Chapter 6 Lecture Three: Exactly

3. Exactness In the ancient Egyptians, a feather was indeed used as a symbol; the feather was used as a weight on the weighing pan to measure the soul.This light feather is called Maat, the goddess of scales.The hieroglyphs recording matt also refer to the unit of length, the thirty-three centimeters of a standard brick, and to the basic note of the flute. This knowledge comes from Giorgio de Santillana's lecture on the precision with which the ancients observed the sky; this lecture, which I listened to in Italy in 1963, gave me a sense of profound impact.Lately I have often thought of Santillana, who was my guide in Massachusetts on my first visit to the United States in 1960.In honor of his friendship, I begin my exact lecture in this essay with the name of Matt, the goddess of the scales—and, also, because Libra is my sign in the zodiac.

First of all, I would like to define the content of my topic.In my opinion, exactly means three things in the first place: 1. A clearly defined and carefully calculated plan for a job; Second, trigger a clear, bright and easy-to-remember visual image.In Italian there is an adjective icastico from Greek, which is absent in English; 3. Use as much exact language as possible in coining words and expressing subtleties of thought and imagination. Why do I feel compelled to defend some values ​​that many people may have considered so obvious?I think my first impulse came from a sensitivity.It seems to me that language is always being used in a haphazard, almost careless way, and this annoys me and it is intolerable.Please don't think that this reaction of mine is the result of my intolerance towards my neighbours: in fact the greatest unhappiness comes from hearing myself talk.

This is the reason why I try to speak as little as possible.If I love writing, it's because I can examine every sentence—if I'm not quite satisfied with my wording—I can at least eliminate what I can see as the cause of my dissatisfaction.Literature—I mean literature that can do this—literature is the blessed place where language should show itself for what it really is.Sometimes it seems to me that there is a kind of plague attacking the most unique faculty of man, namely, the faculty of using words.This is an epidemic that affects language, manifested in the loss of cognitive ability and relevance, in the randomness of pens, in pushing all expressions into the most banal, most impersonal, and abstract formulas, diluting meaning, dulling The sharp edge of expressive force eliminates the sparks of vocabulary collision and new things bursting out.

I won't dwell here on the various possible sources of this plague, whether or not it lies in politics, in ideology, in bureaucratic uniformity, in the uniformity of the media, in the way schools teach the culture of ordinary people.What I care about is the way to maintain health.Literature, and probably literature alone, can create the antibodies to this linguistic disease. I should add that it is not only language that seems to be affected by this plague.For example, look again at visual identity.We live in the image of an endless downpour.The most powerful medium of communication converts the world into images, and greatly increases the image of this world through the strange and disorderly changes of the magic mirror.However, these images are stripped of their inner necessity, unable to make each image a form, a content, unable to be noticed, unable to be a source of some meaning.

Most of this smoky visual image fades as soon as it appears, leaving no trace in memory like a dream; but what does not fade is a sense of alienation and unpleasantness. However, this lack of meaning is not only found in images or language, but also in the world itself.From time to time, this plague also invaded the lives of people and the history of nations.It makes all history formless, scattered, and confused, without a beginning or an end.Discomfited by the lack of form I perceive in life, I want to rebel against it with the only weapon I can think of, and that is the idea of ​​literature.So I'm going to even use negative words to prescribe the values ​​that I'm trying to protect with all my might.Whether using equally persuasive arguments to defend the opposite thesis will succeed, of course, remains to be seen.For example, Giacomo Leopardi argued that the more vague and imprecise a language, the more poetic it is.I would also like to mention by the way that, as far as I know, the word "vago" has a meaning of "cute, attractive" only in Italian. The original meaning of the word vago is "wandering", and it also has the meaning of movement and change. In Italian, it is not only associated with uncertainty, non-limitation, but also elegance and happiness.

