Chapter 7 Lecture 3 - "Zhun" (Taiwan Version)

The third lecture - "Zhun" Italo Calvino The ancient Egyptians used a feather as a weight on a balance to weigh the soul.For them, feathers are a symbol of precision.This light feather is called Maat, the goddess of balance.The hieroglyphs representing Maat also represent a unit of length—equivalent to the length of a standard brick of thirty-three centimeters, and the base pitch of a flute. I learned this anecdote from a lecture given by Giorgio de Santillana on the accuracy of ancient astronomical observations.In 1960, when I visited the United States for the first time, Santillana served as my tour guide in Massachusetts. Recently, I often think of him. In memory of his friendship, and because my zodiac sign belongs to Libra, I use the balance The name of the goddess Maat begins this lecture on literary accuracy.

First I will try to define my topic.For me, "quasi" most importantly represents the following three meanings: (1) Carefully draw up a clear and detailed plan for the work in mind; (2) Evoke clear, sharp, impressive visual imagery.There is an adjective in Italian called "icastico", which comes from Greek εζχαστιχδξ, which is not found in English; (3) Strive to be precise in the use of words and expressions and in the meticulous aspects of expressing thoughts and imagination. Why do I feel the need to defend values ​​that most people would perhaps consider obvious?I think the primal urge to do this stems from an allergy to language.It seems to me that language has been used haphazardly, generalized, and carelessly, and it pains me.Please don't think that my reactions come from impatience with those around me; in fact my greatest insecurities come from listening to myself, which is why I try to say as little as possible.If I prefer writing, it's because while I'm writing I can revise sentence by sentence until I've eliminated at least what I can find to dissatisfy me—even if I'm not really satisfied with my own writing.Literature—and I mean literature that fulfills these requirements—is the promised land, the sanctuary where language attains its ideal.

Sometimes it seems to me that the greatest human talent—the ability to use words—is infected with a kind of plague.This plague plagues language. Its symptom is a lack of cognition and immediacy. It becomes an automatic reaction, and all expressions are reduced to the most general, impersonal, and abstract formulas, diluting meaning and blunting The sharpness of expression is extinguished, and the sparks that burst out under the collision of words and new situations are extinguished. Here, I do not want to explore the possible sources of word contagion, whether it is due to politics, ideology, bureaucratic monopoly, the monopoly of mass media, or the way schools spread mediocrity.What interests me is the possibility of health.Literature, and perhaps literature alone, can generate antibodies against this plague of language.

I would also like to point out that language does not seem to be alone in suffering from this plague, consider the example of visual imagery.We live in a world in which images circulate constantly around us, and the most powerful media transform this world into images, and through the illusion of mirrors, into multiple worlds, images deprived of their inner necessity, that Necessity makes each image both formal and meaningful, compelling and potentially a source of meaning.This cloud-like visual image suddenly disappeared, like a dream, leaving no trace in the memory, only the feeling of alienation and uneasiness that did not fade away.

But perhaps this lack of substance exists not only in imagery and language, but also in the world itself.This plague invades the lives of people and the history of nations, making all histories formless, loose, and chaotic, with no beginning and no end.My uneasiness comes from the loss of body that I perceive in my life, and the counter weapon I can think of is—literary concept. So I can even define the value I will defend in negative terms.It remains to be seen whether we would not be able to argue for contrary propositions using equally concretely persuasive arguments.For example, Leopardi argued that the more vague and imprecise language becomes, the more poetic it becomes.By the way, the word "vago" in Italian also has the meaning of "cute, attractive", which, as far as I know, does not exist in other languages.Since the word vago is derived from the original meaning of "wandering", it also has the meaning of movement and change, and in Italian, it is also associated with instability, ambiguity, as well as elegance and joy.

In order to confirm my admiration for "quasi", I want to look back at Leopardi's praise of "fuzzy" in a book.He said: "lontano (distant), antico (ancient) and other similar words are very poetic and pleasing, because these words evoke the idea of ​​​​vastness and uncertainty." ) etc. are very poetic in describing the night, for when the night obscures things, the mind accepts only a hazy, unidentified, incomplete image, either of the night itself or of what the night encompasses. oscurita (darkness), profondo ( The same is true for these two words.” Leopardi's poem is just the best example of his argument, making his point convincing with examples.When looking through other examples of Leopardi's pursuit of ambiguity, I accidentally found an unusually long text, which recorded a series of scenes that fit the "uncertain" state of mind.

