查拉图斯特拉如是说 英文版 Thus Spake Zarathustra
尼采 Friedrich Nietzsche
LII. The Apostates.
1.
Those young hearts have already all become old--and not old even! onlyweary, ordinary, comfortable:--they declare it: "We have again becomepious."
Of late did I see them run forth at early morn with valorous steps: butthe feet of their knowledge became weary, and now do they malign even theirmorning valour!
Verily, many of them once lifted their legs like the dancer; to them winkedthe laughter of my wisdom:--then did they bethink themselves. Just nowhave I seen them bent down--to creep to the cross.
Around light and liberty did they once flutter like gnats and young poets.A little older, a little colder: and already are they mystifiers, andmumblers and mollycoddles.
Did perhaps their hearts despond, because lonesomeness had swallowed melike a whale? Did their ear perhaps hearken yearningly-long for me INVAIN, and for my trumpet-notes and herald-calls?
--Ah! Ever are there but few of those whose hearts have persistent courageand exuberance; and in such remaineth also the spirit patient. The rest,however, are COWARDLY.
The rest: these are always the great majority, the common-place, thesuperfluous, the far-too many--those all are cowardly!--
Him who is of my type, will also the experiences of my type meet on theway: so that his first companions must be corpses and buffoons.
His second companions, however--they will call themselves his BELIEVERS,--will be a living host, with much love, much folly, much unbeardedveneration.
To those believers shall he who is of my type among men not bind his heart;in those spring-times and many-hued meadows shall he not believe, whoknoweth the fickly faint-hearted human species!
COULD they do otherwise, then would they also WILL otherwise. The half-and-half spoil every whole. That leaves become withered,--what is there tolament about that!
Let them go and fall away, O Zarathustra, and do not lament! Better evento blow amongst them with rustling winds,--
--Blow amongst those leaves, O Zarathustra, that everything WITHERED mayrun away from thee the faster!--
. one can prove it unless he himself prove?
2.
"We have again become pious"--so do those apostates confess; and some ofthem are still too pusillanimous thus to confess.
Unto them I look into the eye,--before them I say it unto their face andunto the blush on their cheeks: Ye are those who again PRAY!
It is however a shame to pray! Not for all, but for thee, and me, andwhoever hath his conscience in his head. For THEE it is a shame to pray!
Thou knowest it well: the faint-hearted devil in thee, which would fainfold its arms, and place its hands in its bosom, and take it easier:--thisfaint-hearted devil persuadeth thee that "there IS a God!"
THEREBY, however, dost thou belong to the light-dreading type, to whomlight never permitteth repose: now must thou daily thrust thy head deeperinto obscurity and vapour!
And verily, thou choosest the hour well: for just now do the nocturnalbirds again fly abroad. The hour hath come for all light-dreading people,the vesper hour and leisure hour, when they do not--"take leisure."
I hear it and smell it: it hath come--their hour for hunt and procession,not indeed for a wild hunt, but for a tame, lame, snuffling, soft-treaders', soft-prayers' hunt,--
--For a hunt after susceptible simpletons: all mouse-traps for the hearthave again been set! And whenever I lift a curtain, a night-moth rushethout of it.
Did it perhaps squat there along with another night-moth? For everywheredo I smell small concealed communities; and wherever there are closetsthere are new devotees therein, and the atmosphere of devotees.
They sit for long evenings beside one another, and say: "Let us againbecome like little children and say, 'good God!'"--ruined in mouths andstomachs by the pious confectioners.
Or they look for long evenings at a crafty, lurking cross-spider, thatpreacheth prudence to the spiders themselves, and teacheth that "undercrosses it is good for cobweb-spinning!"
Or they sit all day at swamps with angle-rods, and on that account thinkthemselves PROFOUND; but whoever fisheth where there are no fish, I do noteven call him superficial!
the hearthave again.
Or they learn in godly-gay style to play the harp with a hymn-poet, whowould fain harp himself into the heart of young girls:--for he hath tiredof old girls and their praises.
Or they learn to shudder with a learned semi-madcap, who waiteth indarkened rooms for spirits to come to him--and the spirit runneth awayentirely!
Or they listen to an old roving howl--and growl-piper, who hath learnt fromthe sad winds the sadness of sounds; now pipeth he as the wind, andpreacheth sadness in sad strains.
And some of them have even become night-watchmen: they know now how toblow horns, and go about at night and awaken old things which have longfallen asleep.
Five words about old things did I hear yester-night at the garden-wall:they came from such old, sorrowful, arid night-watchmen.
"For a father he careth not sufficiently for his children: human fathersdo this better!"--
"He is too old! He now careth no more for his children,"--answered theother night-watchman.
"HATH he then children? No one can prove it unless he himself prove it! Ihave long wished that he would for once prove it thoroughly."
"Prove? As if HE had ever proved anything! Proving is difficult to him;he layeth great stress on one's BELIEVING him."
"Ay! Ay! Belief saveth him; belief in him. That is the way with oldpeople! So it is with us also!"--
--Thus spake to each other the two old night-watchmen and light-scarers,and tooted thereupon sorrowfully on their horns: so did it happen yester-night at the garden-wall.
To me, however, did the heart writhe with laughter, and was like to break;it knew not where to go, and sunk into the midriff.
Verily, it will be my death yet--to choke with laughter when I see assesdrunken, and hear night-watchmen thus doubt about God.
Hath the time not LONG since passed for all such doubts? Who may nowadaysawaken such old slumbering, light-shunning things!
With the old Deities hath it long since come to an end:--and verily, a goodjoyful Deity-end had they!
They did not "begloom" themselves to death--that do people fabricate! Onthe contrary, they--LAUGHED themselves to death once on a time!
That took place when the unGodliest utterance came from a God himself--theutterance: "There is but one God! Thou shalt have no other Gods beforeme!"--
--An old grim-beard of a God, a jealous one, forgot himself in such wise:--
And all the Gods then laughed, and shook upon their thrones, and exclaimed:"Is it not just divinity that there are Gods, but no God?"
He that hath an ear let him hear.--
Thus talked Zarathustra in the city he loved, which is surnamed "The PiedCow." For from here he had but two days to travel to reach once more hiscave and his animals; his soul, however, rejoiced unceasingly on account ofthe nighness of his return home.