To substantiate my admiration for exactness, I would like to recall again Leopardi's praise of vago in Mortal Trivia.He said: "'distant', 'ancient' and, (garbled) uncertain ideas." (September 25, 1821). "Words such as 'night' and 'night' are used to describe night, etc., and are very poetic, because night blurs the scene, and the mind accepts only a vast, unclear, incomplete image. Night itself and its The images contained. So are 'darkness' and 'deepness'." Leopardi's reasoning is perfectly embodied in his poems, which bring authority to the demonstration of facts.I revisited "Mortal Things" looking for examples of his hobby, and stumbled upon a rather long paragraph listing many situations that stimulate the "uncertain" state of mind:

Sunlight or moonlight seen from a place where the sun or moon cannot be seen, and the source of the source cannot be identified; a place only partially illuminated by such light; the reflection of such light, the effect of different substances caused by such light; this The light passes through certain places and becomes imprecise, obstructed, and thus difficult to distinguish, such as through bamboo groves, bushes, half-closed shutters, etc.; , but is reflected or scattered by some other place or object illuminated by it; in a truth seen from the inside or from the outside [error of "way"? ], likewise, in a corridor, etc., where light and shadow mix, etc., as under colonnades, under high-vaulted corridors, in rocky groves and valleys, where only shadows can be seen On hills with golden sides and tops; reflections of light through stained window-panes on objects in sight; in short, in an uncertain, unclear, imperfect, imperfect, or unusual different substances and microenvironments to all objects of our sight, hearing, and so on.

This is what Leopardi asks of us, he asks us to taste the beauty of vague and unlimited things!What he requires is exact, meticulous attention to the placement of each figure, the fine definition of detail, the choice of objects, lighting and atmosphere, all in order to achieve a high degree of ambiguity.Leopardi, the ideal adversary for the defense of the concept, turns out to be an important witness in its defense... The poet of the shadows can only be a poet of accuracy, able to capture the most subtle a feeling of.It is very worthwhile to read this passage of notes in "The Trivia of Mortals", because to seek the indefinite is to observe all that is multiple, rich, and composed of countless molecules.

In contrast, the sun or moon seen in a vast, beautiful field, or in a clear sky, etc., is refreshing.In the same way, there are white clouds floating in the sky, and the sunlight or moonlight passing through the clouds creates various, blurred and unusual effects, which is also pleasing to the eye.The most pleasing and varied feeling is the light seen in the city; in the city, the light is cut by shadows, the darkness contrasts with the light in many places, and in many places-for example, on the roofs, the light gradually decreases. , some protruding places block our view of the light body, etc., etc.Extending this delight is variety, uncertainty, the inability to see everything, and thus the ability to wander, imagining all that cannot be seen.Similar things produce similar effects, trees, vine bushes, hills, arbors, distant houses, haystacks, fields, etc.On the other hand, it is also gratifying to see a vast plain covered with light, flowing, unchanging, unobstructed, and confusing to the eyes, because such a landscape brings infinite reverie to people, and the cloudless clear sky is also like this.In this respect, I have noticed that variety and uncertainty give a greater pleasure than apparent non-restriction and great uniformity.Therefore, a sky dotted with a few white clouds may be more pleasant than a clear sky with no adornment at all; looking up at the sky may not be as pleasant as looking at the earth and fields, etc., because the diversity is small (not very much like ourselves, not very ourselves, no Too much of our own clutter, etc.).Indeed, if you lie on your back, you only see the sky and are separated from the earth. At this time, your feeling is not as good as if you look at the earth from afar, or look at the sky in proportion to the earth, and see it from the same perspective. It's fun when you're united.

For the above reasons, it is also pleasurable to look at a very large number of things, such as stars, such as crowds, etc.; it is multiple movements, uncertain, chaotic, irregular, disorderly, it is a vague undulation, etc. etc., like a crowd, like an ant colony, or a rough sea, etc., which the mind cannot feel definitively or obviously, etc.Similarly, there are symphonic sounds that mix irregularly into one, not easily distinguishable from each other. Here we touch one of the nerve centers of Leopardi's poetics, contained in one of his most famous and beautiful lyric poems, "Infinity."The poet is protected by a fence, at the end of which he sees only the sky; he imagines the infinite space of the universe, and feels joy and fear.This poem was written in 1819.A note[*] written two years later in Mortal Trivia shows that Leopardi continued to ponder the problems raised by the poem "Infinity".In his thinking, the two words that are often compared are indeterminate and "infinite".Leopardi was an unhappy hedonist, for whom the unknown was always more attractive than the known; hope and imagination were the only consolations to the disappointments and sorrows of experience .

