No More Learning

"

Of late did I see them run forth at early morn with valorous steps: but
the feet of their knowledge became weary, and now do they malign even
their morning valour!

Verily, many of them once lifted their legs like the dancer; to them
winked the laughter of my wisdom:--then did they bethink themselves.
Just now have I seen them bent down--to creep to the cross.

Around light and liberty did they once flutter like gnats and young
poets. A little older, a little colder: and already are they mystifiers,
and mumblers and mollycoddles.

Did perhaps their hearts despond, because lonesomeness had swallowed me
like a whale? Did their ear perhaps hearken yearningly-long for me IN
VAIN, and for my trumpet-notes and herald-calls?

--Ah! Ever are there but few of those whose hearts have persistent
courage and exuberance; and in such remaineth also the spirit patient.
The rest, however, are COWARDLY.

The rest: these are always the great majority, the common-place, the
superfluous, the far-too many--those all are cowardly! --

Him who is of my type, will also the experiences of my type meet on the
way: so that his first companions must be corpses and buffoons.

His second companions, however--they will call themselves his
BELIEVERS,--will be a living host, with much love, much folly, much
unbearded veneration.

To those believers shall he who is of my type among men not bind his
heart; in those spring-times and many-hued meadows shall he not believe,
who knoweth the fickly faint-hearted human species!

COULD they do otherwise, then would they also WILL otherwise. The
half-and-half spoil every whole. That leaves become withered,--what is
there to lament about that!

Let them go and fall away, O Zarathustra, and do not lament! Better even
to blow amongst them with rustling winds,--

--Blow amongst those leaves, O Zarathustra, that everything WITHERED may
run away from thee the faster! --

2.

"We have again become pious"--so do those apostates confess; and some of
them are still too pusillanimous thus to confess.

Unto them I look into the eye,--before them I say it unto their face and
unto the blush on their cheeks: Ye are those who again PRAY!

It is however a shame to pray! Not for all, but for thee, and me, and
whoever hath his conscience in his head. For THEE it is a shame to pray!

Thou knowest it well: the faint-hearted devil in thee, which would
fain fold its arms, and place its hands in its bosom, and take it
easier:--this faint-hearted devil persuadeth thee that "there IS a God! "

THEREBY, however, dost thou belong to the light-dreading type, to whom
light never permitteth repose: now must thou daily thrust thy head
deeper into obscurity and vapour!

And verily, thou choosest the hour well: for just now do the nocturnal
birds again fly abroad. The hour hath come for all light-dreading
people, the vesper hour and leisure hour, when they do not--"take
leisure. "

I hear it and smell it: it hath come--their hour for hunt and
procession, not indeed for a wild hunt, but for a tame, lame, snuffling,
soft-treaders', soft-prayers' hunt,--

--For a hunt after susceptible simpletons: all mouse-traps for the heart
have again been set! And whenever I lift a curtain, a night-moth rusheth
out of it.

Did it perhaps squat there along with another night-moth? For everywhere
do I smell small concealed communities; and wherever there are closets
there are new devotees therein, and the atmosphere of devotees.

They sit for long evenings beside one another, and say: "Let us again
become like little children and say, 'good God! '"--ruined in mouths and
stomachs by the pious confectioners.

Or they look for long evenings at a crafty, lurking cross-spider, that
preacheth prudence to the spiders themselves, and teacheth that "under
crosses it is good for cobweb-spinning! "

Or they sit all day at swamps with angle-rods, and on that account think
themselves PROFOUND; but whoever fisheth where there are no fish, I do
not even call him superficial!

Or they learn in godly-gay style to play the harp with a hymn-poet,
who would fain harp himself into the heart of young girls:--for he hath
tired of old girls and their praises.

Or they learn to shudder with a learned semi-madcap, who waiteth in
darkened rooms for spirits to come to him--and the spirit runneth away
entirely!

Or they listen to an old roving howl-and growl-piper, who hath learnt
from the sad winds the sadness of sounds; now pipeth he as the wind, and
preacheth sadness in sad strains.

And some of them have even become night-watchmen: they know now how to
blow horns, and go about at night and awaken old things which have long
fallen asleep.

Five words about old things did I hear yester-night at the garden-wall:
they came from such old, sorrowful, arid night-watchmen.

"For a father he careth not sufficiently for his children: human fathers
do this better! "--

"He is too old! He now careth no more for his children,"--answered the
other night-watchman.

