悲劇的誕生The Birth Of Tragedy 第136 神話
Placed between India and Rome, and pushed toward a seductive choice, the Greeks succeeded ininventing 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.
人不應期望一切最高貴的東西都有皮革那樣的耐久韌性；臂如，羅馬民族性所固有的堅強持久，也許不能算是美滿性格所不可缺少的屬性之一。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.
但是，如果我們要問：是甚麼靈方妙藥使得希臘人，在鼎盛時代，儘管酒神祭衝動和政治衝動非常劇烈，卻不會因爲靜坐參禪，或者因爲窮兵黷武，爲了爭奪世界霸權和世界榮譽，以致精疲力竭；反之，他們獨能製出這種絕妙的佳釀，有如既能激起熱情又能發人深醒的名貴芬醇，——
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.
那麼，我們不得不想起悲劇的偉大力量。它能鼓舞、能淨化、能激發一個民族的全部生機，唯有當我們目擊它在希臘人中間，成爲一種防疾治病的萬靈之藥，成爲最強悍不屈和最順天由命的兩種民族性之間的調和劑，我們才能揣摩到悲劇的最高價值。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.
悲劇吸收了最高的音樂感染力，所以它直接把音樂帶入完美之境，在希臘人如此，在我們也是如此；但是它也一起提供了悲劇神話和悲劇英雄。悲劇英雄象鐵旦族的力士掮起整個醉境的世界，解除了我們的負擔；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 strugglinghero prepares himself by means of his destruction, not by means of his triumphs.
同時，另一方面，憑藉這種悲劇神話，悲劇就能夠通過悲劇英雄，救濟我們於強烈的塵世眷戀，並且親手指點，提醒我們還有一種彼岸的生存和一種更高的快樂；對於這，奮鬥的悲劇英雄早有預感，準備以死亡，不是以勝利，來接受。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.
悲劇，在音樂的普通效果與敏感的酒神祭觀衆之間，樹立一種崇高的象徵——神話，從而使觀衆產生一種幻覺：彷彿音樂不過是描寫神話造型世界的興奮的最高手段。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.
依賴這種高尚的幻覺，音樂就可以使人手舞足蹈，毫無顧慮地放蕩形骸；沒有這種幻覺，音樂本身也不敢這樣放縱。The myth protects us against the music, while on the other hand it alone gives music the highest freedom.
所以，神話一方面使我們免受音樂迷惑，另一方面給予音樂以最大自由。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.音樂也授予悲劇神話以動人的、可信的哲理意義，作爲答禮；否則，不假音樂之助，語言和形象就不能達到這種意境；憑藉音樂，悲劇觀衆尤其親切地預感到：這條通過毀亡和否定的道路，將引向一種最高的快樂，所以他在想象中如聞萬物的深淵對他隱約細語。
