Living Poets

{{DISPLAYTITLE:Nietzsche, ''Birth of Tragedy'' 12 (Translation R. Geuss/ R. Spiers, Cambridge 1999)}}
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So lange der einzige Ordner und Walter des Alls, der Nous, noch vom künstlerischen Schaffen ausgeschlossen war, war noch alles in einem chaotischen Urbrei beisammen; so musste Euripides urtheilen, so musste er die “trunkenen” Dichter als der erste “Nüchterne” verurteilen. Das, was Sophokles von Aeschylus gesagt hat, er thue das Rechte, obschon unbewusst, war gewiss nicht im Sinne des Euripides gesagt: der nur so viel hätte gelten lassen, dass Aeschylus, weil er unbewusst schaffe, das Unrechte schaffe.
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As long as ''nous'', the sole orderer and ruler of the world, remained shut out from artistic creation, everything was together in a chaotic primal soup; this is how Euripides must have judged things; this is why he, the first ‘sober’ man, was bound to condemn the ‘drunken’ poets. What Sophocles said about Aeschylus, namely that he did the right thing, although he did it unconsciously, was certainly not meant in Euripides’ sense, who would only have allowed that what Aeschylus created was wrong ''because'' he created unconsciously.
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|editor=Sarah Burges Watson
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{{#set:Short title=Nietzsche, ''Birth of Tragedy'' 12}}

[[Category:Aeschylus Collections]]