"HATH he then children? No one can prove it unless he himself prove it!
I have long wished that he would for once prove it thoroughly. "

"Prove? As if HE had ever proved anything! Proving is difficult to him;
he layeth great stress on one's BELIEVING him. "

"Ay! Ay! Belief saveth him; belief in him. That is the way with old
people! So it is with us also! "--

--Thus spake to each other the two old night-watchmen and light-scarers,
and tooted thereupon sorrowfully on their horns: so did it happen
yester-night at the garden-wall.

To me, however, did the heart writhe with laughter, and was like to
break; it knew not where to go, and sunk into the midriff.

Verily, it will be my death yet--to choke with laughter when I see asses
drunken, and hear night-watchmen thus doubt about God.

Hath the time not LONG since passed for all such doubts? Who may
nowadays awaken such old slumbering, light-shunning things!

With the old Deities hath it long since come to an end:--and verily, a
good joyful Deity-end had they!

They did not "begloom" themselves to death--that do people fabricate! On
the contrary, they--LAUGHED themselves to death once on a time!

That took place when the unGodliest utterance came from a God
himself--the utterance: "There is but one God! Thou shalt have no other
Gods before me! "--

--An old grim-beard of a God, a jealous one, forgot himself in such
wise:--

And all the Gods then laughed, and shook upon their thrones, and
exclaimed: "Is it not just divinity that there are Gods, but no God? "

He that hath an ear let him hear. --

Thus talked Zarathustra in the city he loved, which is surnamed "The
Pied Cow. " For from here he had but two days to travel to reach once
more his cave and his animals; his soul, however, rejoiced unceasingly
on account of the nighness of his return home.




LIII. THE RETURN HOME.

O lonesomeness! My HOME, lonesomeness! Too long have I lived wildly in
wild remoteness, to return to thee without tears!

Now threaten me with the finger as mothers threaten; now smile upon me
as mothers smile; now say just: "Who was it that like a whirlwind once
rushed away from me? --

--Who when departing called out: 'Too long have I sat with lonesomeness;
there have I unlearned silence! ' THAT hast thou learned now--surely?

O Zarathustra, everything do I know; and that thou wert MORE FORSAKEN
amongst the many, thou unique one, than thou ever wert with me!

One thing is forsakenness, another matter is lonesomeness: THAT hast
thou now learned! And that amongst men thou wilt ever be wild and
strange:

--Wild and strange even when they love thee: for above all they want to
be TREATED INDULGENTLY!

Here, however, art thou at home and house with thyself; here canst thou
utter everything, and unbosom all motives; nothing is here ashamed of
concealed, congealed feelings.

Here do all things come caressingly to thy talk and flatter thee: for
they want to ride upon thy back. On every simile dost thou here ride to
every truth.

Uprightly and openly mayest thou here talk to all things: and verily,
it soundeth as praise in their ears, for one to talk to all
things--directly!

Another matter, however, is forsakenness. For, dost thou remember, O
Zarathustra? When thy bird screamed overhead, when thou stoodest in the
forest, irresolute, ignorant where to go, beside a corpse:--

--When thou spakest: 'Let mine animals lead me! More dangerous have I
found it among men than among animals:'--THAT was forsakenness!

And dost thou remember, O Zarathustra? When thou sattest in thine isle,
a well of wine giving and granting amongst empty buckets, bestowing and
distributing amongst the thirsty:

--Until at last thou alone sattest thirsty amongst the drunken ones, and
wailedst nightly: 'Is taking not more blessed than giving? And stealing
yet more blessed than taking? '--THAT was forsakenness!

And dost thou remember, O Zarathustra? When thy stillest hour came and
drove thee forth from thyself, when with wicked whispering it said:
'Speak and succumb! '--

--When it disgusted thee with all thy waiting and silence, and
discouraged thy humble courage: THAT was forsakenness! "--

O lonesomeness! My home, lonesomeness! How blessedly and tenderly
speaketh thy voice unto me!

We do not question each other, we do not complain to each other; we go
together openly through open doors.

For all is open with thee and clear; and even the hours run here on
lighter feet. For in the dark, time weigheth heavier upon one than in
the light.

Here fly open unto me all being's words and word-cabinets: here all
being wanteth to become words, here all becoming wanteth to learn of me
how to talk.

Down there, however--all talking is in vain! There, forgetting and
passing-by are the best wisdom: THAT have I learned now!

He who would understand everything in man must handle everything. But
for that I have too clean hands.

I do not like even to inhale their breath; alas! that I have lived so
long among their noise and bad breaths!

