Chapter 42 Thus Spoke Zarathustra Book Three

thus spoke Zarathustra volume three a thousand and one purposes Zarathustra has seen many lands and many peoples: he has found the good and the evil of many peoples.In the world Zarathustra found no greater power than good and evil. No nation can survive without judging value; if it is to survive on its own, it must judge by standards different from those of its neighbors. Many things that one nation calls good, another nation despises and despises: this is what I found.I also found that what is denounced here as evil is there clothed in the purple of honor. A man can never understand his neighbor: his soul is often amazed at the madness and wickedness of his neighbor.

A table of values ​​hangs over each nation.look!That's the record of its levy; behold!That was the cry of its will to power. All that it finds difficult to achieve is praiseworthy; that which is necessary and difficult is good; that which is rare and most laborious, that which saves great misfortune, is called holy. That which makes it reign, conquers and shines, excites the terror and envy of its neighbors: it regards this thing as the highest and first of all things, the measure and meaning of all things. Verily, my brother, if you have recognized the needs of a nation, the land, the sky, and the neighbourhood; you will guess the reason of its triumph, and why it reached its hope from that ladder.

"You should always be first, and above others: your jealous soul should love no one but friends."--This excites a Greek soul: So he embarked on the road to greatness. "Tell the truth and know how to use the bow and arrow."—this sentence is considered precious and difficult by the nation from which my name comes,——this name is also dear and important to me. "Revere your parents and obey them to the deepest part of your soul." Don't let a nation hang on to this record of conquering and remain strong. "Keep the faithful; and for the sake of the faithful, blood and honor will not be spared through peril and evil." Another people, with this lesson, surpassed themselves, and thus gained great and infinite hope.

Truly, good and evil are self-made by man.Verily, good and evil are not taken, nor found, nor come down like a voice from heaven. Human beings give value to all things for their own survival. —they created the meaning of all things, the meaning of a human being.So they call themselves "people".In other words, the appraiser. To value is to create: you creators, listen up!Valuation is the jewel of all that is valued. Valuation, then valuable: Without valuation, the walnut of existence is just an empty shell.You creators, listen up! A change of value—that is the change of the Creator.The creator must always destroy.

The Creator is first the nation, and then the individual; indeed, the individual is only the first creation. Once upon a time, nations hung up the watch of goodness.Love to rule and love to obey create this form together. The happiness of the crowd precedes the happiness of "I": when justice still refers to the crowd, "I" can only be said to be betraying the public. Verily, the cunning, loveless "I" seeks the interest of the individual in the interest of the majority; it is not the origin of crowds, but the downfall of crowds. Lovers and creators, - they have created good and evil.Love and anger burn in all morality.

Zarathustra has seen many lands and many peoples: on earth he found no greater power than the work of the lovers: good and evil is the name of this work. Truly, this power of reputation is a monster.Tell me brothers, who'll get over it for me?Who put a chain around the beast's thousand necks? Until now, we have had a thousand purposes because there are a thousand peoples.But there is not yet a chain about a thousand necks and a single purpose; man has no purpose yet. But tell me, brothers: if man has no purpose, then there is no-man, right? —— Thus spake Zarathustra. love neighbor

You are busy befriending your neighbors, and you use beautiful words for this.But I tell you: your love for your neighbor is only your false self-love. You visit your neighbors to escape yourself, and you want to regard loving your neighbors as a kind of morality: but I see through your "altruism". "You" are older than "I"; "You" are sanctified, but "I" never: So a man is busy befriending his neighbor. Do I advise you to love your neighbor?Rather, I advise you to avoid your neighbor and love the one far away! Love the man who is far away, and the one who comes, is higher than the love of the neighbor; I think that the love of things and phantoms is higher than the love of human beings.

My brother, this phantom that walks before you is beautiful to you; why don't you give it your flesh and bones?But you are afraid, and you run away to the next door. You cannot bear yourselves, you do not love yourselves very much: so you try to tempt your neighbor with love, and cover yourself with his faults. I hope you cannot bear any neighbor to neighbor's neighbor; then you will have to create yourself a friend and his overflowing heart. When you want to praise yourselves, call a witness; if you can entice him to praise you in his heart, praise yourselves in your heart. Liars are not only those who pretend not to know, especially those who pretend to know what they don’t know.You speak thus of yourself in society, and deceive your neighbours.

Says the madman: "The intercourse of crowds impairs one's individuality, especially in those who have no individuality at all." This person went to the neighbor's house with the purpose of finding himself.The man went to the neighbor's house in order to forget himself.Your false self-love makes your solitude a prison. People far away pay a heavy price for your love for neighbors; when you are already five people together, there is often a sixth person who will die. I also don't like your festivals: I find too many actors, even the audience acts like actors. I don't teach you to love your neighbors but to make friends.Let friends be your earthly festivals and superhuman premonitions.

I teach you my friend and his overflowing heart.If you want to be loved with overflowing hearts, you should know how to be sponges. I teach you as friends who hide the finished world, the shell of goodness,— This creative friend often presents a completed world. The world unfolded for him and rolled up again.Like the evolution from evil to good, from accident to purpose. Let the future and the farthest be your motives for this day: you should love the superman in your friends as your raison d'être. Brothers, I do not advise you to love your neighbor: I advise you to love your neighbor.

Thus spake Zarathustra. famous wise man O all famous wise men, your service is for the people and its fans Believe, -- not for the truth!It is for this that the people respect you. Likewise, your disbelief is tolerated by the people because it is only a laughing stock and a trick of the people.As the master sets his slaves free and delights in their excesses. What the people hate as a dog hates a wolf is the freethinker, the enemy of imprisonment, the man who refuses to worship and lives in the forest. Drive him out of his hermitage--this is what the people call "the meaning of justice"!They often provoke the most vicious dogs to bite him. So, "Where the people are, there is the truth! Alas, accursed are he who seeks the truth!" This is often heard. O famous wise men, you have legitimized the reverence of the people: you call this the will to truth! Your hearts often say to themselves, "From the people I come, and from there comes the voice of God." Patiently as cunning as donkeys you are often the advocates of the people. In order to make friends with the people, many powerful people often drive a little donkey, a famous wise man, in front of their horses. O famous wise men, I now want you to completely shed your lion skins! —— Speckled hides of beasts, and unruly hair of researchers explorers conquerors! Alas, if I try to believe that you are truth-seekers, I must first see you crush your will to reverence. The seeker of truth is he who shatters the will to reverence and goes to the desert without God. In the yellow sand scorched by the sun, he naturally yearns for an island that is rich in spring water and shaded by dense green life. But his thirst does not convince him that he is one of the comfortable: for where the oasis is, so is the idol. The hungry, the ferocious, the lonely, the godless: the will of the lion willingly so. Abandoning the joy of slavery, extricating oneself from God and all worship, great, lonely, fearless without knowing fear, this is the will of the seeker of truth. The seeker of truth, the free thinker, often lives in the desert like the master of the desert.In the city lived the famous sage and carnivore, the beast of burden. Because they push and pull like donkeys—the people's cart! By no means do I blame them for this: though their chariots shine with gold, they are still servants and beasts that drive before them. Often they are good unashamed servants.For thus says morality: "If you must be a servant, seek out the one whom your service can best help! The spirit and morals of your master grow by your service: you grow by his! " Verily, you famous wise men, you servants of the people!You grow with the spirit and morals of the people—and the people grow with you!I consider