Thus Spoke Zarathustra (40 page)

But did you mount horse? Do you now ride pell-mell up to your goal? Very well, my friend! But your lame foot also sits with you on your horse!

When you reach your goal, when you jump from your horse: precisely upon your
height
you Higher Man, will you stumble!

11

You creators, you Higher Men! One is pregnant only with one’s own child.

Let nothing impose upon you, nothing persuade you! For who
is your
neighbour? And if you do things ‘for your neighbour’, still you do not create for him!

Unlearn this ‘for’, you creators: your very virtue wants you to have nothing to do with ‘for’ and ‘for the sake of and ‘because’. You should stop your ears to these false little words.

This ‘for one’s neighbour’ is the virtue only of petty people: there they say ‘birds of a feather’ and ‘one good turn deserves another’ – they have neither right to nor strength for
your
selfishness!

The prudence and providence of pregnancy is in your selfishness! What no one has yet seen, the fruit: that is protected and indulged and nourished by your whole love.

Where your whole love is, with your child, there too is your whole virtue! Your work, your will
is your
‘neighbour’: let no false values persuade you otherwise!

12

You creators, you Higher Men! Whoever has to give birth is sick; but whoever has given birth is unclean.

Ask the women: one does not give birth for pleasure. The pain makes hens and poets cackle.

You creators, there is much in you that is unclean. That is because you have to be mothers.

A new child: oh how much new filth has also entered the world I Go aside I And whoever has given birth should wash his soul clean!

13

Do not be virtuous beyond your powers I And do not ask anything improbable of yourselves!

Follow in the footsteps of your fathers’ virtue! How would you climb high if the will of your fathers did not climb with you?

But he who wants to be a first-born should see that he does not also become a last-born I And you should not pretend to be saints in those matters in which your fathers were vicious!

He whose fathers passed their time with women, strong wine, and roast pork, what would it be if he demanded chastity of himself?

It would be a piece of folly! Truly, I think it would be much for such a one to be the husband of one or two or three women.

And if he founded monasteries and wrote above the doors: ‘The way to holiness’, I should still say: What of it! it is another piece of folly!

He has founded for himself a house of refuge and correction: much good may it do him I But I have no faith in it.

It is what one takes into solitude that grows there, the beast within included. And so, many should be dissuaded from solitude.

Has there ever been anything filthier on earth than the saints of the desert? Not only the devil was loose around
them
– but the swine, too.

14

Timid, ashamed, awkward, like a tiger whose leap has failed: this is how I have often seen you slink aside, you Higher Men. A
throw
you made had failed.

But what of that, you dice-throwers! You have not learned to play and mock as a man ought to play and mock! Are we not always seated at a great table for play and mockery?

And if great things you attempted have turned out failures, does that mean you yourselves are – failures? And if you yourselves have turned out failures, does that mean – man is a failure? If man has turned out a failure, however: very well! come on!

15

The higher its type, the less often does a thing succeed. You Higher Men here, are you not all – failures?

Be of good courage, what does it matter! How much is still possible! Learn to laugh at yourselves as a man ought to laugh!

And no wonder you have failed and half succeeded, you half-broken men! Does there not strive and struggle in you -mankind’s
future
?

Mankind’s most distant, most profound questions, his reaching to the furthest stars, his prodigious power: does all that not foam together in your pot?

No wonder many a pot is shattered! Learn to laugh at yourselves, as a man ought to laugh. You Higher Men, oh how much is still possible!

And truly, how much has already succeeded! How rich this earth is in good little perfect things, in well-constituted things!

Set good little perfect things around you, you Higher Men! Things whose golden ripeness heals the heart. Perfect things teach hope.

16

What has been the greatest sin here on earth? Was it not the saying of him who said: ‘Woe to those who laugh!’

Did he himself find on earth no reason for laughter? If so, he sought badly. Even a child could find reasons.

He – did not love sufficiently: otherwise he would also have loved us, the laughers I But he hated and jeered at us, he promised us wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Does one then straightway have to curse where one does not love? That – seems to me bad taste. But that is what he did, this uncompromising man. He sprang from the mob.

And he himself did not love sufficiently: otherwise he would not have been so angry that he was not loved. Great love does not
desire
love – it desires more.

Avoid all such uncompromising men! They are a poor, sick type, a mob type: they look upon this life with an ill will, they have an evil eye for this earth.

Avoid all such uncompromising men! They have heavy feet and sultry hearts – they do not know how to dance. How could the earth be light to such men!

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 is stepping along
his own
path: so watch me walk! But he who approaches his goal, dances.

And truly, I have not become a statue, I do not stand here stiff, stumpy, stony, a pillar; I love to run fast.

And although there are swamps and thick afflictions on earth, he who has light feet runs even across mud and dances as upon swept ice.

Lift up your hearts, my brothers, high, higher! And do not
forget your legs I Lift up your legs, too, you fine dancers: and better still, stand on your heads!

18

This laugher’s crown, this rose-wreath crown: I myself have set this crown on my head, I myself have canonized my laughter. I have found no other strong enough for it today.

Zarathustra the dancer, Zarathustra the light, who beckons with his wings, ready for flight, beckoning to all birds, prepared and ready, blissfully light-hearted:

Zarathustra the prophet, Zarathustra the laughing prophet, no impatient nor uncompromising man, one who loves jumping and escapades;
⁵¹
I myself have set this crown on my head!

19

Lift up your hearts, my brothers, high! higher! And do not forget your legs! Lift up your legs, too, you fine dancers: and better still, stand on your heads!

There are beasts who are heavy-footed even in happiness, there are those who are clumsy-footed from birth. 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 clumsily 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, how to stand on your own proper legs!

So unlearn trumpeting of affliction and all mob-sorrowfulness! Oh how sad the Jack Puddings of the mob seem to me at present! This present, however, belongs to the mob.

20

Be like the wind when it rushes forth from its mountain caves: it will dance to its own pipe, the seas tremble and leap under its footsteps.

That which gives wings to asses and milks lionesses, all praise to that unruly spirit that comes to all the present and all the mob like a storm-wind,

– that is enemy to all thistle-heads and prying noses and to all withered leaves and weeds: all praise to that wild, good, free storm-spirit that dances upon swamps and afflictions as upon meadows!

That hates the wasted dogs of the mob and all the ill-constituted brood of gloom: all praise to this spirit of all free spirits, the laughing storm that blows dust in the eyes of all the dim-sighted and ulcerated.

You Higher Men, the worst about you is: none of you has learned to dance as a man 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 fine dancers, high! higher! and do not forget to laugh well!

This laugher’s crown, this rose-wreath crown: to you, my brothers, do I throw this crown! I have canonized laughter; you Higher Men,
learn
– to laugh!

The Song of Melancholy

1

Z
ARATHUSTRA
was standing near the door of his cave as he spoke this discourse; with the final words, however, he escaped from his guests and fled for a short while into the open air.

‘Oh pure odours around me,’ he exclaimed, ‘oh blissful stillness around me! But where are my animals? Come here, come here, my eagle and my serpent!

‘Tell me, my animals: all these Higher Men – do they perhaps not
smell
well? Oh pure odours 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 around him when he said these words, and looked up at him. All three stood silently together in this attitude, and sniffed and breathed in the good air together. For the air here outside was better than with the Higher Men.

2

Hardly had Zarathustra left his cave, however, when the old sorcerer got up, looked cunningly around, and said: He has gone out!

And already, you Higher Men – if I may tickle you with this name of praise and flattery, as he does – already my evil spirit of deceit and sorcery attacks me, my melancholy devil,

who is an adversary of this Zarathustra from the very heart: forgive him for it! Now he
insists
on working charms before you, now he has
his
hour; I wrestle in vain with this evil spirit.

To all of you, whatever honours you may bestow upon yourselves with words, whether you call yourselves ‘the free spirits’ or ‘the truthful’ or ‘the penitents of the spirit’ or ‘the unfettered’ or ‘the great desirers’,

to all of you, 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 – to all of you is my evil spirit and sorcery-devil well-disposed.

I know you, Higher Men, I know him – I also know this demon whom I love despite myself, this Zarathustra: he himself often seems to me like the beautiful mask of a saint,

like a strange, new masquerade in which my evil spirit, the melancholy devil, takes pleasure – I love Zarathustra, so I often think, for the sake of my evil spirit.

But already
he
is attacking me and compelling me, this spirit of melancholy, this evening-twilight devil: and truly, you Higher Men, he has a desire

– just open your eyes! – he has a desire to come
naked
, whether as man or woman I do not yet know: but he is coming, he is compelling me, alas! Open your senses!

Day is fading away, now evening is coming to all things, even to the best things; listen now, and see, you Higher Men, what devil, whether man or woman, this spirit of evening melancholy is!

Thus spoke the old sorcerer, looked cunningly around and then seized his harp.

3

When the air grows clear,
When the dew’s comfort
Rains down upon the earth,
Invisible and unheard -
For dew the comforter
Wears tender shoes like all that gently comforts:
Do you then remember, do you, hot heart,
How once you thirsted
For heavenly tears and dew showers,
Thirsted, scorched and weary,
While on yellow grassy paths
Wicked evening sunlight-glances
Ran about you through dark trees,
Blinding, glowing sunlight-glances, malicious?

‘The wooer of
truth?
You?’ – so they jeered -
‘No! Only a poet!
An animal, cunning, preying, creeping,
That has to lie,
That knowingly, wilfully has to lie:
Lusting for prey,
Motley-masked,
A mask to itself,
A prey to itself -
That
– the wooer of truth?
No! Only a fool! Only a poet!
Only speaking motley,

Crying out of fools-masks,
Stalking around on deceitful word-bridges,
On motley rainbows,
Between a false heaven
And a false earth,
Soaring, hovering about -
Only
a fool!
Only
a poet!

That
– the wooer of truth?
Not still, stiff, smooth, cold,
Become an image,
Become a god’s statue,
Not set up before temples,
A god’s watchman:
No! enemy to such statues of truth,
More at home in any wilderness than before temples,
Full of cat’s wantonness,
Leaping through every window,
Swiftly! into every chance,
Sniffing out every jungle,
Sniffing with greedy longing,
That you may run,
Sinfully-healthy and motley and fair,
In jungles among motley-speckled beasts of prey,
Run with lustful lips,
Happily jeering, happily hellish, happily blood-thirsty,
Preying, creeping, lying: