Thus Spoke Zarathustra (32 page)

I sprang to your side: then you fled back from my spring; towards me the tongues of your fleeing, flying hair came hissing!

Away from you and from your serpents did I retire: then at once you stood, half turned, your eyes full of desire.

With your crooked smile – you teach me crooked ways, upon crooked ways my feet learn – guile!

I fear you when you are near, I love you when you are far; your fleeing allures me, your seeking secures me: I suffer, but for you what would I not gladly endure!

For you whose coldness inflames, whose hatred seduces, whose flight constrains, whose mockery – induces:

who would not hate you, great woman who binds us, en-winds us, seduces us, seeks us, finds us I Who would not love you, you innocent, impatient, wind-swift, child-eyed sinner!

Where now do you take me, you unruly paragon? And again you forsake me, you sweet, ungrateful tomboy!

I dance after you, I follow you even when only the slightest traces of you linger. Where are you? Give me your hand I Or just a finger!

Here are caves and thickets: we shall go astray! Stop! Stand still! Do you not see owls and bats flitting away?

Would you befool me? You bat! You owl! Where are we? Did you learn from the dogs thus to bark and howl?

Your little white teeth you sweetly bare at me, from under your curly little mane your wicked eyes stare at me!

This is a dance over dale and hill: I am the hunter – will you be my hound or will you be my kill?

Now beside me! And quickly, you wicked rover I Now spring up! And across! – Help! In springing! myself have gone over!

Oh see me lying, you wanton companion, and begging for grace! I long to follow you in – a sweeter chase! –

love’s chase through flowery bushes, still and dim! Or there beside the lake, where goldfishes dance and swim!

Are you now weary? There yonder are sheep and evening: let us end our pursuit: is it not sweet to sleep when the shepherd plays his flute?

Are you so very weary? I will carry you there, just let your arms sink! And if you are thirsty – I should have something, but you would not like it to drink! –

Oh this accursed, nimble, supple snake and slippery witch! Where have you gone? But on my face I feel from your hand two spots and blotches itch!

I am truly weary of being your shepherd, always sheepish and meek! You witch, if I have hitherto sung for you, now for
me you
shall – shriek!

To the rhythm of my whip you shall shriek and trot! Did I forget my whip? – I did not!

2

Then Life answered me thus, keeping her gentle ears closed:

‘O Zarathustra! Do not crack your whip so terribly! You surely know: noise kills thought – and now such tender thoughts are coming to me.

‘We are both proper ne’er-do-wells and ne’er-do-ills. Beyond good and evil did we discover our island and our green meadow – we two alone! Therefore we must love one another!

‘And even if we do not love one another from the very
heart, do people have to dislike one another if they do not love one another from the very heart?

‘And that I love you and often love you too well, that I know: and the reason is that I am jealous of your Wisdom. Ah, this crazy old fool, Wisdom!

‘If your Wisdom should one day desert you, alas! then my love would quickly desert you too.’

Thereupon, Life gazed thoughtfully behind her and around her and said gently: ‘O Zarathustra, you are not faithful enough to me!

‘You do not love me nearly as much as you say; I know you are thinking of leaving me soon.

‘There is an old, heavy, heavy booming bell: it booms out at night up to your cave:

‘when you hear this bell beat the hour at midnight, then you think between one and twelve –

‘you think, O Zarathustra, I know it, you think of leaving me soon!’

‘Yes,’ I answered hesitatingly, ‘but you also know….’ And I said something into her ear, in the midst of her tangled, yellow, foolish locks.

‘You
know
that, O Zarathustra? No one knows that.’

And we gazed at one another and looked out at the green meadow, over which the cool evening was spreading, and wept together. But then Life was dearer to me than all my Wisdom had ever been.

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

3

One!

O Man! Attend!

Two!

What does deep midnight’s voice contend?

Three
!

‘I slept my sleep,

Four!

‘And now awake at dreaming’s end:

Five
!

‘The world is deep,

Six!

‘Deeper than day can comprehend.

Seven
!

‘Deep is its woe,

Eight!

‘Joy – deeper than heart’s agony:

Nine
!

‘Woe says: Fade! Go!

Ten!

‘But all joy wants eternity,

Eleven!

‘ – wants deep, deep, deep eternity!’

Twelve!

The Seven Seals
(or: The Song of Yes and Amen)

1

I
F
I be a prophet and full of that prophetic spirit that wanders on high ridges between two seas,

wanders between past and future like a heavy cloud, enemy to sultry lowlands and to all that is weary and can neither die nor live:

ready for lightning in its dark bosom and for redeeming beams of light, pregnant with lightnings which affirm Yes! laugh Yes! ready for prophetic lightning-flashes:

but blessed is he who is thus pregnant! And, in truth, he who wants to kindle the light of the future must hang long over the mountains like a heavy storm!

Oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings – the Ring of Recurrence!

Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children,
unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love you, O Eternity!

For I love you, O Eternity!

2

If ever my anger broke graves open, moved boundary-stones, and rolled old shattered law-tables into deep chasms:

if ever my mockery blew away mouldered words, and if I came like a broom to the Cross-spiders and as a scouring wind to old sepulchres:

if ever I sat rejoicing where old gods lay buried, world-blessing, world-loving, beside the monuments of old world-slanderers:

for I love even churches and the graves of gods, if only heaven is looking, pure-eyed, through their shattered roofs; I like to sit like grass and red poppies on shattered churches:

Oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings – the Ring of Recurrence!

Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love
VCM
, O Eternity!

For I love you, O Eternity!

3

If ever a breath of the creative breath has come to me, and a breath of that heavenly necessity that compels even chance to dance in star-rounds:

if ever I have laughed with the laugh of the creative lightning, which the thunder of the deed, grumbling but obedient, follows:

if ever I have played dice with the gods at their table, the earth, so that the earth trembled and broke open and streams of fire snorted forth:

for the earth is a table of the gods, and trembling with creative new words and the dice throws of the gods:

Oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings – the Ring of Recurrence!

Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love you, O Eternity!

For I love you, O Eternity!

4

If ever I have drunk a full draught from that foaming mixing-bowl of spice, in which all things are well compounded:

if ever my hand has welded the furthest to the nearest, and fire to spirit and joy to sorrow and the wickedest to the kindest:

if I myself am a grain of that redeeming salt that makes everything mix well together in the bowl:

for there is a salt that unites good with evil; and even the most evil is worthy to be a spice and a last over-foaming:

Oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings – the Ring of Recurrence!

Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love you, O Eternity!

For I love you, O Eternity!

5

If I love the sea and all that is sea like, and love it most when it angrily contradicts me:

if that delight in seeking that drives sails towards the undiscovered is in me, if a seafarer’s delight is in my delight:

if ever my rejoicing has cried:’ The shore has disappeared – now the last fetter falls from me,

‘the boundless roars around me, far out glitter space and time, well then, come on! old heart!’

Oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings – the Ring of Recurrence!

Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love you, O Eternity!

For I love you, O Eternity!

6

If my virtue is a dancer’s virtue, and if I often leap with both feet in golden-emerald rapture:

if my wickedness is a laughing wickedness, at home among rose bowers and hedges of lilies:

for in laughter all evil is present, but sanctified and absolved through its own happiness:

and if it be my Alpha and Omega that everything heavy shall become light, every body a dancer, all spirit a bird: and, truly, that is my Alpha and Omega!