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FOULIS - -13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET - -EDINBURGH: AND LONDON - -1910 - - - - - CONTENTS. - - BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION - AN ATTEMPT AT SELF-CRITICISM - FOREWORD TO RICHARD WAGNER - THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY - - - - -INTRODUCTION.[1] - - -Frederick Nietzsche was born at Röcken near Lützen, in the Prussian -province of Saxony, on the 15th of October 1844, at 10 a.m. The day -happened to be the anniversary of the birth of Frederick-William IV., -then King of Prussia, and the peal of the local church-bells which was -intended to celebrate this event, was, by a happy coincidence, just -timed to greet my brother on his entrance into the world. In 1841, -at the time when our father was tutor to the Altenburg Princesses, -Theresa of Saxe-Altenburg, Elizabeth, Grand Duchess of Olden-burg, and -Alexandra, Grand Duchess Constantine of Russia, he had had the honour -of being presented to his witty and pious sovereign. The meeting seems -to have impressed both parties very favourably; for, very shortly -after it had taken place, our father received his living at Röcken "by -supreme command." His joy may well be imagined, therefore, when a first -son was born to him on his beloved and august patron's birthday, and -at the christening ceremony he spoke as follows:--"Thou blessed month -of October!--for many years the most decisive events in my life have -occurred within thy thirty-one days, and now I celebrate the greatest -and most glorious of them all by baptising my little boy! O blissful -moment! O exquisite festival! O unspeakably holy duty! In the Lord's -name I bless thee!--With all my heart I utter these words: Bring me -this, my beloved child, that I may consecrate it unto the Lord. My son, -Frederick William, thus shalt thou be named on earth, as a memento of -my royal benefactor on whose birthday thou wast born!" - -Our father was thirty-one years of age, and our mother not quite -nineteen, when my brother was born. Our mother, who was the daughter -of a clergyman, was good-looking and healthy, and was one of a very -large family of sons and daughters. Our paternal grandparents, the -Rev. Oehler and his wife, in Pobles, were typically healthy people. -Strength, robustness, lively dispositions, and a cheerful outlook on -life, were among the qualities which every one was pleased to observe -in them. Our grandfather Oehler was a bright, clever man, and quite -the old style of comfortable country parson, who thought it no sin to -go hunting. He scarcely had a day's illness in his life, and would -certainly not have met with his end as early as he did--that is to say, -before his seventieth year--if his careless disregard of all caution, -where his health was concerned, had not led to his catching a severe -and fatal cold. In regard to our grand-mother Oehler, who died in her -eighty-second year, all that can be said is, that if all German women -were possessed of the health she enjoyed, the German nation would excel -all others from the standpoint of vitality. She bore our grandfather -eleven children; gave each of them the breast for nearly the whole of -its first year, and reared them all It is said that the sight of these -eleven children, at ages varying from nineteen years to one month, with -their powerful build, rosy cheeks, beaming eyes, and wealth of curly -locks, provoked the admiration of all visitors. Of course, despite -their extraordinarily good health, the life of this family was not -by any means all sunshine. Each of the children was very spirited, -wilful, and obstinate, and it was therefore no simple matter to keep -them in order. Moreover, though they always showed the utmost respect -and most implicit obedience to their parents--even as middle-aged -men and women--misunderstandings between themselves were of constant -occurrence. Our Oehler grandparents were fairly well-to-do; for our -grandmother hailed from a very old family, who had been extensive -land-owners in the neighbourhood of Zeitz for centuries, and her father -owned the baronial estate of Wehlitz and a magnificent seat near Zeitz -in Pacht. When she married, her father gave her carriages and horses, -a coachman, a cook, and a kitchenmaid, which for the wife of a German -minister was then, and is still, something quite exceptional. As a -result of the wars in the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, -our great-grandfather lost the greater part of his property. - -Our father's family was also in fairly comfortable circumstances, -and likewise very large. Our grandfather Dr. Nietzsche (D.D. and -Superintendent) married twice, and had in all twelve children, of whom -three died young. Our grandfather on this side, whom I never knew, -must certainly have been a distinguished, dignified, very learned -and reserved man; his second wife--our beloved grandmother--was an -active-minded, intelligent, and exceptionally good-natured woman. -The whole of our father's family, which I only got to know when they -were very advanced in years, were remarkable for their great power of -self-control, their lively interest in intellectual matters, and a -strong sense of family unity, which manifested itself both in their -splendid readiness to help one another and in their very excellent -relations with each other. Our father was the youngest son, and, thanks -to his uncommonly lovable disposition, together with other gifts, which -only tended to become more marked as he grew older, he was quite the -favourite of the family. Blessed with a thoroughly sound constitution, -as all averred who knew him at the convent-school in Rossleben, at -the University, or later at the ducal court of Altenburg, he was tall -and slender, possessed an undoubted gift for poetry and real musical -talent, and was moreover a man of delicate sensibilities, full of -consideration for his whole family, and distinguished in his manners. - -My brother often refers to his Polish descent, and in later years -he even instituted research-work with the view of establishing it, -which met with partial success. I know nothing definite concerning -these investigations, because a large number of valuable documents -were unfortunately destroyed after his breakdown in Turin. The family -tradition was that a certain Polish nobleman Nicki (pronounced Nietzky) -had obtained the special favour of Augustus the Strong, King of -Poland, and had received the rank of Earl from him. When, however, -Stanislas Leszcysski the Pole became king, our supposed ancestor became -involved in a conspiracy in favour of the Saxons and Protestants. He -was sentenced to death; but, taking flight, according to the evidence -of the documents, he was ultimately befriended by a certain Earl of -Brühl, who gave him a small post in an obscure little provincial town. -Occasionally our aged aunts would speak of our great-grandfather -Nietzsche, who was said to have died in his ninety-first year, and -words always seemed to fail them when they attempted to describe his -handsome appearance, good breeding, and vigour. Our ancestors, both on -the Nietzsche and the Oehler side, were very long-lived. Of the four -pairs of great-grandparents, one great-grandfather reached the age of -ninety, five great-grandmothers and-fathers died between eighty-two and -eighty-six years of age, and two only failed to reach their seventieth -year. - -The sorrow which hung as a cloud over our branch of the family -was our father's death, as the result of a heavy fall, at the age -of thirty-eight. One night, upon leaving some friends whom he had -accompanied home, he was met at the door of the vicarage by our little -dog. The little animal must have got between his feet, for he stumbled -and fell backwards down seven stone steps on to the paving-stones -of the vicarage courtyard. As a result of this fall, he was laid up -with concussion of the brain, and, after a lingering illness, which -lasted eleven months, he died on the 30th of July 1849. The early -death of our beloved and highly-gifted father spread gloom over -the whole of our childhood. In 1850 our mother withdrew with us to -Naumburg on the Saale, where she took up her abode with our widowed -grandmother Nietzsche; and there she brought us up with Spartan -severity and simplicity, which, besides being typical of the period, -was quite _de rigeur_ in her family. Of course, Grand-mamma Nietzsche -helped somewhat to temper her daughter-in-law's severity, and in this -respect our Oehler grandparents, who were less rigorous with us, -their eldest grandchildren, than with their own children, were also -very influential. Grandfather Oehler was the first who seems to have -recognised the extraordinary talents of his eldest grandchild. - -From his earliest childhood upwards, my brother was always strong -and healthy; he often declared that he must have been taken for a -peasant-boy throughout his childhood and youth, as he was so plump, -brown, and rosy. The thick fair hair which fell picturesquely over his -shoulders tended somewhat to modify his robust appearance. Had he not -possessed those wonderfully beautiful, large, and expressive eyes, -however, and had he not been so very ceremonious in his manner, neither -his teachers nor his relatives would ever have noticed anything at all -remarkable about the boy; for he was both modest and reserved. - -He received his early schooling at a preparatory school, and later -at a grammar school in Naumburg. In the autumn of 1858, when he was -fourteen years of age, he entered the Pforta school, so famous for the -scholars it has produced. There, too, very severe discipline prevailed, -and much was exacted from the pupils, with the view of inuring them -to great mental and physical exertions. Thus, if my brother seems -to lay particular stress upon the value of rigorous training, free -from all sentimentality, it should be remembered that he speaks from -experience in this respect. At Pforta he followed the regular school -course, and he did not enter a university until the comparatively late -age of twenty. His extraordinary gifts manifested themselves chiefly -in his independent and private studies and artistic efforts. As a boy -his musical talent had already been so noticeable, that he himself -and other competent judges were doubtful as to whether he ought not -perhaps to devote himself altogether to music. It is, however, worth -noting that everything he did in his later years, whether in Latin, -Greek, or German work, bore the stamp of perfection--subject of course -to the limitation imposed upon him by his years. His talents came very -suddenly to the fore, because he had allowed them to grow for such a -long time in concealment. His very first performance in philology, -executed while he was a student under Ritschl, the famous philologist, -was also typical of him in this respect, seeing that it was ordered -to be printed for the _Rheinische Museum._ Of course this was done -amid general and grave expressions of doubt; for, as Dr. Ritschl often -declared, it was an unheard-of occurrence for a student in his third -term to prepare such an excellent treatise. - -Being a great lover of out-door exercise, such as swimming, skating, -and walking, he developed into a very sturdy lad. Rohde gives the -following description of him as a student: with his healthy complexion, -his outward and inner cleanliness, his austere chastity and his solemn -aspect, he was the image of that delightful youth described by Adalbert -Stifter. - -Though as a child he was always rather serious, as a lad and a man he -was ever inclined to see the humorous side of things, while his whole -being, and everything he said or did, was permeated by an extraordinary -harmony. He belonged to the very few who could control even a bad mood -and conceal it from others. All his friends are unanimous in their -praise of his exceptional evenness of temper and behaviour, and his -warm, hearty, and pleasant laugh that seemed to come from the very -depths of his benevolent and affectionate nature. In him it might -therefore be said, nature had produced a being who in body and spirit -was a harmonious whole: his unusual intellect was fully in keeping with -his uncommon bodily strength. - -The only abnormal thing about him, and something which we both -inherited from our father, was short-sightedness, and this was -very much aggravated in my brother's case, even in his earliest -schooldays, owing to that indescribable anxiety to learn which always -characterised him. When one listens to accounts given by his friends -and schoolfellows, one is startled by the multiplicity of his studies -even in his schooldays. - -In the autumn of 1864, he began his university life in Bonn, and -studied philology and theology; at the end of six months he gave up -theology, and in the autumn of 1865 followed his famous teacher Ritschl -to the University of Leipzig. There he became an ardent philologist, -and diligently sought to acquire a masterly grasp of this branch of -knowledge. But in this respect it would be unfair to forget that the -school of Pforta, with its staff of excellent teachers--scholars -that would have adorned the chairs of any University--had already -afforded the best of preparatory trainings to any one intending to -take up philology as a study, more particularly as it gave all pupils -ample scope to indulge any individual tastes they might have for any -particular branch of ancient history. The last important Latin thesis -which my brother wrote for the Landes-Schule, Pforta, dealt with -the Megarian poet Theognis, and it was in the rôle of a lecturer on -this very subject that, on the 18th January 1866, he made his _first -appearance in public_ before the philological society he had helped to -found in Leipzig. The paper he read disclosed his investigations on -the subject of Theognis the moralist and aristocrat, who, as is well -known, described and dismissed the plebeians of his time in terms of -the heartiest contempt The aristocratic ideal, which was always so -dear to my brother, thus revealed itself for the first time. Moreover, -curiously enough, it was precisely _this_ scientific thesis which was -the cause of Ritschl's recognition of my brother and fondness for him. - -The whole of his Leipzig days proved of the utmost importance to my -brother's career. There he was plunged into the very midst of a torrent -of intellectual influences which found an impressionable medium in -the fiery youth, and to which he eagerly made himself accessible. -He did not, however, forget to discriminate among them, but tested -and criticised the currents of thought he encountered, and selected -accordingly. It is certainly of great importance to ascertain what -those influences precisely were to which he yielded, and how long -they maintained their sway over him, and it is likewise necessary to -discover exactly when the matured mind threw off these fetters in order -to work out its own salvation. - -The influences that exercised power over him in those days may be -described in the three following terms: Hellenism, Schopenhauer, -Wagner. His love of Hellenism certainly led him to philology; but, as -a matter of fact, what concerned him most was to obtain a wide view -of things in general, and this he hoped to derive from that science; -philology in itself, with his splendid method and thorough way of going -to work, served him only as a means to an end. - -If Hellenism was the first strong influence which already in Pforta -obtained a sway over my brother, in the winter of 1865-66, a completely -new, and therefore somewhat subversive, influence was introduced into -his life with Schopenhauer's philosophy. When he reached Leipzig in -the autumn of 1865, he was very downcast; for the experiences that -had befallen him during his one year of student life in Bonn had -deeply depressed him. He had sought at first to adapt himself to his -surroundings there, with the hope of ultimately elevating them to his -lofty views on things; but both these efforts proved vain, and now he -had come to Leipzig with the purpose of framing his own manner of life. -It can easily be imagined how the first reading of Schopenhauer's _The -World as Will and Idea_ worked upon this man, still stinging from the -bitterest experiences and disappointments. He writes: "Here I saw a -mirror in which I espied the world, life, and my own nature depicted -with frightful grandeur." As my brother, from his very earliest -childhood, had always missed both the parent and the educator through -our father's untimely death, he began to regard Schopenhauer with -almost filial love and respect. He did not venerate him quite as other -men did; Schopenhauer's _personality_ was what attracted and enchanted -him. From the first he was never blind to the faults in his master's -system, and in proof of this we have only to refer to an essay he -wrote in the autumn of 1867, which actually contains a criticism of -Schopenhauer's philosophy. - -Now, in the autumn of 1865, to these two influences, Hellenism and -Schopenhauer, a third influence was added--one which was to prove -the strongest ever exercised over my brother--and it began with his -personal introduction to Richard Wagner. He was introduced to Wagner by -the latter's sister, Frau Professor Brockhaus, and his description of -their first meeting, contained in a letter to Erwin Rohde, is really -most affecting. For years, that is to say, from the time Billow's -arrangement of _Tristan and Isolde_ for the pianoforte, had appeared, -he had already been a passionate admirer of Wagner's music; but now -that the artist himself entered upon the scene of his life, with the -whole fascinating strength of his strong will, my brother felt that he -was in the presence of a being whom he, of all modern men, resembled -most in regard to force of character. - -Again, in the case of Richard Wagner, my brother, from the first, laid -the utmost stress upon the man's personality, and could only regard -his works and views as an expression of the artist's whole being, -despite the fact that he by no means understood every one of those -works at that time. My brother was the first who ever manifested such -enthusiastic affection for Schopenhauer and Wagner, and he was also the -first of that numerous band of young followers who ultimately inscribed -the two great names upon their banner. Whether Schopenhauer and Wagner -ever really corresponded to the glorified pictures my brother painted -of them, both in his letters and other writings, is a question which we -can no longer answer in the affirmative. Perhaps what he saw in them -was only what he himself wished to be some day. - -The amount of work my brother succeeded in accomplishing, during his -student days, really seems almost incredible. When we examine his -record for the years 1865-67, we can scarcely believe it refers to only -two years' industry, for at a guess no one would hesitate to suggest -four years at least. But in those days, as he himself declares, he -still possessed the constitution of a bear. He knew neither what -headaches nor indigestion meant, and, despite his short sight, his eyes -were able to endure the greatest strain without giving him the smallest -trouble. That is why, regardless of seriously interrupting his studies, -he was so glad at the thought of becoming a soldier in the forthcoming -autumn of 1867; for he was particularly anxious to discover some means -of employing his bodily strength. - -He discharged his duties as a soldier with the utmost mental and -physical freshness, was the crack rider among the recruits of his year, -and was sincerely sorry when, owing to an accident, he was compelled to -leave the colours before the completion of his service. As a result of -this accident he had his first dangerous illness. - -While mounting his horse one day, the beast, which was an uncommonly -restive one, suddenly reared, and, causing him to strike his chest -sharply against the pommel of the saddle, threw him to the ground. My -brother then made a second attempt to mount, and succeeded this time, -notwithstanding the fact that he had severely sprained and torn two -muscles in his chest, and had seriously bruised the adjacent ribs. For -a whole day he did his utmost to pay no heed to the injury, and to -overcome the pain it caused him; but in the end he only swooned, and a -dangerously acute inflammation of the injured tissues was the result. -Ultimately he was obliged to consult the famous specialist, Professor -Volkmann, in Halle, who quickly put him right. - -In October 1868, my brother returned to his studies in Leipzig with -double joy. These were his plans: to get his doctor's degree as soon as -possible; to proceed to Paris, Italy, and Greece, make a lengthy stay -in each place, and then to return to Leipzig in order to settle there -as a privat docent. All these plans were, however, suddenly frustrated -owing to his premature call to the University of Bale, where he was -invited to assume the duties of professor. Some of the philological -essays he had written in his student days, and which were published -by the _Rheinische Museum,_ had attracted the attention of the -Educational Board at Bale. Ratsherr Wilhelm Vischer, as representing -this body, appealed to Ritschl for fuller information. Now Ritschl, -who had early recognised my brother's extraordinary talents, must have -written a letter of such enthusiastic praise ("Nietzsche is a genius: -he can do whatever he chooses to put his mind to"), that one of the -more cautious members of the council is said to have observed: "If -the proposed candidate be really such a genius, then it were better -did we not appoint him; for, in any case, he would only stay a short -time at the little University of Bale." My brother ultimately accepted -the appointment, and, in view of his published philological works, -he was immediately granted the doctor's degree by the University of -Leipzig. He was twenty-four years and six months old when he took up -his position as professor in Bale,--and it was with a heavy heart that -he proceeded there, for he knew "the golden period of untrammelled -activity" must cease. He was, however, inspired by the deep wish of -being able "to transfer to his pupils some of that Schopenhauerian -earnestness which is stamped on the brow of the sublime man." "I -should like to be something more than a mere trainer of capable -philologists: the present generation of teachers, the care of the -growing broods,--all this is in my mind. If we must live, let us at -least do so in such wise that others may bless our life once we have -been peacefully delivered from its toils." - -When I look back upon that month of May 1869, and ask both of friends -and of myself, what the figure of this youthful University professor -of four-and-twenty meant to the world at that time, the reply is -naturally, in the first place: that he was one of Ritschl's best -pupils; secondly, that he was an exceptionally capable exponent of -classical antiquity with a brilliant career before him; and thirdly, -that he was a passionate adorer of Wagner and Schopenhauer. But no one -has any idea of my brother's independent attitude to the science he -had selected, to his teachers and to his ideals, and he deceived both -himself and us when he passed as a "disciple" who really shared all the -views of his respected master. - -On the 28th May 1869, my brother delivered his inaugural address -at Bale University, and it is said to have deeply impressed the -authorities. The subject of the address was "Homer and Classical -Philology." - -Musing deeply, the worthy councillors and professors walked homeward. -What had they just heard? A young scholar discussing the very -justification of his own science in a cool and philosophically critical -spirit! A man able to impart so much artistic glamour to his subject, -that the once stale and arid study of philology suddenly struck -them--and they were certainly not impressionable men--as the messenger -of the gods: "and just as the Muses descended upon the dull and -tormented Boeotian peasants, so philology comes into a world full of -gloomy colours and pictures, full of the deepest, most incurable woes, -and speaks to men comfortingly of the beautiful and brilliant godlike -figure of a distant, blue, and happy fairyland." - -"We have indeed got hold of a rare bird, Herr Ratsherr," said one of -these gentlemen to his companion, and the latter heartily agreed, for -my brother's appointment had been chiefly his doing. - -Even in Leipzig, it was reported that Jacob Burckhardt had said: -"Nietzsche is as much an artist as a scholar." Privy-Councillor -Ritschl told me of this himself, and then he added, with a smile: "I -always said so; he can make his scientific discourses as palpitatingly -interesting as a French novelist his novels." - -"Homer and Classical Philology"--my brother's inaugural address at -the University--was by no means the first literary attempt he had -made; for we have already seen that he had had papers published by the -_Rheinische Museum_; still, this particular discourse is important, -seeing that it practically contains the programme of many other -subsequent essays. I must, however, emphasise this fact here, that -neither "Homer and Classical Philology," nor _The Birth of Tragedy,_ -represents a beginning in my brother's career. It is really surprising -to see how very soon he actually began grappling with the questions -which were to prove the problems of his life. If a beginning to his -intellectual development be sought at all, then it must be traced -to the years 1865-67 in Leipzig. _The Birth of Tragedy,_ his maiden -attempt at book-writing, with which he began his twenty-eighth year, -is the last link of a long chain of developments, and the first fruit -that was a long time coming to maturity. Nietzsche's was a polyphonic -nature, in which the most different and apparently most antagonistic -talents had come together. Philosophy, art, and science--in the form -of philology, then--each certainly possessed a part of him. The -most wonderful feature--perhaps it might even be called the real -Nietzschean feature--of this versatile creature, was the fact that -no eternal strife resulted from the juxtaposition of these inimical -traits, that not one of them strove to dislodge, or to get the upper -hand of, the others. When Nietzsche renounced the musical career, in -order to devote himself to philology, and gave himself up to the most -strenuous study, he did not find it essential completely to suppress -his other tendencies: as before, he continued both to compose and -derive pleasure from music, and even studied counterpoint somewhat -seriously. Moreover, during his years at Leipzig, when he consciously -gave himself up to philological research, he began to engross himself -in Schopenhauer, and was thereby won by philosophy for ever. Everything -that could find room took up its abode in him, and these juxtaposed -factors, far from interfering with one another's existence, were rather -mutually fertilising and stimulating. All those who have read the first -volume of the biography with attention must have been struck with the -perfect way in which the various impulses in his nature combined in -the end to form one general torrent, and how this flowed with ever -greater force in the direction of _a single goal._ Thus science, art, -and philosophy developed and became ever more closely related in him, -until, in _The Birth of Tragedy,_ they brought forth a "centaur," that -is to say, a work which would have been an impossible achievement to -a man with only a single, special talent. This polyphony of different -talents, all coming to utterance together and producing the richest -and boldest of harmonies, is the fundamental feature not only of -Nietzsche's early days, but of his whole development. It is once again -the artist, philosopher, and man of science, who as one man in later -years, after many wanderings, recantations, and revulsions of feeling, -produces that other and rarer Centaur of highest rank--_Zarathustra_. - -_The Birth of Tragedy_ requires perhaps a little explaining--more -particularly as we have now ceased to use either Schopenhauerian or -Wagnerian terms of expression. And it was for this reason that five -years after its appearance, my brother wrote an introduction to it, -in which he very plainly expresses his doubts concerning the views it -contains, and the manner in which they are presented. The kernel of its -thought he always recognised as perfectly correct; and all he deplored -in later days was that he had spoiled the grand problem of Hellenism, -as he understood it, by adulterating it with ingredients taken from the -world of most modern ideas. As time went on, he grew ever more and more -anxious to define the deep meaning of this book with greater precision -and clearness. A very good elucidation of its aims, which unfortunately -was never published, appears among his notes of the year 1886, and is -as follows:-- - -"Concerning _The Birth of Tragedy._--A book consisting of mere -experiences relating to pleasurable and unpleasurable æsthetic states, -with a metaphysico-artistic background. At the same time the confession -of a romanticist _the sufferer feels the deepest longing for beauty--he -begets it_; finally, a product of youth, full of youthful courage and -melancholy. - -"Fundamental psychological experiences: the word 'Apollonian' stands -for that state of rapt repose in the presence of a visionary world, -in the presence of the world of _beautiful appearance_ designed as a -deliverance from _becoming_; the word _Dionysos,_ on the other hand, -stands for strenuous becoming, grown self-conscious, in the form -of the rampant voluptuousness of the creator, who is also perfectly -conscious of the violent anger of the destroyer. - -"The antagonism of these two attitudes and the _desires_ that underlie -them. The first-named would have the vision it conjures up _eternal_: -in its light man must be quiescent, apathetic, peaceful, healed, and -on friendly terms with himself and all existence; the second strives -after creation, after the voluptuousness of wilful creation, _i.e._ -constructing and destroying. Creation felt and explained as an instinct -would be merely the unremitting inventive action of a dissatisfied -being, overflowing with wealth and living at high tension and high -pressure,--of a God who would overcome the sorrows of existence by -means only of continual changes and transformations,--appearance as a -transient and momentary deliverance; the world as an apparent sequence -of godlike visions and deliverances. - -"This metaphysico-artistic attitude is opposed to Schopenhauer's -one-sided view which values art, not from the artist's standpoint but -from the spectator's, because it brings salvation and deliverance -by means of the joy produced by unreal as opposed to the existing -or the real (the experience only of him who is suffering and is in -despair owing to himself and everything existing).--Deliverance in -the _form_ and its eternity (just as Plato may have pictured it, save -that he rejoiced in a complete subordination of all too excitable -sensibilities, even in the idea itself). To this is opposed the second -point of view--art regarded as a phenomenon of the artist, above all -of the musician; the torture of being obliged to create, as a Dionysian -instinct. - -"Tragic art, rich in both attitudes, represents the reconciliation of -Apollo and Dionysos. Appearance is given the greatest importance by -Dionysos; and yet it will be denied and cheerfully denied. This is -directed against Schopenhauer's teaching of _Resignation_ as the tragic -attitude towards the world. - -"Against Wagner's theory that music is a means and drama an end. - -"A desire for tragic myth (for religion and even pessimistic religion) -as for a forcing frame in which certain plants flourish. - -"Mistrust of science, although its ephemerally soothing optimism be -strongly felt; the 'serenity' of the theoretical man. - -"Deep antagonism to Christianity. Why? The degeneration of the Germanic -spirit is ascribed to its influence. - -"Any justification of the world can only be an _æsthetic_ one. Profound -suspicions about morality (--it is part and parcel of the world of -appearance). - -"The happiness of existence is only possible as the happiness derived -from appearance. (_'Being' is a fiction invented by those who suffer -from becoming_.) - -"Happiness in becoming is possible only in the _annihilation_ of -the real, of the 'existing,' of the beautifully visionary,--in the -pessimistic dissipation of illusions:--with the annihilation of -the most beautiful phenomena in the world of appearance, Dionysian -happiness reaches its zenith." - -_The Birth of Tragedy_ is really only a portion of a much greater work -on Hellenism, which my brother had always had in view from the time of -his student days. But even the portion it represents was originally -designed upon a much larger scale than the present one; the reason -probably being, that Nietzsche desired only to be of service to Wagner. -When a certain portion of the projected work on Hellenism was ready -and had received the title _Greek Cheerfulness,_ my brother happened -to call upon Wagner at Tribschen in April 1871, and found him very -low-spirited in regard to the mission of his life. My brother was very -anxious to take some decisive step to help him, and, laying the plans -of his great work on Greece aside, he selected a small portion from -the already completed manuscript--a portion dealing with one distinct -side of Hellenism,--to wit, its tragic art. He then associated Wagner's -music with it and the name Dionysos, and thus took the first step -towards that world-historical view through which we have since grown -accustomed to regard Wagner. - -From the dates of the various notes relating to it, _The Birth of -Tragedy_ must have been written between the autumn of 1869 and November -1871--a period during which "a mass of æsthetic questions and answers" -was fermenting in Nietzsche's mind. It was first published in January -1872 by E. W. Fritsch, in Leipzig, under the title _The Birth of -Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music._ Later on the title was changed to -_The Birth of Tragedy, or Hellenism and Pessimism._ - - ELIZABETH FORSTER-NIETZSCHE. - -WEIMAR, _September_ 1905. - - -[1] This Introduction by E. Förster-Nietzsche, which appears -in the front of the first volume of Naumann's Pocket Edition of -Nietzsche, has been translated and arranged by Mr. A. M. Ludovici. - - - - -AN ATTEMPT AT SELF-CRITICISM. - - - -I. - - -Whatever may lie at the bottom of this doubtful book must be a -question of the first rank and attractiveness, moreover a deeply -personal question,--in proof thereof observe the time in which it -originated, _in spite_ of which it originated, the exciting period -of the Franco-German war of 1870-71. While the thunder of the battle -of Wörth rolled over Europe, the ruminator and riddle-lover, who had -to be the parent of this book, sat somewhere in a nook of the Alps, -lost in riddles and ruminations, consequently very much concerned and -unconcerned at the same time, and wrote down his meditations on the -_Greeks,_--the kernel of the curious and almost inaccessible book, to -which this belated prologue (or epilogue) is to be devoted. A few weeks -later: and he found himself under the walls of Metz, still wrestling -with the notes of interrogation he had set down concerning the alleged -"cheerfulness" of the Greeks and of Greek art; till at last, in that -month of deep suspense, when peace was debated at Versailles, he too -attained to peace with himself, and, slowly recovering from a disease -brought home from the field, made up his mind definitely regarding the -"Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of _Music."_--From music? Music and -Tragedy? Greeks and tragic music? Greeks and the Art-work of pessimism? -A race of men, well-fashioned, beautiful, envied, life-inspiring, like -no other race hitherto, the Greeks--indeed? The Greeks were _in need_ -of tragedy? Yea--of art? Wherefore--Greek art?... - -We can thus guess where the great note of interrogation concerning the -value of existence had been set. Is pessimism _necessarily_ the sign of -decline, of decay, of failure, of exhausted and weakened instincts?--as -was the case with the Indians, as is, to all appearance, the case with -us "modern" men and Europeans? Is there a pessimism of _strength_? An -intellectual predilection for what is hard, awful, evil, problematical -in existence, owing to well-being, to exuberant health, to _fullness_ -of existence? Is there perhaps suffering in overfullness itself? A -seductive fortitude with the keenest of glances, which _yearns_ for -the terrible, as for the enemy, the worthy enemy, with whom it may try -its strength? from whom it is willing to learn what "fear" is? What -means _tragic_ myth to the Greeks of the best, strongest, bravest era? -And the prodigious phenomenon of the Dionysian? And that which was -born thereof, tragedy?--And again: that of which tragedy died, the -Socratism of morality, the dialectics, contentedness and cheerfulness -of the theoretical man--indeed? might not this very Socratism -be a sign of decline, of weariness, of disease, of anarchically -disintegrating instincts? And the "Hellenic cheerfulness" of the later -Hellenism merely a glowing sunset? The Epicurean will _counter_ to -pessimism merely a precaution of the sufferer? And science itself, -our science--ay, viewed as a symptom of life, what really signifies -all science? Whither, worse still, _whence_--all science? Well? Is -scientism perhaps only fear and evasion of pessimism? A subtle defence -against--_truth!_ Morally speaking, something like falsehood and -cowardice? And, unmorally speaking, an artifice? O Socrates, Socrates, -was this perhaps _thy_ secret? Oh mysterious ironist, was this perhaps -thine--irony?... - - - -2. - - -What I then laid hands on, something terrible and dangerous, a -problem with horns, not necessarily a bull itself, but at all events -a _new_ problem: I should say to-day it was the _problem of science_ -itself--science conceived for the first time as problematic, as -questionable. But the book, in which my youthful ardour and suspicion -then discharged themselves--what an _impossible_ book must needs -grow out of a task so disagreeable to youth. Constructed of nought -but precocious, unripened self-experiences, all of which lay close -to the threshold of the communicable, based on the groundwork of -_art_--for the problem of science cannot be discerned on the groundwork -of science,--a book perhaps for artists, with collateral analytical -and retrospective aptitudes (that is, an exceptional kind of artists, -for whom one must seek and does not even care to seek ...), full of -psychological innovations and artists' secrets, with an artists' -metaphysics in the background, a work of youth, full of youth's mettle -and youth's melancholy, independent, defiantly self-sufficient even -when it seems to bow to some authority and self-veneration; in short, -a firstling-work, even in every bad sense of the term; in spite of its -senile problem, affected with every fault of youth, above all with -youth's prolixity and youth's "storm and stress": on the other hand, -in view of the success it had (especially with the great artist to -whom it addressed itself, as it were, in a duologue, Richard Wagner) a -_demonstrated_ book, I mean a book which, at any rate, sufficed "for -the best of its time." On this account, if for no other reason, it -should be treated with some consideration and reserve; yet I shall not -altogether conceal how disagreeable it now appears to me, how after -sixteen years it stands a total stranger before me,--before an eye -which is more mature, and a hundred times more fastidious, but which -has by no means grown colder nor lost any of its interest in that -self-same task essayed for the first time by this daring book,--_to -view science through the optics of the artist, and art moreover through -the optics of life...._ - - - -3. - - -I say again, to-day it is an impossible book to me,--I call it badly -written, heavy, painful, image-angling and image-entangling, maudlin, -sugared at times even to femininism, uneven in tempo, void of the will -to logical cleanliness, very convinced and therefore rising above the -necessity of demonstration, distrustful even of the _propriety_ of -demonstration, as being a book for initiates, as "music" for those who -are baptised with the name of Music, who are united from the beginning -of things by common ties of rare experiences in art, as a countersign -for blood-relations _in artibus._--a haughty and fantastic book, -which from the very first withdraws even more from the _profanum -vulgus_ of the "cultured" than from the "people," but which also, as -its effect has shown and still shows, knows very well how to seek -fellow-enthusiasts and lure them to new by-ways and dancing-grounds. -Here, at any rate--thus much was acknowledged with curiosity as well -as with aversion--a _strange_ voice spoke, the disciple of a still -"unknown God," who for the time being had hidden himself under the -hood of the scholar, under the German's gravity and disinclination for -dialectics, even under the bad manners of the Wagnerian; here was a -spirit with strange and still nameless needs, a memory bristling with -questions, experiences and obscurities, beside which stood the name -Dionysos like one more note of interrogation; here spoke--people said -to themselves with misgivings--something like a mystic and almost -mænadic soul, which, undecided whether it should disclose or conceal -itself, stammers with an effort and capriciously as in a strange -tongue. It should have _sung,_ this "new soul"--and not spoken! What -a pity, that I did not dare to say what I then had to say, as a poet: -I could have done so perhaps! Or at least as a philologist:--for even -at the present day well-nigh everything in this domain remains to be -discovered and disinterred by the philologist! Above all the problem, -_that_ here there _is_ a problem before us,--and that, so long as we -have no answer to the question "what is Dionysian?" the Greeks are now -as ever wholly unknown and inconceivable.... - - - -4. - - -Ay, what is Dionysian?