The light of the sun or the moon seen when the sun or moon is not visible and the source cannot be identified; the places where such light partially illuminates; the reflection of this light, and the various material effects derived from it; such After the light penetrates some places, it is obstructed and becomes indefinite and difficult to recognize, as if passing through bamboo bushes, in the woods, through half-closed shutters, etc. The same light is in a place where the light does not enter or directly shines or objects, and reflected and diffused by the places or objects directly irradiated by light; on the walkway viewed from the inside or outside, in the corridor and other places where light and shadow blend, as if under a porch, in a high ceiling under the cloisters, among the rocks and ravines, in the valleys, on the glistening hills seen from the shaded hillsides; Projections; in short, all those objects which come into our sight, hearing, etc., by means of different substances and the most subtle way exists.

This is what Leopardi appeals to us. He appeals to us to taste the beauty of ambiguity and uncertainty.What he requires is a high degree of precision and close attention to the composition of each image, attention to the precise definition of details, attention to the choice of objects, attention to lighting and atmosphere, all in order to achieve a certain degree of ambiguity.So Leopardi, whom I had chosen as an ideal opponent against the precision theory I favored, became a key witness in favor of my argument... A poet who advocates vagueness can only be a poet of precision, a poet who can The poet who catches the smallest sensations with eyes, ears, and quick, precise hands.Since the quest for indeterminacy becomes the perception of all that is multiplied, fertile, and innumerable particles, the passage just excerpted is worth reading to the end.

Conversely, the sun or moon waiting in the middle of a vast, empty landscape, in a clear sky, is heart-warming in terms of the sense of openness.For the above reasons, it is equally pleasing to have a sky dotted with white clouds, with sun or moonlight producing various effects, unclear and extraordinary.The most pleasant and sensuous is the light seen in the city, cut by shadows, in many places there is a contrast between light and dark, in many corners, the light gradually weakens, for example on the roof, a few hidden places block our view illuminants, etc.What contributes to this pleasure is variety, uncertainty, not being able to see everything at a glance, thus being able to use our imagination to wander what we cannot see.I also see in a similar light the similar effects produced by trees in a landscape, rows of vine trellises, hills, detached houses, haystacks, creases in the ground, and so on.On the contrary, a wide plain, where the light sweeps across unobstructed, without change, without hindrance, where the eye can get lost... This is also very fascinating, because such a scene leads to the idea of ​​​​infinite extension.The same goes for a clear, cloudless sky.In this respect, I find change and indeterminacy more enjoyable than apparent infinity and endless consistency.Thus a sky dotted with small clouds may be more pleasing to the eye than a perfectly clear sky; the sky may be less interesting to look at than the ground and landscape, since the sky is less varied (and thus less like us humans, less like ourselves, less like all our stuff).In fact, if you lie down and lie on your back, you only see the sky separated from the ground, and you will have much less pleasure than looking at a landscape, or seeing the sky in some proportion and relationship to the ground. fun of.

Equally pleasing is the scene of "numbers are beautiful", such as stars, crowds, etc., multiple rhythms, uncertainty, chaos, irregularity, disorder, fuzzy ups and downs, etc. The mind cannot be precise and clear to cultivate ideas things, such as swarming crowds, swarming ants, raging waves and so on.In the same way, many voices are intertwined and merged, making it difficult to distinguish them one by one. Here we get to the heart of the personal poetics that Leopardi presents in one of his most famous and beautiful lyric poems, "Linfinito."Through the hedge, the poet can only see the sky at the end. He imagines infinite space and feels joy and fear at the same time.The poem is dated to 1819, while the notes I read online date it two years later, suggesting that Leopardi continued to ponder the questions raised by the creation of "Linfinito."In its thinking, two words have been compared: "uncertain" and "infinite."For Leopardi, the unhappy hedonist, the unknown is always more attractive than the known; hope and imagination are the only consolations in the disappointments and sorrows of experience.Man thus places his desires in the future, and can be happy only so far as he can imagine his pleasure to be endless.But since the human mind cannot conceive of "infinity" and in fact shrinks back when it does, man can only make do with uncertainty, with mixed feelings, and create a Impressions of infinite space, illusory but equally interesting: "It is sweet to me to grope in this sea." In the poem "Linfinito" it is not only at the famous end that tenderness overshadows fear, for the lines What is conveyed by the rhyme of the words is a softness from the beginning to the end, even if the words express pain.

