Thus Spake Zarathustra

2

With those rhymes of Zarathustra the kings were delighted; the king on the right, however, said: “O Zarathustra, how well it was that we set out to see thee!

For thine enemies showed us thy likeness in their mirror: there lookedst thou with the grimace of a devil, and sneeringly: so that we were afraid of thee.

But what good did it do! Always didst thou prick us anew in heart and ear with thy sayings. Then did we say at last: What doth it matter how he look!

We must HEAR him; him who teacheth: ‘Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars, and the short peace more than the long!’

No one ever spake such warlike words: ‘What is good? To be brave is good. It is the good war that halloweth every cause.’

O Zarathustra, our fathers’ blood stirred in our veins at such words: it was like the voice of spring to old wine-casks.

When the swords ran among one another like red-spotted serpents, then did our fathers become fond of life; the sun of every peace seemed to them languid and lukewarm, the long peace, however, made them ashamed.

How they sighed, our fathers, when they saw on the wall brightly furbished, dried-up swords! Like those they thirsted for war. For a sword thirsteth to drink blood, and sparkleth with desire.” —

– When the kings thus discoursed and talked eagerly of the happiness of their fathers, there came upon Zarathustra no little desire to mock at their eagerness: for evidently they were very peaceable kings whom he saw before him, kings with old and refined features. But he restrained himself. “Well!” said he, “thither leadeth the way, there lieth the cave of Zarathustra; and this day is to have a long evening! At present, however, a cry of distress calleth me hastily away from you.

It will honour my cave if kings want to sit and wait in it: but, to be sure, ye will have to wait long!

Well! What of that! Where doth one at present learn better to wait than at courts? And the whole virtue of kings that hath remained unto them – is it not called to-day: ABILITY to wait?”

Thus spake Zarathustra.

LXIV. THE LEECH

And Zarathustra went thoughtfully on, further and lower down, through forests and past moory bottoms; as it happeneth, however, to every one who meditateth upon hard matters, he trod thereby unawares upon a man. And lo, there spurted into his face all at once a cry of pain, and two curses and twenty bad invectives, so that in his fright he raised his stick and also struck the trodden one. Immediately afterwards, however, he regained his composure, and his heart laughed at the folly he had just committed.

“Pardon me,” said he to the trodden one, who had got up enraged, and had seated himself, “pardon me, and hear first of all a parable.

As a wanderer who dreameth of remote things on a lonesome highway, runneth unawares against a sleeping dog, a dog which lieth in the sun:

– As both of them then start up and snap at each other, like deadly enemies, those two beings mortally frightened – so did it happen unto us.

And yet! And yet – how little was lacking for them to caress each other, that dog and that lonesome one! Are they not both – lonesome ones!”

– “Whoever thou art,” said the trodden one, still enraged, “thou treadest also too nigh me with thy parable, and not only with thy foot!

Lo! am I then a dog?” – And thereupon the sitting one got up, and pulled his naked arm out of the swamp. For at first he had lain outstretched on the ground, hidden and indiscernible, like those who lie in wait for swamp-game.

“But whatever art thou about!” called out Zarathustra in alarm, for he saw a deal of blood streaming over the naked arm, – “what hath hurt thee? Hath an evil beast bit thee, thou unfortunate one?”

The bleeding one laughed, still angry, “What matter is it to thee!” said he, and was about to go on. “Here am I at home and in my province. Let him question me whoever will: to a dolt, however, I shall hardly answer.”

“Thou art mistaken,” said Zarathustra sympathetically, and held him fast; “thou art mistaken. Here thou art not at home, but in my domain, and therein shall no one receive any hurt.

Call me however what thou wilt – I am who I must be. I call myself Zarathustra.

Well! Up thither is the way to Zarathustra’s cave: it is not far, – wilt thou not attend to thy wounds at my home?

It hath gone badly with thee, thou unfortunate one, in this life: first a beast bit thee, and then – a man trod upon thee!” —

When however the trodden one had heard the name of Zarathustra he was transformed. “What happeneth unto me!” he exclaimed, “WHO preoccupieth me so much in this life as this one man, namely Zarathustra, and that one animal that liveth on blood, the leech?

