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They speak in favor of life, these poisonous spiders, even though they are sitting in their holes and have turned against life, because they want to do harm. They want to harm those who hold power today, for among them the sermon on death is still most at home. If it were otherwise, then the tarantulas would teach otherwise; and they after all were formerly the best world slanderers and burners of heretics. I do not want to be mixed in with and mistaken for these preachers of equality. For thus justice speaks to me : 'humans are not equal.' And they shouldn't become so either! What would my love for the overman be if I spoke otherwise? On a thousand bridges and paths they shall throng to the future, and ever more war and inequality shall be set between them: thus my great love commands me to speak! Inventors of images and ghosts shall they become in their hostility, and with their images and ghosts they shall yet fight the highest fight against each other! Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and trifling, and all the names of values: they shall be weapons and clanging signs that life must overcome itself again and again! Life itself wants to build itself into the heights with pillars and steps; it wants to gaze into vast distances and out upon halcyon beauties therefore it needs height! And because it needs height, it needs steps and contradiction between steps and climbers! Life wants to climb and to overcome itself by climbing. Andlookhere, my friends! Here, where the tarantula's hole is, the ruins of an ancient temple are rising - look here now with enlightened eyes! Indeed, the one who once heaped his thoughts skyward here in stone - he knew the secret of all life like the most wise! That struggle and inequality and war for power and supremacy are found even in beauty: he teaches us that here in the clearest parable. How divinely the vault and the arch bend and break each other as they wrestle; how they struggle against each other with light and shadow, these divinely struggling ones - In this manner sure and beautiful let us also be enemies, my friends! Divinely let us struggle against each other! Alas! Then the tarantula bit me, my old enemy! Divinely sure and beautiful it bit me on the finger! Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Oh, before I would learn to believe in your 'truthfulness' you would first have to break your revering will. Truthful - thus I call the one who goes into godless deserts and has broken his revering heart. In the yellow sand and burned by the sun he may squint thirstily at islands rich with springs, where living things rest beneath dark trees. But his thirst does not persuade him to become the same as these comfortable ones; for where there are oases, there are idols as well. Hungry, violent, lonely, godless; thus the lion-will wants itself. Free from the happiness of the servant, redeemed of gods and adorations, fearless and fearsome, great and lonely; thus is the will of the truthful. In the desert the truthful have always dwelled, the free spirits, as the rulers of the desert; but in the cities dwell the well-fed, famous wise men - the draft animals. For they, as asses, always pull - the people's cart! Not that I am angry with them for it; but to me they remain servants and harnessed, even if they gleam in golden harnesses. Andoften they were good servants and praiseworthy. For virtue speaks thus: 'If you must serve, then seek the one who benefits most from your service! The spirit and virtue of your master shall grow from your being his servant; thus you yourself grow with his spirit and his virtue!' And truly, you famous wise men, you servants of the people! You yourselves grew with the people's spirit and virtue - and the people through you! I say this in your honor! But to me you remain the people even in your virtues, the people with stupid eyes - the people who don't know what spirit is! Spirit is life that itself cuts into life; by its own agony it increases its own knowledge - did you know that? And the happiness of spirit is this: to be anointed and consecrated by tears to serve as a sacrificial animal - did you know that? And the blindness of the blind, and his seeking and probing shall yet testify to the power of the sun into which he gazed - did you know that? And the seeker of knowledge shall learn to build with mountains! It means little that the spirit moves mountains - did you know that?
You know only the spark of the spirit, but you do not see the anvil that it is, nor the cruelty of its hammer! Thus Spoke Zarathustra But I live in my own light, I drink back into myself the flames that break out of me. Idonot the know the happiness of receiving; and often I dreamed that stealing must be more blessed than receiving. This is my poverty, that my hand never rests from bestowing; this is my envy, that I see waiting eyes and the illuminated nights of longing. Oh misery of all bestowers! Oh darkening of my sun! Oh craving to crave! Oh ravenous hunger in satiety! They receive from me, but do I still touch their souls? There is a cleft between giving and receiving; and the closest cleft is the last to be bridged. A hunger grows out of my beauty; I wish to harm those for whom I shine, I wish to rob those on whom I have bestowed: - thus I hunger for malice. Withdrawing my hand when a hand already reaches for it; hesitating like the waterfall that hesitates even while plunging - thus I hunger for malice. Myfullness plots such vengeance; such trickery gushes from my loneliness. My happiness in bestowing died in bestowing, my virtue wearied of itself in its superabundance! For one who always bestows, the danger is loss of shame; whoever dispenses always has calloused hands and heart from sheer dispensing. My eye no longer wells up at the shame of those who beg; my hand became too hard for the trembling of filled hands. Where have the tears of my eye and the down of my heart gone? Oh loneliness of all bestowers! Oh muteness of all who shine! Many suns revolve in desolate space. To everything that is dark they speak with their light - to me they are mute. Oh this is the enmity of light toward that which shines; mercilessly it goes its orbit. Unjust in its deepest heart toward that which shines: cold toward suns - thus every sun goes. Like a storm the suns fly their orbit, that is their motion. They follow their inexorable will; that is their coldness.
Ohitis you only, you dark ones, you nocturnal ones, who create warmth out of that which shines! Oh it is you only who drink milk and refreshment from the udders of light!
Alas, ice surrounds me, my hand burns itself on iciness! Alas, there is, Second Part = . thirst in me that yearns for your thirst!, Second Part = . It is night: alas that I must be light! And thirst for the nocturnal! And, Second Part = . It is night: now my longing breaks out of me like a well - I long to, Second Part = . speak., Second Part = . It is night: now all fountains speak more loudly. And my soul too is a, Second Part = . fountain., Second Part = . too is the song of a lover., Second Part = . The Dance Song, Second Part = . and as he searched for a well, behold, he then came upon a green meadow, Second Part = . that was silently bordered by trees and shrubs; upon it girls danced with, Second Part = . each other. As soon as the girls recognized Zarathustra, they stopped, Second Part = . dancing; but Zarathustra approached them with a friendly gesture and, Second Part = . spoke these words: 'Do not stop dancing, you lovely girls! No spoil sport has come to you, Second Part = . with his evil eye, no enemy of girls., Second Part = . God'sadvocatebeforethedevil am I; but the devil is the spirit of gravity. Howcould I be hostile toward godlike dancing, you light ones? Or toward, Second Part = . girls' feet with pretty ankles?, Second Part = . I may well be a wood and a night of dark trees, yet whoever does, Second Part = . not shrink from my darkness will also find rose slopes under my, Second Part = . cypresses., Second Part = . he lies next to the well, still, with closed eyes., Second Part = . Indeed, he fell asleep in broad daylight, the loafer! Did he chase too, Second Part = . little god a bit! He will probably yell and weep - but he is comical even, Second Part = . when weeping!, Second Part = . And with tears in his eyes he shall ask you for a dance, and I myself will, Second Part = . sing a song to his dance:, Second Part = Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Adanceandamockingsongtothespiritofgravity,mysupremehighest and most powerful devil, of whom it is said that he is 'the ruler of the world.' ' - Andthisis the song that Zarathustra sang as Cupid and the girls danced together. Into your eye I gazed recently, oh life! And then into the unfathomable I seemed to sink. But you pulled me out with your golden fishing rod; you laughed mockingly when I called you unfathomable. 'Thus sounds the speech of all fish,' you said. 'What they do not fathom, is unfathomable. But I am merely fickle and wild and in all things a woman, and no virtuous one: Whether to you men I am called 'profundity' or 'fidelity,' 'eternity' or 'secrecy.' But you men always bestow on us your own virtues - oh, you virtuous men!' Thus she laughed, the incredible one, but I never believe her and her laughing when she speaks ill of herself. And when I spoke in confidence with my wild wisdom, she said to me angrily: 'You will, you covet, you love, and only therefore do you praise life!' Then I almost answered maliciously and told the angry woman the truth; and one can not answer more maliciously than when one 'tells the truth' to one's wisdom. Thus matters stand between the three of us. At bottom I love only life - and verily, most when I hate it! But that I am fond of wisdom and often too fond; that is because she reminds me so much of life! She has her eyes, her laugh and even her little golden fishing rod - is it my fault that the two look so much alike? And when life once asked me: 'Who is this wisdom anyway?'- I hastened to reply: 'Oh yes! Wisdom! Onethirsts for her and does not become sated, one peeks through veils, one snatches through nets. Is she beautiful? What do I know! But even the oldest carps are baited by her.
She is fickle and stubborn; often I saw her bite her lip and comb her, Second Part = . hair against the grain., Second Part = . Perhaps she is evil and false, and in all things a female; but when she, Second Part = . speaks ill of herself, precisely then she seduces the most.', Second Part = . When I had said this to life she laughed sarcastically and closed her, Second Part = . And even if you are right - does one say that to my face? But now speak, Second Part = . too of your own wisdom!', Second Part = . Oh, and now you opened your eyes again, oh beloved life! And again I, Second Part = . seemed to sink into the unfathomable. -, Second Part = . Thus sang Zarathustra. But when the dance had ended and the girls, Second Part = . departed, he became sad. 'The sun set long ago,' he remarked at last. 'The meadow is moist,, Second Part = . coolness emanates from the woods., Second Part = . Something unknown is around me and it gazes pensively. What - you, Second Part = . are still alive, Zarathustra?, Second Part = . Why? Wherefore? Whereby? Whither? Where? How? Is it not folly to, Second Part = . continue living? -, Second Part = . Alas, my friends, it is the evening whose questions emerge from me., Second Part = . Forgive me my sadness!, Second Part = . Evening came: forgive me that evening came!', Second Part = . Thus spoke Zarathustra., Second Part = . The Grave Song, Second Part = . 'There is the island of graves, the silent one; there too are the graves of, Second Part = . my youth. There I shall carry an evergreen wreath of life.', Second Part = . Ohyouvisions and apparitions of my youth! Oh all you glances of love,, Second Part = . today like my dead., Second Part = . Fromyou,frommydearestdeparted,comesasweetfragrance,releasing, Second Part = . my tears and my heart. Indeed, it shakes and releases the heart of this, Second Part = . lonely seafarer., Second Part = . For I had youonce, and you have me
still: tell me, for whom did such rosy, Second Part = . apples fall from the tree as for me?, Second Part = Thus Spoke Zarathustra I am still the heir and earth of your love, blossoming in remembrance of you with colorful, wild-growing virtues, oh you most beloved! Indeed, we were made to stay close to each other, you noble, strange wonders; and not like skittish birds did you come to me and to my desire - no, as trusting ones to a trusting one! Yes, made for loyalty, like me, and for tender eternities; I must now refer to you by your disloyalty, you godlike glances and glancing moments, for I've learned no other name yet. Indeed, you died too soon for me, you fugitives. Yet you did not flee me, nor did I flee you: we are mutually innocent in our disloyalty. To kill me they strangled you, you songbirds of my hopes! Yes, at you, my dearest ones, malice always shot its arrows - to strike my heart! And it struck! For you were always closest to my heart, my possession and what possessed me: for that you had to die young and all too early! The arrow was shot at the most vulnerable thing that I possessed; that was you, whose skin is like down and even more like a smile that dies of a glance! But these words I shall speak to my enemies: what is all murder of human beings compared to what you did to me! More evil you did to me than all murder of human beings. You took from me what was irretrievable - thus I speak to you, my enemies! For you murdered my youth's visions and dearest wonders! You took my playmates from me, the blessed spirits! In remembrance of them I lay down this wreath and this curse. This curse against you, my enemies! For you cut my eternity short, like a sound breaks off in cold night! It barely reached me as the flash of godlike eyes - as a glancing moment! Thus at a good hour my purity once spoke to me: 'Godlike shall all beings be to me.' Then you fell upon me with filthy ghosts; alas, where now has that good hour fled? 'All days shall be holy to me' - so spoke the wisdom of my youth, once; truly, the speech of a gay wisdom!
But then you enemies stole my nights and sold them into sleepless agony; alas, where now has my gay wisdom fled? Once I yearned for happy signs from birds; then you led an owl abomination across my path, a repulsive one. Alas, where then did my tender yearning flee?
Once I pledged to renounce all nausea; then you transformed those near and nearest me into boils of pus. Alas, where then did my noblest pledge flee? As a blind man I once walked blessed paths; then you tossed filth onto the path of the blind man, and now he is repulsed by the old blind man's footpath. And when I did what was hardest for me and celebrated the victory of my overcomings; then you made those who loved me cry out that I hurt them most. Indeed, that was always your doing; you turned to gall my best honey and the hard work of my best bees. You always dispatched the most impudent beggars to my charity; you always crowded the incurably shameless around my pity. Thus you wounded my virtue in its faith. And when I laid down even what was holiest to me as a sacrifice; instantly your 'piety' placed its fatter gifts on top, such that what was holiest to me choked in the smoke of your fat. And once I wanted to dance as I had never danced before; over and beyond all heavens I wanted to dance. Then you swayed my favorite singer. And then he struck up a horrid, dreadful tune; indeed, he tooted in my ears like a mournful horn! Murderous singer, tool of malice, most innocent one! Already I stood poised for my best dance; then you murdered my enchantment with your tones! Only in dance do I know how to speak the parables of the highest things - and now my highest parable remained unspoken in my limbs! My highest hope remained unspoken and unredeemed! And all the visions and comforts of my youth died. How did I bear it? How did I overturn and overcome such wounds? How did my soul rise again from these graves? Yes, there is something invulnerable, unburiable in me, something that explodes boulders: it is called my will . Silently and unchanged it strides through the years. It wants to walk its course on my feet, my old will; its mind is hearthardened and invulnerable. Invulnerable am I only in the heel. You still live and are the same, most patient one! You have always broken through all graves!
In you what is unredeemed of my youth lives on; and as life and youth you sit here hoping upon greying ruins of graves. Yes, to me you are still the shatterer of all graves: Hail to you, my will! And only where there are graves are there resurrections. - Thus sang Zarathustra. -
'Will to truth' you call that which drives you and makes you lustful, you wisest ones? Will to thinkability of all being, that's what I call your will! You first want to make all being thinkable, because you doubt, with proper suspicion, whether it is even thinkable. But for you it shall behave and bend! Thus your will wants it. It shall become smooth and subservient to the spirit, as its mirror and reflection. That is your entire will, you wisest ones, as a will to power; and even when you speak of good and evil and of valuations. You still want to create the world before which you could kneel: this is your ultimate hope and intoxication. The unwise, to be sure, the people - they are like a river on which a skiff floats; valuations are seated in the skiff, solemn and cloaked. Your will and your values you set upon the river of becoming; what the people believe to be good and evil reveals to me an ancient will to power. It was you, you wisest ones, who placed such guests into the skiff and gave them pomp and proud names - you and your dominating will! Now the river carries your skiff along: it has to carry it. It matters little whether the breaking wave foams and angrily opposes the keel! Theriver is not your danger and the end of your good and evil, you wisest ones; but this will itself, the will to power - the unexhausted begetting will of life. But in order that you understand my words on good and evil, I also want to tell you my words on life and on the nature of all that lives. I pursued the living, I walked the greatest and the smallest paths in order to know its nature. With a hundredfold mirror I captured even its glance, when its mouth was closed, so that its eyes could speak to me. And its eyes spoke to me. However, wherever I found the living, there too I heard the speech on obedience. All living is an obeying.
And this is the second thing that I heard: the one who cannot obey himself is commanded. Such is the nature of the living. This however is the third thing that I heard: that commanding is harder than obeying. And not only that the commander bears the burden of all obeyers, and that this burden easily crushes him: - In all commanding it seemed to me there is an experiment and a risk; and always when it commands, the living risks itself in doing so. Indeed, even when it commands itself, even then it must pay for its commanding. It must become the judge and avenger and victim of its own law. How does this happen? I asked myself. What persuades the living to obey and command, and to still practice obedience while commanding? Hear my words, you wisest ones! Check seriously to see whether I crept into the very heart of life and into the roots of its heart! Wherever I found the living, there I found the will to power; and even in the will of the serving I found the will to be master. The weaker is persuaded by its own will to serve the stronger, because it wants to be master over what is still weaker: this is the only pleasure it is incapable of renouncing. And as the smaller gives way to the greater, in order for it to have its pleasure and power over the smallest, so too the greatest gives way, and for the sake of power it risks - life itself. That is the giving-way of the greatest, that it is a risk and a danger and a tossing of dice unto death. And where there are sacrificing and favors and love-looks, there too is the will to be master. Along secret passages the weaker sneaks into the fortress and straight to the heart of the more powerful - and there it steals power. And this secret life itself spoke to me: 'Behold,' it said, 'I am that which must always overcome itself . To be sure, you call it will to beget or drive to a purpose, to something higher, more distant, more manifold: but all this is one, and one secret. I would rather perish than renounce this one thing; and truly, wherever there is decline and the falling of leaves, behold, there life sacrifices itself - for power! That I must be struggle and becoming and purpose and the contradiction of purposes - alas, whoever guesses my will guesses also on what crooked paths it must walk!
Whatever I may create and however I may love it - soon I must oppose it and my love, thus my will wants it. And even you, seeker of knowledge, are only a path and footstep of my will; indeed, my will to power follows also on the heels of your will to truth! Indeed, the one who shot at truth with the words 'will to existence' did not hit it: this will - does not exist! For, what is not can not will; but what is in existence, how could this still will to exist! Only where life is, is there also will; but not will to life, instead - thus I teach you - will to power! Muchis esteemed more highly by life than life itself; yet out of esteeming itself speaks - the will to power!' - Thus life once taught me, and from this I shall yet solve the riddle of your heart, you wisest ones. Truly, I say to you: good and evil that would be everlasting - there is no such thing! They must overcome themselves out of themselves again and again. You do violence with your values and words of good and evil, you valuators; and this is your hidden love and the gleaming, trembling and flowing-over of your souls. But a stronger force grows out of your values and a new overcoming; upon it egg and eggshell break. And whoever must be a creator in good and evil - truly, he must first be an annihilator and break values. Thus the highest evil belongs to the highest goodness, but this is the creative one. - Let us speak of this, you wisest ones, even if it is bad to do so. Keeping silent is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous. And may everything break that can possibly be broken by our truths! Many a house has yet to be built! Thus spoke Zarathustra.
The bottom of my sea is calm - who would guess that it conceals playful monsters?
He must also unlearn his hero's will; he shall be elevated, not merely sublime - the ether itself shall elevate him, the will-less one! He subdued monsters, he solved riddles, but he should also solve his own monsters and riddles; he should transform them into heavenly children. As of yet his knowledge has not learned to smile and to be without jealousy; his torrential passion has not yet become calm in its beauty. Indeed, not in satiety shall his yearning keep silent and submerge, but in beauty! Grace belongs to the graciousness of the great-minded. With his arm laid across his head - thus the hero should rest, thus too he should overcome even his resting. But precisely for the hero beauty is the most difficult of all things. Beauty is not be wrested by any violent willing. A little more, a little less: right here this means much, here this means the most. To stand with muscles relaxed and with an unharnessed will: this is most difficult for all of you sublime ones! When power becomes gracious and descends into view: beauty I call such descending. And from no one do I want beauty as I do from just you, you powerful one: let your kindness be your ultimate self-conquest. I know you capable of all evil - therefore from you I want the good. Indeed, I often laughed at the weaklings who believe themselves good because their paws are lame! You shall strive to emulate the virtue of a column; ever more beautiful and delicate it becomes, the higher it rises, but inwardly harder and more resistant. Yes, you sublime one, one day you shall be beautiful and shall hold the mirror up to your own beauty. Then your soul will shudder with divine desires, and even in your vanity there will be adoration! For this is the secret of the soul: only when the hero abandons her, she is approached in dream by - the over-hero. This allusion to the myth of Ariadne and Theseus foreshadows the 'magician's song' in Part , which became one of the Dionysus Dithyrambs . Nietzsche was preparing the manuscript of the Dithyrambs for publication when he became incapacitated after a series of nervous breakdowns in late and early . According to the myth, Ariadne is abandoned by her lover Theseus, Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Too far into the future did I fly; dread fell upon me. And when I looked around, behold! Then time was my only contemporary. Then I fled backward, homeward - with ever greater haste. Thus I came to you, you of the present, and into the land of education. For the first time I brought along eyes for you, and a strong desire; indeed, I came with longing in my heart. But what happened to me? As frightened as I was - I had to laugh! Never had my eyes seen anything so splattered with colors! I laughed and laughed, while my foot still trembled and my heart as well: 'This must be the home of all paint pots!' I said. With fifty blotches painted on your face and limbs, thus you sat there to my amazement, you people of the present! And with fifty mirrors around you, flattering and echoing your play of colors! Indeed, you couldn't wear a better mask, you people of today, than that of your own face! Who could recognize you! Written full with the characters of the past, and even these characters painted over with new characters: thus you have hidden yourselves well from all interpreters of characters! And even if one were to give you a physical examination, who would even believe you have a body? You seem to be baked from colors and paper slips glued together. Motley, all ages and peoples peek from your veils; motley, all customs and beliefs speak from your gestures. and only Dionysus, the demi-god, comes to her ultimate rescue. Nietzsche elevated Ariadne to the symbol of the human soul, Theseus to the symbol of male vanity and all too human (limited) conceptions of the hero, and Dionysus to the role of super-hero ( Uber-Held ). See Adrian Del Caro, 'Symbolizing Philosophy: Ariadne and the Labyrinth,' in Nietzsche: Critical Assessments ( vols.), ed. Daniel W. Conway (London: Routledge, ), vol. , pp. - ; and 'Nietzschean self-transformation and the transformation of the Dionysian,' in Nietzsche, Philosophy and the Arts , ed. Salim Kemal, Ivan Gaskell, and Daniel Conway (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), pp. - .
Thus Spoke Zarathustra If one were to pull away veil and wrap and color and gesture from you, there would be just enough left over to scare away the crows. Indeed, I myself am the scared crow who once saw you naked and without color; and I flew away when the skeleton beckoned amorously. Iwouldrather be a day laborer in the underworld and among the shades of yore! - Even the underworldly are fatter and fuller than you! This, oh this is bitterness for my bowels, that I can stand you neither naked nor clothed, you people of the present! All uncanniness of the future, and whatever caused flown birds to shudder, is truly homelier and more familiar than your 'reality.' For you speak thus: 'We are real entirely, and without beliefs and superstition.' Thus you stick out your chests - alas, even without chests! Indeed, how should you be capable of believing, you color-splattered ones - you who are paintings of everything that has ever been believed! Rambling refutations of belief itself are you, and the limb-fracturing of every thought. Unbelievable is what I call you, you so-called real ones! All ages prattle against each other in your minds; and the dreams and prattling of all ages were more real than even your waking is! You are sterile: therefore you lack beliefs. But whoever had to create also always had his prophetic dreams and astrological signs - and believed in believing! - You are half-open gates, at which the gravediggers wait. And this is your reality: 'Everything deserves to perish.' Oh how you stand there, you sterile ones, how skinny in the ribs! And some one of you probably realized this on his own. And he spoke: 'Surely some god secretly removed something from me while I slept? Indeed, enough to form himself a little woman from it! Wondrous is the poverty of my ribs!' Thus spoke many a person of the present. Indeed, you make me laugh, you people of the present! And especially when you are amazed at yourselves! Andwoeto me if I couldn't laugh at your amazement, and had to drink down all the repugnant contents of your bowls! So I shall take you more lightly, as I have a heavy burden; and what does it matter to me if beetles and winged worms still land on my bundle?
Thus Spoke Zarathustra 'For me what is highest' - thus speaks your lying spirit to itself 'would be to look upon life without desire and not like a dog with its tongue hanging out: To be content in viewing, with dead will, without the grasp and greed of selfishness - cold and ashen grey in my whole body, but with drunken mooning eyes! To me the dearest thing would be' - thus the seducer seduces himself - 'to love the earth as the moon loves it, and to touch its beauty only with the eyes. And to me the immaculate perception of all things would be that I desire nothing from things, except that I might lie there before them like a mirror with a hundred eyes.' - Oh you sentimental hypocrites, you lechers! Your desire lacks innocence, and now therefore you slander all desiring! Indeed, you do not love the earth as creators, begetters, and enjoyers of becoming! Where is innocence? Where there is will to beget. And whoever wants to create over and beyond himself, he has the purest will. Where is beauty? Where I must will with my entire will; where I want to love and perish so that an image does not remain merely an image. Loving and perishing: these have gone together since the beginning of time. Will to love: that means being willing also for death. Thus I speak to you cowards! But now your emasculated leering wants to be called 'contemplation!' And whatever allows itself to be touched by cowardly eyes is supposed to be christened 'beautiful!' Oh you besmirchers of noble names! Butthatshall be your curse, you immaculate, you pure-perceiving ones, that you shall never give birth; and even if you lie broad and pregnant on the horizon! Indeed, you take a mouthful of noble words, and we are supposed to believe that your heart is overflowing, you liars? But my words are meager, despised, crooked words; gladly do I pick up what falls beneath the table during your meal. For with them I can still - tell hypocrites the truth! Yes, my fish bones, mussel shells and thorny leaves shall tickle the noses of hypocrites! There is always foul air around you and your meals; after all, your lecherous thoughts, your lies and secrets are in the air!
Dare for once to believe yourselves - yourselves and your entrails!, Second Part = . Whoever cannot believe himself always lies. Agod's mask you don before yourselves, you 'pure ones.' Into a god's, Second Part = . mask your horrid worm has crawled., Second Part = . Indeed, you deceive, you 'contemplative ones!' Zarathustra too was, Second Part = . once the fool of your godlike skins; he had not discovered the coils of, Second Part = . snakes with which they were stuffed., Second Part = . I once imagined seeing a god's soul playing in your play, you pure, Second Part = . perceivers! Once I imagined no better art than your arts!, Second Part = . The distance concealed snake-filth and foul odor from me, and that the, Second Part = . guile of a lizard lecherously crawled around here., Second Part = . But I came near you: then daylight came to me - and now it comes to, Second Part = . you - the moon's fling is at an end!, Second Part = . Look there! Chagrined and pale he stands there - before the dawn!, Second Part = . coming! Innocence and the creator's desire is all solar love!, Second Part = . Look there, how she glides impatiently across the sea! Do you not feel, Second Part = . her thirst and the hot breath of her love?, Second Part = . Shewouldsuckattheseaanddrinkitsdepthsintoherselfintheheights;, Second Part = . now the sea's desire rises with a thousand breasts., Second Part = . It wants to be kissed and sucked by the thirst of the sun; it wants to, Second Part = . Indeed, like the sun I love life and all deep seas., Second Part = . And this I call perception: all that is deep shall rise - to my height!, Second Part = . Thus spoke Zarathustra., Second Part = . On Scholars, Second Part = . AsIlaysleepingasheepmunchedattheivywreathonmyhead-munched and spoke: 'Zarathustra is no longer a scholar.', Second Part = . Spoke it and walked away, reproving and proud. A child told it to me., Second Part
= . I like to lie here where the children play, by the crumbling wall, beneath, Second Part = . thistles and red poppies., Second Part = . poppies. They are innocent, even in their spite., Second Part = . But to the sheep I am no longer a scholar, thus my fate wants it - blessed, Second Part = . be it!, Second Part = Thus Spoke Zarathustra For this is the truth: I have moved out of the house of the scholars, and I slammed the door on my way out. Toolongmysoulsathungryattheirtable;unlikethem,Iamnottrained to approach knowledge as if cracking nuts. Ilove freedom and the air over fresh earth; and I would rather sleep on ox hides than on their honors and reputations. I am too hot and burned up by my own thoughts; often it steals my breath away. Then I have to go out into the open and away from all dusty chambers. But they sit cool in their cool shade; in all things they want to be mere spectators and they take care not to sit where the sun burns on the steps. Just like those who stand in the street and gape at the people who pass by; thus too they wait and gape at thoughts that others have thought. When grasped they puff out clouds of dust like sacks of flour, involuntarily; but who would guess that their dust comes from grain and from the yellow bliss of summer fields? Whenthey pose as wise, I am chilled by their little proverbs and truths; often there is an odor to their wisdom, as if it came from the swamp, and truly, I have already heard the frog croaking out of it! Theyareskilled,theyhavecleverfingers;whywould my simplicity want to be near their multiplicity? Their fingers know how to do all manner of threading and knotting and weaving, and thus they knit the stockings of the spirit! Theyaregoodclockworks,onlyonehastoseetoitthattheyareproperly wound! Then they indicate the hour faithfully and make only a modest noise. Like mills and stamps they work; one need only toss them one's grain - they know how to grind down kernels and make white dust out of them!
Theyaregoodatspying on, and are not the best at trusting one another. Inventive in petty cleverness they lie in wait for those whose knowledge walks on lame feet - they lie in wait like spiders. I have always seen them prepare poison with caution, and always they donned gloves of glass for their fingers. And they also know how to play with loaded dice; and I found them so ardent in their play that they sweated. We are strangers to one another, and their virtues are even more repugnant to me than their falseness and false dice. Thus Spoke Zarathustra The disciple answered: 'I believe in Zarathustra.' But Zarathustra shook his head and smiled. 'Faith does not make me blessed,' he said. 'Especially not faith in me. But supposing that someone said in all earnestness that the poets lie too much: he is right we lie too much. We also know too little and are bad learners, thus we simply have to lie. Andwhoofuspoets has not watered down his wine? Many a poisonous hodgepodge took place in our cellars, much that is indescribable was enacted there. And because we know little, we take a hearty liking to the spiritually impoverished, especially when they are little young women! And we are even keen for those things that little old women tell each other evenings. Within ourselves we call that 'the eternal feminine.' And as if there were a special, secret portal to knowledge that becomes blocked to those who learn something, thus we believe in the people and their 'wisdom.' But this is what all poets believe: that whoever pricks up his ears while lying in the grass or on a lonely slope will divine something about the things that are situated between heaven and earth. And if tender stirrings come to them, then the poets always think that nature herself is in love with them: And she creeps up to their ears to tell them secrets and enamored flatteries, the like of which makes them boastful and bloated before all mortals! Indeed, there are so many things between heaven and earth of which only the poets have dreamed! And especially above the heavens, for all gods are poets' parable, poets' cock and bull! Indeed, always it lifts us up - namely to the kingdom of the clouds; atop these we set our motley bastards and then call them gods and overmen -
And they are just light enough for these chairs - all these gods and overmen! This chapter takes issue with Goethe and elevates him to the status of supreme poet, but it simultaneously decries the poetic fictions that throughout history sometimes pose as truth. 'The eternal feminine' refers to the conclusion of Faust , where the Chorus Mysticus announces that Faust is saved, he is lifted up to heaven by the eternal feminine ('Das Ewig-Weibliche/ Zieht uns hinan'), which here also includes the blessed Margarete (Gretchen). See also Part , 'The Song of Melancholy,' where truth and poetizing (fiction) are at odds. Defiantly the buffalo looks on, in his soul close to the sand, still closer to the thicket, but closest to the swamp. The references to parable, imperfection, and event are all based on the words of the Chorus Mysticus (see n. ), consisting of only eight lines, in which Goethe argues that ( ) everything not everlasting is merely a parable; ( ) what is imperfect becomes an event here (on earth); ( ) what is indescribable gets done here; and ( ) the eternal feminine lifts us up. Zarathustra expresses his impatience with the glibness of the poets; but observe that he includes the overman among these airy creations.
What does he care of beauty and sea and peacock's finery? This parable I say to the poets. Truly, their spirit itself is this peacock of peacocks and a sea of vanity! The spirit of the poet wants spectators: even if they have to be buffaloes! - But I became weary of this spirit, and I foresee that it will become weary of itself. Transformed I have already seen the poets, and turning their gaze against themselves. I saw ascetics of the spirit approaching; they grew out of the poets.' Thus spoke Zarathustra.
There is an island in the sea - not far from the blessed isles of Zarathustra -onwhich a fiery mountain smokes continually; the people say of it, and especially the little old women among the people say of it, that it was placed like a huge boulder before the gate to the underworld: but through the fiery mountain itself leads the narrow path that winds downward to this gate of the underworld. Now it was around the time that Zarathustra sojourned on the blessed isles that a ship dropped anchor at the island on which the smoking mountain stands, and its crew went ashore to shoot rabbits. Toward the hour of noon, however, as the captain and his people were together again, they suddenly saw a man approaching them through the air, and a voice clearly said: 'It is time! It is high time!' As the figure came closest to them - and it flew past quickly like a shadow in the direction of the fiery mountain - they recognized with the greatest dismay that it was Zarathustra; for all of them had seen him before, except for the captain himself, and they loved him as the people love, with equal parts of love and awe. This story Nietzsche did not make up himself, but as C. G. Jung pointed out in his dissertation of , 'On the Psychology and Pathology of So-called Occult Phenomena,' Nietzsche inadvertently remembered it from his childhood reading of Bl atter aus Prevorst , an 'antiquated collection of simple-minded Swabian ghost stories.' The recollection was triggered by Nietzsche's thought process relating to Zarathustra's trip to hell. 'Cryptoamnesia' or 'hidden memory' is to be distinguished from simple plagiarism because it is caused by the unconscious. See C. G. Jung, Psychiatric Studies in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung , vol. , ed. Sir Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, and Gerhard Adler ( nd edn., Princeton University Press, ), pp. vi, - , - , .
'Just look!' said the old helmsman, 'there goes Zarathustra off to hell!' - Around the same time that these sailors landed on the fiery island the rumor was circulating that Zarathustra had disappeared; and when people asked his friends, they related how he had departed by ship at night, without saying where he would be traveling. Thus a restlessness arose, but three days later this restlessness was increased by the sailors' story - and now all the people were saying that the devil had fetched Zarathustra. His disciples laughed at this news, to be sure, and one of them even said: 'I would sooner believe that Zarathustra fetched himself the devil.' But at the bottom of their souls all of them were filled with worry and longing, and so their joy was great when on the fifth day Zarathustra appeared among them. Andthis is the story of Zarathustra's conversation with the fire hound. 'The earth,' he said, 'has a skin; and this skin has diseases. One of these diseases for example is called: 'Human being.' And another of these diseases is called 'fire hound'; about him people have told each other many lies and allowed themselves to be lied to much. To fathom this mystery I went over the sea, and I saw the naked truth, indeed, barefoot up to its throat! Now I know what the fire hound is all about, and likewise all the underhanded and overthrowing scum-devils of whom not only little old women are afraid. 'Out with you, fire hound, out of your depth!' I cried, 'and confess how deep is this depth! Where did you get what you are snorting there? You drink deeply from the sea; your salty eloquence betrays that! Really, forahound of the depths you take your nourishment too much from the surface! At best I could regard you as the ventriloquist of the earth; and always when I heard overthrowing and underhanded scum-devils speaking, I found them to be the same as you: salty, lying and superficial. You know how to bellow and to darken with ashes! You are the best big mouths, and you've learned more than enough about bringing mud to a boil.
The 'fire hound' ( Feuerhund )isNietzsche's invention, an unflattering portrait of a fire-breathing, revolutionary spirit of the kind who believes in and foments 'great events' of a political nature. The rabble apparently believe in the existence of this fire hound, and are impressed by its hellish noise. Thus Spoke Zarathustra Wherever you are, there mud always has to be close by, and much that is spongy, pitted, squeezed, and wants to break free. 'Freedom' the lot of you are best at bellowing, but I lose faith in 'great events' as soon as they are surrounded by much bellowing and smoke. Andjust believe me, friend Infernal Racket! The greatest events - these are not our loudest, but our stillest hours. Not around the inventors of new noise does the world revolve, but around the inventors of new values; inaudibly it revolves. And just confess! When your noise and smoke cleared, it was always very little that had happened. What does it matter that a town becomes a mummy and a statue lies in the mud! And these words I say to all overthrowers of statues. Surely it is the greatest folly to throw salt into the sea and statues into the mud. In the mud of your contempt lay the statue, but precisely this is its law, that out of contempt life and living beauty grow back to it! It stands up again with even more godlike features, seductive in its suffering, and truly! It will yet thank you for overthrowing it, you overthrowers! But this advice I give to kings and churches and to all that is feeble with age and feeble in virtue - just let yourselves be overthrown! So that you might come to life again, and to you - virtue!' - Thus I spoke before the fire hound, then it interrupted me sullenly and asked: 'Church? What is that?' 'Church?' I answered, 'that is a kind of state, and in fact the most lying kind. But be silent, you hypocrite hound! You already know your kind best! Like you yourself the state is a hypocrite hound; like you it likes to speak with smoke and bellowing - to make believe, like you, that it speaks from the belly of things.
For it wants absolutely to be the most important animal on earth, this state; and people believe it, too.' - When I finished saying this the fire hound behaved as though out of his mind with envy. 'What?' it shouted, 'the most important animal on earth? And they believe it too?' And then so much steam and so many horrid voices emanated from his throat that I thought he would choke to death from anger and envy. At last he grew calmer and his panting let up; but as soon as he was calm I said laughing: The Wanderer and His Shadow is the last volume of Human, All Too Human , published by Nietzsche in . The wanderer appears in TSZ Part as one of the 'higher human beings.' Thus Spoke Zarathustra We harvested well, but why did all our fruits turn foul and brown? What fell down from the evil moon last night? All work was for naught, our wine has become poison, the evil eye seared yellow our fields and hearts. All of us became dry, and if fire were to touch us, then we would turn to dust like ashes - yes, fire itself we have made weary. All our wells dried up, even the sea retreated. All firm ground wants to crack, but the depths do not want to devour! 'Oh where is there still a sea in which one could drown?' - thus rings our lament - out across the shallow swamps. Indeed, we have already become too weary to die; now we continue to wake and we live on - in burial chambers!' - Thus Zarathustra heard a soothsayer speaking; and his prophecy went straight to his heart and transformed him. Sadly he went about and weary; and he became like those of whom the soothsayer had spoken. 'Indeed,' thus he spoke to his disciples, 'it lacks but little and this long twilight will come. Alas, how shall I rescue my light to the other side! It must not suffocate in this sadness! It shall be light to more distant worlds and most distant nights!'
Grieving thus in his heart Zarathustra walked about; and for three days he took no drink and no food, had no rest and lost his speech. At last it came to pass that he fell into a deep sleep. But his disciplines sat around him on long night watches and they waited anxiously for him to wake and speak again, and recover from his melancholy. This, however, is the speech that Zarathustra spoke when he awoke; but his voice came to his disciples as if from far away. 'HearthisdreamthatIdreamed,myfriends,andhelpmetounderstand its meaning! It is still an enigma to me, this dream; its meaning is hidden in it and locked away and it does not yet fly above it on free wings. I had renounced all life, thus I dreamed. I had become a night watchman and guardian of graves, there on the lonely mountain fortress of death. Up there I guarded his coffins; the musty vaults stood full of such symbols of conquest. From glass coffins, conquered life looked out at me. I breathed the odor of eternities turned to dust; my soul lay clammy and dusty, and who could have aired his soul in such a place! The brightness of midnight was about me always, loneliness crouched beside her, and thirdly, death-rattle silence, the worst of my three lady friends. I carried keys, the rustiest of all keys; and with them I knew how to open the creakiest of all gates. Like a bitterly evil croaking the sound penetrated through the long corridors as the gate's wings swung open; hideously this bird screeched, defiant in being awakened. But even more terrible and heart-constricting was the silence that set in around me when the gate fell quiet, and I sat alone in this treacherous silence. Thus the time passed and crept by me, if time existed anymore - what do I know! But at last something happened that awakened me. Three times there were blows at the door, like thundering, and the vaults echoed and howled three times in return; then I went to the gate. 'Alpa!' I cried. 'Who bears his ashes to the mountain? Alpa! Alpa! Who bears his ashes to the mountain?' And I pressed the key and lifted on the gate and strained. But it would not open even the width of a finger:
Thenaroaring wind tore its wings apart; whistling, shrilling and whipping it threw down a black coffin before me: And amidst the roaring and whistling and shrilling the coffin burst open and spewed forth thousandfold laughter. And it laughed and mocked and roared against me from a thousand grimacesofchildren,angels,owls,foolsandbutterfliesthesizeofchildren. I was horribly frightened; it threw me to the ground. And I cried out in terror as I have never cried before. But my own cries awakened me - and I came to. -' Thus Zarathustra related his dream and then he was silent, for he did not yet know the interpretation of his dream. But the disciple whom he loved most quickly stood up, took hold of Zarathustra's hand and said: Nietzsche is here using material from a dream he had. He explained the dream to his friend Reinhart von Seydlitz in , and mention of 'Alpa' shows up in the unpublished notes of summer . See Kritische Studienausgabe : . In his dream, Nietzsche was nearing the top of a seemingly endless mountain path when he passed a cave, out of which a mysterious voice cried: 'Alpa, Alpa - who carries his ashes to the mountains?' German Alptraum , or nightmare, is based on der Alp , which according to superstition is a ghost that crouches on the chest of the dreamer and causes bad dreams by pressuring or suffocating.
'Your life itself interprets this dream for us, oh Zarathustra! Are you yourself not the wind with its shrill whistling, that tears open the gates of the fortresses of death? Are you yourself not the coffin full of colorful sarcasms and the angelic grimaces of life? Indeed,likethousandfoldchildren'slaughterZarathustracomesintoall burial chambers, laughing at these night watchmen and grave guardians, and whoever else rattles about with dingy keys. You will frighten and lay them low with your laughter; your power over them will be proven by their swooning and awakening. And even if the long twilight comes and the weariness unto death, you will not set in our sky, you advocate of life! You allowed us to see new stars and new splendors of the night; indeed, you spanned laughter itself above us like a colorful tent. Children's laughter will well up from coffins from now on; a strong wind will come triumphantly to all weariness unto death from now on: of this you yourself are our guarantor and soothsayer! Indeed, you yourself dreamed them ,your enemies: that was your hardest dream! But as you awakened from them and came to yourself, thus shall they awaken from themselves - and come to you!' - Thus spoke the disciple, and all the others now crowded around Zarathustra and took him by the hands and wanted to persuade him to abandon his bed and his sadness and to return to them. But Zarathustra sat upright on his bed and with a strange look. Like someone who returns home from long sojourns abroad, he gazed at his disciples and examined their faces; and still he did not recognize them. But as they lifted him and helpedhimtohisfeet,behold,allatoncehiseyestransformed;hecomprehended all that had happened, stroked his beard and said in a strong voice: 'Well then! This has its time; but for now see to it, my disciples, that we prepare a good meal, and quickly! Thus I plan to do penance for bad dreams! But the soothsayer shall eat and drink beside me; and truly, I will yet show him a sea in which he can drown!'
Thus spoke Zarathustra. Then, however, he gazed long into the face of the disciple who had served as the dream interpreter, and he shook his head. - Second Part
As Zarathustra crossed over the great bridge one day, the cripples and the beggars surrounded him and a hunchback spoke thus to him: 'Behold, Zarathustra! The people too learn from you and are gaining faith in your teaching; but in order to believe you completely, they need one more thing - you must first persuade us cripples! Here you have a fine selection and truly, an opportunity with more than one scruff ! You can heal the blind and make the lame walk; and for the one who has too much behind him, you could surely take a bit away - that, I believe, would be the right way to make the cripples believe in Zarathustra!' Zarathustra, however, responded to the speaker thus: 'If one takes the hump from the hunchback, then one takes his spirit too - thus teach the people. And if one gives the blind man his eyesight, then he sees too many bad things on earth, such that he curses the one who healed him. But the one who makes the lame walk causes him the greatest harm, for scarcely does he begin to walk when his vices run away with him - thus teach the people about cripples. And why should Zarathustra not learn also from the people, if the people learn from Zarathustra? But it is the least thing to me, since I have been among human beings, when I see 'This one is missing an eye and That one an ear and the Third onealeg, and there are Others who lost their tongue or their nose or their head.' I see and have seen worse, and some of it so hideous that I do not want to speak of everything, and of a few things I do not even want to remain silent; namely human beings who were missing everything except the one thing they have too much of - human beings who are nothing more than one big eye, or one big maw or one big belly or some other big thing inverse cripples I call such types.
And as I came out of my solitude and crossed over this bridge the first time, then I didn't believe my eyes and I looked and I looked again and said at last: 'That is an ear! An ear as big as a person!' And I looked more closely, and really, beneath the ear something was moving that was pitifully small and pathetic and thin. And, in truth, the gigantic ear sat upon a little slender stalk - but the stalk was a human being! If one used a magnifying glass one could even recognize a tiny, envious miniature face; even a bloated little soul dangling on the stalk. But the people told me that the big ear was not only a human being, but a great human being,
a genius. But I have never believed the people when they speak of great human beings - and I maintained my belief that it was an inverse cripple who had too little of everything and too much of one thing.' When Zarathustra had spoken thus to the hunchback and to those for whomhehad served as mouthpiece and advocate, he turned deeply upset to his disciples and said: 'Truly,myfriends,Iwalkamonghumanbeingsasamongthefragments and limbs of human beings! This is what is most frightening to my eyes, that I find mankind in ruins and scattered about as if on a battle field or a butcher field. And if my gaze flees from the now to the past; it always finds the same: fragments and limbs and grisly accidents - but no human beings! The now and the past on earth - alas, my friends - that is what is most unbearable to me . And I would not know how to live if I were not also a seer of that which must come. A seer, a willer, a creator, a future himself and a bridge to the future and alas, at the same time a cripple at this bridge: all that is Zarathustra. And you too asked yourselves often: 'Who is Zarathustra to us? How shall he be known to us?' And like me you gave yourselves questions for answers. Is he a promiser? Or a fulfiller? A conqueror? Or an inheritor? An autumn? Or a plow? A physician? Or a convalescent? Is he a poet? Or a truthful man? A liberator? Or a tamer? A good man? Or an evil man? I walk among human beings as among the fragments of the future; that future that I see. And all my creating and striving amounts to this, that I create and piece together into one, what is now fragment and riddle and grisly accident. And how could I bear to be a human being if mankind were not also creator and solver of riddles and redeemer of accident? To redeem those who are the past and to recreate all 'it was' into 'thus I willed it!' - only that would I call redemption!
Will - thus the liberator and joy bringer is called; thus I taught you, my friends! And now learn this in addition: the will itself is still a prisoner. Willing liberates, but what is that called, which claps even the liberator in chains? Second Part 'It was': thus is called the will's gnashing of teeth and loneliest misery. Impotent against that which has been - it is an angry spectator of everything past. The will cannot will backward; that it cannot break time and time's greed - that is the will's loneliest misery. Willing liberates; what does willing plan in order to rid itself of its misery and mock its dungeon? Alas, every prisoner becomes a fool! Foolishly as well the imprisoned will redeems itself. That time does not run backward, that is its wrath. 'That which was' - thus the stone is called, which it cannot roll aside. And so it rolls stones around out of wrath and annoyance, and wreaks revenge on that which does not feel wrath and annoyance as it does. Thus the will, the liberator, became a doer of harm; and on everything that is capable of suffering it avenges itself for not being able to go back. This, yes this alone is revenge itself: the will's unwillingness toward time and time's 'it was.' Indeed, a great folly lives in our will; and it became the curse of all humankind that this folly acquired spirit! The spirit of revenge : my friends, that so far has been what mankind contemplate best; and wherever there was suffering, punishment was always supposed to be there as well. For 'punishment' is what revenge calls itself; with a lying word it hypocritically asserts its good conscience. And because in willing itself there is suffering, based on its inability to will backward - thus all willing itself and all living is supposed to be punishment! Andnowclouduponcloudrolledinoverthespirit,untilatlastmadness preached: 'Everything passes away, therefore everything deserves to pass away! And this itself is justice, this law of time that it must devour its own children' - thus preached madness.
