The most sorrowful figure of the Greek stage, the hapless ?dipus, was understood by Sophocles as the noble man, who in spite of his wisdom was destined8 to error and misery9, but nevertheless through his extraordinary sufferings ultimately exerted a magical, wholesome10 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 overthrown11. 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 unravels12, link by link, to his own destruction.[Pg 74] The truly Hellenic delight at this dialectical loosening is so great, that a touch of surpassing cheerfulness is thereby13 communicated to the entire play, which everywhere blunts the edge of the horrible presuppositions of the procedure. In the "?dipus at Colonus" we find the same cheerfulness, elevated, however, to an infinite transfiguration: in contrast to the aged1 king, subjected to an excess of misery, and exposed solely14 as a sufferer to all that befalls him, we have here a supermundane cheerfulness, which descends15 from a divine sphere and intimates to us that in his purely16 passive attitude the hero attains17 his highest activity, the influence of which extends far beyond his life, while his earlier conscious musing18 and striving led him only to passivity. Thus, then, the legal knot of the fable19 of ?dipus, which to mortal eyes appears indissolubly entangled20, 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 exhausted21; 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. ?dipus, the murderer of his father, the husband of his mother, ?dipus, the interpreter of the riddle22 of the Sphinx! What does the mysterious triad of these deeds of destiny tell us? There is a primitive23 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[Pg 75] and mother-marrying ?dipus, to the effect that when the boundary of the present and future, the rigid24 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 victoriously25 opposing her, i.e., by means of the Unnatural26? It is this intuition which I see imprinted27 in the awful triad of the destiny of ?dipus: 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, plunges28 nature into an abyss of annihilation, must also experience the dissolution of nature in himself. "The sharpness of wisdom turns round upon the sage29: 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 sublime30 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 illuminates31 the Prometheus of ?schylus. That which ?schylus the thinker had to tell us here, but which as a poet he only allows us to surmise32 by his symbolic33 picture, the youthful Goethe succeeded[Pg 76] 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 hymn34 of impiety35, is the profound ?schylean yearning36 for justice: the untold37 sorrow of the bold "single-handed being" on the one hand, and the divine need, ay, the foreboding of a twilight38 of the gods, on the other, the power of these two worlds of suffering constraining39 to reconciliation40, to metaphysical oneness—all this suggests most forcibly the central and main position of the ?schylean[Pg 77] view of things, which sees Moira as eternal justice enthroned above gods and men. In view of the astonishing boldness with which ?schylus 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 deities41, the Greek artist, in particular, had an obscure feeling as to mutual42 dependency: and it is just in the Prometheus of ?schylus that this feeling is symbolised. The Titanic43 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 atone44 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 ?schylean poetry, while Sophocles in his ?dipus preludingly strikes up the victory-song of the saint. But even this interpretation45 which ?schylus has given to the myth does not fathom46 its astounding47 depth of terror; the fact is rather that the artist's delight in unfolding, the cheerfulness of artistic48 creating bidding defiance49 to all calamity50, 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 tragic51; indeed, it is not improbable that this myth has the same characteristic significance[Pg 78] 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 na?ve humanity attach to fire as the true palladium of every ascending52 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 primordial53 men as crime and robbery of the divine nature. And thus the first philosophical54 problem at once causes a painful, irreconcilable55 antagonism56 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 celestials57 must visit the nobly aspiring58 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, beguilement59, 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 virtue60, which suggests at the same time the ethical61 basis of pessimistic tragedy as the justification62 of human evil—of human guilt63 as well as of the suffering incurred64 thereby. The misery in the essence of things—which[Pg 79] the contemplative Aryan is not disposed to explain away—the antagonism in the heart of the world, manifests itself to him as a medley65 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 concealed66 in the essence of things, i.e., he trespasses67 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 titanically68 striving individual—will at once be conscious of the un-Apollonian nature of this pessimistic representation: for Apollo seeks to pacify69 individual beings precisely70 by drawing[Pg 80] 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 congealing71 to Egyptian rigidity72 and coldness in consequence of this Apollonian tendency, in order to prevent the extinction73 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 swelling74 tide of the Dionysian then takes the separate little wave-mountains of individuals on its back, just as the brother of Prometheus, the Titan Atlas75, 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 ?schylean Prometheus is a Dionysian mask, while, in the afore-mentioned profound yearning for justice, ?schylus betrays to the intelligent observer his paternal76 descent from Apollo, the god of individuation and of the boundaries of justice. And so the double-being of the ?schylean Prometheus, his conjoint Dionysian and Apollonian nature, might be thus expressed in an abstract formula: "Whatever exists is alike just and unjust, and equally justified77 in both."
Das ist deine Welt! Das heisst eine Welt!
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1
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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overthrown
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| adj. 打翻的，推倒的，倾覆的 动词overthrow的过去分词 | |
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unravels
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| 解开，拆散，散开( unravel的第三人称单数 )； 阐明； 澄清； 弄清楚 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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descends
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| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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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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18
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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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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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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victoriously
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| adv.获胜地，胜利地 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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imprinted
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| v.盖印（imprint的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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28
plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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29
sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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30
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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31
illuminates
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| v.使明亮( illuminate的第三人称单数 )；照亮；装饰；说明 | |
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32
surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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33
symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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34
hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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impiety
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| n.不敬；不孝 | |
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36
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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37
untold
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| adj.数不清的，无数的 | |
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38
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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39
constraining
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| 强迫( constrain的现在分词 )； 强使； 限制； 约束 | |
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40
reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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41
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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42
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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43
titanic
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| adj.巨人的，庞大的，强大的 | |
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atone
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| v.赎罪，补偿 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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46
fathom
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| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
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47
astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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48
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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49
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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50
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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51
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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52
ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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53
primordial
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| adj.原始的；最初的 | |
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54
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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55
irreconcilable
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| adj.（指人）难和解的，势不两立的 | |
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56
antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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57
celestials
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| n.天的，天空的( celestial的名词复数 ) | |
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aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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beguilement
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| n.欺骗，散心，欺瞒 | |
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60
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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64
incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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medley
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| n.混合 | |
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66
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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67
trespasses
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| 罪过( trespass的名词复数 )； 非法进入 | |
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68
titanically
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| 美国特别 | |
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69
pacify
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| vt.使(某人)平静(或息怒)；抚慰 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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71
congealing
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| v.使凝结，冻结( congeal的现在分词 )；（指血）凝结 | |
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rigidity
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| adj.钢性，坚硬 | |
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73
extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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74
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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atlas
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| n.地图册，图表集 | |
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paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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