(At behest of
u/Exospheric-Pressure, I have overset the first deal of 'Zarathustra'; be ready for a long post)
When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home, and goed into the fells. There he neeted his soul and oneness, and for ten years did not weary of it. But at last his heart shifted,—and rising one morning with the rosy dawn, he goed before the sun, and spake thus unto it:
Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest!
For ten years hast thou climbed hither unto my hollow: thou wouldst have wearied of thy light and of the faring, had it not been for me, mine erne, and my snake.
But we awaited thee every morning, took from thee thine overflow and blessed thee for it.
Lo! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that hath gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to take it.
I would fain bestow and outdeal, until the wise have once more become happy in their rashness, and the arm happy in their riches.
Therefore must I downgang into the deep: as thou doest in the evening, when thou goest behind the sea, and givest light also to the nether-world, thou overflowing star!
Like thee must I GO DOWN, as men say, to whom I shall go down thither.
Bless me, then, thou frithful eye, that canst behold even the greatest happiness without nithe!
Bless the cup that is about to overflow, that the water may flow golden out of it, and bear everywhere the offglance of thy bliss!
Lo! This cup is again going to empty itself, and Zarathustra is again going to be a man.
Thus began Zarathustra’s downgang.
2.
Zarathustra goed down the barrow alone, no one meeting him. When he entered the weald, however, there forthwith stood before him an old man, who had left his holy bed to seek roots. And thus spake the old man to Zarathustra:
“No fremder to me is this wanderer: many years ago goed he forbye. Zarathustra he was called; but he hath wrixled.
Then thou bearest thine ashes into the fells: wilt thou now bear thy fire into the dales? Fearest thou not the brander’s doom?
Yea, I beknow Zarathustra. Suttle is his eye, and no loathing lurketh about his mouth. Goeth he not along like a dancer?
Wrixled is Zarathustra; a child hath Zarathustra become; an awakened one is Zarathustra: what wilt thou do in the land of the sleepers?
As in the sea hast thou lived in oneness, and it hath borne thee up. Alas, wilt thou now go ashore? Alas, wilt thou again drag thy body thyself?”
Zarathustra answered: “I love mankind.”
“Why,” said the hallow, “did I go into the wald and the westen? Was it not since I loved men far too well?
Now I love God: men, I do not love. Man is a thing too flawed for me. Love to man would be death to me.”
Zarathustra answered: “What spake I of love! I am bringing gifts unto men.”
“Give them nothing,” said the hallow. “Take rather a deal of their load, and bear it along with them—that will be most welcome unto them: if only it be welcome unto thee!
If, however, thou wilt give unto them, give them no more than an alms, and let them also beg for it!”
“No,” replied Zarathustra, “I give no alms. I am not arm enough for that.”
The hallow laughed at Zarathustra, and spake thus: “Then see to it that they ontake thy riches! They are mistrustful of settlers, and do not believe that we come with gifts.
The fall of our footsteps ringeth too hollow through their streets. And right as at night, when they are in bed and hear a man abroad long before sunrise, so they ask themselves towards us: Where goeth the thief?
Go not to men, but stay in the forest! Go rather to the deer! Why not be like me—a bear amongst bears, a bird amongst birds?”
“And what doeth the hallow in the forest?” asked Zarathustra.
The hallow answered: “I make hymns and sing them; and in making hymns I laugh and weep and mumble: thus do I loff God.
With singing, weeping, laughing, and mumbling do I loff the God who is my God. But what dost thou bring us as a gift?”
When Zarathustra had heard these words, he bowed to the hallow and said: “What should I have to give thee! Let me rather hurry hence lest I take aught away from thee!”—And thus they sundered from one another, the old man and Zarathustra, laughing like schoolboys.
When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart: “Could it be true! This old hallowed in the wald hath not yet heard of it, that GOD IS DEAD!”
3.
When Zarathustra reached the nearest town which boundeth the forest, he found many lede gathered in the market-stead; for it had been forthkithed that a rope-dancer would give an uptread. And Zarathustra spake thus unto the lede:
I TEACH YOU THE OVERMAN. Man is something that is to be overcome. What have ye done to overcome man?
All beings hitherto have made something beyond themselves: and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the wilder than overcome man?
What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Overman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame.
Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes.
Even the wisest among you is only a missammening and mixing of wort and wraith. But do I bid you become wraiths or worts?
Lo, I teach you the Overman!
The Overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Overman SHALL BE the meaning of the earth!
I bebid you, my brethren, ABIDE TRUE TO THE EARTH, and believe not those who speak unto you of overearthly hopes! Bane-tongues are they, whether they know it or not.
Haters of life are they, rotten ones and baned ones themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so away with them!
Once bismer against God was the greatest bismering; but God died, and therewith also those bismerers. To bismer the earth is now the dreadfullest sin, and to mete out the heart of the unknown higher than the meaning of the earth!
Once the soul looked loathingly on the body, and then that loathing was the foremost thing:—the soul wished the body weak, ghastly, and hungry. Thus it thought to flee from the body and the earth.
Oh, that soul was itself weak, ghastly, and hungry; and gruesome was the winne of that soul!
But ye, also, my brethren, tell me: What doth your body say about your soul? Is your soul not armth and befouling and wretched self-quemeness?
Truly, a befouled stream is man. One must be a sea, to take on a befouled stream without becoming unsuttle.
Lo, I teach you the Overman: he is that sea; in him can your great loathing be sunk.
What is the greatest thing ye can afand? It is the Stound of great loathing. The stound in which even your happiness becometh loathsome unto you, and so also your rethe and thew.
The Stound when ye say: “What good is my happiness! It is armth and filth and wretched self-quemeness. But my happiness should ground bestandness itself!”
The Stound when ye say: “What good is my shoad! Doth it long for knowledge as the lion for his food? It is armth and filth and wretched self-quemeness!”
The Stound when ye say: “What good is my thew! As yet it hath not made me strong-feeling. How weary I am of my good and my bad! It is all armth and filth and wretched self-quemeness!”
The Stound when ye say: “What good is my rightwiseness! I do not see that I am burning and fodder. The rightwise, however, are burning and fodder!”
The Stound when ye say: “What good is my ruth! Is not ruth the rood on which he is nailed who loveth man? But my ruth is not a rood-nailing.”
Have ye ever spoken thus? Have ye ever cried thus? Ah! would that I had heard you crying thus!
It is not your sin—it is your self-quemeness that waileth unto heaven; your selfsame sparingness in sin waileth unto heaven!
Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the madness with which ye should be shielded?
Lo, I teach you the Overman: he is that lightning, he is that madness!—"
When Zarathustra had thus spoken, one of the folk called out: “We have now heard enough of the rope-dancer; it is time now for us to see him!” And all the folk laughed at Zarathustra. But the rope-dancer, who thought the words wised to him, began his uptread.
4.
Zarathustra, however, looked at the folk and wondered. Then he spake thus:
Man is a rope stretched between the wilder and the Overman—a rope over a pit.
A freechen crossing, a freechen wayfaring, a freechen looking-back, a freechen quivering and halting.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovely in man is that he is an OVERGANG and a DOWNGANG.
I love those that know not how to live besides as down-goers, for they are the over-goers.
I love the great haters, for that they are the great lovers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek a sake beyond the stars for going down and being blood-givings, but blood-givings themselves to the earth, that the earth of the Overman may hereafter come.
I love him who liveth in order to know, and seeketh to know in order that the Overman may hereafter live. Thus seeketh he his own downgang.
I love him who toileth and afindeth, that he may build the house for the Overman, and ready for him earth, dere, and wort: for thus seeketh he his own downgang.
I love him who loveth his thew: for thew is the will to downgang, and an arrow of longing.
I love him who withholdeth no share of soul for himself, but wanteth to be wholly the soul of his thew: thus walketh he as soul over the bridge.
I love him who maketh his thew his sway and orlay: thus, for the sake of his thew, he is willing to live on, or live no more.
I love him who wanteth not too many thewnesses. One thewness is more of a thewness than two, for that it is more of a knot for one’s orlay to cling to.
I love him whose soul is lavish, who wanteth no thanks and doth not give back: for he always bestoweth, and wanteth not to keep for himself.
I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his held, and who then asketh: “Am I an untruthful player?”—for he is willing to bend.
I love him who streweth golden words afore his deeds, and always doeth more than he forespeaketh: for he seeketh his own downgang.
I love him who groundeth the forthcoming ones, and fordeemeth the forbye ones: for he is willing to bend through the gainward ones.
I love him who lowereth his God, because he loveth his God: for he must bend through the wrath of his God.
I love him whose soul is deep even in the wounding, and may bend through a small sake: thus goeth he willingly over the bridge.