O blessed stillness around me! O pure odours around me! How from a deep
breast this stillness fetcheth pure breath! How it hearkeneth, this
blessed stillness!

But down there--there speaketh everything, there is everything misheard.
If one announce one's wisdom with bells, the shopmen in the market-place
will out-jingle it with pennies!

Everything among them talketh; no one knoweth any longer how to
understand. Everything falleth into the water; nothing falleth any
longer into deep wells.

Everything among them talketh, nothing succeedeth any longer and
accomplisheth itself. Everything cackleth, but who will still sit
quietly on the nest and hatch eggs?

Everything among them talketh, everything is out-talked. And that which
yesterday was still too hard for time itself and its tooth, hangeth
to-day, outchamped and outchewed, from the mouths of the men of to-day.

Everything among them talketh, everything is betrayed. And what was once
called the secret and secrecy of profound souls, belongeth to-day to the
street-trumpeters and other butterflies.

O human hubbub, thou wonderful thing! Thou noise in dark streets! Now
art thou again behind me:--my greatest danger lieth behind me!

In indulging and pitying lay ever my greatest danger; and all human
hubbub wisheth to be indulged and tolerated.

With suppressed truths, with fool's hand and befooled heart, and rich in
petty lies of pity:--thus have I ever lived among men.

Disguised did I sit amongst them, ready to misjudge MYSELF that I might
endure THEM, and willingly saying to myself: "Thou fool, thou dost not
know men! "

One unlearneth men when one liveth amongst them: there is too much
foreground in all men--what can far-seeing, far-longing eyes do THERE!

And, fool that I was, when they misjudged me, I indulged them on that
account more than myself, being habitually hard on myself, and often
even taking revenge on myself for the indulgence.

Stung all over by poisonous flies, and hollowed like the stone by
many drops of wickedness: thus did I sit among them, and still said to
myself: "Innocent is everything petty of its pettiness! "

Especially did I find those who call themselves "the good," the most
poisonous flies; they sting in all innocence, they lie in all innocence;
how COULD they--be just towards me!

He who liveth amongst the good--pity teacheth him to lie. Pity maketh
stifling air for all free souls. For the stupidity of the good is
unfathomable.

To conceal myself and my riches--THAT did I learn down there: for every
one did I still find poor in spirit. It was the lie of my pity, that I
knew in every one,

--That I saw and scented in every one, what was ENOUGH of spirit for
him, and what was TOO MUCH!

Their stiff wise men: I call them wise, not stiff--thus did I learn to
slur over words.

The grave-diggers dig for themselves diseases. Under old rubbish rest
bad vapours. One should not stir up the marsh. One should live on
mountains.

With blessed nostrils do I again breathe mountain-freedom. Freed at last
is my nose from the smell of all human hubbub!

With sharp breezes tickled, as with sparkling wine, SNEEZETH my soul--
sneezeth, and shouteth self-congratulatingly: "Health to thee! "

Thus spake Zarathustra.




LIV. THE THREE EVIL THINGS.

1.

In my dream, in my last morning-dream, I stood to-day on a promontory--
beyond the world; I held a pair of scales, and WEIGHED the world.

Alas, that the rosy dawn came too early to me: she glowed me awake, the
jealous one! Jealous is she always of the glows of my morning-dream.

Measurable by him who hath time, weighable by a good weigher, attainable
by strong pinions, divinable by divine nut-crackers: thus did my dream
find the world:--

My dream, a bold sailor, half-ship, half-hurricane, silent as the
butterfly, impatient as the falcon: how had it the patience and leisure
to-day for world-weighing!

Did my wisdom perhaps speak secretly to it, my laughing, wide-awake
day-wisdom, which mocketh at all "infinite worlds"? For it saith: "Where
force is, there becometh NUMBER the master: it hath more force. "

How confidently did my dream contemplate this finite world, not
new-fangledly, not old-fangledly, not timidly, not entreatingly:--

--As if a big round apple presented itself to my hand, a ripe golden
apple, with a coolly-soft, velvety skin:--thus did the world present
itself unto me:--

--As if a tree nodded unto me, a broad-branched, strong-willed tree,
curved as a recline and a foot-stool for weary travellers: thus did the
world stand on my promontory:--

--As if delicate hands carried a casket towards me--a casket open for
the delectation of modest adoring eyes: thus did the world present
itself before me to-day:--

--Not riddle enough to scare human love from it, not solution enough
to put to sleep human wisdom:--a humanly good thing was the world to me
to-day, of which such bad things are said!

