The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music

by Friedrich Nietzsche

But he points out that, even when apprised of this dire wisdom, the Greeks, far from wanting to die, embraced life even more enthusiastically than before. How did they manage such a feat, and why, in any case, is it to be counted as a feat, as opposed to the absurdity of continuing with an existence which one knows can only be painful? The answer comes, as we have already seen, in two stages. First, the Greeks of Homer’s time lived in order to entertain the gods: ‘The same impulse that calls [Apolline] art into existence, the complement and apotheosis of existence, also created the Olympian world with which the Hellenic “will” held up a transfiguring mirror to itself.’ Because the gods enjoy the spectacle of men suffering so much, noble men are eager to oblige: ‘We might now reverse Silenus’ wisdom to say of [the heroic Greeks]: “the worst thing of all for them would be to die soon, the second worst to die at all.”’ And Nietzsche immediately goes on to cite Achilles’ lament over the brevity of existence.