No More Learning

A sublime one saw I to-day, a solemn one, a
penitent of the spirit: Oh, how my soul laughed
at his ugliness!
With upraised breast, and like those who draw
in their breath: thus did he stand, the sublime
one, and in silence :


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XXXV. —THE SUBLIME ONES. 139
O'erhung with ugly truths, the spoil of his
hunting, and rich in torn raiment; many thorns
also hung on him—but I saw no rose.
Not yet had he learned laughing and beauty.
Gloomy did this hunter return from the forest of
knowledge.
From the fight with wild beasts returned he
home: but even yet a wild beast gazeth out of his
seriousness—an unconquered wild beast!
As a tiger doth he ever stand, on the point of
springing; but I do not like those strained souls;
ungracious is my taste towards all those self-
engrossed ones.
And ye tell me, friends, that there is to be no
dispute about taste and tasting? But all life is a
dispute about taste and tasting!
Taste: that is weight at the same time, and
scales and weigher; and alas for every living
thing that would live without dispute about weight
and scales and weigher!
Should he become weary of his sublimeness, this
sublime one, then only will his beauty begin—
and then only will I taste him and find him
savoury.
And only when he turneth away from himself
will he o'erleap his own shadow—and verily! into
his sun.
Far too long did he sit in the shade, the cheeks
of the penitent of the spirit became pale; he almost
starved on his expectations.
Contempt is still in his eye, and loathing hideth
in his mouth. To be sure, he now resteth, but he
hath not yet taken rest in the sunshine.


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140 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II.
As the ox ought he to do; and his happiness
should smell of the earth, and not of contempt for
the earth.
As a white ox would I like to see him, which,
snorting and lowing, walketh before the plough-
share: and his lowing should also laud all that is
earthly!
Dark is still his countenance; the shadow of his
hand danceth upon it. O'ershadowed is still the
sense of his eye.
His deed itself is still the shadow upon him:
his doing obscureth the doer. Not yet hath he
overcome his deed.
To be sure, I love in him the shoulders of the
ox: but now do I want to see also the eye of the
angel.
Also his hero-will hath he still to unlearn: an
exalted one shall he be, and not only a sublime
one :—the ether itself should raise him, the willess
one! x
He hath subdued monsters, he hath solved
enigmas. But he should also redeem his monsters
and enigmas; into heavenly children should he
transform them.
As yet hath his knowledge not learned to smile,
and to be without jealousy; as yet hath his gushing
passion not become calm in beauty.
Verily, not in satiety shall his longing cease and
disappear, but in beauty! Gracefulness belongeth
to the munificence of the magnanimous.
His arm across his head: thus should the hero
repose; thus should he also surmount his repose.
But precisely to the hero is beauty the hardest


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XXXV. —THE SUBLIME ONES. 141
thing of all. Unattainable is beauty by all ardent
wills.
A little more, a little less: precisely this is much
here, it is the most here.
To stand with relaxed muscles and with un-
harnessed will: that is the hardest for all of you,
ye sublime ones!
When power becometh gracious and descendeth
into the visible—I call such condescension, beauty.
And from no one do I want beauty so much as
from thee, thou powerful one: let thy goodness be
thy last self-conquest.
All evil do I accredit to thee: therefore do I
desire of thee the good.
Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings,
who think themselves good because they have
crippled paws!
The virtue of the pillar shalt thou strive after:
more beautiful doth it ever become, and more
graceful—but internally harder and more sustain-
ing—the higher it riseth.
Yea, thou sublime one, one day shalt thou also
be beautiful, and hold up the mirror to thine own
beauty.
Then will thy soul thrill with divine desires; and
there will be adoration even in thy vanity!
For this is the secret of the soul: when the hero
hath abandoned it, then only approacheth it in
dreams—the superhero. —
Thus spake Zarathustra.


