The Death of Virgil

by Hermann Broch

  "That is pleasant for me to hear; so your concession still holds good?"

  "Overstepping the boundaries . .."

  "Philosophy? poetry? what is overstepping the boundaries?"

  "Wherever Plato succeeded in doing that, philosophy became poetry . . . and at its highest peak, poetry was capable of transporting across the boundaries . . ."

  Though somewhat absent and hasty, a friendly affirmative nod was the response: "In any case your artistic modesty-is great enough to question your own wisdom, but your artistic ambition wants to take account of it, at least for art as such . . ."

  "It is not wisdom, Octavian ... the wise man does not become a poet, at all events not a man with a calling for wisdom . . . no, it is a sort of divining love that is sometimes allowed to burst the boundaries . . ."

  "I am satisfied that at least you feel yourself called to wisdom . . . and so we shall no longer debate the question of philosophy, rather, should it actually prove incapable of pressing on to its own assumptions, let us send it on toward poetry; and we shall challenge philosophy to draw its ground of perception from art, in whose beauty, as you have admitted, all wisdom is gathered."

  "I should concede this to very few and indubitable works of art, and all of them are those of a very distant past."

  "And your Aeneid, my Virgil?"

  Again it was time which announced itself, mysteriously opposing the past to the present, mysterious in its effect, mysterious in its motive, fateful in both: "Once more I must disappoint you, Augustus, by repeating, stubbornly repeating, that the artist's power of metaphor is strictly conditioned by time, and no longer suffices for the new perception; the ground of perception may be divined from art, but its creation, its re-creation lies beyond the power of art."

  "There is no such thing as a new creation; one can only recreate what has always existed independent of time, and therefore still exists, even though, as today, it may remain hidden for a period . . . man remains the same creature that he has always been, and no doubt his ground of perception, about which you are constantly speaking, remains the same also, so much the same that it may easily, and for your pleasure, precede all perception. Basically nothing changes, nothing can change, nothing has changed."

  "Oh, Augustus, perceiving and perceived, the gods of yore surrounded the mortal."

  "Do you refer to the time of Aeschylus?"

  "Yes, to that time also."

  "The gods have not vanished, and your reference is the best confirmation of what I have been maintaining, yes, my friend, that it is; just because the Olympians once reigned, undoubted and unopposed by man, just for this reason we have to return to the faith of the fathers, so that art and philosophy may find the same ground of perception which was that of our people and, consequently, is the only right one for us."

  The constant necessity to speak and to answer was becoming too much of a strain: "The faith of the fathers ... in those days there had been no fall into the loss of perception."

  "That has been overcome."

  "Certainly, but for that you had first to come; at that time, however, it was not first necessary to re-awaken faith, for it was still alive; it was one with human life, the inward and outward life together."

  "It is no less alive now than it was then, and the gods pass through your poem in their most lively form, Virgil."

  "They entered it from outside; I had to search further and further into the past for them."

  "You traced them to their origin, to the source where they are fundamentally perceived, and in so doing you have once and for all presented the people with the reality of the gods, with the reality that is the truest perception of divinity; Virgil, your depictions are of the liveliest reality, they are the reality of your people."

  This had a seductive and gratifying sound, and withal it was Caesar's honest conviction. Nevertheless these were only hollow words; perhaps because now Caesar was contending scarcely at all for the Aeneid but primarily for his own work; but perhaps for that very reason he would relinquish the Aeneid: "No, Caesar, I have already said that mine are only superficial images."

  "They do not satisfy you because you demand from them a perception of, and an annulment of death, which no one on earth is capable of giving . . . you have even placed my work under this exaggerated challenge."

  "My images are inadequate because . . ."

  "You are stuck .. . Virgil, you know you are wrong."

  "Time, Augustus ... in a mysterious way we are captives of time, it flows on mysteriously ... an empty stream ... a stream on the surface, and we know neither its course nor its depth . . . and yet it must close to a ring."

  "How can you maintain that art does not lie in the trend of this era and its task? Which priestly inspector of vitals has divulged this to you? No, Virgil, this is not right; there is nothing mysterious in time, and nothing which needs a liver-gazer."

  What was the mystery which lay in time? emptily the empty stream flowed toward death, and if its goal were removed, then stream and time disappeared. Why would time be annulled if death were? Things fitted together dreamily and it was a dream-voice which spoke: "The serpent-ring of time ... the heavenly viscera."

  "And you call this the basis of your perception? it is that of a haruspex . . . What are you hiding, Virgil?"

  "We are captives of time, all of us; and this is even true of perception."

  Caesar was noticeably disquieted: "You make time responsible for the actions of men, you make it responsible even for the loss of perception ... by this you release men, and naturally yourself also, from every responsibility; that is dangerous . . . I prefer to make men responsible for the time they live in."

  What was time? was it, after all, a stream that flowed on without hindrance? was it not rather in spurting movement, sometimes like the almost still water of a lake, yes, even of a swamp lying under the two-toned cloud of dusk, and again like a roaring cataract throwing out a spray of seven-colored glittering spume, a flood that inundated everything and rushed on?

