The Banquet | Page 9

those whose mind is so far intelligent that when they hear speech
they can understand, and when they speak they can be understood. And
no one doubts, that if the Songs should command by word of mouth,
this would be their commandment. But the Latin would not have
explained them, except to the learned men: and so that the rest could
not have understood. Hence, forasmuch as the number of unlearned
men who desire to understand those Songs may be far greater than the
learned, it follows that it could not have fulfilled its commandment so
well as the Native Tongue, which is understood both by the Learned

and the Unlearned. Again, the Latin would have explained them to
people of another language, as to the Germans, to the English, and to
others; and here it would have exceeded their commandment. For
against their will, speaking freely, I say, their meaning would be
explained there where they could not convey it in all their beauty.
And, therefore, let each one know, that nothing which is harmonized by
the bond of the Muse can be translated from its own language into
another, without breaking all its sweetness and harmony. And this is
the reason why Homer was not translated from Greek into Latin, like
the other writings that we have of the Greeks. And this is the reason
why the verses of the Psalms are without sweetness of music and
harmony; for they were translated from Hebrew into Greek, and from
Greek into Latin, and in the first translation all that sweetness vanished.
And, thus is concluded that which was proposed in the beginning of the
chapter immediately before this.


CHAPTER VIII.
Since it is proved by sufficient reasons that, in order to avoid unsuitable
confusion, it would be right that the above-named Songs be opened and
explained by a Commentary in our Native Tongue and not in the Latin,
I intend to show again how a ready Liberality makes me select this way
and leave the other. It is possible, then, to perceive a ready Liberality in
three things, which go with this Native Tongue, and which would not
have gone with the Latin. The first is to give to many; the second is to
give useful things; the third is to give the gift without being asked for
it.
For to give to and to assist one person is good; but to give to and to
assist many is ready goodness, inasmuch as it has a similitude to the
good gifts of God, who is the Benefactor of the Universe. And again, to
give to many is impossible without giving to one, forasmuch as one is

included in many. But to give to one may be good without giving to
many, because he who assists many does good to one and to the other;
he who assists one does good to one only: hence, we see the imposers
of the laws, especially if they are for the common good, hold the eyes
fixed whilst compiling these laws. Again, to give useless things to the
receiver is also a good, inasmuch as he who gives, shows himself at
least to be a friend; but it is not a perfect good, and therefore it is not
ready: as if a knight should give to a doctor a shield, and as if the
doctor should give to a knight the written aphorisms of Hippocrates, or
rather the technics of Galen; because the wise men say that "the face of
the gift ought to be similar to that of the receiver," that is, that it be
suitable to him, and that it be useful; and therein it is called ready
liberality in him who thus discriminates in giving.
But forasmuch as moral discourses usually create a desire to see their
origin, in this chapter I intend briefly to demonstrate four reasons why
of necessity the gift (in order that it be ready liberality) should be
useful to him who receives. Firstly, because virtue must be cheerful and
not sad in every action: hence, if the gift be not cheerful in the giving
and in the receiving, in it there is not perfect nor ready virtue. And this
joy can spring only from the utility, which resides in the giver through
the giving, and which comes to the receiver through the receiving. In
the giver, then, there must be the foresight, in doing this, that on his
part there shall remain the benefit of an inherent virtue which is above
all other advantages; and that to the receiver come the benefit of the use
of the thing given. Thus the one and the other will be cheerful, and
consequently it will be a ready liberality, that is, a liberality both
prompt and well considered.