How I thank my morning-dream that I thus at to-day's dawn, weighed
the world! As a humanly good thing did it come unto me, this dream and
heart-comforter!

And that I may do the like by day, and imitate and copy its best, now
will I put the three worst things on the scales, and weigh them humanly
well. --

He who taught to bless taught also to curse: what are the three best
cursed things in the world? These will I put on the scales.

VOLUPTUOUSNESS, PASSION FOR POWER, and SELFISHNESS: these three things
have hitherto been best cursed, and have been in worst and falsest
repute--these three things will I weigh humanly well.

Well! Here is my promontory, and there is the sea--IT rolleth hither
unto me, shaggily and fawningly, the old, faithful, hundred-headed
dog-monster that I love! --

Well! Here will I hold the scales over the weltering sea: and also a
witness do I choose to look on--thee, the anchorite-tree, thee, the
strong-odoured, broad-arched tree that I love! --

On what bridge goeth the now to the hereafter? By what constraint doth
the high stoop to the low? And what enjoineth even the highest still--to
grow upwards? --

Now stand the scales poised and at rest: three heavy questions have I
thrown in; three heavy answers carrieth the other scale.

2.

Voluptuousness: unto all hair-shirted despisers of the body, a sting and
stake; and, cursed as "the world," by all backworldsmen: for it mocketh
and befooleth all erring, misinferring teachers.

Voluptuousness: to the rabble, the slow fire at which it is burnt;
to all wormy wood, to all stinking rags, the prepared heat and stew
furnace.

Voluptuousness: to free hearts, a thing innocent and free, the
garden-happiness of the earth, all the future's thanks-overflow to the
present.

Voluptuousness: only to the withered a sweet poison; to the lion-willed,
however, the great cordial, and the reverently saved wine of wines.

Voluptuousness: the great symbolic happiness of a higher happiness
and highest hope. For to many is marriage promised, and more than
marriage,--

--To many that are more unknown to each other than man and woman:--and
who hath fully understood HOW UNKNOWN to each other are man and woman!

Voluptuousness:--but I will have hedges around my thoughts, and
even around my words, lest swine and libertine should break into my
gardens! --

Passion for power: the glowing scourge of the hardest of the heart-hard;
the cruel torture reserved for the cruellest themselves; the gloomy
flame of living pyres.

Passion for power: the wicked gadfly which is mounted on the vainest
peoples; the scorner of all uncertain virtue; which rideth on every
horse and on every pride.

Passion for power: the earthquake which breaketh and upbreaketh all
that is rotten and hollow; the rolling, rumbling, punitive demolisher
of whited sepulchres; the flashing interrogative-sign beside premature
answers.

Passion for power: before whose glance man creepeth and croucheth and
drudgeth, and becometh lower than the serpent and the swine:--until at
last great contempt crieth out of him--,

Passion for power: the terrible teacher of great contempt, which
preacheth to their face to cities and empires: "Away with thee! "--until
a voice crieth out of themselves: "Away with ME! "

Passion for power: which, however, mounteth alluringly even to the pure
and lonesome, and up to self-satisfied elevations, glowing like a love
that painteth purple felicities alluringly on earthly heavens.

Passion for power: but who would call it PASSION, when the height
longeth to stoop for power! Verily, nothing sick or diseased is there in
such longing and descending!

That the lonesome height may not for ever remain lonesome and
self-sufficing; that the mountains may come to the valleys and the winds
of the heights to the plains:--

Oh, who could find the right prenomen and honouring name for such
longing! "Bestowing virtue"--thus did Zarathustra once name the
unnamable.

And then it happened also,--and verily, it happened for the first
time! --that his word blessed SELFISHNESS, the wholesome, healthy
selfishness, that springeth from the powerful soul:--

--From the powerful soul, to which the high body appertaineth, the
handsome, triumphing, refreshing body, around which everything becometh
a mirror:

--The pliant, persuasive body, the dancer, whose symbol and epitome
is the self-enjoying soul. Of such bodies and souls the self-enjoyment
calleth itself "virtue. "

With its words of good and bad doth such self-enjoyment shelter itself
as with sacred groves; with the names of its happiness doth it banish
from itself everything contemptible.

Away from itself doth it banish everything cowardly; it saith:
"Bad--THAT IS cowardly! " Contemptible seem to it the ever-solicitous,
the sighing, the complaining, and whoever pick up the most trifling
advantage.

