Chapter 17 six

The scholarship on Archilochus reveals that he introduced folk songs into literature, and for this deed he was universally revered by the Greeks, and entitled to the only place beside Homer.But what is the folk song as opposed to the epic of the Apollinian?Isn't it just the perpetuum vestigium (eternal trace) of Apollo and Dionysus combined?Its popularity with great force among all peoples, and its constant renewal and intensification, furnishes us with a proof of how strong the dualistic artistic impulse is in nature.These impulses leave their traces in folk songs, just as the mysteries of a people are immortalized in their music.History can indeed prove that the period of prolific folk songs was most strongly stimulated by the torrent of Dionysus, and we always regard the torrent of Dionysus as the deep foundation and prerequisite of folk songs.

For us, however, the folk song is first and foremost a musical mirror of the world, the original melody which now finds itself in a dream-like counterpart, expressing it as poetry.The melody is thus first and universal, and thus capable of bearing multiple objectifications in multiple lyrics.It is also, in the simple estimation of the people, far more important and necessary.The melody produces poetry out of itself, and continually regenerates poetry.The stanza-form of folk songs indicates nothing more than this.I was amazed by this phenomenon until I finally found the explanation.Whoever follows this theory into a collection of folk songs, such as "The Boy's Magic Horn," will find countless examples of how the continuously procreating melody sprays picturesque fireworks around itself, colorful, ever-changing, and stormy waves, showing a flat river. of epic unheard power.From the epic standpoint, this uneven, irregular world of images in lyric poetry is simply reprehensible, as the solemn epic-singers of the Apollonian festival in the age of Telpandros condemned it.

Thus, in folk songwriting, we see language imitating music with all its might and concentration.Thus, with Archilochus begins a new world of poetry, which is fundamentally opposed to that of Homer.In this way we illustrate the only possible relationship between poetry and music, between words and sounds: words, images, concepts seek a way of expression similar to music, and finally surrender to the power of music.In this sense, we can distinguish two main currents in the linguistic history of the Greek nation, the boundary between which language imitates the world of phenomena and images, or the world of music.

Just think deeply about the differences in language color, syntactic structure, and vocabulary between Homer and Pindar to grasp the meaning of this opposition, and you will clearly see that between Homer and Pindar, there must have been Olin The sound of the flute of the Mystery of Pythias, whose music was so developed up to the time of Aristotle, is still so intoxicating that it inspires with its original effect all the means of poetic expression of that time to imitate it.I can't help but think of a well-known phenomenon today that our aesthetics resents.We have found time and time again that some listeners are always looking for a diagram for a Beethoven symphony.The combination of various images produced by a piece of movement seems to be extremely colorful and even full of contradictions, but it is necessary to practice its poor wit on this combination, but ignores the phenomenon that is really worth clarifying. In a certain kind of aesthetics, This is a matter of course.Even if the musician uses images to illustrate a structure, for example, calling a certain symphony "Pastoral Symphony", a certain movement "Scenery by the River", and another movement "Happy with Farmers", it is still It is just a metaphorical concept born of music, and it does not refer to the object imitated by music.None of these ideas can in any way tell us about the Dionysian content of music, nor are they of special value compared with other images.Now, if we transfer this process of integrating music into images to a group of people who are full of vitality and full of language creativity, we can roughly understand how stanza-style folk songs are produced, and how all language abilities are developed by the new principle of imitating music. Got transferred.

And let us see lyric poetry as the gleam of music through the imitation of images and concepts, so that we can ask: "What does music represent in images and concepts?" I use the word in the sense in which it appears—that is, as opposed to the aesthetic emotion that manifests itself as pure contemplation, without will.Here, one may want to distinguish the concept of essence from the concept of appearance as strictly as possible, because music cannot be will according to its essence, otherwise it will be completely expelled from the field of art, and the will itself is non-aesthetic.Yet it appears as will.This is because, in order to express the musical phenomenon in the image, the lyric poet must mobilize all emotions, from tender words to deep hatred.Under the impulse to express music in Apollonian similes, he understands the whole of nature with himself only as the eternal willer, longing, and longing.But as long as he interprets music in images, he himself rests on the calm sea of ​​Apollonian contemplation, and all that he contemplates through the medium of music moves wildly around him.When he sees himself through the medium of music, his own image emerges in an unsatisfied emotional state, his own will, longing, groan, cheer become a metaphor by which he explains music to himself.Such is the phenomenon of the lyric poet; as the Apollonian genius, he interprets music with the image of the will, while he himself is completely free from the desire of the will, the spotless golden eye.

The whole discussion here insists on one point: the lyric remains dependent on the spirit of the music, just as the music itself has complete sovereignty, does not need images and concepts, but tolerates them only beside itself.Lyric poetry says nothing that music, in its highest generality and universal validity, does not say; music compels lyric poetry to diagram.Therefore, language can never fully express the world symbol of music. Because music is symbolically related to the original conflict and original pain in the heart of Taiyi, a state that transcends and precedes all phenomena is symbolized.On the contrary, every phenomenon is rather a metaphor for music; language, as the organ and symbol of phenomena, can never reveal the deepest content of music.When it tries to imitate music, it has only a superficial contact with music, and we still cannot get closer to the deepest content of music by any lyrical eloquence.