Chapter 35 The Birth of Tragedy Chapter Twenty-One

birth of tragedy Chapter 21 Let me turn from the tone of exhortation to the mood befitting a contemplative, and repeat: we know only from the ancient Greeks what a sudden and miraculous awakening from tragedy means for the inner life of a people.The Greeks who fought against Persia were a nation that believed in the mystery of tragedy; this nation that dared to fight needed the spirit of tragedy as an indispensable elixir.Who can imagine that this nation, after centuries of being deeply shaken by the spirit of Dionysus and stimulated to the depths of its soul, can equally violently express the simplest political enthusiasm, the most natural love for hometown, What about the most primitive warrior spirit?It is true that wherever Dionysian enthusiasm is clearly like wildfire, it can often be seen that after getting rid of the shackles of personality, this enthusiasm first manifests itself as gradually infringing on the political instinct, and becomes indifferent or even hostile to politics; On the other hand, it is obvious that Apollo, the god of nation-building, is also the god of personality principles. If individual character is not affirmed, it is impossible to have national and local concepts.For any people, there is only one path from occult indulgence to Buddhist abstinence.The teachings of Buddhism, in order to be able to see through form and space, requires a rare state of meditation that transcends space, time, and individuals; at the same time, these states require a philosophy that teaches people to use imagination to overcome the indescribable inexplicable intermediate state. depression.Due to the absolute dominance of political impulses, a nation is bound to fall into the path of extreme secularization, and the Roman Empire is the most obvious and most terrifying manifestation of this path.

Between the two lost paths of India and Rome, they had to make a choice. The Greeks were able to find their own way and invent a third way. Of course, it was not for their own hundred-year plan, but it was because of this that they became immortal; ——Although the beloved of God died early , all things are like this, but they also definitely because of this eternal life with God.All noble things should not be expected to have the durability and toughness of leather; for instance, the firmness and durability inherent in the Roman character may not, perhaps, be one of the indispensable attributes of a good character.However, if we want to ask: What is the panacea that made the Greeks, in their heyday, although the Dionysian and political impulses were very violent, they would not sit in meditation, or fight for world hegemony and world honor because of militarism? Exhausted; on the contrary, they alone can make this wonderful wine, like a precious mellow that can stir enthusiasm and soberness,-then we are forced to think of the great power of tragedy.It inspires, it cleanses, it excites the whole life of a people, and only when we witness it among the Greeks become a panacea for disease and disease, the most indomitable and resigned It is the mediator between the two nationalities that we can figure out the highest value of tragedy.

Tragedy imbibes the highest musical powers, so that it brings music directly to perfection, as it did with the Greeks, as it does with us; but together it provides the tragic myth and the tragic hero.The tragic hero, like the Tiedan warrior, lifts the whole world of drunkenness and relieves us of our burdens; at the same time, on the other hand, by means of this tragic myth, tragedy can, through the tragic hero, relieve us from strong earthly attachments, and With his own fingers, it reminds us that there is still a kind of existence on the other side and a kind of higher happiness; for this, the struggling tragic hero has long had a premonition, and is ready to accept it with death, not with victory.Tragedy, between the ordinary effects of music and the sensitive Dionysian audience, sets up a sublime symbol-myth, so that the audience has an illusion: as if music is only the highest means of describing the excitement of the mythical world.Relying on this noble illusion, music can make people dance and dance without scruples; without this illusion, music itself dare not be so indulgent.Therefore, on the one hand, mythology protects us from the confusion of music, and on the other hand, it gives music the greatest freedom.Music also confers, as a gift, on tragic myth a moving and plausible philosophical meaning; otherwise, language and images would not have been able to achieve this mood without the help of music; The path of destruction and negation leads to a supreme joy, so he whispers to him in his imagination the abyss of all things.

If, by means of the above propositions, I have explained this difficult notion, perhaps only in a preliminary way, and only a few people can understand it; Another example of common experience, readiness to recognize general propositions.I will never refer to this example to anyone who needs the help of the scene of the plot, the language and emotions of the actors, etc. to appreciate music, because they do not talk about music as they speak their own language, even with those help , but only reach the door of the musical experience, and cannot enter the room. Many people, such as Gervinus, have never even reached the door by this road.However, only those who are close to music day and night, who are in the arms of a mother in music, and who always think of music inadvertently when they come into contact with things, I will definitely tell them.I would like to ask these real musicians a question: Can you imagine a person who can listen to the third act of "Zuestan and Zither" without the help of lines and scenes, just like listening to a great symphony, Instead of being exhausted, like a weary bird spreading its wings and dying?As the saying goes, this man puts his ear to the heart of the will of the world, and feels the frantic demand for survival flow out of this heart, like a rapid roar, or like a small stream, pouring into all the veins of the world, will he not suddenly faint? ?How could he, in his frail, poor earthly body, bear the echo of the countless cheers and cries from "the vast desert of the cosmic night"?Once he heard this detached pastoral song, wouldn't he be happy to go back to heaven?However, if the audience can appreciate such a work in its entirety without negating individual existence; if such a creation can be painstakingly written by the writer without destroying himself, how can we explain this contradiction?

