Existentialism
Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844 - 1900)
|
A
sublime one saw I today, a solemn one, a penitent of the
spirit: Oh, how my soul laughed at his ugliness! (thus
spake zarathustra) |
3.
Backworldsmen
ONCE on a time, Zarathustra also cast his
fancy beyond man, like all backworldsmen. The work of a suffering and
tortured God, did the world then seem to me.
The dream- and diction- of a God, did the
world then seem to me; coloured vapours before the eyes of a divinely
dissatisfied one.
Good and evil, and joy and woe, and I and
thou- coloured vapours did they seem to me before creative eyes. The creator
wished to look away from himself,- thereupon he created the world.
Intoxicating joy is it for the sufferer
to look away from his suffering and forget himself. Intoxicating joy and
self-forgetting, did the world once seem to me.
This world, the eternally imperfect, an
eternal contradiction's image and imperfect image- an intoxicating joy
to its imperfect creator:- thus did the world once seem to me.
Thus, once on a time, did I also cast my
fancy beyond man, like all backworldsmen. Beyond man, forsooth?
Ah, ye brethren, that God whom I created
was human work and human madness, like all the gods!
A man was he, and only a poor fragment
of a man and ego. Out of mine own ashes and glow it came unto me, that
phantom. And verily, it came not unto me from the beyond!
What happened, my brethren? I surpassed
myself, the suffering one; I carried mine own ashes to the mountain; a
brighter flame I contrived for myself. And lo! Thereupon the phantom withdrew
from me!
To me the convalescent would it now be
suffering and torment to believe in such phantoms: suffering would it
now be to me, and humiliation. Thus speak I to backworldsmen.
Suffering was it, and impotence- that created
all backworlds; and the short madness of happiness, which only the greatest
sufferer experienceth.
Weariness, which seeketh to get to the
ultimate with one leap, with a death-leap; a poor ignorant weariness,
unwilling even to will any longer: that created all gods and backworlds.
Believe me, my brethren! It was the body
which despaired of the body- it groped with the fingers of the infatuated
spirit at the ultimate walls.
Believe me, my brethren! It was the body
which despaired of the earth- it heard the bowels of existence speaking
unto it.
And then it sought to get through the ultimate
walls with its head- and not with its head only- into "the other
world."
But that "other world" is well
concealed from man, that dehumanised, inhuman world, which is a celestial
naught; and the bowels of existence do not speak unto man, except as man.
Verily, it is difficult to prove all being,
and hard to make it speak. Tell me, ye brethren, is not the strangest
of all things best proved?
Yea, this ego, with its contradiction and
perplexity, speaketh most uprightly of its being- this creating, willing,
evaluing ego, which is the measure and value of things.
And this most upright existence, the ego-
it speaketh of the body, and still implieth the body, even when it museth
and raveth and fluttereth with broken wings.
Always more uprightly learneth it to speak,
the ego; and the more it learneth, the more doth it find titles, and honours
for the body and the earth.
A new pride taught me mine ego, and that
teach I unto men: no longer to thrust one's head into the sand of celestial
things, but to carry it freely, a terrestrial head, which giveth meaning
to the earth!
A new will teach I unto men: to choose
that path which man hath followed blindly, and to approve of it- and no
longer to slink aside from it, like the sick and perishing!
The sick and perishing- it was they who
despised the body and the earth, and invented the heavenly world, and
the redeeming blood-drops; but even those sweet and sad poisons they borrowed
from the body and the earth!
From their misery they sought escape, and
the stars were too remote for them. Then they sighed: "O that there
were heavenly paths by which to steal into another existence and into
happiness!" Then they contrived for themselves their bypaths and
bloody draughts!
Beyond the sphere of their body and this
earth they now fancied themselves transported, these ungrateful ones.
But to what did they owe the convulsion and rapture of their transport?
To their body and this earth.
Gentle is Zarathustra to the sickly. Verily,
he is not indignant at their modes of consolation and ingratitude. May
they become convalescents and overcomers, and create higher bodies for
themselves!
Neither is Zarathustra indignant at a convalescent
who looketh tenderly on his delusions, and at midnight stealeth round
the grave of his God; but sickness and a sick frame remain even in his
tears.
Many sickly ones have there always been
among those who muse, and languish for God; violently they hate the discerning
ones, and the latest of virtues, which is uprightness.
Backward they always gaze toward dark ages:
then, indeed, were delusion and faith something different. Raving of the
reason was likeness to God, and doubt was sin.
Too well do I know those godlike ones:
they insist on being believed in, and that doubt is sin. Too well, also,
do I know what they themselves most believe in.
Verily, not in backworlds and redeeming
blood-drops: but in the body do they also believe most; and their own
body is for them the thing-in-itself.
But it is a sickly thing to them, and gladly
would they get out of their skin. Therefore hearken they to the preachers
of death, and themselves preach backworlds.
Hearken rather, my brethren, to the voice
of the healthy body; it is a more upright and pure voice.
More uprightly and purely speaketh the
healthy body, perfect and square-built; and it speaketh of the meaning
of the earth.Thus spake Zarathustra.
Ce
qu'on fait n'est jamais compris mais seulement loué ou blâmé.
Nietzsche, Gay Science |
