悲劇的誕生The Birth Of Tragedy 第75期:一切都是爲激情做準備

Having now recognized that Euripides failed in founding the drama solely on Apollinian elements and that,

instead, his anti Dionysian tendency led him towards inartistic naturalism,

所以，我們既已詳細知道，歐裏庇德斯想把戲劇只放在夢境因素的基礎上而沒有成功，他的非夢境傾向反流爲非藝術的自然主義傾向，

we are ready to deal with the phenomenon of aesthetic Socratism.

那末，我們現在要進一步探討歐裏庇德斯的審美蘇格拉底主義的性質：

Its supreme law may be stated as follows: "Whatever is to be beautiful must also be sensible" --a parallel to the Socratic notion that knowledge alone makes men virtuous.

他的最高審美原則是“唯知爲美”，這可以媲美蘇格拉底的格言“唯知是德”。

Armed with this canon, Euripides examined every aspect of drama--diction, character, dramatic structure, choral music--and made them fit his specifications.

歐裏庇德斯拿着這個標準在手上，來衡量戲曲的一切成份——語言，性格，戲曲結構，歌隊音樂——而按照這個原則訂正它們。

What in Euripidean, as compared with Sophoclean tragedy, has been so frequently censured as poetic lack and retrogression is actually the straight result of the poet's incisive critical gifts, his audacious personality.

我們在習慣上往往認爲，歐裏庇德斯的詩比諸索福克勒斯的詩是缺點和退步，而這點多半是他的深入的批判過程和大膽的判斷之結果。

The Euripidean prologue may seen to illustrate the efficacy of that rationalistic method.

歐裏庇德斯的序幕，可以作爲這種合理主義方法的後果的例證。

Nothing could be more at odds with our dramaturgic notions than the prologue in the drama of Euripides.

再沒有甚麼比歐裏庇德斯的悲劇序幕更違反今日的舞臺技巧了。

To have a character appear at the beginning of the play, tell us who he is, what preceded the action,

在一劇的開始，總有一個人物登場來自報家門，說明劇情因由，

what has happened so far, even what is about to happen in the course of the play--a modern writer for the theater would reject all this as a wanton and unpardonable dismissal of the element of suspense.

以前曾發生甚麼事情，甚至以後在劇情發展中將會發生甚麼事情；現代劇作家定必認爲這種手法是惡意的，不可饒恕的破壞懸宕效果。

Now that everyone knows what is going to happen, who will wait to see it happen?

不錯，我們既然知道不久將發生的一切事情，誰肯耐心等待它實現呢？

Especially since, in this case, the relation is by no means that of a prophetic dream to a later event.

何況一個預言的夢總是同後來發生的事實吻合，這樣的因果關係決不會使人興奮的。

But Euripides reasoned quite otherwise.

然而，歐裏庇德斯卻完全從另一角度來考慮。

According to him, the effect of tragedy never resided in epic suspense, in a teasing uncertainty as to what was going to happen next.

他的悲劇效果絕不是靠史詩的懸宕。靠引起你對現在與未來之事猜疑莫決的興趣，

It resided, rather, in those great scenes of lyrical rhetoric in which the passion and dialectic of the protagonist reached heights of eloquence.

它倒是靠雄辨和抒情的重大場面，在這種場面，主角的激情和辯才揚起波瀾壯闊的洪潮。

Everything portended pathos, not action.

一切都是爲激情，而不是爲劇情作好準備。