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142
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II.
XXXVI. —THE LAND OF CULTURE.
Too far did I fly into the future: a horror seized
upon me.
And when I looked around me, lo! there time
was my sole contemporary.
Then did I fly backwards, homewards—and
always faster. Thus did I come unto you, ye
present-day men, and into the land of culture.
For the first time brought I an eye to see you,
and good desire: verily, with longing in my heart
did I come.
But how did it turn out with me? Although so
alarmed—I had yet to laugh! Never did mine eye
see anything so motley-coloured !
I laughed and laughed, while my foot still
trembled, and my heart as well. “Here, forsooth,
is the home of all the paintpots,”—said I.
With fifty patches painted on faces and limbs-
so sat ye there to mine astonishment, ye present-
day men !
And with fifty mirrors around you, which flattered
your play of colours, and repeated it!
Verily, ye could wear no better masks, ye present-
day men, than your own faces! Who could-
recognise you!
Written all over with the characters of the past,
and these characters also pencilled over with new
characters—thus have ye concealed yourselves well
from all decipherers !
And though one be a trier of the reins, who still
believeth that ye have reins! Out of colours ye
seem to be baked, and out of glued scraps.


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XXXVI. —THE LAND OF CULTURE. I43
All times and peoples gaze divers-coloured out
of your veils; all customs and beliefs speak divers-
coloured out of your gestures.
He who would strip you of veils and wrappers,
and paints and gestures, would just have enough
left to scare the crows.
Verily, I myself am the scared crow that once
saw you naked, and without paint; and I flew away
when the skeleton ogled at me.
Rather would I be a day-labourer in the nether-
world, and among the shades of the by-gone! —
Fatter and fuller than ye, are forsooth the nether-
worldlings!
This, yea this, is bitterness to my bowels, that I
can neither endure you naked nor clothed, ye
present-day men!
All that is unhomelike in the future, and what-
ever maketh strayed birds shiver, is verily more
homelike and familiar than your " reality. "
For thus speak ye: "Real are we wholly, and
without faith and superstition ": thus do ye plume
yourselves—alas! even without plumes!
Indeed, how would ye be able to believe, ye
divers-coloured ones! —ye who are pictures of all
that hath ever been believed!
Perambulating refutations are ye, of belief itself,
and a dislocation of all thought. Untrustworthy
ones: thus do / call you, ye real ones!
All periods prate against one another in your
spirits; and the dreams and pratings of all periods
were even realer than your awakeness!
Unfruitful are ye: therefore do ye lack belief.
But he who had to create, had always his presaging


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144
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II.
dreams and astral premonitions—and believed in
believing ! -
Half-open doors are ye, at which grave-diggers
wait. And this is your reality: “Everything
deserveth to perish. ”
Alas, how ye stand there before me, ye unfruitful
ones; how lean your ribs! And many of you
surely have had knowledge thereof.
Many a one hath said: “There hath surely a
God filched something from me secretly whilst I
slept? Verily, enough to make a girl for himself
therefrom!
“Amazing is the poverty of my ribs ! ” thus hath
spoken many a present-day man.
Yea, ye are laughable unto me, ye present-day
men! And especially when ye marvel at yourselves !
And woe unto me if I could not laugh at your
marvelling, and had to swallow all that is repugnant
in your platters!
As it is, however, I will make lighter of you, since
I have to carry what is heavy; and what matter if
beetles and May-bugs also alight on my load!
Verily, it shall not on that account become heavier
to me! And not from you, ye present-day men,
shall my great weariness arise. -
Ah, whither shall I now ascend with my longing !
From all mountains do I look out for fatherlands
and motherlands.
But a home have I found nowhere : unsettled am
I in all cities, and decamping at all gates.
Alien to me, and a mockery, are the present-day
men, to whom of late my heart impelled me; and
exiled am I from fatherlands and motherlands,