It despiseth also all bitter-sweet wisdom: for verily, there is also
wisdom that bloometh in the dark, a night-shade wisdom, which ever
sigheth: "All is vain! "

Shy distrust is regarded by it as base, and every one who wanteth oaths
instead of looks and hands: also all over-distrustful wisdom,--for such
is the mode of cowardly souls.

Baser still it regardeth the obsequious, doggish one, who immediately
lieth on his back, the submissive one; and there is also wisdom that is
submissive, and doggish, and pious, and obsequious.

Hateful to it altogether, and a loathing, is he who will never defend
himself, he who swalloweth down poisonous spittle and bad looks, the
all-too-patient one, the all-endurer, the all-satisfied one: for that is
the mode of slaves.

Whether they be servile before Gods and divine spurnings, or before men
and stupid human opinions: at ALL kinds of slaves doth it spit, this
blessed selfishness!
Bad: thus doth it call all that is spirit-broken, and
sordidly-servile--constrained, blinking eyes, depressed hearts, and the
false submissive style, which kisseth with broad cowardly lips.

And spurious wisdom: so doth it call all the wit that slaves, and
hoary-headed and weary ones affect; and especially all the cunning,
spurious-witted, curious-witted foolishness of priests!

The spurious wise, however, all the priests, the world-weary, and those
whose souls are of feminine and servile nature--oh, how hath their game
all along abused selfishness!

And precisely THAT was to be virtue and was to be called virtue--to
abuse selfishness! And "selfless"--so did they wish themselves with good
reason, all those world-weary cowards and cross-spiders!

But to all those cometh now the day, the change, the sword of judgment,
THE GREAT NOONTIDE: then shall many things be revealed!

And he who proclaimeth the EGO wholesome and holy, and selfishness
blessed, verily, he, the prognosticator, speaketh also what he knoweth:
"BEHOLD, IT COMETH, IT IS NIGH, THE GREAT NOONTIDE! "

Thus spake Zarathustra.




LV. THE SPIRIT OF GRAVITY.

1.

My mouthpiece--is of the people: too coarsely and cordially do I
talk for Angora rabbits. And still stranger soundeth my word unto all
ink-fish and pen-foxes.

My hand--is a fool's hand: woe unto all tables and walls, and whatever
hath room for fool's sketching, fool's scrawling!

My foot--is a horse-foot; therewith do I trample and trot over stick and
stone, in the fields up and down, and am bedevilled with delight in all
fast racing.

My stomach--is surely an eagle's stomach? For it preferreth lamb's
flesh. Certainly it is a bird's stomach.

Nourished with innocent things, and with few, ready and impatient
to fly, to fly away--that is now my nature: why should there not be
something of bird-nature therein!

And especially that I am hostile to the spirit of gravity, that is
bird-nature:--verily, deadly hostile, supremely hostile, originally
hostile! Oh, whither hath my hostility not flown and misflown!

Thereof could I sing a song--and WILL sing it: though I be alone in an
empty house, and must sing it to mine own ears.

Other singers are there, to be sure, to whom only the full house
maketh the voice soft, the hand eloquent, the eye expressive, the heart
wakeful:--those do I not resemble. --

2.

He who one day teacheth men to fly will have shifted all landmarks; to
him will all landmarks themselves fly into the air; the earth will he
christen anew--as "the light body. "

The ostrich runneth faster than the fastest horse, but it also thrusteth
its head heavily into the heavy earth: thus is it with the man who
cannot yet fly.

Heavy unto him are earth and life, and so WILLETH the spirit of gravity!
But he who would become light, and be a bird, must love himself:--thus
do _I_ teach.

Not, to be sure, with the love of the sick and infected, for with them
stinketh even self-love!

One must learn to love oneself--thus do I teach--with a wholesome and
healthy love: that one may endure to be with oneself, and not go roving
about.

Such roving about christeneth itself "brotherly love"; with these words
hath there hitherto been the best lying and dissembling, and especially
by those who have been burdensome to every one.

And verily, it is no commandment for to-day and to-morrow to LEARN to
love oneself. Rather is it of all arts the finest, subtlest, last and
patientest.

For to its possessor is all possession well concealed, and of all
treasure-pits one's own is last excavated--so causeth the spirit of
gravity.

Almost in the cradle are we apportioned with heavy words and worths:
"good" and "evil"--so calleth itself this dowry. For the sake of it we
are forgiven for living.

And therefore suffereth one little children to come unto one, to forbid
them betimes to love themselves--so causeth the spirit of gravity.

