Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
else the gods themselves could have done so; but precisely of
that they despaired. He would have to be caught and subdued, then,
by a power weaker than his own and yet stronger--one strong
enough to compel him. What a marvelous power this would have to
be! However, necessity teaches even the gods to surpass themselves
in inventiveness. They sought and they found. That power was woman,
the marvel of creation, even in the eyes of the gods a greater
marvel than man--a discovery which the gods in their naïveté could
not help but applaud themselves for. What more can be said in her
praise than that she was able to accomplish what even the gods
did not believe themselves able to do; and what more can be said in
her praise than that she did accomplish it! But how marvelous
a creation must be hers to have accomplished it.
It was a ruse of the gods. Cunningly the enchantress was fashioned,
for no sooner had she bewitched man than she changed and caught him
in all the circumstantialities of existence. It was that the gods
had desired. But what, pray, can be more delicious, or more entrancing
and bewitching, than what the gods themselves contrived, when battling
for their supremacy, as the only means of luring man? And most
assuredly it is so, for woman is the only, and the most seductive,
power in heaven and on earth. When compared with her in this sense
man will indeed be found to be exceedingly imperfect.
And the stratagem of the gods was crowned with success; but not
always. There have existed at all times some men--a few--who
have detected the deception. They perceive well enough woman's
loveliness--more keenly, indeed than the others--but they also
suspect the real state of affairs. I call them erotic natures and
count myself among them. Men call them seducers, woman has no name
for them--such persons are to her unnameable. These erotic natures
are the truly fortunate ones. They live more luxuriously than do
the very gods, for they regale themselves with food more delectable
than ambrosia, and they drink what is more delicious than nectar;
they eat the most seductive invention of the gods' most ingenious
thought, they are ever eating dainties set for a bait--ah, incomparable
delight, ah, blissful fare--they are ever eating but the dainties
set for a bait; and they are never caught. All other men greedily
seize and devour it, like bumpkins eating their cabbage, and are
caught. Only the erotic nature fully appreciates the dainties set
out for bait--he prizes them infinitely. Woman divines this, and
for that reason there is a secret understanding between him and her.
But he knows also that she is a bait, and that secret he keeps
to himself.
That nothing more marvelous, nothing more delicious, nothing more
seductive, than woman can be devised, for that vouch the gods and
their pressing need which heightened their powers of invention;
for that vouches also the fact that they risked all, and in shaping
her moved heaven and earth.
I now forsake the myth. The conception "man" corresponds to his
"idea." I can therefore, if necessary, think of an individual man
as existing. The idea of woman, on the other hand, is so general
that no one single woman is able to express it completely. She is
not contemporaneous with man (and hence of less noble origin), but
a later creation, though more perfect than he. Whether now the gods
took some part from him whilst he slept, from fear of waking him by
taking too much; or whether they bisected him and made woman out
of the one half--at any rate it was man who was partitioned. Hence
she is the equal of man only after this partition. She is a
delusion and a snarer, but is so only afterwards, and for him who
is deluded. She is finiteness incarnate; but in her first stage
she is finiteness raised to the highest degree in the deceptive
infinitude of all divine and human illusions. Now, the deception
does not exist--one instant longer, and one is deceived.
She is finiteness, and as such she is a collective: one woman
represents all women. Only the erotic nature comprehends this and
therefore knows how to love many without ever being deceived, sipping
the while all the delights the cunning gods were able to prepare.
For this reason, as I said, woman cannot be fully expressed by one
formula, but is, rather, an infinitude of finalities. He who wishes
to think her "idea" will have the same experience as he who gazes
on a sea of nebulous shapes which ever form anew, or as he who is
dazed by looking over the waves whose foamy crests ever mock one's
vision; for her "idea" is but the workshop of possibilities. And to
the erotic nature these possibilities are the everlasting reason
for his worship.
So the gods created her delicate and ethereal as if out of
the mists of the summer night, yet goodly like ripe fruit;
light like a bird, though the repository of what attracts all
the world--light because the play of the forces is harmoniously
balanced in the invisible center of a negative relation;[54]
slender in growth, with definite lines, yet her body sinuous
with beautiful curves; perfect, yet ever appearing as if completed
but now; cool, delicious, and refreshing like new-fallen snow,
yet blushing in coy transparency; happy like some pleasantry
which makes one forget all one's sorrow; soothing as being the
end of desire, and satisfying in herself being the stimulus of
desire. And the gods had calculated that man, when first beholding
her, would be amazed, as one who sees himself, though familiar with
that sight--would stand in amaze as one who sees himself in the
splendor of perfection--would stand in amaze as one who beholds
what he did never dream he would, yet beholds what, it would seem,
ought to have occurred to him before--sees what is essential to
life and yet gazes on it as being the very mystery of existence.
