XXXI. THE NIGHT-SONG
‘Tis night: now do all gushing fountains speak louder. And my soul also is a gushing fountain.
‘Tis night: now only do all songs of the loving ones awake. And my soul also is the song of a loving one.
Something unappeased, unappeasable, is within me; it longeth to find expression. A craving for love is within me, which speaketh itself the language of love.
Light am I: ah, that I were night! But it is my lonesomeness to be begirt with light!
Ah, that I were dark and nightly! How would I suck at the breasts of light!
And you yourselves would I bless, ye twinkling starlets and glow-worms aloft! – and would rejoice in the gifts of your light.
But I live in mine own light, I drink again into myself the flames that break forth from me.
I know not the happiness of the receiver; and oft have I dreamt that stealing must be more blessed than receiving.
It is my poverty that my hand never ceaseth bestowing; it is mine envy that I see waiting eyes and the brightened nights of longing.
Oh, the misery of all bestowers! Oh, the darkening of my sun! Oh, the craving to crave! Oh, the violent hunger in satiety!
They take from me: but do I yet touch their soul? There is a gap ‘twixt giving and receiving; and the smallest gap hath finally to be bridged over.
A hunger ariseth out of my beauty: I should like to injure those I illumine; I should like to rob those I have gifted: – thus do I hunger for wickedness.
Withdrawing my hand when another hand already stretcheth out to it; hesitating like the cascade, which hesitateth even in its leap: – thus do I hunger for wickedness!
Such revenge doth mine abundance think of: such mischief welleth out of my lonesomeness.
My happiness in bestowing died in bestowing; my virtue became weary of itself by its abundance!
He who ever bestoweth is in danger of losing his shame; to him who ever dispenseth, the hand and heart become callous by very dispensing.
Mine eye no longer overfloweth for the shame of suppliants; my hand hath become too hard for the trembling of filled hands.
Whence have gone the tears of mine eye, and the down of my heart? Oh, the lonesomeness of all bestowers! Oh, the silence of all shining ones!
Many suns circle in desert space: to all that is dark do they speak with their light – but to me they are silent.
Oh, this is the hostility of light to the shining one: unpityingly doth it pursue its course.
Unfair to the shining one in its innermost heart, cold to the suns: – thus travelleth every sun.
Like a storm do the suns pursue their courses: that is their travelling. Their inexorable will do they follow: that is their coldness.
Oh, ye only is it, ye dark, nightly ones, that extract warmth from the shining ones! Oh, ye only drink milk and refreshment from the light’s udders!
Ah, there is ice around me; my hand burneth with the iciness! Ah, there is thirst in me; it panteth after your thirst!
‘Tis night: alas, that I have to be light! And thirst for the nightly! And lonesomeness!
‘Tis night: now doth my longing break forth in me as a fountain, – for speech do I long.
‘Tis night: now do all gushing fountains speak louder. And my soul also is a gushing fountain.
‘Tis night: now do all songs of loving ones awake. And my soul also is the song of a loving one. —
Thus sang Zarathustra.
XXXII. THE DANCE-SONG
One evening went Zarathustra and his disciples through the forest; and when he sought for a well, lo, he lighted upon a green meadow peacefully surrounded with trees and bushes, where maidens were dancing together. As soon as the maidens recognised Zarathustra, they ceased dancing; Zarathustra, however, approached them with friendly mien and spake these words:
Cease not your dancing, ye lovely maidens! No game-spoiler hath come to you with evil eye, no enemy of maidens.
God’s advocate am I with the devil: he, however, is the spirit of gravity. How could I, ye light-footed ones, be hostile to divine dances? Or to maidens’ feet with fine ankles?
To be sure, I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.
And even the little God may he find, who is dearest to maidens: beside the well lieth he quietly, with closed eyes.
Verily, in broad daylight did he fall asleep, the sluggard! Had he perhaps chased butterflies too much?
Upbraid me not, ye beautiful dancers, when I chasten the little God somewhat! He will cry, certainly, and weep – but he is laughable even when weeping!
And with tears in his eyes shall he ask you for a dance; and I myself will sing a song to his dance:
A dance-song and satire on the spirit of gravity my supremest, powerfulest devil, who is said to be “lord of the world.” —
And this is the song that Zarathustra sang when Cupid and the maidens danced together:
Of late did I gaze into thine eye, O Life! And into the unfathomable did I there seem to sink.
