LXIII. TALK WITH THE KINGS
1
Ere Zarathustra had been an hour on his way in the mountains and forests, he saw all at once a strange procession. Right on the path which he was about to descend came two kings walking, bedecked with crowns and purple girdles, and variegated like flamingoes: they drove before them a laden ass. “What do these kings want in my domain?” said Zarathustra in astonishment to his heart, and hid himself hastily behind a thicket. When however the kings approached to him, he said half-aloud, like one speaking only to himself: “Strange! Strange! How doth this harmonise? Two kings do I see – and only one ass!”
Thereupon the two kings made a halt; they smiled and looked towards the spot whence the voice proceeded, and afterwards looked into each other’s faces. “Such things do we also think among ourselves,” said the king on the right, “but we do not utter them.”
The king on the left, however, shrugged his shoulders and answered: “That may perhaps be a goat-herd. Or an anchorite who hath lived too long among rocks and trees. For no society at all spoileth also good manners.”
“Good manners?” replied angrily and bitterly the other king: “what then do we run out of the way of? Is it not ‘good manners’? Our ‘good society’?
Better, verily, to live among anchorites and goat-herds, than with our gilded, false, over-rouged populace – though it call itself ‘good society.’
– Though it call itself ‘nobility.’ But there all is false and foul, above all the blood – thanks to old evil diseases and worse curers.
The best and dearest to me at present is still a sound peasant, coarse, artful, obstinate and enduring: that is at present the noblest type.
The peasant is at present the best; and the peasant type should be master! But it is the kingdom of the populace – I no longer allow anything to be imposed upon me. The populace, however – that meaneth, hodgepodge.
Populace-hodgepodge: therein is everything mixed with everything, saint and swindler, gentleman and Jew, and every beast out of Noah’s ark.
Good manners! Everything is false and foul with us. No one knoweth any longer how to reverence: it is THAT precisely that we run away from. They are fulsome obtrusive dogs; they gild palm-leaves.
This loathing choketh me, that we kings ourselves have become false, draped and disguised with the old faded pomp of our ancestors, show-pieces for the stupidest, the craftiest, and whosoever at present trafficketh for power.
We ARE NOT the first men – and have nevertheless to STAND FOR them: of this imposture have we at last become weary and disgusted.
From the rabble have we gone out of the way, from all those bawlers and scribe-blowflies, from the trader-stench, the ambition-fidgeting, the bad breath – : fie, to live among the rabble;
– Fie, to stand for the first men among the rabble! Ah, loathing! Loathing! Loathing! What doth it now matter about us kings!” —
“Thine old sickness seizeth thee,” said here the king on the left, “thy loathing seizeth thee, my poor brother. Thou knowest, however, that some one heareth us.”
Immediately thereupon, Zarathustra, who had opened ears and eyes to this talk, rose from his hiding-place, advanced towards the kings, and thus began:
“He who hearkeneth unto you, he who gladly hearkeneth unto you, is called Zarathustra.
I am Zarathustra who once said: ‘What doth it now matter about kings!’ Forgive me; I rejoiced when ye said to each other: ‘What doth it matter about us kings!’
Here, however, is MY domain and jurisdiction: what may ye be seeking in my domain? Perhaps, however, ye have FOUND on your way what I seek: namely, the higher man.”
When the kings heard this, they beat upon their breasts and said with one voice: “We are recognised!
With the sword of thine utterance severest thou the thickest darkness of our hearts. Thou hast discovered our distress; for lo! we are on our way to find the higher man —
– The man that is higher than we, although we are kings. To him do we convey this ass. For the highest man shall also be the highest lord on earth.
There is no sorer misfortune in all human destiny, than when the mighty of the earth are not also the first men. Then everything becometh false and distorted and monstrous.
And when they are even the last men, and more beast than man, then riseth and riseth the populace in honour, and at last saith even the populace-virtue: ‘Lo, I alone am virtue!’” —
What have I just heard? answered Zarathustra. What wisdom in kings! I am enchanted, and verily, I have already promptings to make a rhyme thereon: —
– Even if it should happen to be a rhyme not suited for every one’s ears. I unlearned long ago to have consideration for long ears. Well then! Well now!
(Here, however, it happened that the ass also found utterance: it said distinctly and with malevolence, Y-E-A.)
