What has happened to me? Who orders this?-Ah, my angry mistress wants it so, so she told me; have ever I told you her name?
Yesterday towards evening my stillest hour spoke to me: that is the name of my terrible mistress.
And thus it happened-for I must tell you everything, so that your heart may not harden against the suddenly departing!
Do you know the terror of him who falls asleep?—
He is terrified to the very toes, because the ground gives way under him, and the dream begins.
This I speak to you in a parable. Yesterday at the stillest hour the ground gave way under me: the dream began.
The hour hand moved on, the timepiece of my life drew breath—I had never heard such stillness around me, so that my heart was terrified.
Then voicelessly it spoke to me: “You know it, Zaratbustra?”—
And I cried in terror at this whispering, and the blood left my face: but I was silent.
Then once more voiceless it spoke to me: “You know it, Zarathustra, but you do not say it!”—
And at last I answered defiantly: “Yes, I know it, but I will not say it!”
Then again voicelessly it spoke to me: “You will not, Zarathustra? Is this true? Do not hide behind your defiance!”—
And I wept and trembled like a child, and said: “Ah, I would indeed, but how can I do it! Spare me this! It is beyond my strength!”
Then again voicelessly it spoke to me: “What do you matter, Zarathustra! Speak your word and break!”
And I answered: “Ah, is it my word? Who am I? I await the worthier one; I am not worthy even of being broken by it.”
Then again voicelessly it spoke to me: “What do you matter? You are not yet humble enough for me. Humility has the thickest skin.”-And I answered: “What has the skin of my humility not endured! I dwell at the foot of my height: how high my summits are no one has yet told me. But I know my valleys well.”
Then again voicelessly it spoke to me: “O Zarathustra, he who must move mountains also moves valleys and plains.”—
And I answered: “As yet my word has not moved mountains and what I have spoken has not reached man. I went, indeed, to men, but I have not yet found them.”
Then again voicelessly it spoke to me: “What do you know of that! The dew falls on the grass when the night is most silent.”—
And I answered: “They mocked me when I found and walked in my own path; and certainly my feet trembled then.
“And thus they spoke to me: You have forgotten the way, now you also forget how to walk!”
Then again voicelessly it spoke to me: “What does their mockery matter! You have unlearned to obey: now you will command!
“Do you not know who is most needed by all? He who commands great things.
“To do great things is difficult: but the more difficult task is to command great things.
“This is the most unforgivable thing in you: you have the power and you will not rule.”
And I answered: “I lack the lion’s voice for command.”
Then again as a whispering it spoke to me: “It is the stillest words that bring the storm. Thoughts that come on doves’ feet guide the world.
“0 Zarathustra, you will go as a shadow of that which is to come: thus you will command and in commanding go first.”-And I answered: “I am ashamed.”
Then again voicelessly it spoke to me: “You must yet become a child and without shame.
“The pride of youth is still in you, you are late in growing young: but he who would become a child must overcome even his youth.”—
And I considered a long while, and trembled. At last, however, I said what I had said at first. “I will not.”
Then laughter broke out all around me. Ah, how that laughter tore my entrails and cut open my heart!
And for the last time it spoke to me: “0 Zarathustra, your fruits are ripe, but you are not ripe for your fruits!
“So you must go again into solitude: for you will yet become mellow.”—
And again there was laughter, and it fled: then it became still around me as with a double stillness. But I lay on the ground, and the sweat flowed from my limbs.
-Now you have heard everything, and why I must return into my solitude. I have kept nothing from you, my friends.
But you have heard even this from me, who still is the most taciturn of all men—and will be so!
Ah, my friends! I should have something more to say to you, I should have something more to give to you! Why do I not give it? Am I so stingy?—
But when Zarathustra had spoken these words, the violence of his pain and a sense of the nearness of his departure from his friends overwhelmed him, so that he wept aloud; and no one knew how to console him. But that night he went away alone and left his friends.
THIRD PART
You look up when you long for elevation. And I look down because I am elevated.
Who among you can laugh and be elevated at the same time?
Whoever climbs on the highest mountains laughs at all tragic plays and tragic seriousness.
—Zarathustra, “On Reading and Writing”
[1884]
THE WANDERER
IT WAS ABOUT MIDNIGHT when Zarathustra went his way over the ridge of the island, so that he might arrive early in the morning at the other coast: because he meant to embark there. For there was a good harbor in which foreign ships also liked to anchor: those ships took with them many people, who wished to cross over from the Happy Islands. So when Zarathustra thus ascended the mountain, he thought on the way of his many solitary wanderings from youth onwards, and how many mountains and ridges and summits he had already climbed.
I am a wanderer and mountain climber, he said to his heart, I do not love the plains, and it seems I cannot sit still for long.
And whatever may still overtake me as fate and experience—it will be a wandering and a mountain climbing: in the end one experiences only oneself.
The time is now past when accidents could befall me; and what could now fall to my lot which would not already be my own!
It only returns, it comes home to me at last—my own self, and such of it as has been long abroad, and scattered among things and accidents.
