56. Old and New Tables
1.
HERE do I sit and wait, old broken tables around me and also new
half-written tables. When cometh mine hour?
-The hour of my descent, of my down-going: for once more will I go
unto men.
For that hour do I now wait: for first must the signs come unto me
that it is mine hour- namely, the laughing lion with the flock of
doves.
Meanwhile do I talk to myself as one who hath time. No one telleth
me anything new, so I tell myself mine own story.
2.
When I came unto men, then found I them resting on an old
infatuation: all of them thought they had long known what was good and
bad for men.
An old wearisome business seemed to them all discourse about virtue;
and he who wished to sleep well spake of "good" and "bad" ere retiring
to rest.
This somnolence did I disturb when I taught that no one yet
knoweth what is good and bad:- unless it be the creating one!
-It is he, however, who createth man's goal, and giveth to the earth
its meaning and its future: he only effecteth it that aught is good or
bad.
And I bade them upset their old academic chairs, and wherever that
old infatuation had sat; I bade them laugh at their great moralists,
their saints, their poets, and their saviours.
At their gloomy sages did I bid them laugh, and whoever had sat
admonishing as a black scarecrow on the tree of life.
On their great grave-highway did I seat myself, and even beside
the carrion and vultures- and I laughed at all their bygone and its
mellow decaying glory.
Verily, like penitential preachers and fools did I cry wrath and
shame on all their greatness and smallness. Oh, that their best is
so very small! Oh, that their worst is so very small! Thus did I
laugh.
Thus did my wise longing, born in the mountains, cry and laugh in
me; a wild wisdom, verily!- my great pinion-rustling longing.
And oft did it carry me off and up and away and in the midst of
laughter; then flew I quivering like an arrow with sun-intoxicated
rapture:
-Out into distant futures, which no dream hath yet seen, into warmer
souths than ever sculptor conceived,- where gods in their dancing
are ashamed of all clothes:
(That I may speak in parables and halt and stammer like the poets:
and verily I am ashamed that I have still to be a poet!)
Where all becoming seemed to me dancing of gods, and wantoning of
gods, and the world unloosed and unbridled and fleeing back to
itself:-
-As an eternal self-fleeing and re-seeking of one another of many
gods, as the blessed self-contradicting, recommuning, and
refraternising with one another of many gods:-
Where all time seemed to me a blessed mockery of moments, where
necessity was freedom itself, which played happily with the goad of
freedom:-
Where I also found again mine old devil and arch-enemy, the spirit
of gravity, and all that it created: constraint, law, necessity and
consequence and purpose and will and good and evil:-
For must there not be that which is danced over, danced beyond? Must
there not, for the sake of the nimble, the nimblest,- be moles and
clumsy dwarfs?-
3.
There was it also where I picked up from the path the word
"Superman," and that man is something that must be surpassed.
-That man is a bridge and not a goal- rejoicing over his noontides
and evenings, as advances to new rosy dawns:
-The Zarathustra word of the great noontide, and whatever else I
have hung up over men like purple evening-afterglows.
Verily, also new stars did I make them see, along with new nights;
and over cloud and day and night, did I spread out laughter like a
gay-coloured canopy.
I taught them all my poetisation and aspiration: to compose and
collect into unity what is fragment in man, and riddle and fearful
chance;-
-As composer, riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance, did I teach
them to create the future, and all that hath been- to redeem by
creating.
The past of man to redeem, and every "It was" to transform, until
the Will saith: "But so did I will it! So shall I will it-"
-This did I call redemption; this alone taught I them to call
redemption.- -
Now do I await my redemption- that I may go unto them for the last
time.
For once more will I go unto men: amongst them will my sun set; in
dying will I give them my choicest gift!
From the sun did I learn this, when it goeth down, the exuberant
one: gold doth it then pour into the sea, out of inexhaustible
riches,-
-So that the poorest fisherman roweth even with golden oars! For
this did I once see, and did not tire of weeping in beholding it.- -
Like the sun will also Zarathustra go down: now sitteth he here
and waiteth, old broken tables around him, and also new tables-
half-written.
4.
Behold, here is a new table; but where are my brethren who will
carry it with me to the valley and into hearts of flesh?-
Thus demandeth my great love to the remotest ones: be not
considerate of thy neighbour! Man is something that must be surpassed.
There are many divers ways and modes of surpassing: see thou
thereto! But only a buffoon thinketh: "man can also be overleapt."
