مولد التراجيديا

Whatever may lie at the bottom of this doubtful book must be a question of the first rank and attractiveness, moreover a deeply personal question,--in proof thereof observe the time in which it originated, _in spite_ of which it originated, the exciting period of the Franco-German war of 1870-71. While the thunder of the battle of Wörth rolled over Europe, the ruminator and riddle-lover, who had to be the parent of this book, sat somewhere in a nook of the Alps, lost in riddles and ruminations, consequently very much concerned and unconcerned at the same time, and wrote down his meditations on the _Greeks,_--the kernel of the curious and almost inaccessible book, to which this belated prologue (or epilogue) is to be devoted. A few weeks later: and he found himself under the walls of Metz, still wrestling with the notes of interrogation he had set down concerning the alleged "cheerfulness" of the Greeks and of Greek art; till at last, in that month of deep suspense, when peace was debated at Versailles, he too attained to peace with himself, and, slowly recovering from a disease brought home from the field, made up his mind definitely regarding the "Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of _Music."_--From music? Music and Tragedy? Greeks and tragic music? Greeks and the Art-work of pessimism? A race of men, well-fashioned, beautiful, envied, life-inspiring, like no other race hitherto, the Greeks--indeed? The Greeks were _in need_ of tragedy? Yea--of art? Wherefore--Greek art?... We can thus guess where the great note of interrogation concerning the value of existence had been set. Is pessimism _necessarily_ the sign of decline, of decay, of failure, of exhausted and weakened instincts?--as was the case with the Indians, as is, to all appearance, the case with us "modern" men and Europeans? Is there a pessimism of _strength_?…