I love him whose soul is so overfull that he forgetteth himself, and all things are in him: thus all things become his downgang.
I love him who is of a free soul and a free heart: thus is his head only the bowels of his heart; his heart, however, fororsaketh his downgang.
I love all who are like heavy drops falling one by one out of the dark cloud that lowereth over man: they herald the coming of the lightning, and bend as heralds.
Lo, I am a herald of the lightning, and a heavy drop out of the cloud: the lightning, however, is the OVERMAN.—
5.
When Zarathustra had spoken these words, he again looked at the folk, and was whist. “There they stand,” said he to his heart; “there they laugh: they understand me not; I am not the mouth for these ears.
Must one first clout their ears, that they may learn to hear with their eyes? Must one clatter like kettledrums and preachers? Or do they only believe the stammerer?
They have something whereof they are orgel. What do they call it, that which maketh them stolt? Begang, they call it; it tosheddeth them from the goatherds.
They mislike, therefore, to hear of ‘loathing’ of themselves. So I will call to their stolt.
I will speak unto them of the most loathly thing: that, however, is THE LAST MAN!”
And thus spake Zarathustra unto the people:
It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to sow the seed of his highest hope.
Still is his soil rich enough for it. But that soil will one day be weak and tired, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow thereon.
Alas! there cometh the time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man—and the string of his bow will have unlearned to whizz!
I tell you: one must still have madness in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: ye have still madness in you.
Alas! There cometh the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There cometh the time of the most beloathed man, who can no longer hate himself.
Lo! I show you THE LAST MAN.
“What is love? What is shaping? What is longing? What is a star?”—so asketh the last man and blinketh.
The earth hath then become small, and on it there hoppeth the last man who maketh everything small. His species is unkillendly like that of the ground-flea; the last man liveth longest.
“We have found happiness”—say the last men, and blink thereby.
They have left the lands where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loveth one’s neighbour and rubbeth against him; for one needeth warmth.
Wending ill and being mistrustful, they think sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbleth over stones or men!
A little bane now and then: that maketh lovely dreams. And much bane at last for a lovely death.
One still worketh, for work is a while-time. But one is careful lest the while-time should harm one.
One no longer becometh arm or rich; both are too burdensome. Who still wanteth to wald? Who still wanteth to follow? Both are too burdensome.
No shepherd, and one herd! Every one wanteth the same; every one is alike: he who hath other feelings goeth willingly into the madhouse.
“Formerly all the world was mad,”—say the sneakiest of them, and blink thereby.
They are clever and know all that hath happened: so there is no end to their teasing. People still fall out, but are soon fordeemed—otherwise it befouleth their guts.
They have their little quemings for the day, and their little quemings for the night, but they have a love for health.
“We have found happiness,”—say the last men, and blink thereby.—
And here ended the first speech of Zarathustra, which is also called “The Foreword”: for at this point the shouting and mirth of the mong inbroke him. “Give us this last man, O Zarathustra,”—they called out—“make us into these last men! Then will we make thee a gift of the Overman!” And all the people thrilled and smacked their lips. Zarathustra, however, went sad, and said to his heart:
“They understand me not: I am not the mouth for these ears.
Too long, perhaps, have I lived in the fells; too much have I hearkened unto the brooks and trees: now do I speak unto them as unto the goatherds.
Frithful is my soul, and suttle, like the barrows in the morning. But they think me cold, and a heasher with evil hosps.
And now do they look at me and laugh: and while they laugh they hate me too. There is ice in their laughter.”
6.
Then, however, something happened which made every mouth dumb and every eye fast. In the meantime, of course, the rope-dancer had started his uptread: he had come out at a little door, and was going along the rope which was stretched between two towers, so that it hung above the market-stead and the folk. When he was just midway across, the little door opened once more, and a garishly-dressed fellow like a clown sprang out, and goed quickly after the first one. “Go on, halt-foot,” cried his frightful steven, “go on, lazy-bones, midloper, sallow-leered!—lest I tickle thee with my heel! What dost thou here between the towers? In the tower is the ord for thee, thou shouldst be locked up; to one better than thyself thou blockest the way!”—And with every word he came nearer and nearer the first one. When, however, he was but a step behind, there happened the frightful thing which made every mouth dumb and every eye fast—he uttered a yell like a devil, and jumped over the other who was in his way. The latter, however, when he thus saw his foe, lost at the same time his head and his footing on the rope; he threw his pole away, and shot downwards faster than it, like an eddy of arms and legs, into the depth. The market-stead and the folk were like the sea when the storm cometh on: they all flew asunder and in unreck, especially where the body was about to fall.
