PART FOUR

 

*

 

                                                                                 Alas, where in the world have there been

                                                                            greater follies than with the compassionate?

                                                                            And what in the world has caused more

                                                                            suffering than the follies of the compassionate?

                                                                                 Woe to all lovers who cannot surmount pity!

                                                                                 Thus spoke the Devil to me once: Even

                                                                            God has his Hell: it is his love for man.

                                                                                 And I lately heard him say these words:

                                                                            God is dead; God has died of his pity for man.

 

                                                                                                                 ZARATHUSTRA:

                                                                                                             'Of the Compassionate'

 

 

 

The Honey Offering

 

AND again months and years passed over Zarathustra's soul, and he did not heed it; his hair, however, grew white.  One day, as he was sitting upon a stone before his cave and gazing silently out - but the outlook there is of the sea and tortuous abysses - his animals went thoughtfully around him and at last placed themselves in front of him.

       "O Zarathustra," they said, "are you perhaps looking out for your happiness?"

       "Of what account is happiness?" he answered. "For long I have not aspired after happiness, I aspire after my work."

       "O Zarathustra," said the animals then, "you say that as one who has too many good things.  Do you not lie in a sky-blue lake of happiness?"

       "You buffoons," answered Zarathustra and smiled, "how well you chose that image!  but you know too that my happiness is heavy and not like a liquid wave: it oppresses me and will not leave me, and behaves like molten pitch."

       Then his animals again went thoughtfully around him and placed themselves once more in front of him.  "O Zarathustra," they said, "is that why you yourself are growing ever darker and more sallow, although your hair looks white and flaxen?  Behold, you are sitting in your pitch!"

       "What are you saying, my animals?" said Zarathustra laughing.  "Truly, I spoke slander when I spoke of pitch.  What is happening to me happens to all fruits that grow ripe.  It is the honey in my veins that makes my blood thicker, and my soul quieter."

       "It will be so, O Zarathustra," answered the animals and pressed towards him; "but would you not like to climb a high mountain today?  The air is clear, and today one can see more of the world than ever."

       "Yes, my animals," he answered, "your advice is admirable and after my own inclination: today I will climb a high mountain!  But take care that I have honey ready to hand there, yellow, white, fine, ice-cool golden honey in the comb.  For I intend to offer the honey offering."

       But when Zarathustra had reached the summit he sent home the animals which had accompanied him, and found that he was now alone: then he laughed with his whole heart, looked around him and spoke thus:

 

       That I spoke of offerings and honey offerings was merely a ruse and, truly, a useful piece of folly!  Up here I can speak more freely than before hermits' caves and hermits' pets.

       Offer - what?  I squander what is given me, I, a squanderer with a thousand hands: how could I call that - an offering!

       And when I desired honey, I desired only bait and sweet syrup and gum, which even grumbling bears and strange, sullen, wicked birds are greedy for:

       the finest bait, such as huntsmen and fishermen need.  For although the world is like a dark animal-jungle and a pleasure-ground for all wild huntsmen, it seems to me to be rather and preferably an unfathomable, rich sea,

       a sea fully of many-coloured fishes and crabs for which even the gods might long and become fishers and casters of nets: so rich in the world in strange things, great and small!

       Especially the human world, the human sea: now I cast my golden fishing-rod into it and say: Open up, human abyss!

       Open up and throw me your fishes and glistening crabs!  With my finest bait shall I bait today the strangest human fish!

       My happiness itself shall I cast far and wide, between sunrise, noontide, and sunset, to see if many human fishes will not learn to kick and tug at my happiness,

       until they, biting on my sharp, hidden hooks, have to come up to my height, the most multicoloured groundlings of the abyss to the most wicked of all fishers of men.

       For I am he, from the heart and from the beginning, drawing, drawing towards me, drawing up to me, raising up, a drawer, trainer, and taskmaker who once bade himself, and not in vain: "Become what you are!"

       Thus men may now come up to me: for I am still waiting for the signs that it is time for my descent; as yet I do not myself go down, as I must, among men.

       Therefore I wait here, cunning and scornful upon high mountains, not impatient, not patient, on the contrary one who has unlearned even patience, because he no longer 'suffers in patience'.

       For my destiny is allowing me time: has it forgotten me?  Or is it sitting in the shadows behind a great stone catching flies?

       And truly, I am grateful to my eternal destiny for not hunting and harrying me and for allowing me time for buffooneries and mischief: so that today I have climbed this high mountain to catch fish.

       Has a man ever caught fist on a high mountain?  And if what I want and do up here is a stupidity, better to do it than to become solemn and green and sallow by waiting down there,

       to become by waiting a pompous snorter of wrath, a holy howling storm from the mountains, an impatient man crying down into the valleys: "Listen, or I shall lash you with the scourge of God!"

       Not that I should be angry with such wrathful men on that account!  They are good enough for a laugh!  How impatient they must be, these great alarm-drums that must find a voice today or never!

       But I and my destiny - we do not speak to Today, neither do we speak to the Never: wee have patience and time and more than time.  For it must come one day and may not pass by.

       What must come one day and may not pass by?  Our great Hazar, our greater, far-off empire of man, the thousand-year empire of Zarathustra.

       How far off may that 'far off' be?  What do I care!  But I am not less certain of it on that account - I stand securely with both feet upon this foundation,

       upon this eternal foundation, upon hard, primordial rock, upon this highest, hardest primordial hill to which all the winds come as to the dividing-place of storms, asking Where? and Whence? and Whither?

       Here laugh, laugh my bright and wholesome wickedness!  Down from high mountains cast your glistening, mocking laughter.  With your glistening bait for me the fairest human fish!

       And what belongs to me in all seas, my in-and-for-me in all things - fish it out for me, bring it here to me: I wait for it, I the wickedest of all fishermen.

       Away, away my hook!  In, down, bait for my happiness!  Drop down your sweetest dew, honey of my heart!  Bite, my hook, into the belly of all black affliction!

       Gaze out, gaze out, my eye!  Oh how many seas round about me, what dawning human futures!  And above me - what rosy stillness!  What cloudless silence!

 

 

 

The Cry of Distress

 

THE following day Zarathustra was again sitting upon the stone before his cave while the animals were roving about in the world outside fetching fresh food - and fresh honey, too: for Zarathustra had consumed and squandered the old honey to the last drop.  But as he was sitting there with a stick in his hand, tracing the shadow of his figure in the ground, thinking (and truly!) not about himself and his shadow - all at once he started back in alarm: for he saw another shadow beside his own.  And as he quickly rose and looked around, behold, there stood beside him the prophet, the same that had once eaten and drunk at his table, the prophet of the great weariness who taught: "It is all one, nothing is worthy while, the world is without meaning, knowledge chokes."  But his face had chanced in the interim; and when Zarathustra looked into the prophet's eyes, his heart was again started: so many evil prophecies and ashen lightning-flashes passed across this face!

       The prophet, who had perceived what was going on in Zarathustra's soul, wiped his hand over his face, as if he wanted to wipe it away; Zarathustra did the same.  And when each had silently composed and reassured himself, they shook hands as a sign that they wanted to recognize one another.

       "Welcome to you," said Zarathustra, "you prophet of the great weariness; not in vain shall you once have been guest at my table.  Eat and drink with me today also, and forgive a cheerful old man for sitting down at table with you!"

       "A cheerful old man?" answered the prophet, shaking his head.  "But whoever you are or want to be, O Zarathustra, you have little time left up here to be it - in a little time your boat shall no longer sit in the dry!"

       "Am I then sitting in the dry?" asked Zarathustra, laughing.

       "The waves around your mountain rise and rise," answered the prophet, "waves of great distress and affliction: soon they will lift your boat too, and carry you away."

       Thereupon Zarathustra was silent and wondered. 

       "Do you still hear nothing?" the prophet went on.  "Does not the sound of rushing and roaring arise from the depths?"

       Zarathustra was again silent and listened: then he heard a long, protracted cry, which they abysses threw from one to another, for none of them wanted to retain it, so evil did it sound.

       "You preacher off evil," said Zarathustra at last, "that is a cry of distress and a human cry, perhaps it comes from out a black sea.  But what is human distress to me!  The ultimate sin that is reserved for me - perhaps you know what it is called?"

       "Pity!" answered the prophet from an overflowing heart, and raised both hands aloft - "O Zarathustra, I come to seduce you to your ultimate sin!" -

       And hardly were these words spoken than the cry rang out again, and more protracted and more distressful than before, and much nearer.  "Do you hear?  Do you hear, O Zarathustra?" cried the prophet.  "The cry is meant for you, it calls to you: Come, come, come, it is time, it is high time!"

       Hereupon Zarathustra was silent, confused, and deeply shaken; at last he asked like one undecided: "And who is it that calls me?"

       "But you know who it is," answered the prophet vehemently, "why do you hide yourself?  It is the Higher Man that cries for you!"

       "The Higher Man?" cried Zarathustra, horror-struck.  "What does he want?  What does he want?  The Higher Man!  What does he want here?" - and his skin was covered with sweat.

       The prophet, however, did not respond to Zarathustra's anguish, but listened intently towards the depths.  But when it had remained quiet there for a long time, he turned his gaze back and saw Zarathustra standing and trembling.

       "O Zarathustra," he began in a scornful voice, "you do not stand there like one made giddy by happiness: you will have to dance if you are not to fall over!

       "But even if you were to dance before me and indulge in all your tricks, no-one could say: 'Behold, here dances the last happy man!'

       "Anyone who sought him here would visit these heights in vain: he would find caves, certainly, and backwood-caves, hiding-places for the hidden, but not mines of happiness and treasure-houses and new gold-veins of happiness.

       "Happiness - how could man find happiness with such buried men and hermits!  Must I yet seek ultimate happiness upon blissful islands and far away among forgotten seas?

       "But it is all one, nothing is worth while, seeking is useless, and there are no blissful islands any more!"

       Thus sighed the prophet; with his last sigh, however, Zarathustra again became cheerful and assured, like one emerging from a deep chasm into the light.  "No!  No!  Thrice No!" he cried vigorously, and stroked his beard.  "I know better!  There still are blissful islands!  Do not talk about such things, you sighing sack-cloth!

       "Cease to splash about such things, you morning rain-cloud!   Do I not stand here already wet with your affliction and drenched as a dog?

       "Now I shall shake myself and run away from you, so that I may become dry again: you must not be surprised at that!  Do you think me discourteous?  But this is my court.

       "But concerning your Higher Man: very well!  I shall seek him at once in those forests: his cry came from there.  Perhaps he is being attacked by an evil beast.

       "He is in my domain: here he shall not come to harm!  And truly, there are many evil beasts about me."

       With these words Zarathustra turned to go.  Then the prophet said: "O Zarathustra, you are a rogue!

       "I know it: you want to be rid of me!  You would rather run into the forests and waylay evil beasts!

       "But what good will it do you?  In the evening you will have me back; I shall sit in your own cave, patient and heavy as a log - and wait for you!"

       "So be it!" Zarathustra shouted behind him as he departed: "and whatever in my cave belongs to me also belongs to you, my guest!

       "But should you discover honey in there, very well! just lick it up, you growling bear, and sweeten your soul!  For in the evening we must both be in good spirits,

       "in good spirits and glad that this day has ended!  And you yourself shall dance to my songs as my dancing bear.

       "You do not believe it?  You are shaking your head?  Very well!  Go on, old bear!  But I too - am a prophet!"

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

Conversation with the Kings

 

1

 

ZARATHUSTRA had not been going an hour through his mountains and forests when all at once he saw a strange procession.  Along just that path that he was going down came two kinds, adorned with crowns and purple sashes and bright as flamingos: they drove before them a laden ass.  "What do these kings want in my kingdom?" said Zarathustra in astonishment to his heart.  But as the kings drew abreast of him, he said, half aloud like someone talking to himself: "Strange!  Strange!  I cannot make this out!  I see two kinds - and only one  ass!"

       Then the two kings halted, smiled, gazed at the place from which the voice had come, and then looked one another in the face.  "No doubt people think such things as that at home, too," said the king on the right, "but they do not utter them."

       The king on the left shrugged his shoulders and answered: "It is probably a goat-herd.  Or a hermit who has lived too long among trees and rocks.  For no company at all also corrupts good manners."

       "Good manners?" replied the other king indignantly and bitterly.  "What is it we are avoiding, then?  Is it not 'good manners'?  Our 'good company'?

       "Truly, better to live among hermits and goat-herds than with our gilded, false, painted rabble - although it calls itself 'good company',

       "although it calls its 'nobility'.  But there everything is false and rotten, most of all the blood, thanks to old, evil diseases and worse quacks.

       "I think the finest and dearest man today is a healthy peasant, uncouth, cunning, obstinate, enduring: that is the noblest type today.

       "The peasant is the finest man today; and the peasantry should be master!  But ours is the kingdom of the rabble - I no longer let myself be taken in.  Rabble, however, means: hotchpotch.

       "Rabble-hotchpotch: in that everything is mixed up with everything else, saint and scoundrel and gentleman and Jew and every beast out of Noah's Ark.

       "Good manners!  Everything is false and rotten with us.  Nobody knows how to be respectful any more: it is from precisely this that we are running away.  They are honey-mouthed, importunate dogs, they gild palm-leaves.

       "It is this disgust that chokes me, that we kings ourselves have become false, arrayed and disguised in the old, yellowed pomp of our grandfathers, show-pieces for the stupidest and the craftiest and whoever today traffics with power!

       "We are not the first of them - yet we have to pretend to be: we have at last be come tired and disgusted with this deception.

       "Now we are avoiding the mob, all these ranters and scribbling-bluebottles, the stench of shopkeepers, the struggles of ambition, the foul breath: faugh, to live among the mob,

       "faugh, to pretend to be the first among the mob!  ah, disgust! disgust! disgust!  What do we kings matter any more!"

       "Your old illness is assailing you," the king on the left said at this point, "disgust is assailing you, my poor brother.  But you know that someone can overhear us."

       Hereupon Zarathustra, who had kept his ears and eyes open to these speeches, rose from his hiding-place, stepped towards the kings and began:

       "He who has overheard you, he who likes to overhear you, O kings, is called Zarathustra.

       "I am Zarathustra, who once said: 'What do kings matter any longer!'  Forgive me, but I was glad when you said to one another: 'What do we kings matter!'

       "This, however, is my kingdom and dominion: what might you be seeking in my kingdom?  But perhaps on your way you have found what I am seeking: that is, the Higher Man."

       When the kings heard this they beat their breasts and said in a single voice: "We have been recognized!

       "With the sword of these words you have cut through the thickest darkness of our hearts.  You have discovered our distress, for behold! we are on our way to find the Higher Man -

       "the man who is higher than we: although we are kings.  We are leading this ass to him.  For the Highest Man shall also be the highest lord on earth.

       "There is no harder misfortune in all human destiny than when the powerful of the earth are not also the first men.  Then everything becomes false and awry and monstrous.

       "And when they are even the last men and more beast than man, then the value of the rabble rises higher and higher and at last the rabble-virtue says: "Behold, I alone am virtue!"

       "What do I hear?" answered Zarathustra; "what wisdom from kings!  I am enchanted, and truly, I already feel the urge to compose a verse about it:

       "even if it should be a verse not suited to everyone's ears.  I long ago unlearned consideration for long ears.  Very well!  Come on!

       (But here it happened that the ass, too, found speech: it said clearly and maliciously "Ye-a".)

 

                                                                  "Once upon a time - 'twas A.D. One, I think -

                                                                  Thus spoke the Sybil, drunken without drink:

                                                                  'How bad things go!

                                                                  Decay!  Decay!  Ne'er sank the world so low!

                                                                  Rome is now a harlot and a brothel too,

                                                                  Rome's Caesar's a beast, and God himself - a Jew!'"

 

 

2

 

The kings were delighted with these lines of Zarathustra's; and the king on the right said: "O Zarathustra, how well we did to come out and see you!

       "For your enemies have shown us your image in their mirror, from which you gazed with the grimace of a devil and with mocking laughter, so that we were afraid of you.

       "But what good was it!  Again and again you stung our ears and hearts with your sayings.  Then at last we said: What does it matter how he looks!

       "We must hear him, him who teaches: You should love peace as a means to new wars and a short peace more than a long!

       "No-one ever spoke such warlike words: What is good?  To be brave is good.  It is the good war that hallows every cause.