--In this book may be found an answer,--a -"knowing one" speaks here, the votary and disciple of his god. -Perhaps I should now speak more guardedly and less eloquently of a -psychological question so difficult as the origin of tragedy among the -Greeks. A fundamental question is the relation of the Greek to pain, -his degree of sensibility,--did this relation remain constant? or did -it veer about?--the question, whether his ever-increasing _longing -for beauty,_ for festivals, gaieties, new cults, did really grow out -of want, privation, melancholy, pain? For suppose even this to be -true--and Pericles (or Thucydides) intimates as much in the great -Funeral Speech:--whence then the opposite longing, which appeared -first in the order of time, the _longing for the ugly_, the good, -resolute desire of the Old Hellene for pessimism, for tragic myth, for -the picture of all that is terrible, evil, enigmatical, destructive, -fatal at the basis of existence,--whence then must tragedy have -sprung? Perhaps from _joy,_ from strength, from exuberant health, from -over-fullness. And what then, physiologically speaking, is the meaning -of that madness, out of which comic as well as tragic art has grown, -the Dionysian madness? What? perhaps madness is not necessarily the -symptom of degeneration, of decline, of belated culture? Perhaps there -are--a question for alienists--neuroses of _health_? of folk-youth -and youthfulness? What does that synthesis of god and goat in the -Satyr point to? What self-experience what "stress," made the Greek -think of the Dionysian reveller and primitive man as a satyr? And as -regards the origin of the tragic chorus: perhaps there were endemic -ecstasies in the eras when the Greek body bloomed and the Greek soul -brimmed over with life? Visions and hallucinations, which took hold -of entire communities, entire cult-assemblies? What if the Greeks -in the very wealth of their youth had the will _to be_ tragic and -were pessimists? What if it was madness itself, to use a word of -Plato's, which brought the _greatest_ blessings upon Hellas? And -what if, on the other hand and conversely, at the very time of their -dissolution and weakness, the Greeks became always more optimistic, -more superficial, more histrionic, also more ardent for logic and -the logicising of the world,--consequently at the same time more -"cheerful" and more "scientific"? Ay, despite all "modern ideas" and -prejudices of the democratic taste, may not the triumph of _optimism,_ -the _common sense_ that has gained the upper hand, the practical and -theoretical _utilitarianism,_ like democracy itself, with which it is -synchronous--be symptomatic of declining vigour, of approaching age, -of physiological weariness? And _not_ at all--pessimism? Was Epicurus -an optimist--because a _sufferer_?... We see it is a whole bundle of -weighty questions which this book has taken upon itself,--let us not -fail to add its weightiest question! Viewed through the optics of -_life,_ what is the meaning of--morality?... - - - -5. - - -Already in the foreword to Richard Wagner, art---and _not_ morality--is -set down as the properly _metaphysical_ activity of man; in the -book itself the piquant proposition recurs time and again, that the -existence of the world is _justified_ only as an æsthetic phenomenon. -Indeed, the entire book recognises only an artist-thought and -artist-after-thought behind all occurrences,--a "God," if you will, -but certainly only an altogether thoughtless and unmoral artist-God, -who, in construction as in destruction, in good as in evil, desires -to become conscious of his own equable joy and sovereign glory; who, -in creating worlds, frees himself from the _anguish_ of fullness -and _overfullness,_ from the _suffering_ of the contradictions -concentrated within him. The world, that is, the redemption of God -_attained_ at every moment, as the perpetually changing, perpetually -new vision of the most suffering, most antithetical, most contradictory -being, who contrives to redeem himself only in _appearance:_ this -entire artist-metaphysics, call it arbitrary, idle, fantastic, if -you will,--the point is, that it already betrays a spirit, which is -determined some day, at all hazards, to make a stand against the -_moral_ interpretation and significance of life. Here, perhaps for the -first time, a pessimism "Beyond Good and Evil" announces itself, here -that "perverseness of disposition" obtains expression and formulation, -against which Schopenhauer never grew tired of hurling beforehand his -angriest imprecations and thunderbolts,--a philosophy which dares to -put, derogatorily put, morality itself in the world of phenomena, and -not only among "phenomena" (in the sense of the idealistic _terminus -technicus_), but among the "illusions," as appearance, semblance, -error, interpretation, accommodation, art. Perhaps the depth of this -_antimoral_ tendency may be best estimated from the guarded and -hostile silence with which Christianity is treated throughout this -book,--Christianity, as being the most extravagant burlesque of the -moral theme to which mankind has hitherto been obliged to listen. In -fact, to the purely æsthetic world-interpretation and justification -taught in this book, there is no greater antithesis than the Christian -dogma, which is _only_ and will be only moral, and which, with -its absolute standards, for instance, its truthfulness of God, -relegates--that is, disowns, convicts, condemns--art, _all_ art, to -the realm of _falsehood._ Behind such a mode of thought and valuation, -which, if at all genuine, must be hostile to art, I always experienced -what was _hostile to life,_ the wrathful, vindictive counterwill to -life itself: for all life rests on appearance, art, illusion, optics, -necessity of perspective and error. From the very first Christianity -was, essentially and thoroughly, the nausea and surfeit of Life for -Life, which only disguised, concealed and decked itself out under the -belief in "another" or "better" life. The hatred of the "world," the -curse on the affections, the fear of beauty and sensuality, another -world, invented for the purpose of slandering this world the more, -at bottom a longing for. Nothingness, for the end, for rest, for the -"Sabbath of Sabbaths"--all this, as also the unconditional will of -Christianity to recognise _only_ moral values, has always appeared to -me as the most dangerous and ominous of all possible forms of a "will -to perish"; at the least, as the symptom of a most fatal disease, of -profoundest weariness, despondency, exhaustion, impoverishment of -life,--for before the tribunal of morality (especially Christian, that -is, unconditional morality) life _must_ constantly and inevitably be -the loser, because life _is_ something essentially unmoral,--indeed, -oppressed with the weight of contempt and the everlasting No, life -_must_ finally be regarded as unworthy of desire, as in itself -unworthy. Morality itself what?--may not morality be a "will to -disown life," a secret instinct for annihilation, a principle of -decay, of depreciation, of slander, a beginning of the end? And, -consequently, the danger of dangers?... It was _against_ morality, -therefore, that my instinct, as an intercessory-instinct for life, -turned in this questionable book, inventing for itself a fundamental -counter--dogma and counter-valuation of life, purely artistic, purely -_anti-Christian._ What should I call it? As a philologist and man of -words I baptised it, not without some liberty--for who could be sure -of the proper name of the Antichrist?--with the name of a Greek god: I -called it _Dionysian._ - - - -6. - - -You see which problem I ventured to touch upon in this early work?... -How I now regret, that I had not then the courage (or immodesty?) to -allow myself, in all respects, the use of an _individual language_ -for such _individual_ contemplations and ventures in the field of -thought--that I laboured to express, in Kantian and Schopenhauerian -formulæ, strange and new valuations, which ran fundamentally counter -to the spirit of Kant and Schopenhauer, as well as to their taste! -What, forsooth, were Schopenhauer's views on tragedy? "What gives"--he -says in _Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,_ II. 495--"to all tragedy -that singular swing towards elevation, is the awakening of the -knowledge that the world, that life, cannot satisfy us thoroughly, -and consequently is _not worthy_ of our attachment In this consists -the tragic spirit: it therefore leads to _resignation_." Oh, how -differently Dionysos spoke to me! Oh how far from me then was just -this entire resignationism!--But there is something far worse in this -book, which I now regret even more than having obscured and spoiled -Dionysian anticipations with Schopenhauerian formulæ: to wit, that, in -general, I _spoiled_ the grand _Hellenic problem,_ as it had opened -up before me, by the admixture of the most modern things! That I -entertained hopes, where nothing was to be hoped for, where everything -pointed all-too-clearly to an approaching end! That, on the basis of -our latter-day German music, I began to fable about the "spirit of -Teutonism," as if it were on the point of discovering and returning -to itself,--ay, at the very time that the German spirit which not so -very long before had had the will to the lordship over Europe, the -strength to lead and govern Europe, testamentarily and conclusively -_resigned_ and, under the pompous pretence of empire-founding, -effected its transition to mediocritisation, democracy, and "modern -ideas." In very fact, I have since learned to regard this "spirit of -Teutonism" as something to be despaired of and unsparingly treated, -as also our present _German music,_ which is Romanticism through and -through and the most un-Grecian of all possible forms of art: and -moreover a first-rate nerve-destroyer, doubly dangerous for a people -given to drinking and revering the unclear as a virtue, namely, in -its twofold capacity of an intoxicating and stupefying narcotic. Of -course, apart from all precipitate hopes and faulty applications to -matters specially modern, with which I then spoiled my first book, the -great Dionysian note of interrogation, as set down therein, continues -standing on and on, even with reference to music: how must we conceive -of a music, which is no longer of Romantic origin, like the German; but -of _Dionysian_?... - - - -7. - - ---But, my dear Sir, if _your_ book is not Romanticism, what in -the world is? Can the deep hatred of the present, of "reality" -and "modern ideas" be pushed farther than has been done in your -artist-metaphysics?--which would rather believe in Nothing, or in -the devil, than in the "Now"? Does not a radical bass of wrath and -annihilative pleasure growl on beneath all your contrapuntal vocal -art and aural seduction, a mad determination to oppose all that "now" -is, a will which is not so very far removed from practical nihilism -and which seems to say: "rather let nothing be true, than that _you_ -should be in the right, than that _your_ truth should prevail!" -Hear, yourself, my dear Sir Pessimist and art-deifier, with ever -so unlocked ears, a single select passage of your own book, that -not ineloquent dragon-slayer passage, which may sound insidiously -rat-charming to young ears and hearts. What? is not that the true -blue romanticist-confession of 1830 under the mask of the pessimism -of 1850? After which, of course, the usual romanticist finale at once -strikes up,--rupture, collapse, return and prostration before an old -belief, before _the_ old God.... What? is not your pessimist book -itself a piece of anti-Hellenism and Romanticism, something "equally -intoxicating and befogging," a narcotic at all events, ay, a piece of -music, of _German_ music? But listen: - - Let us imagine a rising generation with this undauntedness - of vision, with this heroic impulse towards the prodigious, - let us imagine the bold step of these dragon-slayers, - the proud daring with which they turn their backs on all - the effeminate doctrines of optimism, in order "to live - resolutely" in the Whole and in the Full: _would it not be - necessary_ for the tragic man of this culture, with his - self-discipline to earnestness and terror, to desire a new - art, _the art of metaphysical comfort,_ tragedy as the - Helena belonging to him, and that he should exclaim with - Faust: - - "Und sollt ich nicht, sehnsüchtigster Gewalt, - In's Leben ziehn die einzigste Gestalt?"[1] - - -"Would it not be _necessary_?" ... No, thrice no! ye young -romanticists: it would _not_ be necessary! But it is very probable, -that things may _end_ thus, that _ye_ may end thus, namely "comforted," -as it is written, in spite of all self-discipline to earnestness and -terror; metaphysically comforted, in short, as Romanticists are wont to -end, as _Christians...._ No! ye should first of all learn the art of -earthly comfort, ye should learn to _laugh,_ my young friends, if ye -are at all determined to remain pessimists: if so, you will perhaps, -as laughing ones, eventually send all metaphysical comfortism to the -devil--and metaphysics first of all! Or, to say it in the language of -that Dionysian ogre, called _Zarathustra_: - - "Lift up your hearts, my brethren, high, higher! And do - not forget your legs! Lift up also your legs, ye good - dancers--and better still if ye stand also on your heads! - - "This crown of the laughter, this rose-garland crown--I - myself have put on this crown; I myself have consecrated my - laughter. No one else have I found to-day strong enough for - this. - - "Zarathustra the dancer, Zarathustra the light one, - who beckoneth with his pinions, one ready for flight, - beckoning unto all birds, ready and prepared, a blissfully - light-spirited one:-- - - "Zarathustra the soothsayer, Zarathustra the sooth-laugher, - no impatient one, no absolute one, one who loveth leaps and - side-leaps: I myself have put on this crown! - - "This crown of the laughter, this rose-garland crown--to - you my brethren do I cast this crown! Laughing have I - consecrated: ye higher men, _learn,_ I pray you--to laugh!" - - _Thus spake Zarathustra_, lxxiii. 17, 18, and 20. - -SILS-MARIA, OBERENGADIN, _August_ 1886. - - -[1] - - And shall not I, by mightiest desire, - In living shape that sole fair form acquire? - SWANWICK, trans. of _Faust._ - - - - -THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY - -FROM THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC - - - - -FOREWORD TO RICHARD WAGNER. - - -In order to keep at a distance all the possible scruples, excitements, -and misunderstandings to which the thoughts gathered in this essay -will give occasion, considering the peculiar character of our æsthetic -publicity, and to be able also to write the introductory remarks -with the same contemplative delight, the impress of which, as the -petrifaction of good and elevating hours, it bears on every page, I -form a conception of the moment when you, my highly honoured friend, -will receive this essay; how you, say after an evening walk in the -winter snow, will behold the unbound Prometheus on the title-page, -read my name, and be forthwith convinced that, whatever this essay may -contain, the author has something earnest and impressive to say, and, -moreover, that in all his meditations he communed with you as with one -present and could thus write only what befitted your presence. You -will thus remember that it was at the same time as your magnificent -dissertation on Beethoven originated, viz., amidst the horrors and -sublimities of the war which had just then broken out, that I collected -myself for these thoughts. But those persons would err, to whom this -collection suggests no more perhaps than the antithesis of patriotic -excitement and æsthetic revelry, of gallant earnestness and sportive -delight. Upon a real perusal of this essay, such readers will, rather -to their surprise, discover how earnest is the German problem we have -to deal with, which we properly place, as a vortex and turning-point, -in the very midst of German hopes. Perhaps, however, this same class -of readers will be shocked at seeing an æsthetic problem taken so -seriously, especially if they can recognise in art no more than a merry -diversion, a readily dispensable court-jester to the "earnestness -of existence": as if no one were aware of the real meaning of this -confrontation with the "earnestness of existence." These earnest ones -may be informed that I am convinced that art is the highest task and -the properly metaphysical activity of this life, as it is understood by -the man, to whom, as my sublime protagonist on this path, I would now -dedicate this essay. - -BASEL, _end of the year_ 1871. - - - - -THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY. - - - -1. - - -We shall have gained much for the science of æsthetics, when once we -have perceived not only by logical inference, but by the immediate -certainty of intuition, that the continuous development of art is bound -up with the duplexity of the _Apollonian_ and the _Dionysian:_ in -like manner as procreation is dependent on the duality of the sexes, -involving perpetual conflicts with only periodically intervening -reconciliations. These names we borrow from the Greeks, who disclose -to the intelligent observer the profound mysteries of their view of -art, not indeed in concepts, but in the impressively clear figures of -their world of deities. It is in connection with Apollo and Dionysus, -the two art-deities of the Greeks, that we learn that there existed in -the Grecian world a wide antithesis, in origin and aims, between the -art of the shaper, the Apollonian, and the non-plastic art of music, -that of Dionysus: both these so heterogeneous tendencies run parallel -to each other, for the most part openly at variance, and continually -inciting each other to new and more powerful births, to perpetuate in -them the strife of this antithesis, which is but seemingly bridged over -by their mutual term "Art"; till at last, by a metaphysical miracle -of the Hellenic will, they appear paired with each other, and through -this pairing eventually generate the equally Dionysian and Apollonian -art-work of Attic tragedy. - -In order to bring these two tendencies within closer range, let us -conceive them first of all as the separate art-worlds of _dreamland_ -and _drunkenness;_ between which physiological phenomena a contrast -may be observed analogous to that existing between the Apollonian and -the Dionysian. In dreams, according to the conception of Lucretius, -the glorious divine figures first appeared to the souls of men, in -dreams the great shaper beheld the charming corporeal structure of -superhuman beings, and the Hellenic poet, if consulted on the mysteries -of poetic inspiration, would likewise have suggested dreams and would -have offered an explanation resembling that of Hans Sachs in the -Meistersingers:-- - - Mein Freund, das grad' ist Dichters Werk, - dass er sein Träumen deut' und merk'. - Glaubt mir, des Menschen wahrster Wahn - wird ihm im Traume aufgethan: - all' Dichtkunst und Poeterei - ist nichts als Wahrtraum-Deuterei.[1] - - -The beauteous appearance of the dream-worlds, in the production of -which every man is a perfect artist, is the presupposition of all -plastic art, and in fact, as we shall see, of an important half of -poetry also. We take delight in the immediate apprehension of form; all -forms speak to us; there is nothing indifferent, nothing superfluous. -But, together with the highest life of this dream-reality we also have, -glimmering through it, the sensation of its appearance: such at least -is my experience, as to the frequency, ay, normality of which I could -adduce many proofs, as also the sayings of the poets. Indeed, the man -of philosophic turn has a foreboding that underneath this reality in -which we live and have our being, another and altogether different -reality lies concealed, and that therefore it is also an appearance; -and Schopenhauer actually designates the gift of occasionally regarding -men and things as mere phantoms and dream-pictures as the criterion of -philosophical ability. Accordingly, the man susceptible to art stands -in the same relation to the reality of dreams as the philosopher to -the reality of existence; he is a close and willing observer, for from -these pictures he reads the meaning of life, and by these processes -he trains himself for life. And it is perhaps not only the agreeable -and friendly pictures that he realises in himself with such perfect -understanding: the earnest, the troubled, the dreary, the gloomy, the -sudden checks, the tricks of fortune, the uneasy presentiments, in -short, the whole "Divine Comedy" of life, and the Inferno, also pass -before him, not merely like pictures on the wall--for he too lives and -suffers in these scenes,--and yet not without that fleeting sensation -of appearance. And perhaps many a one will, like myself, recollect -having sometimes called out cheeringly and not without success amid the -dangers and terrors of dream-life: "It is a dream! I will dream on!" I -have likewise been told of persons capable of continuing the causality -of one and the same dream for three and even more successive nights: -all of which facts clearly testify that our innermost being, the common -substratum of all of us, experiences our dreams with deep joy and -cheerful acquiescence. - -This cheerful acquiescence in the dream-experience has likewise been -embodied by the Greeks in their Apollo: for Apollo, as the god of -all shaping energies, is also the soothsaying god. He, who (as the -etymology of the name indicates) is the "shining one," the deity of -light, also rules over the fair appearance of the inner world of -fantasies. The higher truth, the perfection of these states in contrast -to the only partially intelligible everyday world, ay, the deep -consciousness of nature, healing and helping in sleep and dream, is at -the same time the symbolical analogue of the faculty of soothsaying -and, in general, of the arts, through which life is made possible and -worth living. But also that delicate line, which the dream-picture must -not overstep--lest it act pathologically (in which case appearance, -being reality pure and simple, would impose upon us)--must not be -wanting in the picture of Apollo: that measured limitation, that -freedom from the wilder emotions, that philosophical calmness of the -sculptor-god. His eye must be "sunlike," according to his origin; even -when it is angry and looks displeased, the sacredness of his beauteous -appearance is still there. And so we might apply to Apollo, in an -eccentric sense, what Schopenhauer says of the man wrapt in the veil -of Mâyâ[2]: _Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,_ I. p. 416: "Just as in -a stormy sea, unbounded in every direction, rising and falling with -howling mountainous waves, a sailor sits in a boat and trusts in his -frail barque: so in the midst of a world of sorrows the individual sits -quietly supported by and trusting in his _principium individuationis_." -Indeed, we might say of Apollo, that in him the unshaken faith in -this _principium_ and the quiet sitting of the man wrapt therein have -received their sublimest expression; and we might even designate Apollo -as the glorious divine image of the _principium individuationis,_ -from out of the gestures and looks of which all the joy and wisdom of -"appearance," together with its beauty, speak to us. - -In the same work Schopenhauer has described to us the stupendous _awe_ -which seizes upon man, when of a sudden he is at a loss to account for -the cognitive forms of a phenomenon, in that the principle of reason, -in some one of its manifestations, seems to admit of an exception. -Add to this awe the blissful ecstasy which rises from the innermost -depths of man, ay, of nature, at this same collapse of the _principium -individuationis,_ and we shall gain an insight into the being of -the _Dionysian,_ which is brought within closest ken perhaps by the -analogy of _drunkenness._ It is either under the influence of the -narcotic draught, of which the hymns of all primitive men and peoples -tell us, or by the powerful approach of spring penetrating all nature -with joy, that those Dionysian emotions awake, in the augmentation of -which the subjective vanishes to complete self-forgetfulness. So also -in the German Middle Ages singing and dancing crowds, ever increasing -in number, were borne from place to place under this same Dionysian -power. In these St. John's and St. Vitus's dancers we again perceive -the Bacchic choruses of the Greeks, with their previous history in Asia -Minor, as far back as Babylon and the orgiastic Sacæa. There are some, -who, from lack of experience or obtuseness, will turn away from such -phenomena as "folk-diseases" with a smile of contempt or pity prompted -by the consciousness of their own health: of course, the poor wretches -do not divine what a cadaverous-looking and ghastly aspect this very -"health" of theirs presents when the glowing life of the Dionysian -revellers rushes past them. - -Under the charm of the Dionysian not only is the covenant between man -and man again established, but also estranged, hostile or subjugated -nature again celebrates her reconciliation with her lost son, man. Of -her own accord earth proffers her gifts, and peacefully the beasts of -prey approach from the desert and the rocks. The chariot of Dionysus is -bedecked with flowers and garlands: panthers and tigers pass beneath -his yoke. Change Beethoven's "jubilee-song" into a painting, and, if -your imagination be equal to the occasion when the awestruck millions -sink into the dust, you will then be able to approach the Dionysian. -Now is the slave a free man, now all the stubborn, hostile barriers, -which necessity, caprice, or "shameless fashion" has set up between -man and man, are broken down. Now, at the evangel of cosmic harmony, -each one feels himself not only united, reconciled, blended with -his neighbour, but as one with him, as if the veil of Mâyâ has been -torn and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious -Primordial Unity. In song and in dance man exhibits himself as a member -of a higher community, has forgotten how to walk and speak, and is on -the point of taking a dancing flight into the air. His gestures bespeak -enchantment. Even as the animals now talk, and as the earth yields milk -and honey, so also something super-natural sounds forth from him: he -feels himself a god, he himself now walks about enchanted and elated -even as the gods whom he saw walking about in his dreams. Man is no -longer an artist, he has become a work of art: the artistic power of -all nature here reveals itself in the tremors of drunkenness to the -highest gratification of the Primordial Unity. The noblest clay, the -costliest marble, namely man, is here kneaded and cut, and the chisel -strokes of the Dionysian world-artist are accompanied with the cry of -the Eleusinian mysteries: "Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen? Ahnest du den -Schöpfer, Welt?"[3] - - -[1] - - My friend, just this is poet's task: - His dreams to read and to unmask. - Trust me, illusion's truths thrice sealed - In dream to man will be revealed. - All verse-craft and poetisation - Is but soothdream interpretation. - -[2] Cf. _World and Will as Idea,_ 1. 455 ff., trans, by -Haldane and Kemp. - -[3] - - Ye bow in the dust, oh millions? - Thy maker, mortal, dost divine? -Cf. Schiller's "Hymn to Joy"; and Beethoven, Ninth Symphony.--TR. - - - - - -2. - - -Thus far we have considered the Apollonian and his antithesis, -the Dionysian, as artistic powers, which burst forth from nature -herself, _without the mediation of the human artist,_ and in which -her art-impulses are satisfied in the most immediate and direct way: -first, as the pictorial world of dreams, the perfection of which -has no connection whatever with the intellectual height or artistic -culture of the unit man, and again, as drunken reality, which likewise -does not heed the unit man, but even seeks to destroy the individual -and redeem him by a mystic feeling of Oneness. Anent these immediate -art-states of nature every artist is either an "imitator," to wit, -either an Apollonian, an artist in dreams, or a Dionysian, an artist -in ecstasies, or finally--as for instance in Greek tragedy--an artist -in both dreams and ecstasies: so we may perhaps picture him, as in -his Dionysian drunkenness and mystical self-abnegation, lonesome and -apart from the revelling choruses, he sinks down, and how now, through -Apollonian dream-inspiration, his own state, _i.e._, his oneness -with the primal source of the universe, reveals itself to him _in a -symbolical dream-picture_. - -After these general premisings and contrastings, let us now approach -the _Greeks_ in order to learn in what degree and to what height -these _art-impulses of nature_ were developed in them: whereby -we shall be enabled to understand and appreciate more deeply the -relation of the Greek artist to his archetypes, or, according to the -Aristotelian expression, "the imitation of nature." In spite of all the -dream-literature and the numerous dream-anecdotes of the Greeks, we can -speak only conjecturally, though with a fair degree of certainty, of -their _dreams._ Considering the incredibly precise and unerring plastic -power of their eyes, as also their manifest and sincere delight in -colours, we can hardly refrain (to the shame of every one born later) -from assuming for their very dreams a logical causality of lines and -contours, colours and groups, a sequence of scenes resembling their -best reliefs, the perfection of which would certainly justify us, if a -comparison were possible, in designating the dreaming Greeks as Homers -and Homer as a dreaming Greek: in a deeper sense than when modern man, -in respect to his dreams, ventures to compare himself with Shakespeare. - -On the other hand, we should not have to speak conjecturally, if asked -to disclose the immense gap which separated the _Dionysian Greek_ from -the Dionysian barbarian. From all quarters of the Ancient World--to -say nothing of the modern--from Rome as far as Babylon, we can prove -the existence of Dionysian festivals, the type of which bears, at -best, the same relation to the Greek festivals as the bearded satyr, -who borrowed his name and attributes from the goat, does to Dionysus -himself. In nearly every instance the centre of these festivals lay -in extravagant sexual licentiousness, the waves of which overwhelmed -all family life and its venerable traditions; the very wildest beasts -of nature were let loose here, including that detestable mixture of -lust and cruelty which has always seemed to me the genuine "witches' -draught." For some time, however, it would seem that the Greeks -were perfectly secure and guarded against the feverish agitations -of these festivals (--the knowledge of which entered Greece by all -the channels of land and sea) by the figure of Apollo himself rising -here in full pride, who could not have held out the Gorgon's head to -a more dangerous power than this grotesquely uncouth Dionysian. It -is in Doric art that this majestically-rejecting attitude of Apollo -perpetuated itself. This opposition became more precarious and even -impossible, when, from out of the deepest root of the Hellenic nature, -similar impulses finally broke forth and made way for themselves: -the Delphic god, by a seasonably effected reconciliation, was now -contented with taking the destructive arms from the hands of his -powerful antagonist. This reconciliation marks the most important -moment in the history of the Greek cult: wherever we turn our eyes -we may observe the revolutions resulting from this event. It was -the reconciliation of two antagonists, with the sharp demarcation -of the boundary-lines to be thenceforth observed by each, and with -periodical transmission of testimonials;--in reality, the chasm was -not bridged over. But if we observe how, under the pressure of this -conclusion of peace, the Dionysian power manifested itself, we shall -now recognise in the Dionysian orgies of the Greeks, as compared with -the Babylonian Sacæa and their retrogression of man to the tiger and -the ape, the significance of festivals of world-redemption and days of -transfiguration. Not till then does nature attain her artistic jubilee; -not till then does the rupture of the _principium individuationis_ -become an artistic phenomenon. That horrible "witches' draught" of -sensuality and cruelty was here powerless: only the curious blending -and duality in the emotions of the Dionysian revellers reminds one of -it--just as medicines remind one of deadly poisons,--that phenomenon, -to wit, that pains beget joy, that jubilation wrings painful sounds out -of the breast. From the highest joy sounds the cry of horror or the -yearning wail over an irretrievable loss. In these Greek festivals a -sentimental trait, as it were, breaks forth from nature, as if she must -sigh over her dismemberment into individuals. The song and pantomime -of such dually-minded revellers was something new and unheard-of in -the Homeric-Grecian world; and the Dionysian _music_ in particular -excited awe and horror. If music, as it would seem, was previously -known as an Apollonian art, it was, strictly speaking, only as the -wave-beat of rhythm, the formative power of which was developed to -the representation of Apollonian conditions. The music of Apollo was -Doric architectonics in tones, but in merely suggested tones, such -as those of the cithara. The very element which forms the essence of -Dionysian music (and hence of music in general) is carefully excluded -as un-Apollonian; namely, the thrilling power of the tone, the uniform -stream of the melos, and the thoroughly incomparable world of harmony. -In the Dionysian dithyramb man is incited to the highest exaltation -of all his symbolic faculties; something never before experienced -struggles for utterance--the annihilation of the veil of Mâyâ, Oneness -as genius of the race, ay, of nature. The essence of nature is now -to be expressed symbolically; a new world of symbols is required; -for once the entire symbolism of the body, not only the symbolism of -the lips, face, and speech, but the whole pantomime of dancing which -sets all the members into rhythmical motion. Thereupon the other -symbolic powers, those of music, in rhythmics, dynamics, and harmony, -suddenly become impetuous. To comprehend this collective discharge -of all the symbolic powers, a man must have already attained that -height of self-abnegation, which wills to express itself symbolically -through these powers: the Dithyrambic votary of Dionysus is therefore -understood only by those like himself! With what astonishment must the -Apollonian Greek have beheld him! With an astonishment, which was all -the greater the more it was mingled with the shuddering suspicion that -all this was in reality not so very foreign to him, yea, that, like -unto a veil, his Apollonian consciousness only hid this Dionysian world -from his view. - - - -3. - - -In order to comprehend this, we must take down the artistic structure, -of the _Apollonian culture,_ as it were, stone by stone, till we behold -the foundations on which it rests. Here we observe first of all the -glorious _Olympian_ figures of the gods, standing on the gables of this -structure, whose deeds, represented in far-shining reliefs, adorn its -friezes. Though Apollo stands among them as an individual deity, side -by side with others, and without claim to priority of rank, we must not -suffer this fact to mislead us. The same impulse which embodied itself -in Apollo has, in general, given birth to this whole Olympian world, -and in this sense we may regard Apollo as the father thereof. What was -the enormous need from which proceeded such an illustrious group of -Olympian beings? - -Whosoever, with another religion in his heart, approaches these -Olympians and seeks among them for moral elevation, even for sanctity, -for incorporeal spiritualisation, for sympathetic looks of love, will -soon be obliged to turn his back on them, discouraged and disappointed. -Here nothing suggests asceticism, spirituality, or duty: here only -an exuberant, even triumphant life speaks to us, in which everything -existing is deified, whether good or bad. And so the spectator will -perhaps stand quite bewildered before this fantastic exuberance of -life, and ask himself what magic potion these madly merry men could -have used for enjoying life, so that, wherever they turned their eyes, -Helena, the ideal image of their own existence "floating in sweet -sensuality," smiled upon them. But to this spectator, already turning -backwards, we must call out: "depart not hence, but hear rather what -Greek folk-wisdom says of this same life, which with such inexplicable -cheerfulness spreads out before thee." There is an ancient story that -king Midas hunted in the forest a long time for the wise _Silenus,_ -the companion of Dionysus, without capturing him. When at last he fell -into his hands, the king asked what was best of all and most desirable -for man. Fixed and immovable, the demon remained silent; till at last, -forced by the king, he broke out with shrill laughter into these words: -"Oh, wretched race of a day, children of chance and misery, why do ye -compel me to say to you what it were most expedient for you not to -hear? What is best of all is for ever beyond your reach: not to be -born, not to _be_, to be _nothing._ The second best for you, however, -is soon to die." - -How is the Olympian world of deities related to this folk-wisdom? Even -as the rapturous vision of the tortured martyr to his sufferings. - -Now the Olympian magic mountain opens, as it were, to our view and -shows to us its roots. The Greek knew and felt the terrors and horrors -of existence: to be able to live at all, he had to interpose the -shining dream-birth of the Olympian world between himself and them. -The excessive distrust of the titanic powers of nature, the Moira -throning inexorably over all knowledge, the vulture of the great -philanthropist Prometheus, the terrible fate of the wise Œdipus, the -family curse of the Atridæ which drove Orestes to matricide; in short, -that entire philosophy of the sylvan god, with its mythical exemplars, -which wrought the ruin of the melancholy Etruscans--was again and again -surmounted anew by the Greeks through the artistic _middle world_ of -the Olympians, or at least veiled and withdrawn from sight. To be able -to live, the Greeks had, from direst necessity, to create these gods: -which process we may perhaps picture to ourselves in this manner: that -out of the original Titan thearchy of terror the Olympian thearchy of -joy was evolved, by slow transitions, through the Apollonian impulse to -beauty, even as roses break forth from thorny bushes. How else could -this so sensitive people, so vehement in its desires, so singularly -qualified for _sufferings_ have endured existence, if it had not been -exhibited to them in their gods, surrounded with a higher glory? -The same impulse which calls art into being, as the complement and -consummation of existence, seducing to a continuation of life, caused -also the Olympian world to arise, in which the Hellenic "will" held -up before itself a transfiguring mirror. Thus do the gods justify the -life of man, in that they themselves live it--the only satisfactory -Theodicy! Existence under the bright sunshine of such gods is regarded -as that which is desirable in itself, and the real _grief_ of the -Homeric men has reference to parting from it, especially to early -parting: so that we might now say of them, with a reversion of the -Silenian wisdom, that "to die early is worst of all for them, the -second worst is--some day to die at all." If once the lamentation is -heard, it will ring out again, of the short-lived Achilles, of the -leaf-like change and vicissitude of the human race, of