Titus Lucretius Carus - II

Since ever manhood,  on their reflections on life,  has been wondering the reasons why we were born and the reasons why we must suffer.

Lucretius in his fith book of  " de rerum natura" praises Epicurus for his endeavors  to cut out religion from human life.

When I was younger I thought that religion was just a way to dominate the men: a toil in the hands of the priests to control men's life; exactly what Epicurus said in the third millennium B.C. and Lucretius quotes in his masterpiece "de rerum natura".

According to Epicurus men must search for happyness; to do with this they must not fear death; as matter of fact, says the great greek philosopher , when a man is alive,  is not conscious of death; and when is dead, he cannot realize death.

The fear of Death is the key for superstions, passions and all the other conditioning of life.

Epicurus says that Gods do not exist and  men must search for happyness regardless of gods.

Then I found out my faith in God: in the truly, unique, God; and I have found Him out through the life, the words, the example of His Son, Jesus, who descended in the earth wearing clothes of man.

I know that my faith is not a rational answer to thoughts like those of Epicurus (and even those of Lucretius), but faith is not a result of reasoning; faith is a search of reasons: reasons of life, of suffering, of happiness...

On the other hand Epicurus, like most of ancient greek philosophers may consider to be illuministic thinkers (in an ante litteram sense) and to them can be told what theologists  have answered to Illuminism since 18th century A.D.(this is not the right place to undertake such an ardous task).

I don't want to diminish the value of their concepts against mines: I instead take much respect on their ideas though I can't share them in the light of God.

It must be said that probably western thinking must never approached even the religious thruths it now accepts, without such great contributes from greek and roman Writers.

Angelo Ruggeri, a bright scholar on classic studies, in his critique and analysis of Lucretius masterpiece, declares the powerlessness of Epicurus's thought against harmness and sufference in human life.

In his own words, he asks : "does the universe of Epicurus  really remove fears from human mind, enabling a happy life?" (I'll to try to give an answer, with the help of Angelo Ruggeri in a next post).

I present in the end of my post an English translation of some verses from Lucretius'  masterpiece's  Book VI, wich is one of the praises that the roman poet dedicates to his greek mentor through out all the six books.

About these verses Angelo Ruggeri himself explains:

"As in a system of tyranny who is defending its own just rights, defends the rights of all, so in this  society of dissatisfied individuals, who manages to be happy and teaches others the way to be such , shall cooperate to the happiness of all. The Roman poet Lucrezio placed the Greek philosopher Epicurus among the Gods  for having proposed this order."

Praise to Epicurus - from Book V - VV 1-51

English Version by Angelo Ruggeri

Who ever could have so much strength in the heart

to raise a song worthy of the  grandiosity

of the things treated and of the wonderful discoveries?

Or have so much value to be able with words

to compose a praise worthy of the merits

of the one who left us gifts so wanted ,

drawing  them from his own mind?

None I think, who is made of mortal body.

In fact, if we want to use words worthy

of the acknowledged grandiosity of the work

he was a God, noble  Memmius, a God certanly

he who first found the rule of life that today is called wisdom

and by means of this art, pulled the life from the darkness

of a stormy sea, and raised it in a quiet and enlightened place.

Compare this exploit with those of ancient Gods.

Cerere is said to have given harvest to mortals,

Bacco  the strong  and sweet juice  of the vine:

indeed we could live without those goods,

as it is fame that  live  some people,

but we cannot live happy without a  quiet heart ;

therefore with a just reason we think he is a God

who has taught us the comfort of sweet life

that even today, disseminated among men,

cheer up minds.

If you then thought that the undertakings of Ercole

are of greater value, you’re ages ago from the truth.

What evil could make us today the  Nemeus lion

with its big mouth or the terrible wild boar Arcadius?

What harm could make us the bull  of Creta

or  the pestiferous Hydra  of Lerna fitted with poisonous snakes?

Or the  trebled strength of Gerione  provided of three bodies?

What evil would do us  today the Harpies

who live in the Stinfali woods or  Diomede’s horses

which in Bistonia and in Ismaro blows flames from their nostrils?

What  harm could  do us the snake

wrapped around the tree with the enormous

body and the fierce look which guards

the splendid  golden apples  in the garden of Esperidi,

at the beaches of Atlas and the  stormy sea where nobody,

Roman and barbarian do ever  approach?

These and similar monsters, now disappeared, 

had them not been won and still lived

what evil could make us today? None I think:

even today the earth abounds up to satiety

of fierce beasts and  it is full of appalling

terrors within the great mountains,

the canyons and the deep forests,

but we are not forced to go there if we do not want.

But if the heart is not pure,  how many  dangers 

creep  in and how many inside battles

there are preparing  against our will!

How many  pungent anxieties tear man

 invaded by passions, and then how many fears!

And the pride, the dishonesty, the presumption,

 what they  do? How many massacres do!

What does shamelessness ,  what  apathy?

The man thus, who  has beaten all these evil

and thrown them out of the soul with the words,

not with the weapons, do not deserve  to be put among Gods?

