尼采和瓦格纳的友谊为何破碎？

Why Did Nietzsche Break with Wagner?

A painful but necessary parting of the ways

尼采和瓦格纳的友谊为何破碎？

痛苦的思想分歧与必然的分道扬镳

By Emrys Westacott

Of all the people who Friedrich Nietzsche met, the composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was, without question, the one who made the deepest impression on him. As many have pointed out, Wagner was the same age as Nietzsche father, and thus could have offered the young scholar, who was 23 when they first met in 1868, some sort of father substitute. But what really mattered to Nietzsche was that Wagner was a creative genius of the first rank, the kind of individual who, in Nietzsche’s view, justified the world and all its sufferings.

在弗里德里希·尼采平生所识的人中，作曲家理查德·瓦格纳（1813-1883）无疑是令他印象最深的一位。我们知道，瓦格纳的年龄与尼采的父亲相仿；并且，在两人初识的1868年，尼采年仅23岁——瓦格纳本可以或多或少填补尼采生活中父爱的空白。（译者按，尼采的父亲于1849年死于脑软化症，当时尼采年仅5岁）然而，这对位年轻的学者而言，瓦格纳之所以为他所尊重，主要在于他是一位一流的创作天才，一个可以为这个饱含苦难的世界寻找合理性的人。

From an early age Nietzsche was passionately fond of music, and by the time he was a student he was a highly competent pianist who impressed his peers by his ability to improvise. In the 1860s, Wagner’s star was rising. He began receiving the support of King Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1864; Tristan and Isolde(WWV 90) had been given its premiere in 1865, The Meistersingers(WWV 96) was premiered in 1868, Das Rheingold(WWV 86 A) in 1869, and Die Walküre(WWV 86B) in 1870. Although opportunities to see operas performed were limited, both because of location and finances, Nietzsche and his student friends had obtained a piano score of Tristan and were great admirers of what they considered the “music of the future.”

尼采自幼表现出对音乐的狂热爱好，到了学生时代，更是凭借高超的钢琴演奏技巧和出色的即兴表演能力在同龄人中脱颖而出。而此时，正是瓦格纳这颗音乐新星冉冉升起的1860年代。1864年，他获得巴伐利亚国王路德维希二世的支持；1865年，《特里斯坦与伊索尔德》（Tristan und Isold WWV90）首演；《纽伦堡的名歌手》（Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg WWV96）、《莱茵的黄金》（Das Rheingold WWV86A）和《女武神》（Die Walküre WWV86B）分别在1868、1869、1870年首演。尽管由于交通不便、资金短缺，尼采难以时刻出现在歌剧演出的观众席中，他和他的学生朋友们却得到了《特里斯坦与伊索尔德》的钢琴谱。他们把这部乐剧奉为“未来之音”，成为了它的狂热爱好者。

Nietzsche and Wagner became close after Nietzsche began visiting Wagner, his wife Cosima, and their children at Tribschen, a beautiful house beside Lake Lucerne, about a two-hour train ride from Basle where Nietzsche was a professor of classical philology.In their outlook on life and music they were both heavily influenced by Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer viewed life as essentially tragic, stressed the value of the arts in helping human beings cope with the miseries of existence, and accorded pride of place to music as the purest expression of the ceaselessly striving Will that underlay the world of appearances and constituted the inner essence of the world.

从尼采任古典文献学教职的巴塞尔坐两小时火车，就能到达特里布森。瓦格纳、他的妻子科西马以及他们的孩子就生活在这美丽的卢塞恩河畔。随着尼采对瓦格纳一家一次次的拜访，他和瓦格纳之间的友情日渐深厚。他们对生活和音乐的看法都深受叔本华的影响。叔本华眼中的世界在本质上是悲剧性的，因此，他对于艺术的价值格外珍视：艺术能够帮助人类应对生存的苦难。其中，音乐是最高的艺术形式，是“意志”最纯粹的表达。“意志”在永无止境的抗争中构成了表象世界的内在本质。

Wagner had written extensively about music and culture in general, and Nietzsche shared his enthusiasm for trying to revitalize culture through new forms of art. In his first published work, The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Nietzsche argued that Greek tragedy emerged “out of the spirit of music,” fueled by a dark, irrational “Dionysian” impulse which, when harnessed by “Apollonian” principles of order, eventually gave rise to the great tragedies of poets like Aeschylus and Sophocles.

