562

The settled and the free.  It is only in the underworld that we are shown something of the gloomy background to all those adventurer's joys which shine around Odysseus and his kind like an eternal shimmering of the sea  and once we are shown that background we never again forget it: the mother of Odysseus154 died of grief and of longing for her child! One person moves restlessly from place to place, and the heart of another who is settled and tender breaks as a consequence: so it has always been! Sorrow breaks the heart of those to whom it happens that he whom they love best deserts their faith  this is part of the tragedy which free spirits produce and of which they are sometimes aware! Then they too have at some time or other to go down to the dead, like Odysseus, to assuage their grief and soothe their tenderness.

154. Odysseus' mother: see Homer's Odyssey, Book XI, wherein Odysseus visits Hades.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Daybreak
Book V - Aphorism # 562

« Prev - Random - Next »