PART TWO

 

*

 

                                                                                "- and only when you have all denied me

                                                                                     will I return to you.

                                                                                "Truly, with other eyes, my brothers, I

                                                                                shall then seek my lost ones; with another        

                                                                                love I shall then love you."

 

                                                                                                                       ZARATHUSTRA:

                                                                                                                  'Of the Bestowing Virtue'

 

 

 

 

The Child with the Mirror

 

THEN Zarathustra went back into the mountains and into the solitude of his cave and withdrew from mankind: waiting like a sower who has scattered his seed.  His soul, however, became full of impatience and longing for those whom he loved: for he still had much to give them.  This, indeed, is the most difficult thing: to close the open hand of love and to preserve one's modesty as a giver.

       Thus months and years passed over the solitary; but his wisdom increased and caused him pain by its abundance.

       One morning, however, he awoke before dawn, deliberated long upon his bed, and at length spoke to his heart:

 

       Why was I so frightened in my dream that I awoke?  Did not a child carrying a mirror come to me?

       "O Zarathustra," the child said to me, "look at yourself in the mirror!"

       But when I looked into the mirror I cried out and my heart was shaken: for I did not see myself, I saw the sneer and grin of a devil.

       Truly, I understand the dream's omen and warning all too well: my doctrine is in danger, weeds want to be called  wheat!

       My enemies have grown powerful and have distorted the meaning of my doctrine, so that my dearest ones are ashamed of the gifts I gave them.

       My friends are lost to me; the hour has come to seek my lost ones!

 

       With these words Zarathustra sprang up - not, however, as if gasping for air, but rather like a seer and a singer whom the spirit has moved.  His eagle and his serpent regarded him with amazement: for a dawning happiness lit up his face like the dawn.

       What has happened to me, my animals? (said Zarathustra).  Have I not changed?  Has bliss not come to me like a stormwind?

       My happiness is foolish and it will speak foolish things: it is still too young - so be patient with it!

       My happiness has wounded me: all sufferers shall be physicians to me!

       I can go down to my friends again and to my enemies too!  Zarathustra can speak and give again, and again show love to those he loves.

       My impatient love overflows in torrents down towards morning and evening.  My soul streams into the valleys out of silent mountains and storms of grief.

       I have desired and gazed into the distance too long.  I have belonged to solitude too long: thus I have forgotten how to be silent.

       I have become nothing but speech and the tumbling of a brook from high rocks: I want to hurl my words down into the valleys.

       And let my stream of love pass into impassable and pathless places!  How should a stream not find its way to the sea at last!

       There is surely a lake in me, a secluded, self-sufficing lake; but my stream of love draws it down with it - to the sea!

       I go new ways, a new speech has come to me; like all creators, I have grown weary of the old tongues.  My spirit no longer wants to walk on worn-out soles.

       All speech runs too slowly for me - I leap into your chariot, storm!  And even you I will whip on with my venom!

       I want to sail across broad seas like a cry and a shout of joy, until I find the Blissful Islands where my friends are waiting -

       And my enemies with them!  How I now love anyone to whom I can simply speak!  My enemies too are part of my happiness.

       And when I want to mount my wildest horse, it is my spear that best helps me on to it; it is an ever-ready servant of my foot -

       The spear which I throw at my enemies!  How I thank my enemies that at last I can throw it!

       The tension of my cloud has been too great: between laughter-peals of lightning I want to cast hail showers into my depths.

       Mightily then my breast will heave, mightily it will blow its storm away over the mountains: and so it will win relief.

       Truly, my happiness and my freedom come like a storm!  But my enemies shall think the Evil One is raging over their heads.

       Yes, you too, my friends, will be terrified by my wild wisdom; and perhaps you will flee from it together with my enemies.

       Ah, if only I knew how to lure you back with shepherds' flutes!  Ah, if only my lioness Wisdom had learned to roar fondly!  And we have already learned so much with one another!

       My wild Wisdom became pregnant with lonely mountains; upon rough rocks she bore her young, her youngest.

       Now she runs madly through the cruel desert and seeks and seeks for the soft grassland - my old, wild Wisdom!

       Upon the soft grassland of your hearts, my friends! - upon your love she would like to bed her dearest one!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

On the Blissful Islands

 

THE figs are falling from the trees, they are fine and sweet; and as they fall their red skins split.  I am a north wind to ripe figs.

       Thus, like figs, do these teachings fall to you, my friends: now drink their juice and eat their sweet flesh!  It is autumn all around and clear sky and afternoon.

       Behold, what abundance is around us!  And it is fine to gaze out upon distant seas from the midst of superfluity.

       Once you said "God" when you gazed upon distant seas; but now I have taught you to say "Superman".

       God is a supposition; but I want your supposing to reach no further than your creating will.

       Could you create a god? - So be silent about all gods!  But you could surely create the Superman.

       Perhaps not you yourselves, my brothers!  But you could transform yourselves into forefathers and ancestors of the Superman: and let this be your finest creating!

       God is a supposition: but I want your supposing to be bounded by conceivability.

       Could you conceive a god? - But may the will to truth mean this to you: that everything shall be transformed into the humanly-conceivable, the humanly-evident, the humanly-palpable!  You should follow your own senses to the end!

       And you yourselves should create what you have hitherto called the World: the World should be formed in your image by your reason, your will, and your love!  And truly, it will be to your happiness, you enlightened men!

       And how should you endure life without this hope, you enlightened men?  Neither in the incomprehensible nor in the irrational can you be at home.

       But to reveal my heart entirely to you, friends: if there were gods how could I endure not to be a god!  Therefore there are no gods.

       I, indeed, drew that conclusion; but now it draws me.

       God is a supposition: but who could imbibe all the anguish of this supposition without dying?  Shall the creator be robbed of his faith and the eagle of soaring into the heights?

       God is a thought that makes all that is straight crooked and all that stands giddy.  What?  Would time be gone and all that is transitory only a lie?

       To think this is giddiness and vertigo to the human frame, and vomiting to the stomach: truly, I call it the giddy sickness to suppose such a thing.

       I call it evil and misanthropic, all this teaching about the one and the perfect and the unmoved and the sufficient and the intransitory.

       All that is intransitory - that is but an image!  And the poets lie too much.

       But the best images and parables should speak of time and becoming: they should be a eulogy and a justification of all transitoriness.

       Creation - that is the great redemption from suffering, and life's easement.  But that the creator may exist, that itself requires suffering and much transformation.

       Yes, there must be much bitter dying in your life, you creators!  Thus you are advocates and justifiers of all transitoriness.

       For the creator himself to be the child new-born he must also be willing to be the mother and endure the mother's pain.

       Truly, I have gone my way through a hundred souls and through a hundred cradles and birth-pangs.  I have taken many departures, I know the heart-breaking last hours.

       But my creative will, my destiny, wants it so.  Or, to speak more honestly: my will wants precisely such a destiny.

       All feeling suffers in me and is in prison: but my willing always comes to me as my liberator and bringer of joy.

       Willing liberates: that is the true doctrine of will and freedom - thus Zarathustra teaches you.

       No more to will and no more to evaluate and no more to create! ah, that this great lassitude may ever stay far from me!

       In knowing and understanding, too, I feel only my will's delight in begetting and becoming; and if there be innocence in my knowledge it is because will to begetting is in it.

       This will lured me away from God and gods; for what there be to create if gods - existed?

       But again and again it drives me to mankind, my ardent, creative will; thus it drives the hammer to the stone.

       Ah, you men, I see an image sleeping in the stone, the image of my visions!  Ah, that it must sleep in the hardest, ugliest stone!

       Now my hammer rages fiercely against its prison.  Fragments fly from the stone: what is that to me?

       I will complete it: for a shadow came to me - the most silent, the lightest of all things once came to me!

       The beauty of the Superman came to me as a shadow.  Ah, my brothers!  What are the gods to me now!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

Of the Compassionate

 

MY friends, your friend has heard a satirical saying: "Just look at Zarathustra!  Does he not go among us as among animals?"

       But it is better said like this: "The enlightened man goes among men as among animals."

       The enlightened man calls man himself: the animal with red cheeks.

       How did this happen to man?  Is it not because he has had to be ashamed too often?

       Oh my friends!  Thus speaks the enlightened man: "Shame, shame, shame - that is the history of man!"

       And for that reason the noble man resolves not to make others ashamed: he resolves to feel shame before all sufferers.

       Truly, I do not like them, the compassionate who are happy in their compassion: they are too lacking in shame.

       If I must be compassionate I still do not want to be called compassionate; and if I am compassionate then it is preferably from a distance.

       And I should also prefer to cover my head and flee away before I am recognized: and thus I bid you do, my friends!

       May my destiny ever lead across my path those who, like you, do not sorrow or suffer, and those with whom I can have hope and repast and honey in common!

       Truly, I did this and that for the afflicted; but it always seemed to me I did better things when I learned to enjoy myself better.

       As long as men have existed, man has enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brothers, is our original sin!

       And if we learn better to enjoy ourselves, we best unlearn how to do harm to others and to contrive harm.

       Therefore I wash my hand when it has helped a sufferer, therefore I wipe my soul clean as well.

       For I saw the sufferer suffer, and because I saw it I was ashamed on account of his shame; and when I helped him, then I sorely injured his pride.

       Great obligations do not make a man grateful, they make him resentful; and if a small kindness is not forgotten it becomes a gnawing worm.

       "Be reserved in accepting!  Honour a man by accepting from him!" - thus I advise those who have nothing to give.

       I, however, am a giver: I give gladly as a friend to friends.  But strangers and the poor may pluck the fruit from my tree for themselves: it causes less shame that way.

       Beggars, however, should be entirely abolished!  Truly, it is annoying to give to them and annoying not to give to them.

       And likewise sinners and bad consciences!  Believe me, my friends: stings of conscience teach one to sting.

       But worst of all are petty thoughts.  Truly, better even to have done wickedly than to have thought pettily!

       To be sure, you will say: "Delight in petty wickedness spares us many a great evil deed."  But here one should not wish to be spared.

       The evil deed is like a boil: it itches and irritates and breaks forth - it speaks honourably.

       "Behold, I am disease" - thus speaks the evil deed; that is its honesty.

       But the petty thought is like a canker: it creeps and hides and wants to appear nowhere - until the whole body is rotten and withered by little cankers.

       But I whisper this advice in the ear of him possessed of a devil:  "Better for you to rear your devil!  There is a way to greatness even for you!"

       Ah, my brothers!  One knows a little too much about everybody!  And many a one who has become transparent to us is still for a long time invulnerable.

       It is hard to live with men, because keeping silent is hard.

       And we are the most unfair, not towards him whom we do not like, but towards him for whom we feel nothing at all.

       But if you have a suffering friend, be a resting-place for his suffering, but a resting-place like a hard bed, a camp-bed: thus you will serve him best.

       And should your friend do you a wrong, then say: "I forgive you what you did to me; but that you did it to yourself - how could I forgive that?"

       Thus speaks all great love: it overcomes even forgiveness and pity.

       One should hold fast to one's heart; for if one lets go, how soon one loses one's head, too!

       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."

       So be warned against pity: thence shall yet come a heavy cloud for man!  Truly, I understand weather-signs!

       But mark, too, this saying: All great love is above pity: for it wants - to create what is loved!

       "I offer myself to my love - and my neighbour as myself" - that is the language of all creators.

       All creators, however, are hard.

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

Of the Priests

 

AND one day Zarathustra made a sign to his disciples and spoke these words to them:

      

       Here are priests: and although they are my enemies, pass them by quietly and with sleeping swords!

       There are heroes even among them; many of them have suffered too much: so they want to make others suffer.

       They are bad enemies: nothing is more revengeful than their humility.  And he who touches them is easily defiled.

       But my blood is related to theirs; and I want to know my blood honoured even in theirs.

      

       And when they had passed by, Zarathustra was assailed by a pain; and he had not struggled long with his pain when he began to speak thus:

 

       I pity these priests.  They go against my taste, too; but that means little to me since I am among men.

       But I suffer and have suffered with them: they seem to me prisoners and marked men.  He whom they call Redeemer has cast them into bondage -

       Into the bondage of false values and false scriptures!  Ah, that someone would redeem them from their Redeemer!

       Once, as the sea tossed them about, they thought they had landed upon an island; but behold, it was a sleeping monster!

       False values and false scriptures: they are the worst monsters for mortal men - fate sleeps and waits long within them.

       But at last it comes and awakes and eats and devours all that have built their huts upon it.

       Oh, just look at these huts that these priests have built themselves.  Churches they call their sweet-smelling caves!

       Oh this counterfeit light! oh this musty air! here, where the soul may not fly up to its height!

       On the contrary, their faith commands: "Up the steps on your knees, you sinners!"

       Truly, I would rather see men still shameless than with the distorted eyes of their shame and devotion!

       Who created such caves and penitential steps?  Was it not those who wanted to hide themselves and were ashamed before the clear sky?

       And only when the clear sky again looks through broken roofs and down upon grass and red poppies on broken walls - only then will I turn my heart again towards the places of this God.

       They called God that which contradicted and harmed them: and truly, there was much that was heroic in their worship!

       And they knew no other way of loving their God than by nailing men to the Cross!

       They thought to live as corpses, they dressed their corpses in black; even in their speech I still smell the evil aroma of burial vaults.

       And he who lives in their neighbourhood lives in the neighbourhood of black pools, from out of which the toad, that prophet of evil, sings its song with sweet melancholy.

       They would have to sing better songs to make me believe in their Redeemer: his disciples would have to look more redeemed!

       I should like to see them naked: for beauty alone should preach penitence.  But whom could this disguised affliction persuade!

       Truly, their Redeemers themselves did not come from freedom and the seventh heaven of freedom!  Truly, they themselves never trod upon the carpets of knowledge!

       The spirit of their Redeemers consisted of holes; but into every hole they had put their illusion, their stop-gap, which they called God.

       Their spirit was drowned in their pity, and when they swelled and overswelled with pity a great folly always swam to the top.

       Zealously and with clamour their drove their herds over their bridge: as if there were only one bridge to the future!  Truly, these shepherds, too, still belonged among the sheep!

       These shepherds had small intellects and spacious souls: but, my brothers, what small countries have even the most spacious souls been, up to now!

       They wrote letters of blood on the path they followed, and their folly taught that truth is proved by blood.

       But blood is the worst witness of truth; blood poisons and transforms the purest teaching to delusion and hatred of the heart.

       And if someone goes through fire for his teaching - what does that prove?  Truly, it is more when one's own teaching comes out of one's own burning!

       Sultry heart and cold head: where these meet there arises the blusterer, the 'Redeemer'.

       Truly, there have been greater men and higher-born ones than those whom the people call Redeemer, those ravishing and overpowering blustering winds!

       And you, my brothers, must be redeemed by greater men than any Redeemer has been, if you would find the way to freedom!

       There has never yet been a Superman.  I have seen them both naked, the greatest and the smallest man.

       They are still all-too-similar to one another.  Truly, I found even the greatest man - all-too-human!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

Of the Virtuous

 

ONE has to speak with thunder and heavenly fireworks to feeble and dormant senses.

       But the voice of beauty speaks softly: it steals into only the most awakened souls.

       Gently my mirror trembled and laughed to me today; it was beauty's holy laughter and trembling.

       My beauty laughed at you, you virtuous, today.  And thus came its voice to me: "They want to be - paid as well!"

       You want to be paid as well, you virtuous!  Do you want reward for virtue and heaven for earth and eternity for your today?

       And are you now angry with me because I teach that there is no reward-giver nor paymaster?  And truly, I do not even teach that virtue is its own reward.

       Alas, this is my sorrow: reward and punishment have been lyingly introduced into the foundation of things - and now even into the foundation of your souls, you virtuous!

       But my words, like the snout of the boar, shall tear up the foundations of your souls; you shall call me a ploughshare.

       All the secrets of your heart shall be brought to light; and when you lie, grubbed up and broken, in the sunlight, then your falsehood will be separated from your truth.

       For this is your truth: You are too pure for the dirt of the words: revenge, punishment, reward, retribution.

       You love your virtue as the mother her child; but when was it heard of a mother wanting to be paid for her love?

       Your virtue is your dearest self.  The ring's desire is in you: to attain itself again - every ring struggles and turns itself to that end.

       And every work of your virtue is like a star extinguished: its light is for ever travelling - and when will it cease from travelling?

       Thus the light of your virtue is still travelling even when its task is done.  Though it be forgotten and dead, its beam of light still lives and travels.

       That your virtue is your Self and not something alien, a skin, a covering: that is the truth from the bottom of your souls, you virtuous!

       But there are indeed those to whom virtue is a writhing under the whip: and you have listened too much to their cries!

       And with others, their vices grow lazy and they call that virtue; and once their hatred and jealousy stretch themselves to rest, their 'justice' becomes lively and rubs its sleepy eyes.

       And there are others who are drawn downward: their devils draw them.  But the more they sink, the more brightly shines their eye and the longing for their God.

       Alas, their cry, too, has come to your ears, you virtuous: "What I am not, that, that to me is God and virtue!"

       And there are others who go along, heavy and creaking, like carts carrying stones downhill: they speak much of dignity and virtue - their brake they call virtue!

       And there are others who are like household clocks wound-up; they repeat their tick-tock and want people to call tick-tock - virtue.

       Truly, I have fun with these: wherever I find such clocks I shall wind them up with my mockery; let them chime as well as tick!

       And others are proud of their handful of righteousness and for its sake commit wanton outrage upon all things: so that the world is drowned in their unrighteousness.

       Alas, how ill the word 'virtue' sounds in their mouths!  And when they say: "I am just," it always sounds like: "I am revenged!"

       They want to scratch out the eyes of their enemies with their virtue; and they raise themselves only in order to lower others.

       And again, there are those who sit in their swamp and speak thus from the rushes: "Virtue - that means to sit quietly in the swamp.

       "We bite nobody and avoid him who wants to bite: and in everything we hold the opinion that is given us."

       And again, there are those who like posing and think: Virtue is a sort of pose.

       Their knees are always worshipping and their hands are glorifications of virtue, but their heart knows nothing of it.

       And again, there are those who hold it a virtue to say: "Virtue is necessary"; but fundamentally they believe only that the police are necessary.

       And many a one who cannot see the sublime in man calls it virtue that he can see his baseness all-too-closely: thus he calls his evil eye virtue.

       And some want to be edified and raised up and call it virtue; and others want to be thrown down - and call it virtue, too.

       And in that way almost everyone firmly believes he is participating in virtue; and at least asserts he is an expert on 'good' and 'evil'.

       But Zarathustra has not come to say to all these liars and fools: "What do you know of virtue?  What could you know of virtue?"

       No, he has come that you, my friends, might grow weary of the old words you have learned from the fools and liars.

       That you might grow weary of the words 'reward', 'retribution', 'punishment', 'righteous revenge'.

       That you might grow weary of saying: "An action is good when it is unselfish."

       Ah, my friends!  That your Self be in the action, as the mother is in the child: let that be your maxim of virtue!

       Truly, I have taken a hundred maxims and your virtues' dearest playthings away from you; and you scold me now, as children scold.

       They were playing on the sea-shore - then came a wave and swept their playthings into the deep: now they cry.

       But the same wave shall bring them new playthings and pour out new coloured sea-shells before them!

       Thus they will be consoled; and you too, my friends, shall, like them, have your consolations - and new coloured sea-shells!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

Of the Rabble

 

LIFE is a fountain of delight; but where the rabble also drinks all wells are poisoned.

       I love all that is clean; but I do not like to see the grinning mouths and the thirst of the unclean.

       They cast their eyes down into the well: now their repulsive smile glitters up to me out of the well.

       They have poisoned the holy water with their lasciviousness; and when they called their dirty dreams 'delight' they poisoned even the words, too.

       The flame is unwilling to burn when they put their damp hearts to the fire; the spirit itself bubbles and smokes when the rabble approaches the fire.

       The fruit grows mawkish and over-ripe in their hands; the fruit tree becomes unstable and withered at the top under their glance.

       And many a one who turned away from life, turned away only from the rabble: he did not wish to share the well and the flame and the fruit with the rabble.

       And many a one who went into the desert and suffered thirst with beasts of prey merely did not wish to sit around the cistern with dirty camel-drivers.

       And many a one who came along like a destroyer and a shower of hail to all orchards wanted merely to put his foot into the jaws of the rabble and so stop its throat.

       And to know that life itself has need of enmity and dying and martyrdoms, that was not the mouthful that choked me most.

       But I once asked, and my question almost stifled me: What, does life have need of the rabble, too?

       Are poisoned wells necessary, and stinking fires and dirty dreams and maggots in the bread of life?

       Not my hate but my disgust hungrily devoured my life!  Alas, I often grew weary of the spirit when I found the rabble, too, had been gifted with spirit!

       And I turned my back upon the rulers when I saw what they now call ruling: bartering and haggling for power - with the rabble!

        I dwelt with stopped ears among peoples with a strange language: that the language of their bartering and their haggling for power might remain strange to me.

       And I went ill-humouredly through all yesterdays and todays holding my nose: truly, all yesterdays and todays smell badly of the scribbling rabble!

       Like a cripple who has gone blind, deaf, and dumb: thus have I lived for a long time, that I might not live with the power-rabble, the scribbling-rabble, and the pleasure-rabble.

       My spirit mounted steps wearily and warily; alms of delight were its refreshment; the blind man's life crept along on a staff.

       Yet what happened to me?  How did I free myself from disgust?  Who rejuvenated my eyes?  How did I fly to the height where the rabble no longer sit at the well?

       Did my disgust itself create wings and water-divining powers for me?  Truly, I had to fly to the extremest height to find again the fountain of delight!

       Oh, I have found it, my brothers!  Here, in the extremest heights, the fountain of delight gushes up for me!  And here there is a life at which no rabble drinks with me!

       You gust up almost too impetuously, fountain of delight!  And in wanting to fill the cup, you often empty it again!

       And I still have to learn to approach you more discreetly: my heart still flows towards you all-too-impetuously.

       My heart, upon which my summer burns, a short, hot, melancholy, over-joyful summer: how my summer-heart longs for your coolness!

       Gone is the lingering affliction of my spring!  Gone the malice of my snowflakes in June!  Summer have I become entirely, and summer-noonday!

       A summer at the extremest height with cold fountains and blissful stillness: oh come, my friends, that the stillness may become more blissful yet!

       For this is our height and our home: we live too nobly and boldly here for all unclean men and their thirsts.

       Only cast your pure eyes into the well of my delight, friends!  You will not dim its sparkle!  It shall laugh back at you with its purity.

       We build our nest in the tree Future; eagles shall bring food to us solitaries in their beaks!

       Truly, food in which no unclean men could join us!  They would think they were eating fire and burn their mouths!

       Truly, we do not prepare a home here for unclean men!  Their bodies and their spirits would call our happiness a cave of ice!

       So let us live above them like strong winds, neighbours of the eagles, neighbours of the snow, neighbours of the sun: that is how strong winds live.

       And like a wind will I one day blow among them and with my spirit take away the breath from their spirit: thus my future will have it.