Man, therefore, always projects his desires into the infinite, and enjoys pleasure only when he can imagine that this pleasure has no end.However, since the human mind is incapable of conceiving infinity, and in fact feels unaccountably terrified at the very thought of it, it is content with feelings of uncertainty; and such feelings mix together to create a pleasurable, if hallucinatory, feeling. Impressions of the Infinite Universe: "Sweet I am sinking in this sea." Not only is the softness overcoming fear in the famous ending of the song "Infinity", but the whole line expresses a softness through words and music, Although the words may show apprehension. I know that I am interpreting Leopardi purely in terms of feeling, as if I have accepted the image of himself that he had to give as an eighteenth-century disciple of sensationalism.In fact the problem Leopardi faced was speculative and metaphysical, a problem in the history of philosophy from Parmenides to Descartes and Kant, namely: The relationship between the idea of ​​infinity and our empirical knowledge of space and time.Leopardi's starting point, then, is a rigorous abstraction of the mathematical concepts of space and time, which he compares to the vague and indeterminate flows of sensation. So, accuracy and lack of certainty are polar opposites; the character Ulrich in Robert Musil's unending (actually unfinished) novel The Man Without Character (Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften) (Ulrich) philosophizing and ironic thought constantly oscillates between these two poles: If the observed factor is accuracy itself, if it is isolated and allowed to develop, if it is recognized as a mental habit and a way of life, let it exert its exemplary influence on everything that touches it , then the logical conclusion is that human beings have the characteristics of a paradoxical combination of precision and uncertainty.Man has an unshakable, willful tendency toward equanimity, a disposition with certainty; but apart from and beyond this quality, everything is uncertain. The closest Musil comes to a possible solution is when he refers to the fact that mathematical problems do not admit of an overall solution, but that individual solutions, taken together, can lead to an overall resolved (Chapter 83).He thinks this approach may also apply to human life.Years later, another writer, Roland Barthes, argued that the devil of certainty existed side by side with the devil of sensitivity, and asked whether it was conceivable to conceive a science of the unique, the unrepeatable: "Why not somehow establish a science for every object?" If Ulrich of Musil quickly succumbs to the inevitable failure of passion for certainty, Paul W. Monsieur Teste of Leiry—another intellectual literary figure of this century—has no doubt that the human spirit is capable of fulfilling its potential under the most precise and exacting conditions.Leopardi was the poet of life's sorrow; he displayed a high degree of exactness in describing pleasant inaccuracies; while Valery, the poet of cool and strict reason, confronted his character M. Pain, allowing him to counteract physical pain by computing abstract geometry, thus demonstrating a high degree of accuracy. "It's not ... anything," he said. "Nothing, but...for a tenth of a second at most...wait a minute...for a few moments, my whole body lit up...it was interesting. I suddenly saw inside of me...I could see my Deep down at the muscular level: I feel the pain zone...the pain is rings, sticks, feathers. Do you see these living forms, my geometric pain? These flickers are just like thoughts. Let I understand - from here, to there... But it also makes me hesitate. It's not the word[+] that is suspicious... When a word is about to appear, I find myself in some kind of confusion or trance. I feel ...in shadows and patches, vast spaces appear before my eyes. So I pick out a question from my memory, any question...and I think about it. I count the grains of sand...if only I could see them Grain of sand... But the growing pain forced me to look at it. I was analyzing it! I was waiting for me to cry... As soon as I heard it, the object, the terrible object, became smaller and smaller. It grew smaller and disappeared from my inner vision." In the twentieth century, only Paul Valery defined poetry most brilliantly: striving for exactness.I shall now turn mainly to his work as a critic and writer, in which the poetics of certainty can be passed from Mallarme to Baudelaire, and from Baudelaire to Go straight back to