Cen ae eS ae ere a} o> eth ei ee ar ae Coes Pee a wk aes) AS ANE He MM os Satnoee 2 ARR e on Boe Mii PETMAN Aa ahi Le) Pus 1 Le eee ee Ce) " eee iets al fot |e ek ce | . hl ahs ff Sa tet Foe eg) ape erodes ety eee) bs ee ee eee » Lr ee ee a a ihe Co - Es aay of Virginia Library : ; _ A2 192 ‘. ee ‘. homo and The birth os A mL [rr. 4-2 ne aera eae eo et ae se IN MEMORY-OF DAN: AND’ KATHRYN » NORTON f i hs f 4 : f , Mi f i Ly i} . bf 5 b| i i ‘ y , 4 ie 5 ae a H 7 i i a ; Sf iY ¢ a] — 5 -—~ wm re Fe 2 ¢* 7— ae. Mey, ae eS 2 G TI ee Tr Lo ener me ae eared ; 4 ! yt ee eee nr Fel Be ee PAY en eee Bead et ee AE ee ee Sebi hte ttt De Ce at the te e+ Ay eeAe Ud : ro ae Oe a tite | tah ea eee i } Y } a) 1 e f Ki ! Ki i : § 5 5 4 v ie i if 1 Re re hn See nl Ses tetarate va inrlar inl PE MOTT TET, ea : : hers a Dv a ~—_ x -~ .Ty 4 a . > amie “ EN aad oi * att SIMs s EO en en are ete i J 5 % ¢ : By wevl rate en nae eee le I TE Dee ea ae ee tee ee ne Phe ae ty “Wweaa Sa ee Ee SO a fentaenns a 4 } % 4 Sd rf : Ne ke | Fo to ht Re tic herettretel teeters lene ae ne - =% ope ait: Fe oe Nee he al al y a= ee I THE MODERN LIBRA Re OF THE WORLD’S BEST BOOKS — eee act EGGE HOMO THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY ee Ce (are gasp a ee oe x. : aA AY ay t 44 , y ' mf x )a att dit Turn to the end of this vol- ume for a complete list of titles in the Modern Library i } 1 f ' Hl f i 4 7 t re i { i a = I aD Sea each trieen iene ato od ~ ee, Fe i am er)a ve, “ee 7 boy =") | | | | | | | eee AND HE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY BY PRED Ren NITE 2 SiG is ee TRANSLATED By CELEB T OaN 2P3 i ADIMAN wy THE MODERN LIBRARY YORK PUBLISHERS ; NEW SS Sn Sees ‘ CARNE ey ao Be ate hate te led ee et red ae Nn a as — oe ee ae = ee ae en Ee bene eo Ree ae wd ene Fo Se CS age ek IONE NR oa nn ee ee ee a} aa / Copyright, 1927)» by THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC. ————<— ———— First Edition, 1927 : TCE re a oe ne a be bee eS RE a mt, St ae heme bese ene ” a a ie ; LENS a na wae wes Sats arte brevis tania petites ¢ « ‘ Manufactured in the United States of ape for The Modern Library, Inc., by H. Wolf a Par) ” osPREFACE I IN view of the fact that before long I must con- front my fellow-men with the very greatest demand that has ever yet been made upon them, it seems to me indispensable to declare here who and what I am. As a matter of fact, this should be pretty well known already, for I have not allowed myself to be “without witness.” But the disparity between the greatness of my task and the smallness of my contemporaries is made plain by the fact that peo- ple have neither heard me nor seen me. I live on my own credit—perhaps it is only a prejudice to suppose that I am living at all. All I have to do is to speak to any one of the “scholars” who visit the Ober-Engadine in the summer, in order to con- vince myself that I am not alive. . . . Under these circumstances, it is a duty—and one against which my customary reserve, and still more the pride of my instincts, rebel—to say: “Listen! for I am such and such a person. For Heaven’s sake do not con- fuse me with any one else! V SE { a RR rn es paper ee gare a a ra Sams - é ee le oe — . . arb ~ satans tar niente cetera Se anata a ‘ if- ae Serta a merit. 7 ‘ ity. a Pee nO re Ne i > = Fh MSE rie eee tae ar het ernaeite ie dee eben anata DN Da oe Sean eg ae 4 2535 PREFACE 2 For instance, I am in no way a bugbear, a moral monster. It is true that my nature is in direct con- trast to the sort of man who has hitherto been hon- ored as virtuous. But between ourselves, it seems to me that this is precisely a reason for pride. I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, and I would sooner be a satyr than a saint. But I merely ask that you read this book! Perhaps I have here succeeded in expressing this contrast in a cheerful and sympathetic manner. Perhaps the work may have no other purpose. The very last thing I should promise to accom- plish would be to “improve” mankind. I set up no new idols: I only want old idols to learn what it means to have feet of clay. To overthrow idols (the name I give to ideals) is very much more like my business. In proportion as we have invented an ideal world we have deprived reality of its value, its meaning, and its truth... . The “true world” and the “apparent world”—in plain English, the fictitious world and reality. . . . Hitherto the lie of the ideal has been the curse of reality; by means of it man’s most basic instincts have become menda- cious and false: so much so that those values have come to be worshiped which are most exactly an-" tagonistic to the ones which would ensure man’s prosperity, his future, and his great right to that future.PREFACE 3 He who can breathe in the air of my writings knows that it is the air of the heights, that it is bracing. A man must be formed for it, otherwise there is no little