himself, as a poet, undoubtedly superior to the masses, but not to
two of his spectators: he brought the masses upon the stage; these
two spectators he revered as the only competent judges and masters
of his art: in compliance with their directions and admonitions, he
transferred the entire world of sentiments, passions, and experiences,
hitherto present at every festival representation as the invisible
chorus on the spectators' benches, into the souls of his stage-heroes;
he yielded to their demands when he also sought for these new
characters the new word and the new tone; in their voices alone he
heard the conclusive verdict on his work, as also the cheering promise
of triumph when he found himself condemned as usual by the justice of
the public.
Of these two, spectators the one is--Euripides himself, Euripides _as
thinker,_ not as poet. It might be said of him, that his unusually
large fund of critical ability, as in the case of Lessing, if it did
not create, at least constantly fructified a productively artistic
collateral impulse. With this faculty, with all the clearness and
dexterity of his critical thought, Euripides had sat in the theatre and
striven to recognise in the masterpieces of his great predecessors, as
in faded paintings, feature and feature, line and line. And here had
happened to him what one initiated in the deeper arcana of Æschylean
tragedy must needs have expected: he observed something incommensurable
in every feature and in every line, a certain deceptive distinctness
and at the same time an enigmatic profundity, yea an infinitude, of
background. Even the clearest figure had always a comet's tail attached
to it, which seemed to suggest the uncertain and the inexplicable.
The same twilight shrouded the structure of the drama, especially the
significance of the chorus. And how doubtful seemed the solution of
the ethical problems to his mind! How questionable the treatment of
the myths! How unequal the distribution of happiness and misfortune!
Even in the language of the Old Tragedy there was much that was
objectionable to him, or at least enigmatical; he found especially
too much pomp for simple affairs, too many tropes and immense things
for the plainness of the characters. Thus he sat restlessly pondering
in the theatre, and as a spectator he acknowledged to himself that he
did not understand his great predecessors. If, however, he thought the
understanding the root proper of all enjoyment and productivity, he had
to inquire and look about to see whether any one else thought as he
did, and also acknowledged this incommensurability. But most people,
and among them the best individuals, had only a distrustful smile for
him, while none could explain why the great masters were still in the
right in face of his scruples and objections. And in this painful
condition he found _that other spectator,_ who did not comprehend,
and therefore did not esteem, tragedy. In alliance with him he could
venture, from amid his lonesomeness, to begin the prodigious struggle
against the art of Æschylus and Sophocles--not with polemic writings,
but as a dramatic poet, who opposed _his own_ conception of tragedy to
the traditional one.
12.
Before we name this other spectator, let us pause here a moment in
order to recall our own impression, as previously described, of the
discordant and incommensurable elements in the nature of Æschylean
tragedy. Let us think of our own astonishment at the _chorus_ and
the _tragic hero_ of that type of tragedy, neither of which we could
reconcile with our practices any more than with tradition--till we
rediscovered this duplexity itself as the origin and essence of Greek
tragedy, as the expression of two interwoven artistic impulses, _the
Apollonian and the Dionysian_.
To separate this primitive and all-powerful Dionysian element from
tragedy, and to build up a new and purified form of tragedy on the
basis of a non-Dionysian art, morality, and conception of things--such
is the tendency of Euripides which now reveals itself to us in a clear
light.
