The Birth of Tragedy
Original German
1 Um gegen die „Geburt der Tragödie“ (1872) gerecht zu sein, wird man Einiges vergessen müssen. Sie hat mit dem gewirkt und selbst fascinirt, was an ihr verfehlt war — mit ihrer Nutzanwendung auf die Wagnerei, als ob dieselbe ein Aufgangs-Symptom sei. Diese Schrift war ebendamit im Leben Wagner’s ein Ereigniß: von da an gab es erst große Hoffnungen bei dem Namen Wagner. Noch heute erinnert man mich daran, unter Umständen mitten aus dem Parsifal heraus: wie ich es eigentlich auf dem Gewissen habe, daß eine so hohe Meinung über den Cultur-Werth dieser Bewegung obenauf gekommen sei. — Ich fand die Schrift mehrmals citirt als „die Wiedergeburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik“: man hat nur Ohren für eine neue Formel der Kunst, der Absicht, der Aufgabe Wagner’s gehabt, — darüber wurde überhört, was die Schrift im Grunde Werthvolles barg. „Griechenthum und Pessimismus“: das wäre ein unzweideutigerer Titel gewesen: nämlich als erste Belehrung darüber, wie die Griechen fertig wurden mit dem Pessimismus, — womit sie ihn überwanden... Die Tragödie gerade ist der Beweis dafür, daß die Griechen keine Pessimisten waren: Schopenhauer vergriff sich hier, wie er sich in Allem vergriffen hat. — Mit einiger Neutralität in die Hand genommen, sieht die „Geburt der Tragödie“ sehr unzeitgemäß aus: man würde sich nicht träumen lassen, daß sie unter den Donnern der Schlacht bei Wörth begonnen wurde. Ich habe diese Probleme vor den Mauern von Metz, in kalten September-Nächten, mitten im Dienste der Krankenpflege, durchgedacht; man könnte eher schon glauben, daß die Schrift fünfzig Jahre älter sei. Sie ist politisch indifferent — „undeutsch“, wird man heute sagen —, sie riecht anstößig Hegelisch, sie ist nur in einigen Formeln mit dem Leichenbitter-Parfüm Schopenhauer’s behaftet. Eine „Idee“ — der Gegensatz dionysisch und apollinisch — in’s Metaphysische übersetzt; die Geschichte selbst als die Entwicklung dieser „Idee“; in der Tragödie der Gegensatz zur Einheit aufgehoben; unter dieser Optik Dinge, die noch nie einander in’s Gesicht gesehen hatten, plötzlich gegenüber gestellt, aus einander beleuchtet und begriffen... Die Oper zum Beispiel und die Revolution... Die zwei entscheidenden Neuerungen des Buchs sind einmal das Verständniß des dionysischen Phänomens bei den Griechen — es giebt dessen erste Psychologie, es sieht in ihm die Eine Wurzel der ganzen griechischen Kunst —. Das Andre ist das Verständniß des Sokratismus: Sokrates als Werkzeug der griechischen Auflösung, als typischer décadent zum ersten Male erkannt. „Vernünftigkeit“ gegen Instinkt. Die „Vernünftigkeit“ um jeden Preis als gefährliche, als leben-untergrabende Gewalt! — Tiefes feindseliges Schweigen über das Christenthum im ganzen Buche: Es ist weder apollinisch, noch dionysisch; es negirt alle ästhetischen Werthe — die einzigen Werthe, die die „Geburt der Tragödie“ anerkennt: es ist im tiefsten Sinne nihilistisch, während im dionysischen Symbol die äußerste Grenze der Bejahung erreicht ist. Einmal wird auf die christlichen Priester wie auf eine „tückische Art von Zwergen“, von „Unterirdischen“ angespielt...
