by his own efforts, and compels the gods to unite with him, because
in his self-sufficient wisdom he has their existence and their limits
in his hand. What is most wonderful, however, in this Promethean
form, which according to its fundamental conception is the specific
hymn of impiety, is the profound Æschylean yearning for _justice_:
the untold sorrow of the bold "single-handed being" on the one hand,
and the divine need, ay, the foreboding of a twilight of the gods, on
the other, the power of these two worlds of suffering constraining
to reconciliation, to metaphysical oneness--all this suggests most
forcibly the central and main position of the Æschylean view of
things, which sees Moira as eternal justice enthroned above gods and
men. In view of the astonishing boldness with which Æschylus places the
Olympian world on his scales of justice, it must be remembered that
the deep-minded Greek had an immovably firm substratum of metaphysical
thought in his mysteries, and that all his sceptical paroxysms could
be discharged upon the Olympians. With reference to these deities,
the Greek artist, in particular, had an obscure feeling as to mutual
dependency: and it is just in the Prometheus of Æschylus that this
feeling is symbolised. The Titanic artist found in himself the
daring belief that he could create men and at least destroy Olympian
deities: namely, by his superior wisdom, for which, to be sure, he had
to atone by eternal suffering. The splendid "can-ing" of the great
genius, bought too cheaply even at the price of eternal suffering,
the stern pride of the _artist_: this is the essence and soul of
Æschylean poetry, while Sophocles in his Œdipus preludingly strikes up
the victory-song of the _saint_. But even this interpretation which
Æschylus has given to the myth does not fathom its astounding depth of
terror; the fact is rather that the artist's delight in unfolding, the
cheerfulness of artistic creating bidding defiance to all calamity,
is but a shining stellar and nebular image reflected in a black sea
of sadness. The tale of Prometheus is an original possession of the
entire Aryan family of races, and documentary evidence of their
capacity for the profoundly tragic; indeed, it is not improbable that
this myth has the same characteristic significance for the Aryan
race that the myth of the fall of man has for the Semitic, and that
there is a relationship between the two myths like that of brother and
sister. The presupposition of the Promethean myth is the transcendent
value which a naïve humanity attach to _fire_ as the true palladium
of every ascending culture: that man, however, should dispose at will
of this fire, and should not receive it only as a gift from heaven,
as the igniting lightning or the warming solar flame, appeared to the
contemplative primordial men as crime and robbery of the divine nature.
And thus the first philosophical problem at once causes a painful,
irreconcilable antagonism between man and God, and puts as it were
a mass of rock at the gate of every culture. The best and highest
that men can acquire they obtain by a crime, and must now in their
turn take upon themselves its consequences, namely the whole flood of
sufferings and sorrows with which the offended celestials _must_ visit
the nobly aspiring race of man: a bitter reflection, which, by the
_dignity_ it confers on crime, contrasts strangely with the Semitic
myth of the fall of man, in which curiosity, beguilement, seducibility,
wantonness,--in short, a whole series of pre-eminently feminine
passions,--were regarded as the origin of evil. What distinguishes
the Aryan representation is the sublime view of _active sin_ as the
properly Promethean virtue, which suggests at the same time the ethical
basis of pessimistic tragedy as the _justification_ of human evil--of
human guilt as well as of the suffering incurred thereby. The misery in
the essence of things--which the contemplative Aryan is not disposed
to explain away--the antagonism in the heart of the world, manifests
itself to him as a medley of different worlds, for instance, a Divine
and a human world, each of which is in the right individually, but
as a separate existence alongside of another has to suffer for its
individuation. With the heroic effort made by the individual for
universality, in his attempt to pass beyond the bounds of individuation
and become the _one_ universal being, he experiences in himself the
primordial contradiction concealed in the essence of things, _i.e.,_
he trespasses and suffers. Accordingly crime[11] is understood by
the Aryans to be a man, sin[12] by the Semites a woman; as also, the
original crime is committed by man, the original sin by woman. Besides,
the witches' chorus says:
"Wir nehmen das nicht so genau:
Mit tausend Schritten macht's die Frau;
Doch wie sie auch sich eilen kann
Mit einem Sprunge macht's der Mann."[13]
He who understands this innermost core of the tale of
Prometheus--namely the necessity of crime imposed on the titanically
striving individual--will at once be conscious of the un-Apollonian
nature of this pessimistic representation: for Apollo seeks to pacify
individual beings precisely by drawing boundary lines between them,
and by again and again calling attention thereto, with his requirements