danger of chill. The ice is near, the loneliness is terrible—but how quiet everything is in the sunshine! how freely one breathes! how much, one feels, lies beneath one! Philosophy, as I have understood and experienced it hitherto, is a voluntary retirement into a region of ice and moun- tain-peaks—the search for all that is strange and questionable in existence, everything upon which, hitherto, morality has set its ban. Through long experience, derived from such wanderings in the forbidden land, I learned to look at the causes of mankind’s moralizing and idealizing in a manner very different from that which may seem ordinarily desirable. The secret history of philosophers, the psychology of their great names, was revealed to me. How much truth can a mind endure? How much truth will it dare? These questions became for me more and more the essential criterion. Error (the belief in the ideal) is not blindness; error is cowardice. . . . Every conquest, all progress in knowledge, is the result of courage, of hardness towards one’s self, of cleanliness towards one’s self. I do not refute ideals; I merely draw on my cloves in their presence. . . . Nitimur in vetitum: by this “_— Soa a et Se Se rat ee te Sayre PO ee ene en es le ee abn me ¥ in ; ‘net ee ae ee ee arte es ‘ute (8-3 57 ee oe Eee eee enny s ) | 4 ! | | i. f | Sse RO antral oii hie a So Sek SPE Be ere lect earns wn eae ead I Vj ~ or aad Pe Pig ss Vili PREFACE sign I shall conquer; for that which has hitherto been most stringently forbidden has always been the Truth. 4 Among my writings, my Zarathustra holds a spe- ‘cial place. With it, I gave my fellow-men the greatest gift that has ever been bestowed upon them. This book, whose voice resounds across the ages, is not only the loftiest book in the world, the verita- ble book of mountain air—the whole phenomenon, mankind, lies at an incalculable distance beneath it —pbut it is also the deepest book, born of the inmost fullness of truth; an inexhaustible well, into which no pitcher descends without rising again laden with gold and goodness. No “prophet” speaks here, no horrible hybrids of sickness and the Will to Power, called by men founders of religions. If a man would not do terrible wrong to his own wisdom, he must above all give proper heed to the tones—the halcyon tones—that come from Zarathustra: “The most silent words are harbingers of the storm: thoughts that come on dove’s feet lead the world. “The figs fall from the trees; they are good and sweet; and, in falling, the red skins of them break. A north wind am I to ripe figs. “Thus, like figs, do these doctrines fall for you, my friends: imbibe now their juice and their sweetPREFACE substance! It is autumn all around, and clear sky, and afternoon.” * No fanatic speaks to you here; this is not a “ser- mon”; no faith is demanded. From out an infinite fullness of light and depth of joy, drop by drop, my words issue—the tempo of these discourses is slow and measured. Such things are only for the most elect; it is an unparalleled privilege to be a listener here; not every one who likes can have ears to hear Zarathustra. Then shall we not say of Zarathustra, that he is a seducer? . . . But what, indeed, does he himself say, the first time he returns to his solitude? Just the opposite of what any “Sage,” “Saint,” “Redeemer,” or other decadent would say. . . . Not only his words, but he him- self is different from them. “T now go alone, my disciples! Ye also now go away, and alone! So will I have it. “Verily, I advise you: depart from me, and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he hath deceived you. “The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends. “One requiteth a teacher badly if one remain merely a scholar. And why will ye not pluck at my wreath? * Commons’ Trans., Modern Library Ed., p. 97. wr - 4 - , a we yf aon ty fea ry! ms - we 2 hae er ON. ee ne Me ie Cer haar rr tL eal cat aati OS A Oe ne a SS _— Se NI iM " tan St de} a3 as ; i t 1 A ) i i } i r if | | b ; a ie ; f° ; ii a ‘ : ie 7 ae ek f m ee ie i Bhs SED - ~~ Co a ry . “ We PREFACE “Ve yvenerate me; but what if your veneration should some day collapse? Take heed lest a statue crush you! “Ye say, ye believe in Zarathustra? But of what account is Zarathustra? Ye are my believers: but of what account are all believers? “Ve had not yet sought yourselves: then did ye find me. So do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account. “Now do I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when ye have all denied me, will I return unto you.” * FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. * Commons’ Trans., Mod. Lib. Ed., pp. 91-92.On this perfect day, when everything is ripening, and not only the grapes are getting brown, a ray of sunshine fell across my life: I looked behind me, I looked before me, and never did I see so many good things all at once. Not