2 Dieser Anfang ist über alle Maaßen merkwürdig. Ich hatte zu meiner innersten Erfahrung das einzige Gleichniß und Seitenstück, das die Geschichte hat, entdeckt, — ich hatte ebendamit das wundervolle Phänomen des Dionysischen als der Erste begriffen. Insgleichen war damit, daß ich Sokrates als décadent erkannte, ein völlig unzweideutiger Beweis dafür gegeben, wie wenig die Sicherheit meines psychologischen Griffs von Seiten irgend einer Moral-Idiosynkrasie Gefahr laufen werde: — die Moral selbst als décadence-Symptom ist eine Neuerung, eine Einzigkeit ersten Rangs in der Geschichte der Erkenntniß. Wie hoch war ich mit Beidem über das erbärmliche Flachkopf-Geschwätz von Optimismus contra Pessimismus hinweggesprungen! — Ich sah zuerst den eigentlichen Gegensatz: — den entartenden Instinkt, der sich gegen das Leben mit unterirdischer Rachsucht wendet (— Christenthum, die Philosophie Schopenhauer’s, in gewissem Sinne schon die Philosophie Plato’s, der ganze Idealismus als typische Formen) und eine aus der Fülle, der Überfülle geborene Formel der höchsten Bejahung, ein Jasagen ohne Vorbehalt, zum Leiden selbst, zur Schuld selbst, zu allem Fragwürdigen und Fremden des Daseins selbst... Dieses letzte, freudigste, überschwänglich-übermüthigste Ja zum Leben ist nicht nur die höchste Einsicht, es ist auch die tiefste, die von Wahrheit und Wissenschaft am strengsten bestätigte und aufrecht erhaltene. Es ist Nichts, was ist, abzurechnen, es ist Nichts entbehrlich — die von den Christen und andren Nihilisten abgelehnten Seiten des Daseins sind sogar von unendlich höherer Ordnung in der Rangordnung der Werthe als das, was der décadence-Instinkt gutheißen, gut heißen durfte. Dies zu begreifen, dazu gehört Muth und, als dessen Bedingung, ein Ueberschuß von Kraft: denn genau so weit als der Muth sich vorwärts wagen darf, genau nach dem Maaß von Kraft nähert man sich der Wahrheit. Die Erkenntniß, das Jasagen zur Realität, ist für den Starken eine ebensolche Nothwendigkeit, als für den Schwachen, unter der Inspiration der Schwäche, die Feigheit und Flucht vor der Realität — das „Ideal“... Es steht ihnen nicht frei, zu erkennen: die décadents haben die Lüge nöthig, — sie ist eine ihrer Erhaltungs-Bedingungen. — Wer das Wort „dionysisch“ nicht nur begreift, sondern sich in dem Wort „dionysisch“ begreift, hat keine Widerlegung Plato’s oder des Christenthums oder Schopenhauer’s nöthig — er riecht die Verwesung...
3 Inwiefern ich ebendamit den Begriff „tragisch“, die endliche Erkenntnis darüber, was die Psychologie der Tragödie ist, gefunden hatte, habe ich zuletzt noch in der Götzen-Dämmerung Seite 139 zum Ausdruck gebracht: „Das Jasagen zum Leben selbst noch in seinen fremdesten und härtesten Problemen; der Wille zum Leben, im Opfer seiner höchsten Typen der eignen Unerschöpflichkeit frohwerdend — das nannte ich dionysisch, das verstand ich als Brücke zur Psychologie des tragischen Dichters. Nicht um von Schrecken und Mitleiden loszukommen, nicht um sich von einem gefährlichen Affekt durch eine vehemente Entladung zu reinigen — so mißverstand es Aristoteles —: sondern um, über Schrecken und Mitleiden hinaus, die ewige Lust des Werdens selbst zu sein, — jene Lust, die auch noch die Lust am Vernichten in sich schließt...“ In diesem Sinne habe ich das Recht, mich selber als den ersten tragischen Philosophen zu verstehn — das heißt den äußersten Gegensatz und Antipoden eines pessimistischen Philosophen. Vor mir giebt es diese Umsetzung des dionysischen in ein philosophisches Pathos nicht: es fehlt die tragische Weisheit, — ich habe vergebens nach Anzeichen davon selbst bei den großen Griechen der Philosophie, denen der zwei Jahrhunderte vor Sokrates, gesucht. Ein Zweifel blieb mir zurück bei Heraklit, in dessen Nähe überhaupt mir wärmer, mir wohler zu Muthe wird als irgendwo sonst. Die Bejahung des Vergehens und Vernichtens, das Entscheidende in einer dionysischen Philosophie, das Jasagen zu Gegensatz und Krieg, das Werden, mit radikaler Ablehnung auch selbst des Begriffs „Sein“ — darin muß ich unter allen Umständen das mir Verwandteste anerkennen, was bisher gedacht worden ist. Die Lehre von der „ewigen Wiederkunft“, das heißt vom unbedingten und unendlich wiederholten Kreislauf aller Dinge — diese Lehre Zarathustra’s könnte zuletzt auch schon gelehrt worden sein. Zum Mindesten hat die Stoa, die fast alle ihre grundsätzlichen Vorstellungen von Heraklit geerbt hat, Spuren davon. —