       "O Zarathustra, at such words the blood of our fathers stirred in our bodies: it was like spring speaking to old wine-casks.

       "Our fathers loved life when swords were crossed like red-flecked serpents; they thought all suns of peace faint and feeble, but the long peace made them ashamed.

       "How they sighed, our fathers, when they saw resplendent, parched swords upon the wall!  Like them, they thirsted for war.  For a sword wants to drink blood and sparkles with its desire."

       As the kings thus eagerly talked and babbled of the happiness of their fathers, Zarathustra was overcome by no small desire to mock their eagerness: for they were apparently very peaceable kings that he saw before him, with aged, refined faces.  But he controlled himself.  "Very well!" he said, "yonder leads the way to Zarathustra's cave; and this day shall have a long evening!  But now a cry of distress calls me hurriedly away from you.

       "My cave will be honoured if kings would sit and wait in it: but, to be sure, you will have to wait a long time!

       "But really!  What does it matter!  Where today does one learn to wait better than in courts?  And the whole virtue still remaining to kings - is it not today called: being able to wait!"

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

The Leech

 

AND Zarathustra walked thoughtfully farther and deeper through forests and past swampy places; but, as happens with those who think on difficult things, on his way he unintentionally trod on a man.  And behold, all at once a cry of pain and two curses and twenty little invectives spurted up into his face: so that in his fright he raised his stick and brought it down on the man he had trodden on.  But he immediately came to his senses; and his heart laughed at the folly he had just committed.

       "Forgive me," he said to the man he had trodden on, who had angrily risen and sat down again, "forgive me and first of all accept a parable.

       "How a wanderer dreaming of distant things unintentionally stumbles over a dog on a lonely road, a dog lying in the sun:

       "how they both start up and let fly at one another like mortal enemies, these two, frightened to death: thus it happened with us.

       "And yet!  And yet - how little was lacking for them to caress one another, this dog and this solitary!  For they are both - solitaries!"

       "Whoever you may be," said the trodden-on man, still angry, "you have come too near me with your parable and not only with your foot!

       "For look, am I a dog?" - and thereupon the sitting man arose and drew his naked arm from the swamp.  For previously he had lain stretched out on the ground, concealed and unrecognizable, like someone lying in wait for swamp game.

       "But what are you doing!" cried Zarathustra in alarm, for he saw that a great deal of blood was running down the naked arm, "what has happened to you?  Has an evil beast bitten you, unhappy man?"

       The bleeding man laughed, still irritated.  "What is it to do with you!" he said, and made to go off.  "Here I am at home and in my domain.  Whoever wants to question me, let him: but I shall hardly reply to a blockhead!"

       "You are wrong," said Zarathustra compassionately, and held him fast, "you are wrong: here you are not in your own home but in my kingdom, and I will have no-one come to harm here.

       "But nonetheless, call me what you like - I am what I must be.  I call myself Zarathustra.

       "Very well!  Up yonder leads the way to Zarathustra's cave: it is not far - will you not tend your wounds in my home?

       "Things have gone ill with you in this life, you unhappy man: first a beast bit you, and then - a man trod on you!"

       But when the trodden-on man heard the name of Zarathustra, he changed.  "What has happened to me!" he cried; "who concerns me in this life except this one man, Zarathustra, and that one beast that lives on blood, the leech?

       "For the sake of the leech I have lain here beside this swamp like a fisherman, and already my outstretched arm has been bitten ten times; now a fairer leech bites for my blood, Zarathustra himself!

       "Oh happiness!  Oh wonder!  Praised by this day, that lured me to this swamp!  Praised be the best, liveliest cupping-glass alive today, praised be the great leech of conscience, Zarathustra!"

       Thus spoke the man who had been trodden on; and Zarathustra rejoiced at his words and their fine, respectful manner.  "Who are you?" he asked, and offered him his hand, "between us there is still much to elucidate and clear up: but already, it seems to me, it is bright, broad daylight."

       "I am the conscientious man of the spirit," answered the other, "and scarcely anyone is sterner, stricter, and more severe in things of the spirit than I, apart from him from whom I learned, Zarathustra himself.

       "Better to know nothing than half-know many things!  Better to be a fool on one's own account than a wise man at the approval of others!  I - go to the root of things:

       "what matter if it be great or small?  If it be swamp or sky?  A hand's breadth of ground is enough for me: if only it be thoroughly firm ground!

       "a hand's breadth of ground: one can stand upon that.  In truly conscientious knowledge there is nothing great and nothing small."

       "So perhaps you are an expert on the leech?" asked Zarathustra.  "And do you probe the leech down to its ultimate roots, conscientious man?"

       "O Zarathustra," answered the man who was trodden on, "that would be a colossal task, how could I undertake it!

       "But what I am master of and expert on is the leech's brain - that is my world!

       "And that too is a world!  But forgive me that my pride here speaks out, for here I have not my equal.  That is why I said: 'Here I am at home'.

       "How long have I probed this one thing, the brain of the leech, so that slippery truth should here no longer slip away from me!  Here is my kingdom!

       "For its sake I have cast away all others, for its sake I have grown indifferent to all others; and close beside my knowledge crouches my black ignorance.

       "The conscience of my spirit demands of me that I know one thing and apart from that know nothing: I am disgusted by all the semi-intellectual, all the vaporous, hovering, visionary.

       "Where my honesty ceases I am blind and want to be blind.  But where I want to know I also want to be honest, that is, severe, strict, cruel, inexorable.

       "Because you, O Zarathustra, once said: 'Spirit is the life that itself cuts into life', that led and seduced me to your teaching.  And truly, with my own blood have I increased my own knowledge!"

       "As the evidence indicates," Zarathustra interposed; for blood continued to run down the naked arm of the man of conscience.  For ten leeches had bitten into it.

       "Oh you strange fellow, how much this evidence tells me, for it tells me about yourself!  And perhaps I could not pour all of it into your stern ears!

       "Very well!  Let us part here!  But I should like to meet you again.  Up yonder leads the way to my cave: tonight you shall there be my welcome guest!

       "And I should also like to make amends to your body for treading upon you: I shall think about that.  But now a cry of distress calls me hurriedly away from you."

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

The Sorcerer

 

1

 

WHEN Zarathustra had turned the corner around a rock, however, he saw not far below him on the same pathway a man who was throwing his arms about as if in a frenzy and who finally hurled himself to earth flat on his belly.  "Stop!" said Zarathustra then to his heart, "he yonder must surely be the Higher Man, that evil cry of distress came from him - I will see if he can be helped."  But when he ran to the spot where the man lay on the ground, he found a trembling old man with staring eyes; and however much Zarathustra tried to raise him and set him upon his legs, it was in vain.  Neither did he unfortunate man seem to notice that there was anyone with him; on the contrary, he continually looked around him with pathetic gestures, like one forsaken by and isolated from all the world.  Eventually, however, after much trembling, quivering, and self-contortion, he began to wail thus:

 

                                                                  Who still warms me, who still loves me?

                                                                  Offer me hot hands!

                                                                  Offer me coal-warmers for the heart!

                                                                  Spread-eagled, shuddering,

                                                                  Like a half-dead man whose feet are warmed -

                                                                  Shaken, alas! by unknown fevers,

                                                                  Trembling with sharp icy frost-arrows,

                                                                  Pursued by you, my thought!

                                                                  Unutterable, veiled, terrible one!

                                                                  Huntsman behind the clouds!

                                                                  Struck down by your lightning-bolt,

                                                                  You mocking eye that stares at me from the darkness -

                                                                      thus I lie,

                                                                  Bend myself, twist myself, tortured

                                                                  By every eternal torment,

                                                                  Smitten

                                                                  By you, cruel huntsman,

                                                                  You unknown - God!

 

                                                                  Strike deeper!

                                                                  Strike once again!

                                                                  Sting and sting, shatter this heart!

                                                                  What means this torment

                                                                  With blunt arrows?

                                                                  Why do you look down,

                                                                  Unwearied of human pain,

                                                                  With malicious divine flashing eyes?

                                                                  Will you not kill,

                                                                  Only torment, torment?

                                                                  Why - torment me,

                                                                  You malicious, unknown God?

 

                                                                  Ha ha!  Are you stealing near?

                                                                  At such a midnight hour

                                                                  What do you want?  Speak!

                                                                  You oppress me, press me -

                                                                  Ha! far too closely!

                                                                  Away!  Away!

                                                                  You hear me breathing,

                                                                  You overhear my heart,

                                                                  You jealous God -

                                                                  Yet, jealous of what?

                                                                  Away!  Away!  Why the ladder?

                                                                  Would you climb

                                                                  Into my heart,

                                                                  Climb into my most secret

                                                                  Thoughts?

                                                                  Shameless, unknown - thief!

                                                                  What would you get by stealing?

                                                                  What would you get by listening?

                                                                  What would you get by torturing,

                                                                  You torturer?

                                                                  You - Hangman-god!

                                                                  Or shall I, like a dog,

                                                                  Roll before you?

                                                                  Surrendering, raving with rapture,

                                                                  Wag - love to you?

 

                                                                  In vain!  Strike again,

                                                                  Cruellest knife!  No,

                                                                  Not dog - I am only your game,

                                                                  Cruellest huntsman!

                                                                  Your proudest prisoner,

                                                                  You robber behind the clouds!

                                                                  For the last time, speak!

                                                                  What do you want, waylayer, from me?

                                                                  You God veiled in lightning!  Unknown One!  Speak,

                                                                  What do you want, unknown - God?

 

                                                                  What?  Ransom?

                                                                  How much ransom?

                                                                  Demand much - thus speaks my pride!

                                                                  And be brief - thus speaks my other pride!

 

                                                                  Ha ha!

                                                                  Me - you want me?

                                                                  Me - all of me? ...

 

                                                                  Ha ha!

                                                                  And you torment me, fool that you are,

                                                                  You rack my pride?

                                                                  Offer me love - who still warms me?

                                                                  Who still loves me? - offer me hot hands!

                                                                  Offer me coal-warmers for the heart,

                                                                  Offer me, the most solitary,

                                                                  Whom ice, alas! sevenfold ice

                                                                  Has taught to long for enemies,

                                                                  For enemies themselves,

                                                                  Offer, yes yield to me,

                                                                  Cruellest enemy -

                                                                  Yourself!

 

                                                                  He is gone!

                                                                  He himself has fled,

                                                                  My last, sole companion,

                                                                  My great enemy,

                                                                  My unknown,

                                                                  My Hangman-god!

 

                                                                  No!  Come back,

                                                                  With all your torments!

                                                                  Oh come back

                                                                  To the last of all solitaries!

                                                                  All the streams of my tears

                                                                  Run their course to you!

                                                                  And the last flame of my heart -

                                                                  It burns up to you!

                                                                  Oh come back,

                                                                  My unknown god!  My pain!  My last - happiness!

 

 

2

 

At this point, however, Zarathustra could restrain himself no longer; he took his stick and struck the wailing man with all his force.  "Stop!" he shouted at him with furious laughter, "stop, you actor!  You fabricator!  You liar from the heart!  I know you well!

       "I will warm your legs for you, you evil sorcerer, I well know how to make things warm  for such as you!"

       "Leave off," said the old man and jumped up from the ground, "beat me no more, O Zarathustra!  I was doing it only in fun!

       "Such things are part of my art; I wanted to put you yourself to the proof when I gave you this exhibition!  And truly, you have seen well through me!

       "But you, too, have given me no small proof of yourself: you are hard, you wise Zarathustra!  You strike hard with your 'truths', your cudgel forced from me - this truth!"

       "Do not flatter," answered Zarathustra, still excited and frowning, "you actor from the heart!  You are false: why speak - of truth!

       "You peacock of peacocks, you ocean of vanity, what did you play before me, you evil sorcerer, in whom was I supposed to believe when you wailed in such a fashion?"

       "The penitent of the spirit," said the old man, "it was he I played: you yourself once invented this expression - the poet and sorcerer who at last turns his spirit against himself, the transformed man who freezes through his bad knowledge and bad conscience.

       "And just confess it: it took a long time, O Zarathustra, for you to see through my trick and lie!  You believed in my distress when you took my head in your hands,

       "I heard you wail: 'He has been too little loved, too little loved!'  My wickedness rejoiced within me that I had deceived you so far."

       "You may have deceived subtler men than me," said Zarathustra severely.  "I am not on my guard against deceivers, I must be without caution: so my fate will have it.

       "You, however, must deceive: I know you so far.  You must always be ambiguous, with two, three, four, five meanings!  And what you just confessed was not nearly true enough and not nearly false enough for me!

       "You evil fabricator, how could you do otherwise!  You would even deck your disease if you showed yourself naked to your physician.

       "Thus you decked your lie before me when you said 'I was doing it only in fun!'  There was also earnestness in it, you are something of a penitent of the spirit!

       "I have divined you well: you have become the enchanter of everyone, but against yourself you have no lie and no cunning left - you are disenchanted with yourself!

       "You have reaped disgust as your single truth.  With you, no word is genuine any more, but your mouth is genuine: that is, the disgust that clings to your mouth."

       "But who are you!" the old sorcerer cried at this point in a defiant voice, "who dares to speak like this to me, the greatest man living today?" - and a green lightning-flash shot from his eye at Zarathustra.  But immediately he changed and said sadly:

       "O Zarathustra, I am tired of it, my arts disgust me, I am not great, why do I pretend!  But, you know it well - I sought greatness!

       "I wanted to appear a great man and I convinced many: but this lie has been beyond my strength.  I am collapsing under it.

       "O Zarathustra, everything about me is a lie; but that I am collapsing - this is genuine!"

       "It honours you," said Zarathustra gloomily, casting down his eyes, "it honours you that you sought greatness, but it also betrays you.  You are not great.

       "You evil old sorcerer, this is the best and most honest thing that I honour in you, that you have grown weary of yourself and have declared 'I am not great'.

       "In that do I honour you as a penitent of the spirit: and, if only for a passing breath, in this one moment you were - genuine.

       "But say, what do you seek here among my forests and cliffs?  And when you laid yourself in my path, what proof did you want of me?

       "What did you test me in?"

       Thus spoke Zarathustra and his eyes sparkled.  The old sorcerer was silent for a time, then he said: "Did I test you?  I - only seek.

       "O Zarathustra, I seek a genuine man, a proper, simple man, a man of one meaning and of all honesty, a repository of wisdom, a saint of knowledge, a great man!

       "For do you not know, O Zarathustra?  I seek Zarathustra."

      

       And at this point a long silence arose between the two; Zarathustra, however, became deeply absorbed, so that he closed his eyes.  Then, however, returning to his companion, he grasped the sorcerer's hand and said, with much politeness and guile:

       "Very well!  Up yonder leads the way to where Zarathustra's cave lies.  You may seek there him you wish to find.

       "And ask advice of my animals, my eagle and my serpent: they shall help you seek.  But my cave is big.

       "I myself, to be sure - I have never yet seen a great man.  The eye of the subtlest is crude today for what is great.  It is the kingdom of the mob.

       "I have found so many who stretched and inflated themselves, and the people cried: 'Behold a great man!'  But what good are all bellows!  The wind escapes from them at last.

       "A frog that has blown itself out too long explodes at last: then the wind escapes.  To prick the belly of a puffed-up wind-bag I call a fine sport.  Hear that, lads!

       "Today belongs to the mob: who still knows what is great, what small!  Who could successfully seek greatness there!  Only a fool: a fool would succeed.

       "Do you seek great men, you strange fool?  Who taught you to?  Is today the time for it?  Oh, you evil seeker, why - do you tempt me?"

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra, comforted at heart, and continued, laughing, on his way.

 

 

 

Retired from Service

 

NOT long after Zarathustra had freed himself from the sorcerer, however, he again saw someone sitting beside the path he was going: a tall, dark man with a pale, haggard face; this man greatly vexed him.  "Alas," he said to his heart, "there sits disguised affliction, he seems to be of the priestly sort: what do they want in my kingdom?

       "What!  I have hardly escaped from that sorcerer: must another magician cross my path,

       "some wizard who operates by laying on hands, some gloomy miracle-worker by the grace of God, some anointed world-slanderer: may the Devil take him!

       "But the Devil is never in his proper place: he always comes too late, that confounded dwarf and club-foot!"

       Thus cursed Zarathustra impatiently in his heart and considered how, with averted gaze, he might slip past the dark man: but behold, it turned out differently.  For at the same moment the sitting man had already seen him; and not unlike someone whom an unexpected happiness has befallen, he jumped up and went towards Zarathustra.