‘Twas once – methinks year one of our blessed Lord, – Drunk without wine, the Sybil thus deplored: – “How ill things go! Decline! Decline! Ne’er sank the world so low! Rome now hath turned harlot and harlot-stew, Rome’s Caesar a beast, and God – hath turned Jew!
2
With those rhymes of Zarathustra the kings were delighted; the king on the right, however, said: “O Zarathustra, how well it was that we set out to see thee!
For thine enemies showed us thy likeness in their mirror: there lookedst thou with the grimace of a devil, and sneeringly: so that we were afraid of thee.
But what good did it do! Always didst thou prick us anew in heart and ear with thy sayings. Then did we say at last: What doth it matter how he look!
We must HEAR him; him who teacheth: ‘Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars, and the short peace more than the long!’
No one ever spake such warlike words: ‘What is good? To be brave is good. It is the good war that halloweth every cause.’
O Zarathustra, our fathers’ blood stirred in our veins at such words: it was like the voice of spring to old wine-casks.
When the swords ran among one another like red-spotted serpents, then did our fathers become fond of life; the sun of every peace seemed to them languid and lukewarm, the long peace, however, made them ashamed.
How they sighed, our fathers, when they saw on the wall brightly furbished, dried-up swords! Like those they thirsted for war. For a sword thirsteth to drink blood, and sparkleth with desire.” —
– When the kings thus discoursed and talked eagerly of the happiness of their fathers, there came upon Zarathustra no little desire to mock at their eagerness: for evidently they were very peaceable kings whom he saw before him, kings with old and refined features. But he restrained himself. “Well!” said he, “thither leadeth the way, there lieth the cave of Zarathustra; and this day is to have a long evening! At present, however, a cry of distress calleth me hastily away from you.
It will honour my cave if kings want to sit and wait in it: but, to be sure, ye will have to wait long!
Well! What of that! Where doth one at present learn better to wait than at courts? And the whole virtue of kings that hath remained unto them – is it not called to-day: ABILITY to wait?”
Thus spake Zarathustra.
LXIV. THE LEECH
And Zarathustra went thoughtfully on, further and lower down, through forests and past moory bottoms; as it happeneth, however, to every one who meditateth upon hard matters, he trod thereby unawares upon a man. And lo, there spurted into his face all at once a cry of pain, and two curses and twenty bad invectives, so that in his fright he raised his stick and also struck the trodden one. Immediately afterwards, however, he regained his composure, and his heart laughed at the folly he had just committed.
“Pardon me,” said he to the trodden one, who had got up enraged, and had seated himself, “pardon me, and hear first of all a parable.
As a wanderer who dreameth of remote things on a lonesome highway, runneth unawares against a sleeping dog, a dog which lieth in the sun:
– As both of them then start up and snap at each other, like deadly enemies, those two beings mortally frightened – so did it happen unto us.
And yet! And yet – how little was lacking for them to caress each other, that dog and that lonesome one! Are they not both – lonesome ones!”
– “Whoever thou art,” said the trodden one, still enraged, “thou treadest also too nigh me with thy parable, and not only with thy foot!
Lo! am I then a dog?” – And thereupon the sitting one got up, and pulled his naked arm out of the swamp. For at first he had lain outstretched on the ground, hidden and indiscernible, like those who lie in wait for swamp-game.
“But whatever art thou about!” called out Zarathustra in alarm, for he saw a deal of blood streaming over the naked arm, – “what hath hurt thee? Hath an evil beast bit thee, thou unfortunate one?”
The bleeding one laughed, still angry, “What matter is it to thee!” said he, and was about to go on. “Here am I at home and in my province. Let him question me whoever will: to a dolt, however, I shall hardly answer.”
“Thou art mistaken,” said Zarathustra sympathetically, and held him fast; “thou art mistaken. Here thou art not at home, but in my domain, and therein shall no one receive any hurt.
Call me however what thou wilt – I am who I must be. I call myself Zarathustra.
Well! Up thither is the way to Zarathustra’s cave: it is not far, – wilt thou not attend to thy wounds at my home?
It hath gone badly with thee, thou unfortunate one, in this life: first a beast bit thee, and then – a man trod upon thee!” —
When however the trodden one had heard the name of Zarathustra he was transformed. “What happeneth unto me!” he exclaimed, “WHO preoccupieth me so much in this life as this one man, namely Zarathustra, and that one animal that liveth on blood, the leech?
For the sake of the leech did I lie here by this swamp, like a fisher, and already had mine outstretched arm been bitten ten times, when there biteth a still finer leech at my blood, Zarathustra himself!
O happiness! O miracle! Praised be this day which enticed me into the swamp! Praised be the best, the livest cupping-glass, that at present liveth; praised be the great conscience-leech Zarathustra!” —
Thus spake the trodden one, and Zarathustra rejoiced at his words and their refined reverential style. “Who art thou?” asked he, and gave him his hand, “there is much to clear up and elucidate between us, but already methinketh pure clear day is dawning.”
“I am THE SPIRITUALLY CONSCIENTIOUS ONE,” answered he who was asked, “and in matters of the spirit it is difficult for any one to take it more rigorously, more restrictedly, and more severely than I, except him from whom I learnt it, Zarathustra himself.
Better know nothing than half-know many things! Better be a fool on one’s own account, than a sage on other people’s approbation! I – go to the basis:
– What matter if it be great or small? If it be called swamp or sky? A handbreadth of basis is enough for me, if it be actually basis and ground!
– A handbreadth of basis: thereon can one stand. In the true knowing-knowledge there is nothing great and nothing small.”
“Then thou art perhaps an expert on the leech?” asked Zarathustra; “and thou investigatest the leech to its ultimate basis, thou conscientious one?”
“O Zarathustra,” answered the trodden one, “that would be something immense; how could I presume to do so!
That, however, of which I am master and knower, is the BRAIN of the leech: – that is MY world!
And it is also a world! Forgive it, however, that my pride here findeth expression, for here I have not mine equal. Therefore said I: ‘here am I at home.’
How long have I investigated this one thing, the brain of the leech, so that here the slippery truth might no longer slip from me! Here is MY domain!
– For the sake of this did I cast everything else aside, for the sake of this did everything else become indifferent to me; and close beside my knowledge lieth my black ignorance.
My spiritual conscience requireth from me that it should be so – that I should know one thing, and not know all else: they are a loathing unto me, all the semi-spiritual, all the hazy, hovering, and visionary.
Where mine honesty ceaseth, there am I blind, and want also to be blind. Where I want to know, however, there want I also to be honest – namely, severe, rigorous, restricted, cruel and inexorable.
Because THOU once saidest, O Zarathustra: ‘Spirit is life which itself cutteth into life’; – that led and allured me to thy doctrine. And verily, with mine own blood have I increased mine own knowledge!”
– “As the evidence indicateth,” broke in Zarathustra; for still was the blood flowing down on the naked arm of the conscientious one. For there had ten leeches bitten into it.
“O thou strange fellow, how much doth this very evidence teach me – namely, thou thyself! And not all, perhaps, might I pour into thy rigorous ear!
Well then! We part here! But I would fain find thee again. Up thither is the way to my cave: to-night shalt thou there be my welcome guest!
Fain would I also make amends to thy body for Zarathustra treading upon thee with his feet: I think about that. Just now, however, a cry of distress calleth me hastily away from thee.”
Thus spake Zarathustra.
LXV. THE MAGICIAN
1
When however Zarathustra had gone round a rock, then saw he on the same path, not far below him, a man who threw his limbs about like a maniac, and at last tumbled to the ground on his belly. “Halt!” said then Zarathustra to his heart, “he there must surely be the higher man, from him came that dreadful cry of distress, – I will see if I can help him.” When, however, he ran to the spot where the man lay on the ground, he found a trembling old man, with fixed eyes; and in spite of all Zarathustra’s efforts to lift him and set him again on his feet, it was all in vain. The unfortunate one, also, did not seem to notice that some one was beside him; on the contrary, he continually looked around with moving gestures, like one forsaken and isolated from all the world. At last, however, after much trembling, and convulsion, and curling-himself-up, he began to lament thus:
Who warm’th me, who lov’th me still?
Give ardent fingers!
Give heartening charcoal-warmers!
Prone, outstretched, trembling,
Like him, half dead and cold, whose feet one warm’th —
And shaken, ah! by unfamiliar fevers,
Shivering with sharpened, icy-cold frost-arrows,
By thee pursued, my fancy!
Ineffable! Recondite! Sore-frightening!
Thou huntsman ‘hind the cloud-banks!
Now lightning-struck by thee,
Thou mocking eye that me in darkness watcheth:
– Thus do I lie,
Bend myself, twist myself, convulsed
With all eternal torture,
And smitten
By thee, cruellest huntsman,
Thou unfamiliar – GOD…
Smite deeper!
Smite yet once more!
Pierce through and rend my heart!
What mean’th this torture
With dull, indented arrows?
Why look’st thou hither,
Of human pain not weary,
With mischief-loving, godly flash-glances?
Not murder wilt thou,
But torture, torture?
For why – ME torture,
Thou mischief-loving, unfamiliar God? —
Ha! Ha!
Thou stealest nigh
In midnight’s gloomy hour?..
What wilt thou?
Speak!
Thou crowdst me, pressest —
Ha! now far too closely!
Thou hearst me breathing,
Thou o’erhearst my heart,
Thou ever jealous one!
– Of what, pray, ever jealous?
Off! Off!
For why the ladder?
Wouldst thou GET IN?
To heart in-clamber?
To mine own secretest
Conceptions in-clamber?
Shameless one! Thou unknown one! – Thief!
What seekst thou by thy stealing?
What seekst thou by thy hearkening?
What seekst thou by thy torturing?
Thou torturer!
Thou – hangman-God!
Or shall I, as the mastiffs do,
Roll me before thee?
And cringing, enraptured, frantical,
My tail friendly – waggle!
In vain!
Goad further!
Cruellest goader!
No dog – thy game just am I,
Cruellest huntsman!
Thy proudest of captives,
Thou robber ‘hind the cloud-banks…
Speak finally!
Thou lightning-veiled one! Thou unknown one! Speak!
What wilt thou, highway-ambusher, from – ME?
What WILT thou, unfamiliar – God?
What?
Ransom-gold?
How much of ransom-gold?
Solicit much – that bid’th my pride!
And be concise – that bid’th mine other pride!
Ha! Ha!
ME – wantst thou? me?
– Entire?..
Ha! Ha!
And torturest me, fool that thou art,
Dead-torturest quite my pride?
Give LOVE to me – who warm’th me still?
Who lov’th me still? —
Give ardent fingers
Give heartening charcoal-warmers,
Give me, the lonesomest,
The ice (ah! seven-fold frozen ice
For very enemies,
For foes, doth make one thirst).
Give, yield to me,
Cruellest foe,
– THYSELF! —
Away!
There fled he surely,
My final, only comrade,
My greatest foe,
Mine unfamiliar —
My hangman-God!..
– Nay!
Come thou back!
WITH all of thy great tortures!
To me the last of lonesome ones,
Oh, come thou back!
All my hot tears in streamlets trickle
Their course to thee!
And all my final hearty fervour —
Up-glow’th to THEE!
Oh, come thou back,
Mine unfamiliar God! my PAIN!
My final bliss!
2
– Here, however, Zarathustra could no longer restrain himself; he took his staff and struck the wailer with all his might. “Stop this,” cried he to him with wrathful laughter, “stop this, thou stage-player! Thou false coiner! Thou liar from the very heart! I know thee well!
I will soon make warm legs to thee, thou evil magician: I know well how – to make it hot for such as thou!”
– “Leave off,” said the old man, and sprang up from the ground, “strike me no more, O Zarathustra! I did it only for amusement!
That kind of thing belongeth to mine art. Thee thyself, I wanted to put to the proof when I gave this performance. And verily, thou hast well detected me!
But thou thyself – hast given me no small proof of thyself: thou art HARD, thou wise Zarathustra! Hard strikest thou with thy ‘truths,’ thy cudgel forceth from me – THIS truth!”
– “Flatter not,” answered Zarathustra, still excited and frowning, “thou stage-player from the heart! Thou art false: why speakest thou – of truth!
Thou peacock of peacocks, thou sea of vanity; WHAT didst thou represent before me, thou evil magician; WHOM was I meant to believe in when thou wailedst in such wise?”
“THE PENITENT IN SPIRIT,” said the old man, “it was him – I represented; thou thyself once devisedst this expression —
– The poet and magician who at last turneth his spirit against himself, the transformed one who freezeth to death by his bad science and conscience.