And we--we bear loyally what is apportioned unto us, on hard shoulders,
over rugged mountains! And when we sweat, then do people say to us:
"Yea, life is hard to bear! "

But man himself only is hard to bear! The reason thereof is that he
carrieth too many extraneous things on his shoulders. Like the camel
kneeleth he down, and letteth himself be well laden.

Especially the strong load-bearing man in whom reverence resideth. Too
many EXTRANEOUS heavy words and worths loadeth he upon himself--then
seemeth life to him a desert!

And verily! Many a thing also that is OUR OWN is hard to bear! And many
internal things in man are like the oyster--repulsive and slippery and
hard to grasp;--

So that an elegant shell, with elegant adornment, must plead for
them. But this art also must one learn: to HAVE a shell, and a fine
appearance, and sagacious blindness!

Again, it deceiveth about many things in man, that many a shell is poor
and pitiable, and too much of a shell. Much concealed goodness and power
is never dreamt of; the choicest dainties find no tasters!

Women know that, the choicest of them: a little fatter a little leaner--
oh, how much fate is in so little!

Man is difficult to discover, and unto himself most difficult of all;
often lieth the spirit concerning the soul. So causeth the spirit of
gravity.

He, however, hath discovered himself who saith: This is MY good and
evil: therewith hath he silenced the mole and the dwarf, who say: "Good
for all, evil for all. "

Verily, neither do I like those who call everything good, and this world
the best of all. Those do I call the all-satisfied.

All-satisfiedness, which knoweth how to taste everything,--that is
not the best taste! I honour the refractory, fastidious tongues and
stomachs, which have learned to say "I" and "Yea" and "Nay. "

To chew and digest everything, however--that is the genuine
swine-nature! Ever to say YE-A--that hath only the ass learnt, and those
like it! --

Deep yellow and hot red--so wanteth MY taste--it mixeth blood with all
colours. He, however, who whitewasheth his house, betrayeth unto me a
whitewashed soul.

With mummies, some fall in love; others with phantoms: both alike
hostile to all flesh and blood--oh, how repugnant are both to my taste!
For I love blood.

And there will I not reside and abide where every one spitteth and
speweth: that is now MY taste,--rather would I live amongst thieves and
perjurers. Nobody carrieth gold in his mouth.

Still more repugnant unto me, however, are all lickspittles; and the
most repugnant animal of man that I found, did I christen "parasite": it
would not love, and would yet live by love.

Unhappy do I call all those who have only one choice: either to become
evil beasts, or evil beast-tamers. Amongst such would I not build my
tabernacle.

Unhappy do I also call those who have ever to WAIT,--they are repugnant
to my taste--all the toll-gatherers and traders, and kings, and other
landkeepers and shopkeepers.

Verily, I learned waiting also, and thoroughly so,--but only waiting for
MYSELF. And above all did I learn standing and walking and running and
leaping and climbing and dancing.

This however is my teaching: he who wisheth one day to fly, must first
learn standing and walking and running and climbing and dancing:--one
doth not fly into flying!

With rope-ladders learned I to reach many a window, with nimble legs did
I climb high masts: to sit on high masts of perception seemed to me no
small bliss;--

--To flicker like small flames on high masts: a small light, certainly,
but a great comfort to cast-away sailors and ship-wrecked ones!

By divers ways and wendings did I arrive at my truth; not by one ladder
did I mount to the height where mine eye roveth into my remoteness.

And unwillingly only did I ask my way--that was always counter to my
taste! Rather did I question and test the ways themselves.

A testing and a questioning hath been all my travelling:--and verily,
one must also LEARN to answer such questioning! That, however,--is my
taste:

--Neither a good nor a bad taste, but MY taste, of which I have no
longer either shame or secrecy.

"This--is now MY way,--where is yours? " Thus did I answer those who
asked me "the way. " For THE way--it doth not exist!

Thus spake Zarathustra.




LVI. OLD AND NEW TABLES.

1.

Here do I sit and wait, old broken tables around me and also new
half-written tables. When cometh mine hour?

--The hour of my descent, of my down-going: for once more will I go unto
men.

For that hour do I now wait: for first must the signs come unto me that
it is MINE hour--namely, the laughing lion with the flock of doves.

Meanwhile do I talk to myself as one who hath time. No one telleth me
anything new, so I tell myself mine own story.

2.

When I came unto men, then found I them resting on an old infatuation:
all of them thought they had long known what was good and bad for men.

