查拉图斯特拉如是说 英文版 Thus Spake Zarathustra
尼采 Friedrich Nietzsche
XXXVII. Immaculate Perception.
When yester-eve the moon arose, then did I fancy it about to bear a sun:so broad and teeming did it lie on the horizon.
But it was a liar with its pregnancy; and sooner will I believe in the manin the moon than in the woman.
To be sure, little of a man is he also, that timid night-reveller. Verily,with a bad conscience doth he stalk over the roofs.
For he is covetous and jealous, the monk in the moon; covetous of theearth, and all the joys of lovers.
Nay, I like him not, that tom-cat on the roofs! Hateful unto me are allthat slink around half-closed windows!
Piously and silently doth he stalk along on the star-carpets:--but I likeno light-treading human feet, on which not even a spur jingleth.
Every honest one's step speaketh; the cat however, stealeth along over theground. Lo! cat-like doth the moon come along, and dishonestly.--
This parable speak I unto you sentimental dissemblers, unto you, the "purediscerners!" You do _I_ call--covetous ones!
Also ye love the earth, and the earthly: I have divined you well!--butshame is in your love, and a bad conscience--ye are like the moon!
To despise the earthly hath your spirit been persuaded, but not yourbowels: these, however, are the strongest in you!
And now is your spirit ashamed to be at the service of your bowels, andgoeth by-ways and lying ways to escape its own shame.
"That would be the highest thing for me"--so saith your lying spirit untoitself--"to gaze upon life without desire, and not like the dog, withhanging-out tongue:
To be happy in gazing: with dead will, free from the grip and greed ofselfishness--cold and ashy-grey all over, but with intoxicated moon-eyes!
That would be the dearest thing to me"--thus doth the seduced one seducehimself,--"to love the earth as the moon loveth it, and with the eye onlyto feel its beauty.
And this do I call IMMACULATE perception of all things: to want nothingelse from them, but to be allowed to lie before them as a mirror with ahundred facets."--
Oh, ye sentimental dissemblers, ye covetous ones! Ye lack innocence inyour desire: and now do ye defame desiring on that account!
Verily, not as creators, as procreators, or as jubilators do ye love theearth!
Where is innocence? Where there is will to procreation. And he whoseeketh to create beyond himself, hath for me the purest will.
Where is beauty? Where I MUST WILL with my whole Will; where I will loveand perish, that an image may not remain merely an image.
Loving and perishing: these have rhymed from eternity. Will to love:that is to be ready also for death. Thus do I speak unto you cowards!
But now doth your emasculated ogling profess to be "contemplation!" Andthat which can be examined with cowardly eyes is to be christened"beautiful!" Oh, ye violators of noble names!
But it shall be your curse, ye immaculate ones, ye pure discerners, that yeshall never bring forth, even though ye lie broad and teeming on thehorizon!
never bring forth, even.
Verily, ye fill your mouth with noble words: and we are to believe thatyour heart overfloweth, ye cozeners?
But MY words are poor, contemptible, stammering words: gladly do I pick upwhat falleth from the table at your repasts.
Yet still can I say therewith the truth--to dissemblers! Yea, my fish-bones, shells, and prickly leaves shall--tickle the noses of dissemblers!
Bad air is always about you and your repasts: your lascivious thoughts,your lies, and secrets are indeed in the air!
Dare only to believe in yourselves--in yourselves and in your inward parts!He who doth not believe in himself always lieth.
A God's mask have ye hung in front of you, ye "pure ones": into a God'smask hath your execrable coiling snake crawled.
Verily ye deceive, ye "contemplative ones!" Even Zarathustra was once thedupe of your godlike exterior; he did not divine the serpent's coil withwhich it was stuffed.
A God's soul, I once thought I saw playing in your games, ye purediscerners! No better arts did I once dream of than your arts!
Serpents' filth and evil odour, the distance concealed from me: and that alizard's craft prowled thereabouts lasciviously.
But I came NIGH unto you: then came to me the day,--and now cometh it toyou,--at an end is the moon's love affair!
See there! Surprised and pale doth it stand--before the rosy dawn!
For already she cometh, the glowing one,--HER love to the earth cometh!Innocence and creative desire, is all solar love!
See there, how she cometh impatiently over the sea! Do ye not feel thethirst and the hot breath of her love?
At the sea would she suck, and drink its depths to her height: now riseththe desire of the sea with its thousand breasts.
Kissed and sucked WOULD it be by the thirst of the sun; vapour WOULD itbecome, and height, and path of light, and light itself!
Verily, like the sun do I love life, and all deep seas.
And this meaneth TO ME knowledge: all that is deep shall ascend--to myheight!--