Part 54 (1/2)
[Sidenote: The Latin fixed, the Italian changeable]
=3.= For, in the first place, had it [the commentary] been in Latin, it would have been sovereign rather than subject, by its n.o.bility, its virtue, and its beauty. By its n.o.bility, because Latin is enduring and incorruptible, and the vulgar tongue is unstable and corruptible. For we see that the ancient books of Latin tragedy and comedy cannot be changed from the form we have to-day, which is not the case with the vulgar tongue, as that can be changed at will. For we see in the cities of Italy, if we take notice of the past fifty years, how many words have been lost, or invented, or altered; therefore, if a short time can work such changes, how much more can a longer period effect! So that I think, should they who departed this life a thousand years ago return to their cities, they would believe them to be occupied by a foreign people, so different would the language be from theirs. Of this I shall speak elsewhere more fully, in a book which I intend to write, G.o.d willing, on _Vulgar Eloquence_.[602]
[Sidenote: Translations cannot preserve the literary splendor of the originals]
VII. =4.= ... The Latin could only have explained them [the _canzoni_] to scholars; for the rest would not have understood it.
Therefore, as among those who desire to understand them there are many more illiterate than learned, it follows that the Latin would not have fulfilled this behest as well as the vulgar tongue, which is understood both by the learned and the unlearned. Also the Latin would have explained them to people of other nations, such as Germans, English, and others; in doing which it would have exceeded their order.[603] For it would have been against their will I say, speaking generally, to have explained their meaning where their beauty could not go with it. And, moreover, let all observe that nothing harmonized by the laws of the Muses[604] can be changed from its own tongue to another one without destroying all its sweetness and harmony. And this is the reason why Homer is not turned from Greek into Latin like the other writings we have of theirs [the Greeks];[605] and this is why the verses of the Psalter[606] lack musical sweetness and harmony; for they have been translated from Hebrew to Greek, and from Greek to Latin, and in the first translation all this sweetness perished.
IX. =1.= ... The Latin would not have served many; because, if we recall to mind what has already been said, scholars in other languages than the Italian could not have availed themselves of its service.[607] And of those of this speech (if we should care to observe who they are) we shall find that only to one in a thousand could it really have been of use; because they would not have received it, so p.r.o.ne are they to base desires, and thus deprived of that n.o.bility of soul which above all desires this food. And to their shame I say that they are not worthy to be called scholars, because they do not pursue learning for its own sake, but for the money or the honors that they gain thereby; just as we should not call him a lute-player who kept a lute in the house to hire out, and not to play upon.
[Sidenote: The Italian of more solid excellence than other tongues]
X. =5.= Again, I am impelled to defend it [the vulgar tongue] from many of its accusers, who disparage it and commend others, above all the language of _Oco_,[608] saying that the latter is better and more beautiful than the former, wherein they depart from the truth. Wherefore by this commentary shall be seen the great excellence of the vulgar tongue of _Si_,[609] because (although the highest and most novel conceptions can be almost as fittingly, adequately, and beautifully expressed in it as in the Latin) its excellence in rhymed pieces, on account of the accidental adornments connected with them, such as rhyme and rhythm, or ordered numbers, cannot be perfectly shown; as it is with the beauty of a woman, when the splendor of her jewels and her garments draw more admiration than her person.[610] Wherefore he who would judge a woman truly looks at her when, unaccompanied by any accidental adornment, her natural beauty alone remains to her; so shall it be with this commentary, wherein shall be seen the facility of its language, the propriety of its diction, and the sweet discourse it shall hold; which he who considers well shall see to be full of the sweetest and most exquisite beauty. But because it is most virtuous in its design to show the futility and malice of its accuser, I shall tell, for the confounding of those who attack the Italian language, the purpose which moves them to do this; and upon this I shall now write a special chapter, that their infamy may be the more notorious.
[Sidenote: Why people of Italy affect to despise their native tongue]
XI. =1.= To the perpetual shame and abas.e.m.e.nt of those wicked men of Italy who praise the language of others and disparage their own, I would say that their motive springs from five abominable causes.
The first is intellectual blindness; the second, vicious excuses; the third, greed of vain-glory; the fourth, an argument based on envy; the fifth and last, littleness of soul, that is, pusillanimity. And each of these vices has so large a following, that few are they who are free from them....
[Sidenote: The unskilful attribute their faults to the language]
=3.= The second kind work against our language by vicious excuses.
These are they who would rather be considered masters than be such; and, to avoid the reverse (that is, not to be considered masters), they always lay the blame upon the materials prepared for their art, or upon their tools; as the bad smith blames the iron given him, and the bad lute-player blames the lute, thinking thus to lay the fault of the bad knife or the bad playing upon the iron or the lute, and to excuse themselves. Such are they (and they are not few) who wish to be considered orators; and in order to excuse themselves for not speaking, or for speaking badly, blame and accuse their material, that is, their own language, and praise that of others in which they are not required to work. And whoever wishes to see wherein this tool [the vulgar tongue] deserves blame, let him look at the work that good workmen have done with it, and he will recognize the viciousness of those who, laying the blame upon it, think they excuse themselves. Against such does Tullius exclaim, in the beginning of one of his books called _De Finibus_,[611] because in his time they blamed the Latin language and commended the Greek, for the same reasons that these people consider the Italian vile and the Provencal precious.
