悲剧的诞生The Birth Of Tragedy 第61期:希腊人的康庄大道

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.

酒神的真理便占据了整个神话领域，当作它的知识之象征，并且宣告这一措施。一半靠公开的悲剧庆节，一半靠隐闭的戏剧性秘仪祭，但是往往披着旧时神话的外衣。

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

是甚么力量拯救普密修斯于魔爪之下，把这个神话变成表达酒神智慧的工具呢？

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乐之力量：音乐，在悲剧中达到最高表现时，便能够以一种新的最深刻的意义来解释神话；

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

这一特征我们认为是音乐的最大功能。

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.

因为每个神话总有这样的命运：它会逐渐潜入所谓忠实的狭隘范围内，于是后世某些人竟然把它当作有史可稽的一件事实。

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

现在，希腊人已经踏上康庄大道，可以把他们全部神话的青春梦想巧妙地、任意地翻成一种实用史料的青春期史。

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.

因为，这是宗教之灾亡往往必经之路，即，在清规戒律的严厉而合理的监视之下，宗教的神话前提就被系统化而成为历史事件的总结，于是人便开始小心翼翼地维护神话的威信，但同时又竭力反对神话的自然发展和成长；因此，人们对神话的热情逐渐消灭，宗教对历史根据的追求便代之而兴。现在，新生的酒神据希腊神话，宰割裂尸原为宙斯的私生子，希拉嫉妒，命铁旦神族把他肢解，雅典娜取出他的心脏还给宙斯。宙斯吞下这心脏，后复与德墨脱地母产一子，名为酒神宰割裂尸，以纪念死者。

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.

音乐的精灵便抓住了垂死的神话；在他手上神话又若枯木逢春，百花齐放，呈现出前所未有的颜色，发出使人向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，最后一度色香焕发之后，神话便蓦然萎谢，残叶凋零，不久之后，那些玩世不恭的古人像鲁奇安（Luoian）之流再捡起随风飘散凋残褪色的落红。

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.

通过悲剧，神话取得了意味深长的内容和最有表现力的形式；象一个受伤的英雄，它再次挣扎起来，它的全部残余精力，它垂死时的泰然自若，在它的眼睛里发出最后的强烈的光辉。