For the sake of the leech did I lie here by this swamp, like a fisher, and already had mine outstretched arm been bitten ten times, when there biteth a still finer leech at my blood, Zarathustra himself!

O happiness! O miracle! Praised be this day which enticed me into the swamp! Praised be the best, the livest cupping-glass, that at present liveth; praised be the great conscience-leech Zarathustra!” —

Thus spake the trodden one, and Zarathustra rejoiced at his words and their refined reverential style. “Who art thou?” asked he, and gave him his hand, “there is much to clear up and elucidate between us, but already methinketh pure clear day is dawning.”

“I am THE SPIRITUALLY CONSCIENTIOUS ONE,” answered he who was asked, “and in matters of the spirit it is difficult for any one to take it more rigorously, more restrictedly, and more severely than I, except him from whom I learnt it, Zarathustra himself.

Better know nothing than half-know many things! Better be a fool on one’s own account, than a sage on other people’s approbation! I – go to the basis:

– What matter if it be great or small? If it be called swamp or sky? A handbreadth of basis is enough for me, if it be actually basis and ground!

– A handbreadth of basis: thereon can one stand. In the true knowing-knowledge there is nothing great and nothing small.”

“Then thou art perhaps an expert on the leech?” asked Zarathustra; “and thou investigatest the leech to its ultimate basis, thou conscientious one?”

“O Zarathustra,” answered the trodden one, “that would be something immense; how could I presume to do so!

That, however, of which I am master and knower, is the BRAIN of the leech: – that is MY world!

And it is also a world! Forgive it, however, that my pride here findeth expression, for here I have not mine equal. Therefore said I: ‘here am I at home.’

How long have I investigated this one thing, the brain of the leech, so that here the slippery truth might no longer slip from me! Here is MY domain!

– For the sake of this did I cast everything else aside, for the sake of this did everything else become indifferent to me; and close beside my knowledge lieth my black ignorance.

My spiritual conscience requireth from me that it should be so – that I should know one thing, and not know all else: they are a loathing unto me, all the semi-spiritual, all the hazy, hovering, and visionary.

Where mine honesty ceaseth, there am I blind, and want also to be blind. Where I want to know, however, there want I also to be honest – namely, severe, rigorous, restricted, cruel and inexorable.

Because THOU once saidest, O Zarathustra: ‘Spirit is life which itself cutteth into life’; – that led and allured me to thy doctrine. And verily, with mine own blood have I increased mine own knowledge!”

– “As the evidence indicateth,” broke in Zarathustra; for still was the blood flowing down on the naked arm of the conscientious one. For there had ten leeches bitten into it.

“O thou strange fellow, how much doth this very evidence teach me – namely, thou thyself! And not all, perhaps, might I pour into thy rigorous ear!

Well then! We part here! But I would fain find thee again. Up thither is the way to my cave: to-night shalt thou there be my welcome guest!

Fain would I also make amends to thy body for Zarathustra treading upon thee with his feet: I think about that. Just now, however, a cry of distress calleth me hastily away from thee.”

Thus spake Zarathustra.

LXV. THE MAGICIAN

LXVI. OUT OF SERVICE

Not long, however, after Zarathustra had freed himself from the magician, he again saw a person sitting beside the path which he followed, namely a tall, black man, with a haggard, pale countenance: THIS MAN grieved him exceedingly. “Alas,” said he to his heart, “there sitteth disguised affliction; methinketh he is of the type of the priests: what do THEY want in my domain?

What! Hardly have I escaped from that magician, and must another necromancer again run across my path, —

– Some sorcerer with laying-on-of-hands, some sombre wonder-worker by the grace of God, some anointed world-maligner, whom, may the devil take!

But the devil is never at the place which would be his right place: he always cometh too late, that cursed dwarf and club-foot!” —

Thus cursed Zarathustra impatiently in his heart, and considered how with averted look he might slip past the black man. But behold, it came about otherwise. For at the same moment had the sitting one already perceived him; and not unlike one whom an unexpected happiness overtaketh, he sprang to his feet, and went straight towards Zarathustra.

“Whoever thou art, thou traveller,” said he, “help a strayed one, a seeker, an old man, who may here easily come to grief!

