{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_52190/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_52190","id":"gutenberg_52190","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52190","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900","Philosophers -- Germany -- Biography"],"text":"ECCE HOMO\n\n(_NIETZSCHES AUTOBIOGRAPHY_)\n\nBY\n\nFRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE\n\n\nTRANSLATED BY\n\nANTHONY M. LUDOVICI\n\n\nPOETRY RENDERED BY\n\nPAUL V. COHN -- FRANCIS BICKLEY\n\nHERMAN SCHEFFAUER -- DR. G. T. WRENCH\n\nHYMN TO LIFE (_composed by F. NIETZSCHE_)\n\n\nThe Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche\n\nThe First Complete and Authorised English Translation\n\nEdited by Dr Oscar Levy\n\nVolume Seventeen\n\nT.N. FOULIS\n\n13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET\n\nEDINBURGH: AND LONDON\n\n1911\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nTRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION\nAUTHOR'S PREFACE\nWHY I AM SO WISE\nWHY I AM SO CLEVER\nWHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS\n    The Birth of Tragedy\n    Thoughts out of Season\n    Human, All-too-Human\n    The Dawn of Day\n    The Joyful Wisdom\n    Thus spake Zarathustra\n    Beyond Good and Evil\n    The Genealogy of Morals\n    The Twilight of the Idols\n    The Case of Wagner\nWHY I AM A FATALITY\nEDITORIAL NOTE TO POETRY\nPOETRY--\n    Songs, Epigrams, etc.\n    Dionysus-Dithyrambs\n    Fragments of Dionysus-Dithyrambs\nHYMN TO LIFE, COMPOSED BY F. NIETZSCHE\n\n\n\n\nTRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION\n\n\n_Ecce Homo_ is the last prose work that Nietzsche wrote. It is true\nthat the pamphlet _Nietzsche contra Wagner_ was prepared a month\nlater than the Autobiography; but we cannot consider this pamphlet as\nanything more than a compilation, seeing that it consists entirely of\naphorisms drawn from such previous works as _Joyful Wisdom, Beyond\nGood and Evil, The Genealogy of Morals,_ etc. Coming at the end of a\nyear in which he had produced the _Case of Wagner, The Twilight of the\nIdols,_ and _The Antichrist, Ecce Homo_ is not only a coping-stone\nworthy of the wonderful creations of that year, but also a fitting\nconclusion to his whole life, in the form of a grand summing up of his\ncharacter as a man, his purpose as a reformer, and his achievement\nas a thinker. As if half conscious of his approaching spiritual end,\nNietzsche here bids his friends farewell, just in the manner in which,\nin the _Twilight of the Idols_ (Aph. 36, Part ix.), he declares that\nevery one should be able to take leave of his circle of relatives and\nintimates when his time seems to have come--that is to say, while he\nis still _himself_ while he still knows what he is about, and is able\nto measure his own life and life in general, and speak of both in a\nmanner which is not vouchsafed to the groaning invalid, to the man\nlying on his back, decrepit and exhausted, or to the moribund victim\nof some wasting disease. Nietzsche's spiritual death, like his whole\nlife, was in singular harmony with his doctrine: he died suddenly\nand proudly,--sword in hand. War, which he--and he alone among all\nthe philosophers of Christendom--had praised so whole-heartedly, at\nlast struck him down in the full vigour of his manhood, and left him\na victim on the battlefield--the terrible battlefield of thought, on\nwhich there is no quarter, and for which no Geneva Convention has yet\nbeen established or even thought of.\n\nTo those who know Nietzsche's life-work, no apology will be needed\nfor the form and content of this wonderful work. They will know, at\nleast, that a man either is, or is not, aware of his significance and\nof the significance of what he has accomplished, and that if he is\naware of it, then self-realisation, even of the kind which we find\nin these pages, is neither morbid nor suspicious, but necessary and\ninevitable. Such chapter headings as \"Why I am so Wise,\" \"Why I am a\nFatality,\" \"Why I write such Excellent Books,\"--however much they may\nhave disturbed the equanimity, and \"objectivity\" in particular, of\ncertain Nietzsche biographers, can be regarded as pathological only\nin a democratic age in which people have lost all sense of graduation\nand rank and in which the virtues of modesty and humility have to be\npreached far and wide as a corrective against the vulgar pretensions of\nthousands of wretched nobodies. For little people can be endured only\nas modest citizens; or humble Christians. If, however, they demand a\nlike modesty on the part of the truly great; if they raise their voices\nagainst Nietzsche's lack of the very virtue they so abundantly possess\nor pretend to possess, it is time to remind them of Goethe's famous\nremark: \"_Nur Lumpe sind bescheiden_\" (Only nobodies are ever modest).\n\nIt took Nietzsche barely three weeks to write this story of his life.\nBegun on the 15th of October 1888, his four-and-fourtieth birthday,\nit was finished on the 4th of November of the same year, and, but\nfor a few trifling modifications and additions, is just as Nietzsche\nleft it. It was not published in Germany until the year 1908, eight\nyears after Nietzsche's death. In a letter dated the 27th of December\n1888, addressed to the musical composer Fuchs, the author declares\nthe object of the work to be to dispose of all discussion, doubt, and\ninquiry concerning his own personality, in order to leave the public\nmind free to consider merely \"the things for the sake of which he\nexisted\" (\"_die Dinge, derentwegen ich da bin_\"). And, true to his\nintention, Nietzsche's honesty in these pages is certainly one of\nthe most remarkable features about them. From the first chapter, in\nwhich he frankly acknowledges the decadent elements within him, to\nthe last page, whereon he characterises his mission, his life-task,\nand his achievement, by means of the one symbol, _Dionysus_ versus\n_Christ,_--everything comes straight from the shoulder, without\nhesitation, without fear of consequences, and, above all, without\nconcealment. Only in one place does he appear to conceal something, and\nthen he actually leads one to understand that he is doing so. It is in\nregard to Wagner, the greatest friend of his life. \"Who doubts,\" he\nsays, \"that I, old artillery-man that I am, would be able if I liked to\npoint my heavy guns at Wagner?\"--But he adds: \"Everything decisive in\nthis question I kept to myself--I have loved Wagner\" (p. 122).\n\nTo point, as many have done, to the proximity of all Nietzsche's autumn\nwork of the year 1888 to his breakdown at the beginning of 1889, and\nto argue that in all its main features it foretells the catastrophe\nthat is imminent, seems a little too plausible, a little too obvious\nand simple to require refutation. That Nietzsche really was in a state\nwhich in medicine is known as _euphoria_--that is to say, that state\nof highest well-being and capacity which often precedes a complete\nbreakdown, cannot, I suppose, be questioned; for his style, his\npenetrating vision, and his vigour, reach their zenith in the works\nwritten in this autumn of 1888; but the contention that the matter, the\nsubstance, of these works reveals any signs whatsoever of waning mental\nhealth, or, as a certain French biographer has it, of an inability to\n\"hold himself and his judgments in check,\" is best contradicted by\nthe internal evidence itself. To take just a few examples at random,\nexamine the cold and calculating tone of self-analysis in Chapter I. of\nthe present work; consider the reserve and the restraint with which the\nidea in Aphorism 7 of that chapter is worked out,--not to speak of the\nrestraint and self-mastery in the idea itself, namely:--\n\n\"To be one's enemy's equal--this is the first condition of an\nhonourable duel. Where one despises one cannot wage war. Where one\ncommands, where one sees something beneath one, one ought not to wage\nwar. My war tactics can be reduced to four principles: First, I attack\nonly things that are triumphant--if necessary I wait until they become\ntriumphant. Secondly, I attack only those things against which I find\nno allies, against which I stand alone--against which I compromise\nnobody but myself.... Thirdly, I never make personal attacks--I use a\npersonality merely as a magnifying-glass, by means of which I render a\ngeneral, but elusive and scarcely noticeable evil, more apparent....\nFourthly, I attack only those things from which all personal\ndifferences are excluded, in which any such thing as a background of\ndisagreeable experiences is lacking.\"\n\nAnd now notice the gentleness with which, in Chapter II., Wagner--the\nsupposed mortal enemy, the supposed envied rival to Nietzsche--is\ntreated. Are these the words and the thoughts of a man who Has lost, or\nwho is losing control?\n\nAnd even if we confine ourselves simply to the substance of this work\nand put the question--Is it a new Nietzsche or the old Nietzsche that\nwe find in these pages? Is it the old countenance with which we are\nfamiliar, or are the features distorted, awry, disfigured? What will\nthe answer be? Obviously there is no new or even deformed Nietzsche\nhere, because he is still faithful to the position which he assumed\nin _Thus spake Zarathustra,_ five years previously, and is perfectly\nconscious of this fidelity (see p. 141); neither can he be even on the\nverge of any marked change, because the whole of the third chapter,\nin which he reviews his life-work, is simply a reiteration and a\nconfirmation of his old points of view, which are here made all the\nmore telling by additional arguments suggested, no doubt, by maturer\nthought. In fact, if anything at all is new in this work, it is its\ncool certainty, its severe deliberateness, and its extraordinarily\nincisive vision, as shown, for instance, in the summing up of the\ngenuine import of the third and fourth essays in the _Thoughts out of\nSeason_ (pp. 75-76, 80, 81, 82), a summing up which a most critical\nanalysis of the essays in question can but verify. Romanticism,\nidealism, Christianity, are still scorned and despised; another\noutlook, a nobler, braver, and more earthly outlook, is still upheld\nand revered; the great yea to life, including all that it contains\nthat is terrible and questionable, is still pronounced in the teeth of\npessimists, nihilists, anarchists, Christians, and other decadents; and\nGermany, \"Europe's flatland,\" is still subjected to the most relentless\ncriticism. If there are any signs of change, besides those of mere\ngrowth, in this work, they certainly succeed in eluding the most\ncareful search, undertaken with a full knowledge of Nietzsche's former\nopinions, and it would be interesting to know precisely where they are\nfound by those writers whom the titles of the chapters, alone, seem so\nradically to have perturbed.\n\nBut the most striking thing of all, the miracle, so to speak, of this\nautobiography, is the absence from it of that loathing, that suggestion\nof surfeit, with which a life such as the one Nietzsche had led, would\nhave filled any other man even of power approximate to his own. This\nanchorite, who, in the last years of his life as a healthy human being,\nsuffered the experience of seeing even his oldest friends, including\nRhode, show the most complete indifference to his lot, this wrestler\nwith Fate, for whom recognition, in the persons of Brandes, Taine, and\nStrindberg, had come all too late, and whom even support, sympathy, and\nhelp, arriving as it did at last, through Deussen and from Madame de\nSalis Marschlins, could no longer cheer or comfort,--this was the man\nwho was able notwithstanding to inscribe the device _amor fati_ upon\nhis shield on the very eve of his final collapse as a victim of the\nunspeakable suffering he had endured.\n\nAnd this final collapse might easily have been foreseen. Nietzsche's\nsensorium, as his autobiography proves, was probably the most delicate\ninstrument ever possessed by a human being; and with this fragile\nstructure--the prerequisite, by the bye, of all genius,--his terrible\nwill compelled him to confront the most profound and most recondite\nproblems. We happen to know from another artist and profound thinker,\nBenjamin Disraeli, who himself had experienced a dangerous breakdown,\nwhat the consequences precisely are of indulging in excessive activity\nin the sphere of the spirit, more particularly when that spirit is\nhighly organised. Disraeli says in _Contarini Fleming_ (Part iv. chap.\nv.):--\n\n    \"I have sometimes half believed, although the suspicion is\n    mortifying, that there is only one step between his state\n    who deeply indulges in imaginative meditation, and insanity;\n    for I well remember that at this period of my life, when\n    I indulged in meditation to a degree that would now be\n    impossible, and I hope unnecessary, my senses sometimes\n    appeared to be wandering.\"\n\nAnd artists are the proper judges of artists,--not Oxford Dons, like\nDr. Schiller, who, in his imprudent attempt at dealing with something\nfor which his pragmatic hands are not sufficiently delicate, eagerly\nav-ails himself of popular help in his article on Nietzsche in the\neleventh edition of the _Encyclopedia Britannica,_ and implies the\nhackneyed and wholly exploded belief that Nietzsche's philosophy is\nmadness in the making. As German philosophies, however, are said to\ngo to Oxford only when they die, we may, perhaps, conclude from this\nwant of appreciation in that quarter, how very much alive Nietzsche's\ndoctrine still is.\n\nNot that Nietzsche went mad so soon, but that he went mad so late is\nthe wonder of wonders. Considering the extraordinary amount of work\nhe did, the great task of the transvaluation of all values, which he\nactually accomplished, and the fact that he endured such long years\nof solitude, which to him, the sensitive artist to whom friends were\neverything, must have been a terrible hardship, we can only wonder at\nhis great health, and can well believe his sister's account of the\nphenomenal longevity and bodily vigour of his ancestors.\n\nNo one, however, who is initiated, no one who reads this work with\nunderstanding, will be in need of this introductory note of mine; for,\nto all who know, these pages must speak for themselves. We are no\nlonger in the nineteenth century. We have learned many things since\nthen, and if caution is only one of these things, at least it will\nprevent us from judging a book such as this one, with all its apparent\npontifical pride and surging self-reliance, with undue haste, or with\nthat arrogant assurance with which the ignorance of \"the humble\" and\n\"the modest\" has always confronted everything truly great.\n\nANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\n1\n\nAs it is my intention within a very short time to confront my\nfellow-men with the very greatest demand that has ever yet been made\nupon them, it seems to me _above_ all necessary to declare here who\nand what I am. As a matter of fact, this ought to be pretty well\nknown already, for I have not \"held my tongue\" about myself. But\nthe disparity which obtains between the greatness of my task and the\nsmallness of my contemporaries, is revealed by the fact that people\nhave neither heard me nor yet seen me. I live on my own self-made\ncredit, and it is probably only a prejudice to suppose that I am alive\nat all. I do but require to speak to any one of the scholars who come\nto the Ober-Engadine in the summer in order to convince myself that I\nam _not_ alive.... Under these circumstances, it is a duty--and one\nagainst which my customary reserve, and to a still greater degree the\npride of my instincts, rebel--to say: _Listen! for I am such and such a\nperson. For Heaven's sake do not confound me with any one else!_\n\n\n\n2\n\nI am, for instance, in no wise a bogey man, or moral monster. On the\ncontrary, I am the very opposite in nature to the kind of man that\nhas been honoured hitherto as virtuous. Between ourselves, it seems\nto me that this is precisely a matter on which I may feel proud. I\nam a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, and I would prefer to be\neven a satyr than a saint. But just read this book! Maybe I have here\nsucceeded in expressing this contrast in a cheerful and at the same\ntime sympathetic manner--maybe this is the only purpose of the present\nwork.\n\nThe very last thing I should promise to accomplish would be to\n\"improve\" mankind. I do not set up any new idols; may old idols only\nlearn what it costs to have legs of clay. To overthrow idols (idols\nis the name I give to all ideals) is much more like my business. In\nproportion as an ideal world has been falsely assumed, reality has been\nrobbed of its value, its meaning, and its truthfulness.... The \"true\nworld\" and the \"apparent world\"--in plain English, the fictitious world\nand reality.... Hitherto the _lie_ of the ideal has been the curse of\nreality; by means of it the very source of mankind's instincts has\nbecome mendacious and false; so much so that those values have come to\nbe worshipped which are the exact _opposite_ of the ones which would\nensure man's prosperity, his future, and his great right to a future.\n\n\n\n3\n\nHe who knows how to breathe in the air of my writings is conscious\nthat it is the air of the heights, that it is bracing. A man must be\nbuilt for it, otherwise the chances are that it will chill him. The\nice is near, the loneliness is terrible--but how serenely everything\nlies in the sunshine! how freely one can breathe! how much, one feels,\nlies beneath one! Philosophy, as I have understood it hitherto, is\na voluntary retirement into regions of ice and mountain-peaks--the\nseeking--out of everything strange and questionable in existence,\neverything upon which, hitherto, morality has set its ban. Through\nlong experience, derived from such wanderings in forbidden country, I\nacquired an opinion very different from that which may seem generally\ndesirable, of the causes which hitherto have led to men's moralising\nand idealising. The secret history of philosophers, the psychology of\ntheir great names, was revealed to me. How much truth can a certain\nmind endure; how much truth can it dare?--these questions became for\nme ever more and more the actual test of values. Error (the belief in\nthe ideal) is not blindness; error is cowardice.... Every conquest,\nevery step forward in knowledge, is the outcome of courage, of hardness\ntowards one's self, of cleanliness towards one's self. I do not refute\nideals; all I do is to draw on my gloves in their presence.... _Nitimur\nin vetitum;_ with this device my philosophy will one day be victorious;\nfor that which has hitherto been most stringently forbidden is, without\nexception, Truth.\n\n\n\n4\n\nIn my lifework, my _Zarathustra_ holds a place apart. With it, I gave\nmy fellow-men the greatest gift that has ever been bestowed upon them.\nThis book, the voice of which speaks out across the ages, is not only\nthe loftiest book on earth, literally the book of mountain air,--the\nwhole phenomenon, mankind, lies at an incalculable distance beneath\nit,--but it is also the deepest book, born of the inmost abundance of\ntruth; an inexhaustible well, into which no pitcher can be lowered\nwithout coming up again laden with gold and with goodness. Here it is\nnot a \"prophet\" who speaks, one of those gruesome hybrids of sickness\nand Will to Power, whom men call founders of religions. If a man would\nnot do a sad wrong to his wisdom, he must, above all give proper\nheed to the tones--the halcyonic tones--that fall from the lips of\nZarathustra:--\n\n\"The most silent words are harbingers of the storm; thoughts that come\non dove's feet lead the world.\n\n\"The figs fall from the trees; they are good and sweet, and, when they\nfall, their red skins are rent.\n\n\"A north wind am I unto ripe figs.\n\n\"Thus, like figs, do these precepts drop down to you, my friends; now\ndrink their juice and their sweet pulp.\n\n\"It is autumn all around, and clear sky, and afternoon.\"\n\nNo fanatic speaks to you here; this is not a \"sermon\"; no faith is\ndemanded in these pages. From out an infinite treasure of light and\nwell of joy, drop by drop, my words fall out--a slow and gentle gait\nis the cadence of these discourses. Such things can reach only the\nmost elect; it is a rare privilege to be a listener here; not every\none who likes can have ears to hear Zarathustra. Is not Zarathustra,\nbecause of these things, a _seducer?_ ... But what, indeed, does he\nhimself say, when for the first time he goes back to his solitude? Just\nthe reverse of that which any \"Sage,\" \"Saint,\" \"Saviour of the world,\"\nand other decadent would say.... Not only his words, but he himself is\nother than they.\n\n\"Alone do I now go, my disciples! Get ye also hence, and alone! Thus\nwould I have it.\n\n\"Verily, I beseech you: take your leave of me and arm yourselves\nagainst Zarathustra! And better still, be ashamed of him! Maybe he hath\ndeceived you.\n\n\"The knight of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but\nalso to hate his friends.\n\n\"The man who remaineth a pupil requiteth his teacher but ill. And why\nwould ye not pluck at my wreath?\n\n\"Ye honour me; but what if your reverence should one day break down?\nTake heed, lest a statue crush you.\n\n\"Ye say ye believe in Zarathustra? But of; what account is Zarathustra?\nYe are my believers: but of what account are all believers?\n\n\"Ye had not yet sought yourselves when ye found me. Thus do all\nbelievers; therefore is all believing worth so little.\n\n\"Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when ye have all\ndenied me will I come back unto you.\"\n\nFRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.\n\n\n\n\n\nOn this perfect day, when everything is ripening, and not only the\ngrapes are getting brown, a ray of sunshine has fallen on my life: I\nlooked behind me, I looked before me, and never have I seen so many\ngood things all at once. Not in vain have I buried my four-and-fortieth\nyear to-day; I had the _right_ to bury it--that in it which still\nhad life, has been saved and is immortal. The first book of the\n_Transvaluation of all Values, The Songs of Zarathustra, The Twilight\nof the Idols,_ my attempt, to philosophise with the hammer--all these\nthings are the gift of this year, and even of its last quarter. _How\ncould I help being thankful to the whole of my life?_\n\nThat is why I am now going to tell myself the story of my life.\n\n\n\n\nECCE HOMO\n\n\nHOW ONE BECOMES WHAT ONE IS\n\n\n\n\nWHY I AM SO WISE\n\n\n\n1\n\n\nThe happiness of my existence, its unique character perhaps, consists\nin its fatefulness: to speak in a riddle, as my own father I am already\ndead, as my own mother I still live and grow old. This double origin,\ntaken as it were from the highest and lowest rungs of the ladder of\nlife, at once a decadent and a beginning, this, if anything, explains\nthat neutrality, that freedom from partisanship in regard to the\ngeneral problem of existence, which perhaps distinguishes me. To the\nfirst indications of ascending or of descending life my nostrils are\nmore sensitive than those of any man that has yet lived. In this domain\nI am a master to my backbone--I know both sides, for I am both sides.\nMy father died in his six-and-thirtieth year: he was delicate, lovable,\nand morbid, like one who is preordained to pay simply a flying visit--a\ngracious reminder of life rather than life itself. In the same year\nthat his life declined mine also declined: in my six-and-thirtieth year\nI reached the lowest point in my vitality,--I still lived, but my eyes\ncould distinguish nothing that lay three paces away from me. At that\ntime--it was the year 1879--I resigned my professorship at B\u00e2le, lived\nthrough the summer like a shadow in St. Moritz, and spent the following\nwinter, the most sunless of my life, like a shadow in Naumburg. This\nwas my lowest ebb. During this period I wrote _The Wanderer and His\nShadow._ Without a doubt I was conversant with shadows then. The winter\nthat followed, my first winter in Genoa, brought forth that sweetness\nand spirituality which is almost inseparable from extreme poverty\nof blood and muscle, in the shape of _The Dawn of Day,_ The perfect\nlucidity and cheerfulness, the intellectual exuberance even, that this\nwork reflects, coincides, in my case, not only with the most profound\nphysiological weakness, but also with an excess of suffering. In the\nmidst of the agony of a headache which lasted three days, accompanied\nby violent nausea, I was possessed of most singular dialectical\nclearness, and in absolutely cold blood I then thought out things, for\nwhich, in my more healthy moments, I am not enough of a climber, not\nsufficiently subtle, not sufficiently cold. My readers perhaps know\nto what extent I consider dialectic a symptom of decadence, as, for\ninstance, in the most famous of all cases--the case of Socrates. All\nthe morbid disturbances of the intellect, even that semi-stupor which\naccompanies fever, have, unto this day, remained completely unknown to\nme; and for my first information concerning their nature and frequency,\nI was obliged to have recourse to the learned works which have been\ncompiled on the subject. My circulation is slow. No one has ever been\nable to detect fever in me. A doctor who treated me for some time as\na nerve patient finally declared: \"No! there is nothing wrong with\nyour nerves, it is simply I who am nervous.\" It has been absolutely\nimpossible to ascertain any local degeneration in me, nor any organic\nstomach trouble, however much I may have suffered from profound\nweakness of the gastric system as the result of general exhaustion.\nEven my eye trouble, which sometimes approached so parlously near\nto blindness, was only an effect and not a cause; for, whenever my\ngeneral vital condition improved, my power of vision also increased.\nHaving admitted all this, do I need to say that I am experienced in\nquestions of decadence? I know them inside and out. Even that filigree\nart of prehension and comprehension in general, that feeling for\ndelicate shades of difference, that psychology of \"seeing through brick\nwalls,\" and whatever else I may be able to do, was first learnt then,\nand is the specific gift of that period during which everything in\nme was subtilised,--observation itself, together with all the organs\nof observation. To look upon healthier concepts and values from the\nstandpoint of the sick, and conversely to look down upon the secret\nwork of the instincts of decadence from the standpoint of him who is\nladen and self-reliant with the richness of life--this has been my\nlongest exercise, my principal experience. If in anything at all, it\nwas in this that I became a master. To-day my hand knows the trick, I\nnow have the knack of reversing perspectives: the first reason perhaps\nwhy a _Transvaluation of all Values_ has been possible to me alone.\n\n\n\n2\n\n\nFor, apart from the fact that I am a decadent, I am also the reverse of\nsuch a creature. Among other things my proof of this is, that I always\ninstinctively select the proper remedy when my spiritual or bodily\nhealth is low; whereas the decadent, as such, invariably chooses those\nremedies which are bad for him. As a whole I was sound, but in certain\ndetails I was a decadent. That energy with which I sentenced myself\nto absolute solitude, and to a severance from all those conditions in\nlife to which I had grown accustomed; my discipline of myself, and my\nrefusal to allow myself to be pampered, to be tended hand and foot, and\nto be doctored--all this betrays the absolute certainty of my instincts\nrespecting what at that time was most needful to me. I placed myself\nin my own hands, I restored myself to health: the first condition of\nsuccess in such an undertaking, as every physiologist will admit, is\nthat at bottom a man should be sound. An intrinsically morbid nature\ncannot become healthy. On the other hand, to an intrinsically sound\nnature, illness may even constitute a powerful stimulus to life, to\na surplus of life. It is in this light that I now regard the long\nperiod of illness that I endured: it seemed as if I had discovered\nlife afresh, my own self included. I tasted all good things and even\ntrifles in a way in which it was not easy for others to taste them--out\nof my Will to Health and to Life I made my philosophy.... For this\nshould be thoroughly understood; it was during those years in which my\nvitality reached its lowest point that I ceased from being a pessimist:\nthe instinct of self-recovery forbade my holding to a philosophy of\npoverty and desperation. Now, by what signs are Nature's lucky strokes\nrecognised among men? They are recognised by the fact that any such\nlucky stroke gladdens our senses; that he is carved from one integral\nblock, which is hard, sweet, and fragrant as well. He enjoys that only\nwhich is good for him; his pleasure, his desire, ceases when the limits\nof that which is good for him are overstepped. He divines remedies for\ninjuries; he knows how to turn serious accidents to his own advantage;\nthat which does not kill him makes him stronger. He instinctively\ngathers his material from all he sees, hears, and experiences. He is a\nselective principle; he rejects much. He is always in his own company,\nwhether his intercourse be with books, with men, or with natural\nscenery; he honours the things he chooses, the things he acknowledges,\nthe things he trusts. He reacts slowly to all kinds of stimuli, with\nthat tardiness which long caution and deliberate pride have bred in\nhim--he tests the approaching stimulus; he would not dream of meeting\nit half-way. He believes neither in \"ill-luck\" nor \"guilt\"; he can\ndigest himself and others; he knows how to forget--he is strong enough\nto make everything turn to his own advantage.\n\nLo then! I am the very reverse of a decadent, for he whom I have just\ndescribed is none other than myself.\n\n\n\n3\n\n\nThis double thread of experiences, this means of access to two worlds\nthat seem so far asunder, finds in every detail its counterpart in my\nown nature--I am my own complement: I have a \"second\" sight, as well\nas a first. And perhaps I also have a third sight. By the very nature\nof my origin I was allowed an outlook beyond all merely local, merely\nnational and limited horizons; it required no effort on my part to be\na \"good European.\" On the other hand, I am perhaps more German than\nmodern Germans--mere Imperial Germans--can hope to be,--I, the last\nanti-political German. Be this as it may, my ancestors were Polish\nnoblemen: it is owing to them that I have so much race instinct in my\nblood--who knows? perhaps even the _liberum veto_[1] When I think of\nthe number of times in my travels that I have been accosted as a Pole,\neven by Poles themselves, and how seldom I have been taken for a German,\nit seems to me as if I belonged to those only who have a sprinkling\nof German in them. But my mother, Franziska Oehler, is at any rate\nsomething very German; as is also my paternal grandmother, Erdmuthe\nKrause. The latter spent the whole of her youth in good old Weimar,\nnot without coming into contact with Goethe's circle. Her brother,\nKrause, the Professor of Theology in K\u00f6nigsberg, was called to the\npost of General Superintendent at Weimar after Herder's death. It is\nnot unlikely that her mother, my great grandmother, is mentioned in\nyoung Goethe's diary under the name of \"Muthgen.\" She married twice,\nand her second husband was Superintendent Nietzsche of Eilenburg.\nIn 1813, the year of the great war, when Napoleon with his general\nstaff entered Eilenburg on the 10th of October, she gave birth to a\nson. As a daughter of Saxony she was a great admirer of Napoleon, and\nmaybe I am so still. My father, born in 1813, died in 1849. Previous\nto taking over the pastorship of the parish of R\u00f6cken, not far from\nL\u00fctzen, he lived for some years at the Castle of Altenburg, where he\nhad charge of the education of the four princesses. His pupils are the\nQueen of Hanover, the Grand-Duchess Constantine, the Grand-Duchess of\nOldenburg, and the Princess Theresa of Saxe-Altenburg. He was full of\nloyal respect for the Prussian King, Frederick William the Fourth, from\nwhom he obtained his living at R\u00f6cken; the events of 1848 saddened him\nextremely. As I was born on the 15 th of October, the birthday of the\nking above mentioned, I naturally received the Hohenzollern names of\nFrederick William. There was at all events one advantage in the choice\nof this day: my birthday throughout the whole of my childhood was a day\nof public rejoicing. I regard it as a great privilege to have had such\na father: it even seems to me that this embraces all that I can claim\nin the matter of privileges--life, the great yea to life, excepted.\nWhat I owe to him above all is this, that I do not need any special\nintention, but merely a little patience, in order involuntarily to\nenter a world of higher and more delicate things. There I am at home,\nthere alone does my inmost passion become free. The fact that I had\nto pay for this privilege almost with my life, certainly does not\nmake it a bad bargain. In order to understand even a little of _my\nZarathustra,_ perhaps a man must be situated and constituted very much\nas I am myself--with one foot beyond the realm of the living.\n\n\n\n4\n\n\nI have never understood the art of arousing ill-feeling against\nmyself,--this is also something for which I have to thank my\nincomparable father,--even when it seemed to me highly desirable\nto do so. However un-Christian it may seem, I do not even bear any\nill-feeling towards myself. Turn my life about as you may, you will\nfind but seldom--perhaps indeed only once--any trace of some one's\nhaving shown me ill-will. You might perhaps discover, however, too\nmany traces of _goodwill...._ My experiences even with those on whom\nevery other man has burnt his fingers, speak without exception in their\nfavour; I tame every bear, I can make even clowns behave decently.\nDuring the seven years in which I taught Greek to the sixth form of\nthe College at B\u00e2le, I never had occasion to administer a punishment;\nthe laziest youths were diligent in my class. The unexpected has\nalways found me equal to it; I must be unprepared in order to keep my\nself-command. Whatever the instrument was, even if it were as out of\ntune as the instrument \"man\" can possibly be,--it was only when I was\nill that I could not succeed in making it express something that was\nworth hearing. And how often have I not been told by the \"instruments\"\nthemselves, that they had never before heard their voices express such\nbeautiful things.... This was said to me most delightfully perhaps by\nthat young fellow Heinrich von Stein, who died at such an unpardonably\nearly age, and who, after having considerately asked leave to do\nso, once appeared in Sils-Maria for a three days' sojourn, telling\neverybody there that it was _not_ for the Engadine that he had come.