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FEATURES
selections from "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"
(1883-1884)
Friedrich Nietzsche
You look up when you feel the need for elevation.
And I look down because I am elevated. Who among you can laugh
and be elevated at the same time? Whoever climbs the highest mountains
laughs at all tragic plays and tragic seriousness.
Brave, unconcerned, mocking, violent-- thus wisdom
wants us: she is a woman and always loves only a warrior.
You say to me, "Life is hard to bear."
But why would you have your pride in the morning and your resignation
in the evening? Life is hard to bear; but do not act so tenderly!
We are all of us fair beasts of burden, male and female asses.
What do we have in common with the rosebud, which trembles because
a drop of dew lies on it?
True, we love life, not because we are used to living
but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness
in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
And to me too, as I am well disposed toward life,
butterflies and soap bubbles and whatever among men is of their
kind seem to know most about happiness. Seeing these light, foolish,
delicate, mobile little souls flutter-- that seduces Zarathustra
to tears and songs.
I
would believe only in a god who could dance. And when I
saw my devil I found him serious, thorough, profound, and solemn:
it was the spirit of gravity-- through him all things fall.
Not by wrath does one kill but by laughter. Come,
let us kill the spirit of gravity!
I have learned to walk: ever since, I let myself
run. I have learned to fly: ever since, I do not want to be pushed
before moving along.
Now I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath
myself, now a god dances through me.
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
First Part
***
When your heart flows broad and full like a river,
a blessing and a danger to those living near: there is the origin
of your virtue.
When you are above praise and blame, and your will
wants to command all things, like a lover's will: there is the
origin of your virtue.
When you despise the agreeable from the soft bed
and cannot bed yourself far enough from the soft: there is the
origin of your virtue.
When you will with a single will and you call this
cessation of all need "necessity": there is the origin
of your virtue.
Verily, a new good and evil is she. Verily, a new
deep murmur and the voice of a new well!
Power is she, this new virtue; a dominant thought
is she, and around her a wise soul: a golden sun, and around it
the serpent of knowledge.
First Part
***
ON THE SPIRIT OF GRAVITY
1
My tongue is of the people: I speak too crudely and heartily for
Angora rabbits. And my speech sounds even stranger to all ink-fish
and pen-hacks.
My hand is a fool's hand: beware, all tables and
walls and whatever else still offer room for foolish frill or
scribbling skill.
My foot is a cloven foot; with it I trample and
trot over sticks and stones, crisscross, and I am happy as the
devil while running so fast.
My stomach-- is it an eagle's stomach? For it likes
lamb best of all. Certainly it is the stomach of some bird. Nourished
on innocent things and on little, ready and impatient to fly,
to fly off-- that happens to be my way: who could there not be
something of the bird's way in that? And above all, I am an enemy
of the spirit of gravity, that is the bird's way-and verily, a
sworn enemy, archenemy, primordial enemy. Oh, where has not my
enmity flown and misflown in the past?
Of that I could well sing a song-and will sing it,
although I am alone and in an empty house and must sing it to
my own ears. There are other singers, of course, whose throats
are made mellow, whose hands are made talkative, whose eyes are
made expressive, whose hearts are awakened, only by a packed house.
But I am not like those.
2
He who will one day teach men to fly will have moved all boundary
stones; the boundary stones themselves will fly up into the air
before him, and he will rebaptize the earth-- "the light
one".
The ostrich runs faster than the fastest horse,
but even he buries his head gravely in the grave earth; even so,
the man who has not yet learned to fly. Earth and life seem grave
to him; and thus the spirit of gravity wants it. But whoever would
become light and a bird must love himself: thus I teach.
Not, to be sure, with the love of the wilting and
wasting: for among those even self-love stinks. one must learn
to love oneself-- thus I teach-- with a wholesome and healthy
love, so that one can bear to be with oneself and need not roam.
Such roaming baptizes itself "love of the neighbor":
with this phrase the best lies and hypocrisies have been perpetrated
so far, and especially by such as were a grave burden for all
the world.
And verily, this is no command for today and tomorrow,
to learn to love oneself. Rather, it is of all arts the subtlest,
the most cunning, the ultimate, and the most patient. For whatever
is his own is well-concealed from the owner; and of all treasures,
it is our own that we dig up last: thus the spirit of gravity
orders it.
We are presented with grave words and values almost
from the cradle: "good" and "evil" this gift
is called. For its sake we are forgiven for living.
And therefore one suffers little children to come
unto one-- in order to forbid them betimes to love themselves:
thus the spirit of gravity orders it.
