The Portable Nietzsche
They are amazed that I am not prepared to teach wit to their cleverness and to whet it—as if they did not have enough clever boys, whose voices screech like slate pencils!
And when I shout, “Curse all cowardly devils in you who like to whine and fold their hands and pray,” they shout, “Zarathustra is godless.” And their teachers of resignation shout it especially; but it is precisely into their ears that I like to shout, “Yes, I am Zarathustra the godless!” These teachers of resignation! Whatever is small and sick and scabby, they crawl to like lice; and only my nausea prevents me from squashing them.
Well then, this is my preaching for their ears: I am Zarathustra the godless, who speaks: “Who is more godless than I, that I may delight in his instruction?”
I am Zarathustra the godless: where shall I find my equal? And all those are my equals who give themselves their own will and reject all resignation.
I am Zarathustra the godless: I still cook every chance in my pot. And only when it has been cooked through there do I welcome it as my food. And verily, many a chance came to me domineeringly; but my will spoke to it still more domineeringly—and immediately it lay imploringly on its knees, imploring that it might find a hearth and heart in me, and urging with flattery, “Look, Zarathustra, how only a friend comes to his friend!”
But why do I speak where nobody has my ears? And so let me shout it into all the winds: You are becoming smaller and smaller, you small people! You are crumbling, you comfortable ones. You will yet perish of your many small virtues, of your many small abstentions, of your many small resignations. Too considerate, too yielding is your soil. But that a tree may become great, it must strike hard roots around hard rocks.
What you abstain from too weaves at the web of all human future; your nothing too is a spider web and a spider, which lives on the blood of the future. And when you receive it is like stealing, you small men of virtue; but even among rogues, honor says, “One should steal only where one cannot rob.”
“It will give eventually”—that is another teaching of resignation. But I tell you who are comfortable: it will take and will take more and more from you! Oh, that you would reject all halfhearted willing and would become resolute in sloth and deed!
Alas, that you would understand my word: “Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.
“Do love your neighbor as yourself, but first be such as love themselves—loving with a great love, loving with a great contempt.” Thus speaks Zarathustra the godless.
But why do I speak where nobody has my ears? It is still an hour too early for me here. I am my own precursor among this people, my own cock’s crow through dark lanes. But their hour will come! And mine will come tool Hourly, they are becoming smaller, poorer, more sterile—poor herbs! poor soil! and soon they shall stand there like dry grass and prairie—and verily, weary of themselves and languishing even more than for water—for fire.
O blessed hour of lightning! O secret before noon! I yet hope to turn them into galloping fires and heralds with fiery tongues—they shall yet proclaim with fiery tongues: It is coming, it is near—the great noon!
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
UPON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES
Winter, a wicked guest, is sitting at home with me; my hands are blue from the handshake of his friendship. I honor this wicked guest, but I like to let him sit alone. I like to run away from him; and if one runs well, one escapes him. With warm feet and warm thoughts I run where the wind stands still, to the sunny nook of my mount of olives. There I laugh at my severe guest and am still well disposed toward him for catching the flies at home and for silencing much small noise. For he does not suffer it when a mosquito would sing, or even two; he even makes the lane lonely till the moonlight in it is afraid at night.
He is a hard guest, but I honor him, and I do not pray, like the pampered, to the potbellied fire idol. Even a little chattering of the teeth rather than adoring idols —thus my nature dictates. And I have a special grudge against all fire idols that are in heat, steaming and musty.
Whomever I love, I love better in winter than in summer; I mock my enemies better and more heartily since winter dwells in my home. Heartily, in truth, even when I crawl into bed; even then my hidden happiness still laughs and is full of pranks; even the dream that lies to me still laughs. I—a crawler? Never in my life have I crawled before the mighty; and if ever I lied, I lied out of love. Therefore I am glad in the wintry bed too. A simple bed warms me more than a rich one, for I am jealous of my poverty, and in winter it is most faithful to me.
I begin every day with a bit of malice: I mock the winter with a cold bath; that makes my severe house guest grumble. Besides, I like to tickle him with a little wax candle to make him let the sky come out of the ashen gray twilight at last. For I am especially malicious in the morning, in that early hour when the pail rattles at the well and the horses whinny warmly through gray lanes. Then I wait impatiently for the bright sky to rise before me at last, the snow-bearded winter sky, the old man with his white hair—the winter sky, so taciturn that it often tacitly hides even its sun.
Was it from him that I learned the long bright silence? Or did he learn it from me? Or did each of us invent it independently? The origin of all good things is thousandfold; all good prankish things leap into existence from sheer joy: how could one expect them to do that only once? Long silence too is a good prankish thing—and to look out of a bright round-eyed face, like the winter sky, and tacitly to hide one’s sun and one’s indomitable solar will: verily, this art and this winter prank I have learned well.
It is my favorite malice and art that my silence has learned not to betray itself through silence. Rattling with discourse and dice, I outwit those who wait solemnly: my will and purpose shall elude all these severe inspectors. That no one may discern my ground and ultimate will, for that I have invented my long bright silence. Many I found who were clever: they veiled their faces and muddied their waters that nobody might see through them, deep down. But precisely to them came the cleverer mistrusters and nutcrackers: precisely their most hidden fish were fished out. It is the bright, the bold, the transparent who are cleverest among those who are silent: their ground is down so deep that even the brightest water does not betray it.
You snow-bearded silent winter sky, you round-eyed white-head above me! O you heavenly parable of my soul and its pranks!
And must I not conceal myself like one who has swallowed gold, lest they slit open my soul? Must I not walk on stilts that they overlook my long legs—all these grudge-joys and drudge-boys who surround me? These smoky, room-temperature, used-up, wilted, fretful souls —how could their grudge endure my happiness? Hence I show them only the ice and the winter of my peaks—and not that my mountain still winds all the belts of the sun round itself. They hear only my winter winds whistling—and not that I also cross warm seas, like longing, heavy, hot south winds. They still have pity on my accidents; but my word says, “Let accidents come to me, they are innocent as little children.”
How could they endure my happiness if I did not wrap my happiness in accidents and winter distress and polar-bear caps and covers of snowy heavens—if I myself did not have mercy on their pity, which is the pity of grudge-joys and drudge-boys, if I myself did not sigh before them and chatter with cold and patiently suffer them to wrap me in their pity. This is the wise frolicsomeness and friendliness of my soul, that it does not conceal its winter and its icy winds; nor does it conceal its chilblains.
Loneliness can be the escape of the sick; loneliness can also be escape from the sick.
Let them hear me chatter and sigh with the winter cold, all these poor jealous jokers around me! With such sighing and chattering I still escape their heated rooms.
Let them suffer and sigh over my chilblains. “The ice of knowledge will yet freeze him to death!” they moan.
Meanwhile I run crisscross on my mount of olives with warm feet; in the sunny nook of my mount of olives I sing and I mock al
l pity.
Thus sang Zarathustra.
ON PASSING BY
Thus, walking slowly among many peoples and through numerous towns, Zarathustra returned on roundabout paths to his mountains and his cave. And on the way he also came unexpectedly to the gate of the great city; but here a foaming fool jumped toward him with outspread hands and barred his way. This, however, was the same fool whom the people called “Zarathustra’s ape”: for he had gathered something of his phrasing and cadences and also liked to borrow from the treasures of his wisdom. But the fool spoke thus to Zarathustra:
“O Zarathustra, here is the great city; here you could find nothing and lose everything. Why do you want to wade through this mire? Have pity on your foot! Rather spit on the city gate and turn back. Here is hell for a hermit’s thoughts: here great thoughts are boiled alive and cooked till they are small. Here all great feelings decay: only the smallest rattleboned feelings may rattle here. Don’t you smell the slaughterhouses and ovens of the spirit even now? Does not this town steam with the fumes of slaughtered spirit?
“Don’t you see the soul hanging like a limp, dirty rag? And they still make newspapers of these rags!
“Don’t you hear how the spirit has here been reduced to plays on words? It vomits revolting verbal swill. And they still make newspapers of this swill!
“They hound each other and know not where. They overheat each other and know not why. They tinkle with their tin, they jingle with their gold. They are cold and seek warmth from brandy; they are heated and seek coolness from frozen spirits; they are all diseased and sick with public opinions.
“All lusts and vices are at home here; but there are also some here who are virtuous: there is much serviceable, serving virtue—much serviceable virtue with pen fingers and hard sitting- and waiting-flesh, blessed with little stars on the chest and with padded, rumpless daughters. There is also much piety, and there are many devout lickspittles, batteries of fakers and flattery-bakers before the God of Hosts. For it is ‘from above’ that the stars and the gracious spittle trickle; every starless chest longs above.
“The moon has her courtyard, and the courtyard has its mooncalves; to everything, however, that comes from the court, the beggarly mob and all serviceable beggarvirtue pray. ‘I serve, you serve, we serve’—thus all serviceable virtue prays to the prince, that the deserved star may finally be pinned on the narrow chest.
“The moon, however, still revolves around all that is earthly: So too the prince still revolves around that which is earthliest—but that is the gold of the shopkeeper. The God of Hosts is no god of gold bars; the prince proposes, but the shopkeeper disposes.
“By everything in you that is bright and strong and good, O Zarathustra, spit on this city of shopkeepers and turn back! Here all blood flows putrid and lukewarm and spumy through all the veins; spit on the great city which is the great swill room where all the swill spumes together. Spit on the city of compressed souls and narrow chests, of popeyes and sticky fingers—on the city of the obtrusive, the impudent, the scribbleand scream-throats, the overheated ambitious-conceited —where everything infirm, infamous, lustful, dusky, overmusty, pussy, and plotting putrefies together: spit on the great city and turn back!”
Here, however, Zarathustra interrupted the foaming fool and put his hand over the fool’s mouth. “Stop at last!” cried Zarathustra; “your speech and your manner have long nauseated me. Why did you live near the swamps so long, until you yourself have become a frog and a toad? Does not putrid, spumy swamp-blood flow through your own veins now that you have learned to croak and revile thus? Why have you not gone into the woods? Or to plow the soil? Does not the sea abound in green islands? I despise your despising; and if you warned me, why did you not warn yourself?