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XXXVI. -THE LAND OF CULTURE.
145
Thus do I love only my children's land, the
undiscovered in the remotest sea : for it do I bid
my sails search and search.
Unto my children will I make amends for being
the child of my fathers : and unto all the future-
for this present-day !
Thus spake Zarathustra.
XXXVII. -IMMACULATE PERCEPTION.
When yester-eve the moon arose, then did I fancy
it about to bear a sun : so broad and teeming did
it lie on the horizon.
But it was a liar with its pregnancy; and sooner
will I believe in the man in the moon than in the
woman.
To be sure, little of a man is he also, that timid
night-reveller. Verily, with a bad conscience doth
he stalk over the roofs.
For he is covetous and jealous, the monk in the
moon; covetous of the earth, and all the joys of
lovers.
Nay, I like him not, that tom-cat on the roofs !
Hateful unto me are all that slink around half-
closed windows!
Piously and silently doth he stalk along on the
star-carpets :—but I like no light-treading human
feet, on which not even a spur jingleth.
Every honest one's step speaketh; the cat
however, stealeth along over the ground. Lo! cat-
like doth the moon come along, and dishonestly. -
This parable speak I unto you sentimental


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146 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II.
dissemblers, unto you, the " pure discerners! " You
do / call—covetous ones!
Also ye love the earth, and the earthly: I have
divined you well! —but shame is in your love, and
a bad conscience—ye are like the moon!
To despise the earthly hath your spirit been
persuaded, but not your bowels: these, however, are
the strongest in you!
And now is your spirit ashamed to be at the
service of your bowels, and goeth by-ways and lying
ways to escape its own shame.
"That would be the highest thing for me "—so
saith your lying spirit unto itself—" to gaze upon
life without desire, and not like the dog, with hang-
ing-out tongue:
To be happy in gazing: with dead will, free
from the grip and greed of selfishness—cold and
ashy-grey all over, but with intoxicated moon-
eyes!
That would be the dearest thing to me "—thus
doth the seduced one seduce himself,—" to love the
earth as the moon loveth it, and with the eye only
to feel its beauty.
And this do I call immaculate perception of all
things: to want nothing else from them, but to be
allowed to lie before them as a mirror with a
hundred facets. "—
Oh, ye sentimental dissemblers, ye covetous ones!
Ye lack innocence in your desire: and now do ye
defame desiring on that account!
Verily, not as creators, as procreators, or as
jubilators do ye love the earth!
Where is innocence? Where there is will to


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XXXVII. —IMMACULATE PERCEPTION. 147
procreation. And he who seeketh to create beyond
himself, hath for me the purest will.
Where is beauty? Where I must will with my
whole Will; where I will love and perish, that an
image may not remain merely an image.
Loving and perishing: these have rhymed from
eternity. Will to love: that is to be ready also for
death. Thus do I speak unto you cowards!
But now doth your emasculated ogling profess
to be "contemplation! " And that which can be
examined with cowardly eyes is to be christened
"beautiful! " Oh, ye violators of noble names!
But it shall be your curse, ye immaculate ones, ye
pure discerners, that ye shall never bring forth, even
though ye lie broad and teeming on the horizon!
Verily, ye fill your mouth with noble words: and
we are to believe that your heart overfloweth, ye
cozeners?
But my words are poor, contemptible, stammer-
ing words: gladly do I pick up what falleth from
the table at your repasts.
Yet still can I say with them the truth—to
dissemblers! Yea, my fish-bones, shells, and prickly
leaves shall—tickle the noses of dissemblers!
Bad air is always about you and your repasts:
your lascivious thoughts, your lies, and secrets are
indeed in the air!
Dare only to believe in yourselves—in yourselves
and in your inward parts! He who doth not
believe in himself always lieth.
A God's mask have ye hung in front of you, ye
"pure ones": into a God's mask hath your execrable
coiling snake crawled.


