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《悲剧的诞生》缪郎山1965年
根据Alf red Baeumler 编的“尼采全集”卷一译出,北京中国人民大学1979年版.
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The Birth of Tragedy
Attempt at a Self-Criticism(1886)
First publication, 1872:The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of
Music.
Second Edition, 1878: (some textual changes).
Third edition, 1886: "Attempt at a Self-Criticism" added and a new
title, The Birth of Tragedy Or: Hellenism And Pessimism.
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献给理查.瓦格纳
为了,鉴于我们审美大众的特殊性质,我对集中在这篇论文里的思想会引起的种种可能的怀疑、兴奋和误解,要敬而远之;而且,为了我能够怀着同样静观的快感——这种快感像我兴高采烈的时光之化石似的在每一页上都留下标志——来写此文的前言;因此,我设想您,我最敬爱的朋友,接受这篇论文的那一刹间;您,也许是在冬雪的黄昏散步之后,在书名页上见到那被幽囚的普罗密修斯,读到我的名字,便立刻相信;无论此文的内容是甚么,作者总有一些重要而动人的话要说,况且他把他的一切感想对您诉说,好象是当面倾谈那样,他也只能写下适合于当面倾谈的话。于此,您将记得,当您酝酿您那篇辉煌的贝多芬纪念文时,也就是说,在战争爆发时的恐怖和激昂情绪中,我同时正专心致力这篇论文。但是,如果有人以为我的专心是审美的陶醉而非爱国的热情,是怡情的游戏而非英勇的挚诚,那就错了;这种读者,在认真地读完这篇论文之后,将会愕然发现;我们要讨论的是多么重要的德国问题,我们把这问题恰好正确地放在德国的希望之中心地位。然而,或许这种读者见到一个审美问题被这样严肃地处理,毕竟会觉得欠妥,尤其是如果他们认为艺术不过是一种娱乐的闲事,不过是系在“生活的庄严”上可有可无的风铃;仿佛无人能体会到所谓“生活的庄严”之对立面有什么意义。我应该告诉诚恳的读者,我相信艺术乃是人类所了解的人生底最高使命及其正确的超脱活动,现在我将这篇论文摘给他们——我在这条路上的崇高的战友们。
一八七一年岁末.于巴塞尔。 |
Preface to Richard Wagner(1871)
To keep at a distance all the possible scruples, excitements,
and misunderstandings that the thoughts united in this essay
will occasion, in view of the peculiar character of our aesthetic
public, and to be able to write these introductory remarks,
too, with the same contemplative delight whose reflection--the
distillation of good and elevating hours--is evident on every
page, I picture the moment when you, my highly respected friend,
will receive this essay. Perhaps after an evening walk in the
winter snow, you will behold Prometheus unbound on the title
page, read my name, and be convinced at once that, whatever
this essay should contain, the author certainly has something
serious and urgent to say; also that, as he hatched these ideas,
he was communicating with you as if you were present, and hence
could write down only what was in keeping with that presence.
You will recall that it was during the same period when your
splendid Festschrift on Beethoven came into being,
amid the terrors and sublimities of the war that had just broken
out, that I collected myself for these reflections. Yet anyone
would be mistaken if he associated my reflections with the contrast
between patriotic excitement and aesthetic enthusiasm, of courageous
seriousness and a cheerful game: if he really read this essay,
it would dawn on him, to his surprise, what a seriously German
problem is faced here and placed right in the center of German
hopes, as a vortex and turning point. But perhaps such readers
will find it offensive that an aesthetic problem should be taken
so seriously--assuming they are unable to consider art more
than a pleasant sideline, a readily dispensable tinkling of
bells that accompanies the "seriousness of life," just as if
nobody knew what was involved in such a contrast with the "seriousness
of life." Let such "serious" readers learn something from the
fact that I am convinced that art represents the highest task
and the truly metaphysical activity of this life, in the sense
of that man to whom, as my sublime predecessor on this path,
I wish to dedicate this essay.Basel, end of the
year 1871
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1
假如我们不仅达到逻辑的判断,而且达到直觉的直接确定,认为艺术的不断发展,与梦神阿波罗和酒神狄奥尼索斯这两类型有关,正如生育有赖于雌雄两性,在持续的斗争中,只是间或和解;那么,我们对于美学将大有贡献。这两个名词,我们假借自古希腊人,它们使得明敏的心灵能领悟到希腊艺术观的深奥的秘仪,当然不是在概念上,而是从他们的极其明确的神象上从阿波罗和狄奥尼索斯这两个希腊艺术神,我们认识到,古希腊世界,阿波罗的雕刻艺术和狄奥尼索斯的非造型的音乐艺术之间,就其起源和目的来说,形成一种强烈的对照,这两种如此不同的倾向彼此并行,但多半是公开决裂。互相刺激而获得不断的新生,在斗争中使得这种矛盾永久存在,而“艺术”这个共同名词不过是表面上为它们架桥梁;直到最后,凭借希腊“意志”的玄妙奇迹,这两者又结合起来,终于产生既是狄奥尼索斯型又是阿波罗型的阿提刻悲剧艺术作品。 |
Much will have been gained for
aesthetics once we have succeeded in apprehending directly--rather
than merely ascertaining--that art owes its continuous
evolution to the Apollinian- Dionysian duality, even as the
propagation of the species depends on the duality of the sexes,
their constant conflicts and periodic acts of reconciliation.
I have borrowed my adjectives from the Greeks, who developed
their mystical doctrines of art through plausible embodiments,
not through purely conceptual means. It is by those two art
sponsoring deities, Apollo and Dionysus, that we are made to
recognize the tremendous split, as regards both origins and
objectives, between the plastic, Apollinian arts and the nonvisual
art of music inspired by Dionysus. The two creative tendencies
developed alongside one another, usually in fierce opposition,
each by its taunts forcing the other to more energetic production,
both perpetuating in a discordant concord that agon which the
term art but feebly denominates: until at last, by
the thaumaturgy of an Hellenic act of will, the pair accepted
the yoke of marriage and, in this condition, begot Attic tragedy,
which exhibits the salient features of both parents. |
为了更深体会这两种倾向,让我们首先把它们看作两个分歧的艺术境界,梦境与醉境,这两种生理现象显出一种对照,类似阿波罗型与狄奥尼索斯型的对照。鲁克勒提乌斯(Luorotius)曾设想:庄严的神象,首先是在梦中对人类的心灵显现的,伟大的雕刻家也是在梦中见到这些超人灵物的辉煌形体。假如你向这位古希腊诗人询问诗的创作之秘密,他同样会提出梦境,正象亨斯.萨克斯(HansSachs)在善歌者(Meistersinger)中所说的那样,对你指教:
朋友呵,这正是诗人的责任;
去阐明和记下自己的梦境。
信我吧,人间最真实的幻影
往往是在梦中对人们显现;
所有的诗艺和所有的诗情
不过是对现实之梦的说明。(尼采在本文中以美神阿波罗的属性代表造型艺术的静美,以酒神狄奥尼索斯的书信代表音乐艺术的兴奋,他使用“阿波罗”和“狄奥尼索斯”这两个名词甚多,为了便于理解,我把前者简译为“梦神”或“梦境”,后者为“酒神”或“醉境”。)
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To reach a closer understanding
of both these tendencies, let us begin by viewing them as the
separate art realms of dream and intoxication,
two physiological phenomena standing toward one another in much
the same relationship as the Apollinian and Dionysian. It was
in a dream, according to Lucretius, that the marvelous gods
and goddesses first presented themselves to the minds of men.
That great sculptor, Phidias, beheld in a dream the entrancing
bodies of more than human beings, and likewise, if anyone had
asked the Greek poets about the mystery of poetic creation,
they too would have referred him to dreams and instructed him
much as Hans Sachs instructs us in Die Meistersinger:
The poet's task is this, my friend,
to read his dreams and comprehend.
The truest human fancy seems
to be revealed to us in dreams:
all poems and versification
are but true dreams' interpretation.
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梦境的美丽的假象,——在梦的创作方面,人人都是美满的艺术家,——是一切造型艺术的先决条件,不仅如此,甚且是诗的主要成份,我们在下文将会论及。在梦里,我们尝到直接领会形象的乐趣,所有梦中形象都对我们倾谈,无一是不重要,无一是多余的。但是,即使梦境的现实达到最高度时,我们仍然感到梦的若明若灭的假象,至少我的经验是如此;至于这假象的频繁及其常态,我可以征引许多例子以及诗人的话作证。爱好哲理的人,甚至有一种预感;在我们生息于其间的客观现实之下,隐藏着另一种绝对不同的现实,它也是一种假象。叔本华就认为:有人间或把人类和事物看作仅仅是幻影和梦景,这种天才就是哲学才能的标志。所以,美感敏锐的人对梦境现实的关系,正如哲学家对生活现实的关系那样;他是一个精细而乐意的观照者,因为他从这些画景上体会到人生的意义,他凭借梦中的经历来锻炼自己对待人生。这不仅是他亲自体验到了然于心的,愉快亲切的画景而已,而且一切严肃的,悲哀的,愁闷的,忧郁的情绪,突然的障碍,命运的揶揄,不安的期待,总之,人生的整部“神曲”及其“地狱篇”,都掠过他眼前,不是仅仅象镜花水月,因为他就在这些情景中生活着,苦恼着,然而仍不免有昙花一现的假象之感。也许,不少人会象我那样记得,他们在梦境的危难和恐怖中,有时会自策自励而往往成功地喊道:“是梦吧,我索性梦下去呵!”我也曾听说有人能够一连三四个晚上继续经历同一个梦的前因后果:这些事实提供了明证,可见我们的心灵深处,我们的日常生活的底层,转化为梦境,我们在梦中体会到深深的欢欣和愉快的必然。
古希腊人把这种梦中经验的愉快的必然,体现在阿波罗神的身上,因为阿波罗是一切造型能力之神,同时也是预言之神。阿波罗,就字源来说,意即“灿烂的神”,乃是光明之神,掌管我们内心幻象世界的美丽假象。这是更高的真理,是与不可捉摸的日常生活截然不同的美满境界,是对自然在睡梦中治病救人的作用的深刻认识同时也就是预言能力乃至一切艺术的象征,由于这点,生活才有意义,才值得留恋。然而,要知道,有一条微妙的界线,是梦景所不能超越的,否则就会产生病理作用,我们会把假象误认为平凡的现实,——我们在想象阿波罗的形象时不可忽略这点;这位雕塑之神表现出适度的自制,并无粗野的激情,而有智慧的静穆。他的目光必须“光如旭日”,才合乎他的来源;即使当他勃然震怒或神色沮丧时,他的美貌也不失为圣洁的。所以,在某种意义上,我们不妨把叔本华论及藏在
“幻”(Maja)的幛幔中的人的话应用于阿波罗身上:“正如在无边无涯、洪涛起伏、澎湃怒吼的海洋,舟子坐在船上,托身于一叶扁舟;同样,在这痛苦的世界里;孤独的人也只好安心静座,信赖个性原则(Prinoipiumindividuationis)以支持”(见意志及表象的世界第一卷)。其实,我们可以说,这种信赖自我和安心静坐的精神在梦神阿波罗身上获得最崇高的表现;我们也可以说,梦神自己就是个性原则的尊严的神象,他的表情和神色都对我们说明了“假象”的一切愉快和智慧,以及它的美。 |
The fair illusion of the dream
sphere, in the production of which every man proves himself
an accomplished artist, is a precondition not only of all plastic
art, but even, as we shall see presently, of a wide range of
poetry. Here we enjoy an immediate apprehension of form, all
shapes speak to us directly, nothing seems indifferent or redundant.
Despite the high intensity with which these dream realities
exist for us, we still have a residual sensation that they are
illusions; at least such has been my experience-- and the frequency,
not to say normality, of the experience is borne out in many
passages of the poets. Men of philosophical disposition are
known for their constant premonition that our everyday reality,
too, is an illusion, hiding another, totally different kind
of reality. It was Schopenhauer who considered the ability to
view at certain times all men and things as mere phantoms or
dream images to be the true mark of philosophic talent. The
person who is responsive to the stimuli of art behaves toward
the reality of dream much the way the philosopher behaves toward
the reality of existence: he observes exactly and enjoys his
observations, for it is by these images that he interprets life,
by these processes that he rehearses it. Nor is it by pleasant
images only that such plausible connections are made: the whole
divine comedy of life, including its somber aspects, its sudden
balkings, impish accidents, anxious expectations, moves past
him, not quite like a shadow play--for it is he himself, after
all, who lives and suffers through these scenes--yet never without
giving a fleeting sense of illusion; and I imagine that many
persons have reassured themselves amidst the perils of dream
by calling out, "It is a dream! I want it to go on." I have
even heard of people spinning out the causality of one and the
same dream over three or more successive nights. All these facts
clearly bear witness that our innermost being, the common substratum
of humanity, experiences dreams with deep delight and a sense
of real necessity. This deep and happy sense of the necessity
of dream experiences was expressed by the Greeks in the image
of Apollo. Apollo is at once the god of all plastic powers and
the soothsaying god. He who is etymologically the "lucent" one,
the god of light, reigns also over the fair illusion of our
inner world of fantasy. The perfection of these conditions in
contrast to our imperfectly understood waking reality, as well
as our profound awareness of nature's healing powers during
the interval of sleep and dream, furnishes a symbolic analogue
to the soothsaying faculty and quite generally to the arts,
which make life possible and worth living. But the image of
Apollo must incorporate that thin line which the dream image
may not cross, under penalty of becoming pathological, of imposing
itself on us as crass reality: a discreet limitation, a freedom
from all extravagant urges, the sapient tranquillity of the
plastic god. His eye must be sunlike, in keeping with his origin.
Even at those moments when he is angry and ill-tempered there
lies upon him the consecration of fair illusion. In an eccentric
way one might say of Apollo what Schopenhauer says, in the first
part of The World as Will and Idea, of man caught in
the veil of Maya: "Even as on an immense, raging sea, assailed
by huge wave crests, a man sits in a little rowboat trusting
his frail craft, so, amidst the furious torments of this world,
the individual sits tranquilly, supported by the principium
individuationis and relying on it." One might say that
the unshakable confidence in that principle has received its
most magnificent expression in Apollo, and that Apollo himself
may be regarded as the marvelous divine image of the principium
individuationis, whose looks and gestures radiate the full
delight, wisdom, and beauty of "illusion." |
叔本华在这篇文章中又给我们描写,当一个人对认识现实的方式突然感到惶惑,当他所根据的定理在任何情况下都似乎遇到例外时,他会感到多么可怕的惶恐。假如,在这惶恐以外,还加上当个性原则崩溃时,从人底心灵深处,甚至从性灵里,升起的这种狂喜的陶醉;那末,我们便可以洞见酒神狄奥尼索斯的本性,把它比拟为醉境也许最为贴切。或是在醇酒的影响下原始人和原始民族高唱颂歌时,或是在春光渐近万物欣然向荣的季候,酒神的激情便苏醒了;当激情高涨时,主观的一切都化入混然忘我之境。所以,在德意志的中世纪,常常有积聚成群的歌队巡游各地,载歌载舞,这也是由于这种酒神冲动。在圣约翰节和圣维托斯节的歌舞者中,我们再见到古希腊酒神节歌队的面影,他们的前期历史溯源于小亚细亚,远至巴比伦和崇奉秘仪的萨刻亚人(SakaAen)。有些人,因为缺乏经验,或者思想迟钝,自以为心灵健康,带着讥讽或怜悯说这种现象是“民间病态”,避之唯恐不及;但是这些可怜虫当然料想不到,他们的所谓“心灵健康”,同酒神歌队的热烈的生机洋溢相比,显得多么惨白如幽灵! |
In the same context Schopenhauer
has described for us the tremendous awe which seizes man when
he suddenly begins to doubt the cognitive modes of experience,
in other words, when in a given instance the law of causation
seems to suspend itself. If we add to this awe the glorious
transport which arises in man, even from the very depths of
nature, at the shattering of the principium individuationis,
then we are in a position to apprehend the essence of Dionysian
rapture, whose closest analogy is furnished by physical intoxication.
Dionysian stirrings arise either through the influence of those
narcotic potions of which all primitive races speak in their
hymns, or through the powerful approach of spring, which penetrates
with joy the whole frame of nature. So stirred, the individual
forgets himself completely. It is the same Dionysian power which
in medieval Germany drove ever increasing crowds of people singing
and dancing from place to place; we recognize in these St. John's
and St. Vitus' dancers the Bacchic choruses of the Greeks, who
had their precursors in Asia Minor and as far back as Babylon
and the orgiastic Sacaea. There are people who, either from
lack of experience or out of sheer stupidity, turn away from
such phenomena, and, strong in the sense of their own sanity,
label them either mockingly or pityingly "endemic diseases."
These benighted souls have no idea how cadaverous and ghostly
their "sanity" appears as the intense throng of Dionysian revelers
sweeps past them. |
在酒神的魔力下,不但人与人之间的团结再次得以巩固,甚至那被疏远、被敌视、被屈服的大自然也再次庆贺她与她的浪子人类言归于好。大地慷慨地献出礼贡,猛兽和平地从危崖荒漠走来,酒神的战车装饰着百卉花环,虎豹在他的轭下驱驰。你试把贝多芬的“快乐之颂”绘成图画,你试用想象力去凝想那些惊惶失措伏地膜拜的芸芸众生。你便能体会到酒神的魔力了。此时,奴隶也是自由人;此时,专横的礼教,和“可耻的习俗”,在人与人之间树立的顽强敌对的藩篱,蓦然被推倒;此时,在世界大同的福音中,人不但感到自己与邻人团结了,和解了,融洽了,而且是万众一心;仿佛“幻”的幛幔刹时间被撕破,不过在神秘的“太一”面前还是残叶似的飘零。人在载歌载舞中,感到自己是更高社团的一员;他陶然忘步,混然忘言;他行将翩跹起舞,凌空飞去!他的姿态就传出一种魅力。正如现在走兽也能作人语,正如现在大地流出乳液与蜜浆,同样从他心灵深处发出了超自然的声音。 |
Not only does the bond between
man and man come to be forged once more by the magic of the
Dionysian rite, but nature itself, long alienated or subjugated,
rises again to celebrate the reconciliation with her prodigal
son, man. The earth offers its gifts voluntarily, and the savage
beasts of mountain and desert approach in peace. The chariot
of Dionysus is bedecked with flowers and garlands; panthers
and tigers stride beneath his yoke. If one were to convert Beethoven's
"Paean to Joy" into a painting, and refuse to curb the imagination
when that multitude prostrates itself reverently in the dust,
one might form some apprehension of Dionysian ritual. Now the
slave emerges as a freeman; all the rigid, hostile walls which
either necessity or despotism has erected between men are shattered.
Now that the gospel of universal harmony is sounded, each individual
becomes not only reconciled to his fellow but actually at one
with him--as though the veil of Maya had been torn apart and
there remained only shreds floating before the vision of mystical
Oneness. Man now expresses himself through song and dance as
the member of a higher community; he has forgotten how to walk,
how to speak, and is on the brink of taking wing as he dances.
Each of his gestures betokens enchantment; through him sounds
a supernatural power, the same power which makes the animals
speak and the earth render up milk and honey. |
他觉得自己是神灵,他陶然神往,飘然踯躅,宛若他在梦中所见的独往独来的神物。他已经不是一个艺术家,而俨然是一件艺术品;在陶醉的战栗下,一切自然的艺术才能都显露出来,达到了“太一”的最高度狂欢的酣畅。人,这种最高尚的尘土,最贵重的白石,就在这一刹间被捏制,被雕琢;应和着这位宇宙艺术家酒神的斧凿声,人们发出尼琉息斯(Eleusis)秘仪的呐喊:“苍生呵,你们颓然拜倒了吗?世界呵,你能洞察你的创造者吗?”①
①酒神祭是古希腊民间信仰的一种秘仪,在神话传说上,它与厄琉息斯“地母祭”的秘仪有密切关系,两者都与古希腊农业生产有关。
|
He feels himself to be godlike
and strides with the same elation and ecstasy as the gods he
has seen in his dreams. No longer the artist, he has
himself become a work of art: the productive power
of the whole universe is now manifest in his transport, to the
glorious satisfaction of the primordial One. The finest clay,
the most precious marble--man--is here kneaded and hewn, and
the chisel blows of the Dionysian world artist are accompanied
by the cry of the Eleusinian mystagogues: "Do you fall on your
knees, multitudes, do you divine your creator?" |
2
直到现在,我们曾把梦境和它的对立面醉境看作两种发乎自然,并无人工参与的艺术创造力,在这些力量中,发乎自然的艺术冲动,获得最方便最直接的满足:一方面是梦境的绘画境界,它的美满是不依赖个人的知识高超和艺术修养的;号一方面是醉境的现实,它也是绝不尊重个人能力,甚或竭力把个性摧毁,然后通过一种神秘的万类统一感来救济他。对这两种自然的、直接的艺术境界而言,每个艺术家都是“摹仿者”,换句话说,他或是梦神式的梦境艺术家,或是酒神式的醉境艺术家,或者最后既是梦境的又是醉境的艺术家,例如希腊悲剧作家;就悲剧家而言,我们不妨设想,他初时沈湎在酒神的醉境和神秘的忘我之境,孑然一身,离开了狂歌纵饮的群伍;然后,由于梦神的梦境的感召,他自己的境界,也就是说,他与宇宙根源的统一,立刻在他眼前显现为一幅象征的梦景图画。 |
So far we have examined the Apollinian
and Dionysian states as the product of formative forces arising
directly from nature without the mediation of the human artist.
At this stage artistic urges are satisfied directly, on the
one hand through the imagery of dreams, whose perfection is
quite independent of the intellectual rank, the artistic development
of the individual; on the other hand, through an ecstatic reality
which once again takes no account of the individual and may
even destroy him, or else redeem him through a mystical experience
of the collective. In relation to these immediate creative conditions
of nature every artist must appear as "imitator," either as
the Apollinian dream artist or the Dionysian ecstatic artist,
or, finally (as in Greek tragedy, for example) as dream and
ecstatic artist in one. We might picture to ourselves how the
last of these, in a state of Dionysian intoxication and mystical
self-abrogation, wandering apart from the reveling throng, sinks
upon the ground, and how there is then revealed to him his own
condition--complete oneness with the essence of the universe--in
a dream similitude. |
|
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一般性的前提和对照既已说明,现在让我们进而研究古希腊人,看看发乎自然的艺术冲动在希腊人中间发展到何等高度;因此,我们便有可能更深入地了解和估计希腊艺术家对其原型的关系,亦即亚里士多德所谓“摹仿自然”。虽则古希腊人有不少写梦作品和记梦奇谈,我们讨论他们的梦却只能凭猜测,即使不无恰当的论断。试想他们洞烛隐微不爽丝毫的造型眼力,试想他们对色彩的坦率鲜明的喜爱,我们就不禁设想(后世人们应引以为耻):甚至他们的梦也有线条、轮廓、颜色、布局等等的逻辑关系,也有一种类似最精美的希腊浮雕的连环画景。而且是这样的美满,所以我们颇有理由,——假如可以用比喻来说。——去称做梦的希腊人为荷马,称荷马为做梦的希腊人。这总比现代人在谈及自己的梦时竟敢自比为莎士比亚,有更深远的意义。 |
Having set down these general premises
and distinctions, we now turn to the Greeks in order to realize
to what degree the formative forces of nature were developed
in them. Such an inquiry will enable us to assess properly the
relation of the Greek artist to his prototypes or, to use Aristotle's
expression, his "imitation of nature." Of the dreams the Greeks
dreamed it is not possible to speak with any certainty, despite
the extant dream literature and the large number of dream anecdotes.
But considering the incredible accuracy of their eyes, their
keen and unabashed delight in colors, one can hardly be wrong
in assuming that their dreams too showed a strict consequence
of lines and contours, hues and groupings, a progression of
scenes similar to their best bas reliefs. The perfection of
these dream scenes might almost tempt us to consider the dreaming
Greek as a Homer and Homer as a dreaming Greek; which would
be as though the modern man were to compare himself in his dreaming
to Shakespeare. |
反之,我们不必凭猜测就可以肯定:醉境中的古希腊人和醉境中的野蛮人之间,当然隔着一道不可逾越的鸿沟。在古代世界所有地方,姑且不谈现代世界,从罗马到巴比伦,我们可以指出到处都有酒神祭式的节会,不过这些类型的节会之于希腊类型的节会,至多是像跳羊怪舞的长胡子萨提儿(这个名称和特征取自山羊)之于酒神而已①。所有这些节会的核心,几乎尽是性欲的过分放纵,它的狂潮淹没了一切家庭生活及其可敬的传统;最粗野的兽性蓦然解放,直至酿成情欲与残暴的猥琐的混合;我往往觉得,这堪称为真正的“妖女的淫药”。然而,有时候,古希腊人对于那些从海陆各方传入希腊的节会的狂热激情,似乎完全有了杜渐防微的对策,只要在这场合梦神阿波罗的威严赫赫的形象升起来,他拿出美杜莎的头颅②便可以慑服任何一种比顽蛮怪诞的酒神节会更为危险的力量。梦神这种威严迫人的风度,就体现在多里斯的艺术上,而永垂不朽。然而,一旦酒神的冲动终于从古希腊人的性灵深处发泄出来,拓开一条去路,两者的对抗就更加困难,甚或是不可能;那时候,狄尔斐之神阿波罗的威力减缩了,只好及时地同强敌和解,从他手上夺去那毁灭性的武器。这次和解是希腊宗教崇拜史上最重要的关键;我们无论在何处察看,都可以见到这件大事所引起的变革。两个夙敌已经和解,划清了今后各人应守的界线,有时候还互相馈赠致敬的礼物,但是其间的鸿沟毕竟没有架上桥梁。然而,假如我们见到,在这和平条约压力下,酒神的魔力以甚么样子出现,那末,我们试拿希腊酒神祭秘仪的狂欢纵饮,同巴比伦萨刻亚节那使人退化为虎猿的陋习比较一下,就可以在酒神祭中领悟到基督教的救世节和变容祭的意义了。在佳节良晨,灵性第一次有了艺术性的庆典,个性原则的毁灭第一次成为一种艺术现象;在这场合,情欲与残暴相结合的猥琐的“妖女的淫药”也失效了;唯独酒神信徒的离奇混合的二重性情绪,使我们想到哀极则破涕为欢,乐极则喟叹呻吟的心理现象,正如良药使我们想到毒鸩。这是欢乐极时的惶惑惊呼,或者恨海难填的眷恋哀鸣。在希腊的节会,性灵仿佛露出一种伤感的迹象,为了自己之化整为零掀起一丝喟叹。这些二重性情绪的酒徒的歌声和舞姿,是荷马时代希腊人闻所未闻的新奇事物;尤有甚者,酒神祭音乐激起人们的惶惑和恐惧。虽则我们似乎一向承认音乐是梦境的艺术,但是,严格谈来,这不过是指节奏的律动而言;为了表现梦境境界,便发展了节奏的造型能力。梦境音乐其实是音调方面的多里斯建筑艺术,仅仅是富于暗示的音调,例如竖琴之音。然而,酒神祭音乐,乃至一般音乐的组成成份,例如,音调之惊心动魄,歌韵之急流直泻,和声之绝妙境界,都被慎重地除掉了,被目为非梦境的因素。在酒神颂歌中,人的一切象征能力被激发到最高程度;一些从未体验过的情绪迫不急待地发泻出来——“幻”的幛幔被撕破了,种族灵魂与性灵本身合而为一。现在,性灵的真谛用象征方法表现出来,我们需要一个新的象征世界,肉体的一切象征能力一起出现,不但双唇,脸部,语言富于象征意义,而且丰富多彩的舞姿也使得手足都成为旋律的运动。于是,其它象征能力随之而发生,音乐的象征能力突然暴发为旋律、音质与和声。为了掌握如何把这一切象征能力一起释放,人必须业已达到忘我之境,务求通过这些能力象征地表现出来。所以,酒神祭的信徒,唯有同道中人能够了解。梦神式的希腊人看到这些酒徒,将感到何等惊愕呵!而尤有甚者,惊愕以外加上疑虑,隐约感到这种情绪毕竟是自己所熟识的,不过自己的梦神意识象一幅幛幔似的掩遮着眼前的陶醉境界!
--------萨提儿(Satyr)是希腊神话中一种山林荒野之灵,纵欲好饮,代表原始人的自然冲动,在酒神祭时,古希腊农民庆祝丰收,往往头戴羊角,足穿羊蹄形靴。扮成萨提儿,舞踊作乐。这就是希腊戏剧最原始的雏型。
美杜莎(Medusa),希腊神话中的妖女,其发为蛇蝎,人见之则成为化石,后为阿波罗所杀,用她的头作成武器以慑服敌人。
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Yet there is another point about
which we do not have to conjecture at all: I mean the profound
gap separating the Dionysian Greeks from the Dionysian barbarians.
Throughout the range of ancient civilization (leaving the newer
civilizations out of account for the moment) we find evidence
of Dionysian celebrations which stand to the Greek type in much
the same relation as the bearded satyr, whose name and attributes
are derived from the goat, stands to the god Dionysus. The central
concern of such celebrations was, almost universally, a complete
sexual promiscuity overriding every form of established tribal
law; all the savage urges of the mind were unleashed on those
occasions until they reached that paroxysm of lust and cruelty
which has always struck me as the "witches' cauldron" par
excellence. It would appear that the Greeks were for a
while quite immune from these feverish excesses which must have
reached them by every known land or sea route. What kept Greece
safe was the proud, imposing image of Apollo, who in holding
up the head of the Gorgon to those brutal and grotesque Dionysian
forces subdued them. Doric art has immortalized Apollo's majestic
rejection of all license. But resistance became difficult, even
impossible, as soon as similar urges began to break forth from
the deep substratum of Hellenism itself. Soon the function of
the Delphic god developed into something quite different and
much more limited: all he could hope to accomplish now was to
wrest the destructive weapon, by a timely gesture of pacification,
from his opponent's hand. That act of pacification represents
the most important event in the history of Greek ritual; every
department of life now shows symptoms of a revolutionary change.
The two great antagonists have been reconciled. Each feels obliged
henceforth to keep to his bounds, each will honor the other
by the bestowal of periodic gifts, while the cleavage remains
fundamentally the same. And yet, if we examine what happened
to the Dionysian powers under the pressure of that treaty we
notice a great difference: in the place of the Babylonian Sacaea,
with their throwback of men to the condition of apes and tigers,
we now see entirely new rites celebrated: rites of universal
redemption, of glorious transfiguration. Only now has it become
possible to speak of nature's celebrating an aesthetic
triumph; only now has the abrogation of the principium individuationis
become an aesthetic event. That terrible witches' brew concocted
of lust and cruelty has lost all power under the new conditions.
Yet the peculiar blending of emotions in the heart of the Dionysian
reveler--his ambiguity if you will--seems still to hark back
(as the medicinal drug harks back to the deadly poison) to the
days when the infliction of pain was experienced as joy while
a sense of supreme triumph elicited cries of anguish from the
heart. For now in every exuberant joy there is heard an undertone
of terror, or else a wistful lament over an irrecoverable loss.
It is as though in these Greek festivals a sentimental trait
of nature were coming to the fore, as though nature were bemoaning
the fact of her fragmentation, her decomposition into separate
individuals. The chants and gestures of these revelers, so ambiguous
in their motivation, represented an absolute novum
in the world of the Homeric Greeks; their Dionysian music, in
especial, spread abroad terror and a deep shudder. It is true:
music had long been familiar to the Greeks as an Apollinian
art, as a regular beat like that of waves lapping the shore,
a plastic rhythm expressly developed for the portrayal of Apollinian
conditions. Apollo's music was a Doric architecture of sound--of
barely hinted sounds such as are proper to the cithara. Those
very elements which characterize Dionysian music and, after
it, music quite generally: the heart shaking power of tone,
the uniform stream of melody, the incomparable resources of
harmony--all those elements had been carefully kept at a distance
as being inconsonant with the Apollinian norm. In the Dionysian
dithyramb man is incited to strain his symbolic faculties to
the utmost; something quite unheard of is now clamoring to be
heard: the desire to tear asunder the veil of Maya, to sink
back into the original oneness of nature; the desire to express
the very essence of nature symbolically. Thus an entirely new
set of symbols springs into being. First, all the symbols pertaining
to physical features: mouth, face, the spoken word, the dance
movement which coordinates the limbs and bends them to its rhythm.
Then suddenly all the rest of the symbolic forces--music and
rhythm as such, dynamics, harmony--assert themselves with great
energy. In order to comprehend this total emancipation of all
the symbolic powers one must have reached the same measure of
inner freedom those powers themselves were making manifest;
which is to say that the votary of Dionysus could not be understood
except by his own kind. It is not difficult to imagine the awed
surprise with which the Apollinian Greek must have looked on
him. And that surprise would be further increased as the latter
realized, with a shudder, that all this was not so alien to
him after all, that his Apollinian consciousness was but a thin
veil hiding from him the whole Dionysian realm. |
3
想了解这一点,我们就必须把梦神阿波罗文化的艺术大厦一砖一石拆除,直至见到它所凭借的基础。首先,我们发现那些庄严的奥林匹斯神象高据这大厦的山墙上,他们的事迹被刻成光辉四射的浮雕,装饰着腰壁。虽则阿波罗不过是与诸神并列的一介之神,没有优越地位的权利,但我们不应因此感到迷惑。因为整个奥林匹斯神界,总的说来,是从体现在阿波罗神身上的那种冲动诞生的,所以,在这一意义上,阿波罗堪称为神界之父。那么,由于甚么不可思议的要求而产生如此辉煌的奥林匹斯神界呢? |
In order to comprehend this we
must take down the elaborate edifice of Apollinian culture stone
by stone until we discover its foundations. At first the eye
is struck by the marvelous shapes of the Olympian gods who stand
upon its pediments, and whose exploits, in shining bas-relief,
adorn its friezes. The fact that among them we find Apollo as
one god among many, making no claim to a privileged position,
should not mislead us. The same drive that found its most complete
representation in Apollo generated the whole Olympian world,
and in this sense we may consider Apollo the father of that
world. But what was the radical need out of which that illustrious
society of Olympian beings sprang? |
若是有人怀着别种宗教信念去接近奥林匹斯诸神,想从他们那里寻找道德的高尚,神圣的虔洁,超肉体的灵性,慈祥的秋波,他势必怅然失望,立刻掉首而去了。因为这里没有甚么使人想到遁世,灵性,清规戒律的东西:这里我们只听到精力充沛生意盎然的凯旋,这里存在的一切,不论善恶,都被奉若神明。所以,静观的人,站在如此奇妙的生机充溢的景象之前,定必愕然失措,他要抚心自问:这些豪放不羁的人们到底饮了甚么奇方妙药,而能够这样乐生,所以他们不论向哪里看,都见到海伦(Holena)的微笑,而她正是他们自己在
“情海浮沉”的生活的理想画景?然而,我们必须向业已掉首不顾的静观者高声疾呼:“别跑开,请先听听古希腊民间智慧怎样阐述这种以如此妙不可言的欢乐展开在你眼前的生活”。有一个古老故事说:“昔日米达斯(Midas)王曾很久在林中寻找酒神的伴侣,聪明的西列诺斯(Se-lenus),但没有找到。当西列诺斯终于落到他手上时,王就问他:对于人绝好绝妙的是甚么呢?这位神灵呆若木鸡,一言不发,等到王强逼他,他终于在宏亮的笑声中说出这样的话:朝生暮死的可怜虫,无常与忧患的儿子,你为什么强逼我说出你最好是不要听的话呢?世间绝好的东西是你永远得不到的,——那就是不要降生,不要存在,成为乌有。但是,对于你次好的是——早死。” |
Whoever approaches the Olympians
with a different religion in his heart, seeking moral elevation,
sanctity, spirituality, loving kindness, will presently be forced
to turn away from them in ill-humored disappointment. Nothing
in these deities reminds us of asceticism, high intellect, or
duty: we are confronted by luxuriant, triumphant existence,
which deifies the good and the bad indifferently. And the beholder
may find himself dismayed in the presence of such overflowing
life and ask himself what potion these heady people must have
drunk in order to behold, in whatever direction they looked,
Helen laughing back at them, the beguiling image of their own
existence. But we shall call out to this beholder, who has already
turned his back: Don't go! Listen first to what the Greeks themselves
have to say of this life, which spreads itself before you with
such puzzling serenity. An old legend has it that King Midas
hunted a long time in the woods for the wise Silenus, companion
of Dionysus, without being able to catch him. When he had finally
caught him the king asked him what he considered man's greatest
good. The daemon remained sullen and uncommunicative until finally,
forced by the king, he broke into a shrill laugh and spoke:
"Ephemeral wretch, begotten by accident and toil, why do you
force me to tell you what it would be your greatest boon not
to hear? What would be best for you is quite beyond your reach:
not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. But
the second best is to die soon." |
奥林匹斯神界对这民间智慧的关系是怎样呢?就象临刑的殉道者对于自己的苦难感到一种狂喜的幻觉。 |
What is the relation of the Olympian
gods to this popular wisdom? It is that of the entranced vision
of the martyr to his torment. |
现在,奥林匹斯灵山仿佛对我们敞开,露出它的根基来了。希腊人认识了而且感觉到生存之可怖可惧;为了能生活下去,他们不得不在恐惧面前设想这灿烂的奥林匹斯之梦的诞生。那面对着自然暴力的绝大恐惧,那无情地统御着一切知识的命数,那折磨着伟大爱人类者普罗密修斯的苍鹰,那聪明的奥狄普斯的可怕命运,那驱使奥瑞斯提斯去弑母的阿特柔斯家族灾殃;总之,一切野鬼山神的全部哲学,以及它使得忧郁的伊特鲁利亚人终于灭亡的神秘事例,——这一切,都被希腊人借赖奥林匹斯的艺术的缓冲世界一次又一次战胜了;这一切毕竟被遮掩住,从眼前隐退了。为了能生活下去,由于这个迫切的要求,希腊人必须创造这些神灵;我们不妨设想这创造的过程大致如下,快乐的奥林匹斯神统,是通过梦神的爱美冲动,慢慢地从原来的恐怖的铁旦神统①演变而成的,正如蔷薇的蓓蕾从多刺的丛林葩发那样。假如希腊人不是从荣光高照的希腊神灵得到生存意义的启示,试问这个如此敏感,如此热衷于欲望,而独能担当大难的民族怎样能够忍受人生呢?正是这种产生艺术,使得生活丰富多彩,引诱人活下去的艺术冲动,促使奥林匹斯神界诞生,希腊的“意志”就以这神界为明镜,照见自己容光焕发。所以,神是人生的印证,因为神本身也过着人类的生活,——这是唯一令人满意的神正论。生存在这样的神灵之煦光下,才使人感到生存本身值得追求。对于荷马的英雄,真正的悲哀莫大于身死,尤其是早死:所以现在我们不妨把西列诺斯的警句颠倒过来,以论希腊人:“对于他们。最坏的是早死,其次是终有一天会死。”这种哀鸣一旦发出之后,便再度听到短命的阿客琉斯的响应,他就抱怨秋叶飘零似的人生变幻,和英雄时代的日益衰微。旷世英雄本不该眷恋人生,何况他宁可生而为奴隶。然而,希腊的“意志”,到了梦神出现的阶段,这样热切地渴望现世生活,这位荷马英雄又觉得自己与生存意志吻合为一,所以生的哀歌也就成为生的礼赞②。
①据古希腊神话,铁旦神族是宙斯统治以前的神统,被宙斯推翻,尼采在本文中使 “铁旦”这词,往往指希腊文明时代以前的原始社会的自然状态、自然冲动、自然道德观等等。
②在荷马史诗中,英雄阿客琉斯知道自己命短,便哀叹人生之无常,及他死后,又谓宁可生而为奴隶,也不愿死而为鬼。
|
Now the Olympian magic mountain
opens itself before us, showing us its very roots. The Greeks
were keenly aware of the terrors and horrors of existence; in
order to be able to live at all they had to place before them
the shining fantasy of the Olympians. Their tremendous distrust
of the titanic forces of nature: Moira, mercilessly
enthroned beyond the knowable world; the vulture which fed upon
the great philanthropist Prometheus; the terrible lot drawn
by wise Oedipus; the curse on the house of Atreus which brought
Orestes to the murder of his mother: that whole Panic philosophy,
in short, with its mythic examples, by which the gloomy Etruscans
perished, the Greeks conquered--or at least hid from view--again
and again by means of this artificial Olympus. In order to live
at all the Greeks had to construct these deities. The Apollinian
need for beauty had to develop the Olympian hierarchy of joy
by slow degrees from the original titanic hierarchy of terror,
as roses are seen to break from a thorny thicket. How else could
life have been borne by a race so hypersensitive, so emotionally
intense, so equipped for suffering? The same drive which called
art into being as a completion and consummation of existence,
and as a guarantee of further existence, gave rise also to that
Olympian realm which acted as a transfiguring mirror to the
Hellenic will. The gods justified human life by living it themselves--the
only satisfactory theodicy ever invented. To exist in the clear
sunlight of such deities was now felt to be the highest good,
and the only real grief suffered by Homeric man was inspired
by the thought of leaving that sunlight, especially when the
departure seemed imminent. Now it became possible to stand the
wisdom of Silenus on its head and proclaim that it was the worst
evil for man to die soon, and second worst for him to die at
all. Such laments as arise now arise over short-lived Achilles,
over the generations ephemeral as leaves, the decline of the
heroic age. It is not unbecoming to even the greatest hero to
yearn for an afterlife, though it be as a day laborer. So impetuously,
during the Apollinian phase, does man's will desire to remain
on earth, so identified does he become with existence, that
even his lament turns to a song of praise. |
到此,我们应该指出:现代人所渴望去静观的这种和谐,亦即人与自然的合一(席勒使用“素朴”这术语来表示这意境),绝不是这样简单的,自然自发,仿佛难免的一种境界,也不是在任何一种文化门前必然见到的人间乐园。只有浪漫主义时代才相信这点;当时,人们想象艺术家有如卢梭的爱弥儿。妄想在荷马身上发现象爱弥儿那样在自然怀抱中养育出来的艺术家。凡在艺术上发现有“素朴”的场合,我们都认为这是梦神文化的最大效果,这种文化往往必须首先推翻原始的铁旦王国,杀掉魔怪,然后凭它的有力的幻象和可爱的幻想,战胜了静观世界底阴森可怕的深渊和悲天悯人的敏感。可是,我们就甚少能达到这种心醉神迷于假象之美的素朴境界,荷马的崇高真是不可言诠:他个人对待梦神型的民间文化,正如个别梦境艺术家对待一般人民与自然的梦想能力那样。所谓荷马的“素朴”,只能理解为梦境幻想的绝对胜利,它是自然为了达到目的而常常使用的一种幻想。幻象掩障了真正的目的,当你伸手去把握这幻象时,自然就借你的幻想达到它的目的。在希腊人,“意志”要求在天才和艺术境界的美化作用中静观自己;芸芸众生为了颂扬自己,必须首先觉得是颂扬;他们必须在更高境界里再看见自己,而无须这完美的静观世界来督促或责备。这就是美之境界,希腊人在那里见到反映自己的面影——奥林匹斯神灵。凭借这种美之反映,希腊的“意志”就能对抗它在艺术方面的悲天悯人的才能和智慧;而荷马这位素朴艺术家便巍峨矗立,象一个凯旋碑! |
It should have become apparent
by now that the harmony with nature which we late comers regard
with such nostalgia, and for which Schiller has coined the cant
term naïve, is by no means a simple and inevitable
condition to be found at the gateway to every culture, a kind
of paradise. Such a belief could have been endorsed only by
a period for which Rousseau's Emile was an artist and Homer
just such an artist nurtured in the bosom of nature. Whenever
we encounter "naïveté" in art, we are face to face with the
ripest fruit of Apollinian culture--which must always triumph
first over titans, kill monsters, and overcome the somber contemplation
of actuality, the intense susceptibility to suffering, by means
of illusions strenuously and zestfully entertained. But how
rare are the instances of true naïveté, of that complete identification
with the beauty of appearance! It is this achievement which
makes Homer so magnificent--Homer, who, as a single individual,
stood to Apollinian popular culture in the same relation as
the individual dream artist to the oneiric capacity of a race
and of nature generally. The naïveté of Homer must be viewed
as a complete victory of Apollinian illusion. Nature often uses
illusions of this sort in order to accomplish its secret purposes.
The true goal is covered over by a phantasm. We stretch out
our hands to the latter, while nature, aided by our deception,
attains the former. In the case of the Greeks it was the will
wishing to behold itself in the work of art, in the transcendence
of genius; but in order so to behold itself its creatures had
first to view themselves as glorious, to transpose themselves
to a higher sphere, without having that sphere of pure contemplation
either challenge them or upbraid them with insufficiency. It
was in that sphere of beauty that the Greeks saw the Olympians
as their mirror images; it was by means of that aesthetic mirror
that the Greek will opposed suffering and the somber wisdom
of suffering which always accompanies artistic talent. As a
monument to its victory stands Homer, the naïve artist. |
4
关于这种素朴的艺术家,若以梦境为喻,可以给我们一些启发。试设想一个做梦的人;他沉湎于梦境而不愿惊扰其梦,对自己说:“是梦吧,我索性梦下去呵!”我们由此可以推断:他在梦的静观中体验到一种深刻的内心快感;另一方面,为了能在静观中心满意足地梦下去,他必须完全忘掉白昼现实以及迫人的忧患。所以,凭解梦神阿波罗的指导,我们对这一切现象可以作如下的阐明:虽然在生活的两面,在醒和梦中,前者确实似乎是无比地更可取,更重要、更可贵、更值得体味,而且是唯一身受的生活;然而,若论我们身为其现象的存在之神秘根源,我坦白地主张我们对于梦也应予以相当的重视,虽则这似乎是奇谈妙论。因为我在性灵方面愈觉察出这种万能的艺术冲动,见到它力求表现为假象并且通过假象而得救的热情,我便愈觉得有必要作如下的形而上学假设:真正的存在和太一,这种永劫和矛盾,同样也需要醉心的幻影,快乐的假象,不断地来救济它;我们既然置身在这种假象中,而且是由它构成的,就势必觉得它是真正的虚无,是时间、空间、因果的无穷变幻,换句话说,是经验的实在,假如我们暂时不看自己的“实在”,假如我们把我们的经验的实在,和一般的世界的实在,看作太一所不断显现的表象,那就不妨把梦看作假象的假象,从而看作原始的假象快感之高度的满足。正因此故,性灵的心灵深处对于素朴艺术家和素朴艺术品,亦即对假象的假象,感到难以形容的愉快。拉斐尔是这些不朽的素朴艺术家之一,他在一幅象征画中,给我们绘出假象转化为假象的过程,素朴艺术家以及梦神文化的原始过程。在他的画“耶稣变容”的下半幅,凝神的孩子,失望的仵工,困惑不安的信徒,反映出原始而永恒的痛苦,世界的唯一根基,画中的“假象”就是万物之源的永恒矛盾的反照。现在,从这一假象,宛若袭来一股芬芳的天香,升起了一个新的虚幻的假象世界,但是置身于第一个假象中的人们却视而不见——它是飘荡在最纯粹福乐中的浮光,它是在身心舒畅时睁目惊叹的观照。这里,在最崇高的艺术象征中,我们体会到了梦神的美之世界及其根基,西列诺斯的可怕的警句,我们凭直觉领悟到这两者的互相依存。然而,梦神再度以个性原则之化身的姿态出现在我们面前。唯有这样,才能完全达到太一的终极目的,它通过假象而得救了。梦神以他的崇高姿态对我们指出,这个痛苦的世界是完全必要的,因为,通过它,一个人才不得不产生救苦的幻觉。 |
We can learn something about that
naïve artist through the analogy of dream. We can imagine the
dreamer as he calls out to himself, still caught in the illusion
of his dream and without disturbing it, "This is a dream, and
I want to go on dreaming," and we can infer, on the one hand,
that he takes deep delight in the contemplation of his dream,
and, on the other, that he must have forgotten the day, with
its horrible importunity, so to enjoy his dream. Apollo, the
interpreter of dreams, will furnish the clue to what is happening
here. Although of the two halves of life--the waking and the
dreaming--the former is generally considered not only the more
important but the only one which is truly lived, I would, at
the risk of sounding paradoxical, propose the opposite view.
The more I have come to realize in nature those omnipotent formative
tendencies and, with them, an intense longing for illusion,
the more I feel inclined to the hypothesis that the original
Oneness, the ground of Being, ever suffering and contradictory,
time and again has need of rapt vision and delightful illusion
to redeem itself. Since we ourselves are the very stuff of such
illusions, we must view ourselves as the truly non-existent,
that is to say, as a perpetual unfolding in time, space, and
causality--what we label "empiric reality." But if, for the
moment, we abstract from our own reality, viewing our empiric
existence, as well as the existence of the world at large, as
the idea of the original Oneness, produced anew each
instant, then our dreams will appear to us as illusions of illusions,
hence as a still higher form of satisfaction of the original
desire for illusion. It is for this reason that the very core
of nature takes such a deep delight in the naive artist and
the naive work of art, which likewise is merely the illusion
of an illusion. Raphael, himself one of those immortal "naive"
artists, in a symbolic canvas has illustrated that reduction
of illusion to further illusion which is the original act of
the naive artist and at the same time of all Apollinian culture.
In the lower half of his "Transfiguration," through the figures
of the possessed boy, the despairing bearers, the helpless,
terrified disciples, we see a reflection of original pain, the
sole ground of being: "illusion" here is a reflection of eternal
contradiction, begetter of all things. From this illusion there
rises, like the fragrance of ambrosia, a new illusory world,
invisible to those enmeshed in the first: a radiant vision of
pure delight, a rapt seeing through wide open eyes. Here we
have, in a great symbol of art, both the fair world of Apollo
and its substratum, the terrible wisdom of Silenus, and we can
comprehend intuitively how they mutually require one another.
