Chapter 24

Only the birds are still beyond him. And if man should yet learn to fly, alas! TO WHAT HEIGHT—would his rapacity fly! 23. Thus would I have man and woman: fit for war, the one; fit for maternity, the other; both, however, fit for dancing with head and legs. And lost be the day to us in which a measure hath not been danced. And false be every truth which hath not had laughter along with it! 24. Your marriage-arranging: see that it be not a bad ARRANGING! Ye have arranged too hastily: so there FOLLOWETH therefrom—marriage-breaking! And better marriage-breaking than marriage-bending, marriage-lying!—Thus spake a woman unto me: “Indeed, I broke the marriage, but first did the marriage break—me!” The badly paired found I ever the most revengeful: they make every one suffer for it that they no longer run singly. On that account want I the honest ones to say to one another: “We love each other: let us SEE TO IT that we maintain our love! Or shall our pledging be blundering?” —“Give us a set term and a small marriage, that we may see if we are fit for the great marriage! It is a great matter always to be twain.” Thus do I counsel all honest ones; and what would be my love to the Superman, and to all that is to come, if I should counsel and speak otherwise! Not only to propagate yourselves onwards but UPWARDS—thereto, O my brethren, may the garden of marriage help you! 25. He who hath grown wise concerning old origins, lo, he will at last seek after the fountains of the future and new origins.— O my brethren, not long will it be until NEW PEOPLES shall arise and new fountains shall rush down into new depths. For the earthquake—it choketh up many wells, it causeth much languishing: but it bringeth also to light inner powers and secrets. The earthquake discloseth new fountains. In the earthquake of old peoples new fountains burst forth. And whoever calleth out: “Lo, here is a well for many thirsty ones, one heart for many longing ones, one will for many instruments”:—around him collecteth a PEOPLE, that is to say, many attempting ones. Who can command, who must obey—THAT IS THERE ATTEMPTED! Ah, with what long seeking and solving and failing and learning and re-attempting! Human society: it is an attempt—so I teach—a long seeking: it seeketh however the ruler!— —An attempt, my brethren! And NO “contract”! Destroy, I pray you, destroy that word of the soft-hearted and half-and-half! 26. O my brethren! With whom lieth the greatest danger to the whole human future? Is it not with the good and just?— —As those who say and feel in their hearts: “We already know what is good and just, we possess it also; woe to those who still seek thereafter!” And whatever harm the wicked may do, the harm of the good is the harmfulest harm! And whatever harm the world-maligners may do, the harm of the good is the harmfulest harm! O my brethren, into the hearts of the good and just looked some one once on a time, who said: “They are the Pharisees.” But people did not understand him. The good and just themselves were not free to understand him; their spirit was imprisoned in their good conscience. The stupidity of the good is unfathomably wise. It is the truth, however, that the good MUST be Pharisees—they have no choice! The good MUST crucify him who deviseth his own virtue! That IS the truth! The second one, however, who discovered their country—the country, heart and soil of the good and just,—it was he who asked: “Whom do they hate most?” The CREATOR, hate they most, him who breaketh the tables and old values, the breaker,—him they call the law-breaker. For the good—they CANNOT create; they are always the beginning of the end:— —They crucify him who writeth new values on new tables, they sacrifice UNTO THEMSELVES the future—they crucify the whole human future! The good—they have always been the beginning of the end.— 27. O my brethren, have ye also understood this word? And what I once said of the “last man”?— With whom lieth the greatest danger to the whole human future? Is it not with the good and just? BREAK UP, BREAK UP, I PRAY YOU, THE GOOD AND JUST!—O my brethren, have ye understood also this word? 28. Ye flee from me? Ye are frightened? Ye tremble at this word? O my brethren, when I enjoined you to break up the good, and the tables of the good, then only did I embark man on his high seas. And now only cometh unto him the great terror, the great outlook, the great sickness, the great nausea, the great sea-sickness. False shores and false securities did the good teach you; in the lies of the good were ye born and bred. Everything hath been radically contorted and distorted by the good. But he who discovered the country of “man,” discovered also the country of “man’s future.” Now shall ye be sailors for me, brave, patient! Keep yourselves up betimes, my brethren, learn to keep yourselves up! The sea stormeth: many seek to raise themselves again by you. The sea stormeth: all is in the sea. Well! Cheer up! Ye old seaman-hearts! What of fatherland! THITHER striveth our helm where our CHILDREN’S LAND is! Thitherwards, stormier than the sea, stormeth our great longing!— 29. “Why so hard!”—said to the diamond one day the charcoal; “are we then not near relatives?”— Why so soft? O my brethren; thus do I ask you: are ye then not—my brethren? Why so soft, so submissive and yielding? Why is there so much negation and abnegation in your hearts? Why is there so little fate in your looks? And if ye will not be fates and inexorable ones, how can ye one day— conquer with me? And if your hardness will not glance and cut and chip to pieces, how can ye one day—create with me? For the creators are hard. And blessedness must it seem to you to press your hand upon millenniums as upon wax,— —Blessedness to write upon the will of millenniums as upon brass,—harder than brass, nobler than brass. Entirely hard is only the noblest. This new table, O my brethren, put I up over you: BECOME HARD!— 30. O thou, my Will! Thou change of every need, MY needfulness! Preserve me from all small victories! Thou fatedness of my soul, which I call fate! Thou In-me! Over-me! Preserve and spare me for one great fate! And thy last greatness, my Will, spare it for thy last—that thou mayest be inexorable IN thy victory! Ah, who hath not succumbed to his victory! Ah, whose eye hath not bedimmed in this intoxicated twilight! Ah, whose foot hath not faltered and forgotten in victory—how to stand!— —That I may one day be ready and ripe in the great noontide: ready and ripe like the glowing ore, the lightning-bearing cloud, and the swelling milk-udder:— —Ready for myself and for my most hidden Will: a bow eager for its arrow, an arrow eager for its star:— —A star, ready and ripe in its noontide, glowing, pierced, blessed, by annihilating sun-arrows:— —A sun itself, and an inexorable sun-will, ready for annihilation in victory! O Will, thou change of every need, MY needfulness! Spare me for one great victory!— Thus spake Zarathustra. LVII. THE CONVALESCENT. 1. One morning, not long after his return to his cave, Zarathustra sprang up from his couch like a madman, crying with a frightful voice, and acting as if some one 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 neighbouring 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 am thy cock and morning dawn, thou overslept reptile: Up! Up! My voice shall soon crow thee awake! Unbind the fetters of thine ears: listen! For I wish to hear thee! Up! Up! There is thunder enough to make the very graves listen! And rub the 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 stirrest, stretchest thyself, wheezest? Up! Up! Not wheeze, shalt thou,—but speak unto me! Zarathustra calleth thee, Zarathustra the godless! I, Zarathustra, the advocate of living, the advocate of 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—ha! let be! aha!—Disgust, disgust, disgust—alas to me! 2. Hardly, however, had Zarathustra spoken these words, when he fell down as one dead, and remained long as one dead. When however he again came to himself, then was he 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 nor night, except that the eagle flew forth to fetch food. And what it fetched and foraged, it laid on Zarathustra’s couch: 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 its smell pleasant. Then did his animals think the time had come to speak unto him. “O Zarathustra,” said they, “now hast thou lain 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 want to be thy physicians! Did perhaps a new knowledge come to thee, a bitter, grievous knowledge? Like leavened dough 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 your talk: where there is talk, there is the world as a garden unto me. How charming it is that there are words and tones; are not words and tones rainbows and seeming bridges ‘twixt the eternally separated? To each soul belongeth another world; to each soul is every other soul a back-world. Among the most alike doth semblance deceive most delightfully: for the smallest gap is 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 names and tones been given unto things that man may refresh himself with them? It is a beautiful folly, speaking; therewith danceth man over everything. How lovely is all speech and all falsehoods of tones! With tones danceth our love on variegated rainbows.— —“O Zarathustra,” said then 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 blossometh forth again; eternally runneth on the year of existence. Everything breaketh, everything is integrated anew; eternally buildeth itself the same house of existence. All things separate, all things again greet one another; eternally true to itself remaineth the ring of existence. Every moment beginneth existence, around every ‘Here’ rolleth the 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 lyre-lay out of it? Now, however, do I lie here, still exhausted with that biting and spitting-away, still sick with mine own salvation. AND YE LOOKED ON AT IT ALL? O mine animals, are ye also cruel? Did ye like to look at my great pain as men do? For man is the cruellest 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, calleth 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 a glance of the eye. “Thou lovest me?” saith the insolent one; “wait a little, as yet have I no time for thee.” Towards himself man is the cruellest animal; and in all who call themselves “sinners” and “bearers of the cross” and “penitents,” do not overlook the voluptuousness in 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 the 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 his baddest 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 worth while, knowledge strangleth.” A long twilight limped on before me, a fatally weary, fatally intoxicated sadness, which spake with yawning 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 mouldering past. My sighing sat on all human graves, and could no longer arise: my sighing and questioning croaked and choked, and gnawed and nagged day and night: —“Ah, man returneth eternally!