the decay of -the heroic age. It is not unworthy of the greatest hero to long for a -continuation of life, ay, even as a day-labourer. So vehemently does -the "will," at the Apollonian stage of development, long for this -existence, so completely at one does the Homeric man feel himself with -it, that the very lamentation becomes its song of praise. - -Here we must observe that this harmony which is so eagerly contemplated -by modern man, in fact, this oneness of man with nature, to express -which Schiller introduced the technical term "naïve," is by no means -such a simple, naturally resulting and, as it were, inevitable -condition, which _must_ be found at the gate of every culture leading -to a paradise of man: this could be believed only by an age which -sought to picture to itself Rousseau's Émile also as an artist, -and imagined it had found in Homer such an artist Émile, reared at -Nature's bosom. Wherever we meet with the "naïve" in art, it behoves -us to recognise the highest effect of the Apollonian culture, which -in the first place has always to overthrow some Titanic empire and -slay monsters, and which, through powerful dazzling representations -and pleasurable illusions, must have triumphed over a terrible depth -of world-contemplation and a most keen susceptibility to suffering. -But how seldom is the naïve--that complete absorption, in the beauty -of appearance--attained! And hence how inexpressibly sublime is -_Homer,_ who, as unit being, bears the same relation to this Apollonian -folk-culture as the unit dream-artist does to the dream-faculty of -the people and of Nature in general. The Homeric "naïveté" can be -comprehended only as the complete triumph of the Apollonian illusion: -it is the same kind of illusion as Nature so frequently employs to -compass her ends. The true goal is veiled by a phantasm: we stretch out -our hands for the latter, while Nature attains the former through our -illusion. In the Greeks the "will" desired to contemplate itself in the -transfiguration of the genius and the world of art; in order to glorify -themselves, its creatures had to feel themselves worthy of glory; -they had to behold themselves again in a higher sphere, without this -consummate world of contemplation acting as an imperative or reproach. -Such is the sphere of beauty, in which, as in a mirror, they saw their -images, the Olympians. With this mirroring of beauty the Hellenic will -combated its talent--correlative to the artistic--for suffering and for -the wisdom of suffering: and, as a monument of its victory, Homer, the -naïve artist, stands before us. - - - -4. - - -Concerning this naïve artist the analogy of dreams will enlighten us to -some extent. When we realise to ourselves the dreamer, as, in the midst -of the illusion of the dream-world and without disturbing it, he calls -out to himself: "it is a dream, I will dream on"; when we must thence -infer a deep inner joy in dream-contemplation; when, on the other hand, -to be at all able to dream with this inner joy in contemplation, we -must have completely forgotten the day and its terrible obtrusiveness, -we may, under the direction of the dream-reading Apollo, interpret -all these phenomena to ourselves somewhat as follows. Though it is -certain that of the two halves of life, the waking and the dreaming, -the former appeals to us as by far the more preferred, important, -excellent and worthy of being lived, indeed, as that which alone is -lived: yet, with reference to that mysterious ground of our being of -which we are the phenomenon, I should, paradoxical as it may seem, be -inclined to maintain the very opposite estimate of the value of dream -life. For the more clearly I perceive in nature those all-powerful art -impulses, and in them a fervent longing for appearance, for redemption -through appearance, the more I feel myself driven to the metaphysical -assumption that the Verily-Existent and Primordial Unity, as the -Eternally Suffering and Self-Contradictory, requires the rapturous -vision, the joyful appearance, for its continuous salvation: which -appearance we, who are completely wrapt in it and composed of it, must -regard as the Verily Non-existent,--_i.e.,_ as a perpetual unfolding -in time, space and causality,--in other words, as empiric reality. -If we therefore waive the consideration of our own "reality" for the -present, if we conceive our empiric existence, and that of the world -generally, as a representation of the Primordial Unity generated every -moment, we shall then have to regard the dream as an _appearance of -appearance,_ hence as a still higher gratification of the primordial -desire for appearance. It is for this same reason that the innermost -heart of Nature experiences that indescribable joy in the naïve artist -and in the naïve work of art, which is likewise only "an appearance of -appearance." In a symbolic painting, _Raphael_, himself one of these -immortal "naïve" ones, has represented to us this depotentiating of -appearance to appearance, the primordial process of the naïve artist -and at the same time of Apollonian culture. In his _Transfiguration,_ -the lower half, with the possessed boy, the despairing bearers, the -helpless, terrified disciples, shows to us the reflection of eternal -primordial pain, the sole basis of the world: the "appearance" here -is the counter-appearance of eternal Contradiction, the father of -things. Out of this appearance then arises, like an ambrosial vapour, a -visionlike new world of appearances, of which those wrapt in the first -appearance see nothing--a radiant floating in purest bliss and painless -Contemplation beaming from wide-open eyes. Here there is presented to -our view, in the highest symbolism of art, that Apollonian world of -beauty and its substratum, the terrible wisdom of Silenus, and we -comprehend, by intuition, their necessary interdependence. Apollo, -however, again appears to us as the apotheosis of the _principium -individuationis,_ in which alone the perpetually attained end of the -Primordial Unity, its redemption through appearance, is consummated: he -shows us, with sublime attitudes, how the entire world of torment is -necessary, that thereby the individual may be impelled to realise the -redeeming vision, and then, sunk in contemplation thereof, quietly sit -in his fluctuating barque, in the midst of the sea. - -This apotheosis of individuation, if it be at all conceived as -imperative and laying down precepts, knows but one law--the individual, -_i.e.,_ the observance of the boundaries of the individual, -_measure_ in the Hellenic sense. Apollo, as ethical deity, demands -due proportion of his disciples, and, that this may be observed, he -demands self-knowledge. And thus, parallel to the æsthetic necessity -for beauty, there run the demands "know thyself" and "not too much," -while presumption and undueness are regarded as the truly hostile -demons of the non-Apollonian sphere, hence as characteristics of the -pre-Apollonian age, that of the Titans, and of the extra-Apollonian -world, that of the barbarians. Because of his Titan-like love for -man, Prometheus had to be torn to pieces by vultures; because of his -excessive wisdom, which solved the riddle of the Sphinx, Œdipus had -to plunge into a bewildering vortex of monstrous crimes: thus did the -Delphic god interpret the Grecian past. - -So also the effects wrought by the _Dionysian_ appeared "titanic" and -"barbaric" to the Apollonian Greek: while at the same time he could -not conceal from himself that he too was inwardly related to these -overthrown Titans and heroes. Indeed, he had to recognise still more -than this: his entire existence, with all its beauty and moderation, -rested on a hidden substratum of suffering and of knowledge, which -was again disclosed to him by the Dionysian. And lo! Apollo could not -live without Dionysus! The "titanic" and the "barbaric" were in the -end not less necessary than the Apollonian. And now let us imagine to -ourselves how the ecstatic tone of the Dionysian festival sounded in -ever more luring and bewitching strains into this artificially confined -world built on appearance and moderation, how in these strains all -the _undueness_ of nature, in joy, sorrow, and knowledge, even to -the transpiercing shriek, became audible: let us ask ourselves what -meaning could be attached to the psalmodising artist of Apollo, with -the phantom harp-sound, as compared with this demonic folk-song! The -muses of the arts of "appearance" paled before an art which, in its -intoxication, spoke the truth, the wisdom of Silenus cried "woe! woe!" -against the cheerful Olympians. The individual, with all his boundaries -and due proportions, went under in the self-oblivion of the Dionysian -states and forgot the Apollonian precepts. The _Undueness_ revealed -itself as truth, contradiction, the bliss born of pain, declared itself -but of the heart of nature. And thus, wherever the Dionysian prevailed, -the Apollonian was routed and annihilated. But it is quite as certain -that, where the first assault was successfully withstood, the authority -and majesty of the Delphic god exhibited itself as more rigid and -menacing than ever. For I can only explain to myself the _Doric_ state -and Doric art as a permanent war-camp of the Apollonian: only by -incessant opposition to the titanic-barbaric nature of the Dionysian -was it possible for an art so defiantly-prim, so encompassed with -bulwarks, a training so warlike and rigorous, a constitution so cruel -and relentless, to last for any length of time. - -Up to this point we have enlarged upon the observation made at the -beginning of this essay: how the Dionysian and the Apollonian, in ever -new births succeeding and mutually augmenting one another, controlled -the Hellenic genius: how from out the age of "bronze," with its Titan -struggles and rigorous folk-philosophy, the Homeric world develops -under the fostering sway of the Apollonian impulse to beauty, how this -"naïve" splendour is again overwhelmed by the inbursting flood of the -Dionysian, and how against this new power the Apollonian rises to the -austere majesty of Doric art and the Doric view of things. If, then, -in this way, in the strife of these two hostile principles, the older -Hellenic history falls into four great periods of art, we are now -driven to inquire after the ulterior purpose of these unfoldings and -processes, unless perchance we should regard the last-attained period, -the period of Doric art, as the end and aim of these artistic impulses: -and here the sublime and highly celebrated art-work of _Attic tragedy_ -and dramatic dithyramb presents itself to our view as the common -goal of both these impulses, whose mysterious union, after many and -long precursory struggles, found its glorious consummation in such a -child,--which is at once Antigone and Cassandra. - - - -5. - - -We now approach the real purpose of our investigation, which aims -at acquiring a knowledge of the Dionyso-Apollonian genius and his -art-work, or at least an anticipatory understanding of the mystery of -the aforesaid union. Here we shall ask first of all where that new -germ which subsequently developed into tragedy and dramatic dithyramb -first makes itself perceptible in the Hellenic world. The ancients -themselves supply the answer in symbolic form, when they place _Homer_ -and _Archilochus_ as the forefathers and torch-bearers of Greek poetry -side by side on gems, sculptures, etc., in the sure conviction that -only these two thoroughly original compeers, from whom a stream of -fire flows over the whole of Greek posterity, should be taken into -consideration. Homer, the aged dreamer sunk in himself, the type -of the Apollonian naïve artist, beholds now with astonishment the -impassioned genius of the warlike votary of the muses, Archilochus, -violently tossed to and fro on the billows of existence: and modern -æsthetics could only add by way of interpretation, that here the -"objective" artist is confronted by the first "subjective" artist. -But this interpretation is of little service to us, because we know -the subjective artist only as the poor artist, and in every type and -elevation of art we demand specially and first of all the conquest -of the Subjective, the redemption from the "ego" and the cessation -of every individual will and desire; indeed, we find it impossible -to believe in any truly artistic production, however insignificant, -without objectivity, without pure, interestless contemplation. Hence -our æsthetics must first solve the problem as to how the "lyrist" is -possible as an artist: he who according to the experience of all ages -continually says "I" and sings off to us the entire chromatic scale of -his passions and desires. This very Archilochus appals us, alongside -of Homer, by his cries of hatred and scorn, by the drunken outbursts -of his desire. Is not just he then, who has been called the first -subjective artist, the non-artist proper? But whence then the reverence -which was shown to him--the poet--in very remarkable utterances by the -Delphic oracle itself, the focus of "objective" art? - -_Schiller_ has enlightened us concerning his poetic procedure by a -psychological observation, inexplicable to himself, yet not apparently -open to any objection. He acknowledges that as the preparatory state -to the act of poetising he had not perhaps before him or within him a -series of pictures with co-ordinate causality of thoughts, but rather -a _musical mood_ ("The perception with me is at first without a clear -and definite object; this forms itself later. A certain musical mood -of mind precedes, and only after this does the poetical idea follow -with me.") Add to this the most important phenomenon of all ancient -lyric poetry, _the union,_ regarded everywhere as natural, _of the -lyrist with the musician,_ their very identity, indeed,--compared -with which our modern lyric poetry is like the statue of a god without -a head,--and we may now, on the basis of our metaphysics of æsthetics -set forth above, interpret the lyrist to ourselves as follows. As -Dionysian artist he is in the first place become altogether one with -the Primordial Unity, its pain and contradiction, and he produces the -copy of this Primordial Unity as music, granting that music has been -correctly termed a repetition and a recast of the world; but now, under -the Apollonian dream-inspiration, this music again becomes visible -to him as in a _symbolic dream-picture._ The formless and intangible -reflection of the primordial pain in music, with its redemption in -appearance, then generates a second mirroring as a concrete symbol or -example. The artist has already surrendered his subjectivity in the -Dionysian process: the picture which now shows to him his oneness with -the heart of the world, is a dream-scene, which embodies the primordial -contradiction and primordial pain, together with the primordial joy, of -appearance. The "I" of the lyrist sounds therefore from the abyss of -being: its "subjectivity," in the sense of the modern æsthetes, is a -fiction. When Archilochus, the first lyrist of the Greeks, makes known -both his mad love and his contempt to the daughters of Lycambes, it is -not his passion which dances before us in orgiastic frenzy: we see -Dionysus and the Mænads, we see the drunken reveller Archilochus sunk -down to sleep--as Euripides depicts it in the Bacchæ, the sleep on the -high Alpine pasture, in the noonday sun:--and now Apollo approaches and -touches him with the laurel. The Dionyso-musical enchantment of the -sleeper now emits, as it were, picture sparks, lyrical poems, which in -their highest development are called tragedies and dramatic dithyrambs. - -The plastic artist, as also the epic poet, who is related to him, is -sunk in the pure contemplation of pictures. The Dionysian musician -is, without any picture, himself just primordial pain and the -primordial re-echoing thereof. The lyric genius is conscious of a -world of pictures and symbols--growing out of the state of mystical -self-abnegation and oneness,--which has a colouring causality and -velocity quite different from that of the world of the plastic artist -and epic poet. While the latter lives in these pictures, and only in -them, with joyful satisfaction, and never grows tired of contemplating -them with love, even in their minutest characters, while even the -picture of the angry Achilles is to him but a picture, the angry -expression of which he enjoys with the dream-joy in appearance--so -that, by this mirror of appearance, he is guarded against being unified -and blending with his figures;--the pictures of the lyrist on the other -hand are nothing but _his very_ self and, as it were, only different -projections of himself, on account of which he as the moving centre -of this world is entitled to say "I": only of course this self is -not the same as that of the waking, empirically real man, but the -only verily existent and eternal self resting at the basis of things, -by means of the images whereof the lyric genius sees through even to -this basis of things. Now let us suppose that he beholds _himself_ -also among these images as non-genius, _i.e.,_ his subject, the whole -throng of subjective passions and impulses of the will directed to a -definite object which appears real to him; if now it seems as if the -lyric genius and the allied non-genius were one, and as if the former -spoke that little word "I" of his own accord, this appearance will no -longer be able to lead us astray, as it certainly led those astray who -designated the lyrist as the subjective poet. In truth, Archilochus, -the passionately inflamed, loving and hating man, is but a vision of -the genius, who by this time is no longer Archilochus, but a genius -of the world, who expresses his primordial pain symbolically in the -figure of the man Archilochus: while the subjectively willing and -desiring man, Archilochus, can never at any time be a poet. It is by no -means necessary, however, that the lyrist should see nothing but the -phenomenon of the man Archilochus before him as a reflection of eternal -being; and tragedy shows how far the visionary world of the lyrist may -depart from this phenomenon, to which, of course, it is most intimately -related. - -_Schopenhauer,_ who did not shut his eyes to the difficulty presented -by the lyrist in the philosophical contemplation of art, thought he -had found a way out of it, on which, however, I cannot accompany him; -while he alone, in his profound metaphysics of music, held in his -hands the means whereby this difficulty could be definitely removed: -as I believe I have removed it here in his spirit and to his honour. -In contrast to our view, he describes the peculiar nature of song -as follows[4] (_Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,_ I. 295):--"It is -the subject of the will, _i.e.,_ his own volition, which fills the -consciousness of the singer; often as an unbound and satisfied desire -(joy), but still more often as a restricted desire (grief), always as -an emotion, a passion, or an agitated frame of mind. Besides this, -however, and along with it, by the sight of surrounding nature, the -singer becomes conscious of himself as the subject of pure will-less -knowing, the unbroken, blissful peace of which now appears, in contrast -to the stress of desire, which is always restricted and always needy. -The feeling of this contrast, this alternation, is really what the -song as a whole expresses and what principally constitutes the lyrical -state of mind. In it pure knowing comes to us as it were to deliver us -from desire and the stress thereof: we follow, but only for an instant; -for desire, the remembrance of our personal ends, tears us anew from -peaceful contemplation; yet ever again the next beautiful surrounding -in which the pure will-less knowledge presents itself to us, allures -us away from desire. Therefore, in song and in the lyrical mood, -desire (the personal interest of the ends) and the pure perception of -the surrounding which presents itself, are wonderfully mingled with -each other; connections between them are sought for and imagined; the -subjective disposition, the affection of the will, imparts its own -hue to the contemplated surrounding, and conversely, the surroundings -communicate the reflex of their colour to the will. The true song is -the expression of the whole of this mingled and divided state of mind." - -Who could fail to see in this description that lyric poetry is here -characterised as an imperfectly attained art, which seldom and only -as it were in leaps arrives at its goal, indeed, as a semi-art, the -essence of which is said to consist in this, that desire and pure -contemplation, _i.e.,_ the unæsthetic and the æsthetic condition, are -wonderfully mingled with each other? We maintain rather, that this -entire antithesis, according to which, as according to some standard -of value, Schopenhauer, too, still classifies the arts, the antithesis -between the subjective and the objective, is quite out of place in -æsthetics, inasmuch as the subject _i.e.,_ the desiring individual who -furthers his own egoistic ends, can be conceived only as the adversary, -not as the origin of art. In so far as the subject is the artist, -however, he has already been released from his individual will, and has -become as it were the medium, through which the one verily existent -Subject celebrates his redemption in appearance. For this one thing -must above all be clear to us, to our humiliation _and_ exaltation, -that the entire comedy of art is not at all performed, say, for our -betterment and culture, and that we are just as little the true authors -of this art-world: rather we may assume with regard to ourselves, that -its true author uses us as pictures and artistic projections, and that -we have our highest dignity in our significance as works of art--for -only as an _æsthetic phenomenon_ is existence and the world eternally -_justified:_--while of course our consciousness of this our specific -significance hardly differs from the kind of consciousness which the -soldiers painted on canvas have of the battle represented thereon. -Hence all our knowledge of art is at bottom quite illusory, because, as -knowing persons we are not one and identical with the Being who, as the -sole author and spectator of this comedy of art, prepares a perpetual -entertainment for himself. Only in so far as the genius in the act of -artistic production coalesces with this primordial artist of the world, -does he get a glimpse of the eternal essence of art, for in this state -he is, in a marvellous manner, like the weird picture of the fairy-tale -which can at will turn its eyes and behold itself; he is now at once -subject and object, at once poet, actor, and spectator. - - -[4] _World as Will and Idea,_ I. 323, 4th ed. of Haldane and -Kemp's translation. Quoted with a few changes. - - - -6. - - -With reference to Archilochus, it has been established by critical -research that he introduced the _folk-song_ into literature, and, -on account thereof, deserved, according to the general estimate of -the Greeks, his unique position alongside of Homer. But what is this -popular folk-song in contrast to the wholly Apollonian epos? What -else but the _perpetuum vestigium_ of a union of the Apollonian and -the Dionysian? Its enormous diffusion among all peoples, still further -enhanced by ever new births, testifies to the power of this artistic -double impulse of nature: which leaves its vestiges in the popular -song in like manner as the orgiastic movements of a people perpetuate -themselves in its music. Indeed, one might also furnish historical -proofs, that every period which is highly productive in popular songs -has been most violently stirred by Dionysian currents, which we must -always regard as the substratum and prerequisite of the popular song. - -First of all, however, we regard the popular song as the musical mirror -of the world, as the Original melody, which now seeks for itself a -parallel dream-phenomenon and expresses it in poetry. _Melody is -therefore primary and universal,_ and as such may admit of several -objectivations, in several texts. Likewise, in the naïve estimation of -the people, it is regarded as by far the more important and necessary. -Melody generates the poem out of itself by an ever-recurring process. -_The strophic form of the popular song_ points to the same phenomenon, -which I always beheld with astonishment, till at last I found this -explanation. Any one who in accordance with this theory examines a -collection of popular songs, such as "Des Knaben Wunderhorn," will find -innumerable instances of the perpetually productive melody scattering -picture sparks all around: which in their variegation, their abrupt -change, their mad precipitance, manifest a power quite unknown to the -epic appearance and its steady flow. From the point of view of the -epos, this unequal and irregular pictorial world of lyric poetry must -be simply condemned: and the solemn epic rhapsodists of the Apollonian -festivals in the age of Terpander have certainly done so. - -Accordingly, we observe that in the poetising of the popular song, -language is strained to its utmost _to imitate music;_ and hence a -new world of poetry begins with Archilochus, which is fundamentally -opposed to the Homeric. And in saying this we have pointed out the -only possible relation between poetry and music, between word and -tone: the word, the picture, the concept here seeks an expression -analogous to music and now experiences in itself the power of music. -In this sense we may discriminate between two main currents in the -history of the language of the Greek people, according as their -language imitated either the world of phenomena and of pictures, or the -world of music. One has only to reflect seriously on the linguistic -difference with regard to colour, syntactical structure, and vocabulary -in Homer and Pindar, in order to comprehend the significance of this -contrast; indeed, it becomes palpably clear to us that in the period -between Homer and Pindar the _orgiastic flute tones of Olympus_ must -have sounded forth, which, in an age as late as Aristotle's, when -music was infinitely more developed, transported people to drunken -enthusiasm, and which, when their influence was first felt, undoubtedly -incited all the poetic means of expression of contemporaneous man -to imitation. I here call attention to a familiar phenomenon of our -own times, against which our æsthetics raises many objections. We -again and again have occasion to observe how a symphony of Beethoven -compels the individual hearers to use figurative speech, though the -appearance presented by a collocation of the different pictorial -world generated by a piece of music may be never so fantastically -diversified and even contradictory. To practise its small wit on such -compositions, and to overlook a phenomenon which is certainly worth -explaining, is quite in keeping with this æsthetics. Indeed, even if -the tone-poet has spoken in pictures concerning a composition, when for -instance he designates a certain symphony as the "pastoral" symphony, -or a passage therein as "the scene by the brook," or another as the -"merry gathering of rustics," these are likewise only symbolical -representations born out of music--and not perhaps the imitated objects -of music--representations which can give us no information whatever -concerning the _Dionysian_ content of music, and which in fact have -no distinctive value of their own alongside of other pictorical -expressions. This process of a discharge of music in pictures we have -now to transfer to some youthful, linguistically productive people, to -get a notion as to how the strophic popular song originates, and how -the entire faculty of speech is stimulated by this new principle of -imitation of music. - -If, therefore, we may regard lyric poetry as the effulguration of -music in pictures and concepts, we can now ask: "how does music -_appear_ in the mirror of symbolism and conception?" _It appears as -will,_ taking the word in the Schopenhauerian sense, _i.e.,_ as the -antithesis of the æsthetic, purely contemplative, and passive frame -of mind. Here, however, we must discriminate as sharply as possible -between the concept of essentiality and the concept of phenominality; -for music, according to its essence, cannot be will, because as such it -would have to be wholly banished from the domain of art--for the will -is the unæsthetic-in-itself;--yet it appears as will. For in order to -express the phenomenon of music in pictures, the lyrist requires all -the stirrings of passion, from the whispering of infant desire to the -roaring of madness. Under the impulse to speak of music in Apollonian -symbols, he conceives of all nature, and himself therein, only as the -eternally willing, desiring, longing existence. But in so far as he -interprets music by means of pictures, he himself rests in the quiet -calm of Apollonian contemplation, however much all around him which -he beholds through the medium of music is in a state of confused and -violent motion. Indeed, when he beholds himself through this same -medium, his own image appears to him in a state of unsatisfied feeling: -his own willing, longing, moaning and rejoicing are to him symbols by -which he interprets music. Such is the phenomenon of the lyrist: as -Apollonian genius he interprets music through the image of the will, -while he himself, completely released from the avidity of the will, is -the pure, undimmed eye of day. - -Our whole disquisition insists on this, that lyric poetry is dependent -on the spirit of music just as music itself in its absolute sovereignty -does not _require_ the picture and the concept, but only _endures_ -them as accompaniments. The poems of the lyrist can express nothing -which has not already been contained in the vast universality and -absoluteness of the music which compelled him to use figurative -speech. By no means is it possible for language adequately to render -the cosmic symbolism of music, for the very reason that music stands -in symbolic relation to the primordial contradiction and primordial -pain in the heart of the Primordial Unity, and therefore symbolises a -sphere which is above all appearance and before all phenomena. Rather -should we say that all phenomena, compared with it, are but symbols: -hence _language,_ as the organ and symbol of phenomena, cannot at all -disclose the innermost essence, of music; language can only be in -superficial contact with music when it attempts to imitate music; while -the profoundest significance of the latter cannot be brought one step -nearer to us by all the eloquence of lyric poetry. - - - -7. - - -We shall now have to avail ourselves of all the principles of art -hitherto considered, in order to find our way through the labyrinth, -as we must designate _the origin of Greek tragedy._ I shall not be -charged with absurdity in saying that the problem of this origin has -as yet not even been seriously stated, not to say solved, however -often the fluttering tatters of ancient tradition have been sewed -together in sundry combinations and torn asunder again. This tradition -tells us in the most unequivocal terms, _that tragedy sprang from the -tragic chorus,_ and was originally only chorus and nothing but chorus: -and hence we feel it our duty to look into the heart of this tragic -chorus as being the real proto-drama, without in the least contenting -ourselves with current art-phraseology--according to which the chorus -is the ideal spectator, or represents the people in contrast to the -regal side of the scene. The latter explanatory notion, which sounds -sublime to many a politician--that the immutable moral law was embodied -by the democratic Athenians in the popular chorus, which always carries -its point over the passionate excesses and extravagances of kings--may -be ever so forcibly suggested by an observation of Aristotle: still -it has no bearing on the original formation of tragedy, inasmuch -as the entire antithesis of king and people, and, in general, the -whole politico-social sphere, is excluded from the purely religious -beginnings of tragedy; but, considering the well-known classical -form of the chorus in Æschylus and Sophocles, we should even deem -it blasphemy to speak here of the anticipation of a "constitutional -representation of the people," from which blasphemy others have not -shrunk, however. The ancient governments knew of no constitutional -representation of the people _in praxi,_ and it is to be hoped that -they did not even so much as "anticipate" it in tragedy. - -Much more celebrated than this political explanation of the chorus is -the notion of A. W. Schlegel, who advises us to regard the chorus, in -a manner, as the essence and extract of the crowd of spectators,--as -the "ideal spectator." This view when compared with the historical -tradition that tragedy was originally only chorus, reveals itself -in its true character, as a crude, unscientific, yet brilliant -assertion, which, however, has acquired its brilliancy only through -its concentrated form of expression, through the truly Germanic bias -in favour of whatever is called "ideal," and through our momentary -astonishment. For we are indeed astonished the moment we compare our -well-known theatrical public with this chorus, and ask ourselves if it -could ever be possible to idealise something analogous to the Greek -chorus out of such a public. We tacitly deny this, and now wonder -as much at the boldness of Schlegel's assertion as at the totally -different nature of the Greek public. For hitherto we always believed -that the true spectator, be he who he may, had always to remain -conscious of having before him a work of art, and not an empiric -reality: whereas the tragic chorus of the Greeks is compelled to -recognise real beings in the figures of the stage. The chorus of the -Oceanides really believes that it sees before it the Titan Prometheus, -and considers itself as real as the god of the scene. And are we to -own that he is the highest and purest type of spectator, who, like the -Oceanides, regards Prometheus as real and present in body? And is it -characteristic of the ideal spectator that he should run on the stage -and free the god from his torments? We had believed in an æsthetic -public, and considered the individual spectator the better qualified -the more he was capable of viewing a work of art as art, that is, -æsthetically; but now the Schlegelian expression has intimated to us, -that the perfect ideal spectator does not at all suffer the world of -the scenes to act æsthetically on him, but corporeo-empirically. Oh, -these Greeks! we have sighed; they will upset our æsthetics! But once -accustomed to it, we have reiterated the saying of Schlegel, as often -as the subject of the chorus has been broached. - -But the tradition which is so explicit here speaks against Schlegel: -the chorus as such, without the stage,--the primitive form of -tragedy,--and the chorus of ideal spectators do not harmonise. What -kind of art would that be which was extracted from the concept of the -spectator, and whereof we are to regard the "spectator as such" as the -true form? The spectator without the play is something absurd. We fear -that the birth of tragedy can be explained neither by the high esteem -for the moral intelligence of the multitude nor by the concept of the -spectator without the play; and we regard the problem as too deep to be -even so much as touched by such superficial modes of contemplation. - -An infinitely more valuable insight into the signification of the -chorus had already been displayed by Schiller in the celebrated Preface -to his Bride of Messina, where he regarded the chorus as a living wall -which tragedy draws round herself to guard her from contact with the -world of reality, and to preserve her ideal domain and poetical freedom. - -It is with this, his chief weapon, that Schiller combats the ordinary -conception of the natural, the illusion ordinarily required in -dramatic poetry. He contends that while indeed the day on the stage is -merely artificial, the architecture only symbolical, and the metrical -dialogue purely ideal in character, nevertheless an erroneous view -still prevails in the main: that it is not enough to tolerate merely -as a poetical license _that_ which is in reality the essence of all -poetry. The introduction of the chorus is, he says, the decisive step -by which war is declared openly and honestly against all naturalism -in art.--It is, methinks, for disparaging this mode of contemplation -that our would-be superior age has coined the disdainful catchword -"pseudo-idealism." I fear, however, that we on the other hand with our -present worship of the natural and the real have landed at the nadir -of all idealism, namely in the region of cabinets of wax-figures. An -art indeed exists also here, as in certain novels much in vogue at -present: but let no one pester us with the claim that by this art the -Schiller-Goethian "Pseudo-idealism" has been vanquished. - -It is indeed an "ideal" domain, as Schiller rightly perceived, -upon--which the Greek satyric chorus, the chorus of primitive tragedy, -was wont to walk, a domain raised far above the actual path of -mortals. The Greek framed for this chorus the suspended scaffolding of -a fictitious _natural state_ and placed thereon fictitious _natural -beings._ It is on this foundation that tragedy grew up, and so it -could of course dispense from the very first with a painful portrayal -of reality. Yet it is, not an arbitrary world placed by fancy betwixt -heaven and earth; rather is it a world possessing the same reality -and trustworthiness that Olympus with its dwellers possessed for the -believing Hellene. The satyr, as being the Dionysian chorist, lives -in a religiously acknowledged reality under the sanction of the myth -and cult. That tragedy begins with him, that the Dionysian wisdom of -tragedy speaks through him, is just as surprising a phenomenon to us -as, in general, the derivation of tragedy from the chorus. Perhaps -we shall get a starting-point for our inquiry, if I put forward the -proposition that the satyr, the fictitious natural being, is to the -man of culture what Dionysian music is to civilisation. Concerning -this latter, Richard Wagner says that it is neutralised by music even -as lamplight by daylight. In like manner, I believe, the Greek man of -culture felt himself neutralised in the presence of the satyric chorus: -and this is the most immediate effect of the Dionysian tragedy, that -the state and society, and, in general, the gaps between man and man -give way to an overwhelming feeling of oneness, which leads back to -the heart of nature. The metaphysical comfort,--with which, as I have -here intimated, every true tragedy dismisses us--that, in spite of -the perpetual change of phenomena, life at bottom is indestructibly -powerful and pleasurable, this comfort appears with corporeal lucidity -as the satyric chorus, as the chorus of natural beings, who live -ineradicable as it were behind all civilisation, and who, in spite of -the ceaseless change of generations and the history of nations, remain -for ever the same. - -With this chorus the deep-minded Hellene, who is so singularly -qualified for the most delicate and severe suffering, consoles -himself:--he who has glanced with piercing eye into the very heart of -the terrible destructive processes of so-called universal history, as -also into the cruelty of nature, and is in danger of longing for a -Buddhistic negation of the will. Art saves him, and through art life -saves him--for herself. - -For we must know that in the rapture of the Dionysian state, with its -annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits of existence, there is -a _lethargic_ element, wherein all personal experiences of the past -are submerged. It is by this gulf of oblivion that the everyday world -and the world of Dionysian reality are separated from each other. But -as soon as this everyday reality rises again in consciousness, it is -felt as such, and nauseates us; an ascetic will-paralysing mood is -the fruit of these states. In this sense the Dionysian man may be -said to resemble Hamlet: both have for once seen into the true nature -of things,--they have _perceived,_ but they are loath to act; for -their action cannot change the eternal nature of things; they regard -it as shameful or ridiculous that one should require of them to set -aright the time which is out of joint. Knowledge kills action, action -requires the veil of illusion--it is this lesson which Hamlet teaches, -and not the cheap wisdom of John-a-Dreams who from too much reflection, -as it were from a surplus of possibilities, does not arrive at action -at all. Not reflection, no!