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148
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II.
Verily ye deceive, ye "contemplative ones! ”
Even Zarathustra was once the dupe of your
godlike exterior; he did not divine the serpent's
coil with which it was stuffed.
A God's soul, I once thought I saw playing in
your games, ye pure discerners! No better arts
did I once dream of than your arts !
Serpents' filth and evil odour, the distance con-
cealed from me: and that a lizard's craft prowled
thereabouts lasciviously.
But I came nigh unto you: then came to me
the day,—and now cometh it to you,—at an end is
the moon's love affair !
See there! Surprised and pale doth it stand-
before the rosy dawn!
For already she cometh, the glowing one,-her
love to the earth cometh! Innocence and creative
desire, is all solar love!
See there, how she cometh impatiently over the
sea! Do ye not feel the thirst and the hot breath
of her love?
At the sea would she suck, and drink its depths
to her height: now riseth the desire of the sea with
its thousand breasts.
Kissed and sucked would it be by the thirst of
the sun; vapour would it become, and height, and
path of light, and light itself!
Verily, like the sun do I love life, and all deep
seas.
And this meaneth to me knowledge: all that is
deep shall ascend—to my height! -
Thus spake Zarathustra.


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XXXVIII. —SCHOLARS. 149
XXXVIII. —SCHOLARS.
When I lay asleep, then did a sheep eat at the
ivy-wreath of my head,—it ate, and said thereby:
"Zarathustra is no longer a scholar. "
It said this, and went away clumsily and proudly.
A child told it to me.
I like to lie here where the children play, beside
the ruined wall, among thistles and red poppies.
A scholar am I still to the children, and also to
the thistles and red poppies. Innocent are they,
even in their wickedness.
But to the sheep am I no longer a scholar: so
willeth my lot—blessings upon it!
For this is the truth: I have departed from the
house of the scholars, and the door have I also
slammed behind me.
Too long did my soul sit hungry at their table:
not like them have I got the knack of investigating,
as the knack of nut-cracking.
Freedom do I love, and the air over fresh soil;
rather would I sleep on ox-skins than on their
honours and dignities.
I am too hot and scorched with mine own
thought: often is it ready to take away my breath.
Then have I to go into the open air, and away
from all dusty rooms.
But they sit cool in the cool shade: they want in
everything to be merely spectators, and they avoid
sitting where the sun burneth on the steps.
Like those who stand in the street and gape at
the passers-by: thus do they also wait, and gape
at the thoughts which others have thought.


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ISO THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II.
Should one lay hold of them, then do they raise
a dust like flour-sacks, and involuntarily: but who
would divine that their dust came from corn, and
from the yellow delight of the summer fields?
When they give themselves out as wise, then do
their petty sayings and truths chill me: in their
wisdom there is often an odour as if it came from
the swamp; and verily, I have even heard the frog
croak in it!
Clever are they—they have dexterous fingers:
what doth my simplicity pretend to beside their
multiplicity! All threading and knitting and
weaving do their fingers understand: thus do they
make the hose of the spirit!
Good clockworks are they: only be careful to
wind them up properly! Then do they indicate
the hour without mistake, and make a modest noise
thereby.
Like millstones do they work, and like pestles:
throw only seed-corn unto them! —they know well
how to grind corn small, and make white dust out
of it.
They keep a sharp eye on one another, and do
not trust each other the best. Ingenious in little
artifices, they wait for those whose knowledge
walketh on lame feet,—like spiders do they wait
.
I saw them always prepare their poison with
precaution; and always did they put glass gloves
on their fingers in doing so.
They also know how to play with false dice; and
so eagerly did I find them playing, that they per-
spired thereby.
We are alien to each other, and their virtues are


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XXXVIII. —SCHOLARS. 151
even more repugnant to my taste than their false-
hoods and false dice.
And when I lived with them, then did I live
above them. Therefore did they take a dislike to
me.
They want to hear nothing of any one walking
above their heads; and so they put wood and earth
and rubbish betwixt me and their heads.
Thus did they deafen the sound of my tread:
and least have I hitherto been heard by the most
learned.
All mankind's faults and weaknesses did they
put betwixt themselves and me :—they call it " false
ceiling" in their houses.
But nevertheless I walk with my thoughts above
their heads; and even should I walk on mine own
errors, still would I be above them and their heads.
For men are not equal: so speaketh justice. And
what I will, they may not will! —
Thus spake Zarathustra.
XXXIX. —POETS.
"Since I have known the body better"—said
Zarathustra to one of his disciples—" the spirit hath
only been to me symbolically spirit; and all the
'imperishable'—that is also but a simile. "
"So have I heard thee say once before," answered
the disciple, " and then thou addedst: 'But the
poets lie too much. ' Why didst thou say that the
poets lie too much? "
"Why? " said Zarathustra. "Thou askest why?
i


