Der Fall Wagner (The Case of Wagner) - Nietzsche on Wagner's opera 'Parsifal'

In the art of seduction, Parsifal will always retain its rank - as the stroke of genius in seduction. - I admire this work; I wish I had written it myself; failing that, I understand it. - Wagner never had better inspirations than in the end. Here the cunning in his alliance of beauty and sickness goes so far that, as it were, it casts a shadow over Wagner's earlier art - which now seems too bright, too healthy. Do you understand this? Health, brightness having the effect of a shadow? almost of an objection? - To such an extent have we become pure fools. - Never was there a greater master in dim, hieratic aromas - never was a man equally expert in all small infinities, all that trembles and is effusive, all the feminisms from the idioticon of happiness! - Drink, O my friends, the philtres of this art! Nowhere will you find a more agreeable way of enervating your spirit, of forgetting your manhood under a rosebush. - Ah, this old magician! This Klingsor! How he thus wages war against us! us, the free spirits! How he indulges every cowardice of the modern soul with the tones of - Never before has there been such a deadly hatred of the search for knowledge! - One has to be a cynic in order not to be seduced here; one has to be able to bite in order not to worship here. Well, then, you old seducer, the cynic warns you - cave canem.

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