What has happened to me, my animals?- said Zarathustra. Am I not transformed? has not bliss come to me like a whirlwind?
Foolish is my happiness, and foolish things will it speak: it is still too young- so have patience with it!
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Wounded am I by my happiness: all sufferers shall be physicians to me!
To my friends can I again go down, and also to my enemies! Zarathus-tra can again speak and give, and show his best love to his loved ones!
My impatient love overflows in streams,- down towards sunrise and sunset. Out of silent mountains and storms of affliction, rushes my soul into the valleys.
Too long have I longed and looked into the distance. Too long has solitude possessed me: thus have I unlearned to keep silence.
Utterance have I become altogether, and the brawling of a brook from high rocks: downward into the valleys will I hurl my speech.
And let the stream of my love sweep into unfrequented channels! How should a stream not finally find its way to the sea!
There is a lake in me, sequestered and self-sufficing; but the stream of my love bears this along with it, down- to the sea!
New paths do I tread, a new speech comes to me; tired have I become-like all creators- of the old tongues. No longer will my spirit walk on worn-out soles.
Too slowly runs all speaking for me:- into your chariot, O storm, do I leap! And even you will I whip with my spite!
Like a cry and an huzza will I traverse wide seas, till I find the Blessed isles where my friends sojourn;-
And my enemies amongst them! How I now love every one to whom I may but speak! Even my enemies pertain to my bliss.
And when I want to mount my wildest horse, then does my spear al-ways help me up best: it is my foot’s ever ready servant:-
The spear which I hurl at my enemies! How grateful am I to my en-emies that I may at last hurl it!
Too great has been the tension of my cloud: ‘twixt laughters of light-nings will I cast hail-showers into the depths.
Violently will my breast then heave; violently will it blow its storm over the mountains: thus comes its assuagement.
Like a storm comes my happiness, and my freedom! But my enemies shall think that the evil one roars over their heads.
Yes, you also, my friends, will be alarmed by my wild wisdom; and perhaps you will flee therefrom, along with my enemies.
Ah, that I knew how to lure you back with shepherds’ flutes! Ah, that my lioness wisdom would learn to roar softly! And much have we already learned with one another!
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My wild wisdom became pregnant on the lonesome mountains; on the rough stones did she bear the youngest of her young.
Now runs she foolishly in the arid wilderness, and seeks and seeks the soft sward- my old, wild wisdom!
On the soft sward of your hearts, my friends!- on your love, would she rather couch her dearest one!-
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
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Chapter 2
In the Happy Isles
THE figs fall from the trees, they are good and sweet; and in falling the red skins of them break. A north wind am I to ripe figs.
Thus, like figs, do these doctrines fall for you, my friends: imbibe now their juice and their sweet substance! It is autumn all around, and clear sky, and afternoon.
Lo, what fullness is around us! And out of the midst of superabund-ance, it is delightful to look out upon distant seas.
Once did people say God, when they looked out upon distant seas; now, however, have I taught you to say, Superman.
God is a conjecture: but I do not wish your conjecturing to reach bey-ond your creating will.
Could you create a God?- Then, I pray you, be silent about all gods! But you could well create the Superman.
Not perhaps you yourselves, my brothers! But into fathers and fore-fathers of the Superman could you transform yourselves: and let that be your best creating!-
God is a conjecture: but I should like your conjecturing restricted to the conceivable.
Could you conceive a God?- But let this mean Will to Truth to you, that everything be transformed into the humanly conceivable, the hu-manly visible, the humanly sensible! Your own discernment shall you follow out to the end!
And what you have called the world shall but be created by you: your reason, your likeness, your will, your love, shall it itself become! And verily, for your bliss, you discerning ones!
And how would you endure life without that hope, you discerning ones? Neither in the inconceivable could you have been born, nor in the irrational.
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But that I may reveal my heart entirely to you, my friends: if there were gods, how could I endure it to be no God! Therefore there are no gods.
Yes, I have drawn the conclusion; now, however, does it draw me.-God is a conjecture: but who could drink all the bitterness of this con-
jecture without dying? Shall his faith be taken from the creator, and from the eagle his flights into eagle-heights?
God is a thought- it makes all the straight crooked, and all that stands reel. What? Time would be gone, and all the perishable would be but a lie?
To think this is giddiness and vertigo to human limbs, and even vomiting to the stomach: verily, the reeling sickness do I call it, to conjec-ture such a thing.
Evil do I call it and misanthropic: all that teaching about the one, and the plenum, and the unmoved, and the sufficient, and the imperishable!
All the imperishable- that’s but a parable, and the poets lie too much.-But of time and of becoming shall the best parables speak: a praise
shall they be, and a justification of all perishing!
Creating- that is the great salvation from suffering, and life’s allevi-ation. But for the creator to appear, suffering itself is needed, and much transformation.
Yes, much bitter dying must there be in your life, you creators! Thus are you advocates and justifiers of all perishing.
For the creator himself to be the new-born child, he must also be will-ing to be the child-bearer, and endure the pangs of the child-bearer.
Through a hundred souls went I my way, and through a hundred cradles and birth-throes. Many a farewell have I taken; I know the heart-breaking last hours.
But so wills it my creating Will, my fate. Or, to tell you it more can-didly: just such a fate- wills my Will.
All feeling suffers in me, and is in prison: but my willing ever comes to me as my emancipator and comforter.
Willing emancipates: that is the true doctrine of will and emancipa-tion- so teaches you Zarathustra.
No longer willing, and no longer valuing, and no longer creating! Ah, that that great debility may ever be far from me!
And also in discerning do I feel only my will’s procreating and evolving delight; and if there be innocence in my knowledge, it is be-cause there is will to procreation in it.
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Away from God and gods did this will allure me; what would there be to create if there were- gods!
But to man does it ever impel me anew, my fervent creative will; thus impels it the hammer to the stone.
Ah, you men, within the stone slumbers an image for me, the image of my visions! Ah, that it should slumber in the hardest, ugliest stone!
Now rages my hammer ruthlessly against its prison. From the stone fly the fragments: what’s that to me?
I will complete it: for a shadow came to me- the still and lightest of all things once came to me!
The beauty of the Superman came to me as a shadow. Ah, my broth-ers! Of what account now are- the gods to me!-
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
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Chapter 3
The Compassionate
MY FRIENDS, there has arisen a satire on your friend: «Behold Zarathus-tra! Walks he not amongst us as if amongst animals?»
But it is better said in this wise: «The discerning one walks amongst men as amongst animals.»
Man himself is to the discerning one: the animal with red cheeks.
How has that happened to him? Is it not because he has had to be ashamed too oft?
O my friends! Thus speaks the discerning one: shame, shame, shame-that is the history of man!
And on that account does the noble one enjoin on himself not to abash: bashfulness does he enjoin himself in presence of all sufferers.
I like them not, the merciful ones, whose bliss is in their pity: too desti-tute are they of bashfulness.
If I must be pitiful, I dislike to be called so; and if I be so, it is prefer-ably at a distance.
Preferably also do I shroud my head, and flee, before being recog-nized: and thus do I bid you do, my friends!
May my destiny ever lead unafflicted ones like you across my path, and those with whom I may have hope and repast and honey in common!
I have done this and that for the afflicted: but something better did I always seem to do when I had learned to enjoy myself better.
Since humanity came into being, man has enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brothers, is our original sin!
And when we learn better to enjoy ourselves, then do we unlearn best to give pain to others, and
