ON THE TREE ON THE MOUNTAIN
ON THE TREE ON THE MOUNTAIN
ZARATHUSTRA’S EYE HAD OBSERVED that a youth avoided him. And as he walked alone one evening over the hills surrounding the town called “The Motley Cow”: behold, there he found the youth sitting leaning against a tree and gazing wearily into the valley. Zarathustra laid hold of the tree under which the youth was sitting and spoke thus:
“If I wished to shake this tree with my hands I should not be able to do so.
“But the wind, which does not see, tortures and bends it in whatever direction it pleases. We are bent and tortured worst by invisible hands.”
At that the youth arose in consternation and said: “I hear Zarathustra, and just now was I thinking of him.” Zarathustra answered:
“Why should that frighten you?-But it is the same with man as with the tree.
“The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark, the deep-into evil.”
“Yes, into evil!” cried the youth. “How is it possible that you discovered my soul?”
Zarathustra smiled and said: “Some souls one will never discover, unless one invents them first.”
“Yes, into evil!” the youth cried once more.
“You have spoken the truth, Zarathustra. I no longer trust myself since I sought to rise into the height, and nobody trusts me any longer; how did this happen?
“I change too quickly: my today refutes my yesterday. I often skip steps when I climb: no step forgives me that.
“When I am at the top I always find myself alone. No one speaks to me, the frost of solitude makes me tremble. What do I seek on the height?
“My contempt and my longing increase together; the higher I climb, the more I despise the climber. What does he seek on the height?
“How ashamed I am of my climbing and stumbling! How I mock at my violent panting! How I hate the flier! How tired I am on the height!”
Here the youth was silent. And Zarathustra contemplated the tree beside which they stood and spoke thus:
“This tree stands lonely here in the mountains; it grew high above man and beast.
“And if it wanted to speak it would have none who could understand it: so high has it grown.
“Now it waits and waits-for what is it waiting? It dwells too close to the seat of the clouds: surely it waits for the first lightning?”
When Zarathustra had said this the youth called out with violent gestures: “Yes, Zarathustra, you speak the truth. I longed to go under when I desired to be on the height, and you are the lightning for which I waited! Behold, what am I since you have appeared among us? It is the envy of you that has destroyed me!”—Thus spoke the youth and wept bitterly. But Zarathustra put his arm about him and led the youth away with him.
And when they had walked a while together, Zarathustra began to speak thus:
It tears my heart. Better than your words express it, your eyes tell me of all your dangers.
As yet you are not free; you still search for freedom. Your search has made you overtired and over awake.
You want the free heights, your soul thirsts for the stars. But your wicked drives also thirst for freedom.
Your wild dogs want freedom; they bark for joy in their cellar when your spirit plans to open all prisons.
To me you are still a prisoner who is plotting his freedom: ah, in such prisoners the soul becomes clever, but also deceitful and bad.
And even the liberated spirit must still purify himself. Much prison and mustiness still remain in him: his eyes must still become pure.
Yes, I know your danger. But by my love and hope I beseech you: do not throw away your love and hope!
You still feel noble, and others too sense your nobility, though they bear you a grudge and send you evil glances. Know that the noble one stands in everybody’s way.
The noble one stands in the way of the good too: and even when they call him one of the good, they thus want to do away with him.
The noble man wants to create something new and a new virtue. The good want the old, and that the old should be preserved.
But this is not the danger of the noble man, that he might become one of the good, but a know-it-all, a mocker, a destroyer.
Ah, I have known noble ones who lost their highest hope. And then they disparaged all high hopes.
Then they lived shamelessly in brief pleasures and barely cast their aims beyond the day.
“Spirit too is lust”—so they said. Then the wings of their spirit broke: and now their spirit creeps about and soils what it gnaws.
Once they thought of becoming heroes: now they are voluptuaries. The hero is for them an offense and a terror.
But by my love and hope I beseech you: do not throw away the hero in your soul! Hold holy your highest hope!—
Thus spoke Zarathustra.