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ISO THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II.
Should one lay hold of them, then do they raise
a dust like flour-sacks, and involuntarily: but who
would divine that their dust came from corn, and
from the yellow delight of the summer fields?
When they give themselves out as wise, then do
their petty sayings and truths chill me: in their
wisdom there is often an odour as if it came from
the swamp; and verily, I have even heard the frog
croak in it!
Clever are they—they have dexterous fingers:
what doth my simplicity pretend to beside their
multiplicity! All threading and knitting and
weaving do their fingers understand: thus do they
make the hose of the spirit!
Good clockworks are they: only be careful to
wind them up properly! Then do they indicate
the hour without mistake, and make a modest noise
thereby.
Like millstones do they work, and like pestles:
throw only seed-corn unto them ! —they know well
how to grind corn small, and make white dust out
of it
.
They keep a sharp eye on one another, and do
not trust each other the best. Ingenious in little
artifices, they wait for those whose knowledge
walketh on lame feet,—like spiders do they wait
.
I saw them always prepare their poison with
precaution; and always did they put glass gloves
on their fingers in doing so.
They also know how to play with false dice; and
so eagerly did I find them playing, that they per-
spired thereby.
We are alien to each other, and their virtues are


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XXXVIII. —SCHOLARS. 151
even more repugnant to my taste than their false-
hoods and false dice.
And when I lived with them, then did I live
above them. Therefore did they take a dislike to
me.
They want to hear nothing of any one walking
above their heads; and so they put wood and earth
and rubbish betwixt me and their heads.
Thus did they deafen the sound of my tread:
and least have I hitherto been heard by the most
learned.
All mankind's faults and weaknesses did they
put betwixt themselves and me :—they call it " false
ceiling" in their houses.
But nevertheless I walk with my thoughts above
their heads; and even should I walk on mine own
errors, still would I be above them and their heads.
For men are not equal: so speaketh justice. And
what I will, they may not will! —
Thus spake Zarathustra.
XXXIX. —POETS.
"Since I have known the body better"—said
Zarathustra to one of his disciples—" the spirit hath
only been to me symbolically spirit; and all the
'imperishable'—that is also but a simile. "
"So have I heard thee say once before," answered
the disciple, " and then thou addedst: 'But the
poets lie too much. ' Why didst thou say that the
poets lie too much? "
"Why? " said Zarathustra. "Thou askest why?


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150 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II.
Should one lay hold of them, then do they raise
a dust like flour-sacks, and involuntarily: but who
would divine that their dust came from corn, and
from the yellow delight of the summer fields?
When they give themselves out as wise, then do
their petty sayings and truths chill me: in their
wisdom there is often an odour as if it came from
the swamp; and verily, I have even heard the frog
croak in it!
Clever are they—they have dexterous fingers:
what doth my simplicity pretend to beside their
multiplicity! All threading and knitting and
weaving do their fingers understand: thus do they
make the hose of the spirit!
Good clockworks are they: only be careful to
wind them up properly! Then do they indicate
the hour without mistake, and make a modest noise
thereby.
Like millstones do they work, and like pestles:
throw only seed-corn unto them ! —they know well
how to grind corn small, and make white dust out
of it.
They keep a sharp eye on one another, and do
not trust each other the best. Ingenious in little
artifices, they wait for those whose knowledge
walketh on lame feet,—like spiders do they wait
.
I saw them always prepare their poison with
precaution; and always did they put glass gloves
on their fingers in doing so.
They also know how to play with false dice; and
so eagerly did I find them playing, that they per-
spired thereby.
We are alien to each other, and their virtues are


