Chapter 3 The Birth of Tragedy Vol 3

tragic birth vol. dawn 1881 142 agree. ——The so-called understanding of others is to imitate other people's emotions in our hearts, but we often have to trace the cause of a certain emotion in him, such as asking: why is he sad? —so that from this cause we ourselves also become melancholy; but more often not so, but by the effects that arise and manifest in other people, the emotions are aroused in us, when we imitate in ourselves the look, the voice, the Ways of expressing gait, posture (or even their representation in words, pictures, music) (at least to the slightest resemblance of muscular and nervous activity).Then, as actions and sensations are trained from one to the other and from the other to this, there is a conventional association between them, and a similar emotion arises in us.We are so accomplished throughout life in this faculty of understanding the emotions of others that we are almost involuntarily exercising it whenever we meet people: observe especially how a woman's facial expressions are constantly imitating and reflecting what she The surrounding scenes that I feel sometimes vibrate and sometimes flash.Most telling, though, is music, and we are all masters at empathizing and empathizing with speed and delicacy.If music is imitation of imitation of emotion, it is often enough to make us share in that emotion, though remote and uncertain, so that we grieve for no reason, quite like fools, simply because we hear Temperament, which somehow reminds one of the voice and movements of the mourner, or even his habitual voices and movements.It is said that a Danish king, intoxicated with the passion of battle by the music of a singer, jumped up and slew five members of his court.At that time, there was no war, no enemy, or rather everything was the opposite, but the power to trace back to the cause from emotion was so powerful that it surpassed the immediate impression and reason.However, this is almost always the effect of the music (if it is at work), and it doesn't take such absurd examples to realize that the emotional state into which music puts us is almost always incompatible with our understanding of the actual situation at hand. Impressions contradict the intellect which understands the actual situation and its causes. —If we ask why we have become so adept at imitating the emotions of others, the answer is undoubtedly that man, the most cowardly of all creatures, by virtue of his delicate and frail nature, is so cowardly Teacher, teach him to empathize and quickly understand the emotions of others (and animals).Throughout the long millennia he saw a danger in all that was strange and living; and at such a glance he formed at once an impression, in terms of countenance and gesture, that behind it lay a murderous purpose. .There is an intention in every movement and line, and man applies this idea even to the nature of inanimate things--falls into the illusion that there are no inanimate things at all.I believe that all that we call natural emotion, in looking at the sky, the meadow, the rock, the forest, the storm, the morning, the sea, the landscape, the colors of spring, has its origin in this,—if not in ancient times, people Seeing all this in its hidden meaning, trained by fear, we would now have no pleasure in nature, any more than we would have had pleasure in man and animals were it not for fear, the teacher of understanding.So pleasure, surprise, and the comic are the late-born of empathy, the little sister of fear. —The faculty of rapid understanding—which is therefore based on the faculty of rapid disguise—is greatly weakened in proud and conceited peoples and nations, because they have less fear; Zhongzhen is like a fish in water, and it is also a breeding ground for the art of imitation and higher intellect. —When, starting from the theory of sympathy which I assert here, I consider the mystical process, which is now favored and sanctified, according to which, by means of a mystical process, sympathy unites two souls into one, One can directly understand another; and when I think that a lucid mind like Schopenhauer loves this silly, worthless thing, and that the taste spreads to other lucid or semi-lucid minds , I am overwhelmed with astonishment and pity.How we relish the incomprehensible absurdity!How close is all mankind to a madman when he obeys the secret desire of the understanding! ...

159 One who awakens the dead. ——Once they can empathize with a past time (especially when they are reluctant), they will value this time more highly, and they will even try to bring it back to life as much as possible.But the vain ones are always numerous, so that as long as they deal with entire epochs, the danger of historical research is actually no small thing: too much energy is wasted in doing everything possible to awaken the dead.Looking at the problem from this point of view, perhaps the whole Romantic movement can be best understood. 161 The United States has changed according to the times. ——If our sculptors, painters, and musicians want to grasp the consciousness of the times, they must make beauty bloated, huge, and neurotic; Apollo in Belvedere.We should have called it ugly!But childish "classics" deprive us of all honesty!

169 We are extremely unfamiliar with Greece. —Oriental or modern, Asian or European: compared with Greece, all of them are sublime expressions of greed for more and more; Amazed at what small qualities the Greeks were good at and loved to express something sublime. —In the same way, in Greece, how simple was man in his own ideas!How far we surpass them in human knowledge!But how labyrinthine are our minds, and our ideas of them, compared with them!If we would and dared to make a building after our mental form (for which we are too cowardly!)—then the labyrinth must be our model!Music that belongs to us and actually expresses us has revealed this! (People do whatever they want in music because they mistakenly believe that no one can see their truth through their music.)

170 Different tastes. —What has our nonsense to do with the Greeks!What do we know about their art, the soul of which is a love of male nude beauty!Starting from this, they feel the beauty of women.As a result, they have a very different vision of female beauty than we do.So it is with their love for women: they adore in another way, they despise in another way. 172 Tragedy and music. —Spirited men, like the Greeks of Aeschylus' time, are hard to impress, and as soon as sympathy overcomes their strength, they are struck by a dizzy spell, overwhelmed by "the power of the devil,"— They then feel unfree, stirred by a religious fear.Then they doubted this state; just being in it for a day, they tasted das Ausser-sich-sein and the joy of novelty, mixed with the bitterest pain: this is the proper drink of the warrior , a rare, dangerous, bittersweet thing that one cannot easily enjoy. —Tragedy appeals to a soul thus feeling sympathy, to a strong and combative soul, which is hard to subdue, either by fear or pity, but which sympathy softens day by day.But what does tragedy matter to those who obey the "sympathy craving" as well as sail!In Plato's day, when the Athenians were softer and more sensitive--ah, how far they were from the sentimentality of our townspeople, great and small! —Philosophers are already indicting the mischief of tragedy.In a perilous age just beginning, when bravery and manliness are valued higher, which may gradually harden the soul again, so that tragic poets are urgently needed, and tragic poets are for the time being somewhat superfluous,— I say it in the mildest terms. —Then, perhaps, better times (and certainly worse times) for music will come again, when artists will dedicate their music to people who are independent, hard-hearted, and governed by true passions of the utmost seriousness. .But what does music matter to the overactive, underdeveloped, crippled, curious and greedy little souls of today in a passing age!

175 The basic idea of ​​merchant culture. —It is now seen again and again that the culture of a society is being formed, and that commerce is the soul of this culture, just as individual contests were the soul of ancient Greek culture, and war, victory, and law were the soul of Roman culture.The merchant does not produce, but is good at pricing everything, and according to the needs of consumers, not according to his own real personal needs; "Who will consume this, and how much?" is his first question.He instinctively and constantly applies this pricing method: to everything, including the achievements of art and science, the achievements of thinkers, scholars, artists, politicians, nations, parties, and even entire eras.He asks only of supply and demand of everything he creates, in order to fix for himself the value of a thing.This has become characteristic of an entire culture, honed to the pervasive yet subtly subtle condition of all aspirations and capacities: you peoples of recent centuries would be proud of this, if the prophets of the commercial class had the right to entrust you with such Pen fortune words!However, I don't trust these prophets very much.In the words of Horace: Let the Jew Apella believe (CreB dat Zudaeus Apella).

①Abela, a credulous Jew in Horace's poem. 177 Learn to be silent. —Oh, you smooth-talkers of the political metropolises of the world, you young and eager fellows, you think it's a matter of expressing your opinion about anything--something happens-- Your duty!You set off such a commotion that you think you have become the locomotive of history!You are always asking questions, always looking for an opportunity to interrupt, and you have lost all real creative ability!No matter how much you long for great works, the deep silence of birth will never come to you!Everyday business drives you like chaff, and you think you're driving daily business—you smooth talkers! —If a man wants to play the leading role on the stage, he should not pay attention to the chorus, or even know how to sing it.