The world here is strange to me, and remote; wild beasts also did I hear howling; and he who could have given me protection – he is himself no more.

I was seeking the pious man, a saint and an anchorite, who, alone in his forest, had not yet heard of what all the world knoweth at present.”

“WHAT doth all the world know at present?” asked Zarathustra. “Perhaps that the old God no longer liveth, in whom all the world once believed?”

“Thou sayest it,” answered the old man sorrowfully. “And I served that old God until his last hour.

Now, however, am I out of service, without master, and yet not free; likewise am I no longer merry even for an hour, except it be in recollections.

Therefore did I ascend into these mountains, that I might finally have a festival for myself once more, as becometh an old pope and church-father: for know it, that I am the last pope! – a festival of pious recollections and divine services.

Now, however, is he himself dead, the most pious of men, the saint in the forest, who praised his God constantly with singing and mumbling.

He himself found I no longer when I found his cot – but two wolves found I therein, which howled on account of his death, – for all animals loved him. Then did I haste away.

Had I thus come in vain into these forests and mountains? Then did my heart determine that I should seek another, the most pious of all those who believe not in God – , my heart determined that I should seek Zarathustra!”

Thus spake the hoary man, and gazed with keen eyes at him who stood before him. Zarathustra however seized the hand of the old pope and regarded it a long while with admiration.

“Lo! thou venerable one,” said he then, “what a fine and long hand! That is the hand of one who hath ever dispensed blessings. Now, however, doth it hold fast him whom thou seekest, me, Zarathustra.

It is I, the ungodly Zarathustra, who saith: ‘Who is ungodlier than I, that I may enjoy his teaching?’” —

Thus spake Zarathustra, and penetrated with his glances the thoughts and arrear-thoughts of the old pope. At last the latter began:

“He who most loved and possessed him hath now also lost him most – :

– Lo, I myself am surely the most godless of us at present? But who could rejoice at that!” —

– “Thou servedst him to the last?” asked Zarathustra thoughtfully, after a deep silence, “thou knowest HOW he died? Is it true what they say, that sympathy choked him;

– That he saw how MAN hung on the cross, and could not endure it; – that his love to man became his hell, and at last his death?” —

The old pope however did not answer, but looked aside timidly, with a painful and gloomy expression.

“Let him go,” said Zarathustra, after prolonged meditation, still looking the old man straight in the eye.

“Let him go, he is gone. And though it honoureth thee that thou speakest only in praise of this dead one, yet thou knowest as well as I WHO he was, and that he went curious ways.”

“To speak before three eyes,” said the old pope cheerfully (he was blind of one eye), “in divine matters I am more enlightened than Zarathustra himself – and may well be so.

My love served him long years, my will followed all his will. A good servant, however, knoweth everything, and many a thing even which a master hideth from himself.

He was a hidden God, full of secrecy. Verily, he did not come by his son otherwise than by secret ways. At the door of his faith standeth adultery.

Whoever extolleth him as a God of love, doth not think highly enough of love itself. Did not that God want also to be judge? But the loving one loveth irrespective of reward and requital.

When he was young, that God out of the Orient, then was he harsh and revengeful, and built himself a hell for the delight of his favourites.

At last, however, he became old and soft and mellow and pitiful, more like a grandfather than a father, but most like a tottering old grandmother.

There did he sit shrivelled in his chimney-corner, fretting on account of his weak legs, world-weary, will-weary, and one day he suffocated of his all-too-great pity.” —

“Thou old pope,” said here Zarathustra interposing, “hast thou seen THAT with thine eyes? It could well have happened in that way: in that way, AND also otherwise. When Gods die they always die many kinds of death.

Well! At all events, one way or other – he is gone! He was counter to the taste of mine ears and eyes; worse than that I should not like to say against him.

I love everything that looketh bright and speaketh honestly. But he – thou knowest it, forsooth, thou old priest, there was something of thy type in him, the priest-type – he was equivocal.

He was also indistinct. How he raged at us, this wrath-snorter, because we understood him badly! But why did he not speak more clearly?

And if the fault lay in our ears, why did he give us ears that heard him badly? If there was dirt in our ears, well! who put it in them?