Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
BETWEEN BIRDS OF PREY
Who would here descend, How soon Is he swallowed up by the depths! But thou, Zarathustra, Still lovest the abysses, Lovest them as doth the fir tree! The fir flings its roots Where the rock itself gazes Shuddering at the depths,-- The fir pauses before the abysses Where all around Would fain descend: Amid the impatience Of wild, rolling, leaping torrents It waits so patient, stern and silent, Lonely.... Lonely! Who would venture Here to be guest-- To be thy guest? A bird of prey, perchance Joyous at others' misfortune, Will cling persistent To the hair of the steadfast watcher, With frenzied laughter, A vulture's laughter.... Wherefore so steadfast? --Mocks he so cruel: He must have wings, who loves the abyss, He must not stay on the cliff, As thou who hangest there!-- O Zarathustra, Cruellest Nimrod! Of late still a hunter of God, A spider's web to capture virtue, An arrow of evil! Now Hunted by thyself, Thine own prey Caught in the grip of thine own soul. Now Lonely to me and thee, Twofold in thine own knowledge, Mid a hundred mirrors False to thyself, Mid a hundred memories Uncertain, Weary at every wound, Shivering at every frost, Throttled in thine own noose, Self-knower! Self-hangman! Why didst bind thyself With the noose of thy wisdom? Why luredst thyself Into the old serpent's paradise? Why stolest into Thyself, thyself?...
A sick man now, Sick of serpent's poison, A captive now Who hast drawn the hardest lot: In thine own shaft Bowed as thou workest, In thine own cavern Digging at thyself, Helpless quite, Stiff, A cold corse Overwhelmed with a hundred burdens, Overburdened by thyself, A knower! A self-knower! The wise Zarathustra!... Thou soughtest the heaviest burden, So foundest thou thyself, And canst not shake thyself off.... Watching, Chewing, One that stands upright no more! Thou wilt grow deformed even in thy grave, Deformed spirit! And of late still so proud On all the stilts of thy pride! Of late still the godless hermit, The hermit with one comrade--the devil, The scarlet prince of every devilment!... Now-- Between two nothings Huddled up, A question-mark, A weary riddle, A riddle for vultures.... They will "solve" thee, They hunger already for thy "solution," They flutter already about their "riddle," About thee, the doomed one! O Zarathustra, Self-knower! Self-hangman! Not much longer thirstest thou, O burnt-up heart! Promise is in the air, From unknown mouths I feel a breath, --The great coolness comes.... My sun stood hot above me at noonday: A greeting to you that are coming, Ye sudden winds, Ye cool spirits of afternoon! The air is strange and pure. See how the night Leers at me with eyes askance, Like a seducer!... Be strong, my brave heart, And ask not "Why?"
The day of my life! The sun sinks, And the calm flood Already is gilded. Warm breathes the rock: Did happiness at noonday Take its siesta well upon it? In green light Happiness still glimmers up from the brown abyss Day of my life! Eventide's nigh, Thy eye already Glows half-broken, Thy dew already Pours out its tear-drops, Already over the white seas Walks the purple of thy love, Thy last hesitating holiness.... Golden gaiety, come! Thou, the sweetest foretaste-- Foretaste of death! --Went I my way too swiftly? Now that the foot grows weary, Thine eye still catches me, Thy happiness still catches me. Around but waves and play. Whatever was hard --Sank into blue oblivion. My boat now stands idle. Storm and motion--how did it forget them! Desire and Hope are drowned, Sea and soul are becalmed. Seventh Solitude! Never felt! Sweet certainty nearer, Or warmer the sun's ray. --Glows not the ice of my summit yet? Silvery, light, a fish Now my vessel swims out....
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.