The Book of the Courtier Read online

  Then Federico said: ‘I cannot deny, Count, that writing is a kind of speech. I would say, however, that if the spoken word is at all obscure what is said will fail to penetrate the mind of the listener and, since it will not be understood, will be useless. And this is not the case with writing, for if the words used by the writer carry with them a certain, I will not say difficulty but veiled subtlety, and so are not as familiar as those commonly used in speech, they give what is written greater authority and cause the reader to be more attentive and aware, and so reflect more deeply and enjoy the skill and message of the author; and by judiciously exerting himself a little he experiences the pleasure that is to be had from accomplishing difficult tasks. If the reader is so ignorant that he cannot overcome these difficulties, that is not the fault of the writer and his language should not, on this account, be judged to lack beauty. Therefore in writing I believe that it is right to use Tuscan words, and only those employed by the ancient Tuscans, because that is a convincing proof, tested by time, that they are sound and effective in conveying what they mean. Furthermore, they possess the grace and dignity which great age imparts not only to words but also to buildings, statues, pictures and to everything that is able to endure. And often simply by such splendour and dignity they beautify one’s diction, through whose force and eloquence everything, no matter how mean, can be so embellished that it deserves the highest praise. But this matter of contemporary usage, on which you put so much stress, seems to me highly dangerous and very often wrong. If some solecism or other is adopted by many ignorant people, this, in my opinion, hardly means that it should be accepted as a rule and followed by others. What is more, current practice varies a great deal, and there’s not a city in Italy where the mode of speech is not different from everywhere else. However, since you have not felt obliged to declare which of them is the best, a man might just as well take up Bergamasque as Florentine and, according to you, this would be perfectly correct. It seems to me, therefore, that if one wants to avoid all misgivings and be absolutely certain, one has to decide to imitate someone who by common consent is accepted as sound, and to employ him continuously as a guide and protection against hostile critics. And this model (I mean in the vernacular) should be none other, I think, than Petrarch or Boccaccio;8 and whoever strays from these two has to grope his way, like a man walking through the darkness without a light, and will frequently take the wrong path. But nowadays we are so headstrong that we are contemptuous of doing what the best men did in the ancient world, namely, of practising imitation. But unless we do I believe it is impossible to write well. It seems to me that there is convincing proof of this in Virgil who, although his inspired judgement and genius were such that he made it impossible for anyone afterwards to hope to imitate him successfully, yet himself wished to imitate Homer.’

  At this, signor Pallavicino remarked: ‘This discussion about writing is certainly worth hearing. Nevertheless it would be more to our purpose if you would teach us the manner in which the courtier should speak, for it seems to me that he has more need of that, seeing that he has to make use of speech more often than of writing.’

  The Magnifico answered: ‘Rather, there is no doubt that so excellent and perfect a courtier must know both how to write and how to speak well, and without these two abilities surely all the rest would scarcely deserve praise. So if the Count wishes to fulfil his duty, he will teach the courtier not only to speak but also to write.’

  At this, the Count said: ‘Signor Magnifico, I will not accept this task, for it would certainly be the height of folly for me to wish to teach others what I do not know myself; and, even if I did know it, to think that in so few words I could do what very learned men have scarcely been able to do for all their diligence and effort. Indeed, if I still had to teach our courtier to write and speak I should refer him to their writings.’

  Then Cesare said: ‘The Magnifico means speaking and writing in the vernacular and not in Latin. So those writings by learned men which you mention are not to our purpose. But what you must do is tell us all that you know about this, and for the rest we shall hold you excused.’

  ‘I’ve already said all I know,’ answered the Count. ‘But if we are concerned with the Tuscan language, no doubt it is the Magnifico more than anyone else who ought to express his opinion.’

  The Magnifico said: ‘I cannot and in all reason I should not contradict anyone who contends that the Tuscan language is more beautiful than the others. It is certainly the case that many words to be found in Petrarch and Boccaccio have been left behind by contemporary usage; and for myself, I would never use these, either in speaking or writing, and I believe that they, too, had they lived till now, would no longer employ them.’

  Federico remarked:

  ‘On the contrary, they would employ them; and you Tuscan gentlemen ought to renew your own language and not allow it to die, as you are doing. For it can be said nowadays that there is less knowledge of Tuscan in Florence than in many other parts of Italy.’

  Bernardo commented:

  ‘Those words that are no longer heard in Florence are still in use among the peasants, but are rejected by the well-born because they have been corrupted and spoiled by age.’

  At this point, the Duchess said: ‘Rather than stray from our original purpose, let us have Count Lodovico teach the courtier how to speak and write well, either Tuscan or something else.’

