THE FIRST BOOK OF THE COURTIER
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."
"From the words," replied messer Federico.
"Then," said the Count, "do not the words of Silius and Cornelius Tacitus seem to you the same that Virgil and Cicero use? and employed in the same sense?"
"Certainly they are the same," replied messer Federico, "but some of them wrongly applied and turned awry."
The Count replied:
"And if from a book of Cornelius and from one of Silius, all those words were removed that are used in a sense different from that of Virgil and Cicero, which would be very few,— would you not then say that Cornelius was the equal of Cicero in language, and Silius of Virgil, and that it would be well to imitate their manner of speech?"
39.— Then my lady Emilia said:
"Methinks this debate of yours is far too long and tedious; therefore it were well to postpone it to another time."
Messer Federico was about to reply none the less, but my lady Emilia always interrupted him. At last the Count said:
"Many men like to pass judgment upon style and to talk about rhythms and imitation; but they cannot make it at all clear to me what manner of thing style or rhythm is, or in what imitation consists, or why things taken from Homer or from someone else are so becoming in Virgil that they seem illumined rather than imitated. Perhaps this is because I am; not capable of understanding them; but since a good sign that a man knows a thing, is his ability to teach it, I suspect that they too understand it but little, and that they praise both Virgil and Cicero because they hear such praise from many, not because they perceive the difference that exists between these two and others: for in truth it does not consist in preserving two or three or ten words used in a way different from the others.
