Chapter 21 ten

It is an indisputable tradition that Greek tragedy, in its oldest form, has only the suffering of Dionysus as its subject, and for a long time it was Dionysus who was the only protagonist on the stage.But it may be asserted with equal certainty that Dionysus was always the protagonist of tragedy before Euripides, whereas all the famous characters on the Greek stage, Prometheus, Oedipus, etc. mask.Beneath all these masks lies a god, and this is the main reason for the often astonishing, typically "ideal" nature of these famous characters.I do not know anyone who has said that all individuals as individuals are comic and therefore untragic.From this it can be deduced that the Greeks generally did not tolerate individuals being on the stage of tragedy.They do, in fact, make one feel how deeply Plato's distinction and evaluation of "ideas" and "idols," of copies, in general, was rooted in the very nature of the Greeks.To use Plato's terminology, however, we may speak of the shaping of the tragic image on the Greek stage as follows: a real Dionysian appears in many forms, masquerading as a fighting hero caught as if in a web of individual wills.Now, the god on the scene talks and acts like a human being who errs, struggles, and suffers.In general, he appears with epic clarity and clarity to the credit of the dream-interpreter Apollo, who explained to the chorus its Dionysian state by means of metaphorical phenomena.In reality, however, the hero is the afflicted Dionysus of the Mysteries, the god who personally experiences individualized suffering.A fantastic myth describes how he was dismembered as a child by the Titans, and how he was venerated as Chagreus in this case.It implies that this dismemberment, Dionysian suffering in the original sense, is transformed into air, water, earth, and fire.We must therefore regard the state of individuation as the root and cause of all suffering, as something to be despised.From the smile of the Dionysian came the gods of Olympus, from his tears man.In this existence, as a dismembered god, Dionysus has the dual nature of a cruel and savage demon and a gentle and benevolent monarch.But the hope of the mystics rested on the new birth of Dionysus, which we are now to understand with foreboding as the end of individuation, and the mystics sang with ecstasy to the third birth of Dionysus.Only by virtue of this hope did the face of the fragmented, individualized world glow with a gleam of happiness.She sank into perpetual sorrow, as the myth of Demeter symbolizes, and she rejoiced for the first time when she heard that she could once again give birth to Dionysus.In the above view we have all the elements of a deeply pessimistic worldview, and a tragic mysticism, namely: the recognition that all things are fundamentally one, that individuation is the original cause of disaster, that art is a welcome hope, The breaking of the charm of individuality gives rise to a premonition that unity will be re-established.

As pointed out earlier, Homer's epic is a poem of Olympian culture, which eulogizes the victory of Olympian culture over the threat of the Titan war.Now, under the overpowering influence of tragic poetry, the Homeric legend is reincarnated, and through this cycle shows that Olympian culture was also defeated by a deeper worldview.The tenacious Titan god Prometheus foretells to his tormentor the Olympian god that if the latter does not ally with him in time, the greatest danger will one day threaten his rule.We see in Aeschylus that Zeus, terrified and fearful of his own doom, finally allied himself with the Titan.Thus, the earlier age of the Titans rose again from the underworld of Tartarus and came to light again.The savage and bare philosophy of nature, with the undisguised face of truth, looks directly at the passing myths of the Homeric world.They paled and trembled at the lightning gaze of the goddess, until the iron fist of the Dionysian artist forced them to serve the new god.The Dionysian truth occupies the whole realm of mythology as a symbol of its knowledge, and is proclaimed partly in the public rites of tragedy, partly in the secret celebrations of dramatic mystic festivals, but always cloaked in ancient mythology. coat.What power saved Prometheus from the eagle's claws, and transformed this myth into the phoenix of Dionysian wisdom?is the power of Hercules of music.When it reaches its highest expression in tragedy, it can interpret myth with the deepest novelty; we have identified this as music's strongest ability.Because this is the fate of every kind of myth: it gradually falls into the narrow track of a so-called historical fact, and is treated by later generations as a fact that once existed in history.And the Greeks have gone all the way, labeling all their mythical youthful dreams wittily and capriciously as the youthful history of practical historiography.For religions are so often perishing: under the strict intellectual gaze of orthodox dogmatism, the mythical premises of a religion are systematized as the sum of historical events, and the prestige of myths is anxiously defended, while Against any natural continuation and prosperity of it; the mythical mood thus slowly withers away, to be replaced by the religious exactions of historical grounds.Now the new-born Dionysian genius of music seized upon this dying myth, and in his hands it took on a color never before seen, and exuded a fragrance that made one ardently long for a metaphysical world, and once again flourished.After this coming of light, it withers, its leaves wither, and cynical ancients like Lucian immediately after the windblown, faded and stained flowers.Through tragedy the myth attains its deepest content, its most expressive form; it struggles again, like a wounded hero, and all the remaining energy and wise stillness of the dying ignite in its eyes the last radiance .

O blasphemous Euripides, what is your intention when you wish to compel this dying man to once more gladly serve you?It died under your rough hands, and now you need a counterfeit myth that, like the monkey of Hercules, only smears itself with old leaden splendor.And, just as mythology is dead to you, musical genius is dead to you too.Even if you greedily plundered all the gardens of music, you could only produce a fake music.As you have deserted Dionysus, so Apollo has deserted you; hunt all passions from their lands and lock them in yours, and sharpen a sophistical dialectic for the lines of your heroes— —Your protagonists still have only the sham passion of imitation, speak only the sham language of imitation.