“Out of love alone shall my despising and my warning bird fly up, not out of the swamp.
“They call you my ape, you foaming fool; but I call you my grunting swine: with your grunting you spoil for me my praise of folly. What was it that first made you grunt? That nobody flattered you sufficiently; you sat down to this filth so as to have reason to grunt much —to have reason for much revenge. For all your foaming is revenge, you vain fool; I guessed it well.
“But your fool’s words injure me, even where you are right. And even if Zarathustra’s words were a thousand times right, still you would always do wrong with my words.”
Thus spoke Zarathustra; and he looked at the great city, sighed, and long remained silent. At last he spoke thus: “I am nauseated by this great city too, and not only by this fool. Here as there, there is nothing to better, nothing to worsen. Woe unto this great city! And I wish I already saw the pillar of fire in which it will be burned. For such pillars of fire must precede the great noon. But this has its own time and its own destiny.
“This doctrine, however, I give you, fool, as a parting present: where one can no longer love, there one should pass by.”
Thus spoke Zarathustra, and he passed by the fool and the great city.
ON APOSTATES
1
Alas, all lies withered and gray that but recently stood green and colorful on this meadow. And how much honey of hope I carried from here to my beehives! These young hearts have all become old already—and not even old; only weary, ordinary, and comfortable. They put it, “We have become pious again.”
Only recently I saw them run out in the morning on bold feet: but the feet of their thirst for knowledge have grown weary, and now they even slander the courage they had in the morning. Verily, many among them once lifted their legs like dancers, cheered by the laughter in my wisdom; then they thought better of it. Just now I saw one groveling—crawling back to the cross. Around light and freedom they once fluttered like mosquitoes and young poets. A little older, a little colder—and already they are musty mystifiers and hearth-squatters.
Did their hearts perhaps grow faint because solitude swallowed me like a whale? Did their ears perhaps listen longingly long, in vain, for me and my trumpet and herald’s calls? Alas, there are always only a few whose hearts long retain their courageous bearing and overbearing prankishness, and whose spirits also remain patient. The rest, however, are cowards. The rest—those are always by far the most, the commonplace, the superfluous, the all-too-many: all these are cowards.
Whoever is of my kind will also encounter the experiences of my kind: so his first companions will have to be corpses and jesters. His second companions, however, will call themselves his believers: a living swarm, much love, much folly, much beardless veneration. To these believers, whoever is of my kind among men should not tie his heart; those who know the changeful, cowardly nature of mankind should not believe in these springtimes and colorful meadows.
Were their ability different, their will would be different too. Those who are half-and-half spoil all that is whole. That leaves wilt—what is there to wail about? Let them fly and fall, O Zarathustra, and do not wail! It is better to blow among them with rustling winds— blow among these leaves, O Zarathustra, that everything wilted may run away from you even faster!
2
“We have become pious again”—so these apostates confess; and some among them are even too cowardly to confess it.
Those I look in the eye, and then I say it to their faces and to their blushing cheeks: you are such as pray again.
But it is a disgrace to pray! Not for everybody, but for you and me and whoever else has a conscience in his head too. For you it is a disgrace to pray!
You know it well: your cowardly devil within you, who would like to fold his hands and rest his hands in his lap and be more comfortable—this cowardly devil urges you, “There is a God.” With this, however, you belong to the light-shunning kind who cannot rest where there is light; now you must daily bury your head deeper in night and haze.
And verily, you chose the hour well, for just now the nocturnal birds are flying again. The hour has come for all light-shunning folk, the hour of evening and rest, when they do not rest. I hear a
nd smell it: their hour for chase and procession has come—not indeed for a wild chase, but for a tame, lame, snooping, pussyfooting, prayer-muttering chase—for a chase after soulful sneaks: all the heart’s mousetraps have now been set again. And wherever I lift a curtain a little night moth rushes out. Did it perhaps squat there together with another little night moth? For everywhere I smell little hidden communities; and wherever there are closets, there are new canters praying inside and the fog of canters.
They sit together long evenings and say, “Let us become as little children again and say ‘dear God!’”—their mouths and stomachs upset by pious confectioners.
Or they spend long evenings watching a cunning, ambushing, cross-marked spider, which preaches cleverness to the other spiders and teaches thus: “Under crosses one can spin well.”
Or they spend the day sitting at swamps with fishing rods, thinking themselves profound; but whoever fishes where there are no fish, I would not even call superficial.
Or they learn to play the harp with pious pleasure—from a composer of songs who would like to harp himself right into the hearts of young females; for he has grown weary of old females and their praise.
Or they learn to shudder from a scholarly half-madman who waits in dark rooms for the spirits to come to him—so his spirit will flee completely.
Or they listen to an old traveling, caviling zany who has learned the sadness of tones from sad winds; now he whistles after the wind and preaches sadness in sad tones.
And some of them have even become night watchmen: now they know how to blow horns and to walk about at night and to awaken old things that had long gone to sleep. I heard five sayings about old things last night at the garden wall: they came from such old, saddened, dried-up night watchmen.