       "Whoever you may be, traveller," he said, "help one who has gone astray, a seeker, an old man who may easily come to harm here!

       "The world here is strange and remote to me, and I hear the howling of wild animals; and he who could have afforded me protection is himself no more.

       "I was seeking the last pious man, a saint and hermit who, alone in his forest, had as yet heard nothing of what all the world knows today."

       "What does all the world know today?" asked Zarathustra.  "This, perhaps: that the old God in whom all the world once believed no longer lives?"

       "That is so," answered the old man sadly.  "And I served that old God until his last hour.

       "Now, however, I am retired from service, without master, and yet I am not free, neither am I merry even for an hour, except in memories.

       "That is why I climbed into these mountains, that I might at last celebrate a festival once more, as becomes an old pope and church-father: for know, I am the last pope! - a festival of pious memories and divine services.

       "But now he himself is dead, the most pious of men, that saint in the forest who used continually to praise his God with singing and muttering.

       "When I found his hut I no longer found him himself, but I did find two wolves in it, howling over his death - for all animals loved him.  Then I hurried away.

       "Had I come into these forests and mountains in vain?  Then my heart decided to seek another, the most pious of all those who do not believe in God - to seek Zarathustra!"

       Thus spoke the old man and gazed with penetrating eyes at him who stood before him; Zarathustra, however, took the old pope's hand and for a long time regarded it admiringly.

       "Behold, venerable man," he said then, "what a long and beautiful hand!  It is the hand of one who has always distributed blessings.  But now it holds fast him you seek, me, Zarathustra.

       "It is I, the godless Zarathustra, the same who says: Who is more godless than I, that I may rejoice in his teaching?"

       Thus spoke Zarathustra and pierced with his glance the thoughts and reservations of the old pope.  At last the latter began:

       "He who loved and possessed him most, he has now lost him the most also:

       "behold, am I myself not the more godless of us two now?  But who could rejoice in that!"

       "You served him to the last," asked Zarathustra thoughtfully, after a profound silence, "do you know how he died?  Is it true what they say, that pity choked him,

       "that he saw how man hung on the Cross and could not endure it, that love for man became his Hell and at last his death?"

       The old pope, however, did not answer, but looked shyly and with a pained and gloomy expression.

       "Let him go," said Zarathustra after prolonged reflection, during which he continued to gaze straight in the old man's eye.

       "Let him go, he is finished.  And although it honours you that you speak only good of this dead god, yet you know as well as I who he was; and that he followed strange paths."

       "Between ourselves," said the old pope, becoming cheerful, "or, as I may say, spoken beneath three eyes" (for he was blind in one eye) "in divine matters I am more enlightened than Zarathustra himself - and may well be so.

       "My love served him long years, my will obeyed all his will.  A good servant, however, knows everything, and many things, too, that his master hides from himself.

       "He was a hidden god, full of secrecy.  Truly, he even came by a son through no other than secret and indirect means.  At the door of faith in him stands adultery.

       "Whoever honours him as a god of love does not think highly enough of love itself.  Did this god not also want to be judge?  But the lover loves beyond reward and punishment.

       "When he was young, this god from the orient, he was hard and revengeful and built himself a Hell for the delight of his favourites.

       "But at length he grew old and soft and mellow and compassionate, more like a grandfather than a father, most like a tottery old grandmother.

       "Then he sat, shrivelled, in his chimney corner, fretting over his weak legs, world-weary, weary of willing, and one day suffocated through his excessive pity."

       "Old pope," Zarathustra interposed at this point, "did you see that with your own eyes?  It certainly could have happened like that: like that, and also otherwise.  When gods die, they always die many kinds of death.

       "But very well!  One way or the other, one way and the other - he is gone!  He offended the taste of my ears and eyes, I will say no worse of him.

       "I love everything that is clear-eyes and honest of speech.  But he - you must know it, old priest, there was something of your nature about him, something of the priestly nature - he was ambiguous.

       "He was also indistinct.  How angry he was with us, this snorter of wrath, because we mistook his meaning!  But why did he not speak more clearly?

       "And if our ears were to blame, why did he give us ears that were unable to hear him properly?  If there was dirt in our ears, very well! who put it there?

       "He had too many failures, this potter who had not learned his craft!  But that he took vengeance on his pots and creations because they turned out badly - that was a sin against good taste.

       "There is also good taste in piety: that said at last: Away with such a god!  Better no god, better to produce destiny on one's own account, better to be a fool, better to be God oneself!"

       "What do I hear!" the old pope said at this point, pricking up his ears; "O Zarathustra, you are more pious than you believe, with such an unbelief!  Some god in you has converted you to your godlessness.

       "Is it not your piety itself that no longer allows you to believe in a god?  And your exceeding honesty will yet carry you off beyond good and evil, too!

       "For behold, what has been reserved for you?  You have eyes and hand and mouth destined for blessing from eternity.  One does not bless with the hand alone.

       "In your neighbourhood, although you would be the most godless, I scent a stealthy odour of holiness and well-being that comes from long benedictions: it fills me with joy and sorrow.

       "Let me be your guest, O Zarathustra, for a single night!  Nowhere on earth shall I be happier now than with you!"

       "Amen!  So shall it be!" said Zarathustra in great astonishment, "up yonder leads the way, there lies Zarathustra's cave.

       "Indeed, I would gladly lead you there myself, venerable man, for I love all pious men.  But now a cry of distress calls me hurriedly away from you.

       "I will have no-one come to harm in my domain; my cave is an excellent refuge.  And most of all I should like to set every sad and sorrowful person again on firm land and firm legs.

       "Who, however, could lift your melancholy from your shoulders?  I am too weak for that.  Truly, we should have to wait a long time before someone reawakened your god for you.

       "For this old god no longer lives: he is quite dead."

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

The Ugliest Man

 

AND again Zarathustra's feet ran through forests and mountains, and his eyes sought and sought, but him they desired to see, the great sufferer and crier of distress, was nowhere to be seen.  All the time he was on his way, however, he rejoiced in his heart and was thankful.  "What good things this day has given me," he said, "as recompense for having begun so badly!  What strange discoursers I have found!

       "Now I will long chew their words as if they were fine corn; my teeth shall grind and crunch them small, until they flow into my soul like milk!"

       But when the path again rounded a rock, all at once the scenery changed, and Zarathustra stepped into a kingdom of death.  Here black and rd cliffs projected up: no grass, no tree, no cry of birds.  For it was a valley which all beasts avoided, even the beasts of prey; except that a kind of ugly, thick, green serpent, when it grew old, came here to die.  Therefore the shepherds called this valley 'Serpent's Death'.

       Zarathustra, however, was plunged into dark recollections, for it seemed to him as if he had stood in this valley once before.  And many heavy things settled upon his mind: so that he went slowly and ever slower and at last stopped.  Then, however, as he opened his eyes, he saw something sitting on the pathway, shaped like a man and yet hardly like a man, something unutterable.  And all at once Zarathustra was overcome by the great shame of having beheld such a thing: blushing to his white hair, he turned his glance away and lifted his foot to leave this evil spot.  But then the dead wilderness resounded: for from the ground issued a gurgling, rasping sound such as water makes in stopped-up water-pipes at night; and at last a human voice and human speech emerged from it: it sounded thus:

       "Zarathustra!  Zarathustra!  Read my riddle!  Speak, speak!  What is the revenge on the witness?

       "I entice you back, here is slippery ice!  Take care, take care that your pride does not here break its legs!

       "You think yourself wise, proud Zarathustra!  So read the riddle, you hard nut-cracker - the riddle that I am!  So speak: who am I?"

       But when Zarathustra had head these words, what do you think then happened to his soul?  Pity overcame him; and all at once he sank down, like an oak tree that has long withstood many woodchoppers, heavily, suddenly, to the terror even of those who wanted to fell it.  But at once he arose from the ground and his countenance grew stern.

       "I know you well," he said in a brazen voice: "you are the murderer of God!  Let me go.

       "You could not endure him who saw you - who saw you unblinking and through and through, you ugliest man!  You took revenge upon this witness!"

       Thus spoke Zarathustra and made to depart; but he unutterable creature grasped for a corner of his garment and began again to gurgle and grope for speech.  "Stay!" he said at last,

       "stay!  Do not go by!  I have divined what axe it was that struck you to earth: Hail to you, O Zarathustra, that you are standing again!

       "You have divined, I know it well, how he feels who killed God - how the murderer of God feels.  Stay!  Sit beside me; it is not to no purpose.

       "To whom did I intend to go if not to you?  Stay, sit down!  But do not look at me!  Honour thus - my ugliness!

       "They persecute me: now you are my last refuge.  Not with their hatred, not with their henchmen - oh, I would mock such persecution, I would be proud and glad of it!

       "Has not all success hitherto been with the well-persecuted?  And he who persecutes well easily learns to follow - for he is already - at the heels of others.  But it is their pity,

       "it is their pity from which I flee and flee to you.  O Zarathustra, my last refuge, protect me; you, the only one who can divine me:

       "you have divines how he feels who has killed him.  Stay!  And if you will go, impatient man, do not go the way I came.  That was is bad.

       "Are your angry with me because I have mangled language too long?  Because I have advised you?  But know: it is I, the ugliest man,

       "who also have the biggest, heaviest feet.  Where I have gone, the way is bad.  I tread all roads to death and to destruction.

       "But that you went past me, silent; that you blushed, I saw it well: by that I knew you for Zarathustra.

       "Anyone else would have thrown me his alms, his pity, in glance and speech.  But for that - I am not enough of a beggar, you have divined that -

       "for that I am too rich, rich in big things, in fearsome things, in the ugliest things, in the most unutterable things!  Your shame, O Zarathustra, honoured me!

       "I escaped with difficulty from the importunate crowd of those who pity, that I might find the only one who today teaches 'Pity is importunate' - you, O Zarathustra!

       " - be it the pity of a god, be it human pity: pity is contrary to modesty.  And unwillingness to help may be nobler than that virtue which comes running with help.

       "That however, pity, is called virtue itself with all little people - they lack reverence for great misfortune, great ugliness, great failure.

       "I look beyond all these, as a dog looks over the backs of swarming flocks of sheep.  They are little, well-meaning, well-woolled, colourless people.

       "As a heron looks contemptuously over shallow ponds, with head thrown back: so do I look over the swarm of colourless little waves and wills and souls.

       "Too long have they been allowed right, these little people: thus at last they have been allowed power, too - now they teach: 'Only that is good which little people call good.'

       "And 'truth' today is what the preacher said who himself sprang from them, that strange saint and advocate of the little people who testified of himself 'I - am the truth'.

       "Was an immodest man ever answered more politely?  But you, O Zarathustra, passed him by and said: 'No!  No!  Thrice No!'

       "You warned against his error, as the first to do so, you warned against pity - no-one else, only you and those of your kind.

       "You are ashamed of the shame of the great sufferer; and truly, when you say 'A great cloud emerges from pity, take care mankind!'

       "When you teach 'All creators are hard, all great love is beyond pity': O Zarathustra, how well-read in weather-omens you seem to me!

       "You yourself, however, - warn yourself too against your pity!   For many are on their way to you, many suffering, doubting, despairing, drowning, freezing people -

       "I warn you too against myself.  You have read my best, my worst riddle, me myself, and what I have done.  I know the axe that fells you.

       "But he - had to die: he looked with eyes that saw everything - he saw the depths and abysses of man, all man's hidden disgrace and ugliness.

       "His pity knew no shame: he crept into my dirtiest corners.  Thus most curious, most over-importunate, over-compassionate god had to die.

       "He always saw me: I desired to take revenge on such a witness - or cease to live myself.

       "The god who saw everything, even man: this god had to die!  Man could not endure that such a witness should live."

       Thus spoke the ugliest man.  Zarathustra, however, rose and prepared to go: for he was chilled to his very marrow.

       "You unutterable creature," he said, "you warned me against your road.  As thanks for that, I recommend you mine.  Behold, up yonder lies Zarathustra's cave.

       "My cave is big and deep and possesses many corners; there the best hidden man can find his hiding place.  And close by it are a hundred secret and slippery ways for creeping, fluttering, and jumping beasts.

       "You outcast who cast yourself out, do you not wish to live among men and the pity of men?  Very well, do as I do.  Thus you will also learn from me; only the doer learns.

       "And first of all and above all speak with my animals!  The proudest animal and the wisest animal - they may well be the proper counsellors for both of us!"

       Thus spoke Zarathustra and went his way, even more thoughtfully and slowly than before: for he asked himself many things and did not easily know what to answer.

       How poor is man! (he thought in his heart) how ugly, how croaking, how full of secret shame!

       They tell me that man loves himself: ah, how great must this self-love be!  How much contempt is opposed to it!

       Even this man has loved himself as he despised himself more deeply: even that is height.  Alas, was he perhaps the Higher Man whose cry I heard?

       I love the great despisers.  Man, however, is something that must be overcome.

 

 

 

The Voluntary Beggar

 

WHEN Zarathustra had left the ugliest man he felt chilled and alone: for he had absorbed much coldness and loneliness, to such an extent that even his limbs had grown colder.  But he climbed on, up hill, down dale, past green pastures but also over wild, stony courses where no doubt an impatient brook had formerly made its bed: then all at once he grew warmer and more cheerful.

       "What has happened to me?" he asked himself.  "Something warm and living refreshes me, it must be nearby.

       "Already I am less alone; unknown companions and brothers circle about me, their warm breath touches my soul."

       But when he peered about him and sought the comforters of his loneliness, behold, they were cows standing together on a hillock; it was their nearness and odour that had warmed his heart.

       These cows, however, seemed to be listening eagerly to a speaker, and paid no heed to him who approached.  And when Zarathustra was quite near them he clearly heard a human voice speaking from out the midst of the cows; and apparently they had all turned their heads towards the speaker.

       Then Zarathustra eagerly sprang up the hillock and pulled the animals away, for he feared that here someone had had an accident, which the sympathy of cows could hardly remedy.  But in this he was deceived; for behold, there on the ground sat a man who appeared to be persuading the animals to have no fear of him, a peaceable man and mountain sermonizer out of whose eyes goodness itself preached.  "What do you seek here?" cried Zarathustra in surprise.

       "What do I seek here?" he answered: "the same as you seek, you peace-breaker!  That is, happiness on earth.

       "To that end, however, I may learn from these cows.  For, let me tell you, I have already been talking to them half a morning and they were just about to reply to me.  Why do you disturb them?

       "If we do not alter and become as cows, we shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.  For there is one thing we should learn from them: rumination.

       "And truly, if a man should gain the whole world and not learn this one thing, rumination: what would it profit him!  He would not be free from his affliction,

       "his great affliction: that, however, is today called disgust.  Who today has not his heart, mouth, and eyes filled with disgust?  You too!  You too!  But regard these cows!"

       Thus spoke the mountain sermonizer and then turned his glance upon Zarathustra, for up to then it had rested lovingly upon the cows: at that, however, he changed.  "Who is that I am speaking with?" he cried, startled, and jumped up from the ground.

       "This is the man without disgust, this is Zarathustra himself, the overcomer of the great disgust, this is the eye, this is the mouth, this is the heart of Zarathustra himself."

       And as he spoke thus he kissed the hands of him to whom he spoke with overflowing eyes, and behaved like someone to whom a valuable gift and jewel has unexpectedly fallen from heaven.  The cows, however, looked on and were amazed.

       "Do not speak of me, you strange, friendly man!" said Zarathustra, restraining his affection, "first speak to me of yourself!  Are you not the voluntary beggar who once threw away great riches,

       “- who was ashamed of his riches and of the rich, and fled to the poor that he might give them his abundance and his heart?  But they received him not."

       "But they received me not," said the voluntary beggar, "you know that.  So at last I went to the animals and to these cows."

       "Then you learned," Zarathustra interrupted the speaker, "how it is harder to give well than to take well, and that to give well is an art and the ultimate, subtlest master-art of kindness."

       "These days especially," answered the voluntary beggar: "for today everything base has become rebellious and reserved and in its own way haughty: that is, in the mob's way.

       "For the hour has come, you know it, for the great, evil, protracted, slow rebellion of the mob and the slaves: it grows and grows!

       "Now all benevolence and petty giving provokes the base; and let the over-rich be on their guard!

