|
PARERGA AND PARALIPOMENA: SHORT PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS |
|
[b]CHAPTER 18: Some Mythological Observations[/b]
§ 196
It may be a consequence of the primary and original relationship of all the beings of this phenomenal world by means of their unity in the thing-in-itself; at all events, it is a fact that collectively they bear a similar type and, in the case of all of them, certain laws are laid down as the same, if only in a general way they are adequately comprehended. From this it is easy to see that not only the most heterogeneous things can be mutually explained or made clear, but also striking allegories are found even in descriptions where they were not intended. Goethe's incomparably beautiful tale of the green serpent affords us an exquisite example of this. Every reader feels almost compelled to look for an allegorical meaning to it. And so immediately after the tale was published, this was undertaken most seriously and zealously and in many different ways, to the great amusement of the poet who, in this instance, had had no allegory in mind. An account of this is found in the Studien zu Goethes Werken, 1849 by Duntzer. Moreover, this was known to me long ago through personal statements from Goethe. The fable of Aesop owes its origin to that universal analogy and typical identity of things, and it is due to this that the historical can become allegorical and the allegorical historical.
More than anything else, however, the mythology of the Greeks has from the earliest times provided material for allegorical explanations and interpretations. For it invites one to this by furnishing patterns for the graphic demonstration of practically every fundamental idea. In fact it contains to a certain extent the archetypes of all things and relations which, precisely as such, always and everywhere make their appearance. It has originated actually from the playful urge of the Greeks to personify everything; and so even in the earliest times, in fact by Hesiod himself, those myths were interpreted allegorically. For instance, it is simply a moral allegory when he enumerates (Theogony, II. 211 ff.) the children of night and shortly afterwards (II. 226 ff.) those of Eris, namely effort, exertion, injury, [1] hunger, pain, conflict, murder, quarrelling, lying, injustice, dishonesty, harm, and the oath. Again, his description of personified night and day, of sleep and death, is physical allegory (II. 746-65).
For every cosmological, and even metaphysical, system it will be possible, for the reason stated, to find in mythology an allegory. In general we have to regard most myths as the expressions of truths that are dimly divined rather than of those that are clearly conceived. For those early and original Greeks were just like Goethe in his youth; they were absolutely incapable of expressing their ideas except in metaphors and similes. On the other hand, I must dismiss with Aristotle's rebuff: [x] (sed ea, quae mythice blaterantur, non est operae pretium serio et accurate considerare), [2] Metaphysics, II. 4, the serious and laboured explanation, worked out by Creuzer with endless prolixity and tormenting tedium and verbosity, that mythology is the depository of physical and metaphysical truths which have been intentionally stored therein. But here Aristotle also appears as the very opposite of Plato who likes to concern himself with myths, yet in an allegorical way.
And so the following attempts of mine at allegorical interpretations of a few Greek myths may be taken in the sense I have explained.
§ 197
In the first great fundamental characteristics of the system of the gods, we can see an allegory of the highest ontological and cosmological principles. Uranus is space, the first condition of all that exists and hence the first procreator with Gaea, the bearer of things. Kronos is time. He enfeebles and emasculates the procreative principle; time annihilates every procreative force or, more precisely, the capacity to produce new forms; the primary generation of living species ceases after the first world-period. Zeus, who is withdrawn from the voracity of his father, is matter; it alone eludes the mighty force of time which destroys all else; it persists and is permanent. But from it all things proceed; Zeus is the father of gods and men.
Now for some more detail: Uranus does not allow the children he has begotten with mother earth to see the light, but conceals them in the bowels of the earth (Hesiod, Theogony, II.156 ff.). This may be applied to nature's first animal products which we come across only in the fossil state. But in the bones of the megatheria and mastodons we can just as well see the giants whom Zeus had hurled down into the underworld; in fact even in the eighteenth century it was said that in them the bones of the fallen angels were recognized. But there actually seems to underlie the Theogony of Hesiod an obscure notion of the first changes of the globe and of the conflict between the oxydized surface capable of life and the ungovernable forces of nature that are driven by it into the interior and control the oxydizable substances.