--true knowledge, insight into appalling -truth, preponderates over all motives inciting to action, in Hamlet as -well as in the Dionysian man. No comfort avails any longer; his longing -goes beyond a world after death, beyond the gods themselves; existence -with its glittering reflection in the gods, or in an immortal other -world is abjured. In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, -man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of -existence, he now understands the symbolism in the fate of Ophelia, he -now discerns the wisdom of the sylvan god Silenus: and loathing seizes -him. - -Here, in this extremest danger of the will, _art_ approaches, as a -saving and healing enchantress; she alone is able to transform these -nauseating reflections on the awfulness or absurdity of existence -into representations wherewith it is possible to live: these are the -representations of the _sublime_ as the artistic subjugation of the -awful, and the _comic_ as the artistic delivery from the nausea of -the absurd. The satyric chorus of dithyramb is the saving deed of -Greek art; the paroxysms described above spent their force in the -intermediary world of these Dionysian followers. - - - -8. - - -The satyr, like the idyllic shepherd of our more recent time, is the -offspring of a longing after the Primitive and the Natural; but mark -with what firmness and fearlessness the Greek embraced the man of -the woods, and again, how coyly and mawkishly the modern man dallied -with the flattering picture of a tender, flute-playing, soft-natured -shepherd! Nature, on which as yet no knowledge has been at work, -which maintains unbroken barriers to culture--this is what the Greek -saw in his satyr, which still was not on this account supposed to -coincide with the ape. On the contrary: it was the archetype of -man, the embodiment of his highest and strongest emotions, as the -enthusiastic reveller enraptured By the proximity of his god, as the -fellow-suffering companion in whom the suffering of the god repeats -itself, as the herald of wisdom speaking from the very depths of -nature, as the emblem of the sexual omnipotence of nature, which the -Greek was wont to contemplate with reverential awe. The satyr was -something sublime and godlike: he could not but appear so, especially -to the sad and wearied eye of the Dionysian man. He would have been -offended by our spurious tricked-up shepherd, while his eye dwelt -with sublime satisfaction on the naked and unstuntedly magnificent -characters of nature: here the illusion of culture was brushed away -from the archetype of man; here the true man, the bearded satyr, -revealed himself, who shouts joyfully to his god. Before him the -cultured man shrank to a lying caricature. Schiller is right also -with reference to these beginnings of tragic art: the chorus is a -living bulwark against the onsets of reality, because it--the satyric -chorus--portrays existence more truthfully, more realistically, more -perfectly than the cultured man who ordinarily considers himself as the -only reality. The sphere of poetry does not lie outside the world, like -some fantastic impossibility of a poet's imagination: it seeks to be -the very opposite, the unvarnished expression of truth, and must for -this very reason cast aside the false finery of that supposed reality -of the cultured man. The contrast between this intrinsic truth of -nature and the falsehood of culture, which poses as the only reality, -is similar to that existing between the eternal kernel of things, the -thing in itself, and the collective world of phenomena. And even as -tragedy, with its metaphysical comfort, points to the eternal life of -this kernel of existence, notwithstanding the perpetual dissolution of -phenomena, so the symbolism of the satyric chorus already expresses -figuratively this primordial relation between the thing in itself and -phenomenon. The idyllic shepherd of the modern man is but a copy of the -sum of the illusions of culture which he calls nature; the Dionysian -Greek desires truth and nature in their most potent form;--he sees -himself metamorphosed into the satyr. - -The revelling crowd of the votaries of Dionysus rejoices, swayed by -such moods and perceptions, the power of which transforms them before -their own eyes, so that they imagine they behold themselves as -reconstituted genii of nature, as satyrs. The later constitution of the -tragic chorus is the artistic imitation of this natural phenomenon, -which of course required a separation of the Dionysian spectators from -the enchanted Dionysians. However, we must never lose sight of the fact -that the public of the Attic tragedy rediscovered itself in the chorus -of the orchestra, that there was in reality no antithesis of public -and chorus: for all was but one great sublime chorus of dancing and -singing satyrs, or of such as allowed themselves to be represented by -the satyrs. The Schlegelian observation must here reveal itself to us -in a deeper sense. The chorus is the "ideal spectator"[5] in so far as -it is the only _beholder,_[6] the beholder of the visionary world of -the scene. A public of spectators, as known to us, was unknown to the -Greeks. In their theatres the terraced structure of the spectators' -space rising in concentric arcs enabled every one, in the strictest -sense, to _overlook_ the entire world of culture around him, and in -surfeited contemplation to imagine himself a chorist. According to -this view, then, we may call the chorus in its primitive stage in -proto-tragedy, a self-mirroring of the Dionysian man: a phenomenon -which may be best exemplified by the process of the actor, who, if he -be truly gifted, sees hovering before his eyes with almost tangible -perceptibility the character he is to represent. The satyric chorus -is first of all a vision of the Dionysian throng, just as the world -of the stage is, in turn, a vision of the satyric chorus: the power -of this vision is great enough to render the eye dull and insensible -to the impression of "reality," to the presence of the cultured men -occupying the tiers of seats on every side. The form of the Greek -theatre reminds one of a lonesome mountain-valley: the architecture of -the scene appears like a luminous cloud-picture which the Bacchants -swarming on the mountains behold from the heights, as the splendid -encirclement in the midst of which the image of Dionysus is revealed to -them. - -Owing to our learned conception of the elementary artistic processes, -this artistic proto-phenomenon, which is here introduced to explain -the tragic chorus, is almost shocking: while nothing can be more -certain than that the poet is a poet only in that he beholds himself -surrounded by forms which live and act before him, into the innermost -being of which his glance penetrates. By reason of a strange defeat in -our capacities, we modern men are apt to represent to ourselves the -æsthetic proto-phenomenon as too complex and abstract. For the true -poet the metaphor is not a rhetorical figure, but a vicarious image -which actually hovers before him in place of a concept. The character -is not for him an aggregate composed of a studied collection of -particular traits, but an irrepressibly live person appearing before -his eyes, and differing only from the corresponding vision of the -painter by its ever continued life and action. Why is it that Homer -sketches much more vividly[7] than all the other poets? Because he -contemplates[8] much more. We talk so abstractly about poetry, because -we are all wont to be bad poets. At bottom the æsthetic phenomenon is -simple: let a man but have the faculty of perpetually seeing a lively -play and of constantly living surrounded by hosts of spirits, then he -is a poet: let him but feel the impulse to transform himself and to -talk from out the bodies and souls of others, then he is a dramatist. - -The Dionysian excitement is able to impart to a whole mass of men -this artistic faculty of seeing themselves surrounded by such a host -of spirits, with whom they know themselves to be inwardly one. This -function of the tragic chorus is the _dramatic_ proto-phenomenon: to -see one's self transformed before one's self, and then to act as if -one had really entered into another body, into another character. This -function stands at the beginning of the development of the drama. -Here we have something different from the rhapsodist, who does not -blend with his pictures, but only sees them, like the painter, with -contemplative eye outside of him; here we actually have a surrender -of the individual by his entering into another nature. Moreover this -phenomenon appears in the form of an epidemic: a whole throng feels -itself metamorphosed in this wise. Hence it is that the dithyramb is -essentially different from every other variety of the choric song. The -virgins, who with laurel twigs in their hands solemnly proceed to -the temple of Apollo and sing a processional hymn, remain what they -are and retain their civic names: the dithyrambic chorus is a chorus -of transformed beings, whose civic past and social rank are totally -forgotten: they have become the timeless servants of their god that -live aloof from all the spheres of society. Every other variety of -the choric lyric of the Hellenes is but an enormous enhancement of -the Apollonian unit-singer: while in the dithyramb we have before us -a community of unconscious actors, who mutually regard themselves as -transformed among one another. - -This enchantment is the prerequisite of all dramatic art. In this -enchantment the Dionysian reveller sees himself as a satyr, _and as -satyr he in turn beholds the god,_ that is, in his transformation he -sees a new vision outside him as the Apollonian consummation of his -state. With this new vision the drama is complete. - -According to this view, we must understand Greek tragedy as the -Dionysian chorus, which always disburdens itself anew in an Apollonian -world of pictures. The choric parts, therefore, with which tragedy is -interlaced, are in a manner the mother-womb of the entire so-called -dialogue, that is, of the whole stage-world, of the drama proper. In -several successive outbursts does this primordial basis of tragedy beam -forth the vision of the drama, which is a dream-phenomenon throughout, -and, as such, epic in character: on the other hand, however, as -objectivation of a Dionysian state, it does not represent the -Apollonian redemption in appearance, but, conversely, the dissolution -of the individual and his unification with primordial existence. -Accordingly, the drama is the Apollonian embodiment of Dionysian -perceptions and influences, and is thereby separated from the epic as -by an immense gap. - -The _chorus_ of Greek tragedy, the symbol of the mass of the people -moved by Dionysian excitement, is thus fully explained by our -conception of it as here set forth. Whereas, being accustomed to the -position of a chorus on the modern stage, especially an operatic -chorus, we could never comprehend why the tragic chorus of the Greeks -should be older, more primitive, indeed, more important than the -"action" proper,--as has been so plainly declared by the voice of -tradition; whereas, furthermore, we could not reconcile with this -traditional paramount importance and primitiveness the fact of the -chorus' being composed only of humble, ministering beings; indeed, at -first only of goatlike satyrs; whereas, finally, the orchestra before -the scene was always a riddle to us; we have learned to comprehend at -length that the scene, together with the action, was fundamentally -and originally conceived only as a _vision,_ that the only reality -is just the chorus, which of itself generates the vision and speaks -thereof with the entire symbolism of dancing, tone, and word. This -chorus beholds in the vision its lord and master Dionysus, and is thus -for ever the _serving_ chorus: it sees how he, the god, suffers and -glorifies himself, and therefore does not itself _act_. But though its -attitude towards the god is throughout the attitude of ministration, -this is nevertheless the highest expression, the Dionysian expression -of _Nature,_ and therefore, like Nature herself, the chorus utters -oracles and wise sayings when transported with enthusiasm: as -_fellow-sufferer_ it is also the _sage_ proclaiming truth from out the -heart of Nature. Thus, then, originates the fantastic figure, which -seems so shocking, of the wise and enthusiastic satyr, who is at the -same time "the dumb man" in contrast to the god: the image of Nature -and her strongest impulses, yea, the symbol of Nature, and at the same -time the herald of her art and wisdom: musician, poet, dancer, and -visionary in one person. - -Agreeably to this view, and agreeably to tradition, _Dionysus,_ the -proper stage-hero and focus of vision, is not at first actually present -in the oldest period of tragedy, but is only imagined as present: -_i.e.,_ tragedy is originally only "chorus" and not "drama." Later -on the attempt is made to exhibit the god as real and to display the -visionary figure together with its glorifying encirclement before the -eyes of all; it is here that the "drama" in the narrow sense of the -term begins. To the dithyrambic chorus is now assigned the task of -exciting the minds of the hearers to such a pitch of Dionysian frenzy, -that, when the tragic hero appears on the stage, they do not behold -in him, say, the unshapely masked man, but a visionary figure, born -as it were of their own ecstasy. Let us picture Admetes thinking in -profound meditation of his lately departed wife Alcestis, and quite -consuming himself in spiritual contemplation thereof--when suddenly -the veiled figure of a woman resembling her in form and gait is led -towards him: let us picture his sudden trembling anxiety, his agitated -comparisons, his instinctive conviction--and we shall have an analogon -to the sensation with which the spectator, excited to Dionysian frenzy, -saw the god approaching on the stage, a god with whose sufferings he -had already become identified. He involuntarily transferred the entire -picture of the god, fluttering magically before his soul, to this -masked figure and resolved its reality as it were into a phantasmal -unreality. This is the Apollonian dream-state, in which the world -of day is veiled, and a new world, clearer, more intelligible, more -striking than the former, and nevertheless more shadowy, is ever born -anew in perpetual change before our eyes. We accordingly recognise in -tragedy a thorough-going stylistic contrast: the language, colour, -flexibility and dynamics of the dialogue fall apart in the Dionysian -lyrics of the chorus on the one hand, and in the Apollonian dream-world -of the scene on the other, into entirely separate spheres of -expression. The Apollonian appearances, in which Dionysus objectifies -himself, are no longer "ein ewiges Meer, ein wechselnd Weben, ein -glühend Leben,"[9] as is the music of the chorus, they are no longer -the forces merely felt, but not condensed into a picture, by which -the inspired votary of Dionysus divines the proximity of his god: the -clearness and firmness of epic form now speak to him from the scene, -Dionysus now no longer speaks through forces, but as an epic hero, -almost in the language of Homer. - - -[5] Zuschauer. - -[6] Schauer. - -[7] Anschaulicher. - -[8] Anschaut. - -[9] An eternal sea, A weaving, flowing, Life, all glowing. -_Faust,_ trans. of Bayard Taylor.--TR. - - - -9. - - -Whatever rises to the surface in the dialogue of the Apollonian part -of Greek tragedy, appears simple, transparent, beautiful. In this -sense the dialogue is a copy of the Hellene, whose nature reveals -itself in the dance, because in the dance the greatest energy is merely -potential, but betrays itself nevertheless in flexible and vivacious -movements. The language of the Sophoclean heroes, for instance, -surprises us by its Apollonian precision and clearness, so that we at -once imagine we see into the innermost recesses of their being, and -marvel not a little that the way to these recesses is so short. But -if for the moment we disregard the character of the hero which rises -to the surface and grows visible--and which at bottom is nothing but -the light-picture cast on a dark wall, that is, appearance through and -through,--if rather we enter into the myth which projects itself in -these bright mirrorings, we shall of a sudden experience a phenomenon -which bears a reverse relation to one familiar in optics. When, after -a vigorous effort to gaze into the sun, we turn away blinded, we have -dark-coloured spots before our eyes as restoratives, so to speak; -while, on the contrary, those light-picture phenomena of the Sophoclean -hero,--in short, the Apollonian of the mask,--are the necessary -productions of a glance into the secret and terrible things of nature, -as it were shining spots to heal the eye which dire night has seared. -Only in this sense can we hope to be able to grasp the true meaning of -the serious and significant notion of "Greek cheerfulness"; while of -course we encounter the misunderstood notion of this cheerfulness, as -resulting from a state of unendangered comfort, on all the ways and -paths of the present time. - -The most sorrowful figure of the Greek stage, the hapless _Œdipus,_ -was understood by Sophocles as the noble man, who in spite of his -wisdom was destined to error and misery, but nevertheless through -his extraordinary sufferings ultimately exerted a magical, wholesome -influence on all around him, which continues effective even after -his death. The noble man does not sin; this is what the thoughtful -poet wishes to tell us: all laws, all natural order, yea, the moral -world itself, may be destroyed through his action, but through this -very action a higher magic circle of influences is brought into play, -which establish a new world on the ruins of the old that has been -overthrown. This is what the poet, in so far as he is at the same time -a religious thinker, wishes to tell us: as poet, he shows us first of -all a wonderfully complicated legal mystery, which the judge slowly -unravels, link by link, to his own destruction. The truly Hellenic -delight at this dialectical loosening is so great, that a touch of -surpassing cheerfulness is thereby communicated to the entire play, -which everywhere blunts the edge of the horrible presuppositions of the -procedure. In the "Œdipus at Colonus" we find the same cheerfulness, -elevated, however, to an infinite transfiguration: in contrast to -the aged king, subjected to an excess of misery, and exposed solely -as a _sufferer_ to all that befalls him, we have here a supermundane -cheerfulness, which descends from a divine sphere and intimates to -us that in his purely passive attitude the hero attains his highest -activity, the influence of which extends far beyond his life, while -his earlier conscious musing and striving led him only to passivity. -Thus, then, the legal knot of the fable of Œdipus, which to mortal -eyes appears indissolubly entangled, is slowly unravelled--and the -profoundest human joy comes upon us in the presence of this divine -counterpart of dialectics. If this explanation does justice to the -poet, it may still be asked whether the substance of the myth is -thereby exhausted; and here it turns out that the entire conception -of the poet is nothing but the light-picture which healing nature -holds up to us after a glance into the abyss. Œdipus, the murderer of -his father, the husband of his mother, Œdipus, the interpreter of the -riddle of the Sphinx! What does the mysterious triad of these deeds -of destiny tell us? There is a primitive popular belief, especially -in Persia, that a wise Magian can be born only of incest: which -we have forthwith to interpret to ourselves with reference to the -riddle-solving and mother-marrying Œdipus, to the effect that when -the boundary of the present and future, the rigid law of individuation -and, in general, the intrinsic spell of nature, are broken by prophetic -and magical powers, an extraordinary counter-naturalness--as, in this -case, incest--must have preceded as a cause; for how else could one -force nature to surrender her secrets but by victoriously opposing her, -_i.e.,_ by means of the Unnatural? It is this intuition which I see -imprinted in the awful triad of the destiny of Œdipus: the very man -who solves the riddle of nature--that double-constituted Sphinx--must -also, as the murderer of his father and husband of his mother, break -the holiest laws of nature. Indeed, it seems as if the myth sought to -whisper into our ears that wisdom, especially Dionysian wisdom, is -an unnatural abomination, and that whoever, through his knowledge, -plunges nature into an abyss of annihilation, must also experience -the dissolution of nature in himself. "The sharpness of wisdom turns -round upon the sage: wisdom is a crime against nature": such terrible -expressions does the myth call out to us: but the Hellenic poet touches -like a sunbeam the sublime and formidable Memnonian statue of the myth, -so that it suddenly begins to sound--in Sophoclean melodies. - -With the glory of passivity I now contrast the glory of activity which -illuminates the _Prometheus_ of Æschylus. That which Æschylus the -thinker had to tell us here, but which as a poet he only allows us to -surmise by his symbolic picture, the youthful Goethe succeeded in -disclosing to us in the daring words of his Prometheus:-- - - "Hier sitz' ich, forme Menschen - Nach meinem Bilde, - Ein Geschlecht, das mir gleich sei, - Zu leiden, zu weinen, - Zu geniessen und zu freuen sich, - Und dein nicht zu achten, - Wie ich!"[10] - -Man, elevating himself to the rank of the Titans, acquires his culture -by his own efforts, and compels the gods to unite with him, because -in his self-sufficient wisdom he has their existence and their limits -in his hand. What is most wonderful, however, in this Promethean -form, which according to its fundamental conception is the specific -hymn of impiety, is the profound Æschylean yearning for _justice_: -the untold sorrow of the bold "single-handed being" on the one hand, -and the divine need, ay, the foreboding of a twilight of the gods, on -the other, the power of these two worlds of suffering constraining -to reconciliation, to metaphysical oneness--all this suggests most -forcibly the central and main position of the Æschylean view of -things, which sees Moira as eternal justice enthroned above gods and -men. In view of the astonishing boldness with which Æschylus places the -Olympian world on his scales of justice, it must be remembered that -the deep-minded Greek had an immovably firm substratum of metaphysical -thought in his mysteries, and that all his sceptical paroxysms could -be discharged upon the Olympians. With reference to these deities, -the Greek artist, in particular, had an obscure feeling as to mutual -dependency: and it is just in the Prometheus of Æschylus that this -feeling is symbolised. The Titanic artist found in himself the -daring belief that he could create men and at least destroy Olympian -deities: namely, by his superior wisdom, for which, to be sure, he had -to atone by eternal suffering. The splendid "can-ing" of the great -genius, bought too cheaply even at the price of eternal suffering, -the stern pride of the _artist_: this is the essence and soul of -Æschylean poetry, while Sophocles in his Œdipus preludingly strikes up -the victory-song of the _saint_. But even this interpretation which -Æschylus has given to the myth does not fathom its astounding depth of -terror; the fact is rather that the artist's delight in unfolding, the -cheerfulness of artistic creating bidding defiance to all calamity, -is but a shining stellar and nebular image reflected in a black sea -of sadness. The tale of Prometheus is an original possession of the -entire Aryan family of races, and documentary evidence of their -capacity for the profoundly tragic; indeed, it is not improbable that -this myth has the same characteristic significance for the Aryan -race that the myth of the fall of man has for the Semitic, and that -there is a relationship between the two myths like that of brother and -sister. The presupposition of the Promethean myth is the transcendent -value which a naïve humanity attach to _fire_ as the true palladium -of every ascending culture: that man, however, should dispose at will -of this fire, and should not receive it only as a gift from heaven, -as the igniting lightning or the warming solar flame, appeared to the -contemplative primordial men as crime and robbery of the divine nature. -And thus the first philosophical problem at once causes a painful, -irreconcilable antagonism between man and God, and puts as it were -a mass of rock at the gate of every culture. The best and highest -that men can acquire they obtain by a crime, and must now in their -turn take upon themselves its consequences, namely the whole flood of -sufferings and sorrows with which the offended celestials _must_ visit -the nobly aspiring race of man: a bitter reflection, which, by the -_dignity_ it confers on crime, contrasts strangely with the Semitic -myth of the fall of man, in which curiosity, beguilement, seducibility, -wantonness,--in short, a whole series of pre-eminently feminine -passions,--were regarded as the origin of evil. What distinguishes -the Aryan representation is the sublime view of _active sin_ as the -properly Promethean virtue, which suggests at the same time the ethical -basis of pessimistic tragedy as the _justification_ of human evil--of -human guilt as well as of the suffering incurred thereby. The misery in -the essence of things--which the contemplative Aryan is not disposed -to explain away--the antagonism in the heart of the world, manifests -itself to him as a medley of different worlds, for instance, a Divine -and a human world, each of which is in the right individually, but -as a separate existence alongside of another has to suffer for its -individuation. With the heroic effort made by the individual for -universality, in his attempt to pass beyond the bounds of individuation -and become the _one_ universal being, he experiences in himself the -primordial contradiction concealed in the essence of things, _i.e.,_ -he trespasses and suffers. Accordingly crime[11] is understood by -the Aryans to be a man, sin[12] by the Semites a woman; as also, the -original crime is committed by man, the original sin by woman. Besides, -the witches' chorus says: - - "Wir nehmen das nicht so genau: - Mit tausend Schritten macht's die Frau; - Doch wie sie auch sich eilen kann - Mit einem Sprunge macht's der Mann."[13] - -He who understands this innermost core of the tale of -Prometheus--namely the necessity of crime imposed on the titanically -striving individual--will at once be conscious of the un-Apollonian -nature of this pessimistic representation: for Apollo seeks to pacify -individual beings precisely by drawing boundary lines between them, -and by again and again calling attention thereto, with his requirements -of self-knowledge and due proportion, as the holiest laws of the -universe. In order, however, to prevent the form from congealing to -Egyptian rigidity and coldness in consequence of this Apollonian -tendency, in order to prevent the extinction of the motion of the -entire lake in the effort to prescribe to the individual wave its path -and compass, the high tide of the Dionysian tendency destroyed from -time to time all the little circles in which the one-sided Apollonian -"will" sought to confine the Hellenic world. The suddenly swelling -tide of the Dionysian then takes the separate little wave-mountains of -individuals on its back, just as the brother of Prometheus, the Titan -Atlas, does with the earth. This Titanic impulse, to become as it were -the Atlas of all individuals, and to carry them on broad shoulders -higher and higher, farther and farther, is what the Promethean and the -Dionysian have in common. In this respect the Æschylean Prometheus is -a Dionysian mask, while, in the afore-mentioned profound yearning for -justice, Æschylus betrays to the intelligent observer his paternal -descent from Apollo, the god of individuation and of the boundaries -of justice. And so the double-being of the Æschylean Prometheus, his -conjoint Dionysian and Apollonian nature, might be thus expressed in -an abstract formula: "Whatever exists is alike just and unjust, and -equally justified in both." - - Das ist deine Welt! Das heisst eine Welt![14] - - -[10] - - "Here sit I, forming mankind - In my image, - A race resembling me,-- - To sorrow and to weep, - To taste, to hold, to enjoy, - And not have need of thee, - As I!" - -(Translation in Hæckel's _History of the Evolution of Man._) - -[11] _Der_ Frevel.] - -[12] _Die_ Sünde. - -[13] - - We do not measure with such care: - Woman in thousand steps is there, - But howsoe'er she hasten may. - Man in one leap has cleared the way. - _Faust,_ trans. of Bayard Taylor.--TR. - - -[14] This is thy world, and what a world!--_Faust._ - - - -10. - - -It is an indisputable tradition that Greek tragedy in its earliest -form had for its theme only the sufferings of Dionysus, and that for -some time the only stage-hero therein was simply Dionysus himself. -With the same confidence, however, we can maintain that not until -Euripides did Dionysus cease to be the tragic hero, and that in fact -all the celebrated figures of the Greek stage--Prometheus, Œdipus, -etc.--are but masks of this original hero, Dionysus. The presence of a -god behind all these masks is the one essential cause of the typical -"ideality," so oft exciting wonder, of these celebrated figures. Some -one, I know not whom, has maintained that all individuals are comic as -individuals and are consequently un-tragic: from whence it might be -inferred that the Greeks in general _could_ not endure individuals on -the tragic stage. And they really seem to have had these sentiments: -as, in general, it is to be observed that the Platonic discrimination -and valuation of the "idea" in contrast to the "eidolon," the image, -is deeply rooted in the Hellenic being. Availing ourselves of Plato's -terminology, however, we should have to speak of the tragic figures of -the Hellenic stage somewhat as follows. The one truly real Dionysus -appears in a multiplicity of forms, in the mask of a fighting hero -and entangled, as it were, in the net of an individual will. As the -visibly appearing god now talks and acts, he resembles an erring, -striving, suffering individual: and that, in general, he _appears_ -with such epic precision and clearness, is due to the dream-reading -Apollo, who reads to the chorus its Dionysian state through this -symbolic appearance. In reality, however, this hero is the suffering -Dionysus of the mysteries, a god experiencing in himself the sufferings -of individuation, of whom wonderful myths tell that as a boy he was -dismembered by the Titans and has been worshipped in this state -as Zagreus:[15] whereby is intimated that this dismemberment, the -properly Dionysian _suffering,_ is like a transformation into air, -water, earth, and fire, that we must therefore regard the state of -individuation as the source and primal cause of all suffering, as -something objectionable in itself. From the smile of this Dionysus -sprang the Olympian gods, from his tears sprang man. In his existence -as a dismembered god, Dionysus has the dual nature of a cruel -barbarised demon, and a mild pacific ruler. But the hope of the epopts -looked for a new birth of Dionysus, which we have now to conceive of in -anticipation as the end of individuation: it was for this coming third -Dionysus that the stormy jubilation-hymns of the epopts resounded. And -it is only this hope that sheds a ray of joy upon the features of a -world torn asunder and shattered into individuals: as is symbolised in -the myth by Demeter sunk in eternal sadness, who _rejoices_ again only -when told that she may _once more_ give birth to Dionysus In the views -of things here given we already have all the elements of a profound and -pessimistic contemplation of the world, and along with these we have -the _mystery doctrine of tragedy_: the fundamental knowledge of the -oneness of all existing things, the consideration of individuation as -the primal cause of evil, and art as the joyous hope that the spell of -individuation may be broken, as the augury of a restored oneness. - -It has already been intimated that the Homeric epos is the poem -of Olympian culture, wherewith this culture has sung its own song -of triumph over the terrors of the war of the Titans. Under the -predominating influence of tragic poetry, these Homeric myths are now -reproduced anew, and show by this metempsychosis that meantime the -Olympian culture also has been vanquished by a still deeper view of -things. The haughty Titan Prometheus has announced to his Olympian -tormentor that the extremest danger will one day menace his rule, -unless he ally with him betimes. In Æschylus we perceive the terrified -Zeus, apprehensive of his end, in alliance with the Titan. Thus, the -former age of the Titans is subsequently brought from Tartarus once -more to the light of day. The philosophy of wild and naked nature -beholds with the undissembled mien of truth the myths of the Homeric -world as they dance past: they turn pale, they tremble before the -lightning glance of this goddess--till the powerful fist[16] of -the Dionysian artist forces them into the service of the new deity. -Dionysian truth takes over the entire domain of myth as symbolism of -_its_ knowledge, which it makes known partly in the public cult of -tragedy and partly in the secret celebration of the dramatic mysteries, -always, however, in the old mythical garb. What was the power, which -freed Prometheus from his vultures and transformed the myth into a -vehicle of Dionysian wisdom? It is the Heracleian power of music: -which, having reached its highest manifestness in tragedy, can invest -myths with a new and most profound significance, which we have already -had occasion to characterise as the most powerful faculty of music. For -it is the fate of every myth to insinuate itself into the narrow limits -of some alleged historical reality, and to be treated by some later -generation as a solitary fact with historical claims: and the Greeks -were already fairly on the way to restamp the whole of their mythical -juvenile dream sagaciously and arbitrarily into a historico-pragmatical -_juvenile history._ For this is the manner in which religions are -wont to die out: when of course under the stern, intelligent eyes of -an orthodox dogmatism, the mythical presuppositions of a religion are -systematised as a completed sum of historical events, and when one -begins apprehensively to defend the credibility of the myth, while at -the same time opposing all continuation of their natural vitality and -luxuriance; when, accordingly, the feeling for myth dies out, and its -place is taken by the claim of religion to historical foundations. -This dying myth was now seized by the new-born genius of Dionysian -music, in whose hands it bloomed once more, with such colours as it -had never yet displayed, with a fragrance that awakened a longing -anticipation of a metaphysical world. After this final effulgence -it collapses, its leaves wither, and soon the scoffing Lucians of -antiquity catch at the discoloured and faded flowers which the winds -carry off in every direction. Through tragedy the myth attains its -profoundest significance, its most expressive form; it rises once more -like a wounded hero, and the whole surplus of vitality, together with -the philosophical calmness of the Dying, burns in its eyes with a last -powerful gleam. - -What meantest thou, oh impious Euripides, in seeking once more to -enthral this dying one? It died under thy ruthless hands: and then -thou madest use of counterfeit, masked myth, which like the ape of -Heracles could only trick itself out in the old finery. And as myth -died in thy hands, so also died the genius of music; though thou -couldst covetously plunder all the gardens of music--thou didst only -realise a counterfeit, masked music. And because thou hast forsaken -Dionysus. Apollo hath also forsaken thee; rout up all the passions from -their haunts and conjure them into thy sphere, sharpen and polish a -sophistical dialectics for the speeches of thy heroes--thy very heroes -have only counterfeit, masked passions, and speak only counterfeit, -masked music. - - -[15] See article by Mr. Arthur Symons in _The Academy,_ 30th -August 1902. - -[16] Die mächtige Faust.--Cf. _Faust,_ Chorus of -Spirits.