  ‘Madam,’ answered the Count, ‘I have already told you what I know on this score, and I maintain that the rules that apply to speaking are the same as those for writing. But since you command me, I will say what comes to mind in answer to Federico, who differs from my opinion. Perhaps I will have to speak at somewhat greater length than is suitable, but it will be all I am able to say. First of all, then, in my opinion, this language of ours which we call the vulgar tongue is still fresh and new, although it has already been in use for some while. For, since Italy has not only been despoiled and ravaged but also, for a long period of time, occupied by the barbarians, through contact with these nations the Latin language has been corrupted and spoiled, and other languages have emerged from that corruption. These, like the rivers that divide at the crest of the Apennines and flow into the sea on either side, have also divided. Some that were tinged with elements of Latin have flowed through various channels to various regions of the world; one of them, tinged with barbarism, remained in Italy. And this language, since there was no one to take care of it or use it for writing or endeavour to give it any grace or splendour, was for a long time in a state of disorder and flux. Subsequently, however, it came to be cultivated more in Tuscany than anywhere else in Italy; and because of this it appears to have flourished there from those early times, because more than any others the Tuscans preserved a cultured pronunciation and the correct grammatical order, and moreover have had three noble writers* who expressed their ideas ingeniously, using contemporary words and terms. (And, in my opinion, in this the most successful, when it came to the subject of love, was Petrarch.) Then, from time to time, not only in Tuscany but throughout Italy, among well-born men, experienced in courtly behaviour, arms and letters, there arose the ambition to speak and write more elegantly than in those early rude and uncultivated years, when the flames from the disasters caused by the barbarians were still flickering. So, many words were discarded, in the city of Florence itself and throughout Tuscany, as in the rest of Italy, and others were adopted in their place, causing the change that occurs in all human affairs, and this has always been the experience of other languages. For if the earliest Latin writings had survived until now, we should discover that Evander and Turnus and the other Latins of those times spoke otherwise than the last kings of Rome or the first consuls. For example, the verses the Salian priests sang were scarcely understood by later generations, but since they were composed in that way by those who first formally set them down, out of religious reverence they were left unaltered. And then one after the other the orators and poets gradually abandon
ed many of the words employed by their predecessors: for Antonius, Crassus, Hortensius and Cicero rejected many of Cato’s words, and Virgil many of those used by Ennius; and others followed suit. Even though they revered antiquity, they did not regard it so highly as to wish to be limited by it in the way you want us to be today. On the contrary, whenever they saw fit to do so they criticized it, as did Horace, for example, who says that his forbears had been foolish in their praise of Plautus, and asserts his right to acquire new words. Then again, in many places Cicero reprehends many of his predecessors, and in criticizing Sergius Galba he asserts that his orations tend too much towards the antique; and he also says that Ennius himself spurned his predecessors in certain things.9 So by insisting on imitating the ancients we fail to imitate them. And as for Virgil, who you say imitated Homer, he did not imitate his language.

  ‘So for myself I would always shun the use of these antique words, except on certain occasions and even then very rarely; and it seems to me that the man who does otherwise is making as big a mistake as someone who, in order to imitate the ancients, would choose to make a meal of acorns even though there was plenty of flour. And to your claim that antique words, simply because of their ancient splendour, enhance every subject so greatly that, no matter how trivial it is, they make it praiseworthy, I reply that I do not judge even good let alone antique words so uncritically as to believe that they should be valued even if they lack the substance of good sense. Because to divorce sense from words is like divorcing the soul from the body: in neither case can this be done without causing destruction. What the courtier especially requires in order to speak and write well, therefore, is knowledge, because the man who lacks knowledge and has nothing in his mind worth hearing has nothing worth writing or speaking. Then, it is necessary to arrange what is to be said or written in its logical order, and after that to express it well in words that, if I am not mistaken, should be appropriate, carefully chosen, clear and well formed, but above all that are still in popular use. For it is the words themselves which give an oration its greatness and magnificence, provided the orator employs good judgement and care, knows how to choose those which best express what he means, and how to enhance them, shaping them to his purpose like wax and arranging them in relation to one another so well that their clarity and worth are immediately evident, as if they were paintings hung in a good and natural light. I intend this to hold good both for writing and for speaking, although the orator needs some additional qualities, such as a good voice, not too thin and soft like a woman’s nor so hard and rough as to sound boorish, but sonorous, resonant and well articulated, with distinct enunciation and accompanied by a suitable manner and gestures. These, in my opinion, should consist in certain movements of the entire body, not affected or violent but tempered by an agreeable expression of the face and movement of the eyes giving grace and emphasis to what is said, together with gestures to make as plain as possible the meaning and sentiments of the orator. But all this would be futile and of little consequence if the ideas conveyed by the words being used were not beautiful, witty, shrewd, elegant or solemn, according to the need.’

