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Tuesday
One of my favorite bloggers is Greg Olear at Prevail because he periodically applies literature to current events. Recently he alerted me to a great lyric by Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, who gives us advice about how to handle dictatorial regimes. He knows whereof he speaks, having lived in Poland under first Hitler and then Stalin and the Soviet Union. We may well need his guidance in the coming years.
In “The Envoy of Mr. Cogito” Herbert begins by setting the parameters of what we are to do when authoritarians control our lives: we must be like Jason and the Argonauts, who sought the golden fleece. Unlike the Greek myth, however, the fleece is described as “nothingness,” which captures the major theme of the poem: Herbert is counseling us to do what is right, even if it doesn’t achieve the results we want. The quest is more important than the attainment.
This is important as we see many already bending the knee to Donald Trump, despite the uncertain attainments to be gained in doing so. These include multiple figures in the corporate media, who are “obeying in advance,” thereby violating historian Timothy Snyder’s #1 rule about dealing with dictator wannabes. Herbert counsels us to “go upright among those who are on their knees” and also “among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust.”
I’m thinking that the backs are turned to avoid meeting our eyes—“eyes one dare not meet,” T.S. Eliot writes in “The Hollow Men”—while those toppled may be past tyrants. The important thing is to maintain one’s moral compass.
You were saved from corruption, Herbert informs us, “not in order to live” but in order to bear witness. He tells us to
be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous
in the final account only this is important
As the poem progresses, Herbert calls for anger and scorn to be directed at “the informers executioners cowards” who insult and beat down others. And although the oppressors may ultimately throw lumps of dirt as our caskets are lowered into the earth while rewriting our biographies to remove our critical comments, Herbert assures that winning is not the end goal. Nor should we forgive because “it is not in your power/ to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn.”
By this point in the poem, Herbert realizes he runs the risk of counseling us to become self-righteous judges so he shifts. “Beware however of unnecessary pride,” he says, and then, as a humbling exercise, he advises us to “keep looking at your clown’s face in the mirror.” He even questions (like Moses) why he himself has been called to deliver the message. “Weren’t there better ones than I,” he asks.
Since perpetual anger can hollow out even the most committed idealists, turning them into dry and bitter souls, Herbert reminds to focus on life’s tiny blessings:
beware of dryness of heart love the morning spring
the bird with an unknown name the winter oak
light on a wall the splendor of the sky
they don’t need your warm breath
they are there to say: no one will console you
be vigilant—when the light on the mountains gives the sign—arise and go
as long as blood turns in the breast your dark star
And then Herbert tells us again that the journey is not ultimately about attainment. It’s about holding on to our humanity as we cross the desert.
repeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends
because this is how you will attain the good you will not attain
repeat great words repeat them stubbornly
like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand
In many ways, this is not a comfortable poem. In fact, whether through mockery or through violence, the “informers executioners cowards” will punish those who take principled stands. Herbert ends with an image of cold skulls and of heroes who, while they died heroically, nevertheless died. Hector and Roland were killed while fighting in hopeless battles while Gilgamesh learned that immortality is out of his reach:
and they will reward you with what they have at hand
with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap
go because only in this way will you be admitted to the company of cold skulls
to the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland
the defenders of the kingdom without limit and the city of ashes
So is life a kingdom without limit or a city of ashes? Fortunately for us, the marching orders are the same in both cases. In the end, Herbert tells us what we must do to live a meaningful and authentic life:
Be faithful Go
Here’s the poem in its entirety:
The Envoy of Mr. Cogito
By Zbigniew Herbert
Trans. by Bogdana and John Carpenter
Go where those others went to the dark boundary
for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize
go upright among those who are on their knees
among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust
you were saved not in order to live
you have little time you must give testimony
be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous
in the final account only this is important
and let your helpless Anger be like the sea
whenever you hear the voice of the insulted and beaten
let your sister Scorn not leave you
for the informers executioners cowards—they will win
they will go to your funeral and with relief will throw a lump of earth
the woodborer will write your smoothed-over biography
and do not forgive truly it is not in your power
to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn
beware however of unnecessary pride
keep looking at your clown’s face in the mirror
repeat: I was called—weren’t there better ones than I
beware of dryness of heart love the morning spring
the bird with an unknown name the winter oak
light on a wall the splendor of the sky
they don’t need your warm breath
they are there to say: no one will console you
be vigilant—when the light on the mountains gives the sign—arise and go
as long as blood turns in the breast your dark star
repeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends
because this is how you will attain the good you will not attain
repeat great words repeat them stubbornly
like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand
and they will reward you with what they have at hand
with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap
go because only in this way will you be admitted to the company of cold skulls
to the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland
the defenders of the kingdom without limit and the city of ashes
Be faithful Go
Olear tells us that Robert Haas wrote that Herbert was “an ironist and a minimalist who writes as if it were the task of the poet, in a world full of loud lies, to say what is irreducibly true in a level voice.” It wasn’t easy to do so in the years of German and Soviet rule, but Herbert didn’t sign up for easy.
