XL. GREAT EVENTS.

When Zarathustra went one day over the great bridge, then did the cripples and beggars surround him, and a hunchback spake thus unto him:

“Behold, Zarathustra! Even the people learn from thee, and acquire faith in thy teaching: but for them to believe fully in thee, one thing is still needful—thou must first of all convince us cripples! Here hast thou now a fine selection, and verily, an opportunity with more than one forelock!

Zarathustra, however, answered thus unto him who so spake: When one taketh his hump from the hunchback, then doth one take from him his spirit—so do the people teach.

It is, however, the smallest thing unto me since I have been amongst men, to see one person lacking an eye, another an ear, and a third a leg, and that others have lost the tongue, or the nose, or the head.

I see and have seen worse things, and divers things so hideous, that I should neither like to speak of all matters, nor even keep silent about some of them: namely, men who lack everything, except that they have too much of one thing—men who are nothing more than a big eye, or a big mouth, or a big belly, or something else big,—reversed cripples, I call such men. After three days, however, there came the story of the ship’s crew in addition to this uneasiness—and then did all the people say that the devil had taken Zarathustra. His disciples laughed, sure enough, at this talk; and one of them said even: “Sooner would I believe that Zarathustra hath taken the devil.” But at the bottom of their hearts they were all full of anxiety and longing: so their joy was great when on the fifth day Zarathustra appeared amongst them.

And when I came out of my solitude, and for the first time passed over this bridge, then I could not trust mine eyes, but looked again and again, and said at last: “That is an ear!

When Zarathustra had spoken thus unto the hunchback, and unto those of whom the hunchback was the mouthpiece and advocate, then did he turn to his disciples in profound dejection, and said: One of these diseases, for example, is called “man.”

Verily, my friends, I walk amongst men as amongst the fragments and limbs of human beings!

This is the terrible thing to mine eye, that I find man broken up, and scattered about, as on a battle- and butcher-ground.

And when mine eye fleeth from the present to the bygone, it findeth ever the same: fragments and limbs and fearful chances—but no men!

The present and the bygone upon earth—ah! my friends—that is MY most unbearable trouble; and I should not know how to live, if I were not a seer of what is to come. Whence cometh that which thou snortest up?

A seer, a purposer, a creator, a future itself, and a bridge to the future—and alas! also as it were a cripple on this bridge: all that is Zarathustra. In sooth, for a dog of the depth, thou takest thy nourishment too much from the surface!

And ye also asked yourselves often: “Who is Zarathustra to us?

Is he a promiser? Or a fulfiller?

Is he a poet?

I walk amongst men as the fragments of the future: that future which I contemplate.

And it is all my poetisation and aspiration to compose and collect into unity what is fragment and riddle and fearful chance. The greatest events—are not our noisiest, but our stillest hours.

And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also the composer, and riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance!

To redeem what is past, and to transform every “It was” into “Thus would I have it!”—that only do I call redemption! Little had ever taken place when thy noise and smoke passed away. What, if a city did become a mummy, and a statue lay in the mud!

Will—so is the emancipator and joy-bringer called: thus have I taught you, my friends!

Willing emancipateth: but what is that called which still putteth the emancipator in chains?

“It was”: thus is the Will’s teeth-gnashing and lonesomest tribulation called.

Not backward can the Will will; that it cannot break time and time’s desire—that is the Will’s lonesomest tribulation. That ye may again come to life, and that virtue—may come to you!—”

Willing emancipateth: what doth Willing itself devise in order to get free from its tribulation and mock at its prison? What is that?”

Ah, a fool becometh every prisoner! Foolishly delivereth itself also the imprisoned Will. Thou surely knowest thine own species best!

That time doth not run backward—that is its animosity: “That which was”: so is the stone which it cannot roll called.

And thus doth it roll stones out of animosity and ill-humour, and taketh revenge on whatever doth not, like it, feel rage and ill-humour.

Thus did the Will, the emancipator, become a torturer; and on all that is capable of suffering it taketh revenge, because it cannot go backward. And people think it so?” And so much vapour and terrible voices came out of his throat, that I thought he would choke with vexation and envy.

This, yea, this alone is REVENGE itself: the Will’s antipathy to time, and its “It was.”

Verily, a great folly dwelleth in our Will; and it became a curse unto all humanity, that this folly acquired spirit!

THE SPIRIT OF REVENGE: my friends, that hath hitherto been man’s best contemplation; and where there was suffering, it was claimed there was always penalty.

“Penalty,” so calleth itself revenge. With a lying word it feigneth a good conscience.

And because in the willer himself there is suffering, because he cannot will backwards—thus was Willing itself, and all life, claimed—to be penalty!

And then did cloud after cloud roll over the spirit, until at last madness preached: “Everything perisheth, therefore everything deserveth to perish!”

“And this itself is justice, the law of time—that he must devour his children:” thus did madness preach. Abashed did he draw in his tail, said “bow-wow!” in a cowed voice, and crept down into his cave.—

“Morally are things ordered according to justice and penalty. Oh, where is there deliverance from the flux of things and from the ‘existence’ of penalty?” Thus did madness preach.

“Can there be deliverance when there is eternal justice?

“No deed can be annihilated: how could it be undone by the penalty! This, this is what is eternal in the ‘existence’ of penalty, that existence also must be eternally recurring deed and guilt!

Unless the Will should at last deliver itself, and Willing become non-Willing—:” but ye know, my brethren, this fabulous song of madness!

Away from those fabulous songs did I lead you when I taught you: “The Will is a creator.”

All “It was” is a fragment, a riddle, a fearful chance—until the creating Will saith thereto: “But thus would I have it.”— It is the highest time!’

Until the creating Will saith thereto: “But thus do I will it!

Thus spake Zarathustra.