ON THE SPIRIT OF GRAVITY

1

My tongue—is of the people: I speak too crudely and heartily for silky rabbits. And my words sound still stranger to all ink-fish and pen-foxes.

My hand-is a fool’s hand: woe to all tablets and walls and whatever has room for fool’s scribbling, fool’s scrawling!

My foot—is a horse’s-foot; with it I trample and trot over stick and stone, in the fields up and down, and I am as happy as the devil in racing so fast.

My stomach—is surely an eagle’s stomach? For it likes lamb’s flesh best of all. But it is certainly a bird’s stomach.

Nourished by a few innocent things, ready and impatient to fly, to fly away—that is my nature now: how could there not be something of the bird’s nature in that!

And especially that I am enemy to the spirit of gravity, that is bird-nature: and truly, mortal enemy, archenemy, born enemy! Oh, where has my enmity not flown and strayed already!

I could sing a song about that—and will sing it: though I am alone in an empty house and must sing it to my own ears.

There are other singers, to be sure, whose voices are made soft, whose hands are made eloquent, whose eyes are made expressive, whose hearts are awakened, only by a full house—I am not like them.—

2

He who will one day teach men to fly will have shifted all boundary stones; the boundary stones themselves will fly into the air to him, and he will rebaptize the earth-as “the light.”

The ostrich runs faster than the fastest horse, but even he buries his head heavily into the heavy earth: thus it is with the man who cannot yet fly.

He calls earth and life heavy, and so the spirit of gravity wants it! But he who would become light and a bird must love himself—thus I teach.

Not, to be sure, with the love of the sick and infected: with them even self-love stinks!

One must learn to love oneself-thus I teach—with a wholesome and healthy love: that one may endure to be with oneself and not to roam.

Such roaming calls itself “love of the neighbor”: these words there have been so far the best for lying and dissembling, and especially by those who have been burdensome to every one.

And truly, to learn to love oneself is no commandment for today and tomorrow. Rather it is of all arts the finest, subtlest, last and most patient.

For all his possessions are well concealed from the possessor; and of all treasures, it is our own we dig up last—the spirit of gravity commands that.

Close upon the cradle are we presented with heavy words and values: this dowry calls itself “good” and “evil”. For the sake of it we are forgiven for living.

And we suffer little children to come unto us, to forbid them in good time from loving themselves: thus the spirit of gravity commands it.

And we—we bear loyally what we have been given on hard shoulders over rugged mountains! And when we sweat we are told: “Yes, life is hard to bear!”

But only man is hard to bear! That is because he carries too much that is foreign on his shoulders. Like the camel he kneels down and lets himself be well laden.

Especially the strong, reverent spirit who would bear much: he loads too many foreign weighty words and values upon himself-now life seems like a desert to him!

And truly! Many a thing too that is our own is hard to bear! And much that is inside man is like the oyster, that is, repulsive and slippery and hard to grasp—

—so that a noble shell with noble adornment must plead for it. But one must learn this art too: to have a shell and a fair appearance and a shrewd blindness!

Again, it is deceiving about much in man that many a shell is poor and pitiable and too much of a shell. Much concealed goodness and power is never dreamt of; the most exquisite delicacies find no tasters!

Women know that, the most exquisite of them: a little fatter, a little thinner—oh, how much fate is in so little!

Man is difficult to discover, and most of all to himself; the spirit often lies about the soul. Thus the spirit of gravity commands it.

But he has discovered himself who says: That is my good and evil: with that he has silenced the mole and the dwarf who say: “Good for all, evil for all.”

Truly, I do not like those who call everything good and this world the best. Those I call the all-satisfied.

All-satisfiedness, which knows how to taste everything,—that is not the best taste! I honor the refractory, fastidious tongues and stomachs, which have learned to say “I” and “Yes” and “No.”

To chew and digest everything, however—that is to have a really swinish nature! Always to bray Yea-Yuh—that only the ass has learned, and those like it!—

Deep yellow and hot red: thus my taste wants it—it mixes blood with all colors. But he who whitewashes his house betrays to me a whitewashed soul.

Some fall in love with mummies, others with phantoms: both alike are enemies to all flesh and blood—oh, how repugnant are both to my taste! For I love blood.

And I do not want to stay and dwell where every one spits and spews: that is not my taste,—I would rather live among thieves and perjurers. Nobody has gold in his mouth.

Still more repugnant to me, however, are all lickspittles; and the most repugnant beast of a man that I found, I baptized parasite: it would not love, and yet wanted to live by love.

Wretched I call all who have only one choice: either to become evil beasts or evil tamers of beasts: among such men I would build no homes.

I also call wretched those who always have to wait,-they are repugnant to my taste: all tax collectors and shopkeepers and kings and other keepers of lands and shops.

Truly, I too learned to wait and profoundly so,-but only to wait for myself. And above all I learned to stand and to walk and to run and to leap and to climb and to dance.

But this is my teaching: he who wishes one day to fly, must first learn to stand and to walk and to run and to climb and to dance—one does not fly into flying!

With rope-ladders I learned to reach many a window, with nimble legs I climbed high masts: to sit on high masts of knowledge seemed to me no small happiness;—

—to flicker like small flames on high masts: a small light, certainly, but yet a great comfort to castaway sailors and the shipwrecked!

By diverse ways and windings I arrived at my truth: not by a single ladder did I mount to the height where my eye roves into my remoteness.

And it was only reluctantly that I ever asked the way—that has always offended my taste! Rather I questioned and tried the ways themselves.

A trying and a questioning has been all my traveling-and truly, one must also learn how to answer such questioning! But that—is my taste:

-not good, not bad, but my taste, of which I am no longer ashamed and which I have no more wish to hide.

“This—is now my way—where is yours?” thus I answered those who asked me “the way.” For the way—that does not exist!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.