~from "Operette Morali, by Giacomo Leopardi - 1798-1837~
An Icelander who had traveled over the greater part of the world, and
lived in many countries, was once wandering in the heart of Africa,
and crossed the equator in a place no man had ever seen before. There
he had an adventure like the one that befell Vasco da Gama, who, as he
rounded the Cape of Good Hope, watched that very Cape, guardian of the
Astural seas, loom up before him in the form of a giant in order to
dissuade him from breaking those oceans through, where none before had
sailed. In the distance he saw an enormous bust, which he at first
though was of stone, like the colossal figures seen by him many years
before on Easter Island. But on closer inspection, he found it was the
body of a woman of huge proportions, seated on the ground and holding
herself erect by resting her back and elbows against a mountain. This
was no statue, but a living person, with a face that inspired both
admiration and terror, and jet black eyes and hair. She stared at him
intently for some time, without speaking, but at last said:
Nature: Who are you? And what are you doing here, where no man has
been before? Icelander: I am a poor Icelander, fleeing from Nature,
and having fled from her all my life to every corner of the globe, now
I seek to escape her here. Nature: So flies the squirrel from the
rattlesnake, only to drop exhausted into the latter's jaws. I am she
from whom you fly. Icelander: Nature? Nature: None other. Icelander:
That grieves me to the quick, for I am sure that nothing worse than
this could happen. Nature: It should have occurred to you that I might
very well be here, where as you know, my power is greater than
elsewhere. But what was it that made you flee? Icelander: I must
confess that after only a few experiences in early youth I became
convinced of life's vanity and folly. I saw men engaged in a constant
struggle to buy pleasures that bring no delight and goods that bring
no joy; enduring and giving rise to countless pains and evils, which
are troublesome and harmful at best; for in short, the farther they
strayed from happiness, the more they sought to attain it. For these
reasons, renouncing all other desires, I resolved to live an obscure
and tranquil life, doing harm to no one, not striving to advance my
fortune or contend with others in any way. Despairing of happiness as
of something denied our species, I determined to avoid suffering at
all costs. Not that I thought of abstaining from physical work or
toil; for you are well aware of the difference between fatigue and
discomfort, and between a quiet and an idle life. But as soon as I
started to act on this resolution, I learned by experience how vain it
is to think that by giving offense to no one, one may avoid being hurt
by others, even by yielding spontaneously to all their demands and
contenting oneself with what is least desirable in all things,
including one's station in life, which, no matter how humble, must
always be defended. But I easily freed myself from the cares of men by
removing from their society, which in my native island may be done
without difficulty. Living in solitude and almost without a trace of
joy, I could not escape suffering, because I was tormented by the
long, cold winters and the short, hot summers characteristic of the
region, while the fire, next to which I was compelled to spend most of
my time, dried up my flesh and filled my eyes with smoke; so, both
indoors and out, I could never save myself from perpetual discomfort,
or live the peaceful kind of life to which I had always aspired; for
the fearful storms on land and sea, the rumblings and threatenings of
Mount Hecla, and the dread of fires, which in wooden dwellings like
ours are constantly occurring, never ceased to perturb me. Such trials
as these, which are borne with comparative ease when the mind is
occupied with the duties of social and civil life, or distracted by
the bustle of passing events, assume a much graver and more serious
aspect in a life of solitude, in which nothing is sought for but peace
and quiet. Seeing thus that the more I restricted, or rather
contracted, myself within myself in order not to harm or offend
anything in the world, the more troubled and disturbed I felt, I
resolved to change country and climate, in order to see if there was
anywhere on earth where, offending none, I might at least not suffer.
Another reason I was moved to do this was because I thought that
perhaps you had planned for the human race (as you have done with many
species of animals and plants) to live in only one climate or region
of the globe; so that if men, contrary to your design, persisted in
going beyond the bounds you assigned them, they might blame their
troubles not on you, but on themselves. Therefore I have searched
everywhere, and explored nearly every country, always keeping my
resolution to do no harm to other creatures, or the least possible,
and to seek nothing for myself but a peaceful life. But I have burned
with heat in the tropics, curdled with cold at the poles, suffered in
the temperate zones from the changeability of the weather, and been
troubled everywhere by elemental commotions. Then, too, I have seen
places where never a day goes by without a storm, which means that
every day you attack the people who live there, who have never done
you any harm. In other places there are calm skies above and
earthquakes below, a furious multitude of volcanoes, and constant
underground rumblings that shake the whole country. Winds and
whirlwind devastate the land. Sometimes I have felt the roof cave in
over my head, laden with heavy snow; sometimes the rain fell so hard
that the earth gave way under my feet; and often I have had to run for
my life as fast as my feet would carry me from the floods that pursued
me as if I had done them wrong. Wild beasts I had never harmed
attempted to devour me; snakes tried to poison me; and in some places
I only narrowly escaped being gnawed to the bone by flying insects.