191 better people. —It has been said to me that our art appeals to the greedy, insatiable, capricious, resentful, tortured people of the present age, and presents to them a vision of bliss, sublime, other-worldly, beside their desolation: So that they can temporarily forget their worries and breathe a sigh of relief, and maybe they can recover the motivation to retreat from the world and return to their roots from this forgetting their worries.Such a public, poor artist!With such a half priest, half psychiatrist heart!Corneille was far luckier—"our great Corneille," as Madame Sevingne exclaimed in the voice of a woman before a real man; His own images of chivalrous virtues, austere duty, generous sacrifice, heroic self-control could please their eyes!How differently he and his audience love life, not out of a blind exhausted "will" that curses it because it cannot be exterminated, but as a place where greatness and humanity can coexist, where Even the strictest restrictions of custom, submission to absolute monarchy and religious despotism, do not suppress all personal pride, chivalry, grace, and wisdom, but are felt as a stimulus and impetus against natural Glory and nobility, privilege against inherited wishes and passions!

210 The so-called "itself". ——People used to ask: what is ridiculous? —as if there were things in the outside world with ridiculous features, and people just suddenly discovered them (one theologian even thinks this is "the naivety of evil").Now people ask: what is laughter?How does laughter happen?People think it over and come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as good, beautiful, sublime, or evil in itself, but there are states of mind in which we add the above-mentioned words to things within and without us.Again we take back the names of things, or at least remember that we have lent them names:—Let us note that, on this view, we have not lost our ability to lend, we have neither become richer nor changed. Be more stingy.

216 Villains and music. —Does this happiness, the complete happiness of love, which consists in absolute trust, belong to any other than the deeply suspicious wicked and sulky?An extraordinary, unbelievable, yet quite believable exception in which they enjoy their souls!One day, that vast dreamlike feeling came over them, setting off all the rest of their lives, dark or bright: like a seductive mystery and miracle, shining golden, beyond all words and images.Absolute trust is speechless; yes, there is even a pain and a heaviness in this relative speechlessness of bliss, so that such blissfully oppressed souls often appreciate music more than other men and good men: for through them Music seemed to be seen and heard through a rainbow, and their love seemed to become more distant, moving, and light; In pleasing to the eye.Every lover thinks like this when listening to music: "It's talking about me, it's talking for me, it knows everything!"

217 artist. —The Germans want the artist to achieve a passion of dreams; the Italians want it to give them a rest from their actual passions;Then, we are too low! 218 Dominate your weaknesses like an artist! ——If we inevitably have weaknesses, and we have to admit that they override us like laws, then I hope that everyone has at least enough skill to use his weaknesses to contrast his strengths, and use his weaknesses to name our longing for him. Pros: Great musicians are pretty good at this.In Beethoven there is often a harsh, imperious, hasty tone; in Mozart there is a kindness of a good boy, which the heart and intellect would disdain; Even the most patient man loses his good temper, but here he returns to his natural strength.All of them, by virtue of their weaknesses, make one yearn for their strengths, savoring with tenfold sensitivity every drop of vibrating spirituality, vibrating beauty, vibrating goodness.