       Truly, Zarathustra is a strong wind to all flatlands; and he offers this advice to his enemies and to all that spews and spits: "Take care not to spit against the wind!"

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

Of the Tarantulas

 

SEE, this is the tarantula's cave!  Do you want to see the tarantula itself?  Here hangs its web: touch it and make it tremble.

       Here it comes docilely: Welcome, tarantula!  Your triangle and symbol sit black upon your back; and I know too what sits within your soul.

       Revenge sits within your soul: a black scab grows wherever you bite; with revenge your poison makes the soul giddy!

       Thus do I speak to you in parables, you who make the soul giddy, you preachers of equality!  You are tarantulas and dealers in hidden revengefulness!

       But I will soon bring your hiding places to light: therefore I laugh my laughter of the heights in your faces.

       I pull at your web that your rage may lure you from your cave of lies and your revenge may bound forward from behind your word 'justice'.

       For that man may be freed from the bonds of revenge: that is the bridge to my highest hope and a rainbow after protracted storms.

       But, naturally, the tarantulas would have it differently.  "That the world may become full of the storms of our revenge, let precisely that be called justice by us" - thus they talk together.

       "We shall practise revenge and outrage against all who are not as we are" - thus the tarantula-hearts promise themselves.

       "And 'will to equality' - that itself shall henceforth be the name of virtue; and we shall raise outcry against everything that has power!"

       You preachers of equality, thus from you the tyrant-madness of impotence cries for 'equality': thus your most secret tyrant-appetite disguises itself in words of virtue.

       Soured self-conceit, repressed envy, perhaps your fathers' self-conceit and envy: they burst from you as a flame and madness of revenge.

       What the father keeps silent the son speaks out; and I often found the son the father's revealed secret.

       They resemble inspired men: but it is not the heart that inspires them - it is revenge.  And when they become refined and cold, it is not their mind, it is their envy that makes them refined and cold.

       Their jealousy leads them upon thinkers' paths too; and this is the mark of their jealousy - they always go too far: so that their weariness has at last to lie down and sleep even on the snow.

       Revenge rings in all their complaints, a malevolence is in all their praise; and to be judge seems bliss to them.

       Thus, however, I advise you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the urge to punish is strong!

       They are people of a bad breed and a bad descent; the executioner and the bloodhound peer from out their faces.

       Mistrust all those who talk much about their justice!  Truly, it is not only honey that their souls lack.

       And when they call themselves 'the good and the just', do not forget that nothing is lacking to make them into Pharisees except - power!

       My friends, I do not want to be confused with others or taken for what I am not.

       There are those who preach my doctrine of life: yet are at the same time preachers of equality, and tarantulas.

       That they speak well of life, these poison spiders, although they sit in their caves and with their backs turned on life, is because they want to do harm by speaking well of life.

       They want to do harm to those who now possess power: for with those the preaching of death is still most at home.

       If it were otherwise, the tarantulas would teach otherwise: and it is precisely they who were formerly the best world-slanderers and heretic-burners.

       I do not want to be confused with their preachers of equality, nor taken for one of them.  For justice speaks thus to me: "Men are not equal."

       And they should not become so, either!  For what were my love of the Superman if I spoke otherwise?

       They should press on to the future across a thousand bridges and gangways, and there should be more and more war and inequality among them: thus my great love makes me speak!

       They should become devisers of emblems and phantoms in their enmity, and with their emblems and phantoms they should fight together the supreme fight!

       Good and evil, and rich and poor, and noble and mean, and all the names of the virtues: they should be weapons and ringing symbols that life must overcome itself again and again!

       Life wants to raise itself on high with pillars and steps; it wants to gaze into the far distance and out upon joyful splendour - that is why it needs height!

       And because it needs height, it needs steps and conflict between steps and those who climb them!  Life wants to climb and in climbing overcome itself.

       And just look, my friends!  Here, where the tarantula's cave is, there rises up the ruins of an old temple - just look at it with enlightened eyes!

       Truly, he who once towered up his thoughts in stone here knew as well as the wisest about the secret of all life!

       That there is battle and inequality and war for power and predominance even in beauty: he teaches us that here in the clearest parable.

       How divinely vault and arch here oppose one another in the struggle: how they strive against one another with light and shadow, these divinely-striving things.

       Beautiful and assured as these, let us also be enemies, my friends!  Let us divinely strive against one another!

       Ha!  Now the tarantula, my old enemy, has bitten me!  Divinely beautiful and assured, it bit me on the finger!

       "There must be punishment and justice" - thus it thinks: "here he shall not sing in vain songs in honour of enmity!"

       Yes, the tarantula has revenged itself!  And alas, now it will make my soul, too, giddy with revenge!

       But so that I may not veer round, tie me tight to this pillar, my friends!  I would rather be even a pillar-saint than a whirlpool of revengefulness!

       Truly, Zarathustra is no veering wind nor whirlwind; and although he is a dancer, he is by no means a tarantella dancer!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

      

      

Of the Famous Philosophers

 

YOU have served the people and the people's superstitions, all you famous philosophers! - you have not served truth!  And it is precisely for that reason that they paid you reverence.

       And for that reason, too, they endured your disbelief, because it was a joke and a bypath for the people.  Thus the lord indulges his slaves and even enjoys their insolence.

       But he who is hated by the people as a wolf is by the dogs: he is the free spirit, the enemy of fetters, the non-worshipper, the dweller in forests.

       To hunt him from his hiding-place - the people always called that "having a sense of right"; they have always set their sharpest-toothed dogs upon him.

       "For where the people are, truth is!  Woe to him who seeks!"  That is how it has been from the beginning.

       You sought to make the people justified in their reverence: that you called "will to truth", you famous philosophers!

       And your heart always said to itself: "I came from the people: God's voice, too, came to me from them."

       You have always been obstinate and cunning, like the ass, as the people's advocate.

       And many a man of power who wanted to fare well with the people harnessed in front of his horses - a little ass, a famous philosopher.

       And now I should like you to throw the lion-skin right off yourselves, you famous philosophers!

       The spotted skin of the beast of prey and the matted hair of the inquirer, the seeker, the overcomer!

       Ah, for me to learn to believe in your 'genuineness' you would first have to break with your will to venerate.

       Genuine - that is what I call him who goes into god-forsaken deserts and has broken his venerating heart.

       In the yellow sand and burned by the sun, perhaps he blinks thirstily at the islands filled with springs where living creatures rest beneath shady trees.

       But his thirst does not persuade him to become like these comfortable creatures: for where there are oases there are also idols.

       Hungered, violent, solitary, godless: that is how the lion-will wants to be.

       Free from the happiness of serfs, redeemed from gods and worship, fearless and fearful, great and solitary: that is how the will of the genuine man is.

       The genuine men, the free spirits, have always dwelt in the desert, as the lords of the desert; but in the towns dwell the well-fed famous philosophers - the draught animals.

       For they always, as asses, pull - the people's cart!

       Not that I am wroth with them for that: however, they are still servants and beasts in harness, even when they glitter with golden gear.

       And they have often been good and praiseworthy servants.  For thus speaks virtue: "If you must be a servant, then seek him whom you can serve best!

       "The spirit and the virtue of your lord should thrive because you are his servant: thus you yourself will thrive with your lord's spirit and virtue!"

       And in truth, you famous philosophers, you servants of the people, you yourselves have thrived with the spirit and virtue of the people - and the people have thrived through you!  It is to your honour I say this!

       But you are still of the people even in your virtue, of the people with their purblind eyes - of the people who do not know what spirit is!

       Spirit is the life that itself strikes into life: through its own torment it increases its own knowledge - did you know that before?

       And this is the spirit's happiness: to be anointed and by tears consecrated as a sacrificial beast - did you know that before?

       And the blindness of the blind man and his seeking and groping shall yet bear witness to the power of the sun into which he gazed - did you know that before?

       And the enlightened man shall learn to build with mountains!  It is a small thing for the spirit to move mountains - did you know that before?

       You know only the sparks of the spirit: but do you not see the anvil which the spirit is, nor the ferocity of its hammer!

       In truth, you do not know the spirit's pride!  But even less could you endure the spirit's modesty, if it should ever deign to speak!

       And you have never yet dared to cast your spirit into a pit of snow: you are not hot enough for that!  Thus you do not know the rapture of its coldness, either.

       But you behave in all things in too familiar a way with the spirit; and you have often made of wisdom a poorhouse and hospital for bad poets.

       You are not eagles: so neither do you know the spirit's joy in terror.  And he who is not a bird shall not make his home above abysses.

       You are tepid: but all deep knowledge flows cold.  The innermost wells of the spirit are ice-cold: a refreshment to hot hands and handlers.

       You stand there respectable and stiff with a straight back, you famous philosophers! - no strong wind or will propels you.

       Have you never seen a sail faring over the sea, rounded and swelling and shuddering before the impetuosity of the wind?

       Like a sail, shuddering before the impetuosity of the spirit, my wisdom fares over the sea - my untamed wisdom!

       But you servants of the people, you famous philosophers - how could you fare with me?

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

The Night Song

 

IT is night: now do all leaping fountains speak louder.  And my soul too is a leaping fountain.

       It is night: only now do all songs of lovers awaken.  And my soul too is the song of a lover.

       Something unquenched, unquenchable, is in me, that wants to speak out.  A craving for love is in me, that itself speaks the language of love.

       Light am I: ah, that I were night!  But this is my solitude, that I am girded round with light.

       Ah, that I were dark and obscure!  How I would suck at the breasts of light!

       And I should bless you, little sparkling stars and glow-worms above! - and be happy in your gifts of light.

       But I live in my own light, I drink back into myself the flames that break from me.

       I do not know the joy of the receiver; and I have often dreamed that stealing must be more blessed than receiving.

       It is my poverty that my hand never rests from giving; it is my envy that I see expectant eyes and illumined nights of desire.

       Oh wretchedness of all givers!  Oh eclipse of my sun!  Oh craving for desire!  Oh ravenous hunger in satiety!

       They take from me: but do I yet touch their souls?  A gulf stands between giving and receiving; and the smallest gulf must be bridged at last.

       A hunger grows from out of my beauty: I should like to rob those to whom I give - thus do I hunger after wickedness.

       Withdrawing my hand when another hand already reaches out to it; hesitating, like the waterfall that hesitates even in its plunge - thus do I hunger after wickedness.

       Such vengeance does my abundance concoct: such spite wells from my solitude.

       My joy in giving died in giving, my virtue grew weary of itself through its abundance!

       The danger for him who always gives, is that he may lose his shame; the hand and heart of him who distributes grow callous through sheer distributing.

       My hand no longer overflows with the shame of suppliants; my hand has become too hard for the trembling of hands that have been filled.

       Where have the tears of my eye and the bloom of my heart gone?  Oh solitude of all givers!  Oh silence of all light-givers!

       Many suns circle in empty space: to all that is dark they speak with their light - to me they are silent.

       Oh, this is the enmity of light towards what gives light: unpitying it travels its way.

       Unjust towards the light-giver in its inmost heart, cold towards suns - thus travels every sun.

       Like a storm the suns fly along their courses; that is their travelling.  They follow their inexorable will; that is their coldness.

       Oh, it is only you, obscure, dark ones, who extract warmth from light-givers!  Oh, only drink milk and comfort from the udders of light!

       Ah, ice is around me, my hand is burned with ice!  Ah, thirst is in me, which years after your thirst!

       It is night: ah, that I must be light!  And thirst for the things of night!  And solitude!

       It is night: now my longing breaks from me like a wellspring - I long for speech.

       It is night: now do all leaping fountains speak louder.  And my soul too is a leaping fountain.

       It is night: only now do all songs of lovers awaken.  And my soul too is the song of a lover.