In a myth composed in the eve of his life, Euripides himself most
urgently propounded to his contemporaries the question as to the
value and signification of this tendency. Is the Dionysian entitled
to exist at all? Should it not be forcibly rooted out of the Hellenic
soil? Certainly, the poet tells us, if only it were possible: but the
god Dionysus is too powerful; his most intelligent adversary--like
Pentheus in the "Bacchæ"--is unwittingly enchanted by him, and
in this enchantment meets his fate. The judgment of the two old
sages, Cadmus and Tiresias, seems to be also the judgment of the
aged poet: that the reflection of the wisest individuals does not
overthrow old popular traditions, nor the perpetually propagating
worship of Dionysus, that in fact it behoves us to display at least a
diplomatically cautious concern in the presence of such strange forces:
where however it is always possible that the god may take offence
at such lukewarm participation, and finally change the diplomat--in
this case Cadmus--into a dragon. This is what a poet tells us, who
opposed Dionysus with heroic valour throughout a long life--in order
finally to wind up his career with a glorification of his adversary,
and with suicide, like one staggering from giddiness, who, in order
to escape the horrible vertigo he can no longer endure, casts himself
from a tower. This tragedy--the Bacchæ--is a protest against the
practicability of his own tendency; alas, and it has already been
put into practice! The surprising thing had happened: when the poet
recanted, his tendency had already conquered. Dionysus had already
been scared from the tragic stage, and in fact by a demonic power
which spoke through Euripides. Even Euripides was, in a certain sense,
only a mask: the deity that spoke through him was neither Dionysus nor
Apollo, but an altogether new-born demon, called _Socrates._ This is
the new antithesis: the Dionysian and the Socratic, and the art-work of
Greek tragedy was wrecked on it. What if even Euripides now seeks to
comfort us by his recantation? It is of no avail: the most magnificent
temple lies in ruins. What avails the lamentation of the destroyer,
and his confession that it was the most beautiful of all temples? And
even that Euripides has been changed into a dragon as a punishment by
the art-critics of all ages--who could be content with this wretched
compensation?
Let us now approach this _Socratic_ tendency with which Euripides
combated and vanquished Æschylean tragedy.
We must now ask ourselves, what could be the ulterior aim of the
Euripidean design, which, in the highest ideality of its execution,
would found drama exclusively on the non-Dionysian? What other form of
drama could there be, if it was not to be born of the womb of music, in
the mysterious twilight of the Dionysian? Only _the dramatised epos:_
in which Apollonian domain of art the _tragic_ effect is of course
unattainable. It does not depend on the subject-matter of the events
here represented; indeed, I venture to assert that it would have been
impossible for Goethe in his projected "Nausikaa" to have rendered
tragically effective the suicide of the idyllic being with which he
intended to complete the fifth act; so extraordinary is the power of
the epic-Apollonian representation, that it charms, before our eyes,
the most terrible things by the joy in appearance and in redemption
through appearance. The poet of the dramatised epos cannot completely
blend with his pictures any more than the epic rhapsodist. He is still
just the calm, unmoved embodiment of Contemplation whose wide eyes see
the picture _before_ them. The actor in this dramatised epos still
remains intrinsically rhapsodist: the consecration of inner dreaming
is on all his actions, so that he is never wholly an actor.
How, then, is the Euripidean play related to this ideal of the
Apollonian drama? Just as the younger rhapsodist is related to the
solemn rhapsodist of the old time. The former describes his own
character in the Platonic "Ion" as follows: "When I am saying anything
sad, my eyes fill with tears; when, however, what I am saying is awful
and terrible, then my hair stands on end through fear, and my heart
leaps." Here we no longer observe anything of the epic absorption
in appearance, or of the unemotional coolness of the true actor,
who precisely in his highest activity is wholly appearance and joy
in appearance. Euripides is the actor with leaping heart, with hair
standing on end; as Socratic thinker he designs the plan, as passionate
actor he executes it. Neither in the designing nor in the execution is
he an artist pure and simple. And so the Euripidean drama is a thing
both cool and fiery, equally capable of freezing and burning; it is
impossible for it to attain the Apollonian, effect of the epos, while,
on the other hand, it has severed itself as much as possible from
Dionysian elements, and now, in order to act at all, it requires new
stimulants, which can no longer lie within the sphere of the two unique
art-impulses, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The stimulants are
cool, paradoxical _thoughts_, in place of Apollonian intuitions--and
fiery _passions_--in place Dionysean ecstasies; and in fact, thoughts
and passions very realistically copied, and not at all steeped in the
ether of art.
