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The Birth of Tragedy
Frederick Pollack
Originally a chorus chanted
accusations of vanity, threats
of divine arbitrariness or justice,
to a crowd vain as peacocks,
rational in a hectic
improvised way, and superstitious as thieves.
Then a member of the chorus
stepped forth. Hadn’t known,
a moment before, that he would.
Moaned the same sort of thing
he had sung – he had
been boastful, neglectful
of sacrifices, even
(within the uncertain
parameters of the concept) cruel. But he spoke –
entranced, pressured,
sweating under the mask – of himself, his own faults.
But was he speaking of himself?
Or of all of them, chorus and crowd, as if they were he?
Uncertain, his former colleagues
kept up a nervous humming.
The audience, also unsure
if the madman’s “I” meant “I”
or “we” or “you,” and where he got off
doing that – the audience,
about to storm the stage
and tear him apart (but wouldn’t that
itself involve a possibly wrong
initiative?), didn’t.
The thing became
part of the ritual. Eventually the chorus
was fired. Yet the actor
is still out there, historically despised,
suspect, safe only in slapstick,
a stand-in for ourselves
like ourselves. And the gods,
in a merged, corporate form,
like a typical insurance company
that takes and takes and never gives, still preside.
I’ve said it all before, through clenched teeth.
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