\nThis excellent person, who with all the impetuous simplicity of a\nyoung Prussian nobleman, had waded deep into the swamp of Wagnerism\n(and into that of D\u00fcbringism[2] into the bargain!), seemed almost\ntransformed during these three days by a hurricane of freedom, like one\nwho has been suddenly raised to his full height and given wings. Again\nand again I said to him that this was all owing to the splendid air;\neverybody felt the same,--one could not stand 6000 feet above Bayreuth\nfor nothing,--but he would not believe me.... Be this as it may, if\nI have been the victim of many a small or even great offence, it was\nnot \"will,\" and least of all ill-will that actuated the offenders; but\nrather, as I have already suggested, it was goodwill, the cause of no\nsmall amount of mischief in f my life, about which I had to complain.\n_My_ experience gave me a right to feel suspicious in regard to all\nso-called \"unselfish\" instincts, in regard to the whole of \"neighbourly\nlove\" which is ever ready and waiting with deeds or with advice. To\nme it seems that these instincts are a sign of weakness, they are an\nexample of the inability to withstand a stimulus--it is only among\ndecadents that this _pity_ is called a virtue. What I reproach the\npitiful with is, that they are too ready to forget shame, reverence,\nand the delicacy of feeling which knows how to keep at a distance; they\ndo not remember that this gushing pity stinks of the mob, and that it\nis next of kin to bad manners--that pitiful hands may be thrust with\nresults fatally destructive into a great destiny, into a lonely and\nwounded retirement, and into the privileges with which great guilt\nendows one. The overcoming of pity I reckon among the noble virtues;\nIn the \"Temptation of Zarathustra\" I have imagined a case, in which a\ngreat cry of distress reaches his ears, in which pity swoops down upon\nhim like a last sin, and would make him break faith with himself. To\nremain one's own master in such circumstances, to keep the sublimity\nof one's mission pure in such cases,--pure from the many ignoble and\nmore short-sighted impulses which come into play in so-called unselfish\nactions,--this is the rub, the last test perhaps which a Zarathustra\nhas to undergo--the actual proof of his power.\n\n\n\n5\n\n\nIn yet another respect I am no more than my father over again, and as\nit were the continuation of his life after an all-too-early death.\nLike every man who has never been able to meet his equal, and unto\nwhom the concept \"retaliation\" is just as incomprehensible as the\nnotion of \"equal rights,\" I have forbidden myself the use of any sort\nof measure of security or protection--and also, of course, of defence\nand \"justification\"--in all cases in which I have been made the victim\neither of trifling or even _very great_ foolishness. My form of\nretaliation consists in this: as soon as possible to set a piece of\ncleverness at the heels of an act of stupidity; by this means perhaps\nit may still be possible to overtake it. To speak in a parable: I\ndispatch a pot of jam in order to get rid of a bitter experience....\nLet anybody only give me offence, I shall \"retaliate,\" he can be quite\nsure of that: before long I discover an opportunity of expressing my\nthanks to the \"offender\" (among other things even for the offence)--or\nof _asking_ him for something, which can be more courteous even than\ngiving. It also seems to me that the rudest word, the rudest letter,\nis more good-natured, more straightforward, than silence. Those--who\nkeep silent are almost always lacking in subtlety and refinement of\nheart; silence is an objection, to swallow a grievance must necessarily\nproduce a bad temper--it even upsets the stomach. All silent people\nare dyspeptic. You perceive that I should not like to see rudeness\nundervalued; it is by far the most _humane_ form of contradiction, and,\nin the midst of modern effeminacy, it is one of our first virtues; If\none is sufficiently rich for it, it may even be a joy to be wrong. If\na god were to descend to this earth, he would have to do nothing but\nwrong--to take _guilt_ not punishment, on one's shoulders, is the first\nproof of divinity.\n\n\n\n6\n\n\nFreedom from resentment and the understanding of the nature of\nresentment--who knows how very much after all I am indebted to my long\nillness for these two things? The problem is not exactly simple: a\nman must have experienced both through his strength and through his\nweakness, If illness and weakness are to be charged with anything at\nall, it is with the fact that when they prevail, the very instinct of\nrecovery, which is the instinct of defence and of war in man, becomes\ndecayed. He knows not how to get rid of anything, how to come to\nterms with anything, and how to cast anything behind him. Everything\nwounds him. People and things draw importunately near, all experiences\nstrike deep, memory is a gathering wound. To be ill is a sort of\nresentment in itself. Against this resentment the invalid has only\none great remedy--I call it _Russian fatalism,_ that fatalism which\nis free from revolt, and with which the Russian soldier, to whom a\ncampaign proves unbearable, ultimately lays himself down in the snow.\nTo accept nothing more, to undertake nothing more, to absorb nothing\nmore--to cease entirely from reacting.... The tremendous sagacity\nof this fatalism, which does not always imply merely the courage for\ndeath, but which in the most dangerous cases may actually constitute\na self-preservative measure, amounts to a reduction of activity in\nthe vital functions, the slackening down of which is like a sort of\nwill to hibernate. A few steps farther in this direction we find the\nfakir, who will sleep for weeks in a tomb.... Owing to the fact that\none would be used up too quickly if one reacted, one no longer reacts\nat all: this is the principle. And nothing on earth consumes a man\nmore quickly than the passion of resentment. Mortification, morbid\nsusceptibility, the inability to wreak revenge, the desire and thirst\nfor revenge, the concoction of every sort of poison--this is surely the\nmost injurious manner of reacting which could possibly be conceived by\nexhausted men. It involves a rapid wasting away of nervous energy, an\nabnormal increase of detrimental secretions, as, for instance, that\nof bile into the stomach. To the sick man resentment ought to be more\nstrictly forbidden than anything else--it is _his_ special danger:\nunfortunately, however, it is also his most natural propensity. This\nwas fully grasped by that profound physiologist Buddha. His \"religion,\"\nwhich it would be better to call a system of hygiene, in order to avoid\nconfounding it with a creed so wretched as Christianity, depended\nfor its effect upon the triumph over resentment: to make the soul\nfree therefrom was considered the first step towards recovery. \"Not\nthrough hostility is hostility put to flight; through friendship does\nhostility end\": this stands at the beginning of Buddha's teaching--this\nis not a precept of morality, but of physiology. Resentment born of\nweakness is not more deleterious to anybody than it is to the weak\nman himself--conversely, in the case of that man whose nature is\nfundamentally a rich one, resentment is a superfluous feeling, a\nfeeling to remain master of which is almost a proof of riches. Those\nof my readers who know the earnestness-with which my philosophy wages\nwar against the feelings of revenge and rancour, even to the extent of\nattacking the doctrine of \"free will\" (my conflict with Christianity\nis only a particular instance of it), will understand why I wish to\nfocus attention upon my own personal attitude and the certainty of\nmy practical instincts precisely in this matter. In my moments of\ndecadence I forbade myself the indulgence of the above feelings,\nbecause they were harmful; as soon as my life recovered enough riches\nand pride, however, I regarded them again as forbidden, but this time\nbecause they were _beneath_ me. That \"Russian fatalism\" of which I have\nspoken manifested itself in me in such a way that for years I held\ntenaciously to almost insufferable conditions, places, habitations,\nand companions, once chance had placed them on my path--it was better\nthan changing them, than feeling that they could be changed, than\nrevolting against them.... He who stirred me from this fatalism, he\nwho violently tried to shake me into consciousness, seemed to me then\na mortal enemy--in point of fact, there was danger of death each time\nthis was done. To regard one's self as a destiny, not to wish one's\nself \"different\"--this, in such circumstances, is sagacity, itself.\n\n\n\n7\n\n\nWar, on the other hand, is something different. At heart I am a\nwarrior. Attacking belongs to my instincts. To _be able to be_ an\nenemy, to _be_ an enemy--maybe these things presuppose a strong nature;\nin any case all strong natures involve these things. Such natures need\nresistance, consequently they go in search of obstacles: the pathos of\naggression belongs of necessity to strength as much as the feelings\nof revenge and of rancour belong to weakness. Woman, for instance, is\nrevengeful; her weakness involves this passion, just as it involves\nher susceptibility in the presence of other people's suffering. The\nstrength of the aggressor can be measured by the opposition which\nhe needs; every increase of growth betrays itself by a seeking out\nof more formidable opponents--or problems: for a philosopher who\nis combative challenges even problems to a duel. The task is not\nto overcome opponents in general, but only those opponents against\nwhom one has to summon all one's strength, one's skill, and one's\nswordsmanship--in fact, opponents who are one's equals.... To be one's\nenemy's equal--this is the first condition of an honourable duel. Where\none despises, one cannot wage war. Where one commands, where one sees\nsomething _beneath_ one, one _ought_ not to wage war. My war tactics\ncan be reduced to four principles A First, I attack only things that\nare triumphant--if necessary I wait until they become triumphant.\nSecondly, I attack only those things against which I find no allies,\nagainst which I stand alone--against which I compromise nobody but\nmyself.... I have not yet taken one single step before the public eye,\nwhich did not compromise me: that is _my_ criterion of a proper mode\nof action. Thirdly, I never make personal attacks--I use a personality\nmerely as a magnifying-glass, by means of which I render a general,\nbut elusive and scarcely noticeable evil, more apparent. In this way I\nattacked David Strauss, or rather the success given to a senile book by\nthe cultured classes of Germany--by this means I caught German culture\nred-handed. In this way I attacked Wagner, or rather the falsity or\nmongrel instincts of our \"culture\" which confounds the super-refined\nwith the strong, and the effete with the great. Fourthly, I attack\nonly those things from which all personal differences are excluded, in\nwhich any such thing as a background of disagreeable experiences is\nlacking. On the contrary, attacking is to me a proof of goodwill and,\nin certain circumstances, of gratitude. By means of it, I do honour to\na thing, I distinguish a thing; whether I associate my name with that\nof an institution or a person, by being _against_ or _for_ either,\nis all the same to me. If I wage war against Christianity, I feel\njustified in doing so, because in that quarter I have met with no fatal\nexperiences and difficulties--the most earnest Christians have always\nbeen kindly disposed to me. I, personally, the most essential opponent\nof Christianity, am far from holding the individual responsible for\nwhat is the fatality of long ages.\n\nMay I be allowed to hazard a suggestion concerning one last trait\nin my character, which in my intercourse with other men has led me\ninto some difficulties? I am gifted with a sense of cleanliness the\nkeenness of which is phenomenal; so much so, that I can ascertain\nphysiologically--that is to say, smell--the proximity, nay, the inmost\ncore, the \"entrails\" of every human soul.... This sensitiveness of mine\nis furnished with psychological antenn\u00e6, wherewith I feel and grasp\nevery secret: the quality of concealed filth lying at the base of many\na human character which may be the inevitable outcome of base blood,\nand which education may have veneered, is revealed to me at the first\nglance. If my observation has been correct, such people, whom my sense\nof cleanliness rejects, also become conscious, on their part, of the\ncautiousness to which my loathing prompts me: and this does not make\nthem any more fragrant.... In keeping with a custom which I have long\nobserved,--pure habits and honesty towards myself are among the first\nconditions of my existence, I would die in unclean surroundings,--I\nswim, bathe, and splash about, as it were, incessantly in water, in\nany kind of perfectly transparent and shining element. That is why\nmy relations with my fellows try my patience to no small extent; my\nhumanity does not consist in the fact that I understand the feelings\nof my fellows, but that I can endure to understand.... My humanity\nis a perpetual process of self-mastery. But I need solitude--that is\nto say, recovery, return to myself, the breathing of free, crisp,\nbracing air.... The whole of my _Zarathustra_ is a dithyramb in honour\nof solitude, or, if I have been understood, in honour of purity. Thank\nHeaven, it is not in honour of \"pure foolery\"![3] He who has an eye for\ncolour will call him a diamond. The loathing of mankind, of the rabble,\nwas always my greatest danger.... Would you hearken to the words spoken\nby Zarathustra concerning deliverance from loathing?\n\n\"What forsooth hath come unto me? How did I deliver myself from\nloathing? Who hath made mine eye younger? How did I soar to the height,\nwhere there are no more rabble sitting about the well?\n\n\"Did my very loathing forge me wings and the strength to scent\nfountains afar off? Verily to the loftiest heights did I need to fly,\nto find once more the spring of joyfulness.\n\n\"Oh, I found it, my brethren! Up here, on the loftiest height, the\nspring of joyfulness gusheth forth for me. And there is a life at the\nwell of which no rabble can drink with you.\n\n\"Almost too fiercely dost thou rush, for me, thou spring of joyfulness!\nAnd ofttimes dost thou empty the pitcher again in trying to fill it.\n\n\"And yet must I learn to draw near thee more humbly. Far too eagerly\ndoth my heart jump to meet thee.\n\n\"My heart, whereon my summer burneth, my short, hot, melancholy,\nover-blessed summer: how my summer heart yearneth for thy coolness!\n\n\"Farewell, the lingering affliction of my spring! Past is the\nwickedness of my snowflakes in June! Summer have I become entirely, and\nsummer noontide!\n\n\"A summer in the loftiest heights, with cold springs and blessed\nstillness: oh come, my friends, that the stillness may wax even more\nblessed!\n\n\"For this is our height and our home: too high and steep is our\ndwelling for all the unclean and their appetites.\n\n\"Do but cast your pure eyes into the well of my joyfulness, my friends!\nHow could it thus become muddy! It will laugh back at you with its\npurity.\n\n\"On the tree called Future do we build our nest: eagles shall bring\nfood in their beaks unto us lonely ones!\n\n\"Verily not the food whereof the unclean might partake. They would\nthink they ate fire and would burn their mouths!\n\n\"Verily, no abodes for the unclean do we here hold in readiness! To\ntheir bodies our happiness would seem an ice-cavern, and to their\nspirits also!\n\n\"And like strong winds will we live above them, neighbours to the\neagles, companions of the snow, and playmates of the sun: thus do\nstrong winds live.\n\n\"And like a wind shall I one day blow amidst them, and take away their\nsoul's breath with my spirit: thus my future willeth it.\n\n\"Verily, a strong wind is Zarathustra to all low lands; and this is\nhis counsel to his foes and to all those who spit and spew: 'Beware of\nspitting against the wind!'\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The right which every Polish deputy, whether a great or an\ninferior nobleman, possessed of forbidding the passing of any measure\nby the Diet, was called in Poland the _liberum veto_ (in Polish _nie\npozwalam_), and brought all legislation to a standstill.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Eugen D\u00fcbring is a philosopher and political economist\nwhose general doctrine might be characterised as a sort of abstract\nMaterialism with an optimistic colouring.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 3: This, of course, is a reference to Wagner's _Parsifal._\nSee my note on p. 96 of _The Will to Power_ vol. i.--TR.]\n\n\n\n\nWHY I AM SO CLEVER\n\n\n\n1\n\n\nWhy do I know more things than other people? Why, in fact, am I so\nclever? I have never pondered over questions that are not questions. I\nhave never squandered my strength. Of actual religious difficulties,\nfor instance, I have no experience. I have never known what it is to\nfeel \"sinful.\" In the same way I completely lack any reliable criterion\nfor ascertaining what constitutes a prick of conscience: from all\naccounts a prick of conscience does not seem to be a very estimable\nthing.... Once it was done I should hate to leave an action of mine\nin the lurch; I should prefer completely to omit the evil outcome,\nthe consequences, from the problem concerning the value of an action.\nIn the face of evil consequences one is too ready to lose the proper\nstandpoint from which one's deed ought to be considered. A prick of\nconscience strikes me as a sort of \"evil eye.\" Something that has\nfailed should be honoured all the more jealously, precisely because\nit has failed--this is much more in keeping with my morality.--\"God,\"\n\"the immortality of the soul,\" \"salvation,\" a \"beyond\"--to all these\nnotions, even as a child, I never paid any attention whatsoever, nor\ndid I waste any time upon them,--maybe I was never _naif_ enough for\nthat?--I am quite unacquainted with atheism as a result, and still\nless as an event in my life: in me it is inborn, instinctive. I am\ntoo inquisitive, too incredulous, too high spirited, to be satisfied\nwith such a palpably clumsy solution of things. God is a too palpably\nclumsy solution of things; a solution which shows a lack of delicacy\ntowards us thinkers--at bottom He is really no more than a coarse\nand rude _prohibition_ of us: ye shall not think!... I am much more\ninterested in another question,--a question upon which the \"salvation\nof humanity\" depends to a far greater degree than it does upon any\npiece of theological curiosity: I refer to nutrition. For ordinary\npurposes, it may be formulated as follows: \"How precisely must _thou_\nfeed thyself in order to attain to thy maximum of power, or _virt\u00f9_\nin the Renaissance style,--of virtue free from moralic acid?\" My\nexperiences in regard to this matter have been as bad as they possibly\ncould be; I am surprised that I set myself this question so late in\nlife, and that it took me so long to draw \"rational\" conclusions\nfrom my experiences. Only the absolute worth-_1_ lessness of German\nculture--its \"idealism\"--can to some extent explain how it was that\nprecisely in this matter I was so backward that my ignorance was almost\nsaintly. This \"culture,\" which from first to last teaches one to lose\nsight of actual things and to hunt after thoroughly problematic and\nso-called ideal aims, as, for instance, \"classical culture\"--as if it\nwere not hopeless from the start to try to unite \"classical\" and\n\"German\" in one concept. It is even a little comical--try and imagine\na \"classically cultured\" citizen of Leipzig!--Indeed, I can say, that\nup to a very mature age, my food was entirely bad--expressed morally,\nit was \"impersonal,\" \"selfless,\" \"altruistic,\" to the glory of cooks\nand all other fellow-Christians. It was through the cooking in vogue\nat Leipzig, for instance, together with my first study of Schopenhauer\n(1865), that I earnestly renounced my \"Will to Live.\" To spoil one's\nstomach by absorbing insufficient nourishment--this problem seemed to\nmy mind solved with admirable felicity by the above-mentioned cookery.\n(It is said that in the year 1866 changes were introduced into this\ndepartment.) But as to German cookery in general--what has it not got\non its conscience! Soup _before_ the meal (still called _alla tedesca_\nin the Venetian cookery books of the sixteenth century); meat boiled\nto shreds, vegetables cooked with fat and flour; the degeneration of\npastries into paper-weights! And, if you add thereto the absolutely\nbestial post-prandial drinking habits of the _ancients,_ and not alone\nof the ancient Germans, you will understand where German intellect\ntook its origin--that is to say, in sadly disordered intestines....\nGerman intellect is indigestion; it can assimilate nothing. But even\nEnglish diet, which in comparison with German, and indeed with French\nalimentation, seems to me to constitute a \"return to Nature,\"--that is\nto say, to cannibalism,--is profoundly opposed to my own instincts. It\nseems to me to give the intellect heavy feet, in fact, Englishwomen's\nfeet.... The best cooking is that of Piedmont. Alcoholic drinks do\nnot agree with me; a single glass of wine or beer a day is amply\nsufficient to turn life into a valley of tears for me;--in Munich live\nmy antipodes. Although I admit that this knowledge came to me somewhat\nlate, it already formed part of my experience even as a child. As a boy\nI believed that the drinking of wine and the smoking of tobacco were at\nfirst but the vanities of youths, and later merely bad habits. Maybe\nthe poor wine of Naumburg was partly responsible for this poor opinion\nof wine in general. In order to believe that wine was exhilarating, I\nshould have had to be a Christian--in other words, I should have had to\nbelieve in what, to my mind, is an absurdity. Strange to say, whereas\nsmall quantities of alcohol, taken with plenty of water, succeed in\nmaking me feel out of sorts, large quantities turn me almost into a\nrollicking tar. Even as a boy I showed my bravado in this respect. To\ncompose a long Latin essay in one night, to revise and recopy it, to\naspire with my pen to emulating the exactitude and the terseness of my\nmodel, Sallust, and to pour a few very strong grogs over it all--this\nmode of procedure, while I was a pupil at the venerable old school of\nPforta, was not in the least out of keeping with my physiology, nor\nperhaps with that of Sallust, however much it may have been alien to\ndignified Pforta. Later on, towards the middle of my life, I grew more\nand more opposed to alcoholic drinks: I, an opponent of vegetarianism,\nwho have experienced what vegetarianism is,--just as Wagner, who\nconverted me back to meat, experienced it,--cannot with sufficient\nearnestness advise all more _spiritual_ natures to abstain absolutely\nfrom alcohol. Water answers the purpose.... I have a predilection in\nfavour of those places where in all directions one has opportunities\nof drinking from running brooks (Nice, Turin, Sils). _In vino Veritas_:\nit seems that here once more I am at variance with the rest of the\nworld about the concept \"Truth\"--with me spirit moves on the face of\nthe waters.... Here are a few more indications as to my morality. A\nheavy meal is digested more easily than an inadequate one. The first\nprinciple of a good digestion is that the stomach should become active\nas a whole. A man ought, therefore, to know the size of his stomach.\nFor the same reasons all those interminable meals, which I call\ninterrupted sacrificial feasts, and which are to be had at any table\nd'h\u00f4te, are strongly to be deprecated. Nothing should be eaten between\nmeals, coffee should be given up--coffee makes one gloomy. Tea is\nbeneficial only in the morning. It should be taken in small quantities,\nbut very strong. It may be very harmful, and indispose you for the\nwhole day, if it be taken the least bit too weak. Everybody has his own\nstandard in this matter, often between the narrowest and most delicate\nlimits. In an enervating climate tea is not a good beverage with which\nto start the day: an hour before taking it an excellent thing is to\ndrink a cup of thick cocoa, feed from oil. Remain seated as little as\npossible, put no trust in any thought that is not born in the open, to\nthe accompaniment of free bodily motion--nor in one in which even the\nmuscles do not celebrate a feast. All prejudices take their origin in\nthe intestines. A sedentary life, as I have already said elsewhere, is\nthe real sin against the Holy Spirit.\n\n\n\n2.\n\n\nTo the question of nutrition, that of locality and climate is next of\nkin. Nobody is so constituted as to be able to live everywhere and\nanywhere; and he who has great duties to perform, which lay claim\nto all his strength, has, in this respect, a very limited choice.\nThe influence of climate upon the bodily functions, affecting their\nacceleration or retardation, extends so far, that a blunder in the\nchoice of locality and climate is able not only to alienate a man from\nhis actual duty, but also to withhold it from him altogether, so that\nhe never even comes face to face with it. Animal vigour never acquires\nenough strength in him in order to reach that pitch of artistic freedom\nwhich makes his own soul whisper to him: I, alone, can do that.... Ever\nso slight a tendency to laziness in the intestines, once it has become\na habit, is quite sufficient to make something mediocre, something\n\"German\" out of a genius; the climate of Germany, alone, is enough to\ndiscourage the strongest and most heroically disposed intestines. The\ntempo of the body's functions is closely bound up with the agility or\nthe clumsiness of the spirit's feet; spirit itself is indeed only a\nform of these organic functions. Let anybody make a list of the places\nin which men of great intellect have been found, and are still found;\nwhere wit, subtlety, and malice constitute happiness; where genius\nis almost necessarily at home: all of them rejoice in exceptionally\ndry air. Paris, Provence, Florence, Jerusalem, Athens--these names\nprove something, namely: that genius is conditioned by dry air, by a\npure sky--that is to say, by rapid organic functions, by the constant\nand ever-present possibility of procuring for one's self great and\neven enormous quantities of strength. I have a certain case in mind\nin which a man of remarkable intellect and independent spirit became\na narrow, craven specialist and a grumpy old crank, simply owing to\na lack of subtlety in his instinct for climate. And I myself might\nhave been an example of the same thing, if illness had not compelled\nme to reason, and to reflect upon reason realistically. Now that I\nhave learnt through long practice to read the effects of climatic and\nmeteorological influences, from my own body, as though from a very\ndelicate and reliable instrument, and that I am able to calculate the\nchange in degrees of atmospheric moisture by means of physiological\nobservations upon myself, even on so short a journey as that from\nTurin to Milan; I think with horror of the ghastly fact that my\nwhole life, until the last ten years,--the most perilous years,--has\nalways been spent in the wrong, and what to me ought to have been\nthe most forbidden, places. Naumburg, Pforta, Thuringia in general,\nLeipzig, B\u00e2le, Venice--so many ill-starred places for a constitution\nlike mine. If I cannot recall one single happy reminiscence of my\nchildhood and youth, it is nonsense to suppose that so-called \"moral\"\ncauses could account for this--as, for instance, the incontestable\nfact that I lacked companions that could have satisfied me; for this\nfact is the same to-day as it ever was, and it does not prevent me\nfrom being cheerful and brave. But it was ignorance in physiological\nmatters--that confounded \"Idealism\"--that was the real curse of my\nlife. This was the superfluous and foolish element in my existence;\nsomething from which nothing could spring, and for which there can be\nno settlement and no compensation. As the outcome of this \"Idealism\"\nI regard all the blunders, the great aberrations of instinct, and\nthe \"modest specialisations\" which drew me aside from the task of my\nlife; as, for instance, the fact that I became a philologist--why\nnot at least a medical man or anything else which might have opened\nmy eyes? My days at B\u00e2le, the whole of my intellectual routine,\nincluding my daily time-table, was an absolutely senseless abuse of\nextraordinary powers, without the slightest compensation for the\nstrength that I spent, without even a thought of what I was squandering\nand how its place might be filled. I lacked all subtlety in egoism,\nall the fostering care of an imperative instinct; I was in a state\nin which one is ready to regard one's self as anybody's equal, a\nstate of \"disinterestedness,\" a forgetting of one's distance from\nothers--something, in short, for which I can never forgive myself.\nWhen I had well-nigh reached the end of my tether, simply because I\nhad almost reached my end, I began to reflect upon the fundamental\nabsurdity of my life--\"Idealism.\" It was _illness_ that first brought\nme to reason.\n\n\n\n3\n\n\nAfter the choice of nutrition, the choice of climate and locality, the\nthird matter concerning which one must not on any account make a\nblunder, is the choice of the manner in which one _recuperates one's\nstrength._ Here, again, according to the extent to which a spirit is\n_sui generis,_ the limits of that which he can allow himself--in other\nwords, the limits of that which is beneficial to him--become more and\nmore confined. As far as I in particular am concerned, _reading_ in\ngeneral belongs to my means of recuperation; consequently it belongs\nto that which rids me of myself, to that which enables me to wander\nin strange sciences and strange souls--to that, in fact, about which\nI am no longer in earnest. Indeed, it is while reading that I recover\nfrom _my_ earnestness. During the time that I am deeply absorbed in\nmy work, no books are found within my reach; it would never occur\nto me to allow any one to speak or even to think in my presence.\nFor that is what reading would mean.... Has any one ever actually\nnoticed, that, during the period of profound tension to which the\nstate of pregnancy condemns not only the mind, but also, at bottom,\nthe whole organism, accident and every kind of external stimulus acts\ntoo acutely and strikes too deep? Accident and external stimuli must,\nas far as possible, be avoided: a sort of walling-of-one's-self-in is\none of the primary instinctive precautions of spiritual pregnancy.\nShall I allow a strange thought to steal secretly over the wall?\nFor that is what reading would mean.... The periods of work and\nfruit-fulness are followed by periods of recuperation: come hither,\nye delightful, intellectual, intelligent books! Shall I read German\nbooks?... I must go back six months to catch myself with a book in\nmy hand. What was it? An excellent study by Victor Brochard upon the\nGreek sceptics, in which my Laertiana[1] was used to advantage. The\nsceptics!--the only _honourable_ types among that double-faced and\nsometimes quintuple-faced throng, the philosophers!.... Otherwise I\nalmost always take refuge in the same books: altogether their number\nis small; they are books which are precisely my proper fare. It is\nnot perhaps in my nature to read much, and of all sorts: a library\nmakes me ill. Neither is it my nature to love much or many kinds of\nthings. Suspicion or even hostility towards new books is much more\nakin to my instinctive feeling than \"toleration,\" _largeur de c\u0153ur,_\nand other forms of \"neighbour-love.\" ... It is to a small number of\nold French authors, that I always return again and again; I believe\nonly in French culture, and regard everything else in Europe which\ncalls itself \"culture\" as a misunderstanding. I do not even take\nthe German kind into consideration.... The few instances of higher\nculture with which I have met in Germany were all French in their\norigin. The most striking example of this was Madame Cosima Wagner,\nby far the most decisive voice in matters of taste that I have ever\nheard. If I do not read, but literally love Pascal? as the most\ninstinctive sacrifice to Christianity, killing himself inch by inch,\nfirst bodily, then spiritually, according to the terrible consistency\nof this most appalling form of inhuman cruelty; if I have something\nof Montaigne's mischievousness in my soul, and--who knows?--perhaps\nalso in my body; if my artist's taste endeavours to defend the names\nof Moli\u00e8re, Corneille, and Racine, and not without bitterness, against\nsuch a wild genius as Shakespeare--all this does not prevent me from\nregarding even the latter-day Frenchmen also as charming companions.\nI can think of absolutely no century in history, in which a netful of\nmore inquisitive and at the same time more subtle psychologists could\nbe drawn up together than in the Paris of the present day. Let me\nmention a few at random--for their number is by no means small--Paul\nBourget, Pierre Loti, Gyp, Meilhac, Anatole France, Jules Lemaitre;\nor, to point to one of strong race, a genuine Latin, of whom I am\nparticularly fond, Guy de Maupassant. Between ourselves, I prefer this\ngeneration even to its masters, all of whom were corrupted by German\nphilosophy (Taine, for instance, by Hegel, whom he has to thank for\nhis misunderstanding of great men and great periods). Wherever Germany\nextends her sway, she _ruins_ culture. It was the war which first saved\nthe spirit of France.... Stendhal is one of the happiest accidents of\nmy life--for everything that marks an epoch in it has been brought\nto me by accident and never by means of a recommendation. He is quite\npriceless, with his psychologist's eye, quick at forestalling and\nanticipating; with his grasp of facts, which is reminiscent of the same\nart in the greatest of all masters of facts (_ex ungue Napoleonem_);\nand, last but not least, as an honest atheist--a specimen which is\nboth rare and difficult to discover in France--all honour to Prosper\nM\u00e9rim\u00e9e!... Maybe that I am even envious of Stendhal? He robbed\nme of the best atheistic joke, which I of all people could have\nperpetrated: \"God's only excuse is that He does not exist\" ... I myself\nhave said somewhere--What has been the greatest objection to Life\nhitherto?--God....\n\n\n\n4\n\n\nIt was Heinrich Heine who gave me the most perfect idea of what a\nlyrical poet could be. In vain do I search through all the kingdoms of\nantiquity or of modern times for anything to resemble his sweet and\npassionate music. He possessed that divine wickedness, without which\nperfection itself becomes unthinkable to me,--I estimate the value of\nmen, of races, according to the extent to which they are unable to\nconceive of a god who has not a dash of the satyr in him. And with\nwhat mastery he wields his native tongue! One day it will be said of\nHeine and me that we were by far the greatest artists of the German\nlanguage that have ever existed, and that we left all the efforts that\nmere Germans made in this language an incalculable distance behind\nus. I must be profoundly related to Byron's _Manfred:_ of all the\ndark abysses in this work I found the counterparts in my own soul--at\nthe age of thirteen I was ripe for this book. Words fail me, I have\nonly a look, for those who dare to utter the name of _Faust_ in the\npresence of _Manfred._ The Germans are _incapable_ of conceiving\nanything sublime: for a proof of this, look at Schumann! Out of anger\nfor this mawkish Saxon, I once deliberately composed a counter-overture\nto _Manfred,_ of which Hans von B\u00fclow declared he had never seen the\nlike before on paper: such compositions amounted to a violation of\nEuterpe. When I cast about me for my highest formula of Shakespeare,\nI find invariably but this one: that he conceived the type of C\u00e6sar.