Thus Spake Zarathustra

[VoraX]

36. The Land of Culture

  TOO far did I fly into the future: a horror seized upon me.
  And when I looked around me, lo! there time was my sole
contemporary.
  Then did I fly backwards, homewards- and always faster. Thus did I
come unto you: ye present-day men, and into the land of culture.
  For the first time brought I an eye to see you, and good desire:
verily, with longing in my heart did I come.
  But how did it turn out with me? Although so alarmed- I had yet to
laugh! Never did mine eye see anything so motley-coloured!
  I laughed and laughed, while my foot still trembled, and my heart as
well. "Here forsooth, is the home of all the paint-pots,"- said I.
  With fifty patches painted on faces and limbs- so sat ye there to
mine astonishment, ye present-day men!
  And with fifty mirrors around you, which flattered your play of
colours, and repeated it!
  Verily, ye could wear no better masks, ye present-day men, than your
own faces! Who could- recognise you!
  Written all over with the characters of the past, and these
characters also pencilled over with new characters- thus have ye
concealed yourselves well from all decipherers!
  And though one be a trier of the reins, who still believeth that
ye have reins! Out of colours ye seem to be baked, and out of glued
scraps.
  All times and peoples gaze divers-coloured out of your veils; all
customs and beliefs speak divers-coloured out of your gestures.
  He who would strip you of veils and wrappers, and paints and
gestures, would just have enough left to scare the crows.
  Verily, I myself am the scared crow that once saw you naked, and
without paint; and I flew away when the skeleton ogled at me.
  Rather would I be a day-labourer in the nether-world, and among
the shades of the by-gone!- Fatter and fuller than ye, are forsooth
the nether-worldlings!
  This, yea this, is bitterness to my bowels, that I can neither
endure you naked nor clothed, ye present-day men!
  All that is unhomelike in the future, and whatever maketh strayed
birds shiver, is verily more homelike and familiar than your
"reality."
  For thus speak ye: "Real are we wholly, and without faith and
superstition": thus do ye plume yourselves- alas! even without plumes!
  Indeed, how would ye be able to believe, ye divers-coloured ones!-
ye who are pictures of all that hath ever been believed!
  Perambulating refutations are ye, of belief itself, and a
dislocation of all thought. Untrustworthy ones: thus do I call you, ye
real ones!
  All periods prate against one another in your spirits; and the
dreams and pratings of all periods were even realer than your
awakeness!
  Unfruitful are ye: therefore do ye lack belief. But he who had to
create, had always his presaging dreams and astral premonitions- and
believed in believing!-
  Half-open doors are ye, at which grave-diggers wait. And this is
your reality: "Everything deserveth to perish."
  Alas, how ye stand there before me, ye unfruitful ones; how lean
your ribs! And many of you surely have had knowledge thereof.
  Many a one hath said: "There hath surely a God filched something
from me secretly whilst I slept? Verily, enough to make a girl for
himself therefrom!
  "Amazing is the poverty of my ribs!" thus hath spoken many a
present-day man.
  Yea, ye are laughable unto me, ye present-day men! And especially
when ye marvel at yourselves!
  And woe unto me if I could not laugh at your marvelling, and had
to swallow all that is repugnant in your platters!
  As it is, however, I will make lighter of you, since I have to carry
what is heavy; and what matter if beetles and May-bugs also alight
on my load!
  Verily, it shall not on that account become heavier to me! And not
from you, ye present-day men, shall my great weariness arise.-
  Ah, whither shall I now ascend with my longing! From all mountains
do I look out for fatherlands and motherlands.
  But a home have I found nowhere: unsettled am I in all cities, and
decamping at all gates.
  Alien to me, and a mockery, are the present-day men, to whom of late
my heart impelled me; and exiled am I from fatherlands and
motherlands.
  Thus do I love only my children's land, the undiscovered in the
remotest sea: for it do I bid my sails search and search.
  Unto my children will I make amends for being the child of my
fathers: and unto all the future- for this present-day!-

  Thus spake Zarathustra.

[VoraX]

37. Immaculate Perception

  WHEN yester-eve the moon arose, then did I fancy it about to bear
a sun: so broad and teeming did it lie on the horizon.
  But it was a liar with its pregnancy; and sooner will I believe in
the man in the moon than in the woman.
  To be sure, little of a man is he also, that timid night-reveller.
Verily, with a bad conscience doth he stalk over the roofs.
  For he is covetous and jealous, the monk in the moon; covetous of
the earth, and all the joys of lovers.
  Nay, I like him not, that tom-cat on the roofs! Hateful unto me
are all that slink around half-closed windows!
  Piously and silently doth he stalk along on the star-carpets:- but I
like no light-treading human feet, on which not even a spur jingleth.
  Every honest one's step speaketh; the cat however, stealeth along
over the ground. Lo! cat-like doth the moon come along, and
dishonestly.-
  This parable speak I unto you sentimental dissemblers, unto you, the
"pure discerners!" You do I call- covetous ones!
  Also ye love the earth, and the earthly: I have divined you well!-
but shame is in your love, and a bad conscience- ye are like the moon!
  To despise the earthly hath your spirit been persuaded, but not your
bowels: these, however, are the strongest in you!
  And now is your spirit ashamed to be at the service of your
bowels, and goeth in by-ways and lying ways to escape its own shame.
  "That would be the highest thing for me"- so saith your lying spirit
unto itself- "to gaze upon life without desire, and not like the
dog, with hanging-out tongue:
  To be happy in gazing: with dead will, free from the grip and
greed of selfishness- cold and ashy-grey all over, but with
intoxicated moon-eyes!
  That would be the dearest thing to me"- thus doth the seduced one
seduce himself,- "to love the earth as the moon loveth it, and with
the eye only to feel its beauty.
  And this do I call immaculate perception of all things: to want
nothing else from them, but to be allowed to lie before them as a
mirror with a hundred facets."-
  Oh, ye sentimental dissemblers, ye covetous ones! Ye lack
innocence in your desire: and now do ye defame desiring on that
account!
  Verily, not as creators, as procreators, or as jubilators do ye love
the earth!
  Where is innocence? Where there is will to procreation. And he who
seeketh to create beyond himself, hath for me the purest will.
  Where is beauty? Where I must will with my whole Will; where I
will love and perish, that an image may not remain merely an image.
  Loving and perishing: these have rhymed from eternity. Will to love:
that is to be ready also for death. Thus do I speak unto you cowards!
  But now doth your emasculated ogling profess to be
"contemplation!" And that which can be examined with cowardly eyes
is to be christened "beautiful!" Oh, ye violators of noble names!
  But it shall be your curse, ye immaculate ones, ye pure
discerners, that ye shall never bring forth, even though ye lie
broad and teeming on the horizon!
  Verily, ye fill your mouth with noble words: and we are to believe
that your heart overfloweth, ye cozeners?
  But my words are poor, contemptible, stammering words: gladly do I
pick up what falleth from the table at your repasts.
  Yet still can I say therewith the truth- to dissemblers! Yea, my
fish-bones, shells, and prickly leaves shall- tickle the noses of
dissemblers!
  Bad air is always about you and your repasts: your lascivious
thoughts, your lies, and secrets are indeed in the air!
  Dare only to believe in yourselves- in yourselves and in your inward
parts! He who doth not believe in himself always lieth.
  A God's mask have ye hung in front of you, ye "pure ones": into a
God's mask hath your execrable coiling snake crawled.
  Verily ye deceive, ye "contemplative ones!" Even Zarathustra was
once the dupe of your godlike exterior; he did not divine the
serpent's coil with which it was stuffed.
  A God's soul, I once thought I saw playing in your games, ye pure
discerners! No better arts did I once dream of than your arts!
  Serpents' filth and evil odour, the distance concealed from me:
and that a lizard's craft prowled thereabouts lasciviously.
  But I came nigh unto you: then came to me the day,- and now cometh
it to you,- at an end is the moon's love affair!
  See there! Surprised and pale doth it stand- before the rosy dawn!
  For already she cometh, the glowing one,- her love to the earth
cometh! Innocence, and creative desire, is all solar love!
  See there, how she cometh impatiently over the sea! Do ye not feel
the thirst and the hot breath of her love?
  At the sea would she suck, and drink its depths to her height: now
riseth the desire of the sea with its thousand breasts.
  Kissed and sucked would it be by the thirst of the sun; vapour would
it become, and height, and path of light, and light itself!
  Verily, like the sun do I love life, and all deep seas.
  And this meaneth to me knowledge: all that is deep shall ascend-
to my height!-

  Thus spake Zarathustra.