Titus Lucretius Carus

Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) was a Roman poet, presumibly born in 98 B.C., and dead at the age of 55 (but according to other sources he commeteed suicide at the age of 44).  

He's contemporary of Cicero, who was younger than him, and who had to be, after Lucretius' death, the curator of his masterpiece (for which is anyway known):  the philosophical epic De Rerum Natura (About the Nature of the Things), a comprehensive exposition of the Epicurean world-view.

Very little is known of the poet’s life,     either if he was of noble or humble origins. However, his   personality emerges vividly from his poem.

 His epic work is made of six books and shows a  complete explanation of the physical origin of the universe.

 Included in this presentation are theories of the atomic structure of matter and the emergence and evolution of life forms – ideas that would eventually form a crucial foundation and background for the development of western science.

 Besides  his scientific influence, Lucretius has been a  source of inspiration for a wide range of modern philosophers and western Writers.

The critics, unanimously, believe that Lucretius is a sort of usher in sprouding Epicurean theories in Rome.

But recently, a very fond italian classical scholar, Angelo Ruggeri,  has expressed mare than a doubt on these slavish theories.

As matter of fact it's difficult to imagine such a writer promoting in Rome a faithless, careless, nihilist (ante litteram) doctrine, like it was the Epicurianesim.

In the  opinion of Angelo Ruggeri, "the “De Rerum Naturae” of Lucretius is very important in the history of western culture also because it provides the key required  to understand  many other poets of successive eras, from Dante to Leopardi, the more Lucretian of all. I am convinced that we must not believe the appearances in interpretating  poems , because the poets often  do not report theirs own ideas, but  those of their times, relying then on the intelligence of the readers for the understanding and Dante warns many times the readers of his poem to well use their intelligence!"

 Following I present a very bright translation of Venus' Iymn from the Proem of the epic Lucretius' work. I hope the Readers of my blog may enjoy it.

Venus of Lucrezio Caro - VV 1-25

Translated by Angelo Ruggeri

Mother of Eneades,  Holy Venus , love of men and gods,

who, under the rotating  stars of the sky,

adorn the sea ploughed by ships and  make land fruitful,

through you every species of animals is conceived

and breed to smile at the light of the sun.

As soon as you come, o goddess,

winds and clouds flee  from the sky

and  the  architect earth  raises  nice flowers on your path.

The sea waves  smile at you and the sky shines with diffuse light,

and as soon as the spring bears  beautiful and serene days

 and the fruitful zephyr  blows with new force,

first the birds of the air, touched by your strength in the heart,

announce your arrival, and then the flocks  celebrate you

jumping happily in the meadows and swimming  in the fast rivers .

So, taken by your pleasure, all  follow you ,

wherever you want get them,

and then in the sea, on  the mountains, in the  rivers ,

in the houses of birds, and in the  green fields ,

putting in all the hearts the sweet love

you do that life spread joyfully.

And since you alone governs the nature of things

and without you nothing may come in the light of day

and nothing is pleasant and nice,

I wish you companion to write the verses

that I am composing about the nature of things.

... to be continued...

Dante and his time - III

It should take too long to show, through the past centuries, how it came to be, at Dante’s time, the balance of powers. As matter of fact Dante found a world that was dying, an ancient order perishing, that had his roots craved in the crush of the roman empire and in the rise of the Germans power, which took place at the same time all along the last height centuries before his birth. In the time after the crush of roman empire, which historians date at 453 A.D., we can see haw the rude and uncivilized Germans get captured by the past  roman greatness, whose remnants they could find in the Papacy. It was the Papacy indeed which inherited, though transforming it a religious form, the power lost by the Romans, in terms of civilization, culture, language, customs and juridical organization. We could say with Horace’s verses, changing the subject,  “Roma capta ferum victorem cepit”.

And this world of distribution of the powers between the Church and the Empire was ending at long.

But Dante sight was able to go very farther than all his contemporaries.

Dante’s political ideal was instead that the Pope had to have the spiritual power while the monarchy in all temporal questions. Exactly what hat to be realized after centuries from his death.

That’s why I can’t agree on what writes A.N. Wilson in his recent book “Dante in love”, where he accuses  Dante of being incoherent and instable of mind and thought till madness.

And I’m very curious instead of reading what Angelo Ruggeri writes on his answering book of Wilson’s evidence on Dante’s life and his time.

The Italian writer warns not to mistaken on confusing the Guelfs Dante belonged (actually partisans of the autonomy of the Communes against both Pope and Emperor, so said With Guelfs) with the Black Gulefs, whe exiled him for his life, being in favour of the Pope against the Emperor.

… to be continued…

Dante and his time - II

 

Dante is the founder of a new way to see and to write about love; he shares this role of founder of  this new literary current, called “the sweet new style” (dolce stilnovo) with Guido Cavalcanti and Cino da Pistoia.

Dante lives in a period which sees the end of an world: the balance between the Papacy and the Empire is at his end.

