Placed between India and Rome, and constrained18 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 immortality19. For it[Pg 159] 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 durable20 toughness of leather; the staunch durability21, 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 scramble22 for empire and worldly honour, but to attain23 the splendid mixture which we find in a noble, inflaming24, 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 prophylactic25 healing forces, as the mediator26 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 mighty27 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[Pg 160] 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 sublime28 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 animation29 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 attained30 by word and image, without this unique aid; and the tragic spectator in particular experiences thereby31 the sure presentiment32 of supreme33 joy to which the path through destruction and negation34 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, intelligible35 to few at first, to this difficult representation, I must not here desist from stimulating36 my friends to a further attempt, or[Pg 161] cease from beseeching37 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 scenic38 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 shrines39; 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 allied41 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, purely42 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 dispersed43 brook44, into all the veins45 of the world, would he not collapse46 all at once? Could he endure, in the wretched fragile tenement47 of the human individual, to hear the re-echo of countless48 cries of joy and sorrow from the "vast void of cosmic night," without flying irresistibly[Pg 162] 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 demolishing49 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 forth50 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 tune51, why does it wake me?" And what formerly52 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[Pg 163] agonies, the jubilation53 of the born rent our hearts almost like the very acme54 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 primordial55 suffering of the world, just as the symbol-image of the myth delivers us from the immediate40 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 cosmos56, 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 wrest58 us from Dionysian universality and fill us with rapture59 for individuals; to these it rivets60 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 incites61 us to a thoughtful apprehension62 of the essence of life contained therein. With the immense potency63 of the image, the concept, the ethical64 teaching and the sympathetic emotion—the Apollonian influence uplifts man from his orgiastic self-annihilation, and beguiles65 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,[Pg 164] 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 essentially66 the representative art for an Apollonian substance?
With the pre-established harmony which obtains between perfect drama and its music, the drama attains67 the highest degree of conspicuousness68, such as is usually unattainable in mere57 spoken drama. As all the animated70 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 texture71, the world of the stage is as infinitely72 expanded for our spiritualised, introspective eye as it is illumined outwardly from within. How can the word-poet furnish anything analogous73, who strives to attain this internal[Pg 165] expansion and illumination of the visible stage-world by a much more imperfect mechanism74 and an indirect path, proceeding75 as he does from word and concept? Albeit76 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 outwards77, 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 obtrusion78 and excess. In point of fact, the relation of music to drama is precisely79 the reverse; music is the adequate idea of the world, drama is but the reflex of this idea, a detached umbrage80 thereof. The identity between the line of melody and the lining81 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 agitate82 and enliven the form in the most conspicuous69 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 phenomena83 of the kind might be passing manifestations84 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,[Pg 166] while all may be confused by the popular and thoroughly85 false antithesis86 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 ?stheticians, 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 subservient87 to its end, namely, the highest and clearest elucidation88 of the drama, it would certainly be necessary to add the very important restriction89: that at the most essential point this Apollonian illusion is dissolved and annihilated90. 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 loom91 as the shuttle flies to and fro,—attains as a whole an effect which transcends92 all Apollonian artistic93 effects. In the collective effect of tragedy, the Dionysian gets the upper hand once more; tragedy ends with a sound which could never emanate94 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[Pg 167] 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 deities95: 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.
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1
hortative
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| adj.激励的 | |
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2
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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3
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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shackles
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| 手铐( shackle的名词复数 )； 脚镣； 束缚； 羁绊 | |
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encroachment
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| n.侵入，蚕食 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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Buddhism
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| n.佛教（教义） | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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17
unconditional
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| adj.无条件的，无限制的，绝对的 | |
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18
constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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20
durable
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| adj.持久的，耐久的 | |
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21
durability
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| n.经久性，耐用性 | |
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22
scramble
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| v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料 | |
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23
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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24
inflaming
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| v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的现在分词 ) | |
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25
prophylactic
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| adj.预防疾病的；n.预防疾病 | |
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mediator
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| n.调解人，中介人 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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presentiment
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| n.预感，预觉 | |
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33
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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34
negation
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| n.否定；否认 | |
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35
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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36
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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beseeching
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| adj.恳求似的v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的现在分词 ) | |
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38
scenic
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| adj.自然景色的，景色优美的 | |
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shrines
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| 圣地，圣坛，神圣场所( shrine的名词复数 ) | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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43
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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46
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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47
tenement
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| n.公寓；房屋 | |
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48
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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49
demolishing
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| v.摧毁( demolish的现在分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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50
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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51
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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52
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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53
jubilation
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| n.欢庆，喜悦 | |
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54
acme
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| n.顶点，极点 | |
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55
primordial
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| adj.原始的；最初的 | |
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56
cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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57
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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58
wrest
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| n.扭，拧，猛夺；v.夺取，猛扭，歪曲 | |
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rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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rivets
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| 铆钉( rivet的名词复数 ) | |
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61
incites
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| 刺激，激励，煽动( incite的第三人称单数 ) | |
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62
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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potency
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| n. 效力，潜能 | |
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64
ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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beguiles
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| v.欺骗( beguile的第三人称单数 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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66
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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attains
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的第三人称单数 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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68
conspicuousness
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| 显著，卓越，突出； 显著性 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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72
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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73
analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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75
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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76
albeit
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| conj.即使；纵使；虽然 | |
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outwards
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| adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形 | |
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obtrusion
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| n.强制，莽撞 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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umbrage
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| n.不快；树荫 | |
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81
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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82
agitate
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| vi.(for,against)煽动，鼓动；vt.搅动 | |
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83
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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84
manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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85
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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86
antithesis
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| n.对立；相对 | |
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87
subservient
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| adj.卑屈的，阿谀的 | |
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88
elucidation
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| n.说明，阐明 | |
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89
restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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90
annihilated
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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91
loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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92
transcends
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| 超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的第三人称单数 )； 优于或胜过… | |
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93
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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94
emanate
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| v.发自，来自，出自 | |
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95
deities
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| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
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