See this languishing specimen here! He is merely one span away from his goal, but out of weariness he has laid himself defiantly here in the dust - this valiant man! Out of weariness he yawns at the road and the earth and the goal and himself; not one more step will he take - this valiant one! Now the sun burns on him and the dogs lick at his sweat; but he lies there in his defiance and would rather die of thirst - - die of thirst one span away from his goal! Truly, you will yet have to drag him to his heaven by the hair - this hero! Better still, just let him lie where he has laid himself so that sleep can come to him, the comforter, with its cooling rushing rain: Thus Spoke Zarathustra Oh my brothers, am I perhaps cruel? But I say: if something is falling, one should also give it a push! Everything of today - it is falling, it is failing: who would want to stop it! But I - I want to push it too! Do you know the kind of lust that rolls stones down into steep depths? - These people of today; just look at how they roll into my depths! I am a prelude of better players, my brothers! An exemplary play! Act according to my example! And whomever you cannot teach to fly, him you should teach to fall faster ! Ilove the valiant, but it is not enough to be a fierce combatant - one must also know whom to combat! And often there is more valiance in someone controlling himself and passing by, so that he saves himself for the worthier enemy! You should have only those enemies whom you hate, but not enemies to despise; you must be proud of your enemy: this I taught you already once before. For the worthier enemy, my friends, you should save yourselves, and therefore you must pass by much - - especially pass by much rabble that thunders in your ears about folk and peoples. Keepyoureyeclear of their pros and cons! There is much justice, much injustice here; whoever watches becomes angry. Look around, beat them down - it's all the same here; therefore go away into the woods and lay your swords to sleep! Go your ways! And let folk and peoples go theirs! - dark ways, to be sure, on which not a single hope flashes anymore!


Let the shopkeeper rule where all that is left to glitter - is shopkeepers' gold! The time of kings is no more; what calls itself a people today deserves no kings. Just look at how these peoples themselves do the same as the shopkeepers; they pluck themselves the tiniest advantage from any dustpan! They lie in wait for one another, they look in hate at one another - this they call 'good neighbors.' Oh happy distant time when a people said to themselves: 'I want to be ruler over peoples!' For the best should rule, my brothers, and the best also want to rule! And wherever the teaching says differently, there - the best are missing . If they had bread for free, oh no! What would they clamor for! Their sustainment - that is their real entertainment, and they should have it hard! They are beasts of prey: in their 'working' - preying is there too; in their 'earning' - outwitting is there too! Therefore they should have it hard! They should become better beasts of prey, more subtle, more clever, more human-like : the human being, after all, is the best beast of prey. Human beings have already successfully preyed upon the virtues of all animals; this is because human beings have had the hardest time of all animals. Only the birds are above him. And if human beings were to learn even to fly, watch out! How high - would his lust to prey fly! This is how I want man and woman: fit for war the one, fit for bearing children the other, but both fit to dance in head and limb. And let each day be a loss to us on which we did not dance once! And let each truth be false to us which was not greeted by one laugh!


In taking your wedding vows - see to it that you are not making your bedding vows . Vowing too quickly results in - breaking vows! And better vow breaking than vow bending and vow pretending! A woman once said to me: 'Sure, I broke my wedding vows, but first my wedding vows broke me!' Theworstofthevengeful I always found to be the mismatched couples: they take it out on the whole world that they are no longer singles. Thus Spoke Zarathustra This is why I want honest people to speak honestly to one another: 'We love each other; let us see to it that we keep loving each other! Or did we promise by mistake?' - 'Give us a trial period and a small marriage, so that we can see whether we are fit for a big marriage! It is a big thing to always be in twos!' Thus I counsel all honest people; and what then would my love for the overman be, and for everything else that is to come, if I counseled and conveyed otherwise! Not merely to reproduce, but instead to sur produce - to that goal, my brothers, may the garden of marriage help you! Whoever has become wise about ancient origins will surely, in the end, seek new wells of the future and new origins. Yesmybrothers, it will not be overly long and new peoples will originate and new wells will roar down into new depths. An earthquake, after all - it buries many wells, it causes much dying of thirst: it also brings to light inner powers and secrets. An earthquake reveals new wells. In an earthquake of ancient peoples new wells break out. And whoever cries out there: 'Look, here is a fountain for many who thirst, a heart for many who long, a will for many tools' - around him gathers a people , that is: many who try. Whocan command, who must obey here it is tried ! Indeed, with what long searching and guessing and lack of success and learning and trying again! Human society: it is an experiment, this I teach - a long search: but it searches for the commander! - - an experiment, oh my brothers! And not a 'contract!' Break, break me such words of the soft hearted and half-and-halfs! My brothers! In whom does the greatest danger lie for all of future humanity? Is it not in the good and the just?


Ohmybrothers, have you even understood these words? And what I once said about the 'last human being?' - In whom does the greatest danger lie for all of future humanity? Is it not in the good and the just? Break, break me the good and the just !-Ohmybrothers, have you even understood these words? Thus Spoke Zarathustra You flee from me? You are frightened? You tremble before these words? My brothers, when I told you to break the good and the tablets of the good, then for the first time I launched mankind onto their high seas. Andonly now the great fright comes to them, the great looking-around oneself, the great sickness, the great nausea, the great seasickness. False coasts and false securities were taught you by the good; in the lies of the good you were born and bielded. Everything has been duplicitous and twisted from the ground up by the good. But whoever discovered the land 'human being' also discovered the land 'human future.' Now you will be seafarers, brave and patient! Walk upright for once, my brothers, learn to walk upright! The sea is stormy: Many want to right themselves again on you. The sea is stormy: Everything is in the sea. Well then! Well now! You old salts! What fatherland! There our helm wants to steer, where our children's land is! Out there, stormier than the sea, storms our great longing! - 'Why so hard!' - the kitchen coal once said to the diamond. 'Are we not close relatives?' Why so soft? Oh my brothers, this I ask you: for are you not - my brothers? Why so soft, so retiring and yielding? Why is there so much denying and denial in your hearts? And so little destiny in your gazes? And if you do not want to be destinies and inexorable, how could you triumph with me? And if your hardness does not want to flash and undo and cut through, how could you one day create with me? The creators are hard after all. And it must seem like bliss to you to press your hand upon millennia as if upon wax - - bliss to write upon the will of millennia as if upon bronze - harder than bronze, more noble than bronze. Only the most noble is perfectly hard. This new tablet, my brothers, I place above you: become hard ! -


Onemorningnotlongafterhisreturntohiscave,Zarathustrasprangfrom his bed like a madman, screamed with a terrifying voice and behaved as though someone else were lying on his bed, who did not want to get up. And Zarathustra's voice reverberated so much that his animals rushed to him frightened, and from every cave and hiding place neighboring on Zarathustra's cave, all the animals scurried away - flying, fluttering, crawling, leaping in whatever manner of foot or feather they were given. But Zarathustra said these words: Up, abysmal thought, out of my depths! I am your rooster and dawn, you sleepy worm: up! Up! My voice will yet crow you awake!


Unsnap the straps of your ears: listen! Because I want to hear you! Up! Up! Here there is thunder enough to make even graves learn to listen! And wipe the sleep and all that befogs and blinds you from your eyes! Hear me with your eyes too: my voice is a remedy even for those born blind. And once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally. It is not my manner to wake great-grandmothers from their sleep only to tell them go back to sleep! You stir, you stretch, you gasp? Up! Up! No gasping - you will speak to me! Zarathustra summons you, the godless one! I, Zarathustra, the advocate of life, the advocate of suffering, the advocate of the circle - you I summon, my most abysmal thought! Hail to me! You are coming - I hear you! My abyss speaks , I have unfolded my ultimate depth to the light! Hail to me! Here now! Give me your hand - ha! Let go! Haha! - Nausea, nausea, nausea - oh no! Scarcely had he spoken these words, however, when Zarathustra collapsed like a dead man and long remained as if dead. But when he came to he was pale and he trembled, still lying down, and for a long time he wanted neither to eat nor drink. This behavior lasted seven days; meanwhile, his animals did not leave his side day and night, unless the eagle flew out to fetch food. And whatever prey it fetched together it laid on Zarathustra's beduntil eventually Zarathustra lay among yellow and red berries, grapes, red apples, aromatic herbs and pine cones. At his feet, however, two lambs were spread out, which the eagle with difficulty had taken as prey from their shepherds. Finally, after seven days, Zarathustra sat up on his bed, picked up one of the red apples, smelled it, and found its aroma lovely. Then his animals believed the time had come to speak with him. 'Oh Zarathustra,' they said. 'Now you have been lying like this for seven days, with heavy eyes: do you not want at last to get on your feet?


Step out of your cave: the world awaits you like a garden. The wind is playing with heady fragrances that make their way to you; and all brooks want to run after you. Thus Spoke Zarathustra And you - you have already made a hurdy-gurdy song of it? Now I lie here, weary still from this biting and spitting out, sick still from my own redemption. And you looked on at all of this ?Ohmyanimals, are you also cruel? Did you want to watch my great pain the way people do? For human beings are the cruelest animal. Tragic plays, bullfights and crucifixions have always made them feel best on earth; and when they invented hell for themselves, see here - it was their heaven on earth. When a great human being cries out - in a flash the little ones come running, and their tongues hang out with lasciviousness. But they call it their 'pity.' The little human being, especially the poet - how eagerly he puts his accusations against life into words! Hear him, but do not fail to hear the lust that is in all his accusing! Such accusers of life are overcome by life in a blink of an eye. 'You love me?' says the flirt. 'Wait just a while longer, I don't have time for you yet.' Thehumanbeingisthecruelest animal against itself; and with all those who call themselves 'sinner' and 'cross bearer' and 'penitent,' do not fail to hear the lust in such complaining and accusing! And I myself - do I want therefore to be the accuser of mankind? Oh my animals, this alone have I learned so far, that for mankind their most evil is necessary for their best - - that whatever is most evil is their best power and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that mankind must become better and more evil - The cross on which I suffered was not that I know human beings are evil - instead, I cried as no one yet has cried: 'A shame that their most evil is so very small! A shame that their best is so very small!' My great surfeit of human beings that choked me and crawled into my throat; and what the soothsayer said: 'All is the same, nothing is worth it, knowledge chokes.'