240 On Theater Ethics. ——Whoever thinks that Shakespeare's plays have a moral function, and after reading "Macbeth" will irresistibly give up the evil of ambition, he is wrong.He would be still more mistaken if he believed that Shakespeare himself felt as he did.Those who are really governed by strong ambition will look upon this portrait with delight; and when the protagonist is ruined by his own passions, it is the most exciting addition to the soup of delight.Does the poet himself feel differently?From the moment he commits a heinous crime, with what a regal appearance does his ambitious man step onto his stage, without the appearance of a rascal!From then on, he acts "diabolically" and attracts similar natures to follow him--here, "diabolically" means: against interests and life, following thoughts and impulses.Do you think that Tristan und Isolde offers a lesson against adultery with its two protagonists ruined by adultery?This turns poets upside down: poets, especially poets like Shakespeare, cherish their passions as much as their readiness to die—their hearts are no more attached to life than a drop of water is attached to a glass .They do not take evil and its unhappy end to heart, as did Shakespeare, and so did Sophocles (in Ajax, Piroctetes, Oedipus): The latter could have easily used the evil as a lever in these plays, but he unequivocally avoids it.The tragic poet is equally unwilling to use his image of life against life!He would rather exclaim: "This is the greatest charm, this exhilarating, changing, dangerous, gloomy, and often sunny life! Life is an adventure,--from one standpoint to another , it will always remain of this nature!"—his cry from a time of unrest and strength, from a time intoxicated with blood and energy,—from a time more Evil ages; therefore we must make the intention of a Shakespeare play fit and just, that is, must misunderstand it. 433 See with fresh eyes. ——Assuming that the beauty in art is always the portrait of the happy person (I think this is the truth), it is based on the imagination of the happy person by an individual of an era, a nation, and a great autonomous law, then the modern artist's What does it mean to have a so-called realist view of modern happiness?Undoubtedly the realism type of beauty is the easiest for us to understand and appreciate today.Must we therefore believe that our happiness today consists in a realistic, as keenly sensitive sense and a faithful grasp of reality, and therefore not in truth but in the knowledge of truth?The role of science has been so wide and deep that the artists of this century have unconsciously become the praisers of the "sacredness" of science itself! 434 defend. ——Unpretentious landscapes exist for great painters, while strange and rare landscapes exist for small painters.That is to say, the great things of nature and man must justify the small, the mediocre, the vain among their admirers--and the great men justify the simple things. 468 The field of beauty is wider. —We wander through nature, alert and merry, to discover and, as it were, capture the beauty inherent in all things; Extreme, a coast dotted with cliffs, bays, olive trees and umbrella pines.In the same way, we should travel among men, to be their discoverers and scouts, to reveal their good and their evil, and thus to exhibit their inherent beauty, which in one man must be in the sun and in another Must be in the storm, in the third person must be in the dark night and rainy day.Is it forbidden to appreciate the villain as a primitive landscape with its rough lines and lighting effects?If the wicked pretend to be good and orderly, does it not appear to us as a sham and a caricature, as a spot in nature that troubles us? —Yes, this is forbidden, people have only known to find beauty in the morally good,—no wonder they get so little, and they are always looking for illusory beauty without a body! ——There must be a hundred kinds of happiness in the wicked, which the Taoists have never imagined, and there must be a hundred kinds of beauty, many of which have not yet been discovered. 485 look far. ——A: Why are you so lonely? — B: I'm not mad at anyone.However, I find it clearer and more beautiful to see my friends when I am alone than when I am with them, and when I love music most and am most moved by it, I live away from it.It seems that I need to look far in order to think about things better. 506 All good things must become dry. --how!Should a work be understood from the perspective of the era in which it was born?However, there is much more fun, more wonder, and much more to learn if it is not understood this way!Haven't you noticed that every good new work is of the least value as long as it is in the humid air of the time--because it is still so heavily stained with the market, hostility, public opinion, and everything between today and tomorrow. The breath of passing smoke?Later, it dries up, its "temporality" disappears - only then does it acquire its own inner radiance and warmth, yes, and only then does it have the eternal silent gaze. 513 Boundaries and beauty. —Are you looking for someone well-bred?Then you should be as content with your limited sight and field of vision as you are in your search for a fine view. —No doubt there are well-rounded people, who must be as instructive as all-round landscapes, astonishing but not beautiful. 