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, 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!’
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 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.