Accordingly, if we have perceived this much, that Euripides did not
succeed in establishing the drama exclusively on the Apollonian, but
that rather his non-Dionysian inclinations deviated into a naturalistic
and inartistic tendency, we shall now be able to approach nearer to
the character _æsthetic Socratism._ supreme law of which reads about
as follows: "to be beautiful everything must be intelligible," as
the parallel to the Socratic proposition, "only the knowing is one
virtuous." With this canon in his hands Euripides measured all the
separate elements of the drama, and rectified them according to his
principle: the language, the characters, the dramaturgic structure, and
the choric music. The poetic deficiency and retrogression, which we
are so often wont to impute to Euripides in comparison with Sophoclean
tragedy, is for the most part the product of this penetrating critical
process, this daring intelligibility. The Euripidian _prologue_ may
serve us as an example of the productivity of this, rationalistic
method. Nothing could be more opposed to the technique of our stage
than the prologue in the drama of Euripides. For a single person to
appear at the outset of the play telling us who he is, what precedes
the action, what has happened thus far, yea, what will happen in
the course of the play, would be designated by a modern playwright
as a wanton and unpardonable abandonment of the effect of suspense.
Everything that is about to happen is known beforehand; who then
cares to wait for it actually to happen?--considering, moreover, that
here there is not by any means the exciting relation of a predicting
dream to a reality taking place later on. Euripides speculated quite
differently. The effect of tragedy never depended on epic suspense, on
the fascinating uncertainty as to what is to happen now and afterwards:
but rather on the great rhetoro-lyric scenes in which the passion and
dialectics of the chief hero swelled to a broad and mighty stream.
Everything was arranged for pathos, not for action: and whatever
was not arranged for pathos was regarded as objectionable. But what
interferes most with the hearer's pleasurable satisfaction in such
scenes is a missing link, a gap in the texture of the previous history.
So long as the spectator has to divine the meaning of this or that
person, or the presuppositions of this or that conflict of inclinations
and intentions, his complete absorption in the doings and sufferings
of the chief persons is impossible, as is likewise breathless
fellow-feeling and fellow-fearing. The Æschyleo-Sophoclean tragedy
employed the most ingenious devices in the first scenes to place in
the hands of the spectator as if by chance all the threads requisite
for understanding the whole: a trait in which that noble artistry is
approved, which as it were masks the _inevitably_ formal, and causes
it to appear as something accidental. But nevertheless Euripides
thought he observed that during these first scenes the spectator was
in a strange state of anxiety to make out the problem of the previous
history, so that the poetic beauties and pathos of the exposition
were lost to him. Accordingly he placed the prologue even before the
exposition, and put it in the mouth of a person who could be trusted:
some deity had often as it were to guarantee the particulars of the
tragedy to the public and remove every doubt as to the reality of the
myth: as in the case of Descartes, who could only prove the reality
of the empiric world by an appeal to the truthfulness of God and His
inability to utter falsehood. Euripides makes use of the same divine
truthfulness once more at the close of his drama, in order to ensure to
the public the future of his heroes; this is the task of the notorious
_deus ex machina._ Between the preliminary and the additional epic
spectacle there is the dramatico-lyric present, the "drama" proper.
Thus Euripides as a poet echoes above all his own conscious
knowledge; and it is precisely on this account that he occupies such
a notable position in the history of Greek art. With reference to his
critico-productive activity, he must often have felt that he ought
to actualise in the drama the words at the beginning of the essay of
Anaxagoras: "In the beginning all things were mixed together; then
came the understanding and created order." And if Anaxagoras with his
"νοῡς" seemed like the first sober person among nothing but drunken
philosophers, Euripides may also have conceived his relation to
the other tragic poets under a similar figure. As long as the sole
ruler and disposer of the universe, the νοῡς, was still excluded
from artistic activity, things were all mixed together in a chaotic,
primitive mess;--it is thus Euripides was obliged to think, it is thus
he was obliged to condemn the "drunken" poets as the first "sober" one
among them. What Sophocles said of Æschylus, that he did what was
right, though unconsciously, was surely not in the mind of Euripides:
who would have admitted only thus much, that Æschylus, _because_ he
wrought unconsciously, did what was wrong. So also the divine Plato
speaks for the most part only ironically of the creative faculty of the
poet, in so far as it is not conscious insight, and places it on a par
with the gift of the soothsayer and dream-interpreter; insinuating that
the poet is incapable of composing until he has become unconscious and
reason has deserted him. Like Plato, Euripides undertook to show to the
world the reverse of the "unintelligent" poet; his æsthetic principle
that "to be beautiful everything must be known" is, as I have said,
the parallel to the Socratic "to be good everything must be known."
Accordingly we may regard Euripides as the poet of æsthetic Socratism.
Socrates, however, was that _second spectator_ who did not comprehend
and therefore did not esteem the Old Tragedy; in alliance with him
Euripides ventured to be the herald of a new artistic activity. If,
then, the Old Tragedy was here destroyed, it follows that æsthetic
Socratism was the murderous principle; but in so far as the struggle is
directed against the Dionysian element in the old art, we recognise in
Socrates the opponent of Dionysus, the new Orpheus who rebels against
Dionysus; and although destined to be torn to pieces by the Mænads of
the Athenian court, yet puts to flight the overpowerful god himself,
who, when he fled from Lycurgus, the king of Edoni, sought refuge in
the depths of the ocean--namely, in the mystical flood of a secret
cult which gradually overspread the earth.
13.
That Socrates stood in close relationship to Euripides in the tendency
of his teaching, did not escape the notice of contemporaneous
antiquity; the most eloquent expression of this felicitous insight
being the tale current in Athens, that Socrates was accustomed to help
Euripides in poetising. Both names were mentioned in one breath by the
adherents of the "good old time," whenever they came to enumerating the
popular agitators of the day: to whose influence they attributed the
fact that the old Marathonian stalwart capacity of body and soul was
more and more being sacrificed to a dubious enlightenment, involving
progressive degeneration of the physical and mental powers. It is in
this tone, half indignantly and half contemptuously, that Aristophanic
comedy is wont to speak of both of them--to the consternation of
modern men, who would indeed be willing enough to give up Euripides,
but cannot suppress their amazement that Socrates should appear in
Aristophanes as the first and head _sophist,_ as the mirror and epitome
of all sophistical tendencies; in connection with which it offers the
single consolation of putting Aristophanes himself in the pillory, as a
rakish, lying Alcibiades of poetry. Without here defending the profound
instincts of Aristophanes against such attacks, I shall now indicate,
by means of the sentiments of the time, the close connection between
Socrates and Euripides. With this purpose in view, it is especially to
be remembered that Socrates, as an opponent of tragic art, did not
ordinarily patronise tragedy, but only appeared among the spectators
when a new play of Euripides was performed. The most noted thing,
however, is the close juxtaposition of the two names in the Delphic
oracle, which designated Socrates as the wisest of men, but at the same
time decided that the second prize in the contest of wisdom was due to
Euripides.
Sophocles was designated as the third in this scale of rank; he who
could pride himself that, in comparison with Æschylus, he did what
was right, and did it, moreover, because he _knew_ what was right. It
is evidently just the degree of clearness of this _knowledge,_ which
distinguishes these three men in common as the three "knowing ones" of
their age.
