THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

 SECOND PART.

 “--and only when ye have all denied me,
will I return unto you.

Verily, with other eyes, my brethren,
shall I then seek my lost ones; with
another love shall I then love
you.”--ZARATHUSTRA, I., “The Bestowing
Virtue.”



XXIII. THE CHILD WITH THE MIRROR.

After this Zarathustra returned again
into the mountains to the solitude of
his cave, and withdrew himself from men,
waiting like a sower who hath scattered
his seed. His soul, however, became
impatient and full of longing for those
whom he loved: because he had still much
to give them. For this is hardest of
all: to close the open hand out of love,
and keep modest as a giver.

Thus passed with the lonesome one months
and years; his wisdom meanwhile
increased, and caused him pain by its
abundance.

One morning, however, he awoke ere the
rosy dawn, and having meditated long on
his couch, at last spake thus to his
heart:

Why did I startle in my dream, so that I
awoke? Did not a child come to me,
carrying a mirror?

“O Zarathustra”--said the child unto
me--“look at thyself in the mirror!”

But when I looked into the mirror, I
shrieked, and my heart throbbed: for not
myself did I see therein, but a devil’s
grimace and derision.

Verily, all too well do I understand the
dream’s portent and monition: my
DOCTRINE is in danger; tares want to be
called wheat!

Mine enemies have grown powerful and
have disfigured the likeness of my
doctrine, so that my dearest ones have
to blush for the gifts that I gave
them.

Lost are my friends; the hour hath come
for me to seek my lost ones!--

With these words Zarathustra started up,
not however like a person in anguish
seeking relief, but rather like a seer
and a singer whom the spirit inspireth.
With amazement did his eagle and serpent
gaze upon him: for a coming bliss
overspread his countenance like the rosy
dawn.

What hath happened unto me, mine
animals?--said Zarathustra. Am I not
transformed? Hath not bliss come unto me
like a whirlwind?

Foolish is my happiness, and foolish
things will it speak: it is still too
young--so have patience with it!

Wounded am I by my happiness: all
sufferers shall be physicians unto me!

To my friends can I again go down, and
also to mine enemies! Zarathustra can
again speak and bestow, and show his
best love to his loved ones!

My impatient love overfloweth in
streams,--down towards sunrise and
sunset. Out of silent mountains and
storms of affliction, rusheth my soul
into the valleys.

Too long have I longed and looked into
the distance. Too long hath solitude
possessed me: thus have I unlearned to
keep silence.

Utterance have I become altogether, and
the brawling of a brook from high rocks:
downward into the valleys will I hurl my
speech.

And let the stream of my love sweep into
unfrequented channels! How should a
stream not finally find its way to the
sea!

Forsooth, there is a lake in me,
sequestered and self-sufficing; but the
stream of my love beareth this along
with it, down--to the sea!

New paths do I tread, a new speech
cometh unto me; tired have I become--
like all creators--of the old tongues.
No longer will my spirit walk on
worn-out soles.

Too slowly runneth all speaking for
me:--into thy chariot, O storm, do I
leap! And even thee will I whip with my
spite!

Like a cry and an huzza will I traverse
wide seas, till I find the Happy Isles
where my friends sojourn;--

And mine enemies amongst them! How I now
love every one unto whom I may but
speak! Even mine enemies pertain to my
bliss.

And when I want to mount my wildest
horse, then doth my spear always help me
up best: it is my foot’s ever ready
servant:--

The spear which I hurl at mine enemies!
How grateful am I to mine enemies that I
may at last hurl it!

Too great hath been the tension of my
cloud: ‘twixt laughters of lightnings
will I cast hail-showers into the
depths.

Violently will my breast then heave;
violently will it blow its storm over
the mountains: thus cometh its
assuagement.

Verily, like a storm cometh my
happiness, and my freedom! But mine
enemies shall think that THE EVIL ONE
roareth over their heads.

Yea, ye also, my friends, will be
alarmed by my wild wisdom; and perhaps
ye will flee therefrom, along with mine
enemies.

Ah, that I knew how to lure you back
with shepherds’ flutes! Ah, that my
lioness wisdom would learn to roar
softly! And much have we already learned
with one another!

My wild wisdom became pregnant on the
lonesome mountains; on the rough stones
did she bear the youngest of her
young.

Now runneth she foolishly in the arid
wilderness, and seeketh and seeketh the
soft sward--mine old, wild wisdom!

On the soft sward of your hearts, my
friends!--on your love, would she fain
couch her dearest one!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XXIV. IN THE HAPPY ISLES.

The figs fall from the trees, they are
good and sweet; and in falling the red
skins of them break. A north wind am I
to ripe figs.

Thus, like figs, do these doctrines fall
for you, my friends: imbibe now their
juice and their sweet substance! It is
autumn all around, and clear sky, and
afternoon.

Lo, what fullness is around us! And out
of the midst of superabundance, it is
delightful to look out upon distant
seas.

Once did people say God, when they
looked out upon distant seas; now,
however, have I taught you to say,
Superman.

God is a conjecture: but I do not wish
your conjecturing to reach beyond your
creating will.

Could ye CREATE a God?--Then, I pray
you, be silent about all Gods! But ye
could well create the Superman.

Not perhaps ye yourselves, my brethren!
But into fathers and forefathers of the
Superman could ye transform yourselves:
and let that be your best creating!--

God is a conjecture: but I should like
your conjecturing restricted to the
conceivable.

Could ye CONCEIVE a God?--But let this
mean Will to Truth unto you, that
everything be transformed into the
humanly conceivable, the humanly
visible, the humanly sensible! Your own
discernment shall ye follow out to the
end!

And what ye have called the world shall
but be created by you: your reason, your
likeness, your will, your love, shall it
itself become! And verily, for your
bliss, ye discerning ones!

And how would ye endure life without
that hope, ye discerning ones? Neither
in the inconceivable could ye have been
born, nor in the irrational.

But that I may reveal my heart entirely
unto you, my friends: IF there were
gods, how could I endure it to be no
God! THEREFORE there are no Gods.

Yea, I have drawn the conclusion; now,
however, doth it draw me.--

God is a conjecture: but who could drink
all the bitterness of this conjecture
without dying? Shall his faith be taken
from the creating one, and from the
eagle his flights into eagle-heights?

God is a thought--it maketh all the
straight crooked, and all that standeth
reel. What? Time would be gone, and all
the perishable would be but a lie?

To think this is giddiness and vertigo
to human limbs, and even vomiting to the
stomach: verily, the reeling sickness do
I call it, to conjecture such a thing.

Evil do I call it and misanthropic: all
that teaching about the one, and the
plenum, and the unmoved, and the
sufficient, and the imperishable!

All the imperishable--that’s but a
simile, and the poets lie too much.--

But of time and of becoming shall the
best similes speak: a praise shall they
be, and a justification of all
perishableness!

Creating--that is the great salvation
from suffering, and life’s alleviation.
But for the creator to appear, suffering
itself is needed, and much
transformation.

Yea, much bitter dying must there be in
your life, ye creators! Thus are ye
advocates and justifiers of all
perishableness.

For the creator himself to be the
new-born child, he must also be willing
to be the child-bearer, and endure the
pangs of the child-bearer.

Verily, through a hundred souls went I
my way, and through a hundred cradles
and birth-throes. Many a farewell have I
taken; I know the heart-breaking last
hours.

But so willeth it my creating Will, my
fate. Or, to tell you it more candidly:
just such a fate--willeth my Will.

All FEELING suffereth in me, and is in
prison: but my WILLING ever cometh to me
as mine emancipator and comforter.

Willing emancipateth: that is the true
doctrine of will and emancipation--so
teacheth you Zarathustra.

No longer willing, and no longer
valuing, and no longer creating! Ah,
that that great debility may ever be far
from me!

And also in discerning do I feel only my
will’s procreating and evolving delight;
and if there be innocence in my
knowledge, it is because there is will
to procreation in it.

Away from God and Gods did this will
allure me; what would there be to create
if there were--Gods!

But to man doth it ever impel me anew,
my fervent creative will; thus impelleth
it the hammer to the stone.

Ah, ye men, within the stone slumbereth
an image for me, the image of my
visions! Ah, that it should slumber in
the hardest, ugliest stone!

Now rageth my hammer ruthlessly against
its prison. From the stone fly the
fragments: what’s that to me?

I will complete it: for a shadow came
unto me--the stillest and lightest of
all things once came unto me!

The beauty of the Superman came unto me
as a shadow. Ah, my brethren! Of what
account now are--the Gods to me!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XXV. THE PITIFUL.

My friends, there hath arisen a satire
on your friend: “Behold Zarathustra!
Walketh he not amongst us as if amongst
animals?”

But it is better said in this wise: “The
discerning one walketh amongst men AS
amongst animals.”

Man himself is to the discerning one:
the animal with red cheeks.

How hath that happened unto him? Is it
not because he hath had to be ashamed
too oft?

O my friends! Thus speaketh the
discerning one: shame, shame,
shame--that is the history of man!

And on that account doth the noble one
enjoin upon himself not to abash:
bashfulness doth he enjoin on himself in
presence of all sufferers.

Verily, I like them not, the merciful
ones, whose bliss is in their pity: too
destitute are they of bashfulness.

If I must be pitiful, I dislike to be
called so; and if I be so, it is
preferably at a distance.

Preferably also do I shroud my head, and
flee, before being recognised: and thus
do I bid you do, my friends!

May my destiny ever lead unafflicted
ones like you across my path, and those
with whom I MAY have hope and repast and
honey in common!

Verily, I have done this and that for
the afflicted: but something better did
I always seem to do when I had learned
to enjoy myself better.

Since humanity came into being, man hath
enjoyed himself too little: that alone,
my brethren, is our original sin!

And when we learn better to enjoy
ourselves, then do we unlearn best to
give pain unto others, and to contrive
pain.

Therefore do I wash the hand that hath
helped the sufferer; therefore do I wipe
also my soul.

For in seeing the sufferer
suffering--thereof was I ashamed on
account of his shame; and in helping
him, sorely did I wound his pride.

Great obligations do not make grateful,
but revengeful; and when a small
kindness is not forgotten, it becometh a
gnawing worm.

“Be shy in accepting! Distinguish by
accepting!”--thus do I advise those who
have naught to bestow.

I, however, am a bestower: willingly do
I bestow as friend to friends.
Strangers, however, and the poor, may
pluck for themselves the fruit from my
tree: thus doth it cause less shame.

Beggars, however, one should entirely do
away with! Verily, it annoyeth one to
give unto them, and it annoyeth one not
to give unto them.

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

The worst things, however, are the petty
thoughts. Verily, better to have done
evilly than to have thought pettily!

To be sure, ye say: “The delight in
petty evils spareth one many a great
evil deed.” But here one should not wish
to be sparing.

Like a boil is the evil deed: it itcheth
and irritateth and breaketh forth--it
speaketh honourably.

“Behold, I am disease,” saith the evil
deed: that is its honourableness.

But like infection is the petty thought:
it creepeth and hideth, and wanteth to
be nowhere--until the whole body is
decayed and withered by the petty
infection.

To him however, who is possessed of a
devil, I would whisper this word in the
ear: “Better for thee to rear up thy
devil! Even for thee there is still a
path to greatness!”--

Ah, my brethren! One knoweth a little
too much about every one! And many a one
becometh transparent to us, but still we
can by no means penetrate him.

It is difficult to live among men
because silence is so difficult.

And not to him who is offensive to us
are we most unfair, but to him who doth
not concern us at all.

If, however, thou hast a suffering
friend, then be a resting-place for his
suffering; like a hard bed, however, a
camp-bed: thus wilt thou serve him
best.

And if a friend doeth thee wrong, then
say: “I forgive thee what thou hast done
unto me; that thou hast done it unto
THYSELF, however--how could I forgive
that!”

Thus speaketh all great love: it
surpasseth even forgiveness and pity.

One should hold fast one’s heart; for
when one letteth it go, how quickly doth
one’s head run away!

Ah, where in the world have there been
greater follies than with the pitiful?
And what in the world hath caused more
suffering than the follies of the
pitiful?

Woe unto all loving ones who have not an
elevation which is above their pity!

Thus spake the devil unto me, once on a
time: “Even God hath his hell: it is his
love for man.”

And lately, did I hear him say these
words: “God is dead: of his pity for man
hath God died.”--

So be ye warned against pity: FROM
THENCE there yet cometh unto men a heavy
cloud! Verily, I understand
weather-signs!

But attend also to this word: All great
love is above all its pity: for it
seeketh--to create what is loved!

“Myself do I offer unto my love, AND MY
NEIGHBOUR AS MYSELF”--such is the
language of all creators.

All creators, however, are hard.--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XXVI. THE PRIESTS.

And one day Zarathustra made a sign to
his disciples, and spake these words
unto them:

“Here are priests: but although they are
mine enemies, pass them quietly and with
sleeping swords!

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

Bad enemies are they: nothing is more
revengeful than their meekness. And
readily doth he soil himself who
toucheth them.

But my blood is related to theirs; and I
want withal to see my blood honoured in
theirs.”--

And when they had passed, a pain
attacked Zarathustra; but not long had
he struggled with the pain, when he
began to speak thus:

It moveth my heart for those priests.
They also go against my taste; but that
is the smallest matter unto me, since I
am among men.

But I suffer and have suffered with
them: prisoners are they unto me, and
stigmatised ones. He whom they call
Saviour put them in fetters:--

In fetters of false values and fatuous
words! Oh, that some one would save them
from their Saviour!

On an isle they once thought they had
landed, when the sea tossed them about;
but behold, it was a slumbering
monster!

False values and fatuous words: these
are the worst monsters for mortals--long
slumbereth and waiteth the fate that is
in them.

But at last it cometh and awaketh and
devoureth and engulfeth whatever hath
built tabernacles upon it.

Oh, just look at those tabernacles which
those priests have built themselves!
Churches, they call their sweet-smelling
caves!

Oh, that falsified light, that mustified
air! Where the soul--may not fly aloft
to its height!

But so enjoineth their belief: “On your
knees, up the stair, ye sinners!”

Verily, rather would I see a shameless
one than the distorted eyes of their
shame and devotion!

Who created for themselves such caves
and penitence-stairs? Was it not those
who sought to conceal themselves, and
were ashamed under the clear sky?

And only when the clear sky looketh
again through ruined roofs, and down
upon grass and red poppies on ruined
walls--will I again turn my heart to the
seats of this God.

They called God that which opposed and
afflicted them: and verily, there was
much hero-spirit in their worship!

And they knew not how to love their God
otherwise than by nailing men to the
cross!

As corpses they thought to live; in
black draped they their corpses; even in
their talk do I still feel the evil
flavour of charnel-houses.

And he who liveth nigh unto them liveth
nigh unto black pools, wherein the toad
singeth his song with sweet gravity.

Better songs would they have to sing,
for me to believe in their Saviour: more
like saved ones would his disciples have
to appear unto me!

Naked, would I like to see them: for
beauty alone should preach penitence.
But whom would that disguised affliction
convince!

Verily, their Saviours themselves came
not from freedom and freedom’s seventh
heaven! Verily, they themselves never
trod the carpets of knowledge!

Of defects did the spirit of those
Saviours consist; but into every defect
had they put their illusion, their
stop-gap, which they called God.

In their pity was their spirit drowned;
and when they swelled and o’erswelled
with pity, there always floated to the
surface a great folly.

Eagerly and with shouts drove they their
flock over their foot-bridge; as if
there were but one foot-bridge to the
future! Verily, those shepherds also
were still of the flock!

Small spirits and spacious souls had
those shepherds: but, my brethren, what
small domains have even the most
spacious souls hitherto been!

Characters of blood did they write on
the way they went, and their folly
taught that truth is proved by blood.

But blood is the very worst witness to
truth; blood tainteth the purest
teaching, and turneth it into delusion
and hatred of heart.

And when a person goeth through fire for
his teaching--what doth that prove! It
is more, verily, when out of one’s own
burning cometh one’s own teaching!

Sultry heart and cold head; where these
meet, there ariseth the blusterer, the
“Saviour.”

Greater ones, verily, have there been,
and higher-born ones, than those whom
the people call Saviours, those
rapturous blusterers!

And by still greater ones than any of
the Saviours must ye be saved, my
brethren, if ye would find the way to
freedom!

Never yet hath there been a Superman.
Naked have I seen both of them, the
greatest man and the smallest man:--

All-too-similar are they still to each
other. Verily, even the greatest found
I--all-too-human!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XXVII. THE VIRTUOUS.

With thunder and heavenly fireworks must
one speak to indolent and somnolent
senses.

But beauty’s voice speaketh gently: it
appealeth only to the most awakened
souls.

Gently vibrated and laughed unto me
to-day my buckler; it was beauty’s holy
laughing and thrilling.

At you, ye virtuous ones, laughed my
beauty to-day. And thus came its voice
unto me: “They want--to be paid
besides!”

Ye want to be paid besides, ye virtuous
ones! Ye want reward for virtue, and
heaven for earth, and eternity for your
to-day?

And now ye upbraid me for teaching that
there is no reward-giver, nor paymaster?
And verily, I do not even teach that
virtue is its own reward.

Ah! this is my sorrow: into the basis of
things have reward and punishment been
insinuated--and now even into the basis
of your souls, ye virtuous ones!

But like the snout of the boar shall my
word grub up the basis of your souls; a
ploughshare will I be called by you.

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

For this is your truth: ye are TOO PURE
for the filth of the words: vengeance,
punishment, recompense, retribution.

Ye love your virtue as a mother loveth
her child; but when did one hear of a
mother wanting to be paid for her
love?

It is your dearest Self, your virtue.
The ring’s thirst is in you: to reach
itself again struggleth every ring, and
turneth itself.

And like the star that goeth out, so is
every work of your virtue: ever is its
light on its way and travelling--and
when will it cease to be on its way?

Thus is the light of your virtue still
on its way, even when its work is done.
Be it forgotten and dead, still its ray
of light liveth and travelleth.

That your virtue is your Self, and not
an outward thing, a skin, or a cloak:
that is the truth from the basis of your
souls, ye virtuous ones!--

But sure enough there are those to whom
virtue meaneth writhing under the lash:
and ye have hearkened too much unto
their crying!

And others are there who call virtue the
slothfulness of their vices; and when
once their hatred and jealousy relax the
limbs, their “justice” becometh lively
and rubbeth its sleepy eyes.

And others are there who are drawn
downwards: their devils draw them. But
the more they sink, the more ardently
gloweth their eye, and the longing for
their God.

Ah! their crying also hath reached your
ears, ye virtuous ones: “What I am NOT,
that, that is God to me, and virtue!”

And others are there who go along
heavily and creakingly, like carts
taking stones downhill: they talk much
of dignity and virtue--their drag they
call virtue!

And others are there who are like
eight-day clocks when wound up; they
tick, and want people to call
ticking--virtue.

Verily, in those have I mine amusement:
wherever I find such clocks I shall wind
them up with my mockery, and they shall
even whirr thereby!

And others are proud of their modicum of
righteousness, and for the sake of it do
violence to all things: so that the
world is drowned in their
unrighteousness.

Ah! how ineptly cometh the word “virtue”
out of their mouth! And when they say:
“I am just,” it always soundeth like: “I
am just--revenged!”

With their virtues they want to scratch
out the eyes of their enemies; and they
elevate themselves only that they may
lower others.

And again there are those who sit in
their swamp, and speak thus from among
the bulrushes: “Virtue--that is to sit
quietly in the swamp.

We bite no one, and go out of the way of
him who would bite; and in all matters
we have the opinion that is given us.”

And again there are those who love
attitudes, and think that virtue is a
sort of attitude.

Their knees continually adore, and their
hands are eulogies of virtue, but their
heart knoweth naught thereof.

And again there are those who regard it
as virtue to say: “Virtue is necessary”;
but after all they believe only that
policemen are necessary.

And many a one who cannot see men’s
loftiness, calleth it virtue to see
their baseness far too well: thus
calleth he his evil eye virtue.--

And some want to be edified and raised
up, and call it virtue: and others want
to be cast down,--and likewise call it
virtue.

And thus do almost all think that they
participate in virtue; and at least
every one claimeth to be an authority on
“good” and “evil.”

But Zarathustra came not to say unto all
those liars and fools: “What do YE know
of virtue! What COULD ye know of
virtue!”--

But that ye, my friends, might become
weary of the old words which ye have
learned from the fools and liars:

That ye might become weary of the words
“reward,” “retribution,” “punishment,”
“righteous vengeance.”--

That ye might become weary of saying:
“That an action is good is because it is
unselfish.”

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

Verily, I have taken from you a hundred
formulae and your virtue’s favourite
playthings; and now ye upbraid me, as
children upbraid.

They played by the sea--then came there
a wave and swept their playthings into
the deep: and now do they cry.

But the same wave shall bring them new
playthings, and spread before them new
speckled shells!

Thus will they be comforted; and like
them shall ye also, my friends, have
your comforting--and new speckled
shells!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XXVIII. THE RABBLE.

Life is a well of delight; but where the
rabble also drink, there all fountains
are poisoned.

To everything cleanly am I well
disposed; but I hate to see the grinning
mouths and the thirst of the unclean.

They cast their eye down into the
fountain: and now glanceth up to me
their odious smile out of the
fountain.

The holy water have they poisoned with
their lustfulness; and when they called
their filthy dreams delight, then
poisoned they also the words.

Indignant becometh the flame when they
put their damp hearts to the fire; the
spirit itself bubbleth and smoketh when
the rabble approach the fire.

Mawkish and over-mellow becometh the
fruit in their hands: unsteady, and
withered at the top, doth their look
make the fruit-tree.

And many a one who hath turned away from
life, hath only turned away from the
rabble: he hated to share with them
fountain, flame, and fruit.

And many a one who hath gone into the
wilderness and suffered thirst with
beasts of prey, disliked only to sit at
the cistern with filthy camel-drivers.

And many a one who hath come along as a
destroyer, and as a hailstorm to all
cornfields, wanted merely to put his
foot into the jaws of the rabble, and
thus stop their throat.

And it is not the mouthful which hath
most choked me, to know that life itself
requireth enmity and death and
torture-crosses:--

But I asked once, and suffocated almost
with my question: What? is the rabble
also NECESSARY for life?

Are poisoned fountains necessary, and
stinking fires, and filthy dreams, and
maggots in the bread of life?

Not my hatred, but my loathing, gnawed
hungrily at my life! Ah, ofttimes became
I weary of spirit, when I found even the
rabble spiritual!

And on the rulers turned I my back, when
I saw what they now call ruling: to
traffic and bargain for power--with the
rabble!

Amongst peoples of a strange language
did I dwell, with stopped ears: so that
the language of their trafficking might
remain strange unto me, and their
bargaining for power.

And holding my nose, I went morosely
through all yesterdays and to-days:
verily, badly smell all yesterdays and
to-days of the scribbling rabble!

Like a cripple become deaf, and blind,
and dumb--thus have I lived long; that I
might not live with the power-rabble,
the scribe-rabble, and the
pleasure-rabble.

Toilsomely did my spirit mount stairs,
and cautiously; alms of delight were its
refreshment; on the staff did life creep
along with the blind one.

What hath happened unto me? How have I
freed myself from loathing? Who hath
rejuvenated mine eye? How have I flown
to the height where no rabble any longer
sit at the wells?

Did my loathing itself create for me
wings and fountain-divining powers?
Verily, to the loftiest height had I to
fly, to find again the well of
delight!

Oh, I have found it, my brethren! Here
on the loftiest height bubbleth up for
me the well of delight! And there is a
life at whose waters none of the rabble
drink with me!

Almost too violently dost thou flow for
me, thou fountain of delight! And often
emptiest thou the goblet again, in
wanting to fill it!

And yet must I learn to approach thee
more modestly: far too violently doth my
heart still flow towards thee:--

My heart on which my summer burneth, my
short, hot, melancholy, over-happy
summer: how my summer heart longeth for
thy coolness!

Past, the lingering distress of my
spring! Past, the wickedness of my
snowflakes in June! Summer have I become
entirely, and summer-noontide!

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

For this is OUR height and our home: too
high and steep do we here dwell for all
uncleanly ones and their thirst.

Cast but your pure eyes into the well of
my delight, my friends! How could it
become turbid thereby! It shall laugh
back to you with ITS purity.

On the tree of the future build we our
nest; eagles shall bring us lone ones
food in their beaks!

Verily, no food of which the impure
could be fellow-partakers! Fire, would
they think they devoured, and burn their
mouths!

Verily, no abodes do we here keep ready
for the impure! An ice-cave to their
bodies would our happiness be, and to
their spirits!

And as strong winds will we live above
them, neighbours to the eagles,
neighbours to the snow, neighbours to
the sun: thus live the strong winds.

And like a wind will I one day blow
amongst them, and with my spirit, take
the breath from their spirit: thus
willeth my future.

Verily, a strong wind is Zarathustra to
all low places; and this counsel
counselleth he to his enemies, and to
whatever spitteth and speweth: “Take
care not to spit AGAINST the wind!”--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XXIX. THE TARANTULAS.

Lo, this is the tarantula’s den! Wouldst
thou see the tarantula itself? Here
hangeth its web: touch this, so that it
may tremble.

There cometh the tarantula willingly:
Welcome, tarantula! Black on thy back is
thy triangle and symbol; and I know also
what is in thy soul.

Revenge is in thy soul: wherever thou
bitest, there ariseth black scab; with
revenge, thy poison maketh the soul
giddy!

Thus do I speak unto you in parable, ye
who make the soul giddy, ye preachers of
EQUALITY! Tarantulas are ye unto me, and
secretly revengeful ones!

But I will soon bring your hiding-places
to the light: therefore do I laugh in
your face my laughter of the height.

Therefore do I tear at your web, that
your rage may lure you out of your den
of lies, and that your revenge may leap
forth from behind your word “justice.”

Because, FOR MAN TO BE REDEEMED FROM
REVENGE--that is for me the bridge to
the highest hope, and a rainbow after
long storms.

Otherwise, however, would the tarantulas
have it. “Let it be very justice for the
world to become full of the storms of
our vengeance”--thus do they talk to one
another.

“Vengeance will we use, and insult,
against all who are not like us”--thus
do the tarantula-hearts pledge
themselves.

“And ‘Will to Equality’--that itself
shall henceforth be the name of virtue;
and against all that hath power will we
raise an outcry!”

Ye preachers of equality, the
tyrant-frenzy of impotence crieth thus
in you for “equality”: your most secret
tyrant-longings disguise themselves thus
in virtue-words!

Fretted conceit and suppressed
envy--perhaps your fathers’ conceit and
envy: in you break they forth as flame
and frenzy of vengeance.

What the father hath hid cometh out in
the son; and oft have I found in the son
the father’s revealed secret.

Inspired ones they resemble: but it is
not the heart that inspireth them--but
vengeance. And when they become subtle
and cold, it is not spirit, but envy,
that maketh them so.

Their jealousy leadeth them also into
thinkers’ paths; and this is the sign of
their jealousy--they always go too far:
so that their fatigue hath at last to go
to sleep on the snow.

In all their lamentations soundeth
vengeance, in all their eulogies is
maleficence; and being judge seemeth to
them bliss.

But thus do I counsel you, my friends:
distrust all in whom the impulse to
punish is powerful!

They are people of bad race and lineage;
out of their countenances peer the
hangman and the sleuth-hound.

Distrust all those who talk much of
their justice! Verily, in their souls
not only honey is lacking.

And when they call themselves “the good
and just,” forget not, that for them to
be Pharisees, nothing is lacking
but--power!

My friends, I will not be mixed up and
confounded with others.

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

That they speak in favour of life,
though they sit in their den, these
poison-spiders, and withdrawn from
life--is because they would thereby do
injury.

To those would they thereby do injury
who have power at present: for with
those the preaching of death is still
most at home.

Were it otherwise, then would the
tarantulas teach otherwise: and they
themselves were formerly the best
world-maligners and heretic-burners.

With these preachers of equality will I
not be mixed up and confounded. For thus
speaketh justice UNTO ME: “Men are not
equal.”

And neither shall they become so! What
would be my love to the Superman, if I
spake otherwise?

On a thousand bridges and piers shall
they throng to the future, and always
shall there be more war and inequality
among them: thus doth my great love make
me speak!

Inventors of figures and phantoms shall
they be in their hostilities; and with
those figures and phantoms shall they
yet fight with each other the supreme
fight!

Good and evil, and rich and poor, and
high and low, and all names of values:
weapons shall they be, and sounding
signs, that life must again and again
surpass itself!

Aloft will it build itself with columns
and stairs--life itself: into remote
distances would it gaze, and out towards
blissful beauties-- THEREFORE doth it
require elevation!

And because it requireth elevation,
therefore doth it require steps, and
variance of steps and climbers! To rise
striveth life, and in rising to surpass
itself.

And just behold, my friends! Here where
the tarantula’s den is, riseth aloft an
ancient temple’s ruins--just behold it
with enlightened eyes!

Verily, he who here towered aloft his
thoughts in stone, knew as well as the
wisest ones about the secret of life!

That there is struggle and inequality
even in beauty, and war for power and
supremacy: that doth he here teach us in
the plainest parable.

How divinely do vault and arch here
contrast in the struggle: how with light
and shade they strive against each
other, the divinely striving ones.--

Thus, steadfast and beautiful, let us
also be enemies, my friends! Divinely
will we strive AGAINST one another!--

Alas! There hath the tarantula bit me
myself, mine old enemy! Divinely
steadfast and beautiful, it hath bit me
on the finger!

“Punishment must there be, and
justice”--so thinketh it: “not
gratuitously shall he here sing songs in
honour of enmity!”

Yea, it hath revenged itself! And alas!
now will it make my soul also dizzy with
revenge!

That I may NOT turn dizzy, however, bind
me fast, my friends, to this pillar!
Rather will I be a pillar-saint than a
whirl of vengeance!

Verily, no cyclone or whirlwind is
Zarathustra: and if he be a dancer, he
is not at all a tarantula-dancer!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XXX. THE FAMOUS WISE ONES.

The people have ye served and the
people’s superstition--NOT the
truth!--all ye famous wise ones! And
just on that account did they pay you
reverence.

And on that account also did they
tolerate your unbelief, because it was a
pleasantry and a by-path for the people.
Thus doth the master give free scope to
his slaves, and even enjoyeth their
presumptuousness.

But he who is hated by the people, as
the wolf by the dogs--is the free
spirit, the enemy of fetters, the
non-adorer, the dweller in the woods.

To hunt him out of his lair--that was
always called “sense of right” by the
people: on him do they still hound their
sharpest-toothed dogs.

“For there the truth is, where the
people are! Woe, woe to the seeking
ones!”--thus hath it echoed through all
time.

Your people would ye justify in their
reverence: that called ye “Will to
Truth,” ye famous wise ones!

And your heart hath always said to
itself: “From the people have I come:
from thence came to me also the voice of
God.”

Stiff-necked and artful, like the ass,
have ye always been, as the advocates of
the people.

And many a powerful one who wanted to
run well with the people, hath harnessed
in front of his horses--a donkey, a
famous wise man.

And now, ye famous wise ones, I would
have you finally throw off entirely the
skin of the lion!

The skin of the beast of prey, the
speckled skin, and the dishevelled locks
of the investigator, the searcher, and
the conqueror!

Ah! for me to learn to believe in your
“conscientiousness,” ye would first have
to break your venerating will.

Conscientious--so call I him who goeth
into God-forsaken wildernesses, and hath
broken his venerating heart.

In the yellow sands and burnt by the
sun, he doubtless peereth thirstily at
the isles rich in fountains, where life
reposeth under shady trees.

But his thirst doth not persuade him to
become like those comfortable ones: for
where there are oases, there are also
idols.

Hungry, fierce, lonesome, God-forsaken:
so doth the lion-will wish itself.

Free from the happiness of slaves,
redeemed from Deities and adorations,
fearless and fear-inspiring, grand and
lonesome: so is the will of the
conscientious.

In the wilderness have ever dwelt the
conscientious, the free spirits, as
lords of the wilderness; but in the
cities dwell the well-foddered, famous
wise ones--the draught-beasts.

For, always, do they draw, as asses--the
PEOPLE’S carts!

Not that I on that account upbraid them:
but serving ones do they remain, and
harnessed ones, even though they glitter
in golden harness.

And often have they been good servants
and worthy of their hire. For thus saith
virtue: “If thou must be a servant, seek
him unto whom thy service is most
useful!

The spirit and virtue of thy master
shall advance by thou being his servant:
thus wilt thou thyself advance with his
spirit and virtue!”

And verily, ye famous wise ones, ye
servants of the people! Ye yourselves
have advanced with the people’s spirit
and virtue--and the people by you! To
your honour do I say it!

But the people ye remain for me, even
with your virtues, the people with
purblind eyes--the people who know not
what SPIRIT is!

Spirit is life which itself cutteth into
life: by its own torture doth it
increase its own knowledge,--did ye know
that before?

And the spirit’s happiness is this: to
be anointed and consecrated with tears
as a sacrificial victim,--did ye know
that before?

And the blindness of the blind one, and
his seeking and groping, shall yet
testify to the power of the sun into
which he hath gazed,--did ye know that
before?

And with mountains shall the discerning
one learn to BUILD! It is a small thing
for the spirit to remove mountains,--did
ye know that before?

Ye know only the sparks of the spirit:
but ye do not see the anvil which it is,
and the cruelty of its hammer!

Verily, ye know not the spirit’s pride!
But still less could ye endure the
spirit’s humility, should it ever want
to speak!

And never yet could ye cast your spirit
into a pit of snow: ye are not hot
enough for that! Thus are ye unaware,
also, of the delight of its coldness.

In all respects, however, ye make too
familiar with the spirit; and out of
wisdom have ye often made an almshouse
and a hospital for bad poets.

Ye are not eagles: thus have ye never
experienced the happiness of the alarm
of the spirit. And he who is not a bird
should not camp above abysses.

Ye seem to me lukewarm ones: but coldly
floweth all deep knowledge. Ice-cold are
the innermost wells of the spirit: a
refreshment to hot hands and handlers.

Respectable do ye there stand, and
stiff, and with straight backs, ye
famous wise ones!--no strong wind or
will impelleth you.

Have ye ne’er seen a sail crossing the
sea, rounded and inflated, and trembling
with the violence of the wind?

Like the sail trembling with the
violence of the spirit, doth my wisdom
cross the sea--my wild wisdom!

But ye servants of the people, ye famous
wise ones--how COULD ye go with me!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XXXI. THE NIGHT-SONG.

‘Tis night: now do all gushing fountains
speak louder. And my soul also is a
gushing fountain.

‘Tis night: now only do all songs of the
loving ones awake. And my soul also is
the song of a loving one.

Something unappeased, unappeasable, is
within me; it longeth to find
expression. A craving for love is within
me, which speaketh itself the language
of love.

Light am I: ah, that I were night! But
it is my lonesomeness to be begirt with
light!

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

And you yourselves would I bless, ye
twinkling starlets and glow-worms
aloft!--and would rejoice in the gifts
of your light.

But I live in mine own light, I drink
again into myself the flames that break
forth from me.

I know not the happiness of the
receiver; and oft have I dreamt that
stealing must be more blessed than
receiving.

It is my poverty that my hand never
ceaseth bestowing; it is mine envy that
I see waiting eyes and the brightened
nights of longing.

Oh, the misery of all bestowers! Oh, the
darkening of my sun! Oh, the craving to
crave! Oh, the violent hunger in
satiety!

They take from me: but do I yet touch
their soul? There is a gap ‘twixt giving
and receiving; and the smallest gap hath
finally to be bridged over.

A hunger ariseth out of my beauty: I
should like to injure those I illumine;
I should like to rob those I have
gifted:--thus do I hunger for
wickedness.

Withdrawing my hand when another hand
already stretcheth out to it; hesitating
like the cascade, which hesitateth even
in its leap:--thus do I hunger for
wickedness!

Such revenge doth mine abundance think
of: such mischief welleth out of my
lonesomeness.

My happiness in bestowing died in
bestowing; my virtue became weary of
itself by its abundance!

He who ever bestoweth is in danger of
losing his shame; to him who ever
dispenseth, the hand and heart become
callous by very dispensing.

Mine eye no longer overfloweth for the
shame of suppliants; my hand hath become
too hard for the trembling of filled
hands.

Whence have gone the tears of mine eye,
and the down of my heart? Oh, the
lonesomeness of all bestowers! Oh, the
silence of all shining ones!

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

Oh, this is the hostility of light to
the shining one: unpityingly doth it
pursue its course.

Unfair to the shining one in its
innermost heart, cold to the suns:--thus
travelleth every sun.

Like a storm do the suns pursue their
courses: that is their travelling. Their
inexorable will do they follow: that is
their coldness.

Oh, ye only is it, ye dark, nightly
ones, that extract warmth from the
shining ones! Oh, ye only drink milk and
refreshment from the light’s udders!

Ah, there is ice around me; my hand
burneth with the iciness! Ah, there is
thirst in me; it panteth after your
thirst!

‘Tis night: alas, that I have to be
light! And thirst for the nightly! And
lonesomeness!

‘Tis night: now doth my longing break
forth in me as a fountain,--for speech
do I long.

‘Tis night: now do all gushing fountains
speak louder. And my soul also is a
gushing fountain.

‘Tis night: now do all songs of loving
ones awake. And my soul also is the song
of a loving one.--

Thus sang Zarathustra.



XXXII. THE DANCE-SONG.

One evening went Zarathustra and his
disciples through the forest; and when
he sought for a well, lo, he lighted
upon a green meadow peacefully
surrounded with trees and bushes, where
maidens were dancing together. As soon
as the maidens recognised Zarathustra,
they ceased dancing; Zarathustra,
however, approached them with friendly
mien and spake these words:

Cease not your dancing, ye lovely
maidens! No game-spoiler hath come to
you with evil eye, no enemy of
maidens.

God’s advocate am I with the devil: he,
however, is the spirit of gravity. How
could I, ye light-footed ones, be
hostile to divine dances? Or to maidens’
feet with fine 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 banks full of
roses under my cypresses.

And even the little God may he find, who
is dearest to maidens: beside the well
lieth he quietly, with closed eyes.

Verily, in broad daylight did he fall
asleep, the sluggard! Had he perhaps
chased butterflies too much?

Upbraid me not, ye beautiful dancers,
when I chasten the little God somewhat!
He will cry, certainly, and weep--but he
is laughable even when weeping!

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

A dance-song and satire on the spirit of
gravity my supremest, powerfulest devil,
who is said to be “lord of the
world.”--

And this is the song that Zarathustra
sang when Cupid and the maidens danced
together:

Of late did I gaze into thine eye, O
Life! And into the unfathomable did I
there seem to sink.

But thou pulledst me out with a golden
angle; derisively didst thou laugh when
I called thee unfathomable.

“Such is the language of all fish,”
saidst thou; “what THEY do not fathom is
unfathomable.

But changeable am I only, and wild, and
altogether a woman, and no virtuous
one:

Though I be called by you men the
‘profound one,’ or the ‘faithful one,’
‘the eternal one,’ ‘the mysterious
one.’