But Apollo appears to us once again as the apotheosis of the
principium individuationis, in whom the eternal goal
of the original Oneness, namely its redemption through illusion,
accomplishes itself. With august gesture the god shows us how
there is need for a whole world of torment in order for the
individual to produce the redemptive vision and to sit quietly
in his rocking rowboat in mid sea, absorbed in contemplation. |
于是,在静观自得中,他安坐在这慈航,渡过苦海。这种个性原则的崇拜,作为一般强制的道德律来说,只有一条规律——个性规律,也就是说,守住个人的范围,亦即希腊人所谓适度。德行之神阿波罗,要求他的信徒们凡事适可而止,为了有节有度,则须有自知之明。所以,除了审美的要求以外,还提出“认识自己”和“慎勿过分”这些要求;同时,自矜与过份被视为非梦神境界的真正恶魔,从而是梦神以前的原始铁旦时代的特征,梦神以外的蛮邦世界的特征。普罗密修斯因为以铁旦神族之爱来爱人类,所以应该被苍鹰啄食;奥狄普斯因为解答斯芬克斯之谜的过分聪明,所以应该陷入纷乱的罪恶旋涡。狄尔斐之神阿波罗是这样的解释希腊古史的。 |
If this apotheosis of individuation
is to be read in normative terms, we may infer that there is
one norm only: the individual--or, more precisely, the observance
of the limits of the individual: sophrosune. As a moral
deity Apollo demands self-control from his people and, in order
to observe such self-control, a knowledge of self. And so we
find that the aesthetic necessity of beauty is accompanied by
the imperatives, "Know thyself," and "Nothing too much." Conversely,
excess and hubris come to be regarded as the hostile
spirits of the non-Apollinian sphere, hence as properties of
the pre-Apollinian era--the age of Titans --and the extra-Apollinian
world, that is to say the world of the barbarians. It was because
of his Titanic love of man that Prometheus had to be devoured
by vultures; it was because of his extravagant wisdom which
succeeded in solving the riddle of the Sphinx that Oedipus had
to be cast into a whirlpool of crime: in this fashion does the
Delphic god interpret the Greek past. |
同样,在梦神式希腊人看来,酒神文化的影响就似乎是铁旦的和野蛮的了,但同时他却不能不承认自己在心灵深处与那些倾覆了的铁旦神统和英雄们息息相通。不仅如此,他也觉得他的一切生活,尽管是美丽的、适度的,毕竟建筑在痛苦与知识之根基上,而酒神文化却对他揭露了这根基。试看,梦神就不能离开酒神而生存!那么,铁旦的和野蛮的教化之重要性,就不下于梦神的教化了。现在,试想这个以假象和适度为基础,以艺术为堤防的境界,酒神祭佳节的消魂荡魄的狂欢之声侵入这境界了,在这些歌声中,我们听到一切率性而行的大喜、大悲、大智、大慧、甚至镂心刻骨的呼啸;那末,我们试问:颂歌诗神阿波罗的幽灵似的琴音,同这恶魔似的民歌相比,还有甚么意义呢,在这种在陶醉中说出真理的艺术面前,假象之艺术的女神暗然失色!西列诺斯的智慧,对着这位静穆的奥林匹斯梦神高呼:“哀哉!哀哉!”此时,安分守己的个人便陷入陶然忘我之境,顿然忘掉梦神的清规戒律了。过份变成真理,物极必反,悲中生乐,这是发乎性灵心中的呼吁。所以,每当酒神文化入侵之时,梦神文化就被扬弃,被消灭。然而,反过来也是如此。每当酒神的进攻受到挫败,梦神的威严就显得空前地盛气凌人。因此,以我看,我只能把多里斯境界和多里斯艺术理解为梦神文化的惨淡经营的堡垒。因为,如此顽强、冷漠、警卫森严的艺术,如此严格尚武的训练,如此冷酷无情的政治制度,唯有不断反抗酒神文化的原始野性,才能维持长久。 |
The effects of the Dionysian spirit
struck the Apollinian Greeks as titanic and barbaric; yet they
could not disguise from themselves the fact that they were essentially
akin to chose deposed Titans and heroes. They felt more than
that: their whole existence, with its temperate beauty, rested
upon a base of suffering and knowledge which had been
hidden from them until the reinstatement of Dionysus uncovered
it once more. And lo and behold! Apollo found it impossible
to live without Dionysus. The elements of titanism and barbarism
fumed out to be quite as fundamental as the Apollinian element.
And now let us imagine how the ecstatic sounds of the Dionysian
rites penetrated ever more enticingly into that artificially
restrained and discreet world of illusion, how this clamor expressed
the whole outrageous gamut of nature--delight, grief, knowledge--even
to the most piercing cry; and then let us imagine how the Apollinian
artist with his thin, monotonous harp music must have sounded
beside the demoniac chant of the multitude! The muses presiding
over the illusory arts paled before an art which enthusiastically
told the truth, and the wisdom of Silenus cried "Woe!" against
the serene Olympians. The individual, with his limits and moderations,
forgot himself in the Dionysian vortex and became oblivious
to the laws of Apollo. Indiscreet extravagance revealed itself
as truth, and contradiction, a delight born of pain, spoke out
of the bosom of nature. Wherever the Dionysian voice was heard,
the Apollinian norm seemed suspended or destroyed. Yet it is
equally true that, in those places where the first assault was
withstood, the prestige and majesty of the Delphic god appeared
more rigid and threatening than before. The only way I am able
to view Doric art and the Doric state is as a perpetual military
encampment of the Apollinian forces. An art so defiantly austere,
so ringed about with fortifications--an education so military
and exacting--a polity so ruthlessly cruel--could endure only
in a continual state of resistance against the titanic and barbaric
menace of Dionysus. |
到此为止,我只发挥了我在本文章首的意见,即酒神与梦神两类型文化,新陈代谢而相得益彰,始终统辖着希腊天才。在梦神的爱美冲动统治下,荷马世界从青铜时代及其铁旦神统战争和严厉的民间哲学发展而成;荷马的“素朴”的繁荣又被酒神文化的滔滔狂潮淹没了;于是梦神文化起来反抗这种新势力,终于达到多里斯艺术和多里斯世界观的威严。这样,如果把希腊的古代史分为四大艺术阶段,我们现在就有必要进一步去探索这些发展和进步的终极目的,否则我们也许以为那最后达到的时代,多里斯艺术的时代,就是这些艺术冲动的高峰和归宿。到了那时代,阿提刻悲剧和酒神祭戏曲的崇高而著名的艺术作品出现在我们眼前,它们是这两种倾向的共同目标;久经波折之后,这两种倾向终于庆贺这段神秘的姻缘,产生了这个孩子——她既是安提戈妮(Antigone),又是嘉珊德拉(Cassandra)。 |
Up to this point I have developed
at some length a theme which was sounded at the beginning of
this essay: how the Dionysian and Apollinian elements, in a
continuous chain of creations, each enhancing the other, dominated
the Hellenic mind; how from the Iron Age, with its battles of
Titans and its austere popular philosophy, there developed under
the aegis of Apollo the Homeric world of beauty; how this "naive"
splendor was then absorbed once more by the Dionysian torrent,
and how, face to face with this new power, the Apollinian code
rigidified into the majesty of Doric art and contemplation.
If the earlier phase of Greek history may justly be broken down
into four major artistic epochs dramatizing the battle between
the two hostile principles, then we must inquire further (lest
Doric art appear to us as the acme and final goal of all these
striving tendencies) what was the true end toward which that
evolution moved. And our eyes will come to rest on the sublime
and much lauded achievement of the dramatic dithyramb and Attic
tragedy, as the common goal of both urges; whose mysterious
marriage, after long discord, ennobled itself with such a child,
at once Antigone and Cassandra. |
5
现在,我们接近研究的真正目的了,我们的目的在于认识酒神兼梦神型的天才及其艺术作品,至少先要了解其初步的神秘结合。到此,我们将首先探讨这颗新芽怎样先在希腊世界出现,后来又发展为悲剧与酒神祭曲。关于这点,古希腊人自己就给我们一个象征的答案。他们把荷马和阿奇洛科斯的像并列刻在雕塑,饰物等等之上,视为希腊诗歌的始祖和持炬人,他们深深感到只有这两个匠心独运的同辈天才值得尊重,因为一股热情之流从他们发源,流遍希腊晚期的全部历史。荷马,这个潜心默想、白发苍苍的诗人,现在愕然看着狂放豪迈,驰骋人间的尚武诗人阿奇洛科斯的慷慨激昂的才华,现代美学只能把这解释为第一个客观诗人与第一个主观诗人分庭抗礼。这种说明对于我们无甚帮助,因为我们认为主观的艺术家不过是可怜的艺术家,而在各种艺术和艺术高峰尤其需要首先克服主观成份,从自我解放出来,制止个人的意志与欲望。真的,任何一件微不足道的作品,如果没有客观性,没有纯粹的超然的静观,我们就不相信它是真正艺术。所以,我们的美学必须首先答复这样的问题,就各时代的经验而言,所谓抒情诗人言必及“我”,总是对我们有声有色地歌唱自己的眷恋爱慕,那么这种诗人又怎能算是艺术家呢?比之荷马,阿奇洛科斯以他的愤恨轻蔑的呐喊,如醉如狂的热情,使我们惊心动魄;那么,号称第一个主观艺术家的他,岂不是非艺术家吗?然而,在这情况下:又怎样解释人们对他的崇敬,甚至客观艺术之策源地狄尔斐的不同凡响的神喻也尊他为诗人呢? |
We are now approaching the central
concern of our inquiry, which has as its aim an understanding
of the Dionysian-Apollinian spirit, or at least an intuitive
comprehension of the mystery which made this conjunction possible.
Our first question must be: where in the Greek world is the
new seed first to be found which was later to develop into tragedy
and the dramatic dithyramb? Greek antiquity gives us a pictorial
clue when it represents in statues, on cameos, etc., Homer and
Archilochus side by side as ancestors and torchbearers of Greek
poetry, in the certainty that only these two are to be regarded
as truly original minds, from whom a stream of fire flowed onto
the entire later Greek world. Homer, the hoary dreamer, caught
in utter abstraction, prototype of the Apollinian naive artist,
stares in amazement at the passionate head of Archilochus, soldierly
servant of the Muses, knocked about by fortune. All that more
recent aesthetics has been able to add by way of interpretation
is that here the "objective" artist is confronted by the first
"subjective" artist. We find this interpretation of little use,
since to us the subjective artist is simply the bad artist,
and since we demand above all, in every genre and range of art,
a triumph over subjectivity, deliverance from the self, the
silencing of every personal will and desire; since, in fact,
we cannot imagine the smallest genuine art work lacking objectivity
and disinterested contemplation. For this reason our aesthetic
must first solve the following problem: how is the lyrical poet
at all possible as artist--he who, according to the experience
of all times, always says "I" and recites to us the entire chromatic
scale of his passions and appetites? It is this Archilochus
who most disturbs us, placed there beside Homer, with the stridor
of his hate and mockery, the drunken outbursts of his desire.
Isn't he--the first artist to be called subjective--for that
reason the veritable non-artist? How, then, are we to explain
the reverence in which he was held as a poet, the honor done
him by the Delphic oracle, that seat of "objective" art, in
a number of very curious sayings? |
席勒从心理方面观察,阐述他的创作过程,他自己虽然不能解释,但这似乎是可靠的。他承认,创作活动之前预备阶段的心情,并不是先在眼前或心中有一连串依照思维程序排列起来的映象,而毋宁是一种音乐情调。(“在我,感觉初时并没有明确固定的目的,这是后来才形成的。我先有某种音乐性的心情,只有在这之后才产生诗的思想。”)此外,让我再指出一切古代抒情诗最主要的一种现象——往往抒情诗人与音乐家自然而然结合于一身甚且同是一人。就这点来说,现代抒情诗,在相形之下,就好象没有头颅的神象了。所以,根据上述的审美形而上学,我们可以说明抒情诗人如下。首先,抒情诗人,作为醉境艺术家,是完全同“太一”及其痛苦和矛盾彼此一致的;设使音乐堪称为世界的复制或再铸,就不妨说抒情诗人模仿太一而制为音乐。但是,现在在梦神的感召下,他见到音乐变成象征的梦景。于是,原始的痛苦模糊恍惚地反映在音乐上,又通过假象获得救济,便产生第二次的反映,成为一种独特的象征或范本。艺术家在进入醉境的过程中,已经扬弃了他的主观性。现在,使他感到自己与宇宙心灵同化的那幅画景,成为这样的梦景:它体现了假象世界的原始矛盾,原始苦恼,乃至原始快乐。所以,抒情诗人的“我”是从他心灵深处发出的声音,现代美学家所谓抒情诗人的“主观性”不过是自以为是的幻想而已。当第一个希腊抒情诗人阿奇洛科斯对吕甘伯斯(Lyoambas)的女儿表示热恋又表示蔑视之时①,我们不仅见到他的热情如醉如狂地悸动,我们还见到酒神和他的侍女们,见到酩酊大醉的阿奇洛科斯陶然的睡态,正如欧里庇德斯在“酒神侍者”中所描写的在高山草地上日中高卧那样。现在,梦神走近来了,用月桂枝触他一下,于是睡诗人的酒神音乐的魔力便发出如画的火花,这就是抒情诗,它的最高发展的形式谓之悲剧与酒神祭曲。 |
Schiller has thrown some light
on his own manner of composition by a psychological observation
which seems inexplicable to himself without, however, giving
him pause. Schiller confessed that, prior to composing, he experienced
not a logically connected series of images but rather a
musical mood. "With me emotion is at the beginning without
dear and definite ideas; those ideas do not arise until later
on. A certain musical disposition of mind comes first, and after
follows the poetical idea." If we enlarge on this, taking into
account the most important phenomenon of ancient poetry, by
which I mean that union-- nay identity--everywhere considered
natural, between musician and poet (alongside which our modern
poetry appears as the statue of a god without a head), then
we may, on the basis of the aesthetics adumbrated earlier, explain
the lyrical poet in the following manner. He is, first and foremost,
a Dionysian artist, become wholly identified with the original
Oneness, its pain and contradiction, and producing a replica
of that Oneness as music, if music may legitimately be seen
as a repetition of the world; however, this music becomes visible
to him again, as in a dream similitude, through the Apollinian
dream influence. That reflection, without image or idea, of
original pain in music, with its redemption through illusion,
now produces a second reflection as a single simile or example.
The artist had abrogated his subjectivity earlier, during the
Dionysian phase: the image which now reveals to him his oneness
with the heart of the world is a dream scene showing forth vividly,
together with original pain, the original delight of illusion.
The "I" thus sounds out of the depth of being; what recent writers
on aesthetics speak of as "subjectivity" is a mere figment.
When Archilochus, the first lyric poet of the Greeks, hurls
both his frantic love and his contempt at the daughters of Lycambes,
it is not his own passion that we see dancing before us in an
orgiastic frenzy: we see Dionysus and the maenads, we see the
drunken reveler Archilochus, sunk down in sleep--as Euripides
describes him for us in the Bacchae, asleep on a high
mountain meadow, in the midday sun--and now Apollo approaches
him and touches him with his laurel. The sleeper's enchantment
through Dionysian music now begins to emit sparks of imagery,
poems which, at their point of highest evolution, will bear
the name of tragedies and dramatic dithyrambs. |
造型艺术家,乃至与他近似的史诗诗人,沉湎在形象的纯粹观照里。酒神型音乐家则无需形象,他自己就是纯粹观照的原始痛苦及其原始反响。抒情的天才独能感觉到一个画景象征世界从神秘的玄同忘我之境中产生。这一境界另有一种色彩,一种因果,一种速度,与造型艺术家和史诗诗人的世界绝不相同。因为后者生活在这些画景中,而只有在画景中才欣然自得,他静观万象,秋毫不爽,却依依不舍,乐此而不疲。甚至愤怒的阿客琉斯的形象,在他看来,也不过是一幅画景而已。他怀着追求幻梦的快感来欣赏阿客琉斯的愤怒表情。所以,在这幻影的掩护下,他就不致与诗中人物共甘苦,同呼吸。反之,抒情诗人所描写的画景不是别的,正是他本人,而且仿佛只是他自己的各种投影,因此他好象就是宇宙的运动的中心,可以高谈自我,不过,这个“我”,当然不是清醒的实践中人的“我”,而是潜藏在万象根基中唯一真正存在的永恒的“我”,而凭借这个我的反映,抒情的天才就能够洞察万象的根基。现在,我们再假定:他在这些形象中也见到自己是非天才,换句话说,见到他的“主体”,他那一股主观的热情与激动,对着某一在他看来似乎是真实的对象而发;那时,抒情的天才就仿佛与非天才结合为一,而天才仿佛是自动地说出“我”这个字。然而,这个表面现象再不能把我们引入迷途,虽则有些人确实会被它迷惑,而把抒情诗人称为主观诗人。其实,热情磅礴,既爱人类又恨人类的阿奇洛科斯,不过是天才的一个幻影而已;此时此际,他已经再也不是阿奇洛科斯,而是世界天才假借阿奇洛科斯其人象征地说出自己的原始痛苦;但是具有主观意志和欲望的人阿奇洛科斯,却无论何时也不能是个诗人。然而,这位抒情诗人也不一定只能见到通过阿奇洛科斯其人反映永恒存在的这一现象;希腊悲剧就证明了:抒情诗人的幻想世界,同这种当然与它有密切关系的现象,相去甚远。 |
The sculptor, as well as his brother,
the epic poet, is committed to the pure contemplation of images.
The Dionysian musician, himself imageless, is nothing but original
pain and reverberation of the image. Out of this mystical process
of un-selving, the poet's spirit feels a whole world of images
and similitudes arise, which are quite different in hue, causality,
and pace from the images of the sculptor or narrative poet.
While the last lives in those images, and only in them, with
joyful complacence, and never tires of scanning them down to
the most minute features, while even the image of angry Achilles
is no more for him than an image whose irate countenance
he enjoys with a dreamer's delight in appearance--so that this
mirror of appearance protects him from complete fusion with
his characters--the lyrical poet, on the other hand, himself
becomes his images, his images are objectified versions of himself.
Being the active center of that world he may boldly speak in
the first person, only his "I" is not that of the actual waking
man, but the "I" dwelling, truly and eternally, in the ground
of being. It is through the reflections of that "I" that the
lyric poet beholds the ground of being. Let us imagine, next,
how he views himself too among these reflections--as non-genius,
that is, as his own subject matter, the whole teeming crowd
of his passions and intentions directed toward a definite goal;
and when it now appears as though the poet and the nonpoet joined
to him were one, and as though the former were using the pronoun
"I," we are able to see through this appearance, which has deceived
those who have attached the label "subjective" to the lyrical
poet. The man Archilochus, with his passionate loves and hates,
is really only a vision of genius, a genius who is no longer
merely Archilochus but the genius of the universe, expressing
its pain through the similitude of Archilochus the man. Archilochus,
on the other hand, the subjectively willing and desiring human
being, can never be a poet. Nor is it at all necessary for the
poet to see only the phenomenon of the man Archilochus before
him as a reflection of Eternal Being: the world of tragedy shows
us to what extent the vision of the poet can remove itself from
the urgent, immediate phenomenon. |
叔本华并不隐瞒抒情诗人的审美静观是哲学上一个难题,但是他自以为找到了答案,但我并不完全同意这个答案。不错,在他关于音乐的深刻哲理中,他独能掌握了断然解决这难题的方法。因为我相信,我依照他的精神解决了这问题,而不损及他的令名。然而,他却描述抒情诗歌的特性如下:“一个歌者的知觉所意识到的,是意志之主体,也就是说,他自己的志向,有时是一种解脱了满足了的欲望(快乐),多半是一种被抑制的欲望(悲哀),而经常是一种情绪,一种热情,一种激动的心情。然而,与此同时,看到周围的大自然,歌者就一起觉得自己是纯粹无意志的知识之主体;此时此际,他的未经破坏的安静心情就恰好和常被限制、常未满足的欲望形成对照。这种对照的情感,这种交替的情感,是一切抒情作品所表现的,而主要是构成抒情心境的因素。在这场合,纯粹知识出现了,仿佛是来解救我们于欲望及其压力;我们跟上去,但仅仅是一刹间罢了。欲望,想起我们个人的目的,就往往重新把我们从安静的观照中带走,可是眼前那对我们显示纯粹无意志的知识的美景,总是再次引诱我们离开欲望。所以,在抒情诗歌和抒情心境中,欲望(个人目的的利益)与环境所唤起的纯粹静观是奇妙地彼此混合的。我们将要探索和设想这两者的关系。主观的心情,意志的影响。把观照的环境染上自己的色彩;环境又反过来把它的色彩反射于意志。真正的抒情诗就是这整个忽合忽离的心境的再现。”(《意志及表象之世界》第三卷)
|
Schopenhauer, who was fully aware
of the difficulties the lyrical poet creates for the speculative
aesthetician, thought that he had found a solution, which, however,
I cannot endorse. It is true that he alone possessed the means,
in his profound philosophy of music, for solving this problem;
and I think I have honored his achievement in these pages, I
hope in his own spirit. Yet in the first part of The World
as Will and Idea he characterizes the essence of song as
follows: "The consciousness of the singer is filled with the
subject of will, which is to say with his own willing. That
willing may either be a released, satisfied willing (joy), or,
as happens more commonly, an inhibited willing (sadness). In
either case there is affect here: passion, violent commotion.
At the same time, however, the singer is moved by the contemplation
of nature surrounding him to experience himself as the subject
of pure, unwilling ideation, and the unshakable tranquillity
of that ideation becomes contrasted with the urgency of his
willing, its limits, and its lacks. It is the experience of
this contrast, or tug of war, which he expresses in his song.
While we find ourselves in the lyrical condition, pure ideation
approaches us, as it were, to deliver us from the urgencies
of willing; we obey, yet obey for moments only. Again and again
our willing, our memory of personal objectives, distracts us
from tranquil contemplation, while, conversely, the next scene
of beauty we behold will yield us up once more to pure ideation.
For this reason we find in song and in the lyrical mood a curious
mixture of willing (our personal interest in purposes)
and pure contemplation (whose subject matter is furnished by
our surroundings); relations are sought and imagined between
these two sets of experiences. Subjective mood--the affection
of the will--communicates its color to the purely viewed surroundings,
and vice versa. All authentic song reflects a state of mind
mixed and divided in this manner." |
那么,如此说来,抒情诗就好象是一种可望不可即的艺术,难得达到目的,只有妙手偶得之而已;真的,抒情诗就被说成一种半艺术,它的本质在于欲望与纯粹静观,亦即非审美的与审美的心情之奇妙的混合,——谁不会这样了解这段描述呢?我们不妨断言:叔本华仍然把艺术分成主观的与客观的两类,以这对照作为衡量的标准;然而,这种主客对照尤其不适合于美学;因为主体,即艺术的根源。然而,只要主体是个艺术家,他就已经摆脱了他个人的意志,而且仿佛已经成为一种媒介,以便唯一真正存在的“主体”通过它来庆贺自己在假象上获得救济。因为,不论对我们是褒是贬,我们必须首先明白这点;艺术,这部喜剧,不是为着改善我们、教育我们而演出的,我们也不是这艺术世界的真正作者。反之,我们不妨说:对这位真正作者来说,我们不过是他的美丽画景和艺术投影,我们自居为艺术品,在这一意义上有莫大荣幸;——因为,只有作为一种审美现象来看,存在和世界才是永远合理——但是,当然,我们对自己的意义的认识,同画中战士对画中战斗的认识,几乎没有多大区别。所以,我们关于艺术的一切知识,根本是十分虚渺的,因为求知的我们并不就是“存在”本身,——存在才是这部艺术喜剧的唯一作者和观众,是它替自己准备了这永恒的娱乐。唯有当天才在艺术创作活动中同这世界的原始艺术家融合为一的时候,他才能窥见一点艺术的永恒本质;因为,在这场合,他才象神仙故事所讲的魔画,能够神奇地翻转眼睛来看自己。这样,艺术家既是主体又是客体,既是诗人兼演员又是观众。
①诗人阿奇洛科斯是女奴之子,他爱上了吕甘伯斯的女儿妮娥布利,吕甘伯斯不允诗人阿奇洛科斯是女奴之子,他爱上了吕甘伯斯的女儿妮娥布利,吕甘伯斯不允许他们结婚,诗人写了几首讽刺诗,以泄其悲愤。"
|
Who can fail to perceive in this
description that lyric poetry is presented as an art never completely
realized, indeed a hybrid whose essence is made to consist in
an uneasy mixture of will and contemplation, i.e., the aesthetic
and the non-aesthetic conditions. We, on our part, maintain
that the distinction between subjective and objective, which
even Schopenhauer still uses as a sort of measuring stick to
distinguish the arts, has no value whatever in aesthetics; the
reason being that the subject--the striving individual bent
on furthering his egoistic purposes--can be thought of only
as an enemy to art, never as its source. But to the extent that
the subject is an artist he is already delivered from individual
will and has become a medium through which the True Subject
celebrates His redemption in illusion. For better or worse,
one thing should be quite obvious to all of us: the entire comedy
of art is not played for our own sakes--for our betterment or
education, say--nor can we consider ourselves the true originators
of that art realm; while on the other hand we have every right
to view ourselves as aesthetic projections of the veritable
creator and derive such dignity as we possess from our status
as art works. Only as an aesthetic product can the world be
justified to all eternity--although our consciousness of our
own significance does scarcely exceed the consciousness a painted
soldier might have of the battle in which he takes part. Thus
our whole knowledge of art is at bottom illusory, seeing that
as mere knowers we can never be fused with that essential
spirit, at the same time creator and spectator, who has prepared
the comedy of art for his own edification. Only as the genius
in the act of creation merges with the primal architect of the
cosmos can he truly know something of the eternal essence of
art. For in that condition he resembles the uncanny fairy tale
image which is able to see itself by turning its eyes. He is
at once subject and object, poet, actor, and audience. |
6
关于阿奇洛科斯,学者们的研究发现他曾把民歌传入文学中,由于这功绩,希腊人普遍地评定他值得同荷马并列的特殊地位。但是,民歌同梦神型叙事诗对照之下是甚么呢?它岂不是梦神与酒神相结合的Perpetuum vestigum(永恒的迹象)吗?民歌广泛流行于所有民族之间,而且不断滋乳蕃生,日益壮大,足证性灵的这种两重性艺术冲动是多么强大,它在民歌中留下痕迹,正如一个民族的秘仪活动赖其音乐而流传后世。真的,历史可以指证:民歌最丰富的时代往往是受酒神祭潮流冲击得最猛烈的时代,我们应该常常把这浪潮当作民歌的根源和先决条件。 |
Scholarship has discovered
in respect of Archilochus that he introduced folk song into
literature, and that it was this feat which earned him the
unique distinction of being placed beside Homer. Yet what
does folk song represent in contrast to epic poetry, which
is wholly Apollinian? Surely the classical instance of a
union between Apollinian and Dionysian intentions. Its
tremendous distribution, as well as its constant
proliferation wherever we look, attests the strength of that
dual generative motive in nature: a motive which leaves its
traces in folk song much the way the orgiastic movements of
a nation leave their traces in music. Nor should it be
difficult to show by historical evidence that every period
which abounded in folk songs has, by the same token, been
deeply stirred by Dionysian currents. Those currents have
long been considered the necessary substratum, or
precondition, of folk poetry. |
然而,我们要首先把民歌当作反映世界的音乐镜子,当作是原始曲调现在找到对应的梦境而把它表现为诗歌。所以曲调是第一性的和普遍性的。从而可以在多种歌词中受到多种客观化。再则,照民间的天真的想法,曲调是最重要最必需的因素。曲调自动地产生诗歌,而且是不断地新陈代谢。民歌的乐章形式就证明是如此——这一现象,我以前往往愕然不解,及后我终于找到如下的说明。凡是以这原理来研究一部民歌集子(例如,“儿童之魔笛)的人,将会发现无数的例子:不断滋生的曲调怎样向周围撒播如画的火花,五彩斑烂,瞬息万变,有如天花乱坠,表现出细水长流的史诗所完全没有的一种力量。从史诗的角度来看,抒情诗的既不均衡又不整齐的画景是不值得一顾的,忒潘德(Ter-pander)时代阿波罗祭的庄严的史诗朗诵者就是这样宣判它的罪状。 |
But first of all we must regard
folk song as a musical mirror of the cosmos, as primordial
melody casting about for an analogue and finding that
analogue eventually in poetry. Since melody precedes all
else, it may have to undergo any number of objectifications,
such as a variety of texts presents. But it is always,
according to the naive estimation of the populace, much
superior in importance to those texts. Melody gives birth to
poetry again and again: this is implied by the atrophic form
of folk song. for a long time I wondered at this phenomenon,
until finally the following explanation offered itself. If
we examine any collection of folk poetry--for example,
Des Knaben Wunderhorn--in this light, we shall find
countless examples of melody generating whole series of
images, and those images, in their varicolored hues, abrupt
transitions, and headlong forward rush, stand in the most
marked contrast to the equable movement, the calm illusion,
of epic verse. Viewed from the standpoint of the epic the
uneven and irregular imagery of folk song becomes quite
objectionable. Such must have been the feeling which the
solemn rhapsodists of the Apollinian rites, during the age
of Terpander, entertained with regard to popular lyric
effusions. |
因此,我们在民歌创作中,看见语言紧张到极点,以模仿音乐。所以,从阿奇洛科斯起,开始了抒情诗的新世界,它根本上是同荷马史诗的世界相反的。这样说来,我们已经指出了诗与音乐、词句与声音之间的关系:词句,画景,概念,现在找到了类似音乐的表现,而且感受到音乐的力量。在这意义上,我们可以判别希腊民族语言史上的两个主潮,视乎他们的语言是模仿现象和想象的境界,抑或是模仿音乐的境界。你只须深究荷马与品达的语言在色彩、句法、词汇上的不同,便能了解这种对照的意义。真的,显而易见,在荷马与品达之间的时期,奥林匹斯秘仪的笛声定响彻希腊,甚至在亚里士多德时代,当音乐已经极其发展之时,这笛声还能荡气回肠,使人陶然若醉,而且在其发展的原始阶段,确实曾激发当时人们的一切诗歌表现方法去模仿它。我请您注意今日一种常见的,而为我们美学所反对的现象。我们常常能体会到:一首贝多芬交响曲使得各个听众不得不用比喻来描述它,即使一篇乐章所产生的种种画景在结构上是如何狂乱斑烂,甚至矛盾百出。搜索枯肠来评论这样的结构,而独忽略了一个确实值得阐明的现象,今日美学的能事尽在于此。不错,纵使这位音乐诗人用形象来说明他的制作,例如,他把某一交响曲命名为“田园交响曲”,或者把其中一乐章称为“溪边景色”,另一乐章称为“乡人欢聚”。这些名称也不过是从音乐产生的象征标题而已,——也许并不是指音乐所模仿的对象,——至于醉境音乐的内容,这些标题并没有告诉我们甚么。其实,放在别种画题旁一比,它们也没有甚么特独的价值。现在,我们要把这音乐通过形象爆发的过程,让与那些朝气蓬勃、富有语言创造力的民族了。以便推测乐章式的民歌是怎样形成的,一切语言表现力是怎样由“模仿性音乐”这个新原理激发的。 |
In folk poetry we find, moreover, the most
intense effort of language to imitate the condition of
music. For this reason Archilochus may be claimed to have
ushered in an entirely new world of poetry, profoundly at
variance with the Homeric; and by this distinction we have
hinted at the only possible relation between poetry and
music, word and sound. Word, image, and idea, in undergoing
the power of music, now seek for a kind of expression that
would parallel it. In this sense we may distinguish two main
currents in the history of Greek verse, according as
language is used to imitate the world of appearance or that
of music. To understand more profoundly the significance of
this distinction, let the reader ponder the utter
dissimilarity of verbal color, syntax and phraseology in the
works of Homer and Pindar. He then cannot fail to conjecture
that in the interval there must have sounded the orgiastic
flute notes of Olympus, which, as late as Aristotle's time,
in the midst of an infinitely more complex music, still
rouses men to wild enthusiasm, and which at their inception
must have challenged all contemporaries to imitate them by
every available poetic resource. I wish to instance in this
connection a well-known phenomenon of our own era which our
modish aestheticians consider most exceptionable. We have
noticed again and again how a Beethoven symphony compels the
individual hearers to use pictorial speech--though it must
be granted that a collocation of these various descriptive
sequences might appear rather checkered, fantastic, even
contradictory. Small wonder, then, that our critics have
exercised their feeble wit on these musical images, or else
passed over the phenomenon--surely one worthy of further
investigation--in complete silence. Even in cases where the
composer himself has employed pictorial tags in talking
about his work-- calling one symphony "Pastoral," one
movement "Brook Scene" and another "Jolly Concourse of
Peasants"--these tropes are properly reducible to purely
musical elements rather than standing for actual objects
expressed through music. It is true that such musical
representations can neither instruct us much concerning the
Dionysian content of music nor yet lay claim to any
distinctive value as images. But once we study this
discharge of music through images in a youthful milieu,
among a people whose linguistic creativity is unimpaired, we
can form some idea of how atrophic folk song must have
arisen and how a nation's entire store of verbal resources
might be mobilized by means of that novel principle,
imitation of the language of music. |
因此,假如我们不妨把抒情诗看作模仿性音乐通过形象与概念闪出的光辉,我们就要追问:“音乐在象征和概念之镜中以甚么形式出现呢?”它作为意志出现(叔本华所指的意志),也就是说,作为审美的、纯粹静观的、无意志的心情之对立面。然而,这里我们必须尽可能严格判别本质与现象这两个概念。因为音乐就其本质来说绝不能是意志,如果音乐是意志,它就会完全被排斥于艺术领域之外了,因为意志是自在的非审美因素;虽然如此,但是音乐在现象上却表现为意志。因为,为了把音乐现象表现为形象,抒情诗人就需要一切热情的激发,从喁喁细语以狂呼怒号。在必须用梦境象征来表达音乐的这种冲动下,他就不得不把全部自然,连同他自己,只当作永恒的意志欲望,憧憬。但是,当他凭借形象以阐明音乐之际,他自己始终是处在静海无波似的静观之梦境中,虽则他通过音乐媒介来观照的周围事物是纷纭错乱的。真的,当他通过音乐媒介来看自己时,他觉得他的形象好象有一腔热情未得满足。他的志向,憧憬,呻吟,欢笑,都好象是象征,他可以借此来阐明音乐。这就是抒情诗人的现象;作为梦境天才,他是通过意志的形象来阐明音乐的,但是他自己完全摆脱了意志的欲望,而成为洞烛秋毫的慧眼。 |
If we are right in viewing lyric poetry as
an efflorescence of music in images and ideas, then our next
question will be, "How does music manifest itself in that
mirror of images and ideas?" It manifests itself as
will, using the term in Schopenhauer's sense, that is
to say as the opposite of the aesthetic, contemplative,
unwilling disposition. At this point it becomes necessary to
discriminate very clearly between essence and
appearance--for it is obviously impossible for music to
represent the essential nature of the will; if it did, we
would have to banish it from the realm of art altogether,
seeing that the will is the non-aesthetic element par
excellence. Rather we should say that music appears
as the will. In order to express that appearance through
images the lyrical poet must employ the whole register of
emotions, from the whisper of love to the roar of frenzy;
moved by the urge to talk of music in Apollinian similitudes,
he must first comprehend the whole range of nature,
including himself, as the eternal source of volition,
desire, appetite. But to the extent that he interprets music
through images he is dwelling on the still sea of Apollinian
contemplation, no matter how turbulently all that he beholds
through the musical medium may surge about him. And when he
looks at himself through that medium he will discover his
own image in a state of turmoil: his own willing and
desiring, his groans and jubilations, will all appear to him
as a similitude by which music is interpreted. Such is the
phenomenon of the lyric poet. Being an Apollinian genius, he
interprets music through the image of the will, while he is
himself turned into the pure, unshadowed eye of the sun,
utterly detached from the will and its greed. |
在以上所论,我们坚持:抒情诗依存于音乐的精神,正如音乐有独立的主权,不必依赖概念,但仅仅容忍它们为伴。抒情诗所能表现的,莫不包涵在音乐的广大一般性和普遍有效性中,音乐迫使诗人运用比喻。因此,语言绝不能把音乐的世界象征表现得恰到好处,因为只有音乐能够象征在太一之中心的原始矛盾和原始痛苦,所以它能象征在一切现象以外和以前的领域。反之,一切现象之于音乐毋宁是象征而已;所以,语言既然是现象的表现工具和象征,它就无论如何也不能揭示音乐的深奥之处,语言在企图模仿音乐时只能在表面上同音乐接触;同时抒情诗以一切动听的词藻也不能使我们更深地体会音乐的最深刻的意义。 |
Throughout this inquiry I have maintained
the position that lyric poetry is dependent on the spirit of
music to the same degree that music itself, in its absolute
sovereignty, is independent of either image or concept,
though it may tolerate both. The poet cannot tell us
anything that was not already contained, with a most
universal validity, in such music as prompted him to his
figurative discourse. The cosmic symbolism of music resists
any adequate treatment by language, for the simple reason
that music, in referring to primordial contradiction and
pain, symbolizes a sphere which is both earlier than
appearance and beyond it. Once we set it over against music,
all appearance becomes a mere analogy. So it happens that
language, the organ and symbol of appearance, can never
succeed in bringing the innermost core of music to the
surface. Whenever it engages in the imitation of music,
language remains in purely superficial contact with it, and
no amount of poetic eloquence will carry us a step closer to
the essential secret of that art. |
7
现在,我们必须使用上述一切艺术原理,以便在希腊悲剧之起源这个可谓“迷宫”中找到去路。我想我颇有理由来说,悲剧起源这问题直到现在尚未认真地提出,更谈不上解决了。虽则古代传说,这件褴褛破衣,曾经东补西缝,可是一再把它撕破。古代传说十分明确地告诉我们:希腊悲剧是从悲剧歌队产生的,初时不过是歌队,仅仅是歌队而已。所以我们有责任去探察这种悲剧歌队的核心,把它当作真正的原始戏剧。我们无论如何不能满足于流行的艺术理论,说歌队是理想的观众,或者说歌队代表人民以对抗剧中的贵族分子。后一种解释,在许多政治家听来是使人兴奋的,它认为雅典平民把颠扑不破的道德规律体现为人民歌队,这歌队常常克服了帝王们的愤怒的暴行与专横。这一说虽然可以用亚里士多德的一段话予以有力的阐明,可是对悲剧起源问题却无甚影响,因为人民与帝王的一切对立,总之,任何社会政治范围,是在悲剧的纯粹宗教根源之外的。然而,以埃斯库罗斯与索福克勒斯的歌队的古典形式而论,我们甚至可以认为:若果说诗人预料到“立宪国民代议制”,那真是“亵渎神明”,但是就有人不怕亵渎神明。古代政治制度在实践上(inpraxi)并没有立宪国民代议制,而且可以料想,他们也不曾在悲剧方面“预料”到这种制度。 |
At this point we need to
call upon every aesthetic principle so far discussed, in
order to find our way through the labyrinthine origins of
Greek tragedy. I believe I am saying nothing extravagant
when I claim that the problem of these origins has never
even been posed, much less solved, no matter how often the
elusive rags of ancient tradition have been speculatively
sewn together and ripped apart That tradition tells us in no
uncertain terms that tragedy arose out of the tragic chorus
and was, to begin with, nothing but chorus. We are thus
bound to scan the chorus closely as the archetypal drama,
disregarding the current explanations of it as the idealized
spectator, or as representing the populace over against the
noble realm of the set. The latter interpretation, which
sounds so grandly edifying to certain politicians (as though
the democratic Athenians had represented in the popular
chorus the invariable moral law, always right in face of the
passionate misdeeds and extravagances of kings) may have
been suggested by a phrase in Aristotle, but this lofty
notion can have had no influence whatever on the original
formation of tragedy, whose purely religious origins would
exclude not only the opposition between the people and their
rulers but any kind of political or social context. Likewise
we would consider it blasphemous, in the light of the
classical form of the chorus as we know it from Aeschylus
and Sophocles, to speak of a "foreshadowing' of
constitutional democracy, though others have not stuck at
such blasphemy. No ancient polity ever embodied
constitutional democracy, and one dares to hope that ancient
tragedy did not even foreshadow it. |
奥·威·希勒格尔(A.W.Sohlegel)的原理,比歌队政治根源说更有名;他劝说我们不妨把歌队看作观众的精华,即所谓理想的观众。这种见解,同向来谓悲剧本来不过是歌队的传统说法对照起来,就真相毕露,显得是粗浅的、不科学的、但是堂皇醒目的学说。然而,这一说之所以堂皇醒目,不过是由于它的概括的警句形式,而且德国人对于所谓的“理想的”一切怀有真正的偏爱,所以使人骤然惊愕。但是,我们一旦拿我们熟识的剧场观众同古希腊歌队比较一下,看看能否从今日的观众想象出类似悲剧歌队的情形来,我们定必惶惑不解。我们将默然否定这一说,我们不但怀疑希勒格尔的假设未免大胆,而且不相信希腊观众会有完全不同于今人的特点。我们始终认为:真正的观众,不管是何种人,总是知道自己在欣赏艺术作品,而不是面对着经验的现实。但是希腊歌队却不得不把舞台形象当作真人。扮海神女儿的歌队就要真的相信自己亲眼看见普罗密修所,并且认为自己就是剧中的真神。若果观众象海神女儿那样,认为普罗密修斯是现身临场的真神,难道他们便是最高级最纯粹的观众吗?难道所谓理想的观众有责任走上舞台,从严刑中解放普罗密修斯吗?我们相信观众的审美能力;我们认为,一个观众愈能把艺术作品当作艺术来看,就是说,从审美观点来看,他就愈是合格的观众。但是,希勒格尔的说法却告诉我们:完善的、理想的观众不是以审美态度来对待剧中世界,而是身体力行,实际参予其中。我们不禁要叹道:希腊人呵,你们推翻了我们的一切美学,然而,既熟识了这点,以后讲到歌队时,我们还要提及希勒格尔的话。 |
Much more famous than this
political explanation of the chorus is the notion of A. W.
Schlegel, who advises us to regard the chorus as the
quintessence of the audience, as the "ideal spectator." If
we hold this view against the historical tradition according
to which tragedy was, in the beginning, nothing but chorus,
it turns out to be a crude, unscholarly, though dazzling
hypothesis--dazzling because of the effective formulation,
the typically German bias for anything called "ideal," and
our momentary wonder at the notion. For we are indeed amazed
when we compare our familiar theater audience with the
tragic chorus and ask ourselves whether the former could
conceivably be construed into something analogous to the
latter. We tacitly deny the possibility, and then are
brought to wonder both at the boldness of Schlegel's
assertion and at what must have been the totally different
complexion of the Greek audience. We had supposed all along
that the spectator, whoever he might be, would always have
to remain conscious of the fact that he had before him a
work of art, not empiric reality, whereas the tragic chorus
of the Greeks is constrained to view the characters enacted
on the stage as veritably existing. The chorus of the
Oceanides think that they behold the actual Titan
Prometheus, and believe themselves every bit as real as the
god. Are we seriously to assume that the highest and purest
type of spectator is he who, like the Oceanides, regards the
god as physically present and real? That it is
characteristic of the ideal spectator to rush on stage and
deliver the god from his fetters? We had put our faith in an
artistic audience, believing that the more intelligent the
individual spectator was, the more capable he was of viewing
the work of art as art; and now Schlegel's theory suggests
to us that the perfect spectator viewed the world of the
stage not at all as art but as reality. "Oh these Greeks!"
we moan. "They upset our entire aesthetic!" But once we have
grown accustomed to it, we repeat Schlegel's pronouncement
whenever the question of the chorus comes up. |
然而,毫不含糊的古代传说却驳倒了希勒格尔。原来的歌队是没有舞台的。因此这种悲剧原始形式的歌队;与那种理想观众的歌队,两者不能混为一谈。试问有何种艺术是从观众这概念引伸出来的呢?有何种艺术的真正形式相等于自在的观众呢?无戏的观众,是一个自相矛盾的概念罢了。我们认为,悲剧的诞生恐怕既不能以群众对于道德思想的重视,又不能以无戏的观众这概念来说明;这个问题太深奥了,如此肤浅的概括甚至没有触到它的边沿。 |
The emphatic tradition I spoke
of militates against Schlegel: chorus as such, without
stage--the primitive form of tragedy--is incompatible with
that chorus of ideal spectators. What sort of artistic genre
would it be that derived from the idea of the spectator and
crystallized itself in the mode of the "pure" spectator? A
spectator with out drama is an absurdity. We suspect that
the birth of tragedy can be explained neither by any
reverence for the moral intelligence of the multitude nor by
the notion of a spectator without drama, and, altogether, we
consider the problem much too complex to be touched by such
facile interpretations. |
席勒在有名的“墨西拿新娘”的序文中,曾对歌队的意义流露一种极其可贵的见解,他认为歌队是一堵活的藩篱,悲剧用它来围着自己,以隔绝现实世界,以保存它的理想领域和诗的自由。 |
An infinitely more valuable
insight into the significance of the chorus was furnished by
Schiller in the famous preface to his Bride of Messina,
where the chorus is seen as a living wall which tragedy
draws about itself in order to achieve insulation from the
actual world, to preserve its ideal ground and its poetic
freedom. |
席勒以这个重要武器同自然主义的庸俗概念,同一般要求于剧诗的妄想,作斗争。虽则显然舞台时间不过是人为的,布景不过是一种象征,韵律语言显然带有理想的性质,但是一种错误观点还在广泛流行,说我们不应把这些舞台惯例仅仅看作诗的特权而予以容忍。然而,这些“惯例”却是一切诗的本质。采用歌队是一个决定性的步骤,以便向艺术上一切自然主义光明磊落地宣战。——我想,正是为了席勒这种见解,我们这个自命为优秀的时代想出了“伪理想主义”这毁谤的名词。然而,另一方面,我恐怕,今人之崇拜自然和崇拜现实,已经走到与一切理想主义对立的另一极端,换句话说,走进蜡象陈列室的领域了。蜡工也算是一种艺术,正如今日某些流行的小说那样。然而,虽然有人主张以这种艺术来战胜歌德席勒的“伪理想主义”,我们却不必为此担忧。 |
Schiller used this view as his
main weapon against commonplace naturalism, against the
illusionistic demand made upon dramatic poetry. While the
day of the stage was conceded to be artificial, the
architecture of the set symbolic, the metrical discourse
stylized, a larger misconception still prevailed. Schiller
was not content to have what constitutes the very essence of
poetry merely tolerated as poetic license. He insisted that
the introduction of the chorus was the decisive step by
which any naturalism in art was openly challenged. This way
of looking at art seems to me the one which our present age,
thinking itself so superior, has labeled pseudo idealism.
But I very much fear that we, with our idolatry of
verisimilitude, have arrived at the opposite pole of all
idealism, the realm of the waxworks. This too betrays a kind
of art, as do certain popular novels of today. All I ask is
that we not be importuned by the pretense that such art has
left Goethe's and Schiller's "pseudo-idealism" behind. |
席勒的见解是正确的,他认为:希腊萨提儿歌队,原始悲剧的歌队,所常常遨游的境界,确实是一种“理想的”境界,是一种远远超出凡夫行径之上的境界,因为希腊人为这种歌队虚构了一种假设的自然状态的空中楼阁,而把假设的自然人物放在它上面。悲剧是在这个基础上发展起来的,因此当然它自开始便已被免除了使人痛苦的现实写照。然而,它并不是一种随意放在天壤之间的幻想的世界,它倒是正如希腊人信仰奥林匹斯及其神灵那样真实而可信的世界。酒神祭歌舞者萨提儿,就生活在神话和崇拜保证之下宗教所认可的一种现实中。希腊悲剧以萨提儿开始,他是酒神祭悲剧的智慧之喉舌——这一现象对于我们是不可思议的,正如一般人不了解悲剧起源于歌队那样。 |
It is certainly true, as
Schiller saw, that the Greek chorus of satyrs, the chorus of
primitive tragedy, moved on ideal ground, a ground raised
high above the common path of mortals. The Greek has built
for his chow he scaffolding of a fictive chthonic
realm and placed thereon fictive nature spirits. Tragedy
developed on this foundation, and so has been exempt since
its beginning from the embarrassing task of copying
actuality. All the same, the world of tragedy is by no means
a world arbitrarily projected between heaven and earth;
rather it is a world having the same reality and credibility
as Olympus possessed for the devout Greek. The satyr, as the
Dionysian chorist, dwells in a reality sanctioned by myth
and ritual. That tragedy should begin with him, that the
Dionysian wisdom of tragedy should speak through him, is as
puzzling a phenomenon as, more generally, the origin of
tragedy from the chorus. |
我试提出这样的命题,这种假设的自然生灵萨提儿之于有教养的人,正如酒神祭音乐之于希腊文明那样;——我们也许从这里找到研究的起点。关于希腊文明,理查·瓦格纳(RichardWagnner)曾说过:音乐夺去了它的光辉,正如太阳之下爝火无光。同样,我相信,有教养的希腊人在萨提儿歌队面前会自惭形秽,而且,在酒神祭悲剧的直接影响下,城邦与社会,总之,人与人之间的隔阂,都消除了,让给一种溯源于性灵的强烈的万众一心之感来统治。在这里,我已经指出了,每部真正的悲剧总留给我们一种超脱的慰藉,使我们感到,尽管万象流动不居,生活本身到底是牢不可破,而且可喜可爱。这点慰藉明明白白地体现为萨提儿歌队,为自然人歌队,他们仿佛根深蒂固地生存在每个民族文化的背景中,尽管时代迁移,民族更替,他们还是亘古长存,始终不变。 |
Perhaps we can gain a starting
point for this inquiry by claiming that the satyr, that
fictive nature sprite, stands to cultured man in the same
relation as Dionysian music does to civilization. Richard
Wagner has said of the latter that it is absorbed by music
as lamplight by daylight. In the same manner, I believe, the
cultured Greek felt himself absorbed into the satyr chorus,
and in the next development of Greek tragedy state and
society, in fact all that separated man from man, gave way
before an overwhelming sense of unity which led back into
the heart of nature. The metaphysical solace (with which, I
wish to say at once, all true tragedy sends us away) that,
despite every phenomenal change life is at bottom
indestructibly joyful and powerful, was expressed most
concretely in the chorus of satyrs, nature beings who dwell
behind all civilization and preserve their identity through
every change of generations and historical movement. |
深思熟虑的希腊人就以这种歌队来安慰自己。这种人的特性是多愁善感,悲天悯人,独能以慧眼洞观所谓世界历史的可怕的酷劫,默察大自然的残酷的暴力,而动不动渴望效法佛陀之绝欲弃志。艺术救济他们,生活也通过艺术救济他们而获得自救。 |
With this chorus the profound Greek, so
uniquely susceptible to the subtlest and deepest suffering,
who had penetrated the destructive agencies of both nature
and history, solaced himself. Though he had been in danger
of craving a Buddhistic denial of the will, he was saved by
art, and through art life reclaimed him. |
在醉境的狂欢中,日常生活的清规戒律一旦打破,这期间就有一种恍惚迷离的意境,它淹没了一切个人的过去经验。正是这个忘忧的洪沟,分隔开日常生活的世界与醉境的现实。然而,我们一旦再度意识到日常世界之时,我们就不禁作呕,觉得这尘世可厌,于是一种遁世绝欲的心情便由此产生。在这一意义上,醉境中的人就颇象哈姆雷特,这两种人终有一朝洞察世事的真谛,他们恍然大悟了,便厌弃一切行为;因为他们的行为绝不能改变永恒的世界真相;在他们看来,时运不济,世风日下,如果期望他们移风易俗,那是可笑而可耻的。真知灼见毒杀了行为,行为需要幻象的蒙蔽;——这就是哈姆雷特给我们的教训,而绝不是患得患失,无所适从,终于一事无成的醉生梦死之徒的假聪明。这绝不是患得患失,不,这是真知灼见,是洞观惨淡的真实,是熟思一切引起行为的动机,在哈姆雷特是如此,在醉境中的人也是如此。此时此际,一切慰藉都无补于事。他的憧憬业已超过了死后的来世,也超过了冥冥中的神灵,早已把生存,乃至神灵,永生,彼岸所反映的光辉生活,弃若敝屣。一旦觉悟了所见的真理,哈姆雷特举目回顾,便见生存之恐怖或荒唐,他恍然大悟奥斐里亚的命运的象征意义;现在他能了解山灵西列诺斯的智慧了,他满怀厌世的情绪。 |
While the transport of the Dionysian state,
with its suspension of all the ordinary barriers of
existence, lasts, it carries with it a Lethean element in
which everything that has been experienced by the individual
is drowned. This chasm of oblivion separates the quotidian
reality from the Dionysian. But as soon as that quotidian
reality enters consciousness once more it is viewed with
loathing, and the consequence is an ascetic, abulic state of
mind. In this sense Dionysian man might be said to resemble
Hamlet: both have looked deeply into the true nature of
things, they have gained knowledge and are now
loath to act. They realize that no action of theirs can work
any change in the eternal condition of things, and they
regard the imputation as ludicrous or debasing that they
should set right the time which is out of joint. Knowledge
kills action, for in order to act we require the veil of
illusion; such is Hamlet's doctrine, not to be confounded
with the cheap wisdom of Jack the Dreamer, who through too
much reflection, as it were a surplus of possibilities,
never arrives at action. What, both in the case of Hamlet
and of Dionysian man, overbalances any motive leading to
action, is not reflection but knowledge, the apprehension of
truth and its terror. Now no comfort any longer avails,
desire reaches beyond the transcendental world, beyond the
gods themselves, and existence, together with its glittering
reflection in the gods and an immortal Beyond, is denied.