I know that I am interpreting Leopardi in a purely sensual way, as if I were accepting the image he had imposed on himself as a disciple of eighteenth-century "Sensism."In fact the problem Leopardi faced was hypothetical, metaphysical, and one that has been confronted in the history of philosophy from Parmenides to Descartes and Kant: "infinity" as a reference to space and the concept of absolute time, and our empirical understanding of space and time.Leopardi thus started from the strictly abstract notions of mathematical space and time, and compared them to the ambiguous fluctuations of the senses. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Likewise, in Robert Musil's unending (and indeed unfinished) novel The Man without Qualities, the philosophical thinking of the character Ulrich Thoughts with acerbity also oscillate between extremes of precision and lack of definition: If the element we now observe is precision itself, if we isolate it and allow it to develop, if we regard it as a habit of mental activity and a way of living, let it exerting its exemplary influence on things, the logical conclusion to be drawn is a human being with the paradoxical combination of precision and indeterminacy, possessing an unbreakable habit of deliberate cold-bloodedness, a quality commensurate with precision; but Apart from this quality, and beyond this quality, nothing is certain. The moment Muxiu comes closest to a possible solution is when he points out the fact that mathematical problems do not allow a general solution, but that the individual solutions taken together may lead to a general solution (Chapter 83).He believes that this method may be applicable to human life.Years later, Roland Barthes, a writer with both a demon of precision and a demon of sensibility, asked himself: Is it impossible to conceive a science that is unique and unrepeatable? ..."Why can't there be a new science for every object? A science that studies the singular, not the general?" ("Ming Shi" 1980, p. 21) If Muzio's Golicchi resigned soon after, because a passion for precision is bound to suffer, then Vanlech's "Monsieur Teste," another great intellectual figure of the century, Believe in the fact that the human mind can realize its own potential in the most precise and rigorous way.If Leopardi, the poet of life's sorrows, displayed the highest degree of accuracy in describing the joys of uncertainty, the cold and exacting poet of Vallech confronted Ted. pain, and had him wrestle with physical pain by rehearsing abstract geometric figures with the utmost precision. "It's nothing... big deal," he said, "it's nothing...just a tenth of a second...wait a minute...for a split second, my body is illuminated...very strangely, I suddenly Look into the self...I can make out the depths of my layers of muscle; I can also feel the areas of pain...rings, columns, feathers of pain. You see these living forms, this geometry of my suffering Is there a part of these glimpses that just happen to be like ideas, they make me realize - from here, to there... But in the end I feel uncertain. Uncertainty is not the right word... When it is about to appear, I Finding myself confused and unraveling. There are areas... blurs are created within me, wide spaces come into view. Then I choose a question from memory, any question... and I plunge into it. I count the grains of sand... As long as I could see... But the increasing pain forced me to watch it. I thought about it! I waited for a cry... As soon as I heard the cry - the object, the horrible object, became smaller , getting smaller and smaller, disappearing from my inner vision." In our century, Vanessa has given poetry the best definition: striving for precision.I am speaking chiefly of the work he wrote as critic and prose writer, in which the precise aesthetic can be traced all the way from Mallarme to Baudelaire, from Baudelaire to Go back to Edgar Allan Poe. In Poe—the Poe heir to Baudelaire and Mallarme—Valloch saw "the demon of clarity, the genius of analysis, the inventor of the latest wonders, the most seductive of logic and imagination, of mysticism and exact calculation." a combination of human beings; an extraordinary psychologist; an engineer of words who studies and utilizes all sources of art." Fanlesi mentioned these in his "Situation de Baudelaire" (Situation de Baudelaire), which was published in I think it has the value of a poetic manifesto, and its other article discussing Poe and the origin of the universe also mentions "I found it" (Eureka). In