), con tematizzazione dell’oggetto diretto (ciò) in (1a) e di un complemento introdotto da preposizione (di ciò) in (1b); in queste frasi il soggetto (il re in [1a] e il
parlatore in [1b]) si trova immediatamente dopo il verbo finito (tra
l’ausiliare e la forma non-finita nel caso della perifrasi può… prendere
in [1b]). In it. mod. in questi casi si deve ricorrere alla dislocazione a
sinistra (1a3)/(1b1) o, solo nel caso dell’oggetto diretto e in uno stile
più formale, alla costruzione passiva (1a2); se il tema è un elemento
intrinsecamente anaforico, si può anche rinunciare alla sua anteposizione (1a1):
(1)
a. Ciò tenne il re a grande maraviglia. (Novellino, 2, r. 22)
a1. Il re ritenne ciò stupefacente.
a2. Ciò fu ritenuto stupefacente dal re.
a3. Questo, il re l’ha ritenuto stupefacente.
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b. E di ciò può il parlatore prendere suoi argomenti.
(Tesoro volgarizzato, ed. Gaiter, vol. 4, libro 8, cap. 49,
p. 163, rr. 10-11)
1
b .Da questo l’oratore (ne) può trarre i suoi argomenti.
Ma la stessa costruzione in it. ant. serviva anche per esprimere la
focalizzazione, sia nel caso di sintagmi interrogativi, come che in (2a),
sia nel caso di altri sintagmi, come tanto in (2b) e tanto gentile e tanto
onesta in (2c), con interpretazione non necessariamente contrastiva. In
questo caso le costruzioni sono simili, ma non uguali a quelle usate in
it. mod.: come in it. mod., il fuoco precede immediatamente il verbo
finito, ma il soggetto (per es. tu in [2a]), invece di trovarsi in margine
alla frase (2a1), segue il verbo finito (allo stesso modo costei in [2b] e
la donna mia in [2c]); inoltre, agli ess. non interrogativi manca, come
abbiamo detto, il carattere contrastivo che avrebbero gli ess. con anteposizione in it. mod. (v. es. [Ea], sopra), per cui nelle parafrasi/traduzioni in it. mod. il fuoco si trova piuttosto in posizione postverbale
(2b1)/(2c1). La costruzione con il fuoco dopo il verbo era del resto possibile, in altri casi, già in it. ant. (3):
(2)
a. Maestra delle Virtudi, che vai tu faccendo in tanta
profundità di notte per le magioni de’ servi tuoi? (Bono
Giamboni, Libro, cap. 3, par. 8)
a1. (Tu,) che cosa stai facendo(, tu)?
b. Tanto amò costei Lancialotto ch(e)... (Novellino, 82, rr.
5-6)
b’.Costei amò tanto Lancillotto che...
c. Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare / la donna mia
quand’ella altrui saluta, / ch(e)… (Dante, Vita nuova,
cap. 26, par. 5, vv. 1-3)
1
c . La mia signora si manifesta tanto nobile e tanto dignitosa quando saluta, che…
(3)
uno porto nello quale era adorato Malcometto (Brunetto
Latini, Rettorica, p. 110, rr. 2-3)
In it. ant. avevamo del resto anche la costruzione della dislocazione
a sinistra (4), possibile alternativa alla tematizzazione in posizione
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preverbale: mentre nella tematizzazione il tema precede immediatamente il verbo finito e il soggetto si mette dopo di questo, nella dislocazione il soggetto (Ugolino in [4a] e nullo in [4b]) resta normalmente
in posizione preverbale, per cui il costituente che funge da tema (la
sella vecchia… in [4a] e al detto luogho in [4b]) non precede immediatamente il verbo, e abbiamo inoltre un clitico di ripresa (la in [4a] e
vi in [4b]), sempre assente nella tematizzazione:
(4)
a. La sella vecchia ch’era costà Ugolino la cambiò a una
nuova. (Lettera di Consiglio de’ Cerchi, I, p. 597, rr. 1617)
b. Et al detto luogho nullo vi vada né laude vi canti.
(Compagnia di San Gilio, p. 35, rr. 17-18)
In it. ant., inoltre, era possibile anche l’ordine V+finSV-finOX (5), impossibile in it. mod., che serviva a esprimere certi tipi di significati
particolari, come nell’interrogativa totale (a) o nella frase eventiva (b),
che presenta un evento come conseguenza degli eventi espressi nel
contesto precedente. In questi casi in it. mod. l’ordine è quello nonmarcato SV+finV-finOX (b1), ma nel caso delle interrogative il soggetto
compare normalmente ai margini della frase (a1):
(5)
a. Hai tu bene veduto quali sono i rei disiderî della
carne…? (Bono Giamboni, Trattato, cap. 20, par. 23)
1
a . (Tu,) hai visto(, tu,) quali...?
b. Li ambasciadori fecero la dimanda loro… Lo ‘mperadore diede loro risposta… Andar li ambasciadori. (Novellino, 1, rr. 23-29)
1
b .(Allora) gli ambasciatori andarono.
La struttura di frase dell’it. ant. si può dunque schematizzare nel
seguente modo:
Disl – Op – V+fin – S – Avv – V-fin – O – X
dove Disl = posizione di dislocazione e Op = posizione di opera-tore,
cioè la posizione immediatamente preverbale che può essere oc-cupata
sia da temi che da fuochi. Lo schema indica anche la posizione degli
Avv(erbi), che normalmente seguivano il soggetto postverbale (nel
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caso delle perifrasi si trovavano tra il soggetto postverbale e il verbo
non-finito), come nell’es. (5a) (in [2b], invece, l’avverbio è focalizzato nella posizione di operatore).
L’it. ant. presentava inoltre una maggiore libertà dell’it. mod. nella
strutturazione dei sintagmi; per es. nel sintagma verbale di modo nonfinito il complemento (miracol in [6]) poteva precedere il verbo, in
quello nominale il possessivo (mia in [7]) o il quantificatore (tutta in
[8a] e molte in [8b]) potevano liberamente essere posposti (nel caso
dei quantificatori la posposizione serviva a focalizzarli); queste costruzioni non sono più possibili in it. mod. (ma la posposizione dei possessivi è ancora possibile per esprimere contrasto, un valore che non necessariamente aveva in it. ant.):
(6)
a miracol mostrare. (Dante, Vita nuova, cap. 26, par. 6, v. 8)
a mostrare un miracolo.
