悲劇的誕生The Birth Of Tragedy 第110期:古希臘人永遠是孩子

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!

至於希臘悲劇，——當然今日我們只能看到劇本，——我甚至指出：因爲劇情與臺詞並不完全一致，我們不難誤會，以爲悲劇是淺薄無聊的，其實並非如此；因此我們就設想它的效果比古人所指證的更爲淺薄。因爲我們容易忘記：詩人在語言方面達不到的那種神話的最高淨化和理想境界，他作爲創造的音樂家隨時可以達到！

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.

當然，我們必須苦心鑽研去恢復悲劇音樂效果原有的感染力，才能體會到真正悲劇所特有的無比的一些快慰。

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.

然而，甚至這種悲劇音樂的感染力，也除非我們變成了古希臘人才能感受：因爲古希臘音樂在其全部發展史上，同我們所喜聞樂聽的無限豐富的現代音樂比較起來，我相信，在我們聽來也不過象年輕靦腆的音樂天才初露才華的歌曲罷了。

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.

埃及祭司們曾說過：古希臘人永遠是孩子，在悲劇藝術方面他們也不過是孩子，他們不知道一種多麼崇高的玩具由他們親手創造出來，於是——被破壞了。