Stages on Life’s Way

by Søren Kierkegaard

  No, what concerns me is erotic love as such; it is this that seems ludicrous to me, and therefore I am afraid of it, afraid that I may become ludicrous to myself, or ludicrous in the eyes of the gods, who have fashioned mankind in this way. In other words, if love is ludicrous, it is just as ludicrous whether I find a princess or a servant girl, and if it is not ludicrous, then it is not ludicrous to love a servant girl, either, because the lovable, after all, is the inexplicable. This, you see, is why I am afraid of love, but here again I see a proof that love is comic, for my fear is of such a strange tragic kind that it illuminates specifically the comic. When a wall is being torn down, a sign is posted, and I make a detour; when a fence is being painted, a warning is put up; when a coachman is about to drive over someone, he shouts: Look out!; when there is cholera, a soldier is stationed outside the house, etc. What I mean is that when there is danger the danger can be indicated, and one succeeds in avoiding it by paying attention to the signs. Now, since I am afraid of becoming ludicrous through love, I certainly do regard it as a danger—what, then, must I do to avoid it, or what must I do to avoid the danger of having a woman fall in love with me? Far be it from me arrogantly to think myself an Adonis with whom every girl falls in love (relata refero [I report what has been told], for what it means I do not understand), the gods save me; but since I do not know what the lovable is, I simply cannot know how I am to conduct myself in order to avoid this danger. Moreover, since the very opposite can be the lovable, and since ultimately the inexplicable is the lovable, then I am in the same situation as the man Jean Paul tells about—standing on one foot, he reads the following notice: Fox traps are set here, and he does not dare to walk or put his foot on the ground.106 I shall not love anyone before I have exhausted the idea of erotic love. This I am unable [VI 41] to do. On the contrary, I have concluded that it is comic; hence I will not love. Alas, but the danger is not thereby avoided, for since I do not know what the lovable is, how it happens to me or how it happens to a woman in relation to me, I cannot be sure of knowing whether I have avoided the danger. This is tragic, in a certain sense even deeply tragic, even if no one is concerned about it or is concerned about the painful contradiction for the thinking person that there is something that exercises its power everywhere and yet cannot be thought, that perhaps even suddenly comes up behind the person who in vain is trying to think it. But the tragic in this has its deep roots in the comic aspect already pointed out. Perhaps everyone else will turn all this around for me and not at all find comic what I find comic but will certainly find the comic when I find the tragic, but even this shows that to a certain degree I am right, and that for which I, if I become a sacrifice, become a tragic or comic sacrifice is still obvious: wanting to think about everything I do and not fancying that I am thinking about life when I, with regard to something important, say: Let it pass.

  A human being consists of soul and body; on that all the wisest and best men agree. If we now place the power of erotic love in the relation between female and male, the comic will once again manifest itself in the reversal that occurs when the psychical at its loftiest expresses itself in the most sensual. I am thinking here of all of erotic love’s very strange gesticulations and mysterious signs—in short, all the freemasonry that is a continuation of that first inexplicable something. The contradiction in which erotic love here involves a person is this—that the symbolic does not mean anything at all, or, what amounts to the same thing, no one is able to say what it is supposed to mean. Two loving souls assure each other that they will love each other for all eternity; thereupon they embrace each other and seal this eternal pact with a kiss. I ask any thinking person whether he ever thought of that. And so it continually alternates in erotic love. The psychical at its loftiest finds its expression in the extreme opposite, and the sensual wants to signify the psychical at its loftiest. Posito [Suppose] that I had fallen in love. It would then be of the utmost importance to me that the beloved would belong to me for all eternity. This I understand, for here I am actually speaking only of the kind of Greek eroticism in which one loves beautiful souls. Then when the beloved had assured me of this, I would believe it, or if any doubt remained, I would contest it. But what happens, for if I were in love, I presumably would behave like all the others; I would seek some other assurance than believing her, which nevertheless is the only assurance [VI 42] there is. Here again I confront the inexplicable. When Kakkadue all of a sudden begins to plume himself like a gorged duck and thereupon stutters the word “Mariane,”107 everyone, including me, laughs. The spectators perhaps find the comic in the fact that Kakkadue, who does not love Mariane at all, is in such rapport with her; but now suppose that Kakkadue loved Mariane—would it then not be comic? To me it seems just as comic, and the comic lies in this, that erotic love has become commensurable and is supposed to be regarded as commensurable with an expression such as that. Whether this has been the custom since the beginning of the world does not alter the case; the comic has eternity’s prescriptive right to consist in contradiction, and here is a contradiction. There is really nothing comic about a puppet, for there is no contradiction in its making the strangest motions when the string is pulled. But to be a puppet in the service of something inexplicable is comic. The contradiction is that there is no apparent rational reason for having a twitch now in this leg, now in the other. If I cannot explain to myself what it is I am doing, then I will not do it; if I cannot understand the force to whose power I am surrendering, then I will not surrender to its power. And if love is a kind of mysterious law that combines the most extreme contradictions, who will guarantee to me that confusion may not suddenly arise in it? But this is of minor concern to me. For instance, I have certainly heard that some lovers find the behavior of other lovers ludicrous. 108What that kind of laughter really means, I do not comprehend, for if that law is a law of nature, then it is certainly the same for all lovers; and if it is a law of freedom, then those laughing lovers must, after all, be able to explain everything—which they nevertheless are not able to do.

