That I bade you sing, speak now, speak: which of us now—owes thanks?-But better still: sing to me, sing, O my soul! And let me thank you!—
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
THE OTHER DANCE SONG
1
Into your eyes I gazed lately, O life: I saw gold glint in your night eyes,—my heart stood still with delight:20
—I saw a golden bark glinting on darkened waters, a sinking, drinking, winking, golden tossing bark!
At my feet, frantic to dance, you cast a look, a laughing questioning melting tossing look:
Twice only you stirred your rattle with your small hands—then my feet already swung with the fury of dance.—
My heels raised themselves, my toes listened to understand you: for the dancer has his ears-in his toes!
I sprang to your side: then you fled back from my leap; and the tongue of your fleeing, flying hair licked me in its swing!
I sprang away from you and your serpents: then you stood there, half-turned, with your eyes full of desire.
With crooked glances—you teach me crooked ways; on crooked ways my feet learn—guile!
I fear you near, I love you far; your flight allures me, your seeking cures me—I suffer, but for you what would I not bear gladly!
Whose coldness inflames, whose hatred seduces, whose flight binds, whose mockery—induces:
—who would not hate you, you great woman who binds, en-winds, seduces, seeks, finds! Who would not love you, you innocent, impatient, wind-swift, child-eyed sinner!
Where do you lure me now, you unruly paragon? And now you are fleeing from me again, you sweet wildcat and ingrate!
I dance after you, I follow even your faint traces. Where are you? Give me your hand! Or only a finger!
Here are caves and thickets: we shall go astray!—Stop! Stand still! Don’t you see owls and bats flitting past?
You owl! You bat! You want to confuse me? Where are we? You have learned such barking and howling from a dog.
You gnaw on me sweetly with little white teeth, from under your curly little mane your evil eyes flash at me!
This is a dance over stock and stone: I am the hunter—will you yet be my dog or my catch?
Now beside me! And quickly, you malicious leaper! Now up! And over!-Ah! In leaping I fell!
Oh, see me lying there, you prankster, and begging for grace! I would gladly walk with you—in some lovelier place!
-in love’s paths through silent mottled bushes! Or there along the lake: where goldfishes dance and swim!
Are you tired now? Over there are sheep and the red of evening: isn’t it nice to sleep while the shepherd plays his flute?
You are so very tired? I will carry you there, just let your arm sink! And if you are thirsty—indeed I have something, but your mouth would not like to drink it!—
—Oh this accursed, nimble, supple snake and slippery witch! Where have you gone? But from your hand two spots and red blotches itch on my face!
I am truly weary of always being your sheepish shepherd. You witch, if I have so far sung to you, now you will—cry to me!
You will dance and cry to the rhythm of my whip! But did I forget my whip?—No!“—
2
Then life answered me thus and kept her gentle ears closed:
“O Zarathustra! Do not crack your whip so terribly! You surely know: noise murders thought—21 and just now such tender thoughts are coming to me.
“We are both two real good-for-nothings and evil-for-nothings. Beyond good and evil we discovered our island and our green meadow—we two alone! Therefore we better like each other!
“And even if we do not love each other from the heart-must we then have a grudge against each other if we do not love each other from the heart?
“And that I like you, often too well, that you know: and the reason is that I am jealous of your wisdom. Ah, this mad old fool of wisdom!
“If your wisdom should one day run away from you, then would my love would quickly run away from you too.”—
At that life looked thoughtfully behind and around herself and said softly: “0 Zarathustra, you are not faithful enough to me!
“You do not love me nearly so much as you say; I know you are thinking of leaving me soon.
“There is an old heavy heavy booming bell: it booms out at night up to your cave:—
“—when you hear this bell beat the hour at midnight, then between one and twelve you think—
“—you think, O Zarathustra, I know it, of leaving me soon!”—
“Yes,” I answered hesitatingly, “but you also know—” And I said something into her ear, in the midst of her tangled yellow foolish tresses.
“You know that, O Zarathustra? No one knows that. ”
And we gazed at each other and looked at the green meadow, over which the cool evening was just passing, and we wept together. —But then life was dearer to me than all my wisdom had ever been.—
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
3
One!
O man! Take care!
Two!
What does the deep midnight speak?
Three!
“I slept, I slept-,
Four!
“From the deepest dream I awoke:—
Five!
“The world is deep,
Six!
“And deeper than the day had thought.
Seven!
“Deep is its woe—,
Eight!
“Joy—deeper yet than heartache:
Nine!
“Woe says: Go!
Ten!
“But all joy wants eternity—,
Eleven!
“—wants deep, deep eternity!”
Twelve!
THE SEVEN SEALS (OR : THE YES- AND AMEN-SONG)
1
If I am a soothsayer and full of that soothsaying spirit which wanders on high ridges, between two seas,—
wanders between the past and the future like a heavy cloud,enemy to sultry plains and to all that is weary and can neither die nor live:
ready for lightning in its dark bosom and for the redeeming flash of light, pregnant with lightning bolts that say yes! that laugh yes! soothsaying lightning bolts:—
—but he is blessed who is thus pregnant! And truly, long must he hang like a heavy storm on the mountain, who shall one day kindle the light of the future!—
oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings-the ring of return?22
Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love you, O eternity!
For I love you, O eternity!
2
If ever my wrath burst tombs, moved boundary stones and rolled old broken tablets into steep depths:
If ever my mockery scattered moldy words to the winds, and if I came like a broom to cross-marked spiders and as a cleansing wind to old sepulchers:
If ever I sat rejoicing where old gods lay buried, world-blessing, world-loving, beside the monuments of old world-slanderers:—
—for I love even churches and the tombs of gods, if only heaven looks through their ruined roofs with pure eyes; I like to sit like grass and red poppies on ruined churches—oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings-the ring of return?
Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love you, O eternity!
For I love you, O eternity!
3
If ever a breath of the creative breath has come to me, and of the heavenly necessity that compels even chances to dance star-dances:
If ever I have laughed with the laughter of the creative lightning, which the long thunder of the deed grumblingly, but obediently follows:
If ever I have played dice with the gods at the divine table of the earth, so that the earth quaked and ruptured and snorted forth streams of fire:—
—for the earth is a divine table, and tremblin
g with creative new words and dice throws of the gods:
oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings-the ring of the return?
Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love you, O eternity!
For I love you, O eternity!
4
If ever I have drunk a full draft of the foaming spice- and blend-mug in which all things are well mixed:
If ever my hand has mingled the furthest with the nearest and fire with spirit and joy with sorrow and the harshest with the kindest:
If I myself am a grain of the redeeming salt which makes everything in the mixing bowl mix well:—
—for there is a salt that units good with evil; and even the most evil is worthy to be a spice and a last foaming over:—
Oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings-the ring of the return?
Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love you, O eternity!
For I love you, O eternity!
5
If I love the sea and all that is sealike, and love it most when it angrily contradicts me:
If the delight in seeking, which drives sails to the undiscovered, is in me if a seafarer’s delight is in my delight:
If ever my rejoicing has cried: “The shore has vanished-now the last chain has fallen from me—
“—the boundless roars around me, far out glisten space and time, well then! come on! old heart!”—
Oh how should I not lust for eternity, and for the wedding ring of rings-the ring of the return?
Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love you, O eternity!
For I love you, O eternity!
6
If my virtue is a dancer’s virtue, and if I often sprung with both feet into emerald golden rapture:
If my wickedness is a laughing wickedness, at home among rose banks and hedges of lilies:
-for in laughter all evil is present, but it is sanctified and absolved by its own bliss:—
And if it is my alpha and omega that everything heavy shall become light, every body a dancer, all spirit a bird: and truly, that is my alpha and omega!—
Oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings-the ring of the return?
Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love you, O eternity!
For I love you, O eternity!
7
If ever I spread out a still sky above me and flew into my own sky with my own wings:
If I swam playfully in the deep luminous distances, and the bird-wisdom of my freedom came:—
—but bird-wisdom speaks so:—“Behold, there is no above, no below! Throw yourself about, out, back, you light one! Sing! speak no more!
“—are not all words made for the heavy? Do not all words lie to the light? Sing! speak no more!”—
Oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings-the ring of the return?
Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love you, O eternity!
For I love you, O eternity!
FOURTH AND LAST PART
Ah, where in the world has there been greater folly than among the pitying? And what in the world has caused more suffering than the folly of the pitying?
Woe to all lovers who do not have a height that is above their pity!
Thus spoke the devil to me once: “God too has his hell: it is his love of man.”
And most recently I heard him speak this word: “God is dead: God died of his pity for man.”
—Zarathustra, “On the Pitying”
[1892]
THE HONEY SACRIFICE
—AND AGAIN MONTHS AND years passed over Zarathustra’s soul, and he did not heed them; but his hair became white. One day, as he sat on a stone in front of his cave and looked silently out,-but there one gazes out on the sea, and across winding abysses,—his animals went thoughtfully around him, and at last placed themselves in front of him.
“0 Zarathustra,” they said, “you gaze out perhaps for your happiness?” —“What matters happiness!” he answered, “I have long ceased to strive any more for happiness, I strive for my work.”—“0 Zarathustra,” the animals said then, “you say that as one who has an excess of good things. Don’t you lie in a sky-blue lake of happiness?”—“You jokers,” answered Zarathustra and smiled, “how well you chose the image! But you know too that my happiness is heavy, and not like a fluid wave: it oppresses me and will not leave me, and is like molten pitch.”—
Then his animals went thoughtfully around him and placed themselves once more in front of him. “0 Zarathustra,” they said, “is that why you yourself always become yellower and darker, although your hair looks white and flaxen? Behold, you are sitting in your pitch of hard luck!”—“What do you say, my animals?” said Zarathustra and laughed, “truly I slandered when I spoke of pitch. As it happens with me, so is it with all fruits that turn ripe. It is the honey in my veins that makes my blood thicker, and also my soul stiller.”—“So it will be, 0 Zarathustra,” answered his animals, and pressed up to him; “but will you not climb a high mountain today? The air is pure, and today one sees more of the world than ever.”—“Yes, my animals,” he answered, “your advice is admirable and according to my heart: I will climb a high mountain today! But see that honey is there ready to hand, yellow, white, good, ice-cool golden honey in the comb. For know that at the summit I will make the honey-sacrifice.”—
But when Zarathustra had reached the summit, he sent home the animals that had accompanied him, and found that he was now alone-then he laughed heartily, looked around him, and spoke thus:
That I spoke of sacrifices and honey-sacrifices was merely a ruse and, truly, a useful folly! Up here I can now speak more freely than in front of hermits’ caves and hermits’ pets.
What sacrifice! I squander what is given to me, a squanderer with a thousand hands: how could I call that-sacrificing?
And when I desired honey I only desired bait and sweet mucus and mucilage, for which even growling bears and strange, sulky, evil birds put out their tongues:
-the best bait, such as huntsmen and fishermen need. For if the world is like a dark forest of animals and a pleasure-ground for all wild huntsmen, it seems to me rather, and preferably, a fathomless, rich sea;
-a sea full of colorful fishes and crabs, for which even the gods might long and might be tempted to become fishers in it and casters of nets: so rich is the world in wonderful things, great and small!
Especially the human world, the human sea—now towards it I cast my golden fishing rod and say: open up, you human abyss!
Open up and throw me your fish and shining crabs! With my best bait shall I bait today the strangest human fish!
-my happiness itself I cast out far and wide, between sunrise, noon, and sunset, to see if many human fish will not learn to kick and tug at my happiness.
Until, biting at my sharp hidden hooks, they have to come up to my height, the most mottled abysmal groundlings to the most wicked of all fishers of men.
For that is what I am through and through, reeling, reeling in, raising up, raising, a raiser, trainer, and taskmaster, who not in vain once advised himself: “Become who you are!”
Thus may men now come up to me: for as yet I await the signs that it is time for my descent; as yet do I not myself go under, as I must, among men.
Therefore I wait here, crafty and scornful upon high mountains, no impatient one, no patient one, rather one who has forgotten even patience-because he no longer “suffers in patience.”
For my destiny gives me time: perhaps it has forgotten me? Or does it sit in the shade behind a big stone and catch flies?
And truly, I am well disposed to my eternal destiny, because
it does not dog and hurry me, but leaves me time for jests and mischief: so that today I have climbed this high mountain to catch fish.
Did ever any one catch fish upon high mountains? And though what I seek and do here is folly, it is still better than if I became solemn down there from waiting, and green and yellow—
—to become a posturing wrath-snorter from waiting, a holy howling storm from the mountains, an impatient one that shouts down into the valleys: “Listen, or else I will lash you with the scourge of God!”
Not that I bear a grudge against such wrathful ones for that: they are good enough for a laugh! How impatient they must be, those big drums of alarm, which find a voice now or never!
But I and my destiny—we do not speak to today, neither do we speak to the never: for speaking we have patience and time and more than time. For one day it must come and may not pass by.
What must one day come and may not pass by? Our great Hazar, our great, remote empire of man, the Zarathustra empire of a thousand years—
How remote may such “remoteness” be? What does it concern me? But on that account to me it is nonetheless sure—I stand secure with both feet on this ground;
—on an eternal ground, on hard primordial rock, on this highest, hardest, primordial mountain ridge to which all winds come as to the breaking storm, asking where? and whence? and whither?
Here laugh, laugh, my bright healthy sarcasm! From high mountains cast down your glittering mocking laughter! With your glitter bait for me the finest human fish!
And whatever belongs to me in all seas, my in-and-for-me in all things-fish that out for me, bring that up to me: for that I wait, the wickedest of all fishermen.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra Page 24