“Therefore I do not see how it can be well, instead of enriching this language of ours and giving it spirit and grandeur and light, to make it poor, thin, humble and obscure, and to try to restrict it in such narrow bounds that everyone shall be forced to imitate Petrarch and Boccaccio alone; and how, in respect of language, we ought not also to give credence to Poliziano,[[105]] to Lorenzo de’ Medici,[[106]] to Francesco Diacceto,[[107]] and to some others who are also Tuscans and perhaps of no less learning and judgment than were Petrarch and Boccaccio. And great pity would it be indeed to set a limit, and not to surpass that which almost the earliest writers achieved, and to deny that so many men of such noble genius can ever find more than one beautiful form of expression in this language which is proper and natural to them. But to-day there are certain scrupulous souls, who so frighten the listener with the cult and ineffable mysteries of this Tuscan tongue of theirs, as to put even many a noble and learned man in such fear, that he dare not open his mouth and confesses that he does not know how to speak the very language which he learned in swaddling clothes from his nurse.
“However I think we have said only too much of this; so now let us go on with our discussion about the Courtier.”
38.—Then messer Federico replied:
“I should first like to say one thing more, which is that I do not deny men’s opinions and aptitudes to be different among themselves. Nor do I believe that it would be well for a naturally vehement and excitable man to set himself to write of placid themes, or for another, being severe and grave, to write jests; for in this matter it seems to me reasonable that everyone should adapt himself to his own proper instinct. And I think Cicero was speaking of this when he said that masters ought to have regard to their pupils’ nature, in order not to act like bad husbandmen, who will sometimes sow grain in land that is fruitful only for the vine.
“Still I cannot get it into my head why, in the case of a particular language,—which is not proper to all men equally, like speech and thought and many other functions, but an invention of limited use,—it is not more rational to imitate those who speak better, than to speak at random; or why, just as in Latin we ought to try to approach the language of Virgil and Cicero rather than that of Silius or Cornelius Tacitus,[[108]] it is not better in the vernacular also to imitate the language of Petrarch and Boccaccio than any other’s; yet to express our thoughts in it well, and thus to give heed to our own natural instinct, as Cicero teaches. And in this way it will be found that the difference which you say there is among good orators, consists in sense and not in language.”
Then the Count said:
“I fear we shall be entering on a wide sea, and shall be leaving our first subject of the Courtier. However, I ask you in what consists the excellence of this language?”
Messer Federico replied:
“In preserving strictly its proprieties, in giving it that sense, and in using that style and those rhythms, which have been used by all who have written well.”
“I should like to know,” said the Count, “whether this style and these rhythms of which you speak, arise from the thought or from the words.”