悲劇的誕生The Birth Of Tragedy 第61期:希臘人的康莊大道

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.

酒神的真理便佔據了整個神話領域，當作它的知識之象徵，並且宣告這一措施。一半靠公開的悲劇慶節，一半靠隱閉的戲劇性祕儀祭，但是往往披着舊時神話的外衣。

What was the power that rescued Prometheus from his vultures and transformed myth into a vehicle of Dionysian wisdom?

是甚麼力量拯救普密修斯於魔爪之下，把這個神話變成表達酒神智慧的工具呢？

It was the Heraclean power of music, which reached its highest form in tragedy and endowed myth with a new and profound significance.

是力士赫拉克勒斯似的音樂之力量：音樂，在悲劇中達到最高表現時，便能夠以一種新的最深刻的意義來解釋神話；

Such, as we have said earlier, is the mighty prerogative of music.

這一特徵我們認爲是音樂的最大功能。

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.

因爲每個神話總有這樣的命運：它會逐漸潛入所謂忠實的狹隘範圍內，於是後世某些人竟然把它當作有史可稽的一件事實。

And the Greeks at that time were already well on their way to reinterpreting their childhood dream, cleverly and arbitrarily, into pragmatic childhood history.

現在，希臘人已經踏上康莊大道，可以把他們全部神話的青春夢想巧妙地、任意地翻成一種實用史料的青春期史。

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.

因爲，這是宗教之災亡往往必經之路，即，在清規戒律的嚴厲而合理的監視之下，宗教的神話前提就被系統化而成爲歷史事件的總結，於是人便開始小心翼翼地維護神話的威信，但同時又竭力反對神話的自然發展和成長；因此，人們對神話的熱情逐漸消滅，宗教對歷史根據的追求便代之而興。現在，新生的酒神據希臘神話，宰割裂屍原爲宙斯的私生子，希拉嫉妒，命鐵旦神族把他肢解，雅典娜取出他的心臟還給宙斯。宙斯吞下這心臟，後復與德墨脫地母產一子，名爲酒神宰割裂屍，以紀念死者。

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.

音樂的精靈便抓住了垂死的神話；在他手上神話又若枯木逢春，百花齊放，呈現出前所未有的顏色，發出使人嚮往超自然世界的芬芳。

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.

然而，最後一度色香煥發之後，神話便驀然萎謝，殘葉凋零，不久之後，那些玩世不恭的古人像魯奇安（Luoian）之流再撿起隨風飄散凋殘褪色的落紅。

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.

通過悲劇，神話取得了意味深長的內容和最有表現力的形式；象一個受傷的英雄，它再次掙扎起來，它的全部殘餘精力，它垂死時的泰然自若，在它的眼睛裏發出最後的強烈的光輝。