\nSuch things a man cannot guess--he either is the thing, or he is not.\nThe great poet draws his creations only from out of his own reality.\nThis is so to such an extent, that often after a lapse of time he\ncan no longer endure his own work.... After casting a glance between\nthe pages of my _Zarathustra,_ I pace my room to and fro for half\nan hour at a time, unable to overcome an insufferable fit of tears.\nI know of no more heartrending reading than Shakespeare: how a man\nmust have suffered to be so much in need of playing the clown! Is\nHamlet _understood_? It is not doubt, but certitude that drives one\nmad.... But in order to feel this, one must be profound, one must be\nan abyss, a philosopher.... We all fear the truth.... And, to make a\nconfession; I feel instinctively certain and convinced that Lord Bacon\nis the originator, the self-torturer, of this most sinister kind of\nliterature: what do I care about the miserable gabble of American\nmuddlers and blockheads? But the power for the greatest realism in\nvision is not only compatible with the greatest realism in deeds,\nwith the monstrous in deeds, with crime--_it actually presupposes the\nlatter._ ... We do not know half enough about Lord Bacon--the first\nrealist in all the highest acceptation of this word--to be sure of\neverything he did, everything he willed, and everything he experienced\nin his inmost soul.... Let the critics go to hell! Suppose I had\nchristened my _Zarathustra_ with a name not my own,--let us say with\nRichard Wagner's name,--the acumen of two thousand years would not have\nsufficed to guess that the author of _Human, all-too-Human_ was the\nvisionary of _Zarathustra._\n\n\n\n5\n\n\nAs I am speaking here of the recreations of my life, I feel I must\nexpress a word or two of gratitude for that which has refreshed me by\nfar the most heartily and most profoundly. This, without the slightest\ndoubt, was my intimate relationship with Richard Wagner. All my other\nrelationships with men I treat quite lightly; but I would not have the\ndays I spent at Tribschen--those days of confidence, of cheerfulness,\nof sublime flashes, and of profound moments--blotted from my life\nat any price. I know not what Wagner may have been for others; but\nno cloud ever darkened _our_ sky. And this brings me back again to\nFrance,--I have no arguments against Wagnerites, and _hoc genus omne_\nwho believe that they do honour to Wagner by believing him to be\nlike themselves; for such people I have only a contemptuous curl of\nmy lip. With a nature like mine, which is so strange to everything\nTeutonic, that even the presence of a German retards my digestion, my\nfirst meeting with Wagner was the first moment in my life in which I\nbreathed freely: I felt him, I honoured him, as a foreigner, as the\nopposite and the incarnate contradiction of all \"German virtues.\" We\nwho as children breathed the marshy atmosphere of the fifties, are\nnecessarily pessimists in regard to the concept \"German\"; we cannot\nbe anything else than revolutionaries--we can assent to no state of\naffairs which allows the canting bigot to be at the top. I care not\na jot whether this canting bigot acts in different colours to-day,\nwhether he dresses in scarlet or dons the uniform of a hussar.[2] Very\nwell, then! Wagner was a revolutionary--he fled from the Germans....\nAs an artist, a man has no home in Europe save in Paris; that subtlety\nof all the five senses which Wagner's art presupposes, those fingers\nthat can detect slight gradations, psychological morbidity--all these\nthings can be found only in Paris. Nowhere else can you meet with\nthis passion for questions of form, this earnestness in matters of\n_mise-en-sc\u00e8ne,_ which is the Parisian earnestness _par excellence._\nIn Germany no one has any idea of the tremendous ambition that fills\nthe heart of a Parisian artist. The German is a good fellow. Wagner was\nby no means a good fellow.... But I have already said quite enough\non the subject of Wagner's real nature (see _Beyond Good and Evil,_\nAphorism 269), and about those to whom he is most closely related.\nHe is one of the late French romanticists, that high-soaring and\nheaven-aspiring band of artists, like Delacroix and Berlioz, who in\ntheir inmost nacres are sick and incurable, and who are all fanatics\nof _expression,_ and virtuosos through and through.... Who, in sooth,\nwas the first intelligent follower of Wagner? Charles Baudelaire, the\nvery man who first understood Delacroix--that typical decadent, in whom\na whole generation of artists saw their reflection; he was perhaps the\nlast of them too.... What is it that I have never forgiven Wagner?\nThe fact that he condescended to the Germans--that he became a German\nImperialist.... Wherever Germany spreads, she _ruins_ culture.\n\n\n\n6\n\n\nTaking everything into consideration, I could never have survived my\nyouth without Wagnerian music. For I was condemned to the society\nof Germans. If a man wish to get rid of a feeling of insufferable\noppression, he has to take to hashish. Well, I had to take to Wagner.\nWagner is the counter-poison to everything essentially German--the fact\nthat he is a poison too, I do not deny. From the moment that _Tristan_\nwas arranged for the piano--all honour to you, Herr von B\u00fclow!--I was\na Wagnerite. Wagner's previous works seemed beneath me--they were too\ncommonplace, too \"German.\" ... But to this day I am still seeking for a\nwork which would be a match to _Tristan_ in dangerous fascination, and\npossess the same gruesome and dulcet quality of infinity; I seek among\nall the arts in vain. All the quaint features of Leonardo da Vinci's\nwork lose their charm at the sound of the first bar in _Tristan._\nThis work is without question Wagner's _non plus ultra_; after its\ncreation, the composition of the _Mastersingers_ and of the _Ring_ was\na relaxation to him. To become more healthy--this in a nature like\nWagner's amounts to going backwards. The curiosity of the psychologist\nis so great in me, that I regard it as quite a special privilege\nto have lived at the right time, and to have lived precisely among\nGermans, in order to be ripe for this work. The world must indeed be\nempty for him who has never been unhealthy enough for this \"infernal\nvoluptuousness\": it is allowable, it is even imperative, to employ a\nmystic formula for this purpose. I suppose I know better than any one\nthe prodigious feats of which Wagner was capable, the fifty worlds of\nstrange ecstasies to which no one else had wings to soar; and as I am\nalive to-day and strong enough to turn even the most suspicious and\nmost dangerous things to my own advantage, and thus to grow stronger,\nI declare Wagner to have been the greatest benefactor of my life. The\nbond which unites us is the fact that we have suffered greater agony,\neven at each other's hands, than most men are able to bear nowadays,\nand this will always keep our names associated in the minds of men.\nFor, just as Wagner is merely a misunderstanding among Germans, so, in\ntruth, am I, and ever will be. Ye lack two centuries of psychological\nand artistic discipline, my dear countrymen!... But ye can never\nrecover the time lost.\n\n\n\n7\n\n\nTo the most exceptional of my readers I should like to say just one\nword about what I really exact from music. It must be cheerful and yet\nprofound, like an October afternoon. It must be original, exuberant,\nand tender, and like a dainty, soft woman in roguishness and grace ... I\nshall never admit that a German _can_ understand what music is. Those\nmusicians who are called German, the greatest and most famous foremost,\nare all foreigners, either Slavs, Croats, Italians, Dutchmen--or Jews;\nor else, like Heinrich Sch\u00fctz, Bach, and H\u00e4ndel, they are Germans of\na strong race which is now extinct. For my own part, I have still\nenough of the Pole left in me to let all other music go, if only I\ncan keep Chopin. For three reasons I would except Wagner's _Siegfried\nIdyll,_ and perhaps also one or two things of Liszt, who excelled all\nother musicians in the noble tone of his orchestration; and finally\neverything that has been produced beyond the Alps_--this side_ of the\nAlps.[3] I could not possibly dispense with Rossini, and still less\nwith my Southern soul in music, the work of my Venetian maestro, Pietro\nGasti. And when I say beyond the Alps, all I really mean is Venice.\nIf I try to find a new word for music, I can never find any other\nthan Venice. I know not how to draw any distinction between tears\nand music. I do not know how to think either of joy, or of the south,\nwithout a shudder of fear.\n\nOn the bridge I stood\nLately, in gloomy night.\nCame a distant song:\nIn golden drops it rolled\nOver the glittering rim away.\nMusic, gondolas, lights--\nDrunk, swam far forth in the gloom....\n\nA stringed instrument, my soul,\nSang, imperceptibly moved,\nA gondola song by stealth,\nGleaming for gaudy blessedness.\n--Hearkened any thereto?\n\n\n\n8\n\n\nIn all these things--in the choice of food, place, climate, and\nrecreation--the instinct of self-preservation is dominant, and this\ninstinct manifests itself with least ambiguity when it acts as an\ninstinct of defence. To close one's eyes to much, to seal one's ears to\nmuch, to keep certain things at a distance--this is the first principle\nof prudence, the first proof of the fact that a man is not an accident\nbut a necessity. The popular word for this instinct of defence is\n_taste._ A man's imperative command is not only to say \"no\" in cases\nwhere \"yes\" would be a sign of \"disinterestedness,\" but also to say\n\"no\" _as seldom as possible._ One must part with all that which compels\none to repeat \"no,\" with ever greater frequency. The rationale of this\nprinciple is that all discharges of defensive forces, however slight\nthey may be, involve enormous and absolutely superfluous losses when\nthey become regular and habitual. Our greatest expenditure of strength\nis made up of those small and most frequent discharges of it. The act\nof keeping things off, of holding them at a distance, amounts to a\ndischarge of strength,--do not deceive yourselves on this point!--and\nan expenditure of energy directed at purely negative ends. Simply by\nbeing compelled to keep constantly on his guard, a man may grow so weak\nas to be unable any longer to defend himself. Suppose I were to step\nout of my house, and, instead of the quiet and aristocratic city of\nTurin, I were to find a German provincial town, my instinct would have\nto brace itself together in order to repel all that which would pour in\nupon it from this crushed-down and cowardly world. Or suppose I were\nto find a large German city--that structure of vice in which nothing\ngrows, but where every single thing, whether good or bad, is squeezed\nin from outside. In such circumstances should I not be compelled to\nbecome a hedgehog? But to have prickles amounts to a squandering of\nstrength; they even constitute a twofold luxury, when, if we only chose\nto do so, we could dispense with them and open our hands instead....\n\nAnother form of prudence and self-defence consists in trying to\nreact as seldom as possible, and to keep one's self aloof from those\ncircumstances and conditions wherein one would be condemned, as it\nwere, to suspend one's \"liberty\" and one's initiative, and become a\nmere reacting medium. As an example of this I point to the intercourse\nwith books. The scholar who, in sooth, does little else than handle\nbooks--with the philologist of average attainments their number may\namount to two hundred a day--ultimately forgets entirely and completely\nthe capacity of thinking for himself. When he has not a book between\nhis fingers he cannot think. When he thinks, he responds to a stimulus\n(a thought he has read),--finally all he does is to react. The scholar\nexhausts his whole strength in saying either \"yes\" or \"no\" to matter\nwhich has already been thought out, or in criticising it--he is no\nlonger capable of thought on his own account.... In him the instinct\nof self-defence has decayed, otherwise he would defend himself against\nbooks. The scholar is a decadent. With my own eyes I have seen gifted,\nrichly endowed, and free-spirited natures already \"read to ruins\" at\nthirty, and mere wax vestas that have to be rubbed before they can give\noff any sparks--or \"thoughts.\" To set to early in the morning, at the\nbreak of day, in all the fulness and dawn of one's strength, and to\nread a book--this I call positively vicious!\n\n\n\n9\n\n\nAt this point I can no longer evade a direct answer to the question,\n_how one becomes what one is._ And in giving it, I shall have to\ntouch upon that masterpiece in the art of self-preservation, which is\n_selfishness._ ... Granting that one's life-task--the determination and\nthe fate of one's life-task--greatly exceeds the average measure of\nsuch things, nothing more dangerous could be conceived than to come\nface to face with one's self by the side of this life-task. The fact\nthat one becomes what one is, presupposes that one has not the remotest\nsuspicion of what one is. From this standpoint even the blunders of\none's life have their own meaning and value, the temporary deviations\nand aberrations, the moments of hesitation and of modesty, the\nearnestness wasted upon duties which lie outside the actual life-task.\nIn these matters great wisdom, perhaps even the highest wisdom, comes\ninto activity: in these circumstances, in which _nosce teipsum_ would\nbe the sure road to ruin, forgetting one's self, misunderstanding\none's self, belittling one's self, narrowing one's self, and making\none's self mediocre, amount to reason itself. Expressed morally, to\nlove one's neighbour and to live for others and for other things\n_may_ be the means of protection employed to maintain the hardest\nkind of egoism. This is the exceptional case in which I, contrary\nto my principle and conviction, take the side of the altruistic\ninstincts; for here they are concerned in subserving selfishness\nand self-discipline. The whole surface of consciousness--for\nconsciousness _is_ a surface--must be kept free from any one of the\ngreat imperatives. Beware even of every striking word, of every\nstriking attitude! They are all so many risks which the instinct runs\nof \"understanding itself\" too soon. Meanwhile the organising \"idea,\"\nwhich is destined to become master, grows and continues to grow into\nthe depths,--it begins to command, it leads you slowly back from your\ndeviations and aberrations, it prepares individual qualities and\ncapacities, which one day will make themselves felt as indispensable\nto the whole of your task,--step by step it cultivates all the\nserviceable faculties, before it ever whispers a word concerning the\ndominant task, the \"goal,\" the \"object,\" and the \"meaning\" of it all.\nLooked at from this standpoint my life is simply amazing. For the task\nof _transvaluing values,_ more capacities were needful perhaps than\ncould well be found side by side in one individual; and above all,\nantagonistic capacities which had to be free from the mutual strife\nand destruction which they involve. An order of rank among capacities;\ndistance; the art of separating without creating hostility; to refrain\nfrom confounding things; to keep from reconciling things; to possess\nenormous multifariousness and yet to be the reverse of chaos--all\nthis was the first condition, the long secret work, and the artistic\nmastery of my instinct. Its superior guardianship manifested itself\nwith such exceeding strength, that not once did I ever dream of what\nwas growing within me--until suddenly all my capacities were ripe, and\none day burst forth in all the perfection of their highest bloom. I\ncannot remember ever having exerted myself, I can point to no trace of\n_struggle_ in my life; I am the reverse of a heroic nature. To \"will\"\nsomething, to \"strive\" after something, to have an \"aim\" or a \"desire\"\nin my mind--I know none of these things from experience. Even at this\nmoment I look out upon my future--a _broad_ future!--as upon a calm\nsea: no sigh of longing makes a ripple on its surface. I have not the\nslightest wish that anything should be otherwise than it is: I myself\nwould not be otherwise.... But in this matter I have always been the\nsame. I have never had a desire. A man who, after his four-and-fortieth\nyear, can say that he has never bothered himself about _honours,\nwomen,_ or _money_!--not that they did not come his way.... It was\nthus that I became one day a University Professor--I had never had\nthe remotest idea of such a thing; for I was scarcely four-and-twenty\nyears of age. In the same way, two years previously, I had one day\nbecome a philologist, in the sense that my _first_ philological work,\nmy start in every way, was expressly obtained by my master Ritschl for\npublication in his _Rheinisches Museum._[4] (Ritschl--and I say it\nin all reverence--was the only genial scholar that I have ever met.\nHe possessed that pleasant kind of depravity which distinguishes us\nThuringians, and which makes even a German sympathetic--even in the\npursuit of truth we prefer to avail ourselves of roundabout ways. In\nsaying this I do not mean to underestimate in any way my Thuringian\nbrother, the intelligent Leopold von Ranke....)\n\n\n\n10\n\n\nYou may be wondering why I should actually have related all these\ntrivial and, according to traditional accounts, insignificant details\nto you; such action can but tell against me, more particularly if I\nam fated to figure in great causes. To this I reply that these trivial\nmatters--diet, locality, climate, and one's mode of recreation, the\nwhole casuistry of; self-love--are inconceivably more important than,\nall that which has hitherto been held in high esteem! It is precisely\nin this quarter that we must begin to learn afresh. All those things\nwhich mankind has valued with such earnestness heretofore are not even\nreal; they are mere creations of fancy, or, more strictly speaking,\n_lies_ born of the evil instincts of diseased and, in the deepest\nsense, noxious natures--all the concepts, \"God,\" \"soul,\" \"virtue,\"\n\"sin,\" \"Beyond,\" \"truth,\" \"eternal life.\" ... But the greatness of\nhuman nature, its \"divinity,\" was sought for in them.... All questions\nof politics, of social order, of education, have been falsified, root\nand branch, owing to the fact that the most noxious men have been\ntaken for great men, and that people were taught to despise the small\nthings, or rather the fundamental things, of life. If I now choose to\ncompare myself with those creatures who have hitherto been honoured as\nthe first among men, the difference becomes obvious. I do not reckon\nthe so-called \"first\" men even as human beings--for me they are the\nexcrements of mankind, the products of disease and of the instinct\nof revenge: they are so many monsters laden with rottenness, so many\nhopeless incurables, who avenge themselves on life.... I wish to be\nthe opposite of these people: it is my privilege to have the very\nsharpest discernment for every sign of healthy instincts. There is no\nsuch thing as a morbid trait in me; even in times of serious illness\nI have never grown morbid, and you might seek in vain for a trace of\nfanaticism in my nature. No one can point to any moment of my life\nin which I have assumed either an arrogant or a pathetic attitude.\nPathetic attitudes are not in keeping with greatness; he who needs\nattitudes is false.... Beware of all picturesque men! Life was easy--in\nfact easiest--to me, in those periods when it exacted the heaviest\nduties from me. Whoever could have seen me during the seventy days of\nthis autumn, when, without interruption, I did a host of things of\nthe highest rank--things that no man can do nowadays--with a sense of\nresponsibility for all the ages yet to come, would have noticed no sign\nof tension in my condition, but rather a state of overflowing freshness\nand good cheer. Never have I eaten with more pleasant sensations,\nnever has my sleep been better. I know of no other manner of dealing\nwith great tasks, than as _play_: this, as a sign of greatness, is\nan essential prerequisite. The slightest constraint, a sombre mien,\nany hard accent in the voice--all these things are objections to a\nman, but how much more to his work!... One must not have nerves....\nEven to _suffer_ from solitude is an objection--the only thing I have\nalways suffered from is \"multitude.\"[5] At an absurdly tender age, in\nfact when I was seven years old, I already knew that no human speech\nwould ever reach me: did any one ever see me sad on that account? At\npresent I still possess the same affability towards everybody, I am\neven full of consideration for the lowest: in all this there is not\nan atom of haughtiness or of secret contempt. He whom I despise soon\nguesses that he is despised by me: the very fact of my existence is\nenough to rouse indignation in all those who have polluted blood in\ntheir veins. My formula for greatness in man is! _amor fati_: the fact\nthat a man wishes nothing to be different, either in front of him or\nbehind him, or for all eternity. Not only must the necessary be borne,\nand on no account concealed,--all idealism is falsehood in the face of\nnecessity,--but it must also be _loved...._\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Nietzsche, as is well known, devoted much time when a\nstudent at Leipzig to the study of three Greek philosophers, Theognis,\nDiogenes Laertius, and Democritus. This study first bore fruit in the\ncase of a paper, _Zur Geschichte der Theognideischen Spruchsammlung_,\nwhich was subsequently published by the most influential journal of\nclassical philology in Germany. Later, however, it enabled Nietzsche to\nenter for the prize offered by the University of Leipzig for an essay,\n_De fontibus Diogenis Laertii._ He was successful in gaining the prize,\nand the treatise was afterwards published in the _Rheinisches Museum,_\nand is still quoted as an authority. It is to this essay, written when\nhe was twenty-three years of age, that he here refers.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The favourite uniform of the German Emperor, William\nII.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 3: In the latter years of his life, Nietzsche practically\nmade Italy his home.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 4: See note on page 37.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The German words are, _Einsamkeit_ and _Vielsamkeit._ The\nlatter was coined by Nietzsche. The English word \"multitude\" should,\ntherefore, be understood as signifying multifarious instincts and\ngifts, which in Nietzsche strove for ascendancy and caused him more\nsuffering than any solitude. Complexity of this sort, held in check\nby a dominant instinct, as in Nietzsche's case, is of course the only\npossible basis of an artistic nature.--TR.]\n\n\n\n\nWHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS\n\n\n\n1\n\n\nI am one thing, my creations are another. Here, before I speak of the\nbooks themselves, I shall touch upon the question of the understanding\nand misunderstanding with which they have met. I shall proceed to\ndo this in as perfunctory a manner as the occasion demands; for the\ntime has by no means come for this question. My time has not yet\ncome either; some are born posthumously. One s day institutions will\nbe needed in which men will live and teach, as I understand living\nand teaching; maybe, also, that by that time, chairs will be founded\nand endowed for the interpretation of _Zarathustra. _ But I should\nregard it as a complete contradiction of myself, if I expected to\nfind ears and eyes for my truths to-day: the fact that no one listens\nto me, that no one knows how to receive at my hands to-day, is not\nonly comprehensible, it seems to me quite the proper thing. I do not\nwish to be mistaken for another--and to this end I must not mistake\nmyself. To repeat what I have already said, I can point to but few\ninstances of ill-will in my life: and as for literary ill-will, I\ncould mention scarcely a single example of it. On the other hand, I\nhave met with far too much _pure foolery_!... It seems to me that to\ntake up one of my books is one of the rarest honours that a man can\npay himself--even supposing that he put his shoes from off his feet\nbeforehand, not to mention boots.... When on one occasion Dr. Heinrich\nvon Stein honestly complained that he could not understand a word of\nmy _Zarathustra,_ I said to him that this was just as it should be: to\nhave understood six sentences in that book--that is to say, to have\nlived them--raises a man to a higher level among mortals than \"modern\"\nmen can attain. With this feeling of distance how could I even wish to\nbe read by the \"moderns\" whom I know! My triumph is just the opposite\nof what Schopenhauer's was--I say \"_Non_ legor, _non_ legar.\"--Not\nthat I should like to underestimate the pleasure I have derived from\nthe innocence with which my works have frequently been contradicted.\nAs late as last summer, at a time when I was attempting, perhaps by\nmeans of my weighty, all-too-weighty literature, to throw the rest of\nliterature off its balance, a certain professor of Berlin University\nkindly gave me to understand that I ought really to make use of a\ndifferent form: no one could read such stuff as I wrote.--Finally, it\nwas not Germany, but Switzerland that presented me with the two most\nextreme cases. An essay on _Beyond Good and Evil,_ by Dr. V. Widmann in\nthe paper called the _Bund,_ under the heading \"Nietzsche's Dangerous\nBook,\" and a general account of all my works, from the pen of Herr\nKarl Spitteler, also in the _Bund,_ constitute a maximum in my life--I\nshall not say of what.... The latter treated my _Zarathustra,_ for\ninstance as \"_advanced exercises in style_,\" and expressed the wish\nthat later on I might try and attend to the question of substance as\nwell; Dr. Widmann assured me of his respect for the courage I showed\nin endeavouring to abolish all decent feeling. Thanks to a little\ntrick of destiny, every sentence in these criticisms seemed, with\na consistency that I could but admire, to be an inverted truth. In\nfact it was most remarkable that all one had to do was to \"transvalue\nall values,\" in order to hit the nail on the head with regard to me,\ninstead of striking my head with the nail.... I am more particularly\nanxious therefore to discover an explanation. After all, no one can\ndraw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man\nhas no ears for that to which experience has given him no access. To\ntake an extreme case, suppose a book contains simply incidents which\nlie quite outside the range of general or even rare experience--suppose\nit to be the _first_ language to express a whole series of experiences.\nIn this case nothing it contains will really be heard at all, and,\nthanks to an acoustic delusion, people will believe that where nothing\nis heard there is nothing to hear.... This, at least, has been my\nusual experience, and proves, if you will, the originality of my\nexperience. He who thought he had understood something in my work, had\nas a rule adjusted something in it to his own image--not infrequently\nthe very opposite of myself, an \"idealist,\" for instance. He who\nunderstood nothing in my work, would deny that I was worth considering\nat all.--The word \"Superman,\" which designates a type of man that\nwould be one of nature's rarest and luckiest strokes, as opposed to\n\"modern\" men, to \"good\" men, to Christians and other Nihilists,--a\nword which in the mouth of Zarathustra, the annihilator of morality,\nacquires a very profound meaning,--is understood almost everywhere, and\nwith perfect innocence, in the light of those values to which a flat\ncontradiction was made manifest in the figure of Zarathustra--that is\nto say, as an \"ideal\" type, a higher kind of man, half \"saint\" and half\n\"genius.\" ... Other learned cattle have suspected me of Darwinism on\naccount of this word: even the \"hero cult\" of that great unconscious\nand involuntary swindler, Carlyle,--a cult which I repudiated with\nsuch roguish malice,--was recognised in my doctrine. Once, when I\nwhispered to a man that he would do better I to seek for the Superman\nin a C\u00e6sar Borgia than in a Parsifal, he could not believe his ears.\nThe fact that I am quite free from curiosity in regard to criticisms of\nmy books, more particularly when they appear in newspapers, will have\nto be forgiven me. My friends and my publishers know this, and never\nspeak to me of such things. In one particular case, I once saw all the\nsins that had been committed against a single book--it was _Beyond Good\nand Evil;_ I could tell you a nice story about it. Is it possible that\nthe _National-Zeitung_--a Prussian paper (this comment is for the sake\nof my foreign readers--for my own part, I beg to state, I read only _Le\nJournal des D\u00e9bats_)--really and seriously regarded the book as a \"sign\nof the times,\" or a genuine and typical example of Tory philosophy,[1]\nfor which the _Kreuz-Zeitung_ had not sufficient courage?...\n\n\n\n2\n\n\nThis was said for the benefit of Germans: for everywhere else I have\nmy readers--all of them exceptionally intelligent men, characters that\nhave won their spurs and that have been reared in high offices and\nsuperior duties; I have even real geniuses among my readers. In Vienna,\nin St Petersburg, in Stockholm, in Copenhagen, in Paris, and New\nYork--I have been discovered everywhere: I have not yet been discovered\nin Europe's flatland--Germany.... And, to make a confession, I rejoice\nmuch more heartily over those who do not read me, over those who have\nneither heard of my name nor of the word philosophy. But whithersoever\nI go, here in Turin, for instance, every face brightens and softens\nat the sight of me. A thing that has flattered me more than anything\nelse hitherto, is the fact that old market-women cannot rest until\nthey have picked out the sweetest of their grapes for me. To this\nextent must a man be a philosopher.... It is not in vain that the\nPoles are considered as the French among the Slavs. A charming Russian\nlady will not be mistaken for a single moment concerning my origin.\nI am not successful at being pompous, the most I can do is to appear\nembarrassed.... I can think in German, I can feel in German--I can do\nmost things; but this is beyond my powers.... My old master Ritschl\nwent so far as to declare that I planned even my philological treatises\nafter the manner of a Parisian novelist--that I made them absurdly\nthrilling. In Paris itself people are surprised at \"_toutes mes audaces\net finesses_\";--the words are Monsieur Taine's;--I fear that even in\nthe highest forms of the dithyramb, that salt will be found pervading\nmy work which never becomes insipid, which never becomes \"German\"--and\nthat is, wit.... I can do nought else. God help me! Amen.--We all know,\nsome of us even from experience, what a \"long-ears\" is. Well then, I\nventure to assert that I have the smallest ears that have ever been\nseen. This fact is not without interest to women--it seems to me they\nfeel that I understand them better!... I am essentially the anti-ass,\nand on this account alone a monster in the world's history--in Greek,\nand not only in Greek, I am the _Antichrist._\n\n\n\n3\n\n\nI am to a great extent aware of my privileges as a writer: in one\nor two cases it has even been brought home to me how very much the\nhabitual > reading of my works \"spoils\" a man's taste. Other books\nsimply cannot be endured after mine, and least of all philosophical\nones. It is an incomparable distinction to cross the threshold of\nthis noble and subtle world--in order to do so one must certainly\nnot be a German; it is, in short, a distinction which one must have\ndeserved. He, however, who is related to me through loftiness of\nwill, experiences genuine raptures of understanding in my books:\nfor I swoop down from heights into which no bird has ever soared; I\nknow abysses into which no foot has ever slipped. People have told\nme that it is impossible to lay down a book of mine--that I disturb\neven the night's rest.... There is no prouder or at the same time more\nsubtle kind of books: they sometimes attain to the highest pinnacle\nof earthly endeavour, cynicism; to capture their thoughts a man must\nhave the tenderest fingers as well as the most intrepid fists. Any\nkind of spiritual decrepitude utterly excludes all intercourse with\nthem--even any kind of dyspepsia: a man must have no nerves, but he\nmust have a cheerful belly. Not only the poverty of a man's soul and\nits stuffy air excludes all intercourse with them, but also, and to a\nmuch greater degree, cowardice, uncleanliness, and secret intestinal\nrevengefulness; a word from my lips suffices to make the colour of\nall evil instincts rush into a face. Among my acquaintances I have\na number of experimental subjects, in whom I see depicted all the\ndifferent, and instructively different, reactions which follow upon\na perusal of my works. Those who will have nothing to do with the\ncontents of my books, as for instance my so-called friends, assume an\n\"impersonal\" tone concerning them: they wish me luck, and congratulate\nme for having produced another work; they also declare that my writings\nshow progress, because they exhale a more cheerful spirit.... The\nthoroughly vicious people, the \"beautiful souls,\" the false from top to\ntoe, do not know in the least what to do with my books--consequently,\nwith the beautiful consistency of all beautiful souls, they regard\nmy work as beneath them. The cattle among my acquaintances, the mere\nGermans, leave me to understand, if you please, that they are not\nalways of my opinion, though here and there they agree with me.... I\nhave heard this said even about _Zarathustra._ \"Feminism,\" whether in\nmankind or in man, is likewise a barrier to my writings; with it, no\none could ever enter into this labyrinth of fearless knowledge. To\nthis end, a man must never have spared himself, he must have been hard\nin his habits, in order to be good-humoured and merry among a host of\ninexorable truths. When I try to picture the character of a perfect\nreader, I always imagine a monster of courage and curiosity, as well as\nof suppleness, cunning, and prudence--in short, a born adventurer and\nexplorer. After all, I could not describe better than _Zarathustra_ has\ndone unto whom I really address myself: unto whom alone would he reveal\nhis riddle?\n\n\"Unto you, daring explorers and experimenters, and unto all who have\never embarked beneath cunning sails upon terrible seas;\n\n\"Unto you who revel in riddles and in twilight, whose souls are lured\nby flutes unto every treacherous abyss:\n\n\"For ye care not to grope your way along a thread with craven fingers;\nand where ye are able to _guess,_ ye hate to _argue_?