(7)
la donna mia (Dante, Vita nuova, cap. 26, par. 5, v. 2)
la mia signora
(8)
a. l’altra gente tutta (Novellino, 7, r. 42)
tutta l’altra gente
b. parole e ragioni molte (Brunetto Latini, Rettorica, p.
146, rr. 17-18)
molte parole e ragioni
2.2. Posizione dei clitici
Mentre in it. mod. le particelle clitiche, cioè i pronomi personali atoni
e le particelle cosiddette avverbiali ci/vi e ne, si collocano sempre
prima delle forme verbali finite (si mostra, lo porto, ti prego, ecc.),
eccetto che nel caso dell’imperativo positivo (pagami!; nell’imperativo negativo sono possibili le due soluzioni: non mi dite/non ditemi),
in it. ant. la posizione dei clitici dipendeva da quello che avevamo in
posizione preverbale (Benincà – Poletto 2010, 1.1.5; Cardinaletti
2010, 2.12). La regola, nota come legge Tobler-Mussafia, comprende,
con qualche semplificazione, i seguenti casi: in frase principale i cliti-
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ci si collocavano dopo il verbo se a) il verbo era il primo elemento
della frase (9a), o b) se era preceduto da una congiunzione coordinante, come e in (9b) o c) da una frase subordinata, come s’i’ son tu’
servo in (9c); inoltre d) quando il verbo era preceduto da un costituente dislocato a sinistra, come le mie poche parole… in (9d); in tutti
questi ess. in it. mod. avremmo il clitico in posizione preverbale:
(9)
a. Mostrasi sì piacente a chi la mira, / che… (Dante, Vita
nuova, cap. 26, par. 7, v. 9)
b. e portolo a donna la quale sarà tua difensione. (Dante,
Vita nuova, cap. 9, par. 5)
c. S’i’ son tu’ servo, pregoti che… (Iacopo Cavalcanti, Tre
sonetti, 2, v. 12)
d. A voi le mie poche parole ch’avete intese holle dette con
grande fede. (Matteo de’ Libri, Dicerie volgari (red.
pistoiese), p. 15, rr. 9-10)
I clitici precedevano invece normalmente il verbo in tutti gli altri
casi, e cioè: e) se il verbo era preceduto da un costituente nella posizione di operatore, come ella in (10a) e di ciò… in (10b), o f) dalla
particella negativa non (10c); inoltre g) se il verbo si trovava in frase
subordinata (10d). Si noti che la posizione preverbale vale in queste
condizioni anche nel caso dell’imperativo (10b), mentre in it. mod.
avremmo la posizione postverbale (10b1) (e nel caso dell’imperativo
negativo avremmo le due soluzioni):
(10) a. Ella si va, sentendosi laudare, / benignamente d’umiltà
vestuta… (Dante, Vita nuova, cap. 26, par. 6, vv. 5-6)
b. Di ciò c’hai preso mi paga. (Novellino, 8, r. 22)
b1.QUESTO pagami!
c. No li parlò. (Fiori e vita di filosafi, cap. 8, r. 15)
d. Convien che si consumi. (Brunetto Latini, Tesoretto, v.
300)
Nei secoli successivi al periodo medievale, quando la legge ToblerMussafia non era più in vigore, la posizione postverbale del clitico è
stata sentita come una caratteristica della lingua letteraria, per cui si è
usata come una variante libera della posizione preverbale, anche in
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contesti sintattici che in it. ant. normalmente non l’ammettevano: cfr.
per es. Pur mai non sentesi / felice appieno / chi su quel seno / non
liba amore! (F.M. Piave, libretto del Rigoletto di Giuseppe Verdi
[1851]), con il clitico in una posizione che sarebbe stata impossibile in
it. ant. (cfr. [10c]), come lo è anche in it. mod. Ma in it. ant. le regole
che richiedevano la posizione postverbale erano regole grammaticali,
come quelle che la regolano in it. mod., e non una regola stilistica come nella lingua letteraria fino all’Ottocento.
Nelle costruzioni verbo+infinito (Cardinaletti 2010, 2.14; Egerland
– Cennamo 2010, 2.3), infine, i clitici si collocavano normalmente accanto al verbo reggente (può in [11a] e ardiscon in [11b]); in it. mod.
con alcuni verbi i clitici si possono collocare o accanto al verbo
reggente o accanto all’infinito (11a1), ma con la maggior parte dei
verbi si collocano solo accanto all’infinito (11b1):
(11) a. ‘ntender no la può... (Dante, Vita nuova, cap. 26, par. 7,
v. 11)
1
a . non può capirla, non la può capire...
b. no l’ardiscon di guardare. (Dante, Vita nuova, cap. 26,
par. 5, v. 4)
b2.non ardiscono guardarla.
2.3. Gruppi di clitici
In it. mod., quando si usano insieme due clitici, nel gruppo risultante
l’ordine degli elementi è fisso, esattamente come nel caso dei morfemi
alla fine di una parola: abbiamo per es. me lo, e non *lo mi, come
abbiamo canta-va-no, e non *canta-no-va. Lo stesso valeva in it. ant.,
ma con regole diverse (Cardinaletti 2010, 2.16; ora anche Cella 2012):
in particolare il clitico accusativo di 3. pers. precedeva gli altri clitici,
per es. quelli di 1. e 2. pers. in funzione di oggetto indiretto (12a)/
(12b), mentre invece in it. mod. li segue (12a1)/(12b1):
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(12) a. Io il vi darò via peggiore. (Giamboni, Libro, cap. 6, par.
15),
a1. io ve lo darò ancora peggiore.
b. ma dirolloti... (Bono Giamboni, Libro, cap. 4, par. 5).
b1.ma te lo dirò...
