The Death of Virgil Quotes

“...in the intoxication of falling, man was prone to believe himself propelled upward.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“… for overstrong was the command to hold fast to each smallest particle of time, to the smallest particle of every circumstance, and to embody all of them in memory as if they could be preserved in memory through all deaths for all times.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“...he knew of the innermost danger of all artists, he knew the utter loneliness of the man destined to be an artist, he knew the inherent loneliness which drove such a one into the still deeper loneliness of art and into the beauty that cannot be articulated, and he knew that for the most part such men were shattered by this immolation, that it made them blind, blind to the world, blind to the divine quality in the world and in the fellow-man, that--intoxicated by their loneliness--they were able to see only their own god-likeness, which they imagined to be unique, and consequently this self-idolatry and its greed for recognition came more and more to be the sole content of their work--, a betrayal of the divine as well as of art, because in this fashion the work of art became a work of un-art, an unchaste covering for artistic vanity, so spurious that even the artist's self-complacent nakedness which it exposed became a mask; and even though such unchaste self-gratification, such dalliance with beauty, such concern with effects, even though such an un-art might, despite its brief unrenewable grant, its inextensible boundaries, find an easier way to the populace than real art ever found, it was only a specious way, a way out of the loneliness, but not, however, an affiliation with the human community, which was the aim of real art in its aspiration toward humanity, no, it was the affiliation with the mob, it was a participation in its treacherous non-community, which was incapable of the pledge, which neither created nor mastered any reality, and which was unwilling to do so, preferring only to drowse on, forgetting reality, having forfeited it as had un-art and literarity, this was the most profound danger for every artist; oh how painfully, how very painfully he knew this.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“Orpheus chose to be the leader of mankind. Ah, not even Orpheus had attained such a goal, not even his immortal greatness had justified such vain and presumptuous dreams of grandeur, such flagrant overestimation of poetry! Certainly many instances of earthly beauty--a song, the twilit sea, the tone of the lyre, the voice of a boy, a verse, a statue, a column, a garden, a single flower--all possess the divine faculty of making man hearken unto the innermost and outermost boundaries of his existence, and therefore it is not to be wondered at that the lofty art of Orpheus was esteemed to have the power of diverting the streams from their beds and changing their courses, of luring the wild beasts of the forest with tender dominance, of arresting the cattle a-browse upon the meadows and moving them to listen, caught in the dream and enchanted, the dreamwish of all art: the world compelled to listen, ready to receive the song and its salvation. However, even had Orpheus achieved his aim, the help lasts no longer than the song, nor does the listening, and on no account might the song resound too long, otherwise the streams would return to their old courses, the wild beasts of the forest would again fall upon and slay the innocent beasts of the field, and man would revert again to his old, habitual cruelty; for not only did no intoxication last long, and this was likewise true of beauty's spell, but furthermore, the mildness to which men and beasts had yielded was only half of the intoxication of beauty, while the other half, not less strong and for the most part far stronger, was of such surpassing and terrible cruelty--the most cruel of men delights himself with a flower--that beauty, and before all the beauty born of art, failed quickly of its effect if in disregard of the reciprocal balance of its two components it approached man with but one of them.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“… that in the chain of memory into which we are forged the first links should be the strongest, as if they, just they, were the most real reality.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“WAS THERE STILL SOMETHING MURMURING? WAS IT still the kind murmuring of Plotius, protecting and kind and strong? oh, Plotius, oh, that it might endure, oh, that it might endure murmuringly, quiet and quieting, welling up from the unfathomable depths within and without, now that the labor was over, now that the labor sufficed, now that nothing need follow, oh, that it might go on forever! and verily it went on, murmuring and murmuring, rolling in softly in endlessness, murmur-wave after murmur-wave, each of them tiny yet all of them radiating in a boundless cycle; it was simply there, no sort of hearkening, no effort whatsoever was needed to hold on to it, indeed this murmurousness was not to be held onto, for it strove onward, mingled with the trickling of the fountain, with the trickling of the waters, merged with them in the vast and colorless might of a rest-bearing stream, itself the thing carried, itself rest, itself a moving stream, softly lapping the keel and sides of the boat with slithering foam.”
― Hermann Broch, Death of Virgil