[VoraX]

 38. Scholars

  WHEN I lay asleep, then did a sheep eat at the ivy-wreath on my
head,- it ate, and said thereby: "Zarathustra is no longer a scholar."
  It said this, and went away clumsily and proudly. A child told it to
me.
  I like to lie here where the children play, beside the ruined
wall, among thistles and red poppies.
  A scholar am I still to the children, and also to the thistles and
red poppies. Innocent are they, even in their wickedness.
  But to the sheep I am no longer a scholar: so willeth my
lot-blessings upon it!
  For this is the truth: I have departed from the house of the
scholars, and the door have I also slammed behind me.
  Too long did my soul sit hungry at their table: not like them have I
got the knack of investigating, as the knack of nut-cracking.
  Freedom do I love, and the air over fresh soil; rather would I sleep
on ox-skins than on their honours and dignities.
  I am too hot and scorched with mine own thought: often is it ready
to take away my breath. Then have I to go into the open air, and
away from all dusty rooms.
  But they sit cool in the cool shade: they want in everything to be
merely spectators, and they avoid sitting where the sun burneth on the
steps.
  Like those who stand in the street and gape at the passers-by:
thus do they also wait, and gape at the thoughts which others have
thought.
  Should one lay hold of them, then do they raise a dust like
flour-sacks, and involuntarily: but who would divine that their dust
came from corn, and from the yellow delight of the summer fields?
  When they give themselves out as wise, then do their petty sayings
and truths chill me: in their wisdom there is often an odour as if
it came from the swamp; and verily, I have even heard the frog croak
in it!
  Clever are they- they have dexterous fingers: what doth my
simplicity pretend to beside their multiplicity! All threading and
knitting and weaving do their fingers understand: thus do they make
the hose of the spirit!
  Good clockworks are they: only be careful to wind them up
properly! Then do they indicate the hour without mistake, and make a
modest noise thereby.
  Like millstones do they work, and like pestles: throw only seed-corn
unto them!- they know well how to grind corn small, and make white
dust out of it.
  They keep a sharp eye on one another, and do not trust each other
the best. Ingenious in little artifices, they wait for those whose
knowledge walketh on lame feet,- like spiders do they wait.
  I saw them always prepare their poison with precaution; and always
did they put glass gloves on their fingers in doing so.
  They also know how to play with false dice; and so eagerly did I
find them playing, that they perspired thereby.
  We are alien to each other, and their virtues are even more
repugnant to my taste than their falsehoods and false dice.
  And when I lived with them, then did I live above them. Therefore
did they take a dislike to me.
  They want to hear nothing of any one walking above their heads;
and so they put wood and earth and rubbish betwixt me and their heads.
  Thus did they deafen the sound of my tread: and least have I
hitherto been heard by the most learned.
  All mankind's faults and weaknesses did they put betwixt
themselves and me:- they call it "false ceiling" in their houses.
  But nevertheless I walk with my thoughts above their heads; and even
should I walk on mine own errors, still would I be above them and
their heads.
  For men are not equal: so speaketh justice. And what I will, they
may not will!-

  Thus spake Zarathustra.

[VoraX]

39. Poets

  "SINCE I have known the body better"- said Zarathustra to one of his
disciples- "the spirit hath only been to me symbolically spirit; and
all the 'imperishable'- that is also but a simile."
  "So have I heard thee say once before," answered the disciple,
"and then thou addedst: 'But the poets lie too much.' Why didst thou
say that the poets lie too much?"
  "Why?" said Zarathustra. "Thou askest why? I do not belong to
those who may be asked after their Why.
  Is my experience but of yesterday? It is long ago that I experienced
the reasons for mine opinions.
  Should I not have to be a cask of memory, if I also wanted to have
my reasons with me?
  It is already too much for me even to retain mine opinions; and many
a bird flieth away.
  And sometimes, also, do I find a fugitive creature in my dovecote,
which is alien to me, and trembleth when I lay my hand upon it.
  But what did Zarathustra once say unto thee? That the poets lie
too much?- But Zarathustra also is a poet.
  Believest thou that he there spake the truth? Why dost thou
believe it?"
  The disciple answered: "I believe in Zarathustra." But Zarathustra
shook his head and smiled.-
  Belief doth not sanctify me, said he, least of all the belief in
myself.
  But granting that some one did say in all seriousness that the poets
lie too much: he was right- we do lie too much.
  We also know too little, and are bad learners: so we are obliged
to lie.
  And which of us poets hath not adulterated his wine? Many a
poisonous hotchpotch hath evolved in our cellars: many an
indescribable thing hath there been done.
  And because we know little, therefore are we pleased from the
heart with the poor in spirit, especially when they are young women!
  And even of those things are we desirous, which old women tell one
another in the evening. This do we call the eternally feminine in us.
  And as if there were a special secret access to knowledge, which
choketh up for those who learn anything, so do we believe in the
people and in their "wisdom."
  This, however, do all poets believe: that whoever pricketh up his
ears when lying in the grass or on lonely slopes, learneth something
of the things that are betwixt heaven and earth.
  And if there come unto them tender emotions, then do the poets
always think that nature herself is in love with them:
  And that she stealeth to their ear to whisper secrets into it, and
amorous flatteries: of this do they plume and pride themselves, before
all mortals!
  Ah, there are so many things betwixt heaven and earth of which
only the poets have dreamed!
  And especially above the heavens: for all gods are
poet-symbolisations, poet-sophistications!
  Verily, ever are we drawn aloft- that is, to the realm of the
clouds: on these do we set our gaudy puppets, and then call them
gods and Supermen:-
  Are not they light enough for those chairs!- all these gods and
Supermen?-
  Ah, how I am weary of all the inadequate that is insisted on as
actual! Ah, how I am weary of the poets!

  When Zarathustra so spake, his disciple resented it, but was silent.
And Zarathustra also was silent; and his eye directed itself inwardly,
as if it gazed into the far distance. At last he sighed and drew
breath.-
  I am of today and heretofore, said he thereupon; but something is in
me that is of the morrow, and the day following, and the hereafter.
  I became weary of the poets, of the old and of the new:
superficial are they all unto me, and shallow seas.
  They did not think sufficiently into the depth; therefore their
feeling did not reach to the bottom.
  Some sensation of voluptuousness and some sensation of tedium: these
have as yet been their best contemplation.
  Ghost-breathing and ghost-whisking, seemeth to me all the
jingle-jangling of their harps; what have they known hitherto of the
fervour of tones!-
  They are also not pure enough for me: they all muddle their water
that it may seem deep.
  And fain would they thereby prove themselves reconcilers: but
mediaries and mixers are they unto me, and half-and-half, and impure!-
  Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and meant to catch good
fish; but always did I draw up the head of some ancient God.
  Thus did the sea give a stone to the hungry one. And they themselves
may well originate from the sea.
  Certainly, one findeth pearls in them: thereby they are the more
like hard molluscs. And instead of a soul, I have often found in
them salt slime.
  They have learned from the sea also its vanity: is not the sea the
peacock of peacocks?
  Even before the ugliest of all buffaloes doth it spread out its
tail; never doth it tire of its lace-fan of silver and silk.
  Disdainfully doth the buffalo glance thereat, nigh to the sand
with its soul, nigher still to the thicket, nighest, however, to the
swamp.
  What is beauty and sea and peacock-splendour to it! This parable I
speak unto the poets.
  Verily, their spirit itself is the peacock of peacocks, and a sea of
vanity!
  Spectators seeketh the spirit of the poet- should they even be
buffaloes!-
  But of this spirit became I weary; and I see the time coming when it
will become weary of itself.
  Yea, changed have I seen the poets, and their glance turned
towards themselves.
  Penitents of the spirit have I seen appearing; they grew out of
the poets.-

  Thus spake Zarathustra.

[VoraX]