       "Whoever today lets drops fall like a big-bellied bottle out of a too-narrow neck - people like to break the necks of such bottles today.

       "Lustful greed, bitter envy, sour vindictiveness, mob pride: all this threw itself in my face.  It is no longer true that the poor are blessed.  The kingdom of heaven, however, is with the cows."

       "And why is it not with the rich?" asked Zarathustra, tempting him, as he restrained the cows which were sniffing familiarly at the man of peace.

       "Why do you tempt me?" answered the latter.  "You yourself know better even than I.  For what drove me to the poorest, O Zarathustra?  Was it not disgust with our richest?

       " - disgust with those punished by riches, who glean advantage from all kinds of sweepings, with cold eyes, rank thoughts, disgust with this rabble that stinks to heaven,

       "disgust with this gilded, debased mob whose fathers were pick-pockets or carrion-birds or ragmen with compliant, lustful, forgetful wives - for they are all of them not far from whores -

       "mob above, mob below!  What are 'poor' and 'rich' today!  I unlearned this distinction - then I fled away, far away and ever farther, until I came to these cows."

       Thus spoke the man of peace and himself snorted and perspired as he spoke: so that the cows were again amazed.  Zarathustra, however, looked him in the face with a smile all the while he was speaking so sternly, and then silently shook his head.

       "You do violence to yourself, mountain sermonizer, when you use such stern words.  Neither your mouth nor your eyes were made for such sternness.

       "Nor your stomach either, as I think: that opposes all such raging and hating and over-frothing.  Your stomach wants gentler things: you are no butcher.

       "On the contrary, you seem to me a man of plants and roots.  Perhaps you grind corn.  But you are certainly disinclined to fleshy pleasures and love honey."

       "You have divined me well," answered the voluntary beggar with lightened heart.  "I love honey, I also grind corn, for I have sought what tastes well and produces sweet breath:

       "also what takes a long time, a day's work and a day's chewing for gentle idlers and sluggards.

       "To be sure, these cows have attained the greatest proficiency in it: they have devised rumination and lying in the sun.  And they abstain from all heavy thoughts that inflate the heart."

       "Very well! said Zarathustra: "you shall see my animals, too, my eagle and my serpent - there is not their like on earth today.

       "Behold, yonder leads the way to my cave: be its guest tonight.  And speak with my animals of the happiness of animals,

       "until I return home myself.  For now a cry of distress calls me hurriedly away from you.  You will find new honey, too, at my cave, golden honey in the comb, cold as ice: eat it!

       "But now straightway take leave of your cows, you strange, friendly man! although it may be hard for you.  For they are your warmest friends and teachers!"

       "Except one, whom I love more," answered the voluntary beggar.  "You yourself are good, and even better than a cow, O Zarathustra!"

       "Away, away with you! you arrant flatterer!" cried Zarathustra mischievously, "why do you spoil me with such praise and honey of flattery?

       "Away, away from me!" he cried again and swung his stick at the affectionate beggar; he, however, ran nimbly away.

 

 

 

The Shadow

 

BUT hardly had the voluntary beggar run off and was Zarathustra alone again than he heard a new voice behind him calling: "Stop!  Zarathustra!  Wait!  It is I, O Zarathustra, I, your shadow!"  But Zarathustra did not wait, for a sudden ill-humour overcame him on account of all the crowding and thronging on his mountains.  "Where has my solitude fled?" he said.

       "Truly, it is becoming too much for me; these mountains are swarming, my kingdom is no longer of this world, I need new mountains.

       "Does my shadow call me?  Of what account is my shadow!  Let it run after me! - I shall run away from it."

       Thus spoke Zarathustra to his heart and ran off.  But he who was behind him followed after: so that forthwith there were three runners one behind the other, that is, foremost the voluntary beggar, then Zarathustra, and thirdly and hindmost his shadow.  They had not been running thus for long when Zarathustra became conscious of his folly and at once shook off his ill-humour and disgust.

       "What!" he said, "have not the most laughable things always happened with us old hermits and saints?

       "Truly, my folly has grown high in the mountains!  Now I hear six foolish old legs clattering one behind the other!

       "But can Zarathustra really be afraid of a shadow?  And anyway, I think it has longer legs than I."

       Thus spoke Zarathustra, laughing with his eyes and his entrails, then stopped and turned quickly around - and behold, in doing so he almost threw his follower and shadow to the ground, the latter followed so closely upon hiss heels and was so weak.  For when Zarathustra inspected him with his eyes, he was as terrified as if he had suddenly seen a ghost, so slight, dark, hollow, and spent did this follower appear.

       "Who are you?" Zarathustra asked furiously, "what are you doing here?  And why do you call yourself my shadow?  I do not like you."

       "Forgive me," answered the shadow, "that it is I; and if you do not like me, very good, O Zarathustra!  I praise you and your good taste in that.

       "I am a wanderer, who has already walked far at your heels: always going but without a goal and without a home: so that, truly, I am almost the eternal Wandering Jew, except that I am neither eternal nor a Jew.

       "What?  Must I always be going?  Whirled by every wind, restless, driven onward?  O Earth, you have grown too round for me!

       "I have sat on every surface, like weary dust I have fallen asleep upon mirrors and window-panes: everything takes from me, nothing gives, I have become then - I am almost like a shadow.

       "But I have fled to you and followed you longest, O Zarathustra, and although I have hidden myself from you, yet I was your best shadow: where you have sat there I sat too.

       "I have travelled with you in the remotest, coldest worlds, like a ghost that voluntarily walks over snow and winter roofs.

       "I have striven with you into all that was forbidden, worst, most remote: and if anything in me be a virtue, it is that I have feared no prohibition.

       "I have broken up with you whatever my heart revered.  I have overthrown boundary stones and statues, I have pursued the most dangerous desires - truly, I once went beyond every crime.

       "I have unlearned with you belief in words and values and great names.  When the Devil casts his skin does his name not also fall away?  For that too is a skin.  The Devil himself is perhaps - a skin.

       "'Nothing is true, everything is permitted': thus I told myself.  I plunged into the coldest water, with head and heart.  Alas, how often I stood naked, like a red crab, on that account!

       "Alas, where have all my goodness and shame and belief in the good fled!  Alas, where is that mendacious innocence that I once possessed, the innocence of the good and their noble lies!

       "Truly, too often did I follow close by the feet of truth: then it kicked me in the face.  Sometimes I intended to lie, and behold! only then did I hit - the truth.

       "Too much has become clear to me: now I am no longer concerned with it.  No longer is there anything living that I love - how should I still love myself?

       "'To live as I desire to live or not to live at all': that is what I want, that is what the most saintly man wants.  But alas! how can I still have - a desire?

       "Have I - still a goal?  A haven to which my sail races?

       "A good wind?  Alas, only he who knows where he is going knows which wind is a good and fair wind for him.

       "What is left to me?  A heart weary and insolent; a restless will; infirm wings; a broken backbone.

       "This seeking for my home: O Zarathustra, do you know this seeking was my affliction, it is consuming me.

       "Where is - my home?  I ask and seek and have sought for it, I have not found it.  Oh eternal Everywhere, oh eternal Nowhere, oh eternal - Vanity!"

       Thus spoke the shadow, and Zarathustra's face lengthened at his words.  "You are my shadow!" he said at length, sorrowfully.

       "Your danger is no small one, you free spirit and wanderer!  You have had a bad day: see you do not have a worse evening!

       "Even a prison at last seems bliss to such restless people as you.  Have you ever seen how captured criminals sleep?  They sleep peacefully, they enjoy their new security.

       "Take care that you are not at last captured by a narrow belief, a hard, stern illusion!  For henceforth everything that is narrow and firm will entice and tempt you.

       "You have lost your goal: alas, how will you get over and laugh away that loss?  By losing your goal - you have lost your way, too!

       "You poor traveller, wanderer, you weary butterfly!  Would you this evening have a resting place and homestead?  So go up to my cave!

       "Yonder leads the way to my cave.  And now I will run quickly away from you again.  Already it is as if a shadow were lying upon me.

       "I will run alone, so that it may again grow bright around me.  For that I still have to be a long time merrily on my legs.  In the evening, however, we shall - dance!"

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

At Noontide

 

AND Zarathustra ran and ran and found no-one else and was alone and found himself again and again and enjoyed and relished his solitude and thought of good things, for hours on end.  About the hour of noon, however, when the sun stood exactly over Zarathustra's head, he passed by an old gnarled and crooked tree which was embraced around by the abundant love of a vine and hidden from itself: from the vine an abundance of yellow grapes hung down to the wanderer.  Then he felt a desire to relieve a little thirst and to pluck himself a grape; but when he had already extended his arm to do so, he felt an even greater desire to do something else: that is, to lie down beside the tree at the hour of perfect noon and sleep.

       This Zarathustra did; and no sooner had he lain down upon the ground, in the stillness and secrecy of the multicoloured grass, than he forgot his little thirst and fell asleep.  For, as Zarathustra's saying has it: One thing is more necessary than another.  Only his eyes remained open - for they were not wearied of seeing and admiring the tree and the love of the vine.  In falling asleep, however, Zarathustra spoke thus to his heart:

 

       Soft!  Soft!  Has the world not just become perfect?  What has happened to me?

       As a delicate breeze, unseen, dances upon the smooth sea, light, light as a feather: thus - does sleep dance upon me.

       My eyes it does not close, my soul it leaves awake.  It is light, truly! light as a feather.

       It persuades me, I know not how; it inwardly touches me with a caressing hand, it compels me.  Yes, it compels me, so that my soul stretches itself out:

       how lengthy and weary my soul has grown, my strange soul!  Has a seventh day's evening come to it just at noontide?  Has it wandered too long, blissfully, among good and ripe things?

       It stretches itself out, long, long - longer! it lies still, my strange soul.  It has tasted too many good things, this golden sadness oppresses it, it makes a wry mouth.

       Like a ship that has entered its stillest bay - now it leans against the earth, weary of long voyages and uncertain seas.  Is the earth not more faithful?

       As such a ship lies against the shore, nestles against the shore - there it suffices for a spider to spin its thread out to it from the land.  No stronger ropes are needed.

       As such a weary ship rests in the stillest bay: thus do I now rest close to the earth, faithful, trusting, waiting, fastened to it by the finest threads.

       Oh happiness!  Oh happiness!  Would you sing, O my soul?  You lie in the grass.  But this is the secret, solemn hour when no shepherd plays his flute.

       Take care!  Hot noontide sleeps upon the fields.  Do not sing!  Soft!  The world is perfect.

       Do not sing, you grass bird, O my soul!  Do not even whisper!  Just see - soft! old noontide sleeps, it moves its mouth: has it not just drunk a drop of happiness

       - an ancient brown drop of golden happiness, of golden wine?  Something glides across it, its happiness laughs.  Thus - does a god laugh.  Soft!

       "Happiness; how little attains happiness!"  Thus I spoke once and thought myself wise.  But it was a blasphemy: I have learned that now.  Wise fools speak better.

       Precisely the least thing, the gentlest, lightest, the rustling of a lizard, a breath, a moment, a twinkling of the eye - little makes up the quality of the best happiness.  Soft!

       What has happened to me?  Listen!  Has time flown away?  Do I not fall?  Have I not fallen - listen! into the well of eternity?

       What is happening to me?  Still!  Is it stinging me - alas - in the heart?  In the heart! oh break, break, heart, after such happiness, after such stinging!

       What?  Has the world not just become perfect?  Round and ripe?  Oh, golden round ring - whither does it fly?  Away, after it!  Away!

       Soft - (and at this point Zarathustra stretched himself and felt that he was asleep).

       Up! (he said to himself) up, sleeper!  You noontide sleeper!  Very well, come on, old legs!  It is time and past time, you have still a good way to go.

       You have slept your fill, how long?  Half an eternity!  Very well, come on, my old heart!  For how long after such a sleep may you - wake your fill?

       (But then he fell asleep again, and his soul contradicted him and resisted and again lay down.)  "Let me be alone!  Soft!  Has the world not just become perfect?  Oh perfect as a round golden ball!"

       Get up (said Zarathustra), you little thief, you lazybones!  What!  Still stretching, yawning, sighing, falling into deep wells?

       But who are you then, O my soul?  (And at this point he started, for a ray of sunlight had glanced down from the sky on to his face.)

       O sky above me (he said, sighing, and sat upright), are you watching me?  Are you listening to my strange soul?

       When will you drink this drop of dew that has fallen upon all earthly things - when will you drink this strange soul

       - when, well of eternity! serene and terrible noontide abyss! when will you drink my soul back into yourself?

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra and raised himself from his bed beside the tree as from a strange intoxication: and behold, the sun was still standing straight above his head.  One might rightly gather from that, however, that Zarathustra had not  been sleeping for long.

 

 

 

The Greeting

 

IT was only in the late afternoon that Zarathustra, after long, vain searching and roaming about, returned home to his cave.  But when he was opposite it, not twenty paces away, then occurred that which he now least expected: he heard again the great cry of distress.  And astonishing thing! this time it came from his own cave.  It was a protracted, manifold, strange cry, however, and Zarathustra clearly distinguished that it was composed of many voices: although, heard from a distance, it might sound like a cry from a single throat.

       Thereupon, Zarathustra sprang towards his cave, and behold! what a spectacle awaited him after that concert!  for all those whom he had passed by that day were seated together: the king on the right and the king on the left, the old sorcerer, the pope, the voluntary beggar, the shadow, the conscientious man of the spirit, the sorrowful prophet, and the ass; the ugliest man, however, had placed a crown upon his head and slung two purple sashes around him, for, like all the ugly, he loved to disguise and embellish himself.  But in the midst of this melancholy company stood Zarathustra's eagle, agitated and with feathers ruffled, for he had been expected to answer too much for which his pride had no answer; the wise serpent, however, hung about its neck.

       Zarathustra beheld all this with great amazement; then, however, he examined each of his guests with gentle curiosity, read what was in their souls, and was amazed anew.  In the meantime the assembled guests had risen from their seats and were respectfully waiting for Zarathustra to speak.  Zarathustra, however, spoke thus:

 

       You despairing men!  You strange men!  so was it your cry of distress I heard?  And now I know, too, where to seek him whom I sought today in vain: the Higher Man

       - he sits in my own cave, the Higher Man!  But why am I surprised!  Have I myself not enticed him to me with honey offerings and cunning bird-calls of my happiness?

       But it seems to me you are ill adapted for company, you disturb one another's hearts, you criers of distress, when you sit here together?  First of all someone else must come,

       someone to make you laugh again, a good, cheerful Jack Pudding, a dancer and breeze and madcap, some old fool or other: - what do you think?

       But forgive me, you despairing men, that I speak before you such petty words, truly unworthy of such guests!  But you do not guess what makes my heart wanton:

       you yourselves do it, and the sight of you, forgive me for it!  For anyone beholding a man in despair grows brave.  To encourage a despairing man - anyone thinks himself strong enough for that.

       To me have you given this strength - a goodly guest-gift, my exalted guests!  Very well, do not be angry with me if I offer you something of mine.

       This is my kingdom and my domain: but what is mine shall be yours for this evening and this night.  My animals shall serve you: let my cave be your resting place!

       No-one shall despair at my hearth and home, I protect everyone from his wild animals in my preserve.  And that is the first thing I offer you: security!

       The second, however, is: my little finger.  And when you have that, take the whole hand, very well! and the heart in addition!  Welcome to this place, welcome, my guests!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra and laughed with love and mischievousness.  After this greeting, hiss guests bowed themselves again, and held a respectful silence; the king on the right, however, replied to him in their name.

 

       By the manner in which you have offered us hand and greeting, O Zarathustra, do we recognize you as Zarathustra.  You have humbled yourself before us; you have almost injured our respect:

       but who could have humbled himself with such pride as you?  That uplifts us ourselves, it is a refreshment to our eyes and hearts.

       Just to see this would we climb higher mountains than this mountain.  For we have come as sightseers, we wanted to see what makes sad eyes bright.

       And behold, already all our distressful crying is over.  Already our hearts and minds are opened and delighted.  Little is needed for our hearts to grow wanton.

       Nothing more gladdening grows on earth, O Zarathustra, than an exalted, robust will: it is the earth's fairest growth.  A whole landscape is refreshed by one such tree.