  "Caesar, there is always scope enough for human responsibility; man performs his duty well or ill, and even though it be time that prescribes the sphere of his task, even though he may be unable to exert an influence upon it, his responsibility to his duty remains unchanged and independent of the modifications in the realm of the task: his duty is to duty."

  "And I cannot admit that the course of duty is altered through time . . . man bears the responsibility for the duties and tasks which he has set as the goal of his actions; at all times he has to adjust these to the community and to the state, and when he fails to do so, then the time is formless. Man, however, has to shape time, and he shapes it within the state; this constitutes his highest duty."

  Mystery of time, mystery of its emptiness; why was the human course of duty altered within it? Endlessly the Saturnian fields spread out over time, never changing throughout time, and the human soul was in bondage to time; but beyond the surface, in the depths of heaven and earth, lay perception, the goal of humanity.

  "Perception continues to be a duty, it continues to be the divine task of men."

  "And perception realizes itself in the state." Augustus glanced toward him in direct challenge, without losing his expression of apprehensive uneasiness.

  What was time? what were the changes in the sphere of human duty which developed under its command? what was the variable element in time? mysteriously it evolved of itself—, what was it that with time closed to a circle?

  Whither was the journey leading? the boat rocked: "The perceptive man . . . held into time . . ."

  "No, Virgil, it is he who holds time in his hands."

  Oh, it was perception itself which altered, often hesitating, often bogged down to a standstill, only to be hurled forward again like a cataract, the perception of existence extending over all that existed, the perception-web of the world that circumscribed men in what they could and must believe, the great web of perception in the flowing meshes of which men were c
aught and at which they must, despite this, work on unceasingly, so that it should come to be the web of the universe and not rend asunder: mysteriously united to existence, enlarged and transformed along with it, existence mysteriously transformed to perception itself—in this wise perception went forward, thus it must go forward for the sake of creation, for the sake of time, in which creation becomes reality, for the flow of time was nothing else than a change of perception.

  "Man is held into creation and he holds creation in his hands . . . oh, Augustus, it is time and yet not time; time is shaped by man through perception."

  "I will never admit time to be stronger than man . .."

  Stronger than time was fate, in which the final secret of time lay hidden. For fate's commandment to die was binding even on creation, even on the gods, yet constantly held in balance by its charge to be reborn, this charge on both the gods and men, not to allow the web of perception to be rent, constantly to reknot the thread, to preserve in such wise and forever, knowing and known, the creative work of the gods and the gods themselves; gods and men bound to each other by the pledge of truth.

  "A change in perception connotes time and nothing else, Augustus, and he who brings about a renewal of perception shapes the further course of time."

  Augustus ignored that: "And never will I admit that our times are less than those of Aeschylus, no, on the contrary, in many respects they are incomparably greater, and I may even assert that I have contributed something to them; in most matters we have outstripped the Greeks, and even so our knowledge is constantly on the increase ..."

  "Oh, Augustus, it seems we are speaking of opposites . . . superficial perception may be increasing, while the kernel of perception may be shrinking . . ."

  "Then is my work nothing but a fleeting and surface metaphor, too?"—the solicitude of Augustus had become an unmistakably hurt protest—"is that what you are implying?"

  Mystery of time! Saturnian mystery of perception! Mystery of fate's commands! Mystery of the pledge! Light and darkness, united in the two-toned dusk unfold of themselves to the seven colors of the earthly creation, but when the transformation in being will have reached to universal perception, having become unalterable by virtue of being whole, only then will time come to a standstill, not immobile, not like a lake, but like an all-embracing moment, an unending sea of light, lasting through all eternity, so that over the reality of its day of judgment and rebirth, the seven colors will be merged to final oneness, to the ivory shimmer of pristine daylight, compared to which every earthly light is leaden, every earthly reality shaded off to a suggestion, to a mere play of lines.

  "Your work is carried by time, Caesar, fulfilling time's task, and it aims toward the fate-commanded renewal of perception in which creation with its divine attributes shall once again stand firm."

  Disappointment was mixed with disdain in the gesture of rejection: "Merely to aim at perception is not the same thing as reaching it."

  "Your work is peace."

  "Ah, but if I am to believe you, it is only metaphorically that peace annuls death, and even when I shall close the door of the Janus temple, as I certainly hope to do in a very short time, to you it will be only a metaphor, and far from a real annulment of death."

  "Rome is the emblem, Rome is the symbol which you have created, Caesar."

  "Rome is the deed of our ancestors, Virgil, and the reality established by them extends very far beyond the merely symbolic."

  "And Rome has come again to be your deed, Augustus, the Roman order in the Roman state."

  "Yes, my emblematic state as you called it; yet the Roman state has to be more than perception's emblem, empty of content." The disdainful rejection had grown into outright repugnance; Caesar stood ready to depart, and it seemed as if he had forgotten the matter of the Aeneid.

  "You have re-established order in earthly affairs, given it body, and it stands as your perception."

  "Then why call it a metaphor, why do you adhere to this?"