'All things are ordained ethically according to justice and punishment. Alas,whereisredemptionfromthefluxofthingsandfromthepunishment called existence?' Thus preached madness. Thus Spoke Zarathustra 'Can there be redemption, if there is eternal justice? Alas, the stone 'it was' is unmoveable; all punishments too must be eternal!' Thus preached madness. 'No deed can be annihilated; how could it be undone through punishment? This, this is what is eternal about the punishment called existence, that existence must also eternally be deed and guilt again! Unless the will were to finally redeem itself and willing became notwilling - '; but my brothers, you know this fable song of madness! Away from these fable songs I steered you when I taught you: 'The will is a creator.' All 'it was' is a fragment, a riddle, a grisly accident - until the creating will says to it: 'But I will it thus! I shall will it thus!' But has it ever spoken thus? And when will this happen? Is the will already unharnessed from its own folly? Has the will already become its own redeemer and joy bringer? Has it unlearned the spirit of revenge and all gnashing of teeth? And who taught it reconciliation with time, and what is higher than any reconciliation? That will which is the will to power must will something higher than any reconciliation - buthow shall this happen? Who would teach it to also will backward?' - But at this point in his speech Zarathustra suddenly broke off and looked entirely like one who is appalled in the extreme. Appalled he looked at his disciples, his eyes penetrated their thoughts and their secret thoughts as if with arrows. But after a little while he laughed again and said, more calmly: 'It's difficult to live with people because keeping silent is so hard. Especially for someone who is talkative.' - Thus spoke Zarathustra. The hunchback meanwhile had listened to the conversation with his face covered, but when he heard Zarathustra laugh he looked up inquisitively and slowly said: 'But why does Zarathustra speak otherwise to us than to his disciples?' Zarathustra answered: 'What's to wonder about in that! One is allowed to speak hunched with hunchbacks!'
'Good,' said the hunchback, 'and with pupils one may tell tales out of school. But why does Zarathustra speak otherwise to his pupils - than to himself?' -
On Human Prudence, 1 = On Human Prudence. Not the height: the precipice is what is terrible! The precipice, where one's gaze plunges downward, 1 = . and one's hand grasps upward . There the heart is dizzy from its double will., 1 = . Oh my friends, can you guess even my heart's double will?, 1 = . my, 1 = . This, this is precipice and my danger, that my gaze plunges into the, 1 = . heights and that my hand must hold to and support itself - on the depths!, 1 = . My will clings to mankind, I bind myself with chains to mankind, 1 = . because I am drawn upward to the overman; for there my other will wills, 1 = . me., 1 = . And for this I live blind among people, just as if I did not know them:, 1 = . so that my hand does not entirely lose its faith in the firm. I do not know you human beings; this darkness and solace are often, 1 = . spread around me., 1 = . I sit at the gateway for every rogue and ask: who wants to deceive me?, 1 = . in order to not be on the lookout for deceivers., 1 = . Indeed, if I were on the lookout for mankind, how could mankind be, 1 = . an anchor to my ball? Too easily I would be swept up and away! This providence lies over my destiny, that I cannot be provident. And whoever would not die of thirst among human beings must learn, 1 = . to drink from all glasses; and whoever would remain clean among human, 1 = . beings must understand how to wash himself even with dirty water., 1 = . And thus I often spoke to comfort myself: 'Well then! Cheer up, old, 1 = . heart! One misfortune failed you; enjoy this as your - fortune!', 1 = . But this is my other human prudence: I spare the vain more than the, 1 = . proud., 1 = . Is wounded vanity not the mother of all tragedies? But where pride is, 1 = . wounded, there something even better than pride grows. For life to be a proper spectacle, its play must be well-played; but for, 1 = . this good play actors are needed.
I found all vain people to be good actors; they play and want to be, 1 = . spectacular - all their spirit is focused in this willing. They perform themselves, they invent themselves; in their proximity, 1 = . I love to be a spectator of life - it heals me of my melancholy. Therefore I spare the vain, because they are physicians for my melan-, 1 = . choly and keep me riveted to people as if to a play., 1 = Thus Spoke Zarathustra And at last I answered defiantly: 'Indeed, I know it, but I do not want to speak it!' Then it spoke to me again without voice: 'You do not want to, Zarathustra? Is this even true? Do not hide in your defiance!' - And I wept and trembled like a child and spoke: 'Oh, I wanted to, yes, but how can I? Spare me this one thing! It is beyond my strength!' Then it spoke to me again without voice: 'What do you matter, Zarathustra? Speak your word and break!' - And I answered: 'Alas, is it my word? Who am I? I am waiting for one more worthy; I am not worthy even of breaking under it.' Then it spoke to me again without voice: 'What do you matter? You are not yet humble enough for me. Humility has the toughest hide.' - And I answered: 'What has the hide of my humility not borne already! I dwell at the foot of my height; how high are my peaks? No one yet has told me. But well do I know my valleys.' Then it spoke to me again without voice: 'Oh Zarathustra, whoever has mountains to move must also move valleys and hollows.' - And I answered: 'As of yet my words have moved no mountains, and what I spoke did not reach mankind. I went to human beings, to be sure, but I have not yet arrived among them.' Then it spoke to me again without voice: 'What do you know of that ! The dew lands on the grass when the night is most silent.' - And I answered: 'They mocked me when I found and walked my own way; and in truth my feet trembled at that time.
And thus they spoke to me: 'You have forgotten the way, and now you are forgetting how to walk too!'' Then it spoke to me again without voice: 'What does their mockery matter! You are one who has forgotten how to obey; now you shall command! Do you not know who is needed most by everyone? The one who commands great things. To accomplish great things is difficult; but what is even more difficult is to command great things. That is what is most unforgivable in you: you have the power, and you do not want to rule.' - And I answered: 'I lack the lion's voice for all commanding.'
You look upward when you long for elevation. And I look down because I am elevated. Who among you can laugh and be elevated at the same time? Whoever climbs the highest mountain laughs at all tragic plays and tragic realities. Zarathustra , 'On Reading and Writing,' ( , p. ).
It was around midnight that Zarathustra started his route over the ridge of the island, in order to arrive at the other coast by early morning; for there he intended to board a ship. At that location there was safe harborage where even foreign ships liked to anchor; these would take the occasional passenger who wanted to cross the sea from the blessed isles. Now as Zarathustra climbed up the mountain he thought as he traveled about his many lonely wanderings since the time of his youth, and about how many mountains and ridges and peaks he had already climbed. I am a wanderer and a mountain climber, he said to his heart. I do not like the plains and it seems I cannot sit still for long. And whatever may come to me now as destiny and experience - it will involve wandering and mountain climbing: ultimately one experiences only oneself. The time has passed in which accidents could still befall me, and what could fall to me now that is not already my own? It merely returns, it finally comes home to me - my own self and everything in it that has long been abroad and scattered among all things and accidents. AndIknowonemorething: I am standing now before my last peak and before what has been saved for me for the longest time. Indeed, I must start my hardest path! Indeed, I have begun my loneliest hike! But whoever is of my kind does not escape such an hour, the hour that speaks to him: 'Only now do you go your way of greatness! Peak and abyss - they are now merged as one! You go your way of greatness; now what was formerly your ultimate danger has become your ultimate refuge! You go your way of greatness; now it must be your best courage that there is no longer a way behind you! Yougoyour way of greatness; here no one shall sneak along after you! Your foot itself erased the path behind you, and above it stands written: impossibility. And if now all ladders should fail, then you must know how to climb on your own head - how else would you climb upward? On your own head and over and beyond your own heart! Now what is mildest in you must become hardest.
Whoever has always spared himself much gets sick in the end from so much coddling. Praised be whatever makes hard! I do not praise the land where butter and honey flow! It is necessary to look away from oneself in order to see much : this hardness is needed by every mountain climber. But whoever is importunate with his eyes as a seeker of knowledge how could he see more of things than their foregrounds? But you, Zarathustra, you wanted to see the ground and background of all things, and so you must climb over yourself - up, upward, until you have even your stars beneath you!' Yes, look down on myself and even on my stars: only that would I call my peak , that remains to me as my ultimate peak! - Thus Zarathustra spoke to himself as he climbed, comforting his heart with hard sayings, for he was sore in his heart as never before. And as he came to the top of the mountain ridge, behold, there lay the other sea stretching before him, and he stood still and silent for a long time. But at this altitude the night was cold and clear and bright with stars. I recognize my lot, he said at last, with sorrow. Well then! I am ready. Just now my ultimate solitude began. Oh this black sad sea beneath me! Oh this pregnant nocturnal moroseness! Oh destiny and sea - now I must descend to you! I stand before my highest mountains and before my longest hike: therefore I must descend deeper than I ever climbed before: - descend deeper into suffering than I ever climbed before, down into its blackest flood! My destiny wills it so: Well then! I am ready. Wheredidthehighest mountains come from? Thus I once asked. Then I learned that they come from the sea. This testimony is written into their stone and onto the walls of their peaks. From the deepest the highest must come into its height. - Thus spoke Zarathustra at the pinnacle of the mountain, where it was cold. But as he came near to the sea and stood at last alone among the cliffs, then he had grown weary from his travels and felt even greater longing than before. Everything is still sleeping, he said; even the sea sleeps. Drunk with sleep and strangely it looks at me. But it breathes warmly, that I feel. And I also feel that it is dreaming. Dreaming it tosses on hard pillows. Thus Spoke Zarathustra
To you, bold searchers, researchers, and whoever put to terrible seas with cunning sails - to you, the riddle-drunk, the twilight-happy whose souls are lured by flutes to every maelstrom: -because you do not want to probe along a thread with cowardly hands; and because where you can guess , there you hate to deduce - to you alone I tell the riddle that I saw - the vision of the loneliest one. Darkly I walked recently through cadaver-colored twilight - darkly and hard, biting my lip. Not only one sun had set for me. A path that climbed defiantly through boulders, a malicious, lonely path consoled neither by weed nor shrub - a mountain path crunched under the defiance of my foot. Striding mutely over the mocking clatter of pebbles, crushing the rock that caused it to slip; thus my foot forced its way upward. Upward - in defiance of the spirit that pulled it downward, the spirit of gravity, my devil and arch-enemy. Upward - even though he sat atop me, half dwarf, half mole, lame, paralyzing, dripping lead into my ear, lead-drop thoughts into my brain. 'Oh Zarathustra,' he murmured scornfully, syllable by syllable. 'You stone of wisdom! You hurled yourself high, but every hurled stone must fall! OhZarathustra, you stone of wisdom, you sling stone, you star crusher! You hurled yourself so high - but every hurled stone - must fall! Sentenced to yourself and to your own stoning; oh Zarathustra, far indeed you hurled the stone - but it will fall back down upon you !' Then the dwarf became silent, and that lasted a long time. But his silence oppressed me, and being at two in such a way truly makes one lonelier than being at one! I climbed, I climbed, I dreamed, I thought - but everything oppressed me. I resembled a sick person whose severe agonies make him
Euch, den k uhnen Suchern, Versuchern . . . When the prefix veris added to suchen , to seek or to search, the verb is modified to mean try, attempt, but also tempt, so that the noun Versucher means both one who attempts and one who tempts. The noun der Versuch , meanwhile, means both attempt and experiment. Nietzsche frequently alludes to his favorite deity, Dionysus, as the Versucher-Gott , i.e. as the tempter god, attempter god (experimenter). I render this wordplay as 'searcher' and 'researcher' to preserve the wordplay, but wherever this particular combination occurs in TSZ or elsewhere, one should suspect Nietzsche is exploring the relationship between searching, attempting (experimenting, researching) and tempting. Thus Spoke Zarathustra 'You spirit of gravity!' I said, angrily. 'Do not make it too easy on yourself! Or I shall leave you crouching here where you crouch, lamefoot and I bore you this high ! See this moment!' I continued. 'From this gateway Moment a long eternal lane stretches backward : behind us lies an eternity. Must not whatever can already have passed this way before? Must not whatever can happen, already have happened, been done, passed by before? And if everything has already been here before, what do you think of this moment, dwarf? Must this gateway too not already - have been here? And are not all things firmly knotted together in such a way that this moment draws after it all things to come? Therefore - itself as well? For, whatever can run, even in this long lane outward -must run itonce more! - And this slow spider that creeps in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and I and you in the gateway whispering together, whispering of eternal things - must not all of us have been here before? - And return and run in that other lane, outward, before us, in this long, eerie lane - must we not return eternally? -' Thus I spoke, softer and softer, for I was afraid of my own thought and secret thoughts. Then, suddenly, I heard a dog howl nearby. Had I ever heard a dog howl like this? My thoughts raced back. Yes! When I was a child, in my most distant childhood:
- then I heard a dog howl like this. And I saw it too, bristling, its head up, trembling in the stillest midnight when even dogs believe in ghosts: -sothat I felt pity. For the full moon had passed over the house, silent as death, and it had just stopped, a round smolder - stopped on the flat roof just as if on a stranger's property - that is the why the dog was so horror-stricken, because dogs believe in thieves and ghosts. And when I heard it howl like this again, I felt pity once more. Where now was the dwarf? And the gateway? And the spider? And all the whispering? Was I dreaming? Was I waking? I stood all of a sudden among wild cliffs, alone, desolate, in the most desolate moonlight. But there lay a human being ! And there! The dog jumping, bristling, whining - now it saw me coming - then it howled again, it screamed : had I ever heard a dog scream like this for help?
With such riddles and bitterness in his heart Zarathustra traveled across the sea. But when he was four days removed from the blessed isles and Thus Spoke Zarathustra from his friends, he had overcome all of his pain: triumphant and with firm footing he stood once again upon his destiny. And then Zarathustra spoke thus to his jubilating conscience: Iamalone again and want to be, alone with pure sky and open sea; and again it is afternoon around me. In the afternoon I once found my friends for the first time, in the afternoon then a second time: at the hour when all light grows stiller. For whatever happiness is still underway between sky and earth, it now seeks shelter for itself in a bright soul: out of happiness now all light has become stiller. Oh afternoon of my life! Once my happiness too climbed to the valley to seek itself a shelter; there it found these open, hospitable souls. Oh afternoon of my life! What have I not given up to have this one thing: this lively plantation of my thoughts and this morning light of my highest hope! Companions the creator once sought and children of his hope, and truly, it turned out that he could not find them unless he first created them himself. AndsoIaminthemiddleofmywork,goingtomychildrenandreturning from them; for the sake of his children Zarathustra must complete himself. For at bottom one loves only one's own child and work; and where there is great love for oneself it is the hallmark of pregnancy - this is what I found. My children are still greening in their first spring, standing close to one another and shaken by a common wind, the trees of my garden and best plot of soil. Andtruly, where such trees stand next to one another, there are blessed isles! But at some point I want to dig them up and set each one apart, so that it learns solitude and defiance and caution. Gnarled and crooked and with pliant hardness it shall stand then beside the sea, a living lighthouse of invincible life. There, where the storms plunge down into the sea and the mountain's trunk drinks water, there each one shall someday have his day and night watches, for his own testing and knowledge. Thus Spoke Zarathustra
When I have once overcome that challenge, then I want to overcome one still greater; and a triumph shall be the seal of my completion! - Meanwhile I still drift on uncertain seas; accident flatters me with its smooth tongue, and though I look forward and backward, I still see no end. As yet the hour of my final struggle has not come - or does it come just now? Indeed, with treacherous beauty the surrounding sea and life gaze at me! Oh afternoon of my life! Oh happiness before evening! Oh harbor on the high sea! Oh peace in uncertainty! How I mistrust you all! Indeed, I am mistrustful of your treacherous beauty! I resemble the lover who mistrusts the all too velvety smile. As he pushes his most beloved before him, tender even in his hardness, the jealous one - so too I push this blissful hour before me. Away with you, you blissful hour! Along with you an unwilling bliss came to me. Willing to take my deepest pain I stand here: you came at the wrong time! Away with you, you blissful hour! Rather take shelter there - with my children! Hurry! And bless them before evening with my happiness! The evening is coming now, the sun is sinking. Gone - my happiness! - Thus spoke Zarathustra. And he waited for his unhappiness the whole night, but he waited in vain. The night remained bright and still, and happiness itself came closer and closer to him. Toward morning, however, Zarathustra laughed in his heart and said mockingly: 'Happiness chases after me, and that is because I do not chase after women. But happiness is a woman.'
