Chapter 14 three

In order to understand Apollonian culture, we seem to have to dismantle this ingenious edifice, brick by brick, until we see the foundations beneath it.The first thing that catches our eyes is the magnificent image of the Olympian gods. They towered on the gable of the building, and the glorious reliefs depicting their deeds adorned the waistline of the building.We should not be deluded if, among these reliefs, the Apollonian stood shoulder to shoulder with the statues of the gods and did not claim the first place.The same impulse embodied in Apollo ultimately gave birth to the whole world of Olympus, and in this sense we can regard Apollo as the father of Olympus.From what great need did such a glorious society of the Olympian gods arise?

Whoever goes to the inhabitants of Olympus with another religion in mind, and expects to find moral nobility, holiness, incorporeal etherealness, and compassionate eyes in them, he must be disappointed and turn his head away immediately.There is nothing here that reminds one of asceticism, self-cultivation, and duty; there speaks to us only of a full, even triumphant, existence in which all that exists, good or bad, is enshrined as a god, so that the contemplative may Facing this lively scene in amazement, I asked myself what kind of panacea these bold and unrestrained people took to enjoy life so much, so that wherever the eyes went, Helen, the ideal image "floating on the sweet sensuality" inherent in them, could not be seen. smiling at them.However, we would shout to the withdrawn spectator: "Don't go, listen first to what Greek folk wisdom has to say about this life that unfolds itself to you with unspeakable joy." Myth: King Midas searched for a long time in the woods for the companion of Dionysus, the wise Silenus, but did not find it.When at last he fell into the king's hands, the king asked: What is the best and most wonderful thing for a man?The elf stood dumbly, not saying a word.Until at last, under the pressure of the king, he burst into a piercing laugh, and said, "Poor floating life, son of impermanence and misery, why do you force me to say what you would rather not hear? The best thing is You can't get it at all, which is not to be born, not to exist, to become nothing. But there is a second best thing for you-to die immediately."

What does the world of the gods of Olympus do with this folk wisdom?Like a dying martyr, he faces his suffering with ecstatic hallucinations. Now the Mountain of Olympus seems to have opened up to us, showing us its roots.The Greeks knew and felt the terror and dread of existence, and in order to be able to live they had to arrange before it the birth of the glorious dream of the gods of Olympus.The great suspicion and fear of the natural violence of the Titans, the fate of cruelty above all knowledge, tormented the vulture of Prometheus, the great friend of mankind, and the terrible fate of wise Oedipus, which drove Orestes to kill The historical catastrophes of the family of Atreus, the mother, and in short, the whole philosophy of the Lin-gods and their mystical instances of luring the melancholy Etruscans to their ruin—all this was expressed by the Greeks in the middle world of Olympian art. Constantly re-overcome it, at least cover it up, remove it from sight.In order to be able to live, the Greeks had to create these gods out of deep necessity.We may perhaps conceive of this process in this way: from the original order of terror of the Titans, through the impulse of Apollinian beauty, to the order of joy of the Olympian gods, as the rose flower from It grows and blooms on thorny bushes.So sensitive a people, so fervent in their desires, so peculiarly prone to pain, how could they endure life if it were not illuminated by a higher light, revealed to them in their gods?The same impulse that summons art into life, as compensation for the temptation to live on and as the fulfillment of existence, also contributed to the birth of the Olympian world in which the "will" of the Greeks had a deified aspect. The mirror reflects itself.The gods thus justify the life of man in such a way that they themselves come to live the same life—only this is sufficient Theodicee!In the bright sunshine of these gods, man feels that existence is worth striving for, and that the real grief of the Homeric character is separation from existence, especially premature separation.With regard to these characters, therefore, one can now assert, against the wisdom of Silenus: "For them the worst is immediate death, and the second worst is death sooner or later." Lucy, aiming at the leaf-like changes of human generations, and the decline of the heroic age, has been reissued again and again.The desire to live, even as a slave, is not out of reach of the greatest heroes.In the Apollonian stage, the "will" demands this existence so earnestly, and the Homeric character feels himself so inseparable from existence, that the lament itself becomes the hymn to existence.

Here it must be pointed out that the harmonious unity of man and nature, which Schiller uses the term "naive" for which later man so ardently desired, was never such a simple, spontaneous, and seemingly inevitable state, As if we were bound to encounter this paradise on earth at the entrance of every culture.This state of affairs can only be believed in an age which tried to imagine Rousseau's Emile as an artist, and which dreamed of finding in Homer an artist Emile educated in the bosom of nature.As long as we encounter "naiveness" in art, we should know that it is the highest effect of Apollonian culture, which must first overthrow a Titan kingdom, slay trolls, and then overcome by powerful illusions and happy fancies. The terrible abyss of world contemplation and the fragile nature of sentimentality.However, how precious it is to achieve this simple state of being completely immersed in the beauty of appearance!Homer's sublime is ineffable. As an individual, he appeals to the national culture of Apollo, just like a dream artist's ability to appeal to the dream of the nation and the natural world.Homer's "naiveness" can only be understood as the complete triumph of the Apollonian fantasy, a fantasy which nature so often employs for her own ends.The real purpose is overshadowed by illusion, and we reach out for the latter, while nature, by our deception, realizes the former.In the Greeks, the "will" had to intuit itself through the apotheosis of the creative and artistic world.In order to glorify itself, its creatures must first feel themselves worthy of glorification.Therefore, they have to look at themselves again in a higher state, and this perfect world of meditation does not function as an order or a reprimand.This is the realm of beauty in which they see their reflection in the mirror—the gods of Olympus.The Greek "will" used this reflection of beauty against the artistic genius associated with pain and the wisdom of pain, and as a monument to its victory stands before us the naive artist Homer.