  ‘I’m afraid,’ said signor Morello, ‘that if this courtier of ours spoke with such elegance and gravity some of us would not understand him.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ answered the Count, ‘he would be understood by all, since lucidity can go hand in hand with elegance. But I would have him speak not always of serious subjects but also of amusing things, such as games and jests and jokes, according to the occasion. He should always, of course, speak out fully and frankly, and avoid talking nonsense or displaying any kind of vanity or childish silliness. And when he comes to discuss obscure or difficult matters, I want both his ideas and words to be so precisely formulated that he makes his meaning absolutely plain, taking pains to clarify every ambiguity, without being pedantic. Similarly, when the circumstances are opportune, he should be capable of speaking with dignity and emphasis, and of arousing our deepest emotions, kindling and stirring them as the need arises. And at other times he should know how to speak with such simple candour that it seems like Nature herself softening and, as it were, drugging our emotions with sweetness, and doing all this with such easy competence that the listener is given to believe that with very little effort he would be able to achieve the same standard of excellence, though when he makes the attempt he falls a long way short. This is the manner in which I would have our courtier speak and write; he should choose clear and beautiful words from the speech current in all parts of Italy, though I would also praise him for sometimes employing terms, whether French or Spanish, that are now accepted here. Thus, if the need arose, I would not be upset if he were to say primor, accertare, avventurare, or were to make use of the phrase ripassare una persona con ragionamento, meaning to observe and keep company with someone so as to know him perfectly. He may also say un cavalier senza rimprocio, or attillato, or creato d’un principe, and other such terms, provided he hopes to be understood.* Sometimes, too, I would like him to use certain words in a metaphorical sense, whenever it is appropriate, putting them to novel use like a gardener grafting a branch on to a healthier trunk, and so increasing their attractiveness and beauty, so that what is said or written makes us seem to experience things at first hand and greatly increases our enjoyment. Then again, he should not hesitate to coin new words altogether, and to make use of novel figures of speech, taking these over elegantly from the Latin as the Romans once took them from the Greeks.

  ‘Therefore if among educated men, living today, of good intellect and judgement, some were to take the trouble to write in Italian, in the way I described, things which were worth reading, we should soon find our language adorned and enriched with fine phrases and figures of speech, and as good a medium for literature as any other. And if it did not then have the purity of old Tuscan, it would yet be Italian, universal, rich and varied, like a delightful garden full of all kinds of flowers and fruits. This phenomenon would be nothing new, since from each of the four languages on which they could draw, the Greeks selected whatever words, expressions and figures of speech they wished, and constructed a new so-called common language; and subsequently all five of these dialects were known collectively as the Greek language. Certainly, Attic was more elegant, pure and rich than the rest, but good writers who were not Athenians did not adopt it so slavishly as to destroy the distinctiveness of their own style and, as it were, the accent and savour of their natural dialect. But they were not despised because of this; on the contrary, writers were censured when they tried to appear too Athenian. Among Latin writers also there were many from outside Rome who in their day were highly regarded, even though they were seen not to possess that purity of Latin which those speaking another language are rarely able to acquire. Thus Titus Livius was not rejected, even though one critic said he found traces of Paduan in his work; nor was Virgil, on the grounds that he did not speak the Latin of Rome; and, as you know, in Rome many writers of barbarian origins, even, were read and esteemed. But we, being far more strict than the ancients, impose on ourselves certain outrageous new laws, and although the beaten track is there for us to see, we wander away from it. For although the function of our own language, as of all the others, is to express clearly and well what is in our minds, we take delight in being obscure; and although we call it the common tongue we want to employ in it words that are not understood even by noble and educated men, let alone the common people, and are everywhere obsolete, regardless of the fact that all the educated men of the ancient world spurn words that have fallen out of use. Indeed, in my opinion you simply do not understand this question of usage, since if there is some solecism current among uneducated people you say that therefore it should not be called common usage or accepted as proper speech. And from what I have heard you say on other occasions you would have us use Campidoglio in place of Capitolio, Girolamo instead of Jeronimo, aldace instead of audace, padrone instead of patrone and so forth, because these words were written
in that way by some ignorant Tuscan long ago and are current in the same form today among Tuscan peasants. Thus good usage in speech, so I believe, is established by men of discernment, who through learning and experience have acquired sound judgement, which enables them to agree among themselves and consent to accept those words which commend themselves to them; and these they recognize by means of a certain instinctive judgement and not by any formula or rule. Do you not realize that these figures of speech which give such grace and clarity to what we say are all abuses of grammatical rules but are accepted and established by usage because (and this is the only possible reason) they are pleasing and insinuate their charm through our sense of hearing? To my mind, this is the essence of good usage, of which the Romans, the Neapolitans, the Lombards and the rest are as capable as the Tuscans.