Chapter 36 twenty five

Music and tragic myth are equally expressions of the Dionysian power of a people, inseparable from each other.Both hail from an artistic realm beyond the Apollonian realm.Both beautify a world in whose joyful harmony dissonances and images of the world magically disappear.Both play with painful thrills, relying on their immensely powerful artistic magic.Both use the game to justify the existence of even the "worst world".Here, the Dionysian factor, compared with the Apollonian factor, appears as the eternal and original artistic power, which in the final analysis calls the entire phenomenal world into life.In human life, there must be a new glorified appearance in order to keep the living individual world attached to life.Let us imagine dissonance incarnated as a man—otherwise what is man? --Then, in order to survive, this dissonance needs an illusion of grandeur, which veils itself under a veil of beauty.This is the true artistic purpose of Apollo.The innumerable illusions of the façade of beauty which we collectively call by the Apollonian name, make life in general worth living at every moment, impel man to experience each moment.

Moreover, the basis of all existence, the Dionysian foundation of the world, and their intrusion into the individual consciousness of human beings, can just be overcome by the Apollonian beautification power.These two artistic impulses, therefore, must exercise their power in strict mutual proportion, following the laws of eternal justice.Where the Dionysian violence surged up as we experience it, there the Apollo must descend in clouds for us; Anyone who once felt, even in a dream, that he was returning to the ancient Greek way of life must be able to intuitively sympathize with the necessity of this effect.Walking under the grand colonnades of Ionia, looking up at the chiseled sky, his glorified image reflected in splendid marble statues, surrounded by men with dignified gait, harmonious voices and graceful gestures— —beauty so overflowing, how could he not lift up his hand and cry to the Apollo: "O blessed Greek nation! How great must be your Dionysus, if the god Delos thinks it necessary to use such magic to heal You Dionysian madness!" But to a man with such a heart, an old Athenian might look at him with the sublime eyes of Aeschylus, and reply: "Strange stranger! You must say : This nation must have suffered so much to become so beautiful! But now, follow me to see the tragedy, and sacrifice with me in the temple of the two gods!"