Latest / The Philosophy Insights Collection / 57 - Thus Spake Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietzsche
Transcript
- Part three, Chapter fifty seven, The Convalescent. One one morning, not long after his return to his cave, Zarathustras sprang up from his couch like a madman, crying in with a frightful voice, and acting as if someone still lay on the couch who did not wish to rise. Zarathustra's voice also resounded in such a manner that his animals came to him frightened, and out of all the neighboring caves and lurking places, all the creatures slipped away, flying, fluttering, creeping, or leaping, according to their variety of foot or wing. Zarathustra, however, spake these words up abysmal thought, out of my depth. I and thy cock, and morning dawn thou overslept, reptile up up My voice shall soon crow thee awake and bind the fetters of thine Listen, for I wish to hear thee up up. There is thunder enough to make the very graves listen and ruther sleep, and all the dimness and blindness out of thine eyes hear me also with thine eyes, My voice is a medicine even for those born blind. And once thou art awake, then shalt thou ever remain awake. It is not my custom to awake great grandmothers out of their sleep, that I may bid them sleep on. Thou stareest, stretchest thyself, wheezest up up, not wheeze. Shalt thou but speak unto me. Zarathustra, calleth thee Zarathustra, the godless ay, Zarathustra, the advocate of the living, the advocate of the suffering, the advocate of the circuit. Thee do I call my most abysmal thought? Joy to me, thou comest I hear thee mine abyss speaketh my lowest depth? Have I turned over into the light? Joy to me, Come hither, give me thy hand ah let be aha disgust, disgust, disgust alas to me two. Hardly, however, had Zarathustra spoken these words when he fell down as one dead, and remained long as one dead. When however, he came again to himself, then he was pale and trembling, and remained lying, and for long he would neither eat nor drink. This condition continued for seven days. His animals, however, did not leave him day or night, except that the eagle flew forth to fetch food, And when it fetched and forged, it laid on Zarathustra's touch, So that Zarathustra at last lay among yellow and red berries, grapes, rosy apples, sweet smelling herbage, and pine cones at his feet. However, two lambs were stretched, which the eagle had with difficulty carried off from their shepherds. At last, after seven days, Zarathustra raised himself upon his couch, took a rosy apple in his hand, smelt it, and found it smell pleasant. Then did his animals think the time had come to speak unto him? O Zarathustra said, they now hast thou lane thus for seven days, with heavy eyes, wilt thou not set thyself again upon thy feet? Step out of thy cave. The world waiteth for THEE as a garden. The wind playeth with heavy fragrance, which seeketh for THEE, and all brooks would like to run after THEE. All things long for THEE. Since thou hast remained alone for seven days, step forth out of thy cave, all things wont to be thy physicians, did perhaps a new knowledge come to THEE? A bitter grievous knowledge like leave and doe layest thou. Thy soul arose and swelled beyond all its bounds. O mine, animals, answered Zarathustra, talk on thus, and let me listen. It refresheth me so to hear you talk. Where there is talk, there is the world as a garden. And to me, how charming it is that there are words and tones are not words and tones rainbows and seaming bridges TwixT thee eternal separated. To each soul belongeth another world. To each soul is every other soul a backworld. And the most alike doth semblance deceive most delightfully, For the smallest gap is the most difficult to bridge over. For me, how could there be an outside of me? There is no outside but this we forget on hearing tones. How delightful it is that we forget. Have not the names and tones been given unto things? That man may refresh himself with them? It is the beautiful folly speaking therewith danceth man over everything. How lovely is all speech and all falses of tones with tones danceth our love on variegated rainbows. Oh. Zarathustra then said his animals to those who think like us. Things all dance themselves. They come and hold out the hand, and laugh and flee and return. Everything goeth, Everything returneth eternally rolleth the wheel of existence. Everything dieth, everything blossom forth again, eternally returneth on the year of existence. Everything breaketh, everything is integrated, an eternally buildeth itself the same house of existence. All things separate, All things again greet one another, eternally true to itself, remaineth the ringing of existence. Every moment beginneth existence around every here rolleth a ball there the middle is everywhere crooked is the path of eternity. O ye, wags and barrel organs, answered Zarathustra, and smiled once more. How well do ye know what had to be fulfilled in seven days? And how that monster crept into my throat and choked me. But I bit off its head and spat it away from me, And ye ye have made a liar lay out of it. Now, however do I lie here, still exhausted with that biting and spitting away, still sick with my own salvation? And ye looked on at it all All mine animals are ye all so cruel? Did ye like to look upon my great pain as men do. For man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies, bull fights and crucifixions. Hath he hitherto been happiest on earth? And when he invented his hell, behold that was his heaven on earth. When the great man crieth, immediately runneth the little man thither, and his tongue hangeth out of his mouth, for