THE SOOTHSAYER
THE SOOTHSAYER
“—AND I SAW A great sadness come over mankind. The best grew weary of their works.
“A teaching appeared, a faith ran beside it: All is empty, all is alike, all has been!’16
“And from all hills there re-echoed: All is empty, all is alike, all has been!’
“To be sure we have harvested: but why have all our fruits become rotten and brown? What fell last night from the evil moon?
“All our labor was in vain, our wine has become poison, an evil eye has seared our fields and hearts.
“We have all become dry; and if fire should fall on us, then we should scatter like ashes—yes we have wearied fire itself.
“All our wells have dried up, even the sea has receded. The earth wants to break open, but the depths will not swallow us!
“ ‘Ah, where is there still a sea in which one could drown’: thus our cry rings-across shallow swamps.
“Truly, we have grown too tired even to die; now we stay awake and live on-in sepulchers!”
Thus Zarathustra heard a soothsayer speak; and his prophecy touched his heart and transformed him. He went about sorrowfully and wearily; and he became like those of whom the soothsayer had spoken.—
“Truly,” he said to his disciples, “the long twilight is not far off Ah, how shall I preserve my light through it! That it may not smother in this sorrowfulness! It shall be a light to remoter worlds and also to remotest nights!”
Thus Zarathustra went about grieved in his heart, and for three days he took no meat or drink, had no rest and forgot speech. At last it came to pass that he fell into a deep sleep. But his disciples sat around him in long watches of the night and waited anxiously to see if he would awake and speak again and recover from his misery.
And this is the speech that Zarathustra spoke when he awoke; his voice, however, came to his disciples as if from afar:
“Hear the dream that I dreamed, my friends, and help me to read its meaning!
“It is still a riddle to me, this dream; the meaning is hidden in it and encaged and does not yet fly above it on free wings.
“I dreamed I had renounced all life. I had become a night-and grave-watchman on the lonely mountain castle of death.
“There I guarded his coffins: the musty vaults stood full of those trophies of his victory. Out of glass coffins vanquished life gazed upon me.
“I breathed the odor of dusty eternities: my soul lay sultry and dusty. And who could have aired his soul there!
“The brightness of midnight was all around me, loneliness crouched beside her; and as a third, the rasping stillness of death, the worst of my friends.
“I carried keys, the rustiest of all keys; and I understood how to open with them the most creaking of all doors.
“Like a bitterly angry croaking the sound rang through the long corridors when the wings of this door opened: this bird cried fiendishly, it was unhappy at being awakened.
“But it was more frightful and more heart stopping yet when it again became silent and still all around, and I sat alone in that malignant silence.
“Thus time passed with me and slipped by, if there still was time: how should I know! But at last that happened which awoke me.
“Three strikes struck at the door like thunder, three times again the vaults resounded and howled: then I went to the door.
“Alpa! I cried, who carries his ashes to the mountain? Alpa! Alpa! Who carries his ashes to the mountain?
“And I turned the key and pulled at the door and exerted myself. But it was not yet open a finger’s-breadth:
“Then a raging wind tore its wings from one another: whistling, shrilling and piercing it threw a black coffin to me:
“And in the roaring and whistling and shrilling the coffin burst open and spewed out a thousand peals of laughter.
“And from a thousand grimaces of children, angels, owls, fools, and butterflies as big as children it laughed and mocked and roared at me.
“At this I was terribly frightened: it threw me to the ground. And I cried with horror as I never cried before.
“But my own crying awoke me:—and I came to my senses.”—
Thus Zarathustra related his dream and then was silent: for as yet he did not know the interpretation of it. But the disciple whom he loved most arose quickly, seized Zarathustra’s hand, and said:
“Your life itself interprets this dream for us, O Zarathustra!
“Are you not yourself the shrilly whistling wind which bursts open the doors of the fortress of death?
“Are you not yourself the coffin full of colorful sarcasms and the angelic grimaces of life?
“Truly, like a thousand peals of children’s laughter Zarathustra comes into all sepulchers, laughing at those night-and grave-watchmen and whoever else rattles with gloomy keys.
“With your laughter you will frighten them and throw them to the ground: and your power over them will make them faint and wake them.
“And when the long twilight comes and the mortal weariness, even then you will not perish in our heaven, you advocate of life!
“You have shown us new stars and new nocturnal glories: truly, you have spread laughter itself out over us like a canopy of many colors.
“Now children’s laughter will always flow from coffins; now a strong wind will always comes victoriously to all mortal weariness: of this you are yourself the pledge and the prophet!
“Truly, just this is what you dreamed, your enemies: that was your hardest dream.
“But as you awoke from them and came to yourself, so shall they awaken from themselves-and come to you!”
Thus spoke the disciple; and all the others then thronged around Zarathustra and grasped him by the hands and tried to persuade him to leave his bed and his sadness and return to them. But Zarathustra sat upright on his bed, and with an absent look. Like one returning from a long journey in a strange land he looked at his disciples and examined their faces; but still he did not know them. But when they raised him and set him on his feet, behold, suddenly his eye changed; he understood everything that had happened, stroked his beard, and said with a strong voice:
“Well! This too has its time; but see to it, my disciples, that we have a good meal, and soon! Thus I mean to atone for bad dreams!
“But the soothsayer shall eat and drink at my side: and truly, I will yet show him a sea in which he can drown!”
Thus spoke Zarathustra. But then he gazed long into the face of the disciple who had interpreted the dream, and shook his head.