In un gruppo di clitici una distinzione morfologica può essere cancellata (neutralizzata): per es. in it. mod. nel gruppo glielo si neutralizza l’opposizione che abbiamo nelle forme isolate tra gli (sing.
masch. e pl. dei due generi) e le (sing. femm.): glielo vale “quello a
lui”, “quello a loro”, ma anche “quello a lei”. In it. ant. la neutralizzazione era più estesa: la combinazione di un clitico accusativo di 3a
pers. con un clitico dativo di 3a pers. dava sempre gliele (o varianti
affini), indipendentemente dal numero e dal genere dei due pronomi
interessati, come si vede negli ess. seguenti:
(13) a. Tu prieghi lui che li le dica. (Dante, Vita nuova, cap. 12,
par. 7)
quello a lei
b. E que’ non volendola, e que’ dandogliele. (Disciplina
clericalis, p. 76, rr. 20-21)
quella a lui
c. E corsero a’ piedi per baciargliele. (Bono Giamboni,
Libro, cap. 63, par. 3)
quelli a lui
2.4. Tempi composti
La scelta dell’ausiliare nei tempi composti dei verbi sottostava alle
stesse regole che in it. mod., ma con un’importante eccezione (Jezek
2010, par. 8): i verbi transitivi avevano sempre l’ausiliare avere, anche
quando erano accompagnati da un clitico riflessivo con funzione di
oggetto diretto (14a) o di oggetto indiretto (14b), mentre in it. mod. in
questi casi avremmo sempre essere (14a1)/(14b1), una innovazione che
compare già in it. ant. (14c):
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(14) a. la donna che […] ci s’hae mostrata... (Dante, Vita
nuova, cap. 38, par. 3)
a1. ci si è mostrata...
b. ella istessa s’avea data la morte per lo dolore... (Bono
Giamboni, Orosio, libro 5, cap. 24, p. 343, rr. 12-13)
1
b .si era data...
c. Ecco dunque come Idio s’era mostrato e dato in prima
al popolo suo. (Giordano da Pisa, Quaresimale fiorentino, 84, p. 408, rr. 16-17)
Inoltre, nei verbi pronominali (Egerland 2010), cioè in quegli intransitivi che sono accompagnati da un clitico riflessivo, nei tempi
composti il clitico riflessivo poteva rimanere non-espresso (15a), ma
era possibile anche esprimerlo (15b):
(15) a. Siete voi accorti / che…? (Dante, Inferno, 12, vv. 80-81)
vi siete accorti?
b. io non m’era accorto... (Dante, Purgatorio, 4, v. 16)
In it. ant. si faceva dunque inizialmente un chiara distinzione nei
tempi composti tra verbi riflessivi transitivi, in cui il clitico riflessivo
funge da oggetto diretto (per es. uccidersi) o indiretto (per es. darsi la
morte) del verbo, e verbi riflessivi intransitivi, in cui il clitico riflessivo non svolge nessuna funzione sintattica, ma è un semplice segnale
di intransitività (per es. accorgersi, annerirsi): con i primi l’ausiliare
era avere, con i secondi essere, ma con questi non si usava il clitico
riflessivo. L’it. mod. ha eliminato questa distinzione generalizzando
l’ausiliare essere e rendendo obbligatorio l’uso del clitico, un cambiamento già in atto nel periodo medievale.
2.5. Frasi presentative
Le frasi la cui funzione è quella di introdurre un nuovo elemento nel
discorso (frasi presentative) utilizzano normalmente verbi intransitivi
coniugati con essere; nella costruzione l’elemento nuovo funge da
soggetto e compare in posizione postverbale (dopo il participio nei
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tempi composti). In it. ant. in questi casi (Salvi 2010a, 5.1; 2010b, 1.4)
il verbo di 3a pers. non si accordava con un soggetto plurale (16a)/
(16b), diversamente dall’it. mod. (16a1)/(16b1). Se il soggetto era già
noto dal contesto precedente, invece, l’accordo si faceva (17). L’it.
mod. ha eliminato questa distinzione, che sopravvive però nei dialetti
settentrionali e toscani:
(16) a. Della buona volontà di cui nasce le quattro virtú cardinali... (Bono Giamboni, Trattato, cap. 2, rubrica)
1
a . nascono...
b. Quivi fue grandissime battalgle. (Cronica fiorentina, p.
145, r. 32)
1
b .ci furono...
(17) a. Al padre furono racontate tutte queste novelle.
(Novellino, 7, rr. 45-46)
b. Ciò c’han detto queste donne reali. (Boccaccio, Teseida,
libro 2, ott. 40, vv. 3-4)
2.6. Uso del complementatore che
Come in it. mod., almeno in certi stili, in it. ant. era possibile omettere
la congiunzione subordinante che che introduce una frase complemento (Meszler – Samu – Mazzoleni 2010, 2.2), soprattutto se questa
era al congiuntivo (18a), ma diversamente dall’it. mod. questa omissione era possibile anche con il che delle frasi relative (18b) (anche se
questo fenomeno si espande piuttosto nel corso del Trecento):
(18) a. Non vo’ ∅ ti faccia di ciò maraviglio. (Monte Andrea,
Rime (ed. Menichetti), son. 104b, v. 3)
b. sì come e in quel modo ∅ ànno e sono usati d’avere i
detti consoli della detta arte. (Statuto dell’Arte dei
vinattieri, p. 113, rr. 4-5)
b1.nel modo che tengono...
Sempre diversamente dall’it. mod., quando all’inizio di una frase
subordinata avevamo una frase subordinata avverbiale, il complemen-
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tatore poteva comparire in due diverse posizioni (Meszler – Samu –
Mazzoleni 2010, 2.1): all’inizio della subordinata e dopo la subordinata avverbiale (19a); ma data l’omissibilità di che, uno dei due che
poteva anche mancare: il secondo (19b) (soluzione maggioritaria, che
corrisponde a quella dell’it. mod.), oppure il primo (19c), oppure tutti
e due (19d):
(19) a. dirai […] che, se tuo padre fu loro aspro, che tu sarai
loro umile e benigno. (Novellino, 6, rr. 37-39)
b. Noi credemo che quando avrete questa lettera ∅ Chiaro
sarà passato di costà per andare inn Isscozia. (Lettera
di Consiglio de’ Cerchi, I, p. 598, rr. 23-24)
c. Ma so bene ∅, se Carlo fosse morto, / che voi ci
trovereste ancor cagione. (Rustico Filippi, Sonetti, 3, vv.