Oh sky above me, you pure, you deep one! You abyss of light! Gazing at you I shudder with godlike desires. To hurl myself into your height - that is my depth! To hide myself in your purity - that is my innocence. The god is veiled by his beauty; thus you conceal your stars. You do not speak; thus you make your wisdom known to me. Mutely you rose for me today over the roaring sea, your love and your modesty speak revelation to my roaring soul. Thus Spoke Zarathustra And'whoever cannot bless, let him learn to curse!' - this bright teaching fell to me from the bright sky, this star stands in my sky even in black nights. Iamablesser and a Yes-sayer if only you are around me, you pure, you bright one, you abyss of light! Into all abysses then I carry my Yes-saying that blesses. I have become a blesser and a Yes-sayer, and for this I wrestled long and was a wrestler, in order to free my hands one day for blessing. But this is my blessing: to stand over each thing as its own sky, as its round roof, its azure bell and eternal security - and blessed is he who blesses so! For all things are baptized at the well of eternity and beyond good and evil; good and evil themselves, however, are only shadows in between and damp glooms and drift-clouds. Truly it is a blessing and no blasphemy when I teach: 'Over all things stands the sky accident, the sky innocence, the sky chance, the sky mischief.' 'By chance' - that is the oldest nobility in the world, I gave it back to all things, I redeemed them from their servitude under purpose. This freedom and cheerfulness of the sky I placed like an azure bell over all things when I taught that over them and through them no 'eternal will' - wills. This mischief and this folly I placed in place of that will when I taught: 'With all things one thing is impossible - rationality!' A bit of reason to be sure, a seed of wisdom sprinkled from star to star this sourdough is mixed into all things: for the sake of folly, wisdom is mixed into all things! A bit of wisdom is indeed possible; but I found this blessed certainty in all things: that on the feet of accident they would rather dance .
Oh sky above me, you pure, you exalted one! This your purity is to me now, that there is no eternal spider and spider web of reason: - that you are my dance floor for divine accident, that you are my gods' table for divine dice throws and dice players! - But you blush? Did I speak the unspeakable? Did I blaspheme when I wanted to bless you? Or is it the shame of us two that made you blush? - Do you command me to go and be silent because now - the day is coming?
The world is deep - and deeper than the day has ever grasped. Not everything may be permitted to speak before day. But the day is coming, and so let us part now! Oh sky above me, you bashful, you glowing one! Oh you my happiness before sunrise! The day is coming, and so let us part now! - Thus spoke Zarathustra.
When Zarathustra was on dry land again he did not go directly to his mountains and his cave, but instead took many ways and asked many questions and found out about this and that, saying of himself jokingly: 'Look at the river that flows back to its source in many windings!' For he wanted to learn what had transpired in the meantime among human beings ; whether they had become bigger or smaller. And once he saw a row of new houses, and he was amazed then and he said: 'What do these houses mean? Truly, no great soul placed them here, as a parable of itself! Probably some feeble-minded child took them out of its toy box? If only another child would put them back into its toy box! And these parlors and chambers; can men go in and out here? To me they seem made for satin dolls, or for nibblers who probably let themselves be nibbled.' AndZarathustra stood still and reflected. At last he said sadly: ' Everything has become smaller! Everywhere I see lower gateways; whoever is like me can still pass through, but - he has to stoop! OhwhenwillIreturntomyhomelandwhereInolongerhavetostoopno longer have to stoop before the small ones !' - And Zarathustra sighed and gazed into the distance. - Onthe same day, however, he delivered his speech on virtue that makes small. I walk among these people and keep my eyes open; they do not forgive me that I am not envious of their virtues. Thus Spoke Zarathustra They bite at me because I say to them: for small people small virtues are necessary - and because I find it hard to grasp that small people are necessary ! I still resemble the rooster here in a strange barnyard, whom even the hens bite; and yet I am not bad to the hens because of that. I am courteous toward them as toward all small annoyances; to be prickly toward what is small strikes me as wisdom for porcupines. They all talk about me when they sit around the fire evenings - they talk about me, but no one thinks - about me! This is the new stillness that I learned: their noise concerning me spreads a cloak over my thoughts.
They make noise among themselves: 'What does this dark cloud want with us? Let's see to it that it does not bring us a plague!' And recently a woman snatched her child to herself, who wanted to come to me: 'Take the children away!' she shouted. 'Such eyes singe children's souls.' They cough when I speak, they think that coughing is an objection to strong wind - they guess nothing of the roaring of my happiness! 'We still have no time for Zarathustra' - thus they object; but what does any time matter which 'has no time' for Zarathustra? And even if they were to praise me, how could I fall asleep on their praise? Their praise is a belt of thorns to me; it scratches me even when I take it off. And this also I learned among them: the one who praises pretends that he is giving back, but in truth he wants to be given even more! Ask my foot whether it likes their tune of praise and palaver! Indeed, to such a beat and tick-tock it wants neither to dance nor to stand still. They want to palaver and praise me to their small virtue; they would like to persuade my foot to the tick-tock of their small happiness. I walk among these people and keep my eyes open; they have become smaller and are becoming ever smaller: but this is because of their teaching on happiness and virtue . For they are modest even in their virtue - because they want contentment. But only modest virtue goes along with contentment. Even they, of course, learn to stride and to stride forward in their way this is what I call their hobbling . This way they become an obstacle to anyone who is in a hurry. Thus Spoke Zarathustra I walk among these people and let many a word fall, but they know neither to take nor to keep. TheyareamazedthatIdidnotcometolambastlustingandmalignancy, and truly, nor did I come to warn of pick-pockets! They are amazed that I am not prepared to make their cleverness wittier and prettier, as if they did not have enough cleverlings already, whose voices scrape me like chalk on slate!
And when I shout: 'A curse on all cowardly devils in you, who like to whine and fold their hands and worship,' then they shout: 'Zarathustra is godless.' And especially their teachers of resignation shout it - but they are precisely the ones into whose ears I like to shout: 'Yes! I am Zarathustra, the godless one!' These teachers of resignation! Wherever there is pettiness and sickness and scabs, they crawl to it like lice; and only my disgust prevents me from cracking them. Well then! This is my sermon for their ears: I am Zarathustra, the godless, who says: 'Who is more godless than I, so that I can enjoy his instruction?' IamZarathustra, the godless: where do I find my equal? And all those are my equal who give themselves their own will and put aside all resignation. IamZarathustra, the godless: I still cook every chance in my pot. And only when it has been well cooked in there do I welcome it as my food. And truly, many a chance came to me imperiously, but my will spoke to it even more imperiously - and already it lay begging on its knees - - begging me for protection and affection and addressing me with flattery: 'Look, oh Zarathustra, it's only a friend coming to a friend!' - But why do I speak where no one has my ears! And so I want to shout it out to the four winds: You are becoming smaller and smaller, you small people! You are crumbling, you contented ones! You will yet perish - - of your many small virtues, of your many small abstentions, of your many small resignations! Too sparing, too yielding - that is your soil! But in order for a tree to grow tall , it needs to put down hard roots amid hard rock!
, Third Part = And even what you abstain from weaves at the web of all future. , Third Part = humanity; even your nothing is a spider web and a spider that lives off. the blood of the future., Third Part = And when you take, it's like stealing, you small-virtued ones; and even. among rogues honor, Third Part = says: 'One should only steal where one can not. rob.', Third Part = . 'It will give' - that too is a teaching of resignation. But I say to you, Third Part = . contented people: it will take, Third Part = and it will take more and more from you!. Oh if only you would put aside all half, Third Part = willing and become as resolute. in your sloth as in your deeds! Oh if only you understood my words: 'Go ahead and do whatever you, Third Part = !. will - but first be the kind of people who can will, Third Part = . Go ahead and love your neighbors as you love yourselves - but first be, Third Part =
The winter, a wicked guest, sits in my house; my hands are blue from his friendly handshake. I honor him, this wicked guest, but I gladly let him sit alone. Gladly I run away from him, and if one runs well , then one can escape him! With warm feet and warm thoughts I run to where the wind is calm to the sunny spot of my mount of olives. Thus Spoke Zarathustra There I laugh at my fierce guest and still think well of him for catching the flies in my house and silencing much small noise. For he does not tolerate it when a mosquito or two wants to sing; he also makes the lane so lonely that the moonlight is afraid in it at night. Ahardguestis he - but I honor him, and I do not pray to the pot-bellied fire idol like the weaklings. Rather a bit of teeth chattering than worshiping idols - that is how my kind wants it! And I especially grudge all horny, steamy, musty fire idols. Whomever I love, I love better in winter than in summer; better and more heartily I now mock my enemies since winter sits at home with me. Heartily indeed, even when I crawl to bed - then even my hiding happiness laughs and makes mischief; even my lying dream laughs. I, a crawler? Never in my life have I crawled before the mighty; and if I ever lied, then I lied out of love. That is why I am cheerful even in my winter bed. A meager bed warms me more than a rich one, for I am jealous of my poverty, and in winter it is most faithful to me. Each day I begin with a malice; I mock winter with a cold bath - that makes my fierce house guest growl. I also like to tickle him with a little wax candle, so that finally he will release the sky from ashen grey twilight. In the morning I am especially malicious, in the early hour when the pail clatters at the well and the horses whinny warmly through grey lanes: Impatiently I wait for the bright sky to open at last, the snow-bearded winter sky, the old man and white-head - - the winter sky, the silent one who often keeps even his sun silent! Did I learn my long bright silence from him? Or did he learn it from me? Or did each of us invent it on his own?
The origin of all good things is thousandfold - all good mischievous things leap for joy into existence: so how are they supposed to do this only once? Long silence too is a good mischievous thing, and looking out of a round-eyed face like the winter sky -
, Third Part = - to be silent like the winter sky about one's sun and one's uncom-. well !, Third Part = promising solar will: indeed, this art and this winter mischief I learned. , Third Part = Myfavorite malice and art is that my silence learned not to betray itself. , Third Part = through silence.. , Third Part = Rattling with diction and dice I outwit the solemn waiting ones; my. will and purpose shall elude all these fierce watchers., Third Part = . , Third Part = To prevent anyone from looking down into my ground and ultimate. will, I invented my long bright silence., Third Part = . so that no one could see through him and down into him., Third Part = . , Third Part = But precisely to him came the more clever mistrustful ones and nut. , Third Part = crackers; precisely his most hidden fish they fished out of him!. , Third Part = of those who keep silent; those whose ground is so deep that even the. , Third Part = brightest water does not - betray it.. You snow-bearded silent winter sky, you round-eyed white-head above, Third Part = . me! Oh you heavenly parable of my soul and its mischief!, Third Part = . must, Third Part = I not conceal myself like someone who has swallowed gold -. And, Third Part = . so that they do not slit open my soul? Must overlook, Third Part = I not wear stilts so that they my long legs - all these plain. jealous and pain zealous who surround me?, Third Part = jealous and pain zealous who surround me?. These smoky, room-temperature, used up, greened-out, grief ridden, Third Part = These smoky, room-temperature, used up, greened-out, grief ridden. souls - how could their envy bear my happiness!, Third Part = souls - how could their envy bear my happiness!. And so I show them only the ice and the winter on my peaks - and, Third Part = And so I show them only the ice and the winter on my peaks - and. not, Third Part = not. that my mountain winds all the belts of the sun around itself!, Third Part = that my mountain winds all the belts of the sun around itself!. , Third Part = They hear only my winter storms whistling, and not
that I also glide. over warm seas like longing, heavy, sultry south winds. They still have mercy on my accidents and coincidences: but, Third Part = over warm seas like longing, heavy, sultry south winds. They still have mercy on my accidents and coincidences: but. say: 'Let accident come to me: it is innocent, like a little child!', Third Part = say: 'Let accident come to me: it is innocent, like a little child!'. How could they bear my happiness if I did not cover my happiness, Third Part = . , Third Part = with accidents and winter emergencies and polar bear caps and snow-sky. , Third Part = sheets?. - If I myself didn't have mercy on their pity, Third Part = : the pity of these who are. plain jealous and pain zealous!, Third Part = plain jealous and pain zealous!. - If I myself didn't sigh before them, teeth chattering, and patiently, Third Part = - If I myself didn't sigh before them, teeth chattering, and patiently. allow, Third Part = allow. myself to be wrapped in their pity!, Third Part = myself to be wrapped in their pity!
It is the wise mischief and benevolence of my soul that it does not conceal its winter and its ice storms; nor does it conceal its frostbites. One person's loneliness is the escape of the sick; another's loneliness is the escape from the sick. Let them hear mechatter and sigh from winter cold, all these wretched, leering rascals around me! With such sighing and chattering I still escape their heated rooms. Let them sympathize and sympasigh about my frostbite: 'He will freeze yet from the ice of knowledge!' - so they lament. Meanwhile I run with warm feet crisscross on my mount of olives; in the sunny spot of my mount of olives I sing and mock all pitying. - Thus sang Zarathustra.
In this manner, hiking slowly through many peoples and towns, Zarathustra returned the long way to his mountains and his cave. And then, unexpectedly, he also arrived at the gate of the big city . Here, however, a foaming fool with outstretched hands leaped toward him and blocked his path. And this was the same fool whom the people called 'Zarathustra's ape,' because he had memorized some of the phrasing and tone of Zarathustra's speaking and also liked to borrow from the treasure of his wisdom. The fool spoke thus to Zarathustra: 'Oh Zarathustra, this is the big city: here you have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Why do you want to wade through this mud? Have pity on your feet! Spit on the city gate instead and - turn around! Here is hell for hermit's thoughts; here great thoughts are boiled alive and cooked till they are small. Hereall great feelings rot; here only tiny, rattlebone feelings are allowed to rattle! Doyounotalreadysmelltheslaughterhousesandkitchensofthespirit? Does this town not steam with the reek of slaughtered spirit? 'M ogen sie mich bemitleiden und bemitseufzen ob meiner Frostbeulen' - playful coinages such as bemitseufzen ,ofwhich there are several in TSZ, can often seem alienating and outrageous to readers of German, and clearly this was Nietzsche's intention. Though very difficult to translate, and frequently accompanied by internal rhyme, alliteration, and other lyrical devices, these vivacious puns and coinages nonetheless deserve an attempt on the translator's part. Thus Spoke Zarathustra - where everything that is crumbly, corrupted, lusty, dusky, overly mushy and pussy festers together confederately: - - spit on the big city and turn around!' - At this point, however, Zarathustra interrupted the foaming fool and clapped his hand over the fool's mouth. 'Stop at last!' cried Zarathustra. 'Your speech and your ways have nauseated me for a long time already! Why have you lived so long near the swamp, that you yourself had to turn into a frog and a toad?
Doesn't tainted and frothy, decrepit swamp blood flow in your own veins now, since you have learned to croak and lambast this way? Whydidn't you go into the woods? Or plow the earth? Isn't the sea full of green islands? I despise your despising; and if you warned me - why didn't you warn yourself? Out of love alone shall my despising and my warning bird fly up: but not out of the swamp! - They call you my ape, you foaming fool; but I call you my grunting swine - by grunting you will yet spoil my praise of folly. Whatwasitafter all that made you start grunting? That no one flattered you enough - so you sat down to this garbage in order to have reason to grunt a lot - - in order to have reason for a lot of revenge ! Indeed, all your foaming is revenge, you vain fool; I guessed you well! But your fool's words injure me , even where you are right! And if Zarathustra's words were right even a hundred times: you would always do wrong with my words!' Thus spoke Zarathustra, and he looked at the big city, sighed, and kept silent for a long time. Finally he spoke thus: 'I am nauseated too by this big city and not only by this fool. Here as there nothing can be bettered, nothing can be worsened. Woe to this big city! - And I wish I already saw the pillar of fire in which it will burn! For such pillars of fire must precede the great noon. But this has its own time and its own destiny. - Meanwhile, you fool, I give you this lesson in parting: where one can no longer love, there one should pass by !' - Thus spoke Zarathustra and he passed by the fool and the big city.