of self-knowledge and due proportion, as the holiest laws of the
universe. In order, however, to prevent the form from congealing to
Egyptian rigidity and coldness in consequence of this Apollonian
tendency, in order to prevent the extinction of the motion of the
entire lake in the effort to prescribe to the individual wave its path
and compass, the high tide of the Dionysian tendency destroyed from
time to time all the little circles in which the one-sided Apollonian
"will" sought to confine the Hellenic world. The suddenly swelling
tide of the Dionysian then takes the separate little wave-mountains of
individuals on its back, just as the brother of Prometheus, the Titan
Atlas, does with the earth. This Titanic impulse, to become as it were
the Atlas of all individuals, and to carry them on broad shoulders
higher and higher, farther and farther, is what the Promethean and the
Dionysian have in common. In this respect the Æschylean Prometheus is
a Dionysian mask, while, in the afore-mentioned profound yearning for
justice, Æschylus betrays to the intelligent observer his paternal
descent from Apollo, the god of individuation and of the boundaries
of justice. And so the double-being of the Æschylean Prometheus, his
conjoint Dionysian and Apollonian nature, might be thus expressed in
an abstract formula: "Whatever exists is alike just and unjust, and
equally justified in both."
Das ist deine Welt! Das heisst eine Welt![14]
[10]
"Here sit I, forming mankind
In my image,
A race resembling me,--
To sorrow and to weep,
To taste, to hold, to enjoy,
And not have need of thee,
As I!"
(Translation in Hæckel's _History of the Evolution of Man._)
[11] _Der_ Frevel.]
[12] _Die_ Sünde.
[13]
We do not measure with such care:
Woman in thousand steps is there,
But howsoe'er she hasten may.
Man in one leap has cleared the way.
_Faust,_ trans. of Bayard Taylor.--TR.
[14] This is thy world, and what a world!--_Faust._
10.
It is an indisputable tradition that Greek tragedy in its earliest
form had for its theme only the sufferings of Dionysus, and that for
some time the only stage-hero therein was simply Dionysus himself.
With the same confidence, however, we can maintain that not until
Euripides did Dionysus cease to be the tragic hero, and that in fact
all the celebrated figures of the Greek stage--Prometheus, Œdipus,
etc.--are but masks of this original hero, Dionysus. The presence of a
god behind all these masks is the one essential cause of the typical
"ideality," so oft exciting wonder, of these celebrated figures. Some
one, I know not whom, has maintained that all individuals are comic as
individuals and are consequently un-tragic: from whence it might be
inferred that the Greeks in general _could_ not endure individuals on
the tragic stage. And they really seem to have had these sentiments:
as, in general, it is to be observed that the Platonic discrimination
and valuation of the "idea" in contrast to the "eidolon," the image,
is deeply rooted in the Hellenic being. Availing ourselves of Plato's
terminology, however, we should have to speak of the tragic figures of
the Hellenic stage somewhat as follows. The one truly real Dionysus
appears in a multiplicity of forms, in the mask of a fighting hero
and entangled, as it were, in the net of an individual will. As the
visibly appearing god now talks and acts, he resembles an erring,
striving, suffering individual: and that, in general, he _appears_
with such epic precision and clearness, is due to the dream-reading
Apollo, who reads to the chorus its Dionysian state through this
symbolic appearance. In reality, however, this hero is the suffering
Dionysus of the mysteries, a god experiencing in himself the sufferings
of individuation, of whom wonderful myths tell that as a boy he was
dismembered by the Titans and has been worshipped in this state
as Zagreus:[15] whereby is intimated that this dismemberment, the
properly Dionysian _suffering,_ is like a transformation into air,
water, earth, and fire, that we must therefore regard the state of
individuation as the source and primal cause of all suffering, as
something objectionable in itself. From the smile of this Dionysus
sprang the Olympian gods, from his tears sprang man. In his existence
as a dismembered god, Dionysus has the dual nature of a cruel
barbarised demon, and a mild pacific ruler. But the hope of the epopts
looked for a new birth of Dionysus, which we have now to conceive of in
anticipation as the end of individuation: it was for this coming third
Dionysus that the stormy jubilation-hymns of the epopts resounded. And
it is only this hope that sheds a ray of joy upon the features of a
world torn asunder and shattered into individuals: as is symbolised in
the myth by Demeter sunk in eternal sadness, who _rejoices_ again only
when told that she may _once more_ give birth to Dionysus In the views
of things here given we already have all the elements of a profound and
pessimistic contemplation of the world, and along with these we have
the _mystery doctrine of tragedy_: the fundamental knowledge of the
oneness of all existing things, the consideration of individuation as
the primal cause of evil, and art as the joyous hope that the spell of
individuation may be broken, as the augury of a restored oneness.