 40. Great Events

  THERE is an isle in the sea- not far from the Happy Isles of
Zarathustra- on which a volcano ever smoketh; of which isle the
people, and especially the old women amongst them, say that it is
placed as a rock before the gate of the nether-world; but that through
the volcano itself the narrow way leadeth downwards which conducteth
to this gate.
  Now about the time that Zarathustra sojourned on the Happy Isles, it
happened that a ship anchored at the isle on which standeth the
smoking mountain, and the crew went ashore to shoot rabbits. About the
noontide hour, however, when the captain and his men were together
again, they saw suddenly a man coming towards them through the air,
and a voice said distinctly: "It is time! It is the highest time!" But
when the figure was nearest to them (it flew past quickly, however,
like a shadow, in the direction of the volcano), then did they
recognise with the greatest surprise that it was Zarathustra; for they
had all seen him before except the captain himself, and they loved him
as the people love: in such wise that love and awe were combined in
equal degree.
  "Behold!" said the old helmsman, "there goeth Zarathustra to hell!"
  About the same time that these sailors landed on the fire-isle,
there was a rumour that Zarathustra had disappeared; and when his
friends were asked about it, they said that he had gone on board a
ship by night, without saying whither he was going.
  Thus there arose some uneasiness. After three days, however, there
came the story of the ship's crew in addition to this uneasiness-
and then did all the people say that the devil had taken
Zarathustra. His disciples laughed, sure enough, at this talk; and one
of them said even: "Sooner would I believe that Zarathustra hath taken
the devil." But at the bottom of their hearts they were all full of
anxiety and longing: so their joy was great when on the fifth day
Zarathustra appeared amongst them.
  And this is the account of Zarathustra's interview with the
fire-dog:
  The earth, said he, hath a skin; and this skin hath diseases. One of
these diseases, for example, is called "man."
  And another of these diseases is called "the fire-dog": concerning
him men have greatly deceived themselves, and let themselves be
deceived.
  To fathom this mystery did I go o'er the sea; and I have seen the
truth naked, verily! barefooted up to the neck.
  Now do I know how it is concerning the fire-dog; and likewise
concerning all the spouting and subversive devils, of which not only
old women are afraid.
  "Up with thee, fire-dog, out of thy depth!" cried I, "and confess
how deep that depth is! Whence cometh that which thou snortest up?
  Thou drinkest copiously at the sea: that doth thine embittered
eloquence betray! In sooth, for a dog of the depth, thou takest thy
nourishment too much from the surface!
  At the most, I regard thee as the ventriloquist of the earth: and
ever, when I have heard subversive and spouting devils speak, I have
found them like thee: embittered, mendacious, and shallow.
  Ye understand how to roar and obscure with ashes! Ye are the best
braggarts, and have sufficiently learned the art of making dregs boil.
  Where ye are, there must always be dregs at hand, and much that is
spongy, hollow, and compressed: it wanteth to have freedom.
  'Freedom' ye all roar most eagerly: but I have unlearned the
belief in 'great events,' when there is much roaring and smoke about
them.
  And believe me, friend Hullabaloo! The greatest events- are not
our noisiest, but our stillest hours.
  Not around the inventors of new noise, but around the inventors of
new values, doth the world revolve; inaudibly it revolveth.
  And just own to it! Little had ever taken place when thy noise and
smoke passed away. What, if a city did become a mummy, and a statue
lay in the mud!
  And this do I say also to the o'erthrowers of statues: It is
certainly the greatest folly to throw salt into the sea, and statues
into the mud.
  In the mud of your contempt lay the statue: but it is just its
law, that out of contempt, its life and living beauty grow again!
  With diviner features doth it now arise, seducing by its
suffering; and verily! it will yet thank you for o'erthrowing it, ye
subverters!
  This counsel, however, do I counsel to kings and churches, and to
all that is weak with age or virtue- let yourselves be o'erthrown!
That ye may again come to life, and that virtue- may come to you!-"
  Thus spake I before the fire-dog: then did he interrupt me sullenly,
and asked: "Church? What is that?"
  "Church?" answered I, "that is a kind of state, and indeed the
most mendacious. But remain quiet, thou dissembling dog! Thou surely
knowest thine own species best!
  Like thyself the state is a dissembling dog; like thee doth it
like to speak with smoke and roaring- to make believe, like thee, that
it speaketh out of the heart of things.
  For it seeketh by all means to be the most important creature on
earth, the state; and people think it so."
  When I had said this, the fire-dog acted as if mad with envy.
"What!" cried he, "the most important creature on earth? And people
think it so?" And so much vapour and terrible voices came out of his
throat, that I thought he would choke with vexation and envy.
  At last he became calmer and his panting subsided; as soon, however,
as he was quiet, I said laughingly:
  "Thou art angry, fire-dog: so I am in the right about thee!
  And that I may also maintain the right, hear the story of another
fire-dog; he speaketh actually out of the heart of the earth.
  Gold doth his breath exhale, and golden rain: so doth his heart
desire. What are ashes and smoke and hot dregs to him!
  Laughter flitteth from him like a variegated cloud; adverse is he to
thy gargling and spewing and grips in the bowels!
  The gold, however, and the laughter- these doth he take out of the
heart of the earth: for, that thou mayst know it,- the heart of the
earth is of gold."
  When the fire-dog heard this, he could no longer endure to listen to
me. Abashed did he draw in his tail, said "bow-wow!" in a cowed voice,
and crept down into his cave.-
  Thus told Zarathustra. His disciples, however, hardly listened to
him: so great was their eagerness to tell him about the sailors, the
rabbits, and the flying man.
  "What am I to think of it!" said Zarathustra. "Am I indeed a ghost?
  But it may have been my shadow. Ye have surely heard something of
the Wanderer and his Shadow?
  One thing, however, is certain: I must keep a tighter hold of it;
otherwise it will spoil my reputation."
  And once more Zarathustra shook his head and wondered. "What am I to
think of it!" said he once more.
  "Why did the ghost cry: 'It is time! It is the highest time!'
  For what is it then- the highest time?"-

  Thus spake Zarathustra.

[VoraX]

41. The Soothsayer

  "-AND I saw a great sadness come over mankind. The best turned weary
of their works.
  A doctrine appeared, a faith ran beside it: 'All is empty, all is
alike, all hath been!'
  And from all hills there re-echoed: 'All is empty, all is alike, all
hath been!'
  To be sure we have harvested: but why have all our fruits become
rotten and brown? What was it fell last night from the evil moon?
  In vain was all our labour, poison hath our wine become, the evil
eye hath singed yellow our fields and hearts.
  Arid have we all become; and fire falling upon us, then do we turn
dust like ashes:- yea, the fire itself have we made aweary.
  All our fountains have dried up, even the sea hath receded. All
the ground trieth to gape, but the depth will not swallow!
  'Alas! where is there still a sea in which one could be drowned?' so
soundeth our plaint- across shallow swamps.
  Verily, even for dying have we become too weary; now do we keep
awake and live on- in sepulchres."

  Thus did Zarathustra hear a soothsayer speak; and the foreboding
touched his heart and transformed him. Sorrowfully did he go about and
wearily; and he became like unto those of whom the soothsayer had
spoken.-
  Verily, said he unto his disciples, a little while, and there cometh
the long twilight. Alas, how shall I preserve my light through it!
  That it may not smother in this sorrowfulness! To remoter worlds
shall it be a light, and also to remotest nights!
  Thus did Zarathustra go about grieved in his heart, and for three
days he did not take any meat or drink: he had no rest, and lost his
speech. At last it came to pass that he fell into a deep sleep. His
disciples, however, sat around him in long night-watches, and waited
anxiously to see if he would awake, and speak again, and recover
from his affliction.
  And this is the discourse that Zarathustra spake when he awoke;
his voice, however, came unto his disciples as from afar:
  Hear, I pray you, the dream that I dreamed, my friends, and help
me to divine its meaning!
  A riddle is it still unto me, this dream; the meaning is hidden in
it and encaged, and doth not yet fly above it on free pinions.
  All life had I renounced, so I dreamed. Night-watchman and
grave-guardian had I become, aloft, in the lone mountain-fortress of
Death.
  There did I guard his coffins: full stood the musty vaults of
those trophies of victory. Out of glass coffins did vanquished life
gaze upon me.
  The odour of dust-covered eternities did I breathe: sultry and
dust-covered lay my soul. And who could have aired his soul there!
  Brightness of midnight was ever around me; lonesomeness cowered
beside her; and as a third, death-rattle stillness, the worst of my
female friends.
  Keys did I carry, the rustiest of all keys; and I knew how to open
with them the most creaking of all gates.
  Like a bitterly angry croaking ran the sound through the long
corridors when the leaves of the gate opened: ungraciously did this
bird cry, unwillingly was it awakened.
  But more frightful even, and more heart-strangling was it, when it
again became silent and still all around, and I alone sat in that
malignant silence.
  Thus did time pass with me, and slip by, if time there still was:
what do I know thereof! But at last there happened that which awoke
me.
  Thrice did there peal peals at the gate like thunders, thrice did
the vaults resound and howl again: then did I go to the sate.
  Alpa! cried I, who carrieth his ashes unto the mountain? Alpa! Alpa!
who carrieth his ashes unto the mountain?
  And I pressed the key, and pulled at the gate, and exerted myself.
But not a finger's-breadth was it yet open:
  Then did a roaring wind tear the folds apart: whistling, whizzing,
and piercing, it threw unto me a black coffin.
  And in the roaring and whistling and whizzing, the coffin burst
open, and spouted out a thousand peals of laughter.
  And a thousand caricatures of children, angels, owls, fools, and
child-sized butterflies laughed and mocked, and roared at me.
  Fearfully was I terrified thereby: it prostrated me. And I cried
with horror as I ne'er cried before.
  But mine own crying awoke me:- and I came to myself.-
  Thus did Zarathustra relate his dream, and then was silent: for as
yet he knew not the interpretation thereof. But the disciple whom he
loved most arose quickly, seized Zarathustra's hand, and said:
  "Thy life itself interpreteth unto us this dream, O Zarathustra!
  Art thou not thyself the wind with shrill whistling, which
bursteth open the gates of the fortress of Death?
  Art thou not thyself the coffin full of many-hued malices and
angel-caricatures of life?
  Verily, like a thousand peals of children's laughter cometh
Zarathustra into all sepulchres, laughing at those night-watchmen
and grave-guardians, and whoever else rattleth with sinister keys.
  With thy laughter wilt thou frighten and prostrate them: fainting
and recovering wilt thou demonstrate thy power over them.
  And when the long twilight cometh and the mortal weariness, even
then wilt thou not disappear from our firmament, thou advocate of
life!
  New stars hast thou made us see, and new nocturnal glories:
verily, laughter itself hast thou spread out over us like a
many-hued canopy.
  Now will children's laughter ever from coffins flow; now will a
strong wind ever come victoriously unto all mortal weariness: of
this thou art thyself the pledge and the prophet!
  Verily, they themselves didst thou dream, thine enemies: that was
thy sorest dream.
  But as thou awokest from them and camest to thyself, so shall they
awaken from themselves- and come unto thee!
  Thus spake the disciple; and all the others then thronged around
Zarathustra, grasped him by the hands, and tried to persuade him to
leave his bed and his sadness, and return unto them. Zarathustra,
however, sat upright on his couch, with an absent look. Like one
returning from long foreign sojourn did he look on his disciples,
and examined their features; but still he knew them not. When,
however, they raised him, and set him upon his feet, behold, all on
a sudden his eye changed; he understood everything that had
happened, stroked his beard, and said with a strong voice:
  "Well! this hath just its time; but see to it, my disciples, that we
have a good repast; and without delay! Thus do I mean to make amends
for bad dreams!
  The soothsayer, however, shall eat and drink at my side: and verily,
I will yet show him a sea in which he can drown himself!"-

  Thus spake Zarathustra. Then did he gaze long into the face of the
disciple who had been the dream-interpreter, and shook his head.-

[VoraX]

