XXXIII. THE GRAVE-SONG.
Calm is the bottom of my sea: who would guess that it hideth droll monsters! Thither will I carry an evergreen wreath of life.”
Unmoved is my depth: but it sparkleth with swimming enigmas and laughters.
A sublime one saw I to-day, a solemn one, a penitent of the spirit: Oh, how my soul laughed at his ugliness! Oh, all ye gleams of love, ye divine fleeting gleams! How could ye perish so soon for me! I think of you to-day as my dead ones.
With upraised breast, and like those who draw in their breath: thus did he stand, the sublime one, and in silence: Verily, it convulseth and openeth the heart of the lone seafarer.
O’erhung with ugly truths, the spoil of his hunting, and rich in torn raiment; many thorns also hung on him—but I saw no rose. For I HAVE POSSESSED you, and ye possess me still. Tell me: to whom hath there ever fallen such rosy apples from the tree as have fallen unto me?
Not yet had he learned laughing and beauty.
From the fight with wild beasts returned he home: but even yet a wild beast gazeth out of his seriousness—an unconquered wild beast!
As a tiger doth he ever stand, on the point of springing; but I do not like those strained souls; ungracious is my taste towards all those self-engrossed ones.
And ye tell me, friends, that there is to be no dispute about taste and tasting? But all life is a dispute about taste and tasting!
Taste: that is weight at the same time, and scales and weigher; and alas for every living thing that would live without dispute about weight and scales and weigher! Yea, at you, ye dearest ones, did malice ever shoot its arrows—to hit my heart!
Should he become weary of his sublimeness, this sublime one, then only will his beauty begin—and then only will I taste him and find him savoury. Because ye were always my dearest, my possession and my possessedness: ON THAT ACCOUNT had ye to die young, and far too early!
And only when he turneth away from himself will he o’erleap his own shadow—and verily! into HIS sun.
Far too long did he sit in the shade; the cheeks of the penitent of the spirit became pale; he almost starved on his expectations.
Contempt is still in his eye, and loathing hideth in his mouth.
As the ox ought he to do; and his happiness should smell of the earth, and not of contempt for the earth. My playmates took ye from me, the blessed spirits! To their memory do I deposit this wreath and this curse.
As a white ox would I like to see him, which, snorting and lowing, walketh before the ploughshare: and his lowing should also laud all that is earthly! Have ye not made mine eternal short, as a tone dieth away in a cold night! Scarcely, as the twinkle of divine eyes, did it come to me—as a fleeting gleam!
Dark is still his countenance; the shadow of his hand danceth upon it.
His deed itself is still the shadow upon him: his doing obscureth the doer.
To be sure, I love in him the shoulders of the ox: but now do I want to see also the eye of the angel.
Also his hero-will hath he still to unlearn: an exalted one shall he be, and not only a sublime one:—the ether itself should raise him, the will-less one!
He hath subdued monsters, he hath solved enigmas. But he should also redeem his monsters and enigmas; into heavenly children should he transform them.
As yet hath his knowledge not learned to smile, and to be without jealousy; as yet hath his gushing passion not become calm in beauty. Ah, whither did my noblest vow then flee?
Verily, not in satiety shall his longing cease and disappear, but in beauty!
His arm across his head: thus should the hero repose; thus should he also surmount his repose.
But precisely to the hero is BEAUTY the hardest thing of all.
A little more, a little less: precisely this is much here, it is the most here. Thus have ye wounded the faith of my virtue.
To stand with relaxed muscles and with unharnessed will: that is the hardest for all of you, ye sublime ones!
When power becometh gracious and descendeth into the visible—I call such condescension, beauty. Then did ye seduce my favourite minstrel.
And from no one do I want beauty so much as from thee, thou powerful one: let thy goodness be thy last self-conquest.
All evil do I accredit to thee: therefore do I desire of thee the good. Already did I stand prepared for the best dance: then didst thou slay my rapture with thy tones!
Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings, who think themselves good because they have crippled paws!
The virtue of the pillar shalt thou strive after: more beautiful doth it ever become, and more graceful—but internally harder and more sustaining—the higher it riseth. And there have perished for me all the visions and consolations of my youth!
Yea, thou sublime one, one day shalt thou also be beautiful, and hold up the mirror to thine own beauty. How did I survive and surmount such wounds? How did my soul rise again out of those sepulchres?
Then will thy soul thrill with divine desires; and there will be adoration even in thy vanity! Silently doth it proceed, and unchanged throughout the years.
For this is the secret of the soul: when the hero hath abandoned it, then only approacheth it in dreams—the superhero.—
Thus spake Zarathustra. Ever livest thou there, and art like thyself, thou most patient one! Ever hast thou burst all shackles of the tomb!
In thee still liveth also the unrealisedness of my youth; and as life and youth sittest thou here hopeful on the yellow ruins of graves.
Yea, thou art still for me the demolisher of all graves: Hail to thee, my Will! And only where there are graves are there resurrections.—
Thus sang Zarathustra.
