Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, and congratulate himself when the clown becomes shameless right before him, or the scientific satyr speaks out. There are even cases where enchantment mixes with the disgust-- namely, where by a freak of nature, genius is bound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the case of the Abbe Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also filthiest man of his century--he was far profounder than Voltaire, and consequently also, a good deal more silent.
-Nietzsche on l’abbé Galiani, "Beyond Good and Evil"
Galiani is the most hilarious Neapolitan you've never heard of. Here are some choice bits I translated from an obscure Google Books scan, for your pleasure and edification:
Porco Sacro
There are some monks in Naples who are allowed to raise a herd of pigs at the public expense. These privileged porkers are called by the saintly people who oversee them the
porco sacro, or "sacred pigs". Highly respected, they promenade through all the streets; they go into houses, one receives them cordially and with niceties; if a sow goes into labour, one takes every possible care for her and the piglets: and too lucky whomever she has honoured with her lay-in!
Whoever smacks a
porco sacro commits sacrilege. Nevertheless, unscrupulous soldiers sometimes kill them. But such an assassination causes a huge uproar; the city and the senate pass the most severe ordinances possible. The malefactors, fearing discovery, buy two candles and place them at the two ends of the
porco sacro, over which lies a great covering, with a baptismal font and sprinkler at its head and a crucifix by its feet. A visitor to the the city would see many on their knees praying around the deceased.
One of them presents the sprinkler to the commissary; the commissary disperses it, gets on his knees, prays, and asks who is it that has died.
And the reply:
"One of our comrades, and honest man! What a loss. Behold the way of the world; the good ones always go, while the wicked remain."
On Education
(
from a letter to Louise d’Épinay)
...My treaty on education is all but done: I prove that education is the same for men and for beasts. It reduces itself to these two points: 1)
learning to tolerate injustice 2)
learning to suffer ennui.
What does one do to train a horse? The horse naturally ambles, trots, runs; but it does it when it seems good to him, and subject to his own pleasure. We teach him to put on speed despite himself, both against his reason (
here the injustice) and to do it for two whole hours (
here the ennui).
Thus, one teaches Latin or Greek or French to a child; it's not the utility of the thing that interests us, it's that one must accustom him to follow the will of others (to be bored) and to be beaten by a being who was born his equal (to suffer).
When he is accustomed to these things, he's prepped, he's
social: he goes into the world, he respects magistrates, ministers, kings, and he doesn't complain. He exercises the functions of his charge, whether he's at his desk, or in a meeting, or in a regiment, or at
l'oeil-de-boeuf; he yawns, stays put and earns his living.
If he doesn't do this, he is of no worth to the social order. Thus, education is nothing but the pruning of natural talent to make room for social requirements. Education has to amputate and shave-off his talents. If it does not, you get a
poet, the
improvisateur, the bravo, the painter, the charmer, the original mind, who amuse themselves and starve, and cannot place themselves in any niche in the social order.
The English, the nation which has received the least education in the Universe, is consequently the grandest, the most embarrassing, and therefore the most miserable of all.
The rules of education are thus quite simple and short. One requires less education in a republic than in a monarchy, and under a despotic regime one must keep children in the seraglios, worse than women and slaves.
Take these theories, develop them, and you'll have a book absolutely contrary to the
Emile, and so much the better...
The Monk and the Trunk
A coachman was summoned to a Bernadine monastery on behalf of a man of the cloth who was to take a long journey. The coachman stated his price, and it was agreed upon; he then asked to see the luggage trunk, and it was of a normal size. The next morning, he arrived at the appointed time with his horses and coach. He received the trunk and attached it, and opened the door of the coach for the monk to enter. He had yet to actually see the monk in question, but now he finally saw him: something of a flabby colossus in length, width, and breadth. The entirety of the coach-box was barely enough to contain him. At the sight of this massive pile of flesh, the coachman cried:
"Next time, I'll ask to see the monk instead of the trunk!"
Everyday we ask to see the trunk, and we forget the monk. A woman with charming eyes, the most beautiful mouth, and tits that make one recoil: voila the trunk!
The Cuckoo, The Nightingale, The Ass
One day in the depths of the forest there arose a dispute over musical tastes between the cuckoo and the nightingale. Each took the side of his own talent:
"What bird," said the cuckoo, "has a song so simple, so natural, and so measured as mine?"
"What bird," said the nightingale, "has a softer, more varied, more striking, more light, more touching song than mine?"
The cuckoo: "I say little, but it's got
weight,
order; one remembers it!"
The nightingale: "I love to talk, but it's always new, I never get tired. I enchant the forests, the cuckoo depresses them. He's so stuck on his mother's lesson that he doesn't dare try a peep he didn't learn from her. Me, I don't have any master; I play by my own rules. It's exactly because I break them that people admire me. What a comparison between his fastidious method and my happy ecstasies!"
The cuckoo tried several times to interrupt the nightingale, but nightingales sing non-stop and never listen; and that's their little fault. Ours, carried on by his own ideas, pursued them with rapidity, without caring at all about the replies of his rival. Meanwhile, after several arguments and counterarguments, they agreed to seek the judgement of some third beastie.
But where to find an animal equally instructed and impartial to judge? It was not without a bit of looking that they finally found the right adjudicator. While crossing a prairie they saw a most grave and solemn jackass. And since the creation of that particular species, none had ever had such long ears as this one.
"Ah!" said the cuckoo upon seeing them, "we are too lucky! Our dispute is an affair of the ear;
there is our judge - God has delivered him expressly to us."
The jackass hee-hawed. He didn't really think that one day he'd be a music critic. But Providence has pleasured itself in stranger things. Our two birds began to debate in front of him, complimented him on his gravity and his judgement, exposed him to the subject of their dispute, and humbly begged him to listen and decide. But the ass, turning his heavy head from side to side and gnashing his teeth, made them understand with his ears that he was hungry and was not holding
that day his seat of justice.
But the birds insisted, and the ass continued to bray. While braying his appetite curbed a bit, and there were a few cool shady trees planted about the edge of the prairie.
"Oh alright!," he said, "go there, I'll follow; you sing, I'll go along, I'll listen to you and then I'll tell you what I think."
The birds took off in the blink of an eye and perched; the ass followed them with the air and step of a president of mortar crossing the hall of the palace. Finally he arrived, plunked to the ground, and said:
"Commence! The court listens."
It was he who was the whole court.
The cuckoo said: "My lord, there is not a word to waste on my rationale. Grasp well the character of my song, and above all deign to observe its
art and its
method." And then, clearing its throat and beating its wings each time, he sung:
"cuckoo! cuCkoo! cUUckoo! CUkoo! cucKoo! cuckOO! cuckoo! cuckoocoo!"
And after having combined this in every possible way, he stopped.
The nightingale, without preamble, deployed his voice, threw himself into the boldest modulations, followed by the most novel and profound songs; such cadences as catch the breath, followed by lowering tones and murmuring from the depths of his throat like the wave that dissipates itself softly between rocks, and thereupon it rose again, tittered a little, filled the extent of the air and remained as if suspended. It was successively soft, light, brilliant, pathetic, and, whatever character he fancied, he painted it; but his song was not made for everybody.
Carried away by his enthusiasm, he kept on singing, but the ass, who had already yawned several times, stopped him and said:
"No doubt everything you've just sung was wonderfully pretty, but I don't understand any of it; overall it seems rather bizarre to me, messy,
unhinged. You might be more learned than your rival here, but he's more methodical than you...And as for myself, I'm all for method."
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