 42. Redemption

  WHEN Zarathustra went one day over the great bridge, then did the
cripples and beggars surround him, and a hunchback spake thus unto
him:
  "Behold, Zarathustra! Even the people learn from thee, and acquire
faith in thy teaching: but for them to believe fully in thee, one
thing is still needful- thou must first of all convince us cripples!
Here hast thou now a fine selection, and verily, an opportunity with
more than one forelock! The blind canst thou heal, and make the lame
run; and from him who hath too much behind, couldst thou well, also,
take away a little;- that, I think, would be the right method to
make the cripples believe in Zarathustra!"
  Zarathustra, however, answered thus unto him who so spake: When
one taketh his hump from the hunchback, then doth one take from him
his spirit- so do the people teach. And when one giveth the blind
man eyes, then doth he see too many bad things on the earth: so that
he curseth him who healed him. He, however, who maketh the lame man
run, inflicteth upon him the greatest injury; for hardly can he run,
when his vices run away with him- so do the people teach concerning
cripples. And why should not Zarathustra also learn from the people,
when the people learn from Zarathustra?
  It is, however, the smallest thing unto me since I have been amongst
men, to see one person lacking an eye, another an ear, and a third a
leg, and that others have lost the tongue, or the nose, or the head.
  I see and have seen worse things, and divers things so hideous, that
I should neither like to speak of all matters, nor even keep silent
about some of them: namely, men who lack everything, except that
they have too much of one thing- men who are nothing more than a big
eye, or a big mouth, or a big belly, or something else big,-
reversed cripples, I call such men.
  And when I came out of my solitude, and for the first time passed
over this bridge, then I could not trust mine eyes, but looked again
and again, and said at last: "That is an ear! An ear as big as a man!"
I looked still more attentively- and actually there did move under the
ear something that was pitiably small and poor and slim. And in
truth this immense ear was perched on a small thin stalk- the stalk,
however, was a man! A person putting a glass to his eyes, could even
recognise further a small envious countenance, and also that a bloated
soullet dangled at the stalk. The people told me, however, that the
big ear was not only a man, but a great man, a genius. But I never
believed in the people when they spake of great men- and I hold to
my belief that it was a reversed cripple, who had too little of
everything, and too much of one thing.
  When Zarathustra had spoken thus unto the hunchback, and unto
those of whom the hunchback was the mouthpiece and advocate, then
did he turn to his disciples in profound dejection, and said:
  Verily, my friends, I walk amongst men as amongst the fragments
and limbs of human beings!
  This is the terrible thing to mine eye, that I find man broken up,
and scattered about, as on a battle- and butcher-ground.
  And when mine eye fleeth from the present to the bygone, it
findeth ever the same: fragments and limbs and fearful chances- but no
men!
  The present and the bygone upon earth- ah! my friends- that is my
most unbearable trouble; and I should not know how to live, if I
were not a seer of what is to come.
  A seer, a purposer, a creator, a future itself, and a bridge to
the future- and alas! also as it were a cripple on this bridge: all
that is Zarathustra.
  And ye also asked yourselves often: "Who is Zarathustra to us?
What shall he be called by us?" And like me, did ye give yourselves
questions for answers.
  Is he a promiser? Or a fulfiller? A conqueror? Or an inheritor? A
harvest? Or a ploughshare? A physician? Or a healed one?
  Is he a poet? Or a genuine one? An emancipator? Or a subjugator? A
good one? Or an evil one?
  I walk amongst men as the fragments of the future: that future which
I contemplate.
  And it is all my poetisation and aspiration to compose and collect
into unity what is fragment and riddle and fearful chance.
  And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also the
composer, and riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance!
  To redeem what is past, and to transform every "It was" into "Thus
would I have it!"- that only do I call redemption!
  Will- so is the emancipator and joy-bringer called: thus have I
taught you, my friends! But now learn this likewise: the Will itself
is still a prisoner.
  Willing emancipateth: but what is that called which still putteth
the emancipator in chains?
  "It was": thus is the Will's teeth-gnashing and lonesomest
tribulation called. Impotent towards what hath been done- it is a
malicious spectator of all that is past.
  Not backward can the Will will; that it cannot break time and time's
desire- that is the Will's lonesomest tribulation.
  Willing emancipateth: what doth Willing itself devise in order to
get free from its tribulation and mock at its prison?
  Ah, a fool becometh every prisoner! Foolishly delivereth itself also
the imprisoned Will.
  That time doth not run backward- that is its animosity: "That
which was": so is the stone which it cannot roll called.
  And thus doth it roll stones out of animosity and ill-humour, and
taketh revenge on whatever doth not, like it, feel rage and
ill-humour.
  Thus did the Will, the emancipator, become a torturer; and on all
that is capable of suffering it taketh revenge, because it cannot go
backward.
  This, yea, this alone is revenge itself: the Will's antipathy to
time, and its "It was."
  Verily, a great folly dwelleth in our Will; and it became a curse
unto all humanity, that this folly acquired spirit!
  The spirit of revenge: my friends, that hath hitherto been man's
best contemplation; and where there was suffering, it was claimed
there was always penalty.
  "Penalty," so calleth itself revenge. With a lying word it
feigneth a good conscience.
  And because in the willer himself there is suffering, because he
cannot will backwards- thus was Willing itself, and all life, claimed-
to be penalty!
  And then did cloud after cloud roll over the spirit, until at last
madness preached: "Everything perisheth, therefore everything
deserveth to perish!"
  "And this itself is justice, the law of time- that he must devour
his children:" thus did madness preach.
  "Morally are things ordered according to justice and penalty. Oh,
where is there deliverance from the flux of things and from the
'existence' of penalty?" Thus did madness preach.
  "Can there be deliverance when there is eternal justice? Alas,
unrollable is the stone, 'It was': eternal must also be all
penalties!" Thus did madness preach.
  "No deed can be annihilated: how could it be undone by the
penalty! This, this is what is eternal in the 'existence' of
penalty, that existence also must be eternally recurring deed and
guilt!
  Unless the Will should at last deliver itself, and Willing become
non-Willing-:" but ye know, my brethren, this fabulous song of
madness!
  Away from those fabulous songs did I lead you when I taught you:
"The Will is a creator."
  All "It was" is a fragment, a riddle, a fearful chance- until the
creating Will saith thereto: "But thus would I have it."-
  Until the creating Will saith thereto: "But thus do I will it!
Thus shall I will it!"
  But did it ever speak thus? And when doth this take place? Hath
the Will been unharnessed from its own folly?
  Hath the Will become its own deliverer and joy-bringer? Hath it
unlearned the spirit of revenge and all teeth-gnashing?
  And who hath taught it reconciliation with time, and something
higher than all reconciliation?
  Something higher than all reconciliation must the Will will which is
the Will to Power-: but how doth that take place? Who hath taught it
also to will backwards?
  -But at this point in his discourse it chanced that Zarathustra
suddenly paused, and looked like a person in the greatest alarm.
With terror in his eyes did he gaze on his disciples; his glances
pierced as with arrows their thoughts and arrear-thoughts. But after a
brief space he again laughed, and said soothedly:
  "It is difficult to live amongst men, because silence is so
difficult- especially for a babbler."-

  Thus spake Zarathustra. The hunchback, however, had listened to
the conversation and had covered his face during the time; but when he
heard Zarathustra laugh, he looked up with curiosity, and said slowly:
  "But why doth Zarathustra speak otherwise unto us than unto his
disciples?"
  Zarathustra answered: "What is there to be wondered at! With
hunchbacks one May well speak in a hunchbacked way!"
  "Very good," said the hunchback; "and with pupils one may well
tell tales out of school.
  But why doth Zarathustra speak otherwise unto his pupils- than
unto himself?"-

[VoraX]

 43. Manly Prudence

  NOT the height, it is the declivity that is terrible!
  The declivity, where the gaze shooteth downwards, and the hand
graspeth upwards. There doth the heart become giddy through its double
will.
  Ah, friends, do ye divine also my heart's double will?
  This, this is my declivity and my danger, that my gaze shooteth
towards the summit, and my hand would fain clutch and lean- on the
depth!
  To man clingeth my will; with chains do I bind myself to man,
because I am pulled upwards to the Superman: for thither doth mine
other will tend.
  And therefore do I live blindly among men, as if I knew them not:
that my hand may not entirely lose belief in firmness.
  I know not you men: this gloom and consolation is often spread
around me.
  I sit at the gateway for every rogue, and ask: Who wisheth to
deceive me?
  This is my first manly prudence, that I allow myself to be deceived,
so as not to be on my guard against deceivers.
  Ah, if I were on my guard against man, how could man be an anchor to
my ball! Too easily would I be pulled upwards and away!
  This providence is over my fate, that I have to be without
foresight.
  And he who would not languish amongst men, must learn to drink out
of all glasses; and he who would keep clean amongst men, must know how
to wash himself even with dirty water.
  And thus spake I often to myself for consolation: "Courage! Cheer
up! old heart! An unhappiness hath failed to befall thee: enjoy that
as thy- happiness!"
  This, however, is mine other manly prudence: I am more forbearing to
the vain than to the proud.
  Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies? Where, however,
pride is wounded, there there groweth up something better than pride.
  That life may be fair to behold, its game must be well played; for
that purpose, however, it needeth good actors.
  Good actors have I found all the vain ones: they play, and wish
people to be fond of beholding them- all their spirit is in this wish.
  They represent themselves, they invent themselves; in their
neighbourhood I like to look upon life- it cureth of melancholy.
  Therefore am I forbearing to the vain, because they are the
physicians of my melancholy, and keep me attached to man as to a
drama.
  And further, who conceiveth the full depth of the modesty of the
vain man! I am favourable to him, and sympathetic on account of his
modesty.
  From you would he learn his belief in himself; he feedeth upon
your glances, he eateth praise out of your hands.
  Your lies doth he even believe when you lie favourably about him:
for in its depths sigheth his heart: "What am I?"
  And if that be the true virtue which is unconscious of itself- well,
the vain man is unconscious of his modesty!-
  This is, however, my third manly prudence: I am not put out of
conceit with the wicked by your timorousness.
  I am happy to see the marvels the warm sun hatcheth: tigers and
palms and rattlesnakes.
  Also amongst men there is a beautiful brood of the warm sun, and
much that is marvellous in the wicked.
  In truth, as your wisest did not seem to me so very wise, so found I
also human wickedness below the fame of it.
  And oft did I ask with a shake of the head: Why still rattle, ye
rattlesnakes?
  Verily, there is still a future even for evil! And the warmest south
is still undiscovered by man.
  How many things are now called the worst wickedness, which are
only twelve feet broad and three months long! Some day, however,
will greater dragons come into the world.
  For that the Superman may not lack his dragon, the super-dragon that
is worthy of him, there must still much warm sun glow on moist
virgin forests!
  Out of your wild cats must tigers have evolved, and out of your
poison-toads, crocodiles: for the good hunter shall have a good hunt!
  And verily, ye good and just! In you there is much to be laughed at,
and especially your fear of what hath hitherto been called "the
devil!"
  So alien are ye in your souls to what is great, that to you the
Superman would be frightful in his goodness!
  And ye wise and knowing ones, ye would flee from the solar-glow of
the wisdom in which the Superman joyfully batheth his nakedness!
  Ye highest men who have come within my ken! this is my doubt of you,
and my secret laughter: I suspect ye would call my Superman- a devil!
  Ah, I became tired of those highest and best ones: from their
"height" did I long to be up, out, and away to the Superman!
  A horror came over me when I saw those best ones naked: then there
grew for me the pinions to soar away into distant futures.
  Into more distant futures, into more southern souths than ever
artist dreamed of: thither, where gods are ashamed of all clothes!
  But disguised do I want to see you, ye neighbours and fellowmen, and
well-attired and vain and estimable, as "the good and just;"-
  And disguised will I myself sit amongst you- that I may mistake
you and myself: for that is my last manly prudence.-