It is precisely tins contradiction in his admiration which nurses
desire to life, while this same admiration urges him ever nearer,
so that he cannot desist from gazing, cannot desist from believing
himself familiar with the sight, without really daring to approach,
even though he cannot desist from desiring.
When the gods had thus planned her form they were seized with
fear lest they might not have the wherewithal to give it existence;
but what they feared even more was herself. For they dared not
let her know how beautiful she was, apprehensive of having some
one in the secret who might spoil their ruse. Then was the crowning
touch given to their wondrous creation: they made her faultless;
but they concealed all this from her in the nescience of her
innocence, and concealed it doubly from her in the impenetrable
mystery of her modesty. Now she was perfect, and victory certain.
Inviting she had been before, but now doubly so through her shyness,
and beseeching through her shrinking, and irresistible through
herself offering resistance. The gods were jubilant. And no
allurement has ever been devised in the world so great as is woman,
and no allurement is as compelling as is innocence, and no temptation
is as ensnaring as is modesty, and no deception is as matchless as
is woman. She knows of nothing, still her modesty is instinctive
divination. She is distinct from man, and the separating wall of
modesty parting them is more decisive than Aladdin's sword separating
him from Gulnare;[55] and yet, when like Pyramis he puts his head
to this dividing wall of modesty, the erotic nature will perceive
all pleasures of desire divined within as from afar.
Thus does woman tempt. Men are wont to set forth the most precious
things they possess as a delectation for the gods, nothing less
will do. Thus is woman a show-bread, the gods knew of naught
comparable to her. She exists, she is present, she is with us,
close by; and yet she is removed from us to an infinite distance
when concealed in her modesty--until she herself betrays her
hiding place, she knows not how: it is not she herself, it is
life which informs on her. Roguish she is like a child who in
playing peeps forth from his hiding place, yet her roguishness
is inexplicable, for she does not know of it herself, she is
ever mysterious--mysterious when she casts down her eyes, mysterious
when she sends forth the messengers of her glance which no thought,
let alone any word, is able to follow. And yet is the eye the
"interpreter" of the soul! What, then, is the explanation of this
mystery if the interpreter too is unintelligible? Calm she is like
the hushed stillness of eventide, when not a leaf stirs; calm
like a consciousness as yet unaware of aught. Her heart-beats
are as regular as if life were not present; and yet the erotic
nature, listening with his stethoscopically practiced ear, detects
the dithyrambic pulsing of desire sounding along unbeknown.
Careless she is like the blowing of the wind, content like the
profound ocean, and yet full of longing like a thing biding
its explanation. My friends! My mind is softened, indescribably
softened. I comprehend that also my life expresses an idea, even
if you do not comprehend me. I too have discovered the secret
of existence; I too serve a divine idea--and, assuredly, I do
not serve it for nothing. If woman is a ruse of the gods, this
means that she is to be seduced; and if woman is not an "idea,"
the true inference is that the erotic nature wishes to love as
many of them as possible.
What luxury it is to relish the ruse without being duped, only
the erotic nature comprehends. And how blissful it is to be
seduced, woman alone knows. I know that from woman, even though
I never yet allowed any one of them time to explain it to me,
but re-asserted my independence, serving the idea by a break
as sudden as that caused by death; for a bride and a break are
to one another like female and male.[56] Only woman is aware
of this, and she is aware of it together with her seducer. No
married man will ever grasp this. Nor does she ever speak with
him about it. She resigns herself to her fate, she knows that
it must be so and that she can be seduced only once. For this
reason she never really bears malice against the man who seduced
her. That is to say, if he really did seduce her and thus expressed
the idea. Broken marriage vows and that kind of thing is, of
course, nonsense and no seduction. Indeed, it is by no means so
great a misfortune for a woman to be seduced. In fact, it is
a piece of good fortune for her. An excellently seduced girl
may make an excellent wife. If I myself were not fit to be a
seducer--however deeply I feel my inferior qualifications in
this respect--if I chose to be a married man, I should always
choose a girl already seduced, so that I would not have to begin
my marriage by seducing my wife. Marriage, to be sure, also
expresses an idea; but in relation to the idea of marriage that
quality is altogether immaterial which is the absolutely essential
condition for my idea. Therefore, a marriage ought never to be
planned to begin as though it were the beginning of a story of
seduction. So much is sure: there is a seducer for every woman.
Happy is she whose good fortune it is to meet just him.
Through marriage, on the other hand, the gods win their victory.
In it the once seduced maiden walks through life by the side of
her husband, looking back at times, full of longing, resigned
to her fate, until she reaches the goal of life. She dies; but
not in the same sense as man dies. She is volatilized and resolved
into that mysterious primal element of which the gods formed her--she
disappears like a dream, like an impermanent shape whose hour
is past. For what is woman but a dream, and the highest reality
withal! Thus does the erotic nature comprehend her, leading her,
and being led by her in the moment of seduction, beyond time--where