“the people cheer behind any victor; they love the victory, not the man.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“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.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“I am coming to the end; ah, it is only when we begin to long for death that we really desire life, and in me the undermining, the frame-slackening process of an avidity for death goes on, never pausing, as far back as I can remember, clamoring ceaselessly, thus have I always felt it, anxiety for life and anxiety for death together, in these many nights on the threshold of which I have stood, on the strand of nights and more nights that have gushed past me, the awareness of them gushing and swelling, knowledge of separation and farewell that had its beginning with the dusk, and it was dying, every sort of dying, that coursed past me, grazing me with its mounting flood, saturating me, encircling me, coming from without yet born from within me, my own dying: only the dying understand communion, understand love, understand the interrealm, only in the dusk and at farewell do we understand sleep whose darkest communion is without wantoness, not until farewell do we know that our departure will be followed by no return, not until then do we recognize the seed of wantoness which lies embeded in returning and only in returning; ah, my little nightmate, you too will understand this one day, you will wait on the thresholding shore, on the shore of your interrealm, on the shore of farewell and dusk, and your ship too will be ready for flight, for that proud flight which is called awakening, and from which there is no return.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“Du bist immer allzu bescheiden gewesen, Vergil, doch kein Mann falscher Bescheidenheit; es ist mir klar, daß du deine Gaben absichtlich schlecht machen willst, um sie uns schließlich hinterrücks zu entziehen.'

Nun war es ausgespochen, ach, nun war es ausgesprochen – unbeirrbar und hart ging der Cäsar auf sein Ziel los, un nichts wird ihn hindern, die Manuskripte zu rauben: 'Octavian, laß mir das Gedicht!'

'Sehr richtig, Vergil, das ist es ... Lucius Varius und Plotius Tucca haben mir von deinem erschreckenden Vorhaben berichtet, und gleich ihnen wollte ich es nicht glauben ... gedenkst du tatsächlich deine Werke zu vernichten?'

Schweigen breitete sich im Raume aus, ein strenges Schweigen, das fahl und dünnstrichig konturiert in dem nachdenklich strengen Gesicht des Cäsars seinen Mittelpunkt hatte. Im Nirgendwo klagte etwas sehr leise und auch dies so dünn und geradlinig wie die Falte zwischen des Augustus Augen, dessen Blick auf ihn ruhte.

'Du schweigst', sagte der Cäsar, 'und dies heißt wohl, daß du dein Geschenk tatsächlich zurückziehen willst ... bedenke, Vergil, es ist die Äneis! deine Freunde sind sehr betrübt, und ich, du weißt es, ich rechne mich zu ihnen.'

Plotias leises Klagen wurde vernehmlicher; dünn aneinandergereiht, betonungslos kamen die Worte: 'Vernichte die Dichtung, gib mir dein Schicksal; wir müssen uns lieben.'

Das Gedicht vernichten, Plotia lieben, Freund dem Freunde sein, seltsam überzeugend fügte sich Verlockung an Verlokkung, und doch war es nicht Plotia, die daran teilnehmen durfte: 'Oh, Augustus, es geschieht um unserer Freundschaft willen; dringe nicht in mich.'