[Sidenote: People should use their own language, as being most natural to them]
XII. =3.= That thing is nearest to a person which is, of all things of its kind, the most closely related to himself; thus of all men the son is nearest to the father, and of all arts medicine is nearest to the doctor, and music to the musician, because these are more closely related to them than any others; of all countries, the one a man lives in is nearest to him, because it is most closely related to him. And thus a man's own language is nearest to him, because most closely related, being that one which comes alone and before all others in his mind, and not only of itself is it thus related, but by accident, inasmuch as it is connected with those nearest to him, such as his kinsmen, and his fellow-citizens, and his own people. And this is his own language, which is not only near, but the very nearest, to every one. Because if proximity be the seed of friends.h.i.+p, as has been stated above, it is plain that it has been one of the causes of the love I bear my own language, which is nearer to me than the others. The above-named reason (that is, that we are most nearly related to that which is first in our mind) gave rise to that custom of the people which makes the firstborn inherit everything, as the nearest of kin; and, because the nearest, therefore the most beloved.
[Sidenote: The Italian fulfils the highest requirement of a language]
=4.= And again, its goodness makes me its friend. And here we must know that every good quality properly belonging to a thing is lovable in that thing; as men should have a fine beard, and women should have the whole face quite free from hair; as the foxhound should have a keen scent, and the greyhound great speed. And the more peculiar this good quality, the more lovable it is, whence, although all virtue is lovable in man, that is most so which is most peculiarly human.... And we see that, of all things pertaining to language, the power of adequately expressing thought is the most loved and commended; therefore this is its peculiar virtue. And as this belongs to our own language, as has been proved above in another chapter, it is plain that this was one of the causes of my love for it; since, as we have said, goodness is one of the causes that engender love.
80. Dante's Conception of the Imperial Power
The best known prose work of Dante, the _De Monarchia_, is perhaps the most purely idealistic political treatise ever written. Its quality of idealism is so p.r.o.nounced, in fact, that there is not even sufficient mention of contemporary men or events to a.s.sist in solving the wholly unsettled problem of the date of its composition. The _De Monarchia_ is composed of three books, each of which is devoted to a fundamental question in relation to the balance of temporal and spiritual authority. The first question is whether the temporal monarchy is necessary for the well-being of the world. The answer is, that it is necessary for the preservation of justice, freedom, and unity and effectiveness of human effort. The second question is whether the Roman people took to itself this dignity of monarchy, or empire, by right. By a survey of Roman history from the days of aeneas to those of Caesar it is made to appear that it was G.o.d's will that the Romans should rule the world. The third question is the most vital of all and its answer const.i.tutes the pith of the treatise. In brief it is, does the authority of the Roman monarch, or emperor, who is thus by right the monarch of the world, depend immediately upon G.o.d, or upon some vicar of G.o.d, the successor of Peter? This question Dante answers first negatively by clearing away the familiar defenses of spiritual supremacy, and afterwards positively, by bringing forward specific arguments for the temporal superiority. The selection given below comprises the most suggestive portions of Dante's treatment of this aspect of his subject. The method, it will be observed, is quite thoroughly scholastic. Whenever the _De Monarchia_ was composed, it remained all but unknown until after the author's death (1321); but with the renewal of conflict between papacy and imperial power the imperialists were not slow to make use of the treatise, and by the middle of the fourteenth century it had become known throughout Europe, being admired by one party as much as it was abhorred by the other. At various times copies of it were burned as heretical and in the sixteenth century it was placed by the Roman authorities upon the Index of Prohibited Books. Few literary productions of the later Middle Ages exercised greater influence upon contemporary thought and politics.
Source--Dante Alighieri, _De Monarchia_ [”Concerning Monarchy”], Bk. III., Chaps. 1-16 _pa.s.sim_. Translated by Aurelia Henry (Boston, 1904), pp. 137-206 _pa.s.sim_.
[Sidenote: The problem to be considered]
I. =2.= The question pending investigation, then, concerns two great luminaries, the Roman Pontiff [Pope] and the Roman Prince [Emperor]; and the point at issue is whether the authority of the Roman monarch, who, as proved in the second book, is rightful monarch of the world, is derived from G.o.d directly, or from some vicar or minister of G.o.d, by whom I mean the successor of Peter, indisputable keeper of the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
IV. =1.= Those men to whom the entire subsequent discussion is directed a.s.sert that the authority of the Empire depends on the authority of the Church, just as the inferior artisan depends on the architect. They are drawn to this by divers opposing arguments, some of which they take from Holy Scripture, and some from certain acts performed by the chief pontiff, and by the Emperor himself; and they endeavor to make their conviction reasonable.
[Sidenote: The a.n.a.logy of the sun and moon]
=2.= For, first, they maintain that, according to Genesis, G.o.d made two mighty luminaries, a greater and a lesser, the former to hold supremacy by day and the latter by night [Gen., i. 15, 16]. These they interpret allegorically to be the two rulers--spiritual and temporal.[612] Whence they argue that as the lesser luminary, the moon, has no light but that gained from the sun, so the temporal ruler has no authority but that gained from the spiritual ruler.
=8.= I proceed to refute the above a.s.sumption that the two luminaries of the world typify its two ruling powers. The whole force of their argument lies in the interpretation; but this we can prove indefensible in two ways. First, since these ruling powers are, as it were, accidents necessitated by man himself, G.o.d would seem to have used a distorted order in creating first accidents, and then the subject necessitating them. It is absurd to speak thus of G.o.d, but it is evident from the Word that the two lights were created on the fourth day, and man on the sixth.
[Sidenote: An abstruse bit of mediaeval reasoning]