Thus Spoke Zarathustra (9 page)

The creative Self created for itself esteem and disesteem, it created for itself joy and sorrow. The creative body created spirit for itself, as a hand of its will.

Even in your folly and contempt, you despisers of the body,
you serve your Self. I tell you: your Self itself wants to die and turn away from life.

Your Self can no longer perform that act which it most desires to perform: to create beyond itself. That is what it most wishes to do, that is its whole ardour.

But now it has grown too late for that: so your Self wants to perish, you despisers of the body.

Your Self wants to perish, and that is why you have become despisers of the body! For no longer are you able to create beyond yourselves.

And therefore you are now angry with life and with the earth. An unconscious envy lies in the sidelong glance of your contempt.

I do not go your way, you despisers of the body! You are not bridges to the Superman!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Of Joys and Passions

M
Y
brother, if you have a virtue and it is your own virtue, you have it in common with no one.

To be sure, you want to call it by a name and caress it; you want to pull its ears and amuse yourself with it.

And behold! Now you have its name in common with the people and have become of the people and the herd with your virtue!

You would do better to say: ‘Unutterable and nameless is that which torments and delights my soul and is also the hunger of my belly.’

Let your virtue be too exalted for the familiarity of names: and if you have to speak of it, do not be ashamed to stammer.

Thus say and stammer: ‘This is
my
good, this I love, just thus do I like it, only thus do
I
wish the good.

‘I do not want it as a law of God, I do not want it as a human statute: let it be no sign-post to superearths and paradises.

‘It is an earthly virtue that I love: there is little prudence in it, and least of all common wisdom.

‘But this bird has built its nest beneath my roof: therefore I love and cherish it – now it sits there upon its golden eggs.’

Thus should you stammer and praise your virtue.

Once you had passions and called them evil. But now you have only your virtues: they grew from out your passions.

You laid your highest aim in the heart of these passions: then they became your virtues and joys.

And though you came from the race of the hot-tempered or of the lustful or of the fanatical or of the vindictive:

At last all your passions have become virtues and all your devils angels.

Once you had fierce dogs in your cellar: but they changed at last into birds and sweet singers.

From your poison you brewed your balsam; you milked your cow, affliction, now you drink the sweet milk of her udder.

And henceforward nothing evil shall come out of you, except it be the evil that comes from the conflict of your virtues.

My brother, if you are lucky you will have one virtue and no more: thus you will go more easily over the bridge.

To have many virtues is to be distinguished, but it is a hard fate; and many a man has gone into the desert and killed himself because he was tired of being a battle and battleground of virtues.

My brother, are war and battle evil? But this evil is necessary, envy and mistrust and calumny among your virtues is necessary.

Behold how each of your virtues desires the highest place: it wants your entire spirit, that your spirit may be
its
herald, it wants your entire strength in anger, hate, and love.

Every virtue is jealous of the others, and jealousy is a terrible thing. Even virtues can be destroyed through jealousy.

He whom the flames of jealousy surround at last turns his poisoned sting against himself, like the scorpion.

Ah my brother, have you never yet seen a virtue turn upon itself and stab itself?

Man is something that must be overcome: and for that reason you must love your virtues – for you will perish by them.

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Of the Pale Criminal

Y
OU
do not intend to kill, you judges and sacrificers, before the beast has bowed its neck? Behold, the pale criminal has bowed his neck: from his eye speaks the great contempt.

‘My Ego is something that should be overcome: my Ego is to me the great contempt of man’: that is what this eye says.

He judged himself – that was his supreme moment: do not let the exalted man relapse again into his lowly condition!

There is no redemption for him who thus suffers from himself, except it be a quick death.

Your killing, you judges, should be a mercy and not a revenge. And since you kill, see to it that you yourselves justify life!

It is not sufficient that you should be reconciled with him you kill. May your sorrow be love for the Superman: thus will you justify your continuing to live!

You should say ‘enemy’, but not ‘miscreant’; you should say ‘invalid’, but not ‘scoundrel’; you should say ‘fool’, but not ‘sinner’.

And you, scarlet judge, if you would speak aloud all you have done in thought, everyone would cry: ‘Away with this filth and poisonous snake!’

But the thought is one thing, the deed is another, and another yet is the image of the deed. The wheel of causality does not roll between them.

An image made this pale man pale. He was equal to his deed when he did it: but he could not endure its image after it was done.

Now for evermore he saw himself as the perpetrator of one deed. I call this madness: in him the exception has become the rule.

The chalk-line charmed the hen; the blow he struck charmed his simple mind – I call this madness
after
the deed.

Listen, you judges! There is another madness as well; and it comes
before
the deed. Ah, you have not crept deep enough into this soul!

Thus says the scarlet judge: ‘Why did this criminal murder? He wanted to steal.’ But I tell you: his soul wanted blood not booty: he thirsted for the joy of the knife!

But his simple mind did not understand this madness and it persuaded him otherwise. ‘What is the good of blood?’ it said. ‘Will you not at least commit a theft too? Take a revenge?’

And he hearkened to his simple mind: its words lay like lead upon him – then he robbed as he murdered. He did not want to be ashamed of his madness.

And now again the lead of his guilt lies upon him, and again his simple mind is so numb, so paralysed, so heavy.

If only he could shake his head his burden would roll off: but who can shake this head?

What is this man? A heap of diseases that reach out into the world through the spirit: there they want to catch their prey.

What is this man? A knot of savage serpents that are seldom at peace among themselves – thus they go forth alone to seek prey in the world.

Behold this poor body! This poor soul interpreted to itself what this body suffered and desired – it interpreted it as lust for murder and greed for the joy of the knife.

The evil which is now evil overtakes him who now becomes sick: he wants to do harm with that which harms him. But there have been other ages and another evil and good.

Once doubt and the will to Self were evil. Then the invalid became heretic and witch: as heretic and witch he suffered and wanted to cause suffering.

But this will not enter your ears: you tell me it hurts your good people. But what are your good people to me?

Much about your good people moves me to disgust, and it is not their evil I mean. How I wish they possessed a madness through which they could perish, like this pale criminal.

Truly, I wish their madness were called truth or loyalty or justice: but they possess their virtue in order to live long and in a miserable ease.

I am a railing beside the stream: he who can grasp me, let him grasp me! I am not, however, your crutch.

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Of Reading and Writing

O
F
all writings I love only that which is written with blood. Write with blood: and you will discover that blood is spirit.

It is not an easy thing to understand unfamiliar blood: I hate the reading idler.

He who knows the reader, does nothing further for the reader. Another century of readers – and spirit itself will stink.

That everyone can learn to read will ruin in the long run not only writing, but thinking too.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

He who writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read, he wants to be learned by heart.

In the mountains the shortest route is from peak to peak, but for that you must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks, and those to whom they are spoken should be big and tall of stature.

The air thin and pure, danger near, and the spirit full of a joyful wickedness: these things suit one another.

I want hobgoblins around me, for I am courageous. Courage that scares away phantoms makes hobgoblins for itself – courage wants to laugh.

I no longer feel as you do: this cloud which I see under me, this blackness and heaviness at which I laugh – precisely this is your thunder-cloud.

You look up when you desire to be exalted. And I look down, because I am exalted.

Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?

He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.

Untroubled, scornful, outrageous – that is how wisdom wants us to be: she is a woman and never loves anyone but a warrior.

You tell me: ‘Life is hard to bear.’ But if it were otherwise why should you have your pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening?

Life is hard to bear: but do not pretend to be so tender! We are all of us pretty fine asses and assesses of burden!

What have we in common with the rosebud, which trembles because a drop of dew is lying upon it?

It is true: we love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

There is always a certain madness in love. But also there is always a certain method in madness.

And to me too, who love life, it seems that butterflies and soap-bubbles, and whatever is like them among men, know most about happiness.

To see these light, foolish, dainty, affecting little souls flutter about – that moves Zarathustra to tears and to song.

I should believe only in a God who understood how to dance.

And when I beheld my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: it was the Spirit of Gravity – through him all things are ruined.

One does not kill by anger but by laughter. Come, let us kill the Spirit of Gravity!

I have learned to walk: since then I have run. I have learned to fly: since then I do not have to be pushed in order to move.

Now I am nimble, now I fly, now I see myself under myself, now a god dances within me.

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Of the Tree on the Mountainside

Z
ARATHUSTRA
had noticed that a young man was avoiding him. And as he was walking alone one evening through the mountains surrounding the town called The Pied Cow, behold! he found this young man leaning against a tree and gazing wearily into the valley. Zarathustra grasped the tree beside which the young man was sitting and spoke thus:

‘If I wanted to shake this tree with my hands I should be unable to do it.

‘But the wind, which we cannot see, torments it and bends it where it wishes. It is invisible hands that torment and bend us the worst.’

At that the young man stood up in confusion and said: ‘I hear Zarathustra and I was just thinking of him.’

Zarathustra replied: ‘Why are you alarmed on that account? – Now it is with men as with this tree.

‘The more it wants to rise into the heights and the light, the more determinedly do its roots strive earthwards, downwards, into the darkness, into the depths – into evil.’

‘Yes, into evil!’ cried the young man. ‘How is it possible you can uncover my soul?’

Zarathustra smiled and said: ‘There are many souls one will never uncover, unless one invents them first.’

‘Yes, into evill’ cried the young man again.

‘You have spoken the truth, Zarathustra. Since I wanted to rise into the heights I have no longer trusted myself, and no one trusts me any more. How did this happen?

‘I change too quickly: my today refutes my yesterday. When I ascend I often jump over steps, and no step forgives me that.

‘When I am aloft, I always find myself alone. No one
speaks to me, the frost of solitude makes me tremble. What do I want in the heights?

‘My contempt and my desire increase together; the higher I climb, the more do I despise him who climbs. What do I want in the heights?

‘How ashamed I am of my climbing and stumbling! How I scorn my violent panting! How I hate the man who can fly! How weary I am in the heights!’

Here the young man fell silent. And Zarathustra contemplated the tree beside which they were standing, and spoke thus:

‘This tree stands here alone on the mountainside; it has grown up high above man and animal.

‘And if it wished to speak, it would find no one who understood it: so high has it grown.

‘Now it waits and waits – yet what is it waiting for? It lives too near the seat of the clouds: is it waiting, perhaps, for the first lightning?’

When Zarathustra said this, the young man cried with violent gestures: ‘Yes, Zarathustra, you speak true. I desired my destruction when I wanted to ascend into the heights, and you are the lightning for which I have been waiting! Behold, what have I been since you appeared among us? It is
envy of
you which has destroyed me!’ Thus spoke the young man and wept bitterly. But Zarathustra kid his arm about him and drew him along with him.

And when they had been walking together for a while, Zarathustra began to speak thus:

It breaks my heart. Better than your words, your eye tells me all your peril.