  As far as that goes, I can better understand that generally it is the case that the one lover laughs at the other because he finds the other ludicrous but not himself. If it is ludicrous to kiss an ugly girl, it is also ludicrous to kiss a pretty one. And the notion that doing it in a certain manner justifies laughing at someone else who does it in another way is nothing but superciliousness and a conspiracy that still does not save such a discriminating person from the general ludicrousness because of the inability of everyone to say what it is supposed to [VI 43] mean, whereas it nevertheless is supposed to mean everything, and to mean that the two lovers will belong to each other for all eternity—indeed, what is still more amusing, is supposed to assure them that they do.

  If a man, all of a sudden tipping his head to one side or shaking his head or kicking out his foot, answered me if I asked him why he did it: I really do not know, I just happened to do it that way; next time I’ll do it differently, for it is involuntary—ah, then I would understand him very well. But if he said—as the lovers indeed say of those gesticulations—that all the bliss consists in this, how ludicrous I would find it, as I also found that first instance ludicrous, admittedly in a somewhat different sense, until the man forestalled the laughter by explaining that they were not supposed to mean anything. Hereby precisely the contradiction underlying the comic is nullified, for it is not ludicrous to declare that something that is meaningless does not mean anything at all, whereas it certainly is ludicrous to declare that it means everything. As for the involuntary, the contradiction is initially present: that we do not expect the involuntary from a free rational being. Suppose, for instance, that the pope started coughing the very moment he was about to place the crown on Napoleon’s head or that in the solemn moment of exchanging vows the bride and bridegroom began to sneeze—the comic would be apparent. The more the given occasion emphasizes the free rational being, the more comic the involuntary becomes. The same applies to erotic g
esticulations, where the comic appears for the second time when people try to explain that contradiction by giving them absolute meaning. Children, as is known, have a great sense of the comic—in substantiation of this one can always rely on children. Ordinarily, children can never help laughing at lovers, and if we induce them to tell what they have seen, no one can refrain from laughing. Perhaps this is because children leave out the point. How strange that when the Jew left out the point no one laughed, but here it is just the opposite: when someone leaves out the point everyone laughs. But since no one can say what the point is, then it certainly is left out. The lovers explain nothing; those who eulogize love explain nothing but are only prepared, as ordered by the Danish constitution, to say everything that may be kind and pleasant.109 But the person [VI 44] who thinks gives an account of his categories, and the person who thinks about love also promptly thinks about the categories. But people do not do this with love, and we still lack a science of rural life [Pastoral-Videnskab], for even if a poet tries to have love come to life in a pastorale [pastoral poem], everything is smuggled in again with the aid of another person from whom the lovers learn 110to love.111 —Consequently, I found the comic in the erotic reversal whereby the highest in one sphere does not find its expression in this sphere but in something totally opposite in another sphere. It is comic that erotic love’s lofty soaring (wanting to belong to each other for all eternity) always ends up, like Saft, in the pantry,112 but it is still more comic that this conclusion of the matter is supposed to be the highest expression.

