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Looking for an object in the British Museum to serve as an emblem for this talk.

I came across the bronze medal of Erasmus made in Antwer in 1519 by the artist Conteimates.

On the front of the medal, there is a portrait of Erasmus in profile.

On the reverse, the smiling bust of Terminus, the Roman god of boundaries, and the words

concedo nulla are yield to no one. It said that Erasmus kept a figurine of the God terminus on his desk. He wrote,

Out of a profane God, I have made myself a symbol exhorting decency in life, for death is the

real terminus that yields to no one. To lecture on Wagner under the watchful eye of the God terminus

seemed like a very good idea.

As a tutelary spirit, he might help set limits to an impossibly large subject, as well as reminding me not to keep you here all night.

But if it has been prudent to keep the God in mind, it has also seemed appropriate, since like anyone who has spent time thinking about Wagner, I have inevitably come back to the subject of boundaries and limits,

and in particular to questions about the boundary that lies between Wagner's works and his listeners,

and about the experience apparently not uncommon,

of that boundary becoming blurred or even disappearing altogether,

an experience that may hold a clue to the feeling also not uncommon,

that Wagner's work is in some sense not altogether good for us.

It's hard to imagine Wagner keeping a statuette of terminus on his desk except to mock.

Respecting boundaries was not his thing. Transgression he took in his stride, stealing other men's wives when he needed them, borrowing money from people without bothering to pay it back,

while artistically his ambitions knew no bounds. There's something quite all inspiring about

his productivity under hostile conditions.

The way, though living on the breadline, he turned out masterpieces

when there was no reasonable prospect of any of them being performed.

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