 

       Thus sang Zarathustra.

 

 

 

The Dance Song

 

ONE evening Zarathustra was walking through the forest with his disciples; and as he was looking for a well, behold, he came upon a green meadow quietly surrounded by trees and bushes: and in the meadow girls were dancing together.  As soon as the girls recognized Zarathustra they ceased their dance; Zarathustra, however, approached them with a friendly air and spoke these words:

 

       Do not cease your dance, sweet girls!  No spoil-sport has come to you with an evil eye, no enemy of girls.

       I am God's advocate with the Devil; he, however, is the Spirit of Gravity.  How could I be enemy to divine dancing, you nimble creatures? or to girls' feet with fair ankles?

       To be sure, I am a forest and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness will find rose bowers too under my cypresses.

       And he will surely find too the little god whom girls love best: he lies beside the fountain, still, with his eyes closed.

       Truly, he has fallen asleep in broad daylight, the idler!  Has he been chasing butterflies too much?

       Do not be angry with me, fair dancers, if I chastise the little god a little!  Perhaps he will cry out and weep, but he is laughable even in weeping!

       And with tears in his eyes, he shall ask you for a dance; and I myself will sing a song for his dance.

       A dance-song and a mocking-song on the Spirit of Gravity, my supreme, most powerful devil, who they say is "the lord of the earth".

 

       And this is the song Zarathustra sang as cupid and the girls danced together:

 

       Lately I looked into your eye, O Life!  And I seemed to sink into the unfathomable.

       But you pulled me out with a golden rod; you laughed mockingly when I called you unfathomable.

       "All fish talk like that," you said; "what they cannot fathom is unfathomable.

       "But I am merely changeable and untamed and in everything a woman, and no virtuous one.

       "Although you men call me 'profound' or 'faithful', 'eternal', 'mysterious'.

       "But you men always endow us with your own virtues - ah, you virtuous men!"

       Thus she laughed, the incredible woman; but I never believe her and her laughter when she speaks evil of herself.

       And when I spoke secretly with my wild Wisdom, she said to me angrily: "You will, you desire, you love, that is the only reason you praise Life!"

       Then I almost answered crossly and told the truth to my angry Wisdom; and one cannot answer more crossly than when one 'tells the truth' to one's Wisdom.

       This then is the state of affairs between us three.  From the heart of me I love only Life - and in truth, I love her most of all when I hate her!

       But that I am fond of Wisdom, and often too fond, is because she very much reminds me of Life!

       She has her eyes, her laughter, and even her little golden fishing-rod: how can I help it that they both look so alike?

       And when Life once asked me: "Who is she then, this Wisdom?" - then I said eagerly: "Ah yes!  Wisdom!

       "One thirsts for her and is not satisfied, one looks at her through veils, one snatches at her through nets.

       "Is she fair?  I know not!  But the cleverest old fish are still lured by her.

       "She is changeable and defiant; I have often seen her bite her lip and comb her hair against the grain.

       "Perhaps she is wicked and false, and in everything a wench; but when she speaks ill of herself, then precisely is she most seductive."

       When I said this to Life, she laughed maliciously and closed her eyes.  "But whom are you speaking of?" she asked, "of me, surely?

       "And you are right - should you tell me that to my face?  But not speak of your Wisdom, too!"

       Ah, and then you opened your eyes again, O believed Life!  And again I seemed to sink into the unfathomable.

 

       Thus sang Zarathustra.  But when the dance had ended and the girls had gone away, he grew sad.

 

       The sun has long since set (he said at last); the meadow is damp, coolness is coming from the forests.

       Something strange and unknown is about me, looking thoughtfully at me.  What! are you still living, Zarathustra?

       Why?  Wherefore?  Whereby?  Whither?  Where?  How?  Is it not folly to go on living?

       Ah, my friends, it is the evening that questions thus within me.  Forgive me my sadness!

       Evening has come: forgive me that it has become evening!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

The Funeral Song

 

"YONDER is the grave-island, the silent island; yonder too are the graves of my youth.  I will bear thither and evergreen wreath of life."

       Resolving thus in my heart I fared over the sea.

       O, you sights and visions of my youth!  O, all you glances of love, you divine momentary glances!  How soon you perished!  Today I think of you as my dead ones.

       A sweet odour comes to me from you, my dearest dead ones, a heart-easing odour that banishes tears.  Truly, it moves and eases the solitary seafarer's heart.

       Still am I the richest and most-to-be-envied man - I, the most solitary!  For I had you and you have me still: tell me, to whom have such rosy applies fallen from the tree as have fallen to me?

       Still am I heir and heritage of your love, blooming to your memory with many-coloured wild-growing virtues, O my most beloved ones!

       Ah, we were made for one another, you gentle, strange marvels; and you came to me and my longing not as timid birds - no, you came trusting to me, who also trusted.

       Yes, made for faithfulness, like me, and for tender eternities: must I now name you by your unfaithfulness, you divine glances and moments: I have as yet learned no other name.

       Truly, you perished too soon, you fugitives.  Yet you did not fly from me, nor did I fly from you: we are innocent towards one another in our unfaithfulness.

       They put you to death, you song-birds of my hopes, in order to kill me!  Yes, the arrows of malice were always directed at you, my beloved ones - in order to strike at my heart!

       And they struck!  You were always my heart's dearest, my possession and my being-possessed: therefore you had to die young and all-too-early!

       They shot the arrow at the most vulnerable thing I possessed: and that was you, whose skin is like down and even more like the smile that dies at a glance!

       But I will say this to my enemies: What is any manslaughter compared with what you did to me!

       You did a worse thing to me than any manslaughter; you took from me the irretrievable - thus I speak to you, my enemies!

       You murdered my youth's visions and dearest marvels!  You took from me my playfellows, those blessed spirits!  To their memory do I lay this wreath and this curse.

       This curse upon you, my enemies!  You have cut short my eternity, as a note is cut short in the cold night!  It came to me hardly as the twinkling of divine eyes - as a moment!

       Thus in a happy hour my purity once spoke: "All creatures shall be divine to me."

       Then you surprised me with foul phantoms; alas, whiter has that happy hour fled now?

       "All days shall be holy to me" - thus the wisdom of my youth once spoke: truly, the speech of a joyful wisdom!

       But then you, my enemies, stole my nights from me and sold them to sleepless torment: alas, whither has that joyful wisdom fled now?

       Once I longed for happy bird-auspices: then you led an owl-monster across my path, an adverse sigh.  Alas, wither did my tender longings flee then?

       I once vowed to renounce all disgust; then you transformed my kindred and neighbours into abscesses.  Alas, whither did my noblest vow flee then?

       Once, as a blind man, I walked on happy paths; then you threw filth in the blind man's path: and now the old footpath disgusts him.

       And when I achieved my most difficult task and celebrated the victory of my overcomings: then you made those whom I loved cry out that I hurt them most.

       Truly, all that was your doing: you embittered my finest honey and the industry of my finest bees.

       You have always sent the most insolent beggars to my liberality; you have always crowded the incurably shameless around my pity.  Thus you have wounded my virtues' faith.

       And when I brought my holiest thing as a sacrifice, straightway your 'piety' placed its fatter gifts beside it: so that my holiest thing choked in the smoke of your fat.

       And once I wanted to dance as I had never yet danced: I wanted to dance beyond all heavens.  Then you lured away my favourite singer.

       And then he struck up a gruesome, gloomy melody: alas, he trumpeted into my ears like a mournful horn!

       Murderous singer, instrument of malice, most innocent man!  I stood prepared for the finest dance: then you murdered my ecstasy with your tones!

       I know how to speak the parable of the highest things only in the dance - and now my greatest parable has remained in my limbs unspoken!

       My highest hope has remained unspoken and unachieved!  And all the visions and consolations of my youth are dead!

       How did I endure it?  How did I recover from such wounds, how did I overcome them?  How did my soul arise again from these graves?

       Yes, something invulnerable, unburiable is within me, something that rends rocks: it is called my Will.  Silently it steps and unchanging through the years.

       It shall go its course upon my feet, my old Will; hard of heart and invulnerable is its temper.

       I am invulnerable only in my heels.  You live there and are always the same, most patient one!  You will always break out of all graves!

       In you too still live on all the unachieved things of my youth; and you sit as life and youth, hopefully, here upon yellow grave-ruins.

       Yes, you are still my destroyer of all graves: Hail, my Will!  And only where there are graves are there resurrections.

 

       Thus sang Zarathustra.

 

 

 

Of Self-Overcoming

 

WHAT urges you on and arouses your ardour, you wisest of men, do you call it 'will to truth'?

       Will to the conceivability of all being: that is what I call your will!

       You first want to make all being conceivable: for, with a healthy mistrust, you doubt whether it is in fact conceivable.

       But it must bend and accommodate itself to you!  Thus will your will have it.  It must become smooth and subject to the mind as the mind's mirror and reflection.

       That is your entire will, you wisest men; it is a will to power; and that is so even when you talk of good and evil and of the assessment of values.

       You want to create the world before which you can kneel: this is your ultimate hope and intoxication.

       The ignorant, to be sure, the people - they are like a river down which a boat swims: and in the boat, solemn and disguised, sit the assessments of value.

       You put your will and your values upon the river of becoming; what the people believe to be good and evil betrays to me an ancient will to power.

       It was you, wisest men, who put such passengers in this boat and gave them splendour and proud names - you and your ruling will!

       Now the river bears your boat along: it has to bear it.  It is of small account if the breaking wave foams and angrily opposes its keel!

       It is not the river that is your danger and the end of your good and evil, you wisest men, it is that will itself, the will to power, the unexhausted, procreating life-will.

       But that you may understand my teaching about good and evil, I shall relate to you my teaching about life and about the nature of all living creatures.

       I have followed the living creature, I have followed the greatest and the smallest paths, that I might understand its nature.

       I caught its glance in a hundredfold mirror when its mouth was closed, that its eye might speak to me.  And its eye did speak to me.

       But wherever I found living creatures, there too I heard the language of obedience.  All living creatures are obeying creatures.

       And this is the second thing: he who cannot obey himself will be commanded.  That is the nature of living creatures.

       But this is the third thing I heard: that commanding is more difficult than obeying.  And not only because the commander bears the burden of all who obey, and that this burden can easily crush him.

       In all commanding there appeared to me to be an experiment and a risk: and the living creature always risks himself when he commands.

       Yes, even when he commands himself: then also must he make amends for his commanding.  He must become judge and avenger and victim of his own law.

       How has this come about? thus I asked myself.  What persuades the living creature to obey and to command and to practise obedience even in commanding?

       Listen now to my teaching, you wisest men!  Test in earnest whether I have crept into the heart of life itself and down to the roots of its heart!

       Where I found a living creature, there I found will to power; and even in the will of the servant I found the will to be master.

       The will of the weaker persuades it to serve the stronger; its will wants to be master over those weaker still: this delight alone it is unwilling to forgo.

       And as the lesser surrenders to the greater, that it may have delight and power over the least of all, so the greatest, too, surrenders and for the sake of power stakes - life.

       The devotion of the greatest is to encounter risk and danger and play dice for death.

       And where sacrifice and service and loving glances are, there too is will to be master.  There the weaker steals by secret paths to the castle and even into the heart of the more powerful - and steals the power.

       And life itself told me this secret: "Behold," it said, "I am that which must overcome itself again and again.

       "To be sure, you call it will to procreate or impulse towards a goal, towards the higher, more distant, more manifold: but all this is one and one secret.

       "I would rather perish than renounce this one thing; and truly, where there is perishing and the falling of leaves, behold, there life sacrifices itself - for the sake of power!