  Metaphor, perception, reality—, how could one ask that Caesar's pride be reconciled to the concept of metaphor, since he had never accepted the humility of perception? since he had never been willing to perceive the abyss? since for him reality was only that of the surface? But perception emerged out of the abyss, it was the humble emerging from the depths of contrition to a new humility, was the bringing home of reality from the nothingness into which it had necessarily been cast so that it might be born: perception, born out of darkness, born to return into metaphor, the rebirth of reality changed in the abyss, yet in itself unchangeable.

  "You have recognized the divinely-lawful order in celestial things, and recognizing it again in the Roman spirit you have integrated them both, embodying them as an earthly entity in and through your work of state, giving them visible shape as the commensurate symbol of the Roman spirit, the commensurate symbol of a celestial order of perception."

  "Why, the same thing can be said of the Aeneid."

  "Never!"

  "Never?"—Curiously this time the contradiction did not increase Augustus' anger, in fact he seemed to be somewhat mollified—, "Really! how is that?"

  "The deed is the task of time; not the word, not art; time asks only for the perceptive deed."

  "Then I ask you again: why only as a metaphor?"

  Speaking was becoming a great strain, oh, and thinking even a greater one: "Oh, Augustus, to recognize the celestial in the terrestrial and by virtue of that recognition to bring it to earthly shape as a formed work or a formed word, or even as a formed deed, this is the essence of the true symbol; it stamps the primal image within and without, containing it and being contained by it, just as your state, filled by the Roman spirit, lies embedded in that very spirit; and born by the celestial which it represents, nay more, which has entered into it, the symbol itself comes to outlast time, growing as time endures, growing to death-annulling truth, of which it has been the symbol from the very beginning . .."

  "So that is what the genuine metaphor is like . . ."—Caesar seemed to consider this, although with the look of one who is unable to grasp something—"The symbol which has more than a superficial meaning . . ."

  "Yes, the genuine metaphor, which is the lasting one, the genuine work of art, the genuine state . . . the enduring truth within the metaphor."

  "I cannot test the validity of these conditions . . . they are very complicated."

  Caesar did not have to verify anything. There was no use in checking upon what one did not grasp, one had merely to accept it, even though one were Caesar: "You have founded peace and order; on the ground prepared by your deed, every perceptive deed of the future will unfold to an annulment of death, and your work, already a symbol, is growing out to meet it ... is that not enough for you, Caesar Augustus?"

  At this Caesar smiled thoughtfully, meanwhile preparing to leave: "This is all very long-winded . . . doesn't it belong to the commentary that we wanted to keep for Maecenas?"

  "Perhaps ... I do not know ... yes .. ."—Why did Caesar not go away, since he wished already to be gone? yes, all of this was extremely long-winded, extremely tiring, extremely strenuous, and really one should put it off to some future meeting with Maecenas, or perhaps altogether. Defer it for a long time. Softly the wall-fountain trickled, and its trickling echo was trickling everywhere, trickling deeply down toward the sea, trickling on to the nocturnal waves of the sea and turning into a wave itself, a white-crested wave in the darkness, it held a trickling conversation with the voice of Plotia which floated mutely inaudible above the trickling sound gleaming silverly through the night, waiting for Caesar to be gone, waiting for the loneliness of the night. Was this the night? oh, how hard it was to open one's eyes again. Oh, to put off both day and night.

  But notwithstanding his initial leavetaking, Caesar suddenly was no longer in a hurry; he seemed to be considering some other request and abruptly sat down again; he sat there like someone who meant neither to stay long nor to leave immediately, veering a l
ittle toward the edge of the chair, his arm hanging over the back, and after remaining silent for a while he said: "Possibly so . . . possibly all that you say is right . . . but one cannot live in a chaos of symbols."

  "To live . . . ?" was this still the question? was there still a concern for life? round about was the soft and enticing trickling—, to live, oh, to live on, so that one would be able to die.

  Who had to decide that? whose voice was the decisive one? Plotia's silence held.

  But Augustus said: "Let us not forget that there is a reality, even though we are limited to metaphor in expressing it and giving it shape ... we are alive . . . and that is reality, simple reality."

  Life was to be grasped only in metaphor, and metaphor could express itself only in metaphor; the chain of metaphor was endless and death alone was without metaphor, death to which this chain reached, as though death, even though lying outside it, were its last link, and as though all metaphors had been shaped simply for the sake of death, in order to grasp its lack of metaphor despite all, aye, as if language could regain its native simplicity from death alone, as if there lay the birthplace of earth's simple language, the most earthly and yet the most divine of symbols: in all human language death smiled. And now Plotia spoke: "Reality is mute, and we shall live in its muteness; go forward into reality, I shall follow you."

  "To go forward through the chain of metaphors, to move into increasing timelessness . . . metaphor turning to metaphor, which in turn becomes reality . . . dying without death . . ."

  Now Caesar smiled: "Yes, that is a very circumstantial kind of reality . . . are you serious in thinking that reality is subject to such involved conditions? I see scarcely any difference between them and those you have imposed on metaphor . . ."

  Though Caesar was sitting so near, his voice broke through from a strangely immeasurable distance, but not less strangely and from a distance still greater, if possible, came his own words although from an opposite direction: "The metaphor of reality and the reality of metaphor ... oh, only at the very end does the one merge into the other ..."