Thus Spoke Zarathustra (24 page)

Thus I am in the midst of my work, going to my children and turning from them: for the sake of his children must Zarathustra perfect himself.

For one loves from the very heart only one’s child and one’s work; and where there is great love of oneself, then it is a sign of pregnancy: thus have I found.

My children are still green in their first spring, standing close together and shaken in common by the winds, the trees of my garden and my best soil.

And truly! Where such trees stand together, there blissful islands
are
!

But one day I will uproot them and set each one up by itself, that it may learn solitude and defiance and foresight.

Then it shall stand by the sea, gnarled and twisted and with supple hardiness, a living lighthouse of unconquerable life.

Yonder, where storms plunge down into the sea and the mountain’s snout drinks water, there each of them shall one day keep its day and night watch, for
its
testing and recogniton.

It shall be tested and recognized, to see whether it is of my kind and my race – whether it is master of a protracted will, silent even when it speaks, and giving in such a way that in giving it
takes
–

that it may one day be my companion and a fellow-creator and fellow-rejoicer of Zarathustra – such a one as inscribes my will upon my tablets: for the greater perfection of all things.

And for its sake, and for those like it, must I perfect
myself
: therefore I now avoid my happiness and offer myself to all unhappiness – for
my
ultimate testing and recognition.

And truly, it was time I went; and the wanderer’s shadow and the longest sojourn and the stillest hour – all told me: ‘It is high time!’

The wind blew to me through the keyhole and said: ‘Come!’ The door sprang cunningly open and said: ‘Go!’

But I lay fettered to love of my children: desire set this snare for me, desire for love, that I might become my children’s victim and lose myself through them.

To desire – that now means to me: to have lost myself.
I possess you, my children!
In this possession all should be certainty and nothing desire.

But the sun of my love lay brooding upon me, Zarathustra stewed in his own juice – then shadows and doubts flew past me.

I hankered after frost and winter: ‘Oh that frost and winter would again make me crackle and crunch!’ I sighed: then icy mist arose from me.

My past broke open its graves, many a pain buried alive
awoke: they had only been sleeping, concealed in winding sheets.

Thus in symbols everything called to me: ‘It is time!’ But I – did not hear: until at last my abyss stirred and my thought bit me.

Alas, abysmal thought that is
my
thought! When shall I find the strength to hear you boring and no longer tremble?

My heart rises to my throat when I hear you boring I Even your silence threatens to choke me, you abysmal, silent thought!

I have never yet dared to summon you
up
: it has been enough that I – carried you with me! I have not yet been strong enough for the ultimate lion’s arrogance and lion’s wantonness.

Your heaviness has always been fearful enough for me: but one day I shall find the strength and the lion’s voice to summon you up!

When I have overcome myself in that, I will overcome myself in that which is greater; and a
victory
shall be the seal of my perfection!

In the meantime, I travel on uncertain seas; smooth-tongued chance flatters me; I gaze forward and backward, still I see no end.

The hour of my last struggle has not yet arrived – or has it perhaps just arrived? Truly, sea and life around me gaze at me with insidious beauty!

O afternoon of my life! O happiness before evening! O harbour in mid-sea! O peace in uncertainty! How I mistrust you all!

Truly, I am mistrustful of your insidious beauty! I am like the lover who mistrusts all-too-velvety smiles.

As the jealous man thrusts his best beloved from him, tender even in his hardness – thus do I thrust this blissful hour from me.

Away with you, blissful hour! With you there came to me an involuntary bliss!1 stand here ready for my deepest pain – you came out of season!

Away with you, blissful hour! Rather take shelter yonder –
with my children! Hurry, and bless them before evening with
my
happiness!

There evening already approaches: the sun is sinking. Away – my happiness!

Thus spoke Zarathustra. And he waited all night for his unhappiness: but he waited in vain. The night remained clear and still and happiness itself drew nearer and nearer to him. Towards morning, however, Zarathustra laughed to his heart and said ironically: ‘Happiness runs after me. That is because I do not run after women. Happiness, however, is a woman.’

Before Sunrise

O
SKY
above me! O pure, deep sky! You abyss of light! Gazing into you, I tremble with divine desires.

To cast myself into your height – that is
my
depth! To hide myself in your purity – that is
my
innocence!

The god is veiled by his beauty: thus you hide your stars. You do not speak: thus you proclaim to me your wisdom.

You have risen for me today, mute over the raging sea; your love and your modesty speak a revelation to my raging soul.

That you have come to me, beautiful, veiled in your beauty; that you have spoken to me mutely, manifest in your wisdom:

Oh how should I not divine all that is modest in your soul! You came to me
before
the sun, to me the most solitary man.

We have been friends from the beginning: we have grief and terror and world in common; we have even the sun in common.

We do not speak to one another, because we know too much: we are silent together, we smile our knowledge to one another.

Are you not the light of my fire? Do you not have the sister-soul of my insight?

Together we learned everything; together we learned to mount above ourselves to ourselves and to smile uncloudedly –
to smile uncloudedly down from bright eyes and from miles away when under us compulsion and purpose and guilt stream like rain.

And when I wandered alone,
what
did my soul hunger after by night and on treacherous paths? And when I climbed mountains,
whom
did I always seek, if not you, upon mountains?

And all my wandering and mountain-climbing: it was merely a necessity and an expedient of clumsiness: my whole will desires only
fly
, to fly into
you
!

And what have I hated more than passing clouds and all that defiles you? And I have hated even my own hatred, because it defiled you!

I dislike the passing clouds, these stealthy cats of prey: they take from you and from me what we have in common – the vast and boundless declaration of Yes and Amen.