his essay discussing Poe's "I Found It," Van Lech asked himself: Should the origin of the universe be a genre rather than a purely scientific theory?Does it beautifully refute the notion of a "universe"?Because the concept also reaffirms that every image of the "universe" carries its own mysterious power.Here, as in Leopardi, we find both fascination and repulsion by the "infinity."In the same way we find cosmogony conjectures regarded as a genre which Leopardi entertained in some "pseudo-classical" prose works: Strato of Lansakus The article "Apocryphal Fragment of Strato of Lampsacus" states that at the beginning of the formation of the earth, especially when it was about to perish, the earth became flattened and hollowed out, like Satan's ring[*], gradually dissipating, until it burns out in the sun; or, in his translation of the "Song of the Great Wild Rooster," the apocryphal Talmudic text, the whole universe annihilates, disappears : A stark silence and the deepest stillness will fill the extended space.Therefore, this wonderful and terrible mystery of the existence of the universe will disappear without a trace until it is declared or understood.We see here that it is not the infinite void that is dreadful and unimaginable, but existence. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Today's speech has been refusing to be directed in the direction I originally set.I started with precision, not infinity and the universe.I want to tell you that I love geometric forms, symmetry, numerical proportions; I want to explain what I have written in terms of my fidelity to the concepts of limit, scale, etc... However, perhaps it is this concept of form that evokes endless Concepts: all the number series, Euclidean lines, etc... Rather than tell you about what I have written, it may be more interesting to tell you about problems I have not solved, problems I do not know how to solve, and how these problems will What prompted me to write: Sometimes I try to focus on the story I want to write, only to find that I am interested in something else entirely, or more correctly, not in any particular thing, but in It is alien to what I should be writing about—the relation between a given argument and all its possible variations and substitutions, everything that can happen in time and space.It is an obsession so devouring and destructive that writing becomes impossible.In order to combat this delusion, I try to define the scope of what I have to say, divide it into smaller scopes, and then divide these scopes into finer divisions, and so on.Then another dizziness surrounds me, the dizziness of details of details, and I sink into the tiny, the infinitely small, just as I had previously been drowned in the infinitely large. "The good God is in the little things." I will borrow Bruno's philosophy to explain Flaubert's statement.Bruno is a great insightful originator of the universe. He believes that the universe is infinite and is composed of countless worlds, but he cannot call it "completely infinite" because each of these worlds is finite.God, on the other hand, is wholly infinite: "He who is whole is in the whole world, infinitely and completely present in every part of it." Among the Italian books in recent years, the one I have read most often, read and thought about repeatedly is Paolo Zellini's "Short History of the Infinite" (1980).The book begins with Borges' famous attack on infinity in "Avatars of the Tortoise"—the idea of ​​infinity being a misleading one that confuses everyone else—and then re-examines All the arguments on this subject, as a result, fade away from the original point of view and reverse infinite extension into minute density. I think that the connection between the choice of forms of literary writing and the search for a model of the origin of the universe (or search for a general methodological framework) appears even in writers who do not explicitly make this claim.This fondness for geometric form can be found in the history of world literature from Mallarmé onwards, based on the contrast between order and disorder that is fundamental to contemporary science.The universe disintegrates into a puff of heat and is inevitably plunged into an entropic vortex, but in this irreversible process there may be regions of order, parts of beings that tend to form a body, and some that we seem to A particular stronghold in which a certain composition or perspective can be perceived.Literary works are one of those tiny fractions in which beings crystallize into a form, acquire a meaning—not fixed, definite, hardened like ore, but alive like an organism.Poetry is the great enemy of chance, though it also springs from chance, knowing that in the end chance will win the battle. "Rolling the dice can never eliminate chance". It is in this context that we should reassess the logical, geometric, and metaphysical procedures that prevailed in the visual arts and later in literature during the first decade of this century and thereafter.Crystal symbols can be used to highlight poets and writers as a whole, although they are very different from each other, such as France's Fan Lexi, America's Stevens (Wallace Stevens), Germany's Gottfried Benn, Portugal's Besoia ( Fernando Pessoa, Ramon Gomez de la Serna from Spain, Massimo Bontempelli from Italy, Borges from Argentina. The facets of the crystal are precise and can refract light. It is a perfect model. I have always cherished it as a symbol, because we know that some characteristics of the formation and growth of crystals are similar to some characteristics of the most primitive organisms, forming the mineral world and As a bridge between creatures, this preference for crystals becomes more meaningful. I buried my head in science books for a stimulus to the imagination, and recently happened to read a pattern of the process of life's formation: "From crystals (unchanged in a given structure) on the one hand, and from flames (which can be Maintaining a stable external shape) is most clearly presented.” This excerpt is from the introduction to Language and Learning (1980) by Piattelli-Palmarini, vol. The book contains the debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky at the Center Royaumont in 1975 (see page 6 of the book).The contrasting imagery of flame and crystal is used to make visible the alternatives offered to biology and to transfer from biology to language theory and learning ability.I put aside for the moment the implications of the philosophy of science expressed in the positions stated by Piaget and Chomsky, Piaget in favor of the "order out of noise" (that is, the "flame" Principle), Chomsky advocated "self-organizing system" (self-organizing system) (that is, "crystal"). What interests me is the juxtaposition of these two symbols, such as one of those sixteenth-century symbols I mentioned in my last lecture.Crystal and Fire: two forms of perfection that we cannot take our eyes off, two modes that grow in time, two modes that consume matter around them, two moral symbols, two absolutes, two that combine facts and ideas , style and emotion to distinguish categories.Just now I mentioned the "Crystal School" of twentieth-century literature, (I think someone can make a similar list of "Flame Schools") I have always considered myself a crystalist, but the excerpt just taught me not to forget the flame As a way of being, the value of a mode of existence.Likewise, I hope that those who call themselves flame believers will not lose sight of the serene, stoic inspiration that crystals offer. Another more complex symbol, which makes me more likely to express the tension between the rational thinking of geometry and the entanglement and complexity of human life, is the symbol of the city.I think the book I have devoted the most to this aspect is still, because in it I was able to concentrate all my contemplation, experimentation, and speculation on a single symbol; Essays are closely related to other essays in a series, and a series does not represent a logical order or a hierarchical organization, but a network in which we can follow many paths and reach multiple and divergent conclusions. In mine, every concept and value is doubled—even precision itself.At some point Kublai Khan anthropomorphized intellectual tendencies toward reason, geometry, and algebra, reducing the knowledge of his empire to combinations on a chessboard.Marco Polo described the city in detail, and Kublai Khan represented it in various arrangements of castles, bishops, knights, kings, queens, and soldiers on black and white squares.The final conclusion that his action led to was that the object of his conquest was nothing more than the wooden block on which the pieces were placed: a symbol of nothingness.At this moment, however, a dramatic turn occurs, as Marco Polo asks Khubilai to take a closer look at what he believes to be nothingness. Khan tried to focus on the game: it was the reasons for playing chess that confused him now.The outcome of each chess game is either win or lose: but win or lose what?What is