## p. 151 (#237) ############################################

XXXVIII. —SCHOLARS. 151
even more repugnant to my taste than their false-
hoods and false dice.
And when I lived with them, then did I live
above them. Therefore did they take a dislike to
me.
They want to hear nothing of any one walking
above their heads; and so they put wood and earth
and rubbish betwixt me and their heads.
Thus did they deafen the sound of my tread:
and least have I hitherto been heard by the most
learned.
All mankind's faults and weaknesses did they
put betwixt themselves and me:—they call it " false
ceiling" in their houses.
But nevertheless I walk with my thoughts above
their heads; and even should I walk on mine own
errors, still would I be above them and their heads.
For men are not equal: so speaketh justice. And
what I will, they may not will! —
Thus spake Zarathustra.
XXXIX. —POETS.
"Since I have known the body better"—said
Zarathustra to one of his disciples—" the spirit hath
only been to me symbolically spirit; and all the
'imperishable'—that is also but a simile. "
"So have I heard thee say once before," answered
the disciple, " and then thou addedst: 'But the
poets lie too much. ' Why didst thou say that the
poets lie too much? "
"Why? " said Zarathustra. "Thou askest why?


## p. 152 (#238) ############################################

152 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II.
I do not belong to those who may be asked after
their Why.
Is my experience but of yesterday? It is long
ago that I experienced the reasons for mine
opinions.
Should I not have to be a cask of memory, if I
also wanted to have my reasons with me?
It is already too much for me even to retain mine
opinions; and many a bird flieth away.
And sometimes, also, do I find a fugitive creature
in my dovecote, which is alien to me, and trembleth
when I lay my hand upon it.
But what did Zarathustra once say unto thee?
That the poets lie too much ? —But Zarathustra
also is a poet.
Believest thou that he there spake the truth?
Why dost thou believe it? "
The disciple answered: "I believe in Zarathustra. "
But Zarathustra shook his head and smiled. —
Belief doth not sanctify me, said he, least of all
the belief in myself.
But granting that some one did say in all serious-
ness that the poets lie too much: he was right—
we do lie too much.
We also know too little, and are bad learners:
so we are obliged to lie.
And which of us poets hath not adulterated his
wine? Many a poisonous hotchpotch hath evolved
in our cellars: many an indescribable thing hath
there been done.
And because we know little, therefore are we
pleased from the heart with the poor in spirit,
especially when they are young women!


## p. 153 (#239) ############################################

XXXIX. —poets. 153
And even of those things are we desirous, which
old women tell one another in the evening. This
do we call the eternally feminine in us.
And as if there were a special secret access to
knowledge, which choketh up for those who learn
anything, so do we believe in the people and in
their " wisdom. "
This, however, do all poets believe: that whoever
pricketh up his ears when lying in the grass or on
lonely slopes, learneth something of the things that
are betwixt heaven and earth.
And if there come unto them tender emotions,
then do the poets always think that nature herself
is in love with them:
And that she stealeth to their ear to whisper
secrets into it, arid amorous flatteries : of this do they
plume and pride themselves, before all mortals!
Ah, there are so many things betwixt heaven and
earth of which only the poets have dreamed!
And especially above the heavens: for all Gods
are poet-symbolisations, poet-sophistications!
Verily, ever are we drawn aloft—that is, to the
realm of the clouds: on these do we set our gaudy
puppets, and then call them Gods and Supermen:—
Are not they light enough for those chairs! —all
these Gods and Supermen ? —
Ah, how I am weary of all the inadequate that
is insisted on as actual! Ah, how I am weary of
the poets!
When Zarathustra so spake, his disciple resented
it, but was silent. And Zarathustra also was silent;
and his eye directed itself inwardly, as if it gazed
/"