Alongtwilight limped ahead of me, a tired to death and drunk to death sadness that spoke with a yawning mouth: 'Eternally he returns, the human of whom you are weary, the small human being' - thus my sadness yawned and dragged its foot and could not fall asleep. Third Part For me the human earth transformed into a cave, its chest caved in; everything living became human mold and bones and crumbling past. My sighing sat upon all human graves and could no longer stand up; my sighing and questioning croaked and choked and gnashed and lashed day and night: - 'alas, human beings recur eternally! The small human beings recur eternally!' - Naked I once saw them both, the greatest human and the smallest human:all too similar to one another - all too human still even the greatest one! All too small the greatest one! That was my surfeit of humans! And eternal recurrence of even the smallest! - That was my surfeit of all existence! Oh nausea! Nausea! Nausea!' - Thus spoke Zarathustra and sighed and shuddered, because he remembered his sickness. But his animals did not allow him to continue. 'Speak no more, you convalescent!' - answered his animals. 'Rather go outside where the world awaits you like a garden. Go outside to the roses and bees and swarms of doves! Especially to the song birds, so that you can learn to sing from them! Singing after all is for convalescents, let the healthy person talk. And even if the healthy person also wants songs, he wants different songs than the convalescent.' - 'Oh you foolish rascals and barrel organs, shut up!' - answered Zarathustra, and he smiled at his animals. 'How well you know which comfort I invented for myself in seven days! That I must sing once again this comfort I invented for myself and this convalescence; but do you want to make that into a hurdy-gurdy song right away too?' - 'Speak no more,' answered his animals again. 'Instead, you convalescent, fashion yourself a lyre first, a new lyre! Behold oh Zarathustra! For your new songs new lyres are needed.


Sing and foam over, Zarathustra; heal your soul with new songs so that you can bear your great destiny, which was never before a human's destiny! For your animals know well, oh Zarathustra, who you are and must become; behold, you are the teacher of the eternal recurrence - that now is your destiny! That you must teach this teaching as the first - how could this great destiny not also be your greatest danger and sickness! Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally and we ourselves along with them, and that we have already been here times eternal and all things along with us. You teach that there is a great year of becoming, a monster of a great year; like an hourglass it must turn itself over anew, again and again, so that it runs down and runs out anew - - so that all these years are the same as each other, in what is greatest and also in what is smallest - so that we ourselves in every great year are the same, in what is greatest and also in what is smallest. And if you wanted to die now, oh Zarathustra: behold, we know too how you would speak to yourself then: - but your animals beg you not to die yet! You would speak and without trembling, rather taking a deep breath, blissfully; for a great weight and oppressiveness would be taken from you, you most patient one! 'Now I die and disappear,' you would say, 'and in an instant I will be a nothing. Souls are as mortal as bodies. But the knot of causes in which I am entangled recurs - it will create me again! I myself belong to the causes of the eternal recurrence. I will return, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this snake not to a new life or a better life or a similar life: -Iwill return to this same and selfsame life, in what is greatest as well as in what is smallest, to once again teach the eternal recurrence of all things - -toonceagain speak the word about the great earth of noon and human beings, to once again proclaim the overman to mankind. I spoke my word, I break under my word: thus my eternal fate wills it - as proclaimer I perish!


The hour has now come for the one who goes under to bless himself. Thus ends Zarathustra's going under!'' - When the animals had spoken these words they fell silent and waited for Zarathustra to say something to them: but Zarathustra did not hear that they were silent. Instead he lay still, with eyes closed, like someone sleeping - even though he was not sleeping. Indeed, at this moment he was conversing with his soul. The snake and the eagle, however, finding Third Part him silent in this manner, honored the great stillness around him and cautiously slipped away.


Oh my soul, I taught you to say 'today' and 'once' and 'formerly,' and to dance your round over all here and then and there. Oh my soul, I redeemed you from all nooks, I swept dust, spiders and twilight off of you. Oh my soul, I washed the petty bashfulness and the nook-virtue from you and persuaded you to stand naked before the eyes of the sun. With the storm called 'spirit' I blew over your choppy sea; I blew all clouds away, I even choked the choker who is called 'sin.' Oh my soul, I gave you the right to say no like the storm and to say yes as the open sky says yes: still as light you now stand and even if you pass through storms of denial. Oh my soul, I gave you back your freedom over what is created and uncreated: and who knows as you know the lust of future things? Oh my soul, I taught you contempt that does not come like a gnawing worm, the great, loving contempt that loves most where it has the most contempt. Oh my soul, I taught you to persuade such that you persuade even the grounds; like the sun that persuades even the sea into its heights. Oh my soul, I took from you all obeying, knee-bending and sir-saying; I myself gave you the name 'turning point of need' and 'destiny.' Ohmysoul, I gave you new names and colorful playthings, I called you 'destiny' and 'compass of compasses' and 'umbilical cord of time' and 'azure bell.' Oh my soul, to your soil I gave all wisdom to drink, all new wines and also all old strong wines of wisdom from time immemorial. Oh my soul, I poured every sun upon you and every night and every silence and every longing - then you grew up for me like a grapevine. Oh my soul, super-rich and heavy you stand there now, a grapevine with swelling udders and crowded, brownish gold grapes - - crowded and crushed by your happiness, waiting out of superabundance and even bashful because of your waiting. Thus Spoke Zarathustra Oh my soul, nowhere now is there a soul that could be more loving and more compassing and encompassing! Where would future and past be closer together than in you?


Ohmysoul,Igaveyoueverythingandall my hands have become empty on you - and now! Now you say to me smiling and full of melancholy: 'Who of us is supposed to be thankful? - does the giver not have to give thanks that the receiver received? Is bestowing not a bare necessity? Is receiving not - mercy?' Ohmysoul, I understand the smiling of your melancholy: your superrichness itself reaches out with longing hands! Your fullness gazes out over roaring seas and searches and waits; the longing of over-fullness gazes smilingly from your sky-like eyes! And truly, oh my soul! Who could see your smile and not melt into tears! The angels themselves melt into tears at the super-goodness of your smile. It is your goodness and super-goodness that do not want to lament and weep; and yet, oh my soul, your smile longs for tears and your trembling mouth for sobs. 'Is not all weeping a lamentation? And is not all lamentation an accusation?' This is how you speak to yourself, and this is why, oh my soul, you would rather smile than pour out your suffering - - pour out your suffering in gushing tears over your fullness and over all the aching of the grapevine for the vintner and his knife! But if you do not want to weep and weep out your purple melancholy, then you must sing ,ohmysoul! - Look, I too smile for telling you this in advance: - sing with a roaring song until all seas become silent, to listen for your longing - -until the skiff floats over silent longing seas, the golden wonder around whose gold all good and bad and wonderful things hop - - even many great and small animals and everything that has light, wondrous feet, and can run on paths of violet blue - - over to the golden wonder, the voluntary skiff and to its master: but he is the vintner who waits with his diamond knife - -your great redeemer, oh my soul, the nameless one - for whom only future songs will find a name! And truly, your breath is fragrant already with future songs! -


Where are you pulling me now, you standout and upstart? And now you flee me again, sweet wildcat, thankless heart! I dance after you, and follow your trail using any clue. Where are you? Give me your hand! Even a finger will do! Here are caves and thickets, we could get lost in there! - Stop! Stand still! Do you not see owls and bats in the air? You owls! You bats! This leaves you in stitches? Where are we? Such howling and yelping you learned from the bitches. You gnash at me sweetly with little white teeth; your curly little mane, evil eyes peeking out from beneath! This is a dance moving every which way; I am the hunter - are you my hound or my prey? Next to me now! And quick, you evil little jumper! Up now! And over! - Oh no! I slipped and now I'm on my rump here! Oh see me lying, miss mischief, have mercy on me! There are paths to sweet places - where I would rather be! - Paths of love through silent blooming plants! Or down there along the lake, where goldfish swim and dance! Are you weary now? Over there are sheep and sunset-swoons; is it not sweet to sleep when shepherds play their tunes? Are you so bitter weary! I will carry you there, just relax and let your arms sink! And if you thirst - I have something, but nothing you would drink! - - Oh this cursed clever, supple snake and slippery witch! Gone without a trace? But left behind, and left by hand, I feel two red spots on my face! I am truly tired of always playing your sheepish shepherd pal! You witch, if I have so far sung for you, now you for me will - yell! To the beat of my whip you will dance so and yell so! But did I forget the whip? - Oh no! - Then life answered me like this and covered her dainty little ears: 'OhZarathustra! Please do not crack your whip so fearfully! Surely you know: noise murders thoughts - and just now the most tender thoughts are coming to me.


From deepest dream I made my way -, 1 = Four!. , 1 = Five!. The world is deep,, 1 = . And deeper than the grasp of day., 1 = Seven!. Joy - deeper still than misery:, 1 = . Pain says: refrain!, 1 = Nine!. , 1 = Ten!. - wants deep, wants deep eternity!', 1 = Eleven!. , 1 = Twelve! The Seven Seals (Or: the Yes and Amen Song) If I am a soothsayer and full of that soothsaying spirit that hikes on a high pass between two seas - hikes between the past and the future as a heavy cloud - the enemy of oppressive lowlands and everything that is weary and can neither die nor live: ready in its dark bosom for lightning and for the redeeming ray of light, pregnant with lightning bolts that say Yes! and laugh Yes! to soothsaying bolts of lightning - - but blessed is the one who is pregnant like this! And truly, whoever will one day kindle the light of the future must hang long on the mountain like a heavy storm! - oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence! Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity! If my wrath ever broke open graves, moved boundary stones and rolled old broken tablets down into steep depths: If my scorn ever blew apart moldy words, and I came upon the cross spiders like a broom, and as a sweeping wind to old musty burial chambers: If I ever sat jubilating where old gods lie buried, blessing the world, loving the world next to the monuments of ancient world maligners - - because I love even churches and God's graves once the sky's pure eye gazes through their broken roofs; gladly do I sit like grass and red poppies on broken churches - Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence! Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity!


