The Birth of The Birth of Tragedy 7.5ble weaving, a glowing life'" (1,64; BT § 8). When the Dionysian is
understood in this way, it is not merely one aspect of reality but its very
core. As if wanting to respond direcdy to Kant's metaphor of the ocean
of the unknowable, Nietzsche the Dionysian wrote in his later Gay
Science: "Finally our ships may once again set sail, sailing out no matter
what the danger; any risks taken by the lover of knowledge are permit-
ted once again; the ocean, our ocean, lies open there once again. Perhaps
there has never been such an 'open ocean'" (3,574; GS§ 343).
Nietzsche did not always use the expression "Dionysian" in a stricdy
terminological sense to designate absolute reality. "Dionysian" was also
his way to describe the "barbarism" of precivilized violence and sexual
excesses (1,31; BT§ 2) as well as subcivilized instincts. When Nietzsche
employed the term "Dionysian" in the sense of precivilization or sub-
civilization, this cultural-historical or anthropological use of the term
continued to refer to its essential ontological and metaphysical meaning.
The Dionysian is the "primordial unity" (1,38; BT§ 4), an all-encom-
passing being that is ultimately incomprehensible. The concept of the
Dionysian naturally implies a theoretical choice that, in turn, goes back
to a defining experience. Even for the young Nietzsche, being was some-
thing precarious, at once threatening and enticing. He experienced it in
"lightning, storm, and hail," and in his early notes there are references to
the "world child" of Heraclitus, who playfully forged and destroyed
worlds. It is indeed necessary to have experienced being as a monstros-
ity. Life that is roused to consciousness should be wary of being. Being
turns Dionysian when familiar things turn eerie.
"Dionysian wisdom" is the power to endure Dionysian reality. A
twofold endurance is involved, combining "hitherto unknown pleasure"
and "disgust." Dionysian integration of the individual consciousness is
a pleasure because the "bounds and limits of existence" are eradicated
(1,56; BT§ 7). However, when this condition has passed and everyday
consciousness has resumed its domination over thinking and experi-
ence, "disgust" comes over the disillusioned Dionysian. This disgust can
escalate to the point of horror: "In man's awareness of the truth he has