it your honor! But in spite of your morality, you are still a people, a short-sighted people--a people who do not understand what is spiritual! The spirit is the self-cutting of life: life grows knowledge through suffering. —Do you already know this? The bliss of the spirit is in making a sacrifice that is daubed with tears and sanctified as a fire offering. —Do you already know this? The blindness of the blind and his hesitation and groping testify to the power of the sun he sees. —Do you already know this? Those who seek knowledge should learn architecture with the mountains!Moving mountains with the spirit is just a small thing. —Do you already know this? You see only the spark of the spirit, but do not know what an anvil the spirit is and the cruelty of its hammer! Verily, ye do not know the pride of the spirit!But if the spirit of humility wants to speak, you will not tolerate it! You have not yet been able to throw your spirits into the snowy valleys, because you are not hot enough!Likewise, you do not know how to take pleasure in its coolness. But it seems to me that in either case you have made yourselves too intimate with the spirit; you have often made the intellect a hospital and a refuge for bad poets. You are not eagles, so you have not experienced the joy of panic, and you who are not birds should not nest in deep ravines. I think you are half-warm: but all deep knowledge flows coldly.The inner fountain of the spirit is cold: yet pleasant to the warm hand and laborer. O famous wise men, you stand upright before me with admiration and solemnity! —You will not be moved by strong winds or strong wills. Have you never seen a sail rounded by a fierce wind trembling across the sea? Sailed by the spirit, my wisdom sails through the sea, - my savage wisdom! But you famous wise men, you servants of the people, - how can you go with me! —— Thus spake Zarathustra. song of the night Night has come: now the sound of the fountain is louder.And my soul is also a fountain. The night has come: now the lover's song wakes up.And my soul is also a lover's song. There is something in me that has never been calm, nor can it; it wants to cry out.There is a love longing in me that speaks the language of love. I am light: Oh, how I wish I were night!I am surrounded by light, and this is my solitude! Alas, I wish I were shadows and darkness!How would I quench my thirst on the breast of light! Twinkle little stars, worms of light in the sky, I wish to bless you, and be blessed by your gift of light. But I live in my own light, and I suck back the flames that burst from me. I have never tasted the happiness of the taker; I have often dreamed that stealing should be sweeter than taking. My poverty is the ceaseless giving of my hands; my envy is the eyes of hope and the starry night of longing that I often see. O misfortune of the giver!Partial eclipse of my sun!O longing for longing!O great hunger in contentment! They take what I give: but do I touch their souls?Between giving and receiving, there is a deep valley; and the smallest valley is the last to be bridged. A kind of hunger occurs in my Miri.I want to hurt those whom I shine; I want to rob those whom I have given gifts:—thus I want to do evil. I withdrew the hand I had stretched out, when another wanted to take my hand; I hesitated, like a rushing waterfall;--thus did I long to do evil! My abundance contemplates this vengeance; my solitude begets this malice. The happiness that I give dies by giving; my morality is weary of its own fullness! He who gives often is in danger of losing his shyness; for his heart and hands will at last be hardened by giving. My eyes no longer weep for the shame of the supplicant; the skin of my hands becomes hard, and I cannot feel the trembling of the hand of the recipient. Where are my tears and the tenderness of my heart?O the loneliness of the giver!O silence of the luminous! Many suns orbit space: their light speaks to all that is dark. —but to me they are silent. Ah, this is the hatred of the light for everything else that shines: it goes on its way without mercy. Each sun is heartily unfair to all that shines; cruel to other suns:—so it goes on its way. The suns storm their way in: that is their journey.They follow their inexorable will: that is their ruthlessness. O only you, O creatures of the night, who have received your warmth from the light!O only you, drink the milk of consolation on the breast of light! Alas, the ice surrounds me; my hand burns at the touch of ice!Alas, I am thirsty, and my thirst is a thirst for your thirst! Night has come: alas, why should I have to be light!And longing for darkness!And loneliness! Night has come: now my longing spouts like a fountain, - it will cry. Night has come: now the sound of the fountain is louder.And my soul is also a fountain. The night has come: now the lover's song wakes up.And my soul is also a lover's song. —— Thus sang Zarathustra. dance song One evening Zarathustra and his disciples walked through the forest; in search of a spring they came to a green meadow surrounded by trees.There, some girls danced.They recognized Zarathustra, and stopped dancing; but Zarathustra approached them kindly, and said to them: "My dear maidens, don't stop your dancing! Whoever comes here is by no means a dismal loser, nor a maiden's enemy. I am God's Advocate before the devil: and that devil is the spirit of graveness.Light girl!How can I be the enemy of holy dances and virgin ankles? Yes, I am a forest of dark trees and night: But he who is not afraid of the dark will find rose-filled paths under my cypresses. He can also find the little god that the virgins love most, resting by the spring in silence with his eyes closed. Truly, the sloth fell asleep during the day!Did he ever want to catch lots of butterflies? Beautiful girl, don't be angry with me if I scold this little god a little!He may cry;—but even if he weeps, he can laugh anytime! With tears in his eyes he should ask you for a dance; and I will accompany it with a song: This is a dance song, singing a satire to my biggest and strongest devil, the serious spirit known as the master of the world. "— This is what Zarathustra sang when Cupid danced with the maidens: "O life! Lately I have looked into your eyes. It seemed to me that I had fallen into unfathomable depths. But your golden hook drew me up; you laughed at me for saying you were unfathomable.So say all fish.You say; that which they themselves cannot fathom, they consider unfathomable. But I am changeable wild, I am quite a woman, and not a virtuous woman: Though you men call me deep, faithful, eternal, mysterious. You men often give us your virtues;—oh, you virtuous ones! It was unbelievable that it laughed like that; but when it slandered itself, I never believed it and its laughter. One day I was speaking secretly with my wild wisdom, and it said to me angrily: You want life, you desire life, you love life, so you praise it! To it I almost gave a merciless answer, and told the truth to the provocateur; and that is the most merciless answer when we tell the truth to our own wisdom. Everything is so opposed to the three of us.In my heart, I only love life. —Really, I love it when I hate it! But if I like wisdom, or too much of it: because it reminds me so much of life! Wisdom also has eyes of life and a smile, and even a golden hook of life: is it my fault that they are so much alike? One day, life asked me: Who is wisdom? - I quickly answered: well!yes!wisdom! People pursue it fanatically, but cannot be satisfied. People can only see it through the net, and can only grasp it with their fingers through the mesh. is it beautifulHow can I know!But the most experienced fish cannot help but swallow its bait. It is changeable and persistent; I have seen it bit its lip and comb its hair back. It may be vicious and false, it may be quite a woman: but it is most seductive when it slanders itself. After I finished speaking, Life closed his eyes and smiled slyly.Who are you talking about?it asked.Maybe it's me? Even though you are good——but can you actually say such things in front of me!Now speak of your own wisdom! O dear life!Then you opened your eyes again, and I seemed to fall into the unfathomable depths again. "— Thus sang Zarathustra.But when the dancing was over and the girls left, he mourned. "The sun is long gone," he said at last; "the meadows are getting wet, and there's a cold air coming from the forest. Beside me an unknowable stared at me thoughtfully.how!Is Zarathustra alive? Why do we live?What good?Why live?What direction?where?How to live? Isn't it crazy to keep living? —— Alas, my friends, this is the dusk questioning me, forgive my sorrow! The evening has come: forgive me, the evening has come! " Thus spake Zarathustra. tomb song "There is the isle of tombs, the place of silence; there is also the tomb of my youth, and there I will take a circle of life made of evergreen flower cords." I made up my mind, and I sailed across the sea. —— O you, images and visions of my youth!O you eye waves of love, you divine moments!How quickly you are gone!I think of you now as my dear dead. My dearest dead, from you comes a fragrance that soothes the soul and stirs the fountain of tears.Verily, it makes the lonely voyager shudder and delight. I am still the richest, the most envied,--I am the loneliest!For I possessed you, and you possess me: tell me, did the golden apples from this tree ever fall for another as for me? I am also your legacy and heir of love.O my dearest, in