  Thus spake Zarathustra.

[VoraX]

44. The Stillest Hour

  WHAT hath happened unto me, my friends? Ye see me troubled, driven
forth, unwillingly obedient, ready to go- alas, to go away from you!
  Yea, once more must Zarathustra retire to his solitude: but
unjoyously this time doth the bear go back to his cave!
  What hath happened unto me? Who ordereth this?- Ah, mine angry
mistress wisheth it so; she spake unto me. Have I ever named her
name to you?
  Yesterday towards evening there spake unto me my stillest hour: that
is the name of my terrible mistress.
  And thus did it happen- for everything must I tell you, that your
heart may not harden against the suddenly departing one!
  Do ye know the terror of him who falleth asleep?-
  To the very toes he is terrified, because the ground giveth way
under him, and the dream beginneth.
  This do I speak unto you in parable. Yesterday at the stillest
hour did the ground give way under me: the dream began.
  The hour-hand moved on, the timepiece of my life drew breath-
never did I hear such stillness around me, so that my heart was
terrified.
  Then was there spoken unto me without voice: "Thou knowest it,
Zarathustra?"-
  And I cried in terror at this whispering, and the blood left my
face: but I was silent.
  Then was there once more spoken unto me without voice: "Thou knowest
it, Zarathustra, but thou dost not speak it!"-
  And at last I answered, like one defiant: "Yea, I know it, but I
will not speak it!"
  Then was there again spoken unto me without voice: "Thou wilt not,
Zarathustra? Is this true? Conceal thyself not behind thy defiance!"-
  And I wept and trembled like a child, and said: "Ah, I would indeed,
but how can I do it! Exempt me only from this! It is beyond my power!"
  Then was there again spoken unto me without voice: "What matter
about thyself, Zarathustra! Speak thy word, and succumb!"
  And I answered: "Ah, is it my word? Who am I? I await the worthier
one; I am not worthy even to succumb by it."
  Then was there again spoken unto me without voice: "What matter
about thyself? Thou art not yet humble enough for me. Humility hath
the hardest skin."-
  And I answered: "What hath not the skin of my humility endured! At
the foot of my height do I dwell: how high are my summits, no one hath
yet told me. But well do I know my valleys."
  Then was there again spoken unto me without voice: "O Zarathustra,
he who hath to remove mountains removeth also valleys and plains."-
  And I answered: "As yet hath my word not removed mountains, and what
I have spoken hath not reached man. I went, indeed, unto men, but
not yet have I attained unto them."
  Then was there again spoken unto me without voice: "What knowest
thou thereof! The dew falleth on the grass when the night is most
silent."-
  And I answered: "They mocked me when I found and walked in mine
own path; and certainly did my feet then tremble.
  And thus did they speak unto me: Thou forgottest the path before,
now dost thou also forget how to walk!"
  Then was there again spoken unto me without voice: "What matter
about their mockery! Thou art one who hast unlearned to obey: now
shalt thou command!
  Knowest thou not who is most needed by all? He who commandeth
great things.
  To execute great things is difficult: but the more difficult task is
to command great things.
  This is thy most unpardonable obstinacy: thou hast the power, and
thou wilt not rule."-
  And I answered: "I lack the lion's voice for all commanding."
  Then was there again spoken unto me as a whispering: "It is the
stillest words which bring the storm. Thoughts that come with doves'
footsteps guide the world.
  O Zarathustra, thou shalt go as a shadow of that which is to come:
thus wilt thou command, and in commanding go foremost."-
  And I answered: "I am ashamed."
  Then was there again spoken unto me without voice: "Thou must yet
become a child, and be without shame.
  The pride of youth is still upon thee; late hast thou become
young: but he who would become a child must surmount even his youth."-
  And I considered a long while, and trembled. At last, however, did I
say what I had said at first. "I will not."
  Then did a laughing take place all around me. Alas, how that
laughing lacerated my bowels and cut into my heart!
  And there was spoken unto me for the last time: "O Zarathustra,
thy fruits are ripe, but thou art not ripe for thy fruits!
  So must thou go again into solitude: for thou shalt yet become
mellow."-
  And again was there a laughing, and it fled: then did it become
still around me, as with a double stillness. I lay, however, on the
ground, and the sweat flowed from my limbs.
  -Now have ye heard all, and why I have to return into my solitude.
Nothing have I kept hidden from you, my friends.
  But even this have ye heard from me, who is still the most
reserved of men- and will be so!
  Ah, my friends! I should have something more to say unto you! I
should have something more to give unto you! Why do I not give it?
Am I then a niggard?-
  When, however, Zarathustra had spoken these words, the violence of
his pain, and a sense of the nearness of his departure from his
friends came over him, so that he wept aloud; and no one knew how to
console him. In the night, however, he went away alone and left his
friends.

[VoraX]

THIRD PART.

  "Ye look aloft when ye long for exaltation, and I look downward
because I am exalted.
  "Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?
  "He who climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic
plays and tragic realities."- ZARATHUSTRA, I., "Reading and Writing."

                    45. The Wanderer

  THEN, when it was about midnight, Zarathustra went his way over
the ridge of the isle, that he might arrive early in the morning at
the other coast; because there he meant to embark. For there was a
good roadstead there, in which foreign ships also liked to anchor:
those ships took many people with them, who wished to cross over
from the Happy Isles. So when Zarathustra thus ascended the
mountain, he thought on the way of his many solitary wanderings from
youth onwards, and how many mountains and ridges and summits he had
already climbed.
  I am a wanderer and mountain-climber, said he to his heart. I love
not the plains, and it seemeth I cannot long sit still.
  And whatever may still overtake me as fate and experience- a
wandering will be therein, and a mountain-climbing: in the end one
experienceth only oneself.
  The time is now past when accidents could befall me; and what
could now fall to my lot which would not already be mine own!
  It returneth only, it cometh home to me at last- mine own Self,
and such of it as hath been long abroad, and scattered among things
and accidents.
  And one thing more do I know: I stand now before my last summit, and
before that which hath been longest reserved for me. Ah, my hardest
path must I ascend! Ah, I have begun my lonesomest wandering!
  He, however, who is of my nature doth not avoid such an hour: the
hour that saith unto him: Now only dost thou go the way to thy
greatness! Summit and abyss- these are now comprised together!
  Thou goest the way to thy greatness: now hath it become thy last
refuge, what was hitherto thy last danger!
  Thou goest the way to thy greatness: it must now be thy best courage
that there is no longer any path behind thee!
  Thou goest the way to thy greatness: here shall no one steal after
thee! Thy foot itself hath effaced the path behind thee, and over it
standeth written: Impossibility.
  And if all ladders henceforth fail thee, then must thou learn to
mount upon thine own head: how couldst thou mount upward otherwise?
  Upon thine own head, and beyond thine own heart! Now must the
gentlest in thee become the hardest.
  He who hath always much-indulged himself, sickeneth at last by his
much-indulgence. Praises on what maketh hardy! I do not praise the
land where butter and honey- flow!
  To learn to look away from oneself, is necessary in order to see
many things.- this hardiness is needed by every mountain-climber.
  He, however, who is obtrusive with his eyes as a discerner, how
can he ever see more of anything than its foreground!
  But thou, O Zarathustra, wouldst view the ground of everything,
and its background: thus must thou mount even above thyself- up,
upwards, until thou hast even thy stars under thee!
  Yea! To look down upon myself, and even upon my stars: that only
would I call my summit, that hath remained for me as my last summit!-
  Thus spake Zarathustra to himself while ascending, comforting his
heart with harsh maxims: for he was sore at heart as he had never been
before. And when he had reached the top of the mountain-ridge, behold,
there lay the other sea spread out before him; and he stood still
and was long silent. The night, however, was cold at this height,
and clear and starry.
  I recognise my destiny, said he at last, sadly. Well! I am ready.
Now hath my last lonesomeness begun.
  Ah, this sombre, sad sea, below me! Ah, this sombre nocturnal
vexation! Ah, fate and sea! To you must I now go down!
  Before my highest mountain do I stand, and before my longest
wandering: therefore must I first go deeper down than I ever ascended:
  -Deeper down into pain than I ever ascended, even into its darkest
flood! So willeth my fate. Well! I am ready.
  Whence come the highest mountains? so did I once ask. Then did I
learn that they come out of the sea.
  That testimony is inscribed on their stones, and on the walls of
their summits. Out of the deepest must the highest come to its
height.-