If ever a breath came to me of creative breath and of that heavenly necessity that forces even accidents to dance astral rounds: If ever I laughed with the laugh of creative lightning that follows rumbling but obediently the long thunder of the deed: If ever I rolled dice with gods at the gods' table of the earth, so that the earth quaked and ruptured and snorted up rivers of fire - - because the earth is a gods' table, and it trembles with creative new words and gods' throws - Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence! Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity! If ever I drank my fill from that foaming mug of mixed spices, in which all good things are mixed: Third Part Thus Spoke Zarathustra If my hand ever poured the farthest to the closest and fire to spirit and joy to sorrow and the most wicked to the kindest: If I myself am a grain of that redeeming salt that makes all things in the mixing mug mix well - - because there is a salt that binds good with evil; and even what is most evil is worthy as a spice and for the final foaming over - Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence! Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity! If I favor the sea and everything that is of the sea, and even favor it most when it angrily contradicts me: If ever that joy of searching is in me that drives sails toward the undiscovered, if a seafarer's joy is in my joy: If ever my jubilating cried: 'The coast disappeared - now the last chain has fallen from me - - infinity roars around me, way out there space and time glitter, well then, what of it old heart!' - Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence!


Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity! If my virtue is a dancer's virtue and I often leaped with both feet into golden emerald delight: If my malice is a laughing malice, at home beneath rosy slopes and lily hedges: - for in laughter everything evil is together, but pronounced holy and absolved by its own bliss: And if that is my alpha and omega, that all heaviness becomes light, all body dancer, all spirit bird - and truly, that is my alpha and omega! -


Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence! Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity! If ever I spread silent skies above me and flew into my own sky with my own wings: If I playfully swam in deep expanses of light, and my freedom's birdwisdom came - - but bird-wisdom speaks like this: 'See, there is no up, no down! Throw yourself around, out, back you light one! Sing! Speak no more! -are not all words made for the heavy? Do not all words lie to the light? Sing! Speak no more!' - Oh how then could I not lust for eternity and for the nuptial ring of rings - the ring of recurrence! Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it were this woman whom I love: for I love you, oh eternity! For I love you, oh eternity!


Oh, where in the world has greater folly occurred than among the pitying? And what in the world causes more suffering than the folly of the pitying? Woe to all lovers who do not yet have an elevation that is above their pitying! Thus the devil once spoke to me: 'Even God has his hell: it is his love for mankind.' Andrecently I heard him say these words: 'God is dead; God died of pity for mankind.' Zarathustra , 'On the Pitying' ( , p. ).


- And again moons and years passed over Zarathustra's soul and he took no notice of it; but his hair had turned white. One day as he sat on a stone before his cave and gazed outward - there where one looks out upon the sea and beyond twisting abysses - his animals walked around him pensively until finally they stood before him. 'Oh Zarathustra,' they said. 'Are you perhaps on the lookout for your happiness?' - 'What does happiness matter!' he answered. 'I haven't strived for happiness for a long time, I strive for my work.' - 'Oh Zarathustra,' said the animals again. 'You say that as one who has had overly much of the good. Do you not lie in a sky-blue lake of happiness?' - 'You foolish rascals,' answered Zarathustra, smiling. 'How well you chose your metaphor! But you also know that my happiness is heavy and not like a fluid wave of water; it presses me and will not leave me alone and it acts like melted tar.' -


Then the animals again walked around him pensively and once more they stood before him. 'Oh Zarathustra,' they said, 'is that why you yourself are becoming ever yellower and darker, even though your hair looks white and flaxen? Don't you see, you are bogged down in your misfortune!' - 'What are you saying, my animals?' said Zarathustra, and helaughed.'Truly,IsmearedwhenIusedthewordtar.What'shappening to me is common to all fruits that ripen. It's the honey in my veins that makes my blood thicker and also makes my soul calmer.' - 'It will be as you say, oh Zarathustra,' answered the animals, and they pressed up against him. 'But do you not want to climb a high mountain today? The air is pure and today one sees more of the world than ever before.' - 'Yes, myanimals,' he answered. 'Your advice is superb and after my own heart: Idowant to climb a high mountain today! But see to it that there is honey at hand for me there; yellow, white, good, icy fresh golden honey from the comb. Because know this: I want to offer the honey sacrifice up there.' - But when Zarathustra was up on the summit he sent home the animals which had accompanied him, and he found that he was alone now - then he laughed with his whole heart, looked around and spoke thus: That I spoke of sacrifices and honey sacrifices was merely a sleight of speech and, truly, a useful folly! Up here I may speak more freely than before hermits' caves and hermits' pets.


What sacrifice! I squander what was bestowed me, I the squanderer with a thousand hands: How could I call that - sacrificing! And when I desired honey I merely desired bait and sweet ooze and mucus, for which even growling bears and odd, surly, evil birds lick with their tongues: - the best bait, as it is needed by hunters and fishermen. Because if the world is like a dark jungle and a pleasure garden for all wild hunters, to me it seems even more, and preferably, an abysmal rich sea, -asea full of colorful fishes and crabs, for whose sake even gods would crave to become fishermen and net casters: so rich is the world in odd things great and small! Especially the human world, the human sea - toward it I now cast my golden fishing rod and say: open up, you human abyss! Open up and toss me your fishes and glittering crabs! With my best bait today I bait the oddest human fishes! - my very happiness I cast far and wide, between sunrise, noon and sunset, to see if many human fishes learn to jiggle and wiggle on my happiness. Until, biting on my sharp hidden hooks, they have to emerge into my height, the motliest gorge gudgeons to the most spiteful of all fishers of human fish. That's what I am, after all, at bottom and from the start; reeling, reeling in, raising up, raising, a raiser, a cultivator and taskmaster who not for nothing once told himself: 'Become who you are!' So now human beings may come up to me; you see, I am still waiting for the sign that it is time for my descent; I myself will not go under yet, as I must, and among human beings. That's why I'm waiting here, cunning and mocking on high mountains, not impatient, not patient, but instead one who has forgotten even forbearance - because he no longer 'bears.' Mydestiny leaves me time for this: surely it has forgotten me? Or does it sit behind a big rock in the shade, catching flies? And really, I like my eternal destiny for not rushing and pressing me and for leaving me time for jests and spite, so that today I climbed this high mountain to catch fish.


Didahumanbeingevercatchfishonhighmountains?Andevenifwhat I want and do up here is folly, this is still better than becoming pompous and green and gold down there from waiting - Fourth and Final Part - a swaggering wrath snorter from waiting, a holy, howling mountain storm, an impatient one who cries down into the valleys: 'Hear me, or I shall whip you with the lash of God!' Not that I would grudge such angry men for it; they are good enough for me to laugh at! They have to be impatient anyway, these big noisy drums, who either get to speak today or never! But I and my destiny - we do not speak to today, nor do we speak to never: we have patience enough and time and overtime for speaking. Because it must come someday and may not pass by. What must come someday and may not pass by? Our great Hazar , that is our great distant human empire, the Zarathustra empire of a thousand years - How distant might such a 'distance' be? What do I care! But it is no less firm to me on that account - with both feet I stand firmly on this ground, -onaneternal ground, on hard primeval rock, on this highest, hardest primeval mountain chain, to which all winds come as if to a weathershed, asking Where? and from Where? and Where to? Laugh, laugh here my bright hearty spite! Throw down your glittering, mockinglaughterfromhighmountains!Baitmethemostbeautifulhuman fish with your glittering! And whatever in all the seas belongs to me , my actual me in all things - fish that out for me, bring that up to me - that's what I am waiting for, I the most spiteful of all fishermen. Out, out my fishing rod! Into and down, bait of my happiness! Drip your sweetest dew, my heart's honey! Bite, my fishing rod, into the belly of all black gloom! Out there, out there my eye! Oh how many seas surround me, what dawning human futures! And above me - what rosy red stillness! What cloudless silence!


The next day Zarathustra again sat on the stone before his cave, while the animals roamed about in the world to bring home new nourishment - and new honey too, because Zarathustra had spent and squandered the old honey to the last drop. But as he sat there like this, with a stick in his hand and tracing the outline of his shadow on the ground, reflecting Thus Spoke Zarathustra and, truly, not about himself and his shadow - then all at once he was frightened and startled, because next to his own shadow he saw another shadow. And as he quickly looked around and stood up, there was the soothsayer standing next to him, the same one whom he had wined and dined at his table, the proclaimer of the great weariness who taught: 'All is the same, nothing is worth it, the world is without meaning, knowledge chokes.' But his face had transformed in the meantime; and when Zarathustra looked him in the eyes, his heart was frightened again - so many grave proclamations and ashen gray lightning bolts animated this face. The soothsayer, who read what was going on in Zarathustra's soul, wiped his hand over his face as if he wanted to wipe it away; Zarathustra did the same. And when both had silently composed and strengthened themselves in this manner, they shook hands as a sign that they wanted to recognize one another.


'Welcome,' said Zarathustra, 'you soothsayer of the great weariness; not for nothing were you once a guest at my table. Eat and drink with me today too, and forgive that a contented old man joins you at the table!' 'A contented old man?' answered the soothsayer, shaking his head. 'Whoever you are or want to be, oh Zarathustra, you've been that long enough up here - in a short time your skiff will no longer be on the rocks!' - 'Am I on the rocks then?' asked Zarathustra, laughing. - 'The waves around your mountain,' answered the soothsayer, 'rise and rise; the waves of great distress and gloom: soon they will lift your skiff as well and carry you away.' - Zarathustra was silent on hearing this and surprised. - 'Do you not hear anything yet?' continued the soothsayer. 'Is there not a rushing and roaring up from the depths?' - Zarathustra kept silent and listened; then he heard a long, long cry that the abysses threw back and forth to each other, as if none wanted to keep it - so evil did it sound. 'You wicked proclaimer,' spoke Zarathustra at last. 'That's a cry of distress and the cry of a human being, even if it comes out of a black sea. But what is human distress to me! My final sin, the one saved up for me - do you know what it's called?' - ' Pity !' answered the soothsayer from his overflowing heart, and he raised both hands high - 'oh Zarathustra, I come to seduce you to your last sin!' - Fourth and Final Part And scarcely had these words been spoken when the cry rang out again, and longer and more anxious than before, also much closer now. 'Do you hear? Do you hear, oh Zarathustra?' cried the soothsayer. 'The cry is meant for you, it calls you: come, come, come, it is time, it is high time!' - Zarathustra was silent after this, confused and shaken; finally he asked, like one who hesitates inwardly: 'And who is it there that calls me?'


