Ah, my friends; the evening is it which thus interrogates in me. For-give me my sadness!
Evening has come on: forgive me that evening has come on!» Thus sang Zarathustra.
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Chapter 11 The Grave Song
«YONDER is the grave-island, the silent isle; yonder also are the graves of my youth. There will I carry an evergreen wreath of life.»
Resolving thus in my heart, did I sail o’er the sea.-
Oh, you sights and scenes of my youth! Oh, all you gleams of love, you divine fleeting gleams! How could you perish so soon for me! I think of you to-day as my dead ones.
From you, my dearest dead ones, comes to me a sweet savor, heart-opening and melting. It convulses and opens the heart of the lone seafarer.
Still am I the richest and most to be envied- I, the most lonesome one! For I have possessed you, and you possess me still. Tell me: to whom has there ever fallen such rosy apples from the tree as have fallen to me?
Still am I your love’s heir and heritage, blooming to your memory with many-hued, wild-growing virtues, O you dearest ones!
Ah, we were made to remain near to each other, you kindly strange marvels; and not like timid birds did you come to me and my longing-no, but as trusting ones to a trusting one!
Yes, made for faithfulness, like me, and for fond eternities, must I now name you by your faithlessness, you divine glances and fleeting gleams: no other name have I yet learnt.
Too early did you die for me, you fugitives. Yet did you not flee from me, nor did I flee from you: innocent are we to each other in our faithlessness.
To kill me, did they strangle you, you singing birds of my hopes! Yes, at you, you dearest ones, did malice ever shoot its arrows- to hit my heart!
And they hit it! Because you were always my dearest, my possession and my possessedness: on that account had you to die young, and far too early!
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At my most vulnerable point did they shoot the arrow- namely, at you, whose skin is like down- or more like the smile that dies at a glance!
But this word will I say to my enemies: What is all manslaughter in comparison with what you have done to me!
Worse evil did you do to me than all manslaughter; the irretrievable did you take from me:- thus do I speak to you, my enemies!
Slew you not my youth’s visions and dearest marvels! My playmates took you from me, the blessed spirits! To their memory do I deposit this wreath and this curse.
This curse upon you, my enemies! Have you not made my eternal short, as a tone dies away in a cold night! Scarcely, as the twinkle of di-vine eyes, did it come to me- as a fleeting gleam!
Thus spoke once in a happy hour my purity: «Divine shall everything be to me.»
Then did you haunt me with foul phantoms; ah, where has that happy hour now fled!
«All days shall be sacred to me»- so spoke once the wisdom of my youth: verily, the language of a joyous wisdom!
But then did you enemies steal my nights, and sold them to sleepless torture: ah, where has that joyous wisdom now fled?
Once did I long for happy auspices: then did you lead an owl-monster across my path, an adverse sign. Ah, where did my tender longing then flee?
All loathing did I once vow to renounce: then did you change my nigh ones and nearest ones into ulcerations. Ah, where did my noblest vow then flee?
As a blind one did I once walk in blessed ways: then did you cast filth on the blind one’s course: and now is he disgusted with the old footpath.
And when I performed my hardest task, and celebrated the triumph of my victories, then did you make those who loved me call out that I then grieved them most.
It was always your doing: you embittered to me my best honey, and the diligence of my best bees.
To my charity have you ever sent the most impudent beggars; around my sympathy have you ever crowded the incurably shameless. Thus have you wounded the faith of my virtue.
And when I offered my holiest as a sacrifice, immediately did your «piety» put its fatter gifts beside it: so that my holiest suffocated in the fumes of your fat.
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And once did I want to dance as I had never yet danced: beyond all heavens did I want to dance. Then did you seduce my favorite minstrel.
And now has he struck up an awful, melancholy air; alas, he tooted as a mournful horn to my ear!
Murderous minstrel, instrument of evil, most innocent instrument! Already did I stand prepared for the best dance: then did you kill my rapture with your tones!
Only in the dance do I know how to speak the parable of the highest things:- and now has my grandest parable remained unspoken in my limbs!
Unspoken and unrealised has my highest hope remained! And there have perished for me all the visions and consolations of my youth!
How did I ever bear it? How did I survive and overcome such wounds? How did my soul rise again out of those sepulchres?
Yes, something invulnerable, unburiable is with me, something that would rend rocks asunder: it is called my Will. Silently does it proceed, and unchanged throughout the years.
Its course will it go upon my feet, my old Will; hard of heart is its nature and invulnerable.
Invulnerable am I only in my heel. Ever live you there, and are like yourself, you most patient one! Ever have you burst all shackles of the tomb!
In you still lives also the unrealisedness of my youth; and as life and youth sit you here hopeful on the yellow ruins of graves.
Yes, you are still for me the demolisher of all graves: Hail to you, my Will! And only where there are graves are there resurrections.-
Thus sang Zarathustra.
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Chapter 12 Self-Overcoming
«WILL to Truth» do you call it, you wisest ones, that which impels you and makes you ardent?
Will for the thinkableness of all being: thus do I call your will!
All being would you make thinkable: for you doubt with good reason whether it be already thinkable.
But it shall accommodate and bend itself to you! So wills your will. Smooth shall it become and subject to the spirit, as its mirror and reflection.
That is your entire will, you wisest ones, as a Will to Power; and even when you speak of good and evil, and of estimates of value.
You would still create a world before which you can bow the knee: such is your ultimate hope and ecstasy.
The ignorant, to be sure, the people- they are like a river on which a boat floats along: and in the boat sit the estimates of value, solemn and disguised.
Your will and your valuations have you put on the river of becoming; it betrays to me an old Will to Power, what is believed by the people as good and evil.
It was you, you wisest ones, who put such guests in this boat, and gave them pomp and proud names- you and your ruling Will!
Onward the river now carries your boat: it must carry it. A small mat-ter if the rough wave foams and angrily resists its keel!
It is not the river that is your danger and the end of your good and evil, you wisest ones: but that Will itself, the Will to Power- the unex-hausted, procreating life-will.
But that you may understand my gospel of good and evil, for that pur-pose will I tell you my gospel of life, and of the nature of all living things.
The living thing did I follow; I walked in the broadest and narrowest paths to learn its nature.
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With a hundred-faced mirror did I catch its glance when its mouth was shut, so that its eye might speak to me. And its eye spoke to me.
But wherever I found living things, there heard I also the language of obedience. All living things are obeying things.
And this heard I secondly: Whatever cannot obey itself, is com-manded. Such is the nature of living things.
This, however, is the third thing which I heard- namely, that com-manding is more difficult than obeying. And not only because the com-mander bears the burden of all obeyers, and because this burden readily crushes him:-
An attempt and a risk seemed all commanding to me; and whenever it commands, the living thing risks itself thereby.
Yes, even when it commands itself, then also must it atone for its com-manding. Of its own law must it become the judge and avenger and victim.
How does this happen! So did I ask myself. What persuades the living thing to obey, and command, and even be obedient in commanding?
Hearken now to my word, you wisest ones! Test it seriously, whether I have crept into the heart of life itself, and into the roots of its heart!
Wherever I found a living thing, there found I Will to Power; and even in the will of the servant found I the will to be master.
That to the stronger the weaker shall serve- thereto persuades he his will who would be master over a still weaker one.