  Thus spake Zarathustra on the ridge of the mountain where it was
cold: when, however, he came into the vicinity of the sea, and at last
stood alone amongst the cliffs, then had he become weary on his way,
and eagerer than ever before.
  Everything as yet sleepeth, said he; even the sea sleepeth. Drowsily
and strangely doth its eye gaze upon me.
  But it breatheth warmly- I feel it. And I feel also that it
dreameth. It tosseth about dreamily on hard pillows.
  Hark! Hark! How it groaneth with evil recollections! Or evil
expectations?
  Ah, I am sad along with thee, thou dusky monster, and angry with
myself even for thy sake.
  Ah, that my hand hath not strength enough! Gladly, indeed, would I
free thee from evil dreams!-

  And while Zarathustra thus spake, he laughed at himself with
melancholy and bitterness. What! Zarathustra, said he, wilt thou
even sing consolation to the sea?
  Ah, thou amiable fool, Zarathustra, thou too-blindly confiding
one! But thus hast thou ever been: ever hast thou approached
confidently all that is terrible.
  Every monster wouldst thou caress. A whiff of warm breath, a
little soft tuft on its paw:- and immediately wert thou ready to
love and lure it.
  Love is the danger of the lonesomest one, love to anything, if it
only live! Laughable, verily, is my folly and my modesty in love!-

  Thus spake Zarathustra, and laughed thereby a second time. Then,
however, he thought of his abandoned friends- and as if he had done
them a wrong with his thoughts, he upbraided himself because of his
thoughts. And forthwith it came to pass that the laugher wept- with
anger and longing wept Zarathustra bitterly.

[VoraX]

 46. The Vision and the Enigma

                            1.

  WHEN it got abroad among the sailors that Zarathustra was on board
the ship- for a man who came from the Happy Isles had gone on board
along with him,- there was great curiosity and expectation. But
Zarathustra kept silent for two days, and was cold and deaf with
sadness; so that he neither answered looks nor questions. On the
evening of the second day, however, he again opened his ears, though
he still kept silent: for there were many curious and dangerous things
to be heard on board the ship, which came from afar, and was to go
still further. Zarathustra, however, was fond of all those who make
distant voyages, and dislike to live without danger. And behold!
when listening, his own tongue was at last loosened, and the ice of
his heart broke. Then did he begin to speak thus:
  To you, the daring venturers and adventurers, and whoever hath
embarked with cunning sails upon frightful seas,-
  To you the enigma-intoxicated, the twilight-enjoyers, whose souls
are allured by flutes to every treacherous gulf:
  -For ye dislike to grope at a thread with cowardly hand; and where
ye can divine, there do ye hate to calculate-
  To you only do I tell the enigma that I saw- the vision of the
lonesomest one.-
  Gloomily walked I lately in corpse-coloured twilight- gloomily and
sternly, with compressed lips. Not only one sun had set for me.
  A path which ascended daringly among boulders, an evil, lonesome
path, which neither herb nor shrub any longer cheered, a
mountain-path, crunched under the daring of my foot.
  Mutely marching over the scornful clinking of pebbles, trampling the
stone that let it slip: thus did my foot force its way upwards.
  Upwards:- in spite of the spirit that drew it downwards, towards the
abyss, the spirit of gravity, my devil and archenemy.
  Upwards:- although it sat upon me, half-dwarf, half-mole; paralysed,
paralysing; dripping lead in mine ear, and thoughts like drops of lead
into my brain.
  "O Zarathustra," it whispered scornfully, syllable by syllable,
"thou stone of wisdom! Thou threwest thyself high, but every thrown
stone must- fall!
  O Zarathustra, thou stone of wisdom, thou sling-stone, thou
star-destroyer! Thyself threwest thou so high,- but every thrown
stone- must fall!
  Condemned of thyself, and to thine own stoning: O Zarathustra, far
indeed threwest thou thy stone- but upon thyself will it recoil!"
  Then was the dwarf silent; and it lasted long. The silence, however,
oppressed me; and to be thus in pairs, one is verily lonesomer than
when alone!
  I ascended, I ascended, I dreamt, I thought,- but everything
oppressed me. A sick one did I resemble, whom bad torture wearieth,
and a worse dream reawakeneth out of his first sleep.-
  But there is something in me which I call courage: it hath
hitherto slain for me every dejection. This courage at last bade me
stand still and say: "Dwarf! Thou! Or I!"-
  For courage is the best slayer,- courage which attacketh: for in
every attack there is sound of triumph.
  Man, however, is the most courageous animal: thereby hath he
overcome every animal. With sound of triumph hath he overcome every
pain; human pain, however, is the sorest pain.
  Courage slayeth also giddiness at abysses: and where doth man not
stand at abysses! Is not seeing itself- seeing abysses?
  Courage is the best slayer: courage slayeth also fellow-suffering.
Fellow-suffering, however, is the deepest abyss: as deeply as man
looketh into life, so deeply also doth he look into suffering.
  Courage, however, is the best slayer, courage which attacketh: it
slayeth even death itself; for it saith: "Was that life? Well! Once
more!"
  In such speech, however, there is much sound of triumph. He who hath
ears to hear, let him hear.-

                            2.

  "Halt, dwarf!" said I. "Either I- or thou! I, however, am the
stronger of the two:- thou knowest not mine abysmal thought! It-
couldst thou not endure!"
  Then happened that which made me lighter: for the dwarf sprang
from my shoulder, the prying sprite! And it squatted on a stone in
front of me. There was however a gateway just where we halted.
  "Look at this gateway! Dwarf!" I continued, "it hath two faces.
Two roads come together here: these hath no one yet gone to the end
of.
  This long lane backwards: it continueth for an eternity. And that
long lane forward- that is another eternity.
  They are antithetical to one another, these roads; they directly
abut on one another:- and it is here, at this gateway, that they
come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above: 'This
Moment.'
  But should one follow them further- and ever further and further on,
thinkest thou, dwarf, that these roads would be eternally
antithetical?"-
  "Everything straight lieth," murmured the dwarf, contemptuously.
"All truth is crooked; time itself is a circle."
  "Thou spirit of gravity!" said I wrathfully, "do not take it too
lightly! Or I shall let thee squat where thou squattest, Haltfoot,-
and I carried thee high!"
  "Observe," continued I, "This Moment! From the gateway, This Moment,
there runneth a long eternal lane backwards: behind us lieth an
eternity.
  Must not whatever can run its course of all things, have already run
along that lane? Must not whatever can happen of all things have
already happened, resulted, and gone by?
  And if everything has already existed, what thinkest thou, dwarf, of
This Moment? Must not this gateway also- have already existed?
  And are not all things closely bound together in such wise that This
Moment draweth all coming things after it? Consequently- itself also?
  For whatever can run its course of all things, also in this long
lane outward- must it once more run!-
  And this slow spider which creepeth in the moonlight, and this
moonlight itself, and thou and I in this gateway whispering
together, whispering of eternal things- must we not all have already
existed?
  -And must we not return and run in that other lane out before us,
that long weird lane- must we not eternally return?"-
  Thus did I speak, and always more softly: for I was afraid of mine
own thoughts, and arrear-thoughts. Then, suddenly did I hear a dog
howl near me.
  Had I ever heard a dog howl thus? My thoughts ran back. Yes! When
I was a child, in my most distant childhood:
  -Then did I hear a dog howl thus. And saw it also, with hair
bristling, its head upwards, trembling in the stillest midnight,
when even dogs believe in ghosts:
  -So that it excited my commiseration. For just then went the full
moon, silent as death, over the house; just then did it stand still, a
glowing globe- at rest on the flat roof, as if on some one's
property:-
  Thereby had the dog been terrified: for dogs believe in thieves
and ghosts. And when I again heard such howling, then did it excite my
commiseration once more.
  Where was now the dwarf? And the gateway? And the spider? And all
the whispering? Had I dreamt? Had I awakened? 'Twixt rugged rocks
did I suddenly stand alone, dreary in the dreariest moonlight.
  But there lay a man! And there! The dog leaping, bristling, whining-
now did it see me coming- then did it howl again, then did it cry:-
had I ever heard a dog cry so for help?
  And verily, what I saw, the like had I never seen. A young
shepherd did I see, writhing, choking, quivering, with distorted
countenance, and with a heavy black serpent hanging out of his mouth.
  Had I ever seen so much loathing and pale horror on one countenance?
He had perhaps gone to sleep? Then had the serpent crawled into his
throat- there had it bitten itself fast.
  My hand pulled at the serpent, and pulled:- in vain! I failed to
pull the serpent out of his throat. Then there cried out of me: "Bite!
Bite!
  Its head off! Bite!"- so cried it out of me; my horror, my hatred,
my loathing, my pity, all my good and my bad cried with one voice
out of me.-
  Ye daring ones around me! Ye venturers and adventurers, and
whoever of you have embarked with cunning sails on unexplored seas! Ye
enigma-enjoyers!
  Solve unto me the enigma that I then beheld, interpret unto me the
vision of the lonesomest one!
  For it was a vision and a foresight:- what did I then behold in
parable? And who is it that must come some day?
  Who is the shepherd into whose throat the serpent thus crawled?
Who is the man into whose throat all the heaviest and blackest will
thus crawl?
  -The shepherd however bit as my cry had admonished him; he bit
with a strong bite! Far away did he spit the head of the serpent:- and
sprang up.-
  No longer shepherd, no longer man- a transfigured being, a
light-surrounded being, that laughed! Never on earth laughed a man
as he laughed!
  O my brethren, I heard a laughter which was no human laughter,-
and now gnaweth a thirst at me, a longing that is never allayed.
  My longing for that laughter gnaweth at me: oh, how can I still
endure to live! And how could I endure to die at present!-

  Thus spake Zarathustra.