'But you know it already,' answered the soothsayer vehemently. 'Why do you conceal yourself? It is the higher man who calls for you!' 'The higher man?' cried Zarathustra, seized by horror. 'What does he want? What does he want? The higher man! What does he want here?' - And his skin was bathed in sweat. But the soothsayer did not respond to Zarathustra's fear, and instead he listened and listened toward the depths. But after it was quiet there for a long time, he turned his glance back and saw Zarathustra standing and trembling. 'Oh Zarathustra,' he began with a sad voice. 'You do not stand there like one whose happiness makes him giddy: you will have to dance to keep from falling down! But even if you were to dance before me and leap all your side-leaps, no one should be allowed to tell me: 'Look, here dances the last gay human being!' Anyone who came to this height looking for him would come in vain; caves he would find, to be sure, and hinter-caves, hiding places for hiders, but no shafts of happiness and treasure chambers and new golden veins of happiness. Happiness - how could anyone find happiness among those who are buried away and hermits? Must I seek the last happiness far away on blessed isles between forgotten seas? But all is the same, nothing is worth it, searching does not help, and there are no blessed isles anymore!' - Thus sighed the soothsayer; but at his last sigh Zarathustra became bright and certain once more, like someone who comes from a deep chasm into the light. 'No! No! No! Three times no!' he cried in a strong voice, stroking his beard. ' That I know better! There are still blessed isles! Be silent about that , you sighing sadsack! Thus Spoke Zarathustra Stop splashing about that , you rain cloud of the morning! Do I not already stand here soaked by your gloom and drenched like a dog? Now I'll shake myself and run away from you, so that I can dry off again; that shouldn't surprise you! Do I seem discourteous to you? But this is my court.


But as far as your higher man is concerned: let's go! I'll search for him right now in those woods from there his cry came. Perhaps he is beset by some evil beast. He is in my territory, and in here he shall not come to harm! And truly, there are many evil beasts in my territory.' - With these words Zarathustra turned to leave. Then the soothsayer spoke: 'Oh Zarathustra, you are a rogue! I already know that you want to get rid of me! You would rather run into the woods and pursue evil beasts! But what will it help you? By evening you will have me again anyway, I will be sitting in your own cave, patient and heavy like a block - and I will be waiting for you!' 'So be it!' called Zarathustra over his shoulder as he departed. 'And whatever is mine in my cave, it belongs to you too, my guest! But if you should find honey in there, good! Then just lick it up, you old growling bear, and sweeten your soul! Because by evening we will both want to be in a good mood, - in a good mood and glad that this day came to an end! And you yourself will dance to my songs as my dancing bear. You don't believe it? You shake your head? Well then! We'll see, old bear! But I too am - a soothsayer.' Thus spoke Zarathustra.


Zarathustra had been underway in his mountains and woods for not even one hour when all at once he saw a strange procession. On precisely the path he wanted to take down, two kings came walking, adorned with crowns and purple sashes and as colorful as flamingoes; before them they drove a burdened ass. 'What do these kings want in my kingdom?' spoke Zarathustra to his astonished heart, and he hid himself quickly behind a Fourth and Final Part bush. But when the kings caught up to him he said, half out loud like a person talking to himself: 'Strange! Strange! What rhyme or reason can this have? I see two kings - and only one ass!' Then the two kings stopped, smiled, looked toward the place from which the voice had come and then turned to face one another. 'Such things are also thought among us,' said the king to the right, 'but one does not speak it.' But the king to the left shrugged his shoulders and answered: 'It's probably a goatherd. Or a hermit who has lived too long among cliffs and trees. After all, no society at all also ruins good manners.' 'Good manners?' retorted the other king indignantly and bitterly. 'Then what are we trying to run away from? Is it not 'good manners'? Is it not our 'good society?' Better, truly, to live among hermits and goatherds than live with our gilded, fake, make-up wearing rabble - even if it calls itself 'good society,' - even if it calls itself 'nobility.' But there everything is fake and foul, starting with the blood, thanks to old diseases and even worse healers. Best and dearest to me today is still a healthy peasant, coarse, cunning, stubborn, enduring: that is the most noble type today. The peasant today is the best; and peasant-type should be ruler! But it is the kingdom of the rabble - I will not be deceived anymore. Rabble now, that means: mishmash. Rabble mishmash: in it everything is jumbled together, saint and scoundrel and Junker and Jew and every beast from the ark of Noah.


Good manners! Everything among us is fake and foul. No one knows how to revere anymore that precisely is what we are running away from. They are mawkish, obtrusive dogs, they are gilders of palm leaves. This nausea chokes me, that we kings ourselves became fake, decked out and dressed up in old yellowed grandfathers' pomp, medals for the most moronic and the slyest and whoever the hell haggles today for power! We are not the first - and yet we must signify that we are: it is this deception that we have finally had enough of, that nauseates us. We got away from the riffraff, all these screamers and scribble-blowflies, all the shopkeeper stench, all the twitching ambition, all the bad breath phooey to living among the riffraff, - phooey to signifying the first among the riffraff! Oh nausea! Nausea! Nausea! What do we kings matter anymore!' - Thus Spoke Zarathustra 'Your old illness befalls you again,' said now the king on the left. 'Nausea befalls you, my poor brother. But you know too that someone is listening to us.' At once Zarathustra, whose ears and eyes had opened wide at this conversation, rose from his hiding place, approached the kings and began: 'The one who listens to you, who listens gladly to you, you kings, is called Zarathustra. I am Zarathustra, who once spoke: 'What do kings matter anymore!' Forgive me, I was so pleased when you said to one another: 'What do we kings matter!' But here is my realm and my rule: what might you be seeking now in my realm? Or perhaps you have found along the way what I am seeking, namely the higher man.' When the kings heard this they beat their breasts and exclaimed with one voice: 'We have been found out! With the sword of your words you strike through our hearts' thickest darkness. You discover our distress, for behold! We are on our way to find the higher man - - the man who is higher than we, even though we are kings. To him we lead this ass. The highest man, you see, should be the highest ruler on earth.


There is no harder misfortune in all human destiny than when the powerful of the earth are not also the first human beings. Then everything becomes fake and crooked and monstrous. And should they even be last and more beast than human; then the rabble rises and rises in price, until finally even rabble virtue speaks: 'Behold, I alone am virtue!'' - 'What did I just hear?' answered Zarathustra. 'What wisdom among kings! I am delighted, and truly, I'm already in the mood to make a rhyme of it: - - even if it turns out to be a rhyme that is not suitable for everyone's ears. Long ago I gave up being considerate of long ears. Well then! Well now! (But here it happened that the ass too got in a word; and clearly and malevolently he said hee-yaw.) Once - I think in anno domini one The Sybil said, drunk, though wine she'd had none: 'Oh no, how badly things go!


Decline! Decline! The world has sunk so low! Rome sank to whore and to a whorehouse too, Rome's Caesar to beast, God himself - turned Jew!'' The kings were enchanted by these rhymes of Zarathustra, but the king to the right spoke: 'Oh Zarathustra, how well we did in going forth to see you! Foryour enemies showed us your image in their mirror: there you were withyourdevil'sgrimaceandlaughingscornfully,suchthatwewereafraid of you. But what good did it do? Again and again you pricked our ears and hearts with your sayings, then we said at last: what does it matter how he looks! We have to hear him, the one who teaches 'you shall love peace as a means to new wars, and the short peace more than the long one!' Noonehaseverspokensuchwarlikewords:'Whatisgood?Beingbrave is good. The good war hallows any cause.'


The frequent quotes of Zarathustra throughout Part are not verbatim but close enough to indicate that Zarathustra's words have caught on and are being interpreted with varying degrees of success. Parts and appeared in , Part was written later in and early , and published in - it was intended as the final part of TSZ. Part was originally planned as a separate work under the title 'Noon and Eternity,' but Nietzsche found no publisher for it, and decided instead to make it the fourth part of TSZ and to publish it at his own expense. Part appeared in only copies in , and was distributed to friends only. In the first edition of TSZ Parts - appeared; the complete work in four parts did not appear until . When Nietzsche boasts in Ecce Homo ( Kritische Studienausgabe : ) that he needed no more than ten days to finish each part of TSZ, the information is misleading if we do not also consider his method of composition. The ten-day periods do not refer to the idea and its execution in the various parables, speeches, frame narratives, characters etc, i.e. each part did not take ten days from start to finish. This can be illustrated by the fact that the final aphorism of The Gay Science , as well as notes from the period, already deal with Zarathustra. Instead, Nietzsche constantly worked out various drafts related to the basic Zarathustra idea, often even during his long walks, and these he copied into larger notebooks at home. When he sat down to compose one of the parts of TSZ, it then took him approximately ten days to structure his already existing material into its finished literary form (see Kritische Studienausgabe : - ). When Nietzsche speaks in Ecce Homo of his phenomenal inspiration, and how ideas simply flooded over and through him ('I never had a choice,' Kritische Studienausgabe : ), this should not be taken to mean that he experienced four ten-day periods of Zarathustra inspiration. Nietzsche, Jung, Kaufmann all appear to have contributed to this myth. Part differs structurally from the earlier parts but also in tone; it represents a very sober 'revisiting' of the original work, a retreat from the teaching and preaching, includes several 'dithyrambs' later revised and added to the Dionysus Dithyrambs , and displays a narrowscopeofinteraction with only


'higher men.' Notably it takes place entirely on Zarathustra's mountain.


