The Death of Virgil

by Hermann Broch

  "See you, Lysanias, that eye, gold-streaking the violet heaven? Noon it is, waking and peering, and in his innermost glances, there are the traces of night."

  "Pathway and goal was Apollo, he led you on earth as the sunlight, behold even now he is with you under the guise of the day."

  "Golden the glance of Apollo, his threatening bow shines in silver, knowledge of him comes like radiance, radiant the death it evokes: one are they both in radiance, his word and his arrow celestial, winging by virtue of oneness back to their source divine. Oh, even to him is hidden the well-spring of the glance, Night, as she reposes in the glance of the god himself: he alone struck by the arrow, he alone pierced by the light, may see the dark veils tear asunder, so that with failing eye, still peering, already in blindness, he may see in a single glance the primal-dome of oneness, the dome from which he sprang, as he fathoms beginning and ending, this being of night and of light."

  "Unconquerable sun," a murmur sounded and he saw that the slave was again in the room.

  "Unconquerable, though still obeying the father, the rams-horned father of day, Jupiter, who holds fast the fate of the gods in his mighty hands which scatter the lightnings, Jupiter, fate-bidding and fate-bidden in one, the Chronide who bound by his own kingship never escapes Cronus. Yet the curse of shifting mastery, yielded or filched one from another, expends itself at last,"—thus spoke the slave—, "if in the chain of divine generation there appears one whom a virgin has borne: as the first one not in rebellion, he enters into the father and the father into him; they are united in spirit, eternally three in one."

  "Are you Syrian, are you Persian?"

  "They brought me here from Asia as a child."

  It was a drily polite answer, and the man's face which but a moment since had been opened to the sun was impenetrably transformed into that of the servant. How was that possible? The occurrence seemed in this way to be cut off; Lysanias seemed no longer to be present, and it was becoming harder to breathe: "Who are you?"

  "I am a room-slave in the exalted house of Augustus, may the gods protect him."

  "Who taught you your religion?"

  "The slave honors the gods of his master."

  "And the religion of your ancestors?"

  "My father suffered a slave's death on the cross, and I have been separated from my mother."

  This was grim torment rising in tears: oh, these were tears clouding the sight, painfully compressing the chest, tears from an immeasurable sea out of which humanity is constantly resurrected. But the face of the slave remained unmoved; blank and shut it lay above the abyss.

  A few minutes passed: "Can I be of help to you?"

  "Sir, let not your kindness so condescend: I glory in my lot, I need nothing."

  "Still you came."

  "I was ordered to do so."

  Was the slave actually just a tool? Had he been ordered to keep silent before the guest, because guests must find out nothing. Impenetrable was the attitude of a human being when cast down to being an orphan; a cold mantle was flung around his soul, hiding layer after layer of horror, and a slave was a being terribly lonely and orphaned. Had this one been sent here to rob him of the Aeneid as well as the boy? And in so doing to turn Lysanias too into an orphan? The chair in the alcove was empty, and the hand that stretched out after the vanished one encountered nothing, was unable to rescue him from an orphan's fate! Thereupon his cry became one of horror: "You have frightened him away!"

  "If I have erred, Sir, condemn or condone it, for the fault was not intentional. I was pledged by my task to help you and to be at your command."

  Still his mistrust was not allayed: "Are you his substitute? have you been ordered to relieve him? have you taken over his name?"

  "Oh, Sir, a slave owns nothing, he has no name; he bears his fetters nakedly. Whatever you choose to call me, that is my name."

  "Lysanias?"

  It was a question. But, conjured by his name, Lysanias was again in his place; he reclined in the alcove-seat, and instead of the slave it was he who answered quickly: "Always yourself you were seeking, but 'twas I whom you discovered, and as you found yourself, then have you sought for me."

  Sought for, oh, sought for—, oh, source,—oh, again the lostness asserted itself, well-spring after well-spring opened up, the place of memory, the unbordered abyss of the past, wreathed about by the world-snake, redolent of happenings never beheld. And from the shuddersome snaky coils, never lost yet ever remembered, Cronus, the earliest Titan, extricated himself, the first to stamp upon the earth with thundering feet.—

  —, and in the turmoil of memory the answer of the slave was to be heard: "He who chooses a name for himself rebels against fate . . ."

