7. -

7. --But, my dear Sir, if _your_ book is not Romanticism, what in the world is? Can the deep hatred of the present, of "reality" and "modern ideas" be pushed farther than has been done in your artist-metaphysics?--which would rather believe in Nothing, or in the devil, than in the "Now"? Does not a radical bass of wrath and annihilative pleasure growl on beneath all your contrapuntal vocal art and aural seduction, a mad determination to oppose all that "now" is, a will which is not so very far removed from practical nihilism and which seems to say: "rather let nothing be true, than that _you_ should be in the right, than that _your_ truth should prevail!" Hear, yourself, my dear Sir Pessimist and art-deifier, with ever so unlocked ears, a single select passage of your own book, that not ineloquent dragon-slayer passage, which may sound insidiously rat-charming to young ears and hearts. What? is not that the true blue romanticist-confession of 1830 under the mask of the pessimism of 1850? After which, of course, the usual romanticist finale at once strikes up,--rupture, collapse, return and prostration before an old belief, before _the_ old God.... What? is not your pessimist book itself a piece of anti-Hellenism and Romanticism, something "equally intoxicating and befogging," a narcotic at all events, ay, a piece of music, of _German_ music? But listen: Let us imagine a rising generation with this undauntedness of vision, with this heroic impulse towards the prodigious, let us imagine the bold step of these dragon-slayers, the proud daring with which they turn their backs on all the effeminate doctrines of optimism, in order "to live resolutely" in the Whole and in the Full: _would it not be necessary_ for the tragic man of this culture, with his self-discipline to earnestness and terror, to desire a new art, _the art of metaphysical comfort,_ tragedy as the Helena belonging to him, and that he should exclaim with Faust: "Und sollt ich nicht, sehnsüchtigster Gewalt, In's Leben ziehn die einzigste Gestalt?"[1] "Would it not be _necessary_?" ... No, thrice no! ye young romanticists: it would _not_ be necessary! But it is very probable, that things may _end_ thus, that _ye_ may end thus, namely "comforted," as it is written, in spite of all self-discipline to earnestness and terror; metaphysically comforted, in short, as Romanticists are wont to end, as _Christians...._ No! ye should first of all learn the art of earthly comfort, ye should learn to _laugh,_ my young friends, if ye are at all determined to remain pessimists: if so, you will perhaps, as laughing ones, eventually send all metaphysical comfortism to the devil--and metaphysics first of all! Or, to say it in the language of that Dionysian ogre, called _Zarathustra_: "Lift up your hearts, my brethren, high, higher! And do not forget your legs! Lift up also your legs, ye good dancers--and better still if ye stand also on your heads! "This crown of the laughter, this rose-garland crown--I myself have put on this crown; I myself have consecrated my laughter. No one else have I found to-day strong enough for this. "Zarathustra the dancer, Zarathustra the light one, who beckoneth with his pinions, one ready for flight, beckoning unto all birds, ready and prepared, a blissfully light-spirited one:-- "Zarathustra the soothsayer, Zarathustra the sooth-laugher, no impatient one, no absolute one, one who loveth leaps and side-leaps: I myself have put on this crown! "This crown of the laughter, this rose-garland crown--to you my brethren do I cast this crown! Laughing have I consecrated: ye higher men, _learn,_ I pray you--to laugh!" _Thus spake Zarathustra_, lxxiii. 17, 18, and 20. SILS-MARIA, OBERENGADIN, _August_ 1886. [1] And shall not I, by mightiest desire, In living shape that sole fair form acquire? SWANWICK, trans. of _Faust._ THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY FROM THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC FOREWORD TO RICHARD WAGNER. In order to keep at a distance all the possible scruples, excitements, and misunderstandings to which the thoughts gathered in this essay will give occasion, considering the peculiar character of our æsthetic publicity, and to be able also to write the introductory remarks with the same contemplative delight, the impress of which, as the petrifaction of good and elevating hours, it bears on every page, I form a conception of the moment when you, my highly honoured friend, will receive this essay; how you, say after an evening walk in the winter snow, will behold the unbound Prometheus on the title-page, read my name, and be forthwith convinced that, whatever this essay may contain, the author has something earnest and impressive to say, and, moreover, that in all his meditations he communed with you as with one present and could thus write only what befitted your presence. You will thus remember that it was at the same time as your magnificent dissertation on Beethoven originated, viz., amidst the horrors and sublimities of the war which had just then broken out, that I collected myself for these thoughts. But those persons would err, to whom this collection suggests no more perhaps than the antithesis of patriotic excitement and æsthetic revelry, of gallant earnestness and sportive delight. Upon a real perusal of this essay, such readers will, rather to their surprise, discover how earnest is the German problem we have to deal with, which we properly place, as a vortex and turning-point, in the very midst of German hopes. Perhaps, however, this same class of readers will be shocked at seeing an æsthetic problem taken so seriously, especially if they can recognise in art no more than a merry diversion, a readily dispensable court-jester to the "earnestness of existence": as if no one were aware of the real meaning of this confrontation with the "earnestness of existence." These earnest ones may be informed that I am convinced that art is the highest task and the properly metaphysical activity of this life, as it is understood by the man, to whom, as my sublime protagonist on this path, I would now dedicate this essay. BASEL, _end of the year_ 1871. THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY.