WHY I AM A FATALITY

[1]The motto ofThe Case of Wagner.—TR.

[2]An opera by Nessler which was all the rage in Germany twenty years ago.—TR.

[3]Unfortunately it is impossible to render this play on the words in English.—TR.

[4]The German National Song (Deutschland, Deutschland über alles).—TR.

[5]Ever since the year 1617 such plays have been produced by the Protestants of Germany.—TR.

[6]Schleiermacherliterally means a weaver or maker of veils.—TR.

I know my destiny. There will come a day when my name will recall the memory of something formidable—a crisis the like of which has never been known on earth, the memory of the most profound clash of consciences, and the passing of a sentence upon all that which theretofore had been believed, exacted, and hallowed. I am not a man, I am dynamite. And with it all there is nought of the founder of a religion in me. Religions are matters for the mob; after coming in contact with a religious man, I always feel that I must wash my hands.... I require no "believers," it is my opinion that I am too full of malice to believe even in myself; I never address myself to masses. I am horribly frightened that one day I shall be pronounced "holy." You will understand why I publish this book beforehand—it is to prevent people from wronging me. I refuse to be a saint; I would rather be a clown. Maybe I am a clown. And I am notwithstanding, or rather notnotwithstanding, the mouthpiece of truth; for nothing more blown-out with falsehood has ever existed, than a saint. But my truth is terrible: for hithertolieshave been called truth.The Transvaluation of all Values,this is my formula for mankind's greatest step towards coming to itssenses—a step which in me became flesh and genius. My destiny ordained that I should be the first decent human being, and that I should feel myself opposed to the falsehood of millenniums. I was the first to discover truth, and for the simple reason that I was the first who became conscious of falsehood as falsehood—that is to say, I smelt it as such. My genius resides in my nostrils. I contradict as no one has contradicted hitherto, and am nevertheless the reverse of a negative spirit. I am the harbinger of joy, the like of which has never existed before; I have discovered tasks of such lofty greatness that, until my time, no one had any idea of such things. Mankind can begin to have fresh hopes, only now that I have lived. Thus, I am necessarily a man of Fate. For when Truth enters the lists against the falsehood of ages, shocks are bound to ensue, and a spell of earthquakes, followed by the transposition of hills and valleys, such as the world has never yet imagined even in its dreams. The concept "politics" then becomes elevated entirely to the sphere of spiritual warfare. All the mighty realms of the ancient order of society are blown into space—for they are all based on falsehood: there will be wars, the like of which have never been seen on earth before. Only from my time and after me will politics on a large scale exist on earth.

If you should require a formula for a destiny of this kind that has taken human form, you will find it in myZarathustra.

"And he who would be a creator in good and evil—verily, he must first be a destroyer, and break values into pieces.

"Thus the greatest evil belongeth unto the greatest good: but this is the creative good."

I am by far the most terrible man that has ever existed; but this does not alter the fact that I shall become the most beneficent. I know the joy ofannihilationto a degree which is commensurate with my power to annihilate. In both cases I obey my Dionysian nature, which knows not how to separate the negative deed from the saying of yea. I am the first immoralist, and in this sense I am essentially the annihilator.

People have never asked me as they should have done, what the name of Zarathustra precisely meant in my mouth, in the mouth of the first immoralist; for that which distinguishes this Persian from all others in the past is the very fact that he was the exact reverse of an immoralist. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle between good and evil the essential wheel in the working of things. The translation of morality into the realm of metaphysics, as force, cause, end-in-itself, is his work. But the very question suggests its own answer. Zarathustra created this most portentous of all errors,—morality; therefore he must be the first to expose it. Not only because he has had longer and greater experience of the subject than any other thinker,—all history is indeed the experimentalrefutation of the theory of the so-called moral order of things,—but because of the more important fact that Zarathustra was the most truthful of thinkers. In his teaching alone is truthfulness upheld as the highest virtue—that is to say, as the reverse of the cowardice of the "idealist" who takes to his heels at the sight of reality. Zarathustra has more pluck in his body than all other thinkers put together. To tell the truth and to aim straight: that is the first Persian virtue. Have I made myself clear? ... The overcoming of morality by itself, through truthfulness, the moralist's overcoming of himself in his opposite—in me—that is what the name Zarathustra means in my mouth.

In reality two negations are involved in my title Immoralist. I first of all deny the type of man that has hitherto been regarded as the highest—thegood,thekind,and thecharitable; and I also deny that kind of morality which has become recognised and paramount as morality-in-itself—I speak of the morality of decadence, or, to use a still cruder term, Christian morality. I would agree to the second of the two negations being regarded as the more decisive, for, reckoned as a whole, the overestimation of goodness and kindness seems to me already a consequence of decadence, a symptom of weakness, and incompatible with any ascending and yea-saying life. Negation and annihilation are inseparable from a yea-saying attitude towards life. Let me halt for a moment at the question of thepsychology of the good man. In order to appraise the value of a certain type of man, the cost of his maintenance must be calculated,—and the conditions of his existence must be known. The condition of the existence of thegoodis falsehood: or, otherwise expressed, the refusal at any price to see how reality is actually constituted. The refusal to see that this reality is not so constituted as always to be stimulating beneficent instincts, and still less, so as to suffer at all moments the intrusion of ignorant and good-natured hands. To consider distress of all kinds as an objection, as something which must be done away with, is the greatest nonsense on earth; generally speaking, it is nonsense of the most disastrous sort, fatal in its stupidity—almost as mad as the will to abolish bad weather, out of pity for the poor, so to speak. In the great economy of the whole universe, the terrors of reality (in the passions, in the desires, in the will to power) are incalculably more necessary than that form of petty happiness which is called "goodness"; it is even needful to practise leniency in order so much as to allow the latter a place at all, seeing that it is based upon a falsification of the instincts. I shall have an excellent opportunity of showing the incalculably calamitous consequences to the whole of history, of the credo of optimism, this monstrous offspring of thehomines optimi.Zarathustra,[1]the first who recognised that the optimist is just as degenerate as the pessimist, though perhaps moredetrimental, says: "Good men never speak the truth. False shores and false harbours were ye taught by the good. In the lies of the good were ye born and bred. Through the good everything hath become false and crooked from the roots." Fortunately the world is not built merely upon those instincts which would secure to the good-natured herd animal his paltry happiness. To desire everybody to become a "good man," "a gregarious animal," "a blue-eyed, benevolent, beautiful soul," or—as Herbert Spencer wished—a creature of altruism, would mean robbing existence of its greatest character, castrating man, and reducing humanity to a sort of wretched Chinadom.And this some have tried to do! It is precisely this that men called morality.In this sense Zarathustra calls "the good," now "the last men," and anon "the beginning of the end"; and above all, he considers them asthe most detrimental kind of men,because they secure their existence at the cost of Truth and at the cost of the Future.

"The good—they cannot create; they are ever the beginning of the end.

"They crucify him who writeth new values on new tables; they sacrificeunto themselvesthe future; they crucify the whole future of humanity!

"The good—they are ever the beginning of the end.

"And whatever harm the slanderers of the world may do,the harm of the good is the most calamitous of all harm."

Zarathustra, as the first psychologist of the good man, is perforce the friend of the evil man. When a degenerate kind of man has succeeded to the highest rank among the human species, his position must have been gained at the cost of the reverse type—at the cost of the strong man who is certain of life. When the gregarious animal stands in the glorious rays of the purest virtue, the exceptional man must be degraded to the rank of the evil. If falsehood insists at all costs on claiming the word "truth" for its own particular standpoint, the really truthful man must be sought out among the despised. Zarathustra allows of no doubt here; he says that it was precisely the knowledge of the good, of the "best," which inspired his absolute horror of men. And it was out of this feeling of repulsion that he grew the wings which allowed him to soar into remote futures. He does not conceal the fact that his type of man is one which is relatively superhuman—especially as opposed to the "good" man, and that the good and the just would regard his superman as thedevil.

"Ye higher men, on whom my gaze now falls, this is the doubt that ye wake in my breast, and this is my secret laughter: methinks ye would call my Superman—the devil! So strange are ye in your souls to all that is great, that the Superman would be terrible in your eyes for his goodness."

It is from this passage, and from no other, that you must set out to understand the goal to which Zarathustra aspires—the kind of man that heconceives sees realityas it is;he is strong enough for this—he is not estranged or far removed from it, he is that reality himself, in his own nature can be found all the terrible and questionable character of reality:only thus can man have greatness.