       To the pine-tree, O Zarathustra, do I compare him who grows up like you: tall, silent, hard, alone, of the finest, supplest wood, magnificent

       - at last, however, reaching out with strong, green branches for its domain, asking bold questions of the winds and storms and whatever is at home in the heights,

       replying more boldly, a commander, a victor: oh who would not climb high mountains to behold such trees?

       The gloomy man, too, and the ill-constituted, refresh themselves at your tree, O Zarathustra; at your glance even the restless man grows secure and heals his heart.

       And truly, many eyes today are raised to your mountain and your tree; a great longing has arisen, and many have learned to ask: Who is Zarathustra?

       And he into whose ear you have ever poured your song and your honey: all the hidden men, the hermits and hermit-couples, say all at once to their hearts:

       "Does Zarathustra still live?  There is no longer any point in living, it is all one, everything is in vain: except we live with Zarathustra!"

       "Why does he not come, he who has proclaimed himself so long?" thus many ask.  "Has solitude devoured him?  Or should we perhaps go to him?"

       Now solitude itself yields and breaks apart and can no longer contain its dead.  the resurrected are to be seen everywhere.

       Now the waves rise and rise around your mountain, O Zarathustra.  And however high your height may be, many must reach up to you: your boat shall not sit in the dry for much longer.

       And that we despairing men have now come into your cave and are already no longer despairing: that is only a sigh and omen that better men are on their way to you;

       for this itself is on its way to you, the last remnant of God among men, that is: all men possessed by great longing, great disgust, great satiety,

       all who do not want to live except they learn to hope again - except they learn from you, O Zarathustra, the great hope!

 

       Thus spoke the king on the right and grasped Zarathustra's hand to kiss it; but Zarathustra resisted his adoration and stepped back startled, silently and abruptly, as if escaping into the far distance.  But after a short while he was again with his guests, regarded them with clear, questioning eyes, and said:

 

       My guests, you Higher Men, I will speak clearly and in plain German to you. It is not for you that I have been waiting in these mountains.

       ("Clearly and in plain German?  God help us!" said the king on the left to himself at this point; "it is clear he does not know the good Germans, this wise man from the East!

       "But he means 'uncouthly and in German' - very well!  Nowadays that is not in quite the worst taste!")

       Truly, you may all be Higher Men (Zarathustra went on): but for me - you are not high and strong enough.

       For me, that is to say: for the inexorable that is silent within me but will not always be silent.  And if you belong to me, it is not as my right arm.

       For he who himself stands on sick and tender legs, as you do, wants above all, whether he knows it or conceals it from himself: to be spared.

       My arms and my legs, however, I do not spare, I do not spare my warriors: how, then, could you be fit for my warfare?

       With you I should still spoil every victory.  And some of you would give in simply on hearing the loud beating of my drums.

       Neither are you handsome enough nor sufficiently well-born for me.  I need pure, smooth mirrors for my teaching; upon your surface even my own reflection is distorted.

       Many a burden, many a memory weighs down your shoulders; many an evil dwarf crouches in your corners.  And there is hidden mob in you, too.

       And although you are high and of a higher type, much in you is crooked and malformed.  There is no smith in the world who could hammer you straight and into shape for me.

       You are only bridges: may higher men than you step across upon you!  You are steps: so do not be angry with him who climbs over you into his height!

       From your seed there may one day grow for me a genuine son and perfect heir: but that is far ahead.  You yourselves are not those to whom my heritage and name belong.

       It is not for you that I wait here in these mountains, it is not with you that I may go down for the last time.  You have come to me only as omens that higher men are already on their way to me,

       not men possessed of great longing, great disgust, great satiety, and that which you called the remnant of God.

       No!  No!  Thrice No!  It is for others that I wait here in these mountains and I will not lift my foot from here without them,

       for higher, stronger, more victorious, more joyful men, such as are square-built in body and soul: laughing lions must come!

       O my guests, you strange men, have you yet heard nothing of my children?  And that they are on their way to me?

       Speak to me of my gardens, of my Blissful Islands, of my beautiful new race, why do you not speak of them?

       This guest-gift do I beg of your love, that you speak to me of my children.  In them I am rich, for them I became poor: what have I not given,

       what would I not give, to possess one thing: these children, this living garden, these trees of life of my will and of my highest hope!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra and suddenly halted in his discourse: for his longing overcame him and he closed his eyes and mouth because his heart was so moved.  And all his guests, too, remained silent and stood still and dismayed: except that the old prophet started to make signs with his hands and his features.

 

 

 

The Last Supper

 

FOR at this point the prophet interrupted the greeting of Zarathustra and his guests: he thrust himself forward like one with no time to lose, grasped Zarathustra's hand and cried: "But Zarathustra!

       "One thing is more necessary than another, so you say yourself: very well, one thing is now more necessary to me than all others.

       "A word in season: did you not invite me to a meal?  And here are many who have travelled far.  You don't intend to fob us off with speeches, do you?

       "Besides, you have all been thinking too much about freezing, drowning, choking, and other physical dangers: no-one, however, has thought about my danger, that is, starving - "

       (Thus spoke the prophet; but when Zarathustra's animals heard his words they ran off in terror.  For they saw that all they had brought home during the day would not suffice to cram this one philosopher.)

       "And dying of thirst," the prophet went on.  "And although I have heard water splashing here like speeches of wisdom, plenteous and unceasing: I - want wine!

       "Not everyone is a born water-drinker, like Zarathustra.  Neither is water of any use to weary and drooping men: we ought to have wine - that alone brings sudden recovery and unpremeditated health!"

       On this occasion, when the prophet desired wine, it happened that the kind on the left, the silent one, also found speech for once.  "We have provided for wine," he said, "I and my brother, the king on the right: we have wine enough - a whose ass's load of it.  So nothing is lacking but bread."

       "Bread?" replied Zarathustra laughing.  "It is precisely bread that hermits do not have.  But man does not live by bread alone, but also by the flesh of good lambs, of which I have two.

       "Let us quickly slaughter these and prepare them spicily with sage: that is how I like it.  And neither is there any lack of roots and fruits, fine enough for gourmets and epicures; nor of nuts and other riddles that need cracking.

       "Thus we shall very shortly partake of an excellent meal.  But whoever wants to eat with us must also lend a hand, even the kings.  For with Zarathustra even a king may be a cook."

       Everyone heartily agreed with this suggestion: except that the voluntary beggar exclaimed against flesh and wine and spices.

       "Just listen to this glutton Zarathustra!" he said jokingly: "does one take to caves and high mountains in order to partake of such meals?

       "To be sure, I now understand what he once taught us: 'Praised be a moderate poverty!' and why he wants to abolish beggars."

       "Be of good cheer," Zarathustra replied to him, "as I am.  Stick to your usual custom, admirable man: grind your corn, drink your water, praise your own cooking: if only it makes you happy!

       "I am a law only for my own, I am not a law for all.  But he who belongs to me must be strong-limbed and nimble-footed,

       "merry in way and feasting, no mournful man, no dreamy fellow, ready for what is hardest as for a feast, healthy and whole.

       "The best belongs to me and mine; and if we are not given it, we take it: the best food, the purest sky, the most robust thoughts, the fairest women!"

       Thus spoke Zarathustra; the kind on the right, however, replied: "Strange!  Did on ever hear such clever things from the mouth of a philosopher?

       "And truly, it is the rarest thing to find a philosopher clever as well as wise, and not an ass."

       Thus spoke the king on the right and wondered; the ass, however, maliciously replied to his speech with "Ye-a."  This, however, was the beginning of that long meal which is called 'The Last Supper' in this history books.  And during that meal nothing was spoken of but the Higher Man.

 

 

 

Of the Higher Man

 

1

 

WHEN I went to men for the first time, I committed the folly of hermits, the great folly: I set myself in the market-place.

       And when I spoke to everyone, I spoke to no-one.  In the evening, however, tight-rope walkers and corpses were my companions; and I myself was almost a corpse.

       With the new morning, however, came to me a new truth: then I learned to say: "What are the market-place and the mob and the mob's confusion and the mob's long ears to me!"

       You Higher Men, learn this from me: In the market-place no-one believes in Higher Men.  And if you want to speak there, very well, do so!  But the mob blink and say: "We are all equal."

       "You Higher Men" - thus the mob blink - "there are no Higher Men, we are all equal, man is but man, before God - we are all equal!"

       Before God!  But now this God has died.  And let us not be equal before the mob.  You Higher Men, depart from the market-place!

 

 

2

 

Before God!  But now this God has died!  You Higher Men, this God was your greatest danger.

       Only since he has lain in the grave have you again been resurrected.  Only now does the great noontide come, only now does the Higher Man become - lord and master!

       Have you understood this saying, O my brothers?  Are you terrified: do your hearts fail?   Does the abyss here yawn for you?  Does the hound of Hell here yelp at you?

       Very well!  Come on, you Higher Men!  Only now does the mountain of mankind's future labour.  God has died: now we desire - that the Superman shall live.

 

 

3

 

The most cautious people ask today: "How may man still be preserved?"  Zarathustra, however, asks as the sole and first one to do so: "How shall man be overcome?"

       The Superman lies close to my heart, he is my paramount and sole concern - and not man: not the nearest, not the poorest, not the most suffering, not the best.

       O my brothers, what I can love in man is that he is a going-across and a going-down.  And in you, too, there is much that makes me love and hope.

       That you have despised, you Higher Men, that makes me hope.  For the great despisers are the great reverers.

       That you have despaired, there is much to honour in that.  For you have not learned how to submit, you have not learned petty prudence.

       For today the petty people have become lord and master: they all preach submission and acquiescence and prudence and diligence and consideration and the long et cetera of petty virtues.

       What is womanish, what stems from slavishness and especially from the mob hotchpotch: that now wants to become master of mankind's entire destiny - oh disgust! disgust! disgust!

       That questions and questions and never tires: "How may man preserve himself best, longest, most agreeably?"  With that - they are masters of the present.

       Overcome for me these masters of the present, O my brothers - these petty people: they are the Superman's greatest danger!

       Overcome, you Higher Men, the petty virtues, the petty prudences, the sand-grain discretion, the ant-swarm inanity, miserable ease, the 'happiness of the greatest number'!

       And rather despair than submit.  And truly, I love you because you do not know how to live today, you Higher Men!  For thus do you - live best!

 

 

4

 

Do you possess courage, O my brothers?  Are you stout-hearted?  Not courage in the presence of witnesses, but hermits' and eagles' courage, which not even a god observes any more?

       I do not call cold-spirited, mulish, blind, or intoxicated men stout-hearted.  He possesses heart who knows fear but masters fear; who sees the abyss, but with an eagle's eyes - he who grasps the abyss with an eagle's claws: he possesses courage.

 

 

5

 

"Man is evil" - all the wisest men have told me that to comfort me.  Ah, if only it be true today!  For evil is man's best strength.

       "Man must grow better and more evil" - thus do I teach.  The most evil is necessary for the Superman's best.

       It may have been good for that preacher of the petty people to bear and suffer the sin of man.  I, however, rejoice in great sin as my great consolation.

       But these things are not said for long ears.  Neither does every word belong in every mouth.  They are subtle, remote things: sheep's hooves ought not to grasp for them!

 

 

6

 

You Higher Men, do you think I am here to put right what you have done badly?

       Or that I mean henceforth to make more comfortable beds for you sufferers?  Or show you restless, erring, straying men new, easier footpaths?

       No!  No!  Thrice No!  More and more, better and better men of your kind must perish - for life must be harder and harder for you.  Only thus,

       only thus does man grow to the height where the lightning can strike and shatter him: high enough for the lightning!

       My mind and longing go out to the few, the protracted, the remote things: what are your many, little, brief miseries to me!

       You have not yet suffered enough!  For you suffer from yourselves, you have not yet suffered from man.  You would lie if you said otherwise!  None of you suffer from what I have suffered.

 

 

7

 

It does not suffice me that the lightning no longer does harm.  I do not want to conduct it away: it shall learn - to work for me.

       My wisdom has long collected itself like a cloud, it is growing stiller and darker.  Thus does every wisdom that shall one day give birth to lightnings.

       I do not want to be light for these men of the present, or be called light by them.  These men - I want to blind: lightning of my wisdom! put out their eyes!

 

 

8

 

Do not will beyond your powers: there is an evil falsity about those who will beyond their powers.

       Especially when they will great things!  For they awaken mistrust of great things, these subtle fabricators and actors:

       until at last they are false to themselves, squint-eyes, white-washed rottenness, cloaked with clever words, with pretended virtues, with glittering, false deeds.

       Guard yourselves well against that, you Higher Men!  For I count nothing more valuable and rare today than honesty.

       Does this present not belong to the mob?  The mob, however, does not know what is great or small, what is straight and honest: it is innocently crooked, it always lies.

 

 

9

 

Have a healthy mistrust today, you Higher Men, you stout-hearted, open-hearted men!  And keep your reasons secret!  For this present belongs to the mob.

       Who could overturn with reasons what the mob has once learned to believe without reasons?

       And in the market-place one convinces with gestures.  But reasons make the mob mistrustful.

       And when truth has triumphed for once, then you have asked with healthy mistrust: "What mighty error has fought for it?"

       Be on your guard, too, against the learned!  They hate you: for they are unfruitful!  They have cold, dried-up eyes, before which all birds lie stripped of their feathers.

       They boast that they do not tell lies: but inability to lie is far from being love of truth.  Be on your guard!

       Freedom from fever is far from being knowledge!  I do not believe frozen spirits.  He who cannot lie does not know what truth is.

 

 

10

 

If you want to rise high, use your own legs!  Do not let yourselves be carried up, do not sit on the backs and heads of strangers!

       But did you mount a horse?  Do you now ride pell-mell up to your goal?  Very well, my friend!  But your lame foot also sits with you on your horse!

       When you reach your goal, when you jump from your horse: precisely upon your height, you Higher Men, will you stumble!

 

 

11

 

You creators, you Higher Men!  One is pregnant only with one's own child.

       Let nothing impose upon you, nothing persuade you!  For who is your neighbour?  And if you do things 'for your neighbour', still you do not create for him!

       Unlearn this 'for', you creators: your very virtue wants you to have nothing to do with 'for' and 'for the sake of' and 'because'.  You should stop your ears to these false little words.

       This 'for one's neighbour' is the virtue only of petty people: there they say 'birds of a feather' and 'one good turn deserves another' - they have neither right to nor strength for your selfishness!

       The prudence and providence of pregnancy is in your selfishness!  What no-one has yet seen, the fruit: that is protected and indulged and nourished by your whole love.

       Where your whole love is, with your child, there too is your whole virtue!  Your work, your will is your 'neighbour': let no false values persuade you otherwise!

 

 

12

 

You creators, you Higher Men!  Whoever has to give birth is sick; but whoever has given birth is unclean.

       Ask the women: one does not give birth for pleasure.  The pain makes hens and poets cackle.

       You creators, there is much in you that is unclean.  That is because you have to be mothers.

       A new child: oh how much new filth has also entered the world!  Go aside!  And whoever has given birth should wash his soul clean!

 

 

13

 

Do not be virtuous beyond your powers!  And do not ask anything improbable of yourselves!

       Follow in the footsteps of your fathers' virtue!  How would you climb high if the will of your fathers did not climb with you?

       But he who wants to be a first-born should see that he does not also become a last-born!  And you should not pretend to be saints in those matters in which your fathers were vicious!

       He whose fathers passed their time with women, strong wine, and roast pork, what would it be if he demanded chastity of himself?

       It would be a piece of folly!  Truly, I think it would be much for such a one to be the husband of one or two or three women.

       And if he founded monasteries and wrote above the doors: 'The way to holiness', I should still say: What of it! it is another piece of folly!

       He has founded for himself a house of refuge and correction: much good may it do him!  But I have no faith in it.

       It is what one takes into solitude that grows there, the beast within included.  And so, many should be dissuaded from solitude.

       Has there ever been anything filthier on earth than the saints of the desert?  Not only the devil was loose around them - but the swine, too.

 

 

14

 

Timid, ashamed, awkward, like a tiger whose leap has failed: this is how I have often seen you slink aside, you Higher Men.  A throw you made had failed.

       But what of that, you dice-throwers!  You have not learned to play and mock as a man ought to play and mock!  Are we not always seated at a great table for play and mockery?

       And if great things you attempted have turned out failures, does that mean you yourselves are - failures?  And if you yourselves have turned out failures, does that mean - man is a failure?  If man has turned out a failure, however: very well! come on!

