THE GRAVE SONG
THE GRAVE SONG
“YONDER IS THE GRAVE island, the silent isle; yonder also are the graves of my youth. I will carry an evergreen wreath of life there.”
Resolving thus in my heart I crossed the sea.—
Oh, you sights and scenes of my youth! Oh, all you gleams of love, you divine fleeting gleams! How could you perish so soon for me! I think of you today as my dead ones.
From you, my dearest dead ones, comes to me a sweet savor, heart-opening and melting. Truly, it convulses and opens the heart of the lone seafarer.
I am still the richest and most to be envied—I, the loneliest one! For I had you and you have me still. Tell me: to whom have there ever fallen such rosy apples from the tree as have fallen to me?
I am still your love’s heir and heritage, blooming to your memory with many-hued, wild-growing virtues, O you dearest ones!
Ah, we were made for one another, you gentle, strange marvels; and you came to me and my longing not like timid birds-no, but as trusting ones to him who trusts!
Yes, made for faithfulness, like me, and for fond eternities: must I now name you by your faithlessness, you divine glances and moments: I have as yet learned no other name.
Truly, you died too soon, you fugitives. Yet you did not flee from me, nor did I flee from you: we are innocent to each other in our faithlessness,
To kill me, they strangled you, you songbirds of my hopes! Yes, at you, you dearest ones, malice always shot its arrows-to strike my heart!
And they struck! Because you were always my dearest, my possession and my being possessed: therefore you had to die young, and all-too-early!
The arrow was shot at my most vulnerable possession-at you, whose skin is like down and even more like a smile that dies at a glance!
But I will say this word to my enemies: What is all murder of men compared with what you have done to me!
You did a worse thing to me than any murder; you took from me the irretrievable—thus I speak to you, my enemies!
You murdered my youth’s visions and dearest marvels! You took my playmates from me, those blessed spirits! I lay this wreath and this curse to their memory.
This curse upon you, my enemies! You cut short my eternity, like a tone breaks off in a cold night! It came to me for barely the blink of divine eyes—a mere moment!
Thus spoke my purity once in a happy hour: “All beings shall be divine to me.”
Then you haunted me with foul phantoms; ah, where has that happy hour fled now!
“All days shall be holy to me”—so spoke once the wisdom of my youth: truly, the language of a gay wisdom!
But then you enemies stole my nights and sold them to sleepless torment: ah, where has that gay wisdom fled now?
Once I longed for happy omens from the birds: then you led a monstrous owl across my path, an adverse sign. Ah, where did my tender longings flee then?
I once vowed to renounce all disgust: then you transformed those near and nearest to me into abscesses. Ah, where did my noblest vow flee then?
I once walked as a blind man on blessed paths: then you cast filth on the blind man’s path: and now the old footpath disgusts him.
And when I performed my hardest task and celebrated the victory of my overcomings, then you made those who loved me scream that I hurt them most.
Truly, it was always your doing: you embittered my best honey and the industry of my best bees.
To my charity you have ever sent the most impudent beggars; around my pity you have ever crowded the incurably shameless. Thus you have wounded my virtue’s faith.
And when I offered what was holiest to me as a sacrifice, immediately your “piety” put its fatter gifts beside it: so that what was holiest to me suffocated in the fumes of your fat.
And once I wanted to dance as I had never yet danced: beyond all heavens I wanted to dance. Then you seduced my favorite singer.
And then he struck up a gruesome dismal tune; ah, he tooted in my ears like a mournful horn!
Murderous singer, instrument of malice, most innocent yourself! Already I stood prepared for the best dance: then you murdered my rapture with your tones!
I know how to speak the parable of the highest things only in the dance-and now my greatest parable has remained unspoken in my limbs!
Unspoken and unrealized my highest hope has remained! And all the visions and consolations of my youth are dead!
How did I ever bear it? How did I survive and overcome such wounds? How did my soul rise again from those graves?
Yes, something invulnerable, unburiable is within me, something that rends rocks: it is called my will. It goes silently and unchanged through the years.
It will go its course upon my feet, my old will; its nature is hard of heart and invulnerable.
Invulnerable am I only in the heel. You live there and are always the same, most patient one! You will always break out of every grave!
What was unrealized in my youth still lives on in you; and as life and youth you sit hopefully here on the yellow ruins of graves.
Yes, for me you are still the demolisher of all graves: Hail to you, my will! And only where there are graves are there resurrections.—
Thus sang Zarathustra.