HUNGARIAN STUDIES 11. No. 1. Nemzetközi Magyar ... - EPA

152 LÁSZLÓ K. GÉFINThe intertext at first appears to underline the "liberation-theological"impatience with doctrine and no action. "Peace is no remedy for poison"alludes to the great 17th century poet and warrior, Count Miklós Zrínyi andhis tract on military strategy, A török áfium ellen való orvosság [A remedy forthe Turkish poison], and its famous motto proclaiming the antidote: "Fegyver,fegyver, fegyver kívántatik és jó vitézi resolutio" [We need arms, arms, arms,and strong military resolve]. But the resolution of Vitéz cannot advocate aresorting to arms: our very weapons would turn on us if we tried to use themon others. Zrínyi 's example is also an ironic reminder of the kind of resolvethat is no longer possible, for such a stance is part and parcel of that wholeand "rounded world" available solely to the "naive", undivided consciousness,the world the ironist had renounced the moment he knew he did not know.With the ground of the satire becoming itself groundless - in any event, theexample and teaching of Jesus are enclosed within "scripture," a writing - thenarrative returns to irony, but just as satiric parabases had earlier on invadedand perhaps "toned down" ironic poliphony, so in the final parts of the poem anew component enters, what may paradoxically be termed "post-ironic irony",somewhat analogous to what Paul de Man had named the "stance of wisdom." 7The ending of the Agnus Dei quoted above, but more explicitly the final part. Itemissa est, no longer harbor a nostalgia for lost wholeness, for a recuperation ofthe mode of being Kierkegaard had called "the knight of faith." The "postironicironic" consciousness cannot and will not renounce irony, but it moves toadjust it to make visible the ultimate end of its play, and all play, through therestful contemplation of death. The Ite missa est begins with a pun, or rather theliteral translation of "Tridentine" ("three-toothed") - "Menjetek: vége aháromfogú misének" [Go, the three-toothed mass is over] - and it continues tosustain the metaphor of the three teeth sinking into different substances. But theplay is also a recapitulation of the entire agnostic mass, the effects of the Latinmass on itself, and through it, the effect of Christianity on the narrative subject.The progression of the actions of the "teeth" - "Az első fog valódi húsbatépett"; "Lelket őröl a második fog"; "A harmadik fog bölcsességfog" [The firsttooth tore into real flesh; The second tooth grinds the soul; The third tooth iswisdom tooth] - is not fortuitous, but recalls, first, the psychology of the churchfathers and the units making up the total human being (somatic, psychic,pneumatic) and closely allied with it, the levels or layers of interpretationapplicable to scripture. According to Origen, "Just as the human being consistsof body, soul, and spirit, so does Holy Scripture, which God had inspired forman's salvation." 8 In spite of adhering to the order of the (submerged) religiousintertext, which being a parody, still invites an ironic reading, the final lines turnthe play against itself and affirms an order that contains both gnosis and agnosis: