Did it perhaps squat there along with another little night moth? For everywhere I smell little concealed communities; and wherever there are closets there are new devotees in them and the atmosphere of devotees.
They sit for long evenings beside one another, and say: “Let us again become like little children and say, ‘dear God!’”—their mouths and stomachs upset by the pious confectioners.
Or they look for long evenings at a crafty, lurking cross-marked spider, that preaches prudence to the spiders themselves and teaches: “There is good spinning under crosses!”
Or they sit all day at swamps with fishing rods and on that account think themselves profound; but whoever fishes where there are no fish, I would not even call superficial!
Or they learn to play the harp in pious pleasure with a composer of songs who would like to harp himself into the hearts of young women-for he has tired of old women and their praises.
Or they learn to shudder with a scholarly half-madman who waits in darkened rooms for spirits to come to him—and the spirit has entirely departed!
Or they listen to an old, roving, whistling tramp who has learned the sadness of sounds from sad winds; now he whistles like the wind and preaches sadness in sad sounds.
And some of them have even become night watchmen: now they know how to blow horns and go about at night and awaken old things that had long fallen asleep.
Five sayings about old things I heard last night at the garden wall: they came from such old, sorrowful, desiccated night watchmen.
“For a father he does not care enough for his children: human fathers do it better!”—
“He is too old! He no longer cares for his children at all,”—answered the other night watchman.
“Has he any children? No one can prove it unless he himself proves it! I have long wished he would for once prove it thoroughly.”
“Prove? As if he had ever proved anything! Proving is difficult to him; he lays great stress on one’s believing him.”
“Yes! Yes! Belief makes him blessed, belief in him.9 Old people are like that! It’s the same with us too!”—
—Thus the two old night-watchmen and light-scarecrows spoke together and then tooted sorrowfully on their horns: so it happened last night at the garden wall.
But my heart writhed with laughter as if it would break and knew not, where? and sank into my midriff.
Truly, it will be the death of me yet, to choke with laughter when I see drunken asses and hear night watchmen thus doubt God.
Has the time not long since passed for all such doubts? Who may still awaken such old slumbering light-shunning things!
With the old gods it has long since come to an end:-and truly, they had a fine gay godlike end!
They did not die in “twilight”—as some lie!10 Instead: one day they—laughed themselves to death!
That happened when the ungodliest word came from a god himself—the word: “There is one God! You shall have no other gods before me!”—
—an old grimbeard of a god, a jealous one, thus forgot himself:—And all the gods laughed then and rocked on their chairs and cried: “Is it not precisely this godlike, that there are gods, but no God?”
Who has ears, let him hear.—-
Thus Zarathustra discoursed in the town which he loved and which is called “The Motley Cow.” For from here he had only two days to go to reach his cave again and his animals; but his soul rejoiced continually at the nearness of his return home.
THE RETURN HOME
O SOLITUDE! YOU MY home solitude! Too long have I lived wildly in wild strange lands not to return home to you in tears!
Now shake your finger at me as mothers do, now smile at me as mothers smile, now say only: “And who was that, who like a storm wind once stormed away from me?—
“—who departing cried: ‘I have sat with solitude too long, I have unlearned how to be silent!’ That—you have surely learned now?
“O Zarathustra, I know everything, and that you were more forsaken among the many, you solitary one, than you ever were with me!
“To be forsaken is one thing, to be lonely another: that—you have learned now! And that among men you will always be wild and strange:
“—Wild and strange even when they love you: for above all they want to be indulged!
“But here you are at your own hearth and home; here you can say everything and pour out all reasons, nothing here is ashamed of hidden, hardened feelings.
“Here all things come caressingly to your discourse and flatter you: for they want to ride upon your back. On every image you here ride to every truth.
“Here you may speak to all things fairly and frankly: and truly, it sounds like praise in their ears for one to speak to all things—directly!
“But to be forsaken is another matter. For, do you remember, O Zarathustra? When once your bird screamed overhead, when you stood in the forest, irresolute? unsure where to go, beside a corpse:—
“—when you spoke: ‘let my animals lead me! I found it more dangerous among men than among animals:’—That was forsakenness!
“And do you remember, O Zarathustra? When you sat on your island, a well of wine among empty buckets, giving and distributing, bestowing and pouring out among the thirsty:
“—until at last you sat alone thirsty among the drunk and wailed each night: ‘Is it not more blessed to receive than to give? And more blessed to steal than to receive?’—That was forsakenness!
“And do you remember, O Zarathustra? When your stillest hour came and drove you away from yourself, when it said in an evil whisper: ‘Speak and break!’—
“—when it made you repent all your waiting and silence and discouraged your humble courage: That was forsakenness!”—
0 solitude! You my home solitude! How blissfully and tenderly your voice speaks to me!
We do not question each other, we do not complain to each other, we go openly together through open doors.
For all is open with you and clear; and here even the hours run on lighter feet. For in the dark time weighs heavier on one than in the light.