Edgar Allan Poe. In Poe—in Poe to Baudelaire and Mallarme—Valéry saw "a bright devil, an analytical genius, logic and imagination, mysticism and definite calculation." Inventor of the newest and most seductive combinations, psychologist of peculiar phenomena, literary engineer of the study and use of all the means of art".Valéry wrote this passage in his essay "The Baudelaire Situation"; I think this essay has the value of a poetic manifesto; he has another essay on Poe and creationism. Thesis, which talks about the Eureka.In his treatise on Poe's Eureka, Valéry questions creationism as a literary genre rather than as a scientific speculative and eloquently refutes the idea of ​​a "universe," It is also an affirmation of the mythical power of every image of the "universe".Here, as in Leopardi, we see the attraction and repulsion of the infinite.Here, too, we see cosmological conjectures treated as a literary genre, which Leopardi entertained in several "accurate" essays: Lampsacco's Apocryphal Fragment" on the beginning and especially the end of the Earth, which became flattened and hollowed out, like the rings of Saturn, gradually dissipated, and finally burned up in the sun; one of his translations of the Apocryphal Talmud "Cantico del gallo silvestre" (Cantico del gallo silvestre), where the entire universe is destroyed and disappears: "The vastness of space will be enveloped by a naked silence and the deepest solemnity. In this way, the universe This strange and frightening secret of existence fades into nothingness before it can be discovered and understood." Here we see that it is not the infinite emptiness that is frightening and incomprehensible. , but exists. This speech has never been on the track I planned.In the beginning, I was going to talk about certainty, not about infinity and the universe.I want to tell you that I love geometric forms, symmetry, sequences of numbers, everything that can be combined, proportions of numbers, etc.; Stuff... But it is quite possible that it is this idea of ​​form that gave rise to the idea of ​​infinity: the sequence of integers, the Euclidean straight line... Rather than telling you what I have written, I might as well tell you something else Interesting, such as the problems I haven't solved, the problems I don't know how to solve, and these problems will prompt me to write: Sometimes I try to focus on writing a short story I want to write, but I know I'm interested in something else entirely, or nothing specific, but something that fits what I'm supposed to write about—that's the relation between a certain argument and all its possible variants or substitutes , various situations that may occur in time and space.It’s an all-consuming, destructive obsession, enough to make writing impossible.To combat this mentality, I try to limit what I'm talking about, to divide it into more limited areas, to divide it, and so on.But another vertigo struck me again, the vertigo of detail, and I was dragged into the infinitely small, or minute, just as I had been dragged before into the infinitely large. "The good God is in the details." I would like to paraphrase this famous quote by Flaubert in terms of the philosophy of Giordano Bruno, a great and insightful cosmologist; Bruno saw the universe as infinite consists of an infinite number of worlds, but he cannot call them "perfectly infinite" because each of these worlds is finite.God, on the other hand, is infinite: "His all is in the whole world, and infinitely and wholly in every part of it." Over the past few years I have read, reread, and Among the Italian books considered was Paolo Zellini's A Brief History of Infinity (Breve Storia Dellinfinito, 1980).The book opens with Borges' infinite attack on Incarnation of the Tortoise[#] (a concept that has led others astray and confused), proceeds to comment on all the arguments on the subject, and, as a result, dissipates the subject , turning infinity into abstruse infinitesimal. I think this connection between the formal choices of literary works and the need for some cosmological model (or some overarching mythological frame of reference) exists even in writers who do not explicitly proclaim it.The history of this penchant for geometrical arrangements, based on the contrast between order and disorder that underlies modern science, can be explored in world literature, beginning with Mallarme.The dissolution of the universe into a mass of heat must be reduced to entropic eddies, but in this irreversible process it is possible that certain regions of order, parts of existence, tend to become certain forms; Special points in which we seem to see some kind of pattern or picture.A literary work is one of the smallest parts in which beings crystallize into a form, into a meaning—not fixed, not defined, not becoming rock-solid, but organically living. Poetry is the enemy of chance, though it is its daughter, so, in the end, chance will win the battle (a roll of the dice does not cancel chance).In this context, we can look at the reappraisal of logical, geometric, and metaphysical procedures that became commonplace in the physical arts of the first decades of this century and later in literature.Such as Paul Valery in France, Wallace Stevens in the United States, Gottfried Benn in Germany, Fernando Pessoa in Portugal ), Spain's Ramon Gomez de la Serna, Italy's Massimo Bontempelli and Argentina's Jorge Luis Borges ( Jorge Luis Borges). Because of their precise facets and ability to refract light, crystals are models of perfection that I have always cherished as a symbol; and this preference has become more meaningful now that we know that crystals form and grow Some of the properties of minerals, like the most basic living organisms, form a bridge between the mineral world and living things.In the scientific writings I have dabbled in seeking to stimulate the imagination, I have recently seen that the pattern of the process of the formation of living bodies "is clearly manifested in crystals on the one hand (the constancy of particular structures) and in flames on the other (although Strong internal shocks, but still maintain a constant external form)".What I am quoting is the preface by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini to the monograph by Jean Piaget at the Royaumont Center in 1975 (Jean Piaget) and Noam Chomsky (Language and Learning, 1980, p.6).The contrasting image of flames and crystals can be used to visualize the choices offered to biology, and from there to theories about language and learning.I am now leaving aside the implications for the philosophy of science contained in the insights advanced by Piaget and Chomsky; A system of components" is a crystal. What interests me here is the contrast between these two symbols, as I mentioned in my last lecture about one of the symbols of the sixteenth century.Crystal and flame: two perfect and graceful forms upon which we must gaze, two patterns which grow through time and consume the matter which surrounds them, two moral symbols, two absolutes, for fact and thought, style and Emotions are classified into two categories.In the above, I hinted at the "Crystal School" in twentieth-century literature. I think it is also possible to mention the similar list of "Flame School".I have always considered myself a crystallist, but the last quote taught me not to forget the value of fire as a form of being, a mode of existence.Likewise, I would like anyone who considers himself a Flame to see the quiet, hard-working style of the Crystals. The more complex image that gave me a greater opportunity to express the tension between geometric rationality and the unpredictable vicissitudes of life is the image of the city.The book I try to describe my thoughts as much as possible is still Invisible Cities, because I gather in it all my thoughts, experiments, and conjectures on a single symbol; and because I build a multifaceted structure , in which each passage closely resembles the others, forming a series that does not represent a logical sequence or hierarchical relationship; it represents a network within which multiple paths can be taken and multiple, derived conclusions drawn . In The Invisible Cities I wrote, every concept and measure of value—even exactness—turns out to be twofold.At a certain point, Khubilai Khan embodies the trend towards rational, geometric and algebraic wisdom, reducing his knowledge of the empire to the rules of movement of pieces on a chessboard.Marco Polo (Marco Polo) described the city to Kublai Khan in a lot of detail, but Kublai Khan represented it with various arrangements of castles, bishops, soldiers, kings, queens and pawns on the black and white chessboard.This approach brought him to the final conclusion that the object of his conquests was nothing but the wooden seat under each chess piece: a symbol of nothingness.At this point, however, there is a sudden change of scene, as Marco Polo asks Khubilai to examine the nothingness he sees carefully: Da Khan wanted to concentrate on playing chess, but the rationale for playing chess now confuses him.The result of each