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In times of nationalism, false patriotism, secessionism, fortunately cosmopolitism is still argued and not only in reference to the Enlightenment studies!
It also recurred in ancient times. Cicero, in his Tusculanae disputationes, reminds us like Socrates, answering about his nationality, used to say "mundanus", citizen of the world.
Being cosmopolitan doesn't certainly mean to repudiate one's roots; as Paul states, it isn't we who bring our roots but our roots that bring and sustain us.
It could be interesting to find out whether people's roots have a common, archetypal basis. Writers such as Schure` in "The Great Initiates", linguists (Semerano in The Origin of European literatures), poets (Pound, Joyce in Finnegans Wake, Eliot), psychoanalysts and mythologists (Jung, Grof , Campbell) have ventured on this difficult task.
I have tried to develop this idea in my Interior Mind, here reproduced.
With the Golden Bough, you enter
the earth wide opened mouth
to the subterranean sky,
to the very end of darkness
and hollow, under the dull light
of the black sun
you pass oceans of shadows,
beaches of fallen leaves,
the Angelus Novus who lets not looking backwards
people cross - you overtake the Father,
enlightened by fires of future lives,
pointing to the ivory door of misleading dreams.
An interior, hidden mind spreads around the universe -
if eyes opened even for a moment,
they could see how things really are:
slow drops of rain on a window pane.
If we admit that some archetypal ideas are common among our planet inhabitants, then we can state, in the sense meant by Borges, that just one "Book" has been written, as an evidence of the original and permanent cultural unity of the world and it contains all the chaotic fragments ever thought and written by people searching for the deep truth of things...
Different languages can be approached and mixed together to transmit something that apparently is far in space and time: if we try to translate, for instance, the first verses of Genesis or any other holy texts in two or three languages, we realize that the new and different sounds, irrespective of our linguistic knowledge, suggest new, universal, cosmic vibrations that the original version didn't succeed in transmitting.
In any case they reveal the complexity of reading different levels.
and the land was left barren
et les ombres noires
enveloppaient les profondeurs
et aura divina
super oceani undas
[and the land was left barren,
the depths enveloped in black shadows,
the divine aura
on the ocean waves]
(see: http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article.php?lab=Genesis
Engl. Transl.:Liliana Lo Giudice, French tr.: Rosa Maria Costa )
Beyond the real linguistic contamination, it is easy to be aware of that, even simply translating a poetic fragment in a succession of two or three languages as English, French, Italian. Here are some examples: few lines "broken" from Virgil's Aeneid and a famous eclogue written by the same poet. The context doesn't matter any more, the new autonomous "nucleus", transformed in Japanese haikai, live a renewed life inside a renewed cosmic image.
Tempus ( Vergilius, Aeneis X, 467-468 )
stat sua cuique dies
breve et irreparabile tempus
omnibus est vitae
tutto è scritto,
anche il tempo breve
e senza ritorno
dell'uomo
everything is written,
also man's brief,
no returning time
chacun a son destin
et le temps de l'homme
est bref et sans retour
Evening (Vergilius, Bucolica I, 82-83)
et iam summa procul villarum
culmina fumant
maioresque cadunt altis de montibus
umbrae
gia` si vede il fumo delle case
e alte ombre
scendono da alte montagne
and the smoking houses already visible
while long shadows come down
from tall mountains
et déja on voit la fumée des maisons
et des ombres grandes
descendent de hautes montagnes
( see: http://www.scriptamanent.net/scripta/public/dettaglioNewsCategoria.jsp?ID=1000657,
or http://www.litterae.net/Trad%20Virgil.htm ; Engl. Transl.: Laura Costantini, French tr.: Rosa M.Costa)
In conclusion another multilingual experiment of mine shows the result of putting together, in a common archetypal idea, lines of different authors such as Virgil, Dante, Blake. Mingling their original works, followed by an Anglo-Italian translation (English for Virgil and Dante, Italian for Blake), the result goes beyond a simple intertextual proposal, typical of comparative literatures: it appears like only one hand writing different compositions, in spite of a distance of several centuries and kilometres.
In my work Kamm Alem I have exactly tried to develop this experimentation and decided to entitle this fragment "As if a dream".
As if a dream (come in apparenza di sogno)
(Virgilio, Aeneis VI, 893-898; Dante A.,Divine Comedy, Inferno XXXIV, 139;
W.Blake,The Book of Thel, Thel's Motto)
like a reflection in a glass,
like shadows in the water
like dreams of infants
like a smile upon an infant's face
sunt geminae Somni portae
quarum altera fertur cornea
quae veris facilis datur exitus
umbris
altera candenti
perfecta nitens elephanto
sed falsa ad caelum mittunt
insomnia Manes-
his ubi tum natum Anchises
unaque Sibyllam prosequitur
dictis portaque emittit eburna
e quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle
(come riflessi sul vetro
come ombre sull'acqua
come sogni di bambini
come il sorriso di un piccolo viso
there are two Dream doors;
the real shades can easily go out,
through the horny door-
Manes send lying dreams to the world,
through the snow ivory door...
yet talking, Anchises takes his son
and Sibyl through the ivory door
and lets them out
then we went out to see the stars)
(see: http://www.mid.muohio.edu/segue/index.htm; Engl. Tr.:Liliana Lo Giudice).
世界市民の多言語主義（コスモポリタンのマルチリンガリズム）より
グイド・モンテ
ナショナリズムの時代においても、人は、偽の愛国主義や分離主義について、そして幸運にも世界主義についても、学究的な参照としてだけでなく、広く一般に議論を重ねている。
古代にもこれは繰り返されてきた。「トゥスクルムにおける討論」のキケロは、国籍を問われて「mundanus」（世界市民）といつも答えていたソクラテスのことを思い起こさせる。
コスモポリタン／世界市民（世界主義者）であることは、その人のルーツを否定するものではない。聖パウロが言っているように、自分のルーツを持ち込むところの「我々のルーツ」ではなく、我々にもたらされた、我々を支えるところのルーツである。
人間が共通のルーツを、原型的な基礎をもっているかどうかを探し出すのは興味深いことであり、"The Great Initiates" におけるエドゥアル・シュレー、言語学者（『ヨーロッパ文学の起源』のSemerano）、詩人（パウンド、『フェネガンス・ウェイク』のジョイス、エリオット）、精神分析学者、神話学者（ユング、スタニスラフ・グロフ、キャンベル）はこの困難な仕事に挑んだ。
もしわたしたちが原型となるようないくつかの思想が、地球に住む人間共通のものであると認めるなら、ボルヘスが言うところの「世界の原型的、永久的な文化統合として、１册の本が書かれた。そこには物事の真理を追求するために思考され、本に記されたあらゆるカオティックなものが含まれている」のようなことを宣言することができるだろう。
何かを伝えるために、時間的にも空間的にも遠く離れているように見える様々な言語が、互いに近づき、混ざりあうことはある。たとえば、詩の起源となるような作品、あるいは聖書の文章のようなものを２、３ヵ国語に翻訳してみるなら、言語的な知識のいかんに関わらず、耳なれない新しい音が新たな、全世界的な、宇宙的なヴァイブレーションをもたらすことに気づくだろう。それは元の言語のテキストでは達成できなかったことなのだ。
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