Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None - 09

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


XXXIX. POETS.

“Since I have known the body better”—said Zarathustra to one of his
disciples—“the spirit hath only been to me symbolically spirit; and all
the ‘imperishable’—that is also but a simile.”
“So have I heard thee say once before,” answered the disciple, “and then
thou addedst: ‘But the poets lie too much.’ Why didst thou say that the
poets lie too much?”
“Why?” said Zarathustra. “Thou askest why? I do not belong to those who
may be asked after their Why.
Is my experience but of yesterday? It is long ago that I experienced the
reasons for mine opinions.
Should I not have to be a cask of memory, if I also wanted to have my
reasons with me?
It is already too much for me even to retain mine opinions; and many a
bird flieth away.
And sometimes, also, do I find a fugitive creature in my dovecote, which
is alien to me, and trembleth when I lay my hand upon it.
But what did Zarathustra once say unto thee? That the poets lie too
much?—But Zarathustra also is a poet.
Believest thou that he there spake the truth? Why dost thou believe it?”
The disciple answered: “I believe in Zarathustra.” But Zarathustra shook
his head and smiled.—
Belief doth not sanctify me, said he, least of all the belief in myself.
But granting that some one did say in all seriousness that the poets lie
too much: he was right—WE do lie too much.
We also know too little, and are bad learners: so we are obliged to lie.
And which of us poets hath not adulterated his wine? Many a poisonous
hotchpotch hath evolved in our cellars: many an indescribable thing hath
there been done.
And because we know little, therefore are we pleased from the heart with
the poor in spirit, especially when they are young women!
And even of those things are we desirous, which old women tell one
another in the evening. This do we call the eternally feminine in us.
And as if there were a special secret access to knowledge, which CHOKETH
UP for those who learn anything, so do we believe in the people and in
their “wisdom.”
This, however, do all poets believe: that whoever pricketh up his ears
when lying in the grass or on lonely slopes, learneth something of the
things that are betwixt heaven and earth.
And if there come unto them tender emotions, then do the poets always
think that nature herself is in love with them:
And that she stealeth to their ear to whisper secrets into it, and
amorous flatteries: of this do they plume and pride themselves, before
all mortals!
Ah, there are so many things betwixt heaven and earth of which only the
poets have dreamed!
And especially ABOVE the heavens: for all Gods are poet-symbolisations,
poet-sophistications!
Verily, ever are we drawn aloft—that is, to the realm of the clouds:
on these do we set our gaudy puppets, and then call them Gods and
Supermen:—
Are not they light enough for those chairs!—all these Gods and
Supermen?—
Ah, how I am weary of all the inadequate that is insisted on as actual!
Ah, how I am weary of the poets!
When Zarathustra so spake, his disciple resented it, but was silent. And
Zarathustra also was silent; and his eye directed itself inwardly, as if
it gazed into the far distance. At last he sighed and drew breath.—
I am of to-day and heretofore, said he thereupon; but something is in me
that is of the morrow, and the day following, and the hereafter.
I became weary of the poets, of the old and of the new: superficial are
they all unto me, and shallow seas.
They did not think sufficiently into the depth; therefore their feeling
did not reach to the bottom.
Some sensation of voluptuousness and some sensation of tedium: these
have as yet been their best contemplation.
Ghost-breathing and ghost-whisking, seemeth to me all the
jingle-jangling of their harps; what have they known hitherto of the
fervour of tones!—
They are also not pure enough for me: they all muddle their water that
it may seem deep.
And fain would they thereby prove themselves reconcilers: but mediaries
and mixers are they unto me, and half-and-half, and impure!—
Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and meant to catch good fish;
but always did I draw up the head of some ancient God.
Thus did the sea give a stone to the hungry one. And they themselves may
well originate from the sea.
Certainly, one findeth pearls in them: thereby they are the more like
hard molluscs. And instead of a soul, I have often found in them salt
slime.
They have learned from the sea also its vanity: is not the sea the
peacock of peacocks?
Even before the ugliest of all buffaloes doth it spread out its tail;
never doth it tire of its lace-fan of silver and silk.
Disdainfully doth the buffalo glance thereat, nigh to the sand with its
soul, nigher still to the thicket, nighest, however, to the swamp.
What is beauty and sea and peacock-splendour to it! This parable I speak
unto the poets.
Verily, their spirit itself is the peacock of peacocks, and a sea of
vanity!
Spectators, seeketh the spirit of the poet—should they even be
buffaloes!—
But of this spirit became I weary; and I see the time coming when it
will become weary of itself.
Yea, changed have I seen the poets, and their glance turned towards
themselves.
Penitents of the spirit have I seen appearing; they grew out of the
poets.—
Thus spake Zarathustra.


