Page:Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard.djvu/81

 Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard 79

a man of whom one may expect a developed mentality, he will either not become jealous, or he will become ridiculous if he does ; and most of all when he comes running with a dagger in his hand.

A pity that Shakespeare has not presented us with a comedy of this description in which the claim raised by a woman's infidelity is turned down by irony; for not eveiy one who is able to see the comical element in this situation is able also to develop the thought and give it dramatic em- bodiment. Let one but imagine Socrates surprising Xan- thippe in the act â€” for it would be un-Socratic even to think of Socrates being particularly concerned about his wife's fidelity, or still worse, spying on her â€” imagine it, and I believe that the fine smile which transformed the ugliest man in Athens into the handsomest, would for the first time have turned into a roar of laughter. It is incompre- hensible why Aristophanes, who so frequently made Socra- tes the butt of his ridicule, neglected to have him run on the stage shouting: "WTiere is she, where is she, so that I may kill her, i.e., my unfaithful Xanthippe." For really it does not matter greatly whether or no Socrates was made a cuckold, and all that Xanthippe may do in this regard is wasted labor, like snapping one's fingers in one's pocket; for Socrates remains the same intellectual hero, even with a horn on his forehead. But if he had in fact become jealous and had wanted to kill Xanthippe â€” alas! then would Xan- thippe have exerted a power over him such as the entire Greek nation and his sentence of death could not â€” to make him ridiculous.

A cuckold is comical, then, with respect to his wife; but he may be regarded as becoming tragical with respect to other men. In this fact we may find an explanation of the Spanish conception of honor. But the tragic element re- sides chiefly in his not being able to obtain redress, and the anguish of his suffering consists really in its being devoid of meaning â€” which is terrible enough. To shoot the woman, to challenge her, to despise her, all this would only serve to render the poor man still more ridiculous; for woman is the weaker sex. This consideration enters in everv-