--TR. - - - -11. - - -Greek tragedy had a fate different from that of all her older sister -arts: she died by suicide, in consequence of an irreconcilable -conflict; accordingly she died tragically, while they all passed away -very calmly and beautifully in ripe old age. For if it be in accordance -with a happy state of things to depart this life without a struggle, -leaving behind a fair posterity, the closing period of these older -arts exhibits such a happy state of things: slowly they sink out of -sight, and before their dying eyes already stand their fairer progeny, -who impatiently lift up their heads with courageous mien. The death of -Greek tragedy, on the other hand, left an immense void, deeply felt -everywhere. Even as certain Greek sailors in the time of Tiberius once -heard upon a lonesome island the thrilling cry, "great Pan is dead": so -now as it were sorrowful wailing sounded through the Hellenic world: -"Tragedy is dead! Poetry itself has perished with her! Begone, begone, -ye stunted, emaciated epigones! Begone to Hades, that ye may for once -eat your fill of the crumbs of your former masters!" - -But when after all a new Art blossomed forth which revered tragedy as -her ancestress and mistress, it was observed with horror that she did -indeed bear the features of her mother, but those very features the -latter had exhibited in her long death-struggle. It was _Euripides_ who -fought this death-struggle of tragedy; the later art is known as the -_New Attic Comedy._ In it the degenerate form of tragedy lived on as a -monument of the most painful and violent death of tragedy proper. - -This connection between the two serves to explain the passionate -attachment to Euripides evinced by the poets of the New Comedy, and -hence we are no longer surprised at the wish of Philemon, who would -have got himself hanged at once, with the sole design of being able -to visit Euripides in the lower regions: if only he could be assured -generally that the deceased still had his wits. But if we desire, as -briefly as possible, and without professing to say aught exhaustive on -the subject, to characterise what Euripides has in common with Menander -and Philemon, and what appealed to them so strongly as worthy of -imitation: it will suffice to say that the _spectator_ was brought upon -the stage by Euripides. He who has perceived the material of which the -Promethean tragic writers prior to Euripides formed their heroes, and -how remote from their purpose it was to bring the true mask of reality -on the stage, will also know what to make of the wholly divergent -tendency of Euripides. Through him the commonplace individual forced -his way from the spectators' benches to the stage itself; the mirror in -which formerly only great and bold traits found expression now showed -the painful exactness that conscientiously reproduces even the abortive -lines of nature. Odysseus, the typical Hellene of the Old Art, sank, -in the hands of the new poets, to the figure of the Græculus, who, as -the good-naturedly cunning domestic slave, stands henceforth in the -centre of dramatic interest. What Euripides takes credit for in the -Aristophanean "Frogs," namely, that by his household remedies he freed -tragic art from its pompous corpulency, is apparent above all in his -tragic heroes. The spectator now virtually saw and heard his double on -the Euripidean stage, and rejoiced that he could talk so well. But this -joy was not all: one even learned of Euripides how to speak: he prides -himself upon this in his contest with Æschylus: how the people have -learned from him how to observe, debate, and draw conclusions according -to the rules of art and with the cleverest sophistications. In general -it may be said that through this revolution of the popular language he -made the New Comedy possible. For it was henceforth no longer a secret, -how--and with what saws--the commonplace could represent and express -itself on the stage. Civic mediocrity, on which Euripides built all -his political hopes, was now suffered to speak, while heretofore the -demigod in tragedy and the drunken satyr, or demiman, in comedy, had -determined the character of the language. And so the Aristophanean -Euripides prides himself on having portrayed the common, familiar, -everyday life and dealings of the people, concerning which all are -qualified to pass judgment. If now the entire populace philosophises, -manages land and goods with unheard-of circumspection, and conducts -law-suits, he takes all the credit to himself, and glories in the -splendid results of the wisdom with which he inoculated the rabble. - -It was to a populace prepared and enlightened in this manner that the -New Comedy could now address itself, of which Euripides had become -as it were the chorus-master; only that in this case the chorus of -spectators had to be trained. As soon as this chorus was trained to -sing in the Euripidean key, there arose that chesslike variety of the -drama, the New Comedy, with its perpetual triumphs of cunning and -artfulness. But Euripides--the chorus-master--was praised incessantly: -indeed, people would have killed themselves in order to learn yet more -from him, had they not known that tragic poets were quite as dead as -tragedy. But with it the Hellene had surrendered the belief in his -immortality; not only the belief in an ideal past, but also the belief -in an ideal future. The saying taken from the well-known epitaph, "as -an old man, frivolous and capricious," applies also to aged Hellenism. -The passing moment, wit, levity, and caprice, are its highest deities; -the fifth class, that of the slaves, now attains to power, at least in -sentiment: and if we can still speak at all of "Greek cheerfulness," -it is the cheerfulness of the slave who has nothing of consequence to -answer for, nothing great to strive for, and cannot value anything of -the past or future higher than the present. It was this semblance of -"Greek cheerfulness" which so revolted the deep-minded and formidable -natures of the first four centuries of Christianity: this womanish -flight from earnestness and terror, this cowardly contentedness with -easy pleasure, was not only contemptible to them, but seemed to be a -specifically anti-Christian sentiment. And we must ascribe it to its -influence that the conception of Greek antiquity, which lived on for -centuries, preserved with almost enduring persistency that peculiar -hectic colour of cheerfulness--as if there had never been a Sixth -Century with its birth of tragedy, its Mysteries, its Pythagoras and -Heraclitus, indeed as if the art-works of that great period did not at -all exist, which in fact--each by itself--can in no wise be explained -as having sprung from the soil of such a decrepit and slavish love -of existence and cheerfulness, and point to an altogether different -conception of things as their source. - -The assertion made a moment ago, that Euripides introduced the -spectator on the stage to qualify him the better to pass judgment on -the drama, will make it appear as if the old tragic art was always -in a false relation to the spectator: and one would be tempted to -extol the radical tendency of Euripides to bring about an adequate -relation between art-work and public as an advance on Sophocles. But, -as things are, "public" is merely a word, and not at all a homogeneous -and constant quantity. Why should the artist be under obligations to -accommodate himself to a power whose strength is merely in numbers? -And if by virtue of his endowments and aspirations he feels himself -superior to every one of these spectators, how could he feel greater -respect for the collective expression of all these subordinate -capacities than for the relatively highest-endowed individual -spectator? In truth, if ever a Greek artist treated his public -throughout a long life with presumptuousness and self-sufficiency, -it was Euripides, who, even when the masses threw themselves at his -feet, with sublime defiance made an open assault on his own tendency, -the very tendency with which he had triumphed over the masses. If this -genius had had the slightest reverence for the pandemonium of the -public, he would have broken down long before the middle of his career -beneath the weighty blows of his own failures. These considerations -here make it obvious that our formula--namely, that Euripides brought -the spectator upon the stage, in order to make him truly competent to -pass judgment--was but a provisional one, and that we must seek for a -deeper understanding of his tendency. Conversely, it is undoubtedly -well known that Æschylus and Sophocles, during all their lives, indeed, -far beyond their lives, enjoyed the full favour of the people, and that -therefore in the case of these predecessors of Euripides the idea of -a false relation between art-work and public was altogether excluded. -What was it that thus forcibly diverted this highly gifted artist, so -incessantly impelled to production, from the path over which shone the -sun of the greatest names in poetry and the cloudless heaven of popular -favour? What strange consideration for the spectator led him to defy, -the spectator? How could he, owing to too much respect for the public ---dis-respect the public? - -Euripides--and this is the solution of the riddle just propounded--felt -himself, as a poet, undoubtedly superior to the masses, but not to -two of his spectators: he brought the masses upon the stage; these -two spectators he revered as the only competent judges and masters -of his art: in compliance with their directions and admonitions, he -transferred the entire world of sentiments, passions, and experiences, -hitherto present at every festival representation as the invisible -chorus on the spectators' benches, into the souls of his stage-heroes; -he yielded to their demands when he also sought for these new -characters the new word and the new tone; in their voices alone he -heard the conclusive verdict on his work, as also the cheering promise -of triumph when he found himself condemned as usual by the justice of -the public. - -Of these two, spectators the one is--Euripides himself, Euripides _as -thinker,_ not as poet. It might be said of him, that his unusually -large fund of critical ability, as in the case of Lessing, if it did -not create, at least constantly fructified a productively artistic -collateral impulse. With this faculty, with all the clearness and -dexterity of his critical thought, Euripides had sat in the theatre and -striven to recognise in the masterpieces of his great predecessors, as -in faded paintings, feature and feature, line and line. And here had -happened to him what one initiated in the deeper arcana of Æschylean -tragedy must needs have expected: he observed something incommensurable -in every feature and in every line, a certain deceptive distinctness -and at the same time an enigmatic profundity, yea an infinitude, of -background. Even the clearest figure had always a comet's tail attached -to it, which seemed to suggest the uncertain and the inexplicable. -The same twilight shrouded the structure of the drama, especially the -significance of the chorus. And how doubtful seemed the solution of -the ethical problems to his mind! How questionable the treatment of -the myths! How unequal the distribution of happiness and misfortune! -Even in the language of the Old Tragedy there was much that was -objectionable to him, or at least enigmatical; he found especially -too much pomp for simple affairs, too many tropes and immense things -for the plainness of the characters. Thus he sat restlessly pondering -in the theatre, and as a spectator he acknowledged to himself that he -did not understand his great predecessors. If, however, he thought the -understanding the root proper of all enjoyment and productivity, he had -to inquire and look about to see whether any one else thought as he -did, and also acknowledged this incommensurability. But most people, -and among them the best individuals, had only a distrustful smile for -him, while none could explain why the great masters were still in the -right in face of his scruples and objections. And in this painful -condition he found _that other spectator,_ who did not comprehend, -and therefore did not esteem, tragedy. In alliance with him he could -venture, from amid his lonesomeness, to begin the prodigious struggle -against the art of Æschylus and Sophocles--not with polemic writings, -but as a dramatic poet, who opposed _his own_ conception of tragedy to -the traditional one. - - - -12. - - -Before we name this other spectator, let us pause here a moment in -order to recall our own impression, as previously described, of the -discordant and incommensurable elements in the nature of Æschylean -tragedy. Let us think of our own astonishment at the _chorus_ and -the _tragic hero_ of that type of tragedy, neither of which we could -reconcile with our practices any more than with tradition--till we -rediscovered this duplexity itself as the origin and essence of Greek -tragedy, as the expression of two interwoven artistic impulses, _the -Apollonian and the Dionysian_. - -To separate this primitive and all-powerful Dionysian element from -tragedy, and to build up a new and purified form of tragedy on the -basis of a non-Dionysian art, morality, and conception of things--such -is the tendency of Euripides which now reveals itself to us in a clear -light. - -In a myth composed in the eve of his life, Euripides himself most -urgently propounded to his contemporaries the question as to the -value and signification of this tendency. Is the Dionysian entitled -to exist at all? Should it not be forcibly rooted out of the Hellenic -soil? Certainly, the poet tells us, if only it were possible: but the -god Dionysus is too powerful; his most intelligent adversary--like -Pentheus in the "Bacchæ"--is unwittingly enchanted by him, and -in this enchantment meets his fate. The judgment of the two old -sages, Cadmus and Tiresias, seems to be also the judgment of the -aged poet: that the reflection of the wisest individuals does not -overthrow old popular traditions, nor the perpetually propagating -worship of Dionysus, that in fact it behoves us to display at least a -diplomatically cautious concern in the presence of such strange forces: -where however it is always possible that the god may take offence -at such lukewarm participation, and finally change the diplomat--in -this case Cadmus--into a dragon. This is what a poet tells us, who -opposed Dionysus with heroic valour throughout a long life--in order -finally to wind up his career with a glorification of his adversary, -and with suicide, like one staggering from giddiness, who, in order -to escape the horrible vertigo he can no longer endure, casts himself -from a tower. This tragedy--the Bacchæ--is a protest against the -practicability of his own tendency; alas, and it has already been -put into practice! The surprising thing had happened: when the poet -recanted, his tendency had already conquered. Dionysus had already -been scared from the tragic stage, and in fact by a demonic power -which spoke through Euripides. Even Euripides was, in a certain sense, -only a mask: the deity that spoke through him was neither Dionysus nor -Apollo, but an altogether new-born demon, called _Socrates._ This is -the new antithesis: the Dionysian and the Socratic, and the art-work of -Greek tragedy was wrecked on it. What if even Euripides now seeks to -comfort us by his recantation? It is of no avail: the most magnificent -temple lies in ruins. What avails the lamentation of the destroyer, -and his confession that it was the most beautiful of all temples? And -even that Euripides has been changed into a dragon as a punishment by -the art-critics of all ages--who could be content with this wretched -compensation? - -Let us now approach this _Socratic_ tendency with which Euripides -combated and vanquished Æschylean tragedy. - -We must now ask ourselves, what could be the ulterior aim of the -Euripidean design, which, in the highest ideality of its execution, -would found drama exclusively on the non-Dionysian? What other form of -drama could there be, if it was not to be born of the womb of music, in -the mysterious twilight of the Dionysian? Only _the dramatised epos:_ -in which Apollonian domain of art the _tragic_ effect is of course -unattainable. It does not depend on the subject-matter of the events -here represented; indeed, I venture to assert that it would have been -impossible for Goethe in his projected "Nausikaa" to have rendered -tragically effective the suicide of the idyllic being with which he -intended to complete the fifth act; so extraordinary is the power of -the epic-Apollonian representation, that it charms, before our eyes, -the most terrible things by the joy in appearance and in redemption -through appearance. The poet of the dramatised epos cannot completely -blend with his pictures any more than the epic rhapsodist. He is still -just the calm, unmoved embodiment of Contemplation whose wide eyes see -the picture _before_ them. The actor in this dramatised epos still -remains intrinsically rhapsodist: the consecration of inner dreaming -is on all his actions, so that he is never wholly an actor. - -How, then, is the Euripidean play related to this ideal of the -Apollonian drama? Just as the younger rhapsodist is related to the -solemn rhapsodist of the old time. The former describes his own -character in the Platonic "Ion" as follows: "When I am saying anything -sad, my eyes fill with tears; when, however, what I am saying is awful -and terrible, then my hair stands on end through fear, and my heart -leaps." Here we no longer observe anything of the epic absorption -in appearance, or of the unemotional coolness of the true actor, -who precisely in his highest activity is wholly appearance and joy -in appearance. Euripides is the actor with leaping heart, with hair -standing on end; as Socratic thinker he designs the plan, as passionate -actor he executes it. Neither in the designing nor in the execution is -he an artist pure and simple. And so the Euripidean drama is a thing -both cool and fiery, equally capable of freezing and burning; it is -impossible for it to attain the Apollonian, effect of the epos, while, -on the other hand, it has severed itself as much as possible from -Dionysian elements, and now, in order to act at all, it requires new -stimulants, which can no longer lie within the sphere of the two unique -art-impulses, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The stimulants are -cool, paradoxical _thoughts_, in place of Apollonian intuitions--and -fiery _passions_--in place Dionysean ecstasies; and in fact, thoughts -and passions very realistically copied, and not at all steeped in the -ether of art. - -Accordingly, if we have perceived this much, that Euripides did not -succeed in establishing the drama exclusively on the Apollonian, but -that rather his non-Dionysian inclinations deviated into a naturalistic -and inartistic tendency, we shall now be able to approach nearer to -the character _æsthetic Socratism._ supreme law of which reads about -as follows: "to be beautiful everything must be intelligible," as -the parallel to the Socratic proposition, "only the knowing is one -virtuous." With this canon in his hands Euripides measured all the -separate elements of the drama, and rectified them according to his -principle: the language, the characters, the dramaturgic structure, and -the choric music. The poetic deficiency and retrogression, which we -are so often wont to impute to Euripides in comparison with Sophoclean -tragedy, is for the most part the product of this penetrating critical -process, this daring intelligibility. The Euripidian _prologue_ may -serve us as an example of the productivity of this, rationalistic -method. Nothing could be more opposed to the technique of our stage -than the prologue in the drama of Euripides. For a single person to -appear at the outset of the play telling us who he is, what precedes -the action, what has happened thus far, yea, what will happen in -the course of the play, would be designated by a modern playwright -as a wanton and unpardonable abandonment of the effect of suspense. -Everything that is about to happen is known beforehand; who then -cares to wait for it actually to happen?--considering, moreover, that -here there is not by any means the exciting relation of a predicting -dream to a reality taking place later on. Euripides speculated quite -differently. The effect of tragedy never depended on epic suspense, on -the fascinating uncertainty as to what is to happen now and afterwards: -but rather on the great rhetoro-lyric scenes in which the passion and -dialectics of the chief hero swelled to a broad and mighty stream. -Everything was arranged for pathos, not for action: and whatever -was not arranged for pathos was regarded as objectionable. But what -interferes most with the hearer's pleasurable satisfaction in such -scenes is a missing link, a gap in the texture of the previous history. -So long as the spectator has to divine the meaning of this or that -person, or the presuppositions of this or that conflict of inclinations -and intentions, his complete absorption in the doings and sufferings -of the chief persons is impossible, as is likewise breathless -fellow-feeling and fellow-fearing. The Æschyleo-Sophoclean tragedy -employed the most ingenious devices in the first scenes to place in -the hands of the spectator as if by chance all the threads requisite -for understanding the whole: a trait in which that noble artistry is -approved, which as it were masks the _inevitably_ formal, and causes -it to appear as something accidental. But nevertheless Euripides -thought he observed that during these first scenes the spectator was -in a strange state of anxiety to make out the problem of the previous -history, so that the poetic beauties and pathos of the exposition -were lost to him. Accordingly he placed the prologue even before the -exposition, and put it in the mouth of a person who could be trusted: -some deity had often as it were to guarantee the particulars of the -tragedy to the public and remove every doubt as to the reality of the -myth: as in the case of Descartes, who could only prove the reality -of the empiric world by an appeal to the truthfulness of God and His -inability to utter falsehood. Euripides makes use of the same divine -truthfulness once more at the close of his drama, in order to ensure to -the public the future of his heroes; this is the task of the notorious -_deus ex machina._ Between the preliminary and the additional epic -spectacle there is the dramatico-lyric present, the "drama" proper. - -Thus Euripides as a poet echoes above all his own conscious -knowledge; and it is precisely on this account that he occupies such -a notable position in the history of Greek art. With reference to his -critico-productive activity, he must often have felt that he ought -to actualise in the drama the words at the beginning of the essay of -Anaxagoras: "In the beginning all things were mixed together; then -came the understanding and created order." And if Anaxagoras with his -"νοῡς" seemed like the first sober person among nothing but drunken -philosophers, Euripides may also have conceived his relation to -the other tragic poets under a similar figure. As long as the sole -ruler and disposer of the universe, the νοῡς, was still excluded -from artistic activity, things were all mixed together in a chaotic, -primitive mess;--it is thus Euripides was obliged to think, it is thus -he was obliged to condemn the "drunken" poets as the first "sober" one -among them. What Sophocles said of Æschylus, that he did what was -right, though unconsciously, was surely not in the mind of Euripides: -who would have admitted only thus much, that Æschylus, _because_ he -wrought unconsciously, did what was wrong. So also the divine Plato -speaks for the most part only ironically of the creative faculty of the -poet, in so far as it is not conscious insight, and places it on a par -with the gift of the soothsayer and dream-interpreter; insinuating that -the poet is incapable of composing until he has become unconscious and -reason has deserted him. Like Plato, Euripides undertook to show to the -world the reverse of the "unintelligent" poet; his æsthetic principle -that "to be beautiful everything must be known" is, as I have said, -the parallel to the Socratic "to be good everything must be known." -Accordingly we may regard Euripides as the poet of æsthetic Socratism. -Socrates, however, was that _second spectator_ who did not comprehend -and therefore did not esteem the Old Tragedy; in alliance with him -Euripides ventured to be the herald of a new artistic activity. If, -then, the Old Tragedy was here destroyed, it follows that æsthetic -Socratism was the murderous principle; but in so far as the struggle is -directed against the Dionysian element in the old art, we recognise in -Socrates the opponent of Dionysus, the new Orpheus who rebels against -Dionysus; and although destined to be torn to pieces by the Mænads of -the Athenian court, yet puts to flight the overpowerful god himself, -who, when he fled from Lycurgus, the king of Edoni, sought refuge in -the depths of the ocean--namely, in the mystical flood of a secret -cult which gradually overspread the earth. - - - -13. - - -That Socrates stood in close relationship to Euripides in the tendency -of his teaching, did not escape the notice of contemporaneous -antiquity; the most eloquent expression of this felicitous insight -being the tale current in Athens, that Socrates was accustomed to help -Euripides in poetising. Both names were mentioned in one breath by the -adherents of the "good old time," whenever they came to enumerating the -popular agitators of the day: to whose influence they attributed the -fact that the old Marathonian stalwart capacity of body and soul was -more and more being sacrificed to a dubious enlightenment, involving -progressive degeneration of the physical and mental powers. It is in -this tone, half indignantly and half contemptuously, that Aristophanic -comedy is wont to speak of both of them--to the consternation of -modern men, who would indeed be willing enough to give up Euripides, -but cannot suppress their amazement that Socrates should appear in -Aristophanes as the first and head _sophist,_ as the mirror and epitome -of all sophistical tendencies; in connection with which it offers the -single consolation of putting Aristophanes himself in the pillory, as a -rakish, lying Alcibiades of poetry. Without here defending the profound -instincts of Aristophanes against such attacks, I shall now indicate, -by means of the sentiments of the time, the close connection between -Socrates and Euripides. With this purpose in view, it is especially to -be remembered that Socrates, as an opponent of tragic art, did not -ordinarily patronise tragedy, but only appeared among the spectators -when a new play of Euripides was performed. The most noted thing, -however, is the close juxtaposition of the two names in the Delphic -oracle, which designated Socrates as the wisest of men, but at the same -time decided that the second prize in the contest of wisdom was due to -Euripides. - -Sophocles was designated as the third in this scale of rank; he who -could pride himself that, in comparison with Æschylus, he did what -was right, and did it, moreover, because he _knew_ what was right. It -is evidently just the degree of clearness of this _knowledge,_ which -distinguishes these three men in common as the three "knowing ones" of -their age. - -The most decisive word, however, for this new and unprecedented -esteem of knowledge and insight was spoken by Socrates when he -found that he was the only one who acknowledged to himself that he -_knew nothing_ while in his critical pilgrimage through Athens, and -calling on the greatest statesmen, orators, poets, and artists, he -discovered everywhere the conceit of knowledge. He perceived, to his -astonishment, that all these celebrities were without a proper and -accurate insight, even with regard to their own callings, and practised -them only by instinct. "Only by instinct": with this phrase we touch -upon the heart and core of the Socratic tendency. Socratism condemns -therewith existing art as well as existing ethics; wherever Socratism -turns its searching eyes it beholds the lack of insight and the -power of illusion; and from this lack infers the inner perversity and -objectionableness of existing conditions. From this point onwards, -Socrates believed that he was called upon to, correct existence; -and, with an air of disregard and superiority, as the precursor -of an altogether different culture, art, and morality, he enters -single-handed into a world, of which, if we reverently touched the hem, -we should count it our greatest happiness. - -Here is the extraordinary hesitancy which always seizes upon us with -regard to Socrates, and again and again invites us to ascertain the -sense and purpose of this most questionable phenomenon of antiquity. -Who is it that ventures single-handed to disown the Greek character, -which, as Homer, Pindar, and Æschylus, as Phidias, as Pericles, as -Pythia and Dionysus, as the deepest abyss and the highest height, is -sure of our wondering admiration? What demoniac power is it which would -presume to spill this magic draught in the dust? What demigod is it to -whom the chorus of spirits of the noblest of mankind must call out: -"Weh! Weh! Du hast sie zerstört, die schöne Welt, mit mächtiger Faust; -sie stürzt, sie zerfällt!"[17] - -A key to the character of Socrates is presented to us by the surprising -phenomenon designated as the "daimonion" of Socrates. In special -circumstances, when his gigantic intellect began to stagger, he got -a secure support in the utterances of a divine voice which then -spake to him. This voice, whenever it comes, always _dissuades._ -In this totally abnormal nature instinctive wisdom only appears in -order to hinder the progress of conscious perception here and there. -While in all productive men it is instinct which is the creatively -affirmative force, consciousness only comporting itself critically -and dissuasively; with Socrates it is instinct which becomes critic; -it is consciousness which becomes creator--a perfect monstrosity -_per defectum!_ And we do indeed observe here a monstrous _defectus_ -of all mystical aptitude, so that Socrates might be designated as -the specific _non-mystic,_ in whom the logical nature is developed, -through a superfoetation, to the same excess as instinctive wisdom -is developed in the mystic. On the other hand, however, the logical -instinct which appeared in Socrates was absolutely prohibited from -turning against itself; in its unchecked flow it manifests a native -power such as we meet with, to our shocking surprise, only among the -very greatest instinctive forces. He who has experienced even a breath -of the divine naïveté and security of the Socratic course of life in -the Platonic writings, will also feel that the enormous driving-wheel -of logical Socratism is in motion, as it were, _behind_ Socrates, and -that it must be viewed through Socrates as through a shadow. And -that he himself had a boding of this relation is apparent from the -dignified earnestness with which he everywhere, and even before his -judges, insisted on his divine calling. To refute him here was really -as impossible as to approve of his instinct-disintegrating influence. -In view of this indissoluble conflict, when he had at last been brought -before the forum of the Greek state, there was only one punishment -demanded, namely exile; he might have been sped across the borders as -something thoroughly enigmatical, irrubricable and inexplicable, and so -posterity would have been quite unjustified in charging the Athenians -with a deed of ignominy. But that the sentence of death, and not mere -exile, was pronounced upon him, seems to have been brought about by -Socrates himself, with perfect knowledge of the circumstances, and -without the natural fear of death: he met his death with the calmness -with which, according to the description of Plato, he leaves the -symposium at break of day, as the last of the revellers, to begin a new -day; while the sleepy companions remain behind on the benches and the -floor, to dream of Socrates, the true eroticist. _The dying Socrates_ -became the new ideal of the noble Greek youths,--an ideal they had -never yet beheld,--and above all, the typical Hellenic youth, Plato, -prostrated himself before this scene with all the fervent devotion of -his visionary soul. - - -[17] - - Woe! Woe! - Thou hast it destroyed, - The beautiful world; - With powerful fist; - In ruin 'tis hurled! - _Faust,_ trans. of Bayard Taylor.--TR. - - - -14. - - -Let us now imagine the one great Cyclopean eye of Socrates fixed on -tragedy, that eye in which the fine frenzy of artistic enthusiasm had -never glowed--let us think how it was denied to this eye to gaze with -pleasure into the Dionysian abysses--what could it not but see in the -"sublime and greatly lauded" tragic art, as Plato called it? Something -very absurd, with causes that seemed to be without effects, and -effects apparently without causes; the whole, moreover, so motley and -diversified that it could not but be repugnant to a thoughtful mind, a -dangerous incentive, however, to sensitive and irritable souls. We know -what was the sole kind of poetry which he comprehended: the _Æsopian -fable_: and he did this no doubt with that smiling complaisance with -which the good honest Gellert sings the praise of poetry in the fable -of the bee and the hen:-- - - "Du siehst an mir, wozu sie nützt, - Dem, der nicht viel Verstand besitzt, - Die Wahrheit durch ein Bild zu sagen."[18] - -But then it seemed to Socrates that tragic art did not even "tell the -truth": not to mention the fact that it addresses itself to him who -"hath but little wit"; consequently not to the philosopher: a twofold -reason why it should be avoided. Like Plato, he reckoned it among the -seductive arts which only represent the agreeable, not the useful, and -hence he required of his disciples abstinence and strict separation -from such unphilosophical allurements; with such success that the -youthful tragic poet Plato first of all burned his poems to be able to -become a scholar of Socrates. But where unconquerable native capacities -bore up against the Socratic maxims, their power, together with the -momentum of his mighty character, still sufficed to force poetry itself -into new and hitherto unknown channels. - -An instance of this is the aforesaid Plato: he, who in the condemnation -of tragedy and of art in general certainly did not fall short of -the naïve cynicism of his master, was nevertheless constrained by -sheer artistic necessity to create a form of art which is inwardly -related even to the then existing forms of art which he repudiated. -Plato's main objection to the old art--that it is the imitation of -a phantom,[19] and hence belongs to a sphere still lower than the -empiric world--could not at all apply to the new art: and so we find -Plato endeavouring to go beyond reality and attempting to represent -the idea which underlies this pseudo-reality. But Plato, the thinker, -thereby arrived by a roundabout road just at the point where he had -always been at home as poet, and from which Sophocles and all the old -artists had solemnly protested against that objection. If tragedy -absorbed into itself all the earlier varieties of art, the same -could again be said in an unusual sense of Platonic dialogue, which, -engendered by a mixture of all the then existing forms and styles, -hovers midway between narrative, lyric and drama, between prose and -poetry, and has also thereby broken loose from the older strict law -of unity of linguistic form; a movement which was carried still -farther by the _cynic_ writers, who in the most promiscuous style, -oscillating to and fro betwixt prose and metrical forms, realised also -the literary picture of the "raving Socrates" whom they were wont to -represent in life. Platonic dialogue was as it were the boat in which -the shipwrecked ancient poetry saved herself together with all her -children: crowded into a narrow space and timidly obsequious to the -one steersman, Socrates, they now launched into a new world, which -never tired of looking at the fantastic spectacle of this procession. -In very truth, Plato has given to all posterity the prototype of a new -form of art, the prototype of the _novel_ which must be designated as -the infinitely evolved Æsopian fable, in which poetry holds the same -rank with reference to dialectic philosophy as this same philosophy -held for many centuries with reference to theology: namely, the rank of -_ancilla._ This was the new position of poetry into which Plato forced -it under the pressure of the demon-inspired Socrates. - -Here _philosophic thought_ overgrows art and compels it to cling close -to the trunk of dialectics. The _Apollonian_ tendency has chrysalised -in the logical schematism; just as something analogous in the case -of Euripides (and moreover a translation of the _Dionysian_ into the -naturalistic emotion) was forced upon our attention. Socrates, the -dialectical hero in Platonic drama, reminds us of the kindred nature -of the Euripidean hero, who has to defend his actions by arguments and -counter-arguments, and thereby so often runs the risk of forfeiting -our tragic pity; for who could mistake the _optimistic_ element -in the essence of dialectics, which celebrates a jubilee in every -conclusion, and can breathe only in cool clearness and consciousness: -the optimistic element, which, having once forced its way into tragedy, -must gradually overgrow its Dionysian regions, and necessarily impel it -to self-destruction--even to the death-leap into the bourgeois drama. -Let us but realise the consequences of the Socratic maxims: "Virtue is -knowledge; man only sins from ignorance; he who is virtuous is happy": -these three fundamental forms of optimism involve the death of tragedy. -For the virtuous hero must now be a dialectician; there must now be a -necessary, visible connection between virtue and knowledge, between -belief and morality; the transcendental justice of the plot in Æschylus -is now degraded to the superficial and audacious principle of poetic -justice with its usual _deus ex machina_. - -How does the _chorus,_ and, in general, the entire Dionyso-musical -substratum of tragedy, now appear in the light of this new -Socrato-optimistic stage-world? As something accidental, as a readily -dispensable reminiscence of the origin of tragedy; while we have -in fact seen that the chorus can be understood only as the cause of -tragedy, and of the tragic generally. This perplexity with respect to -the chorus first manifests itself in Sophocles--an important sign that -the Dionysian basis of tragedy already begins to disintegrate with -him. He no longer ventures to entrust to the chorus the main share -of the effect, but limits its sphere to such an extent that it now -appears almost co-ordinate with the actors, just as if it were elevated -from the orchestra into the scene: whereby of course its character -is completely destroyed, notwithstanding that Aristotle countenances -this very theory of the chorus. This alteration of the position of -the chorus, which Sophocles at any rate recommended by his practice, -and, according to tradition, even by a treatise, is the first step -towards the _annihilation_ of the chorus, the phases of which follow -one another with alarming rapidity in Euripides, Agathon, and the New -Comedy. Optimistic dialectics drives, _music_ out of tragedy with the -scourge of its syllogisms: that is, it destroys the essence of tragedy, -which can be explained only as a manifestation and illustration of -Dionysian states, as the visible symbolisation of music, as the -dream-world of Dionysian ecstasy. - -If, therefore, we are to assume an anti-Dionysian tendency operating -even before Socrates, which received in him only an unprecedentedly -grand expression, we must not shrink from the question as to what -a phenomenon like that of Socrates indicates: whom in view of the -Platonic dialogues we are certainly not entitled to regard as a purely -disintegrating, negative power. And though there can be no doubt -whatever that the most immediate effect of the Socratic impulse tended -to the dissolution of Dionysian tragedy, yet a profound experience of -Socrates' own life compels us to ask whether there is _necessarily_ -only an antipodal relation between Socratism and art, and whether the -birth of an "artistic Socrates" is in general something contradictory -in itself. - -For that despotic logician had now and then the feeling of a gap, or -void, a sentiment of semi-reproach, as of a possibly neglected duty -with respect to art. There often came to him, as he tells his friends -in prison, one and the same dream-apparition, which kept constantly -repeating to him: "Socrates, practise music." Up to his very last days -he solaces himself with the opinion that his philosophising is the -highest form of poetry, and finds it hard to believe that a deity will -remind him of the "common, popular music." Finally, when in prison, -he consents to practise also this despised music, in order thoroughly -to unburden his conscience. And in this frame of mind he composes -a poem on Apollo and turns a few Æsopian fables into verse. It was -something similar to the demonian warning voice which urged him to -these practices; it was because of his Apollonian insight that, like a -barbaric king, he did not understand the noble image of a god and was -in danger of sinning against a deity--through ignorance. The prompting -voice of the Socratic dream-vision is the only sign of doubtfulness -as to the limits of logical nature. "Perhaps "--thus he had to ask -himself--"what is not intelligible to me is not therefore unreasonable? -Perhaps there is a realm of wisdom from which the logician is banished? -Perhaps art is even a necessary correlative of and supplement to -science?" - - -[18] - - In me thou seest its benefit,-- - To him who hath but little wit, - Through parables to tell the truth. - -[19] Scheinbild = ειδολον.