But I have chosen the title of Immoralist as a surname and as a badge of honour in yet another sense; I am very proud to possess this name which distinguishes me from all the rest of mankind. No one hitherto has felt Christian morality beneath him; to that end there were needed height, a remoteness of vision, and an abysmal psychological depth, not believed to be possible hitherto. Up to the present Christian morality has been the Circe of all thinkers—they stood at her service. What man, before my time, had descended into the underground caverns from out of which the poisonous fumes of this ideal—of this slandering of the world—burst forth? What man had even dared to suppose that they were underground caverns? Was a single one of the philosophers who preceded me a psychologist at all, and not the very reverse of a psychologist—that is to say, a "superior swindler," an "Idealist"? Before my time there was no psychology. To be the first in this new realm may amount to a curse; at all events, it is a fatality:for one is also the first to despise.My danger is the loathing of mankind.

Have you understood me? That which defines me, that which makes me stand apart from the whole of the rest of humanity, is the fact that IunmaskedChristian morality. For this reason I was in need of a word which conveyed the idea of a challenge to everybody. Not to have awakened to these discoveries before, struck me as being the sign of the greatest uncleanliness that mankind has on its conscience, as self-deception become instinctive, as the fundamental will to be blind to every phenomenon, all causality and all reality; in fact, as an almost criminal fraudin psychologicis.Blindness in regard to Christianity is the essence of criminality—for it is the crimeagainstlife. Ages and peoples, the first as well as the last, philosophers and old women, with the exception of five or six moments in history (and of myself, the seventh), are all alike in this. Hitherto the Christian has beenthe"moral being," a peerless oddity, and,as"a moral being," he was more absurd, more vain, more thoughtless, and a greater disadvantage to himself, than the greatest despiser of humanity could have deemed possible. Christian morality is the most malignant form of all false too the actual Circe of humanity: that which has corrupted mankind. It is not error as error which infuriates me at the sight of this spectacle; it is not the millenniums of absence of "goodwill," of discipline, of decency, and of bravery in spiritual things, which betrays itself in the triumph of Christianity; it is rather the absence of nature, it is the perfectlyghastly fact thatanti-natureitself received the highest honours as morality and as law, and remained suspended over man as the Categorical Imperative. Fancy blundering in this way,notas an individual,notas a people, but as a whole species! ashumanity! To teach the contempt of all the principal instincts of life; to posit falsely the existence of a "soul," of a "spirit," in order to be able to defy the body; to spread the feeling that there is something impure in the very first prerequisite of life—in sex; to seek the principle of evil in the profound need of growth and expansion—that is to say, in severe self-love (the term itself is slanderous); and conversely to see a higher moral value—but what am I talking about?—I mean themoral value per se,in the typical signs of decline, in the antagonism of the instincts, in "selflessness," in the loss of ballast, in "the suppression of the personal element," and in "love of one's neighbour" (neighbouritis!). What! is humanity itself in a state of degeneration? Has it always been in this state? One thing is certain, that ye are taught only the values of decadence as the highest values. The morality of self-renunciation is essentially the morality of degeneration; the fact, "I am going to the dogs," is translated into the imperative," Ye shall all go to the dogs"—and not only into the imperative. This morality of self-renunciation, which is the only kind of morality that has been taught hitherto, betrays the will to nonentity—it denies life to the very roots. There still remains the possibility that it is not mankind that is in a state of degeneration, but only that parasitical kind of man—the priest,who, by means of morality and lies, has climbed up to his position of determinator of values, who divined in Christian morality his road to power. And, to tell the truth, this is my opinion. The teachers and I leaders of mankind—including the theologians—have been, every one of them, decadents: hence their) transvaluation of all values into a hostility towards; life; hence morality.The definition of morality;Morality is the idiosyncrasy of decadents, actuated by a desireto avenge themselves with success upon life.I attach great value to this definition.

