ON THE VISION AND THE RIDDLE

1

When word spread among the sailors that Zarathustra was on board the ship-for a man who came from the Happy Islands had gone on board along with him—there was great curiosity and expectation. But Zarathustra kept silent for two days, and was cold and deaf with sadness, so that he answered neither looks nor questions. On the evening of the second day, however, he opened his ears again, though he still kept silent: for there were many curious and dangerous things to be heard on board the ship, which came from afar and was to go still further. Zarathustra, however, was a friend to all who make distant voyages and do not like to live without danger. And behold! when listening, his own tongue was at last loosened, and the ice of his heart broke: then he began to speak thus:

To you, the daring venturers and adventurers, and whoever has embarked with cunning sails upon frightful seas,—

• to you the riddle-drunk, the twilight-enjoyers, whose souls are allured by flutes to every treacherous gulf:

• for you dislike to grope at a thread with a cowardly hand; and where you can guess, you hate to calculate—

• to you alone I tell the riddle that I saw—the vision of the loneliest.—

Lately I walked gloomily in corpse-colored twilight—gloomily and sternly, with compressed lips. Not only one sun had set for me.

A path which ascended defiantly among boulders and rubble, an evil, lonesome path, no longer cheered by an herb or shrub: a mountain-path crunched under the defiance of my foot.

Striding mute over the mocking clatter of pebbles, trampling the stone that made it slip: thus my foot forced its way upward.

Upward:-in spite of the spirit that drew it downward, towards the abyss, the spirit of gravity, my devil and archenemy.

Upward:—although it sat upon me, half-dwarf, half-mole; paralyzed, paralyzing; dripping lead in my ear, and thoughts like drops of lead into my brain.

“O Zarathustra,” it whispered scornfully, syllable by syllable, “you philosopher’s stone”!2 You threw yourself high, but every thrown stone must-fall!

“O Zarathustra, you philosopher’s stone, you sling stone, you destroyer of stars! You threw yourself so high-but every thrown stone—must fall!

“Condemned by yourself and to your own stoning: O Zarathustra, far indeed you threw your stone-but it will fall back upon you!”

Then the dwarf was silent; and it lasted long.3 But the silence oppressed me; and to be thus as two is surely more lonesome than to be alone!

I ascended, I ascended, I dreamed, I thought-but everything oppressed me. I resembled an invalid, whom bad torment wearies, and who as he falls asleep is reawakened by a still worse dream.-But there is something in me that I call courage: it has so far slain for me every discouragement. This courage at last bade me stand still and say: “Dwarf! You! Or I!”—

For courage is the best slayer—courage that attacks: for in every attack there is triumphant shout.

But man is the most courageous animal: hence he has overcome every animal. With a triumphant shout he has overcome every pain; human pain, however, is the sorest pain.

Courage also slays giddiness at abysses: and where does man not stand at an abyss! Is not seeing itself—seeing abysses?

Courage is the best slayer: courage also slays pity. But pity is the deepest abyss: as deeply as man looks into life, so deeply does he also look into suffering.

But courage is the best slayer, courage that attacks: it slays even death itself; for it says: “Was that life? Well then! Once more!”

But in such speech there is much shouting of triumph. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.—

2

“Halt, dwarf!” I said. “I! Or You! But I am the stronger of the two—you do not know my abysmal thought! That—you could not endure!”

Then something happened which lightened me: for the dwarf, the curious one, sprang from my shoulder! And he squatted on a stone in front of me. But a gateway stood just where we halted.

“Look at this gateway! Dwarf!” I continued: “it has two faces. Two roads come together here: no one has yet followed either to its end.

“This long lane backwards: it continues for an eternity. And that long lane forward-that is another eternity.

“They are opposed to one another, these roads; they offend each other face to face-and it is here, at this gateway, that they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above: ‘Moment.’

“But should one follow them further—and ever further and further on, do you think, dwarf, that these roads would be eternally opposed?”—

“Everything straight lies,” murmured the dwarf, contemptuously. “All truth is crooked, time itself is a circle.”

“You spirit of gravity!” I said angrily, “do not take it too lightly! Or I shall leave you squatting where you are, lamefoot4—and I carried you high!

“Behold,” I continued, “this moment! From this gateway Moment a long, eternal lane runs backward: behind us lies an eternity.

“Must not all things that can run already have run along that lane? Must not all things that can happen already have happened, been done, and passed by?

“And if everything has been here before: what do you think, dwarf, of this moment? Must not this gateway already also—have been?

“And are not all things closely bound together in such a way that this moment draws all coming things after it? Tberefore-itself too?

“So, for all things that can run: also in this long lane forward—it must once more run!—

“And this slow spider which creeps in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and you and I in this gateway whispering together, whispering of eternal things-must we not all have been here before?

“—And must we not return and run in that other lane out before us, that long weird lane-must we not eternally return?”—

Thus I spoke, and always more softly: for I was afraid of my own thoughts and afterthoughts. Then suddenly I heard a nearby dog howl.

Had I ever heard a dog howl thus? My thoughts ran back. Yes! When I was a child, in my most distant childhood:

—Then I heard a dog howl thus. And saw it too, bristling, its head up, trembling in the stillest midnight, when even dogs believe in ghosts:

—so that it moved me to pity. For just then the full moon passed, silent as death, over the house, just then it stood still, a round glow—still upon the flat roof, as if on another’s property:—

that was what had terrified the dog: for dogs believe in thieves and ghosts. And when I heard such howling again, it moved me to pity again.

Where was the dwarf gone now? And the gateway? And the spider? And all the whispering? Was I dreaming then? Had I awoken? Suddenly I stood between wild cliffs, alone, dreary, in the dreariest moonlight.

But there lay a man! And there! The dog, springing, bristling, whining-now it saw me coming-then it howled again, then it shrieked—had I ever heard a dog shriek so for help?

And truly, I had never seen the like of what I then saw. I saw a young shepherd, writhing, choking, convulsed, his face distorted, and a heavy black snake hung out of his mouth.5

Had I ever seen so much disgust and pale dread a single face? Had he perhaps been asleep? Then the snake had crawled into his throat—and there bit itself fast.

My hand tore at the snake and tore-in vain! It could not tear the snake out of his throat. Then it cried out of me: “Bite! Bite!

“The head off! Bite!”—so it cried out of me, my horror, my hatred, my disgust, my pity, all my good and my bad cried out with a single cry.—

You bold ones around me! You venturers, adventurers, and those of you who have embarked with cunning sails on unexplored seas! You enjoyers of riddles!

Solve for me the riddle that I saw, interpret for me the vision of the loneliest!

For it was a vision and a premonition—what did I see in a parable? And who is it that must come some day?

Who is the shepherd into whose throat the snake crawled thus? Who is the man into whose throat all that is heaviest and blackest will crawl thus?

-But the shepherd bit as my cry had admonished him; he bit with a good bite! Far away he spat the head of the snake-and sprang up.-No longer shepherd, no longer man—a transfigured being, radiant, laughing! Never yet on earth had a man laughed as he laughed!

O my brothers, I heard a laughter which was no human laughter—and now a thirst gnaws at me, a longing that is never stilled.

My longing for that laughter gnaws at me: oh how can I yet bear to live! And how could I bear to die now!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.