But ye men endow us always with your own
virtues--alas, ye virtuous ones!”

Thus did she laugh, the unbelievable
one; but never do I believe her and her
laughter, when she speaketh evil of
herself.

And when I talked face to face with my
wild Wisdom, she said to me angrily:
“Thou willest, thou cravest, thou
lovest; on that account alone dost thou
PRAISE Life!”

Then had I almost answered indignantly
and told the truth to the angry one; and
one cannot answer more indignantly than
when one “telleth the truth” to one’s
Wisdom.

For thus do things stand with us three.
In my heart do I love only Life--and
verily, most when I hate her!

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

She hath her eye, her laugh, and even
her golden angle-rod: am I responsible
for it that both are so alike?

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

One thirsteth for her and is not
satisfied, one looketh through veils,
one graspeth through nets.

Is she beautiful? What do I know! But
the oldest carps are still lured by
her.

Changeable is she, and wayward; often
have I seen her bite her lip, and pass
the comb against the grain of her
hair.

Perhaps she is wicked and false, and
altogether a woman; but when she
speaketh ill of herself, just then doth
she seduce most.”

When I had said this unto Life, then
laughed she maliciously, and shut her
eyes. “Of whom dost thou speak?” said
she. “Perhaps of me?

And if thou wert right--is it proper to
say THAT in such wise to my face! But
now, pray, speak also of thy Wisdom!”

Ah, and now hast thou again opened thine
eyes, O beloved Life! And into the
unfathomable have I again seemed to
sink.--

Thus sang Zarathustra. But when the
dance was over and the maidens had
departed, he became sad.

“The sun hath been long set,” said he at
last, “the meadow is damp, and from the
forest cometh coolness.

An unknown presence is about me, and
gazeth thoughtfully. What! Thou livest
still, Zarathustra?

Why? Wherefore? Whereby? Whither? Where?
How? Is it not folly still to live?--

Ah, my friends; the evening is it which
thus interrogateth in me. Forgive me my
sadness!

Evening hath come on: forgive me that
evening hath come on!”

Thus sang Zarathustra.



XXXIII. THE GRAVE-SONG.

“Yonder is the grave-island, the silent
isle; yonder also are the graves of my
youth. Thither will I carry an evergreen
wreath of life.”

Resolving thus in my heart, did I sail
o’er the sea.--

Oh, ye sights and scenes of my youth!
Oh, all ye gleams of love, ye divine
fleeting gleams! How could ye perish so
soon for me! I think of you to-day as my
dead ones.

From you, my dearest dead ones, cometh
unto me a sweet savour, heart-opening
and melting. Verily, it convulseth and
openeth the heart of the lone
seafarer.

Still am I the richest and most to be
envied--I, the lonesomest one! For I
HAVE POSSESSED you, and ye possess me
still. Tell me: to whom hath there ever
fallen such rosy apples from the tree as
have fallen unto me?

Still am I your love’s heir and
heritage, blooming to your memory with
many-hued, wild-growing virtues, O ye
dearest ones!

Ah, we were made to remain nigh unto
each other, ye kindly strange marvels;
and not like timid birds did ye come to
me and my longing--nay, but as trusting
ones to a trusting one!

Yea, made for faithfulness, like me, and
for fond eternities, must I now name you
by your faithlessness, ye divine glances
and fleeting gleams: no other name have
I yet learnt.

Verily, too early did ye die for me, ye
fugitives. Yet did ye not flee from me,
nor did I flee from you: innocent are we
to each other in our faithlessness.

To kill ME, did they strangle you, ye
singing birds of my hopes! Yea, at you,
ye dearest ones, did malice ever shoot
its arrows--to hit my heart!

And they hit it! Because ye were always
my dearest, my possession and my
possessedness: ON THAT ACCOUNT had ye to
die young, and far too early!

At my most vulnerable point did they
shoot the arrow--namely, at you, whose
skin is like down--or more like the
smile that dieth at a glance!

But this word will I say unto mine
enemies: What is all manslaughter in
comparison with what ye have done unto
me!

Worse evil did ye do unto me than all
manslaughter; the irretrievable did ye
take from me:--thus do I speak unto you,
mine enemies!

Slew ye not my youth’s visions and
dearest marvels! My playmates took ye
from me, the blessed spirits! To their
memory do I deposit this wreath and this
curse.

This curse upon you, mine enemies! Have
ye not made mine eternal short, as a
tone dieth away in a cold night!
Scarcely, as the twinkle of divine eyes,
did it come to me--as a fleeting
gleam!

Thus spake once in a happy hour my
purity: “Divine shall everything be unto
me.”

Then did ye haunt me with foul phantoms;
ah, whither hath that happy hour now
fled!

“All days shall be holy unto me”--so
spake once the wisdom of my youth:
verily, the language of a joyous
wisdom!

But then did ye enemies steal my nights,
and sold them to sleepless torture: ah,
whither hath that joyous wisdom now
fled?

Once did I long for happy auspices: then
did ye lead an owl-monster across my
path, an adverse sign. Ah, whither did
my tender longing then flee?

All loathing did I once vow to renounce:
then did ye change my nigh ones and
nearest ones into ulcerations. Ah,
whither did my noblest vow then flee?

As a blind one did I once walk in
blessed ways: then did ye cast filth on
the blind one’s course: and now is he
disgusted with the old footpath.

And when I performed my hardest task,
and celebrated the triumph of my
victories, then did ye make those who
loved me call out that I then grieved
them most.

Verily, it was always your doing: ye
embittered to me my best honey, and the
diligence of my best bees.

To my charity have ye ever sent the most
impudent beggars; around my sympathy
have ye ever crowded the incurably
shameless. Thus have ye wounded the
faith of my virtue.

And when I offered my holiest as a
sacrifice, immediately did your “piety”
put its fatter gifts beside it: so that
my holiest suffocated in the fumes of
your fat.

And once did I want to dance as I had
never yet danced: beyond all heavens did
I want to dance. Then did ye seduce my
favourite minstrel.

And now hath he struck up an awful,
melancholy air; alas, he tooted as a
mournful horn to mine ear!

Murderous minstrel, instrument of evil,
most innocent instrument! Already did I
stand prepared for the best dance: then
didst thou slay my rapture with thy
tones!

Only in the dance do I know how to speak
the parable of the highest things:--and
now hath my grandest parable remained
unspoken in my limbs!

Unspoken and unrealised hath my highest
hope remained! And there have perished
for me all the visions and consolations
of my youth!

How did I ever bear it? How did I
survive and surmount such wounds? How
did my soul rise again out of those
sepulchres?

Yea, something invulnerable, unburiable
is with me, something that would rend
rocks asunder: it is called MY WILL.
Silently doth it proceed, and unchanged
throughout the years.

Its course will it go upon my feet, mine
old Will; hard of heart is its nature
and invulnerable.

Invulnerable am I only in my heel. Ever
livest thou there, and art like thyself,
thou most patient one! Ever hast thou
burst all shackles of the tomb!

In thee still liveth also the
unrealisedness of my youth; and as life
and youth sittest thou here hopeful on
the yellow ruins of graves.

Yea, thou art still for me the
demolisher of all graves: Hail to thee,
my Will! And only where there are graves
are there resurrections.--

Thus sang Zarathustra.



XXXIV. SELF-SURPASSING.

“Will to Truth” do ye call it, ye wisest
ones, that which impelleth you and
maketh you ardent?

Will for the thinkableness of all being:
thus do _I_ call your will!

All being would ye MAKE thinkable: for
ye doubt with good reason whether it be
already thinkable.

But it shall accommodate and bend itself
to you! So willeth your will. Smooth
shall it become and subject to the
spirit, as its mirror and reflection.

That is your entire will, ye wisest
ones, as a Will to Power; and even when
ye speak of good and evil, and of
estimates of value.

Ye would still create a world before
which ye can bow the knee: such is your
ultimate hope and ecstasy.

The ignorant, to be sure, the
people--they are like a river on which a
boat floateth along: and in the boat sit
the estimates of value, solemn and
disguised.

Your will and your valuations have ye
put on the river of becoming; it
betrayeth unto me an old Will to Power,
what is believed by the people as good
and evil.

It was ye, ye wisest ones, who put such
guests in this boat, and gave them pomp
and proud names--ye and your ruling
Will!

Onward the river now carrieth your boat:
it MUST carry it. A small matter if the
rough wave foameth and angrily resisteth
its keel!

It is not the river that is your danger
and the end of your good and evil, ye
wisest ones: but that Will itself, the
Will to Power--the unexhausted,
procreating life-will.

But that ye may understand my gospel of
good and evil, for that purpose will I
tell you my gospel of life, and of the
nature of all living things.

The living thing did I follow; I walked
in the broadest and narrowest paths to
learn its nature.

With a hundred-faced mirror did I catch
its glance when its mouth was shut, so
that its eye might speak unto me. And
its eye spake unto me.

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

And this heard I secondly: Whatever
cannot obey itself, is commanded. Such
is the nature of living things.

This, however, is the third thing which
I heard--namely, that commanding is more
difficult than obeying. And not only
because the commander beareth the burden
of all obeyers, and because this burden
readily crusheth him:--

An attempt and a risk seemed all
commanding unto me; and whenever it
commandeth, the living thing risketh
itself thereby.

Yea, even when it commandeth itself,
then also must it atone for its
commanding. Of its own law must it
become the judge and avenger and
victim.

How doth this happen! so did I ask
myself. What persuadeth the living thing
to obey, and command, and even be
obedient in commanding?

Hearken now unto my word, ye wisest
ones! Test it seriously, whether I have
crept into the heart of life itself, and
into the roots of its heart!

Wherever I found a living thing, there
found I Will to Power; and even in the
will of the servant found I the will to
be master.

That to the stronger the weaker shall
serve--thereto persuadeth he his will
who would be master over a still weaker
one. That delight alone he is unwilling
to forego.

And as the lesser surrendereth himself
to the greater that he may have delight
and power over the least of all, so doth
even the greatest surrender himself, and
staketh--life, for the sake of power.

It is the surrender of the greatest to
run risk and danger, and play dice for
death.

And where there is sacrifice and service
and love-glances, there also is the will
to be master. By by-ways doth the weaker
then slink into the fortress, and into
the heart of the mightier one--and there
stealeth power.

And this secret spake Life herself unto
me. “Behold,” said she, “I am that WHICH
MUST EVER SURPASS ITSELF.

To be sure, ye call it will to
procreation, or impulse towards a goal,
towards the higher, remoter, more
manifold: but all that is one and the
same secret.

Rather would I succumb than disown this
one thing; and verily, where there is
succumbing and leaf-falling, lo, there
doth Life sacrifice itself--for power!

That I have to be struggle, and
becoming, and purpose, and
cross-purpose--ah, he who divineth my
will, divineth well also on what CROOKED
paths it hath to tread!

Whatever I create, and however much I
love it,--soon must I be adverse to it,
and to my love: so willeth my will.

And even thou, discerning one, art only
a path and footstep of my will: verily,
my Will to Power walketh even on the
feet of thy Will to Truth!

He certainly did not hit the truth who
shot at it the formula: ‘Will to
existence’: that will--doth not exist!

For what is not, cannot will; that,
however, which is in existence--how
could it still strive for existence!

Only where there is life, is there also
will: not, however, Will to Life,
but--so teach I thee--Will to Power!

Much is reckoned higher than life itself
by the living one; but out of the very
reckoning speaketh--the Will to
Power!”--

Thus did Life once teach me: and
thereby, ye wisest ones, do I solve you
the riddle of your hearts.

Verily, I say unto you: good and evil
which would be everlasting--it doth not
exist! Of its own accord must it ever
surpass itself anew.

With your values and formulae of good
and evil, ye exercise power, ye valuing
ones: and that is your secret love, and
the sparkling, trembling, and
overflowing of your souls.

But a stronger power groweth out of your
values, and a new surpassing: by it
breaketh egg and egg-shell.

And he who hath to be a creator in good
and evil--verily, he hath first to be a
destroyer, and break values in pieces.

Thus doth the greatest evil pertain to
the greatest good: that, however, is the
creating good.--

Let us SPEAK thereof, ye wisest ones,
even though it be bad. To be silent is
worse; all suppressed truths become
poisonous.

And let everything break up which--can
break up by our truths! Many a house is
still to be built!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XXXV. THE SUBLIME ONES.

Calm is the bottom of my sea: who would
guess that it hideth droll monsters!

Unmoved is my depth: but it sparkleth
with swimming enigmas and laughters.

A sublime one saw I to-day, a solemn
one, a penitent of the spirit: Oh, how
my soul laughed at his ugliness!

With upraised breast, and like those who
draw in their breath: thus did he stand,
the sublime one, and in silence:

O’erhung with ugly truths, the spoil of
his hunting, and rich in torn raiment;
many thorns also hung on him--but I saw
no rose.

Not yet had he learned laughing and
beauty. Gloomy did this hunter return
from the forest of knowledge.

From the fight with wild beasts returned
he home: but even yet a wild beast
gazeth out of his seriousness--an
unconquered wild beast!

As a tiger doth he ever stand, on the
point of springing; but I do not like
those strained souls; ungracious is my
taste towards all those self-engrossed
ones.

And ye tell me, friends, that there is
to be no dispute about taste and
tasting? But all life is a dispute about
taste and tasting!

Taste: that is weight at the same time,
and scales and weigher; and alas for
every living thing that would live
without dispute about weight and scales
and weigher!

Should he become weary of his
sublimeness, this sublime one, then only
will his beauty begin--and then only
will I taste him and find him savoury.

And only when he turneth away from
himself will he o’erleap his own
shadow--and verily! into HIS sun.

Far too long did he sit in the shade;
the cheeks of the penitent of the spirit
became pale; he almost starved on his
expectations.

Contempt is still in his eye, and
loathing hideth in his mouth. To be
sure, he now resteth, but he hath not
yet taken rest in the sunshine.

As the ox ought he to do; and his
happiness should smell of the earth, and
not of contempt for the earth.

As a white ox would I like to see him,
which, snorting and lowing, walketh
before the plough-share: and his lowing
should also laud all that is earthly!

Dark is still his countenance; the
shadow of his hand danceth upon it.
O’ershadowed is still the sense of his
eye.

His deed itself is still the shadow upon
him: his doing obscureth the doer. Not
yet hath he overcome his deed.

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

Also his hero-will hath he still to
unlearn: an exalted one shall he be, and
not only a sublime one:--the ether
itself should raise him, the will-less
one!

He hath subdued monsters, he hath solved
enigmas. But he should also redeem his
monsters and enigmas; into heavenly
children should he transform them.

As yet hath his knowledge not learned to
smile, and to be without jealousy; as
yet hath his gushing passion not become
calm in beauty.

Verily, not in satiety shall his longing
cease and disappear, but in beauty!
Gracefulness belongeth to the
munificence of the magnanimous.

His arm across his head: thus should the
hero repose; thus should he also
surmount his repose.

But precisely to the hero is BEAUTY the
hardest thing of all. Unattainable is
beauty by all ardent wills.

A little more, a little less: precisely
this is much here, it is the most
here.

To stand with relaxed muscles and with
unharnessed will: that is the hardest
for all of you, ye sublime ones!

When power becometh gracious and
descendeth into the visible--I call such
condescension, beauty.

And from no one do I want beauty so much
as from thee, thou powerful one: let thy
goodness be thy last self-conquest.

All evil do I accredit to thee:
therefore do I desire of thee the
good.

Verily, I have often laughed at the
weaklings, who think themselves good
because they have crippled paws!

The virtue of the pillar shalt thou
strive after: more beautiful doth it
ever become, and more graceful--but
internally harder and more
sustaining--the higher it riseth.

Yea, thou sublime one, one day shalt
thou also be beautiful, and hold up the
mirror to thine own beauty.

Then will thy soul thrill with divine
desires; and there will be adoration
even in thy vanity!

For this is the secret of the soul: when
the hero hath abandoned it, then only
approacheth it in dreams--the
superhero.--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XXXVI. THE LAND OF CULTURE.

Too far did I fly into the future: a
horror seized upon me.

And when I looked around me, lo! there
time was my sole contemporary.

Then did I fly backwards, homewards--and
always faster. Thus did I come unto you,
ye present-day men, and into the land of
culture.

For the first time brought I an eye to
see you, and good desire: verily, with
longing in my heart did I come.

But how did it turn out with me?
Although so alarmed--I had yet to laugh!
Never did mine eye see anything so
motley-coloured!

I laughed and laughed, while my foot
still trembled, and my heart as well.
“Here forsooth, is the home of all the
paintpots,”--said I.

With fifty patches painted on faces and
limbs--so sat ye there to mine
astonishment, ye present-day men!

And with fifty mirrors around you, which
flattered your play of colours, and
repeated it!

Verily, ye could wear no better masks,
ye present-day men, than your own faces!
Who could--RECOGNISE you!

Written all over with the characters of
the past, and these characters also
pencilled over with new characters--thus
have ye concealed yourselves well from
all decipherers!

And though one be a trier of the reins,
who still believeth that ye have reins!
Out of colours ye seem to be baked, and
out of glued scraps.

All times and peoples gaze
divers-coloured out of your veils; all
customs and beliefs speak
divers-coloured out of your gestures.

He who would strip you of veils and
wrappers, and paints and gestures, would
just have enough left to scare the
crows.

Verily, I myself am the scared crow that
once saw you naked, and without paint;
and I flew away when the skeleton ogled
at me.

Rather would I be a day-labourer in the
nether-world, and among the shades of
the by-gone!--Fatter and fuller than ye,
are forsooth the nether-worldlings!

This, yea this, is bitterness to my
bowels, that I can neither endure you
naked nor clothed, ye present-day men!

All that is unhomelike in the future,
and whatever maketh strayed birds
shiver, is verily more homelike and
familiar than your “reality.”

For thus speak ye: “Real are we wholly,
and without faith and superstition”:
thus do ye plume yourselves--alas! even
without plumes!

Indeed, how would ye be ABLE to believe,
ye divers-coloured ones!--ye who are
pictures of all that hath ever been
believed!

Perambulating refutations are ye, of
belief itself, and a dislocation of all
thought. UNTRUSTWORTHY ONES: thus do _I_
call you, ye real ones!

All periods prate against one another in
your spirits; and the dreams and
pratings of all periods were even realer
than your awakeness!

Unfruitful are ye: THEREFORE do ye lack
belief. But he who had to create, had
always his presaging dreams and astral
premonitions--and believed in
believing!--

Half-open doors are ye, at which
grave-diggers wait. And this is YOUR
reality: “Everything deserveth to
perish.”

Alas, how ye stand there before me, ye
unfruitful ones; how lean your ribs! And
many of you surely have had knowledge
thereof.

Many a one hath said: “There hath surely
a God filched something from me secretly
whilst I slept? Verily, enough to make a
girl for himself therefrom!

“Amazing is the poverty of my ribs!”
thus hath spoken many a present-day
man.

Yea, ye are laughable unto me, ye
present-day men! And especially when ye
marvel at yourselves!

And woe unto me if I could not laugh at
your marvelling, and had to swallow all
that is repugnant in your platters!

As it is, however, I will make lighter
of you, since I have to carry what is
heavy; and what matter if beetles and
May-bugs also alight on my load!

Verily, it shall not on that account
become heavier to me! And not from you,
ye present-day men, shall my great
weariness arise.--

Ah, whither shall I now ascend with my
longing! From all mountains do I look
out for fatherlands and motherlands.

But a home have I found nowhere:
unsettled am I in all cities, and
decamping at all gates.

Alien to me, and a mockery, are the
present-day men, to whom of late my
heart impelled me; and exiled am I from
fatherlands and motherlands.

