Chapter 2 Creature and Creator
But consider carefully: where does the animal cease, where does human being begin! That human being who is nature’s sole concern! As long as someone desires life as they desire happiness, they have not elevated their gaze above the horizon of the animal, the only difference being that they desire with more awareness what the animal craves out of blind im- pulse. But for the greatest part of our lives this is the way it is for all of us: usually we do not transcend animality, we ourselves are those creatures who seem to suffer senselessly. But there are moments when we understand this; then the clouds break, and we perceive how we, along with all nature, are pressing onwards towards the human as towards something that stands high above us. In this sudden brightness we gaze with a shudder around us and behind us: here the refined beasts of prey run, and we run in their midst.1 ⸪
This chapter examines the naturalistic satyr-world of the creature conjoined with the human creation of the highest concepts affirming the value of life. The original model of the satyr is found to have transmitted the chthonic wis- dom of nature, a role taken over by the satyr-chorus in satyr plays and then by the Chorus, considered as a character in Attic tragedy. As a spectator, the self is placed in question by the Chorus, concerning whether it is possible to evaluate life affirmatively in that moment despite the extreme events repre- sented on stage. In attempting to respond affirmatively to this request within the boundaries of the tragic worldview, the self is under the onus to determine the value of existence both in terms of its immediacy and in relation to eter- nity, and to transmit the sense of veracity of actuality which accompanies the event. The highest form of such a response is found in the work of the dithy- rambic dramatist, who transmits language which is grounded in the event of
1 se 5, 209–210.
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1 Satyr and Chorus
In an ancient vase painting, Dionysus is depicted sitting among the satyrs. The satyrs dance frantically in a trance but Dionysus remains calm. Dionysus among the satyrs is the model of the complete philosopher.2
Nietzsche’s early works clearly evoke the ‘strange mixture’ of the mild and gentle teacher contemplating eternity in the midst of the whirling immediacy of life, as described above.3 As an alternative to disinterested contemplation,
2 Elli Lambridi, Introduction to Philosophy (Athens: Academy of Athens, 2004), 36 (in Greek), trans. Ioannis Georganas. The capacity to affirmatively combine the coexistence of wild or naked nature and the calm judge and legislator in thinking as depicted in Ancient Greek art; for example, on vases in Ancient Agora Museum, Athens and the Louvre, see Cornelia Isler- Kerényi, Dionysos in Archaic Greece. An Understanding through Images, trans. Wilfred G.E. Watson (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007); Cornelia Isler-Kerényi, Dionysos in Classical Athens. An Understanding through Images, trans. Anna Beerens (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2010). See ppp 2, 9, where Nietzsche presents a similar model. See also ptg 7, 62 where Nietzsche, with reference to Heraclitus describes the philosopher-artist as ‘standing contemplatively above and at the same time actively within’ the work. Cf. bge 25; bge 26; bge 28; eh, ‘Clever’, 4; eh, Preface, 2, ti, ‘Ancients’, 4, 5; eh, ‘z’. For Nietzsche’s descriptions of the satyr see especially bt 2, 20; bt 7, 39; bt 8, 41; asc 4, 7; dw 4, 136. Nietzsche mentions Genelli’s ‘Dionysus among the Muses’ (Musen mit Dionysus in der Mitte), in a letter to Rohde, bvn-1872, 239. The relationship of Dionysus and the Muses is generally accepted, see remark on Creuzer’s description in the Introduction above, and Mandel, ‘Genelli and Wagner’, 222. Nietzsche discusses the associa- tion of Dionysus and the Muses in kgw ii/5, 384–386, 399. Melpomene, the muse of tr agedy, can be taken as standing for the intoxicated poetic state of the dithyrambic dr amatist, Nietzsche refers to Dionysos Melpomenos in kgw ii/5, 501. Diodorus, Lib Hist. 4.3 mentions the association of Dionysus and the Muses [Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, trans. C.H. Oldfather (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1963)]; Pausanius, Desc. Greece 1, 5 men- tions an association with Melpomenus [Pausanius, Description of Greece, Volume i, trans. W.H.S. Jones (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1918)]. 3 bt 1, 17; bt 5, 30–32; bt 8, 44–45. The early works argue that what was once regarded as the ‘will-less contemplation’ or ‘pure subjective willing’ of aesthetic experience or wisdom does in fact continually coexist with the non-aesthetic or nature and is the human cre- ative expression of nature in relative degrees of affirmation. At best, art or philosophy is a clear expression of an affirmative relationship with nature, expressing coexistence at the