Have you understood me? I have not uttered a single word which I had not already said five years ago through my mouthpiece Zarathustra. The unmasking of Christian morality is an event which unequalled in history, it is a real catastrophe. The man who throws light upon it is aforce majeure,a fatality; he breaks the history of man into two. Time is reckoned up before him and after him. The lightning flash of truth struck precisely that which theretofore had stood highest: he who understands what was destroyed by that flash should look to see whether he still holds anything in his hands. Everything which until then was called truth, has been revealed as the most detrimental, most spiteful, and most subterranean form of life; the holy pretext, which was the "improvement" of man, has been recognised as a ruse for draining life of its energy and of its blood. Morality conceived asVampirism.... The man whounmasks morality has also unmasked the worthlessness of the values in which men either believe or have believed; he no longer sees anything to be revered in the most venerable man—even in the types of men that have been pronounced holy; all he can see in them is the most fatal kind of abortions, fatal,because they fascinate.The concept "God" was invented as the opposite of the concept life—everything detrimental, poisonous, and slanderous, and all deadly hostility to life, wad bound together in one horrible unit in Him. The concepts "beyond" and "true world" were invented in order to depreciate the only world that exists—in order that no goal or aim, no sense or task, might be left to earthly reality. The concepts "soul," "spirit," and last of all the concept "immortal soul," were invented in order to throw contempt on the body, in order to make it sick and "holy," in order to cultivate an attitude of appalling levity towards all things in life which deserve to be treated seriously,i.e.the questions of nutrition and habitation, of intellectual diet, the treatment of the sick, cleanliness, and weather. Instead of health, we find the "salvation of the soul"—that is to say, afolie circulatefluctuating between convulsions and penitence and the hysteria of redemption. The concept "sin," together with the torture instrument appertaining to it, which is the concept "free will," was invented in order to confuse and muddle our instincts, and to render the mistrust of them man's second nature! In the concepts "disinterestedness" and "self-denial," the actual signs of decadence are to be found. The allurement of thatwhich is detrimental, the inability to discover one's own advantage and self-destruction, are made into absolute qualities, into the "duty," the "holiness," and the "divinity" of man. Finally—to keep the worst to the last—by the notion of thegoodman, all that is favoured which is weak, ill, botched, and sick-in-itself, whichought to be wiped out.The law of selection is thwarted, an ideal is made out of opposition to the proud, well-constituted man, to him who says yea to life, to him who is certain of the future, and who guarantees the future—this man is henceforth called theevilone. And all this was believed in asmorality!—Ecrasez l'infâme!

Have you understood me?DionysusversusChrist.

[1]Needless to say this is Nietzsche, and no longer the Persian.—TR.

The editor begs to state that, contrary to his announcement in the Editorial Note toThe Joyful Wisdom,in which he declared his intention of publishing all of Nietzsche's poetry, he has nevertheless withheld certain less important verses from publication. This alteration in his plans is due to his belief that it is an injustice and an indiscretion on the part of posterity to surprise an author, as it were, in hisnégligé,or, in plain English, "in his shirt-sleeves." Authors generally are very sensitive on this point, and rightly so: a visit behind the scenes is not precisely to the advantage of the theatre, and even finished pictures not yet framed are not readily shown by the careful artist. As the German edition, however, contains nearly all that Nietzsche left behind, either in small notebooks or on scraps of paper, the editor could not well suppress everything that was not prepared for publication by Nietzsche himself, more particularly as some of the verses are really very remarkable. He has, therefore, made a very plentiful selection from theSongs and Epigrams,nearly all of which are to be found translated here, and from the Fragments of the Dionysus Dithyrambs, of which over half have been given. All the complete Dionysus Dithyrambsappear in this volume, save those which are duplicates of verses already translated in the Fourth Part ofZarathustra.These Dionysus Dithyrambs were prepared ready for press by Nietzsche himself. He wrote the final manuscript during the summer of 1888 in Sils Maria; their actual composition, however, belongs to an earlier date.

All the verses, unless otherwise stated, have been translated by Mr. Paul Victor Cohn.

TO MELANCHOLY[1]O Melancholy, be not wroth with meThat I this pen should point to praise thee only,And in thy praise, with head bowed to the knee,Squat like a hermit on a tree-stump lonely.Thus oft thou saw'st me,—yesterday, at least,—Full in the morning sun and its hot beaming,While, visioning the carrion of his feast,The hungry vulture valleyward flew screaming.Yet didst thou err, foul bird, albeit I,So like a mummy 'gainst my log lay leaning!Thou couldst not see these eyes whose ecstasyRolled hither, thither, proud and overweening.What though they did not soar unto thine height,or reached those far-off, cloud-reared precipices,Forthatthey sank the deeper so they mightWithin themselves light Destiny's abysses.Thus oft in sullenness perverse and free,Bent hideous like a savage at his altar,There, Melancholy, held I thought of thee,A penitent, though youthful, with his psalter.So crouched did I enjoy the vulture's span,The thunder of the avalanche's paces,Thou spakest to me—nor wast false like man,Thou spakest, but with stern and dreadful faces.Harsh goddess thou of Nature wild and stark,Mistress, that com'st with threats to daunt and quell me,To point me out the vulture's airy areAnd laughing avalanches, to repel me.Around us gnashing pants the lust to kill,The torment to win life in all its changes;Alluring on some cliff, abrupt and chill,Some flower craves the butterfly that ranges.All this am I—shuddering I feel it all—O butterfly beguiled, O lonely flower,The vulture and the ice-pent waterfall,The moaning storm—all symbols of thy power,—Thou goddess grim before whom deeply bowed,With head on knee, my lips with pæans bursting,I lift a dreadful song and cry aloudFor Life, for Life, for Life—forever thirsting!O vengeful goddess, be not wroth, I ask,That I to mesh thee in my rhymes have striven.He trembles who beholds thine awful mask;He quails to whom thy dread right hand is given.Song upon trembling song by starts and fitsI chant, in rhythm all my thought unfolding,The black ink flows, the pointed goose-quill spits,O goddess, goddess—leave me to my scolding!AFTER A NIGHT STORM[2]To-day in misty veils thou hangest dimly,Gloomy goddess, o'er my window-pane.Grimly whirl the pallid snow-flakes, grimlyRoars the swollen brook unto the plain.Ah, by light of haggard levins glaring,'Neath the untamed thunder's roar and roll,'Midst the valley's murk wast thou preparing—Sorceress! thy dank and poisoned bowl.Shuddering, I heard through midnight breakingRaptures of thy voice—and howls of pain.Saw thy bright orbs gleam, thy right hand shakingWith the mace of thunder hurled amain.Near my dreary couch I heard the crashesOf thine armoured steps, heard weapons slam,Heard thy brazen chain strike 'gainst the sashes,And thy voice: "Come! hearken who I am!The immortal Amazon they call me;All things weak and womanish I shun;Manly scorn and hate in war enthral me;Victress I and tigress all in one!Where I tread there corpses fall before me;From mine eyes the furious torches fly,And my brain thinks poisons. Bend, adore me!Worm of Earth and Will o' Wisp—or die!"HYMNS TO FRIENDSHIP(Two Fragments)1Goddess Friendship, deign to hear the songThat we sing in friendship's honour!Where the eye of friendship glances,Filled with all the joy of friendshipCome thou nigh to aid me,Rosy dawn in thy gaze andIn holy hand the faithful pledge of youth eternal.2Morning's past: the sun of noondayScorches with hot ray our heads.Let us sit beneath the arbourSinging songs in praise of friendship.Friendship was our life's red dawning,And its sunset red shall be.THE WANDERER[3]All through the night a wanderer walksSturdy of stride,With winding vale and sloping heightE'er at his side.Fair is the night:On, on he strides, nor slackens speed,And knows not where his path will lead.A bird's song in the night is heard,"Ah me, what hast thou done, O bird,How dost thou grip my sense and feetAnd pourest heart-vexation sweetInto mine ear—I must remain,To hearken fain:Why lure me with inviting strain?"The good bird speaks, staying his song:"I lure not thee,—no, thou art wrong—With these my trillsI lure my mate from off the hills—Nor heed thy plight.To me alone the night's not fair.What's that to thee? Forth must thou fare,On, onward ever, resting ne'er.Why stand'st thou now?What has my piping done to thee,Thou roaming