--TR. - - - -15. - - -In the sense of these last portentous questions it must now be -indicated how the influence of Socrates (extending to the present -moment, indeed, to all futurity) has spread over posterity like an -ever-increasing shadow in the evening sun, and how this influence -again and again necessitates a regeneration of _art,_--yea, of art -already with metaphysical, broadest and profoundest sense,--and its own -eternity guarantees also the eternity of art. - -Before this could be perceived, before the intrinsic dependence of -every art on the Greeks, the Greeks from Homer to Socrates, was -conclusively demonstrated, it had to happen to us with regard to these -Greeks as it happened to the Athenians with regard to Socrates. Nearly -every age and stage of culture has at some time or other sought with -deep displeasure to free itself from the Greeks, because in their -presence everything self-achieved, sincerely admired and apparently -quite original, seemed all of a sudden to lose life and colour -and shrink to an abortive copy, even to caricature. And so hearty -indignation breaks forth time after time against this presumptuous -little nation, which dared to designate as "barbaric" for all time -everything not native: who are they, one asks one's self, who, though -they possessed only an ephemeral historical splendour, ridiculously -restricted institutions, a dubious excellence in their customs, and -were even branded with ugly vices, yet lay claim to the dignity and -singular position among the peoples to which genius is entitled among -the masses. What a pity one has not been so fortunate as to find the -cup of hemlock with which such an affair could be disposed of without -ado: for all the poison which envy, calumny, and rankling resentment -engendered within themselves have not sufficed to destroy that -self-sufficient grandeur! And so one feels ashamed and afraid in the -presence of the Greeks: unless one prize truth above all things, and -dare also to acknowledge to one's self this truth, that the Greeks, -as charioteers, hold in their hands the reins of our own and of -every culture, but that almost always chariot and horses are of too -poor material and incommensurate with the glory of their guides, who -then will deem it sport to run such a team into an abyss: which they -themselves clear with the leap of Achilles. - -In order to assign also to Socrates the dignity of such a leading -position, it will suffice to recognise in him the type of an unheard-of -form of existence, the type of the _theoretical man,_ with regard -to whose meaning and purpose it will be our next task to attain -an insight. Like the artist, the theorist also finds an infinite -satisfaction in what _is_ and, like the former, he is shielded by this -satisfaction from the practical ethics of pessimism with its lynx eyes -which shine only in the dark. For if the artist in every unveiling -of truth always cleaves with raptured eyes only to that which still -remains veiled after the unveiling, the theoretical man, on the other -hand, enjoys and contents himself with the cast-off veil, and finds -the consummation of his pleasure in the process of a continuously -successful unveiling through his own unaided efforts. There would -have been no science if it had only been concerned about that _one_ -naked goddess and nothing else. For then its disciples would have been -obliged to feel like those who purposed to dig a hole straight through -the earth: each one of whom perceives that with the utmost lifelong -exertion he is able to excavate only a very little of the enormous -depth, which is again filled up before his eyes by the labours of his -successor, so that a third man seems to do well when on his own account -he selects a new spot for his attempts at tunnelling. If now some one -proves conclusively that the antipodal goal cannot be attained in this -direct way, who will still care to toil on in the old depths, unless he -has learned to content himself in the meantime with finding precious -stones or discovering natural laws? For that reason Lessing, the most -honest theoretical man, ventured to say that he cared more for the -search after truth than for truth itself: in saying which he revealed -the fundamental secret of science, to the astonishment, and indeed, -to the vexation of scientific men. Well, to be sure, there stands -alongside of this detached perception, as an excess of honesty, if not -of presumption, a profound _illusion_ which first came to the world -in the person of Socrates, the imperturbable belief that, by means -of the clue of causality, thinking reaches to the deepest abysses of -being, and that thinking is able not only to perceive being but even -to _correct_ it. This sublime metaphysical illusion is added as an -instinct to science and again and again leads the latter to its limits, -where it must change into _art; which is really the end, to be attained -by this mechanism_. - -If we now look at Socrates in the light of this thought, he appears to -us as the first who could not only live, but--what is far more--also -die under the guidance of this instinct of science: and hence the -picture of the _dying, Socrates_, as the man delivered from the fear of -death by knowledge and argument, is the escutcheon, above the entrance -to science which reminds every one of its mission, namely, to make -existence appear to be comprehensible, and therefore to be justified: -for which purpose, if arguments do not suffice, _myth_ also must be -used, which I just now designated even as the necessary consequence, -yea, as the end of science. - -He who once makes intelligible to himself how, after the death of -Socrates, the mystagogue of science, one philosophical school succeeds -another, like wave upon wave,--how an entirely unfore-shadowed -universal development of the thirst for knowledge in the widest -compass of the cultured world (and as the specific task for every -one highly gifted) led science on to the high sea from which since -then it has never again been able to be completely ousted; how -through the universality of this movement a common net of thought -was first stretched over the entire globe, with prospects, moreover, -of conformity to law in an entire solar system;--he who realises all -this, together with the amazingly high pyramid of our present-day -knowledge, cannot fail to see in Socrates the turning-point and vortex -of so-called universal history. For if one were to imagine the whole -incalculable sum of energy which has been used up by that universal -tendency,--employed, _not_ in the service of knowledge, but for the -practical, _i.e.,_ egoistical ends of individuals and peoples,--then -probably the instinctive love of life would be so much weakened in -universal wars of destruction and incessant migrations of peoples, -that, owing to the practice of suicide, the individual would perhaps -feel the last remnant of a sense of duty, when, like the native of -the Fiji Islands, as son he strangles his parents and, as friend, his -friend: a practical pessimism which might even give rise to a horrible -ethics of general slaughter out of pity--which, for the rest, exists -and has existed wherever art in one form or another, especially as -science and religion, has not appeared as a remedy and preventive of -that pestilential breath. - -In view of this practical pessimism, Socrates is the archetype of -the theoretical optimist, who in the above-indicated belief in the -fathomableness of the nature of things, attributes to knowledge and -perception the power of a universal medicine, and sees in error and -evil. To penetrate into the depths of the nature of things, and to -separate true perception from error and illusion, appeared to the -Socratic man the noblest and even the only truly human calling: just as -from the time of Socrates onwards the mechanism of concepts, judgments, -and inferences was prized above all other capacities as the highest -activity and the most admirable gift of nature. Even the sublimest -moral acts, the stirrings of pity, of self-sacrifice, of heroism, -and that tranquillity of soul, so difficult of attainment, which the -Apollonian Greek called Sophrosyne, were derived by Socrates, and his -like-minded successors up to the present day, from the dialectics of -knowledge, and were accordingly designated as teachable. He who has -experienced in himself the joy of a Socratic perception, and felt how -it seeks to embrace, in constantly widening circles, the entire world -of phenomena, will thenceforth find no stimulus which could urge him -to existence more forcible than the desire to complete that conquest -and to knit the net impenetrably close. To a person thus minded the -Platonic Socrates then appears as the teacher of an entirely new form -of "Greek cheerfulness" and felicity of existence, which seeks to -discharge itself in actions, and will find its discharge for the most -part in maieutic and pedagogic influences on noble youths, with a view -to the ultimate production of genius. - -But now science, spurred on by its powerful illusion, hastens -irresistibly to its limits, on which its optimism, hidden in the -essence of logic, is wrecked. For the periphery of the circle of -science has an infinite number of points, and while there is still no -telling how this circle can ever be completely measured, yet the noble -and gifted man, even before the middle of his career, inevitably comes -into contact with those extreme points of the periphery where he stares -at the inexplicable. When he here sees to his dismay how logic coils -round itself at these limits and finally bites its own tail--then the -new form of perception discloses itself, namely _tragic perception,_ -which, in order even to be endured, requires art as a safeguard and -remedy. - -If, with eyes strengthened and refreshed at the sight of the Greeks, we -look upon the highest spheres of the world that surrounds us, we behold -the avidity of the insatiate optimistic knowledge, of which Socrates is -the typical representative, transformed into tragic resignation and the -need of art: while, to be sure, this same avidity, in its lower stages, -has to exhibit itself as antagonistic to art, and must especially have -an inward detestation of Dionyso-tragic art, as was exemplified in the -opposition of Socratism to Æschylean tragedy. - -Here then with agitated spirit we knock at the gates of the present and -the future: will that "transforming" lead to ever new configurations -of genius, and especially of the _music-practising Socrates_? Will the -net of art which is spread over existence, whether under the name of -religion or of science, be knit always more closely and delicately, -or is it destined to be torn to shreds under the restlessly barbaric -activity and whirl which is called "the present day"?--Anxious, yet -not disconsolate, we stand aloof for a little while, as the spectators -who are permitted to be witnesses of these tremendous struggles and -transitions. Alas! It is the charm of these struggles that he who -beholds them must also fight them! - - - -16. - - -By this elaborate historical example we have endeavoured to make it -clear that tragedy perishes as surely by evanescence of the spirit of -music as it can be born only out of this spirit. In order to qualify -the singularity of this assertion, and, on the other hand, to disclose -the source of this insight of ours, we must now confront with clear -vision the analogous phenomena of the present time; we must enter -into the midst of these struggles, which, as I said just now, are -being carried on in the highest spheres of our present world between -the insatiate optimistic perception and the tragic need of art. In -so doing I shall leave out of consideration all other antagonistic -tendencies which at all times oppose art, especially tragedy, and which -at present again extend their sway triumphantly, to such an extent that -of the theatrical arts only the farce and the ballet, for example, put -forth their blossoms, which perhaps not every one cares to smell, in -tolerably rich luxuriance. I will speak only of the _Most Illustrious -Opposition_ to the tragic conception of things--and by this I mean -essentially optimistic science, with its ancestor Socrates at the head -of it. Presently also the forces will be designated which seem to me -to guarantee _a re-birth of tragedy_--and who knows what other blessed -hopes for the German genius! - -Before we plunge into the midst of these struggles, let us array -ourselves in the armour of our hitherto acquired knowledge. In -contrast to all those who are intent on deriving the arts from one -exclusive principle, as the necessary vital source of every work of -art, I keep my eyes fixed on the two artistic deities of the Greeks, -Apollo and Dionysus, and recognise in them the living and conspicuous -representatives of _two_ worlds of art which differ in their intrinsic -essence and in their highest aims. Apollo stands before me as the -transfiguring genius of the _principium individuationis_ through -which alone the redemption in appearance is to be truly attained, -while by the mystical cheer of Dionysus the spell of individuation -is broken, and the way lies open to the Mothers of Being,[20] to the -innermost heart of things. This extraordinary antithesis, which opens -up yawningly between plastic art as the Apollonian and music as the -Dionysian art, has become manifest to only one of the great thinkers, -to such an extent that, even without this key to the symbolism of the -Hellenic divinities, he allowed to music a different character and -origin in advance of all the other arts, because, unlike them, it is -not a copy of the phenomenon, but a direct copy of the will itself, and -therefore represents _the metaphysical of everything physical in the -world_, the thing-in-itself of every phenomenon. (Schopenhauer, _Welt -als Wille und Vorstellung,_ I. 310.) To this most important perception -of æsthetics (with which, taken in a serious sense, æsthetics properly -commences), Richard Wagner, by way of confirmation of its eternal -truth, affixed his seal, when he asserted in his _Beethoven_ that -music must be judged according to æsthetic principles quite different -from those which apply to the plastic arts, and not, in general, -according to the category of beauty: although an erroneous æsthetics, -inspired by a misled and degenerate art, has by virtue of the concept -of beauty prevailing in the plastic domain accustomed itself to demand -of music an effect analogous to that of the works of plastic art, -namely the suscitating _delight in beautiful forms._ Upon perceiving -this extraordinary antithesis, I felt a strong inducement to approach -the essence of Greek tragedy, and, by means of it, the profoundest -revelation of Hellenic genius: for I at last thought myself to be in -possession of a charm to enable me--far beyond the phraseology of our -usual æsthetics--to represent vividly to my mind the primitive problem -of tragedy: whereby such an astounding insight into the Hellenic -character was afforded me that it necessarily seemed as if our proudly -comporting classico-Hellenic science had thus far contrived to subsist -almost exclusively on phantasmagoria and externalities. - -Perhaps we may lead up to this primitive problem with the question: -what æsthetic effect results when the intrinsically separate -art-powers, the Apollonian and the Dionysian, enter into concurrent -actions? Or, in briefer form: how is music related to image and -concept?--Schopenhauer, whom Richard Wagner, with especial reference to -this point, accredits with an unsurpassable clearness and perspicuity -of exposition, expresses himself most copiously on the subject in -the following passage which I shall cite here at full length[21] -(_Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,_ I. p. 309): "According to all -this, we may regard the phenomenal world, or nature, and music as -two different expressions of the same thing,[20] which is therefore -itself the only medium of the analogy between these two expressions, -so that a knowledge of this medium is required in order to understand -that analogy. Music, therefore, if regarded as an expression of the -world, is in the highest degree a universal language, which is related -indeed to the universality of concepts, much as these are related to -the particular things. Its universality, however, is by no means the -empty universality of abstraction, but of quite a different kind, and -is united with thorough and distinct definiteness. In this respect it -resembles geometrical figures and numbers, which are the universal -forms of all possible objects of experience and applicable to them all -_a priori_, and yet are not abstract but perceptiple and thoroughly -determinate. All possible efforts, excitements and manifestations of -will, all that goes on in the heart of man and that reason includes in -the wide, negative concept of feeling, may be expressed by the infinite -number of possible melodies, but always in the universality of mere -form, without the material, always according to the thing-in-itself, -not the phenomenon,--of which they reproduce the very soul and essence -as it were, without the body. This deep relation which music bears to -the true nature of all things also explains the fact that suitable -music played to any scene, action, event, or surrounding seems to -disclose to us its most secret meaning, and appears as the most -accurate and distinct commentary upon it; as also the fact that whoever -gives himself up entirely to the impression of a symphony seems to see -all the possible events of life and the world take place in himself: -nevertheless upon reflection he can find no likeness between the music -and the things that passed before his mind. For, as we have said, music -is distinguished from all the other arts by the fact that it is not a -copy of the phenomenon, or, more accurately, the adequate objectivity -of the will, but the direct copy of the will itself, and therefore -represents the metaphysical of everything physical in the world, and -the thing-in-itself of every phenomenon. We might, therefore, just as -well call the world embodied music as embodied will: and this is the -reason why music makes every picture, and indeed every scene of real -life and of the world, at once appear with higher significance; all the -more so, to be sure, in proportion as its melody is analogous to the -inner spirit of the given phenomenon. It rests upon this that we are -able to set a poem to music as a song, or a perceptible representation -as a pantomime, or both as an opera. Such particular pictures of human -life, set to the universal language of music, are never bound to it -or correspond to it with stringent necessity, but stand to it only -in the relation of an example chosen at will to a general concept. -In the determinateness of the real they represent that which music -expresses in the universality of mere form. For melodies are to a -certain extent, like general concepts, an abstraction from the actual. -This actual world, then, the world of particular things, affords the -object of perception, the special and the individual, the particular -case, both to the universality of concepts and to the universality of -the melodies. But these two universalities are in a certain respect -opposed to each other; for the concepts contain only the forms, which -are first of all abstracted from perception,--the separated outward -shell of things, as it were,--and hence they are, in the strictest -sense of the term, _abstracta_; music, on the other hand, gives the -inmost kernel which precedes all forms, or the heart of things. This -relation may be very well expressed in the language of the schoolmen, -by saying: the concepts are the _universalia post rem,_ but music gives -the _universalia ante rem,_ and the real world the _universalia in -re._--But that in general a relation is possible between a composition -and a perceptible representation rests, as we have said, upon the -fact that both are simply different expressions of the same inner -being of the world. When now, in the particular case, such a relation -is actually given, that is to say, when the composer has been able to -express in the universal language of music the emotions of will which -constitute the heart of an event, then the melody of the song, the -music of the opera, is expressive. But the analogy discovered by the -composer between the two must have proceeded from the direct knowledge -of the nature of the world unknown to his reason, and must not be an -imitation produced with conscious intention by means of conceptions; -otherwise the music does not express the inner nature of the will -itself, but merely gives an inadequate imitation of its phenomenon: all -specially imitative music does this." - -We have therefore, according to the doctrine of Schopenhauer, an -immediate understanding of music as the language of the will, and -feel our imagination stimulated to give form to this invisible and -yet so actively stirred spirit-world which speaks to us, and prompted -to embody it in an analogous example. On the other hand, image and -concept, under the influence of a truly conformable music, acquire a -higher significance. Dionysian art therefore is wont to exercise--two -kinds of influences, on the Apollonian art-faculty: music firstly -incites to the _symbolic intuition_ of Dionysian universality, and, -secondly, it causes the symbolic image to stand forth _in its fullest -significance._ From these facts, intelligible in themselves and not -inaccessible to profounder observation, I infer the capacity of music -to give birth to _myth,_ that is to say, the most significant exemplar, -and precisely _tragic_ myth: the myth which speaks of Dionysian -knowledge in symbols. In the phenomenon of the lyrist, I have set forth -that in him music strives to express itself with regard to its nature -in Apollonian images. If now we reflect that music in its highest -potency must seek to attain also to its highest symbolisation, we must -deem it possible that it also knows how to find the symbolic expression -of its inherent Dionysian wisdom; and where shall we have to seek for -this expression if not in tragedy and, in general, in the conception of -the _tragic_? - -From the nature of art, as it is ordinarily conceived according to -the single category of appearance and beauty, the tragic cannot be -honestly deduced at all; it is only through the spirit of music that -we understand the joy in the annihilation of the individual. For in -the particular examples of such annihilation only is the eternal -phenomenon of Dionysian art made clear to us, which gives expression -to the will in its omnipotence, as it were, behind the _principium -individuationis,_ the eternal life beyond all phenomena, and in -spite of all annihilation. The metaphysical delight in the tragic -is a translation of the instinctively unconscious Dionysian wisdom -into the language of the scene: the hero, the highest manifestation -of the will, is disavowed for our pleasure, because he is only -phenomenon, and because the eternal life of the will is not affected -by his annihilation. "We believe in eternal life," tragedy exclaims; -while music is the proximate idea of this life. Plastic art has an -altogether different object: here Apollo vanquishes the suffering of -the individual by the radiant glorification of the _eternity of the -phenomenon_; here beauty triumphs over the suffering inherent in life; -pain is in a manner surreptitiously obliterated from the features of -nature. In Dionysian art and its tragic symbolism the same nature -speaks to us with its true undissembled voice: "Be as I am! Amidst the -ceaseless change of phenomena the eternally creative primordial mother, -eternally impelling to existence, self-satisfying eternally with this -change of phenomena!" - - -[20] Cf. _World and Will as Idea,_ I. p. 339, trans. by -Haldane and Kemp. - -[21] That is "the will" as understood by Schopenhauer.--TR. - - - -17. - - -Dionysian art, too, seeks to convince us of the eternal joy of -existence: only we are to seek this joy not in phenomena, but behind -phenomena. We are to perceive how all that comes into being must be -ready for a sorrowful end; we are compelled to look into the terrors of -individual existence--yet we are not to become torpid: a metaphysical -comfort tears us momentarily from the bustle of the transforming -figures. We are really for brief moments Primordial Being itself, -and feel its indomitable desire for being and joy in existence; the -struggle, the pain, the destruction of phenomena, now appear to us as -something necessary, considering the surplus of innumerable forms of -existence which throng and push one another into life, considering -the exuberant fertility of the universal will. We are pierced by the -maddening sting of these pains at the very moment when we have become, -as it were, one with the immeasurable primordial joy in existence, -and when we anticipate, in Dionysian ecstasy, the indestructibility -and eternity of this joy. In spite of fear and pity, we are the happy -living beings, not as individuals, but as the _one_ living being, with -whose procreative joy we are blended. - -The history of the rise of Greek tragedy now tells us with luminous -precision that the tragic art of the Greeks was really born of the -spirit of music: with which conception we believe we have done justice -for the first time to the original and most astonishing significance of -the chorus. At the same time, however, we must admit that the import of -tragic myth as set forth above never became transparent with sufficient -lucidity to the Greek poets, let alone the Greek philosophers; their -heroes speak, as it were, more superficially than they act; the myth -does not at all find its adequate objectification in the spoken word. -The structure of the scenes and the conspicuous images reveal a deeper -wisdom than the poet himself can put into words and concepts: the same -being also observed in Shakespeare, whose Hamlet, for instance, in an -analogous manner talks more superficially than he acts, so that the -previously mentioned lesson of Hamlet is to be gathered not from his -words, but from a more profound contemplation and survey of the whole. -With respect to Greek tragedy, which of course presents itself to us -only as word-drama, I have even intimated that the incongruence between -myth and expression might easily tempt us to regard it as shallower -and less significant than it really is, and accordingly to postulate -for it a more superficial effect than it must have had according to -the testimony of the ancients: for how easily one forgets that what -the word-poet did not succeed in doing, namely realising the highest -spiritualisation and ideality of myth, he might succeed in doing -every moment as creative musician! We require, to be sure, almost by -philological method to reconstruct for ourselves the ascendency of -musical influence in order to receive something of the incomparable -comfort which must be characteristic of true tragedy. Even this musical -ascendency, however, would only have been felt by us as such had -we been Greeks: while in the entire development of Greek music--as -compared with the infinitely richer music known and familiar to us--we -imagine we hear only the youthful song of the musical genius intoned -with a feeling of diffidence. The Greeks are, as the Egyptian priests -say, eternal children, and in tragic art also they are only children -who do not know what a sublime play-thing has originated under their -hands and--is being demolished. - -That striving of the spirit of music for symbolic and mythical -manifestation, which increases from the beginnings of lyric poetry to -Attic tragedy, breaks off all of a sudden immediately after attaining -luxuriant development, and disappears, as it were, from the surface -of Hellenic art: while the Dionysian view of things born of this -striving lives on in Mysteries and, in its strangest metamorphoses and -debasements, does not cease to attract earnest natures. Will it not one -day rise again as art out of its mystic depth? - -Here the question occupies us, whether the power by the counteracting -influence of which tragedy perished, has for all time strength enough -to prevent the artistic reawaking of tragedy and of the tragic view -of things. If ancient tragedy was driven from its course by the -dialectical desire for knowledge and the optimism of science, it might -be inferred that there is an eternal conflict between _the theoretic_ -and _the tragic view of things,_ and only after the spirit of science -has been led to its boundaries, and its claim to universal validity -has been destroyed by the evidence of these boundaries, can we hope -for a re-birth of tragedy: for which form of culture we should have to -use the symbol _of the music-practising Socrates_ in the sense spoken -of above. In this contrast, I understand by the spirit of science the -belief which first came to light in the person of Socrates,--the belief -in the fathomableness of nature and in knowledge as a panacea. - -He who recalls the immediate consequences of this restlessly -onward-pressing spirit of science will realise at once that _myth_ -was annihilated by it, and that, in consequence of this annihilation, -poetry was driven as a homeless being from her natural ideal soil. -If we have rightly assigned to music the capacity to reproduce myth -from itself, we may in turn expect to find the spirit of science on -the path where it inimically opposes this mythopoeic power of music. -This takes place in the development of the _New Attic Dithyramb,_ the -music of which no longer expressed the inner essence, the will itself, -but only rendered the phenomenon insufficiently, in an imitation by -means of concepts; from which intrinsically degenerate music the truly -musical natures turned away with the same repugnance that they felt -for the art-destroying tendency of Socrates. The unerring instinct of -Aristophanes surely did the proper thing when it comprised Socrates -himself, the tragedy of Euripides, and the music of the new Dithyrambic -poets in the same feeling of hatred, and perceived in all three -phenomena the symptoms of a degenerate culture. By this New Dithyramb, -music has in an outrageous manner been made the imitative portrait of -phenomena, for instance, of a battle or a storm at sea, and has thus, -of course, been entirely deprived of its mythopoeic power. For if it -endeavours to excite our delight only by compelling us to seek external -analogies between a vital or natural process and certain rhythmical -figures and characteristic sounds of music; if our understanding is -expected to satisfy itself with the perception of these analogies, we -are reduced to a frame of mind in which the reception of the mythical -is impossible; for the myth as a unique exemplar of generality -and truth towering into the infinite, desires to be conspicuously -perceived. The truly Dionysean music presents itself to us as such -a general mirror of the universal will: the conspicuous event which -is refracted in this mirror expands at once for our consciousness to -the copy of an eternal truth. Conversely, such a conspicious event is -at once divested of every mythical character by the tone-painting -of the New Dithyramb; music has here become a wretched copy of the -phenomenon, and therefore infinitely poorer than the phenomenon itself: -through which poverty it still further reduces even the phenomenon for -our consciousness, so that now, for instance, a musically imitated -battle of this sort exhausts itself in marches, signal-sounds, etc., -and our imagination is arrested precisely by these superficialities. -Tone-painting is therefore in every respect the counterpart of true -music with its mythopoeic power: through it the phenomenon, poor in -itself, is made still poorer, while through an isolated Dionysian music -the phenomenon is evolved and expanded into a picture of the world. -It was an immense triumph of the non-Dionysian spirit, when, in the -development of the New Dithyramb, it had estranged music from itself -and reduced it to be the slave of phenomena. Euripides, who, albeit in -a higher sense, must be designated as a thoroughly unmusical nature, -is for this very reason a passionate adherent of the New Dithyrambic -Music, and with the liberality of a freebooter employs all its -effective turns and mannerisms. - -In another direction also we see at work the power of this -un-Dionysian, myth-opposing spirit, when we turn our eyes to the -prevalence of _character representation_ and psychological refinement -from Sophocles onwards. The character must no longer be expanded into -an eternal type, but, on the contrary, must operate individually -through artistic by-traits and shadings, through the nicest precision -of all lines, in such a manner that the spectator is in general no -longer conscious of the myth, but of the mighty nature-myth and the -imitative power of the artist. Here also we observe the victory of -the phenomenon over the Universal, and the delight in the particular -quasi-anatomical preparation; we actually breathe the air of a -theoretical world, in which scientific knowledge is valued more highly -than the artistic reflection of a universal law. The movement along -the line of the representation of character proceeds rapidly: while -Sophocles still delineates complete characters and employs myth for -their refined development, Euripides already delineates only prominent -individual traits of character, which can express themselves in violent -bursts of passion; in the New Attic Comedy, however, there are only -masks with _one_ expression: frivolous old men, duped panders, and -cunning slaves in untiring repetition. Where now is the mythopoeic -spirit of music? What is still left now of music is either excitatory -music or souvenir music, that is, either a stimulant for dull and -used-up nerves, or tone-painting. As regards the former, it hardly -matters about the text set to it: the heroes and choruses of Euripides -are already dissolute enough when once they begin to sing; to what pass -must things have come with his brazen successors? - -The new un-Dionysian spirit, however, manifests itself most clearly in -the _dénouements_ of the new dramas. In the Old Tragedy one could feel -at the close the metaphysical comfort, without which the delight in -tragedy cannot be explained at all; the conciliating tones from another -world sound purest, perhaps, in the Œdipus at Colonus. Now that the -genius of music has fled from tragedy, tragedy is, strictly speaking, -dead: for from whence could one now draw the metaphysical comfort? One -sought, therefore, for an earthly unravelment of the tragic dissonance; -the hero, after he had been sufficiently tortured by fate, reaped a -well-deserved reward through a superb marriage or divine tokens of -favour. The hero had turned gladiator, on whom, after being liberally -battered about and covered with wounds, freedom was occasionally -bestowed. The _deus ex machina_ took the place of metaphysical comfort. -I will not say that the tragic view of things was everywhere completely -destroyed by the intruding spirit of the un-Dionysian: we only know -that it was compelled to flee from art into the under-world as it were, -in the degenerate form of a secret cult. Over the widest extent of the -Hellenic character, however, there raged the consuming blast of this -spirit, which manifests itself in the form of "Greek cheerfulness," -which we have already spoken of as a senile, unproductive love of -existence; this cheerfulness is the counterpart of the splendid -"naïveté" of the earlier Greeks, which, according to the characteristic -indicated above, must be conceived as the blossom of the Apollonian -culture growing out of a dark abyss, as the victory which the Hellenic -will, through its mirroring of beauty, obtains over suffering and the -wisdom of suffering. The noblest manifestation of that other form of -"Greek cheerfulness," the Alexandrine, is the cheerfulness of the -_theoretical man_: it exhibits the same symptomatic characteristics as -I have just inferred concerning the spirit of the un-Dionysian:--it -combats Dionysian wisdom and art, it seeks to dissolve myth, it -substitutes for metaphysical comfort an earthly consonance, in fact, a -_deus ex machina_ of its own, namely the god of machines and crucibles, -that is, the powers of the genii of nature recognised and employed in -the service of higher egoism; it believes in amending the world by -knowledge, in guiding life by science, and that it can really confine -the individual within a narrow sphere of solvable problems, where he -cheerfully says to life: "I desire thee: it is worth while to know -thee." - - - -18. - - -It is an eternal phenomenon: the avidious will can always, by means -of an illusion spread over things, detain its creatures in life -and compel them to live on. One is chained by the Socratic love of -knowledge and the vain hope of being able thereby to heal the eternal -wound of existence; another is ensnared by art's seductive veil of -beauty fluttering before his eyes; still another by the metaphysical -comfort that eternal life flows on indestructibly beneath the whirl of -phenomena: to say nothing of the more ordinary and almost more powerful -illusions which the will has always at hand. These three specimens of -illusion are on the whole designed only for the more nobly endowed -natures, who in general feel profoundly the weight and burden of -existence, and must be deluded into forgetfulness of their displeasure -by exquisite stimulants. All that we call culture is made up of these -stimulants; and, according to the proportion of the ingredients, we -have either a specially _Socratic_ or _artistic_ or _tragic culture_: -or, if historical exemplifications are wanted, there is either an -Alexandrine or a Hellenic or a Buddhistic culture. - -Our whole modern world is entangled in the meshes of Alexandrine -culture, and recognises as its ideal the _theorist_ equipped with -the most potent means of knowledge, and labouring in the service of -science, of whom the archetype and progenitor is Socrates. All our -educational methods have originally this ideal in view: every other -form of existence must struggle onwards wearisomely beside it, as -something tolerated, but not intended. In an almost alarming manner the -cultured man was here found for a long time only in the form of the -scholar: even our poetical arts have been forced to evolve from learned -imitations, and in the main effect of the rhyme we still recognise the -origin of our poetic form from artistic experiments with a non-native -and thoroughly learned language. How unintelligible must _Faust,_ the -modern cultured man, who is in himself intelligible, have appeared to a -true Greek,--Faust, storming discontentedly through all the faculties, -devoted to magic and the devil from a desire for knowledge, whom we -have only to place alongside of Socrates for the purpose of comparison, -in order to see that modern man begins to divine the boundaries of -this Socratic love of perception and longs for a coast in the wide -waste of the ocean of knowledge. When Goethe on one occasion said to -Eckermann with reference to Napoleon: "Yes, my good friend, there is -also a productiveness of deeds," he reminded us in a charmingly naïve -manner that the non-theorist is something incredible and astounding to -modern man; so that the wisdom of Goethe is needed once more in order -to discover that such a surprising form of existence is comprehensible, -nay even pardonable. - -Now, we must not hide from ourselves what is concealed in the heart -of this Socratic culture: Optimism, deeming itself absolute! Well, we -must not be alarmed if the fruits of this optimism ripen,--if society, -leavened to the very lowest strata by this kind of culture, gradually -begins to tremble through wanton agitations and desires, if the belief -in the earthly happiness of all, if the belief in the possibility of -such a general intellectual culture is gradually transformed into the -threatening demand for such an Alexandrine earthly happiness, into -the conjuring of a Euripidean _deus ex machina._ Let us mark this -well: the Alexandrine culture requires a slave class, to be able to -exist permanently: but, in its optimistic view of life, it denies the -necessity of such a class, and consequently, when the effect of its -beautifully seductive and tranquillising utterances about the "dignity -of man" and the "dignity of labour" is spent, it gradually drifts -towards a dreadful destination. There is nothing more terrible than -a barbaric slave class, who have learned to regard their existence -as an injustice, and now prepare to take vengeance, not only for -themselves, but for all generations. In the face of such threatening -storms, who dares to appeal with confident spirit to our pale and -exhausted religions, which even in their foundations have degenerated -into scholastic religions?--so that myth, the necessary prerequisite -of every religion, is already paralysed everywhere, and even in this -domain the optimistic spirit--which we have just designated as the -annihilating germ of society--has attained the mastery. - -While the evil slumbering in the heart of theoretical culture gradually -begins to disquiet modern man, and makes him anxiously ransack the -stores of his experience for means to avert the danger, though not -believing very much in these means; while he, therefore, begins to -divine the consequences his position involves: great, universally -gifted natures have contrived, with an incredible amount of thought, to -make use of the apparatus of science itself, in order to point out the -limits and the relativity of knowledge generally, and thus definitely -to deny the claim of science to universal validity and universal ends: -with which demonstration the illusory notion was for the first time -recognised as such, which pretends, with the aid of causality, to be -able to fathom the innermost essence of things. The extraordinary -courage and wisdom of _Kant_ and _Schopenhauer_ have succeeded in -gaining the most, difficult, victory, the victory over the optimism -hidden in the essence of logic, which optimism in turn is the basis of -our culture. While this optimism, resting on apparently unobjectionable -_æterna veritates,_ believed in the intelligibility and solvability of -all the riddles of the world, and treated space, time, and causality -as totally unconditioned laws of the most universal validity, Kant, on -the other hand, showed that these served in reality only to elevate the -mere phenomenon, the work of Mâyâ, to the sole and highest reality, -putting it in place of the innermost and true essence of things, thus -making the actual knowledge of this essence impossible, that is, -according to the expression of Schopenhauer, to lull the dreamer still -more soundly asleep (_Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,_ I. 498). With -this knowledge a culture is inaugurated which I venture to designate as -a tragic culture; the most important characteristic of which is that -wisdom takes the place of science as the highest end,--wisdom, which, -uninfluenced by the seductive distractions of the sciences, turns -with unmoved eye to the comprehensive view of the world, and seeks to -apprehend therein the eternal suffering as its own with sympathetic -feelings of love. Let us imagine a rising generation with this -undauntedness of vision, with this heroic desire for the prodigious, -let us imagine the bold step of these dragon-slayers, the proud and -daring spirit with which they turn their backs on all the effeminate -doctrines of optimism in order "to live resolutely" in the Whole and in -the Full: would it not be necessary for the tragic man of this culture, -with his self-discipline to earnestness and terror, to desire a new -art, the art of metaphysical comfort,--namely, tragedy, as the Hellena -belonging to him, and that he should exclaim with Faust: - - Und sollt' ich nicht, sehnsüchtigster Gewalt, - In's Leben ziehn die einzigste Gestalt?