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The First Treatise - CHAPTER XI
To the perpetual shame and abasement of the evil men of Italy who
commend the Mother Tongue of other nations and depreciate their own, I
say that their action proceeds from five abominable causes: the first
is blindness of discretion; the second, mischievous self-justification;
the third, greed of vainglory; the fourth, an invention of envy; the
fifth and last, vileness of mind, that is, cowardice. And each one of
these grave faults has a great following, for few are those who are
free from them.
Of the first, one can reason thus. As the sensitive part of the soul
has its eyes, with which it learns the difference of things, inasmuch
as they are coloured externally; so the rational part has its eye with
which it learns the difference of things, inasmuch as each is ordained
to some end; and this is discretion. And as he who is blind with the
eyes of sense goes always according to the guidance of others judging
evil and good; so he who is blinded from the light of discretion,
always goes in his judgment according to the cry, right or wrong as it
may be. Hence, whenever the guide is blind, it must follow that what
blind man soever leans on him must come to a bad end. Therefore it is
written that, "If the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch."
This cry has been long raised against our Mother Tongue, for the
reasons which will be argued below.
After this cry the blind men above mentioned, who are infinite, as it
were with one hand on the shoulder of these false witnesses, have
fallen into the ditch of false opinion, from which they know not how
to escape. From the use of the sight of discretion the mass of the
people are debarred, because each being occupied from the early years
of his life with some trade, he so directs his mind to that, by force
of necessity, that he understands nought else. And forasmuch as the
habit of virtue, moral as well as intellectual, cannot possibly be had
all on a sudden, but it must be acquired through long custom, and as
these people place their custom in some art, and care not to discern
other things, it is impossible to them to have discretion. Wherefore
it happens that often they cry aloud: "Long live Death!" and "Let Life
die!" because some one begins the cry. And this is the most dangerous
defect in their blindness. For this reason Boethius judges glory of
the people vain, because he sees it to be without discernment. These
persons are to be termed sheep and not men; for if a sheep should leap
over a precipice of a thousand feet, all the others would follow after
it; and if one sheep, for some cause or other, in crossing a road,
leaps, all the others leap, even when they see nothing to leap over.
And I once saw many leap into a well, because one had leapt into it,
believing perhaps that it was leaping a wall; notwithstanding that the
shepherd, weeping and shouting, with arms and breast set himself
against them.
The second faction against our Mother Tongue springs from a malicious
self-justification. There are many who would rather be thought masters
than be such; and to avoid the opposite--that is, to be held not to be
such--they always cast blame on the material they work on, or upon the
instrument; as the clumsy smith blames the iron given to him, and the
bad harpist blames the harp, thinking to cast the blame of the bad
blade and of the bad music upon the iron and upon the harp, and to
lift it from themselves. Thus there are some, and not a few, who
desire that a man may hold them to be orators; and to excuse
themselves for not speaking, or for speaking badly, they accuse or
throw blame on the material, that is, their own Mother Tongue, and
praise that of other lands, which they are not required to employ. And
he who wishes to see wherefore this iron is to be blamed, let him look
at the work which good artificers make of it, and he will understand
the malice of those who, in casting blame upon it, think thereby to
excuse themselves. Against such as these, Tullius exclaims in the
beginning of his book, which he names the book "De Finibus," because
in his time they blamed the Roman Latin and praised the Greek grammar.
And thus I say, for like reasons, that these men vilify the Italian
tongue, and glorify that of Provence.
The third faction against our Mother Tongue springs from greed of
vainglory. There are many who, by describing certain things in some
other language, and by praising that language, deem themselves to be
more worthy of admiration than if they described them in their own.
And undoubtedly to learn well a foreign tongue is deserving of some
praise for intellect; but it is a blameable thing to applaud that
language beyond truth, to glorify one's self for such an acquisition.
The fourth springs from an invention of envy. So that, as it is said
above, envy is always where there is equality. Amongst the men of one
nation there is the equality of the native tongue; and because one
knows not how to use it like the other, therefrom springs envy. The
envious man then argues, not blaming himself for not knowing how to
speak like him who does speak as he should, but he blames that which
is the material of his work, in order to rob, by depreciating the work
on that side, him who does speak, of honour and fame; like him who
should find fault with the blade of a sword, not in order to throw
blame on the sword, but on the whole work of the master.
The fifth and last faction springs from vileness of mind. The
magnanimous man always praises himself in his heart; and so the
pusillanimous man, on the contrary, always deems himself less than he
is. And because to magnify and to diminish always have respect to
something, by comparison with which the large-minded man makes himself
great and the small-minded man makes himself small, it results
therefrom that the magnanimous man always makes others less than they
are, and the pusillanimous makes others always greater. And therefore
with that measure wherewith a man measures himself, he measures his
own things, which are as it were a part of himself. It results that to
the magnanimous man his own things always appear better than they are,
and those of others less good; the pusillanimous man always believes
his things to be of little value, and those of others of much worth.
Wherefore many, on account of this vileness of mind, depreciate their
native tongue, and applaud that of others; and all such as these are
the abominable wicked men of Italy who hold this precious Mother
Tongue in vile contempt, which if it be vile in any case, is so only
inasmuch as it sounds in the evil mouth of these adulterers, under
whose guidance go those blind men of whom I spoke in the first
argument. _
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