  113Wherever there is contradiction, there is the comic. I am continually following this track. If it upsets you, dear drinking companions, to follow me, then follow with averted faces; after all, I myself am speaking as if I had a veil over my eyes, for since I can see only the enigmatic, I cannot really see, or I am really seeing nothing. What is a consequence? If in one way or another it cannot be identified with that of which it is the consequence, then it becomes ludicrous if it nevertheless should claim to be a consequence. For instance, when a man who wants to take a bath jumps into the tub and as he somewhat confusedly surfaces again grabs for the bath rope to steady himself but mistakenly grabs the chain of a shower, which then with excellent motivation and with every possible justification streams down on him, the consequence is entirely proper. The ludicrousness consists in his grabbing the wrong chain, but there is nothing ludicrous in a shower gushing forth if one pulls the chain; indeed, it would rather be ludicrous if it did not, as if—to demonstrate the correctness of my proposition about contradiction—as if a man deliberately steeled himself to be prepared and rightly able to tolerate that cold shower, pulled the chain with the zest of resolution—and no water came.

  114Let us now see how it is with erotic love. The lovers want to belong to each other for all eternity. This they expressed in that strange manner of embracing each other in the fervency of the moment, and all the desire of the bliss of love is supposed to be in that embrace. But all desire is selfish. The lover’s desire presumably is not selfish in relation to the beloved’s, but the desire of both together is absolutely selfish [VI 45] insofar as they in union and in love form one self. And yet they are deceived; for at the very same moment the species triumphs over the individuals, the species is victorious while individuals are subordinated to being in its service. I find this more ludicrous than what Aristophanes found so ludicrous.115 For the ludicrousness in that bisection lies in the contradiction, which Aristophanes did not adequately emphasize. When one looks at a human being, one should still believe him to be a complete entity in himself, and one believes that—until one sees that in the obsession of love he is only a half running around after his other half. There is nothing comic in half an apple; the comic would become apparent only if a whole apple were half an apple. In the former case there is no contradiction, but certainly in the latter case. If the colloquialism that a woman is only half a person is taken seriously, she would not be at all comic in erotic love. But the man who has enjoyed social esteem as a whole man becomes comic when he suddenly begins to run around and thereby betrays that he is but half a person. The more one thinks about it, the more ludicrous it becomes, for if the man actually is a whole, then he certainly does not become a whole in erotic love, but he and the woman become one and a half. No wonder the gods laugh, and especially at the man. But I turn back to my consequence. Now, if the lovers have found each other, one would expect them to be a whole, and that would account for the truth of their living for each other for all eternity. But look, instead of living for each other they begin living for the human race, and this they do not suspect.

  116What is a consequence? If, when it appears, one cannot see it in that from which it emerged, then such a consequence is ludicrous and those involved in it are ludicrous. Now if those separated halves have found each other, this certainly means perfect satisfaction and rest, and yet a new life [Tilværelse] results from it. It is understandable that the lovers’ finding each other becomes a new life for them, but it is not understandable that a new life for another person dates from it. And yet this resulting consequence is even greater than that from which it is a consequence, and yet a completion like that of the lovers who found each other surely must be a sign that no further consequences are thinkable. Is any other desire [VI 46] analogous to this? Quite the reverse. 117Indeed, gratified desire always means118 a more or less stagnant state, and even if tristitia [sloth, dejection, moroseness] sets in, suggesting that all desire is comic, such tristitia will be a simple consequence, even if no tristitia is such strong evidence of a prior element of the comic as is the tristitia of erotic love. On the other hand, such an enormous consequence as the one of which we speak is another matter, a consequence of which no one knows whence it comes or if it comes, whereas it nevertheless, if it comes, comes as a consequence.