chess game is either lose or win, but what is won and what is lost?What are the real stakes?At checkmate, after the king is pushed away by the winner's hand, there is nothing left at the foot of the throne but a black or white square.Kublai Khan stripped away the surface of his many campaigns to see what they were, and made a final calculation: this is a final conquest, and the various treasures of the empire are but illusory clothing; Conquests are reduced to a grid on the tablet. So, Marco Polo said: "The king's chessboard is inlaid with two kinds of wood, black wood and maple. The wood of the chessboard that the king looked at was cut from a tree trunk that grew in a dry year. Yes; Your Majesty, have you seen how the annual rings and wood grains are arranged? Here, if you look closely, you can see a knot: in an early spring, a young shoot was about to emerge, but it stopped when there was frost at night." Until that time, the Great Khan hadn't noticed that the foreigner spoke so fluently about the work of the Great Khanate, but it wasn't Marco Polo's fluency that surprised him. "This one has a small gangrene, probably a nest of larvae; but it's not a woodborer, because the woodborer will drill down after it is born; it should be a caterpillar, because caterpillars eat leaves, so this The tree was discovered and felled with an axe... The carpenter marked out this edge with a ruler, so that it can be connected with the next lattice, and it will be more clear..." In such a small smooth and empty piece of wood Kublai Khan was amazed that it contained so much truth; and Marco Polo is now talking about the Blackwood Forest, the raft full of timber going down the river, the pier and the woman looking out of the window... From the moment I wrote the last page, it became clear to me that my quest for certainty had gone in two directions: on the one hand, by reducing subplots to abstract types upon which calculations could be made And show the principle; on the other hand, try to show the sensible aspect of the object as accurately as possible through the choice of words and sentences. In fact, my writing process has been confronted with different approaches to the two types of knowledge.A path leads to a space of incorporeal rationality, where lines, projections, abstract forms, vectors of forces that will come together can be traced.The other is to go through a space crammed with objects, and try to create a linguistic equivalent of this space by filling the page with words, making the most careful and painstaking effort to adapt what has been written to what has not yet been written. Written, suitable for all the totality that can be said and the unspeakable.These two efforts towards certainty can never be fully successful: one is because "natural" languages ​​always speak more than formal languages, and natural languages ​​always have a certain amount of noise that affects the ontology of information; It is language that reveals its flaws and fragments in expressing the density and continuity of the world around us: what it says is always less than all that we can experience. I'm constantly jumping back and forth between the two paths; when I feel I've fully explored the benefits of one, I jump into the other, and vice versa.Thus, in recent years, I have replaced my exercise in story structure with other exercises in description; an art that is largely neglected today.Like a schoolboy writing a homework essay titled "Describing the Giraffe" or "Describing the Starry Sky," I try to fill my notebook with such exercises and make a book out of the material.This is "Mr. Palomar" (Mr. Palomar), the English translation has recently been published (1985).It is a kind of diary of the tiniest issues of knowledge, of ways of relating to the world, of the satisfactions and disappointments found in the use of silence and language. In this kind of exploration, I always keep in mind the practice of poets.I am thinking of William Carlos Williams, who described the leaves of the primrose in such detail that we can imagine the flowers that rest upon the leaves he describes for us: this is how he The slender beauty endowed to this poem. I am also thinking of Marianne Moore, who, in her bestiaries, described the scaly anteater and the nautilus and all the other animals in her bestiary, drawing on the knowledge and variety of zoological works. Symbolic and allegorical meanings are fused together, so that each of her poems is a moral and ethical fable.I think again of Eugenio Montale, who can be said to sum up the