       "That I have to be struggle and becoming and goal and conflict of goals: ah, he who divines my will surely divines, too, along what crooked paths it has to go!

       "Whatever I create and however much I love it - soon I have to oppose it and my love: thus will my will have it.

       "And you too, enlightened man, are only a path and footstep of my will: truly, my will to power walks with the feet of your will to truth!

       "He who shot the doctrine of 'will to existence' at truth certainly did not hit the truth: this will - does not exist!

       "For what does not exist cannot will; but that which is in existence, how could it still want to come into existence?

       "Only where life is, there is also will: not will to live, but - so I teach you - will to power!

       "The living creature values many things higher than life itself; yet out of this evaluation itself speaks - the will to power!"

       Thus life once taught me: and with this teaching do I solve the riddle of your hearts, you wisest men.

       Truly, I say to you: Unchanging good and evil does not exist!  From out of themselves they must overcome themselves again and again.

       You exert power with your values and doctrines of good and evil, you assessors of values; and this is your hidden love and the glittering, trembling, and overflowing of your souls.

       But a mightier power and a new overcoming grow from out your values: egg and egg-shell break against them.

       And he who has to be a creator in good and evil, truly, has first to be a destroyer and break values.

       Thus the greatest evil belongs with the greatest good: this, however, is the creative good.

       Let us speak of this, you wisest men, even if it is a bad thing.  To be silent is worse; all suppressed truths become poisonous.

       And let everything that can break upon our truths - break!  There is many a house still to build!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

Of the Sublime Men

 

STILL is the bottom of my sea: who could guess that it hides sportive monsters!

       Imperturbable is my depth: but it glitters with swimming riddles and laughter.

       Today I saw a sublime man, a solemn man, a penitent of the spirit: of, how my soul laughed at his ugliness!

       With upraised breast and in the attitude of a man drawing in breath: thus he stood there, the sublime man, and silent.

       Hung with ugly truths, the booty of his hunt, and rich in torn clothes: many thorns, too, hung on him - but I saw no rose.

       As yet he has not learned of laughter and beauty.  This huntsman returned gloomily from the forest of knowledge.

       He returned home from the fight with wild beasts: but a wild beast still gazes out of his seriousness - a beast that has not been overcome!

       He stands there like a tiger about to spring; but I do not like these tense souls, my taste is hostile towards all these withdrawn men.

       And do you tell me, friends, that there is no dispute over taste and tasting?  But all life is dispute over taste and tasting!

       Taste: that is at the same time weight and scales and weigher; and woe to all living creatures that want to live without dispute over weight and scales and weigher!

       If he grew weary of his sublimity, this sublime man, only then would his beauty rise up - and only then will I taste him and find him tasty.

       and only if he turns away from himself will he jump over his own shadow - and jump, in truth, into his own sunlight.

       He has sat all too long in the shadows, the cheeks of the penitent of the spirit have grown pale; he has almost starved on his expectations.

       There is still contempt in his eye, and disgust lurks around his mouth.  He rests now, to be sure, but he has never yet lain down in the sunlight.

       He should behave like the ox; and his happiness should smell of the earth and not of contempt for the earth.

       I should like to see him as a white ox, snorting and bellowing as he goes before the plough: and his bellowing, too, should laud all earthly things!

       His countenance is still dark; his hand's shadow plays upon it.  The sense of his eyes, too, is overshadowed.

       His deed itself is still the shadow upon him: the hand darkens the doer.  He has still not overcome his deed.

       To be sure, I love in him the neck of the ox: but now I want to see the eye of the angel, too.

       He must unlearn his heroic will, too: he should be an exalted man and not only a sublime one - the ether itself should raise him up, the will-less one!

       He has tamed monsters, he has solved riddles: but he should also redeem his monsters and riddles, he should transform them into heavenly children.

       His knowledge has not yet learned to smile and to be without jealousy; his gushing passion has not yet grown calm in beauty.

       Truly, his longing should be silenced and immersed not in satiety but in beauty!  The generosity of the magnanimous man should include gracefulness.

       With his arm laid across his head: that is how the hero should rest, that is also how he should overcome his rest.

       But it is precisely to the hero that beauty is the most difficult of all things.  Beauty is unattainable to all violent wills.

       A little more, a little less: precisely that is much here, here that is the most of all.

       To stand with relaxed muscles and unharnessed wills: that is the most difficult thing for all of you, you sublime men!

       When power grows gracious and descends into the visible: I call such descending beauty.

       And I desire beauty from no-one as much as I desire it from you, you man of power: may your goodness be your ultimate self-overpowering.

       I believe you capable of any evil: therefore I desire of you the good.

       In truth, I have often laughed at the weaklings who think themselves good because their claws are blunt!

       You should aspire to the virtue of the pillar: the higher it rises, the fairer and more graceful it grows, but inwardly harder and able to bear more weight.

       Yes, you sublime man, you too shall one say be fair and hold the mirror before your own beauty.

       Then your soul will shudder with divine desires; and there will be worship even in your vanity!

       This indeed is the secret of the soul: only when the hero has deserted the soul does there approach it in dreams - the superhero.

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

Of the Land of Culture

 

I FLEW too far into the future: a horror assailed me.

       And when I looked around, behold! time was my only contemporary.

       Then I flew back, homeward - and faster and faster I flew: and so I came to you, you men of the present, and to the land of culture.

       The first time I brought with me an eye to see you and healthy desires: truly, I came to you with longing in my heart.

       But how did I fare?  Although I was so afraid - I had to laugh!  My eye had never seen anything so motley-spotted!

       I laughed and laughed, while my foot still trembled and my heart as well: "Here must be the home of all the paint-pots!" I said.

       Painted with fifty blotches on face and limbs: thus you sat there to my astonishment, you men of the present!

       And with fifty mirrors around you, flattering and repeating your opalescence!

       Truly, you could wear no better masks than your own faces, you men of the present!  Who could - recognize you!

       Written over with the signs of the past and these signs overdaubed with new signs: thus you have hidden yourselves well from all interpreters of signs!

       And if one tests your virility, one finds only sterility!  You seem to be baked from colours and scraps of paper glued together.

       All ages and all peoples gaze motley out of your veils; all customs and all beliefs speak motley out of your gestures.

       He who tore away from you your veils and wraps and paint and gestures would have just enough left over to frighten the birds.

       Truly, I myself am the frightened bird who once saw you naked and without paint; and I flew away when the skeleton made advances to me.

       I would rather be a day-labourer in the underworld and among the shades of the bygone! - Even the inhabitants of the underworld are fatter and fuller than you!

       This, yes this is bitterness to my stomach, that I can endure you neither naked nor clothed, you men of the present!

       And the unfamiliar things of the future, and whatever frightened stray birds, are truly more familiar and more genial than your 'reality'.

       For thus you speak: "We are complete realists, and without belief or superstition": thus you thump your chests - alas, even without having chests!

       But how should you be able to believe, you motley-spotted men! - you who are paintings of all that has ever been believed!

       You are walking refutations of belief itself and the fracture of all thought.  Unworthy of belief: that is what I call you, you realists!

       All ages babble in confusion in your spirits; and the dreaming and babbling of all ages was more real than is your waking!

       You are unfruitful: therefore you lack belief.  But he who had to create always had his prophetic dreams and star-auguries - and he believed in belief!

       You are half-open doors at which grave-diggers wait.  And this is your reality: "Everything is worthy of perishing."

       Ah, how you stand there, you unfruitful men, how lean-ribbed!  And, indeed, many of you have noticed that.

       And they have said: "Perhaps a god has secretly taken something from me there as I slept?  Truly, sufficient to form a little woman for himself!

       "Amazing is the poverty of my ribs!"  That is how many a present-day man has spoken.

       Yes, you are laughable to me, you men of the present!  And especially when you are amazed at yourselves!

       And woe to me if I could not laugh at your amazement and had to drink down all that is repulsive in your bowels.

       However, I will make light of you, since I have heavy things to carry; and what do I care if beetles and dragonflies sit themselves on my bundle!

       Truly, it shall not become heavier on that account!  And the great weariness shall not come to me from you, you men of the present.

       Alas, whither shall I climb now with my longing?  I look out from every mountain for fatherlands and motherlands.

       But nowhere have I found a home; I am unsettled in every city and I depart from every gate.

       The men of the present, to whom my heart once drove me, are strange to me and a mockery; and I have been driven from fatherlands and motherlands.

       So now I love only my children's land, the undiscovered land in the furthest sea: I bid my sails seek it and seek it.

       I will make amends to my children for being the child of my fathers: and to all the future - for this present!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

      

 

Of Immaculate Perception

 

WHEN the moon rose yesterday I thought it was about to give birth to a sun, it lay on the horizon so broad and pregnant.

       But it was a liar with its pregnancy; and I will sooner believe in the man in the moon than in the woman.

       To be sure, he is not much of a man, either, this timid night-reveller.  Truly, he travels over the roofs with a bad conscience.

       For he is lustful and jealous, the monk in the moon, lustful for the earth and for all the joys of lovers.

       No, I do not like him, this tomcat on the roofs!  All who slink around half-closed windows are repugnant to me!

       Piously and silently he walks along on star-carpets: but I do not like soft-stepping feet on which not even a spur jingles.

       Every honest man' step speaks out: but the cat steals along over the ground.   Behold, the moon comes along catlike and without honesty.

       This parable I speak to you sentimental hypocrites, to you of 'pure knowledge'!  I call you - lustful!

       You too love the earth and the earthly: I have divined you well! - but shame and bad conscience is in your love - you are like the moon!

       Your spirit has been persuaded to contempt of the earthly, but your entrails have not: these, however, are the strongest part of you!

       And now your spirit is ashamed that it must do the will of your entrails and follows by-ways and lying-ways to avoid its own shame.

       "For me, the highest thing would be to gaze at life without desire and not, as a dog does, with tongue hanging out" - thus speaks your mendacious spirit to itself:

       "To be happy in gazing, with benumbed will, without the grasping and greed of egotism - cold and ashen in body but with intoxicated moon-eyes!

       "For me, the dearest thing would be to love the earth as the moon loves it, and to touch its beauty with the eyes alone" - thus the seduced one seduces himself.

       And let this be called by me immaculate perception of all things: that I desire nothing of things, except that I may lie down before them like a mirror with a hundred eyes.!

       Oh, you sentimental hypocrites, you lustful men!  You lack innocence in desire: and therefore you now slander desiring!

       Truly, you do not love the earth as creators, begetters, men joyful at entering upon a new existence!

       Where is innocence?  Where there is will to begetting.  And for me, he who wants to create beyond himself has the purest will.

       Where is beauty?  What I have to will with all my will; where I want to love and perish, that an image may not remain merely an image.

       Loving and perishing: these have gone together from eternity.  Will to love: that means to be willing to die, too.  Thus I speak to you cowards!

       But now your emasculated leering wants to be called 'contemplation'!  And that which lets cowardly eyes touch it shall be christened 'beautiful'!  Oh, you befoulers of noble names!

       But it shall be your curse, you immaculate men, you of pure knowledge, that you will never bring forth, even if you lie broad and pregnant on the horizon!

       Truly, you fill your mouths with noble words: and are we supposed to believe that your hearts are overflowing, you habitual liars?

       But my words are poor, despised, halting words: I am glad to take what falls from the table at your feast.

       Yet with them I can still - tell the truth to hypocrites!  Yes, my fish-bones, shells, and prickly leaves shall - tickle hypocrites' noses!

       There is always bad air around you and around your feasts: for your lustful thoughts, your lies and secrets are in the air!

       Only dare to believe in yourselves - in yourselves and in your entrails!  He who does not believe in himself always lies.