9-10)
d. Vuol ∅, quanto la cosa è più perfetta, / ∅ più senta il
bene, e così la doglienza. (Dante, Inferno, 6, vv. 107108)
2.7. Frasi relative
In it. mod. nelle frasi relative (Cinque 2001) possiamo trovare che o
cui (non trattiamo qui, per semplicità, il caso di il quale e di dove).
Che si usa se l’elemento relativizzato è il soggetto (Fa) o l’oggetto
diretto (Fb), indipendentemente dal carattere umano o inanimato dell’antecedente; si usa inoltre con quei complementi di tempo che non
sono introdotti da preposizione (Fc). Cui si usa invece quando l’elemento relativizzato è preceduto da una preposizione9, come mostrano
gli ess. (G):
9
Oltre che come possessivo (il cui padre) e come oggetto indiretto (una ragazza
cui daresti tutto), casi che per semplicità non tratteremo qui.
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(F) a. la ragazza / la lettera che è arrivata ieri.
b. la ragazza / la lettera che hai visto.
c. il giorno che verrai / *nell’occasione che verrai (cfr. in
cui verrai)
(G) a. Non ho trovato nessuno con cui io possa andare al
cinema.
b. Non ho trovato nessuno con cui andare al cinema.
Questa distribuzione di che e cui si può spiegare ipotizzando che in
it. mod. solo cui sia un pronome relativo vero e proprio, e che sia
espresso solo quando è accompagnato da una preposizione, mentre
quando dovrebbe essere usato da solo, viene obbligatoriamente cancellato; in quest’ultimo caso la frase relativa è introdotta da che, che in
it. mod. non è un pronome relativo ma un complementatore, cioè un
semplice introduttore di frase subordinata, lo stesso che troviamo in
casi come Non credo che venga o Mi ha detto che è stato malato. Che
che sia un complementatore e non un pronome relativo, si vede dal
fatto che non può essere usato nelle relative all’infinito (Hb) (da
confrontare con [Ha], di modo finito), e questo per il semplice fatto
che il complementatore che introduce solo frasi di modo finito; il
pronome relativo, invece, compare liberamente sia nelle relative di
modo finito (Ga) sia in quelle all’infinito (Gb):
(H) a. Non ho trovato nessuno che io possa portare al cinema.
b. *Non ho trovato nessuno che portare al cinema. (cfr. da
portare al cinema)
Un’altra prova a favore di questa analisi consiste nel fatto che in it.
ant. il che delle frasi relative poteva essere omesso esattamente come
quello delle frasi complemento (v. es. [18b], sopra): se si tratta dello
stesso elemento, questo fatto non ha bisogno di ulteriori spiegazioni.
La struttura della frase relativa in it. ant. (Benincà – Cinque 2010) è
apparentemente la stessa: se per es. l’elemento relativizzato è il soggetto, troviamo che sia con antecedenti umani (20a), sia con antecedenti inanimati (20b):
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(20) a. Andò alli altri giovani che stavano a ricevere l’acqua
piovana. (Novellino, 4, rr. 16-17)
b. Et così pare manifestamente che quella amistade ch’è
per utilitade e per dilettamento nonn è verace. (Brunetto
Latini, Rettorica, p. 13, r. 24-p. 14, r. 1)
Ma se guardiamo ai casi in cui l’elemento relativizzato è l’oggetto
diretto, troviamo una situazione diversa: con un oggetto diretto umano
possiamo trovare che (21a), ma anche cui (21b), mentre con un oggetto diretto inanimato troviamo solo che (21c):
(21) a. Crede avere guiderdone di quelli ch’egli ha tenuto in
indugio. (Tesoro volgarizzato, ed. Gaiter, vol. 3, libro 7,
cap. 47, p. 392, rr. 6-8)
b. E fue sì benigno che quelli cui elli sugiugava con arme,
sì vinceva con clemenzia e con benignità. (Fiori e vita di
filosafi, cap. 19, rr. 3-4)
1
b .che egli soggiogava…
c. Noi avemo pagato […] quella quantitade de la moneta
che nne mandaste diciendo. (Lettera di Consiglio de’
Cerchi, I, p. 595, rr. 4-7)
Se invece l’elemento relativizzato è un complemento introdotto da
preposizione, con un antecedente umano troviamo sempre cui (22a),
mentre con un antecedente inanimato possiamo avere sia cui (22b) sia
che (22c):
(22) a. Moises fu il primo uomo a cui Iddio desse la legge.
(Tesoro volgarizzato, ed. Gaiter, vol. 1, libro 1, cap. 17,
p. 52, rr. 8-9)
b. Per ciò che la filosofia è la radice di cui crescono tutte
le scienze che uomo puote sapere. (Tesoro volgarizzato,
ed. Gaiter, vol. 1, libro 1, cap. 1, p. 6, rr. 14-16)
c. Uno bastone con che s’apogiava perch’era debole.
(Fiori e vita di filosafi, cap. 9, rr. 4-5)
1
c . con cui
Evidentemente l’it. ant. faceva una distinzione, assente in it. mod.,
tra antecedenti umani e antecedenti inanimati. Inoltre, l’es. (22c) mo-
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stra come il che delle frasi relative in it. ant. non potesse essere esclusivamente un complementatore, ma doveva essere anche un pronome
relativo: dopo una preposizione ci aspettiamo infatti un costituente nominale, come è appunto un pronome.
Una spiegazione dei fatti appena esposti può essere la seguente: in
it. ant. avevamo due pronomi relativi, che per gli antecedenti inanimati e cui, di caso obliquo, in primo luogo per gli antecedenti umani.