  —, sought for, oh, sought for—the Titan had been overthrown, and tribes of heroes, tribes of men, serving the gods, generation after generation in endless succession, were trained for duty, were trained for death; they forgot the blood of the Titans, until suddenly it welled up anew, and the tardy descendant, born large and terrible to be a Titan, stamped through the fields of creation, as his ancestor had done, crying out to heaven in sudden recollection of the once-committed crime, so stricken by memory that he chose to wreak a horrible revenge for the murder of his ancestor whom he felt within himself; he clambers upward to blind the light-god, to overthrow the reigning father-god, and, just as he is about to succeed in tearing the spark of fire from the eye of the god, Jove again proves victorious, hurling back the Titan, stretching him out upon the stony ground; thereupon duty continues to reign and, guided by Sol's own hands, the fire-wagon rolls onward, bearing the shining Archer defended by his bow, on through the heavenly pavilion, day after day in the zenith—,

  —, and surrounded by light the slave spoke on: "Though you intended to call me, yet I have never been summoned; imposed though I was upon you, yet you are bound to accept me because of my service to you . . ."

  —, sought for, oh, sought for,—the Titan had fled, but left behind in the futile flight, a spark from the snatched fire flared up into spheres of unnumbered stars, and even though the Titan had not succeeded in obtaining the divine bow, even though he had not been able to turn it against the father, making himself thereby into his own ancestor and bringing time to a standstill, so that coming generations might be delivered from force, and one's own name become immortal, acquitted of duty as he who bears it, oh, though it had not succeeded, yet henceforth the spheres remained reconciled within the starry spaces, reconciled to the stellar mandates, as were duty and force and death . . .

  —, and now the boy spoke again: "I am Lysanias, Virgil, and as your life began, sorrow-freed and guarded in childhood, your mother, dispelling sorrow, took you naked and smiling into her arms . . ."

  —, and the slave continued: "I remain nameless, Virgil, however you choose to call me, vast is that which is nameless, ever naked about you hovering, so that it may enfold you nakedly at the end . . ."

  —, sought for, oh, sought for—, oh homecoming—, end joined to beginning, beginning to end, the gods were reigning, the gods reign on, apportioning duty. And thus it was commanded by the light-lavishing god: comprehend death while still in life so that it may illumine your life; only for him who presses on to the sources,—oh, exploring is remembering the gods—, remembering and more than remembering the region of roots before the beginning, only for him who so remembers will the end be turned into the beginning; and he bethought him of every future buried in the depths of the past, only he who retains what is fleeting restrains death in what has passed. Unbounded the abyss of yore, unbounded and nameless. The Muses serve death, they serve it like vestals guarding the holy fire, Apollo's golden light.

  And something in the countenance of the boy and that of the slave brought up the long-lost past, life, the magnificent, entombing death; and with it came a realization of truth, and he knew the love within love, its meaning stripped of madness, its truth the ultimate protection from madness, love retrieved from the nothing, transformed but
still love, great in its reality, the miracle. Oh, homecoming!

  Was it the slave, was it the boy? The former was again declaring: "Even if now I approach you, you who have always contained me, know it is only to aid you, but never again to compel you/'

  Then quoth the boy once more, but in a higher voice: "Something invisible led you, transforming its own to your service, yet, having now come so far, you are set free of its guidance. Searching, you came upon that which likewise was searching for you."

  Sterner came the answer, yet it was also a comfort: "Nothing of earth can remain for him who is destined for service, possessing himself he owns nothing, no name for his own, no desire; back, oh forced back into childship, fate is beyond his possession. Yet with each fresh denudation, he comes closer to all that is living; he only, who bears his chains naked, is given this simple assurance: grace will descend upon him who is humble and ready to take it; then if he weeps in contrition, the miracle holds back no longer, reduced to the state of a child, he is first to behold the light"

  Like the sound of a single voice the voices were interwoven, weaving a double-toned cadence, the voice of the boy ringing clearer: "One and the same are they, coming hence and then going hither, childship of the beginning, childship of the end, childship fled into love."