Surpass thyself even in thy neighbour: and a right which thou
canst seize upon, shalt thou not allow to be given thee!
What thou doest can no one do to thee again. Lo, there is no
requital.
He who cannot command himself shall obey. And many a one can command
himself, but still sorely lacketh self-obedience!
5.
Thus wisheth the type of noble souls: they desire to have nothing
gratuitously, least of all, life.
He who is of the populace wisheth to live gratuitously; we others,
however, to whom life hath given itself- we are ever considering
what we can best give in return!
And verily, it is a noble dictum which saith: "What life promiseth
us, that promise will we keep- to life!"
One should not wish to enjoy where one doth not contribute to the
enjoyment. And one should not wish to enjoy!
For enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things. Neither
like to be sought for. One should have them,- but one should rather
seek for guilt and pain!-
6.
O my brethren, he who is a firstling is ever sacrificed. Now,
however, are we firstlings!
We all bleed on secret sacrificial altars, we all burn and broil
in honour of ancient idols.
Our best is still young: this exciteth old palates. Our flesh is
tender, our skin is only lambs' skin:- how could we not excite old
idol-priests!
In ourselves dwelleth he still, the old idol-priest, who broileth
our best for his banquet. Ah, my brethren, how could firstlings fail
to be sacrifices!
But so wisheth our type; and I love those who do not wish to
preserve themselves, the down-going ones do I love with mine entire
love: for they go beyond.-
7.
To be true- that can few be! And he who can, will not! Least of all,
however, can the good be true.
Oh, those good ones! Good men never speak the truth. For the spirit,
thus to be good, is a malady.
They yield, those good ones, they submit themselves; their heart
repeateth, their soul obeyeth: he, however, who obeyeth, doth not
listen to himself!
All that is called evil by the good, must come together in order
that one truth may be born. O my brethren, are ye also evil enough for
this truth?
The daring venture, the prolonged distrust, the cruel Nay, the
tedium, the cutting-into-the-quick- how seldom do these come together!
Out of such seed, however- is truth produced!
Beside the bad conscience hath hitherto grown all knowledge! Break
up, break up, ye discerning ones, the old tables!
8.
When the water hath planks, when gangways and railings o'erspan
the stream, verily, he is not believed who then saith: "All is in
flux."
But even the simpletons contradict him. "What?" say the
simpletons, "all in flux? Planks and railings are still over the
stream!
"Over the stream all is stable, all the values of things, the
bridges and bearings, all 'good' and 'evil': these are all stable!"-
Cometh, however, the hard winter, the stream-tamer, then learn
even the wittiest distrust, and verily, not only the simpletons then
say: "Should not everything- stand still?"
"Fundamentally standeth everything still"- that is an appropriate
winter doctrine, good cheer for an unproductive period, a great
comfort for winter-sleepers and fireside-loungers.
"Fundamentally standeth everything still"-: but contrary thereto,
preacheth the thawing wind!
The thawing wind, a bullock, which is no ploughing bullock- a
furious bullock, a destroyer, which with angry horns breaketh the ice!
The ice however- - breaketh gangways!
O my brethren, is not everything at present in flux? Have not all
railings and gangways fallen into the water? Who would still hold on
to "good" and "evil"?
"Woe to us! Hail to us! The thawing wind bloweth!"- Thus preach,
my brethren, through all the streets!
9.
There is an old illusion- it is called good and evil. Around
soothsayers and astrologers hath hitherto revolved the orbit of this
illusion.
Once did one believe in soothsayers and astrologers; and therefore
did one believe, "Everything is fate: thou shalt, for thou must!"
Then again did one distrust all soothsayers and astrologers; and
therefore did one believe, "Everything is freedom: thou canst, for
thou willest!"
O my brethren, concerning the stars and the future there hath
hitherto been only illusion, and not knowledge; and therefore
concerning good and evil there hath hitherto been only illusion and
not knowledge!
10.
"Thou shalt not rob! Thou shalt not slay!"- such precepts were
once called holy; before them did one bow the knee and the head, and
take off one's shoes.
But I ask you: Where have there ever been better robbers and slayers
in the world than such holy precepts?
Is there not even in all life- robbing and slaying? And for such
precepts to be called holy, was not truth itself thereby- slain?
-Or was it a sermon of death that called holy what contradicted
and dissuaded from life?- O my brethren, break up, break up for me the
old tables!
11.
