Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
TO MELANCHOLY[1]
O Melancholy, be not wroth with me That I this pen should point to praise thee only, And in thy praise, with head bowed to the knee, Squat like a hermit on a tree-stump lonely. Thus oft thou saw'st me,--yesterday, at least,-- Full in the morning sun and its hot beaming, While, visioning the carrion of his feast, The hungry vulture valleyward flew screaming. Yet didst thou err, foul bird, albeit I, So like a mummy 'gainst my log lay leaning! Thou couldst not see these eyes whose ecstasy Rolled hither, thither, proud and overweening. What though they did not soar unto thine height, or reached those far-off, cloud-reared precipices, For _that_ they sank the deeper so they might Within themselves light Destiny's abysses. Thus oft in sullenness perverse and free, Bent hideous like a savage at his altar, There, Melancholy, held I thought of thee, A penitent, though youthful, with his psalter. So crouched did I enjoy the vulture's span, The thunder of the avalanche's paces, Thou spakest to me--nor wast false like man, Thou spakest, but with stern and dreadful faces. Harsh goddess thou of Nature wild and stark, Mistress, that com'st with threats to daunt and quell me, To point me out the vulture's airy are And laughing avalanches, to repel me. Around us gnashing pants the lust to kill, The torment to win life in all its changes; Alluring on some cliff, abrupt and chill, Some flower craves the butterfly that ranges.
All this am I--shuddering I feel it all-- O butterfly beguiled, O lonely flower, The vulture and the ice-pent waterfall, The moaning storm--all symbols of thy power,-- Thou goddess grim before whom deeply bowed, With head on knee, my lips with pæans bursting, I lift a dreadful song and cry aloud For Life, for Life, for Life--forever thirsting! O vengeful goddess, be not wroth, I ask, That I to mesh thee in my rhymes have striven. He trembles who beholds thine awful mask; He quails to whom thy dread right hand is given. Song upon trembling song by starts and fits I chant, in rhythm all my thought unfolding, The black ink flows, the pointed goose-quill spits, O goddess, goddess--leave me to my scolding!
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.