在印度与罗马两条迷途中间，不得不有所抉择，希腊人居然能够独辟蹊径，另外发明第三条道路，当然不是为了自己的百年大计，但是正因此而得永垂不朽；——固然神所爱者早死，万物莫不如此，但是他们也断然因此与神一起永生。
Placed between India and Rome, and pushed toward a seductive choice, the Greeks succeeded ininventing a third form, in classical purity--to be sure, one they did not long use themselves, but one that precisely for that reason gained immortality. For that the favorites of the gods die early, is true in all things; but it is just as certain that they then live eternally with the gods.
人不应期望一切最高贵的东西都有皮革那样的耐久韧性；臂如，罗马民族性所固有的坚强持久，也许不能算是美满性格所不可缺少的属性之一。
After all, one should not demand of what is noblest of all that it should have the durable toughness of leather. That staunch perseverance which characterized, for example, the national instincts of the Romans, probably does not belong among the necessary predicates of perfection.
但是，如果我们要问：是甚么灵方妙药使得希腊人，在鼎盛时代，尽管酒神祭冲动和政治冲动非常剧烈，却不会因为静坐参禅，或者因为穷兵黩武，为了争夺世界霸权和世界荣誉，以致精疲力竭；反之，他们独能制出这种绝妙的佳酿，有如既能激起热情又能发人深醒的名贵芬醇，——
But let us ask by means of what remedy it was possible for the Greeks during their great period, in spite of the extraordinary strength of their Dionysian and political instincts, not to exhaust themselves either in ecstatic brooding or in a consuming chase after worldly power and worldly honor, but rather to attain that splendid mixture which resembles a noble wine in making one feel fiery and contemplative at the same time.
那么，我们不得不想起悲剧的伟大力量。它能鼓舞、能净化、能激发一个民族的全部生机，唯有当我们目击它在希腊人中间，成为一种防疾治病的万灵之药，成为最强悍不屈和最顺天由命的两种民族性之间的调和剂，我们才能揣摩到悲剧的最高价值。
Here we must think clearly of the tremendous power that stimulated, purified, and discharged the whole life of the people: tragedy. We cannot begin to sense its highest value until it confronts us, as it did the Greeks, as the quintessence of all prophylactic powers of healing, as the mediator that worked among the strongest and in themselves most fatal qualities of the people.
悲剧吸收了最高的音乐感染力，所以它直接把音乐带入完美之境，在希腊人如此，在我们也是如此；但是它也一起提供了悲剧神话和悲剧英雄。悲剧英雄象铁旦族的力士掮起整个醉境的世界，解除了我们的负担；
Tragedy absorbs the highest ecstasies of music, so that it truly brings music, both among the Greeks and among us, to its perfection; but then it places the tragic myth and the tragic hero next to it, and he, like a powerful Titan, takes the whole Dionysian world upon his back and thus relieves us of this burden.
同时，另一方面，凭借这种悲剧神话，悲剧就能够通过悲剧英雄，救济我们于强烈的尘世眷恋，并且亲手指点，提醒我们还有一种彼岸的生存和一种更高的快乐；对于这，奋斗的悲剧英雄早有预感，准备以死亡，不是以胜利，来接受。
On the other hand, by means of the same tragic myth, in the person of the tragic hero; it knows how to redeem us from the greedy thirst for this existence, and with an admonishing gesture it reminds us of another existence and a higher pleasure for which the strugglinghero prepares himself by means of his destruction, not by means of his triumphs.
悲剧，在音乐的普通效果与敏感的酒神祭观众之间，树立一种崇高的象征——神话，从而使观众产生一种幻觉：仿佛音乐不过是描写神话造型世界的兴奋的最高手段。
Between the universal validity of its music and the listener, receptive in his Dionysian state, tragedy places a sublime parable, the myth, and deceives the listener into feeling that the music is merely the highest means to bring life into the vivid world of myth.
依赖这种高尚的幻觉，音乐就可以使人手舞足蹈，毫无顾虑地放荡形骸；没有这种幻觉，音乐本身也不敢这样放纵。
Relying on this noble deception, it may now move its limbs in dithyrambic dances and yield unhesitatingly to an ecstatic feeling of freedom in which it could not dare to wallow as pure music without this deception.
所以，神话一方面使我们免受音乐迷惑，另一方面给予音乐以最大自由。
The myth protects us against the music, while on the other hand it alone gives music the highest freedom.
And above all, it is through music that the tragic spectator is overcome by an assured premonition of a highest pleasure attained through destruction and negation, so he feels as if the innermost abyss of things spoke to him perceptibly.
In return, music imparts to the tragic myth an intense and convincing metaphysical significance that word an image without this singular help could never have attained.