Tag: Machiavelli

Post 4: Machiavelli and Lucretius: Part 1 (The ship-wrecked sailor)

The objetive of this and the following posts is to reinforce Machiavelli’s relation with Lucretius as a source of inspiration. (I’ll provide a survey of literature some other time.)

I wish to argue today that Machiavelli employed Lucretius’ image of the newborn infant as a ship-wrecked sailor on two occasions, firstly, in his Vita di Castruccio and, secondly, in his Asino, though in neither of the cases the context of the ship-wreck has been adopted.

To begin with, consider Lucretius’ passage from De rerum natura in Book V (222-227):

Then further the child, like a sailor cast forth by the cruel waves, lies naked upon the ground, speechless, in need of every kind of vital support, as soon as nature has spilt him forth with throes from his mother’s womb into the regions of light, and he fills all around with doleful wailings (vagituque locum lugubri complet)—as is but just seeing that so much trouble awaits him in life to pass through. (V.222-227) [1]

We may first point to Machiavelli’s Vita di Castruccio [2] where we read that Dianora, about to find the abandoned child:

Turning her eyes toward it [a rustling], heard a sound like weeping (piangere). So, moving toward it, she saw the hands and face, surrounded by the leaves, of a baby boy who seemed to ask for help (pareva che aiuto le domandasse).

Machiavelli’s weeping (piangere) child, “who seemed to ask for help” (pareva che aiuto le domandasse) may recall Luretius’ child who is “in need of every kind of vital support (indigus omni vitali auxilio, 223-224), and who “fills all around with doleful wailings” (vagitque locum lugubri complet, 226)

I argue elsewhere that this imagery may be linked with the role which Lucretius ascribes to pity in V.1019 ff. in the context of his description of softenend mankind. By hypothesis, this explains the fact that Dianora, at first sight of the child is, amongst other things, “full of compassion and amazement” (ripiena di compassione e di stupore), and that Antonio is “not less filled with wonder and pity” (non meno si riempiè di maravilia e di pietade) when he sees the boy.

Moving on to Machiavelli’s Asino, here again we encounter the Lucretian image of the helpless newborn as the hog-transformed man advertises his animal-condition in the last extant chapter of the unfinished poem:

Every animal among us is born fully clad; this protects him from weather cold and harsh under every sky and on every shore. Only man is born devoid of all protection; he has neither hide nor spine nor feather nor fleece nor bristles nor scales to make him a shield./ In weeping (pianto) he begins his life, with the sound of a cry painful and choked, so that he is distressing to look at (miserabilie a vedello). (VIII 118-124)

Here, the human child is born helpless in contrast with animal pubs, and begins its life with weeping, expressed here as in the Vita using the word pianto. Moreover, this helplessness evokes pity, one of the presumed germs of civilisation, the Lucretian “softening” of mankind, which is here put in terms of miserabilie a vedello.

While it has been argued that this image could be actually drawn from Pliny’s Historia naturalis (VII.2-3), I tend to favor Lucretius’ as a source of inspiration. Though Pliny also develops the comparison between essentially helpless man and naturally well-adapted animal, I propose that Lucretius’ distinction between hard and soft race of man should be viewed as one of the influences of his Asino. [3]

_______________________________

[1] Cited after Lucretius. On the Nature of Things, trans. W. H. D. Rouse (Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1924).

[2] This point has been made first in M. Burkard, Essays on Machiavelli’s Conventional Piety, Literary Inspirations, and Pre-Christian Preoccupation (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambrdige Scholars Publishing, 2024), 95 ff. There the argument is made in context with Livy amongst other things. Other references to Lucretius can be found on page 85 ff. concerning the Vita and on page 104 ff. concerning Machiavelli’s Epistola.

On the book see: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-7033-7

(Advertisement*) To buy the book on Amazon click: https://amzn.to/4gWS8uX

[3] A text on this is work in progress.

First published on April 2 2024 on Ko-fi

04/02/2025

Post 3: Machiavelli and names 2

Following up on the post Machiavelli and names

A concrete example of how Machiavelli uses names etymologically is constituted by his re-naming of the servant of the wife of the senex amator in his Clizia against the background of Plautus’ Casina.