your memory I send forth a burst of multicolored wild morality! O rare and blessed wonders, we were born to be together; you approached me and my longing, not like timid birds, - but like trusting men approaching trusting men ! Yes, like me, you too are made of faithfulness and eternity of love.Shall I now call you another name for your unfaithfulness?Holy glances and instants: I haven't learned any other names yet. Verily, Vanishers, you perish too quickly!But you have not evaded me, nor have I evaded you: we are innocent of our unfaithfulness to one another. Birds of my hope, they hanged you for killing me!Yes, evil always shoots arrows at you, my dearest, - to pierce my heart! And it's already in!For you are ever my dearest, my possessions and possessors: therefore you must die young and hasty! They have shot their arrows where I am most vulnerable, at you who are delicate and fleetingly smiling! But I say to my enemies: homicide is nothing compared to what you have done to me! You have done me more evil than a murder; you have taken from me what is irreparable:—thus I say unto you. Murderous singer, tool of evil, the most innocent you!I'm ready for a best dance, and your tones are killing my frenzy! Only dancing can make me say the symbol of the noblest thing:—but now, the highest symbol is not spoken by my limbs! My highest hope, finally unrevealed!All phantoms and all consolations of my youth are dead! How did I bear all this?How did I bear and overcome these traumas?How did my soul come out of those tombs again? Yes, I have one thing that is invulnerable, one that cannot be buried that splits the rock: this is my will.It passed silently and unchanged through the ages. My old will, it strides on my legs; its nature is merciless and invulnerable. Only on the heel, I have the possibility of injury.You, my patient will, you exist forever and ever!You have found your way out of all graves! You still have my unrealized youth in you; full of hope like life and youth, you sit on the yellow ruined mound of the tomb. Yea, thou art ever the destroyer of all my graves: my will, I salute thee!Only where the tomb is there is the resurrection. Thus sang Zarathustra. self-transcendence Great sages, do you call it "the will to truth" that drives you and burns you? I call your will the will to understand all! You want to make everything that exists intelligible: because you doubt very well that it was already intelligible. But everything that exists is subject to you!so shall your will be. It should respect and obey the spirit, as the mirror and image of the spirit. It is your whole will, O great sages, your will to power; even when you speak of good and evil and judge of worth. You want to create a world before which you can kneel: this is your last hope and your last intoxication. Yes, the ignorant, the people,—like a river pushing a boat: in this boat the judgment of value sits majestically masked. You have floated your will and your values ​​in the river of evolution; in what the populace considers good and evil, I see an old will to power. O wise men, you put such guests in little boats, and adorn them with sumptuous ornaments and proud names,--you and your will to rule! Now the river pushes your boat: the river must carry it.What does it matter if the broken waves fight against the bottom of the boat with foam and rage! O wise men, the end of your dangers and your good and evil is not the river, but your will, the will to power, - the inexhaustible creative will to life. However, in order to make you understand my teachings on good and evil, I first tell you my teachings on life and biological nature. I have followed them and chased them on roads big and small because of investigating the nature of creatures. In the hundred-faced mirror, I catch the eyes of life, so that when it does not speak, the eyes can speak to me.And its eyes did speak. Wherever I find living things, I hear about obedience, and all living things must obey. And this is the second thing: He who does not understand his own obedience is commanded by others. This is the nature of living things. And the third thing I heard was: Orders are hard to follow.Not only because the commander bears the burden of all obedience, And this burden may crush him:— And I see that all commands are trial and risk; when a creature commands, he risks his life. Yes, even when he commands himself, he has to pay the price for this command.He must be judge of his own law, avenger and sacrifice. What is the reason for this?I asked myself.What is it that makes a creature obey or command, and command to obey? O great wise man, listen to my words!Strictly examine: have I entered into the core of life and reached its depths! Wherever I find living beings, I find the will