Here the words and word-shrines of all being spring open to me: here all being wants to become words, here all becoming wants to learn to speak from me.
But down there-all speech is in vain! There, forgetting and passing-by are the best wisdom: that I have learned now!
He who would grasp all human things must handle everything. But for that my hands are too clean.
I even dislike to inhale their breath; ah! that I have lived so long among their noise and bad breath!
O blissful stillness around me! O pure odors around me! O how this stillness draws deep breaths of pure air! O how it listens, this blissful stillness!
But down there-there everything speaks, there everything is unheard. One may ring in one’s wisdom with bells: the shopkeepers in the market place will outjingle it with pennies!
Everything among them talks, no one knows any longer how to understand. Everything falls into the water, nothing falls any longer into deep wells.
Everything among them talks, nothing succeeds any longer and comes to an end. Everything cackles, but who will still sit quietly on the nest and hatch eggs?
Everything among them talks, everything is talked out. And that which yesterday was still too hard for time itself and its teeth, today hangs gnawed and scraped from the mouths of today’s men.
Everything among them talks, everything is betrayed. And what was once called the secret and secrecy of profound souls, belongs today to the street trumpeters and other butterflies.
O human being, you strange thing! You noise in dark streets! Now again you are behind me:-my greatest danger lies behind me!
My greatest danger always lay in indulgence and pity; and all human being wants to be indulged and pitied.
With concealed truths, with a fool’s hand and a fond foolish heart and rich in pity’s little lies-thus I always lived among men.
Disguised I sat among t
hem, ready to misunderstand myself that I might endure them, and gladly saying to myself: “You fool, you do not know men!”
One forgets about men when one lives among them: there is too much foreground in all men—what can far-seeing, far-seeking eyes do there!
And when they misunderstood me, I, fool that I am, indulged them more than I did myself: for I was used to being hard on myself and often even taking revenge on myself for the indulgence.
Bitten all over by poisonous flies and hollowed like a stone by many drops of malice: thus I sat among them and still told myself: “Everything small is innocent of its smallness!”
Especially those who call themselves “the good” I found to be the most poisonous flies: they bite in all innocence, they lie in all innocence; how could they—be just towards me!
Pity teaches him who lives among the good to lie. Pity makes stifling air for all free souls. For the stupidity of the good is unfathomable.
To conceal myself and my riches—that I learned down there: for I found everybody still poor in spirit. It was the lie of my pity that I knew in every one,
-that I saw and sniffed out in every one what was enough spirit for him and what was too much spirit for him!
Their stiff sages: I called them sagacious, not stiff-thus I learned to slur words. Their gravediggers: I called them researchers and scholars-thus I learned to confound words.
Gravediggers dig diseases for themselves. Bad vapors lie under old rubbish. One should not stir up the bog. One should live on mountains.
With blessed nostrils I breathe again the freedom of mountains. At last my nose is freed from the smell of all human being!
Tickled by the sharp air as with sparkling wine, my soul sneezes—sneezes and jubilates to itself: “Gesundheit!”
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
ON THE THREE EVILS
1
In a dream, in my last morning dream, I stood today in the foothills—beyond the world, I held a pair of scales and weighed the world.
Oh that the dawn came too early to me: she glowed me awake, the jealous one! She is always jealous of the glow of my morning dreams.
Measurable by him who has time, weighable by a good weigher, attainable by strong wings, divinable by divine nutcrackers: thus did my dream find the world:—
My dream, a bold sailor, half-ship half-hurricane, silent as a butterfly, impatient as a falcon: how did it have the patience and time today to weigh the world!
Did my wisdom perhaps speak secretly to it, my laughing, wakeful day-wisdom, which mocks at all “infinite worlds”? For it says: “Wherever there is force, number becomes master: it has more force.”
How confidently did my dream contemplate this finite world, not inquisitively, not acquisitively, not timidly, not entreatingly: —
—as if a full apple presented itself to my hand, a ripe golden apple, with a soft, cool, velvety skin:-thus the world presented itself to me:—
—as if a tree nodded to me, a wide-branching, strong-willed tree, bent for reclining and a footstool for weary travelers: thus the world stood on my foothills:—
—as if delicate hands carried a casket towards me—a casket open for the delectation of modest, adoring eyes: thus the world presented itself before me today:—
—not riddle enough to frighten away human love, not solution enough to put to sleep human wisdom:-a humanly good thing the world was to me today, of which so many evil things are said!
How I thank my morning dream that I thus weighed the world this morning! As a humanly good thing it came to me, this dream and comforter of the heart!
And that I may do the same as it by day and learn and copy its best, now I will put the three most evil things on the scales and weigh them humanly well.—
He who taught how to bless also taught how to curse: what are the three most cursed things in the world? I will put these on the scales.
Sex, the lust to rule, selfishness: these three things have so far been most cursed and held in worst and falsest repute-these three things I will weigh humanly well.
Well then! Here are my foothills and there is the sea—it rolls here to me, shaggy, fawning, the faithful old hundred-headed canine monster that I love!—
Well then! Here I will hold the scales over the weltering sea: and I also choose a witness to look on—you, hermit tree, you fragrant, broad arched tree that I love!—
On what bridge does the present pass to the future? What compulsion compels the high stoop to the low? And what bids even the highest-to grow still higher?—
Now the scales stand level and still: I have thrown in three weighty questions, three weighty answers balance the other scale.
2
Sex: a sting and stake to all hair-shirted despisers of the body and cursed as “the world” by all afterworldly: for it mocks and makes fools of all teachers of confusion and error.
Sex: to the rabble the slow fire on which it is burnt; to all wormy wood, to all stinking rags, the ever-ready rut and oven.
Sex: for free hearts, innocent and free, the garden happiness of the earth, an overflowing of thanks to the present from all the future.
Sex: a sweet poison only to the withered, but to the lion-willed the great cordial and the reverently reserved wine of wines.
Sex: the great symbolic happiness of a higher happiness and highest hope. For marriage is promised to many, and more than marriage,—
—to many that are stranger to one another than man and woman:-and who has fully understood how strange man and woman are to one another!
Sex:-but I will have hedges around my thoughts, and even around my words, lest swine and swooners should break into my gardens!—
The lust to rule: the fiery scourge of the hardest of the hard-hearted; the cruel torture reserved by the cruelest for themselves; the dark flame of living pyres.
The lust to rule: the wicked gadfly mounted on the vainest peoples; the mocker of all uncertain virtues; which rides on every horse and every pride.
The lust to rule: the earthquake which breaks and breaks open all that is rotten and hollow; the rolling, rumbling, punitive demolisher of whited sepulchers; the flashing question mark beside premature answers.
The lust to rule: before whose glance man creeps and crouches and drudges and becomes lower than the snake and the swine—until at last the great contempt cries out of him—,
The lust to rule: the terrible teacher of the great contempt, which preaches in the face of cities and empires “away with you!”—until at last they themselves cry out “away with me!”
The lust to rule: which, however, rises alluringly even to the pure and solitary and up to self-sufficient elevations, glowing like a love that paints purple delights enticingly on earthly heavens.
The lust to rule: but who would call it lust, when the height longs to stoop for power! Truly, there is nothing sick or diseased in such longing and descending!
That the lonesome height may not for ever remain lonesome and self-sufficient; that the mountains may come to the valleys and the winds of the heights to the plains:—
Oh who could find the right baptismal and virtuous name for such longing! “Gift-giving virtue”—thus did Zarathustra once name the unnamable.
And then it happened too,-and truly, it happened for the first time!-that his word blessed selfishness , the wholesome, healthy selfishness, that springs from the powerful soul:—
—from the powerful soul, to which pertains the exalted body, the handsome, triumphant, refreshing body, around which everything becomes a mirror:
-the supple, persuasive body, the dancer, whose symbol and epitome is the self-rejoicing soul. The self-rejoicing of such bodies and souls calls itself: “Virtue.”
Such self-rejoicing protects itself with its words of good and bad as with sacred groves; with the names of its happiness it banishes everything contemptible from itself.
Away from itself it banishes everything cowardly; it says: “Bad—that is cowardly!” He who is always fretti
ng, sighing, complaining, and who gleans even the slightest advantage seems contemptible to it.
It also despises all grievous wisdom: for truly, there is also wisdom that blooms in the dark, a nightshade wisdom, which always sighs: “all is vain!”
Shy distrust seems base to it, and every one who wants oaths instead of looks and hands: and all-too-mistrustful wisdom, for such is the mode of cowardly souls.
It regards as baser still the obsequious, doglike one, who immediately lies on his back, the submissive; and there is also wisdom that is submissive and doglike and pious and obsequious.
Altogether hateful to it and nauseating is he who will never defend himself, he who swallows down poisonous spittle and evil glances, the all-too-patient one, the all-suffering, all-satisfied one: for that is servile.
Whether they be servile before gods and divine kicks, or before men and the stupid opinions of men: it spits at all kinds of slaves, this blessed selfishness!
Bad: thus it calls all that is stooped and sordidly servile, constrained blinking eyes, oppressed hearts, and that false yielding manner that kisses with broad cowardly lips.
And sham wisdom: so it calls all wit that slaves and old men and the weary affect; and especially the whole wicked, nitwitted, witless foolishness of priests!
But the sham-wise, all the priests, the world-weary, and those whose souls are womanish and servile—oh how their game has all along cheated selfishness!
And precisely that was virtue and was called virtue-to cheat selfishness! And “semess”—so all those world-weary cowards and cross-marked spiders wanted themselves, with good reason!
But for all those the day is now at hand, the change, the sword of judgment, the great noon: there much shall be revealed!
And he who proclaims the “I” wholesome and holy, and selfishness blessed, truly, he speaks also what he knows, a prophet: “Behold, it comes, it is near, the great noon!”
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
ON THE SPIRIT OF GRAVITY
Thus Spoke Zarathustra Page 20