the real stake?The opponent has an army, and the victor's hand throws the king aside, leaving nothing: a black square, or a white square.Khubilai went to the extreme when he stripped his conquests down to their essence: explicit conquests, the various treasures of the empire were but illusory packaging; it was reduced to a square on planed wood. Marco Polo went on to say: "My lord, your chessboard is embedded with two kinds of logs: ebony and maple. The squares that your wise eyes are looking at are cut from the annual rings on the tree trunks that grew in dry years: you see Do you know how its fibrous tissues are arranged? Here a looming knot is seen; this represents a shoot that tried to sprout an early spring, but the night frosts withered it." Only then did the Khan know that the foreigner knew how to express meaning in the local language fluently, but what surprised the Khan was not his fluency. "Here is a fine hole: it may have been the nest of insect larvae; but not the wood-borer, for as soon as the wood-borer comes out it begins to eat away at the tree, and the caterpillars eat the leaves, which caused the tree to be singled out and cut down. The culprit... This edge was carved out by the engraver with a half-year round chisel, so as to join with the next square and stand out more..." Kublai Khan was amazed that a small piece of smooth and hollow wood could interpret so many truths; Marco Polo was already talking about the ebony forest, the raft carrying the wood down the river, the pier and the woman standing by the window... From the moment I wrote this page, it became clear to me that my quest for precision split into two directions: on the one hand, the reduction of minor events to abstract types with which to perform operations and explain theorems; On the one hand, through the management of words, the perceivable level of things is presented as accurately as possible. In fact, my writing always faces two paths, representing two different kinds of knowledge.A way to enter the mental space of formless and formless rational thinking, in which one can explore convergent straight lines, projections, abstract shapes, and vectors of forces.The other path is through a space crowded with objects, and by filling in black letters on white paper an attempt is made to create a text equivalent to that space, with the utmost care and painstaking effort to make the written echo the unwritten, conforming to the The synthesis of what can be said and what cannot be said.Neither of these two different drives for precision will ever be fully fulfilled, because "natural" languages ​​will always say more than formalized languages ​​can - natural languages ​​always contain a fair amount of noise, which has little effect on the message. The other is because language always appears to be insufficient, fragmented and incomplete in presenting the density and continuity of the world around us, and what is said is always greater than the synthesis we can experience. lack. I'm constantly switching back and forth between these two paths, rushing to the other when I feel I've fully explored the possibilities of one, and vice versa.So, over the past few years, I've shifted from my exercise in laying out the structure of a story to an exercise in description—an art so neglected today.Like a schoolchild doing homework on "Describe a giraffe" or "Describe a starry sky," I painstakingly filled my notebook with such exercises and wrote a book out of the material.That is Mr. Palomar, recently published in English translation.It was a kind of diary, dealing with the tiniest issues of knowledge, ways of relating to the world, the satisfactions and frustrations of using silence and language. I have always kept the poet's practice in mind during this kind of quest.I think of Williams, who describes the leaves of the primrose with such detail that we can see the flowers tied above the leaves he describes for us, thus giving the poem that botanical delicacy.I think of Marianne Moore, who incorporated information from zoology books into symbolic and allegorical meanings when she depicted the scaly anteater, the nautilus, and all the other bestiary animals , making every poem a moral allegory.I also think of Montale, whose poem "Languilla" ("Languilla"), which can be said to be a combination of the first two achievements, has only one very long sentence, shaped like an eel, and traces the eel's origin. A lifetime, making the eel a moral symbol. Above all I think of Bunch, who created a genre unique in contemporary