„Nu credeam să-nvăț a muri vreodată” - „Quando io crederò imparare a vivere, e io imparerò a morire”. O paralelă între Eminescu și Leonardo / ‟I never thought that I would learn to die” – ‟Quando io crederò imparare a vivere, e io imparerò a morire”. A parallel between Eminescu and Leonardo

Abstract

This study explores a correspondence between the opening line of Mihai Eminescu’s poem ‟Ode (in Sapphic metre)” — ‟Nu credeam să-nvăț a muri vrodată” [I never thought that I would learn to die] — and Leonardo da Vinci’s laconic aphorism: “Quando io crederò imparare a vivere, e io imparerò a morire” [When I believe I am learning to live, I will learn how to die]. Rejecting the notion of Leonardo’s influence on Eminescu, given the limited accessibility of Leonardo’s writings during the poet’s lifetime, the study investigates a more complex network of possible relationships between these two textual loci. A comparative-genetic methodology is employed, situating both texts within the specific intellectual traditions to which they belong. Leonardo’s aphorism is contextualized within the tradition of ars bene moriendi writings, which proliferated in Europe from the mid-14th century onward. In contrast, Eminescu’s verse emerges as a product of poetic evolution through various stages of the poem’s drafts, spanning a prolonged period. Regarding Schopenhauer’s influence on Eminescu, as well as the transmission of Greco-Roman Stoic philosophy through Schopenhauer, the study highlights both the poet’s exposure to this intellectual tradition and his skepticism toward the applicability of Stoic exercises. Both texts under analysis repurpose formulas with long-standing traditions without adopting the solutions these formulas encapsulate. The subject articulating the formula is distinctly modern, questioning its enduring validity. This conclusion is reached through a close reading analysis, identifying pivotal elements within the two texts, as well as their linguistic and thematic contexts and intersections. The study also delves into the texts’ indeterminacy and the „unsaid”, which undermines a prestigious literalism.

Keywords

• ars bene moriendi
• disce mori
• stoicism
• laconicism
• indeterminacy and interpretative gaps