 

 

15

 

The higher its type, the less does a thing succeed.  You Higher Men here, are you not all - failures?

       Be of good courage, what does it matter!  How much is still possible!  Learn to laugh at yourselves as a man ought to laugh!

       And no wonder you have failed and half succeeded, you half-broken men!  Does there not strive and struggle in you - mankind's future?

       Mankind's most distant, most profound questions, his reaching to the furthest stars, his prodigious power: does all that not foam together in your pot?

       No wonder many a pot is shattered!  Learn to laugh at yourselves, as a man ought to laugh.  You Higher Men, oh how much is still possible!

       And truly, how much has already succeeded!  How rich this earth is in good little perfect things, in well-constituted things!

       Set good little perfect things around you, you Higher Men!  Things whose golden ripeness heals the heart.  Perfect things teach hope.

 

 

16

 

What has been the greatest sin here on earth?  Was it not the saying of him who said: "Woe to those who laugh!"

       Did he himself find on earth no reason for laughter?  If so, he sought badly.  Even a child could find reasons.

       He - did not love sufficiently: otherwise he would also have loved us, the laughers!  But he hated and jeered at us, he promised us wailing and gnashing of teeth.

       Does one then straightway have to curse where one does not love?  That - seems to me bad taste.  But that is what he did, this uncompromising man.  He sprang from the mob.

       And he himself did not love sufficiently: otherwise he would not have been so angry that he was not loved.  Great love does not desire love - it desires more.

       Avoid all such uncompromising men!  They are a poor, sick type, a mob type: they look upon this life with an ill will, they have an evil eye for this earth.

       Avoid all such uncompromising men!  They have heavy feet and sultry hearts - they do not know how to dance.  How could the earth be light to such men!

 

 

17

 

All good things approach their goal crookedly.  Like cats they arch their backs, they purr inwardly at their approaching happiness - all good things laugh.

       His step betrays whether a man is stepping along his own path: so watch me walk!  But he who approaches his goal, dances.

       And truly, I have not become a statue, I do not stand here stiff, stumpy, stony, a pillar; I love to run fast.

       And although there are swamps and thick afflictions on earth, he who has light feet runs even across mud and dances as upon swept ice.

       Lift up your hearts, my brothers, high, higher!  And do not forget your legs!  Lift up your legs, too, you fine dancers: and better still, stand on your heads!

 

 

18

 

This laugher's crown, this rose-wreath crown: I myself have set this crown on my head, I myself have canonized my laughter.  I have found no other strong enough for it today.

       Zarathustra the dancer, Zarathustra the light, who beckons with his wings, ready for flight, beckoning to all birds, prepared and ready, blissfully light-hearted:

       Zarathustra the prophet, Zarathustra the laughing prophet, no impatient nor uncompromising man, one who loves jumping and escapades; I myself have set this crown on my head!

 

 

19

 

Lift up your hearts, my brothers, high! higher!  And do not forget your legs!  Lift up your legs, too, you fine dancers: and better still, stand on your heads!

       There are beasts who are heavy-footed even in happiness, there are those who are clumsy-footed from birth.  They exert themselves strangely, like an elephant trying to stand on its head.

       But better to be foolish with happiness than foolish with misfortune, better to dance clumsily than to walk lamely.  So learn from me my wisdom: even the worst thing has two good sides,

       even the worst thing has good dancing legs: so learn, you Higher Men, how to stand on your own proper legs!

       So unlearn trumpeting of affliction and all mob-sorrowfulness!  Oh how sad the Jack Puddings of the mob seem to me at present!  This present, however, belongs to the mob.

 

 

20

 

Be like the wind when it rushes forth from its mountain caves: it will dance to its own pipe, the seas tremble and leap under its footsteps.

       That which gives wings to asses and milks lionesses, all praise to that unruly spirit that comes to all the present and all the mob like a storm-wind,

       - that is enemy to all thistle-heads and prying noses and to all withered leaves and weeds: all praise to that wild, good, free storm-spirit that dances upon swamps and afflictions as upon meadows!

       That hates the wasted dogs of the mob and all the ill-constituted brood of gloom: all praise to this spirit of all free spirits, the laughing storm that blows dust in the eyes of all the dim-sighted and ulcerated.

       You Higher Men, the worst about you is: none of you has learned to dance as a man ought to dance - to dance beyond yourselves!  What does it matter that you are failures!

       How much is still possible!  So learn to laugh beyond yourselves!  Lift up your hearts, you fine dancers, high! higher! and do not forget to laugh well!

       This laugher's crown, this rose-wreath crown: to you, my brothers, do I thrown this crown!  I have canonized laughter; you Higher Men, learn - to laugh!

 

 

 

 

The Song of Melancholy

 

1

 

ZARATHUSTRA was standing near the door of his cave as he spoke this discourse; with the final words, however, he escaped from his guests and fled for a short while into the open air.

       "Oh pure odours around me," he exclaimed, "oh blissful stillness around me!  But where are my animals?  Come here, come here, my eagle and my serpent!

       "Tell me, my animals: all these Higher Men - do they perhaps not smell well?  Oh pure odours around me!  Only now do I know and feel how I love you, my animals."

       And Zarathustra said again: "I love you, my animals!"  But the eagle and the serpent pressed around him when he said these words, and looked up at him.  All three stood silently together in this attitude, and sniffed and breathed in the good air together.  For the air here outside was better than with the Higher Men.

 

 

2

 

Hardly had Zarathustra left his cave, however, when the old sorcerer got up, looked cunningly around, and said: He has gone out!

       And already, you Higher Men - if I may tickle you with this name of praise and flattery, as he does - already my evil spirit of deceit and sorcery attacks me, my melancholy devil,

       who is an adversary of this Zarathustra from the very heart: forgive him for it!  Now he insists on working charms before you, now he has his hour; I wrestle in vain with this evil spirit.

       To all of you, whatever honours you may bestow upon yourselves with words, whether you call yourselves 'the free spirits' or 'the truthful', or 'the penitents of the spirit' or 'the unfettered' or 'the great desirers',

       to all of you who, like me, suffer from the great disgust, for whom the old God has dies and as yet no new God lies in cradles and swaddling clothes - to all of you is my evil spirit and sorcery-devil well-disposed.

       I know you, Higher Men, I know him - I also know this demon whom I love despite myself, this Zarathustra: he himself often seems to me like the beautiful mask of a saint,

       like a strange, new masquerade in which my evil spirit, the melancholy devil, takes pleasure - I love Zarathustra, so I often think, for the sake of my evil spirit.

       But already he is attacking me and compelling me, this spirit of melancholy, this evening-twilight devil: and truly, you Higher Men, he has a desire

       - just open your eyes! - he has a desire to come naked, whether as man or woman I do not yet know: but he is coming, he is compelling me, alas!  Open your senses!

       Day is fading away, now evening is coming to all things, even to the best things; listen now, and see, you Higher Men, what devil, whether man or woman, this spirit of evening melancholy is!

 

       Thus spoke the old sorcerer, who looked cunningly around and then seized his harp.

 

 

3

 

                                                                  When the air grows clear,

                                                                  When the dew's comfort

                                                                  Rains down upon the earth,

                                                                  Invisible and unheard -

                                                                  For dew the comforter

                                                                  Wears tender shoes like all that gently comforts:

                                                                  Do you then remember, do you, hot heart,

                                                                  How once you thirsted

                                                                  For heavenly tears and dew showers,

                                                                  Thirsted, scorched and weary,

                                                                  While on yellow grassy paths

                                                                  Wicked evening sunlight-glances

                                                                  Ran about you through dark trees,

                                                                  Blinding, glowing sunlight-glances, malicious?

 

                                                                  "The wooer of truth?  You?" - so they jeered -

                                                                  "No!  Only a poet!

                                                                  An animal, cunning, preying, creeping,

                                                                  That has to lie,

                                                                  That knowing, wilfully has to lie:

                                                                  Lusting for prey,

                                                                  Motley-masked,

                                                                  A mask to itself,

                                                                  A prey to itself -

                                                                  That - the wooer of truth?

                                                                  No!  Only a fool!  Only a poet!

                                                                  Only speaking motley,

                                                                  Crying out of fools-masks,

                                                                  Stalking around on deceitful word-bridges,

                                                                  On motley rainbows,

                                                                  Between a false heaven

                                                                  And a false earth,

                                                                  Soaring, hovering about -

                                                                  Only a fool!  Only a poet!

 

                                                                  That - the wooer of truth?

                                                                  Not still, stiff, smooth, cold,

                                                                  Become an image,

                                                                  Become a god's statue,

                                                                  Not set up before temples,

                                                                  A god's watchman:

                                                                  No! enemy to such statues of truth,

                                                                  More at home in any wilderness than before temples,

                                                                  Full of cat's wantonness,

                                                                  Leaping through every window,

                                                                  Swiftly! into every chance,

                                                                  Sniffing out every jungle,

                                                                  Sniffing with greedy longing,

                                                                  That you may run,

                                                                  Sinfully-healthy and motley and fair,

                                                                  In jungles among motley-specked beasts of prey,

                                                                  Run with lustful lips,

                                                                  Happily jeering, happily hellish, happily blood-thirsty,

                                                                  Preying, creeping, lying:

 

                                                                  Or like the eagle staring

                                                                  Long, long into abysses,

                                                                  Into its abysses:

                                                                  Oh how they circle down,

                                                                  Under and in,

                                                                  Inter ever deeper depths!

                                                                  Then,

                                                                  Suddenly, with straight aim,

                                                                  Quivering flight,

                                                                  They pounce on lambs,

                                                                  Headlong down, ravenous,

                                                                  Lusting for lambs,

                                                                  Angry at all lamb-souls,

                                                                  Fiercely angry at all that look

                                                                  Sheepish, lamb-eyed, curly-woolled,

                                                                  Grey with lamb-sheep kindliness!

 

                                                                  Thus,

                                                                  Eaglelike, pantherlike,

                                                                  Are the poet's desires,

                                                                  Are your desires under a thousand masks,

                                                                  You fool!  You poet!

 

                                                                  You saw man

                                                                  As God and sheep:

                                                                  To rend the God in man

                                                                  As the sheep in man,

                                                                  And in rending to laugh -

 

                                                                  That, that is your blessedness!

                                                                  A panther's and eagle's blessedness!

                                                                  A poet's and fool's blessedness!"

 

                                                                  When the air grows clear,

                                                                  When the moon's sickle

                                                                  Creeps along, green,

                                                                  Envious, in the purple twilight:

                                                                  Enemy to day,

                                                                  With every step secretly

                                                                  Sickling down

                                                                  The hanging rose-gardens,

                                                                  Until they sink,

                                                                  Sink down, pale, down to night:

 

                                                                  So sank I once

                                                                  From my delusion of truth,

                                                                  From my daytime longings,

                                                                  Weary of day, sick with light,

                                                                  Sank downwards, down to evening, down to shadows:

                                                                  Scorched and thirsty

                                                                  With one truth:

                                                                  Do you remember, do you, hot heart,

                                                                  How you thirsted then?

                                                                  That I am banished

                                                                  From all truth,

                                                                  Only a fool!

                                                                  Only a poet!

 

 

 

Of Science

 

THUS sang the sorcerer; and all who were present went like birds unawares into the net of his cunning and melancholy voluptuousness.  Only the conscientious man of the spirit was not captured: he quickly snatched the harp away from the sorcerer and cried: "Air! Let in good air!  Let Zarathustra in!  You are making this cave sultry and poisonous, you evil old sorcerer!

       "You seduce to unknown desires and wildernesses, you false, subtle man.  And alas, when such as you chatter and make ado about truth!

       "Woe to all free spirits who are not on their guard against such sorcerers!  Their freedom is done with: you teach and lure back into prisons,

       "you old melancholy devil, a luring bird-call sounds from your lamenting, you are like those who with their praise of chastity secretly invite to voluptuousness!"

       Thus spoke the conscientious man of the spirit; the old sorcerer, however, looked around him, enjoyed his victory, and on that account swallowed the displeasure the conscientious man had caused him.  "Be quiet!" he said in a modest voice, "good songs want to echo well; one should be long silent after good songs.

       "That is what all of them are doing, these Higher Men.  But you, perhaps, have understood little of my song?  There is little of the spirit of sorcery in you."

       "You praise me," replied the conscientious man, "when you separate me from yourself.  Very well!  But you others, what do I see?  You are all sitting there with lustful eyes:

       "You free souls, where has your freedom fled!  You almost seem like men who have been gazing long at wicked girls dancing naked: your very souls are dancing!

       "There must be more of that which the sorcerer called his evil spirit of sorcery and deceit in you, you Higher Men - we must surely be different.

       "And truly, we talked and thought together enough, before Zarathustra came home to his cave, for me to know: we are different.

       "We seek different things - even up here, you and I.  For I seek more security, that is why I came to Zarathustra.  For he is still the surest tower and will

       “- today, when everything is tottering, when all the earth quakes.  But you, when I see what eyes you make, almost seem to me to be seeking more insecurity,

       "more horror, more danger, more earthquaking.  You have a desire, I almost think, forgive me my presumption, you Higher men,

       "you have a desire for the worst, most dangerous kind of life that terrifies me the most, for the life of wild animals, for the forests, caves, steep mountains, and labyrinths.

       "And it is not those who lead out of danger that please you best, but those who lad you astray from all paths, the misleaders.  But if you actually harbour such desires, they seem to me, nevertheless, to be impossible.

       "For fear - that is man's original and fundamental sensation; everything is explained by fear, original sin and original virtue.  From fear grew also my virtue, which is called: science.

       "For fear of wild animals - that has been fostered in man the longest, including the animal he hides and fears within himself - Zarathustra calls it 'the beast within'.

       "This protracted, ancient fear at length grown subtle, spiritual, intellectual - today, it seems to me, it is called: science."

       Thus spoke the conscientious man; but Zarathustra, who had just come back to his cave and had heard and understood the last discourse, threw the conscientious man a handful of roses and laughed at his 'truths'.  "What," he cried, "what did I just hear?  Truly, I think you are a fool, or I myself am one: and I shall straightway stand your 'truth' on its head.

       "For fear - is the exception with us.  Courage, however, and adventure and joy in the unknown, the unattempted - courage seems to me the whole pre-history of man.

       "He has envied the wildest, most courageous animals all their virtues and robbed them of them: only thus did he become - man.

       "This courage, at length grown subtle, spiritual, intellectual, this human courage with eagle's wings and serpent's wisdom: this, it seems to me, is today called - "

       "Zarathustra!" all those sitting together cried as if from a single mouth and burst into a great peal of laughter; and it was as if a heavy cloud had risen from off them.  Even the sorcerer laughed and said prudently: "Well!  My evil spirit has departed!

       "And did I myself not warn you against him, when I said he was a deceiver, a spirit of deceit and lies?

       "And especially when he shows himself naked.  But how can I prevent his pranks!  Did I create him and the world?

       "Very well!  Let us be good again and of good cheer!  And although Zarathustra looks ill-temperedly - just see him! he is angry with me:

       "before night comes he will again learn to love and praise me, he cannot live long without committing such follies.

       "He - loves his enemies: he understands this art better than anyone I have seen.  But he takes revenge for that - on his friends!"

       Thus spoke the old sorcerer, and the Higher Men applauded him: so that Zarathustra went round and mischievously and lovingly shook hands with his friends, like one who has to make amends and apologize to everyone for something.  As he came to the door of his cave, however, he already felt again a desire for the good air outside and for his animals, and he was about to slip out.

      

 

 

Among the Daughters of the Desert

 

1

 

DO not go! (said then the wanderer who called himself Zarathustra's shadow) stay with us, otherwise the old, dull affliction may again assail us.

       That old sorcerer has already done his worst for our benefit, and just look, the good, pious pope there has tears in his eyes and has again embarked on the sea of melancholy.

       These kings there may still put on a brave face before us: for they have learned that better than any of us today!  But had they no witnesses, I wager that with them, too, the bitter business would begin again - the bitter business of drifting clouds, of damp melancholy, of veiled skies, of stolen suns, of howling autumn winds,

       the bitter business of our howling and cries of distress: stay with us, O Zarathustra!  Here there is much hidden misery that wants to speak out, much evening, much cloud, much damp air!

       You have fed us with strong man's fare and nourishing sayings: do not let us, for dessert, be assailed again by delicate, effeminate spirits!

       You alone make the air around you robust and clear!  Have I ever found on earth such good air as with you in your cave?