4 Aus dieser Schrift redet eine ungeheure Hoffnung. Zuletzt fehlt mir jeder Grund, die Hoffnung auf eine dionysische Zukunft der Musik zurückzunehmen. Werfen wir einen Blick ein Jahrhundert voraus, setzen wir den Fall, daß mein Attentat auf zwei Jahrtausende Widernatur und Menschenschändung gelingt. Jene neue Partei des Lebens, welche die größte aller Aufgaben, die Höherzüchtung der Menschheit in die Hände nimmt, eingerechnet die schonungslose Vernichtung alles Entartenden und Parasitischen, wird jenes Zuviel von Leben auf Erden wieder möglich machen, aus dem auch der dionysische Zustand wieder erwachsen muß. Ich verspreche ein tragisches Zeitalter: die höchste Kunst im Jasagen zum Leben, die Tragödie, wird wiedergeboren werden, wenn die Menschheit das Bewußtsein der härtesten, aber nothwendigsten Kriege hinter sich hat, ohne daran zu leiden... Ein Psychologe dürfte noch hinzufügen, daß was ich in jungen Jahren bei Wagnerischer Musik gehört habe, Nichts überhaupt mit Wagner zu thun hat; daß wenn ich die dionysische Musik beschrieb, ich Das beschrieb, was ich gehört hatte, — daß ich instinktiv Alles in den neuen Geist übersetzen und transfiguriren mußte, den ich in mir trug. Der Beweis dafür, so stark als nur ein Beweis sein kann, ist meine Schrift „Wagner in Bayreuth“: an allen psychologisch entscheidenden Stellen ist nur von mir die Rede, — man darf rücksichtslos meinen Namen oder das Wort „Zarathustra“ hinstellen, wo der Text das Wort Wagner giebt. Das ganze Bild des dithyrambischen Künstlers ist das Bild des präexistenten Dichters des Zarathustra, mit abgründlicher Tiefe hingezeichnet und ohne einen Augenblick die Wagner’sche Realität auch nur zu berühren. Wagner selbst hatte einen Begriff davon; er erkannte sich in der Schrift nicht wieder. — Insgleichen hatte sich „der Gedanke von Bayreuth“ in Etwas verwandelt, das den Kennern meines Zarathustra kein Räthsel-Begriff sein wird: in jenen großen Mittag, wo sich die Auserwähltesten zur größten aller Aufgaben weihen — wer weiß? die Vision eines Festes, das ich noch erleben werde... Das Pathos der ersten Seiten ist welthistorisch; der Blick, von dem auf der siebenten Seite die Rede ist, ist der eigentliche Zarathustra-Blick; Wagner, Bayreuth, die ganze kleine deutsche Erbärmlichkeit ist eine Wolke, in der eine unendliche Fata Morgana der Zukunft sich spiegelt. Selbst psychologisch sind alle entscheidenden Züge meiner eignen Natur in die Wagner’s eingetragen — das Nebeneinander der lichtesten und verhängnißvollsten Kräfte, der Wille zur Macht, wie ihn nie ein Mensch besessen hat, die rücksichtslose Tapferkeit im Geistigen, die unbegrenzte Kraft zu lernen, ohne daß der Wille zur That damit erdrückt würde. Es ist Alles an dieser Schrift vorherverkündend: die Nähe der Wiederkunft des griechischen Geistes, die Nothwendigkeit von Gegen-Alexandern, welche den gordischen Knoten der griechischen Cultur wieder binden, nachdem er gelöst war... Man höre den welthistorischen Accent, mit dem auf Seite 30 der Begriff „tragische Gesinnung“ eingeführt wird: es sind lauter welthistorische Accente in dieser Schrift. Dies ist die fremdartigste „Objektivität“, die es geben kann: die absolute Gewißheit darüber, was ich bin, projicirte sich auf irgend eine zufällige Realität, — die Wahrheit über mich redete aus einer schauervollen Tiefe. Auf Seite 71 wird der Stil des Zarathustra mit einschneidender Sicherheit beschrieben und vorweggenommen; und niemals wird man einen großartigeren Ausdruck für das Ereigniß Zarathustra, den Akt einer ungeheuren Reinigung und Weihung der Menschheit, finden, als er in den Seiten 43–46 gefunden ist. —
Musean translation
A complete machine-assisted Musean translation directly from the German of the 1908 Insel edition, including its concluding poem. This early edition's readings and omissions are retained, not replaced with later critical restorations.