But thou pulledst me out with a golden angle; derisively didst thou laugh when I called thee unfathomable.
“Such is the language of all fish,” saidst thou; “what THEY do not fathom is unfathomable.
But changeable am I only, and wild, and altogether a woman, and no virtuous one:
Though I be called by you men the ‘profound one,’ or the ‘faithful one,’ ‘the eternal one,’ ‘the mysterious one.’
But ye men endow us always with your own virtues – alas, ye virtuous ones!”
Thus did she laugh, the unbelievable one; but never do I believe her and her laughter, when she speaketh evil of herself.
And when I talked face to face with my wild Wisdom, she said to me angrily: “Thou willest, thou cravest, thou lovest; on that account alone dost thou PRAISE Life!”
Then had I almost answered indignantly and told the truth to the angry one; and one cannot answer more indignantly than when one “telleth the truth” to one’s Wisdom.
For thus do things stand with us three. In my heart do I love only Life – and verily, most when I hate her!
But that I am fond of Wisdom, and often too fond, is because she remindeth me very strongly of Life!
She hath her eye, her laugh, and even her golden angle-rod: am I responsible for it that both are so alike?
And when once Life asked me: “Who is she then, this Wisdom?” – then said I eagerly: “Ah, yes! Wisdom!
One thirsteth for her and is not satisfied, one looketh through veils, one graspeth through nets.
Is she beautiful? What do I know! But the oldest carps are still lured by her.
Changeable is she, and wayward; often have I seen her bite her lip, and pass the comb against the grain of her hair.
Perhaps she is wicked and false, and altogether a woman; but when she speaketh ill of herself, just then doth she seduce most.”
When I had said this unto Life, then laughed she maliciously, and shut her eyes. “Of whom dost thou speak?” said she. “Perhaps of me?
And if thou wert right – is it proper to say THAT in such wise to my face! But now, pray, speak also of thy Wisdom!”
Ah, and now hast thou again opened thine eyes, O beloved Life! And into the unfathomable have I again seemed to sink. —
Thus sang Zarathustra. But when the dance was over and the maidens had departed, he became sad.
“The sun hath been long set,” said he at last, “the meadow is damp, and from the forest cometh coolness.
An unknown presence is about me, and gazeth thoughtfully. What! Thou livest still, Zarathustra?
Why? Wherefore? Whereby? Whither? Where? How? Is it not folly still to live? —
Ah, my friends; the evening is it which thus interrogateth in me. Forgive me my sadness!
Evening hath come on: forgive me that evening hath come on!”
Thus sang Zarathustra.
XXXIII. THE GRAVE-SONG
“Yonder is the grave-island, the silent isle; yonder also are the graves of my youth. Thither will I carry an evergreen wreath of life.”
Resolving thus in my heart, did I sail o’er the sea. —
Oh, ye sights and scenes of my youth! Oh, all ye gleams of love, ye divine fleeting gleams! How could ye perish so soon for me! I think of you to-day as my dead ones.
From you, my dearest dead ones, cometh unto me a sweet savour, heart-opening and melting. Verily, it convulseth and openeth the heart of the lone seafarer.
Still am I the richest and most to be envied – I, the lonesomest one! For I HAVE POSSESSED you, and ye possess me still. Tell me: to whom hath there ever fallen such rosy apples from the tree as have fallen unto me?
Still am I your love’s heir and heritage, blooming to your memory with many-hued, wild-growing virtues, O ye dearest ones!
Ah, we were made to remain nigh unto each other, ye kindly strange marvels; and not like timid birds did ye come to me and my longing – nay, but as trusting ones to a trusting one!
Yea, made for faithfulness, like me, and for fond eternities, must I now name you by your faithlessness, ye divine glances and fleeting gleams: no other name have I yet learnt.
Verily, too early did ye die for me, ye fugitives. Yet did ye not flee from me, nor did I flee from you: innocent are we to each other in our faithlessness.
To kill ME, did they strangle you, ye singing birds of my hopes! Yea, at you, ye dearest ones, did malice ever shoot its arrows – to hit my heart!
And they hit it! Because ye were always my dearest, my possession and my possessedness: ON THAT ACCOUNT had ye to die young, and far too early!