The truth once seen, man is aware everywhere of the ghastly
absurdity of existence, comprehends the symbolism of
Ophelia's fate and the wisdom of the wood sprite Silenus:
nausea invades him. |
然而,正当意志陷于巨大危险的关头,艺术就到来做救苦救难的仙子,只有她能够把生存之恐怖与荒唐所引起的厌世思想化为表象,使人赖此能够生活下去。这些表象就是崇高与滑稽,崇高是以艺术来克服恐怖,滑稽是以艺术来解脱可厌的荒唐。酒神祭曲的萨提儿歌队,是希腊艺术治病救人的功绩;在酒神祭的缓冲世界中,上述的激情暴发得以尽量宣泄。 |
Then, in this supreme jeopardy of the will,
art, that sorceress expert in healing, approaches him; only
she can turn his fits of nausea into imaginations with which
it is possible to live. These are on the one hand the spirit
of the sublime, which subjugates terror by means of
art; on the other hand the comic spirit, which
releases us, through art, from the tedium of absurdity. The
satyr chorus of the dithyramb was the salvation of Greek
art; the threatening paroxysms I have mentioned were
contained by the intermediary of those Dionysian attendants. |
8
萨提儿和近代牧歌中的牧童,两者都是对原始自然因素的怀眷之产物。然而,希腊人多么坚定而果敢地拥抱林野之人,而现代人却多么腼腆而畏缩地戏弄慢吹横笛、多情善感的牧童的媚态。希腊人在萨提儿身上见到的,是未受知识玷染,未入文明门阀的自然;但是我们不应因此就把萨提儿同原始人混为一谈。反之,萨提儿是人类的本相,是人类的最高最强的激情之体现,是因接近神灵而乐极忘形的饮客,是与神灵同甘共苦的多情的伴侣,是宣泄性灵深处的智慧之先知,是自然的万能性爱之象征,希腊人往往对它另眼相看,肃然起敬。萨提儿是崇高的如神的生灵;尤其是在暗然魂消的醉境中人看来,萨提儿定必仿佛如此。我们的牧童,那盛装的膺品,就会使这种人反感。可是看到坦率豪放的性灵的壮丽笔调,他便欣然留恋,掀起崇高的快感。这里,人类的本相业已洗尽文明的铅华;这里,真正的人,长胡萨提儿,露出了本色,向神灵欢呼。在他面前,文明人就萎缩成金玉其外败絮其中的丑态。席勒关于悲剧起源的意见是正确的:他认为歌队是一种有生命的垣墙,它抵抗现实的进攻;因为它,萨提儿歌队,描绘出生存,比文明人描绘将更真实,更重要,更充分,尽管后者通常自命为唯一的实在。诗的领域并非在现世之外,象有些诗人所幻想的空中楼阁那样。恰好相反,诗是现实的不加粉饰的表现,因此它必须抛弃文明人所假设的那种现实的伪装。性灵的内在真实与冒充为唯一实在的文明虚伪之间的差异,等同事物的永恒核心,即物自体,与全部现象界之间的差异。正如悲剧以其超脱的慰藉指示出:即使现象不断毁灭,生存之核心却万古长青;同样,萨提儿歌队的象征以比喻方法业已表现了物自体与现象之间的原始关系。现代人的牧歌里的牧童,不过是他们所妄称为自然的一切教养之写照;但是酒神祭的希腊人却追求最强有力的真实和自然,所以他们见到自己变为萨提儿。 |
8 The satyr and the idyllic
shepherd of later times have both been products of a desire
for naturalness and simplicity. But how firmly the Greek
shaped his wood sprite, and how self-consciously and
mawkishly the modern dallies with his tender, fluting
shepherd! For the Greek the satyr expressed nature in a
rude, uncultivated state: he did not, for that reason,
confound him with the monkey. Quite the contrary, the satyr
was man's true prototype, an expression of his highest and
strongest aspirations. He was an enthusiastic reveler,
filled with transport by the approach of the god; a
compassionate companion re enacting the sufferings of the
god; a prophet of wisdom born out of nature's womb; a symbol
of the sexual omnipotence of nature, which the Greek was
accustomed to view with reverent wonder. The satyr was
sublime and divine--so he must have looked to the
traumatically wounded vision of Dionysian man. Our tricked
out, contrived shepherd would have offended him, but his
eyes rested with sublime satisfaction on the open,
undistorted limnings of nature. Here archetypal man was
cleansed of the illusion of culture, and what revealed
itself was authentic man, the bearded satyr jubilantly
greeting his god. Before him cultured man dwindled to a
false cartoon. Schiller is also correct as regards these
beginnings of the tragic art: the chorus is a living wall
against the onset of reality because it depicts reality more
truthfully and more completely than does civilized man, who
ordinarily considers himself the only reality. Poetry does
not lie outside the world as a fantastic impossibility
begotten of the poet's brain; it seeks to be the exact
opposite, an unvarnished expression of truth, and for this
reason must cast away the trumpery garments worn by the
supposed reality of civilized man. The contrast between this
truth of nature and the pretentious lie of civilization is
quite similar to that between the eternal core of things and
the entire phenomenal world. Even as tragedy, with its
metaphysical solace, points to the eternity of true being
surviving every phenomenal change, so does the symbolism of
the satyr chorus express analogically the primordial
relation between the thing in itself and appearance. The
idyllic shepherd of modern man is but a replica of the sum
of cultural illusions which he mistakes for nature. The
Dionysian Greek, desiring truth and nature at their highest
power, sees himself metamorphosed into the satyr |
这群纵饮的酒神信徒是在这样的心情和认识下狂欢作乐的:醇酒的力量使得他们就在自己眼前起了变化,所以他们在幻想中见到自己仿佛是再造的自然精灵,是萨提儿。后来悲剧歌队的结构就是在艺术上模仿这种自然现象,这里当然需要分开酒神祭观众与变态的与祭者。不过我们必须时常记住:阿提刻观众在歌队身上重新发现自己的面影,观众与歌队毕竟不是对立的:因为大家一起不过是一个伟大崇高的载歌载舞的萨提儿歌队,或者都是让萨提儿歌队代表自己而已。在这一点上,希勒格尔的见解启示了更深刻的意义:他认为歌队是“理想的观众”,因为他们是唯一的旁观者,剧中幻境的旁观者。我们知道,古希腊人是没有观众这概念的,希腊的剧场是一个同心弧形建筑物,观众的座位层层高叠。使得人人确实能够忽视其周围整个文明世界,在大饱眼福之际,幻想自己是歌队中的一员。那末,照这一意义来说,我们不妨把原始悲剧最早阶段的歌队称为醉境中人的自我反映;这一现象最明显的例证莫如演员的体验:一个演员,如果真是有才能,总能见到他所扮演的人物栩栩如生地幌动在眼前。萨提儿歌队主要是酒神祭群众所见的幻影,而舞台境界则是萨提儿歌队所见的幻影。这幻影的力量如此强大,足以使人眼花缭乱,看不见“现实”的印象和周围座上有教养的人们。希腊剧场的形式令人想到一个寂寞的山谷,舞台的建筑有如灿烂的云彩,酒神的顶礼者挤拥在山上,从高处俯视这景象,——一个壮丽的圆场,酒神的形象就在它中间出现。 |
Such are the dispositions and insights of
the reveling throng of Dionysus; and the power of these
dispositions and insights transforms them in their own eyes,
until they behold themselves restored to the condition of
genii, of satyrs. Later the tragic chorus came to be an
aesthetic imitation of that natural phenomenon; which then
necessitated a distinction between Dionysian spectators and
votaries actually spellbound by the god. What must be kept
in mind in all these investigations is that the audience of
Attic tragedy discovered itself in the chorus of
the orchestra. Audience and chorus were never fundamentally
set over against each other: all was one grand chorus of
dancing, singing satyrs, and of those who let themselves be
represented by them. This granted, Schlegel's dictum assumes
a profounder meaning. The chorus is the "ideal spectator"
inasmuch as it is the only seer--seer of the
visionary world of the proscenium. An audience of
spectators, such as we know it, was unknown to the Greeks.
Given the terraced structure of the Greek theater, rising in
concentric arcs, each spectator could quite literally survey
the entire cultural world about him and imagine himself, in
the fullness of seeing, as a chorist. Thus we are enabled to
view the chorus of primitive proto-tragedy as the projected
image of Dionysian man. The clearest illustration of this
phenomenon is the experience of the actor, who, if he is
truly gifted, has before his eyes the vivid image of the
role he is to play. The satyr chorus is, above all, a vision
of the Dionysian multitude, just as the world of the stage
is a vision of that satyr chorus--a vision so powerful that
it blurs the actors' sense of the "reality" of cultured
spectators ranged row on row about him. The structure of the
Greek theater reminds us of a lonely mountain valley: the
architecture of the stage resembles a luminous cloud
configuration which the Bacchae behold as they swarm down
from the mountaintops; a marvelous frame in the center of
which Dionysus manifests himself to them. |
我们这里为了阐明悲剧歌队所述的这种艺术原始现象,同学者们对于艺术初步发展过程的看法比较起来,几乎是不登大雅之堂的。然而,诗人之为诗人,就在于他独能见到自己周围尽是栩栩如生的形象,而且他独能洞观这些形象的秘奥,这点是再确实不过的。由于现代批评才能的一种特殊缺点,我们往往有把审美的原始现象想象得太复杂太抽象的偏向。对于真正的诗人,一个隐喻不是一个修词格,而是代替概念宛然在他面前幌动的一个心象;对于诗人,一个性格不是由许多特点组成的一个整体,而是在他眼前昭然夺目的一个活人,诗人所不同于画家的看法,只在于他独能见到生活与行为之连续不断而已。为甚么荷马比其他诗人写得更昭然若睹呢?因为他目睹得更多。我们谈诗谈得太抽象了,因为我们都是劣诗人。审美现象毕竟是简单的;只要一个有能力不断见到周围的活跃生机,不断生活在一群精灵的包围中,他便是诗人;只要一个人能够感到有使自己变成别人,并且借用其肉体和心灵来说话的冲动,他便是戏剧家。 |
Our scholarly ideas of elementary artistic
process are likely to be offended by the primitive events
which I have adduced here to explain the tragic chorus. And
yet nothing can be more evident than the fact that the poet
is poet only insofar as he sees himself surrounded by living
acting shapes into whose innermost being he penetrates. It
is our peculiar modem weakness to see all primitive
aesthetic phenomena in too complicated and abstract a way.
Metaphor, for the authentic poet, is not a figure of
rhetoric a representative image standing concretely before
him in lieu of a concept. A character, to him, is not an
assemblage of individual traits laboriously pieced together,
but a personage beheld as insistently living before his
eyes, differing from the image of the painter only in its
capacity to continue living and acting. What is it that
makes Homer so much more vivid and concrete in his
description than any other poet? His lively eye, with which
he discerns so much more. We all talk about poetry so
abstractly because we all tend to be indifferent poets. At
bottom the aesthetic phenomenon is quite simple: all one
needs in order to be a poet is the ability to have a lively
action going on before one continually, to live surrounded
by hosts of spirits. To be a dramatist all one needs is the
urge to transform oneself and speak out of strange bodies
and souls. |
酒神祭的兴奋,能够使一整批人都参予这种艺术才能。使他们见到自己周围是一群精灵,而又知道自己与他们心心相印。悲剧歌队的这种体验,是戏剧的原始现象;你见到自己就在你眼前起了变化,然后你行动起来,好象你真的占有别人的身体和别人的性格似的。这种体验发生在戏剧发展的开端之时。在这场合,歌队和诗朗诵者就有所不同,朗诵者并不和他的形象融合为一体,而是像画家那样以静观的眼光置身于事外来观察他们。在这场合,个人确实已经舍弃了自我而进入异己的性质中。况且,这种现象显然是带有传染性的;一整群人都感到这样的变化。所以,酒神颂曲本质上与各种合唱曲不同。手持桂枝,庄严地走向阿波罗大庙,一边唱着进行曲的处女们,始终不变她们的常态,而且保持她们的市民姓名;但是酒神颂歌队却是变态人物的歌队,他们的市民身世和社会地位都被忘得干干净净,他们已经变成了超时间的,生存在一切社会之外的神的仆役。其余一切希腊抒情合唱曲不过是阿波罗祭独唱者的极度强化而已,但是在酒神祭曲中却是一群不自觉的演员,他们彼此之间都见到自己发生变化。 |
Dionysian excitation is capable of
communicating to a whole multitude this artistic power to
feel itself surrounded by, and one with, a host of spirits.
What happens in the dramatic chorus is the primary
dramatic phenomenon: projecting oneself outside oneself
and then acting as though one had really entered another
body, another character. This constitutes the first step in
the evolution of drama. This art is no longer that of the
rhapsodist, who does not merge with his images but, like the
painter, contemplates them as something outside himself;
what we have here is the individual effacing himself through
entering a strange being. It should be made clear that this
phenomenon is not singular but epidemic: a whole crowd
becomes rapt in this manner. It is for this reason that the
dithyramb differs essentially from any other kind of chorus.
The virgins who, carrying laurel branches and singing a
processional chant, move solemnly toward the temple of
Apollo, retain their identities and their civic names. The
dithyrambic chorus on the other hand is a chorus of the
transformed, who have forgotten their civic past and social
rank, who have become timeless servants of their god and
live outside all social spheres. While all the other types
of Greek choric verse are simply the highest intensification
of the Apollinian musician, in the dithyramb we see a
community of unconscious actors all of whom see one another
as enchanted. |
这种魔力是一切戏剧艺术的先决条件。在这魔力下,酒神祭饮者看见自己变成萨提儿。而且,又以萨提儿的地位来观照神,也就是说,他在变化时看见身外的一个新幻象,这是他的心情达到了梦境的高峰。到了这新幻象,这出活剧便完结了。 |
Enchantment is the precondition of all
dramatic art. In this enchantment the Dionysian reveler sees
himself as satyr, and as satyr, in turn, he sees the god. In
his transformation he sees a new vision, which is the
Apollinian completion of his state. And by the same token
this new vision completes the dramatic act. |
照这观点来看,我们必须把希腊悲剧看作酒神歌队不断在梦境幻象中再三突变。所以,那些交织在悲剧中的合唱部分,就仿佛是全部所谓对白——即,整个舞台境界,戏曲本部——的娘胎。在连续突变中,这个悲剧根源就放射出戏剧的幻境,这幻境完全是梦境,既是梦境,所以带有史诗的性质。然而,另一方面,它是醉境心情的具体化,并不就是梦境的假象救济;反之,它显示个人的毁灭以及个人与万有根源的结合。所以,悲剧乃是醉境中的认识和影响具体化为梦境,因此悲剧与史诗之间隔着一个深渊。 |
Thus we have come to interpret Greek
tragedy as a Dionysian chorus which again and again
discharges itself in Apollinian images. Those choric
portions with which the tragedy is interlaced constitute, as
it were, the matrix of the dialogue, that is to
say, of the entire stage-world of the actual drama. This
substratum of tragedy irradiates, in several consecutive
discharges, the vision of the drama--a vision on the one
hand completely of the nature of Apollinian dream-illusion
and therefore epic, but on the other hand, as the
objectification of a Dionysian condition, tending toward the
shattering of the individual and his fusion with the
original Oneness. Tragedy is an Apollinian embodiment of
Dionysian insights and powers, and for that reason separated
by a tremendous gulf from the epic. |
希腊悲剧的歌队,兴奋的酒神祭群众的象征,照我们的解释已获得充分阐明,然而,因为我们习惯了现代舞台尤其是歌剧的歌队的功能,我们就不能了解;为甚么,照传统的说法,希腊悲剧的歌队比“剧情”本身更古远,更根本,真的,更重要呢?再则,既然歌队不过是卑微的仆从的角色,真的,初时不过是由扮成羊形的萨提儿组成,我们就不能同意歌队的地位优越和来源古远这种传统说法。况且景前的歌池对我们还是一个谜。虽然如此,我们终于达到这样的认识;景和剧情不过被当作一种幻象,而唯一的“现实”正是歌队,它自动产生这幻想,而以舞蹈、音乐、语言等一切象征手段来歌颂它。歌队在幻觉中看见他们的君王和主人酒神狄奥尼索斯,所以他们始终是仆从身份的歌队,他们看见这位神灵如何受过苦难,如何被人称颂,所以他们自己并无行为。然而,虽则他们对神的态度始终是仆从的态度,可是他们毕竟表达出性灵底最高的、醉境的情绪;因此,他们象性灵那样,在心荡神驰之时说出了神的托喻和至理名言。他们是神的难友,同时也是从宇宙心灵里道破真理的智者。由此便产生这个幻想的,似乎不登大雅之堂的形象,聪明而又有灵感的萨提儿的形象。萨提儿比起酒神来可以说是“哑角”;他是性灵及其最强烈的冲动之写照,是性灵本身之象征,同时也是发乎性灵的艺术和幻想之宣令使;他一身兼为音乐家,诗人,舞蹈家和梦想家。 |
On this view the chorus of Greek tragedy,
symbol of an entire multitude agitated by Dionysus, can be
fully explained. Whereas we who are accustomed to the role
of the chorus in modem theater, especially opera, find it
hard to conceive how the chorus of the Greeks should have
been older, more central than the dramatic action proper
(although we have clear testimony to this effect) and
whereas we have never been quite able to reconcile with this
position of importance the fact that the chorus was composed
of such lowly beings as--originally--goatlike satyrs; and
whereas, further, the orchestra in front of the stage has
always seemed a riddle to us--we now realize that the stage
with its action was originally conceived as pure vision and
that the only reality was the chorus, who created that
vision out of itself and proclaimed it through the medium of
dance, music, and spoken word. Since, in this vision, the
chorus beholds its lord and master Dionysus, it remains
forever an attending chorus, it sees how the god
suffers and transforms himself, and it has, for that reason,
no need to act. But, notwithstanding its subordination to
the god, the chorus remains the highest expression of
nature, and, like nature, utters in its enthusiasm oracular
words of wisdom. Being compassionate as well as wise, it
proclaims a truth that issues from the heart of the world.
Thus we see how that fantastic and at first sight
embarrassing figure arises, the wise and enthusiastic satyr
who is at the same time the "simpleton" as opposed to the
god. The satyr is a replica of nature in its strongest
tendencies and at the same time, a herald of its wisdom and
art. He combines in his person the roles of musician, poet,
dancer and visionary. |
按照这种认识,按照传统说法,酒神虽然是真正的主角和幻象的焦点,当初,在悲剧的远古时代,他并不真正登场,而只是假定他在场罢了,那就是说,悲剧本来只是“歌队”,而不是“戏剧”,后来人们才尝试把这位神当作真人来扮演,使得这个幻想的形象和他的光辉的氛围可以有目共睹。于是狭义的“戏剧”便开始形成。现在,酒神祭歌队另有任务,他们要把观众的心情激发到醉境狂热的程度,所以,当悲剧英雄出现在舞台上时,观众并不把他看作一个带面具的难看的人物,而当作是他们在心神恍惚中所见的幻影。您试想象:阿德墨脱(Admetus)在沉思默想他新亡的妻子亚尔琪斯提(Aloestis),以至形如枯木,心若死灰①;急然间,一个蒙面的少妇向他走来,身材体态都象他的妻子;你试想象:他突然焦急得发抖,激动地较量她的形状,终于本能地断定她就是他的亡妻;——那么你就体会到一种与此类似的情绪:那就是当酒神祭观众看见神走上舞台,而感到宛若与神同甘共苦时的那种情绪。他不由得要把他心灵中若即若离的整个酒神形象,赋予他眼前那个带面具的演员,从而把演员的现实化为一种超自然的非现实。这就达到了那掩盖现实世界的梦境境界,于是一个新的世界,一个比旧世界更清楚、更明了、更能感人、而又更象幻影的世界,便在我们眼前诞生,再诞生,不断变化。因此,我们在悲剧中见到两种完全相反的风格;语言、情调、说话的活泼和流畅,分成两种完全相反的表现领域。一方面是酒神歌队的抒情诗,另一方面是梦神戏剧的幻境。现在,酒神的激情既已具体化为梦神的景象,这些景象便再也不是像歌队的音乐那样的“一片永恒的海洋,一种变幻的生存,赤热的生命”(歌德的“浮士德”)。它们再也不是像受了灵感的酒神信徒在神将降临时所预感到的那种可以意会而不可以目睹的力量。现在,剧中的情景显得像史诗那样清楚而明确。现在,酒神再也不是凭灵感之力来说话,而是像史诗英雄那样差不多用荷马的话来交谈。 |
It is in keeping both with this insight and
with general tradition that in the earliest tragedy Dionysus
was not actually present but merely imagined. Original
tragedy is only chorus and not drama at all. Later an
attempt was made to demonstrate the god as real and to bring
the visionary figure, together with the transfiguring frame,
vividly before the eyes of every spectator. This marks the
beginning of drama in the strict sense of the word. It then
became the task of the dithyrambic chorus so to excite the
mood of the listeners that when the tragic hero appeared
they would behold not the awkwardly masked man but a figure
born of their own rapt vision. If we imagine Admetus
brooding on the memory of his recently departed wife,
consuming himself in a spiritual contemplation of her form,
and how a figure of similar shape and gait is led toward him
in deep disguise; if we then imagine his tremor of
excitement, his impetuous comparisons, his instinctive
conviction--then we have an analogue for the excitement of
the spectator beholding the god, with whose sufferings he
has already identified himself, stride onto the stage.
Instinctively he would project the shape of the god that was
magically present to his mind onto that masked figure of a
man, dissolving the latter's reality into a ghostly
unreality. This is the Apollinian dream state, in which the
daylight world is veiled and a new world--clearer, more
comprehensible, more affecting than the first, and at the
same time more shadowy--falls upon the eye in ever changing
shapes. Thus we may recognize a drastic stylistic
opposition: language, color, pace, dynamics of speech are
polarized into the Dionysian poetry of the chorus, on the
one hand, and the Apollinian dream world of the scene on the
other. The result is two completely separate spheres of
expression. The Apollinian embodiments in which Dionysus
assumes objective shape are very different from the
continual interplay of shifting forces in the music of the
chorus, from those powers deeply felt by the enthusiast, but
which he is incapable of condensing into a clear image. The
adept no longer obscurely senses the approach of the god:
the god now speaks to him from the proscenium with the
clarity and firmness of epic, as an epic hero, almost in the
language of Homer. |
9
凡是属于希腊悲剧中梦神成份的对话部,在表面上总是简单的、明晰的、美丽的。在这一意义上,这种对话是希腊民族性的反映,希腊人的天性在舞蹈方面也显露出来。因为,虽则在舞蹈时他们的最大能力还是潜伏未发,但是在变化万千丰富多采的动作中已泄漏了消息。例如,索福克勒斯的悲剧英雄的对话就以梦境艺术的精确性和明晰性使我们惊叹,所以我们立刻以为业已洞见了他们的生存的秘奥,不免诧异那通向秘奥的道路是这么短。然而,我们暂且不谈那露于表面显而易见的英雄性格——它到底不过是像投在暗墙上的光影,也就是说,完完全全是现象而已。反之,让我们深入到那反照在这光辉镜面上的神话吧,我们会突起体验到一种与惯常的光学现象恰好相反的现象。当我们竭力注视太阳之后眼花缭乱地转身避开,我们就感觉到眼前有许多帮助视力恢复的暗黑点。反之,索福克勒斯的悲剧英雄的光辉形象,简言之,其化装的梦神成份,却是人窥见了自然的秘奥和恐怖之必然结果,他们仿佛是用来治疗久居恐怖黑夜而至失明的眼睛的光点。只有在这一意义上,我们才能相信掌握了所谓“希腊的乐观”这庄严卓越的概念之真谛,但是在今日我们居然随处都会遇见一种错误的见解,说是这种乐观乃是安枕无忧的愉快心情的结果。 |
Everything that rises to the
surface in the Apollinian portion of Greek tragedy (in the
dialogue) looks simple, transparent, beautiful. In this
sense the dialogue is a mirror of the Greek mind, whose
nature manifests itself in dance, since in dance the maximum
power is only potentially present, betraying itself in the
suppleness and opulence of movement. The language of the
Sophoclean heroes surprises us by its Apollinian determinacy
and lucidity. It seems to us that we can fathom their
innermost being, and we are somewhat surprised that we had
such a short way to go. However, once we abstract from the
character of the hero as it rises to the surface and becomes
visible (a character at bottom no more than a luminous shape
projected onto a dark wall, that is to say, appearance
through and through) and instead penetrate into the myth
which is projected in these luminous reflections, we
suddenly come up against a phenomenon which is the exact
opposite of a familiar optical one. After an energetic
attempt to focus on the sun we have, by way of remedy
almost, dark spots before our eyes when we turn away.
Conversely, the luminous images of the Sophoclean
heroes--those Apollinian masks--are the necessary
productions of a deep look into the horror of nature;
luminous spots, as it were, designed to cure an eye hurt by
the ghastly night. Only in this way can we form an adequate
notion of the seriousness of Greek "serenity"; whereas we
find that serenity generally misinterpreted nowadays as a
condition of undisturbed complacence. |
希腊悲剧中最悲哀的形象,不幸的奥狄浦斯,在索福克勒斯笔下乃是一个高尚人物的典型,他虽则聪明过人,却命定要犯错误,受灾难,可是,尝尽千辛万苦之后,终于对他周围的人们发挥一种神秘的造福的力量,甚至在他死后,这力量还是有效。诗人意味深长地告诉我们:这个高尚的人并没有犯罪。一切法律,一切自然秩序,甚至这道德世界,都因他的行为而毁灭,甚至通过这行为产生一个更高的神秘的影响范围,它在旧世界的废墟上建立一个新世界。这就是诗人想告诉我们的东西,因为他同时是一个宗教思想家。作为诗人,他给我们写出一个离奇复杂的公案的纠纷。裁判者一节一节地逐渐解决了这公案,而毁灭了自己。希腊人对于这种辩证的解决感到真正的最大快乐,所以一点乐观精神弥漫着全剧,缓和了人们慄然预料这公案的结局的恐惧心情。在“奥狄浦斯在科罗诺斯”一剧中,我们也见到同样的乐观,不过它变得无限崇高罢了。这老人受尽千灾百难,完全象一个苦命人那样顺天安命地经受一切遭遇,然而现在我们见到一种超然物外的快慰从天而降,这使我们觉得:这位英雄在他的纯粹被动态度中达到了最高的主动性。其影响远远超过他生时,可是他前半生自觉自愿的努力和追求,反为导他陷入被动地位。所以,奥狄浦斯传说的公案纠纷,在世人眼中是复杂得不可思议的,却逐渐得到解决,——于是,在这天命的辩证发展中,我们感到一种最深刻的人间的快慰。假如我们这解释合乎诗人的本意,我们还得追问这是不是已经说尽了这神话的一切涵义。这里,显而易见,诗人的全部意图不过是给人一幅光辉的画景,让我们在窥见黑暗的深渊之后接受自然治疗的光明。奥狄浦斯是自己父亲的凶手,自己母亲的丈夫,奥狄浦斯是斯芬克司之谜的解答者!这神秘的三联命运毕竟告诉我们甚么呢?有一种原始的民间信仰,尤其是波斯的民间信仰,说聪明的妖教僧只能从乱伦的交配生育出来。想到解谜和娶母的奥狄浦斯,我们就会立刻得到解释。大凡在某种预言的魔力打破了现在与未来的界限,破坏了顽强的个性原则,总之,道破自然的内在魔谜的场合,就必先有一种非常的反自然现象,例如奥狄浦斯的乱伦,作为前因;因为,若不是违反自然,也就是说,苦不是以非自然来克服自然,人怎能够强迫自然交出它的秘密呢?我在奥狄浦斯的可怕的三联厄运中看出这个道理,他解答了自然之谜,二重性的斯芬克司之谜,就必须以试父娶母的行动打破最神圣的自然秩序。真的,这个神话好象要在我们耳边私语,告诉我们:聪明,尤其是狄奥尼索斯式的聪明,乃是反自然的坏事;谁凭自己的聪明把自然抛入毁灭的深渊,谁就势必身受自然的毁灭。“聪明之锋芒反为刺着聪明人,聪明是一种反自然之罪行”——这就是这神话对我们高声疾呼的可怕的话。然而,希腊诗人象一绪阳光照射到这神话的壮丽肃穆的绵侬(McmBnon)巨象上,于是它突然发出清音——索福克勒斯的歌曲。 |
Sophocles conceived doomed
Oedipus the greatest sufferer of the Greek stage, as a
pattern of nobility, destined to error and misery despite
his wisdom, yet exercising a beneficent influence upon his
environment in virtue of his boundless grief. The profound
poet tells us that a man who is truly noble is incapable of
sin; though every law, every natural order, indeed the
entire canon of ethics, perish by his actions, those very
actions will create a circle of higher consequences able to
found a new world on the ruins of the old. This is the
poet's message, insofar as he is at the same time a
religious thinker. In his capacity as poet he presents us in
the beginning with a complicated legal knot in the slow
unraveling of which the judge brings about his own
destruction. The typically Greek delight in this dialectical
solution is so great that it imparts an element of
triumphant serenity to the work, and thus removes the sting
lurking in the ghastly premises of the plot. In Oedipus
at Colonus we meet this same serenity, but utterly
transfigured. In contrast to the aged hero, stricken with
excess of grief and passively undergoing his many
misfortunes, we have here a transcendent serenity issuing
from above and hinting that by his passive endurance the
hero may yet gain a consummate energy of action. This
activity (so different from his earlier conscious striving,
which had resulted in pure passivity) will extend far beyond
the limited experience of his own life. Thus the legal knot
of the Oedipus fable, which had seemed to mortal eyes
incapable of being disentangled, is slowly loosened. And we
experience the most profound human joy as we witness this
divine counterpart of dialectics. If this explanation has
done the poet justice, it may yet be asked whether it has
exhausted the implications of the myth; and now we see that
the poet's entire conception was nothing more nor less than
the luminous afterimage which kind nature provides our eyes
after a look into the abyss. Oedipus, his father's murderer,
his mother's lover, solver of the Sphinx's riddle! What is
the meaning of this triple fate? An ancient popular belief,
especially strong in Persia, holds that a wise magus
must be incestuously begotten. If we examine Oedipus, the
solver of riddles and liberator of his mother, in the light
of this Parsee belief, we may conclude that wherever
soothsaying and magical powers have broken the spell of
present and future, the rigid law of individuation, the
magic circle of nature, extreme unnaturalness--in this case
incest--is the necessary antecedent; for how should man
force nature to yield up her secrets but by successfully
resisting her, that is to say, by unnatural acts? This is
the recognition I find expressed in the terrible triad of
Oedipean fates: the same man who solved the riddle of nature
(the ambiguous Sphinx) must also, as murderer of his father
and husband of his mother, break the consecrated tables of
the natural order. It is as though the myth whispered to us
that wisdom, and especially Dionysian wisdom, is an
unnatural crime, and that whoever, in pride of knowledge,
hurls nature into the abyss of destruction, must himself
experience nature's disintegration. "The edge of wisdom is
turned against the wise man; wisdom is a crime committed on
nature": such are the terrible words addressed to us by
myth. Yet the Greek poet, like a sunbeam, touches the
terrible and austere Memnon's Column of myth, which proceeds
to give forth Sophoclean melodies. |
让我以奥狄浦斯的被动性的光荣同普罗密修斯的主动性的光荣对照一下,思想家埃斯库罗斯在剧中要告诉我们的,可是他作为诗人只能让我们自己从他的象征描写去揣摩的这种思想,少年歌德已经用他的普罗密修斯的豪言壮语给我们指出来了: |
Now I wish to contrast to
the glory of passivity the glory of action, as it irradiates
the Prometheus of Aeschylus. Young Goethe has
revealed to us, in the bold words his Prometheus addresses
to Zeus, what the thinker Aeschylus meant to say, but what,
as poet, he merely gave us to divine in symbol: |
我坐在这里,塑造人
照我的形象,
人类,必须和我相象,
要饮泣,要哀伤,
要享乐,要身心舒畅,
而独不把你放在心上,
正象我那样。
人类达到了铁旦似的高度,便自己去争取文明,强迫神灵同他们结盟,因为人类有足以自负的智慧,在手中掌握着神灵的生存与界限。然而,在普罗密修斯的颂歌(就其基本思想来说,它是歌颂渎神行为之作),最可惊叹的一点,是埃斯库罗斯的深厚的正义感:一方面是果敢的“个人”受尽无限痛苦,另一方面是神灵的末日定必到来况且已有朕兆,这两个痛苦境界的力量促使双方和解而产生辩证的统一;——这一切有力地暗示了埃斯库罗斯世界观的中心要点,他认为“命数”(Moira)乃是统治着神与人的永恒正义。试想深思的希腊人的秘教有其牢不可破的哲理基础,而且他们的种种怀疑论有时甚或向奥林匹斯神灵突然进攻;那么,埃斯库罗斯这样大胆地把奥林匹斯神界放在他的正义天秤上来衡量,那就不足为奇了。尤其是希腊的艺术家,在想到这些神灵时,不免模糊地感到神与人是互相依存的;正是埃斯库罗斯的“普罗密修斯”象征着这种感想,这位铁旦艺神觉得自己具有果敢的信心,相信自己能够创造人类而且最低限度能够毁灭神灵,凭他那高度的聪明是可以做到的,当然他因此就不得不永远受苦来赎罪。伟大天才的这句壮语“我能”,即使以永恒痛苦为代价来换取,也是值得的,这是艺术家的严肃的自豪感:——这就是埃斯库罗斯的剧诗的精华和灵魂。另一方面,索福克勒斯在“奥狄浦斯”一剧中则高唱圣者的凯旋歌的前奏曲。然而,埃斯库罗斯这样解释这个神话,还未能说尽它深不可测的恐怖;艺术家喜爱发展,艺术创作喜爱反抗灾难,这毋宁是在黑暗苦海中反映的星光云影而已。普罗密修斯的故事是全亚利安族的原始财产,是该族的深刻悲壮的方华之佐证。真的,普罗密修斯的神话之于亚利安天才,实含有特殊的意义,正如人类堕落的神话之于闪族那样,这两者之间有着兄妹的亲属关系,这点决不是没有可能的。普罗密修斯神话的前提,是天真的先民对火的过高估价,以为火是一切新兴文化的真正护守神。然而,若果人类要自由自主地控制火,而不是仅仅依靠皇天的赐予,例如靠雷电燃烧或者靠阳光生热,而取得火,那在沉思的原始人看来便是亵渎神明,是盗取神物。所以,这第一个哲学问题便立刻引起神与人之间痛苦的、不可调和的矛盾,仿佛在一切文明的门前放置一块拦路石。人能够获得的最美好最贵重的东西,他必须先犯罪而后得之,而又必须自食其后果,换句话说,神灵受到冒犯,定必降下源源不绝的苦难和哀伤来磨折高瞻远瞩的人类。这一种以犯罪为荣的沉痛思想,就同闪族人关于人类堕落的神话有天渊之别了。闪族的观念把好奇,炫夸欺骗,不堪诱惑,淫荡行为,简言之,把一系列主要是女性的激情,当作祸患之根源。反之,亚利安观念的标志,却在于把主动犯罪看作普罗密修斯主要德行的这种崇高观点;与此同时,它又发现悲壮悲剧的道德基础是替人类的不幸辩护,替人类的遗失及其因此而蒙受的苦难辩护。万物根源所蕴含的灾难,——这点,深思的亚利安人并不想以巧辩蒙混过去,——宇宙心灵所怀蓄的矛盾,在他看来显然是由于种种不同世界的交错混乱,譬如说,神界与人界,这两者分别来说都是合理的,但是,正因为它们分庭抗礼,所以势必各因其个性而经受痛苦。当个人英勇地努力追求共性,当他试图跨过个性的界限,从而使自己变成唯一的宇宙生灵时,他定必经受那隐藏在万物本质中的原始矛盾,也就是说,他越轨了,因此受苦。所以,亚利安人把法律上的犯罪(DerFrevel)看作是男性的,闪族人把道德上的犯罪(DieSunde)看作是女性的,正如原罪是男子犯的,而本罪是女子犯的。再则,“浮士德”的女巫歌队唱道: |
Here l sit, forming men
in my own image,
a race to be like me,
to suffer, to weep,
to delight and to rejoice,
and to defy you,
as I do.Man, raised to titanic proportions, conquers
his own civilization and compels the gods to join forces
with him, since by his autonomous wisdom he commands both
their existence and the limitations of their sway. What
appears most wonderful, however, in the Prometheus
poem--ostensibly a hymn in praise of impiety--is its
profound Aeschylean longing for justice. The
immense suffering of the bold individual, on the one hand,
and on the other the extreme jeopardy of the gods,
prefiguring a "twilight of the gods"--the two together
pointing to a reconciliation, a merger of their universes of
suffering--all this reminds one vividly of the central tenet
of Aeschylean speculation in which Moira, as eternal
justice, is seen enthroned above men and gods alike. In
considering the extraordinary boldness with which Aeschylus
places the Olympian world on his scales of justice, we must
remember that the profound Greek had an absolutely stable
basis of metaphysical thought in his mystery cults and that
he was free to discharge all his skeptical velleities on the
Olympians. The Greek artist, especially, experienced
in--respect of these divinities an obscure sense of mutual
dependency, a feeling which has been perfectly symbolized in
the Prometheus of Aeschylus. The titanic artist was
strong in his defiant belief that he could create men and,
at the least, destroy Olympian gods; this he was able to do
by virtue of his superior wisdom, which, to be sure, he must
atone for by eternal suffering. The glorious power to
do, which is possessed by great genius, and for which
even eternal suffering is not too high a price to pay--the
artist's austere pride--is of the very essence of
Aeschylean poetry, while Sophocles in his Oedipus
intones a paean to the saint. But even Aeschylus'
interpretation of the myth fails to exhaust its
extraordinary depth of terror. Once again, we may see the
artist's buoyancy and creative joy as a luminous cloud shape
reflected upon the dark surface of a lake of sorrow. The
legend of Prometheus is indigenous to the entire community
of Aryan races and attests to their prevailing talent for
profound and tragic vision. In fact, it is not improbable
that this myth has the same characteristic importance for
the Aryan mind as the myth of the Fall has for the Semitic,
and that the two myths are related as brother and sister.
The presupposition of the Prometheus myth is primitive man's
belief in the supreme value of fire as the true palladium of
every rising civilization. But for man to dispose of fire
freely, and not receive it as a gift from heaven in the
kindling thunderbolt and the warming sunlight, seemed a
crime to thoughtful primitive man, a despoiling of divine
nature. Thus this original philosophical problem poses at
once an insoluble conflict between men and the gods, which
lies like a huge boulder at the gateway to every culture.
Man's highest good must be bought with a crime and paid for
by the flood of grief and suffering which the offended
divinities visit upon the human race in its noble ambition.
An austere notion, this, which by the dignity it confers on
crime presents a strange contrast to the Semitic myth of the
Fall--a myth that exhibits curiosity, deception,
suggestibility, concupiscence, in short a whole series of
principally feminine frailties, as the root of all evil.
What distinguishes the Aryan conception is an exalted notion
of active sin as the properly Promethean virtue; this notion
provides us with the ethical substratum of pessimistic
tragedy, which comes to be seen as a justification of human
ills, that is to say of human guilt as well as the suffering
purchased by that guilt. The tragedy at the heart of things,
which the thoughtful Aryan is not disposed to quibble away,
the contrariety at the center of the universe, is seen by
him as an interpenetration of several worlds, as for
instance a divine and a human, each individually in the
right but each, as it encroaches upon the other, having to
suffer for its individuality. The individual, in the course
of his heroic striving towards universality,
de-individuation, comes up against that primordial
contradiction and learns both to sin and to suffer. The
Aryan nations assign to crime the male, the Semites to sin
the female gender; and it is quite consistent with these
notions that the original act of hubris should be
attributed to a man, original sin to a woman. For the rest,
perhaps not too much should be made of this distinction, cf.
the chorus of wizards in Goethe's Faust: |
我们没有算得丝毫不爽;
总之女人走了一千步长,
尽管她们走得多么匆忙,
男人只须一跃便能赶上。 |
If that is so, we do not mind it:
With a thousand steps the women find it;
But though they rush, we do not care:
With one big jump the men get there.
[Goethe's Faust, lines 3982-85.] |
你若了解普罗密修斯传说的思想核心——即,一个奋发有为的人物势必犯罪,——你就会同时感到这悲壮的观念带有非梦境的成份。因为梦神抚慰个人的方法,正是在人与人之间划下界线,再三要求人必须有自知之明和自制之力,从而使人记得这界线是最神圣的宇宙规律。然而,为了这种梦境思想倾向不致使形式冻结成象埃及艺术那样僵硬和冰冷,为了在努力把个性的波动纳入一定流径和范围时不致使动荡的思潮成为止水,那末,醉境激情的洪波必须随时冲破那片面的梦境“意志”,冲破包围着希腊世界的一切渺小堤防。于是,骤然高涨的醉境激情的洪潮就汹涌起各种个人思想的小波浪,正象普罗密修斯的兄弟,铁旦族阿特拉斯(Atlas),背负大地那样。同样,这种铁旦似的强大冲动,仿佛要做个阿特拉斯来负起一切个人,用铁肩把个人抬得越来越高,越来越远;——这种冲动就是普罗密修斯性格和酒神性格的共同点。就这点来说,埃斯库罗斯的普罗密修斯乃是酒神的伪装,同时,就上述的正义感而言,明眼人不难看出诗人业已泄漏了普罗密修斯的家世:他是个性原则之神和正义界限之神阿波罗的后裔。所以,普罗密修斯是二重人格,是梦神性与酒神性相结合,因此,这种二重性可以用个抽象公式来说:“存在的一切是合理的,而又是不合理的,而且两者都有同等权利。”
“这就你的世界!斯所谓世界!”(“浮士德”) |
Once we have comprehended the
substance of the Prometheus myth--the imperative necessity
of hubris for the titanic individual--we must realize the
non-Apollinian character of this pessimistic idea. It is
Apollo who tranquilizes the individual by drawing boundary
lines, and who, by enjoining again and again the practice of
self-knowledge, reminds him of the holy, universal norms.
But lest the Apollinian tendency freeze all form into
Egyptian rigidity, and in attempting to prescribe its orbit
to each particular wave inhibit the movement of the lake,
the Dionysian flood tide periodically destroys all the
little circles in which the Apollinian will would confine
Hellenism. The swiftly rising Dionysian tide then shoulders
all the small individual wave crests, even as Prometheus'
brother, the Titan Atlas, shouldered the world. This titanic
urge to be the Atlas of all individuals, to bear them on
broad shoulders ever farther and higher, is the common bond
between the Promethean and the Dionysian forces. In this
respect the Aeschylean Prometheus appears as a Dionysian
mask, while in his deep hunger for justice Aeschylus reveals
his paternal descent from Apollo, god of individuation and
just boundaries. We may express the Janus face, at once
Dionysian and Apollinian, of the Aeschylean Prometheus in
the following formula: "All that exists is just and unjust
and equally justified in both." That is your world! A
world indeed!-- [Goethe's Faust, line 409.] |
10
据确实无疑的传说,雏型的希腊悲剧以酒神受难的事迹为唯一主题,而且在很长时期剧中唯一人物就是酒神狄奥尼索斯。然而,我们也很有把握地说,直到欧里庇德斯时代,酒神一向是悲剧英雄,其实一切有名的希腊悲剧人物,普罗密修斯,奥狄浦斯等等,不过是原来的英雄狄奥尼索斯的化装而已。这些化装后面藏着一位神,这就是为甚么那些有名人物往往具有惊人的、典型的“理想性”的主要原因。我不知谁曾说过:任何个人作为个人来说都是滑稽的,因而不是悲壮的;由此可见,希腊人一般不可能容忍个人出现在悲剧舞台。事实上,古希腊人确实似乎有此感想;因为,一般地说,柏拉图对“理念”(Idea)与“映象”(eidolon)或形象的区别和评价,是根深蒂固在希腊人心中的。借用柏拉图的术语来说,我们不妨这样论述希腊的舞台形象,真实的酒神以各种姿态出现,化装为一个仿佛陷于个人意志之网罗中的战斗英雄。在这场合,这个出场的酒神其语言行动都好象一个错误、挣扎、受苦的人。一般地说,他表现得像史诗人物那样明确而清楚,这不得不归功于梦神阿波罗,因为梦神通过这象征现象对歌队指出它的酒神心情。然而,其实这个英雄就是秘仪所崇奉的酒神,是曾亲身经历个性化之痛苦的神。据一个神秘的神话说,酒神儿时曾被铁旦神族肢解而死,就在这情况下被崇奉为狄奥尼索斯·宰割裂尸(Zagreus);那就是说,这样的解体,亦即酒神所受的苦难,是如同气化、水化、土化、火化那样的,所以我们必须把个性化情况看作一切痛苦的根源和主因,它本身就是一种不愉快的经验。这个酒神的微笑产生奥林匹斯诸神,他的眼泪产生人美;作为被解体之神,酒神就具有二重性格,残酷野蛮的恶魔和温柔良善的君主。然而,秘仪信徒们总希望酒神再度获得新生。我们可以预言这次再生是个性化的终结。秘仪信徒们以嘹亮的庆祝歌声来迎接第三个酒神的降生。全凭这一希望,这个支离破碎分裂为无个体的世界的容貌,才焕发出一诸欢乐的曙光。德墨脱地母(Demeter)的神话便是这种情绪的象征:地母娘娘沉溺在永恒的悲哀中,只有当她听说她将再一次生产酒神时,她才第一次再尝到欢乐的滋味。照上述的观点来看,我们业已接触到一种深刻而悲壮的世界观的一切因素,以及悲剧的神秘教义;那就是“万物一体”这个基本认识,以及个性化是灾祸之主因,艺术是一种快乐的希望,只有打破个性的隔阂才能期望恢复原始的统一,等等概念。 |
It is an unimpeachable
tradition that in its earliest form Greek tragedy records
only the sufferings of Dionysus, and that he was the only
actor. But it may be claimed with equal justice that, up to
Euripides, Dionysus remains the sole dramatic protagonist
and that all the famous characters of the Greek stage,
Prometheus, Oedipus, etc., are only masks of that original
hero. The fact that a god hides behind all these masks
accounts for the much-admired "ideal" character of those
celebrated figures. Someone, I can't recall who, has claimed
that all individuals, as individuals, are comic, and
therefore untragic; which seems to suggest that the Greeks
did not tolerate individuals at all on the tragic stage. And
in fact they must have felt this way. The Platonic
distinction between the idea and the eidolon ["idol"] is
deemed rooted in the Greek temperament If we wished to use
Plato's terminology we might speak of the tragic characters
of the Greek stage somewhat as follows: the one true
Dionysus appears in a multiplicity of characters, in the
mask of warrior hero, and enmeshed in the web of individual
will. The god ascends the stage in the likeness of a
striving and suffering individual. That he can appear
at all with this clarity and precision is due to dream
interpreter Apollo, who projects before the chorus its
Dionysian condition in this analogical figure. Yet in truth
that hero is the suffering Dionysus of the mysteries. He of
whom the wonderful myth relates that as a child he was
dismembered by Titans now experiences in his own person the
pains of individuation, and in this condition is worshipped
as Zagreus. We have here an indication that
dismemberment--the truly Dionysian suffering--was like a
separation into air, water, earth, and fire, and that
individuation should be regarded as the source of all
suffering, and rejected. The smile of this Dionysus has
given birth to the Olympian gods, his tears have given birth
to men. In his existence as a dismembered god, Dionysus
shows the double nature of a cruel, savage daemon and a
mild, gentle ruler. Every hope of the Eleusinian initiates
pointed to a rebirth of Dionysus, which we can now interpret
as meaning the end of individuation; the thundering paean of
the adepts addressed itself to the coming of the third
Dionysus. This hope alone sheds a beam of joy on a ravaged
and fragmented world--as is shown by the myth of sorrowing
Demeter, who rejoiced only when she was told that she might
once again bear Dionysus. In these notions we already find
all the components of a profound and mystic philosophy and,
by the same token, of the mystery doctrine of tragedy; a
recognition that whatever exists is of a piece, and that
individuation is the root of all evil; a conception of art
as the sanguine hope that the spell of individuation may yet
be broken. as an augury of eventual reintegration. |
上文已经指出:荷马史诗是奥林匹斯文化的诗章,歌咏这种文化对铁旦族战争威胁的胜利。现在,在悲剧诗歌的强大影响下,荷马神话再度诞生;这种轮回说明的奥林匹斯文化也同时曾被一种更深刻的世界观战胜。倔强的铁旦普罗密修斯对奥林匹斯的暴主预言:有朝一日,他的统治将受到最大危机的威胁,除非宙斯及时地同他和解。我们在埃斯库罗斯的三部曲中看到宙斯惊惶万状,忧虑自己的未运,终于同普罗密修斯结盟。于是,以前的铁旦世代终于从冥土起来,重见天日。狂放而坦率的性灵哲学,以真理的毫不掩饰的态度,正视着那些飞舞而过的荷马神话;它们在哲学女神的闪电似的目光下惨然变色,悚然颤抖了,直至酒神祭的艺术家以巨灵之掌强迫它们为这位新神服务。酒神的真理便占据了整个神话领域,当作它的知识之象征,并且宣告这一措施。一半靠公开的悲剧庆节,一半靠隐闭的戏剧性秘仪祭,但是往往披着旧时神话的外衣。是甚么力量拯救普密修斯于魔爪之下,把这个神话变成表达酒神智慧的工具呢?是力士赫拉克勒斯似的音乐之力量:音乐,在悲剧中达到最高表现时,便能够以一种新的最深刻的意义来解释神话;这一特征我们认为是音乐的最大功能。因为每个神话总有这样的命运:它会逐渐潜入所谓忠实的狭隘范围内,于是后世某些人竟然把它当作有史可稽的一件事实。现在,希腊人已经踏上康庄大道,可以把他们全部神话的青春梦想巧妙地、任意地翻成一种实用史料的青春期史。因为,这是宗教之灾亡往往必经之路,即,在清规戒律的严厉而合理的监视之下,宗教的神话前提就被系统化而成为历史事件的总结,于是人便开始小心翼翼地维护神话的威信,但同时又竭力反对神话的自然发展和成长;因此,人们对神话的热情逐渐消灭,宗教对历史根据的追求便代之而兴。现在,新生的酒神
据希腊神话,宰割裂尸原为宙斯的私生子,希拉嫉妒,命铁旦神族把他肢解,雅典娜取出他的心脏还给宙斯。宙斯吞下这心脏,后复与德墨脱地母产一子,名为酒神宰割裂尸,以纪念死者。音乐的精灵便抓住了垂死的神话;在他手上神话又若枯木逢春,百花齐放,呈现出前所未有的颜色,发出使人向往超自然世界的芬芳。然而,最后一度色香焕发之后,神话便蓦然萎谢,残叶凋零,不久之后,那些玩世不恭的古人像鲁奇安(Luoian)之流再捡起随风飘散凋残褪色的落红。通过悲剧,神话取得了意味深长的内容和最有表现力的形式;象一个受伤的英雄,它再次挣扎起来,它的全部残余精力,它垂死时的泰然自若,在它的眼睛里发出最后的强烈的光辉。 |
I have said earlier that the
Homeric epic was the poetic expression of Olympian culture,
its victory song over the terrors of the battle with the
Titans. Now, under the overmastering influence of tragic
poetry, the Homeric myths were once more transformed and by
this metempsychosis proved that in the interim Olympian
culture too had been superseded by an even deeper
philosophy. The contumacious Titan, Prometheus, now
announced to his Olympian tormentor that unless the latter
promptly joined forces with him, his reign would be in
supreme danger. In the work of Aeschylus we recognize the
alliance of the Titan with a frightened Zeus in terror of
his end. Thus we find the earlier age of Titans brought back
from Tartarus and restored to the light of day. A philosophy
of wild, naked nature looks with the bold countenance of
truth upon the flitting myths of the Homeric world: they
pale and tremble before the lightning eye of this goddess,
until the mighty fist of the Dionysian artist forces them
into the service of a new divinity. The Dionysian truth
appropriates the entire realm of myth as symbolic language
for its own insights, which it expresses partly in the
public rite of tragedy and partly in the secret celebrations
of dramatic mysteries, but always under the old mythic veil.