Oh Zarathustra, our fathers' blood stirred in our bodies at the sound of such words; it was like the speech of springtime to old casks of wine. When swords ran every which way like red-stained snakes, our fathers warmed to life; the sun of all peace seemed limp and lackluster to them, but the long peace caused them shame. Howtheysighed, our fathers, when they saw gleaming bright, dried up swords on the wall! Like them, they thirsted for war. For a sword wants to drink blood and sparkles with desire.' - -Asthe kings talked in this manner and gabbed enthusiastically about the happiness of their fathers, Zarathustra was overcome by no small desire to mock their enthusiasm; after all, these were visibly very peaceful kings he saw standing before him, the kind with old and refined faces. But he restrained himself. 'Well then!' he said. 'The path leads there, Zarathustra's cave lies there, and this day shall also have a long evening! But now a cry of distress hurries me away from you. It will honor my cave if kings want to sit and wait in it, but, to be sure, you will have to wait long! Alright! What's the harm? Where does one learn to wait better today than at court? And the whole virtue of kings that is left to them - is it not today called: being able to wait?' Thus spoke Zarathustra.


And Zarathustra walked on pensively, farther and deeper through woods and past swampy valleys; but as happens to anyone who reflects on grave matters, he unintentionally stepped on someone. And behold, all at once he was sprayed in the face with one scream of pain and two curses and twenty wicked invectives, such that in his fright he raised his staff and also started beating the man he had just stepped on. Immediately thereupon he gained his composure, and his heart laughed at the folly that he had just committed. 'Forgive me,' he said to the man he had stepped on, who stood up grimly and then sat down. 'Forgive and partake, above all, in a parable first. Of how a wanderer who is dreaming of distant things unintentionally stumbles over a sleeping dog on a lonely lane, a dog lying in the sun: Fourth and Final Part - how both startle then, and attack each other like deathly enemies, these two who are scared to death: so it went with us too. Andyet! And yet - how little was missing and they would have caressed each other, this dog and this lonely man! Are they not after all both lonely!' - 'Whoever you may be,' said the stepped on man, still grimly, 'you step on my dignity with your parable too, and not only with your foot! See here, am I some kind of dog?' - and then the sitting man got up and pulled his bare arm out of the swamp. Because at first he had lain stretched out on the ground, hidden and unrecognizable like those who lie in wait for swamp quarry. 'But what in blazes are you doing!' cried Zarathustra, shocked. For he saw that much blood was flowing over the man's bare arm. 'You wretch, did some wicked beast bite you?' The bleeding man laughed, but still angrily. 'What concern is it of yours!' he said, and made to leave. 'Here I am at home and in my territory. Anyone who wants may question me, but I will hardly answer a stumbling fool.' 'You are mistaken,' said Zarathustra, with pity, and he held on to him. 'You are mistaken: here you are not in your home, but in my realm, and in here no one comes to harm.


Meanwhile call me whatever you want - I am who I must be. I call myself Zarathustra. Well then! Up there is the path to Zarathustra's cave; it isn't far wouldn't you like to care for your wounds at my place? Things have gone badly for you in this life, you wretch; first you were bitten by the beasts, and then - you were stepped on by a human being!' - But when the stepped on man heard the name of Zarathustra, he transformed. 'What is happening to me!' he cried out. ' Who concerns me anymore in this life other than this one person, namely Zarathustra, and that one animal that lives off blood, the leech? For the leech's sake I lay here at this swamp like a fisher, and already my outstretched arm had been bitten ten times, then an even more beautiful leech bites on my blood, Zarathustra himself! Oh happiness! Oh miracle! Praised be the day that lured me to this swamp! Praised be the best, liveliest cupping glass living today, praised be the great conscience-leech Zarathustra!' - Thus Spoke Zarathustra Thus spoke the stepped on man; and Zarathustra was pleased at his words and their fine, respectful manner. 'Who are you?' he said, and offered him his hand. 'Between us there is much to clear up and to cheer up; but already it seems to me the day is growing pure and bright.' 'I am the conscientious of spirit ,' answered the man, 'and in matters of the spirit one can hardly be more rigorous, vigorous and venomous than I, except the one from whom I learned it, Zarathustra himself. Rather know nothing, than know much half way! Rather be a fool in one's own right than a wise man according to strangers. I - go to the ground of things: - what does it matter whether it is big or small? Whether it is called swamp or sky? A hand's breadth of ground is enough for me, if only it is real ground and bottom! -ahand's breadth of ground: on that one can stand. In proper science and conscience there is nothing great and nothing small.'


'So perhaps you are the expert on the leech?' asked Zarathustra. 'And you pursue the leech down to its ultimate grounds, you conscientious one?' 'Oh Zarathustra,' answered the stepped on man. 'That would be a monstrous undertaking, how could I presume to such a thing! What I am master and expert of, however, is the leech's brain - that is my world! And it is a world too! But forgive me that my pride speaks up here, for in this matter I have no equal. That is why I said 'here I am at home.' Howlong already have I pursued this one thing, the brain of the leech, so that the slippery truth no longer slips away from me here? Here is my realm! - this is why I threw away everything else, this is why all else is the same to me; and right next to my knowledge my black ignorance lurks. My conscience of spirit wants of me that I know one thing and do not know everything else; I am nauseated by all halfness of spirit, all hazy, soaring, rapturous people. Where my honesty ceases I am blind and also want to be blind. But whereIwanttoknow,Ialsowanttobehonest,namelyvenomous,rigorous, vigorous, cruel and inexorable. That you once said, oh Zarathustra: 'Spirit is the life that itself cuts into life,' that induced and seduced me to your teaching. And truly, with my own blood I increased my own knowledge!'


-'And it shows too,' interrupted Zarathustra; for blood was still flowing from the bare arm of the conscientious one. No fewer than ten leeches, after all, had bored themselves into it. 'Oh you weird fellow, how much is revealed to me by your appearance, namely you yourself! And maybe I should not pour all of it into your rigorous ears! Well then! Let's part here! But I would like to find you again. Up there leads the path to my cave; tonight you shall be my dear guest there! I would also like to make it up to your body that Zarathustra stepped on you with his feet; I'll be thinking about that. But now a cry of distress hurries me away from you.' Thus spoke Zarathustra.


But as Zarathustra made his way around a boulder he saw someone not far below him on the same path, flailing his limbs like a raving madman, who finally flopped belly-first to the ground. 'Stop!' said Zarathustra to his heart. 'That one there must be the higher man, that awful cry of distress came from him - I'll go see if I can help.' But when he ran to the spot where the person lay on the ground, he found a trembling old man with a fixed gaze; and as hard as Zarathustra tried to prop him up and stand him on his feet again, it was in vain. Nor did the unfortunate man seem to notice that someone was with him; instead he kept looking around with pitiful gestures, like someone who had been abandoned and left stranded by the whole world. At last, however, after much trembling and twitching and writhing he began to wail thus: Who will warm me, who loves me still? Give me hot hands! Give me braziers for my heart! Laid out, shuddering, Like something half-dead whose feet one warms Racked, oh! by unknown fevers, Shivering from pointy icy arrows of frost, Hunted by you, thought! Unnameable! Disguised! Horrendous one!


You hunter behind clouds! Struck down by your lightning, You scornful eye that looks at me from darkness: - I lie here, Doubled up, writhing, tortured By all eternal torments, Struck By you, cruelest hunter, You unknown - god! Strike deeper, Strike one more time! Skewer, smash this heart! Why this torment With blunt-toothed arrows? Why do you look again, Not weary of human agony, With gloating gods' eyes flashing lightning? You do not want to kill, Only torment, torment? Why torment me , You gloating unknown god? - Aha! You sneak close? At such midnight What do you want? Speak! You press me, squeeze me Ha! too close already! Away! Away! You hear me breathing, you listen to my heart, You jealous one - But of what are you jealous? Away! Away! Why the ladder? Do you want in , Into my heart, To climb in, to climb into My most secret thoughts? Shameless one! Unknown - thief! What would you gain by stealing, What would you gain by eavesdropping, What would you gain by torturing,


You torturer! You executioner god! Or should I, like a dog, Roll over before you? Devotedly, ecstatically beside myself Wag love - to you? In vain! Stab deeper, Cruelest thorn! No, Not dog, only your prey am I, Cruelest hunter! Your proudest captive, You robber behind clouds! Speak at last, What do you want, waylayer, from me ? You disguised in lightning! Unknown one! Speak, What do you want , unknown god? - What? Ransom? Why do you want ransom? Demand much - thus my pride counsels! And speak briefly - thus my other pride counsels! Aha! Me - you want? Me? Me - entirely? Aha! And you torment me, fool that you are, Torment my pride? Give me love - who will warm me still? Who loves me still? - give me hot hands, Give me braziers for my heart, Give me, the loneliest one, Whom ice, alas, sevenfold ice Teaches to yearn, To yearn even for enemies, Give, yes give, Cruelest enemy, Give me yourself ! - Gone! He himself fled, My last, my only companion, Thus Spoke Zarathustra My great enemy, My unknown, My executioner god! - - No! Come back, With all your torments! To the last of all lonely ones Oh come back! All my rivers of tears flow Their course to you! And my last heart flames - For you they flicker! Oh come back, My unknown god! My pain! My last - happiness! - But at this point Zarathustra could no longer restrain himself, grabbed his staff and began beating the wailing man with all his strength. 'Shut up!' he cried to him, with grim laughter. 'Shut up, you actor! You counterfeiter! You liar from top to bottom! I recognize you well! I'll give you warm legs, you wicked magician, I'm very good at heating up people like you!' - 'Desist,' said the old man and he leaped to his feet. 'Beat me no more, oh Zarathustra! I only did this as a game! Such things belong to my art; you yourself I wanted to put to the test, when I gave you this test. And verily, you saw through me well!


