The Portable Nietzsche (40 page)

“The small man, especially the poet—how eagerly he accuses life with words! Hear him, but do not fail to hear the delight that is in all accusation. Such accusers of life—life overcomes with a wink. ‘Do you love me?' she says impudently. ‘Wait a little while, just yet I have no time for you.'

“Man is the cruelest animal against himself; and whenever he calls himself ‘sinner' and ‘cross-bearer' and ‘penitent,' do not fail to hear the voluptuous delight that is in all such lamentation and accusation.

“And I myself—do I thus want to be man's accuser? Alas, my animals, only this have I learned so far, that man needs what is most evil in him for what is best in him—that whatever is most evil is his best power and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must become better and more evil.

“My torture was not the knowledge that man is evil —but I cried as no one has yet cried: ‘Alas, that his greatest evil is so very small! Alas, that his best is so very small!'

“The great disgust with man—this choked me and had crawled into my throat; and what the soothsayer said: ‘All is the same, nothing is worth while, knowledge chokes.' A long twilight limped before me, a sadness, weary to death, drunken with death, speaking with a yawning mouth. ‘Eternally recurs the man of whom you are weary, the small man'—thus yawned my sadness and dragged its feet and could not go to sleep. Man's earth turned into a cave for me, its chest sunken; all that is living became human mold and bones and musty past to me. My sighing sat on all human tombs and could no longer get up; my sighing and questioning croaked and gagged and gnawed and wailed by day and night: ‘Alas, man recurs eternally The small man recurs eternally!'

“Naked I had. once seen both, the greatest man and the smallest man: all-too-similar to each other, even the greatest all-too-human. All-too-small, the greatest!—that was my disgust with man. And the eternal recurrence even of the smallest—that was my disgust with all existence,. Alas! Nausea! Nausea! Nausea!”

Thus spoke Zarathustra and sighed and shuddered, for he remembered his sickness. But then his animals would not let him go on.

“Do not speak on, O convalescent!” thus his animals answered him; “but go out where the world awaits you like a garden. Go out to the roses and bees and dovecots. But especially to the songbirds, that you may learn from them how to sing! For singing is for the convalescent ; the healthy can speak. And when the healthy man also wants songs, he wants different songs from the convalescent.”

“O you buffoons and barrel organs, be silent!” Zarathustra replied and smiled at his animals. “How well you know what comfort I invented for myself in seven days! That I must sing again, this comfort and convalescence I invented for myself. Must you immediately turn this too into a hurdy-gurdy song?”

“Do not speak on!” his animals answered him again; “rather even, O convalescent, fashion yourself a lyre first, a new lyre! For behold, Zarathustra, new lyres are needed for your new songs. Sing and overflow, O Zarathustra ; cure your soul with new songs that you may bear your great destiny, which has never yet been any man's destiny. For your animals know well, O Zarathustra, who you are and must become: behold, you
are the teacher of the eternal recurrence
—that is your destiny! That you as the first must teach this doctrine—how could this great destiny not be your greatest danger and sickness too?

“Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally, and we ourselves too; and that we have already existed an eternal number of times, and all things with us. You teach that there is a great year of becoming, a monster of a great year, which must, like an hourglass, turn over again and again so that it may run down and run out again; and all these years are alike in what is greatest as in what is smallest; and we ourselves are alike in every great year, in what is greatest as in what is smallest.

“And if you wanted to die now, O Zarathustra, behold, we also know how you would then speak to yourself. But your animals beg you not to die yet. You would speak, without trembling but breathing deeply with happiness, for a great weight and sultriness would be taken from you who are most patient.

“ ‘Now I die and vanish,' you would say, ‘and all at once I am nothing. The soul is as mortal as the body. But the knot of causes in which I am entangled recurs and will create me again. I myself belong to the causes of the eternal recurrence. I come again, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent—not to a new life or a better life or a similar life: I come back eternally to this same, selfsame life, in what is greatest as in what is smallest, to teach again the eternal recurrence of all things, to speak again the word of the great noon of earth and man, to proclaim the overman again to men. I spoke my word, I break of my word: thus my eternal lot wants it; as a proclaimer I perish. The hour has now come when he who goes under should bless himself. Thus
ends
Zarathustra's going under.'”