Not to speak of the countless everyday perils which are always
threatening, for, as Seneca says, there's no cure for fear except the
thought that everything is to be feared. Nor have I been spared any
illness, though I have always been, and still am, not only temperate,
but self-denying in all the pleasures of the flesh. I am struck with
wonder when I consider that you have instilled in us such a firm and
insatiable greed for pleasure that without it our lives are abortive
and imperfect, while ordaining at the same time that the indulgence of
this desire shall be, of all things human, the most hurtful to the
health and strength of the body, the most calamitous in its general
effects, and the most contrary to the duration of life itself.
Nonetheless, though abstaining from almost every pleasure, I could not
avoid suffering various and sundry ills, some of which threatened loss
of life and limb, or even worse all oppressing mind and body for days
or months at a time with countless aches and pains. And though all men
in time of sickness experience new and unaccustomed pains, and other
torments besides (as if human life were not wretched enough at best),
you have never given man, in compensation for this, any periods of
exceptional or extraordinary good health from which he might derive
some unalloyed pleasure. In countries where the ground is always
blanketed with snow, I have been nearly blinded, a thing of frequent
occurrence among the Laplanders. Sun and air, so vital and necessary
to life, and therefore inescapable, harass us continually--one with
its heat and even its light, the other with its humidity or its
rigors; so that a man can never be exposed to either without more or
less discomfort or harm. Indeed, I cannot remember spending a single
day or my life free of suffering, while those I spent without even a
trace of happiness are countless. Therefore I must conclude that you
are the manifest enemy of mankind, of the other animals, and of all
your works, since I realize that suffering is as much our destined and
inevitable fate as unhappiness, and that it is as impossible to live a
peaceful life of any kind as it is to lead an active one without
misery; for now you ensnare us, now you threaten us, now you sting us,
spite us, or rend us, and always you either injure or persecute us.
Habit or fate as made you the slaughterer of your own family and
children, and, in a manner of speaking, of your own flesh and blood.
Thus I have abandoned all hope; for though men stop persecuting those
who really want to hide or flee, you keep up your senseless pursuit
until we are destroyed. Already I am approaching the bitter and
sorrowful period of old age, a true and manifest evil, or rather, an
accumulation of the worst evils and miseries; evils, moreover, not
accidental, but decreed by you in laws for every living thing,
foreseen by all of us even from childhood, and increasingly apparent
from our twenty-fifth birthday on, so that, of human life, scarcely a
third belongs to youth, only a few instants to maturity and
perfection, and all the rest to old age and imminent decline. Nature:
Surely you don't think the world was made for you alone? You should
realize that in my works, my laws, and my processes, with rare
exceptions, I have never been especially concerned for man's happiness
or unhappiness. When I cause you harm, I hardly ever mean to; for,
ordinarily, if I please or help you, I don't know it' and despite what
you may think, I have never altered my actions or behavior in order to
please or help you. And, finally, if I happened to wipe out your
species, I probably would not even notice. Icelander: Suppose someone
urged me to visit his home, and I went there to please him. Imagine,
further, that on my arrival he lodged me in a rent and ruined cell,
damp, fetid, and open to wind and rain, where I was constantly in
danger of being crushed. Instead of taking the trouble to entertain
me, or promoting my comfort, he provided just enough to keep me alive
and let me be insulted, mocked, threatened, and beaten by his children
and family. Yet if I complained to him of such treatment, he might
answer: "Did I build this house for you? Or do I keep my children and
retainers just to serve you? I have other things to think about
besides your comfort, or giving you good cheer." To this I might
reply: You didn't build this house for me, yet it was in your power
not to invite me. But since you asked me to come and stay here, don't
you think it is up to you to make sure I am protected from danger and
suffering? That's what I am saying now. I am well aware that you never
made the world for the service of men. I rather think you made and
ordered it for their torment. Now I ask you: Did I ever beg you to
place me in this world? Did I intrude into it violently, against your
will? But if you put me here without my knowledge or consent, isn't it
your duty, if not to keep me happy and content, at least not to taunt
and torture me, and let me live in peace? And I say this not only for
myself, but for the whole human race, and every living thing. Nature:
Apparently it hasn't occurred to you that life in this universe is a
perpetual cycle of production and destruction, so bound together that
one is always counteracting, the other, thus preserving the world,
which, if either ceased to operate, would likewise dissolve. Therefore
if man did not suffer, the world itself might be destroyed. Icelander:
That's the very argument I hear from all philosophers. But since what
is destroyed suffers, and what destroys cannot be happy, but is soon
destroyed in turn, tell me what no philosopher can tell me: For whose
pleasure or profit does this most miserable life of the universe,
preserved only at the cost of the dead and suffering of all its
component parts, exist?
While they were in the midst of debating these and similar problems,
the story goes that two lions came upon the scene, so worn out and
starved that they hardly had the strength to devour the Icelander,
which they nonetheless did, and with all of that nourishment, managed
to live through the day. Some deny this, and say that as the Icelander
spoke, a great, fierce wind arose, slapping him to the ground and
burying him under a majestic pile of sand that dried him up perfectly,
turning him into a fine mummy, which was later discovered by a group
of travelers and placed in the museum of some town or other in Europe.