It has already been intimated that the Homeric epos is the poem
of Olympian culture, wherewith this culture has sung its own song
of triumph over the terrors of the war of the Titans. Under the
predominating influence of tragic poetry, these Homeric myths are now
reproduced anew, and show by this metempsychosis that meantime the
Olympian culture also has been vanquished by a still deeper view of
things. The haughty Titan Prometheus has announced to his Olympian
tormentor that the extremest danger will one day menace his rule,
unless he ally with him betimes. In Æschylus we perceive the terrified
Zeus, apprehensive of his end, in alliance with the Titan. Thus, the
former age of the Titans is subsequently brought from Tartarus once
more to the light of day. The philosophy of wild and naked nature
beholds with the undissembled mien of truth the myths of the Homeric
world as they dance past: they turn pale, they tremble before the
lightning glance of this goddess--till the powerful fist[16] of
the Dionysian artist forces them into the service of the new deity.
Dionysian truth takes over the entire domain of myth as symbolism of
_its_ knowledge, which it makes known partly in the public cult of
tragedy and partly in the secret celebration of the dramatic mysteries,
always, however, in the old mythical garb. What was the power, which
freed Prometheus from his vultures and transformed the myth into a
vehicle of Dionysian wisdom? It is the Heracleian power of music:
which, having reached its highest manifestness in tragedy, can invest
myths with a new and most profound significance, which we have already
had occasion to characterise as the most powerful faculty of music. For
it is the fate of every myth to insinuate itself into the narrow limits
of some alleged historical reality, and to be treated by some later
generation as a solitary fact with historical claims: and the Greeks
were already fairly on the way to restamp the whole of their mythical
juvenile dream sagaciously and arbitrarily into a historico-pragmatical
_juvenile history._ For this is the manner in which religions are
wont to die out: when of course under the stern, intelligent eyes of
an orthodox dogmatism, the mythical presuppositions of a religion are
systematised as a completed sum of historical events, and when one
begins apprehensively to defend the credibility of the myth, while at
the same time opposing all continuation of their natural vitality and
luxuriance; when, accordingly, the feeling for myth dies out, and its
place is taken by the claim of religion to historical foundations.
This dying myth was now seized by the new-born genius of Dionysian
music, in whose hands it bloomed once more, with such colours as it
had never yet displayed, with a fragrance that awakened a longing
anticipation of a metaphysical world. After this final effulgence
it collapses, its leaves wither, and soon the scoffing Lucians of
antiquity catch at the discoloured and faded flowers which the winds
carry off in every direction. Through tragedy the myth attains its
profoundest significance, its most expressive form; it rises once more
like a wounded hero, and the whole surplus of vitality, together with
the philosophical calmness of the Dying, burns in its eyes with a last
powerful gleam.
