私を殺さないものは私を強くする watashi wo korosanai mono wa watashi wo tsuyoku suru What Does Not Kill Me, Makes Me Stronger
私を殺さないものは私を強くする (watashi wo korosanai mono wa watashi wo tsuyoku suru), what does not kill me makes me strong, is Nietzsche's aphorism from Götzen-Dämmerung of 1889, without its heading, Aus der Kriegsschule des Lebens. No book to 1946 in the National Diet Library carries the Japanese.
Abstract
私を殺さないものは私を強くする, what does not kill me makes me strong, renders the eighth of Nietzsche's Sprüche und Pfeile in Götzen-Dämmerung (1889): Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker. The aphorism's heading is dropped, as it is in English. The Japanese is plain and modern, and no book to 1946 in the National Diet Library carries it under two spellings.
Overview
The sense. Nietzsche's aphorism in a plain Japanese rendering with no page behind it in the Library to 1946.
The words. The words are ordinary; the sentence keeps Nietzsche's negative relative clause, 私を殺さないもの, that which does not kill me.
The text in English. What does not kill me makes me stronger is the received English.
The historical record
1889. Nietzsche. The eighth of the Sprüche und Pfeile that open Götzen-Dämmerung, in the Kröner text of 1922: Aus der Kriegsschule des Lebens. – Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker, from the war-school of life: what does not kill me makes me stronger [1]. The heading is part of the aphorism and is dropped here, as English does. The Japanese, 私を殺さないものは私を強くする, is in no book to 1946 in the National Diet Library under two spellings [2], and the rendering has no prewar source.
Today. What a rendering must keep is the negative relative clause, that which does not kill me.
A reading
Nietzsche's line without its heading, as English has it, in a plain Japanese that no book to 1946 in the Library carries. The heading, from the war-school of life, is what the aphorism loses when it travels alone.
References
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, Sprüche und Pfeile 8, Kröner, 1922, at Projekt Gutenberg-DE. https://projekt-gutenberg.org/authors/friedrich-wilhelm-nietzsche/books/goetzen-daemmerung/chapter/3
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, next-generation full-text search on 私を殺さないものは and 殺さぬものは我を強くする, 0 books each to 1946. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/