But you yourself - you also tested me with no small sample of yourself: you are hard ,you wise Zarathustra! You hit hard with your 'truths,' your cudgel forces this truth out of me!' - 'Do not flatter,' answered Zarathustra, still upset and frowning darkly, 'you actor from top to bottom! You're fake - why do you talk - of truth! You peacock of peacocks, you sea of vanity, what are you playing before me, you wicked magician, in whom am I supposed to believe when you wail in this form?' ' Thepenitent of the spirit ,' said the old man. ' Him I played: you yourself once coined this phrase - Fourth and Final Part - the poet and magician who ultimately turns his spirit against himself, the transformed one who freezes to death from his own evil science and conscience. And just admit it: it took you a long time, oh Zarathustra, before you saw through my art and lie! You believed in my distress when you cradled my head with both hands - -Iheard you wail 'they loved him too little, loved him too little!' That I was able to deceive you to such an extent, that causes my malice to jubilate secretly.' 'Youmayhavedeceivedfinerheadsthanme,'saidZarathustraharshly. 'I am not on my guard for deceivers, I have to be without caution - my fate wants it so. But you have to deceive: that much I know about you! You always have to be e-quivocal, tri-, quad- and quinquivocal! Even what you just now confessed was not nearly true nor false enough for me! You wicked counterfeiter, how could you do otherwise! You would even put make-up on your disease when you show yourself naked to your physician. Just like you put make-up on your lie before me when you said 'I only did this as a game!' There was earnest in it, you are something of a penitent of the spirit! I guessed you well: you became everyone's enchanter, but against yourself you have no lie and no guile left over - you are disenchanted of yourself!


You harvested nausea as your single truth. Not a word of yours is genuine anymore, except your mouth: namely the nausea that clings to your mouth.' - - 'Who are you!' yelled the old magician at this point, with defiance in his voice. 'Who is permitted to speak with me thus, the greatest person living today?' - and an emerald bolt of lightning shot from his eye toward Zarathustra. But then he transformed immediately and said sadly: 'Oh Zarathustra, I am weary of and nauseated by my arts, I am not great , why do I pretend! But, you know it well - I sought greatness! I wanted to represent a great human being and I persuaded many; but this lie was beyond my powers. On it I break down. Oh Zarathustra, everything about me is a lie; but that I am breaking down - this breaking down is genuine !' - Thus Spoke Zarathustra 'It does you honor,' spoke Zarathustra somberly and glancing down to the side, 'it does you honor that you sought greatness, but it also betrays you. You are not great. You wicked old magician, that is your best and most honest, and what Ihonor in you, namely that you wearied of yourself and said so: 'I am not great.' In that I honor you as a penitent of the spirit; and even if it was only for a whiff and a wink, for this one moment you were - genuine. But tell me, what do you seek here in my woods and cliffs? And when you laid yourself in my path, what did you want to test in me? - - why did you research me ?' - Thus spoke Zarathustra, and his eyes flashed. The old magician was silent for a while, then he said: 'Did I research you? I merely search. Oh Zarathustra, I seek someone who is genuine, proper, simple, unequivocal, a human being of all honesty, a vessel of wisdom, a saint of knowledge, a great human being! Do you not know it, oh Zarathustra? I seek Zarathustra .'


- And here a long silence ensued between the two; but Zarathustra became deeply immersed in himself, such that he closed his eyes. But then, turning back to his interlocutor, he seized the hand of the magician and spoke, full of kindness and craftiness: 'Well then! Up there leads the path, there lies the cave of Zarathustra. In it you may seek whomever you wish to find. And ask my animals for advice, my eagle and my snake: they shall help you seek. But my cave is big. For my part - I've never seen a great human being. The eyes of the finest are too coarse today for what is great. It is the kingdom of the rabble. Many a one I found already, who stretched and puffed himself up, and the people cried: 'See here, a great human being!' But what good are all bellows! In the end only wind comes out. In the end a frog will burst if it puffs itself up too long: then only wind comes out. To stab a swollen person in the belly - that's what I call great fun. Hear me, you little boys! Today belongs to the rabble; who knows anymore what is great, what is small! Who could successfully search for greatness! Only a fool - fools would succeed. You seek great human beings, you queer fool? Who taught you that? Is the time for that today? Oh you wicked searcher - why do you research me?' - Thus spoke Zarathustra, comforted in his heart, and off he went again on his way, laughing.


Notlongafterhehadfreedhimselffromthemagician,however,Zarathustra again saw someone sitting beside the path that he walked, namely a tall maninblack with a gaunt, pale face: this man dismayed him tremendously. 'Oh no,' he spoke to his heart, 'there sits depression in disguise, and its looks remind me of priests: what do they want in my kingdom? What! Scarcely did I escape that magician, now another practitioner of black arts has to cross my path - - some kind of sorcerer with laying-on of hands, a dark miracle worker of God's grace, an anointed world slanderer, may the devil take him! But the devil is never in place where he would be in the right place; he always comes too late, this damned dwarf and clubfoot!' - Thus cursed Zarathustra impatiently in his heart and he considered how he might avert his gaze and slip by the man in black; but behold, it happened differently. For in the same moment the sitting man had already caught sight of him, and not unlike a person who has run into unexpected luck, he leaped to his feet and approached Zarathustra. 'Whoever you may be, you wanderer,' he said, 'help a lost, seeking old man who could easily come to harm here! This world here is foreign to me and far off, I even heard wild beasts howling; and the one who could have offered me protection, he himself no longer exists. I sought the last pious human being, a saint and a hermit who alone in his woods had not yet heard what the whole world today knows.' ' What does the whole world know today?' asked Zarathustra. 'This perhaps, that the old God no longer lives, the one in whom the whole world once believed?' 'You said it,' answered the old man gloomily. 'And I served this old God until his final hour. Thus Spoke Zarathustra But now I am retired, without a master, and yet I am not free, nor merry for a single hour unless in my memories. And so I climbed into these mountains to finally have a festival for myself, as is proper for an old pope and church father: for know this, I am the last pope! - a festival of pious memories and divine worship.


But now he himself is dead, this most pious human being, this saint in the woods who constantly praised his god with singing and growling. I did not find him when I found his hut - but two wolves were in it, howling at his death - for all animals loved him. Then I ran away. Did I arrive in vain in these woods and mountains? Then my heart resolved to seek another, the most pious of all those who do not believe in God - to seek Zarathustra!' Thus spoke the oldster and he looked with a sharp eye at the man who stood before him; but Zarathustra grasped the old pope's hand and regarded it admiringly for a long time. 'See here, you reverend one,' he said then, 'what a beautiful and long hand! This is the hand of one who has always dispensed blessings. Now, however, it holds on to the one you seek, to me, Zarathustra. I am he, godless Zarathustra, who speaks: who is more godless than I, that I may enjoy his instruction?' - Thus spoke Zarathustra and with his gaze he penetrated the thoughts and secret thoughts of the old pope. At last the latter began: 'The one who loved and possessed him most has now also lost him most - : - behold, perhaps I myself am now the more godless of us two? But who could take pleasure in that!' - 'You served him up until the end,' said Zarathustra, pensively, after a deep silence. 'Do you know how he died? Is it true, as they say, that pity choked him to death, -thathesaw how the human being hung on the cross, and couldn't bear that his love for mankind became his hell and ultimately his death?' - But the old pope did not answer, and instead he looked to the side awkwardly and with a pained and dark expression. 'Let him go,' said Zarathustra after a long thoughtful pause, while still looking the old man straight in the eye. 'Let him go, he's gone. And even though it honors you that you speak only good of this dead one, still you know as well as I who he was; and that he walked queer ways.'


'For our three eyes only,' said the old pope cheerfully (because he was blind in one eye), 'in matters of God I am more enlightened than Zarathustra himself - and am permitted to be. My love served him long years, my will followed his will in all things. But a good servant knows everything, and also some things that his master conceals from himself. He was a concealed god, full of secretiveness. Indeed, even in getting himself a son he used nothing other than sneaky means. At the doorway of his faith stands adultery. Whoever praises him as a god of love does not think highly enough of love itself. Did this god not also want to be judge? But the loving one loves beyond reward and retribution. When he was young, this god from the East, then he was harsh and vengeful and he built himself a hell for the amusement of his favorites. But at last he became old and soft and mellow and pitying, more like a grandfather than a father, but most like a wobbly old grandmother. There he sat, wilted, in his nook by the stove, grousing about his weak legs, weary of the world, weary of willing, and one day he choked to death on his all too great pity.' - 'You old pope,' said Zarathustra here, interrupting. 'Did you see that with your own eyes? It certainly could have happened that way; that way, and another way too. When gods die, they always die many kinds of death. But well then! This way or that, this way and that - he's gone! He was offensive to the taste of my ears and eyes, I do not wish to speak anything worse of him. Iloveeverything that gazes brightly and speaks honestly. But he - you know it well, you old priest, there was something of your kind in him, something priest-like - he was equivocal. He was also unclear. How he raged at us, this wrath snorter, because we understood him poorly! But why did he not speak more purely! And if the fault was in our ears, why did he give us ears that heard him poorly? If mud was in our ears, well then - who put it there?


Hefailedattoomuch,thispotterwhonevercompletedhistraining!But that he avenged himself on his clay formations and his creations because they turned out badly for him - that was a sin against good taste . In piousness too there is good taste; it said at last: 'Away with such a god! Rather no god, rather meet destiny on one's own, rather be a fool, rather be a god oneself!'


- 'What do I hear!' spoke the old pope at this point with pricked up ears. 'Oh Zarathustra, you are more pious than you believe, with such disbelief! Some kind of god in you converted you to your godlessness. Is it not your very piousness that no longer allows you to believe in a god? And your overly great honesty will yet lead you away beyond good and evil! Take a good look: what is left for you? You have eyes and hands and mouth that have been preordained for blessing since eternity. One does not bless with hands alone. In your proximity, even though you claim to be the most godless man, I detect a secret, sacred and sweet aroma of long blessings: it makes me happy and it makes me hurt. Let me be your guest, oh Zarathustra, for one single night! Nowhere on earth do I feel happier now than with you!' - 'Amen! It shall be so!' spoke Zarathustra with great astonishment. 'Up there leads the path, there lies the cave of Zarathustra. Gladly, to be sure, I would guide you there myself, you reverend one, because I love all pious people. But now a cry of distress hurries me away from you. In my realm no one shall come to harm; my cave is a safe harbor. And I would like nothing better than to place every sad person back on firm land and firm legs. But who could take your melancholy off your shoulders? For that I'm too weak. We may have to wait a long time, truly, before someone awakens your god again. For this old god does not live anymore: he is thoroughly dead.' - Thus spoke Zarathustra.