And we-- we carry faithfully what one gives us to
bear, on hard shoulders and over rough mountains. And should we
sweat, we are told: "Yes, life is a grave burden." But
only man is a grave burden for himself! That is because he carries
on his shoulders too much that is alien to him. Like a camel,
he kneels down and lets himself be well loaded. Especially the
strong, reverent spirit that would bear much: he loads too many
alien grave words and values on himself, and then life seems a
desert to him.
And verily, much that is our own is also a grave
burden! And much that is inside man is like an oyster: nauseating
and slippery and hard to grasp, so that a noble shell with a noble
embellishment must plead for it. But this art too one must learn:
to have a shell and shiny sheen and shrewd blindness. Moreover,
one is deceived about many things in man because many a shell
is shabby and sad and altogether too much shell. Much hidden graciousness
and strength is never guessed; the most exquisite delicacies find
no tasters. Women know this-- the most exquisite do: a little
fatter, a little slimmer-- oh, how destiny lies in so little!
Man is hard to discover-hardest of all for himself:
often the spirit lies about the soul. Thus the spirit of gravity
orders it. He, however, has discovered himself who says, "This
is my good and evil"; with that he has reduced to silence
the mole and dwarf who say, "Good for all, evil for all."
Verily, I also do not like those who consider everything
good and this world the best. Such men I call omni-satisfied.
Omni-satisfaction, which knows how to taste everything, that is
not the best taste. I honor the recalcitrant choosy tongues and
stomachs, which have learned to say "I" and "yes"
and "no". But to chew and digest everything-- that is
truly the swine's manner. Always to bray Yea-Yuh-- that only the
ass has learned, and whoever is of his spirit.
Deep yellow and hot red: thus my taste wants it;
it mixes blood into all colors. But whoever whitewashes his house
betrays a whitewashed soul to me. Some in love with mummies, the
others with ghosts, and both alike enemies of all flesh and blood-oh,
how both offend my taste. For I love blood.
And I do not want to reside and abide where everybody
spits and spews: that happens to be my taste; rather I would live
among thieves and perjurers. Nobody has gold in his mouth. Still
more revolting, however, I find all lickspittles; and the most
revolting human animal that I found I baptized "parasite":
it did not want to love and yet it wanted to live on love.
Cursed I call all who have only one choice: to become
evil beasts or evil tamers of beasts; among such men I would not
build my home.
Cursed I call those too who must always wait; they
offend my taste: all the publicans and shopkeepers and kings and
other land- and storekeepers. Verily, I too have learned to wait--
thoroughly-- but only to wait for myself. And above all I learned
to stand and walk and run and jump and climb and dance. This,
however, is my doctrine: he would learn to fly one day must first
learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance: one cannot
fly into flying. With rope ladders I have learned to climb to
many a window; with swift legs I climbed high masts; and to sit
on high masts of knowledge seemed to me no small happiness: to
flicker like small flames on high masts-a small light only and
yet a great comfort for shipwrecked sailors and castaways.
By many ways, in many ways, I reached my truth:
it was not one ladder that I climbed to the height where my eye
roams over my distance. And it was only reluctantly that I ever
inquired about the way: that always offended my taste. I preferred
to question and try out the ways themselves.
A trying and questioning was my every move; and
verily, one must also learn to answer such questioning. That,
however, is my taste-- not good, not bad, but my taste of which
I am no longer ashamed and which I have no wish to hide.
"This is my way; where is yours?"-thus
I answered those who asked me "the way." For the way-that
does not exist.
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Third Part
***
And this is the second point: he who cannot obey
himself is commanded. That is the nature of the living.
…
And life itself confided this secret to me: "Behold,"
it said, "I am that which must always overcome itself. Indeed,
you call it a will to procreate or a drive to an end, to something
higher, farther, more manifold: but all this is one, and one secret.
"Rather would I perish than forswear this;
and verily, where there is perishing and a falling of leaves,
behold, there life sacrifices itself-- for power. That I must
be struggle and a becoming and an end and an opposition to ends--
alas, whoever guesses what is my will should also guess on what
crooked paths it must proceed.
"Whatever I create and however much I love
it-- soon I must oppose it and my love; thus my will wills it.
…"
…
And may everything be broken that cannot brook our
truths! There are yet many houses to be built!
Thus spoke Zarathustra
Second Part
***
Night has come: alas, that I must be light! And
thirst for the nocturnal! And loneliness!
Night has come: now my craving breaks out of me
like a well; to speak I crave.
Night has come; now all fountains speak more loudly.
And my soul too is a fountain.
Night has come; now all the songs of lovers awaken.
And my soul too is the song of a lover.
Thus sang Zarathustra.
Second Part
***
Even the most courageous among us rarely has the
courage for that which he really knows.
from Twilight Of The Idols (1889)
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