Se l’elemento relativizzato era il soggetto, il pronome relativo rimaneva obbligatoriamente non-espresso, e la frase relativa era introdotta
dal complementatore che (20), che poteva anche essere omesso. Nel
caso dell’oggetto diretto il pronome relativo poteva essere espresso, e
si realizzava come cui nel caso di antecedenti umani (21b) e come che
nel caso di antecedenti inanimati (21c), ma poteva anche rimanere
non-espresso, nel qual caso la frase era introdotta dal complementatore che (21a)/(21c) (nel caso degli inanimati, come si vede, le due
soluzioni non sono distinguibili). Nel caso dei complementi introdotti
da preposizione, infine, il pronome relativo era sempre espresso, con
cui nel caso degli antecedenti umani (22a) e con che (22c) oppure cui
(22b) nel caso di quelli inanimati. Come si vede, l’it. ant. disponeva di
un sistema più complesso, con un pronome relativo in più rispetto
all’it. mod. e una distinzione tra umani e inanimati che l’it. mod. non
conserva.
In it. ant. era inoltre possibile un tipo di frase relativa senza pronome relativo e introdotto sempre da che, dove la funzione dell’elemento
relativizzato era espressa, invece che da un pronome relativo, da un
clitico, come negli ess. in (23). Al posto di a cui troviamo quindi
che… gli/le (23c), al posto di in cui troviamo che… vi/ci (23d), e per
l’oggetto diretto al posto di che (pronome relativo) o cui troviamo
che… lo/la/le/li (23a-b). Questo tipo di costruzione è ancora vivo in it.
mod. a livello colloquiale, ma diversamente dall’it. ant. è escluso dallo
stile curato:
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(23) a. Dà per li occhi una dolcezza al core, / che ‘ntender no la
può chi no la prova. (Dante, Vita nuova, cap. 26, par. 7,
v. 10-11)
1
a . Una dolcezza che non può capire chi non la provi.
b. Più di mille / ombre mostrommi e nominommi a dito, /
ch’amor di nostra vita dipartille. (Dante, Inferno, 5, vv.
67-69)
1
b .Ombre che Amore allontanò dalla nostra vita.
c. Guiglielmo si vantò che non avea niuno nobile uomo in
Proenza che non gli avesse fatto votare la sella. (Novellino, 42, rr. 5-7)
c1. Nessun nobiluomo a cui non avesse fatto...
d. Lli nimici entrarono per una porta che v’è intalglato di
marmo uno angelo. (Cronica fiorentina, p. 113, rr. 1011)
1
d .Una porta in cui è scolpito...
3. CONCLUSIONE
La Grammatica dell’italiano antico è nata dalla convinzione che
italiano antico e italiano moderno abbiano grammatiche differenti sotto molti aspetti – una convinzione corroborata dal lungo e meritorio
lavoro filologico svolto sui testi antichi, ma soprattutto da molte ricerche mirate svolte nel quadro degli studi linguistici nell’ultimo quarto
del secolo scorso. Le ricerche, spesso di prima mano, che hanno portato alla redazione di quest’opera, hanno ampiamente confermato la
nostra ipotesi iniziale e ci hanno permesso di offrire una descrizione
organica della grammatica antica. Il confronto di questa descrizione
con quella della Grande Grammatica rappresenta una nuova sfida per
gli studiosi della storia della nostra lingua che, ricostruendo le tappe
intermedie, si impegneranno a spiegare i cambiamenti avvenuti. Per il
lettore non specialista le due opere offrono invece uno strumento fondamentale per approfondire la comprensione delle strutture della lingua di oggi (anche nella sua variazione) e per una corretta interpre-
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tazione delle strutture della lingua antica, come abbiamo cercato di
mostrare con alcuni esempi scelti nel par. 2.
Università degli Studi di Padova
[email protected]
Università Eötvös Loránd, Budapest
[email protected]
BIBLIOGRAFIA
Barbato, M.
2011 Recensione di Salvi – Renzi (2010), in «Studi Linguistici
Italiani», 37, pp. 104-117.
Benincà, P.
2001 Il tipo esclamativo, in Renzi – Salvi – Cardinaletti (2001),
vol. III, pp. 127-52.
Benincà, P. – Cinque, G.
2010 La frase relativa, in Salvi – Renzi (2010), pp. 469-507.
Benincà, P. – Poletto, C.
2010 L’ordine delle parole e la struttura della frase, in Salvi –
Renzi (2010), pp. 27-75.
Benincà, P. – Salvi, G. – Frison, L.
2001 L’ordine degli elementi della frase e le costruzioni
marcate, in Renzi – Salvi – Cardinaletti (2001), vol. I, pp. 129239.
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Cardinaletti, A.
2010 Il pronome personale obliquo, in Salvi – Renzi (2010),
pp. 414-50.
Cella, R.
2012 I gruppi di clitici nel fiorentino del Trecento, in Dizionari
e ricerca filologica. Atti della Giornata di Studi in memoria di
Valentina Pollidori. Firenze, 26 ottobre 2010, Alessandria, Edizioni dell’Orso, pp. 113-98.
Cinque, G.
2001 La frase relativa, in Renzi – Salvi – Cardinaletti (2001),
vol. I, pp. 457-517.
Egerland, V.
2010 Il pronome riflessivo, in Salvi – Renzi (2010), pp. 450-63.
Egerland, V. – Cennamo, M.
2010 Frasi subordinate all’infinito, in Salvi – Renzi (2010),
pp. 817-79.
Jezek, E.
2010 La struttura argomentale dei verbi, in Salvi – Renzi
(2010), pp. 77-122.
Meillet, A.
1991 Il metodo comparativo in linguistica storica, Catania,
Edizioni del Prisma (ed. originale: La méthode comparative en
linguistique historique, Oslo-Paris, Aschehoug-Champion,
1925).
Meszler, L. – Samu, B. – Mazzoleni, M.
2010 Le strutture subordinate, in Salvi – Renzi (2010), pp.
763-89.
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Migliorini, B.
1960 Storia della lingua italiana, Firenze, Sansoni.
Renzi, L.
2000 “ItalAnt”: come e perché una grammatica dell’italiano
antico, in «Lingua e Stile», 35, pp. 717-29.
2013 Il concetto di stile in Eugenio Coseriu, in «Lingua e
stile», 48, pp. 79-112.
Renzi, L. – Salvi, G. – Cardinaletti, A. (a cura di)
2001 Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione, 3 voll.,
Bologna, Il Mulino, 2a ed.