\"\n\n\n\n4\n\n\nI will now pass just one or two general remarks about my _art of\nstyle._ To communicate a state an inner tension of pathos by means\nof signs, including the tempo of these signs,--that is the meaning of\nevery style; and in view of the fact that the multiplicity of inner\nstates in me is enormous, I am capable of many kinds of style--in\nshort, the most multifarious art of style that any man has ever had at\nhis disposal. Any style is _good_ which genuinely communicates an inner\ncondition, which does not blunder over the signs, over the tempo of the\nsigns, or over _moods_--all the laws of phrasing are the outcome of\nrepresenting moods artistically. Good style, in itself, is a piece of\nsheer foolery, mere idealism, like \"beauty in itself,\" for instance,\nor \"goodness in itself,\" or \"the thing-in-itself.\" All this takes for\ngranted, of course, that there exist ears that can hear, and such men\nas are capable and worthy of a like pathos, that those are not wanting\nunto whom one may communicate one's self. Meanwhile my Zarathustra,\nfor instance, is still in quest of such people--alas! he will have to\nseek a long while yet! A man must be worthy of listening to him....\nAnd, until that time, there will be no one who will understand the art\nthat has been squandered in this book. No one has ever existed who has\nhad more novel, more strange, and purposely created art forms to fling\nto the winds. The fact that such things were possible in the German\nlanguage still awaited proof; formerly, I myself would have denied\nmost emphatically that it was possible. Before my time people did not\nknow what could be done with the German language--what could be done\nwith language in general. The art of grand rhythm, of grand style in\nperiods, for expressing the tremendous fluctuations of sublime and\nsuperhuman passion, was first discovered by me: with the dithyramb\nentitled \"The Seven Seals,\" which constitutes the last discourse of\nthe third part of _Zarathustra,_ I soared miles above all that which\nheretofore has been called poetry.\n\n\n\n5\n\n\nThe fact that the voice which speaks in my works is that of a\npsychologist who has not his peer, is perhaps the first conclusion\nat which a good reader will arrive--a reader such as I deserve, and\none who reads me just as the good old philologists used to read their\nHorace. Those propositions about which all the world is fundamentally\nagreed--not to speak of fashionable philosophy, of moralists and\nother empty-headed and cabbage-brained people--are to me but ingenuous\nblunders: for instance, the belief that \"altruistic\" and \"egoistic\";\nare opposites, while all the time the \"ego\" itself is merely a \"supreme\nswindle,\" an \"ideal.\" ... There are no such things as egoistic or\naltruistic actions: both concepts are psychological nonsense. Or\nthe proposition that \"man pursues happiness\"; or the proposition\nthat \"happiness is the reward of virtue.\" ... Or the proposition\nthat \"pleasure and pain are opposites.\" ... Morality, the Circe of\nmankind, has falsified everything psychological, root and branch--it\nhas demoralised everything, even to the terribly nonsensical point\nof calling love \"unselfish.\" A man must first be firmly poised, he\nmust stand securely on his two legs, otherwise he cannot love at\nall. This indeed the girls know only too well: they don't care two\npins about unselfish and merely objective men.... May I venture to\nsuggest, incidentally, that I know women? This knowledge is part of my\nDionysian patrimony. Who knows? maybe I am the first psychologist of\nthe eternally feminine. Women all like me.... But that's an old story:\nsave, of course, the abortions among them, the emancipated ones, those\nwho lack the where-withal to have children. Thank goodness I am not\nwilling to let myself be torn to pieces! the perfect woman tears you\nto pieces when she loves you: I know these amiable M\u00e6nads.... Oh! what\na dangerous, creeping, subterranean little beast of prey she is! And\nso agreeable withal! ... A little woman, pursuing her vengeance, would\nforce open even the iron gates of Fate itself. Woman is incalculably\nmore wicked than man, she is also cleverer. Goodness in a woman is\nalready a sign of _degeneration._ All cases of \"beautiful souls\" in\nwomen may be traced to a faulty physiological condition--but I go no\nfurther, lest I should become medicynical. The struggle for equal\nrights is even a symptom of disease; every doctor knows this. The more\nwomanly a woman is, the more she fights tooth and nail against rights\nin general: the natural order of things, the eternal war between the\nsexes, assigns to her by far the foremost rank. Have people had ears\nto hear my definition of love? It is the only definition worthy of a\nphilosopher. Love, in its means, is war; in its foundation, it is the\nmortal hatred of the sexes. Have you heard my reply to the question\nhow a woman can be cured, \"saved\" in fact?--Give her a child! A woman\nneeds children, man is always only a means, thus spake Zarathustra.\n\"The emancipation of women,\"--this is the instinctive hatred of\nphysiologically botched--that is to say, barren--women for those of\ntheir sisters who are well constituted: the fight against \"man\" is\nalways only a means, a pretext, a piece of strategy. By trying to rise\nto \"Woman _per se_,\" to \"Higher Woman,\" to the \"Ideal Woman,\" all they\nwish to do is to lower the general level of women's rank: and there are\nno more certain means to this end than university education, trousers,\nand the rights of voting cattle. Truth to tell, the emancipated are\nthe anarchists in the \"eternally feminine\" world, the physiological\nmishaps, the most deep-rooted instinct of whom is revenge. A whole\nspecies of the most malicious \"idealism\"--which, by the bye, also\nmanifests itself in men, in Henrik Ibsen for instance, that typical\nold maid--whose object is to poison the clean conscience, the natural\nspirit, of sexual love.... And in order to leave no doubt in your minds\nin regard to my opinion, which, on this matter, is as honest as it\nis severe, I will reveal to you one more clause out of my moral code\nagainst vice--with the word \"vice\" I combat every kind of! opposition\nto Nature, or, if you prefer fine words, idealism. The clause reads:\n\"Preaching of chastity is a public incitement to unnatural practices.\nAll depreciation of the sexual life, all the sullying of it by means\nof the concept 'impure,' is the essential crime against Life--is the\nessential crime against the Holy Spirit of Life.\"\n\nIn order to give you some idea of myself as a psychologist, let me\ntake this curious piece of psychological analysis out of the book\n_Beyond Good and Evil,_ in which it appears. I forbid, by the bye, any\nguessing as to whom I am describing in this passage. \"The genius of\nthe heart, as that great anchorite possesses it, the divine tempter\nand born Pied Piper of consciences, whose voice knows how to sink into\nthe inmost depths of every soul, who neither utters a word nor casts a\nglance, in which some seductive motive or trick does not lie: a part\nof whose masterliness is that he understands the art of seeming--not\nwhat he is, but that which will place a fresh constraint upon his\nfollowers to press ever more closely upon him, to follow him ever more\nenthusiastically and whole-heartedly.... The genius of the heart,\nwhich makes all loud and self-conceited things hold their tongues and\nlend their ears, which polishes all rough souls and makes them taste a\nnew longing--to lie placid as a mirror, that the deep heavens may be\nreflected in them.... The genius of the heart which teaches the clumsy\nand too hasty hand to hesitate and grasp more tenderly; which scents\nthe hidden and forgotten treasure, the pearl of goodness and sweet\nspirituality, beneath thick black ice, and is a divining rod for every\ngrain of gold, long buried and imprisoned in heaps of mud and sand....\nThe genius of the heart, from contact with which every man goes away\nricher, not 'blessed' and overcome, not as though favoured and crushed\nby the good things of others; but richer in himself, fresher to\nhimself than before, opened up, breathed upon and sounded by a thawing\nwind; more uncertain, perhaps, more delicate, more fragile, more\nbruised; but full of hopes which as yet lack names, full of a new will\nand striving, full of a new unwillingness and counter-striving.\" ...\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _Junker-Philosophie._ The landed proprietors constitute\nthe dominating class in Prussia, and it is from this class that all\nofficers and higher officials are drawn. The _Kreuz-Zeitung_ is the\norgan of the Junker party.--TR.]\n\n\n\n\n\"THE BIRTH Of TRAGEDY\"\n\n\n\n1\n\n\nIn order to be fair to the _Birth of Tragedy_ (1872) it is necessary\nto forget a few things. It created a sensation and even fascinated by\nmeans of its mistakes--by means of its application to Wagnerism, as\nif the latter were the sign of an ascending tendency. On that account\nalone, this treatise was an event in Wagner's life: thenceforward\ngreat hopes surrounded the name of Wagner. Even to this day, people\nremind me, sometimes in the middle of _Parsifal,_ that it rests on\nmy conscience if the opinion, that this movement is of great value\nto culture, at length became prevalent I have often seen the book\nquoted as \"The Second Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music\":\npeople had ears only for new formul\u00e6 for Wagner's art, his object\nand his mission--and in this way the real hidden value of the book\nwas overlooked. \"Hellenism and Pessimism\"--this would have been a\nless equivocal title, seeing that the book contains the first attempt\nat showing how the Greeks succeeded in disposing: of pessimism--in\nwhat manner they overcame it. ... Tragedy itself is the proof of\nthe fact that the Greeks were not pessimists: Schopenhauer blundered\nhere as he blundered in everything else.--Regarded impartially,\n_The Birth of Tragedy_ is a book quite strange to its age: no one\nwould dream that it was begun in the thunder of the battle of W\u00f6rth.\nI thought out these problems on cold September nights beneath the\nwalls of Metz, in the midst of my duties as nurse to the wounded; it\nwould be easier to think that it was written fifty years earlier. Its\nattitude towards politics is one of indifference,--\"un-German,\"[1]\nas people would say to-day,--it smells offensively of Hegel; only in\none or two formul\u00e6 is it infected with the bitter odour of corpses\nwhich is peculiar to Schopenhauer. An idea--the antagonism of the two\nconcepts Dionysian and Apollonian--is translated into metaphysics;\nhistory itself is depicted as the development of this idea; in tragedy\nthis antithesis has become unity; from this standpoint things which\ntheretofore had never been face to face are suddenly confronted, and\nunderstood and illuminated by each other.... Opera and revolution,\nfor instance.... The two decisive innovations in the book are, first,\nthe comprehension of the Dionysian phenomenon among the Greeks--it\nprovides the first psychological analysis of this phenomenon, and\nsees in it the single root of all Greek art; and, secondly, the\ncomprehension of Socraticism--Socrates being presented for the first\ntime as the instrument of Greek dissolution, as a typical decadent.\n\"Reason\" _versus_ Instinct. \"Reason\" at any cost, as a dangerous,\nlife-undermining force. The whole book is profoundly and politely\nsilent concerning Christianity: the latter is neither Apollonian nor\nDionysian; it denies all \u00e6sthetic values, which are the only values\nthat _The Birth of Tragedy_ recognises. Christianity is most profoundly\nnihilistic, whereas in the Dionysian symbol, the most extreme limits of\na yea-saying attitude to life are attained. In one part of the book the\nChristian priesthood is referred to as a \"perfidious order of goblins,\"\nas \"subterraneans.\"\n\nThis start of mine was remarkable beyond measure. As a confirmation of\nmy inmost personal experience I had discovered the only example of this\nfact that history possesses,--with this I was the first to understand\nthe amazing Dionysian phenomenon. At the same time, by recognising\nSocrates as a decadent, I proved most conclusively that the certainty\nof my psychological grasp of things ran very little risk at the hands\nof any sort of moral idiosyncrasy: to regard morality itself as a\nsymptom of degeneration is an innovation, a unique event of the first\norder in the history of knowledge. How high I had soared above the\npitifully foolish gabble about Optimism and Pessimism with my two new\ndoctrines! I was the first to see the actual contrast: the degenerate\ninstinct which turns upon life with a subterranean lust of vengeance\n(Christianity, Schopenhauer's philosophy, and in some respects too\neven Plato's philosophy--in short, the whole of idealism in its typical\nforms), as opposed to a formula of the highest yea-saying to life,\nborn of an abundance and a superabundance of life--a I yea-saying free\nfrom all reserve, applying even to suffering, and guilt, and all that\nis questionable and strange in existence.... This last, most joyous,\nmost exuberant and exultant yea to life, is not only the highest,\nbut also the profoundest conception, and one which is most strictly\nconfirmed and supported by truth and science. Nothing that exists must\nbe suppressed, nothing can be dispensed with. Those aspects of life\nwhich Christians and other Nihilists reject, belong to an incalculably\nhigher order in the hierarchy of values, than that which the instinct\nof degeneration calls good, and _may_ call good. In order to understand\nthis, a certain courage is necessary, and, as a prerequisite of this,\na certain superfluity of strength: for a man can approach only as near\nto truth as he has the courage to advance--that is to say, everything\ndepends strictly upon the measure of his strength. Knowledge, and\nthe affirmation of reality, are just as necessary to the strong man\nas cowardice, the flight from reality--in fact, the \"ideal\"--are\nnecessary to the weak inspired by weakness.... These people are not\nat liberty to \"know,\"--decadents stand in need of lies,--it is one of\ntheir self-preservative measures. He who not only understands the word\n\"Dionysian,\" but understands _himself_ in that term, does not require\nany refutation of Plato, or of Christianity, or of Schopenhauer--for\nhis nose _scents decomposition._\n\n\n\n3\n\n\nThe extent to which I had by means of these doctrines discovered the\nidea of \"tragedy,\" the ultimate explanation of what the psychology of\ntragedy is, I discussed finally in _The Twilight of the Idols_ (Aph.\n5, part 10).... \"The saying of yea to life, and even to its weirdest\nand most difficult problems: the will to life rejoicing at its own\ninfinite vitality in the sacrifice of its highest types--that is what I\ncalled Dionysian, that is what I meant as the bridge to the psychology\nof the tragic poet. Not to cast out terror and pity, or to purge one's\nself of dangerous passion by discharging it with vehemence,--this was\nAristotle's[2] misunderstanding of it,--but to be far beyond terror\nand pity and to be the eternal lust of Becoming itself--that lust\nwhich also involves the joy of destruction.\" ... In this sense I have\nthe right to regard myself as the first _tragic philosopher_--that is\nto say, the most extreme antithesis and antipodes of a pessimistic\nphilosopher. Before my time no such thing existed as this translation\nof the Dionysian phenomenon into philosophic emotion: tragic wisdom was\nlacking; in vain have I sought for signs of it even among the great\nGreeks in philosophy--those belonging to the two centuries before\nSocrates. I still remained a little doubtful about Heraclitus, in whose\npresence, alone, I felt warmer and more at ease than anywhere else.\nThe yea-saying to the impermanence and annihilation of things, which\nis the decisive feature of a Dionysian philosophy; the yea-saying to\ncontradiction and war, the postulation of Becoming, together with the\nradical rejection even of the concept _Being_-- in all these things, at\nall events, I must recognise him who has come nearest to me in thought\nhither to. The doctrine of the \"Eternal Recurrence\"--that is to say,\nof the absolute and eternal repetition of all things in periodical\ncycles--this doctrine of Zarathustra's might, it is true, have been\ntaught before. In any case, the Stoics, who derived nearly all their\nfundamental ideas from Heraclitus, show traces of it.\n\nA tremendous hope finds expression in this work. After all, I have\nabsolutely no reason to renounce the hope for a Dionysian future of\nmusic. Let us look a century ahead, and let us suppose that my attempt\nto destroy two millenniums of hostility to Nature and of the violation\nof humanity be crowned with success That new party of life-advocates,\nwhich will undertake the greatest of all tasks, the elevation and\nperfection of mankind, as well as the relentless destruction of all\ndegenerate and parasitical elements, will make that _superabundance\nof life_ on earth once more possible, out of which the Dionysian\nstate will perforce arise again. I promise the advent of a tragic\nage: the highest art in the saying of yea to life, \"tragedy,\" will be\nborn again when mankind has the knowledge of the hardest, but most\nnecessary of wars, behind it, without, however, suffering from that\nknowledge.... A psychologist might add that what I heard in Wagnerian\nmusic in my youth and early manhood had nothing whatsoever to do with\nWagner; that when I described Dionysian music, I described merely\nwhat _I_ personally had heard--that I was compelled instinctively to\ntranslate and transfigure everything into the new spirit which filled\nmy breast. A proof of this, and as strong a proof as you could have,\nis my essay, _Wagner in Bayreuth_: in all its decisive psychological\npassages I am the only person concerned--without any hesitation you may\nread my name or the word \"Zarathustra\" wherever the text contains the\nname of Wagner. The whole panorama of the _dithyrambic_ artist is the\nrepresentation of the already existing author of _Zarathustra,_ and\nit is drawn with an abysmal depth which does not even once come into\ncontact with the real Wagner. Wagner himself had a notion of the truth;\nhe did not recognise himself in the essay.--In this way, \"the idea of\nBayreuth\" was changed into something which to those who are acquainted\nwith my _Zarathustra_ will be no riddle--that is to say, into the\nGreat Noon when the highest of the elect will consecrate themselves\nfor the greatest of all duties--who knows? the vision of a feast which\nI may live to see.... The pathos of the first few pages is universal\nhistory; the look which is discussed on page 105[3] of the book, is the\nactual look of _Zarathustra;_ Wagner, Bayreuth, the whole of this petty\nGerman wretchedness, is a cloud upon which an infinite Fata Morgana\nof the future is reflected. Even from the psychological standpoint,\nall the decisive traits in my character are introduced into Wagner's\nnature--the juxtaposition of the most brilliant and most fatal forces,\na Will to Power such as no man has ever possessed--inexorable bravery\nin matters spiritual, an unlimited power of learning unaccompanied by\ndepressed powers for action. Everything in this essay is a prophecy:\nthe proximity of the resurrection of the Greek spirit, the need of men\nwho will be counter-Alexanders, who will once more tie the Gordian knot\nof Greek culture, after it has been cut. Listen to the world-historic\naccent with which the concept \"sense for the tragic\" is introduced\non page 180: there are little else but world-historic accents in\nthis essay. This is the strangest kind of \"objectivity\" that ever\nexisted: my absolute certainty in regard to what I _am,_ projected\nitself into any chance reality--truth about myself was voiced from out\nappalling depths. On pages 174 and 175 the style of _Zarathustra_ is\ndescribed and foretold with incisive certainty, and no more magnificent\nexpression will ever be found than that on pages 144-147 for the event\nfor which _Zarathustra_ stands--that prodigious act of the purification\nand consecration of mankind.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Those Germans who, like Nietzsche or Goethe, recognised\nthat politics constituted a danger to culture, and who appreciated the\nliterature of maturer cultures, such as that of France, are called\n_un-deutsch_ (un-German) by Imperialistic Germans.--Tr.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Aristotle's _Poetics_, c. vi.--Tr.]\n\n[Footnote 3: This number and those which follow refer to _Thoughts out\nof Season,_ Part I. in this edition of Nietzsche's Works.--TR.]\n\n\n\n\n\"THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON\"\n\n\n\n1\n\n\nThe four essays composing the _Thoughts out of Season_ are thoroughly\nwarlike in tone. They prove that I was no mere dreamer, that I delight\nin drawing the sword--and perhaps, also, that my wrist is dangerously\nsupple. The first onslaught (1873) was directed against German culture,\nupon which I looked down even at that time with unmitigated contempt\nWithout either sense, substance, or goal, it was simply \"public\nopinion.\" There could be no more dangerous misunderstanding than to\nsuppose that Germany's success at arms proved anything in favour of\nGerman culture--and still less the triumph of this culture; over\nthat of France. The second essay (1874) brings to light that which\nis dangerous, that which corrodes and poisons life in our manner of\npursuing scientific study: Life is diseased, thanks to this dehumanised\npiece of clockwork and mechanism, thanks to the \"impersonality\" of\nthe workman, 1 and the false economy of the \"division of labour.\" The\nobject, which is culture, is lost sight of: modern scientific activity\nas a means thereto simply produces barbarism. In this treatise, the\n\"historical sense,\" of which this century is so proud, is for the first\ntime recognised as sickness, as a typical symptom of decay. In the\nthird and fourth essays, a sign-post is set up pointing to a higher\nconcept of culture, to a re-establishment of the notion \"culture\";\nand two pictures of the hardest self-love and self-discipline are\npresented, two essentially un-modern types, full of the most sovereign\ncontempt for all that which lay around them and was called \"Empire,\"\n\"Culture,\" \"Christianity,\" \"Bismarck,\" and \"Success,\"--these two types\nwere Schopenhauer and Wagner, _or,_ in a word, Nietzsche....\n\n\n\n2\n\n\nOf these four attacks, the first met with extraordinary success. The\nstir which it created was in every way gorgeous. I had put my finger\non the vulnerable spot of a triumphant nation--I had told it that its\nvictory was not a red-letter day for culture, but, perhaps, something\nvery different. The reply rang out from all sides, and certainly not\nonly from old friends of David Strauss, whom I had made ridiculous\nas the type of a German Philistine of Culture and a man of smug\nself-content--in short, as the author of that suburban gospel of his,\ncalled _The Old and the New Faith_ (the term \"Philistine of Culture\"\npassed into the current language of Germany after the appearance of my\nbook). These old friends, whose vanity as W\u00fcrtembergians and Swabians\nI had deeply wounded in regarding their unique animal, their bird\nof Paradise, as a trifle comic, replied to me as ingenuously and as\ngrossly as I could have wished. The Prussian replies were smarter; they\ncontained more \"Prussian blue.\" The most disreputable attitude was\nassumed by a Leipzig paper, the egregious _Grentzboten_; and it cost me\nsome pains to prevent my indignant friends in B\u00e2le from taking action\nagainst it. Only a few old gentlemen decided in my favour, and for\nvery diverse and sometimes unaccountable reasons. Among them was one,\nEwald of G\u00f6ttingen, who made it clear that my attack on Strauss had\nbeen deadly. There was also the Hegelian, Bruno Bauer, who from that\ntime became one of my most attentive readers. In his later years he\nliked to refer to me, when, for instance, he wanted to give Herr von\nTreitschke, the Prussian Historiographer, a hint as to where he could\nobtain information about the notion \"Culture,\" of which he (Herr von\nT.) had completely lost sight. The weightiest and longest notice of my\nbook and its author appeared in W\u00fcrzburg, and was written by Professor\nHoffmann, an old pupil of the philosopher von Baader. The essays made\nhim foresee a great future for me, namely, that of bringing about a\nsort of crisis and decisive turning-point in the problem of atheism,\nof which he recognised in me the most instinctive and most radical\nadvocate. It was atheism that had drawn me to Schopenhauer. The review\nwhich received by far the most attention, and which excited the most\nbitterness, was an extraordinarily powerful and plucky appreciation of\nmy work by Carl Hillebrand, a man who was usually so mild, and the last\n_humane_ German who knew how to wield a pen. The article appeared in\nthe _Augsburg Gazette,_ and it can be read to-day, couched in rather\nmore cautious language, among his collected essays. In it my work was\nreferred to as an event, as a decisive turning-point, as the first sign\nof an awakening, as an excellent symptom, and as an actual revival\nof German earnestness and of German passion in things spiritual.\nHillebrand could speak only in the terms of the highest respect, of\nthe form of my book, of its consummate taste, of its perfect tact in\ndiscriminating between persons and causes: he characterised it as the\nbest polemical work in the German language,--the best performance in\nthe art of polemics, which for Germans is so dangerous and so strongly\nto be deprecated. Besides confirming my standpoint, he laid even\ngreater stress upon what I had dared to say about the deterioration of\nlanguage in Germany (nowadays writers assume the airs of Purists[1]\nand can no longer even construct a sentence); sharing my contempt for\nthe literary stars of this nation, he concluded by expressing his\nadmiration for my courage--that \"greatest courage of all which places\nthe very favourites of the people in the dock.\" ... The after-effects\nof this essay of mine proved invaluable to me in my life. No one has\never tried to meddle with me since. People are silent. In Germany\nI am treated with gloomy caution: for years I have rejoiced in the\nprivilege of such absolute freedom of speech, as no one nowadays,\nleast of all in the \"Empire,\" has enough liberty to claim. My paradise\nis \"in the shadow of my sword.\" At bottom all I had done was to put\none of Stendhal's maxims into practice: he advises one to make one's\nentrance into society by means of a duel. And how well I had chosen my\nopponent!--the foremost free-thinker of Germany. As a matter of fact,\nquite a novel kind of free thought found its expression in this way:\nup to the present nothing has been more strange and more foreign to my\nblood than the whole of that European and American species known as\n_litres penseurs._ Incorrigible blockheads and clowns of \"modern ideas\"\nthat they are, I feel much more profoundly at variance with them than\nwith any one of their adversaries. They also wish to \"improve\" mankind,\nafter their own fashion--that is to say, in their own image; against\nthat which I stand for and desire, they would wage an implacable war,\nif only they understood it; the whole gang of them still believe in an\n\"ideal.\" ... I am the first _Immoralist_.\n\n\n\n3\n\n\nI should not like to say that the last two essays in the _Thoughts\nout of Season,_ associated with the names of Schopenhauer and Wagner\nrespectively, serve any special purpose in throwing light upon these\ntwo cases, or in formulating their psychological problems. This of\ncourse does not apply to a few details. Thus, for instance, in the\nsecond of the two essays, with a profound certainty of instinct I\nalready characterised the elementary factor in Wagner's nature as a\ntheatrical talent which in all his means and inspirations only draws\nits final conclusions. At bottom, my desire in this essay was to do\nsomething very different from writing psychology: an unprecedented\neducational problem, a new understanding of self-discipline and\nself-defence carried to the point of hardness, a road to greatness\nand to world-historic duties, yearned to find expression. Roughly\nspeaking, I seized two famous and, theretofore, completely undefined\ntypes by the forelock, after the manner in which one seizes\nopportunities, simply in order to speak my mind on certain questions,\nin order to have a few more formulas, signs, and means of expression\nat my disposal. Indeed I actually suggest this, with most unearthly\nsagacity, on page 183 of _Schopenhauer as Educator._ Plato made use\nof Socrates in the same way--that is to say, as a cipher for Plato.\nNow that, from some distance, I can look back upon the conditions of\nwhich these essays are the testimony, I would be loth to deny that they\nrefer simply to me. The essay _Wagner in Bayreuth_ is a vision of my\nown future; on the other hand, my most secret history, my development,\nis written down in _Schopenhauer as Educator._ But, above all, the\n_vow_ I made I What I am to-day, the place I now hold--at a height from\nwhich I speak no longer with words but with thunderbolts!--oh, how\nfar I was from all this in those days! But I saw the land--I did not\ndeceive myself for one moment as to the way, the sea, the danger--_and_\nsuccess! The great calm in promising, this happy prospect of a future\nwhich must not remain only a promise!--In this book every word has\nbeen lived, profoundly and intimately; the most painful things are not\nlacking in it; it contains words which are positively running with\nblood. But a wind of great freedom blows over the whole; even its\nwounds do not constitute an objection. As to what I understand by being\na philosopher,--that is to say, a terrible explosive in the presence\nof which everything is in danger; as to how I sever my idea of the\nphilosopher by miles from that other idea of him which includes even a\nKant, not to speak of the academic \"ruminators\" and other professors of\nphilosophy,--concerning all these things this essay provides invaluable\ninformation, even granting that at bottom, it is not \"Schopenhauer as\nEducator\" but \"Nietzsche as Educator,\" who speaks his sentiments in\nit. Considering that, in those days, my trade was that of a scholar,\nand perhaps, also, that I understood my trade, the piece of austere\nscholar psychology which suddenly makes its appearance in this essay is\nnot without importance: it expresses the feeling of distance, and my\nprofound certainty regarding what was my real life-task, and what were\nmerely means, intervals, and accessory work to me. My wisdom consists\nin my having been many things, and in many places, in order to become\none thing--in order to be able to attain to one thing. It was part of\nmy fate to be a scholar for a while.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The Purists constitute a definite body in Germany, which\nis called the _Deutscher Sprach-Verein._ Their object is to banish\nevery foreign word from the language, and they carry this process of\nostracism even into the domain of the menu, where their efforts at\nrendering the meaning of French dishes are extremely comical. Strange\nto say, their principal organ, and their other publications, are by\nno means free either from solecisms or faults of style, and it is\ndoubtless to this curious anomaly that Nietzsche here refers.--TR.]\n\n\n\n\n\"HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN\"\n\n\n\n1\n\n\n_Human all-too-Human,_ with its two sequels, is the memorial of a\ncrisis. It is called a book for free spirits: almost every sentence in\nit is the expression of a triumph--by means of it I purged myself of\neverything in me which was foreign to my nature. Idealism is foreign\nto me: the title of the book means: \"Where ye see ideal things I\nsee--human, alas! all-too-human things!\" ... I know men better. The\nword \"free spirit\" in this book must not be understood as anything\nelse than a spirit that has become free, that has once more taken\npossession of itself. My tone, the pitch of my voice, has completely\nchanged; the book will be thought clever, cool, and at times both\nhard and scornful. A certain spirituality, of noble taste, seems to\nbe ever struggling to dominate a passionate torrent at its feet. In\nthis respect there is some sense in the fact that it was the hundredth\nanniversary of Voltaire's death that served, so to speak, as an excuse\nfor the publication of the book as early as 1878. For Voltaire, as the\nopposite of every one who wrote after him, was above all a grandee of\nthe intellect; precisely what I am also. The name of Voltaire on one\nof my writings--that was verily a step forward--in my direction....\nLooking into this book a little more closely, you perceive a pitiless\nspirit who knows all the secret hiding-places in which ideals are wont\nto skulk--where they find their dungeons, and, as it were, their last\nrefuge. With a torch in my hand, the light of which is not by any\nmeans a flickering one, I illuminate this nether world with beams that\ncut like blades. It is war, but war without powder and smoke, without\nwarlike attitudes, without pathos and contorted limbs--all these things\nwould still be \"idealism.\" One error after the other is quietly laid\nupon ice; the ideal is not refuted,--it freezes. Here, for instance,\n\"genius\" freezes; round the corner the \"saint\" freezes; under a thick\nicicle the \"hero\" freezes; and in the end \"faith\" itself freezes.\nSo-called \"conviction\" and also \"pity\" are considerably cooled--and\nalmost everywhere the \"thing in itself\" is freezing to death.\n\n\n\n2\n\n\nThis book was begun during the first musical festival at Bayreuth; a\nfeeling of profound strangeness towards everything that surrounded\nme there, is one of its first conditions. He who has any notion of\nthe visions which even at that time had flitted across my path, will\nbe able to guess what I felt when one day I came to my senses in\nBayreuth. It was just as if I had been dreaming. Where on earth was I?\nI recognised nothing that I saw; I scarcely recognised Wagner. It was\nin vain that I called up reminiscences. Tribschen--remote island of\nbliss: not the shadow of a resemblance! The incomparable days devoted\nto the laying of the first stone, the small group of the initiated\nwho celebrated them, and who were far from lacking fingers for the\nhandling of delicate things: not the shadow of a resemblance! _What\nhad happened?_--Wagner had been translated into German! The Wagnerite\nhad become master of Wagner!_--German_ art! the German master! German\nbeer!... We who know only too well the kind of refined artists and\ncosmopolitanism in taste, to which alone Wagner's art can appeal, were\nbeside ourselves at the sight of Wagner bedecked with German virtues.\nI think I know the Wagnerite, I have experienced three generations\nof them, from Brendel of blessed memory, who confounded Wagner with\nHegel, to the \"idealists\" of the _Bayreuth Gazette,_ who confound\nWagner with themselves,--I have been the recipient of every kind of\nconfession about Wagner, from \"beautiful souls.\" My kingdom for just\none intelligent word I--In very truth, a blood-curdling company! Nohl,\nPohl, and _Kohl_[1] and others of their kidney to infinity! There\nwas not a single abortion that was lacking among them--no, not even\nthe anti-Semite.--Poor Wagner! Into whose hands had he fallen? If\nonly he had gone into a herd of swine! But among Germans! Some day,\nfor the edification of posterity, one ought really to have a genuine\nBayreuthian stuffed, or, better still, preserved in spirit,--for\nit is precisely spirit that is lacking in this quarter,--with this\ninscription at the foot of the jar: \"A sample of the spirit whereon\nthe 'German Empire' was founded.\" ... But enough! In the middle of\nthe festivities I suddenly packed my trunk and left the place for a\nfew weeks, despite the fact that a charming Parisian lady sought to\ncomfort me; I excused myself to Wagner simply by means of a fatalistic\ntelegram. In a little spot called Klingenbrunn, deeply buried in the\nrecesses of the Bohmerwald, I carried my melancholy and my contempt of\nGermans about with me like an illness--and, from time to time, under\nthe general title of \"The Plough-share,\" I wrote a sentence or two down\nin my note-book, nothing but severe psychological stuff, which it is\npossible may have found its way into _Human, all-too-Human._\n\n\n\n3\n\n\nThat which had taken place in me, then, was not only a breach with\nWagner--I was suffering from a general aberration of my instincts,\nof which a mere isolated blunder, whether it were Wagner or my\nprofessorship at B\u00e2le, was nothing more than a symptom. I was seized\nwith a fit of impatience with myself; I saw that it was high time that\nI should turn my thoughts upon my own lot. In a trice I realised, with\nappalling clearness, how much time had already been squandered--how\nfutile and how senseless my whole existence as a philologist appeared\nby the side of my life-task. I was ashamed of this false modesty....\nTen years were behind me, during which, to tell the truth, the\nnourishment of my spirit had been at a standstill, during which I had\nadded not a single useful fragment to my knowledge, and had forgotten\ncountless things in the pursuit of a hotch-potch of dry-as-dust\nscholarship. To crawl with meticulous care and short-sighted eyes\nthrough old Greek metricians--that is what I had come to!... Moved to\npity I saw myself quite thin, quite emaciated: realities were only too\nplainly absent from my stock of knowledge, and what the \"idealities\"\nwere worth the devil alone knew! A positively burning thirst overcame\nme: and from that time forward I have done literally nothing else than\nstudy physiology, medicine, and natural science--I even returned to\nthe actual study of history only when my life-task compelled me to. It\nwas at that time, too, that I first divined the relation between an\ninstinctively repulsive occupation, a so-called vocation, which is the\nlast thing to which one is \"called\" and that need of lulling a feeling\nof emptiness and hunger, by means of an art which is a narcotic--by\nmeans of Wagner's art, for instance. After looking carefully about\nme, I have discovered that a large number of young men are all in the\nsame state of distress: one kind of unnatural practice perforce leads\nto another. In Germany, or rather, to avoid all ambiguity, in the\nEmpire,[2] only too many are condemned to determine their choice too\nsoon, and then to pine away beneath a burden that they can no longer\nthrow off.... Such creatures crave for Wagner as for an opiate,--they\nare thus able to forget themselves, to be rid of themselves for a\nmoment.... What am I saying!--for five or six hours.\n\n\n\n4\n\n\nAt this time my instincts turned resolutely against any further\nyielding or following on my part, and any further misunderstanding\nof myself. Every kind of life, the most unfavourable circumstances,\nillness, poverty--anything seemed to me preferable to that undignified\n\"selfishness\" into which I had fallen; in the first place, thanks to my\nignorance and youth, and in which I had afterwards remained owing to\nlaziness--the so-called \"sense of duty.\" At this juncture there came to\nmy help, in a way that I cannot sufficiently admire, and precisely at\nthe right time, that evil heritage which I derive from my father's side\nof the family, and which, at bottom, is no more than a predisposition\nto die young. Illness slowly liberated me from the toils, it spared me\nany sort of sudden breach, any sort of violent and offensive step. At\nthat time I lost not a particle of the good will of others, but rather\nadded to my store. Illness likewise gave me the right completely to\nreverse my mode of life; it not only allowed, it actually commanded,\nme to forget; it bestowed upon me the necessity of lying still, of\nhaving leisure, of waiting, and of exercising patience.... But all\nthis means thinking!... The state of my eyes alone put an end to all\nbook-wormishness, or, in plain English--philology: I was thus delivered\nfrom books; for years I ceased from reading, and this was the greatest\nboon I ever conferred upon myself! That nethermost self, which was,\nas it were, entombed, and which had grown dumb because it had been\nforced to listen perpetually to other selves (for that is what reading\nmeans!), slowly awakened; at first it was shy and doubtful, but at\nlast it _spoke again_ Never have I rejoiced more over my condition\nthan during the sickest and most painful moments of my life. You have\nonly to examine _The Dawn of Day,_ or, perhaps, _The Wanderer and\nhis Shadow,_[3] in order to understand what this \"return to myself\"\nactually meant: in itself it was the highest kind of recovery!... My\ncure was simply the result of it.\n\n\n\n5\n\n\n_Human, all-too-Human,_ this monument of a course of vigorous\nself-discipline, by means of which I put an abrupt end to all the\n\"Superior Bunkum,\" \"Idealism,\" \"Beautiful Feelings,\" and other\neffeminacies that had percolated into my being, was written principally\nin Sorrento; it was finished and given definite shape during a winter\nat B\u00e2le, under conditions far less favourable than those in Sorrento.\nTruth to tell, it was Peter Gast, at that time a student at the\nUniversity of B\u00e2le, and a devoted friend of mine, who was responsible\nfor the book. With my head wrapped in bandages, and extremely painful,\nI dictated while he wrote and corrected as he went along--to be\naccurate, he was the real composer, whereas I was only the author.\nWhen the completed book ultimately reached me,--to the great surprise\nof the serious invalid I then was,--I sent, among others, two copies\nto Bayreuth. Thanks to a miraculous flash of intelligence on the part\nof chance, there reached me precisely at the same time a splendid copy\nof the _Parsifal_ text, with the following inscription from Wagner's\npen: \"To his dear friend Friedrich Nietzsche, from Richard Wagner,\nEcclesiastical Councillor.\" At this crossing of the two books I seemed\nto hear an ominous note. Did it not sound as if two swords had crossed?\nAt all events we both felt this was so, for each of us remained silent.\nAt about this time the first Bayreuth Pamphlets appeared: and I then\nunderstood the move on my part for which it was high time. Incredible!\nWagner had become pious.\n\n\n\n6\n\n\nMy attitude to myself at that time (1876), and the unearthly certitude\nwith which I grasped my life-task and all its world-historic\nconsequences, is well revealed throughout the book, but more\nparticularly in one very significant passage, despite the fact that,\nwith my instinctive cunning, I once more circumvented the use of\nthe little word \"I,\"--not however, this time, in order to shed\nworld-historic glory on the names of Schopenhauer and Wagner, but on\nthat of another of my friends, the excellent Dr. Paul R\u00e9e--fortunately\nmuch too acute a creature to be deceived--others were less subtle.\nAmong my readers I have a number of hopeless people, the typical\nGerman professor for instance, who can always be recognised from the\nfact that, judging from the passage in question, he feels compelled to\nregard the whole book as a sort of superior Realism. As a matter of\nfact it contradicts five or six of my friend's utterances: only read\nthe introduction to _The Genealogy of Morals_ on this question.--The\npassage above referred to reads: \"What, after all, is the principal\naxiom to which the boldest and coldest thinker, the author of the\nbook \"_On the Origin of Moral Sensations_\" (read Nietzsche, the first\nImmoralist), \"has attained by means of his incisive and decisive\nanalysis of human actions? 'The moral man,' he says is no nearer to the\nintelligible (metaphysical) world than is the physical man, for there\nis no intelligible world.' This theory, hardened and sharpened under\nthe hammer-blow of historical knowledge\" (read _The Transvaluation\nof all Values_), \"may some time or other, perhaps in some future\nperiod,--1890!--serve as the axe which is applied to the root of the\n'metaphysical need' of man,--whether more as a blessing than a curse to\nthe general welfare it is not easy to say; but in any case as a theory\nwith the most important consequences, at once fruitful and terrible,\nand looking into the world with that Janus-face which all great\nknowledge possesses.\"[4]\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Nohl and Pohl were both writers on music; Kohl, however,\nwhich literally means cabbage, is a slang expression, denoting superior\nnonsense.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Needless to say, Nietzsche distinguishes between\nBismarckian Germany and that other Germany--Austria, Switzerland, and\nthe Baltic Provinces--where the German language is also spoken.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Human, all-too-Human,_ Part II. in this edition.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Human, all-too-Human,_ vol. i. Aph. 37.]\n\n\n\n\n\"THE DAWN OF DAY:\n\nTHOUGHTS ABOUT MORALITY AS A PREJUDICE\"\n\n\n\n1\n\n\nWith this book I open my campaign against morality. Not that it is at\nall redolent of powder--you will find quite other and much nicer smells\nin it, provided that you have any keenness in your nostrils. There\nis nothing either of light or of heavy artillery in its composition,\nand if its general end be a negative one, its means are not so--means\nout of which the end follows like a logical conclusion, _not_ like a\ncannon-shot. And if the reader takes leave of this book with a feeling\nof timid caution in regard to everything which has hitherto been\nhonoured and even worshipped under the name of morality, it does not\nalter the fact that there is not one negative word, not one attack,\nand not one single piece of malice in the whole work--on the contrary,\nit lies in the sunshine, smooth and happy, like a marine animal,\nbasking in the sun between two rocks. For, after all, I was this marine\nanimal: almost every sentence in the book was thought out, or rather\n_caught,_ among that medley of rocks in the neighbourhood of Genoa,\nwhere I lived quite alone, and exchanged secrets with the ocean. Even\nto this day, when by chance I happen to turn over the leaves of this\nbook, almost every sentence seems to me like a hook by means of which I\ndraw something incomparable out of the depths; its whole skin quivers\nwith delicate shudders of recollection. This book is conspicuous for no\nlittle art in gently catching things which whisk rapidly and silently\naway, moments which I call godlike lizards--not with the cruelty of\nthat young Greek god who simply transfixed the poor little beast;\nbut nevertheless with something pointed--with a pen. \"There are so\nmany dawns which have not yet shed their light\"--this Indian maxim is\nwritten over the doorway of this book. Where does its author seek that\nnew morning, that delicate red, as yet undiscovered, with which another\nday--ah! a whole series of days, a whole world of new days!--will\nbegin? In the _Transvaluation of all Values,_ in an emancipation from\nall moral values, in a saying of yea, and in an attitude of trust, to\nall that which hitherto has been forbidden, despised, and damned. This\nyea-saying book projects its light, its love, its tenderness, over all\nevil things, it restores to them their soul, their clear conscience,\nand their superior right and privilege to exist on earth. Morality is\nnot assailed, it simply ceases to be considered. This book closes with\nthe word \"or?\"--it is the only book which closes with an \"or?\".\n\n\n\n2\n\n\nMy life-task is to prepare for humanity one supreme moment in which it\ncan come to its senses, a Great Noon in which it will turn its gaze\nbackwards and forwards, in which it will step from under the yoke\nof accident and of priests, and for the first time set the question\nof the Why and Wherefore of humanity as a whole--this life-task\nnaturally follows out of the conviction that mankind does _not_ get\non the right road of its own accord, that it is by no means divinely\nruled, but rather that it is precisely under the cover of its most\nholy valuations that the instinct of negation, of corruption, and of\ndegeneration has held such a seductive sway. The question concerning\nthe origin of moral valuations is therefore a matter of the highest\nimportance to me because it determines the future of mankind. The\ndemand made upon us to believe that everything is really in the best\nhands, that a certain book, the Bible, gives us the definite and\ncomforting assurance that there is a Providence that wisely rules the\nfate of man,--when translated back into reality amounts simply to this,\nnamely, the will to stifle the truth which maintains the reverse of\nall this, which is that hitherto man has been in the _worst possible_\nhands, and that he has been governed by the physiologically botched,\nthe men of cunning and burning revengefulness, and the so-called\n\"saints\"--those slanderers of the world and traducers of humanity.\nThe definite proof of the fact that the priest (including the priest\nin disguise, the philosopher) has become master, not only within a\ncertain limited religious community, but everywhere, and that the\nmorality of decadence, the will to nonentity, has become morality\n_per se,_ is to be found in this: that altruism is now an absolute\nvalue, and egoism is regarded with hostility everywhere. He who\ndisagrees with me on this point, I regard as infected. But all the\nworld disagrees with me. To a physiologist a like antagonism between\nvalues admits of no doubt. If the most insignificant organ within the\nbody neglects, however slightly, to assert with absolute certainty its\nself-preservative powers, its recuperative claims, and its egoism, the\nwhole system degenerates. The physiologist insists upon the removal of\ndegenerated parts, he denies all fellow-feeling for such parts, and\nhas not the smallest feeling of pity for them. But the desire of the\npriest is precisely the degeneration of the whole of mankind; hence his\npreservation of that which is degenerate--this is what his dominion\ncosts humanity. What meaning have those lying concepts, those handmaids\nof morality, \"Soul,\" \"Spirit,\" \"Free will,\" \"God,\" if their aim is not\nthe physiological ruin of mankind? When earnestness is diverted from\nthe instincts that aim at self-preservation and an increase of bodily\nenergy, _i.e._ at an _increase of life_; when an\u00e6mia is raised to an\nideal and the contempt of the body is construed as \"the salvation of\nthe soul,\" what is all this if it is not a recipe for decadence? Loss\nof ballast, resistance offered to natural instincts, selflessness,\nin fact--this is what has hitherto been known as morality. With _The\nDawn of Day_ I first engaged in a struggle against the morality of\nself-renunciation.\n\n\n\n\n\"JOYFUL WISDOM: LA GAYA SCIENZA\"\n\n\n\n1\n\n\n_Dawn of Day_ is a yea-saying book, profound, but clear and kindly. The\nsame applies once more and in the highest degree to _La Gaya Scienza:_\nin almost every sentence of this book, profundity and playfulness go\ngently hand in hand. A verse which expresses my gratitude for the most\nwonderful month of January which I have ever lived--the whole book is a\ngift--sufficiently reveals the abysmal depths from which \"wisdom\" has\nhere become joyful.\n\n    \"Thou who with cleaving fiery lances\n    The stream of my soul from its ice dost free,\n    Till with a rush and a roar it advances\n    To enter with glorious hoping the sea:\n    Brighter to see and purer ever,\n    Free in the bonds of thy sweet constraint,--\n    So it praises thy wondrous endeavour,\n    January, thou beauteous saint!\"[1]\n\nWho can be in any doubt as to what \"glorious hoping\" means here, when\nhe has realised the diamond beauty of the first of Zarathustra's\nwords as they appear in a glow of light at the close of the fourth\nbook? Or when he reads the granite sentences at the end of the third\nbook, wherein a fate for all times is first given a formula? The songs\nof Prince Free-as-a-Bird, which, for the most part, were written in\nSicily, remind me quite forcibly of that Provencal notion of \"_Gaya\nScienza,_\" of that union of _singer, knight, and free spirit,_ which\ndistinguishes that wonderfully early culture of the Provencals from\nall ambiguous cultures. The last poem of all, \"To the Mistral,\"--an\nexuberant dance song in which, if you please, the new spirit dances\nfreely upon the corpse of morality,--is a perfect Proven\u00e7alism.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Translated for _Joyful Wisdom_ by Paul V. Cohn.--TR.]\n\n\n\n\n\"THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA: A BOOK FOR ALL AND NONE\"\n\n\n\n1\n\n\nI now wish to relate the history of _Zarathustra._ The fundamental\nidea of the work, the _Eternal Recurrence,_ the highest formula of\na Yea-saying to life that can ever be attained, was first conceived\nin the month of August 1881. I made a note of the idea on a sheet of\npaper, with the postscript: \"Six thousand feet beyond man and time.\"\nThat day I happened to be wandering through the woods alongside of the\nLake of Silvaplana, and I halted not far from Surlei, beside a huge\nrock that towered aloft like a pyramid. It was then that the thought\nstruck me. Looking back now, I find that exactly two months before\nthis inspiration I had an omen of its coming in the form of a sudden\nand decisive change in my tastes--more particularly in music. The\nwhole of _Zarathustra_ might perhaps be classified under the rubric\nmusic. At all events, the essential condition of its production was\na second birth within me of the art of hearing. In Recoaro, a small\nmountain resort near Vicenza, where I spent the spring of 1881, I and\nmy friend and maestro, Peter Gast--who was also one who had been born\nagain, discovered that the ph\u0153nix music hovered over us, in lighter\nand brighter plumage than it had ever worn before. If, therefore, I\nnow calculate from that day forward the sudden production of the book,\nunder the most unlikely circumstances, in February 1883,--the last\npart, out of which I quoted a few lines in my preface, was written\nprecisely in the hallowed hour when Richard Wagner gave up the ghost\nin Venice,--I come to the conclusion that the period of gestation\ncovered eighteen months. This period of exactly eighteen months,\nmight suggest, at least to Buddhists, that I am in reality a female\nelephant The interval was devoted to the _Gaya Scienza,_ which contains\nhundreds of indications of the proximity of something unparalleled;\nfor, after all, it shows the beginning of _Zarathustra,_ since it\npresents _Zarathustra's_ fundamental thought in the last aphorism\nbut one of the fourth book. To this interval also belongs that _Hymn\nto Life_ (for a mixed choir and orchestra), the score of which was\npublished in Leipzig two years ago by E. W. Fritsch, and which gave\nperhaps no slight indication of my spiritual state during this year,\nin which the essentially yea-saying pathos, which I call the tragic\npathos, completely filled me heart and limb. One day people will sing\nit to my memory. The text, let it be well understood, as there is\nsome misunderstanding abroad on this point, is not by me; it was the\nastounding inspiration of a young Russian lady, Miss Lou von Salome,\nwith whom I was then on friendly terms. He who is in any way able\nto make some sense of the last words of the poem, will divine why I\npreferred and admired it: there is greatness in them. Pain is not\nregarded as an objection to existence: \"And if thou hast no bliss now\nleft to crown me--Lead on! Thou hast thy Sorrow still.\"\n\nMaybe that my music is also great in this passage. (The last note of\nthe oboe, by the bye, is C sharp, not C. The latter is a misprint.)\nDuring the following winter, I was living on that charmingly peaceful\nGulf of Rapallo, not far from Genoa, which cuts inland between Chiavari\nand Cape Porto Fino. My health was not very good; the winter was cold\nand exceptionally rainy; and the small _albergo_ in which I lived\nwas so close to the water that at night my sleep was disturbed if\nthe sea was rough. These circumstances were surely the very reverse\nof favourable; and yet, in spite of it all, and as if in proof of my\nbelief that everything decisive comes to life in defiance of every\nobstacle, it was precisely during this winter and in the midst of these\nunfavourable circumstances that my _Zarathustra_ originated. In the\nmorning I used to start out in a southerly direction up the glorious\nroad to Zoagli, which rises up through a forest of pines and gives\none a view far out to sea. In the afternoon, or as often as my health\nallowed, I walked round the whole bay from Santa Margherita to beyond\nPorto Fino. This spot affected me all the more deeply because it was\nso dearly loved by the Emperor Frederick III. In the autumn of 1886 I\nchanced to be there again when he was revisiting this small forgotten\nworld of happiness for the last time. It was on these two roads that\nall _Zarathustra_ came to me, above all, Zarathustra himself as a\ntype--I ought rather to say that it was on these walks that _he waylaid\nme_.\n\n\n\n2\n\n\nIn order to understand this type, you must first be quite clear\nconcerning its fundamental physiological condition: this condition\nis what I call _great healthiness._ In regard to this idea I cannot\nmake my meaning more plain or more personal than I have done already\nin one of the last aphorisms (No. 382) of the fifth book of the _Gaya\nScienza_: \"We new, nameless, and unfathomable creatures,\" so reads\nthe passage, \"we firstlings of a future still unproved--we who have a\nnew end in view also require new means to that end, that is to say,\na new healthiness, a stronger, keener, tougher, bolder, and merrier\nhealthiness than any that has existed heretofore. He who longs to\nfeel in his own soul the whole range of values and aims that have\nprevailed on earth until his day, and to sail round all the coasts\nof this ideal 'Mediterranean Sea'; who, from the adventures of his\nown inmost experience, would fain know how it feels to be a conqueror\nand discoverer of the ideal;--as also how it is with the artist, the\nsaint, the legislator, the sage, the scholar, the man of piety and the\ngodlike anchorite of yore;--such a man requires one thing above all\nfor his purpose, and that is, _great healthiness_--such healthiness as\nhe not only possesses, but also constantly acquires and must acquire,\nbecause he is continually sacrificing it again, and is compelled to\nsacrifice it! And now, therefore, after having been long on the way,\nwe Argonauts of the ideal, whose pluck is greater than prudence would\nallow, and who are often shipwrecked and bruised, but, as I have said,\nhealthier than people would like to admit, dangerously healthy, and for\never recovering our health--it would seem as if we had before us, as\na reward for all our toils, a country still undiscovered, the horizon\nof which no one has yet seen, a beyond to every country and every\nrefuge of the ideal that man has ever known, a world so overflowing\nwith beauty, strangeness, doubt, terror, and divinity, that both our\ncuriosity and our lust of possession are frantic with eagerness. Alas!\nhow in the face of such vistas, and with such burning desire in our\nconscience and consciousness, could we still be content with _the man\nof the present day_? This is bad indeed; but, that we should regard\nhis worthiest aims and hopes with ill-concealed amusement, or perhaps\ngive them no thought at all, is inevitable. Another ideal now leads\nus on, a wonderful, seductive ideal, full of danger, the pursuit of\nwhich we should be loath to urge upon any one, because we are not so\nready to acknowledge any one's _right to it:_ the ideal of a spirit who\nplays ingenuously (that is to say, involuntarily, and as the outcome\nof superabundant energy and power) with everything that, hitherto,\nhas been called holy, good, inviolable, and divine; to whom even the\nloftiest thing that the people have with reason made their measure of\nvalue would be no better than a danger, a decay, and an abasement, or\nat least a relaxation and temporary forgetfulness of self: the ideal\nof a humanly superhuman well-being and goodwill, which often enough\nwill seem inhuman--as when, for instance, it stands beside all past\nearnestness on earth, and all past solemnities in hearing, speech,\ntone, look, morality, and duty, as their most lifelike and unconscious\nparody--but with which, nevertheless, _great earnestness_ perhaps alone\nbegins, the first note of interrogation is affixed, the fate of the\nsoul changes, the hour hand moves, and tragedy begins.\"\n\n\n\n3\n\n\nHas any one at the end of the nineteenth century any distinct notion\nof what poets of a stronger age understood by the word inspiration?\nIf not, I will describe it. If one had the smallest vestige of\nsuperstition left in one, it would hardly be possible completely to\nset aside the idea that one is the mere incarnation, mouthpiece, or\nmedium of an almighty power. The idea of revelation, in the sense\nthat something which profoundly convulses and upsets one becomes\nsuddenly visible and audible with indescribable certainty and\naccuracy--describes the simple fact. One hears--one does not seek; one\ntakes--one does not ask who gives: a thought suddenly flashes up like\nlightning, it comes with necessity, without faltering--I have never had\nany choice in the matter. There is an ecstasy so great that the immense\nstrain of it is sometimes relaxed by a flood of tears, during which\none's steps now involuntarily rush and anon involuntarily lag. There\nis the feeling that one is utterly out of hand, with the very distinct\nconsciousness of an endless number of fine thrills and titillations\ndescending to one's very toes;--there is a depth of happiness in which\nthe most painful and gloomy parts do not act as antitheses to the rest,\nbut are produced and required as necessary shades of colour in such an\noverflow of light. There is an instinct for rhythmic relations which\nembraces a whole world of forms (length, the need of a wide-embracing\nrhythm, is almost the measure of the force of an inspiration, a sort\nof counterpart to its pressure and tension). Everything happens\nquite involuntarily, as if in a tempestuous outburst of freedom,\nof absoluteness, of power and divinity. The involuntary nature of\nthe figures and similes is the most remarkable thing; one loses all\nperception of what is imagery and metaphor; everything seems to present\nitself as the readiest, the truest, and simplest means of expression.\nIt actually seems, to use one of Zarathustra's own phrases, as if all\nthings came to one, and offered themselves as similes. (\"Here do all\nthings come caressingly to thy discourse and flatter thee, for they\nwould fain ride upon thy back. On every simile thou ridest here unto\nevery truth. Here fly open unto thee all the speech and word shrines\nof the world, here would all existence become speech, here would\nall Becoming learn of thee how to speak.\") This is my experience of\ninspiration. I do not doubt but that I should have to go back thousands\nof years before I could find another who could say to me: \"It is mine\nalso!\"\n\n\n\n4\n\n\nFor a few weeks afterwards I lay an invalid in Genoa. Then followed\na melancholy spring in Rome, where I only just managed to live--and\nthis was no easy matter. This city, which is absolutely unsuited to\nthe poet-author of _Zarathustra,_ and for the choice of which I was\nnot responsible, made me inordinately miserable. I tried to leave it.\nI wanted to go to Aquila--the opposite of Rome in every respect, and\nactually founded in a spirit of hostility towards that city, just as\nI also shall found a city some day, as a memento of an atheist and\ngenuine enemy of the Church, a person very closely related to me, the\ngreat Hohenstaufen, the Emperor Frederick II. But Fate lay behind it\nall: I had to return again to Rome. In the end I was obliged to be\nsatisfied with the Piazza Barberini, after I had exerted myself in\nvain to find an anti-Christian quarter. I fear that on one occasion,\nto avoid bad smells as much as possible, I actually inquired at the\nPalazzo del Quirinale whether they could not provide a quiet room for\na philosopher. In a chamber high above the Piazza just mentioned, from\nwhich one obtained a general view of Rome, and could hear the fountains\nplashing far below, the loneliest of all songs was composed--\"The\nNight-Song.\" About this time I was obsessed by an unspeakably sad\nmelody, the refrain of which I recognised in the affords, \"dead through\nimmortality,\" ... In the summer, finding myself once more in the sacred\nplace where the first thought of _Zarathustra_ flashed like a light\nacross my mind, I conceived the second part. Ten days sufficed. Neither\nfor the second, the first, nor the third part, have I required a day\nlonger. In the ensuing winter, beneath the halcyon sky of Nice, which\nthen for the first time poured its light into my life, I found the\nthird _Zarathustra_--and came to the end of my task: the whole having\noccupied me scarcely a year. Many hidden corners and heights in the\ncountry round about Nice are hallowed for me by moments that I can\nnever forget. That decisive chapter, entitled \"Old and New Tables,\"\nwas composed during the arduous ascent from the station to Eza--that\nwonderful Moorish village in the rocks. During those moments when my\ncreative energy flowed most plentifully, my muscular activity was\nalways greatest. The body is inspired: let us waive the question of\n\"soul.\" I might often have been seen dancing in those days, and I could\nthen walk for seven or eight hours on end over the hills without a\nsuggestion of fatigue. I slept well and laughed a good deal--I was\nperfectly robust and patient.\n\n\n\n5\n\n\nWith the exception of these periods of industry lasting ten days, the\nyears I spent during the production of _Zarathustra,_ and thereafter,\nwere for me years of unparalleled distress. A man pays dearly for\nbeing immortal: to this end he must die many times over during his\nlife. There is such a thing as what I call the rancour of greatness:\neverything great, whether a work or a deed, once it is completed, turns\nimmediately against its author. The very fact that he is its author\nmakes him weak at this time. He can no longer endure his deed. He can\nno longer look it full in the face. To have something at one's back\nwhich one could never have willed, something to which the knot of human\ndestiny is attached--and to be forced thenceforward to bear it on one's\nshoulders! Why, it almost crushes one! The rancour of greatness! A\nsomewhat different experience is the uncanny silence that reigns about\none. Solitude has seven skins which nothing can penetrate. One goes\namong men; one greets friends: but these things are only new deserts,\nthe looks of those one meets no longer bear a greeting. At the best\none encounters a sort of revolt. This feeling of revolt, I suffered,\nin varying degrees of intensity, at the hands of almost every one who\ncame near me; it would seem that nothing inflicts a deeper wound than\nsuddenly to make one's distance felt. Those noble natures are scarce\nwho know not how to live unless they can revere. A third thing is\nthe absurd susceptibility of the skin to small pin-pricks, a kind of\nhelplessness in the presence of all small things. This seems to me a\nnecessary outcome of the appalling expenditure of all defensive forces,\nwhich is the first condition of every _creative_ act, of every act\nwhich proceeds from the most intimate, most secret, and most concealed\nrecesses of a man's being. The small defensive forces are thus, as it\nwere, suspended, and no fresh energy reaches them. I even think it\nprobable that one does not digest so well, that one is less willing\nto move, and that one is much too open to sensations of coldness and\nsuspicion; for, in a large number of cases, suspicion is merely a\nblunder in etiology. On one occasion when I felt like this I became\nconscious of the proximity of a herd of cows, some time before I could\npossibly have seen it with my eyes, simply owing to a return in me of\nmilder and more humane sentiments: _they_ communicated warmth to me....\n\n\n\n6\n\n\nThis work stands alone. Do not let us mention the poets in the\nsame breath; nothing perhaps has ever been produced out of such a\nsuperabundance of strength. My concept \"Dionysian\" here became the\n_highest_ deed; compared with it everything that other men have done\nseems poor and limited. The fact that a Goethe or a Shakespeare would\nnot for an instant have known how to take breath in this atmosphere of\npassion and of the heights; the fact that by the side of Zarathustra,\nDante is no more than a believer, and not one who first _creates_ the\ntruth--that is to say, not a world-ruling spirit, a _Fate_; the fact\nthat the poets of the Veda were priests and not even fit to unfasten\nZarathustra's sandal--all this is the least of things, and gives no\nidea of the distance, of the azure solitude, in which this work dwells.\nZarathustra has an eternal right to say: \"I draw around me circles and\nholy boundaries. Ever fewer are they that mount with me to ever loftier\nheights. I build me a mountain range of ever holier mountains.\" If all\nthe spirit and goodness of every great soul were collected together,\nthe whole could not create a single one of Zarathustra's discourses.\nThe ladder upon which he rises and descends is of boundless length;\nhe has seen further, he has willed further, and _gone_ further than\nany other man. There is contradiction in every word that he utters,\nthis most yea-saying of all spirits. Through him all contradictions\nare bound up into a new unity. The loftiest and the basest powers of\nhuman nature, the sweetest, the lightest, and the most terrible, rush\nforth from out one spring with everlasting certainty. Until his coming\nno one knew what was height, or depth, and still less what was truth.\nThere is not a single passage in this revelation of truth which had\nalready been anticipated and divined by even the greatest among men.