THE WANDERER

THE WANDERER

IT WAS ABOUT MIDNIGHT when Zarathustra went his way over the ridge of the island, so that he might arrive early in the morning at the other coast: because he meant to embark there. For there was a good harbor in which foreign ships also liked to anchor: those ships took with them many people, who wished to cross over from the Happy Islands. So when Zarathustra thus ascended the mountain, he thought on the way of his many solitary wanderings from youth onwards, and how many mountains and ridges and summits he had already climbed.

I am a wanderer and mountain climber, he said to his heart, I do not love the plains, and it seems I cannot sit still for long.

And whatever may still overtake me as fate and experience—it will be a wandering and a mountain climbing: in the end one experiences only oneself.

The time is now past when accidents could befall me; and what could now fall to my lot which would not already be my own!

It only returns, it comes home to me at last—my own self, and such of it as has been long abroad, and scattered among things and accidents.

And I know one thing more: I stand now before my last summit, and before that which has been longest reserved for me. Ah, I must climb my hardest path! Ah, I have begun my loneliest wandering!

He, however, who is of my nature does not avoid such an hour: the hour that says to him: only now you go the way to your greatness! Summit and abyss-these are now united together!

You go the way to your greatness: now it has become your last refuge, what was so far your last danger!

You go the way to your greatness: it must now be your best courage that there is no longer any path behind you!

You go the way to your greatness: here no one shall steal after you! Your foot itself has erased the path behind you, and over it stands written: Impossibility.

And when all footholds disappear, then you must learn to climb upon your own head: how could you climb upward otherwise?

Upon your own head, and beyond your own heart! Now the gentlest in you must become the hardest.

He who has always overindulged himself is at last sickened by his overindulgence. Praises on what makes hardy! I do not praise the land where butter and honey—now!

In order to see much one must learn to look away from oneself-this hardness is needed by every mountain climber.

But he who as a knower is over-eager with his eyes, how can he ever see more of anything than its foreground!

But you, O Zarathustra, would view the ground of everything, and its background: thus you must climb even above yourself—up, upwards, until you have even your stars under you!

Yes! To look down upon myself, and even upon my stars: only that would I call my summit, that has remained for me as my last summit!—

Thus spoke Zarathustra to himself while ascending, comforting his heart with harsh maxims: for he was sore at heart as he had never been before. And when he had reached the top of the mountain ridge, behold, there lay the other sea spread out before him: and he stood still and was long silent. The night, however, was cold at this height, and clear and starry.

I recognize my destiny, he said at last, sadly. Well! I am ready. Now has my last loneliness begun.

Ah, this black somber sea below me! Ah, this brooding nocturnal reluctance! Ah, fate and sea! To you must I now go under!

I stand before my highest mountain, and before my longest wandering: therefore I must first go deeper down than I ever ascended:

-Deeper down into pain than I ever ascended, even into its darkest flood! So wills my fate. Well! I am ready.

From where do the highest mountains come? so I once asked. Then I learned that they come out of the sea.

That testimony is inscribed on their stones, and on the walls of their summits. Out of the deepest the highest must come to its height.—

Thus spoke Zarathustra on the ridge of the mountain where it was cold: but when he came into the vicinity of the sea, and at last stood alone among the cliffs, he had become weary on his way and more yearning than he was before.

Everything sleeps as yet, he said; even the sea sleeps. Drowsily and strangely its eye gazed upon me.

But it breathes warmly—I feel it. And I feel also that it dreams. It tosses about dreamily on hard pillows.

Hark! Hark! How it groans with evil recollections! Or evil expectations?

Ah, I am sad along with you, you dusky monster, and angry with myself even for your sake.

Ah, that my hand has not strength enough! Gladly, indeed, would I free you from evil dreams!—

And while Zarathustra thus spoke, he laughed at himself with melancholy and bitterness. What! Zarathustra, he said, will you even sing consolation to the sea?

Ah, you amiable fool, Zarathustra, you all-too-blindly confiding one! But you have always been thus: you have always approached everything terrible confidently.

You want to caress every monster. A whiff of warm breath, a little soft tuft on its paw—: and immediately you were ready to love and lure it.

Love is the danger of the loneliest one, love to anything, if only it lives! Laughable, truly, is my folly and my modesty in love!—

Thus spoke Zarathustra and laughed again: but then he thought of his abandoned friends-, and he was angry with himself, as if he had wronged them with his thoughts. And like that it came to pass that the laugher wept—with anger and longing Zarathustra wept bitterly.1