[VoraX]

 47. Involuntary Bliss

  WITH such enigmas and bitterness in his heart did Zarathustra sail
o'er the sea. When, however, he was four day-journeys from the Happy
Isles and from his friends, then had he surmounted all his pain:-
triumphantly and with firm foot did he again accept his fate. And then
talked Zarathustra in this wise to his exulting conscience:

  Alone am I again, and like to be so, alone with the pure heaven, and
the open sea; and again is the afternoon around me.
  On an afternoon did I find my friends for the first time; on an
afternoon, also, did I find them a second time:- at the hour when
all light becometh stiller.
  For whatever happiness is still on its way 'twixt heaven and
earth, now seeketh for lodging a luminous soul: with happiness hath
all light now become stiller.
  O afternoon of my life! Once did my happiness also descend to the
valley that it might seek a lodging: then did it find those open
hospitable souls.
  O afternoon of my life! What did I not surrender that I might have
one thing: this living plantation of my thoughts, and this dawn of
my highest hope!
  Companions did the creating one once seek, and children of his hope:
and lo, it turned out that he could not find them, except he himself
should first create them.
  Thus am I in the midst of my work, to my children going, and from
them returning: for the sake of his children must Zarathustra
perfect himself.
  For in one's heart one loveth only one's child and one's work; and
where there is great love to oneself, then is it the sign of
pregnancy: so have I found it.
  Still are my children verdant in their first spring, standing nigh
one another, and shaken in common by the winds, the trees of my garden
and of my best soil.
  And verily, where such trees stand beside one another, there are
Happy Isles!
  But one day will I take them up, and put each by itself alone:
that it may learn lonesomeness and defiance and prudence.
  Gnarled and crooked and with flexible hardness shall it then stand
by the sea, a living lighthouse of unconquerable life.
  Yonder where the storms rush down into the sea, and the snout of the
mountain drinketh water, shall each on a time have his day and night
watches, for his testing and recognition.
  Recognised and tested shall each be, to see if he be of my type
and lineage:- if he be master of a long will, silent even when he
speaketh, and giving in such wise that he taketh in giving:-
  -So that he may one day become my companion, a fellow-creator and
fellow-enjoyer with Zarathustra:- such a one as writeth my will on
my tables, for the fuller perfection of all things.
  And for his sake and for those like him, must I perfect myself:
therefore do I now avoid my happiness, and present myself to every
misfortune- for my final testing and recognition.
  And verily, it were time that I went away; and the wanderer's shadow
and the longest tedium and the stillest hour- have all said unto me:
"It is the highest time!"
  The word blew to me through the keyhole and said "Come!" The door
sprang subtly open unto me, and said "Go!"
  But I lay enchained to my love for my children: desire spread this
snare for me- the desire for love- that I should become the prey of my
children, and lose myself in them.
  Desiring- that is now for me to have lost myself. I possess you,
my children! In this possessing shall everything be assurance and
nothing desire.
  But brooding lay the sun of my love upon me, in his own juice stewed
Zarathustra,- then did shadows and doubts fly past me.
  For frost and winter I now longed: "Oh, that frost and winter
would again make me crack and crunch!" sighed I:- then arose icy
mist out of me.
  My past burst its tomb, many pains buried alike woke up:- fully
slept had they merely, concealed in corpse-clothes.
  So called everything unto me in signs: "It is time!" But I- heard
not, until at last mine abyss moved, and my thought bit me.
  Ah, abysmal thought, which art my thought! When shall I find
strength to hear thee burrowing, and no longer tremble?
  To my very throat throbbeth my heart when I hear them burrowing! Thy
muteness even is like to strangle me, thou abysmal mute one!
  As yet have I never ventured to call thee up; it hath been enough
that I- have carried thee about with me! As yet have I not been strong
enough for my final lion-wantonness and playfulness.
  Sufficiently formidable unto me hath thy weight ever been: but one
day shall I yet find the strength and the lion's voice which will call
thee up!
  When I shall have surmounted myself therein, then will I surmount
myself also in that which is greater; and a victory shall be the
seal of my perfection!-
  Meanwhile do I sail along on uncertain seas; chance flattereth me,
smooth-tongued chance; forward and backward do I gaze-, still see I no
end.
  As yet hath the hour of my final struggle not come to me- or doth it
come to me perhaps just now? Verily, with insidious beauty do sea
and life gaze upon me round about:
  O afternoon of my life! O happiness before eventide! O haven upon
high seas! O peace in uncertainty! How I distrust all of you!
  Verily, distrustful am I of your insidious beauty! Like the lover am
I, who distrusteth too sleek smiling.
  As he pusheth the best-beloved before him- tender even in
severity, the jealous one-, so do I push this blissful hour before me.
  Away with thee, thou blissful hour! With thee hath there come to
me an involuntary bliss! Ready for my severest pain do I here
stand:- at the wrong time hast thou come!
  Away with thee, thou blissful hour! Rather harbour there- with my
children! Hasten! and bless them before eventide with my happiness!
  There, already approacheth eventide: the sun sinketh. Away- my
happiness!-

  Thus spake Zarathustra. And he waited for his misfortune the whole
night; but he waited in vain. The night remained clear and calm, and
happiness itself came nigher and nigher unto him. Towards morning,
however, Zarathustra laughed to his heart, and said mockingly:
"Happiness runneth after me. That is because I do not run after women.
Happiness, however, is a woman."

[VoraX]

 48. Before Sunrise

  O HEAVEN above me, thou pure, thou deep heaven! Thou abyss of light!
Gazing on thee, I tremble with divine desires.
  Up to thy height to toss myself- that is my depth! In thy purity
to hide myself- that is mine innocence!
  The God veileth his beauty: thus hidest thou thy stars. Thou
speakest not: thus proclaimest thou thy wisdom unto me.
  Mute o'er the raging sea hast thou risen for me to-day; thy love and
thy modesty make a revelation unto my raging soul.
  In that thou camest unto me beautiful, veiled in thy beauty, in that
thou spakest unto me mutely, obvious in thy wisdom:
  Oh, how could I fail to divine all the modesty of thy soul! Before
the sun didst thou come unto me- the lonesomest one.
  We have been friends from the beginning: to us are grief,
gruesomeness, and ground common; even the sun is common to us.
  We do not speak to each other, because we know too much-: we keep
silent to each other, we smile our knowledge to each other.
  Art thou not the light of my fire? Hast thou not the sister-soul
of mine insight?
  Together did we learn everything; together did we learn to ascend
beyond ourselves to ourselves, and to smile uncloudedly:-
  -Uncloudedly to smile down out of luminous eyes and out of miles
of distance, when under us constraint and purpose and guilt stream
like rain.
  And wandered I alone, for what did my soul hunger by night and in
labyrinthine paths? And climbed I mountains, whom did I ever seek,
if not thee, upon mountains?
  And all my wandering and mountain-climbing: a necessity was it
merely, and a makeshift of the unhandy one:- to fly only, wanteth mine
entire will, to fly into thee!
  And what have I hated more than passing clouds, and whatever
tainteth thee? And mine own hatred have I even hated, because it
tainted thee!
  The passing clouds I detest- those stealthy cats of prey: they
take from thee and me what is common to us- the vast unbounded Yea-
and Amen- saying.
  These mediators and mixers we detest- the passing clouds: those
half-and-half ones, that have neither learned to bless nor to curse
from the heart.
  Rather will I sit in a tub under a closed heaven, rather will I
sit in the abyss without heaven, than see thee, thou luminous
heaven, tainted with passing clouds!
  And oft have I longed to pin them fast with the jagged gold-wires of
lightning, that I might, like the thunder, beat the drum upon their
kettle-bellies:-
  -An angry drummer, because they rob me of thy Yea and Amen!- thou
heaven above me, thou pure, thou luminous heaven! Thou abyss of
light!- because they rob thee of my Yea and Amen.
  For rather will I have noise and thunders and tempest-blasts, than
this discreet, doubting cat-repose; and also amongst men do I hate
most of all the soft-treaders, and half-and-half ones, and the
doubting, hesitating, passing clouds.
  And "he who cannot bless shall learn to curse!"- this clear teaching
dropt unto me from the clear heaven; this star standeth in my heaven
even in dark nights.
  I, however, am a blesser and a Yea-sayer, if thou be but around
me, thou pure, thou luminous heaven! Thou abyss of light!- into all
abysses do I then carry my beneficent Yea-saying.
  A blesser have I become and a Yea-sayer: and therefore strove I long
and was a striver, that I might one day get my hands free for
blessing.
  This, however, is my blessing: to stand above everything as its
own heaven, its round roof, its azure bell and eternal security: and
blessed is he who thus blesseth!
  For all things are baptized at the font of eternity, and beyond good
and evil; good and evil themselves, however, are but fugitive
shadows and damp afflictions and passing clouds.
  Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy when I teach that
"above all things there standeth the heaven of chance, the heaven of
innocence, the heaven of hazard, the heaven of wantonness."
  "Of Hazard"- that is the oldest nobility in the world; that gave I
back to all things; I emancipated them from bondage under purpose.
  This freedom and celestial serenity did I put like an azure bell
above all things, when I taught that over them and through them, no
"eternal Will"- willeth.
  This wantonness and folly did I put in place of that Will, when I
taught that "In everything there is one thing impossible-
rationality!"
  A little reason, to be sure, a germ of wisdom scattered from star to
star- this leaven is mixed in all things: for the sake of folly,
wisdom is mixed in all things!
  A little wisdom is indeed possible; but this blessed security have I
found in all things, that they prefer- to dance on the feet of chance.
  O heaven above me! thou pure, thou lofty heaven! This is now thy
purity unto me, that there is no eternal reason-spider and
reason-cobweb:-
  -That thou art to me a dancing-floor for divine chances, that thou
art to me a table of the Gods, for divine dice and dice-players!-
  But thou blushest? Have I spoken unspeakable things? Have I
abused, when I meant to bless thee?
  Or is it the shame of being two of us that maketh thee blush!-
Dost thou bid me go and be silent, because now- day cometh?
  The world is deep:- and deeper than e'er the day could read. Not
everything may be uttered in presence of day. But day cometh: so let
us part!
  O heaven above me, thou modest one! thou glowing one! O thou, my
happiness before sunrise! The day cometh: so let us part!-

  Thus spake Zarathustra.