\nBefore Zarathustra there was no wisdom, no probing of the soul, no art\nof speech: in his book, the most familiar and most vulgar thing utters\nunheard-of words. The sentence quivers with passion. Eloquence has\nbecome music. Forks of lightning are hurled towards futures of which\nno one has ever dreamed before. The most powerful use of parables that\nhas yet existed is poor beside it, and mere child's-play compared with\nthis return of language to the nature of imagery. See how Zarathustra\ngoes down from the mountain and speaks the kindest words to every\none! See with what delicate fingers he touches his very adversaries,\nthe priests, and how he suffers with them from themselves! Here, at\nevery moment, man is overcome, and the concept \"Superman\" becomes the\ngreatest reality,--out of sight, almost far away beneath him, lies\nall that which heretofore has been called great in man. The halcyonic\nbrightness, the light feet, the presence of wickedness and exuberance\nthroughout, and all that is the essence of the type Zarathustra, was\nnever dreamt of before as a prerequisite of greatness. In precisely\nthese limits of space and in this accessibility to opposites\nZarathustra feels himself the _highest of all living things_: and when\nyou hear how he defines this highest, you will give up trying to find\nhis equal.\n\n\"The soul which hath the longest ladder and can step down deepest,\n\n\"The vastest soul that can run and stray and rove furthest in its own\ndomain,\n\n\"The most necessary soul, that out of desire flingeth itself to chance,\n\n\"The stable soul that plungeth into Becoming, the possessing soul that\nmust needs taste of willing and longing,\n\n\"The soul that flyeth from itself, and over-taketh itself in the widest\ncircle,\n\n\"The wisest soul that folly exhorteth most sweetly,\n\n\"The most self-loving soul, in whom all things have their rise, their\nebb and flow.\"\n\nBut this is the very idea of Dionysus. Another consideration leads\nto this idea. The psychological problem presented by the type of\nZarathustra is, how can he, who in an unprecedented manner says\nno, and _acts_ no, in regard to all that which has been affirmed\nhitherto, remain nevertheless a yea-saying spirit? how can he who\nbears the heaviest destiny on his shoulders and whose very life-task\nis a fatality, yet be the brightest and the most transcendental\nof spirits--for Zarathustra is a dancer? how can he who has the\nhardest and most terrible grasp of reality, and who has thought the\nmost \"abysmal thoughts,\" nevertheless avoid conceiving these things\nas objections to existence, or even as objections to the eternal\nrecurrence of existence?--how is it that on the contrary he finds\nreasons for _being himself_ the eternal affirmation of all things, \"the\ntremendous and unlimited saying of Yea and Amen\"?... \"Into every abyss\ndo I bear the benediction of my yea to Life.\" ... But this, once more,\nis precisely the idea of Dionysus.\n\n\n\n7\n\n\nWhat language will such a spirit speak, when he speaks unto his soul?\nThe language of the _dithyramb._ I am the inventor of the dithyramb.\nHearken unto the manner in which Zarathustra speaks to his soul _Before\nSunrise_ (iii. 48). Before my time such emerald joys and divine\ntenderness had found no tongue. Even the profoundest melancholy of\nsuch a Dionysus takes shape as a dithyramb. As an example of this I\ntake \"The Night-Song,\"--the immortal plaint of one who, thanks to his\nsuperabundance of light and power, thanks to the sun within him, is\ncondemned never to love.\n\n\"It is night: now do all gushing springs raise their voices. And my\nsoul too is a gushing spring.\n\n\"It is night: now only do all lovers burst into song. And my soul too\nis the song of a lover.\n\n\"Something unquenched and unquenchable is within me, that would raise\nits voice. A craving for love is within me, which itself speaketh the\nlanguage of love.\n\n\"Light am I: would that I were night! But this is my loneliness, that I\nam begirt with light.\n\n\"Alas, why am I not dark and like unto the night! How joyfully would I\nthen suck at the breasts of light!\n\n\"And even you would I bless, ye twinkling starlets and glow-worms on\nhigh! and be blessed in the gifts of your light.\n\n\"But in mine own light do I live, ever back into myself do I drink the\nflames I send forth.\n\n\"I know not the happiness of the hand stretched forth to grasp; and oft\nhave I dreamt that stealing must be more blessed than taking.\n\n\"Wretched am I that my hand may never rest from giving: an envious fate\nis mine that I see expectant eyes and nights made bright with longing.\n\n\"Oh, the wretchedness of all them that give! Oh, the clouds that cover\nthe face of my sun! That craving for desire! that burning hunger at the\nend of the feast!\n\n\"They take what I give them; but do I touch their soul? A gulf is there\n'twixt giving and taking; and the smallest gulf is the last to be\nbridged.\n\n\"An appetite is born from out my beauty: would that I might do harm to\nthem that I fill with light; would that I might rob them of the gifts I\nhave given:--thus do I thirst for wickedness.\n\n\"To withdraw my hand when their hand is ready stretched forth like the\nwaterfall that wavers, wavers even in its fall:--thus do I thirst for\nwickedness.\n\n\"For such vengeance doth my fulness yearn: to such tricks doth my\nloneliness give birth.\n\n\"My joy in giving died with the deed. By its very fulness did my virtue\ngrow weary of itself.\n\n\"He who giveth risketh to lose his shame; he that is ever distributing\ngroweth callous in hand and heart therefrom.\n\n\"Mine eyes no longer melt into tears at the sight of the suppliant's\nshame; my hand hath become too hard to feel the quivering of laden\nhands.\n\n\"Whither have ye fled, the tears of mine eyes and the bloom of my\nheart? Oh, the solitude of all givers! Oh, the silence of all beacons!\n\n\"Many are the suns that circle in barren space; to all that is dark do\nthey speak with their light--to me alone are they silent.\n\n\"Alas, this is the hatred of light for that which shineth: pitiless it\nrunneth its course.\n\n\"Unfair in its inmost heart to that which shineth; cold toward\nsuns,--thus doth every sun go its way.\n\n\"Like a tempest do the suns fly over their course: for such is their\nway. Their own unswerving will do they follow: that is their coldness.\n\n\"Alas, it is ye alone, ye creatures of gloom, ye spirits of the night,\nthat take your warmth from that which shineth. Ye alone suck your milk\nand comfort from the udders of light.\n\n\"Alas, about me there is ice, my hand burneth itself against ice!\n\n\"Alas, within me is a thirst that thirsteth for your thirst!\n\n\"It is night: woe is me, that I must needs be light! And thirst after\ndarkness! And loneliness!\n\n\"It is night: now doth my longing burst forth like a spring,--for\nspeech do I long.\n\n\"It is night: now do all gushing springs raise their voices. And my\nsoul too is a gushing spring.\n\n\"It is night: now only do all lovers burst into song. And my soul too\nis the song of a lover.\"\n\n\n\n8\n\n\nSuch things have never been written, never been felt, never been\n_suffered:_ only a God, only Dionysus suffers in this way. The reply\nto such a dithyramb on the sun's solitude in light would be Ariadne.\n... Who knows, but I, who Ariadne is! To all such riddles no one\nheretofore had ever found an answer; I doubt even whether any one had\never seen a riddle here. One day Zarathustra severely determines his\nlife-task--and it is also mine. Let no one misunderstand its meaning.\nIt's a yea-saying to the point of justifying, to the point of redeeming\neven all that is past.\n\n\"I walk among men as among fragments of the future: of that future\nwhich I see.\n\n\"And all my creativeness and effort is but this, that I may be able to\nthink and recast all these fragments and riddles and dismal accidents\ninto one piece.\n\n\"And how could I bear to be a man, if man were not also a poet, a\nriddle reader, and a redeemer of chance!\n\n\"To redeem all the past, and to transform every 'it was' into 'thus\nwould I have it'--that alone would be my salvation!\"\n\nIn another passage he defines as strictly as possible what to him alone\n\"man\" can be,--not a subject for love nor yet for pity--Zarathustra\nbecame master even of his loathing of man: man is to him a thing\nunshaped, raw material, an ugly stone that needs the sculptor's chisel.\n\n\"No longer to will, no longer to value, no longer to create! Oh, that\nthis great weariness may never be mine!\n\n\"Even in the lust of knowledge, I feel only the joy of my will to beget\nand to grow; and if there be innocence in my knowledge, it is because\nmy procreative will is in it.\n\n\"Away from God and gods did this will lure me: what would there be to\ncreate if there were gods?\n\n\"But to man doth it ever drive me anew, my burning, creative will.\nThus driveth it the hammer to the stone.\n\n\"Alas, ye men, within the stone there sleepeth an image for me, the\nimage of all my dreams! Alas, that it should have to sleep in the\nhardest and ugliest stone!\n\n\"_Now rageth my hammer ruthlessly against its prison._ From the stone\nthe fragments fly: what's that to me?\n\n\"I will finish it: for a shadow came unto me--the stillest and lightest\nthing on earth once came unto me!\n\n\"The beauty of the Superman came unto me as a shadow. Alas, my\nbrethren! What are the--gods to me now?\"\n\nLet me call attention to one last point of view. The line in italics is\nmy pretext for this remark. A Dionysian life-task needs the hardness of\nthe hammer, and one of its first essentials is without doubt the _joy\neven of destruction._ The command, \"Harden yourselves!\" and the deep\nconviction that _all creators are hard,_ is the really distinctive sign\nof a Dionysian nature.\n\n\n\n\nBEYOND GOOD AND EVIL:\n\n\n\"THE PRELUDE TO A PHILOSOPHY OF THE FUTURE\"\n\n\n\n1\n\n\nMy work for the years that followed was prescribed as distinctly\nas possible. Now that the yea-saying part of my life-task was\naccomplished, there came the turn of the negative portion, both in\nword and deed: the transvaluation of all values that had existed\nhitherto, the great war,--the conjuring-up of the day when the fatal\noutcome of the struggle would be decided. Meanwhile, I had slowly to\nlook about me for my peers, for those who, _out of strength,_ would\nproffer me a helping hand in my work of destruction. From that time\nonward, all my writings are so much bait: maybe I understand as much\nabout fishing as most people? If nothing was _caught,_ it was not I who\nwas at fault _There were no fish to come and bite._\n\n\n\n2\n\n\nIn all its essential points, this book (1886) is a criticism of\n_modernity,_ embracing the modern sciences, arts, even politics,\ntogether with certain indications as to a type which would be the\nreverse of modern man, or as little like him as possible, a noble\nand yea-saying type. In this last respect the book is a _school\nfor gentlemen_--the term _gentleman_ being understood here in a\nmuch more spiritual and radical sense than it has implied hitherto.\nAll those things of which the age is proud,--as, for instance,\nfar-famed \"objectivity,\" \"sympathy with all that suffers,\" \"the\nhistorical sense,\" with its subjection to foreign tastes, with its\nlying-in-the-dust before _petits faits,_ and the rage for science,--are\nshown to be the contradiction of the type recommended, and are\nregarded as almost ill-bred. If you remember that this book follows\nupon _Zarathustra,_ you may possibly guess to what system of diet it\nowes its life. The eye which, owing to tremendous constraint, has\nbecome accustomed to see at a great distance,--_Zarathustra_ is even\nmore far-sighted than the Tsar,--is here forced to focus sharply that\nwhich is close at hand, the present time, the things that lie about\nhim. In all the aphorisms and more particularly in the form of this\nbook, the reader will find the same _voluntary_ turning away from those\ninstincts which made a _Zarathustra_ a possible feat. Refinement in\nform, in aspiration, and in the art of keeping silent, are its more or\nless obvious qualities; psychology is handled with deliberate hardness\nand cruelty,--the whole book does not contain one single good-natured\nword.... All this sort of thing refreshes a man. Who can guess the kind\nof recreation that is necessary after such an expenditure of goodness\nas is to be found in _Zarathustra_? From a theological standpoint--now\npay ye heed; for it is but on rare occasions that I speak as a\ntheologian--it was God Himself who, at the end of His great work,\ncoiled Himself up in the form of a serpent at the foot of the tree of\nknowledge. It was thus that He recovered from being a God.... He had\nmade everything too beautiful.... The devil is simply God's moment of\nidleness, on that seventh day.\n\n\n\n\n\"THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS: A POLEMIC\"\n\n\nThe three essays which constitute this genealogy are, as regards\nexpression, aspiration, and the art of the unexpected, perhaps the\nmost curious things that have ever been written. Dionysus, as you know,\nis also the god of darkness. In each case the beginning is calculated\nto mystify; it is cool, scientific, even ironical, intentionally\nthrust to the fore, intentionally reticent. Gradually less calmness\nprevails; here and there a flash of lightning defines the horizon;\nexceedingly unpleasant truths break upon your ears from out remote\ndistances with a dull, rumbling sound,--until very soon a fierce tempo\nis attained in which everything presses forward at a terrible degree\nof tension. At the end, in each case, amid fearful thunderclaps, a new\ntruth shines out between thick clouds. The truth of the first essays\nthe psychology of Christianity: the birth of Christianity out of the\nspirit of resentment, not, as is supposed, out of the \"Spirit,\"--in\nall its essentials, a counter-movement, the great insurrection against\nthe dominion of noble values. The second essay contains the psychology\nof conscience: this is not, as you may believe, \"the voice of God in\nman\"; it is the instinct of cruelty, which turns inwards once it is\nunable to discharge itself outwardly. Cruelty is here exposed, for the\nfirst time, as one of the oldest and most indispensable elements in the\nfoundation of culture. The third essay replies to the question as to\nthe origin of the formidable power of the ascetic ideal, of the priest\nideal, despite the fact that this ideal is essentially detrimental,\nthat it is a will to nonentity and to decadence. Reply: it flourished\nnot because God was active behind the priests, as is generally\nbelieved, but because it was a _faute de mieux_--from the fact that\nhitherto it has been the only ideal and has had no competitors. \"For\nman prefers to aspire to nonentity than not to aspire at all.\" But\nabove all, until the time of _Zarathustra_ there was no such thing\nas a counter-ideal. You have understood my meaning. Three decisive\novertures on the part of a psychologist to a _Transvaluation of all\nValues._--This book contains the first psychology of the priest.\n\n\n\n\n\"THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS:\n\nHOW TO PHILOSOPHISE WITH THE HAMMER\"\n\n\n\n1\n\n\nThis work--which covers scarcely one hundred and fifty pages, with its\ncheerful and fateful tone, like a laughing demon, and the production\nof which occupied so few days that I hesitate to give their number--is\naltogether an exception among books: there is no work more rich in\nsubstance, more independent, more upsetting--more wicked. If any one\nshould desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how everything, before my\ntime, was standing on its head, he should begin reading me in this\nbook. That which is called \"Idols\" on the title page is simply the\nold truth that has been believed in hitherto. In plain English, _The\nTwilight of the Idols_ means that the old truth is on its last legs.\n\n\n\n2\n\n\nThere is no reality, no \"ideality,\" which has not been touched in\nthis book (touched! what a cautious euphemism!). Not only the eternal\nidols, but also the youngest--that is to say, the most senile: modern\nideas, for instance. A strong wind blows between the trees and in\nall directions fall the fruit--the truths. There is the waste of an\nall-too-rich autumn in this book: you trip over truths. You even crush\nsome to death, there are too many of them. Those things that you can\ngrasp, however, are quite unquestionable; they are irrevocable decrees.\nI alone have the criterion of \"truths\" in my possession. I alone _can_\ndecide. It would seem as if a second consciousness had grown up in me,\nas if the \"life-will\" in me had thrown a light upon the downward path\nalong which it has been running throughout the ages. The _downward\npath_--hitherto this had been called the road to \"Truth.\" All obscure\nimpulse--\"darkness and dismay\"--is at an end, the \"_good man_\" was\nprecisely he who was least aware of the proper way.[1] And, speaking\nin all earnestness, no one before me knew the proper way, the way\nupwards: only after my time could men once more find hope, life-tasks,\nand roads mapped out that lead to culture--_I am the joyful harbinger\nof this culture._ ... On this account alone I am also a fatality.\n\n\n\n3\n\n\nImmediately after the completion of the above-named work, and without\nletting even one day go by, I tackled the formidable task of the\n_Transvaluation_ with a supreme feeling of pride which nothing could\nequal; and, certain at each moment of my immortality, I cut sign after\nsign upon tablets of brass with the sureness of Fate. The Preface\ncame into being on 3rd September 1888. When, after having written it\ndown, I went out into the open that morning, I was greeted by the most\nbeautiful day I had ever seen in the Upper Engadine--clear, glowing\nwith colour, and presenting all the contrasts and all the intermediary\ngradations between ice and the south. I left Sils-Maria only on the\n20th of September. I had been forced to delay my departure owing to\nfloods, and I was very soon, and for some days, the only visitor in\nthis wonderful spot, on which my gratitude bestows the gift of an\nimmortal name. After a journey that was full of incidents, and not\nwithout danger to life,--as for instance at Como, which was flooded\nwhen I reached it in the dead of night,--I got to Turin on the\nafternoon of the 21 st. Turin is the only suitable place for me, and\nit shall be my home henceforward. I took the same lodgings as I had\noccupied in the spring, 6111 Via Carlo Alberto, opposite the mighty\nPalazzo Carignano, in which Vittorio Emanuele was born; and I had a\nview of the Piazza Carlo Alberto and above it across to the hills.\nWithout hesitating, or allowing myself to be disturbed for a single\nmoment, I returned to my work, only the last quarter of which had still\nto be written. On the 30th September, tremendous triumph; the seventh\nday; the leisure of a god on the banks of the Po.[2] On the same day,\nI wrote the Preface to _The Twilight of the Idols,_ the correction of\nthe proofs of which provided me with recreation during the month of\nSeptember. Never in my life have I experienced such an autumn; nor\nhad I ever imagined that such things were possible on earth--a Claude\nLorrain extended to infinity, each day equal to the last in its wild\nperfection.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: A witty reference to Goethe's well-known passage in the\nPrologue to _Faust_:--\n\n\"A good man, though in darkness and dismay,\nMay still be conscious of the proper way.\"\n\nThe words are spoken by the Lord.--TR. ]\n\n[Footnote 2: There is a wonderful promenade along the banks of the Po,\nfor which Turin is famous, and of which Nietzsche was particularly\nfond.--TR.]\n\n\n\n\n\"THE CASE OF WAGNER: A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM\"\n\n\n\n1\n\n\nIn order to do justice to this essay a man ought to suffer from the\nfate of music as from an open wound.--From what do I suffer when I\nsuffer from the fate of music? From the fact that music has lost\nits world-transfiguring, yea-saying character--that it is decadent\nmusic and no longer the flute of Dionysus. Supposing, however, that\nthe fate of music be as dear to man as his own life, because joy and\nsuffering are alike bound up with it; then he will find this pamphlet\ncomparatively mild and full of consideration. To be cheerful in\nsuch circumstances, and laugh good-naturedly with others at one's\nself,--_ridendodicere severum_[1] when the _verum dicere_ would\njustify every sort of hardness,--is humanity itself. Who doubts that\nI, old artillery-man that I am, would be able if I liked to point my\n_heavy_ guns at Wagner?--Everything decisive in this question I kept\nto myself--I have loved Wagner.--After all, an attack upon a more than\nusually subtle \"unknown person\" whom another would not have divined\nso easily, lies in the meaning and path of my life-task. Oh, I have\nstill quite a number of other \"unknown persons\" to unmask besides a\nCagliostro of Music! Above all, I have to direct an attack against\nthe German people, who, in matters of the spirit, grow every day\nmore indolent, poorer in instincts, and more _honest_ who, with an\nappetite for which they are to be envied, continue to diet themselves\non contradictions, and gulp down \"Faith\" in company with science,\nChristian love together with anti-Semitism, and the will to power (to\nthe \"Empire\"), dished up with the gospel of the humble, without showing\nthe slightest signs of indigestion. Fancy this absence of party-feeling\nin the presence of opposites! Fancy this gastric neutrality and\n\"disinterestedness\"! Behold this sense of justice in the German palate,\nwhich can grant equal rights to all,--which finds everything tasteful!\nWithout a shadow of a doubt the Germans are idealists. When I was last\nin Germany, I found German taste striving to grant Wagner and the\n_Trumpeter of Sakkingen_[2] equal rights; while I myself witnessed\nthe attempts of the people of Leipzig to do honour to one of the most\ngenuine and most German of musicians,--using German here in the old\nsense of the word,--a man who was no mere German of the Empire, the\nmaster Heinrich Sch\u00fctz, by founding a Liszt Society, the object of\nwhich was to cultivate and spread artful (_listige_[3]) Church music.\nWithout a shadow of doubt the Germans are idealists.\n\n\n\n2\n\n\nBut here nothing shall stop me from being rude, and from telling the\nGermans one or two unpleasant home truths: who else would do it if I\ndid not? I refer to their laxity in matters historical. Not only have\nthe Germans entirely lost the _breadth of vision_ which enables one\nto grasp the course of culture and the values of culture; not only\nare they one and all political (or Church) puppets; but they have\nalso actually _put a ban upon_ this very breadth of vision. A man\nmust first and foremost be \"German,\" he must belong to \"_the_ race\";\nthen only can he pass judgment upon all values and lack of values\nin history--then only can he establish them.... To be German is in\nitself an argument, \"Germany, Germany above all,\"[4] is a principle;\nthe Germans stand for the \"moral order of the universe\" in history;\ncompared with the Roman Empire, they are the up-holders of freedom;\ncompared with the eighteenth century, they are the restorers of\nmorality, of the \"Categorical Imperative.\" There is such a thing as\nthe writing of history according to the lights of Imperial Germany;\nthere is, I fear, anti-Semitic history--there is also history written\nwith an eye to the Court, and Herr von Treitschke is not ashamed\nof himself. Quite recently an idiotic opinion _in historicis,_ an\nobservation of Vischer the Swabian \u00e6sthete, since happily deceased,\nmade the round of the German newspapers as a \"truth\" to which every\nGerman _must assent_ The observation was this: \"The Renaissance _and_\nthe Reformation only together constitute a whole--the \u00e6sthetic\nrebirth, and the moral rebirth.\" When I listen to such things, I lose\nall patience, and I feel inclined, I even feel it my duty, to tell the\nGermans, for once in a way, all that they have on their conscience.\n_Every great crime against culture for the last four centuries lies\non their conscience...._ And always for the same reason, always owing\nto their bottomless cowardice in the face of reality, which is also\ncowardice in the face of truth; always owing to the love of falsehood\nwhich has become almost instinctive in them--in short, \"idealism.\"\nIt was the Germans who caused Europe to lose the fruits, the whole\nmeaning of her last period of greatness--the period of the Renaissance.\nAt a moment when a higher order of values, values that were noble,\nthat said yea to life, and that guaranteed a future, had succeeded\nin triumphing over the opposite values, the values of degeneration,\nin the very seat of Christianity itself,--and _even in the hearts of\nthose sitting there,_--Luther, that cursed monk, not only restored the\nChurch, but, what was a thousand times worse, restored Christianity,\nand at a time too when it lay defeated. Christianity, the _Denial of\nthe Will to Live,_ exalted to a religion! Luther was an impossible\nmonk who, thanks to his own \"impossibility,\" attacked the Church,\nand in so doing restored it! Catholics would be perfectly justified\nin celebrating feasts in honour of Luther, and in producing festival\nplays[5] in his honour. Luther and the \"rebirth of morality\"! May all\npsychology go to the devil! Without a shadow of a doubt the Germans\nare idealists. On two occasions when, at the cost of enormous courage\nand self-control, an upright, unequivocal, and perfectly scientific\nattitude of mind had been attained, the Germans were able to discover\nback stairs leading down to the old \"ideal\" again, compromises between\ntruth and the \"ideal,\" and, in short, formul\u00e6 for the right to reject\nscience and to perpetrate falsehoods. Leibniz and Kant--these two\ngreat breaks upon the intellectual honesty of Europe! Finally, at a\nmoment when there appeared on the bridge that spanned two centuries\nof decadence, a superior force of genius and will which was strong\nenough to consolidate Europe and to convert it into a political and\neconomic unit, with the object of ruling the world, the Germans, with\ntheir Wars of Independence, robbed Europe of the significance--the\nmarvellous significance, of Napoleon's life. And in so doing they laid\non their conscience everything that followed, everything that exists\nto-day,--this sickliness and want of reason which is most opposed to\nculture, and which is called Nationalism,--this _n\u00e9vrose nationale_\nfrom which Europe is suffering acutely; this eternal subdivision of\nEurope into petty states, with politics on a municipal scale: they have\nrobbed Europe itself of its significance, of its reason,--and have\nstuffed it into a cul-de-sac. Is there any one except me who knows the\nway out of this cul-de-sac? Does anyone except me know of an aspiration\nwhich would be great enough to bind the people of Europe once more\ntogether?\n\n\n\n3\n\n\nAnd after all, why should I not express my suspicions? In my case,\ntoo, the Germans will attempt to make a great fate give birth merely\nto a mouse. Up to the present they have compromised themselves with\nme; I doubt whether the future will improve them. Alas! how happy I\nshould be to prove a false prophet in this matter! My natural readers\nand listeners are already Russians, Scandinavians, and Frenchmen--will\nthey always be the same? In the history of knowledge, Germans are\nrepresented only by doubtful names, they have been able to produce only\n\"_unconscious_\" swindlers (this word applies to Fichte, Schelling,\nSchopenhauer, Hegel, and Schleiermacher, just as well as to Kant or\nLeibniz; they were all mere _Schleiermachers_).[6] The Germans must\nnot have the honour of seeing the first upright intellect in their\nhistory of intellects, that intellect in which truth ultimately got the\nbetter of the fraud of four thousand years, reckoned as one with the\nGerman intellect. \"German intellect\" is my foul air: I breathe with\ndifficulty in the neighbourhood of this psychological uncleanliness\nthat has now become instinctive--an uncleanliness which in every\nword and expression betrays a German. They have never undergone a\nseventeenth century of hard self-examination, as the French have,--a\nLa Rochefoucauld, a Descartes, are a thousand times more upright\nthan the very first among Germans,--the latter have not yet had any\npsychologists. But psychology is almost the standard of measurement\nfor the cleanliness or uncleanliness of a race.... For if a man is\nnot even clean, how can he be deep? The Germans are like women, you\ncan scarcely ever I fathom their depths--they haven't any, and that's\nthe end of it. Thus they cannot even be called shallow. That which is\ncalled \"deep\" in Germany, is precisely this instinctive uncleanliness\ntowards one's self, of which I have just spoken: people refuse to be\nclear in regard to their own natures. Might I be allowed, perhaps, to\nsuggest the word \"German\" as an international epithet denoting this\npsychological depravity?--At the moment of writing, for instance, the\nGerman Emperor is declaring it to be his Christian duty to liberate\nthe slaves in Africa; among us Europeans, then, this would be called\nsimply \"German.\" ... Have the Germans ever produced even a book that\nhad depth? They are lacking in the mere idea of what constitutes a\nbook. I have known scholars who thought that Kant was deep. At the\nCourt of Prussia I fear that Herr von Treitschke is regarded as deep.\nAnd when I happen to praise Stendhal as a deep psychologist, I have\noften been compelled, in the company of German University Professors,\nto spell his name aloud.\n\n\n\n4\n\n\nAnd why should I not proceed to the end? I am fond of clearing the\nair. It is even part of my ambition to be considered as essentially a\ndespiser of Germans. I expressed my suspicions of the German character\neven at the age of six-and-twenty (see _Thoughts out of Season,_\nvol. ii. pp. 164, 165),--to my mind the Germans are impossible.\nWhen I try to think of the kind of man who is opposed to me in all\nmy instincts, my mental image takes the form of a German. The first\nthing I ask myself when I begin analysing a man, is, whether he has a\nfeeling for distance in him; whether he sees rank, gradation, and order\neverywhere between man and man; whether he makes distinctions; for\nthis is what constitutes a gentleman. Otherwise he belongs hopelessly\nto that open-hearted, open-minded--alas! and always very good-natured\nspecies, _la canaille_! But the Germans are _canaille_--alas! they are\nso good-natured! A man lowers himself by frequenting the society of\nGermans: the German places every one on an equal footing. With the\nexception of my intercourse with one or two artists, and above all\nwith Richard Wagner, I cannot say that I have spent one pleasant hour\nwith Germans. Suppose, for one moment, that the profoundest spirit\nof all ages were to appear among Germans, then one of the saviours\nof the Capitol would be sure to arise and declare that his own ugly\nsoul was just as great. I can no longer abide this race with which\na man is always in bad company, which; has no idea of nuances--woe\nto me! I am a nuance--and which has not _esprit_ in its feet, and\ncannot even walk withal! In short, the Germans have no feet at all,\nthey simply have legs. The Germans have not the faintest idea of how\nvulgar they are--but this in itself is the acme of vulgarity,--they are\nnot even ashamed of being merely Germans. They will have their say in\neverything, they regard themselves as fit to decide all questions; I\neven fear that they have decided about me. My whole life is essentially\na proof of this remark. In vain have I sought among them for a sign of\ntact and delicacy towards myself. Among Jews I did indeed find it, but\nnot among Germans. I am so constituted as to be gentle and kindly to\nevery one,--I have the right not to draw distinctions,--but this does\nnot prevent my eyes from being open. I except no one, and least of all\nmy friends,--I only trust that this has not prejudiced my reputation\nfor humanity among them? There are five or six things which I have\nalways made points of honour. Albeit, the truth remains that for many\nyears I have considered almost every letter that has reached me as a\npiece of cynicism. There is more cynicism in an attitude of goodwill\ntowards me than in any sort of hatred. I tell every friend to his face\nthat he has never thought it worth his while to _study_ any one of my\nwritings: from the slightest hints I gather that they do not even know\nwhat lies hidden in my books. And with regard even to my _Zarathustra,_\nwhich of my friends would have seen more in it than a piece of\nunwarrantable, though fortunately harmless, arrogance? Ten years have\nelapsed, and no one has yet felt it a duty to his conscience to defend\nmy name against the absurd silence beneath which it has been entombed.\nIt was a foreigner, a Dane, who first showed sufficient keenness of\ninstinct and of courage to do this, and who protested indignantly\nagainst my so-called friends. At what German University to-day would\nsuch lectures on my philosophy be possible, as those which Dr. Brandes\ndelivered last spring in Copenhagen, thus proving once more his right\nto the title psychologist? For my part, these things have never caused\nme any pain; that which is _necessary_ does not offend me. _Amor fati_\nis the core of my nature. This, however, does not alter the fact that\nI love irony and even world-historic irony. And thus, about two years\nbefore hurling the destructive thunderbolt of the _Transvaluation,_\nwhich will send the whole of civilisation into convulsions, I sent\nmy _Case of Wagner_ out into the world. The Germans were given the\nchance of blundering and immortalising their stupidity once more on my\naccount, and they still have just enough time to do it in. And have\nthey fallen in with my plans? Admirably! my dear Germans. Allow me to\ncongratulate you.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The motto of _The Case of Wagner._--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 2: An opera by Nessler which was all the rage in Germany\ntwenty years ago.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Unfortunately it is impossible to render this play on the\nwords in English.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The German National Song (_Deutschland, Deutschland \u00fcber\nalles_).--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Ever since the year 1617 such plays have been produced by\nthe Protestants of Germany.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Schleiermacher_ literally means a weaver or maker of\nveils.--TR.]\n\n\n\n\nWHY I AM A FATALITY\n\n\n\n1\n\n\nI know my destiny. There will come a day when my name will recall\nthe memory of something formidable--a crisis the like of which has\nnever been known on earth, the memory of the most profound clash\nof consciences, and the passing of a sentence upon all that which\ntheretofore had been believed, exacted, and hallowed. I am not a\nman, I am dynamite. And with it all there is nought of the founder\nof a religion in me. Religions are matters for the mob; after coming\nin contact with a religious man, I always feel that I must wash my\nhands.... I require no \"believers,\" it is my opinion that I am too\nfull of malice to believe even in myself; I never address myself to\nmasses. I am horribly frightened that one day I shall be pronounced\n\"holy.\" You will understand why I publish this book beforehand--it is\nto prevent people from wronging me. I refuse to be a saint; I would\nrather be a clown. Maybe I am a clown. And I am notwithstanding, or\nrather not _not_withstanding, the mouthpiece of truth; for nothing\nmore blown-out with falsehood has ever existed, than a saint. But\nmy truth is terrible: for hitherto _lies_ have been called truth.