wight?"The good bird pondered, silent quite,"Why doth my piping change his plight?Why stands he now,That luckless, luckless, roaming wight?"TO THE GLACIERAt noontide hour, when first,Into the mountains Summer treads,Summer, the boy with eyes so hot and weary,Then too he speaks,Yet we can only see his speech.His breath is panting, like the sick man's breathOn fevered couch.The glacier and the fir tree and the springAnswer his call—Yet we their answer only see.For faster from the rock leaps downThe torrent stream, as though to greet,And stands, like a white column trembling,All yearning there.And darker yet and truer looks the fir-treeThan e'er before.And 'twixt the ice-mass and the cold grey stoneA sudden light breaks forth—Such light I once beheld, and marked the sign.Even the dead man's eyeSurely once more grows light,When, sorrowful, his childGives him embrace and kiss:Surely once more the flame of lightWells out, and glowing into lifeThe dead eye speaks: "My child!Ah child, you know I love you true!"So all things glow and speak—the glacier speaks,The brook, the fir,Speak with their glance the selfsame words:We love you true,Ah, child, you know we love you, love you true!And he,Summer, the boy with eyes so hot and weary,Woe-worn, gives kissesMore ardent ever,And will not go:But like to veils he blows his wordsFrom out his lips,His cruel words:"My greeting's parting,My coming going,In youth I die."All round they hearkenAnd scarcely breathe(No songster sings),And shuddering runLike gleaming rayOver the mountain;All round they ponder,—Nor speak—Twas at the noon,At noontide hour, when firstInto the mountains Summer treads,Summer, the boy with eyes so hot and weary.AUTUMN[4]'Tis Autumn:—Autumn yet shall break thy heart!Fly away! fly away!—The sun creeps 'gainst the hillAnd climbs and climbsAnd rests at every step.How faded grew the world!On weary, slackened strings the windPlayeth his tune.Fair Hope fled far—He waileth after.'Tis Autumn:—Autumn yet shall break thy heart!Fly away! fly away!O fruit of the tree,Thou tremblest, fallest?What secret whispered unto theeThe Night,That icy shudders deck thy cheek,Thy cheek of purple hue?Silent art thou, nor dost reply—Who speaketh still?—'Tis Autumn:—Autumn yet shall break thy heart!Fly away! fly away!—"I am not fair,"—So speaks the lone star-flower,—"Yet men I loveAnd comfort men—Many flowers shall they behold,And stoop to me,And break me, ah!—So that within their eyes shall gleamRemembrance swift,Remembrance of far fairer things than I:—I see it—see it—and I perish so."'Tis Autumn:—Autumn yet shall break thy heart!Fly away! fly away!CAMPO SANTO DI STAGLIENO[5]Maiden, in gentle wiseYou stroke your lamb's soft fleece,Yet flashing from your eyesBoth light and flame ne'er cease.Creature of merry jestAnd favourite near and far,Pious with kindness blest,Amorosissima!What broke so soon the chain,What does your heart deplore?And who, pray, would not fain,If you loved him, adore?—You're mute, but from your eye,The tear-drop is not far,You're mute: you'll yearn and die,Amorosissima?THE LITTLE BRIG NAMED "LITTLE ANGEL"[6]"Little Angel" call they me!—Now a ship, but once a girl,Ah, and still too much a girl!My steering-wheel, so bright to see,But for sake of love doth whirl."Little Angel" call they me,With hundred flags to ornament,A captain smart, on glory bent,Steers me, puffed with vanity(He himself's an ornament)."Little Angel" call they me,And where'er a little flameGleams for me, I, like a lamb,Go my journey eagerly(I was always such a lamb!)."Little Angel" call they me—Think you I can bark and whineLike a dog, this mouth of mineThrowing smoke and flame full free?Ah, a devil's mouth is mine."Little Angel" call they me—Once I spoke a bitter word,That my lover, when he heard,Fast and far away did flee:Yes, I killed him with that word!"Little Angel" call they me:Hardly heard, I sprang so glibFrom the cliff and broke a rib:From my frame my soul went free,Yes, escaped me through that rib."Little Angel" call they me—Then my soul, like cat in flightStraight did on this ship alightSwiftly bounding—one, two, three!Yes, its claws are swift to smite."Little Angel" call they me!—Now a ship, but once a girl,Ah, and still too much a girl!My steering-wheel, so bright to see,For sake of love alone doth whirl.MAIDEN'S SONGYesterday with seventeen yearsWisdom reached I, a maiden fair,I am grey-haired, it appears,Now in all things—save my hair.Yesterday, I had a thought,Was't a thought?