[VoraX]

 49. The Bedwarfing Virtue

                            1.

  WHEN Zarathustra was again on the continent, he did not go
straightway to his mountains and his cave, but made many wanderings
and questionings, and ascertained this and that; so that he said of
himself jestingly: "Lo, a river that floweth back unto its source in
many windings!" For he wanted to learn what had taken place among
men during the interval: whether they had become greater or smaller.
And once, when he saw a row of new houses, he marvelled, and said:
  "What do these houses mean? Verily, no great soul put them up as its
simile!
  Did perhaps a silly child take them out of its toy-box? Would that
another child put them again into the box!
  And these rooms and chambers- can men go out and in there? They seem
to be made for silk dolls; or for dainty-eaters, who perhaps let
others eat with them."
  And Zarathustra stood still and meditated. At last he said
sorrowfully: "There hath everything become smaller!
  Everywhere do I see lower doorways: he who is of my type can still
go therethrough, but- he must stoop!
  Oh, when shall I arrive again at my home, where I shall no longer
have to stoop- shall no longer have to stoop before the small
ones!"- And Zarathustra sighed, and gazed into the distance.-
  The same day, however, he gave his discourse on the bedwarfing
virtue.

                            2.

  I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open: they do not
forgive me for not envying their virtues.
  They bite at me, because I say unto them that for small people,
small virtues are necessary- and because it is hard for me to
understand that small people are necessary!
  Here am I still like a **** in a strange farm-yard, at which even
the hens peck: but on that account I am not unfriendly to the hens.
  I am courteous towards them, as towards all small annoyances; to
be prickly towards what is small, seemeth to me wisdom for hedgehogs.
  They all speak of me when they sit around their fire in the evening-
they speak of me, but no one thinketh- of me!
  This is the new stillness which I have experienced: their noise
around me spreadeth a mantle over my thoughts.
  They shout to one another: "What is this gloomy cloud about to do to
us? Let us see that it doth not bring a plague upon us!"
  And recently did a woman seize upon her child that was coming unto
me: "Take the children away," cried she, "such eyes scorch
children's souls."
  They cough when I speak: they think coughing an objection to
strong winds- they divine nothing of the boisterousness of my
happiness!
  "We have not yet time for Zarathustra"- so they object; but what
matter about a time that "hath no time" for Zarathustra?
  And if they should altogether praise me, how could I go to sleep
on their praise? A girdle of spines is their praise unto me: it
scratcheth me even when I take it off.
  And this also did I learn among them: the praiser doeth as if he
gave back; in truth, however, he wanteth more to be given him!
  Ask my foot if their lauding and luring strains please it! Verily,
to such measure and ticktack, it liketh neither to dance nor to
stand still.
  To small virtues would they fain lure and laud me; to the ticktack
of small happiness would they fain persuade my foot.
  I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open; they have become
smaller, and ever become smaller:- the reason thereof is their
doctrine of happiness and virtue.
  For they are moderate also in virtue,- because they want comfort.
With comfort, however, moderate virtue only is compatible.
  To be sure, they also learn in their way to stride on and stride
forward: that, I call their hobbling.- Thereby they become a hindrance
to all who are in haste.
  And many of them go forward, and look backwards thereby, with
stiffened necks: those do I like to run up against.
  Foot and eye shall not lie, nor give the lie to each other. But
there is much lying among small people.
  Some of them will, but most of them are willed. Some of them are
genuine, but most of them are bad actors.
  There are actors without knowing it amongst them, and actors without
intending it-, the genuine ones are always rare, especially the
genuine actors.
  Of man there is little here: therefore do their women masculinise
themselves. For only he who is man enough, will- save the woman in
woman.
  And this hypocrisy found I worst amongst them, that even those who
command feign the virtues of those who serve.
  "I serve, thou servest, we serve"- so chanteth here even the
hypocrisy of the rulers- and alas! if the first lord be only the first
servant!
  Ah, even upon their hypocrisy did mine eyes' curiosity alight; and
well did I divine all their fly- happiness, and their buzzing around
sunny window-panes.
  So much kindness, so much weakness do I see. So much justice and
pity, so much weakness.
  Round, fair, and considerate are they to one another, as grains of
sand are round, fair, and considerate to grains of sand.
  Modestly to embrace a small happiness- that do they call
"submission"! and at the same time they peer modestly after a new
small happiness.
  In their hearts they want simply one thing most of all: that no
one hurt them. Thus do they anticipate every one's wishes and do
well unto every one.
  That, however, is cowardice, though it be called "virtue."-
  And when they chance to speak harshly, those small people, then do I
hear therein only their hoarseness- every draught of air maketh them
hoarse.
  Shrewd indeed are they, their virtues have shrewd fingers. But
they lack fists: their fingers do not know how to creep behind fists.
  Virtue for them is what maketh modest and tame: therewith have
they made the wolf a dog, and man himself man's best domestic animal.
  "We set our chair in the midst"- so saith their smirking unto me-
"and as far from dying gladiators as from satisfied swine."
  That, however, is- mediocrity, though it be called moderation.-

                            3.

  I pass through this people and let fall many words: but they know
neither how to take nor how to retain them.
  They wonder why I came not to revile venery and vice; and verily,
I came not to warn against pickpockets either!
  They wonder why I am not ready to abet and whet their wisdom: as
if they had not yet enough of wiseacres, whose voices grate on mine
ear like slate-pencils!
  And when I call out: "Curse all the cowardly devils in you, that
would fain whimper and fold the hands and adore"- then do they
shout: "Zarathustra is godless."
  And especially do their teachers of submission shout this;- but
precisely in their ears do I love to cry: "Yea! I am Zarathustra,
the godless!"
  Those teachers of submission! Wherever there is aught puny, or
sickly, or scabby, there do they creep like lice; and only my
disgust preventeth me from cracking them.
  Well! This is my sermon for their ears: I am Zarathustra the
godless, who saith: "Who is more godless than I, that I may enjoy
his teaching?"
  I am Zarathustra the godless: where do I find mine equal? And all
those are mine equals who give unto themselves their Will, and
divest themselves of all submission.
  I am Zarathustra the godless! I cook every chance in my pot. And
only when it hath been quite cooked do I welcome it as my food.
  And verily, many a chance came imperiously unto me: but still more
imperiously did my Will speak unto it,- then did it lie imploringly
upon its knees-
  -Imploring that it might find home and heart with me, and saying
flatteringly: "See, O Zarathustra, how friend only cometh unto
friend!"-
  But why talk I, when no one hath mine ears! And so will I shout it
out unto all the winds:
  Ye ever become smaller, ye small people! Ye crumble away, ye
comfortable ones! Ye will yet perish-
  -By your many small virtues, by your many small omissions, and by
your many small submissions!
  Too tender, too yielding: so is your soil! But for a tree to
become great, it seeketh to twine hard roots around hard rocks!
  Also what ye omit weaveth at the web of all the human future; even
your naught is a cobweb, and a spider that liveth on the blood of
the future.
  And when ye take, then is it like stealing, ye small virtuous
ones; but even among knaves honour saith that "one shall only steal
when one cannot rob."
  "It giveth itself"- that is also a doctrine of submission. But I say
unto you, ye comfortable ones, that it taketh to itself, and will ever
take more and more from you!
  Ah, that ye would renounce all half-willing, and would decide for
idleness as ye decide for action!
  Ah, that ye understood my word: "Do ever what ye will- but first
be such as can will.
  Love ever your neighbour as yourselves- but first be such as love
themselves-
  -Such as love with great love, such as love with great contempt!"
Thus speaketh Zarathustra the godless.-
  But why talk I, when no one hath mine ears! It is still an hour
too early for me here.
  Mine own forerunner am I among this people, mine own cockcrow in
dark lanes.
  But their hour cometh! And there cometh also mine! Hourly do they
become smaller, poorer, unfruitfuller,- poor herbs! poor earth!
  And soon shall they stand before me like dry grass and prairie,
and verily, weary of themselves- and panting for fire, more than for
water!
  O blessed hour of the lightning! O mystery before noontide!- Running
fires will I one day make of them, and heralds with flaming tongues:-
  -Herald shall they one day with flaming tongues: It cometh, it is
nigh, the great noontide!

  Thus spake Zarathustra.

[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.