When the animals had spoken these words they were silent and waited for Zarathustra to say something to them; but Zarathustra did not hear that they were silent. Rather he lay still with his eyes closed, like one sleeping, although he was not asleep; for he was conversing with his soul. The serpent, however, and the eagle, when they found him thus silent, honored the great stillness around him and cautiously stole away.

O my soul, I taught you to say “today” and “one day” and “formerly” and to dance away over all Here and There and Yonder.

O my soul, I delivered you from all nooks; I brushed dust, spiders, and twilight off you.

O my soul, I washed the little bashfulness and the nook-virtue off you and persuaded you to stand naked before the eyes of the sun. With the storm that is called “spirit” I blew over your wavy sea; I blew all clouds away; I even strangled the strangler that is called “sin.”

O my soul, I gave you the right to say No like the storm, and to say Yes as the clear sky says Yes: now you are still as light whether you stand or walk through storms of negation.

O my soul, I gave you back the freedom over the created and uncreated; and who knows, as you know, the voluptuous delight of what is yet to come?

O my soul, I taught you the contempt that does not come like the worm's gnawing, the great, the loving contempt that loves most where it despises most.

O my soul, I taught you to persuade so well that you persuade the very ground—like the sun who persuades even the sea to his own height.

O my soul, I took from you all obeying, knee-bending, and “Lord”-saying; I myself gave you the name “cessation of need” and “destiny.”

O my soul, I gave you new names and colorful toys; I called you “destiny” and “circumference of circumferences” and “umbilical cord of time” and “azure bell.”

O my soul, I gave your soil all wisdom to drink, all the new wines and also all the immemorially old strong wines of wisdom.

O my soul, I poured every sun out on you, and every night and every silence and every longing: then you grew up like a vine.

O my soul, overrich and heavy you now stand there, like a vine with swelling udders and crowded brown gold-grapes—crowded and pressed by your happiness, waiting in your superabundance and still bashful about waiting.

O my soul, now there is not a soul anywhere that would be more loving and comprehending and comprehensive. Where would future and past dwell closer together than in you?

O my soul, I gave you all, and I have emptied all my hands to you; and now—now you say to me, smiling and full of melancholy, “Which of us has to be thankful ? Should not the giver be thankful that the receiver received? Is not giving a need? Is not receiving mercy?”

O my soul, I understand the smile of your melancholy : now your own overrichness stretches out longing hands. Your fullness gazes over roaring seas and seeks and waits; the longing of overfullness gazes out of the smiling skies of your eyes. And verily, O my soul, who could see your smile and not be melted by tears? The angels themselves are melted by tears because of the overgraciousness of your smile. Your graciousness and overgraciousness do not want to lament and weep; and yet, O my soul, your smile longs for tears and your trembling mouth for sobs. “Is not all weeping a lamentation? And all lamentation an accusation?” Thus you speak to yourself, and therefore, my soul, you would sooner smile than pour out your suffering—pour out into plunging tears all your suffering over your fullness and over the vine's urge for the vintager and his knife.

But if you will not weep, not weep out you: crimson melancholy, then you will have to sing, U my soul. Behold, I myself smile as I say this before you: sing with a roaring song till all seas are silenced, that they may listen to your longing—till over silent, longing seas the bark floats, the golden wonder around whose gold all good, bad, wondrous things leap—also many great and small animals and whatever has light, wondrous feet for running on paths blue as violets—toward the golden wonder, the voluntary bark and its master; but that is the vintager who is waiting with his diamond knife— your great deliverer, O my soul, the nameless one for whom only future songs will find names. And verily, even now your breath is fragrant with future songs; even now you are glowing and dreaming and drinking thirstily from all deep and resounding wells of comfort; even now your melancholy is resting in the happiness of future songs.

