161
«We set our chair in the midst»- so says their smirking to me- «and as far from dying gladiators as from satisfied swine.»
That, however, is- mediocrity, though it be called moderation.-
162
3.
I pass through this people and let fall many words: but they know neither how to take nor how to retain them.
They wonder why I came not to revile venery and vice; and verily, I came not to warn against pickpockets either!
They wonder why I am not ready to abet and whet their wisdom: as if they had not yet enough of wiseacres, whose voices grate on my ear like slate-pencils!
And when I call out: «Curse all the cowardly devils in you, that would rather whimper and fold the hands and adore»- then do they shout: «Zarathustra is godless.»
And especially do their teachers of submission shout this;- but pre-cisely in their ears do I love to cry: «Yes! I am Zarathustra, the godless!»
Those teachers of submission! Wherever there is anything puny, or sickly, or scabby, there do they creep like lice; and only my disgust pre-vents me from cracking them.
Well! This is my sermon for their ears: I am Zarathustra the godless, who says: «Who is more godless than I, that I may enjoy his teaching?»
I am Zarathustra the godless: where do I find my equal? And all those are my equals who give to themselves their Will, and divest themselves of all submission.
I am Zarathustra the godless! I cook every chance in my pot. And only when it has been quite cooked do I welcome it as my food.
And verily, many a chance came imperiously to me: but still more im-periously did my Will speak to it,- then did it lie imploringly upon its knees-
-Imploring that it might find home and heart with me, and saying flat-teringly: «See, O Zarathustra, how friend only comes to friend!»-
But why talk I, when no one has my ears! And so will I shout it out to all the winds:
You ever become smaller, you small people! You crumble away, you comfortable ones! You will yet perish-
-By your many small virtues, by your many small omissions, and by your many small submissions!
Too tender, too yielding: so is your soil! But for a tree to become great, it seeks to twine hard roots around hard rocks!
Also what you omit weaves at the web of all the human future; even your naught is a cobweb, and a spider that lives on the blood of the future.
163
And when you take, then is it like stealing, you small virtuous ones; but even among knaves honor says that «one shall only steal when one cannot rob.»
«It gives itself»- that is also a doctrine of submission. But I say to you, you comfortable ones, that it takes to itself, and will ever take more and more from you!
Ah, that you would renounce all half-willing, and would decide for idleness as you decide for action!
Ah, that you understood my word: «Do ever what you will- but first be such as can will.
Love ever your neighbor as yourselves- but first be such as love themselves-
-Such as love with great love, such as love with great contempt!» Thus speaks Zarathustra the godless.-
But why talk I, when no one has my ears! It is still an hour too early for me here.
My own forerunner am I among this people, my own cockcrow in dark lanes.
But their hour comes! And there comes also mine! Hourly do they be-come smaller, poorer, unfruitfuller,- poor herbs! poor earth!
And soon shall they stand before me like dry grass and prairie, and verily, weary of themselves- and panting for fire, more than for water!
O blessed hour of the lightning! O mystery before noontide!- Running fires will I one day make of them, and heralds with flaming tongues:-
-Herald shall they one day with flaming tongues: It comes, it is nigh, the great noontide!
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
164
Chapter 6
The Mount of Olives
WINTER, a bad guest, sits with me at home; blue are my hands with his friendly hand-shaking.
I honor him, that bad guest, but gladly leave him alone. Gladly do I run away from him; and when one runs well, then one escapes him!
With warm feet and warm thoughts do I run where the wind is calm-to the sunny corner of my olive-mount.
There do I laugh at my stern guest, and am still fond of him; because he clears my house of flies, and quiets many little noises.
For he suffers it not if a gnat wants to buzz, or even two of them; also the lanes makes he lonesome, so that the moonlight is afraid there at night.
A hard guest is he,- but I honor him, and do not worship, like the ten-derlings, the pot-bellied fire-idol.
Better even a little teeth-chattering than idol-adoration!- so wills my nature. And especially have I a grudge against all ardent, steaming, steamy fire-idols.
Him whom I love, I love better in winter than in summer; better do I now mock at my enemies, and more heartily, when winter sits in my house.
Heartily, verily, even when I creep into bed-: there, still laughs and wantons my hidden happiness; even my deceptive dream laughs.
I, a- creeper? Never in my life did I creep before the powerful; and if ever I lied, then did I lie out of love. Therefore am I glad even in my winter-bed.
A poor bed warms me more than a rich one, for I am jealous of my poverty. And in winter she is most faithful to me.
With a wickedness do I begin every day: I mock at the winter with a cold bath: on that account grumbles my stern house-mate.
Also do I like to tickle him with a wax-taper, that he may finally let the heavens emerge from ashy-grey twilight.
165
For especially wicked am I in the morning: at the early hour when the pail rattles at the well, and horses neigh warmly in grey lanes:-
Impatiently do I then wait, that the clear sky may finally dawn for me, the snow-bearded winter-sky, the hoary one, the white-head,-
-The winter-sky, the silent winter-sky, which often stifles even its sun! Did I perhaps learn from it the long clear silence? Or did it learn it
from me? Or has each of us created it himself?
Of all good things the origin is a thousandfold,- all good roguish things spring into existence for joy: how could they always do so- for once only!
A good roguish thing is also the long silence, and to look, like the winter-sky, out of a clear, round-eyed countenance:-
-Like it to stifle one’s sun, and one’s inflexible solar will: verily, this art and this winter-roguishness have I learned well!
My best-loved wickedness and art is it, that my silence has learned not to betray itself by silence.
Clattering with diction and dice, I outwit the solemn assistants: all those stern watchers, shall my will and purpose elude.
That no one might see down into my depth and into my ultimate will-for that purpose did I create the long clear silence.
Many a shrewd one did I find: he veiled his countenance and made his water muddy, that no one might see therethrough and thereunder.
But precisely to him came the shrewder distrusters and nut-crackers: precisely from him did they fish his best-concealed fish!
But the clear, the honest, the transparent- these are for me the wisest silent ones: in them, so profound is the depth that even the clearest water does not- betray it.-
You snow-bearded, silent, winter-sky, you round-eyed whitehead above me! Oh, you heavenly parable of my soul and its wantonness!
And must I not conceal myself like one who has swallowed gold- lest my soul should be ripped up?
Must I not wear stilts, that they may overlook my long legs- all those enviers and injurers around me?
Those dingy, fire-warmed, used-up, green-tinted, ill-natured souls-how could their envy endure my happiness!
Thus do I show them only the ice and winter of my peaks- and not that my mountain winds all the solar girdles around it!
They hear only the whistling of my winter-storms: and know not that I also travel over warm seas, like longing, heavy, hot south-winds.
166
They commiserate also my accidents and chances:- but my word says: «Suffer the chance to come to me: innocent is it as a little child!»
How could they endure my happiness, if I did not put around it acci-dents, and winter-privations, and bear-skin caps, and enmantling snowflakes!
-If I did not myself commiserate their pity, the pity of those enviers and injurers!
-If I did not myself sigh before them, and chatter with cold, and pa-tiently let myself be swathed in their pity!
This is the wise waggish-will and good-will of my soul, that it conceals not its winters and glacial storms; it conceals not its chilblains either.
To one man, solitude is the flight of the sick one; to another, it is the flight from the sick ones.
Let them hear me chattering and sighing with winter-cold, all those poor squinting knaves around me! With such sighing and chattering do I flee from their heated rooms.
Let them sympathise with me and sigh with me on account of my chil-blains: «At the ice of knowledge will he yet freeze to death!»- so they mourn.