       You have put on the mask of a god, you 'pure': your dreadful coiling snake has crawled into the mask of a god.

       Truly, you are deceivers, you 'contemplative'!  Even Zarathustra was once the fool of your divine veneer; he did not guess at the serpent-coil with which it was filled.

       Once I thought I saw a god's soul at play in your play, you of pure knowledge!  Once I thought there was no better art than your arts!

       Distance concealed from me the serpent-filth, and the evil odour, and that a lizard's cunning was prowling lustfully around.

       But I approached you: then day dawned for me - and now it dawns for you - the moon's love affair has come to an end!

       Just look!  There it stands, pale and detected - before the dawn!

       For already it is coming, the glowing sun - its love of the earth is coming!  All sun-love is innocence and creative desire!

       Just look how it comes impatiently over the sea!  Do you not feel the thirst and the hot breath of its love?

       It wants to suck at the sea and drink the sea's depths up to its height: now the sea's desire rises with a thousand breasts.

       It wants to be kissed and sucked by the sun's thirst; it wants to become air and height and light's footpath and light itself!

       Truly, like the sun do I love life and all deep seas.

       And this I call knowledge: all that is deep shall rise up - to my height!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

      

 

 

Of Scholars

 

AS I lay asleep, a sheep ate at the ivy-wreath upon my head - ate and said: "Zarathustra is no longer a scholar."

       It spoke and went away stiffly and proud.  A child told me of it.

       I like to lie here where children play, beside the broken wall, among thistles and red poppies.

       To children I am still a scholar, and to thistles and red poppies, too.  They are innocent, even in their wickedness.

       But to sheep I am no longer a scholar: thus my fate will have it - blessed be my fate!

       For this is the truth: I have left the house of scholars and slammed the door behind me.

       Too long did my soul sit hungry at their table; I have not been schooled, as they have, to crack knowledge as one cracks nuts.

       I love freedom and the air over fresh soil; I would sleep on ox-skins rather than on their dignities and respectabilities.

       I am too hot and scorched by my own thought: it is often about to take my breath away.  Then I have to get into the open air and away from all dusty rooms.

       But they sit cool in the cool shade: they want to be mere spectators in everything and they take care not to sit where the sun burns upon the steps.

       Like those who stand in the street and stare at the people passing by, so they too wait and stare at thoughts that others have thought.

       If one takes hold of them, their involuntarily raise a dust like sacks of flour; but who could guess that their dust derived from corn and from the golden joy of summer fields?

       When they give themselves out as wise, their little sayings and truths make me shiver: their wisdom often smells as if it came from the swamp: and indeed, I have heard the frog croak in it!

       They are clever, they have cunning fingers: what is my simplicity compared with their diversity?  Their fingers understand all threading and knitting and weaving: thus they weave the stockings of the spirit!

       They are excellent clocks: only be careful to wind them up properly!  Then they tell the hour without error and make a modest noise in doing so.

       They work like mills and rammers: just throw seed-corn into them! - they know how to grind corn small and make white dust of it.

       They keep a sharp eye upon one another and do not trust one another as well as they might.  Inventive in small slynesses, they lie in wait for those whose wills go upon lame feet - they lie in wait like spiders.

       I have seen how carefully they prepare their poisons; they always put on protective gloves.

       They also know how to play with loaded dice; and I found them playing so zealously that they were sweating.

       We are strangers to one another, and their virtues are even more opposed to my taste than are their falsehoods and loaded dice.

       And when I lived among them I lived above them.  They grew angry with me for that.

       They did not want to know that someone was walking over their heads; and so they put wood and dirt and rubbish between their heads and me.

       Thus they muffled the sound of my steps: and from then on the most scholarly heard me the worst..

       They put all the faults and weaknesses of mankind between themselves and me - they call this a 'false flooring' in their houses.

       But I walk above their heads with my thoughts in spite of that; and even if I should walk upon my own faults, I should still be above them and their heads.

       For men are not equal: thus speaks justice.  And what I desire they may not desire!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

      

Of Poets

 

"SINCE I have known the body better," said Zarathustra to one of his disciples, "the spirit has been only figuratively spirit to me; and all that is 'intransitory' - that too has been only an 'image'."

       "I heard you say that once before," answered the disciple; "and then you added: 'But the poets lie too much.'  Why did you say that the poets lie too much?"

       "Why?" said Zarathustra.  "You ask why?  I am not one of those who may be questioned about their Why.

       "Do my experiences date from yesterday?  It is a long time since I experienced the reasons for my opinions.

       "Should I not have to be a barrel of memory, if I wanted to carry my reasons, too, about with me?

       "It is already too much for me to retain even my opinions; and many a bird has flown away.

       "And now and then I find in my dove-cote an immigrant creature which is strange to me and which trembles when I lay my hand upon it.

       "Yet what did Zarathustra once say to you?  That the poets lie too much? - But Zarathustra too is a poet.

       "Do you now believe that he spoke the truth?  Why do you believe it?"

       The disciple answered: "I believe in Zarathustra."  But Zarathustra shook his head and smiled.

       Belief does not make be blessed (he said), least of all belief in myself.

       But granted that someone has said in all seriousness that the poets lie too much: he is right - we do lie too much.

       We know too little and are bad learners: so we have to lie.

       And which of us poets has not adulterated his wine?  Many a poisonous hotch-potch has been produced in our cellars, many an indescribable thing has been done there.

       And because we know little, the poor in spirit delight our hearts, especially when they are young women.

       And we desire even those things the old women tell one another in the evening.  We call that the eternal-womanly in us.

       And we believe in the people and its 'wisdom' as if there were a special secret entrance to knowledge which is blocked to him who has learned anything.

       But all poets believe this: that he who, lying in the grass or in lonely bowers, pricks up his ears, catches a little of the things that are between heaven and earth.

       And if they experience tender emotions, the poets always think that nature herself is in love with them:

       And that she creeps up to their ears, to speak secrets and amorous flattering words into them: of this they boast and pride themselves before all mortals!

       Alas, there are so many things between heaven and earth of which only the poets have let themselves dream!

       And especially above heaven: for all gods are poets' images, poets' surreptitiousness!

       Truly, it draws us ever upward - that is, to cloudland: we set our motley puppets on the clouds and then call them gods and supermen.

       And are they not light enough for these insubstantial seats? - all these gods and supermen.

       Alas, how weary I am of all the unattainable that is supposed to be reality.  Alas, how weary I am of the poets!

 

       When Zarathustra had spoken thus, his disciple was angry with him, but kept silent.  And Zarathustra, too, kept silent; and his eye had turned within him as if it were gazing into the far distance.  At length he sighed and drew a breath.

 

       I am of today and of the has-been (he said then); but there is something in me that is of tomorrow and of the day-after-tomorrow and of the shall-be.

       I have grown weary of the poets, the old and the new: they all seem to me superficial and shallow seas.

       They have not thought deeply enough: therefore their feeling - has not plumbed the depths.

       A little voluptuousness and a little tedium: that is all their best ideas have ever amounted to.

       All their harp-jangling is to me so much coughing and puffing of phantoms; what have their ever known of the ardour of tones!

       They are not clean enough for me, either: they all disturb their waters so that they may seem deep.

       And in that way they would like to show themselves reconcilers: but to me they remain mediators and meddlers, and mediocre and unclean men!

       Ah, indeed I cast my net into their sea and hoped to catch fine fish; but I always drew out an old god's head.

       Thus the sea gave a stone to the hungry man.  And they themselves may well originate from the sea.

       To be sure, one finds pearls in them: then they themselves are all the more like hard shell-fish.  And instead of the soul I often found in them salty slime.

       They learned vanity, too, from the sea: is the sea not the peacocks of peacocks?

       It unfurls its tail even before the ugliest of buffaloes, it never wearies of its lace-fan of silver and satin.

       They buffalo looks on insolently, his soul like the sand, yet more like the thicket, but most like the swamp.

       What are beauty and sea and peacock-ornaments to him?  I speak this parable to the poets.

       Truly, their spirit itself is the peacock of peacocks and a sea of vanity!

       The poet's spirit wants spectators, even if they are only buffaloes!

       But I have grown weary of this spirit: and I see the day coming when it will grow weary of itself.

       Already I have seen the poets transformed; I have seen them direct their glance upon themselves.

       I have seen penitents of the spirit appearing: they grew out of the poets.

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

Of Great Events

 

THERE is an island in the sea - not far from the Blissful Islands of Zarathustra - upon which a volcano continually smokes; the people, and especially the old women among the people, say that it is placed like a block of stone before the gate of the underworld, but that the narrow downward path which leads to this gate of the underworld passes through the volcano itself.

       Now at the time Zarathustra was living on the Blissful Islands it happened that a ship dropped anchor at the island upon which the smoking mountain stood; and its crew landed in order to shoot rabbits.  Towards the hour of noon, however, when the captain and his men were reassembled, they suddenly saw a man coming towards them through the air, and a voice said clearly: "It is time!  It is high time!"  But as the figure was closest to them - it flew quickly past, however, like a shadow, in the direction of the volcano - they recognized, with the greatest consternation, that it was Zarathustra; for all of them had seen him before, except the captain himself, and they loved him as the people love: that is, with love and awe in equal parts.

       "Just look!" said the old steersman, "there is Zarathustra going to Hell!"

       At the same time as these sailors landed on the volcano island, the rumour went around that Zarathustra had disappeared; and when his friends were questioned, they said that he had gone aboard a ship by night without saying where he intended to sail.

       Thus there arose a disquiet; after three day, however, there was added to this disquiet the story of the sailors - and then all the people said that the Devil had carried Zarathustra off.  Of course, his disciples laughed at this talk; and one of them even said: "I would rather believe that Zarathustra had carried off the Devil."  But at the bottom of their souls they were all full of apprehension and longing: so great was their joy when, on the fifth day, Zarathustra appeared among them.

       And this is the tale of Zarathustra's conversation with the fire-dog:

 

       The earth (he said) has a skin; and this skin has diseases.  One of these diseases, for example, is called 'Man'.

       And another of these diseases is called 'the fire-dog': men have told many lies and been told many lies about him.

       To fathom this secret I fared across the sea: and I have seen truth naked, truly! barefoot to the neck.

       Now I know all about the fire-dog; and also about all the revolutionary and subversive devils which not only old women fear.

       "Up with you, fire-dog, up from your depth!" I cried, "and confess how deep that depth is!  Where does it come from, that which you snort up?

       "You drink deeply from the sea: your bitter eloquence betrays that!  Truly, for a dog of the depths you take your food too much from the surface!

       "At the best, I hold you to be the earth's ventriloquist: and when I have heard subversive and revolutionary devils speak, I have always found them like you: bitter, lying, and superficial.

       "You understand how to bellow and how to darken the air with ashes!  You are the greatest braggart and have sufficiently learned the art of making mud boil.

       "Where you are there must always be mud around and much that is spongy, hollow, and compressed: it wants to be freed.

       "'Freedom', you all most like to bellow: but I have unlearned belief in 'great events' whenever there is much bellowing and smoke about them.

       "And believe me, friend Infernal-racket!  The greatest events - they are not our noisiest but our stillest hours.

       "They world revolves, not around the inventors of new noises, but around the inventors of new values; it revolves inaudibly.

       "And just confess!  Little was ever found to have happened when your noise and smoke dispersed.  What did it matter that a town had been mummified and a statue lay in the mud!

       "And I say this to the overthrowers of statues: To throw salt into the sea and statues into the mud are perhaps the greatest of follies.

       "The statue lay in the mud of your contempt: but this precisely is its law, that its life and living beauty grow again out of contempt!"

       "And now it arises again, with diviner features and sorrowfully-seductive; and in truth! it will even thank you for overthrowing it, you overthrowers!