[21] - -But now that the Socratic culture has been shaken from two directions, -and is only able to hold the sceptre of its infallibility with -trembling hands,--once by the fear of its own conclusions which it at -length begins to surmise, and again, because it is no longer convinced -with its former naïve trust of the eternal validity of its foundation, ---it is a sad spectacle to behold how the dance of its thought always -rushes longingly on new forms, to embrace them, and then, shuddering, -lets them go of a sudden, as Mephistopheles does the seductive Lamiæ. -It is certainly the symptom of the "breach" which all are wont to speak -of as the primordial suffering of modern culture that the theoretical -man, alarmed and dissatisfied at his own conclusions, no longer dares -to entrust himself to the terrible ice-stream of existence: he runs -timidly up and down the bank. He no longer wants to have anything -entire, with all the natural cruelty of things, so thoroughly has he -been spoiled by his optimistic contemplation. Besides, he feels that -a culture built up on the principles of science must perish when it -begins to grow _illogical,_ that is, to avoid its own conclusions. -Our art reveals this universal trouble: in vain does one seek help by -imitating all the great productive periods and natures, in vain does -one accumulate the entire "world-literature" around modern man for -his comfort, in vain does one place one's self in the midst of the -art-styles and artists of all ages, so that one may give names to them -as Adam did to the beasts: one still continues the eternal hungerer, -the "critic" without joy and energy, the Alexandrine man, who is in -the main a librarian and corrector of proofs, and who, pitiable wretch -goes blind from the dust of books and printers' errors. - - -[21] Cf. Introduction, p. 14. - - - -19. - - -We cannot designate the intrinsic substance of Socratic culture more -distinctly than by calling it _the culture of the opera_: for it is in -this department that culture has expressed itself with special naïveté -concerning its aims and perceptions, which is sufficiently surprising -when we compare the genesis of the opera and the facts of operatic -development with the eternal truths of the Apollonian and Dionysian. -I call to mind first of all the origin of the _stilo rappresentativo_ -and the recitative. Is it credible that this thoroughly externalised -operatic music, incapable of devotion, could be received and cherished -with enthusiastic favour, as a re-birth, as it were, of all true music, -by the very age in which the ineffably sublime and sacred music of -Palestrina had originated? And who, on the other hand, would think of -making only the diversion-craving luxuriousness of those Florentine -circles and the vanity of their dramatic singers responsible for the -love of the opera which spread with such rapidity? That in the same -age, even among the same people, this passion for a half-musical -mode of speech should awaken alongside of the vaulted structure -of Palestrine harmonies which the entire Christian Middle Age had -been building up, I can explain to myself only by a co-operating -_extra-artistic tendency_ in the essence of the recitative. - -The listener, who insists on distinctly hearing the words under the -music, has his wishes met by the singer in that he speaks rather than -sings, and intensifies the pathetic expression of the words in this -half-song: by this intensification of the pathos he facilitates the -understanding of the words and surmounts the remaining half of the -music. The specific danger which now threatens him is that in some -unguarded moment he may give undue importance to music, which would -forthwith result in the destruction of the pathos of the speech and -the distinctness of the words: while, on the other hand, he always -feels himself impelled to musical delivery and to virtuose exhibition -of vocal talent. Here the "poet" comes to his aid, who knows how to -provide him with abundant opportunities for lyrical interjections, -repetitions of words and sentences, etc.,--at which places the singer, -now in the purely musical element, can rest himself without minding the -words. This alternation of emotionally impressive, yet only half-sung -speech and wholly sung interjections, which is characteristic of the -_stilo rappresentativo,_ this rapidly changing endeavour to operate -now on the conceptional and representative faculty of the hearer, now -on his musical sense, is something so thoroughly unnatural and withal -so intrinsically contradictory both to the Apollonian and Dionysian -artistic impulses, that one has to infer an origin of the recitative -foreign to all artistic instincts. The recitative must be defined, -according to this description, as the combination of epic and lyric -delivery, not indeed as an intrinsically stable combination which -could not be attained in the case of such totally disparate elements, -but an entirely superficial mosaic conglutination, such as is totally -unprecedented in the domain of nature and experience. _But this was -not the opinion of the inventors of the recitative:_ they themselves, -and their age with them, believed rather that the mystery of antique -music had been solved by this _stilo rappresentativo,_ in which, as -they thought, the only explanation of the enormous influence of an -Orpheus, an Amphion, and even of Greek tragedy was to be found. The new -style was regarded by them as the re-awakening of the most effective -music, the Old Greek music: indeed, with the universal and popular -conception of the Homeric world _as the primitive world,_ they could -abandon themselves to the dream of having descended once more into the -paradisiac beginnings of mankind, wherein music also must needs have -had the unsurpassed purity, power, and innocence of which the poets -could give such touching accounts in their pastoral plays. Here we see -into the internal process of development of this thoroughly modern -variety of art, the opera: a powerful need here acquires an art, but -it is a need of an unæsthetic kind: the yearning for the idyll, the -belief in the prehistoric existence of the artistic, good man. The -recitative was regarded as the rediscovered language of this primitive -man; the opera as the recovered land of this idyllically or heroically -good creature, who in every action follows at the same time a natural -artistic impulse, who sings a little along with all he has to say, in -order to sing immediately with full voice on the slightest emotional -excitement. It is now a matter of indifference to us that the humanists -of those days combated the old ecclesiastical representation of man -as naturally corrupt and lost, with this new-created picture of the -paradisiac artist: so that opera may be understood as the oppositional -dogma of the good man, whereby however a solace was at the same time -found for the pessimism to which precisely the seriously-disposed -men of that time were most strongly incited, owing to the frightful -uncertainty of all conditions of life. It is enough to have perceived -that the intrinsic charm, and therefore the genesis, of this new form -of art lies in the gratification of an altogether unæsthetic need, in -the optimistic glorification of man as such, in the conception of the -primitive man as the man naturally good and artistic: a principle of -the opera which has gradually changed into a threatening and terrible -_demand,_ which, in face of the socialistic movements of the present -time, we can no longer ignore. The "good primitive man" wants his -rights: what paradisiac prospects! - -I here place by way of parallel still another equally obvious -confirmation of my view that opera is built up on the same principles -as our Alexandrine culture. Opera is the birth of the theoretical man, -of the critical layman, not of the artist: one of the most surprising -facts in the whole history of art. It was the demand of thoroughly -unmusical hearers that the words must above all be understood, so -that according to them a re-birth of music is only to be expected -when some mode of singing has been discovered in which the text-word -lords over the counterpoint as the master over the servant. For the -words, it is argued, are as much nobler than the accompanying harmonic -system as the soul is nobler than the body. It was in accordance with -the laically unmusical crudeness of these views that the combination -of music, picture and expression was effected in the beginnings of -the opera: in the spirit of this æsthetics the first experiments -were also made in the leading laic circles of Florence by the poets -and singers patronised there. The man incapable of art creates for -himself a species of art precisely because he is the inartistic man -as such. Because he does not divine the Dionysian depth of music, he -changes his musical taste into appreciation of the understandable -word-and-tone-rhetoric of the passions in the _stilo rappresentativo,_ -and into the voluptuousness of the arts of song; because he is unable -to behold a vision, he forces the machinist and the decorative artist -into his service; because he cannot apprehend the true nature of the -artist, he conjures up the "artistic primitive man" to suit his taste, -that is, the man who sings and recites verses under the influence -of passion. He dreams himself into a time when passion suffices to -generate songs and poems: as if emotion had ever been able to create -anything artistic. The postulate of the opera is a false belief -concerning the artistic process, in fact, the idyllic belief that every -sentient man is an artist. In the sense of this belief, opera is the -expression of the taste of the laity in art, who dictate their laws -with the cheerful optimism of the theorist. - -Should we desire to unite in one the two conceptions just set forth -as influential in the origin of opera, it would only remain for us to -speak of an _idyllic tendency of the opera_: in which connection we -may avail ourselves exclusively of the phraseology and illustration of -Schiller.[22] "Nature and the ideal," he says, "are either objects of -grief, when the former is represented as lost, the latter unattained; -or both are objects of joy, in that they are represented as real. -The first case furnishes the elegy in its narrower signification, -the second the idyll in its widest sense." Here we must at once call -attention to the common characteristic of these two conceptions in -operatic genesis, namely, that in them the ideal is not regarded as -unattained or nature as lost Agreeably to this sentiment, there was -a primitive age of man when he lay close to the heart of nature, -and, owing to this naturalness, had attained the ideal of mankind in -a paradisiac goodness and artist-organisation: from which perfect -primitive man all of us were supposed to be descended; whose faithful -copy we were in fact still said to be: only we had to cast off some -few things in order to recognise ourselves once more as this primitive -man, on the strength of a voluntary renunciation of superfluous -learnedness, of super-abundant culture. It was to such a concord of -nature and the ideal, to an idyllic reality, that the cultured man -of the Renaissance suffered himself to be led back by his operatic -imitation of Greek tragedy; he made use of this tragedy, as Dante made -use of Vergil, in order to be led up to the gates of paradise: while -from this point he went on without assistance and passed over from an -imitation of the highest form of Greek art to a "restoration of all -things," to an imitation of man's original art-world. What delightfully -naïve hopefulness of these daring endeavours, in the very heart of -theoretical culture!--solely to be explained by the comforting belief, -that "man-in-himself" is the eternally virtuous hero of the opera, -the eternally fluting or singing shepherd, who must always in the end -rediscover himself as such, if he has at any time really lost himself; -solely the fruit of the optimism, which here rises like a sweetishly -seductive column of vapour out of the depth of the Socratic conception -of the world. - -The features of the opera therefore do not by any means exhibit the -elegiac sorrow of an eternal loss, but rather the cheerfulness of -eternal rediscovery, the indolent delight in an idyllic reality which -one can at least represent to one's self each moment as real: and in -so doing one will perhaps surmise some day that this supposed reality -is nothing but a fantastically silly dawdling, concerning which every -one, who could judge it by the terrible earnestness of true nature -and compare it with the actual primitive scenes of the beginnings of -mankind, would have to call out with loathing: Away with the phantom! -Nevertheless one would err if one thought it possible to frighten -away merely by a vigorous shout such a dawdling thing as the opera, -as if it were a spectre. He who would destroy the opera must join -issue with Alexandrine cheerfulness, which expresses itself so naïvely -therein concerning its favourite representation; of which in fact -it is the specific form of art. But what is to be expected for art -itself from the operation of a form of art, the beginnings of which -do not at all lie in the æsthetic province; which has rather stolen -over from a half-moral sphere into the artistic domain, and has been -able only now and then to delude us concerning this hybrid origin? By -what sap is this parasitic opera-concern nourished, if not by that -of true art? Must we not suppose that the highest and indeed the -truly serious task of art--to free the eye from its glance into the -horrors of night and to deliver the "subject" by the healing balm of -appearance from the spasms of volitional agitations--will degenerate -under the influence of its idyllic seductions and Alexandrine -adulation to an empty dissipating tendency, to pastime? What will -become of the eternal truths of the Dionysian and Apollonian in such -an amalgamation of styles as I have exhibited in the character of the -_stilo rappresentativo_? where music is regarded as the servant, the -text as the master, where music is compared with the body, the text -with the soul? where at best the highest aim will be the realisation -of a paraphrastic tone-painting, just as formerly in the New Attic -Dithyramb? where music is completely alienated from its true dignity -of being, the Dionysian mirror of the world, so that the only thing -left to it is, as a slave of phenomena, to imitate the formal character -thereof, and to excite an external pleasure in the play of lines and -proportions. On close observation, this fatal influence of the opera -on music is seen to coincide absolutely with the universal development -of modern music; the optimism lurking in the genesis of the opera and -in the essence of culture represented thereby, has, with alarming -rapidity, succeeded in divesting music of its Dionyso-cosmic mission -and in impressing on it a playfully formal and pleasurable character: a -change with which perhaps only the metamorphosis of the Æschylean man -into the cheerful Alexandrine man could be compared. - -If, however, in the exemplification herewith indicated we have rightly -associated the evanescence of the Dionysian spirit with a most -striking, but hitherto unexplained transformation and degeneration of -the Hellene--what hopes must revive in us when the most trustworthy -auspices guarantee _the reverse process, the gradual awakening of -the Dionysian spirit_ in our modern world! It is impossible for the -divine strength of Herakles to languish for ever in voluptuous bondage -to Omphale. Out of the Dionysian root of the German spirit a power -has arisen which has nothing in common with the primitive conditions -of Socratic culture, and can neither be explained nor excused -thereby, but is rather regarded by this culture as something terribly -inexplicable and overwhelmingly hostile,--namely, _German music_ as -we have to understand it, especially in its vast solar orbit from -Bach to Beethoven, from Beethoven to Wagner. What even under the most -favourable circumstances can the knowledge-craving Socratism of our -days do with this demon rising from unfathomable depths? Neither by -means of the zig-zag and arabesque work of operatic melody, nor with -the aid of the arithmetical counting board of fugue and contrapuntal -dialectics is the formula to be found, in the trebly powerful light[23] -of which one could subdue this demon and compel it to speak. What -a spectacle, when our æsthetes, with a net of "beauty" peculiar to -themselves, now pursue and clutch at the genius of music romping -about before them with incomprehensible life, and in so doing display -activities which are not to be judged by the standard of eternal beauty -any more than by the standard of the sublime. Let us but observe these -patrons of music as they are, at close range, when they call out so -indefatigably "beauty! beauty!" to discover whether they have the marks -of nature's darling children who are fostered and fondled in the lap -of the beautiful, or whether they do not rather seek a disguise for -their own rudeness, an æsthetical pretext for their own unemotional -insipidity: I am thinking here, for instance, of Otto Jahn. But let the -liar and the hypocrite beware of our German music: for in the midst -of all our culture it is really the only genuine, pure and purifying -fire-spirit from which and towards which, as in the teaching of the -great Heraclitus of Ephesus, all things move in a double orbit-all -that we now call culture, education, civilisation, must appear some day -before the unerring judge, Dionysus. - -Let us recollect furthermore how Kant and Schopenhauer made it -possible for the spirit of _German philosophy_ streaming from the -same sources to annihilate the satisfied delight in existence of -scientific Socratism by the delimitation of the boundaries thereof; how -through this delimitation an infinitely profounder and more serious -view of ethical problems and of art was inaugurated, which we may -unhesitatingly designate as _Dionysian_ wisdom comprised in concepts. -To what then does the mystery of this oneness of German music and -philosophy point, if not to a new form of existence, concerning the -substance of which we can only inform ourselves presentiently from -Hellenic analogies? For to us who stand on the boundary line between -two different forms of existence, the Hellenic prototype retains the -immeasurable value, that therein all these transitions and struggles -are imprinted in a classically instructive form: except that we, as -it were, experience analogically in _reverse_ order the chief epochs -of the Hellenic genius, and seem now, for instance, to pass backwards -from the Alexandrine age to the period of tragedy. At the same time -we have the feeling that the birth of a tragic age betokens only a -return to itself of the German spirit, a blessed self-rediscovering -after excessive and urgent external influences have for a long time -compelled it, living as it did in helpless barbaric formlessness, to -servitude under their form. It may at last, after returning to the -primitive source of its being, venture to stalk along boldly and freely -before all nations without hugging the leading-strings of a Romanic -civilisation: if only it can learn implicitly of one people--the -Greeks, of whom to learn at all is itself a high honour and a rare -distinction. And when did we require these highest of all teachers more -than at present, when we experience _a re-birth of tragedy_ and are in -danger alike of not knowing whence it comes, and of being unable to -make clear to ourselves whither it tends. - - -[22] Essay on Elegiac Poetry.--TR. - -[23] See _Faust,_ Part 1.1. 965--TR. - - - -20. - - -It may be weighed some day before an impartial judge, in what time and -in what men the German spirit has thus far striven most resolutely to -learn of the Greeks: and if we confidently assume that this unique -praise must be accorded to the noblest intellectual efforts of Goethe, -Schiller, and Winkelmann, it will certainly have to be added that -since their time, and subsequently to the more immediate influences of -these efforts, the endeavour to attain to culture and to the Greeks by -this path has in an incomprehensible manner grown feebler and feebler. -In order not to despair altogether of the German spirit, must we not -infer therefrom that possibly, in some essential matter, even these -champions could not penetrate into the core of the Hellenic nature, -and were unable to establish a permanent friendly alliance between -German and Greek culture? So that perhaps an unconscious perception -of this shortcoming might raise also in more serious minds the -disheartening doubt as to whether after such predecessors they could -advance still farther on this path of culture, or could reach the goal -at all. Accordingly, we see the opinions concerning the value of Greek -contribution to culture degenerate since that time in the most alarming -manner; the expression of compassionate superiority may be heard -in the most heterogeneous intellectual and non-intellectual camps, -and elsewhere a totally ineffective declamation dallies with "Greek -harmony," "Greek beauty," "Greek cheerfulness." And in the very circles -whose dignity it might be to draw indefatigably from the Greek channel -for the good of German culture, in the circles of the teachers in the -higher educational institutions, they have learned best to compromise -with the Greeks in good time and on easy terms, to the extent often of -a sceptical abandonment of the Hellenic ideal and a total perversion of -the true purpose of antiquarian studies. If there be any one at all in -these circles who has not completely exhausted himself in the endeavour -to be a trustworthy corrector of old texts or a natural-history -microscopist of language, he perhaps seeks also to appropriate Grecian -antiquity "historically" along with other antiquities, and in any case -according to the method and with the supercilious air of our present -cultured historiography. When, therefore, the intrinsic efficiency -of the higher educational institutions has never perhaps been lower -or feebler than at present, when the "journalist," the paper slave -of the day, has triumphed over the academic teacher in all matters -pertaining to culture, and there only remains to the latter the often -previously experienced metamorphosis of now fluttering also, as a -cheerful cultured butterfly, in the idiom of the journalist, with the -"light elegance" peculiar thereto--with what painful confusion must the -cultured persons of a period like the present gaze at the phenomenon -(which can perhaps be comprehended analogically only by means of the -profoundest principle of the hitherto unintelligible Hellenic genius) -of the reawakening of the Dionysian spirit and the re-birth of tragedy? -Never has there been another art-period in which so-called culture -and true art have been so estranged and opposed, as is so obviously -the case at present. We understand why so feeble a culture hates true -art; it fears destruction thereby. But must not an entire domain of -culture, namely the Socratic-Alexandrine, have exhausted its powers -after contriving to culminate in such a daintily-tapering point as our -present culture? When it was not permitted to heroes like Goethe and -Schiller to break open the enchanted gate which leads into the Hellenic -magic mountain, when with their most dauntless striving they did not -get beyond the longing gaze which the Goethean Iphigenia cast from -barbaric Tauris to her home across the ocean, what could the epigones -of such heroes hope for, if the gate should not open to them suddenly -of its own accord, in an entirely different position, quite overlooked -in all endeavours of culture hitherto--amidst the mystic tones of -reawakened tragic music. - -Let no one attempt to weaken our faith in an impending re-birth of -Hellenic antiquity; for in it alone we find our hope of a renovation -and purification of the German spirit through the fire-magic of music. -What else do we know of amidst the present desolation and languor -of culture, which could awaken any comforting expectation for the -future? We look in vain for one single vigorously-branching root, for -a speck of fertile and healthy soil: there is dust, sand, torpidness -and languishing everywhere! Under such circumstances a cheerless -solitary wanderer could choose for himself no better symbol than the -Knight with Death and the Devil, as Dürer has sketched him for us, the -mail-clad knight, grim and stern of visage, who is able, unperturbed -by his gruesome companions, and yet hopelessly, to pursue his terrible -path with horse and hound alone. Our Schopenhauer was such a Dürerian -knight: he was destitute of all hope, but he sought the truth. There is -not his equal. - -But how suddenly this gloomily depicted wilderness of our exhausted -culture changes when the Dionysian magic touches it! A hurricane -seizes everything decrepit, decaying, collapsed, and stunted; wraps -it whirlingly into a red cloud of dust; and carries it like a vulture -into the air. Confused thereby, our glances seek for what has vanished: -for what they see is something risen to the golden light as from -a depression, so full and green, so luxuriantly alive, so ardently -infinite. Tragedy sits in the midst of this exuberance of life, -sorrow and joy, in sublime ecstasy; she listens to a distant doleful -song--it tells of the Mothers of Being, whose names are: _Wahn, Wille, -Wehe_[21]--Yes, my friends, believe with me in Dionysian life and -in the re-birth of tragedy. The time of the Socratic man is past: -crown yourselves with ivy, take in your hands the thyrsus, and do not -marvel if tigers and panthers lie down fawning at your feet. Dare now -to be tragic men, for ye are to be redeemed! Ye are to accompany the -Dionysian festive procession from India to Greece! Equip yourselves for -severe conflict, but believe in the wonders of your god! - - - -21. - - -Gliding back from these hortative tones into the mood which befits -the contemplative man, I repeat that it can only be learnt from the -Greeks what such a sudden and miraculous awakening of tragedy must -signify for the essential basis of a people's life. It is the people -of the tragic mysteries who fight the battles with the Persians: and -again, the people who waged such wars required tragedy as a necessary -healing potion. Who would have imagined that there was still such a -uniformly powerful effusion of the simplest political sentiments, the -most natural domestic instincts and the primitive manly delight in -strife in this very people after it had been shaken to its foundations -for several generations by the most violent convulsions of the -Dionysian demon? If at every considerable spreading of the Dionysian -commotion one always perceives that the Dionysian loosing from the -shackles of the individual makes itself felt first of all in an -increased encroachment on the political instincts, to the extent of -indifference, yea even hostility, it is certain, on the other hand, -that the state-forming Apollo is also the genius of the _principium -individuationis,_ and that the state and domestic sentiment cannot live -without an assertion of individual personality. There is only one way -from orgasm for a people,--the way to Indian Buddhism, which, in order -to be at all endured with its longing for nothingness, requires the -rare ecstatic states with their elevation above space, time, and the -individual; just as these in turn demand a philosophy which teaches how -to overcome the indescribable depression of the intermediate states by -means of a fancy. With the same necessity, owing to the unconditional -dominance of political impulses, a people drifts into a path of -extremest secularisation, the most magnificent, but also the most -terrible expression of which is the Roman _imperium_. - -Placed between India and Rome, and constrained to a seductive choice, -the Greeks succeeded in devising in classical purity still a third form -of life, not indeed for long private use, but just on that account for -immortality. For it holds true in all things that those whom the gods -love die young, but, on the other hand, it holds equally true that they -then live eternally with the gods. One must not demand of what is most -noble that it should possess the durable toughness of leather; the -staunch durability, which, for instance, was inherent in the national -character of the Romans, does not probably belong to the indispensable -predicates of perfection. But if we ask by what physic it was possible -for the Greeks, in their best period, notwithstanding the extraordinary -strength of their Dionysian and political impulses, neither to exhaust -themselves by ecstatic brooding, nor by a consuming scramble for empire -and worldly honour, but to attain the splendid mixture which we find -in a noble, inflaming, and contemplatively disposing wine, we must -remember the enormous power of _tragedy,_ exciting, purifying, and -disburdening the entire life of a people; the highest value of which -we shall divine only when, as in the case of the Greeks, it appears -to us as the essence of all the prophylactic healing forces, as the -mediator arbitrating between the strongest and most inherently fateful -characteristics of a people. - -Tragedy absorbs the highest musical orgasm into itself, so that it -absolutely brings music to perfection among the Greeks, as among -ourselves; but it then places alongside thereof tragic myth and the -tragic hero, who, like a mighty Titan, takes the entire Dionysian world -on his shoulders and disburdens us thereof; while, on the other hand, -it is able by means of this same tragic myth, in the person of the -tragic hero, to deliver us from the intense longing for this existence, -and reminds us with warning hand of another existence and a higher -joy, for which the struggling hero prepares himself presentiently by -his destruction, not by his victories. Tragedy sets a sublime symbol, -namely the myth between the universal authority of its music and the -receptive Dionysian hearer, and produces in him the illusion that music -is only the most effective means for the animation of the plastic world -of myth. Relying upon this noble illusion, she can now move her limbs -for the dithyrambic dance, and abandon herself unhesitatingly to an -orgiastic feeling of freedom, in which she could not venture to indulge -as music itself, without this illusion. The myth protects us from the -music, while, on the other hand, it alone gives the highest freedom -thereto. By way of return for this service, music imparts to tragic -myth such an impressive and convincing metaphysical significance as -could never be attained by word and image, without this unique aid; -and the tragic spectator in particular experiences thereby the sure -presentiment of supreme joy to which the path through destruction and -negation leads; so that he thinks he hears, as it were, the innermost -abyss of things speaking audibly to him. - -If in these last propositions I have succeeded in giving perhaps only a -preliminary expression, intelligible to few at first, to this difficult -representation, I must not here desist from stimulating my friends to a -further attempt, or cease from beseeching them to prepare themselves, -by a detached example of our common experience, for the perception of -the universal proposition. In this example I must not appeal to those -who make use of the pictures of the scenic processes, the words and the -emotions of the performers, in order to approximate thereby to musical -perception; for none of these speak music as their mother-tongue, -and, in spite of the aids in question, do not get farther than the -precincts of musical perception, without ever being allowed to touch -its innermost shrines; some of them, like Gervinus, do not even reach -the precincts by this path. I have only to address myself to those -who, being immediately allied to music, have it as it were for their -mother's lap, and are connected with things almost exclusively by -unconscious musical relations. I ask the question of these genuine -musicians: whether they can imagine a man capable of hearing the third -act of _Tristan und Isolde_ without any aid of word or scenery, purely -as a vast symphonic period, without expiring by a spasmodic distention -of all the wings of the soul? A man who has thus, so to speak, put his -ear to the heart-chamber of the cosmic will, who feels the furious -desire for existence issuing therefrom as a thundering stream or most -gently dispersed brook, into all the veins of the world, would he not -collapse all at once? Could he endure, in the wretched fragile tenement -of the human individual, to hear the re-echo of countless cries of -joy and sorrow from the "vast void of cosmic night," without flying -irresistibly towards his primitive home at the sound of this pastoral -dance-song of metaphysics? But if, nevertheless, such a work can be -heard as a whole, without a renunciation of individual existence, if -such a creation could be created without demolishing its creator--where -are we to get the solution of this contradiction? - -Here there interpose between our highest musical excitement and the -music in question the tragic myth and the tragic hero--in reality only -as symbols of the most universal facts, of which music alone can speak -directly. If, however, we felt as purely Dionysian beings, myth as a -symbol would stand by us absolutely ineffective and unnoticed, and -would never for a moment prevent us from giving ear to the re-echo of -the _universalia ante rem._ Here, however, the _Apollonian_ power, with -a view to the restoration of the well-nigh shattered individual, bursts -forth with the healing balm of a blissful illusion: all of a sudden -we imagine we see only Tristan, motionless, with hushed voice saying -to himself: "the old tune, why does it wake me?" And what formerly -interested us like a hollow sigh from the heart of being, seems now -only to tell us how "waste and void is the sea." And when, breathless, -we thought to expire by a convulsive distention of all our feelings, -and only a slender tie bound us to our present existence, we now hear -and see only the hero wounded to death and still not dying, with his -despairing cry: "Longing! Longing! In dying still longing! for longing -not dying!" And if formerly, after such a surplus and superabundance of -consuming agonies, the jubilation of the born rent our hearts almost -like the very acme of agony, the rejoicing Kurwenal now stands between -us and the "jubilation as such," with face turned toward the ship which -carries Isolde. However powerfully fellow-suffering encroaches upon us, -it nevertheless delivers us in a manner from the primordial suffering -of the world, just as the symbol-image of the myth delivers us from the -immediate perception of the highest cosmic idea, just as the thought -and word deliver us from the unchecked effusion of the unconscious -will. The glorious Apollonian illusion makes it appear as if the very -realm of tones presented itself to us as a plastic cosmos, as if even -the fate of Tristan and Isolde had been merely formed and moulded -therein as out of some most delicate and impressible material. - -Thus does the Apollonian wrest us from Dionysian universality and fill -us with rapture for individuals; to these it rivets our sympathetic -emotion, through these it satisfies the sense of beauty which longs for -great and sublime forms; it brings before us biographical portraits, -and incites us to a thoughtful apprehension of the essence of life -contained therein. With the immense potency of the image, the concept, -the ethical teaching and the sympathetic emotion--the Apollonian -influence uplifts man from his orgiastic self-annihilation, and -beguiles him concerning the universality of the Dionysian process -into the belief that he is seeing a detached picture of the world, -for instance, Tristan and Isolde, and that, _through music,_ he will -be enabled to _see_ it still more clearly and intrinsically. What can -the healing magic of Apollo not accomplish when it can even excite in -us the illusion that the Dionysian is actually in the service of the -Apollonian, the effects of which it is capable of enhancing; yea, that -music is essentially the representative art for an Apollonian substance? - -With the pre-established harmony which obtains between perfect drama -and its music, the drama attains the highest degree of conspicuousness, -such as is usually unattainable in mere spoken drama. As all the -animated figures of the scene in the independently evolved lines -of melody simplify themselves before us to the distinctness of the -catenary curve, the coexistence of these lines is also audible in the -harmonic change which sympathises in a most delicate manner with the -evolved process: through which change the relations of things become -immediately perceptible to us in a sensible and not at all abstract -manner, as we likewise perceive thereby that it is only in these -relations that the essence of a character and of a line of melody -manifests itself clearly. And while music thus compels us to see more -extensively and more intrinsically than usual, and makes us spread out -the curtain of the scene before ourselves like some delicate texture, -the world of the stage is as infinitely expanded for our spiritualised, -introspective eye as it is illumined outwardly from within. How can -the word-poet furnish anything analogous, who strives to attain this -internal expansion and illumination of the visible stage-world by a -much more imperfect mechanism and an indirect path, proceeding as he -does from word and concept? Albeit musical tragedy likewise avails -itself of the word, it is at the same time able to place alongside -thereof its basis and source, and can make the unfolding of the word, -from within outwards, obvious to us. - -Of the process just set forth, however, it could still be said -as decidedly that it is only a glorious appearance, namely the -afore-mentioned Apollonian _illusion,_ through the influence of which -we are to be delivered from the Dionysian obtrusion and excess. -In point of fact, the relation of music to drama is precisely the -reverse; music is the adequate idea of the world, drama is but the -reflex of this idea, a detached umbrage thereof. The identity between -the line of melody and the lining form, between the harmony and the -character-relations of this form, is true in a sense antithetical to -what one would suppose on the contemplation of musical tragedy. We -may agitate and enliven the form in the most conspicuous manner, and -enlighten it from within, but it still continues merely phenomenon, -from which there is no bridge to lead us into the true reality, into -the heart of the world. Music, however, speaks out of this heart; and -though countless phenomena of the kind might be passing manifestations -of this music, they could never exhaust its essence, but would always -be merely its externalised copies. Of course, as regards the intricate -relation of music and drama, nothing can be explained, while all may -be confused by the popular and thoroughly false antithesis of soul and -body; but the unphilosophical crudeness of this antithesis seems to -have become--who knows for what reasons--a readily accepted Article of -Faith with our æstheticians, while they have learned nothing concerning -an antithesis of phenomenon and thing-in-itself, or perhaps, for -reasons equally unknown, have not cared to learn anything thereof. - -Should it have been established by our analysis that the Apollonian -element in tragedy has by means of its illusion gained a complete -victory over the Dionysian primordial element of music, and has made -music itself subservient to its end, namely, the highest and clearest -elucidation of the drama, it would certainly be necessary to add the -very important restriction: that at the most essential point this -Apollonian illusion is dissolved and annihilated. The drama, which, by -the aid of music, spreads out before us with such inwardly illumined -distinctness in all its movements and figures, that we imagine we -see the texture unfolding on the loom as the shuttle flies to and -fro,--attains as a whole an effect which _transcends all Apollonian -artistic effects._ In the collective effect of tragedy, the Dionysian -gets the upper hand once more; tragedy ends with a sound which could -never emanate from the realm of Apollonian art. And the Apollonian -illusion is thereby found to be what it is,--the assiduous veiling -during the performance of tragedy of the intrinsically Dionysian -effect: which, however, is so powerful, that it finally forces -the Apollonian drama itself into a sphere where it begins to talk -with Dionysian wisdom, and even denies itself and its Apollonian -conspicuousness. Thus then the intricate relation of the Apollonian and -the Dionysian in tragedy must really be symbolised by a fraternal union -of the two deities: Dionysus speaks the language of Apollo; Apollo, -however, finally speaks the language of Dionysus; and so the highest -goal of tragedy and of art in general is attained. - - - -22. - - -Let the attentive friend picture to himself purely and simply, -according to his experiences, the effect of a true musical tragedy. I -think I have so portrayed the phenomenon of this effect in both its -phases that he will now be able to interpret his own experiences. For -he will recollect that with regard to the myth which passed before -him he felt himself exalted to a kind of omniscience, as if his -visual faculty were no longer merely a surface faculty, but capable -of penetrating into the interior, and as if he now saw before him, -with the aid of music, the ebullitions of the will, the conflict of -motives, and the swelling stream of the passions, almost sensibly -visible, like a plenitude of actively moving lines and figures, and -could thereby dip into the most tender secrets of unconscious emotions. -While he thus becomes conscious of the highest exaltation