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154
THUS SPARE
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II.
into the far distance. At last he sighed and drew
breath.
I am of to-day and heretofore, said he thereupon ;
but something is in me that is of the morrow, and
the day following, and the hereafter.
I became weary of the poets, of the old and of
the new : superficial are they all unto me, and
shallow seas.
They did not think sufficiently into the depth;
therefore their feeling did not reach to the bottom.
Some sensation of voluptuousness and some
sensation of tedium : these have as yet been their
best contemplation.
Ghost-breathing and ghost-whisking, seemeth
to me all the jingle-jangling of their harps; what
have they known hitherto of the fervour of tones ! -
They are also not pure enough for me: they all
muddle their water that it may seem deep.
And fain would they thereby prove themselves
reconcilers : but mediaries and mixers are they
unto me, and half-and-half, and impure ! -
Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and
meant to catch good fish; but always did I draw
up the head of some ancient God.
Thus did the sea give a stone to the hungry one.
And they themselves may well originate from the
sea.
Certainly, one findeth pearls in them: thereby
they are the more like hard molluscs. And instead
of a soul, I have often found in them salt slime.
They have learned from the sea also its vanity :
is not the sea the peacock of peacocks ?
Even before the ugliest of all buffaloes doth it


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XXXIX. —POETS.
155
spread out its tail; never doth it tire of its lace-fan
of silver and silk.
Disdainfully doth the buffalo glance thereat, nigh
to the sand with its soul, nigher still to the thicket,
nighest, however, to the swamp.
What is beauty and sea and peacock-splendour
to it! This parable I speak unto the poets.
Verily, their spirit itself is the peacock of pea-
cocks, and a sea of vanity!
Spectators, seeketh the spirit of the poet-should
they even be buffaloes -
But of this spirit became I weary; and I see the
time coming when it will become weary of itself.
Yea, changed have I seen the poets, and their
glance turned towards themselves.
Penitents of the spirit have I seen appearing ;
they grew out of the poets. —
Thus spake Zarathustra.
XL. -GREAT EVENTS.
There is an isle in the sea—not far from the
Happy Isles of Zarathustra—on which a volcano
ever smoketh; of which isle the people, and
especially the old women amongst them, say that
it is placed as a rock before the gate of the nether-
world; but that through the volcano itself the
narrow way leadeth downwards which conducteth
to this gate.
Now about the time that Zarathustra sojourned
on the Happy Isles, it happened that a ship anchored
at the isle on which standeth the smoking moun-


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156 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II.
tain, and the crew went ashore to shoot rabbits.
About the noontide hour, however, when the
captain and his men were together again, they
saw suddenly a man coming towards them through
the air, and a voice said distinctly: "It is time!
It is the highest time! " But when the figure was
nearest to them (it flew past quickly, however, like
a shadow, in the direction of the volcano), then did
they recognise with the greatest surprise that it
was Zarathustra; for they had all seen him before
except the captain himself, and they loved him as
the people love: in such wise that love and awe
were combined in equal degree.
"Behold! " said the old helmsman, "there goeth
Zarathustra to hell! "
About the same time that these sailors landed
on the fire-isle, there was a rumour that Zarathustra
had disappeared; and when his friends were asked
about it, they said that he had gone on board a
ship by night, without saying whither he was going.
Thus there arose some uneasiness. After three
days, however, there came the story of the ship's
crew in addition to this uneasiness—and then did
all the people say that the devil had taken Zara-
thustra. His disciples laughed, sure enough, at this
talk; and one of them said even: "Sooner would
I believe that Zarathustra hath taken the devil. "
But at the bottom of their hearts they were all full
of anxiety and longing: so their joy was great when
on the fifth day Zarathustra appeared amongst
them.
And this is the account of Zarathustra's inter-
view with the fire-dog:


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XL. —GREAT EVENTS. 157
The earth, said he, hath a skin; and this skin
hath diseases. One of these diseases, for example,
is called "man. "
And another of these diseases is called "the fire-
dog ": concerning him men have greatly deceived
themselves, and let themselves be deceived.
To fathom this mystery did I go o'er the sea;
and I have seen the truth naked, verily! barefooted
up to the neck.
Now do I know how it is concerning the fire-
dog; and likewise concerning all the spouting and
subversive devils, of which not only old women are
afraid.
"Up with thee, fire-dog, out of thy depth ! " cried
I, "and confess how deep that depth is!