Chapter 53 Return of the third part

Oh loneliness!O loneliness, my home!As a stranger, I have lived in a strange place for too long to return to you without tears. Now touch me like a mother; now smile at me like a mother!Now, you just say, "Who was it that flew away from me like a whirlwind? Who cries at parting: Too long have I lived with solitude; That's why I have forgotten silence!Now you know the silence, right? " O Zarathustra, I know everything: you lonely one, I know that you are lonelier among men than with me! Now you know this; loneliness is one thing, loneliness is another!Among people you will never be used to but unfamiliar.

Even when they love you, you are unfamiliar: in short they demand pampering treatment! Here you are in your home and your house; you can speak freely, assert freely; here all hidden claustrophobic feelings are not shameful. Here all things talk lovingly to you and me and flatter you: for all things want to run over you.You also straddle all fables and gallop to all truths. Here you can speak straight and earnestly to all things: indeed, they think it is praise, when one speaks frankly to all things. Otherwise it is loneliness.O Zarathustra, do you remember?When your hawk crows in the air, and you stand in the woods by the dead body, doubtful and ignorant:—

Then you say: Let my animals guide me!I see more danger among men than among animals: -- that is loneliness! Oh!Do you remember, O Zarathustra?When you sit on your island, like a fountain of wine to an empty cask, you give and distribute among the thirsty: Until at last you are alone, thirsty among the people who have drunk, and weeping in the night: "Isn't it happier to take than to give? Isn't it happier to steal than to take"—that is loneliness! O Zarathustra, do you remember?When your quietest hour comes and drives you on, when it whispers evilly: "Speak and die!"

Then it makes you disgusted with all your expectations and silences, and ashamed of your "humble bravery, you are loneliness!"— O loneliness, my home!How sweet and tender your voice speaks to me! We believe in love and respect each other; we treat each other frankly and sincerely. With you everything is cheerful and bright; here even time runs with a more brisk pace.For time is a heavier load in darkness than in light! Here the words of all beings and the treasure house of words suddenly opened up for me: here all beings wanted to become words, here all becomings learned to speak from me.

But beyond the hill—all talk is in vain!There is supreme wisdom in forgetting and leaving: then I understand now! If you want to understand everything in people's hearts, you must grasp everything.But my hands disdain to grasp all that. I don't even like to breathe their breath; alas, too long have I lived in their noise and foul smell! O blessed peace around me!O, the air of clarity around me!How this tranquility breathes fresh air from the deep mind!How the blessed silence listens! But down there—everything is said there, and everything is misunderstood.The people there proclaimed wisdom with a loud bell, and the small merchants in the market disturbed him with the jingle of copper coins.

Everything speaks there; but no one knows how to understand.Everything fell into the waters; but nothing fell into the deep springs. Everything speaks there; but nothing works and accomplishes.Everything clucks, but who is quietly hatching in the nest? There everything speaks, everything speaks in pieces.The teeth of time and time were still hard yesterday, but today they have been chewing and spitting, and they are in the mouths of today's people. There everything is spoken and everything is revealed.Everything that used to be called a secret, a secret of the deep soul, now belongs to the trumpet players and other flying insects in the street.

O strange man!The noise of your dark alleys!Now you are at my back again: my greatest danger lies behind my own back! My greatest danger always lurks in appeasement and tolerance; all human beings are willing to be appeasement and tolerance. With compressed truths in my arms, with foolish hands and fooled hearts, compassionate little lies - so I live among men. I once pretended to be myself and sat among them, put up with them against myself, and was willing to convince myself: "You fool, you don't understand people!" When man lives among men he does not know them: man has too many prospects,--what is the use of far-sighted eyes!

I used to be a fool, they misunderstood me, I appease them more than I appease myself, and I often avenge myself for this appeasement. Stung from head to toe by poisonous flies, like a stone emptied by the raindrops of evil: thus I live among them, and still say to myself, "The insignificance of all things is innocent!" Especially those who profess to be good, I see the most poisonous flies; they sting all that is innocent, they defile all that is pure; how can they do me justice! He who lives among the good—mercy teaches him to lie.Mercy creates the suffocating air for all free souls.For the vanity of a good man is immeasurable.

There I learned to hide myself and my own riches: for I saw that all are poor in spirit.All lies of my mercy: I know all men. —I see and smell all men, those with enough spirit, those with too much spirit. Their tenacious philosophers: I call them philosophers, not tenacious,—so I also learned to use ambiguous words.Their gravediggers: I call them researchers and experimenters, and so have learned to play with language. The gravedigger digs up disease for himself.There was a foul smell beneath the stale rubble. Wrong men stir up the swamp.People should live on the mountain. With happy nostrils I breathe again the mountain's free air.At last my nostrils were saved from all human stench.

The mountain wind touched my nose like alcohol, and my soul sneezed.Sneezes and shouts in triumph: "Good health!" Thus spake Zarathustra.