Should one lay hold of them, then do they raise a dust like flour-sacks, and involuntarily: but who would divine that their dust came from corn, and from the yellow delight of the summer fields?
When they give themselves out as wise, then do their petty sayings and truths chill me: in their wisdom there is often an odour as if it came from the swamp; and verily, I have even heard the frog croak in it!
120
Clever are they- they have dexterous fingers: what does my simplicity pretend to beside their multiplicity! All threading and knitting and weaving do their fingers understand: thus do they make the hose of the spirit!
Good clockworks are they: only be careful to wind them up properly! Then do they indicate the hour without mistake, and make a modest noise thereby.
Like millstones do they work, and like pestles: throw only seed-corn to them!- they know well how to grind corn small, and make white dust out of it.
They keep a sharp eye on one another, and do not trust each other the best. Ingenious in little artifices, they wait for those whose knowledge walks on lame feet,- like spiders do they wait.
I saw them always prepare their poison with precaution; and always did they put glass gloves on their fingers in doing so.
They also know how to play with false dice; and so eagerly did I find them playing, that they perspired thereby.
We are alien to each other, and their virtues are even more repugnant to my taste than their falsehoods and false dice.
And when I lived with them, then did I live above them. Therefore did they take a dislike to me.
They want to hear nothing of any one walking above their heads; and so they put wood and earth and rubbish between me and their heads.
Thus did they deafen the sound of my tread: and least have I hitherto been heard by the most learned.
All mankind’s faults and weaknesses did they put between themselves and me:- they call it «false ceiling» in their houses.
But nevertheless I walk with my thoughts above their heads; and even should I walk on my own errors, still would I be above them and their heads.
For men are not equal: so speaks justice. And what I will, they may not will!-
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
121
Chapter 17 Poets
«SINCE I have known the body better»- said Zarathustra to one of his disciples- «the spirit has only been to me symbolically spirit; and all the ‘imperishable’- that is also but a parable.»
«So have I heard you say once before,» answered the disciple, «and then you added: ‘But the poets lie too much.’ Why did you say that the poets lie too much?»
«Why?» said Zarathustra. «You ask why? I do not belong to those who may be asked after their Why.
Is my experience but of yesterday? It is long ago that I experienced the reasons for my opinions.
Should I not have to be a cask of memory, if I also wanted to have my reasons with me?
It is already too much for me even to retain my opinions; and many a bird flies away.
And sometimes, also, do I find a fugitive creature in my dovecote, which is alien to me, and trembles when I lay my hand upon it.
But what did Zarathustra once say to you? That the poets lie too much?- But Zarathustra also is a poet.
Believe you that he there spoke the truth? Why do you believe it?»
The disciple answered: «I believe in Zarathustra.» But Zarathustra shook his head and smiled.-
Belief does not sanctify me, said he, least of all the belief in myself.
But granting that some one did say in all seriousness that the poets lie too much: he was right- we do lie too much.
We also know too little, and are bad learners: so we are obliged to lie. And which of us poets has not adulterated his wine? Many a poison-
ous hotchpotch has evolved in our cellars: many an indescribable thing has there been done.
And because we know little, therefore are we pleased from the heart with the poor in spirit, especially when they are young women!
122
And even of those things are we desirous, which old women tell one another in the evening. This do we call the eternally feminine in us.
And as if there were a special secret access to knowledge, which chokes up for those who learn anything, so do we believe in the people and in their «wisdom.»
This, however, do all poets believe: that whoever pricks up his ears when lying in the grass or on lonely slopes, learns something of the things that are between heaven and earth.
And if there come to them tender emotions, then do the poets always think that nature herself is in love with them:
And that she steals to their ear to whisper secrets into it, and amorous flatteries: of this do they plume and pride themselves, before all mortals!
Ah, there are so many things between heaven and earth of which only the poets have dreamed!
And especially above the heavens: for all gods are poet-symbolisations, poet-sophistications!
Ever are we drawn aloft- that is, to the realm of the clouds: on these do we set our gaudy puppets, and then call them gods and supermen:-
Are not they light enough for those chairs!- all these gods and super-men?-
Ah, how I am weary of all the inadequate that is insisted on as actual! Ah, how I am weary of the poets!
When Zarathustra so spoke, his disciple resented it, but was silent. And Zarathustra also was silent; and his eye directed itself inwardly, as if it gazed into the far distance. At last he sighed and drew breath.-
I am of today and heretofore, said he then; but something is in me that is of the morrow, and the day following, and the hereafter.
I became weary of the poets, of the old and of the new: superficial are they all to me, and shallow seas.
They did not think sufficiently into the depth; therefore their feeling did not reach to the bottom.
Some sensation of voluptuousness and some sensation of tedium: these have as yet been their best contemplation.
Ghost-breathing and ghost-whisking, seems to me all the jingle-jangling of their harps; what have they known hitherto of the fervor of tones!-
They are also not pure enough for me: they all muddle their water that it may seem deep.
And rather would they thereby prove themselves reconcilers: but me-diaries and mixers are they to me, and half-and-half, and impure!-
123
Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and meant to catch good fish; but always did I draw up the head of some ancient God.
Thus did the sea give a stone to the hungry one. And they themselves may well originate from the sea.
Certainly, one finds pearls in them: thereby they are the more like hard molluscs. And instead of a soul, I have often found in them salt slime.
They have learned from the sea also its vanity: is not the sea the pea-cock of peacocks?
Even before the ugliest of all buffaloes does it spread out its tail; never does it tire of its lace-fan of silver and silk.
Disdainfully does the buffalo glance thereat, nigh to the sand with its soul, closer still to the thicket, nighest, however, to the swamp.
What is beauty and sea and peacock-splendour to it! This parable I speak to the poets.
Their spirit itself is the peacock of peacocks, and a sea of vanity! Spectators seeks the spirit of the poet- should they even be buffaloes!-But of this spirit became I weary; and I see the time coming when it
will become weary of itself.
Yes, changed have I seen the poets, and their glance turned towards themselves.
Penitents of the spirit have I seen appearing; they grew out of the po-ets.-
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
124
Chapter 18 Great Events
THERE is an isle in the sea- not far from the Blessed isles of Zarathustra-on which a volcano ever smokes; of which isle the people, and especially the old women amongst them, say that it is placed as a rock before the gate of the under-world; but that through the volcano itself the narrow way leads downwards which conducts to this gate.
Now about the time that Zarathustra sojourned on the Blessed isles, it happened that a ship anchored at the isle on which stands the smoking mountain, and the crew went ashore to shoot rabbits. About the noon-tide hour, however, when the captain and his men were together again, they saw suddenly a man coming towards them through the air, and a voice said distinctly: «It is time! It is the highest time!» But when the fig-ure was nearest to them (it flew past quickly, however, like a shadow, in the direction of the volcano), then did they recognize with the greatest surprise that it was Zarathustra; for they had all seen him before except the captain himself, and they loved him as the people love: in such wise that love and awe were combined in equal degree.
«Behold!» said the old helmsman, «there goes Zarathustra to hell!» About the same time that these sailors landed on the fire-isle, there
was a rumor that Zarathustra had disappeared; and when his friends were asked about it,
