Why so soft? O my brethren; thus do _I_ ask you: are ye then not--my brethren?

Why so soft, so submissive and yielding? Why is there so much negation and abnegation in your hearts? Why is there so little fate in your looks?

And if ye will not be fates and inexorable ones, how can ye one day-- conquer with me?

And if your hardness will not glance and cut and chip to pieces, how can ye one day--create with me?

For the creators are hard. And blessedness must it seem to you to press your hand upon millenniums as upon wax,--

--Blessedness to write upon the will of millenniums as upon bra.s.s,--harder than bra.s.s, n.o.bler than bra.s.s. Entirely hard is only the n.o.blest.

This new table, O my brethren, put I up over you: BECOME HARD!--

30.

O thou, my Will! Thou change of every need, MY needfulness! Preserve me from all small victories!

Thou fatedness of my soul, which I call fate! Thou In-me! Over-me!

Preserve and spare me for one great fate!

And thy last greatness, my Will, spare it for thy last--that thou mayest be inexorable IN thy victory! Ah, who hath not succ.u.mbed to his victory!

Ah, whose eye hath not bedimmed in this intoxicated twilight! Ah, whose foot hath not faltered and forgotten in victory--how to stand!--

--That I may one day be ready and ripe in the great noontide: ready and ripe like the glowing ore, the lightning-bearing cloud, and the swelling milk-udder:--

--Ready for myself and for my most hidden Will: a bow eager for its arrow, an arrow eager for its star:--

--A star, ready and ripe in its noontide, glowing, pierced, blessed, by annihilating sun-arrows:--

--A sun itself, and an inexorable sun-will, ready for annihilation in victory!

O Will, thou change of every need, MY needfulness! Spare me for one great victory!---

Thus spake Zarathustra.

LVII. THE CONVALESCENT.

1.

One morning, not long after his return to his cave, Zarathustra sprang up from his couch like a madman, crying with a frightful voice, and acting as if some one still lay on the couch who did not wish to rise.

Zarathustra's voice also resounded in such a manner that his animals came to him frightened, and out of all the neighbouring caves and lurking-places all the creatures slipped away--flying, fluttering, creeping or leaping, according to their variety of foot or wing.

Zarathustra, however, spake these words:

Up, abysmal thought out of my depth! I am thy c.o.c.k and morning dawn, thou overslept reptile: Up! Up! My voice shall soon crow thee awake!

Unbind the fetters of thine ears: listen! For I wish to hear thee! Up!

Up! There is thunder enough to make the very graves listen!

And rub the sleep and all the dimness and blindness out of thine eyes!

Hear me also with thine eyes: my voice is a medicine even for those born blind.

And once thou art awake, then shalt thou ever remain awake. It is not MY custom to awake great-grandmothers out of their sleep that I may bid them--sleep on!

Thou stirrest, stretchest thyself, wheezest? Up! Up! Not wheeze, shalt thou,--but speak unto me! Zarathustra calleth thee, Zarathustra the G.o.dless!

I, Zarathustra, the advocate of living, the advocate of suffering, the advocate of the circuit--thee do I call, my most abysmal thought!

Joy to me! Thou comest,--I hear thee! Mine abyss SPEAKETH, my lowest depth have I turned over into the light!

Joy to me! Come hither! Give me thy hand--ha! let be! aha!--Disgust, disgust, disgust--alas to me!

2.

Hardly, however, had Zarathustra spoken these words, when he fell down as one dead, and remained long as one dead. When however he again came to himself, then was he pale and trembling, and remained lying; and for long he would neither eat nor drink. This condition continued for seven days; his animals, however, did not leave him day nor night, except that the eagle flew forth to fetch food. And what it fetched and foraged, it laid on Zarathustra's couch: so that Zarathustra at last lay among yellow and red berries, grapes, rosy apples, sweet-smelling herbage, and pine-cones. At his feet, however, two lambs were stretched, which the eagle had with difficulty carried off from their shepherds.

At last, after seven days, Zarathustra raised himself upon his couch, took a rosy apple in his hand, smelt it and found its smell pleasant.

Then did his animals think the time had come to speak unto him.

"O Zarathustra," said they, "now hast thou lain thus for seven days with heavy eyes: wilt thou not set thyself again upon thy feet?

Step out of thy cave: the world waiteth for thee as a garden. The wind playeth with heavy fragrance which seeketh for thee; and all brooks would like to run after thee.

All things long for thee, since thou hast remained alone for seven days--step forth out of thy cave! All things want to be thy physicians!

Did perhaps a new knowledge come to thee, a bitter, grievous knowledge?

Like leavened dough layest thou, thy soul arose and swelled beyond all its bounds.--"

--O mine animals, answered Zarathustra, talk on thus and let me listen!

It refresheth me so to hear your talk: where there is talk, there is the world as a garden unto me.

How charming it is that there are words and tones; are not words and tones rainbows and seeming bridges 'twixt the eternally separated?

To each soul belongeth another world; to each soul is every other soul a back-world.

Among the most alike doth semblance deceive most delightfully: for the smallest gap is most difficult to bridge over.

For me--how could there be an outside-of-me? There is no outside! But this we forget on hearing tones; how delightful it is that we forget!

Have not names and tones been given unto things that man may refresh himself with them? It is a beautiful folly, speaking; therewith danceth man over everything.

How lovely is all speech and all falsehoods of tones! With tones danceth our love on variegated rainbows.--

--"O Zarathustra," said then his animals, "to those who think like us, things all dance themselves: they come and hold out the hand and laugh and flee--and return.