Zarathustra, however, stayed standing, and right beside him fell the body, badly shathed and crippled, but not yet dead. After a while awareness came back to the shattered man, and he saw Zarathustra kneeling beside him. “What art thou doing there?” said he at last, “I knew long ago that the devil would trip me up. Now he draggeth me to hell: wilt thou forhinder him?”
“On mine ore, my friend,” answered Zarathustra, “there is nothing of all that whereof thou speakest: there is no devil and no hell. Thy soul will be dead even sooner than thy body: fear, therefore, nothing any more!”
The man looked up mistrustfully. “If thou speakest the truth,” said he, “I lose nothing when I lose my life. I am not much more than a wilder which hath been taught to dance by blows and scanty fare.”
“Not at all,” said Zarathustra, “thou hast made freechenness thy calling; therein there is nothing loathly. Now thou diest by thy calling: therefore will I bury thee with mine own hands.”
When Zarathustra had said this the dying one did not answer further; but he shifted his hand as if he sought the hand of Zarathustra in thankfulness.
7.
Meanwhile the evening came on, and the market-stead shrouded itself in gloom. Then the folk scattered off, for even frimdiness and fear become tired. Zarathustra, however, still sat beside the dead man on the ground, lost in thought: so he forgot the time. But at last it became night, and a cold wind blew upon the lonely one. Then arose Zarathustra and said to his heart:
Truly, a good fang of fish hath Zarathustra made to-day! It is not a man he hath fanged, but a lich.
Sweer is mennish life, and as yet without meaning: a clown may be orlayful to it.
I want to teach men the sense of their bestandness, which is the Overman, the lightning out of the dark cloud—man.
But still am I far from them, and my shoad speaketh not unto their shoad. To men I am still something between a clown and a lich.
Gloomy is the night, gloomy are the ways of Zarathustra. Come, thou cold and stiff friend! I bear thee to the stead where I shall bury thee with mine own hands.
8.
When Zarathustra had said this to his heart, he put the lich upon his shoulders and set out on his way. Yet had he not gone a hundred steps, when there stole a man up to him and whispered in his ear—and lo! he that spake was the clown from the tower. “Leave this town, O Zarathustra,” said he, “there are too many here who hate thee. The good and fair hate thee, and call thee their foe and hater; the believers in the lorespell belief hate thee, and call thee a freechenness to the lede. It was thy good luck to be laughed at: and truly thou spakest like a clown. It was thy good luck to tie with the dead dog; by so lowering thyself thou hast spared thy life to-day. Leave, however, from this town,—or tomorrow I shall jump over thee, a living man over a dead one.” And when he had said this, the clown swound; Zarathustra, however, goed on through the dark streets.
At the gate of the town the grave-diggers met him: they shone their torch on his face, and, beknowing Zarathustra, they sorely upbraided him. “Zarathustra is bearing away the dead dog: a fine thing that Zarathustra hath went a grave-digger! For our hands are too cleanly for that roast. Will Zarathustra steal the bite from the devil? Well then, good luck to the meal! If only the devil is not a better thief than Zarathustra!—he will steal them both, he will eat them both!” And they laughed among themselves, and put their heads together.
Zarathustra made no answer thereto, but goed on his way. When he had gone on for two stounds, past woods and swamps, he had heard too much of the hungry howling of the wolves, and he himself became a-hungry. So he halted at a lonely house in which a light was burning.
“Hunger beseteth me,” said Zarathustra, “like a robber. Among woods and swamps my hunger beseteth me, and late in the night.
“Fremd stevens hath my hunger. Often it cometh to me only after a meal, and all day it hath swethered to come: where hath it been?”
And thereupon Zarathustra knocked at the door of the house. An old man came forth, who bore a light, and asked: “Who cometh unto me and my bad sleep?”
“A living man and a dead one,” said Zarathustra. “Give me something to eat and drink, I forgot it within the day. He that feedeth the hungry eftfresheth his own soul, saith wisdom.”