540 Learn. ——Michelangelo saw skill in Raphael, and nature in himself: learning in Raphael, talent in himself.However, this is a mystical opinion, expressed with awe of great scholars.What is talent if it is not a fragment of learning, experience, practice, mastery, assimilation in the past—whether in our fathers' generation or earlier!Moreover, to learn is to make oneself gifted-but learning is not easy, and it cannot be based on good intentions alone; one must be good at learning.In artists, there is often a kind of suspicion or arrogance. Once encountering different factors, they will immediately show their sharpness and involuntarily turn from a learning state to a defensive state.Raphael, like Goethe, has no such suspicion or pride, so they are great learners, not just exploiters of ancestral mines.Raphael died a learner, appropriating what his great adversary called "nature": he removed some of it every day, noblest thief; He died before Chiro transferred to himself—his last works, as the beginning of a new program of study, imperfect but still excellent, precisely because the great learner was at his last He was disturbed by the God of death during the difficult homework, and took away the ultimate goal that he was looking forward to and could have achieved. 549 "Ego escape". —the kind of intellectual cramp, anxious and gloomy with himself, like Byron and Alfred Musset; The short-lived joy and enthusiasm that almost burst blood vessels, followed by the winter-like desolation and sadness, how can such a person bear himself!They desire to rise to a state "outside the self" (Ausser-sich); those who have this desire, if they are Christians, pray to rise to God and "be one with God"; if it is Shakespeare, If it is Byron, it craves action, because action can draw us away from ourselves more than thought, emotion, or work.So, the desire for action may be self-evasion at its core? —Pascal would ask us this.The same is true!The supreme example of the desire to act bears witness to this proposition.Consider it fairly with the knowledge and experience of a psychiatrist—the four most eager men of all ages to act were epileptics (i.e., Alexander, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon); Byron suffered likewise. ① Musset (1810-1857), French Romantic writer. 550 Knowledge and beauty. —If men, as they still do, leave their affection and happiness only to the work of imagination and fiction, it is not surprising that they should feel unimpressed when confronted with the opposite of imagination and fiction. Tasteless.The joy of knowing things steadily and efficiently, step by step, which has sprung up from the modern scientific method, is felt by many—a joy not yet believed by all of them, who are often only detached from reality. , I feel joy when I am immersed in the appearance.These people believe that reality is ugly.But they do not know that knowledge of even the ugliest reality is beautiful; nor do they know that to a well-informed man the revelation of the great whole of reality always makes him happy, and he does not at all feel that this whole is ugly.Is there something "beautiful in itself"?The happiness of the knower adds to the beauty of the world, and makes all existing things more radiant; knowledge does not merely add its own beauty to things, but constantly penetrates into them;--May future mankind be satisfied with this proposition provide evidence!Here we recall an ancient historical fact: Plato and Aristotle, two men so different in nature, agreed on what is the highest happiness, not for them or for mankind. Happiness, but the highest happiness itself, even for God and the Holy One; they found it to consist in knowledge, in the act of understanding skilfully engaged in discovery and invention (never in "intuition;" as in the German semi Theologians and holotheologists; not in illusion, like the mystics; nor in creation, like all practitioners).Descartes and Spinoza made similar conclusions: how they must have tasted knowledge!What dangers their sincerity must have faced--thereby becoming eulogists of things! 561 Let happiness shine. —The painter, unable to paint the deep and bright tones of the sky in reality, had to lower the tones he used in his scenes to a level lower than the natural tones; The harmony of those shades corresponding to the natural shades.Likewise, poets and philosophers, who cannot express the radiance of happiness, must know how to remedy it; they should make the colors of all things dimmer than they really are, so that the source of light they have at their disposal is almost like the sun, like the rays of bliss. —The pessimists, who endow things with the darkest and most gloomy colors, use fire and lightning, celestial lights, and everything that flashes and dazzles; One feels that things are more frightening than they are. 568 The Poet and the Phoenix. —Phoenix shows the poet a scroll of charred things.It said: "Don't be afraid! This is your work! It has neither the spirit of the age nor the anti-age spirit; therefore, it must be burned. But this is a good sign. It has some characteristics of the morning glow." (Translated by Zhou Guoping)