The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

eluding words which the dying Palmira addresses to Mohammed : " The world is for tyrants : live ! ” On the other hand, the 3emand~foF" so-called poetical justice rests on entire misconception of the nature of tragedy, and, indeed, of the nature of the world itself. It boldTy appears in all its dulness in the criticisms which Dr. Samuel Uohnson made on particular plays of ShakspeMe, for he very naively laments its entire absence. And its absence is certainty bbyipus, for in what has Ophelia, Desdemonf^ or Cordelia offended? But only the dull, optimistic. Protestant-rationalistic, or peculiarly Jewish view of life will make the demand for poetical justice, and find satisfaction in it._ The true sense of tragedy is the"deeper insight, that, it is not his own individual sins that the hero atones for, but original sin, i.e., the. crime oFexistence itself:

“ Puea el delito mayor Del hombre es haber nacido ; "

[“ For the greatest crime of man Is that he was bom ; ”)

as Calderon exactly expresses it.

“* 1 shall allow myself only one remark, more closely concerning the treatment of tragedy. The representation of a great misfortune is alone essential to tragedy. But the many different ways in which this is introduced by the poet may be brought under three specific conceptions. It may happen by means of a character of extraordinary wickedness, touching the utmost limits of possibility, who becomes the author of the misfortune ; examples of this kind are Eichard III., lago in “ Othello,” Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice,” Franz Moor, Phaedra of Euripides, Creon in the ‘‘ Antigone,” &c^ &c. Secondly, it may happeFJ^rqugh bh^nd fat^ chance and error; a true pattern of this kind is the CMipus Kex of Sophocles, the “ Trachiniae ” also ; and in general most of the tragedies of the ancients be^ng

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to this class. Among modern tragedies, “JRoncieo , ajid, Juliet,” “ Tancretl ” by Voltaire, and " The Bride of Messina,” are exampes.

Lasfly, the misfortune luayjje Erou^t about by tbe mere position of the dramatit ^jiiKsoncB with regard to each other, through their relations ; sbThat there is no need either for a tremendous error or an unheard-of accident, nor yet for a character whose wickedness reaches the limits of human possibility ; but characters of ordinary morality, under circumstances such as often occur,”Se so sit uafed ^th regard to each other Chat their position compels them, knowingly ^d with their eyes open, to do each other the greatest injury, without any one of them being entirely in the wrong.

This last kind of tragedy seems to me far to surpass the other two,^ for it shows us the greatest misfortune, not as an exception, not as something occ^ioned by rare circumstances or monstrous characters, but as arising easily and of itself out of the actions and character's of men, indeed almost as essential to them, and thus brings it terribly near to us.

In the other two kinds we may look on the prodigious fate and the horrible wickedness as terrible powers which certainly threaten us, but only from afar, which we may very well escape without taking refuge in renunciation.

But in the last kind of tragedy we see that those powers whiclr destroy happiness and life are siich that their path to usT also is open at every moment ; we see “tire'' greatest suHerings brought about by entanglements that our fate might also partake of, and through actions that perhaps we also are capable of performing, and so could not complain ofjin|ustice ; then shuddering we feel ourselves already in the midst of helL This last kind of tragedy is also the most difficult of achievement ; for the greatest effect has to be produced in it with the least use of means and causes of movement, merely through the position and distribution of the characters; therefore even in many of the best tragedies this difficulty is