literature with short prose poems: in his schoolchildren's "exercise book," he began to practice organizing words as a guide to the appearance of the world. Extend, and try to a series of experiments, drafting, and approximation process.For me Bunch is an unrivaled master, because in his short work The Purpose of Things, and other books like his, he gives us, by telling a shrimp, a pebble, or a bar of soap, gives an excellent example of wrestling with language: of how language is forced to be the language of things, from things, and returns to us altered, with all the humanity we affix to things.Bunch's stated attempt: to reconstruct the physical nature of the world in impossibly fine, powder-like words, so that he could be the Lucretius of our time. In my opinion, Bunch's achievements are on the same level as Mallarme's, although they are in different directions and complement each other.In Mallarme's works, the text is as abstract as it can be, and reaches its pinnacle of precision by showing that the ultimate essence of the world is nothingness.In Bunch, the world is presented in the form of the most humble, insignificant and asymmetrical things, and words can make us aware of the infinite variety of these irregular, delicate and complex forms. Some people think that the medium of writing can achieve the essence of the world-the ultimate, unique, absolute essence.Rather than saying that writing presents this essence, it is better to say that it is equal to this essence, (so it is wrong to say that writing is only a medium to achieve a certain purpose;) some writing only knows itself, other than that, other knowledge of the world is impossible of.Others see the utility of words as an endless search for things, a path not toward the essence of things, but toward their infinite variety, their infinitely varied surface of form.As Hoffmansthal said: "The depth is hidden. Where is it? It's on the surface." Wittgenstein goes further: "Because what's hidden...is not of interest to us." I wouldn't be that extreme.I think we're always looking for something hidden or just potential or hypothetical, and whenever it surfaces, we follow its lead.I think that the basic mental thinking habits of human beings have been passed down through various historical stages since the ancestors of the Paleolithic Age engaged in hunting and gathering necessities for a living.Words connect visible clues with invisible and absent things, things we long for or fear, like fragile temporary suspension bridges, tied over the abyss. For this reason, the appropriate use of language allows direct, focused, and respectful access to the seen and the unseen, and to respecting that which does not communicate (present or not) in words. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Da Vinci provides a profound example of how man struggles with language to catch what expressiveness cannot grasp.Da Vinci's manuscripts record how he wrestled with language -- rough and gnarly and intractable -- in search of richer, subtler, more precise expressions.关于处理一个概念的不同阶段，邦奇的结束方式，是以系列形式连续出版，因为真正的作品不存在于其确定的形式，而存在于一连串试图逼近它的努力。同样的，对身为作家的达文西而言，他处理一个概念的不同阶段正好印证他藉由写作追求知识所下的功夫，同时也印证了一项事实：对于他想要写的书，达文西比较看重的是探究的过程，而非为了出版而完成一部作品。他的题材有时候甚至类似邦奇，他那一系列描写物体或动物的短篇寓言便是例子。 让我们以关于火的寓言为例。达文西提供了一个便捷的摘要：火虽然身为“较高级”的元素，但锅中的水却跑到它头上而令它觉得生气，于是它不断地升高其火焰，直到水沸腾，溢出，熄灭了火。达文西接着连续以三份草稿，来解说这一点，三份都不完整，写成平行的三栏。他每一次都添加一些细节，描写火焰如何从一小片木炭窜升，穿过木柴间的隙缝，□啪作响，越烧越大。但他不久就中断，仿佛逐渐了解到，细节的精微处是无止尽的，即使是讲述最简单的故事亦然。甚至连一个厨房火炉中木柴着火的故事都可以从内部成长，变成无限。 达文西自称“鄙俗不文”，难以掌握书写文字。他的知识举世无双，但他不懂拉丁文和文法，无从以书写的方式与当代的饱学之士沟通。他的确认为自己用图形比用文字更能清楚地记录其科学研究。他在谈解剖学的笔记本上写道：“作家啊，你能以什么样的文字来传达像描述那么完美的整体造形呢？”[+]不仅仅在科学方面，在哲学方面他也有信心能藉由绘画和素描来做更好的表达。然而他不断地感觉到需要写作，需要用写作来探索这个以多种样态呈现的世界及其奥秘；同时也用来具体描绘他的想象、感情，以及怨恨——就像他在攻击文人时，痛批他们只会重复在别人的书上所读过的东西，不像那些“发明家及自然和人类之间的传译者”。他因而越写越多。随着时光的流逝，他后来放弃了绘画，透过书写和素描来表达自己，以素描和文字追寻单一论述的线索，用其左手写出的反写字填满他的笔记本。 在《亚特兰提科斯手稿》（the Codex Atlanticus）的第二六五号，达文西开始作札记，证明一个关于地球生长的理论。他首先列出一些被土石吞没的城市的例子，接着谈到山中发现的海洋生物化石，特别谈到某些他推断属于大洪水时代前的海底怪兽的骨骸。这时刻，他的想象必定萦绕在一种庞然巨物在波浪中间泅水的景象。他使出浑身解数，试图捕捉这只怪兽的形象，三次尝试用一个句子来传达这个灵感给予他的一切神奇魅力。 喔，有多少次，你出没在大海满涨的波浪中间，乌黑而刚硬的背脊，像山脉一般隐约浮现，仪态肃穆而端庄。 他接着引介“volteggiare”（漩涡）这个动词，尝试使这只怪兽的行进增加动感。 有多少次，你出没在海水满涨的波浪中间，神态威严而端庄，在海水中搅起漩涡，乌黑而刚硬的背脊，像山脉一般隐约浮现，压服了汹涌的海浪﹗ 然而他觉得“漩涡”这个字减损了他想要唤起的壮观与庄严感。因此他选择了“solcare”（犁耕）这个动词，并且更动了这个句子的结构，赋予它紧凑感以及确凿的文学品味的节奏： 喔，有多少次，你出没在海水满涨的波浪中间，像山脉一般隐约浮现，压服了周遭汹涌的海浪，乌黑而刚硬的背脊犁耕过海水，仪态端庄而肃穆﹗ 达文西追求这巨兽的幻影，几乎把它当成大自然之神力量的象征来呈现，让我们窥见他的想象力如何运作。我在这篇讲词的末尾留给各位这个意象，好让你们长存在记忆中，细细思索其清澈和神秘。 -Finish- [*] 整理者注：参看大陆版译本，“撒旦指环”当为“土星光环”之误。 [+] 整理者注：参看大陆版译本，此句当为“……你能以什么样的文字像素描那么完美地传达……”。