When Charles the Valois enters in Florence, in 1301, at the head of the Black Guelphs, Dante (belonging to the White Faction of the same Guelph party, traditional enemy of the imperialist Ghibeline’s party) is condemned and exiled; he never will see its town again.

The White Faction were neither for the Emperor nor for the Pope; they were just for the total autonomy of the Communes from both the institutions headed by the Germans and by the Roman Church.

If we don’t keep in mind this fundamental detail, we risk to  make the same mistake has committed A.N. Wilson in his last book we have already reviewed in this blog (but  you can find more complete reviews on line: especially by the main news papers: the Indipendent, the Observer, the Telegraph, The Guardian etc) defining the great Italian poet, incoherent and even political instable till madness.

As acutely has pointed out a well founded Italian writer, Angelo Ruggeri (who, by the way, is writing an exhaustive answer to the Wilson’s Dante in love) it must be observed that Dante, in his last 20 years of his life, was an exiled man, sued by the Roman Inquisitors as heretic, with great risks, not only  for his liberty, but also for his life.

That’s the main reason, according to Angelo Ruggeri’s theory, why Dante made alliances with Ghibelines, in order to be protected, better than with the same Guelph’s partisans (which black’s fraction, by the way, was responsible of his political and personal disgrace).

… to be continued…

 

Dante and his time

Since 1800, a book a year has been edited, only in  English language, on Dante's masterpiece "The Divine Comedy",  which shows the great interest English culture has reserved to the "Supreme Italian Poet".

Is not a case that Dante Alighieri is enumerated between the six best poets of any time in the mondial literature.

Recently one more book has been published on the matter: Dante in love by A.N. Wilson.

Despite his title, it's not a book neither on Gemma Donati's love affairs, nor on Beatrice's. His right title could have been "Dante and his time", 'cause it's reckoned by his same author that the book deals with the social and political life in Florence during the poet's life (1265-1321).

May be that's the main reason why the book has had conflictual and opposite reviews by English critic and reviers.

As matter of fact while the Telegraph (both Daily and Sunday's) and the Times have expressed good opinions on the last Wilson's work, other papers, like The Observer and The Guardian show perplexities and douts on the reaching of his purposes and objectives by the book.

In Italy Angelo Ruggeri, a well known writer, very fond on classical studies, is working on Dante in love book's review.

Angelo Ruggeri believes that Wilson's Dante in love is well documented and solidly founded (as English, he affirms, have a great tradition on Dante's studies). He therefore underlines, according to Wilson's convictions,  the contradictions between  Dante's theories and his life, mostly because the Poet, while beloging to the Guelf's Party (thus being loyal to the roman Pope), nevertheless he vowed and wished the coming of an Universalistic  Empire (under the German power) able to gather and include old the states and all the world since then known.

He shares Wilson's statements quoting his book at page 118:

“His treatise written in exile, when he had changed his mind about being a papalist Guelf and became an ardente supporter of a universal monarchy, would strike many modern readers as bizarre and the open letters he wrote to the Emperor Henry VII would strike most dispassionate readers as deranged”.

Angelo Ruggeri gives evidence that Wilson's statement on Dante's incoherence and madness (of course in his political behaviour) was rightly confirmed by the judgement that Roman Church gave on Dante's treaty book  "The Monarchy".

But Angelo Ruggeri, at a certain point, leaves the Wilson's path and chooses his own ground:

" And if we  suppose "- asks the italian writer - "that Dante was neither Guelf nor Ghibeline, just wanting to be a mere and pure republican against both the papalist and the foreigner imperialists besieging Florence at the same time?"

... to be continued...

Varied prescriptions

If you find yourself in a field of wheat
10. you won't have to ever fill your hamper,
but everything chic yields in your  hand
can be picked  up and to house can be brought
 near or distant that it can be
the same can be done in every kind of vineyard
15. you can eat everything how much you like
and then leave also in holy peace.

The Mysteroius Island

I'm a strong reader, before being an impassionate writer. I often go back to classic books!

At the present moment I'm reading Jules Verne's "The mysterious island". Verne is one of my favourite writers: in his books I find suspence, adventure, technologie and good sentiments. His heroes are alaways right, intrepid, loyal, brave! While reading his books I feel like becoming a young boy again!

I think his novels are timeless and never will be forgotten, notwithstanding they have been written more than a century ago!

The book tells the adventures of five Americans on an uncharted island in the Pacific Ocean. The story begins during the American Civil War.  As famine and death ravage the city, five northern prisoners of war decide to escape by the unusual means of hijacking a balloon. The escapees are Cyrus Harding ; his black friend Neb  a former slave who had been freed; the sailor named Pencroft; his protectif Herbert  a young boy whom Pencroff raises as his own after the death of his father (Pencroff's former captain); and the reporter Gideon Spilett. The company is completed by Cyrus' dog "Top".
Jupiter, an orang outang, will join the sextet later on, in the middlo of the story.
I'm not telling you more, in order not to split up with the fairly surprises to be found if you go through the end of the story.