What meantest thou, oh impious Euripides, in seeking once more to
enthral this dying one? It died under thy ruthless hands: and then
thou madest use of counterfeit, masked myth, which like the ape of
Heracles could only trick itself out in the old finery. And as myth
died in thy hands, so also died the genius of music; though thou
couldst covetously plunder all the gardens of music--thou didst only
realise a counterfeit, masked music. And because thou hast forsaken
Dionysus. Apollo hath also forsaken thee; rout up all the passions from
their haunts and conjure them into thy sphere, sharpen and polish a
sophistical dialectics for the speeches of thy heroes--thy very heroes
have only counterfeit, masked passions, and speak only counterfeit,
masked music.
[15] See article by Mr. Arthur Symons in _The Academy,_ 30th
August 1902.
[16] Die mächtige Faust.--Cf. _Faust,_ Chorus of
Spirits.--TR.
11.
Greek tragedy had a fate different from that of all her older sister
arts: she died by suicide, in consequence of an irreconcilable
conflict; accordingly she died tragically, while they all passed away
very calmly and beautifully in ripe old age. For if it be in accordance
with a happy state of things to depart this life without a struggle,
leaving behind a fair posterity, the closing period of these older
arts exhibits such a happy state of things: slowly they sink out of
sight, and before their dying eyes already stand their fairer progeny,
who impatiently lift up their heads with courageous mien. The death of
Greek tragedy, on the other hand, left an immense void, deeply felt
everywhere. Even as certain Greek sailors in the time of Tiberius once
heard upon a lonesome island the thrilling cry, "great Pan is dead": so
now as it were sorrowful wailing sounded through the Hellenic world:
"Tragedy is dead! Poetry itself has perished with her! Begone, begone,
ye stunted, emaciated epigones! Begone to Hades, that ye may for once
eat your fill of the crumbs of your former masters!"
But when after all a new Art blossomed forth which revered tragedy as
her ancestress and mistress, it was observed with horror that she did
indeed bear the features of her mother, but those very features the
latter had exhibited in her long death-struggle. It was _Euripides_ who
fought this death-struggle of tragedy; the later art is known as the
_New Attic Comedy._ In it the degenerate form of tragedy lived on as a
monument of the most painful and violent death of tragedy proper.
This connection between the two serves to explain the passionate
attachment to Euripides evinced by the poets of the New Comedy, and
hence we are no longer surprised at the wish of Philemon, who would
have got himself hanged at once, with the sole design of being able
to visit Euripides in the lower regions: if only he could be assured
generally that the deceased still had his wits. But if we desire, as
briefly as possible, and without professing to say aught exhaustive on
the subject, to characterise what Euripides has in common with Menander
and Philemon, and what appealed to them so strongly as worthy of
imitation: it will suffice to say that the _spectator_ was brought upon
the stage by Euripides. He who has perceived the material of which the
Promethean tragic writers prior to Euripides formed their heroes, and
how remote from their purpose it was to bring the true mask of reality
on the stage, will also know what to make of the wholly divergent
tendency of Euripides. Through him the commonplace individual forced
his way from the spectators' benches to the stage itself; the mirror in
which formerly only great and bold traits found expression now showed
the painful exactness that conscientiously reproduces even the abortive
lines of nature. Odysseus, the typical Hellene of the Old Art, sank,
in the hands of the new poets, to the figure of the Græculus, who, as
the good-naturedly cunning domestic slave, stands henceforth in the
centre of dramatic interest. What Euripides takes credit for in the
Aristophanean "Frogs," namely, that by his household remedies he freed
tragic art from its pompous corpulency, is apparent above all in his
tragic heroes. The spectator now virtually saw and heard his double on
the Euripidean stage, and rejoiced that he could talk so well. But this
joy was not all: one even learned of Euripides how to speak: he prides
himself upon this in his contest with Æschylus: how the people have
learned from him how to observe, debate, and draw conclusions according
to the rules of art and with the cleverest sophistications. In general
it may be said that through this revolution of the popular language he
made the New Comedy possible. For it was henceforth no longer a secret,
how--and with what saws--the commonplace could represent and express
itself on the stage. Civic mediocrity, on which Euripides built all
his political hopes, was now suffered to speak, while heretofore the
demigod in tragedy and the drunken satyr, or demiman, in comedy, had
determined the character of the language. And so the Aristophanean
Euripides prides himself on having portrayed the common, familiar,
everyday life and dealings of the people, concerning which all are
qualified to pass judgment. If now the entire populace philosophises,
manages land and goods with unheard-of circumspection, and conducts
law-suits, he takes all the credit to himself, and glories in the
splendid results of the wisdom with which he inoculated the rabble.
It was to a populace prepared and enlightened in this manner that the
New Comedy could now address itself, of which Euripides had become
as it were the chorus-master; only that in this case the chorus of
spectators had to be trained. As soon as this chorus was trained to
sing in the Euripidean key, there arose that chesslike variety of the
drama, the New Comedy, with its perpetual triumphs of cunning and
artfulness. But Euripides--the chorus-master--was praised incessantly:
indeed, people would have killed themselves in order to learn yet more
from him, had they not known that tragic poets were quite as dead as
tragedy. But with it the Hellene had surrendered the belief in his
immortality; not only the belief in an ideal past, but also the belief
in an ideal future. The saying taken from the well-known epitaph, "as
an old man, frivolous and capricious," applies also to aged Hellenism.
The passing moment, wit, levity, and caprice, are its highest deities;
the fifth class, that of the slaves, now attains to power, at least in
sentiment: and if we can still speak at all of "Greek cheerfulness,"
it is the cheerfulness of the slave who has nothing of consequence to
answer for, nothing great to strive for, and cannot value anything of
the past or future higher than the present. It was this semblance of
"Greek cheerfulness" which so revolted the deep-minded and formidable
natures of the first four centuries of Christianity: this womanish
flight from earnestness and terror, this cowardly contentedness with
easy pleasure, was not only contemptible to them, but seemed to be a
specifically anti-Christian sentiment. And we must ascribe it to its
influence that the conception of Greek antiquity, which lived on for
centuries, preserved with almost enduring persistency that peculiar
hectic colour of cheerfulness--as if there had never been a Sixth
Century with its birth of tragedy, its Mysteries, its Pythagoras and
Heraclitus, indeed as if the art-works of that great period did not at
all exist, which in fact--each by itself--can in no wise be explained
as having sprung from the soil of such a decrepit and slavish love
of existence and cheerfulness, and point to an altogether different
conception of things as their source.
The assertion made a moment ago, that Euripides introduced the
spectator on the stage to qualify him the better to pass judgment on
the drama, will make it appear as if the old tragic art was always
in a false relation to the spectator: and one would be tempted to
extol the radical tendency of Euripides to bring about an adequate
relation between art-work and public as an advance on Sophocles. But,
as things are, "public" is merely a word, and not at all a homogeneous
and constant quantity. Why should the artist be under obligations to
accommodate himself to a power whose strength is merely in numbers?
And if by virtue of his endowments and aspirations he feels himself
superior to every one of these spectators, how could he feel greater
respect for the collective expression of all these subordinate
capacities than for the relatively highest-endowed individual
spectator? In truth, if ever a Greek artist treated his public
throughout a long life with presumptuousness and self-sufficiency,
it was Euripides, who, even when the masses threw themselves at his
feet, with sublime defiance made an open assault on his own tendency,
the very tendency with which he had triumphed over the masses. If this
genius had had the slightest reverence for the pandemonium of the
public, he would have broken down long before the middle of his career
beneath the weighty blows of his own failures. These considerations
here make it obvious that our formula--namely, that Euripides brought
the spectator upon the stage, in order to make him truly competent to
pass judgment--was but a provisional one, and that we must seek for a
deeper understanding of his tendency. Conversely, it is undoubtedly
well known that Æschylus and Sophocles, during all their lives, indeed,
far beyond their lives, enjoyed the full favour of the people, and that
therefore in the case of these predecessors of Euripides the idea of
a false relation between art-work and public was altogether excluded.
What was it that thus forcibly diverted this highly gifted artist, so
incessantly impelled to production, from the path over which shone the
sun of the greatest names in poetry and the cloudless heaven of popular
favour? What strange consideration for the spectator led him to defy,
the spectator? How could he, owing to too much respect for the public
--dis-respect the public?