“The brightness of midnight was all around me, loneliness crouched beside her; and as a third, the rasping stillness of death, the worst of my friends.
“I carried keys, the rustiest of all keys; and I understood how to open with them the most creaking of all doors.
“Like a bitterly angry croaking the sound rang through the long corridors when the wings of this door opened: this bird cried fiendishly, it was unhappy at being awakened.
“But it was more frightful and more heart stopping yet when it again became silent and still all around, and I sat alone in that malignant silence.
“Thus time passed with me and slipped by, if there still was time: how should I know! But at last that happened which awoke me.
“Three strikes struck at the door like thunder, three times again the vaults resounded and howled: then I went to the door.
“Alpa! I cried, who carries his ashes to the mountain? Alpa! Alpa! Who carries his ashes to the mountain?
“And I turned the key and pulled at the door and exerted myself. But it was not yet open a finger’s-breadth:
“Then a raging wind tore its wings from one another: whistling, shrilling and piercing it threw a black coffin to me:
“And in the roaring and whistling and shrilling the coffin burst open and spewed out a thousand peals of laughter.
“And from a thousand grimaces of children, angels, owls, fools, and butterflies as big as children it laughed and mocked and roared at me.
“At this I was terribly frightened: it threw me to the ground. And I cried with horror as I never cried before.
“But my own crying awoke me:—and I came to my senses.”—
Thus Zarathustra related his dream and then was silent: for as yet he did not know the interpretation of it. But the disciple whom he loved most arose quickly, seized Zarathustra’s hand, and said:
“Your life itself interprets this dream for us, O Zarathustra!
“Are you not yourself the shrilly whistling wind which bursts open the doors of the fortress of death?
“Are you not yourself the coffin full of colorful sarcasms and the angelic grimaces of life?
“Truly, like a thousand peals of children’s laughter Zarathustra comes into all sepulchers, laughing at those night- and grave-watchmen and whoever else rattles with gloomy keys.
“With your laughter you will frighten them and throw them to the ground: and your power over them will make them faint and wake them.
“And when the long twilight comes and the mortal weariness, even then you will not perish in our heaven, you advocate of life!
“You have shown us new stars and new nocturnal glories: truly, you have spread laughter itself out over us like a canopy of many colors.
“Now children’s laughter will always flow from coffins; now a strong wind will always comes victoriously to all mortal weariness: of this you are yourself the pledge and the prophet!
“Truly, just this is what you dreamed, your enemies: that was your hardest dream.
“But as you awoke from them and came to yourself, so shall they awaken from themselves-and come to you!”
Thus spoke the disciple; and all the others then thronged around Zarathustra and grasped him by the hands and tried to persuade him to leave his bed and his sadness and return to them. But Zarathustra sat upright on his bed, and with an absent look. Like one returning from a long journey in a strange land he looked at his disciples and examined their faces; but still he did not know them. But when they raised him and set him on his feet, behold, suddenly his eye changed; he understood everything that had happened, stroked his beard, and said with a strong voice:
“Well! This too has its time; but see to it, my disciples, that we have a good meal, and soon! Thus I mean to atone for bad dreams!
“But the soothsayer shall eat and drink at my side: and truly, I will yet show him a sea in which he can drown!”
Thus spoke Zarathustra. But then he gazed long into the face of the disciple who had interpreted the dream, and shook his head.
ON REDEMPTION
WHEN ZARATHUSTRA WAS GOING over the great bridge one day, the cripples and the beggars surrounded him, and a hunchback spoke thus to him:
“Behold, Zarathustra! Even the people learn from you and come to believe in your teaching: but for them to believe fully in you, one thing is still necessary—you must first of all convince us cripples! Here now you have a fine selection, and truly, an opportunity with more than one forelock! You can heal the blind, and make the lame run; and from him who has too much behind him you could well take a little away—that, I think, would be the right method to make the cripples believe in Zarathustra!”
But Zarathustra replied thus to him who so spoke: “When one takes his hump from the hunchback, then one takes his spirit from him—so the people teach. And when one gives the blind man eyes, then he sees too many bad things on the earth: so that he curses him who healed him. He, however, who makes the lame man run, inflicts upon him the greatest injury; for hardly can he run, when his vices run away with him—so the people teach concerning cripples. And why should not Zarathustra also learn from the people, when the people learn from Zarathustra?
“But it is the smallest thing to me since I have been among men, to see: ‘this one person lost an eye and this other an ear and a third a leg, and there are others, who have lost the tongue or the nose or the head.’
“I see and have seen worse things and many things so hideous that I should neither like to speak of all of them nor yet even once keep silent about some of them: namely, men who lack everything, except one thing that they have too much of—men who are nothing more than a big eye or a big mouth or a big belly or something else big—I call such people inverse cripples.
And when I came out of my solitude and crossed this bridge for the first time, I did not believe my eyes but looked again and again and said at last: “That is an ear! An ear as big as a man!” I looked still more attentively—and actually there did move under the ear something that was pitiably small and poor and slim. And in truth this immense ear was perched on a small thin stalk-but the stalk was a man! If one used a magnifying glass one could even further recognize a small envious face, and also a bloated little soul dangling at the stalk. The people told me, however, that the big ear was not only a man, but a great man, a genius. But I have never believed the people when they spoke of great men—and I maintain my belief that it was an inverse cripple, who had too little of everything and too much of one thing.”
When Zarathustra had spoken thus to the hunchback and to those whose mouthpiece and advocate the hunchback was, he turned to his disciples in profound dismay and said:
“Truly, my friends, I walk among men as among the fragments and limbs of human beings!
“This is the terrible thing to my eye, that I find man broken up, and scattered about, as on a battle- and butcher-ground.
“And when my eye flees from the present to the past it always finds the same: fragments and limbs and fearful chances-but no men!
“The present and the past upon earth—ah! my friends-that is my most unbearable burden; and I would not know how to go on living if I were not a seer of what is to come.
“A seer, a willer, a creator, a future itself, and a bridge to the future—and ah, also as a cripple on this bridge: all that is Zarathustra.
“And you also asked yourselves often: ‘Who is Zarathustra to us? What shall he be called by us?’ And like me you gave yourselves questions for answers.
“Is he a promiser? Or a fulfiller? A conqueror? Or an inheritor? A harvest? Or a ploughshare? A physician? Or a convalescent?
“Is he a poet? Or a truthteller? A liberator? Or a subjugator? A good? Or an evil?
“I walk among men as among the fragments of the future: that future which I contemplate.
“And it is all my art and aim, to compose into one and gather together what is fragment and riddle and fearful chance.
“And how could I bear to be a man
if man were not also poet and guesser of riddles and redeemer of chance!
“To redeem what is past, and to transform every ‘It was’ into ‘Thus would I have it!’—that alone do I call redemption!
“Will—so the liberator and joy-bringer is called: thus I have taught you, my friends! But now learn this as well: the will itself is still a prisoner.
“Willing liberates: but what is it that puts even the liberator in chains?
“ ‘It was’: thus the will’s teeth-gnashing and loneliest tribulation is called. Powerless against that which has been done, it is an angry spectator of all that is past.
“The will cannot will backwards; that it cannot break time and time’s desire-that is the will’s loneliest tribulation.
“Willing liberates: what does willing itself devise in order to get free from its tribulation and mock at its prison?
“Ah, every prisoner becomes a fool! The imprisoned will too always foolishly releases itself.
“That time does not run backward, that is its wrath; ‘That which was’—that is the name of the stone it cannot roll.
“And thus it rolls stones out of wrath and irritation, and takes revenge on whatever does not, like it, feel wrath and irritation.
“Thus the will, the liberator, becomes a torturer: and it takes revenge on all that is capable of suffering, because it cannot go backward.
“This, yes, this alone is revenge itself: the will’s antipathy to time and its ‘It was.’
“Truly, a great foolishness dwells in our will; and it became a curse to all humanity, that this foolishness acquired spirit!
“The spirit of revenge: my friends, that has so far been the subject of man’s best reflection; and where there was suffering, there was always supposed to be punishment.
“ ‘Punishment,’ is what revenge calls itself: it feigns a good conscience for itself with a hypocritical lie.
“And because in the willer himself there is suffering, because he cannot will backwards—thus was willing itself and all life supposed to be—punishment!
“And then cloud after cloud rolled over the spirit: until at last madness preached: ‘Everything passes away, therefore everything deserves to pass away!’
“ ‘And this itself is justice, the law of time, that he must devour his children’: thus madness preached.
“ ‘Things are morally ordered according to justice and punishment. Oh, where is there deliverance from the flux of things and from the punishment of ‘existence’?’ Thus madness preached.
“ ‘Can there be deliverance when there is eternal justice? Ah, the stone, ‘It was’ cannot be rolled away: all punishments too must be eternal!’ Thus madness preached.
“ ‘No deed can be annihilated: how could it be undone by the punishment! That existence too must eternally become deed and guilt, this, this is what is eternal in the punishment ‘existence’!’
“ ‘Unless the will should at last deliver itself and willing become not willing—’: but you know, my brothers, this fable of madness!
“I led you away from those fables when I taught you: ‘The will is a creator.’
All ‘It was’ is a fragment, a riddle, a fearful chance-until the creating will says to it: ‘But I willed it thus!“—
Until the creating will says to it: “But I will it thus! Thus shall I will it!”
But did it ever speak thus? And when does this happen? Has the will been unharnessed from its own folly?
Has the will become its own deliverer and joy-bringer? Has it unlearned the spirit of revenge and all teeth-gnashing?
And who has taught it reconciliation with time, and something higher than all reconciliation?
The will that is the will to power must will something higher than all reconciliation-but how does that happen? Who has taught it also to will backwards?”
-But at this point in his speech Zarathustra suddenly paused and looked exactly like one who has received a severe shock. With terror in his eyes he gazed on his disciples; his glances pierced their thoughts and afterthoughts17 as with arrows. But in a short time he laughed again and said calmly:
“It is difficult to live among men because keeping silent is so difficult. Especially for a babbler.”—
Thus spoke Zarathustra. The hunchback, however, had listened to the conversation and had covered his face during the time; but when he heard Zarathustra laugh, he looked up with curiosity, and said slowly:
“But why does Zarathustra speak to us differently than to his disciples?”
Zarathustra answered: “What is surprising in that! With hunch-backs one may well speak in a hunchbacked way!”
“Very good,” said the hunchback; “and with pupils one may well tell tales out of school.
“But why does Zarathustra speak differently to his pupils-than to himself?”—
ON HUMAN PRUDENCE
NOT THE HEIGHT: THE precipice is terrible!
The precipice, where the gaze plunges downward and the hand grasps upward. There the heart becomes giddy through its double will.
Ah, friends, have you divined also my heart’s double will?
This, this is my precipice and my danger, that my gaze shoots towards the summit, and my hand would like to clutch and lean—on the depth!
My will clings to man, I bind myself to man with chains, because I am pulled upwards to the Ubermensch: for there my other will tends.
And therefore I live blindly among men; as if I did not know them: that my hand may not entirely lose belief in firmness.
I do not know you men: this gloom and consolation is often spread around me.
I sit at the gateway for every rogue, and ask: Who wishes to deceive me?
This is my first human prudence, that I allow myself to be deceived, so as not to be on my guard against deceivers.
Ah, if I were on my guard against man, how could man be an anchor to my ball! I would be pulled upwards and away too easily!
This providence is over my fate, that I must be without foresight.
And he who does not want to die of thirst among men, must learn to drink out of all glasses; and he who wants to keep clean among men, must know how to wash himself even with dirty water.
And thus I often comforted myself: “Well then! Cheer up! Old heart! One misfortune missed you: enjoy that as your—fortune!”
But this is my second human prudence: I spare the vain more than the proud.
Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies? But where pride is wounded, there grows up something better than pride.
For life to be pleasant to watch, its play must be well acted; for that, however, it needs good actors.
I found all the vain to be good actors: they act and will that others shall want to watch them—all their spirit is in this will.
They act themselves, they invent themselves; I like to look at life in their vicinity—it cures melancholy.
Therefore I spare the vain because they are the physicians of my melancholy and keep me tied to man as to a play.
And further: who can estimate the full depth of the modesty of the vain! I love and pity him for his modesty.
He would learn his belief in himself from you; he feeds upon your glances, he eats praise out of your hands.
He believes even your lies if you lie favorably about him: for his heart sighs in its depths: “What am I?”
And if true virtue is that virtue which is unconscious of itself: well, the vain man is unconscious of his modesty!—
But this is my third human prudence: I do not let the sight of the evil be spoiled for me by your timidity.
I am happy to see the marvels the hot sun hatches: tigers and palms and rattlesnakes.
Also among men a beautiful breed hatches in the hot sun and much that is marvelous in the evil.
Indeed, as your wisest did not seem to me so very wise, so I also found that human evil did not live up to its reputation.
And I often shook my head and asked: why go on rattling, you rattlesnakes
?
Truly, there is still a future even for evil! And the hottest South is still undiscovered by man.
How many things are now called the worst evil, which are only twelve feet wide and three months long! But some day greater dragons will come into the world.
For that the Übermensch may not lack his dragon, the super-dragon, that is worthy of him: for that much hot sun must yet burn on damp jungles!
Your wild cats must first become tigers and your poisonous toads crocodiles: for the good hunter shall have a good hunt!
And truly, you good and just! In you there is much to be laughed at, and especially your fear of what has so far been called “the devil!”
What is great is so foreign to your souls that to you the Übermensch would be frightful in his goodness!
And you wise and knowing ones, you would flee from the burning sun of wisdom in which the Ubermensch joyfully baths his nakedness!
You highest men whom my eyes have seen! This is my doubt of you and my secret laughter: I suspect you would call my Übermensch—a devil!
Ah, I became tired of those highest and best: from their “height” I longed to go up, out, and away to the Übermensch!
A horror came over me when I saw those best ones naked: then there grew for me the wings to soar away into distant futures.
Into more distant futures, into more southerly Souths than ever artist dreamed of: there, where gods are ashamed of all clothes!
But I want to see you disguised, you neighbors and fellow men, and well dressed and vain and dignified as ‘the good and just.’—
And disguised I will myself sit among you—that I may mistake you and myself: for that is my last human prudence.—
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
THE STILLEST HOUR
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO me, my friends? You see me troubled, driven forth, unwillingly obedient, ready to go—ah, to go away from you!
Yes, once more Zarathustra must retire to his solitude: but this time the bear goes unhappily back to his cave!
Thus Spoke Zarathustra Page 16