\n_The Transvaluation of all Values,_ this is my formula for mankind's\ngreatest step towards coming to its senses--a step which in me became\nflesh and genius. My destiny ordained that I should be the first decent\nhuman being, and that I should feel myself opposed to the falsehood\nof millenniums. I was the first to discover truth, and for the simple\nreason that I was the first who became conscious of falsehood as\nfalsehood--that is to say, I smelt it as such. My genius resides in\nmy nostrils. I contradict as no one has contradicted hitherto, and am\nnevertheless the reverse of a negative spirit. I am the harbinger of\njoy, the like of which has never existed before; I have discovered\ntasks of such lofty greatness that, until my time, no one had any idea\nof such things. Mankind can begin to have fresh hopes, only now that I\nhave lived. Thus, I am necessarily a man of Fate. For when Truth enters\nthe lists against the falsehood of ages, shocks are bound to ensue,\nand a spell of earthquakes, followed by the transposition of hills and\nvalleys, such as the world has never yet imagined even in its dreams.\nThe concept \"politics\" then becomes elevated entirely to the sphere\nof spiritual warfare. All the mighty realms of the ancient order of\nsociety are blown into space--for they are all based on falsehood:\nthere will be wars, the like of which have never been seen on earth\nbefore. Only from my time and after me will politics on a large scale\nexist on earth.\n\n\n\n2\n\n\nIf you should require a formula for a destiny of this kind that has\ntaken human form, you will find it in my _Zarathustra_.\n\n\"And he who would be a creator in good and evil--verily, he must first\nbe a destroyer, and break values into pieces.\n\n\"Thus the greatest evil belongeth unto the greatest good: but this is\nthe creative good.\"\n\nI am by far the most terrible man that has ever existed; but this does\nnot alter the fact that I shall become the most beneficent. I know the\njoy of _annihilation_ to a degree which is commensurate with my power\nto annihilate. In both cases I obey my Dionysian nature, which knows\nnot how to separate the negative deed from the saying of yea. I am the\nfirst immoralist, and in this sense I am essentially the annihilator.\n\n\n\n3\n\n\nPeople have never asked me as they should have done, what the name\nof Zarathustra precisely meant in my mouth, in the mouth of the\nfirst immoralist; for that which distinguishes this Persian from all\nothers in the past is the very fact that he was the exact reverse\nof an immoralist. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle\nbetween good and evil the essential wheel in the working of things.\nThe translation of morality into the realm of metaphysics, as force,\ncause, end-in-itself, is his work. But the very question suggests\nits own answer. Zarathustra created this most portentous of all\nerrors,--morality; therefore he must be the first to expose it. Not\nonly because he has had longer and greater experience of the subject\nthan any other thinker,--all history is indeed the experimental\nrefutation of the theory of the so-called moral order of things,--but\nbecause of the more important fact that Zarathustra was the most\ntruthful of thinkers. In his teaching alone is truthfulness upheld as\nthe highest virtue--that is to say, as the reverse of the cowardice\nof the \"idealist\" who takes to his heels at the sight of reality.\nZarathustra has more pluck in his body than all other thinkers put\ntogether. To tell the truth and to aim straight: that is the first\nPersian virtue. Have I made myself clear? ... The overcoming of\nmorality by itself, through truthfulness, the moralist's overcoming of\nhimself in his opposite--in me--that is what the name Zarathustra means\nin my mouth.\n\n\n\n4\n\n\nIn reality two negations are involved in my title Immoralist. I first\nof all deny the type of man that has hitherto been regarded as the\nhighest--the _good,_ the _kind,_ and the _charitable_; and I also\ndeny that kind of morality which has become recognised and paramount\nas morality-in-itself--I speak of the morality of decadence, or, to\nuse a still cruder term, Christian morality. I would agree to the\nsecond of the two negations being regarded as the more decisive, for,\nreckoned as a whole, the overestimation of goodness and kindness seems\nto me already a consequence of decadence, a symptom of weakness, and\nincompatible with any ascending and yea-saying life. Negation and\nannihilation are inseparable from a yea-saying attitude towards life.\nLet me halt for a moment at the question of the psychology of the\ngood man. In order to appraise the value of a certain type of man, the\ncost of his maintenance must be calculated,--and the conditions of his\nexistence must be known. The condition of the existence of the _good_\nis falsehood: or, otherwise expressed, the refusal at any price to\nsee how reality is actually constituted. The refusal to see that this\nreality is not so constituted as always to be stimulating beneficent\ninstincts, and still less, so as to suffer at all moments the intrusion\nof ignorant and good-natured hands. To consider distress of all kinds\nas an objection, as something which must be done away with, is the\ngreatest nonsense on earth; generally speaking, it is nonsense of the\nmost disastrous sort, fatal in its stupidity--almost as mad as the will\nto abolish bad weather, out of pity for the poor, so to speak. In the\ngreat economy of the whole universe, the terrors of reality (in the\npassions, in the desires, in the will to power) are incalculably more\nnecessary than that form of petty happiness which is called \"goodness\";\nit is even needful to practise leniency in order so much as to allow\nthe latter a place at all, seeing that it is based upon a falsification\nof the instincts. I shall have an excellent opportunity of showing the\nincalculably calamitous consequences to the whole of history, of the\ncredo of optimism, this monstrous offspring of the _homines optimi._\nZarathustra,[1] the first who recognised that the optimist is just as\ndegenerate as the pessimist, though perhaps more detrimental, says:\n\"_Good men never speak the truth. False shores and false harbours\nwere ye taught by the good. In the lies of the good were ye born and\nbred. Through the good everything hath become false and crooked from\nthe roots._\" Fortunately the world is not built merely upon those\ninstincts which would secure to the good-natured herd animal his paltry\nhappiness. To desire everybody to become a \"good man,\" \"a gregarious\nanimal,\" \"a blue-eyed, benevolent, beautiful soul,\" or--as Herbert\nSpencer wished--a creature of altruism, would mean robbing existence of\nits greatest character, castrating man, and reducing humanity to a sort\nof wretched Chinadom. _And this some have tried to do! It is precisely\nthis that men called morality._ In this sense Zarathustra calls \"the\ngood,\" now \"the last men,\" and anon \"the beginning of the end\"; and\nabove all, he considers them as _the most detrimental kind of men,_\nbecause they secure their existence at the cost of Truth and at the\ncost of the Future.\n\n\"The good--they cannot create; they are ever the beginning of the end.\n\n\"They crucify him who writeth new values on new tables; they sacrifice\n_unto themselves_ the future; they crucify the whole future of humanity!\n\n\"The good--they are ever the beginning of the end.\n\n\"And whatever harm the slanderers of the world may do, _the harm of the\ngood is the most calamitous of all harm._\"\n\n\n\n5\n\n\nZarathustra, as the first psychologist of the good man, is perforce the\nfriend of the evil man. When a degenerate kind of man has succeeded\nto the highest rank among the human species, his position must have\nbeen gained at the cost of the reverse type--at the cost of the strong\nman who is certain of life. When the gregarious animal stands in\nthe glorious rays of the purest virtue, the exceptional man must be\ndegraded to the rank of the evil. If falsehood insists at all costs on\nclaiming the word \"truth\" for its own particular standpoint, the really\ntruthful man must be sought out among the despised. Zarathustra allows\nof no doubt here; he says that it was precisely the knowledge of the\ngood, of the \"best,\" which inspired his absolute horror of men. And\nit was out of this feeling of repulsion that he grew the wings which\nallowed him to soar into remote futures. He does not conceal the fact\nthat his type of man is one which is relatively superhuman--especially\nas opposed to the \"good\" man, and that the good and the just would\nregard his superman as the _devil._\n\n\"Ye higher men, on whom my gaze now falls, this is the doubt that ye\nwake in my breast, and this is my secret laughter: methinks ye would\ncall my Superman--the devil! So strange are ye in your souls to all\nthat is great, that the Superman would be terrible in your eyes for his\ngoodness.\"\n\nIt is from this passage, and from no other, that you must set out to\nunderstand the goal to which Zarathustra aspires--the kind of man that\nhe conceives sees reality _as it is;_ he is strong enough for this--he\nis not estranged or far removed from it, he is that reality himself, in\nhis own nature can be found all the terrible and questionable character\nof reality: _only thus can man have greatness._\n\n\n\n6\n\n\nBut I have chosen the title of Immoralist as a surname and as a badge\nof honour in yet another sense; I am very proud to possess this name\nwhich distinguishes me from all the rest of mankind. No one hitherto\nhas felt Christian morality beneath him; to that end there were needed\nheight, a remoteness of vision, and an abysmal psychological depth, not\nbelieved to be possible hitherto. Up to the present Christian morality\nhas been the Circe of all thinkers--they stood at her service. What\nman, before my time, had descended into the underground caverns from\nout of which the poisonous fumes of this ideal--of this slandering\nof the world--burst forth? What man had even dared to suppose that\nthey were underground caverns? Was a single one of the philosophers\nwho preceded me a psychologist at all, and not the very reverse of a\npsychologist--that is to say, a \"superior swindler,\" an \"Idealist\"?\nBefore my time there was no psychology. To be the first in this new\nrealm may amount to a curse; at all events, it is a fatality: _for one\nis also the first to despise._ My danger is the loathing of mankind.\n\n\n\n7\n\n\nHave you understood me? That which defines me, that which makes me\nstand apart from the whole of the rest of humanity, is the fact that\nI _unmasked_ Christian morality. For this reason I was in need of a\nword which conveyed the idea of a challenge to everybody. Not to have\nawakened to these discoveries before, struck me as being the sign\nof the greatest uncleanliness that mankind has on its conscience,\nas self-deception become instinctive, as the fundamental will to\nbe blind to every phenomenon, all causality and all reality; in\nfact, as an almost criminal fraud _in psychologicis._ Blindness in\nregard to Christianity is the essence of criminality--for it is the\ncrime _against_ life. Ages and peoples, the first as well as the\nlast, philosophers and old women, with the exception of five or six\nmoments in history (and of myself, the seventh), are all alike in\nthis. Hitherto the Christian has been _the_ \"moral being,\" a peerless\noddity, and, _as_ \"a moral being,\" he was more absurd, more vain, more\nthoughtless, and a greater disadvantage to himself, than the greatest\ndespiser of humanity could have deemed possible. Christian morality\nis the most malignant form of all false too the actual Circe of\nhumanity: that which has corrupted mankind. It is not error as error\nwhich infuriates me at the sight of this spectacle; it is not the\nmillenniums of absence of \"goodwill,\" of discipline, of decency, and\nof bravery in spiritual things, which betrays itself in the triumph of\nChristianity; it is rather the absence of nature, it is the perfectly\nghastly fact that _anti-nature_ itself received the highest honours as\nmorality and as law, and remained suspended over man as the Categorical\nImperative. Fancy blundering in this way, _not_ as an individual,\n_not_ as a people, but as a whole species! as _humanity_! To teach the\ncontempt of all the principal instincts of life; to posit falsely the\nexistence of a \"soul,\" of a \"spirit,\" in order to be able to defy the\nbody; to spread the feeling that there is something impure in the very\nfirst prerequisite of life--in sex; to seek the principle of evil in\nthe profound need of growth and expansion--that is to say, in severe\nself-love (the term itself is slanderous); and conversely to see a\nhigher moral value--but what am I talking about?--I mean the _moral\nvalue per se,_ in the typical signs of decline, in the antagonism of\nthe instincts, in \"selflessness,\" in the loss of ballast, in \"the\nsuppression of the personal element,\" and in \"love of one's neighbour\"\n(neighbouritis!). What! is humanity itself in a state of degeneration?\nHas it always been in this state? One thing is certain, that ye are\ntaught only the values of decadence as the highest values. The morality\nof self-renunciation is essentially the morality of degeneration; the\nfact, \"I am going to the dogs,\" is translated into the imperative,\"\nYe shall all go to the dogs\"--and not only into the imperative. This\nmorality of self-renunciation, which is the only kind of morality that\nhas been taught hitherto, betrays the will to nonentity--it denies life\nto the very roots. There still remains the possibility that it is not\nmankind that is in a state of degeneration, but only that parasitical\nkind of man--the priest, who, by means of morality and lies, has\nclimbed up to his position of determinator of values, who divined in\nChristian morality his road to power. And, to tell the truth, this\nis my opinion. The teachers and I leaders of mankind--including the\ntheologians--have been, every one of them, decadents: hence their)\ntransvaluation of all values into a hostility towards; life; hence\nmorality. _The definition of morality;_ Morality is the idiosyncrasy of\ndecadents, actuated by a desire _to avenge themselves with success upon\nlife._ I attach great value to this definition.\n\n\n\n8\n\n\nHave you understood me? I have not uttered a single word which I had\nnot already said five years ago through my mouthpiece Zarathustra.\nThe unmasking of Christian morality is an event which unequalled in\nhistory, it is a real catastrophe. The man who throws light upon it\nis a _force majeure,_ a fatality; he breaks the history of man into\ntwo. Time is reckoned up before him and after him. The lightning\nflash of truth struck precisely that which theretofore had stood\nhighest: he who understands what was destroyed by that flash should\nlook to see whether he still holds anything in his hands. Everything\nwhich until then was called truth, has been revealed as the most\ndetrimental, most spiteful, and most subterranean form of life; the\nholy pretext, which was the \"improvement\" of man, has been recognised\nas a ruse for draining life of its energy and of its blood. Morality\nconceived as _Vampirism_.... The man who unmasks morality has also\nunmasked the worthlessness of the values in which men either believe\nor have believed; he no longer sees anything to be revered in the most\nvenerable man--even in the types of men that have been pronounced\nholy; all he can see in them is the most fatal kind of abortions,\nfatal, _because they fascinate._ The concept \"God\" was invented as\nthe opposite of the concept life--everything detrimental, poisonous,\nand slanderous, and all deadly hostility to life, wad bound together\nin one horrible unit in Him. The concepts \"beyond\" and \"true world\"\nwere invented in order to depreciate the only world that exists--in\norder that no goal or aim, no sense or task, might be left to earthly\nreality. The concepts \"soul,\" \"spirit,\" and last of all the concept\n\"immortal soul,\" were invented in order to throw contempt on the body,\nin order to make it sick and \"holy,\" in order to cultivate an attitude\nof appalling levity towards all things in life which deserve to be\ntreated seriously, _i.e._ the questions of nutrition and habitation,\nof intellectual diet, the treatment of the sick, cleanliness, and\nweather. Instead of health, we find the \"salvation of the soul\"--that\nis to say, a _folie circulate_ fluctuating between convulsions and\npenitence and the hysteria of redemption. The concept \"sin,\" together\nwith the torture instrument appertaining to it, which is the concept\n\"free will,\" was invented in order to confuse and muddle our instincts,\nand to render the mistrust of them man's second nature! In the concepts\n\"disinterestedness\" and \"self-denial,\" the actual signs of decadence\nare to be found. The allurement of that which is detrimental, the\ninability to discover one's own advantage and self-destruction, are\nmade into absolute qualities, into the \"duty,\" the \"holiness,\" and\nthe \"divinity\" of man. Finally--to keep the worst to the last--by the\nnotion of the _good_ man, all that is favoured which is weak, ill,\nbotched, and sick-in-itself, which _ought to be wiped out._ The law\nof selection is thwarted, an ideal is made out of opposition to the\nproud, well-constituted man, to him who says yea to life, to him who\nis certain of the future, and who guarantees the future--this man is\nhenceforth called the _evil_ one. And all this was believed in as\n_morality!--Ecrasez l'inf\u00e2me!_\n\n\n\n9\n\n\nHave you understood me? _Dionysus_ versus _Christ._\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Needless to say this is Nietzsche, and no longer the\nPersian.--TR.]\n\n\n\n\nEDITORIAL NOTE TO POETRY\n\n\nThe editor begs to state that, contrary to his announcement in\nthe Editorial Note to _The Joyful Wisdom,_ in which he declared\nhis intention of publishing all of Nietzsche's poetry, he has\nnevertheless withheld certain less important verses from publication.\nThis alteration in his plans is due to his belief that it is an\ninjustice and an indiscretion on the part of posterity to surprise an\nauthor, as it were, in his _n\u00e9glig\u00e9,_ or, in plain English, \"in his\nshirt-sleeves.\" Authors generally are very sensitive on this point, and\nrightly so: a visit behind the scenes is not precisely to the advantage\nof the theatre, and even finished pictures not yet framed are not\nreadily shown by the careful artist. As the German edition, however,\ncontains nearly all that Nietzsche left behind, either in small\nnotebooks or on scraps of paper, the editor could not well suppress\neverything that was not prepared for publication by Nietzsche himself,\nmore particularly as some of the verses are really very remarkable.\nHe has, therefore, made a very plentiful selection from the _Songs\nand Epigrams,_ nearly all of which are to be found translated here,\nand from the Fragments of the Dionysus Dithyrambs, of which over half\nhave been given. All the complete Dionysus Dithyrambs appear in this\nvolume, save those which are duplicates of verses already translated\nin the Fourth Part of _Zarathustra._ These Dionysus Dithyrambs were\nprepared ready for press by Nietzsche himself. He wrote the final\nmanuscript during the summer of 1888 in Sils Maria; their actual\ncomposition, however, belongs to an earlier date.\n\nAll the verses, unless otherwise stated, have been translated by Mr.\nPaul Victor Cohn.\n\n\n\n\nSONGS, EPIGRAMS, ETC.\n\n\nSONGS\n\n\n\n    TO MELANCHOLY[1]\n\n\n    O Melancholy, be not wroth with me\n      That I this pen should point to praise thee only,\n    And in thy praise, with head bowed to the knee,\n      Squat like a hermit on a tree-stump lonely.\n    Thus oft thou saw'st me,--yesterday, at least,--\n      Full in the morning sun and its hot beaming,\n    While, visioning the carrion of his feast,\n      The hungry vulture valleyward flew screaming.\n\n    Yet didst thou err, foul bird, albeit I,\n      So like a mummy 'gainst my log lay leaning!\n    Thou couldst not see these eyes whose ecstasy\n      Rolled hither, thither, proud and overweening.\n    What though they did not soar unto thine height,\n      or reached those far-off, cloud-reared precipices,\n    For _that_ they sank the deeper so they might\n      Within themselves light Destiny's abysses.\n\n    Thus oft in sullenness perverse and free,\n      Bent hideous like a savage at his altar,\n    There, Melancholy, held I thought of thee,\n      A penitent, though youthful, with his psalter.\n\n    So crouched did I enjoy the vulture's span,\n      The thunder of the avalanche's paces,\n    Thou spakest to me--nor wast false like man,\n      Thou spakest, but with stern and dreadful faces.\n\n    Harsh goddess thou of Nature wild and stark,\n      Mistress, that com'st with threats to daunt and quell me,\n    To point me out the vulture's airy are\n      And laughing avalanches, to repel me.\n    Around us gnashing pants the lust to kill,\n      The torment to win life in all its changes;\n    Alluring on some cliff, abrupt and chill,\n      Some flower craves the butterfly that ranges.\n\n    All this am I--shuddering I feel it all--\n      O butterfly beguiled, O lonely flower,\n    The vulture and the ice-pent waterfall,\n      The moaning storm--all symbols of thy power,--\n    Thou goddess grim before whom deeply bowed,\n      With head on knee, my lips with p\u00e6ans bursting,\n    I lift a dreadful song and cry aloud\n      For Life, for Life, for Life--forever thirsting!\n\n    O vengeful goddess, be not wroth, I ask,\n      That I to mesh thee in my rhymes have striven.\n    He trembles who beholds thine awful mask;\n      He quails to whom thy dread right hand is given.\n    Song upon trembling song by starts and fits\n      I chant, in rhythm all my thought unfolding,\n    The black ink flows, the pointed goose-quill spits,\n      O goddess, goddess--leave me to my scolding!\n\n\n\n\n    AFTER A NIGHT STORM[2]\n\n\n    To-day in misty veils thou hangest dimly,\n      Gloomy goddess, o'er my window-pane.\n    Grimly whirl the pallid snow-flakes, grimly\n      Roars the swollen brook unto the plain.\n\n    Ah, by light of haggard levins glaring,\n      'Neath the untamed thunder's roar and roll,\n    'Midst the valley's murk wast thou preparing--\n      Sorceress! thy dank and poisoned bowl.\n\n    Shuddering, I heard through midnight breaking\n      Raptures of thy voice--and howls of pain.\n    Saw thy bright orbs gleam, thy right hand shaking\n      With the mace of thunder hurled amain.\n\n    Near my dreary couch I heard the crashes\n      Of thine armoured steps, heard weapons slam,\n    Heard thy brazen chain strike 'gainst the sashes,\n      And thy voice: \"Come! hearken who I am!\n\n    The immortal Amazon they call me;\n      All things weak and womanish I shun;\n    Manly scorn and hate in war enthral me;\n      Victress I and tigress all in one!\n\n    Where I tread there corpses fall before me;\n      From mine eyes the furious torches fly,\n    And my brain thinks poisons. Bend, adore me!\n      Worm of Earth and Will o' Wisp--or die!\"\n\n\n\n\n    HYMNS TO FRIENDSHIP\n\n\n    (_Two Fragments_)\n\n\n    1\n\n    Goddess Friendship, deign to hear the song\n      That we sing in friendship's honour!\n    Where the eye of friendship glances,\n      Filled with all the joy of friendship\n      Come thou nigh to aid me,\n    Rosy dawn in thy gaze and\n    In holy hand the faithful pledge of youth eternal.\n\n\n    2\n\n    Morning's past: the sun of noonday\n      Scorches with hot ray our heads.\n    Let us sit beneath the arbour\n    Singing songs in praise of friendship.\n    Friendship was our life's red dawning,\n      And its sunset red shall be.\n\n\n\n\n    THE WANDERER[3]\n\n\n    All through the night a wanderer walks\n      Sturdy of stride,\n    With winding vale and sloping height\n      E'er at his side.\n      Fair is the night:\n    On, on he strides, nor slackens speed,\n    And knows not where his path will lead.\n\n    A bird's song in the night is heard,\n    \"Ah me, what hast thou done, O bird,\n      How dost thou grip my sense and feet\n      And pourest heart-vexation sweet\n    Into mine ear--I must remain,\n      To hearken fain:\n    Why lure me with inviting strain?\"\n\n    The good bird speaks, staying his song:\n    \"I lure not thee,--no, thou art wrong--\n      With these my trills\n    I lure my mate from off the hills--\n      Nor heed thy plight.\n    To me alone the night's not fair.\n    What's that to thee? Forth must thou fare,\n    On, onward ever, resting ne'er.\n\n      Why stand'st thou now?\n    What has my piping done to thee,\n      Thou roaming wight?\"\n    The good bird pondered, silent quite,\n    \"Why doth my piping change his plight?\n      Why stands he now,\n    That luckless, luckless, roaming wight?\"\n\n\n\n\n    TO THE GLACIER\n\n\n    At noontide hour, when first,\n    Into the mountains Summer treads,\n    Summer, the boy with eyes so hot and weary,\n    Then too he speaks,\n    Yet we can only see his speech.\n\n    His breath is panting, like the sick man's breath\n    On fevered couch.\n    The glacier and the fir tree and the spring\n    Answer his call\n    --Yet we their answer only see.\n    For faster from the rock leaps down\n    The torrent stream, as though to greet,\n    And stands, like a white column trembling,\n    All yearning there.\n    And darker yet and truer looks the fir-tree\n    Than e'er before.\n    And 'twixt the ice-mass and the cold grey stone\n    A sudden light breaks forth--\n    Such light I once beheld, and marked the sign.\n\n    Even the dead man's eye\n    Surely once more grows light,\n    When, sorrowful, his child\n    Gives him embrace and kiss:\n    Surely once more the flame of light\n    Wells out, and glowing into life\n    The dead eye speaks: \"My child!\n    Ah child, you know I love you true!\"\n\n    So all things glow and speak--the glacier speaks,\n    The brook, the fir,\n    Speak with their glance the selfsame words:\n    We love you true,\n    Ah, child, you know we love you, love you true!\n\n    And he,\n    Summer, the boy with eyes so hot and weary,\n    Woe-worn, gives kisses\n    More ardent ever,\n    And will not go:\n    But like to veils he blows his words\n    From out his lips,\n    His cruel words:\n    \"My greeting's parting,\n    My coming going,\n    In youth I die.\"\n\n    All round they hearken\n    And scarcely breathe\n    (No songster sings),\n    And shuddering run\n    Like gleaming ray\n    Over the mountain;\n    All round they ponder,--\n    Nor speak--\n\n    Twas at the noon,\n    At noontide hour, when first\n    Into the mountains Summer treads,\n    Summer, the boy with eyes so hot and weary.\n\n\n\n\n    AUTUMN[4]\n\n\n    'Tis Autumn:--Autumn yet shall break thy heart!\n    Fly away! fly away!--\n    The sun creeps 'gainst the hill\n    And climbs and climbs\n    And rests at every step.\n\n    How faded grew the world!\n    On weary, slackened strings the wind\n    Playeth his tune.\n    Fair Hope fled far--\n    He waileth after.\n\n    'Tis Autumn:--Autumn yet shall break thy heart!\n    Fly away! fly away!\n    O fruit of the tree,\n    Thou tremblest, fallest?\n    What secret whispered unto thee\n    The Night,\n    That icy shudders deck thy cheek,\n    Thy cheek of purple hue?\n\n    Silent art thou, nor dost reply--\n    Who speaketh still?--\n\n    'Tis Autumn:--Autumn yet shall break thy heart!\n    Fly away! fly away!--\n    \"I am not fair,\"--\n    So speaks the lone star-flower,--\n    \"Yet men I love\n    And comfort men--\n    Many flowers shall they behold,\n    And stoop to me,\n    And break me, ah!--\n    So that within their eyes shall gleam\n    Remembrance swift,\n    _Remembrance of far fairer things than I_:--\n    I see it--see it--and I perish so.\"\n\n    'Tis Autumn:--Autumn yet shall break thy heart!\n    Fly away! fly away!\n\n\n\n\n    CAMPO SANTO DI STAGLIENO[5]\n\n\n    Maiden, in gentle wise\n    You stroke your lamb's soft fleece,\n    Yet flashing from your eyes\n    Both light and flame ne'er cease.\n    Creature of merry jest\n    And favourite near and far,\n    Pious with kindness blest,\n          Amorosissima!\n\n    What broke so soon the chain,\n    What does your heart deplore?\n    And who, pray, would not fain,\n    If you loved him, adore?--\n    You're mute, but from your eye,\n    The tear-drop is not far,\n    You're mute: you'll yearn and die,\n          Amorosissima?\n\n\n\n\n    THE LITTLE BRIG NAMED \"LITTLE ANGEL\"[6]\n\n\n    \"Little Angel\" call they me!--\n    Now a ship, but once a girl,\n    Ah, and still too much a girl!\n    My steering-wheel, so bright to see,\n    But for sake of love doth whirl.\n\n    \"Little Angel\" call they me,\n    With hundred flags to ornament,\n    A captain smart, on glory bent,\n    Steers me, puffed with vanity\n    (He himself's an ornament).\n\n    \"Little Angel\" call they me,\n    And where'er a little flame\n    Gleams for me, I, like a lamb,\n    Go my journey eagerly\n    (I was always such a lamb!).\n\n    \"Little Angel\" call they me--\n    Think you I can bark and whine\n    Like a dog, this mouth of mine\n    Throwing smoke and flame full free?\n    Ah, a devil's mouth is mine.\n\n    \"Little Angel\" call they me--\n    Once I spoke a bitter word,\n    That my lover, when he heard,\n    Fast and far away did flee:\n    Yes, I killed him with that word!\n\n    \"Little Angel\" call they me:\n    Hardly heard, I sprang so glib\n    From the cliff and broke a rib:\n    From my frame my soul went free,\n    Yes, escaped me through that rib.\n\n    \"Little Angel\" call they me--\n    Then my soul, like cat in flight\n    Straight did on this ship alight\n    Swiftly bounding--one, two, three!\n    Yes, its claws are swift to smite.\n\n    \"Little Angel\" call they me!--\n    Now a ship, but once a girl,\n    Ah, and still too much a girl!\n    My steering-wheel, so bright to see,\n    For sake of love alone doth whirl.\n\n\n\n\n    MAIDEN'S SONG\n\n\n    Yesterday with seventeen years\n    Wisdom reached I, a maiden fair,\n    I am grey-haired, it appears,\n    Now in all things--save my hair.\n\n    Yesterday, I had a thought,\n    Was't a thought?--you laugh and scorn!\n    Did you ever have a thought?\n    Rather was a feeling born.\n\n    Dare a woman think? This screed\n    Wisdom long ago begot:\n    \"Follow woman must, not lead;\n    If she thinks, she follows not.\"\n\n    Wisdom speaks--I credit naught:\n    Rather hops and stings like flea:\n    \"Woman seldom harbours thought;\n    If she thinks, no good is she!\"\n\n    To this wisdom, old, renowned,\n    Bow I in deep reverence:\n    Now my wisdom I'll expound\n    In its very quintessence.\n\n    A voice spoke in me yesterday\n    As ever--listen if you can:\n    \"Woman is more beauteous aye,\n    But more interesting--man!\"\n\n\n\n\n    \"PIA, CARITATEVOLE, AMOROSISSIMA\"[7]\n\n\n    Cave where the dead ones rest,\n    O marble falsehood, thee\n    I love: for easy jest\n    My soul thou settest free.\n\n    To-day, to-day alone,\n    My soul to tears is stirred,\n    At thee, the pictured stone,\n    At thee, the graven word.\n\n    This picture (none need wis)\n    I kissed the other day.\n    When there's so much to kiss\n    Why did I kiss the--clay?\n\n    Who knows the reason why?\n    \"A tombstone fool!\" you laugh:\n    I kissed--I'll not deny--\n    E'en the long epitaph.\n\n\n\n\n    TO FRIENDSHIP\n\n\n    Hail to thee, Friendship!\n    My hope consummate,\n    My first red daybreak!\n    Alas, so endless\n    Oft path and night seemed,\n    And life's long road\n    Aimless and hateful!\n    Now life I'd double\n    In thine eyes seeing\n    Dawn-glory, triumph,\n    Most gracious goddess!\n\n\n\n\n    PINE TREE AND LIGHTNING\n\n\n    O'er man and beast I grew so high,\n    And speak--but none will give reply.\n\n    Too lone and tall my crest did soar:\n    I wait: what am I waiting for?\n\n    The clouds are grown too nigh of late,\n    'Tis the first lightning I await.\n\n\n\n\n    TREE IN AUTUMN\n\n\n    Why did ye, blockheads, me awaken\n      While I in blissful blindness stood?\n    Ne'er I by fear more fell was shaken--\n      Vanished my golden dreaming mood.\n\n    Bear-elephants, with trunks all greedy,\n      Knock first! Where have your manners fled?\n    I threw--and fear has made me speedy--\n      Dishes of ripe fruit--at your head.\n\n\n\n\n    AMONG FOES (OR AGAINST CRITICS)\n\n\n    (_After a Gipsy Proverb_)\n\n\n    Here the gallows, there the cord,\n      And the hangman's ruddy beard.\n    Round, the venom-glancing horde:--\n      Nothing new to me's appeared.\n    Many times I've seen the sight,\n      Now laughing in your face I cry,\n    \"Hanging me is useless quite:\n      Die? Nay, nay, I cannot die!\"\n\n    Beggars all! Ye envy me\n      Winning what ye never won!\n    True, I suffer agony,\n      But for you--your life is done.\n    Many times I've faced death's plight,\n      Yet steam and light and breath am I.\n    Hanging me is useless quite:\n      Die? Nay, nay, I cannot die!\n\n\n\n\n    THE NEW COLUMBUS[8]\n\n\n    \"Dearest,\" said Columbus, \"never\n      Trust a Genoese again.\n    At the blue he gazes ever,\n      Distance doth his soul enchain.\n\n    Strangeness is to me too dear--\n      Genoa has sunk and passed--\n    Heart, be cool! Hand, firmly steer!\n      Sea before me: land--at last?\n\n    Firmly let us plant our feet,\n      Ne'er can we give up this game--\n    From the distance what doth greet?\n      One death, one happiness, one fame.\n\n\n\n\n    IN LONESOMENESS[9]\n\n\n    The cawing crows\n    Townwards on whirring pinions roam;\n    Soon come the snows--\n    Thrice happy now who hath a home!\n\n    Fast-rooted there,\n    Thou gazest backwards--oh, how long!\n    Thou fool, why dare\n    Ere winter come, this world of wrong?\n\n    This world--a gate\n    To myriad deserts dumb and hoar!\n    Who lost through fate\n    What thou hast lost, shall rest no more.\n\n    Now stand'st thou pale,\n    A frozen pilgrimage thy doom,\n    Like smoke whose trail\n    Cold and still colder skies consume.\n\n    Fly, bird, and screech,\n    Like desert-fowl, thy song apart!\n    Hide out of reach,\n    Fool! in grim ice thy bleeding heart.\n\n    Firmly let us plant our feet,\n      Ne'er can we give up this game--\n    From the distance what doth greet?\n      One death, one happiness, one fame.\n\n    The cawing crows\n      Townwards on whirring pinions roam:\n    Soon come the snows--\n      Woe unto him who hath no home!\n\n    _My Answer_\n\n    The man presumes--\n      Good Lord!--to think that I'd return\n    To those warm rooms\n      Where snug the German ovens burn\n\n    My friend, you see\n      'Tis but thy folly drives me far,--\n    Pity for _thee_\n      And all that German blockheads are!\n\n\n\n\n    VENICE\n\n\n    ON the bridge I stood,\n    Mellow was the night,\n    Music came from far--\n    Drops of gold outpoured\n    On the shimmering waves.\n    Song, gondolas, light,\n    Floated a-twinkling out into the dusk.\n\n    The chords of my soul, moved\n    By unseen impulse, throbbed\n    Secretly into a gondola song,\n    With thrills of bright-hued ecstasy.\n    Had I a listener there?