An old wearisome business seemed to them all discourse about virtue; and
he who wished to sleep well spake of "good" and "bad" ere retiring to
rest.

This somnolence did I disturb when I taught that NO ONE YET KNOWETH what
is good and bad:--unless it be the creating one!

--It is he, however, who createth man's goal, and giveth to the earth
its meaning and its future: he only EFFECTETH it THAT aught is good or
bad.

And I bade them upset their old academic chairs, and wherever that old
infatuation had sat; I bade them laugh at their great moralists, their
saints, their poets, and their Saviours.

At their gloomy sages did I bid them laugh, and whoever had sat
admonishing as a black scarecrow on the tree of life.

On their great grave-highway did I seat myself, and even beside the
carrion and vultures--and I laughed at all their bygone and its mellow
decaying glory.

Verily, like penitential preachers and fools did I cry wrath and shame
on all their greatness and smallness. Oh, that their best is so very
small! Oh, that their worst is so very small! Thus did I laugh.

Thus did my wise longing, born in the mountains, cry and laugh in me; a
wild wisdom, verily! --my great pinion-rustling longing.

And oft did it carry me off and up and away and in the midst of
laughter; then flew I quivering like an arrow with sun-intoxicated
rapture:

--Out into distant futures, which no dream hath yet seen, into warmer
souths than ever sculptor conceived,--where gods in their dancing are
ashamed of all clothes:

(That I may speak in parables and halt and stammer like the poets: and
verily I am ashamed that I have still to be a poet! )

Where all becoming seemed to me dancing of Gods, and wantoning of Gods,
and the world unloosed and unbridled and fleeing back to itself:--

--As an eternal self-fleeing and re-seeking of one another of many Gods,
as the blessed self-contradicting, recommuning, and refraternising with
one another of many Gods:--

Where all time seemed to me a blessed mockery of moments, where
necessity was freedom itself, which played happily with the goad of
freedom:--

Where I also found again mine old devil and arch-enemy, the spirit
of gravity, and all that it created: constraint, law, necessity and
consequence and purpose and will and good and evil:--

For must there not be that which is danced OVER, danced beyond? Must
there not, for the sake of the nimble, the nimblest,--be moles and
clumsy dwarfs? --

3.

There was it also where I picked up from the path the word "Superman,"
and that man is something that must be surpassed.

--That man is a bridge and not a goal--rejoicing over his noontides and
evenings, as advances to new rosy dawns:

--The Zarathustra word of the great noontide, and whatever else I have
hung up over men like purple evening-afterglows.

Verily, also new stars did I make them see, along with new nights;
and over cloud and day and night, did I spread out laughter like a
gay-coloured canopy.

I taught them all MY poetisation and aspiration: to compose and collect
into unity what is fragment in man, and riddle and fearful chance;--

--As composer, riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance, did I teach them
to create the future, and all that HATH BEEN--to redeem by creating.

The past of man to redeem, and every "It was" to transform, until the
Will saith: "But so did I will it! So shall I will it--"

--This did I call redemption; this alone taught I them to call
redemption. --

Now do I await MY redemption--that I may go unto them for the last time.

For once more will I go unto men: AMONGST them will my sun set; in dying
will I give them my choicest gift!

From the sun did I learn this, when it goeth down, the exuberant one:
gold doth it then pour into the sea, out of inexhaustible riches,--

--So that the poorest fisherman roweth even with GOLDEN oars! For this
did I once see, and did not tire of weeping in beholding it. --

Like the sun will also Zarathustra go down: now sitteth he here
and waiteth, old broken tables around him, and also new
tables--half-written.

4.

Behold, here is a new table; but where are my brethren who will carry it
with me to the valley and into hearts of flesh? --

Thus demandeth my great love to the remotest ones: BE NOT CONSIDERATE OF
THY NEIGHBOUR! Man is something that must be surpassed.

There are many divers ways and modes of surpassing: see THOU thereto!
But only a buffoon thinketh: "man can also be OVERLEAPT. "

Surpass thyself even in thy neighbour: and a right which thou canst
seize upon, shalt thou not allow to be given thee!

What thou doest can no one do to thee again. Lo, there is no requital.

He who cannot command himself shall obey. And many a one CAN command
himself, but still sorely lacketh self-obedience!

5.

Thus wisheth the type of noble souls: they desire to have nothing
GRATUITOUSLY, least of all, life.

He who is of the populace wisheth to live gratuitously; we others,
however, to whom life hath given itself--we are ever considering WHAT we
can best give IN RETURN!