And I know one thing more: I stand now before my last summit, and before that which has been longest reserved for me. Ah, I must climb my hardest path! Ah, I have begun my loneliest wandering!
He, however, who is of my nature does not avoid such an hour: the hour that says to him: only now you go the way to your greatness! Summit and abyss-these are now united together!
You go the way to your greatness: now it has become your last refuge, what was so far your last danger!
You go the way to your greatness: it must now be your best courage that there is no longer any path behind you!
You go the way to your greatness: here no one shall steal after you! Your foot itself has erased the path behind you, and over it stands written: Impossibility.
And when all footholds disappear, then you must learn to climb upon your own head: how could you climb upward otherwise?
Upon your own head, and beyond your own heart! Now the gentlest in you must become the hardest.
He who has always overindulged himself is at last sickened by his overindulgence. Praises on what makes hardy! I do not praise the land where butter and honey—now!
In order to see much one must learn to look away from oneself-this hardness is needed by every mountain climber.
But he who as a knower is over-eager with his eyes, how can he ever see more of anything than its foreground!
But you, O Zarathustra, would view the ground of everything, and its background: thus you must climb even above yourself—up, upwards, until you have even your stars under you!
Yes! To look down upon myself, and even upon my stars: only that would I call my summit, that has remained for me as my last summit!—
Thus spoke Zarathustra to himself while ascending, comforting his heart wit
h harsh maxims: for he was sore at heart as he had never been before. And when he had reached the top of the mountain ridge, behold, there lay the other sea spread out before him: and he stood still and was long silent. The night, however, was cold at this height, and clear and starry.
I recognize my destiny, he said at last, sadly. Well! I am ready. Now has my last loneliness begun.
Ah, this black somber sea below me! Ah, this brooding nocturnal reluctance! Ah, fate and sea! To you must I now go under!
I stand before my highest mountain, and before my longest wandering: therefore I must first go deeper down than I ever ascended:
-Deeper down into pain than I ever ascended, even into its darkest flood! So wills my fate. Well! I am ready.
From where do the highest mountains come? so I once asked. Then I learned that they come out of the sea.
That testimony is inscribed on their stones, and on the walls of their summits. Out of the deepest the highest must come to its height.—
Thus spoke Zarathustra on the ridge of the mountain where it was cold: but when he came into the vicinity of the sea, and at last stood alone among the cliffs, he had become weary on his way and more yearning than he was before.
Everything sleeps as yet, he said; even the sea sleeps. Drowsily and strangely its eye gazed upon me.
But it breathes warmly—I feel it. And I feel also that it dreams. It tosses about dreamily on hard pillows.
Hark! Hark! How it groans with evil recollections! Or evil expectations?
Ah, I am sad along with you, you dusky monster, and angry with myself even for your sake.
Ah, that my hand has not strength enough! Gladly, indeed, would I free you from evil dreams!—
And while Zarathustra thus spoke, he laughed at himself with melancholy and bitterness. What! Zarathustra, he said, will you even sing consolation to the sea?
Ah, you amiable fool, Zarathustra, you all-too-blindly confiding one! But you have always been thus: you have always approached everything terrible confidently.
You want to caress every monster. A whiff of warm breath, a little soft tuft on its paw—: and immediately you were ready to love and lure it.
Love is the danger of the loneliest one, love to anything, if only it lives! Laughable, truly, is my folly and my modesty in love!—
Thus spoke Zarathustra and laughed again: but then he thought of his abandoned friends-, and he was angry with himself, as if he had wronged them with his thoughts. And like that it came to pass that the laugher wept—with anger and longing Zarathustra wept bitterly.1
ON THE VISION AND THE RIDDLE
1
When word spread among the sailors that Zarathustra was on board the ship-for a man who came from the Happy Islands had gone on board along with him—there was great curiosity and expectation. But Zarathustra kept silent for two days, and was cold and deaf with sadness, so that he answered neither looks nor questions. On the evening of the second day, however, he opened his ears again, though he still kept silent: for there were many curious and dangerous things to be heard on board the ship, which came from afar and was to go still further. Zarathustra, however, was a friend to all who make distant voyages and do not like to live without danger. And behold! when listening, his own tongue was at last loosened, and the ice of his heart broke: then he began to speak thus:
To you, the daring venturers and adventurers, and whoever has embarked with cunning sails upon frightful seas,—
• to you the riddle-drunk, the twilight-enjoyers, whose souls are allured by flutes to every treacherous gulf:
• for you dislike to grope at a thread with a cowardly hand; and where you can guess, you hate to calculate—
• to you alone I tell the riddle that I saw—the vision of the loneliest.—
Lately I walked gloomily in corpse-colored twilight—gloomily and sternly, with compressed lips. Not only one sun had set for me.
A path which ascended defiantly among boulders and rubble, an evil, lonesome path, no longer cheered by an herb or shrub: a mountain-path crunched under the defiance of my foot.
Striding mute over the mocking clatter of pebbles, trampling the stone that made it slip: thus my foot forced its way upward.
Upward:-in spite of the spirit that drew it downward, towards the abyss, the spirit of gravity, my devil and archenemy.
Upward:—although it sat upon me, half-dwarf, half-mole; paralyzed, paralyzing; dripping lead in my ear, and thoughts like drops of lead into my brain.
“O Zarathustra,” it whispered scornfully, syllable by syllable, “you philosopher’s stone”!2 You threw yourself high, but every thrown stone must-fall!
“O Zarathustra, you philosopher’s stone, you sling stone, you destroyer of stars! You threw yourself so high-but every thrown stone—must fall!
“Condemned by yourself and to your own stoning: O Zarathustra, far indeed you threw your stone-but it will fall back upon you!”
Then the dwarf was silent; and it lasted long.3 But the silence oppressed me; and to be thus as two is surely more lonesome than to be alone!
I ascended, I ascended, I dreamed, I thought-but everything oppressed me. I resembled an invalid, whom bad torment wearies, and who as he falls asleep is reawakened by a still worse dream.-But there is something in me that I call courage: it has so far slain for me every discouragement. This courage at last bade me stand still and say: “Dwarf! You! Or I!”—
For courage is the best slayer—courage that attacks: for in every attack there is triumphant shout.
But man is the most courageous animal: hence he has overcome every animal. With a triumphant shout he has overcome every pain; human pain, however, is the sorest pain.
Courage also slays giddiness at abysses: and where does man not stand at an abyss! Is not seeing itself—seeing abysses?
Courage is the best slayer: courage also slays pity. But pity is the deepest abyss: as deeply as man looks into life, so deeply does he also look into suffering.
But courage is the best slayer, courage that attacks: it slays even death itself; for it says: “Was that life? Well then! Once more!”
But in such speech there is much shouting of triumph. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.—
2
“Halt, dwarf!” I said. “I! Or You! But I am the stronger of the two—you do not know my abysmal thought! That—you could not endure!”
Then something happened which lightened me: for the dwarf, the curious one, sprang from my shoulder! And he squatted on a stone in front of me. But a gateway stood just where we halted.
“Look at this gateway! Dwarf!” I continued: “it has two faces. Two roads come together here: no one has yet followed either to its end.
“This long lane backwards: it continues for an eternity. And that long lane forward-that is another eternity.
“They are opposed to one another, these roads; they offend each other face to face-and it is here, at this gateway, that they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above: ‘Moment.’
“But should one follow them further—and ever further and further on, do you think, dwarf, that these roads would be eternally opposed?”—
“Everything straight lies,” murmured the dwarf, contemptuously. “All truth is crooked, time itself is a circle.”
“You spirit of gravity!” I said angrily, “do not take it too lightly! Or I shall leave you squatting where you are, lamefoot4—and I carried you high!
“Behold,” I continued, “this moment! From this gateway Moment a long, eternal lane runs backward: behind us lies an eternity.
“Must not all things that can run already have run along that lane? Must not all things that can happen already have happened, been done, and passed by?
“And if everything has been here before: what do you think, dwarf, of this moment? Must not this gateway already also—have been?
“And are not all things closely bound together in such a way that this moment draws all coming things after it? Tberefore-
itself too?
“So, for all things that can run: also in this long lane forward—it must once more run!—
“And this slow spider which creeps in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and you and I in this gateway whispering together, whispering of eternal things-must we not all have been here before?
“—And must we not return and run in that other lane out before us, that long weird lane-must we not eternally return?”—
Thus I spoke, and always more softly: for I was afraid of my own thoughts and afterthoughts. Then suddenly I heard a nearby dog howl.
Had I ever heard a dog howl thus? My thoughts ran back. Yes! When I was a child, in my most distant childhood:
—Then I heard a dog howl thus. And saw it too, bristling, its head up, trembling in the stillest midnight, when even dogs believe in ghosts:
—so that it moved me to pity. For just then the full moon passed, silent as death, over the house, just then it stood still, a round glow—still upon the flat roof, as if on another’s property:—
that was what had terrified the dog: for dogs believe in thieves and ghosts. And when I heard such howling again, it moved me to pity again.
Where was the dwarf gone now? And the gateway? And the spider? And all the whispering? Was I dreaming then? Had I awoken? Suddenly I stood between wild cliffs, alone, dreary, in the dreariest moonlight.
But there lay a man! And there! The dog, springing, bristling, whining-now it saw me coming-then it howled again, then it shrieked—had I ever heard a dog shriek so for help?
And truly, I had never seen the like of what I then saw. I saw a young shepherd, writhing, choking, convulsed, his face distorted, and a heavy black snake hung out of his mouth.5
Had I ever seen so much disgust and pale dread a single face? Had he perhaps been asleep? Then the snake had crawled into his throat—and there bit itself fast.
My hand tore at the snake and tore-in vain! It could not tear the snake out of his throat. Then it cried out of me: “Bite! Bite!
Thus Spoke Zarathustra Page 17