Thus Spoke Zarathustra (7 page)

They have their little pleasure for the day and their little pleasure for the night: but they respect health.

‘We have discovered happiness,’ say the Ultimate Men and blink.

And here ended Zarathustra’s first discourse, which is also called ‘The Prologue’:
³
for at this point the shouting and mirth of the crowd interrupted him. ‘Give us this Ultimate Man, O Zarathustra’ – so they cried – ‘make us into this Ultimate Man! You can have the Superman!’ And all the people laughed and shouted. But Zarathustra grew sad and said to his heart:

They do not understand me: I am not the mouth for these ears.

Perhaps I lived too long in the mountains, listened too much to the trees and the streams: now I speak to them as to goatherds.

Unmoved is my soul and bright as the mountains in the morning. But they think me cold and a mocker with fearful jokes.

And now they look at me and laugh: and laughing, they still hate me. There is ice in their laughter.

6

But then something happened that silenced every mouth and fixed every eye. In the meantime, of course, the tight-rope walker had begun his work: he had emerged from a little door and was proceeding across the rope, which was stretched between two towers and thus hung over the people and the market square. Just as he had reached the middle of his course the little door opened again and a brightly-dressed fellow like a buffoon sprang out and followed the former
with rapid steps. ‘Forward, lame-foot!’ cried his fearsome voice, ‘forward sluggard, intruder, pallid-face! Lest I tickle you with my heels! What are you doing here between towers? You belong in the tower, you should be locked up, you are blocking the way of a better man than you!’ And with each word he came nearer and nearer to him: but when he was only a single pace behind him, there occurred the dreadful thing that silenced every mouth and fixed every eye: he emitted a cry like a devil and sprang over the man standing in his path. But the latter, when he saw his rival thus triumph, lost his head and the rope; he threw away his pole and fell, faster even than it, like a vortex of legs and arms. The market square and the people were like a sea in a storm: they flew apart in disorder, especially where the body would come crashing down.

But Zarathustra remained still and the body fell quite close to him, badly injured and broken but not yet dead. After a while, consciousness returned to the shattered man and he saw Zarathustra kneeling beside him. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked at length. ‘I’ve known for a long time that the Devil would trip me up. Now he’s dragging me to Hell: are you trying to prevent him?’

‘On my honour, friend,’ answered Zarathustra, ‘all you have spoken of does not exist: there is no Devil and no Hell. Your soul will be dead even before your body: therefore fear nothing any more!’

The man looked up mistrustfully. ‘If you are speaking the truth,’ he said then, ‘I leave nothing when I leave life. I am not much more than an animal which has been taught to dance by blows and starvation.’

‘Not so,’ said Zarathustra. ‘You have made danger your calling, there is nothing in that to despise. Now you perish through your calling: so I will bury you with my own hands.’

When Zarathustra had said this the dying man replied no more; but he motioned with his hand, as if he sought Zarathustra’s hand to thank him.

7

In the meanwhile, evening had come and the market square was hidden in darkness: then the people dispersed, for even curiosity and terror grow tired. But Zarathustra sat on the ground beside the dead man and was sunk in thought: thus he forgot the time. But at length it became night and a cold wind blew over the solitary figure. Then Zarathustra arose and said to his heart:

Truly, Zarathustra has had a handsome catch today! He caught no man, but he did catch a corpse.

Uncanny is human existence and still without meaning: a buffoon can be fatal to it.

I want to teach men the meaning of their existence: which is the Superman, the lightning from the dark cloud man.

But I am still distant from them, and my meaning does not speak to their minds. To men, I am still a cross between a fool and a corpse.

Dark is the night, dark are Zarathustra’s ways. Come, cold and stiff companion! I am going to carry you to the place where I shall bury you with my own hands.