Alas, does everything lie wilted and grey that only recently stood green and colorful in this meadow? And how much honey of hope I carried from here to my beehives! All these young hearts have already grown old - and not even old! Only weary, common, comfortable - as they put it: 'We have become pious again.' Just recently I saw them set out by early morning on brave feet, but their feet of knowledge grew weary, and now they slander even their braveness of the morning! Truly, many a one used to raise his legs like a dancer; the laughter in my wisdom beckoned to him - then he reconsidered. Just now I saw him crooked - and crawling to the cross. Once they fluttered around light and freedom like gnats and young poets. A bit older, a bit colder, and already they monger rumors in the dark, thronging around the stove. Did their hearts falter perhaps because solitude swallowed me like a whale? Did their ears listen perhaps longingly long in vain for me and my trumpet and herald calls? Too bad!Thosewhoseheartshavelongcourageandencouragemischief are always few; and in such the spirit too remains patient. But the rest are cowardly . Therest:thesearealwaysthemostbyfar,thedaytoday,thesuperfluous, the far-too-many - all of these are cowardly! Whoever is of my kind also encounters my kind of experiences along the way, so that his first companions have to be corpses and jesters. His second companions, however - they will call themselves his believers : a living swarm, much love, much folly, much beardless veneration. Whoever is of my kind among human beings should not tie his heart to these believers; whoever knows capricious, cowardly humankind should not believe in these spring times and colorful meadows! If they could do otherwise, then they would also will otherwise. Halfand-halfs spoil all that is whole. That leaves will wilt - what is to be lamented here! Third Part
Let them fly and fall, oh Zarathustra, and do not lament! Better yet blow among them with rustling wind - - blow among these leaves, oh Zarathustra, so that everything wilted runs away from you even faster! - 'We have become pious again' - so these apostates confess, and some of them are still too cowardly to confess in this manner. I look them in the eye - I tell them to their faces and to their blushing cheeks: You are the kind who pray again! But it is a disgrace to pray! Not for everyone, but for you and me and whoever still has a conscience in his head. For you it is a disgrace to pray! You know it well; your cowardly devil in you, who likes to fold his hands and lay his hands in his lap and wants to have it easier - this cowardly devil exhorts you: 'There is a God!' With that however you belong to the shade-loving variety who are never left in peace by light; now every day you must stick your head deeper into night and mist! And truly, you chose the hour well, for just now the night birds are flying out. The hour has come for all shade-loving folk, the evening and commemoration hour when they do not 'commemorate.' I hear and smell it: their hour came for the hunt and the procession, not for a wild hunt, to be sure, but for a tame, lame, snooping, up-buttering prayer muttering hunt - -for a hunt for soulful mousy yes-men; all the heart's mousetraps have nowbeensetagain! And wherever I lift a curtain, a little night moth comes fluttering out. Did it perhaps crouch there with another little night moth? For everywhere I smell little communities that have crept away; and where there are little rooms there are new Holy Joes in them and the reek of Holy Joes. They sit long evenings together and say: 'Let us become as little children again and say 'dear God'!' - their mouths and stomachs ruined by pious confectioners. Or they watch long evenings the cunning lurking cross spider, which preaches cleverness to the spiders themselves and thus teaches: 'There is good spinning among crosses!' Has the time not long since past even for all such doubting? Who is allowed anymore to wake up such old, sleeping, shade-loving things!
It has been over for the old gods for a long time now - and truly, they had a good cheerful gods' end! They did not 'twilight' themselves to death - that is surely a lie! Instead, they just one day up and laughed themselves to death! This happened when the most godless words were uttered by a god himself - the words: 'There is one god. Thou shalt have no other god before me!' - - an old grim-beard of a god, a jealous one forgot himself in this way: And all the gods laughed then and rocked in their chairs and cried: 'Is godliness not precisely that there are gods but no God?' He who has ears to hear, let him hear. - Thus spoke Zarathustra in the town that he loved and which is called The Motley Cow. From here he had only two more days to go to return to his cave and his animals, and his soul jubilated constantly at the nearness of his homecoming. -
Ohsolitude! Oh you my home solitude! I lived wild too long in wild foreign lands to not return to you with tears! Nowgoahead and threaten me with your finger, like mothers threaten; now smile at me, like mothers smile; now say to me: 'And who was it that once stormed out on me like a storm wind? - - who called out in leaving: 'too long have I sat with solitude, and I have forgotten how to keep silent!' That - you have learned now? Oh Zarathustra, I know everything, and that you were more forsaken among the many, you solitary one, than ever with me! Being forsaken is one thing, solitude is another: that - you have now learned! And that among human beings you will always be wild and foreign. Wild and foreign even when they love you; for what they want above all is to be spared ! But here you are in your own home and house; here you can speak everything out and pour out all the reasons, nothing here is ashamed of obscure, obstinate feelings. Here all things come caressingly to your rhetoric and they flatter you, for they want to ride on your back. Here you ride on every parable to every truth. Third Part Here you may speak uprightly and forthrightly to all things, and truly, it rings like praise in their ears that someone talks straight with all things! But being forsaken is another matter. For do you still recall, oh Zarathustra, when your bird called above you, when you stood in the woods, hesitating about which way to go, close to a corpse? - Whenyouspoke:'Maymyanimalsguideme!Ifounditmoredangerous among human beings than among animals' that was forsaken! And do you still recall, oh Zarathustra, when you sat on your island, a well of wine among empty buckets, giving and giving away, among the thirsty bestowing and flowing: - until at last you alone sat thirsty among the drunk and lamented at night: 'is receiving not more blessed than giving? And stealing even more blessed than receiving?' That was forsaken! And do you still recall, oh Zarathustra, when your stillest hour came and drove you away from yourself, when with evil whispers it said: 'Speak and break!' -
- when it made you sorry for all your waiting and silence and discouraged your cautious courage: that was forsaken!' - Oh solitude! You my home solitude! How blissfully and tenderly your voice speaks to me! We do not implore one another, we do not deplore one another, we walk openly with one another through open doors. Foratyour house it is open and bright, and even the hours run here on lighter feet. In darkness, after all, time is heavier to bear than in the light. Here all of being's words and word shrines burst open; here all being wants to become word, here all becoming wants to learn from me how to speak. But down there - there all speaking is in vain! There forgetting and passing by are the best wisdom: that - I have now learned! Whoever wanted to comprehend everything among human beings would have to apprehend everything. But for that my hands are too clean. I cannot stand even to inhale their breath; too bad that I have lived so long among their noise and bad breath! 'Wir gehen offen miteinander.' Kaufmann misread offen , openly, as oft or ofters : 'we often walk together.' Thus Spoke Zarathustra Oh blissful silence around me! Oh clean fragrances around me ! Oh how this silence takes a deep clean breath! Oh how it listens, this blissful silence! But down there - everyone talks there, everyone is ignored there. One could ring in his wisdom with bells, and the shopkeepers in the market place would jingle it out with pennies. Everyonetalksamongthem,nooneknowsanymorehowtounderstand. Everything falls in the water, nothing falls anymore into deep wells. Everyone talks among them, nothing works out anymore and comes to an end. Everyone cackles, but who wants to sit still in the nest anymore and hatch eggs? Everyonetalks among them, everything gets talked to death. And whatever was still too hard yesterday for time itself and for its tooth, today it hangs scraped up and chewed up from the snouts of today's people. Everyone talks among them, everything is betrayed. And what was once called secret and secrecy of deep souls, today it belongs to the street trumpeters and other butterflies. Ohhumannature, you strange thing! You noise in dark lanes! Now you lie behind me again - my greatest danger lies behind me!
In sparing and pitying my greatest danger always lay; and all human nature wants to be spared and pitied. Withconcealed truths, with a fool's hand and a fooled, infatuated heart, rich in pity's petty lies - this is how I lived among human beings. Disguised I sat among them, ready to misjudge myself in order to stand them , and gladly urging myself: 'You fool, you do not know human beings!' One forgets about human beings when one lives among human beings; there is too much foreground in all human beings - what use are farsighted, far-seeking eyes there ! And when they misjudged me, I, fool, spared them more than myself, since I am accustomed to hardness, and often I even took revenge on myself for being so sparing. Covered in bites by poisonous flies and hollowed out, like a stone, by manydropsofmalice,IsatamongthemandstillItoldmyself:'Everything small is innocent of its smallness!' Especially those who call themselves 'the good,' I found to be the most poisonous flies; they sting in all innocence, they lie in all innocence - how could they be just toward me! Thus Spoke Zarathustra - as if a plump apple offered itself to my hand, a ripe golden apple, with cool soft velvety peel - thus the world offered itself to me: -asifatree waved to me, a broad-limbed, strong-willed tree, bent as a support and even as a footrest for the weary traveler: thus stood the world on my foothill: - as if delicate hands carried a shrine toward me - a shrine open for the delight of bashful, venerating eyes: thus the world offered itself to me today: - not riddle enough to chase away human love, not solution enough to lull human wisdom to sleep - a humanly good thing the world was for me today, of which so much evil is spoken! HowdoIthank my morning dream for allowing me to weigh the world early this morning? As a humanly good thing it came to me, this dream and consoler of the heart! And in order to do by day what it does, and to imitate it and learn its best, I now want to place the three most evil things on the scale and weigh them humanly well.
He that taught to bless here also taught to curse: what are the three best-cursed things in the world? These I want to place on the scale. Sex, lust to rule, selfishness : these three have been cursed best and slandered and lied about most so far - these three I want to weigh humanly well. Well then! Here is my foothill and there is the sea; it rolls up to me, shaggy, flattering, the faithful old hundred-headed behemoth hound that I love. Well then! Here I want to hold the scale over rolling seas, and I also choose a witness to look on - you, you hermit tree, you strongly fragrant, broadly vaulted tree that I love! Onwhat bridge does the now get to the someday? By what compulsion does the high compel itself to the low? And what commands even the highest - to grow higher? Nowthescalestands balanced and still: three weighty questions I threw into it, three weighty answers are borne by the other pan. Sex: the thorn and stake of all hair-shirted body despisers, and cursed as 'world' among all hinterworldly, because it mocks and fools all teachers of muddle and mistakes. Thus Spoke Zarathustra And it was then that it happened - indeed happened for the first time! - that his words pronounced selfishness blessed, the sound, healthy selfishness that wells from a powerful soul - - from a powerful soul to which the high body belongs, the beautiful, triumphant, invigorating body, around which every manner of thing becomes mirror: - the supple persuading body, the dancer whose parable and epitome is the self-joyous soul. Such self-joy of body and soul calls itself: 'Virtue.' With its words of good and bad such self-joy shields itself as if with sacred groves; with the names of its happiness it banishes from itself everything contemptible. From itself it banishes all that is cowardly, saying: 'Bad that is cowardly !' It considers contemptible those who always worry, sigh, complain, and whoever picks up even the smallest advantages. It also despises all woe-wallowing wisdom, for indeed, there is also wisdom that blossoms in darkness, a night shadow wisdom that always sighs: 'All is vain!'
It holds shy mistrust in low esteem, and everyone who wants oaths instead of gazes and hands; and all wisdom that is all too mistrustful because this is the way of cowardly souls. Even lower it esteems those quick to please, the dog-like who lie on their backs right away, the humble; and there is wisdom too that is humble and dog-like and pious and quick to please. Utterly disgusting and despicable to it are those who never defend themselves, who swallow poisonous spittle and evil stares; the all too patient, all-enduring, all-complacent: for they are the servile kind. Whether a person is servile before gods and gods' kicks, or before human beings and stupid human opinions: all servile kind it spits on, this blissful selfishness! Bad: that is what it calls everything that is struck down, stingy and servile; fettered blinking eyes, oppressed hearts, and those false, yielding types who kiss with broad cowardly lips. And pseudo-wisdom: that is what it calls everything that servants and old men and weary people witticize; and especially the whole nasty nitwitted, twitwitted foolishness of priests! The pseudo-wise, however, all the priests, the world weary and whoever's souls are of the woman's and servant's kind - oh how their game Thus Spoke Zarathustra Whoever one day teaches humans to fly, will have shifted all boundary stones; for him all boundary stones themselves will fly into the air, he will christen the earth anew - as 'the light one.' The ostrich runs faster than the fastest horse, but it also sticks its head heavily into the heavy earth; so too the human being who cannot yet fly. Heavy do earth and life seem to him; and the spirit of gravity wants it so! But whoever wants to become light and a bird must love himself thus I teach. Not, to be sure, with the love of the sick and addicted, because among them even self-love stinks! One has to learn to love oneself - thus I teach - with a hale and healthy love, so that one can stand oneself and not have to roam around. Such roaming around christens itself 'love of the neighbor': these words so far have produced the best lying and hypocrisy, and especially from those whom all the world found heavy.
And truly, this is not a command for today and tomorrow, this learning to love oneself. Instead, of all arts this is the most subtle, cunning, ultimate and most patient. For one's own, you see, all one's own is well hidden; and of all buried treasures, one's own is the latest to be dug up - this is the spirit of gravity's doing. Almost from the cradle, grave words and values are imparted to us; 'good' and 'evil' this dowry calls itself. For its sake we are forgiven for being alive. And for this reason one lets the little children come to one, in order to restrain them early on from loving themselves: this is the spirit of gravity's doing. And we - we faithfully lug what is imparted to us on hard shoulders and over rough mountains! And if we sweat, then we are told: 'Yes, life is a heavy burden!' But only the human being is a heavy burden to himself! This is because he lugs too much that is foreign to him. Like a camel he kneels down and allows himself to be well burdened. Especially the strong human being who is eager to bear and inherently reverent: too many foreign words and values he loads upon himself - now life seems a desert to him! Thus Spoke Zarathustra Damned I also call those who must always wait - they offend my taste: all the publicans and grocers and kings and other shop- and countrykeepers. Indeed, I too learned to wait, and thoroughly - but only to wait for myself . And above all I learned to stand and walk and run and leap and climb and dance. But this is my teaching; whoever wants to fly someday must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance - one cannot fly one's way to flight! On rope ladders I learned to climb to many a window, with agile legs I climbed up high masts: to sit atop tall masts of knowledge struck me as no small bliss - - to flicker like small flames atop tall masts; a small light, to be sure, and yet a great comfort for stranded sailors and shipwreck survivors! By many a trail and manner I came to my truth; not on one ladder did I climb to my height, where my eye roams out into my distance.
And I never liked asking the way - that always offended my taste! I preferred to question and try the ways myself. All my coming and going was a trying and questioning - and truly, one must also learn to answer such questioning! That, however - is my taste: - not good, not bad, but my taste, of which I am no longer shameful nor secretive. 'This - it turns out - is my way - where is yours?' - That is how I answered those who asked me 'the way.' The way after all - it does not exist! Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Here I sit and wait, old broken tablets around me and also new tablets only partially written upon. When will my hour come? - the hour of my going down, going under: for I want to return to mankind once more. This is what I wait for now; signs must come to me first that it is my hour - namely the laughing lion with a swarm of doves.
Meanwhile I talk to myself as one who has time. No one tells me anything new, and so I tell myself to myself. When I came to mankind, I found them sitting on an old conceit: they all conceited to have known for a long time what is good and evil for humanity. To them all talk of virtue seemed an old worn out thing; and whoever wanted to sleep well even spoke about 'good' and 'evil' before going to bed. I disturbed this sleepiness when I taught: what is good and evil no one knows yet - except for the creator! He, however, is the one who creates a goal for mankind and gives the earth its meaning and its future: This one first creates the possibility that something can be good and evil. I told them to overthrow their old professorial chairs wherever that old conceit had sat; I told them to laugh at their great masters of virtue and their saints and poets and world redeemers. I told them to laugh at their gloomy wise men and at any who ever perched in warning, like black scarecrows, in the tree of life. Isat down alongside their great road of graves and even among carrion andvultures - and I laughed at all their yesteryear and its rotting, decaying glory. Indeed, like preachers of repentance and fools I screamed bloody murder about all their great and small - that their best is so very small! that their most evil is so very small! - I had to laugh. Thus my wild longing cried and laughed out of me, born in the mountains, a wild wisdom surely! - my great, winging, roaring longing. And often it swept me off my feet and up and away, in the midst of my laughter, where I flew quivering, an arrow, through sun-drunken delight: - off into distant futures not yet glimpsed in dreams, into hotter souths than any artist ever dreamed of; there, where dancing gods are ashamed of all clothing: - so that I must speak in parables and limp and stutter like the poets; and truly, I am ashamed that I must still be a poet! - Thus Spoke Zarathustra Where all becoming seemed to me the dance of gods and the mischief of gods, and the world seemed unloosed and frolicsome and as though it were fleeing back to itself:
-asaneternal fleeing from and seeking each other again of many gods, as the blissful contradicting, again-hearing, again-nearing each other of many gods: Where all time seemed to me a blissful mockery of moments, where necessity was freedom itself, which played blissfully with the sting of freedom: Where I once again found my old devil and arch-enemy, the spirit of gravity, and everything he created: compulsion, statute, necessity and consequence and purpose and will and good and evil: For must there not exist something over which one dances, dances away? Must not, for the sake of the light and the lightest - moles and heavy dwarves exist? - It was there too that I picked up the word 'overman' along the way, and that the human is something that must be overcome, - that human being is a bridge and not an end; counting itself blessed for its noon and evening as the way to new dawns: - the Zarathustra-words about the great noon, and whatever else I suspended above mankind like purple second sunsets. Truly, I allowed them to see new stars together with new nights; and over clouds and day and night I even spread laughter like a colorful tent. I taught them all my creating and striving: to carry together into one what is fragment in mankind and riddle and horrid accident - -aspoet, riddle guesser and redeemer of chance I taught them to work on the future, and to creatively redeem everything that was . To redeem what is past in mankind and to recreate all 'It was' until the will speaks: 'But I wanted it so! I shall want it so -' This I told them was redemption, this alone I taught them to call redemption. - Now I wait for my redemption - so that I can go to them for the last time. Thus Spoke Zarathustra Enjoyment and innocence, you see, are the most bashful things: both do not want to be sought. One should have them - but one should sooner seek guilt and suffering! - Oh my brothers, whoever is a firstborn is always sacrificed. But now we are the firstborns. We all bleed on secret sacrificial altars; we all burn and broil in honor of old idols.
