Unicorn

The unicorn is a mythical creature that appears in the illuminated manuscripts of the abbey's library, serving as a symbol of Christ, chastity, and the tension between literal truth and allegorical meaning. Its depiction and interpretation become a central subject of a philosophical dialogue between William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk, revealing the novel's deep engagement with semiotics, the nature of truth, and the relationship between books and reality.

Appearance and Symbolism in the Library

In the library's labyrinth, Adso of Melk encounters a unicorn in a manuscript titled De bestiis, a book of beasts. The illustration is described as "very beautiful," depicting a unicorn on a delicately illuminated page. This encounter occurs in the south tower, an area designated "LEONES" (lions), which houses books the library's creators considered works of falsehood, including texts by infidel authors and works on monstrous animals. The unicorn is thus placed among monsters and falsehoods, a categorization that puzzles Adso, who knows the unicorn as "the sweetest of animals and a noble symbol" standing for Christ and chastity. The creature is said to be captured only by setting a virgin in the forest, where the animal, catching her most chaste odor, will lay its head in her lap, offering itself as prey to the hunters' snares. This traditional allegory presents the unicorn as a symbol of purity and divine love, a meaning that contrasts sharply with its location in the library's "Africa" of falsehoods.

William's Critique of Literal Truth

William of Baskerville challenges Adso's belief in the unicorn's literal truth, using the creature to illustrate his semiotic and epistemological method. He explains that many tend to believe the unicorn is a fable, an invention of the pagans. He recounts a Venetian traveler who saw unicorns in distant lands, near the fons paradisi, but found them "rough and clumsy, and very ugly and black." William suggests this traveler likely saw a real animal with one horn, which ancient masters first described faithfully. This description, however, passed from authority to authority and was transformed through successive imaginative exercises, becoming the fanciful, white, gentle unicorn of the books. The ancient masters did not receive a revelation of the unicorn's true nature but had the experience of seeing it. This leads Adso to question how one can trust ancient wisdom if it is handed down by lying books that have interpreted it with such license.

The Unicorn as a Sign of Signs

William's response to Adso's crisis of faith forms the core of his philosophy of reading. He states, "Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry." The unicorn, as these books speak of him, embodies a moral, allegorical, or analogical truth that remains true—the idea that chastity is a noble virtue. However, the literal truth that sustains these higher truths must be discussed. The literal object must be questioned, even if its higher meaning remains good. William uses the example of a book stating that a diamond can be cut only with a billy goat's blood, which his master Roger Bacon proved false by trying and failing. Yet, if the relation between a diamond and goat's blood had a nobler meaning, that meaning would remain intact. The unicorn, therefore, is like a print in the snow. If the print exists, there must have existed something whose print it is, even if that something is different from the print. The print may reproduce the impression a body has left in the mind: it is the print of an idea. The image is a sign of the idea, which is itself a sign of things. From the image, one can reconstruct not the body, but the idea others had of it. True learning, however, must not be content with ideas, which are signs, but must discover things in their individual truth. William desires to go back from this print of a print to the individual unicorn that stands at the beginning of the chain, just as he wants to go back from the vague signs left by a murderer to the sole individual, the murderer himself. This is not always possible in a short time and without the help of other signs.

The Unicorn and the Nature of Possible Worlds

Adso expresses grief at the thought that the unicorn might not exist, or never existed, or cannot exist one day. William consoles him by invoking divine omnipotence: "It is not licit to impose confines on divine omnipotence, and if God so willed, unicorns could also exist." He adds that unicorns exist in the books, which, if they do not speak of real existence, speak of possible existence. When Adso asks if one must then read books without faith, a theological virtue, William counters that there are two other theological virtues: hope that the possible is, and charity toward those who believed in good faith that the possible was. The unicorn is useful to the intellect even if it does not believe in it, just as Venantius's prints in the snow were useful after he was dragged to the pigs' tub. The unicorn of the books is like a print. If the print exists, there must have existed something whose print it is, even if it is different from the print. Adso then asks if he can always and only speak of something that speaks to him of something else, and so on, questioning whether the final, true something ever exists. William answers, "Perhaps it does: it is the individual unicorn. And don't worry: one of these days you will encounter it, however black and ugly it may be." This final remark encapsulates the novel's central tension: the pursuit of a singular, concrete truth through a world of signs, where the ultimate reality may be far stranger and less idealized than the comforting symbols one has inherited.