of his -instincts for conspicuousness and transfiguration, he nevertheless -feels with equal definitiveness that this long series of Apollonian -artistic effects still does _not_ generate the blissful continuance in -will-less contemplation which the plasticist and the epic poet, that -is to say, the strictly Apollonian artists, produce in him by their -artistic productions: to wit, the justification of the world of the -_individuatio_ attained in this contemplation,--which is the object -and essence of Apollonian art. He beholds the transfigured world of -the stage and nevertheless denies it. He sees before him the tragic -hero in epic clearness and beauty, and nevertheless delights in his -annihilation. He comprehends the incidents of the scene in all their -details, and yet loves to flee into the incomprehensible. He feels the -actions of the hero to be justified, and is nevertheless still more -elated when these actions annihilate their originator. He shudders at -the sufferings which will befall the hero, and yet anticipates therein -a higher and much more overpowering joy. He sees more extensively and -profoundly than ever, and yet wishes to be blind. Whence must we derive -this curious internal dissension, this collapse of the Apollonian apex, -if not from the _Dionysian_ spell, which, though apparently stimulating -the Apollonian emotions to their highest pitch, can nevertheless force -this superabundance of Apollonian power into its service? _Tragic -myth_ is to be understood only as a symbolisation of Dionysian wisdom -by means of the expedients of Apollonian art: the mythus conducts the -world of phenomena to its boundaries, where it denies itself, and seeks -to flee back again into the bosom of the true and only reality; where -it then, like Isolde, seems to strike up its metaphysical swan-song:-- - - In des Wonnemeeres - wogendem Schwall, - in der Duft-Wellen - tönendem Schall, - in des Weltathems - wehendem All-- - ertrinken--versinken - unbewusst--höchste Lust![24] - -We thus realise to ourselves in the experiences of the truly æsthetic -hearer the tragic artist himself when he proceeds like a luxuriously -fertile divinity of individuation to create his figures (in which sense -his work can hardly be understood as an "imitation of nature")--and -when, on the other hand, his vast Dionysian impulse then absorbs the -entire world of phenomena, in order to anticipate beyond it, and -through its annihilation, the highest artistic primal joy, in the bosom -of the Primordial Unity. Of course, our æsthetes have nothing to say -about this return in fraternal union of the two art-deities to the -original home, nor of either the Apollonian or Dionysian excitement -of the hearer, while they are indefatigable in characterising the -struggle of the hero with fate, the triumph of the moral order of the -world, or the disburdenment of the emotions through tragedy, as the -properly Tragic: an indefatigableness which makes me think that they -are perhaps not æsthetically excitable men at all, but only to be -regarded as moral beings when hearing tragedy. Never since Aristotle -has an explanation of the tragic effect been proposed, by which an -æsthetic activity of the hearer could be inferred from artistic -circumstances. At one time fear and pity are supposed to be forced to -an alleviating discharge through the serious procedure, at another time -we are expected to feel elevated and inspired at the triumph of good -and noble principles, at the sacrifice of the hero in the interest of -a moral conception of things; and however certainly I believe that for -countless men precisely this, and only this, is the effect of tragedy, -it as obviously follows therefrom that all these, together with their -interpreting æsthetes, have had no experience of tragedy as the highest -_art._ The pathological discharge, the catharsis of Aristotle, which -philologists are at a loss whether to include under medicinal or moral -phenomena, recalls a remarkable anticipation of Goethe. "Without a -lively pathological interest," he says, "I too have never yet succeeded -in elaborating a tragic situation of any kind, and hence I have rather -avoided than sought it. Can it perhaps have been still another of the -merits of the ancients that the deepest pathos was with them merely -æsthetic play, whereas with us the truth of nature must co-operate in -order to produce such a work?" We can now answer in the affirmative -this latter profound question after our glorious experiences, in which -we have found to our astonishment in the case of musical tragedy -itself, that the deepest pathos can in reality be merely æsthetic play: -and therefore we are justified in believing that now for the first time -the proto-phenomenon of the tragic can be portrayed with some degree -of success. He who now will still persist in talking only of those -vicarious effects proceeding from ultra-æsthetic spheres, and does not -feel himself raised above the pathologically-moral process, may be left -to despair of his æsthetic nature: for which we recommend to him, by -way of innocent equivalent, the interpretation of Shakespeare after the -fashion of Gervinus, and the diligent search for poetic justice. - -Thus with the re-birth of tragedy the _æsthetic hearer_ is also -born anew, in whose place in the theatre a curious _quid pro quo_ -was wont to sit with half-moral and half-learned pretensions,--the -"critic." In his sphere hitherto everything has been artificial and -merely glossed over with a semblance of life. The performing artist -was in fact at a loss what to do with such a critically comporting -hearer, and hence he, as well as the dramatist or operatic composer -who inspired him, searched anxiously for the last remains of life -in a being so pretentiously barren and incapable of enjoyment. Such -"critics," however, have hitherto constituted the public; the student, -the school-boy, yea, even the most harmless womanly creature, were -already unwittingly prepared by education and by journals for a similar -perception of works of art. The nobler natures among the artists -counted upon exciting the moral-religious forces in such a public, -and the appeal to a moral order of the world operated vicariously, -when in reality some powerful artistic spell should have enraptured -the true hearer. Or again, some imposing or at all events exciting -tendency of the contemporary political and social world was presented -by the dramatist with such vividness that the hearer could forget his -critical exhaustion and abandon himself to similar emotions, as, in -patriotic or warlike moments, before the tribune of parliament, or -at the condemnation of crime and vice:--an estrangement of the true -aims of art which could not but lead directly now and then to a cult -of tendency. But here there took place what has always taken place -in the case of factitious arts, an extraordinary rapid depravation -of these tendencies, so that for instance the tendency to employ the -theatre as a means for the moral education of the people, which in -Schiller's time was taken seriously, is already reckoned among the -incredible antiquities of a surmounted culture. While the critic got -the upper hand in the theatre and concert-hall, the journalist in the -school, and the press in society, art degenerated into a topic of -conversation of the most trivial kind, and æsthetic criticism was used -as the cement of a vain, distracted, selfish and moreover piteously -unoriginal sociality, the significance of which is suggested by the -Schopenhauerian parable of the porcupines, so that there has never -been so much gossip about art and so little esteem for it. But is it -still possible to have intercourse with a man capable of conversing on -Beethoven or Shakespeare? Let each answer this question according to -his sentiments: he will at any rate show by his answer his conception -of "culture," provided he tries at least to answer the question, and -has not already grown mute with astonishment. - -On the other hand, many a one more nobly and delicately endowed by -nature, though he may have gradually become a critical barbarian -in the manner described, could tell of the unexpected as well as -totally unintelligible effect which a successful performance of -_Lohengrin,_ for example, exerted on him: except that perhaps every -warning and interpreting hand was lacking to guide him; so that the -incomprehensibly heterogeneous and altogether incomparable sensation -which then affected him also remained isolated and became extinct, like -a mysterious star after a brief brilliancy. He then divined what the -æsthetic hearer is. - - -[24] - - In the sea of pleasure's - Billowing roll, - In the ether-waves - Knelling and toll, - In the world-breath's - Wavering whole-- - To drown in, go down in-- - Lost in swoon--greatest boon! - - - -23. - - -He who wishes to test himself rigorously as to how he is related to the -true æsthetic hearer, or whether he belongs rather to the community -of the Socrato-critical man, has only to enquire sincerely concerning -the sentiment with which he accepts the _wonder_ represented on the -stage: whether he feels his historical sense, which insists on strict -psychological causality, insulted by it, whether with benevolent -concession he as it were admits the wonder as a phenomenon intelligible -to childhood, but relinquished by him, or whether he experiences -anything else thereby. For he will thus be enabled to determine how -far he is on the whole capable of understanding _myth,_ that is to -say, the concentrated picture of the world, which, as abbreviature of -phenomena, cannot dispense with wonder. It is probable, however, that -nearly every one, upon close examination, feels so disintegrated by -the critico-historical spirit of our culture, that he can only perhaps -make the former existence of myth credible to himself by learned -means through intermediary abstractions. Without myth, however, every -culture loses its healthy, creative natural power: it is only a horizon -encompassed with myths which rounds off to unity a social movement. -It is only by myth that all the powers of the imagination and of the -Apollonian dream are freed from their random rovings. The mythical -figures have to be the invisibly omnipresent genii, under the care of -which the young soul grows to maturity, by the signs of which the man -gives a meaning to his life and struggles: and the state itself knows -no more powerful unwritten law than the mythical foundation which -vouches for its connection with religion and its growth from mythical -ideas. - -Let us now place alongside thereof the abstract man proceeding -independently of myth, the abstract education, the abstract usage, -the abstract right, the abstract state: let us picture to ourselves -the lawless roving of the artistic imagination, not bridled by any -native myth: let us imagine a culture which has no fixed and sacred -primitive seat, but is doomed to exhaust all its possibilities, and -has to nourish itself wretchedly from the other cultures--such is the -Present, as the result of Socratism, which is bent on the destruction -of myth. And now the myth-less man remains eternally hungering among -all the bygones, and digs and grubs for roots, though he have to dig -for them even among the remotest antiquities. The stupendous historical -exigency of the unsatisfied modern culture, the gathering around one of -countless other cultures, the consuming desire for knowledge--what does -all this point to, if not to the loss of myth, the loss of the mythical -home, the mythical source? Let us ask ourselves whether the feverish -and so uncanny stirring of this culture is aught but the eager seizing -and snatching at food of the hungerer--and who would care to contribute -anything more to a culture which cannot be appeased by all it devours, -and in contact with which the most vigorous and wholesome nourishment -is wont to change into "history and criticism"? - -We should also have to regard our German character with despair and -sorrow, if it had already become inextricably entangled in, or even -identical with this culture, in a similar manner as we can observe it -to our horror to be the case in civilised France; and that which for -a long time was the great advantage of France and the cause of her -vast preponderance, to wit, this very identity of people and culture, -might compel us at the sight thereof to congratulate ourselves that -this culture of ours, which is so questionable, has hitherto had -nothing in common with the noble kernel of the character of our people. -All our hopes, on the contrary, stretch out longingly towards the -perception that beneath this restlessly palpitating civilised life and -educational convulsion there is concealed a glorious, intrinsically -healthy, primeval power, which, to be sure, stirs vigorously only at -intervals in stupendous moments, and then dreams on again in view of -a future awakening. It is from this abyss that the German Reformation -came forth: in the choral-hymn of which the future melody of German -music first resounded. So deep, courageous, and soul-breathing, so -exuberantly good and tender did this chorale of Luther sound,--as the -first Dionysian-luring call which breaks forth from dense thickets -at the approach of spring. To it responded with emulative echo the -solemnly wanton procession of Dionysian revellers, to whom we are -indebted for German music--and to whom we shall be indebted for _the -re-birth of German myth._ - -I know that I must now lead the sympathising and attentive friend to -an elevated position of lonesome contemplation, where he will have -but few companions, and I call out encouragingly to him that we must -hold fast to our shining guides, the Greeks. For the rectification -of our æsthetic knowledge we previously borrowed from them the two -divine figures, each of which sways a separate realm of art, and -concerning whose mutual contact and exaltation we have acquired a -notion through Greek tragedy. Through a remarkable disruption of both -these primitive artistic impulses, the ruin of Greek tragedy seemed -to be necessarily brought about: with which process a degeneration -and a transmutation of the Greek national character was strictly in -keeping, summoning us to earnest reflection as to how closely and -necessarily art and the people, myth and custom, tragedy and the state, -have coalesced in their bases. The ruin of tragedy was at the same -time the ruin of myth. Until then the Greeks had been involuntarily -compelled immediately to associate all experiences with their myths, -indeed they had to comprehend them only through this association: -whereby even the most immediate present necessarily appeared to them -_sub specie æterni_ and in a certain sense as timeless. Into this -current of the timeless, however, the state as well as art plunged -in order to find repose from the burden and eagerness of the moment. -And a people--for the rest, also a man--is worth just as much only as -its ability to impress on its experiences the seal of eternity: for -it is thus, as it were, desecularised, and reveals its unconscious -inner conviction of the relativity of time and of the true, that is, -the metaphysical significance of life. The contrary happens when a -people begins to comprehend itself historically and to demolish the -mythical bulwarks around it: with which there is usually connected -a marked secularisation, a breach with the unconscious metaphysics -of its earlier existence, in all ethical consequences. Greek art and -especially Greek tragedy delayed above all the annihilation of myth: -it was necessary to annihilate these also to be able to live detached -from the native soil, unbridled in the wilderness of thought, custom, -and action. Even in such circumstances this metaphysical impulse still -endeavours to create for itself a form of apotheosis (weakened, no -doubt) in the Socratism of science urging to life: but on its lower -stage this same impulse led only to a feverish search, which gradually -merged into a pandemonium of myths and superstitions accumulated from -all quarters: in the midst of which, nevertheless, the Hellene sat with -a yearning heart till he contrived, as Græculus, to mask his fever with -Greek cheerfulness and Greek levity, or to narcotise himself completely -with some gloomy Oriental superstition. - -We have approached this condition in the most striking manner since the -reawakening of the Alexandro--Roman antiquity in the fifteenth century, -after a long, not easily describable, interlude. On the heights there -is the same exuberant love of knowledge, the same insatiate happiness -of the discoverer, the same stupendous secularisation, and, together -with these, a homeless roving about, an eager intrusion at foreign -tables, a frivolous deification of the present or a dull senseless -estrangement, all _sub speci sæculi,_ of the present time: which -same symptoms lead one to infer the same defect at the heart of -this culture, the annihilation of myth. It seems hardly possible to -transplant a foreign myth with permanent success, without dreadfully -injuring the tree through this transplantation: which is perhaps -occasionally strong enough and sound enough to eliminate the foreign -element after a terrible struggle; but must ordinarily consume itself -in a languishing and stunted condition or in sickly luxuriance. Our -opinion of the pure and vigorous kernel of the German being is such -that we venture to expect of it, and only of it, this elimination of -forcibly ingrafted foreign elements, and we deem it possible that -the German spirit will reflect anew on itself. Perhaps many a one -will be of opinion that this spirit must begin its struggle with the -elimination of the Romanic element: for which it might recognise an -external preparation and encouragement in the victorious bravery and -bloody glory of the late war, but must seek the inner constraint in the -emulative zeal to be for ever worthy of the sublime protagonists on -this path, of Luther as well as our great artists and poets. But let -him never think he can fight such battles without his household gods, -without his mythical home, without a "restoration" of all German things -I And if the German should look timidly around for a guide to lead -him back to his long-lost home, the ways and paths of which he knows -no longer--let him but listen to the delightfully luring call of the -Dionysian bird, which hovers above him, and would fain point out to him -the way thither. - - - -24. - - -Among the peculiar artistic effects of musical tragedy we had to -emphasise an Apollonian _illusion,_ through which we are to be saved -from immediate oneness with the Dionysian music, while our musical -excitement is able to discharge itself on an Apollonian domain and -in an interposed visible middle world. It thereby seemed to us that -precisely through this discharge the middle world of theatrical -procedure, the drama generally, became visible and intelligible from -within in a degree unattainable in the other forms of Apollonian art: -so that here, where this art was as it were winged and borne aloft by -the spirit of music, we had to recognise the highest exaltation of its -powers, and consequently in the fraternal union of Apollo and Dionysus -the climax of the Apollonian as well as of the Dionysian artistic aims. - -Of course, the Apollonian light-picture did not, precisely with this -inner illumination through music, attain the peculiar effect of the -weaker grades of Apollonian art. What the epos and the animated stone -can do--constrain the contemplating eye to calm delight in the world -of the _individuatio_--could not be realised here, notwithstanding -the greater animation and distinctness. We contemplated the drama -and penetrated with piercing glance into its inner agitated world of -motives--and yet it seemed as if only a symbolic picture passed before -us, the profoundest significance of which we almost believed we had -divined, and which we desired to put aside like a curtain in order to -behold the original behind it. The greatest distinctness of the picture -did not suffice us: for it seemed to reveal as well as veil something; -and while it seemed, with its symbolic revelation, to invite the -rending of the veil for the disclosure of the mysterious background, -this illumined all-conspicuousness itself enthralled the eye and -prevented it from penetrating more deeply He who has not experienced -this,--to have to view, and at the same time to have a longing -beyond the viewing,--will hardly be able to conceive how clearly and -definitely these two processes coexist in the contemplation of tragic -myth and are felt to be conjoined; while the truly æsthetic spectators -will confirm my assertion that among the peculiar effects of tragedy -this conjunction is the most noteworthy. Now let this phenomenon of the -æsthetic spectator be transferred to an analogous process in the tragic -artist, and the genesis of _tragic myth_ will have been understood. It -shares with the Apollonian sphere of art the full delight in appearance -and contemplation, and at the same time it denies this delight and -finds a still higher satisfaction in the annihilation of the visible -world of appearance. The substance of tragic myth is first of all an -epic event involving the glorification of the fighting hero: but whence -originates the essentially enigmatical trait, that the suffering in -the fate of the hero, the most painful victories, the most agonising -contrasts of motives, in short, the exemplification of the wisdom of -Silenus, or, æsthetically expressed, the Ugly and Discordant, is always -represented anew in such countless forms with such predilection, and -precisely in the most youthful and exuberant age of a people, unless -there is really a higher delight experienced in all this? - -For the fact that things actually take such a tragic course would -least of all explain the origin of a form of art; provided that art -is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a -metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside -thereof for its conquest. Tragic myth, in so far as it really belongs -to art, also fully participates in this transfiguring metaphysical -purpose of art in general: What does it transfigure, however, when it -presents the phenomenal world in the guise of the suffering hero? Least -of all the "reality" of this phenomenal world, for it says to us: "Look -at this! Look carefully! It is your life! It is the hour-hand of your -clock of existence!" - -And myth has displayed this life, in order thereby to transfigure it -to us? If not, how shall we account for the æsthetic pleasure with -which we make even these representations pass before us? I am inquiring -concerning the æsthetic pleasure, and am well aware that many of -these representations may moreover occasionally create even a moral -delectation, say under the form of pity or of a moral triumph. But he -who would derive the effect of the tragic exclusively from these moral -sources, as was usually the case far too long in æsthetics, let him not -think that he has done anything for Art thereby; for Art must above all -insist on purity in her domain. For the explanation of tragic myth the -very first requirement is that the pleasure which characterises it must -be sought in the purely æsthetic sphere, without encroaching on the -domain of pity, fear, or the morally-sublime. How can the ugly and the -discordant, the substance of tragic myth, excite an æsthetic pleasure? - -Here it is necessary to raise ourselves with a daring bound into a -metaphysics of Art. I repeat, therefore, my former proposition, that -it is only as an æsthetic phenomenon that existence and the world, -appear justified: and in this sense it is precisely the function of -tragic myth to convince us that even the Ugly and Discordant is an -artistic game which the will, in the eternal fulness of its joy, plays -with itself. But this not easily comprehensible proto-phenomenon of -Dionysian Art becomes, in a direct way, singularly intelligible, and -is immediately apprehended in the wonderful significance of _musical -dissonance:_ just as in general it is music alone, placed in contrast -to the world, which can give us an idea as to what is meant by the -justification of the world as an æsthetic phenomenon. The joy that the -tragic myth excites has the same origin as the joyful sensation of -dissonance in music. The Dionysian, with its primitive joy experienced -in pain itself, is the common source of music and tragic myth. - -Is it not possible that by calling to our aid the musical relation of -dissonance, the difficult problem of tragic effect may have meanwhile -been materially facilitated? For we now understand what it means to -wish to view tragedy and at the same time to have a longing beyond the -viewing: a frame of mind, which, as regards the artistically employed -dissonance, we should simply have to characterise by saying that we -desire to hear and at the same time have a longing beyond the hearing. -That striving for the infinite, the pinion-flapping of longing, -accompanying the highest delight in the clearly-perceived reality, -remind one that in both states we have to recognise a Dionysian -phenomenon, which again and again reveals to us anew the playful -up-building and demolishing of the world of individuals as the efflux -of a primitive delight, in like manner as when Heraclitus the Obscure -compares the world-building power to a playing child which places -stones here and there and builds sandhills only to overthrow them again. - -Hence, in order to form a true estimate of the Dionysian capacity of -a people, it would seem that we must think not only of their music, -but just as much of their tragic myth, the second witness of this -capacity. Considering this most intimate relationship between music -and myth, we may now in like manner suppose that a degeneration and -depravation of the one involves a deterioration of the other: if it be -true at all that the weakening of the myth is generally expressive of -a debilitation of the Dionysian capacity. Concerning both, however, -a glance at the development of the German genius should not leave -us in any doubt; in the opera just as in the abstract character of -our myth-less existence, in an art sunk to pastime just as in a life -guided by concepts, the inartistic as well as life-consuming nature -of Socratic optimism had revealed itself to us. Yet there have been -indications to console us that nevertheless in some inaccessible abyss -the German spirit still rests and dreams, undestroyed, in glorious -health, profundity, and Dionysian strength, like a knight sunk in -slumber: from which abyss the Dionysian song rises to us to let us -know that this German knight even still dreams his primitive Dionysian -myth in blissfully earnest visions. Let no one believe that the German -spirit has for ever lost its mythical home when it still understands so -obviously the voices of the birds which tell of that home. Some day it -will find itself awake in all the morning freshness of a deep sleep: -then it will slay the dragons, destroy the malignant dwarfs, and waken -Brünnhilde--and Wotan's spear itself will be unable to obstruct its -course! - -My friends, ye who believe in Dionysian music, ye know also what -tragedy means to us. There we have tragic myth, born anew from -music,--and in this latest birth ye can hope for everything and forget -what is most afflicting. What is most afflicting to all of us, however, -is--the prolonged degradation in which the German genius has lived -estranged from house and home in the service of malignant dwarfs. Ye -understand my allusion--as ye will also, in conclusion, understand my -hopes. - - - -25. - - -Music and tragic myth are equally the expression of the Dionysian -capacity of a people, and are inseparable from each other. Both -originate in an ultra Apollonian sphere of art; both transfigure a -region in the delightful accords of which all dissonance, just like -the terrible picture of the world, dies charmingly away; both play -with the sting of displeasure, trusting to their most potent magic; -both justify thereby the existence even of the "worst world." Here -the Dionysian, as compared with the Apollonian, exhibits itself as -the eternal and original artistic force, which in general calls into -existence the entire world of phenomena: in the midst of which a new -transfiguring appearance becomes necessary, in order to keep alive the -animated world of individuation. If we could conceive an incarnation -of dissonance--and what is man but that?--then, to be able to live -this dissonance would require a glorious illusion which would spread -a veil of beauty over its peculiar nature. This is the true function -of Apollo as deity of art: in whose name we comprise all the countless -manifestations of the fair realm of illusion, which each moment render -life in general worth living and make one impatient for the experience -of the next moment. - -At the same time, just as much of this basis of all existence--the -Dionysian substratum of the world--is allowed to enter into the -consciousness of human beings, as can be surmounted again by the -Apollonian transfiguring power, so that these two art-impulses are -constrained to develop their powers in strictly mutual proportion, -according to the law of eternal justice. When the Dionysian powers rise -with such vehemence as we experience at present, there can be no doubt -that, veiled in a cloud, Apollo has already descended to us; whose -grandest beautifying influences a coming generation will perhaps behold. - -That this effect is necessary, however, each one would most surely -perceive by intuition, if once he found himself carried back--even in -a dream--into an Old-Hellenic existence. In walking under high Ionic -colonnades, looking upwards to a horizon defined by clear and noble -lines, with reflections of his transfigured form by his side in shining -marble, and around him solemnly marching or quietly moving men, with -harmoniously sounding voices and rhythmical pantomime, would he not in -the presence of this perpetual influx of beauty have to raise his hand -to Apollo and exclaim: "Blessed race of Hellenes! How great Dionysus -must be among you, when the Delian god deems such charms necessary -to cure you of your dithyrambic madness!"--To one in this frame of -mind, however, an aged Athenian, looking up to him with the sublime -eye of Æschylus, might answer: "Say also this, thou curious stranger: -what sufferings this people must have undergone, in order to be able -to become thus beautiful! But now follow me to a tragic play, and -sacrifice with me in the temple of both the deities!" - - - - -APPENDIX. - - -[Late in the year 1888, not long before he was overcome by his sudden -attack of insanity, Nietzsche wrote down a few notes concerning -his early work, the _Birth of Tragedy._ These were printed in his -sister's biography (_Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsches,_ vol. ii. pt. -i. pp. 102 ff.), and are here translated as likely to be of interest -to readers of this remarkable work. They also appear in the _Ecce -Homo._--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.] - -"To be just to the _Birth of Tragedy_(1872), one will have to forget -some few things. It has _wrought effects,_ it even fascinated through -that wherein it was amiss--through its application to _Wagnerism,_ -just as if this Wagnerism were symptomatic of _a rise and going up._ -And just on that account was the book an event in Wagner's life: from -thence and only from thence were great hopes linked to the name of -Wagner. Even to-day people remind me, sometimes right in the midst of -a talk on _Parsifal,_ that _I_ and none other have it on my conscience -that such a high opinion of the _cultural value_ of this movement came -to the top. More than once have I found the book referred to as 'the -_Re_-birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music': one only had an ear -for a new formula of _Wagner's_ art, aim, task,--and failed to hear -withal what was at bottom valuable therein. 'Hellenism and Pessimism' -had been a more unequivocal title: namely, as a first lesson on the -way in which the Greeks got the better of pessimism,--on the means -whereby they _overcame_ it. Tragedy simply proves that the Greeks were -_no_ pessimists: Schopenhauer was mistaken here as he was mistaken -in all other things. Considered with some neutrality, the _Birth of -Tragedy_ appears very unseasonable: one would not even dream that -it was _begun_ amid the thunders of the battle of Wörth. I thought -these problems through and through before the walls of Metz in cold -September nights, in the midst of the work of nursing the sick; one -might even believe the book to be fifty years older. It is politically -indifferent--un-German one will say to-day,--it smells shockingly -Hegelian, in but a few formulæ does it scent of Schopenhauer's -funereal perfume. An 'idea'--the antithesis of 'Dionysian _versus_ -Apollonian'--translated into metaphysics; history itself as the -evolution of this 'idea'; the antithesis dissolved into oneness -in Tragedy; through this optics things that had never yet looked -into one another's face, confronted of a sudden, and illumined and -_comprehended_ through one another: for instance, Opera and Revolution. -The two decisive _innovations_ of the book are, on the one hand, the -comprehension of the _Dionysian_ phenomenon among the Greeks (it gives -the first psychology thereof, it sees therein the One root of all -Grecian art); on the other, the comprehension of Socratism: Socrates -diagnosed for the first time as the tool of Grecian dissolution, as -a typical decadent. 'Rationality' _against_ instinct! 'Rationality' -at any price as a dangerous, as a life-undermining force! Throughout -the whole book a deep hostile silence on Christianity: it is neither -Apollonian nor Dionysian; it _negatives_ all _æsthetic_ values (the -only values recognised by the _Birth of Tragedy),_ it is in the widest -sense nihilistic, whereas in the Dionysian symbol the utmost limit -of _affirmation_ is reached. Once or twice the Christian priests are -alluded to as a 'malignant kind of dwarfs,' as 'subterraneans.'" - - - -2. - - -"This beginning is singular beyond measure. I had for my own inmost -experience _discovered_ the only symbol and counterpart of history,--I -had just thereby been the first to grasp the wonderful phenomenon -of the Dionysian. And again, through my diagnosing Socrates as a -decadent, I had given a wholly unequivocal proof of how little risk -the trustworthiness of my psychological grasp would run of being -weakened by some moralistic idiosyncrasy--to view morality itself as a -symptom of decadence is an innovation, a novelty of the first rank in -the history of knowledge. How far I had leaped in either case beyond -the smug shallow-pate-gossip of optimism _contra_ pessimism! I was -the first to see the intrinsic antithesis: here, the _degenerating_ -instinct which, with subterranean vindictiveness, turns against life -(Christianity, the philosophy of Schopenhauer, in a certain sense -already the philosophy of Plato, all idealistic systems as typical -forms), and there, a formula of _highest affirmation,_ born of fullness -and overfullness, a yea-saying without reserve to suffering's self, -to guilt's self, to all that is questionable and strange in existence -itself. This final, cheerfullest, exuberantly mad-and-merriest Yea to -life is not only the highest insight, it is also the _deepest,_ it -is that which is most rigorously confirmed and upheld by truth and -science. Naught that is, is to be deducted, naught is dispensable; the -phases of existence rejected by the Christians and other nihilists are -even of an infinitely higher order in the hierarchy of values than -that which the instinct of decadence sanctions, yea durst _sanction._ -To comprehend this _courage_ is needed, and, as a condition thereof, a -surplus of _strength_: for precisely in degree as courage _dares_ to -thrust forward, precisely according to the measure of strength, does -one approach truth. Perception, the yea-saying to reality, is as much -a necessity to the strong as to the weak, under the inspiration of -weakness, cowardly shrinking, and _flight_ from reality--the 'ideal.' -... They are not free to perceive: the decadents have _need_ of the -lie,--it is one of their conditions of self-preservation. Whoso not -only comprehends the word Dionysian, but also grasps his _self_ in -this word, requires no refutation of Plato or of Christianity or of -Schopenhauer--_he smells the putrefaction._" - - - -3. - - -"To what extent I had just thereby found the concept 'tragic,' the -definitive perception of the psychology of tragedy, I have but lately -stated in the _Twilight of the Idols,_ page 139 (1st edit.): 'The -affirmation of life, even in its most unfamiliar and severe problems, -the will to life, enjoying its own inexhaustibility in the sacrifice -of its highest types,--_that_ is what I called Dionysian, that is -what I divined as the bridge to a psychology of the _tragic_ poet. -Not in order to get rid of terror and pity, not to purify from a -dangerous passion by its vehement discharge (it was thus that Aristotle -misunderstood it); but, beyond terror and pity, _to realise in fact_ -the eternal delight of becoming, that delight which even involves in -itself the _joy of annihilating!_[1] In this sense I have the right -to understand myself to be the first _tragic philosopher_--that is, -the utmost antithesis and antipode to a pessimistic philosopher. Prior -to myself there is no such translation of the Dionysian into the -philosophic pathos: there lacks the _tragic wisdom,_--I have sought -in vain for an indication thereof even among the _great_ Greeks of -philosophy, the thinkers of the two centuries _before_ Socrates. A -doubt still possessed me as touching _Heraclitus,_ in whose proximity -I in general begin to feel warmer and better than anywhere else. The -affirmation of transiency _and annihilation,_ to wit the decisive -factor in a Dionysian _philosophy,_ the yea-saying to antithesis -and war, to _becoming,_ with radical rejection even of the concept -'_being,_'--that I must directly acknowledge as, of all thinking -hitherto, the nearest to my own. The doctrine of 'eternal recurrence,' -that is, of the unconditioned and infinitely repeated cycle of all -things--this doctrine of Zarathustra's _might_ after all have been -already taught by Heraclitus. At any rate the portico[2] which -inherited well-nigh all its fundamental conceptions from Heraclitus, -shows traces thereof." - -[Illustration: _Facsimile of Nietzsches handwriting._] - - - -4. - - -"In this book speaks a prodigious hope. In fine, I see no reason -whatever for taking back my hope of a Dionysian future for music. Let -us cast a glance a century ahead, let us suppose my assault upon two -millenniums of anti-nature and man-vilification succeeds! That new -party of life which will take in hand the greatest of all tasks, the -upbreeding of mankind to something higher,--add thereto the relentless -annihilation of all things degenerating and parasitic, will again make -possible on earth that _too-much of life,_ from which there also must -needs grow again the Dionysian state. I promise a _tragic_ age: the -highest art in the yea-saying to life, tragedy, will be born anew, when -mankind have behind them the consciousness of the hardest but most -necessary wars, _without suffering therefrom._ A psychologist might -still add that what I heard in my younger years in Wagnerian music had -in general naught to do with Wagner; that when I described Wagnerian -music I described what _I_ had heard, that I had instinctively to -translate and transfigure all into the new spirit which I bore within -myself...." - - -[1] Mr. Common's translation, pp. 227-28. - -[2] Greek: στοά. - - - - -TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. - - -While the translator flatters himself that this version of Nietzsche's -early work--having been submitted to unsparingly scrutinising eyes--is -not altogether unworthy of the original, he begs to state that he -holds twentieth-century English to be a rather unsatisfactory vehicle -for philosophical thought. Accordingly, in conjunction with his -friend Dr. Ernest Lacy, he has prepared a second, more unconventional -translation,--in brief, a translation which will enable one whose -knowledge of English extends to, say, the period of Elizabeth, to -appreciate Nietzsche in more forcible language, because the language of -a stronger age. It is proposed to provide this second translation with -an appendix, containing many references to the translated writings of -Wagner and Schopenhauer; to the works of Pater, Browning, Burckhardt, -Rohde, and others, and a summmary and index. - -For help in preparing the present translation, the translator wishes -to express his thanks to his friends Dr. Ernest Lacy, Litt.D.; Dr. -James Waddell Tupper, Ph.D.; Prof. Harry Max Ferren; Mr. James M'Kirdy, -Pittsburg; and Mr. Thomas Common, Edinburgh. - - WILLIAM AUGUST HAUSSMANN, A.B., Ph.D. - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51356 *** |