Latest / The Philosophy Insights Collection / 38 - Thus Spake Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietzsche
Transcript
- Part two, Chapter thirty eight Scholars. When I lay asleep, then did a sheep eat at the ivy wreath on my head? It ate and said thereby there Athustra 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, I am 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 in the air over fresh soil? Rather would I sleep on ox skins than on their honors and dignities. I am too hot and scorch 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? Should one lay hold of them, then do they raise a dust like flower 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 odor, 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 house 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 there are 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 and little artifices. They wait for those whose knowledge walketh on lamb 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 perspired. Thereby we are alien to each other, and their virtues are even more repugnant to my tastes, and their falsehoods 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 anyone 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 air, still would I be above them in their heads? For men are not equal. So speaketh justice, and what I will, they may not will. Thus spake Zarathustra, end Chapter thirty eight