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Notes & CommentsJanuary 2008 The "wisdom" of Silenus On the supposed harm of actually existing. Near the beginning of The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche tells the ancient story of King Midas hunting in the forest for the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus. At last, after many years, the King manages to capture him and asks what is the best and most desirable thing for man. Silenus maintains a surly silence until, goaded by the King, he bursts out with a contemptuous laugh and says, “Oh, wretched ephemeral race … why do you compel me to tell you what it would be most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly beyond your reach: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you is—to die soon.” Cheery, eh? Nietzsche’s idea was that the Greeks knew and felt this horror of (or perhaps horror at) existence and that they constructed their beautiful art and their Olympian gods as a kind of dreamlike camouflage to conceal the truth.
This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 26 January 2008, on page 1 Copyright © 2008 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/the-wisdom-of-silenus-3727
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