       "I tender, however, this advice to kings and churches and to all that is weak with age and virtue - only let yourselves be overthrown!  That you may return to life, and that virtue - may return to you!"

       Thus I spoke before the fire-dog: then he interrupted me sullenly and asked: "The church?  What is that then?"

       "The church?" I answered.  "The church is kind of state, and indeed the most mendacious kind.  But keep quiet, you hypocrite dog!  You surely know your own kind best!

       "Like you, the state is a hypocrite dog; like you, it likes to speak with smoke and bellowing - to make believe, like you, that it speaks out of the belly of things.

       "For the state wants to be absolutely the most important beast on earth; and it is believed to be so, too!"

       When I said that, the fire-dog acted as if he were mad with envy.  "What?" he cried, "the most important beast on earth?  And it is believed to be so, too?"  And so much steam and hideous shrieking came from his throat I thought he would choke with vexation and envy.

       At length he grew quieter and his panting ceased; as soon as he was quiet, however, I said laughing:

       "You are vexed, fire-dog: therefore I am right about you!

       "And that I may press my point, let me speak of another fire-dog, which really speaks from the heart of the earth.

       "His breath exhales gold and golden rain: so his heart will have it.  What are ashes and smoke and hot mud to him now!

       "Laughter flutters from him like a motley cloud; he is ill-disposed towards your gurgling and spitting and griping of the bowels.

       "Gold and laughter, however, he takes from the heart of the earth: for, that you may know it - the heart of the earth is of gold."

       When the fire-dog heard this he could no longer bear to listen to me.  Abashed, he drew in his tail, said "Bow-wow" in a small voice, and crawled down into his cave.

 

       Thus narrated Zarathustra.  But  his disciples hardly listened to him, so great was their desire to tell him about the sailors, the rabbits, and the flying man.

       "What am I to think of it?" said Zarathustra.  "Am I then a ghost?

       "But it will have been my shadow.  Surely you have heard something of the Wanderer and his Shadow?

       "This, however, is certain: I must keep it under stricter control - otherwise it will ruin my reputation."

       And once again Zarathustra shook his head and wondered.  "What am I to think of it?" he said again.

       "Why, then, did the phantom cry: 'It is time!  It is high time!'?

       "For what, then, is it - high time?"

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

The Prophet

 

- AND I saw a great sadness come over mankind.  The best grew weary of their works.

       A teaching went forth, a belief ran beside it: Everything is empty, everything is one, everything is past!

       And from every hill it resounded: Everything is empty, everything is one, everything is past!

       We have harvested, it is true: but why did all our fruits turn rotten and brown?  What fell from the wicked moon last night?

       All our work has been in vain, our wine has become poison, an evil eye has scorched our fields and our hearts.

       We have all become dry; and if fire fell upon us we should scatter like ashes - yes, we have made weary fire itself.

       All our wells have dried up, even the sea has receded.  The earth wants to break open, but the depths will not devour us!

       Alas, where is there still a sea in which one could drown: thus our lament resounds - across shallow swamps.

       Truly, we have grown too weary even to die; now we are still awake and we on - in sepulchres!

 

       Thus did Zarathustra hear a prophet speak; and his prophesy went to Zarathustra's heart and transformed him.  He went about sad and weary; and he became like those of whom the prophet had spoken.

       "Truly," he said to his disciples, "this long twilight is very nearly upon us.  Alas, how shall I preserve my light through it?

       "May it not be smothered in this sadness!  It is meant to be a light to more distant worlds and to the most distant nights!"

       Zarathustra want about grieving in his heart; and for three days he took no food or drink, had no rest and forgot speech.  At length it happened that he fell into a deep sleep.  And his disciples sat around him in the long watches of the night and waited anxiously to see if he would awaken and speak again and be cured of his affliction.

       And this is the discourse that Zarathustra spoke when he awoke; his voice, however, came to his disciples as if from a great distance:

 

       Listen to the dream which I dreamed, friends, and help me to read its meaning!

       It is still a riddle to me, this dream; its meaning is hidden within it and imprisoned and does not yet fly above it with unconfined wings.

       I dreamed I had renounced all life.  I had become a night-watchman and grave-watchman yonder upon the lonely hill-fortress of death.

       Up there I guarded death's coffins: the musty vaults stood full of these symbols of death's victory.  Life overcome regarded me from glass coffins.

       I breathed the odour of dust-covered eternities: my soul lay sultry and dust-covered.  And who could have ventilated his soul there?

       Brightness of midnight was all around me, solitude crouched beside it; and, as a third, the rasping silence of death, the worst of my companions.

       I carried keys, the rustiest of all keys; and I could open with them the most creaking of all doors.

       When the wings of this door were opened, the sound ran through the long corridors like an evil croaking; this bird cried out ill-temperedly, it did not want to be awakened.

       But it was even more fearful and heart-tightening when it again became silent and still all around and I sat alone in that malignant silence.

       So did time pass with me and creep past, if time still existed: what did I know of it!  But at last occurred that which awakened me.

       Three blows were struck on the door like thunderbolts, the vault resounded and roared three times again: then I went to the door.

       Alpa! I cried, who is bearing his ashes to the mountain?  Alpa! Alpa!  Who is bearing his ashes to the mountain?

       And I turned the key and tugged at the door and exerted myself.  But it did not open by so much as a finger's breadth:

       Then a raging wind tore the door asunder: whistling, shrilling and piercing it threw to me a black coffin:

       And in the roaring and whistling and shrilling, the coffin burst asunder and vomited forth a thousand peals of laughter.

       And from a thousand masks of children, angels, owls, fools, and child-sized butterflies it laughed and mocked and roared at me.

       This terrified me dreadfully: it prostrated me.  And I shrieked with horror as I had never shrieked before.

       But my own shrieking awoke me - and I came to myself.

 

       Thus Zarathustra narrated his dream and then fell silent: for he did not yet know the interpretation of his dream.  But the disciple whom he loved most arose quickly, grasped Zarathustra's hand, and said:

 

       Your life itself interprets to us this dream, O Zarathustra!

       Are you yourself not the wind with a shrill whistling that tears open the doors of the fortress of death?

       Are you yourself not the coffin full of motley wickednesses and angel-masks of life?

       Truly, Zarathustra comes into all sepulchres like a thousand peals of children's laughter, laughing at these night-watchmen and grave-watchmen, and whoever else rattles gloomy keys.

       You will terrify and overthrow them with your laughter; fainting and reawakening will demonstrate your power over them.

       And the when the long twilight and the weariness unto death appears, you will not set in our heaven, you advocate of life!

       You have shown us new stars and new glories of the night; truly, you have spread our laughter itself above us like a motley canopy.

       Henceforth laughter of children will always issue from coffins; henceforth a strong wind will always come, victorious, to all weariness unto death: of that you yourself are our guarantee and prophet!

       Truly, you have dreamed your enemies themselves: that was your most oppressive dream!

       But as you awoke from them and came to yourself, so shall they awake from themselves - and come to you!

 

       Thus spoke the disciple; and all the others then pressed around Zarathustra and grasped his hands and sought to persuade him to leave his bed and his sadness and return to them.  But Zarathustra sat upon his bed erect and with an absent expression.  Like one who has returned home after being long in a strange land did he look upon his disciples and examine their faces; and as yet he did not recognize them.  But when they raised him and set him upon his feet, behold, his eye was suddenly transformed; he understood everything that had happened, stroked his beard, and said in a firm voice:

 

       Well now!  This has had its time; but see to it, my disciples, that we have a good meal, and quickly!  Thus I mean to do penance for bad dreams!

       The prophet, however, shall eat and drink beside me: and truly, I will yet show him a sea in which he can drown!

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.  Then, however, he gazed long into the face of the disciple who had interpreted the dream, and shook his head.

 

 

 

Of Redemption

 

AS Zarathustra was going across the great bridge one day, the cripples and beggars surrounded him and a hunchback spoke to him thus:

 

       Behold, Zarathustra!  The people, too, learn from you and acquire belief in your teaching: but for the people to believe you completely, one thing is still needed - you must first convince even us cripples!  Here now you have a fine selection and truly, an opportunity with more than one forelock!  You can cure the blind and make the lame walk; and from him who has too much behind him you could well take a little away, too - that, I think, would be the right way to make cripples believe in Zarathustra!

       But Zarathustra replied thus to him who had spoken:

 

       If one takes the hump away from the hunchback, one takes away his spirit - that is what the people teach.  And if one gives eyes to the blind man, he sees too many bad things on earth: so that he curses him who cured him.  But he who makes the lame man walk does him the greatest harm: for no sooner can he walk than his vices run away with him - that is what the people teach about cripples.  And why should Zarathustra not learn from the people, if the people learn from Zarathustra?

       But it is the least serious thing to me, since I have been among men, to see that this one lacks an eye and that one an ear and a third lacks a leg, and there are others who have lost their tongue or their nose or their head.

       I see and have seen worse things and many of them so monstrous that I should not wish to speak of all of them; but of some of them I should not wish to be silent: and they are, men who lack everything except one thing, of which they have too much - men who are no more than a great eye or a great mouth or a great belly or something else great - I call such men inverse cripples.

       And when I emerged from my solitude and crossed over this bridge for the first time, I did not believe my eyes and looked and looked again and said at last: "That is an ear!  An ear as big ass a man!"  I looked yet more closely: and in fact under the ear there moved something that was pitifully small and meagre and slender.  And in truth, the monstrous ear sat upon a little, thin stalk - the stalk, however, was a man!  By the use of a magnifying glass one could even discern a little, envious face as well; and one could discern, too, than a turgid little soul was dangling from the stalk.  The people told me, however, that the great ear was not merely a man, but a great man, a genius.  But I have never believed the people when they talk about great men - and I held to my belief that it was an inverse cripple, who had too little of everything and too much of one thing.

 

       When Zarathustra had spoken thus to the hunchback and to those whose mouthpiece and advocate he was, he turned to his disciples with profound ill-humour and said:

 

       Truly, my friends, I walk among men as among the fragments and limbs of men!

       The terrible thing to my eye is to find men shattered in pieces and scattered as if over a battle-field of slaughter.

       And when my eye flees from the present to the past, it always discovers the same thing: fragments and limbs and dreadful chances - but no men!

       The present and the past upon the earth - alas! my friends - that is my most intolerable burden; and I should not know how to live, if I were not a seer of that which must come.

       A seer, a willer, a creator, a future itself and a bridge to the future - and alas, also like a  cripple upon this bridge: Zarathustra is all this.

       And even you have often asked yourselves: Who is Zarathustra to us?  What shall we call him? and, like me, you answer your own questions with questions.

       Is he a promiser?  Or a fulfiller?  A conqueror?  Or an inheritor?  A harvest?  Or a ploughshare?  A physician?  Or a convalescent?

       Is he a poet?  Or a genuine man?  A liberator?  Or a subduer?  A good man?  Or an evil man?

       I walk among men as among fragments of the future: of that future which I scan.

       And it is all my art and aim, to compose into one and bring together what is fragment and riddle and dreadful chance.

       And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also poet and reader of riddles and the redeemer of chance!

       To redeem the past and to transform every 'It was' into an 'I wanted it thus!' - that alone do I call redemption!

       Will - that is what the liberator and bringer of joy is called: thus I have taught you, my friends!  But now learn this as well: The will itself is still a prisoner.

       Willing liberates: but what is it that fastens in fetters even the liberator?

       'It was': that is what the will's teeth-gnashing and most lonely affliction is called.  Powerless against that which has been done, the will is an angry spectator of all things past.

       The will cannot will backwards; that it cannot break time and time's desire - that is the will's most lonely affliction.