to power; and in the will to be submissive I find the will to be master. The will of the weak persuades the weak into the service of the strong; at the same time it wants to be the master of the weaker.It was the only joy he didn't want to be deprived of. Just as the weak submits to the strong, for the pleasure of ruling the weaker: so the weak submits to his will to power, and risks his life for power. The gamble of adventure and life is a strong sacrifice. Where there is sacrifice, service, and the eye of love, there is also the will to be the master.The weak sneak into the stronghold and the heart of the strong by secret means—and steal power.Life itself has spoken this secret to me. "Behold," said it, "I must always surpass myself." Yes, you call this the will to create, or the urge to achieve, to go higher and more complex; but it is but one thing, one secret. I would rather die than give up this one thing; verily, where there is fall and leaves fall, there is life sacrificed to power! I must be the opposite of the strife, the end and the end of evolution: alas, whoever guesses my will must also guess the crooked path it follows! Whatever I create, and however much I love it, - I am soon its rival and my love's rival: my will wills me so. Even you, seeker of knowledge, are but the paths and tracks of my will: verily, my will to power follows your will to truth! Whoever speaks of the "will to live" has not found the truth: the will-- No! For what does not exist cannot have will.However, how can what already exists still pursue existence! Only where life is, there is will: but this will is not the will to live,—I tell you solemnly—but the will to power! Many things are regarded by living beings as higher than life; this discrimination is the function of the will to power! This is the lesson that life gave me one day: O, great wise man, I have used this lesson to solve the riddle in your hearts. Verily, I tell you: Immortal and everlasting good and evil,--there is no such thing!By their very nature good and evil must always rise above themselves. You evaluators, exercise your power with the formulas of value and good and evil: therein lies your secret love and the light of your soul, trembling and overflowing. But out of your valuation grows a stronger power, a new self-transcendence: it pecks the egg and the shell. Indeed, whoever has to create good and evil must first destroy, first smash value. So the greatest evil is also a part of the greatest good: but this is the creative good. —— Let us talk, O wise men, though it is a bad thing to talk. But silence is worse; all unspoken truth becomes poison. Let the truth break all that can be broken! —There are so many houses to build! —— Thus spake Zarathustra. noble person My bottom is calm: who would have guessed it harbors strange monsters! My depth is unchanging: but its floating puzzles and laughter shine. Today I met a noble and serious man, the penitent of the spirit: O how my soul laughed at his ugliness! His chest was high, as if breathing in, he stood silently, this noble man. He hangs many dreadful truths, which are his prey, and he is clothed in tattered splendor; I see many thorns in him,—but not a single rose. He has not yet learned laughter and beauty.The hunter returns melancholy from the forest of knowledge. He has just fought a beast: but in his seriousness there is also a beast. —— An unconquered beast. He stands like a tiger about to leap; but I don't like those nervous souls; I also hate their attitude of denying everything. Friends, do you tell me "Fun is not for discussion"?But all life is a battle of tastes! Taste is at the same time weight, scale and authority.It is unfortunate that living beings want to live but do not fight for weight, scales and power! If the noble man begins to tire of his nobility: then will his beauty begin;--only then will I like him, and find him my taste. Till he has turned his back on himself, can he leap over his shadow,--really, into his sun. So long has he sat in the shade, the penitent of the spirit has grayed his cheeks; he nearly starves to death in expectation. There was scorn in his eyes, boredom on his lips.Yes, he is resting now, but not in the sun yet. He should be like an ox; his happiness should smell of earth, not of contempt for the earth. I would like to see him like a white ox whimpering before the plow, whose moaning should praise all that is in the earth. His face was still black; the shadow of his hand covered it.The meaning of his gaze is still shrouded in shadow. His deeds still cast a shadow over himself; deeds shadow the doer.He hasn't gotten over his behavior yet. Truly, I like the scruff of a bull's neck very much; but I would like to see angel's eyes too. He should forget his heroic will: he should not only be a noble man, but an exalted man:—the ether should be able to exalt him, the willless man! He has overcome monsters, he has solved mysteries.But he should redeem his monsters and enigmas, and make them holy children. His knowledge has not yet learned to smile, Nor has he learned to be free from envy; His stream of enthusiasm has not yet been at peace in Miri. Verily, his longing should not stop and sink in contentment, but in Miri! Mercy belongs to the generosity of great men. Arms over head: thus rest the hero; thus overcome his rest. Beauty is the hardest thing for a hero.Beauty cannot be grasped by all ardent will. A little more, a little less: too much here, too much here. Noble men, loose muscles, and bare wills; this is the hardest thing for you! When power becomes merciful and descends into the visible, I call this condescension beautiful. I demand beauty fervently from you, the powerful, and from anyone else.Let your goodness be your last self-victory. I believe you are capable of all kinds of evil: so I want you to do good. Verily, I have often laughed at weaklings who profess to be good because of their lameness! You should imitate the morality of the pillar: the higher it rises, the more beautiful and delicate it is; but the greater its inner resistance. Yes, noble man, one day you will be beautiful, and take a mirror to see your own beauty. When your soul was stirred with divine hope; there was adoration in your vanity! This is the secret of the soul: after the hero has abandoned the soul, in a dream - the superhero approaches him. —— Thus spake Zarathustra. culture country I flew too far into the future: a fear seized me. I looked around, and behold!Only time is my only contemporary. So I turned and fled backwards—I flew faster.People of today, so I have come to you, I have come to the land of culture. For the first time I visit you with proper eyes and earnest hope: verily, I come with longing. But what about the future?Though I am terrified—I cannot help laughing!My eyes had never seen such a painted thing. I couldn't stop laughing, while my legs and my heart trembled: "This is the home of all paintpots"—I said. People of today, I am amazed to see you sitting there with your faces and limbs painted in dazzling colors and patterns! Fifty mirrors surround you, flatteringly reflecting your play of colours! People of today, any good mask will not be better than your own dignity! Who can recognize you? You are covered with old marks, and new ones are stamped on your body: in this way, all those who know the code will not be able to explain you! Even if someone would examine the guts: but who can you convince that you have guts!You seem to be made of paint and gummed paper. All ages and peoples peep promiscuously through your veils: All customs and all beliefs speak mingled from your gestures. Whoever removes your masks, wrappings, colors, and gestures, sees before him a thing to frighten birds. Verily, I am a frightened bird that have seen your colorless nudes; and I fled when this skeleton eyed me. I'd rather work in hell with the ghosts of the past! —Because the inhabitants of hell have more content than you! People of today, the pain in my heart is: I can neither bear your nakedness nor your clothes! Really, the unknowable anxiety of the future and everything that makes a lost bird tremble, are more reassuring and more comfortable than your "reality". For thus you say, "We are perfectly real, without belief or superstition." Thus you fill your mouths, and have no throats to swallow. You colored people, how can you believe? —You are the picture of all faiths! You are the acting refutation of belief and the disconnection of limbs of thought.You real ones, I call you untrustworthy ones! All ages curse each other in your spirits; the dreams and chatter of all ages are more real than your waking reason. You are barren: therefore you lack faith.The Creator always has his true dreams and signs of the planet. —He believed in faith! Ye are the half-closed doors, and the grave-diggers wait outside.Your reality is "all worth dying". —— O sterile people, living bones, you stand before me.Surely there are among you who can know themselves. He said, "Maybe God stole something from me when I was asleep? Verily, that is enough material to make a woman! The thinness of my ribs is strange! "That's what many people say today. Truly, man of the day, you make me laugh!Especially when you yourself are amazed! How unlucky I am if I can't laugh at your astonishment and have to suck the disgusting liquid out of your glasses! But I carry you lightly, for I have a burden to bear; and what does it matter if little flies rest on my burden! Verily, my burden is no heavier for it!People of today, it is not you who give me the greatest weariness. —— Alas, I must climb there with my longing!From every mountaintop I seek my homeland. But I can't find it anywhere.Every city is the process of my wandering, and every gate is the starting point of my journey. To these men of the day to whom my heart had just been thrust, they are now only strangers who make me laugh; I am expelled from my native land. So I just love my children's homeland, undiscovered places overseas. I command my sails to search forever. I will redeem my children, because I am the descendant of my ancestors; I will redeem this present with the whole future--this present! —— Thus spake Zarathustra. immaculate knowledge When the moon came out last night, it was so heavy and full on the horizon: it seemed to me that it wanted to give birth to a sun. But it lies with its pregnancy; yet I trust the man of the moon rather than the woman. True, the timid night-stalker was not very manly either.Really, he went through the roof with a bad intention. Because the monk in this month is full of greed and jealousy; he is greedy for all the happiness of the earth and his lover. No, I don't love it, the cat under the roof!I loathe peepers out of half-open windows! It walks piously and silently on the carpet of stars:—but I loathe those who walk quietly without making their harnesses rattle. The steps of the honest man must have a sound; but the cat walks with fleeing steps.Look, the moon is advancing dishonestly like a cat. —— Sensitive hypocrites, "seeking the pure knower", I give you this simile.I call you Carnal Ones! You also love the earth and all of it: I guessed you! ——However, there is shame and bad intentions in your love. —You are like the moon. You have been persuaded: your spirits are made to despise all that is earth, but your guts have not been persuaded: yet this guts are the strongest in you! ... And this is what I call the immaculate knowledge of things: of things, there is no hope but to be able to lie beside them like a hundred-eyed mirror! O sensitive hypocrite, O carnal one!There is no innocence in your hopes: so you slander hopes! Verily, you love the earth less than the Creator and Breeder who delights in creating! Where is the innocence?Innocence is where there is the will to procreate.Whoever wants to create something higher than himself, I think he has the purest will. Where is the beauty?Beauty is where I have to "will" with my whole will; where I will love and die to make the image more than an image. Love and death have been in pairs since ancient times.The will to love: that is readiness to die.Cowards, thus I say unto you! But you think your slanting and feeble glances are "ruminations"!And everything that the eyes of the cowardly can touch is "beauty"!Ah, you defile the noble name! O unsullied ones, O pure-knowledgeable ones, your curse is your barrenness: though you lie heavy and full on the horizon! Verily, ye mouths are full of noble language; and ye wish us to believe: Your hearts overflow.Wanderer! But my language is rough and unworthy and shapeless: I like to pick up the food that falls under the table of your feast. This is enough for me to tell the truth to hypocrites!Verily, my fishbones, shells, and holly-leaves should tickle your noses, hypocrites! Around you and your feasts the air is foul: for your lusts, lies and mysteries are in the air! Dare to believe in yourself first—yourselves and your guts!Those who are not confident are always liars. "Pure ones," you put before yourselves a mask of God; Your terrible serpent crawls behind a god's mask. Verily, you meditators, how deceitful you are!Zarathustra is also blinded by your holy skin; he did not guess what serpents filled it. Seekers of pure knowledge, I seem to have seen a God's soul in your games!I never knew a better art than your forgery! The distance between us concealed from me the filth and stench of the snake, the sensual wiles of a four-legged snake that crawled there. But I approached you: then the day came for me—and now it comes for you too—and the love of the moon will end! Just look there!It was white with astonishment before dawn! For the red sun has come—and its love for the earth has come! The whole love of the Sun is innocence, a creative desire! Look there, the dawn comes impatiently to the sea!Do you not feel the thirst and panting of its love? It wants to drink the sea, and lifts it from its depths to its height: at the same time, the sea's longing offers countless udders. For the sea wants to be kissed by the thirst of the sun; it wants to be air, height, access to light, even light! Really, I, like the sun, love life and all deep seas. And I call this knowledge: everything deep is to be mentioned - my height! —— Thus spake Zarathustra.