Thus do I love only my CHILDREN’S LAND,
the undiscovered in the remotest sea:
for it do I bid my sails search and
search.

Unto my children will I make amends for
being the child of my fathers: and unto
all the future--for THIS
present-day!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XXXVII. IMMACULATE PERCEPTION.

When yester-eve the moon arose, then did
I fancy it about to bear a sun: so broad
and teeming did it lie on the horizon.

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

To be sure, little of a man is he also,
that timid night-reveller. Verily, with
a bad conscience doth he stalk over the
roofs.

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

Nay, I like him not, that tom-cat on the
roofs! Hateful unto me are all that
slink around half-closed windows!

Piously and silently doth he stalk along
on the star-carpets:--but I like no
light-treading human feet, on which not
even a spur jingleth.

Every honest one’s step speaketh; the
cat however, stealeth along over the
ground. Lo! cat-like doth the moon come
along, and dishonestly.--

This parable speak I unto you
sentimental dissemblers, unto you, the
“pure discerners!” You do _I_
call--covetous ones!

Also ye love the earth, and the earthly:
I have divined you well!--but shame is
in your love, and a bad conscience--ye
are like the moon!

To despise the earthly hath your spirit
been persuaded, but not your bowels:
these, however, are the strongest in
you!

And now is your spirit ashamed to be at
the service of your bowels, and goeth
by-ways and lying ways to escape its own
shame.

“That would be the highest thing for
me”--so saith your lying spirit unto
itself--“to gaze upon life without
desire, and not like the dog, with
hanging-out tongue:

To be happy in gazing: with dead will,
free from the grip and greed of
selfishness--cold and ashy-grey all
over, but with intoxicated moon-eyes!

That would be the dearest thing to
me”--thus doth the seduced one seduce
himself,--“to love the earth as the moon
loveth it, and with the eye only to feel
its beauty.

And this do I call IMMACULATE perception
of all things: to want nothing else from
them, but to be allowed to lie before
them as a mirror with a hundred
facets.”--

Oh, ye sentimental dissemblers, ye
covetous ones! Ye lack innocence in your
desire: and now do ye defame desiring on
that account!

Verily, not as creators, as procreators,
or as jubilators do ye love the earth!

Where is innocence? Where there is will
to procreation. And he who seeketh to
create beyond himself, hath for me the
purest will.

Where is beauty? Where I MUST WILL with
my whole Will; where I will love and
perish, that an image may not remain
merely an image.

Loving and perishing: these have rhymed
from eternity. Will to love: that is to
be ready also for death. Thus do I speak
unto you cowards!

But now doth your emasculated ogling
profess to be “contemplation!” And that
which can be examined with cowardly eyes
is to be christened “beautiful!” Oh, ye
violators of noble names!

But it shall be your curse, ye
immaculate ones, ye pure discerners,
that ye shall never bring forth, even
though ye lie broad and teeming on the
horizon!

Verily, ye fill your mouth with noble
words: and we are to believe that your
heart overfloweth, ye cozeners?

But MY words are poor, contemptible,
stammering words: gladly do I pick up
what falleth from the table at your
repasts.

Yet still can I say therewith the
truth--to dissemblers! Yea, my
fish-bones, shells, and prickly leaves
shall--tickle the noses of
dissemblers!

Bad air is always about you and your
repasts: your lascivious thoughts, your
lies, and secrets are indeed in the
air!

Dare only to believe in yourselves--in
yourselves and in your inward parts! He
who doth not believe in himself always
lieth.

A God’s mask have ye hung in front of
you, ye “pure ones”: into a God’s mask
hath your execrable coiling snake
crawled.

Verily ye deceive, ye “contemplative
ones!” Even Zarathustra was once the
dupe of your godlike exterior; he did
not divine the serpent’s coil with which
it was stuffed.

A God’s soul, I once thought I saw
playing in your games, ye pure
discerners! No better arts did I once
dream of than your arts!

Serpents’ filth and evil odour, the
distance concealed from me: and that a
lizard’s craft prowled thereabouts
lasciviously.

But I came NIGH unto you: then came to
me the day,--and now cometh it to
you,--at an end is the moon’s love
affair!

See there! Surprised and pale doth it
stand--before the rosy dawn!

For already she cometh, the glowing
one,--HER love to the earth cometh!
Innocence and creative desire, is all
solar love!

See there, how she cometh impatiently
over the sea! Do ye not feel the thirst
and the hot breath of her love?

At the sea would she suck, and drink its
depths to her height: now riseth the
desire of the sea with its thousand
breasts.

Kissed and sucked WOULD it be by the
thirst of the sun; vapour WOULD it
become, and height, and path of light,
and light itself!

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

And this meaneth TO ME knowledge: all
that is deep shall ascend--to my
height!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XXXVIII. SCHOLARS.

When I lay asleep, then did a sheep eat
at the ivy-wreath on my head,--it ate,
and said thereby: “Zarathustra is no
longer a scholar.”

It said this, and went away clumsily and
proudly. A child told it to me.

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

A scholar am I still to the children,
and also to the thistles and red
poppies. Innocent are they, even in
their wickedness.

But to the sheep I am no longer a
scholar: so willeth my lot--blessings
upon it!

For this is the truth: I have departed
from the house of the scholars, and the
door have I also slammed behind me.

Too long did my soul sit hungry at their
table: not like them have I got the
knack of investigating, as the knack of
nut-cracking.

Freedom do I love, and the air over
fresh soil; rather would I sleep on
ox-skins than on their honours and
dignities.

I am too hot and scorched with mine own
thought: often is it ready to take away
my breath. Then have I to go into the
open air, and away from all dusty
rooms.

But they sit cool in the cool shade:
they want in everything to be merely
spectators, and they avoid sitting where
the sun burneth on the steps.

Like those who stand in the street and
gape at the passers-by: thus do they
also wait, and gape at the thoughts
which others have thought.

Should one lay hold of them, then do
they raise a dust like flour-sacks, and
involuntarily: but who would divine that
their dust came from corn, and from the
yellow delight of the summer fields?

When they give themselves out as wise,
then do their petty sayings and truths
chill me: in their wisdom there is often
an odour as if it came from the swamp;
and verily, I have even heard the frog
croak in it!

Clever are they--they have dexterous
fingers: what doth MY simplicity pretend
to beside their multiplicity! All
threading and knitting and weaving do
their fingers understand: thus do they
make the hose of the spirit!

Good clockworks are they: only be
careful to wind them up properly! Then
do they indicate the hour without
mistake, and make a modest noise
thereby.

Like millstones do they work, and like
pestles: throw only seed-corn unto
them!--they know well how to grind corn
small, and make white dust out of it.

They keep a sharp eye on one another,
and do not trust each other the best.
Ingenious in little artifices, they wait
for those whose knowledge walketh on
lame feet,--like spiders do they wait.

I saw them always prepare their poison
with precaution; and always did they put
glass gloves on their fingers in doing
so.

They also know how to play with false
dice; and so eagerly did I find them
playing, that they perspired thereby.

We are alien to each other, and their
virtues are even more repugnant to my
taste than their falsehoods and false
dice.

And when I lived with them, then did I
live above them. Therefore did they take
a dislike to me.

They want to hear nothing of any one
walking above their heads; and so they
put wood and earth and rubbish betwixt
me and their heads.

Thus did they deafen the sound of my
tread: and least have I hitherto been
heard by the most learned.

All mankind’s faults and weaknesses did
they put betwixt themselves and
me:--they call it “false ceiling” in
their houses.

But nevertheless I walk with my thoughts
ABOVE their heads; and even should I
walk on mine own errors, still would I
be above them and their heads.

For men are NOT equal: so speaketh
justice. And what I will, THEY may not
will!--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



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.

And thus doth it roll stones out of
animosity and ill-humour, and taketh
revenge on whatever doth not, like it,
feel rage and ill-humour.

Thus did the Will, the emancipator,
become a torturer; and on all that is
capable of suffering it taketh revenge,
because it cannot go backward.

This, yea, this alone is REVENGE itself:
the Will’s antipathy to time, and its
“It was.”

Verily, a great folly dwelleth in our
Will; and it became a curse unto all
humanity, that this folly acquired
spirit!

THE SPIRIT OF REVENGE: my friends, that
hath hitherto been man’s best
contemplation; and where there was
suffering, it was claimed there was
always penalty.

“Penalty,” so calleth itself revenge.
With a lying word it feigneth a good
conscience.

And because in the willer himself there
is suffering, because he cannot will
backwards--thus was Willing itself, and
all life, claimed--to be penalty!

And then did cloud after cloud roll over
the spirit, until at last madness
preached: “Everything perisheth,
therefore everything deserveth to
perish!”

“And this itself is justice, the law of
time--that he must devour his children:”
thus did madness preach.

“Morally are things ordered according to
justice and penalty. Oh, where is there
deliverance from the flux of things and
from the ‘existence’ of penalty?” Thus
did madness preach.

“Can there be deliverance when there is
eternal justice? Alas, unrollable is the
stone, ‘It was’: eternal must also be
all penalties!” Thus did madness
preach.

“No deed can be annihilated: how could
it be undone by the penalty! This, this
is what is eternal in the ‘existence’ of
penalty, that existence also must be
eternally recurring deed and guilt!

Unless the Will should at last deliver
itself, and Willing become
non-Willing--:” but ye know, my
brethren, this fabulous song of
madness!

Away from those fabulous songs did I
lead you when I taught you: “The Will is
a creator.”

All “It was” is a fragment, a riddle, a
fearful chance--until the creating Will
saith thereto: “But thus would I have
it.”--

Until the creating Will saith thereto:
“But thus do I will it! Thus shall I
will it!”

But did it ever speak thus? And when
doth this take place? Hath the Will been
unharnessed from its own folly?

Hath the Will become its own deliverer
and joy-bringer? Hath it unlearned the
spirit of revenge and all
teeth-gnashing?