1 To do justice to The Birth of Tragedy (1872), one will have to forget a few things. It made its impact, and even fascinated, through what was mistaken in it—through its application to Wagnerism, as though that were a symptom of ascent. For that very reason, this work was an event in Wagner’s life: only from then on were great hopes attached to the name Wagner. Even today I am reminded of this, sometimes in the middle of Parsifal: how it is really I who bear the responsibility for so lofty an opinion of this movement’s cultural value having gained the upper hand.—I have several times found the work cited as “The Rebirth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music”: people had ears only for a new formula for Wagner’s art, intention, task—and in the process failed to hear what was fundamentally valuable in the work. “The Greeks and Pessimism”: that would have been a less ambiguous title—as the first instruction in how the Greeks dealt with pessimism, by what means they overcame it… Tragedy itself is the proof that the Greeks were not pessimists: Schopenhauer went wrong here, as he went wrong in everything.—Taken up with some neutrality, The Birth of Tragedy looks very untimely: one would never dream that it was begun amid the thunder of the Battle of Wörth. I thought these problems through before the walls of Metz, on cold September nights, while tending the sick; one might sooner believe the work was fifty years older. It is politically indifferent—“un-German,” people would say today—it smells offensively Hegelian; only in a few formulas does Schopenhauer’s undertaker perfume cling to it. An “idea”—the opposition between Dionysian and Apollonian—translated into metaphysics; history itself as the unfolding of this “idea”; in tragedy, the opposition sublated into unity; seen through this lens, things that had never before looked each other in the face suddenly set opposite one another, illuminated and comprehended through one another… Opera, for example, and the Revolution… The book’s two decisive innovations are, first, its understanding of the Dionysian phenomenon among the Greeks—it gives the first psychology of that phenomenon, it sees in it the one root of all Greek art. The other is its understanding of Socratism: Socrates recognized for the first time as an instrument of Greek dissolution, as a typical decadent. “Rationality” against instinct. “Rationality” at any price as a dangerous force, a force undermining life!—A deep, hostile silence about Christianity throughout the book: it is neither Apollonian nor Dionysian; it negates all aesthetic values—the only values The Birth of Tragedy recognizes: it is nihilistic in the deepest sense, while in the Dionysian symbol the furthest limit of affirmation is reached. Once, Christian priests are alluded to as a “treacherous breed of dwarfs,” of “underground creatures”…
2 This beginning is remarkable beyond measure. I had discovered the only image and parallel history offers for my innermost experience—and in doing so had become the first to comprehend the marvelous phenomenon of the Dionysian. Likewise, my recognition of Socrates as a decadent furnished wholly unambiguous proof of how little the sureness of my psychological grasp would be endangered by any moral idiosyncrasy: morality itself as a symptom of decadence is an innovation, a singular achievement of the first rank in the history of knowledge. How high I had leaped, with both these insights, above the pitiful, shallow-headed chatter about optimism versus pessimism!—I was the first to see the true opposition: the degenerating instinct, which turns against life with subterranean vengefulness—with Christianity, Schopenhauer’s philosophy, in a certain sense even Plato’s philosophy, all idealism as typical forms—and a formula of supreme affirmation born of fullness, of overfullness, an unreserved yes even to suffering, even to guilt, even to everything questionable and strange in existence… This ultimate, most joyful, exuberantly high-spirited yes to life is not only the highest insight; it is also the deepest, the insight most rigorously confirmed and sustained by truth and science. Nothing that exists is to be discounted, nothing is dispensable—the sides of existence rejected by Christians and other nihilists are even of an infinitely higher order in the hierarchy of values than what the instinct of decadence was permitted to approve, to call good. To comprehend this requires courage and, as its condition, a surplus of strength: for precisely as far as courage may venture forward, precisely in proportion to one’s strength, one approaches truth. Knowledge, saying yes to reality, is as much a necessity for the strong as cowardice and flight from reality—the “ideal”—are for the weak, under the inspiration of weakness… They are not free to know: decadents need the lie—it is one of the conditions of their preservation.—Anyone who not only comprehends the word “Dionysian” but comprehends himself in the word “Dionysian” has no need to refute Plato or Christianity or Schopenhauer—he smells the decay…