Our best is still young; that tempts old gums. Our flesh is tender, our hide is mere lambskin - how could we not tempt old idol priests! Even in ourselves he still lives, the old idol priest, who roasts up our best for his banquet. Oh my brothers, how could firstborn not be sacrifices! But our kind wants it so; and I love those who do not want to preserve themselves. Those who are going under I love with my whole love: because they are going over. - To be true - this few can do! And whoever can, does not yet want to! But least of all the good can do it. Oh these good! Good people never speak the truth ;for the spirit, being good in this manner is a disease. They give way, these good, they give themselves up, their heart repeats words, their ground obeys; but whoever obeys, he does not hear himself ! Everything that the good call evil must come together, in order to give birth to one truth; oh my brothers, are you also evil enough for this truth? Audacious daring, long mistrust, the cruel no, surfeit, the cutting into what is alive - how rarely this comes together! But from such semen truth is begotten! Side by side with bad conscience all science has grown so far. Break, break me these old tablets, you seekers of knowledge! If timbers span the water, if footbridges and railings leap over the river, then surely the one who says 'Everything is in flux' has no credibility. Third Part Instead, even the dummies contradict him. 'What?' say the dummies, 'everything is supposed to be in flux? But the timbers and the railings are over the river! Over the river everything is firm, all the values of things, the bridges, concepts, all 'good' and 'evil' - all of this is firm !' - Butwhenthehardwintercomes,thebeasttamerofrivers,theneventhe wittiest learn to mistrust, and, sure enough, then not only the dummies say: 'Should everything not stand still ?' 'Basically everything stands still' - that is a real winter doctrine, a good thing for sterile times, a good comfort for hibernators and stove huggers.
'Basically everything stands still' - but against this preaches the thaw wind! Thethawwind,abull that is no plowing bull - a raging bull, a destroyer that breaks ice with its wrathful horns! But ice breaks footbridges ! Yes my brothers, is everything not now in flux ? Have all railings and footbridges not fallen into the water? Who could still hang on to 'good' and 'evil'? 'Woe to us! Hail to us! The thaw wind is blowing!' - Preach me this, oh my brothers, in all the streets! There is an old delusion called good and evil. So far the wheel of this delusion has revolved around soothsayers and astrologers. Once people believed in soothsayers and astrologers, and therefore they believed 'Everything is fate: you should, because you must!' Thenlater people mistrusted all soothsayers and astrologers, and therefore they believed 'Everything is freedom: you can, because you want to!' Yes, my brothers, so far we have merely deluded ourselves, but not knownaboutthestarsandthefuture,and therefore wehavemerelydeluded ourselves, but not known about good and evil! 'Thou shalt not rob! Thou shalt not kill!' - such words were once held holy; before them one bent the knee, bowed the head and removed one's shoes. Thus Spoke Zarathustra But I ask you: where in the world have there ever been better robbers and killers than such holy words? Is there not in all life itself - robbing and killing? And for such words to have been called holy, was truth itself not - killed? Or was it a sermon of death that pronounced holy what contradicted and contravened all life? - Yes my brothers, break, break me the old tablets! This is my pity for everything past, that I see it is abandoned - - abandoned to the favor, the spirit, the madness of each generation that comes along, and interprets everything that was as the bridge to itself ! Agreat despot could come along, a shrewd monster, who with his favor and disfavor could force and forge the whole past, until it became a bridge to him, and omen and herald and harbinger.
But this is the other danger and my other pity: whoever is of the rabble, their remembrance goes no further back than their grandfather - and with their grandfather time ends. Thus all the past is abandoned; because it could happen one day that the rabble would become ruler and in its shallow water all time would drown. Therefore, my brothers, we need a new nobility , which is the adversary of all rabble and all despotic rule and which writes anew the word 'noble' on new tablets. Many noble ones are needed, to be sure, and many kinds of noble ones for nobility to exist ! Or, as I once spoke in parables: 'Precisely that is godliness, that there are gods but no God!' Ohmybrothers, I consecrate and conduct you to a new nobility: you shall be my begetters and growers and sowers of the future - - to be sure, not to a nobility that you could buy like the shopkeepers and with shopkeepers' gold, for everything that has a price has little value. Third Part Not where you come from shall constitute your honor from now on, but instead where you are going! Your will and your foot, which wants to go over and beyond yourself - let that constitute your new honor! Certainly not that you served a prince - what do princes matter anymore! Or that you became a bulwark for what stands, to make it to stand more firmly! Not that your kinfolk became courtiers at court, and learned to stand long hours like a colorful flamingo in shallow ponds. - For being able to stand is a merit among courtiers; and all courtiers believe that part of blessedness after death is being allowed to sit! Northat a spirit they called holy led your forefathers to promised lands, which I donotpraise; because where the worst of all trees grew, the cross there is nothing to praise about that land! And truly, wherever this 'holy ghost' led its knights, in such crusades goats and geese and pious crisscrossing contradictors ran in front ! Oh my brothers, your nobility should not look back, but out there !You should be exiles from all father- and forefatherlands! You should love your children's land ; let this love be your new nobility the undiscovered land in the furthest sea! For that land I command your sails to seek and seek!
You should make it up in your children that you are the children of your fathers; thus you should redeem all that is past! This new tablet I place above you! 'Whylive? All is vain! Life - that is threshing straw; life - that is burning oneself and yet not getting warm.' Such archaic babble still passes for 'wisdom'; but it is honored more highly because it smells old and musty. Even mustiness ennobles. Children might speak like this: they fear fire because it burned them! There is much childishness in the old books of wisdom. And whoever is always 'threshing straw,' why should he be allowed to revile threshing? One really should muzzle such oxen! Such people sit down at the table and bring nothing along, not even a good appetite - and now they revile saying 'All is vain!' Thus Spoke Zarathustra But eating and drinking well, my brothers, is really no vain art! Break, break me the tablets of the never-glad! 'To the clean all is clean' - that is what folks say. But I say to you: 'to swine all becomes swine!' This is why the rapturous and the head-hangers, whose hearts also hang down, preach: 'The world itself is a filthy monster.' Because they are all unclean in spirit, especially those who have neither rest nor respite, unless they see the world from the hinter side - these hinterworldlings! To their faces I say, even if it does not sound kind: the world resembles a human being in that it has a behind that much is true! There is much filth in the world: that much is true! But the world itself is not therefore a filthy monster! There is wisdom in the fact that much in the world smells foul: nausea itself creates wings and water-divining powers! Even in the best there is something that nauseates; and the best is still something that must be overcome! Yes my brothers, there is much wisdom in the fact that there is much filth in the world! - Suchsayings I heard the pious hinterworldlings speak to their conscience, and truly, without malice and falseness - even though there is nothing more false in the world, nor more malicious. 'Just let the world be the world! Do not lift so much as a finger against it!'
'If someone wants to strangle and stab and slice and dice the people, let him; do not lift so much as a finger against it! That way they will yet learn to renounce the world.' 'And your own reason - this you yourself should smother and strangle, because it is a reason of this world - that way you yourself will learn to renounce the world.' - - Break, break me these old tablets of the pious, my brothers! Gainsay me the sayings of the world slanderers! There sits the skiff - over there perhaps is the entryway to the great nothing. But who wants to board this 'perhaps'? None of you wants to board the death skiff! Then why do you want to be world-weary ! Thus Spoke Zarathustra World-weary! And you have not even become earth-alienated yet! I found you still lusting for the earth, still in love with your own earthly weariness! Not for nothing does your lip hang - a little earthly wish still sits on it! And in your eye - doesn't a little cloud of unforgotten earthly joy float there? There are many good inventions on earth, some useful, others pleasant, for whose sake the earth is lovable. And some of what is there has been invented so well that it is like a woman's breasts: useful and pleasant at the same time. But you world-weary! You earth-lazy! You should be flogged with switches! With floggings you should be made to step lively again. After all, if you are not misfits and moribund wretches of whom the earth is weary, then you are sly sloths or nibbling, creeping pleasure cats. And if you do not want to run again with gusto, then you should - pass away! Oneshould not try to be a physician for the incurable: thus Zarathustra teaches - and so you should pass away! But it takes more courage to make an end than to make a new verse: that all physicians and poets know. Ohmybrothers, there are tablets created by weariness, and tablets created by rotten laziness; even though they talk the same, still they want to be heard differently.
See this languishing specimen here! He is merely one span away from his goal, but out of weariness he has laid himself defiantly here in the dust - this valiant man! Out of weariness he yawns at the road and the earth and the goal and himself; not one more step will he take - this valiant one! Now the sun burns on him and the dogs lick at his sweat; but he lies there in his defiance and would rather die of thirst - - die of thirst one span away from his goal! Truly, you will yet have to drag him to his heaven by the hair - this hero! Better still, just let him lie where he has laid himself so that sleep can come to him, the comforter, with its cooling rushing rain: Thus Spoke Zarathustra Oh my brothers, am I perhaps cruel? But I say: if something is falling, one should also give it a push! Everything of today - it is falling, it is failing: who would want to stop it! But I - I want to push it too! Do you know the kind of lust that rolls stones down into steep depths? - These people of today; just look at how they roll into my depths! I am a prelude of better players, my brothers! An exemplary play! Act according to my example! And whomever you cannot teach to fly, him you should teach to fall faster ! Ilove the valiant, but it is not enough to be a fierce combatant - one must also know whom to combat! And often there is more valiance in someone controlling himself and passing by, so that he saves himself for the worthier enemy! You should have only those enemies whom you hate, but not enemies to despise; you must be proud of your enemy: this I taught you already once before. For the worthier enemy, my friends, you should save yourselves, and therefore you must pass by much - - especially pass by much rabble that thunders in your ears about folk and peoples. Keepyoureyeclear of their pros and cons! There is much justice, much injustice here; whoever watches becomes angry. Look around, beat them down - it's all the same here; therefore go away into the woods and lay your swords to sleep! Go your ways! And let folk and peoples go theirs! - dark ways, to be sure, on which not a single hope flashes anymore!
Let the shopkeeper rule where all that is left to glitter - is shopkeepers' gold! The time of kings is no more; what calls itself a people today deserves no kings. Just look at how these peoples themselves do the same as the shopkeepers; they pluck themselves the tiniest advantage from any dustpan! They lie in wait for one another, they look in hate at one another - this they call 'good neighbors.' Oh happy distant time when a people said to themselves: 'I want to be ruler over peoples!' For the best should rule, my brothers, and the best also want to rule! And wherever the teaching says differently, there - the best are missing . If they had bread for free, oh no! What would they clamor for! Their sustainment - that is their real entertainment, and they should have it hard! They are beasts of prey: in their 'working' - preying is there too; in their 'earning' - outwitting is there too! Therefore they should have it hard! They should become better beasts of prey, more subtle, more clever, more human-like : the human being, after all, is the best beast of prey. Human beings have already successfully preyed upon the virtues of all animals; this is because human beings have had the hardest time of all animals. Only the birds are above him. And if human beings were to learn even to fly, watch out! How high - would his lust to prey fly! This is how I want man and woman: fit for war the one, fit for bearing children the other, but both fit to dance in head and limb. And let each day be a loss to us on which we did not dance once! And let each truth be false to us which was not greeted by one laugh!
In taking your wedding vows - see to it that you are not making your bedding vows . Vowing too quickly results in - breaking vows! And better vow breaking than vow bending and vow pretending! A woman once said to me: 'Sure, I broke my wedding vows, but first my wedding vows broke me!' Theworstofthevengeful I always found to be the mismatched couples: they take it out on the whole world that they are no longer singles. Thus Spoke Zarathustra This is why I want honest people to speak honestly to one another: 'We love each other; let us see to it that we keep loving each other! Or did we promise by mistake?' - 'Give us a trial period and a small marriage, so that we can see whether we are fit for a big marriage! It is a big thing to always be in twos!' Thus I counsel all honest people; and what then would my love for the overman be, and for everything else that is to come, if I counseled and conveyed otherwise! Not merely to reproduce, but instead to sur produce - to that goal, my brothers, may the garden of marriage help you! Whoever has become wise about ancient origins will surely, in the end, seek new wells of the future and new origins. Yesmybrothers, it will not be overly long and new peoples will originate and new wells will roar down into new depths. An earthquake, after all - it buries many wells, it causes much dying of thirst: it also brings to light inner powers and secrets. An earthquake reveals new wells. In an earthquake of ancient peoples new wells break out. And whoever cries out there: 'Look, here is a fountain for many who thirst, a heart for many who long, a will for many tools' - around him gathers a people , that is: many who try. Whocan command, who must obey here it is tried ! Indeed, with what long searching and guessing and lack of success and learning and trying again! Human society: it is an experiment, this I teach - a long search: but it searches for the commander! - - an experiment, oh my brothers! And not a 'contract!' Break, break me such words of the soft hearted and half-and-halfs! My brothers! In whom does the greatest danger lie for all of future humanity? Is it not in the good and the just?
Ohmybrothers, have you even understood these words? And what I once said about the 'last human being?' - In whom does the greatest danger lie for all of future humanity? Is it not in the good and the just? Break, break me the good and the just !-Ohmybrothers, have you even understood these words? Thus Spoke Zarathustra You flee from me? You are frightened? You tremble before these words? My brothers, when I told you to break the good and the tablets of the good, then for the first time I launched mankind onto their high seas. Andonly now the great fright comes to them, the great looking-around oneself, the great sickness, the great nausea, the great seasickness. False coasts and false securities were taught you by the good; in the lies of the good you were born and bielded. Everything has been duplicitous and twisted from the ground up by the good. But whoever discovered the land 'human being' also discovered the land 'human future.' Now you will be seafarers, brave and patient! Walk upright for once, my brothers, learn to walk upright! The sea is stormy: Many want to right themselves again on you. The sea is stormy: Everything is in the sea. Well then! Well now! You old salts! What fatherland! There our helm wants to steer, where our children's land is! Out there, stormier than the sea, storms our great longing! - 'Why so hard!' - the kitchen coal once said to the diamond. 'Are we not close relatives?' Why so soft? Oh my brothers, this I ask you: for are you not - my brothers? Why so soft, so retiring and yielding? Why is there so much denying and denial in your hearts? And so little destiny in your gazes? And if you do not want to be destinies and inexorable, how could you triumph with me? And if your hardness does not want to flash and undo and cut through, how could you one day create with me? The creators are hard after all. And it must seem like bliss to you to press your hand upon millennia as if upon wax - - bliss to write upon the will of millennia as if upon bronze - harder than bronze, more noble than bronze. Only the most noble is perfectly hard. This new tablet, my brothers, I place above you: become hard ! -
Onemorningnotlongafterhisreturntohiscave,Zarathustrasprangfrom his bed like a madman, screamed with a terrifying voice and behaved as though someone else were lying on his bed, who did not want to get up. And Zarathustra's voice reverberated so much that his animals rushed to him frightened, and from every cave and hiding place neighboring on Zarathustra's cave, all the animals scurried away - flying, fluttering, crawling, leaping in whatever manner of foot or feather they were given. But Zarathustra said these words: Up, abysmal thought, out of my depths! I am your rooster and dawn, you sleepy worm: up! Up! My voice will yet crow you awake!