  Yet, like an echo of tears from a sphere-surrounding sorrow, followed the words of the slave: "Drudging in vilest enslavement, having no father to name us, lacking the care of a mother, claiming no past in our history, lacking a zeal for the future, orphan to orphan in fetters, we form the band of all bondsmen, forged in a chain, never-ending; stripped of a fate though we be, yet chosen by fate for the blessing of knowing in brother the brother."

  "Humanity is naked whenever it emerges, naked its beginning and naked is its end, naked the bonds of duty rasp on the bruised flesh; yet even the Titan is naked and naked is his courage, and when he opposes the father, it is done without weapon or shield, nakedly-burning the hands which grasp at the stolen fire, bearing it naked to earth."

  Oddly in tune with the boy as if each one were answering the other, both having one thing to say and both of them speaking, the slave added: " 'Twas with the aid of arms that the first of the line was slaughtered, murder is always repeated with the clattering might of arms, suppressing men to be slaves, man roots himself out of the earth, himself the slave of the weapon, he lets creation be shattered, letting the glowing embers die down and grow torpid and cold. He shall be first of all heroes who lets himself be disarmed."

  "Weapons ring out through your song, yet not grim Achilles finally wins your love but rather the pious Aeneas."

  "Weaponless are we, we slaves, brought low without arms to defend us, but as we bide without weapons our tomb opens up of itself, torpor relaxes for our sake, the stone itself yields to our hand."

  "Weaponless shall be the end, the beginning-anew without weapons, when from the nocturnal stone the god mildly mounts toward the zenith, creation transformed into childhood."

  "For you have beheld us, Virgil, and in looking you saw the fetters, weeping the while you looked, you saw the new time arising, saw the beginning-anew that is destined to spring from our tears." Thus spoke the other and—impenetrably—became again the servant who stands ready for service.

  "Virgil, you saw the beginning, but you are not the beginning; Virgil, you heard the voice, but you are not yet that voice; the heart of creation beating you felt, yet that heart is not you, you are the eternal guide who himself does not reach the goal. Immortal shall you be, immortally the leader, not quite here but yet at hand, your immortal lot withstanding every turn of time."

  "You bear the chain with us, but from you, oh Virgil, it is already softly lifted."

  Then it became still and they listened all together. They listened, the three of them, to the unfolded light. And the light was like a rustling, a rustling that seemed to come from cornfields, the golden rustling of sunny rain, gentle and strong, unspeakably proclaiming the unlost, the unlosable, the voice of annunciation. The day-song was floating brightly above the darkness.

  Then said the boy, lifting his hand: "Behold the star, behold the guiding star."

  There stood the night-star in the midst of the violet, sunny sky, and glowing softly the star moved eastward.

  Prostrated for prayer, his face pressed to the ground, remaining motionless at first, then rising to a kneeling posture with arms upraised, swaying gently back and forth upon his knees, the slave began his prayer:

  "Thou, most unknown, most inconceivable, most inexpressible, Thou who reignest infinitely, Thou proclaimest Thyself through Thine eye, glancing down blindingly, overpowering in its brightness though but a shadow of Thy hidden being, a gleam from Thy obscurity, the reflection of a reflection. And my eye, my glance, a further shadow thrown by the reflection of Thy reflection, this further reflection dares to lift itself to that of Thine, not that it may rest in Thee, but only that painfully it may return to expectation. Lion and bull are ranged at Thy feet, and the eagle soars unto Thee. Thine eye is Thy voice and Thy brow lowers with thunder. None can compel Thee, neither he who bears off the fire nor he who masters the bull, nor he who makes himself into an ancestor, none can compel Thee. For Thou sendest out to salvation him who does not oppose Thee. And in the glow of the mission, childlike the star releases itself from Thy brightness and, at Thy bidding, wanders back there where Thou hast tarried and will tarry again with the breaking of day. Thou hast created me for death and I am cast in death's shape. But when Thou created me, Thou, most invisible in utter invisibility, Thou created along with me the homecoming; and when the star lowers itself, then Thou, most nameless in utter namelessness, callest out the name which Thou takest on to wander as mortal, to die as mortal, visible to the earthbound in Thy second shape, in which Thou wilt again arise to Thyself, transformed back into Thine own light, the star once more sun-enfolded to a single eye; then permit me, the least shadow of Thy namelessness, the slave of slaves, then permit me to share in Thy name, in Thy countenance, in Thy radiance, oh Most Unknown, Most Invisible, Most Inexpressible, to whom I belong and whom I praise today and forevermore."