8

When Zarathustra had said this to his heart he loaded the corpse on to his back and set forth. He had not gone a hundred paces when a man crept up to him and whispered in his ear – and behold! it was the buffoon of the tower who spoke to him. ‘Go away from this town, O Zarathustra,’ he said. ‘Too many here hate you. The good and the just hate you and call you their enemy and despiser; the faithful of the true faith hate you, and they call you a danger to the people. It was lucky for you that they laughed at you: and truly you spoke like a buffoon. It was lucky for you that you made company with the dead dog; by so abasing yourself you have saved yourself for today. But leave this town – or tomorrow I shall jump over
you, a living man over a dead one.’ And when he had said this, the man disappeared; Zarathustra, however, went on through the dark streets.

At the town gate the gravediggers accosted him: they shone their torch in his face, recognized Zarathustra and greatly derided him. ‘Zarathustra is carrying the dead dog away: excellent that Zarathustra has become a gravedigger! For our hands are too clean for this roast. Does Zarathustra want to rob the Devil of his morsel? Good luck then! A hearty appetite! But if the Devil is a better thief than Zarathustra! – he will steal them both, he will eat them both!’ And they laughed and put their heads together.

Zarathustra said nothing and went his way. When he had walked for two hours past woods and swamps he had heard too much hungry howling of wolves and he grew hungry himself. So he stopped at a lonely house in which a light was burning.

‘Hunger has waylaid me’, said Zarathustra, ‘like a robber. My hunger has waylaid me in woods and swamps, and in the depth of night.

‘My hunger has astonishing moods. Often it comes to me only after mealtimes, and today it did not come at all: where has it been?’

And with that, Zarathustra knocked on the door of the house. An old man appeared; he carried a light and asked: ‘Who comes here to me and to my uneasy sleep?’

‘A living man and a dead,’ said Zarathustra.’ Give me food and drink, I forgot about them during the day. He who feeds the hungry refreshes his own soul: thus speaks wisdom.’

The old man went away, but returned at once and offered Zarathustra bread and wine. ‘This is a bad country for hungry people,’ he said. ‘That is why I live here. Animals and men come here to me, the hermit. But bid your companion eat and drink, he is wearier than you.’ Zarathustra answered: ‘My companion is dead, I shall hardly be able to persuade him.’ “That is nothing to do with me,’ said the old man morosely. ‘Whoever knocks at my door must take what I offer him. Eat, and fare you well!’

After that, Zarathustra walked two hours more and trusted to the road and to the light of the stars: for he was used to walking abroad at night and liked to look into the face of all that slept. But when morning dawned, Zarathustra found himself in a thick forest and the road disappeared. Then he laid the dead man in a hollow tree at his head – for he wanted to protect him from the wolves – and laid himself down on the mossy ground. And straightway he fell asleep, weary in body but with a soul at rest.

9

Zarathustra slept long, and not only the dawn but the morning too passed over his head. But at length he opened his eyes: in surprise Zarathustra gazed into the forest and the stillness, in surprise he gazed into himself. Then he arose quickly, like a seafarer who suddenly sees land, and rejoiced: for he beheld a new truth. And then he spoke to his heart thus:

A light has dawned for me: I need companions, living ones, not dead companions and corpses which I carry with me wherever I wish.

But I need living companions who follow me because they want to follow themselves – and who want to go where I want to go.

A light has dawned for me: Zarathustra shall not speak to the people but to companions! Zarathustra shall not be herdsman and dog to the herd!

To lure many away from the herd – that is why I have come. The people and the herd shall be angry with me: the herdsmen shall call Zarathustra a robber.

I say herdsmen, but they call themselves the good and the just. I say herdsmen: but they call themselves the faithful of the true faith.

Behold the good and the just! Whom do they hate most? Him who smashes their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker
⁴
– but he is the creator.

Behold the faithful of all faiths! Whom do they hate the
most? Him who smashes their tables of values, the breaker, the law-breaker – but he is the creator.

The creator seeks companions, not corpses or herds or believers. The creator seeks fellow-creators, those who inscribe new values on new tables.

The creator seeks companions and fellow-harvesters: for with him everything is ripe for harvesting. But he lacks his hundred sickles: so he tears off the ears of corn and is vexed.

The creator seeks companions and such as know how to whet their sickles. They will be called destroyers and despisers of good and evil. But they are harvesters and rejoicers.

Zarathustra seeks fellow-creators, fellow-harvesters, and fellow-rejoicers: what has he to do with herds and herdsmen and corpses!

And you, my first companion, fare you well! I have buried you well in your hollow tree, I have hidden you well from the wolves.

But I am leaving you, the time has come. Between dawn and dawn a new truth has come to me.

I will not be herdsman or gravedigger. I will not speak again to the people: I have spoken to a dead man for the last time.

I will make company with creators, with harvesters, with rejoicers: I will show them the rainbow and the stairway to the Superman.

I shall sing my song to the lone hermit and to the hermits in pairs; and I will make the heart of him who still has ears for unheard-of things heavy with my happiness.

I make for my goal, I go my way; I shall leap over the hesitating and the indolent. Thus may my going-forward be their going-down!

10

Zarathustra said this to his heart as the sun stood at noon: then he looked inquiringly into the sky – for he heard above him the sharp cry of a bird. And behold! An eagle was sweeping through the air in wide circles, and from it was hanging a
serpent, not like a prey but like a friend: for it was coiled around the eagle’s neck.

‘It is my animals!’ said Zarathustra and rejoiced in his heart.

‘The proudest animal under the sun and the wisest animal under the sun’ they have come scouting.

‘They wanted to learn if Zarathustra was still alive. Am I in fact alive?

‘I found it more dangerous among men than among animals; Zarathustra is following dangerous paths. May my animals lead me!’

When Zarathustra had said this he recalled the words of the saint in the forest, sighed, and spoke thus to his heart:

‘I wish I were wise! I wish I were wise from the heart of me, like my serpent!

‘But I am asking the impossible: therefore I ask my pride always to go along with my wisdom!

‘And if one day my wisdom should desert me – ah, it loves to fly away! – then may my pride too fly with my folly!’

Thus began Zarathustra’s down-going.

ZARATHUSTRA’S DISCOURSES
Of the Three Metamorphoses

I
NAME
you three metamorphoses of the spirit: how the spirit shall become a camel, and the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.

There are many heavy things for the spirit, for the strong, weight-bearing spirit in which dwell respect and awe: its strength longs for the heavy, for the heaviest.

What is heavy? thus asks the weight-bearing spirit, thus it kneels down like the camel and wants to be well laden.

What is the heaviest thing, you heroes? so asks the weight-bearing spirit, that I may take it upon me and rejoice in my strength.

Is it not this: to debase yourself in order to injure your pride? To let your folly shine out in order to mock your wisdom?

Or is it this: to desert our cause when it is celebrating its victory? To climb high mountains in order to tempt the tempter?

Or is it this: to feed upon the acorns and grass of knowledge and for the sake of truth to suffer hunger of the soul?

Or is it this: to be sick and to send away comforters and make friends with the deaf, who never hear what you ask?

Or is it this: to wade into dirty water when it is the water of truth, and not to disdain cold frogs and hot toads?

Or is it this: to love those who despise us and to offer our hand to the ghost when it wants to frighten us?

The weight-bearing spirit takes upon itself all these heaviest things: like a camel hurrying laden into the desert, thus it hurries into its desert.

But in the loneliest desert the second metamorphosis occurs: the spirit here becomes a lion; it wants to capture freedom and be lord in its own desert.

It seeks here its ultimate lord: it will be an enemy to him
and to its ultimate God, it will struggle for victory with the great dragon.

What is the great dragon which the spirit no longer wants to call lord and God? The great dragon is called ‘Thou shalt’. But the spirit of the lion says ‘I will!’

‘Thou shalt’ lies in its path, sparkling with gold, a scale-covered beast, and on every scale glitters golden ‘Thou shalt’.

Values of a thousand years glitter on the scales, and thus speaks the mightiest of all dragons: ‘All the values of things – glitter on me.

‘All values have already been created, and all created values – are in me. Truly, there shall be no more “I will”!’ Thus speaks the dragon.

My brothers, why is the lion needed in the spirit? Why does the beast of burden, that renounces and is reverent, not suffice?