Message #33012

[VoraX]

 50. On the Olive-Mount

  WINTER, a bad guest, sitteth with me at home; blue are my hands with
his friendly hand-shaking.
  I honour him, that bad guest, but gladly leave him alone. Gladly
do I run away from him; and when one runneth well, then one escapeth
him!
  With warm feet and warm thoughts do I run where the wind is calm- to
the sunny corner of mine olive-mount.
  There do I laugh at my stern guest, and am still fond of him;
because he cleareth my house of flies, and quieteth many little
noises.
  For he suffereth it not if a gnat wanteth to buzz, or even two of
them; also the lanes maketh he lonesome, so that the moonlight is
afraid there at night.
  A hard guest is he,- but I honour him, and do not worship, like
the tenderlings, the pot-bellied fire-idol.
  Better even a little teeth-chattering than idol-adoration!- so
willeth my nature. And especially have I a grudge against all
ardent, steaming, steamy fire-idols.
  Him whom I love, I love better in winter than in summer; better do I
now mock at mine enemies, and more heartily, when winter sitteth in my
house.
  Heartily, verily, even when I creep into bed-: there, still laugheth
and wantoneth my hidden happiness; even my deceptive dream laugheth.
  I, a- creeper? Never in my life did I creep before the powerful; and
if ever I lied, then did I lie out of love. Therefore am I glad even
in my winter-bed.
  A poor bed warmeth me more than a rich one, for I am jealous of my
poverty. And in winter she is most faithful unto me.
  With a wickedness do I begin every day: I mock at the winter with
a cold bath: on that account grumbleth my stern house-mate.
  Also do I like to tickle him with a wax-taper, that he may finally
let the heavens emerge from ashy-grey twilight.
  For especially wicked am I in the morning: at the early hour when
the pail rattleth at the well, and horses neigh warmly in grey lanes:-
  Impatiently do I then wait, that the clear sky may finally dawn
for me, the snow-bearded winter-sky, the hoary one, the white-head,-
  -The winter-sky, the silent winter-sky, which often stifleth even
its sun!
  Did I perhaps learn from it the long clear silence? Or did it
learn it from me? Or hath each of us devised it himself?
  Of all good things the origin is a thousandfold,- all good roguish
things spring into existence for joy: how could they always do so- for
once only!
  A good roguish thing is also the long silence, and to look, like the
winter-sky, out of a clear, round-eyed countenance:-
  -Like it to stifle one's sun, and one's inflexible solar will:
verily, this art and this winter-roguishness have I learned well!
  My best-loved wickedness and art is it, that my silence hath learned
not to betray itself by silence.
  Clattering with diction and dice, I outwit the solemn assistants:
all those stern watchers, shall my will and purpose elude.
  That no one might see down into my depth and into mine ultimate
will- for that purpose did I devise the long clear silence.
  Many a shrewd one did I find: he veiled his countenance and made his
water muddy, that no one might see therethrough and thereunder.
  But precisely unto him came the shrewder distrusters and
nut-crackers: precisely from him did they fish his best-concealed
fish!
  But the clear, the honest, the transparent- these are for me the
wisest silent ones: in them, so profound is the depth that even the
clearest water doth not- betray it.-
  Thou snow-bearded, silent, winter-sky, thou round-eyed whitehead
above me! Oh, thou heavenly simile of my soul and its wantonness!
  And must I not conceal myself like one who hath swallowed gold- lest
my soul should be ripped up?
  Must I not wear stilts, that they may overlook my long legs- all
those enviers and injurers around me?
  Those dingy, fire-warmed, used-up, green-tinted, ill-natured
souls- how could their envy endure my happiness!
  Thus do I show them only the ice and winter of my peaks- and not
that my mountain windeth all the solar girdles around it!
  They hear only the whistling of my winter-storms: and know not
that I also travel over warm seas, like longing, heavy, hot
south-winds.
  They commiserate also my accidents and chances:- but my word
saith: "Suffer the chance to come unto me: innocent is it as a
little child!"
  How could they endure my happiness, if I did not put around it
accidents, and winter-privations, and bear-skin caps, and enmantling
snowflakes!
  -If I did not myself commiserate their pity, the pity of those
enviers and injurers!
  -If I did not myself sigh before them, and chatter with cold, and
patiently let myself be swathed in their pity!
  This is the wise waggish-will and good-will of my soul, that it
concealeth not its winters and glacial storms; it concealeth not its
chilblains either.
  To one man, lonesomeness is the flight of the sick one; to
another, it is the flight from the sick ones.
  Let them hear me chattering and sighing with winter-cold, all
those poor squinting knaves around me! With such sighing and
chattering do I flee from their heated rooms.
  Let them sympathise with me and sigh with me on account of my
chilblains: "At the ice of knowledge will he yet freeze to death!"- so
they mourn.
  Meanwhile do I run with warm feet hither and thither on mine
olive-mount: in the sunny corner of mine olive-mount do I sing, and
mock at all pity.-

  Thus sang Zarathustra.