2 ?b90

352
refinado su t4cnica de medici6n temporal" (13,630) as if she is no longer
needed; we know that Alberto's and DoTia Augusta's deaths are intimately
connected3, but that of Oppiano Licario is by no means final. The older
Cemi (Oppiano Licario) is saved by creative childhood memories which lead
to the completion of a great work, in this case Paradiso,. Life comes from
death once again. The inspiration, the childhood sense of lejania (tao)
is rediscovered when the final meeting takes place. The spirit of Oppiano
Licario is resurrected in. Oppiano Licario (published in 1977 and beyond the
scope of the present study). The deaths of poet and Muse do not signify
that of poetry itself, which is to find its new champion in Cemi who comes
to life at the moment when Lezama begins his novel. Like the man who rea-
lizes later in life that the experience of waiting for inspiration has re-
created it for him, Oppiano Licario begins to return to childhood before
death: "el exquisito animal para lo temporal habia regresado al virtuosismo
infantil
...
" (13,630), recalling games which "le presagiaba desde temprano
las sublimaciones de El fcaro";
these memories seem to swallow him up: "Se
sentila por esos difas como unos apresuramientos de la sangre y en la mente
un anublamiento
de instantes
...
to (1,631). Time appears to be conquering
him and in his dream of Icarus in the waves he is seen by the fisherman as
one of those undesirable "monstruos de tierra" (1,, 632)., a sign of his fall
back to Earth and death.
Oppiano Licario's last words, "Davum, davum esse2 non Oedipum"(I, 632),
have caused much controversy. Lezama attributes them originally to Descar-
tes, which Fazzolari accepts, interpreting Dav-um as the name of a slave and
deciding
that:
Hay pues, una declaraci6n y un rechazo. La declaraci6n
es: el hombre es un esclavo en la tierra C ...
1 el rechazo
puede que sea ... un adi6s a la materia, ya que Edipo
es el hombre casado con su madre, esto es, con la materia.
Con estas palabras Oppiano Licario nos quiere decir: somos
esclavos de la materia; al morir nos liberamos y podemos
llegar a la visi6n de la gloria y al conocimiento infinito.
35