achievements of the above two in the poem "The Eel".The poem has only one long sentence, shaped like an eel, and describes the eel's entire life, making the eel a moral symbol. But I'm thinking in particular of Francis Ponge, because with his short prose poems he created a distinct genre in modern literature: the schoolboy's "exercise book": in which he uses words as The extension of the phenomenon in the world began to practice writing, through a series of previews, drafts and estimates.For me, Penger is the unrivaled master, because the short passages in Le parti pris des choses and other works of his kind read a shrimp, a pebble, or a piece of Soap, however, gives us the best example of a struggle to force language to be the language of all things, from which language comes back to our senses transformed: acquiring the humanity we put into all things.Peng Re bluntly stated that Daoming meant to write a new "On Nature of Things" through concise essays and unique variants.I believe that he may become the contemporary Lucretius. He wants to reconstruct the physical properties of all things in the world through vocabulary that is light, insubstantial, and powder-like. In my opinion, Penger's achievements are parallel to those of Mallarme, and although the directions are different, they are complementary.In Mallarme, the word reaches its ultimate certainty by reaching the highest level of abstraction and showing that nothingness is the ultimate essence of the world.In Penger, the world presents the most insignificant, secondary and asymmetrical objects, and the world just allows us to recognize the infinite variety of these irregular, small and complex shapes. Some people think that vocabulary is a means to obtain the essence of the world, the ultimate, unique and absolute essence.In fact, vocabulary cannot represent the essence, but can only be identical with itself (so it is wrong to call vocabulary a means to an end): vocabulary only knows itself, and cannot provide other knowledge about the world.Others believe that the use of vocabulary is a continuous exploration of things. Although it cannot approach the essence of things, it can approach the infinite variety of things, and can touch the surface of things inexhaustibly diverse. Hoffmannsthal said, "The deep is hidden. Where is it? It's on the surface." Wittgenstein went even further: "Whatever is hidden ... is of no interest to us. "I don't want to say goodbye.I think that we are always looking for something hidden, or potential, or imagined, and as long as these things appear on the surface, we have to track them down.I think our basic thought processes have been handed down to us through every historical period, from the time of our Paleolithic hunter-gatherer fathers.词汇把可见的踪迹和不可见物、不在场的物、欲求或者惧怕的物联系了起来，像深渊上架起的一道细弱的紧急时刻使用的桥一样。 正因为如此，至少对我个人来说，恰当地使用语言就能使我们稳妥、专注、谨慎地接近万物（可见的或者不可见的），同时器重万物（可见的或者不可见的）不通过语言向我们发出的信息。 列奥纳多·达芬奇（Leonardo da Vinci）是一个为了把握住他的表达能力所不及的事物而和语言进行搏斗的突出范例。列奥纳多的手稿本不同寻常地记载了和语言——粗俗、尖利的语言的斗争；他不断地从这种语言中寻求更丰富的、更细腻的和更准确的表达法。处理一个意念的各个阶段（比如弗朗西斯·彭热，是把处理的情况连续发表了的，因为真正的劳作不是在于最终的形式，而是在于为获得这种形式而达到的一系列的近似表述）对于作为作家的列奥纳多来说，是他在把写作视为一种知识工具而投入的努力的证明；同时也是这样一个事实的证明，即：对于他曾考虑撰写的著作来说，他感兴趣的是探索的过程，而不是完成撰写拿去发表。列奥纳多写作的关于物件或动物系列短小寓言的主题，都常常是类似彭热的。 例如，让我们来看一看关于火的一则寓言吧。列奥纳多给了我们一个明快的梗概：火因为锅里的水在自己的上方而恼怒，虽然火是“更高级的”原素，却冒出火焰，越冒越高，把水烧开，令水溢出而把自己浇灭。列奥纳多不厌其烦地把这个故事连续写了三个文稿，都不完全，成并列的三段。每次他都添加一些细节，描写火焰如何从一小块木炭发出，劈劈啪啪地钻过木柴中间的空隙，越烧越大。但是很快他就打住了，因为他意识到，即使用来说一个最简单的故事，一个细节的详尽描写也是没有尽头的。即使是厨房中木柴烧着的故事也能够从其本身发展，变得没有尽头。 列奥纳多自称“没有文字修养”，所以和书面文字的关系困难。他的知识在当时世界上没有人能超过，但是他不懂拉丁文，不懂语法，也就妨碍了他用文字和当时的知识界交流。他肯定认为他能够用草图比用文字更清楚地表述他的许多知识。他在谈解剖学的笔记中写道：“啊，作家，你用什么文字才能够像素描这样完美地表现出这整个的图形呢？”不仅在科学方面；而且在哲学方面他也确信用绘画和素描他表达得更好。然而，他也越来越感觉到需要写作，用写作来探讨世界的多形态现象和秘密，来纪录他的种种想象、情绪变化和烦闷怨恨——例如他要责备一些文人，这些人只会拾人牙慧，和自然与人之间的发明者和解释者毫无共同之处。因此，他越写越多。几年过去之后，他完全放弃了绘画，只用写作和素描来表达自己的见解，似乎只遵循用素描和词语进行探讨这一条线路，用他那左手镜读反书文字填满了许多笔记本。 在大西洲笔记对开本265号上，列奥纳多开始记录证据，以确认地球成长的理论。在举出被泥土吞没的城市例子后，他进一步讨论在山地发现的海洋生物化石，尤其是某些骨骼，他认为必定属于太古时期的某种海怪。在这一时刻，他的想象必定充塞着在波浪中游荡的巨大海兽的图景。不管怎么样吧，他把这页纸倒了过来，努力捕捉这个动物的形象，三次尝试写一个句子来表达对这一图景的惊叹。 啊，有多少次你被看到在汹涌海洋中沉浮，你长满毛刺的黑背像大山一样突兀，你仪态沉稳而端庄！ 然后，他使用了“旋转”这个动词，以求给这个巨兽的活动增添更多的动感。 有多少次你被看到在汹涌海洋中沉浮，你仪态沉稳而端庄，在海水中旋转。你长满毛刺的黑背像大山一样突兀，击败并且驾驭了海水！ 但是，在他看来，“旋转”这个词降低了他想要引发出的壮观和宏伟的印象。所以他选择了“犁开”这个动词，并改变了整个句势，给它带来了紧凑感和节奏感，颇具文学判断性。 啊，有多少次你被看到在汹涌海洋中沉浮，你像大山一样突兀，击败并且驾驭了巨浪，你长满毛刺的黑背犁开了海水，仪态沉稳而端庄！ 这个景象被表现得几乎是大自然威严力量的象征；列奥纳多对这影象的求索让我们看到了他的想象力活动的一斑。我在这次演讲结束之际把这一形象留给诸位，希望诸位把它尽可能长久地留在记忆之中，连同它的全部的透明性和神秘感。 [*] 整理者注：当即为前文所引、论述“不确定性”的札记。 [+] 整理者注：参看台湾译本，此句似当为“'令人犹疑的'不是合适的字眼”。后文亦不当是“一个词要出现的时候”，而是“它们[几何形的痛感]要出现的时候”。 [#] 整理者注：《龟的化身》（Avatars of the Tortoise）当为博尔赫斯作品。