in vain have I buried my four-and-fortieth year to-day; I had the right to bury it—what was vital in it has been saved and is immortal. The first book of the Transvaluation of all Values, The Songs of Zarathustra, The Twilight of the Idols, my attempt to philosophize with the hammer—all are the gifts of this year, even of its last quarter—How could I help being thankful to the whole of my life? And so I am going to tell myself the story of that life. 7 qi : ane a ee ait AeEITe I crn nN fat mea pee en ete ll aaa Te aia ee at ee el hema a P pal % : 4 4 : P “ i ; x if 4 | a 4 a) 1 4 f i hy f af y it ¢ a} 2 Ret ee a terete ge ie | 4 E Vie i ie : HI f ( B ae ie if =a SQUIRES ee a Aa te ee _ ae = “4-7 Ai sional atiealiciin ae teECCE HOMO HOW ONE BECOMES WHAT ONE IS WHY I AM SO WISE I Tue happiness of my existence, its unique char- acter perhaps, lies in its fatefulness: expressing if in the form of a riddle, as my own father I am already dead, as my own mother I still live and grow old. This double origin, taken as it were fron) the highest and lowest rungs of the ladder of life, at once a decadence and a beginning, this, if any- thing, explains that neutrality, that freedom from partisanship with regard to the general problem of life, which perhaps distinguishes me. I am more sensitive to the first indications of ascent and de- scent than any man that has yet lived. In this do- main I am a master par excellence—I know both sides, for I am both sides. My father died in his thirty-sixth year: he was delicate, lovable, and mor- bid, like one fated for but a short life—a gracious reminder of life rather than life itself. In the same 3 ' \ Peter = MD A ee Re lS ete te eee a Lae + Slane ei v eom at nN nN Ne ne ey a rate Rr ee se iara be fan} st } - Te sear pete heerlen coe eA ? ‘aa Rn Ae ne cape IE NERS ean SI ie a 4 BRecE HOMO year that his life declined mine also declined: in my thirty-sixth year my vitality reached its lowest point—I still lived, but I could not see three paces before me. At that time—it was the year 1879—I resigned my professorship at Basel, lived through the summer like a shadow in St. Moritz, and spent the following winter, the most sunless of my life, like a shadow in Naumburg. I was then at my lowest ebb. The Wanderer and His Shadow was the product of this period. There is no doubt that I was familiar with shadows then. The following winter, my first winter in Genoa, brought with it that sweetness and spirituality which is almost in- separable from extreme poverty of blood and mus- cle, in the shape of The Dawn of Day. The per- fect brightness and cheerfulness, the intellectual ex- uberance even, that this work reflects, coincide, in my case, not only with the most profound bodily weakness, but also with an excess of suffering. In the midst of the agony caused by a seventy-two hour headache and violent attacks of nausea, I was pos- sessed of extraordinary dialectical clearness, and in utter cold blood I then thought out things, for which, in my more healthy moments, I am not enough of a climber, not subtle enough, not cold enough. My readers may know to what extent I consider dialectic a symptom of decadence, as, for example, in the most famous case of all—that of Socrates. All the morbid disturbances of the intel- lect, even that semistupor which follows fever, areECCE HOMO to this day strangers to me; and to inform myself concerning their nature and frequency, I had to resort to learned works. My circulation is slow. No one has ever been able to detect fever in me. A doctor who treated me for some time as a nerve patient finally declared: “No! there’s nothing the matter with your nerves; I myself am the nervous one.” They have been unable to discover any local degeneration in me, or any organic stomach trou- ble, however much I may have suffered from pro- found weakness of the gastric system as the result of general exhaustion. Even my eye trouble, which at times approached dangerously near blindness, was only an effect and not a cause; for, with every improvement of my general bodily health came a corresponding increase in my power of vision. An all too long series of years meant recovery to me. But, sad to say, it also meant relapse, breakdown, periods of decadence. After this, need I say that I am experienced in questions of decadence? If know them inside and out. Even that filigree art of prehension and comprehension in general, that fecling for nuances, that psychology of “seeing what is around the corner,’”’ and whatever else I may be able to do, was first learnt then, and is the specific gift of that period during which everything in me was subtilized—observation itself, together with all the organs of observation. To view healthier con- cepts and values from the standpoint of the sick, and conversely to view the secret work of the in- : =

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