We dislike these mediators and mixers, the passing clouds: these half-and-halfers, who have learned neither to bless nor to curse from the heart.

I would rather sit in a barrel under a closed sky, rather sit in an abyss without a sky, than see you, luminous sky, defiled by passing clouds!

And often I longed to bind them fast with jagged golden wires of lightning, so that I, like the thunder, might drum upon their hollow bellies –

an angry drummer, because they rob me of your Yes! and Amen! O sky above me, you pure sky! You luminous sky! You abyss of light! – because they rob me of
my
Yes! and Amen!

For I would rather have noise and thunder and storm-curses than this cautious, uncertain feline repose; and among men, too, I hate most all soft-walkers and half-and-halfers and uncertain, hesitating passing clouds.

And ‘He who cannot bless shall
learn
to curse!’ – this clear teaching fell to me from the dear sky, this star stands in my sky even on dark nights.

I, however, am one who blesses and declares Yes, if only you are around me, you pure, luminous sky! You abyss of
light I – then into all abysses do I carry my consecrating declaration Yes.

I have become one who blesses and one who declares Yes: and for that I wrestled long and was a wrestler, so that I might one day have my hands free for blessing.

This, however, is my blessing: To stand over everything as its own sky, as its round roof, its azure bell and eternal certainty: and happy is he who thus blesses!

For all things are baptized at the fount of eternity and beyond good and evil; good and evil themselves, however, are only intervening shadows and damp afflictions and passing clouds.

Truly, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy when I teach: ‘Above all things stands the heaven of chance, the heaven of innocence, the heaven of accident, the heaven of wantonness.’
²⁷

‘Lord Chance’
²⁸
– he is the world’s oldest nobility, which I have given back to all things; I have released them from servitude under purpose.

I set this freedom and celestial cheerfulness over all things like an azure bell when I taught that no ‘eternal will’ acts over them and through them.

I set this wantonness and this foolishness in place of that will when I taught: ‘With all things one thing is impossible – rationality!’

A
little
reason, to be sure, a seed of wisdom scattered from star to star – this leaven is mingled with all things: for the sake of foolishness is wisdom mingled with all things!

A little wisdom is no doubt possible; but I have found this happy certainty in all things: that they prefer – to
dance
on the feet of chance.

O sky above me, you pure, lofty sky! This is now your purity to me, that there is no eternal reason-spider and spider’s web in you –

that you are to me a dance floor for divine chances, that you are to me a gods’ table for divine dice and dicers!

But are you blushing? Did I say something unspeakable? Did I slander you when I meant to bless you?

Or is it the shame of our being together which makes you blush? Are you telling me to go and be silent because now –
day
is coming?

The world is deep: and deeper than day has ever comprehended. Not everything may be spoken in the presence of day. But day is coming: so let us part!

O sky above me, you modest, glowing sky! O you, my happiness before sunrise! Day is coming: so let us part!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Of the Virtue that Makes Small

1

W
HEN
Zarathustra was again on firm land he did not go off straightway to his mountains and his cave, but made many journeys and asked many questions and inquired of this and that, so that he said jokingly of himself: ‘Behold a river that flows back to its source through many meanderings!’ For he wanted to learn what had been happening
to men
while he had been away: whether they had become bigger or smaller. And once he saw a row of new houses, and he marvelled and said:

What do these houses mean? Truly, no great soul put them up as its image!

Did a silly child perhaps take them out of its toy-box? If only another child would put them back into its box!

And these sitting-rooms and bedrooms: are
men
able to go in and out of them? They seem to have been made for dolls; or for dainty nibblers who perhaps let others nibble with them.

And Zarathustra stopped and considered. At length he said sadly: ‘
Everything
has become smaller!

‘Everywhere I see lower doors: anyone like
me
can still pass through them, but – he has to stoop!

‘Oh when shall I return to my home, where I shall no longer have to stoop – shall no longer have to stoop
before the small men
’! And Zarathustra sighed and gazed into the distance.

The same day, however, he spoke his discourse upon the virtue that makes small.

2

I go among this people and keep my eyes open: they do not forgive me that I am not envious of their virtues.

They peck at me because I tell them: For small people small virtues are necessary – and because it is hard for me to understand that small people are
necessary
!

Here I am still like a cockerel in a strange farmyard, who is pecked at even by the hens; but I am not unfriendly to these hens on that account.

I am polite towards them, as towards every small vexation; to be prickly towards small things seems to me the wisdom of a hedgehog.

They all talk of me when they sit around the fire at evening – they talk of me, but no one thinks – of me!

This is the new silence I have learned: their noise about me spreads a cloak over my thoughts.

They bluster among themselves: ‘What does this gloomy cloud want with us? Let us see that it does not bring us a pestilence!’

And recently a woman pulled back her child when it was coming towards me: ‘Take the children away!’ she cried; ‘such eyes scorch children’s souls.’

They cough when I speak: they think that coughing is an objection to strong winds – they know nothing of the raging of my happiness!

‘We have no time yet for Zarathustra’ – thus they object; but of what consequence is a time that ‘has no time’ for Zarathustra?

And should they even praise me: how could I rest on
their
praise? Their praise is a barbed girdle to me: it scratches me even when I take it off.

And I have learned this, too, among them: he who praises appears to be giving back, in truth however he wants to be given more!

Ask my foot if it likes their melodies of praise and enticement!

Truly, to such a measure and tick-tock beat it likes neither to dance nor to stand still.

They would like to lure and commend me to small virtue; they would like to persuade my foot to the tick-tock measure of a small happiness.

I go among this people and keep my eyes open: they have become
smaller
and are becoming ever smaller:
and their doctrine of happiness and virtue is the cause
.