Salvi, G.
2010a La realizzazione sintattica della struttura argomentale, in
Salvi – Renzi (2010), pp. 123-89.
2010b L’accordo, in Salvi – Renzi (2010), pp. 547-68.
Salvi, G. – Renzi, L. (a cura di)
2010 Grammatica dell’italiano antico, Bologna, Il Mulino.
Tomasin, L.
2011 Italiano. Storia di una parola, Roma, Carocci.
2013 Qu’est-ce que l’italien ancien?, in «La lingua italiana.
Storia, strutture, testi», 9, pp. 9-17.
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Colin Burrow, Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 2013, pp. 281.
The presence of classical sources in Shakespeare’s works has been
a cogent topic ever since criticism contemporary to the Bard. T.W.
Baldwin (William Shakespeare’s small Latin and less Greek, 1944)
first disentangled the matter of Shakespeare’s classical knowledge in
his detailed reconstruction of grammar schools in the Elizabethan age.
Many monographs have followed on the relationship between
Shakespeare and single classical authors or genres, until Burrow’s
Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity, which represents an attempt to
give both an overview and a new approach to the subject.
Burrow points out two weaknesses in Baldwin’s work: an
overestimation of the role of grammar schools when he associates
Shakespeare with the best grammar school education and the
exclusion of alternative, subsequent sources of classical knowledge in
the course of Shakespeare’s career.
As a matter of fact, Burrow’s book revolves around two main ideas:
first, that Shakespeare actually does know much of classical literature
and that he does «interesting things» with it, the focus being not on the
depth of Shakespeare’s knowledge, but on «the extent of that
learning» (p. 2). Second, that classical «antiquity» – a term no-one,
including Shakespeare, would have used before the Romantic Age –
has much to do with a sense of oldness and a sense of the past in its
relationship with an early modern context. The practical results of
such an approach on this subject constitute a helpful vantage point to a
broader insight and understanding of Shakespeare’s work (p. 2-3).
In the perspective of a «larger narrative about changing
understandings of classical antiquity» (p. 3), Burrow claims it is
necessary to consider the instrumental use of classical sources, what
he terms as «practical humanism» (p. 5), when dealing with a
Renaissance context. Burrow displays the records of his research
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detecting four main behaviours in Shakespeare as a writer, as far as
allusions to classical sources are concerned (pp. 5-6): I. sometimes
more or less explicit quotes are just part of the poet’s language, while
at other times the poet flags them up for special attention. II.
Shakespeare also differentiates the status of different characters or
triggers implied dialogues between them; III. classical allusions also
make Shakespeare stand out as modern in comparison to other
contemporary poets or works (pp. 5-8). IV. Burrow also investigates
what he calls Shakespeare’s «blind spots» (p. 10), such as
Shakespeare’s lack of interest in Latin metrical complexity, classical
epigrams and larger debates about the position of classical literature in
English verse: these missing features provide the key to unlock the
poet’s functional use of classical antiquity in relation to theatre as a
means of artistic communication. Additionally, Shakespeare’s
knowledge of Greek literature constitutes somehow a blind spot in
itself: what he knows is probably conveyed by Latin and sometimes
itself translated into English (e.g. Greek tragedies); moreover, other
sources should not be underestimated, such as dictionaries and
mythography handbooks, especially as far as history and mythology
are concerned. Finally, painting, architecture and sculpture add up to
further blind spots: it is true that the accession of James I coincides
with a sort of architectural classicism, especially in the sphere of
masques and pageants, but it culminates after the end of
Shakespeare’s career as a playwright (p. 15). In this sense, the
comparison between Shakespeare and Jonson is self-explanatory:
neither of them knows more or less about classical literature, they just
use their knowledge in different ways, even though the last plays by
Shakespeare, with the transformation of his company into the Kings
Men, possibly remind of some of the classical elements typical of the
reign of James I (pp. 15-18).
The first chapter deals with Shakespeare’s education. As mentioned
before, Burrow stresses the role of secondary sources of learning for
the adult Shakespeare and also introduces the issue of Shakespeare’s
unrecorded and never recovered personal library: unlike other authors,
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namely Ben Jonson, we do not have a catalogue of what Shakespeare
certainly owned or read, which does not mean he did not own nor read
anything. This lack of information does not diminish the importance
of the presence of books on stage. An inventory of cases taken from
Shakespearian characters illustrates how most of times books appear
on stage unnamed and that the classical knowledge they display is
more than often situational. In other words, books appearing on stage,
either identified or not, are used in a performative way both for
characters and audience (p. 29).
Generally speaking, grammar school was perceived as a «male
puberty rite» (p. 38), during which certain authors or passages, studied
not only from a rhetorical point of view, also conveyed sexual
education within an exclusively masculine environment. One of the
results of this multi-dimensional perspective is a connection between
language and eroticism, whose effectiveness varied to an audience
with different degrees of education. Not everyone might have caught
an erudite allusion, but almost everyone would have laughed at a
sexual double entendre. Burrow illustrates how Shakespeare’s
memory of his school days comes out both from proper teaching
scenes and stylistic and rhetorical mechanisms, as well as from the
situational use the poet makes of them. Burrow quotes some examples
of the main exercises typical of grammar school carried out and
developed into memorable Shakespearean scenes. Hamlet’s famous
soliloquy (3,1) is built on the skeleton of a quaestio, that is to say, the
discussion of a topic from the two opposite points of view of praise
and dispraise, a specific feature of debates and disputes typical of
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century university studies. Hecuba’s
speech, recited by Hamlet, corresponds to an exercise of
prosopopoeia, a task that involves the production of a speech in the
person of a particular character under particular circumstances. Along
with ethopoeia – the ability to evoke a given character’s habits – all
these rhetorical techniques, cultivated at school, constitute the main
tasks required to a playwright. However, Burrow claims that
Shakespeare is totally aware of the difference between his use of
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classical knowledge and that of fellow poets who have university
degrees and boast the title of Masters of Art, and postulates that this is
why Shakespeare tends to make fun of his characters’ little notion of
different elements of classical antiquity, from misquoted authors or
poems to proper grammatical issues, in order to «avoid being made
fun of himself» (p. 46).
Burrow’s point is even more convincing when he explores the other
side of the coin, that is to say, Shakespeare’s later more conscious
and, or, non-ironic use of classical knowledge. In the majority of these
cases, Burrow explains, we are dealing with works Shakespeare wrote
to be performed, at the Inns of Courts or for the Kings Men, before a
public able to detect and appreciate a conscious and active
displacement of classical knowledge. Two examples among many are
the violation of the classical norm of never representing the inside of a
household, as occurs in Twelfth Night (pp. 48-49), or the addition of
the innovative role of the clever and autonomous female protagonist,
as opposed to the Latin identification of women on stage exclusively
with the uxor dotata and her dowry. More generally, Burrow states a
cultural influence of Terence in terms of dramatic strategies to be
observed along the more straightforward technical and punctual
influence of Plautus: the learned manipulation of classical sources in
the construction of the Comedy of Errors testifies, in Burrow’s
analysis, to a Terentian attitude of hybridisation in re-shaping the
Plautinian model in order to adapt it to an early modern context (48;
143-51).
In the following chapters Burrow explores Shakespeare’s
relationship with single authors and genres. Virgil and Ovid are
presented in succession and the contiguity of these two sections
devoted to them helps a comparative understanding of Shakespeare’s
situational use of, and his growing maturity towards, the reading of
sources.
What Shakespeare learns from Virgil is the power of characters’
responses and reactions: two examples among many shed light on this
narrative mechanism. Burrow (pp. 57-59) analyses an ekphrastic
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evocation of an epic Virgilian theme in the Rape of Lucrece, when the
heroine interrupts herself while complaining about her rape, by
suddenly recalling a painting which depicts the betrayal of the Trojans
by Sinon:
Here, all enraged, such passion her assails,
That patience is quite beaten from her breast.
She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails,
Comparing him to that unhappy guest
Whose deed hath made herself herself detest:
At last she smilingly with this gives o’er;
“Fool, fool!” quoth she, “his wounds will not be sore.”
(Shakespeare, Lucrece, 1562-68)
According to Burrow, the use of the ekphrasis in order to evoke an
epic narrative represents one of the main strategies by which
Shakespeare indirectly alludes to Virgil. In this case the poet possibly
had in mind Aeneas’ overwhelming emotional reaction to the vision of
the Trojan war, displayed at length on the buildings of Carthago:
Constitit, et lacrimans, “Quis iam locus” inquit “Achate,
quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?
En Priamus! Sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi;
sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.
Solve metus; feret haec aliquam tibi fama salutem”.
(Virgil, Aeneid, I, 459-63)
Another example, wittily explored by Burrow (pp. 62-63), is the
episode of the stumbling memory of Hamlet when trying to remember
Aeneas’s speech to Dido, recalling the fall of Troy, or the evocation –
or rather, rewriting – of Hecuba’s speech. This last example, in
particular, reveals a direct knowledge of the Latin text and one of the
few explicit and lengthy quotes from Virgil in Shakespeare. In
particular, Burrow analyses the sources of the language displayed in
this passage, which sounds different from the rest of the play and from
Shakespeare’s English in general: the epithet ‘Hyrcanian’ to describe
Pyrrhus, in the seventeenth century, was only used to refer to tigers
and betrays here a direct provenance from the virgilian text. Similarly,
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other syntactic constructions can be reconnected to later vernacular
translations. The mixture of these languages by a «humanist Hamlet»
functions on both a cultural and a narrative level, testifying to
Shakespeare’s use and knowledge of Virgil and differentiating the
antiquity of the quotation from the novelty of Shakespeare’s language.
Moreover, the use of a Virgilan source in Hamlet proves to be even
more effective when it is, so to speak, missing: in the play-within-theplay scene, Polonius interrupts the actors just before they declaim the
part in which the Virgilian Aeneas recalls his own reaction to Priam’s
death (Virgil, Aeneid, II, 559-62). The allusion to this particular scene,
by means of an interruption, is overtly functional in the context of
Hamlet’s intention to discover Claudius’s responsibility in the king’s
death. What Burrow deeply demonstrates is that, again, the use of
Virgil in Shakespeare’s works shows a strong pragmatic awareness, as
it is even more evident in the Jacobean part of his theatrical
production, where a Virgilian imperialistic attitude sometimes peeps
behind the scenes, as examples from The Tempest and Cymbeline
provide (pp. 71-91).
During the Renaissance, Ovid was possibly the most read among
the classical authors and provided both stories and sources for plots
and characters; moreover, the mythology of his life became «subject
for dramatic representation» (p. 93). Thus, for instance, the themes of
ruin and exile, which permeate Ovid’s biography, are fundamental
elements in Shakespeare’s sonnets. In Ovid’s Heroides Burrow
detects the roots of female complaint poetry to which both Lucrece
and A Lover’s Complaint can be ascribed, while, on the other hand,
the Metamorphoses constitute the richest cauldron from which the
English poet draws for themes, characters, stylistic and rhetorical
devices. Burrow observes how frequently virgilian characters are
presented in the shadow of their ovidian «less than simply heroical
versions» (p. 99), observing that Ovid often offers an alternative
ending to the Virgilian original treatment of the source material: a
lesson Shakespeare moulds to his plot finalities. For instance,
Lorenzo’s reference to Dido in the Merchant of Venice (5,I,9-10)
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seems to refer to Ovid’s Heroides, where the queen is presented as the
heroine and Aeneas as the betrayer, rather than alluding to the
development of the same episode in Book IV of the Aeneid (pp. 9899). Shakespeare’s debts to Ovid give the reader the chance to think
about the relationship between the former’s plays and his verses and
to consider how the treatment of Ovid differs in his comedies and
tragedies (p. 122). Burrow concludes by observing how, after 1600,
references to Ovidian sources change, starting to function as narrative
hints: in Cymbeline (2,2), for instance, Giacomo alludes to Philomel
by intruding into Innogen’s bedchamber, albeit in the end not
committing the rape; in A Winter’s Tale (5,3,85-97), the exposure of
the statue of Hermione unleashes a complex triangular relationship
between stage, audience and readership; eventually, Prospero’s last
speech in The Tempest (5,1,33-51) evokes Ovid’s Medea, but results,
Burrow notes, as «vocative» instead of «imperative» and the passage
concludes with Prospero’s renunciation of the act of magic (pp. 118132).