And just acknowledge it: it was long, O Zarathustra, before thou discoveredst my trick and lie! Thou BELIEVEDST in my distress when thou heldest my head with both thy hands, —
– I heard thee lament ‘we have loved him too little, loved him too little!’ Because I so far deceived thee, my wickedness rejoiced in me.”
“Thou mayest have deceived subtler ones than I,” said Zarathustra sternly. “I am not on my guard against deceivers; I HAVE TO BE without precaution: so willeth my lot.
Thou, however, – MUST deceive: so far do I know thee! Thou must ever be equivocal, trivocal, quadrivocal, and quinquivocal! Even what thou hast now confessed, is not nearly true enough nor false enough for me!
Thou bad false coiner, how couldst thou do otherwise! Thy very malady wouldst thou whitewash if thou showed thyself naked to thy physician.
Thus didst thou whitewash thy lie before me when thou saidst: ‘I did so ONLY for amusement!’ There was also SERIOUSNESS therein, thou ART something of a penitent-in-spirit!
I divine thee well: thou hast become the enchanter of all the world; but for thyself thou hast no lie or artifice left, – thou art disenchanted to thyself!
Thou hast reaped disgust as thy one truth. No word in thee is any longer genuine, but thy mouth is so: that is to say, the disgust that cleaveth unto thy mouth.” —
– “Who art thou at all!” cried here the old magician with defiant voice, “who dareth to speak thus unto ME, the greatest man now living?” – and a green flash shot from his eye at Zarathustra. But immediately after he changed, and said sadly:
“O Zarathustra, I am weary of it, I am disgusted with mine arts, I am not GREAT, why do I dissemble! But thou knowest it well – I sought for greatness!
A great man I wanted to appear, and persuaded many; but the lie hath been beyond my power. On it do I collapse.
O Zarathustra, everything is a lie in me; but that I collapse – this my collapsing is GENUINE!” —
“It honoureth thee,” said Zarathustra gloomily, looking down with sidelong glance, “it honoureth thee that thou soughtest for greatness, but it betrayeth thee also. Thou art not great.
Thou bad old magician, THAT is the best and the honestest thing I honour in thee, that thou hast become weary of thyself, and hast expressed it: ‘I am not great.’
THEREIN do I honour thee as a penitent-in-spirit, and although only for the twinkling of an eye, in that one moment wast thou – genuine.
But tell me, what seekest thou here in MY forests and rocks? And if thou hast put thyself in MY way, what proof of me wouldst thou have? —
– Wherein didst thou put ME to the test?”
Thus spake Zarathustra, and his eyes sparkled. But the old magician kept silence for a while; then said he: “Did I put thee to the test? I – seek only.
O Zarathustra, I seek a genuine one, a right one, a simple one, an unequivocal one, a man of perfect honesty, a vessel of wisdom, a saint of knowledge, a great man!
Knowest thou it not, O Zarathustra? I SEEK ZARATHUSTRA.”
– And here there arose a long silence between them: Zarathustra, however, became profoundly absorbed in thought, so that he shut his eyes. But afterwards coming back to the situation, he grasped the hand of the magician, and said, full of politeness and policy:
“Well! Up thither leadeth the way, there is the cave of Zarathustra. In it mayest thou seek him whom thou wouldst fain find.
And ask counsel of mine animals, mine eagle and my serpent: they shall help thee to seek. My cave however is large.
I myself, to be sure – I have as yet seen no great man. That which is great, the acutest eye is at present insensible to it. It is the kingdom of the populace.
Many a one have I found who stretched and inflated himself, and the people cried: ‘Behold; a great man!’ But what good do all bellows do! The wind cometh out at last.
At last bursteth the frog which hath inflated itself too long: then cometh out the wind. To prick a swollen one in the belly, I call good pastime. Hear that, ye boys!
Our to-day is of the populace: who still KNOWETH what is great and what is small! Who could there seek successfully for greatness! A fool only: it succeedeth with fools.
Thou seekest for great men, thou strange fool? Who TAUGHT that to thee? Is to-day the time for it? Oh, thou bad seeker, why dost thou – tempt me?” —
Thus spake Zarathustra, comforted in his heart, and went laughing on his way.