Other singers are there, to be sure, to whom only the full house makes the voice soft, the hand eloquent, the eye expressive, the heart wakeful:-those do I not resemble.-
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2.
He who one day teaches men to fly will have shifted all landmarks; to him will all landmarks themselves fly into the air; the earth will he christen anew- as «the light body.»
The ostrich runs faster than the fastest horse, but it also thrusts its head heavily into the heavy earth: thus is it with the man who cannot yet fly.
Heavy to him are earth and life, and so wills the spirit of gravity! But he who would become light, and be a bird, must love himself:- thus do I teach.
Not, to be sure, with the love of the side and infected, for with them stinks even self-love!
One must learn to love oneself- thus do I teach- with a wholesome and healthy love: that one may endure to be with oneself, and not go roving about.
Such roving about christens itself «brotherly love»; with these words has there hitherto been the best lying and dissembling, and especially by those who have been burdensome to every one.
And verily, it is no commandment for today and tomorrow to learn to love oneself. Rather is it of all arts the finest, subtlest, last and patientest.
For to its possessor is all possession well concealed, and of all treasure-pits one’s own is last excavated- so causes the spirit of gravity.
Almost in the cradle are we apportioned with heavy words and worths: «good» and «evil»- so calls itself this dowry. For the sake of it we are forgiven for living.
And therefore suffers one little children to come to one, to forbid them betimes to love themselves- so causes the spirit of gravity.
And we- we bear loyally what is apportioned to us, on hard shoulders, over rugged mountains! And when we sweat, then do people say to us: «Yes, life is hard to bear!»
But man himself only is hard to bear! The reason thereof is that he car-ries too many extraneous things on his shoulders. Like the camel kneels he down, and lets himself be well laden.
Especially the strong load-bearing man in whom reverence resides. Too many extraneous heavy words and worths loads he upon himself-then seems life to him a desert!
And verily! Many a thing also that is our own is hard to bear! And many internal things in man are like the oyster- repulsive and slippery and hard to grasp;-
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So that an elegant shell, with elegant adornment, must plead for them. But this art also must one learn: to have a shell, and a fine appearance, and sagacious blindness!
Again, it deceives about many things in man, that many a shell is poor and pitiable, and too much of a shell. Much concealed goodness and power is never dreamt of; the choicest dainties find no tasters!
Women know that, the choicest of them: a little fatter a little leaner- oh, how much fate is in so little!
Man is difficult to discover, and to himself most difficult of all; often lies the spirit concerning the soul. So causes the spirit of gravity.
He, however, has discovered himself who says: This is my good and evil: therewith has he silenced the mole and the dwarf, who say: «Good for all, evil for all.»
Neither do I like those who call everything good, and this world the best of all. Those do I call the all-satisfied.
All-satisfiedness, which knows how to taste everything,- that is not the best taste! I honor the refractory, fastidious tongues and stomachs, which have learned to say «I» and «Yes» and «No.»
To chew and digest everything, however- that is the genuine swine-nature! Ever to say you-A- that has only the ass learned, and those like it!-
Deep yellow and hot red- so wants my taste- it mixes blood with all colors. Yet he who whitewashes his house, betrays to me a whitewashed soul.
With mummies, some fall in love; others with phantoms: both alike hostile to all flesh and blood- oh, how repugnant are both to my taste! For I love blood.
And there will I not reside and abide where every one spits and spews: that is now my taste,- rather would I live amongst thieves and perjurers. Nobody carries gold in his mouth.
Still more repugnant to me, however, are all lick-spittles; and the most repugnant animal of man that I found, did I christen «parasite»: it would not love, and would yet live by love.
Unhappy do I call all those who have only one choice: either to be-come evil beasts, or evil beast-tamers. Amongst such would I not build my tabernacle.
Unhappy do I also call those who have ever to wait,- they are repug-nant to my taste- all the toll-gatherers and traders, and kings, and other landkeepers and shopkeepers.
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I learned waiting also, and thoroughly so,- but only waiting for myself. And above all did I learn standing and walking and running and leaping and climbing and dancing.
This however is my teaching: he who wishes one day to fly, must first learn standing and walking and running and climbing and dancing:- one does not fly into flying!
With rope-ladders learned I to reach many a window, with nimble legs did I climb high masts: to sit on high masts of perception seemed to me no small bliss;-
-To flicker like small flames on high masts: a small light, certainly, but a great comfort to cast-away sailors and ship-wrecked ones!
By divers ways and wendings did I arrive at my truth; not by one lad-der did I mount to the height where my eye roves into my remoteness.
And unwillingly only did I ask my way- that was always counter to my taste! Rather did I question and test the ways themselves.
A testing and a questioning has been all my travelling:- and verily, one must also learn to answer such questioning! That, however,- is my taste:
-Neither a good nor a bad taste, but my taste, of which I have no longer either shame or secrecy.
«This- is now my way,- where is yours?» Thus did I answer those who asked me «the way.» For the way- it does not exist!
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
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Chapter 12 Old and New Tablets
1.
HERE do I sit and wait, old broken law-tablets around me and also new half-written law-tablets. When comes my hour?
-The hour of my descent, of my down-going: for once more will I go to men.
For that hour do I now wait: for first must the signs come to me that it is my hour- namely, the laughing lion with the flock of doves.
Meanwhile do I talk to myself as one who has time. No one tells me anything new, so I tell myself my own story.
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2.
When I came to men, then found I them resting on an old infatuation: all of them thought they had long known what was good and bad for men.
An old wearisome business seemed to them all talk of virtue; and he who wished to sleep well spoke of «good» and «bad» before retiring to rest.
This somnolence did I disturb when I taught that no one yet knows what is good and bad:- unless it be the creator!
-It is he, however, who creates man’s goal, and gives to the earth its meaning and its future: he only effects it that anything is good or bad.
And I bade them upset their old academic chairs, and wherever that old infatuation had sat; I bade them laugh at their great moralists, their saints, their poets, and their saviours.
At their gloomy sages did I bid them laugh, and whoever had sat ad-monishing as a black scarecrow on the tree of life.
On their great grave-highway did I seat myself, and even beside the carrion and vultures- and I laughed at all their bygone and its mellow decaying glory.
Like penitential preachers and fools did I cry wrath and shame on all their greatness and smallness. Oh, that their best is so very small! Oh, that their worst is so very small! Thus did I laugh.
Thus did my wise longing, born in the mountains, cry and laugh in me; a wild wisdom, verily!- my great pinion-rustling longing.
And oft did it carry me off and up and away and in the midst of laughter; then flew I quivering like an arrow with sun-intoxicated rapture:
-Out into distant futures, which no dream has yet seen, into warmer souths than ever sculptor conceived,- where gods in their dancing are ashamed of all clothes:
(That I may speak in parables and halt and stammer like the poets: and verily I am ashamed that I have still to be a poet!)
Where all becoming seemed to me dancing of gods, and wantoning of gods, and the world unloosed and unbridled and fleeing back to itself:-
-As an eternal self-fleeing and re-seeking of one another of many gods, as the blessed self-contradicting, recommuning, and refraternising with one another of many gods:-
Where all time seemed to me a blessed mockery of moments, where necessity was freedom itself, which played happily with the goad of free-dom:-
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Where I also found again my old devil and arch-enemy, the spirit of gravity, and all that it created: constraint, law, necessity and