And who hath taught it reconciliation
with time, and something higher than all
reconciliation?

Something higher than all reconciliation
must the Will will which is the Will to
Power--: but how doth that take place?
Who hath taught it also to will
backwards?

--But at this point in his discourse it
chanced that Zarathustra suddenly
paused, and looked like a person in the
greatest alarm. With terror in his eyes
did he gaze on his disciples; his
glances pierced as with arrows their
thoughts and arrear-thoughts. But after
a brief space he again laughed, and said
soothedly:

“It is difficult to live amongst men,
because silence is so difficult--
especially for a babbler.”--

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

“But why doth Zarathustra speak
otherwise unto us than unto his
disciples?”

Zarathustra answered: “What is there to
be wondered at! With hunchbacks one may
well speak in a hunchbacked way!”

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

But why doth Zarathustra speak otherwise
unto his pupils--than unto himself?”--




XLIII. MANLY PRUDENCE.

Not the height, it is the declivity that
is terrible!

The declivity, where the gaze shooteth
DOWNWARDS, and the hand graspeth
UPWARDS. There doth the heart become
giddy through its double will.

Ah, friends, do ye divine also my
heart’s double will?

This, this is MY declivity and my
danger, that my gaze shooteth towards
the summit, and my hand would fain
clutch and lean--on the depth!

To man clingeth my will; with chains do
I bind myself to man, because I am
pulled upwards to the Superman: for
thither doth mine other will tend.

And THEREFORE do I live blindly among
men, as if I knew them not: that my hand
may not entirely lose belief in
firmness.

I know not you men: this gloom and
consolation is often spread around me.

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

This is my first manly prudence, that I
allow myself to be deceived, so as not
to be on my guard against deceivers.

Ah, if I were on my guard against man,
how could man be an anchor to my ball!
Too easily would I be pulled upwards and
away!

This providence is over my fate, that I
have to be without foresight.

And he who would not languish amongst
men, must learn to drink out of all
glasses; and he who would keep clean
amongst men, must know how to wash
himself even with dirty water.

And thus spake I often to myself for
consolation: “Courage! Cheer up! old
heart! An unhappiness hath failed to
befall thee: enjoy that as
thy--happiness!”

This, however, is mine other manly
prudence: I am more forbearing to the
VAIN than to the proud.

Is not wounded vanity the mother of all
tragedies? Where, however, pride is
wounded, there there groweth up
something better than pride.

That life may be fair to behold, its
game must be well played; for that
purpose, however, it needeth good
actors.

Good actors have I found all the vain
ones: they play, and wish people to be
fond of beholding them--all their spirit
is in this wish.

They represent themselves, they invent
themselves; in their neighbourhood I
like to look upon life--it cureth of
melancholy.

Therefore am I forbearing to the vain,
because they are the physicians of my
melancholy, and keep me attached to man
as to a drama.

And further, who conceiveth the full
depth of the modesty of the vain man! I
am favourable to him, and sympathetic on
account of his modesty.

From you would he learn his belief in
himself; he feedeth upon your glances,
he eateth praise out of your hands.

Your lies doth he even believe when you
lie favourably about him: for in its
depths sigheth his heart: “What am
_I_?”

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

This is, however, my third manly
prudence: I am not put out of conceit
with the WICKED by your timorousness.

I am happy to see the marvels the warm
sun hatcheth: tigers and palms and
rattle-snakes.

Also amongst men there is a beautiful
brood of the warm sun, and much that is
marvellous in the wicked.

In truth, as your wisest did not seem to
me so very wise, so found I also human
wickedness below the fame of it.

And oft did I ask with a shake of the
head: Why still rattle, ye
rattle-snakes?

Verily, there is still a future even for
evil! And the warmest south is still
undiscovered by man.

How many things are now called the worst
wickedness, which are only twelve feet
broad and three months long! Some day,
however, will greater dragons come into
the world.

For that the Superman may not lack his
dragon, the superdragon that is worthy
of him, there must still much warm sun
glow on moist virgin forests!

Out of your wild cats must tigers have
evolved, and out of your poison-toads,
crocodiles: for the good hunter shall
have a good hunt!

And verily, ye good and just! In you
there is much to be laughed at, and
especially your fear of what hath
hitherto been called “the devil!”

So alien are ye in your souls to what is
great, that to you the Superman would be
FRIGHTFUL in his goodness!

And ye wise and knowing ones, ye would
flee from the solar-glow of the wisdom
in which the Superman joyfully batheth
his nakedness!

Ye highest men who have come within my
ken! this is my doubt of you, and my
secret laughter: I suspect ye would call
my Superman--a devil!

Ah, I became tired of those highest and
best ones: from their “height” did I
long to be up, out, and away to the
Superman!

A horror came over me when I saw those
best ones naked: then there grew for me
the pinions to soar away into distant
futures.

Into more distant futures, into more
southern souths than ever artist dreamed
of: thither, where Gods are ashamed of
all clothes!

But disguised do I want to see YOU, ye
neighbours and fellowmen, and
well-attired and vain and estimable, as
“the good and just;”--

And disguised will I myself sit amongst
you--that I may MISTAKE you and myself:
for that is my last manly prudence.--

Thus spake Zarathustra.



XLIV. THE STILLEST HOUR.

What hath happened unto me, my friends?
Ye see me troubled, driven forth,
unwillingly obedient, ready to go--alas,
to go away from YOU!

Yea, once more must Zarathustra retire
to his solitude: but unjoyously this
time doth the bear go back to his
cave!

What hath happened unto me? Who ordereth
this?--Ah, mine angry mistress wisheth
it so; she spake unto me. Have I ever
named her name to you?

Yesterday towards evening there spake
unto me MY STILLEST HOUR: that is the
name of my terrible mistress.

And thus did it happen--for everything
must I tell you, that your heart may not
harden against the suddenly departing
one!

Do ye know the terror of him who falleth
asleep?--

To the very toes he is terrified,
because the ground giveth way under him,
and the dream beginneth.

This do I speak unto you in parable.
Yesterday at the stillest hour did the
ground give way under me: the dream
began.

The hour-hand moved on, the timepiece of
my life drew breath--never did I hear
such stillness around me, so that my
heart was terrified.

Then was there spoken unto me without
voice: “THOU KNOWEST IT,
ZARATHUSTRA?”--

And I cried in terror at this
whispering, and the blood left my face:
but I was silent.

Then was there once more spoken unto me
without voice: “Thou knowest it,
Zarathustra, but thou dost not speak
it!”--

And at last I answered, like one
defiant: “Yea, I know it, but I will not
speak it!”

Then was there again spoken unto me
without voice: “Thou WILT not,
Zarathustra? Is this true? Conceal
thyself not behind thy defiance!”--

And I wept and trembled like a child,
and said: “Ah, I would indeed, but how
can I do it! Exempt me only from this!
It is beyond my power!”

Then was there again spoken unto me
without voice: “What matter about
thyself, Zarathustra! Speak thy word,
and succumb!”

And I answered: “Ah, is it MY word? Who
am _I_? I await the worthier one; I am
not worthy even to succumb by it.”

Then was there again spoken unto me
without voice: “What matter about
thyself? Thou art not yet humble enough
for me. Humility hath the hardest
skin.”--

And I answered: “What hath not the skin
of my humility endured! At the foot of
my height do I dwell: how high are my
summits, no one hath yet told me. But
well do I know my valleys.”

Then was there again spoken unto me
without voice: “O Zarathustra, he who
hath to remove mountains removeth also
valleys and plains.”--

And I answered: “As yet hath my word not
removed mountains, and what I have
spoken hath not reached man. I went,
indeed, unto men, but not yet have I
attained unto them.”

Then was there again spoken unto me
without voice: “What knowest thou
THEREOF! The dew falleth on the grass
when the night is most silent.”--

And I answered: “They mocked me when I
found and walked in mine own path; and
certainly did my feet then tremble.

And thus did they speak unto me: Thou
forgottest the path before, now dost
thou also forget how to walk!”

Then was there again spoken unto me
without voice: “What matter about their
mockery! Thou art one who hast unlearned
to obey: now shalt thou command!

Knowest thou not who is most needed by
all? He who commandeth great things.

To execute great things is difficult:
but the more difficult task is to
command great things.

This is thy most unpardonable obstinacy:
thou hast the power, and thou wilt not
rule.”--

And I answered: “I lack the lion’s voice
for all commanding.”

Then was there again spoken unto me as a
whispering: “It is the stillest words
which bring the storm. Thoughts that
come with doves’ footsteps guide the
world.

O Zarathustra, thou shalt go as a shadow
of that which is to come: thus wilt thou
command, and in commanding go
foremost.”--

And I answered: “I am ashamed.”

Then was there again spoken unto me
without voice: “Thou must yet become a
child, and be without shame.

The pride of youth is still upon thee;
late hast thou become young: but he who
would become a child must surmount even
his youth.”--

And I considered a long while, and
trembled. At last, however, did I say
what I had said at first. “I will
not.”

Then did a laughing take place all
around me. Alas, how that laughing
lacerated my bowels and cut into my
heart!

And there was spoken unto me for the
last time: “O Zarathustra, thy fruits
are ripe, but thou art not ripe for thy
fruits!

So must thou go again into solitude: for
thou shalt yet become mellow.”--

And again was there a laughing, and it
fled: then did it become still around
me, as with a double stillness. I lay,
however, on the ground, and the sweat
flowed from my limbs.

--Now have ye heard all, and why I have
to return into my solitude. Nothing have
I kept hidden from you, my friends.

But even this have ye heard from me, WHO
is still the most reserved of men--and
will be so!

Ah, my friends! I should have something
more to say unto you! I should have
something more to give unto you! Why do
I not give it? Am I then a niggard?--

When, however, Zarathustra had spoken
these words, the violence of his pain,
and a sense of the nearness of his
departure from his friends came over
him, so that he wept aloud; and no one
knew how to console him. In the night,
however, he went away alone and left his
friends.