Further, Kronos, the crafty and wily, [x] emasculates Uranus through cunning. This may be interpreted by saying that time, which steals over and gets the better of everything, and secretly takes away from us one thing after another, finally deprived even heaven, which with mother earth, i.e. with nature, created things, of the power originally to produce new forms. But those already created continue to exist as species in time. Kronos, however, swallows up his own children; as time no longer produces species, but turns out merely individuals, she gives birth simply to mortal beings. Zeus alone escapes from this fate; matter is permanent. But at the same time, heroes and sages are immortal. The following is a more detailed sequence of the foregoing events. After heaven and earth, i.e. nature, have lost their power of original creation which produced new forms, such power is transformed to Aphrodite who springs from the foam of Uranus's amputated genitals that had fallen into the sea and who is just the sexual production of mere individuals for the maintenance of existing species; since now new ones can no longer come into existence. For this purpose, Eros and Himeros arise as the aider and abettor of Aphrodite (Theogony, II.173-201).
§ 198
The connection, indeed the unity, of human nature with animals and the rest of nature, and consequently of the microcosm with the macrocosm, is expressed in the puzzling and mysterious sphinx, the centaurs, the Ephesian Artemis with the many different animal forms placed under her innumerable breasts, just as it is seen also in the Egyptian figures with human bodies and animal heads, and in the Indian Ganesha. Finally, we see it also in the Ninevitical bulls and lions with human heads which remind us of the Avatar as man-lion.
§ 199
The Iapetides exhibit the four basic qualities of human character together with their attendant sufferings. Atlas, the patient one, must bear. Menoetius, the valiant one, is overpowered and hurled to perdition. Prometheus, the prudent and clever one, is put in chains, in other words, is impeded in his activity, and the vulture, i.e. sorrow, gnaws at his heart. Epimetheus, the thoughtless and heedless one, is punished by his own folly.
Human foresight is quite properly personified in Prometheus, the thought for the morrow, an advantage that man has over the animal. Therefore Prometheus has the gift of prophecy; it signifies the ability to show prudence and foresight. He thus grants to man the use of fire which no animal has, and lays the foundation for the arts of life. But man must atone for this privilege of foresight by the incessant torment of care and anxiety, which to the animal is unknown. This is the vulture gnawing at the liver of the shackled Prometheus. Epimetheus, who is afterwards created as a corollary, represents anxiety and worry after the event, the reward of frivolity and thoughtlessness.
Plotinus (Enneads, iv, lib. I, c. 14) gives us an entirely different interpretation of Prometheus, which is metaphysical yet full of meaning. Prometheus is the world-soul, makes man, and thus himself falls into bonds that only a Hercules can loosen, and so forth.
Again, the enemies of the Church in our times would be pleased with the following interpretation. [x], [3] is the faculty of reason which is shackled by the gods (religion); only by the downfall of Zeus can it be liberated.
§ 200
The fable of Pandora has never been clear to me; in fact it has always seemed to me to be absurd and preposterous. I suspect that it was misunderstood and distorted even by Hesiod himself. As her name already implies, Pandora has in her box not all the evils, but all the blessings, of the world. When Epimetheus hastily opens it, all the blessings fly out, all except hope which is saved and left behind for us. In the end, I had the satisfaction of finding a couple of passages of the ancients which accord with this view of mine, namely an epigram in the anthology (Delectus epigrammatum graecorum, edited by Jacobs, c. 7, ep. 84), and a passage of Babrius quoted there which begins with the words: [x]. [4] (Babrius, Fabulae, 58.1.)