- And again Zarathustra's feet ran through mountains and woods, and his eyes searched and searched, but nowhere to be seen was the one whom they wanted to see, the great sufferer of distress and crier of distress. But along the whole way he jubilated in his heart and was thankful. 'What good things,' he said, 'this day has bestowed on me, as compensation for having begun so badly! What strange interlocutors I found! Fourth and Final Part NowIwant to chew on their words for a long time, as on good kernels; my teeth will grind and grate them down until they flow like milk into my soul!' - But when the path disappeared again around a boulder, all at once the landscape changed and Zarathustra stepped into a realm of death. Here black and red cliffs jutted upward: no grass, no tree, no birdsong. For it was a valley that all animals avoided, even the predators; except for a species of hideous, thick, green snakes that would come here to die when they grew old. And for this reason the shepherds called this valley: Snake Death. Now Zarathustra sank into a black reminiscence, for it seemed to him that he had already stood in this valley once before. And much graveness spread itself over his mind, such that he walked slowly and ever more slowly until finally he stood still. But then, when he opened his eyes he saw something sitting beside the path, shaped like a human but scarcely like a human, something unspeakable. And all of a sudden Zarathustra was overcome with great shame for having looked upon such a thing with his own eyes; blushing all the way up to his white hair, he averted his gaze and picked up his foot, intending to leave this wicked spot. But then a noise animated the dead wasteland; it welled up from the ground gurgling and rattling, like water gurgles and rattles at night through clogged water pipes, until finally it turned into a human voice and human speech - that sounded like this. 'Zarathustra! Zarathustra! Guess my riddle! Speak, speak! What is revenge against the witness ? I lure you back, there is slippery ice here! See to it, see to it that your pride does not break its legs here!


Youconsider yourself wise, you proud Zarathustra! Then go ahead and guess the riddle, you hard nut cracker - the riddle that I am! So tell me: who am I ?' - But when Zarathustra had heard these words - what do you think took place in his soul? He was overwhelmed with pity ; and he collapsed at once like an oak tree that has long withstood many wood cutters - heavily, suddenly, to the terror of even those who wanted to fell it. But right away he picked himself up from the ground and his face had become hard. 'I recognize you alright,' he spoke with a voice of bronze: ' You are the murderer of God! Let me go. Thus Spoke Zarathustra You could not bear the one who saw you - who saw you always and through and through, you ugliest human being! You took revenge on this witness!' Thus spoke Zarathustra and wanted to leave; but the unspeakable one latched on to a corner of his garment and began again to gurgle and to search for words. 'Stay!' he said at last - - 'Stay! Do not pass by! I guessed what kind of axe knocked you to the ground: Hail to you, oh Zarathustra, that you stand again! You guessed, I know it well, how he who killed him feels - the murderer of God. Stay! Sit down here with me, it will not be in vain. To whom did I want to go, if not to you? Stay, sit down! But do not look at me! Honor thus - my ugliness! They persecute me; now you are my last refuge. Not with their hatred, not with their bailiffs - oh such persecution I would mock and be proud and glad! Has not everything successful hitherto been done by the wellpersecuted? And whoever persecutes well easily learns to succeed - after all he is already - after somebody! But it's their pity - - their pity is what I flee and why I flee to you. Oh Zarathustra, protect me, you my last refuge, you the only one to guess me: - you guessed how he who killed him feels. Stay! And if you want to go, you impatient one: do not go the way that I came. That way is bad.


Are you angry with me that I've already spoken broken words for too long? That I even counsel you? But know this, it's me, the ugliest human being, - who also has the biggest, heaviest feet. Where I walked, the way is bad. I trample all ways to death and to ruin. But that you passed me by, silently; that you blushed, I saw it well: that's how I recognized you as Zarathustra. Any other would have tossed me his alms, his pity, with looks and speech. But for that - I am not beggar enough, you guessed that - -for that I am too rich , rich in what is great, what is terrible, what is ugliest, what is most unspeakable! Your shame, oh Zarathustra, honored me! With difficulty I managed to escape the throng of the pitying - to find the only one today who teaches 'pitying is obtrusive' - you, oh Zarathustra! Fourth and Final Part -Beitagod's, be it the pity of mankind: pitying is offensive to shame. And not wanting to help can be more noble than the virtue that leaps to help. But today that is what passes for virtue itself among all small people, pity - they have no respect for great misfortune, for great ugliness, for great failure. I look away over all these people like a dog looks away over the backs of teeming flocks of sheep. They are small, good-wooled and good-willed gray people. Like a heron looks away contemptuously over shallow ponds, its head tossed back; thus I look away over teeming gray little waves and wills and souls. They have been deemed to be right for too long, these small people; and so in the end they were given might too - now they teach: 'the only good is what small people call good.' And'truth' today is what the preacher spoke, the one who himself came from among them, that odd holy man and advocate of small people who testified of himself: 'I - am the truth.' This immodest person has for a long time now caused small people to get big heads - he who taught no small error when he taught 'I - am the truth.'


Wasanimmodest person ever answered more courteously? - But you, oh Zarathustra, passed him by and said: 'No! No! Three times no!' You warned against his error, you were the first to warn against pity not all, not none, but yourself and your kind. You are ashamed of the shame of the great sufferer; and indeed, when yousay 'from pitying a great cloud is coming, beware, you human beings!' -whenyouteach'allcreatorsarehard,allgreatloveisabovepitying':oh Zarathustra, how well schooled you seem to me in predicting the weather! Butyouyourself-warnyourselftooagainst your pitying! Because many are on their way to you, many who are suffering, doubting, despairing, drowning, freezing - I warn you against me too. You guessed my best and worst riddle, me myself and what I did. I know the axe that fells you. But he had to die: he saw with eyes that saw everything - he saw the depths and grounds of human beings, all their hidden disgrace and ugliness. Thus Spoke Zarathustra His pitying knew no shame: he crawled into my filthiest nook. This most curious, super-obtrusive, super-pitying one had to die. Healways saw me :Iwanted revenge on such a witness - or to no longer live myself. The god who saw everything, even human beings : this god had to die! Human beings cannot bear that such a witness lives.' Thus spoke the ugliest human being. But Zarathustra rose and set about to leave, because he was chilled down to his entrails. 'Youunspeakable one,' he said, 'you warned me against your way. Out of gratitude I now commendminetoyou.Look,upthereliesZarathustra's cave. My cave is big and deep and has many nooks; there the most hidden person will find a hiding place. And close by are a hundred burrows and tunnels for crawling, flapping and leaping wildlife. You outcast, who cast himself out, you no longer want to dwell among human beings and human pity? Well then, do as I do! Thus you'll also learn from me; only the doer learns.


And speak first and foremost with my animals! The proudest animal and the wisest animal - they are surely the right counselors for both of us!' - Thus spoke Zarathustra and continued on his way, pensive and even more slowly than before; because he had much to ask himself and knew no easy way to answer. 'How poor indeed is a human being!' he thought in his heart, 'how ugly, how gasping, how full of concealed shame! They tell me that human beings love themselves; oh, how great this self-love must be! How much contempt it has against it! Even this man here loved himself, as he despised himself - to me he seems a great lover and a great despiser. I've never found anyone who despised himself more deeply; that too is elevation. Oh no, was he perhaps the higher man whose cry I heard? I love the great despisers. Human being, however, is something that must be overcome.' -


When Zarathustra had left the ugliest human being, he was freezing and he felt lonely; after all, so much that was cold and lonely went through his


mind, to the point where even his limbs grew colder because of it. But as he climbed further and further, up, down, now past green meadows, but then also across wild stony deposits where previously an impatient brook might have laid itself to bed, then all at once his mood became warmer and more cordial. 'Whathappenedtome?'heaskedhimself,'somethingwarmandlively refreshes me, something that must be close to me. Already I am less alone; unknown companions and brothers roam around me, their warm breath touches on my soul.' But when he peered about himself and searched for the comforters of his solitude, oddly enough, it was cows huddled together on a knoll; their nearness and smell had warmed his heart. Now these cows seemed engrossed in listening to someone speaking, and they paid no attention to the one who approached them. But when Zarathustra was quite near them he heard clearly how a human voice spoke from the midst of the cows; and evidently they had all turned their heads toward the speaker. Then Zarathustra leaped up eagerly and pushed the animals apart, fearing that someone might have come to harm here, which could scarcely be remedied by the pity of cows. But in this he had deceived himself; for indeed, there sat someone on the ground and appeared to be persuading the animals to not be afraid of him, a peaceful man and mountain preacher from whose eyes goodness itself preached. 'What are you seeking here?' cried Zarathustra, astonished. 'What am I seeking here?' he answered: 'The same thing you seek, you trouble maker! Namely happiness on earth. But for that I want to learn from these cows. And you should know, I've already persuaded them half the morning, and just now they wanted to tell me for sure. Why do you have to disturb them? Unless we are converted and become as cows, we will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. For there is one thing that we ought to learn from them: chewing the cud. Andtruly, what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and did not learn this one thing, chewing the cud: what would it help? He would not be rid of his misery


- his great misery: which today is called nausea . Who today does not have heart, mouth and eyes full of nausea? You too! You too! But just look at these cows here!' - Thus Spoke Zarathustra Thus spoke the mountain preacher and then he turned his own gaze on Zarathustra - for till now his gaze hung lovingly on the cows - then, however, it transformed. 'Who is this with whom I speak?' he cried, startled, and jumped up from the ground. 'This is the man without nausea, this is Zarathustra himself, the one who overcame great nausea, this is the eye, this is the mouth, this is the heart of Zarathustra himself.' And while he spoke thus he kissed the hands of the one to whom he spoke, and tears streamed from his eyes, and he behaved quite like someone to whom a precious gift and treasure falls unexpectedly from heaven. The cows, meanwhile, watched all of this and were amazed. 'Do not speak of me, you odd, you lovely man!' said Zarathustra and he restrained his tenderness. 'Tell me first about yourself ! Are you not the voluntary beggar who once threw away great wealth - - who once was ashamed of his wealth and of the wealthy, and fled to the poorest people, to give them his fullness and his heart? But they did not accept him.' 'But they did not accept me,' said the voluntary beggar, 'you know it already. So in the end I went to the animals and to these cows.' 'Then you learned,' Zarathustra interrupted the speaker, 'how it is harder to grant right than to take right, and that bestowing well is an art and the ultimate, craftiest master-art of kindness.' 'Especially nowadays,' answered the voluntary beggar. 'Nowadays, namely, where everything lowly has become rebellious and skittish and haughty in its own way: namely in a rabble way. For the hour has come, you know it well, for the great, terrible, long, slow rabble and slave rebellion: it grows and grows! Now the lowly are outraged by all benevolence and little charities; and the super-rich should be on their guard! Whoever dribbles these days like portly bottles with all too narrow necks - people like to break the necks of such bottles today.