It is my sympathy with all the past that I see it is abandoned,-
-Abandoned to the favour, the spirit and the madness of every
generation that cometh, and reinterpreteth all that hath been as its
bridge!
A great potentate might arise, an artful prodigy, who with
approval and disapproval could strain and constrain all the past,
until it became for him a bridge, a harbinger, a herald, and a
****-crowing.
This however is the other danger, and mine other sympathy:- he who
is of the populace, his thoughts go back to his grandfather,- with his
grandfather, however, doth time cease.
Thus is all the past abandoned: for it might some day happen for the
populace to become master, and drown all time in shallow waters.
Therefore, O my brethren, a new nobility is needed, which shall be
the adversary of all populace and potentate rule, and shall inscribe
anew the word "noble" on new tables.
For many noble ones are needed, and many kinds of noble ones, for
a new nobility! Or, as I once said in parable: "That is just divinity,
that there are gods, but no God!"
12.
O my brethren, I consecrate you and point you to a new nobility:
ye shall become procreators and cultivators and sowers of the future;-
-Verily, not to a nobility which ye could purchase like traders with
traders' gold; for little worth is all that hath its price.
Let it not be your honour henceforth whence ye come, but whither
ye go! Your Will and your feet which seek to surpass you- let these be
your new honour!
Verily, not that ye have served a prince- of what account are
princes now!- nor that ye have become a bulwark to that which
standeth, that it may stand more firmly.
Not that your family have become courtly at courts, and that ye have
learned- gay-coloured, like the flamingo- to stand long hours in
shallow pools:
(For ability-to-stand is a merit in courtiers; and all courtiers
believe that unto blessedness after death pertaineth-
permission-to-sit!)
Nor even that a Spirit called Holy, led your forefathers into
promised lands, which I do not praise: for where the worst of all
trees grew- the cross,- in that land there is nothing to praise!-
-And verily, wherever this "Holy Spirit" led its knights, always
in such campaigns did- goats and geese, and wry-heads and guy-heads
run foremost!-
O my brethren, not backward shall your nobility gaze, but outward!
Exiles shall ye be from all fatherlands and forefather-lands!
Your children's land shall ye love: let this love be your new
nobility,- the undiscovered in the remotest seas! For it do I bid your
sails search and search!
Unto your children shall ye make amends for being the children of
your fathers: all the past shall ye thus redeem! This new table do I
place over you!
13.
"Why should one live? All is vain! To live- that is to thresh straw;
to live- that is to burn oneself and yet not get warm.-
Such ancient babbling still passeth for "wisdom"; because it is old,
however, and smelleth mustily, therefore is it the more honoured. Even
mould ennobleth.-
Children might thus speak: they shun the fire because it hath
burnt them! There is much childishness in the old books of wisdom.
And he who ever "thresheth straw," why should he be allowed to
rail at threshing! Such a fool one would have to muzzle!
Such persons sit down to the table and bring nothing with them,
not even good hunger:- and then do they rail: "All is vain!"
But to eat and drink well, my brethren, is verily no vain art! Break
up, break up for me the tables of the never-joyous ones!
14.
"To the clean are all things clean"- thus say the people. I,
however, say unto you: To the swine all things become swinish!
Therefore preach the visionaries and bowed-heads (whose hearts are
also bowed down): "The world itself is a filthy monster."
For these are all unclean spirits; especially those, however, who
have no peace or rest, unless they see the world from the backside-
the backworldsmen!
To those do I say it to the face, although it sound unpleasantly:
the world resembleth man, in that it hath a backside,- so much is
true!
There is in the world much filth: so much is true! But the world
itself is not therefore a filthy monster!
There is wisdom in the fact that much in the world smelleth badly:
loathing itself createth wings, and fountain-divining powers!
In the best there is still something to loathe; and the best is
still something that must be surpassed!-
O my brethren, there is much wisdom in the fact that much filth is
in the world!-
15.
Such sayings did I hear pious backworldsmen speak to their
consciences, and verily without wickedness or guile,- although there
is nothing more guileful in the world, or more wicked.
"Let the world be as it is! Raise not a finger against it!"
"Let whoever will choke and stab and skin and scrape the people:
raise not a finger against it! Thereby will they learn to renounce the
world."
"And thine own reason- this shalt thou thyself stifle and choke; for
it is a reason of this world,- thereby wilt thou learn thyself to
renounce the world."-
-Shatter, shatter, O my brethren, those old tables of the pious!
Tatter the maxims of the world-maligners!-
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