§ 201
The particular epithet [x], [5] attributed by Hesiod to the Hesperides in two passages of his Theogony (11.275 and 518), together with their name and their stay that was so long deferred after evening, has suggested to me the notion, certainly very strange, that bats might be meant by the name Hesperides. Thus such an epithet answers very well to the short whistling tone of these animals.* Moreover, it would be more appropriate to call them [x] [6] than [x], [7] as they fly about much more in the evening than at night, for they go out in search of insects, and [x] is the exact equivalent of the Latin vespertiliones. [8] I was, therefore, reluctant to suppress the idea, for it might be possible that, by having his attention drawn to it in this way, someone may still find something to confirm it. Indeed if the cherubim are winged oxen, why should the Hesperides not be bats? Perhaps they are Alcithoe and her sisters who were changed into bats. (See Ovid's Metamorphoses, IV. 391 ff.)
§ 202
The nocturnal studies of scholars may be the reason why the owl is the bird of Athena.
§ 203
It is not without reason and sense that the myth represents Kronos as devouring and digesting stones; for it is time alone that digests the otherwise wholly indigestible, all grief, vexation, loss, and mortification.
§ 203a
The overthrow of the Titans, whom Zeus thundered down into the underworld, seems to be the same story as that of the downfall of the angels who rebelled against Jehovah.
The story of Idomeneus who sacrifices his son ex voto [9] and that of Jephthah are essentially the same.
(Typhon and Python are probably the same, since Horus and Apollo are the same, Herodotus, lib. II, c. 144.)
Just as in Sanskrit there are to be found the roots of the Gothic and Greek languages, is there perhaps an older mythology whence both the Greek and Jewish mythologies have sprung? If we wanted to give free play to our wit, we might even mention that the doubly long night, when with Alcmene Zeus begat Hercules, arose from the fact that, farther east, Joshua commanded the sun to stand still before Jericho. Zeus and Jehovah played so much into each other's hands; for the gods of heaven, like those on earth, are at all times secretly on friendly terms. But how innocent was the amusement of Father Zeus in comparison with the bloodthirsty deeds of Jehovah and his chosen predatory people!
§ 204
Thus in conclusion, I put my very subtle and exceedingly odd allegorical interpretation of a well-known myth that has been immortalized especially by Apuleius, although, on account of its subject-matter, such interpretation is open to the ridicule of all who wish to avail themselves of the expression du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas. [10]
From the culminating point of my philosophy, well known as the standpoint of asceticism, the affirmation of the will-to-live is seen to be concentrated in the act of procreation, which is its most decided expression. Now the significance of this affirmation is really that the will, originally without knowledge and hence a blind urge, does not in its willing and passion allow itself to be disturbed or restrained after knowledge of its own true nature has dawned on it through the world as representation. On the contrary, it now wills, consciously and deliberately, precisely what it hitherto willed as an urge and impulse devoid of knowledge. (See World as Will and Representation, vol. i, § 54.) Accordingly, we now find that the ascetic, who denies life through voluntary chastity, differs empirically from the one who, through the act of procreation, affirms life, in that, with the former, there occurs without knowledge and as a blind physiological function, namely in sleep, that which is consciously and deliberately performed by the latter and, therefore, is done with the light of knowledge. Now it is in fact very remarkable that this abstract philosopheme, which is in no way associated with the spirit of the Greeks, and the empirical circumstances illustrating it, have their exact allegorical description in the beautiful fable of Psyche who was to enjoy Amor only without seeing him, yet who, dissatisfied with this, positively wanted to see him, regardless of all warnings. In this way, after an inevitable pronouncement of mysterious forces, she came to endless misery which could be expiated only through her wandering into the underworld and there carrying out difficult and arduous tasks.
_______________
[b]Notes:[/b]
1 According to my own conjecture, I read [x] [maltreatment] instead of [x] [forgetfulness].
2 ['As far as mythical drivel is concerned, it is not worth while seriously to consider it.']
3 ['Prometheus in chains'.] * [x]. Herodotus, IV. 183. ['To squeak; they squeak like bats.']
4 ['Zeus collecting in a vessel all the good things ...']
5 ['Clear-voiced', 'screaming'.]
6 ['Daughters of the evening', 'Hesperides'.]
7 ['Daughters of the night', 'bats'.]
8 ['Bats'.]
9 ['In consequence of a vow'.]
10 ['From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.'] |