L. ON THE OLIVE-MOUNT.

Ah, lieth everything already withered and grey which but lately stood green and many-hued on this meadow!

Those young hearts have already all become old—and not old even! only weary, ordinary, comfortable:—they declare it: “We have again become pious.” Gladly do I run away from him; and when one runneth WELL, then one escapeth him!

Of late did I see them run forth at early morn with valorous steps: but the feet of their knowledge became weary, and now do they malign even their morning valour!

Verily, many of them once lifted their legs like the dancer; to them winked the laughter of my wisdom:—then did they bethink themselves.

Around light and liberty did they once flutter like gnats and young poets.

Did perhaps their hearts despond, because lonesomeness had swallowed me like a whale?

—Ah! Ever are there but few of those whose hearts have persistent courage and exuberance; and in such remaineth also the spirit patient.

The rest: these are always the great majority, the common-place, the superfluous, the far too many—those all are cowardly!—

Him who is of my type, will also the experiences of my type meet on the way: so that his first companions must be corpses and buffoons.

His second companions, however—they will call themselves his BELIEVERS,—will be a living host, with much love, much folly, much unbearded veneration. 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.

To those believers shall he who is of my type among men not bind his heart; in those spring-times and many-hued meadows shall he not believe, who knoweth the fickly faint-hearted human species! And in winter she is most faithful unto me.

COULD they do otherwise, then would they also WILL otherwise.

Let them go and fall away, O Zarathustra, and do not lament!

—Blow amongst those leaves, O Zarathustra, that everything WITHERED may run away from thee the faster!—

2.

“We have again become pious”—so do those apostates confess; and some of them are still too pusillanimous thus to confess.

Unto them I look into the eye,—before them I say it unto their face and unto the blush on their cheeks: Ye are those who again PRAY! Or did it learn it from me? Or hath each of us devised it himself?

It is however a shame to pray!

Thou knowest it well: the faint-hearted devil in thee, which would fain fold its arms, and place its hands in its bosom, and take it easier:—this faint-hearted devil persuadeth thee that “there IS a God!”

THEREBY, however, dost thou belong to the light-dreading type, to whom light never permitteth repose: now must thou daily thrust thy head deeper into obscurity and vapour!

And verily, thou choosest the hour well: for just now do the nocturnal birds again fly abroad.

I hear it and smell it: it hath come—their hour for hunt and procession, not indeed for a wild hunt, but for a tame, lame, snuffling, soft-treaders’, soft-prayers’ hunt,—

—For a hunt after susceptible simpletons: all mouse-traps for the heart have again been set!

Did it perhaps squat there along with another night-moth?

They sit for long evenings beside one another, and say: “Let us again become like little children and say, ‘good God!’”—ruined in mouths and stomachs by the pious confectioners.

Or they look for long evenings at a crafty, lurking cross-spider, that preacheth prudence to the spiders themselves, and teacheth that “under crosses it is good for cobweb-spinning!”

Or they sit all day at swamps with angle-rods, and on that account think themselves PROFOUND; but whoever fisheth where there are no fish, I do not even call him superficial! Oh, thou heavenly simile of my soul and its wantonness!

Or they learn in godly-gay style to play the harp with a hymn-poet, who would fain harp himself into the heart of young girls:—for he hath tired of old girls and their praises.

Or they learn to shudder with a learned semi-madcap, who waiteth in darkened rooms for spirits to come to him—and the spirit runneth away entirely!

Or they listen to an old roving howl- and growl-piper, who hath learnt from the sad winds the sadness of sounds; now pipeth he as the wind, and preacheth sadness in sad strains.

And some of them have even become night-watchmen: they know now how to blow horns, and go about at night and awaken old things which have long fallen asleep.

Five words about old things did I hear yester-night at the garden-wall: they came from such old, sorrowful, arid night-watchmen.

“For a father he careth not sufficiently for his children: human fathers do this better!”—

“He is too old!

“HATH he then children?

“Prove?

“Ay!

—Thus spake to each other the two old night-watchmen and light-scarers, and tooted thereupon sorrowfully on their horns: so did it happen yester-night at the garden-wall.

To me, however, did the heart writhe with laughter, and was like to break; it knew not where to go, and sunk into the midriff. With such sighing and chattering do I flee from their heated rooms.

Verily, it will be my death yet—to choke with laughter when I see asses drunken, and hear night-watchmen thus doubt about God.

Hath the time not LONG since passed for all such doubts?

With the old Deities hath it long since come to an end:—and verily, a good joyful Deity-end had they!