The old man withdrew, but came back forthwith and bequeathed to Zarathustra bread and wine. “A bad land for the hungry,” said he; “that is why I live here. Dere and man come unto me, the insettler. But bid thy fellow eat and drink also, he is wearier than thou.” Zarathustra answered: “My friend is dead; I shall hardly be dowed to get him to eat.” “That doth not worry me,” said the old man gloomily; “he that knocketh at my door must take what I bequeath him. Eat, and fare ye well!”—
Thereafter Zarathustra again goed on for two stounds, trusting to the path and the light of the stars: for he was a well-afanded night-walker, and liked to look into the leer of all that slept. When the morning dawned, however, Zarathustra found himself in a thick weald, and no path was any longer seen. He then put the dead man in a hollow tree at his head—for he wanted to ward him from the wolves—and laid himself down on the ground and moss. And straightaway he fell asleep, tired in body, but with a frolic soul.
9.
Long slept Zarathustra; and not only the rosy dawn goed forbye over his head, but also the morning. At last, however, his eyes opened, and amazedly he gazed into the forest and the stillness, amazedly he gazed into himself. Then he arose quickly, like a seafarer who all at once seeth the land; and he shouted for joy: for he saw a new truth. And he spake thus to his heart:
A light hath dawned upon me: I need sammedsiths—living ones; not dead fellows and liches, which I bear with me where I will.
But I need living sammedsiths, who will follow me because they want to follow themselves—and to the ord where I will.
A light hath dawned upon me. Not to the folk is Zarathustra to speak, but to sammedsiths! Zarathustra shall not be the herd’s herdsman and hound!
To bait many from the herd—for that sake have I come. The folk and the herd must be angry with me: a robber shall Zarathustra be called by the herdsmen.
Herdsmen, I say, but they call themselves the good and fair. Herdsmen, I say, but they call themselves the believers in the lorespell belief.
Behold the good and fair! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh up their tables of worths, the breaker, the lawbreaker:—he, however, is the shaper.
Behold the believers of all beliefs! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh up their tables of worths, the breaker, the law-breaker—he, however, is the shaper.
Sammedsiths, the shaper seeketh, not liches—and not herds or believers either. Fellow-shapers the shaper seeketh—those who grave new worths on new tables.
Sammedsiths, the shaper seeketh, and fellow-reapers: for everything is ripe for the harvest with him. But he lacketh the hundred sickles: so he plucketh the ears of corn and is angered.
Sammedsiths, the shaper seeketh, and such as know how to whet their sickles. Shenders, will they be called, and haters of good and evil. But they are the reapers and frolickers.
Fellow-creators, Zarathustra seeketh; fellow-reapers and fellow-frolickers, Zarathustra seeketh: what hath he to do with herds and herdsmen and corpses!
And thou, my first sammedsith, rest in frith! Well have I buried thee in thy hollow tree; well have I hid thee from the wolves.
But I sunder from thee; the time hath come. ‘Twixt rosy dawn and rosy dawn there came unto me a new truth.
I am not to be a herdsman, I am not to be a grave-digger. Not any more will I speak unto the folk; for the last time have I spoken unto the dead.
With the shapers, the reapers, and the frolickers will I band: the rainbow will I show them, and all the stairs to the Overman.
To the lone-dwellers will I sing my song, and to the sammed-dwellers; and unto him who hath still ears for the unheard, will I make the heart heavy with my happiness.
I make for my goal, I follow my fare; over the loitering and slowly will I leap. Thus let my on-going be their down-going!
10.
This had Zarathustra said to his heart when the sun stood at midday. Then he looked frainingly aloft,—for he heard above him the sharp call of a bird. And behold! An erne swept through the loft in wide rings, and on it hung a snake, not like a prey, but like a friend: for it kept itself wrapped umbe the erne’s neck.
“They are mine deer,” said Zarathustra, and frolicked in his heart.
“The stoltest deer under the sun, and the wisest deer under the sun,—they have come out to speer.
They want to know whether Zarathustra still liveth. Truly, do I still live?
More freechen have I found it among men than among wilder; in freechen paths goeth Zarathustra. Let mine deer lead me!
When Zarathustra had said this, he amoned the words of the hallow in the weald. Then he sighed and spake thus to his heart:
“Would that I were wiser! Would that I were wise from the selfsame heart, like my snake!
But I am asking the unacomendly. Therefore do I ask my orgel to go always with my wisdom!
And if my wisdom should some day forsake me:—alas! it loveth to fly away!—may my orgel then fly with my rashness!”
Thus began Zarathustra’s downgang.