Lascivious greed, galling envy, aggrieved vengefulness, rabble pride: all of that leaped into my face. It is no longer true that the poor are blessed. But the kingdom of heaven is among the cows.' 'And why is it not among the wealthy?' asked Zarathustra, temptingly, as he warded off the cows that trustingly snorted at the peaceful man. Fourth and Final Part 'Why do you tempt me?' he answered. 'You yourself know it even better than I. What drove me to the poorest, oh Zarathustra? Was it not my nausea for our wealthiest people? - for the convicts of wealth who cull their advantage out of every dustpan, with cold eyes, horny thoughts; for this mob that stinks to high heaven, - for this gilded, fake rabble, whose fathers were pick-pockets or vultures or rag pickers, with women who were willing, lascivious, forgetful - all of them after all are not far from being whores - rabble above, rabble below! What do 'poor' and 'rich' mean anymore today! I forgot this difference - then I fled, farther, ever farther, until I got to these cows.' Thus spoke the peaceful man and he himself snorted and sweated at these words, such that the cows once again were amazed. But Zarathustra continued to look him in the face, smiling as he spoke so harshly, and he silently shook his head. 'You do violence to yourself, you mountain preacher, when you use such harsh words. Not for such harshness were your mouth or your eyes made. Nor, it seems to me, your stomach itself: it resists all such raging and hating and foaming over. Your stomach wants gentler things: you are no butcher. Rather, you seem to me a vegetarian and a root man. Perhaps you crunch grains. But certainly you are ill disposed toward pleasures of the flesh and you love honey.' 'You guessed me well,' responded the voluntary beggar, with relief in his heart. 'I love honey, I also crunch grains, because I sought what tastes lovely and makes for clean breath: - also what takes a long time, a day's and mouth's work for gentle idlers and bums.


The ones who have excelled the most, to be sure, are these cows: they invented chewing the cud for themselves and lying in the sun. They also refrain from all weighty thoughts, which bloat the heart.' - 'Well then!' said Zarathustra. 'You should also see my animals, my eagle and my snake - their equal exists nowhere today on earth. Look, there the path leads to my cave; be its guest tonight. And speak with my animals about the happiness of animals -


- until I myself come home. Because now a cry of distress hurries me away from you. You'll also find new honey at my place, icy-fresh golden honey from the comb - eat it! But now quickly take leave of your cows, you odd, you lovely man! Even if it is difficult for you. For they are your warmest friends and teachers!' - '-Withtheexceptionofoneperson,whomIloveevenmore,'answered the voluntary beggar. 'You yourself are good and even better than a cow, oh Zarathustra!' 'Away, away with you! You nasty flatterer!' cried Zarathustra with malice, 'why do you spoil me with such praise and flatter-honey? Away, away from me!' he cried once more and brandished his staff at the affectionate beggar, who ran away swiftly.


Butscarcely had the voluntary beggar run away and Zarathustra was again alone with himself, than he heard a new voice behind him, crying 'Stop! Zarathustra! Stop already! It's me, oh Zarathustra, me, your shadow!' But Zarathustra did not wait, because he was suddenly overcome with annoyance at the excessive hustle and bustle in his mountains. 'Where's my solitude gone?' he said. 'This is really becoming too much for me; this mountain is teeming, my kingdom is no longer of this world, I need new mountains. My shadow is calling me? What does my shadow matter! Let him run after me - I'll run away from him.' Thus Zarathustra spoke to his heart and ran away. But the one who was behind him continued to follow, so that soon three runners were after each other, namely the voluntary beggar in front, then Zarathustra and third and furthest behind, his shadow. Not long had they run in this manner when Zarathustra came to his senses about his folly and with one great effort shook off all that cloyed and annoyed him. 'What!' he said, 'haven't the most ridiculous things always happened among us old hermits and holy men? Truly, my folly grew tall in the mountains! Now I hear six old fools' legs rattling along after each other!


But can Zarathustra afford to be afraid of a shadow? And it seems to me, when all's said and done, that he has longer legs than I.' Thus spoke Zarathustra, laughing with his eyes and his entrails, then he stopped, turned around abruptly - and behold, he almost hurled his successor and shadow to the ground - so closely did the latter follow on his heels, and so weak was he too. When he took a close look at him, he shrank back as if before a sudden ghost: so thin, blackish, hollow and outdated did this successor look. 'Whoareyou?'askedZarathustra,intensely,'whatareyoudoinghere? And why do you call yourself my shadow? I don't like you.' 'Forgive me,' answered the shadow, 'that it is I; and if you do not like me, well then, oh Zarathustra, for that I praise you and your good taste! I am a wanderer, who has already walked much at your heels; always on my way, but without goal, without home too, such that very little is lacking, truly, and I would be the Eternal Jew - except that I am not eternal and neither am I Jew. What? Must I always be on my way? Whirled by every wind, unsteady, driven out? Oh earth, you have become too round for me! I've already sat on every surface, like weary dust I have slept on mirrors and window panes: Everything takes from me, nothing gives, and I grow thin - I almost resemble a shadow. Butafter you, oh Zarathustra, I've flown and followed longest, and even when I concealed myself from you, I was still your best shadow: wherever you sat, I sat too. With you I have haunted the remotest, coldest worlds, like a ghost that runs voluntarily over winter rooftops and snow. With you I strived to enter everything forbidden, worst, remotest; and if anything of mine is a virtue, then it is that I have feared no ban. With you I smashed anything my heart ever honored, I overthrew all boundary stones and images, I pursued the most dangerous wishes indeed, I have passed over every crime once.


With you I unlearned my faith in words and values and great names. When the devil sheds his skin, does his name not fall off too? For it too is skin. Perhaps the devil himself is - skin. 'Nothing is true, all is permitted': thus I persuaded myself. I plunged into the coldest waters, with head and heart. Oh how often I paid for it by standing there naked as a red crab!


Oh where has all my goodness and all my shame and all my faith in the goodgone!OhwherehasthatmendaciousinnocencethatIoncepossessed gone, the innocence of the good and their noble lies! Too often, to be sure, I followed on the heels of truth: and it kicked me in the head. Sometimes I believed I was lying and behold - that's where I first hit - the truth. Too much became clear to me, now it doesn't matter to me anymore. Nothing that I love lives anymore - how am I supposed to still love myself? 'Live as I please or don't live at all' - that's how I want it, and that's how the saintliest person wants it too. But alas, how could I still have pleasure? Do I - still have a goal? A harbor toward which my sail turns? Agoodwind? Indeed, only the one who knows where he's sailing knows also which wind is good and which is his favorable wind. What did I have left? A heart weary and insolent; a restless will; fluttering wings; a broken backbone. Ever a visitor, searching for my home, oh Zarathustra, you well know, this visiting was my visitation, and it devours me. 'Where is my home?' I asked, and I search and searched for it, but I have not found it. Oh eternal everywhere, oh eternal nowhere, oh eternal - in vain!' Thus spoke the shadow, and Zarathustra's face lengthened at these words. 'You are my shadow!' he said at last, with sadness. 'Your danger is no small one, you free spirit and wanderer! You've had a bad day: see to it that you do not have an even worse evening! To such restless ones as you even a jail ends up looking like bliss. Have you ever seen how captured criminals sleep? They sleep peacefully, they enjoy their new security. Beware that you are not captured in the end by a narrow belief, a harsh, severe delusion! Because now you are seduced and tempted by anything that is narrow and solid. You have lost your goal: indeed, how will you get rid of and get over this loss? Along with it - you have also lost your way!


You poor roamer and raver, you weary butterfly! Do you want to have a rest and a home this evening? Then go up to my cave! There leads the path to my cave. And now I have to run away from you quickly again. Already it's as though I'm covered in shadow.


I want to run alone, so that things clear up around me again. For that I'll yet have to be long on my legs and like it. But this evening at my place - there will be dancing!' - Thus spoke Zarathustra.


- And Zarathustra ran and ran and found no one anymore, and he was alone and found himself again and again, and he enjoyed and sipped his solitude and thought about good things - for hours. At the hour of noon, however, as the sun stood directly over Zarathustra's head, he passed by an old crooked and knotty tree, embraced by the luxurious love of a grapevine and hidden away from itself; from it hung abundant yellow grapes, trailing toward the wanderer. Then he got a craving to quench a slight thirst and to pluck himself a grape; but when he had already stretched out his arm to do so, then he got an even stronger craving to do something else, namely to lie down beside the tree, at the hour of perfect noon, and to sleep. This Zarathustra did; and as soon as he lay on the ground, in the quiet and secrecy of the colorful grass, he quickly forgot about his slight thirst and fell asleep. For, as Zarathustra's proverb says, one thing is more needful than the other. Only his eyes remained open - because they did not tire of seeing and praising the tree and the grapevine's love. As he was falling asleep, however, Zarathustra spoke thus to his heart: Still! Still! Didn't the world become perfect just now? What's happening to me? Like a delicate wind, unseen, dancing on a paneled sea, light, feather light - thus sleep dances on me. He does not close my eyes, he leaves my soul awake. Light is he, truly, feather light! Hepersuades me, I don't know how. He pats me on the inside with flattering hand, he conquers me. Yes, he conquers me until my soul stretches out - -how she grows long and weary, my strange soul! Did a seventh day's evening come to her precisely at noon? Did she wander blissfully too long already between good and ripe things? Thus Spoke Zarathustra She stretches herself out, long - longer! She lies still, my strange soul. She's already tasted too much that is good, this golden melancholy oppresses her, she grimaces. - Like a ship that sailed into its stillest bay - now it leans against the earth, weary of the long journeys and the uncertain seas. Is the earth not more faithful?