3 To what extent I had thereby found the concept “tragic,” the definitive knowledge of what the psychology of tragedy is, I most recently expressed in Twilight of the Idols, page 139: “Saying yes to life even in its strangest and hardest problems; the will to life rejoicing in its own inexhaustibility through the sacrifice of its highest types—that is what I called Dionysian, that is what I understood as the bridge to the psychology of the tragic poet. Not to be rid of terror and pity, not to purge oneself of a dangerous emotion through a violent discharge—as Aristotle misunderstood it—but, beyond terror and pity, to be, oneself, the eternal joy of becoming—that joy which also encompasses the joy in destruction…” In this sense I have the right to understand myself as the first tragic philosopher—that is, the utmost opposite and antipode of a pessimistic philosopher. Before me there is no such translation of the Dionysian into a philosophical passion: tragic wisdom is missing—I have looked in vain for signs of it even among the great Greek philosophers, those of the two centuries before Socrates. A doubt remained in the case of Heraclitus, in whose proximity I feel altogether warmer, more at ease than anywhere else. The affirmation of passing away and destroying, the decisive element in a Dionysian philosophy, saying yes to opposition and war, becoming, with a radical rejection even of the concept of “being”—in this I must in any event recognize what is closest to me of all that has been thought so far. The doctrine of “eternal recurrence,” that is, of the unconditional and infinitely repeated cycle of all things—this doctrine of Zarathustra’s could, after all, have been taught before. At least the Stoa, which inherited almost all its fundamental ideas from Heraclitus, bears traces of it.—
4 An immense hope speaks from this work. In the end, I have no reason whatever to withdraw my hope for a Dionysian future of music. Let us look a century ahead; let us suppose that my assault on two millennia of unnaturalness and desecration of humanity succeeds. That new party of life, which takes in hand the greatest of all tasks, the breeding of humanity to a higher level, including the merciless destruction of everything degenerating and parasitic, will again make possible on earth that excess of life from which the Dionysian state must also grow anew. I promise a tragic age: the highest art of saying yes to life, tragedy, will be reborn when humanity has behind it the consciousness of the hardest but most necessary wars, without suffering from it… A psychologist might add that what I heard in Wagnerian music in my youth had nothing whatever to do with Wagner; that when I described Dionysian music I was describing what I had heard—that I instinctively had to translate and transfigure everything into the new spirit I carried within me. The proof, as strong as any proof can be, is my work “Wagner in Bayreuth”: at every psychologically decisive point it speaks only of me—one may unhesitatingly put my name or the word “Zarathustra” wherever the text gives the word Wagner. The whole portrait of the dithyrambic artist is the portrait of the preexistent poet of Zarathustra, drawn with abysmal depth and without for a moment so much as touching Wagner’s reality. Wagner himself had some inkling of this; he did not recognize himself in the work.—Likewise, “the idea of Bayreuth” had been transformed into something that will be no riddle to those who know my Zarathustra: into that great noon when the most select consecrate themselves to the greatest of all tasks—who knows? The vision of a festival I shall yet live to see… The passion of the first pages is world-historical; the gaze spoken of on the seventh page is the true Zarathustra gaze; Wagner, Bayreuth, the whole petty German wretchedness is a cloud in which an infinite mirage of the future is reflected. Even psychologically, all the decisive traits of my own nature are inscribed in Wagner’s—the brightest and most fateful forces side by side, the will to power such as no human being has ever possessed, the unsparing courage in matters of the spirit, the boundless capacity to learn without crushing the will to act. Everything in this work is prophetic: the approaching return of the Greek spirit, the need for counter-Alexanders to retie the Gordian knot of Greek culture after it had been undone… Listen to the world-historical accent with which, on page 30, the concept of a “tragic disposition” is introduced: this work is nothing but world-historical accents. This is the strangest “objectivity” there can be: absolute certainty about what I am projected itself onto some chance reality—the truth about me spoke from a terrifying depth. On page 71 the style of Zarathustra is described and anticipated with incisive assurance; and no grander expression will ever be found for the event of Zarathustra, the act of an immense purification and consecration of humanity, than the one found on pages 43–46.—
Plain English translation
A complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the same German edition, including its concluding poem. This is the 1908 text, not a modern critical edition.