At my most vulnerable point did they shoot the arrow – namely, at you, whose skin is like down – or more like the smile that dieth at a glance!
But this word will I say unto mine enemies: What is all manslaughter in comparison with what ye have done unto me!
Worse evil did ye do unto me than all manslaughter; the irretrievable did ye take from me: – thus do I speak unto you, mine enemies!
Slew ye not my youth’s visions and dearest marvels! My playmates took ye from me, the blessed spirits! To their memory do I deposit this wreath and this curse.
This curse upon you, mine enemies! Have ye not made mine eternal short, as a tone dieth away in a cold night! Scarcely, as the twinkle of divine eyes, did it come to me – as a fleeting gleam!
Thus spake once in a happy hour my purity: “Divine shall everything be unto me.”
Then did ye haunt me with foul phantoms; ah, whither hath that happy hour now fled!
“All days shall be holy unto me” – so spake once the wisdom of my youth: verily, the language of a joyous wisdom!
But then did ye enemies steal my nights, and sold them to sleepless torture: ah, whither hath that joyous wisdom now fled?
Once did I long for happy auspices: then did ye lead an owl-monster across my path, an adverse sign. Ah, whither did my tender longing then flee?
All loathing did I once vow to renounce: then did ye change my nigh ones and nearest ones into ulcerations. Ah, whither did my noblest vow then flee?
As a blind one did I once walk in blessed ways: then did ye cast filth on the blind one’s course: and now is he disgusted with the old footpath.
And when I performed my hardest task, and celebrated the triumph of my victories, then did ye make those who loved me call out that I then grieved them most.
Verily, it was always your doing: ye embittered to me my best honey, and the diligence of my best bees.
To my charity have ye ever sent the most impudent beggars; around my sympathy have ye ever crowded the incurably shameless. Thus have ye wounded the faith of my virtue.
And when I offered my holiest as a sacrifice, immediately did your “piety” put its fatter gifts beside it: so that my holiest suffocated in the fumes of your fat.
And once did I want to dance as I had never yet danced: beyond all heavens did I want to dance. Then did ye seduce my favourite minstrel.
And now hath he struck up an awful, melancholy air; alas, he tooted as a mournful horn to mine ear!
Murderous minstrel, instrument of evil, most innocent instrument! Already did I stand prepared for the best dance: then didst thou slay my rapture with thy tones!
Only in the dance do I know how to speak the parable of the highest things: – and now hath my grandest parable remained unspoken in my limbs!
Unspoken and unrealised hath my highest hope remained! And there have perished for me all the visions and consolations of my youth!
How did I ever bear it? How did I survive and surmount such wounds? How did my soul rise again out of those sepulchres?
Yea, something invulnerable, unburiable is with me, something that would rend rocks asunder: it is called MY WILL. Silently doth it proceed, and unchanged throughout the years.
Its course will it go upon my feet, mine old Will; hard of heart is its nature and invulnerable.
Invulnerable am I only in my heel. Ever livest thou there, and art like thyself, thou most patient one! Ever hast thou burst all shackles of the tomb!
In thee still liveth also the unrealisedness of my youth; and as life and youth sittest thou here hopeful on the yellow ruins of graves.
Yea, thou art still for me the demolisher of all graves: Hail to thee, my Will! And only where there are graves are there resurrections. —
Thus sang Zarathustra.
XXXIV. SELF-SURPASSING
“Will to Truth” do ye call it, ye wisest ones, that which impelleth you and maketh you ardent?
Will for the thinkableness of all being: thus do I call your will!
All being would ye MAKE thinkable: for ye doubt with good reason whether it be already thinkable.
But it shall accommodate and bend itself to you! So willeth your will. Smooth shall it become and subject to the spirit, as its mirror and reflection.
That is your entire will, ye wisest ones, as a Will to Power; and even when ye speak of good and evil, and of estimates of value.
Ye would still create a world before which ye can bow the knee: such is your ultimate hope and ecstasy.
The ignorant, to be sure, the people – they are like a river on which a boat floateth along: and in the boat sit the estimates of value, solemn and disguised.
Your will and your valuations have ye put on the river of becoming; it betrayeth unto me an old Will to Power, what is believed by the people as good and evil.
It was ye, ye wisest ones, who put such guests in this boat, and gave them pomp and proud names – ye and your ruling Will!