O my soul, now I have given you all, and even the last I had, and I have emptied all my hands to you: that I bade you
sing,
behold, that was the last I had. That I bade you sing—speak now, speak: which of us has to be thankful now? Better yet, however: sing to me, sing, O my soul! And let me be thankful.

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Into your eyes I looked recently, O life: I saw gold blinking in your night-eye; my heart stopped in delight: a golden boat I saw blinking on nocturnal waters, a golden rocking-boat, sinking, drinking, and winking again. At my foot, frantic to dance, you cast a glance, a laughing, questioning, melting rocking-glance: twice only you stirred your rattle with your small hands, and my foot was already rocking with dancing frenzy.

My heels twitched, then my toes hearkened to understand you, and rose: for the dancer has his ear in his toes.

I leaped toward you, but you fled back from my leap, and the tongue of your fleeing, flying hair licked me in its sweep.

Away from you I leaped, and from your serpents' ire; and already you stood there, half turned, your eyes full of desire.

With crooked glances you teach me—crooked ways; on crooked ways my foot learns treachery.

I fear you near, I love you far; your flight lures me, your seeking cures me: I suffer, but what would I not gladly suffer for you?

You, whose coldness fires, whose hatred seduces, whose flight binds, whose scorn inspires:

Who would not hate you, you great binder, entwiner, temptress, seeker, and finder? Who would not love you, you innocent, impatient, wind-swift, child-eyed sinner?

Whereto are you luring me now, you never-tame extreme ? And now you are fleeing from me again, you sweet wildcat and ingrate!

I dance after you, I follow wherever your traces linger. Where are you? Give me your hand! Or only one finger!

Here are caves and thickets; we shall get lost. Stop! Stand still! Don't you see owls and bats whirring past?

You owl! You bat! Intent to confound! Where are we? Such howling and yelping you have learned from a hound.

Your lovely little white teeth are gnashing at me; out of a curly little mane your evil eyes are flashing at me.

That is a dance up high and down low: I am the hunter; would you be my dog or my doe?

Alongside me now! And swift, you malicious leaping belle! Now up and over there! Alas, as I leaped I fell.

Oh, see me lying there, you prankster, suing for grace. I should like to walk with you in a lovelier place.

Love's paths through silent bushes, past many-hued plants. Or there along that lake: there goldfish swim and dance.

You are weary now? Over there are sunsets and sheep: when shepherds play on their Hutes—is it not lovely to sleep?

You are so terribly weary? I'll carry you there; just let your arms sink. And if you are thirsty—I have got something, but your mouth does not want it to drink.

Oh, this damned nimble, supple snake and slippery witch! Where are you? In my face two red blotches from your hand itch.

I am verily weary of always being your sheepish shepherd. You witch, if
I
have so far sung to you, now you shall cry.

Keeping time with my whip, you shall dance and cry! Or have I forgotten the whip? Not I!

Then life answered me thus, covering up her delicate ears: “O Zarathustra, don't crack your whip so frightfully ! After all, you know that noise murders thought—and just now such tender thoughts are coming to me. We are both two real good-for-nothings and evil-for-nothings. Beyond good and evil we found our island and our green meadow—we two alone. Therefore we had better like each other. And even if we do not love each other from the heart—need we bear each other a grudge if we do not love each other from the heart? And that I like you, often too well, that you know; and the reason is that I am jealous of your wisdom. Oh, this mad old fool of a wisdom! If your wisdom ever ran away from you, then my love would quickly run away from you too.”

Then life looked back and around thoughtfully and said softly: “O Zarathustra, you are not faithful enough to me. You do not love me nearly as much as you say; I know you are thinking of leaving me soon. There is an old heavy, heavy growl-bell that growls at night all the way up to your cave; when you hear this bell strike the hour at midnight, then you think between one and twelve—you think, O Zarathustra, I know it, of how you want to leave me soon.”