1 To be fair to “The Birth of Tragedy” (1872), you have to forget a few things. The book made its impact, and even fascinated people, through what was wrong with it: its application to the Wagner cult, as though this were a sign of rising strength. For that very reason, this book was an event in Wagner’s life. Only from then on were great hopes attached to Wagner’s name. Even today people remind me of this, sometimes right in the middle of Parsifal: how I am really responsible for the high opinion that came to prevail about this movement’s cultural value.—Several times I have found the book cited as “The Rebirth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music.” People had ears only for a new formula for Wagner’s art, intentions, and task. They failed to hear what was really valuable in the book. “The Greeks and Pessimism” would have been a clearer title. It was the first account of how the Greeks dealt with pessimism—how they overcame it… Tragedy itself proves that the Greeks were not pessimists. Schopenhauer was wrong here, as he was wrong about everything.—Read with some neutrality, “The Birth of Tragedy” seems very much out of step with its time. You would never dream that it was begun amid the thunder of the battle of Wörth. I thought these problems through outside the walls of Metz, on cold September nights, while serving as a nurse. You might more easily believe the book was fifty years older. It is indifferent to politics—“un-German,” people would say today. It smells offensively of Hegel. Only a few of its formulas carry Schopenhauer’s undertaker’s perfume. An “idea”—the opposition between the Dionysian and the Apollonian—translated into metaphysical terms; history itself as the development of this “idea”; the opposition resolved into a unity in tragedy. Seen this way, things that had never before looked each other in the face were suddenly set opposite each other, illuminated through each other, and understood… Opera and revolution, for example… One of the book’s two decisive innovations is its understanding of the Dionysian phenomenon among the Greeks. It gives the first psychology of this phenomenon and sees it as the single root of all Greek art. The other is its understanding of Socratism. For the first time, Socrates is recognized as a tool of Greek disintegration, a typical decadent. “Rationality” against instinct. “Rationality” at any price as a dangerous force that undermines life!—A deep, hostile silence about Christianity runs through the whole book. Christianity is neither Apollonian nor Dionysian. It denies all aesthetic values—the only values “The Birth of Tragedy” recognizes. It is nihilistic in the deepest sense, while the Dionysian symbol reaches the furthest limit of affirmation. Once, Christian priests are referred to as a “treacherous kind of dwarf,” as “underground creatures”…
2 This beginning is remarkable beyond measure. I had discovered the only image and parallel that history offers for my innermost experience. In doing so, I was the first to understand the wonderful phenomenon of the Dionysian. Likewise, by recognizing Socrates as a decadent, I had given completely unambiguous proof that no moral peculiarity would threaten the sureness of my psychological grasp. Morality itself as a symptom of decadence is an innovation, something unique of the first rank in the history of knowledge. With these two insights, how far I had leaped above the pathetic chatter of shallow minds about optimism versus pessimism!—I was the first to see the real opposition: the degenerating instinct, which turns against life with an underground desire for revenge—Christianity, Schopenhauer’s philosophy, in a certain sense already Plato’s philosophy, and all idealism are typical forms—and a formula of the highest affirmation, born of fullness, of overflowing fullness. This is a yes without reservation, even to suffering, even to guilt, even to everything questionable and strange in existence… This final, most joyful, extravagantly exuberant yes to life is not just the highest insight. It is also the deepest, the one most strictly confirmed and sustained by truth and science. Nothing that exists is to be subtracted; nothing can be dispensed with. The sides of existence rejected by Christians and other nihilists actually rank infinitely higher in the order of values than what the instinct of decadence was allowed to approve, to call good. Understanding this takes courage and, as a condition of courage, a surplus of strength. For you approach truth exactly as far as your courage can venture forward, exactly in proportion to your strength. Knowledge, saying yes to reality, is as necessary for the strong as cowardice and escape from reality—the “ideal”—are for the weak, inspired by their weakness… They are not free to know: decadents need lies. Lying is one of the conditions of their survival.—Anyone who not only understands the word “Dionysian” but understands himself in the word “Dionysian” needs no refutation of Plato or Christianity or Schopenhauer—he smells the decay…