       Willing liberates: what does willing itself devise to free itself from its affliction and to mock at its dungeon?

       Alas, every prisoner becomes a fool!  The imprisoned will, too, releases itself in a foolish way.

       It is sullenly wrathful that time does not run back; 'That which was' - that is what the stone which it cannot roll away is called.

       And so, out of wrath and ill-temper, the will rolls stones about and takes revenge upon him who does not, like it, feel wrath and ill-temper.

       Thus the will, the liberator, becomes a malefactor: and upon all that can suffer it takes revenge for its inability to go backwards.

       This, yes, this alone is revenge itself: the will's antipathy towards time and time's 'It was'.

       Truly, a great foolishness dwells in our will; and that this foolishness acquired spirit has become a curse to all human kind.

       The spirit of revenge: my friends, that, up to now, has been mankind's chief concern; and where there was suffering there was always supposed to be punishment.

       'Punishment' is what revenge calls itself: it feigns a good conscience for itself with a lie.

       And because there is suffering in the willer himself, since he cannot will backwards - therefore willing itself and all life was supposed to be - punishment!

       And then cloud upon cloud rolled over the spirit: until at last madness preached: "Everything passes away, therefore everything deserves to pass away!

       "And that law of time, that time must devour her children, is justice itself": thus madness preached.

       "Things are ordered morally according to justice and punishment.  Oh, where is redemption from the stream of things and from the punishment 'existence'?"  Thus madness preached.

       "Can there be redemption when there is eternal justice?  Alas the stone 'It was' cannot be rolled away: all punishments, too, must be eternal!"  Thus madness preached.

       "No deed can be annihilated: how could a deed be undone through punishment?  That existence too must be an eternally-recurring deed and guilt, this, this is what is eternal in the punishment 'existence'!

       "Except the will at last redeem itself and willing become not-willing -": but you, my brothers, know the fable-song of madness!

       I led you away from these fable-songs when I taught you: 'The will is a creator.'

       All 'It was' is a fragment, a riddle, a dreadful chance - until the creative will says to it: "But I willed it thus!"

       Until the creative will says to it: "But I will it thus!  Thus shall I will it!"

       But has it ever spoken thus?  And when will this take place?  Had the will yet been unharnessed from its own folly?

       Has the will become its own redeemer and bringer of joy?  Has it unlearned the spirit of revenge and all teeth-gnashing?

       And who has taught it to be reconciled with time, and higher things than reconciliation?

       The will that is the will to power must will something higher than any reconciliation - but how shall that happen?  Who has taught it to will backwards, too?

 

       But at this point in his discourse Zarathustra suddenly broke off and looked exactly like a man seized by extremest terror.  With terrified eyes he gazed upon his disciples; his eyes transpierced their thoughts and their reservations as if with arrows.  But after a short time he laughed again and said in a soothed voice:

       "It is difficult to live among men because keeping silent is so difficult.  Especially for a babbler."

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.  The hunchback, however, had listened to the conversation and had covered his face the while; but when he heard Zarathustra laugh, he looked up in curiosity, and said slowly:

       "But why does Zarathustra speak to us differently than to his disciples?"

       Zarathustra answered: "What is surprising in that?  One may well speak in a hunchbacked manner to a hunchback!"

       "Very good," said the hunchback; "and with pupils one may well tell tales out of school.

       "But why does Zarathustra speak to his pupils differently - than to himself?"

 

      

 

Of Manly Prudence

 

IT is not height, it is the abyss that is terrible!

       The abyss where the glance plunges downward and the hand grasps upward.  There the heart grows giddy through its twofold will.

       Ah, friends, have you, too, divined my heart's twofold will?

       That my glance plunges into the heights and that my hand wants to hold on to the depths and lean there - that, that is my abyss and danger.

       My will clings to mankind, I bind myself to mankind with fetters, because I am drawn up to the Superman: for my other will wants to draw me up to the Superman.

       That my hand may not quite lose its belief in firmness: that is why I live blindly among men, as if I did not recognize them.

       I do not recognize you men: this darkness and consolation has often spread around me.

       I sit at the gateway and wait for every rogue and ask: Who wants to deceive me?

       This is my first and manly prudence: I let myself be deceived so as not to be on guard against deceivers.

       Ah, if I were on guard against men, how could men be an anchor for my ball?  It would be torn upward and away too easily!

       This providence lies over my fate: I have to be without foresight.

       And he who does not want to die of thirst among men must learn to drink out of all glasses; and he who wants to stay clean among men must know how to wash himself even with dirty water.

       And to console myself I often spoke thus: "Well then!  Come on, old heart!  A misfortune failed to harm you: enjoy that as your - good fortune!"

       This, however, is my second manly prudence: I am more considerate to the vain than to the proud.

       Is wounded vanity not the mother of all tragedies?  But where pride is wounded there surely grows up something better than pride.

       If life is to be pleasant to watch, its play must be well acted: for that, however, good actors are needed.

       I found all vain people to be good actors: they act and desire that others shall want to watch them - all their spirit is in this desire.

       They act themselves, they invent themselves; I like to watch life in their vicinity - it cures melancholy.

       I am considerate to the vain because they are physicians to my melancholy and hold me fast to mankind as to a play.

       And further: who can estimate the full depth of the vain man's modesty!  I love and pity him on account of his modesty.

       He wants to learn belief in himself from you; he feeds upon your glances, he eats praise out of your hands.

       He believes even your lies when you lie favourably to him: for his heart sighs in its depths: "What am I?"

       And if the virtue that he unconscious of itself be the true virtue: well, the vain man is unconscious of his modesty!

       This, however, is my third manly prudence: I do not let your timorousness spoil my pleasure at the sight of the wicked.

       I am happy to see the marvels the hot sun hatches: tigers and palm trees and rattle-snakes.

       Among men, too, there is a fine brood of the hot sun and much that is marvellous in the wicked.

       Indeed, as your wisest man did not seem so very wise to me, so I found that human wickedness, too, did not live up to its reputation.

       And I often shook my head and asked: Why go on rattling, you rattle-snakes?

       Truly, there is still a future, even for evil!  And the hottest South has not yet been discovered for mankind.

       How many a thing is now called grossest wickedness which is only twelve feet broad and three months long!  One say, however, greater dragons will come into the world.

       For, that the Superman may not lack his dragon, the superdragon worthy of him, much hut sunshine must yet burn upon damp primeval forests!

       Your wild cats must have become tigers and your poison-toads crocodiles: for the good huntsman shall have a good hunt!

       And truly, you good and just!  There is much in you that is laughable and especially your fear of him who was formerly called the 'Devil'!

       Your souls are so unfamiliar with what is great that the Superman would be fearful to you in his goodness!

       And you wise and enlightened men, you would flee from the burning sun off wisdom in which the Superman joyfully bathes his nakedness!

       You highest men my eyes have encountered!  This is my doubt of you and my secret laughter: I think you would call my Superman - a devil!

       Alas, I grew weary of these highest and best men: from their 'heights' I longed to go up, out, away to the Superman!

       A horror overcame me when I saw these best men naked: then there grew for me the wings to soar away into distant futures.

       Into most distant futures, into more southerly Souths than artists ever dreamed of: thither where gods are ashamed of all clothes!

       But I want to see you disguised, you neighbours and fellow-men, and well-dressed and vain and worthy as 'the good and the just'.

       And I myself will sit among you disguised, so that I may misunderstand you and myself: that, in fact, is my last manly prudence.

 

       Thus spoke Zarathustra.

 

 

 

The Stillest Hour

 

WHAT has happened to me, my friends?  You behold me troubled, driven forth, unwillingly obedient, ready to go - alas, to go away from you!

       Yes, Zarathustra must go into his solitude once again: but this time the bear goes unhappily back into his cave!

       What has happened to me?  Who has ordered this? - alas, my mistress will have it so, so she told me; have I ever told you her name?

       Yesterday towards evening my stillest hour spoke to me: that is the name of my terrible mistress.

       And thus it happened, for I must tell you everything, that your hearts may not harden against me for departing so suddenly!

       Do you know the terror which assails him who is falling asleep?

       He is terrified down to his toes, because the ground seems to give way, and the dream begins.

       I tell you this in a parable.  Yesterday, at the stillest hour, the ground seemed to give way: my dream began.

       The hand moved, the clock of my life held its breath - I had never heard such stillness about me: so that my heart was terrified.

       Then, voicelessly, something said to me: "You know, Zarathustra?"

       And I cried out for terror at this whisper, and the blood drained from my face: but I kept silent.

       Then again, something said to me voicelessly: "You know, Zarathustra, but you do not speak!"

       And I answered at last defiantly: "Yes, I know, but I will not speak!"

       Then again something said to me voicelessly: "You will not, Zarathustra?  Is this true?  Do not hide yourself in your defiance!"

       And I wept and trembled like a child and said: "Alas, I want to, but how can I?  Release me from this alone!  It is beyond my strength!"

       Then again something said to me voicelessly: "Of what consequence are you, Zarathustra?  Speak your teaching and break!"

       And I answered: "Ah, is it my teaching?  Who am I?  I await one who is more worthy; I am not worthy even to break by it."

       Then again something said to me voicelessly: "Of what consequence are you?  You are not yet humble enough.  Humility has the toughest hide."

       And I answered: "What has the hide of my humility not already endured?  I live at the foot of my heights: how high are my peaks?  No-one has yet told me.  But I know my valleys well."

       Then again something said to me voicelessly: "O Zarathustra, he who has to move mountains moves valleys and lowlands, too."

       And I answered: "My words have as yet moved no mountains and what I have spoken has not reached men.  Indeed, I went to men, but I have not yet attained them."

       Then again something said to me voicelessly: "How do you know that?  The dew falls upon the grass when the night is at its most silent."

       And I answered: "They mocked me when I found and walked my own way; and in truth my feet trembled then.

       "And they spoke thus to me: You have forgotten the way, now you will also forget how to walk!"

       Then again something said to me voicelessly: "Of what consequence is their mockery?  You are one who has unlearned how to obey: now you shall command!

       "Do you know what it is all men most need?  Him who commands great things.

       "To perform great things is difficult: but more difficult is to command great things.

       "This is the most unpardonable thing about you: You have the power and you will not rule."

       And I answered: "I lack the lion's voice for command."

       Then again something said to me as in a whisper: "It is the stillest words which bring the storm.  Thoughts that come on doves' feet guide the world.

       "O Zarathustra, you shall go as a shadow of that which must come: thus you will command and commanding lead the way."

       And I answered: "I am ashamed."

       Then again something said to me voicelessly: "You must yet become a child and without shame.

       "The pride of youth is still in you, you have become young late: but he who wants to become a child must overcome even his youth."

       And I considered long and trembled.  At last, however, I said what I had said at first: "I will not."

       Then a laughing broke out around me.  Alas, how this laughing tore my body and ripped open my heart!

       And for the last time something said to me: "O Zarathustra, your fruits are ripe but you are not ripe for your fruits!

       "So you must go back into solitude: for you shall yet grow mellow."

       And again something laughed, and fled: then it grew still round me as if with a twofold stillness.  I, however, lay on the ground and the sweat poured from my limbs.

       Now you have heard everything, and why I must return to my solitude.  I have kept nothing back from you, my friends.

       And you have heard, too, who is the most silent of men - and intends to remain so!

       Ah, my friends!  I should have something more to tell you, I should have something more to give you!  Why do I not give it?  Am I then mean?

 

       When Zarathustra had said these words, however, the violence of his grief and the nearness of his departure from his friends overwhelmed him, so that he wept aloud; and no-one knew how to comfort him.  But that night he went away alone and forsook his friends.