Estava numa livraria e notei uma pequena preciosidade escrita anonimamente por Montesquieu, em 1721 – Lettres Persanes. Dado o meu fascínio pela Pérsia, comprei o romance epistolário. Montesquieu, autor do incontornável Espírito das leis, nunca esteve na Pérsia. As referências à Pérsia (Irão de hoje) são fruto da sua imaginação e de fontes de viajantes europeus que passaram por Teerão, Ishafan e Tabriz.
O romance escrito durante o advento do iluminismo na Europa descreve, através de cartas, as viagens de dois persas a Paris e as suas observações. Montesquieu comenta assim a França metropolitana, durante o reinado do Princípe Regente Duque de Orleães, e delicia o autor com retratos sobre sociedade, virtude, sexualidade e política; todas dignas heresias em pleno século XVIII, sendo nos dias de hoje ainda politicamente incorrectas. Descrições algumas merecedoras de uma fatwazita e também de ávida discussão intelectual no nosso Ocidente.
Aqui vão passagens, algumas interessantes, outras escandalosas:
Carta 11 (sobre filosofia):
… sometimes simply to persuade people of truth is not sufficient, one must also make them feel it; moral truths belong in this category…
Carta 18 (sobre os otomanos):
… I have found only Smyrna that can be considered a rich and powerful city; it is Europeans who make it such; had it been left to the Turks, it would be just like all the others.
Carta 22 (sobre o rei, o sistema monetário, e o Papa):
…this king is a great magician… If he has a war that is difficult to support, and he has no money, he has only to suggest to them (os franceses) that a piece of paper is money…
…the pope; sometimes he makes the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread, or that the wine he drinks is not wine, and countless other things of that nature.
Carta 28 (sobre reacções parvas ao exótico):
‘Oh! Oh! Monsieur is Persian? That’s most extraordinary! How can someone be Persian?’
Carta 31 (sobre a moderação):
…the law forbids our princes to drink wine, and they drink it to such excess as to make them less than human. Christian princes on the other hand, are allowed wine, and it does not appear to lead them into evil ways.
Carta 32 (sobre mulheres estrangeiras):
Persian women are more beautiful than French women; but French women are prettier. It’s impossible not to love the former and not to enjoy oneself with the latter; the first are more tender and more modest; the others, livelier and more playful.
Carta 34 (sobre o que é ser académico e intelectual)
…when I arrived in Paris I found them all worked up over the most trivial dispute one could imagine: it concerned the reputation of one Greek poet… Both sides admitted that he was an excellent poet: it was simply a question of the degree of excellence to be attributed to him.
Carta 36 (sobre mulheres)
…if it’s not true that our power over women is purely tyrannical, it’s no less true that women possess a natural advantage over us, that of beauty, which nothing can resist.
…in the most civilized races, women have always had authority over their husbands…
Carta 46 (sobre académicos)
Those who love knowledge are never idle…. I am nevertheless occupied. I spend my life observing and in the evening I record what I have noted…
Carta 48 (sobre a modéstia)
…happy the man who is vain enough never to praise himself, who fears his audience, and never compromises his own worth by ruffling the pride of others.
Carta 48 (sobre os chatos)
…they will tell you about the most trivial things that happened to them, hoping that the interest they find in this will increase their importance in your eyes.
O romance escrito durante o advento do iluminismo na Europa descreve, através de cartas, as viagens de dois persas a Paris e as suas observações. Montesquieu comenta assim a França metropolitana, durante o reinado do Princípe Regente Duque de Orleães, e delicia o autor com retratos sobre sociedade, virtude, sexualidade e política; todas dignas heresias em pleno século XVIII, sendo nos dias de hoje ainda politicamente incorrectas. Descrições algumas merecedoras de uma fatwazita e também de ávida discussão intelectual no nosso Ocidente.
Aqui vão passagens, algumas interessantes, outras escandalosas:
Carta 11 (sobre filosofia):
… sometimes simply to persuade people of truth is not sufficient, one must also make them feel it; moral truths belong in this category…
Carta 18 (sobre os otomanos):
… I have found only Smyrna that can be considered a rich and powerful city; it is Europeans who make it such; had it been left to the Turks, it would be just like all the others.
Carta 22 (sobre o rei, o sistema monetário, e o Papa):
…this king is a great magician… If he has a war that is difficult to support, and he has no money, he has only to suggest to them (os franceses) that a piece of paper is money…
…the pope; sometimes he makes the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread, or that the wine he drinks is not wine, and countless other things of that nature.
Carta 28 (sobre reacções parvas ao exótico):
‘Oh! Oh! Monsieur is Persian? That’s most extraordinary! How can someone be Persian?’
Carta 31 (sobre a moderação):
…the law forbids our princes to drink wine, and they drink it to such excess as to make them less than human. Christian princes on the other hand, are allowed wine, and it does not appear to lead them into evil ways.
Carta 32 (sobre mulheres estrangeiras):
Persian women are more beautiful than French women; but French women are prettier. It’s impossible not to love the former and not to enjoy oneself with the latter; the first are more tender and more modest; the others, livelier and more playful.
Carta 34 (sobre o que é ser académico e intelectual)
…when I arrived in Paris I found them all worked up over the most trivial dispute one could imagine: it concerned the reputation of one Greek poet… Both sides admitted that he was an excellent poet: it was simply a question of the degree of excellence to be attributed to him.
Carta 36 (sobre mulheres)
…if it’s not true that our power over women is purely tyrannical, it’s no less true that women possess a natural advantage over us, that of beauty, which nothing can resist.
…in the most civilized races, women have always had authority over their husbands…
Carta 46 (sobre académicos)
Those who love knowledge are never idle…. I am nevertheless occupied. I spend my life observing and in the evening I record what I have noted…
Carta 48 (sobre a modéstia)
…happy the man who is vain enough never to praise himself, who fears his audience, and never compromises his own worth by ruffling the pride of others.
Carta 48 (sobre os chatos)
…they will tell you about the most trivial things that happened to them, hoping that the interest they find in this will increase their importance in your eyes.
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