With such enigmas and bitterness in his heart did Zarathustra sail o’er the sea. When, however, he was four day-journeys from the Blessed isles and from his friends, then had he overcame all his pain:- triumphantly and with firm foot did he again accept his fate. And then talked Zarathustra in this wise to his exulting conscience:
Alone am I again, and like to be so, alone with the pure heaven, and the open sea; and again is the afternoon around me.
1.
When it got abroad among the sailors that Zarathustra was on board the ship- for a man who came from the Blessed isles had gone on board along with him,- there was great curiosity and expectation. But Zarathustra kept silent for two days, and was cold and deaf with sadness; so that he neither answered looks nor questions. On the evening of the second day, however, he again opened his ears, though he still kept silent: for there were many curious and dangerous things to be heard on board the ship, which came from afar, and was to go still further. Zarathustra, however, was fond of all those who make distant voyages, and dislike to live without danger. And behold! when listening, his own tongue was at last loosened, and the ice of his heart broke. Then did he begin to speak thus:
Then, when it was about midnight, Zarathustra went his way over the ridge of the isle, that he might arrive early in the morning at the other coast; because there he meant to embark. For there was a good roadstead there, in which foreign ships also liked to anchor: those ships took many people with them, who wished to cross over from the Blessed isles. So when Zarathustra thus ascended the mountain, he thought on the way of his many solitary wanderings from youth onwards, and how many mountains and ridges and summits he had already climbed.
What has happened to me, my friends? You see me troubled, driven forth, unwillingly obedient, ready to go- alas, to go away from you!
Yes, once more must Zarathustra retire to his solitude: but unjoyously this time does the bear go back to his cave!
What has happened to me? Who orders this?- Ah, my angry mistress wishes it so; she spoke to me. Have I ever named her name to you?
Not the height, it is the declivity that is terrible!
The declivity, where the gaze shoots downwards, and the hand grasps upwards. There does the heart become giddy through its double will.
Ah, friends, do you divine also my heart’s double will?
When Zarathustra went one day over the great bridge, then did the cripples and beggars surround him, and a hunchback spoke thus to him:
“Behold, Zarathustra! Even the people learn from you, and acquire faith in your teaching: but for them to believe fully in you, one thing is still needful- you must first of all convince us cripples! Here have you now a fine selection, and verily, an opportunity with more than one forelock! The blind can you heal, and make the lame run; and from him who has too much behind, could you well, also, take away a little;- that, I think, would be the right method to make the cripples believe in Zarathustra!”
“-And I saw a great sadness come over mankind. The best turned weary of their works.
A doctrine appeared, a faith ran beside it: ‘All is empty, all is alike, all has been!’
And from all hills there re-echoed: ‘All is empty, all is alike, all has been!’
There is an isle in the sea- not far from the Blessed isles of Zarathustra on which a volcano ever smokes; of which isle the people, and especially the old women amongst them, say that it is placed as a rock before the gate of the under-world; but that through the volcano itself the narrow way leads downwards which conducts to this gate.
“Since I have known the body better”- said Zarathustra to one of his disciples- “the spirit has only been to me symbolically spirit; and all the ‘imperishable’- that is also but a parable.”
“So have I heard you say once before,” answered the disciple, “and then you added: ‘But the poets lie too much.’ Why did you say that the poets lie too much?”
When I lay asleep, then did a sheep eat at the ivy-wreath on my head,it ate, and said thereby: “Zarathustra is no longer a scholar.”
It said this, and went away clumsily and proudly. A child told it to me.