And verily, it is a noble dictum which saith: "What life promiseth US,
that promise will WE keep--to life! "

One should not wish to enjoy where one doth not contribute to the
enjoyment. And one should not WISH to enjoy!

For enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things. Neither like
to be sought for. One should HAVE them,--but one should rather SEEK for
guilt and pain! --

6.

O my brethren, he who is a firstling is ever sacrificed. Now, however,
are we firstlings!

We all bleed on secret sacrificial altars, we all burn and broil in
honour of ancient idols.

Our best is still young: this exciteth old palates. Our flesh is tender,
our skin is only lambs' skin:--how could we not excite old idol-priests!

IN OURSELVES dwelleth he still, the old idol-priest, who broileth our
best for his banquet. Ah, my brethren, how could firstlings fail to be
sacrifices!

But so wisheth our type; and I love those who do not wish to preserve
themselves, the down-going ones do I love with mine entire love: for
they go beyond. --

7.

To be true--that CAN few be! And he who can, will not! Least of all,
however, can the good be true.

Oh, those good ones! GOOD MEN NEVER SPEAK THE TRUTH. For the spirit,
thus to be good, is a malady.

They yield, those good ones, they submit themselves; their heart
repeateth, their soul obeyeth: HE, however, who obeyeth, DOTH NOT LISTEN
TO HIMSELF!

All that is called evil by the good, must come together in order that
one truth may be born. O my brethren, are ye also evil enough for THIS
truth?

The daring venture, the prolonged distrust, the cruel Nay, the tedium,
the cutting-into-the-quick--how seldom do THESE come together! Out of
such seed, however--is truth produced!

BESIDE the bad conscience hath hitherto grown all KNOWLEDGE! Break up,
break up, ye discerning ones, the old tables!

8.

When the water hath planks, when gangways and railings o'erspan the
stream, verily, he is not believed who then saith: "All is in flux. "

But even the simpletons contradict him. "What? " say the simpletons, "all
in flux? Planks and railings are still OVER the stream!

"OVER the stream all is stable, all the values of things, the bridges
and bearings, all 'good' and 'evil': these are all STABLE! "--

Cometh, however, the hard winter, the stream-tamer, then learn even the
wittiest distrust, and verily, not only the simpletons then say: "Should
not everything--STAND STILL? "

"Fundamentally standeth everything still"--that is an appropriate winter
doctrine, good cheer for an unproductive period, a great comfort for
winter-sleepers and fireside-loungers.

"Fundamentally standeth everything still"--: but CONTRARY thereto,
preacheth the thawing wind!

The thawing wind, a bullock, which is no ploughing bullock--a furious
bullock, a destroyer, which with angry horns breaketh the ice! The ice
however--BREAKETH GANGWAYS!

O my brethren, is not everything AT PRESENT IN FLUX? Have not all
railings and gangways fallen into the water? Who would still HOLD ON to
"good" and "evil"?

"Woe to us! Hail to us! The thawing wind bloweth! "--Thus preach, my
brethren, through all the streets!

9.

There is an old illusion--it is called good and evil. Around soothsayers
and astrologers hath hitherto revolved the orbit of this illusion.

Once did one BELIEVE in soothsayers and astrologers; and THEREFORE did
one believe, "Everything is fate: thou shalt, for thou must! "

Then again did one distrust all soothsayers and astrologers; and
THEREFORE did one believe, "Everything is freedom: thou canst, for thou
willest! "

O my brethren, concerning the stars and the future there hath hitherto
been only illusion, and not knowledge; and THEREFORE concerning good and
evil there hath hitherto been only illusion and not knowledge!

10.

"Thou shalt not rob! Thou shalt not slay! "--such precepts were once
called holy; before them did one bow the knee and the head, and take off
one's shoes.

But I ask you: Where have there ever been better robbers and slayers in
the world than such holy precepts?

Is there not even in all life--robbing and slaying? And for such
precepts to be called holy, was not TRUTH itself thereby--slain?

--Or was it a sermon of death that called holy what contradicted and
dissuaded from life? --O my brethren, break up, break up for me the old
tables!

11.

It is my sympathy with all the past that I see it is abandoned,--

--Abandoned to the favour, the spirit and the madness of every
generation that cometh, and reinterpreteth all that hath been as its
bridge!

A great potentate might arise, an artful prodigy, who with approval and
disapproval could strain and constrain all the past, until it became for
him a bridge, a harbinger, a herald, and a cock-crowing.