Read Online Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, R. J. Hollingdale - Free Book Online
Authors: Friedrich Nietzsche, R. J. Hollingdale
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than among animals; Zarathustra is following dangerous paths. May my animals lead me!’
When Zarathustra had said this he recalled the words of the saint in the forest, sighed, and spoke thus to his heart:
‘I wish I were wise! I wish I were wise from the heart of me, like my serpent!
‘But I am asking the impossible: therefore I ask my pride always to go along with my wisdom!
‘And if one day my wisdom should desert me – ah, it loves to fly away! – then may my pride too fly with my folly!’
Thus began Zarathustra’s down-going.
ZARATHUSTRA’S DISCOURSES
Of the Three Metamorphoses
I NAME you three metamorphoses of the spirit: how the spirit shall become a camel, and the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.
There are many heavy things for the spirit, for the strong, weight-bearing spirit in which dwell respect and awe: its strength longs for the heavy, for the heaviest.
What is heavy? thus asks the weight-bearing spirit, thus it kneels down like the camel and wants to be well laden.
What is the heaviest thing, you heroes? so asks the weight-bearing spirit, that I may take it upon me and rejoice in my strength.
Is it not this: to debase yourself in order to injure your pride? To let your folly shine out in order to mock your wisdom?
Or is it this: to desert our cause when it is celebrating its victory? To climb high mountains in order to tempt the tempter?
Or is it this: to feed upon the acorns and grass of knowledge and for the sake of truth to suffer hunger of the soul?
Or is it this: to be sick and to send away comforters and make friends with the deaf, who never hear what you ask?
Or is it this: to wade into dirty water when it is the water of truth, and not to disdain cold frogs and hot toads?
Or is it this: to love those who despise us and to offer our hand to the ghost when it wants to frighten us?
The weight-bearing spirit takes upon itself all these heaviest things: like a camel hurrying laden into the desert, thus it hurries into its desert.
But in the loneliest desert the second metamorphosis occurs: the spirit here becomes a lion; it wants to capture freedom and be lord in its own desert.
It seeks here its ultimate lord: it will be an enemy to himand to its ultimate God, it will struggle for victory with the great dragon.
What is the great dragon which the spirit no longer wants to call lord and God? The great dragon is called ‘Thou shalt’. But the spirit of the lion says ‘I will!’
‘Thou shalt’ lies in its path, sparkling with gold, a scale-covered beast, and on every scale glitters golden ‘Thou shalt’.
Values of a thousand years glitter on the scales, and thus speaks the mightiest of all dragons: ‘All the values of things – glitter on me.
‘All values have already been created, and all created values – are in me. Truly, there shall be no more “I will”!’ Thus speaks the dragon.
My brothers, why is the lion needed in the spirit? Why does the beast of burden, that renounces and is reverent, not suffice?
To create new values – even the lion is incapable of that: but to create itself freedom for new creation – that the might of the lion can do.
To create freedom for itself and a sacred No even to duty: the lion is needed for that, my brothers.
To seize the right to new values – that is the most terrible proceeding for a weight-bearing and reverential spirit Truly, to this spirit it is a theft and a work for an animal of prey.
Once it loved this ‘Thou shalt’ as its holiest thing: now it has to find illusion and caprice even in the holiest, that it may steal freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this theft.
But tell me, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion cannot? Why must the preying lion still become a child?
The child is innocence and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a sport, a self-propelling wheel, a first motion, a sacred Yes.
Yes, a sacred Yes is needed, my brothers, for the sport of creation: the spirit
When Zarathustra had said this he recalled the words of the saint in the forest, sighed, and spoke thus to his heart:
‘I wish I were wise! I wish I were wise from the heart of me, like my serpent!
‘But I am asking the impossible: therefore I ask my pride always to go along with my wisdom!
‘And if one day my wisdom should desert me – ah, it loves to fly away! – then may my pride too fly with my folly!’
Thus began Zarathustra’s down-going.
ZARATHUSTRA’S DISCOURSES
Of the Three Metamorphoses
I NAME you three metamorphoses of the spirit: how the spirit shall become a camel, and the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.
There are many heavy things for the spirit, for the strong, weight-bearing spirit in which dwell respect and awe: its strength longs for the heavy, for the heaviest.
What is heavy? thus asks the weight-bearing spirit, thus it kneels down like the camel and wants to be well laden.
What is the heaviest thing, you heroes? so asks the weight-bearing spirit, that I may take it upon me and rejoice in my strength.
Is it not this: to debase yourself in order to injure your pride? To let your folly shine out in order to mock your wisdom?
Or is it this: to desert our cause when it is celebrating its victory? To climb high mountains in order to tempt the tempter?
Or is it this: to feed upon the acorns and grass of knowledge and for the sake of truth to suffer hunger of the soul?
Or is it this: to be sick and to send away comforters and make friends with the deaf, who never hear what you ask?
Or is it this: to wade into dirty water when it is the water of truth, and not to disdain cold frogs and hot toads?
Or is it this: to love those who despise us and to offer our hand to the ghost when it wants to frighten us?
The weight-bearing spirit takes upon itself all these heaviest things: like a camel hurrying laden into the desert, thus it hurries into its desert.
But in the loneliest desert the second metamorphosis occurs: the spirit here becomes a lion; it wants to capture freedom and be lord in its own desert.
It seeks here its ultimate lord: it will be an enemy to himand to its ultimate God, it will struggle for victory with the great dragon.
What is the great dragon which the spirit no longer wants to call lord and God? The great dragon is called ‘Thou shalt’. But the spirit of the lion says ‘I will!’
‘Thou shalt’ lies in its path, sparkling with gold, a scale-covered beast, and on every scale glitters golden ‘Thou shalt’.
Values of a thousand years glitter on the scales, and thus speaks the mightiest of all dragons: ‘All the values of things – glitter on me.
‘All values have already been created, and all created values – are in me. Truly, there shall be no more “I will”!’ Thus speaks the dragon.
My brothers, why is the lion needed in the spirit? Why does the beast of burden, that renounces and is reverent, not suffice?
To create new values – even the lion is incapable of that: but to create itself freedom for new creation – that the might of the lion can do.
To create freedom for itself and a sacred No even to duty: the lion is needed for that, my brothers.
To seize the right to new values – that is the most terrible proceeding for a weight-bearing and reverential spirit Truly, to this spirit it is a theft and a work for an animal of prey.
Once it loved this ‘Thou shalt’ as its holiest thing: now it has to find illusion and caprice even in the holiest, that it may steal freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this theft.
But tell me, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion cannot? Why must the preying lion still become a child?
The child is innocence and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a sport, a self-propelling wheel, a first motion, a sacred Yes.
Yes, a sacred Yes is needed, my brothers, for the sport of creation: the spirit
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