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) |
35.The
Sublime Ones
CALM is the bottom of my sea:
who would guess that it hideth droll monsters!
Unmoved is my depth: but it
sparkleth with swimming enigmas and laughters.
A sublime one saw I today,
a solemn one, a penitent of the spirit: Oh, how my soul laughed
at his ugliness!
With upraised breast, and like
those who draw in their breath: thus did he stand, the sublime
one, and in silence:
O'erhung with ugly truths,
the spoil of his hunting, and rich in torn raiment; many thorns
also hung on him- but I saw no rose.
Not yet had he learned laughing
and beauty. Gloomy did this hunter return from the forest
of knowledge.
From the fight with wild beasts
returned he home: but even yet a wild beast gazeth out of
his seriousness- an unconquered wild beast!
As a tiger doth he ever stand,
on the point of springing; but I do not like those strained
souls; ungracious is my taste towards all those self-engrossed
ones.
And ye tell me, friends, that
there is to be no dispute about taste and tasting? But all
life is a dispute about taste and tasting!
Taste: that is weight at the
same time, and scales and weigher; and alas for every living
thing that would live without dispute about weight and scales
and weigher!
Should he become weary of his
sublimeness, this sublime one, then only will his beauty begin-
and then only will I taste him and find him savoury.
And only when he turneth away
from himself will he o'erleap his own shadow- and verily!
into his sun.
Far too long did he sit in
the shade; the cheeks of the penitent of the spirit became
pale; he almost starved on his expectations.
Contempt is still in his eye,
and loathing hideth in his mouth. To be sure, he now resteth,
but he hath not yet taken rest in the sunshine.
As the ox ought he to do; and
his happiness should smell of the earth, and not of contempt
for the earth.
As a white ox would I like
to see him, which, snorting and lowing, walketh before the
plough-share: and his lowing should also laud all that is
earthly!
Dark is still his countenance;
the shadow of his hand danceth upon it. O'ershadowed is still
the sense of his eye.
His deed itself is still the
shadow upon him: his doing obscureth the doer. Not yet hath
he overcome his deed.
To be sure, I love in him the
shoulders of the ox: but now do I want to see also the eye
of the angel.
Also his hero-will hath he
still to unlearn: an exalted one shall he be, and not only
a sublime one:- the ether itself should raise him, the will-less
one!
He hath subdued monsters, he
hath solved enigmas. But he should also redeem his monsters
and enigmas; into heavenly children should he transform them.
As yet hath his knowledge not
learned to smile, and to be without jealousy; as yet hath
his gushing passion not become calm in beauty.
Verily, not in satiety shall
his longing cease and disappear, but in beauty! Gracefulness
belongeth to the munificence of the magnanimous.
His arm across his head: thus
should the hero repose; thus should he also surmount his repose.
But precisely to the hero is
beauty the hardest thing of all. Unattainable is beauty by
all ardent wills.
A little more, a little less:
precisely this is much here, it is the most here.
To stand with relaxed muscles
and with unharnessed will: that is the hardest for all of
you, ye sublime ones!
When power becometh gracious
and descendeth into the visible- I call such condescension,
beauty.
And from no one do I want beauty
so much as from thee, thou powerful one: let thy goodness
be thy last self-conquest.
All evil do I accredit to thee:
therefore do I desire of thee the good.
Verily, I have often laughed
at the weaklings, who think themselves good because they have
crippled paws!
The virtue of the pillar shalt
thou strive after: more beautiful doth it ever become, and
more graceful- but internally harder and more sustaining-
the higher it riseth.
Yea, thou sublime one, one
day shalt thou also be beautiful, and hold up the mirror to
thine own beauty.
Then will thy soul thrill with
divine desires; and there will be adoration even in thy vanity!
For this is the secret of the
soul: when the hero hath abandoned it, then only approacheth
it in dreams- the super-hero.Thus spake Zarathustra.
Ce
qu'on fait n'est jamais compris mais seulement loué ou blâmé.
Nietzsche, Gay Science |
