Thus Spake Zarathustra [92]
and flee--and return.
Everything goeth, everything returneth; eternally rolleth the wheel of existence. Everything dieth, everything blossometh forth again; eternally runneth on the year of existence.
Everything breaketh, everything is integrated anew; eternally buildeth itself the same house of existence. All things separate, all things again greet one another; eternally true to itself remaineth the ring of existence.
Every moment beginneth existence, around every 'Here' rolleth the ball 'There.' The middle is everywhere. Crooked is the path of eternity."--
--O ye wags and barrel-organs! answered Zarathustra, and smiled once more, how well do ye know what had to be fulfilled in seven days:--
--And how that monster crept into my throat and choked me! But I bit off its head and spat it away from me.
And ye--ye have made a lyre-lay out of it? Now, however, do I lie here, still exhausted with that biting and spitting-away, still sick with mine own salvation.
AND YE LOOKED ON AT IT ALL? O mine animals, are ye also cruel? Did ye like to look at my great pain as men do? For man is the cruellest animal.
At tragedies, bull-fights, and crucifixions hath he hitherto been happiest on earth; and when he invented his hell, behold, that was his heaven on earth.
When the great man crieth--: immediately runneth the little man thither, and his tongue hangeth out of his mouth for very lusting. He, however, calleth it his "pity."
The little man, especially the poet--how passionately doth he accuse life in words! Hearken to him, but do not fail to hear the delight which is in all accusation!
Such accusers of life--them life overcometh with a glance of the eye. "Thou lovest me?" saith the insolent one; "wait a little, as yet have I no time for thee."
Towards himself man is the cruellest animal; and in all who call themselves "sinners" and "bearers of the cross" and "penitents," do not overlook the voluptuousness in their plaints and accusations!
And I myself--do I thereby want to be man's accuser? Ah, mine animals, this only have I learned hitherto, that for man his baddest is necessary for his best,--
--That all that is baddest is the best POWER, and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must become better AND badder:--
Not to THIS torture-stake was I tied, that I know man is bad,--but I cried, as no one hath yet cried:
"Ah, that his baddest is so very small! Ah, that his best is so very small!"
The great disgust at man--IT strangled me and had crept into my throat: and what the soothsayer had presaged: "All is alike, nothing is worth while, knowledge strangleth."
A long twilight limped on before me, a fatally weary, fatally intoxicated sadness, which spake with yawning mouth.
"Eternally he returneth, the man of whom thou art weary, the small man"--so yawned my sadness, and dragged its foot and could not go to sleep.
A cavern, became the human earth to me; its breast caved in; everything living became to me human dust and bones and mouldering past.
My sighing sat on all human graves, and could no longer arise: my sighing and questioning croaked and choked, and gnawed and nagged day and night:
--"Ah, man returneth eternally! The small man returneth eternally!"
Naked had I once seen both of them, the greatest man and the smallest man: all too like one another--all too human, even the greatest man!
All too small, even the greatest man!--that was my disgust at man! And the eternal return also of the smallest man!--that was my disgust at all existence!
Ah, Disgust! Disgust! Disgust!--Thus spake Zarathustra, and sighed and shuddered; for he remembered his sickness. Then did his animals prevent him from speaking further.
"Do not speak further, thou convalescent!"--so answered his animals, "but go out where the world waiteth for thee like a garden.
Go out unto the roses, the bees, and the flocks of doves! Especially, however, unto the singing-birds, to learn SINGING from them!
For singing is for the convalescent; the sound
Everything goeth, everything returneth; eternally rolleth the wheel of existence. Everything dieth, everything blossometh forth again; eternally runneth on the year of existence.
Everything breaketh, everything is integrated anew; eternally buildeth itself the same house of existence. All things separate, all things again greet one another; eternally true to itself remaineth the ring of existence.
Every moment beginneth existence, around every 'Here' rolleth the ball 'There.' The middle is everywhere. Crooked is the path of eternity."--
--O ye wags and barrel-organs! answered Zarathustra, and smiled once more, how well do ye know what had to be fulfilled in seven days:--
--And how that monster crept into my throat and choked me! But I bit off its head and spat it away from me.
And ye--ye have made a lyre-lay out of it? Now, however, do I lie here, still exhausted with that biting and spitting-away, still sick with mine own salvation.
AND YE LOOKED ON AT IT ALL? O mine animals, are ye also cruel? Did ye like to look at my great pain as men do? For man is the cruellest animal.
At tragedies, bull-fights, and crucifixions hath he hitherto been happiest on earth; and when he invented his hell, behold, that was his heaven on earth.
When the great man crieth--: immediately runneth the little man thither, and his tongue hangeth out of his mouth for very lusting. He, however, calleth it his "pity."
The little man, especially the poet--how passionately doth he accuse life in words! Hearken to him, but do not fail to hear the delight which is in all accusation!
Such accusers of life--them life overcometh with a glance of the eye. "Thou lovest me?" saith the insolent one; "wait a little, as yet have I no time for thee."
Towards himself man is the cruellest animal; and in all who call themselves "sinners" and "bearers of the cross" and "penitents," do not overlook the voluptuousness in their plaints and accusations!
And I myself--do I thereby want to be man's accuser? Ah, mine animals, this only have I learned hitherto, that for man his baddest is necessary for his best,--
--That all that is baddest is the best POWER, and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must become better AND badder:--
Not to THIS torture-stake was I tied, that I know man is bad,--but I cried, as no one hath yet cried:
"Ah, that his baddest is so very small! Ah, that his best is so very small!"
The great disgust at man--IT strangled me and had crept into my throat: and what the soothsayer had presaged: "All is alike, nothing is worth while, knowledge strangleth."
A long twilight limped on before me, a fatally weary, fatally intoxicated sadness, which spake with yawning mouth.
"Eternally he returneth, the man of whom thou art weary, the small man"--so yawned my sadness, and dragged its foot and could not go to sleep.
A cavern, became the human earth to me; its breast caved in; everything living became to me human dust and bones and mouldering past.
My sighing sat on all human graves, and could no longer arise: my sighing and questioning croaked and choked, and gnawed and nagged day and night:
--"Ah, man returneth eternally! The small man returneth eternally!"
Naked had I once seen both of them, the greatest man and the smallest man: all too like one another--all too human, even the greatest man!
All too small, even the greatest man!--that was my disgust at man! And the eternal return also of the smallest man!--that was my disgust at all existence!
Ah, Disgust! Disgust! Disgust!--Thus spake Zarathustra, and sighed and shuddered; for he remembered his sickness. Then did his animals prevent him from speaking further.
"Do not speak further, thou convalescent!"--so answered his animals, "but go out where the world waiteth for thee like a garden.
Go out unto the roses, the bees, and the flocks of doves! Especially, however, unto the singing-birds, to learn SINGING from them!
For singing is for the convalescent; the sound