—you laugh and scorn!Did you ever have a thought?Rather was a feeling born.Dare a woman think? This screedWisdom long ago begot:"Follow woman must, not lead;If she thinks, she follows not."Wisdom speaks—I credit naught:Rather hops and stings like flea:"Woman seldom harbours thought;If she thinks, no good is she!"To this wisdom, old, renowned,Bow I in deep reverence:Now my wisdom I'll expoundIn its very quintessence.A voice spoke in me yesterdayAs ever—listen if you can:"Woman is more beauteous aye,But more interesting—man!""PIA, CARITATEVOLE, AMOROSISSIMA"[7]Cave where the dead ones rest,O marble falsehood, theeI love: for easy jestMy soul thou settest free.To-day, to-day alone,My soul to tears is stirred,At thee, the pictured stone,At thee, the graven word.This picture (none need wis)I kissed the other day.When there's so much to kissWhy did I kiss the—clay?Who knows the reason why?"A tombstone fool!" you laugh:I kissed—I'll not deny—E'en the long epitaph.TO FRIENDSHIPHail to thee, Friendship!My hope consummate,My first red daybreak!Alas, so endlessOft path and night seemed,And life's long roadAimless and hateful!Now life I'd doubleIn thine eyes seeingDawn-glory, triumph,Most gracious goddess!PINE TREE AND LIGHTNINGO'er man and beast I grew so high,And speak—but none will give reply.Too lone and tall my crest did soar:I wait: what am I waiting for?The clouds are grown too nigh of late,'Tis the first lightning I await.TREE IN AUTUMNWhy did ye, blockheads, me awakenWhile I in blissful blindness stood?Ne'er I by fear more fell was shaken—Vanished my golden dreaming mood.Bear-elephants, with trunks all greedy,Knock first! Where have your manners fled?I threw—and fear has made me speedy—Dishes of ripe fruit—at your head.AMONG FOES (OR AGAINST CRITICS)(After a Gipsy Proverb)Here the gallows, there the cord,And the hangman's ruddy beard.Round, the venom-glancing horde:—Nothing new to me's appeared.Many times I've seen the sight,Now laughing in your face I cry,"Hanging me is useless quite:Die? Nay, nay, I cannot die!"Beggars all! Ye envy meWinning what ye never won!True, I suffer agony,But for you—your life is done.Many times I've faced death's plight,Yet steam and light and breath am I.Hanging me is useless quite:Die? Nay, nay, I cannot die!THE NEW COLUMBUS[8]"Dearest," said Columbus, "neverTrust a Genoese again.At the blue he gazes ever,Distance doth his soul enchain.Strangeness is to me too dear—Genoa has sunk and passed—Heart, be cool! Hand, firmly steer!Sea before me: land—at last?Firmly let us plant our feet,Ne'er can we give up this game—From the distance what doth greet?One death, one happiness, one fame.IN LONESOMENESS[9]The cawing crowsTownwards on whirring pinions roam;Soon come the snows—Thrice happy now who hath a home!Fast-rooted there,Thou gazest backwards—oh, how long!Thou fool, why dareEre winter come, this world of wrong?This world—a gateTo myriad deserts dumb and hoar!Who lost through fateWhat thou hast lost, shall rest no more.Now stand'st thou pale,A frozen pilgrimage thy doom,Like smoke whose trailCold and still colder skies consume.Fly, bird, and screech,Like desert-fowl, thy song apart!Hide out of reach,Fool! in grim ice thy bleeding heart.Firmly let us plant our feet,Ne'er can we give up this game—From the distance what doth greet?One death, one happiness, one fame.The cawing crowsTownwards on whirring pinions roam:Soon come the snows—Woe unto him who hath no home!My AnswerThe man presumes—Good Lord!—to think that I'd returnTo those warm roomsWhere snug the German ovens burnMy friend, you see'Tis but thy folly drives me far,—Pity fortheeAnd all that German blockheads are!VENICEON the bridge I stood,Mellow was the night,Music came from far—Drops of gold outpouredOn the shimmering waves.Song, gondolas, light,Floated a-twinkling out into the dusk.The chords of my soul, movedBy unseen impulse, throbbedSecretly into a gondola song,With thrills of bright-hued ecstasy.Had I a listener there?

[1]Translated by Herman Scheffauer.

[2]Translated by Herman Scheffauer.

[3]This poem was written on the betrothal of one of Nietzsche's Bâle friends.—TR.

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