  And now there arose the noon-wind, the fervent breath-kiss of life; scarcely perceptible, it came drifting from the south, a soft flooding undulation, the breath-sea of the world which daily floods its banks, a waft of the self-completing never completed cycles of time above which the constellations circle: breath of the ripening earth, of the olive trees, of the grapevine, of the wheat-fields, breath of care and simplicity, breath of the stables and the pressed fruit, breath of communion and of peace, breath of country after country, of field after field, breath of loving, serving, labor. Breath of mid-day, oh, mighty noon, sacredly brooding over the world and the universe, as though the wheels of the sun-wagon were standing still, at holy rest in the zenith. The hanging lamp swayed lightly in the breeze, its chains clinking silverly.

  One human life does not suffice. It suffices for nothing. Oh, memory, oh, homecoming.

  And in the most unknown, the most invisible, in the most unutterable, in remotest divinity, there ruled one whose shadow was the light, always sensed, never known, the most unnamable, the utterly hidden. Was it not he whom the peasants shudderingly honored, believing that he dwelt in the primal woods of the Capitoline? No statue was erected to him, none could be erected, symbol of himself was he, although he had announced himself in the symbol of the voice. Oh, open your eyes to love! And high above the breath of the noonday song which kept flooding in, warm and full of the anxious love of men for the earth, full of the fearful love of earth for men, the star of night took its wandering course, it also a symbol, a symbol of the unnamable love that longed to descend, in order to lift the earthbound into likeness with the sun. Thus the midday rested in the breath from above and below; the span of the fiery wagon rested; the wheels were at rest, and Sol was resting.

  WAS this happiness that he felt? he did not know and he scarcely wanted to know; surely it was hope, a hope so
exceedingly strong that, like a strong light or a strong tone, it became sheerly unbearable, so that when the motionless occurrence came suddenly to an end it appeared to him as a solace. Nor did he know how long it had actually lasted. Yet as it ceased, as the noontide was again set in motion and the glittering wheel started turning again, as the span again resumed its course and the wandering star was suddenly no longer in the sky, the door into the room opened, as if to give passage to the fleet-footed boy escaping at that very moment, but, in reality, opening because it had been clicked open by a somewhat portly, full-bearded man who now stood in the doorway with a friendly smile as though presenting himself as a cause for rejoicing, his arm raised in greeting, paying no heed to the boy scurrying past: it was not difficult to recognize this man as the expected physician; his demeanor, his looks, his whole effect made that clear, particularly his full, short-cropped, well groomed scholar's beard, its blondness spun through with silver threads as though artificially inserted to inspire confidence, like the silver threads of age; and had any doubt existed, it would have been entirely dispelled by the attendants armed with instruments who followed after him with more pomp, if that were possible; and every qualm would have been silenced by the worldling's professionally delighted welcome which came readily and smoothly from the ringleader's smiling lips:

  "I counted on a recovering patient but I find one who has recovered."

  "Yes, that you do." It was said more quickly and with more conviction than he could have expected of himself.

  "Nothing can be more pleasing to a physician than to find his diagnosis confirmed, and the more so when this comes from such a great poet... however, if you declare yourself well only to evade the physician .. . now, what does your Menalcas say? 'Thou shalt not escape me today, whither thou callest, there shall I appear!'"

  The blandness of the court physician was not agreeable, even though no patient is able to draw back from the secret charm of the medico; but a real country leech would have been preferable—, one could have talked to him of all sorts of things. Now the thing to do was, willy nilly, to come to terms with the one who was here: "I am not escaping from you . . . but, for the rest, forget the poem."