  119Who can comprehend this? And yet for the initiates what is erotic love’s highest desire is also its deepest significance; it is so significant that the lovers even take new names that are derived from the consequence, which then curiously enough acquire retroactive force. The lover is now called “father,” and the beloved is called “mother,” and to them these names are the most beautiful of all. And yet there is one for whom these names are even more beautiful, for what is as beautiful as piety? To me it seems the most beautiful of all, and fortunately I am able to understand its idea. We are taught that the son ought to love his father. This I understand. I do not have even an intimation of a contradiction. I feel blessedly bound in piety’s beautiful bonds of love. 120I believe that it is the most sublime to owe life to another person; I believe that this debt cannot be settled or discharged by any reckoning, and this is why I feel that Cicero is right in saying that in relation to the father the son is always in the wrong,121 and it is precisely piety that teaches me to believe this, teaches me not even to want to penetrate what is hidden but rather to go on being hidden in the father. Yes, I am happy to be another human being’s greatest debtor, but conversely, before I decide to make another person my greatest debtor, I certainly want to be clear in my own mind, because in my opinion there is no comparison between being another person’s debtor and making another person one’s debtor so that he cannot become free of it in all eternity. Thus what piety forbids the son to consider, love bids the father to consider. And now there is contradiction again. If the son is an eternal being like the father,122 what does it mean to be a father? I must indeed smile when I think of myself as a father, whereas the son is most deeply moved when he thinks of his relationship to his father. I really [VI 47] do understand what Plato has said so beautifully, that an animal gives birth to an animal of the same species, a plant brings forth a plant of the same species, and in the same way a human being a human being,123 but by this nothing is explained. Thought is not satisfied; only an obscure feeling is aroused—for an eternal being cannot be born. As soon as the father regards the son in the light of his own eternal nature, which is indeed the essential view, he t
hen certainly must smile at himself, since he can in no way grasp all the beauty and the significance that gladdens the son in piety. But if he regards his son in the light of his physical nature, then he has to smile again, for to be a father is a much too significant expression for that. If it were ultimately conceivable that the father had influence on the son, that the father’s nature became a presupposition from which the son’s nature could not extricate itself, then the contradiction would come from another side, for then the idea would be so terrible that there would be nothing on earth as terrible as to be a father. There is no comparison between murdering a human being and giving a human being life; the former determines his fate merely for time, the other for eternity. Thus once again the contradiction here is something both to laugh over and to weep over. Is being a father a delusion, although not in the sense in which Magdelone says it to Jeronymus in Erasmus Montanus,124 or is it the most terrible thing of all; is it the greatest benefaction, or is it desire’s greatest pleasure; is it something that happens, or is it the highest task?

  125This, you see, is why I have renounced all erotic love, for my thought is everything to me. If love is the most blissful desire, then I renounce the desire without wishing either to offend or to envy anyone; if love conditions the highest benefaction, then I reject the occasion for it, but my thought is saved. Not that I am without an eye for beauty, not that my heart is unmoved when I read the poets’ songs, not that my soul is without sadness when I indulge in that beautiful representation of love, but I refuse to be unfaithful to my thought, and what would be the use of it, because for me there is no bliss where I have not saved my thought, where, if I were there, I would long unto despair for thought, which I dare not abandon in order to cling to a wife, since to me it is my eternal nature and consequently even more valuable than father and mother126 and even more valuable than a wife. I do, [VI 48] of course, perceive that if anything may be sacred, then it is love, that if faithlessness is debased anywhere, it is in love, that if any deceit is abominable, it is in love. But my soul is pure; I have never looked at any woman to desire her,127 and I have never fluttered about uncertainly until I blindly rushed into or swooned into what is most crucial. If I knew what the lovable is, then I would know for sure whether I was guilty of tempting anyone, but since I do not know that, I can only know for sure that I am not aware of having wanted to do that. Suppose I yielded, suppose I started to laugh, or suppose I collapsed under the terror, for it is impossible for me to find the narrow path that the lovers walk along as easily as if it were the broad way, undisturbed by all the spiritual trials that they presumably have thought about, since our age, after all, has thought through everything, and consequently they readily understand what I mean when I say that to act spontaneously is nonsens, and thus one must have thought every idea through before acting—suppose I yielded. Would I not have irreparably offended the beloved if I laughed or unremittingly plunged her into despair if I collapsed. For I do perceive, of course, that a woman cannot be so thoroughly reflective, and a woman who found erotic love comic (something only the gods and men can do, and this is why a woman is a temptation that wants to lure them into becoming ludicrous) would betray alarming foreknowledge and would be the last person to understand me, but a woman who comprehended the terror would have lost her lovableness and still would not understand me, would be destroyed, which I am not at all—as long as my thought saves me.