Auden's O: The Loss of One's Sovereignty in the Making of Nothing

Epicycle

Epicycle “Nothing will come of nothing” Parmenides, the Eleatic philosopher predating Socrates, handed this famous circularity to the West. From nothing comes nothing. Or as Parmenides said more tautologically, nothing is not. This seems patently clear, at least in terms of basic logic. But the idea keeps returning, keeps haunting us, as if there remains something unresolved in it, something more than pure tautology . Philosophers and theologians, ever since Parmenides, have continued to grapple with it, whether Aristotle in his Physics, or the Scholastics in its Latin form (nihil ex nihil fit), or Leibniz’s altered version, “Nothing is without reason”(nihil est sine ratione). Most people today, however, know the saying from a source other than philosophy: from the injudicious Lear, who says to his youngest and favored daughter Cordelia in the opening scene of Shakespeare’s tragedy: “Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.” In response to her father’s solicitations, Cordelia has said nothing. Literally, “Nothing.” “Nothing?,” Lear asks dumbfoundedly. “Nothing.” But nothing can possibly come from nothing, says Lear, summoning the many great minds before him. Or, might Lear be overlooking something? Aristotle himself wondered this, and agreed with the statement only after some qualification. Few remember the philosopher’s qualifications. But many remember the plight of Lear. For Lear is himself reduced to nothing. And only then does he see that Cordelia’s “nothing” was in fact the fullest , the most meaningful response of all the daughters. According to the playwright, then, something might indeed come of nothing. Or nothing is a place where things of a deep nature might come to be known. By tending to concepts, the philosopher and theologian focus on the substantive nature of the subject and its predicate, in this case “nothing.” By attending to drama, the playwright focuses on the action of the verb, “will come.” Substantively, nothing is . . . nothing. Actively, something will come, even if it is nothing. Parmenides says nothing is not possible, so let us not speak about it. Shakespeare says nothing will come, even from nothing, so let us speak again. And so the “nothing” of Cordelia speaks again and again throughout the play, until it ripens in its nothing as “something.” This coming to ripeness is what the following pages will explore. xi The primary question in this movement, this ripening, is about sovereignty . Who has the better claim, the higher authority, on nothing? Conceptually , and traditionally, it has been the philosopher/theologian. And he—it has almost exclusively been a he—has exercised that claim and authority by trying to rid us of nothing. The poet, on the other hand, has always seen the profound irony in that gesture: if nothing is truly nothing, there is nothing to rid. So let it be, and make nothing of it. But how, puzzles the philosopher, can you make nothing be? By making nothing of nothing, responds the poet. But how, asks the theologian, can you make nothing, and make it from nothing, without encroaching upon the divine office (creatio ex nihilo)? By letting go of sovereignty, says the poet. And both philosopher and theologian here have the poet banished. Let us tell a story of a banished king. This king makes a poor initial choice in dividing up his kingdom between two ingratiating children. His blatant folly lies in inviting the ingratiation as a measure and pageantry of his reward. A third child says nothing. The first two, over the course of time, strip their father of his sovereignty. The third maintains her love and loyalty, but the king cannot see this until he is stripped down to the barest of beings, in a nakedness that is at once physical, mental, psychological, existential, spiritual. By then it is too late—events have overtaken the possibility of regaining any of his loss, and he dies with nothing, neither his beloved third child, nor his other two children, nor his restored kingdom and sovereignty. But something arises from this nothing: the recognition, the tragic recognition, that his third child said volumes in her nothing. That her nothing bore love, bore devotion, bore the honor due a sovereign. The paradox is that this honor, nothing’s honor, reaches its height only when sovereignty has slid from its place. What if we used this story as an allegory of the history of nothing itself? Parmenides would tell us that nothing cannot have a history. The poet would tell us to invent such a history. The poet would translate the...