The most decisive word, however, for this new and unprecedented
esteem of knowledge and insight was spoken by Socrates when he
found that he was the only one who acknowledged to himself that he
_knew nothing_ while in his critical pilgrimage through Athens, and
calling on the greatest statesmen, orators, poets, and artists, he
discovered everywhere the conceit of knowledge. He perceived, to his
astonishment, that all these celebrities were without a proper and
accurate insight, even with regard to their own callings, and practised
them only by instinct. "Only by instinct": with this phrase we touch
upon the heart and core of the Socratic tendency. Socratism condemns
therewith existing art as well as existing ethics; wherever Socratism
turns its searching eyes it beholds the lack of insight and the
power of illusion; and from this lack infers the inner perversity and
objectionableness of existing conditions. From this point onwards,
Socrates believed that he was called upon to, correct existence;
and, with an air of disregard and superiority, as the precursor
of an altogether different culture, art, and morality, he enters
single-handed into a world, of which, if we reverently touched the hem,
we should count it our greatest happiness.
Here is the extraordinary hesitancy which always seizes upon us with
regard to Socrates, and again and again invites us to ascertain the
sense and purpose of this most questionable phenomenon of antiquity.
Who is it that ventures single-handed to disown the Greek character,
which, as Homer, Pindar, and Æschylus, as Phidias, as Pericles, as
Pythia and Dionysus, as the deepest abyss and the highest height, is
sure of our wondering admiration? What demoniac power is it which would
presume to spill this magic draught in the dust? What demigod is it to
whom the chorus of spirits of the noblest of mankind must call out:
"Weh! Weh! Du hast sie zerstört, die schöne Welt, mit mächtiger Faust;
sie stürzt, sie zerfällt!"[17]
A key to the character of Socrates is presented to us by the surprising
phenomenon designated as the "daimonion" of Socrates. In special
circumstances, when his gigantic intellect began to stagger, he got
a secure support in the utterances of a divine voice which then
spake to him. This voice, whenever it comes, always _dissuades._
In this totally abnormal nature instinctive wisdom only appears in
order to hinder the progress of conscious perception here and there.
While in all productive men it is instinct which is the creatively
affirmative force, consciousness only comporting itself critically
and dissuasively; with Socrates it is instinct which becomes critic;
it is consciousness which becomes creator--a perfect monstrosity
_per defectum!_ And we do indeed observe here a monstrous _defectus_
of all mystical aptitude, so that Socrates might be designated as
the specific _non-mystic,_ in whom the logical nature is developed,
through a superfoetation, to the same excess as instinctive wisdom
is developed in the mystic. On the other hand, however, the logical
instinct which appeared in Socrates was absolutely prohibited from
turning against itself; in its unchecked flow it manifests a native
power such as we meet with, to our shocking surprise, only among the
very greatest instinctive forces. He who has experienced even a breath
of the divine naïveté and security of the Socratic course of life in
the Platonic writings, will also feel that the enormous driving-wheel
of logical Socratism is in motion, as it were, _behind_ Socrates, and
that it must be viewed through Socrates as through a shadow. And
that he himself had a boding of this relation is apparent from the
dignified earnestness with which he everywhere, and even before his
judges, insisted on his divine calling. To refute him here was really
as impossible as to approve of his instinct-disintegrating influence.
In view of this indissoluble conflict, when he had at last been brought
before the forum of the Greek state, there was only one punishment
demanded, namely exile; he might have been sped across the borders as
something thoroughly enigmatical, irrubricable and inexplicable, and so
posterity would have been quite unjustified in charging the Athenians
with a deed of ignominy. But that the sentence of death, and not mere
exile, was pronounced upon him, seems to have been brought about by
Socrates himself, with perfect knowledge of the circumstances, and
without the natural fear of death: he met his death with the calmness
with which, according to the description of Plato, he leaves the
symposium at break of day, as the last of the revellers, to begin a new
day; while the sleepy companions remain behind on the benches and the
floor, to dream of Socrates, the true eroticist. _The dying Socrates_
became the new ideal of the noble Greek youths,--an ideal they had
never yet beheld,--and above all, the typical Hellenic youth, Plato,
prostrated himself before this scene with all the fervent devotion of
his visionary soul.
[17]
Woe! Woe!
Thou hast it destroyed,
The beautiful world;
With powerful fist;
In ruin 'tis hurled!
_Faust,_ trans. of Bayard Taylor.--TR.
14.