LV. THE SPIRIT OF GRAVITY.

One morning, not long after his return to his cave, Zarathustra sprang up from his couch like a madman, crying with a frightful voice, and acting as if some one still lay on the couch who did not wish to rise. Zarathustra’s voice also resounded in such a manner that his animals came to him frightened, and out of all the neighbouring caves and lurking-places all the creatures slipped away—flying, fluttering, creeping or leaping, according to their variety of foot or wing.

Up, abysmal thought out of my depth!

Unbind the fetters of thine ears: listen!

And rub the sleep and all the dimness and blindness out of thine eyes! Hear me also with thine eyes: my voice is a medicine even for those born blind. Certainly it is a bird’s stomach.

And once thou art awake, then shalt thou ever remain awake.

Thou stirrest, stretchest thyself, wheezest? Up!

I, Zarathustra, the advocate of living, the advocate of suffering, the advocate of the circuit—thee do I call, my most abysmal thought!

Joy to me!

2.

Hardly, however, had Zarathustra spoken these words, when he fell down as one dead, and remained long as one dead.

At last, after seven days, Zarathustra raised himself upon his couch, took a rosy apple in his hand, smelt it and found its smell pleasant.

“O Zarathustra,” said they, “now hast thou lain thus for seven days with heavy eyes: wilt thou not set thyself again upon thy feet? But he who would become light, and be a bird, must love himself:—thus doIteach.

Step out of thy cave: the world waiteth for thee as a garden.

All things long for thee, since thou hast remained alone for seven days—step forth out of thy cave!

Did perhaps a new knowledge come to thee, a bitter, grievous knowledge?

—O mine animals, answered Zarathustra, talk on thus and let me listen! It refresheth me so to hear your talk: where there is talk, there is the world as a garden unto me.

How charming it is that there are words and tones; are not words and tones rainbows and seeming bridges ‘twixt the eternally separated?

To each soul belongeth another world; to each soul is every other soul a back-world. For the sake of it we are forgiven for living.

Among the most alike doth semblance deceive most delightfully: for the smallest gap is most difficult to bridge over.

For me—how could there be an outside-of-me? There is no outside!

Have not names and tones been given unto things that man may refresh himself with them? It is a beautiful folly, speaking; therewith danceth man over everything. Like the camel kneeleth he down, and letteth himself be well laden.

How lovely is all speech and all falsehoods of tones! With tones danceth our love on variegated rainbows.—

—“O Zarathustra,” said then his animals, “to those who think like us, things all dance themselves: they come and hold out the hand and laugh and flee—and return. 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;—

Everything goeth, everything returneth; eternally rolleth the wheel of existence. Everything dieth, everything blossometh forth again; eternally runneth on the year of existence.

Everything breaketh, everything is integrated anew; eternally buildeth itself the same house of existence. All things separate, all things again greet one another; eternally true to itself remaineth the ring of existence.

Every moment beginneth existence, around every ‘Here’ rolleth the ball ‘There.’ The middle is everywhere.

—O ye wags and barrel-organs! answered Zarathustra, and smiled once more, how well do ye know what had to be fulfilled in seven days:— So causeth the spirit of gravity.

—And how that monster crept into my throat and choked me!

And ye—ye have made a lyre-lay out of it? Now, however, do I lie here, still exhausted with that biting and spitting-away, still sick with mine own salvation.

AND YE LOOKED ON AT IT ALL? O mine animals, are ye also cruel?

At tragedies, bull-fights, and crucifixions hath he hitherto been happiest on earth; and when he invented his hell, behold, that was his heaven on earth. Ever to say YE-A—that hath only the ass learnt, and those like it!—

When the great man crieth—: immediately runneth the little man thither, and his tongue hangeth out of his mouth for very lusting. He, however, calleth it his “pity.”

The little man, especially the poet—how passionately doth he accuse life in words! Hearken to him, but do not fail to hear the delight which is in all accusation!

Such accusers of life—them life overcometh with a glance of the eye. “Thou lovest me?” saith the insolent one; “wait a little, as yet have I no time for thee.” Nobody carrieth gold in his mouth.

Towards himself man is the cruellest animal; and in all who call themselves “sinners” and “bearers of the cross” and “penitents,” do not overlook the voluptuousness in their plaints and accusations!

And I myself—do I thereby want to be man’s accuser? Ah, mine animals, this only have I learned hitherto, that for man his baddest is necessary for his best,—

—That all that is baddest is the best POWER, and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must become better AND badder:—

Not to THIS torture-stake was I tied, that I know man is bad,—but I cried, as no one hath yet cried: And above all did I learn standing and walking and running and leaping and climbing and dancing.

“Ah, that his baddest is so very small!

The great disgust at man—IT strangled me and had crept into my throat: and what the soothsayer had presaged: “All is alike, nothing is worth while, knowledge strangleth.”

A long twilight limped on before me, a fatally weary, fatally intoxicated sadness, which spake with yawning mouth.

“Eternally he returneth, the man of whom thou art weary, the small man”—so yawned my sadness, and dragged its foot and could not go to sleep.

A cavern, became the human earth to me; its breast caved in; everything living became to me human dust and bones and mouldering past. Rather did I question and test the ways themselves.

My sighing sat on all human graves, and could no longer arise: my sighing and questioning croaked and choked, and gnawed and nagged day and night: That, however,—is my taste:

—“Ah, man returneth eternally!

Naked had I once seen both of them, the greatest man and the smallest man: all too like one another—all too human, even the greatest man!

All too small, even the greatest man!—that was my disgust at man!