Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
Again, if I should refer the erotic element to the bisection
of which Aristophanes tells us[13] when he says that the gods severed
man into two parts as one cuts flounders, and that these parts thus
separated sought one another, then I again encounter a difficulty I
cannot get over, which is, in how far I may base my reasoning on
Aristophanes who in his speech--just because there is no reason for
the thought to stop at this point--goes further in his thought and
thinks that the gods might take it into their heads to divide man
into three parts, for the sake of still better fun. For the sake
of still better fun; for is it not true, as I said, that love
renders a person ridiculous, if not in the eyes of others then
certainly in the eyes of the gods?
Now, let me assume that the erotic element resides essentially in the
relation between man and woman--what is to be inferred from that?
If the lover should say to his Lalage: I love you because you are a
woman; I might as well love any other woman, as for instance, ugly
Zoë: then beautiful Lalage would feel insulted.
In what, then, consists the lovable? This is my question; but
unfortunately, no one has been able to tell me. The individual lover
always believes that, as far as he is concerned, he knows. Still he
cannot make himself understood by any other lover; and he who listens
to the speech of a number of lovers will learn that no two of them ever
agree, even though they all talk about the same thing. Disregarding
those altogether silly explanations which leave one as wise as before,
that is, end by asserting that it is really the pretty feet of the
beloved damsel, or the admired mustachios of the swain, which are the
objects of love--disregarding these, one will find mentioned, even
in the declamations of lovers in the higher style, first a number of
details and, finally, the declaration: all her lovable ways; and when
they have reached the climax: that inexplicable something I do not know
how to explain. And this speech is meant to please especially beautiful
Lalage. Me it does not please, for I don't understand a word of it and
find, rather, that it contains a double contradiction--first, that
it ends with the inexplicable, second, that it ends with the
inexplicable; for he who intends to end with the inexplicable had best
begin with the inexplicable and then say no more, lest he lay himself
open to suspicion. If he begin with the inexplicable, saying no more,
then this does not prove his helplessness, for it is, anyway, an
explanation in a negative sense; but if he does begin with something
else and lands in the inexplicable, then this does certainly
prove his helplessness.
So then we see: to love corresponds to the lovable; and the lovable
is the inexplicable. Well, that is at least something; but comprehensible
it is not, as little as the inexplicable way in which love seizes
on its prey. Who, indeed, would not be alarmed if people about one,
time and again, dropped down dead, all of a sudden, or had convulsions,
without any one being able to account for it? But precisely in this
fashion does love invade life, only with the difference that one is
not alarmed thereby, since the lovers themselves regard it as their
greatest happiness, but that one, on the contrary, is tempted to
laugh; for the comical and the tragical elements ever correspond to
one another. Today, one may converse with a person and can fairly
well make him out--tomorrow, he speaks in tongues and with strange
gestures: he is in love.
Now, if to love meant to fall in love with the first person that came
along, it would be easy to understand that one could give no special
reasons for it; but since to love means to fall in love with one, one
single person in all the world, it would seem as if such an extraordinary
process of singling out ought to be due to such an extensive chain of
reasoning that one might have to beg to be excused from hearing
it--not so much because it did not explain anything as because it
might be too lengthy to listen to. But no, the lovers are not able to
explain anything at all. He has seen hundreds upon hundreds of
women; he is, perhaps, advanced in years and has all along felt
nothing--and all at once he sees her, her the Only one, Catherine.
Is this not comical? Is it not comical that the relation which is
to explain and beautify all life, love, is not like the mustard
seed from which there grows a great tree,[14] but being still smaller
is, at bottom, nothing at all; for not a single antecedent criterion
can be mentioned, as e.g., that the phenomenon occurred at a certain
age, nor a single reason as to why he should select her, her alone
in all the world--and that by no means in the same sense as when
"Adam chose Eve, because there was none other.[15]"
Or is not the explanation which the lovers vouchsafe just as comical;
or, does it not, rather, emphasize the comical aspect of love? They say
that love renders one blind, and by this fact they undertake to explain
the phenomenon. Now, if a person who was going into a dark room to
fetch something should answer, on my advising him to take a light
along, that it was only a trifling matter he wanted and so he would
not bother to take a light along--ah! then I would understand him
excellently well. If, on the other hand, this same person should take
me aside and, with an air of mystery, confide to me that the thing
he was about to fetch was of the very greatest importance and that
it was for this reason that he was able to do it in the dark--ah!
then I wonder if my weak mortal brain could follow the soaring flight
of his speech. Even if I should refrain from laughing, in order not
to offend him, I should hardly be able to restrain my mirth as soon
as he had turned his back. But at love nobody laughs; for I am quite
prepared to be embarrassed like the Jew who, after ending his story,
asks: Is there no one who will laugh?[16] And yet I did not miss
the point, as did the Jew, and as to my laughter I am far from wanting
to insult any one. Quite on the contrary, I scorn those fools who
imagine that their love has such good reasons that they can afford
to laugh at other lovers; for since love is altogether inexplicable,
one lover is as ridiculous as the other. Quite as foolish and haughty
I consider it also when a man proudly looks about him in the circle
of girls to find who may be worthy of him, or when a girl proudly
tosses her head to select or reject; because such persons are simply
basing their thoughts on an unexplained assumption. No. What busies
my thought is love as such, and it is love which seems ridiculous
to me; and therefore I fear it, lest I become ridiculous in my own eyes,
or ridiculous in the eyes of the gods who have fashioned man thus.
