The Portable Nietzsche (44 page)

 

“Who warms me, who loves me still?
Give hot hands!
Give a heart as glowing coals!
Stretched out, shuddering,
Like something half dead whose feet one warms—
Shaken, alas, by unknown fevers,
Shivering with piercing icy frost-arrows,
Hunted by thee, O thought!
Unnamable, shrouded, terrible one!
Thou hunter behind clouds!
Struck down by thy lightning bolt,
Thou mocking eye that stares at me from the dark:
Thus I lie
Writhing, twisting, tormented
With all eternal tortures,
Hit
By thee, cruelest hunter,
Thou unknown
god!

 

Hit deeper!
Hit once more yet!
Drive a stake through and break this heart!
Why this torture
With blunt-toothed arrows?
Why dost thou stare again,
Not yet weary of human agony,
With gods' lightning eyes that delight in suffering?
Thou wouldst not kill,
Only torture, torture?
Why torture
me,
Delighted by suffering, thou unknown god?

 

Hah! hah! Thou art crawling close?
In such midnight—
What dost thou want? Speak!
Thou art crowding, pressing me—
Hah! Far too close!
Away! Away!
Thou art listening to me breathe,
Thou art listening to my heart,
Thou jealous one—
Jealous of what?
Away! Away! Why the ladder?
Wouldst thou enter
The heart,
Climb in, deep into my
Most secret thoughts?
Shameless one! Unknown thief!
What wouldst thou steal?
What wouldst thou gain by listening?
What wouldst thou gain by torture,
Thou torturer!
Thou hangman-god!
Or should I, doglike,
Roll before thee?
Devotedly, frantic, beside myself,
Wag love to thee?
In vain! Pierce on,
Cruelest thorn! No,
No dog—only thy game am I,
Cruelest hunter!
Thy proudest prisoner,
Thou robber behind clouds!
Speak at last!
What wouldst thou, waylayer, from
me
?
Thou lightning-shrouded one! Unknown one! Speak,
What wilt thou, unknown—god?

 

What? Ransom?
Why wilt thou ransom?
Demand much! Thus my pride advises.
And make thy speech short! That my other pride advises.

 

Hah, hah!
Me thou wilt have? Me?
Me—entirely?

 

Hah, hah!
And art torturing me, fool that thou art,
Torturing my pride?
Give love to me—who warms me still?
Who loves me still?—Give hot hands,
Give a heart as glowing coals,
Give me, the loneliest
Whom ice, alas, sevenfold ice
Teaches to languish for enemies,
Even for enemies,
Give, yes, give wholly,
Cruelest enemy,
Give me—
thyself!
Away!
He himself fled,
My last, only companion,
My great enemy,
My unknown,
My hangman-god.

 

No! Do come back
With
all thy tortures!
To the last of all that are lonely,
Oh, come back!
All my tear-streams run
Their course to thee;
And my heart's final flame—
Flares up for
thee!
Oh, come back,
My unknown god! My
pain!
My last—happiness!”

At this point, however, Zarathustra could not restrain himself any longer, raised his stick, and started to beat the moaning man with all his might. “Stop it!” he shouted at him furiously. “Stop it, you actor! You counterfeiter! You liar from the bottom! I recognize you well! I'll warm your legs for you, you wicked magician. I know well how to make things hot for such as you.”

“Leave off!” the old man said and leaped up from the ground. “Don't strike any more, Zarathustra! I did all this only as a game. Such things belong to my art; it was you that I wanted to try when I treated you to this tryout. And verily, you have seen through me very well. But you too have given me no small sample of yourself to try out: you are hard, wise Zarathustra. Hard do you hit with your ‘truths'; your stick forces this truth out of me.”

“Don't flatter!” replied Zarathustra, still excited and angry, “you actor from the bottom! You are false; why do you talk of truth? You peacock of peacocks, you sea of vanity, what were you playing before me, you wicked magician? In
whom
was I to believe when you were moaning in this way?”

“The ascetic of the spirit,”
said the old man, “I played
him
—you yourself once coined this word—the poet and magician who at last turns his spirit against himself, the changed man who freezes to death from his evil science and conscience. And you may as well confess it: it took a long time, O Zarathustra, before you saw through my art and lie. You
believed
in my distress when you held my head with both your hands; I heard you moan, ‘He has been loved too little, loved too little.' That I deceived you to that extent made my malice jubilate inside me.”

“You may have deceived people subtler than I,” Zarathustra said harshly. “I do not guard against deceivers; I have to be without caution; thus my lot wants it. You, however, have to deceive: that far I know you. You always have to be equivocal—tri-, quadri-, quinquevocal. And what you have now confessed, that too was not nearly true enough or false enough to suit me. You wicked counterfeiter, how could you do otherwise? You would rouge even your disease when you show yourself naked to your doctor. In the same way you have just now rouged your lie when you said to me, ‘I did all this
only
as a game.' There was
seriousness
in it too: you
are
something of an ascetic of the spirit. I solve your riddle: your magic has enchanted everybody, but no lie or cunning is left to you to use against yourself: you are disenchanted for yourself. You have harvested nausea as your one truth. Not a word of yours is genuine any more, except your mouth—namely, the nausea that sticks to your mouth.”

“Who are you?” cried the old magician at this point, his voice defiant. “Who may speak thus to me, the greatest man alive today?” And a green lightning bolt Bashed from his eye toward Zarathustra. But immediately afterward he changed and said sadly, “O Zarathustra, I am weary of it; my art nauseates me; I am not
great
—why do I dissemble? But you know it too: I sought greatness. I wanted to represent a great human being and I persuaded many; but this lie went beyond my strength. It is breaking me. O Zarathustra, everything about me is a lie; but that I am breaking—this, my breaking, is genuine.”

“It does you credit,” said Zarathustra gloomily, looking aside to the ground, “it does you credit that you sought greatness, but it also betrays you. You are not great. You wicked old magician, this is what is best and most honest about you, and this I honor: that you wearied of yourself and said it outright: ‘I am not great.' In this I honor you as an ascetic of the spirit; and even if it was only a wink and a twinkling, in this one moment you were genuine.

“But speak, what are you seeking here in
my
woods and rocks? And lying down on my path, how did you want to try me? In what way were you seeking to test me?” Thus spoke Zarathustra, and his eyes flashed.

The old magician remained silent for a while, then said, “Did I seek to test you? I—merely seek. O Zarathustra, I seek one who is genuine, right, simple, unequivocal, a man of all honesty, a vessel of wisdom, a saint of knowledge, a great human being. Do you not know it, Zarathustra?
I seek Zarathustra.
”

 

And at this point there began a long silence between the two. But Zarathustra became deeply absorbed and closed his eyes. Then, however, returning to his partner in the conversation, he seized the hand of the magician and said, full of kindness and cunning, “Well! Up there goes the path; there lies Zarathustra's cave. There you may seek him whom you would find. And ask my animals for advice, my eagle and my serpent: they shall help you seek. But my cave is large. I myself, to be sure—I have not yet seen a great human being. For what is great, even the eyes of the subtlest today are too coarse. It is the realm of the mob. Many have I seen, swollen and straining, and the people cried, ‘Behold a great man!' But what good are all bellows? In the end, the wind comes out. In the end, a frog which has puffed itself up too long will burst: the wind comes out. To stab a swollen man in the belly, I call that a fine pastime. Hear it well, little boys!

“Today belongs to the mob: who could still know what is great and what small? Who could still successfully seek greatness? Only a fool: fools succeed. You seek great human beings, you queer fool? Who
taught
you that? Is today the time for that? O you wicked seeker, why did you seek to test me?”

Thus spoke Zarathustra, his heart comforted, and he continued on his way, laughing.

Not long, however, after Zarathustra had got away from the magician, he again saw somebody sitting by the side of his path: a tall man in black, with a gaunt pale face; and this man displeased him exceedingly. “Alas!” he said to his heart, “there sits muffled-up melancholy, looking like the tribe of priests: what do
they
want in my realm? How now? I have scarcely escaped that magician; must another black artist cross my way so soon—some wizard with laying-on of hands, some dark miracle worker by the grace of God, some anointed world-slanderer whom the devil should fetch? But the devil is never where he should be: he always comes too late, this damned dwarf and clubfoot!”