       I have seen many lands, my nose has learned to test and appraise many kinds of air: but with you my nostrils taste their greatest delight!

       Except, except - oh forgive an old memory!  Forgive me an old after-dinner song that I once composed among the daughters of the desert -

       for with them there was the same good, clear, oriental air, there I was farthest away from cloudy, damp, melancholy Old Europe!

       In those days I loved such oriental girls and other blue kingdoms of heaven, over which no clouds and no thoughts hung.

       You would not believe how prettily they sat there when they were not dancing, deep but without thoughts, like little secrets, like ribboned riddles, like after-dinner nuts -

       motley and strange indeed! but without clouds: riddles that one can read: to please such girls I then devised an after-dinner psalm.

 

       Thus spoke the wander and shadow; and before anyone could answer him he had seized the old sorcerer's harp, crossed his legs, and looked calmly and sagely about him - with his nostrils, however, he drew in the air slowly and inquiringly, like someone tasting strange air in strange lands.  Thereupon he began to sing with a kind of roaring.

 

2

 

Deserts grow: woe to him who harbours deserts!

 

                                                                  Ha!  Solemnly!

                                                                  Solemnly indeed!

                                                                  A worthy beginning!

                                                                  Solemnly in an African way!

                                                                  Worthy of a lion

                                                                  Or of a moral screech-ape

                                                                  - but it is nothing for you,

                                                                  You desert maidens,

                                                                  At whose feet I,

                                                                  For the first time,

                                                                  A European under palm-trees,

                                                                  Am permitted to sit.  Selah.

 

                                                                  Wonderful, truly!

                                                                  Here I now sit,

                                                                  Beside the desert, and

                                                                  Yet so far from the desert,

                                                                  And in no way devastated:

                                                                  For I am swallowed down

                                                                  By the smallest oasis:

                                                                  - it simply opened, yawning,

                                                                  Its sweetest mouth,

                                                                  The sweetest-smelling of all little mouths:

                                                                  Then I fell in,

                                                                  Down, straight through - among you,

                                                                  You dearest maidens!  Selah.

 

                                                                  All hail to that whale

                                                                  If it made things so pleasant

                                                                  For its guests! - you understand

                                                                  My learned allusion?

                                                                  All hail to his belly

                                                                  If it was

                                                                  As sweet an oasis-belly

                                                                  As this is: which, however, I call in question,

                                                                  - since I come from Europe,

                                                                  Which is more sceptical than

                                                                  Any little old wife.

                                                                  May God improve it!

                                                                  Amen!

 

                                                                  Here I now sit

                                                                  In this smallest oasis

                                                                  Like a date,

                                                                  Brown, sweet, oozing golden,

                                                                  Longing for a girl's rounded mouth,

                                                                  But longing more for girlish,

                                                                  Ice-cold, snow-white, cutting

                                                                  Teeth: for these do

                                                                  The hearts of all hot dates lusts.  Selah.

 

                                                                  Like, all too like

                                                                  That aforesaid southern fruit

                                                                  Do I lie here, by little

                                                                  Flying insects

                                                                  Sniffed and played around,

                                                                  And by even smaller,

                                                                  More foolish and more sinful

                                                                  Wishes and notions,

                                                                  Besieged by you,

                                                                  You silent girl-kittens

                                                                  Full of misgivings,

                                                                  Dudu and Suleika,

                                                                  Sphinxed round, that I may cram

                                                                  Much feeling into two words:

                                                                  (May God forgive me

                                                                  This sin of speech!)

                                                                  I sit here sniffing the finest air,

                                                                  Air of Paradise, truly,

                                                                  Bright, buoyant air, gold-streaked,

                                                                  As good air as ever

                                                                  Fell from the moon -

                                                                  Came it by chance

                                                                  Or did it happen by wantonness,

                                                                  As the old poets tell?

                                                                  I, doubted, however, call it

                                                                  In question; since I come

                                                                  From Europe,

                                                                  Which is more sceptical than any

                                                                  Little old wife.

                                                                  May God improve it!

                                                                  Amen.

 

                                                                  Drinking in the fairest air,

                                                                  With nostrils swollen like goblets,

                                                                  Without future, without memories,

                                                                  Thus do I sit here, you

                                                                  Dearest maidens,

                                                                  And regard the palm-tree,

                                                                  And watch how, like a dancer,

                                                                  It bends and bows and sways at the hips,

                                                                  - if one watches long one follows suit!

                                                                  Like a dancer who, it would seem,

                                                                  Has stood long, dangerously long,

                                                                  Always on one little leg?

                                                                  - so that she has forgotten, it would seem,

                                                                  Her other leg?

                                                                  At least, in vain

                                                                  I sought the missing

                                                                  Twin-jewel

                                                                  - that is, the other leg -

                                                                  In the sacred vicinity

                                                                  Of her dearest, daintiest

                                                                  Little fluttering, flickering, fan-swirling skirt.

                                                                  Yes, if you would quite believe me,

                                                                  You sweet maidens:

                                                                  She has lost it!

                                                                  It has gone!

                                                                  Gone for ever!

                                                                  That other leg!

                                                                  Oh, what a shame about the other dear leg!

                                                                  Where can it now be, sorrowing forsaken?

                                                                  That lonely leg?

                                                                  Perhaps in fear before an

                                                                  Angry, blonde-maned

                                                                  Lion-monster?  Or perhaps even

                                                                  Gnawed off, broken in pieces -

                                                                  Pitiable, alas! alas! broken in pieces!  Selah.

 

                                                                  Oh do not weep,

                                                                  Gentle hearts!

                                                                  Do not weep, you

                                                                  Date-hearts!  Milk-bosoms!

                                                                  You heart-caskets

                                                                  Of sweetwood!

                                                                  Do not weep

                                                                  Pale Dudu!

                                                                  Be a man, Suleika!  Courage!  Courage!

                                                                  - Or would perhaps

                                                                  Something bracing, heart-bracing,

                                                                  Be in place here?

                                                                  An anointed proverb?

                                                                  A solemn exhortation?

                                                                  Ha!  Up, dignity!

                                                                  Virtuous dignity!  European dignity!

                                                                  Blow, blow a gain,

                                                                  Bellows of virtue!

                                                                  Ha!

                                                                  Roar once again,

                                                                  Roar morally!

                                                                  Roar like a moral lion

                                                                  Before the daughters of the desert!

                                                                  For virtuous howling,

                                                                  You dearest maidens,

                                                                  Is loved best of all by

                                                                  European ardour, European appetite!

                                                                  And here I stand now,

                                                                  As European,

                                                                  I cannot do otherwise, so help me God!

                                                                  Amen!

 

Deserts grow: woe to him who harbours deserts!

 

 

 

The Awakening

 

1

 

AFTER the song of the wanderer and shadow, the cave suddenly became full of noise and laughter: and as the assembled guests were all speaking together and even the ass no longer remained silent in the face of such encouragement, Zarathustra was overcome by a little repugnance and scorn towards his visitors: although, at the same time, he rejoiced at their gaiety.  For it seems to him to be a sign of recovery.  Se he stole out into the open air and spoke with his animals.

       "Where is their distress now?" he said, and already he was breathing again after his little disgust, "it seems that in my home they have unlearned distressful crying!

       "although, unhappily, not yet crying itself."  And Zarathustra stopped his ears, for just then the 'Ye-a' of the ass mingled strangely with the loud rejoicing of these Higher Men.

       "They are merry," he began again, "and, who knows, perhaps at the expense of their host.  And if they have learned laughing from me, still it is not my laughter they have learned.

       "But what of it!  They are old men: they recover in their own way, they laugh in their own way; my ears have suffered worse things and not been annoyed.

       "This day is a victory: it wavers already, it flees, the Spirit of Gravity, my old arch-enemy!  How well this day is ending, that began so ill and so gravely!

       "And it is ending.  Evening has already come: it is riding over the sea to us; that excellent horseman!  How it sways, joyfully returning, in its purple saddle!

       "The sky gazes, clear, upon it, the world lies deep: O all you strange men who have come to me, it is already worthy while to live with me!"

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.  And then the shouting and laughter of the Higher Men again came from the cave: it had started again.

       "They are biting, my bait is effective, before them too their enemy, the Spirit of Gravity, is wavering.  Already they are learning to laugh at themselves: do I hear aright?

       "My man's fare, my succulent and strengthening discourse, is effective: and truly, I did not feed them with distending vegetables!  But with warriors' food, with conquerors' food: I awakened new desires.

       "There are new hopes in their arms and legs, their hearts are stretching themselves.  They are discovering new words, soon their spirits will breathe wantonness.

       "To be sure, such food may not be for children, or for fond little women, old or young.  Their stomachs are persuaded otherwise; I am not their teacher or physician.

       "These Higher Men's disgust is wavering: very well! that is my victory.  They are growing assured in my kingdom, all stupid shame is leaving them, they are unburdening themselves.

       "They are unburdening their hearts, good hours are coming back to them, they take their ease and ruminate - they grow thankful.

       "This I take for the best sign: they grow thankful.  Before long they will be devising festivals and erecting memorials to their old joys.

       "They are convalescents!"  Thus spoke Zarathustra gaily to his heart and gazed out; his animals, however, pressed around him and respected his happiness and his silence.

 

 

2

 

But suddenly Zarathustra's ear was startled: for the cave, which had been full of noise and laughter, all at once became deathly still; his nose, however, smelt a sweet-smelling vapour and incense, as if of burning pine-cones.

       "What is happening?  What are they doing?" he asked himself, and stole to the entrance, so that he might behold his guests unobserved.  But, wonder upon wonders! what did he then see with his own eyes!

       "They have all become pious again, they are praying, they are mad!" he said, and was astounded beyond measure.  And indeed, all these Higher Men, the two kings, the retired pope, the evil sorcerer, the voluntary beggar, the wanderer and shadow, the old prophet, the conscientious man of the spirit, and the ugliest man: they were all kneeling like children and credulous old women, and worshipping the ass.  And at that very moment the ugliest man began to gurgle and snort, as if something unutterable was trying to get out of him; but when he actually reached the point of speech, behold, it was a strange, pious litany in praise of the worshipped and perfumed ass.  The litany went thus:

 

       Amen!  And praise and honour and wisdom and thanks and glory and strength be to our God for ever and ever!

       The ass, however, brayed "Ye-a".

       He bears our burden, he has taken upon himself the likeness of a slave, he is patient from the heart and he never says Nay; and he who loves his God, chastises him.

       The ass, however, brayed "Ye-a".

       He does not speak, except always to say Yea to the world he created: thus he praises his world.  It is his subtlety that does not speak: thus he is seldom through wrong.

       The ass, however, brayed "Ye-a".

       He goes through the world unpretentiously.  Grey is the favourite colour in which he wraps his virtue.  If he has spirit, he conceals it; but everyone believes in his long ears.

       The ass, however, brayed "Ye-a".

       What hidden wisdom it is, that he wears long ears and says only Yea and never Nay!  Has he not created the world after his own image, that is, as stupid as possible?

       The ass, however, brayed "Ye-a".

       You go straight and crooked ways; you care little what we men think straight or crooked.  Your kingdom is beyond good and evil.  It is your innocence not to know what innocence is.

       The ass, however, brayed "Ye-a".

       For behold, how you spurn no-one, not beggars nor kings.  You suffer little children to come to you, and when bad boys bait you, you simply say "Ye-a".

       You love she-asses and fresh figs, you eat anything.  A thistle titillates your heart, if you happen to be hungry.  The wisdom of a god is in that.

       The ass, however, brayed "Ye-a".

 

 

 

The Ass Festival

 

1

 

AT this point in the litany, however, Zarathustra could no longer master himself; he cried out "Ye-a" louder even than the ass, and sprang into the midst of his guests gone mad.  "But what are you doing, my friends?" he cried, pulling the worshippers up from the ground.  "Woe to you if anyone else but Zarathustra had seen you.

       "Everyone would adjudge you, with your new faith, to be the worst blasphemers or the most foolish of old women!

       "And you, old pope, how can you reconcile yourself to worshipping an ass as God in this way?"

       "O Zarathustra," answered the pope, "forgive me, but in divine matters I am even more enlightened than you.  That stands to reason.

       "Better to worship God in this shape than in no shape at all!  Consider this saying, my exalted friend: you will quickly see that there is wisdom in such a saying.

       "He who said 'God is a spirit' took the biggest step and leap towards unbelief yet taken on earth: such a saying is not easily corrected!

       "My old heart leaps and bounds to know that there is something left on earth to worship.  Forgive a pious old pope's heart that, O Zarathustra!"

       "And you,“ said Zarathustra to the wanderer and shadow, "you call and think yourself a free spirit?  And do you carry on here such priestly idolatries?

       "Truly, you behave here even worse than you did with your wicked brown maidens, you evil new believer!"

       "It is bad enough," answered the wanderer and shadow, "you are right: but what can I do!  The old God lives again, O Zarathustra, you may say what you will.

       "It is all the fault of the ugliest man: he has awakened him again.  And if he says that he once killed him: with gods, death is always only a prejudice."

       "And you," said Zarathustra, "you evil old sorcerer, what were you doing?  Who in this free age shall believe in you henceforth, if you believe in such godly asininities?

       "What you did was a stupidity; how could you, prudent man, do anything so stupid!"

       "O Zarathustra," answered the prudent sorcerer, "you are right, it was a stupidity, and it was hard enough to do it."

       "And even you," said Zarathustra to the conscientious man of the spirit, "just consider, and lay your finger on your nose!  For is there nothing here against your conscience?  Is your spirit not too pure for this praying and the exhalations of these devotees?"

       "There is something in it," answered the conscientious man and laid his finger on his nose, "there is something in this spectacle which even does my conscience good.

       "I may not believe in God, perhaps: but it is certain that God seems to me most worthy of belief in this form.

       "God is supposed to be eternal according to the testimony of the most pious: he who has so much time takes his time.  As slow and as stupid as possible: but such a one can in that way go very far, nonetheless.

       "And he who has too much spirit might well become infatuated with stupidity and folly.  Consider yourself, O Zarathustra!

       "You yourself - truly! even you could become an ass through abundance and wisdom.

       "Does a consummate philosopher not like to walk on the most crooked paths?  Appearance teaches it, O Zarathustra - your appearance!"

       "And you yourself, finally," said Zarathustra and turned towards the ugliest man, who was still lying on the ground raising his arm up to the ass (for he was giving it wine to drink).  "Speak, you unutterable creature, what have you been doing?

       "You seem changed, your eyes are glowing, the mantle of the sublime covers your ugliness: what did you do?

       "Is it true what they say, that you have awakened him again?  And why?  Was he not with reason killed and done away with?

       "You yourself seem awakened: what did you do?  Why did you reform?  Why were you converted?  Speak, you unutterable creature!"

       "O Zarathustra," answered the ugliest man, "you are a rogue.

       "Whether he still lives or lives again or is truly dead, which of us two knows that best?  I ask you.

       "But one thing I know - I once learned it from you yourself, O Zarathustra: He who wants to kill most thoroughly - laughs.

       "'One kills not by anger but by laughter' - that is what you once said, O Zarathustra, you obscure man, you destroyer without anger, you dangerous saint, you are a rogue!"

 

 

2

 

Then, however, Zarathustra, amazed at such purely roguish answers, leaped back to the door of his cave and, turning towards all his guests, cried in a loud voice:

       "O all you clowns, you buffoons!  Why do you pretend and dissemble before me!

       "How the heart of each of you writhed with joy and mischievousness, because you had at last again become as little children, that is, pious,

       "because you at last again behaved as children do, that is, prayed, clasped your hands and said: 'Dear God'!

       "But now leave this nursery, my own cave, where today every kind of childishness is at home.  Come out here and cool your hot childish wantonness and the clamour of your hearts!

       "To be sure: except you become as little children you shall not enter into this kingdom of heaven."  (And Zarathustra pointed upwards with his hands.)

       "But we certainly do not want to enter into the kingdom of heaven: we have become men, so we want the kingdom of earth."

 

 

3

 

And Zarathustra began to speak once more.  "O my new friends," he said, "you strange men, you Higher Men, how well you please me now,

       "since you have become joyful again!  Truly, you have all blossomed forth: for such flowers as you, I think, new festivals are needed,

       "a little brave nonsense, some divine service and ass festival, some joyful old Zarathustra-fool, a blustering wind to blow your souls bright.