What was the power that rescued Prometheus from his vultures
and transformed myth into a vehicle of Dionysian wisdom? It
was the Heraclean power of music, which reached its highest
form in tragedy and endowed myth with a new and profound
significance. Such, as we have said earlier, is the mighty
prerogative of music. For it is the lot of every myth to
creep gradually into the narrows of supposititious
historical fact and to be treated by some later time as a
unique event of history. And the Greeks at that time were
already well on their way to reinterpreting their childhood
dream, cleverly and arbitrarily, into pragmatic childhood
history. It is the sure sign of the death of a religion when
its mythic presuppositions become systematized, under the
severe, rational eyes of an orthodox dogmatism, into a ready
sum of historical events, and when people begin timidly
defending the veracity of myth but at the same time resist
its natural continuance--when the feeling for myth withers
and its place is taken by a religion claiming historical
foundations. This decaying myth was now seized by the
newborn genius of Dionysian music, in whose hands it
fiowered once more, with new colors and a fragrance that
aroused a wistful longing for a metaphysical world. After
this last florescence myth declined, its leaves withered,
and before long all the ironic Lucians of antiquity caught
at the faded blossoms whirled away by the wind. It was
through tragedy that myth achieved its profoundest content,
its most expressive form; it arose once again like a wounded
warrior, its eyes alight with unspent power and the calm
wisdom of the dying. |
渎神的欧里庇德斯呵,你想再度强迫这垂死者替你服役,是何居心呢?在你无情的铁腕下,它死了;于是你使用一种伪装的神话膺品。它象赫拉克勒斯的猿猴那样,只好穿起古装,粉墨登场。因为神话死在你手上。所以音乐之精灵也弃世了,即使你贪得无厌搜掠所有音乐芳园,你也只能罗掘得一种伪装的音乐膺品。因为你抛弃了酒神,梦神也就抛弃了你;即使你要从龙潭虎穴狩捕所有潜伏的热情,将他们咒禁在你的范围之内,即使你为了你的英雄的谈吐磨利口枪舌剑,可是你的英雄只有矫揉造作的假情,只能说出言不由衷的假话。 |
What were you thinking of,
overweening Euripides, when you hoped to press myth, then in
its last agony, into your service? It died under your
violent hands; but you could easily put in its place an
imitation that, like Heracles' monkey, would trick itself
out in the master's robes. And even as myth, music too died
under your hands; though you plundered greedily all the
gardens of music, you could achieve no more than a
counterfeit. And because you had deserted Dionysus. vou were
in turn deserted by Apollo. Though you hunted all the
passions up from their couch and conjured them into your
circle, though you pointed and burnished a sophistic
dialectic for the speeches of your heroes, they have only
counterfeit passions and speak counterfeit speeches. |
11
希腊悲剧的灭亡不同于她的姊辈艺术:她为了一种难解的纠纷自杀而死,所以是悲壮的牺牲。其余的艺术则尽其天年,善终辞世。要是说愉快的善终应该是留下盛昌的儿孙,安然撒手尘世;那末,姊辈艺术的末日,就是这样一种愉快的善终:她们漫漫地衰老而死,在弥留之日,还有茁壮的儿孙站在眼前,以果敢的姿态急不暇待地昂起头来。然而,希腊悲剧一死,到处都深深感到莫大的空虚。正如昔日在提伯玩斯时代希腊舟子们在荒岛上听到凄厉的哀叫:“大潘神死了!”同样,在悲剧的末日,希腊遍地都可以听到凄凄切切的哀悼:“悲剧死了!诗歌也随之而灭亡!滚开,滚开你们形容枯槁颜色憔悴的后辈!滚到地府去,在那儿还可以饱餐一顿你们先辈大师的剩菜残羹!”
然而,在悲剧死后,一种新的艺术繁盛起来,它奉悲剧为先妣,为主母。人们诧异地觉察到她酷肖她母亲的容貌,可是那是她长久在垂死挣扎中的愁容。欧里庇德斯亲身经历过悲剧的垂死挣扎之苦。这种后起的艺术叫做阿提刻新喜剧。悲剧的蜕化的形式还留存在它上面,好象是悲剧非常悲惨的暴卒之纪念碑!
从这种渊源关系,不难理解,为甚么新喜剧的诗人们对欧里庇德斯抱着这样热情的倾慕。所以,我们也不再诧异斐勒蒙(Philemon)的愿望:他说只要他能够在冥土中拜访欧里庇德斯,他宁愿立刻自谥,但愿他能确实知道人在死后仍有理性。然而,如果我们只要简单扼要地说明,而不要求穷其究竟,欧里庇德斯与米南德(Menander)及斐勒蒙有甚么共同的地方,是甚么使他们这样兴奋地去模仿;那末,我们只须指出:欧里庇德斯把观众带上舞台。如果你知道,在欧氏之前,普罗密修斯悲剧作家们塑造英雄人物时取材于甚么,把现实的真面影搬上舞台的做法和他们的意图相去多么遥远;那末,你对于欧氏这种背道而驰的倾向,就会恍然大悟了。全凭他的力量,日常生活中的人物得以从观众座席闯入舞台;戏剧这面镜子,以前只反映粗豪雄伟的线条,现在却照出了惨淡的真相,甚或有意地再现自然的败笔。奥德修斯,古代艺术中的典型希腊人,现在,在新兴诗人们的笔下,业已沦落为格拉库罗斯之流的形象;从此之后,这种和气的狡猾的家奴便占据了戏剧趣味的中心地位。阿里斯托芬的“蛙”所以推崇欧里庇德斯,是因为欧氏的家常便药挽救了悲剧艺术于浮夸的臃肿病。这功绩首先表现在他的悲剧人物上。现在,观众在欧里庇德斯的剧中真是如见自己的面影,如闻自己的歆咳,而且欣然赏识剧中人的话说得这么美好。然而,不仅欣赏而已,你还可以向欧里庇德斯学习讲话的技巧;他同埃斯库罗斯论战时,就以能言善辩自豪,去观察,辩论,取得结论。要之,他通过改革日常语言为“新喜剧”创造了条件。因为,从此之后,陈言俗语怎样在舞台上表达得恰到好处,就再不是一个秘密了。平凡的市民,是欧里庇德斯一切政治希望所寄托,现在已有了发言之权,但是以前却是由悲剧中的神人,和喜剧中的醉鬼萨提儿或人妖,来决定语言的性质。所以,阿里斯托芬剧中的欧里庇德斯所引以为荣的一点,是他刻划出最普通、最熟识、最平凡的生活和追求,而且人人都有能力予以评判。现在,如果说所有平民大众都能够独立思考,能够非常慎重地管理土地财产和进行诉讼,这都是他的功劳,和他以智慧启迪民众的辉煌成绩。
现在,新喜剧就面对着这样有准备、有教育的平民大众,因此欧里庇德斯俨然成为新喜剧的歌队长,不过,在这一回,观众的歌队还有待于训练罢了。一旦这种歌队受过训练,能够唱欧里庇德斯的调子,一种棋逢敌手似的戏剧便兴盛起来,那是描写勾心斗角以智取胜的新喜剧。然而,歌队长欧里庇德斯还是不断博得称誉;真的,为了要从他学得更多一点,甚至有人宁愿自杀,殊不知悲剧的诗人们,像悲剧那样,从此寂灭了。然而,自从诗人之死,希腊人也抛弃了对不配的信仰,不但不信仰理想的过去,且亦不信仰理想的未来。那句有名的墓志“像老人那样轻浮任性”也适用于衰老的希腊化时代。片刻的享乐,机智,轻率,烦躁,是那个时代的至尊之神;现在是第五等级,奴隶阶级,当权了,最低限度在精神状态上是如此;假如现在还有甚么“希腊的乐观”可言,那就是奴隶的乐观而已;奴隶没有甚么重大的责任心,没有甚么伟大的憧憬,他们重视目前远甚于过去或未来。正是这种虚伪的“希腊的乐观”,激怒了基督教时代最初四百年间那些深思而可畏的志士;在他们看来,这种女性似的逃避责任与困难,这种懦夫似的贪图安逸,不但是可鄙的,而且是尤其反基督教的精神状态的。这种精神的影响由来已古:流传了数百年的希腊古代世界观,不屈不挠地始终保持着一些淡红的乐观色彩,仿佛从来没有过公元前六世纪的文明,悲剧的诞生,秘仪的崇拜,毕达哥拉斯和赫拉克里图的哲学,仿佛从未产生过那个伟大时代的艺术作品;固然,我们不能说这些现象每个都是从这种衰老的、奴性的贪生求乐之心理产生的;固然,它们显然另有一种完全不同的世界观为其存在的根据。
我们在上文说过,欧里庇德斯曾把观众带上舞台,同时使观众确实有能力评判戏剧;这种说法,会使人误解,以为以前悲剧艺术对观众的关系,是不正确的,也会使人贸贸然赞扬欧里庇德斯这一急进的倾向,认为他建立了艺术作品对观众的正确关系,比索福克勒斯向前迈进一步。然而,所谓“观众”毕竟是一个名词罢了;它并不是一个同次常数。艺术家有甚么义务要迎合这种仅仅以数量见胜的群众力量呢?如果他觉得自己在才能和志向上都比每个观众高明,那末他为甚么要尊重那些才能较低的群众的舆论,甚于尊重最有才能的个别观众呢?其实,再没有一个希腊艺术家,象欧里庇德斯那样,以孤傲和自负来对待他的观众了;当群众拜倒在他脚下时,他自己竟然以崇高的倔强精神,公开抨击他自己的倾向,而这种倾向正是他所借以获得人心的。如果这位天才,对于舆论的地狱,稍存敬畏之心,他也许在失败的打击之下,早在他事业的中途,一蹶不振了。由此观之,我们说欧里庇德斯把观众带上舞台,是为了使观众确实能有批判能力,——这种说法,不过是一个暂时的假说而已;所以,我们必须进一步探索,以便了解他的倾向。反之,如所周知,埃斯库罗斯和索福克勒斯,终其一生,甚至死后很久,都甚孚众望;由此可见,就欧里庇德斯的前辈而论,断不能说,他们的作品对观众的关系是不正确的。那么,是甚么强大的力量,驱使这位才气磅礴而又不断努力创作的诗人抛弃了诗坛盛誉和民众爱戴,离开了这阳光随处长空无云的锦锈前程呢?他对观众有甚么稀奇的考虑,以致反对观众呢?他怎能够因为太尊重观众,以致轻视观众呢?
关于方才提出的谜,我们的解答是:欧里庇德斯觉得自己,作为一个诗人,比一般群众高明得多,但是只有两个观众他甘拜下风。他把群众带上舞台,唯独对这两个观众,他却敬之为他的艺术的合格判官和导师。遵从他们的指导和劝告,他把一切情感,激情,经验之世界,即以前每次演出坐在观众席上的无形歌队的内心世界,移入剧中人物的心灵中。当他为这些角色寻找新语言和新情调时,他要对他们的要求让步;当他一再被观众舆论否决时,唯有从他们的话里。他听到对他作品的合情合理的宣判,听到胜利在望的鼓励。
这两个观众之一,就是欧里庇德斯自己。是思想家欧里庇德斯,而非诗人欧里庇德斯。我们可以说,欧里庇德斯的非常丰富的批评才能,正如莱森的那样,即使不产生,也会不断妊育着一种接进创作的艺术冲动。欧里庇德斯就是怀着这样的才能,怀着他光辉而灵敏的批判思想,坐在剧场,努力去认识他前辈大师的杰作,一点一滴,逐行逐句推敲,如同鉴识一幅褪色的油画那样。于是,在这里,他体会到一些为洞识埃斯库罗斯悲剧之秘奥的专家们所能预料的特点,他在埃氏悲剧的字里间看出一些深不可测的东西,表面上是一种似是而非的浅显。同时在背后是一种神秘的深奥,甚至无限的深奥。即使最浅显的人物形象,也往往带着慧星的光尾,仿佛暗示着一些飘渺朦胧的意义。同样的朦胧的暮色,笼罩着悲剧的结构,尤其是在歌队的目的上。况且,道德问题方面的答案还是多么使人疑惑!神说的处理也颇成问题,泰运与否运又分配等这么不均等!甚至在这些旧悲剧的语言方面,也有许多使他反感,至少是莫明其妙的东西;尤其是他发现一些简单的关系未免夸张过甚,平凡的角色也用上过多的比喻和浮夸的词藻。所以,他坐在剧场里,忐忑不安的思索;作为一个观众,他承认他不能了解他的先辈大师。然而,如果他认为了解乃是欣赏和创作的主要根源,那末他就要追问,要环顾四周,看看是否别人也象他那样思考,也象他那样感到这种深不可测的奥妙。然而,许多人,连带最优秀的人们。只用一个不信任的微笑回答他;便是没有一个人能够对他解释,为甚么大师们总是对的,尽管他抱着怀疑和异议。于是,怀着极其痛苦的心情,他找到另一个观众了,这个观众不了解悲刚,所以不尊重悲剧。同这观众联合起来,摆脱了孤立的情况,他就敢于展开反对埃斯库罗斯和索福克勒斯的艺术作品的残酷斗争;——他不是以论战者的姿态,而是以悲剧诗人的身份提出他自己的悲剧的概念,来反抗传统的概念。
|
Greek tragedy perished in a manner quite
different from the older sister arts: it died by suicide, in
consequence of an insoluble confiict, while the others died
serene and natural deaths at advanced ages. If it is the
sign of a happy natural condition to die painlessly, leaving
behind a fair progeny, then the decease of those older
genres exhibits such a condition; they sank slowly, and
their children, fairer than they, stood before their dying
eyes, lifting up their heads in eagerness. The death of
Greek tragedy, on the other hand, created a tremendous
vacuum that was felt far and wide. As the Greek sailors in
the time of Tiberius heard from a lonely island the
agonizing cry "Great Pan is dead!" so could be heard ringing
now through the entire Greek world these painful cries:
"Tragedy is dead! And poetry has perished with it! Away with
you, puny, spiritless imitators! Away with you to Hades,
where you may eat your fill of the crumbs thrown you by
former masters!" When after all a new genre sprang into
being which honored tragedy as its parent, the child was
seen with dismay to bear indeed the features of its mother,
but of its mother during her long death struggle. The death
struggle of tragedy had been fought by Euripides, while the
later art is known as the New Attic comedy. Tragedy lived on
there in a degenerate form, a monument to its painful and
laborious death.
In this context we can understand the passionate fondness
of the writers of the new comedy for Euripides. Now the wish
of Philemon--who was willing to be hanged for the pleasure
of visiting Euripides in Hades, providing he could be sure
that the dead man was still in possession of his senses--no
longer seems strange to us. If one were to attempt to say
briefly and merely by way of suggestion what Menander and
Philemon had in common with Euripides, and what they found
so exemplary and exciting in him, one might say that
Euripides succeeded in transporting the spectator onto the
stage. Once we realize out of what substance the Promethean
dramatists before Euripides had formed their heroes and how
far it had been from their thoughts to bring onto the stage
a true replica of actuality, we shall see clearly how
utterly different were Euripides' intentions. Through him
the common man found his way from the auditorium onto the
stage. That mirror, which previously had shown only the
great and bold features, now took on the kind of accuracy
that reflects also the paltry traits of nature. Odysseus,
the typical Greek of older art, declined under the hands of
the new poets to the character of Graeculus, who henceforth
held the center of the stage as the good humored, cunning
slave. The merit which Euripides, in Aristophanes'
Frogs, attributes to himself, of having by his nostrum
rid tragic art of its pompous embonpoint, is
apparent in every one of his tragic heroes. Now every
spectator could behold his exact counterpart on the
Euripidean stage and was delighted to find him so eloquent.
But that was not the only pleasure. People themselves
learned to speak from Euripides--don't we hear him
boast, in his contest with Aeschylus, that through him the
populace had learned to observe, make transactions and form
conclusions according to all the rules of art, with the
utmost cleverness? It was through this revolution in public
discourse that the new comedy became possible. From now on
the stock phrases to represent everyday affairs were ready
to hand. While hitherto the character of dramatic speech had
been determined by the demigod in tragedy and the drunken
satyr in comedy, that bourgeois mediocrity in which
Euripides placed all his political hopes now came to the
fore. And so the Aristophanic Euripides could pride himself
on having portrayed life "as it really is" and shown men how
to attack it: if now all members of the populace were able
to philosophize, plead their cases in court and make their
business deals with incredible shrewdness, the merit was
really his, the result of that wisdom he had inculcated in
them.
The new comedy could now address itself to a prepared,
enlightened crowd, for whom Euripides had served as
choirmaster--only in this case it was the chorus of
spectators who had to be trained. As soon as this chorus had
acquired a competence in the Euripidean key, the new
comedy--that chesslike species of play--with its constant
triumphs of cleverness and cunning, arose. Meanwhile
choirmaster Euripides was the object of fulsome praise; in
fact, people would have killed themselves in order to learn
more from him had they not known that the tragic poets were
quite as dead as tragedy itself. With tragedy the Greeks had
given up the belief in immortality: not only the belief in
an ideal past, but also the belief in an ideal future. The
words of the famous epitaph "Inconstant and frivolous in old
age" apply equally well to the last phase of Hellenism. Its
supreme deities are wit, whim, caprice, the pleasure of the
moment. The fifth estate, that of the slaves, comes into its
own, at least in point of attitude, and if it is possible at
all now to speak of Greek serenity, then it must refer to
the serenity of the slave, who has no difficult
responsibilities, no high aims, and to whom nothing, past or
future, is of greater value than the present. It was this
semblance of Greek serenity that so outraged the profound
and powerful minds of the first four centuries after Christ.
This womanish escape from all seriousness and awe, this smug
embracing of easy pleasure, seemed to them not only
contemptible but the truly antiChristian frame of mind. It
was they who handed on to later generations a picture of
Greek antiquity painted entirely in the pale rose hues of
serenity--as though there had never been a sixth century
with its birth of tragedy, its Mysteries, its Pythagoras and
Heracleitus, indeed as though the art works of the great
period did not exist at all. And yet none of the latter
could, of course, have sprung from the soil of such a
trivial ignoble cheer, pointing as they do to an entirely
different philosophy as their raison d'etre.
When I said earlier that Euripides had brought the
spectator on the stage in order to enable him to judge the
play, I may have created the impression that the older drama
had all along stood in a false relation to the spectator;
and one might then be tempted to praise Euripides' radical
tendency to establish a proper relationship between art work
and audience as an advance upon Sophocles. But, after all,
audience is but a word, not a constant unchanging
value. Why should an author feel obliged to accommodate
himself to a power whose strength is merely in numbers? If
he considers himself superior in his talent and intentions
to every single spectator, why should he show respect for
the collective expression of all those mediocre capacities
rather than for the few members of the audience who seem
relatively the most gifted? The truth of the matter is that
no Greek artist ever treated his audience with greater
audacity and self sulliciency than Euripides; who at a time
when the multitude lay prostrate before him disavowed in
noble defiance and publicly his own tendencies--those very
tendencies by which he had previously conquered the masses.
Had this genius had the slightest reverence for that band of
Bedlamites called the public, he would have been struck down
long before the mid point of his career by the bludgeon
blows of his unsuccess. We come to realize now that our
statement, "Euripides brought the spectator on the
stage"--implying that the spectator would be able henceforth
to exercise competent judgment --was merely provisional and
that we must look for a sounder explanation of his
intentions. It is also generally recognized that Aeschylus
and Sophocles enjoyed all through their lives and longer the
full benefit of popular favor, and that for this reason it
would be absurd to speak in either case of a disproportion
between art work and public reception. What was it, then,
that drove the highly talented and incessantly creative
Euripides from a path bathed in the light of those twin
luminaries--his great predecessors--and of popular acclaim
as well? What peculiar consideration for the spectator made
him defy that very same spectator? How did it happen that
his great respect for his audience made him treat that
audience with utter disrespect?
Euripides--and this may be the solution of our riddle--
considered himself quite superior to the crowd as a whole;
not, however, to two of his spectators. He would translate
the crowd onto the stage but insist, all the same, on
revering the two members as the sole judges of his art; on
following all their directions and admonitions, and on
instilling in the very hearts of his dramatic characters
those emotions, passions and recognitions which had
heretofore seconded the stage action, like an invisible
chorus, from the serried ranks of the amphitheater. It was
in deference to these judges that he gave his new characters
a new voice, too, and a new music. Their votes, and no
others, determined for him the worth of his efforts. And
whenever the public rejected his labors it was their
encouragement, their faith in his final triumph, which
sustained him.
One of the two spectators I just spoke of was Euripides
himself--the thinker Euripides, not the poet. Of him it may
be said that the extraordinary richness of his critical gift
had helped to produce, as in the case of Lessing, an
authentic creative offshoot. Endowed with such talent, such
remarkable intellectual lucidity and versatility, Euripides
watched the performances of his predecessors' plays and
tried to rediscover in them those fine lineaments which age,
as happens in the case of old paintings, had darkened and
almost obliterated. And now something occurred which cannot
surprise those among us who are familiar with the deeper
secrets of Aeschylean tragedy. Euripides perceived in every
line, in every trait, something quite incommensurable: a
certain deceptive clarity and, together with it, a
mysterious depth, an infinite background. The clearest
figure trailed after it a comet's tail which seemed to point
to something uncertain, something that could not be wholly
elucidated. A similar twilight seemed to invest the very
structure of drama, especially the function of the chorus.
Then again, how ambiguous did the solutions of all moral
problems seem! how problematical the way in which the myths
were treated! how irregular the distribution of fortune and
misfortune! There was also much in the language of older
tragedy that he took exception to, or to say the least,
found puzzling: why all this pomp in the representation of
simple relationships? why all those tropes and hyperboles,
where the characters themselves were simple and
straightforward? Euripides sat in the theater pondering, a
troubled spectator. In the end he had to admit to himself
that he did not understand his great predecessors. But since
he looked upon reason as the fountainhead of all doing and
enjoying, he had to find out whether anybody shared these
notions of his, or whether he was alone in facing up to such
incommensurable features. But the multitude, including some
of the best individuals, gave him only a smile of distrust;
none of them would tell him why, notwithstanding his
misgivings and reservations, the great masters were right
nonetheless. In this tormented state of mind, Euripides
discovered his second spectator--one who did not understand
tragedy and for that reason spumed it. Allied with him he
could risk coming out of his isolation to fight that
tremendous battle against the works of Aeschylus and
Sophocles; not by means of polemics, but as a tragic poet
determined to make his notion of tragedy prevail over the
traditional notions.
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12
在指出这另一个观众的名字之前,让我们稍停片刻。回忆一下上文讲过的,埃斯库罗斯悲剧本质中一些不调和与不可测的因素所产生的印象。试想我们自己对悲剧歌队和悲剧英雄所感的诧异,我们总觉得,这两者同我们的习惯,甚至同传统,都是不调协的,——直到我们重新发现这种二重性原来是希腊悲剧的根源和本质,是梦神型与酒神型两种彼此交错的艺术冲动之表现。
从悲剧中排除这种原始的万能的酒神成份,并且在非醉境的艺术、道德观和世界观上建立一种新的纯粹的因素:——这就是现在了如指掌地揭露在我们眼前的欧里庇德斯的倾向。
在晚年时代,欧里庇德斯自己,在一部神话剧中,向他同代人大力提出关于这种倾向的价值和意义的问题。酒神文化毕竟有没有存在的价值呢?是不是应该用暴力把它从希腊地土上连根拔除呢?诗人告诉我们:要是可能的话,当然要拔除;但是酒神太顽强了,他的最聪明的敌手,有如“酒神伴侣”一剧中的潘透斯,在无意中也着了他的迷,后来就在迷惑中奔赴自己的末运。老先知卡德谟斯(Kadmua)和提列西亚(Tiresia)的判断,也好象是这位老诗人的判断:即使最聪明的人的考虑,也不能推翻古老的民间传统,以及这种不断传播的酒神崇拜,其实对这样神奇的力量,最好是采用至少一些外交性的慎重措施,虽则酒神对如此冷淡的顶礼,往往有可能勃然大怒,结果会把这外交使节化为龙,正象剧中人卡德谟斯所遭遇的那样。这就是诗人告诉我们的话。他毕生在悠长的岁月里,以英勇的魄力反抗酒神,而到头来还是颂扬他的敌手,并且以自杀来结束自己的事业之历程,正象一个眼花缭乱的人,只为了避开可怕的、再也不能忍受的眩晕,反而从高塔上失足堕地那样。这个悲剧“酒神伴侣”,就是对他的倾向的实行之一种抗议,可是呵,他的倾向业已付诸实行!惊人的事件发生了:当诗人要收回成命时,他的倾向已经取得胜利。酒神已经被斥逐出悲剧舞台,一种魔力,借欧里庇德斯为喉舌把他斥退了。因为,甚至欧里庇德斯,在某种意义上,也不过是一个伪装人物,通过他来发言的那位神,不是酒神,也不是梦神,而是一个崭新的灵物,名叫苏格拉底。这是一种新的对立。酒神倾向与苏格拉底倾向的对立,希腊悲剧艺术作品就在这一对立上碰得粉碎了。现在,欧里庇德斯妄想以他的后悔来安慰我们,他没有成功。堂皇的庙宇已成废墟,破坏者的悲叹对我们有甚么用处呢?即使他承认这间是最华丽的庙宇,又有甚么用处呢?即使世世代代的艺术批评把欧里庇德斯化为龙,以示惩罚,可是这样可怜的赔偿能使谁满意呢?
现在,让我们进一步考察这种苏格拉底倾向。欧里庇德斯就是以它为武器来斗争,而战胜埃斯库罗斯的悲剧的。
欧里庇德斯的计划,就其实施的最高理想来说,是把戏曲只放在非酒神倾向的基础上;那末,我们就要追问,其目的何在呢?试问,如果戏曲不是在酒神祭的神秘暮色时从音乐胎中诞生,此外还有甚么形式的戏曲呢?只有史诗剧了吧。但是,在史诗的梦境艺术领域里,悲剧的效果当然是达不到的。因为悲剧效果与史诗事迹的题材是不相配合的。真的,我可以说,歌德在他筹划的“瑙丝嘉雅”一剧中,就不可能把第五幕末场这牧歌人物的自杀写得富有悲剧效果。梦境史诗的表现能力,是非常伟大的,它可以凭借假象的快感和假象的救济,使得最可怕的事物在我们眼前化为幻境。但是史诗剧诗人,正如史诗朗诵者那样,就不能与诗中情景完全融合了;他始终抱着冷静的、无动于中的静观态度,冷眼旁观面前的景象。同样,史诗剧的演员归根结蒂还是一个朗诵者;内心梦境的情热尽在他的一切行动上,所以他并不全是一个演员。
那么,欧里庇德斯的戏曲对梦境戏曲的理想之关系是怎样呢?正如年青一辈的朗诵者对旧时代人严肃的朗诵者那样罢了。在柏拉图的“伊安篇”中,一个青年朗诵者讲及自己的心情:“当我讲到悲哀的事情,我满眶是热泪;当我讲到可惊可怖的事情,我毛骨悚然,心脏悸动。”在这里,我们再也见不到史诗对假象的神往,也见不到一个真正演员的无动于衷的冷静,这种演员达到最高演艺时,往往成为一种假象和假象的快感。欧里庇德斯属于那种心悸发耸的演员:他计划时是苏格拉底式的思想家;他实施时是动情的演员。不论在计划或实施,他也是一个纯粹艺术家。所以,欧里庇德斯的戏曲是又冷又热的东西,它既能冻结,也能燃烧;它不能达到梦境史诗的效果,但另一方面它尽可能去除醉境情绪的成份。所以,为了能够产生效果,它就必须使用一种新的刺激,那是都不在梦神型和酒神型这两种特殊艺术冲动的范围内的。这些新刺激就是以冷静的奇思代替梦境的静观,以如火的热情代替醉境的陶醉,况且这些思想和热情都是模仿得极其忠实,绝不是弥漫着艺术气氛的。
所以,我们既已详细知道,欧里庇德斯想把戏剧只放在梦境因素的基础上而没有成功,他的非梦境倾向反流为非艺术的自然主义倾向,那末,我们现在要进一步探讨欧里庇德斯的审美苏格拉底主义的性质:他的最高审美原则是“唯知为美”,这可以媲美苏格拉底的格言“唯知是德”。欧里庇德斯拿着这个标准在手上,来衡量戏曲的一切成份——语言,性格,戏曲结构,歌队音乐——而按照这个原则订正它们。我们在习惯上往往认为,欧里庇德斯的诗比诸索福克勒斯的诗是缺点和退步,而这点多半是他的深入的批判过程和大胆的判断之结果。欧里庇德斯的序幕,可以作为这种合理主义方法的后果的例证。再没有甚么比欧里庇德斯的悲剧序幕更违反今日的舞台技巧了。在一剧的开始,总有一个人物登场来自报家门,说明剧情因由,以前曾发生甚么事情,甚至以后在剧情发展中将会发生甚么事情;现代剧作家定必认为这种手法是恶意的,不可饶恕的破坏悬宕效果。不错,我们既然知道不久将发生的一切事情,谁肯耐心等待它实现呢?——何况一个预言的梦总是同后来发生的事实吻合,这样的因果关系决不会使人兴奋的。然而,欧里庇德斯却完全从另一角度来考虑。他的悲剧效果绝不是靠史诗的悬宕。靠引起你对现在与未来之事猜疑莫决的兴趣,它倒是靠雄辨和抒情的重大场面,在这种场面,主角的激情和辩才扬起波澜壮阔的洪潮。一切都是为激情,而不是为剧情作好准备:凡是不为激情而设的,就被视为不足取。然而,妨碍观众欣赏这种场面的最大阻力,是作者未曾向观众交代一个关键,或者剧情的前因后果中有一个脱节。既然观众必须揣摩这个那个人物有何用意,或者这种那种倾向和企图之冲突有何前因,他就不可能全神灌注在主角的行为和苦难上,也不可能提心吊胆地与剧中人同甘苦共患难。埃斯库罗斯和索福克勒斯的悲剧,运用最巧妙的艺术手段,在头几场中就把了解剧情所必需的开发线索,好象是无意中交到观众手上:——这是高明的艺术家所见长的一个特点,它仿佛遮掩了必不可少的公式,而使之仿佛是偶然流露。然而,欧里庇德斯仍然认为,他看出:观众在头几场中,尤其焦急要解答剧情的前因后果,那么他就势必忽略了诗的美和情节的激情。所以,欧里庇德斯在情节面前加上序幕,借用一个可以信赖的人的口来交代剧情:这人往往是一位神灵。他仿佛要对观众保证剧中的情节,消除人们对于神话之真实性的一切怀疑,正象笛卡儿要证明经验世界之真实性,就只能诉诸神之诚实无欺。欧里庇德斯在悲剧收场上也曾一再使用这种神灵的诚实,以便对观众保证剧中英雄的归宿;这就是声名狼藉的“神机妙算”(Deuex ma china)的任务①。由此可见,这种戏曲抒情的现在,即“悲剧”本身,是处在史诗的回顾与史诗的展望之间。
所以,欧里庇德斯,作为诗人来说,首先是他自己的自觉认识的回声,而正是这点使他在希腊艺术史占居这样显著地位。就他的批判创作活动而论,他定必常常觉得应该把亚拿萨哥拉著作开章这句话灵活运用于戏曲上:“泰初万物混淆,然后理性出现,创立秩序。”亚拿萨哥拉首倡voAua(理性),在哲学家中他有如“众人皆醉我独醒”。欧里庇德斯也许认为自己对其余悲剧诗人们的关系也是处在这样的情况。只要万物的唯一统治者和安排者“理性”仍被排斥于艺术活动之外,万物始终是混淆,处于罗始的浑沌状态。所以,欧里庇德斯必须当机立断,所以,他必须以第一个清醒者的姿态来批判那些醉汉诗人。索福克勒斯曾谓埃斯库罗斯做了正确的事,虽则是无意为之,但是欧里庇德斯当然不会持此见解。反之,他却认为,埃斯库罗斯正因为无意为之,所以做了错误的事。同样,英明的柏拉图就多半只用讽刺的态度谈论诗人的创作能力,因为这是一种不自觉的识力;他把诗人的能力与预言家和解梦人的天赋才能同列,这就是说,诗人在失去自觉忘掉理性之前,是不会有创作能力的。欧里庇德斯企图对世人指出这种“不知不觉的”诗人之对立面,正象柏拉图曾经指出那样;我也曾说过,他的审美原则“唯知为美”,可以媲美苏格拉底的格言“唯知是德”。因此,我们不妨认为,欧里庇德斯是审美苏格拉底主义的诗人。然而,苏格拉底是第二个观众,他不了解旧悲剧。因而不尊重它,欧里庇德斯同他联合起来就敢于做一种新艺术的先驱者。既然一切旧悲剧都在这种新艺术上碰得粉碎,那末审美苏格拉底主义乃是一种毁灭性的原理;但是,既然这斗争的矛头指向旧悲剧中的醉境因素,那末我们就不妨把苏格拉底看作酒神的敌手。他是起来反抗酒神的新奥斐斯,虽则他命定要被雅典法庭的酒神侍女们撕死,但是他也不得不把这位强大的神灵赶走。想当年,酒神受伊多尼王吕库尔戈斯(Lyourgus)迫害而逃走时,他就藏身在海洋的深处得以幸免,这就是说,他潜入秘仪崇拜的神秘洪流中,后来这洪流逐渐泛滥全世界。
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Before giving a name to that
other spectator, let us stop a moment and call to mind what
we have said earlier of the incommensurable and discrepant
elements in Aeschylean tragedy. Let us recollect how
strangely we were affected by the chorus and by the tragic
hero of a kind of tragedy which refused to conform to either
our habits or our tradition--until, that is, we discovered
that the discrepancy was closely bound up with the very
origin and essence of Greek tragedy, as the expression of
two interacting artistic impulses, the Apollinian and the
Dionysian. Euripides' basic intention now becomes as clear
as day to us: it is to eliminate from tragedy the primitive
and pervasive Dionysian element, and to rebuild the drama on
a foundation of non-Dionysian art, custom and philosophy.
Euripides himself, towards the end of his life, propounded
the question of the value and sign)ficance of this tendency
to his contemporaries in a myth. Has the Dionysian spirit
any right at all to exist? Should it not, rather, be
brutally uprooted from the Hellenic soil? Yes, it should,
the poet tells us, if only it were possible, but the god
Dionysus is too powerful: even the most intelligent
opponent, like Pentheus in the Bacchae, is
unexpectedly enchanted by him, and in his enchantment runs
headlong to destruction. The opinion of the two old men in
the play--Cadmus and Tiresias--seems to echo the opinion of
the aged poet himself: that the cleverest individual cannot
by his reasoning overturn an ancient popular tradition like
the worship of Dionysus, and that it is the proper part of
diplomacy in the face of miraculous powers to make at least
a prudent show of sympathy; that it is even possible that
the god may still take exception to such tepid interest
and--as happened in the case of Cadmus--turn the diplomat
into a dragon. We are told this by a poet who all his life
had resisted Dionysus heroically, only to end his career
with a glorification of his opponent and with suicide--like
a man who throws himself from a tower in order to put an end
to the unbearable sensation of vertigo. The Bacchae
acknowledges the failure of Euripides' dramatic intentions
when, in fact, these had already succeeded: Dionysus had
already been driven from the tragic stage by a daemonic
power speaking through Euripides. For in a certain sense
Euripides was but a mask, while the divinity which spoke
through him was neither Dionysus nor Apollo but a brand new
daemon called Socrates. Thenceforward the real antagonism
was to be between Dionysian spirit and the Socratic, and
tragedy was to perish in the conflict. Try as he may to
comfort us with his recantation, Euripides fails. The
marvelous temple lies in ruins; of what avail is the
destroyer's lament that it was the most beautiful of all
temples? And though, by way of punishment, Euripides has
been turned into a dragon by all later critics, who can
really regard this as adequate compensation?
Let us now look more closely at the Socratic tendency by
means of which Euripides fought and conquered Aeschylean
tragedy. What, under the most auspicious conditions, could
Euripides have hoped to effect in founding his tragedy on
purely un-Dionysian elements? Once it was no longer begotten
by music, in the mysterious Dionysian twilight, what form
could drama conceivably take? Only that of the dramatized
epic, an Apollinian form which precluded tragic effect. It
is not a question here of the events represented. I submit
that it would have been impossible for Goethe, in the fifth
act of his projected Nausicäa, to render tragic the suicide
of that idyllic being: the power of the epic Apollinian
spirit is such that it transfigures the most horrible deeds
before our eyes by the charm of illusion, and redemption
through illusion. The poet who writes dramatized narrative
can no more become one with his images than can the epic
rhapsodist. He too represents serene, wide eyed
contemplation gazing upon its images. The actor in such
dramatized epic remains essentially a rhapsodist; the
consecration of dream lies upon all his actions and prevents
him from ever becoming in the full sense an actor.
But what relationship can be said to obtain between such
an ideal Apollinian drama and the plays of Euripides? The
same as obtains between the early solemn rhapsodist and that
more recent variety described in Plato's Ion: "When
I say something sad my eyes fill with tears; if, however,
what I say is terrible and ghastly, then my hair stands on
end and my heart beats loudly." Here there is no longer any
trace of epic self forgetfulness, of the true rhapsodist's
cool detachment, who at the highest pitch of action, and
especially then, becomes wholly illusion and delight in
illusion. Euripides is the actor of the beating heart, with
hair standing on end. He lays his dramatic plan as Socratic
thinker and carries it out as passionate actor. So it
happens that the Euripidean drama is at the same time cool
and fiery, able alike to freeze and consume us. It cannot
possibly achieve the Apollinian effects of the epic, while
on the other hand it has severed all connection with the
Dionysian mode; so that in order to have any impact at all
it must seek out novel stimulants which are to be found
neither in the Apollinian nor in the Dionysian realm. Those
stimulants are, on the one hand, cold paradoxical ideas put
in the place of Apollinian contemplation, and on the other
fiery emotions put in the place of Dionysian transports.
These last are splendidly realistic counterfeits, but
neither ideas nor affects are infused with the spirit of
true art.
Having now recognized that Euripides failed in founding
the drama solely on Apollinian elements and that, instead,
his anti Dionysian tendency led him towards inartistic
naturalism, we are ready to deal with the phenomenon of
aesthetic Socratism. Its supreme law may be stated as
follows: "Whatever is to be beautiful must also be sensible"
--a parallel to the Socratic notion that knowledge alone
makes men virtuous. Armed with this canon, Euripides
examined every aspect of drama--diction, character, dramatic
structure, choral music--and made them fit his
specifications. What in Euripidean, as compared with
Sophoclean tragedy, has been so frequently censured as
poetic lack and retrogression is actually the straight
result of the poet's incisive critical gifts, his audacious
personality. The Euripidean prologue may seen to illustrate
the efficacy of that rationalistic method. Nothing could be
more at odds with our dramaturgic notions than the prologue
in the drama of Euripides. To have a character appear at the
beginning of the play, tell us who he is, what preceded the
action, what has happened so far, even what is about to
happen in the course of the play--a modern writer for the
theater would reject all this as a wanton and unpardonable
dismissal of the element of suspense. Now that everyone
knows what is going to happen, who will wait to see it
happen? Especially since, in this case, the relation is by
no means that of a prophetic dream to a later event. But
Euripides reasoned quite otherwise. According to him, the
effect of tragedy never resided in epic suspense, in a
teasing uncertainty as to what was going to happen next. It
resided, rather, in those great scenes of lyrical rhetoric
in which the passion and dialectic of the protagonist
reached heights of eloquence. Everything portended pathos,
not action. Whatever did not portend pathos was seen as
objectionable. The greatest obstacle to the spectator's most
intimate participation in those scenes would be any missing
link in the antecedent action: so long as the spectator had
to conjecture what this or that figure represented, from
whence arose this or that conflict of inclinations and
intentions, he could not fully participate in the doings and
sufferings of the protagonists, feel with them and fear with
them. The tragedy of Aeschylus and Sophocles had used the
subtlest devices to furnish the spectator in the early
scenes, and as if by chance, with al} the necessary
information. They had shown an admirable skill in disguising
the necessary structural features and making them seem
accidental. All the same, Euripides thought he noticed chat
during those early scenes the spectators were in a peculiar
state of unrest--so concerned with figuring out the
antecedents of the story chat the beauty and pathos of the
exposition were lost on them. For this reason he introduced
a prologue even before the exposition, and put it into the
mouth of a speaker who would command absolute trust. Very
often it was a god who had to guarantee to the public the
course of the tragedy and so remove any possible doubt as to
the reality of the mydh; exactly as Descartes could only
demonstrate the reality of the empirical world by appealing
to God's veracity, his inability to tell a lie. At the end
of his drama Euripides required the same divine truthfulness
to act as security, so to speak, for the future of his
protagonists. This was the function of the ill-famed
deus ex machina. Between the preview of the prologue
and the preview of the epilogue stretched the dramatic lyric
present, the drama proper.
As a poet, then, Euripides was principally concerned with
rendering his conscious perceptions, and it is this which
gives him his position of importance in the history of Greek
drama. With regard to his poetic procedure, which was both
critical and creative, he must often have felt that he was
applying to drama the opening words of Anaxagoras' treatise:
"In the beginning all things were mixed together; then
reason came and introduced order." And even as Anaxagoras,
with his concept of reason, seems like the first sober
philosopher in a company of drunkards, so Euripides may have
appeared to himself as the first rational maker of tragedy.
Everything was mixed together in a chaotic stew so long as
reason, the sole principle of universal order, remained
excluded from the creative act. Being of this opinion,
Euripides had necessarily to reject his less rational peers.
Euripides would never have endorsed Sophocles' statement
about Aeschylus--that this poet was doing the right thing,
but unconsciously; instead he would have claimed that since
Aeschylus created unconsciously he couldn't help doing the
wrong cling. Even the divine Plato speaks of the creative
power of the poet for the most part ironically and as being
on a level with the gifts of the soothsayer and interpreter
of dreams, since according to the traditional conception the
poet is unable to write until reason and conscious control
have deserted him. Euripides set out, as Plato was to do, to
show the world the opposite of the "irrational" poet; his
aesthetic axiom, "whatever is to be beautiful must be
conscious" is strictly parallel to the Socratic "whatever is
to be good must be conscious." We can hardly go wrong then
in calling Euripides the poet of aesthetic Socratism. But
Socrates was precisely that second spectator,
incapable of understanding the older tragedy and therefore
scorning it, and it was in his company that Euripides dared
to usher in a new era of poetic activity. If the old tragedy
was wrecked' aesthetic Socratism is to blame, and to the
extent that the target of the innovators was the Dionysian
principle of the older art we may call Socrates the god's
chief opponent, the new Orpheus who, though destined to be
torn to pieces by the maenads of Athenian judgment,
succeeded in putting the overmastering god to flight. The
latter, as before, when he fled from Lycurgus, king of the
Edoni, took refuge in the depths of the sea; that is to say,
in the flood of a mystery cult that was soon to encompass
the world. |
13
苏格拉底同欧里庇德斯的倾向有密切关系,当时古代人也曾注意及此。雅典有个流行传说,最动人地说明了这种可喜的锐感。据说苏格拉底常常帮助欧里庇德斯作诗。每逢有机会列举当时的人民鼓动者时,“古风旧德”的拥护者们往往把这两人双提并论,认为当时一种颇有问题的教化使得体力和智力渐趋退化,昔日有益身心的马拉松精神因此被牺牲,这都归咎于这两个人的影响。阿里斯托芬的喜剧谈及这两人时,就往往带着半愤怒半轻蔑的调子:——这会使现代人大为诧异的,今人宁可牺牲了欧里庇德斯,但是看到苏格拉底在阿里斯托芬喜剧中被说成是第一个主要的诡辩者,是一切诡辩倾向的镜子和总结,必定为之惊讶无已。因此,今人唯有宣布阿里斯托芬的罪状,称之为诗坛上放荡荒唐的亚尔西巴德,聊以自慰而已。这里,我并不想替阿里斯托芬的深识灼见辩护,以反驳这种诽谤,我将继续从古人的观感方面来证明苏格拉底和欧里庇德斯的密切关系。在这一意义上,尤须回忆一下:苏格拉底因为反对悲剧艺术,所以不看悲剧,只有当欧里庇德斯的新剧上演时,他才到场观看。然而,狄尔斐的神谕却把这两人双提并论,这种密切关系是有口皆碑的:这神谕就称苏格拉底为最聪明的人,但同时断定欧里庇德斯在斗智的比赛中应得第二名奖。
索福克勒斯名列第三,他自诩比诸埃斯库罗斯做了更正确的事,而且正因为他知道甚么是正确的,所以毅然为之。这三人之所以同样被称为“有识之士”,显然是因为他们有这种明确的知识罢了。
关于这种对知识和见识的空前的新估价,苏格拉底曾说过最精辟的话,他发现自己是唯一自认为无知的人;他怀着批判的心情走遍雅典,拜访过最伟大的政治家,演讲家,诗人,艺术家,但处处唯见人们以知识自负。他愕然发现,所有这些名人对于自己的业务也没有真知灼见,他们只靠本能执业罢了。“只靠本能”,我们凭借这句话可以接触到苏格拉底倾向的要点和核心。苏格拉底主义以这句话非难当代的艺术和当代的道德。苏格拉底以探索的眼光到处观察,而只见到处尽是真知的贫乏,偏见的猖獗,他便推断当代情况之所以荒谬恼人,主要是由于缺乏真知灼见。从此以后,苏格拉底就认为他有移风易俗的责任,他以清高孤傲的气宇,以一种截然不同的文化、艺术、道德之先驱者的姿态,孑然一身走入另一世界之中,我们倘能以肃然起敬的心情触到他的衣边,也引为莫大幸事了。
关于苏格拉底问题,我们往往陷于异常的疑难;而正是这种疑难,不断鼓舞着我们去认识古代这种最可疑的现象的意义和目的。是谁敢于独持己见来否定希腊的天才呢,象荷马、品达、埃斯库罗斯、斐狄亚斯、伯理克斯、乃至阿波罗与狄奥尼索斯等等天才,岂不是使我们肃然起敬,视为文化的最深渊壑和最高峰岭吗?是甚么魔力竟敢于把这剂魔药泼倒在尘埃呢?是甚么神人呢,甚至万物之灵长的歌队也要对他高呼:
哀哉!哀哉!
你已经破坏,
这美丽世界,以铁拳一击,
它倒塌下来!
(歌德:“浮士德”)
所谓“苏格拉底的护守神”这个奇怪现象,提供我们解决苏格拉底的真髓这问题的秘钥。尤其是在他的莫大才智有所不递的场合,那时就出现一种神启的声音,使他获得稳固的根据。这种声音来临时,往往是劝阻他的。这种直觉的智慧,在极其反常状态中出现,在某些场合,不外是为了阻止他的知觉的认识。在所有创造旺盛的人物,直觉总是一种积极创造的力量,知觉则起着批判和劝阻的作用,但是在苏格拉底则不然,直觉是批判性的,知觉是创造性的:——这真是一件大怪事perdefeotum(遗憾得很)!真的,在这里我们见到一切神秘天才的一大defectum(憾事),所以苏拉格底堪称为特种的非神秘派,他的推理天性因妊育过久而发展到极点,正如神秘派的直觉智慧发展到极点那样。然而,另一方面,苏格拉底的推理倾向却不像他的直觉,它绝不会自相矛盾,它畅流无阻,显出一种自然而然的能力,如同我们只在最伟大的直觉能力中可能发现而欺观止的天赋能力那样,凡是在柏拉图著作中稍为领略过苏格拉底的天真而稳健的处世之道的人,都会觉得在苏格拉底背后仿佛有苏格拉底主义理论之巨轮在飞转,而必须从苏格拉底之为人,立杆见影来观察它。然而,苏格拉底无论在甚么场合,甚至在法官面前,总是正气凛然,坚持他的神圣使命,可见他自己也已经预感到这种关系了。真的,在这场合,既不能驳倒他,也不能嘉许他的直觉分析的影响。由于这种难以解决的矛盾,当他终于被传到希腊国家公审法庭前,人们只能要求一种判罪方式,就是放逐。人们大可以把他驱逐于国境外,好象是一个莫名其妙不可解释的谜,那末后世就没有理由来谴责雅典人做了这件不名誉的事。但是,雅典人却对他宣判死刑,而不徒是放逐,就好象是苏格拉底自甘赴难,以洞烛秋毫之明从容就义那样。他临刑时泰然自若,有如柏拉图在另一篇中所描写的,他在一群饮者中最后离开酒会,迎着曙光,奔赴新的来日那样泰然,当时喝得酩酊大醉的饮客还留下来,睡在靠椅上和地板上,梦着苏格拉底这个真正爱情至上论者。临死的苏格拉底成了高尚的希腊青年的理想,一种空前的新思想;要之,这个典型的希腊青年柏拉图就五体投地,拜倒在他的形象之前,他的向往的心灵燃起热烈的钦佩 |
The fact that the aims of
Socrates and Euripides were closely allied did not escape
the attention of their contemporaries. We have an eloquent
illustration of this in the rumotr, current at the time in
Athens, that Socrates was helping Euripides with his
writing. The two names were bracketed by the partisans of
the "good old days'? whenever it was a question of
castigating the upstart demagogues of the present. It was
they who were blamed for the disappearance of the
Marathonian soundness of body and mind in favor of a dubious
enlightenment tending toward a progressive atrophy of the
traditional virtues. In the comedy of Aristophanes both men
are treated in this vein--half indignant, half
contemptuous--to the dismay of the rising generation, who,
while they were willing enough to sacrifice Euripides, could
not forgive the picture of Socrates as the arch Sophist.
Their only recourse was to pillory Aristophanes in his turn
as a dissolute, Lying Alcibiades of poetry. I won't pause
here to defend the pro found instincts of Aristophanes
against such attacks but shall proceed to demonstrate the
close affinity between Socrates and Euripides, as their
contemporaries saw them. It is certainly significant in this
connection that Socrates, being a sworn enemy of the tragic
art, is said never to have attended the theater except when
a new play of Euripides was mounted. The most famous
instance of the conjunction of the two names, however, is
found in the Delphic oracle which pronounced Socrates the
wisest of men yet allowed that Euripides merited the second
place. The third place went to Sophocles, who had boasted
that, in contrast to Aeschylus, he not only did the
right thing but knew why he did it. Evidently it
was the transparency of their knowledge that earned
for these three men the reputation of true wisdom in their
day. It was Socrates who expressed most clearly this
radically new prestige of knowledge and conscious
intelligence when he claimed to be the only one who
acknowledged to himself that he knew nothing. He roamed all
over Athens, visiting the most distinguished statesmen,
orators, poets and artists, and found everywhere merely the
presumption of knowledge. He was amazed to discover that all
these celebrities lacked true and certain knowledge of their
callings and pursued those callings by sheer instinct. The
expression "sheer instinct" seems to focus perfectly the
Socratic attitude. From this point of view Socrates was
forced to condemn both the prevailing art and the prevailing
ethics. Wherever his penetrating gaze fell he saw nothing
but lack of understanding, fictions rampant, and so was led
to deduce a state of affairs wholly discreditable and
perverse. Socrates believed it was his mission to correct
the situation: a solitary man, arrogantly superior and
herald of a radically dissimilar culture, art, and ethics,
he stepped into a world whose least hem we should have
counted it an honor to have touched. This is the reason why
the figure of Socrates disturbs us so profoundly whenever we
approach it, and why we are tempted again and again to plumb
the meaning and intentions of the most problematical
character among the ancients. Who was this man who dared,
singlehanded, to challenge the entire world of
Hellenism--embodied in Homer, Pindar, and Aeschylus, in
Phidias, Pericles, Pythia, and Dionysus--which commands our
highest reverence? Who was this daemon daring to pour out
the magic philter in the dust? this demigod to whom the
noblest spirits of mankind must call out:
Alas!
You have shattered
The beautiful world
With brazen fist;
It falls, it is scattered.
[Goethe's Faust, lines 1607-11.]
We are offered a key to the mind of Socrates in that
remarkable phenomenon known as his daimonion. In
certain critical situations, when even his massive intellect
faltered, he was able to regain his balance through the
agency of a divine voice, which he heard only at such
moments. The voice always spoke to dissuade. The
instinctual wisdom of this anomalous character manifests
itself from time to time as a purely inhibitory agent, ready
to defy his rational judgment. Whereas in all truly
productive men instinct is the strong, affirmative force and
reason the dissuader and critic, in the case of Socrates the
roles are reversed: instinct is the critic, consciousness
the creator. Truly a monstrosity! Because of this lack of
every mystical talent Socrates emerges as the perfect
pattern of the non-mystic, in whom the logical side has
become, through superfetation, as overdeveloped as has the
instinctual side in the mystic. Yet it was entirely
impossible for Socrates' logical impetus to turn against
itself. In its unrestrained onrush it exhibited an elemental
power such as is commonly found only in men of violent
instincts, where we view it with awed surprise. Whoever in
reading Plato has experienced the divine directness and
sureness of Socrates' whole way of proceeding must have a
sense of the gigantic driving wheel of logical Socratism,
turning, as it were, behind Socrates, which we see through
Socrates as through a shadow. That he himself was by no
means unaware of this relationship appears from the grave
dignity with which he stressed, even at the end and before
his judges, his divine mission. It is as impossible to
controvert him in this as it is to approve of his corrosive
influence upon instinctual life. In this dilemma his
accusers, when he was brought before the Athenian forum,
could think of one appropriate form of punishment only,
namely exile: to turn this wholly unclassifiable, mysterious
phenomenon out of the state would have given posterity no
cause to charge the Athenians with a disgraceful act. When
finally death, not banishment, was pronounced against him,
it seems to have been Socrates himself who, with complete
lucidity of mind and in the absence of every natural fear of
death, insisted on it. He went to his death with the same
calm Plato describes when he has him leave the symposium in
the early dawn, the last reveler, to begin a new day; while
behind him on the benches and on the floor his sleepy
companions go on dreaming of Socrates, the true lover.
Socrates in his death became the idol of the young Athenian
elite. The typical Hellenic youth, Plato, prostrated himself
before that image with all the fervent devotion of his
enthusiastic mind.
|
14
试设想苏格拉底的巨灵之眼凝视着悲剧,可是这眼中并无艺术灵感的醉心狂热的光辉;试设想他的眼未尝愿意以愉快的心情来观照醉境的深渊;——那么,它在柏拉图之所谓“崇高而又极受赞美的”悲剧艺术中定必只能窥见甚么呢?显然是一种有因无果,有果无因的,不合理的东西罢了;况且,一切悲剧是这样杂乱无章,它对于爱好沉思的人定必引起反感,而对于多愁善感的心灵,定必是危险的火种。我们知道,苏格拉底只能了解一种诗——伊索寓言,而这种诗他无疑是带着微笑的默许来欣赏的,正如在“蜜蜂和母鸡”这寓言中老好人格尔伯特赞美着诗歌那样:
从我你看到了,多么有利;
对着没有多大知识的人,
用一个寓言来说明真理。
但是,在苏格拉底看来,悲剧艺术甚至并没有“说明真理”,更不用说能诉诸“没有多大知识的人”了,所以为哲学家所不取;他所以厌恶悲剧就有这两重理由。象柏拉图那样,他认为悲剧属于诱惑人心的艺术之列,它只写娱乐的而不写有用的事情,所以他要求他的弟子们切戒和毅然弃绝这些毫无哲理的诱惑。他成功了,年青的悲剧诗人柏拉图就首先焚掉他的诗稿,然后做苏格拉底的学生。然而,每当他的不可克服的天才起来反抗苏格拉底的训诫时,这些力量加上他的伟大性格的压力,往往是这样强大,足以强迫他的诗才流入新的前所未有的河道。
上述的柏拉图便是一个实例。柏拉图之非难悲剧和一般艺术,并不落后于他的先师之天真的冷嘲热讽,可是为了满足艺术的要求,他也不得不创造一种艺术形式,这种形式却同现成的而为他所否弃的那些艺术形式有着内在的关系。柏拉图对古代艺术的主要非难是:艺术是对一种假象的模仿,因此属于比经验世界为低级的领域。这论点首先不是针对这种新的艺术作品的,所以我们就看见柏拉图竭力走出现实界,而高谈“理念”是这伪现实界的基础。然而,思想家柏拉图却因此走上迂回的道路,终于达到他作为诗人始终觉得安适的一个立足点,而索福克勒斯和所有老辈艺术家就是从这一立足点来庄严地抗议他的非难。如果说悲剧吸收了以前的各种艺术,这说法在特殊意义上也适用于柏拉图的“对话录”,它从混合一切现成的形式和风格而产生出来,它动摇于叙事、抒情与戏曲之间,散文与诗歌之间,因此打破了统一语言形式这条严格的老规律。犬儒学派的作家们沿着这条道路就走得更远了。他们以丰富多彩的风格驰骋于散文与韵文之间,而达到“狂妄的苏格拉底”的诗情画意,他们在现实生活中也往往模仿他。柏拉图的对话录宛若苦海慈航,拯救了遇难的古代诗歌和她的儿女,它们挤在这一隅之地,战战兢兢地服从这舵手苏格拉底;现在他们驶入一个崭新的世界,沿途的风光奇景是永远看不完的。真的,柏拉图留给千秋万世一种新的艺术形式的原型,小说的原型;这种形式可以说是无限提高的伊索寓言,在这里诗对于辩证哲学的从属地位,正如后来数百年间哲学对于神学那样,这就是说,处于ancilla(奴婢)的地位,也就是柏拉图在超凡入圣的苏格拉底的驱使下强迫诗陷入的地位。
这里,哲学思想长满在艺术之上,强迫它依附辩证法的主干。梦境的倾向已经在逻辑三段论的外壳里化成蛹。我们在欧里庇德斯方面也见到类似的情况,此外还见到醉境成份转化为自然主义的情感。苏格拉底、柏拉图戏剧中的辩证法英雄,使人想起类似欧里庇德斯悲剧英雄的气概:他们都必须用理由和反驳来维护自己的行为,所以往往有丧失我们的悲剧同情之危险;因为谁会误解辩证法本质中的乐观成份,即每次结局的祝捷欢呼,而独能在冷静的清醒和自觉中呼吸自如呢?这种乐观成份一旦侵入悲剧中,就势必逐渐蔓延到醉境的境界,而且必然迫使悲剧自趋灭亡,——直至它跳入资产阶级戏剧的深渊而丧命。我们只须看看苏格拉底格言的恶果,他说:“德即是知,犯罪是由于无知,有德的人定是快乐的人。”悲剧的灭亡就是由于这三个乐观主义基本公式。因为,现在有德的英雄必须是个辩证法者;现在德与知之间,信仰与德性之间,必须有必然的明显的结合;现在,埃斯库罗斯的先验的正义观,业已沦为所谓“诗的主义”这浮浅狂妄的原则,及其惯用的“神机妙算”了。
现在,面临这个新的苏格拉底乐观主义舞台境界,歌队和一般悲剧的全部酒神音乐基础将变成甚么样呢?歌队本来是偶然产生的东西,是悲剧起源所残留的一种早已无用的迹象;况且我们已经知道,歌队只能被理解为悲剧和一般悲壮因素的成因。关于歌队的难题,早已在索福克勒斯的作品中表现出来:——一个重要的迹象是在他的剧中,悲剧的醉境基础已经开始崩溃了。他再不敢信托歌队来负担戏曲效果的主要任务;反之,他限制它的活动范围,以致歌队几乎与演员处于同等地位,假若把它从舞池提升到舞台上,因此它的特性当然完全被破坏了,虽则亚里士多德还是赞同这样处理歌队。歌队地位的改变,索福克勒斯无论如何是以实践来支持的,而且据说甚至以一篇论文来推荐。这就是歌队走向毁灭的第一步,毁灭的各个阶段以惊人的速度相继而来,从欧里庇德斯,阿伽同直到新喜剧。乐观主义的辩证法以三段论的鞭策把音乐驱逐出悲剧之外,也就是说,它破坏了悲剧的本质,因为悲剧只能被解释为醉境心情的表现和图解,为音乐的具体象征,为醉境陶醉中的梦境世界。
所以,如果我们假定反酒神的倾向甚至在苏格拉底以前已经发生作用,不过在他身上取得特别明显的表现而已;那末,关于像苏格拉底那样的现象,毕竟表示甚么呢,我们就不应畏避而不谈这问题。以柏拉图的对话录而论,我们固然不能把这现象看作仅仅是瓦解性的否定势力。虽然无疑苏格拉底的倾向的直接影响促使酒神悲剧瓦解,但是苏格拉底的深刻的生活经验令我们不得不追问:是否苏格拉底主义与艺术之间必然只有对立的关系呢,是否“艺术家苏格拉底”的诞生这句话就根本是自相矛盾的呢?
这位专横的理论家,对于艺术间或有遗憾和空虚之感,有一半非难甚或自悔失责之感。他在狱中曾告诉他的朋友,说他在梦中往往见到一位神灵常对他说:“苏格拉底呵,练习音乐吧。”直至他的末日,他也这样安慰自己:认为他的思辨乃是最高的音乐艺术,而且不相信梦神对他暗示的是指“平凡的通俗音乐。”终于在狱中,为了问心无愧,他甚至同意练习他所不甚尊敬的音乐。他这种心情之下,他作了一篇“阿波罗颂歌”,而且把几个伊索寓言写成诗体。那是一种类似鬼神告戒的声音督促他去练习音乐;由于他的梦神的意识,他象一个野蛮君主那样,不能了解神的高贵形象;由于他的无知,他险些儿亵渎了神明。苏格拉底梦中的神灵的话,不过是对逻辑之局限性的怀疑的一个信号罢了。所以,他必须反躬自问:“也许我所不了解的东西并不就是不可理解的吧?也许还是一个知识王国是逻辑学者不得其门而入的吧?也许艺术恰恰是知识所不可缺少的补充和相关之物吧?” |
Let us now imagine Socrates'
great Cyclops' eye--that eye which never glowed with the
artist's divine frenzy--turned upon tragedy. Bearing in mind
that he was unable to look with any pleasure into the
Dionysian abysses, what could Socrates see in that tragic
art which to Plato seemed noble and meritorious? Something
quite abstruse and irrational, full of causes without
effects and effects seemingly without causes, the whole
texture so checkered that it must be repugnant to a sober
disposition, while it might act as dangerous tinder to a
sensitive and impressionable mind. We are told that the only
genre of poetry Socrates really appreciated was the Aesopian
fable. This he did with the same smiling complaisance with
which honest Gellert sings the praise of poetry in his fable
of the bee and the hen: Poems are useful: they can
tell
The truth by means of parable
To those who are not very bright.
The fact is that for Socrates tragic art failed even to
"convey the truth," although it did address itself to those
who were "a bit backward," which is to say to
non-philosophers: a double reason for leaving it alone. Like
Plato, he reckoned it among the beguiling arts which
represent the agreeable, not the useful, and in consequence
exhorted his followers to abstain from such unphilosophical
stimulants. His success was such that the young tragic poet
Plato burned all his writings in order to qualify as a
student of Socrates. And while strong native genius might
now and again manage to withstand the Socratic injunction,
the power of the latter was still great enough to force
poetry into entirely new channels.
A good example of this is Plato himself. Although he did
not lag behind the naive cynicism of his master in the
condemnation of tragedy and of art in general, nevertheless
his creative gifts forced him to develop an art form deeply
akin to the existing forms which he had repudiated. The main
objection raised by Plato to the older art (that it was the
imitation of an imitation and hence belonged to an even
lower order of empiric reality) must not, at all costs,
apply to the new genre; and so we see Plato intent on moving
beyond reality and on rendering the idea which underlies it.
By a detour Plato the thinker reached the very spot where
Plato the poet had all along been at home, and from which
Sophocles, and with him the whole poetic tradition of the
past, protested such a charge. Tragedy had assimilated to
itself all the older poetic genres. In a somewhat eccentric
sense the same thing can be claimed for the Platonic
dialogue, which was a mixture of all the available styles
and forms and hovered between narrative, Iyric, drama,
between prose and poetry, once again breaking through the
old law of stylistic unity. The Cynic philosophers went even
farther in that direction, seeking, by their utterly
promiscuous style and constant alternation between verse and
prose, to project their image of the "raving Socrates" in
literature, as they sought to enact it in life. The Platonic
dialogue was the lifeboat in which the shipwrecked older
poetry saved itself, together with its numerous offspring.
Crowded together in a narrow space, and timidly obeying
their helmsman Socrates, they moved forward into a new era
which never tired of looking at this fantastic spectacle.
Plato has furnished for all posterity the pattern of a new
art form, the novel, viewed as the Aesopian fable raised to
its highest power; a form in which poetry played the same
subordinate role with regard to dialectic philosophy as that
same philosophy was to play for many centuries with regard
to theology. This, then, was the new status of poetry, and
it was Plato who, under the pressure of daemonic Socrates,
had brought it about.
It is at this point that philosophical ideas begin to
entwine themselves about art, forcing the latter to cling
closely to the trunk of dialectic. The Apollinian tendency
now appears disguised as logical schematism, just as we
found in the case of Euripides a corresponding translation
of the Dionysian affect into a naturalistic one. Socrates,
the dialectical hero of the Platonic drama, shows a close
affinity to the Euripidean hero, who is compelled to justify
his actions by proof and counterproof, and for that reason
is often in danger of forfeiting our tragic compassion. For
who among us can close his eyes to the optimistic element in
the nature of dialectics, which sees a triumph in every
syllogism and can breathe only in an atmosphere of cool,
conscious clarity? Once that optimistic element had entered
tragedy, it overgrew its Dionysian regions and brought about
their annihilation and, finally, the leap into genteel
domestic drama Consider the consequences of the Socratic
maxims: virtue is knowledge; all sins arise from ignorance;
only the virtuous are happy"--these three basic formulations
of optimism spell the death of tragedy. The virtuous hero
must henceforth be a dialectician; virtue and knowledge,
belief and ethics, be necessarily and demonstrably
connected; Aeschylus' transcendental concept of justice be
reduced to the brash and shallow principle of poetic justice
with its regular deus ex machina.
What is the view taken of the chorus in this new Socratic
optimistic stage world, and of the entire musical and
Dionysian foundation of tragedy? They are seen as accidental
features, as reminders of the origin of tragedy, which can
well be dispensed with--while we have in fact come to
understand that the chorus is the cause of tragedy and the
tragic spirit. Already in Sophocles we find some
embarrassment with regard to the chorus, which suggests that
the Dionysian floor of tragedy is beginning to give way.
Sophocles no longer dares to give the chorus the major role
in the tragedy but treats it as almost on the same footing
as the actors, as though it had been raised from the
orchestra onto the scene. By so doing he
necessarily destroyed its meaning, despite Aristotle's
endorsement of this conception of the chorus. This shift in
attitude, which Sophocles displayed not only in practice but
also, we are told, in theory, was the first step toward the
total disintegration of the chorus: a process whose rapid
phases we can follow in Euripides, Agathon, and the New
Comedy. Optimistic dialectics took up the whip of its
syllogisms and drove music out of tragedy. It entirely
destroyed the meaning of tragedy--which can be interpreted
only as a concrete manifestation of Dionysian conditions,
music made visible, an ecstatic dream world.
Since we have discovered an anti-Dionysian tendency
antedating Socrates, its most brilliant exponent, we must
now ask, "Toward what does a figure like Socrates point?"
Faced with the evidence of the Platonic dialogues, we are
certainly not entitled to see in Socrates merely an agent of
disintegration. While it is clear that the immediate result
of the Socratic strategy was the destruction of Dionysian
drama, we are forced, nevertheless, by the profundity of the
Socratic experience to ask ourselves whether, in fact, art
and Socratism are diametrically opposed to one another,
whether there is really anything inherently impossible in
the idea of a Socratic artist?
It appears that this despotic logician had from time to
time a sense of void, loss, unfulfilled duty with regard to
art. In prison he told his friends how, on several
occasions, a voice had spoken to him in a dream, saying
"Practice music, Socrates!" Almost to the end he remained
confident that his philosophy represented the highest art of
the muses, and would not fully believe that a divinity meant
to remind him of "common, popular music." Yet in order to
unburden his conscience he finally agreed, in prison, to
undertake that music which hitherto he had held in low
esteem. In this frame of mind he composed a poem on Apollo
and rendered several Aesopian fables in verse. What prompted
him to these exercises was something very similar to that
warning voice of his daimonion: an Apollinian perception
that, like a barbarian king, he had failed to comprehend the
nature of a divine effigy, and was in danger of offending
his own god through ignorance. These words heard by Socrates
in his dream are the only indication that he ever
experienced any uneasiness about the limits of his logical
universe. He may have asked himself: "Have I been too ready
to view what was unintelligible to me as being devoid of
meaning? Perhaps there is a realm of wisdom, after all, from
which the logician is excluded? Perhaps art must be seen as
the necessary complement of rational discourse?"
|
15
关于最后这几个疑难问题,我们现在必须阐明,苏格拉底的影响怎样象苍茫暮色逐渐深浓,笼罩着世世代代,直至于今日。甚或直至于未来;这影响怎样促成艺术的推陈出新,最抽象、最广泛、最深刻意义的艺术创作;——这影响之恒久也正是艺术之恒久的保证。
在能理解这个道理之前,在确实证明一切艺术在本质上是依赖从荷马到苏格拉底那些古希腊人之前,我们必须考察一个古希腊人,正如雅典人考察苏格拉底那样。几乎每个时代和文明阶段都也曾一度愤愤不平地竭力摇脱古希腊人的束缚。因为,后世一切独创的,显然独竖一帜的,人所真诚赞美的作品,在希腊作品相形之下,仿佛突然丧失了色彩和生气,萎缩到失败的仿作甚或歪曲的模拟之地步。所以,人们那由衷的愤恨,时不时发泄出来,反对向来胆敢把一切非本国东西都称为“野蛮”的那个傲慢的小民族。我们要追问:希腊人是甚么人物呢?——他们虽则是没有甚么可以夸耀。只有昙花一现的历史光荣,只有贫弱可怜的政治制度,只有实属可疑的风俗优点,甚至还有秽德丑行的污名;可是他们竟敢在其他诸民族中要求才华出众的荣誉和优越地位。可惜我们不幸而不能找到一杯鸠酒,毅然解脱这样的小人之心:因为嫉妒、诽谤、仇恨在我们心中酿成的一切毒液,都不足以消灭他们可以自负的威信:所以,我们在古希腊人面前不免自渐形秽,肃然起敬。除非我们重视一个真理高于一切,而且我们敢于对自己承认这一真理:即,古希腊人象一个御者那样,在手中执着我们的和其它民族的文化之缰索,但是破车驽马毕竟是劣质,而且不配这御者的光荣;——除非我们承认这点,否则谁敢驱破车而临深渊,并以此为乐呢?须知希腊人象阿喀琉斯那样善跳,所以能够一跃而跳过这深渊。
为了授予苏格拉底以这样领导地位的荣誉,那只须认识他是一种前所未有的人物的典型——理论家的典型。我们第二个任务是去洞察这种理论家的意义和目的。象艺术家那样,理论家对于现存事物也感到无限的快慰;象艺术家那样,这种快慰保护他免陷于悲观主义的实践道德观,不致象猫眼那样只在黑暗中闪烁。每当一个真理被揭露之时,艺术家往往以狂喜的目光凝视着在揭露之后还有甚么东西隐藏在幕后;可是理论家一经揭露真理,便沾沾自喜,他的最大快乐在于只靠自己的力量探索而不断成功的揭露之过程。如果科学只崇奉那一位裸体女神,而不顾其他神灵,世间也就不会有科学了。因为,这样一来,科学的信徒们就会觉得自己好象一个人要凿穿大地。谁都知道,即使尽毕生的最大努力,也只能掘入深不可测的大地的皮层,而且后来者的发掘不难就在他眼前填满了他所凿的洞;所以,如果第三者独自选择一个新地点来探凿,那就显得是聪明的做法了。设使现在有人证明了对点是不能用这直接方法达到的,那末,谁还愿意在这旧洞里发掘下去呢,除非他寻得了珍宝,或者发现了自然规律,而还不知满足。因此,最诚实的理论家莱森曾大胆自白,说他关心真理之探索甚于关心真理本身:这一语道破了科学的基本秘密,使得科学界为之震惊,甚或为之愤怒。当然,他这种独到的见解,若不是睥睨群侪,实是过份坦率。不仅如此,它还有一种发人深省的设想。这种设想最先表现在苏格拉底身上,——那是一种不可动摇的信仰:认为思维凭借因果律的引线,便可能达到存在之深不可测的渊源,而且思维不但能认识存在,甚且能变革存在。这种崇高的形而上学的设想以直觉授给科学,而且屡屡引导科学达到它的极限,到了这极限,科学就定必突变成艺术:其实这就是只能凭借这种手段才达到的目的。
如果我们现在在这一思想的光辉下来看苏格拉底,我们便觉得,他是第一个不仅凭这种科学直觉之指导而生,而且尤有甚者,为之而死的人;所以临死的苏格拉底的形象,一个借知识与理论超脱死亡恐怖的人物,乃是科学门前的一个标识,它提醒每个人科学的使命,也就是说,科学使生存显得有意义因而是合理的。因此,当然,如果理论有所不递,那就毕竟还须使用神话。我刚才甚至指出:这是必然的结果,是科学的终极目的。
你一旦看清楚:在科学的神秘论者苏格拉底之后,哲学的派别相继而兴,一浪接一浪,于是一种料想不到广泛的求知欲普及于全知识界,仿佛求知是一切得天独厚的人们的特殊任务,这就把科学引入汪洋大海之中,从此它一去不返。由于求知欲的普及,一个共同的思想之网第一次笼罩着整个世界,而且大有穷究整个太阳系的规律之展望;——如果你看清楚这一切,以及现代科学的高得惊人的金字塔,你就不禁要设想,在苏格拉底身上见到所谓世界历史的转捩点和漩涡。因为,试想那种普遍倾向所使用的无数力量之总和并不是为知识服务,而是为实践的,也就是说,为个人与民族的利己目的服务。大概,在遍地兵燹和不断移民当中,乐生的本能已经大为削弱,以致自杀成风,个人或许还有劫后残存的责任感,正象非支(Fiji)群岛的蛮族认为子杀其父,友杀其友是一种责任。于是,一种实践的悲观主义可能产生一种残忍的道德观,认为大屠杀是出于怜悯;——况且,这种情况在世界各处不论从前和今日都有的,凡是在任何形式的艺术,尤其是宗教艺术和科学艺术还未出现,以治疗或预防这种败德窳风的地方,莫不有之。
针对这种实践的悲观主义而言,苏格拉底是理论上的乐观主义者的原型;他自谓相信万物的本质皆可以洞悉,认为知识与认识具有万应灵丹的能力,而错误本身就是一种邪恶。在苏格拉底式的人们看来,深入万物的秘奥,辨别真知灼见与假象错觉,乃是最高尚的,甚至唯一真正的人类天职。所以,自苏格拉底时代以来,建立概念、判断、结论等等手段,就被重视为在一切才能之上的最高尚的事业和最值得赞美的天赋。甚至最崇高的道德行为,恻忍之心,自我牺牲,英雄主义,乃至极难达到的“心如止水”,即梦神式希腊人所谓“涵养”的境界;——在苏格拉底以及直至今日赞同他见解的后继者看来,这一切都导源于知识的辩证法,从而是可以传授的。凡是体验过苏格拉底认识论的快感,而觉得这种求知快感不断扩大其范围,势将包万象的人,总会从此感到;最强烈的鼓励乐生的刺激,莫如对一切知识“竭泽而渔,不容漏网”的占有欲。对于有此种抱负的人,柏拉图笔下的苏格拉底就俨然是一种崭新的“希腊的乐观”和生存的幸福之导师,这种幸福竭力表现于行为上,尤其是表现为对贵族青年所施的“思想助产”和人格陶冶上,其目的在于促使天才终于诞生。
然而,科学受了强烈的幻想鼓舞,一往无前地奔赴它的极限,于是蕴藏在它理论本质中的乐观主义在那里碰碎了。因为,科学领域的圆周有无数的点,至今尚丝毫不能想象这领域能否彻底测量;所以才德兼备的人,未到人生之中途,便接触到这圆周的边缘,由此看入渺茫的所在。一旦慄然见到理论到了科学的极限便蟠虬乱转,终于咬住自己的尾巴,于是,一种新的认识,悲剧的认识,突起浮上心来,那就需要艺术的保护和救济才能忍受得住。
古希腊人使我们眼界开朗而清新,现在让我们看看周围世界的最高境界。我们目睹苏格拉底所代表的永无厌足的乐观的求知欲,突变为悲剧的听天由命和艺术的自我陶醉;但是这种求知欲在较低的阶段上当然是与艺术为敌,尤其是对酒神悲剧艺术势必深恶痛绝,苏格拉底主义与埃斯库罗斯悲剧的对抗可以为例。
现在,让我们怀着激动的心情去扣现在与未来之门:这种“突变”是否将导致天才的不断新生,尤其是使学习音乐的苏格拉底能够成功吗?这笼罩万象的艺术罗网,无论名之为宗教或名之为科学,是否将越织越密,抑或命定被自命为“现代”的蛮风和狂澜撕成碎片呢?我们忧心忡忡,但并不绝望,且稍待片刻,冷眼旁观这场惊心动魄的斗争与变革吧,然而,这场斗争的魅力是如此之大,即使旁观者也要挺身而出的。 |
In the spirit of these last
suggestive questions it must now be said how the influence
of Socrates, down to the present moment and even into all
future time, has spread over posterity like a shadow that
keeps growing in the evening sun, and how it again and again
prompts a regeneration of art--of art in the
metaphysical, broadest and profoundest sense--and how its
own infinity also guarantees the infinity of art. Before
this could be recognized, before the innermost dependence of
every art on the Greeks, from Homer to Socrates, was
demonstrated conclusively, we had to feel about these Greeks
as the Athenians felt about Socrates. Nearly every age and
stage of culture has at some time or other sought with
profound irritation to free itself from the Greeks, because
in their presence everything one has achieved oneself,
though apparently quite original and sincerely admired,
suddenly seemed to lose life and color and shriveled into a
poor copy, even a caricature. And so time after time cordial
anger erupts against this presumptuous little people that
made bold for all time to designate everything not native as
"barbaric." Who are they, one asks, who, though they display
only an ephemeral historical splendor, ridiculously
restricted institutions, dubious excellence in their mores,
and are marked by ugly vices, yet lay claim to that dignity
and pre-eminence among peoples which characterize genius
among the masses? Unfortunately, no one was lucky enough to
find the cup of hemlock with which one could simply dispose
of such a character; for all the poison that envy, calumny,
and rancor created did not suffice to destroy that
self-sufficient splendor. And so one feels ashamed and
afraid in the presence of the Greeks, unless one prizes
truth above all things and dares acknowledge even this
truth: that the Greeks, as charioteers, hold in their hands
the reins of our own and every other culture, but that
almost always chariot and horses are of inferior quality and
not up to the glory of their leaders, who consider it sport
to run such a team into an abyss which they themselves clear
with the leap of Achilles.
In order to vindicate the dignity of such a leader's
position for Socrates, too, it is enough to recognize in him
a type of existence unheard of before him: the type of he
theoretical man whose significance and aim it is
our next task to try to understand. Like the artist, the
theoretical man finds an infinite delight in whatever
exists, and this satisfaction protects him against the
practical ethics of pessimism with its Lyncaeus eyes that
shine only in the dark. Whenever the truth is uncovered, the
artist will always cling with rapt gaze to what still
remains covering even after such uncovering; but the
theoretical man enjoys and finds satisfaction in the
discarded covering and finds the highest object of his
pleasure in the process of an ever happy uncovering that
succeeds through his own efforts.
There would be no science if it were concerned only with
that one nude goddess and with nothing else. For in
that case her devotees would have to feel like men who
wanted to dig a hole straight through the earth, assuming
that each of them realized that even if he tried his utmost,
his whole life long, he would only be able to dig a very
small portion of this enormous depth, and even that would be
filled in again before his own eyes by the labors of the
next in line, so a third person would seem to do well if he
picked a new spot for his drilling efforts. Now suppose
someone proved convincingly that the goal of the antipodes
cannot be reached in this direct manner: who would still
wish to go on working in these old depths, unless he had
learned meanwhile to be satisfied with finding precious
stones or discovering laws of nature?
Therefore Lessing, the most honest theoretical man, dared
to announce that he cared more for the search after truth
than for truth itself--and thus revealed the fundamental
secret of science, to the astonishment, and indeed the
anger, of the scientific community. ["If God had locked up
all truth in his right hand, and in his left the unique,
ever-live striving for truth, albeit with the addition that
I should always and eternally err, and he said to me,
'Choose!'--I should humbly clasp his left hand, saying:
'Father, give! Pure truth is after all for thee
alone!'"--Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-81), Eine
Duplik, 1778.] Beside this isolated insight, born of an
excess of honesty if not of exuberance, there is, to be
sure, a profound illusion that first saw the light
of the world in the person of Socrates: the unshakable faith
that thought, using the thread of logic, can penetrate the
deepest abysses of being, and that thought is capable not
only of knowing being but even of correcting it.
This sublime metaphysical illusion accompanies science as an
instinct and leads science again and again to its limits at
which it must turn into art--which is really the aim of
this mechanism.
With the torch of this thought in our hands, let us now
look at Socrates: he appears to us as the first who could
not only live, guided by the instinct of science, but
also--and this is far more--die that way. Hence the image of
the dying Socrates, as the human being whom
knowledge and reasons have liberated from the fear of death,
is the emblem that, above the entrance gate of science,
reminds all of its mission--namely, to make existence appear
comprehensible and thus justified; and if reasons do not
suffice, myth had to come to their aid in the
end--myth which I have just called the necessary
consequence, indeed the purpose, of science.
Once we see clearly how after Socrates, the mystagogue of
science, one philosophical school succeeds another, wave
upon wave; how the hunger for knowledge reached a
never-suspected universality in the widest domain of the
educated world, became the real task for every person of
higher gifts, and led science onto the high seas from which
it has never again been driven altogether; how this
universality first spread a common net of thought over the
whole globe, actually holding out the prospect of the
lawfulness of an entire solar system; once we see all this
clearly, along with the amazingly high pyramid of knowledge
in our own time--we cannot fail to see in Socrates the one
turning point and vortex of so-called world history. For if
we imagine that the whole incalculable sum of energy used up
for this world tendency had been used not in the
service of knowledge but for the practical, i.e., egoistic
aims of individuals and peoples, then we realize that in
that case universal wars of annihilation and continual
migrations of peoples would probably have weakened the
instinctive lust for life to such an extent that suicide
would have become a general custom and individuals might
have experienced the final remnant of a sense of duty when,
like the inhabitants of the Fiji islands, they had strangled
their parents and friends--a practical pessimism that might
even have generated a gruesome ethic of genocide [Völkermord.]
motivated by pity, and which incidentally is, and was,
present in the world wherever art did not appear in some
form--especially as religion and science--as a remedy and a
preventive for this breath of pestilence.
By contrast with this practical pessimism, Socrates is
the prototype of the theoretical optimist who, with his
faith that the nature of things can be fathomed, ascribes to
knowledge and insight the power of a panacea, while
understanding error as the evil par excellence. To
fathom the depths and to separate true knowledge from
appearance and error, seemed to Socratic man the noblest,
even the only truly human vocation. And since Socrates, this
mechanism of concepts, judgments, and inferences has been
esteemed as the highest occupation and the most admirable
gift of nature, above all other capacities. Even the most
sublime ethical deeds, the stirrings of pity,
self-sacrifice, heroism, and that calm sea of the soul, so
difficult to attain, which the Apollinian Greek called
sophrosune, were derived from the dialectic knowledge
by Socrates and his like-minded successors, down to the
present, and accordingly designated as teachable.
Anyone who has ever experienced the pleasure of Socratic
insight and felt how, spreading in ever-widening circles, it
seeks to embrace the whole world of appearances, will never
again find any stimulus toward existence more violent than
the craving to complete this conquest and to weave the net
impenetrably tight. To one who feels that way, the Platonic
Socrates will appear as the teacher of an altogether new
form of "Greek cheerfulness" and blissful affirmation of
existence that seeks to discharge itself in actions--most
often in maieutic and educational influences on noble
youths, with a view to eventually producing a genius.
But science, spurred by its powerful illusion, speeds
irresistibly towards its limits where its optimism,
concealed in the essence of logic, suffers shipwreck. For
the periphery of the circle of science has an infinite
number of points; and while there is no telling how this
circle could ever be surveyed completely, noble and gifted
men nevertheless reach, e'er half their time and inevitably,
such boundary points on the periphery from which one gazes
into what defies illumination. When they see to their horror
how logic coils up at these boundaries and finally bites its
own tail--suddenly the new form of insight breaks through,
tragic insight which, merely to be endured, needs
art as a protection and remedy.
Our eyes strengthened and refreshed by our contemplation
of the Greeks, let us look at the highest spheres of the
world around us; then we shall see how the hunger for
insatiable and optimistic knowledge that in Socrates appears
exemplary has turned into tragic resignation and destitute
need for art--while, to be sure, the same hunger on its
lower levels can express itself in hostility to art and must
particularly detest Dionysian-tragic art, as was illustrated
earlier with the fight of Socratism against Aeschylean
tragedy.
Here we knock, deeply moved, at the gates of present and
future: will this "turning" lead to ever-new configurations
of genius and especially of the Socrates who practices
music? Will the net of art, even if it is called
religion or science, that is spread over existence be woven
even more tightly and delicately, or is it destined to be
torn to shreds in the restless, barbarous, chaotic whirl
that now calls itself "the present"?
Concerned but not disconsolate, we stand aside a little
while, contemplative men to whom it has been granted to be
witnesses of these tremendous struggles and transitions.
Alas, it is the magic of these struggles that those who
behold them must also take part and fight.
|
16
在上述的历史例证中,我们努力阐明这点:悲剧决然是随着音乐精神之灭亡而灭亡的,所以它也决然只能凭借音乐精神而复活。为了缓和这耸人听闻的危言,另一方面为了指出这种认识的来历,我们现在必须扩大视野,面对着现代的类似的现象;我们必须走入那场斗争的中心。我刚才说过,贪得无厌的乐观的求知欲与悲剧艺术的自我陶醉之间的斗争,是在现代世界的最高境界里进行的。我将放下其它反对倾向不谈,因为它们一贯反对艺术,尤其是反对悲剧,现在又凭借其必胜的信心猖狂到这样的程度,以致在戏剧艺苑中只有趣剧和舞剧之流稍为茂盛,然而一花独放,尚且未必人人欣赏它的色香。我将只谈对悲剧世界观最有威信的抗议,我是指滥觞于始祖苏格拉底的那种最主要的乐观主义科学精神。然后,我将随着即列举那些势力,在我看来,它们足以保证悲剧的再生,甚或对德国的天才提供前程似锦的希望!
在投入斗争中之前,让我们以已经占有的知识武装起来。有人辛辛苦苦推断艺术起源于单独一个原理,仿佛一切艺术作品同出于一个不可缺少的生命根源;我却不然,我始终目不转睛地凝视着那两位希腊艺术神灵,阿波罗与狄奥尼索斯,我看出他们是其内在本质和最高目的皆不相同的两个艺术境界之生动活泼的代表。我把梦神阿波罗看作“个性原则”所化身的天才,只有依赖这原则才能真正获得假象的救济,但是在酒神狄奥尼索斯的神秘的欢呼之下这种个性化的魔力就破灭了,于是那条通向“万有之母”,通向万物核心的道路便敞开。这种巨大的对立,象一道洪沟分隔梦神的造型艺术与酒神的音乐艺术,在现代伟大思想家中只有叔本华一人看得如此清楚,所以他无须这两个希腊神灵象征的指导,也能看出在各种艺术中唯独音乐具有特殊的性质和古远的根源,因为音乐不象其他艺术,它不是现象的复制,而是意志本身的直接写照,所以它对宇宙间一切自然物而言是超自物的,对一切现象而言是物自体(意志及表象之世界)。关于这一最重要的美学见解,(严格的说,真正的美学是从它开始的),理查·瓦格纳曾予以保证,肯定它是永恒真理。他在“贝多芬论”中曾断言:音乐的评价,必须依照不同于一切造型艺术原理的审美原理,一般地说,不应该根据美这范畴来评论;虽则今日有一种错误的美学,依据一种腐化堕落的艺术,习惯了那只适用于造型艺术的审美概念,要求音乐产生与造型艺术相同的效果,换句话说,要求音乐能唤起对美的形式的快感。根据这一巨大的对立,我觉得很有必要进一步探索希腊悲剧的本质,从而深刻地揭示希腊的天才,因为我毕竟相信我能运用一种魔力,可以超出今日流行的美学术语之外,使悲剧的基本问题鲜明地浮现在我心中。因此,我对于希腊人的特性获得非常深刻的体会,使我不禁觉得:那些自命不凡的希腊古学研究,至今还是捕风捉影,只满足于肤浅的认识而已。
我们不妨以一个问题来接触这个基本问题:当这两种根本不同的艺术力量,梦境与醉境,一起发生作用之时,将产生甚么美感效果呢?或者更简单地说:音乐对于形象和概念的关系是怎样的呢?理查·瓦格纳,特别关于这个问题,盛赞叔本华的阐明是不可超越地明晰和精辟。叔本华在下面这段中讲得最为详细,我试征引他的全文如下:——
“按照这一切,我们可以把现象界或自然界与音乐看作是同一东西(按,指意志)的两种不同表现,因此意志是这两者的类似之唯一媒介;要了解那种类似,就需要对它有所认识。所以,如果把音乐看作世界的表现,那末音乐便是一种最高度的共同语言;它对概念的普遍性之关系,决不是抽象概念的空洞的普遍性,而完全是另一种的;它含有极其清楚的明确性。在这点上,音乐就颇象几何图形和数目了,后两者是一切可能的经验对象之共同形式,而且是apri-ori(先验地)可以应用于一切事物的,但仍然不是抽象的,而是显而易见和极其明确的。种种可能的追求、激动、意志之表现,人类心灵中一切经历,凡是被理性划入所谓感情这个广泛否定概念中的一切,都可以用无数可能的旋律表现出来,但总是表现为只是形式而没有物质的普遍性,总是依照物自体而非依照现象,俨然是无形体的现象的内在灵魂。音乐对一切事物本质的这种密切关系,也可以说明下述的事实:对任何一种场面、行为、事件、或环境配上适当的音乐,就好象给我们显示了它的奥妙的意义,好象是对它予以最正确最清楚的注释;同样,凡是心醉神往于交响乐的印象的人,总仿佛见到人生与世界的种种可能的事件荡漾于胸中,但是如果仔细一想,却又不能指出这乐曲与荡漾胸中的事件有任何相似之处。因为,上文说过,音乐与别种艺术的区别在于:音乐不是现象的复制,或者说得更正确些,它不是意志的适当的客观化,而是意志本身的直接写照,从而它对宇宙间一切自然物而言是超自然物,对一切现象而言是物自体。所以,我们大可以把世界称为具体化的音乐,正如把它称为具体化的意志那样;因此就不难说明,为甚么音乐能使每一画面,甚至使现实生活和世界的每一情景,立刻显出更深远的意义。当然,音乐的旋律越肖似某一现象的内在精神,则其意义便越深远。基于这点,我们就能够配上音乐使诗成为歌,使一般表演成为舞剧,或者使两者成为歌剧。这种人生片段之画景,配上音乐的共同语言,并不是非和音乐结合,或者完全符合不可的。它们对音乐的关系,不过像随意举例以说明一个一般概念罢了。它们以现实的明确性来表现的,音乐则以纯粹形式的普遍性来说明。因为,旋律在某种程度上有如一般概念,乃是现实的一种抽象。现实界,因而个别事物的世界,对概念的普遍性和旋律的普遍性两者,提供了视觉的对象、特殊和个别的事物、单独的情形。但是这两种普遍性在某些关系上是彼此相反的:因为概念不过是以从知觉抽象得来的最初形式来概括事物,好象是从事物剥下来的外壳而已,所以它们是实实在在的sbstraota(抽象);反之,音乐却提供了先于一切形象的最深入的核心,或者说,事物的心灵。这一关系用繁琐哲学者的术语来说明最为恰当:概念是univerBsaliapostrem(后于事物的普遍性),而音乐则提供universaliaanterem(先于事物的普遍性),而现实界则是universaliainre(在事物中的普遍性)。然而,一般地说,乐曲与表演之间的关系所以可能成立,如上文所说,在于这两者不过是同一世界的内在本质之完全不同的表现。设使在特殊情形下,这样的一种关系是确实存在的,也就是说,设使作曲者能够用音乐的共同语言来表现那构成某一特殊事件之核心的意志活动;那末,这种歌的旋律,这种歌剧的音乐,才是富有表情的。然而,由作曲者发现的这两者之间的类似点,必须出自他对理性所不能领悟的世界本质有直接认识,而决不应该凭借概念有意地作间接模仿;否则音乐便不能表现意志本身的内在本质,而仅仅是不实不尽地模仿意志的现象而已。一切专事模仿的音乐作品就有此毛病”(“意志及表象之世界”)。
因此,根据叔本华的学说,我们可以把音乐理解为意志的直接语言:我们感到我们的想象力被激发起来,去塑造那有声无形但生动活泼的精神世界,并且我们要用类似的寓言把它形象化。另一方面,在真正符合的音乐的影响下,形象与概念便取得更高度的意义。所以,醉境艺术往往对梦境艺术的能力产生两种影响:音乐先引起对醉境普遍性的象征性直观,然后音乐也使这种象征形象显出其最高度的意义。从这些不言而喻又可以深究的事实,我便推测音乐有产生神话(即最富有意义的寓言),尤其是悲剧神话之能力:神话就是以象征来表现醉境的认识方式。关于抒情诗人的现象,我曾经讲过:在抒情诗方面,音乐如何竭力争取用梦境形象来表现它的性质。现在,试设想音乐在最高阶段势必力求达到最高度的象征化。我们就应该认为音乐也大有可能为它特有的酒神智慧找到象征化的表现方法。但是,除了向悲剧和一般悲壮性这些概念以外,试问我们向哪里去寻求这种表现方法呢?
从一般依据假象与美的单纯范畴来理解的艺术特质,老实说,是不能推断“悲壮”这概念的,只有从音乐的精神我们才能理解个人毁灭时的快感。因为唯有依据个人毁灭的特殊事例,我们才能明白醉境艺术的永恒现象,这种艺术表现了那仿佛隐藏在个性原则后面的万能的意志,那在现象彼岸的历万劫而长存的永生。悲壮所引起的超脱的快感,乃是本能的、无意识的酒神智慧的舞台术语罢了:悲剧英雄,意志之最高表现,为我们的快感而被否定了,因为他不过是现象,便是意志的永生不会因他的毁灭而受影响的。“我们信仰永生。”悲剧这样喊道。而音乐就直接表现永生这观念。造型艺术却另有一种完全不同的目的:在造型艺术,梦神以歌颂现象的永恒光荣来克服个人的苦恼,美战胜了生活固有的苦恼,痛苦可谓业已从性灵的容貌上消失了。反之,在醉境艺术及其悲剧的象征中,性灵却以坦率挚诚的声音对我们喊道:“学我的榜样吧!在瞬息万变的现象中,我是永远创造,永远求生,历万劫而不朽的根源之母!” |
By this elaborate historical
example we have sought to make clear how just as tragedy
perishes with the evanescence of the spirit of music, it is
only from this spirit that it can be reborn. Lest this
assertion seem too strange, it may be well to disclose the
origin of this insight by considering the analogous
phenomena of our own time; we must enter into the midst of
those struggles, which, as I have just said, are being waged
in the highest spheres of our contemporary world between
insatiable optimistic knowledge and the tragic need of art.
In my examination I shall leave out of account all those
other antagonistic tendencies which at all times oppose art,
especially tragedy, and which now are again extending their
triumphant sway to such an extent that of the theatrical
arts only the farce and the ballet, for example, put forth
their blossoms, which perhaps not everyone cares to smell,
in rather rich luxuriance. I will speak only of the noblest
opposition to the tragic world-conception--and by
this I mean science, which is at bottom optimistic, with its
ancestor Socrates at its head. A little later on I shall
also name those forces which seem to me to guarantee a
rebirth of tragedy--and perhaps other blessed hopes for
the German genius! Before we plunge into the midst of
these struggles, let us array ourselves in the armor of the
insights we have acquired. In contrast to all those who are
intent on deriving the arts from one exclusive principle, as
the necessary vital source of every work of art, I shall
keep my eyes fixed on the two artistic deities of the
Greeks, Apollo and Dionysus, and recognize in them the
living and conspicuous representatives of two
worlds of art differing in their intrinsic essence and in
their highest aims. I see Apollo as the transfiguring genius
of the principium individuationis through which
alone the redemption in illusion is truly to be obtained;
while by the mystical triumphant cry of Dionysus the spell
of individuation is broken, and the way lies open to the
Mothers of Being, to the innermost heart of things. This
extraordinary contrast, which stretches like a yawning gulf
between plastic art as the Apollinian, and music as the
Dionysian art, has revealed itself to only one of the great
thinkers, to such an extent that, even without this clue to
the symbolism of the Hellenic divinities, he concedes to
music a character and an origin different from all the other
arts, because, unlike them, it is not a copy of the
phenomenon, but an immediate copy of the will itself, and
therefore complements everything physical in the world
and every phenomenon by representing what is
metaphysical, the thing in itself. (Schopenhauer,
Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, I, p. 310.)
To this most important insight of aesthetics (with which,
in the most serious sense, aesthetics properly begins),
Richard Wagner, by way of confirmation of its eternal truth,
affixed his seal, when he asserted in his Beethoven
that music must be evaluated according to aesthetic
principles quite different form those which apply to all
plastic arts, and not, in general, according to the category
of beauty; although an erroneous aesthetics, inspired by a
mistaken and degenerate art, has, by virtue of the concept
of beauty obtaining in the plastic domain, accustomed itself
to demand of music an effect similar to that produced by
works of plastic art, namely, the arousing of delight in
beautiful forms. Having recognized this extraordinary
contrast, I felt a strong need to approach the essence of
Greek tragedy and, with it, the profoundest revelation of
the Hellenic genius; for I at last thought that I possessed
a charm to enable me--far beyond the phraseology of our
usual aesthetics--to represent vividly to my mind the
fundamental problem of tragedy; whereby I was granted such a
surprising and unusual insight into the Hellenic character
that it necessarily seemed to me as if our
classical-Hellenic science that bears itself so proudly had
thus far contrived to subsist mainly on shadow plays and
externals.
Perhaps we may touch on this fundamental problem by
asking: what aesthetic effect results when the essentially
separate art-forces, the Apollinian and the Dionysian, enter
into simultaneous activity? Or more briefly: how is music
related to image and concept? Schopenhauer, whom Richard
Wagner, with special reference to this point, praises for an
unsurpassable clearness and clarity of exposition, expresses
himself most thoroughly on the subject in the following
passage which I shall cite here at full length (Welt als
Wille und Vorstellung, I, p. 309): "according to all
this, we may regard the phenomenal world, or nature, and
music as two different expressions of the same thing, which
is therefore itself the only medium of their analogy, so
that a knowledge of it is demanded in order to understand
that analogy. Music, therefore, if regarded as an expression
of the world, is in the highest degree a universal language,
which is related indeed to the universality of concepts,
much as they are related to the particular things. Its,
universality, however, is by no means that empty
universality of abstraction, but of quite a different kind,
and is united with thorough and distinct definiteness. In
this respect it resembles geometrical figures and numbers,
which are the universal forms of all possible objects of
experience and applicable to them all a priori, and
yet are not abstract but perceptible and thoroughly
determinate. All possible efforts, excitements, and
manifestations of will, all that goes on in the heart of man
and that reason includes in the wide, negative concept of
feeling, may be expressed by the infinite number of possible
melodies, but always in the universal, in the mere form,
without the material, always according to the
thing-in-itself, not the phenomenon, the inmost soul, as it
were, of the phenomenon without the body. This deep relation
which music has to the true nature of all things also
explains the fact that suitable music played to any scene,
action, event, or surrounding seems to disclose to us its
utmost secret meaning, and appears as the most accurate and
distinct commentary upon it. This is so truly the case that
whoever gives himself up entirely to the impression of a
symphony, seems to see all the possible events of life and
the world take place in himself; yet if he reflects, he can
find no likeness between the music and the things that
passed before his mind. For, as we have said, music is
distinguished from all the other arts by the fact that it is
not a copy of the phenomenon, or, more accurately, of the
adequate objectivity of the will, but an immediate copy of
the will itself, and therefore complements everything
physical in the world and every phenomenon by representing
what is metaphysical, the thing in itself. We might,
therefore, just as well call the world embodied music as
embodied will; and this is the reason why music makes every
painting, and indeed every scene of real life and of the
world, at once appear with higher significance, certainly
all the more, in proportion as its melody is analogous to
the inner spirit of the given phenomenon. Therefore we are
able to set a poem to music as a song, or a visible
representation as a pantomime, or both as an opera. Such
particular pictures of human life, set to the universal
language of music, are never bound to it or correspond to it
with a stringent necessity; but they stand to it only in the
relation of an example chosen at will to a general concept.
In the determinateness of the real, they represent that
which music expresses in the universality of mere form. For
melodies are to a certain extent, like general concepts, an
abstraction from the actual. This actual world, then, the
world of particular things, affords the object of
perception, the special and individual, the particular case,
both to the universality of the concepts and to the
universality of the melodies. But these two universalities
are in a certain respect opposed to each other; for the
concepts contain particulars only as the first forms
abstracted from perception, as it were, the separated shell
of things; thus they are, strictly speaking, abstracta:
music, on the other hand, gives the inmost kernel which
precedes all forms, or the heart of things. This relation
may be very well expressed in the language of the schoolmen,
by saying, the concepts are the universalia post rem,
but music gives the univesralia ante rem, and
the real world the universalia in re. But that in
general a relation is possible between a composition and a
visible representation rests, as we have said, upon the fact
that both are simply different expressions of the same inner
being of the world. When now, in the particular case, such a
relation is actually given, that is to say, when the
composer has been able to express in the universal language
of music the stirrings of will which constitute the heart of
an event, then the melody of the song, the music of the
opera, is expressive. But the analogy discovered by the
composer between the two must have proceeded from the direct
knowledge of the nature of the world unknown to his reason,
and must not be an imitation produced with conscious
intention by means of concepts, otherwise the music does not
express the inner nature, the will itself, but merely gives
an inadequate imitation of its phenomenon. All truly
imitative music does this."
According to the doctrine of Schopenhauer, therefore, we
understand music as the immediate language of the will, and
we feel our fancy stimulated to give form to this invisible
and yet so actively stirred spirit-world which speaks to us,
and we feel prompted to embody it in an analogous example.
On the other hand, image and concept, under the influence of
a truly corresponding music, acquires a higher significance.
Dionysian art therefore is wont to exercise two kinds of
influences on the Apollinian art faculty: music incites to
the symbolic intuition of Dionysian universality,
and music allows the symbolic image to emerge in its
highest significance. From these facts, intelligible in
themselves and not inaccessible to a more penetrating
examination, I infer the capacity of music to give birth to
myth (the most significant example), and
particularly the tragic myth: the myth which
expresses Dionysian knowledge in symbols. In the phenomenon
of the lyrist, I have shown how music strives to express its
nature in Apollinian images. If now we reflect that music at
its highest stage must seek to attain also to its highest
objectification in images, we must deem it possible that it
also knows how to find the symbolic expression for its
unique Dionysian wisdom; and where shall we seek for this
expression if not in tragedy and, in general, in the
conception of the tragic?
From the nature of art as it is usually conceived
according to the single category of appearance and beauty,
the tragic cannot honestly be deduced at all; it is only
through the spirit of music that we can understand the joy
involved in the annihilation of the individual. For it is
only in particular examples of such annihilation that we are
clearly the eternal phenomenon of Dionysian art, which gives
expression to the will in its omnipotence, as it were,
behind the principium individuationis, the eternal
life beyond all phenomena, and despite all annihilation. The
metaphysical joy in the tragic is a translation of the
instinctive unconscious Dionysian wisdom into the language
of images: the hero, the highest manifestation of the will,
is negated for our pleasure, because he is only phenomenon,
and because the eternal life of the will is not affected by
his annihilation. "We believe in eternal life," exclaims
tragedy; while music is the immediate idea of this life.
Plastic art has an altogether different aim: here Apollo
overcomes the suffering of the individual by the radiant
glorification of the eternity of the phenomenon:
here beauty triumphs over the suffering inherent in life;
pain is obliterated by lies from the features of nature. In
Dionysian art and its tragic symbolism the same nature cries
to us with its true, undissembled voice: "Be as I am! Amid
the ceaseless flux of phenomena I am the eternally creative
primordial mother, eternally impelling to existence,
eternally finding satisfaction in this change of phenomena!"
|
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醉境艺术也要使我们相信生存的永恒快乐:不过我们寻求这种快乐不应在现象之中,而应在现象背后。我们应该知道:存在的一切必须准备着悲惨的没落;我们不得不进窥个人生存中的恐怖,可是我们不应因恐怖而麻木不仁。一种超脱的慰借使我们暂时逃出了沧桑世变的纷扰。我们在这短促的一刹间真的成为“万物之源”本身,感到它的热烈的生存欲望和生存快慰。现在,我们觉得这些斗争、痛苦、万象的毁灭是不可避免的,因为多得不可胜数的生活方式在生存竞争中彼此冲突,因为普天下的意志像荒郊野草茂密繁生。正当我们仿佛同生存之无限欢欣合而为一之际,正当我们在醉境的陶醉中期待这种快乐永垂不朽之际,在这一刹间,我们就深感到这种痛苦的锋芒的猛刺。纵使有恐惧与怜悯之情,我们毕竟是快乐的生灵,不是作为个人,而是众生一体,我们就同这大我的创造欢欣息息相通。
现在,希腊悲剧起源的历史极其明确地告诉我们:希腊的悲剧艺术确实是从音乐精神诞生的。我们相信,我们还是第一次以这一思想公平地论断歌队的原本的、不可思议的意义。然而,我们同时必须承认:对于上述的悲剧神话或剧情的意义,希腊诗人们不曾有过明确的概念,更不用说希腊哲学家了。悲剧英雄的语言似乎比他们的行为更为肤浅,他们的话完全没有恰当地体现了剧情的意义。然而,情节的结构和直观的形象却比诸诗人笔下的语言和概念显示出更深刻的智慧:在莎士比亚的作品也可以见到同样的情形,譬如,哈姆雷特的语言也就比他的行动更肤浅;所以,如上所述,哈姆雷特的教训就不能从他的语言,只能从深入静观和通观全剧来领会。至于希腊悲剧,——当然今日我们只能看到剧本,——我甚至指出:因为剧情与台词并不完全一致,我们不难误会,以为悲剧是浅薄无聊的,其实并非如此;因此我们就设想它的效果比古人所指证的更为浅薄。因为我们容易忘记:诗人在语言方面达不到的那种神话的最高净化和理想境界,他作为创造的音乐家随时可以达到!当然,我们必须苦心钻研去恢复悲剧音乐效果原有的感染力,才能体会到真正悲剧所特有的无比的一些快慰。然而,甚至这种悲剧音乐的感染力,也除非我们变成了古希腊人才能感受:因为古希腊音乐在其全部发展史上,同我们所喜闻乐听的无限丰富的现代音乐比较起来,我相信,在我们听来也不过象年轻腼腆的音乐天才初露才华的歌曲罢了。埃及祭司们曾说过:古希腊人永远是孩子,在悲剧艺术方面他们也不过是孩子,他们不知道一种多么崇高的玩具由他们亲手创造出来,于是——被破坏了。
音乐精神向象征化和神话化方面的努力,自从抒情诗发生以至阿提克悲剧时代,不断增强,一旦达到盛极一时,便突然中断,仿佛从希腊艺术领域上消声匿迹;但同时这种努力所产生的醉境世界观却在秘仪中永垂不朽,而且虽屡经变革,每况愈下,却还能够吸引严肃的人们。它会不会终有一天再从这神秘的深渊升起来成为一种艺术呢?
到此,我们要解答一个问题,那种势力,悲剧因它的反抗而灭亡的,是否无论何时都有充分力量来阻止悲剧艺术和悲剧世界观的复活呢?如果说古代悲剧是因辩证的求知欲和科学的乐观主义之影响而离开了它的正轨,这件事实就会令我们断定理论的世界观与悲剧的世界观之间有着永恒的斗争;唯有在科学精神已到了日暮途穷,它自命的普遍有效性被证明为毕竟有限之后,我们才能指望悲剧之再生。我们可照上述意义用学习音乐的苏格拉底来象征悲剧的文化。与此相反,我们所谓科学精神是指最先在苏格拉底身上显现的那种信仰——对自然界之可知和知识之万能的信仰。
你想起这种惶惶不可终日的科学精神所引起的直接后果,便会立刻想到神话是被它摧毁的了;由于神话的毁灭,诗被逐出她自然的理想故土,变成无家可归。如果我们并没有说错,音乐有从自己再产生神话的力量,我们将会发现科学精神也踏上了反抗音乐之神话创造力的道路。这情况发生在新阿提刻酒神颂的发展过程中,它的音乐不再表现内在的本质,不再表现意志本身,而只用概念来直接模拟现象,大致描出它的轮廓罢了。真正的音乐天才便厌弃这种本质上已蜕化的音乐,正如厌弃那摧残艺术的苏格拉底倾向。阿里斯托芬明辨是非的直观能力是中肯的:他对苏格拉底本人,对欧里庇德斯的悲剧,对新酒神颂诗人的音乐,都抱着同样厌恶之情,他在这三个现象中见到一种堕落文化的标识。这种新酒神颂把音乐粗暴地化为模拟现象的画景,例如,模仿战争或海上风暴之声,因此当然音乐的神话创造力完全被剥夺了。因为假如音乐只靠强迫我们去寻找生活情景或自然事件与某些旋律或特殊音响之间的外在相似,才能唤起我们的快感;如果我们的理解力只满足于认识这些相似点;那么,我们就会陷于一种无法接受神话感染力的心情,因为神话乃是一种特殊的,无限深刻的普遍性和真理,其意义必须是显而易见的。真正的醉境音乐就是这样一种世界意志的共同明镜,一切显著的事情一旦在这面镜子上折射,我们就立刻感到它展开而成为永恒真理的反映;反之,写声的新酒神颂画景则会立刻剥夺了这类显著事情所蕴含的神话意义,于是音乐变成现象的粗劣临模,因而比现象本身更贫乏可怜;由于它的贫乏,我们感到它贬低了现象,例如,模拟战争的音乐充其量不过是进行曲,军号曲等等而已,我们的想象力就被这些浅薄东西缚束住。所以,写声的音乐,无论就任何关系而言,都与真正音乐的神话创造力处于对立地位:它使得贫乏的现象更为贫乏,但是醉境音乐却使得个别现象更加丰富,扩大而成为反世界的画面。然而,非酒神精神的伟大胜利却在于:因新酒神颂的发展,它使得音乐日益疏远,而把它降为现象的奴隶。欧里庇德斯,就更高的意义来说,可以称为一个完全非音乐性的人物,因此他是新酒神颂音乐的热烈拥护者,象强盗那样爱好挥霍,滥用这种音乐的一切效果和风格。
另一方面,如果我们转而注意到自索福克勒以来在悲剧方面流行的性格表现和心理描写,我们就看见这种反神话的非酒神精神在活跃。现在,性格再不是扩张为永恒的典型;反之,性格必须个别地刻划,经过艺术的轻描淡写,浓淡分明,使得一切线条极其明确,所以观众一般不再觉得这是神话,而感到描写的迫真和艺术家的摹仿能力。这里,我们也见到个别现象战胜普遍性和诗人的近乎解剖手法的个别描写的爱好;我们已经呼吸到理论世界的气氛,那里科学知识被目为高于艺术对普遍规律的反映。沿着性格描写的路线的运动迅速继续前进,当索福克勒斯还是描写全面性格并且运用神话来予以细致发展之际,欧里庇德斯已经只刻划在激情暴发时所表现的显著的个性特征;在阿提刻新喜剧则只有一种表情的面影:轻率的老人,受骗的王八,猾狡的家奴,千篇一律,反复出现。音乐的神话创造精神于今安在呢?劫后残存的音乐,不是兴奋的音乐,便是回忆的音乐,换句话说,它不是对迟钝衰弱的神经的兴奋剂,便是写声的画景。至于前者,所配的歌词对它几乎没有甚么关系;欧里庇德斯的英雄和歌队一旦开始歌唱,便已经是放荡不羁了,何况他的卤莽的后继者更不知达到甚么地步?
然而,这种新的非酒神精神在新悲剧的结局上表现得最为明显。在旧悲剧的结局上,你总能感到一种超脱的慰藉;没有这,悲剧的快感就无从解释。也许在“奥狄普斯在科罗诺斯”一剧中,你还听到一种从彼岸传来的最纯粹的和谐情调。现在,音乐天才既已逃出悲剧,严格地说,悲剧也就与世长辞;因为人们还能够从甚么源泉来吸取这种超脱的慰藉呢?所以,人们只好向尘世寻求解决悲剧失调的方法,英雄饱受命运磨折之后终于得到好报,美满的姻缘,或者皇天的赐福。英雄变成了格斗奴隶,在他惨遭痛击遍体鳞伤之后,主人偶或予以自由。“神机妙算”代替了超脱的慰藉。我并不是说,悲剧的世界观在任何场合都被这种入侵的非酒神精神彻底粉碎,我们只知道,它已经逃出艺术的领域,仿佛潜入冥土,变成一种蜕化的秘仪。然而,这种精神的摧枯拉朽的风暴扫荡着希腊民族性的最广大领域,它以“希腊的乐观”的姿态出现。上文已经讲过,这不过是一种衰老的、无生产力的生存欲望而已。这种乐观是古代希腊人的庄严的“素朴”之对立面。就上述的特征而论,它应该被理解为从黑暗深渊里长出的梦神文化的花朵,是希腊意志因为反映了美而取得对痛苦和痛苦之智慧的胜利。另一种“希腊的乐观”的最高贵形式,即亚历山德里亚派的乐观,是理论家的乐观;它显出我从非神酒精神推断的那些征兆,它同酒神的智慧和艺术作斗争,它竭力溶解了神话,而以世俗的调和来代替超脱的慰借藉,其实是代以它自己的一种“神机妙算”,亦即使用机关妙药的神,也就是说,众所周知为高度利己主义服务的自然精神之力量,它相信它能以知识改造世界,以科学指导人生,而居然能够把个人禁锢在可以解决的问题这最狭范围内,因此人们便欣欣然对人生说道:“我爱慕你呀,你是值得结识的人儿。” |
Dionysian art, too, wishes to
convince us of the eternal joy of existence: only we are to
seek this joy not in phenomena, but behind them. We are to
recognize that all that comes into being must be ready for a
sorrowful end; we are forced to look into the terrors of the
individual existence--yet we are not to become rigid with
fear: a metaphysical comfort tears us momentarily from the
bustle of the changing figures. We are really for a brief
moment primordial being itself, feeling its raging desire
for existence and joy in existence; the struggle, the pain,
the destruction of phenomena, now appear necessary to us, in
view of the excess of countless forms of existence which
force and push one another into life, in view of the
exuberant fertility of the universal will. We are pierced by
the maddening stings of these pains just when we have
become, as it were, one with the infinite primordial joy in
existence, and when we anticipate, in Dionysian ecstasy, the
indestructibility and eternity of this joy. In spite of fear
and pity, we are the happy living beings, not as
individuals, but as the one living being, with
whose creative joy we are united. The history of the rise
of Greek tragedy now tells us with luminous precision how
the tragic art of the Greeks was really born of the spirit
of music. With this conception we believe we have done
justice for the first time to the primitive and astonishing
significance of the chorus. At the same time, however, we
must admit that the meaning of tragic myth set forth above
never became clear in transparent concepts to the Greek
poets, not to speak of the Greek philosophers: their heroes
speak, as it were, more superficially than they act; the
myth does not at all obtain adequate objectification in the
spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visual
images reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself can put
into words and concepts: the same is also observable in
Shakespeare, whose Hamlet, for instance, similarly, talks
more superficially than he acts, so that the previously
mentioned lesson of Hamlet is to be deduced, not from his
words, but from a profound contemplation and survey of the
whole.
With respect to Greek tragedy, which of course presents
itself to us only as word-drama, I have even intimated that
the lack of congruity between myth and expression might
easily lead us to regard it as shallower and less
significant than it really is, and accordingly to attribute
to it a more superficial effect than it must have had
according to the testimony of the ancients: for how easily
one forgets that what the word-poet did not succeed in
doing, namely, attain the highest spiritualization and
ideality of the myth, he might very well succeed in doing
every moment as creative musician! To be sure, we are almost
forced to construct for ourselves by scholarly research the
superior power of the musical effect in order to experience
something of the incomparable comfort which must have been
characteristic of true tragedy. Even this musical
superiority, however, would only have been felt by us had we
been Greeks; for in the entire development of Greek
music--as compared with the infinitely richer music known
and familiar to us--we imagine we hear only the youthful
song of the musical genius modestly intoned. The Greeks, as
the Egyptian priests say, are eternal children, and in
tragic art too they are only children who do not know what a
sublime plaything originated in their hands and--was quickly
demolished.
The striving of the spirit of music toward visual and
mythical objectification, which increases from the
beginnings of lyric poetry up to Attic tragedy, suddenly
breaks off after attaining a luxuriant development, and
disappears, as it were, from the surface of Hellenic art;
while the Dionysian world view born of this striving lives
on in the mysteries and, in its strangest metamorphoses and
debasements, does not cease to attract serious natures. Will
it not some day rise once again out of its mystic depths as
art?
Here we are detained by the question, whether the power,
by virtue of whose opening influence tragedy perished, has
for all time sufficient strength to prevent the artistic
reawakening of tragedy and the tragic world view. If ancient
tragedy was diverted from its course by the dialectical
desire for knowledge and the optimism of science, this fact
might lead us to believe that there is an eternal conflict
between the theoretic and the tragic world
view; and only after the spirit of science has been
pursued to its limits, and its claim to universal validity
destroyed by the evidence of these limits may we hope for a
rebirth of tragedy--a form of culture for which we should
have to use the symbol of the music-practicing Socrates
in the sense spoken of above [See Section 15]. In this
contrast, I understand by the spirit of science the faith
that first came to light in the person of Socrates--the
faith in the explicability of nature and in knowledge as a
panacea.
He who recalls the immediate consequences of this
restlessly progressing spirit of science will realize at
once that myth was annihilated by it, and that, because of
this annihilation, poetry was driven like a homeless being
from her natural ideal soil. If we have been right in
assigning to music the power of again giving birth to myth,
we may similarly expect to find the spirit of science on the
path where it inimically opposes this mythopoeic power of
music. This takes place in the development of the New Attic
Dithyramb, the music of which no longer expressed the inner
essence, the will itself, but only rendered the phenomenon
inadequately, in an imitation by means of concepts. From
this intrinsically degenerate music the genuinely musical
natures turned away with the same repugnance that they felt
for the art-destroying tendency of Socrates. The unerring
instinct of Aristophanes was surely right when it included
Socrates himself, the tragedy of Euripides, and the music of
the New Dithyrambic poets in the same feeling of hatred,
recognizing in all three phenomena the signs of a degenerate
culture.
In this New Dithyramb, music is outrageously manipulated
so as to be the imitative counterfeit of a phenomenon, for
instance, of a battle or a storm at sea; and thus, of
course, it has been utterly robbed of its mythopoeic power.
For if it seeks to arouse pleasure only by impelling us to
seek external analogies between a vital or natural process
and certain rhythmical figures and characteristic sounds of
music; if our understanding is to content itself with the
perception of these analogies; we are reduced to a frame of
mind which makes impossible any reception of the mythical;
for the myth wants to be experienced vividly as a unique
example of a universality and truth that gaze into the
infinite. The truly Dionysian music presents itself as such
a general mirror of the universal will: the vivid event
refracted in this mirror expands at once for our
consciousness to the copy of an external truth. Conversely,
such a vivid event is at once divested of every mythical
character by the tone-painting of the New Dithyramb; music
now becomes a wretched cop of the phenomenon, and therefore
infinitely poorer than the phenomenon itself. And through
this poverty it still further reduces the phenomenon for our
consciousness, so that now, for example, a musically
imitated battle of this sort exhausts itself in marches,
signal sounds, etc., and our imagination is arrested
precisely by these superficialities. Tone-painting is thus
in every respect the opposite of true music with its
mythopoeic power: through it the phenomenon, poor in itself,
is made still poorer, while through Dionysian music the
individual phenomenon is enriched and expanded into an image
of the world. It was a great triumph for the un-Dionysian
spirit when, by the development of the New Dithyramb, it had
estranged music from itself and reduced it to be the slave
of phenomena. Euripides, who, though in a higher sense, must
be considered a thoroughly unmusical nature, is for this
very reason a passionate adherent of the New Dithyrambic
Music, and with the liberality of a robber makes use of all
its effective tricks and mannerisms.
In another direction also we see at work the power of
this un-Dionysian myth-opposing spirit, when we turn our
attention to the prevalence of character representation
and psychological refinement in tragedy from Sophocles
onward. The character must no longer be expanded into an
eternal type, but, on the contrary, must develop
individually through artistic subordinate traits and
shadings, through the nicest precision of all lines, in such
a manner that the spectator is in general no longer
conscious of the myth, but of the vigorous truth to nature
and the artist's imitative power. Here also we observe the
victory of the phenomenon over the universal, and the
delight in a unique, almost anatomical preparation; we are
already in the atmosphere of a theoretical world, where
scientific knowledge is valued more highly than the artistic
reflection of a universal law.
The movement in the direction of character delineation
proceeds rapidly: while Sophocles still portrays complete
characters and employs myth for their refined development,
Euripides already draws only prominent individual traits of
character, which can express themselves in violent bursts of
passion. In the New Attic Comedy, however, there are only
masks with one expression: frivolous old men, duped
panders, and cunning slaves, recurring incessantly. Where
now is the mythopoeic spirit of music? What still remains of
music is either excitatory or reminiscent music, that is,
either a stimulant for dull and faded nerves, or
tone-painting. As regards the former, it hardly matters
about the text set to it: as soon as his heroes and choruses
begin to sing, everything becomes pretty slovenly in
Euripides; to what pass must things have come with his
impertinent successors?
The new un-Dionysian spirit, however, reveals itself more
plainly in the dénouements of the new dramas. In
the Old Tragedy one could sense at the end that metaphysical
comfort without which the delight in tragedy cannot be
explained at all. The reconciling tones from another world
sound purest, perhaps, in the Oedipus at Colonus.
Now that the genius of music has fled from tragedy, tragedy,
strictly speaking, is dead: for from what source shall we
now draw this metaphysical comfort? The new spirit,
therefore, sought for an earthly resolution of the tragic
dissonance. The hero, after being sufficiently tortured by
fate, earned a well-deserved reward through a splendid
marriage or tokens of divine favor. The hero had turned
gladiator on whom, after he had been nicely beaten and
covered with wounds, freedom was occasionally bestowed. The
deus ex machina took the place of metaphysical
comfort.
I will not say that the tragic world view was everywhere
completely destroyed by this intruding un-Dionysian spirit:
we only know that it had to flee from art into the
underworld as it were, in the degenerate form of a secret
cult. Over the widest extent of the Hellenic character,
however, there raged the consuming blast of this spirit,
which manifests itself in the form of "Greek cheerfulness,"
which we have already spoken of as a senile, unproductive
love of existence. This cheerfulness stands opposed to the
splendid "naïveté" of the earlier Greeks, which, according
to the characterization given above, must be conceived as
the blossom of the Apollinian culture springing from a dark
abyss, as the victory which the Hellenic will, through its
mirroring of beauty, obtains over suffering and the wisdom
of suffering.
The noblest manifestation of that other form of "Greek
cheerfulness," the Alexandrian, is the cheerfulness of the
theoretical man. It exhibits the same
characteristic symptoms that I have just deduced from the
spirit of the un-Dionysian: it combats Dionysian wisdom and
art, it seeks to dissolve myth, it substitutes for a
metaphysical comfort an earthly consonance, in fact, a
deus ex machina of its own, the god of machines and
crucibles, that is, the powers of the spirits of nature
recognized and employed in the service of a higher egoism;
it believes that it can correct the world by knowledge,
guiding life by science, and actually confine the individual
within a limited sphere of solvable problems, from which he
can cheerfully say to life: "I desire you; you are worth
knowing."
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这是一种永恒的现象:贪得无厌的意志,凭借笼罩万物的幻象,把芸芸群生拘留在人生中,强使他们生存下去。有人被苏格拉底的求知欲所桎梏,妄想借此可以治疗生存的永久伤痕;有人迷恋于拓展在眼前诱惑人心的艺术美之幻幕;有人陶醉于超脱的慰藉,以为在现象的旋涡之下有一道川流不息亘古长存的永生之流,而绝不提及意志每一刹间在手边都有更一般的但总是更有力的幻象。这三个幻象阶段,总之只有得天独厚的人才能体会,这种人一般地感觉到生存的沉重负荷,深恶而痛绝之。所以需要寻找一些刺激来麻醉自己,以忘却生存的不愉快。所谓“文明”的一切,就是用这些刺激剂制成的;照其成份的比例,主要在苏格拉底文化,或艺术家文化,或悲剧文化,如果允许我用历史的例证,那就有亚历山德里亚文化。或希腊主义文化,或印度(婆罗门教)文化。
我们整个现代世界陷于亚历山德里亚文化的网罗中;它所目为理想的人物,是具备最高知识能力,努力为科学效劳的理论家,苏格拉底就是这种人物的原型和始祖。我们所有教育方法最初就以这种理想为目的;其余一切生存方式都在它旁边艰苦挣扎,仿佛是一种姑且允许的而非其所欲的生存。很长时间,有教养的人只以学者的姿态出现,实属惊人;甚至我们的诗艺也不得不从渊博的仿作演绎出来,即就韵律的主要作用而言,我们也见到我们的诗体不是出自乡土之音,而是源于博学雅言的艺术试作。浮士德,现代文明人的典型,是可以理解的现象,可是在真正的希腊人看来,定必是多么不可思议:浮士德贪得无厌地攻究一切学术,为了求知的冲动而献身于巫术与魔鬼。我们只要把浮士德放在苏格拉底旁边来比较,就不难明白:现代人开始预料到这种苏格拉底求知欲的极限,所以对着沧茫的知识之海悠然向往彼岸。歌德有一次讲到拿破仑,便对厄克尔曼说:“是的,好朋友,在事业方面也有一种创作力。”他天真得可爱地提醒我们:对于现代人,非理论家总是可疑可畏的人物。所以,我们还需要有歌德的聪明,才能发现这样一种惊人的生存方式不但是可以理解的,甚至是可以原谅的。
现在,我们不要回避苏格拉底文化核心中隐藏着的东西——想入非非的乐观主义;是的,我们也不必大惊小怪,如果这种乐观主义的果实已经成熟;如果社会染上这种文化的细菌深入骨髓,逐渐在热情和欲望的袭击下开始发抖;如果信仰一切尘世幸福,信仰这种普遍智育之前途,一旦变为不得不追求这种亚历山德里亚式的尘世幸福,乃至乞灵于一种欧里庇德斯式的“神机妙算”!然而,我们也应该看到:亚历山德里亚文化必须有一个奴隶阶级,才能维持长久,但是它以乐观主义的人生观否定这一阶级的必要性;因而,一旦“人的尊严”和“劳动的光荣”这些诱惑和安慰的话业已失效,它便逐渐走向可怕的毁灭。野蛮的奴隶阶级是可怕不过的,他们已经觉悟到他们的生活是一种不正义,而且准备复仇,不但为自己,而且为世世代代。面临这威胁的风暴,谁还敢满怀信心,诉诸我们的苍白虚弱的宗教呢?现代宗教基本上已经蜕化为学术信仰;所以神话,一切宗教所不可缺少的条件,在各方面都陷于麻痹状态;甚至在神话领域,乐观主义精神——我们曾目为败坏社会的病菌——已经获得了统治权。
当潜伏在理论教化核心中的祸患逐渐使现代人感到不安,当他焦急地搜索枯肠寻找避祸的方法,那怕对这些方法不甚信仰,因而开始预料到自己的结果,那时,有些博学多才的伟大人物已经煞费苦心地使用科学武器来证明一般科学的局限性和条件性,从而决然否定科学自称普遍有效性和普遍目的性之夸谈。由于这种证明,以前自命凭借因果律就可能探究事物之秘奥的思想,才第一次被视为一种幻想。康德与叔本华的非凡勇气和智慧终于取得了最难得的胜利,战胜了隐藏在逻辑本质中的乐观主义,这种乐观主义也是我们文化的根基。这种乐观主义依赖不加考虑的aeternaoveri-taates(永恒真理),相信一切宇宙之迷都是可知的,可解的,并且把时间、空间、因果完全当作普遍有效的绝对规律。反之,康德却证明:其实这些范畴的作用不过是把纯粹现象,幻(MaCja)之产物,提到唯一最高实在的地位,以现象代替事物的真正内在本质而已,因此事物本质是不可能真正认识的;也就是说,象叔本华所云,这不过是使做梦的人睡得更香甜(“意志及表象之世界”)。随着这种认识开创了一种文化,我不妨称之为悲剧文化,它的主要特征是:智慧代替了科学作为最高目的;不受科学之惑乱欺骗的大智大慧,以冷静的目光综观世界,竭力以同情的博爱视世间的永恒痛苦有如自己的痛苦。试设想:方兴未艾的世代具有此种大无畏惧的眼光,此种英勇的壮志;试设想:这些屠龙之士,以果敢的步伐,以傲岸的英姿,毅然拒绝这种乐观主义的病态学说,以便“坚决地生活”,美满的生活;——那末,岂不是这种文化的悲剧人物,以严肃畏惧的情绪来锻炼自己,就必然要求一种新艺术,超脱的慰藉之艺术,也就是说,要求悲剧,做自己的眷属、做海伦吗?他会跟着浮士德喊道:
我岂不要凭眷恋的痴情,
带给人间那唯一的艳影?
但是,既然苏格拉底文化,在两方面被摇憾了,只能以发抖的手执住它的权威王杖:它初则担心自己的结果,而且终于开始料想到它的末运了;继则,因为它对它的论据的永远有效性再没有以前那样天真的信心;——那真是一个悲惨的景象:它活跃的思想不断眷恋追求新的艳影,要拥抱她们,但又大吃一惊,突然把她们放弃,象靡斐斯托突然放弃那些诱惑的蛇妖①。这当然是“崩溃”的朕兆,今人往往称之为现代文化的根源悲剧。也就是说,理论家对自己的结果感到恐惧和不满,再不敢信赖生存的恐怖冰流。他战战兢兢踯躅岸上,他再也不敢求全,全总带着事物的自然暴力;他被自己的乐观主义观点骄纵惯坏了!况且,他觉得,一种建筑在科学原理上的文化,一旦开始显得不合理,也就是说,在结论前知难而退,就势必遭到毁灭。今日的艺术已显出这种普遍的困难:他们徒然依赖一切伟大创造时代和创造天才作为榜样;人们徒然搜集全部“世界文学”放在现代人周围以安慰他;人们徒然使人置身于历代艺术风格和艺术家中间,以便一一命名,象亚当给走兽命名那样;然而,读者始终是饥肠辘辘,“批评家”则愁眉苦脸,没精打彩,象亚历山德里亚的学者们那样,他们毕竟是图书馆员和校勘者,可怜让书上尘埃和误刊错字弄得失明。 |
It is an eternal phenomenon:
the insatiable will always find a way to detain its
creatures in life and compel them to live on, by means of an
illusion spread over things. One is chained by the Socratic
love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to
heal the eternal wound of existence; another is ensnared by
art's seductive veil of beauty fluttering before his eyes;
still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the
whirl of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly--to
say nothing of the more vulgar and almost more powerful
illusions which the will always has at hand. These three
stages of illusion are actually designed only for the more
nobly formed natures, who actually feel profoundly the
weight and burden of existence, and must be deluded by
exquisite stimulants into forgetfulness of their
displeasure. All that we call culture is made up of these
stimulants; and, according to the proportion of the
ingredients, we have either a dominantly Socratic
or artistic or tragic culture; or, if
historical exemplifications are permitted, there is either
an Alexandrian or a Hellenic or a Buddhistic culture. Our
whole modern world is entangled in the net of Alexandrian
culture. It proposes as its ideal the theoretical man
equipped with the greatest forces of knowledge, and laboring
in the service of science, whose archetype and progenitor is
Socrates. All our educational methods originally have this
ideal in view: every other form of existence must struggle
on laboriously beside it, as something tolerated, but not
intended. In an almost alarming manner the culture man was
for a long time found only in the form of the scholar: even
our poetical arts have been forced to evolve from scholarly
imitations, and in the main effect, that of rhyme, we still
recognize the origin of our poetic form from artificial
experiments with a nonindigenous, really scholarly language.
How unintelligible must Faust, the modern cultured
man, who is in himself intelligible, have appeared to a true
Greek--Faust, storming unsatisfied through all the
faculties, devoted to magic and the devil from a desire for
knowledge; Faust, whom we have but to place beside Socrates
for the purpose of comparison, in order to see that modern
man is beginning to divine the limits of this Socratic love
of knowledge and yearns for a coast in the wide waste of the
ocean of knowledge. When Goethe on one occasion said to
Eckermann with reference to Napoleon: "Yes, my good friend,
there is also a productiveness of deeds," he reminded us in
a charmingly naïve manner that the nontheorist is something
incredible and astounding to modern man; so that we again
have need of the wisdom of Goethe to discover that such a
surprising form of existence is not only comprehensible, but
even pardonable.
Now we must not hide from ourselves what is concealed in
the womb of this Socratic culture: optimism, with its
delusion of limitless power. We must not be alarmed if the
fruits of this optimism ripen--if society, leavened to the
very lowest strata by this kind of culture, gradually begins
to tremble with wanton agitations and desires, if the belief
in the earthly happiness of all, if the belief in the
possibility of such a general intellectual culture changes
into the threatening demand for such an Alexandrian earthly
happiness, into the conjuring up of a Euripidean deus ex
machina.
Let us mark this well: the Alexandrian culture, to be
able to exist permanently, requires a slave class, but with
its optimistic view of life it denies the necessity of such
a class, and consequently, when its beautifully seductive
and tranquilizing utterances about the "dignity of man" and
the "dignity of labor" are no longer effective, it gradually
drifts toward a dreadful destruction. There is nothing more
terrible than a class of barbaric slaves who have learned to
regard their existence as an injustice, and now prepare to
avenge, not only themselves, but all generations. In the
face of such threatening storms, who dares to appeal with
any confidence to our pale and exhausted religions, the very
foundations of which have degenerated into scholarly
religions? Myth, the necessary prerequisite of any religion,
is already paralyzed everywhere, and even in this domain the
optimistic spirit, which we have just designated as the germ
of destruction in our society, has attained the mastery.
While the disaster gradually slumbering in the womb of
theoretical culture gradually begins to frighten modern man,
and he anxiously ransacks the stores of his experience for
means to avert the danger, though he has no great faith in
these means; while he, therefore, begins to divine the
consequences of his situation--great men, universally
gifted, have contrived, with an incredible amount of
thought, to make use of the paraphernalia of science itself,
to point out the limits and the relativity of knowledge
generally, and thus to deny decisively the claim of science
to universal validity and universal aims. And their
demonstration diagnosed for the first time the illusory
notion which pretends to be able to fathom the innermost
essence of things with the aid of causality. The
extraordinary courage and wisdom of Kant and
Schopenhauer have succeeded in gaining the most
difficult victory, the victory over the optimism concealed
in the essence of logic--an optimism that is the basis of
our culture. While this optimism, resting on apparently
unobjectionable aeternae veritates [Eternal
verities.], had believed that all the riddles of the
universe could be known and fathomed, and had treated space,
time, and causality as entirely unconditional laws of the
most universal validity, Kant showed that these really
served only to elevate the mere phenomenon, the work of
maya, to the position of the sole and highest reality,
as if it were the innermost and true essence of things, thus
making impossible any knowledge of this essence or, in
Schopenhauer's words, lulling the dreamer still more soundly
asleep.
With this insight a culture is inaugurated that I venture
to call a tragic culture. Its most important characteristic
is that wisdom takes the place of science as the highest
end--wisdom that, uninfluenced by the seductive distractions
of the sciences, turns with unmoved eyes to a comprehensive
view of the world, and seeks to grasp, with sympathetic
feelings of love, the eternal suffering as its own.
Let us imagine a coming generation with such intrepidity
of vision, with such a heroic penchant for the tremendous;
let us imagine the bold stride of these dragon-slayers, the
proud audacity with which they turn their back on all the
weaklings' doctrines of optimism in order to "live
resolutely" in wholeness and fullness: would it not be
necessary for the tragic man of such a culture, in view of
his self-education for seriousness and terror, to desire a
new art, the art of metaphysical comfort, to desire tragedy
as his own proper Helen, and to exclaim with Faust:
Should not my longing overleap the distance
And draw the fairest form into existence?
[From Goethe's Faust, lines 7438 ff.]
But now that the Socratic culture can only hold the
scepter of its infallibility with trembling hands; now that
it has been shaken from two directions--once by the fear of
its own consequences which it at length begins to surmise,
and again because it no longer has its naïve confidence in
the eternal validity of its foundation--it is a sad
spectacle to see how the dance of its thought rushes
longingly toward ever-new forms, to embrace them, and then,
shuddering, lets them go suddenly as Mephistopheles does the
seductive Lamiae [Faust, lines 7766 ff.]. It is
certainly the sign of the "breach" of which everyone speaks
as the fundamental malady of modern culture, that the
theoretical man, alarmed and dissatisfied at his own
consequences, no longer dares entrust himself to the
terrible icy current of existence: he runs timidly up and
down the bank. So thoroughly has he been pampered by his
optimistic views that he no longer wants to have anything
whole, with all of nature's cruelty attaching to it..
Besides, he feels that a culture based on the principles of
science must be destroyed when it begins to grow
illogical, that is, to retreat before its own
consequences. Our art reveals this universal distress: in
vain does one depend imitatively on all the great productive
periods and natures; in vain does one accumulate the entire
"world-literature" around modern man for his comfort; in
vain does one place oneself in the midst of the art styles
and artists of all ages, so that one may give names to them
as Adam did to the beasts: one still remains externally
hungry, the "critic" without joy and energy, the Alexandrian
man, who is at bottom a librarian and corrector of proofs,
and wretchedly goes blind from the dust of books and from
printers' errors.
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我们若要说清楚地说明苏格拉底文化的主要内容,莫若称之为歌剧文化;因为在这领域里,这种文化尤其天真地流露出它的目的和观点,如果我们以歌剧的起源及其发展的事实同梦境的和醉境的这两种永恒真理比较,我们将为之惊讶。我首先想起抒情调(stilorappresentativo)和吟诵调(recitativo)的起源。谁能相信:当达·帕勒斯特里那的无比地崇高神圣的音乐已经兴起的那个时代,人们竟然接受那里虚有其表而绝不虔肃的歌剧音乐,而且对它怀着如此热烈的爱好,仿佛它是一切真正音乐之复活?另一方面,谁会把这样迅速发展的歌剧爱好,归咎于佛罗伦斯社会的寻欢作乐和剧坛歌手的虚荣心呢?在同一时代,甚至在同一民族中,这种爱好半音乐性吟诵调的热情,与中世纪基督教圆顶教堂似的达·帕勒斯特里那的谐调,同时发生:这种现象,我们只能归因于吟诵调的本质中含有一种协助的艺术以外的倾向。
听众希望能听清楚音乐之下的歌词,歌者就满足他的希望,因为歌者与其是唱歌,毋宁是说话,在半唱半说中加强感伤词句的印象。感染力既加强,他就使人更容易了解歌词的意义,从而战胜了余下一半的音乐,现在威胁着他的特殊危机是他有时一不留神会过分强调了音乐。这就势必破坏语言的感染力和字句的明晰性;但是,另一方面,他往往感到一种冲动,要唱出音乐的调子和表演歌喉的造诣。在这场合,“诗人”来帮助他了,诗人知道怎样供给他许多机会来作抒情的感叹,字句的反复吟哦等等,——在这些地方,歌者现在处于纯音乐气氛中,就可轻松一些,不必兼顾歌词了。只是半唱的情感动人的语言,完全唱腔的感叹调子,彼此交替(这是抒情调的特色之所在),时而诉诸听众的理解力和想象力,时而诉诸他的音乐感:——这种迅速变化的唱法,是极其不自然的,而且本质上是同梦境和醉境的艺术冲动互相矛盾的,所以我们必须推断吟诵调的起源乃是在一切艺术本能的范围之外。由此观之,吟诵调应该界说为史诗朗诵与抒情诗吟诵相混合,当然这绝不是内在的稳定的相混合,因为两种完全差异的成份是不能达到这情况的,这是象镶嵌细工表面上粘在一块罢了。这样的粘合在自然领域和经验领域中没有前例。然而,这并不是吟诵调发明者的意见。他们自己及其时代宁肯相信;这种抒情调已经解答了古代音乐之谜。奥斐斯,安斐翁,甚至希腊悲剧之巨大影响,只能以此解释。这种新风格被目为最动人的音乐,古希腊音乐之苏醒:真的,照一般通俗解释,荷马世界是原始世界,所以他们可以纵情梦想,以为再度落到人类发源的乐土,在那里音乐也必然具有无可超越的纯粹性,力量,以及诗人们在牧歌剧中那么动人地吟咏的那种纯洁生活。这里,我们洞见这种真正现代艺术——歌剧——的内部发展。这里,艺术是出于一种强烈的要求,但这是非审美的要求:憧憬着牧歌的生活,相信史前时代有爱好艺术的良善的人们。吟诵调被视为重新发现的原始人的语言;歌剧被视为新从寻获的牧歌式或史诗式好人的国土,那些好人一举一动都同时遵从着自然的艺术冲动,一言一语至少唱出一些东西,所以感情稍有波动,便立刻尽情高歌一曲。当时的人文学者就用这种乐土艺术家的新塑形象,来反对教会之视人为本身腐化堕落的生灵的陈旧观念。在今日这对我们固然是无足轻重;所以,我们应该说,歌剧是良善人们所提出的相反信条,但与此同时,它也对悲观主义提供一点安慰,当此人生无常触目惊心的时代,正是仁人志士深深感到悲观失望的。对我们今人来说,只须了解:这种新艺术形式的内在魔力及其起源,在于满足一种完全非美感的需要,在于以乐观精神对人类本身的礼赞,在于认为原始人是天性良善爱好艺术的人们,——这一歌剧原理,已经逐渐变成一种迫人的、可怕的要求,在现代社会主义运动当前,我们再也不能忽视这点。“良善的原始人”要求他的权利:一个乐土的远景呵!
此外,我还要提出一个同样明显的证据,以证实我这样的观点:即,歌剧和我们的亚历山德里亚文化建立在同一原理上。歌剧是理论家的产物,是批评界中外行人的而不是艺术家的产物:那是全部艺术史上一件最惊大的事实。绝无音乐修养的听众要求首先必须听懂歌词,所以认为,只有当发明了一种唱法,其词句支配着对位的旋律,有如主人支配奴仆那样,那时才能指望音乐的再生。因为,据说词句远贵于伴奏的旋律系统,正如灵魂远贵于肉体。在歌剧初兴之时,合音乐、绘画、诗歌于一炉共冶,就是依照一般不懂音乐的外行人的粗野意见来处理的。依照这种美学的精神,在佛罗伦斯外行人的上流社会里,那些托庇的诗人和歌唱家从事最先的试验。人没有艺术能力而为自己创造一种艺术,正因为他本身是不懂艺术的人。因为他不能揣摩醉境音乐的深奥,所以他的音乐趣味就变成了欣赏抒情调中容易了解的热情之绮声艳语,和歌唱艺术的靡靡之音;因为他没有能力见到幻象,所以他强迫舞台布景师和装饰艺术家为他服务;因为他不懂得掌握艺术的真正身质,所以他便依照自己的艺术趣味幻想出那种“爱好艺术的原始人”,也就是说,在热情的影响下歌唱和吟诵诗句的人们。他梦想回到当热情足以产生歌和诗的古代,仿佛感情向来就能够创造出艺术性作品似的!‘歌剧的前提是一种关于艺术创作过程的错误信念,其实就是牧歌式的信念:以为凡是有所感触的人都是艺术家。就这种信仰而言,歌剧便成为艺术上庸俗趣味的表现,于是以理论家的乐观主义欣欣然对艺术发号施令。
假如我们想把上述对歌剧起源有影响的两种观念合为一个概念,我们就不妨说“歌剧的牧歌倾向”;在这点上,我们不妨只使用席勒的术语和解释。席勒说:“自然与理想,或者是悲哀之对象,假定前者已丧失而后者未达到;或者是快乐之对象,假定这两者都是实在的。第一种情形提供狭义的哀歌,第二种情形提供了广义的牧歌。”这里,立刻引起注意的是这两个概念在歌剧起源上的共同特点:我们会感觉到,理想并非未达到,而自然也并非丧失。就这种感想而言,人类有个原始时代,其时人接近大自然的心灵,在自然状态中同时达到人类的理想,处于乐园的善行和艺术气氛中;这就要假定我们人人都是这样完美的原始人之后裔。其实,我们都是他们的忠实的肖象,不过我们必须抛掉一些东西,才能再度认识自己就是原始人的面影:这就视乎我们是不是自愿舍弃多余的学问和多余的文化了。文艺复兴时代有教养的人们,用歌剧来模仿希腊悲剧,以便回到自然与理想之和谐,回到牧歌的现实;他利用希腊悲剧,象但丁利用维琪尔,靠他引路达到天国之门;同时从这地点,他独自摸索,继续前进,从模仿悲剧这种最高希腊艺术形式走向“恢复一切文化遗产”,走向模仿人类的原始艺术境界。在理论文化的核心,这些大胆的尝试具有何等愉快的信心啊!——我们只能说,这是出于一种聊以自慰的信仰:以为“自在的人”永远是德高望重的歌剧英雄,永远是吹笛轻歌的牧童,即使他间或真的一时丧失常态,但他总是终于恢复本色的;我们只能说,这是乐观主义的结果,仿佛是从苏格拉底世界观的深渊升起的一绪香气袭人的云霞。
所以,歌剧的特点绝不带有哀歌的遗恨千古的悲痛,反而表现出永远恢复的欢欣,牧歌生活的闲情逸致,而人至少可以暂时把牧歌生活幻想为现实生活。然而,人也许一朝恍然大悟,明白这种假想的现实不过是无聊幻想的游戏,若以真正自然的可怕严威予以衡量,若以人类初期的原始实况予以比较,任何人都会厌恶地喊道:幻象,滚开!虽然如此,但是如果你以为只要高声一呼就可以斥退这种无聊的歌剧,象斥退幽灵那样,那末你就错误了。谁要消灭歌剧,就必须负起反对亚历山德里亚乐天思想的斗争;这种思想对它所喜爱的概念这样天真地发表意见,其实它就是这些概念的特殊艺术形式。然而,如果一种艺术形式完全是在审美范围之外产生的,如果它不过是从一半道德范围潜入艺术领域,从而只能偶然瞒过我们它的杂种血统,你能期望这种形式对艺术本身有甚么作用呢?这种寄生的歌剧形式,若不以真正艺术为营养,又能吸取甚么乳浆呢?这种最高的而且可谓真正严肃的艺术使命,也就是说,使肉眼不致见到黑夜之恐怖,以假象的灵药救人于意志冲动之痉挛;——这个使命,在牧歌生活的诱惑下,在亚历山德里亚思想的谄谀下,就会蜕化而变为空虚涣散的玩物丧志,我们岂不能料想到这样的结果吗?在这样的混合风格中,醉境的与梦境的永恒真理将有甚么结果呢?这种风格,象我已经分析的,乃是抒情调的因素:音乐被目为奴仆,歌词被目为主人;音乐比诸肉体,歌词譬如灵魂;其最高目的,正如以前阿提刻喜剧的音乐那样,最多不过是以声写情而已。音乐业已完全抛弃它作为醉境之明镜的真正光荣,既已成为现象的奴婢,就唯有模仿现象的形式因素,以线条和比例来促使一种浅薄的快感活跃起来。仔细观察,便不难看出歌剧对音乐的致命影响是与现代音乐的普通发展彼此一致的。潜伏在歌剧根源和它所代表的文化本质中的乐观主义,居然以惊人的速度僭夺了音乐的醉境之世界使命,给它打上玩弄形式和娱乐性质之烙印——这一转变,只有埃斯库罗斯悲剧英雄之转变为亚历山德里亚乐天人物差堪比拟。
然而,在上述的例证中,我们已经正确地把酒神精神之消失、同极其明确的但尚未阐明的希腊人之转变和退化联系起来;那末,假如有个最可靠的朕兆,保证相反的过程,即:在今日的世界,酒神精神方在逐渐苏醒,我们心中将恢复多么热烈的希望呢!赫拉克勒斯的神力绝不可能永远为翁珐梨王后效劳,在安乐窝中消磨壮志!从德意志精神的醉境根基,有一种力量兴起来,这力量既然与苏格拉底文化的古代条件毫无共同之处,所以既不能用它来说明,也不能以它为借口;反之,这力量对于苏格拉底文化似乎是莫明其妙甚或极端敌对的东西。当然,我是指德国音乐,如众所周知,主要是从巴赫到贝多芬,从贝多芬到瓦格纳等音乐泰斗。即使在最有利的环境中,今日的苏格拉底求知主义将如何对付这个来自无底深渊的魔灵呢?不论以歌剧旋律的乐谱灵符,或者凭追逸曲和对位辩证法的如意算盘,都不能找到一个咒语,用它的三倍强光使这魔灵就范,强迫它说话。试看今日的美学家,带着特制的“美”之网罗,去驱散或者捕捉在眼前转动、飘忽莫测的音乐天才,在激动之下,要用“永恒美”或者“崇高”等概念予以判断:——这是多可伶的景象啊!我们只须亲眼在近处看看这些所谓音乐赞助者,他们不厌其烦地赞叹:“美哉!美哉!”我们不难看出:他们是真的像在美之怀抱中抚育的自然宠儿呢,抑或不过是以骗人的外衣来掩饰自己的粗野不文,或者以审美的借口来维护自己的感情贫乏。我想到奥托·扬(OttoJahn)可以为例。然而,让这个伪善撒谎者当心德国音乐吧!因为音乐确实是在我们全部文化中唯一纯粹、清洁、净化的火之精灵,伟大的以弗所哲学家赫拉克里图曾说火是万物所从出,万物所回归,循环往复的根源。今日我们所称为文化、教育、文明的一切,终有一天必将站在正确的审判官酒神的面前!
再则,让我们回忆一下:康德与叔本华已经使得出自同源的德国哲学精神可能指定科学苏格拉底主义的界限了,从而破坏了它沾沾自喜的生存欲,既已限定了科学,就引进一种无限地更深刻更严肃的道德观,我们可以毫不踌躇地称之为概念化的酒神智慧。那么,德国音乐与德国哲学之一致,这奥妙到底指示我们甚么呢?可不是指示一种新的生活方式。我们唯有从希腊的先例来推测,始能了解这种生活的涵义吗?对于我们站在两种不同生活方式的界线上的今人,希腊人的楷模还保持着无比价值,因为以前一切转变和斗争在那儿留下其典范的痕迹;不过现在我们要颠倒次序来经历希腊天才的各个伟大主要时代,例如,从亚历山德里亚时代倒退到希腊悲剧时代。同时,我们也会感觉到:好象悲剧时代的诞生不过表示德国精神之返回自己,在强大入侵势力长期间强迫它奴役于其治下,过着绝望的野蛮生活之源泉,它敢于在所有民族面前高视阔步,无须罗马文明牵着它学步了,只要它能够坚定地学习一个民族,学习古希腊人——向希腊人学习毕竟是一种高尚的光荣和出众的优越。今日正当我们经历着悲剧的再生,而只患不知它从何处来,也不了解它往何处去的时候,我们再没有比今日更需要那些最高明的先师吧? |
We cannot indicate the
innermost modern content of this Socratic culture more
distinctly than by calling it the culture of the opera:
for it is in this department that this culture has expressed
its aims and perceptions with special naïveté, which is
surprising when we compare the genesis of the opera and the
facts of operatic development with the eternal truths of the
Apollinian and Dionysian. I recall first of all the origin
of the stilo rappresentativo [Representational
style.] and the recitative. Is it credible that this
thoroughly externalized operatic music, incapable of
devotion, could be received and cherished with enthusiastic
favor, as a rebirth, as it were, of all true music, by the
very age in which had appeared the ineffably sublime and
sacred music of Palestrina? And who, on the other hand,
would think of making only the diversion-craving
luxuriousness of those Florentine circles and the vanity of
their dramatic singers responsible for the love of the opera
which spread with such rapidity? That in the same age, even
among the same people, this passion for a half-musical mode
of speech should awaken alongside of the vaulted structure
of Palestrina harmonics which all medieval Christendom had
been building up, I can explain to myself only by a
cooperating, extra-artistic tendency in the essence
of the recitative. The listener who insists on distinctly
hearing the words under the music has his desire fulfilled
by the singer in that the latter speaks rather than sings,
intensifying the pathetic expression of the words by means
of this half-song. By this intensification of the pathos he
facilitates the understanding of the words and overcomes the
remaining half of the music. The specific danger now
threatening him is that in some unguarded moment he may
stress the music unduly, which would immediately entail the
destruction of the pathos of the speech and the distinctness
of the words; while, on the other hand, he feels himself
continually impelled to musical discharge and a virtuoso
exhibition of his vocal talent. Here the "poet" comes to his
aid, who knows how to provide him with abundant
opportunities for lyrical interjections, repetitions of
words and sentences, etc.--at which places the singer, now
in the purely musical element, can rest himself without
paying any attention to the words. This alternation of
emotionally impressive speech which, however, is only half
sung, with interjections which are wholly sung, an
alternation characteristic of the stilo rappresentativo,
this rapidly changing endeavor to affect now the
concepts and imagination of the hearer, now his musical
sense, is something so utterly unnatural and likewise so
intrinsically contradictory both to the Apollinian and
Dionysian artistic impulses, that one has to infer an origin
of the recitative lying outside all artistic instincts.
According to this description, the recitative must be
defined as a mixture of epic and lyric delivery, not by any
means as an intrinsically stable mixture, a state not to be
attained in the case of such totally disparate elements, but
as an entirely superficial mosaic conglutination, such as is
totally unprecedented in the domain of nature and
experience. But this was not the opinion of the
inventors of the recitative: they themselves, together
with their age, believed rather that the mystery of antique
music has been solved by this stilo rappresentativo,
in which, so they thought, was to be found the only
explanation of the enormous influence of an Orpheus, an
Amphion, and even of Greek tragedy. The new style was looked
upon as the reawakening of the most effective music, ancient
Greek music: indeed, in accordance with the universal and
popular conception of the Homeric as the primitive
world, they could abandon themselves to the dream of
having descended once more into the paradisiacal beginnings
of mankind, where music also must have had that unsurpassed
purity, power, and innocence of which the poets, in their
pastoral plays, could give such touching accounts. Here we
can see into the innermost development of this thoroughly
modern variety of art, the opera: art here responds to a
powerful need, but it is a nonaesthetic need: the yearning
for the idyllic, the faith in the primordial existence of
the artistic and good man. The recitative was regarded as
the rediscovered language of this primitive man; opera as
the rediscovered country of this idyllically or heroically
good creature, who simultaneously with every action follows
a natural artistic impulse, who accomplishes his speech with
a little singing, in order that he may immediately break
forth into full song at the slightest emotional excitement.
It is now a matter of indifference to us that the
humanists of the time combated the old ecclesiastical
conception of man as inherently corrupt and lost, with this
newly created picture of the paradisiacal artist: so that
opera is to be understood as the opposition dogma of the
good man, but may also, at the same time, provide a
consolation for that pessimism which, owing to the frightful
uncertainty of all conditions of life, attracted precisely
the serious-minded men of the time. For us, it is enough to
have perceived that the essential charm, and therefore the
genesis, of this new art form lies in the gratification of
an altogether nonaesthetic need, in the optimistic
glorification of man as such, in the conception of the
primitive man as the man naturally good and artistic--a
principle of the opera that has gradually changed into a
threatening and terrible demand which, in face of
contemporary socialist movements, we can no longer ignore.
The "good primitive man" wants his rights: what paradisiacal
prospects!
Besides this I place another equally obvious confirmation
of my view that opera is based on the same principles as our
Alexandrian culture. Opera is the birth of the theoretical
man, the critical layman, not of the artist: one of the most
surprising facts in the history of all the arts. It was the
demand of thoroughly unmusical hearers that before
everything else the words must be understood, so that
according to them a rebirth of music is to be expected only
when some mode of singing has been discovered in which
text-word lords it over counterpoint like master over
servant. For the words, it is argued, are a much nobler than
the accompanying harmonic system as the soul is nobler than
the body.
It was in accordance with the laically unmusical
crudeness of these views that the combination of music,
image, and words was effected in the beginnings of the
opera. In the spirit of this aesthetic the first experiments
were made in the leading amateur circles of Florence by the
poets and singers patronized there. The man incapable of art
creates for himself a kind of art precisely because he is
the inartistic man as such. Because he does not sense the
Dionysian depth of music, he changes his musical taste into
an appreciation of the understandable word-and-tone-rhetoric
of the passions in the stilo rappresentativo, and
into the voluptuousness of the arts of song. Because he is
unable to behold a vision, he forces the machinist and the
decorative artist into his service. Because he cannot
comprehend the true nature of the artist, he conjures up the
"artistic primitive man" to suit his taste, that is, the man
who sings and recites verses under the influence of passion.
He dreams himself back into a time when passion sufficed to
generate songs and poems; as if emotion had ever been able
to create anything artistic.
The premise of the opera is a false belief concerning the
artistic process: the idyllic belief that every sentient man
is an artist. This belief would make opera the expression of
the taste of the laity in art, dictating their laws with the
cheerful optimism of the theoretical man.
Should we desire to combine the two conceptions that have
just been shown to have influenced the origin of opera, it
would merely remain for us to speak of an idyllic
tendency of the opera. In this connection we need only
avail ourselves of the expressions and explanation of
Schiller. Nature and the ideal, he says, are either objects
of grief, when the former is represented as lost, the latter
unattained; or both are objects of joy, in that they are
represented as real. The first case furnishes the elegy in
its narrower signification, the second the idyll in its
widest sense.
Here we must at once call attention to the common
characteristic of these two conceptions in the genesis of
opera, namely, that in them the ideal is not felt as
unattained or nature as lost. This sentiment supposes that
there was a primitive age of man when he lay close to the
heart of nature, and, owing to this naturalness, had at once
attained the ideal of mankind in a paradisiacal goodness and
artistry. From this perfect primitive man all of us were
supposed to be descended. We were even supposed to be
faithful copies of him; only we had to cast off a few things
in order to recognize ourselves once more as this primitive
man, on the strength of a voluntary renunciation of a
superficial learnedness, of superabundant culture. It was to
such a concord of nature and the ideal, to an idyllic
reality, that the cultured Renaissance man let himself be
led back by his operatic imitation of Greek tragedy. He mad
use of this tragedy as Dante made use of Vergil, in order to
be conducted to the gates of paradise; while from this point
he continued unassisted and passed over from an imitation of
the highest Greek art-form to a "restoration of all things,"
to an imitation of man's original art-world. What a cheerful
confidence there is about these daring endeavors, in the
very heart of theoretical culture!--solely to be explained
by the comforting belief, that "man-in-himself" is the
eternally virtuous hero of the opera, the eternally piping
or singing shepherd, who must always in the end rediscover
himself as such, should he ever at any time really lost
himself; to be considered solely as the fruit of that
optimism, which here rises like a sweetishly seductive
column of vapor from the depth of the Socratic world view.
Therefore, the features of the opera do not by any means
exhibit the elegiac sorrow of an eternal loss, but rather
the cheerfulness of eternal rediscovery, the comfortable
delight in an idyllic reality which one can at least always
imagine as real. But in this process one may some day grasp
the fact that this supposed reality is nothing but a
fantastically silly dawdling, at which everyone who could
judge it by the terrible seriousness of true nature, and
compare it with actual primitive scenes of the beginnings of
mankind, would be impelled to call out, nauseated: Away with
the phantom!
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to imagine that it is
possible merely by a vigorous shout to frighten away such a
playful thing as the opera, as if it were a specter. He who
would destroy the opera must take up the struggle against
Alexandrian cheerfulness, which expresses itself so naïvely
in opera concerning its favorite idea. Indeed, opera is its
specific form of art. But what may art itself expect form
the operation of an art form whose beginnings lie entirely
outside of the aesthetic province and which has stolen over
from a half-moral sphere into the artistic domain, deceiving
us only occasionally about its hybrid origin? By what sap is
this parasitic opera nourished, if not by that of true art?
Must we not suppose that the highest, and, indeed, the truly
serious task of art--to save the eye from gazing into the
horrors of night and to deliver the suspect by the healing
balm of illusion from the spasms of the agitations of the
will--must degenerate under the influence of its idyllic
seductions and Alexandrian flatteries to become an empty and
merely distracting diversion? What will become of the
eternal truths of the Dionysian and Apollinian when the
styles are mixed in this fashion, as I have shown to be the
essence of the stilo rappresentativo? A style in
which music is regarded as the servant, the text as the
master, where music is compared with the body, the text with
the soul? where at best the highest aim will be directed
toward a paraphrastic tone-painting, just as formerly in the
New Attic Dithyramb? where music is completely alienated
from its true dignity as the Dionysian mirror of the world,
so that the only thing left to it, as the slave of
phenomena, is to imitate the formal character of phenomena,
and to arouse a superficial pleasure in the play of lines
and proportions. Closely observed, this fatal influence of
the opera on music is seen to coincide exactly with the
universal development of modern music; the optimism lurking
in the genesis of the opera and in the character of the
culture thereby represented, has, with alarming rapidity,
succeeded in divesting music of its Dionysian-cosmic mission
and impressing on it a playfully formal and pleasurable
character: a change comparable to the metamorphosis of the
Aeschylean man into the cheerful Alexandrian.
If, however, in the exemplification here indicated, we
have rightly associated the disappearance of the Dionysian
spirit with a most striking, but hitherto unexplained,
transformation and degeneration of the Hellenic man--what
hopes must revive in us when the most certain auspices
guarantee the reverse process, the gradual awakening of
the Dionysian spirit in our modern world! It is
impossible that the divine strength of Herakles should
languish forever in ample bondage to Omphale [A queen of
Lydia by whom Herakles claimed to have been detained for a
year of bondage.]. Out of the Dionysian root of the German
spirit a power has arisen which, having nothing in common
with the primitive conditions of Socratic culture, can
neither be explained nor excused by it, but which is rather
felt by this culture as something terribly inexplicable and
overwhelmingly hostile--German music as we must
understand it, particularly in its vast solar orbit from
Bach to Beethoven, from Beethoven to Wagner.
Even under the most favorable circumstances what can the
knowledge-craving Socratism of our days do with this demon
rising from unfathomable depths? Neither by means of the
flourishes and arabesques of operatic melody, nor with the
aid of the arithmetical counting board of fugue and
contrapuntal dialectic is the formula to be found by whose
thrice-powerful light one might subdue this demon and compel
it to speak. What a spectacle, when our latter-day
aestheticians, with a net of "beauty" peculiar to
themselves, pursue and clutch at the genius of music
whirling before display activities which are not to be
judged by the standard of eternal beauty any more than by
the standard of the sublime. Let us but observe these
patrons of music at close range, as they really are,
indefatigably crying: "Beauty! beauty!" Do they really bear
the stamp of nature's darling children who are fostered and
nourished at the breast of the beautiful, or are they not
rather seeking a mendacious cloak for their own coarseness,
an aesthetical pretext for their insensitive sobriety; here
I am thinking of Otto Jahn, for example [Professor of
classical philology at Bonn.]. But let the liar and the
hypocrite beware of German music: for amid all our culture
it is really the only genuine, pure, and purifying
fire-spirit from which and toward which, as in the teaching
of the great Heraclitus of Ephesus, all things move in a
double orbit: all that we now call culture, education,
civilization, must some day appear before the unerring
judge, Dionysus.
Let us recollect further that Kant and Schopenhauer made
it possible for the spirit of German philosophy,
streaming from similar sources, to destroy scientific
Socratism's complacent delight in existence by establishing
its boundaries; how through this delimitation was introduced
an infinitely profounder and more serious view of ethical
problems and of art, which we may designate as Dionysian
wisdom comprised in concepts. To what then does the mystery
of this oneness of German music and philosophy point if not
to a new form of existence, concerning whose character we
can only inform ourselves by surmise from Hellenic
analogies? For to us who stand on the boundary line between
two different forms of existence, the Hellenic prototype
retains this immeasurable value, that all these transitions
and struggles are imprinted upon it in a classically
instructive form; except that we, as it were, pass through
the chief epochs of the Hellenic genius, analogically in
reverse order, and seem now, for instance, to be
passing backward from the Alexandrian age to the period of
tragedy. At the same time we have the feeling that the birth
of a tragic age simply means a return to itself of the
German spirit, a blessed self-rediscovery after powerful
intrusive influences had for a long time compelled it,
living as it did in a helpless and unchaste barbarism, to
servitude under their form. Now at last, upon returning to
the primitive source of its being, it may venture to stride
along boldly and freely before the eyes of all nations
without being attached to the lead strings of a Romanic
civilization; if only it can learn constantly from one
people--the Greeks, from whom to be able to learn at all
itself is a high honor and a rare distinction. And when were
we in greater need of these highest of all teachers than at
present, when we are experiencing a rebirth of tragedy
and are in danger alike of not knowing whence it comes and
of being unable to make clear to ourselves whither it tends?
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20
有朝一日,在大公无私的评判者面前,就可以判断:德国精神在甚么时代和何人身上一向是最坚定地努力向古希腊人学习。但是,如果我们满怀信心,承认歌德、席勒、温克尔曼的学术探讨应该特别表扬,那末我们就不得不补充一句:自从他们的时代,继他们的奋斗的直接影响之后,从同一途径进窥希腊文化和古希腊人的努力,却莫明其妙地日渐衰微。难道为了使我们对德国精神不致完全失望,就不该作出如下的结论吗?我认为,甚至这些战士既不能进窥希腊性格的核心,也不能在德国文化与希腊文化之间建立持久的盟约。所以,不知不觉间看到这个缺点,也许会使得诚恳的人们丧失信心,怀疑到我们能不能跟着那些先驱者在这条文化路上跨进一步,或者到底能不能达到目的。因此,自从那个时代,我们就看到:关于希腊人的文化贡献的论调,极其严重地每况愈下。在各种各样学术的和非学术的阵营中,可以听到一种优越感的怜惜的口吻,或者在别的场合,卖弄毫无用处的词令,说甚么“希腊的和谐”,“希腊的美”,“希腊的乐观”等等。甚至在那些以努力汲尽希腊文化泉源来裨益德国文化为其光荣使命的团体,在高等教育机关的教授们当中,人们也认为最好是及时地适当地同古希腊人妥协,往往竟至于抱着怀疑态度放弃希腊的理想,甚或完全与古学研究的真正目的背道而驰。在那些团体中,还有些人尚有余力冀图做个可靠的古籍校勘者,或精细的语言发展史鉴定者,他或许也冀图“从历史上”把希腊古学同其它古学一起研究,然而总是依照今日有修养的编史家的方法,而且带着不可一世的神气。所以,当我们高等教育机关的实在教育功能再没有比今日更低落更薄弱的时候,当今日的纸张奴隶“新闻记者们”在一切有关文化方面都战胜了教授们,而教授们只落得重复以前常常经历的转变,在自己的范围内还是那样风流潇洒,用新闻记者的口吻来说,正象一只飘飘然风雅的蝴蝶翩翩飞舞的时候;在今日那样的时代,有教养的人们,目睹酒神精神之苏醒和悲剧之复兴的现象,安得不感到痛苦的惶惑呢?这现象只能用类推方法从向来未阐明的关于希腊天才的深奥原理才能体会。从未有过一个艺术时代,象今日那样使我们目击所谓文化与真正艺术那么彼此疏远而且互相对立。为甚么这样不健康的文化如此厌恶真正的艺术呢?是可以理解的;因为它害怕在艺术手上遭到毁灭。然而,整个文化类型,换句话说,苏格拉底——亚历山德里亚文化,既已达到象我们现代文化那样纤巧脆弱的极端,它可不是已成强弩之末!如果象歌德和席勒那样的英雄们,尚且不能打破引向希腊灵山的魔关,如果他们以勇往直前的精神,尚且只能绻恋遥望,而不能再进一步,象歌德的伊斐格尼亚从荒凉的托鲁斯山,隔洋兴叹,遥望故乡那样;那末,那些英雄的后辈又能希望甚么呢?——除非这道魔关,在更生的悲剧音乐的神秘声中,蓦然对他们自动打开,露出迄今一切文化努力尚未触及的另一方面。
谁也不能企图削弱我们对将临的希腊古风复兴之信心,因为唯有凭借这信心,我们才能希望德国精神通过音乐的圣火净化而更新。除此以外,我们还能指望甚么东西,在今日文化衰微荒落的时代,唤起我们对未来一些慰藉的展望呢?我们徒然盼望找到一颗茁壮的根苗,一角丰沃的土地:到处尽是尘埃,沙石,冷落,萧条!在这样的情况下,一个苦闷孤独的游人象征,最好莫如席勒(DuArer)所描绘的“同死神和魔鬼作伴的武士”了,——这个武士,身披铁甲,目光闪闪,神色粗暴,泰然自若对着他的可怕的伴侣,可是毫无希望,孑然一身,带着彪犬,骑着骏马,踏上恐怖的征途。我们的叔本华就是席勒笔下的武士:他没有多大希望,但是他依然追求真理。你找不到一个象他那样的人。
然而,我们衰落文化如此触目惊心的荒凉景象,一旦接触到酒神的魔力,将突然发生变化!一阵狂飚扫荡着一切衰老、腐朽、残破、凋零的东西,把它们卷入一股红尘中旋转,象一只苍鹰似的把它们带到云霄。我们惶惶然四顾,要寻找业已消失的一切:因为我们只见一件东西,仿佛从下界突然升入金色的光辉里,这样丰茂青翠,这样生气勃勃,这样依依不舍。悲剧就端坐在生机蓬勃、苦乐兼并的情景中间,庄严肃穆,悠然神往;她在倾听一支遥远的遥远的哀歌,歌中唱到“万有之母”,她们的名字是Wah-ne,Wille,Wehe(幻想,意志,痛苦)。是的,朋友,同我一起信仰酒神的生涯,信仰悲剧的再生吧。苏格拉底式人物的时代过去了,您且戴上常春藤的花冠,拿着酒神杖在手上,如果虎豹躺在你脚下摇尾乞怜,您也用不着惊奇呵!现在,放胆做个悲剧英雄吧,因为您必将得救!您得要追随酒神信徒的行列,从印度走到希腊!武装起来,准备作艰苦的斗争,但是您要信赖您的神灵的奇迹! |
Some day, before an impartial
judge, it may be decided in what time and in what men the
German spirit has s far striven most resolutely to learn
from the Greeks; and if we confidently assume that this
unique praise must be accorded to the noblest intellectual
efforts of Goethe, Schiller, and Winckelmann, we should
certainly have to add that since their time and the more
immediate consequences of their efforts, the endeavor to
attain to culture and to the Greeks on the same path has
grown incomprehensibly feebler and feebler. That we may not
despair utterly of the German spirit, must we not conclude
that, in some essential manner, even these champions did not
penetrate into the core of the Hellenic nature, to establish
a permanent alliance between German and Greek culture? So an
unconscious recognition of this shortcoming may have
prompted the disheartening doubt, even in very serious
people, whether after such predecessors they could possibly
advance further on this path of culture or could reach the
goal at all. Accordingly, we see that opinions concerning
the value if the Greeks for education have been degenerating
in the most alarming manner since that time. Expressions of
compassionate condescension may be heard in the most varied
camps of the spirit--and of lack of spirit. Elsewhere,
ineffectual rhetoric plays with the phrases "Greek harmony,"
"Greek beauty," "Greek cheerfulness." And those very circles
whose dignified task it might be to draw indefatigably from
the Greek reservoir for the good of German culture, the
teachers of the higher educational institutions, have
learned best to come to terms with the Greeks easily and in
good time, often by skeptically abandoning the Hellenic
ideal and completely perverting the true purpose of
antiquarian studies. Whoever in these circles has not
completely exhausted himself in his endeavor to be a
dependable corrector of old texts or a linguistic
microscopist who apes natural history is probably trying to
assimilate Greek antiquity "historically," along with other
antiquities, at any rate according to the method and with
the supercilious airs of our present cultured
historiography. The cultural power of our higher
educational institutions has perhaps never been lower or
feebler than at present. The "journalist," the paper slave
of the day, triumphs over the professor in all matters
pertaining to culture; and nothing remains to the latter but
the metamorphosis, often experienced by now, of fluttering
also like a cheerful cultured butterfly, with the "light
elegance" peculiar to this sphere, employing the
journalist's style. In what painful confusion must the
cultured class of such a period gaze at the phenomenon which
perhaps is to be comprehended analogically only by means of
the profoundest principle of the hitherto unintelligible
Hellenic genius--the phenomenon of the reawakening of the
Dionysian spirit and the rebirth of tragedy?
There has never been another period in the history of art
in which so-called culture and true art have been so
estranged and opposed as we may observe them to be at
present. We can understand why so feeble a culture hates
true art; it fears destruction from its hands. But has not
an entire cultural form, namely, the Socratic-Alexandrian,
exhausted itself after culminating in such a daintily
tapering point as our present culture? If heroes like Goethe
and Schiller could not succeed in breaking open the
enchanted gate which leads into the Hellenic magic mountain;
if with their most dauntless striving they could not go
beyond the longing gaze which Goethe's Iphigenia casts from
barbaric Tauris to her home across the ocean, what could the
epigones of such heroes hope for--unless, amid the mystic
tones of reawakened tragic music, the gate should open for
them suddenly of its own accord, from an entirely different
side, quite overlooked in all previous cultural endeavors.
Let no one try to blight our faith in a yet-impending
rebirth of Hellenic antiquity; for this alone gives us hope
for a renovation and purification of the German spirit
through the fire magic of music. What else could we name
that might awaken any comforting expectations for the future
in the midst of the desolation and exhaustion of
contemporary culture? In vain we look for a single
vigorously developed root, for a spot of fertile and healthy
soil: everywhere there is dust and sand; everything has
become rigid and languishes. One who is disconsolate and
lonely could not choose a better symbol than the knight with
death and devil, as Dürer has drawn him for us, the armored
knight with the iron, hard look, who knows how to pursue his
terrible path, undeterred by his gruesome companions, and
yet without hope, alone with his horse and dog. Our
Schopenhauer was such a Dürer knight; he lacked all hope,
but he desired truth. He has no peers.
But how suddenly the desert of our exhausted culture,
just described in such gloomy terms, is changed when it is
touched by the Dionysian magic! A tempest seizes everything
that has outlived itself, everything that is decayed,
broken, and withered, and, whirling, shrouds it in a cloud
of red dust to carry it into the air like a vulture.
Confused, our eyes look after what has disappeared; for what
they see has been raised as from a depression into golden
light, so full and green, so amply alive, immeasurable and
full of yearning. Tragedy is seated amid this excess of
life, suffering, and pleasure, in sublime ecstasy, listening
to a distant melancholy song that tells of the mothers of
being whose names are: Delusion, Will, Woe.
Yes, my friends, believe with me in Dionysian life and
the rebirth of tragedy. The age of the Socratic man is over;
put on wreaths of ivy, put the thyrsus into your hand, and
do not be surprised when tigers and panther lie down,
fawning, at your feet. Only dare to be tragic men; for you
are to be redeemed. You shall accompany the Dionysian
pageant from India to Greece. Prepare yourselves for hard
strife, but believe in the miracles of your god.
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21
让我从劝告的口吻转回到适宜于沉思者的心情,再说一遍:我们只能从古希腊人知道,悲剧的突然而神奇的苏醒对于一个民族的内部生活表示甚么意义。同波斯作战的希腊人,是一个信奉悲剧秘仪的民族;这个敢于作战的民族,就需要悲剧精神作为不可缺少的灵药。谁能想象:这个民族,经过几个世纪来深受酒神之灵最剧烈的震动,刺激到心灵深处之后,竟能够同样剧烈地流露出最朴素的政治热情,最自然的家乡之爱,最原始的战士气慨呢?固然凡是在酒神的热情显然如野火燎原的场合,往往可以看到:这种热情在摆脱了个性桎梏之后,首先表现为逐渐侵害政治本能,浸假而成为对政治冷漠甚或敌视;但是,在另一方面,显然建国之神阿波罗也是个性原则之神,若不肯定个人性格,也就不可能有国家观念和乡土观念。对于任何民族,只有一条道路从秘仪纵欲走向佛教节欲。佛教的教义,为了能够做到看破色空,就需要超空间,超时间,超个人的难得的入定境界;同时,这些境界又需要一种哲学,教人以想象来克服中间状态的难以名状的抑郁。由于政治冲动的绝对优势,一个民族也必然陷入极端世俗化的道路,罗马帝国就是这条道路的最显著最可怕的表现。
在印度与罗马两条迷途中间,不得不有所抉择,希腊人居然能够独辟蹊径,另外发明第三条道路,当然不是为了自己的百年大计,但是正因此而得永垂不朽;——固然神所爱者早死,万物莫不如此,但是他们也断然因此与神一起永生。人不应期望一切最高贵的东西都有皮革那样的耐久韧性;臂如,罗马民族性所固有的坚强持久,也许不能算是美满性格所不可缺少的属性之一。但是,如果我们要问:是甚么灵方妙药使得希腊人,在鼎盛时代,尽管酒神祭冲动和政治冲动非常剧烈,却不会因为静坐参禅,或者因为穷兵黩武,为了争夺世界霸权和世界荣誉,以致精疲力竭;反之,他们独能制出这种绝妙的佳酿,有如既能激起热情又能发人深醒的名贵芬醇,——那么,我们不得不想起悲剧的伟大力量。它能鼓舞、能净化、能激发一个民族的全部生机,唯有当我们目击它在希腊人中间,成为一种防疾治病的万灵之药,成为最强悍不屈和最顺天由命的两种民族性之间的调和剂,我们才能揣摩到悲剧的最高价值。
悲剧吸收了最高的音乐感染力,所以它直接把音乐带入完美之境,在希腊人如此,在我们也是如此;但是它也一起提供了悲剧神话和悲剧英雄。悲剧英雄象铁旦族的力士掮起整个醉境的世界,解除了我们的负担;同时,另一方面,凭借这种悲剧神话,悲剧就能够通过悲剧英雄,救济我们于强烈的尘世眷恋,并且亲手指点,提醒我们还有一种彼岸的生存和一种更高的快乐;对于这,奋斗的悲剧英雄早有预感,准备以死亡,不是以胜利,来接受。悲剧,在音乐的普通效果与敏感的酒神祭观众之间,树立一种崇高的象征——神话,从而使观众产生一种幻觉:仿佛音乐不过是描写神话造型世界的兴奋的最高手段。依赖这种高尚的幻觉,音乐就可以使人手舞足蹈,毫无顾虑地放荡形骸;没有这种幻觉,音乐本身也不敢这样放纵。所以,神话一方面使我们免受音乐迷惑,另一方面给予音乐以最大自由。音乐也授予悲剧神话以动人的、可信的哲理意义,作为答礼;否则,不假音乐之助,语言和形象就不能达到这种意境;凭借音乐,悲剧观众尤其亲切地预感到:这条通过毁亡和否定的道路,将引向一种最高的快乐,所以他在想象中如闻万物的深渊对他隐约细语。
如果我凭上述几个命题,业已说明了这难解的观念,也许只是初步的,只有少数人能了解的说明;那末,我就不能不鼓励我的朋友们作进一步的探讨,请他们根据我们共同经验的另一例证,准备去认识一般性的命题。凡是需要靠剧情的画景、演员的语言和情感等等的帮助,才能欣赏音乐的人,我决不对他们提及这个例证,因为他们都不是谈音乐象说本国语言那样,即使有了那些帮助,也不过只达到音乐感受的门前,不能登堂入室,许多人,例如格尔维纳斯(Gervinus),甚至从未由这条道路走到门前呢。然而,唯独日夕亲灸音乐,在音乐中如在母亲怀抱,接触事物时总无意中联想到音乐的人们,我定必向他们陈述。我要对这些真正的音乐家提出一个问题:您能设想一个人不需要台词和画景帮助,能够倾听“愁斯丹和绮瑟”①的第三幕,就象听完一场伟大交响乐,而不致神劳魂瘁,象倦飞之鸟展翼而毙吗?这个人正所谓把耳朵贴近世界意志的心房,感觉到狂热的生存要求从这心房流出,如急湍轰响,或如小涧淙淙,注入世界的一切静脉里,他岂不是会忽然间昏过去吗?以个人的脆弱可怜的尘躯,他怎能忍受那来自“宇宙黑夜之广大荒漠”的无数欢呼和哀鸣的回响呢?一旦听到这种超脱的牧歌舞曲,他可不是欣然景从,要飞返天乡吗?然而,如果这样的作品,听众能够全部领略,而不致否定个人的生存;如果这样的创作,作家能够苦心写成,而不致毁了自己;我们以甚么理由来解释这矛盾问题呢?
这里,在我们最高的音乐兴奋与这种音乐之间,有悲剧神话和悲剧英雄为屏障:——它们其实是只有音乐能够直接陈述的最普遍的事实之象征。但是,如果要我们有纯粹酒神式生灵的感情,这种象征的神话,即使在我们身边,既不妨碍我们,也不引起注意,决不会使我们霎时间充耳不闻uniBversaliaanterem(先于事物的普遍性)的回响。然而,在这场合,为了恢复身心俱瘁的个人,梦神的力量立刻发挥出来了,施以赏心悦目的幻景的灵药:突然间我们仿佛只见愁斯丹(Tristan)动也不动,没精打彩,自言自语说道:“旧调重弹罢了,它唤醒我甚么感想呢?”以前它感动我们,象从生存心中发出的深沉的喟叹,现在却似乎只是告诉我们,“这苦海是多么寂寞空虚!”以前我们屏息静听,但愿在感情挣扎中死去,生死之间只有一发相连,现在我们耳闻目睹的,只是那个受伤致命、一息尚存的英雄绝望地喊道:“憧憬啊!憧憬啊!垂死还要憧憬,为了憧憬而不死!”以前在饱受凄怆欲绝的悲痛之后,一声画角的欢呼,便刻骨镂心,使我们悲哀到极点,现在快乐的库温那尔(Kurvenal)隔开我们与这“欢呼”,面对着绮瑟(Isolde)所乘的一叶孤帆。尽管我们深深感到同情的哀伤,但这点同情心总多少救济了我们,得免世界的原始痛苦,正如神话的象征画景使我们得免目击最高的世界观念,正如思想和台词使我们得免放任无意识的意志横流旁溢。壮丽的梦境幻觉,使我们觉得:仿佛这音乐境界,变成了造型境界,在我们面前出现,仿佛愁斯丹和绮瑟的命运,也不过是用最柔软可塑的泥土在那里捏塑而成。
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①“愁斯丹和绮瑟”是十二世纪流行于欧洲的传奇。康威尔的武士愁斯丹同他的舅母绮瑟发生恋爱,经过悲欢离合的遭遇,愁斯丹不得不离开绮瑟,漂泊异国,他垂死之时,要求绮瑟渡海来同他见面,以白帆为信号,但是奸人告诉他悬的是黑帆,愁斯丹遂饮恨而死。这传奇有多种版本,瓦格纳把它编成歌剧。本文讲的是指这歌剧。
所以,梦神的力量,从我们手上夺去醉境的普遍性,使我们喜爱个别的东西;它把我们的同情心桎梏在个性上;它以个性事物来满足我们渴望伟大崇高形象的美感;它把个人生平展示给我们,鼓舞我们去沉思默想其中蕴涵的生活真谛。集形象、概念、道德教训,共鸣情感等巨大力量之大成,梦神的威力就能拯拔人们于秘仪纵欲的自我毁灭,引诱他们跨过醉境过程的普遍性,而走入幻觉之中,以为自己见到一幅孤立的世界画景,例如,愁斯丹和绮瑟;而且通过音乐,他们就能够看得更清楚、更深入。梦神的治病魔力有甚么做不到的呢?它甚至能使我们产生幻觉,好象酒神真是为梦神服务,而且能够提高梦境的效果;真的,好象音乐根本是描写梦境内容的表现艺术。
由于成功的戏曲与它的音乐之间获得预期的和谐,戏曲便达到了最高度的,为话剧所不能冀及的壮丽景象。因为在舞台上生动的形象,各自划出律动的线条,在我们眼前简化为一条曲线这么清楚,所以这些线条的交错,甚至在丝毫不爽配合舞步的和声变化上,也可以听出来。我们通过和声变化,直接领悟到事物的关系,是耳闻目睹,绝不是抽象地体会;我们通过它,也认识到:一个性格或一条律动线条的本质,只有在这些关系上表现得最为清楚。既然音乐这样有力地强迫我们比以前见得更广更深,使得剧情在我们眼前展开,象一片最纤巧的薄罗:舞台的境界便无限地扩张,显现在我们反心内视的慧眼之前,仿佛由里及表予以阐明那样。使用文字的诗人,即使努力要做到从内部展开和阐明眼前的舞台境界,可是他以歌词和概念这些不完备的手段来间接说明,又怎能提供这样的效果呢?固然,歌乐悲剧也要使用文字,但它同时兼用音乐,——歌词的基础和根源,——所以能够给我们从里及表地阐明歌词的发展。
然而,关于上述的过程,我们还可以明确地指出:那不过是一种壮丽的假象,即上述的梦境幻觉。我们靠它的影响而得免于醉境的感情压抑和过度兴奋而已。其实,音乐对戏曲的关系毕竟恰好相反:音乐是实在的世界理念,戏曲仅是这理念的余晖,是它的孤立的阴影。所谓律动线条与人物形象之一致,音乐谐调与人物性格之一致,正确地说,是同我们在欣赏歌乐悲剧时所设想者恰好相反。我们可以非常鲜明地把人物形象写得慷慨激昂,生动活泼,从里及表地予以阐明,但是形象始终不过是一种现象,从现象引向真正的实在,引向世界的心灵,是没有桥梁的。然而,音乐是世界的心声,纵使无数这类现象可能通过这种音乐而出现,但是它们永远不能竭尽音乐的妙谛,而往往只是它的表面写照罢了。关于音乐与戏曲的微妙关系,用灵肉对立这种完全错误的庸俗见解,当然不能说明甚么的,反而把一切扰乱;可是这种非哲学的浅薄的二元论,却似乎已成为我们美学家所乐意接受的信条,——天晓得是甚么原因——至于现象与物自体的对立,他们就一无所知,或者不知为甚么不愿意探讨。
从我们的分析,可以断言:悲剧的梦境因素,凭借它的幻象,业己完全战胜了音乐的醉境的原始因素,从而可以利用音乐来达到它的目的,也就是说,使音乐最清楚地阐明戏曲;可是,当然必须补充一个十分重要的条件:即,在最重要的关键,这种梦境幻象会遭到破灭,烟消云散。戏曲,借赖音乐的帮助,便在我们眼前展示,一切形象和动作都从内部予以清楚的阐明,所以我们宛若目睹机杼忽上忽下,织成锦帛;——于是戏曲达到一个完整的效果,在一切梦艺术效果以外的效果。在悲剧的总的效果上,醉境因素再度占了优势。悲剧的收场就带有一种在梦境艺术领域中不能听到的调子。因此,梦境幻象便显露出它的真相;它在悲剧演出时,竭力遮掩真正的醉境效果,但是这效果是这样有力,结果甚至把梦境戏曲推到另一境界,于是它开始用酒神的智慧说话了,甚至否定了自己和它的梦境景象。所以,悲剧中的梦境因素和醉境因素的微妙关系,其实可以用梦神和酒神的兄弟关系来象征:酒神讲的是梦神的话,但是梦神也终于讲出酒神的话,于是悲剧和一般艺术的最高目的便达到了。 |
Returning from these hortatory
tones to the mood befitting contemplation, I repeat that we
can learn only from the Greeks what such an almost
miraculously sudden awakening of tragedy means for the
innermost life ground of a people. It is the people of the
tragic mysteries that fights the battles against the
Persians; and the people that fought these wars in turn
needs tragedy as a necessary potion to recover. Who would
have supposed that precisely this people, after it had been
deeply agitated through several generations by the strongest
spasms of the Dionysian demon, should still have been
capable of such a uniformly vigorous effusion of the
simplest political feeling, the most natural patriotic
instincts, and original manly desire to fight? After all,
one feels in every case in which Dionysian excitement gains
any significant extent how the Dionysian liberation from the
fetters of the individual finds expression first of all in a
diminution of, in indifference to, indeed, in hostility to,
the political instincts. Just as certainly, Apollo who forms
states is also the genius of the principium
individuationis, and state and patriotism cannot live
without an affirmation of the individual personality. But
from orgies a people can take one path only, the path to
Indian Buddhism, and in order that this may be endurable at
all with its yearning for the nothing, it requires these
rare ecstatic states with their elevation above space, time,
and the individual. These states in turn demand a philosophy
that teaches men how to overcome by the force of an idea the
indescribable displeasure of the states that lie between.
Where the political drives are taken to be absolutely valid,
it is just as necessary that a people should go to the path
toward the most extreme secularization whose most
magnificent but also most terrifying expression may be found
in the Roman imperium. Placed between India and
Rome, and pushed toward a seductive choice, the Greeks
succeeded in inventing a third form, in classical purity--to
be sure, one they did not long use themselves, but one that
precisely for that reason gained immortality. For that the
favorites of the gods die early, is true in all things; but
it is just as certain that they then live eternally with the
gods. After all, one should not demand of what is noblest of
all that it should have the durable toughness of leather.
That staunch perseverance which characterized, for example,
the national instincts of the Romans, probably does not
belong among the necessary predicates of perfection. But let
us ask by means of what remedy it was possible for the
Greeks during their great period, in spite of the
extraordinary strength of their Dionysian and political
instincts, not to exhaust themselves either in ecstatic
brooding or in a consuming chase after worldly power and
worldly honor, but rather to attain that splendid mixture
which resembles a noble wine in making one feel fiery and
contemplative at the same time. Here we must think clearly
of the tremendous power that stimulated, purified, and
discharged the whole life of the people: tragedy.
We cannot begin to sense its highest value until it
confronts us, as it did the Greeks, as the quintessence of
all prophylactic powers of healing, as the mediator that
worked among the strongest and in themselves most fatal
qualities of the people.
Tragedy absorbs the highest ecstasies of music, so that
it truly brings music, both among the Greeks and among us,
to its perfection; but then it places the tragic myth and
the tragic hero next to it, and he, like a powerful Titan,
takes the whole Dionysian world upon his back and thus
relieves us of this burden. On the other hand, by means of
the same tragic myth, in the person of the tragic hero; it
knows how to redeem us from the greedy thirst for this
existence, and with an admonishing gesture it reminds us of
another existence and a higher pleasure for which the
struggling hero prepares himself by means of his
destruction, not by means of his triumphs. Between the
universal validity of its music and the listener, receptive
in his Dionysian state, tragedy places a sublime parable,
the myth, and deceives the listener into feeling that the
music is merely the highest means to bring life into the
vivid world of myth. Relying on this noble deception, it may
now move its limbs in dithyrambic dances and yield
unhesitatingly to an ecstatic feeling of freedom in which it
could not dare to wallow as pure music without this
deception. The myth protects us against the music, while on
the other hand it alone gives music the highest freedom. In
return, music imparts to the tragic myth an intense and
convincing metaphysical significance that word an image
without this singular help could never have attained. And
above all, it is through music that the tragic spectator is
overcome by an assured premonition of a highest pleasure
attained through destruction and negation, so he feels as if
the innermost abyss of things spoke to him perceptibly.
If these last sentences have perhaps managed to give only
a preliminary expression to these difficult ideas and are
immediately intelligible only to few, I nevertheless may not
desist at this point from trying to stimulate my friends to
further efforts and must ask them to use a single example of
our common experience in order to prepare themselves for a
general insight. In giving this example, I must not appeal
to those who use the images of what happens on the stage,
the words and emotions of the acting persons, in order to
approach with their help the musical feeling; for these
people do not speak music as their mother tongue and, in
spite of this help, never get beyond the entrance halls of
musical perception, without ever being able to as much as
touch the inner sanctum. Some of them, like Gervinus [G. G.
Gervinus, author of Shakespeare, and
Shakespeare Commentaries], do not even reach the
entrance halls. I must appeal only to those who, immediately
related to music, have in it, as it were, their motherly
womb, and are related to things almost exclusively through
unconscious musical relations. To these genuine musicians I
direct the question whether they can imagine a human being
who would be able to perceive the third act of Tristan
and Isolde, without any aid of word and image, purely
as a tremendous symphonic movement, without expiring in a
spasmodic unharnessing of all the wings of the soul?
Suppose a human being has thus put his ear, as it were,
to the heart chamber of the world will and felt the roaring
desire for existence pouring from there into all the veins
of the world, as a thundering current or as the gentlest
brook, dissolving into a mist--how could he fail to break
suddenly? How could he endure to perceive the echo of
innumerable shouts of pleasure and woe in the "wide space of
the world night," enclosed in the wretched glass capsule of
the human individual, without inexorably fleeing toward his
primordial home, as he hears this shepherd's dance of
metaphysics? But if such a work could nevertheless be
perceived as a whole, without denial of individual
existence; if such a creation could be created without
smashing its creator--whence do we take the solution of such
a contradiction?
Here the tragic myth and the tragic hero intervene
between our highest musical emotion and this music--at
bottom only as symbols of the most universal facts, of which
only music can speak so directly. But if our feelings were
those of entirely Dionysian beings, myth as a symbol would
remain totally ineffective and unnoticed, and would never
for a moment keep us from listening to the re-echo of the
universalia ante rem [The universals before the
thing.]. Yet here the Apollinian power erupts to
restore the almost shattered individual with the healing
balm of blissful illusion: suddenly we imagine we see only
Tristan, motionless, asking himself dully: "The old tune,
why does it wake me?" And what once seemed to us like a
hollow sigh from the core of being now merely wants to tell
us how "desolate and empty the sea." And where, breathless,
we once thought we were being extinguished in a convulsive
distention of all feelings, and little remained to tie us to
our present existence, we now hear and see only the hero
wounded to death, yet not dying, with his despairing cry:
"Longing! Longing! In death still longing! for very longing
not dying!" And where, formerly after such an excess and
superabundance of consuming agonies, the jubilation of the
horn cut through our hearts almost like the ultimate agony,
the rejoicing Kurwenal now stands between us and this
"jubilation in itself," his face turned toward the ship
which carries Isolde. However powerfully pity affects us, it
nevertheless saves us in a way from the primordial suffering
of the world, just as the symbolic image of the myth saves
us from the immediate perception of the highest world-idea,
just as thought and word save us from the uninhibited
effusion of the unconscious will. The glorious Apollinian
illusion makes it appear as if even the tone world
confronted us as a sculpted world, as if the fate of Tristan
and Isolde had been formed and molded in it, too, as in an
exceedingly tender and expressive material.
Thus the Apollinian tears us out of the Dionysian
universality and lets us find delight in individuals; it
attaches our pity to them, and by means of them it satisfies
our sense of beauty which longs for great and sublime forms;
it presents images of life to us, and incites us to
comprehend in thought the core of life they contain. With
the immense impact of the image, the concept, the ethical
teaching, and the sympathetic emotion, the Apollinian tears
man from his orgiastic self-annihilation and blinds him to
the universality of the Dionysian process, deluding him into
the belief that he is seeing a single image of the world (Tristan
and Isolde, for instance), and that, through music,
he is merely supposed to see it still better and
more profoundly. What can the healing magic of Apollo not
accomplish when it can even create the illusion that the
Dionysian is really in the service of the Apollinian and
capable of enhancing its effects--as if music were
essentially the art of presenting an Apollinian content?
By means of the pre-established harmony between perfect
drama and its music, the drama attains a superlative
vividness unattainable in mere spoken drama. In the
independently moving lines of the melody all the living
figures of the scene simplify themselves before us to the
distinctness of curved lines, and the harmonies of these
lines sympathize in a most delicate manner with the events
on the stage. These harmonies make the relations of things
immediately perceptible to us in a sensuous, by no means
abstract manner, and thus we perceive that it is only in
these relations that the essence of a character and of a
melodic line is revealed clearly. And while music thus
compels us to see more and more profoundly than usual, and
we see the action on the stage as a delicate web, the world
of the stage is expanded infinitely and illuminated for our
spiritualized eye. How could a word-poet furnish anything
analogous, when he strives to attain this internal expansion
and illumination of the visible stage-world by means of a
much more imperfect mechanism, indirectly, proceeding from
word and concept? Although musical tragedy also avails
itself of the word, it can at the same time place beside it
the basis and origin of the word, making the development of
the word clear to us, from the inside.
Concerning the process just described, however, we may
still say with equal assurance that it is merely a glorious
appearance, namely, the aforementioned Apollinian
illusion whose influence aims to deliver us from the
Dionysian flood and excess. For, at bottom, the relation of
music to drama is precisely the reverse: music is the real
idea of the world, drama is but the reflection of this idea,
a single silhouette of it. The identity between the melody
and the living figure, between the harmony and the character
relations of that figure, is true in a sense opposite to
what one would suppose on the contemplation of musical
tragedy. Even if we agitate and enliven the figure in the
most visible manner, and illuminate it from within, it still
remains merely a phenomenon from which no bridge leads us to
true reality, into the heart of the world. But music speaks
out of this heart; and though countless phenomena of the
kind were to accompany this music, they could never exhaust
its essence, but would always be nothing more than its
externalized copies.
