And truly, how much has already succeeded! How rich this earth is in small good perfect things, in what has turned out well!
Set small good perfect things around you, you higher men! Their golden ripeness heals the heart. What is perfect teaches hope.
16
What has so far been the greatest sin here on earth? Was it not the word of him who said: “Woe to them who laugh here!”
Did he himself find no reasons on earth for laughter? Then he sought badly. Even a child finds reasons here.
He-did not love enough: otherwise he would have also loved us who laugh! But he hated and jeered at us, he promised us wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Must one then curse right away when one does not love? That—seems bad taste to me. But thus he acted, being unconditional. He sprang from the mob.
And he himself simply did not love enough: otherwise he would have raged less that he was not loved. All great love does not want love-it wants more.
Avoid all such unconditional ones! They are a poor sickly type, a mob-type: they look sourly at this life, they have an evil eye for this earth.
Avoid all such unconditional ones! They have heavy feet and sultry hearts-they do not know how to dance. How could the earth be light to such as these!
17
All good things approach their goal crookedly. Like cats they arch their backs, they purr inwardly at their approaching happiness—all good things laugh.
His step betrays whether a man walks his own way: behold me walking! But whoever approaches his goal dances.
And truly, I have not become a statue, not yet do I stand there stiff, stupid, stony, like a pillar; I love to run swiftly.
And although there are swamps and dense afflictions on earth, he who has light feet runs even across mud and dances as on swept ice.
Lift up your hearts, my brothers, high, higher! And do not forget your legs! Lift up your legs too, you good dancers, and better still, stand on your heads!
18
This laugher’s crown, this rose garlanded crown.9 I myself have put on this crown, I myself have consecrated my laughter. I found none other today strong enough for that.
Zarathustra the dancer, Zarathustra the light, who beckons with his wings, ready for flight, beckoning to all birds, ready and prepared, blissfully light-spirited one:—
Zarathustra the soothsayer, Zarathustra the soothlaugher, no impatient one, no unconditional one, one who loves leaps and side-leaps; I myself have put on this crown!
19
Lift up your hearts, my brothers, high, higher! And do not forget your legs! Lift up your legs too, you good dancers: and better still, stand on your heads!
In happiness too there are heavy animals in a state of happiness, there are club-foots through and through. They exert themselves strangely, like an elephant trying to stand on its head.
But better to be foolish with happiness than foolish with misfortune, better to dance awkwardly than to walk lamely. So learn from me my wisdom: even the worst thing has two good sides,—
—even the worst thing has good dancing legs: so learn, you higher men, to stand on your own proper legs!
So unlearn nursing melancholy and all the mob sorrow! Oh, how sad the jesters of the mob seem to me today! But this today is the mob’s.
20
Be like the wind when it rushes forth from its mountain caves: it dances to its own piping, the seas tremble and leap under its footsteps.
That which gives wings to asses10 and milks lionesses, all praise to that good, unruly spirit which comes like a hurricane to all the present and to all the mob—
—which is enemy to all thistle-heads and casuists’ heads and to all withered leaves and weeds: all praise to that wild, good, free spirit of the storm, which dances upon swamps and afflictions as upon meadows!
Which hates the consumptive dogs of the mob, and all the ill-constituted, sullen brood:—praised be this spirit of all free spirits, the laughing storm, which blows dust into the eyes of all the melanopic and melancholic!
You higher men, the worst thing in you is: none of you has learned to dance as you ought to dance-to dance beyond yourselves! What does it matter that you are failures!
How much is still possible! So learn to laugh beyond yourselves! Lift up your hearts, you good dancers, high! higher! And do not forget good laughter!
This crown of laughter, this rose garlanded crown: I cast this crown to you my brothers! I have consecrated laughter; you higher men, learn—to laugh!
THE SONG OF MELANCHOLY
1
WHEN ZARATHUSTRA SPOKE THESE sayings, he stood near the entrance of his cave; but with the last words he slipped away from his guests and fled for a little while into the open air.
“O pure scents around me,” he cried, “O blessed stillness around me! But where are my animals? Come here, come here, my eagle and my serpent!
“Tell me, my animals: these higher men, all of them-do they perhaps smell bad? O pure smells around me! Only now do I know and feel how I love you, my animals.”
-And Zarathustra said again: “I love you, my animals!” But the eagle and the serpent pressed close to him when he spoke these words, and looked up at him. In this attitude all three were silent together, and sniffed and sipped the good air with one another. For the air here outside was better than with the higher men.
2
But hardly had Zarathustra left the cave when the old magician got up, looked cunningly about him, and said: “He is gone!
“And already, you higher men—let me tickle you with this complimentary and flattering name, as he himself does-already my evil spirit of deceit and magic attacks me, my melancholy devil,
—“who is an adversary of this Zarathustra from the bottom: forgive him for this! Now he insists on working spells before you, now he has his hour; I struggle with this evil spirit in vain.
“Of all of you, whatever verbal honors you like to assume, whether you call yourselves ‘the free spirits’ or ‘the truthful,’ or ‘the ascetics of the spirit,’ or ‘the unfettered,’ or ‘the great longers,’—
—“of all of you who like me suffer from the great disgust, for whom the old God has died and as yet no new god lies in cradles and swaddling clothes-of all of you my evil spirit and devil of sorcery is fond.
“I know you, higher men, I know him—I know also this fiend whom I love in spite of myself, this Zarathustra: he himself often seems to me like the beautiful mask of a saint,
—“like a new strange masquerade in which my evil spirit, the melancholy devil, delights—I love Zarathustra, so it often seems to me, for the sake of my evil spirit.—
“But already he attacks me and compels me, this spirit of melancholy, this evening-twilight devil: and truly, you higher men, he has a longing—
—“open your eyes!-he has a longing to come naked, whether as man or woman I do not yet know: but he comes, he compels me, ah! open your senses!
“The day is fading away, to all things the evening now comes, even to the best things; hear now and see, you higher men, what devil—man or woman-this spirit of evening-melancholy is!”
Thus spoke the old magician, looked cunningly about him and then seized his harp.
3
In clarifying air,
When already the dew’s comfort
Wells down to the earth,
Unseen, also unheard—
For tender shoes wear
The comforting dew, like all that gently comforts—:
Do you remember then, do you remember, hot heart,
How once you thirsted
For heavenly tears and dew showers
Singed and exhausted by thirst,
While on yellow paths in the grass
Wicked evening sun glances
Ran about you through dark trees
Blinding, glowing glances of the sun, pleased
at your suffering?
“Seducer of truth? You?”—so they taunted
“No!
Only a poet!
An animal, cunning, preying, prowling,
That must lie,
That must knowingly, willingly lie:
Lusting for prey,
Colorfully masked,
A mask for itself,
Prey for itself—
This—the seducer of truth?
No! Only fool! Only poet!
Only speaking colorfully,
Only shrieking colorfully from the masks of fools,
Climbing around on mendacious word bridges,
On colorful rainbows,
between false heavens
And false earths,
Roving, floating about—
Only fool! Only poet!
This—the seducer of truth?
Not still, stiff, smooth, cold,
Become a statue,
A pillar of god,
Not set up before temples,
A God’s gatekeeper:
No! an enemy to all such statues of truth,
More at home in every desert than at temples,
With feline mischievousness,
Springing through every window
Quickly! into every chance,
Sniffing for every jungle,
Eagerly, longingly sniffing,
That you in jungles
Among the mottled fierce creatures,
Should run sinfully healthy and colorful and beautiful,
With lustful lips,
Happily mocking, happily hellish, happily bloodthirsty,
Robbing, skulking, lying:—
Or like the eagle, which long,
Long stares into abysses,
Into its abysses:—
Oh, how they circle down,
Under, in,
In ever deeper depths!—
Then,
Suddenly, with straight aim
Quivering flight,
They pounce on lambs,
Headlong down, ravenous,
Lusting for lambs,
Hating all lamb souls,
Grim in hatred at all that look
Sheepish, lamb eyed, or curly woolled,
Grey, with lambs’ sheeps’ kindness!
Thus,
Eaglelike, pantherlike,
Are the poet’s desires,
Are your desires beneath a thousand masks,
You fool! You poet!
You who have seen man
As god as sheep—:
To rend the god in man,
Like the sheep in man,
And rending to laugh—
That, that is your bliss!
A panther’s and eagle’s bliss!
A poet’s and fool’s bliss!
In clarifying air,
When already the moon’s sickle,
Green between purpled reds
And envious creeps forth:
-the day’s enemy,
With every step secretly
Into hanging rose gardens
Sickling down, until they sink,
Sink down palely beneath night:—
So I sank once
Out of my madness of truth,
Out of my longing of days,
Weary of day, sick from light,
-Sank downwards, eveningwards, shadowwards:
With one truth
Scorched and thirsty:
-Do you still remember, do you remember, hot heart,
How you then thirsted?—
That I am banished
From all truth,
Only fool!
Only poet!
ON SCIENCE
THUS SANG THE MAGICIAN; and all who were present went like birds unawares into the net of his cunning and melancholy voluptuousness. Only the conscientious in spirit was not caught: he at once snatched the harp from the magician and called out: “Air! Let in good air! Let in Zarathustra! You make this cave sultry and poisonous, you bad old magician!
“You seduce, you false one, you subtle one, to unknown desires and wildernesses. And ah, that such as you should talk and worry about the truth!
“Woe to all free spirits who are not on their guard against such magicians! It is all over with their freedom: you teach and lure back into prisons,—
—“you old melancholy devil, a seductive bird call sounds out of your lament, you resemble those who with their praise of chastity secretly invite to voluptuousness!”
Thus spoke the conscientious in spirit; but the old magician looked about him, enjoying his triumph, and for that reason tolerated the annoyance that the conscientious caused him. “Be quiet!” he said in a modest voice, “good songs want to echo well; after good songs one should long be silent.
“Thus do all the higher men. But you have perhaps understood only little of my song? There is little of the spirit of magic in you.”
“You praise me,” replied the conscientious one, “when you distinguish me from yourself. Very well! But you others, what do I see? You still sit there, all of you, with lusting eyes-:
“You free souls, where has your freedom gone! To me you almost look like those who have long been watching naughty naked dancing girls: your souls themselves dance!
“In you, you higher men, there must be more of that which the magician calls his evil spirit of magic and deceit—we must indeed be different.
“And truly, we spoke and thought long enough together before Zarathustra came home to his cave, for me to know: we are different.
“We seek different things even up here, you and I. For I seek more security, that is why I came to Zarathustra. For he is still the most steadfast tower and will—
—“today, when everything totters, when all the earth quakes. But you, when I see what eyes you make, it almost seems to me that you seek more insecurity,
—“more horror, more danger, more earthquaking. You long, so it almost seems to me, forgive my presumption, you higher men—
—“you long for the worst and most dangerous life, which frightens me most, for the life of wild beasts, for forests, caves, steep mountains and labyrinthine gorges.
“And it is not those who lead out of danger that please you best, but those who lead you away from all paths, the misleaders. But if you actually harbor such longings, they seem to me nevertheless to be impossible.
“For fear-that is man’s original and fundamental feeling; through fear everything is explained, original sin and original virtue. Through fear my virtue also grew, that is to say: science.
“For fear of wild animals-that has been fostered in man the longest, including the animal he conceals and fears in himself—Zarathustra calls it ‘the beast within.’
“Such prolonged ancient fear, at last become subtle, spiritual, intellectual—today, I think, it is called: science.”—
Thus spoke the conscientious one; but Zarathustra, who had just come back into his cave and had heard and understood the last speech, threw a handful of roses to the conscientious man and laughed at his “truths.” “What!” he exclaimed, “what did I hear just now? Truly, I think you are a fool, or I myself am one: and I will straightaway stand your ”truth” on its head.
“For fear—is the exception with us. But courage and adventure and delight in the uncertain, in the unattempted—courage seems to me the whole prehistory of man.
“He has envied the wildest and most courageous animals and robbed them of all their virtues: only thus did he become—man.
“This courage, at last become subtle, spiritual, intellectual, this human courage, with eagle’s wings and serpent’s wisdom: this, it seems to me, is today called—”
“Zarathustra!” cried all of them there assembled as if with a single voice, and burst out at the same time into a great laughter; and it was as if a heavy cloud lifted from them. Even the magician laughed and said cleverly: “Well! It is gone, my evil spirit!
“And did I not myself warn you against it when I said that he was a deceiver, a lying and deceiving spirit?
“Especially when he shows himself naked. But what ca
n I do about his tricks! Have I created him and the world?
“Well! Let us be good again, and of good cheer! And although Zarathustra looks angry—just see him! he bears a grudge against me—:
—“before night comes he will learn again to love and praise me, he cannot live long without committing such follies.
“He—loves his enemies: he knows this art better than any one I have seen. But he takes revenge for it—on his friends!”
Thus spoke the old magician, and the higher men applauded him: so that Zarathustra went round, and mischievously and lovingly shook hands with his friends-like one who has to make amends and apologize to every one for something. But when he came to the door of his cave, behold, then he longed again for the good air outside, and for his animals-and he wanted to slip out.
AMONG DAUGHTERS OF THE WILDERNESS
1
“DO NOT GO AWAY!” said the wanderer who called himself Zarathustra’s shadow, “stay with us, otherwise the old dark misery might fall on us again.
“Now that old magician has done his worst for our benefit, and behold, the good, pious pope has tears in his eyes, and has embarked again upon the sea of melancholy.
“Those kings there may well put on a good air before us yet: for they have learned that better than any of us today! But if they had no one to see them, I bet that with them too the bad game would commence again,—
—“the bad game of drifting clouds, of damp melancholy, of curtained heavens, of stolen suns, of howling autumn winds,
—“the bad game of our howling and crying for help! Stay with us, O Zarathustra! Here there is much hidden misery that wishes to speak, much evening, much cloud, much damp air!
“You have nourished us with strong food for men, and powerful proverbs: do not let the weakly, womanish spirits attack us again at dessert!
Thus Spoke Zarathustra Page 30