Here, between our highest musical excitement and this music, there is a barrier of tragic myth and tragic hero:—they are really symbols of the most universal facts that only music can directly state.But if we are to have purely Dionysian affections, this symbolic myth, even in our presence, neither hinders us nor attracts attention, nor can it deaf us for a moment to the uniB versalia anterem (the thing that precedes things). pervasiveness) echoes.On this occasion, however, the power of the Oneiroi is at once at work, in order to restore the weary individual, to administer the elixir of pleasing visions: suddenly we seem to see only Tristan, who does not move, does not move. With great enthusiasm, he said to himself: "It's just a replay of the old tune, what kind of feeling does it awaken me?" In the past, it moved us, like a deep sigh from the heart of existence, but now it seems to just tell us, "This sea of ​​suffering How lonely and empty!" In the past, we held our breath and listened, hoping to die in the emotional struggle, and there was only a link between life and death. Now what we hear and see is only the hero who was fatally injured and still alive shouted in despair: "Longing! Longing! Longing for the dying, and not dying for the longing!" Before, after suffering utterly desolate grief, a cornered cheer made our hearts utterly sorrowful, and now the happy Kuwinar (Kurvenal) separated us from the "Cheers", facing the lone sail on which Isolde sailed.Deep as we feel the sorrow of sympathy, this sympathy somehow saves us from the primordial misery of the world, just as the symbolic landscape of myth saves us from beholding the highest world-idea, just as thought and speech save us from the highest world-idea. Don't let the unconscious will flow freely.The magnificent dream illusion makes us feel: as if this musical realm has become a plastic realm, appearing before us, as if the fate of Zoustein and Qiser were only kneaded and molded out of the softest and most malleable clay. .

① "Zhou Si Dan and Yi Se" is a legend popular in Europe in the twelfth century.Chou Sidan, a warrior of Cornwell, fell in love with his aunt, Chise, and after a series of joys and sorrows, Chu Sidan had to leave Chise and wander in a foreign country. As a signal, but the traitor told him that the black sail was hanging, so Chou Sidan died of hatred.There are many versions of this legend, and Wagner made it into an opera.This article is about the opera. So the power of the Oneiroi, which wrests from us the universality of intoxication, makes us love the particular; it binds our sympathy to individuality; it satisfies our aesthetic desire for great and sublime images with individual things. ; it shows us a personal life and inspires us to meditate on the true meaning of life contained in it.Combining images, concepts, moral lessons, and sympathetic emotions, the power of Oneiroi can rescue people from the self-destruction of arcane indulgence, and lure them beyond the universality of the drunken process into illusion. , thinking they saw an isolated picture of the world, for example, Zeustan and Chisel; and through music they were able to see more clearly and more deeply.Is there anything the Oneiroi's healing magic can't do?It can even make us hallucinate, as if Dionysus really served the Oneiroi, and could enhance the effect of dreams; indeed, as if music is an expressive art that describes the content of dreams.

Due to the expected harmony between a successful opera and its music, opera has reached the highest level, a magnificent scene that cannot be expected by drama.Because the vivid lines drawn by each of the vivid images on the stage are reduced to a single curve so clearly before our eyes, the interlacing of these lines can be heard even in the harmony changes that do not match the dance steps at all.Through the change of harmony, we directly comprehend the relationship between things, which is heard and seen, not abstractly experienced; through it, we also realize that the essence of a character or a rhythmic line can only be most clearly expressed in these relationships.Since the music so powerfully compels us to see wider and deeper than before, and makes the drama unfold before our eyes like the most delicate piece of thinness: the realm of the stage expands infinitely, and appears before our reflexive, inward-seeing eyes, as if by As explained inside and out.Even if the poet who uses words strives to unfold and clarify the stage before him from within, how can he provide such an effect by indirect explanations such as lyrics and concepts?It is true that song music tragedy also uses words, but it uses music at the same time--the foundation and source of the lyrics--so it can give us an inside and outside clarification of the development of the lyrics.

However, we can also expressly state that the above-mentioned process is nothing but a magnificent illusion, the above-mentioned dream illusion.It is by its influence that we are saved from the emotional depression and overexcitement of intoxication.In fact, the relationship between music and opera is just the opposite after all: music is the real world idea, and opera is only the afterglow of this idea, its isolated shadow.The so-called consistency between the rhythmic lines and the characters, and the consistency between the musical harmony and the characters' personalities are exactly the opposite of what we imagine when we appreciate the tragedy of music and music.We can write characters very vividly, passionately, vividly, and explain them from the inside out, but the image is always just a phenomenon, and there is no bridge from the phenomenon to the real reality, to the soul of the world.However, music is the voice of the world, and although countless such phenomena may appear through this music, they can never exhaust the essence of music, but are often only its surface portrayal.With regard to the delicate relationship between music and opera, the completely wrong and vulgar view of opposing the soul and the body, of course, can't explain anything, but instead disturbs everything; but this non-philosophical superficial dualism seems to have become what we aestheticians like. The creed accepted,—God knows why—as for the opposition between appearance and thing-in-itself, they know nothing, or do not know why they are unwilling to discuss it.

From our analysis, it can be asserted that the dream element of tragedy, by virtue of its phantasms, has completely overcome the original element of music's ecstasy, and is thus able to use music for its purpose, that is, to make music most clearly To clarify drama; however, of course, a very important condition must be added: that is, at the most important juncture, this dream illusion will be shattered and disappear in smoke.Opera, with the help of music, is unfolded before our eyes, and all figures and movements are clearly illustrated from within, so that we seem to see the loom going up and down, weaving silk;—then opera achieves a complete effect , an effect other than all dream art effects.In the overall effect of the tragedy, the intoxication factor once again predominates.The tragic end has a tone that cannot be heard in the realm of dream art.Thus the dream-phantasm reveals its truth; in the tragedy it tries to conceal the real drunken effect, but the effect is so powerful that it pushes even the dream-drama to another level, and it begins to use the Dionysian Wisdom spoke, even denying itself and its dream visions.Therefore, the subtle relationship between the dream factor and the drunken factor in tragedy can actually be symbolized by the brotherly relationship between Oneiroi and Dionysus: Dionysus spoke the words of Oneiroi, but Oneiroi finally spoke the words of Dionysus, so The highest purpose of tragedy and art in general is achieved.