Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (ebook reader color screen .TXT) 📕

now the evening, also unto the best things; hear now, and see, ye higher men, what devil⁠—man or woman⁠—this spirit of evening-melancholy is!”

Thus spake the old magician, looked cunningly about him, and then seized his harp.

III

In evening’s limpid air,
What time the dew’s soothings
Unto the earth downpour,
Invisibly and unheard⁠—
For tender shoe-gear wear
The soothing dews, like all that’s kind-gentle⁠—:
Bethinkst thou then, bethinkst thou, burning heart,
How once thou thirstedest
For heaven’s kindly teardrops and dew’s down-droppings,
All singed and weary thirstedest,
What time on yellow grass-pathways
Wicked, occidental sunny glances
Through sombre trees about thee sported,
Blindingly sunny glow-glances, gladly-hurting?
“Of truth the wooer? Thou?”⁠—so taunted they⁠—
Nay! Merely poet!
A brute insidious, plundering, grovelling,
That aye must lie,
That wittingly, wilfully, aye must lie:
For booty lusting,
Motley masked,
Self-hidden, shrouded,
Himself his booty⁠—
He⁠—of truth the wooer?
Nay! Mere fool! Mere poet!
Just motley speaking,
From mask of fool confusedly shouting,
Circumambling on fabricated word-bridges,
On motley rainbow-arches,
’Twixt the spurious heavenly,
And spurious earthly,
Round us roving, round us soaring,⁠—
Mere fool! Mere poet!

He⁠—of truth the wooer?
Not still, stiff, smooth and cold,
Become an image,
A godlike statue,
Set up in front of temples,
As a God’s own door-guard:
Nay! hostile to all such truthfulness-statues,
In every desert homelier than at temples,
With cattish wantonness,
Through every window leaping
Quickly into chances,
Every wild forest a-sniffing,
Greedily-longingly, sniffing,
That thou, in wild forests,
’Mong the motley-speckled fierce creatures,
Shouldest rove, sinful-sound and fine-coloured,
With longing lips smacking,
Blessedly mocking, blessedly hellish, blessedly bloodthirsty,
Robbing, skulking, lying⁠—roving:⁠—

Or unto eagles like which fixedly,
Long adown the precipice look,
Adown their precipice:⁠⸺
Oh, how they whirl down now,
Thereunder, therein,
To ever deeper profoundness whirling!⁠—
Then,
Sudden,
With aim aright,
With quivering flight,
On lambkins pouncing,
Headlong down, sore-hungry,
For lambkins longing,
Fierce ’gainst all lamb-spirits,
Furious-fierce ’gainst all that look
Sheeplike, or lambeyed, or crisp-woolly,
—Grey, with lambsheep kindliness!

Even thus,
Eaglelike, pantherlike,
Are the poet’s desires,
Are thine own desires ’neath a thousand guises,
Thou fool! Thou poet!
Thou who all mankind viewedst⁠—
So God, as sheep⁠—:
The God to rend within mankind,
As the sheep in mankind,
And in rending laughing⁠—

That, that is thine own blessedness!
Of a panther and eagle⁠—blessedness!
Of a poet and fool⁠—the blessedness!⁠⸺

In evening’s limpid air,
What time the moon’s sickle,
Green, ’twixt the purple-glowings,
And jealous, steal’th forth:
—Of day the foe,
With every step in secret,
The rosy garland-hammocks
Downsickling, till they’ve sunken
Down nightwards, faded, downsunken:⁠—

Thus had I sunken one day
From mine own truth-insanity,
From mine own fervid day-longings,
Of day aweary, sick of sunshine,
—Sunk downwards, evenwards, shadowwards:
By one sole trueness
All scorched and thirsty:
—Bethinkst thou still, bethinkst thou, burning heart,
How then thou thirstedest?⁠—
That I should banned be
From all the trueness!
Mere fool! Mere poet!

LXXV Science

Thus sang the magician; and all who were present went like birds unawares into the net of his artful and melancholy voluptuousness. Only the spiritually conscientious one had not been caught: he at once snatched the harp from the magician and called out: “Air! Let in good air! Let in Zarathustra! Thou makest this cave sultry and poisonous, thou bad old magician!

“Thou seducest, thou false one, thou subtle one, to unknown desires and deserts. And alas, that such as thou should talk and make ado about the truth!

“Alas, to all free spirits who are not on their guard against such magicians! It is all over with their freedom: thou teachest and temptest back into prisons⁠—

“⁠—Thou old melancholy devil, out of thy lament soundeth a lurement: thou resemblest those who with their praise of chastity secretly invite to voluptuousness!”

Thus spake the conscientious one; the old magician, however, looked about him, enjoying his triumph, and on that account put up with the annoyance which the conscientious one caused him. “Be still!” said he with modest voice, “good songs want to reecho well; after good songs one should be long silent.

“Thus do all those present, the higher men. Thou, however, hast perhaps understood but little of my song? In thee there is little of the magic spirit.”

“Thou praisest me,” replied the conscientious one, “in that thou separatest me from thyself; very well! But, ye others, what do I see? Ye still sit there, all of you, with lusting eyes⁠—:

“Ye free spirits, whither hath your freedom gone! Ye almost seem to me to resemble those who have long looked at bad girls dancing naked: your souls themselves dance!

“In you, ye higher men, there must be more of that which the magician calleth his evil spirit of magic and deceit:⁠—we must indeed be different.

“And verily, we spake and thought long enough together ere Zarathustra came home to his cave, for me not to be unaware that we are different.

“We seek different things even here aloft, ye and I. For I seek more security; on that account have I come to Zarathustra. For he is still the most steadfast tower and will⁠—

“⁠—Today, when everything tottereth, when all the earth quaketh. Ye, however, when I see what eyes ye make, it almost seemeth to me that ye seek more insecurity,

“⁠—More horror, more danger, more earthquake. Ye long (it almost seemeth so to me⁠—forgive my presumption, ye higher men)⁠—

“⁠—Ye long for the worst and dangerousest life, which frighteneth me most⁠—for the life of wild beasts, for forests, caves, steep mountains and labyrinthine gorges.

“And it is not those who lead out of danger that please you best, but those who lead you away from all paths, the misleaders. But if such longing in you be actual, it seemeth to me nevertheless to be impossible.

“For fear⁠—that is man’s original and fundamental feeling; through fear everything is explained, original sin and original virtue. Through fear there grew also my virtue, that is to say: Science.

“For fear of wild animals⁠—that hath been longest fostered in man, inclusive of the animal which he concealeth and feareth in himself:⁠—Zarathustra calleth it ‘the beast inside.’

“Such prolonged ancient fear, at last become subtle, spiritual and intellectual⁠—at present, me thinketh, it is called Science.”⁠—

Thus spake the conscientious one; but Zarathustra, who had just come back into his cave and had heard and divined the last discourse, threw a handful of roses to the conscientious one, and laughed on account of his “truths.” “Why!” he exclaimed, “what did I hear just now? Verily, it seemeth to me, thou art a fool, or else I myself am one: and quietly and quickly will I put thy ‘truth’ upside down.

“For fear⁠—is