瓦格纳撰写了大量关于音乐与文化的著作，而在用新艺术形式复兴文化方面，尼采与瓦格纳一样兴致勃勃。在尼采的第一部出版著作《悲剧的诞生》（1872）中，他这样论证：古希腊悲剧由“音乐的精神”演化而来，在黑暗而非理性的狄俄尼索斯冲动中，燃烧着悲剧的精髓。当这种冲动被日神阿波罗谨严的秩序规训，像埃斯库罗斯和索夫科勒斯这般伟大的悲剧诗人便就此诞生。然而，在欧里庇得斯的戏剧中，理性主义倾向日渐显明，苏格拉底主义占据主导地位，渐渐扼杀了古希腊悲剧的创造性冲动。

 But then the rationalist tendency evident in the plays Euripides, and most of all in the philosophical approach of Socrates, came to dominate, thereby killing the creative impulse behind Greek tragedy. What is now needed, Nietzsche concludes, is a new Dionysian art to combat the dominance of Socratic rationalism. The closing sections of the book identify and praise Wagner as the best hope for this sort of salvation.

（译者注：指狄俄尼索斯冲动。狄俄尼索斯，古希腊酒神，奥林匹斯十二主神之一。常被用作“醉感中的狂喜”的隐喻，强调与日神阿波罗相对的“个体原则”）尼采认为，如今正需要新的狄俄尼索斯艺术来与苏格拉底理性主义主导力量抗争。在《悲剧的诞生》的结尾部分，尼采呼应了瓦格纳的主张，称赞他为文化复兴最蓬勃的希望。

Needless to say, Richard and Cosima loved the book. At that time Wagner was working to complete his Ring cycle while also trying to raise money to build a new opera house at Bayreuth where his operas could be performed and where whole festivals devoted to his work could be held. While his enthusiasm for Nietzsche and his writings was no doubt sincere, he also saw him as someone who could be useful to him as an advocate for his causes among academics. Nietzsche had, most remarkably, been appointed to a professor’s chair at the age of 24, so having the backing of this apparently rising star would be a notable feather in Wagner’s cap.  Cosima, too, viewed Nietzsche, as she viewed everyone, primarily in terms of how they might help or harm her husband’s mission and reputation.

瓦格纳和科西马自然喜欢尼采的这部著作。那时，瓦格纳一边致力于完成他的《尼伯龙根的指环》系列，一边尝试为他在拜罗伊特的新歌剧院募集资金——他想要在那里举办个人作品音乐节。虽然瓦格纳对于尼采及其著作的热情是真诚的，他却还把尼采视为在学界为自己的事业宣传开拓的合作人。毕竟，尼采在24岁时就已经获得教授职位，如果能获得这位学界新星的支持，对瓦格纳而言无疑锦上添花。与此同时，对科西马而言，尼采对她丈夫的事业和声誉有怎样的影响，她就怎样看待尼采，这是她对所有人的评判标准。

But Nietzsche, however much he revered Wagner and his music, and although he had quite possibly fallen in love with Cosima, had ambitions of his own. Although he was willing to run errands for the Wagners for a time, he became increasingly critical of Wagner’s overbearing egoism. Soon these doubts and criticisms spread to take in Wagner’s ideas, music, and purposes.

但是，无论尼采如何敬重瓦格纳及其音乐，抑或是他可能已陷入了对科西马的爱恋，他都有自己的志向。尽管他暂时还在为瓦格纳东奔西走，瓦格纳傲慢的利己主义却令一股带着批判的厌恶情绪在尼采心中油然而生。很快，这种怀疑和批评蔓延到了瓦格纳的观点、音乐和人生价值。

Wagner was an anti-Semite, nursed grievances against the French which fueled a hostility to French culture and was sympathetic to German nationalism. In 1873 Nietzsche became friends with Paul Rée, a philosopher of Jewish origin whose thinking was heavily influenced by Darwin, materialistic science, and French essayists like La Rochefoucauld.  Although Rée lacked Nietzsche’s originality, he clearly influenced him. From this time on, Nietzsche begins to view French philosophy, literature, and music more sympathetically.  Moreover, instead of continuing his critique of Socratic rationalism, he starts to praise the scientific outlook, a shift reinforced by his reading of Friedrich Lange’s History of Materialism.

瓦格纳是个反犹份子，为社会上对法国的不满情绪煽风点火，助长了人们对法国文化的敌意，对德意志民族主义唯唯诺诺。1873年，尼采结识了保罗·李。那是一个犹太血统的哲学家，思想深受达尔文唯物主义以及像弗朗索瓦·德·拉罗什富科（La Rochefoucauld）这样的法国作家之影响。尽管保罗缺乏尼采的独创性，他对尼采的影响却是显而易见的。从那时起，尼采对法国哲学、文学和音乐的感受日益深厚。他甚至一改之前对于苏格拉底理性主义的批判，转而认同科学观念。阅读弗里德里希·阿尔贝特·朗格（Friedrich Albert Lange）的《唯物主义史》强化了尼采的上述观念转向。

In 1876 the first Bayreuth festival took place. Wagner was at the center of it, of course. Nietzsche originally intended to participate fully, but by the time the event was underway he found the cult of Wagner, the frenetic social scene swirling around the comings and goings of celebrities, and the shallowness of the surrounding festivities unpalatable.  Pleading ill health, he left the event for a time, returned to hear some performances, but left before the end.