Unsnap the straps of your ears: listen! Because I want to hear you! Up! Up! Here there is thunder enough to make even graves learn to listen! And wipe the sleep and all that befogs and blinds you from your eyes! Hear me with your eyes too: my voice is a remedy even for those born blind. And once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally. It is not my manner to wake great-grandmothers from their sleep only to tell them go back to sleep! You stir, you stretch, you gasp? Up! Up! No gasping - you will speak to me! Zarathustra summons you, the godless one! I, Zarathustra, the advocate of life, the advocate of suffering, the advocate of the circle - you I summon, my most abysmal thought! Hail to me! You are coming - I hear you! My abyss speaks , I have unfolded my ultimate depth to the light! Hail to me! Here now! Give me your hand - ha! Let go! Haha! - Nausea, nausea, nausea - oh no! Scarcely had he spoken these words, however, when Zarathustra collapsed like a dead man and long remained as if dead. But when he came to he was pale and he trembled, still lying down, and for a long time he wanted neither to eat nor drink. This behavior lasted seven days; meanwhile, his animals did not leave his side day and night, unless the eagle flew out to fetch food. And whatever prey it fetched together it laid on Zarathustra's beduntil eventually Zarathustra lay among yellow and red berries, grapes, red apples, aromatic herbs and pine cones. At his feet, however, two lambs were spread out, which the eagle with difficulty had taken as prey from their shepherds. Finally, after seven days, Zarathustra sat up on his bed, picked up one of the red apples, smelled it, and found its aroma lovely. Then his animals believed the time had come to speak with him. 'Oh Zarathustra,' they said. 'Now you have been lying like this for seven days, with heavy eyes: do you not want at last to get on your feet?
Step out of your cave: the world awaits you like a garden. The wind is playing with heady fragrances that make their way to you; and all brooks want to run after you. Thus Spoke Zarathustra And you - you have already made a hurdy-gurdy song of it? Now I lie here, weary still from this biting and spitting out, sick still from my own redemption. And you looked on at all of this ?Ohmyanimals, are you also cruel? Did you want to watch my great pain the way people do? For human beings are the cruelest animal. Tragic plays, bullfights and crucifixions have always made them feel best on earth; and when they invented hell for themselves, see here - it was their heaven on earth. When a great human being cries out - in a flash the little ones come running, and their tongues hang out with lasciviousness. But they call it their 'pity.' The little human being, especially the poet - how eagerly he puts his accusations against life into words! Hear him, but do not fail to hear the lust that is in all his accusing! Such accusers of life are overcome by life in a blink of an eye. 'You love me?' says the flirt. 'Wait just a while longer, I don't have time for you yet.' Thehumanbeingisthecruelest animal against itself; and with all those who call themselves 'sinner' and 'cross bearer' and 'penitent,' do not fail to hear the lust in such complaining and accusing! And I myself - do I want therefore to be the accuser of mankind? Oh my animals, this alone have I learned so far, that for mankind their most evil is necessary for their best - - that whatever is most evil is their best power and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that mankind must become better and more evil - The cross on which I suffered was not that I know human beings are evil - instead, I cried as no one yet has cried: 'A shame that their most evil is so very small! A shame that their best is so very small!' My great surfeit of human beings that choked me and crawled into my throat; and what the soothsayer said: 'All is the same, nothing is worth it, knowledge chokes.'
Alongtwilight limped ahead of me, a tired to death and drunk to death sadness that spoke with a yawning mouth: 'Eternally he returns, the human of whom you are weary, the small human being' - thus my sadness yawned and dragged its foot and could not fall asleep. Third Part For me the human earth transformed into a cave, its chest caved in; everything living became human mold and bones and crumbling past. My sighing sat upon all human graves and could no longer stand up; my sighing and questioning croaked and choked and gnashed and lashed day and night: - 'alas, human beings recur eternally! The small human beings recur eternally!' - Naked I once saw them both, the greatest human and the smallest human:all too similar to one another - all too human still even the greatest one! All too small the greatest one! That was my surfeit of humans! And eternal recurrence of even the smallest! - That was my surfeit of all existence! Oh nausea! Nausea! Nausea!' - Thus spoke Zarathustra and sighed and shuddered, because he remembered his sickness. But his animals did not allow him to continue. 'Speak no more, you convalescent!' - answered his animals. 'Rather go outside where the world awaits you like a garden. Go outside to the roses and bees and swarms of doves! Especially to the song birds, so that you can learn to sing from them! Singing after all is for convalescents, let the healthy person talk. And even if the healthy person also wants songs, he wants different songs than the convalescent.' - 'Oh you foolish rascals and barrel organs, shut up!' - answered Zarathustra, and he smiled at his animals. 'How well you know which comfort I invented for myself in seven days! That I must sing once again this comfort I invented for myself and this convalescence; but do you want to make that into a hurdy-gurdy song right away too?' - 'Speak no more,' answered his animals again. 'Instead, you convalescent, fashion yourself a lyre first, a new lyre! Behold oh Zarathustra! For your new songs new lyres are needed.
Sing and foam over, Zarathustra; heal your soul with new songs so that you can bear your great destiny, which was never before a human's destiny! For your animals know well, oh Zarathustra, who you are and must become; behold, you are the teacher of the eternal recurrence - that now is your destiny! That you must teach this teaching as the first - how could this great destiny not also be your greatest danger and sickness! Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally and we ourselves along with them, and that we have already been here times eternal and all things along with us. You teach that there is a great year of becoming, a monster of a great year; like an hourglass it must turn itself over anew, again and again, so that it runs down and runs out anew - - so that all these years are the same as each other, in what is greatest and also in what is smallest - so that we ourselves in every great year are the same, in what is greatest and also in what is smallest. And if you wanted to die now, oh Zarathustra: behold, we know too how you would speak to yourself then: - but your animals beg you not to die yet! You would speak and without trembling, rather taking a deep breath, blissfully; for a great weight and oppressiveness would be taken from you, you most patient one! 'Now I die and disappear,' you would say, 'and in an instant I will be a nothing. Souls are as mortal as bodies. But the knot of causes in which I am entangled recurs - it will create me again! I myself belong to the causes of the eternal recurrence. I will return, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this snake not to a new life or a better life or a similar life: -Iwill return to this same and selfsame life, in what is greatest as well as in what is smallest, to once again teach the eternal recurrence of all things - -toonceagain speak the word about the great earth of noon and human beings, to once again proclaim the overman to mankind. I spoke my word, I break under my word: thus my eternal fate wills it - as proclaimer I perish!
The hour has now come for the one who goes under to bless himself. Thus ends Zarathustra's going under!'' - When the animals had spoken these words they fell silent and waited for Zarathustra to say something to them: but Zarathustra did not hear that they were silent. Instead he lay still, with eyes closed, like someone sleeping - even though he was not sleeping. Indeed, at this moment he was conversing with his soul. The snake and the eagle, however, finding Third Part him silent in this manner, honored the great stillness around him and cautiously slipped away.
Oh my soul, I taught you to say 'today' and 'once' and 'formerly,' and to dance your round over all here and then and there. Oh my soul, I redeemed you from all nooks, I swept dust, spiders and twilight off of you. Oh my soul, I washed the petty bashfulness and the nook-virtue from you and persuaded you to stand naked before the eyes of the sun. With the storm called 'spirit' I blew over your choppy sea; I blew all clouds away, I even choked the choker who is called 'sin.' Oh my soul, I gave you the right to say no like the storm and to say yes as the open sky says yes: still as light you now stand and even if you pass through storms of denial. Oh my soul, I gave you back your freedom over what is created and uncreated: and who knows as you know the lust of future things? Oh my soul, I taught you contempt that does not come like a gnawing worm, the great, loving contempt that loves most where it has the most contempt. Oh my soul, I taught you to persuade such that you persuade even the grounds; like the sun that persuades even the sea into its heights. Oh my soul, I took from you all obeying, knee-bending and sir-saying; I myself gave you the name 'turning point of need' and 'destiny.' Ohmysoul, I gave you new names and colorful playthings, I called you 'destiny' and 'compass of compasses' and 'umbilical cord of time' and 'azure bell.' Oh my soul, to your soil I gave all wisdom to drink, all new wines and also all old strong wines of wisdom from time immemorial. Oh my soul, I poured every sun upon you and every night and every silence and every longing - then you grew up for me like a grapevine. Oh my soul, super-rich and heavy you stand there now, a grapevine with swelling udders and crowded, brownish gold grapes - - crowded and crushed by your happiness, waiting out of superabundance and even bashful because of your waiting. Thus Spoke Zarathustra Oh my soul, nowhere now is there a soul that could be more loving and more compassing and encompassing! Where would future and past be closer together than in you?
Ohmysoul,Igaveyoueverythingandall my hands have become empty on you - and now! Now you say to me smiling and full of melancholy: 'Who of us is supposed to be thankful? - does the giver not have to give thanks that the receiver received? Is bestowing not a bare necessity? Is receiving not - mercy?' Ohmysoul, I understand the smiling of your melancholy: your superrichness itself reaches out with longing hands! Your fullness gazes out over roaring seas and searches and waits; the longing of over-fullness gazes smilingly from your sky-like eyes! And truly, oh my soul! Who could see your smile and not melt into tears! The angels themselves melt into tears at the super-goodness of your smile. It is your goodness and super-goodness that do not want to lament and weep; and yet, oh my soul, your smile longs for tears and your trembling mouth for sobs. 'Is not all weeping a lamentation? And is not all lamentation an accusation?' This is how you speak to yourself, and this is why, oh my soul, you would rather smile than pour out your suffering - - pour out your suffering in gushing tears over your fullness and over all the aching of the grapevine for the vintner and his knife! But if you do not want to weep and weep out your purple melancholy, then you must sing ,ohmysoul! - Look, I too smile for telling you this in advance: - sing with a roaring song until all seas become silent, to listen for your longing - -until the skiff floats over silent longing seas, the golden wonder around whose gold all good and bad and wonderful things hop - - even many great and small animals and everything that has light, wondrous feet, and can run on paths of violet blue - - over to the golden wonder, the voluntary skiff and to its master: but he is the vintner who waits with his diamond knife - -your great redeemer, oh my soul, the nameless one - for whom only future songs will find a name! And truly, your breath is fragrant already with future songs! -
Where are you pulling me now, you standout and upstart? And now you flee me again, sweet wildcat, thankless heart! I dance after you, and follow your trail using any clue. Where are you? Give me your hand! Even a finger will do! Here are caves and thickets, we could get lost in there! - Stop! Stand still! Do you not see owls and bats in the air? You owls! You bats! This leaves you in stitches? Where are we? Such howling and yelping you learned from the bitches. You gnash at me sweetly with little white teeth; your curly little mane, evil eyes peeking out from beneath! This is a dance moving every which way; I am the hunter - are you my hound or my prey? Next to me now! And quick, you evil little jumper! Up now! And over! - Oh no! I slipped and now I'm on my rump here! Oh see me lying, miss mischief, have mercy on me! There are paths to sweet places - where I would rather be! - Paths of love through silent blooming plants! Or down there along the lake, where goldfish swim and dance! Are you weary now? Over there are sheep and sunset-swoons; is it not sweet to sleep when shepherds play their tunes? Are you so bitter weary! I will carry you there, just relax and let your arms sink! And if you thirst - I have something, but nothing you would drink! - - Oh this cursed clever, supple snake and slippery witch! Gone without a trace? But left behind, and left by hand, I feel two red spots on my face! I am truly tired of always playing your sheepish shepherd pal! You witch, if I have so far sung for you, now you for me will - yell! To the beat of my whip you will dance so and yell so! But did I forget the whip? - Oh no! - Then life answered me like this and covered her dainty little ears: 'OhZarathustra! Please do not crack your whip so fearfully! Surely you know: noise murders thoughts - and just now the most tender thoughts are coming to me.
From deepest dream I made my way -, 1 = Four!. , 1 = Five!. The world is deep,, 1 = . And deeper than the grasp of day., 1 = Seven!. Joy - deeper still than misery:, 1 = . Pain says: refrain!, 1 = Nine!. , 1 = Ten!. - wants deep, wants deep eternity!', 1 = Eleven!. , 1 = Twelve! The Seven Seals (Or: the Yes and Amen Song) If I am a soothsayer and full of that soothsaying spirit that hikes on a high pass between two seas - hikes between the past and the future as a heavy cloud - the enemy of oppressive lowlands and everything that is weary and can neither die nor live: ready in its dark bosom for lightning and for the redeeming ray of light, pregnant with lightning bolts that say Yes! and laugh Yes! to soothsaying bolts of lightning - - but blessed is the one who is pregnant like this! And truly, whoever will one day kindle the light of the future must hang long on the mountain like a heavy storm! - oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence! Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity! If my wrath ever broke open graves, moved boundary stones and rolled old broken tablets down into steep depths: If my scorn ever blew apart moldy words, and I came upon the cross spiders like a broom, and as a sweeping wind to old musty burial chambers: If I ever sat jubilating where old gods lie buried, blessing the world, loving the world next to the monuments of ancient world maligners - - because I love even churches and God's graves once the sky's pure eye gazes through their broken roofs; gladly do I sit like grass and red poppies on broken churches - Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence! Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity!
If ever a breath came to me of creative breath and of that heavenly necessity that forces even accidents to dance astral rounds: If ever I laughed with the laugh of creative lightning that follows rumbling but obediently the long thunder of the deed: If ever I rolled dice with gods at the gods' table of the earth, so that the earth quaked and ruptured and snorted up rivers of fire - - because the earth is a gods' table, and it trembles with creative new words and gods' throws - Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence! Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity! If ever I drank my fill from that foaming mug of mixed spices, in which all good things are mixed: Third Part Thus Spoke Zarathustra If my hand ever poured the farthest to the closest and fire to spirit and joy to sorrow and the most wicked to the kindest: If I myself am a grain of that redeeming salt that makes all things in the mixing mug mix well - - because there is a salt that binds good with evil; and even what is most evil is worthy as a spice and for the final foaming over - Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence! Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity! If I favor the sea and everything that is of the sea, and even favor it most when it angrily contradicts me: If ever that joy of searching is in me that drives sails toward the undiscovered, if a seafarer's joy is in my joy: If ever my jubilating cried: 'The coast disappeared - now the last chain has fallen from me - - infinity roars around me, way out there space and time glitter, well then, what of it old heart!' - Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence!
Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity! If my virtue is a dancer's virtue and I often leaped with both feet into golden emerald delight: If my malice is a laughing malice, at home beneath rosy slopes and lily hedges: - for in laughter everything evil is together, but pronounced holy and absolved by its own bliss: And if that is my alpha and omega, that all heaviness becomes light, all body dancer, all spirit bird - and truly, that is my alpha and omega! -
Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence! Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity! If ever I spread silent skies above me and flew into my own sky with my own wings: If I playfully swam in deep expanses of light, and my freedom's birdwisdom came - - but bird-wisdom speaks like this: 'See, there is no up, no down! Throw yourself around, out, back you light one! Sing! Speak no more! -are not all words made for the heavy? Do not all words lie to the light? Sing! Speak no more!' - Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence! Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity!
Oh, where in the world has greater folly occurred than among the pitying? And what in the world causes more suffering than the folly of the pitying? Woe to all lovers who do not yet have an elevation that is above their pitying! Thus the devil once spoke to me: 'Even God has his hell: it is his love for mankind.' Andrecently I heard him say these words: 'God is dead; God died of pity for mankind.' Zarathustra , 'On the Pitying' ( , p. ).
- And again moons and years passed over Zarathustra's soul and he took no notice of it; but his hair had turned white. One day as he sat on a stone before his cave and gazed outward - there where one looks out upon the sea and beyond twisting abysses - his animals walked around him pensively until finally they stood before him. 'Oh Zarathustra,' they said. 'Are you perhaps on the lookout for your happiness?' - 'What does happiness matter!' he answered. 'I haven't strived for happiness for a long time, I strive for my work.' - 'Oh Zarathustra,' said the animals again. 'You say that as one who has had overly much of the good. Do you not lie in a sky-blue lake of happiness?' - 'You foolish rascals,' answered Zarathustra, smiling. 'How well you chose your metaphor! But you also know that my happiness is heavy and not like a fluid wave of water; it presses me and will not leave me alone and it acts like melted tar.' -

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