       "Do not forget this night and this ass festival, you Higher Men!  You devised that at my home, I take that as a good omen - only convalescents devise such things!

       "And if you celebrate it again, this ass festival, do it for love of yourselves, do it also for love of me!  and in remembrance of me!"

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

The Intoxicated Song

 

1

 

MEANWHILE, however, one after another had gone out into the open air and the cool, thoughtful night; but Zarathustra himself led the ugliest man by the hand, to show him his nocturnal world and the big, round moon and the silver waterfalls beside his cave.  There at last they stood silently together, just a group of old folk, but with comforted, brave hearts and amazed in themselves that it was so well with them on earth; but the mystery of the night drew nearer and nearer their hearts.  And Zarathustra thought to himself again: "Oh, how well they please me now, these Higher Men!" - but he did not say it, for he respected their happiness and their silence.

       Then, however, occurred the most astonishing thing in that long, astonishing day: the ugliest man began once more and for the last time to gurgle and snort, and when he at last came to the point of speech, behold, a question leaped round and pure from his mouth, a good, deep, clear question, which moved the heats of all who heard it.

       "My assembled friends," said the ugliest man, "what do you think?  For the sake of this day - I am content for the first time to have lived my whole life.

       "And it is not enough that I testify only this much.  It is worth while to live on earth: one day, one festival with Zarathustra has taught me to love the earth.

       "'Was that - life?' I will say to death.  'Very well!  Once more!'

       "My friends, what do you think?  Will you not, like me, say to death: 'Was that - life?  For Zarathustra's sake, very well!  Once more!'"

       Thus spoke the ugliest man; and it was not long before midnight.  And what would you think then took place?  As soon as the Higher Men had heard his question, they were all at once conscious of their transformation and recovery, and of who had given them these things: then they leaped towards Zarathustra, thanking, adoring, caressing, kissing his hands, each after his own fashion: so that some laughed, some wept.  The old prophet, however, danced with pleasure; and even if he was then full of sweet wine, as some narrators believe, he was certainly fuller still of sweet life and had renounced all weariness.  There are even those who tell that the ass danced at that time: for not in vain had the ugliest man given it wine to drink.  Thus may be the case, or it may be otherwise; and if in truth the ass did not dance that evening, greater and stranger marvels than the dancing of an ass occurred.  In brief, as Zarathustra's saying has it: "What does it matter!"

 

 

2

 

Zarathustra, however, when this incident with the ugliest man occurred, stood there like one intoxicated: his eyes grew dim, his tongue stammered, his feet tottered.  And who could divine what thoughts then passed over Zarathustra's soul?  But it seemed that his soul fell back and fled before him and was in remote distances and a if 'upon a high ridge', as it is written,

       'wandering like a heavy cloud between past and future.'  But gradually, while the Higher Men were holding him in their arms, he came to himself a little and his hands restrained the adoring and anxious throng; yet he did not speak.  All at once, however, he swiftly turned his head, for he seemed to hear something: then he laid a finger to his lips and said: "Come!"

       And at once it grew still and mysterious all around; from the depths, however, there slowly arose the sound of a bell.  Zarathustra listened to it, as the Higher Men did; then he laid a finger to his lips a second time and said again: "Come!  Come!  Midnight is coming on!" and his voice had altered.  But still he did not move from his place: then it grew yet more still and mysterious, and everything listened, even the ass and Zarathustra's animals of honour, the eagle and the serpent, likewise Zarathustra's cave and the great, cool moon and the night itself.  Zarathustra, however, laid his hand to his lips for the third time and said:

       "Come!  Come!  Come!  Let us walk now!  The hour has come: let us walk into the night!

 

 

3

 

You Higher Men, midnight is coming on: so I will say something in your ears, as that old bell says it in my ear,

       as secretly, as fearfully, as warmly as that midnight-bell tells it to me, which has experienced more than one man:

       which has already counted your fathers' painful heartbeats - ah! ah! how it sighs! how in dreams it laughs! the ancient, deep, deep midnight!

       Soft!  Soft!  Then many a thing can be heard which may not speak by day; but now, in the cool air, when all the clamour of your hearts, too, has grown still,

       now it speaks, now it is heard, now it creeps into nocturnal, over-wakeful souls: ah! ah! how it sighs! how in dreams it laughs!

       do you not hear, how secretly, fearfully, warmly it speaks to you, the ancient, deep, deep midnight?

       O Man!  Attend!

 

 

4

 

Woe is me!  Where has time fled?  Did I not sink into deep wells?  The world is asleep -

       Ah!  Ah!  The dog howls, the moon is shining.  I will rather die, die, than tell you what my midnight-heart is now thinking.

       Now I am dead.  It is finished.  Spider, why do you spin your web around me?  Do you want blood?  Ah!  Ah!  The dew is falling, the hour has come

       - the hour which chills and freezes me, which asks and asks and asks: "Who has heart enough for it?

       “- who shall be master of the world?  Who will say: Thus shall you run, you great and small streams!"

       - the hour approaches: O man, you Higher Man, attend! this discourse is for delicate ears, for your ears - what does deep midnight's voice contend?

 

 

5

 

I am borne away, my soul dances.  The day's task!  The day's task!  Who shall be master of the world?

       The moon is cool, the wind falls silent.  Ah!  Ah!  Have you flown high enough?  You dance: but a leg is not a wing.

       You good dancers, now all joy is over: wine has become dregs, every cup has grown brittle, the graves mutter.

       You have not flown high enough: now the graves mutter: "Redeem the dead!  Why is it night so long?  Does the moon not intoxicate us?"

       You Higher Men, redeem the graves, awaken the corpses!  Alas, why does the worm still burrow?  The hour approaches, it approaches,

       the bell booms, the heart still drones, the woodworm, the heart's worm, still burrows.  Alas!  The world is deep!

 

 

6

 

Sweet lyre!  Sweet lyre!  Your sound, your intoxicated, ominous sound, delights me! - from how long ago, from how far away does your sound come to me, from a far distance, from the pools of love!

       You ancient bell, you sweet lyre!  Every pain has torn at your heart, the pain of a father, the pain of our fathers, the pain of our forefathers; your speech has grown ripe,

       ripe like golden autumn and afternoon, like my hermit's heart - now you say: The world itself has grown ripe, the grapes grow brown,

       now they want to die, to die of happiness.  You Higher Men, do you not smell it?  An odour is secretly welling up,

       a scent and odour of eternity, an odour of roseate bliss, a brown, golden wine odour of ancient happiness,

       of intoxicated midnight's dying happiness, which sings: The world is deep: deeper than day can comprehend!

 

 

7

 

Let me be!  Let me be!  I am too pure for you.  Do not touch me!  Has my world not just become perfect?

       My skin is too pure for your hands.  Let me be, stupid, doltish, stifling day!  Is midnight not brighter?

       The purest shall be master of the world; the least known, the strongest, the midnight souls, who are brighter and deeper than any day.

       O day, do you grope for me?  Do you feel for my happiness?  Do you think me rich, solitary, a pit of treasure, a chamber of gold?

       O world, do you desire me?  Do you think me worldly?  Do you think me spiritual?  Do you think me divine?  But day and world, you are too clumsy,

       have cleverer hands, reach out for deeper happiness, for deeper unhappiness, reach out for some god, do not reach out for me:

       my unhappiness, my happiness is deep, you strange day, but yet I am no god, no divine Hell: deep is its woe.

 

 

8

 

God's woe is deeper, you strange world!  Reach our for God's woe, not for me!  What am I?  An intoxicated, sweet lyre

       - a midnight lyre, a croaking bell which no-one understands but which has to speak before deaf people, you Higher Men!  For you do not understand me!

       Gone!  Gone!  Oh youth!  Oh noontide!  Oh afternoon!  Now come evening and midnight; the dog howls, the wind:

       is the wind not a dog?  It whines, it yelps, it howls.  Ah!  Ah! how it sighs! how it laughs, how it rasps and gasps, the midnight hour!

       How it now speaks soberly, this intoxicated poet! perhaps it has overdrunk its drunkenness? perhaps it has grown over-wakeful?  perhaps it ruminates?

       it ruminates upon its woe in dreams, the ancient, deep midnight hour, and still more upon its joy.  For joy, though woe is deep: Joy is deeper than heart's agony.

 

 

9

 

You grape-vine!  Why do you praise me?  For I cut you!  I am cruel, you bleed: what means your praise of my intoxicated cruelty?

       "What has become perfect, everything ripe - wants to die!" thus you speak.  Blessed, blessed be the vine-knife!  But everything unripe wants to live: alas!

       Woe says: "Fade!  Be gone, woe!"  But everything that suffers wants to live, that it may grow ripe and merry and passionate,

       passionate for remoter, higher, brighter things.  "I want heirs," thus speaks everything that suffers, "I want children, I do not want myself."

       Joy, however, does not want heirs or children, joy wants itself, wants eternity, wants recurrence, wants everything eternally the same.

       Woe says: Break, bleed, heart!  Walk, legs!  Wings, fly!  Upward!  Upward, pain!"  Very well!  Come on! my old heart: Woe says: Fade!  Go!

 

 

10

 

What do you think, you Higher Men?  am I a prophet?  A dreamer?  A drunkard?  An interpreter of dreams?  A midnight bell?

       A drop of dew?  An odour and scent of eternity?  Do you not hear it?  Do you not smell it?  My world has just become perfect, midnight is also noonday,

       pain is also joy, a curse is also a blessing, the night is also a sun - be gone, or you will learn: a wise man is also a fool.

       Did you ever say Yes to one joy?  O my friends, then you said Yes to all woe as well.  All things are chained and entwined together, all things are in love;

       if ever you wanted one moment twice, if ever you said: "You please me, happiness, instant, moment!" then you wanted everything to return!

       you wanted everything anew, everything eternal, everything chained, entwined together, everything in love, O that is how you loved the world,

       you everlasting men, loved it eternally and for all time: and you say even to woe: "Go, but return!"  For all joy wants - eternity!

 

 

11

 

All joy wants the eternity of all things, wants honey, wants dregs, wants intoxicated midnight, wants graves, wants the consolation of graveside tears, wants gilded sunsets,

       what does joy not want! it is thirstier, warmer, hungrier, more fearful, more secret than all woe, it wants itself; it bites into itself, the will of the ring wrestles within it,

        it wants love, it wants hatred, it is superabundant, it gives, throws away, begs for someone to take it, thanks him who takes, it would like to be hated;

       so rich is joy that it thirsts for woe, for Hell, for hatred, for shame, for the lame, for the world - for it knows, oh it knows this world!

       You Higher Men, joy longs for you, joy the intractable, blissful - for your woe, you ill-constituted!  All eternal joy longs for the ill-constituted.

       For all joy wants itself, therefore it also wants heart's agony!  O happiness!  O pain!  Oh break, heart!  You Higher Men, learn this, learn that joy wants eternity,

       joy wants the eternity of all things, wants deep, deep, deep eternity!

 

 

12

 

Have you now learned my song?  Have you divined what it means?  Very well!  Come on!  You Higher Men, now sing my roundelay!

       Now sing yourselves the song whose name is 'Once more', whose meaning is 'To all eternity!' - sing, you Higher Men, Zarathustra's roundelay!

 

                                                                  O Man!  Attend!

                                                                  What does deep midnight's voice contend?

                                                                  "I slept my sleep,

                                                                  "And now awake at dreaming's end:

                                                                  "The world is deep,

                                                                  "Deeper than day can comprehend.

                                                                  "Deep is its woe,

                                                                  "Joy - deeper than heart's agony:

                                                                  "Woe says: Fade!  Go!

                                                                  "But all joy wants eternity,

                                                                  "Wants deep, deep, deep eternity!"

 

 

 

The Sign

 

ON the morning after this night, however, Zarathustra sprang up from his bed, girded his loins, and emerged from his cave, glowing and strong, like a morning sun emerging from behind dark mountains.

       "Great star," he said, as he had said once before, "you profound eye of happiness, what would all your happiness be if you did not have those for whom you shine!

       "And if they remained in their rooms while you were already awake and had come, giving and distributing: how angry your proud modesty would be!

       "Very well! they are still asleep, these Higher Men, while I am awake: they are not my rightful companions!  It is not for them I am waiting in my mountains.

       "I want to go to my work, to my day: but they do not understand what are the signs of my morning, my step - is now awakening call for them.

       "They are still sleeping in my cave, their dream still drunks at my intoxicated songs.  Yet the ear that listens to me, the obeying ear, is missing from them."

       Zarathustra had said this to his heart when the sun rose: then he looked inquiringly aloft, for he heard above him the sharp cry of his eagle.  "Very well!" he cried up, "so do I like it, so do I deserve it.  My animals are awake, for I am awake.

       "My eagle is awake and, like me, does honour to the sun.  With eagle's claws it reaches out for the new light.  You are my rightful animals: I love you.

       "But I still lack my rightful men!"

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra; then, however, he suddenly heard that he was surrounded by countless birds, swarming and fluttering - the whirring of so many wings and the throng about his head, however, were so great that he shut his eyes.  And truly, it was as if a cloud had fallen upon him, a cloud of arrows discharged over a new enemy.  And behold, in this case it was a cloud of love, and over a new friend.

       "What is happening to me?" thought Zarathustra, in his astonished heart, and slowly lowered himself on to the great stone that lay beside the exit of his cave.  But, as he was clutching about, above and underneath himself, warding off the tender birds, behold, then something even stranger occurred: for in doing so he clutched unawares a thick, warm mane of hair; at the same time, however, a roar rang out in front of him - the gentle, protracted roar of a lion.

       "The sign has come," said Zarathustra, and his heart was transformed.  And in truth, when it grew clear before him, there lay at his feet a sallow, powerful animal that lovingly pressed its head against his knee and would not leave him, behaving like a dog that has found his old master again.  The doves, however, were no less eager than the lion with their love; and every time a dove glided across the lion's nose, the lion shook its head and wondered and laughed.

       While this was happening, Zarathustra said but one thing: "My children are near, my children," then he grew quite silent.  His heart, however, was loosened, and tears fell from his eyes down upon his hands.  And he no longer paid attention to anything, and sat there motionless and no longer warding off the animals.  Then the doves flew back and forth and sat upon his shoulder and fondled his white hair and did not weary of tenderness and rejoicing.  The mighty lion, however, continually licked the tears that fell down upon Zarathustra's hands, roaring and growling shyly as he did so.  Thus did these animals.

       All this lasted a long time, or a short time: for, properly speaking, there is no time on earth for such things.  In the meantime, however, the Higher Men in Zarathustra's cave had awakened and arranged themselves for a procession, that they might go to Zarathustra and offer him their morning greeting: for they had discovered when they awoke that he was no longer among them.  But when they reached the door of the cave, and the sound of their steps preceded them, the lion started violently, suddenly turned away from Zarathustra, and leaped up to the cave, roaring fiercely; the Higher Men, however, when they heard its roaring, all cried out as with a single throat and fled back and in an instant had vanished.

       But Zarathustra himself, bewildered and spell-bound, raised himself from his seat, gazed about him, stood there amazed, questioned his heart, recollected, and saw he was alone.  "What was it I heard?" he slowly said at last, "what has just happened to me?"

       And at once his memory returned and he comprehended in a glance all that had happened between yesterday and today.  "This here is the stone," he said and stroked his beard, "on this did I sit yesterday morning; and here did the prophet come to me, and here I first heard the cry which I heard even now, the great cry of distress.

       "O you Higher Men, it was of your distress that old prophet prophesied to me yesterday morning,

       "he tried to seduce and tempt me to your distress: O Zarathustra, he said to me, I have come to seduce you to your ultimate sin.

       "To my ultimate sin?" cried Zarathustra and laughed angrily at his own words.  "What has been reserved for me as my ultimate sin?"

       And once more Zarathustra became absorbed in himself and sat himself  again on the great stone and meditated.  Suddenly, he leaped up -

       "Pity!  Pity for the Higher Man!" he cried out, and his countenance was transformed into brass.  "Very well!  That - has had its time!

       "My suffering and my pity - what of them!  For do I aspire after happiness?  I aspire after my work!

       "Very well!  The lion has come, my children are near, Zarathustra has become ripe, my hour has come!

       "This is my morning, my day begins: rise up now, rise up, great noontide!"

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra and left his cave, glowing and strong, like a morning sun emerging from behind dark mountains.

 

 

 

 

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