Thus cursed Zarathustra, impatient in his heart, and he wondered how he might sneak past the black man, looking the other way. But behold, it happened otherwise. For at the same moment the seated man had already spotted him; and not unlike one on whom unexpected good fortune has been thrust, he jumped up and walked toward Zarathustra.

“Whoever you may be, you wanderer,” he said, “help one who has lost his way, a seeker, an old man who might easily come to grief here. This region is remote and strange to me, and I have heard wild animals howling; and he who might have offered me protection no longer exists himself. I sought the last pious man, a saint and hermit who, alone in his forest, had not yet heard what all the world knows today.”

“What does all the world know today?” asked Zarathustra. “Perhaps this, that the old god in whom all the world once believed no longer lives?”

“As you say,” replied the old man sadly. “And I served that old god until his last hour. But now I am retired, without a master, and yet not free, nor ever cheerful except in my memories. That is why I climbed these mountains, that I might again have a festival at last, as is fitting for an old pope and church father—for behold, I am the last pope—a festival of pious memorizes and divine services. But now he himself is dead, the most pious man, that saint in the forest who constantly praised his god with singing and humming. I did not find him when I found his cave; but there were two wolves inside, howling over his death, for all animals loved him. So I ran away. Had I then come to these woods and mountains in vain? Then my heart decided that I should seek another man, the most pious of all those who do not believe in God—that I should seek Zarathustra!”

Thus spoke the old man, and he looked with sharp eyes at the man standing before him; but Zarathustra seized the hand of the old pope and long contemplated it with admiration. “Behold, venerable one!” he said then; “what a beautiful long hand! That is the hand of one who has always dispensed blessings. But now it holds him whom you seek, me, Zarathustra. It is I, the godless Zarathustra, who speaks: who is more godless than I, that I may enjoy his instruction?”

Thus spoke Zarathustra, and with his glances he pierced the thoughts and the thoughts behind the thoughts of the old pope. At last the pope began, “He who loved and possessed him most has also lost him most now; behold, now I myself am probably the more godless of the two of us. But who could rejoice in that?”

“You served him to the last?” Zarathustra asked thoughtfully after a long silence. “You know
how
he died? Is it true what they say, that pity strangled him, that he saw how man hung on the cross and that he could not bear it, that love of man became his hell, and in the end his death?”

The old pope, however, did not answer but looked aside, shy, with a pained and gloomy expression. “Let him go!” Zarathustra said after prolonged reflection, still looking the old man straight in the eye. “Let him go! He is gone. And although it does you credit that you say only good things about him who is now dead, you know as well as I
who
he was, and that his ways were queer.”

“Speaking in the confidence of three eyes,” the old pope said cheerfully (for he was blind in one eye), “in what pertains to God, I am—and have the right to be —more enlightened than Zarathustra himself. My love served him many years, my will followed his will in everything. A good servant, however, knows everything, including even things that his master conceals from himself. He was a concealed god, addicted to secrecy. Verily, even a son he got himself in a sneaky way. At the door of his faith stands adultery.

“Whoever praises him as a god of love does not have a high enough opinion of love itself. Did this god not want to be a judge too? But the lover loves beyond reward and retribution.

“When he was young, this god out of the Orient, he was harsh and vengeful and he built himself a hell to amuse his favorites. Eventually, however, he became old and soft and mellow and pitying, more like a grandfather than a father, but most like a shaky old grandmother. Then he sat in his nook by the hearth, wilted, grieving over his weak legs, weary of the world, weary of willing, and one day he choked on his all-too-great pity.”

“You old pope,” Zarathustra interrupted at this point, “did you see that with your own eyes? Surely it might have happened that way—that way, and also in some other way. When gods die, they always die several kinds of death. But—well then! This way or that, this way and that—he is gone! He offended the taste of my ears and eyes; I do not want to say anything worse about him now that he is dead.