\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Translated by Herman Scheffauer.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Translated by Herman Scheffauer.]\n\n[Footnote 3: This poem was written on the betrothal of one of\nNietzsche's B\u00e2le friends.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Translated by Herman Scheffauer.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Campo Santo di Staglieno is the cemetery of Staglieno,\nnear Genoa. The poem was inspired by the sight of a girl\nwith a lamb on the tombstone, with the words underneath--\n\"Pia, caritatevole, amorosissima.\"]\n\n[Footnote 6: Published by Nietzsche himself. The poem was inspired\nby a ship that was christened _Angiolina,_ in memory of a\nlove-sick girl who leapt into the sea.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 7: See above, p. 157. Both poems were inspired by the same\ntombstone.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The Genoese is Nietzsche himself, who lived a great\npart of his life at Genoa.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Translated by Herman Scheffauer.]\n\n\n\n\n\nEPIGRAMS\n\n\n\n    CAUTION: POISON![1]\n\n\n    He who cannot laugh at this had better not start reading;\n\n    For if he read and do not laugh, physic he'll be needing!\n\n\n\n\n    HOW TO FIND ONE'S COMPANY\n\n\n    With jesters it is good to jest:\n    Who likes to tickle, is tickled best.\n\n\n\n\n    THE WORD\n\n\n    I dearly love the living word,\n    That flies to you like a merry bird,\n    Ready with pleasant nod to greet,\n    E'en in misfortune welcome, sweet,\n    Yet it has blood, can pant you deep:\n    Then to the dove's ear it will creep:\n    And curl itself, or start for flight--\n    Whate'er it does, it brings delight.\n\n    Yet tender doth the word remain,\n    Soon it is ill, soon well again:\n    So if its little life you'd spare,\n    O grasp it lightly and with care,\n    Nor heavy hand upon it lay,\n    For e'en a cruel glance would slay!\n    There it would lie, unsouled, poor thing!\n    All stark, all formless, and all cold,\n    Its little body changed and battered,\n    By death and dying rudely shattered.\n\n    A dead word is a hateful thing,\n    A barren, rattling, ting-ting-ting.\n    A curse on ugly trades I cry\n    That doom all little words to die!\n\n\n\n\n    THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW\n\n\n    _A Book_\n\n\n    You'll ne'er go on nor yet go back?\n    Is e'en for chamois here no track?\n\n    So here I wait and firmly clasp\n    What eye and hand will let me grasp!\n\n    Five-foot-broad ledge, red morning's breath,\n    And under me--world, man, and death!\n\n\n\n\n    JOYFUL WISDOM\n\n\n    This is no book--for such, who looks?\n    Coffins and shrouds, naught else, are books!\n    What's dead and gone they make their prey,\n    Yet in my book lives fresh To-day.\n\n    This is no book--for such, who looks?\n    Who cares for coffins, shrouds, and spooks?\n    This is a promise, an act of will,\n    A last bridge-breaking, for good or ill;\n    A wind from sea, an anchor light,\n    A whirr of wheels, a steering right.\n    The cannon roars, white smokes its flame,\n    The sea--the monster--laughs and scents its game.\n\n\n\n\n    DEDICATION[2]\n\n\n    He who has much to tell, keeps much\n      Silent and unavowed.\n    He who with lightning-flash would touch\n      Must long remain a cloud!\n\n\n\n\n    THE NEW TESTAMENT[3]\n\n\n    Is this your Book of Sacred Lore,\n    For blessing, cursing, and such uses?--\n    Come, come now: at the very door\n    God some one else's wife seduces?\n\n\n\n\n    THE \"TRUE GERMAN\"\n\n\n    \"O Peuple des meillures Tartuffes,\n    To you I'm true, I wis.\"\n    He spoke, but in the swiftest skiff\n    Went to Cosmopolis.\n\n\n\n\n    TO THE DARWINIANS[4]\n\n\n    A fool this honest Britisher\n    Was not ... But a Philosopher!\n      As _that_ you really rate him?\n    Set Darwin up by Goethe's side?\n    But majesty you thus deride--\n      _Genii majestatem_!\n\n\n\n\n    To HAFIZ\n\n\n    (_Toast Question of a Water-Drinker_)\n\n\n    What you have builded, yonder inn,\n      O'ertops all houses high:\n    The posset you have brewed therein\n      The world will ne'er drink dry.\n    The bird that once appeared on earth\n      As ph\u0153nix, is your, guest.\n    The mouse that gave a mountain birth\n      Is you yourself confessed!\n    You're all and naught, you're inn and wine,\n      You're ph\u0153nix, mountain, mouse.\n    Back to yourself to come you pine\n      Or fly from out your house.\n    Downward from every height you've sunk,\n      And in the depths still shine:\n    The drunkenness of all the drunk,\n      Why do you ask for--wine?\n\n\n\n\n    TO SPINOZA\n\n\n    Of \"All in One\" a fervent devotee\n    _Amore Dei,_ of reasoned piety,\n    Doff shoes! A land thrice holy this must be!--\n    Yet underneath this love there sate\n    A torch of vengeance, burning secretly\n    The Hebrew God was gnawed by Hebrew hate.\n    Hermit! Do I aright interpret thee?\n\n\n\n\n    ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER\n\n\n    That which he taught, has had its day,\n    That which he lived, shall live for aye:\n    Look at the man! No bondsman he!\n    Nor e'er to mortal bowed his knee!\n\n\n\n\n    TO RICHARD WAGNER\n\n\n    O You who chafe at every fetter's link,\n    A restless spirit, never free:\n    Who, though victorious aye, in bonds still cowered,\n    Disgusted more and more, and flayed and scoured,\n    Till from each cup of balm you poison drink,\n    Alas! and by the Cross all helpless sink,\n    You too, you too, among the overpowered!\n\n    For long I watched this play so weirdly shaped,\n    Breathing an air of prison, vault, and dread,\n    With churchly fragrance, clouds of incense spread,\n    And yet I found all strange/in terror gaped.\n    But now I throw my fool's cap o'er my head,\n    For I escaped!\n\n\n\n\n    MUSIC OF THE SOUTH[5]\n\n\n    All that my eagle e'er saw clear,\n    I see and feel in heart to-day\n    (Although my hope was wan and gray)\n    Thy song like arrow pierced mine ear,\n    A balm to touch, a balm to hear,\n    As down from heaven it winged its way.\n\n    So now for lands of southern fire\n    To happy isles where Grecian nymphs hold sport!\n    Thither now turn the ship's desire--\n    No ship e'er sped to fairer port.\n\n\n\n\n    A RIDDLE\n\n\n    A riddle here--can you the answer scent?\n    \"When man discovers, woman must invent.\"----\n\n\n\n\n    TO FALSE FRIENDS\n\n\n    You stole, your eye's not clear to-day.\n    You only stole a thought, sir? nay,\n    Why be so rudely modest, pray?\n    Here, take another handful--stay,\n    Take all I have, you swine--you may\n    Eat till your filth is purged away.\n\n\n\n\n    FRIEND YORICK\n\n\n    Be of good cheer,\n    Friend Yorick! If this thought gives pain,\n    As now it does, I fear,\n    Is it not \"God\"? And though in error lain,\n    'Tis but your own dear child,\n    Your flesh and blood,\n    That tortures you and gives you pain,\n    Your little rogue and do-no-good,\n    See if the rod will change its mood!\n\n    In brief, friend Yorick, leave that drear\n    Philosophy--and let me now\n    Whisper one word as medicine,\n    My own prescription, in your ear,\n    My remedy against such spleen--\n    \"Who loves his God, chastises him, I ween,\"\n\n\n\n\n    RESOLUTION\n\n\n    I should be wise to suit my mood,\n    Not at the beck of other men:\n    God made as stupid as he could\n    The world--well, let me praise him then.\n\n    And if I make not straight my track,\n    But, far as may be, wind and bend,\n    That's how the sage begins his tack,\n    And that is how the fool will--end.\n\n         *     *     *     *     *\n\n    The world stands never still,\n    Night loves the glowing day--\n    Sweet sounds to ear \"I will!\"\n    And sweeter still \"I may!\"\n\n\n\n\n    THE HALCYONIAN[6]\n\n\n    Addressing me most bashfully,\n      A woman to-day said this:\n    \"What would you be like in ecstasy,\n      If sober you feel such bliss?\"\n\n\n\n\n    FINALE[6]\n\n\n    Laughter is a serious art.\n    I would do it better daily.\n    Did I well to-day or no?\n    Came the spark right from the heart?\n    Little use though head wag gaily,\n    If the heart contain no glow.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Translated by Francis Bickley.]\n\n[Footnote 2: On the title-page of a copy of _Joyful Wisdom,_ dedicated\nto Herr August Bungal.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Translated by Francis Bickley.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Translated by Francis Bickley.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Probably written for Peter Gast, Nietzsche's faithful\nfriend, and a musician whose \"Southern\" music Nietzsche\nadmired.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Translated by Francis Bickley.]\n\n\n\n\nDIONYSUS-DITHYRAMBS\n\n\n(1888)\n\n\nThese are the songs of Zarathustra which he sang to\nhimself so as to endure his last solitude.\n\n\n\n    OF THE POVERTY OF THE RICHEST\n\n\n    Ten years passed by--\n    Not a drop reached me,\n    No rain-fraught wind, no dew of love\n    --A rainless land....\n    Now entreat I my wisdom\n    Not to become stingy in this drought;\n    Overflow thyself, trickle thy dew,\n    Be thyself the rain of the parched wilderness!\n\n    I once bade the clouds\n    Depart from my mountains;\n    Once I said to them,\n    \"More light, ye dark ones!\"\n    To-day I entice them to come:\n    Make me dark with your udders:\n    --I would milk you,\n    Ye cows of the heights!\n    Milk-warm wisdom, sweet dew of love\n    I pour over the land.\n\n    Away, away, ye truths\n    That look so gloomy!\n    I will not have on my mountains\n    Bitter, impatient truths.\n    May truth approach me to-day\n    Gilded by smiles,\n    Sweetened by the sun, browned by love,--\n    A ripe truth I would fain break off from the tree.\n\n    To-day I stretch my hands\n    Toward the tresses of chance,\n    Wise enough to lead,\n    To outwit chance like a child.\n    To-day I will be hospitable\n    'Gainst the unwelcome,\n    'Gainst destiny itself I will not be prickly....\n    --Zarathustra is no hedgehog.\n\n    My soul,\n    Insatiable with its tongue,\n    Has already tasted of all things good and evil,\n    And has dived into all depths.\n    But ever, like the cork,\n    It swims to the surface again,\n    And floats like oil upon brown seas:\n    Because of this soul men call me fortunate.\n\n    Who are my father and mother?\n    Is not my father Prince Plenty?\n    And my mother Silent Laughter?\n    Did not the union of these two\n    Beget me, the enigmatic beast--\n    Me, the monster of light--\n    Me, Zarathustra, the squanderer of all wisdom?\n\n    Sick to-day from tenderness,\n    A dewy wind,\n    Zarathustra sits waiting, waiting on his mountains--\n    Sweet and stewing\n    In his own juice,\n    Beneath his own summit,\n    Beneath his ice,\n    Weary and happy,\n    A Creator on his seventh day.\n\n    --Silence!\n    A truth passes over me\n    Like a cloud,--\n    With invisible lightnings it strikes me,\n    On broad, slow stairs,\n    Its happiness climbs to me:\n    Come, come, beloved truth!\n\n    --Silence!\n    'Tis _my_ truth!\n    From timid eyes,\n    From velvet shudders,\n    Her glance meets mine,\n    Sweet and wicked, a maiden's glance.\n    She has guessed the reason of my happiness,\n    She has guessed me--ha! what is she thinking?\n    A purple dragon\n    Lurks in the abyss of her maiden's glance.\n\n    --Silence! My truth is speaking!--\n\n    \"Woe to thee, Zarathustra!\n    Thou lookest like one\n    That hath swallowed gold:\n    They will slit up thy belly yet!\n\n    Thou art too rich,\n    Thou corrupter of many!\n    Thou makest too many jealous,\n    Too many poor....\n    Even on me thy light casts a shadow--\n    I feel chill: go away, thou rich one\n    Go away, Zarathustra, from the path of thy sun\n\n\n\n\n    BETWEEN BIRDS OF PREY\n\n\n    Who would here descend,\n    How soon\n    Is he swallowed up by the depths!\n    But thou, Zarathustra,\n    Still lovest the abysses,\n    Lovest them as doth the fir tree!\n\n    The fir flings its roots\n    Where the rock itself gazes\n    Shuddering at the depths,--\n    The fir pauses before the abysses\n    Where all around\n    Would fain descend:\n    Amid the impatience\n    Of wild, rolling, leaping torrents\n    It waits so patient, stern and silent,\n    Lonely....\n\n    Lonely!\n    Who would venture\n    Here to be guest--\n    To be thy guest?\n\n    A bird of prey, perchance\n    Joyous at others' misfortune,\n    Will cling persistent\n    To the hair of the steadfast watcher,\n    With frenzied laughter,\n    A vulture's laughter....\n\n    Wherefore so steadfast?\n    --Mocks he so cruel:\n    He must have wings, who loves the abyss,\n    He must not stay on the cliff,\n    As thou who hangest there!--\n\n    O Zarathustra,\n    Cruellest Nimrod!\n    Of late still a hunter of God,\n    A spider's web to capture virtue,\n    An arrow of evil!\n    Now\n    Hunted by thyself,\n    Thine own prey\n    Caught in the grip of thine own soul.\n\n    Now\n    Lonely to me and thee,\n    Twofold in thine own knowledge,\n    Mid a hundred mirrors\n    False to thyself,\n    Mid a hundred memories\n    Uncertain,\n    Weary at every wound,\n    Shivering at every frost,\n    Throttled in thine own noose,\n    Self-knower!\n    Self-hangman!\n\n    Why didst bind thyself\n    With the noose of thy wisdom?\n    Why luredst thyself\n    Into the old serpent's paradise?\n    Why stolest into\n    Thyself, thyself?...\n\n    A sick man now,\n    Sick of serpent's poison,\n    A captive now\n    Who hast drawn the hardest lot:\n    In thine own shaft\n    Bowed as thou workest,\n    In thine own cavern\n    Digging at thyself,\n    Helpless quite,\n    Stiff,\n    A cold corse\n    Overwhelmed with a hundred burdens,\n    Overburdened by thyself,\n    A knower!\n    A self-knower!\n    The wise Zarathustra!...\n\n    Thou soughtest the heaviest burden,\n    So foundest thou thyself,\n    And canst not shake thyself off....\n\n    Watching,\n    Chewing,\n    One that stands upright no more!\n    Thou wilt grow deformed even in thy grave,\n    Deformed spirit!\n\n    And of late still so proud\n    On all the stilts of thy pride!\n    Of late still the godless hermit,\n    The hermit with one comrade--the devil,\n    The scarlet prince of every devilment!...\n\n    Now--\n    Between two nothings\n    Huddled up,\n    A question-mark,\n    A weary riddle,\n    A riddle for vultures....\n    They will \"solve\" thee,\n    They hunger already for thy \"solution,\"\n    They flutter already about their \"riddle,\"\n    About thee, the doomed one!\n    O Zarathustra,\n    Self-knower!\n    Self-hangman!\n\n\n\n\n    THE SUN SINKS\n\n\n    I\n\n    Not much longer thirstest thou,\n    O burnt-up heart!\n    Promise is in the air,\n    From unknown mouths I feel a breath,\n    --The great coolness comes....\n    My sun stood hot above me at noonday:\n    A greeting to you that are coming,\n    Ye sudden winds,\n    Ye cool spirits of afternoon!\n\n    The air is strange and pure.\n    See how the night\n    Leers at me with eyes askance,\n    Like a seducer!...\n    Be strong, my brave heart,\n    And ask not \"Why?\"\n\n\n    2\n\n    The day of my life!\n    The sun sinks,\n    And the calm flood\n    Already is gilded.\n    Warm breathes the rock:\n    Did happiness at noonday\n    Take its siesta well upon it?\n    In green light\n    Happiness still glimmers up from the brown abyss\n\n    Day of my life!\n    Eventide's nigh,\n    Thy eye already\n    Glows half-broken,\n    Thy dew already\n    Pours out its tear-drops,\n    Already over the white seas\n    Walks the purple of thy love,\n    Thy last hesitating holiness....\n\n\n    3\n\n    Golden gaiety, come!\n    Thou, the sweetest foretaste--\n    Foretaste of death!\n    --Went I my way too swiftly?\n    Now that the foot grows weary,\n    Thine eye still catches me,\n    Thy happiness still catches me.\n\n    Around but waves and play.\n    Whatever was hard\n    --Sank into blue oblivion.\n    My boat now stands idle.\n    Storm and motion--how did it forget them!\n    Desire and Hope are drowned,\n    Sea and soul are becalmed.\n\n    Seventh Solitude!\n    Never felt!\n    Sweet certainty nearer,\n    Or warmer the sun's ray.\n    --Glows not the ice of my summit yet?\n    Silvery, light, a fish\n    Now my vessel swims out....\n\n\n\n\n    THE LAST DESIRE[1]\n\n\n    So would I die\n    As then I saw him die,\n    The friend, who like a god\n    Into my darkling youth\n    Threw lightning's light and fire:\n    Buoyant yet deep was he,\n    Yea, in the battle's strife\n    With the gay dancer's heart.\n\n    Amid the warriors\n    His was the lightest heart,\n    Amid the conquerors\n    His brow was dark with thought--\n    He was a fate poised on his destiny:\n    Unbending, casting thought into the past\n    And future, such was he.\n\n    Fearful beneath the weight of victory,\n    Yet chanting, as both victory and death\n    Came hand and hand to him.\n\n    Commanding even as he lay in death,\n    And his command that man annihilate.\n\n    So would I die\n    As then I saw him die,\n    Victorious and destroying.\n\n\n\n\n    THE BEACON\n\n\n    Here, where the island grew amid the seas,\n    A sacrificial rock high-towering,\n    Here under darkling heavens,\n    Zarathustra lights his mountain-fires,\n    A beacon for ships that have strayed,\n    A beacon for them that have an answer!...\n\n    These flames with grey-white belly,\n    In cold distances sparkle their desire,\n    Stretches its neck towards ever purer heights--\n    A snake upreared in impatience:\n    This signal I set up there before me.\n    This flame is mine own soul,\n    Insatiable for new distances,\n    Speeding upward, upward its silent heat.\n\n    Why flew Zarathustra from beasts and men?\n    Why fled he swift from all continents?\n    Six solitudes he knows already--\n    But even the sea was not lonely enough for him,\n    On the island he could climb, on the mount he\n        became flame,\n    At the seventh solitude\n    He casts a fishing-rod far o'er his head.\n\n    Storm-tossed seamen! Wreckage of ancient stars\n    Ye seas of the future! Uncompassed heavens!\n    At all lonely ones I now throw my fishing-rod.\n    Give answer to the flame's impatience,\n    Let me, the fisher on high mountains,\n    Catch my seventh, last solitude!----\n\n\n\n\n    FAME AND ETERNITY[2]\n\n\n    I\n\n    Speak, tell me, how long wilt thou brood\n    Upon this adverse fate of thine?\n    Beware, lest from thy doleful mood\n    A countenance _90_ dark is brewed\n    That men in seeing thee divine\n    A hate more bitter than the brine.\n        *     *     *     *\n    Speak, why does Zarathustra roam\n    Upon the towering mountain-height?\n    Distrustful, cankered, dour, his home\n    Is shut so long from human sight?\n        *     *     *     *\n    See, suddenly flames forth a lightning-flash,\n    The pit profound with thunderous challenge fights\n    Against the heavens, midst clamorous crack and crash\n    Of the great mountain! Cradled in the heights,\n    Born as the fruit of hate and lightning's love,\n    The wrath of Zarathustra dwells above\n    And looms with menace of a thundercloud.\n        *     *     *     *\n    Ye, who have roofs, go quickly, creep and hide!\n    To bed, ye tenderlings! For thunders loud\n    Upon the blasts of storm triumphant ride,\n    And bastions and ramparts sway and rock,\n\n    The lightning sears the dusky face of night,\n    And eerie truths like gleams of Hades mock\n    The sense familiar. So in storm breaks forth\n    The flaming curse of Zarathustra's wrath.\n\n\n    2\n\n    This fame, which all the wide world loves,\n    I touch with gloves,\n    And scorning beat\n    Beneath my feet.\n        *     *     *     *\n    Who hanker after the pay of it?\n    Who cast themselves in the way of it?\n    These prostitutes to gold,\n    These merchant folk. They fold\n    Their unctuous palms over the jingling fame,\n    Whose ringing chink wins all the world's acclaim.\n        *     *     *     *\n    Hast thou the lust to buy? It needs no skill.\n    They are all venal. Let thy purse be deep,\n    And let their greedy paws unhindered creep\n    Into its depths. So let them take their fill,\n    For if thou dost not offer them enough,\n    Their \"virtue\" they'll parade, to hide their huff.\n        *     *     *     *\n    They are all virtuous, yea every one.\n    Virtue and fame are ever in accord\n    So long as time doth run,\n\n    The tongues that prate of virtue as reward\n    Earn fame. For virtue is fame's clever bawd.\n        *     *     *     *\n    Amongst these virtuous, I prefer to be\n    One guilty of all vile and horrid sin!\n    And when I see fame's importunity\n    So advertise her shameless harlotry,\n    Ambition turns to gall. Amidst such kin\n    One place alone, the lowest, would I win.\n        *     *     *     *\n    This fame, which all the wide world loves,\n    I touch with gloves,\n    And scorning beat\n    Beneath my feet.\n\n\n    3\n\n    Hush! I see vastness!--and of vasty things\n    Shall man be dumb, unless he can enshrine\n    Them with his words? Then take the might which brings\n    The heart upon thy tongue, charmed wisdom mine!\n        *     *     *     *\n    I look above, there rolls the star-strown sea.\n    O night, mute silence, voiceless cry of stars!\n    And lo! A sign! The heaven its verge unbars--\n    A shining constellation falls towards me.\n\n\n    4\n\n    O loftiest, star-clustered crown of Being!\n    O carved tablets of Eternity!\n    And dost thou truly bend thy way to me?\n    Thy loveliness, to all--obscurity,\n    What? Fear'st not to unveil before _my_ seeing?\n        *     *     *     *\n    O shield of Destiny!\n    O carven tablets of Eternity!\n    Yea, verily, thou knowest--what mankind doth hate,\n    What I alone do love: thou art inviolate\n    To strokes of change and time, of fates the fate!\n    'Tis only thou, O dire Necessity,\n    Canst kindle everlasting love in me!\n        *     *     *     *\n    O loftiest crown of Life! O shield of Fate!\n    That no desire can reach to invocate,\n    That ne'er defiled or sullied is by Nay,\n    Eternal Yea of life, for e'er am I thy Yea:\n    For I love thee, Eternity!\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Translated by Dr. G. T. Wrench.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Translated by Dr. G. T. Wrench.]\n\n\n\n\nFRAGMENTS OF DIONYSUS-DITHYRAMBS\n\n(1882-88)\n\n\nSPEECHES, PARABLES, AND SIMILES\n\n\n    3\n\n    My home's in the highlands,\n    For the highlands I yearn not,\n    I raise not mine eyes aloft:\n    I am one that looks downward,\n    One that must bless,--All\n    blessers look downward.\n\n\n    11\n\n    Thus I began,\n    I unlearned all self-pity!\n\n\n    13\n\n    Not in shattering idols,\n    But in shattering the idol-worshipper in thee,\n    Consisted thy valour.\n\n\n    14\n\n    See, there stand\n    Those heavy cats of granite,\n    Those old, old Values.\n    Woe is me! How overthrow them?\n       *   *   *   *\n    Scratching cats,\n    With paws that are fettered,\n    There they sit\n    And their glance is poison.\n\n\n    17\n\n    A lightning-flash became my wisdom:\n    With sword of adamant it clove me every\n        darkness!\n\n\n    19\n\n    A thought that still\n    Flows hot, like lava:\n    But all streams of lava\n    Build a fortress around them,\n    And every thought finally\n    Oppresses itself with laws.\n\n\n    20\n\n    Such is my will:\n    And since 'tis my will,\n    All goes as I wish--\n    That was my final wisdom:\n    I willed what I must,\n    And thus I forced every \"must,\"--\n    Since then has been for me no \"must.\"\n\n\n    23\n\n    Deceit\n    Is war's whole art\n    The fox's skin\n    Is my secret shirt of mail\n\n\n    25\n\n    We of the new underworld\n    Grub for new treasures.\n    Godless it seemed to the ancients\n    To disturb the earth's bowels for treasures\n    And once more this godlessness revives,\n    Hear ye not earth's bowels thunder?\n\n\n    28\n\n    Looking for love and finding masks,\n    Finding accursed masks and having to break them!\n\n\n    29\n\n    Do I love you?\n    Yes, as the rider loves his steed,\n    That carryeth him to his goal.\n\n\n    30\n\n    His pity is cruel,\n    His loving hand-clasp bruises,\n    Give not a giant your hand!\n\n\n    31\n\n    Ye fear me?\n    Ye fear the taut-strung bow?\n    Ye fear a man might set his arrow to the bow?\n\n\n    33\n\n    I am naught but a word-maker.\n    What matter words?\n    What matter I?\n\n\n    34\n\n    Ah, my friends,\n    Whither has flown all that is called \"good\"?\n    Whither all good people?\n    Whither the innocence of all these falsehoods?\n    I call all good,\n    Leaves and grass, happiness, blessing, and rain.\n\n\n    35\n\n    Not through his sins and greatest follies.\n    Through his perfection I suffered,\n    As I suffered most from men.[1]\n\n\n    36\n\n    \"Man is evil.\"\n    So spake the wisest\n    For my consolement.\n\n\n    37\n\n    And only when I to myself am a burden\n    Do ye fall heavy upon me!\n\n\n    38\n\n    Too soon, already\n    I laugh again:\n    For a foe 'tis easy\n    To make me amends.\n\n\n    39\n\n    Gentle am I towards man and chance;\n    Gentle with all men, and even with grasses:\n    A spot of sunshine on winter curtains,\n    Moist with tenderness,\n    A thawing wind to snow-bound souls:\n        *    *    *    *\n    Proud-minded towards trifling\n    Gains, where I see the huckster's long finger,\n    'Tis aye my pleasure\n    To be bamboozled:\n    Such is the bidding of my fastidious taste.\n\n\n    40\n\n    A strange breath breathes and spits at me,\n    Am I a mirror, that straightway is clouded?\n\n\n    41\n\n    Little people,\n    Confiding, open-hearted,\n    But low-built portals,\n    Where only the low of stature can enter.\n        *    *    *    *\n    How can I get through the city-gate\n    Who had forgotten to live among dwarfs?\n\n\n    42\n\n    My wisdom was like to the sun,\n    I longed to give them light,\n    But I only deceived them.\n    The sun of my wisdom\n    Blinded the eyes\n    Of these poor bats....\n\n\n    43\n\n    Blacker and eviller things didst thou see than ever\n        a seer did:\n    Through the revels of Hell no sage had ever\n        journeyed.\n\n\n    44\n\n    Back! on my heels too closely ye follow!\n    Back! lest my wisdom should tread on you, crush\n       you!\n\n\n    45\n\n    \"He goes to hell who goes thy ways!\"\n    So be it I to my hell\n    I'll pave the way myself with well-made maxims.\n\n\n    46\n\n    Your God, you tell me,\n    Is a God of love?\n    The sting of conscience\n    A sting from God?\n    A sting of love?\n\n\n    48\n\n    They chew gravel,\n    They lie on their bellies\n    Before little round things,\n    They adore all that falleth not down--\n    These last servants of God\n    Believers (in reality)!\n\n\n    50\n\n    They made their God out of nothing,\n    What wonder if now he is naught?\n\n\n    51\n\n    Ye loftier men! There have once been\n    More thoughtful times, more reflective,\n    Than is our to-day and to-morrow.\n\n\n    52\n    Our time is like a sick woman--\n    Let her but shriek, rave, scold,\n    And break the tables and dishes!\n\n\n    54\n\n    Ye mount?\n    Is it true that ye mount,\n    Ye loftier men?\n\n    Are ye not, pray,\n    Like to a ball\n    Sped to the heights\n    By the lowest that's in you?\n    Do ye not flee from yourselves, O ye climbers?\n\n\n    55\n\n    All that you thought\n    You had to despise,\n    Where you only renounced!\n\n\n    56\n\n    All men repeat the refrain!\n    No, no, and thrice say No!\n    What's all this yap-yap talk of heaven?\n    We would not enter the kingdom of heaven,\n    The kingdom of earth shall be ours?\n\n\n    57\n\n    The will redeemeth,\n    He that has nothing to do\n    In a Nothing finds food for trouble.\n\n\n    58\n\n    You cannot endure it more,\n    Your tyrannous destiny,\n    Love it--you're given no choice!\n\n\n    59\n\n    These alone free us from woes\n    (Choose now I)\n    Sudden death\n    Or long-drawn-out love.\n\n\n    60\n\n    Of death we are sure,\n    So why not be merry?\n\n\n    61\n\n    The worst of pleas\n    I have hidden from you--that life grew tedious!\n    Throw it away, that ye find it again to your taste!\n\n\n    62\n\n    Lonely days,\n    Ye must walk on valorous feet!\n\n\n    63\n\n    Loneliness\n    Plants naught, it ripens....\n    And even then you must have the sun for your\n    friend.\n\n\n    64\n\n    Once more must ye plunge in the throng--In\n    the throng ye grow hard and smooth.\n    Solitude withers\n    And lastly destroys.--\n\n\n    65\n\n    When on the hermit comes the great fear;\n    When he runs and runs\n    And knows not whither;\n    When the storms roar behind\n    And the lightning bears witness against him,\n    And his cavern breeds spectres\n    And fills him with dread.\n\n\n    67\n\n    Throw thy pain in the depths,\n    Man, forget! Man, forget!\n    Divine is the art of forgetting!\n    Wouldst fly?\n    Wouldst feel at home in the heights?\n    Throw thy heaviest load in the sea!\n    Here is the sea, hurl thyself in the sea!\n    Divine is the art of forgetting!\n\n\n    69\n\n    Look forward, never look back!\n    We sink to the depths\n    If we peer ever into the depths.\n\n\n    70\n\n    Beware, beware\n    Of warning the reckless!\n    Thy warning will drive them\n    To leap into every abyss!\n\n    71\n\n    Why hurled he himself from the heights?\n    What led him astray?\n    His pity for all that is lowly led him astray,\n    And now he lies there, broken, useless, and cold.\n\n    72\n\n    Whither went he? Who knows?\n    We only know that he sank.\n    A star went out in the desolate void,\n    And lone was the void.\n\n\n    73\n\n    What we have not\n    But need,\n    We must take.\n    And so a good conscience I took.\n\n\n    74\n\n    Who is there that could bestow right upon thee?\n    So take thy right!\n\n\n    75\n\n    O ye waves,\n    Wondrous waves, are ye wroth with me?\n    Do ye raise me your crests in wrath?\n    With my rudder I smite\n    Your folly full square.\n    This bark ye yourselves\n    To immortal life will carry along.\n\n\n    77\n\n    When no new voice was heard,\n    Ye made from old words\n    A law:\n    When life grows stark, there shoots up the law.\n\n\n    78\n\n    What none can refute\n    Ye say must be true?\n    Oh, ye innocents!\n\n\n    79\n\n    Art thou strong?\n    Strong as an ass? Strong as God?\n    Art thou proud?\n    So proud as to flaunt\n    Unashamed thy conceit?\n\n\n    80\n\n    Beware,\n    And ne'er beat the drum\n    Of thy destiny I\n    Go out of the way\n    From all pom-pom of fame!\n        *    *    *    *\n    Be not known too soon!\n    Be one that has hoarded renown!\n\n\n    81\n\n    Wilt thou grasp at the thorns?\n    Thy fingers must pay.\n    Grasp at a poniard.\n\n\n    85\n\n    Be a tablet of gold,\n    They will grave upon thee\n    In golden script.\n\n\n    86\n\n    Upright he stands\n    With more sense of \"justice\"\n    In his outermost toe\n    Than I have in all my head.\n    A virtue-monster\n    Mantled in white.\n\n\n    87\n\n    Already he mimics himself,\n    Already weary he grows,\n    Already he seeks the paths he has trod--\n    Who of late still loved all tracks untrodden!\n\n    Secretly burnt--\n    Not for his faith,\n    Rather because he had lost the heart\n    To find new faith.\n\n\n    88\n\n    Too long he sat in the cage,\n    That runaway!\n    Too long he dreaded\n    A gaoler!\n\n    Timorous now he goeth his ways,\n    All things make him to stumble--\n    The shadow e'en of a stick makes him to stumble.\n\n\n    89\n\n    Ye chambers smoky and musty,\n    Ye cages and narrow hearts,\n    How could your spirit be free?\n\n\n    90\n\n    Narrow souls!\n    Huckster-souls!\n    When money leaps into the box\n    The soul leaps into it too![2]\n\n\n    92\n\n    Are ye women,\n    That ye wish to suffer\n    From that which ye love?\n\n\n    99\n\n    They are cold, these men of learning!\n    Would that a lightning-flash might strike their food,\n    And their mouths could learn to eat fire!\n\n\n    101\n\n    Your false love\n    For the past,\n    A love for the graves of the dead,\n    Is a theft from life\n    That steals all the future.\n        *    *    *    *\n    An antiquary\n    Is a craftsman of dead things,\n    Who lives among coffins and skeletons.\n\n\n    103\n\n    Only the poet who can lie\n    Wilfully, skilfully,\n    Can tell the truth.\n\n\n    104\n\n    Our chase after truth,\n    Is't a chase after happiness?\n\n\n    105\n\n    Truth\n    Is a woman, no better,\n    Cunning in her shame:\n    Of what she likes best\n    She will know naught,\n    And covers her face....\n    To what doth she yield\n    But to violence?\n    Violence she needs.\n    Be hard, ye sages!\n    Ye must compel her,\n    That shamefaced Truth....\n    For her happiness\n    She needs constraint--She\n    is a woman, no better.\n\n\n    106\n\n    We thought evil of each other?\n    We were too distant,\n    But now in this tiny hut,\n    Pinned to one destiny,\n    How could we still be foes?\n    We must needs love those\n    Whom we cannot escape.\n\n\n    107\n\n    Love thy foe,\n    Let the robber rob thee:\n    The woman hears and--does it.\n\n\n    110\n\n    A proud eye\n    With silken curtains,\n    Seldom clear,\n    Honours him that may see it unveiled.\n\n\n    111\n\n    Sluggard eyes\n    That seldom love--\n    But when they love, the levin flashes\n    As from shafts of gold\n    Where a dagger keeps guard at the treasure of love.\n\n\n    117\n\n    They are crabs, for whom I have no fellow-feeling.\n    Grasp them, they pinch you;\n    Leave them alone, and they walk backward.\n\n\n    119\n\n    Crooked go great rivers and men,\n    Crooked, but turned to their goal;\n    That is their highest courage,\n    They dreaded not crooked paths.\n\n\n    121\n\n    Wouldst catch them?\n    Then speak to them\n    As to stray sheep:\n    \"Your path, your path\n    You have lost!\"\n    They follow all\n    That flatter them so:\n    \"What? had we a path?\"\n    Each whispers the other:\n    \"It really seems that we have a path.\"\n\n\n[The numbering given corresponds to that of the original,\nseveral fragments having been omitted.--TR.]\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Nietzsche here alludes to Christian perfection, which he\nconsiders equivalent to harmlessness.--TR.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Alluding to the saying of the Dominican monk Tetzel,\nwho sold indulgences in the time of Luther: \"When money\nleaps into the box, the soul leaps from hell to heaven!\"--TR.]\n\n\n\n\nHYMN TO LIFE.\n\n_For Chorus and Orchestra._\nWORDS BY LOU SALOM\u00c9. MUSIC BY FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.\nTrans. BY HERMAN SCHEFFAUER. Arr. for Piano BY ADRIAN COLLINS. M.A.\n\n[Illustration: score and lyrics]","title":"Ecce Homo: Complete Works, Volume Seventeen","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":46898}