Burrow then provides an overview of the elements of Greek and
Roman comedy that have influenced modern European theatre and
concentrates on illustrating the mechanism of innovation in
Shakespeare’s conflation of different sources: a lesson he successfully
learns from Terence’s use of contaminatio. The Comedy of Errors
provides the best examples of all the strategies recurring in
Shakespeare’s comedies, merging elements from Menaechmi and
Amphitruo: from the representation of household spaces, often
violating classical norms, to narrative devices and the enrichment of
typical characterizations (pp. 143-151). Finally, Burrow stresses
Shakespeare’s blurring of genres in his introduction of tragic elements
into comedy and vice-versa (pp. 151-161).
Seneca is usually considered as a vague influence on Shakespearean
tragedy, despite the fact of being the only classical tragedian surviving
in early modern times and despite the more direct influence on other
contemporary authors, such as Marlowe. However, Burrow illustrates
how much of Senecan tragedy can be perceived behind the
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construction of Shakespearian plots, characters and tragic elements. At
the time of Shakespeare, Seneca was mainly known as a philosopher,
but the epigrammatic nature of sententiae present in his tragedies
certainly appeals to Shakespeare’s interest in poetic drama: Burrow
shows how Shakespeare, through his characters, proves to be a critical
reader of the Latin tragedian. In King Lear, for example, the themes of
ingratitude and the limits to the debt deriving from the relationship
between fathers and children recall some of the themes of Seneca’s De
beneficiis. In a meditation by Lear on these topics (2,2,452-6),
different Senecan sources are conflated, from a direct quote from
Thyeste, to remote and unsteady memories of Senecan philosophy,
with the effect of making Lear almost impersonate an «antique
Seneca», in the sense of both old and mad, transforming Senecan
passages into Shakespearean passages (p. 200).
Burrow’s empirical assumption, carried out by means of reasonable
conjectures, is strongly convincing, however his determined statement
that Seneca’s Phaedra would have been Shakespeare’s greatest
influence has been received rather sceptically by critics of his volume.
A somehow specular mechanism is valid for Plutarch: the diffusion
of his Parallel Lives during the Renaissance is well documented, and
evidence that Shakespeare read the Lives can be grasped by the details
of Theseus’ life in A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Burrow conducts a
deep analysis of the attitude Shakespeare shows towards Plutarch,
who proves to be a good theatrical source and teaches Shakespeare
how poets can be historians: anecdotes can reveal characters more
than the narrative rigidity of authoritative historiography. Taking
Julius Caesar and Coriolanus as laboratories of investigation, Burrow
explores how Shakespeare seems to react more to Plutarch’s Roman
characters, who are depicted from the point of view of a Greek
ethnographer. According to Burrow, somehow Shakespeare learns in
particular about Greek tragedy and its values from Plutarch, rather
than directly from the original sources, which he probably never read
(p. 237). Moreover, the way in which Plutarch presents certain
personalities forces Shakespeare to reason when shaping his own
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characters. Likewise, the reader is prompted to think about how and
what Shakespeare does and not, again, just what Shakespeare knows.
Colin Burrow’s volume is amongst the latest publications by
Oxford Shakespeare Topics, a book series of Oxford University Press
which provides short books on Shakespeare’s criticism and
scholarship, aiming thus at a composite public of students, teachers
and scholars. Its clear and entertaining language suits graduate
students who might have diverse degrees of familiarity with classical
literature: Burrow always contextualizes the authors he writes about,
cross-referencing with an extensive bibliography and a practical
analytical index. Burrow is also very attentive in supplying dates and
editions of classical works, translations and editions presumably
available to Shakespeare, testifying to the general discussion and
diffusion of classical antiquity in Renaissance England and Europe. I
think these valuable characteristics would also prove helpful and
enlightening to teachers who want to approach Shakespeare in an
interdisciplinary and engaging way at every level of education.
As the title of the book already clarifies, Shakespeare and Classical
Antiquity is not, or not only, a history of the chronological influence
and presence of classical sources in Shakespeare’s works, rather than
the suggestion of a new approach and perspective on the subject
almost in the light of cultural studies. Furthermore, the author supplies
interesting and innovative acute remarks: for this reason I personally
appreciate the author’s ability to spot connections not only between
classical authors and Shakespeare’s works, but also between the latter
and the environment of grammar schools.
One of the few criticisms that can be pointed out, and that has been
already stressed in the immediate reception of the book soon after its
publication, is Burrow’s sometimes too strong trust in his reasonable,
but yet still suppository conjectures, to which he makes correspond
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strong and definite conclusions1. However, more than, or along with,
Burrow’s personal opinions, his way of proceeding through sources,
context and textual references is an important contribute to such a
lively debated subject, allowing the reader to approach Shakespeare
and his classical knowledge from an innovative and at times positively
disruptive perspective. I think that the strongest merits of Burrow’s
book lie in the fact that it is easy to browse and entertaining to read.
Most importantly, from a methodological point of view, I personally
appreciate Burrow’s constant references to precise Shakespearean
passages in the light not only of comparative studies, but also of
stylistics and pragmatics.
Considering that a rich and still flourishing literature is available, as
far as a more in-depth analysis on specific philological or comparative
matters is concerned (among others, cf. C. Martindale, L. Barkin, L.
Enterline, J. Bate), it is for reasons of clarity and accuracy that
Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity is the perfect starting point for
finding orientation in every research on the subject of Shakespearean
materials and their relation to classical sources, in terms of both
notions and methodologies.
Caterina Guardini
Università degli studi di Udine
[email protected]
1
See Geoffrey Miles’s review in The Review of English Studies, 65, 2014, pp.
928-30 and Michael Silk in Times Literary Review, February 14, 2014, to which
an epistolary debate between Silk and Burrrow followed: http://www.thetls.co.uk/tls/public/article1389208.ece.
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