The word pathetic has two meanings, both derivative from pathos. One is taking pathos seriously, while the other, more familiar in the English-speaking world, is making a mockery of it.
By the same token, Nietzsche’s great aphorism from Jenseits (150): “Around the hero everything turns into a tragedy…” can be understood in both manners: as a serious statement of fact, and as sarcasm. Nietzsche’s ambiguity is delightful: he keeps us guessing. But there ought to be no guessing here, I am sure. The line between the great and the ridiculous is thin, as Napoleon once reminded us not exactly in the same words, but with the same import, and, just as Memento Mori was supposed to bring Roman dignitaries down to earth from their delusions of immortality, so does Nietzsche’s implicit ambiguity, which I have likened to the explicit ambiguity of pathos, ought to warn our “pathetic hero” about the hidden dangers of the natural, all-too natural delusion of grandeur.
By the same token, Nietzsche’s great aphorism from Jenseits (150): “Around the hero everything turns into a tragedy…” can be understood in both manners: as a serious statement of fact, and as sarcasm. Nietzsche’s ambiguity is delightful: he keeps us guessing. But there ought to be no guessing here, I am sure. The line between the great and the ridiculous is thin, as Napoleon once reminded us not exactly in the same words, but with the same import, and, just as Memento Mori was supposed to bring Roman dignitaries down to earth from their delusions of immortality, so does Nietzsche’s implicit ambiguity, which I have likened to the explicit ambiguity of pathos, ought to warn our “pathetic hero” about the hidden dangers of the natural, all-too natural delusion of grandeur.
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