"The plague is a metaphor for evil. Of evil that comes from outside, or from above, like the arrows shot by Apollo at the Greeks leaving for Troy. But also, and above all, of evil that arises and grows within us. Within the world and from the world. Rooted in that nature that both envelops us and constitutes us as finite, fragile beings, exposed to the icy wind of death."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roberto_Esposito