And then the body intervenes.
Age, sickness, decay, forbid attainment.

Life is inadequate to joy.

What have the gods done?
It cannot be their malice, no, nor carelessness; but--to let us see oceans of joy, and only give us power to hold a cupful--is that to live?
It is misery, and the more of joy my artist nature makes me capable of feeling, the deeper my misery.
"But then, O king, thou sayest 'that I leave behind me works that will live; works, too, which paint the joy of life.' Yes, but to show what the joy of life is, is not to have it.

If I carve the young Phoebus, am I therefore young?
I can write odes of the delight of love, but grown too grey to be beloved, can I have its delight?
That fair slave of yours, and the rower with the muscles all a ripple on his back who lowers the sail in the bay, can write no love odes nor can they paint the joy of love; but they can have it--not I." The knowledge, he thinks, of what joy is, of all that life can give, which increases in the artist as his feebleness increases, makes his fate the deadlier.

What is it to him that his works live?
He does not live.