3 I recently explained in Twilight of the Idols, page 139, how I had also found the concept of the “tragic,” the final understanding of the psychology of tragedy: “Saying yes to life even in its strangest and harshest problems; the will to life rejoicing in its own inexhaustibility through the sacrifice of its highest types—that is what I called Dionysian. That is what I understood as the bridge to the psychology of the tragic poet. Not to get rid of terror and pity, not to cleanse oneself of a dangerous emotion by discharging it violently—that was Aristotle’s misunderstanding—but to go beyond terror and pity and yourself be the eternal joy of becoming—that joy which also includes the joy of destruction…” In this sense I have the right to understand myself as the first tragic philosopher—that is, the most extreme opposite, the farthest counterpart, of a pessimistic philosopher. Before me there was no such translation of the Dionysian into a philosophical passion. Tragic wisdom was missing. I looked in vain for signs of it even among the great Greek philosophers, those of the two centuries before Socrates. I was left with a doubt about Heraclitus, in whose company I generally feel warmer and better than anywhere else. Affirming passing away and destroying, the decisive thing in a Dionysian philosophy; saying yes to opposition and war; becoming, with a radical rejection even of the very concept of “being”—in all this I must recognize the closest kinship to myself in anything thought so far. The teaching of “eternal recurrence,” meaning the unconditional and infinitely repeated cycle of all things—this teaching of Zarathustra’s could, after all, have been taught before. At least the Stoic school, which inherited almost all its basic ideas from Heraclitus, shows traces of it.—
4 An enormous hope speaks through this book. In the end I have no reason at all to take back my hope for a Dionysian future of music. Let us look a century ahead. Suppose my attack on two thousand years of crimes against nature and degradation of humanity succeeds. That new party of life, which takes on the greatest of all tasks, breeding humanity to a higher level—including the ruthless annihilation of everything that is degenerating or parasitic—will once again make possible that excess of life on earth from which the Dionysian state must grow again. I promise a tragic age. The highest art of saying yes to life, tragedy, will be reborn once humanity has passed through awareness of the harshest but most necessary wars, without suffering from it… A psychologist might add that what I heard in Wagner’s music when I was young had nothing at all to do with Wagner. When I described Dionysian music, I was describing what I had heard. Instinctively I had to translate and transform everything into the new spirit I carried within me. The proof, as strong as any proof can be, is my book “Wagner in Bayreuth.” At every psychologically decisive point it talks only about me. You can put my name or the word “Zarathustra” wherever the text says Wagner, without any hesitation. The whole portrait of the dithyrambic artist is a portrait of the poet of Zarathustra before he appeared, drawn with unfathomable depth and without touching on Wagner as he really was for even a moment. Wagner himself had some sense of this. He did not recognize himself in the book.—Likewise, “the idea of Bayreuth” had changed into something that will be no riddle to those who know my Zarathustra: that great noon when the most select people dedicate themselves to the greatest of all tasks. Who knows? Perhaps it is the vision of a festival I will live to see… The passion of the first pages is on the scale of world history. The gaze discussed on the seventh page is the true gaze of Zarathustra. Wagner, Bayreuth, all that petty German misery is a cloud in which an infinite mirage of the future is reflected. Even psychologically, all the decisive features of my own nature have been written into Wagner’s: the brightest and most fateful forces side by side; the will to power such as no human being has ever had; ruthless courage in matters of the mind; the unlimited strength to learn without crushing the will to act in the process. Everything in this book foretells what is to come: the approaching return of the Greek spirit, the need for counter-Alexanders who will tie the Gordian knot of Greek culture again after it has been untied… Listen to the world-historical tone in which the idea of a “tragic outlook” is introduced on page 30. Every emphasis in this book is on the scale of world history. This is the strangest “objectivity” there can be: absolute certainty about what I am projected itself onto some random reality. The truth about me spoke from a terrifying depth. On page 71, the style of Zarathustra is described and anticipated with incisive certainty. And no one will ever find a grander expression of the event of Zarathustra, the act of an enormous purification and consecration of humanity, than the one found on pages 43–46.—
About this section
The Birth of Tragedy is part of Ecce Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 6 of 17 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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