Thus Spake Zarathustra — Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus Spake Zarathustra

Friedrich Nietzsche · Лицензия: Public domain · Источник

• And that I may also maintain the right, hear the story of another fire-dog; he speaketh actually out of the heart of the earth. ¶1705
• Gold doth his breath exhale, and golden rain: so doth his heart desire. What are ashes and smoke and hot dregs to him! ¶1706
• Laughter flitteth from him like a variegated cloud; adverse is he to thy gargling and spewing and grips in the bowels! ¶1707
• The gold, however, and the laughter--these doth he take out of the heart of the earth: for, that thou mayst know it,--THE HEART OF THE EARTH IS OF GOLD." ¶1708
• When the fire-dog heard this, he could no longer endure to listen to me. Abashed did he draw in his tail, said "bow-wow!" in a cowed voice, and crept down into his cave.-- ¶1709
• Thus told Zarathustra. His disciples, however, hardly listened to him: so great was their eagerness to tell him about the sailors, the rabbits, and the flying man. ¶1710
• "What am I to think of it!" said Zarathustra. "Am I indeed a ghost? ¶1711
• But it may have been my shadow. Ye have surely heard something of the Wanderer and his Shadow? ¶1712
• One thing, however, is certain: I must keep a tighter hold of it; otherwise it will spoil my reputation." ¶1713
• And once more Zarathustra shook his head and wondered. "What am I to think of it!" said he once more. ¶1714
• "Why did the ghost cry: 'It is time! It is the highest time!' ¶1715
• For WHAT is it then--the highest time?"-- ¶1716
• "-And I saw a great sadness come over mankind. The best turned weary of their works. ¶1719
• A doctrine appeared, a faith ran beside it: 'All is empty, all is alike, all hath been!' ¶1720
• And from all hills there re-echoed: 'All is empty, all is alike, all hath been!' ¶1721
• To be sure we have harvested: but why have all our fruits become rotten and brown? What was it fell last night from the evil moon? ¶1722
• In vain was all our labour, poison hath our wine become, the evil eye hath singed yellow our fields and hearts. ¶1723
• Arid have we all become; and fire falling upon us, then do we turn dust like ashes:--yea, the fire itself have we made aweary. ¶1724
• All our fountains have dried up, even the sea hath receded. All the ground trieth to gape, but the depth will not swallow! ¶1725
• 'Alas! where is there still a sea in which one could be drowned?' so soundeth our plaint--across shallow swamps. ¶1726
• Verily, even for dying have we become too weary; now do we keep awake and live on--in sepulchres." ¶1727
• Thus did Zarathustra hear a soothsayer speak; and the foreboding touched his heart and transformed him. Sorrowfully did he go about and wearily; and he became like unto those of whom the soothsayer had spoken.-- ¶1728
• Verily, said he unto his disciples, a little while, and there cometh the long twilight. Alas, how shall I preserve my light through it! ¶1729
• That it may not smother in this sorrowfulness! To remoter worlds shall it be a light, and also to remotest nights! ¶1730
• And this is the discourse that Zarathustra spake when he awoke; his voice, however, came unto his disciples as from afar: ¶1732
• Hear, I pray you, the dream that I dreamed, my friends, and help me to divine its meaning! ¶1733
• A riddle is it still unto me, this dream; the meaning is hidden in it and encaged, and doth not yet fly above it on free pinions. ¶1734
• All life had I renounced, so I dreamed. Night-watchman and grave-guardian had I become, aloft, in the lone mountain-fortress of Death. ¶1735
• There did I guard his coffins: full stood the musty vaults of those trophies of victory. Out of glass coffins did vanquished life gaze upon me. ¶1736
• The odour of dust-covered eternities did I breathe: sultry and dust-covered lay my soul. And who could have aired his soul there! ¶1737
• Brightness of midnight was ever around me; lonesomeness cowered beside her; and as a third, death-rattle stillness, the worst of my female friends. ¶1738
• Keys did I carry, the rustiest of all keys; and I knew how to open with them the most creaking of all gates. ¶1739
• Like a bitterly angry croaking ran the sound through the long corridors when the leaves of the gate opened: ungraciously did this bird cry, unwillingly was it awakened. ¶1740
• But more frightful even, and more heart-strangling was it, when it again became silent and still all around, and I alone sat in that malignant silence. ¶1741
• Thus did time pass with me, and slip by, if time there still was: what do I know thereof! But at last there happened that which awoke me. ¶1742
• Thrice did there peal peals at the gate like thunders, thrice did the vaults resound and howl again: then did I go to the gate. ¶1743
• Alpa! cried I, who carrieth his ashes unto the mountain? Alpa! Alpa! who carrieth his ashes unto the mountain? ¶1744
• And I pressed the key, and pulled at the gate, and exerted myself. But not a finger's-breadth was it yet open: ¶1745
• Then did a roaring wind tear the folds apart: whistling, whizzing, and piercing, it threw unto me a black coffin. ¶1746
• And in the roaring, and whistling, and whizzing the coffin burst up, and spouted out a thousand peals of laughter. ¶1747

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