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) |
26.The
Priests
AND one day Zarathustra made
a sign to his disciples and spake these words unto them:
"Here are priests: but
although they are mine enemies, pass them quietly and with
sleeping swords!
Even among them there are heroes;
many of them have suffered too much:- so they want to make
others suffer.
Bad enemies are they: nothing
is more revengeful than their meekness. And readily doth he
soil himself who toucheth them.
But my blood is related to
theirs; and I want withal to see my blood honoured in theirs."And
when they had passed, a pain attacked Zarathustra; but not
long had he struggled with the pain, when he began to speak
thus:
It moveth my heart for those
priests. They also go against my taste; but that is the smallest
matter unto me, since I am among men.
But I suffer and have suffered
with them: prisoners are they unto me, and stigmatised ones.
He whom they call Saviour put them in fetters:In fetters of
false values and fatuous words! Oh, that some one would save
them from their Saviour!
On an isle they once thought
they had landed, when the sea tossed them about; but behold,
it was a slumbering monster!
False values and fatuous words:
these are the worst monsters for mortals- long slumbereth
and waiteth the fate that is in them.
But at last it cometh and awaketh
and devoureth and engulfeth whatever hath built tabernacles
upon it.
Oh, just look at those tabernacles
which those priests have built themselves! Churches, they
call their sweet-smelling caves!
Oh, that falsified light, that
mustified air! Where the soul- may not fly aloft to its height!
But so enjoineth their belief:
"On your knees, up the stair, ye sinners!"
Verily, rather would I see
a shameless one than the distorted eyes of their shame and
devotion!
Who created for themselves
such caves and penitence-stairs? Was it not those who sought
to conceal themselves, and were ashamed under the clear sky?
And only when the clear sky
looketh again through ruined roofs, and down upon grass and
red poppies on ruined walls- will I again turn my heart to
the seats of this God.
They called God that which
opposed and afflicted them: and verily, there was much hero-spirit
in their worship!
And they knew not how to love
their God otherwise than by nailing men to the cross!
As corpses they thought to
live; in black draped they their corpses; even in their talk
do I still feel the evil flavour of charnel-houses.
And he who liveth nigh unto
them liveth nigh unto black pools, wherein the toad singeth
his song with sweet gravity.
Better songs would they have
to sing, for me to believe in their Saviour: more! like saved
ones would his disciples have to appear unto me!
Naked, would I like to see
them: for beauty alone should preach penitence. But whom would
that disguised affliction convince!
Verily, their saviours themselves
came not from freedom and freedom's seventh heaven! Verily,
they themselves never trod the carpets of knowledge!
Of defects did the spirit of
those saviours consist; but into every defect had they put
their illusion, their stop-gap, which they called God.
In their pity was their spirit
drowned; and when they swelled and o'erswelled with pity,
there always floated to the surface a great folly.
Eagerly and with shouts drove
they their flock over their foot-bridge; as if there were
but one foot-bridge to the future! Verily, those shepherds
also were still of the flock!
Small spirits and spacious
souls had those shepherds: but, my brethren, what small domains
have even the most spacious souls hitherto been!
Characters of blood did they
write on the way they went, and their folly taught that truth
is proved by blood.
But blood is the very worst
witness to truth; blood tainteth the purest teaching, and
turneth it into delusion and hatred of heart.
And when a person goeth through
fire for his teaching- what doth that prove! It is more, verily,
when out of one's own burning cometh one's own teaching!
Sultry heart and cold head;
where these meet, there ariseth the blusterer, the "Saviour."
Greater ones, verily, have
there been, and higher-born ones, than those whom the people
call saviours, those rapturous blusterers!
And by still greater ones than
any of the saviours must ye be saved, my brethren, if ye would
find the way to freedom!
Never yet hath there been a
Superman. Naked have I seen both of them, the greatest man
and the smallest man:All-too-similar are they still to each
other. Verily, even the greatest found I- all-too-human!Thus
spake Zarathustra.
Ce
qu'on fait n'est jamais compris mais seulement loué ou blâmé.
Nietzsche, Gay Science |
