W.H. Auden's "The Labyrinth"

The Labyrinth
W.H. Auden

Anthropos apteros for days
Walked whistling round and round the Maze
Relying happily upon
His temperament for getting on.

The hundredth time he sighted, though,
A bush he left an hour ago,
He halted where four alleys crossed
And recognized that he was lost.


Auden's poem, "The Labyrinth," poses meaningful questions about man's perennial tendency to endlessly seek meaning and cleave to the partial, sometimes ill-defined answers about life at which he arrives. Anthopos apteros literally means "wingless man" and is an apt description of our blind state as we stumble and learn through experience. Initially, we find wingless man happy in his ability to perpetuate his existence through adaptability and responsiveness to his environment. Yet eventually, he realizes that he's not getting anywhere, a state that humans are hardly comfortable with, and so he moves into existentialist conjecture, or the landscape of his mind.

"Where am I?" Metaphysics says.
No question can be asked unless
It has an answer so I can
Assume this maze has got a plan.

If theologians are correct,
A Plan implies an Architect,
A God-built maze would be, I'm sure,
The Universe in miniature.

Auden continues in this vein for eleven stanzas, referencing philosophical, mathematical and scientific schools of thought; but for all wingless man's triumphant thinking, he is still lost and unsatisfied. And so he goes on, until finally he decides that the answer is within himself, but not where he expected. It's located in the dark, gooey side, the scary subconscious that speaks in whispers and symbols, confounding and infuriating the conscious mind so much so that the ego decides it would rather avoid its twin aspect and face life alone. Only after the ego is thwarted in its solitary standing and finally becomes exhausted does it face its whole self.

The centre that I cannot find
Is known to my Unconscious Mind;
I have no reason to despair
Because I am already there.

And so, having come this far, wingless man walks the labyrinth of life holding within him the possibility of becoming comfortable knowing in a not-knowing manner, his chance of discovering that the answers lie within, which, ironically, would allow him to claim greater authority, autonomy and integrity in his life, arises; and there is now the potential for him to determine with enhanced understanding whether he is truly lost, to discover how to be comfortable with the "lost" process, recognizing by giving up the illusion of control, that the "lost" process is also the "found" process.

I'm only lost until I see
I'm lost because I want to be.

But in the end, wingless man remains tragically perplexed, certain that his physical surroundings are greater than he is and wishing he could turn into a creature capable of flying far away. The bird, for its part, as no idea what wingless man is chattering on about, and so wingless man ends up alone and earthbound, having rejected all the answers at his disposal and still lacking understanding of the journey of the labyrinth.

My knowledge ends where it began.
A hedge is taller than a man.

Anthopos apteros, perplexed
To know which turning to take next
Looked up and wished he were a bird,
To whom such doubts must seem absurd.

In these last lines, Auden affords the bird greater wisdom than the human. What the bird knows that wingless man has yet to realize is that to fly, you simply do it. The labyrinth is a "just do it" kind of thing. It's experiential. Like life and breathing. Doubts cripple flight.