悲劇的誕生The Birth Of Tragedy 第12期:凡事適可而止
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.
這種個性原則的崇拜，作爲一般強制的道德律來說，只有一條規律——個性規律，也就是說，守住個人的範圍，亦即希臘人所謂適度。And so we find that the aesthetic necessity of beauty is accompanied by the imperatives, "Know thyself," and "Nothing too much."
德行之神阿波羅，要求他的信徒們凡事適可而止，爲了有節有度，則須有自知之明。
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.
所以，除了審美的要求以外，還提出“認識自己”和“慎勿過分”這些要求；同時，自矜與過份被視爲非夢神境界的真正惡魔，從而是夢神以前的原始鐵旦時代的特徵，夢神以外的蠻邦世界的特徵。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.
普羅密修斯因爲以鐵旦神族之愛來愛人類，所以應該被蒼鷹啄食；奧狄普斯因爲解答斯芬克斯之謎的過分聰明，所以應該陷入紛亂的罪惡旋渦。狄爾斐之神阿波羅是這樣的解釋希臘古史的。