very lusting he, however, call it his pity. The little man, especially the poet. How passionately doth he accuse life in words hearken to him, But do not fail to hear the delight which is in all accusation. Such accusers of life them life overcometh with the glance of the eye. Thou lovest me, said the insolent one, wait a little, as yet have I no time for thee towards himself. Man is the cruelest animal. And in all who call himselves sinner and bearers of the cross and penitence, do not overlook the voluptuousness of their plaints and accusations. And I myself do I thereby want to be man's accuser, ah mine animals. This only have I learned hitherto that for man, his baddest is necessary for his best. That all that is baddest is his best power, and the hardest stone for the highest creator, And that man must become better and badder. Not to this torture stake was I tied. That I know man is bad, But I cried, as no one hath yet cried, Ah, that is badness is so very small, ah, that his best is so very small. The great disgust at man. It strangled me and had crept into my throat. And what the soothsayer had presaged, all is alike. Nothing is worthwhile knowledge strangleth along twilight limbed on before me, a fatal weary, a fatal intoxicated sadness, which spake with yawned mouth eternally. He returneth the man of whom thou art weary. The small man so yawned my sadness, and dragged its foot and could not go to sleep. A cavern became the human earth to me. Its breast caved in. Everything living became to me human dust and bones, and a moldering past. My sight being sat on all human graves and could no longer arise. My sighing and questioning croaked and choked and gnawed, and nowed day and night. Ah man returneth eternally, The small man returneth eternally naked. Had I once seen both of them, the great man and the small man, all too like one another, all too human, even the greatest man, all too small, even the greatest man, that was my disgusted man. And the eternal return also of the smallest man, that was my disgust at all existence. Ah disgust, disgust, disgust, dust beg Zarathustra, and sighed and shuddered, for he remembered his sickness. Then did his animals prevent him from speaking further. Do not speak further, thou convalescent, so answered his animals. But do go out where the world waiteth for thee like a garden, Go out unto the roses, the bees, and the flocks of doves, especially, however, under the singing birds, to learn singing from them, For singing is for the convalescent. The sound ones may talk, And when the sounds also want songs, then one they are other songs than the convalescent. Oh, ye, wags and barrel organs, do be silent, answered Zarathustra, and smiled at his animals, How well ye know what consolation I devise for myself in seven days, that I have to sing once more, that consolation that I devise for myself, and this convalescence, would ye also make another liar lay thereof? Do not talk further, answered his animals once more, Rather, thou convalescent, prepare for thyself a first a liar, a new liar. For behold, o Zarathustra, for thy new lays. There are needed new liars, sing and bubble over, o Zarathustra, heal thy soul with new lays, that thou mayest bear a great fate which hath not yet been anyone's fate. For thine animals know it well, O Zarathustra, who thou art and must become. Behold, thou art the teacher of the eternal return, that is now thy fate. That thou must be the first to teach this teaching. How could this great fate not be the greatest danger and infirmity? Behold, we know what thou teachest, that all things eternally return, and ourselves with them, and that we have all existed times without number, and all things with us. Thou teachest that there is a great year of becoming a prodigy of a great year. It must, like sand glass, ever turn up anew, that it may anew run down and run out, so that all those years are like one another, in the greatest and also in the smallest, so that we ourselves, in every great year, are like ourselves in the greatest and also in the smallest. And if thou wouldst now die, o Zarathustra, behold, we know also how thou wouldst then speak to thyself, But thine animals besiege thee not to die. Yet thou wouldst speak, and without trembling, boint rather with bliss, for a great weight and worry would be taken from thee Thou patientest one. Now do I die and disappear? Would thou say, And in a moment I am nothing. Souls are as mortal as bodies. But the plexus of causes returneth in which I am intertwined. It will again create me. I myself pertain to causes of the eternal return. I come again with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent, not to a new life, or a better life, or a similar life. I come again eternally to this identical and self same life, in its greatest and its smallest, to teach again the eternal return of all things, to speak again the word of that great Noontide of earth and man, to announce again to man the superman. I have spoken my word. I break down by my word. So willeth mine eternal fate? As announcer, do I succumb? The hour hath now come for the great down goer to bless himself. Thus endeth Zarathustra's down gooing. When the animals had spoken these words, they were silent and waited so Zarathustra might say something to them. But Zarathustra did not hear that they were silent. On the contrary, he lay quietly with closed eyes, like a person's sleeping, although he did not sleep, for he communed just then with his soul. The serpent, however, and the eagle, when they found him silent in such wives, respected the great stillness around him, and prudently retired. End of Part three, Chapter fifty seven