1876年，第一届拜罗伊特音乐节举行，瓦格纳理所当然成为了焦点。尼采本打算全身心地投入这场音乐盛会，但在盛会准备期间的所见所闻磨灭了他对这场盛会的幻想：瓦格纳“头顶光环”、狂热的大众在名人周围熙熙攘攘、到处都是肤浅而令人厌恶的欢宴。以身体不适为由，尼采中途离开了一段时间，返回听了一些表演之后，在结束前离开了音乐节。

That same year Nietzsche published the fourth of his “Untimely Meditations”, Richard Wagner at Bayreuth. Although it is, for the most part, enthusiastic, there is a noticeable ambivalence in the author’s attitude toward his subject.  The essay concludes, for instance, by saying that Wagner is “not the prophet of the future, as perhaps he would wish to appear to us, but the interpreter and clarifier of the past.”  Hardly a ringing endorsement of Wagner as the savior of German culture!

同年，尼采《不合时宜的考察》系列第四部作品《拜罗伊特的理查德·瓦格纳》出版。尽管书中的大部分内容保持了尼采对瓦格纳的热情，他对瓦格纳的矛盾态度却从字里行间显露出来。例如，在文章的结论部分，尼采写道：瓦格纳不是未来的先知，尽管他可能想要向众人展现出先知的面貌。事实上，他是过去的阐释者和澄清器。由此可见，要让尼采继续把瓦格纳当作德国文化拯救者，恐怕已不太可能。

Later in 1876 Nietzsche and Rée found themselves staying in Sorrent at the same time as the Wagners. They spent quite a lot of time together, but there is some strain in the relationship. Wagner warned Nietzsche to be wary of Rée on account of his being Jewish. He also discussed his next opera, Parsifal, which to Nietzsche’s surprise and disgust was to advance Christian themes. Nietzsche suspected that Wagner was motivated in this by a desire for success and popularity rather than by authentic artistic reasons.

1876年后半年，尼采和保罗在索伦特逗留了一段时间，瓦格纳一家恰好也在那里。他们共同度过了一段时光，但友情已经出现了一丝紧张。瓦格纳提醒尼采对保罗的犹太身份保持警惕，并与尼采探讨他的新歌剧《帕西法尔》。令尼采吃惊而厌恶的是，《帕西法尔》居然意在推动宗教主题。瓦格纳此举的动机令尼采不得不怀疑：在瓦格纳心中，对成功和名声的渴望远胜纯粹的艺术追求。

Wagner and Nietzsche saw each other for the last time on November 5th, 1876. In the years that followed, they became both personally and philosophically estranged, although his sister Elisabeth remained on friendly terms with the Wagners and their circle. Nietzsche pointedly dedicated his next work, Human, All Too Human, to Voltaire, an icon of French rationalism. He published two more works on Wagner, The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner, the latter being mainly a collection of previous writings. 

1876年11月5日，瓦格纳和尼采最后一次见面。在之后的日子里，他们在个性和哲学观念上渐行渐远，尽管尼采的妹妹伊丽莎白依旧和瓦格纳一家及其社交圈保持友好的联系。尼采把他的下一部作品《人性，太过人性》指名道姓地献给法国理性主义领袖伏尔泰。至于瓦格纳，他后来发表了两部作品：《瓦格纳事件》和《尼采反对瓦格纳》，后者主要是先前一些作品的集子。

He also created a satirical portrait of Wagner in the person of an old sorcererwho appears in Part IV of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.  He never ceased to recognize the originality and greatness of Wagner’s music. But at the same time, he distrusted it for its intoxicating quality, and for its Romantic celebration of death. Ultimately, he came to see Wagner’s music as decadent and nihilistic, functioning as a kind of artistic drug that deadens the pain of existence instead of affirming life with all its sufferings.

另外，尼采在《查拉图斯特拉如是说》第四部分中创造了一个老魔术师的形象，借此对瓦格纳进行讽刺。尼采从不否认瓦格纳音乐的独创性和伟大，但它蛊惑人心的效果和对死亡的浪漫化解读，却让尼采不敢苟同。最终，尼采把瓦格纳的音乐形容为 “颓废”、“虚无”，因为它就像是贴着“艺术”标签的毒药——毒药使生存的痛苦愈演愈烈，而真正好的艺术应该在生命的一切痛苦背后，探索价值。