THE RETURN HOME

THE RETURN HOME

O SOLITUDE! YOU MY home solitude! Too long have I lived wildly in wild strange lands not to return home to you in tears!

Now shake your finger at me as mothers do, now smile at me as mothers smile, now say only: “And who was that, who like a storm wind once stormed away from me?—

“—who departing cried: ‘I have sat with solitude too long, I have unlearned how to be silent!’ That—you have surely learned now?

“O Zarathustra, I know everything, and that you were more forsaken among the many, you solitary one, than you ever were with me!

“To be forsaken is one thing, to be lonely another: that—you have learned now! And that among men you will always be wild and strange:

“—Wild and strange even when they love you: for above all they want to be indulged!

“But here you are at your own hearth and home; here you can say everything and pour out all reasons, nothing here is ashamed of hidden, hardened feelings.

“Here all things come caressingly to your discourse and flatter you: for they want to ride upon your back. On every image you here ride to every truth.

“Here you may speak to all things fairly and frankly: and truly, it sounds like praise in their ears for one to speak to all things—directly!

“But to be forsaken is another matter. For, do you remember, O Zarathustra? When once your bird screamed overhead, when you stood in the forest, irresolute? unsure where to go, beside a corpse:—

“—when you spoke: ‘let my animals lead me! I found it more dangerous among men than among animals:’—That was forsakenness!

“And do you remember, O Zarathustra? When you sat on your island, a well of wine among empty buckets, giving and distributing, bestowing and pouring out among the thirsty:

“—until at last you sat alone thirsty among the drunk and wailed each night: ‘Is it not more blessed to receive than to give? And more blessed to steal than to receive?’—That was forsakenness!

“And do you remember, O Zarathustra? When your stillest hour came and drove you away from yourself, when it said in an evil whisper: ‘Speak and break!’—

“—when it made you repent all your waiting and silence and discouraged your humble courage: That was forsakenness!”—

0 solitude! You my home solitude! How blissfully and tenderly your voice speaks to me!

We do not question each other, we do not complain to each other, we go openly together through open doors.

For all is open with you and clear; and here even the hours run on lighter feet. For in the dark time weighs heavier on one than in the light.

Here the words and word-shrines of all being spring open to me: here all being wants to become words, here all becoming wants to learn to speak from me.

But down there-all speech is in vain! There, forgetting and passing-by are the best wisdom: that I have learned now!

He who would grasp all human things must handle everything. But for that my hands are too clean.

I even dislike to inhale their breath; ah! that I have lived so long among their noise and bad breath!

O blissful stillness around me! O pure odors around me! O how this stillness draws deep breaths of pure air! O how it listens, this blissful stillness!

But down there-there everything speaks, there everything is unheard. One may ring in one’s wisdom with bells: the shopkeepers in the market place will outjingle it with pennies!

Everything among them talks, no one knows any longer how to understand. Everything falls into the water, nothing falls any longer into deep wells.

Everything among them talks, nothing succeeds any longer and comes to an end. Everything cackles, but who will still sit quietly on the nest and hatch eggs?

Everything among them talks, everything is talked out. And that which yesterday was still too hard for time itself and its teeth, today hangs gnawed and scraped from the mouths of today’s men.

Everything among them talks, everything is betrayed. And what was once called the secret and secrecy of profound souls, belongs today to the street trumpeters and other butterflies.

O human being, you strange thing! You noise in dark streets! Now again you are behind me:-my greatest danger lies behind me!

My greatest danger always lay in indulgence and pity; and all human being wants to be indulged and pitied.

With concealed truths, with a fool’s hand and a fond foolish heart and rich in pity’s little lies-thus I always lived among men.

Disguised I sat among them, ready to misunderstand myself that I might endure them, and gladly saying to myself: “You fool, you do not know men!”

One forgets about men when one lives among them: there is too much foreground in all men—what can far-seeing, far-seeking eyes do there!

And when they misunderstood me, I, fool that I am, indulged them more than I did myself: for I was used to being hard on myself and often even taking revenge on myself for the indulgence.

Bitten all over by poisonous flies and hollowed like a stone by many drops of malice: thus I sat among them and still told myself: “Everything small is innocent of its smallness!”

Especially those who call themselves “the good” I found to be the most poisonous flies: they bite in all innocence, they lie in all innocence; how could they—be just towards me!

Pity teaches him who lives among the good to lie. Pity makes stifling air for all free souls. For the stupidity of the good is unfathomable.

To conceal myself and my riches—that I learned down there: for I found everybody still poor in spirit. It was the lie of my pity that I knew in every one,

-that I saw and sniffed out in every one what was enough spirit for him and what was too much spirit for him!

Their stiff sages: I called them sagacious, not stiff-thus I learned to slur words. Their gravediggers: I called them researchers and scholars-thus I learned to confound words.

Gravediggers dig diseases for themselves. Bad vapors lie under old rubbish. One should not stir up the bog. One should live on mountains.

With blessed nostrils I breathe again the freedom of mountains. At last my nose is freed from the smell of all human being!

Tickled by the sharp air as with sparkling wine, my soul sneezes—sneezes and jubilates to itself: “Gesundheit!”

Thus spoke Zarathustra.