XL. GREAT EVENTS.

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


XLI. THE SOOTHSAYER.

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


XLII. REDEMPTION.

When Zarathustra went one day over the great bridge, then did the
cripples and beggars surround him, and a hunchback spake thus unto him:
“Behold, Zarathustra! Even the people learn from thee, and acquire faith
in thy teaching: but for them to believe fully in thee, one thing is
still needful—thou must first of all convince us cripples! Here hast
thou now a fine selection, and verily, an opportunity with more than one
forelock! The blind canst thou heal, and make the lame run; and from
him who hath too much behind, couldst thou well, also, take away a
little;—that, I think, would be the right method to make the cripples
believe in Zarathustra!”
Zarathustra, however, answered thus unto him who so spake: When one
taketh his hump from the hunchback, then doth one take from him his
spirit—so do the people teach. And when one giveth the blind man eyes,
then doth he see too many bad things on the earth: so that he curseth
him who healed him. He, however, who maketh the lame man run, inflicteth
upon him the greatest injury; for hardly can he run, when his vices
run away with him—so do the people teach concerning cripples. And why
should not Zarathustra also learn from the people, when the people learn
from Zarathustra?
It is, however, the smallest thing unto me since I have been amongst
men, to see one person lacking an eye, another an ear, and a third a
leg, and that others have lost the tongue, or the nose, or the head.
I see and have seen worse things, and divers things so hideous, that I
should neither like to speak of all matters, nor even keep silent about
some of them: namely, men who lack everything, except that they have
too much of one thing—men who are nothing more than a big eye, or a big
mouth, or a big belly, or something else big,—reversed cripples, I call
such men.
And when I came out of my solitude, and for the first time passed over
this bridge, then I could not trust mine eyes, but looked again and
again, and said at last: “That is an ear! An ear as big as a man!” I
looked still more attentively—and actually there did move under the ear
something that was pitiably small and poor and slim. And in truth this
immense ear was perched on a small thin stalk—the stalk, however, was a
man! A person putting a glass to his eyes, could even recognise further
a small envious countenance, and also that a bloated soullet dangled at
the stalk. The people told me, however, that the big ear was not only a
man, but a great man, a genius. But I never believed in the people when
they spake of great men—and I hold to my belief that it was a reversed
cripple, who had too little of everything, and too much of one thing.
When Zarathustra had spoken thus unto the hunchback, and unto those of
whom the hunchback was the mouthpiece and advocate, then did he turn to
his disciples in profound dejection, and said:
Verily, my friends, I walk amongst men as amongst the fragments and
limbs of human beings!
This is the terrible thing to mine eye, that I find man broken up, and
scattered about, as on a battle- and butcher-ground.
And when mine eye fleeth from the present to the bygone, it findeth ever
the same: fragments and limbs and fearful chances—but no men!
The present and the bygone upon earth—ah! my friends—that is MY most
unbearable trouble; and I should not know how to live, if I were not a
seer of what is to come.
A seer, a purposer, a creator, a future itself, and a bridge to the
future—and alas! also as it were a cripple on this bridge: all that is
Zarathustra.
And ye also asked yourselves often: “Who is Zarathustra to us? What
shall he be called by us?” And like me, did ye give yourselves questions
for answers.
Is he a promiser? Or a fulfiller? A conqueror? Or an inheritor? A
harvest? Or a ploughshare? A physician? Or a healed one?
Is he a poet? Or a genuine one? An emancipator? Or a subjugator? A good
one? Or an evil one?
I walk amongst men as the fragments of the future: that future which I
contemplate.
And it is all my poetisation and aspiration to compose and collect into
unity what is fragment and riddle and fearful chance.
And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also the composer,
and riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance!
To redeem what is past, and to transform every “It was” into “Thus would
I have it!”—that only do I call redemption!
Will—so is the emancipator and joy-bringer called: thus have I taught
you, my friends! But now learn this likewise: the Will itself is still a
prisoner.
Willing emancipateth: but what is that called which still putteth the
emancipator in chains?
“It was”: thus is the Will’s teeth-gnashing and lonesomest tribulation
called. Impotent towards what hath been done—it is a malicious
spectator of all that is past.
Not backward can the Will will; that it cannot break time and time’s
desire—that is the Will’s lonesomest tribulation.
Willing emancipateth: what doth Willing itself devise in order to get
free from its tribulation and mock at its prison?
Ah, a fool becometh every prisoner! Foolishly delivereth itself also the
imprisoned Will.
That time doth not run backward—that is its animosity: “That which
was”: so is the stone which it cannot roll called.