Chapter 59 The third part of the old list and the new list two

When I go to the people, I see that they sit upon ancient pride, thinking that they have long known what is good and evil in human beings. All talk of morality seems to them an old and trite thing; and he who would sleep well talks of good and evil before going to bed. I disturbed this slumber, when I taught that no one knows what is good and evil:— Creator removed! But the Creator is the one who created man's purpose and gave the earth its meaning and its future: he alone established good and evil. I bid them tear down their pulpits, where all ancient pride sits; I bid them laugh at their great moralists, their sages, their poets, their saviours.

I bid them laugh at their gloomy sages, those who sit like black phantoms, and take them from the tree of life. I sat on the graves of their great ones, even beside dead bodies and vultures--I laughed at all their past, and all their rotting and crumbling glory. Verily, like a penitent preacher, like a fool, I rage and destroy all their greatness and their littleness!So small is their best good, and so small is their worst evil!So I laughed. Therefore, my "wisdom desire" born on the top of the mountain laughed and roared.Really, a rough wit—a longing with a dashing health. She often takes me soaring upwards, in the center of laughter!And so I soar, like an arrow drunk with the joy of the sun!

I fly to a future undreamed of, to a hotter south than the artist can imagine; where the gods dance naked, and are ashamed of all their raiment. (If I am like a poet in metaphors and lingoes: indeed, I am ashamed that I still cannot not be a poet!) There, it seems to me that all becoming is like the dance of the gods, the play of the gods, the world is free and unlimited, and everything is returned to its original state. There, it seems to be a kind of eternal self-liberation and self-returning of countless gods; it seems to be a blessed self-conflict of countless gods, self-reconciliation, and self-reconstruction.

Where, to me, all time seems to be the blessed mockery of the moment; where freedom is necessity, happily mocking its poisonous sting. —— There I also found my ancient devil and great enemy, the genie of gravity, and his creations: compulsion and commandment, necessity and consequence, purpose and will, good and evil. Is it not necessary there that the dancer can dance above it, beyond it?Are there not necessary moles and clumsy dwarves for the sake of lightness and beauty?