'Freundschaft? ... du sprichst, als ob wir, deine Freunde, unwert wären, dein Geschenk zu behalten.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“The deed is the task of time; not the word, not art; time asks only for the perceptive deed.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“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.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“the barbarian whose piety betokens growth is better than the Roman whose soul shuts itself against growing.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“Genuine art bursts through boundaries, bursts through and treads new and hitherto unknown realms of the soul, of conception, of expression, bursting through into the original, into the immediate, into the real...”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“art's despair, its despairing attempt to build up the imperishable from things that perish, from words, from sounds, from stones, from colors, so that space, being formed, might outlast time as a memorial bearing beauty to the coming generations, art building space into every production, building the immortal in space but not in men — wherefore it lacked growth, wherefore it was bound to the perfection of mere repetition without growth, bound to an unattainable perfection of mere repetition without growth, bound to an unattainable perfection and becoming more desperate as it came nearer perfection, constrained to return constantly into its own beginning which was its end, and hence pitiless, pitiless toward human sorrow which meant no more to art than passing existence, no more than a word, a stone, a sound, or a color to be used for exploring and revealing beauty in unending repetition”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“for even though man was so fated to disappointment, delivered over to every sort of disappointment in great things as in small, his labor in vain, fruitless in the past and hopeless in the future, and even though disappointment might have chased him on from impatience to impatience, from restlessness to restlessness, fleeing death, seeking death, seeking work, fleeing work, harassed and loving and again harassed, fate-driven from one perception to another, driven away from the erstwhile life of simple creative work toward all the diveristy of knowledge, driven on toward poetry and to the further exploration of the oldest and most occult wisdom, impatient for knowledge, impatient for truth, then driven back to poetry as if it could be related to death in a final fulfillment—oh, this too was disappointment, this too the wrong path—, oh, even though this had been such an utterly wrong path, aye, simply a wrong path that was and is, aye, even less than a wrong path with hardly an attempt toward the first step and that gone astray before the start, oh, even though his whole life seemed so utterly shipwrecked and remained so shipwrecked, so clogged by shortcomings from the very beginning, damned to founder for ever and aye, since nothing was fitted to penetrate the thicket, since the mortal never came through it, since fumbling about motionless on the spot, bound to despair and disappointment, he remained in bondage to every frightfulness of error, oh, nevertheless and nevertheless, nothing had occured without necessity, nothing occurs without necessity, because the necessity of the human soul, the necessity of the human task overruled every circumstance, even the wrong road, even the error”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“Flight, oh, flight! oh, dusk, the hour of poetry. For poetry was contemplative waiting in the twilight, poetry was the night-foreboding abyss, was lingering on the threshold, was at once participation and loneliness, was intermingling and the fear of intermingling, unwanton in intermingling, as unwanton as the dream of the slumbering herds and yet the fear of wantoness; oh, poetry was anticipation but not quite departure, yet it was an enduring farewell.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“What we seek is submerged and we should not seek it as it mocks us by its very undiscoverability.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“Greater than the earth is light, greater than man is the earth, and man's existence avails him nothing until he breathes his native air, returning to the earth, through earth returning to the light, an earthly being receiving the light on earth, received in turn by the light only through earth, earth changing to light. And never was the earth nearer the heart of light, nor light closer to the earth than in the approaching dusk at the two boundaries of night.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“But what would that accomplish? Nothing availed the poet, he could right no wrongs; he is heeded only if he extols the world, never if he portrays it as it is. Only falsehood wins renown, not understanding!”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“Çünkü aslında hiçbir şey gelmiyordu şairin elinden, hiçbir kötülüğün ortadan kaldırılmasına yardımcı olamıyordu; yalnızca dünyayı ihtişama boğup yücelttiğinde kulak veriliyordu ona, yoksa olduğu haliyle anlattığında değil. Sadece yalan, ünün ta kendisiydi, yoksa bilgi değil”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“piety is that knowledge by which men escape their inescapable loneliness; piety is seeing to the blind and hearing to the deef, piety is the perception of the simple...”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“in loving anything one transcends oneself.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“piety is the knowledge by which men escape their inescapable loneliness; piety is seeing to the blind and hearing to the deaf, piety is the perception of the simple”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“the power of the sword must stand behind the treaties in order that they shall not be broken.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“Hope desires co-hope, and even the loneliness of your heart is but the one lone hope of your beginning.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“the disclosure of the divine through the self-perceptive knowledge of the individual soul, this was the task of art, its human duty, its perceptive duty and therefore its reason for being, the proof of which was art's nearness to death, and its duty, since only in this nearness might art become real, only thus unfolding into a symbol of the human soul”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“the dream-wish of all art: the world compelled to listen, ready to receive the song and its salvation.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“But earthly and at hand, yet strangely connected to the spheres, the fire behind the walls continued to crackle faintly, and though often it too ebbed off into something like echo, and into the invisible, it too taking its place in the chain of images and more images, it was like a pledge confirming the human effort, pointing to the earthly source of the titanic will for unity born into the human soul; it was like a demand upon perception to turn toward earth and earthly things to find there its strength for renewal, the Promethean element that stems from regions here below and not from those above.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil

“Oh, human certainty, knowing that nothing has happened in vain, that nothing was happening in vain, although disappointment seems to be all, and no way leads out of the thicket; oh, certainty, knowing that even when the way turns to evil the knowledge gained by experience has grown, remaining as an increment of knowledge in the world, remaining as the cool-bright reflection of the estate beyond chance to which the earthly action of man can penetrate whenever it conforms to the necessity determined by perception and attains in this way a first illumination of earthbound life and its herdlike sleep. Oh, certainty full of trust, not streaming hither from heaven but arising as on it—, then must not fulfillment of certain trust, if fulfillment be at all possible, be realized here on earth? the necessary is always consummated in the simple way of earth, the streaming round of questions will always find its closure only upon earth, even through the perceptive task may concern itself with uniting the separate spheres of the universe, still there is no genuine task without earthly roots, none possible of solution without an earthly starting point.”
― Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil