Thus Spoke Zarathustra

by Friedrich Nietzsche

  “Truly, it is getting to be too much for me; these mountains are swarming, my kingdom is no longer of this world, I need new mountains.

  “My shadow calls me? What matters my shadow! Let it run after me! I—run away from it.”

  Thus spoke Zarathustra to his heart and ran away. But the one behind followed after him, so that immediately there were three runners, one after the other, namely, foremost the voluntary beggar, then Zarathustra, and thirdly and hindmost his shadow. But not long had they run thus when Zarathustra became conscious of his folly and shook off with one jerk all his irritation and disgust.

  “What!” he said, “haven’t the most ludicrous things always happened to us old hermits and saints?

  “Truly, my folly has grown high in the mountains! Now I hear six foolish old legs rattling behind one another!

  “But is Zarathustra really afraid of his own shadow? And anyway I think that it has longer legs than mine.”

  Thus spoke Zarathustra, and, laughing with his eyes and his guts, he stood still and turned around quickly-and behold, in doing so he almost threw his shadow and follower to the ground, so closely had the latter followed at his heels and so weak was he. For when Zarathustra scrutinized him with his glance, he was frightened as if he suddenly saw a ghost, so slight, dark, hollow and spent this follower seemed.

  “Who are you?” asked Zarathustra vehemently, “what are you doing here? And why do you call yourself my shadow? I do not like you.”

  “Forgive me,” answered the shadow, “that it is I; and you do not like me, well then, O Zarathustra! I admire you and your good taste for that.

  “I am a wanderer, who has already walked long at your heels; always on the way, but without a goal, also without a home: so that truly, I am not far from being the Eternal Jew, except that I am not eternal and not a Jew.

  “What? Must I ever be on the way? Whirled by every wind, unsettled, driven about? O earth, you have become too round for me!

  “On every surface I have already sat, like tired dust I have fallen asleep on mirrors and windowpanes: everything takes from me, nothing gives; I become thin—I am almost like a shadow.

  “But I have fled to you and followed you longest, O Zarathustra, and although I hid myself from you, I was nevertheless your best shadow: wherever you have sat I sat there too.

  “I wandered about with you in the remotest, coldest worlds, like a ghost that voluntarily haunts winter roofs and snows.

  “With you I have striven into all the forbidden, all the worst and the furthest: and if there is anything of virtue in me, it is that I have had no fear of any prohibition.

  “With you I have broken up whatever my heart revered, I have overthrown all border stones and statues, I pursued the most dangerous wishes-truly, I once went beyond every crime.

  “With you I unlearned the belief in words and values and great names. When the devil sheds his skin doesn’t his name also fall away? It is also skin. The devil himself is perhaps-skin.

  “ ‘Nothing is true, everything is permitted’: so I said to myself. Into the coldest water I plunged with head and heart. Ah, how often I stood there naked on that account, like a red crab!

  “Ah, where have all my goodness and all my shame and all my belief in the good gone! Ah, where is the lying innocence which I once possessed, the innocence of the good and of their noble lies!

  “Too often, truly, I followed close on the heels of truth: then it kicked me in the face. Sometimes I meant to lie, and behold! then only did I hit—the truth.

  “Too much has become clear to me: now it does not concern me any more. Nothing that I love lives any longer—how should I still love myself?

  “ ‘To live as I wish, or not to live at all’: so I want it; so also the holiest want it. But ah! how do I still have-desire?

  “Do I—still have a goal? A haven towards which my sail is set?

  “A good wind? Ah, only he who knows where he sails, knows what wind is good, and a fair wind for him.

  “What still remains to me? A heart weary and insolent; a restless will; fluttering wings; a broken backbone.

  “This seeking for my home: O Zarathustra, you know that this seeking has been my home-sickening, it consumes me.

  ‘Where is—my home?’ I ask and seek and have sought for it, I have not found it. O eternal everywhere, O eternal nowhere, O eternal-in vain!”

  Thus spoke the shadow and Zarathustra’s face lengthened at his words. “You are my shadow!” he said at last sadly.

  “Your danger is not small, you free spirit and wanderer! You have had a bad day: see that a still worse evening does not overtake you!

  “To such unsettled ones as you at last even a prison seems bliss. Have you ever seen how captured criminals sleep? They sleep quietly, they enjoy their new security.

  “Beware or else in the end a narrow faith will capture you, a hard, rigorous illusion! For now everything that is narrow and fixed seduces and tempts you.

  “You have lost your goal. Ah, how will you get over and laugh away that loss? With that—you have also lost your way!

  “You poor traveler, rambler, you tired butterfly! would you have a rest and a home this evening? Then go up to my cave!

  “There leads the way to my cave. And now I will run quickly away from you again. Already it is as if a shadow lay upon me.

  “I will run alone, so that it may again become bright around me. Therefore I must still be a long time merrily upon my legs. But in the evening we shall—dance!”____

  Thus spoke Zarathustra.

  AT NOON

  —AND ZARATHUSTRA RAN AND ran but he found no one else, and he was alone and ever found himself again, he enjoyed and drank his solitude and thought of good things for hours on end. About the hour of noon, however, when the sun stood exactly over Zarathustra’s head, he passed an old, bent and gnarled tree, which was encircled by the abundant love of a vine, and hidden from itself: from it there hung yellow grapes in profusion, confronting the wanderer. Then he felt inclined to quench a little thirst, and to break off for himself a cluster of grapes. But when he had already reached out his arm to do so, he felt still more inclined for something else: namely, to lie down beside the tree at the hour of perfect noon and sleep.

  This Zarathustra did; and no sooner had he laid himself on the ground in the stillness and secrecy of the mottled grass, than he forgot his modest thirst and fell asleep. For as the proverb of Zarathustra says: “One thing is more necessary than another.” Only his eyes remained open-for they never grew weary of viewing and admiring the tree and the love of the vine. In falling asleep, however, Zarathustra spoke thus to his heart:

  Hush! Hush! Has not the world become perfect just now? What has happened to me?

  As a delicate wind dances invisibly upon parqueted seas, light, feather light: thus-sleep dances on me.

  It does not close my eyes, it leaves my soul awake. It is light, truly! Feather light.

  It persuades me, I know not how, it touches me inwardly with a caressing hand, it compels me. Yes, it compels me, so that my soul stretches itself out:—

  —how long and weary it becomes, my strange soul! Has a seventh day’s evening come to it precisely at noon? Has it already wandered too long, blissfully, among good and ripe things?

  It stretches itself out, long, long—longer! it lies still, my strange soul. It has tasted too many good things, this golden sadness oppresses it, it twists its mouth.

  Like a ship that puts into the calmest cove-now it draws up to the land, weary of long voyages and uncertain seas. Is not the land more faithful?

  As such a ship hugs the shore, nestles the shore-there it’s enough for a spider to spin its thread from the ship to the land. No stronger ropes are needed.

  As such a weary ship in the calmest cove: so do I also repose now, near to the earth, faithful, trusting, waiting, bound to it with the lightest threads.

  O happiness! O happiness! you will perhaps sing, O my soul? You lie in the grass. But this is
the secret, solemn hour, when no shepherd plays his pipe.

  Take care! Hot noon sleeps on the fields. Do not sing! Hush! The world is perfect.

  Do not sing, you prairie bird, my soul! Do not even whisper! Look-hush! The old noon sleeps, it moves its mouth: does it not just now drink a drop of happiness—

  —An old brown drop of golden happiness, golden wine? Something whisks over it, its happiness laughs. Thus-does a god laugh. Hush!—

  —‘For happiness, how little is sufficient for happiness!’ Thus I spoke once and thought myself wise. But it was a blasphemy: that I have now learned. Wise fools speak better.

  The least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard’s rustling, a breath, a whisk, a glance of an eye-little makes up the best happiness. Hush!

  -What has happened to me? Listen! Has time flown away? Don’t I fall? Have I not fallen-hark! into the well of eternity?

  -What happens to me? Hush! It stings me—ah—to the heart? To the heart! Oh, break up, break up, my heart, after such happiness, after such a sting!

  -What? Has not the world become perfect just now? Round and ripe? Oh, for the golden round ring—where does it fly? Let me run after it! Quick!

  Hush—” (and here Zarathustra stretched himself, and felt that he was asleep.)

  “Up!” he said to himself, “You sleeper! You noon sleeper! Well then, up, you old legs! It is time and past time; many a good stretch of road is still awaiting you—

  Now you have slept your fill; for how long a time? A half-eternity! Well then, up now, my old heart! For how long after such a sleep may you—remain awake?”

  (But then he fell asleep again, and his soul contradicted him and defended itself, and lay down again)—“Leave me alone! Hush! Has not the world become perfect just now? Oh, for the golden round ball!—

  “Get up,” said Zarathustra, “you little thief, you slacker! What! Still stretching yourself, yawning, sighing, falling into deep wells?

  “Who are you then, O my soul!” (and here he became frightened, for a sunbeam shot down from the sky upon his face.)

  “O heaven above me,” he said sighing, and sat upright, “you gaze at me? You listen to my strange soul?

  “When will you drink this drop of dew that fell down upon all earthly things,—when will you drink this strange soul—

  —“when, you well of eternity! You joyous, awful, noon abyss! when will you drink my soul back into you?”

  Thus spoke Zarathustra, and rose from his bed beside the tree, as if awakening from a strange drunkenness: and behold! the sun stood there still exactly above his head. But one might rightly infer from this that Zarathustra had not slept long.

  THE GREETING

  IT WAS LATE IN the afternoon when Zarathustra, after long useless searching and strolling about, again came home to his cave. But when he stood over against it, not more than twenty paces from it, the thing happened which he now least of all expected: he heard again the great cry of distress. And extraordinary! this time the cry came out of his own cave. It was a protracted, manifold, strange cry, and Zarathustra plainly distinguished that it was composed of many voices: although heard at a distance it might sound like the cry of a single mouth.

  At that Zarathustra rushed forward to his cave, and behold! what a spectacle awaited him after that concert! For there sat together all whom he had passed during the day: the king on the right and the king on the left, the old magician, the pope, the voluntary beggar, the shadow, the conscientious man of the spirit, the sorrowful soothsayer, and the ass; but the ugliest man had set a crown on his head, and had wound two purple belts around himself, for he liked, like all the ugly, to disguise himself and pretend to be beautiful. But in the midst of that melancholy company stood Zarathustra’s eagle, ruffled and disquieted, for he had been expected to answer too many questions for which his pride had no answer; the wise serpent, however, hung round his neck.

  All this Zarathustra saw with great astonishment; but then he scrutinized each individual guest with gentle curiosity, read their souls and wondered again. In the meantime the assembled ones had risen from their seats, and waited respectfully for Zarathustra to speak. But Zarathustra spoke thus:

  “You despairing ones! You strange! So it was your cry of distress that I heard? And now I know also where he is to be sought, whom I have sought for in vain today: the higher man—:

  —“he sits in my own cave, the higher man! But why do I wonder! Haven’t I myself lured him to me by honey sacrifices and cunning bird calls of my happiness?

  “But it seems to me that you are badly suited for company: you make one another’s hearts fretful, you that cry for help, when you sit here together. There is one that must come first,

  —“one who will make you laugh once more, a good jovial jester, a dancer, a wind, a wild romp, some old fool:—what do you think?

  “But forgive me, you despairing ones, for speaking such trivial words before you, unworthy, truly, of such guests! But you do not divine what makes my heart frolic:—

  —“You yourselves do it, and the sight of you, forgive me! For every one who beholds a despairing one becomes courageous. To encourage a despairing one-every one thinks himself strong enough to do so.

  “To myself you have given this power,-a good gift, my honorable guests! An excellent guest’s gift! Well, do not reprimand when I also offer you something of my own.

  “This is my empire and my dominion: but that which is mine shall this evening and tonight be yours. My animals shall serve you: let my cave be your resting-place!

  “No one shall despair at home and hearth with me, in my preserve I protect every one from his wild beasts. And that is the first thing I offer you: security!

  “But the second thing is: my little finger. And when you have that, then take the whole hand, very well! and the heart too! Welcome here, welcome, my guests!”

  Thus spoke Zarathustra and laughed with love and mischief. After this greeting his guests bowed once more and were respectfully silent; the king on the right, however, answered him in their name.

  “O Zarathustra, by the way in which you have given us your hand and your greeting, we recognize you as Zarathustra. You have humbled yourself before us; you have almost injured our respect—:

  —“but who could have humbled himself as you have done, with such pride? That uplifts us ourselves, it is a refreshment to our eyes and hearts.

  “To see only this we would happily climb higher mountains than this. For we have come as eager sightseers, we wanted to see what brightens dim eyes.

  “And behold, now all our cries of distress are finished. Now our minds and hearts are open and enraptured. Our spirits lack little to become gay.

  “There is nothing, O Zarathustra, that grows more pleasingly on earth than a lofty, strong will: it is the finest growth. An entire landscape refreshes itself at one such tree.

  “To the pine I compare him, O Zarathustra, who grows up like you—tall, silent, hardy, solitary, of the best, supplest wood, stately,—

  —“but in the end grasping out for its dominion with strong, green branches, asking weighty questions of the wind, the storm, and whatever is at home on high places;

  —“answering more weightily, a commander, a victor! Oh! who should not climb high mountains to see such growths?

  “At your tree, O Zarathustra, the gloomy and ill-constituted also refresh themselves; seeing you even the wavering become steady and heal their hearts.

  “And truly, many eyes today turn towards your mountain and your tree; a great longing has arisen, and many have learned to ask: ‘Who is Zarathustra?’

  “And those into whose ears you have at any time dripped your song and your honey: all the hidden ones, the lonesome and the twosome, have simultaneously said to their hearts:

  “ ‘Does Zarathustra still live? Life is no longer worthwhile, everything is the same, all is in vain: or—we must live with Zarathustra!’

  “ ‘Why doesn’t he come who has so long
announced himself?’ thus many people ask; ‘has solitude swallowed him up? Or should we perhaps go to him?’

  “Now it comes to pass that solitude itself becomes fragile and breaks open, like a grave that breaks open and can no longer hold its dead. Everywhere one sees the resurrected.

  “Now the waves rise and rise around your mountain, 0 Zarathustra. And however high your height may be, many of them must rise up to you: your boat shall not rest much longer on dry ground.

  “And that we despairing ones have now come into your cave, and already no longer despair:-it is only a sign and omen that better ones are on the way to you,—

  —“for they themselves are on the way to you, the last remnant of god among men: that is, all the men of great longing, of great loathing, of great satiety,

  —“all who do not want to live unless they learn again to hope—unless they learn from you, O Zarathustra, the great hope!”

  Thus spoke the king on the right, and seized the hand of Zarathustra in order to kiss it; but Zarathustra resisted his adoration and stepped back frightened, as if fleeing silently and suddenly into the far distance. But after a little while he was again at home with his guests, looked at them with clear scrutinizing eyes, and said:

  “My guests, you higher men, I will speak in plain and clear German with you. It is not for you that I have waited here in these mountains.”

  (“ ‘Plain and clear German?’ Good God!” said the king on the left to himself; “one sees he does not know our dear Germans, this wise man from the East!

  “But he means ‘coarse German’—very well! That is not the worst taste in these days!”)

  “You may, truly, all of you be higher men,” continued Zarathustra; “but for me—you are neither high enough, nor strong enough.