As for the intricate relationship of music and drama,
nothing can be explained, while everything may be confused,
by the popular and thoroughly false contrast of soul and
body; but the unphilosophical crudeness of this contrast
seems to have become--who knows for what reasons--a readily
accepted article of faith among our aestheticians, while
they have learned nothing of the contrast of the phenomenon
and the thing-in-itself--or, for equally unknown reasons,
have not cared to learn anything about it.
Should our analysis have established that the Apollinian
element in tragedy has by means of its illusion gained a
complete victory over the primordial Dionysian element of
music, making music subservient to its aims, namely, to make
the drama as vivid as possible--it would certainly be
necessary to add a very important qualification: at the most
essential point this Apollinian illusion is broken and
annihilated. The drama that, with the aid of music, unfolds
itself before us with such inwardly illumined distinctness
in all its movements and figures, as if we saw the texture
coming into being on the loom as the shuttle flies to and
fro--attains as a whole an effect that transcends all
Apollinian artistic effects. In the total effect of
tragedy, the Dionysian predominates once again. Tragedy
closes with a sound which could never come from the realm of
Apollinian art. And thus the Apollinian illusion reveals
itself as what it really is--the veiling during the
performance of the tragedy of the real Dionysian effect; but
the latter is so powerful that it ends by forcing the
Apollinian drama itself into a sphere where it begins to
speak with Dionysian wisdom and even denies itself and its
Apollinian visibility. Thus the intricate relation of the
Apollinian and the Dionysian in tragedy may really be
symbolized by a fraternal union of the two deities: Dionysus
speaks the language of Apollo; and Apollo, finally the
language of Dionysus and so the highest goal of tragedy and
of all art is attained.
|
22
请关心的朋友单凭自己的经验,想象一部真正的歌乐悲剧的效果。我想,我已经从两方面描写了这效果的现象,所以您现在能够说明您的经验了。您会记得:看到在您面前表演的神话,您觉得自己被提高到一种“全知”的境界,仿佛您的视觉能力不仅是一种外在的能力,而是能够洞烛内蕴的,仿佛现在您凭借音乐的帮助,目击意志的沸腾,动机的斗争,激情的澎湃,一切了如指掌,宛若见到无数生动活泼的线条和图形在眼前,因此您能够潜入下意识情绪最微妙的秘奥之处。正当您感到自己对具体化和形象化的要求达到最高度时,您就同样明确地觉得:这一系列的梦境艺术的效果,还是不能产生无意识的静观的幸福心境,象造型艺术家和史诗诗人,也就是说,真正梦境艺术家,以其作品所能唤起的那样;这种心情,就是在无意识的静观中达到的个性(individuatio)境界之明证亦即梦境艺术的高峰和精髓。您看到形象化的舞台境界,可是您否定它。您见到眼前的悲剧英雄具有史诗的明确性和美,可是您对英雄的灭亡感到快慰。您极其深入地了解剧中情节,可是您愿意逃入不可知的境界。您觉得英雄的行为合情合理,可是当这些行为促使英雄灭亡时,您反而更为精神抖擞。您对于英雄所受的苦难悚然惊心,可是您预感到英雄将带来一种更强烈的快乐。您比平时见到更广更深,可是您宁愿视而不见。我们如何推究这种奇异的自我分裂,这种梦境高峰的崩溃呢,它可不是由于酒神的魔力吗?这种魔力虽则表面上掀起梦境情绪,使它达到顶点,却能够强迫过分的梦境力量为它服务。所以,悲剧神话只能理解为以梦境艺术为媒介的酒神智慧之象征;神话把现象界引到它的极限,直到它否定自己,而竭力再度投奔真正唯一的实在之怀抱,于是它象绮瑟那样,似乎要高唱它的超脱的辞世曲了:
在欢乐之海的
澎湃波涛中,
在大气之流的
宏亮回声里,
在宇宙呼吸的
吹拂的一切,
沉溺了,淹没了。
无常识的,最高的狂喜!
所以,我们从真正审美观众的自身经验,可以想象出悲剧艺术家本身:他象一个多产的个性化之神,塑造出他的人物形象,在这意义上,他的作品就很难说是“模仿自然”了;另一方面,他的强大的醉境冲动吸取了整个现象界,以便预示在现象的彼岸,因现象的毁灭,将出现太一怀抱中之艺术根源的最高快感。当然,关于梦神和酒神亲如兄弟的关系,他们如何重返故乡,以及观众的梦境的或醉境的兴奋,我们的美学家不能撰一词,可是他们却不厌其烦地缕述英雄与命运的斗争,道德世界的秩序之胜利,悲剧所起的感情净化作用,而视之为真正的悲壮。这种老生常谈,使我想到他们可能是毫无美感的人,他们在听悲剧时,堪称为卫道之士。自亚里士多德以来,从没有人提出一种关于悲剧效果的解释,根据艺术实况,根据审美活动,以推断观众的心理。有时,人们认为“怜悯与恐惧”是庄严剧情所促使的,减轻痛苦的感情渲泄;有时,认为我们看到良善高尚的道义的胜利,看到英雄为道德的世界观而牺牲,便感到扬举和兴奋。固然,我深信,对于大多数人,悲剧的效果正是这点,而且仅仅是这点;但是,由此可见,这些人,连同对他们解释的美学家,并没有把悲剧作为最高的艺术来欣赏。所谓病理的渲泄,亚里斯多德的catharsis-,——语文学家不知应该把它归入医学的,还是道德的现象,——使人想起歌德那有名的猜断。他说:“我对于病理学不大感兴趣,我也从未成功地写出任何一种悲剧场面,所以我与其探讨,毋宁避免这个问题。也许这是古代人的另一优点吧:在他们最高的感染力不过是一种审美的游戏;在我们,就必须借助于逼真的描写,始能产生这样的作品?”就歌乐悲剧而论,我们往往发现最深的感染力其实只是审美的游戏。现在根据我们这辉煌的经验,就可以肯定歌德的意味深长的问题,现在根据我们这辉煌的经验,就可以肯定歌德的意味深长的问题,所以我们颇有理由相信:现在我们可以初步成功地描述悲剧的原始现象。现在,如果还有人总是高谈那些在美感领域以外的代替的效果,觉得自己不能超过病理学道德学的解释,他定必对自己的审美能力感到失望;那末,我们就劝告他依照格尔维诺斯(Gerinus)的方法解释莎士比亚,努力去探讨诗的正义,这是无伤大雅的。
所以,随着悲剧的再生,审美观众也复活了。以前,代替他们坐在剧场里的观众,往往是道貌岸然自命博学的quidproquo(鱼目混珠)的怪人,即所谓“批评家”。以前,在他的范围内,一切都是矫揉粉饰的生活假象。演剧的艺术家真不知如何对付这样吹毛求疵的观众;所以演员,以及鼓舞他的剧作家或曲作家,都要煞费苦心地在这样无聊、自负、不识鉴赏的观众身上,寻找一点残余的情趣。然而,向来就是这类“批评家”构成观众:中学生,小学生,甚至最无害的妇女,已经不知不觉地被教育和刊物养成这样的艺术观。艺术家中的优秀份子,对付这样观众,唯有指望唤起他们的道德宗教情操;在其实应该以强烈艺术感染力使真正观众心荡神驰的场合,剧作家反而要乞援于道德世界的秩序,或则要鲜明地刻划一些重大的,至少是激动人心的,当代政治社会倾向,例如,爱国运动或战争时代,国会辩论或犯罪裁判,使观众忘记了挑剔而被这类感情吸引;——这已经去艺术的真正目的甚远,而必然直接陷于对这种倾向的迷信。然而,向来一切假艺术所遭遇的命运,在这里发生了:这些倾向非常迅速地衰落了,譬如,使用戏剧为民众教育的手段,这种倾向,在席勒时代是严肃对待的,现在已落于不足为训的古风废习之列。当批评家雄霸于剧场和音乐厅,当新闻记者控制了学校,报纸支配了社会,那时艺术便沦为茶余酒后的闲谈,审美批评被目为结团虚荣、狂乱、自私、加以毫无创见的可怜虫之手段。叔本毕曾用豪猪来比喻这种人的性格;其结果,是艺术从来没有被人谈论这么多,但受人敬重这么少。然而,我们还能够交上一个懂得谈论贝多芬或莎士比亚的朋友吗?让每个人照自己的感想答复这个问题吧:他无论如何会用他的答案表示他对“文化”的认识,要是他至少肯尝试解答这问题,而不是瞠目结舌,哑口无言的话。
另一方面,许多得天独厚的人,虽则已经逐渐变成批评的蛮子,有如上述,但他们也许还会谈谈例如“罗恩格林”的成功表演对他们产生那料想不到莫明其妙的影响:不过这也许因为没有任何人的手在指点他,提携他,所以当时使他激动的种种不可思议,无可比拟的感觉,始终是独立的,宛若一颗神秘的星光,在刹间一闪之后,便熄灭了。然而,唯有那时,他才揣摩到审美观众的心情。 |
Let the attentive friend
imagine the effect of a true musical tragedy purely and
simply, as he knows it from experience. I think I have so
portrayed the phenomenon of this effect in both its phases
that he can now interpret his own experiences. For he will
recollect how with regard to the myth which passed in front
of him, he felt himself exalted to a kind of omniscience, as
if his visual faculty were no longer merely a surface
faculty but capable of penetrating into the interior, and as
if he now saw before him, with the aid of music, the waves
of the will, the conflict of motives, and the swelling flood
of the passions, sensually visible, as it were, like a
multitude of vividly moving lines and figures; and he felt
he could dip into the most delicate secrets of unconscious
emotions. While he thus becomes conscious of the highest
exaltation of his instincts for clarity and transfiguration,
he nevertheless feels just as definitely that this long
series of Apollinian artistic effects still does not
generate that blessed continuance in will-less contemplation
which the plastic artist and the epic poet, that is to say,
the strictly Apollinian artists, evoke in him with their
artistic productions: to wit, the justification of the world
of the individuatio attained by this
contemplation--which is the climax and essence of Apollinian
art. He beholds the transfigured world of the stage and
nevertheless denies it. He sees the tragic hero before him
in epic clearness and beauty, and nevertheless rejoices in
his annihilation. He comprehends the action deep down, and
yet likes to flee into the incomprehensible. He feels the
actions of the hero to be justified, and is nevertheless
still more elated when these actions annihilate their agent.
He shudders at the sufferings which will befall the hero,
and yet anticipates in them a higher, much more overpowering
joy. He sees more extensively and profoundly than ever, and
yet wishes he were blind. How must we derive this curious
internal bifurcation, this blunting of the Apollinian point,
if not from the Dionysian magic that, though
apparently exciting the Apollinian emotions to their highest
pitch, still retains the power to force into its service his
excess of Apollinian force?
The tragic myth is to be understood only as a
symbolization of Dionysian wisdom through Apollinian
artifices. The myth leads the world of phenomena to its
limits where it denies itself and seeks to flee back again
into the womb of the true and only reality, where it then
seems to commence its metaphysical swansong, like Isolde:
In the rapture ocean's
billowing roll,
in the fragrance waves'
ringing sound,
in the world breath's
wafting whole--
to drown, to sink--
unconscious--highest joy!
Thus we use the experiences of the truly aesthetic
listener to bring to mind the tragic artist himself as he
creates his figures like a fecund divinity of individuation
(so his work can hardly be understood as an "imitation of
nature") and as his vast Dionysian impulse then devours his
entire world of phenomena, in order to let us sense beyond
it, and through its destruction, the highest artistic primal
joy, in the bosom of the primordially One. Of course our
aestheticians have nothing to say about this return to the
primordial home, or the fraternal union of the two
art-deities, nor of the excitement of the hearer which is
Apollinian as well as Dionysian; but they never tire of
characterizing the struggle of the hero with fate, the
triumph of the moral world order, or the purgation of the
emotions through tragedy, as the essence of the tragic. And
their indefatigability makes me think that perhaps they are
not aesthetically sensitive at all, but react merely as
moral beings when listening to a tragedy.
Never since Aristotle has an explanation of the tragic
effect been offered from which aesthetic states or an
aesthetic activity of the listener could be inferred. Now
the serious events are supposed to prompt pity and fear to
discharge themselves in a way that relieves us; now we are
supposed to feel elevated and inspired by the triumph of
good and noble principles, at the sacrifice of the hero in
the interest of a moral vision of the universe. I am sure
that for countless men precisely this, and only this, is the
effect of tragedy, but it plainly follows that all these
men, together with their interpreting aestheticians, have
had no experience of tragedy as a supreme art.
The pathological discharge, the catharsis of Aristotle,
of which philologists are not sure whether it should be
included among medical or moral phenomena, recalls a
remarkable notion of Goethe's. "Without a lively
pathological interest," he says, "I, too, have never yet
succeeded in elaborating a tragic situation of any kind, and
hence I have rather avoided than sought it. Can it perhaps
have been yet another merit of the ancients that the deepest
pathos was with them merely aesthetic play, while with us
the truth of nature must cooperate in order to produce such
a work?"
We can now answer this profound final question in the
affirmative after our glorious experiences, having found to
our astonishment that the deepest pathos can indeed be
merely aesthetic play in the case of musical tragedy.
Therefore we are justified in believing that now for the
first time the primal phenomenon of the tragic can be
described with some degree of success. Anyone who still
persists in talking only of those vicarious effects
proceeding from extra-aesthetic spheres, and who does not
feel that he is above the pathological-moral process, should
despair of his aesthetic nature: should we recommend to him
as an innocent equivalent the interpretation of Shakespeare
after the manner of Gervinus and the diligent search for
poetic justice?
Thus the aesthetic listener is also reborn with
the rebirth of tragedy. In his place in the theater, a
curious quid pro quo used to sit with half moral
and half scholarly pretensions--the "critic." Everything in
his sphere so far has been artificial and merely whitewashed
with an appearance of life. The performing artist was really
at a loss how to deal with a listener who comported himself
so critically; so he, as well as the dramatist or operatic
composer who inspired him, searched anxiously for the last
remains of life in a being so pretentiously barren and
incapable of enjoyment. So far, however, such "critics" have
constituted the audience: the student, the schoolboy, even
the innocuous female had been unwittingly prepared by
education and newspapers for this kind of perception of
works of art. Confronted with such a public, the nobler
natures among the artists counted upon exciting their
moral-religious emotions, and the appeal to the moral
world-order intervened vicariously where some powerful
artistic magic ought to enrapture the genuine listener. Or
some more imposing, or at all events exciting, trend of the
contemporary political and social world was so vividly
presented by the dramatist that the listener could forget
his critical exhaustion and abandon himself to emotions
similar to those felt in patriotic or warlike moments, or
before the tribune of parliament, or at the condemnation of
crime and vice--an alienation from the true aims of art that
sometimes had to result in an outright cult of
tendentiousness. The attempt, for example, to use the
theater as an institution for the moral education of the
people, still taken seriously in Schiller's time, is already
reckoned among the incredible antiques of a dated type of
education. While the critic got the upper hand in the
theater and concert hall, the journalist in the schools, and
the press in society, art degenerated into a particularly
lowly topic of conversation, and aesthetic criticism was
used as a means of uniting a vain, distracted, selfish, and
moreover piteously unoriginal sociability whose character is
suggested by Schopenhauer's parable of the porcupines. As a
result, art has never been so much talked about and so
little esteemed. But is it still possible to have
intercourse with a person capable of conversing about
Beethoven or Shakespeare? Let each answer this question
according to his own feelings: he will at any rate show by
his answer his conception of "culture," provided he at least
tries to answer the question, and has not already become
dumbfounded with astonishment.
On the other hand, many a being more nobly and delicately
endowed by nature, though he may have gradually become a
critical barbarian in the manner described, might have
something to say about the unexpected as well as totally
unintelligible effect that a successful performance of
Lohengrin, for example, had on him--except that perhaps
there was no helpful interpreting hand to guide him; so the
incomprehensibly different and altogether incomparable
sensation that thrilled him remained isolated and, like a
mysterious star, became extinct after a short period of
brilliance. But it was then that he had an inkling of what
an aesthetic listener is.
|
23
谁想严格地考验自己是不是类似真正的审美观众,抑或属于苏格拉底式批评家之列,只须抚心自问,他欣赏舞台上表演的奇迹时的感触如何:他是否觉得他那坚持严格心理因果律的历史意识受到侮辱呢,他是否善意地承认这些奇迹是儿童所喜闻乐见,但对他格格不入的现象呢,抑或他能从其中取得一些别的经验?因为这样,他才能够测量他了解神话的能力毕竟有多少。神话是集中的世界画景,作为现象的缩写来说,是不能缺少奇迹的。然而,很有可能,几乎每个人在严格检查之下,总觉得自己被现代文化的历史批判精神腐蚀得这么深,以致只有在学术上,通过间接的抽象,才相信昔日也许有神话存在。但是,没有神话,则任何一种文化都会失掉它的健康的、天然的创造力,正是神话的视野,约束着全部文化运动,使之成为一个体系。正是依赖神话的救济,一切想象力,一切梦境的幻想,才得免于漫无目的的彷徨。神话的形象,必须是肉眼不见,但无所不在的护守神灵:在神鬼的庇佑下,年轻的心灵逐渐长成;凭鬼神的指点,成年人明白了自己的生存和斗争的意义;甚至国家也承认,最有力的不成文法莫过于神话的根据,它保证国家与宗教的联系,证明国家从神话观念长成。
另一方面,我们试设想不靠神话指导的抽象的的人,抽象的教育,抽象的道德,抽象的正义,抽象的国家;我们试设想,不受本国神话约制的艺术想象力如何想入非非;我们试设想这样一种文化:它没有固定的神圣的发祥地,而命定要耗尽它的一切潜能,要依靠一切外来文化艰苦度日,——这就是今日的时代,苏格拉底主义因为铲除神话而招致的恶果。今日,丧失神话的人们,总是饥肠辘辘,徘徊在过去时代中,竭力去探寻,去掘发一些根苗,哪怕是必须向最遥远的古代探掘。我们如饥如渴的现代文化的强烈的历史兴趣,我们集无数其它文化之大成,我们如火如荼的求知欲;——这一切表示甚么呢,可不是表示丧失了神话,丧失了神话的故乡,丧失了神话的母怀吗?试问这种文化的狂热不安的兴奋,不是像饥者贫得无厌,饥不择食,还像甚么呢?这样一种狼吞虎咽,不知餍足的文化,即使接触到最滋补最有益的东西,也往往把它化为“历史与批评”,试问谁愿意给它更多一些营养呢?
我们也定必为德国民族性惨然感到失望,如果它已经陷入这种文化的樊笼而不能自拔,甚或与之同化,像我们触目惊心地见到文明的法兰西就是这样情况。长久以来,法国的最大优点和巨大优越性的原因,在于人民与文化之一致,但是今日我们见到这点,反而不禁为自己庆幸:我们那颇成问题的文化,向来与我们民族性的高贵心灵,毫无相同之处。反之,我们的一切希望,都无限眷恋地寄托在一点认识:即,在忐忑不安的文化生活和痛苦挣扎的教育制度下面,隐藏着一种壮丽的、精力充沛的原始力量,当然它仅在伟大时代偶或有力地骚动起来,然后再度陷入梦中,梦想着未来的苏醒。德国的宗教改革,就是从这深渊里成长起来的,在它的赞美诗中,第一次听到德国音乐的未来旋律。路德的赞美诗的音调,是这样深刻、勇敢、感情丰富,非常温柔美好,宛若在阳春已临近时,从茂密的丛林里,传出酒神祭第一声迷人的呼唤,酒神信徒的热情磅礴的行列,就以赛过它的回响答复这呼唤,我们为德国音乐感激他们,我们为德国神话的再生也将感激他们。
我想,我现在必须带引乐意追随的朋友到一所高处,让他独自静观。那儿他只有三数伴侣,我将鼓励他喊道:我们必须紧紧跟住我们的辉煌的引路者古希腊人呀!为了澄清我们的美学知识,我们事前向他们借用两个神灵形象,每个统辖着一个独立的艺术领域。由于他们彼此接触,相得益彰,我们从希腊悲剧上获得一个概念。由于这两种原始艺术冲动的显然缺裂,希腊悲剧的崩溃过程似乎是势所难免的,希腊民族性的衰落及其变质,同悲剧的崩溃过程如响斯应,这就唤起我们严肃的深思:艺术与人民,神话与风俗,悲剧与国家,在根基深入必然紧密地同根连理。悲剧的崩溃同时也是神话的崩溃。在崩溃之前,希腊人不由自主地,必须把他们的一切经历,立刻同他们的神话联系起来;真的,只有通过这联系,他们才能了解往事;所以,在他们看来,甚至当前的事件也必然是subspecieaeterni(属于永恒范畴),就某种意义来说,是超时间的。然而,国家乃至艺术,也投入这超时间的洪流中,以便解除目前的负荷和热望,以便憩息一下。甚至一个民族,——何况是一个人,——究有多少价值,也全视乎它能在自己的经验上打下多少永垂不朽的印记;因为,仿佛是这样,它才能超凡脱俗,这样,它才显出它对时间之相对性,对人生之真谛,对人生之哲理的无意识的内心信仰。如果一个民族开始从历史上认识自己,并且摧毁它周围的神话堡垒,那就会发生相反的情况:这往往带来一种断然的世俗倾向,使它背弃了往昔生活的无意识的哲理,及其一切道德结论。希腊艺术,尤其是希腊悲剧,首先阻止了神话的毁灭;所以必须毁灭了这两者,才能脱离故土,在思想、习俗、行为的荒漠中无拘无束地生活。甚到那时,这种超脱的冲动,还努力为自己创造一种崇拜,即便是衰弱的崇拜:那是力求生存的科学苏格拉底主义;但是,在其较低阶段,这种冲动只能引向热烈的探索,而逐渐消失在各处积累的神话和迷信之地狱中:希腊人端坐在这地狱中央,依依不舍,直至他晓得,象格里库卢斯(Griculus)那样,以希腊的乐观和希腊的无忧来掩饰自己的狂热,或者以某些阴森的东方迷信来完全麻醉自己。
自从亚历山德里亚—罗马古学,在难以说明的长期中断之后,终于在十五世纪复兴以来,我们今日触目惊心地接近了这种情况。同样盛旺的求知欲,同样不知餍足的发明之乐趣,同样急剧的世俗倾向,已经达到了高峰;加以一种无家可归的彷徨,一种挤入别人宴席的贪馋,一种对现在的轻浮崇拜,或者对当代,对一切subspeciesaeculi(属于世俗范围)事物的麻木不仁的疏远;——这些朕兆,使人想到这种文化之核心中有同样的缺点,想到神话的毁灭。移植一种外国神话,不断成功,而不致无可挽回地伤害树木,似乎是绝不可能的;这颗树有时也许是相当壮健,靠惨淡斗争足以再度排除一切异己因素,可是在惯常的情况下,它定必萎弱不振,或者根枯叶茂。我们十分看重德国民族性的纯粹而强健的核心,所以我们敢于期望它排除那些勉强移入的异己因素;我们认为,德国精神将有可能从新作自我反省。或许,不少人认为,德国精神的斗争必须从排除罗马因素开始;从而,他们在最近这次战争的胜利战果和浴血光荣中,看到这种斗争的一点表面准备和鼓舞;然而,在竞争热情中,必须找到一种内在要求,才能始终无愧于这条路上的崇高对手,无愧于路德以及我们的伟大艺术家和诗人们。但是,您切莫以为:没有我们的家神,没有神话的家乡,无须“恢复”德国一切遗产,也可能参与这场斗争。如果德国人畏缩不前,环顾四围,要找一个引路人领他回到久别的故乡,因为他再也不认识故乡的道路;那未,他只须倾听酒神的灵禽的快乐迷人的啼声,它正在天上翱翔,愿意给他指点前途。 |
Whoever wishes to test
rigorously to what extent he himself is related to the true
aesthetic listener or belongs to the community of the
Socratic-critical persons needs only to examine sincerely
the feeling with which he accepts miracles represented on
the stage: whether he feels his historical sense, which
insists on strict psychological causality, insulted by them,
whether he makes a benevolent concession and admits the
miracle as a phenomenon intelligible to childhood but alien
to him, or whether he experiences anything else. For in this
way he will be able to determine to what extent he is
capable of understanding myth as a concentrated
image of the world that, as a condensation of phenomena,
cannot dispense with miracles. It is probable, however, that
almost everyone, upon close examination, finds that the
critical-historical spirit of our culture has so affected
him that he can only make the former existence of myth
credible to himself by means of scholarship, through
intermediary abstractions. But without myth every culture
loses the healthy natural power of its creativity: only a
horizon defined by myths completes and unifies a whole
cultural movement. Myth alone saves all the powers of the
imagination and of the Apollinian dream from their aimless
wanderings. The images of the myth have to be the unnoticed
omnipresent demonic guardians, under whose care the young
soul grows to maturity and whose signs help the man to
interpret his life and struggles. Even the state knows no
more powerful unwritten laws than the mythical foundation
that guarantees its connection with religion and its growth
from mythical notions. By way of comparison let us now
picture the abstract man, untutored by myth; abstract
education; abstract morality; abstract law; abstract state;
let us imagine the lawless roving of the artistic
imagination, unchecked by any native myth; let us think of a
culture that has no fixed and sacred primordial site but is
doomed to exhaust all possibilities and to nourish itself
wretchedly on all other cultures--there we have the present
age, the result of that Socratism which is bent on the
destruction of myth. And now the mythless man stands
eternally hungry, surrounded by all past ages, and digs and
grubs for roots, even if he has to dig for them among the
remotest antiquities. The tremendous historical need of our
unsatisfied modern culture, the assembling around one of
countless other cultures, the consuming desire for
knowledge--what does all this point to, if not to the loss
of myth, the loss of the mythical home, the mythical
maternal womb? Let us ask ourselves whether the feverish and
uncanny excitement of this culture is anything but the
greedy seizing and snatching at food of a hungry man--and
who would care to contribute anything to a culture that
cannot be satisfied no matter how much it devours, and at
whose contact the most vigorous and wholesome nourishment is
changed into "history and criticism"?
We should also have to regard our German character with
sorrowful despair, if it had already become inextricably
entangled in, or even identical with, its culture, as we may
observe to our horror in the case of civilized France. What
for a long time was the great advantage of France and the
cause of her vast superiority, namely, this very identity of
people and culture, might compel us in view of this sight to
congratulate ourselves that this so questionable culture of
ours has as yet nothing in common with the noble core of our
people's character? On the contrary, all our hopes stretch
out longingly toward the perception that beneath this
restlessly palpitating cultural life and convulsion there is
concealed a glorious, intrinsically healthy, primordial
power that, to be sure, stirs vigorously only at intervals
in stupendous moments, and then continues to dream of a
future awakening. It is from this abyss that the German
Reformation came forth; and in its chorales the future tune
of German music resounded for the first time. So deep,
courageous, and spiritual, so exuberantly good and tender
did this chorale of Luther sound--as the first Dionysian
luring call breaking forth from dense thickets at the
approach of spring. And in competing echoes the solemnly
exuberant procession of Dionysian revelers responded, to
whom we are indebted for German music--and to whom we shall
be indebted for the rebirth of German myth.
I know that I must now lead the sympathizing and
attentive friend to an elevated position of lonely
contemplation, where he will have but a few companions, and
I call out encouragingly to him that we must hold fast to
our luminous guides, the Greeks. To purify our aesthetic
insight, we have previously borrowed from them the two
divine figures who rule over separate realms of art, and
concerning whose mutual contact and enhancement we have
acquired some notion through Greek tragedy. It had to appear
to us that the demise of Greek tragedy was brought about
through a remarkable and forcible dissociation of these two
primordial artistic drives. To this process there
corresponded a degeneration and transformation of the
character of the Greek people, which calls for serious
reflection on how necessary and close the fundamental
connections are between art and the people, myth and custom,
tragedy and the state. This demise of tragedy was at the
same time the demise of myth. Until then the Greeks had felt
involuntarily impelled to relate all their experiences
immediately to their myths, indeed to understand them only
in this relation. Thus even the immediate present had to
appear to them right away sub specie aeterni [Under
the aspect of the eternal.] and in a certain sense as
timeless.
But the state no less than art dipped into this current
of the timeless to find rest in it from the burden and the
greed of the moment. And any people--just as, incidentally,
also any individual--is worth only as much as it is able to
press upon its experiences the stamp of the eternal; for
thus it is, as it were, desecularized and shows its
unconscious inward convictions of the relativity of time and
of the true, that is metaphysical, significance of life. The
opposite of this happens when a people begins to comprehend
itself historically and to smash the mythical works that
surround it. At that point we generally find a decisive
secularization, a break with the unconscious metaphysics of
its previous existence, together with all its ethical
consequences. Greek art and pre-eminently Greek tragedy
delayed above all the destruction of myth. One had to
destroy tragedy, too, in order to be able to live away from
the soil of home, uninhibited, in the wilderness of thought,
custom, and deed. Even now this metaphysical drive still
tries to create for itself a certainly attenuated form of
transfiguration, in the Socratism of science that strives
for life; but on the lower steps, this same drive led only
to a feverish search that gradually lost itself in a
pandemonium of myths and superstitions that were collected
from all over and piled up in confusion: nevertheless the
Greek sat among them with an unstilled heart until he
learned to mask this fever with Greek cheerfulness and Greek
frivolity, becoming a Graeculus [A contemptuous
term for a Greek.], or he numbed his mind completely in some
dark Oriental superstition.
Since the reawakening of Alexandrian-Roman antiquity in
the fifteenth century we have approximated this state in the
most evident manner, after a long interlude that is
difficult to describe. On the heights we encounter the same
overabundant lust for knowledge, the same unsatisfied
delight in discovery, the same tremendous secularization,
and beside it a homeless roving, a greedy crowding around
foreign tables, a frivolous deification of the present, or a
dully dazed retreat--everything sub specie saeculi
[Under the aspect of the times, or the spirit of the age.],
of the "present age." And these same symptoms allow us to
infer the same lack at the heart of this culture, the
destruction of myth. It scarcely seems possible to be
continuously successful at transplanting a foreign myth
without irreparably damaging the tree by this
transplantation. In one case it may perhaps be strong and
healthy enlugh to eliminate this foreign element in a
terrible fight; usually, however, it must consume itself,
sick and withered or in diseased superfoetation.
We think so highly of the pure and vigorous core of the
German character that we dare to expect of it above all
others this elimination of the forcibly implanted foreign
elements, and consider it possible that the German spirit
will return to itself. Some may suppose that this spirit
must begin its fight with the elimination of everything
Romanic. If so they may recognize an external preparation
and encouragement in the victorious fortitude and bloody
glory of the last war; but one must still seek the inner
necessity in the ambition to be always worthy of the sublime
champions on this way, Luther as well as our great artists
and poets. But let him never believe that he could fight
similar fights without the gods of his house, or his
mythical home, without "bringing back" all German things!
And if the German should hesitantly look around for a leader
who might bring him back again into his long lost home whose
ways and paths he scarcely knows anymore, let him merely
listen to the ecstatically luring call of the Dionysian bird
that hovers above him and wants to point the way for him. |
24
在歌乐悲剧的特殊效果中,我们要举出梦境幻觉:我们靠这幻觉,才得免于陶醉音乐中,并与之合一,同时,我们的音乐激情,便在这梦境领域以及其间的鲜明的缓冲境界,得以尽量渲泄。因此,我们认为:正是通过激情的渲泄,剧中的缓冲境界,即戏剧本身,才从里及表地显得了如指掌,达到一切其它梦境艺术所不能翼及的程度;所以,既然这种艺术仿佛附在音乐精灵的翅膀上凌空飞去,我们就必须承认它的力量达到最高的扬举,从而梦神与酒神的兄弟般的同盟,就是这两型艺术的目的的高峰。
当然,正当音乐从内部予以阐明之际,梦境的光辉画景是不能达到低级梦境艺术的特殊效果的。史诗的雕刻的效果,强使静观者默然神往于个性化的境界,在戏曲方面就不能实现了,尽管戏曲是更生动更鲜明。我们欣赏戏曲,用洞察的慧眼深入其内部激动人心的动机境界;但是我们仍觉得,仿佛只是一个象征世界掠过眼前而已,我们自以为已经揣摩到它的最深刻意义,但愿拉开它,像拉开帐幔,看看幕后的真相。最鲜明如画的地方也不能满足我们的愿望,因为它好象显露了,而同时也隐藏了一些东西;正当它似乎以其象征的启示,鼓舞我们去撕破帐幔,以暴露其神秘的背景之际,那充满光辉的景象,却迷住我们的眼睛,阻止它去看深一步。
谁没有体验过这种情况;既不得不看,又同时向往视野之外的东西;谁就很难想象,在欣赏悲剧神话之际,这两种过程明明是同时并存,同时感受的。真正的审美观众会证实我的话;我认为,在悲剧的特殊效果中,只有这种并存现象最值得注意。现在,如果把观众的审美现象转化为悲剧艺术家的审美过程,您不难明白悲剧神话的起源了。悲剧神话,具有梦境艺术那种对假象和静观的快感。但同时它又否定这快感,而在这鲜明的假象世界之毁灭中,得到更高的满足。悲剧神话的内容,首先是歌颂战斗英雄的史诗事件。然而,英雄的厄运,极惨淡的胜利,极痛苦的动机冲突,简言之,西烈诺斯智慧之明证,或者用美学术语来说,丑恶与和谐,往往再三出现在许多民间文学形式中,尤其是在一个民族的精力充沛的幼年时代:——这种莫明其妙的特点从何而来呢,难道人们对这些东西真的感到更高的快感吗?
因为,虽然生活中确实有如此悲惨的遭遇,但这事实很难说明一种艺术形式的起源,设使艺术不仅是自然真相的模仿,而且其实是自然真相的哲理说明,为了战胜自然而创造的。悲剧神话既然主要是属于艺术范围,它也就完全参予一般艺术美化现实的哲理目的。然而,如果它以受难的英雄形象来表现现象界,它到底美化了甚么呢?它绝不可能美化了现象界的“现实”,因为它对我们说:“你看这个!留心细看呀!这是你的生活!这是你们生存时计上的时针!”
那么,神话指示出这种生活,是为了替我们美化它吗?否则,我们将如何解释,甚至这样的形象也带给我们审美快感呢?我讨论的是审美快感,我也深深知道:除了审美快感以外,许多这类形象间或还能唤起一种道德快感,例如怜悯,或道义胜利之类。然而,如果你认为悲剧效果完全出自这种道德根源,像许久以来在美学上所认为当然如此,那末,你切莫以为,你因此就对艺术颇有贡献。因为艺术首先必须坚持它范围内的纯粹性。为了说明悲剧神话,第一个要求是:它的特殊快感。必须在纯粹审美范围内寻求,而不应侵入怜悯和恐惧,或道德崇高等领域。然而,丑恶和不和谐、悲剧神话的内容,又怎能唤起审美快感呢?
现在,我们必须勇往直前,跃入艺术哲学的领域。所以,我要重复我上文的命题:只有作为一种审美现象,人生与世界才显得合情合理。在这一意义上,悲剧神话的功能,就在于使我们相信:甚至丑恶与不和谐也是一种艺术游戏,意志便以此自娱,而永远充满快乐。然而,这种难以领悟的醉境艺术的原始现象,在所谓“音乐的不和谐”的特殊意义上,立刻显得无比地明晰,而且可以直接体会;正如,一般地说,唯有以音乐同世界对照,我们对于所谓为世界辩护的审美现象之意义,才能有一个概念。悲剧神话所唤起的快感,与音乐上不和谐所唤起的快感,本是同出于一个根源。酒神祭的热情,及其在痛苦中体验到的原始快感,就是音乐与悲剧神话的共同根源。
借助于音乐的不和谐关系,我们岂不是能够同时把悲剧效果这个难题基本上简化了吗?因为,我们现在明白了,所谓“意欲看悲剧,而同时又憧憬着视野以外的东西”是甚么意思。就音乐上的不和谐而言,我们不妨指出这种心情的特征如下:我们愿意谛听,而同时又憧憬着听觉以外的东西,向往无限的境界,对了如指掌的现实感到最高快乐而神飞天外。这种现象,使我不由得想到:必须把这两种心情看作同一的醉境现象,我们不断地看到个性世界忽而建成,忽而毁掉的儿戏,仿佛原始的快感在横流旁溢,正如玄秘的赫拉克利图把创造世界的力量譬作顽童嬉戏,这里那里叠起石块,筑成沙堆,而又把它推翻那样。
所以,为了正确的估计一个民族的醉境能力,我们不但要想到他们的音乐,而且要把他们的悲剧神话视为这种能力的第二佐证。至于音乐与神话的密切关系,也同样必须设想:一者的蜕化衰落,势必引起另一者的凋败。一般地说,神话之衰微,往往表示醉境能力之削弱。然而,关于这两者,试看德国天才的发展,便毋庸置疑。在歌剧上,正如在我们那无神话存在的抽象状态,在堕落为娱乐的艺术上,正如我们凭概念指导的生活方面,我们都见到苏格拉底乐观主义,它既否定艺术,又虚度人生,幸而还有一些使我们快慰的征兆。虽然如此,但德国精神还睡在深不可测的渊壑中,安然无恙,奥妙莫测,还保持着醉境力量,如同一个好梦正浓的武士;酒神祭的歌声,从这深渊飘送到我们的耳朵,教我们知道:这位德国武士,在快乐而庄严的梦境中,尚且梦着他的原始的酒神神话。你不要以为:德国精神已经永远失掉它的神话故乡,因为它依然清楚地听到灵岛的啼声在诉说故乡的美景。有朝一日,它一旦从酣睡中觉醒,朝气焕发,那时它将斩蛟龙,杀掉狡猾的侏儒,唤醒勃伦希德(Brunhild),——那时甚至沃顿(Wotan)的长矛也不能阻止它前进!
我的朋友,您是相信酒神音乐的,您也知道悲剧对我们的意义。在悲剧中,我们见到悲剧神话从音乐里再生——在诞生时,我们能希望到一切,而忘掉最痛苦的事情。然而,使我们大家感到最痛苦的,是德国天才离家去国,为狡猾的侏儒们效劳,屈辱久矣!您是明白我的话的,最后您也将了解我的希望。 |
Among the peculiar art effects
of musical tragedy we had to emphasize an Apollinian
illusion by means of which we were supposed to be saved
from the immediate unity with Dionysian music, while our
musical excitement could discharge itself in an Apollinian
field and in relation to a visible intermediary world that
had been interposed. At the same time we thought that we had
observed how precisely through this discharge the
intermediary world of the action on the stage, and the drama
in general, had been made visible and intelligible form the
inside to a degree that in all other Apollinian art remains
unattained. Where the Apollinian receives wings from the
spirit of music and soars, we thus found the highest
intensification of its powers, and in this fraternal union
of Apollo and Dionysus we had to recognize the apex of the
Apollinian as well as the Dionysian aims of art. To be
sure, the Apollinian projection that is thus illuminated
from inside by music does not achieve the peculiar effect of
the weaker degrees of Apollinian art. What the epic or the
animated stone can do, compelling the contemplative eye to
find calm delight in the world of individuation, that could
not be attained here, in spite of a higher animation and
clarity. We looked at the drama and with penetrating eye
reached its inner world of motives--and yet we felt as if
only a parable passed us by, whose most profound meaning we
almost thought we could guess and that we wished to draw
away like a curtain in order to behold the primordial image
behind it. The brightest clarity of the image did not
suffice us, for this seemed to wish just as much to reveal
something as to conceal something. Its revelation, being
like a parable, seemed to summon us to teat the veil and to
uncover the mysterious background; but at the same time this
all-illuminated total visibility cast a spell over the eyes
and prevented them from penetrating deeper.
Those who have never had the experience of having to see
at the same time that they also longed to transcend all
seeing will scarcely be able to imagine how definitely and
clearly these two processes coexist and are felt at the same
time, as one contemplates the tragic myth. But all truly
aesthetic spectators will confirm that among the peculiar
effects of tragedy this coexistence is the most remarkable.
Now transfer this phenomenon of the aesthetic spectator into
an analogous process in the tragic artist, and you will have
understood the genesis of the tragic myth. With the
Apollinian art sphere he shares the complete pleasure in
mere appearance and in seeing, yet at the same time he
negates this pleasure and finds a still higher satisfaction
in the destruction of the visible world of mere appearance.
The content of the tragic myth is , first of all, an epic
event and the glorification of the fighting hero. But what
is the origin of this enigmatic trait that the suffering and
the fate of the hero, the most painful triumphs, the most
agonizing oppositions of motives, in short, the
exemplification of this wisdom of Silenus, or, to put it
aesthetically, that which is ugly and disharmonic, is
represented ever anew in such countless forms and with such
a distinct preference--and precisely in the most fruitful
and youthful period of a people? Surely a higher pleasure
must be perceived in all this.
That life really so tragic would least of all explain the
origin of an art form--assuming that art is not merely
imitation of the reality of nature but rather a metaphysical
supplement of the reality of nature, placed beside it for
its overcoming. The tragic myth too, insofar as it belongs
to art at all, participates fully in this metaphysical
intention of art to transfigure. But what does it
transfigure when it presents the world of appearance in the
image of the suffering hero? Least of all the "reality" of
this world of appearance, for it says to us: "Look there!
Look closely! This is your life, this is the hand on the
clock of your existence."
And the myth should show us this life in order to thus
transfigure it? But if not, in what then lies the aesthetic
pleasure with which we let these images, too, pass before
us? I asked about the aesthetic pleasure, though I know full
well that many of these images also produce at times a moral
delight, for example, under the form of pity or moral
triumph. But those who would derive the effect of the tragic
solely from these moral sources--which, to be sure, has been
the custom in aesthetics all too long--should least of all
believe that they have thus accomplished something for art,
which above all must demand purity in its sphere. If you
would explain the tragic myth, the first requirement is to
seek the pleasure that is peculiar to it in the purely
aesthetic sphere, without transgressing into the region of
pity, fear, or the morally sublime. How can the ugly and the
disharmonic, the content of the tragic myth, stimulate
aesthetic pleasure?
Here it becomes necessary to take a bold running start
and leap into a metaphysics of art, by repeating the
sentence written above [Section 5], that existence and thee
world seem justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon. In
this sense, it is precisely the tragic myth that has to
convince us that even the ugly and disharmonic are part of
an artistic game that the will in the eternal amplitude of
its pleasure plays with itself. But this primordial
phenomenon of Dionysian art is difficult to grasp, and there
is only one direct way to make it intelligible and grasp it
immediately: through the wonderful significance of
musical dissonance. Quite generally, only music, placed
beside the world, can give us an idea of what is meant by
the justification of the world as an aesthetic phenomenon.
The joy aroused by the tragic myth has the same origin as
the joyous sensation of dissonance in music. The Dionysian,
with its primordial joy experienced even in pain, is the
common source of music and tragic myth.
Is it not possible that by calling to our aid the musical
relation of dissonance we may meanwhile have made the
difficult problem of the tragic effect much easier? For we
now understand what it means to wish to see tragedy and at
the same time to long to get beyond all seeing: referring to
the artistically employed dissonances, we should have to
characterize the corresponding state by saying that we
desire to hear and at the same time long to get beyond all
hearing. The striving for the infinite, the wing-beat of
longing that accompanies the highest delight in clearly
perceived reality, reminds us that in both states we must
recognize a Dionysian phenomenon: again and again it reveals
to us the playful construction and destruction of the
individual world as the overflow of a primordial delight.
Thus the dark Heraclitus compares the world-building force
to a playing child that places stones here and there and
builds sand hills only to overthrow them again.
In order, then, to form a true estimate of the Dionysian
capacity of a people, we must not only think of their music,
but also just as necessarily of their tragic myth, as the
second witness of this capacity. Considering this extremely
close relationship between music and myth, one must suppose
that a degeneration and depravation of the one will involve
a deterioration of the other, if the weakening of the myth
really expresses a weakening of the Dionysian capacity.
Concerning both, however, a glance at the development of the
German character should not leave us in any doubt. In the
opera, just as in the abstract character of our mythless
existence, in an art degenerated to mere entertainment as
will as in a life guided by concepts, the inartistic as well
as life-consuming nature of Socratic optimism had revealed
itself to us. Yet we were comforted by indications that
nevertheless in some inaccessible abyss the German spirit
still rests and dreams, undestroyed, in glorious health,
profundity and Dionysian strength, like a knight sunk in
slumber; and from this abyss the Dionysian song rises to our
ears to let us know that this German knight is still
dreaming his primordial Dionysian myth in blissfully serious
visions. Let no one believe that the German spirit has
forever lost its mythical home when it can sill understand
so plainly the voices of the birds that tell of that home.
Some day it will find itself awake in all the morning
freshness following a tremendous sleep: then it will slay
dragons, destroy vicious dwarfs, wake Brünhilde--and even
Wotan's spear will not be able to stop this course!
My friends, you who believe in Dionysian music, you also
know what tragedy means to us. There we have tragic myth
reborn from music--and in this myth we can hope for
everything and forget what is most painful. What is most
painful for all of us, however, is--the prolonged
degradation in which the German genius has lived, estranged
from house and home, in the service of vicious dwarfs. You
understand my words--as you will also, in conclusion,
understand my hopes. |
25
音乐与悲剧神话同是一个民族的醉境能力之表现,而且是彼此不可分离的。两者都溯源于梦境领域之外的一个艺术领域;两者都美化了一个境界,那儿,在快乐的和谐中,一切不和谐的因素和恐怖的世界面影都动人地消逝了;两者都信赖自己的极其强大的魔力。玩弄着哀感的芒刺;两者都以这种游戏来证实甚至有个“最坏的世界”。在这场合,酒神比起梦神来,就显然是永恒的本源的艺术力量;要之,他唤起了整个现象界,在这当中,必须有一种新的美化的假象,才能使得个性化的世界永远栩栩如生。如果我们能设想“不和谐”化身为人——否则人是甚么呢?——那末,为着生存下去,这种不和谐的化身,就需要一种壮丽的幻象,以美的面纱来罩住它的容貌。这就是梦境艺术的真正目的;我们把这美丽幻景的无数表现统称为梦境艺术,它们在每一刹间都使得一般生活值得留恋,而且驱使我们去体验最近的未来。同时,凡是人从万有之根源,从世界的醉境底层,所能意识到的,都可能被梦神的美化威力再度克服;所以这两种艺术冲动,不得不依照永恒正义之规律,按严格的互相比例,各自展开其威力。当酒神的威力以我们所目睹之势,高涨起来,梦神也定必披上云彩,降临到人间,未来的世代行将见到他的最丰富最美丽的效果。
然而,任何人也一定可以凭直觉知道这效果的必要性,只要他一旦,哪怕是在梦中,觉得自己回到古希腊的生活中。踯躅在伊奥尼亚颀长的柱廊下,仰望轮廓鲜明的天涯,身旁灿烂的雕塑反映着自己的美化的风姿,周围的人们在庄严地游行,或者温柔地走动,唱着和谐的清歌,踏着律动的舞步;——在美的不断流入中,他怎能不举起双手对着梦神阿波罗喊道:“幸福的希腊人啊!在你们中间酒神狄奥尼索斯定必是多么伟大呀,如果提洛斯之神阿波罗认为必须以这样的魔力来医治你们的酒神狂热!”然而,对于怀着这样心情的人,雅典的老人也许会用埃斯库罗斯的崇高的目光望着他,说道:“好奇的来客啊!您也应该说:这个民族受过多少苦难,才能够这样美呀!可是,跟我去看悲剧吧,和我一起在这位神灵的庙坛献上祭牲!” |
Music and tragic myth are
equally expressions of the Dionysian capacity of a people,
and they are inseparable. Both derive from a sphere of art
that lies beyond the Apollinian; both transfigure a region
in whose joyous chords dissonance as well as the terrible
image of the world fade away charmingly; both play with the
sting of displeasure, trusting in their exceedingly powerful
magic arts; and by means of this play both justify the
existence of even the "worst world." Thus the Dionysian is
seen to be, compared to the Apollinian, the eternal and
original artistic power that first calls the whole world of
phenomena into existence--and it is only in the midst of
this world that a new transfiguring illusion becomes
necessary in order to keep the animated world of
individuation alive. If we could imagine dissonance become
man--and what else is man?--this dissonance, to be able to
live, would need a splendid illusion that would cover
dissonance with a veil of beauty. This is the true artistic
aim of Apollo in whose name we comprehend all those
countless illusions of the beauty of mere appearance that at
every moment make life worth living at all and prompt the
desire to live on in order to experience the next moment.
Of this foundation of all existence--the Dionysian basic
ground of the world--not one whit more may enter the
consciousness of the human individual than can be overcome
again by this Apollinian power of transfiguration. Thus
these two art drives must unfold their powers in a strict
proportion, according to the law of eternal justice. Where
the Dionysian powers rise up as impetuously as we experience
them now, Apollo, too, must already have descended among us,
wrapped in a cloud; and the next generation will probably
behold his most ample beautiful effects.
That this effect should be necessary, everybody should be
able to feel most assuredly by means of intuition, provided
he has ever felt, if only in a dream, that he was carried
back into an ancient Greek existence. Walking under lofty
Ionic colonnades, looking up toward a horizon that was cut
off by pure and noble lines, finding reflections of his
transfigured shape in the shining marble at his side, and
all around him solemnly striding or delicately moving human
beings, speaking with harmonious voices and in a rhythmic
language of gestures--in view of this continual influx of
beauty, would he not have to exclaim, raising his hand to
Apollo: "Blessed people of Hellas! How great must Dionysus
be among you if the god of Delos considers such magic
necessary to heal your dithyrambic madness!"
To a man in such a mood, however, an old Athenian,
looking up at him with the sublime eyes of Aeschylus, might
reply: "But say this, too, curious stranger: how much did
this people have to suffer to be able to become so
beautiful! But now follow me to witness a tragedy, and
sacrifice with me in the temple of both deities!" |
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Die Geburt der Tragödie 1872,
The Birth of Tragedy
周国平 译
上海人民出版社 2009-7 ISBN: 9787208085664
其他译本
悲剧的诞生
赵登荣 译
漓江出版社
《悲剧的诞生》
李长俊译,
台北三民书店,1970年版
《悲剧的诞生》
刘崎译,
台北志文出版社,1970年版
《悲剧的诞生》
缪郎山1965年译,
北京中国人民大学1979年版
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