In other words, if love is ridiculous it is equally ridiculous, whether
now my sweetheart be a princess or a servant girl; for the lovable, as
we have seen, is the inexplicable.
Look you, therefore do I fear love, and find precisely in
this a new proof of love's being comical; for my fear is so
curiously tragic that it throws light on the comical nature of love.
When people wreck a building a sign is hung up to warn people, and I
shall take care to stand from under; when a bar has been freshly painted
a stone is laid in the road to apprise people of the fact; when a driver
is in danger of running a man over he will shout "look out"; when
there have been cases of cholera in a house a soldier is set as
guard; and so forth. What I mean is that if there is some danger, one
may be warned and will successfully escape it by heeding the warning.
Now, fearing to be rendered ridiculous by love, I certainly regard it as
dangerous; so what shall I do to escape it? In other words, what shall
I do to escape the danger of some woman falling in love with me?
I am far from entertaining the thought of being an Adonis every
girl is bound to fall in love with (_relata refero_,[17] for what
this means I do not understand)--goodness no! But since I do not
know what the lovable is I cannot, by any manners of means, know how
to escape this danger. Since, for that matter, the very opposite of
beauty may constitute the lovable; and, finally, since the inexplicable
also is the lovable, I am forsooth in the same situation as the man
Jean Paul speaks of somewhere who, standing on one foot, reads a
sign saying, "fox-traps here," and now does not dare, either to lift
his foot or to set it down.
No, love any one I will not, before I have fathomed what love is;
but this I cannot, but have, rather, come to the conclusion that it is
comical. Hence I will not love--but alas! I have not thereby
avoided the danger, for, since I do not know what the lovable is and
how it seizes me, or how it seizes a woman with reference to me, I
cannot make sure whether I have avoided the danger. This is tragical
and, in a certain sense, even profoundly tragical, even if no one is
concerned about it, or if no one is concerned about the bitter
contradiction for one who thinks--that a something exists which
everywhere exercises its power and yet is not to be definitely
conceived by thought and which, perhaps, may attack from the
rear him who in vain seeks to conceive it. But as to the tragic
side of the matter it has its deep reason in the comic aspects
just pointed out. Possibly, every other person will turn all this
upside down and not find that to be comical which I do, but
rather that which I conceive to be tragical; but this too proves that
I am right to a certain extent. And that for which, if so happens, I
become either a tragic or comic victim is plain enough, viz., my
desire to reflect about all I do, and not imagine I am reflecting
about life by dismissing its every important circumstance with an
"I don't care, either way."
Man has both a soul and a body. About this the wisest and best of
the race are agreed. Now, in case one assumes the essence of love to lie
in the relation between man and woman, the comic aspect will show again
in the face-about which is seen when the highest spiritual values
express themselves in the most sensual terms. I am now referring
to all those extraordinary and mystic signals of love--in short, to
all the free-masonry which forms a continuation of the above-mentioned
inexplicable something. The contradiction in which love here involves a
person lies in the fact that the symbolic signs mean nothing at all
or--which amounts to the same--that no one is able to explain what
they do signify. Two loving souls vow that they will love each the
other in all eternity; thereupon they embrace, and with a kiss
they seal this eternal pact. Now I ask any thinking person whether he
would have hit upon that! And thus there is constant shifting from the
one to the other extreme in love. The most spiritual is expressed
by its very opposite, and the sensual is to signify the most
spiritual.--Let me assume I am in love. In that case I would
conceive it to be of the utmost importance to me that the one I love
belonged to me for all time. This I comprehend; for I am now, really,
speaking only of Greek eroticism which has to do with loving beautiful
souls. Now when the person I love had vowed to return my love I would
believe her or, in as far as there remained any doubt in me, try to
combat my doubt. But what happens actually? For if I were in love
I would, probably, behave like all the others, that is, seek
to obtain still some other assurance than merely to believe
her I love; which, though, is plainly the only assurance to be had.
When Cockatoo[18] all at once begins to plume himself like a
duck which is gorged with food, and then emits the word "Marian,"
everybody will laugh, and so will I. I suppose the spectator finds it