Onward the river now carrieth your boat: it MUST carry it. A small matter if the rough wave foameth and angrily resisteth its keel!
It is not the river that is your danger and the end of your good and evil, ye wisest ones: but that Will itself, the Will to Power – the unexhausted, procreating life-will.
But that ye may understand my gospel of good and evil, for that purpose will I tell you my gospel of life, and of the nature of all living things.
The living thing did I follow; I walked in the broadest and narrowest paths to learn its nature.
With a hundred-faced mirror did I catch its glance when its mouth was shut, so that its eye might speak unto me. And its eye spake unto me.
But wherever I found living things, there heard I also the language of obedience. All living things are obeying things.
And this heard I secondly: Whatever cannot obey itself, is commanded. Such is the nature of living things.
This, however, is the third thing which I heard – namely, that commanding is more difficult than obeying. And not only because the commander beareth the burden of all obeyers, and because this burden readily crusheth him: —
An attempt and a risk seemed all commanding unto me; and whenever it commandeth, the living thing risketh itself thereby.
Yea, even when it commandeth itself, then also must it atone for its commanding. Of its own law must it become the judge and avenger and victim.
How doth this happen! so did I ask myself. What persuadeth the living thing to obey, and command, and even be obedient in commanding?
Hearken now unto my word, ye wisest ones! Test it seriously, whether I have crept into the heart of life itself, and into the roots of its heart!
Wherever I found a living thing, there found I Will to Power; and even in the will of the servant found I the will to be master.
That to the stronger the weaker shall serve – thereto persuadeth he his will who would be master over a still weaker one. That delight alone he is unwilling to forego.
And as the lesser surrendereth himself to the greater that he may have delight and power over the least of all, so doth even the greatest surrender himself, and staketh – life, for the sake of power.
It is the surrender of the greatest to run risk and danger, and play dice for death.
And where there is sacrifice and service and love-glances, there also is the will to be master. By by-ways doth the weaker then slink into the fortress, and into the heart of the mightier one – and there stealeth power.
And this secret spake Life herself unto me. “Behold,” said she, “I am that WHICH MUST EVER SURPASS ITSELF.
To be sure, ye call it will to procreation, or impulse towards a goal, towards the higher, remoter, more manifold: but all that is one and the same secret.
Rather would I succumb than disown this one thing; and verily, where there is succumbing and leaf-falling, lo, there doth Life sacrifice itself – for power!
That I have to be struggle, and becoming, and purpose, and cross-purpose – ah, he who divineth my will, divineth well also on what CROOKED paths it hath to tread!
Whatever I create, and however much I love it, – soon must I be adverse to it, and to my love: so willeth my will.
And even thou, discerning one, art only a path and footstep of my will: verily, my Will to Power walketh even on the feet of thy Will to Truth!
He certainly did not hit the truth who shot at it the formula: ‘Will to existence’: that will – doth not exist!
For what is not, cannot will; that, however, which is in existence – how could it still strive for existence!
Only where there is life, is there also will: not, however, Will to Life, but – so teach I thee – Will to Power!
Much is reckoned higher than life itself by the living one; but out of the very reckoning speaketh – the Will to Power!” —
Thus did Life once teach me: and thereby, ye wisest ones, do I solve you the riddle of your hearts.
Verily, I say unto you: good and evil which would be everlasting – it doth not exist! Of its own accord must it ever surpass itself anew.
With your values and formulae of good and evil, ye exercise power, ye valuing ones: and that is your secret love, and the sparkling, trembling, and overflowing of your souls.
But a stronger power groweth out of your values, and a new surpassing: by it breaketh egg and egg-shell.
And he who hath to be a creator in good and evil – verily, he hath first to be a destroyer, and break values in pieces.
Thus doth the greatest evil pertain to the greatest good: that, however, is the creating good. —
Let us SPEAK thereof, ye wisest ones, even though it be bad. To be silent is worse; all suppressed truths become poisonous.
And let everything break up which – can break up by our truths! Many a house is still to be built! —
Thus spake Zarathustra.
XXXV. THE SUBLIME ONES
Calm is the bottom of my sea: who would guess that it hideth droll monsters!
Unmoved is my depth: but it sparkleth with swimming enigmas and laughters.
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:
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.
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 will-less one!
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 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 unharnessed 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 sustaining – 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.