In Plautus’ play the servant of the senex’ wife called Chalinus is introduced as some kind of military man, which is suggested by such words as “armigerus” (“soldier”; ll. 55 and 257) and “opitulari” (“shield-bearer,” l. 263). [1]

By way of contrast, Machiavelli’s Eustachio, the senex’ wife’s servant in Clizia, is introduced as a “fattore,” and we learn that he is running a farm outside the town. Sofronia advertises her candidate for marrying Clizia as follows:

[M]en’s manners consist in having some ability, and knowing how to do something, like Eustachio, who is used to doing business in the markets, rnning the frm, taknig care other people’s affairs and his own, and is a man who can keep his head aboe water. (II.3) [2]

Accordingly, Eustachio is arguably derived from the Greek word εὐσταθής, meaning “well-based, well-built” (amongst other things), or its cognates. [3]

I am not aware of any other reason, or source, why Machiavelli may have chosen this name.

Finally, consider also the argument by R. L. Martinez concerning the name “Sofronia” as he suggests that it alludes to sophrosyne. He writes:

Sofronia embodies, both etymologically and behaviorally, the Hellenic (and traditionally female) virtue of sophrosyne (self-restraint), romally rendered in Latin as temperentia but also as moderatio, pudicitia (chastity), sobrietas, even sapientia. [4]

_______________________________

[1] See Casina, The Casket Comedy etc., Loeb Classical Library, edited and translated by W. De Melo (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 2011).

[2] Cited after The Comedies of Machiavelli, edited and translated by D. Sices and J. B. Atkinson (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. (2007).

Incidentally, Eustachio’s description resembles much more the way in which Plautus’ other slave, Olympio, the senex’ candidate is characterised in Casina.

[3] After the dictionary by Lewis and Short, cited online from Logeion.

[4] R. L. Martinez, “Benefit of Absence: Machiavellian Valediction in Clizia,” in Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature, edited by A. R. Ascoli and V. Kahn (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993), 117-144; pp. 132.

 

First published on 13th November 2024 on Ko-fi

11/13/2024

Post 1: Machiavelli and Names

Part of my work is guided by the assumption that Machiavelli bestowed his names carefully such that their signification is important for interpreting the works in which they feature. This is in line with a certain tradition[2] including, for example, Ovid and Boccaccio, both of which authors Machiavelli avidly read.

For example, in his Amores, Ovid tells us about the bawd Dipsa and her name in H. T. Riley’s translation from 1885: “From fact does she derive her name” (ex re nomen habet), thus linking the figure’s name and character (as it were).[1]

Again, Boccaccio, in his Decameron, explicitly links the names of his figures with that which they will represent further on when he says in the introduction to Day 1, and right before listing the members of his brigata : “Wherefore, that what each says may be apprehended without confusion, I intend to give them names more or less appropriate to the character of each.” (Cited after J. J. Rigg’s translation, 1921)

Concerning Machiavelli, and given that his Clizia is closely modelled on Plautus’ Casina,consider, for example, his renaming of Cleostrata, the wife of the elderly lover, “Sofronia.”He himself implies the significance of this particular change when he has Nicomaco say to his wife in II.3: “Sofronia, Sofronia, whoever bestowed that name on you was utterly lucid!” [my translation] (Sofronia, Sofronia, chi ti pose questo nome non sognava!)

Also, concerning the same play, A. R. Ascoli argued that Machiavelli’s choice of “Nicomaco” and “Pirro” is derived from the figures Nicostrato and Pirro in Boccaccio’s Decameron VII.9, including their signification.[3]

In a forthcoming text, I propose that Machiavelli’s choice of renaming Plautus’ Casina “Clizia” implies not only that the respective passage from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book IV)can help to elucidate Clizia, the play, but also that Ovid in general plays a more important role than perhaps previously thought.

————————————–

[1] For general remarks on the link between ethymology and names in literature, see “Etymologie als Denkform” in E. R. Curtius, Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter, 5. Auflage Bern und München: Francke Verlag, 1965), 486-490.

[2] For more on the figure, see K. Sara Myers, “The Poet and the Procuress: The Lena in Latin Love Elegy,” The Journal of Roman Studies 86 (1996): 1-21.

[3] A. R. Ascoli, “Pyrrhus’ Rules: Playing with Power from Boccaccio to Machiavelli,” MLN 114, no. 1 (1999): 14-57, esp. 48-54 on Machiavelli.

 

First published on 7th October 2024 on ko-fi

07/30/2024